EXTRAORDINARY AND PARADOXICAL TELLURIC
     PHENOMENA

     In chief, men marvel nature renders not
     Bigger and bigger the bulk of ocean, since
     So vast the down-rush of the waters be,
     And every river out of every realm
     Cometh thereto; and add the random rains
     And flying tempests, which spatter every sea
     And every land bedew; add their own springs:
     Yet all of these unto the ocean's sum
     Shall be but as the increase of a drop.
     Wherefore 'tis less a marvel that the sea,
     The mighty ocean, increaseth not. Besides,
     Sun with his heat draws off a mighty part:
     Yea, we behold that sun with burning beams
     To dry our garments dripping all with wet;
     And many a sea, and far out-spread beneath,
     Do we behold. Therefore, however slight
     The portion of wet that sun on any spot
     Culls from the level main, he still will take
     From off the waves in such a wide expanse
     Abundantly. Then, further, also winds,
     Sweeping the level waters, can bear off
     A mighty part of wet, since we behold
     Oft in a single night the highways dried
     By winds, and soft mud crusted o'er at dawn.
     Again, I've taught thee that the clouds bear off
     Much moisture too, up-taken from the reaches
     Of the mighty main, and sprinkle it about
     O'er all the zones, when rain is on the lands
     And winds convey the aery racks of vapour.
     Lastly, since earth is porous through her frame,
     And neighbours on the seas, girdling their shores,
     The water's wet must seep into the lands
     From briny ocean, as from lands it comes
     Into the seas. For brine is filtered off,
     And then the liquid stuff seeps back again
     And all re-poureth at the river-heads,
     Whence in fresh-water currents it returns
     Over the lands, adown the channels which
     Were cleft erstwhile and erstwhile bore along
     The liquid-footed floods.

                               And now the cause
     Whereby athrough the throat of Aetna's Mount
     Such vast tornado-fires out-breathe at times,
     I will unfold: for with no middling might
     Of devastation the flamy tempest rose
     And held dominion in Sicilian fields:
     Drawing upon itself the upturned faces
     Of neighbouring clans, what time they saw afar
     The skiey vaults a-fume and sparkling all,
     And filled their bosoms with dread anxiety
     Of what new thing nature were travailing at.

     In these affairs it much behooveth thee
     To look both wide and deep, and far abroad
     To peer to every quarter, that thou mayst
     Remember how boundless is the Sum-of-Things,
     And mark how infinitely small a part
     Of the whole Sum is this one sky of ours—
     O not so large a part as is one man
     Of the whole earth. And plainly if thou viewest
     This cosmic fact, placing it square in front,
     And plainly understandest, thou wilt leave
     Wondering at many things. For who of us
     Wondereth if some one gets into his joints
     A fever, gathering head with fiery heat,
     Or any other dolorous disease
     Along his members? For anon the foot
     Grows blue and bulbous; often the sharp twinge
     Seizes the teeth, attacks the very eyes;
     Out-breaks the sacred fire, and, crawling on
     Over the body, burneth every part
     It seizeth on, and works its hideous way
     Along the frame. No marvel this, since, lo,
     Of things innumerable be seeds enough,
     And this our earth and sky do bring to us
     Enough of bane from whence can grow the strength
     Of maladies uncounted. Thuswise, then,
     We must suppose to all the sky and earth
     Are ever supplied from out the infinite
     All things, O all in stores enough whereby
     The shaken earth can of a sudden move,
     And fierce typhoons can over sea and lands
     Go tearing on, and Aetna's fires o'erflow,
     And heaven become a flame-burst. For that, too,
     Happens at times, and the celestial vaults
     Glow into fire, and rainy tempests rise
     In heavier congregation, when, percase,
     The seeds of water have foregathered thus
     From out the infinite. "Aye, but passing huge
     The fiery turmoil of that conflagration!"
     So sayst thou; well, huge many a river seems
     To him that erstwhile ne'er a larger saw;
     Thus, huge seems tree or man; and everything
     Which mortal sees the biggest of each class,
     That he imagines to be "huge"; though yet
     All these, with sky and land and sea to boot,
     Are all as nothing to the sum entire
     Of the all-Sum.

