Book VIII

Death of Pompeius

Now through Alcides’(1) pass and Tempe’s grovesPompeius, aiming for Haemonian glensAnd forests lone, urged on his wearied steedScarce heeding now the spur; by devious tracksSeeking to veil the footsteps of his flight:The rustle of the foliage, and the noiseOf following comrades filled his anxious soulWith terrors, as he fancied at his sideSome ambushed enemy.  Fallen from the heightOf former fortunes, still the chieftain knewHis life not worthless; mindful of the fates:And ’gainst the price he set on Caesar’s head,He measures Caesar’s value of his own.

Yet, as he rode, the features of the chiefMade known his ruin.  Many as they soughtThe camp Pharsalian, ere yet was spreadNews of the battle, met the chief, amazed,And wondered at the whirl of human things:Nor held disaster sure, though Magnus’ selfTold of his ruin.  Every witness seenBrought peril on his flight: ‘twere better farSafe in a name obscure, through all the worldTo wander; but his ancient fame forbad.

Too long had great Pompeius from the heightOf human greatness, envied of mankind,Looked on all others; nor for him henceforthCould life be lowly.  The honours of his youthToo early thrust upon him, and the deedsWhich brought him triumph in the Sullan days,His conquering navy and the Pontic war,Made heavier now the burden of defeat,And crushed his pondering soul.  So length of daysDrags down the haughty spirit, and life prolongedWhen power has perished.  Fortune’s latest hour,Be the last hour of life!  Nor let the wretchLive on disgraced by memories of fame!But for the boon of death, who’d dare the seaOf prosperous chance?

Upon the ocean margeBy red Peneus blushing from the fray,Borne in a sloop, to lightest wind and waveScarce equal, he, whose countless oars yet smoteUpon Corcyra’s isle and Leucas point,Lord of Cilicia and Liburnian lands,Crept trembling to the sea.  He bids them steerFor the sequestered shores of Lesbos isle;For there wert thou, sharer of all his griefs,Cornelia!  Sadder far thy life apartThan wert thou present in Thessalia’s fields.Racked is thy heart with presages of ill;Pharsalia fills thy dreams; and when the shadesGive place to coming dawn, with hasty stepThou tread’st some cliff sea-beaten, and with eyesGazing afar art first to mark the sailOf each approaching bark: yet dar’st not askAught of thy husband’s fate.

Behold the boatWhose bending canvas bears her to the shore:She brings (unknown as yet) thy chiefest dread,Rumour of evil, herald of defeat,Magnus, thy conquered spouse.  Fear then no more,But give to grief thy moments.  From the shipHe leaps to land; she marks the cruel doomWrought by the gods upon him: pale and wanHis weary features, by the hoary locksShaded; the dust of travel on his garb.Dark on her soul a night of anguish fell;Her trembling limbs no longer bore her frame:Scarce throbbed her heart, and prone on earth she layDeceived in hope of death.  The boat made fast,Pompeius treading the lone waste of sandDrew near; whom when Cornelia’s maidens saw,They stayed their weeping, yet with sighs subdued,Reproached the fates; and tried in vain to raiseTheir mistress’ form, till Magnus to his breastDrew her with cherishing arms; and at the touchOf soothing hands the life-blood to her veinsReturned once more, and she could bear to lookUpon his features.  He forbad despair,Chiding her grief.  “Not at the earliest blowBy Fortune dealt, inheritress of fameBequeathed by noble fathers, should thy strengthThus fail and yield: renown shall yet be thine,To last through ages; not of laws decreedNor conquests won; a gentler path to theeAs to thy sex, is given; thy husband’s woe.Let thine affection struggle with the fates,And in his misery love thy lord the more.I bring thee greater glory, for that goneIs all the pomp of power and all the crowdOf faithful senators and suppliant kings;Now first Pompeius for himself aloneTis thine to love.  Curb this unbounded grief,While yet I breathe, unseemly.  O’er my tombWeep out thy full, the final pledge of faith.Thou hast no loss, nor has the war destroyedAught save my fortune.  If for that thy griefThat was thy love.”

Roused by her husband’s words,Yet scarcely could she raise her trembling limbs,Thus speaking through her sobs: “Would I had soughtDetested Caesar’s couch, ill-omened wifeOf spouse unhappy; at my nuptials twiceA Fury has been bridesmaid, and the ghostsOf slaughtered Crassi, with avenging shadesBrought by my wedlock to the doomed campThe Parthian massacre.  Twice my star has cursedThe world, and peoples have been hurled to deathIn one red moment; and the gods through meHave left the better cause.  O, hero mine,mightiest husband, wedded to a wifeUnworthy!  ’Twas through her that Fortune gainedThe right to strike thee.  Wherefore did I wedTo bring thee misery?  Mine, mine the guilt,Mine be the penalty.  And that the waveMay bear thee gently onwards, and the kingsMay keep their faith to thee, and all the earthBe ready to thy rule, me from thy sideCast to the billows.  Rather had I diedTo bring thee victory; thy disasters thus,Thus expiate.  And, cruel Julia, thee,Who by this war hast vengeance on our vows,From thine abode I call: atonement findIn this thy rival’s death, and spare at leastThy Magnus.”  Then upon his breast she fell,While all the concourse wept—e’en Magnus’ self,Who saw Thessalia’s field without a tear.

