Book Vi - Part 04 - The Plague Athens Poem Rhyme Scheme

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'Twas such a manner of disease 'twas such	A
Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands	B
Whilom reduced the plains to dead men's bones	C
Unpeopled the highways drained of citizens	D
The Athenian town For coming from afar	E
Rising in lands of Aegypt traversing	F
Reaches of air and floating fields of foam	G
At last on all Pandion's folk it swooped	H
Whereat by troops unto disease and death	I
Were they o'er given At first they'd bear about	J
A skull on fire with heat and eyeballs twain	K
Red with suffusion of blank glare Their throats	L
Black on the inside sweated oozy blood	M
And the walled pathway of the voice of man	N
Was clogged with ulcers and the very tongue	O
The mind's interpreter would trickle gore	P
Weakened by torments tardy rough to touch	A
Next when that Influence of bane had chocked	M
Down through the throat the breast and streamed had	M
E'en into sullen heart of those sick folk	Q
Then verily all the fences of man's life	R
Began to topple From the mouth the breath	I
Would roll a noisome stink as stink to heaven	S
Rotting cadavers flung unburied out	M
And lo thereafter all the body's strength	T
And every power of mind would languish now	U
In very doorway of destruction	S
And anxious anguish and ululation mixed	M
With many a groan companioned alway	V
The intolerable torments Night and day	M
Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack	W
Alway their thews and members breaking down	X
With sheer exhaustion men already spent	M
And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark	Y
The skin with o'er much heat to burn aglow	Z
But rather the body unto touch of hands	B
Would offer a warmish feeling and thereby	A2
Show red all over with ulcers so to say	M
Inbranded like the sacred fires o'erspread	M
Along the members The inward parts of men	B2
In truth would blaze unto the very bones	C
A flame like flame in furnaces would blaze	C2
Within the stomach Nor couldst aught apply	A2
Unto their members light enough and thin	D2
For shift of aid but coolness and a breeze	E2
Ever and ever Some would plunge those limbs	F2
On fire with bane into the icy streams	G2
Hurling the body naked into the waves	H2
Many would headlong fling them deeply down	X
The water pits tumbling with eager mouth	I2
Already agape The insatiable thirst	M
That whelmed their parched bodies lo would make	J2
A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops	K2
Respite of torment was there none Their frames	L2
Forspent lay prone With silent lips of fear	M2
Would Medicine mumble low the while she saw	N2
So many a time men roll their eyeballs round	M
Staring wide open unvisited of sleep	O2
The heralds of old death And in those months	P2
Was given many another sign of death	I
The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread	M
Deranged the sad brow the countenance	Q2
Fierce and delirious the tormented ears	R2
Beset with ringings the breath quick and short	M
Or huge and intermittent soaking sweat	M
A glisten on neck the spittle in fine gouts	R2
Tainted with colour of crocus and so salt	M
The cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat	M
Aye and the sinews in the fingered hands	R2
Were sure to contract and sure the jointed frame	S2
To shiver and up from feet the cold to mount	M
Inch after inch and toward the supreme hour	T2
At last the pinched nostrils nose's tip	U2
A very point eyes sunken temples hollow	Z
Skin cold and hard the shuddering grimace	R2
The pulled and puffy flesh above the brows	R2
O not long after would their frames lie prone	V2
In rigid death And by about the eighth	W2
Resplendent light of sun or at the most	M
On the ninth flaming of his flambeau they	M
Would render up the life If any then	B2
Had 'scaped the doom of that destruction yet	M
Him there awaited in the after days	R2
A wasting and a death from ulcers vile	X2
And black discharges of the belly or else	R2
Through the clogged nostrils would there ooze along	Y2
Much fouled blood oft with an aching head	M
Hither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh	Z2
And whoso had survived that virulent flow	Z
Of the vile blood yet into thews of him	A3
And into his joints and very genitals	R2
