ALEXIPHARMACA,

Although of Asia far from each other sep-

arated widely

the walls, with which our cities surrounded

our parents,

Protagoras, and them a space sepa-

rates vast,

yet easily will I myself relate to you the amulets against swallowed poison,

by which wretched mortals perish, in song.

You inhabit the fields near the windy sea, and beneath the middle of the Bear,

of Cyzicus, where the sacred cave of Rhea is,

and unhappy Attes perished by the great wrath of Jove.

But I dwell where the offspring of Creusa divided

the richest lands of Epirus, and by the prophetic tripods

sacred to Phoebus, and the pool of Clarus.

But first may you recognize the felleous aconites, overcome

by rare remedies, which the cruel Acheron

produces on its hollow shore, where once the ruined walls of Priolas

had stood, and the path of Dis lies open with a vast chasm.

Those indeed the whole mouth, and the compartments of the gums,

and the vaulted palate, when swallowed, they constrict:

they rampage around the uppermost midriff, and with a heavy

wandering infest it: troublesome bitings in the heart

and the gaping mouth of the lifted stomach they produce,

which some have called the heart and the storeroom of the stomach.

And the thick intestines are closed with great pain,

into which both drinks and foods are carried headlong.

A moist fluid glides down perpetually from the eyes:

the belly itself also now belches winds from the mouth,

countless, now holds them confined in the middle of the abdomen.

There is a heaviness of the head, both temples violently

throb, whatever is seen appears double:

just as at night those who are accustomed to drink unmixed wine:

Or as the rustic Sileni with pressed grapes,

who nourished Lyæus distinguished by his horns,

after the foaming cups have assailed their mind,

first waver with their eyes, then staggering through the lowest

borders of Nysa they walk with unsteady steps:

such a vertigo oppresses them when the poison has been drunk.

Some have also called this myoctonon, because all

mice that have dared to lick it, it kills.

They have also given it the name pardalianches, because by that

poison, with meat infected by the ambushes of shepherds,

panthers perish in the lofty hills of Ida.

Cruel death also gave [it the names] thelyphonon [Greek: θηλυφόνον] and cammoron [Greek: κάμμορον] of the female sex; they grow on hard crags through the high mountains, and hence we call them aconite [Latin: aconita].

But take as much lime as you yourself can grasp in your fist, and pour in a cotyla [Latin: cotulam] of tawny Salernian wine: thus you will escape death, and you will cure the dire plague.

No less, cut off a branching stalk of southernwood [Latin: abrotoni], and of green horehound [Latin: marrubii] (they called it meliphyllon), and the ever-leafy shoots of the chamaeleon [Latin: chamaelei] shrub, or drink rue together with sweet mead.

Extinguish glowing iron, grasped with tongs, or the dross [Latin: facem] of stiff iron, which the most fierce fire in a burning furnace separates as impure and drives away.

Furthermore, a weight of silver and of gold has been useful, kindled by fires and plunged into hissing waters.

But if you wish to take half a handful of the leaves of the ground-pine [Latin: piceae], and the dry [root] of oregano [Latin: onitidis], or if you gather the root of polycnemon [Latin: polycnemi]: these will be of use, drained with four cyathi [Latin: cyathis] of wine.

And you will have an excellent remedy from a farmyard rooster, which, when it is boiling, the fire set beneath the copper pot has cooked, and melted its limbs down to the fine marrow.

Let there also be cups for those who have dried out, the broth of a boiled calf, dissolved into rich juices.

Dilute also the liquid sap which balsams exude, with female milk or river water, after you have compelled the raw poison to depart by vomiting.

It is expedient to take out the rennet from a hare or a timid deer, and to drink it dissolved in thin Salernian wine.

Or take the roots of the blood-red mulberry [Latin: mori], and pound them with frequent blows in a hollow oak [mortar], and having boiled them in unmixed wine, offer them with sticky honey.

Thus you will be able to drive away the disease raging in the viscera, and he who drank it will stand again on firm feet.

Now turn your mind to the lethal cups of white lead [Latin: cerussae]. It is white and very like snowy milk, which broadly raises a froth when in springtime the cows returning from the countryside fill the milk-pails.

