Civil War
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NE'ER to the summons of the Eternal laws
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More slowly Titan rose, It is, methinks, a morning full of fate! It riseth slowly, as her sullen car Had all the weight of sleep and death hung at it! And her sick head is bound about with clouds As if she threatened night ere noon of day. Ben Jonson, 'Catiline,' i., 1. nor drave his steeds,
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Forced by the sky revolving,See Book VI., 576. up the heaven,
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With gloomier presage; wishing to endure
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The pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse;
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And drew the mists up, not to feed his flames,As to the sun finding fuel in the clouds, see Book I., line 472.
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But lest his light upon Thessalian earth
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Might fall undimmed.
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Pompeius on that morn,
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To him the latest day of happy life,
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In troubled sleep an empty dream conceived.
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For in the watches of the night he heard
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Innumerable Romans shout his name
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Within his theatre; the benches vied
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To raise his fame and place him with the gods;
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As once in youth, when victory was won
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O'er conquered tribes whom swift Iberus girds,Pompeius triumphed first in 81 B.C. for his victories in Sicily and Africa, at the age of twenty-four. Sulla at first objected, but finally yielded and said, 'Let him triumph then in God's name.' The triumph for the defeat of Sertorius was not till 71 B.C., in which year Pompeius was elected Consul along with Crassus. (Compare Book IX., 706.)
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And when Sertorius' armies fought and fled,
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He sat triumphant for the west subdued,
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In pure white gown, and heard the Senate cheer;
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No less majestic as a Roman knight
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Than had the purple robe adorned his car.
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Perhaps, as ills drew near, his anxious soul,
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Shunning the future, wooed the happy past;
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Or, as is wont, prophetic slumber showed
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That which was not to be, by doubtful forms
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Misleading; or as envious Fate forbade
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Return to Italy, this glimpse of Rome
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Kind Fortune gave. Break not his latest sleep,
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Ye sentinels; let not the trumpet call
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Strike on his ear: for on the morrow's night
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Shapes of the battle lost, of death and war
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Shall crowd his rest with terrors. Whence shalt thou
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The poor man's happiness of sleep regain?
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Happy if thus, e'en thus, thy Rome could see
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Once more her captain! Would the gods had given
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To thee and to thy country one day yet
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To reap the latest fruit of such a love:
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Though sure of fate to come! Thou marchest on
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As though by heaven ordained in Rome to die;
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She, conscious ever of her prayers for thee
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Heard by the gods, deemed not the fates decreed
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Such evil destiny, that she should lose
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The last sad solace of her Magnus' tomb.
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Then young and old had blent their tears for thee,
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And child unbidden; women torn their hair
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And struck their bosoms as for Brutus dead.
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E'en now though trembling at the victor's sword,
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Though cruel Caesar herald thy defeat,
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Yet shall they grieve, while at the Thunderer's throne
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They offer incense and the laurel wreath.
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Ah, wretched fate! In silence must they groan;
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Nor in that theatre which heard thy praise
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Proclaim their sorrow for Pompeius dead.
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The stars had fled before the growing morn,
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When eager voices (as the fates drew on
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The world to ruin) round Pompeius' tent
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Ask for the signal. What! shall those condemned
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To die ere fall of eve, provoke the hour
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Of hastening death, demand the fatal doom
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Their own, their country's? 'Magnus fears,' they cry,
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He's patient of his kinsman, slow to strike,
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'And fondly holds beneath his sway the world;
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'So dreads a peace.' And kings from Orient lands,
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And peoples, eager for their distant homes,
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Already murmured at the lengthy war.
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Thus has it pleased the gods, when woe impends
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On guilty men, to make them seem its cause.
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We court disaster, crave the fatal sword.
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Of Magnus' camp Pharsalia was the prayer;
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For Tullius, of all the sons of Rome
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Chief orator, beneath whose civil rule
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Fierce Catiline at the peace-compelling axe
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Trembled and fled, arose, to Magnus' ear
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Bearing the voice of all. To him was war
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Grown hateful, and he longed once more to hear
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The Senate's plaudits; and with eloquent lips
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He lent persuasion to the weaker cause.
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Fortune, Pompeius, for her gifts to thee
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'Asks this one boon, that thou shouldst use her now.
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Here at thy feet thy leading captains lie;
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' And here thy monarchs, and a suppliant world
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' Entreats thee prostrate for thy kinsman's fall.
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' So long shall Caesar plunge the world in war?
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' Swift was thy tread when these proud nations fell;
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' How deep their shame, and justly, should delay
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'Now mar thy conquests! Where thy trust in Fate,
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Thy fervour where? Ingrate! Dost dread the gods,
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' Or think they favour not the Senate's cause?
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' Thy troops unbidden shall the standards seize
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' And conquer; thou in shame be forced to win.
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' If at the Senate's orders and for us
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' The war is waged, then give to us the right
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' To choose the battle-field. Why dost thou keep
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' From Caesar's throat the swords of all the world?
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' The weapon quivers in the eager hand:
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' Scarce one awaits the signal. Strike at once,
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' Or without thee the trumpets sound the frav.
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' Art thou the Senate's comrade or her lord?
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' We wait your answer.'
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But Pompeius groaned;
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His mind was adverse, but he felt the fates
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Opposed his wish, and knew the hand divine.
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'Since all desire it, and the fates prevail,
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' So let it be; your leader now no more,
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' I share the labours of the battle-field.
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' Let Fortune roll the nations of the earth
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' In one red ruin; myriads of mankind
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' See their last sun to-day. Yet, Rome, I swear,
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' This day of blood was forced upon thy son.
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' Without a wound, the prizes of the war
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' Might have been thine, and he who broke the peace
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' In peace forgotten. Whence this lust for crime?
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' Shall bloodless victories in civil war
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' Be shunned, not sought? We've ravished from our foe
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All boundless seas, and land; his starving troops
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' Have snatched earth's crop half-grown, in vain attempt
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' Their hunger to appease; they prayed for death,
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' Sought for the sword-thrust, and within our ranks
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' Were fain to mix their life-blood with your own.
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' Much of the war is done: the conscript youth
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' Whose heart beats high, who burns to join the fray
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' (Though men fight hard in terror of defeat),
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' The shock of onset need no longer fear.
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' Bravest is he who promptly meets the ill
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' When fate commands it and the moment comes,
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Yet brooks delay, in prudence; and shall we,
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' Our happy state enjoying, risk it all?
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' Trust to the sword the fortunes of the world?
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' Not victory, but battle, ye demand.
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' Do thou, O Fortune, of the Roman state
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' Who mad'st Pompeius guardian, from his hands
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' Take back the charge grown weightier, and thyself
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' Commit its safety to the chance of war.
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· Nor blame nor glory shall be mine to-day.
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'Thy prayers unjustly, Caesar, have prevailed:
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' We fight! What wickedness, what woes on men,
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' Destruction on what realms this dawn shall bring!
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' Crimson with Roman blood yon stream shall run.
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' Would that (without the ruin of our cause)
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' The first fell bolt hurled on this cursed day
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' Might strike me lifeless! Victory to me
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' Were not more joyful, for this battle brings
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' A name of pity or a name of hate.
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' The loser bears the burden of defeat;
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' The victor wins, but conquest is a crime.'
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Thus to the soldiers, burning for the fray,
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He yields, forbidding, and throws down the reins.
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So may a sailor give the winds control
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Upon his barque, which, driven by the seas,
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Bears him an idle burden. Now the camp
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Hums with impatience, and the brave man's heart
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With beats tumultuous throbs against his breast;
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And all the host had standing in their looks
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The paleness of the death that was to come.These two lines are taken from Ben Jonson's 'Catiline,' act v., scene 6.
