Prevod
The other creatures, in their various forms, the earth brought forth of her own accord, once the lingering moisture had warmed beneath the sun’s fire, and the mud and sodden marshes had swollen with the heat, and the fertile seeds of life, nourished in the life-giving soil as in a mother’s womb, had grown and, in time, assumed some shape. So, when the seven-mouthed Nile withdraws from the waterlogged fields and returns its waters to their ancient channel, and the fresh silt grows hot beneath the sun, farmers, turning the clods, find countless creatures: among them, some have only just begun to take shape, still in the act of birth; others they see unfinished,
lacking their full complement of limbs; and often, in the same body, one part is alive, while the other is still unformed earth. For when moisture and heat achieve the proper balance, they conceive, and from these two all things arise; and though fire is the enemy of water, moist warmth creates all things, and discordant harmony is fruitful. Thus, when the earth, still muddy from the recent flood, grew warm again beneath the sun’s rays and the deepening heat, she brought forth countless species, restoring some to their former shapes, but creating strange new monsters too.
Unwillingly, she also gave birth to you then, mighty Python, and you, a serpent unknown before, became a terror to the newly risen peoples: so much of the mountainside you filled. The bow-bearing god, who had never before used his weapons against anything but deer and fleeing roe deer, nearly emptied his quiver, striking the huge beast with a thousand shafts, and slew him as venom poured from his black wounds.
And lest time should erase the glory of his deed, he established sacred games with thronged contests, called the Pythian games after the serpent he had overcome. There, any young man who won with his fists, his feet, or his chariot received the honour of a wreath of oak leaves: the laurel did not yet exist, and Phoebus crowned his temples, graced with flowing hair, with leaves from any tree.
