diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 4 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62494-0.txt | 823 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62494-h/62494-h.htm | 1101 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 46535 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg | bin | 28042 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg | bin | 17788 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-0.txt | 1228 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-0.zip | bin | 19874 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-h.zip | bin | 91131 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm | 1525 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg | bin | 46535 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg | bin | 28042 -> 0 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg | bin | 17788 -> 0 bytes |
15 files changed, 17 insertions, 4677 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..caf911b --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #62494 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62494) diff --git a/old/62494-0.txt b/old/62494-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 9abe3a2..0000000 --- a/old/62494-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,823 +0,0 @@ -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 62494 *** - -THE COVER DESIGN IS BY ELIHU VEDDER - - - - -UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME - - - LAODICE AND DANAË _Play in Verse_ - By _Gordon Bottomley_ - - IMAGES--OLD AND NEW _Poems_ - By _Richard Aldington_ - - THE ENGLISH TONGUE AND OTHER POEMS - By _Lewis Worthington Smith_ - - FIVE MEN AND POMPEY _Dramatic Portraits_ - By _Stephen Vincent Benét_ - - HORIZONS _Poems_ - By _Robert Alden Sanborn_ - - THE TRAGEDY _A Fantasy in Verse_ - By _Gilbert Moyle_ - - - - - FIVE MEN AND POMPEY - - _A Series of Dramatic Portraits_ - - BY - STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY - 1915 - - - - - _Copyright, 1915, by_ - THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY - - THE FOUR SEAS PRESS - BOSTON AND NORWOOD - - - - -CONTENTS - - - THE LAST BANQUET 9 - - LUCULLUS DINES-- 17 - - THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN 23 - - AD ATTICUM 31 - - DE BELLO CIVILI 37 - - AFTER PHARSALIA 45 - - - - -THE LAST BANQUET - - - - -THE LAST BANQUET - -[SERTORIUS SPEAKS. B. C. 72] - - - Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last - My power is--secure? Still Pompey lives - And has an army and Metellus strives - To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast: - Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men - Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny. - Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen - Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp - Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me. - The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp-- - Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes, - Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood - For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome. - I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood. - And now all vanishes in plots and gibes-- - I love this warm, brown land; it is my home. - And yet--to see the Forum once again! - Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died - I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men, - These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome’s side; - I could have brought back the Republic--then. - You died. I still fight on, but I am old. - Pompey is young, and though I beat him now, - He will be victor, as the end will show. - Ah, Plancus, enter! Is the night so cold - That you need shroud yourself in that great cloak? - You too, Perpenna, Cimon, you who broke - So bravely through the foe, you fear a draught? - Be seated, friends! - - My comrades, we have laughed - And feasted for an hour together, yet - I have not told you why I summoned thus - My ten most trusted leaders to this feast. - Now is the time! I shall discharge the debt. - Glorious tidings come from out the East! - And Mithridates hurries aid to us-- - Let not that goblet fall I pray thee, friend!-- - Ah! Dog and traitor! So this was your end! - Guards! Guards!--I think you will not rise again, - Perpenna, from that blow! Guards! Ho there, men! - A-a-ah! Thank you, Pompey! No, you will not take - Me back to grace your triumph: they have done - Their work too well, your friends. My sands are run. - And you have burst all barriers left to break - That shielded the Republic. It is dead. - - Not with a pomp of banners, - Not with a flare of spears, - Not with mourning or head downcast - The great Republic dies at last; - A sword in the heart and the hands bound fast, - Dead in the wreck of the years! - - Pompey, Pompey, chief of pride, - Hero and lord of Rome! - You ride to a gallant triumph now, - Gay as the green and fruitful bough; - But the bough will be withered and dry enow - When you ride for the last time home! - - Pompey, Pompey, laugh while you may! - Laugh as Polycrates laughed! - But ever, when life is most glorious, - I bid you think of Sertorius, - Of how he rode forth victorious, - And how he was slain by craft. - - I have been slain by great lords; - But a slave shall strike you down, - A slave shall strike you down from behind, - And your strength shall fail, and your sight go blind, - And your body a nameless grave shall find, - You, that strove for a crown! - - Pompey, Pompey, turn where you may! - You shall get but little ease. - For whether on sea or whether on land, - One picture shall ever before you stand-- - A man struck down on a barren strand-- - A head hacked off by the seas! - - Pompey, Pompey, go where you will, - Double and turn again! - One thought shall you know till you lie in your grave; - A thought not even your soul can brave!-- - The thought of a mean and evil slave, - And a knife that was forged in Spain! - - So the Republic dies! and all my work - Is vain; the things I built are shattered now, - My task is done, the task I dared not shirk; - And I am very tired. Nydia, come! - Come as you came that day down the green walk, - The day I rode in triumph back to Rome, - After the Cimbri had been crushed--and talk, - Talk as we talked that day beside the pool, - Shadowed by ilex, where the golden hearts - Of lilies burned within the water cool,-- - Nydia! But she stays not, she departs! - The marble seat--you lifted up your face-- - I have fought long now. I am weary. Come! - Nydia! Nydia! and lead me home! - Home! How the Forum blazes in the sun! - The Roman faces and the kindly speech; - The melon-sellers, proffering to each - That comes, ripe, green-streaked melons--What! you shun - An old friend, Balbus? No! It was not I! - No! by the gods! I never gave consent - To those red days of massacre!----They cry! - Oh gods! they cry, cry, they are not yet dead! - They _will_ not die: they hurl upon my head - Curses and prayers! I hear them in my tent! - They are not dead! Oh gods! They are not dead! - I never gave consent! - - Still the time slips - And Nydia comes not. I am very tired. - The things are broken to which I aspired, - And you alone are left. Love! She is here - Nydia, Nydia.... - - - - -LUCULLUS DINES-- - - - - -LUCULLUS DINES-- - -[59 B. C.] - - - I dine in the Apollo room tonight, - With Cicero and Pompey! See to it! - - Cicero! Pompey! But ten years ago - Lucullus was the hero, Conqueror - Of Mithridates, Rescuer of Rome! - All’s Pompey now; he goes far--and has gone; - And, with it all, is just the honest, brave, - Young captain that I saw that hot, raw, day; - The first day of my shame. Oh gods, gods, gods! - Must Rome have always victories, victories, - Incredible conquests till the whole world reels, - And still thrust traps into my path until - I fall at last? - When Pompey came I knew. - Oh he was kind, quite kind, considerate - Of the old bitter man there who had failed, - Recalled without a triumph! He was kind - In all his splendid, conquering, strength and youth! - Yet, I had beaten Mithridates. So - Let the old lion growl through teeth once sharp! - This sordid squabble of a vulgar crowd - Of stiff patricians, ranting demagogues, - Serves well for others. I, I have my trees, - My cherries, rooted firm in Roman soil, - Shedding a delicate whiteness on the hills - When spring comes. A far greater triumph that - Than all my conquests. - Yes, they know me well, - These young men, “That old dragon on the hill, - Who gives such gorgeous dinners. Gods, his wines! - Fit for Apollo!” - Yes, an excellent host, - Learned in sauces, skilled in oysters, game; - Within whose heart no spark of ancient fire - Burns on.... Oh Power! Power! Once to lead - An army, once again, and see the thick - Rain of the Parthian arrows and the blaze - As forty brazen cohorts broke the foe! - The thin lines buckle, the black masses fly! - _Imperator Romanus!_ - No, Lucullus, - But the good host who--plants his cherry-trees! - - Love? I have loved once, once.... That awful day - We stormed in through the gates of Amisus.... - The loot-mad soldiers, howling, smote the town - Down in a mud of blood and dirt and wine, - Bodies and gold and priceless tapestries. - Half-mad I rushed to stop them, beat and struck; - I think they would have murdered me at once, - But that one drunkard yelled “The General! - Lower your swords, lads! Sir, we won this town! - You take your pleasures and let us take ours!” - I reeled into the blackness of an arch, - And saw before me, white-robed, laurel-crowned, - Just such a maiden as might once have danced - Along the friezes of the Parthenon; - A face like that on an old silver coin, - Demetrius sent me, clear-cut, beautiful - With all the burning beauty of the Greek. - Pure and serene her grey eyes gazed in mine.... - We spoke few words; what need to speak at all - When just our eyes told all we had to tell, - There in the soft, cool blackness, splashed with light - From the red pools of burning wine without? - - Few words. They chime like little silver bells - Within my heart now, or like trumpet blasts - Bear up my soul a little towards the gods. - - We had three years. She died before my fall. - - I thought of love as a crooked knife, - As a soft and passionate lord; - Born when the kings’ beards dipped in wine - And the gold cups clashed on the board. - But my love came like a blast of cold, - A straight, clean, sword. - - I thought of love as a secret thing, - For an hour of incensed ease, - When breast and breast together cling, - Under sweet-scented trees. - My love is all good-comradeship, - More great than these. - - I thought of love as a toy for a day, - Soon to be over-passed; - Light and frail as a hollow shell, - That into the brook is cast. - My love holds while the earth endures, - And the suns stand fast. - - I thought of love as mixed with earth, - One with the bloom of the sods. - My love is air and wine and fire, - Breaker of metes and rods, - A slender javelin tipped with light, - Hurled at the gods. - - Life lies before me like a platter of coins. - “Here are the new ones! Mark the choice design!” - All cry: for me the others fade and dim, - And one alone shines clear, an old Greek coin - Demetrius sent me ... and that lovely face.... - - Pompey would say that I am growing old, - And Cicero would turn a phrase with me - In his next great oration, as a type - Of the old fool who mumbles of days past. - - Meanwhile I have my orchards--and my feasts. - Those turbot now; the sauce is very good, - A peacock’s breast is good, too, at this time, - With other things, as----old Falernian, - Tarentine oysters, and sweet wines from Thrace.... - - Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace. - - - - -THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN - - - - -THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN - -[CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C. 53] - - - Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know, - That I will answer this new embassy - Within the hour.... They will mutiny, - If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do? - _What shall I do?_ The trap is plain enough - To me; but they, they only see the rough, - Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud - Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there. - Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near! - Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make. - - I boasted once. The gods like not the proud. - And I shall die in this red waste of sand, - Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake. - A thousand slaves bowed down at my command; - I lived in ivory palaces of delight; - I ruled an empire ... here is all my might; - An old and wearied man in a bare tent, - Whence, presently, I shall go out to die. - - How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie - The next in fury: none will dare lament. - Caesar will listen with a little smile, - A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part, - Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart. - Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile, - And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.” - Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest, - That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl - How, “Crassus was a madman at the best, - And in this last attempt, a blind old owl, - A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword. - He blundered here and here! His whole campaign - Was one great blunder!” So with one accord, - They howl. - To praise is hard, easy to damn. - I failed in this. Some other will succeed. - - Yet they are right, in part. That day, far back, - When by the borderline I checked my steed.... - Our spies had said the Parthian army lay - Encamped near by and ready for the fray. - We found no army; nothing but a track, - Thousands of footprints stamped in the red sand, - Where a great host had passed. A sudden fear - Seized on the legions and on every hand - The men shrank back.... No foe stood anywhere, - Nothing but scarlet sand and brassy sky, - And men aghast at signs traced on the ground, - A ring of white, scared faces, without sound. - - Then afterwards, there came that burning march - Under a sky of flame, continually. - Our very armor seemed to shrink and parch - Beneath that sun; our tongues grew swelled and black; - And ever circling, circling, front and back, - The Parthians galloped in a cloud of dust. - They would not turn and fight but slew us thus. - Their bitter arrows came like hail on us. - Our strongest dropped and died without a blow. - Then, beyond Carrhæ, trusting in our woe, - They turned at last and stood to wait our thrust. - But two things I remember of that fight. - How Publius went out--the burning light - Smote on his armor, turning it to gold, - Save where, a sunset cloud, his red cloak rolled; - And in his face was joy and keen delight, - Youth and a boy’s high heart and great resolves.... - A golden knight he stood, a golden knight.... - He rides away, the crimson cloud dissolves.... - - One other picture burns within my brain, - Like white-hot sand; and will burn now until - I go into the trap tonight.... Again - The dust cloud rose, and from a little hill - I saw the sheen of spearheads at its rim, - And near the rim a spot of black that grew, - Grew, grew, till earth and sky alike were dim; - For there was nought but it in earth and sky.... - Nought but a black, dead, face ... a face I knew.... - The lips were bloody ... down upon the pike - Dripped long slow drops like tears.... I hear them now, - Gathering, hanging.... Gods! they strike and strike!... - Dripping forever on my naked heart.... - Great tears of blood.... Once, very long ago, - I had a son.... How glad he seemed to start - On that attack!... No ... no ... I shall go mad! - I must not think how glad he was!... how glad.... - - We fell back towards the mountains. Cassius took - Another way. He may be slain or safe, - I know not; for myself, my legious chafe - And mutiny, I die here. But as I look - So close to death, I see that what I strove - To do will yet be done and Rome shall rule - Forever o’er the bloody road I clove. - I break ... but she will find another tool. - - Ere the first sword was sharpened and the first trumpet blown - Rome looked upon the new-made lands and marked them for her own! - Ere the first ship was timbered and the first rudder hung - Rome held the oceans in her hands, splendid and stern and young! - - The wild tribes bend before her, the kings are overthrown, - The purple empires of the East before her feet fall down. - From strange barbaric countries her captains bring her spoil, - Treasures of gems and ivory, spices and wines and oil. - - Wheat grows for her in Egypt; for her the Greek scribes write, - For her the diver dares the shark, the fowler scales the height, - To feed her great arenas the bold beast-tamer quakes - Among the tawny lions or the hissing pits of snakes. - - Her legions march in Asia, they tramp through Farthest Gaul, - In Greece their horns blow up the dawn, in Spain they stand a wall. - And still upon her Seven Hills Rome rules the seas and tides, - The earth and all that in it is, while that stern strength abides. - - Hail for the last time, Mother! Your sons stand here at bay. - Still you have sons for conquest. We fall the Roman way! - Our cheers still ringing, our short swords drawn, - We die here singing, but Rome, Rome goes on! - - Ah! Yes, Valerius, I will answer them. - - Comrades! I know these terms are but a trap: - Yet I would rather die by Parthian swords - Than Roman. - After I am dead push on, - Straight to the mountains; once the heights are won, - You can defy at last these swarming hordes. - Break camp at once to guard against mishap. - Farewell! Valerius is your general now.... - - Up there, you say, upon that hillock’s brow - They wait?... Yes, I can see the glint of steel.... - - - - -AD ATTICUM - - - - -AD ATTICUM - -[CICERO. 48 B. C.] - - - How hot it is! Faint waves of heat steam up - From the burnt sand without, like threads of glass, - Blurring the vision. In the dark, cool rooms - Within, all are asleep, and not a sound - Breaks the tense stillness.... Why should I not sleep? - This letter here, to Atticus, can wait.... - No! I had better write it now, this court - Is cool enough, the plashing fountain pleasant, - Stylus and tablets on the table there.... - Let me begin!... Where did I buy this style? - Oh yes, at Patras, where we had to leave - Poor Tiro sick--well, he is better now-- - And, Jupiter be thanked! I have escaped - Safely from that accursed province! Gods! - Now, even now, the names ring in my brain, - The petty lawsuits which I must adjudge, - The protests from the people, stricken down - Under a shameful load of usury, - Oppressed by every Roman thief that crept - Into some petty office. Gods, those trials! - They made me old before my time. That case - Between Valerius and Volusius! - And Brutus, the immaculate, with his interest - Of forty-eight per cent! - What shall I say - To Atticus? “Caesar and I are friends.” - Or, “Next week I shall sail from Formia - And seek out Pompey.” - There they stand, gouged plain - On the smooth wax. I rub them both out--so! - - Caesar, which shall I write? I was your friend. - Pompey has helped me always. Over all - Stands Rome. This war I hate as I hate Hell, - And yet must take one side.... You made the war, - Caesar ... and the Republic perishes, - If you are victor.... That one fact ends all. - Rome will be better ruled? There’s something more - Than better rule, something for which men die. - May I have grace to die so at the end, - Grace to pursue my vision to the last, - Though all my body is one sweat of blood; - Grace to reach up and touch her garment’s hem - And see her smile down in that last, black place - Where the swords fall. I shall be happy then. - All heaven and earth will be repaid to me, - In that one glance, before the swords sweep down. - - Life is a dream and a rapture, life is a voice and a breath, - A gust of wind and a darkness, puffed in the face of Death, - Life is a treacherous river, a house that sinks in the sand, - A gift that poisons the giver, a ring that withers the hand. - - Yet, when a man is mighty, that dream is more than the truth, - That wailing wind in the darkness more bright than the fires of youth, - The ring gives wisdom and power, the house stands up like a rock, - The river roars from the mountains, and his foemen reel at its shock. - - These are our mighty fellows, we are akin to these, - The men who burn on the deserts, who drown in the pathless seas, - Not for gold or for power or gems some king has thieved, - But simply to follow a vision, to see a dream achieved! - - So, though we stand beleaguered, though the foe comes on like the sea, - Though slaves fall down as he passes, and helot bend at his knee, - Though there is no escaping, though the last hope is gone, - Here in the sight of all men we buckle our armor on! - - Whatever chances, Tullia is safe; - I only risk myself ... and so, at last, - I shall begin my letter ... yet I wonder - If, after this, I shall see Formia - Ever again.... No need to think of that! - Tullia will be safe ... and Atticus; - But, for the rest--I have lost many friends - Already.... Bah! Come, let me get to work!... - Tullia will be safe.... Hail, Atticus! - - - - -DE BELLO CIVILI - - - - -DE BELLO CIVILI - -[CAESAR. 