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On that day's fight 'twas manifest that Rome
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And all the future destinies of man
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Hung trembling; and by weightier dread possessed,
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They knew not danger. Who would fear for self
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Should ocean rise and whelm the mountain tops,
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And sun and sky descend upon the earth
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In universal chaos? Every mind
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Is bent upon Pompeius, and on Rome.
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They trust no sword until its deadly point
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Glows on the sharpening stone; no lance will serve
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Till straightened for the fray; each bow is strung
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Anew, and arrows chosen for their work
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Fill all the quivers; horsemen try the curb
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And fit the bridle rein and whet the spur.
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If toils divine with human may compare,
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'Twas thus, when Phlegra bore the giant crew,See Book IV., 668. 'Pallene' (line 175) is to be understood as meaning Phlegra.
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In Etna's furnace glowed the sword of Mars,
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Neptunus' trident felt the flame once more;
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And great Apollo after Python slain
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Sharpened his darts afresh: on Pallas' shield
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Was spread anew the dread Medusa's hair;
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And for the battle in Pallene's fields
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The Cyclops forged new thunderbolts for Jove.
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Yet Fortune failed not, as they sought the field,
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In various presage of the ills to come;
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All heaven opposed their march: portentous fire
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In columns filled the plain, and torches blazed:
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And thirsty whirlwinds mixed with meteor bolts
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Smote on them as they strode, whose sulphurous flames
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Perplexed the vision. Crests were struck from helms;
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The melted sword-blade flowed upon the hilt:
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The spear ran liquid, and the hurtful steel
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Smoked with a sulphur that had come from heaven.
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Nay, more, the standards, hid by swarms of bees
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Innumerable, weighed the bearer down,
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Scarce lifted from the earth; bedewed with tears;
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No more of Rome the standards,Henceforth to be the standards of the Emperor. or her state.
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And from the altar fled the frantic bull
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To fields afar; nor was a victim found
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To grace the sacrifice of coming doom.
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But thou, O Caesar, to what gods of ill
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Didst thou appeal? What furies didst thou call,
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What powers of madness and what Stygian Kings
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Whelmed in th' abyss of hell? Didst favour gain
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By sacrifice in this thine impious war?
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Strange sights were seen; or caused by hands divine
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Or due to fearful fancy. Haemus' top
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Plunged headlong in the valley, Pindus met
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With high Olympus, while at Ossa's feet
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Red ran Boebeis,A lake at the foot of Mount Ossa. Pindus, Ossa, Olympus, and, above all, Haemus (the Balkans) were at a long distance from Pharsalia. Comp. Book VI., 678. and Pharsalia's field
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Gave warlike voices as in depth of night.
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Now darkness came upon their wondering gaze,
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Now daylight pale and wan, their helmets wreathed
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In pallid mist; the spirits of their sires
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Hovered in air, and shades of kindred dead
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Passed flitting through the gloom. Yet had the host,
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Conscious of guilty prayers, and of the hope
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To do to death their brothers and their sires,
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One solace: that they found in hearts amazed
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With horrors, and in earth and air distraught,
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A happy omen of the crimes to come.
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Was't strange that peoples whom their latest day
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Of happy life awaited (if the mind
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Of man foreknows) should tremble with affright?
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Romans who dwelt by far Araxes' stream,
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And Tyrian Gades,Gades (Cadiz) is stated to have been founded by the Phoenicians about 1000 BC. in whatever clime,
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'Neath every sky, struck by mysterious dread
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Were plunged in sorrow-yet rebuked the tear,
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For yet they knew not of the fatal day.
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Thus on Euganean hills This alludes to the story told by Plutarch ('Caesar,' 47), that, at Patavium, Caius Cornelius, a man reputed for skill in divination, and a friend of Livy the historian, was sitting to watch the birds that day. 'And first of all (as Livius says) he discovered the time of the battle, and he said to those present that the affair was now deciding and the men were going into action. Looking again, and observing the signs, he sprang up with enthusiasm and called out, "You conquer, Caesar."' (Long's translation.) where sulphurous fumes
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Disclose the rise of Aponus The Fontes Aponi were warm springs near Padua. An altar, inscribed to Apollo Aponus, was found at Ribchester, and is now at St. John's College, Cambridge. (Wright, 'Celt, Roman, and Saxon,' p. 320.) from earth,
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And where Timavus broadens in the meads,
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An augur spake: 'The last great day is come;
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' To-day in battle meet the impious arms
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' Of Caesar and of Magnus.' Or he saw
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The bolts of Jupiter, predicting ill;
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Or else the sky discordant o'er the space
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Of heaven, from pole to pole; or else perchance
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The sun was sad and misty in the height
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And told the battle by his wasted beams.
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By Nature's fiat that Thessalian day
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Passed not as others; if the gifted sense
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Of reading portents had been given to all,
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All men had known Pharsalia. Gods of heaven!
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How do ye mark the great ones of the earth!
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The world gives tokens of their weal or woe;
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The sky records their fates: in distant climes
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To future races shall their tale be told,
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Or by the fame alone of mighty deeds
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Had in remembrance, or by this my care
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Borne through the centuries: and men shall read
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In hope and fear the story of the war
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And breathless pray, as though it were to come,
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For that long since accomplished; and for thee
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E'en then, Pompeius, shall that prayer be given.
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Reflected from their arms, th' opposing sun
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Filled all the slope with radiance as they marched
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In ordered ranks to that ill-fated fight,
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And stood arranged for battle. On the left
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Thou, Lentulus, hadst charge; two legions there,
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The fourth, and bravest of them all, the first:
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While on the right, Domitius, ever stanch,
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Though fates be adverse, stood: in middle line
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The hardy soldiers from Cilician lands,
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In Scipio's care; their chief in Libyan days,
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To-day their comrade. By Enipeus' pools
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And by the rivulets, the mountain troops
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Of Cappadocia, and loose of rein
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Thy squadrons, Pontus: on the firmer ground
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Galatia's tetrarchs and the greater kings;
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And all the purple-robed, the slaves of Rome.
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Numidian hordes were there from Afric shores,
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There Creta's host and Ituraeans found
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Full space to wing their arrows; there the tribes
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From brave Iberia clashed their shields, and there
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Gaul stood arrayed against her ancient foe.
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Let all the nations be the victor's prize,
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None grace in future a triumphal car;
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This fight demands the slaughter of a world.
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Caesar that day to send his troops for spoil
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Had left his tent, when on the further hill
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Behold! his foe descending to the plain.
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The moment asked for by a thousand prayers
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Is come, which puts his fortune on the risk
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Of imminent war, to win or lose it all.
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For burning with desire of kingly power
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His eager soul ill brooked the small delay
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This civil war compelled: each instant lost
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Robbed from his due! But when at length he knew
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The last great conflict come, the fight supreme,
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Whose prize the leadership of all the world:
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And felt the ruin nodding to its fall:
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Swiftest to strike, yet for a little space
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His rage for battle failed; the spirit bold
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To pledge itself the issue, wavered now:
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For Magnus' fortunes gave no room for hope,
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Though Caesar's none for fear. Deep in his soul
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Such doubt was hidden, as to rouse the throng
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He spake of victory: ' Ye men of Rome
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' Who made my fortunes, host that won the world!
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'Prayed for so oft, the dawn of fight is come.
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'No more entreat the gods: with sword in hand
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'Seize on our fates; and Caesar in your deeds
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This day is great or little. This the day
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'For which I hold since Rubicon was passed
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Your promise given: for this we flew to arms:See Book I., 412 and following lines.
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'For this deferred the triumphs which we won,
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'And which the foe forbad : this gives you back
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' Your homes and kindred, and the peaceful farm,
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' Your prize for years of service in the field.
