Some take flight, and none being left to defend their possessions,
Unprotected, their goods pillage and plunder become;
Cattle and creaking carts, the little wealth of the country,
And what riches beside indigent peasants possess.
Some as captives are driven along, their hands bound behind them,
Looking backward in vain toward their Lares and lands.
Others, transfixed with barbed arrows, in agony perish,
For the swift arrow-heads all have in poison been dipped.
What they cannot carry or lead away they demolish,
And the hostile flames burn up the innocent cots.
Even when there is peace, the fear of war is impending;
None, with the ploughshare pressed, furrows the soil any more.
Either this region sees, or fears a foe that it sees not,
And the sluggish land slumbers in utter neglect.
No sweet grape lies hidden here in the shade of its vine-leaves,
No fermenting must fills and o'erflows the deep vats.
Apples the region denies; nor would Acontius have found here
Aught upon which to write words for his mistress to read.
Naked and barren plains without leaves or trees we behold here,—
Places, alas! unto which no happy man would repair.