Postquam congressus primi sua verba tulerunt,
Cecropidae Cephalus peragit mandata rogatque
auxilium foedusque refert et iura parentum,
imperiumque peti totius Achaidos addit.
sic ubi mandatam iuvit facundia causam, 505
Aeacus, in capulo sceptri nitente sinistra,
‘ne petite auxilium, sed sumite’ dixit, ‘Athenae,
nec dubie vires, quas haec habet insula, vestras
ducite, et (o maneat rerum status iste mearum!)
robora non desunt; superat mihi miles et hoc est, 510
gratia dis, felix et inexcusabile tempus.’
‘immo ita sit’ Cephalus, ‘crescat tua civibus opto
urbs’ ait; ‘adveniens equidem modo gaudia cepi,
cum tam pulchra mihi, tam par aetate iuventus
obvia processit; multos tamen inde requiro, 515
quos quondam vidi vestra prius urbe receptus.’
Aeacus ingemuit tristique ita voce locutus:
‘flebile principium melior fortuna secuta est;
hanc utinam possem vobis memorare sine illo!
ordine nunc repetam, neu longa ambage morer vos, 520
ossa cinisque iacent, memori quos mente requiris,
et quota pars illi rerum periere mearum!
dira lues ira populis Iunonis iniquae
incidit exosae dictas a paelice terras.
dum visum mortale malum tantaeque latebat 525
causa nocens cladis, pugnatum est arte medendi:
exitium superabat opem, quae victa iacebat.
principio caelum spissa caligine terras
pressit et ignavos inclusit nubibus aestus;
dumque quater iunctis explevit cornibus orbem 530
Luna, quater plenum tenuata retexuit orbem,
letiferis calidi spirarunt aestibus austri.
constat et in fontis vitium venisse lacusque,
miliaque incultos serpentum multa per agros
errasse atque suis fluvios temerasse venenis. 535
strage canum primo volucrumque oviumque boumque
inque feris subiti deprensa potentia morbi.
concidere infelix validos miratur arator
inter opus tauros medioque recumbere sulco;
lanigeris gregibus balatus dantibus aegros 540
sponte sua lanaeque cadunt et corpora tabent;
acer equus quondam magnaeque in pulvere famae
degenerat palmas veterumque oblitus honorum
ad praesepe gemit leto moriturus inerti.
non aper irasci meminit, non fidere cursu 545
cerva nec armentis incurrere fortibus ursi.
omnia languor habet: silvisque agrisque viisque
corpora foeda iacent, vitiantur odoribus aurae.
mira loquar: non illa canes avidaeque volucres,
non cani tetigere lupi; dilapsa liquescunt 550
adflatuque nocent et agunt contagia late.
‘Pervenit ad miseros damno graviore colonos
pestis et in magnae dominatur moenibus urbis.
viscera torrentur primo, flammaeque latentis
indicium rubor est et ductus anhelitus; igni 555
aspera lingua tumet, tepidisque arentia ventis
ora patent, auraeque graves captantur hiatu.
non stratum, non ulla pati velamina possunt,
nuda sed in terra ponunt praecordia, nec fit
corpus humo gelidum, sed humus de corpore fervet. 560
nec moderator adest, inque ipsos saeva medentes
erumpit clades, obsuntque auctoribus artes;
quo propior quisque est servitque fidelius aegro,
in partem leti citius venit, utque salutis
spes abiit finemque vident in funere morbi, 565
indulgent animis et nulla, quid utile, cura est:
utile enim nihil est. passim positoque pudore
fontibus et fluviis puteisque capacibus haerent,
nec sitis est exstincta prius quam vita bibendo.
inde graves multi nequeunt consurgere et ipsis 570
inmoriuntur aquis, aliquis tamen haurit et illas;
tantaque sunt miseris invisi taedia lecti,
prosiliunt aut, si prohibent consistere vires,
corpora devolvunt in humum fugiuntque penates
quisque suos, sua cuique domus funesta videtur, 575
et quia causa latet, locus est in crimine; partim
semianimes errare viis, dum stare valebant,
adspiceres, flentes alios terraque iacentes
lassaque versantes supremo lumina motu;
membraque pendentis tendunt ad sidera caeli, 580
hic illic, ubi mors deprenderat, exhalantes.
