Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars. Lucan

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       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 nameless dread, not sorrow, and in 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 are offered which refused shall bring

       Reproach on heaven. One whose livid arms

       Were dark with blows, whose cheeks with tears bedewed

       And riven, cried, "Beat, mothers, beat the breast,

       Tear now the lock; while doubtful in the scales

       Still fortune hangs, nor yet the fight is won,

       You still may grieve: when either wins rejoice."

       Thus sorrow stirs itself.

      Meanwhile the men

       Seeking the camp and setting forth 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 (1), 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 to murder, 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 all the blood shed by your slaughtered tribes to

       Let this man, Cimbrians, live out all his 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 (2)

       Fresh fury gathering (3), 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.

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