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' And by the fates' command this day shall prove
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' Whose quarrel juster: for defeat is guiltQuoted by the Attorney-General in his speech at the trial of Harrison the regicide. 'Now they speak plainly, and call this blessed king, this glorious saint, the Grand Delinquent. Hac acies victum factura nocentem est.' 'State Trials,' v. 1014.
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' To him on whom it falls. If in my cause
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' With fire and sword ye did your country wrong,
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' Strike for acquittal! Should another judge
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' This war, not Caesar, none were blameless found.
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' Not for my sake this battle, but for you,
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' To give you, soldiers, liberty and law
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'Gainst all the world. Wishful myself for life
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' Apart from public cares, and for the gown
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' That robes the private citizen, I refuse
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' To yield from office till the law allows
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' Your right in all things. On my shoulders rest
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' All blame; all power be yours. Nor deep the blood
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' Between yourselves and conquest. Grecian schools
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' Of exercise and wrestling For the contempt here expressed for the Greek gymnastic schools, see also Tacitus, 'Annals,' 14, 21. It is well known that Nero instituted games called Neronia which were borrowed from the Greeks; and that many ofthe Roman citizens despised them as foreign and profligate. Merivale, chapter liii., cites this passage. send us here
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' Their chosen darlings to await your swords;
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' And scarcely armed for war, a dissonant crowd
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' Barbaric, that will start to hear our trump,
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' Nay, their own clamour. Not in civil strife
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' Your blows shall fall-the battle of to-day
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' Sweeps from the earth the enemies of Rome.
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' Dash through these cowards and their vaunted kings:
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' One stroke of sword and all the world is yours.
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' Make plain to all men that the crowds who decked
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'Pompeius' hundred pageants scarce were fit
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'For one poor triumph. Shall Armenia care
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'Who leads her masters, or barbarians shed
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'One drop of blood to make Pompeius chief
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'O'er our Italia? Rome, 'tis Rome they hate,
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'Their lord and master: yet they hate the most
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'Those whom they know. My fate is in the hands
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'Of you, mine own true soldiers, proved in all
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'The wars we fought in Gallia. When the sword
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'Of each of you shall strike, I know the hand:
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'The javelin's flight to me betrays the arm
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'That launched it hurtling: and to-day once more
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'I see the faces stern, the threatening eyes,
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'Unfailing proofs of victory to come.
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'E'en now the battle rushes on my sight;
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'Kings trodden down and scattered senators
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'Fill all th' ensanguined plain, and peoples float
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'Unnumbered on the crimson tide of death.
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'Enough of words-I but delay the fates;
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'And you who burn to dash into the fray,
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'Forgive the pause. I tremble with the hopeThus paraphrased by Dean Stanley: I tremble not with terror, but with hope, As the great day reveals its coming scope; Never in earlier days, our hearts to cheer, Have such bright gifts of Heaven been brought so near, Nor ever has been kept the aspiring soul By space so narrow from so grand a goal. Inaugural address at St. Andrews, 1873, on the 'Study of Greatness.'
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'Thus finding utterance. I ne'er have seen
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'The mighty gods so near; this little field
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'Alone dividing us; their hands are full
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'Of my predestined honours: for 'tis I
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'Who when this war is done shall have the power
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'O'er all that peoples, all that kings enjoy
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'To shower it where I will. But has the sky
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'Swerved from its course, has some high star of heaven
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'Turned backwards, that such mighty deeds should pass
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'Here on Thessalian earth? To-day we reap
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' Of all our wars the harvest or the doom.
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' Think of the cross that threats us, and the chain,
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' Limbs hacked asunder, Caesar's head displayed
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' Upon the rostra; and that narrow field
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' Piled up with slaughter: for this hostile chief
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' Is savage Sulla's pupil. 'Tis for you,
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' If conquered, that I grieve: my lot apart
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' Is cast long since. This sword, should one of you
7.1.tr
' Turn from the battle ere the foe be fled,
7.1.tr
' Shall rob the life of Caesar. O ye gods,
7.1.tr
' Drawn down from heaven by the throes of Rome,
7.1.tr
' May he be conqueror who shall not draw
7.1.tr
' Against the vanquished an inhuman sword,
7.1.tr
' Nor count it as a crime if men of Rome
7.1.tr
' Preferred another's standard to his own.
7.1.tr
' Pompeius' sword drank deep Italian blood
7.1.tr
'When cabined in yon space the brave man's arm
7.1.tr
' No more found room to strike. But you, I pray,
7.1.tr
' Touch not the foe who turns him from the fight,
7.1.tr
' A fellow citizen, a foe no more.
7.1.tr
' But while the gleaming weapons threaten still,
7.1.tr
' Let no fond memories unnerve the arm,That such were Caesar's orders is attested by Appian.
7.1.tr
' No pious thought of father or of kin;
7.1.tr
' But full in face of brother or of sire,
7.1.tr
' Drive home the blade: of victims e'en unknown
7.1.tr
' Your foes account the slaughter as a crime.
7.1.tr
' Spare not our camp, but lay the rampart low
7.1.tr
' And fill the fosse with ruin; not a man
7.1.tr
' But holds his post within the ranks to-day.
7.1.tr
' And yonder tents, deserted by the foe,
7.1.tr
' Shall give us shelter when the rout is done.'
7.1.tr
Scarce had he paused; they snatch the hasty meal,
7.1.tr
And seize their armour and with swift acclaim
7.1.tr
Welcome the chief's predictions of the day,
7.1.tr
Tread low their camp when rushing to the fight;
7.1.tr
And take their post: nor word nor order given,
7.1.tr
In fate they put their trust. Nor, hadst thou placed
7.1.tr
All Caesars there, all striving for the throne
7.1.tr
Of Rome their city, had their serried ranks
7.1.tr
With speedier tread dashed down upon the foe.
7.1.tr
But when Pompeius saw the hostile troops
7.1.tr
Move forth in order and demand the fight,
7.1.tr
And knew the gods' approval of the day,
7.1.tr
He stood astonied, while a deadly chill
7.1.tr
Struck to his heart-omen itself of woe,
7.1.tr
That such a chief should at the call to arms,
7.1.tr
Thus dread the issue: but with fear repressed,
7.1.tr
Borne on his noble steed along the line
7.1.tr
Of all his forces, thus he spake: ' The day
7.1.tr
'Your bravery demands, that final end
7.1.tr
Of civil war ye asked for, is at hand.
7.1.tr
Put forth your strength, your all; the sword to-day
7.1.tr
Does its last work. One crowded hour is charged
7.1.tr
With nations' destinies. Whoe'er of you
7.1.tr
Longs for his land and home, his wife and child,
7.1.tr
Seek them with sword. Here in mid battle-field,
7.1.tr
The gods place all at stake. Our better right
7.1.tr
Bids us expect their favour; they shall dip
7.1.tr
Your brands in Caesar's blood, and thus shall give
7.1.tr
Another sanction to the laws of Rome,
7.1.tr
Our cause of battle. If for him were meant
7.1.tr
An empire o'er the world, had they not put
7.1.tr
An end to Magnus' life? That I am chief
7.1.tr
Of all these mingled peoples and of Rome
7.1.tr
Disproves an angry heaven. See here combined
7.1.tr
'All means of victory. Noble men have sought
7.1.tr
'Unasked the risks of war. Our soldiers boast
7.1.tr
'Ancestral statues. If to us were given
7.1.tr
'A Curius, if Camillus were returned,
7.1.tr
Or patriot Decius to devote his life,
7.1.tr
'Here would they take their stand. From furthest east
7.1.tr
'All nations gathered, cities as the sand
7.1.tr
'Unnumbered, give their aid: a world complete
7.1.tr
'Serves 'neath our standards. North and south and all
7.1.tr
'Who have their being 'neath the starry vault,
7.1.tr
'Here meet in arms conjoined: and shall we not
7.1.tr
Crush with our closing wings this paltry foe?