                     But now I will unfold
     At last how yonder suddenly angered flame
     Out-blows abroad from vasty furnaces
     Aetnaean. First, the mountain's nature is
     All under-hollow, propped about, about
     With caverns of basaltic piers. And, lo,
     In all its grottos be there wind and air—
     For wind is made when air hath been uproused
     By violent agitation. When this air
     Is heated through and through, and, raging round,
     Hath made the earth and all the rocks it touches
     Horribly hot, and hath struck off from them
     Fierce fire of swiftest flame, it lifts itself
     And hurtles thus straight upwards through its throat
     Into high heav'n, and thus bears on afar
     Its burning blasts and scattereth afar
     Its ashes, and rolls a smoke of pitchy murk
     And heaveth the while boulders of wondrous weight—
     Leaving no doubt in thee that 'tis the air's
     Tumultuous power. Besides, in mighty part,
     The sea there at the roots of that same mount
     Breaks its old billows and sucks back its surf.
     And grottos from the sea pass in below
     Even to the bottom of the mountain's throat.
     Herethrough thou must admit there go...

     And the conditions force [the water and air]
     Deeply to penetrate from the open sea,
     And to out-blow abroad, and to up-bear
     Thereby the flame, and to up-cast from deeps
     The boulders, and to rear the clouds of sand.
     For at the top be "bowls," as people there
     Are wont to name what we at Rome do call
     The throats and mouths.

                            There be, besides, some thing
     Of which 'tis not enough one only cause
     To state—but rather several, whereof one
     Will be the true: lo, if thou shouldst espy
     Lying afar some fellow's lifeless corse,
     'Twere meet to name all causes of a death,
     That cause of his death might thereby be named:
     For prove thou mayst he perished not by steel,
     By cold, nor even by poison nor disease,
     Yet somewhat of this sort hath come to him
     We know—And thus we have to say the same
     In divers cases.

                       Toward the summer, Nile
     Waxeth and overfloweth the champaign,
     Unique in all the landscape, river sole
     Of the Aegyptians. In mid-season heats
     Often and oft he waters Aegypt o'er,
     Either because in summer against his mouths
     Come those northwinds which at that time of year
     Men name the Etesian blasts, and, blowing thus
     Upstream, retard, and, forcing back his waves,
     Fill him o'erfull and force his flow to stop.
     For out of doubt these blasts which driven be
     From icy constellations of the pole
     Are borne straight up the river. Comes that river
     From forth the sultry places down the south,
     Rising far up in midmost realm of day,
     Among black generations of strong men
     With sun-baked skins. 'Tis possible, besides,
     That a big bulk of piled sand may bar
     His mouths against his onward waves, when sea,
     Wild in the winds, tumbles the sand to inland;
     Whereby the river's outlet were less free,
     Likewise less headlong his descending floods.
     It may be, too, that in this season rains
     Are more abundant at its fountain head,
     Because the Etesian blasts of those northwinds
     Then urge all clouds into those inland parts.
     And, soothly, when they're thus foregathered there,
     Urged yonder into midmost realm of day,
     Then, crowded against the lofty mountain sides,
     They're massed and powerfully pressed. Again,
     Perchance, his waters wax, O far away,
     Among the Aethiopians' lofty mountains,
     When the all-beholding sun with thawing beams
     Drives the white snows to flow into the vales.

     Now come; and unto thee I will unfold,
     As to the Birdless spots and Birdless tarns,
     What sort of nature they are furnished with.
     First, as to name of "birdless,"—that derives
     From very fact, because they noxious be
     Unto all birds. For when above those spots
     In horizontal flight the birds have come,
     Forgetting to oar with wings, they furl their sails,
     And, with down-drooping of their delicate necks,
     Fall headlong into earth, if haply such
     The nature of the spots, or into water,
     If haply spreads thereunder Birdless tarn.
     Such spot's at Cumae, where the mountains smoke,
     Charged with the pungent sulphur, and increased
     With steaming springs. And such a spot there is
     Within the walls of Athens, even there
     On summit of Acropolis, beside
     Fane of Tritonian Pallas bountiful,
     Where never cawing crows can wing their course,
     Not even when smoke the altars with good gifts,—
     But evermore they flee—yet not from wrath
     Of Pallas, grieved at that espial old,
     As poets of the Greeks have sung the tale;
     But very nature of the place compels.
     In Syria also—as men say—a spot
     Is to be seen, where also four-foot kinds,
     As soon as ever they've set their steps within,
     Collapse, o'ercome by its essential power,
     As if there slaughtered to the under-gods.
     Lo, all these wonders work by natural law,
     And from what causes they are brought to pass
     The origin is manifest; so, haply,
     Let none believe that in these regions stands
     The gate of Orcus, nor us then suppose,
     Haply, that thence the under-gods draw down
     Souls to dark shores of Acheron—as stags,
     The wing-footed, are thought to draw to light,
     By sniffing nostrils, from their dusky lairs
     The wriggling generations of wild snakes.
     How far removed from true reason is this,
     Perceive thou straight; for now I'll try to say
     Somewhat about the very fact.

