Apocolocyntosis | Page 2

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 doth arise, So Nero shows his face to Rome
before the people's eyes,
His bright and shining countenance
illumines all the air, While down upon his graceful neck fall rippling
waves of hair." Thus Apollo. But Lachesis, quite as ready to cast a

favourable eye on a handsome man, spins away by the
handful, and
bestows years and years upon Nero out
of her own pocket. As for
Claudius, they tell everybody
to speed him on his way
With cries of joy and solemn litany.
At once he bubbled up the ghost, and there was an end to that shadow
of a life. He was listening to a troupe of comedians when he died, so
you see I have reason to fear those gentry.