‘Quid mihi tunc animi fuit? an, quod debuit esse,
ut vitam odissem et cuperem pars esse meorum?
quo se cumque acies oculorum flexerat, illic
vulgus erat stratum, veluti cum putria motis 585
poma cadunt ramis agitataque ilice glandes.
templa vides contra gradibus sublimia longis:
Iuppiter illa tenet. quis non altaribus illis
inrita tura dedit? quotiens pro coniuge coniunx,
pro gnato genitor dum verba precantia dicit, 590
non exoratis animam finivit in aris,
inque manu turis pars inconsumpta reperta est!
admoti quotiens templis, dum vota sacerdos
concipit et fundit durum inter cornua vinum,
haud exspectato ceciderunt vulnere tauri! 595
ipse ego sacra Iovi pro me patriaque tribusque
cum facerem natis, mugitus victima diros
edidit et subito conlapsa sine ictibus ullis
exiguo tinxit subiectos sanguine cultros.
exta quoque aegra notas veri monitusque deorum 600
perdiderant: tristes penetrant ad viscera morbi.
ante sacros vidi proiecta cadavera postes,
ante ipsas, quo mors foret invidiosior, aras.
pars animam laqueo claudunt mortisque timorem
morte fugant ultroque vocant venientia fata. 605
corpora missa neci nullis de more feruntur
funeribus (neque enim capiebant funera portae):
aut inhumata premunt terras aut dantur in altos
indotata rogos; et iam reverentia nulla est,
deque rogis pugnant alienisque ignibus ardent. 610
qui lacriment, desunt, indefletaeque vagantur
natorumque patrumque animae iuvenumque senumque,
nec locus in tumulos, nec sufficit arbor in ignes.
Attonitus tanto miserarum turbine rerum,
“Iuppiter o!” dixi, “si te non falsa loquuntur 615
dicta sub amplexus Aeginae Asopidos isse,
nec te, magne pater, nostri pudet esse parentem,
aut mihi redde meos aut me quoque conde sepulcro!”
ille notam fulgore dedit tonitruque secundo.
“accipio sintque ista precor felicia mentis 620
signa tuae!” dixi, “quod das mihi, pigneror omen.”
forte fuit iuxta patulis rarissima ramis
sacra Iovi quercus de semine Dodonaeo;
hic nos frugilegas adspeximus agmine longo
grande onus exiguo formicas ore gerentes 625
rugosoque suum servantes cortice callem;
After they had exchanged greetings, Cephalus delivered the message of the Athenians, asking for aid and quoting the ancestral league and treaty between their two nations. He added that not alone Athens but the sovereignty over all Greece was Minos’ aim. When thus his eloquence had commended his cause, Aeacus, his left hand resting on the sceptre’s hilt, exclaimed: “Ask not our aid, but take it, Athens; and boldly count your own the forces which this island holds, and all things which the state of my affairs supplies. Warlike strength is not lacking; I have soldiers enough for myself and for my enemy. Thanks to the gods, the times are happy, and without excuse for my refusal.” “May it prove even so,” said Cephalus, “and may your city multiply in men. In truth, as I came hither, I was rejoiced to meet youth so fair, so matched in age. And yet I miss many among them whom I saw before when last I visited your city.” Aeacus groaned and with sad voice thus replied: “It was an unhappy beginning, but better fortuned followed. Would that I could tell you the last without the first! Now I will take each in turn; and, not to delay you with long circumlocution, they are but bones and dust whom with kindly interest you ask for. And oh, how large a part of all my kingdom perished with them! A dire pestilence came on my people through angry Juno’s wrath, who hated us for that our land was called by her rival’s name. So long as the scourge seemed of mortal origin and the cause of the terrible plague was still unknown, we fought against it with the physician’s art. But the power of destruction exceeded our resources, which were completely baffled. At first heaven rested down upon the earth in thick blackness, and held the sluggish heat confined in the clouds. And while the moon four times waxed to a full orb with horns complete, and four times waned from that full orb, hot south winds blew on us with pestilential breath. Consistently with this, the baleful infection reached our springs and pools; thousands of serpents crawled over our deserted fields and defiled our rivers with their poison. At first the swift power of the disease was confined to the destruction of dogs and birds, sheep and cattle, or among the wild beasts. The luckless plowman marvels to see his strong bulls fall in the midst of their task and sink down in the furrow. The woolly flocks bleat feebly while their wool falls off of itself and their bodies pine away. The horse, once of high courage and of great renown on the race-course, has now lost his victorious spirit and, forgetting his former glory, groans in his stall, doomed to an inglorious death. The boar forgets his rage, the hind to trust his fleetness, the bears to attack the stronger herds. Lethargy holds all. In woods and fields and roads foul carcasses lie; and the air is defiled by the stench. And, strange to say, neither dogs nor ravenous birds nor grey wolves did touch them. The bodies lie rotting on the ground, blast with their stench, and spread the contagion far and near.