                                    And, first,
     This do I say, as oft I've said before:
     In earth are atoms of things of every sort;
     And know, these all thus rise from out the earth—
     Many life-giving which be good for food,
     And many which can generate disease
     And hasten death, O many primal seeds
     Of many things in many modes—since earth
     Contains them mingled and gives forth discrete.
     And we have shown before that certain things
     Be unto certain creatures suited more
     For ends of life, by virtue of a nature,
     A texture, and primordial shapes, unlike
     For kinds alike. Then too 'tis thine to see
     How many things oppressive be and foul
     To man, and to sensation most malign:
     Many meander miserably through ears;
     Many in-wind athrough the nostrils too,
     Malign and harsh when mortal draws a breath;
     Of not a few must one avoid the touch;
     Of not a few must one escape the sight;
     And some there be all loathsome to the taste;
     And many, besides, relax the languid limbs
     Along the frame, and undermine the soul
     In its abodes within. To certain trees
     There hath been given so dolorous a shade
     That often they gender achings of the head,
     If one but be beneath, outstretched on the sward.
     There is, again, on Helicon's high hills
     A tree that's wont to kill a man outright
     By fetid odour of its very flower.
     And when the pungent stench of the night-lamp,
     Extinguished but a moment since, assails
     The nostrils, then and there it puts to sleep
     A man afflicted with the falling sickness
     And foamings at the mouth. A woman, too,
     At the heavy castor drowses back in chair,
     And from her delicate fingers slips away
     Her gaudy handiwork, if haply she
     Hath got the whiff at menstruation-time.
     Once more, if thou delayest in hot baths,
     When thou art over-full, how readily
     From stool in middle of the steaming water
     Thou tumblest in a fit! How readily
     The heavy fumes of charcoal wind their way
     Into the brain, unless beforehand we
     Of water 've drunk. But when a burning fever,
     O'ermastering man, hath seized upon his limbs,
     Then odour of wine is like a hammer-blow.
     And seest thou not how in the very earth
     Sulphur is gendered and bitumen thickens
     With noisome stench?—What direful stenches, too,
     Scaptensula out-breathes from down below,
     When men pursue the veins of silver and gold,
     With pick-axe probing round the hidden realms
     Deep in the earth?—Or what of deadly bane
     The mines of gold exhale? O what a look,
     And what a ghastly hue they give to men!
     And seest thou not, or hearest, how they're wont
     In little time to perish, and how fail
     The life-stores in those folk whom mighty power
     Of grim necessity confineth there
     In such a task? Thus, this telluric earth
     Out-streams with all these dread effluvia
     And breathes them out into the open world
     And into the visible regions under heaven.

     Thus, too, those Birdless places must up-send
     An essence bearing death to winged things,
     Which from the earth rises into the breezes
     To poison part of skiey space, and when
     Thither the winged is on pennons borne,
     There, seized by the unseen poison, 'tis ensnared,
     And from the horizontal of its flight
     Drops to the spot whence sprang the effluvium.
     And when 'thas there collapsed, then the same power
     Of that effluvium takes from all its limbs
     The relics of its life. That power first strikes
     The creatures with a wildering dizziness,
     And then thereafter, when they're once down-fallen
     Into the poison's very fountains, then
     Life, too, they vomit out perforce, because
     So thick the stores of bane around them fume.

     Again, at times it happens that this power,
     This exhalation of the Birdless places,
     Dispels the air betwixt the ground and birds,
     Leaving well-nigh a void. And thither when
     In horizontal flight the birds have come,
     Forthwith their buoyancy of pennons limps,
     All useless, and each effort of both wings
     Falls out in vain. Here, when without all power
     To buoy themselves and on their wings to lean,
     Lo, nature constrains them by their weight to slip
     Down to the earth, and lying prostrate there
     Along the well-nigh empty void, they spend
     Their souls through all the openings of their frame.

     Further, the water of wells is colder then
     At summer time, because the earth by heat
     Is rarefied, and sends abroad in air
     Whatever seeds it peradventure have
     Of its own fiery exhalations.
     The more, then, the telluric ground is drained
     Of heat, the colder grows the water hid
     Within the earth. Further, when all the earth
     Is by the cold compressed, and thus contracts
     And, so to say, concretes, it happens, lo,
     That by contracting it expresses then
     Into the wells what heat it bears itself.

