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Original / primary: Perseus Eng1
6.1
'Twas Athens first, the glorious in name,
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That whilom gave to hapless sons of men
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The sheaves of harvest, and re-ordered life,
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And decreed laws; and she the first that gave
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Life its sweet solaces, when she begat
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A man of heart so wise, who whilom poured
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All wisdom forth from his truth-speaking mouth;
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The glory of whom, though dead, is yet to-day,
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Because of those discoveries divine
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Renowned of old, exalted to the sky.
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For when saw he that well-nigh everything
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Which needs of man most urgently require
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Was ready to hand for mortals, and that life,
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As far as might be, was established safe,
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That men were lords in riches, honour, praise,
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And eminent in goodly fame of sons,
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And that they yet, O yet, within the home,
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Still had the anxious heart which vexed life
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Unpausingly with torments of the mind,
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And raved perforce with angry plaints, then he,
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Then he, the master, did perceive that 'twas
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The vessel itself which worked the bane, and all,
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However wholesome, which from here or there
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Was gathered into it, was by that bane
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Spoilt from within,- in part, because he saw
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The vessel so cracked and leaky that nowise
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'T could ever be filled to brim; in part because
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He marked how it polluted with foul taste
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Whate'er it got within itself. So he,
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The master, then by his truth-speaking words,
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Purged the breasts of men, and set the bounds
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Of lust and terror, and exhibited
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The supreme good whither we all endeavour,
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And showed the path whereby we might arrive
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Thereunto by a little cross-cut straight,
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And what of ills in all affairs of mortals
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Upsprang and flitted deviously about
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(Whether by chance or force), since nature thus
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Had destined; and from out what gates a man
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Should sally to each combat. And he proved
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That mostly vainly doth the human race
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Roll in its bosom the grim waves of care.
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For just as children tremble and fear all
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In the viewless dark, so even we at times
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Dread in the light so many things that be
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No whit more fearsome than what children feign,
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Shuddering, will be upon them in the dark.
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This terror then, this darkness of the mind,
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Not sunrise with its flaring spokes of light,
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Nor glittering arrows of morning can disperse,
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But only nature's aspect and her law.
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Wherefore the more will I go on to weave
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In verses this my undertaken task.
6.43
And since I've taught thee that the world's great vaults
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Are mortal and that sky is fashioned
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Of frame e'en born in time, and whatsoe'er
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Therein go on and must perforce go on
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. . . . . .
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The most I have unravelled; what remains
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Do thou take in, besides; since once for all
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To climb into that chariot' renowned
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. . . . . .
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Of winds arise; and they appeased are
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So that all things again...
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. . . . . .
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Which were, are changed now, with fury stilled;
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All other movements through the earth and sky
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Which mortals gaze upon (O anxious oft
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In quaking thoughts!), and which abase their minds
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With dread of deities and press them crushed
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Down to the earth, because their ignorance
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Of cosmic causes forces them to yield
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All things unto the empery of gods
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And to concede the kingly rule to them.
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For even those men who have learned full well
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That godheads lead a long life free of care,
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If yet meanwhile they wonder by what plan
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Things can go on (and chiefly yon high things
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Observed o'erhead on the ethereal coasts),
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Again are hurried back unto the fears
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Of old religion and adopt again
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Harsh masters, deemed almighty,- wretched men,
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Unwitting what can be and what cannot,
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And by what law to each its scope prescribed,
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Its boundary stone that clings so deep in Time.
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Wherefore the more are they borne wandering on
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By blindfold reason. And, Memmius, unless
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From out thy mind thou spuest all of this
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And casteth far from thee all thoughts which be
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Unworthy gods and alien to their peace,
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Then often will the holy majesties
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Of the high gods be harmful unto thee,
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As by thy thought degraded,- not, indeed,
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That essence supreme of gods could be by this
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So outraged as in wrath to thirst to seek
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Revenges keen; but even because thyself
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Thou plaguest with the notion that the gods,
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Even they, the Calm Ones in serene repose,
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Do roll the mighty waves of wrath on wrath;
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Nor wilt thou enter with a serene breast
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Shrines of the gods; nor wilt thou able be
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In tranquil peace of mind to take and know
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Those images which from their holy bodies
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Are carried into intellects of men,
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As the announcers of their form divine.
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What sort of life will follow after this
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'Tis thine to see. But that afar from us
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Veriest reason may drive such life away,
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Much yet remains to be embellished yet
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In polished verses, albeit hath issued forth
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So much from me already; lo, there is
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The law and aspect of the sky to be
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By reason grasped; there are the tempest times
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And the bright lightnings to be hymned now-
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Even what they do and from what cause soe'er
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They're borne along- that thou mayst tremble not,
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Marking off regions of prophetic skies
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For auguries, O foolishly distraught
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Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
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Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
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Through walled places it hath wound its way,
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Or, after proving its dominion there,
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How it hath speeded forth from thence amain-
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Whereof nowise the causes do men know,
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And think divinities are working there.
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Do thou, Calliope, ingenious Muse,
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Solace of mortals and delight of gods,
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Point out the course before me, as I race
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On to the white line of the utmost goal,
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That I may get with signal praise the crown,
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With thee my guide!
6.96
And so in first place, then,
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With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,
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Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,
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Together clash, what time 'gainst one another
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The winds are battling. For never a sound there comes
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From out the serene regions of the sky;
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But wheresoever in a host more dense
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The clouds foregather, thence more often comes
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A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,
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Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame
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As stones and timbers, nor again so fine
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As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce
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They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,
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Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be
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To keep their mass, or to retain within
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Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth
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O'er skiey levels of the spreading world
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A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched
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O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times
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A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about
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Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,
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Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves
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And imitates the tearing sound of sheets
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Of paper- even this kind of noise thou mayst
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In thunder hear- or sound as when winds whirl
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With lashings and do buffet about in air
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A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
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For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds
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Cannot together crash head-on, but rather
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Move side-wise and with motions contrary
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Graze each the other's body without speed,
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From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,
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So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed
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From out their close positions.
6.121
And, again,
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In following wise all things seem oft to quake
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At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
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Of the wide reaches of the upper world
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There on the instant to have sprung apart,
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Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
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Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
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Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
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And, there enclosed, ever more and more
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Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
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To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
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Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
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And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
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That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
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Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
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No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,
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Filled up with air, will, when of sudden burst,
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Give forth a like large sound.
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There's reason, too,
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Why clouds make sounds, as through them blow the winds:
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We see, borne down the sky, oft shapes of clouds
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Rough-edged or branched many forky ways;
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And 'tis the same, as when the sudden flaws
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Of north-west wind through the dense forest blow,
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Making the leaves to sough and limbs to crash.
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It happens too at times that roused force
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Of the fierce hurricane to-rends the cloud,
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Breaking right through it by a front assault;
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For what a blast of wind may do up there
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Is manifest from facts when here on earth
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A blast more gentle yet uptwists tall trees
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And sucks them madly from their deepest roots.
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Besides, among the clouds are waves, and these
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Give, as they roughly break, a rumbling roar;
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As when along deep streams or the great sea
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Breaks the loud surf. It happens, too, whenever
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Out from one cloud into another falls
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The fiery energy of thunderbolt,
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That straightaway the cloud, if full of wet,
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Extinguishes the fire with mighty noise;
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As iron, white from the hot furnaces,
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Sizzles, when speedily we've plunged its glow
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Down the cold water. Further, if a cloud
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More dry receive the fire, 'twill suddenly
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Kindle to flame and burn with monstrous sound,
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As if a flame with whirl of winds should range
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Along the laurel-tressed mountains far,
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Upburning with its vast assault those trees;
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Nor is there aught that in the crackling flame
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Consumes with sound more terrible to man
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Than Delphic laurel of Apollo lord.
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Oft, too, the multitudinous crash of ice
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And down-pour of swift hail gives forth a sound
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Among the mighty clouds on high; for when
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The wind hath packed them close, each mountain mass
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Of rain-cloud, there congealed utterly
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And mixed with hail-stones, breaks and booms...
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. . . . . .
6.160
Likewise, it lightens, when the clouds have struck,
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By their collision, forth the seeds of fire:
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As if a stone should smite a stone or steel,
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For light then too leaps forth and fire then scatters
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The shining sparks. But with our ears we get
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The thunder after eyes behold the flash,
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Because forever things arrive the ears
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More tardily than the eyes- as thou mayst see
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From this example too: when markest thou
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Some man far yonder felling a great tree
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With double-edged ax, it comes to pass
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Thine eye beholds the swinging stroke before
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The blow gives forth a sound athrough thine ears:
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Thus also we behold the flashing ere
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We hear the thunder, which discharged is
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At same time with the fire and by same cause,
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Born of the same collision.
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In following wise
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The clouds suffuse with leaping light the lands,
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And the storm flashes with tremulous elan:
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When the wind hath invaded a cloud, and, whirling there,
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Hath wrought (as I have shown above) the cloud
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Into a hollow with a thickened crust,
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It becomes hot of own velocity:
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Just as thou seest how motion will o'erheat
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And set ablaze all objects,- verily
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A leaden ball, hurtling through length of space,
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Even melts. Therefore, when this same wind a-fire
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Hath split black cloud, it scatters the fire-seeds,
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Which, so to say, have been pressed out by force
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Of sudden from the cloud;- and these do make
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The pulsing flashes of flame; thence followeth
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The detonation which attacks our ears
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More tardily than aught which comes along
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Unto the sight of eyeballs. This takes place-
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As know thou mayst- at times when clouds are dense
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And one upon the other piled aloft
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With wonderful upheavings- nor be thou
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Deceived because we see how broad their base
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From underneath, and not how high they tower.
