A CONTINUATION of Lucan's Historical Poem till the death of JULIUS CAESAR By T M  
London Printed for James Boler at the Sign of the Marigold in Paul's Churchyard. 1630    

TO THE MOST HIGH AND MIGHTY MONARCH CHARLES BY THE GRACE of God, King of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, etc.  
SIR,  
I SHOULD have taught my humble labours a lower presumption than to have approached your sacred hand, if I had only weighed mine own weakness and disability; but the dignity of this subject did somewhat encourage me, being a remainder of that great History, whose former part was so richly dressed in the happy conceits, and high raptures of that Noble LUCAN: of whose ability in writing I was not so ambitious in emulation, as officious in desire, to continue so stately an argument for your Princely ear: with what success I have performed it, your MAJESTY'S acceptation only can determine; to whom if it present but the least delight, my end is accomplished, for which I have run so great a hazard, as (perchance) to be censured a foil only to Lucan's lustre; and chose rather to fall under the weight of a great argument, than to present a mean one to so high a hand: your Majesty's renowned worth, and Heroical virtues (the perfection of mind meeting in you with the height of Fortune) may make you securely delighted in the reading of great actions; to whom I humbly present this weak Work, beseeching Almighty GOD long to establish your MAJESTY'S Throne upon earth, enriching it with blessings of the right hand and the left; and after to Crown you with incorruptible Glory: So prayeth  
Your Majesty's most humble subject THO. MAY.   

JOHANNIS SULPITII Verulani querela de interitu Lucani, opere nondum perfecto.  
HAEC cecinit vates, scripturus plura: sed illum  
In medio cursu iussit mors dira silere.  
Accidit ut cigno, qui fixus arundine, carmen  
Mille modis querulum, quod caeperat, interrumpit.  
Nec Phaenix aliter, cum sese imponit in altum  
Quem struit ipse, rogum, cantus dulcedine mira  
Nondum perfectos plaudenti morte relinquit.  
Nec secus Ismariis vates oppressus in oris  
A Ciconum nuribus, Superûm dum cantat amores,  
Brutaque cum syluis, & saxa sequentia ducit,  
Haud potuit moriens medios absoluere cantus.  
Proh scelera! Oh superi, cruciat quae poena Neronen?  
Num rota, num saxum, num stagna fugacia vexant?  
An vultur, pendensue silex? an feruet in unda?  
Illum comburat Phlegeton, lacerentque Cerastae:  
Hydra voret, raptentque canes, semperque flagellis  
Torua Megaera secet, nec sit requiesque modusque.  
Quanto fraudata est tua gloria plena nitore  
Corduba! quamque minus te Mantua docta veretur▪  
Mantua, cui primae fulget nunc gloria palmae;  
Sed contenta tribus longè lacteris alumnis.  
Tu verò O nostrum vates diuine laborem,  
Quem pro te subij, non auersate probabis.   

THE COMPLAINT OF CALLIOPE AGAINST THE DESTINIES.  
TOO cruel Sisters, why again am I  
Enforced to weep, and tax your tyranny?  
Was not my Orpheus' death (though long ago)  
Enough for me to bear, for you to do?  
Orpheus so much by all the graces loved,  
Whose charming skill, and matchless Music moved  
The savage beasts, the stones, and senseless trees,  
Yet could not move the harder Destinies.  
I saw his limbs (alas) scattered abroad  
On Hebrus banks, while down the silver flood  
His learned head was rolled, and all along  
Herd the sad murmurs of his dying tongue.  
No other Tragedy but Lucan slain  
By your untimely stroke could thus again  
Revive my grief: Oh could you not prolong  
That thread awhile, until the stately song  
Of his Pharsalia had been finished quite?  
What savage bird of prey, what murdering Kite  
Could, in the midst of that melodious lay,  
Ravish the charming Nightingale away?  
Thou sung'st no lusts, no riots, nor mad'st known  
(Corrupting others manners with thine own)  
New crimes, nor with lascivious wantoning  
Didst thou defile the sacred Thespian spring.  
Thy verses teach no foul adulteries,  
Nor rapes committed by the Deities,  
Which may from guilt absolve the worst of men;  
But actions great and true: thy happy pen  
Adorning History with raptures high,  
With quick conceits and sound morality  
Condemned the strong injustice of that age,  
And reins too much let lose to civil rage,  
When Rome the strength, which she had made, did fear,  
No longer able her own weight to bear,  
Taxing bad greatness, and in deathless verse  
Bestowing fame on Noble Sepulchers;  
And hadst ennobled more; but woe is me,  
Th' untimely stroke of death did silence thee.  
Of which the grief not only us invades,  
But diues into the blessed Elysian shades,  
Sadding the worthies there, that so did long  
To fill a room in thine eternal song.  
There Cato thinks (and grieves it was denied)  
If thou hadst lived, how great he should have died:  
The Roman Scipio, did disdain a Tomb  
On Libya's shore, in hope to find a room  
Within thy stately Poem, well content  
Save there, to have no other Monument,  
Those stately Temples, where Great Caesar's name  
Shall be by Rome adored, wanting the fame  
Which thy high lines might give, in time to come  
Shall envy Pompey's small Egyptian Tomb.  
Had Iuba's Tragic fall been sung by thee  
'T had eased the loss of his great Monarchy▪  
But that to them and us did Fate deny  
That we the more might wail thy Tragedy.   
A CONTINUATION of the Subject OF LVCAN'S HISTORICAL POEM till the death of julius Caesar.  

The first Book.  
The Argument of the first Book.  
Th'Aegyptians sue to Caesar for a peace,  
Excuse their crime, and crave their King's release:  
The King restored by Caesar to his state,  
Revolts again: Euphranor's noble fate.  
Ptolomey's vision from Serapis sent  
Foreshews the change of Egypt's government.  
The war in Delta; Caesar's victory.  
The overthrow and death of Ptolomey.  
THe threatening Ocean now had spent in vain  
His swelling spite, and from the watery maine▪  
From Egypt's feeble Treason, and the band  
Of Pharian slaves is Caesar safe at land  
Filled with revenge and scorn, armed with a rage  
Greater than Egypt's ruin can assuage.  
His war is now made just; but that great mind  
Too much disdains so just a cause to find  
From such a State, grieved that they durst afford  
Wrongs proud enough to call on Caesar's sword,  
Or provocation to his fury lend,  
Whom Rome itself had trembled to offend,  
And rued his anger at no cheaper rate  
Than Pompey's fall, and ruin of the State.  
How well could Rome excuse the gods above  
For Caesar's late-wrought safety, and approve  
Their favour in it, if no other State  
Had felt the force of his revived fate  
But Egypt's guilty land? in that war nought  
But just revenge for Pompey had been wrought.  
The willing Senate had with joy decreed  
Honours for such a conquest; for that deed  
From every Town th' Italian youth in throngs  
Had met his Chariot with triumphal songs,  
Nor had great Pompey's spirit from the sky  
Repined at sight of that solemnity.  
That act had reconciled the Conqueror  
To Rome again, had not the fatal war,  
Which strait in Africa, and in Spain ensewed,  
His conquering army with first guilt imbrued.  
The treacherous band of Egypt's Soldiers now  
That chose Arsinoë Queen, 'gan disallow  
The pride of Ganymedes, and disdain  
A feeble woman, and base Eunuches reign.  
All murmur, all to mutiny inclined,  
Yet each afraid to sound each others mind:  
Till one at last more venturous than the rest  
Thus with his own the thoughts of all expressed.  
What end have these our arms? Why do we make  
Tumults in stead of wars? If arms we take  
To free Nile's fruitful regions from the yoke  
Of Rome's ambition, why do we provoke  
The strength of Caesar at a time when he  
Detains our King within his custody?  
The King as hostage for our truth doth lie  
We hazard not the war but Ptolomey.  
Though our attempt 'gainst Caesar should succeed  
We stain the honour of so great a deed  
Wanting a lawful chief; and 'twill be thought  
Rebellious tumults not just wars have wrought  
Rich Egypt's freedom: More may be obtained  
By peace, than can be by such hazards gained.  
Then let us sue for Ptolomey's release:  
Caesar (though now incensed) will grant us peace  
On easy terms; and think it better far  
Then to be here entangled in a war,  
Whilst yet Pharsalia's relics do remain  
To join their strength, and try their fate again:  
Whilst the dispersed not conquered powers of Rome  
Are gathering head, and furious nations come  
From Iuba's kingdom, Ammon's farthest sands,  
And where Spain's Calpe bounds the Western lands  
To cross his growing fortunes: But if we  
Tender the state of young Arsinoë,  
(Because descended from great Lagus race,)  
Why do we wrong her brother, and misplace  
Our duty so? Preposterous loyalty  
It is, to honour Lagus family,  
And therefore Lagus lawful heir depose.  
A general shout, which through the Camp arose,  
Shows their agreement too too great to be  
Suppressed now, or termed a mutiny.  
That even Arsinoë seeing this consent  
Is forced to be, or seem (at least) content.  
Ambassadors to Caesar they address  
To beg the King's enlargement, sue for peace,  
And pardon for their treachery to him:  
Which they excused at large, and all the crime  
Upon Photinus and Achillas laid:  
Whose lives (say they) have for their treasons paid.  
Caesar, though once enraged, admits their low  
Submissive prayers, and smooths his angry brow,  
Scorning to lose so proud a wrath upon  
Such worthless objects; or intent alone  
On civil wars, reserves his fury all  
To wreak in nothing but his country's fall.  
Nought but so hard, and so abhorred a crime  
Had guilt and danger great enough for him.  
He briefly grants them their desired ends,  
And Ptolomey back to his kingdom sends.  
Poor boy, what fatal freedom hast thou gained?  
Thou to thy ruin hast thy wish obtained.  
'tis Caesar's cruelty that sets thee free,  
To make thee guilty and then punish thee.  
Thine innocence did guard thee, whilst by him  
Thou wert confined, and couldst not act a crime  
That might deserve thy death; but well knew he  
Thy age's weakness, and the treachery  
Of thy perfidious and unconstant men  
Would draw thee to offences, and thou then  
By fair pretence of justice mightst be slain  
A sacrifice to Cleopatra's reign,  
And his desires, who means thy crown shall buy  
Or pay the hire of his adultery.  
Caesar's surmises find a true event;  
For Ptolomey back to his people sent  
(Whether that falsehood were the nations vice,  
Or else by nature or bad nurture his,  
Or he by others easy to be swayed)  
Forgets the oath that he to Caesar made.  
And filled with vain and flattering hopes, calls on  
The forward fates t'his own destruction.  
A well rigged fleet of Ships he forth doth send  
In ambush near Canopus to attend  
(An I'll that East from Alexandria lies)  
To cut off all provision and supplies,  
That might by Sea to Caesar's camp arrive.  
To this his first attempt doth Fortune give  
Some seeming favour; for while there they lie,  
Euphranor's Ship, severed unhappily  
Alone from all the rest of Caesar's fleet,  
By this Egyptian Navy is beset.  
Euphranor's valour, that had never found  
The fates but friendly, and so oft renowned  
With Caesar's fortune had for Caesar fought,  
This change affrights not; his undaunted thought  
Not fear but rage possesses; and though there  
Beset, he plays th' assailant every where.  
They fear to join with him, and evermore  
Fly from his grapple; as a chafed Bore  
The following hounds avoid, so Egypt's fleet  
Surprises danger which it dares not meet.  
But being so many Ships they cannot all  
Escape from him; some, though unwilling, fall  
Upon Euphranor, and are forced to buy  
With their own loss their fellow's victory.  
Some vessels bored 'twixt wind and water sunk,  
And drinking waves into the waves were drunk.  
'Gainst others from the Roman vessel fire,  
Wrapped up in balls was thrown; whose active ire  
The Ocean could not quench until too late,  
And did not succour then, but change the fate.  
Some dead, some living float in Neptune's flood  
The Sea discoloured with the victor's blood.  
Had but one more of Caesar's Ships been caught  
Th' Egyptian fleet a fatal prey had sought,  
And learned then how they deceived taken  
But Fortune's bait, which hid a mortal hook.  
But when at last those few Caesarians  
Were spent with wounds and toil, and that their hands  
Could for that endless task no more suffice  
Euphranor weary with subduing dies,  
Leaving the rest of those Egyptian powers  
Suruivours rather than true conquerors.  
Now Ptolomey was levying strength by land,  
When Mithridates with a warlike band  
Of men, from Syria, and Cilicia came  
Raised from thence by him in Caesar's name.  
And marching swiftly o'er the land, at last  
Arrived where strong Pelusium's fitly placed  
Upon the continent, and on that side  
Th' Egyptian bounds from Syria doth divide:  
Pelusium's strength is thought by land to be  
Egypt's defence as Pharos is by Sea.  
But now (alas) too weak it proves to stay  
Fierce Mithridates' course, who in one day  
(Though there Achillas left a Garrison)  
Summons, assaults, and wins by force, the Town;  
Nor stays he there, but marches speedily  
To join his strength with Caesar's power, whom he  
Of this exploit before had certified.  
This Mithridates, who on Caesar's side  
So well had served as to deserve from him  
After this war, the Thracian diadem,  
Of great and royal parentage was sprung,  
And trained up in princely arts, when young,  
By that great King, that Asian Conqueror,  
Who forty years withstood the Roman power,  
And in so many honoured fields did fame  
Lucullus, Sylla, and great Pompey's name.  
The King, that now besides Canobus lay,  
With all his power, intends to march away  
With speed through Delta, where the Fates decree  
To seat the war, and his sad tragedy.  
Rich Delta, Egypt's pride the flower alone  
Of all the Pharian King's dominion;  
Upon whose fertile breast a thousand ways  
In winding tracks the wanton Nilus plays,  
And with his amorous folding arms doth seem  
T' embrace small Lands, whilst his silver stream  
From several channels oft itself doth meet,  
And oft itself with wanton kisses greet.  
So those fair rivulets, which for the food  
Of living bodies, bear the crimson blood  
To every part, within the liver meet,  
And there with kisses number less do greet  
Themselves; and as they through each other glide  
Make many knots, as if they took a pride  
In their strange foldings, and themselves did please  
In those admired Anastomoses.  
This fertile region, whose extension makes  
A just triangle, from the letter takes  
Delta for name, whose basis is the Sea,  
Whose two sides Niles two widest channels be.  
For all the other five within those two  
Into the Northern Sea through Delta go.  
Down from the lesser cataract Nile flows,  
And in one single channel Northward goes  
From Elephantis I'll the ancient bound,  
'twixt th'Aethiopian, and Egyptian ground  
Four thousand furlongs to that spacious plain,  
Where Memphis stands, so famed for the vain,  
And misspent labour of so many men,  
Her wondrous Pyramids; which had not been,  
If nature's bounty, and the wealthy soil  
Had not too much excused the Ploughman's toil.  
So many hands (as there were vainly found)  
Had been enough t' have made the barrenest ground  
Of Ammon's deserts, or the Libyan sands  
Fruitful by working, t' have entrenched whole lands,  
And fenced their Egypt's often conquered Towers  
From Persian, Grecian, and Italian powers.  
At Memphi● Nile his channel doth divide:  
That branch that flows along the Eastern side,  
Into the Ocean rowles his curled waves  
At strong Pelusium; other channel laves  
(A thousand furlongs distant thence, as he  
Into the Ocean falls) the regions nigh  
To fair Canobus, which (by ancient fame)  
From Menelaus' Pilot took the name;  
Who dying there, was buried on the shore,  
When Egypt's Crown that just King Proteus wore:  
Who took from Priam's wanton son away  
Atrides beauteous wife, his ravished prey,  
And to her husband after her restored  
When Troy's sacked towers had felt the vengeful sword  
Of armed Greece. That region, which between  
Those two the widest arms of Nile is seen,  
Is Delta, which so plentifully yields,  
Ceres and Bacchus, rich in pasture fields,  
And flowery meadows, where the bleating flocks,  
And horned herds do graze; the labouring Ox  
Wearied in those fat furrows, ne'er deceives  
Hopes which the greediest husbandman conceives.  
There lofty Cities stand, and Towns of fame,  
Lakes flow, which from those Cities take their names.  
Butum environed with the Buticke lake,  
Where once her Oracles Latona spoke:  
There fair Diospolis, Lycopolis,  
Hermopolis, and Leontopolis  
Proud Cities rise: There doth Busiris stand  
Fatal to strangers, that were forced to land  
Upon her bloody shore; until the hand  
Of great Alcides freed the grieved land  
From that fell Tyrant's reign, whose name the town  
Yet bears; near that is that fair City known  
By Venus' name; there fair Panephysis,  
Tanitis, Xois, and Cynospolis,  
And Sais chief of all the region,  
In which Minerua's stately Temple's shown,  
Where famed Psammiticus entombed lies.  
There also Mendes famous walls do rise,  
Where Pan th'Arcadian god is worshipped,  
And goats adored; there goats (as we have read)  
Do mix with womankind; so got was he  
That loved the boy turned to a Cypress tree.  
But now to know the future wars success,  
The King advised by Dioscorides  
Ere from Canobus he through Delta pass,  
(Since there Serapis stately Temple was)  
Resolved to crave that Oracle's advice  
Commands the Priests prepare a sacrifice.  
This snake-like god Serapis seated there,  
Whom all rich Egypt, and the nations near  
Devoutly worship, and from every port  
To his undoubted Oracle resort,  
Speaks not to men, like other gods, nor snewes  
His truth by voice, as horned Ammon does;  
Norlike their Apis, fore-declaring good  
Or bad, by taking or refusing food;  
Nor like the Delphian Phoebus doth possess  
In kill rage, a wretched Prophetess,  
Making sad death the punishment or hire  
Of every soul his fury doth inspire;  
But gently glides into a sleeping breast,  
By dreams instructing our repose and rest,  
In truths that can be by no labour gained:  
There only knowledge is with ease attained.  
To this renowned Temple far and near  
Th' Egyptian Lords and Princes come to hear  
Truth without help of senses, and to know  
By dreaming there their future weal or woe.  
Why should this god his knowledge then declare  
To men, when men least fit for knowledge are?  
And choose to come to them at such a time  
When they no duties can return to him?  
Is it his bounty or his power to show,  
That men so taught may plainly see they owe  
Nothing at all to studies of their own,  
But to his bounty and his power alone,  
That then can make them understand aright  
When they are rest of understanding quite?  
Or else the god, when men can exercise  
Their powers and intellectual faculties,  
Will not descend with their weak thoughts to join  
Commixing human reason with divine.  
Within the Temples inmost room, a bed  
Of richest purple wrought with gold was spread;  
To which the King was by the Priests conveyed,  
And there, to take his dreaming vision, laid.  
No dreams at all within that sacred room  
But such as were divinely sent, might come.  
Others, which from complexions difference  
Or natural humours flowed, were banished thence;  
And those which from the studies of the day,  
Or cares arose, in th' outward Temple stay,  
And there together fly in companies  
Of different colours, shapes, and qualities.  
Fair sanguine dreams, that seem to cheer the night,  
With beauteous shapes, and rosy wings, as bright  
As is the morning, or those flowers, that grace  
In midst of spring, the painted Flora's face,  
Within the Temple merrily do sport;  
To whom the little Cupid's oft resort;  
The little Cupids from fair Venus' grove  
Stealing by night, do thither come, and love  
With those bright sanguine dreams to pass away  
The hours of night in sport and amorous play.  
There dreams of choler in a flame-like hue  
Through th' air, like little fiery Meteors flew  
With swift and angry motion to and fro,  
As if they sought within that place a foe.  
Sometimes up to the Temples roof on high  
They soar, as if they meant to scale the sky,  
Or some impossible achievement sought  
T' allay the thirst of an aspiring thought.  
But down below with sad and heavy cheer  
On dead men's Tombs, and every Sepulchre,  
The dusky dreams of melancholy light,  
With sable wings like Bats, or birds of night.  
Fluttering in darkest corners here and there,  
But all alone, and still each other fear.  
Courting dead skulls, and seeming to invite  
The dismal ghosts for company by night.  
There all along the Temples whited wall  
Phlegmatic lazy dreams, not winged at all,  
But slow, like slimy Snails, about do crawl,  
And evermore are thence afraid to fall  
And so be drowned; for on the floor below  
They do suppose deep pools of water flow.  
But swift as thoughts can fly, as winds do blow  
Or winged lightning, in a moment go  
The flatuous dreams through th' air; sometimes with noise  
Like the far-off affrighting thunders voice.  
Besides a thousand other companies  
Of dreams, which do from daily cares arise,  
From thoughts and deeds of men; which do appear  
In forms as many and as different there  
As all the world has objects, or is filled  
With deeds: All these to dreams diviner yield,  
And fly aloof without; nor dare they come  
Into the Temples inward sacred room.  
The dead of night had closed every eye,  
And sleep now seized the breast of Ptolomey,  
When lo a vision from Serapis sent  
To his affrighted fancy did present  
The changed state of Egypt's hapless land,  
Which now by fate's appointment was at hand.  
A large-sized Ox, into that sacred room  
With sad and heavy pace did seem to come,  
And lean he was, as if he had not eat  
Of long, or wanting, or refusing meat;  
Save two white spots, his colour wholly black,  
One on his forehead, other on his back:  
And passing by he seemed to wail and moan,  
From his black eyes the tears fast trickling down.  
After a woman came of stature tall,  
Of presence stately and majestical;  
High Towers, and Castles on her head she bore,  
But loose, as if all torn, hung down her hair.  
Strong chains did seem her naked arms to tie;  
With that arose a dismal shriek and cry,  
As it had been from ghosts infernal sent,  
Whose fury rend the regal monument:  
And from their opened tombs he saw arise  
The ghosts of all the buried Ptolemies,  
From Lagus son the first, in order all,  
Who following, seemed to wail the woman's fall.  
With that cold chilling horror from the breast  
Of sleeping Ptolomey had banished rest,  
Who with amazed thoughts looked up and down▪  
But when his eyes were open, the sight was gone.  
The Priest's approach, and hearing him relate  
His doleful dream, lament the wretched State  
Of Egypt's kingdom, and with one consent  
Foretell th' approaching change of government:  
Yet to appease the gods, by their advice,  
The King commands a solemn sacrifice.  
But nearer miseries by far than those  
Do threaten thee, poor King; the god foreshows  
Thy Country's future dangers, and from thee  
Conceals thine own approaching tragedy.  
To meet with Caesar then he marched away  
Through wealthy Delta, and encamped lay  
Upon an high and spacious hill, which round  
About commands the lower champain ground;  
From whence the Country he afar descried.  
A place by nature strongly fortified  
Three several ways; th' ascent so steep and hard  
To climb, as seemed impregnable, did guard  
One part alone without the aid of men:  
Unto another part a spacious fen  
And lake did seem to give protection:  
To guard the third a river swiftly run.  
Betwixt the lake and which alone did stand,  
To lend some passage, a small neck of land:  
That little Isthmos seemed alone to stand  
In need of guarding by a soldier's hand  
Against the foes assault. But in that place  
The King supposes, 'twere too much disgrace  
To be assaulted first, and would dismay  
His soldier's hearts, for Caesar there to stay;  
Or else not safe in what defence the lake,  
The river, hill, or his own works could make,  
To hinder Caesar's coming he intends  
far off; and most of all his forces sends  
To guard a river where his passage lay.  
That bank, on which th' Egyptian soldiers stay,  
Was high, and far from water, and might well  
Keep the Caesarians off, or them compel  
To fight on wondrous disadvantage there.  
But Caesar's troops incapable of fear,  
At first approach, resolve, viewing the place,  
In spite of disadvantages to pass.  
And whilst the legionary soldiers throw  
'Gainst other side, to busy there the foe,  
Thick storms of winged piles; whilst some of them  
Strive to lay trees, for bridges, o'er the stream,  
The Germane cohorts up and down do try  
The river's depth, and where most easily  
They may or swim, or wade the channel through;  
And make as boldly their attempts as though  
They went against no enemy at all.  
Whilst the Egyptians do securely gall  
Down from above their labouring enemy,  
And on the place, not their own worth rely:  
For all the weapons, which from them are thrown,  
Require no strength, but by descent alone  
Bring wounds to the Caesarians, who, enraged  
To be 'gainst such advantages engaged,  
Sigh, that their valour they must vainly lose  
Not to subdue, but to approach their foes,  
And must contend as eagerly to gain  
A fight, as erst a conquest to obtain.  
Against the river and the banks they go:  
And in this war the foe is least the foe.  
Caesar perceives in what distressed plight  
The legionaries are enforced to fight,  
And therefore strait commands his lightest horse  
To wheel about, and with a speedy course  
far from that place to cross the river over.  
Which they performed swiftly, and before  
Th' Egyptian Soldiers their approach could fear,  
Behind they charged them in a full career.  
Whose force whilst they, turning about, withstood,  
The legionary Soldiers past the flood  
With greater ease by bridges which they made,  
And through the shallowest fords the Germans wade.  
And now at last th' Egyptian Soldiers  
Are forced, though loath, to enter equal wars.  
But fear made them unequal, and subdued  
As soon as fought with, by the fortitude  
Of Caesar's men, who else had sought in vain  
By so much sweat and labour to obtain  
A battle, had they not a conquest had:  
And now a slaughter, not a war was made.  
The King from out his lofty Camp beheld  
His slaughtered Soldiers bodies strew the field,  
Which late they stood upon: for scarce by flight  
Were any saved; the Caesarian spite  
Pursued the conquest which they had obtained  
With such a fury, that the fields distained  
All ore with blood, might let th' Egyptians see  
How they before had fought unequally.  
He views how few returned, that news to tell,  
Which he had seen, and knew too sadly well.  
But to the Camp those, that escaped were  
Brought nothing but astonishment and fear.  
Th' encamped find in them no aid at all,  
But see the greatness of their fellows fall:  
Whom Caesar's men so swiftly follow home,  
That to the trenches, and outworks they come.  
Caesar, that never in his battles, held  
A foe subdued, till from his Camp expelled,  
Exhorts his Soldiers to forget their pains  
And freshly force the works, whilst fear there reigns,  
To end this war, and with the wealthy spoil  
Of Egypt's King to recompense their toil.  
Nor need the Soldiers be encouraged  
To seek their wages for the blood they shed.  
They first invade that little neck of land  
Which 'twixt the river and the lake did stand.  
But that th' Egyptian Soldiers most do guard;  
When on the passage there begins a hard  
And bloody conflict; one side fight to make  
Their conquest perfect, and the fruit to take:  
T'other despair in stead of courage arms;  
For vanquished they fear the worst of harms.  
From either side the passage where they stood,  
The lake and river are distained with blood.  
Down half dead bodies they precipitate,  
Who drowned in water taste a double fate.  
There oft together, as they fight stand,  
Egyptians and Caesarians hand in hand  
Do grappling fall into the crimson lake;  
Nor there (alas) their enmity forsake:  
But weakly try the combat out, where he  
That conquers can no long survivor be.  
Whilst on that side the Camp, both parties fought  
So furiously, and all hands thither brought;  
Caesar perceived on the other side,  
That seemed enough by nature fortified,  
Where the ascent was craggy, steep, and hard  
To climb, that Ptolomey had left no guard;  
Or those that had been left, from thence were gone  
To other side, as aid, or lookers on.  
Thither his lightest cohorts he commands;  
Bold Carfulenus leads those active hands,  
Who strait, as Caesar gave in charge to him,  
With those lightarmed cohorts 'gins to climb.  
Th'ascent so steep and hard, that to the foe  
Did seem impregnable, but proved not so,  
Brought on their ruin; death there entered in,  
From whence with greatest ease he might have been  
Repelled by them. But Carfulenus now  
Entering th'Aegyptian Camp, with small ado  
Kills or repels his few resisting foes,  
Fear and distraction through the Camp arose.  
The works, whilst to and fro th' amazed run,  
On every side by the Caesarians won:  
To whom for mercy now they sue in vain,  
Nor does the General their swords restrain;  
But bids them kill, and in their slaughter free  
The world from so much fraud and treachery.  
Part of th'egyptian-camp had been before  
Rome's legionary Soldiers, and brought over  
Under Gabinius, there in Egypt left  
Were by her pleasures softened, and bereft  
Of military virtue, and became  
Degenerate stains unto the Roman name.  
Like the Egyptians they were grown to be  
In manners, baseness, fraud, and treachery.  
Not far from thence, unto the river side  
A little vessel by a rope was tied:  
Whither the King in this tumultuous heat  
Of flight, escaped from the Camp, doth get;  
And now aboard, commands his slender train  
With all their strength to launch it forth amain.  
His purple robe upon the shore he throws  
To fly disguised; but cruel Fate allows  
No flight nor safety to him; nought at all  
Gains his disguise but a Plebeian fall.  
For lo the flying multitude espied  
(That from the Camp pressed to the river's side)  
That bark, contending all to get aboard  
To save themselves, respectless of their Lord.  
He cries, the King is here; do not intrude;  
There is no safety for a multitude  
In one small vessel; why should you destroy  
(Losing yourselves) the life of Ptolomey?  
Though Fortune work my ruin, do not you  
Murder your King: but Caesar's men pursue,  
Amazement stops their ears, and fear of sword  
Had banished all allegiance to their Lord:  
Till, the o'erladen vessel sinking down,  
Themselves together with their King they drown.  
Mixed with Plebeian deaths a Monarch lies  
The royal race of th' ancient Ptolomey's  
Under no covert but his Nile's cold waves,  
No Pyramids, nor rich Mausolean graves,  
Nor sacred Vaults, whose structures do excel:  
As his forefather's ashes proudly dwell,  
And dead, as living, do their wealth express  
In sumptuous tombs as gorgeous Palaces.  
Unhappy Ptolomey, how short a date  
Have Fates allotted to thy kingly State?  
No otherwise didst thou a Crown obtain  
Than sacrifices, crowned to be slain.  
Happier mightst thou have died, before thy reign  
(Though short it were) had left that lasting stain  
Of Pompey's death upon thy name, and showed  
To future times thy foul ingratitude,  
Depriving him of breath, that did before  
Thy banished Father to a Crown restore.  
And now to that dead Roman worthies Tomb  
Art thou enforced a Sacrifice to come  
T'appease his Ghost, and offered up by him,  
In whose behalf thou didst that heinous crime.  
Who chooses rather to revenge, than owe  
To thee, so base a ruin of his foe.  
Caesar, possessed of this great victory,  
By land, through Delta marches speedily  
To Alexandria; but supposing there  
How much the City his just wrath might fear,  
He sends before to comfort them, and free  
Th' inhabitants from fear and jealousy.  
To be with joy received, he declares  
That all his wrath is ended with his wars;  
That he, as Rome's dictator, would preserve  
Their lives and liberties, and still reserve  
The Crown of Egypt free, rightly to place  
Upon the next of Lagus royal race.  
And that no other now was his intent  
Than to confirm Auletes Testament.  

