I have recently finished reading (for the first time in its entirety) Lucan's unfinished epic Bellum Civile "The Civil War." I found it extraordinary. When I had finished, I wanted to translate the entire thing. Though I quickly realized that I hadn't the time or the resources to do so without the task taking several years. So I have selected a few excerpts from the Bellum Civile that I think read well on their own, and have added these to my translation queue. Starting with this part here from the poem's opening. You can see a list of the planned excerpts on my table of contents (list of translated poems.)
Opening to his Epic on the Civil War (1.1-82)
By Lucan
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
I sing of war far worse than civil war
waged in the nasty fields of Thessaly,
of crime gone legal, of a powerful state
that disemboweled itself with victory's sword,
of family front lines1; how when the pact
of tyranny imploded, all the forces
of a concussed world clashed in combat, leaving
a nation guilty of abomination;
the citizen who marched against the city,
the Roman spear faced with the Roman spear.
Countrymen! What insanity was this?
This orgy of sick swords! Did you enjoy it,
treating barbarian peoples that detest us
to a spectacle of savage Roman bloodsport,
when you by all rights should have been despoiling
proud Parthia of her Italian trophies2
in fit retaliation? Why so willing
to wage entropic wars that stood no chance
of triumph, while killed Crassus' grisly ghost3
roamed unavenged abroad?
Can you conceive
how much land, how much sea might have been ours
through the Roman blood that Roman blades have squandered -
where Day's sun rises, where Night stows her stars,
where southern midday seethes in scorching hours,
where rigid Winter that no Spring can thaw
fetters the Scythic sea4 in chains of ice,
by now we'd have the wild Armenians
and the Chinese beneath our potent yoke,
as well as that race (if there even is one)
that knows the secret of the Nile's true source5.
Then, if you still so lust for heinous warfare
once you've wrenched all the world to Latin law,
only then, Rome, may you take up the sword
of suicide. Not while you have enemies.
Now in Italy's cities walls are crumbling,
the buildings teetering half-demolished, ramparts
reduced to huge heaps of wrecked rock, the houses
have no one to guard them. Only the odd squatter
wanders the ancient emptied cities' streets.
Now Italy's countryside is overrun
with brambles, her soil unploughed for year on year,
no hands left for the work the fields cry out for.
It wasn't you, fierce Pyrrhus6, nor the savage
Hannibal who achieved such devastation.
No, foreign steel could not gore us like this.
The deepest wounds are dealt by citizen swords.
But if the Fates could find no other way
to gift us Nero7, if an everlasting
kingdom cost the gods dear, if Jupiter
the Thunderlord could hold no throne on high
before a war with vicious worldborn Giants,
then, gods, I'll not complain. The hideous crimes
and rank abominations were all worth it.
So heap Pharsalia's dread fields high with corpses,
glut the brute Punic ghost with Latin blood,
let the final combat clash at fateful Munda.
Add to those massacres, O Caesar Nero,
starvation at Perugia, Mutina's hardships,
the armada overwhelmed at lethal Leucas
and blood of slave-wars under Etna's slopes
ablaze. Rome owes so much to civil war
as all was done to bring us you, O Caesar.
And when your reign is done for, when you seek
the stars at last, with reveling in the sky,
you will be more than welcome in heaven's palace
on any seat you choose. Whether you want
to seize Jove's scepter, or Apollo's blazing
chariot to circle earth with roving fire,
the world won't fear the transference of suns.
All gods will yield their place to you, and Nature
will let you choose which god to be, and where
in the cosmos to rule from. Only do not
set your throne cold up in the Arctic North
nor at the polar opposite where skies
turn sweltering around the Southern vertex.
Your star would look on Rome with sidelong light.
If you put all your weight on either side
of the unbounded ether, the sky's vault
would buckle in your gravity's great moment.
Stay rather at the midpoint of the heavens
keeping the spheres in equilibrium.
And let that stretch of sky stay clear and blue,
let not one cloud ever stand in Caesar's way.
That day, let humankind sheathe all its swords
to take care of itself, and every nation
love every other. Peace shall flutter proud
over the earth, and shut forevermore
the iron temple-gates of two-faced war.
But you're a force of heaven to me already
and if you breathe your genius through my breast
giving me visionary strength of verse,
why would I trouble that old god who stirs
the mysteries of Delphic seers, or call
Bacchus from sacred Nysa? I need nothing
but Nero to give life to Roman song.
