The Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter/Chapter 124
CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH.
The minions of Pluto pour forth from the portals of darknessThat yawn: the serpent-haired Fury, Bellona the Savage,Megera with firebrands, destruction, and treachery, lividDeath’s likeness! Among them is Frenzy, as, free, with her lashingsSnapped short, she now raises her gory head, shielding her featuresDeep scarred by innumerous wounds ’neath her helmet blood-clotted.Her left arm she guards with a battle-scarred shield scored by weapons,And numberless spear-heads protrude from its surface: her right handA flaming torch brandishes, kindling a flame that will burn upThe world! Now the gods are on earth and the skies note their absence;The planets disordered their orbits attempt! Into factionsThe heavens divide; first Dione espouses the cause ofHer Cæsar. Minerva next steps to her side and the great son Of Ares, his mighty spear brandishing! Phœbus espousesThe cause of Great Pompey: his sister and Mercury alsoAnd Hercules like unto him in his travels and labors.The trumpets call! Discord her Stygian head lifts to heavenHer tresses disheveled, her features with clotted blood covered,Tears pour from her bruised eyes, her iron fangs thick coated with rust,Her tongue distils poison, her features are haloed with serpents,Her hideous bosom is visible under her tatters,A torch with a blood red flame waves from her tremulous right hand.Emerging from Cocytus dark and from Tartarus murkyShe strode to the crests of the Apennines noble, the prospectOf earth to survey, spread before her the world panoramaIts shores and the armies that march on its surface: these words thenBurst out of her bosom malignant: ‘To arms, now, ye nations, While anger seethes hot, seize your arms, set the torch to the cities,Who skulks now is lost; neither woman nor child nor the agedBowed down with their years shall find quarter: the whole world will trembleAnd rooftrees themselves shall crash down and take part in the struggle.Marcellus, hold firm for the law! And thou, Curio, maddenThe rabble! Thou, Lentulus, strive not to check valiant Ares!Thou, Cæsar divine, why delayest thou now thine invasion?Why smash not the gates, why not level the walls of the cities,Their treasures to pillage? Thou, Magnus, dost not know the secretOf holding the hills of Rome? Take thou the walls of Dyrrachium,Let Thessaly’s harbors be dyed with the blood of the Romans!’On earth was obeyed every detail of Discord’s commandment.”
When Eumolpus had, with great volubility, poured out this flood of words, we came at last to Crotona. Here we refreshed ourselves at a mean inn, but on the following day we went in search of more imposing lodgings and fell in with a crowd of legacy hunters who were very curious as to the class of society to which we belonged and as to whence we had come. Thereupon, in accord with our mutual understanding, such ready answers did we make as to who we might be or whence we had come that we gave them no cause for doubt. They immediately fell to wrangling in their desire to heap their own riches upon Eumolpus and every fortune-hunter solicited his favor with presents.