But now upon the shore a numerous bandFrom Mitylene thus approached the chief:“If ’tis our greatest glory to have keptThe pledge with us by such a husband placed,Do thou one night within these friendly wallsWe pray thee, stay; thus honouring the homesLong since devoted, Magnus, to thy cause.This spot in days to come the guest from RomeFor thee shall honour.  Nowhere shalt thou findA surer refuge in defeat.  All elseMay court the victor’s favour; we long sinceHave earned his chastisement.  And though our isleRides on the deep, girt by the ocean wave,No ships has Caesar: and to us shall come,Be sure, thy captains, to our trusted shore,The war renewing.  Take, for all is thine,The treasures of our temples and the gold,Take all our youth by land or on the seaTo do thy bidding: Lesbos only asksThis from the chief who sought her in his pride,Not in his fall to leave her.”  Pleased in soulAt such a love, and joyed that in the worldSome faith still lingered, thus Pompeius said:“Earth has for me no dearer land than this.Did I not trust it with so sweet a pledgeAnd find it faithful?  Here was Rome for me,Country and household gods.  This shore I soughtHome of my wife, this Lesbos, which for herHad merited remorseless Caesar’s ire:Nor was afraid to trust you with the meansTo gain his mercy.  But enough—through meYour guilt was caused—I part, throughout the worldTo prove my fate.  Farewell thou happiest land!Famous for ever, whether taught by theeSome other kings and peoples may be pleasedTo give me shelter; or should’st thou aloneBe faithful.  And now seek I in what landsRight may be found or wrong.  My latest prayerReceive, O deity, if still with meThou bidest, thus.  May it be mine again,Conquered, with hostile Caesar on my tracksTo find a Lesbos where to enter inAnd whence to part, unhindered.”

In the boatHe placed his spouse: while from the shore aroseSuch lamentation, and such hands were raisedIn ire against the gods, that thou had’st deemedAll left their kin for exile, and their homes.And though for Magnus grieving in his fallYet for Cornelia chiefly did they mournLong since their gentle guest.  For her had weptThe Lesbian matrons had she left to joinA victor husband: for she won their love,By kindly modesty and gracious mien,Ere yet her lord was conquered, while as yetTheir fortunes stood.

Now slowly to the deepSank fiery Titan; but not yet to thoseHe sought (if such there be), was shown his orb,Though veiled from those he quitted.  Magnus’ mind,Anxious with waking cares, sought through the kingsHis subjects, and the cities leagued with RomeIn faith, and through the pathless tracts that lieBeyond the southern bounds: until the toilOf sorrowing thought upon the past, and dreadOf that which might be, made him cast afarHis wavering doubts, and from the captain seekSome counsel on the heavens; how by the skyHe marked his track upon the deep; what starGuided the path to Syria, and what pointsFound in the Wain would pilot him arightTo shores of Libya.  But thus repliedThe well-skilled watcher of the silent skies:“Not by the constellations moving everAcross the heavens do we guide our barks;For that were perilous; but by that star (2)Which never sinks nor dips below the wave,Girt by the glittering groups men call the Bears.When stands the pole-star clear before the mast,Then to the Bosphorus look we, and the mainWhich carves the coast of Scythia.  But the moreBootes dips, and nearer to the seaIs Cynosura seen, so much the shipTowards Syria tends, till bright Canopus (3) shines,In southern skies content to hold his course;With him upon the left past Pharos borneStraight for the Syrtes shalt thou plough the deep.But whither now dost bid me shape the yardsAnd set the canvas?”

Magnus, doubting still;“This only be thy care: from Thracia steerThe vessel onward; shun with all thy skillItalia’s distant shore: and for the restTrust to the winds for guidance.  When I sought,Pledged with the Lesbians, my spouse beloved,My course was sure: now, Fortune, where thou wiltGive me a refuge.”  These his answering words.

The pilot, as they hung from level yardsShifted the sails; and hauling to the sternOne sheet, he slacked the other, to the leftSteering, where Samian rocks and Chian marredThe stillness of the waters; while the seaSent up in answer to the changing keelA different murmur.  Not so deftly turnsCurbing his steeds, his wain the Charioteer,While glows his dexter wheel, and with the leftHe almost touches, yet avoids the goal.

Now Titan veiled the stars and showed the shore;When, following Magnus, came a scattered bandSaved from the Thracian storm.  From Lesbos’ portHis son; (4) next, captains who preserved their faith;For at his side, though vanquished in the field,Cast down by fate, in exile, still there stood,Lords of the earth and all her Orient realms,The Kings, his ministers.

To the furthest landsHe bids (5) Deiotarus: “O faithful friend,Since in Emathia’s battle-field was lostThe world, so far as Roman, it remainsTo test the faith of peoples of the EastWho drink of Tigris and Euphrates’ stream,Secure as yet from Caesar.  Be it thineFar as the rising of the sun to traceThe fates that favour Magnus: to the courtsOf Median palaces, to Scythian steppes;And to the son of haughty Arsaces,To bear my message, ‘Hold ye to the faith,Pledged by your priests and by the Thunderer’s nameOf Latium sworn?  Then fill your quivers full,Draw to its fullest span th’ Armenian bow;And, Getan archers, wing the fatal shaft.And you, ye Parthians, if when I soughtThe Caspian gates, and on th’ Alaunian tribes (6)Fierce, ever-warring, pressed, I suffered youIn Persian tracts to wander, nor compelledTo seek for shelter Babylonian walls;If beyond Cyrus’ kingdom (7) and the boundsOf wide Chaldaea, where from Nysa’s topPours down Hydaspes, and the Ganges floodFoams to the ocean, nearer far I stoodThan Persia’s bounds to Phoebus’ rising fires;If by my sufferance, Parthians, you aloneDecked not my triumphs, but in equal stateSole of all Eastern princes, face to faceMet Magnus in his pride, nor only onceThrough me were saved; (for after that dread dayWho but Pompeius soothed the kindling firesOf Latium’s anger?)—by my service paidCome forth to victory: burst the ancient boundsBy Macedon’s hero set: in Magnus’ causeMarch, Parthians, to Rome’s conquest.  Rome herselfPrays to be conquered.’”

Hard the task imposed;Yet doffed his robe, and swift obeyed, the kingWrapped in a servant’s mantle.  If a PrinceFor safety play the boor, then happier, sure,The peasant’s lot than lordship of the world.

