With citizens and captains, and would hold
The world (were it together) is by cowards
Left as a prey, now Cæsar doth approach:
When Romans are besieg'd by foreign foes,
With slender trench they escape night stratagems,
And sudden rampart rais'd of turf snatch'd up,
Would make them sleep securely in their tents.
Thou Rome at name of war run'st from thyself,
And wilt not trust thy city walls one night.
Well might these fear, when Pompey fear'd and fled.
Now evermore lest some one hope might ease
The common jangling minds, apparent signs arose,
Strange sights appear'd, the angry threat'ning gods
Fill'd both the earth and seas with prodigies;
Great store of strange and unknown stars were seen
Wandering about the north, and rings of fire
Fly in the air, and dreadful bearded stars,
And comets that presage the fall of kingdoms.
The flattering sky glitter'd in often flames,
And sundry fiery meteors blaz'd in heaven;
Now spearlike long; now like a spreading torch:
Lightning in silence, stole forth without clouds,
And from the northern climate snatching fire,
Blasted the Capitol: the lesser stars
Which wont to run their course through empty night
At noon-day muster'd; Phoebe having fill'd
Her meeting horns to match her brother's light,
Struck with the earth's sudden shadow waxed pale;
Titan himself thron'd in the midst of heaven,
His burning chariot plung'd in sable clouds,
And whelm'd the world in darkness, making men
Despair of day; as did Thiestes town,
(Mycena) Phœbus flying through the east:
Fierce Mulciber unbarred Ætna's gate,
Which flamed not on high; but headlong pitch'd
Her burning head on bending Hespery.
Coal black Charibdis whirl'd a sea of blood;
Fierce mastiffs howl'd; the vestal fires went out,
The flame in Alba consecrate to Jove,
Parted in twain; and with a double point
Rose like the Theban brother's funeral fire;
The earth went off her hinges; and the Alps
Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps.
The ocean swell'd as high as Spanish Calpe;
Or Atlas head; their saints and household gods
Sweat tears to shew the travails of their city.
Crowns fell from holy statues, ominous birds
Defil'd the day, and wild beasts were seen,
Leaving the woods, lodge in the streets of Rome.
Cattle were seen that mutter'd human speech:
Prodigious births with more and ugly joints
Than nature gives, whose sigh appals the mother,
And dismal prophesies were spread abroad:
And they whom fierce Bellona's fury moves
To wound their arms, sing vengeance; Sybil's priests,
Curling their bloody locks, howl dreadful things;
Souls quiet and appeas'd sigh from their graves;
Clashing of arms was heard; in untrod woods
Shrill voices shriek'd, and ghosts encounter men;
Those that inhabited the suburb fields
Fled; foul Erinnis stalk'd about the walls,
Shaking her snaky hair and crooked pine
With flaming top, much like that hellish fiend
Which made the stern Lycurgus wound his thigh,
Or fierce Agave mad; or like Megæra
That scar'd Alcides, when by Juno's task
He had before look'd Pluto in the face.
Trumpets were heard to sound; and with what noise
An armed battle joins, such and more strange
Black night brought forth in secret: Sylla's ghost
Was seen to walk, singing sad oracles,
And Marius' head above cold Tav'rone peering,
(His grave broke open) did affright the boors.
To these ostents (as their old custom was)
They call th' Etrurian augurs, amongst whom
The gravest Aruns, dwelt in forsaken Luna,
Well skill'd in pyromancy; one that knew
The hearts of beasts, and flights of wandering fowls;
First he commands such monsters nature hatch'd
Against her kind (the barren mules' loath'd issue)
To be cut forth and cast in dismal fires;
Then, that the trembling citizens should walk
About the city; then the sacred priests
That with divine lustration purg'd the walls,
And went round, in, and without the town.
Next, an inferior troop, in tuck'd-up vestures,
After the Gabine manner; then the nuns
And their veil'd matron, who alone might view
Minerva's statue; then they that keep and read
Sybilla's secret works, and wash'd their saint
In Almo's flood. Next learned augurs follow;
Apollo's soothsayers, and Jove's feasting priests;
The skipping Salii with shields like wedges;
And Flamins last, with network woollen veils.
While these thus in and out had circled Rome,
Look what the lightning blasted, Aruns takes
And it inters with murmurs dolorous,
And calls the place Bidental; on the altar
He lays a ne'er-yok'd bull, and pours down wine,
Then crams salt levin on his crooked knife;
The beast long struggled, as being like to prove
An awkward sacrifice, but by the horns
The quick priest pull'd him on his knees and slew him;
No vein sprung out but from the yawning gash,
Instead of red blood wallowed venomous gore.
These direful signs made Aruns stand amaz'd,
And searching farther for the god's displeasure,
The
very colour scar'd him; a dead blackness
Ran through the blood, that turn'd it all to jelly,
And stain'd the bowels with dark loathsome spots;
The liver swell'd with filth; and every vein
Did threaten horror from the host of Cæsar;
A small thin skin contain'd the vital parts,
The heart stirr'd not and from the gaping liver
Squeez'd matter through the caul, the entrails 'peard,
And which (aye me!) ever pretendeth ill,
At that bunch where the liver is, appear'd
A knob of flesh, whereof one half did look
Dead and discolour'd; th' other lean and thin.
By these he seeing what mischiefs must ensue,
Cried out, "O gods! I tremble to unfold
What you intend, great Jove is now displeas'd,
And in the breast of this slain bull are crept,
Th' infernal powers. My fear transcends my
Yet more will happen than I can unfold;
Turn all to good, be augury vain, and Tages,
Th'art's master, false." Thus in ambiguous terms,
Involving all, did Aruns darkly sing.
But Figulus, more seen in heavenly mysteries,
Whose like Ægyptian Memphis never had
For skill in stars, and tuneful planeting,
In this sort spake. "The world's swift course is lawless,
And casual; all the stars at random rage:
Or if fate rule them, Rome! thy citizens
Are near some plague: what mischief shall ensue?
Shall towns be swallowed? shall the thickened air,
Become intemperate? shall the earth be barren?
Shall water be congeal'd and turn'd to ice?
O gods what death prepare ye? with what plague
Mean ye to rage? the death of many men
Meets in one period. If cold noisome Saturn
Were now exalted, and with blue beams shin'd,
Then Ganymede would renew Deucalion's flood,
And in the fleeting sea the earth be drench'd.
O Phoebus! should'st thou with thy rays now sing
The fell Nemean beast, th' earth would be fired,
And heaven tormented with thy chafing heat;
But thy fires hurt not: Mars, 'tis thou enflam'st
The threat'ning Scorpion with the burning tail
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