Here a stone idol sits in a palace and is worshipped as a living god. Hundreds of women are forced to live in the palace as the idol's wives. Giant, castrated guards prowl the gardens of the palace. They burn with rage at the thought that men from outside will scale the walls of the palace, and tempt the women into adultery.
The palace has many secret doors, known only to the priests, which open on to shafts, which in turn lead down to sealed and hidden levels of the palace. Through these doors men and women are let down on ropes, and the ropes thrown after them, and the doors closed. There in the darkness they are hunted by unknown things. Their screams and lamentations are clearly audible to those dwelling in the main part of the palace. Thus the latter go about their business always attended, as it were, by tormented ghosts, and take fear or pleasure in the fact according to their nature and circumstance.
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