Book 2

Remonstrance with the gods for allowing the future to be foretold, lines Terror at Rome, Relation of the massacres perpetrated by Marius and Sulla, Interview between Brutus and Cato, Marriage of Cato and Marcia, Character of Cato, Pompeius marches to Capua, Geography of Italy, Caesar overruns Northern Italy, Episode of Domitius at Corfinium, Pompeius's speech to his army, He retires to Brun-disium, The town described, Cnaeus is sent to theEast, Caesar tries to block the harbour, Pompeiusescapes to Epirus,

THUS was made plain the anger of the gods;

The world gave signs of war: Nature reversed

In monstrous tumult fraught with prodigies

Her laws, and prescient spake the coming guilt.

How seemed it just to thee, Olympus ' king,

That suffering mortals at thy doom should know

By dreadful omens massacres to come?

Or did the primal parent of the world

When first the flames gave way and yielding left

Matter unformed to his subduing hand,

And realms unbalanced, fix by stern decree

Unalterable laws to bind the whole

(Himself, too, bound by law), so that for aye

All Nature moves within its fated bounds?

Or, is Chance sovereign over all, and we

The sport of Fortune and her turning wheel?

Whate'er be truth, keep thou the future veiled

From mortal vision, and amid their fears

May men still hope.

Thus known how great the woes

The world should suffer, from the truth divine,

A solemn fast was called, the courts were closed,

All men in private garb; no purple hem

Adorned the togas of the chiefs of Rome;

No plaints were uttered, and a voiceless grief

Lay deep in every bosom: as when death

Knocks at some door but enters not as yet,

Before the mother calls the name aloud

Or bids her grieving maidens beat the breast,

While still she marks the glazing eye, and soothes

The stiffening limbs and gazes on the face,

In dread, not sorrow yet, in wondering awe

Of death approaching: and with mind distraught

Clings to the dying in a last embrace.

The matrons laid aside their wonted garb:

Crowds filled the temples-on the unpitying stones

Some dashed their bosoms; others bathed with tears

The statues of the gods; some tore their hair

Upon the holy threshold, and with shrieks

And vows unceasing called upon the names

Of those whom mortals supplicate. Nor all

Lay in the Thunderer's fane: at every shrine

Some prayers were offered which refused would bring

Reproach on heaven. One whose livid arms

Were dark with blows, whose cheeks with tears bedewed,

Cried, 'Now, unhappy mothers, rend the lock,

Nor keep your sorrows till the battle day:

Now ye may weep: when either chieftain wins

Rejoice ye must.' Thus sorrow stirs itself.

Meanwhile the men in seeking either camp

And marching onward in the path to war,

Address the cruel gods in just complaint.

Happy the youths who born in Punic days

On Cannae 's uplands or by Trebia's stream

Fought and were slain! What wretched lot is ours!

No peace we ask for: let the nations rage;

Rouse fiercest cities! may the world find arms

To wage a war with Rome: let Parthian hosts

Rush forth from Susa; Scythian Ister curb

' No more the Massagete: unconquered Rhine

' Let loose from furthest North her fair-haired tribes:

' Elbe, pour thy Suevians forth! Let us be foes

' Of all the peoples. May the Getan press

' Here, and the Dacian there; Pompeius meet

'The Eastern archers, Caesar in the West

' Confront th' Iberian. Leave to Rome no hand

' To raise against herself in civil strife.

' Or, if Italia by the gods be doomed,

' Let all the sky, fierce Parent, be dissolved

'And falling on the earth in flaming bolts,

' Their hands still bloodless, strike both leaders down,

' With both their hosts! Why plunge in novel crime

' To settle which of them shall rule in Rome?

' Scarce were it worth the price of civil war

' To hinder either.' Thus the patriot voice

Still found an utterance, soon to speak no more.

Meantime, the aged fathers o'er their fates

In anguish grieved, detesting life prolonged

That brought with it another civil war.

And thus spake one, to justify his fears:

' No other deeds the fates laid up in store

' When Marius, victor over Teuton hosts,

' Afric's high conqueror, cast out from Rome,

'Lay hid in marshy ooze, at thy behest,

' O Fortune! by the yielding soil concealed

' And waving rushes; but ere long the chains

' Of prison wore his weak and aged frame,

' And lengthened squalor: thus he paid for crime

' His punishment beforehand; doomed to die

' Consul in triumph over wasted Rome.

'Death oft refused him; and the very foe,

' In act of slaughter, shuddered in the stroke

' And dropped the weapon from his nerveless hand.

