CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH.

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH.

 “Three chieftains did fortune bring forth, whom the fury of battles

 Destroyed; and interred, each one under a mountain of weapons;

 The Parthian has Crassus, Pompeius the Great by the waters

 Of Egypt lies.  Julius, ungrateful Rome stained with his life blood.

 And earth has divided their ashes, unable to suffer

 The weight of so many tombs.  These are the wages of glory!

 There lies between Naples and Great Puteoli, a chasm

 Deep cloven, and Cocytus churns there his current; the vapor

 In fury escapes from the gorge with that lethal spray laden.

 No green in the aututun is there, no grass gladdens the meadow,

 The supple twigs never resound with the twittering singing

 Of birds in the Springtime.  But chaos, volcanic black boulders

 Of pumice lie Happy within their drear setting of cypress.

 Amidst these infernal surroundings the ruler of Hades

 Uplifted his head by the funeral flames silhouetted

 And sprinkled with white from the ashes of corpses; and challenged

 Winged Fortune in words such as these: ‘Oh thou fickle controller

 Of things upon earth and in heaven, security’s foeman,

 Oh Chance!  Oh thou lover eternally faithful to change, and

 Possession’s betrayer, dost own thyself crushed by the power

 Of Rome?  Canst not raise up the tottering mass to its downfall

 Its strength the young manhood of Rome now despises, and staggers

 In bearing the booty heaped up by its efforts: behold how

 They lavish their spoils!  Wealth run mad now brings down their
 destruction.

 They build out of gold and their palaces reach to the heavens;

 The sea is expelled by their moles and their pastures are oceans;

 They war against Nature in changing the state of creation.

 They threaten my kingdom!  Earth yawns with their tunnels deep
 driven

 To furnish the stone for their madmen’s foundations; already

 The mountains are hollowed and now but re-echoing caverns;

 While man quarries marble to serve his vainglorious purpose

 The spirits infernal confess that they hope to win Heaven!

 Arise, then, O Chance, change thy countenance peaceful to warlike

 And harry the Romans, consign to my kingdom the fallen.

 Ah, long is it now since my lips were with blood cooled and
 moistened,

 Nor has my Tisiphone bathed her blood-lusting body

 Since Sulla’s sword drank to repletion and earth’s bristling harvest

 Grew ripe upon blood and thrust up to the light of the sunshine!’”