And now my spirit moves me to set forth
the cause of great events. The mind has opened
before me an enormous task, to tell
what drove a people mad, drove them to arms
of battle, and drove peace out of the world.
It was that jealous nemesis, the chain
of fate, the law that nothing stays on top
for long, the hard fall of the mighty: Rome
had grown too great for her own self to bear.
It was as it will be when the final hour
that ends the cycles of the universe,
sunders the cosmic structure and all things
are regressed to primeval chaos: burning
stars will shoot straight into the ocean, earth
refusing to lie flat fling all the waters
up and away, the moon turn to her brother
demanding rule of daylight, tired of driving
her chariot in waxing, waning orbit.
And the whole broken universe's machine
in discord will overthrow the rule of nature.
Great things implode upon themselves. This limit
of growth the gods ordain for all success.
Notes:
1 - Pompey and Caesar were not merely fellow citizens, but kinsmen related by marriage.
2 - The "Italian trophies" were the Roman standards lost to the Parthians by Crassus at the battle of Carrhae (in what is today southeastern Turkey) in 53 BC.
3 - Crassus had been killed at Carrhae.
4 - i.e. the Black Sea
5- the question of where the source of the Nile lay was a subject of speculation, and even exploration, for Romans. Seneca in book six of his Natural Questions informs us of an expedition that had been sent to Ethiopia to gather information on, among other things, the Nile's spring.
6- Pyrrhus of Epirus, a Greek king and general who invaded Italy in 280 BC.
7 - The question of whether the eulogy of Nero in this section is sincere or not is an old one, as it has proven hard for many readers, ancient and modern, to take at face value. My brief perusal of the staggeringly extensive scholarly literature on this passage suggests that the question remains far from settled.
In my considered view, tempting though it may be to see it in retrospect (and in the context of the later books of the Bellum Civile) as a form of ironic or grossly satyrical double-talk, this seems unlikely. First of all, if it was actually understood as gross satire by its original audience, then how could Nero, who was assuredly part of that audience, fail to notice? Nero was many things, but he was no idiot. Nor was Lucan, which is why it strains credulity to imagine him satirizing an eccentric autocrat literally to his face. And readings of certain lines as satirizing Nero's corpulence, among other things, take the later vilifying depictions of Nero's physiognomy at face value for no good reason. The contrast between this eulogy and the condemnation of Caesars found in later parts of the Bellum Civile, may be more reasonably explained (if explanation is really needed) by the fact that Lucan's opinion of Nero changed over time, from being a favored poet, to having his works banned, to ultimately participating in a failed attempt on Nero's life.
While it may seem out of place in a poem like this, the eulogy itself isn't unusual for Roman poetry. Similar specimens of panegyric effusion may be found elsewhere in Roman literature, including Statius' praise for Domitian, and some of Virgil's most famous passages lauding Augustus. (Parts of Virgil here are strongly echoed, or subverted if you prefer, including this passage from the Georgics, and this passage from the Aeneid.) Indeed I suspect that part of why Virgil's praise for Augustus has seemed easier to take and appreciate for what it is, is posterity's high esteem for the latter, whereas Nero has become synonymous with imperial excess, cruelty and abuse of power and so the idea of someone like Lucan praising him didn't sit well with later readers.
Moreover, leader-praise of this kind is also common in autocratic regimes more generally. One notes how frequently and how effusively court poets throughout the medieval world, whether in Valencia, Aachen, Aleppo, Shiraz, Delhi or Ch�ng'an, directed their talents toward the praise of the local Rei Virtu�s. (See this poem by Jordi de Sant Jordi for an excellent example.) More recent examples of the same phenomenon abound in poetry written in Francoist Spain, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, Stalin's Soviet Union, Niyazov's Turkmenistan, Baathist Iraq and a number of modern Arab monarchies.
