Book 9
'To few his truth, whelmed in the dusty waste.
1
God has his dwelling in all things that be,Comp. Wordsworth on the Imagination: Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns And the round ocean and the living air And the blue sky and in the mind of man.
In earth and air and sea and starry vault,
In virtuous deeds; in all that thou canst see,
In all thy thoughts contained. Why further, then,
Seek we our deities? Let those who doubt
And halting, tremble for their coming fates,
Go ask the oracles. No mystic words,
Make sure my heart, but surely coming Death.
" Coward alike and brave, we all must die.
Thus hath Jove spoken : seek to know no more.'
Thus Cato spoke, and faithful to his creed
He parted from the temple of the god
And left the oracle of Hammon dumb.
Bearing his javelin, as one of them
He strode afoot before the panting troops:
No bending neck, no litter bore his form.
He bade them not, but showed them how to toil.
Spare in his sleep, the last to sip the spring,
When at some rivulet to quench their thirst
The eager ranks pressed onward, he alone
Until the humblest follower might drink
Stood motionless. If for the truly good
Is fame, and virtue by the deed itself,
Not by successful issue, should be judged,
Yield, famous ancestors! Fortune, not worth
Gained you your glory. But such name as his
Who ever merited by successful war
Or slaughtered peoples? Rather would I lead
With him his triumphs through the pathless sands
And Libya's bounds, than in Pompeius' car
Three times ascend the Capitol,1st. For his victories in Sicily and Africa, B.C. 81; 2nd. For the conquest of Sertorius, B.C. 71; 3rd. For his Eastern triumphs, B.C. 61. (Compare Book VIII., 953; VII., 16.) or break
The proud Jugurtha.Over whom Marius triumphed. Rome! in him behold
His country's father, worthiest of thy vows;
A name by which men shall not blush to swear,
Whom, shouldst thou break the fetters from thy neck,
Thou mayst in distant days decree divine.
Now was the heat more dense, and through that clime
Than which no further on the Southern side
The gods permit, they trod; and scarcer still
