Of Afric pests Thou bear'st the palm for hurtfulness: the life They snatch away, thou only with the life The clay that held it.
Lo! a different fate, Not this by melting! for a Prester's fang Nasidius struck, who erst in Marsian fields Guided the ploughshare.

Burned upon his face A redness as of flame: swollen the skin, His features hidden, swollen all his limbs Till more than human: and his definite frame One tumour huge concealed.

A ghastly gore Is puffed from inwards as the virulent juice Courses through all his body; which, thus grown, His corselet holds not.

Not in caldron so Boils up to mountainous height the steaming wave; Nor in such bellying curves does canvas bend To Eastern tempests.

Now the ponderous bulk Rejects the limbs, and as a shapeless trunk Burdens the earth: and there, to beasts and birds A fatal feast, his comrades left the corse Nor dared to place, yet swelling, in the tomb.
But for their eyes the Libyan pests prepared More dreadful sights.