' For through the prison gloom a flame of light

' He saw; the deities of crime abhorred;

' The Marius to come. A voice proclaimed

' Mysterious, " Hold! the fates permit thee not

' " That neck to sever. Many a death he owes

' " To time's predestined laws ere his shall come;

' " Cease from thy madness. If ye seek revenge

' " For that he blotted out your Cimbrian tribes,

' " Let this man live, live out his fated days."

' Not as their darling did the gods protect

' The man of blood, but for his ruthless hand

' Fit to prepare that sacrifice of gore

' Which fate demanded. By the sea's despite

' Borne to our foes, Jugurtha's wasted realm

' He saw, now conquered; there in squalid huts

' Awhile he lay, and trod the hostile dust

' Of Carthage, and his ruin matched with hers:

' Each from the other's fate some solace drew,

' And prostrate, pardoned heaven. On Libyan soil

' Fresh fury gathering, next, when Fortune smiled

'The prisons he threw wide and freed the slaves.

' Forth rushed the murderous bands, their melted chains

' Forged into weapons for his ruffian needs.

' No charge he gave to mere recruits in guilt

' Who brought not to the camp some proof of crime.

' How dread that day when conquering Marius seized

' The city's ramparts! with what fated speed

' Death strode upon his victims! plebs alike

' And nobles perished; far and near the sword

' Struck at his pleasure, till the temple floors

'Ran wet with slaughter and the crimson stream

' Befouled with slippery gore the holy walls.

' No age found pity: men of failing years,

' Just tottering to the grave, were hurled to death;

' From infants, in their being's earliest dawn,

' The growing life was severed. For what crime?

'Twas cause enough for death that they could die.

' The fury grew: soon 'twas a sluggard's part

' To seek the guilty: hundreds died to swell

'The tale of victims. Shamed by empty hands,

' The bloodstained conqueror snatched a reeking head

' From neck unknown. One way of life remained,

' To kiss with shuddering lips the red right hand.

' Degenerate people! Had ye hearts of men,

' Though ye were threatened by a thousand swords,

' Far rather death than centuries of life

' Bought at such price; much more that breathing space

' Till Sulla comes again. But time would fail

' In weeping for the deaths of all who fell.

'Encircled by innumerable bands

' Fell Baebius, his limbs asunder torn,

' His vitals dragged abroad. Antonius too,

' Prophet of ill, whose hoary head was placed,

' Dripping with blood, upon the festal board.

' There headless fell the Crassi; mangled frames

'Neath Fimbria's falchion: and the prison cells

' Were wet with tribunes' blood. Hard by the fane

' Where dwells the goddess and the sacred fire,

' Fell aged Scaevola, though that gory hand

' Had spared him, but the feeble tide of blood

' Still left the flame alive upon the hearth.

' That selfsame year the seventh time restored

' The Consul's rods; that year to Marius brought

' The end of life, when he at Fortune's hands

' All ills had suffered; all her goods enjoyed.

' And what of those who at the Sacriport

' And Colline gate were slain, then, when the rule

' Of Earth and all her nations almost left

' This city for another, and the chiefs

' Who led the Samnite hoped that Rome might bleed

' More than at Caudium's Forks she bled of old?

' Then came great Sulla to avenge the dead,

' And all the blood still left within her frame

' Drew from the city; for the surgeon knife

' Which shore the cancerous limbs cut in too deep,

' And shed the life stream from still healthy veins.

' True that the guilty fell, but not before

' All else had perished. Hatred had free course

' And anger reigned unbridled by the law.

' The victor's voice spake once; but each man struck

' Just as he wished or willed. The fatal steel

' Urged by the servant laid the master low.

' Sons dripped with gore of sires; and brothers fought

' For the foul trophy of a father slain,

' Or slew each other for the price of blood.

' Men sought the tombs and, mingling with the dead,

' Hoped for escape; the wild beasts' dens were full.

' One strangled died; another from the height

' Fell headlong down upon the unpitying earth,

' And from the encrimsoned victor snatched his death:

' One built his funeral pyre and oped his veins,

' And scaled the furnace ere his blood was gone.

' Borne through the trembling town the leaders' heads

' Were piled in middle forum: hence men knew

' Of murders else unpublished. Not on gates

' Of Diomedes, tyrant king of Thrace,

' Nor of Antaeus, Libya 's giant brood,

' Were hung such horrors; nor in Pisa 's hall

'Were seen and wept for when the suitors died.

' Decay had touched the features of the slain

' When round the mouldering heap, with trembling steps

' The grief-struck parents sought and stole their dead.

