The Description of Famine
8:1204 Where frozen Scythia's utmost bound is plac'd,
8:1205 A desart lies, a melancholy
waste:
8:1206 In yellow crops there Nature
never smil'd,
8:1207 No fruitful tree to shade the
barren wild.
8:1208 There sluggish cold its icy
station makes,
8:1209 There paleness, frights, and
aguish trembling shakes,
8:1210 Of pining famine this the fated
seat,
8:1211 To whom my orders in these
words repeat:
8:1212 Bid her this miscreant with
her sharpest pains
8:1213 Chastise, and sheath herself
into his veins;
8:1214 Be unsubdu'd by plenty's baffled
store,
8:1215 Reject my empire, and defeat
my pow'r.
8:1216 And lest the distance, and
the tedious way,
8:1217 Should with the toil, and long
fatigue dismay,
8:1218 Ascend my chariot, and convey'd
on high,
8:1219 Guide the rein'd dragons thro'
the parting sky.
8:1220 The nymph, accepting of the granted carr,
8:1221 Sprung to the seat, and posted
thro' the air;
8:1222 Nor stop'd 'till she to a bleak
mountain came
8:1223 Of wondrous height, and Caucasus
its name.
8:1224 There in a stony field the
fiend she found,
8:1225 Herbs gnawing, and roots scratching
from the ground.
8:1226 Her elfelock hair in matted
tresses grew,
8:1227 Sunk were her eyes, and pale
her ghastly hue,
8:1228 Wan were her lips, and foul
with clammy glew.
8:1229 Her throat was furr'd, her
guts appear'd within
8:1230 With snaky crawlings thro'
her parchment skin.
8:1231 Her jutting hips seem'd starting
from their place,
8:1232 And for a belly was a belly's
space,
8:1233 Her dugs hung dangling from
her craggy spine,
8:1234 Loose to her breast, and fasten'd
to her chine.
8:1235 Her joints protuberant by leanness
grown,
8:1236 Consumption sunk the flesh,
and rais'd the bone.
8:1237 Her knees large orbits bunch'd
to monstrous size,
8:1238 And ancles to undue proportion
rise.
8:1239 This plague the nymph, not daring to draw
near,
8:1240 At distance hail'd, and greeted
from afar.
8:1241 And tho' she told her charge
without delay,
8:1242 Tho' her arrival late, and
short her stay,
8:1243 She felt keen famine, or she
seem'd to feel,
8:1244 Invade her blood, and on her
vitals steal.
8:1245 She turn'd, from the infection
to remove,
8:1246 And back to Thessaly the serpents
drove.
8:1247 The fiend obey'd the Goddess' command
8:1248 (Tho' their effects in opposition
stand),
8:1249 She cut her way, supported
by the wind,
8:1250 And reach'd the mansion by
the nymph assign'd.
8:1251 'Twas night, when entring Erisichthon's
room,
8:1252 Dissolv'd in sleep, and thoughtless
of his doom,
8:1253 She clasp'd his limbs, by impious
labour tir'd,
8:1254 With battish wings, but her
whole self inspir'd;
8:1255 Breath'd on his throat and
chest a tainting blast,
8:1256 And in his veins infus'd an
endless fast.
8:1257 The task dispatch'd, away the
Fury flies
8:1258 From plenteous regions, and
from rip'ning skies;
8:1259 To her old barren north she
wings her speed,
8:1260 And cottages distress'd with
pinching need.
8:1261 Still slumbers Erisichthon's senses drown,
8:1262 And sooth his fancy with their
softest down.
8:1263 He dreams of viands delicate
to eat,
8:1264 And revels on imaginary meat,
8:1265 Chaws with his working mouth,
but chaws in vain,
8:1266 And tires his grinding teeth
with fruitless pain;
8:1267 Deludes his throat with visionary
fare,
8:1268 Feasts on the wind, and banquets
on the air.
8:1269 The morning came, the night, and slumbers
past,
8:1270 But still the furious pangs
of hunger last;
8:1271 The cank'rous rage still gnaws
with griping pains,
8:1272 Stings in his throat, and in
his bowels reigns.
8:1273 Strait he requires, impatient in demand,
8:1274 Provisions from the air, the
seas, the land.
8:1275 But tho' the land, air, seas,
provisions grant,
8:1276 Starves at full tables, and
complains of want.
8:1277 What to a people might in dole
be paid,
8:1278 Or victual cities for a long
blockade,
8:1279 Could not one wolfish appetite
asswage;
8:1280 For glutting nourishment increas'd
its rage.
8:1281 As rivers pour'd from ev'ry
distant shore,
8:1282 The sea insatiate drinks, and
thirsts for more;
8:1283 Or as the fire, which all materials
burns,
8:1284 And wasted forests into ashes
turns,
8:1285 Grows more voracious, as the
more it preys,
8:1286 Recruits dilate the flame,
and spread the blaze:
8:1287 So impious Erisichthon's hunger
raves,
8:1288 Receives refreshments, and
refreshments craves.
8:1289 Food raises a desire for food,
and meat
8:1290 Is but a new provocative to
eat.
8:1291 He grows more empty, as the
more supply'd,
8:1292 And endless cramming but extends
the void.