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.