Kitap 8
' When it supports the fallen. To the fates
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' Yield thee, and to the gods; the wretched shun
' But seek the happy. As the stars from earth
' Differ, and fire from ocean, so from right
'Expedience.Compare Ben Jonson's 'Sejanus,' Act ii., Scene 2: The prince who shames a tyrant's name to bear Shall never dare do anything, but fear; All the command of sceptres quite doth perish If it begin religious thoughts to cherish; Whole empires fall, swayed by these nice respects, It is the licence of dark deeds protects E'en states most hated, when no laws resist The sword, but that it acteth what it list. The tyrant's shorn of strength
'Who ponders justice; and regard for right
'Brings ruin on a throne. The power to sin,
'Swords drawn at will, the tyrant king protect;
'And savage deeds find safety when they're done.
'Who would be righteous, let him flee the throne,
'For right's the bane of rule. He lives in dread
'Who shrinks from cruelty. Nor let this chief
'Unpunished scorn thy youth, who thinks that thou
'Not even the conquered from our shore canst bar.
'Nor to a stranger, if thou wouldst not reign,
'Resign thy sceptre, for the ties of blood
'Speak for thy banished sister. Let her rule
'O'er Nile and Pharos: we shall at the least
'Preserve our Egypt from the Latian arms.
'What Magnus owned not ere the war was done,
No more shall Caesar. Driven from all the world,
'Trusting no more to Fortune, now he seeks
'Some foreign nation which may share his fate.
'Shades of the slaughtered in the civil war
'Compel him: nor from Caesar's arms alone
'But from the Senate also does he fly,
'Whose blood outpoured has gorged Thessalian fowl;
'Monarchs he fears whose all he has destroyed,
'And nations piled in one ensanguined heap,
'By him deserted. Victim of the blow
'Thessalia dealt, refused in every land,
' He asks for help from ours not yet betrayed.
' But none than Egypt with this chief from Rome
' Has juster quarrel; who has sought with arms
' To stain our Pharos, distant from the strife
'And peaceful ever, and to make our realm
'Suspected by his victor. Why alone
'Should this our country please thee in thy fall?
' Why bring'st thou here the burden of thy fates,
' Pharsalia's curse? In Caesar's eyes long since