Annotations to the first Book.  
ᵃ Thus Dion; Caesar believed that the Egyptians had truly desired peace, disheartened with their designs not succeeding (for he had heard they were a people by nature timorous and unconstant;) but howsoever their intentions were, he resolved to grant their request, lest he should seem to withstand an offered peace; he sends therefore their King to them; for by his presence he knew there was no increase of strength brought to them, considering his age and bad education: by this means he supposed he might afterwards conclude a peace with the Egyptians upon his own terms, or find a just pretence of conquering the Country, and giving the Kingdom to Cleopatra: for he was not at all afraid of their strength now, having received his army out of Syria. Dion. lib. 42.  
ᵇ The young King educated in false and deceitful disciplines, that he might not seem to degenerate from the manners of his Nation, weeping entreated Caesar that he would not send him from him; for enjoying of a Kingdom could not be to him so pleasant as the presence of Caesar. Caesar moved with his tears comforted him, and promised if there were need shortly to visit him; but Ptolomey at liberty, began immediately to war against Caesar with so fierce and eager a desire, that the tears which at the parting he shed, might seem to be tears of joy. Hirt. Come. de bello Alexan.  
ᶜ None of the Roman ships came at all to the succour of Euphranor, either bacause they durst not partake of the danger, or because they had a strong confidence in the great virtue, and extraordinary felicity of Euphranor, which in all his other fights had ever attended him: so that he only at that time behaved himself well, and perished alone with his victorious Galley. Hirt. Come. de bello Alexan.  
ᵈ Of this town Canopus, and the Temple of Serapis there, thus Strabo speaks in his seventeenth book; Canopus' distant from Alexandria an hundred and twenty furlongs by land, was so called from Canopus Menelaus his Master of his ship, who was buried there: in it is the Temple of Serapis, with great devotion honoured amongst them, insomuch as the Noblemen put great affiance in that god, and come thither to take dreams both for themselves and others: some of them have written of diverse cures which have been there wrought, and many miracles in several kinds: but above all other things, wonderful is that number, who upon Festival times come down thither by the Lake from Alexandria: for night and day is that Lake full of boats, in which men and women with songs, and gestures of all manner of Lasciviousness do recreate themselves; and in Canopus itself, diverse Jnns there are upon the Lake side to entertain passengers with such levities' and vain delights. Strabo lib. 17.  
ᵉ This young King Ptolomeus Dionysius son to Ptolomeus Auletes the last of all the race of Ptolomey's, by the wicked counsel of his followers, as Photinus the Eunuch, Achillas Captain of the guard, and Theodorus Chius the Rhetorician, had unthankfully slain Pompey the great flying to him in his necessity, who before had been the greatest means of restoring his father Auletes to the Crown of Egypt. Dion. Plutarch. Appion.  
ᶠ Auletes Ptolomeus the ninth Ptolomey from the son of Lagus, who after the death of Alexander the great possessed Egypt, was a man (saith Strabo) of most dissolute and wicked manners, for which he was expelled his kingdom by the people of Alexandria; who made the eldest of his three daughters Queen over them; his two sons being both infants had by this means lost all hope of succession in their father's Kingdom: the Queen elected was married to one Cybiosactes of Syria, who derived his pedigree from the ancient Syrian Kings: but the Queen within few days strangled her husband, not able to endure his sordid and base nature; and married herself to Archelaus, who feigned himself the son of Mithridates Eupator; but was indeed the son of that Archelaus, who had warred against Sylla, but was afterwards honoured by the Romans, and grandfather to him who reigned last in our times over Cappadocia: this Archelaus living then with Gabinius, whom he promised to aid in a war against the Parthians, was by some of his friends (unknown to Gabinius) brought unto the Queen, and declared King: at that time the banished King Ptolomeus Auletes was fled to Rome, and there kindly entertained by Pompey the Great, and by him commended to the Senate: Pompey advised them to restore Auletes to his Kingdom and put to death those Ambassadors that were come thither to plead against their Prince, of which Embassage Dio the Academian was chief. Auletes therefore brought back to his Kingdom by Gabinius overcame, and killed the Queen his daughter, and Archelaus his son in law; dying shortly after he left behind him two sons and two daughters. Strabo lib. 17.  
ᵍ Ptolomeus Auletes by his testament had willed (according to the incestuous custom of that family) that his eldest son Ptolomey should marry his eldest daughter Cleopatra, and with her enjoy the Crown of Egypt: the procuration of this testament was by him assigned to the people of Rome, which Caesar as Dictator had power to execute. Dion. lib. 42. Hirt. Come. de bello Alexand.   
FINIS.   

THE SECOND BOOK.  
The Argument of the second Book.  
Fair Cleopatra is espoused, and led  
A wife in name, to her young brother's bed:  
Great Caesar's heart her tempting beauties fire,  
Who reaps the wanton fruit of his desire.  
The scattered relics of Pharsalia  
Scipio unites again in Africa.  
The strength of Varus there; each nations name,  
That under Iuba's royal standard came.  
Caesar from Egypt 'gainst Pharnaces goes,  
And vanquishes, as soon as sees, his foes:  
Erects a trophy there; and crossing over  
More swift than thought, arrives on Libya's shore.  
THe Alexandrian Citizens released  
From all their fears by Caesar's pardon, feast  
With joy; extol his goodness to the skies,  
And to their gods devoutly sacrifice  
With usual rites: Alas, you do not know  
Fond Alexandrians, to whom you owe  
Your City's safety; not those deities,  
That you with vain and barbarous mysteries  
Adore, have wrought it; nor could all your Towers,  
Your stately Temples, Tombs of Conquerors,  
Nor Alexander's buried dust, which more  
Than your religion Caesar's thoughts adore,  
Prevail so much in purchasing his grace,  
As beauty's charms in Cleopatra's face.  
It was the glance of her bewitching eyes,  
Had power to help your helpless deities:  
Nor was it fit such people, rites, and laws  
Should owe their safety to a better cause.  
Great Cleopatra mistress of the State,  
To give the conquering author of her Fate  
High entertainment, to his eye displays  
Th' Egyptian wealth in such luxurious ways  
As might excuse even Rome, and make the riot  
Of her degenerate Senate seem the diet  
Which th' ancient Curii, and Camillus used,  
Not what her Asian victories infused.  
The gorgeous Palace with such lustre shone  
As wealthy kingdoms near their ruin grown  
Use to express; which show the present crimes,  
And speak the fortune of precedent times.  
But Caesar's eyes in all that wealthy store,  
Which he so lately had beheld before,  
No pleasure find, nor with delight views he  
The golden roofs, nor precious imagery,  
Rich Eben pillars, boards of Citron wood,  
Which on their carved ivory tressells stood:  
Nor curious hangings do his eyes admire.  
For Cleopatra's beauty, and attire  
Did quite eclipse all objects, and outshone  
All other splendours; on her looks alone  
His eyes are fixed; which, though beheld before,  
The more he views, do ravish him the more.  
All other objects lose at second sight;  
But woman's beauty breeds the more delight  
The ofter seen: he views that snowy neck,  
Those golden tresses, which no gems can deck.  
The wealth, she wore about her, seemed to hide,  
Not to adorn her native beauty's pride.  
Though there bright Pearls from th' Erythraean shores,  
From all th' Assyrian lakes, the wealthy stores  
Of silver Ganges, and Hydaspes shone;  
From Egypt's Eastern Isles the goldlike stone,  
And cheerful Emeralds gathered from the green  
Arabian rocks were in full splendour scene.  
Pale Onyx, jaspers' of a various die,  
And Diamonds darkened by her brighter eye.  
The Saphires blue, by her more azure veins,  
Hung not to boast, but to confess their stains.  
And blushing Rubies seemed to lose their die  
When her more ruby lips were moving by.  
It seemed (so well became her what she wore)  
She had not robbed at all the creatures store,  
But had been nature's self, there to have showed  
What she on creatures could, or had bestowed.  
But Caesar's heart inflamed long before  
Burns with fresh fury, and resolves no more  
Now to conceal, but feed the pleasing flame.  
What power (quoth he) controls my wish, what fame?  
What would the sourest seeming virtue do  
Armed with a power like me, and tempted so?  
By such a beauty as from guilt would free  
A Ravisher, and make adultery  
No crime at all, but such a piece of vice  
As former times unto the Deities  
Did oft impute; had Cleopatra been  
By those renowned Grecian writers seen,  
Whose deathless Poems in the skies above  
Have fixed so many paramours of Jove;  
Before the daughters of fair Pleione,  
Atlanta, Maia, and Taygete, she  
Had there been graced: her Tresses far more fair  
Had showed in Heaven than Berenice's hair.  
Calistho's Wain had not in skies been set,  
Nor Ariadne's shining Coronet,  
Till Cleopatra's Star had found a place,  
And chose what part of Heaven she meant to grace.  
Let jove my warrant be; whom powerful love  
So oft has forced from Heaven; or let it prove  
The Thunderers excuse to future times  
That Caesar now partakes the Thunderers crimes.  
There is no cause thou shouldst misdoubt thy suit,  
No waking Dragon keeps that golden fruit  
Thou meanest to taste, nor needest thou fear to find  
That beauty guarded by too chaste a mind.  
Yet wanton love, and Cupid's childish fires,  
Which warm Plebeian hearts, and move desires  
In rural Girls, and lowly Shepherd's swains,  
Aid not thy suit, Oh Caesar. She disdains  
That common cause should make her beauty yield  
To thy embraces; her proud breast was filled  
With higher thoughts; desire of Sovereignty,  
Aspiring hopes of State and Majesty  
In Cleopatra's breast had now controlled  
All other passions; had her blood been cold,  
Yet when ambition pleaded on thy side,  
Her chastity had yielded to her pride.  
That reason Caesar, that did first subdue  
Thy loyalty to Rome, made thee imbrue  
Thy patricidal hands in her sad wounds,  
And die with blood Thessalia's guilty grounds,  
Proves now the self same cause that conquered  
This Queen, and drew her to thy wanton bed.  
Let not the guilty greatness of thy mind  
Be by vain men extolled; since here we find  
A woman's breast the same impressions move:  
Ambitious pride, and Sovereignties dire love  
Alike in thee and Cleopatra placed,  
Made thee disloyal prove, and her unchaste.  
Caesar, lest Rome should judge he first did move  
This war alone for Cleopatra's love,  
To win for her, not for his Country's sake,  
(For conquered Egypt he intends to make  
No Roman province) and on th' other side  
Too much suspecting that th' Egyptians pride,  
His bounteous favour would far less esteem  
If that a woman wore their Diadem,  
Whilst yet a male child lived of Lagus blood;  
Thus clears both doubts; to make the action good  
One colour serves: young Ptolomey, whom he  
Before had married to Arsinoë,  
A child of eight years old, must now supply  
The room of his dead brother Ptolomey,  
And wear two shadows both of love and State,  
Of Egypt's King, and Cleopatra's mate.  
What more than names, poor boy, dost thou obtain?  
As vain thy marriage is, as is thy reign,  
And but in title nothing is thine own:  
Caesar thy bed possesses, she thy Crown.  
Nor canst thou yet so much as rival prove  
In Cleopatra's reign, or Caesar's love.  
Yet happy art thou that thy tender age  
Cannot enjoy th' incestuous marriage:  
For if the match for thee had been more fit,  
Thou hadst contracted greater guilt from it,  
And with fowl Incest stained a brother's name;  
But whilst thou want'st the fruit, thou want'st the blame.  
Now without care thou dost a Crown obtain,  
And an Incestuous marriage without stain.  
Now nights black mantle had the earth o'erspread,  
And all the host of Stars in Phoebus' stead  
(Though with less light) adorned the spangled sky:  
When Caesar fired with love, and raised high  
With M●roës sparkling wine, pursues his suit,  
And soon obtains the wished and wanton fruit  
Of his late wars and toils; his fame and glory,  
His power, and gifts the strongest oratory  
Had wooed, and won the Queen to his delight,  
Within whose arms he spends the wanton night.  
Nor, Cleopatra, was 't a crime in thee;  
Th' incestuous custom of thy family,  
Where sisters wives on brothers are bestowed,  
And mixture of the nearest names allowed,  
Makes this a virtuous love: thou hadst been led  
With greater guilt to such a Nuptial bed;  
And 'tis thy fate, thy beauty cannot be  
Better enjoyed than by adultery.  
Yet from the burden of her fruitful womb  
Both hers, and Caesar's punishment come.  
For young Caesario, whom their love's short joy  
With adverse Fates begets (unhappy boy)  
Untimely slain, shall be in future time  
Augustus Caesar's patricidal crime,  
And Caesar's house with Caesar's blood shall blot;  
Thy guilt, Augustus, is that night begot,  
Which shall hereafter those rich triumphs stain,  
Which thou from Egypt's conquest shalt obtain;  
Unless that flattery be taught for thee  
To wrest all nature's laws, and policy  
Of State, together with the peace of Rome  
Alleged to justify thy bloody doom.  
Whilst Caesar thus a wanton Conqueror  
In Egypt stays, the Senate's scattered power  
And flying legions from Pharsalia  
Scipio again unites in Africa,  
‛ Great Pompey's father in law, who now o'er all  
Is by consent elected General.  
Stout Labienus most engaged of all  
In hate to Caesar, (though against the Gaul  
He under Caesar's colours oft had fought)  
Serves under him; and matchless Cato brought  
By no engagement of a private cause,  
But for his Country's liberty and laws.  
Petreius falsely there takes arms again  
'Gainst Caesar's side, by Caesar once in Spain  
Pardoned before; there Attius Varus stands,  
Who all the Roman Provinces commands  
In Africa, once proud Carthage feodars:  
Who brings his Punic forces to the wars,  
Subtle in warlike slights, with Targets light,  
Short swords, and breasts unarmed they use to fight▪  
And still in battle wear their Cassocks red  
To hide the colour of the blood they shed.  
Dry Barces scorched, and ever-thirsting sands  
Send men to Varus; there the warlike bands  
Of hot Cyrene stand, the progeny  
Of Pelops stained and tragic family,  
That from Mycena came; there th' Aaeans stood  
Mixed of Libyan and Sicilian blood;  
And those of Tabraca, th' old Tyrians brood.  
The men of Leptis, and at Hippo bred,  
Where the Phaenicians first inhabited  
When they to Africa came; Hippo, whose site  
Made it the ancient Libyan King's delight.  
And there in arms the men of Thapsus be,  
That from the Latins draw their pedigree.  
Juba to these his mighty army brings,  
Juba the greatest of all Africa's Kings,  
Who had already given a fatal blow  
In Curio's sad and mortal overthrow  
To Caesar's side: No Libyan King alone  
Commands so large and vast a region.  
Th' extent of his dominion lies as far  
As Thera's plains, and horned Ammon are  
From Mauritania's farthest Western lands,  
Where near the Gades heaven-propping Atlas stands.  
With whom to war so many nations went  
Of manners, rites, and habits different;  
Fierce Mauritanians, which derive their race  
From th' ancient Medes, who peopled first the place.  
The Nasamonians ever bare and poor  
Till wracks at Sea enrich their fatal shore  
With mankind's ruin; the scorched swarthy bands  
Of Garamantians, on whose barren sands  
No shady trees ere spread, no flocks do feed,  
Nor ought but serpents, and dire monsters breed.  
With these Marmarians march, whom nature makes  
As antidotes against those mortal Snakes.  
Then march the vagrant bold Numidians  
On well-reined Steeds; and light Massylians,  
Who evermore their Horses bitlesse ride;  
And them alone with slender wands can guide▪  
The strong Getulians', that no dwellings know,  
But with their herds do wander too and fro;  
That in no sports but dangerous delight;  
And singly dare with raging Lions fight.  
The light Autololes, whose winged speed,  
In running, far outstrips the swiftest Steed,  
Equals the winds themselves, and, as they pass,  
Scarce bend the standing corn, or slender grass.  
The coal-black Mibian next, upon whose brow  
And curled-lockes the scorching Sun doth show  
His lasting Tyranny; who to the war  
Does lightly go, his breast and body bare,  
And never iron nor brass armour wears;  
Great linen Turbans on his head he bears  
In stead of helms: his arrows mortal points  
With venomed juice he treacherously anoints.  
Shaggy Cyniphians too were armed there  
Who Goats rough skins upon their shoulders wear,  
Their beards o'ergrown and horrid: near to these  
With painted shields the Adyrmachides  
Armed on the left side only, not the right;  
And swords, like sickles, crooked they use in fight.  
Of diet course and rude; their meat upon  
The sands is roasted by the scorching Sun.  
Besides the troops that were from Vaga sent,  
That from Ruspina and fair Zamah went.  
From all these several places juba draws  
A royal Army t' aid the Senate's cause,  
joining himself with Roman Scipio.  
With all these forces they intent to go  
When first the spring her verdant face shall show,  
And comfortable gales of Zephyre blow,  
T' invade their native Country, and set free  
Subjected Rome from Caesar's Tyranny:  
And this their great design from the event  
Of old examples found encouragement.  
Since sad experiences did often show  
Rome's strength, near Rome, 't was easiest to subdue.  
They knew the barbarous Cimbrian, furious Gaul,  
The force of Carthage led by Hannibal  
Beat oft in foreign parts by Roman powers,  
In Italy proved easy Conquerors.  
With these they sadly call to mind how soon  
Cinna, Sertorius, Carbo, Marius won  
Rome by surprise, though beat in foreign lands  
With ease by Sylla, and great Pompey's hands.  
And last of all, when this sad war begun,  
And Caesar first had crossed Rubicon,  
Pompey without one conflict fled away,  
And Rome to him became an easy prey.  
But Caesar's fortune frustrates their intents;  
His wont speed and strange success prevents  
Their expedition; and, as every where  
He had before, so plays th' assailant here.  
Too soon, alas, shall you in Africa see  
Whom you intent to seek in Italy.  
But Caesar plunged in Egypt's soft delights  
Ensnared by beauty, and the charming slights  
Of Cleopatra, could almost forget  
How many armed foes, and forces, yet  
Oppose his growing fortunes, and remain  
Threatening the height of his usurped reign.  
As when Alcides with ill fate had seen  
The tempting beauties of th' Oechalian Queen▪  
His brawny shoulders strait forget to wear  
The lion's skin, his awful hand to bear  
The monster-taming club; from his rough head  
The poplar garland falls; no tyrant's dread  
That world-avenging strength; which had well nigh  
Been sunk into a fameless lethargy.  
And Juno's hopes of great Alcides fall  
A woman's beauty furthered more than all  
Those monstrous plagues, which she had power t' invent,  
Or could from air, earth, seas, or hell be sent.  
But Fortune finds alarms to awake  
The soul of Caesar from this dream, and make  
Complete for him the work she had begun,  
Whither she hastened Rome's sad ruin on;  
Or rather blushed such liberties and laws,  
Should owe their safety to so base a cause  
As Caesar's sloth; and judged it better far  
Than keep it so, to lose it by a war:  
That war alone, which built up Rome's high reign,  
Should now have power to ruin her again.  
Nor were the Fates pleased that the wanton love  
Of Cleopatra should more helpful prove  
To Rome's affairs, than all those iust-drawne swords,  
Which once Thessalia, Libya now affords.  
Yet was it now no strength, no arms of Rome,  
No part of Civil war drew Caesar from  
Egypt's delights; Pharnaces feeble power  
Provoked him first to make him Conqueror  
Of greater forces than his own; as when  
A sleeping Lion's couched in his den,  
The horned herds securely graze along  
The verdant pastures; till that Lion stung  
By some presumptuous little Gnat awake,  
And wanting there his full revenge, doth make  
Those cattle feel his wrath; whose lives anon  
Do rue the little Gnat's presumption.  
This false Pharnaces, who from Pompey's hand  
Received (as price of parricide) the land  
Of rich Cimmerian Bosphorus, was son  
To Mithridates, whose feared power had won  
From Nicomedes his Bythinia,  
Conquered Armenia, Cappadocia,  
And wealthyest Grecian Isles, whose swelling fame  
Began to rival Rome's victorious name,  
And long withstood her growing Fate; at last  
By Pompey's force from all his kingdoms chased  
He fell by treason, to increase the shame  
Of his false son, and lessen Pompey's fame.  
Pharnaces now with vain ambition swelled,  
Deceived by flattering hopes, when he beheld  
Rome's broils, and saw how her divided bands  
Against themselves employed their conquering hands,  
Sought to regain what once his father had,  
And 'gan the Roman provinces invade:  
In Asia minor, (his first enterprise  
Fortune beholding with propitious eyes)  
Domitius fall, who with ill Fate employed  
The swords of Caesar, raised his boasting pride.  
Nicopolis, whose lofty walls were there  
Founded as Pompey's Trophies, still to bear  
Name of his Conquest, and the place to show  
Of Mithridate● final overthrow,  
Beheld the slaughter of Domitius hosts  
A parentation to the Pontic ghosts.  
Nine times had Cynthia now restored again  
Light to her waned horns, when Caesar chained  
In Cleopatra's wanton arms, had stayed  
On Egypt's coast; her swelling womb displayed  
At last th' effect of an adulterous bed.  
Whom Caesar thus departing comforted:  
Fair Queen, sole mistress of thy Caesar's State,  
The fate of him that rules all other fate,  
Pharnaces cruel to himself and me,  
With his own ruin parts our company.  
His treasons, Love, now call my vengeful steel.  
Do not thou grieve; the conquered foes shall feel  
Our parting grief, and in their slaughter see  
With how much anger Caesar goes from thee.  
But that poor King dares not my force withstand;  
He only draws me from this happy land,  
To make a journey rather than a war,  
For he at first will fly, and easier far  
May I obtain a conquest than a fight:  
His dastard troops my name alone shall fright.  
And easy triumph comes; but I from thee  
Go grieved to triumphs, sad to victory.  
From thee, whose eyes make Egypt's swarthy face  
Brighter than that white path the gods do trace▪  
Without whose light no land breeds my content▪  
And Rome itself to me is banishment.  
But Fate to us far greater conquests owes:  
How much, alas, would Cleopatra lose  
If Caesar stayed at home? we have not yet  
Fully attained that world-commanding height,  
That must enthrone thy beauty in a State  
High as itself, for all to wonder at  
Like some new Constellation: those that near  
Th' Antarctic pole, ne'er see the Northern Bear  
Descend into the Ocean; those that lie  
(Enduring winters lasting tyranny)  
Under the frozen wa●●e, and lose the sight  
Of bright Canopus, whose desired light  
Cheers this Horizon still, shall both adore  
Fair Cleopatra's name; the farthest shore  
That Peleus silver-footed wife doth know  
Shall honour thee; even Rome herself shall bow,  
And with her Eagles shall thy State maintain,  
Whilst Kings do wait in Cleopatra's train.  
For such effects, fair Queen, (if Caesar know  
His Fate aright) shall this our parting now  
Return to thee when I in triumph come:  
By this dear part of Caesar, which thy womb  
Encloses here, thou shalt engage our speed:  
Therefore farewell; we must pursue in deed  
Our consultations, swiftly as we thought.  
But Cleopatra, whom loves Queen had taught  
All winning wiles; and blessed with such a face  
As tears became, and grief itself did grace,  
Thus with a seeming grief, and tears replies:  
I dare not hope to change the Fates, or prise  
My worthless prayers at so high a rate,  
As to have power to change at all the State  
Of Caesar's great resolves, on which depend  
All nations Fates, and all the Stars attend.  
If by their prayers frail Mortality  
Should hope to alter what the god's decree,  
'Twere a proud piety. I'll rather lose  
My suit, and check my love, than interpose  
It so; and rather to myself deny  
The happiness of Caesar's company,  
Than love it with so great presumption,  
As, for mine own delights, to hinder one  
Of his resolves; yet pardon, mighty Lord,  
If to mine own desires I do afford  
One place in love: cannot Great Caesar thrive  
In these his wars, if Cleopatra live  
near to his person? Can it overthrow  
His fortune to procure my safety so?  
There's no retreat in all the world for me,  
So safe as thy victorious Camp will be.  
But I am pleased to stay at thy command  
In Egypt still, and still suppose this land  
Within Great Caesar's reach; whose powerful hands  
From silver Ganges to the Baetick sands,  
From Pole to Pole extend their conquering force:  
No distances of place can long divorce  
Us two, if Caesar in his love can be  
As speedy as in war and victory,  
And march as far to find his friends as foes▪  
This pledge, which I within myself enclose,  
Assures my longing mind against delay,  
That Caesar long will not protract his stay.  
Then with a kiss he bade the Queen adieu;  
And winged with haste into Armenia flew  
Swifter than lightning, or the Southern wind  
Along through Libya's yielding air, to find  
Pharnaces out; whom he (past thought) o'ertook  
Near Zela walls, and vanquished with a look.  
Soon beat, he left behind him nought at all  
That might deserve a mention, but his fall:  
Nor can there aught of this short war be said  
But Caesar came, and saw, and vanquished.  
How much did Pompey's honour suffer there▪  
When Caesar's troops beheld that nations fear?  
And saw how easy 'twas to conquer them?  
How undeserved did his great triumph seem  
o'er Pontus and Armenia? More was lost  
Than poor Pharnaces Crown, and feeble host;  
The fame of Pompey was o'erthrown that day,  
When Caesar boasting could find cause to say;  
Oh Pompey; happy thou, that by defeat  
Of these base nations, got'st the name of Great;  
Whilst I subduing the fierce Ganles, deserved.  
No name, enjoyed no triumph: hadst thou served  
Beyond the frozen Alps, or past the bound  
Of Rhein's swift stream, the big-boned Germans found,  
A difference 'twixt our acts thou then hadst seen;  
Our Civil wars perchance had never been.  
Yet ere that he from thence to Africa pass,  
Though haste important urge him, in the place  
A stately Trophy he erects to show  
To future times Pharnaces overthrow,  
Not far from that proud Trophy, which before  
Great Mithridates for his Conquest o'er  
Triarius, had erected: that this story  
Might quite eclipse old Mithridates' glory,  
Or please his Manes, that the field there won  
took punishment of his unnatural son.  
But greater wars call Caesar thence away;  
Scipio not far from Adrumetum lay  
With all the power of Rome, but did not now  
Since Winter's fury raged, expect a foe.  
For Phoebus' lamp, to our Horizon low,  
The shortest days, and coldest did bestow  
From Capricorn, cold Winter glazed the floods,  
And pur●'d with frost the fields and naked woods.  
But Caesar's heart, admitting no delay,  
Whose speedy march no season ere could stay,  
When he his third Dictatorship at Rome  
Had ta'en, and thence to Sicily was come,  
Lest any time should to his fame be lost,  
Even then the Seas from Lilybaeum crossed.  
And sailing by the Libyan shores, espies  
Great Carthages halfe-ruined edifice;  
And Clupe as fatal station passes by  
With grief remembering how unhappily  
Bold Curio there did with his legions land,  
A woeful prey to Juba's barbarous band.  
Then from this ominous place he sails away  
Westward along; and leaving Vri●a  
(Where Cato then in Garrison did lie;  
Cato the soul of Roman liberty,  
Who from that Town must shortly take a name,  
And leave the Town, in lieu, eternal fame)  
At Ad●umetum lands; upon which coast  
Scipio encampes with all his Roman host.  