Some of the enduring appeal of this passage is that Lucan even as he praises Nero (as he may have been expected to do) retains his integrity as an artist. What modern readers of this poem may not fully appreciate is that the eulogy does not need to be insincere or ironic to have subtext. The horrors of civil war that made Nero, and the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty, possible are thrust in the listener's face. The responsibility that lies on Nero is immense, in view of what he cost. Behind the statement that Nero was worth it, may lurk the implication that Nero had better prove he was worth it or that he ought to appreciate at what cost his power comes. The fact that Nero is portrayed as the bless�d source of inspiration for a poem about bloodshed and civil war may also suggest a different subtext still. Indirect tactics like this are also not hard to come by in laudatory verse addressed to autocrats. Scholars of Arabic and Persian panegyric have long understood that not all extravagant flattery is hollow, servile or sycophantic. Sometimes the only way to tell a ruler what they don't like hearing is to say it in the form of a compliment.
The Original:
Bellum Civile I.1-82
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos
iusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem
in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra,
cognatasque acies, et rupto foedere regni
certatum totis concussi viribus orbis
in commune nefas, infestisque obvia signis
signa, pares aquilas et pila minantia pilis.
Quis furor, O cives, quae tanta licentia ferri?
Gentibus invisis Latium praebere cruorem
cumque superba foret Babylon spolianda trophaeis
Ausoniis umbraque erraret Crassus inulta
bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos?
Heu, quantum terrae potuit pelagique parari
hoc quem civiles hauserunt sanguine dextrae,
unde venit Titan et nox ubi sidera condit
quaque dies medius flagrantibus aestuat horis
et qua bruma rigens ac nescia vere remitti
astringit Scythico glacialem frigore pontum!
Sub iuga iam Seres, iam barbarus isset Araxes
et gens (siqua iacet) nascenti conscia Nilo.
Tum, si tantus amor belli tibi, Roma, nefandi,
totum sub Latias leges cum miseris orbem,
in te verte manus: nondum tibi defuit hostis.
At nunc semirutis pendent quod moenia tectis
urbibus Italiae lapsisque ingentia muris
saxa iacent nulloque domus custode tenentur
rarus et antiquis habitator in urbibus errat,
horrida quod dumis multosque inarata per annos
Hesperia est desuntque manus poscentibus arvis,
non tu, Pyrrhe ferox, nec tantis cladibus auctor
Poenus erit: nulli penitus descendere ferro
contigit; alta sedent civilis vulnera dextrae.
Quod si non aliam venturo fata Neroni
invenere viam magnoque aeterna parantur
regna deis caelumque suo servire Tonanti
non nisi saevorum potuit post bella gigantum,
iam nihil, O superi, querimur; scelera ipsa nefasque
hac mercede placent. Diros Pharsalia campos
impleat et Poeni saturentur sanguine manes,
ultima funesta concurrant proelia Munda,
his, Caesar, Perusina fames Mutinaeque labores
accedant fatis et quas premit aspera classes
Leucas et ardenti servilia bella sub Aetna,
multum Roma tamen debet civilibus armis
quod tibi res acta est.
Te, cum statione peracta
astra petes serus, praelati regia caeli
excipiet gaudente polo: seu sceptra tenere
seu te flammigeros Phoebi conscendere currus
telluremque nihil mutato sole timentem
igne vago lustrare iuvet, tibi numine ab omni
cedetur, iurisque tui natura relinquet
quis deus esse velis, ubi regnum ponere mundi.
Sed neque in Arctoo sedem tibi legeris orbe
nec polus aversi calidus qua vergitur Austri,
unde tuam videas obliquo sidere Romam.
Aetheris immensi partem si presseris unam,
sentiet axis onus. Librati pondera caeli
orbe tene medio; pars aetheris illa sereni
tota vacet nullaeque obstent a Caesare nubes.
Tum genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis
inque vicem gens omnis amet; pax missa per orbem
ferrea belligeri compescat limina Iani.
Sed mihi iam numen; nec, si te pectore vates
accipio, Cirrhaea velim secreta moventem
sollicitare deum Bacchumque avertere N?sa:
tu satis ad vires Romana in carmina dandas.
Fert animus causas tantarum expromere rerum,
immensumque aperitur opus, quid in arma furentem
impulerit populum, quid pacem excusserit orbi.
Invida fatorum series summisque negatum
stare diu nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus
nec se Roma ferens.
Sic, cum compage soluta
saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora
antiquum repetens iterum chaos, ignea pontum
astra petent, tellus extendere litora nolet
excutietque fretum, fratri contraria Phoebe
ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem
indignata diem poscet sibi, totaque discors
machina divolsi turbabit foedera mundi.
