Georgics

Their wretched limbs together, anon o'erflowed

A watery flux, and all their bones piecemeal

Sapped by corruption to itself absorbed.

Oft in mid sacrifice to heaven—the white

Wool-woven fillet half wreathed about his brow—

Some victim, standing by the altar, there

Betwixt the loitering carles a-dying fell:

Or, if betimes the slaughtering priest had struck,

Nor with its heaped entrails blazed the pile,

Nor seer to seeker thence could answer yield;

Nay, scarce the up-stabbing knife with blood was stained,

Scarce sullied with thin gore the surface-sand.

Hence die the calves in many a pasture fair,

Or at full cribs their lives' sweet breath resign;

Hence on the fawning dog comes madness, hence

Racks the sick swine a gasping cough that chokes

With swelling at the jaws: the conquering steed,

Uncrowned of effort and heedless of the sward,

Faints, turns him from the springs, and paws the earth

With ceaseless hoof: low droop his ears, wherefrom

Bursts fitful sweat, a sweat that waxes cold

Upon the dying beast; the skin is dry,

And rigidly repels the handler's touch.

These earlier signs they give that presage doom.

But, if the advancing plague 'gin fiercer grow,

Then are their eyes all fire, deep-drawn their breath,

At times groan-laboured: with long sobbing heave

Their lowest flanks; from either nostril streams

Black blood; a rough tongue clogs the obstructed jaws.

'Twas helpful through inverted horn to pour

Draughts of the wine-god down; sole way it seemed

To save the dying: soon this too proved their bane,

And, reinvigorate but with frenzy's fire,

Even at death's pinch—the gods some happier fate

Deal to the just, such madness to their foes—

Each with bared teeth his own limbs mangling tore.

See! as he smokes beneath the stubborn share,

The bull drops, vomiting foam-dabbled gore,

And heaves his latest groans. Sad goes the swain,

Unhooks the steer that mourns his fellow's fate,

And in mid labour leaves the plough-gear fast.

Nor tall wood's shadow, nor soft sward may stir

That heart's emotion, nor rock-channelled flood,

More pure than amber speeding to the plain:

But see! his flanks fail under him, his eyes

Are dulled with deadly torpor, and his neck

Sinks to the earth with drooping weight.

What now

Besteads him toil or service? to have turned

The heavy sod with ploughshare? And yet these

Ne'er knew the Massic wine-god's baneful boon,

Nor twice replenished banquets: but on leaves

They fare, and virgin grasses, and their cups

Are crystal springs and streams with running tired,

Their healthful slumbers never broke by care.

Then only, say they, through that country side

For Juno's rites were cattle far to seek,

And ill-matched buffaloes the chariots drew

To their high fanes. So, painfully with rakes

They grub the soil, aye, with their very nails

Dig in the corn-seeds, and with strained neck

O'er the high uplands drag the creaking wains.

No wolf for ambush pries about the pen,

Nor round the flock prowls nightly; pain more sharp

Subdues him: the shy deer and fleet-foot stags

With hounds now wander by the haunts of men

Vast ocean's offspring, and all tribes that swim,

On the shore's confine the wave washes up,

Like shipwrecked bodies: seals, unwonted there,

Flee to the rivers. Now the viper dies,

For all his den's close winding, and with scales

Erect the astonied water-worms. The air

Brooks not the very birds, that headlong fall,

And leave their life beneath the soaring cloud.

Moreover now nor change of fodder serves,

And subtlest cures but injure; then were foiled

The masters, Chiron sprung from Phillyron,

And Amythaon's son Melampus. See!

From Stygian darkness launched into the light

Comes raging pale Tisiphone; she drives

Disease and fear before her, day by day

Still rearing higher that all-devouring head.

With bleat of flocks and lowings thick resound

Rivers and parched banks and sloping heights.

At last in crowds she slaughters them, she chokes

The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot

In hideous corruption, till men learn

With earth to cover them, in pits to hide.

For e'en the fells are useless; nor the flesh

With water may they purge, or tame with fire,

Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through

With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs;

But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try,

Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran

His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made,

The fiery curse his tainted frame devoured.

Of air-born honey, gift of heaven, I now

Take up the tale. Upon this theme no less

Look thou, Maecenas, with indulgent eye.

A marvellous display of puny powers,