49 B. C.] - - - More letters? Lay them down here. - Antony, - Curio, Cicero--even Atticus-- - Well, what does Antony say, “Strike quick and hard! - March your picked Gauls on Rome!” H’m? “All the city - Is gone stark mad against you.” Oh, of course! - “At the next meeting of the Senate”? Ah! - “I will suggest both you and Pompey lay - Aside your several commands.” All hangs - On that one offer--If they should refuse, - I strike at last!... - Well, Curio, “Dare you not - Give up the provinces? All would be well. - It is the one thing Pompey now demands-- - Impossible of course--” Gods, Curio! - “Give up the provinces”! For twenty years - I have toiled up this hill--and now at last - Stand here, proconsul of a barren land, - A swarming, seething pot of plots and lies, - Where every day brings forth a fresh revolt. - Others had rich lands in the peaceful East, - They fought with armies, I a people. Now, - After nine years these Gauls are not subdued. - I stand alone against a forest fire ... - But even this they will not suffer, no, - Not even that I waste my life in vain - In these vast woods. They call me to return, - “A private citizen as Pompey did.” - No, to return disgraced, shut out forever - From all great deeds.... - What say you, Cicero? - “I know you do not want a civil war.” - H’m. “Rome mistaken--.” H’m. “Why should you care - For all these dogs that bark at great men’s heels? - You say your foes are wrong--It may be so, - At least they act with one thought in their minds, - That you wish civil war for your own ends. - Why not disprove them, strike them dumb, resign - Your provinces!” and let them cut my throat! - “Return to Rome a citizen. That one act - Would make you just--immortal, and they, they, - Would shrink back to their holes, never again - To dare the splendor of the day and truth. - Pompey is not against you. Him I know. - And he would be as generous a friend - As you could wish--resign his legions too--” - Ah, Cicero!--What’s this, here at the end? - “Remember the Republic! Caesar, Caesar! - Gaze not in that Medusa’s face. Your soul - Stands here at stake, you hold the fate of Rome - In your two hands. Gaze not in that dread face!” - - Another letter! What ... from Calinus ... - How our lives part ... and men part.... Why the last - Time that I saw him was ... how long ago ... - Ten ... twenty years ... on the white walls of Rhodes - We talked that evening on the flat, wide roof - Of the old merchant’s house where he was lodged. - I was to leave tomorrow, and we lay - Under the blazing stars. A brown slave girl - Plucked at a lute whose drowsy murmur died - Throbbingly into sweetness.... We were young - And all our gorgeous dreams marched forth in state - Past the great purple bales of Syrian rugs, - Over the thin brown frails of dates, until - The skies were full of color, great broad bands ... - Crimson like pigeon’s blood, blue like the sea, - Yellow like old, old ivory.... The stars waned. - Next day we parted. Friend, friend of my youth, - What have you now to say? Today I make - The last decision, take one course of two, - Be saved or lost ... friend ... friend ... friend of my youth.... - - “Caesar, the swords are ready, - The swords you have tempered long, - War and peace are held in your hand, - You stand at length where you longed to stand; - By civil war you would heal a land, - And by wrong you would better a wrong. - - Power and Strength and Empire, - These are full mighty words. - One thing, men’s Freedom, is higher than all. - And better a hut though it totter and fall, - A broken temple, a ruined wall, - Than a land subdued by your swords! - - We have walked for a time together. - The roads fork and we part. - I follow my Lady of beauty and grace, - Drunk with the light of her glorious face, - And you, you go to your own place: - And a poison breeds in your heart. - - I go with the Republic. - The Empire stands by your side. - You love her now. In a time not far - You will look in your heart where your dead hopes are, - And curse her for a lamia, - The serpent you called bride. - - We part. Our ways are far henceforth. - Henceforth our speech is with spears, - I curse you not. Strive on for your prize - Till the last thick darkness covers your eyes - And the voice of the dead Republic cries - Forever in your ears. - - Follow your foe o’er land and sea, - River and bush and stone! - When the end has come to the weary race - And the slain man lies in his fated place, - You shall draw the veil from the white dead face, - And shriek, knowing your own!” - - Calinus ... Calinus ... To be saved or lost.... - What! Curio and Antony are without? - Curio! Antony! Welcome!... What ... you say - They drove you from the Senate?... I must make - Decision now.... - Comrades! The die is cast! - We march tomorrow on Ariminum! - - - - -AFTER PHARSALIA - - - - -AFTER PHARSALIA - -[POMPEY. 48 B. C.] - - - So it is over; you have won at last, - And our long struggle ends and with it Rome, - The Rome that was the glory of the past, - Whose stripped fleets ruled the seas, shaking the foam - From their proud prows. They brought a freedom then. - Freedom and the Republic. Once. No more. - - Well, it was fated, my most trusted men - Failed me at need; as your chiefs will fail you, - O Caesar! You I neither fear nor hate. - We strove not with each other but with fate. - Your followers will ruin what you do; - Since you are honest, and will strive to make - New laws and found an Empire, which, at least, - Gives Justice equally to all. The stake - Is high. They have sat long now at their feast, - With Rome their pig-trough. They will conquer you; - A hundred dwarfs, pulling a giant down. - The problem is too great, the time not ripe - For its solution. - We have fought, we two! - For the Republic I, you for your crown, - Each one of his own cause the very type. - Though both of us have failed, your cause yet rules, - Your Empire. - Any fool can govern fools. - To make fools rule themselves and do it well, - That is the task. If you could rule forever, - Caesar ... but little men will seize your work, - Your great machine. There’s where the paths dissever! - And Rome roars blindly down amid the murk - To swift destruction.... - Still one chance remains - Where my disbanded legions fill the plains - Of Egypt. A bare chance. If that fails too, - Why, “Here lies Cnæus Pompey, called the Great, - He fought for the Republic, loved his wife, - And climbed the ladder of swords that men call Life.” - - Stretching straight from the viewless Pit, - To the skies that are shamed because of it, - Lit with a blue and hungry fire, - That blasts like the breath of fulfilled Desire, - Glory and Shame in its secret hoards, - It stands supreme, the Ladder of Swords! - - _You must climb it?_ Aye, with all men born! - _When?_ When you reel from the common scorn, - When utter Defeat has gripped you fast, - And your life goes down in the dark at last; - When the things you builded dissolve like mist, - And Love has broken his faith and tryst, - And your body strains at the torturers’ cords, - You have come at last to the Ladder of Swords! - - _Will you find a friend?_ One friend alone, - Flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone, - The last strange Courage that mocks Despair, - That hunts the wolf with the wounded hare, - That throws your life in the jaws of death - To snatch it back in a single breath. - Blinded no longer by pomp and words, - You shall go up stark to the Ladder of Swords! - - Though your torn feet slip on the bloody steel, - Though your body faint and your senses reel, - Dizzied with agony, blind and numb, - You shall crawl the rungs till the end is come; - Though the sun flare out and the heavens crack, - Nor god nor devil can turn you back! - This is the prize that Defeat accords! - Courage! Courage! The Ladder of Swords! - - Yes, by the gods! Caesar, the day is yours, - You rule the world--while you debauch the State. - Yet, somewhere, beyond all, there still endures, - That pure Republic: and its white walls shine, - Proudly, a dream no conquests can dispel. - Your hosts toil uselessly; no force can take - Those walls. Your legionaries break and break, - In vain. Ever, before each bleeding line, - It rises still, the Vision Invincible! - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 62494 *** diff --git a/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm b/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 01434aa..0000000 --- a/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1101 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Benét. - </title> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.tiny {width: 20%; margin-left: 40%; margin-right: 40%;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - - .tdl {text-indent: 2em;} - .tdr {text-align: right;} - - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} - - - - -.center {text-align: center;} - - - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - - - - - - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.large {font-size: 125%;} -.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} - - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: 2.5em;} -.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 6.5em;} -.poetry .indent9 {text-indent: 7.5em;} -.poetry .indent11 {text-indent: 9.5em;} -.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 10.5em;} -.poetry .indent13 {text-indent: 11.5em;} -.poetry .indent15 {text-indent: 13em;} -.poetry .indent18 {text-indent: 15em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - </style> - </head> - - - -<body> -<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 62494 ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p class="center"><span class="large"><b>THE COVER DESIGN IS BY ELIHU VEDDER</b></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME</h2></div> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Laodice and Danaë</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Play in Verse</i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Gordon Bottomley</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Images—Old and New</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Poems</i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Richard Aldington</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td colspan='2'><span class="smcap">The English Tongue and Other Poems</span></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Lewis Worthington Smith</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Five Men and Pompey</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Dramatic Portraits</i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Stephen Vincent Benét</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Horizons</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Poems</i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Robert Alden Sanborn</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Tragedy</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>A Fantasy in Verse</i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan='2' class="tdl">By <i>Gilbert Moyle</i></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - - -<h1>FIVE MEN AND POMPEY</h1> - -<p><span class="xlarge"><i>A Series of Dramatic Portraits</i></span></p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="large">STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Boston<br /> -The Four Seas Company</span><br /> -1915</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p class="center"> -<i>Copyright, 1915, by</i><br /> -THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY<br /> -<br /> -THE FOUR SEAS PRESS<br /> -BOSTON AND NORWOOD</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2></div> - - - - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Last Banquet</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9"> 9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lucullus Dines</span>— </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17"> 17</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Forlorn Campaign </span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23"> 23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ad Atticum</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31"> 31</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">De Bello Civili</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37"> 37</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">After Pharsalia</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45"> 45</a></td></tr> -</table> - - - - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE LAST BANQUET</h2></div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="ph1">THE LAST BANQUET</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>SERTORIUS SPEAKS. B. C.</small> 72]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last</div> -<div class="verse">My power is—secure? Still Pompey lives</div> -<div class="verse">And has an army and Metellus strives</div> -<div class="verse">To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast:</div> -<div class="verse">Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men</div> -<div class="verse">Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny.</div> -<div class="verse">Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen</div> -<div class="verse">Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp</div> -<div class="verse">Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me.</div> -<div class="verse">The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp—</div> -<div class="verse">Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes,</div> -<div class="verse">Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood</div> -<div class="verse">For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome.</div> -<div class="verse">I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood.</div> -<div class="verse">And now all vanishes in plots and gibes—</div> -<div class="verse">I love this warm, brown land; it is my home.</div> -<div class="verse">And yet—to see the Forum once again!</div> -<div class="verse">Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died</div> -<div class="verse">I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men,</div> -<div class="verse">These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome’s side;</div> -<div class="verse">I could have brought back the Republic—then.</div> -<div class="verse">You died. I still fight on, but I am old.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey is young, and though I beat him now,</div> -<div class="verse">He will be victor, as the end will show.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Ah, Plancus, enter! Is the night so cold</div> -<div class="verse">That you need shroud yourself in that great cloak?</div> -<div class="verse">You too, Perpenna, Cimon, you who broke</div> -<div class="verse">So bravely through the foe, you fear a draught?</div> -<div class="verse">Be seated, friends!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent9">My comrades, we have laughed</div> -<div class="verse">And feasted for an hour together, yet</div> -<div class="verse">I have not told you why I summoned thus</div> -<div class="verse">My ten most trusted leaders to this feast.</div> -<div class="verse">Now is the time! I shall discharge the debt.</div> -<div class="verse">Glorious tidings come from out the East!</div> -<div class="verse">And Mithridates hurries aid to us—</div> -<div class="verse">Let not that goblet fall I pray thee, friend!—</div> -<div class="verse">Ah! Dog and traitor! So this was your end!</div> -<div class="verse">Guards! Guards!—I think you will not rise again,</div> -<div class="verse">Perpenna, from that blow! Guards! Ho there, men!</div> -<div class="verse">A-a-ah! Thank you, Pompey! No, you will not take</div> -<div class="verse">Me back to grace your triumph: they have done</div> -<div class="verse">Their work too well, your friends. My sands are run.</div> -<div class="verse">And you have burst all barriers left to break</div> -<div class="verse">That shielded the Republic. It is dead.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Not with a pomp of banners,</div> -<div class="verse">Not with a flare of spears,</div> -<div class="verse">Not with mourning or head downcast</div> -<div class="verse">The great Republic dies at last;</div> -<div class="verse">A sword in the heart and the hands bound fast,</div> -<div class="verse">Dead in the wreck of the years!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, chief of pride,</div> -<div class="verse">Hero and lord of Rome!</div> -<div class="verse">You ride to a gallant triumph now,</div> -<div class="verse">Gay as the green and fruitful bough;</div> -<div class="verse">But the bough will be withered and dry enow</div> -<div class="verse">When you ride for the last time home!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, laugh while you may!</div> -<div class="verse">Laugh as Polycrates laughed!</div> -<div class="verse">But ever, when life is most glorious,</div> -<div class="verse">I bid you think of Sertorius,</div> -<div class="verse">Of how he rode forth victorious,</div> -<div class="verse">And how he was slain by craft.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I have been slain by great lords;</div> -<div class="verse">But a slave shall strike you down,</div> -<div class="verse">A slave shall strike you down from behind,</div> -<div class="verse">And your strength shall fail, and your sight go blind,</div> -<div class="verse">And your body a nameless grave shall find,</div> -<div class="verse">You, that strove for a crown!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, turn where you may!</div> -<div class="verse">You shall get but little ease.</div> -<div class="verse">For whether on sea or whether on land,</div> -<div class="verse">One picture shall ever before you stand—</div> -<div class="verse">A man struck down on a barren strand—</div> -<div class="verse">A head hacked off by the seas!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, go where you will,</div> -<div class="verse">Double and turn again!</div> -<div class="verse">One thought shall you know till you lie in your grave;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -<div class="verse">A thought not even your soul can brave!—</div> -<div class="verse">The thought of a mean and evil slave,</div> -<div class="verse">And a knife that was forged in Spain!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So the Republic dies! and all my work</div> -<div class="verse">Is vain; the things I built are shattered now,</div> -<div class="verse">My task is done, the task I dared not shirk;</div> -<div class="verse">And I am very tired. Nydia, come!</div> -<div class="verse">Come as you came that day down the green walk,</div> -<div class="verse">The day I rode in triumph back to Rome,</div> -<div class="verse">After the Cimbri had been crushed—and talk,</div> -<div class="verse">Talk as we talked that day beside the pool,</div> -<div class="verse">Shadowed by ilex, where the golden hearts</div> -<div class="verse">Of lilies burned within the water cool,—</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia! But she stays not, she departs!</div> -<div class="verse">The marble seat—you lifted up your face—</div> -<div class="verse">I have fought long now. I am weary. Come!</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia! Nydia! and lead me home!</div> -<div class="verse">Home! How the Forum blazes in the sun!</div> -<div class="verse">The Roman faces and the kindly speech;</div> -<div class="verse">The melon-sellers, proffering to each</div> -<div class="verse">That comes, ripe, green-streaked melons—What! you shun</div> -<div class="verse">An old friend, Balbus? No! It was not I!</div> -<div class="verse">No! by the gods! I never gave consent</div> -<div class="verse">To those red days of massacre!——They cry!</div> -<div class="verse">Oh gods! they cry, cry, they are not yet dead!</div> -<div class="verse">They <i>will</i> not die: they hurl upon my head</div> -<div class="verse">Curses and prayers! I hear them in my tent!</div> -<div class="verse">They are not dead! Oh gods! They are not dead!</div> -<div class="verse">I never gave consent!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -<div class="indent12">Still the time slips</div> -<div class="verse">And Nydia comes not. I am very tired.</div> -<div class="verse">The things are broken to which I aspired,</div> -<div class="verse">And you alone are left. Love! She is here</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia, Nydia....</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">LUCULLUS DINES—</h2></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<p class="ph1">LUCULLUS DINES—</p> - -<p class="center">[59 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I dine in the Apollo room tonight,</div> -<div class="verse">With Cicero and Pompey! See to it!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Cicero! Pompey! But ten years ago</div> -<div class="verse">Lucullus was the hero, Conqueror</div> -<div class="verse">Of Mithridates, Rescuer of Rome!</div> -<div class="verse">All’s Pompey now; he goes far—and has gone;</div> -<div class="verse">And, with it all, is just the honest, brave,</div> -<div class="verse">Young captain that I saw that hot, raw, day;</div> -<div class="verse">The first day of my shame. Oh gods, gods, gods!</div> -<div class="verse">Must Rome have always victories, victories,</div> -<div class="verse">Incredible conquests till the whole world reels,</div> -<div class="verse">And still thrust traps into my path until</div> -<div class="verse">I fall at last?</div> -<div class="indent8">When Pompey came I knew.</div> -<div class="verse">Oh he was kind, quite kind, considerate</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old bitter man there who had failed,</div> -<div class="verse">Recalled without a triumph! He was kind</div> -<div class="verse">In all his splendid, conquering, strength and youth!</div> -<div class="verse">Yet, I had beaten Mithridates. So</div> -<div class="verse">Let the old lion growl through teeth once sharp!