     'Tis said at Hammon's fane a fountain is,
     In daylight cold and hot in time of night.
     This fountain men be-wonder over-much,
     And think that suddenly it seethes in heat
     By intense sun, the subterranean, when
     Night with her terrible murk hath cloaked the lands—
     What's not true reasoning by a long remove:
     I' faith when sun o'erhead, touching with beams
     An open body of water, had no power
     To render it hot upon its upper side,
     Though his high light possess such burning glare,
     How, then, can he, when under the gross earth,
     Make water boil and glut with fiery heat?—
     And, specially, since scarcely potent he
     Through hedging walls of houses to inject
     His exhalations hot, with ardent rays.
     What, then's, the principle? Why, this, indeed:
     The earth about that spring is porous more
     Than elsewhere the telluric ground, and be
     Many the seeds of fire hard by the water;
     On this account, when night with dew-fraught shades
     Hath whelmed the earth, anon the earth deep down
     Grows chill, contracts; and thuswise squeezes out
     Into the spring what seeds she holds of fire
     (As one might squeeze with fist), which render hot
     The touch and steam of the fluid. Next, when sun,
     Up-risen, with his rays has split the soil
     And rarefied the earth with waxing heat,
     Again into their ancient abodes return
     The seeds of fire, and all the Hot of water
     Into the earth retires; and this is why
     The fountain in the daylight gets so cold.
     Besides, the water's wet is beat upon
     By rays of sun, and, with the dawn, becomes
     Rarer in texture under his pulsing blaze;
     And, therefore, whatso seeds it holds of fire
     It renders up, even as it renders oft
     The frost that it contains within itself
     And thaws its ice and looseneth the knots.
     There is, moreover, a fountain cold in kind
     That makes a bit of tow (above it held)
     Take fire forthwith and shoot a flame; so, too,
     A pitch-pine torch will kindle and flare round
     Along its waves, wherever 'tis impelled
     Afloat before the breeze. No marvel, this:
     Because full many seeds of heat there be
     Within the water; and, from earth itself
     Out of the deeps must particles of fire
     Athrough the entire fountain surge aloft,
     And speed in exhalations into air
     Forth and abroad (yet not in numbers enow
     As to make hot the fountain). And, moreo'er,
     Some force constrains them, scattered through the water,
     Forthwith to burst abroad, and to combine
     In flame above. Even as a fountain far
     There is at Aradus amid the sea,
     Which bubbles out sweet water and disparts
     From round itself the salt waves; and, behold,
     In many another region the broad main
     Yields to the thirsty mariners timely help,
     Belching sweet waters forth amid salt waves.
     Just so, then, can those seeds of fire burst forth
     Athrough that other fount, and bubble out
     Abroad against the bit of tow; and when
     They there collect or cleave unto the torch,
     Forthwith they readily flash aflame, because
     The tow and torches, also, in themselves
     Have many seeds of latent fire. Indeed,
     And seest thou not, when near the nightly lamps
     Thou bringest a flaxen wick, extinguished
     A moment since, it catches fire before
     'Thas touched the flame, and in same wise a torch?
     And many another object flashes aflame
     When at a distance, touched by heat alone,
     Before 'tis steeped in veritable fire.
     This, then, we must suppose to come to pass
     In that spring also.

                         Now to other things!
     And I'll begin to treat by what decree
     Of nature it came to pass that iron can be
     By that stone drawn which Greeks the magnet call
     After the country's name (its origin
     Being in country of Magnesian folk).
     This stone men marvel at; and sure it oft
     Maketh a chain of rings, depending, lo,
     From off itself! Nay, thou mayest see at times
     Five or yet more in order dangling down
     And swaying in the delicate winds, whilst one
     Depends from other, cleaving to under-side,
     And ilk one feels the stone's own power and bonds—
     So over-masteringly its power flows down.

     In things of this sort, much must be made sure
     Ere thou account of the thing itself canst give,
     And the approaches roundabout must be;
     Wherefore the more do I exact of thee
     A mind and ears attent.

                            First, from all things
     We see soever, evermore must flow,
     Must be discharged and strewn about, about,
     Bodies that strike the eyes, awaking sight.
     From certain things flow odours evermore,
     As cold from rivers, heat from sun, and spray
     From waves of ocean, eater-out of walls
     Along the coasts. Nor ever cease to seep
     The varied echoings athrough the air.
     Then, too, there comes into the mouth at times
     The wet of a salt taste, when by the sea
     We roam about; and so, whene'er we watch
     The wormwood being mixed, its bitter stings.
     To such degree from all things is each thing
     Borne streamingly along, and sent about
     To every region round; and nature grants
     Nor rest nor respite of the onward flow,
     Since 'tis incessantly we feeling have,
     And all the time are suffered to descry
     And smell all things at hand, and hear them sound.