' I, too, the body of my brother slain

' Thought to remove, my victim to the peace

' Which Sulla made, and place his loved remains

' On the forbidden pyre. The head I found,

' But not the butchered corse.

Why now renew

' The tale of Catulus's shade appeased?

' And those dread tortures which the living frame

' Of Marius suffered at the tomb of him

' Who haply wished them not? Pierced, mangled, torn-

' Nor speech nor grasp was left: his every limb

' Maimed, hacked and riven; yet the fatal blow

' The murderers with savage purpose spared.

''Twere scarce believed that one poor mortal frame

' Such agonies could bear ere death should come.

' Thus crushed beneath some ruin lie the dead;

' Thus shapeless from the deep are borne the drowned.

' Why spoil delight by mutilating thus,

' The head of Marius? To please Sulla's heart

' That mangled visage must be known to all.

' Fortune, high goddess of Praeneste 's fane,

' Saw all her townsmen hurried to their deaths

' In one fell instant. All the hope of Rome,

' The flower of Latium, stained with blood the field

' Where once the peaceful tribes their votes declared.

' Famine and Sword, the raging sky and sea,

' And Earth upheaved, have laid such numbers low:

' But ne'er one man's revenge. Between the slain

' And living victims there was space no more,

' Death thus let slip, to deal the fatal blow.

' Hardly when struck they fell; the severed head

' Scarce toppled from the shoulders; but the slain

' Blent in a weighty pile of massacre

' Pressed out the life and helped the murderer's arm.

' Secure from stain upon his lofty throne,

' Unshuddering sat the author of the whole,

' Nor feared that at his word such thousands fell.

'At length the Tuscan flood received the dead

' The first upon his waves; the last on those

' That lay beneath them; vessels in their course

' Were stayed, and while the lower current flowed

' Yet to the sea, the upper stood on high

Dammed back by carnage. Through the streets meanwhile

' In headlong torrents ran a tide of blood,

' Which furrowing its path through town and field

'Forced the slow river on. But now his banks

' No longer held him, and the dead were thrown

' Back on the fields above. With labour huge

'At length he struggled to his goal and stretched

' In crimson streak across the Tuscan Sea.

' For deeds like these, shall Sulla now be styled

' " Darling of Fortune," " Saviour of the State "?

' For these, a tomb in middle field of Mars

' Record his fame? Like horrors now return

' For us to suffer; and the civil war

' Thus shall be waged again and thus shall end.

'Yet worse disasters may our fears suggest,

' For now with greater carnage of mankind

' The rival hosts in weightier battle meet.

' To exiled Marius, the prize of war

' Was Rome regained; triumphant Sulla knew

' No greater joy than on his hated foes

' To wreak his vengeance with unsparing sword.

'But these more powerful rivals Fortune calls

' To worse ambitions; nor would either chief

'For such reward as Sulla's wage the war.'

Thus, mindful of his youth, the aged man

Wept for the past, but feared the coming days.

Such terrors found in haughty Brutus' breast

No home. When others sat them down to fear

He did not so, but in the dewy night

When the great wain was turning round the pole

He sought his kinsman Cato's humble home.

Him sleepless did he find, not for himself

Fearing, but pondering the fates of Rome,

And deep in public cares. And thus he spake:

'O thou in whom that virtue, which of yore

Took flight from earth, now finds its only home,

Outcast to all besides, but safe with thee:

Vouchsafe thy counsel to my wavering soul

And make my weakness strength. While Caesar some,

Pompeius others, follow in the fight,

Cato is Brutus' guide. Art thou for peace,

Holding thy footsteps in a tottering world

Unshaken? Or wilt thou with the leaders' crimes

And with the people's fury take thy part,

And by thy presence purge the war of guilt?

In impious battles men unsheath the sword;

But each by cause impelled: the household crime;

Laws feared in peace; want by the sword removed;

And credit, in the ruin of a world

Blending its ruin. Drawn by hope of gain,

And not by thirst for blood, they seek the camp.

Shall Cato for war's sake make war alone?

What profits it through all these wicked years

That thou hast lived untainted? This were all

Thy meed of virtue, that the wars which find

Guilt in all else, shall make thee guilty too.

' Ye gods, permit not that this fatal strife

Should stir those hands to action! When the clouds

Of flying javelins hiss upon the air,

Let not a dart be thine; nor spent in vain

Such virtue! All the fury of the war

' Shall launch itself on thee, for who, when faint

' And wounded, would not rush upon thy sword,

'Take thence his death, and make the murder thine?

'Do thou live on thy peaceful life apart

'As on their paths the stars unshaken roll.