</div> -<div class="verse">This sordid squabble of a vulgar crowd</div> -<div class="verse">Of stiff patricians, ranting demagogues,</div> -<div class="verse">Serves well for others. I, I have my trees,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -<div class="verse">My cherries, rooted firm in Roman soil,</div> -<div class="verse">Shedding a delicate whiteness on the hills</div> -<div class="verse">When spring comes. A far greater triumph that</div> -<div class="verse">Than all my conquests.</div> -<div class="indent12">Yes, they know me well,</div> -<div class="verse">These young men, “That old dragon on the hill,</div> -<div class="verse">Who gives such gorgeous dinners. Gods, his wines!</div> -<div class="verse">Fit for Apollo!”</div> -<div class="indent8">Yes, an excellent host,</div> -<div class="verse">Learned in sauces, skilled in oysters, game;</div> -<div class="verse">Within whose heart no spark of ancient fire</div> -<div class="verse">Burns on.... Oh Power! Power! Once to lead</div> -<div class="verse">An army, once again, and see the thick</div> -<div class="verse">Rain of the Parthian arrows and the blaze</div> -<div class="verse">As forty brazen cohorts broke the foe!</div> -<div class="verse">The thin lines buckle, the black masses fly!</div> -<div class="verse"><i>Imperator Romanus!</i></div> -<div class="indent11">No, Lucullus,</div> -<div class="verse">But the good host who—plants his cherry-trees!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Love? I have loved once, once.... That awful day</div> -<div class="verse">We stormed in through the gates of Amisus....</div> -<div class="verse">The loot-mad soldiers, howling, smote the town</div> -<div class="verse">Down in a mud of blood and dirt and wine,</div> -<div class="verse">Bodies and gold and priceless tapestries.</div> -<div class="verse">Half-mad I rushed to stop them, beat and struck;</div> -<div class="verse">I think they would have murdered me at once,</div> -<div class="verse">But that one drunkard yelled “The General!</div> -<div class="verse">Lower your swords, lads! Sir, we won this town!</div> -<div class="verse">You take your pleasures and let us take ours!”</div> -<div class="verse">I reeled into the blackness of an arch,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And saw before me, white-robed, laurel-crowned,</div> -<div class="verse">Just such a maiden as might once have danced</div> -<div class="verse">Along the friezes of the Parthenon;</div> -<div class="verse">A face like that on an old silver coin,</div> -<div class="verse">Demetrius sent me, clear-cut, beautiful</div> -<div class="verse">With all the burning beauty of the Greek.</div> -<div class="verse">Pure and serene her grey eyes gazed in mine....</div> -<div class="verse">We spoke few words; what need to speak at all</div> -<div class="verse">When just our eyes told all we had to tell,</div> -<div class="verse">There in the soft, cool blackness, splashed with light</div> -<div class="verse">From the red pools of burning wine without?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Few words. They chime like little silver bells</div> -<div class="verse">Within my heart now, or like trumpet blasts</div> -<div class="verse">Bear up my soul a little towards the gods.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">We had three years. She died before my fall.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a crooked knife,</div> -<div class="indent2">As a soft and passionate lord;</div> -<div class="indent2">Born when the kings’ beards dipped in wine</div> -<div class="indent2">And the gold cups clashed on the board.</div> -<div class="indent2">But my love came like a blast of cold,</div> -<div class="indent2">A straight, clean, sword.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a secret thing,</div> -<div class="indent2">For an hour of incensed ease,</div> -<div class="indent2">When breast and breast together cling,</div> -<div class="indent2">Under sweet-scented trees.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love is all good-comradeship,</div> -<div class="indent2">More great than these.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a toy for a day,</div> -<div class="indent2">Soon to be over-passed;</div> -<div class="indent2">Light and frail as a hollow shell,</div> -<div class="indent2">That into the brook is cast.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love holds while the earth endures,</div> -<div class="indent2">And the suns stand fast.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as mixed with earth,</div> -<div class="indent2">One with the bloom of the sods.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love is air and wine and fire,</div> -<div class="indent2">Breaker of metes and rods,</div> -<div class="indent2">A slender javelin tipped with light,</div> -<div class="indent2">Hurled at the gods.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Life lies before me like a platter of coins.</div> -<div class="verse">“Here are the new ones! Mark the choice design!”</div> -<div class="verse">All cry: for me the others fade and dim,</div> -<div class="verse">And one alone shines clear, an old Greek coin</div> -<div class="verse">Demetrius sent me ... and that lovely face....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey would say that I am growing old,</div> -<div class="verse">And Cicero would turn a phrase with me</div> -<div class="verse">In his next great oration, as a type</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old fool who mumbles of days past.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Meanwhile I have my orchards—and my feasts.</div> -<div class="verse">Those turbot now; the sauce is very good,</div> -<div class="verse">A peacock’s breast is good, too, at this time,</div> -<div class="verse">With other things, as——old Falernian,</div> -<div class="verse">Tarentine oysters, and sweet wines from Thrace....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace.</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN</h2></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> -<p class="ph1">THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C.</small> 53]</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know,</div> -<div class="verse">That I will answer this new embassy</div> -<div class="verse">Within the hour.... They will mutiny,</div> -<div class="verse">If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do?</div> -<div class="verse"><i>What shall I do?</i> The trap is plain enough</div> -<div class="verse">To me; but they, they only see the rough,</div> -<div class="verse">Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud</div> -<div class="verse">Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there.</div> -<div class="verse">Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near!</div> -<div class="verse">Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I boasted once. The gods like not the proud.</div> -<div class="verse">And I shall die in this red waste of sand,</div> -<div class="verse">Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake.</div> -<div class="verse">A thousand slaves bowed down at my command;</div> -<div class="verse">I lived in ivory palaces of delight;</div> -<div class="verse">I ruled an empire ... here is all my might;</div> -<div class="verse">An old and wearied man in a bare tent,</div> -<div class="verse">Whence, presently, I shall go out to die.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie</div> -<div class="verse">The next in fury: none will dare lament.</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar will listen with a little smile,</div> -<div class="verse">A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile,</div> -<div class="verse">And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.”</div> -<div class="verse">Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest,</div> -<div class="verse">That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl</div> -<div class="verse">How, “Crassus was a madman at the best,</div> -<div class="verse">And in this last attempt, a blind old owl,</div> -<div class="verse">A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword.</div> -<div class="verse">He blundered here and here! His whole campaign</div> -<div class="verse">Was one great blunder!” So with one accord,</div> -<div class="verse">They howl.</div> -<div class="indent8">To praise is hard, easy to damn.</div> -<div class="verse">I failed in this. Some other will succeed.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yet they are right, in part. That day, far back,</div> -<div class="verse">When by the borderline I checked my steed....</div> -<div class="verse">Our spies had said the Parthian army lay</div> -<div class="verse">Encamped near by and ready for the fray.</div> -<div class="verse">We found no army; nothing but a track,</div> -<div class="verse">Thousands of footprints stamped in the red sand,</div> -<div class="verse">Where a great host had passed. A sudden fear</div> -<div class="verse">Seized on the legions and on every hand</div> -<div class="verse">The men shrank back.... No foe stood anywhere,</div> -<div class="verse">Nothing but scarlet sand and brassy sky,</div> -<div class="verse">And men aghast at signs traced on the ground,</div> -<div class="verse">A ring of white, scared faces, without sound.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Then afterwards, there came that burning march</div> -<div class="verse">Under a sky of flame, continually.</div> -<div class="verse">Our very armor seemed to shrink and parch</div> -<div class="verse">Beneath that sun; our tongues grew swelled and black;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And ever circling, circling, front and back,</div> -<div class="verse">The Parthians galloped in a cloud of dust.</div> -<div class="verse">They would not turn and fight but slew us thus.</div> -<div class="verse">Their bitter arrows came like hail on us.</div> -<div class="verse">Our strongest dropped and died without a blow.</div> -<div class="verse">Then, beyond Carrhæ, trusting in our woe,</div> -<div class="verse">They turned at last and stood to wait our thrust.</div> -<div class="verse">But two things I remember of that fight.</div> -<div class="verse">How Publius went out—the burning light</div> -<div class="verse">Smote on his armor, turning it to gold,</div> -<div class="verse">Save where, a sunset cloud, his red cloak rolled;</div> -<div class="verse">And in his face was joy and keen delight,</div> -<div class="verse">Youth and a boy’s high heart and great resolves....</div> -<div class="verse">A golden knight he stood, a golden knight....</div> -<div class="verse">He rides away, the crimson cloud dissolves....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">One other picture burns within my brain,</div> -<div class="verse">Like white-hot sand; and will burn now until</div> -<div class="verse">I go into the trap tonight.... Again</div> -<div class="verse">The dust cloud rose, and from a little hill</div> -<div class="verse">I saw the sheen of spearheads at its rim,</div> -<div class="verse">And near the rim a spot of black that grew,</div> -<div class="verse">Grew, grew, till earth and sky alike were dim;</div> -<div class="verse">For there was nought but it in earth and sky....</div> -<div class="verse">Nought but a black, dead, face ... a face I knew....</div> -<div class="verse">The lips were bloody ... down upon the pike</div> -<div class="verse">Dripped long slow drops like tears.... I hear them now,</div> -<div class="verse">Gathering, hanging.... Gods! they strike and strike!...</div> -<div class="verse">Dripping forever on my naked heart....</div> -<div class="verse">Great tears of blood.... Once, very long ago,</div> -<div class="verse">I had a son.... How glad he seemed to start</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -<div class="verse">On that attack!... No ... no ... I shall go mad!</div> -<div class="verse">I must not think how glad he was!... how glad....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">We fell back towards the mountains. Cassius took</div> -<div class="verse">Another way. He may be slain or safe,</div> -<div class="verse">I know not; for myself, my legious chafe</div> -<div class="verse">And mutiny, I die here. But as I look</div> -<div class="verse">So close to death, I see that what I strove</div> -<div class="verse">To do will yet be done and Rome shall rule</div> -<div class="verse">Forever o’er the bloody road I clove.</div> -<div class="verse">I break ... but she will find another tool.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ere the first sword was sharpened and the first trumpet blown</div> -<div class="verse">Rome looked upon the new-made lands and marked them for her own!</div> -<div class="verse">Ere the first ship was timbered and the first rudder hung</div> -<div class="verse">Rome held the oceans in her hands, splendid and stern and young!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The wild tribes bend before her, the kings are overthrown,</div> -<div class="verse">The purple empires of the East before her feet fall down.</div> -<div class="verse">From strange barbaric countries her captains bring her spoil,</div> -<div class="verse">Treasures of gems and ivory, spices and wines and oil.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Wheat grows for her in Egypt; for her the Greek scribes write,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -<div class="verse">For her the diver dares the shark, the fowler scales the height,</div> -<div class="verse">To feed her great arenas the bold beast-tamer quakes</div> -<div class="verse">Among the tawny lions or the hissing pits of snakes.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Her legions march in Asia, they tramp through Farthest Gaul,</div> -<div class="verse">In Greece their horns blow up the dawn, in Spain they stand a wall.</div> -<div class="verse">And still upon her Seven Hills Rome rules the seas and tides,</div> -<div class="verse">The earth and all that in it is, while that stern strength abides.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hail for the last time, Mother! Your sons stand here at bay.</div> -<div class="verse">Still you have sons for conquest. We fall the Roman way!</div> -<div class="verse">Our cheers still ringing, our short swords drawn,</div> -<div class="verse">We die here singing, but Rome, Rome goes on!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ah! Yes, Valerius, I will answer them.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Comrades! I know these terms are but a trap:</div> -<div class="verse">Yet I would rather die by Parthian swords</div> -<div class="verse">Than Roman.</div> -<div class="indent9">After I am dead push on,</div> -<div class="verse">Straight to the mountains; once the heights are won,</div> -<div class="verse">You can defy at last these swarming hordes.</div> -<div class="verse">Break camp at once to guard against mishap.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Farewell! Valerius is your general now....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Up there, you say, upon that hillock’s brow</div> -<div class="verse">They wait?... Yes, I can see the glint of steel....</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">AD ATTICUM</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> -<p class="ph1">AD ATTICUM</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CICERO.</small> 48 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How hot it is! Faint waves of heat steam up</div> -<div class="verse">From the burnt sand without, like threads of glass,</div> -<div class="verse">Blurring the vision. In the dark, cool rooms</div> -<div class="verse">Within, all are asleep, and not a sound</div> -<div class="verse">Breaks the tense stillness.... Why should I not sleep?</div> -<div class="verse">This letter here, to Atticus, can wait....</div> -<div class="verse">No! I had better write it now, this court</div> -<div class="verse">Is cool enough, the plashing fountain pleasant,</div> -<div class="verse">Stylus and tablets on the table there....</div> -<div class="verse">Let me begin!... Where did I buy this style?</div> -<div class="verse">Oh yes, at Patras, where we had to leave</div> -<div class="verse">Poor Tiro sick—well, he is better now—</div> -<div class="verse">And, Jupiter be thanked! I have escaped</div> -<div class="verse">Safely from that accursed province! Gods!</div> -<div class="verse">Now, even now, the names ring in my brain,</div> -<div class="verse">The petty lawsuits which I must adjudge,</div> -<div class="verse">The protests from the people, stricken down</div> -<div class="verse">Under a shameful load of usury,</div> -<div class="verse">Oppressed by every Roman thief that crept</div> -<div class="verse">Into some petty office. Gods, those trials!</div> -<div class="verse">They made me old before my time. That case</div> -<div class="verse">Between Valerius and Volusius!</div> -<div class="verse">And Brutus, the immaculate, with his interest</div> -<div class="verse">Of forty-eight per cent!</div> -<div class="indent13">What shall I say</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -<div class="verse">To Atticus? “Caesar and I are friends.”</div> -<div class="verse">Or, “Next week I shall sail from Formia</div> -<div class="verse">And seek out Pompey.”</div> -<div class="indent11">There they stand, gouged plain</div> -<div class="verse">On the smooth wax. I rub them both out—so!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Caesar, which shall I write? I was your friend.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey has helped me always. Over all</div> -<div class="verse">Stands Rome. This war I hate as I hate Hell,</div> -<div class="verse">And yet must take one side.... You made the war,</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar ... and the Republic perishes,</div> -<div class="verse">If you are victor.... That one fact ends all.</div> -<div class="verse">Rome will be better ruled? There’s something more</div> -<div class="verse">Than better rule, something for which men die.</div> -<div class="verse">May I have grace to die so at the end,</div> -<div class="verse">Grace to pursue my vision to the last,</div> -<div class="verse">Though all my body is one sweat of blood;</div> -<div class="verse">Grace to reach up and touch her garment’s hem</div> -<div class="verse">And see her smile down in that last, black place</div> -<div class="verse">Where the swords fall. I shall be happy then.</div> -<div class="verse">All heaven and earth will be repaid to me,</div> -<div class="verse">In that one glance, before the swords sweep down.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Life is a dream and a rapture, life is a voice and a breath,</div> -<div class="verse">A gust of wind and a darkness, puffed in the face of Death,</div> -<div class="verse">Life is a treacherous river, a house that sinks in the sand,</div> -<div class="verse">A gift that poisons the giver, a ring that withers the hand.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Yet, when a man is mighty, that dream is more than the truth,</div> -<div class="verse">That wailing wind in the darkness more bright than the fires of youth,</div> -<div class="verse">The ring gives wisdom and power, the house stands up like a rock,</div> -<div class="verse">The river roars from the mountains, and his foemen reel at its shock.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">These are our mighty fellows, we are akin to these,</div> -<div class="verse">The men who burn on the deserts, who drown in the pathless seas,</div> -<div class="verse">Not for gold or for power or gems some king has thieved,</div> -<div class="verse">But simply to follow a vision, to see a dream achieved!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So, though we stand beleaguered, though the foe comes on like the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Though slaves fall down as he passes, and helot bend at his knee,</div> -<div class="verse">Though there is no escaping, though the last hope is gone,</div> -<div class="verse">Here in the sight of all men we buckle our armor on!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Whatever chances, Tullia is safe;</div> -<div class="verse">I only risk myself ... and so, at last,</div> -<div class="verse">I shall begin my letter ... yet I wonder</div> -<div class="verse">If, after this, I shall see Formia</div> -<div class="verse">Ever again.... No need to think of that!</div> -<div class="verse">Tullia will be safe ... and Atticus;</div> -<div class="verse">But, for the rest—I have lost many friends</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Already.... Bah! Come, let me get to work!...</div> -<div class="verse">Tullia will be safe.... Hail, Atticus!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">DE BELLO CIVILI</h2></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">DE BELLO CIVILI</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CAESAR.</small> 49 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">More letters? Lay them down here.</div> -<div class="indent18">Antony,</div> -<div class="verse">Curio, Cicero—even Atticus—</div> -<div class="verse">Well, what does Antony say, “Strike quick and hard!</div> -<div class="verse">March your picked Gauls on Rome!” H’m? “All the city</div> -<div class="verse">Is gone stark mad against you.” Oh, of course!</div> -<div class="verse">“At the next meeting of the Senate”? Ah!</div> -<div class="verse">“I will suggest both you and Pompey lay</div> -<div class="verse">Aside your several commands.” All hangs</div> -<div class="verse">On that one offer—If they should refuse,</div> -<div class="verse">I strike at last!...</div> -<div class="indent9">Well, Curio, “Dare you not</div> -<div class="verse">Give up the provinces? All would be well.</div> -<div class="verse">It is the one thing Pompey now demands—</div> -<div class="verse">Impossible of course—” Gods, Curio!