Apocolocyntosis
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Original / primary: Perseus Eng2
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Now had the sun with shorter course drawn in his risen light,
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And by equivalent degrees grew the dark hours of night:
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Victorious Cynthia now held sway over a wider space,
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Grim winter drove rich autumn out, and now usurped his place;
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And now the fiat had gone forth that Bacchus must grow old,
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The few last clusters of the vine were gathered ere the cold:
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Now the sun's chariot had gone by the middle of his way;
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Half wearily he shook the reins, nearer to night than day,
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And led the light along the slope that down before him lay.
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This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once,
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Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
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But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
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Pierian laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands crowned,
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Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as snow,
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Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go,
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Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering gaze,
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As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days.
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World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
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What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool!
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Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners know:
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Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles go;
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Fewer than these are Tithon's years, not Nestor's life so long.
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Phoebus is present: glad he is to sing a merry song;
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Now helps the work, now full of hope upon the harp doth play;
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The Sisters listen to the song that charms their toil away.
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They praise their brother's melodies, and still the spindles run,
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Till more than man's allotted span the busy hands have spun.
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Then Phoebus says, "O sister Fates! I pray take none away,
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But suffer this one life to be longer than mortal day.
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Like me in face and lovely grace, like me in voice and song,
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He'll bid the laws at length speak out that have been dumb so long,
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Will give unto the weary world years prosperous and bright.
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Like as the daystar from on high scatters the stars of night,
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As, when the stars return again, clear Hesper brings his light,
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Or as the ruddy dawn drives out the dark, and brings the day,
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As the bright sun looks on the world, and speeds along its way
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His rising car from morning's gates: so Caesar doth arise,
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So Nero shows his face to Rome before the people's eyes;
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His bright and shining countenance illumines all the air,
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While down upon his graceful neck fall rippling waves of hair."
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to speed him on his way
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With cries of joy and solemn litany.
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"Declare with speed what spot you claim by birth,
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Or with this club fall stricken to the earth!
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This club hath oft times slaughtered haughty kings!
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Why mumble unintelligible things?
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What land, what tribe produced that shaking head?
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Declare it! On my journey when I sped
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Far to the Kingdom of the triple King,
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And from the Main Hesperian did bring
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The goodly cattle to the Argive town,
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There I beheld a mountain looking down
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Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies
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Right opposite each day he doth arise.
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Hence, mighty Rhone, thy rapid torrents flow,
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And Arar, much in doubt which way to go,
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Ripples along the banks with shallow roll.
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Say, is this land the nurse that bred thy soul?"
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Whom seizing by the foot he cast from the threshold of the sky,'
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"Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare,
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Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air:
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For he that is dead had a wit most keen,
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Was bravest of all that on earth have been.
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Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet:
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Rebellious Parthians he did defeat;
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Swift after the Persians his light shafts go:
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For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow,
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Swiftly the striped barbarians fled:
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With one little wound he shot them dead.
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And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas,
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Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these
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He chained by the neck as the Romans' slaves.
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He terrified Ocean with all his waves,
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Made fear a new master to lay down the law.
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O weep for the man! This world never saw
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One quicker a troublesome suit to decide,
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When only one part of the case had been tried,
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(He could do it indeed and not hear either side).
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Who'll now sit in judgment the whole year round?
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Now he that is judge of the shades underground
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Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete,
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Must yield to his better and take a back seat.
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Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew,
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And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!
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And you above all, who get rich quick
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By the rattle of dice and the three card trick."
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As he did, so be he done by, this is justice undefiled. A proverbial line.
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"For when he rattled with the box, and thought he now had got 'em,
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The little cubes would vanish thro' the perforated bottom.
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Then he would pick 'em up again, and once more set a-trying:
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The dice but served him the same trick: away they went a-flying.
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So still he tries, and still he fails; still searching long he lingers;
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And every time the tricksy things go slipping thro' his fingers.
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Just so when Sisyphus his rock once gets atop the mountain,
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To his dismay he sees it come down on his poor head bounding!"