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[121]
"He spoke and ended, and strained to take her hand
in his, till he broke and clove the earth asunder. Then Fortune poured forth words
from her fickle heart: 'Father, whom the inmost places of Cocytus obey, thy prayer
shall prosper, if at least I may foretell the truth without fear; for the anger that
rises in my heart is stern as thine, and the flame that burns deep in my bones as
fierce. I hate all the gifts I have made to towering Rome, and am angry at my own
blessings. The god that raised up those high palaces shalldestroy them too. It will
be my delight also to burn the men and feed my lust with blood. Lo, already I see
Philippi's field strewn with the dead of two battles,1 and the blazing
pyres of Thessaly2
and the burial of the people of Iberia.3 Already the crash of arms rings in
my trembling ears. And in Libya I see the barriers of the Nile4 groan, and the people in terror at the
gulf of Actium and the army loved by Apollo.5 Open, then, the thirsty realms of thy dominion, and summon fresh
souls. The old sailor, the Ferryman, will scarcely have strength to carry over the
ghosts of the men in his[p. 263] boat; a whole fleet is needed. And thou,
pale Tisiphone, take thy fill of wide destruction, and tear the bleeding wounds; the
whole world is rent in pieces and drawn down to the Stygian shades.'
1 In the battles of Pharsalus, 48 B. C., the final defeat of Pompey, and Philippi, 42 B. C., the defeat of the Republican army under Brutus and Cassius.
2 Again referring to Pharsalus, which is in Thessaly.
3 Killed in Caesar's Spanish campaigns against the Pompeians, 49 and 45 B.C.
4 The reference is to Caesar's Egyptian campaigns.
5 The Emperor Augustus ascribed his victory over Antony and Cleopatra at Actium in 31 B. C. to the favour of Apollo.
Petronius Arbiter. Petronius. Michael Heseltine. London. William Heinemann. 1913.
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