</div> -<div class="verse">“Give up the provinces”! For twenty years</div> -<div class="verse">I have toiled up this hill—and now at last</div> -<div class="verse">Stand here, proconsul of a barren land,</div> -<div class="verse">A swarming, seething pot of plots and lies,</div> -<div class="verse">Where every day brings forth a fresh revolt.</div> -<div class="verse">Others had rich lands in the peaceful East,</div> -<div class="verse">They fought with armies, I a people. Now,</div> -<div class="verse">After nine years these Gauls are not subdued.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -<div class="verse">I stand alone against a forest fire ...</div> -<div class="verse">But even this they will not suffer, no,</div> -<div class="verse">Not even that I waste my life in vain</div> -<div class="verse">In these vast woods. They call me to return,</div> -<div class="verse">“A private citizen as Pompey did.”</div> -<div class="verse">No, to return disgraced, shut out forever</div> -<div class="verse">From all great deeds....</div> -<div class="indent11">What say you, Cicero?</div> -<div class="verse">“I know you do not want a civil war.”</div> -<div class="verse">H’m. “Rome mistaken—.” H’m. “Why should you care</div> -<div class="verse">For all these dogs that bark at great men’s heels?</div> -<div class="verse">You say your foes are wrong—It may be so,</div> -<div class="verse">At least they act with one thought in their minds,</div> -<div class="verse">That you wish civil war for your own ends.</div> -<div class="verse">Why not disprove them, strike them dumb, resign</div> -<div class="verse">Your provinces!” and let them cut my throat!</div> -<div class="verse">“Return to Rome a citizen. That one act</div> -<div class="verse">Would make you just—immortal, and they, they,</div> -<div class="verse">Would shrink back to their holes, never again</div> -<div class="verse">To dare the splendor of the day and truth.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey is not against you. Him I know.</div> -<div class="verse">And he would be as generous a friend</div> -<div class="verse">As you could wish—resign his legions too—”</div> -<div class="verse">Ah, Cicero!—What’s this, here at the end?</div> -<div class="verse">“Remember the Republic! Caesar, Caesar!</div> -<div class="verse">Gaze not in that Medusa’s face. Your soul</div> -<div class="verse">Stands here at stake, you hold the fate of Rome</div> -<div class="verse">In your two hands. Gaze not in that dread face!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Another letter! What ... from Calinus ...</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -<div class="verse">How our lives part ... and men part.... Why the last</div> -<div class="verse">Time that I saw him was ... how long ago ...</div> -<div class="verse">Ten ... twenty years ... on the white walls of Rhodes</div> -<div class="verse">We talked that evening on the flat, wide roof</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old merchant’s house where he was lodged.</div> -<div class="verse">I was to leave tomorrow, and we lay</div> -<div class="verse">Under the blazing stars. A brown slave girl</div> -<div class="verse">Plucked at a lute whose drowsy murmur died</div> -<div class="verse">Throbbingly into sweetness.... We were young</div> -<div class="verse">And all our gorgeous dreams marched forth in state</div> -<div class="verse">Past the great purple bales of Syrian rugs,</div> -<div class="verse">Over the thin brown frails of dates, until</div> -<div class="verse">The skies were full of color, great broad bands ...</div> -<div class="verse">Crimson like pigeon’s blood, blue like the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Yellow like old, old ivory.... The stars waned.</div> -<div class="verse">Next day we parted. Friend, friend of my youth,</div> -<div class="verse">What have you now to say? Today I make</div> -<div class="verse">The last decision, take one course of two,</div> -<div class="verse">Be saved or lost ... friend ... friend ... friend of my youth....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">“Caesar, the swords are ready,</div> -<div class="indent2">The swords you have tempered long,</div> -<div class="indent2">War and peace are held in your hand,</div> -<div class="indent2">You stand at length where you longed to stand;</div> -<div class="indent2">By civil war you would heal a land,</div> -<div class="indent2">And by wrong you would better a wrong.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">Power and Strength and Empire,</div> -<div class="indent2">These are full mighty words.</div> -<div class="indent2">One thing, men’s Freedom, is higher than all.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">And better a hut though it totter and fall,</div> -<div class="indent2">A broken temple, a ruined wall,</div> -<div class="indent2">Than a land subdued by your swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">We have walked for a time together.</div> -<div class="indent2">The roads fork and we part.</div> -<div class="indent2">I follow my Lady of beauty and grace,</div> -<div class="indent2">Drunk with the light of her glorious face,</div> -<div class="indent2">And you, you go to your own place:</div> -<div class="indent2">And a poison breeds in your heart.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I go with the Republic.</div> -<div class="indent2">The Empire stands by your side.</div> -<div class="indent2">You love her now. In a time not far</div> -<div class="indent2">You will look in your heart where your dead hopes are,</div> -<div class="indent2">And curse her for a lamia,</div> -<div class="indent2">The serpent you called bride.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">We part. Our ways are far henceforth.</div> -<div class="indent2">Henceforth our speech is with spears,</div> -<div class="indent2">I curse you not. Strive on for your prize</div> -<div class="indent2">Till the last thick darkness covers your eyes</div> -<div class="indent2">And the voice of the dead Republic cries</div> -<div class="indent2">Forever in your ears.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">Follow your foe o’er land and sea,</div> -<div class="indent2">River and bush and stone!</div> -<div class="indent2">When the end has come to the weary race</div> -<div class="indent2">And the slain man lies in his fated place,</div> -<div class="indent2">You shall draw the veil from the white dead face,</div> -<div class="indent2">And shriek, knowing your own!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">Calinus ... Calinus ... To be saved or lost....</div> -<div class="indent2">What! Curio and Antony are without?</div> -<div class="indent2">Curio! Antony! Welcome!... What ... you say</div> -<div class="indent2">They drove you from the Senate?... I must make</div> -<div class="indent2">Decision now....</div> -<div class="indent11">Comrades! The die is cast!</div> -<div class="indent2">We march tomorrow on Ariminum!</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">AFTER PHARSALIA</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> - - - -<p class="ph1">AFTER PHARSALIA</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>POMPEY.</small> 48 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So it is over; you have won at last,</div> -<div class="verse">And our long struggle ends and with it Rome,</div> -<div class="verse">The Rome that was the glory of the past,</div> -<div class="verse">Whose stripped fleets ruled the seas, shaking the foam</div> -<div class="verse">From their proud prows. They brought a freedom then.</div> -<div class="verse">Freedom and the Republic. Once. No more.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Well, it was fated, my most trusted men</div> -<div class="verse">Failed me at need; as your chiefs will fail you,</div> -<div class="verse">O Caesar! You I neither fear nor hate.</div> -<div class="verse">We strove not with each other but with fate.</div> -<div class="verse">Your followers will ruin what you do;</div> -<div class="verse">Since you are honest, and will strive to make</div> -<div class="verse">New laws and found an Empire, which, at least,</div> -<div class="verse">Gives Justice equally to all. The stake</div> -<div class="verse">Is high. They have sat long now at their feast,</div> -<div class="verse">With Rome their pig-trough. They will conquer you;</div> -<div class="verse">A hundred dwarfs, pulling a giant down.</div> -<div class="verse">The problem is too great, the time not ripe</div> -<div class="verse">For its solution.</div> -<div class="indent9">We have fought, we two!</div> -<div class="verse">For the Republic I, you for your crown,</div> -<div class="verse">Each one of his own cause the very type.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Though both of us have failed, your cause yet rules,</div> -<div class="verse">Your Empire.</div> -<div class="indent9">Any fool can govern fools.</div> -<div class="verse">To make fools rule themselves and do it well,</div> -<div class="verse">That is the task. If you could rule forever,</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar ... but little men will seize your work,</div> -<div class="verse">Your great machine. There’s where the paths dissever!</div> -<div class="verse">And Rome roars blindly down amid the murk</div> -<div class="verse">To swift destruction....</div> -<div class="indent15">Still one chance remains</div> -<div class="verse">Where my disbanded legions fill the plains</div> -<div class="verse">Of Egypt. A bare chance. If that fails too,</div> -<div class="verse">Why, “Here lies Cnæus Pompey, called the Great,</div> -<div class="verse">He fought for the Republic, loved his wife,</div> -<div class="verse">And climbed the ladder of swords that men call Life.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Stretching straight from the viewless Pit,</div> -<div class="verse">To the skies that are shamed because of it,</div> -<div class="verse">Lit with a blue and hungry fire,</div> -<div class="verse">That blasts like the breath of fulfilled Desire,</div> -<div class="verse">Glory and Shame in its secret hoards,</div> -<div class="verse">It stands supreme, the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>You must climb it?</i> Aye, with all men born!</div> -<div class="verse"><i>When?</i> When you reel from the common scorn,</div> -<div class="verse">When utter Defeat has gripped you fast,</div> -<div class="verse">And your life goes down in the dark at last;</div> -<div class="verse">When the things you builded dissolve like mist,</div> -<div class="verse">And Love has broken his faith and tryst,</div> -<div class="verse">And your body strains at the torturers’ cords,</div> -<div class="verse">You have come at last to the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -<div class="verse"><i>Will you find a friend?</i> One friend alone,</div> -<div class="verse">Flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone,</div> -<div class="verse">The last strange Courage that mocks Despair,</div> -<div class="verse">That hunts the wolf with the wounded hare,</div> -<div class="verse">That throws your life in the jaws of death</div> -<div class="verse">To snatch it back in a single breath.</div> -<div class="verse">Blinded no longer by pomp and words,</div> -<div class="verse">You shall go up stark to the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Though your torn feet slip on the bloody steel,</div> -<div class="verse">Though your body faint and your senses reel,</div> -<div class="verse">Dizzied with agony, blind and numb,</div> -<div class="verse">You shall crawl the rungs till the end is come;</div> -<div class="verse">Though the sun flare out and the heavens crack,</div> -<div class="verse">Nor god nor devil can turn you back!</div> -<div class="verse">This is the prize that Defeat accords!</div> -<div class="verse">Courage! Courage! The Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yes, by the gods! Caesar, the day is yours,</div> -<div class="verse">You rule the world—while you debauch the State.</div> -<div class="verse">Yet, somewhere, beyond all, there still endures,</div> -<div class="verse">That pure Republic: and its white walls shine,</div> -<div class="verse">Proudly, a dream no conquests can dispel.</div> -<div class="verse">Your hosts toil uselessly; no force can take</div> -<div class="verse">Those walls. Your legionaries break and break,</div> -<div class="verse">In vain. Ever, before each bleeding line,</div> -<div class="verse">It rises still, the Vision Invincible!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="transnote"> - - -<p class="ph2">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</p> - - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -</div> - - - -<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 62494 ***</div> -</body> -</html> - diff --git a/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5a2a279..0000000 --- a/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg b/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b25c7be..0000000 --- a/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg b/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d2db097..0000000 --- a/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/62494-0.txt b/old/old/62494-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2aaf8bc..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1228 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Benét - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Five Men and Pompey - A Series of Dramatic Portraits - -Author: Stephen Vincent Benét - -Release Date: June 26, 2020 [EBook #62494] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE MEN AND POMPEY *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - - - - -THE COVER DESIGN IS BY ELIHU VEDDER - - - - -UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME - - - LAODICE AND DANAË _Play in Verse_ - By _Gordon Bottomley_ - - IMAGES--OLD AND NEW _Poems_ - By _Richard Aldington_ - - THE ENGLISH TONGUE AND OTHER POEMS - By _Lewis Worthington Smith_ - - FIVE MEN AND POMPEY _Dramatic Portraits_ - By _Stephen Vincent Benét_ - - HORIZONS _Poems_ - By _Robert Alden Sanborn_ - - THE TRAGEDY _A Fantasy in Verse_ - By _Gilbert Moyle_ - - - - - FIVE MEN AND POMPEY - - _A Series of Dramatic Portraits_ - - BY - STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY - 1915 - - - - - _Copyright, 1915, by_ - THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY - - THE FOUR SEAS PRESS - BOSTON AND NORWOOD - - - - -CONTENTS - - - THE LAST BANQUET 9 - - LUCULLUS DINES-- 17 - - THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN 23 - - AD ATTICUM 31 - - DE BELLO CIVILI 37 - - AFTER PHARSALIA 45 - - - - -THE LAST BANQUET - - - - -THE LAST BANQUET - -[SERTORIUS SPEAKS. B. C. 72] - - - Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last - My power is--secure? Still Pompey lives - And has an army and Metellus strives - To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast: - Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men - Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny. - Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen - Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp - Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me. - The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp-- - Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes, - Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood - For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome. - I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood. - And now all vanishes in plots and gibes-- - I love this warm, brown land; it is my home. - And yet--to see the Forum once again! - Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died - I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men, - These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome’s side; - I could have brought back the Republic--then. - You died. I still fight on, but I am old. - Pompey is young, and though I beat him now, - He will be victor, as the end will show. - Ah, Plancus, enter! Is the night so cold - That you need shroud yourself in that great cloak? - You too, Perpenna, Cimon, you who broke - So bravely through the foe, you fear a draught? - Be seated, friends! - - My comrades, we have laughed - And feasted for an hour together, yet - I have not told you why I summoned thus - My ten most trusted leaders to this feast. - Now is the time! I shall discharge the debt. - Glorious tidings come from out the East! - And Mithridates hurries aid to us-- - Let not that goblet fall I pray thee, friend!-- - Ah! Dog and traitor! So this was your end! - Guards! Guards!--I think you will not rise again, - Perpenna, from that blow! Guards! Ho there, men! - A-a-ah! Thank you, Pompey! No, you will not take - Me back to grace your triumph: they have done - Their work too well, your friends. My sands are run. - And you have burst all barriers left to break - That shielded the Republic. It is dead. - - Not with a pomp of banners, - Not with a flare of spears, - Not with mourning or head downcast - The great Republic dies at last; - A sword in the heart and the hands bound fast, - Dead in the wreck of the years! - - Pompey, Pompey, chief of pride, - Hero and lord of Rome! - You ride to a gallant triumph now, - Gay as the green and fruitful bough; - But the bough will be withered and dry enow - When you ride for the last time home! - - Pompey, Pompey, laugh while you may! - Laugh as Polycrates laughed! - But ever, when life is most glorious, - I bid you think of Sertorius, - Of how he rode forth victorious, - And how he was slain by craft. - - I have been slain by great lords; - But a slave shall strike you down, - A slave shall strike you down from behind, - And your strength shall fail, and your sight go blind, - And your body a nameless grave shall find, - You, that strove for a crown! - - Pompey, Pompey, turn where you may! - You shall get but little ease. - For whether on sea or whether on land, - One picture shall ever before you stand-- - A man struck down on a barren strand-- - A head hacked off by the seas! - - Pompey, Pompey, go where you will, - Double and turn again! - One thought shall you know till you lie in your grave; - A thought not even your soul can brave!-- - The thought of a mean and evil slave, - And a knife that was forged in Spain! - - So the Republic dies! and all my work - Is vain; the things I built are shattered now, - My task is done, the task I dared not shirk; - And I am very tired. Nydia, come! - Come as you came that day down the green walk, - The day I rode in triumph back to Rome, - After the Cimbri had been crushed--and talk, - Talk as we talked that day beside the pool, - Shadowed by ilex, where the golden hearts - Of lilies burned within the water cool,-- - Nydia! But she stays not, she departs! - The marble seat--you lifted up your face-- - I have fought long now. I am weary. Come! - Nydia! Nydia! and lead me home! - Home! How the Forum blazes in the sun! - The Roman faces and the kindly speech; - The melon-sellers, proffering to each - That comes, ripe, green-streaked melons--What! you shun - An old friend, Balbus? No! It was not I! - No! by the gods! I never gave consent - To those red days of massacre!----They cry! - Oh gods! they cry, cry, they are not yet dead! - They _will_ not die: they hurl upon my head - Curses and prayers! I hear them in my tent! - They are not dead! Oh gods! They are not dead! - I never gave consent! - - Still the time slips - And Nydia comes not. I am very tired. - The things are broken to which I aspired, - And you alone are left. Love! She is here - Nydia, Nydia.... - - - - -LUCULLUS DINES-- - - - - -LUCULLUS DINES-- - -[59 B. C.] - - - I dine in the Apollo room tonight, - With Cicero and Pompey! See to it! - - Cicero! Pompey! But ten years ago - Lucullus was the hero, Conqueror - Of Mithridates, Rescuer of Rome! - All’s Pompey now; he goes far--and has gone; - And, with it all, is just the honest, brave, - Young captain that I saw that hot, raw, day; - The first day of my shame. Oh gods, gods, gods! - Must Rome have always victories, victories, - Incredible conquests till the whole world reels, - And still thrust traps into my path until - I fall at last? - When Pompey came I knew. - Oh he was kind, quite kind, considerate - Of the old bitter man there who had failed, - Recalled without a triumph! He was kind - In all his splendid, conquering, strength and youth! - Yet, I had beaten Mithridates. So - Let the old lion growl through teeth once sharp! - This sordid squabble of a vulgar crowd - Of stiff patricians, ranting demagogues, - Serves well for others. I, I have my trees, - My cherries, rooted firm in Roman soil, - Shedding a delicate whiteness on the hills - When spring comes. A far greater triumph that - Than all my conquests. - Yes, they know me well, - These young men, “That old dragon on the hill, - Who gives such gorgeous dinners. Gods, his wines! - Fit for Apollo!” - Yes, an excellent host, - Learned in sauces, skilled in oysters, game; - Within whose heart no spark of ancient fire - Burns on.... Oh Power! Power! Once to lead - An army, once again, and see the thick - Rain of the Parthian arrows and the blaze - As forty brazen cohorts broke the foe! - The thin lines buckle, the black masses fly! - _Imperator Romanus!