In se magna ruunt: laetis hunc numina rebus
crescendi posuere modum.
Opening to his Epic on the Civil War (1.1-82)
By Lucan
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
I sing of war far worse than civil war
waged in the nasty fields of Thessaly,
of crime gone legal, of a powerful state
that disemboweled itself with victory's sword,
of family front lines1; how when the pact
of tyranny imploded, all the forces
of a concussed world clashed in combat, leaving
a nation guilty of abomination;
the citizen who marched against the city,
the Roman spear faced with the Roman spear.
Countrymen! What insanity was this?
This orgy of sick swords! Did you enjoy it,
treating barbarian peoples that detest us
to a spectacle of savage Roman bloodsport,
when you by all rights should have been despoiling
proud Parthia of her Italian trophies2
in fit retaliation? Why so willing
to wage entropic wars that stood no chance
of triumph, while killed Crassus' grisly ghost3
roamed unavenged abroad?
Can you conceive
how much land, how much sea might have been ours
through the Roman blood that Roman blades have squandered -
where Day's sun rises, where Night stows her stars,
where southern midday seethes in scorching hours,
where rigid Winter that no Spring can thaw
fetters the Scythic sea4 in chains of ice,
by now we'd have the wild Armenians
and the Chinese beneath our potent yoke,
as well as that race (if there even is one)
that knows the secret of the Nile's true source5.
Then, if you still so lust for heinous warfare
once you've wrenched all the world to Latin law,
only then, Rome, may you take up the sword
of suicide. Not while you have enemies.
Now in Italy's cities walls are crumbling,
the buildings teetering half-demolished, ramparts
reduced to huge heaps of wrecked rock, the houses
have no one to guard them. Only the odd squatter
wanders the ancient emptied cities' streets.
Now Italy's countryside is overrun
with brambles, her soil unploughed for year on year,
no hands left for the work the fields cry out for.
It wasn't you, fierce Pyrrhus6, nor the savage
Hannibal who achieved such devastation.
No, foreign steel could not gore us like this.
The deepest wounds are dealt by citizen swords.
But if the Fates could find no other way
to gift us Nero7, if an everlasting
kingdom cost the gods dear, if Jupiter
the Thunderlord could hold no throne on high
before a war with vicious worldborn Giants,
then, gods, I'll not complain. The hideous crimes
and rank abominations were all worth it.
So heap Pharsalia's dread fields high with corpses,
glut the brute Punic ghost with Latin blood,
let the final combat clash at fateful Munda.
Add to those massacres, O Caesar Nero,
starvation at Perugia, Mutina's hardships,
the armada overwhelmed at lethal Leucas
and blood of slave-wars under Etna's slopes
ablaze. Rome owes so much to civil war
as all was done to bring us you, O Caesar.
And when your reign is done for, when you seek
the stars at last, with reveling in the sky,
you will be more than welcome in heaven's palace
on any seat you choose. Whether you want
to seize Jove's scepter, or Apollo's blazing
chariot to circle earth with roving fire,
the world won't fear the transference of suns.
All gods will yield their place to you, and Nature
will let you choose which god to be, and where
in the cosmos to rule from. Only do not
set your throne cold up in the Arctic North
nor at the polar opposite where skies
turn sweltering around the Southern vertex.
Your star would look on Rome with sidelong light.
If you put all your weight on either side
of the unbounded ether, the sky's vault
would buckle in your gravity's great moment.
Stay rather at the midpoint of the heavens
keeping the spheres in equilibrium.
And let that stretch of sky stay clear and blue,
let not one cloud ever stand in Caesar's way.
That day, let humankind sheathe all its swords
to take care of itself, and every nation
love every other. Peace shall flutter proud
over the earth, and shut forevermore
the iron temple-gates of two-faced war.
But you're a force of heaven to me already
and if you breathe your genius through my breast
giving me visionary strength of verse,
why would I trouble that old god who stirs
the mysteries of Delphic seers, or call
Bacchus from sacred Nysa? I need nothing
but Nero to give life to Roman song.
And now my spirit moves me to set forth
the cause of great events. The mind has opened
before me an enormous task, to tell
what drove a people mad, drove them to arms
of battle, and drove peace out of the world.
