The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 121
CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIRST.
“He spake . . . and attempted to clasp the right hand of Fortuna,But ruptured the crust of the earth, deeply cloven, asunder.Then from her capricious heart Fortune made answer:‘O fatherWhom Cocytus’ deepest abysses obey, if to forecast The future I may, without fear, thy petition shall prosper;For no less consuming the anger that wars in this bosom,The flame no less poignant, that burns to my marrow! All favorsI gave to the bulwarks of Rome, now, I hate them. MyGifts I repent! The same God who built up their dominionShall bring down destruction upon it. In burning their manhoodMy heart shall delight and its blood-lust shall slake with their slaughter.Now Philippi’s field I can see strewn with dead of two battlesAnd Thessaly’s funeral pyres and Iberia mourning.Already the clangor of arms thrills my ears, and rings loudly:Thou, Lybian Nile, I can see now thy barriers groaningAnd Actium’s gulf and Apollo’s darts quailing the warriors!Then, open thy thirsty dominions and summon fresh spirits; For scarce will the ferryman’s strength be sufficient to carryThe souls of the dead in his skiff: ’tis a fleet that is needed!Thou, Pallid Tisiphone, slake with wide ruin, thy thirstingAnd tear ghastly wounds: mangled earth sinks to hell and the spirits.’