But Esculapius was a foreign power:
In his own city Caesar we adore:
Him arms and arts alike renown’d beheld,
In peace conspicuous, dreadful in the field;
His rapid conquests, and swift-finish’d wars,
The hero justly fix’d among the stars;
Yet is his progeny his greatest fame:
The son immortal makes the father’s name.
The sea-girt Britons, by his courage tamed,
For their high rocky cliffs, and fierceness famed;
His dreadful navies, which victorious rode
O’er Nile’s affrighted waves and seven-sourced flood;
Numidia, and the spacious realms regain’d,
Where Cinyphis or flows, or Juba reign’d;
The powers of titled Mithridates broke,
And Pontus added to the Roman yoke;
Triumphal shows decreed, for conquests won,
For conquests, which the triumphs still outshone;
These are great deeds; yet less, than to have given
The world a lord, in whom, propitious Heaven,
When you decreed the sovereign rule to place,
You bless’d with lavish bounty human race.
Now lest so great a prince might seem to rise
Of mortal stem, his sire must reach the skies;
The beauteous goddess, that Aeneas bore,
Foresaw it, and foreseeing did deplore;
For well she knew her hero’s fate was nigh,
Devoted by conspiring arms to die.
Trembling, and pale, Jo every god she cried:
“Behold, what deep and subtle arts are tried,
To end the last, the only branch that springs
From my lulus, and the Dardan kings!
How bent they are! how desperate to destroy
All that is left me of unhappy Troy!
Am I alone by fate ordain’d to know
Uninterrupted care and endless wo?
Now from Tydides’ spear I feel the wound:
Now Ilium’s towers the hostile flames surround:
Troy laid in dust, my exiled son I mourn,
Through angry seas, and raging billows borne;
O’er the wide deep his wandering course he bends;
Now to the sullen shades of Styx descends:
With Turnus driven at last fierce wars to wage,
Whether with unpitying Juno’s rage.
But why record I now my ancient woes?
Sense of past ills in present fears I lose;
On me their points the impious daggers throw;
Forbid it, gods, repel the direful blow:
If by cursed weapons Numa’s priest expires,
No longer shall ye burn, ye Vestal fires.”
While such complainings Cypria’s grief disclose,
In each celestial breast compassion rose:
Not gods can alter fate’s resistless will;
Yet they foretold by signs the approaching ill.
Dreadful were heard, among the clouds, alarms
Of echoing trumpets, and of clashing arms;
The sun’s pale image gave so faint a light,
That the sad earth was almost veil’d in night;
The ether’s face with fiery meteors glow’d;
With storms of hail were mingled drops of blood;
A dusky hue the morning star o’erspread,
And the moon’s orb was stain’d with spots of red;
In every place portentous shrieks were heard,
The fatal warnings of the infernal bird;
In every place the marble melts to tears;
While in the groves, revered through length of years,
Boding and awful sounds the ear invade,
And solemn music warbles through the shade;
No victim can atone the impious age,
No sacrifice the wrathful gods assuage;
Dire wars and civil fury threat the state;
And every omen points out Caesar’s fate:
Around each hallow’d shrine, and sacred dome,
Night-howling dogs disturb the peaceful gloom;
Their silent seats the wandering shades forsake,
And fearful tremblings the rock’d city shake.
Yet could not, by these prodigies, be broke
The plotted charm, or stay’d the fatal stroke;
Their swords the assassins in the temple draw:
Their murdering hands nor gods nor temples awe;
This sacred place their bloody weapons stain,
And virtue falls, before the altar slain.
’Twas now fair Cypria, with her woes oppress’d,
In raging anguish smote her heavenly breast;
Wild with distracting fears, the goddess tried
Her hero in the ethereal cloud to hide;
The cloud, which youthful Paris did conceal,
When Menelaus urged the threat’ning steel;
The cloud, which once deceived Tydides’ sight,
And saved Aeneas in the unequal fight.
When Jove: “In vain, fair daughter, you essay
To o’errule destiny’s unconquer’d sway:
Your doubts to banish, enter fate’s abode;
A privilege to heavenly powers allow’d;
There you shall see the records graved, in length,
On iron and solid brass, with mighty strength;
Which heaven and earth’s concussion shall endure,
Maugre all shocks, eternal, and secure:
There, on perennial adamant design’d,
The various fortunes of your race you’ll find:
Well I have mark’d them, and will now relate
To thee the settled laws of future fate.
He, goddess, for whose death the fates you blame,
Has finish’d his determined course with fame:
To thee ’tis given at length, that he shall shine
Among the gods, and grace the worshipp’d shrine:
His son to all his greatness shall be heir,
And worthily succeed to empire’s care:
Ourself will lead his wars, resolved to aid
The brave avenger of his father’s shade:
To him its freedom Mutina shall owe,
And Decius his auspicious conduct know;
His dreadful powers shall shake Pharsalia’s plain,
And drench in gore Phillippi’s fields again:
A mighty leader, in Sicilia’s flood,
Great Pompey’s warlike son, shall be subdued;
Egypt’s soft queen, adorn’d with fatal charms,
Shall mourn her soldiers’ unsuccessful arms:
Too late shall find her swelling hopes were vain,
And know that Rome o’er Memphis still must reign:
What name I Afric, or Nile’s hidden head
For as both oceans roll, his power shall spread:
All the known earth to him shall homage pay,
And the seas own his universal sway:
When cruel war no more disturbs mankind,
To civil studies shall he bend his mind;
With equal justice guardian laws ordain,
And by his great example vice restrain:
Where will his bounty or his goodness end?
To times unborn his generous views extend;
The virtues of his heir our praise engage,
And promise blessings to the coming age:
Late shall he in his kindred orbs be placed,
With Pylian years, and crowded honours graced.
Meantime, your hero’s fleeting spirit bear,
Fresh from his wounds, and change it to a star:
So shall great Julius rites divine assume,
And from the skies eternal smile on Rome.”
This spoke, the goddess to the senate flew;
Where, her fair form conceal’d from mortal view,
Her Caesar’s heavenly part she made her care,
Nor left the recent soul to waste to air;
But bore it upward to its native skies:
Glowing with newborn fires she saw it rise;
Forth springing from her bosom up it flew,
And, kindling as it soar’d, a comet grew:
Above the lunar sphere it took its flight,
And shot behind it a long trail of light.