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191
CATO's SPEECH TO LABIENUS.
In the Ninth Book of Lucan.
(Quid quæri, Labiene, jubes, &c.)
What, Labienus, would thy fond desire,
Of horned Jove's prophetick shrine enquire?
Whether to seek in arms a glorious doom,
Or basely live, and a king in Rome?
If life be nothing more than death's delay;
If impious force can honest minds dismay,
Or Probity may Fortune's frown disdain;
If well to mean is all that Virtue can;
And right, dependant on itself alone,
Gains no addition from success?—'Tis known:
Fix'd in my heart these constant truths I bear,
And Ammon cannot write them deeper there.
Of horned Jove's prophetick shrine enquire?
Whether to seek in arms a glorious doom,
Or basely live, and a king in Rome?
If life be nothing more than death's delay;
If impious force can honest minds dismay,
Or Probity may Fortune's frown disdain;
If well to mean is all that Virtue can;
And right, dependant on itself alone,
Gains no addition from success?—'Tis known:
192
And Ammon cannot write them deeper there.
Our souls, allied to God, within them feel
The secret dictates of th'Almighty will;
This is his voice, be this our oracle.
When first his braath the seeds of life instill'd,
All that we ought to know was then reveal'd.
Nor can we think the Omnipresent mind
Has truth to Libya's desart sands confin'd,
There, known to few, obscur'd, and lost, to lie—
Is there a temple of the Deity,
Except earth, sea, and air, you azure pole;
And chief, his holiest shrine, the virtuous soul?
Where-e'er the eye can pierce, the feet can move,
This wide, this boundless universe is Jove.
Let abject minds, that doubt because they fear,
With pious awe to juggling priests repair;
I credit not what lying prophets tell—
Death is the only certain oracle.
Cowards and brave must die one destin'd hour—
This Jove has told; he needs not tell us more.
The secret dictates of th'Almighty will;
This is his voice, be this our oracle.
When first his braath the seeds of life instill'd,
All that we ought to know was then reveal'd.
Nor can we think the Omnipresent mind
Has truth to Libya's desart sands confin'd,
There, known to few, obscur'd, and lost, to lie—
Is there a temple of the Deity,
Except earth, sea, and air, you azure pole;
And chief, his holiest shrine, the virtuous soul?
Where-e'er the eye can pierce, the feet can move,
This wide, this boundless universe is Jove.
Let abject minds, that doubt because they fear,
With pious awe to juggling priests repair;
I credit not what lying prophets tell—
Death is the only certain oracle.
Cowards and brave must die one destin'd hour—
This Jove has told; he needs not tell us more.
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