Clinging to his skin A Seps with curving tooth, of little size, He seized and tore away, and to the sands Pierced with his javelin.

Small the serpent's bulk; None deals a death more horrible in form.
For swift the flesh dissolving round the wound Bared the pale bone; swam all his limbs in blood; Wasted the tissue of his calves and knees: And all the muscles of his thighs were thawed In black distilment, and file membrane sheath Parted, that bound his vitals, which abroad Flowed upon earth: yet seemed it not that all His frame was loosed, for by the venomous drop Were all the bands that held his muscles drawn Down to a juice; the framework of his chest Was bare, its cavity, and all the parts Hid by the organs of life, that make the man.
So by unholy death there stood revealed His inmost nature.

Head and stalwart arms, And neck and shoulders, from their solid mass Melt in corruption.

Not more swiftly flows Wax at the sun's command, nor snow compelled By southern breezes.

Yet not all is said: For so to noxious humours fire consumes Our fleshly frame; but on the funeral pyre What bones have perished?
These dissolve no less Than did the mouldered tissues, nor of death Thus swift is left a trace.