Annotations to the second Book.  
ᵃ Dion relates it thus; Caesar having subdued Egypt, would not subject it, as a Province to the people of Rome, but bestowed it wholly upon Cleopatra, for whose sake he bade made the whole war in Egypt; yet fearing lest the Egyptians under the reign of a woman would rebel again, and that he might perchance alienate the hearts of the Romans from himself by reason of this, and the familiarity, which he was known to have w●th Cleopatra, he gave her in marriage to her younger brother, and confirmed the Kingdom to them both; which was indeed but a show, for Cleopatra wholly possessed the power; her husband being a child; therefore under a pretext of marriage, by which she should join with her brother in the Kingdom, she both reigned alone, and enio●ed the bed of Caesar. Dion. lib. 42.  
ᵇ This Caesario, both Dion and Plutarch report to be the son of julius Caesar by Cleopatra, when after the Alexandrian war, and before his expedition against King Pharnaces, he stayed in Egypt (according to Dion) nine months: after the victory of Augustus Caesar against Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra, this Caesario being sent away for safety into Aethiopia (saith Dion) was intercepted in the journey and slain by Caesar's command: the reasons that moved Augustus to this cruelty were partly the Counsel (according to Plutarch) of Arius the Philosopher, his Tutor, who told him it was not s●fe to suffer too many Caesars: partly the remembrance of what Antonius had done, who before had commended this Caesario to the old Soldiers, advising them rather to honour the true and natural son of julius Caesar, than Octavius who was but an adopted heir.  
ᶜ Scipio was chosen General of all the Roman forces in Africa that meant to continue the war against Caesar, partly by reason of his dignity, and partly by an absurd persuasion (saith Dion) that no Scipio in Africa could be unfortunate: which thing when Caesar perceived might encourage the enemy, and dishearten his Soldiers, he took along with him a certain obscure man descended of the ra●e of the Scipios, and of that name (but his surname was Salatto) and with him to thwart the other superstitious fear, he landed at Adrumetum before the enemy expected him, it being then an unseasonable time of year. Dio. lib. 43.  
ᵈ Varus so long had governed those Countries, and was so puffed up by the victory of ●uba (saith Dion) that he contended with Scipio himself for the chief command: but by the authority of Cato it was swayed on Scipio's side. Cato, when all the Soldiers offered to him the chief command, or at least to be joined General with Scipio, refused both; accounting it just that he which by the laws had attained the highest dignity, should have now the greatest command; but he himself had never attained to so much dignity in Rome as Scipio; to him therefore of his own accord he yielded place, and gave him also that army which he had brought into Africa. Dion. lib. 43.  
ᵉ Petreius had before been vanquished by Caesar in Spawn. Lucan. lib 4. He was th●n pardoned and set free upon oath never to war against Caesar again; which oath here he violated.  
ᶠ Cleopatra (saith Dion) had stayed Caesar longer in Egypt or else accompanied him to Rome, if Pharnaces had not been the hindrance: this Pharnaces the son of great Mithridates was King of Bosphorus Cimmeriu●; but moved with an ambitious desire of recovering all his father's Kingdom, while Rome was entangled in Civil war, he had rebelled: and during the time of the Civil and Egyptian wars had with small ado subdued Colchis, and all Armenia in the absence of Deiotarus, besides many Cities of Cappadocia, Pontus, and Bythinia. Caesar busied then in the affairs of Egypt, and hoping to subdue Pharnaces by a Lieutenant's hand, sends Domitius Caluinus to that war, commanding him to take the regency of Asia, and of those armies which he found there. Domitius joining the Kin●s Deiotarus and Ariobarzanes to him, marches directly against Pharnaces, who was then at Nicopolis, where in fight Domitius was vanquished. Dion. lib. 43.  
ᵍ Those three words Veni, vidi, vici, did afterward in Caesar's triumph express his sudden Conquest of Pharnaces, and that then he uttered such a speech concerning Pompey, Appian is ●y authority.  
ʰ Caesar in the midst of Winter sailed into Africa; by which speed of his (saith Dion) in coming unawares upon his enemies, he had often prospered in his greatest affairs: nor was there any other so great reason, why Caesar so much excelled all other Generals of those times, as his wonderful speed in all expeditions. Dion. lib. 42.   
FINIS.   

