Book Vi - Part 04 - The Plague Athens Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPAMMQ RISMTUSMVMWXMYZBA2MM B2CC2A2D2E2F2G2H2XI2 MJ2K2L2M2N2MO2P2IMQ2 R2MMR2MMR2S2MT2U2ZR2 R2V2W2MMB2MR2X2R2Y2M Z2ZA3R2T2SRMRZB3SC3M R2D3E3MR2F3R2MR2ZMG3 G3J2I2A2H3ZR2R2IMZZT 2I3R2MJ3MMR2K3E3B2R2 ZZMSC3L3C3MGM3R2R2MZ R2A2R2IN3V2R2MMC3C3M IXMO3R2C3Y2R2C3R2R2M C3P3R2R2R2C3MB2Q3MC3'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
(1)
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