It settles in the gums, the wrinkles, and all over the jaws, and binds them: hence the tongue is rough, and the passage in the farthest throat is dry, and growing weak from the disease the sick man coughs insatiably, and no sputum follows.

His weak head nods, then a grim nausea urges him on, and his limbs are broken by extreme exhaustion.

Sometimes false images of things appear before his eyes, now a deep sleep embraces his chilling limbs, deprived of strength, and not moving the body as before.

But suddenly provide the rich juice which the myrtle-like, Praemadian, or Orchadian olive emits when pressed, so that the foul poison may slip smoothly from the belly:

or the milk which you have milked from the rich and swollen udder of a cow, give it plain, with the wrinkles torn away:

Or with the boiled branches and tender leaves of mallow [Latin: malvae], fill the lead-poisoned viscera with a tenacious drink:

and you should mix pounded sesame [Latin: sesama] with sweet Lenaean wine.

Also pour warm waters over the ash of vine-twigs, and strain it through a wicker basket,

so that a clear lye may be made, with the mud excluded.

Sometimes also, the crushed pits which the Persea tree produces,

mixed with the Palladian liquor, will drive away the harm.

This tree Perseus once, after he left the Cepheian fields

and cut the neck of the prolific Medusa,

brought to the Mycenaean lands as a new gift from Cepheus.

Where the hilt of his sword fell, which the Greek tongue calls Myces [Greek: μύκης], high above Melanthis, where Langia showed this discovered drink to the son of Abas.

Very often you should dissolve in barley-water the tear of the Sabaean frankincense [Latin: libani],

which congeals around its branches.

Or take the gummy drop which drips from the nut-tree:

Or that which is present in abundance on the spreading branches of the elm [Latin: vlmi], or of the atalymnus, dissolved in warm liquid, will help,

So that he may expel part by vomiting, and part by falling waters, when sweat squeezed out has flowed from the body.

Indeed, he who is full of food, and he who is full of the gift of joyful Bacchus, will avoid the dreaded dangers of the ingested poison.

Alas, flee the draught of blister beetles [Latin: cantharidum], if you should ever meet with it. That diffuses a foul odor of liquid pitch to the nostrils, and a taste similar to cedar turns in the very mouth, as when someone chews the shoots of a green one.

He who drinks this suffused with much moisture, feels troublesome bites on his lips, and in his lowest belly. And no less does pain torment the middle: horrid ulcers of the bladder rise, the compressed chest pants, where over the bones the softest parts lie upon the hollow belly.

Vehement anger comes, and stretching distends the body failing in mind. The dire force of the poison prevails, and feeds upon the wretched limbs, beyond hope. And just as the shaken-off thistles fly through the voids, and depart in diverse winds: thus are they carried in mind.

But you, mix pennyroyal [Latin: puleium] with river waters, and fill the bowls, which you should drain of the sad drink of fasting Ceres, with which she is once said to have satisfied her empty stomach, in the city of pious Hippothoon, when she laughed at the wit of Thracian Iambe.

Sometimes you may take the fatty brains of a pig, or of a lamb cooked for a long time with the seed of rounded flax, or divide the temples of a goat which scarcely yet bore horns, or prepare a drink from a thoroughly cooked goose. Which you should devour in abundance, until you force the impure feasts delaying in the raw stomach to exit by vomiting.

Often also pour fresh milk of a tender little goat into the belly, so that it sends back many dirts, and feces. But if you prefer to drink this, nothing is more excellent than that.

Or pluck green branches of the vine, recently clothed in leaves, which you should rub among sweet raisin-wine. And pour the rough and always bristling fragments of the hard root in yellow honey, which raises a high stalk in dry sand similar to asphodel, and grows slender on high.

Or you should take the weight of four drachmas of Parthenian earth, which Phyllis brings forth on the high hills of Imbrasia, and which the flock of Chesias that bears horns is said to have shown to the girls near the rushy streams of snowy Cercetius.

Or you will take purple grape-syrup [Latin: sapam] in double weight, and you will mix the crushed shoots of rue [Latin: rutæ] at the same time. But first suffused with iris oil, first also with rose oil. And the cure of the malignant disease will be rendered easy.

If anyone imprudent has taken the cups of coriander [Latin: coriandri] smelling heavily of the foul, and scarcely yielding, he mindless, and stupid, like an insane person chatters shameful things everywhere, and struck by a furious frenzy rough, thundering bitter things, imitates the Erinys of the Bacchantes.