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For make thine observations at a time
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When winds shall bear athwart the horizon's blue
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Clouds like to mountain-ranges moving on,
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Or when about the sides of mighty peaks
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Thou seest them one upon the other massed
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And burdening downward, anchored in high repose,
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With the winds sepulchred on all sides round:
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Then canst thou know their mighty masses, then
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Canst view their caverns, as if builded there
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Of beetling crags; which, when the hurricanes
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In gathered storm have filled utterly,
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Then, prisoned in clouds, they rave around
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With mighty roarings, and within those dens
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Bluster like savage beasts, and now from here,
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And now from there, send growlings through the clouds,
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And seeking an outlet, whirl themselves about,
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And roll from 'mid the clouds the seeds of fire,
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And heap them multitudinously there,
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And in the hollow furnaces within
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Wheel flame around, until from bursted cloud
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In forky flashes they have gleamed forth.
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Again, from following cause it comes to pass
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That yon swift golden hue of liquid fire
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Darts downward to the earth: because the clouds
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Themselves must hold abundant seeds of fire;
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For, when they be without all moisture, then
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They be for most part of a flamy hue
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And a resplendent. And, indeed, they must
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Even from the light of sun unto themselves
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Take multitudinous seeds, and so perforce
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Redden and pour their bright fires all abroad.
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And therefore, when the wind hath driven and thrust,
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Hath forced and squeezed into one spot these clouds,
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They pour abroad the seeds of fire pressed out,
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Which make to flash these colours of the flame.
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Likewise, it lightens also when the clouds
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Grow rare and thin along the sky; for, when
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The wind with gentle touch unravels them
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And breaketh asunder as they move, those seeds
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Which make the lightnings must by nature fall;
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At such an hour the horizon lightens round
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Without the hideous terror of dread noise
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And skiey uproar.
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To proceed apace,
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What sort of nature thunderbolts possess
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Is by their strokes made manifest and by
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The brand-marks of their searing heat on things,
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And by the scorched scars exhaling round
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The heavy fumes of sulphur. For all these
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Are marks, O not of wind or rain, but fire.
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Again, they often enkindle even the roofs
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Of houses and inside the very rooms
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With swift flame hold a fierce dominion.
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Know thou that nature fashioned this fire
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Subtler than fires all other, with minute
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And dartling bodies,- a fire 'gainst which there's naught
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Can in the least hold out: the thunderbolt,
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The mighty, passes through the hedging walls
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Of houses, like to voices or a shout,-
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Through stones, through bronze it passes, and it melts
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Upon the instant bronze and gold; and makes,
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Likewise, the wines sudden to vanish forth,
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The wine-jars intact,- because, ye see,
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Its heat arriving renders loose and porous
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Readily all the wine- jar's earthen sides,
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And winding its way within, it scattereth
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The elements primordial of the wine
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With speedy dissolution- process which
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Even in an age the fiery steam of sun
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Could not accomplish, however puissant he
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With his hot coruscations: so much more
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Agile and overpowering is this force.
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. . . . . .
6.219
Now in what manner engendered are these things,
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How fashioned of such impetuous strength
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As to cleave towers asunder, and houses all
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To overtopple, and to wrench apart
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Timbers and beams, and heroes' monuments
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To pile in ruins and upheave amain,
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And to take breath forever out of men,
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And to o'erthrow the cattle everywhere,-
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Yes, by what force the lightnings do all this,
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All this and more, I will unfold to thee,
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Nor longer keep thee in mere promises.
6.246
The bolts of thunder, then, must be conceived
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As all begotten in those crasser clouds
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Up-piled aloft; for, from the sky serene
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And from the clouds of lighter density,
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None are sent forth forever. That 'tis so
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Beyond a doubt, fact plain to sense declares:
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To wit, at such a time the densed clouds
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So mass themselves through all the upper air
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That we might think that round about all murk
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Had parted forth from Acheron and filled
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The mighty vaults of sky- so grievously,
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As gathers thus the storm-clouds' gruesome might,
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Do faces of black horror hang on high-
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When tempest begins its thunderbolts to forge.
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Besides, full often also out at sea
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A blackest thunderhead, like cataract
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Of pitch hurled down from heaven, and far away
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Bulging with murkiness, down on the waves
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Falls with vast uproar, and draws on amain
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The darkling tempests big with thunderbolts
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And hurricanes, itself the while so crammed
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Tremendously with fires and winds, that even
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Back on the lands the people shudder round
6.246
And seek for cover. Therefore, as I said,
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The storm must be conceived as o'er our head
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Towering most high; for never would the clouds
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O'erwhelm the lands with such a massy dark,
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Unless up-builded heap on lofty heap,
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To shut the round sun off. Nor could the clouds,
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As on they come, engulf with rain so vast
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As thus to make the rivers overflow
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And fields to float, if ether were not thus
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Furnished with lofty-piled clouds. Lo, then,
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Here be all things fulfilled with winds and fires-
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Hence the long lightnings and the thunders loud.
6.246
For, verily, I've taught thee even now
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How cavernous clouds hold seeds innumerable
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Of fiery exhalations, and they must
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From off the sunbeams and the heat of these
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Take many still. And so, when that same wind
6.246
(Which, haply, into one region of the sky
6.246
Collects those clouds) hath pressed from out the same
6.246
The many fiery seeds, and with that fire
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Hath at the same time inter-mixed itself,
6.246
O then and there that wind, a whirlwind now,
6.246
Deep in the belly of the cloud spins round
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In narrow confines, and sharpens there inside
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In glowing furnaces the thunderbolt.
6.246
For in a two-fold manner is that wind
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Enkindled all: it trembles into heat
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Both by its own velocity and by
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Repeated touch of fire. Thereafter, when
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The energy of wind is heated through
6.246
And the fierce impulse of the fire hath sped
6.246
Deeply within, O then the thunderbolt,
6.246
Now ripened, so to say, doth suddenly
6.246
Splinter the cloud, and the aroused flash
6.246
Leaps onward, lumining with forky light
6.246
All places round. And followeth anon
6.246
A clap so heavy that the skiey vaults,
6.246
As if asunder burst, seem from on high
6.246
To engulf the earth. Then fearfully a quake
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Pervades the lands, and 'long the lofty skies
6.246
Run the far rumblings. For at such a time
6.246
Nigh the whole tempest quakes, shook through and through,
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And roused are the roarings,- from which shock
6.246
Comes such resounding and abounding rain,
6.246
That all the murky ether seems to turn
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Now into rain, and, as it tumbles down,
6.246
To summon the fields back to primeval floods:
6.246
So big the rains that be sent down on men
6.246
By burst of cloud and by the hurricane,
6.246
What time the thunder-clap, from burning bolt
6.246
That cracks the cloud, flies forth along. At times
6.246
The force of wind, excited from without,
6.246
Smiteth into a cloud already hot
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With a ripe thunderbolt.
6.295
And when that wind
6.295
Hath splintered that cloud, then down there cleaves forthwith
6.295
Yon fiery coil of flame which still we call,
6.295
Even with our fathers' word, a thunderbolt.
6.295
The same thing haps toward every other side
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Whither that force hath swept. It happens, too,
6.295
That sometimes force of wind, though hurtled forth
6.295
Without all fire, yet in its voyage through space
6.295
Igniteth, whilst it comes along, along,-
6.295
Losing some larger bodies which cannot
6.295
Pass, like the others, through the bulks of air,-
6.295
And, scraping together out of air itself
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Some smaller bodies, carries them along,
6.295
And these, commingling, by their flight make fire:
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Much in the manner as oft a leaden ball
6.295
Grows hot upon its aery course, the while
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It loseth many bodies of stark cold
6.295
And taketh into itself along the air
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New particles of fire. It happens, too,
6.295
That force of blow itself arouses fire,
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When force of wind, a-cold and hurtled forth
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Without all fire, hath strook somewhere amain-
6.295
No marvel, because, when with terrific stroke
6.295
'Thas smitten, the elements of fiery-stuff
6.295
Can stream together from out the very wind
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And, simultaneously, from out that thing
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Which then and there receives the stroke: as flies
6.295
The fire when with the steel we hack the stone;
6.295
Nor yet, because the force of steel's a-cold,
6.295
Rush the less speedily together there
6.295
Under the stroke its seeds of radiance hot.
6.295
And therefore, thuswise must an object too
6.295
Be kindled by a thunderbolt, if haply
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'Thas been adapt and suited to the flames.
6.295
Yet force of wind must not be rashly deemed
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As altogether and entirely cold-
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That force which is discharged from on high
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With such stupendous power; but if 'tis not
6.295
Upon its course already kindled with fire,
6.295
It yet arriveth warmed and mixed with heat.
6.323
And, now, the speed and stroke of thunderbolt
6.323
Is so tremendous, and with glide so swift
6.323
Those thunderbolts rush on and down, because
6.323
Their roused force itself collects itself
6.323
First always in the clouds, and then prepares
6.323
For the huge effort of their going-forth;
6.323
Next, when the cloud no longer can retain
6.323
The increment of their fierce impetus,
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Their force is pressed out, and therefore flies
6.323
With impetus so wondrous, like to shots
6.323
Hurled from the powerful Roman catapults.
6.323
Note, too, this force consists of elements
6.323
Both small and smooth, nor is there aught that can
6.323
With ease resist such nature. For it darts
6.323
Between and enters through the pores of things;
6.323
And so it never falters in delay
6.323
Despite innumerable collisions, but
6.323
Flies shooting onward with a swift elan.
6.323
Next, since by nature always every weight
6.323
Bears downward, doubled is the swiftness then
6.323
And that elan is still more wild and dread,
6.323
When, verily, to weight are added blows,
6.323
So that more madly and more fiercely then
6.323
The thunderbolt shakes into shivers all
6.323
That blocks its path, following on its way.
