Page:Eclogues and Georgics (Mackail 1910).djvu/104

96 among the tardy ministrants. Or had the priestly steel slain in time, no flame rises from those filaments when laid upon the altar, nor can the soothsayer return counsel or reply: hardly is the knife at the throat stained by the blood or the sand's surface darkened by the thin gore. Next calves lie dying all over the luxuriant grass, and yield up their sweet life by the full manger: next madness comes on the kindly dogs, and a hard rattling cough and choking swelling of the throat on the sickened swine. Joyless in his exercises and heedless of the grass the victor steed pines, and turns away from the fountain, and beats the earth with impatient foot: his ears droop, and by them sweat comes and goes, and that cold and betokening death: his skin is dry and hard when stroked, and resists the touch. Such are the signs that for the first days foreshadow the end; but as the sickness begins to advance and gather violence, then indeed their eyes burn and their breath is fetched deep, heavy with broken moans, their flanks below heave with long-drawn sobs, black blood oozes from their nostrils, and their throat is blocked by their rough and swollen tongue. It helped to thrust in a horn and pour down it juice of the winepress; that seemed the one restorative for the dying: in short space the very cure was fatal; reviving they maddened in fever, and even in mortal weakness (the gods send better things to the righteous and that bewilderment on our foes!) they tore and mangled their own limbs with naked teeth. And lo, smoking under the iron share the