Kitap 2
'The one man free is Caesar. But if thou
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' For freedom and thy country's laws alone
'Be pleased to raise the sword, nor Magnus then
' Nor Caesar shall in Brutus find a foe.
' Not till the fight is fought shall Brutus strike,
'Then strike the victor.'
Cato from inmost breast these sacred words:
'Chief in all wickedness is civil war,
' Yet virtue in the paths marked out by fate
'Treads on securely. Heaven's will be the crime
'To have made even Cato guilty. Who has strength
' To gaze unawed upon a toppling world?
'When stars and sky fall headlong, and when earth
'Slips from her base, who sits with folded hands?
'Shall unknown nations, touched by western strife,
' And monarchs born beneath another clime
' Brave the dividing seas to join the war?
' Shall Scythian tribes desert their distant north,
' And Getae haste to view the fall of Rome,
'And I look idly on? As some fond sire,
' Reft of his sons, compelled by grief, himself
' Marshals the long procession to the tomb,
' Thrusts his own hand within the funeral flames,
' Soothing his heart, and, as the lofty pyre
'Rises on high, applies the kindled torch:
' Nought, Rome, shall tear thee from me, till I hold
' Thy form in death embraced; and Freedom's name,
' Shade though it be, I'll follow to the grave.
' Yea! let the cruel gods exact in full
' Rome's expiation : of no drop of blood
' The war be robbed. I would that, to the gods
' Of heaven and hell devoted, this my life
' Might satisfy their vengeance. Decius fell,
' Crushed by the hostile ranks. When Cato falls
' Let Rhine's fierce barbarous hordes and both the hosts
'Thrust through my frame their darts! May I alone
' Receive in death the wounds of all the war!
'Thus may the people be redeemed, and thus
' Rome for her guilt pay the atonement due.