6.323
Then, too, because it comes along, along
6.323
With one continuing elan, it must
6.323
Take on velocity anew, anew,
6.323
Which still increases as it goes, and ever
6.323
Augments the bolt's vast powers and to the blow
6.323
Gives larger vigour; for it forces all,
6.323
All of the thunder's seeds of fire, to sweep
6.323
In a straight line unto one place, as 'twere,-
6.323
Casting them one by other, as they roll,
6.323
Into that onward course. Again, perchance,
6.323
In coming along, it pulls from out the air
6.323
Some certain bodies, which by their own blows
6.323
Enkindle its velocity. And, lo,
6.323
It comes through objects leaving them unharmed,
6.323
It goes through many things and leaves them whole,
6.323
Because the liquid fire flieth along
6.323
Athrough their pores. And much it does transfix,
6.323
When these primordial atoms of the bolt
6.323
Have fallen upon the atoms of these things
6.323
Precisely where the intertwined atoms
6.323
Are held together. And, further, easily
6.323
Brass it unbinds and quickly fuseth gold,
6.323
Because its force is so minutely made
6.323
Of tiny parts and elements so smooth
6.323
That easily they wind their way within,
6.323
And, when once in, quickly unbind all knots
6.323
And loosen all the bonds of union there.
6.357
And most in autumn is shaken the house of heaven,
6.357
The house so studded with the glittering stars,
6.357
And the whole earth around- most too in spring
6.357
When flowery times unfold themselves: for, lo,
6.357
In the cold season is there lack of fire,
6.357
And winds are scanty in the hot, and clouds
6.357
Have not so dense a bulk. But when, indeed,
6.357
The seasons of heaven are betwixt these twain,
6.357
The divers causes of the thunderbolt
6.357
Then all concur; for then both cold and heat
6.357
Are mixed in the cross-seas of the year,
6.357
So that a discord rises among things
6.357
And air in vast tumultuosity
6.357
Billows, infuriate with the fires and winds-
6.357
Of which the both are needed by the cloud
6.357
For fabrication of the thunderbolt.
6.357
For the first part of heat and last of cold
6.357
Is the time of spring; wherefore must things unlike
6.357
Do battle one with other, and, when mixed,
6.357
Tumultuously rage. And when rolls round
6.357
The latest heat mixed with the earliest chill-
6.357
The time which bears the name of autumn- then
6.357
Likewise fierce cold-spells wrestle with fierce heats.
6.357
On this account these seasons of the year
6.357
Are nominated "cross-seas."- And no marvel
6.357
If in those times the thunderbolts prevail
6.357
And storms are roused turbulent in heaven,
6.357
Since then both sides in dubious warfare rage
6.357
Tumultuously, the one with flames, the other
6.357
With winds and with waters mixed with winds.
6.379
This, this it is, O Memmius, to see through
6.379
The very nature of fire-fraught thunderbolt;
6.379
O this it is to mark by what blind force
6.379
It maketh each effect, and not, O not
6.379
To unwind Etrurian scrolls oracular,
6.379
Inquiring tokens of occult will of gods,
6.379
Even as to whence the flying flame hath come,
6.379
Or to which half of heaven it turns, or how
6.379
Through walled places it hath wound its way,
6.379
Or, after proving its dominion there,
6.379
How it hath speeded forth from thence amain,
6.379
Or what the thunderstroke portends of ill
6.379
From out high heaven. But if Jupiter
6.379
And other gods shake those refulgent vaults
6.379
With dread reverberations and hurl fire
6.379
Whither it pleases each, why smite they not
6.379
Mortals of reckless and revolting crimes,
6.379
That such may pant from a transpierced breast
6.379
Forth flames of the red levin- unto men
6.379
A drastic lesson?- why is rather he-
6.379
O he self-conscious of no foul offence-
6.379
Involved in flames, though innocent, and clasped
6.379
Up-caught in skiey whirlwind and in fire?
6.379
Nay, why, then, aim they at eternal wastes,
6.379
And spend themselves in vain?- perchance, even so
6.379
To exercise their arms and strengthen shoulders?
6.379
Why suffer they the Father's javelin
6.379
To be so blunted on the earth? And why
6.379
Doth he himself allow it, nor spare the same
6.379
Even for his enemies? O why most oft
6.379
Aims he at lofty places? Why behold we
6.379
Marks of his lightnings most on mountain tops?
6.379
Then for what reason shoots he at the sea?-
6.379
What sacrilege have waves and bulk of brine
6.379
And floating fields of foam been guilty of?
6.379
Besides, if 'tis his will that we beware
6.379
Against the lightning-stroke, why feareth he
6.379
To grant us power for to behold the shot?
6.379
And, contrariwise, if wills he to o'erwhelm us,
6.379
Quite off our guard, with fire, why thunders he
6.379
Off in yon quarter, so that we may shun?
6.379
Why rouseth he beforehand darkling air
6.379
And the far din and rumblings? And O how
6.379
Canst thou believe he shoots at one same time
6.379
Into diverse directions? Or darest thou
6.379
Contend that never hath it come to pass
6.379
That divers strokes have happened at one time?
6.379
But oft and often hath it come to pass,
6.379
And often still it must, that, even as showers
6.379
And rains o'er many regions fall, so too
6.379
Dart many thunderbolts at one same time.
6.379
Again, why never hurtles Jupiter
6.379
A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad
6.379
Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all?
6.379
Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds
6.379
Have come thereunder, then into the same
6.379
Descend in person, that from thence he may
6.379
Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft?
6.379
And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt
6.379
Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods
6.379
And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks
6.379
The well-wrought idols of divinities,
6.379
And robs of glory his own images
6.379
By wound of violence?
6.423
But to return apace,
6.423
Easy it is from these same facts to know
6.423
In just what wise those things (which from their sort
6.423
The Greeks have named "bellows") do come down,
6.423
Discharged from on high, upon the seas.
6.423
For it haps that sometimes from the sky descends
6.423
Upon the seas a column, as if pushed,
6.423
Round which the surges seethe, tremendously
6.423
Aroused by puffing gusts; and whatso'er
6.423
Of ships are caught within that tumult then
6.423
Come into extreme peril, dashed along.
6.423
This haps when sometimes wind's aroused force
6.423
Can't burst the cloud it tries to, but down-weighs
6.423
That cloud, until 'tis like a column from sky
6.423
Upon the seas pushed downward- gradually,
6.423
As if a Somewhat from on high were shoved
6.423
By fist and nether thrust of arm, and lengthened
6.423
Far to the waves. And when the force of wind
6.423
Hath rived this cloud, from out the cloud it rushes
6.423
Down on the seas, and starts among the waves
6.423
A wondrous seething, for the eddying whirl
6.423
Descends and downward draws along with it
6.423
That cloud of ductile body. And soon as ever
6.423
'Thas shoved unto the levels of the main
6.423
That laden cloud, the whirl suddenly then
6.423
Plunges its whole self into the waters there
6.423
And rouses all the sea with monstrous roar,
6.423
Constraining it to seethe. It happens too
6.423
That very vortex of the wind involves
6.423
Itself in clouds, scraping from out the air
6.423
The seeds of cloud, and counterfeits, as 'twere,
6.423
The "bellows" pushed from heaven. And when this shape
6.423
Hath dropped upon the lands and burst apart,
6.423
It belches forth immeasurable might
6.423
Of whirlwind and of blast. Yet since 'tis formed
6.423
At most but rarely, and on land the hills
6.423
Must block its way, 'tis seen more oft out there
6.423
On the broad prospect of the level main
6.423
Along the free horizons.
6.443
Into being
6.443
The clouds condense, when in this upper space
6.443
Of the high heaven have gathered suddenly,
6.443
As round they flew, unnumbered particles-
6.443
World's rougher ones, which can, though interlinked
6.443
With scanty couplings, yet be fastened firm,
6.443
The one on other caught. These particles
6.443
First cause small clouds to form; and, thereupon,
6.443
These catch the one on other and swarm in a flock
6.443
And grow by their conjoining, and by winds
6.443
Are borne along, along, until collects
6.443
The tempest fury. Happens, too, the nearer
6.443
The mountain summits neighbour to the sky,
6.443
The more unceasingly their far crags smoke
6.443
With the thick darkness of swart cloud, because
6.443
When first the mists do form, ere ever the eyes
6.443
Can there behold them (tenuous as they be),
6.443
The carrier-winds will drive them up and on
6.443
Unto the topmost summits of the mountain;
6.443
And then at last it happens, when they be
6.443
In vaster throng upgathered, that they can
6.443
By this very condensation lie revealed,
6.443
And that at same time they are seen to surge
6.443
From very vertex of the mountain up
6.443
Into far ether. For very fact and feeling,
6.443
As we up-climb high mountains, proveth clear
6.443
That windy are those upward regions free.
6.470
Besides, the clothes hung-out along the shore,
6.470
When in they take the clinging moisture, prove
6.470
That nature lifts from over all the sea
6.470
Unnumbered particles. Whereby the more
6.470
'Tis manifest that many particles
6.470
Even from the salt upheavings of the main
6.470
Can rise together to augment the bulk
6.470
Of massed clouds. For moistures in these twain
6.470
Are near akin. Besides, from out all rivers,
6.470
As well as from the land itself, we see
6.470
Up-rising mists and steam, which like a breath
6.470
Are forced out from them and borne aloft,
6.470
To curtain heaven with their murk, and make,
6.470
By slow foregathering, the skiey clouds.
6.470
For, in addition, lo, the heat on high
6.470
Of constellated ether burdens down
6.470
Upon them, and by sort of condensation
6.470
Weaveth beneath the azure firmament
6.470
The reek of darkling cloud. It happens, too,
6.470
That hither to the skies from the Beyond
6.470
Do come those particles which make the clouds
6.470
And flying thunderheads. For I have taught
6.470
That this their number is innumerable
6.470
And infinite the sum of the Abyss,
6.470
And I have shown with what stupendous speed
6.470
Those bodies fly and how they're wont to pass
6.470
Amain through incommunicable space.
6.470
Therefore, 'tis not exceeding strange, if oft
6.470
In little time tempest and darkness cover
6.470
With bulking thunderheads hanging on high
6.470
The oceans and the lands, since everywhere
6.470
Through all the narrow tubes of yonder ether,
6.470
Yea, so to speak, through all the breathing-holes
6.470
Of the great upper-world encompassing,
6.470
There be for the primordial elements
6.470
Exits and entrances.
