Kitap 9
Nor did they know the measure of their march
1
Accomplished, nor their path; the stars in heaven
Their only guide. ' Return, ye gods,' they cried,
In frequent wail, ' the arms from which we fled.
' Give back Thessalia. Sworn to meet the sword
' Why, lingering, fall we thus? In Caesar's place
' The thirsty Dipsas and the horned snake
' Now wage the warfare. Rather let us seek
' That region by the horses of the sun
' Scorched, and the zone most torrid: let us fall
'Slain by some heavenly cause, and from the sky
' Descend our fate! Not, Africa, of thee
' Complain we, nor of Nature. From mankind
' Cut off, this quarter, teeming thus with pests
' She gave to snakes, and to the barren fields
' Denied the husbandman, nor wished that men
'Should perish by their venom. To the realms
' Of serpents have we come. Hater of men,
' Receive thy vengeance, whoso of the gods
' Severed this region upon either hand,
' With death in middle space. Our march is set
'Through thy sequestered kingdom, and the host
' Which knows thy secret seeks the furthest world.
' Perchance some greater wonders on our path
' May still await us; in the waves be plunged
' Heaven's constellations, and the lofty pole
'Stoop from its height. By further space removed
' No land, than Juba's realm; by rumour's voice
' Drear, mournful. Haply for this serpent land
' There may we long, where yet some living thing
' Gives consolation. Not my native land
' Nor European fields I hope for now
' Lit by far other suns, nor Asia's plains.
' But in what land, what region of the sky,
' Where left we Africa? But now with frosts
' Cyrene stiffened: have we changed the laws
' Which rule the seasons, in this little space?
' Cast from the world we know, 'neath other skies
' And stars we tread; behind our backs the home
' Of southern tempests: Rome herself perchance
