Apocolocyntosis | Page 2

were gathered ere the cold:

I shall make myself better understood, if I say the month was October, the
day was the thirteenth. What hour it was I cannot certainly tell;
philosophers will agree more often than clocks; but it was between midday
and one after noon. "Clumsy creature!" you say. "The poets are not content
to describe sunrise and sunset, and now they even disturb the midday
siesta. Will you thus neglect so good an hour?"

Now the sun's chariot had gone by the middle of his way;
Half wearily he shook the reins, nearer to night than day,
And led the light along the slope that down before him lay.

Claudius began to breathe his last, and could not 3
make an end of the matter. Then Mercury, who had always been much pleased
with his wit, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said: "Cruel beldame,
why do you let the poor wretch be tormented? After all this torture cannot
he have a rest? Four and sixty years it is now since he began to pant for
breath. What grudge is this you bear against him and the whole empire? Do
let the astrologers tell the truth for once; since he became emperor, they
have never let a year pass, never a month, without laying him out for his
burial. Yet it is no wonder if they are wrong, and no one knows his hour.
Nobody ever believed he was really quite born. [Footnote: A proverb for a
nobody, as Petron, 58 _qui te natum non putat._] Do what has to be done:
Kill him, and let a better man rule in empty court."
[Sidenote: Virg. Georg iv. 90]

Clotho replied: "Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two,
until he should make Roman citizens of the half dozen who are still
outsiders. (He made up his mind, you know, to see the whole world in the
toga, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and all.) But since it is your
pleasure to leave a few foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so
be it." She opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for
Augurinus, one for Baba, one for Claudius. [Footnote: "Augurinus" unknown.
Baba: see Sep. Ep. 159, a fool.] "These three," she says, "I will cause to
die within one year and at no great distance apart, and I will not dismiss
him unattended. Think of all the thousands of men he was wont to see
following after him, thousands going before, thousands all crowding about
him, and it would never do to leave him alone on a sudden. These boon
companions will satisfy him for the nonce."

This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once, 4
Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
Pierian laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands crowned,
Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as snow,
Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go,
Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering gaze,
As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days.
World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool!
Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners know:
Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles go;
Fewer than these are Tithon's years, not Nestor's life so long.
Phoebus is present: glad he is to sing a merry song;
Now helps the work, now full of hope upon the harp doth play;
The Sisters listen to the song that charms their toil away.
They praise their brother's melodies, and still the spindles run,
Till more than man's allotted span the busy hands have spun.
Then Phoebus says, "O sister Fates! I pray take none away,
But suffer this one life to be longer than mortal day.
Like me in face and lovely grace, like me in voice and song,
He'll bid the laws at length speak out that have been dumb so long,
Will give unto the weary world years prosperous and bright.
Like as the daystar from on high scatters the stars of night,
As, when the stars return again, clear Hesper brings his light,
Or as the ruddy dawn drives out the dark, and brings the day,
As the bright sun looks on the world, and speeds along its way
His rising car from morning's gates: so Caesar