'The lower air that verges on the earth

' Gives flame and fury to the levin bolt;

' The deeps below the world engulph the winds

' And tracts of flaming fire. By Jove's decree

' Olympus rears his summit o'er the clouds:

'In lowlier valleys storms and winds contend,

' But peace eternal reigns upon the heights.

'What joy for Caesar, if the tidings come

'That such a citizen has joined the war?

' Glad would he see thee e'en in Magnus' tents;

'For Cato's conduct shall approve his own.

'Pompeius, with the Consul in his ranks,

' And half the Senate and the other chiefs,

' Vexes my spirit; and should Cato too

' Bend to a master's yoke, in all the world

'The one man free is Caesar. But if thou

' For freedom and thy country's laws alone

'Be pleased to raise the sword, nor Magnus then

' Nor Caesar shall in Brutus find a foe.

' Not till the fight is fought shall Brutus strike,

'Then strike the victor.'

Brutus thus; but spake

Cato from inmost breast these sacred words:

'Chief in all wickedness is civil war,

' Yet virtue in the paths marked out by fate

'Treads on securely. Heaven's will be the crime

'To have made even Cato guilty. Who has strength

' To gaze unawed upon a toppling world?

'When stars and sky fall headlong, and when earth

'Slips from her base, who sits with folded hands?

'Shall unknown nations, touched by western strife,

' And monarchs born beneath another clime

' Brave the dividing seas to join the war?

' Shall Scythian tribes desert their distant north,

' And Getae haste to view the fall of Rome,

'And I look idly on? As some fond sire,

' Reft of his sons, compelled by grief, himself

' Marshals the long procession to the tomb,

' Thrusts his own hand within the funeral flames,

' Soothing his heart, and, as the lofty pyre

'Rises on high, applies the kindled torch:

' Nought, Rome, shall tear thee from me, till I hold

' Thy form in death embraced; and Freedom's name,

' Shade though it be, I'll follow to the grave.

' Yea! let the cruel gods exact in full

' Rome 's expiation: of no drop of blood

' The war be robbed. I would that, to the gods

' Of heaven and hell devoted, this my life

' Might satisfy their vengeance. Decius fell,

' Crushed by the hostile ranks. When Cato falls

' Let Rhine's fierce barbarous hordes and both the hosts

'Thrust through my frame their darts! May I alone

' Receive in death the wounds of all the war!

'Thus may the people be redeemed, and thus

' Rome for her guilt pay the atonement due.

' Why should men die who wish to bear the yoke

' And shrink not from the tyranny to come?

'Strike me, and me alone, of laws and rights

'In vain the guardian: this vicarious life

' Shall give Hesperia peace and end her toils.

' Who then will reign shall find no need for war.

' You ask, Why follow Magnus? If he wins

' He too will claim the Empire of the world.

' Then let him, conquering with my service, learn

' Not for himself to conquer.' Thus he spoke

And stirred the blood that ran in Brutus ' veins

Moving the youth to action in the war.

Soon as the sun dispelled the chilly night,

The sounding doors flew wide, and from the tomb

Of dead Hortensius grieving Marcia came.

First joined in wedlock to a greater man

Three children did she bear to grace his home:

Then Cato to Hortensius gave the dame

To be a fruitful mother of his sons

And join their houses in a closer tie.

And now the last sad offices were done

She came with hair dishevelled, beaten breast,

And ashes on her brow, and features worn

With grief; thus only pleasing to the man.

' When youth was in me and maternal power

' I did thy bidding, Cato, and received

' A second husband: now in years grown old

' Ne'er to be parted I return to thee.

' Renew our former pledges undefiled:

' Give back the name of wife: upon my tomb

' Let " Marcia, spouse to Cato," be engraved.

' Nor let men question in the time to come,

' Didst thou compel, or did I willing leave

' My first espousals. Not in happy times,

' Partner of joys, I come; but days of care

' And labour shall be mine to share with thee.

' Nor leave me here, but take me to the camp,

' Thy fond companion: why should Magnus' wife

' Be nearer, Cato, to the wars than thine?'

Although the times were warlike and the fates

Called to the fray, he lent a willing ear.

Yet must they plight their faith in simple form

Of law; their witnesses the gods alone.

