Note 420 — CANTO XIII.
James Romanes Sibbald translation
Harpies: Monsters with the bodies of birds and the heads of women. In the Æneid iii., they are described as defiling the feast of which the Trojans were about to partake on one of the Strophades—islands of the Ægean; and on that occasion the prophecy was made that Æneas and his followers should be reduced to eat their tables ere they acquired a settlement in Italy. Here the Harpies symbolise shameful waste and disgust with life.