7.1.tr
'Few shall find room to strike; the rest with voice
7.1.tr
'Must be content to aid: for Caesar's ranks
7.1.tr
'Suffice not for us. Think from Rome's high walls
7.1.tr
' The matrons watch you with their hair unbound;
7.1.tr
' Think that the Senate hoar, too old for arms,
7.1.tr
' With snowy locks outspread; and Rome herself,
7.1.tr
' The world's high mistress, fearing now, alas!
7.1.tr
' A despot-all exhort you to the fight.
7.1.tr
' Think that the people that is and that shall be
7.1.tr
'Joins in the prayer-in freedom to be born,
7.1.tr
' In freedom die, their wish. If 'mid these vows
7.1.tr
' Be still found place for mine, with wife and child,
7.1.tr
' So far as Imperator may, I bend
7.1.tr
' Before you suppliant-unless this fight
7.1.tr
' Be won, behold me exile, your disgrace,
7.1.tr
' My kinsman's scorn. From this, 'tis yours to save.
7.1.tr
' Then save! Nor in the latest stage of life,
7.1.tr
' Let Magnus be a slave.'
7.1.tr
Then burned their souls
7.1.tr
At these his words, indignant at the thought,
7.1.tr
And Rome rose up within them, and to die
7.1.tr
Was welcome.
7.1.tr
Thus alike with hearts aflame
7.1.tr
Moved either host to battle, one in fear
7.1.tr
And one in hope of empire. These hands shall do
7.1.tr
Such work as not the rolling centuries,
7.1.tr
Not all mankind, though free from sword and war,
7.1.tr
Shall e'er make good. Nations that were to live
7.1.tr
This fight shall crush, and peoples pre-ordained
7.1.tr
To make the history of the coming world
7.1.tr
Shall come not to the birth. The Latin names
7.1.tr
Shall sound as fables in the ears of men,
7.1.tr
And ruins loaded with the dust of years
7.1.tr
Shall hardly mark her cities. Alba's hill,
7.1.tr
Home of our gods, no human foot shall tread,
7.1.tr
Save of some Senator at the nightly feast
7.1.tr
By Numa's orders founded-he compelled
7.1.tr
Serves his high office.See Book V., 465. Void and desolate
7.1.tr
Are Veii, Cora and Laurentum's hold;
7.1.tr
Yet not the tooth of envious time destroyed
7.1.tr
These storied monuments-'twas civil war
7.1.tr
That rased their citadels. Where now has fled
7.1.tr
The teeming life that once Italia knew?
7.1.tr
Not all the earth can furnish her with men:
7.1.tr
Untenanted her dwellings and her fields:
7.1.tr
Slaves till her soil: one city holds us all:
7.1.tr
Crumbling to ruin, the ancestral roof
7.1.tr
Finds none on whom to fall; and Rome herself,
7.1.tr
Void of her citizens, draws within her gates
7.1.tr
The dregs of all the world. That none might wage
7.1.tr
A civil war again, thus deeply drank
7.1.tr
Pharsalia's fight the life-blood of her sons.
7.1.tr
Dark in the calendar of Rome for aye,
7.1.tr
The days when Allia and Cannae fell:
7.1.tr
And shall Pharsalus' morn, darkest of all,
7.1.tr
Stand on the page unmarked? Alas, the fates!
7.1.tr
Not plague nor pestilence nor famine's rage,
7.1.tr
Not cities given to the flames, nor towns
7.1.tr
Trembling at shock of earthquake shall weigh down
7.1.tr
Such heroes lost, when Fortune's ruthless hand
7.1.tr
Lops at one blow the gift of centuries,
7.1.tr
Leaders and men embattled. How great art thou,
7.1.tr
Rome, in thy fall! Stretched to the widest bounds
7.1.tr
War upon war laid nations at thy feet
7.1.tr
Till flaming Titan nigh to either pole
7.1.tr
Beheld thine empire; and the furthest east
7.1.tr
Was almost thine, till day and night and sky
7.1.tr
For thee revolved, and all the stars could see
7.1.tr
Throughout their course was Roman. But the fates
7.1.tr
In one dread day of slaughter and despair
7.1.tr
Turned back the centuries and spoke thy doom.
7.1.tr
And now the Indian fears the axe no more
7.1.tr
Once emblem of thy power, now no more
7.1.tr
The girded Consul curbs the Getan horde,
7.1.tr
Or in Sarmatian furrows guides the share:That is, marked out the new colony with a plough-share. This was regarded as a religious ceremony, and therefore performed by the Consul with his toga worn in ancient fashion.
7.1.tr
Still Parthia boasts her triumphs unavenged:
7.1.tr
Foul is the public life; and Freedom, fled
7.1.tr
To furthest Earth beyond the Tigris stream,
7.1.tr
And Rhine's broad river, wandering at her will
7.1.tr
'Mid Teuton hordes and Scythian, though by sword
7.1.tr
Sought, yet returns not. Would that from the day
7.1.tr
When Romulus, aided by the vulture's flight,
7.1.tr
Ill-omened, raised within that hateful grove
7.1.tr
Rome's earliest walls, down to the crimsoned field
7.1.tr
In dire Thessalia fought, she ne'er had known
7.1.tr
Italia's peoples! Did the Bruti strike
7.1.tr
In vain for liberty? Why laws and rights
7.1.tr
Sanctioned by all the annals designate
7.1.tr
With consular titles? Happier far the Medes
7.1.tr
And blest Arabia, and the Eastern lands
7.1.tr
Held by a kindlier fate in despot rule!
7.1.tr
That nation serves the worst which serves with shame.
7.1.tr
No guardian gods watch over us from heaven:
7.1.tr
Jove "Hath Jove no thunder?" Ben Jonson, 'Catiline,' iii., 2. is no king; let ages whirl along
7.1.tr
In blind confusion: from his throne supreme
7.1.tr
Shall he behold such carnage and restrain
7.1.tr
His thunderbolts? On Mimas shall he hurl
7.1.tr
His fires, on Rhodope and OEta's woods
7.1.tr
Unmeriting such chastisement, and leave
7.1.tr
This life to Cassius' hand? On Argos fell
7.1.tr
At grim Thyestes' feastCompare Book I., line 603. untimely night
7.1.tr
By him thus hastened; shall Thessalia's land
7.1.tr
Receive full daylight, wielding kindred swords
7.1.tr
In fathers' hands and brothers'? Careless of men
7.1.tr
Are all the gods. Yet for this day of doom
7.1.tr
Such vengeance have we reaped as deities
7.1.tr
May give to mortals; for these wars shall raise
7.1.tr
Our parted Caesars to the gods; and Rome
7.1.tr
Shall deck their effigies with thunderbolts,
7.1.tr
And stars and rays, and in the very fanes
7.1.tr
Swear by the shades of men.
7.1.tr
With swift advance
7.1.tr
They seize the space that yet delays the fates
7.1.tr
Till short the span dividing. Then they gaze
7.1.tr
For one short moment where may fall the spear,
7.1.tr
What hand may deal their death, what monstrous task
7.1.tr
Soon shall be theirs; and all in arms they see,
7.1.tr
In reach of stroke, their brothers and their sires
7.1.tr
With front opposing; yet to yield their ground
7.1.tr
It pleased them not. But all the host was dumb
7.1.tr
With horror; cold upon each loving heart,
7.1.tr
Awe-struck, the life-blood pressed; and all men held
7.1.tr
With arms outstretched their javelins for a time,
7.1.tr
Poised yet unthrown. Now may th' avenging gods
7.1.tr
Allot thee, Crastinus,This act of Crastinus is recorded by Plutarch ('Pompeius,' 71), and by Caesar, 'De Bello Celtico,' Book III., 91. Caesar called him by name and said: 'Well, Crastinus, shall we win to-day?' 'We shall win with glory, Caesar,' he replied in a loud voice, 'and to-day you will praise me, living or dead.' - Drury, 'History of Rome,' vol. iii., 312. He was placed in a special tomb after the battle. not such a death
7.1.tr
As all men else do suffer! In the tomb
7.1.tr
May'st thou have feeling and remembrance still!