No festal wreath of flowers crowned the gate

Nor glittering fillet on each post entwined;

No flaming torch was there, nor ivory steps,

No couch with robes of broidered gold adorned;

No comely matron placed upon her brow

The bridal garland, or forbad the foot

To touch the threshold stone; no saffron veil

Concealed the timid blushes of the bride;

No jewelled belt confined her flowing robe

Nor modest circle bound her neck; no scarf

Hung lightly on the snowy shoulder's edge

Around the naked arm. Just as she came,

Wearing the garb of sorrow, while the wool

Covered the purple border of her robe,

Thus was she wedded. As she greets her sons

She greets her husband. Nor, in Sabine use

Did mournful Cato share the festal taunt:

Nor friend nor foe was bidden: silent both

They joined in marriage, yet content, unseen

By any save by Brutus. Sad and stern

On Cato 's lineaments the marks of grief

Were still unsoftened, and the hoary hair

Hung o'er his reverend visage; for since first

Men flew to arms, his locks were left unkempt

To stream upon his brow, and on his chin

His beard untended grew. 'Twas his alone

Who hated not, nor loved, for all mankind

To mourn alike. Nor did their former couch

Again receive them, for his lofty soul

E'en lawful love resisted. 'Twas his rule

Inflexible, to keep the middle path

Marked out and bounded; to observe the laws

Of natural right; and for his country's sake

To risk his life, his all, as not for self

Brought into being, but for all the world:

Such was his creed. To him a sumptuous feast

Was hunger conquered, and the lowly hut,

Which scarce kept out the winter, was a home

Equal to palaces: a robe of price

Such hairy garments as were worn of old:

The end of marriage, offspring. To the State

Father alike and husband, right and law

He ever followed with unswerving step:

No thought of selfish pleasure turned the scale

In Cato 's acts, or swayed his upright soul.

Meanwhile Pompeius led his trembling host

To fields Campanian, and held the walls

First founded by the chief of Trojan race.

These chose he for the central seat of war,

Some troops despatching who might meet the foe

Where shady Apennine lifts up the ridge

Of mid Italia; nearest to the sky

Upsoaring, with the seas on either hand,

The upper and the lower. Pisa 's sands

Breaking the margin of the Tuscan deep,

Here bound his mountains: there Ancona 's towers

Laved by Dalmatian waves. Rivers immense,

In his recesses born, pass on their course,

To either sea diverging. To the left

Metaurus and Crustumium's torrent fall

And Sena 's streams and Aufidus who bursts

On Adrian billows; and that mighty flood

Which, more than all the rivers of the earth,

Sweeps down the soil and tears the woods away

And drains Hesperia's springs. In fabled lore

His banks were first by poplar shade enclosed:

And when by Phaethon the waning day

Was drawn in path transverse, and all the heaven

Blazed with his car aflame, and from the depths

Of inmost earth were rapt all other floods,

Padus still rolled in pride of stream along.

Nile were no larger, but that o'er the sand

Of level Egypt he spreads out his waves;

Nor Ister, if he sought the Scythian main

Unhelped upon his journey through the world

By tributary waters not his own.

But on the right hand Tiber has his source,

Deep-flowing Rutuba, Vulturnus swift,

And Sarnus breathing vapours of the night

Rise there, and Liris with Vestinian wave

Still gliding through Marica 's shady grove,

And Siler flowing through Salernian meads:

And Macra's swift unnavigable stream

Near Luna rests in Ocean. On the Alps

Whose spurs strike plainwards, and on fields of Gaul

The cloudy heights of Apennine look down

In further distance: on his nearer slopes

The Sabine turns the ploughshare; Umbrian kine

And Marsian fatten; with his pineclad rocks

He girds the tribes of Latium, nor leaves

Hesperia's soil until the waves that beat

On Scylla's cave compel. His southern spurs

Extend to Juno's temple, and of old

Stretched further than Italia, till the main

O'erstepped his limits and the lands repelled.

But, when the seas were joined, Pelorus claimed

His latest summits for Sicilia 's isle.

Caesar, in rage for war, rejoicing finds

Foes in Italia; no bloodless steps

Nor vacant homes had pleased him; so his march

Were wasted: now the coming war was joined

Unbroken to the past; to force the gates,

Not find them open, fire and sword to bring

Upon the harvests, not through fields unharmed

To pass his legions-this was Caesar's joy;

In peaceful guise to march, this was his shame.

Italia 's cities, doubtful in their choice,

Though to the earliest onset of the war

About to yield, strengthen their walls with mounds

And deepest trench encircling: massive stones

And bolts of war to hurl upon the foe

They place upon the turrets. Magnus most

The people's favour held, yet faith with fear

Fought in their breasts. As when, with strident blast,

A southern tempest has possessed the main

And all the billows follow in its track:

Then, by the Storm-king smitten, should the earth

Set Eurus free upon the swollen deep,

It shall not yield to him, though cloud and sky

Confess his strength; but in the former wind

Still find its master. But their fears prevailed,

And Caesar's fortune, o'er their wavering faith.

