eadly bite, quick urge it home
Into the recent sore, and cauterise
The wound; spare not thy flesh, nor dread the event:
Vulcan shall save when Aesculapius fails.
Here, should the knowing Muse recount the means
To stop this growing plague. And here, alas!
Each hand presents a sovereign cure, and boasts
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Infallibility, but boasts in vain.
On this depend, each to his separate seat
Confine, in fetters bound; give each his mess
Apart, his range in open air; and then
If deadly symptoms to thy grief appear,
Devote the wretch, and let him greatly fall,
A generous victim for the public weal.
Sing, philosophic Muse, the dire effects
Of this contagious bite on hapless man.
The rustic swains, by long tradition taught
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Of leeches old, as soon as they perceive
The bite impressed, to the sea-coasts repair.
Plunged in the briny flood, the unhappy youth
Now journeys home secure; but soon shall wish
The seas as yet had covered him beneath
The foaming surge, full many a fathom deep.
A fate more dismal, and superior ills
Hang o'er his head devoted. When the moon,
Closing her monthly round, returns again
To glad the night; or when full orbed she shines
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High in the vault of heaven; the lurking pest
Begins the dire assault. The poisonous foam,
Through the deep wound instilled with hostile rage,
And all its fiery particles saline,
Invades the arterial fluid; whose red waves
Tempestuous heave, and their cohesion broke,
Fermenting boil; intestine war ensues,
And order to confusion turns embroiled.
Now the distended vessels scarce contain
The wild uproar, but press each weaker part,
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Unable to resist: the tender brain
And stomach suffer most; convulsions shake
His trembling nerves, and wandering pungent pains
Pinch sore the sleepless wretch; his fluttering pulse
Oft intermits; pensive, and sad, he mourns
His cruel fate, and to his weeping friends
Laments in vain; to hasty anger prone,
Resents each slight offence, walks with quick step,
And wildly stares; at last with boundless sway
The tyrant frenzy reigns. For as the dog
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(Whose fatal bite conveyed the infectious bane)
Raving he foams, and howls, and barks, and bites.
Like agitations in his boiling blood
Present like species to his troubled mind;
His nature, and his actions all canine.
So as (old Homer sung) the associates wild
Of wandering Ith