The king thus parted, past Icaria’s rocksPompeius’ vessel skirts the foamy cragsOf little Samos: Colophon’s tranquil seaAnd Ephesus lay behind him, and the airBreathed freely on him from the Coan shore.Cuidos he shunned, and, famous for its sun,Rhodos, and steering for the middle deepEscaped the windings of Telmessus’ bay;Till rose Pamphylian coasts before the bark,And first the fallen chieftain dared to findIn small Phaseils shelter; for thereinScarce was the husbandman, and empty homesForbad to fear.  Next Taurus’ heights he sawAnd Dipsus falling from his lofty sides:So sailed he onward.

Did Pompeius hope,Thus severed by the billows from the foe,To make his safety sure?  His little boatFlies unmolested past Cilician shores;But to their exiled lord in chiefest partThe senate of Rome was drawn.  Celendrae thereReceived their fleet, where fair Selinus’ streamIn spacious bay gives refuge from the main;And to the gathered chiefs in mournful wordsAt length Pompeius thus resolved his thoughts:“O faithful comrades mine in war and flight!To me, my country!  Though this barren shoreOur place of meeting, and no gathered hostSurrounds us, yet upon our changed estateI seek your counsel.  Rouse ye as of yoreWith hearts of courage!  Magnus on the fieldNot all is perished, nor do fates forbidBut that I rise afresh with living hopeOf future victories, and spurn defeat.From Libyan ruins did not Marius riseAgain recorded Consul on the pageFull of his honours? shall a lighter blowKeep Magnus down, whose thousand chiefs and shipsStill plough the billows; by defeat his strengthNot whelmed but scattered?  And the fame aloneOf our great deeds of glory in the pastShall now protect us, and the world unchangedStill love its hero.

“Weigh upon the scalesYe chiefs, which best may help the needs of Rome,In faith and armies; or the Parthian realmEgypt or Libya.  For myself, ye chiefs,I veil no secret thoughts, but thus advise.Place no reliance on the Pharian king;His age forbids: nor on the cunning Moor,Who vain of Punic ancestors, and vainOf Carthaginian memories and descent (8)Supposed from Hannibal, and swollen with prideAt Varus’ supplication, sees in thoughtRome lie beneath him.  Wherefore, comrades, seekAt speed, the Eastern world.  Those mighty realmsDisjoins from us Euphrates, and the gatesCalled Caspian; on another sky than oursThere day and night revolve; another seaOf different hue is severed from our own. (9)Rule is their wish, nought else: and in their plainsTaller the war-horse, stronger twangs the bow;There fails nor youth nor age to wing the shaftFatal in flight.  Their archers first subduedThe lance of Macedon and Baetra’s (10) walls,Home of the Mede; and haughty BabylonWith all her storied towers: nor shall they dreadThe Roman onset; trusting to the shaftsBy which the host of fated Crassus fell.Nor trust they only to the javelin bladeUntipped with poison: from the rancorous edgeThe slightest wound deals death.

“Would that my lotForced me not thus to trust that savage raceOf Arsaces! (11)  Yet now their emulous fateContends with Roman destinies: the godsSmile favouring on their nation.  Thence I’ll pourOn Caesar peoples from another earthAnd all the Orient ravished from its home.But should the East and barbarous treaties fail,Fate, bear our shipwrecked fortunes past the boundsOf earth, as known to men.  The kings I madeI supplicate not, but in death shall takeTo other spheres this solace: chief of all;His hands, my kinsman’s, never shed my bloodNor soothed me dying.  Yet as my mind in turnThe varying fortunes of my life recalls,How was I glorious in that Eastern world!How great my name by far Maeotis marshAnd where swift Tanais flows!  No other landHas so resounded with my conquests won,So sent me home triumphant.  Rome, do thouApprove my enterprise!  What happier chanceCould favouring gods afford thee?  Parthian hostsShall fight the civil wars of Rome, and shareHer ills, and fall enfeebled.  When the armsOf Caesar meet with Parthian in the fray,Then must kind Fortune vindicate my lotOr Crassus be avenged.”