For Libo fled Etruria; Umbria lost

Her freedom, driving Thermus from her bounds;

Great Sulla's son, unworthy of his sire,

Feared at the name of Caesar: Varus sought

The caves and woods, when smote the hostile horse

The gates of Auximon; and Spinther driven

From Asculum, the victor on his track,

Fled with his standards, soldierless; and thou,

Scipio, didst leave Nuceria's citadel

Deserted, though by bravest legions held

Sent home by Caesar for the Parthian war;

Whom Magnus earlier, to his kinsman gave

A loan of Roman blood, to fight the Gaul.

But brave Domitius held firm his post

Behind Corfinium 's ramparts; his the troops

Who newly levied kept the judgment hall

At Milo 's trial. When from far the plain

Rolled up a dusty cloud, beneath whose veil

The sheen of armour glistening in the sun,

Revealed a marching host. ' Dash down,' he cried,

Swift as ye can, the bridge that spans the stream;

And thou, O river, from thy mountain source

With all thy torrents rushing, planks and beams

Ruined and broken on thy foaming breast

Bear onward to the sea. The war shall pause

Here, at these bounds: here shall this headlong chief

Await in idleness our victory.'

He bade his squadrons, speeding from the walls,

Charge on the bridge: in vain: for Caesar saw

They sought to free the river from his chains

And bar his march; and roused to ire, he cried:

Were not the walls sufficient to protect

Your coward souls? Seek ye by barricades

And streams to keep me back? What though the flood

Of swollen Ganges were across my path?

Now Rubicon is passed, no stream on earth

Shall hinder Caesar! Forward, horse and foot,

And ere it totters rush upon the bridge.'

Urged in their swiftest gallop to the front

Dashed the light horse across the sounding plain;

And suddenly, as storm in summer, flew

A cloud of javelins forth, by sinewy arms

Hurled at the foe; the guard is put to flight,

And conquering Caesar, seizing on the bridge,

Compels the enemy to keep the walls.

Now do the mighty engines, soon to hurl

Gigantic stones, press forward, and the ram

Creeps 'neath the ramparts; when the gates fly back,

And lo! the traitor troops (foul crime in war)

Yield up their leader. Him they place before

His proud compatriot; yet with upright form,

And scornful features and with noble mien,

He asks his death. But Caesar knew his wish

Was punishment, and pardon was his fear:

Live though thou wouldst not,' so the chieftain spake,

And by my gift, unwilling, see the day:

Be to my conquered foes the cause of hope,

Proof of my clemency-or if thou wilt

Take arms again-and should'st thou conquer, count

This pardon nothing.' Thus he spake, and bade

Let loose the bands and set the captive free.

Ah! better had he died, and fortune spared

The Roman's last dishonour, whose worse doom

It is, that he who joined his country's camp

And fought with Magnus for the Senate's cause

Should gain for this-a pardon! Yet he curbed

His anger, thinking, ' Wilt thou then to Rome

' And peaceful scenes, degenerate? Rather war,

The furious battle and the certain end!

Break with life's ties: be Caesar's gift in vain.'

Pompeius, ignorant that his captain thus

Was taken, armed his levies newly raised

To give his legions strength; and as he thought

To sound his trumpets with the coming dawn,

To test his soldiers ere he moved his camp

Thus in majestic tones their ranks addressed:

True host of Rome! avengers of her laws

Ranked 'neath the standards of the better right,

To whom the Senate gives no private arms,

Ask by your voices for the battle sign.

Fierce falls the pillage on Hesperian fields,

And Gallia 's fury o'er the snowy Alps

Is poured upon us. Caesar's swords at last

' Are red with Roman blood. But with the wound

We gain the better cause; the crime is theirs.

Through me her captain Rome for vengeance calls;

' Tis no true fight to wreak your country's ire.

' Was that a war when Catilina's hand

' Lifted against her roofs the flaming torch,

' And, partner in his fury, Lentulus,

' And mad Cethegus with his naked arm?

' Is such thy madness, Caesar? when the Fates

' With great Camillus' and Metellus' names

' Might place thine own, dost thou prefer to rank

' With Marius and Cinna? Swift shall be

' Thy fall: as Lepidus before the sword

' Of Catulus; or who my axes felt,

' Carbo, now buried in Sicanian tomb;

' Or who, in exile, roused Iberia 's hordes,

' Sertorius-yet, witness Heaven, with these

' I hate to rank thee; hate the task that Rome

' Has laid upon me, to oppose thy rage.

' Would that in safety from the Parthian war

' And Scythian steppes had conquering Crassus come!

