Harvard Classics Volume 20. Golden Deer Classics

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СКАЧАТЬ be not apt to credit what I tell,

      No marvel; for myself do scarce allow

      The witness of mine eyes. But as I look’d

      Toward them, lo! a serpent with six feet

      Springs forth on one, and fastens full upon him:

      His midmost grasp’d the belly, a forefoot

      Seized on each arm (while deep in either cheek

      He flesh’d his fangs); the hinder on the thighs

      Were spread, ’twixt which the tail inserted curl’d

      Upon the reins behind. Ivy ne’er clasp’d

      A dodder’d oak, as round the other’s limbs

      The hideous monster intertwined his own.

      Then, as they both had been of burning wax,

      Each melted into other, mingling hues,

      That which was either now was seen no more.

      Thus up the shrinking paper, ere it burns,

      A brown tint glides, not turning yet to black,

      And the clean white expires. The other two

      Look’d on exclaiming, “Ah! how dost thou change,

      Agnello!^[169] See! Thou art nor double now,

      Nor only one.” The two heads now became

      One, and two figures blended in one form

      Appear’d, where both were lost. Of the four lengths

      Two arms were made: the belly and the chest,

      The thighs and legs, into such members changed

      As never eye hath seen. Of former shape

      All trace was vanish’d. Two, yet neither, seem’d

      That image miscreate, and so pass’d on

      With tardy steps. As underneath the scourge

      Of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields,

      Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems

      A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road;

      So toward the entrails of the other two

      Approaching seem’d an adder all on fire,

      As the dark pepper-grain livid and swart.

      In that part, whence our life is nourish’d first,

      Once he transpierced; then down before him fell

      Stretch’d out. The pierced spirit look’d on him,

      But spake not; yea, stood motionless and yawn’d,

      As if by sleep or feverous fit assail’d.

      He eyed the serpent, and the serpent him.

      One from the wound, the other from the mouth

      Breathed a thick smoke, whose vapory columns join’d.

      Lucan in mute attention now may hear,

      Nor thy disastrous fate, Sabellus, tell,

      Nor thine, Nasidius. Ovid now be mute.

      What if in warbling fiction he record

      Cadmus and Arethusa, to a snake

      Him changed, and her into a fountain clear,

      I envy not; for never face to face

      Two natures thus transmuted did he sing,

      Wherein both shapes were ready to assume

      The other’s substance. They in mutual guise

      So answer’d that the serpent split his train

      Divided to a fork, and the pierced spirit

      Drew close his steps together, legs and thighs

      Compacted, that no sign of juncture soon

      Was visible: the tail, disparted, took

      The figure which the spirit lost; its skin

      Softening, his indurated to a rind.

      The shoulders next I mark’d, that entering join’d

      The monster’s arm-pits, whose two shorter feet

      So lengthen’d, as the others dwindling shrunk.

      The feet behind then twisting up became

      That part that man conceals, which in the wretch

      Was cleft in twain. While both the shadowy smoke

      With a new color veils, and generates

      The excrescent pile on one, peeling it off

      From the other body, lo! upon his feet

      One upright rose, and prone the other fell.

      Nor yet their glaring and malignant lamps

      Were shifted, though each feature changed beneath.

      Of him who stood erect, the mounting face

      Retreated toward the temples, and what there

      Superfluous matter came, shot out in ears

      From the smooth cheeks; the rest, not backward dragg’d,

      Of its excess did shape the nose; and swell’d

      Into due size protuberant the lips.

      He, on the earth who lay, meanwhile extends

      His sharpen’d visage, and draws down the ears

      Into the head, as doth the slug his horns.

      His tongue, continuous before and apt

      For utterance, severs; and the other’s fork

      Closing unites. That done, the smoke was laid.

      The soul, transform’d into the brute, glides off,

      Hissing along the vale, and after him

      The СКАЧАТЬ