_ - No, Lucullus, - But the good host who--plants his cherry-trees! - - Love? I have loved once, once.... That awful day - We stormed in through the gates of Amisus.... - The loot-mad soldiers, howling, smote the town - Down in a mud of blood and dirt and wine, - Bodies and gold and priceless tapestries. - Half-mad I rushed to stop them, beat and struck; - I think they would have murdered me at once, - But that one drunkard yelled “The General! - Lower your swords, lads! Sir, we won this town! - You take your pleasures and let us take ours!” - I reeled into the blackness of an arch, - And saw before me, white-robed, laurel-crowned, - Just such a maiden as might once have danced - Along the friezes of the Parthenon; - A face like that on an old silver coin, - Demetrius sent me, clear-cut, beautiful - With all the burning beauty of the Greek. - Pure and serene her grey eyes gazed in mine.... - We spoke few words; what need to speak at all - When just our eyes told all we had to tell, - There in the soft, cool blackness, splashed with light - From the red pools of burning wine without? - - Few words. They chime like little silver bells - Within my heart now, or like trumpet blasts - Bear up my soul a little towards the gods. - - We had three years. She died before my fall. - - I thought of love as a crooked knife, - As a soft and passionate lord; - Born when the kings’ beards dipped in wine - And the gold cups clashed on the board. - But my love came like a blast of cold, - A straight, clean, sword. - - I thought of love as a secret thing, - For an hour of incensed ease, - When breast and breast together cling, - Under sweet-scented trees. - My love is all good-comradeship, - More great than these. - - I thought of love as a toy for a day, - Soon to be over-passed; - Light and frail as a hollow shell, - That into the brook is cast. - My love holds while the earth endures, - And the suns stand fast. - - I thought of love as mixed with earth, - One with the bloom of the sods. - My love is air and wine and fire, - Breaker of metes and rods, - A slender javelin tipped with light, - Hurled at the gods. - - Life lies before me like a platter of coins. - “Here are the new ones! Mark the choice design!” - All cry: for me the others fade and dim, - And one alone shines clear, an old Greek coin - Demetrius sent me ... and that lovely face.... - - Pompey would say that I am growing old, - And Cicero would turn a phrase with me - In his next great oration, as a type - Of the old fool who mumbles of days past. - - Meanwhile I have my orchards--and my feasts. - Those turbot now; the sauce is very good, - A peacock’s breast is good, too, at this time, - With other things, as----old Falernian, - Tarentine oysters, and sweet wines from Thrace.... - - Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace. - - - - -THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN - - - - -THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN - -[CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C. 53] - - - Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know, - That I will answer this new embassy - Within the hour.... They will mutiny, - If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do? - _What shall I do?_ The trap is plain enough - To me; but they, they only see the rough, - Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud - Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there. - Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near! - Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make. - - I boasted once. The gods like not the proud. - And I shall die in this red waste of sand, - Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake. - A thousand slaves bowed down at my command; - I lived in ivory palaces of delight; - I ruled an empire ... here is all my might; - An old and wearied man in a bare tent, - Whence, presently, I shall go out to die. - - How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie - The next in fury: none will dare lament. - Caesar will listen with a little smile, - A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part, - Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart. - Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile, - And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.” - Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest, - That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl - How, “Crassus was a madman at the best, - And in this last attempt, a blind old owl, - A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword. - He blundered here and here! His whole campaign - Was one great blunder!” So with one accord, - They howl. - To praise is hard, easy to damn. - I failed in this. Some other will succeed. - - Yet they are right, in part. That day, far back, - When by the borderline I checked my steed.... - Our spies had said the Parthian army lay - Encamped near by and ready for the fray. - We found no army; nothing but a track, - Thousands of footprints stamped in the red sand, - Where a great host had passed. A sudden fear - Seized on the legions and on every hand - The men shrank back.... No foe stood anywhere, - Nothing but scarlet sand and brassy sky, - And men aghast at signs traced on the ground, - A ring of white, scared faces, without sound. - - Then afterwards, there came that burning march - Under a sky of flame, continually. - Our very armor seemed to shrink and parch - Beneath that sun; our tongues grew swelled and black; - And ever circling, circling, front and back, - The Parthians galloped in a cloud of dust. - They would not turn and fight but slew us thus. - Their bitter arrows came like hail on us. - Our strongest dropped and died without a blow. - Then, beyond Carrhæ, trusting in our woe, - They turned at last and stood to wait our thrust. - But two things I remember of that fight. - How Publius went out--the burning light - Smote on his armor, turning it to gold, - Save where, a sunset cloud, his red cloak rolled; - And in his face was joy and keen delight, - Youth and a boy’s high heart and great resolves.... - A golden knight he stood, a golden knight.... - He rides away, the crimson cloud dissolves.... - - One other picture burns within my brain, - Like white-hot sand; and will burn now until - I go into the trap tonight.... Again - The dust cloud rose, and from a little hill - I saw the sheen of spearheads at its rim, - And near the rim a spot of black that grew, - Grew, grew, till earth and sky alike were dim; - For there was nought but it in earth and sky.... - Nought but a black, dead, face ... a face I knew.... - The lips were bloody ... down upon the pike - Dripped long slow drops like tears.... I hear them now, - Gathering, hanging.... Gods! they strike and strike!... - Dripping forever on my naked heart.... - Great tears of blood.... Once, very long ago, - I had a son.... How glad he seemed to start - On that attack!... No ... no ... I shall go mad! - I must not think how glad he was!... how glad.... - - We fell back towards the mountains. Cassius took - Another way. He may be slain or safe, - I know not; for myself, my legious chafe - And mutiny, I die here. But as I look - So close to death, I see that what I strove - To do will yet be done and Rome shall rule - Forever o’er the bloody road I clove. - I break ... but she will find another tool. - - Ere the first sword was sharpened and the first trumpet blown - Rome looked upon the new-made lands and marked them for her own! - Ere the first ship was timbered and the first rudder hung - Rome held the oceans in her hands, splendid and stern and young! - - The wild tribes bend before her, the kings are overthrown, - The purple empires of the East before her feet fall down. - From strange barbaric countries her captains bring her spoil, - Treasures of gems and ivory, spices and wines and oil. - - Wheat grows for her in Egypt; for her the Greek scribes write, - For her the diver dares the shark, the fowler scales the height, - To feed her great arenas the bold beast-tamer quakes - Among the tawny lions or the hissing pits of snakes. - - Her legions march in Asia, they tramp through Farthest Gaul, - In Greece their horns blow up the dawn, in Spain they stand a wall. - And still upon her Seven Hills Rome rules the seas and tides, - The earth and all that in it is, while that stern strength abides. - - Hail for the last time, Mother! Your sons stand here at bay. - Still you have sons for conquest. We fall the Roman way! - Our cheers still ringing, our short swords drawn, - We die here singing, but Rome, Rome goes on! - - Ah! Yes, Valerius, I will answer them. - - Comrades! I know these terms are but a trap: - Yet I would rather die by Parthian swords - Than Roman. - After I am dead push on, - Straight to the mountains; once the heights are won, - You can defy at last these swarming hordes. - Break camp at once to guard against mishap. - Farewell! Valerius is your general now.... - - Up there, you say, upon that hillock’s brow - They wait?... Yes, I can see the glint of steel.... - - - - -AD ATTICUM - - - - -AD ATTICUM - -[CICERO. 48 B. C.] - - - How hot it is! Faint waves of heat steam up - From the burnt sand without, like threads of glass, - Blurring the vision. In the dark, cool rooms - Within, all are asleep, and not a sound - Breaks the tense stillness.... Why should I not sleep? - This letter here, to Atticus, can wait.... - No! I had better write it now, this court - Is cool enough, the plashing fountain pleasant, - Stylus and tablets on the table there.... - Let me begin!... Where did I buy this style? - Oh yes, at Patras, where we had to leave - Poor Tiro sick--well, he is better now-- - And, Jupiter be thanked! I have escaped - Safely from that accursed province! Gods! - Now, even now, the names ring in my brain, - The petty lawsuits which I must adjudge, - The protests from the people, stricken down - Under a shameful load of usury, - Oppressed by every Roman thief that crept - Into some petty office. Gods, those trials! - They made me old before my time. That case - Between Valerius and Volusius! - And Brutus, the immaculate, with his interest - Of forty-eight per cent! - What shall I say - To Atticus? “Caesar and I are friends.” - Or, “Next week I shall sail from Formia - And seek out Pompey.” - There they stand, gouged plain - On the smooth wax. I rub them both out--so! - - Caesar, which shall I write? I was your friend. - Pompey has helped me always. Over all - Stands Rome. This war I hate as I hate Hell, - And yet must take one side.... You made the war, - Caesar ... and the Republic perishes, - If you are victor.... That one fact ends all. - Rome will be better ruled? There’s something more - Than better rule, something for which men die. - May I have grace to die so at the end, - Grace to pursue my vision to the last, - Though all my body is one sweat of blood; - Grace to reach up and touch her garment’s hem - And see her smile down in that last, black place - Where the swords fall. I shall be happy then. - All heaven and earth will be repaid to me, - In that one glance, before the swords sweep down. - - Life is a dream and a rapture, life is a voice and a breath, - A gust of wind and a darkness, puffed in the face of Death, - Life is a treacherous river, a house that sinks in the sand, - A gift that poisons the giver, a ring that withers the hand. - - Yet, when a man is mighty, that dream is more than the truth, - That wailing wind in the darkness more bright than the fires of youth, - The ring gives wisdom and power, the house stands up like a rock, - The river roars from the mountains, and his foemen reel at its shock. - - These are our mighty fellows, we are akin to these, - The men who burn on the deserts, who drown in the pathless seas, - Not for gold or for power or gems some king has thieved, - But simply to follow a vision, to see a dream achieved! - - So, though we stand beleaguered, though the foe comes on like the sea, - Though slaves fall down as he passes, and helot bend at his knee, - Though there is no escaping, though the last hope is gone, - Here in the sight of all men we buckle our armor on! - - Whatever chances, Tullia is safe; - I only risk myself ... and so, at last, - I shall begin my letter ... yet I wonder - If, after this, I shall see Formia - Ever again.... No need to think of that! - Tullia will be safe ... and Atticus; - But, for the rest--I have lost many friends - Already.... Bah! Come, let me get to work!... - Tullia will be safe.... Hail, Atticus! - - - - -DE BELLO CIVILI - - - - -DE BELLO CIVILI - -[CAESAR. 49 B. C.] - - - More letters? Lay them down here. - Antony, - Curio, Cicero--even Atticus-- - Well, what does Antony say, “Strike quick and hard! - March your picked Gauls on Rome!” H’m? “All the city - Is gone stark mad against you.” Oh, of course! - “At the next meeting of the Senate”? Ah! - “I will suggest both you and Pompey lay - Aside your several commands.” All hangs - On that one offer--If they should refuse, - I strike at last!... - Well, Curio, “Dare you not - Give up the provinces? All would be well. - It is the one thing Pompey now demands-- - Impossible of course--” Gods, Curio! - “Give up the provinces”! For twenty years - I have toiled up this hill--and now at last - Stand here, proconsul of a barren land, - A swarming, seething pot of plots and lies, - Where every day brings forth a fresh revolt. - Others had rich lands in the peaceful East, - They fought with armies, I a people. Now, - After nine years these Gauls are not subdued. - I stand alone against a forest fire ... - But even this they will not suffer, no, - Not even that I waste my life in vain - In these vast woods. They call me to return, - “A private citizen as Pompey did.” - No, to return disgraced, shut out forever - From all great deeds.... - What say you, Cicero? - “I know you do not want a civil war.” - H’m. “Rome mistaken--.” H’m. “Why should you care - For all these dogs that bark at great men’s heels? - You say your foes are wrong--It may be so, - At least they act with one thought in their minds, - That you wish civil war for your own ends. - Why not disprove them, strike them dumb, resign - Your provinces!” and let them cut my throat! - “Return to Rome a citizen. That one act - Would make you just--immortal, and they, they, - Would shrink back to their holes, never again - To dare the splendor of the day and truth. - Pompey is not against you. Him I know. - And he would be as generous a friend - As you could wish--resign his legions too--” - Ah, Cicero!--What’s this, here at the end? - “Remember the Republic! Caesar, Caesar! - Gaze not in that Medusa’s face. Your soul - Stands here at stake, you hold the fate of Rome - In your two hands. Gaze not in that dread face!” - - Another letter! What ... from Calinus ... - How our lives part ... and men part.... Why the last - Time that I saw him was ... how long ago ... - Ten ... twenty years ... on the white walls of Rhodes - We talked that evening on the flat, wide roof - Of the old merchant’s house where he was lodged. - I was to leave tomorrow, and we lay - Under the blazing stars. A brown slave girl - Plucked at a lute whose drowsy murmur died - Throbbingly into sweetness.... We were young - And all our gorgeous dreams marched forth in state - Past the great purple bales of Syrian rugs, - Over the thin brown frails of dates, until - The skies were full of color, great broad bands ... - Crimson like pigeon’s blood, blue like the sea, - Yellow like old, old ivory.... The stars waned. - Next day we parted. Friend, friend of my youth, - What have you now to say? Today I make - The last decision, take one course of two, - Be saved or lost ... friend ... friend ... friend of my youth.... - - “Caesar, the swords are ready, - The swords you have tempered long, - War and peace are held in your hand, - You stand at length where you longed to stand; - By civil war you would heal a land, - And by wrong you would better a wrong. - - Power and Strength and Empire, - These are full mighty words. - One thing, men’s Freedom, is higher than all. - And better a hut though it totter and fall, - A broken temple, a ruined wall, - Than a land subdued by your swords! - - We have walked for a time together. - The roads fork and we part. - I follow my Lady of beauty and grace, - Drunk with the light of her glorious face, - And you, you go to your own place: - And a poison breeds in your heart. - - I go with the Republic. - The Empire stands by your side. - You love her now. In a time not far - You will look in your heart where your dead hopes are, - And curse her for a lamia, - The serpent you called bride. - - We part. Our ways are far henceforth. - Henceforth our speech is with spears, - I curse you not. Strive on for your prize - Till the last thick darkness covers your eyes - And the voice of the dead Republic cries - Forever in your ears. - - Follow your foe o’er land and sea, - River and bush and stone! - When the end has come to the weary race - And the slain man lies in his fated place, - You shall draw the veil from the white dead face, - And shriek, knowing your own!” - - Calinus ... Calinus ... To be saved or lost.... - What! Curio and Antony are without? - Curio! Antony! Welcome!... What ... you say - They drove you from the Senate?... I must make - Decision now.... - Comrades! The die is cast! - We march tomorrow on Ariminum! - - - - -AFTER PHARSALIA - - - - -AFTER PHARSALIA - -[POMPEY. 48 B. C.] - - - So it is over; you have won at last, - And our long struggle ends and with it Rome, - The Rome that was the glory of the past, - Whose stripped fleets ruled the seas, shaking the foam - From their proud prows. They brought a freedom then. - Freedom and the Republic. Once. No more. - - Well, it was fated, my most trusted men - Failed me at need; as your chiefs will fail you, - O Caesar! You I neither fear nor hate. - We strove not with each other but with fate. - Your followers will ruin what you do; - Since you are honest, and will strive to make - New laws and found an Empire, which, at least, - Gives Justice equally to all. The stake - Is high. They have sat long now at their feast, - With Rome their pig-trough. They will conquer you; - A hundred dwarfs, pulling a giant down. - The problem is too great, the time not ripe - For its solution. - We have fought, we two! - For the Republic I, you for your crown, - Each one of his own cause the very type. - Though both of us have failed, your cause yet rules, - Your Empire. - Any fool can govern fools. - To make fools rule themselves and do it well, - That is the task. If you could rule forever, - Caesar ... but little men will seize your work, - Your great machine. There’s where the paths dissever! - And Rome roars blindly down amid the murk - To swift destruction.... - Still one chance remains - Where my disbanded legions fill the plains - Of Egypt. A bare chance. If that fails too, - Why, “Here lies Cnæus Pompey, called the Great, - He fought for the Republic, loved his wife, - And climbed the ladder of swords that men call Life.” - - Stretching straight from the viewless Pit, - To the skies that are shamed because of it, - Lit with a blue and hungry fire, - That blasts like the breath of fulfilled Desire, - Glory and Shame in its secret hoards, - It stands supreme, the Ladder of Swords! - - _You must climb it?_ Aye, with all men born! - _When?_ When you reel from the common scorn, - When utter Defeat has gripped you fast, - And your life goes down in the dark at last; - When the things you builded dissolve like mist, - And Love has broken his faith and tryst, - And your body strains at the torturers’ cords, - You have come at last to the Ladder of Swords! - - _Will you find a friend?_ One friend alone, - Flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone, - The last strange Courage that mocks Despair, - That hunts the wolf with the wounded hare, - That throws your life in the jaws of death - To snatch it back in a single breath. - Blinded no longer by pomp and words, - You shall go up stark to the Ladder of Swords! - - Though your torn feet slip on the bloody steel, - Though your body faint and your senses reel, - Dizzied with agony, blind and numb, - You shall crawl the rungs till the end is come; - Though the sun flare out and the heavens crack, - Nor god nor devil can turn you back! - This is the prize that Defeat accords! - Courage! Courage! The Ladder of Swords! - - Yes, by the gods! Caesar, the day is yours, - You rule the world--while you debauch the State. - Yet, somewhere, beyond all, there still endures, - That pure Republic: and its white walls shine, - Proudly, a dream no conquests can dispel. - Your hosts toil uselessly; no force can take - Those walls. Your legionaries break and break, - In vain. Ever, before each bleeding line, - It rises still, the Vision Invincible! - - - - -TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: - - - Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Benét - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE MEN AND POMPEY *** - -***** This file should be named 62494-0.txt or 62494-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/4/9/62494/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - diff --git a/old/old/62494-0.zip b/old/old/62494-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 31e5735..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/62494-h.zip b/old/old/62494-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index f810d2b..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm b/old/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index bd67dfa..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-h/62494-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,1525 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Bent. - </title> -<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2 { - text-align: center; - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} -h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} - -div.titlepage {text-align: center; page-break-before: always; page-break-after: always;} -div.titlepage p {text-align: center; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: 2em;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: 33.5%; - margin-right: 33.5%; - clear: both; -} - -hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} -hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} -hr.tiny {width: 20%; margin-left: 40%; margin-right: 40%;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - - .tdl {text-indent: 2em;} - .tdr {text-align: right;} - - -.pagenum { - position: absolute; - left: 92%; - font-size: smaller; - text-align: right; -} - - - - -.center {text-align: center;} - - - -.