But murmurs rose,And Magnus speaking knew his words condemned.Then Lentulus (12) answered, with indignant soul,Foremost to rouse their valour, thus in wordsWorthy a Consul: “Have Thessalian woesBroken thy spirit so?  One day’s defeatCondemned the world to ruin?  Is the causeLost in one battle and beyond recall?Find we no cure for wounds?  Does Fortune driveThee, Magnus, to the Parthians’ feet alone?And dost thou, fugitive, spurn the lands and skiesKnown heretofore, and seek for other polesAnd constellations, and Chaldaean gods,And rites barbarian, servant of the realmOf Parthia?  But why then took we armsFor love of liberty?  If thou canst slaveThou hast deceived the world!  Shall Parthia seeThee at whose name, ruler of mighty Rome,She trembled, at whose feet she captive sawHyrcanian kings and Indian princes kneel,Now humbly suppliant, victim of the fates;And at thy prayer her puny strength extolIn mad contention with the Western world?Nor think, Pompeius, thou shalt plead thy causeIn that proud tongue unknown to Parthian earsOf which thy fame is worthy; sobs and tearsHe shall demand of thee.  And has our shameBrought us to this, that some barbarian foeShall venge Hesperia’s wrongs ere Rome her own?Thou wert our leader for the civil war:Mid Scythia’s peoples dost thou bruit abroadWounds and disasters which are ours alone?Rome until now, though subject to the yokeOf civic despots, yet within her wallsHas brooked no foreign lord.  And art thou pleasedFrom all the world to summon to her gatesThese savage peoples, while the standards lostBy far Euphrates when the Crassi fellShall lead thy columns?  Shall the only kingWho failed Emathia, while the fates yet hidTheir favouring voices, brave the victor’s power,And join with thine his fortune?  Nay, not soThis nation trusts itself.  Each race that claimsA northern birth, unconquered in the frayClaims but the warrior’s death; but as the skySlopes towards the eastern tracts and gentler climesSo are the nations.  There in flowing robesAnd garments delicate are men arrayed.True that the Parthian in Sarmatia’s plains,Where Tigris spreads across the level meads,Contends invincible; for flight is hisUnbounded; but should uplands bar his pathHe scales them not; nor through the night of warShall his weak bow uncertain in its aimRepel the foeman; nor his strength of armThe torrent stem; nor all a summer’s dayIn dust and blood bear up against the foe.They fill no hostile trench, nor in their handsShall battering engine or machine of warDash down the rampart; and whate’er availsTo stop their arrows, battles like a wall. (13)Wide sweep their horsemen, fleeting in attackAnd light in onset, and their troops shall yieldA camp, not take it: poisoned are their shafts;Nor do they dare a combat hand to hand;But as the winds may suffer, from afarThey draw their bows at venture.  Brave men loveThe sword which, wielded by a stalwart arm,Drives home the blow and makes the battle sure.Not such their weapons; and the first assaultShall force the flying Mede with coward handAnd empty quiver from the field.  His faithIn poisoned blades is placed; but trustest thouThose who without such aid refuse the war?For such alliance wilt thou risk a death,With all the world between thee and thy home?Shall some barbarian earth or lowly graveEnclose thee perishing?  E’en that were shameWhile Crassus seeks a sepulchre in vain.Thy lot is happy; death, unfeared by men,Is thy worst doom, Pompeius; but no deathAwaits Cornelia—such a fate for herThis king shall not reserve; for know not weThe hateful secrets of barbarian love,Which, blind as that of beasts, the marriage bedPollutes with wives unnumbered?  Nor the lawsBy nature made respect they, nor of kin.In ancient days the fable of the crimeBy tyrant Oedipus unwitting wrought,Brought hate upon his city; but how oftSits on the throne of Arsaces a princeOf birth incestuous?  This gracious dameBorn of Metellus, noblest blood of Rome,Shall share the couch of the barbarian kingWith thousand others: yet in savage joy,Proud of her former husbands, he may grantSome larger share of favour; and the fatesMay seem to smile on Parthia; for the spouseOf Crassus, captive, shall to him be broughtAs spoil of former conquest.  If the woundDealt in that fell defeat in eastern landsStill stirs thy heart, then double is the shameFirst to have waged the war upon ourselves,Then ask the foe for succour.  For what blameCan rest on thee or Caesar, worse than thisThat in the clash of conflict ye forgotFor Crassus’ slaughtered troops the vengeance due?First should united Rome upon the MedeHave poured her captains, and the troops who guardThe northern frontier from the Dacian hordes;And all her legions should have left the RhineFree to the Teuton, till the Parthian deadWere piled in heaps upon the sands that hideOur heroes slain; and haughty BabylonLay at her victor’s feet.  To this foul peaceWe pray an end; and if Thessalia’s dayHas closed our warfare, let the conqueror marchStraight on our Parthian foe.  Then should this heart,Then only, leap at Caesar’s triumph won.Go thou and pass Araxes’ chilly streamOn this thine errand; and the fleeting ghostPierced by the Scythian shaft shall greet thee thus:‘Art thou not he to whom our wandering shadesLooked for their vengeance in the guise of war?And dost thou sue for peace?’  There shalt thou meetMemorials of the dead.  Red is yon wallWhere passed their headless trunks: Euphrates hereEngulfed them slain, or Tigris’ winding streamCast on the shore to perish.  Gaze on this,And thou canst supplicate at Caesar’s feetIn mid Thessalia seated.  Nay, thy glanceTurn on the Roman world, and if thou fear’stKing Juba faithless and the southern realms,Then seek we Pharos.  Egypt on the westGirt by the trackless Syrtes forces backBy sevenfold stream the ocean; rich in glebeAnd gold and merchandise; and proud of NileAsks for no rain from heaven.  Now holds this boyHer sceptre, owed to thee; his guardian thou:And who shall fear this shadow of a name?Hope not from monarchs old, whose shame is fled,Or laws or troth or honour of the gods:New kings bring mildest sway.” (14)

His words prevailedUpon his hearers.  With what freedom speaks,When states are trembling, patriot despair!Pompeius’ voice was quelled.

They hoist their sailsFor Cyprus shaped, whose altars more than allThe goddess loves who from the Paphian waveSprang, mindful of her birth, if such be truth,And gods have origin.  Past the craggy islePompeius sailing, left at length asternIts southern cape, and struck across the mainWith winds transverse and tides; nor reached the mountGrateful to sailors for its nightly gleam:But to the bounds of Egypt hardly wonWith battling canvas, where divided NilePours through the shallows his Pelusian stream. (15)Now was the season when the heavenly scaleMost nearly balances the varying hours,Once only equal; for the wintry dayRepays to night her losses of the spring;And Magnus learning that th’ Egyptian kingLay by Mount Casius, ere the sun was setOr flagged his canvas, thither steered his ship.