6.495
Now come, and how
6.495
The rainy moisture thickens into being
6.495
In the lofty clouds, and how upon the lands
6.495
'Tis then discharged in down-pour of large showers,
6.495
I will unfold. And first triumphantly
6.495
Will I persuade thee that up-rise together,
6.495
With clouds themselves, full many seeds of water
6.495
From out all things, and that they both increase-
6.495
Both clouds and water which is in the clouds-
6.495
In like proportion, as our frames increase
6.495
In like proportion with our blood, as well
6.495
As sweat or any moisture in our members.
6.495
Besides, the clouds take in from time to time
6.495
Much moisture risen from the broad marine,-
6.495
Whilst the winds bear them o'er the mighty sea,
6.495
Like hanging fleeces of white wool. Thuswise,
6.495
Even from all rivers is there lifted up
6.495
Moisture into the clouds. And when therein
6.495
The seeds of water so many in many ways
6.495
Have come together, augmented from all sides,
6.495
The close-jammed clouds then struggle to discharge
6.495
Their rain-storms for a two-fold reason: lo,
6.495
The wind's force crowds them, and the very excess
6.495
Of storm-clouds (massed in a vaster throng)
6.495
Giveth an urge and pressure from above
6.495
And makes the rains out-pour. Besides when, too,
6.495
The clouds are winnowed by the winds, or scattered
6.495
Smitten on top by heat of sun, they send
6.495
Their rainy moisture, and distil their drops,
6.495
Even as the wax, by fiery warmth on top,
6.495
Wasteth and liquefies abundantly.
6.495
But comes the violence of the bigger rains
6.495
When violently the clouds are weighted down
6.495
Both by their cumulated mass and by
6.495
The onset of the wind. And rains are wont
6.495
To endure awhile and to abide for long,
6.495
When many seeds of waters are aroused,
6.495
And clouds on clouds and racks on racks outstream
6.495
In piled layers and are borne along
6.495
From every quarter, and when all the earth
6.495
Smoking exhales her moisture. At such a time
6.495
When sun with beams amid the tempest-murk
6.495
Hath shone against the showers of black rains,
6.495
Then in the swart clouds there emerges bright
6.495
The radiance of the bow.
6.495
And as to things
6.495
Not mentioned here which of themselves do grow
6.495
Or of themselves are gendered, and all things
6.495
Which in the clouds condense to being- all,
6.495
Snow and the winds, hail and the hoar-frosts chill,
6.495
And freezing, mighty force- of lakes and pools
6.495
The mighty hardener, and mighty check
6.495
Which in the winter curbeth everywhere
6.495
The rivers as they go- 'tis easy still,
6.495
Soon to discover and with mind to see
6.495
How they all happen, whereby gendered,
6.495
When once thou well hast understood just what
6.495
Functions have been vouchsafed from of old
6.495
Unto the procreant atoms of the world.
6.535
Now come, and what the law of earthquakes is
6.535
Hearken, and first of all take care to know
6.535
That the under-earth, like to the earth around us,
6.535
Is full of windy caverns all about;
6.535
And many a pool and many a grim abyss
6.535
She bears within her bosom, ay, and cliffs
6.535
And jagged scarps; and many a river, hid
6.535
Beneath her chine, rolls rapidly along
6.535
Its billows and plunging boulders. For clear fact
6.535
Requires that earth must be in every part
6.535
Alike in constitution. Therefore, earth,
6.535
With these things underneath affixed and set,
6.535
Trembleth above, jarred by big down-tumblings,
6.535
When time hath undermined the huge caves,
6.535
The subterranean. Yea, whole mountains fall,
6.535
And instantly from spot of that big jar
6.535
There quiver the tremors far and wide abroad.
6.535
And with good reason: since houses on the street
6.535
Begin to quake throughout, when jarred by a cart
6.535
Of no large weight; and, too, the furniture
6.535
Within the house up-bounds, when a paving-block
6.535
Gives either iron rim of the wheels a jolt.
6.535
It happens, too, when some prodigious bulk
6.535
Of age-worn soil is rolled from mountain slopes
6.535
Into tremendous pools of water dark,
6.535
That the reeling land itself is rocked about
6.535
By the water's undulations; as a basin
6.535
Sometimes won't come to rest until the fluid
6.535
Within it ceases to be rocked about
6.535
In random undulations.
6.535
And besides,
6.535
When subterranean winds, up-gathered there
6.535
In the hollow deeps, bulk forward from one spot,
6.535
And press with the big urge of mighty powers
6.535
Against the lofty grottos, then the earth
6.535
Bulks to that quarter whither push amain
6.535
The headlong winds. Then all the builded houses
6.535
Above ground- and the more, the higher up-reared
6.535
Unto the sky- lean ominously, careening
6.535
Into the same direction; and the beams,
6.535
Wrenched forward, over-hang, ready to go.
6.535
Yet dread men to believe that there awaits
6.535
The nature of the mighty world a time
6.535
Of doom and cataclysm, albeit they see
6.535
So great a bulk of lands to bulge and break!
6.535
And lest the winds blew back again, no force
6.535
Could rein things in nor hold from sure career
6.535
On to disaster. But now because those winds
6.535
Blow back and forth in alternation strong,
6.535
And, so to say, rallying charge again,
6.535
And then repulsed retreat, on this account
6.535
Earth oftener threatens than she brings to pass
6.535
Collapses dire. For to one side she leans,
6.535
Then back she sways; and after tottering
6.535
Forward, recovers then her seats of poise.
6.535
Thus, this is why whole houses rock, the roofs
6.535
More than the middle stories, middle more
6.535
Than lowest, and the lowest least of all.
6.577
Arises, too, this same great earth-quaking,
6.577
When wind and some prodigious force of air,
6.577
Collected from without or down within
6.577
The old telluric deeps, have hurled themselves
6.577
Amain into those caverns sub-terrene,
6.577
And there at first tumultuously chafe
6.577
Among the vasty grottos, borne about
6.577
In mad rotations, till their lashed force
6.577
Aroused out-bursts abroad, and then and there,
6.577
Riving the deep earth, makes a mighty chasm-
6.577
What once in Syrian Sidon did befall,
6.577
And once in Peloponnesian Aegium,
6.577
Twain cities which such out-break of wild air
6.577
And earth's convulsion, following hard upon,
6.577
O'erthrew of old. And many a walled town,
6.577
Besides, hath fall'n by such omnipotent
6.577
Convulsions on the land, and in the sea
6.577
Engulfed hath sunken many a city down
6.577
With all its populace. But if, indeed,
6.577
They burst not forth, yet is the very rush
6.577
Of the wild air and fury-force of wind
6.577
Then dissipated, like an ague-fit,
6.577
Through the innumerable pores of earth,
6.577
To set her all a-shake- even as a chill,
6.577
When it hath gone into our marrow-bones,
6.577
Sets us convulsively, despite ourselves,
6.577
A-shivering and a-shaking. Therefore, men
6.577
With two-fold terror bustle in alarm
6.577
Through cities to and fro: they fear the roofs
6.577
Above the head; and underfoot they dread
6.577
The caverns, lest the nature of the earth
6.577
Suddenly rend them open, and she gape,
6.577
Herself asunder, with tremendous maw,
6.577
And, all confounded, seek to chock it full
6.577
With her own ruins. Let men, then, go on
6.577
Feigning at will that heaven and earth shall be
6.577
Inviolable, entrusted evermore
6.577
To an eternal weal: and yet at times
6.577
The very force of danger here at hand
6.577
Prods them on some side with this goad of fear-
6.577
This among others- that the earth, withdrawn
6.577
Abruptly from under their feet, be hurried down,
6.577
Down into the abyss, and the Sum-of-Things
6.577
Be following after, utterly fordone,
6.577
Till be but wrack and wreckage of a world.
6.577
. . . . . .
6.608
In chief, men marvel nature renders not
6.608
Bigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since
6.608
So vast the down-rush of the waters be,
6.608
And every river out of every realm
6.608
Cometh thereto; and add the random rains
6.608
And flying tempests, which spatter every sea
6.608
And every land bedew; add their own springs:
6.608
Yet all of these unto the ocean's sum
6.608
Shall be but as the increase of a drop.
6.608
Wherefore 'tis less a marvel that the sea,
6.608
The mighty ocean, increaseth not. Besides,
6.608
Sun with his heat draws off a mighty part:
6.608
Yea, we behold that sun with burning beams
6.608
To dry our garments dripping all with wet;
6.608
And many a sea, and far out-spread beneath,
6.608
Do we behold. Therefore, however slight
6.608
The portion of wet that sun on any spot
6.608
Culls from the level main, he still will take
6.608
From off the waves in such a wide expanse
6.608
Abundantly. Then, further, also winds,
6.608
Sweeping the level waters, can bear off
6.608
A mighty part of wet, since we behold
6.608
Oft in a single night the highways dried
6.608
By winds, and soft mud crusted o'er at dawn.
6.608
Again, I've taught thee that the clouds bear off
6.608
Much moisture too, up-taken from the reaches
6.608
Of the mighty main, and sprinkle it about
6.608
O'er all the zones, when rain is on the lands
6.608
And winds convey the aery racks of vapour.
6.608
Lastly, since earth is porous through her frame,
6.608
And neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores,
6.608
The water's wet must seep into the lands
6.608
From briny ocean, as from lands it comes
6.608
Into the seas. For brine is filtered off,
6.608
And then the liquid stuff seeps back again
6.608
And all re-poureth at the river-heads,
6.608
Whence in fresh-water currents it returns
6.608
Over the lands, adown the channels which
6.608
Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along
6.608
The liquid-footed floods.