Would pass the old disease And some there were	T2
Dreading the doorways of destruction	S
So much lived on deprived by the knife	R
Of the male member not a few though lopped	M
Of hands and feet would yet persist in life	R
And some there were who lost their eyeballs O	Z
So fierce a fear of death had fallen on them	B3
And some besides were by oblivion	S
Of all things seized that even themselves they knew	C3
No longer And though corpse on corpse lay piled	M
Unburied on ground the race of birds and beasts	R2
Would or spring back scurrying to escape	D3
The virulent stench or if they'd tasted there	E3
Would languish in approaching death But yet	M
Hardly at all during those many suns	R2
Appeared a fowl nor from the woods went forth	F3
The sullen generations of wild beasts	R2
They languished with disease and died and died	M
In chief the faithful dogs in all the streets	R2
Outstretched would yield their breath distressfully	Z
For so that Influence of bane would twist	M
Life from their members Nor was found one sure	G3
And universal principle of cure	G3
For what to one had given the power to take	J2
The vital winds of air into his mouth	I2
And to gaze upward at the vaults of sky	A2
The same to others was their death and doom	H3
In those affairs O awfullest of all	Z
O pitiable most was this was this	R2
Whoso once saw himself in that disease	R2
Entangled ay as damned unto death	I
Would lie in wanhope with a sullen heart	M
Would in fore vision of his funeral	Z
Give up the ghost O then and there For lo	Z
At no time did they cease one from another	T2
To catch contagion of the greedy plague	I3
As though but woolly flocks and horned herds	R2
And this in chief would heap the dead on dead	M
For who forbore to look to their own sick	J3
O these too eager of life of death afeard	M
Would then soon after slaughtering Neglect	M
Visit with vengeance of evil death and base	R2
Themselves deserted and forlorn of help	K3
But who had stayed at hand would perish there	E3
By that contagion and the toil which then	B2
A sense of honour and the pleading voice	R2
Of weary watchers mixed with voice of wail	Z
Of dying folk forced them to undergo	Z
This kind of death each nobler soul would meet	M
The funerals uncompanioned forsaken	S
Like rivals contended to be hurried through	C3
	L3
And men contending to ensepulchre	C3
Pile upon pile the throng of their own dead	M
And weary with woe and weeping wandered home	G
And then the most would take to bed from grief	M3
Nor could be found not one whom nor disease	R2
Nor death nor woe had not in those dread times	R2
Attacked	M
By now the shepherds and neatherds all	Z
Yea even the sturdy guiders of curved ploughs	R2
Began to sicken and their bodies would lie	A2
Huddled within back corners of their huts	R2
Delivered by squalor and disease to death	I
O often and often couldst thou then have seen	N3
On lifeless children lifeless parents prone	V2
Or offspring on their fathers' mothers' corpse	R2
Yielding the life And into the city poured	M
O not in least part from the countryside	M
That tribulation which the peasantry	C3
Sick sick brought thither thronging from every quarter	C3
Plague stricken mob All places would they crowd	M
All buildings too whereby the more would death	I
Up pile a heap the folk so crammed in town	X
Ah many a body thirst had dragged and rolled	M
Along the highways there was lying strewn	O3
Besides Silenus headed water fountains	R2
The life breath choked from that too dear desire	C3
Of pleasant waters Ah everywhere along	Y2
The open places of the populace	R2
And along the highways O thou mightest see	C3
Of many a half dead body the sagged limbs	R2
Rough with squalor wrapped around with rags	R2
Perish from very nastiness with naught	M
But skin upon the bones well nigh already	C3
Buried in ulcers vile and obscene filth	P3
All holy temples too of deities	R2
Had Death becrammed with the carcasses	R2
And stood each fane of the Celestial Ones	R2
Laden with stark cadavers everywhere	C3
Places which warders of the shrines had crowded	M
With many a guest For now no longer men	B2
Did mightily esteem the old Divine	Q3
The worship of the gods the woe at hand	M
Did over master Nor	C3

Lucretius

Book Vi - Part 04 - The Plague Athens Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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