But on the contrary exhibit bowls full of sweet Falernian, so that they first poured out this pure from the wine-press. Or you will dissolve a mass of salt in moistening waters.

You will also often mix the dry shell of eggs with the shining sea-foam. That is by far the most pleasing food for the coot, to which it brings death, and protects life.

For with this deceit the fisherman contrives snares for the wretched bird, which while it attempts to grasp the floating foam with a greedy mouth, is carried into the nets.

Also plunge him who will have drunk coriander [Latin: corion] in the salty streams of the sea. Neptune willed the sea and fire to serve the light storms of the winds, and the winds fearing to be seized into various parts. But the swollen seas, and ships far off and young men obey the command of the sea, who are carried through hidden shallows,

The wood is subject to hostile fire by the law of nature. Also, wine mixed with clear olive oil will remove all the evil, and a sweet drink of snow with must, when the bent vine-dresser cuts the heavy and ripe grape with his sickle, and treads the clusters from the Psithian vine with his feet, when the sluggish wasp and swarms of hornets drink the juice of the grapes along with the dregs, and the malignant little fox harms the full vine.

Now you should also consider the signs of the evil hemlock [Latin: cicutae]. First it attacks the head: and envelops the mind in thick darkness: the eyes roll in a circle: the knees give way. But if he wishes to go more swiftly, his hands support his falling body: and his besieged throat is pressed, and the narrow isthmus of the neck is closed off. The extremities are cold, the pulse lies hidden deep in the veins, nothing is inhaled from the mouth. The Fates impend, and the wretched man now already sees black Dis.

But saturate this man with olive oil, and do not spare unmixed wine, so that the poison sent down into the breast may return by vomiting: and you should prepare an enema [Latin: clysterem], which you may insert into the depths of the belly. Often unmixed wine by itself, or the laurel [Latin: laurum] which Peneian Tempe produces, with which beautiful Apollo is first said to have bound his handsome twined locks: or you will give him the cut stem of carrot [Latin: dauci] to consume, or you will mix the seed of the nettle [Latin: urticae] with sharp pepper [Latin: piperi], and wine with the juice that the Cyrenaic land sends. And offer a little of the iris [Latin: irini], breathing a pleasant scent, and pound hot laserwort [Latin: laser] with clear olive oil. Mead [Latin: mulsa] will also be helpful, as well as bowls foaming with milk, if they are drunk warmed with moderate heat.

If arrow-poisons [Latin: toxica] have caused savage pain by being drunk, you should hasten immediately to succor the cruel harm. The man's tongue swells, and his distended lips raise a swelling around his mouth, and are weighed down by a great mass. He spits from a dry mouth, his gums crack with fissures. Shivering often shakes his trembling heart: his mind, agitated by the dreadful venom, overflows with madness. He imitates bleating sheep, and conceives a thousand furies; he cries out like one roused by burning anger, whose life-giving head a violent sword has taken away. Or just as a temple-keeper, whose care is the temples and libations of Rhea, rushes into the broad streets when the new moon returns, and fills the Idaean plains with howlings: then the trembling herdsmen shudder when her voice is heard: thus the wretched man, turned to rabies, roars and bellows. And twisting his grim eyes in the manner of bulls, he sharpens his teeth, and pours foam from his mouth.

First hold him bound closely with manacles and chains, then with no great force fill his parted jaws with nectar, and immediately irritate his gnashing mouth with fingers inserted, so that he may be forced to vomit the poisonous matter. Or plunge a chick, which a greedy goose has recently hatched, into water, and boil it with the flames of a surging bronze cauldron. And the wild twigs of the rough apple tree [Latin: mali] are beneficial, but first cleansed, which grow on the high mountains. And the apples [Latin: mala] which are born during the summer in our gardens, with which girls play and are delighted. And sometimes it will help to have eaten sparrow-apples [Latin: struthia], or those which grow brought down from the harsh Cydonian tree. But pounded together, and dripping with clear waters, and mixed with pennyroyal [Latin: puleio], which breathes a pleasant scent: and the olive oil which smells of rose [Latin: rosam], or which tastes of iris [Latin: irin], you can instill into his open mouth with wool.

