A terrifying image, both the ‘slug-white’ and the thigh-thickness of this enormous python. It curls up into the tree and ‘schloops’ up a nest of sparrows, fledglings and all, tainting the propitiation of the gods going on below.
‘A slug-white, thigh-thick python slid
Out of the ferns that bibbed the stone,
Then glided through the lake of votive blood
And up into the tree and searched its leaves.’
Source: Christopher Logue, War Music: An account of Books 1-4 and 16-19 of Homer’s Iliad, London: Faber and Faber, 2001, p. 75
