Kitap 10
' Untimely; such thy right: to other lands
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' Bearing thy winter: and by both the poles
' Thou only wanderest. Here men ask thy rise
' And there thine ending. Meroe rich in soil
'And tilled by swarthy husbandmen divides
'Thy broad expanse, rejoicing in the leaves
'Of groves of ebony, which though spreading far
'Their branching foliage, by no breadth of shade
'Soften the summer sun-whose rays direct
'Pass from the Lion to the fervid earth.A passage of difficulty. I understand it to mean that at this spot the summer sun (in Leo) strikes the earth with direct rays.
'Next dost thou journey onwards past the realm
'Of burning Phoebus, and the sterile sands,
'With equal volume; now with all thy strength
'Gathered in one, and now in devious streams
'Parting the bank that crumbles at thy touch.
'Then by our kingdom's gates, where Philae parts
'Arabian peoples from Egyptian fields
' The sluggish bosom of thy flood recalls
' Thy wandering currents, which through desert wastes
' Flow gently on to where the merchant track
' Divides the Red Sea waters from our own.
' Who, gazing, Nile, upon thy tranquil flow,
' Could picture how in wild array of foam
' (Where shelves the earth) thy billows shall be plunged
' Down the steep cataracts, in fuming wrath
' That rocks should bar the passage of thy stream
' Free from its source? For whirled on high the spray
' Aims at the stars, and trembles all the air
With rush of waters; and with sounding roar
The foaming mass down from the summit pours
In hoary waves victorious. Next an isle
In all our ancient lore "untrodden" named
Stems firm thy torrent; and the rocks we call
Springs of the river, for that here are marked
The earliest tokens of the coming flood.
With mountain shores now nature hems thee in
And shuts thy waves from Libya; in the midst
Hence do thy waters run, till Memphis first
Forbids the barrier placed upon thy stream
And gives thee access to the open fields.'
