这是一种疾病，这是一种致命的瘴气在古希腊的土地上而罗姆把平原变成了死人的骨头，公路上无人居住，雅典的城镇里没有市民。因为它从远方来，在埃及的土地上升起，穿过空气和漂浮的泡沫，最后扑向潘底翁的所有人;他们被军队送去疾病和死亡。起初，他们听到的是一个被热得像着火一样的头骨，眼睛因充满茫然的眩光而发红。他们的喉咙里是黑色的，淌着渗出的血;人的声音的通道被溃疡堵塞了;就连心灵的翻译者——舌头，也会淌出血来，因为折磨而变得虚弱，迟钝，粗糙。接着，当毒药的影响窒息了，穿过喉咙，乳房，流进那些病人阴沉的心，然后，真的，人类生活的所有栅栏开始倒塌。从嘴里呼出的气会散发出一股刺鼻的臭味，就像臭气冲天一样。瞧，从此以后，身体的一切力量和精神的一切力量都将在毁灭的门口衰弱。 And anxious anguish and ululation (mixed With many a groan) companioned alway The intolerable torments. Night and day, Recurrent spasms of vomiting would rack Alway their thews and members, breaking down With sheer exhaustion men already spent. And yet on no one's body couldst thou mark The skin with o'er-much heat to burn aglow, But rather the body unto touch of hands Would offer a warmish feeling, and thereby Show red all over, with ulcers, so to say, Inbranded, like the "sacred fires" o'erspread Along the members. The inward parts of men, In truth, would blaze unto the very bones; A flame, like flame in furnaces, would blaze Within the stomach. Nor couldst aught apply Unto their members light enough and thin For shift of aid- but coolness and a breeze Ever and ever. Some would plunge those limbs On fire with bane into the icy streams, Hurling the body naked into the waves; Many would headlong fling them deeply down The water-pits, tumbling with eager mouth Already agape. The insatiable thirst That whelmed their parched bodies, lo, would make A goodly shower seem like to scanty drops. Respite of torment was there none. Their frames Forspent lay prone. With silent lips of fear Would Medicine mumble low, the while she saw So many a time men roll their eyeballs round, Staring wide-open, unvisited of sleep, The heralds of old death. And in those months Was given many another sign of death: The intellect of mind by sorrow and dread Deranged, the sad brow, the countenance Fierce and delirious, the tormented ears Beset with ringings, the breath quick and short Or huge and intermittent, soaking sweat A-glisten on neck, the spittle in fine gouts Tainted with colour of crocus and so salt, The cough scarce wheezing through the rattling throat. Aye, and the sinews in the fingered hands Were sure to contract, and sure the jointed frame To shiver, and up from feet the cold to mount Inch after inch: and toward the supreme hour At last the pinched nostrils, nose's tip A very point, eyes sunken, temples hollow, Skin cold and hard, the shuddering grimace, The pulled and puffy flesh above the brows!- O not long after would their frames lie prone In rigid death. And by about the eighth Resplendent light of sun, or at the most On the ninth flaming of his flambeau, they Would render up the life. If any then Had 'scaped the doom of that destruction, yet Him there awaited in the after days A wasting and a death from ulcers vile And black discharges of the belly, or else Through the clogged nostrils would there ooze along Much fouled blood, oft with an aching head: Hither would stream a man's whole strength and flesh. And whoso had survived that virulent flow Of the vile blood, yet into thews of him And into his joints and very genitals Would pass the old disease. And some there were, Dreading the doorways of destruction So much, lived on, deprived by the knife Of the male member; not a few, though lopped Of hands and feet, would yet persist in life, And some there were who lost their eyeballs: O So fierce a fear of death had fallen on them! And some, besides, were by oblivion Of all things seized, that even themselves they knew No longer. And though corpse on corpse lay piled Unburied on ground, the race of birds and beasts Would or spring back, scurrying to escape The virulent stench, or, if they'd tasted there, Would languish in approaching death. But yet Hardly at all during those many suns Appeared a fowl, nor from the woods went forth The sullen generations o