     Now will I seek again to bring to mind
     How porous a body all things have—a fact
     Made manifest in my first canto, too.
     For, truly, though to know this doth import
     For many things, yet for this very thing
     On which straightway I'm going to discourse,
     'Tis needful most of all to make it sure
     That naught's at hand but body mixed with void.
     A first ensample: in grottos, rocks o'erhead
     Sweat moisture and distil the oozy drops;
     Likewise, from all our body seeps the sweat;
     There grows the beard, and along our members all
     And along our frame the hairs. Through all our veins
     Disseminates the foods, and gives increase
     And aliment down to the extreme parts,
     Even to the tiniest finger-nails. Likewise,
     Through solid bronze the cold and fiery heat
     We feel to pass; likewise, we feel them pass
     Through gold, through silver, when we clasp in hand
     The brimming goblets. And, again, there flit
     Voices through houses' hedging walls of stone;
     Odour seeps through, and cold, and heat of fire
     That's wont to penetrate even strength of iron.
     Again, where corselet of the sky girds round

     And at same time, some Influence of bane,
     When from Beyond 'thas stolen into [our world].
     And tempests, gathering from the earth and sky,
     Back to the sky and earth absorbed retire—
     With reason, since there's naught that's fashioned not
     With body porous.

                      Furthermore, not all
     The particles which be from things thrown off
     Are furnished with same qualities for sense,
     Nor be for all things equally adapt.
     A first ensample: the sun doth bake and parch
     The earth; but ice he thaws, and with his beams
     Compels the lofty snows, up-reared white
     Upon the lofty hills, to waste away;
     Then, wax, if set beneath the heat of him,
     Melts to a liquid. And the fire, likewise,
     Will melt the copper and will fuse the gold,
     But hides and flesh it shrivels up and shrinks.
     The water hardens the iron just off the fire,
     But hides and flesh (made hard by heat) it softens.
     The oleaster-tree as much delights
     The bearded she-goats, verily as though
     'Twere nectar-steeped and shed ambrosia;
     Than which is naught that burgeons into leaf
     More bitter food for man. A hog draws back
     For marjoram oil, and every unguent fears
     Fierce poison these unto the bristled hogs,
     Yet unto us from time to time they seem,
     As 'twere, to give new life. But, contrariwise,
     Though unto us the mire be filth most foul,
     To hogs that mire doth so delightsome seem
     That they with wallowing from belly to back
     Are never cloyed.

                      A point remains, besides,
     Which best it seems to tell of, ere I go
     To telling of the fact at hand itself.
     Since to the varied things assigned be
     The many pores, those pores must be diverse
     In nature one from other, and each have
     Its very shape, its own direction fixed.
     And so, indeed, in breathing creatures be
     The several senses, of which each takes in
     Unto itself, in its own fashion ever,
     Its own peculiar object. For we mark
     How sounds do into one place penetrate,
     Into another flavours of all juice,
     And savour of smell into a third. Moreover,
     One sort through rocks we see to seep, and, lo,
     One sort to pass through wood, another still
     Through gold, and others to go out and off
     Through silver and through glass. For we do see
     Through some pores form-and-look of things to flow,
     Through others heat to go, and some things still
     To speedier pass than others through same pores.
     Of verity, the nature of these same paths,
     Varying in many modes (as aforesaid)
     Because of unlike nature and warp and woof
     Of cosmic things, constrains it so to be.

     Wherefore, since all these matters now have been
     Established and settled well for us
     As premises prepared, for what remains
     'Twill not be hard to render clear account
     By means of these, and the whole cause reveal
     Whereby the magnet lures the strength of iron.
     First, stream there must from off the lode-stone seeds
     Innumerable, a very tide, which smites
     By blows that air asunder lying betwixt
     The stone and iron. And when is emptied out
     This space, and a large place between the two
     Is made a void, forthwith the primal germs
     Of iron, headlong slipping, fall conjoined
     Into the vacuum, and the ring itself
     By reason thereof doth follow after and go
     Thuswise with all its body. And naught there is
     That of its own primordial elements
     More thoroughly knit or tighter linked coheres
     Than nature and cold roughness of stout iron.
     Wherefore, 'tis less a marvel what I said,
     That from such elements no bodies can
     From out the iron collect in larger throng
     And be into the vacuum borne along,
     Without the ring itself do follow after.
     And this it does, and followeth on until
     'Thath reached the stone itself and cleaved to it
     By links invisible. Moreover, likewise,
     The motion's assisted by a thing of aid
     (Whereby the process easier becomes),—
     Namely, by this: as soon as rarer grows
     That air in front of the ring, and space between
     Is emptied more and made a void, forthwith
     It happens all the air that lies behind
     Conveys it onward, pushing from the rear.
     For ever doth the circumambient air
     Drub things unmoved, but here it pushes forth
     The iron, because upon one side the space
     Lies void and thus receives the iron in.
     This air, whereof I am reminding thee,
     Winding athrough the iron's abundant pores
     So subtly into the tiny parts thereof,
     Shoves it and pushes, as wind the ship and sails.
     The same doth happen in all directions forth:
     From whatso side a space is made a void,
     Whether from crosswise or above, forthwith
     The neighbour particles are borne along
     Into the vacuum; for of verity,
     They're set a-going by poundings from elsewhere,
     Nor by themselves of own accord can they
     Rise upwards into the air. Again, all things
     Must in their framework hold some air, because
     They are of framework porous, and the air
     Encompasses and borders on all things.
     Thus, then, this air in iron so deeply stored
     Is tossed evermore in vexed motion,
     And therefore drubs upon the ring sans doubt
     And shakes it up inside....