' Then haply hadst thou fallen by the hand

' That smote vile Spartacus the robber foe.

' But if among my triumphs fate has said

' Thy conquest shall be written, know this heart

' Still sends the life blood coursing: and this arm

' Still vigorously flings the dart afield.

' He deems me slothful. Caesar, thou shalt learn

'We brook not peace because we lag in war.

' Old, does he call me? Fear not ye mine age.

' Let me be elder, if his soldiers are.

' The highest point a citizen can reach

' And leave his people free, is mine: a throne

' Alone were higher; whoso would surpass

' Pompeius, aims at that. Both Consuls stand

' Here; here for battle stand your lawful chiefs:

' And shall this Caesar drag the Senate down?

' Not with such blindness, not so lost to shame

' Does Fortune rule. Does he take heart from Gaul,

' For years on years rebellious, and a life

' Spent there in labour? or because he fled

' Rhine 's icy torrent and the shifting pools

' He calls an ocean? or unchallenged sought

' Britannia 's cliffs; then turned his back in flight?

' Or does he boast because his citizens

' Were driven in arms to leave their hearths and homes?

'Ah, vain delusion! not from thee they fled:

' My steps they follow-mine, whose conquering signs

' Swept all the ocean, and who, ere the moon

' Twice filled her orb and waned, compelled to flight

' The pirate, shrinking from the open sea,

' And humbly begging for a narrow home

' In some poor nook on shore. 'Twas I again

' Who, happier far than Sulla, drave to death

' That king who, exiled to the deep recess

' Of Scythian Pontus, held the fates of Rome

' Still in the balances. Where is the land

' That has not seen my trophies? Icy waves

' Of northern Phasis, hot Egyptian shores,

' And where Syene 'neath its noontide sun

' Knows shade on neither hand: all these have learned

' To fear Pompeius: and far Baetis' stream,

' Last of all floods to join the refluent sea.

' Arabia and the warlike hordes that dwell

' Beside the Euxine wave: the famous land

' That lost the golden fleece; Cilician wastes,

' And Cappadocian, and the Jews who pray

' Before an unknown God; Sophene soft-

' All felt my yoke. What conquests now remain,

' What wars not civil can my kinsman wage? '

No loud acclaim received his words, nor shout

Asked for the promised battle: and the chief

Drew back the standards, for the soldier's fears

Were in his soul alike; nor dared he trust

An army, vanquished by the fame alone

Of Caesar's powers, to fight for such a prize.

And as some bull, his early combat lost,

Forth driven from the herd, in exile roams

Through lonely plains or secret forest depths,

Whets on opposing trunks his growing horn,

And proves himself for battle, till his neck

Is ribbed afresh with muscle: then returns,

Defiant of the hind, and victor now

Leads wheresoever he will his lowing bands:

Thus Magnus, yielding to a stronger foe,

Gave up Italia, and sought in flight

Brundusium 's sheltering battlements. Here of old

Fled Cretan settlers when the dusky sail

Spread the false message of the hero dead;

Here, where Hesperia, curving as a bow,

Draws back her coast, a little tongue of land

Shuts in with bending horns the sounding main.

Yet insecure the spot, unsafe in storm,

Were it not sheltered by an isle on which

The Adriatic billows dash and fall,

And tempests lose their strength: on either hand

A craggy cliff opposing breaks the gale

That beats upon them, while the ships within

Held by their trembling cables ride secure.

Hence to the mariner the boundless deep

Lies open, whether for Corcyra 's port

He shapes his sails, or for Illyria 's shore,

And Epidamnus facing to the main

Ionian. Here, when raging in his might

Fierce Adria whelms in foam Calabria 's coast,

When clouds tempestuous veil Ceraunus' height,

The sailor finds a haven.

When the chief

Could find no hope in battle on the soil

He now was quitting, and the lofty Alps

Forbad Iberia, to his son he spake,

The eldest scion of that noble stock:

Search out the far recesses of the earth,

' Nile and Euphrates, wheresoe'er the fame

Of Magnus lives, where, through thy father's deeds,

The people tremble at the name of Rome.

'Lead to the sea again the pirate bands;

'Rouse Egypt's kings; Tigranes, wholly mine,

'And Pharnaces and all the vagrant tribes

'Of both Armenias; and the Pontic hordes,

' Warlike and fierce; the dwellers on the hills

'Rhipaean, and by that dead northern marsh

'Whose frozen surface bears the loaded wain.