But finally having endured the first things for a long time, he will scarcely ever be able to steady his tottering steps, but astonished he will drag out his life with failing eyes. With this venom the Gerrean Nomads, and the people who inhabit the tearing Euphrates, arm their weapons. Which after they have stuck, and a non-curable wound

...they have inflicted [an incurable wound], the flesh turns livid, and the viperous [Latin: Vipereum] venom putrefies, and the foul skin dissolves in gore.

If anyone incautiously tastes the deadly meadow saffron [Latin: ephemeron], the hostile fire of Colchian Medea, he is suddenly burned by a savage itching on his inner lips. As when one rubs the body with the glowing juice of a fig, or with sharp nettle [Latin: Vrtica], or with squill [Latin: scilla], which raises a horrendous redness on the tender flesh. When this is ingested, a heavy weight settles on his very stomach. First he belches, then he contracts dire ulcers from vomiting. And from his throat is brought forth a foul fluid, such as a cook throws away when meat has been washed: and his belly pours out impure, filthy dregs.

Often cut the health-bringing foliage of the oak and the green beech, and also the acorn that hangs on them: and draw down milk into a milking pail, and chew them cooked until you satisfy your stomach, and hold them in a full mouth. It will also help to have boiled in milk the branches of the herb whose name is drawn from blood, or just its root. And let the vine-shoot soften in tender water, and let the twigs of the bristling bramble be rubbed equally. And strip the hairy nut that comes forth in fields of rich fertility, the chestnuts [Latin: Castaneis] with their bark removed: and take the dry rind that envelops the lowest flesh. Extract also the pith from the inner belly of the giant fennel [Latin: ferulæ], which once glowed with the stealthy fire of Prometheus. And the never-dying leaves of fragrant thyme [Latin: Serpylli] will be expedient, and the berries that the roughest myrtle bears. Boil the rind that Punic apples bear along with myrtle, and wash out the tainted stomach with the decoction, so that you may at last overcome the disease with an austere medicine.

But lest you be deceived in drinking, when the viscous bane [Latin: vlophonon] is brought to your lips, which presents the taste of basil [Latin: ocima]. Soon a swelling and severe inflammation kindles the top of the tongue, and the strength of the heart and spirits recede. Then he bites his torn tongue with rabid teeth, and he who has drained the viscous poison stands astounded, and both passages for drink and food close up, obstructed in the blind belly. When the breaths enclosed in their prison make a noise, and are rolled around in uneven spaces, just as the whole sky thunders with a horrible crash. Or as swift waves dashed against hard rocks raise a clamor among the hollow stones, and roar: thus the miserably afflicted man can scarcely at last draw breath with a pressed mouth, and if you offer him medicated cups, he soon pours forth filth like eggs, such as a hen conceives from frequent mating. And fighting with his body bruised by frequent blows, he casts out a shapeless and raw seed without a shell.

But white wormwood [Latin: absinthia] will drive away such great pains, and free him from the disease, diluted in fresh must. And pitchy resin or that of the Orician turpentine-tree [Latin: terebinthi] should be given, or the tear that comes from the sad pine, where Marsyas hung stripped of his skin by Phoebus. Deploring his death, she groans perpetually, and fills the lonely ridges with sorrowful complaints. It is also suitable to chew the sweet-smelling flower of poley [Latin: polij], and to pluck the small shoots of boiling rue [Latin: rutæ], and nard, and the testicle cut from the river beaver [Latin: castore]. Or it helps to cut a root of silphium [Latin: Laseris] weighing one obol, and a little liquor that has flowed from it. Also dry oregano, named from the goat [Latin: hirci]: and a drained abundance of curdled milk will be of use.

But if anyone by chance has swallowed the black blood of a bull, he lies afflicted with savage pain. For the blood, entering the deep penetralia of the body, congeals, and frozen together it unites in the middle of the belly. The path of the air is narrow, which is closed in the pressed throat

The lung holds within. But he, convulsed, is frequently

Shaken as he leaps, and his face is smeared with foam.

But you, gather the heavy unripe figs full of milk,

And immerse them in sour wine, then mix everything with water,

So that the water may temper the biting vinegar.

And the empty weights stretching the swollen belly.