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} - - - - - - -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.large {font-size: 125%;} -.xlarge {font-size: 150%;} - -.ph1 {text-align: center; font-size: x-large; font-weight: bold;} -.ph2 {text-align: center; font-size: large; font-weight: bold;} - - -.poetry-container {text-align: center;} -.poetry {display: inline-block; text-align: left;} -.poetry .verse {text-indent: -2.5em; padding-left: 3em;} -.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em auto;} -.poetry .indent2 {text-indent: 2.5em;} -.poetry .indent8 {text-indent: 6.5em;} -.poetry .indent9 {text-indent: 7.5em;} -.poetry .indent11 {text-indent: 9.5em;} -.poetry .indent12 {text-indent: 10.5em;} -.poetry .indent13 {text-indent: 11.5em;} -.poetry .indent15 {text-indent: 13em;} -.poetry .indent18 {text-indent: 15em;} - -.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; - color: black; - font-size:smaller; - padding:0.5em; - margin-bottom:5em; - font-family:sans-serif, serif; } - </style> - </head> - - - -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Benét - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: Five Men and Pompey - A Series of Dramatic Portraits - -Author: Stephen Vincent Benét - -Release Date: June 26, 2020 [EBook #62494] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE MEN AND POMPEY *** - - - - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" /></div> -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<p class="center"><span class="large"><b>THE COVER DESIGN IS BY ELIHU VEDDER</b></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME</h2></div> - -<hr class="tiny" /> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Laodice and Dana</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Play in Verse</i></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Gordon Bottomley</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Images—Old and New</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Poems</i></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Richard Aldington</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The English Tongue and Other Poems</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Lewis Worthington Smith</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Five Men and Pompey</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Dramatic Portraits</i></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Stephen Vincent Bent</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Horizons</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>Poems</i></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Robert Alden Sanborn</i></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Tragedy</span></td><td class="tdr"> <i>A Fantasy in Verse</i></td></tr> -<tr><td class="tdl">By <i>Gilbert Moyle</i></td></tr> -</table> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="titlepage"> - - -<h1>FIVE MEN AND POMPEY</h1> - -<p><span class="xlarge"><i>A Series of Dramatic Portraits</i></span></p> - -<p>BY<br /> -<span class="large">STEPHEN VINCENT BENT</span></p> - -<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/i_titlelogo.jpg" alt="" /></div> - -<p><span class="smcap">Boston<br /> -The Four Seas Company</span><br /> -1915</p> - -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<p class="center"> -<i>Copyright, 1915, by</i><br /> -THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY<br /> -<br /> -THE FOUR SEAS PRESS<br /> -BOSTON AND NORWOOD</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2></div> - - - - -<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" summary="table"> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Last Banquet</span></td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9"> 9</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Lucullus Dines</span>— </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_17"> 17</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Forlorn Campaign </span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_23"> 23</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Ad Atticum</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_31"> 31</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">De Bello Civili</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37"> 37</a></td></tr> - -<tr><td><span class="smcap">After Pharsalia</span> </td><td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_45"> 45</a></td></tr> -</table> - - - - - - - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE LAST BANQUET</h2></div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="ph1">THE LAST BANQUET</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>SERTORIUS SPEAKS. B. C.</small> 72]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Twelve years! Twelve years of striving! and at last</div> -<div class="verse">My power is—secure? Still Pompey lives</div> -<div class="verse">And has an army and Metellus strives</div> -<div class="verse">To wipe out his defeats. The net is cast:</div> -<div class="verse">Cast, and draws ever tighter: and my men</div> -<div class="verse">Grumble and mutter, near to mutiny.</div> -<div class="verse">Perpenna stirs up treason: like a fen</div> -<div class="verse">Of black and quaking marshes, my own camp</div> -<div class="verse">Boils up all foulness, gapes to swallow me.</div> -<div class="verse">The black death-chariot waits, the coursers stamp—</div> -<div class="verse">Yet I have made a law, have curbed the tribes,</div> -<div class="verse">Built up a senate, founded schools, withstood</div> -<div class="verse">For twelve long years the iron arm of Rome.</div> -<div class="verse">I have not spared my time, my gold, my blood.</div> -<div class="verse">And now all vanishes in plots and gibes—</div> -<div class="verse">I love this warm, brown land; it is my home.</div> -<div class="verse">And yet—to see the Forum once again!</div> -<div class="verse">Ah, Nydia! Nydia! Had you not died</div> -<div class="verse">I could have crossed the Alps, have crushed these men,</div> -<div class="verse">These unclean vultures, tearing at Rome’s side;</div> -<div class="verse">I could have brought back the Republic—then.</div> -<div class="verse">You died. I still fight on, but I am old.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey is young, and though I beat him now,</div> -<div class="verse">He will be victor, as the end will show.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Ah, Plancus, enter! Is the night so cold</div> -<div class="verse">That you need shroud yourself in that great cloak?</div> -<div class="verse">You too, Perpenna, Cimon, you who broke</div> -<div class="verse">So bravely through the foe, you fear a draught?</div> -<div class="verse">Be seated, friends!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent9">My comrades, we have laughed</div> -<div class="verse">And feasted for an hour together, yet</div> -<div class="verse">I have not told you why I summoned thus</div> -<div class="verse">My ten most trusted leaders to this feast.</div> -<div class="verse">Now is the time! I shall discharge the debt.</div> -<div class="verse">Glorious tidings come from out the East!</div> -<div class="verse">And Mithridates hurries aid to us—</div> -<div class="verse">Let not that goblet fall I pray thee, friend!—</div> -<div class="verse">Ah! Dog and traitor! So this was your end!</div> -<div class="verse">Guards! Guards!—I think you will not rise again,</div> -<div class="verse">Perpenna, from that blow! Guards! Ho there, men!</div> -<div class="verse">A-a-ah! Thank you, Pompey! No, you will not take</div> -<div class="verse">Me back to grace your triumph: they have done</div> -<div class="verse">Their work too well, your friends. My sands are run.</div> -<div class="verse">And you have burst all barriers left to break</div> -<div class="verse">That shielded the Republic. It is dead.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Not with a pomp of banners,</div> -<div class="verse">Not with a flare of spears,</div> -<div class="verse">Not with mourning or head downcast</div> -<div class="verse">The great Republic dies at last;</div> -<div class="verse">A sword in the heart and the hands bound fast,</div> -<div class="verse">Dead in the wreck of the years!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, chief of pride,</div> -<div class="verse">Hero and lord of Rome!</div> -<div class="verse">You ride to a gallant triumph now,</div> -<div class="verse">Gay as the green and fruitful bough;</div> -<div class="verse">But the bough will be withered and dry enow</div> -<div class="verse">When you ride for the last time home!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, laugh while you may!</div> -<div class="verse">Laugh as Polycrates laughed!</div> -<div class="verse">But ever, when life is most glorious,</div> -<div class="verse">I bid you think of Sertorius,</div> -<div class="verse">Of how he rode forth victorious,</div> -<div class="verse">And how he was slain by craft.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I have been slain by great lords;</div> -<div class="verse">But a slave shall strike you down,</div> -<div class="verse">A slave shall strike you down from behind,</div> -<div class="verse">And your strength shall fail, and your sight go blind,</div> -<div class="verse">And your body a nameless grave shall find,</div> -<div class="verse">You, that strove for a crown!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, turn where you may!</div> -<div class="verse">You shall get but little ease.</div> -<div class="verse">For whether on sea or whether on land,</div> -<div class="verse">One picture shall ever before you stand—</div> -<div class="verse">A man struck down on a barren strand—</div> -<div class="verse">A head hacked off by the seas!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey, Pompey, go where you will,</div> -<div class="verse">Double and turn again!</div> -<div class="verse">One thought shall you know till you lie in your grave;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> -<div class="verse">A thought not even your soul can brave!—</div> -<div class="verse">The thought of a mean and evil slave,</div> -<div class="verse">And a knife that was forged in Spain!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So the Republic dies! and all my work</div> -<div class="verse">Is vain; the things I built are shattered now,</div> -<div class="verse">My task is done, the task I dared not shirk;</div> -<div class="verse">And I am very tired. Nydia, come!</div> -<div class="verse">Come as you came that day down the green walk,</div> -<div class="verse">The day I rode in triumph back to Rome,</div> -<div class="verse">After the Cimbri had been crushed—and talk,</div> -<div class="verse">Talk as we talked that day beside the pool,</div> -<div class="verse">Shadowed by ilex, where the golden hearts</div> -<div class="verse">Of lilies burned within the water cool,—</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia! But she stays not, she departs!</div> -<div class="verse">The marble seat—you lifted up your face—</div> -<div class="verse">I have fought long now. I am weary. Come!</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia! Nydia! and lead me home!</div> -<div class="verse">Home! How the Forum blazes in the sun!</div> -<div class="verse">The Roman faces and the kindly speech;</div> -<div class="verse">The melon-sellers, proffering to each</div> -<div class="verse">That comes, ripe, green-streaked melons—What! you shun</div> -<div class="verse">An old friend, Balbus? No! It was not I!</div> -<div class="verse">No! by the gods! I never gave consent</div> -<div class="verse">To those red days of massacre!——They cry!</div> -<div class="verse">Oh gods! they cry, cry, they are not yet dead!</div> -<div class="verse">They <i>will</i> not die: they hurl upon my head</div> -<div class="verse">Curses and prayers! I hear them in my tent!</div> -<div class="verse">They are not dead! Oh gods! They are not dead!</div> -<div class="verse">I never gave consent!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> -<div class="indent12">Still the time slips</div> -<div class="verse">And Nydia comes not. I am very tired.</div> -<div class="verse">The things are broken to which I aspired,</div> -<div class="verse">And you alone are left. Love! She is here</div> -<div class="verse">Nydia, Nydia....</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">LUCULLUS DINES—</h2></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<p class="ph1">LUCULLUS DINES—</p> - -<p class="center">[59 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I dine in the Apollo room tonight,</div> -<div class="verse">With Cicero and Pompey! See to it!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Cicero! Pompey! But ten years ago</div> -<div class="verse">Lucullus was the hero, Conqueror</div> -<div class="verse">Of Mithridates, Rescuer of Rome!</div> -<div class="verse">All’s Pompey now; he goes far—and has gone;</div> -<div class="verse">And, with it all, is just the honest, brave,</div> -<div class="verse">Young captain that I saw that hot, raw, day;</div> -<div class="verse">The first day of my shame. Oh gods, gods, gods!</div> -<div class="verse">Must Rome have always victories, victories,</div> -<div class="verse">Incredible conquests till the whole world reels,</div> -<div class="verse">And still thrust traps into my path until</div> -<div class="verse">I fall at last?</div> -<div class="indent8">When Pompey came I knew.</div> -<div class="verse">Oh he was kind, quite kind, considerate</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old bitter man there who had failed,</div> -<div class="verse">Recalled without a triumph! He was kind</div> -<div class="verse">In all his splendid, conquering, strength and youth!</div> -<div class="verse">Yet, I had beaten Mithridates. So</div> -<div class="verse">Let the old lion growl through teeth once sharp!</div> -<div class="verse">This sordid squabble of a vulgar crowd</div> -<div class="verse">Of stiff patricians, ranting demagogues,</div> -<div class="verse">Serves well for others. I, I have my trees,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -<div class="verse">My cherries, rooted firm in Roman soil,</div> -<div class="verse">Shedding a delicate whiteness on the hills</div> -<div class="verse">When spring comes. A far greater triumph that</div> -<div class="verse">Than all my conquests.</div> -<div class="indent12">Yes, they know me well,</div> -<div class="verse">These young men, “That old dragon on the hill,</div> -<div class="verse">Who gives such gorgeous dinners. Gods, his wines!</div> -<div class="verse">Fit for Apollo!”</div> -<div class="indent8">Yes, an excellent host,</div> -<div class="verse">Learned in sauces, skilled in oysters, game;</div> -<div class="verse">Within whose heart no spark of ancient fire</div> -<div class="verse">Burns on.... Oh Power! Power! Once to lead</div> -<div class="verse">An army, once again, and see the thick</div> -<div class="verse">Rain of the Parthian arrows and the blaze</div> -<div class="verse">As forty brazen cohorts broke the foe!</div> -<div class="verse">The thin lines buckle, the black masses fly!</div> -<div class="verse"><i>Imperator Romanus!</i></div> -<div class="indent11">No, Lucullus,</div> -<div class="verse">But the good host who—plants his cherry-trees!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Love? I have loved once, once.... That awful day</div> -<div class="verse">We stormed in through the gates of Amisus....</div> -<div class="verse">The loot-mad soldiers, howling, smote the town</div> -<div class="verse">Down in a mud of blood and dirt and wine,</div> -<div class="verse">Bodies and gold and priceless tapestries.</div> -<div class="verse">Half-mad I rushed to stop them, beat and struck;</div> -<div class="verse">I think they would have murdered me at once,</div> -<div class="verse">But that one drunkard yelled “The General!</div> -<div class="verse">Lower your swords, lads! Sir, we won this town!</div> -<div class="verse">You take your pleasures and let us take ours!”</div> -<div class="verse">I reeled into the blackness of an arch,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And saw before me, white-robed, laurel-crowned,</div> -<div class="verse">Just such a maiden as might once have danced</div> -<div class="verse">Along the friezes of the Parthenon;</div> -<div class="verse">A face like that on an old silver coin,</div> -<div class="verse">Demetrius sent me, clear-cut, beautiful</div> -<div class="verse">With all the burning beauty of the Greek.</div> -<div class="verse">Pure and serene her grey eyes gazed in mine....</div> -<div class="verse">We spoke few words; what need to speak at all</div> -<div class="verse">When just our eyes told all we had to tell,</div> -<div class="verse">There in the soft, cool blackness, splashed with light</div> -<div class="verse">From the red pools of burning wine without?</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Few words. They chime like little silver bells</div> -<div class="verse">Within my heart now, or like trumpet blasts</div> -<div class="verse">Bear up my soul a little towards the gods.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">We had three years. She died before my fall.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a crooked knife,</div> -<div class="indent2">As a soft and passionate lord;</div> -<div class="indent2">Born when the kings’ beards dipped in wine</div> -<div class="indent2">And the gold cups clashed on the board.</div> -<div class="indent2">But my love came like a blast of cold,</div> -<div class="indent2">A straight, clean, sword.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a secret thing,</div> -<div class="indent2">For an hour of incensed ease,</div> -<div class="indent2">When breast and breast together cling,</div> -<div class="indent2">Under sweet-scented trees.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love is all good-comradeship,</div> -<div class="indent2">More great than these.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as a toy for a day,</div> -<div class="indent2">Soon to be over-passed;</div> -<div class="indent2">Light and frail as a hollow shell,</div> -<div class="indent2">That into the brook is cast.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love holds while the earth endures,</div> -<div class="indent2">And the suns stand fast.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I thought of love as mixed with earth,</div> -<div class="indent2">One with the bloom of the sods.</div> -<div class="indent2">My love is air and wine and fire,</div> -<div class="indent2">Breaker of metes and rods,</div> -<div class="indent2">A slender javelin tipped with light,</div> -<div class="indent2">Hurled at the gods.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Life lies before me like a platter of coins.</div> -<div class="verse">“Here are the new ones! Mark the choice design!”</div> -<div class="verse">All cry: for me the others fade and dim,</div> -<div class="verse">And one alone shines clear, an old Greek coin</div> -<div class="verse">Demetrius sent me ... and that lovely face....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Pompey would say that I am growing old,</div> -<div class="verse">And Cicero would turn a phrase with me</div> -<div class="verse">In his next great oration, as a type</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old fool who mumbles of days past.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Meanwhile I have my orchards—and my feasts.</div> -<div class="verse">Those turbot now; the sauce is very good,</div> -<div class="verse">A peacock’s breast is good, too, at this time,</div> -<div class="verse">With other things, as——old Falernian,</div> -<div class="verse">Tarentine oysters, and sweet wines from Thrace....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Tarentine oysters and sweet wines from Thrace.</div> -</div></div></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN</h2></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> -<p class="ph1">THE FORLORN CAMPAIGN</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CRASSUS IN PARTHIA. B. C.</small> 53]</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Go then, Valerius. Let the legions know,</div> -<div class="verse">That I will answer this new embassy</div> -<div class="verse">Within the hour.... They will mutiny,</div> -<div class="verse">If I refuse these terms.... What shall I do?</div> -<div class="verse"><i>What shall I do?</i> The trap is plain enough</div> -<div class="verse">To me; but they, they only see the rough,</div> -<div class="verse">Long road and the red, ever-circling cloud</div> -<div class="verse">Of horsemen, raining arrows on them there.</div> -<div class="verse">Gods! And the mountains are so near, so near!</div> -<div class="verse">Scarce three days march ... that we shall never make.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">I boasted once. The gods like not the proud.</div> -<div class="verse">And I shall die in this red waste of sand,</div> -<div class="verse">Though my heart tremble and my stiff limbs shake.</div> -<div class="verse">A thousand slaves bowed down at my command;</div> -<div class="verse">I lived in ivory palaces of delight;</div> -<div class="verse">I ruled an empire ... here is all my might;</div> -<div class="verse">An old and wearied man in a bare tent,</div> -<div class="verse">Whence, presently, I shall go out to die.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How they will rage at Rome! Each will outvie</div> -<div class="verse">The next in fury: none will dare lament.</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar will listen with a little smile,</div> -<div class="verse">A smile like two blue ice-cliffs as they part,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Slow-rising from the deep caves of his heart.