|
DJ Goher
Guest
|
|
|
|
It's true for bees as it is for human beings:
Life brings sickness with it. You can see
The signs of it in the bees, without any doubt:
Their color changes as soon as they fall ill;
Their bodies are all disheveled and there's a dreadful
Emaciation in the look of them;
And then you can see the other bees as they carry
Out from the dwelling places the bodies of those
From whom the life has gone; and you can see
The sick ones not yet dead that hang almost
Motionless around the doors outside,
With crossed and tangled feet; or still inside,
Listless with hunger and shrunken from the cold.
And then you can hear a mournful long drawn-out
Whispering rustling sound like the sound of the cold
South Wind as it murmurs in the woods, or like
The agitated hissing of the sea
As the waves draw back, or the seething noise of a fire
Eating its way as it burns inside a furnace.
At such a time you must offer them the odor
Of the smoke of sweet-smelling resin, and feed them honey
Through oaten straws, to encourage the weary creatures
And invite them to partake of accustomed food;
A good idea, as well, to offer dried
Rose-leaves in a mixture with powdered oak-gall,
Or must that has been enriched by boiling down,
Or sun-dried clusters of Psithian grapes, together
With aromatic centaureum and thyme;
And there's a meadow plant that's called "amellus,"
Easy to see because from a single root
One stem produces an enormous fountain
Of golden cascading leaves and among them shining
Dark-purple-violet lights of the flower petals;
These often garland the altars of the gods.
It has a bitter taste; it's gathered by
The shepherds where they find them in the pastures
Or on the banks of wandering Mella's stream.
You should boil the roots in fragrant wine and leave
The food set out in baskets near their doors.
But if it suddenly happens that the whole
Stock is utterly lost and you don't know how
To go about establishing another,
It's time to disclose the legendary secrets
Of the Arcadian master, by means of which
Bees were engendered from the putrid blood
Of a slaughtered bullock. I will go back to the very
Origin of the legend to tell about it,
For where the fortunate Canópians live,
By the quivered Parthians' borders, in the delta
Of the seven mouths of the river Nile that flows
Downhill from the swarthy Indians' country and makes
Egypt so fecund with alluvial soil,
And where they sail their painted skiffs on fields
Where the river waters flooded and grew still,
Their safety depends on their knowledge of this art.
First, choose for this purpose a very constricted place,
In which, to constrict it further, then construct
A narrow shed, roofed with a roof of tile,
And close it in with walls close in together,
And in the four walls towards the four winds set
Four windows letting in the light aslant;
And then select a bullock two summers old,
His new first horns emerging on his brow,
And get the bullock into the shed, and then,
Although he struggles against it, stuff up his nostrils
And stop up the breath in his mouth, and after that,
Beat him to death until his innards collapse
Inside his hide; and as his body lies there
Put broken branches around him in the shed,
And marjoram and thyme, and leave him there.
This should be done when the zephyrs with their touch
Have just begun to quicken and stir the waves
And just before the meadows begin to blush
With their new color and just before the chattering
Swallow hangs her nest from the high house-rafters.
Meanwhile the fluid grows warm in his softening bones,
And it ferments, and wonderful new creatures
Come into view, footless at first, but soon
With humming wings; they swarm, and more and more
Try out their wings on the empty air, and then
Burst forth like a summer shower from summer clouds
Or like a shower of arrows from the bows
Of Parthian warriors entering the fray.
What god was it, O Muses, who devised
An art like this? Where was it that such strange
New knowledge came from and was learned by men?
Translated by Goher Munir Khan[/u][/i]
|
on eTI community..