Moreover, the rennet of a roe deer, or of a peaceful fallow deer,

Or of a kid, or taken from the body of an agile hare,

Must be strained liquid through the narrow holes of a thin cloth:

And this care will give you easy health.

Or give him the weight of three obols of smooth

And pounded natron, which you should dilute in mild wine.

And add a just pound of silphium, and of the juice flowing from it,

And cabbage seed soaked in vinegar.

And you will saturate the stomach with the root of smelly fleabane [Greek: κονύζης],

To which pepper and the shoots of the hardy bramble are mixed.

Thus you will easily cut the clumped blood into pieces,

And break it deeply fixed in the middle of the viscera.

But let it not escape you if someone has swallowed the buprestis [Greek: βουπρήστιδα]

From the ground: not obscure signs will follow it when drunk down.

Indeed, it soon stains the mouth with a color similar to natron,

And when chewed, it exhales an unpleasant stench:

And gripes torment the stomach and the swollen belly.

The urine is bound, the bladder groans with great pain,

And the belly boils with fierce burnings.

Then, as if a tympanic dropsy besieges the foul

Boss of the body, and the distended little skin is drawn tight

Over all the limbs. Now it inflates strong heifers,

Now calves, if ever while grazing on lush pastures

They tear it with greedy mouths as it lies hidden:

Whence they call it by the Greek name buprestis [Greek: βούπρηστιν].

But nevertheless, he will bring help, who has mixed dried

Figs with three-year-old nectar, and given them to be drunk:

Or who, having pounded them together in a mortar, macerates them on the fire,

An excellent medicine against fevers, and from there

Offers a honeyed drink to be imbibed with a full throat:

And who, when he has pressed milk from the hanging udder of a cow,

Often does not hesitate to join the light fruit of the palm:

Or to immerse the fruit of the hard wild pear, or the pears which many

Call Bacchic and myrtle-like, into the Lenaean gift.

Let him also, in the manner of a child, suck the maternal teat,

And the distended udders, as a calf [sucks] a heifer.

Which, being petulant, as soon as it began to come forth with the afterbirth,

Draws forth from the teats a stream by a quarter of its strength.

And sometimes a drink of warm, rich olive oil

Should provoke vomiting, and attacking the mouth by putting [things] in,

Force him, even if he refuses, with fingers, and a feather, and a recurved

And moderately twisted papyrus purging the throat.

But if milk is clustered into clots in the pregnant belly,

And closes off the breath, and suffocates the panting chest:

Then offer a drink, of which one part is sharp vinegar,

And two of raisin wine: and purge the belly again

With a clyster, and pound in silphium brought down from Libyan shores,

Or its juice, and drink it with diluted posca.

Often also a cutting lye is to be given, and an ear of thyme

Heavy with seed, and a cluster of the branching vine

Soaked in a shower of Bacchus [wine] will have brought help.

Also, rennet drunk sometimes dissolves the clots,

And the dripping shoots of green catmint in mead,

Or steeped in a stream of tongue-biting vinegar.

Now come, consider dorycnium [Greek: δορύκνιον], look first

How its color and taste are very close to snowy milk.

And soon frequent arising hiccups compress the neck,

Unaccustomed, and the stomach bearing indignities

Often drives food upwards by vomiting, sprinkled with blood,

Now below it pours out a muddy mucus:

Like one whom tenesmus and miserable gripes vex,

Who, sick with cruel torture, with his strength exhausted,

Lies prostrate on the ground, and neglects his dry mouth...

To wash it out. But on the other hand, the greatest power is in drinking milk,

And if one mixes cups of warm raisin-wine.

Moreover, the white meat of a rooster boiled in flames

Will be beneficial, which clothes its shoulders and robust chest.

No less does it help to swallow the squeezed-out liquor,

And whatever fishes feed among the rocks and sounding crags,

And around the seaweed-covered shores.

These raw, or if it pleases to put them on coals, roasted,

Chew: but especially beneficial are shellfish, the purple-fish [Latin: murex],

And crabs [Latin: carabi], and pen-shells [Latin: pinnae]. The ruddy sea-urchin [Latin: echinus] will also give

Assistance, and the scallop [Latin: pecten]. Nor should trumpet-shells [Latin: Buccina] be placed after remedies,

And the oysters [Latin: ostrea] which live in common moss.