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey will bow his great gold head awhile,</div> -<div class="verse">And say, “He died a Roman. It is well.”</div> -<div class="verse">Perhaps be sad, a little. For the rest,</div> -<div class="verse">That yelping pack of nobles, they will howl</div> -<div class="verse">How, “Crassus was a madman at the best,</div> -<div class="verse">And in this last attempt, a blind old owl,</div> -<div class="verse">A drink-crazed miser with a wooden sword.</div> -<div class="verse">He blundered here and here! His whole campaign</div> -<div class="verse">Was one great blunder!” So with one accord,</div> -<div class="verse">They howl.</div> -<div class="indent8">To praise is hard, easy to damn.</div> -<div class="verse">I failed in this. Some other will succeed.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yet they are right, in part. That day, far back,</div> -<div class="verse">When by the borderline I checked my steed....</div> -<div class="verse">Our spies had said the Parthian army lay</div> -<div class="verse">Encamped near by and ready for the fray.</div> -<div class="verse">We found no army; nothing but a track,</div> -<div class="verse">Thousands of footprints stamped in the red sand,</div> -<div class="verse">Where a great host had passed. A sudden fear</div> -<div class="verse">Seized on the legions and on every hand</div> -<div class="verse">The men shrank back.... No foe stood anywhere,</div> -<div class="verse">Nothing but scarlet sand and brassy sky,</div> -<div class="verse">And men aghast at signs traced on the ground,</div> -<div class="verse">A ring of white, scared faces, without sound.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Then afterwards, there came that burning march</div> -<div class="verse">Under a sky of flame, continually.</div> -<div class="verse">Our very armor seemed to shrink and parch</div> -<div class="verse">Beneath that sun; our tongues grew swelled and black;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -<div class="verse">And ever circling, circling, front and back,</div> -<div class="verse">The Parthians galloped in a cloud of dust.</div> -<div class="verse">They would not turn and fight but slew us thus.</div> -<div class="verse">Their bitter arrows came like hail on us.</div> -<div class="verse">Our strongest dropped and died without a blow.</div> -<div class="verse">Then, beyond Carrh, trusting in our woe,</div> -<div class="verse">They turned at last and stood to wait our thrust.</div> -<div class="verse">But two things I remember of that fight.</div> -<div class="verse">How Publius went out—the burning light</div> -<div class="verse">Smote on his armor, turning it to gold,</div> -<div class="verse">Save where, a sunset cloud, his red cloak rolled;</div> -<div class="verse">And in his face was joy and keen delight,</div> -<div class="verse">Youth and a boy’s high heart and great resolves....</div> -<div class="verse">A golden knight he stood, a golden knight....</div> -<div class="verse">He rides away, the crimson cloud dissolves....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">One other picture burns within my brain,</div> -<div class="verse">Like white-hot sand; and will burn now until</div> -<div class="verse">I go into the trap tonight.... Again</div> -<div class="verse">The dust cloud rose, and from a little hill</div> -<div class="verse">I saw the sheen of spearheads at its rim,</div> -<div class="verse">And near the rim a spot of black that grew,</div> -<div class="verse">Grew, grew, till earth and sky alike were dim;</div> -<div class="verse">For there was nought but it in earth and sky....</div> -<div class="verse">Nought but a black, dead, face ... a face I knew....</div> -<div class="verse">The lips were bloody ... down upon the pike</div> -<div class="verse">Dripped long slow drops like tears.... I hear them now,</div> -<div class="verse">Gathering, hanging.... Gods! they strike and strike!...</div> -<div class="verse">Dripping forever on my naked heart....</div> -<div class="verse">Great tears of blood.... Once, very long ago,</div> -<div class="verse">I had a son.... How glad he seemed to start</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -<div class="verse">On that attack!... No ... no ... I shall go mad!</div> -<div class="verse">I must not think how glad he was!... how glad....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">We fell back towards the mountains. Cassius took</div> -<div class="verse">Another way. He may be slain or safe,</div> -<div class="verse">I know not; for myself, my legious chafe</div> -<div class="verse">And mutiny, I die here. But as I look</div> -<div class="verse">So close to death, I see that what I strove</div> -<div class="verse">To do will yet be done and Rome shall rule</div> -<div class="verse">Forever o’er the bloody road I clove.</div> -<div class="verse">I break ... but she will find another tool.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ere the first sword was sharpened and the first trumpet blown</div> -<div class="verse">Rome looked upon the new-made lands and marked them for her own!</div> -<div class="verse">Ere the first ship was timbered and the first rudder hung</div> -<div class="verse">Rome held the oceans in her hands, splendid and stern and young!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">The wild tribes bend before her, the kings are overthrown,</div> -<div class="verse">The purple empires of the East before her feet fall down.</div> -<div class="verse">From strange barbaric countries her captains bring her spoil,</div> -<div class="verse">Treasures of gems and ivory, spices and wines and oil.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Wheat grows for her in Egypt; for her the Greek scribes write,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -<div class="verse">For her the diver dares the shark, the fowler scales the height,</div> -<div class="verse">To feed her great arenas the bold beast-tamer quakes</div> -<div class="verse">Among the tawny lions or the hissing pits of snakes.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Her legions march in Asia, they tramp through Farthest Gaul,</div> -<div class="verse">In Greece their horns blow up the dawn, in Spain they stand a wall.</div> -<div class="verse">And still upon her Seven Hills Rome rules the seas and tides,</div> -<div class="verse">The earth and all that in it is, while that stern strength abides.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Hail for the last time, Mother! Your sons stand here at bay.</div> -<div class="verse">Still you have sons for conquest. We fall the Roman way!</div> -<div class="verse">Our cheers still ringing, our short swords drawn,</div> -<div class="verse">We die here singing, but Rome, Rome goes on!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Ah! Yes, Valerius, I will answer them.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Comrades! I know these terms are but a trap:</div> -<div class="verse">Yet I would rather die by Parthian swords</div> -<div class="verse">Than Roman.</div> -<div class="indent9">After I am dead push on,</div> -<div class="verse">Straight to the mountains; once the heights are won,</div> -<div class="verse">You can defy at last these swarming hordes.</div> -<div class="verse">Break camp at once to guard against mishap.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Farewell! Valerius is your general now....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Up there, you say, upon that hillock’s brow</div> -<div class="verse">They wait?... Yes, I can see the glint of steel....</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">AD ATTICUM</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span></p> -<p class="ph1">AD ATTICUM</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CICERO.</small> 48 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">How hot it is! Faint waves of heat steam up</div> -<div class="verse">From the burnt sand without, like threads of glass,</div> -<div class="verse">Blurring the vision. In the dark, cool rooms</div> -<div class="verse">Within, all are asleep, and not a sound</div> -<div class="verse">Breaks the tense stillness.... Why should I not sleep?</div> -<div class="verse">This letter here, to Atticus, can wait....</div> -<div class="verse">No! I had better write it now, this court</div> -<div class="verse">Is cool enough, the plashing fountain pleasant,</div> -<div class="verse">Stylus and tablets on the table there....</div> -<div class="verse">Let me begin!... Where did I buy this style?</div> -<div class="verse">Oh yes, at Patras, where we had to leave</div> -<div class="verse">Poor Tiro sick—well, he is better now—</div> -<div class="verse">And, Jupiter be thanked! I have escaped</div> -<div class="verse">Safely from that accursed province! Gods!</div> -<div class="verse">Now, even now, the names ring in my brain,</div> -<div class="verse">The petty lawsuits which I must adjudge,</div> -<div class="verse">The protests from the people, stricken down</div> -<div class="verse">Under a shameful load of usury,</div> -<div class="verse">Oppressed by every Roman thief that crept</div> -<div class="verse">Into some petty office. Gods, those trials!</div> -<div class="verse">They made me old before my time. That case</div> -<div class="verse">Between Valerius and Volusius!</div> -<div class="verse">And Brutus, the immaculate, with his interest</div> -<div class="verse">Of forty-eight per cent!</div> -<div class="indent13">What shall I say</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -<div class="verse">To Atticus? “Caesar and I are friends.”</div> -<div class="verse">Or, “Next week I shall sail from Formia</div> -<div class="verse">And seek out Pompey.”</div> -<div class="indent11">There they stand, gouged plain</div> -<div class="verse">On the smooth wax. I rub them both out—so!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Caesar, which shall I write? I was your friend.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey has helped me always. Over all</div> -<div class="verse">Stands Rome. This war I hate as I hate Hell,</div> -<div class="verse">And yet must take one side.... You made the war,</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar ... and the Republic perishes,</div> -<div class="verse">If you are victor.... That one fact ends all.</div> -<div class="verse">Rome will be better ruled? There’s something more</div> -<div class="verse">Than better rule, something for which men die.</div> -<div class="verse">May I have grace to die so at the end,</div> -<div class="verse">Grace to pursue my vision to the last,</div> -<div class="verse">Though all my body is one sweat of blood;</div> -<div class="verse">Grace to reach up and touch her garment’s hem</div> -<div class="verse">And see her smile down in that last, black place</div> -<div class="verse">Where the swords fall. I shall be happy then.</div> -<div class="verse">All heaven and earth will be repaid to me,</div> -<div class="verse">In that one glance, before the swords sweep down.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Life is a dream and a rapture, life is a voice and a breath,</div> -<div class="verse">A gust of wind and a darkness, puffed in the face of Death,</div> -<div class="verse">Life is a treacherous river, a house that sinks in the sand,</div> -<div class="verse">A gift that poisons the giver, a ring that withers the hand.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Yet, when a man is mighty, that dream is more than the truth,</div> -<div class="verse">That wailing wind in the darkness more bright than the fires of youth,</div> -<div class="verse">The ring gives wisdom and power, the house stands up like a rock,</div> -<div class="verse">The river roars from the mountains, and his foemen reel at its shock.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">These are our mighty fellows, we are akin to these,</div> -<div class="verse">The men who burn on the deserts, who drown in the pathless seas,</div> -<div class="verse">Not for gold or for power or gems some king has thieved,</div> -<div class="verse">But simply to follow a vision, to see a dream achieved!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So, though we stand beleaguered, though the foe comes on like the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Though slaves fall down as he passes, and helot bend at his knee,</div> -<div class="verse">Though there is no escaping, though the last hope is gone,</div> -<div class="verse">Here in the sight of all men we buckle our armor on!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Whatever chances, Tullia is safe;</div> -<div class="verse">I only risk myself ... and so, at last,</div> -<div class="verse">I shall begin my letter ... yet I wonder</div> -<div class="verse">If, after this, I shall see Formia</div> -<div class="verse">Ever again.... No need to think of that!</div> -<div class="verse">Tullia will be safe ... and Atticus;</div> -<div class="verse">But, for the rest—I have lost many friends</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Already.... Bah! Come, let me get to work!...</div> -<div class="verse">Tullia will be safe.... Hail, Atticus!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">DE BELLO CIVILI</h2></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span></p> - -<p class="ph1">DE BELLO CIVILI</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>CAESAR.</small> 49 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">More letters? Lay them down here.</div> -<div class="indent18">Antony,</div> -<div class="verse">Curio, Cicero—even Atticus—</div> -<div class="verse">Well, what does Antony say, “Strike quick and hard!</div> -<div class="verse">March your picked Gauls on Rome!” H’m? “All the city</div> -<div class="verse">Is gone stark mad against you.” Oh, of course!</div> -<div class="verse">“At the next meeting of the Senate”? Ah!</div> -<div class="verse">“I will suggest both you and Pompey lay</div> -<div class="verse">Aside your several commands.” All hangs</div> -<div class="verse">On that one offer—If they should refuse,</div> -<div class="verse">I strike at last!...</div> -<div class="indent9">Well, Curio, “Dare you not</div> -<div class="verse">Give up the provinces? All would be well.</div> -<div class="verse">It is the one thing Pompey now demands—</div> -<div class="verse">Impossible of course—” Gods, Curio!</div> -<div class="verse">“Give up the provinces”! For twenty years</div> -<div class="verse">I have toiled up this hill—and now at last</div> -<div class="verse">Stand here, proconsul of a barren land,</div> -<div class="verse">A swarming, seething pot of plots and lies,</div> -<div class="verse">Where every day brings forth a fresh revolt.</div> -<div class="verse">Others had rich lands in the peaceful East,</div> -<div class="verse">They fought with armies, I a people. Now,</div> -<div class="verse">After nine years these Gauls are not subdued.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> -<div class="verse">I stand alone against a forest fire ...</div> -<div class="verse">But even this they will not suffer, no,</div> -<div class="verse">Not even that I waste my life in vain</div> -<div class="verse">In these vast woods. They call me to return,</div> -<div class="verse">“A private citizen as Pompey did.”</div> -<div class="verse">No, to return disgraced, shut out forever</div> -<div class="verse">From all great deeds....</div> -<div class="indent11">What say you, Cicero?</div> -<div class="verse">“I know you do not want a civil war.”</div> -<div class="verse">H’m. “Rome mistaken—.” H’m. “Why should you care</div> -<div class="verse">For all these dogs that bark at great men’s heels?</div> -<div class="verse">You say your foes are wrong—It may be so,</div> -<div class="verse">At least they act with one thought in their minds,</div> -<div class="verse">That you wish civil war for your own ends.</div> -<div class="verse">Why not disprove them, strike them dumb, resign</div> -<div class="verse">Your provinces!” and let them cut my throat!</div> -<div class="verse">“Return to Rome a citizen. That one act</div> -<div class="verse">Would make you just—immortal, and they, they,</div> -<div class="verse">Would shrink back to their holes, never again</div> -<div class="verse">To dare the splendor of the day and truth.</div> -<div class="verse">Pompey is not against you. Him I know.</div> -<div class="verse">And he would be as generous a friend</div> -<div class="verse">As you could wish—resign his legions too—”</div> -<div class="verse">Ah, Cicero!—What’s this, here at the end?</div> -<div class="verse">“Remember the Republic! Caesar, Caesar!</div> -<div class="verse">Gaze not in that Medusa’s face. Your soul</div> -<div class="verse">Stands here at stake, you hold the fate of Rome</div> -<div class="verse">In your two hands. Gaze not in that dread face!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Another letter! What ... from Calinus ...</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -<div class="verse">How our lives part ... and men part.... Why the last</div> -<div class="verse">Time that I saw him was ... how long ago ...</div> -<div class="verse">Ten ... twenty years ... on the white walls of Rhodes</div> -<div class="verse">We talked that evening on the flat, wide roof</div> -<div class="verse">Of the old merchant’s house where he was lodged.</div> -<div class="verse">I was to leave tomorrow, and we lay</div> -<div class="verse">Under the blazing stars. A brown slave girl</div> -<div class="verse">Plucked at a lute whose drowsy murmur died</div> -<div class="verse">Throbbingly into sweetness.... We were young</div> -<div class="verse">And all our gorgeous dreams marched forth in state</div> -<div class="verse">Past the great purple bales of Syrian rugs,</div> -<div class="verse">Over the thin brown frails of dates, until</div> -<div class="verse">The skies were full of color, great broad bands ...</div> -<div class="verse">Crimson like pigeon’s blood, blue like the sea,</div> -<div class="verse">Yellow like old, old ivory.... The stars waned.</div> -<div class="verse">Next day we parted. Friend, friend of my youth,</div> -<div class="verse">What have you now to say? Today I make</div> -<div class="verse">The last decision, take one course of two,</div> -<div class="verse">Be saved or lost ... friend ... friend ... friend of my youth....</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">“Caesar, the swords are ready,</div> -<div class="indent2">The swords you have tempered long,</div> -<div class="indent2">War and peace are held in your hand,</div> -<div class="indent2">You stand at length where you longed to stand;</div> -<div class="indent2">By civil war you would heal a land,</div> -<div class="indent2">And by wrong you would better a wrong.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">Power and Strength and Empire,</div> -<div class="indent2">These are full mighty words.</div> -<div class="indent2">One thing, men’s Freedom, is higher than all.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">And better a hut though it totter and fall,</div> -<div class="indent2">A broken temple, a ruined wall,</div> -<div class="indent2">Than a land subdued by your swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">We have walked for a time together.</div> -<div class="indent2">The roads fork and we part.</div> -<div class="indent2">I follow my Lady of beauty and grace,</div> -<div class="indent2">Drunk with the light of her glorious face,</div> -<div class="indent2">And you, you go to your own place:</div> -<div class="indent2">And a poison breeds in your heart.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">I go with the Republic.</div> -<div class="indent2">The Empire stands by your side.</div> -<div class="indent2">You love her now. In a time not far</div> -<div class="indent2">You will look in your heart where your dead hopes are,</div> -<div class="indent2">And curse her for a lamia,</div> -<div class="indent2">The serpent you called bride.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">We part. Our ways are far henceforth.</div> -<div class="indent2">Henceforth our speech is with spears,</div> -<div class="indent2">I curse you not. Strive on for your prize</div> -<div class="indent2">Till the last thick darkness covers your eyes</div> -<div class="indent2">And the voice of the dead Republic cries</div> -<div class="indent2">Forever in your ears.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="indent2">Follow your foe o’er land and sea,</div> -<div class="indent2">River and bush and stone!</div> -<div class="indent2">When the end has come to the weary race</div> -<div class="indent2">And the slain man lies in his fated place,</div> -<div class="indent2">You shall draw the veil from the white dead face,</div> -<div class="indent2">And shriek, knowing your own!”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -<div class="indent2">Calinus ... Calinus ... To be saved or lost....</div> -<div class="indent2">What! Curio and Antony are without?</div> -<div class="indent2">Curio! Antony! Welcome!... What ... you say</div> -<div class="indent2">They drove you from the Senate?... I must make</div> -<div class="indent2">Decision now....</div> -<div class="indent11">Comrades! The die is cast!</div> -<div class="indent2">We march tomorrow on Ariminum!</div> -</div></div></div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - - -<div class="chapter"> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -<h2 class="nobreak">AFTER PHARSALIA</h2></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></p> -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> - - - -<p class="ph1">AFTER PHARSALIA</p> - -<p class="center">[<small>POMPEY.</small> 48 <small>B. C.