14
PHARSALIA
Book I
'Occasion calls, delay shall mar it soon:
'Like risk, like labour, thou hast known before,
'But never such reward. Could Gallia hold 320
'Thine armies ten long years ere victory came,
'That little nook of earth? One paltry fight
'Or twain, fought out by thy resistless hand,
'And Rome for thee shall have subdued the world:
''Tis true no triumph now would bring thee home;
'No captive tribes would grace thy chariot wheels
'Winding in pomp around the ancient hill.
'Spite gnaws the factions; for thy conquests won
'Scarce shalt thou be unpunished. Yet 'tis fate
'Thou should'st subdue thy kinsman: share the world 330
'With him thou canst not; rule thou canst, alone.'
As when at Elis' festival a horse
In stable pent gnaws at his prison bars
Impatient, and should clamour from without
Strike on his ear, bounds furious at restraint,
So then was Cæsar, eager for the fight,
Stirred by the words of Curio. To the ranks
He bids his soldiers; with majestic mien
And hand commanding silence as they come.
'Comrades,' he cried, 'victorious returned, 340
'Who by my side for ten long years have faced,
''Mid Alpine winters and on Arctic shores,
'The thousand dangers of the battle-field—
'Is this our country's welcome, this her prize
'For death and wounds and Roman blood outpoured?
'Rome arms her choicest sons; the sturdy oaks
'Are felled to make a fleet;—what could she more
'If from the Alps fierce Hannibal were come
'With all his Punic host? "By land and sea
'Cæsar shall fly!" Fly? Though in adverse war 350
'Our best had fallen, and the savage Gaul
'Like risk, like labour, thou hast known before,
'But never such reward. Could Gallia hold 320
'Thine armies ten long years ere victory came,
'That little nook of earth? One paltry fight
'Or twain, fought out by thy resistless hand,
'And Rome for thee shall have subdued the world:
''Tis true no triumph now would bring thee home;
'No captive tribes would grace thy chariot wheels
'Winding in pomp around the ancient hill.
'Spite gnaws the factions; for thy conquests won
'Scarce shalt thou be unpunished. Yet 'tis fate
'Thou should'st subdue thy kinsman: share the world 330
'With him thou canst not; rule thou canst, alone.'
As when at Elis' festival a horse
In stable pent gnaws at his prison bars
Impatient, and should clamour from without
Strike on his ear, bounds furious at restraint,
So then was Cæsar, eager for the fight,
Stirred by the words of Curio. To the ranks
He bids his soldiers; with majestic mien
And hand commanding silence as they come.
'Comrades,' he cried, 'victorious returned, 340
'Who by my side for ten long years have faced,
''Mid Alpine winters and on Arctic shores,
'The thousand dangers of the battle-field—
'Is this our country's welcome, this her prize
'For death and wounds and Roman blood outpoured?
'Rome arms her choicest sons; the sturdy oaks
'Are felled to make a fleet;—what could she more
'If from the Alps fierce Hannibal were come
'With all his Punic host? "By land and sea
'Cæsar shall fly!" Fly? Though in adverse war 350
'Our best had fallen, and the savage Gaul
