Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/103

ll. 432–488.] between the hoofs: as is the wonted manner of Bisaltae, or of the fierce Gelonian in retreat to Rhodope or Getan solitudes, whose drink is milk curdled with blood of mares. If from far thou seest one passing oftener into the languid shade, or more listlessly cropping the tops of grass and following behind the rest, or lying down in mid-pasture of the meadow and retiring alone before deepening night, straightway check the evil with thy knife ere the terrible infection spread through the heedless multitude. Not so heavy comes the rush of rain when a squall sweeps over the sea as diseases multiply in the flock: neither do ailments seize them singly, but whole summer-pastures at a stroke, the flock and the flock's hope together, and all the race root and branch; as any may know who sees even now so long afterward, by soaring Alps and Noric hill-forts and fields of Iapydian Timavus, the deserted pastoral realm and far-stretching lawns left desolate.

Here once the air sickened and a woful season came, that kindling with the gathered heat of autumn dealt death on all the tribes of cattle and wild beasts, and poisoned the rotting pools and putrid fodder. Nor was the march of death straightforward: but when fiery thirst coursing in all the veins had shrunk the aching limbs, again the watery humours flooded out and all the bones dissolving under the disease melted into them piecemeal. Often amid divine sacrifice the victim standing by the altar, while the snowy-ribboned fillet of wool was being twined about it, fell dying