Pharsalia [Civil War] | Page 4

I purpose to unfold The causes -- task immense --

what drove to arms A maddened nation, and from all the world Struck
peace away.
By envious fate's decrees Abide not long the mightiest lords of earth;
Beneath too heavy a burden great the fall. Thus Rome o'ergrew her
strength. So when that hour, The last in all the centuries, shall sound
The world's disruption, all things shall revert To that primaeval chaos,
stars on stars Shall crash; and fiery meteors from the sky Plunge in the
ocean. Earth shall then no more Front with her bulwark the encroaching
sea: The moon, indignant at her path oblique, Shall drive her chariot
'gainst her brother Sun And claim the day for hers; and discord huge
Shall rend the spheres asunder. On themselves Great powers are dashed:
such bounds the gods have placed Upon the prosperous; nor doth
Fortune lend To any nations, so that they may strike The sovereign
power that rules the earth and sea, The weapons of her envy. Triple
reign And baleful compact for divided power -- Ne'er without peril
separate before -- Made Rome their victim. Oh! Ambition blind, That
stirred the leaders so to join their strength In peace that ended ill, their
prize the world! For while the Sea on Earth and Earth on Air Lean for
support: while Titan runs his course, And night with day divides an
equal sphere, No king shall brook his fellow, nor shall power Endure a
rival. Search no foreign lands: These walls are proof that in their infant
days A hamlet, not the world, was prize enough To cause the shedding
of a brother's blood.
Concord, on discord based, brief time endured, Unwelcome to the
rivals; and alone Crassus delayed the advent of the war. Like to the
slender neck that separates The seas of Graecia: should it be engulfed
Then would th' Ionian and Aegean mains (4) Break each on other: thus
when Crassus fell, Who held apart the chiefs, in piteous death, And
stained Assyria's plains with Latian blood, Defeat in Parthia loosed the
war in Rome. More in that victory than ye thought was won, Ye sons of
Arsaces; your conquered foes Took at your hands the rage of civil strife.
The mighty realm that earth and sea contained, To which all peoples
bowed, split by the sword, Could not find space for two (5). For Julia
bore, Cut off by fate unpitying(6), the bond Of that ill-omened
marriage, and the pledge Of blood united, to the shades below. Had'st
thou but longer stayed, it had been thine To keep the husband and the
sire apart, And, as the Sabine women did of old, Dash down the

threatening swords and join the hands. With thee all trust was buried,
and the chiefs Could give their courage vent, and rushed to war.
Lest newer glories triumphs past obscure, Late conquered Gaul the
bays from pirates won, This, Magnus, was thy fear; thy roll of fame, Of
glorious deeds accomplished for the state Allows no equal; nor will
Caesar's pride A prior rival in his triumphs brook; Which had the right
'twere impious to enquire; Each for his cause can vouch a judge
supreme; The victor, heaven: the vanquished, Cato, thee. (7) Nor were
they like to like: the one in years Now verging towards decay, in times
of peace Had unlearned war; but thirsting for applause Had given the
people much, and proud of fame His former glory cared not to renew,
But joyed in plaudits of the theatre, (8) His gift to Rome: his triumphs
in the past, Himself the shadow of a mighty name. As when some oak,
in fruitful field sublime, Adorned with venerable spoils, and gifts Of
bygone leaders, by its weight to earth With feeble roots still clings; its
naked arms And hollow trunk, though leafless, give a shade; And
though condemned beneath the tempest's shock To speedy fall, amid
the sturdier trees In sacred grandeur rules the forest still. No such
repute had Ceesar won, nor fame; But energy was his that could not
rest -- The only shame he knew was not to win. Keen and
unvanquished (9), where revenge or hope Might call, resistless would
he strike the blow With sword unpitying: every victory won Reaped to
the full; the favour of the gods Pressed to the utmost; all that stayed his
course Aimed at the summit of power, was thrust aside: Triumph his
joy, though ruin marked his track. As parts the clouds a bolt by winds
compelled, With crack of riven air and crash of worlds, And veils the
light of day, and on mankind, Blasting their vision with its flames
oblique, Sheds deadly fright; then turning to its home, ' Nought but the
air opposing, through its