</small>]</p> - - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">So it is over; you have won at last,</div> -<div class="verse">And our long struggle ends and with it Rome,</div> -<div class="verse">The Rome that was the glory of the past,</div> -<div class="verse">Whose stripped fleets ruled the seas, shaking the foam</div> -<div class="verse">From their proud prows. They brought a freedom then.</div> -<div class="verse">Freedom and the Republic. Once. No more.</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Well, it was fated, my most trusted men</div> -<div class="verse">Failed me at need; as your chiefs will fail you,</div> -<div class="verse">O Caesar! You I neither fear nor hate.</div> -<div class="verse">We strove not with each other but with fate.</div> -<div class="verse">Your followers will ruin what you do;</div> -<div class="verse">Since you are honest, and will strive to make</div> -<div class="verse">New laws and found an Empire, which, at least,</div> -<div class="verse">Gives Justice equally to all. The stake</div> -<div class="verse">Is high. They have sat long now at their feast,</div> -<div class="verse">With Rome their pig-trough. They will conquer you;</div> -<div class="verse">A hundred dwarfs, pulling a giant down.</div> -<div class="verse">The problem is too great, the time not ripe</div> -<div class="verse">For its solution.</div> -<div class="indent9">We have fought, we two!</div> -<div class="verse">For the Republic I, you for your crown,</div> -<div class="verse">Each one of his own cause the very type.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -<div class="verse">Though both of us have failed, your cause yet rules,</div> -<div class="verse">Your Empire.</div> -<div class="indent9">Any fool can govern fools.</div> -<div class="verse">To make fools rule themselves and do it well,</div> -<div class="verse">That is the task. If you could rule forever,</div> -<div class="verse">Caesar ... but little men will seize your work,</div> -<div class="verse">Your great machine. There’s where the paths dissever!</div> -<div class="verse">And Rome roars blindly down amid the murk</div> -<div class="verse">To swift destruction....</div> -<div class="indent15">Still one chance remains</div> -<div class="verse">Where my disbanded legions fill the plains</div> -<div class="verse">Of Egypt. A bare chance. If that fails too,</div> -<div class="verse">Why, “Here lies Cnus Pompey, called the Great,</div> -<div class="verse">He fought for the Republic, loved his wife,</div> -<div class="verse">And climbed the ladder of swords that men call Life.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Stretching straight from the viewless Pit,</div> -<div class="verse">To the skies that are shamed because of it,</div> -<div class="verse">Lit with a blue and hungry fire,</div> -<div class="verse">That blasts like the breath of fulfilled Desire,</div> -<div class="verse">Glory and Shame in its secret hoards,</div> -<div class="verse">It stands supreme, the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse"><i>You must climb it?</i> Aye, with all men born!</div> -<div class="verse"><i>When?</i> When you reel from the common scorn,</div> -<div class="verse">When utter Defeat has gripped you fast,</div> -<div class="verse">And your life goes down in the dark at last;</div> -<div class="verse">When the things you builded dissolve like mist,</div> -<div class="verse">And Love has broken his faith and tryst,</div> -<div class="verse">And your body strains at the torturers’ cords,</div> -<div class="verse">You have come at last to the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -<div class="verse"><i>Will you find a friend?</i> One friend alone,</div> -<div class="verse">Flesh of your flesh and bone of your bone,</div> -<div class="verse">The last strange Courage that mocks Despair,</div> -<div class="verse">That hunts the wolf with the wounded hare,</div> -<div class="verse">That throws your life in the jaws of death</div> -<div class="verse">To snatch it back in a single breath.</div> -<div class="verse">Blinded no longer by pomp and words,</div> -<div class="verse">You shall go up stark to the Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Though your torn feet slip on the bloody steel,</div> -<div class="verse">Though your body faint and your senses reel,</div> -<div class="verse">Dizzied with agony, blind and numb,</div> -<div class="verse">You shall crawl the rungs till the end is come;</div> -<div class="verse">Though the sun flare out and the heavens crack,</div> -<div class="verse">Nor god nor devil can turn you back!</div> -<div class="verse">This is the prize that Defeat accords!</div> -<div class="verse">Courage! Courage! The Ladder of Swords!</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> -<div class="verse">Yes, by the gods! Caesar, the day is yours,</div> -<div class="verse">You rule the world—while you debauch the State.</div> -<div class="verse">Yet, somewhere, beyond all, there still endures,</div> -<div class="verse">That pure Republic: and its white walls shine,</div> -<div class="verse">Proudly, a dream no conquests can dispel.</div> -<div class="verse">Your hosts toil uselessly; no force can take</div> -<div class="verse">Those walls. Your legionaries break and break,</div> -<div class="verse">In vain. Ever, before each bleeding line,</div> -<div class="verse">It rises still, the Vision Invincible!</div> -</div></div></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<div class="transnote"> - - -<p class="ph2">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:</p> - - -<p>Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.</p> - -</div> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Five Men and Pompey, by Stephen Vincent Benét - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE MEN AND POMPEY *** - -***** This file should be named 62494-h.htm or 62494-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/6/2/4/9/62494/ - -Produced by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive -specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this -eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook -for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, -performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given -away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks -not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the -trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. - -START: FULL LICENSE - -THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE -PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK - -To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free -distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work -(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full -Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at -www.gutenberg.org/license. - -Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works - -1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to -and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property -(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all -the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or -destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your -possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a -Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound -by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the -person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph -1.E.8. - -1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be -used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who -agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few -things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See -paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this -agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. - -1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the -Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection -of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual -works in the collection are in the public domain in the United -States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the -United States and you are located in the United States, we do not -claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, -displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as -all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope -that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting -free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm -works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the -Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily -comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the -same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when -you share it without charge with others. - -1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern -what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are -in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, -check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this -agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, -distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any -other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no -representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any -country outside the United States. - -1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: - -1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other -immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear -prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work -on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the -phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, -performed, viewed, copied or distributed: - - This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and - most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no - restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it - under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this - eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the - United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you - are located before using this ebook. - -1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is -derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not -contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the -copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in -the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are -redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project -Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply -either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or -obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted -with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution -must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any -additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms -will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works -posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the -beginning of this work. - -1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm -License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this -work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. - -1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this -electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without -prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with -active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project -Gutenberg-tm License. - -1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, -compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including -any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access -to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format -other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official -version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site -(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense -to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means -of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain -Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the -full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. - -1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, -performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works -unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. - -1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing -access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works -provided that - -* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from - the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method - you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed - to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has - agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid - within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are - legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty - payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project - Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in - Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg - Literary Archive Foundation." - -* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies - you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he - does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm - License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all - copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue - all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm - works. - -* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of - any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the - electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of - receipt of the work. - -* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free - distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. - -1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than -are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing -from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The -Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm -trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. - -1.F. - -1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable -effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread -works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project -Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may -contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate -or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other -intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or -other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or -cannot be read by your equipment. - -1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right -of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project -Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all -liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal -fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT -LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE -PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE -TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE -LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR -INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH -DAMAGE. - -1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a -defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can -receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a -written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you -received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium -with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you -with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in -lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person -or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second -opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If -the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing -without further opportunities to fix the problem. - -1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth -in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO -OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT -LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. - -1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied -warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of -damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement -violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the -agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or -limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or -unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the -remaining provisions. - -1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the -trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone -providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in -accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the -production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm -electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, -including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of -the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this -or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or -additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any -Defect you cause. - -Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm - -Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of -electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of -computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It -exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations -from people in all walks of life. - -Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the -assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's -goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will -remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project -Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure -and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future -generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see -Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at -www.gutenberg.org - - - -Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation - -The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit -501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the -state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal -Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification -number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by -U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. - -The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the -mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its -volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous -locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt -Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to -date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and -official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact - -For additional contact information: - - Dr. Gregory B. Newby - Chief Executive and Director - gbnewby@pglaf.org - -Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg -Literary Archive Foundation - -Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide -spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of -increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be -freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest -array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations -($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt -status with the IRS. - -The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating -charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United -States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a -considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up -with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations -where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND -DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular -state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate - -While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we -have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition -against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who -approach us with offers to donate. - -International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make -any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from -outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. - -Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation -methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other -ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To -donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate - -Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. - -Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project -Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be -freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and -distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of -volunteer support. - -Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in -the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not -necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper -edition. - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search -facility: www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - - - -</pre> - -</body> -</html> diff --git a/old/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg b/old/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 5a2a279..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-h/images/cover.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg b/old/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index b25c7be..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-h/images/i_title.jpg +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg b/old/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d2db097..0000000 --- a/old/old/62494-h/images/i_titlelogo.jpg +++ /dev/null |