Nor indeed can the drink of pharicum [Latin: pharici] (so certain seem

Its signs) remain hidden, which torments the jaws with a bitter

Sensation, and tastes of nard [Latin: nardum] with no distinction.

It disturbs the mind, and relaxes the trembling limbs;

And suffers the wretched to live in the light not a single

Day longer: but offer in a just weight the root of nard [Latin: nardi]

Thylacitic [Latin: Thylacitis], which grows on the high mountains of the Cilicians,

Where the rivers of the billowy Cestrus [Latin: Cestri] glide.

Grind smyrnium [Latin: Smyrnion] sometimes, and take iris [Latin: irida] at the same time,

And the head of the lily [Latin: Lirineum]. Which the Cytherean goddess hated,

Because it wished to contend with her concerning beauty,

And yielding to eternal reproach, she stamped into the middle

Of its leaves the shameful parts of a braying ass.

Often shave the head, and take the foliage which hot rue [Latin: Ruta]

Bears; and which the green caterpillars are accustomed to gnaw away,

Cut off with a knife from the top of the root. And the light

Meal which the ground barley has just poured forth

You should drench in posca [Latin: posca]: and smear it around both temples.

Let no one unwisely fill his belly with henbane [Latin: hyoscyamo],

As do those whose minds are turned by blind madness:

Or boys when the first down falls from their heads,

And they can walk upon straight feet

Having already forgotten how to crawl, nor still needing a nurse,

Who rejoice to chew the branches distinguished by an evil flower.

Just as when they have just begun to put forth their first teeth,

And their swelling gums ache with itching.

But an abundance of drawn milk will cure the harm,

Or the weak pods, accustomed to bring forth curved fruits

Under smooth leaves, resembling horns;

If it is drenched with a great amount of squeezed olive oil.

It is also fitting to eat raw nettle [Latin: vrticam] or dry seeds,

And to suck out the pressed juice of the leaves with the lips,

And chicory [Latin: intyba], and cress [Latin: nasturcia], and the persea tree [Latin: persea];

And mustard [Latin: napy], and radish [Latin: raphanus], and the tops of the slender leek [Latin: porri],

And the head is a help, which the garlic [Latin: Allia] bears,

Compact with grains joined in order, and cures by drinking.

Whoever has drunk the tear of the fertile poppy [Latin: papaueris],

Deep sleep holds him; with glacial cold his extreme

Limbs grow torpid, nor does he open his blind eyes,

But they are held motionless, bound by closed eyelids.

From all sides the body drips with much heavy

Sweat, the face is pale, the lips are burning:

The bonds of the cheeks are loosened: a breath, small

And cold at the same time, is breathed from the bottom of the mouth.

Often also twisted nostrils or a livid nail,

Or hollow eyes are certain omens of death.

Do not yield to fear, but gird yourself to cure the illness;

Offering sweet drinks; and to him who barely draws breath,

Mixing hot wine, and sometimes Hymettian [Latin: Hymettia] honey

Drawn from the combs of bees, whose multitudes born

In thick woods from the liquefied body of a bull,

Have chosen their seats crowded closely together, hidden

In the ancient wood of an oak, and devoting their effort to honey,

Having fed on thyme with their feet, and the flower of the green heather:

They provide varied offspring and rich foods for Ceres [Latin: Cereri]:

And sometimes you should instill [oil of] rose, imbued in a sweet-smelling fleece,

Into the closed mouth, having unlocked the teeth,

Or let them, sated with iris-oil, be sent into the lowest throat:

or sometimes what has flowed alone from the olive-press.

Strike the face on this side and that with your palms, the ears with shouts,

until you rouse him, and shake the torpid body,

so that, as death approaches, he may shake off the deadly lethargy,

and vomit the venom having taken the medicine.

Then, drenched in soft oil and wine, let him put on cloaks,

and let his chilling limbs grow warm with drink.

Now pouring warm water over him, plunge the sick body

into a tub, and let him be washed and float in hot waters:

Thus the thickened skin and the ruddy humor will be melted.

Learn to recognize the poisoned drinks of the sea-hare,

pestiferous, which the sea has brought forth in its middle waves:

It smells of the scales and refuse of a venomous marine

fish, and it tastes of a fish that is putrid, and which,

not being fully cleaned, the remaining scales have tainted.

