Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/102

94 and the earth cracks in the blazing sun, he darts to dry land and rages over the fields, rolling his fiery eyes, exasperate in thirst and frantic with heat. May I not then be tempted to take soft sleep beneath the sky, or lie along the grass on the forest ridge, when fresh from his cast slough and glittering in youth he glides forth stately in the sunlight, leaving his young or his eggs at home, and his mouth flickers with triple-forked tongue.

Likewise will I instruct thee of diseases in their sources and signs. Rotting mange attacks sheep when icy rains and the hoar frost of rough midwinter sink deep in their live flesh, or when, after shearing, the sweat clots unwashed and tangled briars cut their body. Therefore the keepers bathe all the flock in fresh running water, and the ram is plunged in the pool and sent floating down stream with drenched fleece: or they smear the shorn bodies with bitter olive-lees, and mingle scum of silver and virgin sulphur, pitch of Ida and wax ointment, and squills and strong-smelling hellebore and black asphalt. Yet no device helps the trouble more, than when one can cut away the festering surface with steel; the sore is fed into life by concealment while the shepherd refuses to lay healing hands to the wound or sits idly praying to his gods for better fortune. Nay, and when raging pains run deep in the bleating people and parching fever preys on their limbs, it is found of service to allay the burning heat and strike a vein where it throbs with blood