Rumour

At once Rumour raced through Africa's great cities. Rumour is of all pests the swiftest. In her freedom of movement lies her power, and she gathers new strength from her going. She begins as a small and timorous creature; but then she grows till she towers into the air, and though she walks on the ground, she hides her head in the clouds. Men say that Earth, Mother of All, brought her to birth when provoked to anger against the gods; she is her last child, younger sister to Coeus and Enceladus. Rumour is fleet of foot, and swift are her wings; she is a vast, fearful monster, with a watchful eye miraculously set under every feather which grows on her, and for every one of them a tongue in a mouth which is loud of speech, an ear ever alert. By night she flies hissing through the dark in the space between earth and sky, and never droops her eyelids in contented sleep. In the daylight she keeps watch, sometimes perched on the roof-top of a house and sometimes on the tall towers of the palace. And she strikes dead throughout great cities, for she is as retentive of news which is false and wickd as she is ready to tell what is true.

- VIRGIL, The Aeneid
(102-103)