Already had a horseman from the shoreIn rapid gallop to the trembling courtBrought news their guest was come.  Short was the timeFor counsel given; but in haste were metAll who advised the base Pellaean king,Monsters, inhuman; there Achoreus satLess harsh in failing years, in Memphis bornOf empty rites, and guardian of the rise (16)Of fertilising Nile.  While he was priestNot only once had Apis (17) lived the spaceMarked by the crescent on his sacred brow.First was his voice, for Magnus raised and trothAnd for the pledges of the king deceased:But, skilled in counsel meet for shameless mindsAnd tyrant hearts, Pothinus, dared to claimJudgment of death on Magnus.  “Laws and rightMake many guilty, Ptolemmus king.And faith thus lauded (18) brings its punishmentWhen it supports the fallen.  To the fatesYield thee, and to the gods; the wretched shunBut seek the happy.  As the stars from earthDiffer, and fire from ocean, so from rightExpedience. (19)  The tyrant’s shorn of strengthWho ponders justice; and regard for rightBring’s ruin on a throne.  For lawless powerThe best defence is crime, and cruel deedsFind safety but in doing.  He that aimsAt piety must flee the regal hall;Virtue’s the bane of rule; he lives in dreadWho shrinks from cruelty.  Nor let this chiefUnpunished scorn thy youth, who thinks that thouNot even the conquered from our shore can’st bar.Nor to a stranger, if thou would’st not reign,Resign thy sceptre, for the ties of bloodSpeak for thy banished sister.  Let her ruleO’er Nile and Pharos: we shall at the leastPreserve our Egypt from the Latian arms.What Magnus owned not ere the war was done,No more shall Caesar.  Driven from all the world,Trusting no more to Fortune, now he seeksSome foreign nation which may share his fate.Shades of the slaughtered in the civil warCompel him: nor from Caesar’s arms aloneBut from the Senate also does he fly,Whose blood outpoured has gorged Thessalian fowl;Monarchs he fears whose all he hath destroyed,And nations piled in one ensanguined heap,By him deserted.  Victim of the blowThessalia dealt, refused in every land,He asks for help from ours not yet betrayed.But none than Egypt with this chief from RomeHas juster quarrel; who has sought with armsTo stain our Pharos, distant from the strifeAnd peaceful ever, and to make our realmSuspected by his victor.  Why aloneShould this our country please thee in thy fall?Why bringst thou here the burden of thy fates,Pharsalia’s curse?  In Caesar’s eyes long sinceWe have offence which by the sword aloneCan find its condonation, in that weBy thy persuasion from the Senate gainedThis our dominion.  By our prayers we helpedIf not by arms thy cause.  This sword, which fateBids us make ready, not for thee I holdPrepared, but for the vanquished; and on thee(Would it had been on Caesar) falls the stroke;For we are borne, as all things, to his side.And dost thou doubt, since thou art in my power,Thou art my victim?  By what trust in usCam’st thou, unhappy?  Scarce our people tillsThe fields, though softened by the refluent Nile:Know well our strength, and know we can no more.Rome ’neath the ruin of Pompeius lies:Shalt thou, king, uphold him?  Shalt thou dareTo stir Pharsalia’s ashes and to callWar to thy kingdom?  Ere the fight was foughtWe joined not either army—shall we nowMake Magnus friend whom all the world deserts?And fling a challenge to the conquering chiefAnd all his proud successes?  Fair is helpLent in disaster, yet reserved for thoseWhom fortune favours.  Faith her friends selectsNot from the wretched.”

They decree the crime:Proud is the boyish tyrant that so soonHis slaves permit him to so great a deedTo give his favouring voice; and for the workThey choose Achillas.

Where the treacherous shoreRuns out in sand below the Casian mountAnd where the shallow waters of the seaAttest the Syrtes near, in little boatAchillas and his partners in the crimeWith swords embark.  Ye gods! and shall the NileAnd barbarous Memphis and th’ effeminate crewThat throngs Pelusian Canopus raiseIts thoughts to such an enterprise?  Do thusOur fates press on the world?  Is Rome thus fallenThat in our civil frays the Phaxian swordFinds place, or Egypt?  O, may civil warBe thus far faithful that the hand which strikesBe of our kindred; and the foreign fiendHeld worlds apart!  Pompeius, great in soul,Noble in spirit, had deserved a deathFrom Caesar’s self.  And, king, hast thou no fearAt such a ruin of so great a name?And dost thou dare when heaven’s high thunder rolls,Thou, puny boy, to mingle with its tonesThine impure utterance?  Had he not wonA world by arms, and thrice in triumph scaledThe sacred Capitol, and vanquished kings,And championed the Roman Senate’s cause;He, kinsman of the victor?  ’Twas enoughTo cause forbearance in a Pharian king,That he was Roman.  Wherefore with thy swordDost stab our breasts?  Thou know’st not, impious boy,How stand thy fortunes; now no more by rightHast thou the sceptre of the land of Nile;For prostrate, vanquished in the civil warsIs he who gave it.

Furling now his sails,Magnus with oars approached th’ accursed land,When in their little boat the murderous crewDrew nigh, and feigning from th’ Egyptian courtA ready welcome, blamed the double tidesBroken by shallows, and their scanty beachUnfit for fleets; and bade him to their craftLeaving his loftier ship.  Had not the fates’Eternal and unalterable lawsCalled for their victim and decreed his endNow near at hand, his comrades’ warning voiceYet might have stayed his course: for if the courtTo Magnus, who bestowed the Pharian crown,In truth were open, should not king and fleetIn pomp have come to greet him?  But he yields:The fates compel.  Welcome to him was deathRather than fear.  But, rushing to the side,His spouse would follow, for she dared not stay,Fearing the guile.  Then he, “Abide, my wife,And son, I pray you; from the shore afarAwait my fortunes; mine shall be the lifeTo test their honour.”  But Cornelia stillWithstood his bidding, and with arms outspreadFrenzied she cried: “And whither without me,Cruel, departest?  Thou forbad’st me shareThy risks Thessalian; dost again commandThat I should part from thee?  No happy starBreaks on our sorrow.  If from every landThou dost debar me, why didst turn asideIn flight to Lesbos?  On the waves aloneAm I thy fit companion?”  Thus in vain,Leaning upon the bulwark, dazed with dread;Nor could she turn her straining gaze aside,Nor see her parting husband.  All the fleetStood silent, anxious, waiting for the end:Not that they feared the murder which befell,But lest their leader might with humble prayerKneel to the king he made.

As Magnus passed,A Roman soldier from the Pharian boat,Septimius, salutes him.  Gods of heaven!There stood he, minion to a barbarous king,Nor bearing still the javelin of Rome;But vile in all his arms; giant in formFierce, brutal, thirsting as a beast may thirstFor carnage.  Didst thou, Fortune, for the sakeOf nations, spare to dread Pharsalus fieldThis savage monster’s blows?  Or dost thou placeThroughout the world, for thy mysterious ends,Some ministering swords for civil war?Thus, to the shame of victors and of gods,This story shall be told in days to come:A Roman swordsman, once within thy ranks,Slave to the orders of a puny prince,Severed Pompeius’ neck.  And what shall beSeptimius’ fame hereafter?  By what nameThis deed be called, if Brutus wrought a crime?