     In sooth, that ring is thither borne along
     To where 'thas once plunged headlong—thither, lo,
     Unto the void whereto it took its start.

     It happens, too, at times that nature of iron
     Shrinks from this stone away, accustomed
     By turns to flee and follow. Yea, I've seen
     Those Samothracian iron rings leap up,
     And iron filings in the brazen bowls
     Seethe furiously, when underneath was set
     The magnet stone. So strongly iron seems
     To crave to flee that rock. Such discord great
     Is gendered by the interposed brass,
     Because, forsooth, when first the tide of brass
     Hath seized upon and held possession of
     The iron's open passage-ways, thereafter
     Cometh the tide of the stone, and in that iron
     Findeth all spaces full, nor now hath holes
     To swim through, as before. 'Tis thus constrained
     With its own current 'gainst the iron's fabric
     To dash and beat; by means whereof it spues
     Forth from itself—and through the brass stirs up—
     The things which otherwise without the brass
     It sucks into itself. In these affairs
     Marvel thou not that from this stone the tide
     Prevails not likewise other things to move
     With its own blows: for some stand firm by weight,
     As gold; and some cannot be moved forever,
     Because so porous in their framework they
     That there the tide streams through without a break,
     Of which sort stuff of wood is seen to be.
     Therefore, when iron (which lies between the two)
     Hath taken in some atoms of the brass,
     Then do the streams of that Magnesian rock
     Move iron by their smitings.

                                 Yet these things
     Are not so alien from others, that I
     Of this same sort am ill prepared to name
     Ensamples still of things exclusively
     To one another adapt. Thou seest, first,
     How lime alone cementeth stones: how wood
     Only by glue-of-bull with wood is joined—
     So firmly too that oftener the boards
     Crack open along the weakness of the grain
     Ere ever those taurine bonds will lax their hold.
     The vine-born juices with the water-springs
     Are bold to mix, though not the heavy pitch
     With the light oil-of-olive. And purple dye
     Of shell-fish so uniteth with the wool's
     Body alone that it cannot be ta'en
     Away forever—nay, though thou gavest toil
     To restore the same with the Neptunian flood,
     Nay, though all ocean willed to wash it out
     With all its waves. Again, gold unto gold
     Doth not one substance bind, and only one?
     And is not brass by tin joined unto brass?
     And other ensamples how many might one find!
     What then? Nor is there unto thee a need
     Of such long ways and roundabout, nor boots it
     For me much toil on this to spend. More fit
     It is in few words briefly to embrace
     Things many: things whose textures fall together
     So mutually adapt, that cavities
     To solids correspond, these cavities
     Of this thing to the solid parts of that,
     And those of that to solid parts of this—
     Such joinings are the best. Again, some things
     Can be the one with other coupled and held,
     Linked by hooks and eyes, as 'twere; and this
     Seems more the fact with iron and this stone.
     Now, of diseases what the law, and whence
     The Influence of bane upgathering can
     Upon the race of man and herds of cattle
     Kindle a devastation fraught with death,
     I will unfold. And, first, I've taught above
     That seeds there be of many things to us
     Life-giving, and that, contrariwise, there must
     Fly many round bringing disease and death.
     When these have, haply, chanced to collect
     And to derange the atmosphere of earth,
     The air becometh baneful. And, lo, all
     That Influence of bane, that pestilence,
     Or from Beyond down through our atmosphere,
     Like clouds and mists, descends, or else collects
     From earth herself and rises, when, a-soak
     And beat by rains unseasonable and suns,
     Our earth hath then contracted stench and rot.
     Seest thou not, also, that whoso arrive
     In region far from fatherland and home
     Are by the strangeness of the clime and waters
     Distempered?—since conditions vary much.
     For in what else may we suppose the clime
     Among the Britons to differ from Aegypt's own
     (Where totters awry the axis of the world),
     Or in what else to differ Pontic clime
     From Gades' and from climes adown the south,
     On to black generations of strong men
     With sun-baked skins? Even as we thus do see
     Four climes diverse under the four main-winds
     And under the four main-regions of the sky,
     So, too, are seen the colour and face of men
     Vastly to disagree, and fixed diseases
     To seize the generations, kind by kind:
     There is the elephant-disease which down
     In midmost Aegypt, hard by streams of Nile,
     Engendered is—and never otherwhere.
     In Attica the feet are oft attacked,
     And in Achaean lands the eyes. And so
     The divers spots to divers parts and limbs
     Are noxious; 'tis a variable air
     That causes this. Thus when an atmosphere,
     Alien by chance to us, begins to heave,
     And noxious airs begin to crawl along,
     They creep and wind like unto mist and cloud,
     Slowly, and everything upon their way
     They disarrange and force to change its state.
     It happens, too, that when they've come at last
     Into this atmosphere of ours, they taint
     And make it like themselves and alien.
     Therefore, asudden this devastation strange,
     This pestilence, upon the waters falls,
     Or settles on the very crops of grain
     Or other meat of men and feed of flocks.
     Or it remains a subtle force, suspense
     In the atmosphere itself; and when therefrom
     We draw our inhalations of mixed air,
     Into our body equally its bane
     Also we must suck in. In manner like,
     Oft comes the pestilence upon the kine,
     And sickness, too, upon the sluggish sheep.
     Nor aught it matters whether journey we
     To regions adverse to ourselves and change
     The atmospheric cloak, or whether nature
     Herself import a tainted atmosphere
     To us or something strange to our own use
     Which can attack us soon as ever it come.

