“The Harpies swooped down through the clouds and snatched the food from his mouth and hands with their beaks, sometimes leaving him not a morsel, sometimes a few scraps, so that he might live and be tormented.”

Of Phineus
Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book II. Onward to Colchis

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Apollonius of Rhodes 34
ancient Greek poet -295–-215 BC

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I tried for a minute not to see these words; then I tried for several minutes to forget them, with the book shut.
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