THE THIRD BOOK.  
The Argument of the third Book.  
juba from Scipio to his Kingdom goes.  
Caesar escapes the ambush of the foes,  
And till th' arrival of his full supplies  
Himself within Rhuspina fortifies.  
Sage Cato's counsel to great Pompey's son.  
Iuba's return; the whole war meets upon  
Vzzita's plains, and is removed from thence  
To Thapsus fatal fields: what dire ostents  
Forego the battle; Caesar's victory.  
To several coasts the vanquished Princes fly.  
NOw near this mighty war began to draw:  
Those bloodstained swords, which dire Pharsalia saw,  
With no less guilt in Libya meet again,  
To draw that little blood that did remain  
In Rome's afflicted State: Why did you spare  
It then, oh gods, to make a second war?  
Was it cause one, though ne'er so great a blow,  
The Roman Empire could not overthrow?  
Or must more lands behold her fall? more grounds  
Drink in the blood of her unnatural wounds?  
Or must this second war declare to all  
The State subsisted after Pompey's fall,  
And once again her freedom might have seen  
Haddit Caesar's war alone 'gainst Pompey been.  
Rome now in Africa is; those scorched grounds  
That once her Conquest saw, now see her wounds.  
Where once the Scipios with triumphant Fate  
Advanced her Eagles 'gainst a rival State,  
This Scipio now, in stead of barbarous foes,  
In Rome's behalf 'gainst Rome's Dictator goes.  
But Fate a while, content with meaner play,  
Respites the trial of so great a day.  
So many lives, as there resolved were met,  
Must not be thrown into the hazard yet.  
Nor must sad Thapsus give the fatal blow  
Of Juba's fall, and Scipio's overthrow,  
Until Rhuspina, and Vzzita's walls  
Have felt the force of both the Generals,  
And other parts of Africa have beheld,  
Some bloody Prologues to so great a held.  
Fortune a while from helping Scipio,  
Diverts King Juba's strength, enforced to go  
With speedy marches to his Kingdom's aid;  
Which Sittius now and Bocchus did invade.  
And Caesar's troops remaining on the shore  
Of Sicily, himself had crossed over  
Into a land possessed by his foes,  
With one weak new-filled legion; nor to those  
That stayed behind, could he appoint the port  
Where they should land, or whither to resort,  
(As be in former wars had ever done)  
Committing all to Fortune's rule alone.  
So much on her protection he relied;  
Nor had she ever failed his greatest need.  
Could it not seem to thine ambitious thought  
Caesar, enough, that Fortune ever wrought  
Th'accomplishment of all thy highest hopes  
When ere in field environed with thy troops  
Thou foughts against the greatest foes; but she  
Without an army too, must succour thee?  
And all thy rash adventures rectify?  
Was not thy escape from Egypt's treachery,  
Thy safe arrival on Brundusiums' shore;  
(The stormy Seas so boldly ventured over  
From Greece by night) enough for her to do?  
How oft shall Fortune more her favour show  
From private dangers in protecting thee,  
Than in bestowing th' earth's sole Monarchy?  
From Adrumetum, where in Garrison  
Confidius lay, whose truth could not be won  
From Scipio's side, does Caesar march away  
With his small army, but in fair array.  
Since now his highest hopes were not to get  
The Town, but thence in safety to retreat.  
Nor was that granted him; Confidius horse  
With furious sallies oft molest his course,  
And vex his Armies rear: t' encounter those  
Assaults, does Caesar in the rear dispose  
The ablest men, and marching slowly on  
Safe to Rhuspina brings his legion.  
Nor did that act of war, though seeming small,  
But well become so great a General.  
From thence removing, Leptis him receives,  
In which a little Garrison he leaves,  
And to Rhuspina marches back again;  
That only Town in Africa did remain  
A safe retreat for Caesar's feeble power:  
Nor thither then, unless a Conqueror,  
Could he arrive; danger beset the way.  
Pierce Labienus and Pacidius lay  
In ambush there: in which, though timely spied,  
Was Caesar's skill, and Fortune wholly tried.  
He breaks with conquest through the adverse troops,  
Fortune but mocking Labienus hopes.  
Who now with loss forsakes the field, and bears  
To Adrumetum his hurt Soldiers.  
Caesar returning with his little band  
Unto Rhuspina, takes a work in hand  
Of wondrous toil, (since now resolved no more  
To march from thence, till on the Libyan shore  
His legions all arrive; whom every day  
Chiding the Winds, and Fortune for their stay,  
His eager thoughts expect) two trenches down  
To the Seashore he draws, one from the Town,  
Another from his Camp; on either side  
With sharpened stakes, and engines fortified  
So well, as that, without the Garrison  
They might by land secure both Camp and Town,  
And make the shore between at his dispose:  
But there enclosed by his insulting foes  
(For Scipio now with his great strength drew nigh)  
He pays, in wants, for that security.  
Nor can his men from out their Trenches go  
To fetch provision in by land; the foe  
Cuts off all passage there; and in disdain  
Of Caesar's weakness, on the spacious plain  
Scipio oft sets his Battles in array,  
Who 'mong'st themselves in wanton skirmish play,  
And exercise their Elephants, in sight  
Of Caesar's trenches, and unusual fight  
In Roman armies; those beasts ne'er had been  
Till Pyrrhus warred with Rome, by Romans seen;  
Nor ere in Triumph to the people shown,  
Till the Dictator Curius had o'erthrown  
The Samnites, Sabines, and King Pyrrhus power:  
The like Metellus Cretes famed Conqueror,  
From his Sicilian Victory did bring,  
And Pompey's Triumph o'er Numidia's King.  
Uncertain aids in war they ever prove,  
And with like danger to both armies move,  
As well their own annoying as the foes,  
Fitter for other labours (sure) than those;  
Nor, though their strength be wondrous, for that end  
Did prudent Nature those great beasts intent.  
The Nabathaean lands, where they are bred,  
Are recompensed with those rich teeth they shed.  
Through all the world a wealthy merchandise,  
Which on their deaths oft sets a greedy price.  
But greater far the Eastern country yields  
Than those within the Mauritanian fields,  
And far more fierce; such as in India  
Great Alexander's frighted Soldiers saw.  
These mighty beasts, as they in bulk exceed  
And pass in strength all other far, that feed  
On earth's vast bosom, do as far excel  
(If ancient authors have observed well)  
In apprehension, and large faculties  
Of soul; 'mongst beasts they only exercise  
Those qualities (or like to them) which we  
In men style virtues; perfect equity  
They keep, and laws of justice have in use;  
To which all moral virtues we reduce.  
Nor are these creatures thought by some to be  
Quite void of th' intellectual faculty.  
But that they can discern and understand  
The language spoken in their native land;  
And might discourse, if to so strange a wit  
Nature had pleased to lend them organs fit:  
Not speak as Crows and Parrots oft have done  
By imitation of a sound alone.  
If we so much to Elephants should give,  
Why should we call them creatures sensitive?  
We must extend the faculty of sense  
To larger bounds; and put less difference  
'twixt that and reason; or betwixt the two  
Find out a middle region to bestow  
Their knowledge in; as to some things that live  
We place 'twixt sense and vegetation give.  
But in a higher kind (as some relate)  
Do Elephants with men communicate.  
(If you believe it) a religion  
They have, and monthly do adore the Moon.  
Beside the lofty Nabathaean wood  
Of vast extent, Amylo's gentle flood  
Gliding along the sandy mould combines:  
Thither, as oft as waxing Cynthia shines  
In her first borrowed light, from out the wood  
Come all the Elephants, and in the flood  
Washing themselves (as if to purify)  
They prostrate fall; and when religiously  
They have adored the Moon, return again  
Into the woe is with joy. Nor half so vain  
Is this devotion which these beasts present,  
As that which men more brutishly invent;  
Nor (as the mad Egyptians used) do they  
To Dogs and Snakes, and vilest creatures pray▪  
Nor to the senseless Leeks and Onions bow,  
Such gods as yearly in their Gardens grow;  
Nor yet to wood or stone devotion do,  
More senseless than the stones they bow unto;  
A far more glorious creature they adore.  
Should this be true of Elephants; far more  
Wise in Religion are those beasts than men▪  
But if that this a fiction be, why then  
Did men's invention fain a beast to be  
Wiser, than are themselves, in Piety?  
While at Rhuspina both the Generals  
Encamped rest; in Vtica's strong walls  
Cato remains with Pompey's eldest son,  
Whom thus sage Cato sharply sets upon▪  
Awake young man, and now in time redeem  
Thy youth from sloath-bred scorn; from disesteem  
Go vindicate the name of Pompey now:  
Go try all Kingdoms, search all Seas to know  
How great thy father was; what fame he won,  
How strong he leaves thee in thy name alone:  
Try if the Seas, which his brave hand did free  
From Pirates, can deny a fleet to thee.  
That stock of glory, which thy father won,  
And left behind for thee to spend upon,  
Arms thee with strength enough (though nought beside  
So good a cause could lend) 'gainst Caesar's pride.  
Go try the farthest West, solicit Spain;  
The name of Pompey is enough to gain  
Those Nations to thy side: if nought at all  
Thy groaning Countries sufferings, nor the fall  
Of Roman liberty affect thy mind:  
Although thou couldst endure a Lord, and find  
Content in serving, yet the wrongs, which thou  
Alone from Caesar sufferest, were enough  
To rouse thy spirits, and stir thine enmity.  
If thy great Father for Rome's liberty  
And Laws alone fought in Pharsalia,  
As great a Fortune didst thou lose that day  
As on a private Citizen could light:  
But if thy Father for himself did fight;  
Thy loss was more, and Caesar then from thee  
By Conquest took the World's sole Monarchy.  
But wouldst thou know the true inheritance  
Which he did dying leave thee, to advance  
The name of Pompey; which may ever be  
Thine own, in spite of Caesar's enmity,  
Which honour bids thee claim, and Rome now needs?  
The imitation of his noble deeds  
Is thine inheritance: 'twas his brave Fate,  
When great bad men had seized th' afflicted State,  
When Marius' faction did the walls invade,  
And Rome itself a slaughter-house was made,  
To save his Country bleeding then, as now,  
And not so much in debt to years as thou.  
When he no honours yet, no titles had,  
No power at all but what his virtue made,  
He raised an army, rescued Italy.  
By him did Carbo in Sicilia die;  
By him did Spain behold Sertorius fall:  
And then in triumph to the Capitol  
He, but a Gentleman of Rome did bring  
Hyempsal vanquished the Numidian King.  
All this before he had attained unto  
Thy age, young Pompey, did thy father do;  
Which to his future greatness made the way:  
And sleepest thou here? What help in Africa  
Lendest thou to Rome more than one private hand?  
Go gather forces in another land;  
Repair the ruins of thy house, or die  
Great as thy birth has made thee. No reply  
Young Pompey made at all; but, as if from  
Some sacred Oracle the speech had come,  
Or Rome's own voice from Cato's breast had spoke,  
His modesty obeyed, and straightway took  
A long farewell, never to meet again;  
But find a Tomb in Europe, and to Spain  
Carry as great a part of Rome's sad wounds  
As dire Thessalia's blood-distained grounds,  
Or fatal Thapsus saw. Though destiny  
Have not allotted, brave young man, to thee  
So great and long a race of happiness  
As to thy Father, yet thy fall no less  
Than his shall be in weight, nor shall the field  
Of fatal Munda to Pharsalia yield.  
Caesar supplied with strength from Sicily  
Marches away, to take and fortify  
Those lofty Hills (in spite of enemies)  
Which from the champain, near Vzzita, rise:  
Which Hills he takes and fortifies with ease:  
Though Labienus vaine-layed ambushes  
To their own ruin did molest his way,  
By Caesar's Scouts discovered where they lay  
Too soon; and so by changed Fate, called on  
In stead of his, their own destruction.  
So a Getulian Lion when beset  
By weake-armed Hunters, whose vain force doth whet  
Not daunt his courage, with collected ire  
Breaks through, and makes his wounded foes retire:  
His seeming danger nought but anger moves,  
And fatal only to the Hunter's proves.  
Juba returned and joined with Scipio,  
With all their forces to Vzzita go:  
Now the whole war was met; Vzzita's walls  
Beheld the Camps of both Rome's Generals.  
Thrice there did Scipio his whole strength display;  
Thrice Caesar set his battles in array  
Eager of fight; and thrice provoked his foe,  
To trial of the day; but Scipio  
Would not th' advantage of the place forsake.  
Nor did the Destinies intent to make  
Vzzita guilty of so great a stain,  
Which did for Thapsus fat all fields remain.  
Whither, dislodging from his Camp by night  
(When Scipio could not be provoked to fight)  
With prosperous Omen, Caesar marches on:  
There than Virgilius lay in Garrison,  
Faithful to Scipio and the Senate's side,  
The place by Nature strongly fortified.  
Scipio and juba follow, though the air  
Gave sad presages of the future war,  
The Earth and Skies the like; his mourning face  
The Sun with clouds obscured: in whose place  
Ruin portending Comets did display  
Their blazing Lamps, and made a dismal day:  
And lightning through th' uncertain air gave light  
More full of horror than the shades of night.  
The Thunder's voice was heard there where the air  
From clouds was free; and th' horrid noise of war  
From thence resounded: Helms of Brass did sweat,  
Some Piles and Swords did melt; nor could they get  
By strength their heavy Standards from the ground:  
Which swarms of Bees o'erspread; a hollow sound  
Of Lions sadly murmuring was heard  
About the Camp: the Mountains all appeared  
To move, which did about Vzzita stand.  
And from the farthest part of Libyan land  
The Mauritanian Atlas seemed to shake  
His skie-supporting top: Birds seemed to take  
Unusual flights; sad entrailes did appear,  
And filled the sacrificing Priests with fear:  
Nor mean the gods, when these portents they show,  
To teach frail mortals to prevent the woe,  
But fear it only. The unhappy troops  
To Thapsus march distraught 'twixt fears and hopes,  
Where this great war shall shortly find an end,  
On which so many ruins do depend.  
The Libyan Thapsus a Sea-bordering Town,  
An I'll almost by situation,  
Is by that Sea, which Africa doth divide  
From Sicily, environed at one side;  
The other side a spacious fen oreflowes,  
Guarding that part from all approach of foes:  
Betwixt the Sea, and that great fen, doth stand  
(The only passage to the Town by land)  
A little Isthmos, which (although not wide)  
A standing lake doth in the midst divide,  
And makes two narrow passages of one:  
Within these straits, not far from Thapsus Town  
Caesar is entered now with all his troops,  
And with strong works; and deepe-digged trenches stops  
All means of sallies from the Town, that might  
Perchance infest his armies rear in fight.  
Scipio encamped there where the Isthmos ends  
Within the continent, with speed intends  
To draw a trench down to the shore, and so  
Within that neck of land shut up the foe:  
But till the work be perfected, to hide  
What he intends, or battle to abide,  
In fair array he marshals all his bands:  
Himself with his Italian legions stands  
In the mid-battell; Iuba's legions  
Mixed of so many several Nations  
Make the right battle; on the left doth stand  
Stout Labienus with a warlike band  
Of Gauls, which he had from Brundisium led,  
And Germane troops, which from Pharsalia fled.  
Old foes to Caesar: thither Varus brings  
His Libyan cohorts: but before both wings  
The mighty Elephants are placed, to fright  
The foes first onset; and by them the light  
Numidian horse, and Mauritanian too:  
Behind the beasts the light-armed Soldiers go,  
His poisoned Quiver the black Mibian bears,  
The strong Mazacians their well-brandished Spears  
Of aim as sure as Parthian Shafts; by these  
With crooked Swords the Adyrmachides.  
But seeing Caesar's army in array,  
And now not likely to protract the day,  
Thus Scipio speaks: True Romen, if a cause  
So just, so great, as to this battle draws  
Your farre-engaged hands, could need at all  
Any incitements from a General,  
The wrongs of Rome, the foes impiety  
Afford too large, too sad a scope for me  
To play the Orator: and though the fall  
Of our sad State and Laws in general  
Should not affect your minds; cast but an eye  
Upon those blood stained fields of Thessaly,  
Think on Pharsalia's slaughter, and learn there  
What each man suffers in particular,  
Beside the public loss: let every ghost  
Of friend or kinsman, that that day was lost,  
(Yet unrevenged) excite your valour now:  
On us the gods and Fortune here bestow  
A juster cause than there, for Caesar's guilt  
Was not so great before that blood was spilt;  
Nor could that honour, Soldiers, have been gained  
In Thessaly, that may be here obtained  
By Caesar's fall; now his esteem is more,  
Although his strength no greater than before,  
And we are bound to Fortune, who in this  
On equal hazard sets a greater price.  
Nor need you fear that she should now forsake  
Her Rome's defence, whom she has toiled to make  
Head of the World so long, because you saw  
Caesar subdued Rome in Pharsalia.  
The date of Pompey's fortune was expired,  
His many triumphs, which her favour tired,  
So long had lasted, as it had been thought  
(Had Caesar fallen when that great field was fought)  
Not Rome's, but Pompey's fortune had prevailed:  
And Rome then only her long favour failed,  
As loath a private man should think her his,  
And she deprived of public sacrifice.  
But think not, Romans, the rebellious Fate  
Of one proud man shall still outweigh the State:  
Nor does the anger of the gods appear  
(If this good Omen we may trust) that here  
On Africa's Sunburnt face you meet the foe  
Under the conduct of a Scipio.  
I need not boast, what every Nation knows,  
With what triumphant Fate the Scipio's  
In Africa have advanced Rome's power and fame,  
How well her Fortune pleased her in that name?  
And what forbids us hope the like, since we  
As lawfully are armed here, and he,  
Whom now our loyal valour copes withal,  
As great a foe to Rome as Hannibal?  
Into your hands the gods have put their doom;  
Nought but your virtue can restore to Rome  
Her Laws, and banished Citizens again:  
For banished are you, and must remain  
For ever so, unless you conquer here:  
He that would see his native land, his near  
And dearest pledges, by the Sword must now  
Redeem them all in Caesar's overthrow.  
Their spirits were roused; and the Roman troops  
Inflamed with love of fight, and filled with hopes;  
No less did Iuba's barbarous Nations,  
With rude and different acclamations  
Desire a signal, and precipitate  
With eagerness their own unhappy Fate.  
Caesar perceiving that the gods gave way  
To his desire, and now the wished for day  
Of fight was come, advances, and thus cheers  
With confidence his forward Soldiers.  
The time is come, brave Soldiers, that must crown  
And guerdon all the service you have done,  
That must conclude the labours of the Sword,  
And (maugre envy) to your heads afford  
All those triumphant Bays, which hitherto  
Have been deferred, deserved so long ago,  
For conquered Gallia, Britain, Germany,  
Treacherous Pharnaces, and false Ptolomey:  
All these has Fortune but deferred till now,  
To join with them proud Iuba's overthrow  
Great as the greatest; and this held, when done,  
Confirms, or loses all that we have won:  
But 'twere a crime to doubt it, since I see  
Those looks that never failed of victory.  
Let you torn remnant of Pharsalia know  
Their Conquerors. More would he say, when lo  
From the right-wing, not staying his command,  
The Trumpets sound a charge, and from their stand  
(Although the Tribunes, and Centurions strive  
To keep them back) the Soldiers rush to give  
The onset strait; nor them in vain to stay  
Does Caesar strive, but gives their courage way:  
As when two Chariots are prepared to run,  
And one too hasty from the list is gone,  
In vain the Charioteer their course would stay,  
Th' ungoverned Horses hurry him away.  
Then with a rage as great as if two Seas  
(Some god removing, for the Sailor's ease,  
The long Malaea) should each other meet,  
Both hosts encounter, and begin the fight  
With horrid shouts, that all the Mountains nigh  
Resound aloud, and back from Sicily  
High Lilybaeum to the Libyan shore,  
Returns again their echoed clamours over,  
As much afraid to harbour but the sound,  
Of such a war within that quiet ground:  
Their noise not that of Thracian Boreas  
Among the Pines of Ossa, can surpass,  
Nor that which Nilus falling water makes  
Precipitated down the Cataracts,  
When with his foam he seems to lave the sky,  
And strikes a deafness through the dwellers nigh▪  
Mischief and fury rage; revenge doth one  
Excite, the other indignation:  
That after Pompey's death the war at all  
Should last, and find another General.  
Blood all th' adjoining fen discolours over,  
And makes a flood, where ne'er was flood before,  
And from the moisture of so many wounds,  
Combines the mould of Africa's thirsty grounds▪  
Through both the hosts Enyo's blazing light  
Like fatal lightning flashing flies t' excite  
Their thoughts to fury; the Tartarian god  
Set open the vaults where Libyan ghosts abode,  
And from th' infernal caverns set them free  
To view a while this fatal Tragedy.  
And glut their dire revenge with Roman blood:  
Upon the Mountain's gloomy tops they stood,  
Blasting the day, and round about the hosts  
Making a baleful ring; the cruel ghosts  
Of jugurth, Syphax, and Great Hannibal;  
Who for their own, and Carthages sad fall  
Did then excuse the gods, when they beheld  
The Roman fury in that mortal field.  
Yet in Rome's ruin Libya suffers too:  
More wrack, alas, shall this sad battle do  
Than after-ages can repair with ease.  
More desolation now, more wilderness  
The wasted face of Africa shall o'erspread,  
And beasts possess the seats of Nations dead:  
Where feared monarchs once gave Laws to men  
Shall Lions reign, and Tigers make their dens;  
The slimy Serpents all alone shall crawl,  
And wanting men, shall be no plague at all.  
Caesar foreseeing th'Elephants, that were  
In front of Iuba's battle, would strike fear  
Into his troops, doth such a cure provide  
As quite converts upon the other side  
The Fate that threatened his; to the right wing  
His choicest bows, and missile arms he brings,  
And sets them, at fair distance, opposite  
To th' Elephants; who there begin the fight  
With such success, as makes those beasts to be  
The only cause of Caesar's victory.  
For gaulled with shafts, confusedly they run  
In spite of their distracted guides, upon  
Their own unhappy troops, to sudden rout  
Putting all Iuba's quarter round about,  
And bearing down all that before them lay  
To Caesar's conquest make a speedy way;  
Their mighty strength, since now ungoverned,  
Is by the hand of Fortune only led,  
And brings advantage to that side alone,  
Which she is pleased to bestow it on.  
The Mauritanian, and Numidian Horse,  
Which there were placed, by th' Elephants rude force  
O'erthrown, were crushed to death, or headlong down  
Into the trenches with their riders thrown,  
Some few escaping by disordered flight:  
The light-armed Soldiers mixed with these to fight  
Reft of their shelter, now by heaps are slain,  
And to the foes a prey, no war, remain;  
And tyre (as standing not to fight but die)  
With their bare throats the murdering enemy:  
Nought there, alas, can weak Bamurians do  
With their fire-hardened Darts; nought can the Bow  
And poisoned Shafts the coale-blacke Mibian wears  
Avail their Master; vain those brittle Spears  
Are in the hands of light Autololes,  
And crooked Swords of th' Adyrmachides:  
The weak Cyniphians find that skins of Goats,  
Are too light armour to protect their throats;  
When Brass, and Iron no defence affords,  
Against the force of the Caesarian Swords.  
The purple field so great a slaughter strews,  
Blood from so many different people flows,  
That while King Juba takes a sad survey  
In how great breadth his Empire's ruin lay,  
No private deaths distinguishing at all,  
He scarce can count how many Nations fall:  
Nor does he think, his Camp, after so great  
An overthrow, can be a safe retreat;  
But leaving that to greedy enemies  
A wealthy spoil, he with Petreius flies.  
King Juba's Camp by the pursuing foe  
Is soon possessed, and the Caesarians know  
Before their victory be fully done,  
How great a prize their bloody toils have won.  
But Fortune, where th' Italian legions fought,  
And Scipio stood, had not so quickly wrought  
Her Caesar's ends: there strength by strength repelled,  
And fury joined with equal fury, held  
The balance strait, whilst doubting victory  
Seemed, not, a while, resolved whose to be;  
Or else deferred it only to declare  
That highest fury reigns in civil war,  
That country men in fight are cruelest foes,  
Or greatest courage from worst causes grows.  
On equal hopes they both engaged were,  
And in no quarter of the war but here,  
Did it at all into a question come  
What should be Rome's estate, or Caesar's doom.  
Nor was the question here determined,  
Till with his Libyan cohorts Varus fled,  
And Labienus too, when he beheld  
His slaughtered Gauls, and Germans strew the field,  
Reserved a while by Destinies to see  
Another ruin great as this, to be  
A bleeding part of Rome's third mortal wound;  
And lie interred in Munda's fatal ground:  
As long meant Fortune to prolong their fall  
As Rome with Caesar could contend at all.  
Scipio perceives his army overthrown,  
And now the loss irreparable grown:  
Horror distracts his thoughts; what should he do▪  
Suruive this battle? and not rather go  
Upon the Swords, and there in height of all  
His honour die as Rome's chief General,  
And by the ruin of so great a name  
Ennoble Caesar's conquest? Or give fame  
To Thapsus fatal field? For what has Fate  
Power to bestow on such a wretched State,  
That can at all his mind to live invite?  
With this resolve in fury of the fight  
Had Scipio died; but flattering hope withheld  
(Even such as from Pharsalia's mortal field,  
Made Pompey fly to meet a sadder Fate)  
His eager soul, that the afflicted State  
Though seeming dead, after this fatal hour,  
Might once more struggle against Caesar's power:  
Then mounted on a Libyan Steed he flies;  
And o'er the field his routed companies,  
Mixed with the Horsemen take disordered flight;  
Some legions hoping to retire from fight  
To Juba's Camp, and it to fortify,  
And finding that seized by the enemy,  
After the usual manner, casting down  
Their arms, they tender a submission.  
But all in vain; no safety at the hands  
Of the enraged, and fierce Caesarians,  
(Oh shame of war!) could their submission get,  
Although that Caesar did himself entreat,  
Grieving that in his power it lay not then,  
To save from death his wretched country men▪  
And by his speech and actions did declare,  
That he was then no part of civil war.  
He cries aloud, Oh spare the yielding foe,  
They are no longer foes, but Romans now:  
You more than lose your valour, and to me  
Do purchase envy here, not victory:  
They, that in conquest of so many lands  
Near disobeyed his most severe commands,  
Nor ere refused what he would put them too,  
In this alone their disobedience show  
Now his commands are good: all o'er the plain  
Are Scipio's Soldiers miserably slain,  
That, to this Tragedy compared, light  
Were all the slaughters of the former fight.  
And now the mourning fields with slaughter strowed  
And covered over with horrid ruin, showed  
A full and perfect conquest was obtained  
That for the sword no farther work remained;  
When Caesar master of his highest hopes,  
From the pursuit calls back his weary troops,  
And recompenses, with the wealthy spoils  
Of Kings and Nations, their successful toils.  

Annotations upon the third Book.  
ᵃ Caesar having but a small force in Africa, and much troubled at the report of the great army of his enemies, that all King Iuba's forces joined with Scipio, found help from an occasion little expected: for (as Dion relates it) Publius Sittius (if we may attribute it to Sittius, and not rather to Fortune) brought unto Caesar not only a timely safety, but a great victory: this Sittius expelled before out of Italy, and joining to himself some other exiles, passed over into Mauritania; there obtaining an army from King Bocchus, he resolved to aid Caesar in this war: though he had neither received any benefits from him, nor was at all known to him: but because he heard that Caesar was far from him, and could then give him no great help (for Caesar's forces in Africa were then but small) watching the time when King juba drew his army out of his own Country, he invaded Numidia, and Getulia another part of Iuba's Kingdom, wasting and spoiling both the Countries: by which accident King juba was forced to omit his expedition, and march back again with the greater part of his forces to the rescue of his own Kingdom; for he had sent part of his strength to Scipio before: so that it is certain if King juba by Fortune had not then been diverted from joining with Scipio, Caesar had not been able to have stood against their united forces, nor maintained himself then in Africa. Dion. lib. 43.  
ᵇ The Roman army remaining in Africa, hearing that Spain was vexed with dissensions and seditions, sent thither Cneius Pompeius the eldest son of Pompey the Great, as thinking that he for his Father's sake would be received in Spain with greatest honour; advising him that when he had settled his affairs there, he should march to Rome; and they themselves intended with all their forces to meet him there, and make the war in Italy, this counsel was had while Caesar as yet lingered in Egypt according to Dion. lib. 42. but Hirtius in his Commentaries relates it after that time.  
ᶜ Cneius Pompeius chid by Cato, and advised to go into Spain and raise forces, with thirty Ships of all sorts, putting to Sea at Utica, sailed to Mauritania, and entered the Kingdom of King Bogud: there setting his army on shore, which consisted of about two thousand slaves, and Freemen, part armed, and part unarmed, he marched toward the Town of Ascurum; in which Town there was then a Garrison of the Kings: the Garrison suffering Pompey to pass quietly till he approached the very walls of the Town, sallying out then, on the sudden overcame them, and some they killed, some they forced into the Sea; Pompey himself with a few of his men getting to their Ships sailed away; after which he never more arrived on the shore of Africa, but went to the Balearicke Lands, and from thence to Spain. Hirt. comment. de bello Affricano.   
FINIS.   

