Book 6
' The chains were fallen from boastful Catiline.
1
' Him too I saw rejoicing, and the pair
' Of Marii, and Cethegus' naked arm.See Book II., 611.
' The Drusi, heroes of the people, joyed,
' In laws immoderate; and the famous pair The Gracchi, the younger of whom aimed at being a perpetual tribune, and was in some sort a forerunner of the Emperors.
' Of greatly daring brothers: guilty bands
' By bars eternal shut within the doors
' That close the prison of hell, applaud the fates,
'Claiming the plains Elysian: and the King
' Throws wide his pallid halls, makes hard the points
' Of craggy rocks, and forges iron chains,
' The victor's punishment. But take with thee
'This comfort, youth, that there a calm abode,
' And peaceful, waits thy father and his house.
' Nor let the glory of a little span
' Disturb thy boding heart: the hour shall come
' When all the chiefs shall meet. Shrink not from death,
' But glorying in the greatness of your souls,
' E'en from your humble sepulchres descend,
' And tread beneath your feet, in pride of place,
' The wandering phantoms of the gods of Rome.That is, the Caesars, who will be in Tartarus.
' Which chieftain's tomb by Tiber shall be laved,
' And which by Nile; their fate, and theirs alone,
' This battle shall decide. Nor seek to know
' From me thy fortunes: for the fates in time
' Shall give thee all thy due; and thy great sire,Referring probably to an episode intended to be introduced in a later book, in which the shade of Pompeius was to foretell his fate to Sextus.
' A surer prophet, in Sicilian fields
'Shall speak thy future-doubting even he
' What regions of the world thou shouldst avoid
' And what shouldst seek. O miserable race!
' Europe and Asia and Libya's plains,Cnaeus was killed in Spain after the battle of Munda; Sextus at Miletus; Pompeius himself, of course, in Egypt.
' Which saw your conquests, now shall hold alike
' Your burial-place-nor has the earth for you
' A happier land than this.'
He stands in mournful guise, with silent look
Asking for death again; yet could not die
Till mystic herb and magic chant prevailed.
For nature's law, once used, had power no more
To slay the corpse and set the spirit free.