Indeed it is carried dirty and hangs among the thin

tresses of the squid, as if born from it,

or the cuttlefish, which, nearly overcome by the fisherman's force and tricks,

fleeing away, disturbs the waves with black ink.

These have a jaundiced color, mixed with green and black,

over their whole body, and their flesh begins gradually

to waste away; they hate food, the skin is raised deep

with swelling, and the feet inflate, and soon redness

seizes both swollen cheeks on all sides, like a budding flower.

The bladder excretes a little urine, and that

is either presently purple, or reddens tinged with blood.

He shrinks from every fish, and having seen one suddenly

is nauseous, and abhors the meals which the sea sends.

Against these things, mix cups of black hellebore,

or the tear which freshly pressed scammony pours forth,

so that the venom of the obscene fish may be driven from the body.

Or let him sometimes drink the milk of an ass, or consume

the viscous stems of mallow cooked in a pot:

and the concreted pitch which flows from the trunk of the cedar,

or else let him abundantly chew the fruits of the Cretan pomegranate

and the wine-dark ones, then those which are called Promenean,

and those which fertile Aegina bore, then all those which hide

reddening and hard seeds within a thin rind.

But now let the edible grape be pressed, cast into a basket,

just as moist olives are squeezed in the presses.

If anyone, being very thirsty, drinks the liquid waters from a river

with his face prone like a bull,

setting aside with his hands the filth and swimming algae,

into his throat, approaching with great force,

crackling with long hunger, the leech which rejoices in blood

is carried onto his lips with the drink, and afterwards deep into his belly.

Or if, when the lights are covered under dark night,

desiring to relieve his thirst, he ill-providently brings his mouth

to the urn, then the worm floating on the top of the water

rushes in, and entering, invades his open throat:

and wherever the stream of water has borne it, tossed about in various ways,

here it sticks and drinks up his gore with its mouth:

Now it holds the besieged channels of breath and voice,

where the air glides past the narrow isthmus:

now indeed it settles around the mouth of the middle belly,

and torturing the man, it feeds on the ingested food.

But he who mixes cups of burning vinegar,

and who adds snow, or offers ice rubbed by the hard

cold of Boreas, compels it to depart.

Or you may take a salty clod of earth dug up by the plowshare,

and drink it soaked in abundant moisture.

Soon also let a wave of salt be sought from the sea itself,

hot from the autumn suns or from many flames.

And dug-up salts equally, or the mixed foam of salt

will help, which, sunk to the deepest bottom,

the dealer in salted goods gathers, mixing waters with waters.

Beware, lest the evil ferments of the earth vex you.

Often his chest swells, and his neck with a hard

...as if constricted by a noose, if they grow near the lairs of vipers, from which foul venom exits, and they absorb the very breath that is sent from the dark cave. You call them all mushrooms [fungi], but there are many names everywhere:

You, in response, should grant the winding body of a radish [raphanus], and a branch cut from a turf of sharp rue [ruta], and old copperas [chalcanthum], made for a cobbler's use.

Or you will mix the ash of clematis [clematis] with vinegar,

But now you will pour natron [nitrum] into sour wine, and the crushed root of pellitory [pyrethrum], or what grows in gardens, cress [cardama] and citron [Medum malum], and burning mustard [sinapi].

Equally do not despise turning the dregs of wine into ash and the dung of a hen, and thrusting your right hand deep into your throat, so that you may avoid death.

If anyone has drunk the deadly poisons of the sticky and gloomy lizard [lacertus], which is indeed called Salamander [Salamandra] by name, which the destructive fire does not harm, immediately fires torment their burning tongue: they grow numb, and their limbs loosen trembling with their own weight, they wander unsteadily, and on all fours they walk like boys: for the mind, blunted, vacillates. Many a weal grows livid in a circle over the skin, and it exudes pus, with the poison lingering long.

To this indeed you will provide the remedy of the tear of the lofty pine [pinus], if you wish to mix it poured into sticky honey. Also boil the ripe cone that hangs on the tree, together with the shoot of the terrestrial pitch-pine [picea] and pine [pinus].