THE FOURTH BOOK.  
The Argument of the fourth Book.  
To his imperial Zamah juba flies,  
And thence excluded, with Petreius dies  
Amidst their banquets bleeding. Scipio slain  
By his own hands, within the watery maine  
Entombs himself: The death of Cato fames  
Old Utica; Caesar laments, and blames  
His wilful Fate; and from the Libyan coast  
Is shipped for Rome with his victorious host.  
But all the wrack, that Thapsus fields had made,  
The fields could not contain; nor could so sad,  
And great a ruin in such narrow bounds  
Be circumscribed: the high Imperial wounds  
Which there were given, in other regions bled:  
And those great names, which from that battle fled,  
As loath to mix with vulgar Funerals,  
Must bear the fame of their renowned falls  
To other lands, lest this great loss should be  
In story told as one calamity.  
With winged speed by night's obscurity  
From Thapsus juba and Petreius fly,  
To reach strong Zamah the Imperial seat  
Of Iuba's Realm, a City fair and great;  
In which, when first the war began, he laid  
His wealth, and dearest pledges had conveyed:  
But now the gates were shut; the men denied  
Their King an entrance; and with scoffs deride  
His threats and prayers, for his changed Fate  
Now gave them leave freely to show their hate;  
And all too late is juba forced to see  
The cursed effects of former tyranny.  
Oh wretched State of Tyrants that ne'er see,  
Until their sight in vain and bootless be,  
Their just esteem: nor ever till too late,  
Can know what men deserve their love, or hate.  
In wretched times your friends are only known;  
But when that knowledge comes, the power is gone.  
Your State requital, or revenge denies,  
And Fortune, but to grieve you, opes your eyes.  
The King oppressed with grief, and filled with ire  
Unto a Country Palace doth retire,  
Not far from thence; with him Petreius goes,  
And a small troop of Horse: there they repose  
Their weary bodies and vexed minds, until  
A great resolve their breasts with comfort fill:  
Then he commands his servants to prepare  
Forthwith a stately banquet, and with rare  
And sumptuous cates a full repast they take;  
When thus King Juba to Petreius spoke;  
Roman, thou seest how Fortunes utmost spite  
Pursues our actions, and has rest us quite  
Of any future hopes; nothing can be  
Safety to us but Caesar's clemency.  
But thou and I in all this Civil war  
'Gainst Caesar's side, have been engaged too far  
To hope for mercy; which, if I might have,  
By all our gods I should disdain to crave:  
For love of Pompey I was Caesar's foe,  
And in the great'st extreme dare still be so.  
Had he prevailed, a welcome friend to Rome  
With greatest honour juba might have come:  
Nor shall she now behold me captive there,  
And led as Syphax and jugurtha were,  
Like slaves through her proud streets, to grace the power  
Of an insulting laurelled Conqueror:  
No, let Rome rather hear how juba died,  
Disdaining Caesar's pity, or his pride.  
I do not want a Hand, a Heart, a Sword,  
Or whatsoever else may death afford;  
But do invite Petreius as my friend,  
To share in this last act of fame, my end:  
Our cause, our Fortunes are alike in all;  
Then like ourselves, brave Roman, let us fall,  
But use each others help: unsheathe thy Sword,  
And let our friendship strive who shall afford,  
First freedom to his friend; love shall engage  
My valour against thee, as much as rage  
Against a foe. Petreius draws his Sword,  
And thus in short returns: brave Libyan Lord,  
Worthy whom Rome with honour still should name,  
To whom Petreius gladly owes his fame;  
Nor (though a Roman General) do I  
Blush to be taught by juba how to die:  
It was the Roman genius prompted thee  
To this, lest Rome should be enforced to see  
That King a captive, and in triumph brought,  
That had for her, her laws, and freedom fought,  
That had with Scipio and the Senate stood;  
And thy disgrace prove Caesar's conquest good  
Against his Country: No, great King, of thee  
Rome still shall hold a dearer memory;  
With Massanissa shalt thou ranked stand,  
When our sad Annals Caesar's deeds shall brand,  
And mark his party with as black a stain  
As Catiline, and his rebellious train.  
The rest my Sword shall speak for me, and prove  
How much thy freedom, and mine own I love.  
With that they both in equal fury meet,  
And with such fierce assaults each other greet,  
As who had seen the combat, might suppose  
That so much valour had not fought to lose,  
But guard by conquest a desired life:  
At last to end this hot despairing strife,  
juba a bootless conquest did obtain;  
Under whose force was weak Petreius slain:  
Keep in (quoth juba) life a while, and see  
A life let out to bear thine company:  
If not, before thou cross the Stygian lake,  
My fleeting soul thy ghost shall overtake.  
Farewell you fading glories that attend  
A kingly State, too feeble to defend  
Your proud possessors from the storms of Fate:  
What rest upon the slippery heights of State  
Finds man? What stay on Fortune's restless wheel?  
Oh treacherous Zamah, may thy false neck feel  
Rome's yoke as hard, as thou to thy true Lord  
Disloyal provest: then falling on his Sword,  
From forth his struggling breast his Spirit flies,  
And night eternal closes up his eyes.  
But see, from Thapsus fatal overthrow  
A nobler death draws near, Great Scipio  
Rome's General, that had so lately led  
The Senate's war 'gainst Caesar's fortune, fled  
From that sad battle in a poor disguise,  
And one small bark, the Seas of Libya tries,  
To find from thence safe passage into Spain,  
Where Pompey's sons with all their strength remain.  
But by a storm was driven into the Bay  
Of Hippo, where the Ships of Sittius lay,  
Left there in Caesar's name to guard the coast.  
Scipio perceives himself and Bark are lost,  
The weather cross cuts off all hope of flight;  
The winds (quoth he) and Seas for Caesar fight:  
Why did I scape the stormy maine? Oh why  
From Thapsus fatal battle did I fly,  
And not in height of all mine honour fall,  
Fight for Rome to die her General?  
Oh would Pharsalia's battle had destroyed,  
This ill-kept life, before that here employed,  
The Senate's war with ill success I led,  
And Africa saw a Scipio vanquished.  
You noble Souls of my dead ancestors,  
That hither oft have led the Roman powers  
With glorious fame, as Carthages great fall,  
As captive Syphax, vanquished Hannibal,  
And saved Rome can witness, blush not now  
At this your Nephews hapless overthrow;  
No Libyan forces, but the strength of Rome,  
Has Rome itself, and Scipio overcome;  
By her own strength subdued, with her I die,  
To wait upon expiring liberty.  
By this occasion Fate with kind intent,  
To me necessity of death has sent,  
Lest I my freedom might perchance outlive;  
Nor could the gods a fitter bounty give.  
Let Pompey's sons now try their Fate, and gain  
Our Laws and State again, or lose in Spain  
As much from Rome, as here in Africa I,  
Or their Great Father lost in Thessaly;  
My course is run; and, though this armed hand  
Shall testify I could have died by land,  
The Ocean likes me best, within the main  
Unknown for ever Scipio shall remain:  
Oh let my floating carcase never come  
To land, lest Africa should bestow a Tomb,  
And to her sons in after-ages show  
A monument of vanquished Scipio:  
With that a Poniard in his hand he took,  
And with a strength and aim so certain strooke  
His willing breast, that thence the gushing blood,  
Made on the Decks a crimson precious flood:  
But he, while yet his vital parts retain  
Some spirits, leaps into the curled maine;  
And her blue waves with purple staining, dies:  
Unburied Sc●pio's noble body lies  
Within the Seas deep bosom; th' Ocean's fry  
Devour the flesh of that brave family,  
In which great Rome may make her justest boast;  
If all her actions, all her fame were lost,  
If all those several virtues, piety,  
True fortitude, admired constancy,  
Impartial justice, frugal temperance,  
That through the World her honour did advance,  
In all names else had been forgot and gone,  
In this renowned family alone  
All might be found; nor did the Roman fame  
Ere shine, more bright than in a Scipio's name:  
Why did thy Country want an vine for thee?  
o'er which the people's untaught piety  
Might truly mourn, and pay the tears they owe  
Unto the ruined race of Scipio.  
By this the flying companies, that were  
From that sad battle scaped, had every where  
Filled Libya's Towns with terror and dismay:  
At V●ica the noble Cato lay  
In Garrison; who free from private fear,  
Not for himself dismayed at all, to hear  
The fatal news of Scipio overthrown,  
Exhorts his Soldiers to defend the Town  
'Gainst Caesar's entry; but perceiving then  
Th' astonishment, and faintness of his men,  
He with the same unshaken constancy  
Forgives their fear, and counsels them to fly;  
Provides from all the neighbouring ports a fleet  
Using his utmost diligence to get  
Them safely all aboard, and timely gone,  
Careful for every safety but his own.  
The Citizens of Utica he cheers  
With hope of Caesar's clemency, and clears  
All dismal clouds of fear and jealousies,  
That might within their fainting breasts arise:  
And such to them with cheerful looks (although  
Resolved to die) did Cato strive to show,  
As if himself had not at all disdained,  
To beg, or take a life at Caesar's hand.  
He, whose austerer virtue ne'er before  
Had given him leave to hide, or colour o'er  
His least intention, whom no fear had taught  
How to dissemble, or once swerve in aught  
From his professed, and rigid path of right,  
For love of death now prays the hypocrite.  
Night's silent reign had robbed the World of light  
To lend, in lieu, a greater benefit,  
Repose and sleep; when every mortal breast  
Whom care or grief permitted, took their rest.  
But Cato's breast was not alone set free,  
From perturbation and anxiety,  
By virtues constant use, for soft repose  
Or sleep, the common end, but to compose  
And raise itself unto an act more high  
The contemplation of eternity.  
In contemplation the untroubled Soul  
Parts from the body's bonds, free from control  
Of fleshly passions, by no cares distracted,  
(Not as in sleep she does, to lie contracted  
Within herself, and from all action cease)  
But to employ her purest faculties  
At nobler distance, where no sense of sight,  
Or outward organ can direct her flight:  
There by herself the Soul can take survey  
Of those high glorious bodies, which display  
(Objects too bright for sense) in their own light  
Some beams and glimpses of that infinite  
Eternal essence, from whose fullness they  
Derive their beauties: there the Soul would stay,  
Or wishes that from lets corporeal free,  
She might (what now she cannot) plainly see  
Those forms; and does in that desire imply  
Her own undoubted immortality.  
But ere the mind of man can fitted be,  
To search the depth of true Philosophy,  
It must be purged by moral rules, and freed  
From impious lusts, from vice of thought and deed.  
And as a wise Physician ever gives  
Before his medicines, clean preparatives,  
So let no Soul contemplate, till it be  
Prepared, and purged by sound morality.  
First let it practise virtue here, before  
With contemplations wings it dare to soar  
In search of that, which is the perfectest good,  
And height of all that can be understood;  
Lest, as in Physic, th' vnpurged humours may  
Distract the medicines working force; so they  
Not purged from vices through false glasses see,  
And oft deceived in speculation be:  
Unto thyself first moral Physic give,  
And then securely be contemplative.  
So cleansed was Cato's soul; and fit was he  
For strictest precepts of Philosophy,  
Since virtue's paths, which rough to others seem,  
Long use had made habitual to him.  
To whom the Fates present, as now on high  
His thoughts were soaring to eternity,  
An object fit; casting his eye aside  
Divinest Plato's Phaedon he espied.  
Oh welcome Book sent from the gods (quoth he)  
To teach a dying man Philosophy;  
And though thou canst not further, or control  
The resolution of my fixed soul,  
Since Fate has doomed my end, yet may'st thou give  
Comfort to those few hours I have to live.  
Man's Soul immortal is; 
Plat. Phaed.  whilst here they live  
The purest minds for perfect knowledge strive;  
Which is the knowledge of that glorious God,  
From whom all life proceeds: in this abode  
Of flesh, the Soul can never reach so high;  
So reason tells us; if the Soul then die,  
When from the body's bonds she takes her flight,  
Her unfulfilled desire is frustrate quite,  
And so bestowed in vain: it follows then  
The best desires unto the best of men,  
The great Creator did in vain dispense;  
Or else the Soul must live when gone from hence:  
And if it live after the body fall,  
What reason proves that it should die at all?  
Since, not compounded as the body is,  
And mixed of ever-fighting contraries,  
But one pure substance, like itself, and may  
(By reasons rules) subsist alone for aye.  
And though we yield that God, who did create,  
Can, if he please, again annihilate  
The Soul; and nothing in that sense can be  
Indissoluble, save the Deity,  
Yet Souls, which in their nature do agree  
So near with that, shall ne'er dissolved be,  
Till they at last their wished end attain,  
And so immortal by themselves remain.  
True grounds (quoth he) divine Philosopher:  
Else what were virtue, or true knowledge here  
But waking dreams? Why, more than beasts, should we  
Oblige ourselves to Laws of piety,  
Or curb our lusts? Oh why should virtue be  
Judged, by the wisest, true felicity  
Before wealth, honour, pleasure? Virtue here  
Does not (alas) so beautiful appear,  
But poor, and wretched rather; nor is she  
(Unless, which in this life we do not see,  
Some fairer substance or true form she have)  
Ought but an empty name, or Fortune's slave.  
The wisest men are glad to die; no fear  
Of death, can touch a true Philosopher.  
Death sets the Soul at liberty, to fly,  
And search the depth of that Divinity;  
Which, whilst imprisoned in the body here,  
She cannot learn: a true Philosopher  
Makes death his common practice, while he lives▪  
And every day by contemplation strives  
To separate the soul, far as he can,  
From off the body: (what's the death of man  
But separation of those two?) Should he,  
That every day did strive in some degree  
To gain this freedom, fear it at the time  
When nature has allotted it to him?  
Would birds incaged, that with all motions try,  
And seek all ways to gain their liberty,  
The cage set open, refuse to fly from thence?  
Nay more, have lovers in impatience  
Forced out their lives, and violently fled  
Into the other World, to find their dead  
Dear loves? And should the Soul, which here below  
Closed in the body, every day did woo,  
And court that knowledge, which is perfect bliss,  
Refuse to go, and find it where it is,  
Then when the gods have opened her the way?  
But here, till then, the Soul is bound to stay;  
Nor must she leave her station, till that God  
Dee call her hence, that gave her this abode.  
Here Cato stopped and pawsed; is death (quoth he)  
Unlawful then till rude necessity  
Enforce a man to taste it? And must I  
Wear this loathed life, till Caesar bid me die?  
Is not the fatal overthrow so late  
In Thapsus fields, and ruin of the State,  
Necessity of death enough for me?  
May I not think the gods in that decree  
The death of Cato? But must hold my hand  
Expecting till the Conqueror command?  
And give more power to him, whose lawless might  
Already has usurped above his right?  
Or beg for life, acknowledging him so  
My Lord, whom justly I adjudged Rome's foe?  
So save my life by sinning, or el●e die  
With one sin more, if mercy he deny?  
But this sure hand shall save that hazard now▪  
Plato, and all divinest Laws allow  
Rather than act a crime, a man should die.  
Should I take life from Caesar's clemency,  
It would be judged by all (what ere were meant)  
I did approve of Caesar's government.  
How great a crime might mine example prove?  
How great a wrong to Rome, and all that love  
Her Laws and liberties? Great Pompey's sons,  
That now do arm the Western regions,  
And for their Country yet intent to fight,  
Might think themselves excused if I submit,  
And from their justest resolution swerve  
When old free Cato were content to serve.  
I'll try (since most assured the Souls do live)  
What Laws to us the other World will give:  
For sure the gods, 'mongst Souls departed hence,  
'twixt good and bad will put a difference.  
Those happy Souls, that while they lived here,  
By pure and perfect contemplation were  
Abstracted from the body, that with true  
Desires did oft the heavenly beauty's view,  
Shall thither go, when they from hence are fled,  
To have their joys and knowledge perfected.  
Within the Heavens shall they for ever be,  
Since here with Heaven they made affinity.  
But those dark Souls, which drowned in the flesh  
Did never dream of future happiness,  
That, while they lived here, believed, or loved  
Nothing but what the bodies taste approved,  
When they depart from hence, shall fear the sight  
Of Heaven, nor dare t' approach that glorious light;  
But wander still in dismal darkness, near  
Their bodies, whom alone they loved here.  
Those sad, and ghastly visions, which to sight  
Of frighted people do appear by night  
About the Tombs and Graves, where dead men lie,  
Are such dark Souls condemned t' accompany  
Their bodies there; which Souls, because they be  
Gross and corporeal, men do therefore see.  
How different shall the Souls condition be,  
If this (quoth he) be true Philosophy?  
As true it is, nor do I think it less;  
If virtue be the way to happiness:  
And that be virtue, which we men have thought,  
What inbred reason to our Souls has taught,  
And Laws commanded us; if such thou be  
Oh virtue, Cato still has followed thee;  
And never from thy hardest precepts swerved;  
Near has this Soul the body's pleasures served.  
What doubts can shake my long security?  
But doubts, where frailty is, will ever be:  
Farewell, frail World; what here we cannot see,  
I go to find, clear truth and certainty:  
Then with a fatal stroke he pierced his breast;  
At noise of which his servants vainly pressed  
In, to prevent the Fate; nor could they lend  
Help to his life, but trouble to his end:  
Who sadly showed, death could not be denied,  
And rending wider his large wound, he died:  
The Citizens with honour did intern  
That spotless mansion of a Soul so clear.  
Caesar from Thapsus, now secured from foes  
By that full conquest, to Vzzita goes,  
With ease possessing there all Scipio's store  
Of corn and arms; and where the Sword before  
Threatened his march, where horrid dangers lay  
And ambushes, he now finds quiet way  
To Ad●umetum back; where he bestows  
A cheerful pardon on his yielding foes,  
Since now all Afric from his fears was free,  
And Fortune had secured his clemency.  
Marching away to Utica from thence,  
Humbly received by all the Citizens,  
Who then solemnised Cato's funeral;  
He sighed, and thus complained; Why didst thou fall  
Oh envious man? Rather than not deprive  
Caesar of honour, Cato could not live.  
How sadly cruel haste thou been to me,  
Against thyself to wrong my clemency?  
And show thy death a greater enemy,  
Than all thy living power or arms could be.  
To kill my joys thou diest, choosing to be  
Lamented rather than embraced by me:  
It is my sorrow not my love is sought.  
What strange rewards have all my mercies got,  
That greatest Romans rather chose to fly  
To death itself, than to my clemency?  
So hapless Pompey, while he fled from me,  
Durst rather trust th' Egyptian treachery,  
And there to perish by ignoble hands,  
Than live with Caesar, thinking barbarous lands  
Better than Rome with us: but he again  
Hoped to repair his strength; thou in disdain  
Of Caesar diest; but yet my goodness shall  
O'ercome thy envy, and qui●e frustrate all  
Thy scope in death; I'll give all dues to thee;  
Thy son in honour shall remain with me,  
And to the World shall witness, thou didst die  
By thine own envy, not my cruelty.  
Then to his grace he takes th'inhabitants  
Of Utica, and for his armies wants  
Commands provision, and, while there he stays  
The City's walls, and fortresses surveys.  
Walking not far from off the Town, he saw  
Upon the sandy bank of Bagrada,  
Which slowly there his muddy waves doth move▪  
(Within that Country rare) a stately grove  
Not wide in circuit, where an awful shade  
The meering boughs, exiling Phoebus, made:  
That shady grove, whilst with a curious eye  
Caesar surveyed, he chanced to espy  
Within, a deep and vast descent of ground;  
The jaws of Taenarus, that baleful bound  
'twixt earth and hell, is not a blacker room;  
To which, they say, the ghosts infernal come.  
A Cave there was, in which no cheering light  
At all ere peeped; but sad and dreary night  
A squalid filth, and mouldiness had made,  
From whence exhaled stinches did invade  
The upper air, Whilst Caesar in amaze,  
Doth nearly view the horror of the place  
His longing thoughts a Libyan standing by  
(Taught by tradition) thus doth satisfy.  
This den, Oh Caesar, which for many a year  
Hath empty stood, and freed the land from fear,  
A monstrous Serpent, by Heaven's vengeance bred  
The plague of Africa, once inhabited.  
The earth a greater monster never bore;  
Not Hydra might with this dire Snake compare,  
Nor that great Dragon, whose still waking eyes  
Medea charmed, when Colcho's golden prize  
The venturous jason bore to Thessaly;  
Nor that, as great and watchful too as he,  
Whom great Alcides conquered to possess  
The glittering orchard of th' Hesperideses;  
Nor, though the Sun that mighty Python slew,  
Did ere the Sun a greater Serpent view.  
The several Snakes, that out of Libya's slime  
Are bred, might all have been combined in him;  
Nor could Medusa's head, had all the blood  
At one place fallen, produce a greater brood.  
A hundred else in length was his extent;  
When he upon this side the river went,  
With his long neck stretched out, what ere he spied,  
With ease he seized from the other side.  
With Lions here he filled his hungry maw,  
That came to drink the streams of Bagrada,  
And fiercest Tigers all besmeared with blood  
Of cattle slain, became themselves his food.  
When first the Roman armies sailing over,  
And threatening Carthage on the Libyan shore  
Were led by Regulus, whose tragic fall  
Sadly renowned the Spartan General,  
Here then this hideous monster did remain:  
The army marching on you spacious plain,  
Three Roman Soldiers, by ill Fate, drew near  
To quench their fiery thirst, the river here,  
And tempted by these shady trees, to shun  
A while the scorching fury of the Sun,  
Entering the wood, down to the stream they stoop,  
And take in helmets the cool liquor up;  
When suddenly surprised with chilling fear,  
A horrid hissing through the air they hear,  
And from the den the Serpent's head appears,  
At once amazing both their eyes and ears.  
What should they do? For help they could not call;  
The Serpents hissing loud had filled all  
The wood; nor strength, nor hearts had they to fight,  
Nor scarce did any hope appear by flight.  
Nor could their trembling hands the helmets hold;  
When strait the Serpent from his scaly fold  
Shot forth, and seized one, who calling on  
His fellow's names in vain, was swallowed down,  
And buried in the Monsters hungry maw,  
His horrid destiny when th' other saw,  
They leapt into the stream to save their lives:  
But that (alas) to them no safety gives;  
For forth his long twined neck the Serpent stretched,  
And swimming Havens in the river reached;  
Who, though too late he strived to be drowned  
In Bagrada, a fate more cruel found.  
Marus at last, while havens death did stay  
The Monster's speed, had time to scape away;  
And to th' amazed General relates  
The Serpent's greatness, and his fellow's fates.  
But ere his faltering tongue had fully told  
The tragic story, they from far behold  
The scaly Monster rolling on the sands  
In spacious windings: Regulus commands  
The army strait their piles and spears prepare  
To charge, and march against it as a war,  
And ready all their battering engines make,  
That strongest walls and bulwarks used to shake:  
The Trumpets then, as to a battle, sound;  
Which noise the Serpent hearing, from the ground  
Where he in spacious rings enfolded lay,  
Aloft his head advances to survey  
The Champion round, and to their eyes appears,  
Long as that Dragon 'twixt the heavenly Bears.  
Fire from his threatening eyes, like lightning, shot,  
And Stygian blasts exhaled from his dire throat;  
While he advanced, you would suppose from far  
A moving Castle made offensive war:  
And shooting forth he in a moment flew  
Upon far distant faces; at whose view  
The starting Horses could no more be held  
By bits, but snorting flew about the field;  
Whilst this dire Serpent sad massacres makes  
Among the men, some 'twixt his jaws he takes,  
And crushes there, some into air he flings,  
Who falling die: and while his spacious rings  
He does unfold with fury, sweeping round  
The sands, he beats whole cohorts to the ground.  
The army now gave ground, and 'gan retire,  
When noble Regulus inflamed with ire  
To see that shame, cries out, Oh stand the field;  
To Libyan Monsters shall Rome's virtue yield?  
If so, I singly will the combat try,  
And expiating Rome's dishonour die:  
Then all alone, devoid of fear, he goes,  
And his strong pile against the Serpent throws  
With well ta'en aim, whom not in vain he struck▪  
In his tough forehead the steeled javelin stuck.  
The hideous Monster, whose long age before  
Had ne'er felt steel, sent out a yelling roar,  
And shooting forth, impatient of the wound;  
With his long tail he lashed the suffering ground.  
A shout the Soldiers raise, encouraged now,  
And altogether storms of javelins throw;  
Some harmless lighting on his scaly back  
Such noise, as Hail on tiled houses, make;  
Some pierce his breast, and softer belly wound;  
Those parts alone they penetrable found.  
Black gore from thence distaines the swarthy sand;  
At last two javelins sent from lucky hands  
In both his fiery threatening eyes did light,  
Depriving him, though not of strength, of sight:  
Whose yet blind rage draws many a ruin on,  
Until at last a huge, and massy stone,  
Shot from a bulwarke-battring engine, struck  
His bowed back with such great force, it broke  
That many-jointed bone; nor then could he  
Lift, as before, his speckled crest on high;  
But while he struggling lay upon the plain,  
Another stone dashed out his poisonous brain;  
The sands discoloured with black filth appear,  
And that so lately feared Serpent there,  
Stretched out at length his baleful life expires;  
His vast extent the General admires:  
But strait a groan the mourning River gave,  
A doleful noise the Wood, and hollow Cave  
Resounded forth; the Naiads, that kept  
Slow Bagrada, for their dead servant wept;  
Nor did the auguries than forbear to show,  
The Roman troops his death should dear rue,  
And Regulus become a captive prey  
To his insulting foes; on whom (said they)  
The Nymphs, and wrathful Naiades would take,  
That dire revenge for their slain Serpent's sake.  
Caesar enough delighted to behold  
The Cave, and pleased with what the Libyan told,  
Returns to Utica; thence marching on  
With speed through Iuba's lost dominion,  
Arrives at wealthy Zamah, Libya's pride,  
Where late a powerful Monarch did reside▪  
And hearing there of Iuba's wretched fate,  
Laments the frailty of man's highest state:  
Then he commends the Citizens, and o'er  
The Country leaves salustius Governor,  
Which from a Kingdom's State is now become,  
A subject Province to Imperial Rome.  
Then marches back to Utica again,  
And launching forth his fleet into the main  
Sailing by Sardos', on th' Italian coast  
He safe arrives with his victorious host.  

