Book 6
Held by her own apart, some impious tale
1
Dark with mysterious horror hath conveyed
Down to the darkness of the Stygian shades.
When Sextus first, through rumours of the place,
Heard of the hag, what time beneath the earth
Titan was wheeling at full height, and here
Night in mid course, in quest of her he trod
Through desert fields. Meanwhile a faithful band,
His ministers of guilt, mid tombs and vaults
All ruined wandering, beheld the witch
Seated afar upon a lofty crag
Where Haemus reaches out Pharsalian spurs.Confusing Pharsalia with Philippi. (See line 685.)
There was she proving for her gods and priests
Of magic, words unknown, and framing chants
Of dire and novel purpose : for she feared
Lest Mars should stray into another world,
And spare Thessalian soil the blood ere long
To flow in torrents; and thus she forbade
Philippi's field, polluted with her song,
Thick with her poisonous distilments sown,
To let the war pass by. Such deaths, she hopes,
Soon shall be hers! the blood of all the world
Shed for her use! to her it shall be given
To sever from their trunks the heads of kings,
Plunder the ashes of the noble dead,
Italia's bravest, and in triumph add
The mightiest warriors to her host of shades.
This her sole toil, from Magnus' tombless corse
What she may snatch, on which of Caesar's limbs
Of Magnus thus: 'Thou greatest ornament
Of Haemon's daughters, in whose power it lies
Or to reveal the fates, or from its course
'To turn the future, be it mine to know
'By thy sure utterance to what final end
'Fortune now guides the issue. Not the least
'Of all the Roman host on yonder plain
Am I, but Magnus' most illustrious son,
Lord of the world or heir to death and doom.
