La mer rend les vaisseaux à ces tranquilles bords ; / l'hymen promet ses fruits, la terre ses trésors. / Je donne à tous des lois, des champs, des domiciles. / Mais notre sort nous suit dans ces nouveaux asiles : / un air contagieux, exhalant son poison, / charge de ses vapeurs la brûlante saison : / l'eau tarit, l'herbe meurt, et la stérile année / voit sur son front noirci sa guirlande fanée.
Now the ships were usually beached on the dry sand: / the young men were busy with weddings and their fresh fields: / I was deciding on laws and homesteads: suddenly, / from some infected region of the sky, came a wretched plague, / corrupting bodies, trees, and crops, and a season of death. / They relinquished sweet life, or dragged their sick limbs / around: then Sirius blazed over barren fields: / the grass withered, and the sickly harvest denied its fruits.