One tore at my tunic, another undid the lacings of my sandals and tugged at them, but one in particular, the ringleader and moving spirit of this savage attack, did not hesitate to worry at my leg with his serrated bill.

Unable to see the joke, I twisted off one of the legs of the little table and, thus armed, began to belabor the pugnacious brute.

Nor did I rest content with a light blow, I avenged myself by the death of the goose.
'Twas thus, I ween, the birds of Stymphalus To heaven fled, by Herakles impelled; The Harpies, too, whose reeking pinions held That poison which the feast of Phineus Contaminated.

All the air above With their unwonted lamentations shook, The heavens in uproar and confusion move {The Stars, in dread, their orbits then forsook!} By this time the two remaining geese had picked up the beans which had been scattered all over the floor and bereft, I suppose, of their leader, had gone back into the temple; and I, well content with my revenge and my booty, threw the dead goose behind the cot and bathed the trifling wound in my leg with vinegar: then, fearing a scolding, I made up my mind to run away and, collecting together all my belongings, started to leave the house.

I had not yet stepped over the threshold of the cell, however, when I caught sight of OEnothea returning with an earthen vessel full of live coals.