Annotations upon the fourth Book.  
Lucius Scipio, General at Thapsus, perished at Sea by the report of all that write that story, but the manner of his death, as I have here related it, is to be found only in Appian, which I have read, that first he wounded himself with a Sword, and afterwards leapt into the Sea, as loath that his dead body should either suffer despite, or receive favour from his enemies. Appi. lib. 2. de bello civili.   
FINIS.   

THE FIFTH BOOK.  
The Argument of the fifth Book.  
What unaccustomed honours by decree  
The Senate gi●e to Caesar's victory.  
His four rich triumphs showed o'er Gallia,  
Conquered Pharnaces, Egypt, Africa.  
Whose pompous shows display the captived fate  
Of several Princes: Caesar's high estate  
To throw into the hazard once again,  
Great Pompey's sons revive the war in Spain.  
WHen Caesar's conquest borne by winged Fame,  
Had entered Rome, and to the Senate came,  
Th' affrighted Fathers in pale haste declared  
Their forced joy; and while the Priests prepared  
For Sacrifice, officiously decreed,  
(Though Rome itself in that day's fate did bleed)  
That Supplications to the gods should be,  
Twice twenty days for Caesar's victory;  
Through all the Roman Temples they invoke  
The gods for him, and all their Altars smoke  
With thankful incense, more than when the fall  
Of Carthages so feared Hannibal,  
Or that defeat of all the Cimbrian powers  
By Marius' hand, that saved Quirinus' Towers,  
First pierced their joyful ears; no vanquished foe  
Ere caused such seeming joy. Rome's forced now  
To thank the gods for her subjection more,  
Than all the greatness she had won before.  
To that great Triumph, which so long before,  
His ten years' labour had deserved, o'er  
The conquered Gauls, and well deferred till now,  
The forward Senate grant three Triumphs more,  
T' express more pompous State than ere before  
The people saw, or lawrelled Roman bore;  
That all the several vanquished Nations  
From East and West, from both the Poles at once,  
By his triumphant Chariot might combine,  
The yellow Germans with black Libian join,  
Gauls with Armenians meet, the Sunburnt bands  
Of Meroe with cold Pannonians,  
The painted Britons, curled Sicambrians  
With coale-blacke Mibians, and Mazacians.  
Those that at farthest distance never yet  
Each other viewed, at Caesar's Triumph met,  
Might there acquainted in sad bondage grow,  
And wail in chains their common overthrow:  
That the Imperial Tiber might at once  
All floods, that bless so many regions,  
In Caesar's rich Triumphal tablets see  
Displayed, bewailing their captivity.  
And bridled there by his proud conquest, join  
Seuen-channelled Nilus with the Germane Rhine,  
The swift Danubius with slow Bagrada;  
And all those winding streams, which every way  
From North to South into the Ocean roll,  
'twixt farthest Thule and Tritonia's pool;  
From whence Minerva deigned her name to take,  
When first within the quiet Crystal lake  
Come down from Heaven, she viewed her virgin face.  
Nor ever so did any Triumph grace  
Rome's power (as this had done;) nor yet in all  
Those former Bays, which decked the Capitol,  
If here herself no part at all had been  
Of the subdued, had she more glory seen.  
But lest these honours should not seem to be  
Enough for Caesar, by a new decree  
The Senators, before he enter Rome,  
Make him Dictator for ten years to come,  
And three years' Censor; that it might be shown  
How Caesar's conquering power had overthrown  
Their liberties, together with the fall  
Of barbarous Nations: In the Capitol  
He in a Chariot was advanced to sit,  
To jove himself directly opposite:  
A Globe terrestrial not far from thence,  
Displayed in short the vast circumference  
Of all the earth; on which his Statue trod  
With this inscription, He's a demigod.  
Swelled with the Senate's flattering decrees,  
And fortune of so many victories,  
Does Caes●r now in Pomp triumphant come,  
His lofty Chariot through the streets of Rome  
By snowwhite Horses drawn, more bright by far  
Than those famed Steeds, which in the Trojan war  
From slaughtered Rhesus tent Tydides' took,  
Before they drunk of Xanthus' Crystal brook,  
Or cropped the Trojan pastures, a vain aid  
To falling Ilium, the first night betrayed.  
Declare, ye sisters of the Thespian spring,  
(For you remember well, and well can sing,)  
In those four Triumphs, which the people saw  
o'er Egypt, Pontus, France, and Libya,  
How many captived people sadly went  
In habits, tongues, and visage different  
Before Great Caesar's Chariot, showing there  
With different gestures their disdain, or fear.  
How many lands and stately Cities there,  
Displayed in his triumphal tables were,  
Where skilful hands had woven to delight,  
So many Nations several kinds of fight,  
With his proud conquests, and successful toils;  
By which were borne the arms, and wealthy spoils  
Of vanquished Princes, Crowns of burnished gold  
For all the wondering people to behold.  
But if ye Muses in so high a State,  
Disdain to mourn for each plebeian Fate;  
Yet pass not slightly by that princely Gaul,  
Stout Vercingetorix, for whose great fall  
Some hearts relented there; whose stubborn thought,  
Could not at all in nine years' war be taught  
To brook with patience the proud yoke of Rome:  
Who now reserved for death by Caesar's doom,  
Before the Chariot a chained Captive went,  
Striving in vain t' o'ercome the discontent  
Of that day's shame; and, though his hands were tied,  
Shaking his black curled locks, he sought to hide  
His angry front, whilst his undaunted look  
Seemed more to wish than fear deaths fatal stroke.  
Another object, though unlike to this,  
Yet fallen alike from height of worldly bliss,  
Moved the beholder's hearts; they earned to see,  
The tender beauties of Arsinoë  
A virgin branch of Lagus royal Stem,  
That once had worn th' Egyptian Diadem,  
By Fortune thrown into so low a state  
Of bondage now; pitying her changed fate:  
Those snowwhite arms, that did a Sceptre hold,  
(Oh mock of Fortune!) manacled in gold:  
Although for her a gentler doom than death  
Remain, and Caesar's pity spare her breath,  
Or else his ends in love restore her back  
Again to Egypt for her sister's sake:  
How much (alas) had there her blood been spilt,  
Had Fortune ta'en from Cleopatra's guilt?  
For all the favour, which t' Arsinoë  
Rome showed, reprieved her but a while, to be  
In aftertimes her sister's crime, and die  
By Cleopatra's foul impiety.  
But that in Libya's triumph, which above  
All other objects might deserve to move  
A just compassion (if true innocence  
In misery may justly move the sense)  
Was young Prince juba, led in chains, the son  
Of that great Juba, whose dominion  
From Mauritania's farthest Western end,  
To Thera's sands so lately did extend:  
Whose puissant hand a prouder Sceptre bore,  
Than ever Libyan Monarch did before.  
This poor young Prince by Fortune seemed to be  
Brought as a spectacle of misery,  
Deprived so lately of so many lands,  
And, ere his years could act a crime, in bands.  
But Oh (how blind are mortal eyes?) that day  
Of seeming woe, first made the glorious way  
To Iuba's future happiness; and he  
Was far more blessed in that captivity,  
Than if his Father's greatness still had stood.  
Trained up at Rome he gained a truer good;  
And freed from barbarism, was taught to know  
What Rome, or learned Athens could bestow:  
Adorning so his mind, as wisest men  
In every age admired his happy pen.  
So that to grace his future prosperous reign,  
(For great Augustus' hand restored again  
This captive juba to a kingly Throne)  
A lasting name his Histories have won,  
And fame unto his native Libya give;  
Where with himself those mentioned Kings shall live,  
When brazen Monuments are eat with rust.  
And marble Columns time shall bruise to dust.  
And had the Pontic King Pharnaces been  
In person there and by the people seen,  
That object well had balanced with delight  
The others ruth; but he was scaped by flight:  
Whose absence one proud sentence must supply,  
I came, I saw, and vanquished th' enemy.  
But those sad stories, which the tables show,  
More than the living spectacles could do,  
Affect the people's hearts: for there (although  
No vanquished Roman might a captive go)  
The bleeding wounds of Rome itself are spread;  
And each man there his own dear loss may read.  
For mixed with foreign conquests, with the falls  
Of barbarous Captains, Princes of the Gauls,  
With dying Juba, drowned Ptolomey,  
Those envious tables to the eyes display  
Domestic loss; and in sad figures tell,  
By Caesar's Sword what vanquished Romen fell.  
Here with King juba old Pe●reius dies,  
Here slaughtered Sylla, there Afranius lies:  
There Damasippus and Torquatus fall;  
And here (Oh woeful sight!) Rome's General,  
The Noble Scipio by his own hand slain,  
Falls bleeding down into the watery maine;  
And sinking leaves a Noble crimson die  
On Neptune's face: but what true Roman eye  
Refrained from tears, when he beheld the fall  
Of matchless Cato, who, in spite of all  
His friends prevention, died, and wider tore  
With his own hands the wounds he made before?  
Yet 'mongst so many woeful stories shown,  
One Noble name was spared, one Fate alone  
Was thought too sad; nor to the people's eye  
Durst they present Great Pompey's tragedy,  
For fear so great a sorrow might outweigh  
The pompous joys of that triumphant day:  
But that concealed, which most of all was sought,  
Remained more deeply fixed in every thought▪  
And they, without a picture, can supply  
Each part of his lamented History.  
What tongue, what pen can at the height relate  
Each sumptuous part of that so envied State?  
The public feasts, rare spectacles devised,  
And games by all the people exercised;  
Who without number flocked to do him grace:  
When all the Senate from the julian Place  
Waited him home, and seemed not then to be  
The World's high Lords, but Caesar's family.  
And as they pass, to gild their pompous way,  
Numberless lights the Elephants display  
Upon their captive backs, and moving through  
The streets, like heavenly Constellations show,  
Like those great beasts, which in th' Horizon placed  
Through every part with glorious Stars are graced.  
Nor in vain shows was this Magnificence  
Alone consumed, but real Monuments,  
Which his great power to after-ages praised:  
A stately Temple he to Venus raised,  
Or in Devotion, or in pride to grace  
That Deity from whom he drew his race,  
That now the Paphian Queen, by Caesar's reign,  
Might seem a truer conquest to obtain,  
o'er blue-eyed Pallas, and the wife of jove,  
Than when they for the golden Apple strove,  
And Paris fatal judgement did bestow,  
The prize on her to Ilium's overthrow.  
For Rome and all the conquered World far more,  
Are forced now to honour and adore  
Her name than theirs, so much it was to be  
Th' original of Caesar's pedigree,  
More than the daughter, or the wife of jove:  
The Temple's structure in rare beauty strove,  
With what the height of fancy could express,  
Or any pens most graceful happiness  
Describe aright: upon the walls did stand  
In Parian marble wrought with curious hand,  
That amorous story where the Phrygian boy  
The beauty of a goddess did enjoy:  
The vale of Ida there was shadowed such,  
As Poets made it, Ida vale so much  
Indebted to the Muses, seemed now  
Unto a Painter's hand as much to owe:  
The bower of Love was richly carved there,  
That happy bower of bliss and pleasure, where  
Venus descended from the Crystal sky,  
To generate the julian family;  
Was as a Bride in all her glories led,  
To fill with beauty young Anchiseses bed.  
Near them their Noble issue, in whose blood  
A Goddess mixed with man, Aeneas stood;  
Such was his shape, so shone his cheerful face  
As young Apollo's, when he goes to grace  
His native Delos, and in height of State  
That Festival intends to celebrate,  
Or Bacchus, when from conquered India,  
The yoked Tigers his proud Chariot draw,  
Trojan Aeneas, whose famed History,  
Great Maro's Muse did after raise as high,  
As th' old Maeonian did Achilles' fame.  
But that most pious posture more became  
Aeneas far, when at the fatal sack  
Of Troy, he stooped, and on a willing back  
Flying from thence, carried his aged Sire  
From the greeks Swords, and all-devouring Fire,  
Together with his gods, whom he prized more  
Than Priam's wealth, and all Troy's burning store.  
Behind was young julus, and did seem  
With short unequal steps to follow him,  
That Prince, from whom the julian family  
Derive their name as well as pedigree,  
Who the foundations of long Alba laid,  
And o'er that land a powerful Sceptre swayed.  
By him the Sceptered issues of his blood,  
In their successive order carved stood;  
Till Alba was destroyed by Tullus doom,  
And all her people were transferred to Rome:  
From Alba's sack the pedigree went on,  
And was deduced lineally down  
To Caesar's time; in whose success and reign  
Alba had seemed to conquer Rome again.  
But into th' hazard once again to throw  
A State so strong, so sure as Caesar's now  
Seemed to the World to be, a furious war  
More full of threats, of doubt and danger far  
Than ever had as yet opposed his reign,  
The two young Pompey's raise in farthest Spain  
There where the Great Alcides' pillars stand,  
And proudly boast to bond the farthest land.  
That part of Spain must prove the third sad stage  
Of Civil war, and Rome's selfe-wounding rage.  
Those, that inhabit that far Western shore,  
Vainly suppose that they alone, before  
The setting Sun forsake this Hemisphere,  
Do view his face at nearer distance there  
Than other men, than other Countries can;  
And that he falls into their Ocean  
As Poets taught; or else his lofty Sphere  
Bows down more near the Globe terrestrial there,  
Because his beauteous Orb, before the set,  
Unto their eyes appears more large and great.  
Those misty fogs and vapours that arise  
From that great Sea, which interposed lies,  
Breaking diffuse the rays, from th' eyes that went,  
Or else enlarge the objects figure sent,  
And make the setting Sun seem greater so,  
As bright things largest in the water show:  
Whence they scarce any twilight have at all,  
Either at Phoebus rising, or his fall;  
Day breaks together with the rising Sun,  
And day together with the set is done.  
All Spain, in figure of a bullocks hide,  
Is by the Ocean washed on every side,  
And made almost an I'll, save where her ground  
The Pyrenaean hills from France do bound:  
From whose East end (for old description makes  
Five sides of Spain) the first beginning takes,  
And Westward thence unto the Gades extends,  
But by the way to South obliquely bends;  
And is environed by the midland Seas,  
Where stand those Lands Balearides,  
From whence Metellus took his famous style,  
Fair Ebusu●, and that small snaky I'll.  
The second side from Gades, (of small extent)  
Is to the sacred promontory bend;  
In which short space two rivers, of no small  
Account in Spain, into the Ocean fall,  
Baetis and Anas; far their channels spread,  
And from the silver Mountains both take head:  
Both their great channels do at last divide,  
And make two Lands by the Ocean's side:  
From thence the third side in a line extends,  
And at the Nerian promontory ends,  
From South directly North it goes; this bound  
Of Spain doth Westward know no further ground:  
That all along the boundless Ocean laves;  
Thither the golden Tagus rowles his waves,  
Winding through Lusitania, and into  
That Ocean doth in one great channel flow:  
From thence the Northern side of Spain extends,  
And at the Pyrenaean Mountains ends,  
Bounded along by the Cantabrian Sea;  
Within those shores the wildest Nations be  
The barbarous Celtae, rough Asturians,  
And (those that name the Sea) Cantabrians▪  
But last of all, the fifth, and North-East side  
The Pyrenaei make, which do divide  
Gallia from Spain, which by their wondrous height  
Might seem to threat the Skies, and once more fright  
The gods with a Gigantike war: that side  
Of those high Mountains, which surveys the pride  
Of wealthy France, doth bare and barren show,  
Clothed with no grass, no trees at all there grow▪  
The other side, which barren Spain oresees,  
Shows like a fruitful Summer, clothed with trees  
Which never do their verdant colour lose:  
And so to both th' adjacent Country's shows,  
As if to cloth himself, he had robbed Spain,  
And lost his own, to make France rich again.  
That lofty Mountain (if we trust to fame)  
Did from the fair Pyrene take his name,  
When Great Alcides moved by the fame  
Of King Geryon's stately cattle, came  
From Greece, to fetch that wealthy spoil away,  
Entering the bounds of Spain, he there made stay.  
King Bebrix then o'er all those Mountains reigned,  
And there with Feasts Alcides entertained:  
The conquering guest, by Fate unhappy, spied  
Pyrene daughter to the King, and fried  
With inward flames; at last, while there he stayed,  
His charming words had won the royal maid:  
He vows his love still constant shall remain,  
And, when with Conquest he returns again,  
Espousal rites: But cruel Fates deny,  
And make Alcides' slow in victory,  
Too slow, alas; nor could the fight be tried  
E'er fair Pyrene miserably died.  
Her swelling womb now 'gan the fact reveal,  
Nor could she longer her stolen love conceal,  
When fearing her stern Father's wrathful spite,  
Into the woods she takes a secret flight:  
There all alone to caves and senseless trees  
She wails her Fate, and calls Great Hercules,  
Or false, or slow; till some fell beasts, that were  
More savage than their kind, had seized her,  
And whilst in vain, alas, she did implore  
Her absent lover, her to pieces tore.  
Seven times had Cynthia filled her waned light,  
When he returned with Conquest from the fight;  
And laden with G●ryons wealthy spoils,  
The recompense of his successful toils,  
Sought for Pyrene, but enforced to find  
What oft before his sad misgiving mind  
Made him suspect, distraught with grief and woes  
Among the woods, and craggy hills he goes  
In search of her, and with a mournful sound,  
Calls his Pyrene; all the hills rebound  
Pyrenes name; the hills themselves did shake,  
The savage beasts, and mountain robbers quake;  
No Tigers preyed, nor Lions durst to move,  
Whilst Great Alcides sought his wretched Love..  
But wand'ring through the solitary wood,  
When he had found her limbs, and understood  
Pyrenes wretched Fate, Oh love, (quoth he)  
'Twas my accursed absence murdered thee:  
What savage beast durst this? What power above  
Suffered so much against Alcides' love?  
Oh would Geryons spoils had all been lost,  
And I ne'er stirred from this beloved coast:  
Then gathering up those sad dear relics, there  
Within the Mountain's side he did inter  
His love and sorrow. This small Tomb (alas)  
When Times strong hand (quoth he) shall quite deface,  
Thy state shall greater be, and time to come,  
Shall reckon all these hills Pyrenes Tomb:  
The Fates consented, and by lasting fame  
Those Mountains ever bore Pyrenes name.  
The two young Pompey's with their powers, not far  
From Gades now marching, meant to seat the war  
In that rich Country, where fair Baetis flows,  
And on the region his own name bestows,  
(Though Turdetania, from the men that came  
To plant it first, be yet another name.)  
There they the fatal Munda do possess,  
A Town yet famous for their dire success,  
With other Towns not far, A●egua,  
And Vcubis, and stately Corduba  
That old Patrician colony, whose name  
The births of great and learned Romans fame.  
The Turdetanian region may for rare  
And wondrous gifts of nature well compare,  
With any piece of earth; no other soil  
Does more reward th' industrious ploughman's toil  
With rich increase; no other pastures keep  
More horned herds, more wealthy-fleeced Sheep,  
Those many branches, which from Baetis flow,  
Such wealth on all the neighbouring fields bestow;  
Whose yellow banks, no less than Tagus is,  
Are stored with metals of the highest price  
In every place; more gold no barren ground  
Affords, than in that wealthy glebe is found:  
Which nature seldom does together give;  
And happy might the Turdetanians live,  
But that their Country too too happy is,  
And on their conquest sets too high a price.  
Their wealthy grounds are oft the seat of war,  
And prey to every powerful conqueror:  
There Rome and Carthage fought, and did maintain  
Their rival forces with the wealth that Spain  
Afforded there, while Fortune doubted yet  
Which land to make the World's Imperial seat.  
When like to Titius' fruitful liver, they  
Sustained those birds, to whom they were a prey;  
And suffering Spain by those great factions rend,  
That Vultur fed which did itself torment;  
Nor lies the gold of that rich region  
Deep in the bowels of the earth alone,  
Thence to be digged up with a toil as great  
At is the value; there they need not sweat  
In gathering wealth, nor need they far to fire  
From day, or threaten Pluto's monarchy  
With their deep labours; the rich metal's found  
Upon the glistering surface of the ground,  
And lies on river's banks commixed with sand,  
Or else with dust upon the drier land,  
And Mountains tops: what reason can be found  
Should so enrich the upper part of ground  
Unless you trust a tale? When Phaethon  
Did erst misguide the Chariot of the Sun,  
And scorched the earth; the nature then of all  
These grounds Sulphurous was, and Mineral,  
The metals melted by the Sun, fried up,  
And so with ease are gathered at the top.  
To Pompey's army, while they there remain,  
The several nations from all parts of Spain  
(Besides those scattered troops, from Thapsus fled,  
Which Labi●nus there and Varus led)  
Adjoine themselves; the fierce Cantabrians,  
That think it base to yield to Nature's hands  
Their lives, as if bestowed for war alone;  
Gallecians skilled in divination;  
The Callaicians too, whose men intent  
Nothing but war, and still in rapine spend  
Their venturous lives, using the women's hands  
To all works else, to sow and plow the lands:  
From old Ilerda, that so lately tried  
Rome's Civil wars, comes aid to Pompey's side:  
From Minius banks come bold Asturians,  
From golden Tagus Lusitanians;  
Fierce Ceretans, Alcides Soldiers,  
The light-armed Vascon, that no helmet wears:  
And Concani, that in their drink express  
Themselves derived from wild Massageteses,  
Their greatest thirst with horses blood they slake.  
The Celtiberians, that mixed birth did take  
From Gauls and Spaniards; who do ever burn  
Their friends dead bodies, and extremely mourn  
(Accounting it the worst unhappiness)  
If Wolves, or Praetors their dead limbs should seize.  
From Sucro's banks come Hedetan supplies,  
And from the lofty Towers of Serabis:  
The Vettones, the Oretanians too,  
And th' ensigns of Parnassian Castulo,  
With all the Spanish Nations else, whom love  
Of old dead Pompey to the war did move.  

Annotations upon the fifth Book.  
ᵃ This Arsinoë, which had in the tumult of Egypt been saluted Queen by the Soldiers (as was before declared) and afterwards by Caesar apprehended, and here led in Triumph (according to Dion) and released at the suit of her sister Cleopatra then Queen of Egypt, was afterwards murdered by the same Cleopatra (as josephus reports) for Cleopatra in the time of Marcus Antonius the Triumuir, did by her cruelty extinguish the royal blood of the Ptolemies, and impatient of any that might afterwards prove rivals to her in that government, did not only poison yo●ng Ptolomey, her brother, whom Caesar had made her husband, but caused her sister Arsinoë to be murdered as she was at her Devotion in the Temple. josephus' lib. 15. de antiquitat.  
ᵇ This juba (saith Plutarch) was happy in his captivity, and loss of his so great an inheritance, for at Rome he obtained happy education, and in stead of a barbarous Prince became a learned and judicious writer: he is mentioned by diverse of those ages; he wrote Commentaries of the Libyan Kings, and divers observations of his own times; he was industrious in the study of natural Philosophy, and searching the natures of herbs & plants: he was the first that found out the virtues and malignity of the herb Euphorbium, and called it by the name of his chief Physician: he served Augustus Caesar in his wars against Marcus Antonius, and was afterwards by his bounty restored to a Crown (though not to all the Dominions of his father) and married Cleopatra the daughter of Marcus Antonius and Cleopatra. Strabo. lib. 17.  
ᶜ Pharnaces had escaped by flight, and was slain by Asander, who rebelled against him, to whom he had committed the government of Bosphorus in his absence: so that his Person was not led in Triumph; the conquest of Pharnaces (saith Dion) though it were not glorious by reason it was so easily obtained, yet Caesar much gloried in it by reason of the speed, and that he might carry those three words in Triumph, Veni, vidi, vici. Dion. lib. 42.  
ᵈ Caesar was especially magnificent in doing honour (saith Dion) to Venus, whom he accounted, and desired to have it generally believed, the original of his pedigree; from her also (as Appian reports) he would glory that he had received beauty of body, she being the Queen of Love and Beauty.  
ᵉ Caesar after all these Triumphs, and assurances of greatness was yet threatened by a third war in Spain: a war (saith Dion) not to be contemned; nay, far greater and more full of danger than all his former wars: the battle of Munda (saith Florus) for fury, slaughter, and cruelty as much exceeded Thapsus, as Thapsus did Pharsalia, etc.   
FINIS.   