“At last, now grown stronger, the pestilence attacks the wretched countrymen, and lords it within the great city’s walls. As the first symptoms, the vitals are burnt up, and a sign of the lurking fire is a red flush and panting, feverish breath. The tongue is rough and swollen with fever; the lips stand apart, parched with hot respiration, and catch gasping at the heavy air. The stricken can endure no bed, no covering of any kind, but throw themselves face down on the hard ground; but their bodies gain no coolness from the ground; rather is the ground heated by their bodies. No one can control the pest, but it fiercely breaks out upon the very physicians, and their arts do but injure those who use them. The nearer one is to the sick and the more faithfully he serves them, the more quickly is he himself stricken unto death. And as the hope of life deserts them and they see the end of their malady only in death, they indulge their desires, and they have no care for what is best—for nothing is best. Everywhere, shameless they lie, in fountain-basins, in streams and roomy wells; nor by drinking is their thirst quenched so long as life remains. Many of these are too weak to rise, and die in the very water; and yet others drink even that water. To many poor wretches so great is the irksomeness of their hateful beds that they jump out, or, if they have not strength enough to stand, they roll out on the ground. They flee from their own hames: for each man’s home seems a place of death to him. Since the cause of the disease is hidden, that small spot is held to blame. You might have seen them wandering half dead along the ways while they could keep on their feet, others lying on the ground and weeping bitterly, turning their dull eyes upward with a last weak effort, and stretching out their arms to the sky that hung over them like a pall—here, there, wherever death has caught them, breathing out their lives.
“What were my feelings then? Was it not natural that I should hate life and long to be with my friends? Wherever I turned my eyes there was a confused heap of dead, as mellow apples fall when the boughs are shaken, and acorns from the wind-tossed oak. You see a temple yonder, raised on high, approached by a long flight of steps. It is sacred to Jupiter. Who did not bear his fruitless offerings to those altars? How often a husband for his wife’s sake, a father for his son, while still uttering his prayer, has died before the implacable altars, and in his hand a portion of the incense was unused! How often the sacrificial bulls brought to the temples, while yet the priest was praying and pouring pure wine between their horns, have fallen without waiting for the stroke ! While I myself was sacrificing to Jove on my own behalf and for my country and my three sons, the victim uttered dreadful bellowings and, suddenly falling without any stroke of mine, it barely stained the knife with its scanty blood; the diseased entrails also had lost the marks of truth and the warnings of the gods: for to the very vitals does the grim pest go. Before the temple doors I saw the corpses cast away, nay, before the very altars, that their death might be even more odious. Some hung themselves, driving away the fear of death by death and going out to meet their approaching fate. The dead bodies were not borne out to burial in the accustomed way; for the gates would not accommodate so many funerals. They either lie on the ground unburied, or else they are piled high on funeral pyres without honours. And by this time there is no reverence for the dead; men fight for pyres, and with stolen flames they burn. There are none left to mourn the dead. Unwept they go wandering out, the souls of matrons and of brides, of men both young and old. There was no more space for graves, nor wood for fires.
“Dazed by such an overwhelming flood of woe, I cried to Jove: ‘O Jove, if it is not falsely said that thou didst love Aegina, daughter of Asps, and if thou, great father, art not ashamed to be our father, either, give me back my people or consign me also to the tomb.’ He gave a sign with lightning and a peal of thunder in assent. ‘I accept the sign,’ I said, ‘and may those tokens of thy mind towards us be happy signs. The omen which thou givest me I take as pledge.’ It chanced there was an oak near by with branches unusually widespread, sacred to Jove and of Dodona’s stock. Here we spied a swarm of grain-gathering ants in a long column, bearing heavy loads with their tiny mouths, and keeping their own path along the wrinkled bark.