6.639
And now the cause
6.639
Whereby athrough the throat of Aetna's Mount
6.639
Such vast tornado-fires out-breathe at times,
6.639
I will unfold: for with no middling might
6.639
Of devastation the flamy tempest rose
6.639
And held dominion in Sicilian fields:
6.639
Drawing upon itself the upturned faces
6.639
Of neighbouring clans, what time they saw afar
6.639
The skiey vaults a-fume and sparkling all,
6.639
And filled their bosoms with dread anxiety
6.639
Of what new thing nature were travailing at.
6.639
In these affairs it much behooveth thee
6.639
To look both wide and deep, and far abroad
6.639
To peer to every quarter, that thou mayst
6.639
Remember how boundless is the Sum-of-Things,
6.639
And mark how infinitely small a part
6.639
Of the whole Sum is this one sky of ours-
6.639
O not so large a part as is one man
6.639
Of the whole earth. And plainly if thou viewest
6.639
This cosmic fact, placing it square in front,
6.639
And plainly understandest, thou wilt leave
6.639
Wondering at many things. For who of us
6.639
Wondereth if some one gets into his joints
6.639
A fever, gathering head with fiery heat,
6.639
Or any other dolorous disease
6.639
Along his members? For anon the foot
6.639
Grows blue and bulbous; often the sharp twinge
6.639
Seizes the teeth, attacks the very eyes;
6.639
Out-breaks the sacred fire, and, crawling on
6.639
Over the body, burneth every part
6.639
It seizeth on, and works its hideous way
6.639
Along the frame. No marvel this, since, lo,
6.639
Of things innumerable be seeds enough,
6.639
And this our earth and sky do bring to us
6.639
Enough of bane from whence can grow the strength
6.639
Of maladies uncounted. Thuswise, then,
6.639
We must suppose to all the sky and earth
6.639
Are ever supplied from out the infinite
6.639
All things, O all in stores enough whereby
6.639
The shaken earth can of a sudden move,
6.639
And fierce typhoons can over sea and lands
6.639
Go tearing on, and Aetna's fires o'erflow,
6.639
And heaven become a flame-burst. For that, too,
6.639
Happens at times, and the celestial vaults
6.639
Glow into fire, and rainy tempests rise
6.639
In heavier congregation, when, percase,
6.639
The seeds of water have foregathered thus
6.639
From out the infinite. "Aye, but passing huge
6.639
The fiery turmoil of that conflagration!"
6.639
So sayst thou; well, huge many a river seems
6.639
To him that erstwhile ne'er a larger saw;
6.639
Thus, huge seems tree or man; and everything
6.639
Which mortal sees the biggest of each class,
6.639
That he imagines to be "huge"; though yet
6.639
All these, with sky and land and sea to boot,
6.639
Are all as nothing to the sum entire
6.639
Of the all-Sum.
6.680
But now I will unfold
6.680
At last how yonder suddenly angered flame
6.680
Out-blows abroad from vasty furnaces
6.680
Aetnaean. First, the mountain's nature is
6.680
All under-hollow, propped about, about
6.680
With caverns of basaltic piers. And, lo,
6.680
In all its grottos be there wind and air-
6.680
For wind is made when air hath been uproused
6.680
By violent agitation. When this air
6.680
Is heated through and through, and, raging round,
6.680
Hath made the earth and all the rocks it touches
6.680
Horribly hot, and hath struck off from them
6.680
Fierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself
6.680
And hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat
6.680
Into high heav'n, and thus bears on afar
6.680
Its burning blasts and scattereth afar
6.680
Its ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk
6.680
And heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight-
6.680
Leaving no doubt in thee that 'tis the air's
6.680
Tumultuous power. Besides, in mighty part,
6.680
The sea there at the roots of that same mount
6.680
Breaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.
6.680
And grottos from the sea pass in below
6.680
Even to the bottom of the mountain's throat.
6.680
Herethrough thou must admit there go...
6.680
. . . . . .
6.680
And the conditions force [the water and air]
6.680
Deeply to penetrate from the open sea,
6.680
And to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear
6.680
Thereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps
6.680
The boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.
6.680
For at the top be "bowls," as people there
6.680
Are wont to name what we at Rome do call
6.680
The throats and mouths.
6.703
There be, besides, some thing
6.703
Of which 'tis not enough one only cause
6.703
To state- but rather several, whereof one
6.703
Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy
6.703
Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse,
6.703
'Twere meet to name all causes of a death,
6.703
That cause of his death might thereby be named:
6.703
For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,
6.703
By cold, nor even by poison nor disease,
6.703
Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him
6.703
We know- And thus we have to say the same
6.703
In divers cases.
6.703
Toward the summer, Nile
6.703
Waxeth and overfloweth the champaign,
6.703
Unique in all the landscape, river sole
6.703
Of the Aegyptians. In mid-season heats
6.703
Often and oft he waters Aegypt o'er,
6.703
Either because in summer against his mouths
6.703
Come those northwinds which at that time of year
6.703
Men name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus
6.703
Upstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves,
6.703
Fill him o'erfull and force his flow to stop.
6.703
For out of doubt these blasts which driven be
6.703
From icy constellations of the pole
6.703
Are borne straight up the river. Comes that river
6.703
From forth the sultry places down the south,
6.703
Rising far up in midmost realm of day,
6.703
Among black generations of strong men
6.703
With sun-baked skins. 'Tis possible, besides,
6.703
That a big bulk of piled sand may bar
6.703
His mouths against his onward waves, when sea,
6.703
Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;
6.703
Whereby the river's outlet were less free,
6.703
Likewise less headlong his descending floods.
6.703
It may be, too, that in this season rains
6.703
Are more abundant at its fountain head,
6.703
Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds
6.703
Then urge all clouds into those inland parts.
6.703
And, soothly, when they're thus foregathered there,
6.703
Urged yonder into midmost realm of day,
6.703
Then, crowded against the lofty mountain sides,
6.703
They're massed and powerfully pressed. Again,
6.703
Perchance, his waters wax, O far away,
6.703
Among the Aethiopians' lofty mountains,
6.703
When the all-beholding sun with thawing beams
6.703
Drives the white snows to flow into the vales.
6.738
Now come; and unto thee I will unfold,
6.738
As to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns,
6.738
What sort of nature they are furnished with.
6.738
First, as to name of "birdless,"- that derives
6.738
From very fact, because they noxious be
6.738
Unto all birds. For when above those spots
6.738
In horizontal flight the birds have come,
6.738
Forgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails,
6.738
And, with down-drooping of their delicate necks,
6.738
Fall headlong into earth, if haply such
6.738
The nature of the spots, or into water,
6.738
If haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.
6.738
Such spot's at Cumae, where the mountains smoke,
6.738
Charged with the pungent sulphur, and increased
6.738
With steaming springs. And such a spot there is
6.738
Within the walls of Athens, even there
6.738
On summit of Acropolis, beside
6.738
Fane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful,
6.738
Where never cawing crows can wing their course,
6.738
Not even when smoke the altars with good gifts,-
6.738
But evermore they flee- yet not from wrath
6.738
Of Pallas, grieved at that espial old,
6.738
As poets of the Greeks have sung the tale;
6.738
But very nature of the place compels.
6.738
In Syria also- as men say- a spot
6.738
Is to be seen, where also four-foot kinds,
6.738
As soon as ever they've set their steps within,
6.738
Collapse, o'ercome by its essential power,
6.738
As if there slaughtered to the under-gods.
6.738
Lo, all these wonders work by natural law,
6.738
And from what causes they are brought to pass
6.738
The origin is manifest; so, haply,
6.738
Let none believe that in these regions stands
6.738
The gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose,
6.738
Haply, that thence the under-gods draw down
6.738
Souls to dark shores of Acheron- as stags,
6.738
The wing-footed, are thought to draw to light,
6.738
By sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs
6.738
The wriggling generations of wild snakes.
6.738
How far removed from true reason is this,
6.738
Perceive thou straight; for now I'll try to say
6.738
Somewhat about the very fact.
6.769
And, first,
6.769
This do I say, as oft I've said before:
6.769
In earth are atoms of things of every sort;
6.769
And know, these all thus rise from out the earth-
6.769
Many life-giving which be good for food,
6.769
And many which can generate disease
6.769
And hasten death, O many primal seeds
6.769
Of many things in many modes- since earth
6.769
Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete.
6.769
And we have shown before that certain things
6.769
Be unto certain creatures suited more
6.769
For ends of life, by virtue of a nature,
6.769
A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike
6.769
For kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see
6.769
How many things oppressive be and foul
6.769
To man, and to sensation most malign:
6.769
Many meander miserably through ears;
6.769
Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too,
6.769
Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath;
6.769
Of not a few must one avoid the touch;
6.769
Of not a few must one escape the sight;
6.769
And some there be all loathsome to the taste;
6.769
And many, besides, relax the languid limbs
6.769
Along the frame, and undermine the soul
6.769
In its abodes within. To certain trees
6.769
There hath been given so dolorous a shade
6.769
That often they gender achings of the head,
6.769
If one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward.
6.769
There is, again, on Helicon's high hills
6.769
A tree that's wont to kill a man outright
6.769
By fetid odour of its very flower.
6.769
And when the pungent stench of the night-lamp,
6.769
Extinguished but a moment since, assails
6.769
The nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep
6.769
A man afflicted with the falling sickness
6.769
And foamings at the mouth. A woman, too,
6.769
At the heavy castor drowses back in chair,
6.769
And from her delicate fingers slips away
6.769
Her gaudy handiwork, if haply she
6.769
Hath got the whiff at menstruation-time.
6.769
Once more, if thou delayest in hot baths,
6.769
When thou art over-full, how readily
6.769
From stool in middle of the steaming water
6.769
Thou tumblest in a fit! How readily
6.769
The heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way
6.769
Into the brain, unless beforehand we
6.769
Of water 've drunk. But when a burning fever,
6.769
O'ermastering man, hath seized upon his limbs,
6.769
Then odour of wine is like a hammer-blow.