Now came the end, the latest hour of all:Rapt to the boat was Magnus, of himselfNo longer master, and the miscreant crewUnsheathed their swords; which when the chieftain sawHe swathed his visage, for he scorned unveiledTo yield his life to fortune; closed his eyesAnd held his breath within him, lest some word,Or sob escaped, might mar the deathless fameHis deeds had won.  And when within his sideAchillas plunged his blade, nor sound nor cryHe gave, but calm consented to the blowAnd proved himself in dying; in his breastThese thoughts revolving: “In the years to comeMen shall make mention of our Roman toils,Gaze on this boat, ponder the Pharian faith;And think upon thy fame and all the yearsWhile fortune smiled: but for the ills of lifeHow thou could’st bear them, this men shall not knowSave by thy death.  Then weigh thou not the shameThat waits on thine undoing.  Whoso strikes,The blow is Caesar’s.  Men may tear this frameAnd cast it mangled to the winds of heaven;Yet have I prospered, nor can all the godsCall back my triumphs.  Life may bring defeat,But death no misery.  If my spouse and sonBehold me murdered, silently the moreI suffer: admiration at my deathShall prove their love.”  Thus did Pompeius die,Guarding his thoughts.

But now Cornelia filledThe air with lamentations at the sight;“O, husband, whom my wicked self hath slain!That lonely isle apart thy bane hath beenAnd stayed thy coming.  Caesar to the NileHas won before us; for what other handMay do such work?  But whosoe’er thou artSent from the gods with power, for Caesar’s ire,Or thine own sake, to slay, thou dost not knowWhere lies the heart of Magnus.  Haste and do!Such were his prayer—no other punishmentBefits the conquered.  Yet let him ere his endSee mine, Cornelia’s.  On me the blameOf all these wars, who sole of Roman wivesFollowed my spouse afield nor feared the fates;And in disaster, when the kings refused,Received and cherished him.  Did I deserveThus to be left of thee, and didst thou seekTo spare me?  And when rushing on thine endWas I to live?  Without the monarch’s helpDeath shall be mine, either by headlong leapBeneath the waters; or some sailor’s handShall bind around this neck the fatal cord;Or else some comrade, worthy of his chief,Drive to my heart his blade for Magnus’ sake,And claim the service done to Caesar’s arms.What! does your cruelty withhold my fate?Ah! still he lives, nor is it mine as yetTo win this freedom; they forbid me death,Kept for the victor’s triumph.”  Thus she spake,While friendly hands upheld her fainting form;And sped the trembling vessel from the shore.

Men say that Magnus, when the deadly blowsFell thick upon him, lost nor form divine,Nor venerated mien; and as they gazedUpon his lacerated head they markedStill on his features anger with the gods.Nor death could change his visage—for in actOf striking, fierce Septimius’ murderous hand(Thus making worse his crime) severed the foldsThat swathed the face, and seized the noble headAnd drooping neck ere yet was fled the life:Then placed upon the bench; and with his bladeSlow at its hideous task, and blows unskilledHacked through the flesh and brake the knotted bone:For yet man had not learned by swoop of swordDeftly to lop the neck.  Achillas claimedThe gory head dissevered.  What! shalt thouA Roman soldier, while thy blade yet reeksFrom Magnus’ slaughter, play the second partTo this base varlet of the Pharian king?Nor bear thyself the bleeding trophy home?Then, that the impious boy (ah! shameful fate)Might know the features of the hero slain,Seized by the locks, the dread of kings, which wavedUpon his stately front, on Pharian pikeThe head was lifted; while almost the lifeGave to the tongue its accents, and the eyesWere yet scarce glazed: that head at whose commandWas peace or war, that tongue whose eloquent tonesWould move assemblies, and that noble browOn which were showered the rewards of Rome.Nor to the tyrant did the sight sufficeTo prove the murder done.  The perishing flesh,The tissues, and the brain he bids removeBy art nefarious: the shrivelled skinDraws tight upon the bone; and poisonous juiceGives to the face its lineaments in death.

Last of thy race, thou base degenerate boy,About to perish (20) soon, and yield the throneTo thine incestuous sister; while the PrinceFrom Macedon here in consecrated vaultNow rests, and ashes of the kings are closedIn mighty pyramids, and lofty tombsOf thine unworthy fathers mark the graves;Shall Magnus’ body hither and thither borneBe battered, headless, by the ocean wave?Too much it troubled thee to guard the corseUnmutilated, for his kinsman’s eyeTo witness!  Such the faith which Fortune keptWith prosperous Pompeius to the end.’Twas not for him in evil days some rayOf light to hope for.  Shattered from the heightOf power in one short moment to his death!Years of unbroken victories balanced downBy one day’s carnage!  In his happy timeHeaven did not harass him, nor did she spareIn misery.  Long Fortune held the handThat dashed him down.  Now beaten by the sands,Torn upon rocks, the sport of ocean’s wavesPoured through its wounds, his headless carcase lies,Save by the lacerated trunk unknown.

