CLAUDI CLAUDIANI IN RUFINUM LIBER PRIMUS
Claudius Claudianus [Claudian]
4th-5th c. AD
Trans RMBullard
Latin (Late Imperial/Christian Era)
Praefatio I [Preface]
Phoebeo domitus Python cum decidit arcu
membraque Cirrhaeo fudit anhela iugo,
[As soon as the monster Python, now conquered, fell from the blows of Phoebus Apollo's bow, and poured out his guts and final gasps upon the Cyrrhaean peaks,]
qui spiris tegeret montes, hauriret hiatu
flumina, sanguineis tingeret astra iubis,
[and as he covered the mountains with his coils, he soaked the mountain streams into his cavity, and he stained the stars with his bloody mane,]
iam liber Parnasus erat, nexuque solutum 5
coeperat erecta surgere fronde nemus,
[by this time, Mount Parnasos was already free, and a grove of trees, loosened from its bond and now arising, had begun to grow greatly with branches,]
concussaeque diu spatiosis tractibus orni
securas uentis explicuere comas,
[and for a long time, the trees, bunched together in spacious tracts, began to bend their firm boughs out towards to the windy sky,]
et qui uipereo spumauit saepe ueneno
Cephisos nitidis purior ibat aquis.
[and the river Cephisos, which often foamed with the Python's former venom, now began to flow more purely with shining waters.]