6.769
And seest thou not how in the very earth
6.769
Sulphur is gendered and bitumen thickens
6.769
With noisome stench?- What direful stenches, too,
6.769
Scaptensula out-breathes from down below,
6.769
When men pursue the veins of silver and gold,
6.769
With pick-axe probing round the hidden realms
6.769
Deep in the earth?- Or what of deadly bane
6.769
The mines of gold exhale? O what a look,
6.769
And what a ghastly hue they give to men!
6.769
And seest thou not, or hearest, how they're wont
6.769
In little time to perish, and how fail
6.769
The life-stores in those folk whom mighty power
6.769
Of grim necessity confineth there
6.769
In such a task? Thus, this telluric earth
6.769
Out-streams with all these dread effluvia
6.769
And breathes them out into the open world
6.769
And into the visible regions under heaven.
6.818
Thus, too, those Birdless places must up-send
6.818
An essence bearing death to winged things,
6.818
Which from the earth rises into the breezes
6.818
To poison part of skiey space, and when
6.818
Thither the winged is on pennons borne,
6.818
There, seized by the unseen poison, 'tis ensnared,
6.818
And from the horizontal of its flight
6.818
Drops to the spot whence sprang the effluvium.
6.818
And when 'thas there collapsed, then the same power
6.818
Of that effluvium takes from all its limbs
6.818
The relics of its life. That power first strikes
6.818
The creatures with a wildering dizziness,
6.818
And then thereafter, when they're once down-fallen
6.818
Into the poison's very fountains, then
6.818
Life, too, they vomit out perforce, because
6.818
So thick the stores of bane around them fume.
6.818
Again, at times it happens that this power,
6.818
This exhalation of the Birdless places,
6.818
Dispels the air betwixt the ground and birds,
6.818
Leaving well-nigh a void. And thither when
6.818
In horizontal flight the birds have come,
6.818
Forthwith their buoyancy of pennons limps,
6.818
All useless, and each effort of both wings
6.818
Falls out in vain. Here, when without all power
6.818
To buoy themselves and on their wings to lean,
6.818
Lo, nature constrains them by their weight to slip
6.818
Down to the earth, and lying prostrate there
6.818
Along the well-nigh empty void, they spend
6.818
Their souls through all the openings of their frame.
6.818
. . . . . .
6.840
Further, the water of wells is colder then
6.840
At summer time, because the earth by heat
6.840
Is rarefied, and sends abroad in air
6.840
Whatever seeds it peradventure have
6.840
Of its own fiery exhalations.
6.840
The more, then, the telluric ground is drained
6.840
Of heat, the colder grows the water hid
6.840
Within the earth. Further, when all the earth
6.840
Is by the cold compressed, and thus contracts
6.840
And, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo,
6.840
That by contracting it expresses then
6.840
Into the wells what heat it bears itself.
6.840
'Tis said at Hammon's fane a fountain is,
6.840
In daylight cold and hot in time of night.
6.840
This fountain men be-wonder over-much,
6.840
And think that suddenly it seethes in heat
6.840
By intense sun, the subterranean, when
6.840
Night with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands-
6.840
What's not true reasoning by a long remove:
6.840
I' faith when sun o'erhead, touching with beams
6.840
An open body of water, had no power
6.840
To render it hot upon its upper side,
6.840
Though his high light possess such burning glare,
6.840
How, then, can he, when under the gross earth,
6.840
Make water boil and glut with fiery heat?-
6.840
And, specially, since scarcely potent he
6.840
Through hedging walls of houses to inject
6.840
His exhalations hot, with ardent rays.
6.840
What, then's, the principle? Why, this, indeed:
6.840
The earth about that spring is porous more
6.840
Than elsewhere the telluric ground, and be
6.840
Many the seeds of fire hard by the water;
6.840
On this account, when night with dew-fraught shades
6.840
Hath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down
6.840
Grows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out
6.840
Into the spring what seeds she holds of fire
6.840
(As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot
6.840
The touch and steam of the fluid. Next, when sun,
6.840
Up-risen, with his rays has split the soil
6.840
And rarefied the earth with waxing heat,
6.840
Again into their ancient abodes return
6.840
The seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water
6.840
Into the earth retires; and this is why
6.840
The fountain in the daylight gets so cold.
6.840
Besides, the water's wet is beat upon
6.840
By rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes
6.840
Rarer in texture under his pulsing blaze;
6.840
And, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire
6.840
It renders up, even as it renders oft
6.840
The frost that it contains within itself
6.840
And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots.
6.879
There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind
6.879
That makes a bit of tow (above it held)
6.879
Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too,
6.879
A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round
6.879
Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled
6.879
Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this:
6.879
Because full many seeds of heat there be
6.879
Within the water; and, from earth itself
6.879
Out of the deeps must particles of fire
6.879
Athrough the entire fountain surge aloft,
6.879
And speed in exhalations into air
6.879
Forth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow
6.879
As to make hot the fountain). And, moreo'er,
6.879
Some force constrains them, scattered through the water,
6.879
Forthwith to burst abroad, and to combine
6.879
In flame above. Even as a fountain far
6.879
There is at Aradus amid the sea,
6.879
Which bubbles out sweet water and disparts
6.879
From round itself the salt waves; and, behold,
6.879
In many another region the broad main
6.879
Yields to the thirsty mariners timely help,
6.879
Belching sweet waters forth amid salt waves.
6.879
Just so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth
6.879
Athrough that other fount, and bubble out
6.879
Abroad against the bit of tow; and when
6.879
They there collect or cleave unto the torch,
6.879
Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because
6.879
The tow and torches, also, in themselves
6.879
Have many seeds of latent fire. Indeed,
6.879
And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps
6.879
Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished
6.879
A moment since, it catches fire before
6.879
'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch?
6.879
And many another object flashes aflame
6.879
When at a distance, touched by heat alone,
6.879
Before 'tis steeped in veritable fire.
6.879
This, then, we must suppose to come to pass
6.879
In that spring also.
6.906
Now to other things!
6.906
And I'll begin to treat by what decree
6.906
Of nature it came to pass that iron can be
6.906
By that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call
6.906
After the country's name (its origin
6.906
Being in country of Magnesian folk).
6.906
This stone men marvel at; and sure it oft
6.906
Maketh a chain of rings, depending, lo,
6.906
From off itself! Nay, thou mayest see at times
6.906
Five or yet more in order dangling down
6.906
And swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one
6.906
Depends from other, cleaving to under-side,
6.906
And ilk one feels the stone's own power and bonds-
6.906
So over-masteringly its power flows down.
6.906
In things of this sort, much must be made sure
6.906
Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give,
6.906
And the approaches roundabout must be;
6.906
Wherefore the more do I exact of thee
6.906
A mind and ears attent.
6.906
First, from all things
6.906
We see soever, evermore must flow,
6.906
Must be discharged and strewn about, about,
6.906
Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
6.906
From certain things flow odours evermore,
6.906
As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray
6.906
From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls
6.906
Along the coasts. Nor ever cease to seep
6.906
The varied echoings athrough the air.
6.906
Then, too, there comes into the mouth at times
6.906
The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea
6.906
We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch
6.906
The wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings.
6.906
To such degree from all things is each thing
6.906
Borne streamingly along, and sent about
6.906
To every region round; and nature grants
6.906
Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,
6.906
Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,
6.906
And all the time are suffered to descry
6.906
And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.
6.936
Now will I seek again to bring to mind
6.936
How porous a body all things have- a fact
6.936
Made manifest in my first canto, too.
6.936
For, truly, though to know this doth import
6.936
For many things, yet for this very thing
6.936
On which straightway I'm going to discourse,
6.936
'Tis needful most of all to make it sure
6.936
That naught's at hand but body mixed with void.
6.936
A first ensample: in grottos, rocks o'erhead
6.936
Sweat moisture and distil the oozy drops;
6.936
Likewise, from all our body seeps the sweat;
6.936
There grows the beard, and along our members all
6.936
And along our frame the hairs. Through all our veins
6.936
Disseminates the foods, and gives increase
6.936
And aliment down to the extreme parts,
6.936
Even to the tiniest finger-nails. Likewise,
6.936
Through solid bronze the cold and fiery heat
6.936
We feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass
6.936
Through gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand
6.936
The brimming goblets. And, again, there flit
6.936
Voices through houses' hedging walls of stone;
6.936
Odour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire
6.936
That's wont to penetrate even strength of iron.
6.936
Again, where corselet of the sky girds round
6.936
. . . . . .
6.936
And at same time, some Influence of bane,
6.936
When from Beyond 'thas stolen into [our world].
6.936
And tempests, gathering from the earth and sky,
6.936
Back to the sky and earth absorbed retire-
6.936
With reason, since there's naught that's fashioned not
6.936
With body porous.
6.959
Furthermore, not all
6.959
The particles which be from things thrown off
6.959
Are furnished with same qualities for sense,
6.959
Nor be for all things equally adapt.
6.959
A first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch
6.959
The earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams
6.959
Compels the lofty snows, up-reared white
6.959
Upon the lofty hills, to waste away;
6.959
Then, wax, if set beneath the heat of him,
6.959
Melts to a liquid. And the fire, likewise,
6.959
Will melt the copper and will fuse the gold,
6.959
But hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks.
6.959
The water hardens the iron just off the fire,
6.959
But hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens.
6.959
The oleaster-tree as much delights
6.959
The bearded she-goats, verily as though
6.959
'Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia;
6.959
Than which is naught that burgeons into leaf
6.959
More bitter food for man. A hog draws back
6.959
For marjoram oil, and every unguent fears
6.959
Fierce poison these unto the bristled hogs,
6.959
Yet unto us from time to time they seem,
6.959
As 'twere, to give new life. But, contrariwise,
6.959
Though unto us the mire be filth most foul,
6.959
To hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem
6.959
That they with wallowing from belly to back
6.959
Are never cloyed.
6.979
A point remains, besides,
6.979
Which best it seems to tell of, ere I go
6.979
To telling of the fact at hand itself.
