Lvcans Pharsalia Containing The Ciuill Warres betweene Caesar and Pompey. Written In Latine Heroicall Verse by M. Annaevs Lvcanus. Translated into English verse by Sir Arthur Gorges ... Whereunto is annexed the life of the Authour, collected out of diuers Authors |
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And here lay lodg'd (to maintain mart)
Many great treasures set a part,
Heap't vp together in a whoord,
Spoyles that the whole world did affoord.
Yet for all this, they could not finde
Sufficient to content their minde.
What gold is found in Ibers sands,
Or Tagus casts vpon her strands:
Or all those heapes of pretious graines
Dig'd out of Arimaspus vaines,
Is made their spoyle, and yet they thought
It not enough, but deerely bought.
For now their conquering hopes deuoures
The spoyle of the Tarpeian Towers,
And promise to themselues a day
That Rome and all shall be their pray.
But yet therein they are deceiu'd,
The Tents are to their spoyle bequeau'd.
The wicked souldiers, and base Slowches
Do sleepe on the Patrician Couches.
The Kings pauillions, and their beds
Are roomes for slaues to lay their heads.
Their brothers Cabins some invested,
Some where their fathers lately rested
Their slaughtring bloody members nested
And those whom rauing slumbers haunts,
And frightfull dreames in sleeping daunts,
Doe tosse in their afflicted sprights
The cruell late Pharsalian fights:
Their bloody facts possesse their eyes,
The rage of Armes their mindes agrise:
And without swords about them goes
Their hands, as they were dealing blowes.
Many great treasures set a part,
Heap't vp together in a whoord,
Spoyles that the whole world did affoord.
Yet for all this, they could not finde
Sufficient to content their minde.
What gold is found in Ibers sands,
Or Tagus casts vpon her strands:
Or all those heapes of pretious graines
Dig'd out of Arimaspus vaines,
Is made their spoyle, and yet they thought
It not enough, but deerely bought.
For now their conquering hopes deuoures
The spoyle of the Tarpeian Towers,
299
That Rome and all shall be their pray.
But yet therein they are deceiu'd,
The Tents are to their spoyle bequeau'd.
The wicked souldiers, and base Slowches
Do sleepe on the Patrician Couches.
The Kings pauillions, and their beds
Are roomes for slaues to lay their heads.
Their brothers Cabins some invested,
Some where their fathers lately rested
Their slaughtring bloody members nested
And those whom rauing slumbers haunts,
And frightfull dreames in sleeping daunts,
Doe tosse in their afflicted sprights
The cruell late Pharsalian fights:
Their bloody facts possesse their eyes,
The rage of Armes their mindes agrise:
And without swords about them goes
Their hands, as they were dealing blowes.
A man would thinke the very fields
And balefull lands, those visions yeelds:
And that some apparitions strange
Of ghosts, that putred aire did range:
And that by night the fearfull shapes
Of Stygian sprights their sences rapes.
This victory with heauy straines
Requites the victors worthlesse paines.
Hissing of Serpents in their dreames,
And firie flames cast forth huge streames:
Slaine Citizens to them appeare,
And each one hath his priuate feare.
One sees in sleepe an old mans face,
And other lusty youths in place:
One doth his brothers corps behould
Pale and dis-figured on the mould;
Another in his dreame discernes
His fathers wounds, whereat he yearnes.
And all these sprights, and hellish feares
Then Cæsars guilty conscience teares
No lesse then did those hagges of hell
Within Orestes spirits dwell,
That with affrights his visage vrg'd,
Till Scythian Altars him had purg'd.
Nor yet Pentheius in his minde
More furious gastly fits did finde;
Nor mad Agaue in her kinde.
And balefull lands, those visions yeelds:
And that some apparitions strange
Of ghosts, that putred aire did range:
And that by night the fearfull shapes
Of Stygian sprights their sences rapes.
This victory with heauy straines
Requites the victors worthlesse paines.
Hissing of Serpents in their dreames,
And firie flames cast forth huge streames:
Slaine Citizens to them appeare,
And each one hath his priuate feare.
One sees in sleepe an old mans face,
And other lusty youths in place:
One doth his brothers corps behould
Pale and dis-figured on the mould;
Another in his dreame discernes
His fathers wounds, whereat he yearnes.
And all these sprights, and hellish feares
Then Cæsars guilty conscience teares
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Within Orestes spirits dwell,
That with affrights his visage vrg'd,
Till Scythian Altars him had purg'd.
Nor yet Pentheius in his minde
More furious gastly fits did finde;
Nor mad Agaue in her kinde.
| Lvcans Pharsalia | |