Why further stay thee? Let the eastern world

Sound with the war, all cities of the earth

'Conquered by me, as vassals, to my camp

'Send all their levied hosts. And you whose names

'Within the Latian book recorded stand,

'Strike for Epirus with the northern wind;

'And thence in Greece and Macedonian tracts,

(While winter gives us peace) new strength acquire

'For coming conflicts.' They obey his words

And loose their ships and launch upon the main.

But Caesar's might, intolerant of peace

Or lengthy armistice, lest now perchance

The fates might change their edicts, swift pursued

The footsteps of his foe. To other men,

So many cities taken at a blow,

So many strongholds captured, might suffice;

And Rome herself, the mistress of the world,

Lay at his feet, the greatest prize of all.

Not so with Caesar: instant on the goal

He fiercely presses; thinking nothing done

While aught remained to do. Now in his grasp

Lay all Italia;-but while Magnus stayed

Upon the utmost shore, his grieving soul

Deemed all was shared with him. Yet he essayed

Escape to hinder, and with labour vain

Piled in the greedy main gigantic rocks:

Mountains of earth down to the sandy depths

Were swallowed by the vortex of the sea;

Just as if Eryx and its lofty top

Were cast into the deep, yet not a speck

Should mark the watery plain; or Gaurus huge

Split from his summit to his base, were plunged

In fathomless Avernus' stagnant pool.

The billows thus unstemmed, 'twas Caesar's will

To hew the stately forests and with trees

Enchained to form a rampart. Thus of old

(If fame be true) the boastful Persian king

Prepared a way across the rapid strait

'Twixt Sestos and Abydos, and made one

The European and the Trojan shores;

And marched upon the waters, wind and storm

Counting as nought, but trusting his emprise

To one frail bridge, so that his ships might pass

Through middle Athos. Thus a mighty mole

Of fallen forests grew upon the waves,

Free until then, and lofty turrets rose,

And land usurped the entrance to the main.

This when Pompeius saw, with anxious care

His soul was filled; yet hoping to regain

The exit lost, and win a wider world

Wherein to wage the war, on chosen ships

He hoists the sails; these, driven by the wind

Which filled the bellying sails, not once nor twice

Scattered the beams asunder; and at night

Not seldom engines, worked by stalwart arms,

Flung flaming torches forth. But when the time

For secret flight was come, no sailor shout

Rang on the shore, no trumpet marked the hour,

No clarion called the armament to sea.

Already shone the Virgin in the sky

Leading the Scorpion in her course, whose claws

Foretell the rising Sun, when noiseless all

They cast the vessels loose; no song was heard

To greet the anchor wrenched from stubborn sand;

No captain's order, when the lofty mast

Was raised, or yards were bent; a silent crew

Drew down the sails which hung upon the ropes,

Nor shook the mighty cables, lest the wind

Should sound upon them. But the chief, in prayer,

Thus spake to Fortune: ' Thou whose high decree

Has made us exiles from Italia 's shores,

Grant us at least to leave them.' Yet the fates

Hardly permitted, for a murmur vast

Came from the ocean, as the countless keels

Furrowed the waters, and with ceaseless splash

The parted billows rose again and fell.

Then were the gates thrown wide; for with the fates

The city turned to Caesar: and the foe,

Seizing the town, rushed onward by the pier

That circled in the harbour; then they knew

With shame and sorrow that the fleet was gone

And held the open: and Pompeius' flight

Gave a poor triumph. Yet was narrower far

The channel which gave access to the sea

Than that Euboean strait whose waters lave

The shore by Chalcis. Here two ships stuck fast

Alone, of all the fleet; the fatal hook

Grappled their decks and drew them to the land,

And the first bloodshed of the civil war

Here left a blush upon the ocean wave.

As when the famous ship sought Phasis ' stream

The rocky gates closed in and hardly gripped

Her flying stern; then from the empty sea

The cliffs rebounding to their ancient seat

Were fixed to move no more. But now the steps

Of morn approaching tinged the eastern sky

With roseate hues: the Pleiades were dim,

The wagon of the Charioteer grew pale,

The planets faded, and the silvery star

Which ushers in the day, was lost in light.

Thou, Magnus, hold'st the deep; yet not the same

Now are thy fates, as when from every sea

Thy fleet triumphant swept the pirate pest.

Tired of thy conquests, Fortune now no more

Shall smile upon thee. With thy spouse and sons,

Thy household gods, and peoples in thy train,

Still great in exile, in a distant land

Thou seek'st thy fated fall; not that the gods,

Wishing to rob thee of a Roman grave,

Decreed the strands of Egypt for thy tomb:

'Twas Italy they spared, that far away

Fortune on shores remote might hide her crime,

And Roman soil be pure of Magnus' blood.