Kitap 15
A former marshland is now parched dry sand,
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and places which endured severest drought
are wet with standing pools. Here Nature has
opened fresh springs, but there has shut them up;
rivers aroused by ancient earthquakes have
rushed out or vanished, as they lost their depth.
“So, when the Lycus has been swallowed by
a chasm in the earth, it rushes forth
at a distance and is reborn a different stream.
The Erasinus now flows down into a cave,
now runs beneath the ground a darkened course,
then rises lordly in the Argolic fields.
They say the Mysus, wearied of his spring
and of his former banks, appears elsewhere
and takes another name, the Caicus.
“The Amenanus in Sicilian sands
now smoothly rolling, at another time
is quenched, because its fountain springs are dry.
The water of the Anigros formerly
was used for drinking, but it pours out now
foul water which you would decline to touch,
because (unless all credit is denied
to poets) long ago the Centaurs, those
strange mortals double-limbed, bathed in the stream
wounds which club-bearing Hercules had made
with his strong bow.—Yes, does not Hypanis
descending fresh from mountains of Sarmatia,
become embittered with the taste of salt?
“Antissa, Pharos, and Phoenician Tyre,
were once surrounded by the wavy sea:
they are not islands now. Long years ago
Leucas was mainland, if we can believe
what the old timers there will tell, but now
the waves sweep round it. Zancle was a part
of Italy, until the sea cut off
the neighboring land with strong waves in between.
Should you seek Helice and Buris, those
two cities of Achaea, you will find
them underneath the waves, where sailors point
to sloping roofs and streets in the clear deep.