7.1.tr
For thine the hand that first flung forth the dart,
7.1.tr
Which stained with Roman blood Thessalia's earth.
7.1.tr
Madman! To speed thy lance when Caesar's self
7.1.tr
Still held his hand! Then from the clarions broke
7.1.tr
The strident summons, and the trumpets blared
7.1.tr
Responsive signal. Upward to the vault
7.1.tr
The sound re-echoes where nor clouds may reach
7.1.tr
Nor thunder penetrate; and Haemus' slopes See on line 203.
7.1.tr
Reverberate to Pelion the din;
7.1.tr
Pindus re-echoes; OEta's lofty rocks
7.1.tr
Groan, and Pangaean cliffs, till at their rage
7.1.tr
Borne back from all the earth they shook for fear.
7.1.tr
Unnumbered darts they hurl, with prayers diverse;
7.1.tr
Some hope to wound: others, in secret, yearn
7.1.tr
For hands still innocent. Chance rules supreme,
7.1.tr
And wayward Fortune upon whom she wills
7.1.tr
Makes fall the guilt. Yet, for the hatred bred
7.1.tr
By civil war suffices spear nor lance,
7.1.tr
Urged on their flight afar: the hand must grip
7.1.tr
The sword and drive it to the foeman's heart.
7.1.tr
But while Pompeius' ranks, shield wedged to shield,
7.1.tr
Were ranged in dense array, and scarce had space
7.1.tr
To draw the blade, came rushing at the charge
7.1.tr
Full on the central column Caesar's host,
7.1.tr
Mad for the battle. Man nor arms could stay
7.1.tr
The crash of onset, and the furious sword
7.1.tr
Clove through the stubborn panoply to the flesh,
7.1.tr
There only stayed. One army struck-their foes
7.1.tr
Struck not in answer; Magnus' swords were cold,
7.1.tr
But Caesar's reeked with slaughter and with guilt.
7.1.tr
Nor Fortune lingered, but decreed the doom
7.1.tr
Which swept the ruins of a world away.
7.1.tr
Soon as withdrawn from all the spacious plain,
7.1.tr
Pompeius' horse was ranged upon the flanks;
7.1.tr
Passed through the outer files, the lighter armed
7.1.tr
Of all the nations joined the central strife,
7.1.tr
With divers weapons armed, but all for blood
7.1.tr
Of Rome athirst: then blazing torches flew,
7.1.tr
Arrows and stones, and ponderous balls of lead
7.1.tr
Molten by speed of passage through the air.
7.1.tr
There Ituraean archers and the Mede
7.1.tr
Winged forth their shafts unaimed, till all the sky
7.1.tr
Grew dark with missiles hurled; and from the night
7.1.tr
Brooding above, Death struck his victims down.
7.1.tr
Guiltless such blow, while all the crime was heaped
7.1.tr
Upon the Roman spear. In line oblique
7.1.tr
Behind the standards Caesar in reserve
7.1.tr
Had placed some companies of foot, in fear
7.1.tr
The foremost ranks might waver. These at his word,
7.1.tr
No trumpet sounding, break upon the ranks
7.1.tr
Of Magnus' horsemen where they rode at large
7.1.tr
Flanking the battle. They, unshamed of fear
7.1.tr
And careless of the fray, when first a steed
7.1.tr
Pierced through by javelin spurned with sounding hoof
7.1.tr
The temples of his rider, turned the rein,
7.1.tr
And through their comrades spurring from the field
7.1.tr
In panic, proved that not with warring Rome
7.1.tr
Barbarians may grapple. Then arose
7.1.tr
Immeasurable carnage: here the sword,
7.1.tr
There stood the victim, and the victor's arm
7.1.tr
Wearied of slaughter. Oh, that to thy plains,
7.1.tr
Pharsalia, might suffice the crimson stream
7.1.tr
From hosts barbarian, nor other blood
7.1.tr
Pollute thy fountains' sources! these alone
7.1.tr
Shall clothe thy pastures with the bones of men!
7.1.tr
Or if thy fields must run with Roman blood
7.1.tr
Then spare the nations who in times to come
7.1.tr
Must be her peoples!
7.1.tr
Now the terror spread
7.1.tr
Through all the army, and the favouring fates
7.1.tr
Decreed for Caesar's triumph: and the war
7.1.tr
Ceased in the wider plain, though still ablaze
7.1.tr
Where stood the chosen of Pompeius' force,
7.1.tr
Upholding yet the fight. Not here allies
7.1.tr
Begged from some distant king to wield the sword:
7.1.tr
Here were the Roman sons, the sires of Rome,
7.1.tr
Here the last frenzy and the last despair:
7.1.tr
Here, Caesar, was thy crime: and here shall stay
7.1.tr
My Muse repelled: no poesy of mine
7.1.tr
Shall tell the horrors of the final strife,
7.1.tr
Nor for the coming ages paint the deeds
7.1.tr
Which civil war permits. Be all obscured
7.1.tr
In deepest darkness! Spare the useless tear
7.1.tr
And vain lament, and let the deeds that fell
7.1.tr
In that last fight of Rome remain unsung.
7.1.tr
But Caesar adding fury to the breasts
7.1.tr
Already flaming with the rage of war,
7.1.tr
That each might bear his portion of the guilt
7.1.tr
Which stained the host, unflinching through the ranks
7.1.tr
Passed at his will. He looked upon the brands,
7.1.tr
These reddened only at the point, and those
7.1.tr
Streaming with blood and gory to the hilt:
7.1.tr
He marks the hand which trembling grasped the sword,
7.1.tr
Or held it idle, and the cheek that grew
7.1.tr
Pale at the blow, and that which at his words
7.1.tr
Glowed with the joy of battle: midst the dead
7.1.tr
He treads the plain and on each gaping wound
7.1.tr
Presses his hand to keep the life within.
7.1.tr
Thus Caesar passed: and where his footsteps fell
7.1.tr
As when Bellona shakes her crimson lash,
7.1.tr
Or Mavors scourges on the Thracian maresThat is, lashes on his team terrified by the Gorgon shield in the ranks of the enemy.
7.1.tr
When shunning the dread face on Pallas' shield,
7.1.tr
He drives his chariot, there arose a night
7.1.tr
Dark with huge slaughter and with crime, and groans
7.1.tr
As of a voice immense, and sound of arms
7.1.tr
As fell the wearer, and of sword on sword
7.1.tr
Crashed into fragments. With a ready hand
7.1.tr
Caesar supplies the weapon and bids strike
7.1.tr
Full at the visage; and with lance reversed
7.1.tr
Urges the flagging ranks and stirs the fight.
7.1.tr
Where flows the nation's blood, where beats the heart,
7.1.tr
Knowing, he bids them spare the common herd,
7.1.tr
But seeks the senators-thus Rome he strikes,
7.1.tr
Thus the last hold of Freedom. In the fray,
7.1.tr
Then fell the nobles with their mighty names
7.1.tr
Of ancient prowess; there Metellus' sons,
7.1.tr
Corvini, Lepidi, Torquati too,
7.1.tr
Not once nor twice the conquerors of kings,
7.1.tr
First of all men, Pompeius' name except,
7.1.tr
Lay dead upon the field.
