The Harpy. 
463 
a woman and the wings and feet of a vulture or eagle, 
•and symbolized deceit and cruelty. Spenser introduces 
one of them into the Faerie Queene (II. vii. 23):— 
“ While sad Celeno, sitting on a cliffe, 
A song of bale and bitter sorrow sings.” 
Again he writes (II. xii. 36) :— 
“ The whistler shrill, that whoso heares shall dy; 
The hellish harpyes, prophets of sad destiny.” 
By Prosperous command the delicate Ariel assumes the 
form of one of these savage monsters ; the stage directions 
( Tempest , iii. 3) are, “ Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel 
like a harpy ; claps his wings upon the table; and, with 
a quaint device, the banquet vanishes. . . . Alonso , 
Sebastian , &c., draw their swords: ”— 
“ Ariel. You fools ! I and my fellows 
Are ministers of fate : the elements, 
Of whom your swords are temper’d, may as well 
Wound the loud winds, or with bemock’d at stabs 
Kill the still-closing waters, as diminish 
One dowle that’s in my plume. [He vanishes in thunder. 
Prospero. Bravely the figure of this harpy hast thou 
Perform’d, my Ariel; a grace it had, devouring.” 
We find this monster again in Pericles (iv. 3, 46):— 
“ Cleon. Thou art like a harpy, 
Which, to betray, dost, with thine angel’s face. 
Seize with thy eagle’s talons.” 
The Minotaur was a fabulous monster of antiquity, 
half man and half bull. It guarded the 
labyrinth of Minos, and was destroyed by Mmotaur - 
Theseus, with the assistance of Ariadne, the king’s 
daughter. 
11 Suffolk. 0, wert thou for thyself! but Suffolk stay ; 
Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth ; 
There minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.” 
(1 Henry VI., v. 3,187.) 
