Book 7
NE'ER to the summons of the Eternal laws
1
More slowly Titan rose, It is, methinks, a morning full of fate! It riseth slowly, as her sullen car Had all the weight of sleep and death hung at it! And her sick head is bound about with clouds As if she threatened night ere noon of day. Ben Jonson, 'Catiline,' i., 1. nor drave his steeds,
Forced by the sky revolving,See Book VI., 576. up the heaven,
With gloomier presage; wishing to endure
The pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse;
And drew the mists up, not to feed his flames,As to the sun finding fuel in the clouds, see Book I., line 472.
But lest his light upon Thessalian earth
To him the latest day of happy life,
In troubled sleep an empty dream conceived.
For in the watches of the night he heard
Innumerable Romans shout his name
Within his theatre; the benches vied
To raise his fame and place him with the gods;
As once in youth, when victory was won
O'er conquered tribes whom swift Iberus girds,Pompeius triumphed first in 81 B.C. for his victories in Sicily and Africa, at the age of twenty-four. Sulla at first objected, but finally yielded and said, 'Let him triumph then in God's name.' The triumph for the defeat of Sertorius was not till 71 B.C., in which year Pompeius was elected Consul along with Crassus. (Compare Book IX., 706.)
And when Sertorius' armies fought and fled,
He sat triumphant for the west subdued,
In pure white gown, and heard the Senate cheer;
No less majestic as a Roman knight
Than had the purple robe adorned his car.
Perhaps, as ills drew near, his anxious soul,
Shunning the future, wooed the happy past;
Or, as is wont, prophetic slumber showed
That which was not to be, by doubtful forms
Misleading; or as envious Fate forbade
Return to Italy, this glimpse of Rome
Kind Fortune gave. Break not his latest sleep,
Ye sentinels; let not the trumpet call
Strike on his ear: for on the morrow's night
Shapes of the battle lost, of death and war
Shall crowd his rest with terrors. Whence shalt thou
The poor man's happiness of sleep regain?
Happy if thus, e'en thus, thy Rome could see
Once more her captain! Would the gods had given
To thee and to thy country one day yet
To reap the latest fruit of such a love:
Though sure of fate to come! Thou marchest on
As though by heaven ordained in Rome to die;