THE six BOOK.  
The Argument of the sixth Book.  
Varus by Didius on the stormy Maine  
Is vanquished: Caesar arrives in Spain,  
And raises Pompey's siege from Vlla's walls;  
He takes Ategua: both Generals  
Removed from thence, the war to Munda bear▪  
Caesar's despa●re; his men's unsuall fear;  
A bloody conquest they at last obtain,  
Young Pompey, Varus, Labienus slain.  
But ere the Tragic war arrived in Spain,  
And did with blood the continent distain,  
The Ocean bore it, and was first the Stage  
Of this third fury, and revived rage:  
There where th' extended Libyan coast doth meet  
Almost with Spain's Tartessus, Varus Fleet  
Guarded the straightened Sea in Pompey's name;  
Thither for Caesar Didius Navy came:  
Two shores their fury at near distance saw,  
Fearing to whether land the war would draw;  
But Africa bled before; what did remain  
Of Rome's dissensions, Fates decreed to Spain:  
That narrow point of Sea on all four sides  
Great Lands from Lands, great Seas from Seas divides,  
In breadth the Libyan continent and Spain,  
In length th' Iberian and great Western maine.  
The Navies scarce their furious fight began,  
When all in waves the threatening Ocean  
Swelled up; and they encountered from the Sea  
As great a danger as the war could be.  
The Southern wind from Tingitania blows;  
And from the Western Ocean Corus' rose;  
Fierce Boreas met them from the Spanish coast,  
And now the Sea on every side was tossed:  
Their several waves the different winds did move,  
As if that Aeolus and Neptune strove  
A war so sad and wicked to prevent,  
Or drown both Fleets while they were innocent.  
But greater was their dire desire of fight  
Than was the Ocean's rage, or winds despite:  
To impious war through storms as rough they go  
As would the greediest venturing Merchant do  
For Parma's wealthy fleeces, Spain's rich ore,  
Or brightest gems from th' Erythraean shore.  
But when no space almost at all divides  
Both eager Fleets, the rowers take their sides,  
Tug at the oar, and (though the Ocean raves)  
With arms unwearied cut the curled waves:  
The horrid shouting of the Soldiers drowned  
All noise of rowing and shrill Trumpets sound.  
Yet all these sounds, and all the noise of war  
The winds, and louder storms out roared far,  
With which, and Darts, the air is darkened round;  
Ships against Ships, beaks meeting beaks resound:  
Some by their own endeavours meet their foes,  
Others the winds and stormy Seas expose  
Before they thought; to trial of the war,  
Dashing together with more fury far  
The adverse Ships, than else they would have met;  
Now grew the horror and confusion great:  
Their fears were different; some, while others fought,  
Repaired those ruins which the storm had wrought,  
And stopped their leaking Ships, preventing so  
The certain danger of a nearer foe:  
Nor could stout Didius now his Soldier's cheer,  
Or guide his Fleet; the tempest every where  
Is only heard; but leaving his commands  
Puts all into the winds and Fortune's hands;  
No more could Varus for young Pompey do:  
Guided by chance against each other go  
Th' amazed Fleets; some vessel's sides bored through  
By sharp and brazen stems; nor do they know  
Surely to whom they do their ruin owe,  
Whether the weather's fury or the foe.  
Nor did confusion of all sounds affright  
The ears alone; but through that horrid night,  
Which showre-black clouds, & skies tempestuous brought,  
With no small terror the winged lightning shot:  
No other light to them the day could give;  
No other fire in such a storm could live.  
Some Ships now almost taken by the foes,  
The swelling Sea with violence o'erthrows,  
And vindicates their honour from surprise;  
Some sink, when boarded by the enemies,  
Drowning the victors, and the vanquished see  
A quick revenge of their captivity.  
Fortune did seem against both sides to fight  
A while, and wreak in common her despite,  
But long it held not; She at last decided  
The day, and showed for whom she had provided  
So great a labour of the troubled Main;  
And Caesar's forces a full conquest gain:  
Though Didius blush it should be thought that he  
Owed to such aids as those the victory.  
Varus perceives the Fates themselves conspire  
On Caesar's side, and forced to retire  
When now be see part of his hapless powers  
O'erwhelmed, part seized by the conquerors,  
With his poor remnant flies, and gets into  
Carteias harbour; thence by land to go  
To Pompey's Camp; Pompey at Vlla stayed,  
And siege in vain to that strong City laid.  
Caesar with more than his accustomed speed  
(By which his great designs did still succeed)  
Hasts to the war in Spain, and gone from Rome  
In seventeen days was to Sagunthus come,  
That true Sagunthus, whose so Tragic fall  
Did once upbraid the Heavens, and envy call  
Upon their justice, till th' offender's fate,  
And small ruin of the Punic State  
Absolved the gods again: with Crystal waves  
The City's Western side fair Dur●as laves,  
Clothing with verdant grass th' adjoining plain,  
And gently slides into th' Iberian Main.  
His quick arrival, unexpected there,  
With sudden joy did all the Soldier's cheer:  
With speed as great from thence he marches on  
Through the Celtiberian region,  
Nor Duria's stream, nor mount Idubeda,  
Nor Sucro's rapid flood his course could stay,  
Nor that high glittering Mountain, that for fame  
Of his great wealth retains the silver name:  
From whose descent rich Baetis takes his head;  
Along, the shore of Baetis Caesar led  
His cheerful Soldiers on to Corduba;  
Either to take that wealthy Town, or draw  
Pompey from Vlla's siege; the first in vain  
Caesar assayed, the last he did obtain:  
For Pompey strait, although within the Town  
His brother Sextus lay in Garrison,  
Abandons Vlla, and 'gainst Caesar goes;  
Who from the walls of Corduba arose  
Before his foes approach, loath there to try  
The utmost hazard of a war so high.  
But passing thence o'er Salsus stream, does lay  
With more success, siege to Ategua,  
And wins the Town, maugre the feeble aid  
Munatius brought: but there while Caesar stayed,  
A fair ostent the gods were pleased to show,  
A towering Eagle long o'er Caesar flew  
Till seeming weary, with a fair descent  
It gently parched on young Octavius' tent,  
Who followed then his Father to the war.  
A good presage the auguries all declare,  
And not alone to show the wars success,  
But young Octavius' future happiness:  
But not so soon, alas, could they foresee  
The full effect of this fair augury:  
How many civil wounds did yet remain  
E'er Rome with patience brook a Caesar's reign,  
And for her safety be enforced to fly  
To Great Augustus happy Monarchy?  
For thee, great Prince, and thy ensuing State  
Was Rome oppressed, and julius fortunate;  
For thee were Marius' crimes, and Sylla's wrought:  
For thee was Thapsus and Pharsalia fought,  
That Rome in those dire Tragedies might see  
What horrid dangers followed liberty:  
And thou at last a welcome conqueror,  
Mightst those high titles without envy wear  
Which mighty julius with a toil so great,  
With so much blood and envy strived to get.  
Thou then anew that powerful State shalt mould,  
And long the World's high Sceptre safely hold,  
Above all Rivals placed; thy god like State  
No force shall shake; when shutting Janus gate,  
Thou shalt set open the sacred Thespian spring,  
And there securely hear the Muses sing,  
Whose stately lays still keep thy deathless fame,  
And make immortal Great Augustus' name:  
Nor ever did the Arts so truly reign,  
Nor sung the Muses in so pure a strain  
As then they did, to grace thy glorious time;  
As if the Muse before lacked power to climb,  
Or else disdained her highest notes to raise,  
Till such a Monarch lived to give the Bays.  
Grieved for Ategua's loss, and fearing now  
That other Towns would, following Fortune, go  
To Caesar's party, and his cause forsake,  
Pompey resolves with all his strength to make  
A speedy trial of a war so great,  
And on one hazard his whole Fortune set.  
To Munda's fatal fields was Caesar gone;  
Thither young Pompey's army marches on:  
The Town was his; and near the Town, arose  
An high and spacious hill; where Pompey chose  
T'incampe his men; from whence he might survey  
The plains below where Caesar's army lay.  
No prodigies forespoke the black event  
Of that days wondrous battle, no ostent  
At all was showed from seas, earth, air, or skies,  
No entrailes spoke, no birds gave auguries:  
Those sad protents, that used to strike a fear  
At other times in men, were spared there.  
Yet were their fears far greater; they suspect  
The silence of the gods, loath to detect  
So great a ruin as did then ensue:  
Horror invades their breasts; although they knew  
No cause from whence those strange amazements grow,  
No outward signs appeared, their threatenings now  
Were inward all; they make, by sad surmise  
Within themselves a thousand prodigies.  
In Pompey's camp th' amazed Soldiers  
Sad silence kept, distraught 'twixt desperate fears,  
And tragic hopes; pale horror to their eyes  
Seems to present the future Tragedies,  
And the dear ghosts of slaughtered friends appear:  
Yet know not they whether themselves should fear,  
Or hope their hands should make th' ensuing Fate.  
On one side Caesar's Fortune does abate  
Their confidence too much; on other they  
Resolve, o'ercome, not to outlive the day:  
But (Oh strange Fate!) the bold Caesarians  
Grow faint and heartless; and those active hands,  
That had so often drawn their Country's blood,  
And 'gainst all Laws for Caesar's fortune stood;  
That had before to their successful toils,  
Promised the World's sole sway, and wealthy spoils  
Of every nation, quake, and falter here,  
Nor from each other can conceal their fear.  
How dear this field would cost, what 'twas to go,  
Against the fury of a desperate foe,  
Their trembling thoughts revolve; nor to their friends  
Shame they to utter it; those dauntless minds,  
That met with joy Pharsalia's dreadful day,  
Those that at Thapsus battle could not stay  
The General's command; preventing there  
The signal, now both fight and signal fear.  
But that the fear, which did his Camp invade  
Might not seem strange, Caesar himself was sad  
Before the battle, and that cheerful look,  
That usual vigour, whence his Soldiers took  
Happy presages still, was changed there;  
Nor did his wont confidence appear:  
Perhaps revolving the uncertain Fate  
Of things, and frailty of man 's highest state,  
And how uncessant storms do beat upon  
The lofty Cedars, learns to fear his own  
By other mighty falls so lately wrought;  
Or Fortune else presenting to his thought  
Her many favours, and his long success,  
He weighed the time of Pompey's happiness,  
Who in her favour claimed as great a share  
As he could now, before Phar●alia's war.  
That he arrived now as high in State  
As Pompey was; might fear Great Pompey's Fate:  
Whose fall (though wrought for him) had let him see  
Fortunes great power, and strange unconstancy▪  
But lest his sadness should too much dismay  
The Soldier's hearts before so great a day,  
He recollects himself, and with feigned cheer,  
And forced looks, taught to dissemble fear,  
Thus to his army speaks; Victorious troops,  
On whose known valour more than Caesar's hopes,  
His certain State depends, see here in Spain  
This fainting Hydra yet shoots forth again  
His last weak heads; let that Herculean might,  
That lopped the first, and strongest off in fight,  
Make perfect your great labour, which requires  
The last hand here: of all your large desires  
You are free masters, when this field is fought,  
Though all the World for fresh supplies were sought,  
In Fortune's power it lies not to expose  
Your quiet State again, or find you foes.  
But what are these that once again should dare  
Molest our peace with unexpected war?  
What can these barbarous halfe-armed Nations do?  
Or what unfeigned affection can they owe  
To Pompey's side? or do they fear his name,  
And have not heard enough of Caesar's fame?  
Have not the wars by old llerda taught  
Our strength to Spain? what Roman powers are brought  
Thither, but young raw Soldiers, and vnskilled  
In Military arts, that ne'er beheld  
A foe before? and those poor few that know  
The war, are such as have been beat by you;  
And bring more fear than help unto their side:  
Will Varus troops your well-known strength abide?  
Or that so often vanquished runagate  
False Labienus, long maintain the Fate  
Of his young General? Brave Soldiers on,  
Perfect that work that is so nearly done.  
His speech no shouts, no acclamation finds,  
Nor could it raise their sad dejected minds:  
And though, the signal given, all Trumpets sound,  
And Pompey's army from the upper ground  
Make down to charge, the cold Caesarians  
Dare not approach, nor follow the commands  
Of their great General; when Caesar filled  
With grief and rage, seizing a Spear and Shield,  
This day, quoth he (no more my Soldiers)  
Shall end the life of Caesar, and your wars;  
Remember whom you leave; then forth he flies  
Alone to charge th' amazed enemies;  
Who, till their wonder was expelled by hopes,  
Awhile made stand; at last from all the troops  
'Gainst Caesar's head whole storms of javelins come;  
Some in his shield he does receive, and some  
Avoids, declining of his body down  
Till shame not courage brought his Soldiers on  
To save their General; and 'gainst the foe  
They do begin a fight so furious now,  
As if with this new rage they would appear  
To recompense their ignominious ᵇ fear.  
Th'auxiliary troops on either side  
Gave back, and left the battle to be tried  
By none but Roman hands; who man to man,  
And foot to foot a constant fight began  
With so great horror, as who had beheld  
Pharsalia's fight, or Thapsus bloody field,  
Would have esteemed those fury's light, and thought  
He ne'er saw war till Munda's field was fought.  
Both Generals alike 'twixt hope and fear,  
With needless speeches their fierce Soldier's cheer,  
Till wearied with the toil, they both retire,  
And from two little hills behold the dire  
Encounter of their men; when Caesar's eyes,  
That dry, had viewed whole Nations tragedies,  
Began to melt; and whilst bright victory,  
o'er both the armies hovered doubtfully,  
Caesar and Pompey had forgot their hopes,  
And only pitied their engaged troops,  
Fearing both armies in the place would die,  
And leave no conquest, but one tragedy.  
A baleful silence on the sudden then  
Possessed the field; no shouts of fight men  
Were heard; as if they laboured to keep in  
Their spirits for action; hands alone were seen  
To move, and write in bloody Characters  
Their deep resolves: young Pompey's Soldiers  
Beyond this day disdain to hope at all;  
And Caesar's men promise, in Pompey's fall  
To all their toils a rich and quiet close,  
And that the World no more can find them foes▪  
At last the battle's fortune seemed to lean  
To Pompey's side, and Caesar's fainting men  
Gave back apace, nor scarce with all their might  
Could the Centurions stay their open flight:  
When Caesar armed with high despair, preparing  
The fatal Poniard, which he wore, and bearing  
His manly breast, thus speaks; Oh Fortune, now  
I see thou wants not power to overthrow  
What ere thou buildest: but I accuse not thee;  
Enough already hast thou done for me:  
Enough have thy transcendent favours graced  
My lives whole course: shouldst thou not change at last  
Perhaps the erring World might censure me  
More than a man, and thee no Deity:  
I that so long have thy high favours known,  
Can thus securely entertain thy frown.  
There had he died; but as kind mothers do  
Oft let their children near to dangers go,  
That then, when they perceive them most afraid,  
They may the more endear their timely aid:  
So Fortune finds an unexpected way  
To save his Fate; whilst yet his men made stay  
And kept the field, King Bogud, that without  
The battle stood, wheels suddenly about  
To seize young Pompey's Camp; which to prevent  
Leaving his station Labienus went,  
And with him drew five cohorts from the fight:  
Which action changed the battle's fortune quite;  
Whilst hapless error through both armies flew,  
And Pompey's battle suddenly o'erthrew;  
For misconceit that Labienus fled  
Had quite disheartened his own side, and bred  
In Caesar's Soldiers most assured hopes:  
Nor could young Pompey stay his flying troops,  
Too late (alas) it was to make them know  
What hapless error caused their overthrow▪  
For routed once o'er all the field they fly  
A prey to the pursuing enemy.  
Unhappy Attius Varus, where he stood  
Environed round with carcases, and blood;  
Varus, that twice before a war had led  
'Gainst Caesar's fortune, and twice vanquished,  
When he had laboured long in vain to stay  
His flying men, loath to outlive the day,  
Or longer keep that often conquered breath,  
Now rushes boldly on, to find a death  
Amidst the thickest of his enemies,  
And gladly there on all their weapons dies.  
But when (alas) sad Labienus viewed  
How great and swift a ruin had ensued  
Upon his hapless action, cursing Fate  
And his own dire misfortue, too too late  
Seeking to ralley his disordered troops,  
He cries, 'tis I, that have undone the hopes  
Of wretched Rome; 'tis I have lost the day:  
Through this dire breast take your revenging way,  
And expiate this fatal overthrow,  
Or Caesar's swords shall take revenge for you:  
Then (like a Libyan Lion round beset,  
Armed with a high despair and rage as great)  
Careless of wounds or weapons forth he goes  
To sell a loathed life dear to his foes:  
Till by a thousand swords at last he dies,  
And to the shades his angry spirit flies.  
Pompey perceives his army overthrown,  
And now the loss irreparable grown,  
And though he see no cause that should invite  
Him to outlive the fury of the fight,  
His own fresh youth persuades him t' entertain  
A future hope to raise his State again:  
High mounted on a Spanish Steed he flies  
(Leaving in field his routed Companies)  
With speed, Carteia's harbour to attain,  
And sail from thence: but to disastrous Spain  
Stern Fates the death of this young man decree  
And he ere long the self same destiny  
Forced to endure on Spain's unhappy ground  
That his great Father in false Egypt found.  
His brother Sextus scaped from that sad day  
Fortune long hides in Celtiberia  
To raise his State again, again to breathe  
Fresh war and ruin after Caesar's death,  
And once again with faction rend the State  
In that sad time of Rome's triumvirate.  
The fight was done, and nothing now ensued  
But impious rage, and murder; the pursued  
To Pompey's Camp and Munda's walls (alas)  
For refuge fled, but vain that refuge was▪  
So horrid now was the Caesarians rage,  
That neither pity could their heat assuage,  
Nor strength defend their wretched enemies  
From their dire force; on every side the cries  
And groans of dying men are heard alone.  
Never so savage cruelty was shown  
Against the worst of foreign foes, as then  
The vanquished felt from their own Countrymen▪  
Which most appeared, when to surprise the Town  
(A thing amongst Barbarians never known)  
The works they raised against it to maintain  
The siege, were carcases of Romans slain.  
Caesar, that ne'er before did truly see  
How hard it was to gain a victory,  
(Since Fortune still his wish with ease had wrought,  
And he for glory, not for life had fought  
Till Munda's field) recounts what he had lost,  
Grieving to find what this sad conquest cost,  
He sometimes wailed his own slain Soldiers then,  
Sometimes the slaughtered foes, as Countrymen,  
And wishes some, to whom he now might show  
His mercy, had survived the overthrow;  
And almost taxes Fortune, who that day  
Had wrought his ends by such an envied way.  
Never till now did Caesar's pensive breast,  
Truly revolve how tragical the best  
Success will be that Civil war affords,  
And how deep wounds his sadly conquering swords  
Had made in th' entrailes of afflicted Rome.  
Now Thapsus battle, now Pharsalia come  
Into his sad remembrance; and almost  
He wishes all his Triumphs had been lost,  
Rather than with such horrid slaughter won,  
And that he ne'er had crossed Rubicon:  
Scarce can the glories, that it brings, outweigh  
The inward sorrow for so black a day.  
While thus Great Caesar's troubled thoughts were led,  
Cenonius enters and presents the head  
Of Noble Pompey, whose now pitied state  
Called to remembrance his great Father's fate,  
In treacherous Egypt; and no less than his  
Enforced tears of ruth from Caesar's eyes.  
How did he die (quoth he) relate to us  
His tragedy: when thus Cenonius;  
When Munda's fields strewed with his slaughtered troops  
Young Pompey saw, and void of present hopes  
Fled to Carteia, to embark from thence  
For foreign coasts, fearing the Citizens  
And our pursuit, he left the Town again,  
And quite bereft of all his scattered train  
Wounded and lame, retired into a wood,  
That not far distant from Carteia stood,  
Hoping the covert of that shady place  
A while might yield him shelter from the chase▪  
We entered in, and long the wood surveyed  
With curious eyes, and long in vain we strayed:  
But far within a spreading Beech there stood,  
Where wearied now, and faint through loss of blood  
Alone he sat; he that had fought so late  
'Gainst thee, Oh Caesar, with long doubtful fate;  
He whom so many Roman legions  
Did lately guard, so many nations  
Obeyed and served, now all forsaken fate  
A sad example of man's frail estate.  
When I approaching bade him yield to me  
In Caesar's name: never alive (quoth he,)  
Let Caesar see my head, for ne'er can that  
Be my disgrace, that was my Father's fate▪  
By this unhappy token let him know  
The heir of Pompey, and perceive a foe  
That might have proved worthy of his fear  
So let me go to him, rather than bear  
A conquerors disdain, or blushing be  
The pitied subject of an enemy:  
Nor shall you find I prise, so cheap a life  
(Though vanquished) as without any strife  
To send it him: Then with a courage high  
Above his strength, above the misery  
Of his forsaken state, among us all  
He flies; or to prevent, or sell his fall  
Dear as he could; alas, for victory  
Fortune forbid him hope; nor did it lie  
Within the power of his unwilling foes  
To save that life which he resolved to lose;  
But meeting wounds away at last it fled:  
Caesar, with sighs, beholds the Noble head,  
Pitying his fall, and bids Cenonius bear  
It thence, to find the body, and inter  
Them both in such a manner, as became  
Th' unhappy ruins of so great a name:  
And thence, secured from fears, marches away  
By Baetis stream, to stately Corduba,  
Now the Herculean Gades, fair Hispalis,  
Munda, so lately fatal, Vcubis,  
Ategua, and all the other Towns  
Which fence the wealthy Beticke regions,  
Breathe nought but peace, nor longer to oppose  
Caesar's prevailing Fortune, harbour foes▪  
Nor do these only their subjection yield  
To Caesar, but the farthest, the most wild,  
And savage Nations, rough Asturians,  
Fierce Callaicians, bold Cantabrians  
From all the farthest distant shores of Spain  
Do humbly sue his favour to obtain:  
The love they bore to Pompey's name before  
Was quite o'erborne by Fate, and could no more  
Maintain a faction against Caesar's power;  
Who now a sole vnriualled conqueror,  
From that subjected coast hasts to be gone  
To visit Rome, which now was his alone,  
And there in fearless Triumphs to display  
The woeful glories of black Munda's day.  

Annotations upon the sixth Book.  

