Book 7
Thessalian bounds. Yet by this idle rage
1
Nought dost thou profit; for these corporal frames
Bearing innate from birth the certain germs
Of dissolution, whether by decay
Or fire consumed, shall fall into the lap
Of all-embracing nature. Thus if now
Thou shouldst deny the pyre, still in that flame
When all shall crumble,Alluding to the general conflagration in which (by the Stoic doctrines)all the universe would one day perish. Comp. Browne, ' Religio Medici,part i., section xlv. earth and rolling seas
And stars commingled with the bones of men,
These too shall perish. Where thy soul shall go
These shall companion thee; no higher flight
In airy realms is thine, nor smoother couch
Beneath the Stygian darkness; for the dead
No fortune favours, and our Mother Earth
All that is born from her receives again,
And he whose bones no tomb or urn protectsQuoted in More's 'Utopia,' Book I., p. 28 (Lupton's edition), and in Browne, 'Religio Medici,' part i., section xl. ' Nor do I altogether allow that Rodomontado of Lucan, caelo tegitur qui non habet urnam.'
Yet sleeps beneath the canopy of heaven.
And thou, proud conqueror, who wouldst deny
The rites of burial to thousands slain,
Why flee thy field of triumph? Why desert
This reeking plain? Drink, Caesar, if thou canst
Of these ensanguined streams, and breathe the air
Of cursed Thessalia: but from thy grasp
The earth is ravished, and th' unburied host,
Routing their victor, hold Pharsalia's field.
Then to the ghastly harvest of the war
Came all the beasts of earth whose facile sense
Of odour tracks the bodies of the slain.
Sped from his northern home the Thracian wolf;
Bears left their dens and lions from afar
Scenting the carnage; dogs obscene and foul
Their homes deserted: all the air was full
Of gathering fowl, who in their flight had long
Pursued the armies. Cranes Wrongly supposed by Lucan to feed on carrion. who yearly change
The frosts of Thracia for the banks of Nile,
This year delayed their voyage. As ne'er before
The air grew dark with vultures' hovering wings,
Innumerable, for every grove and wood
Sent forth its denizens; on every tree
Dripped from their crimsoned beaks a gory dew.