7.1.tr
But, Brutus, where,
7.1.tr
Where was thy sword? Plutarch states that Brutus after the battle escaped and made his way to Larissa, whence he wrote to Caesar. Caesar, pleased that he was alive, asked him to come to him; and it was on Brutus' opinion that Caesar determined to hurry to Egypt as the most probable refuge of Pompeius. Caesar entrusted Brutus with the command of Cisalpine Gaul when he was in Africa. Veiled by a common helm
7.1.tr
Unknown thou wanderest. Thy country's pride,
7.1.tr
Hope of the Senate, thou (for none besides);
7.1.tr
Thou latest scion of that race of pride,
7.1.tr
Whose fearless deeds the centuries record,
7.1.tr
Tempt not the battle, nor provoke the doom!
7.1.tr
Awaits thee on Philippi's fated field
7.1.tr
Thy Thessaly. Not here shalt thou prevail
7.1.tr
'Gainst Caesar's life. Not yet hath he surpassed
7.1.tr
The height of power and deserved a death
7.1.tr
Noble at Brutus' hands-then let him live,
7.1.tr
Thy fated victim!
7.1.tr
There upon the field
7.1.tr
Lay all the honour of Rome; no common stream
7.1.tr
Mixed with the purple tide. And yet of all
7.1.tr
Who noble fell, one only now I sing,
7.1.tr
Thee, brave Domitius.'He perished, after a career of furious partisanship, disgraced with cruelty and treachery, on the field of Pharsalia' (Merivale, 'Hist. Romans under the Empire,' chapter lii.). Unless this man had been an ancestor of Nero it is impossible to suppose that Lucan would have thus singled him out. But he appears to have been the only leader who fell. (Compare Book II., lines 534-590, for his conduct at Corfinium.) Whene'er the day
7.1.tr
Was adverse to the fortunes of thy chief
7.1.tr
Thine was the arm which vainly stayed the fight.
7.1.tr
Vanquished so oft by Caesar, now 'twas thine
7.1.tr
Yet free to perish. By a thousand wounds
7.1.tr
Came welcome death, nor had thy conqueror power
7.1.tr
Again to pardon. Caesar stood and saw
7.1.tr
The dark blood welling forth and death at hand,
7.1.tr
And thus in words of scorn: ' And dost thou lie,
7.1.tr
'Domitius, there? And did Pompeius name
7.1.tr
'Thee his successor, thee? Why leavest thou then
7.1.tr
His standards helpless?' But the parting life
7.1.tr
Still faintly throbbed within Domitius' breast,
7.1.tr
Thus finding utterance: 'Yet thou hast not won
7.1.tr
Thy hateful prize, for doubtful are the fates;
7.1.tr
'Nor thou the master, Caesar; free as yet,
7.1.tr
'With great Pompeius for my leader still,
7.1.tr
' Warring no more, I seek the silent shades,
7.1.tr
Yet with this hope in death, that thou subdued
7.1.tr
'To Magnus and to me in grievous guise
7.1.tr
'Mayst pay atonement.' So he spake: no more;
7.1.tr
Then closed his eyes in death.
7.1.tr
'Twere shame to shed,
7.1.tr
When thus a world was perishing, the tear
7.1.tr
Meet for each fate, or sing the wound that reft
7.1.tr
Each life away. One spurned upon the soil
7.1.tr
His vitals as they trailed; one faced the foe
7.1.tr
And as the sword struck deep into his throat
7.1.tr
Breathed forth his life: another fell to earth
7.1.tr
Prone at the stroke; one stood though shorn of limb;
7.1.tr
Glanced from this breast unharmed the quivering spear;
7.1.tr
That it transfixed to earth. Here from the veins
7.1.tr
Spouted the life-blood, till the foeman's arms
7.1.tr
Were crimsoned. One his brother slew, nor dared
7.1.tr
To spoil the corse, till severed from the neck
7.1.tr
He flung the head afar. Another dashed
7.1.tr
Full in his father's teeth the fatal sword,
7.1.tr
By murderous frenzy striving to disprove
7.1.tr
His kinship with the slain. Yet for each death
7.1.tr
We find no separate dirge, nor weep for men
7.1.tr
When peoples fell. Thus, Rome, thy doom was wrought
7.1.tr
At dread Pharsalus. Not, as in other fields,
7.1.tr
By soldiers slain, or captains; here were swept
7.1.tr
Whole nations to the death; Assyria here,
7.1.tr
Achaia, Pontus; and the blood of Rome
7.1.tr
Gushing in torrents forth, forbade the rest
7.1.tr
To stagnate on the plain. Nor life was reft,
7.1.tr
Nor safety only then; but reeled the world
7.1.tr
And all her manifold peoples at the blow
7.1.tr
In that day's battle dealt; nor only then
7.1.tr
Felt, but in all the times that were to come.
7.1.tr
Those swords gave servitude to every age
7.1.tr
That shall be slavish; by our sires was shaped
7.1.tr
For us our destiny, the despot yoke.
7.1.tr
Yet have we trembled not, nor feared to bare
7.1.tr
Our throats to slaughter, nor to face the foe:
7.1.tr
We bear the penalty for others' shame,
7.1.tr
Such be our doom; yet, Fortune, sharing not
7.1.tr
In that last battle, 'twas our right to strike
7.1.tr
One blow for freedom ere we served our lord.
7.1.tr
Now saw Pompeius, grieving, that the gods
7.1.tr
Had left his side, and knew the fates of Rome
7.1.tr
Passed from his governance; yet all the blood
7.1.tr
That filled the field scarce brought him to confess
7.1.tr
His fortunes fled. A little hill he sought
7.1.tr
Whence to descry the battle raging still
7.1.tr
Upon the plain, which when he nearer stood
7.1.tr
The warring ranks concealed. Thence did the chief
7.1.tr
Gaze on unnumbered swords that flashed in air
7.1.tr
And sought his ruin; and the tide of blood
7.1.tr
In which his host had perished. Yet not as those
7.1.tr
Who, prostrate fallen, would drag nations down
7.1.tr
To share their evil fate, Pompeius did.
7.1.tr
Still were the gods thought worthy of his prayers
7.1.tr
To give him solace, in that after him
7.1.tr
Might live his Romans. 'Spare, ye gods,' he said,
7.1.tr
Nor lay whole peoples low; my fall attained,
7.1.tr
The world and Rome may stand. And if ye need
7.1.tr
More bloodshed, here on me, my wife, and sons
7.1.tr
'Wreak out your vengeance-pledges to the fates
7.1.tr
Such have we given. Too little for the war
7.1.tr
Is our destruction? Doth the carnage fail,
7.1.tr
The world escaping? Magnus' fortunes lost,
7.1.tr
Why doom all else beside him? ' Thus he cried,
7.1.tr
And passed amid his standards, and recalled
7.1.tr
His vanquished host that rushed on fate declared.
7.1.tr
Not for his sake such carnage should be wrought.
7.1.tr
So thought Pompeius; nor the foeman's sword
7.1.tr
He feared, nor death; but lest upon his fall
7.1.tr
To quit their chief his soldiers might refuse,
7.1.tr
And o'er his prostrate corpse a world in arms
7.1.tr
Might find its ruin: or perchance he wished
7.1.tr
From Caesar's eager eyes to veil his death.
7.1.tr
In vain, unhappy! for the fates decree
7.1.tr
He shall behold, shorn from the bleeding trunk,
7.1.tr
Again thy visage. And thou, too, his spouse,
7.1.tr
Beloved Cornelia, didst cause his flight;
7.1.tr
Thy longed-for features; yet he shall not die
7.1.tr
When thou art present.This appears to be the only possible meaning of the text. But in truth, although Cornelia was not by her husband's side at his murder, she was present at the scene.