And it is useful to mix it with the flour of bitter vetch [ervum] crushed in a mill, and to dry the seed of the nettle [urtica], and to have eaten the nettle itself sprinkled with fine pollen, cooked in oil, and to thrust it into the unwilling belly.

Furthermore, tenacious resin and the offspring of the sacred bee, the galbanum [galbanea] root, and the tender egg of a tortoise [testudo], and the flesh of pigs swollen with much fat come to the rescue, cooked with the curved tortoise which swims the waves of the sea with swift wings.

Or also the mountain tortoise, which feeds on clover [cytisus], and which Mercury [Mercurius] rendered melodious with a modulating voice from a mute one, who removed the flesh of the innocent creature from its painted shell, and stretched a double elbow on its edges.

Give foul frogs [ranæ] to death, and mix in the root of the thorny eryngo [erynge], and at the same time let scammony [scammonia] boil in just weight, and having satiated him with this drink, you will bring him back from death, as he approaches the thresholds of infernal Dis.

If anyone drinks cups medicated with summer toads [rubetae], or frogs [ranæ], which mute and hairy cling to the bushes in early spring, and suck the dewy air, these indeed engender a greenness similar to thapsia [thapsus] and a bulk throughout the limbs, and with a packed panting chest the breath is drawn with difficulty, and a heavy stench settles in the mouth.

However, a defense is the flesh of frogs [ranæ] roasted in flames or boiled, or pitch poured into Falernian wine.

The spleen [splen] of the deadly toad [rubeta], a cruel weight, has also been of use, which lives in the pools in the grey sedge, and garrulous predicts the times of the desired spring.

But the mute one, hiding under the tall reed, diffuses the green color of boxwood [buxus] through the languid limbs. The mouth also drips with bile. Sometimes troublesome gnawings press the heart, and the flanks jump with frequent hiccups.

Unwillingly they drip, both man and woman, with much seed, nor does any hope of future offspring remain.

But you, pour unmixed wine into bowls, and bring out what is stored in the jar, and compel him to vomit if perchance he refuses.

Also you should warm him in a tub which a fire placed underneath will heat; and let his skin become wet with poured-out sweat.

Furthermore, mix the dry and cut reed [arundinea] root with wine, of those which grow abundantly in the pools, where they rejoice to swim in the unclean waves: or that which the unshorn square stem of pleasing odor holds.

Exercise him continuously with labor, empty of both drink and food,

and dry out and digest his swollen body.

If the cruel Spuma argenti attacks you,

take care; then the belly is heavy, and whirling flatus

rolls about, and rouses tumults in the central navel.

You would think it attacks the ileum, which, rolling blind

murmurs, distorts the sick with savage torments.

The course of urine is stopped, swelling occupies the body

on all sides: and an appearance rivaling lead defiles the face.

But bestow two obols of Sabaean myrrh,

and cups of clary sage, or St. John's wort growing in the high

mountains, or cut shoots of Cilician hyssop.

Often also wild fig, and the seed of Isthmian celery,

which the Sisyphidae, conducting the funeral of the drowned

boy Melicertes, give as rewards to the victor:

And rub in wrinkled pepper at the same time, and drink it down

with Lenaean liquor, and you will cure the sad disease.

And sometimes gather the small shoots of flowering privet,

and the new fruits of the Punic pomegranate.

Beware the poisonous yew which rises on Oeta

similar to firs, and consumes with bitter death,

unless contrary to custom you prepare to pour out pure wines

in a full bowl, as soon as the sick man feels

his obstructed jaws and the canal of his breath being constricted.

I, that Nicander who have noted many things in my book

and described the remedies for the hostile mushroom,

furthermore advise to pluck the branches which envious Pallas

hates, and which did not yield a crown to Juno,

but adorned victorious Venus, when there were contests of beauty

among the goddesses on the hills of leafy Ida,

and to pluck the black seeds in the marshy woodland,

cooked and ripening in the winter sun,

an excellent help crushed with a spoon, and to transmit

the juice through a light linen cloth, or a curved wicker sieve,

and to offer it squeezed out to be drunk in a full cup:

Or to many, if you desire to be of more use, it has nothing

of unpleasant taste, and from this to hope for certain health.

Now I pray you be mindful of the Poet Nicander,

and you will revere Jupiter who gives laws to guests.