     'Twas such a manner of disease, 'twas such
     Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands
     Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones,
     Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens
     The Athenian town. For coming from afar,
     Rising in lands of Aegypt, traversing
     Reaches of air and floating fields of foam,
     At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped;
     Whereat by troops unto disease and death
     Were they o'er-given. At first, they'd bear about
     A skull on fire with heat, and eyeballs twain
     Red with suffusion of blank glare. Their throats,
     Black on the inside, sweated oozy blood;
     And the walled pathway of the voice of man
     Was clogged with ulcers; and the very tongue,
     The mind's interpreter, would trickle gore,
     Weakened by torments, tardy, rough to touch.
     Next when that Influence of bane had chocked,
     Down through the throat, the breast, and streamed had
     E'en into sullen heart of those sick folk,
     Then, verily, all the fences of man's life
     Began to topple. From the mouth the breath
     Would roll a noisome stink, as stink to heaven
     Rotting cadavers flung unburied out.
     And, lo, thereafter, all the body's strength
     And every power of mind would languish, now
     In very doorway of destruction.
     And anxious anguish and ululation (mixed
     With many a groan) companioned alway
     The intolerable torments. Night and day,
     Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack
     Alway their thews and members, breaking down
     With sheer exhaustion men already spent.
     And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark
     The skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow,
     But rather the body unto touch of hands
     Would offer a warmish feeling, and thereby
     Show red all over, with ulcers, so to say,
     Inbranded, like the "sacred fires" o'erspread
     Along the members. The inward parts of men,
     In truth, would blaze unto the very bones;
     A flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze
     Within the stomach. Nor couldst aught apply
     Unto their members light enough and thin
     For shift of aid—but coolness and a breeze
     Ever and ever. Some would plunge those limbs
     On fire with bane into the icy streams,
     Hurling the body naked into the waves;
     Many would headlong fling them deeply down
     The water-pits, tumbling with eager mouth
     Already agape. The insatiable thirst
     That whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make
     A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops.
     Respite of torment was there none. Their frames
     Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear
     Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw
     So many a time men roll their eyeballs round,
     Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep,
     The heralds of old death. And in those months
     Was given many another sign of death:
     The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread
     Deranged, the sad brow, the countenance
     Fierce and delirious, the tormented ears
     Beset with ringings, the breath quick and short
     Or huge and intermittent, soaking sweat
     A-glisten on neck, the spittle in fine gouts
     Tainted with colour of crocus and so salt,
     The cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat.
     Aye, and the sinews in the fingered hands
     Were sure to contract, and sure the jointed frame
     To shiver, and up from feet the cold to mount
     Inch after inch: and toward the supreme hour
     At last the pinched nostrils, nose's tip
     A very point, eyes sunken, temples hollow,
     Skin cold and hard, the shuddering grimace,
     The pulled and puffy flesh above the brows!—
     O not long after would their frames lie prone
     In rigid death. And by about the eighth
     Resplendent light of sun, or at the most
     On the ninth flaming of his flambeau, they
     Would render up the life. If any then
     Had 'scaped the doom of that destruction, yet
     Him there awaited in the after days
     A wasting and a death from ulcers vile
     And black discharges of the belly, or else
     Through the clogged nostrils would there ooze along
     Much fouled blood, oft with an aching head:
     Hither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh.
     And whoso had survived that virulent flow
     Of the vile blood, yet into thews of him
     And into his joints and very genitals
     Would pass the old disease. And some there were,
     Dreading the doorways of destruction
     So much, lived on, deprived by the knife
     Of the male member; not a few, though lopped
     Of hands and feet, would yet persist in life,
     And some there were who lost their eyeballs: O
     So fierce a fear of death had fallen on them!
     And some, besides, were by oblivion
     Of all things seized, that even themselves they knew
     No longer. And though corpse on corpse lay piled
     Unburied on ground, the race of birds and beasts
     Would or spring back, scurrying to escape
     The virulent stench, or, if they'd tasted there,
     Would languish in approaching death. But yet
     Hardly at all during those many suns
     Appeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth
     The sullen generations of wild beasts—
     They languished with disease and died and died.
     In chief, the faithful dogs, in all the streets
     Outstretched, would yield their breath distressfully
     For so that Influence of bane would twist
     Life from their members. Nor was found one sure
     And universal principle of cure:
     For what to one had given the power to take
     The vital winds of air into his mouth,
     And to gaze upward at the vaults of sky,
     The same to others was their death and doom.