7.1.tr
Then upon his steed,
7.1.tr
Though fearing not the weapons at his back,
7.1.tr
Pompeius fled, his mighty soul prepared
7.1.tr
To meet his final doom. He saw thy field,
7.1.tr
Pharsalia, tearless and without a groan;
7.1.tr
For solemn grief and majesty of mien
7.1.tr
Were in his face, as for the woes of Rome.
7.1.tr
No pride in him the day of victory found,
7.1.tr
Nor rout shall find despair; alike in days
7.1.tr
When fickle Fortune triple triumph gave
7.1.tr
And when she fled, her lord.
7.1.tr
The burden laid
7.1.tr
Of thine impending fate, thou partest free
7.1.tr
To muse upon the happy days of yore.
7.1.tr
Hope now has fled; but in the fleeting past
7.1.tr
How wast thou great! Seek thou the wars no more,
7.1.tr
And call the gods to witness that for thee
7.1.tr
Henceforth no man shall die. The fights to come
7.1.tr
On Afric's mournful shore, by Pharos' stream
7.1.tr
And fateful Munda, and the final scene
7.1.tr
Of dire Pharsalia's battle are not thine.
7.1.tr
Thy name no more shall stir the world to war,
7.1.tr
But those great rivals biding with us yet,
7.1.tr
Caesar and Liberty; and not for thee
7.1.tr
When thou hadst fled the field, but for itself
7.1.tr
The dying Senate still upheld the fight.
7.1.tr
Find'st thou not solace thus to quit the field
7.1.tr
Nor witness all the horrors of its close?
7.1.tr
Look back upon the crimsoned ranks of war,
7.1.tr
The rivers turbid with ensanguined stream;
7.1.tr
Then pity thou thy kinsman. How shall he
7.1.tr
Enter the city, who on such a field
7.1.tr
Finds happiness? Whate'er in lands unknown
7.1.tr
Thine exiled lot, whate'er the Pharian king
7.1.tr
May place upon thee, trust thou in the gods;
7.1.tr
Trust the long story of the favouring fates:
7.1.tr
'Twere worse to conquer. Then forbid the tear,
7.1.tr
The nation's grief, the weeping of mankind,
7.1.tr
And let the world adore thee in defeat
7.1.tr
As in thy triumphs. With unaltered gaze
7.1.tr
Look down upon the kings, thy subjects still;
7.1.tr
Look on the realms and cities which they hold,
7.1.tr
Egypt and Libya, gifts from thee of yore;
7.1.tr
And choose the country that befits thy death.
7.1.tr
Larissa first was witness of thy fall,
7.1.tr
Thy noble mien, as victor of the fates;
7.1.tr
And loud in sorrow, yet with gifts of price
7.1.tr
Fit for a conqueror flung back her gates
7.1.tr
And poured her citizens forth. ' Our homes and fanes
7.1.tr
To thee are open; would it were our lot
7.1.tr
With thee to perish; of thy mighty name
7.1.tr
Still much survives and conquered by thyself,
7.1.tr
Thyself alone, still couldst thou to the war
7.1.tr
All nations call and challenge fate again.'
7.1.tr
But thus he spake: 'To cities nor to men
7.1.tr
Avails the conquered aught: then pledge your faith
7.1.tr
To him who has the victory.' Caesar still
7.1.tr
Trod deep in piles of slaughter on the field,
7.1.tr
His country's vitals, while his daughter's spouse
7.1.tr
Thus gave him kingdoms. But Pompeius fled
7.1.tr
'Mid sobs and groans and blaming of the gods
7.1.tr
For this their fierce commandment; and he fled
7.1.tr
Full of the fruits and knowledge of the love
7.1.tr
The peoples bore him, which he knew not his
7.1.tr
In times of happiness.
7.1.tr
When Italian blood
7.1.tr
Flowed deep enough upon the fatal field,
7.1.tr
Caesar gave mercy to the meaner crowd
7.1.tr
Whose deaths were vain. But that the hostile camp
7.1.tr
Might not recall the foe, nor calm of night
7.1.tr
Banish their fears, he bids his cohorts dash,
7.1.tr
While Fortune glowed and terror filled the plain,
7.1.tr
Straight on the ramparts of the conquered foe.
7.1.tr
Light was the task to urge them to the spoil
7.1.tr
Though worn by battle, wearied with the fray:
7.1.tr
Soldiers,' he said, ' the victory is ours,
7.1.tr
Full and triumphant: there doth lie the prize
7.1.tr
Which you have won, not Caesar; at your feet
7.1.tr
Behold the booty of the hostile camp.
7.1.tr
Snatched from Hesperian nations ruddy gold,
7.1.tr
And all the riches of the Orient world,
7.1.tr
Are piled within the tents. The wealth of kings
7.1.tr
And of Pompeius here awaits its lords.
7.1.tr
Haste, soldiers, and outstrip the flying foe;
7.1.tr
E'en now the vanquished of Pharsalia's field
7.1.tr
Anticipate your spoils.' No more he said,
7.1.tr
But drave them, blind with frenzy for the gold,
7.1.tr
To spurn the bodies of their fallen sires,
7.1.tr
And trample chiefs in dashing on their prey.
7.1.tr
What rampart had restrained them as they rushed
7.1.tr
To seize the prize for wickedness and war
7.1.tr
And learn the price of guilt? And though they found
7.1.tr
In ponderous masses heaped for need of war
7.1.tr
The trophies of a world, yet were their minds
7.1.tr
Unsatisfied, that asked for all. Whate'er
7.1.tr
Iberian mines or Tagus bring to day,
7.1.tr
Or Arimaspians from golden sands
7.1.tr
May gather, had they seized; still they had thought
7.1.tr
Their guilt too cheaply sold. When pledged to them
7.1.tr
Was the Tarpeian rock, for victory won,
7.1.tr
And all the spoils of Rome, by Caesar's word,
7.1.tr
Shall camps suffice them? Then plebeian limbs
7.1.tr
On senators' turf took rest, on kingly couch
7.1.tr
The soldier wretch; and there the murderer lay
7.1.tr
Where yesternight his brother or his sire.
7.1.tr
In maddened dreams the fury of the fight
7.1.tr
Still raged, and in their sleep the guilty hand
7.1.tr
Still wrought its deed, of blood, and restless gripped
7.1.tr
The phantom sword-hilt. Thou hadst said that groans
7.1.tr
Issued from all the plain, that parted souls
7.1.tr
Had breathed a life into the guilty soil,
7.1.tr
That earthly darkness teemed with gibbering ghosts
7.1.tr
And Stygian terrors. Victory foully won
7.1.tr
Thus claimed its punishment. The slumbering sense
7.1.tr
Already heard the hiss of vengeful flames:
7.1.tr
There troop the ghostly slain: a slaughtered sire
7.1.tr
Tortures the breast of one; a brother's shape
7.1.tr
There haunts his murderer's couch: each sees the form
7.1.tr
Of him whose life he took. But all the dead
7.1.tr
In Caesar's dreams were visioned. In such guise
7.1.tr
Orestes saw the Furies, ere he fled
7.1.tr
To purge his sin within the Scythian bounds;
7.1.tr
Such fierce convulsions raged within the soul
7.1.tr
Of Pentheus mad; and in Agave'sBook VI., 420. mind
7.1.tr
When she had known her son. Before his gaze
7.1.tr
Flashed all the javelins which Pharsalia saw,
7.1.tr
Or that avenging day when drew their blades
7.1.tr
The Roman senators; and monstrous shapes
7.1.tr
Scourged all his frame. 'Tis thus the wretch shall find
7.1.tr
In guilty conscience punishment most dire:
7.1.tr
He saw the Styx before his rival died:
7.1.tr
And goblin horrors from the depths of Hell
7.1.tr
Thronged on his sleep.