6.979
Since to the varied things assigned be
6.979
The many pores, those pores must be diverse
6.979
In nature one from other, and each have
6.979
Its very shape, its own direction fixed.
6.979
And so, indeed, in breathing creatures be
6.979
The several senses, of which each takes in
6.979
Unto itself, in its own fashion ever,
6.979
Its own peculiar object. For we mark
6.979
How sounds do into one place penetrate,
6.979
Into another flavours of all juice,
6.979
And savour of smell into a third. Moreover,
6.979
One sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo,
6.979
One sort to pass through wood, another still
6.979
Through gold, and others to go out and off
6.979
Through silver and through glass. For we do see
6.979
Through some pores form-and-look of things to flow,
6.979
Through others heat to go, and some things still
6.979
To speedier pass than others through same pores.
6.979
Of verity, the nature of these same paths,
6.979
Varying in many modes (as aforesaid)
6.979
Because of unlike nature and warp and woof
6.979
Of cosmic things, constrains it so to be.
6.979
Wherefore, since all these matters now have been
6.979
Established and settled well for us
6.979
As premises prepared, for what remains
6.979
'Twill not be hard to render clear account
6.979
By means of these, and the whole cause reveal
6.979
Whereby the magnet lures the strength of iron.
6.1002
First, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds
6.1002
Innumerable, a very tide, which smites
6.1002
By blows that air asunder lying betwixt
6.1002
The stone and iron. And when is emptied out
6.1002
This space, and a large place between the two
6.1002
Is made a void, forthwith the primal germs
6.1002
Of iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined
6.1002
Into the vacuum, and the ring itself
6.1002
By reason thereof doth follow after and go
6.1002
Thuswise with all its body. And naught there is
6.1002
That of its own primordial elements
6.1002
More thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres
6.1002
Than nature and cold roughness of stout iron.
6.1002
Wherefore, 'tis less a marvel what I said,
6.1002
That from such elements no bodies can
6.1002
From out the iron collect in larger throng
6.1002
And be into the vacuum borne along,
6.1002
Without the ring itself do follow after.
6.1002
And this it does, and followeth on until
6.1002
'Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it
6.1002
By links invisible. Moreover, likewise,
6.1002
The motion's assisted by a thing of aid
6.1002
(Whereby the process easier becomes),-
6.1002
Namely, by this: as soon as rarer grows
6.1002
That air in front of the ring, and space between
6.1002
Is emptied more and made a void, forthwith
6.1002
It happens all the air that lies behind
6.1002
Conveys it onward, pushing from the rear.
6.1002
For ever doth the circumambient air
6.1002
Drub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth
6.1002
The iron, because upon one side the space
6.1002
Lies void and thus receives the iron in.
6.1002
This air, whereof I am reminding thee,
6.1002
Winding athrough the iron's abundant pores
6.1002
So subtly into the tiny parts thereof,
6.1002
Shoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails.
6.1002
The same doth happen in all directions forth:
6.1002
From whatso side a space is made a void,
6.1002
Whether from crosswise or above, forthwith
6.1002
The neighbour particles are borne along
6.1002
Into the vacuum; for of verity,
6.1002
They're set a-going by poundings from elsewhere,
6.1002
Nor by themselves of own accord can they
6.1002
Rise upwards into the air. Again, all things
6.1002
Must in their framework hold some air, because
6.1002
They are of framework porous, and the air
6.1002
Encompasses and borders on all things.
6.1002
Thus, then, this air in iron so deeply stored
6.1002
Is tossed evermore in vexed motion,
6.1002
And therefore drubs upon the ring sans doubt
6.1002
And shakes it up inside....
6.1002
. . . . . .
6.1002
In sooth, that ring is thither borne along
6.1002
To where 'thas once plunged headlong- thither, lo,
6.1002
Unto the void whereto it took its start.
6.1042
It happens, too, at times that nature of iron
6.1042
Shrinks from this stone away, accustomed
6.1042
By turns to flee and follow. Yea, I've seen
6.1042
Those Samothracian iron rings leap up,
6.1042
And iron filings in the brazen bowls
6.1042
Seethe furiously, when underneath was set
6.1042
The magnet stone. So strongly iron seems
6.1042
To crave to flee that rock. Such discord great
6.1042
Is gendered by the interposed brass,
6.1042
Because, forsooth, when first the tide of brass
6.1042
Hath seized upon and held possession of
6.1042
The iron's open passage-ways, thereafter
6.1042
Cometh the tide of the stone, and in that iron
6.1042
Findeth all spaces full, nor now hath holes
6.1042
To swim through, as before. 'Tis thus constrained
6.1042
With its own current 'gainst the iron's fabric
6.1042
To dash and beat; by means whereof it spues
6.1042
Forth from itself- and through the brass stirs up-
6.1042
The things which otherwise without the brass
6.1042
It sucks into itself. In these affairs
6.1042
Marvel thou not that from this stone the tide
6.1042
Prevails not likewise other things to move
6.1042
With its own blows: for some stand firm by weight,
6.1042
As gold; and some cannot be moved forever,
6.1042
Because so porous in their framework they
6.1042
That there the tide streams through without a break,
6.1042
Of which sort stuff of wood is seen to be.
6.1042
Therefore, when iron (which lies between the two)
6.1042
Hath taken in some atoms of the brass,
6.1042
Then do the streams of that Magnesian rock
6.1042
Move iron by their smitings.
6.1065
Yet these things
6.1065
Are not so alien from others, that I
6.1065
Of this same sort am ill prepared to name
6.1065
Ensamples still of things exclusively
6.1065
To one another adapt. Thou seest, first,
6.1065
How lime alone cementeth stones: how wood
6.1065
Only by glue-of-bull with wood is joined-
6.1065
So firmly too that oftener the boards
6.1065
Crack open along the weakness of the grain
6.1065
Ere ever those taurine bonds will lax their hold.
6.1065
The vine-born juices with the water-springs
6.1065
Are bold to mix, though not the heavy pitch
6.1065
With the light oil-of-olive. And purple dye
6.1065
Of shell-fish so uniteth with the wool's
6.1065
Body alone that it cannot be ta'en
6.1065
Away forever- nay, though thou gavest toil
6.1065
To restore the same with the Neptunian flood,
6.1065
Nay, though all ocean willed to wash it out
6.1065
With all its waves. Again, gold unto gold
6.1065
Doth not one substance bind, and only one?
6.1065
And is not brass by tin joined unto brass?
6.1065
And other ensamples how many might one find!
6.1065
What then? Nor is there unto thee a need
6.1065
Of such long ways and roundabout, nor boots it
6.1065
For me much toil on this to spend. More fit
6.1065
It is in few words briefly to embrace
6.1065
Things many: things whose textures fall together
6.1065
So mutually adapt, that cavities
6.1065
To solids correspond, these cavities
6.1065
Of this thing to the solid parts of that,
6.1065
And those of that to solid parts of this-
6.1065
Such joinings are the best. Again, some things
6.1065
Can be the one with other coupled and held,
6.1065
Linked by hooks and eyes, as 'twere; and this
6.1065
Seems more the fact with iron and this stone.
6.1090
Now, of diseases what the law, and whence
6.1090
The Influence of bane upgathering can
6.1090
Upon the race of man and herds of cattle
6.1090
Kindle a devastation fraught with death,
6.1090
I will unfold. And, first, I've taught above
6.1090
That seeds there be of many things to us
6.1090
Life-giving, and that, contrariwise, there must
6.1090
Fly many round bringing disease and death.
6.1090
When these have, haply, chanced to collect
6.1090
And to derange the atmosphere of earth,
6.1090
The air becometh baneful. And, lo, all
6.1090
That Influence of bane, that pestilence,
6.1090
Or from Beyond down through our atmosphere,
6.1090
Like clouds and mists, descends, or else collects
6.1090
From earth herself and rises, when, a-soak
6.1090
And beat by rains unseasonable and suns,
6.1090
Our earth hath then contracted stench and rot.
6.1090
Seest thou not, also, that whoso arrive
6.1090
In region far from fatherland and home
6.1090
Are by the strangeness of the clime and waters
6.1090
Distempered?- since conditions vary much.
6.1090
For in what else may we suppose the clime
6.1090
Among the Britons to differ from Aegypt's own
6.1090
(Where totters awry the axis of the world),
6.1090
Or in what else to differ Pontic clime
6.1090
From Gades' and from climes adown the south,
6.1090
On to black generations of strong men
6.1090
With sun-baked skins? Even as we thus do see
6.1090
Four climes diverse under the four main-winds
6.1090
And under the four main-regions of the sky,
6.1090
So, too, are seen the colour and face of men
6.1090
Vastly to disagree, and fixed diseases
6.1090
To seize the generations, kind by kind:
6.1090
There is the elephant-disease which down
6.1090
In midmost Aegypt, hard by streams of Nile,
6.1090
Engendered is- and never otherwhere.
6.1090
In Attica the feet are oft attacked,
6.1090
And in Achaean lands the eyes. And so
6.1090
The divers spots to divers parts and limbs
6.1090
Are noxious; 'tis a variable air
6.1090
That causes this. Thus when an atmosphere,
6.1090
Alien by chance to us, begins to heave,
6.1090
And noxious airs begin to crawl along,
6.1090
They creep and wind like unto mist and cloud,
6.1090
Slowly, and everything upon their way
6.1090
They disarrange and force to change its state.
6.1090
It happens, too, that when they've come at last
6.1090
Into this atmosphere of ours, they taint
6.1090
And make it like themselves and alien.
6.1090
Therefore, asudden this devastation strange,
6.1090
This pestilence, upon the waters falls,
6.1090
Or settles on the very crops of grain
6.1090
Or other meat of men and feed of flocks.
6.1090
Or it remains a subtle force, suspense
6.1090
In the atmosphere itself; and when therefrom
6.1090
We draw our inhalations of mixed air,
6.1090
Into our body equally its bane
6.1090
Also we must suck in. In manner like,
6.1090
Oft comes the pestilence upon the kine,
6.1090
And sickness, too, upon the sluggish sheep.
