第68章

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.