It was that jealous nemesis, the chain
of fate, the law that nothing stays on top
for long, the hard fall of the mighty: Rome
had grown too great for her own self to bear.
It was as it will be when the final hour
that ends the cycles of the universe,
sunders the cosmic structure and all things
are regressed to primeval chaos: burning
stars will shoot straight into the ocean, earth
refusing to lie flat fling all the waters
up and away, the moon turn to her brother
demanding rule of daylight, tired of driving
her chariot in waxing, waning orbit.
And the whole broken universe's machine
in discord will overthrow the rule of nature.
Great things implode upon themselves. This limit
of growth the gods ordain for all success.
Notes:
1 - Pompey and Caesar were not merely fellow citizens, but kinsmen related by marriage.
2 - The "Italian trophies" were the Roman standards lost to the Parthians by Crassus at the battle of Carrhae (in what is today southeastern Turkey) in 53 BC.
3 - Crassus had been killed at Carrhae.
4 - i.e. the Black Sea
5- the question of where the source of the Nile lay was a subject of speculation, and even exploration, for Romans. Seneca in book six of his Natural Questions informs us of an expedition that had been sent to Ethiopia to gather information on, among other things, the Nile's spring.
6- Pyrrhus of Epirus, a Greek king and general who invaded Italy in 280 BC.
7 - The question of whether the eulogy of Nero in this section is sincere or not is an old one, as it has proven hard for many readers, ancient and modern, to take at face value. My brief perusal of the staggeringly extensive scholarly literature on this passage suggests that the question remains far from settled.
In my considered view, tempting though it may be to see it in retrospect (and in the context of the later books of the Bellum Civile) as a form of ironic or grossly satyrical double-talk, this seems unlikely. First of all, if it was actually understood as gross satire by its original audience, then how could Nero, who was assuredly part of that audience, fail to notice? Nero was many things, but he was no idiot. Nor was Lucan, which is why it strains credulity to imagine him satirizing an eccentric autocrat literally to his face. And readings of certain lines as satirizing Nero's corpulence, among other things, take the later vilifying depictions of Nero's physiognomy at face value for no good reason. The contrast between this eulogy and the condemnation of Caesars found in later parts of the Bellum Civile, may be more reasonably explained (if explanation is really needed) by the fact that Lucan's opinion of Nero changed over time, from being a favored poet, to having his works banned, to ultimately participating in a failed attempt on Nero's life.
While it may seem out of place in a poem like this, the eulogy itself isn't unusual for Roman poetry. Similar specimens of panegyric effusion may be found elsewhere in Roman literature, including Statius' praise for Domitian, and some of Virgil's most famous passages lauding Augustus. (Parts of Virgil here are strongly echoed, or subverted if you prefer, including this passage from the Georgics, and this passage from the Aeneid.) Indeed I suspect that part of why Virgil's praise for Augustus has seemed easier to take and appreciate for what it is, is posterity's high esteem for the latter, whereas Nero has become synonymous with imperial excess, cruelty and abuse of power and so the idea of someone like Lucan praising him didn't sit well with later readers.
Moreover, leader-praise of this kind is also common in autocratic regimes more generally. One notes how frequently and how effusively court poets throughout the medieval world, whether in Valencia, Aachen, Aleppo, Shiraz, Delhi or Ch�ng'an, directed their talents toward the praise of the local Rei Virtu�s. (See this poem by Jordi de Sant Jordi for an excellent example.) More recent examples of the same phenomenon abound in poetry written in Francoist Spain, Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Tsarist Russia, Stalin's Soviet Union, Niyazov's Turkmenistan, Baathist Iraq and a number of modern Arab monarchies.
Some of the enduring appeal of this passage is that Lucan even as he praises Nero (as he may have been expected to do) retains his integrity as an artist. What modern readers of this poem may not fully appreciate is that the eulogy does not need to be insincere or ironic to have subtext. The horrors of civil war that made Nero, and the entire Julio-Claudian dynasty, possible are thrust in the listener's face. The responsibility that lies on Nero is immense, in view of what he cost. Behind the statement that Nero was worth it, may lurk the implication that Nero had better prove he was worth it or that he ought to appreciate at what cost his power comes. The fact that Nero is portrayed as the bless�d source of inspiration for a poem about bloodshed and civil war may also suggest a different subtext still. Indirect tactics like this are also not hard to come by in laudatory verse addressed to autocrats. Scholars of Arabic and Persian panegyric have long understood that not all extravagant flattery is hollow, servile or sycophantic. Sometimes the only way to tell a ruler what they don't like hearing is to say it in the form of a compliment.
