On the Nature of the Universe (Oxford World’s Classics) (56 page)

Bulls’ glue joins wood so fast that frequently

The grain of planks gapes with a natural fault

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Before the bonds of glue can loose their grip.

The juices of the vine will mix with water

When heavy pitch and light olive oil refuse.

The dye of the sea-purple from the shell

Combined with wool can never be parted from it,

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Not though with Neptune’s mighty flood you labour

To make it new, not though the whole wide sea

Should wish with all its waves to wash it out.

And gold to gold one thing alone can bond,

And bronze to bronze only by tin is joined.

How many things like this are to be found!

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But to what purpose? Ways so roundabout

You do not need, nor ways so long; nor I

Ought to spend so much labour on this point,

But briefly in few words sum up my theme:

When things have mutually opposing textures

So that the hollows in the one conform

To the projections of the other, and

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The converse too holds good, then union is most perfect.

And some things also may be held in union

Linked as it were by hooks and rings; and this

It rather seems is what occurs between iron and magnet.

Now I’ll explain the nature of diseases,

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And the source from which the power of pestilence

With sudden onset blasts a storm of death

Upon the race of men, and flocks and herds.

First, I have shown above that there are atoms

Of many things needful to support our life,

And, in contrast, many must fly around

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That bring disease and death. When these some chance

Has massed together, and the atmosphere

Has been disordered by them, the air becomes diseased.

And all this power of pestilence and plague

Either comes in from without, down from above,

Like clouds and mists, or often forms and springs

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From the earth itself, when damp has made it rot,

Struck by unseasonable rains and sun.

You can see also that unaccustomed climates

And waters make their mark on travellers

Far from home and country, because things are so different.

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How different the climate of the Britons

Must be from Egypt, where the world’s great pole

Leans sideways; and how different from Pontus

The clime must be of Cadiz, and right on

To lands where black men live, burnt black by sun!

And as we see four separate climes distinguished

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By the four winds and quarters of the heavens,

So do the colours and the looks of men

Differ most widely, and diseases fall

After their kind upon the varying nations.

There is the elephant disease which by the Nile

Is bred, in middle-Egypt and nowhere else.

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In Attica the feet are attacked, and in Achaea

The eyes. To other members other places

Are hostile, due to the variations of the air.

So when an atmosphere that’s alien to us

Comes on, and baleful air begins to creep,

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Like mist and cloud it spreads, wherever it goes

Carrying disorder and compelling change.

And when it reaches our region of the sky

It corrupts it, making it like itself, and hostile.

So therefore this new plague and pestilence

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Without warning either falls upon the waters

Or else remains suspended in the air,

And when the breath of air is mixed with it

We must likewise absorb it in our body.

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In similar manner the plague often comes

To cattle, and a murrain to bleating sheep.

Nor does it matter whether we travel abroad

To unhealthy places, changing the cloak of sky

That covers us, or whether Nature herself

Brings an infected atmosphere to us,

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Or something else to which we are unaccustomed,

Which by its newness has the power to attack.

In days of old such manner of disease

And tide of death fell on the realms of Cecrops,

Laid waste the fields, turned highways into deserts,

And drained the city of its citizens.

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Deep in the land of Egypt was its source,

And traversing a wide expanse of air

And swimming plains, it came at length to fall

And lie on all the people of Pandion.

And then in companies and in battalions

They made surrender to disease and death.

First were their heads inflamed with burning heat

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And the two eyes all glowing red and bloodshot.

Then throats turned black inside sweated with blood,

And swelling ulcers blocked the voice’s path,

And then the tongue, the mind’s interpreter,

Weakened by pain oozed blood, and scarce could move,

Lying heavy within the mouth and rough to touch.

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Next, when disease had passed down through the throat

And filled the chest, and poured its flood of ill

Right to the victim’s sorrowing heart, why then,

Then truly all the barriers of life

Collapsed. The breath rolled out a noisome stench

Like that of rotting corpses lying unburied;

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And all the power of mind and all the body

Began to faint, being on death’s very threshold.

Constant companion of these intolerable woes

Was torment of anxiety, and laments

Were mixed with groans as mind and body suffered.

And night and day incessant retching shook them

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Convulsing limbs and muscles, and exhausting

Bodies already wearied by disease.

You could not observe the surface of the body

To be burning with excessive heat, but rather

It gave a warm sensation to the hand,

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And at the same time all of it was red

With ulcers as if burnt into it, as when

The accursed fire spreads out across the limbs.

But in their inward parts men burnt to the bones;

A flame burnt in the stomach as in a furnace;

And there was nothing however light or thin

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That could help their bodies, but only wind and cold.

Some cast their burning limbs into cold streams,

Throwing their bodies naked into the water.

Many hurled themselves headlong into wells, their mouths

Gaping to reach the water as they fell.

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Dry thirst unquenchable, drenching their bodies,

Made streams of water no better than a trickle.

Nor was there any respite to their pain;

Their bodies lay exhausted; medicine

Muttered beside the bed in silent fear,

As all the while they rolled their staring eyes,

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Sleepless, and burning with the fell disease.

Then many signs of death began to appear.

A mind disquieted with fear and sorrow,

A gloomy brow, a furious frenzied face,

Ears troubled and full of noises, breath confused

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And either panting fast or deep and laboured.

The neck all sodden with a shining sweat;

A small thin spittle, yellowish and salt,

Drawn by hoarse coughing hardly through the throat.

Then hands began to twitch and limbs to tremble,

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And upwards from the feet by slow degrees

Cold crept on. Then at the final hour

Nostrils were pinched, the nose drawn to a point,

Eyes sunken, temples hollow, cold the skin

And hand, mouth grinning, forehead tensed.

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No long time after, limbs lay stiff in death.

On the eighth shining of the sun did most,

Or with the ninth day’s lamp, give up their lives.

If a man chanced to escape the ruin of death

Yet later from foul ulcers and black flux

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From the bowels, a lingering death awaited him.

Or else a copious stream of putrid blood

With violent headache flowed out through the nostrils,

And all his body’s strength flowed into it.

And if a man survived this savage flux

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Of noisome blood, yet into his limbs and sinews

And even the genital parts the plague went on.

Some in their grievous fear of death’s dark gates

Severed their manly parts to save their lives;