Etruscan Grave Stelae of Felsina

Variously they travel on their ways, the dead:
By chariot, on horseback, or on foot,
Alone and unaided,
Never arriving anywhere.
Men drive themselves, still taking charge,
While women sit stately behind a coachman
At ease on cushioned benches,
Balancing their umbrellas,
As if departing on a country jaunt;
A precursor runs on ahead to clear the way,
But where they are headed no-one knows.
Here a young man urges his horse on,
But before him rears a monster
With anthropic limbs and body
And a double serpent’s tail,
A friendly demon waiting to stop the wayfarer
And counsel him in his quest.
In another relief the traveller rides up a hill
That is, on second glance, the bent arm of a giant,
And the high steep mountain he is climbing
Is a huge mask of Silenus,
Looking down on mankind.
In another relief a man rides by in a chariot,
While in the field below a gigantic wolf
Nurses a human child,
A miracle by the wayside, in the wilds.