Book 2
Holding thy footsteps in a tottering world
1
Unshaken? Or wilt thou with the leaders' crimes
And with the people's fury take thy part,
And by thy presence purge the war of guilt?
In impious battles men unsheath the sword;
But each by cause impelled: the household crime;
Laws feared in peace; want by the sword removed;
And credit, in the ruin of a world
Blending its ruin. Drawn by hope of gain,
And not by thirst for blood, they seek the camp.
Shall Cato for war's sake make war alone?
What profits it through all these wicked years
That thou hast lived untainted? This were all
Thy meed of virtue, that the wars which find
Guilt in all else, shall make thee guilty too.
' Ye gods, permit not that this fatal strife
Should stir those hands to action! When the clouds
Of flying javelins hiss upon the air,
Let not a dart be thine; nor spent in vain
Such virtue! All the fury of the war
' Shall launch itself on thee, for who, when faint
' And wounded, would not rush upon thy sword,
'Take thence his death, and make the murder thine?
'Do thou live on thy peaceful life apart
'As on their paths the stars unshaken roll.
'The lower air that verges on the earth
' Gives flame and fury to the levin bolt;
' The deeps below the world engulph the winds
' And tracts of flaming fire. By Jove's decree
'Olympus rears his summit o'er the clouds:
'In lowlier valleys storms and winds contend,
' But peace eternal reigns upon the heights.
'What joy for Caesar, if the tidings come
'That such a citizen has joined the war?
' Glad would he see thee e'en in Magnus' tents;
'For Cato's conduct shall approve his own.
'Pompeius, with the Consul in his ranks,
' And half the Senate and the other chiefs,
' Vexes my spirit; and should Cato too
' Bend to a master's yoke, in all the world