Yet ere the victor touched the Pharian sandsSome scanty rites to Magnus Fortune gave,Lest he should want all burial.  Pale with fearCame Cordus, hasting from his hiding place;Quaestor, he joined Pompeius on thy shore,Idalian Cyprus, bringing in his trainA cloud of evils.  Through the darkening shadesLove for the dead compelled his trembling steps,Hard by the marin of the deep to searchAnd drag to land his master.  Through the cloudsThe moon shone sadly, and her rays were dim;But by its hue upon the hoary mainHe knew the body.  In a fast embraceHe holds it, wrestling with the greedy sea,And deftly watching for a refluent waveGains help to bring his burden to the land.Then clinging to the loved remains, the woundsWashed with his tears, thus to the gods he speaks,And misty stars obscure: “Here, Fortune, liesPompeius, thine: no costly incense rareOr pomp of funeral he dares to ask;Nor that the smoke rise heavenward from his pyreWith eastern odours rich; nor that the necksOf pious Romans bear him to the tomb,Their parent; while the forums shall resoundWith dirges; nor that triumphs won of yoreBe borne before him; nor for sorrowing hostsTo cast their weapons forth.  Some little shellHe begs as for the meanest, laid in whichHis mutilated corse may reach the flame.Grudge not his misery the pile of woodLit by this menial hand.  Is’t not enoughThat his Cornelia with dishevelled hairWeeps not beside him at his obsequies,Nor with a last embrace shall place the torchBeneath her husband dead, but on the deepHard by still wanders?”

Burning from afarHe sees the pyre of some ignoble youthDeserted of his own, with none to guard:And quickly drawing from beneath the limbsSome glowing logs, “Whoe’er thou art,” he said“Neglected shade, uncared for, dear to none,Yet happier than Pompeius in thy death,Pardon I ask that this my stranger handShould violate thy tomb.  Yet if to shadesBe sense or memory, gladly shalt thou yieldThis from thy pyre to Magnus.  ‘Twere thy shame,Blessed with due burial, if his remainsWere homeless.”  Speaking thus, the wood aflameBack to the headless trunk at speed he bore,Which hanging on the margin of the deep,Almost the sea had won.  In sandy trenchThe gathered fragments of a broken boat,Trembling, he placed around the noble limbs.No pile above the corpse nor under lay,Nor was the fire beneath.  Then as he crouchedBeside the blaze, “O, greatest chief,” he cried,Majestic champion of Hesperia’s name,If to be tossed unburied on the deepRather than these poor rites thy shade prefer,From these mine offices thy mighty soulWithdraw, Pompeius.  Injuries dealt by fateCommand this duty, lest some bird or beastOr ocean monster, or fierce Caesar’s wrathShould venture aught upon thee.  Take the fire;All that thou canst; by Roman hand at leastEnkindled.  And should Fortune grant returnTo loved Hesperia’s land, not here shall restThy sacred ashes; but within an urnCornelia, from this humble hand received,Shall place them.  Here upon a meagre stoneWe draw the characters to mark thy tomb.These letters reading may some kindly friendBring back thine head, dissevered, and may grantFull funeral honours to thine earthly frame.”

Then did he cherish the enfeebled fireTill Magnus’ body mingled with its flames.But now the harbinger of coming dawnHad paled the constellations: he in fearSeeks for his hiding place.  Whom dost thou dread,Madman, what punishment for such a crime,For which thy fame by rumour trumpet-tonguedHas been sent down to ages?  Praise is thineFor this thy work, at impious Caesar’s hands;Sure of a pardon, go; confess thy task,And beg the head dissevered.  But his workWas still unfinished, and with pious hand(Fearing some foe) he seizes on the bonesNow half consumed, and sinews; and the wavePours in upon them, and in shallow trenchCommits them to the earth; and lest some breezeMight bear away the ashes, or by chanceSome sailor’s anchor might disturb the tomb,A stone he places, and with stick half burnedTraces the sacred name: HERE MAGNUS LIES.

And art thou, Fortune, pleased that such a spotShould be his tomb which even Caesar’s selfHad chosen, rather than permit his corseTo rest unburied?  Why, with thoughtless handConfine his shade within the narrow boundsOf this poor sepulchre?  Where the furthest sandHangs on the margin of the baffled deepCabined he lies; yet where the Roman nameIs known, and Empire, such in truth shall beThe boundless measure of his resting-place.Blot out this stone, this proof against the gods!Oeta finds room for Hercules alone,And Nysa’s mountain for the Bromian god; (21)Not all the lands of Egypt should sufficeFor Magnus dead: and shall one Pharian stoneMark his remains?  Yet should no turf discloseHis title, peoples of the earth would fearTo spurn his ashes, and the sands of NileNo foot would tread.  But if the stone deservesSo great a name, then add his mighty deeds:Write Lepidus conquered and the Alpine war,And fierce Sertorius by his aiding armO’erthrown; the chariots which as knight he drove; (22)Cilician pirates driven from the main,And Commerce safe to nations; Eastern kingsDefeated and the barbarous Northern tribes;Write that from arms he ever sought the robe;Write that content upon the CapitolThrice only triumphed he, nor asked his due.What mausoleum were for such a chiefA fitting monument?  This paltry stoneRecords no syllable of the lengthy taleOf honours: and the name which men have readUpon the sacred temples of the gods,And lofty arches built of hostile spoils,On desolate sands here marks his lowly graveWith characters uncouth, such as the glanceOf passing traveller or Roman guestMight pass unnoticed.

Thou Egyptian landBy destiny foredoomed to bear a partIn civil warfare, not unreasoning sangHigh Cumae’s prophetess, when she forbad (23)The stream Pelusian to the Roman arms,And all the banks which in the summer-tideAre covered by his flood.  What grievous fateShall I call down upon thee?  May the NileTurn back his water to his source, thy fieldsWant for the winter rain, and all the landCrumble to desert wastes!  We in our fanesHave known thine Isis and thy hideous gods,Half hounds, half human, and the drum that bidsTo sorrow, and Osiris, whom thy dirge (24)Proclaims for man.  Thou, Egypt, in thy sandOur dead containest.  Nor, though her temples nowServe a proud master, yet has Rome requiredPompeius’ ashes: in a foreign landStill lies her chief.  But though men feared at firstThe victor’s vengeance, now at length receiveThy Magnus’ bones, if still the restless waveHath not prevailed upon that hated shore.Shall men have fear of tombs and dread to moveThe dust of those who should be with the gods?O, may my country place the crime on me,If crime it be, to violate such a tombOf such a hero, and to bear his dustHome to Ausonia.  Happy, happy heWho bears such holy office in his trust! (25)Haply when famine rages in the landOr burning southern winds, or fires aboundAnd earthquake shocks, and Rome shall pray an endFrom angry heaven—by the gods’ command,In council given, shalt thou be transferredTo thine own city, and the priest shall bearThy sacred ashes to their last abode.