6.1090
Nor aught it matters whether journey we
6.1090
To regions adverse to ourselves and change
6.1090
The atmospheric cloak, or whether nature
6.1090
Herself import a tainted atmosphere
6.1090
To us or something strange to our own use
6.1090
Which can attack us soon as ever it come.
6.1138
'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such
6.1138
Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands
6.1138
Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones,
6.1138
Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens
6.1138
The Athenian town. For coming from afar,
6.1138
Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing
6.1138
Reaches of air and floating fields of foam,
6.1138
At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped;
6.1138
Whereat by troops unto disease and death
6.1138
Were they o'er-given. At first, they'd bear about
6.1138
A skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain
6.1138
Red with suffusion of blank glare. Their throats,
6.1138
Black on the inside, sweated oozy blood;
6.1138
And the walled pathway of the voice of man
6.1138
Was clogged with ulcers; and the very tongue,
6.1138
The mind's interpreter, would trickle gore,
6.1138
Weakened by torments, tardy, rough to touch.
6.1138
Next when that Influence of bane had chocked,
6.1138
Down through the throat, the breast, and streamed had
6.1138
E'en into sullen heart of those sick folk,
6.1138
Then, verily, all the fences of man's life
6.1138
Began to topple. From the mouth the breath
6.1138
Would roll a noisome stink, as stink to heaven
6.1138
Rotting cadavers flung unburied out.
6.1138
And, lo, thereafter, all the body's strength
6.1138
And every power of mind would languish, now
6.1138
In very doorway of destruction.
6.1138
And anxious anguish and ululation (mixed
6.1138
With many a groan) companioned alway
6.1138
The intolerable torments. Night and day,
6.1138
Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack
6.1138
Alway their thews and members, breaking down
6.1138
With sheer exhaustion men already spent.
6.1138
And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark
6.1138
The skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow,
6.1138
But rather the body unto touch of hands
6.1138
Would offer a warmish feeling, and thereby
6.1138
Show red all over, with ulcers, so to say,
6.1138
Inbranded, like the "sacred fires" o'erspread
6.1138
Along the members. The inward parts of men,
6.1138
In truth, would blaze unto the very bones;
6.1138
A flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze
6.1138
Within the stomach. Nor couldst aught apply
6.1138
Unto their members light enough and thin
6.1138
For shift of aid- but coolness and a breeze
6.1138
Ever and ever. Some would plunge those limbs
6.1138
On fire with bane into the icy streams,
6.1138
Hurling the body naked into the waves;
6.1174
Many would headlong fling them deeply down
6.1174
The water-pits, tumbling with eager mouth
6.1174
Already agape. The insatiable thirst
6.1174
That whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make
6.1174
A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops.
6.1174
Respite of torment was there none. Their frames
6.1174
Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear
6.1174
Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw
6.1174
So many a time men roll their eyeballs round,
6.1174
Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep,
6.1174
The heralds of old death. And in those months
6.1174
Was given many another sign of death:
6.1174
The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread
6.1174
Deranged, the sad brow, the countenance
6.1174
Fierce and delirious, the tormented ears
6.1174
Beset with ringings, the breath quick and short
6.1174
Or huge and intermittent, soaking sweat
6.1174
A-glisten on neck, the spittle in fine gouts
6.1174
Tainted with colour of crocus and so salt,
6.1174
The cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat.
6.1174
Aye, and the sinews in the fingered hands
6.1174
Were sure to contract, and sure the jointed frame
6.1174
To shiver, and up from feet the cold to mount
6.1174
Inch after inch: and toward the supreme hour
6.1174
At last the pinched nostrils, nose's tip
6.1174
A very point, eyes sunken, temples hollow,
6.1174
Skin cold and hard, the shuddering grimace,
6.1174
The pulled and puffy flesh above the brows!-
6.1174
O not long after would their frames lie prone
6.1174
In rigid death. And by about the eighth
6.1174
Resplendent light of sun, or at the most
6.1174
On the ninth flaming of his flambeau, they
6.1174
Would render up the life. If any then
6.1174
Had 'scaped the doom of that destruction, yet
6.1174
Him there awaited in the after days
6.1174
A wasting and a death from ulcers vile
6.1174
And black discharges of the belly, or else
6.1174
Through the clogged nostrils would there ooze along
6.1174
Much fouled blood, oft with an aching head:
6.1174
Hither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh.
6.1205
And whoso had survived that virulent flow
6.1205
Of the vile blood, yet into thews of him
6.1205
And into his joints and very genitals
6.1205
Would pass the old disease. And some there were,
6.1205
Dreading the doorways of destruction
6.1205
So much, lived on, deprived by the knife
6.1205
Of the male member; not a few, though lopped
6.1205
Of hands and feet, would yet persist in life,
6.1205
And some there were who lost their eyeballs: O
6.1205
So fierce a fear of death had fallen on them!
6.1205
And some, besides, were by oblivion
6.1205
Of all things seized, that even themselves they knew
6.1205
No longer. And though corpse on corpse lay piled
6.1205
Unburied on ground, the race of birds and beasts
6.1205
Would or spring back, scurrying to escape
6.1205
The virulent stench, or, if they'd tasted there,
6.1205
Would languish in approaching death. But yet
6.1205
Hardly at all during those many suns
6.1205
Appeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth
6.1205
The sullen generations of wild beasts-
6.1205
They languished with disease and died and died.
6.1205
In chief, the faithful dogs, in all the streets
6.1205
Outstretched, would yield their breath distressfully
6.1205
For so that Influence of bane would twist
6.1205
Life from their members. Nor was found one sure
6.1205
And universal principle of cure:
6.1205
For what to one had given the power to take
6.1205
The vital winds of air into his mouth,
6.1205
And to gaze upward at the vaults of sky,
6.1205
The same to others was their death and doom.
6.1230
In those affairs, O awfullest of all,
6.1230
O pitiable most was this, was this:
6.1230
Whoso once saw himself in that disease
6.1230
Entangled, ay, as damned unto death,
6.1230
Would lie in wanhope, with a sullen heart,
6.1230
Would, in fore-vision of his funeral,
6.1230
Give up the ghost, O then and there. For, lo,
6.1230
At no time did they cease one from another
6.1230
To catch contagion of the greedy plague,-
6.1230
As though but woolly flocks and horned herds;
6.1230
And this in chief would heap the dead on dead:
6.1230
For who forbore to look to their own sick,
6.1230
O these (too eager of life, of death afeard)
6.1230
Would then, soon after, slaughtering Neglect
6.1230
Visit with vengeance of evil death and base-
6.1230
Themselves deserted and forlorn of help.
6.1230
But who had stayed at hand would perish there
6.1230
By that contagion and the toil which then
6.1230
A sense of honour and the pleading voice
6.1230
Of weary watchers, mixed with voice of wail
6.1230
Of dying folk, forced them to undergo.
6.1230
This kind of death each nobler soul would meet.
6.1230
The funerals, uncompanioned, forsaken,
6.1230
Like rivals contended to be hurried through.
6.1230
. . . . . .
6.1230
And men contending to ensepulchre
6.1230
Pile upon pile the throng of their own dead:
6.1230
And weary with woe and weeping wandered home;
6.1230
And then the most would take to bed from grief.
6.1230
Nor could be found not one, whom nor disease
6.1230
Nor death, nor woe had not in those dread times
6.1230
Attacked.
6.1247
By now the shepherds and neatherds all,
6.1247
Yea, even the sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,
6.1247
Began to sicken, and their bodies would lie
6.1247
Huddled within back-corners of their huts,
6.1247
Delivered by squalor and disease to death.
6.1247
O often and often couldst thou then have seen
6.1247
On lifeless children lifeless parents prone,
6.1247
Or offspring on their fathers', mothers' corpse
6.1247
Yielding the life. And into the city poured
6.1247
O not in least part from the countryside
6.1247
That tribulation, which the peasantry
6.1247
Sick, sick, brought thither, thronging from every quarter,
6.1247
Plague-stricken mob. All places would they crowd,
6.1247
All buildings too; whereby the more would death
6.1247
Up-pile a-heap the folk so crammed in town.
6.1247
Ah, many a body thirst had dragged and rolled
6.1247
Along the highways there was lying strewn
6.1247
Besides Silenus-headed water-fountains,-
6.1247
The life-breath choked from that too dear desire
6.1247
Of pleasant waters. Ah, everywhere along
6.1247
The open places of the populace,
6.1247
And along the highways, O thou mightest see
6.1247
Of many a half-dead body the sagged limbs,
6.1247
Rough with squalor, wrapped around with rags,
6.1247
Perish from very nastiness, with naught
6.1247
But skin upon the bones, well-nigh already
6.1247
Buried- in ulcers vile and obscene filth.
6.1247
All holy temples, too, of deities
6.1247
Had Death becrammed with the carcasses;
6.1247
And stood each fane of the Celestial Ones
6.1247
Laden with stark cadavers everywhere-
6.1247
Places which warders of the shrines had crowded
6.1247
With many a guest. For now no longer men
6.1247
Did mightily esteem the old Divine,
6.1247
The worship of the gods: the woe at hand
6.1247
Did over-master. Nor in the city then
6.1247
Remained those rites of sepulture, with which
6.1247
That pious folk had evermore been wont
6.1247
To buried be. For it was wildered all
6.1247
In wild alarms, and each and every one
6.1247
With sullen sorrow would bury his own dead,
6.1247
As present shift allowed. And sudden stress
6.1247
And poverty to many an awful act
6.1247
Impelled; and with a monstrous screaming they
6.1247
Would, on the frames of alien funeral pyres,
6.1247
Place their own kin, and thrust the torch beneath
6.1247
Oft brawling with much bloodshed round about
6.1247
Rather than quit dead bodies loved in life.