36 
ON THE EPIZOOTIC. 
The stag forgets his speed — the boars their rage — 
Nor can the bears the stronger herds engage. 
A general faintness now invades them all, 
And in the woods and fields promiscuously they fall. 
The air receives the stench, and, strange to say, 
The ravenous birds and beasts avoid the prey ; 
The offensive bodies rot upon the ground. 
And spread the dire contagion all around. 
Then follows a frightful account of the effect of the plague on 
the human being, and a sketch of the propitiatory sacrifice 
The destined ox with holy garlands crowned 
Prevents the blow, and feels an unexpected wound. 
When I myself invoked the powers divine 
To drive the fatal pest from me and mine. 
When now the priest with hands uplifted stood,. 
Prepared to strike and shed the sacred blood. 
The gods themselves the mortal stroke bestow. 
The victim falls, but they inflict the blow. 
Scarce was the knife with the pale purple stained, 
And no presages could be then obtained 
From putrid entrails where the infection reigned. 
The infection spread from the inferior animal to the human 
being, and the island of iEgina was almost depopulated. iEacus, 
its monarch, besought Jupiter to people it anew. The king of 
the gods consented, and all the ants which iEacus had seen in a 
dream on a certain oak were changed to human beings, who 
were afterwards called Myrmidons. The little island of iEgina 
obtained a naval superiority, which, from its diminutive size, would 
have been supposed to be impossible. Long before any other 
part of European Greece had acquired any commercial power, 
Angina had a factory erected in Lower Egypt. This metamor- 
phosis of Ovid is interesting from the information which it gives 
respecting epizootic disease, as well as the grand moral lesson 
which it inculcates. 
A little more than eighty years after this occurred the siege of 
Troy. In the first year of it there was a grievous pestilence, or 
rather, according to the mythology of the times, Apollo had been 
grievously offended, and was scattering destruction through the 
Grecian camp. The following is the account which Homer gives 
of the affair : — 
Bent was his bow the Grecian hearts to wound. 
Fierce as he moved the silver shafts resound. 
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread. 
And gloomy darkness rolled about his head. 
The fleet in view, he twanged his deadly bow. 
And, hissing, fly the feathered fates below. 
On mules and dogs the infection first began. 
And, last, the vengeful arrows fixed in man. 