Who now may seek beneath the raging CrabOr hot Syene’s waste, or Thebes athirstUnder the rainy Pleiades, to gazeOn Nile’s broad stream; or whoso may exchangeOn the Red Sea or in Arabian portsSome Eastern merchandise, shall turn in aweTo view the venerable stone that marksThy grave, Pompeius; and shall worship moreThy dust commingled with the arid sand,Thy shade though exiled, than the fane upreared (26)On Casius’ mount to Jove!  In temples shrinedAnd gold, thy memory were viler deemed:Fortune lies with thee in thy lowly tombAnd makes thee rival of Olympus’ king.More awful is that stone by Libyan seasLashed, than are Conquerors’ altars.  There in earthA deity rests to whom all men shall bowMore than to gods Tarpeian: and his nameShall shine the brighter in the days to comeFor that no marble tomb about him standsNor lofty monument.  That little dustTime shall soon scatter and the tomb shall fallAnd all the proofs shall perish of his death.And happier days shall come when men shall gazeUpon the stone, nor yet believe the tale:And Egypt’s fable, that she holds the graveOf great Pompeius, be believed no moreThan Crete’s which boasts the sepulchre of Jove. (27)

Endnotes:

(1)  Comp. Book VI., line 407.(2)  Comp. Book III., line 256.(3)  Canopus is a star in Argo, invisible in Italy. (Haskins.)(4)  Sextus.(5)  Tetrarch of Galatia.  He was always friendly to Rome, and inthe civil war sided with Pompeius.  He was at Pharsalia.(6)  A Scythian people.(7)  Pompeius seems to have induced the Roman public to believethat he had led his armies to such extreme distances, but henever in fact did so.—Mommsen, vol. iv. p. 147.(8)  Juba was of supposed collateral descent from Hannibal.(Haskins, quoting “The Scholiast”.)(9)  Confusing the Red Sea with the Persian Gulf.(10) Balkh of modern times.  Bactria was one of the kingdomsestablished by the successors of Alexander the Great.  Itwas, however, subdued by the Parthians about the middle ofthe third century B.C.(11) Dion could not believe it possible that Pompeius evercontemplated taking refuge in Parthia, but Plutarch statesit as a fact; and says that it was Theophanes of Lesbos whodissuaded him from doing so. (“Pompeius”, 76).  Mommsen(vol. iv., pp. 421–423) discusses the subject, and says thatfrom Parthia only could Pompeius have attempted to seeksupport, and that such an attempt, putting the objections toit aside, would probably have failed.  Lucan’s sympathieswere probably with Lentulus.(12) Probably Lucius Lentulus Crus, who had been Consul, for B.C.49, along with Caius Marcellus. (See Book V., 9.)  He wasmurdered in Egypt by Ptolemy’s ministers.(13) That is, be as easily defended.(14) Thus rendered by Sir Thomas May, of the Long Parliament:“Men used to sceptres are ashamed of nought:The mildest governement a kingdome findsUnder new kings.”(15) That is, he reached the most eastern mouth of the Nileinstead of the western.(16) At Memphis was the well in which the rise and fall of thewater acted as a Nilometer (Mr. Haskins’s note).(17) Comp. Herodotus, Book iii. 27.  Apis was a god who appearedat intervals in the shape of a calf with a white mark on hisbrow.  His appearance was the occasion of general rejoicing.Cambyses slew the Apis which came in his time, and for thiscause became mad, as the Egyptians said.(18) That is, by Achoreus, who had just spoken.(19) Compare Ben Jonson’s “Sejanus”, Act ii., Scene 2:—The prince who shames a tyrant’s name to bearShall never dare do anything, but fear;All the command of sceptres quite doth perishIf it begin religious thoughts to cherish;Whole empires fall, swayed by these nice respects,It is the licence of dark deeds protectsE’en states most hated, when no laws resistThe sword, but that it acteth what it list.”(20) He was drowned in attempting to escape in the battle on theNile in the following autumn.(21) Dionysus.  But this god, though brought up by the nymphs ofMount Nysa, was not supposed to have been buried there.(22) See Book VII., line 20.(23) This warning of the Sibyl is also alluded to by Cicero in aletter to P. Lentulus, Proconsul of Cilicia. (Mr. Haskins’note.  See also Mommsen, vol. iv., p. 305.)  It seems tohave been discovered in the Sibylline books at the time whenit was desired to prevent Pompeius from interfering in theaffairs of Egypt, in B.C. 57.(24) That is, by their weeping for his departure they treatedhim as a mortal and not as a god.  Osiris was the soul ofApis (see on line 537), and when that animal grew old andunfit for the residence of Osiris the latter was thought toquit it.  Then began the weeping, which continued until anew Apis appeared, selected, of course, by Osiris for hisdwelling-place.  Then they called out “We have found him,let us rejoice.”  For a discussion on the Egyptianconception of Osiris, and his place in the theogony of thatnation, see Hegel’s “Lectures on the Philosophy of History”:Chapter on Egypt.(25) It may be noted that the Emperor Hadrian raised a monumenton the spot to the memory of Pompeius some sixty years afterthis was written (Durny’s “History of Rome”, iii., 319).Plutarch states that Cornelia had the remains taken to Romeand interred in a mausoleum.  Lucan, it may be supposed,knew nothing of this.(26) There was a temple to Jupiter on “Mount Casius old”.(27) The legend that Jove was buried in Crete is also mentionedby Cicero: “De Natura Deorum”, iii., 21.

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