The Original:
Bellum Civile I.1-82
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Bella per Emathios plus quam civilia campos
iusque datum sceleri canimus, populumque potentem
in sua victrici conversum viscera dextra,
cognatasque acies, et rupto foedere regni
certatum totis concussi viribus orbis
in commune nefas, infestisque obvia signis
signa, pares aquilas et pila minantia pilis.
Quis furor, O cives, quae tanta licentia ferri?
Gentibus invisis Latium praebere cruorem
cumque superba foret Babylon spolianda trophaeis
Ausoniis umbraque erraret Crassus inulta
bella geri placuit nullos habitura triumphos?
Heu, quantum terrae potuit pelagique parari
hoc quem civiles hauserunt sanguine dextrae,
unde venit Titan et nox ubi sidera condit
quaque dies medius flagrantibus aestuat horis
et qua bruma rigens ac nescia vere remitti
astringit Scythico glacialem frigore pontum!
Sub iuga iam Seres, iam barbarus isset Araxes
et gens (siqua iacet) nascenti conscia Nilo.
Tum, si tantus amor belli tibi, Roma, nefandi,
totum sub Latias leges cum miseris orbem,
in te verte manus: nondum tibi defuit hostis.
At nunc semirutis pendent quod moenia tectis
urbibus Italiae lapsisque ingentia muris
saxa iacent nulloque domus custode tenentur
rarus et antiquis habitator in urbibus errat,
horrida quod dumis multosque inarata per annos
Hesperia est desuntque manus poscentibus arvis,
non tu, Pyrrhe ferox, nec tantis cladibus auctor
Poenus erit: nulli penitus descendere ferro
contigit; alta sedent civilis vulnera dextrae.
Quod si non aliam venturo fata Neroni
invenere viam magnoque aeterna parantur
regna deis caelumque suo servire Tonanti
non nisi saevorum potuit post bella gigantum,
iam nihil, O superi, querimur; scelera ipsa nefasque
hac mercede placent. Diros Pharsalia campos
impleat et Poeni saturentur sanguine manes,
ultima funesta concurrant proelia Munda,
his, Caesar, Perusina fames Mutinaeque labores
accedant fatis et quas premit aspera classes
Leucas et ardenti servilia bella sub Aetna,
multum Roma tamen debet civilibus armis
quod tibi res acta est.
Te, cum statione peracta
astra petes serus, praelati regia caeli
excipiet gaudente polo: seu sceptra tenere
seu te flammigeros Phoebi conscendere currus
telluremque nihil mutato sole timentem
igne vago lustrare iuvet, tibi numine ab omni
cedetur, iurisque tui natura relinquet
quis deus esse velis, ubi regnum ponere mundi.
Sed neque in Arctoo sedem tibi legeris orbe
nec polus aversi calidus qua vergitur Austri,
unde tuam videas obliquo sidere Romam.
Aetheris immensi partem si presseris unam,
sentiet axis onus. Librati pondera caeli
orbe tene medio; pars aetheris illa sereni
tota vacet nullaeque obstent a Caesare nubes.
Tum genus humanum positis sibi consulat armis
inque vicem gens omnis amet; pax missa per orbem
ferrea belligeri compescat limina Iani.
Sed mihi iam numen; nec, si te pectore vates
accipio, Cirrhaea velim secreta moventem
sollicitare deum Bacchumque avertere N?sa:
tu satis ad vires Romana in carmina dandas.
Fert animus causas tantarum expromere rerum,
immensumque aperitur opus, quid in arma furentem
impulerit populum, quid pacem excusserit orbi.
Invida fatorum series summisque negatum
stare diu nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus
nec se Roma ferens.
Sic, cum compage soluta
saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora
antiquum repetens iterum chaos, ignea pontum
astra petent, tellus extendere litora nolet
excutietque fretum, fratri contraria Phoebe
ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem
indignata diem poscet sibi, totaque discors
machina divolsi turbabit foedera mundi.
In se magna ruunt: laetis hunc numina rebus
crescendi posuere modum.
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