If for the truly good Is fame, and virtue by the deed itself, Not by sucoessful issue, should be judged, Yield, famous ancestors! Fortune, not worth Gained you your glory.

But such name as his Who ever merited by successful war Or slaughtered peoples?
Rather would I lead With him his triumph through the pathless sands And Libya's bounds, than in Pompeius' car Three times ascend the Capitol, (18) or break The proud Jugurtha.

(19) Rome! in him behold His country's father, worthiest of thy vows; A name by which men shall not blush to swear, Whom, should'st thou break the fetters from thy neck, Thou may'st in distant days decree divine.
Now was the heat more dense, and through that clime Than which no further on the Southern side The gods permit, they trod; and scarcer still The water, till in middle sands they found One bounteous spring which clustered serpents held Though scaroe the space sufficed.

By thirsting snakes The fount was thronged and asps pressed on the marge.
But when the chieftain saw that speedy fate Was on the host, if they should leave the well Untasted, "Vain," he cried, "your fear of death.
Drink, nor delay: 'tis from the threatening tooth Men draw their deaths, and fatal from the fang Issues the juice if mingled with the blood; The cup is harmless." Then he sipped the fount, Still doubting, and in all the Libyan waste There only was he first to touch the stream.
Why fertile thus in death the pestilent air Of Libya, what poison in her soil Her several nature mixed, my care to know Has not availed: but from the days of old A fabled story has deceived the world.
Far on her limits, where the burning shore Admits the ocean fervid from the sun Plunged in its waters, lay Medusa's fields Untilled; nor forests shaded, nor the plough Furrowed the soil, which by its mistress' gaze Was hardened into stone: Phorcus, her sire.
Malevolent nature from her body first Drew forth these noisome pests; first from her jaws Issued the sibilant rattle of serpent tongues; Clustered around her head the poisonous brood Like to a woman's hair, wreathed on her neck Which gloried in their touch; their glittering heads Advanced towards her; and her tresses kempt Dripped down with viper's venom.

This alone Thou hast, accursed one, which men can see Unharmed; for who upon that gaping mouth Looked and could dread?
To whom who met her glance, Was death permitted?
Fate delayed no more.
But ere the victim feared had struck him down: Perished the limbs while living, and the soul Grew stiff and stark ere yet it fled the frame.
Men have been frenzied by the Furies' locks, Not killed; and Cerberus at Orpheus' song Ceased from his hissing, and Alcides saw The Hydra ere he slew.