7.1.tr
Yet when the radiant sun
7.1.tr
Unveiled the butchery of Pharsalia's field The whole of this passage is foreign to Caesar's character, and unfounded in fact. 15,000 Pompeians perished on the field, and 24,000 were taken prisoners. When Caesar passed over the field he is recorded to have said in pity, 'They would have it so; after all my exploits I should have been condemned to death had I not thrown myself upon the protection of my soldiers.' - Plutarch, 'Caesar,' 46; Duruy, 'History of Rome,vol. iii., p. 311.
7.1.tr
He shrank not from its horror, nor withdrew
7.1.tr
His feasting gaze. There rolled the streams in flood
7.1.tr
With crimson carnage; there a seething heap
7.1.tr
Rose shrouding all the plain, now in decay
7.1.tr
Slow settling down; there numbered he the host
7.1.tr
Of Magnus slain; and for the morn's repast
7.1.tr
That spot he chose whence he might watch the dead,
7.1.tr
And feast his eyes upon Emathia's field
7.1.tr
Concealed by corpses; of the bloody sight
7.1.tr
Insatiate, he forbad the funeral pyre,
7.1.tr
And cast Emathia in the face of heaven.
7.1.tr
Nor by the Punic victor was he taught,
7.1.tr
Who at the close of Cannae's fatal fight
7.1.tr
Laid in the earth the Roman consul dead,
7.1.tr
To find fit burial for his fallen foes;
7.1.tr
For these were all his countrymen, nor yet
7.1.tr
His ire by blood appeased. Yet ask we not
7.1.tr
For separate pyres or sepulchres apart
7.1.tr
Wherein to lay the ashes of the fallen:
7.1.tr
Burn in one holocaust the nations slain;
7.1.tr
Or should it please thy soul to torture more
7.1.tr
Thy kinsman, pile on high from OEta's slopes
7.1.tr
And Pindus' top the woods: thus shall he see
7.1.tr
While fugitive on the deep the blaze that marks
7.1.tr
Thessalian bounds. Yet by this idle rage
7.1.tr
Nought dost thou profit; for these corporal frames
7.1.tr
Bearing innate from birth the certain germs
7.1.tr
Of dissolution, whether by decay
7.1.tr
Or fire consumed, shall fall into the lap
7.1.tr
Of all-embracing nature. Thus if now
7.1.tr
Thou shouldst deny the pyre, still in that flame
7.1.tr
When all shall crumble,Alluding to the general conflagration in which (by the Stoic doctrines)all the universe would one day perish. Comp. Browne, ' Religio Medici,part i., section xlv. earth and rolling seas
7.1.tr
And stars commingled with the bones of men,
7.1.tr
These too shall perish. Where thy soul shall go
7.1.tr
These shall companion thee; no higher flight
7.1.tr
In airy realms is thine, nor smoother couch
7.1.tr
Beneath the Stygian darkness; for the dead
7.1.tr
No fortune favours, and our Mother Earth
7.1.tr
All that is born from her receives again,
7.1.tr
And he whose bones no tomb or urn protectsQuoted in More's 'Utopia,' Book I., p. 28 (Lupton's edition), and in Browne, 'Religio Medici,' part i., section xl. ' Nor do I altogether allow that Rodomontado of Lucan, caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam.'
7.1.tr
Yet sleeps beneath the canopy of heaven.
7.1.tr
And thou, proud conqueror, who wouldst deny
7.1.tr
The rites of burial to thousands slain,
7.1.tr
Why flee thy field of triumph? Why desert
7.1.tr
This reeking plain? Drink, Caesar, if thou canst
7.1.tr
Of these ensanguined streams, and breathe the air
7.1.tr
Of cursed Thessalia: but from thy grasp
7.1.tr
The earth is ravished, and th' unburied host,
7.1.tr
Routing their victor, hold Pharsalia's field.
7.1.tr
Then to the ghastly harvest of the war
7.1.tr
Came all the beasts of earth whose facile sense
7.1.tr
Of odour tracks the bodies of the slain.
7.1.tr
Sped from his northern home the Thracian wolf;
7.1.tr
Bears left their dens and lions from afar
7.1.tr
Scenting the carnage; dogs obscene and foul
7.1.tr
Their homes deserted: all the air was full
7.1.tr
Of gathering fowl, who in their flight had long
7.1.tr
Pursued the armies. Cranes Wrongly supposed by Lucan to feed on carrion. who yearly change
7.1.tr
The frosts of Thracia for the banks of Nile,
7.1.tr
This year delayed their voyage. As ne'er before
7.1.tr
The air grew dark with vultures' hovering wings,
7.1.tr
Innumerable, for every grove and wood
7.1.tr
Sent forth its denizens; on every tree
7.1.tr
Dripped from their crimsoned beaks a gory dew.
7.1.tr
Oft on the conquerors and their impious arms
7.1.tr
Or purple rain of blood, or mouldering flesh
7.1.tr
Fell from the lofty heaven; or limbs of men
7.1.tr
From weary talons dropped. Yet even so
7.1.tr
The peoples passed not all into the maw
7.1.tr
Of ravening beast or fowl; the inmost flesh
7.1.tr
Scarce did they touch, nor limbs-thus lay the dead
7.1.tr
Scorned by the spoiler; and the Roman host
7.1.tr
By sun and length of days, and rain from heaven,
7.1.tr
At length was mingled with Emathia's plain.
7.1.tr
Ill-starred Thessalia! By what hateful crime
7.1.tr
Didst thou offend that thus on thee alone
7.1.tr
Was laid such carnage? By what length of years
7.1.tr
Shalt thou be cleansed from the curse of war?
7.1.tr
When shall the harvest of thy fields arise
7.1.tr
Free from their purple stain? And when the share
7.1.tr
Cease to upturn the slaughtered hosts of Rome?
7.1.tr
First shall the battle onset sound again,
7.1.tr
Again shall flow upon thy fated earth
7.1.tr
A crimson torrent. Thus may be o'erthrown
7.1.tr
Our sires' memorials; those erected last,
7.1.tr
Or those which pierced by ancient roots have spread
7.1.tr
Through broken stones their sacred urns abroad.
7.1.tr
Thus shall the ploughman of Haemonia gaze
7.1.tr
On more abundant ashes, and the rake
7.1.tr
Pass o'er more frequent bones. Wert, Thracia, thou,
7.1.tr
Our only battlefield, no sailor's hand
7.1.tr
Upon thy shore should make his cable fast;
7.1.tr
No spade should turn, the husbandman should flee
7.1.tr
Thy fields, the resting-place of Roman dead;
7.1.tr
No lowing kine should graze, nor shepherd dare
7.1.tr
To leave his fleecy charge to browse at will
7.1.tr
On fields made fertile by our mouldering dust;
7.1.tr
All bare and unexplored thy soil should lie,
7.1.tr
As past man's footsteps, parched by cruel suns,
7.1.tr
Or palled by snows unmelting! But, ye gods,
7.1.tr
Give us to hate the lands which bear the guilt;
7.1.tr
Let not all earth be cursed, though not all
7.1.tr
Be blameless found.
7.1.tr
'Twas thus that Munda's fight
7.1.tr
And blood of Mutina, and Leucas' cape,
7.1.tr
And sad Pachynus,Alluding to the naval war waged by Sextus Pompeius after Caesar's death. He took possession of Sicily, and had command of the seas, but was ultimately defeated by the fleet of Octavius under Agrippa in B.C. 36. Pachynus was the S.E. promontory of the island, but is used in the sense of Sicily, for this battle took place on the north coast. made Philippi pure.