     In those affairs, O awfullest of all,
     O pitiable most was this, was this:
     Whoso once saw himself in that disease
     Entangled, ay, as damned unto death,
     Would lie in wanhope, with a sullen heart,
     Would, in fore-vision of his funeral,
     Give up the ghost, O then and there. For, lo,
     At no time did they cease one from another
     To catch contagion of the greedy plague,—
     As though but woolly flocks and horned herds;
     And this in chief would heap the dead on dead:
     For who forbore to look to their own sick,
     O these (too eager of life, of death afeard)
     Would then, soon after, slaughtering Neglect
     Visit with vengeance of evil death and base—
     Themselves deserted and forlorn of help.
     But who had stayed at hand would perish there
     By that contagion and the toil which then
     A sense of honour and the pleading voice
     Of weary watchers, mixed with voice of wail
     Of dying folk, forced them to undergo.
     This kind of death each nobler soul would meet.
     The funerals, uncompanioned, forsaken,
     Like rivals contended to be hurried through.

     And men contending to ensepulchre
     Pile upon pile the throng of their own dead:
     And weary with woe and weeping wandered home;
     And then the most would take to bed from grief.
     Nor could be found not one, whom nor disease
     Nor death, nor woe had not in those dread times
     Attacked.

     By now the shepherds and neatherds all,
     Yea, even the sturdy guiders of curved ploughs,
     Began to sicken, and their bodies would lie
     Huddled within back-corners of their huts,
     Delivered by squalor and disease to death.
     O often and often couldst thou then have seen
     On lifeless children lifeless parents prone,
     Or offspring on their fathers', mothers' corpse
     Yielding the life. And into the city poured
     O not in least part from the countryside
     That tribulation, which the peasantry
     Sick, sick, brought thither, thronging from every quarter,
     Plague-stricken mob. All places would they crowd,
     All buildings too; whereby the more would death
     Up-pile a-heap the folk so crammed in town.
     Ah, many a body thirst had dragged and rolled
     Along the highways there was lying strewn
     Besides Silenus-headed water-fountains,—
     The life-breath choked from that too dear desire
     Of pleasant waters. Ah, everywhere along
     The open places of the populace,
     And along the highways, O thou mightest see
     Of many a half-dead body the sagged limbs,
     Rough with squalor, wrapped around with rags,
     Perish from very nastiness, with naught
     But skin upon the bones, well-nigh already
     Buried—in ulcers vile and obscene filth.
     All holy temples, too, of deities
     Had Death becrammed with the carcasses;
     And stood each fane of the Celestial Ones
     Laden with stark cadavers everywhere—
     Places which warders of the shrines had crowded
     With many a guest. For now no longer men
     Did mightily esteem the old Divine,
     The worship of the gods: the woe at hand
     Did over-master. Nor in the city then
     Remained those rites of sepulture, with which
     That pious folk had evermore been wont
     To buried be. For it was wildered all
     In wild alarms, and each and every one
     With sullen sorrow would bury his own dead,
     As present shift allowed. And sudden stress
     And poverty to many an awful act
     Impelled; and with a monstrous screaming they
     Would, on the frames of alien funeral pyres,
     Place their own kin, and thrust the torch beneath
     Oft brawling with much bloodshed round about
     Rather than quit dead bodies loved in life.