ᵃ How truly the manner of this battle is here expressed, or how far it may be lawful for one writing by the way of a Poet to digress, I leave it to the judgement of the Reader: and that you way briefly see it without the labour of searching Books, thus the cruel battle of Munda by two Historians of credit is described (to omit others for brevity sake.)  
Dion Cassius lib 43. thus: At the first conflict the auxiliaries on both sides fled away; but the Roman forces encountering fiercely continued the fight long, not regarding at all what became of their associates, every man thinking that the whole victory depended upon his hand: they gave no ground, nor left their stations, but killing, or dying made good the place: there were no clamours nor military shouts heard, nor hardly groans, only these speeches, strike, kill. Caesar and Pompey both on horseback from two hills beheld the battle, and knew not what they should resolve, but were equally distracted between fear and confidence. And afterwards thus: so long and fiercely with equal hopes both armies fought, that unless King Bogud, who stood with his forces without the battle, had turned about to surprise the Camp of Pompey, and Labienus had left the battle to prevent him, they had all without doubt died in the battle, or night had parted them upon equal terms.  
Florus relates it thus: Doubtful and sad was this battle, Fortune seeming to deliberate, and not resolving what to do: Caesar himself was sad before the battle, contrary to his custom, either considering the frailty of mankind, or suspecting the long continuance of his prosperity, or else fearing the fate of Pompey being now grown to the height of Pompey: but in the battle itself (what never before had been known to happen) while both the armies were in their height of fury, a sudden silence, as if by consent, was throughout the field: and last of all (a thing not usual in Caesar's army) the old Soldiers began to give ground, and that they did not absolutely fly, it seemed to be shame, not valour that withheld them: Concerning the despair of Caesar, and this his action Appian is my warrant, and Florus partly testifies as much.   

ᶜ Sextus Pompeius did long lurk in Celtiberia, till after the death of julius Caesar he levied forces, and surprising the Island of Sicily, he commanded the Seas in those parts, and saved many Romans that fled to him from the proscription of the Triumuiri: he was at last vanquished at Sea by Marcus Agrippa the chief General for Augustus Caesar, and slain in Asia by the Soldiers of Marcus Antonius the Triumuir.    
FINIS.   

THE SEVENTH BOOK.  
The Argument of the seventh Book.  
What different passions amongst the people rise  
At Caesar's new transcendent dignities:  
He, to decline the Envy of his reign,  
Designs a war against the Parthian.  
Cassius consults with Brutus to set free  
The State again by Caesar's Tragedy.  
The Lords conspire: unto the Capitol  
Caesar securely goes (though of his f●ll  
By fatal prodigies foretold in vain)  
And entering there is by the Senate slain.  
THat civil fury, that so long had torn  
Rome's state, & through so many regions borne  
Her bleeding wounds, itself had wasted now;  
And longed-for peace did seem again to show  
Her cheerful face; the people hoped for rest,  
Since now vnriualled Caesar was possessed  
Of all the honours, Rome could give, alone,  
And the World knew no other power but one.  
The o'erjoyed people wish it ever so:  
(His power was grown above their Envy now)  
And to the gods they willingly forgive  
The loss of that unsafe prerogative  
Their liberty, and gladly would adore  
A safe and peaceful Sceptre; for the more  
His might in war their terrors did increase  
The more his virtues now secure their peace:  
No better guardian, wish they, to the State  
Than mighty Caesar, whose unconquered Fate  
So long prevailed 'gainst all opposing powers,  
And crushed so many great competitors.  
Nor do the poor plebeians wish it so  
Alone; these hopes the wearied Senate too  
(Except some few) do harbour with delight,  
And gladly give consent to Caesar's height:  
They most of all desire a calm, since most  
The highest Cedars by rough storms are tossed;  
They wish the shadow of that freedom gone  
Whose substance long ago was overthrown.  
For what since Marius' times, since Sylla's reign  
Did they of ancient liberty retain,  
But the bare name? For which so dear a price  
They paid, and saw so many Tragedies:  
And therefore not alone from flattery,  
But from true joy to Caesar they decree  
More height of honour, and more state than can  
Fit the condition of a private man,  
Left he perchance might seem in his own eyes  
Less than a Monarch: to those dignities,  
Which after the defeat of Scipio  
He had received, they add far greater now,  
Divine and humane; that throughout all lands,  
And all the kingdoms which great Rome commands,  
Not only Sacrifices should be had  
For him, and offerings in all Temples made,  
But Temples to himself they do decree  
To consecrate as to a Deirie:  
But one more sumptuous than the rest, and high  
Erected is to him and Clemency  
joining their Deities, where hand in hand  
Does Caesar's image with the Goddess stand:  
And (as his Country's saviour) every where  
His rich-wrought Statues oaken Garlands wear▪  
They style him Consul for ten years to come,  
Dictator ever, Father of his Rome;  
And that in every cause, for ample State,  
He, as Supreme, and Sovereign Magistrate  
Should judgement give from a Tribunal high  
Of burnished Gold and polished ivory.  
That those chaste maids, which keep the Vestal flame,  
And all Rome's Priests should vow in Caesar's name,  
And for his safety offer every year,  
And he himself a robe Triumphal wear  
At public Sacrifice; that thanks should be  
Given to the gods for his each victory,  
And the days sacred. Who could ere have thought  
That day, on which Pharsalia's field was fought,  
Or that of Thapsus, or sad Munda's war  
As holidays should fill the Calendar?  
And Cato, Scipio, Pompey's tragic falls  
Be kept with joy as Roman Festivals?  
The month Quintilis, to his lasting fame,  
(Which gave him birth) must bear great julius' name.  
What more deserved honour could there be,  
More fit, more grateful to posterity  
For Caesar's future memory to wear,  
Than mention in his own amended year?  
That he, whose wisdom from confusion  
Had freed th' accounts of time, and to the Sun  
Had squared his year, from all those errors freed  
Which negligence insensibly did breed,  
In that should live, while people every where  
Throughout the World observe the julian year.  
And more to heighten his transcendent State,  
They make decree, that every Magistrate  
Shall (when elected) swear not to withstand  
What ever Caesar's edicts shall command,  
Making his power so great, there's nothing now  
But he himself may on himself bestow.  
What now should Caesar fear? What ill success  
Can shake so strong a grounded happiness?  
Or what should Rome now in a State so blessed  
Suppose can rend her peace, or reave her rest?  
Asks it a greater virtue to maintain  
A settled fortune than at first to gain?  
Or is it easier to the powers on high  
To give, than to preserve prosperity?  
Or would the gods else let proud mortals see  
By this so fatal mutability,  
Their frail estate, and find the distance so  
Betwixt Celestial powers and powers below?  
Caesar to mould the State a new begins  
With wholesome Laws, and by his mercy wins  
(If mercy could such Envy overcome)  
The people's hearts, calling from exile home  
Those banished Lords that had against him fought  
To make all hatred, with the war, forgot:  
And through the Empire's wide circumference  
Extends his bounty and Magnificence;  
Carthage and Corinth he reedifies,  
And plants them both with Roman Colonies,  
And not detracting from th' old founder's fames,  
Le's them both bear their first renowned names.  
But yet suspecting (what the sad event  
Proved true) how hardly his new government  
Will at the first be brooked, till time allay  
That Envy's heat, that does as yet outweigh  
His lenity, and nothing more than rest  
Matures the plots of discontented breasts,  
Caesar resolves with speed to entertain  
An honourable war to wipe the stain  
Of civil blood, by foreign deeds, away,  
To fetch again from conquered Parthia  
(Which yet secure did of Rome's Trophies boast)  
Those captive Eagles which slain Crassies lost.  
His fixed thoughts on that high action set,  
Unto a great and frequent Senate met,  
Thus Caesar speaks; Father's Conscript, had I  
Meant to abuse my power in cruelty,  
As Cinna, Marius, and dire Sylla did,  
What closest vizour could so long have hid  
My nature from you? You had found ere this  
Some fatal signs: but I, that still did wish  
Power, for no other end than to secure  
The use of virtuous deeds, and put in ure  
Nor what my passions but true reason taught,  
In all these wars have for the public fought,  
To make myself a Guardian, not a Lord  
Of Rome and you, and with a conquering Sword  
Keep out all Tyrants, that might else intrude,  
Working your safety, not your servitude.  
What can this Senate, or the people fear  
From Caesar's power, whose mercy every where  
So many pardoned enemies have tried?  
And, save in battle, none by me destroyed:  
Let those surviving witnesses relate  
How I in war have used my prosperous Fate;  
Let Scip●o's papers burned, unread by me  
(After the field of Thapsus) testify  
How loath I was to find in Rome a foe▪  
And rather chose my dangers not to know,  
But still to live in danger, than to be  
Secured by slaughter and severity:  
Nor, but enforced, witness ye gods of Rome,  
To this sad civil war did Caesar come,  
And was compelled (though loath) to conquer more  
To purchase that, which I deserved before,  
For which ten years successfully I fought  
Against the Gauls, and all those regions brought  
Under the power of Rome, which lie between  
The Pyrenaean hills, the Germane Rhine,  
And British Seas; nor did the Germane Rhine,  
Or British Seas my victories confine,  
Which flew beyond them both, and crossing over  
(Where never Roman Eagles parched before)  
I taught the Germans there our yoke to carry,  
And made the painted Britain's tributary:  
For which my Triumphs Envy did deny;  
To win for Rome was made a crime in me.  
Had not my foes ungrateful injury  
Turned back those conquering arms on Italy  
They had, perchance, Fathers, by your command  
E'er this subdued the farthest Eastern land.  
Our name the Indians, and tamed Medes had known▪  
The Persian Susa, and proud Babylon  
Had felt our strength, nor on the Parthian coast  
So long had Crassus' unrevenged ghost  
Complaining wandered: That design for me  
Rests now to act (so you the war decree.)  
When first the Spring dissolves the mountain snow,  
And Western winds upon the waters blow;  
When with his golden horns bright Taurus opes  
The cheerful year; shall these victorious troops  
Advance against the Parthians, and there die,  
Or fetch those Eagles home with victory  
Which Crassus lost: till than you need not fear  
The insolency of the Soldier,  
That their disordered licence here at home  
May any way disturb the peace of Rome.  
My care already has (besides the spoils  
Of foreign foes) rewarded all their toils  
With those great sums, which here so lately I  
(Perchance much envied) raised in Italy  
To keep them still, and did not fear to buy  
With mine own Envy your security.  
Then, Conscript Fathers, if your wisdoms shall  
Esteem of Caesar as a General,  
Fit to revenge the Roman infamy  
'Gainst Parthia's pride, decree the war to me:  
I am your Soldier still; nor ere has aught  
But Rome's renown by all my toils been sought:  
You shall perceive that Caesar's Soldiers are  
Not only fortunate in Civil war.  
Caesar had ended; when the Fathers all  
To such a war, and such a General  
Give glad consent, and with one voice decree  
The Parthian war to Caesar's auspicie.  
But Fates deny what they so much desired;  
The date of Caesar's glory was expired,  
And Fortune wearied with his Triumphs now  
Revolts from him; more ruin and more woe  
Was yet behind for wretched Rome to taste▪  
Nor can their quiet happiness outlast  
The life of Caesar, whose approaching Fate  
More Civil wars and wounds must expiate▪  
No virtue, bounty, grace, nor clemency  
Could long secure usurped Sovereignty:  
For more that power to Citizens borne free  
Distasteful was than benefits could be  
Sweet and delight some: which soon hastened on  
Th' untimely death of Caesar; Nor alone  
To this conspiracy did hatred draw  
His ancient foes▪ as Pontius Aquila,  
Bucolianus, and Cecilius,  
Ligarius pardoned once, and Rubrius,  
Scruilius Galba, Sextus Naso too,  
Spurius, with many of the faction more:  
But even 'mongst Caesar's friends dire Envy wrought;  
And to his slaughter bold Trebonius brought,  
Casca, and Cimber, and Minutius  
His seeming friends; nor thee, Oh Cassius,  
Could Caesar's favour, nor thy Praetorship  
Of Rome obtained, from this dire murder keep.  
Decimus Brutus too, so highly graced,  
And in so near a rank of friendship placed  
With Caesar, to whose trust and governance  
The wealthy province of Transalpine France  
Caesar had left, envying his Patron's power  
Among the rest is turned conspirator:  
Nor seems the knot of this great faction yet,  
To be of strength enough, unless they get  
Young Marcus Brutus in, who then did sway  
The Province of Cisalpine Gallia,  
Colleague with Cassius (as Rome's Praetors) then,  
And high in Caesar's grace: this brave young man  
For his known virtues and admired parts,  
In all the people's discontented hearts  
Did seem most thought of, and marked out to be  
The vindicatour of lost liberty:  
Nor did they hide it, but in libels wrote  
On his Praetorian cell, expressed their thought,  
Taxing his courage as degenerate  
From th' ancient Brutus, who first freed the State  
Of Rome from Monarchy; as if the fame  
Of such an act could suit no other name,  
And he by fatal birth condemned to be  
An Actor now in Caesar's Tragedy.  
Now had Rh●m n●sian Nemesis possessed  
In all her blackest forms, the vengeful breast  
Of fiery Cassius, and did wholly sway  
His eager thoughts, impatient of delay:  
Who, by night's silence, enters Brutus' house▪  
Him there he finds alone, and anxious,  
Wailing his Country's Fate, and sadder far  
Than when the fear of this great Civil war  
First seized the people's hearts, and frighted Rome  
Was filled with fatal prodigies: to whom  
Cassius begins: Oh why should Brutus spend  
That precious time in thought, which he should lend  
In active aid, to his sad Country's need;  
That would again by Brutus' hand be freed.  
See what the people's longing thoughts expect  
That thou shouldst work for them; mark the effect  
Of what they write on thy Praetorian Sell:  
There may'st thou read that (though contented well)  
They looked no farther than for vain delights  
(As Libyan hunt, and Circensian sights)  
From other Praetors, they expect from thee  
A benefit, no less than liberty:  
Can Brutus think that Caesar, while he lives▪  
Will ere resign so great a power, who strives  
To make it more his own; and not content  
With a Dictator's name and government,  
An office oft bestowed, while Rome was free,  
Aims at more certain marks of Monarchy  
The Regal Crown and Sceptre, thinking all  
The Senate gives, cause they can give it, small?  
Why were the Tribunes else, for taking down  
From Caesar's Statue, late, a golden Crown,  
Deposed? Or what could he by law allege  
Against their persons sacred privilege?  
Did lewd Antonius put a Diadem  
On Caesar's head, to be refused by him  
In public only, and not there to try  
How we would all allow his Monarchy?  
Besides a thousand more ambitious arts,  
He daily finds to sound the people's hearts.  
His death the period of his pride must be,  
And must with speed be wrought: for if, till he  
Return triumphant from the Parthian war,  
We should delay our vengeance, harder far,  
And with more envy must it then be done,  
When he more honour and more love has won.  
To shake off Caesar's yoke this is the time,  
Or make it not our own, but Fortune's crime:  
The Noble Brutus sighed; Oh Cassius,  
If Heavens (quoth he) have not allotted us  
A longer date of freedom, how can we  
With feeble arms control their high decree?  
They, that in Africa, Spain, and Thessaly  
Condemned the cause of Roman liberty,  
Will not protect it now: and better far  
It should be lost in fair and open war,  
From whence at first it sprung, and grew so high,  
Than to be saved by secret treachery,  
Such as the ancient Romans scorned to use  
'Gainst worst of foes. Noble Fabritius,  
When conquering Pyrrhus threatened Rome, disdained  
To free his Country by a traitors hand,  
Adventuring rather Rome's sad overthrow  
By open war: nor 'gainst a foreign foe  
Were these respects observed alone by us:  
What greater traitor than Sertorius,  
And foe to Rome? Yet he by treason slain  
On base Perpenna stuck a lasting stain:  
What hope was there that one so deep in blood  
As was that Butcher Sylla, ever would  
Resign his reign to be a private man?  
Yet who 'gainst Sylla's life attempted then?  
'twixt whom and Caesar was as great an odds  
Almost, as 'twixt the Furies and the Gods.  
As much as those then living Romans were  
Too timorous, too base, and prone to bear  
A Tyrant's yoke, as much, for this, shall we  
Be judged ingrate to Caesar's clemency:  
And those old men will more accuse our crime,  
That can remember Sylla's bloody time:  
But I (of all accursed) that so much owe  
To Caesar's favours, am condemned now  
To be a subject, or from servitude  
To free myself by foul ingratitude:  
Oh what a torture my distracted breast  
Suffers, 'twixt two such sad extremes oppressed?  
Oh why, when dire Pharsalia's field was fought,  
And I disguised in common armour sought  
To reach his life, before I was descried,  
And saved by Caesar, had not Brutus died,  
And free descended to the shades below?  
Or if my aim had hit, one happy blow  
Had rescued Rome from thrall without a stain  
(Unless Great Pompey had usurped a reign)  
And had not left our liberty to be  
Thus poorly wrought by secret treachery:  
Oh, stay awhile our vengeance, Cassius,  
See what the gods, and Fate will do for us▪  
Or what ere long our fatal enemies  
The Parthians can do. Cassius' replies,  
Could Brutus then be pleased, the Parthian foe  
Again should triumph in our overthrow?  
To have, with public loss and infamy  
That wrought for us, which may with honour be  
(And Rome yet safe) by our own hands achieved.  
In all thy reasons, yet, thou art deceived,  
Mistakinq grounds of things, thou dost conclude  
Impartial justice foul ingratitude:  
For if the deed be just, no benefit  
Received, should hinder thee from acting it;  
That were corruption, not true gratitude:  
The greater favours Caesar ere has showed  
To thee, the more thy justice will appear  
In that the public good thou dost prefer:  
'T would take much honour from a deed so high,  
If Caesar had been known thine enemy:  
Nor could an act, wherein thy private hate  
Had borne a share, so much oblige the State:  
To purchase honour, and our Country's good  
Private respects of friendship or of blood  
Must be forgot and banished: is that old  
Brutus through, all succeeding times extolled,  
By whose strict justice his own sons did die,  
That sought again to bring in Monarchy?  
And art thou bound to suffer Caesar's reign?  
What would old Brutus do, if here again?  
Or unto thee can Caesar's favour seem  
A greater bond than nature was to him?  
Nor canst thou term it secret treachery  
If by our hands usurping Caesar die;  
Since Fate of warlike power has us bereft,  
And no means else to work our freedom left.  
Should we a while defer the action,  
It cannot be, perchance, hereafter done  
But with dishonour and base Treason's stain,  
When we before have both approved his reign:  
For in the Sibyls books 'twas lately read,  
The Parthians never can be vanquished  
But by a King: which in the people's ears  
Is told already; and his Flatterers  
By them would have it publicly desired;  
Our voices, Brutus, will be then required;  
Which we with greatest peril must deny,  
Or else for ever lose our liberty.  
When Cassius had with his persuasive art  
Fully confirmed young Brutus wavering heart  
To this sad deed; a noise at door they hear;  
Decimus Brutus now was entered there,  
And all the rest of that conspiracy:  
Where 'mongst themselves the fatal knot they tie,  
By mutual oaths; striving (alas) in vain  
By Caesar's death that freedom to attain,  
Which was for ever banished by the doom  
Of Fate, and never to return to Rome  
Though often sought; in stead of freedom now  
More desolation, Tragedies and woe  
After this slaughter must again ensue;  
And all the people that dire action rue  
Which they desired. Philippi's baleful day,  
Perusia's siege, and fatal Mutina,  
With Leuca's fleet shall make afflicted Rome  
Truly lament o'er slaughtered Caesar's Tomb.  
The baleful Ides of March approaching nigh  
Ordained by Fate for this great Tragedy,  
Th' Etrurian Augurs, who divine by sight  
Of slain beasts entrailes, and the various flight  
Of Birds, in Caesar's danger were not dumb,  
But boldly told what they foresaw to come.  
The Ides of March Spurinna bids him fear:  
Nor did the Earth, the Air, or Skies forbear  
Presaging signs (if any signs could lend  
Means to prevent what destinies intent:)  
Affrighting voices in the Air were heard;  
The Sun himself in threatening forms appeared,  
Sometimes, as if he wept, his glorious head  
With a blue Rainbow round environed;  
Sometimes quite dimmed, as if he fled the sight  
Of men, and meant to make eternal night.  
The windy Spirits through earth's torn caverns break:  
Floods change their courses: beasts 'gainst nature speak▪  
The swelling Poe oreflowes th' adjoining plain,  
And to his channel suddenly again  
Retiring back, thousands of monstrous Snakes,  
Which he brought forth, upon dry ground forsakes.  
The Sea, that had o'erwhelmed a part of land  
By Tyber's mouth, retiring, on the sand  
As many fish did in like sort forsake:  
But nearer signs great Caesar's death forespoke.  
Those stately Steeds, which, when the war begun,  
He crossing o'er the stream of Rubicon  
Had consecrated, and for ever freed  
From future service of the war, to feed  
At liberty along the Crystal flood,  
And quiet wander through the shady wood,  
For many days before their Lord was slain,  
Did, of themselves, their pleasant food refrain:  
Their mourning eyes presaging sorrow showed,  
And all the pasture fields with tears bedewed.  
The little regal Bird, the day before,  
Flying along, a sprig of Laurel bore  
Within her mouth; whom strait a multitude  
Of Birds from out the neighbouring wood pursued,  
Till she had entered Pompey's Court, and there  
The Laurelled Bird did all to pieces tear.  
That night, that ushered forth the fatal day,  
Was come, and with her darkness did display  
Prodigious fears, bringing, in stead of rest,  
A sad disturbance to each wakeful breast:  
Throughout the Palace, where great Caesar slept  
His last, the arms of Mars, which there were kept,  
Were heard to yield a horrid rattling sound,  
Clashing together of themselves; and round  
About the house the doors flew open at once:  
The air of night was filled with dismal groans;  
And people oft awaked with the howls  
Of Wolves and fatal Dogs: ill boding Owls,  
Night-iarres, and Ravens with wide-stretched throats  
From yews, and holleys send their baleful notes;  
The shrieches wail, and all cries were heard  
Of every fatal and affrighting Bird.  
Shape-faining Morpheus, in the dead of night,  
Sent from the King of rest, with speedy flight  
Entering the Palace, to Calphurnia,  
Who sleeping in her Lords embraces lay,  
Presents his slaughtered figure in such wise  
As unto all th' amazed people's eyes,  
The next day's Sun must show; all stained with blood  
Before the bed she dreamt her Caesar stood,  
His visage paled with death: that robe of State,  
Which never foe before could violate,  
All torn, through which his gaping wounds appear:  
Calphurnia weeps, than shrieks aloud for fear,  
And stretching over the bed her loving arms  
T' embrace the flying shade; though free from harms  
She find her Lord, who was awaked now,  
Scarce dares she trust her waking senses so  
As she believes the vision; in her thought  
So much that too prophetic dream had wrought.  
Caesar with kisses wipes away her tears,  
And asks the cause of her so sudden fears:  
She trembling yet, the fatal dream declares  
Which had disturbed her sleep (nor could the cares  
That rose from thence, be banished) with the story  
Mixing fresh tears, and loving oratory,  
Persuades her Caesar to remember now  
What th' Augur's skills so lately did fore-show,  
And what the learned Spurinna bade him fear  
From th' Ides of March, which now (ill) present were:  
She begs of him he would forbear to go  
That morning to the Senate, and bestow  
That one poor day, if not upon his own  
Dear safety, yet upon her fears alone:  
And grant to her as much, as to a wife  
Was due, of interest in a husband's life.  
That he those Spanish guards would entertain,  
Which had so lately been dismissed, again:  
That safe prevention of a danger near  
Was Noble still, and could be styled fear  
No more than scorning the gods threats could be  
True fortitude or magnanimity.  
Caesar replies; Ah dear Calphurnia,  
Dearer to me than that life-breath I draw,  
Wouldst thou forbear thy grief, it could not lie  
Within the power of any prodigy  
To make this day a sad one: should I here  
Begin to learn that superstitious fear  
Of fatal days and hours, what day to me  
Could ere hereafter from such fears be free?  
I only should my wretched life torment,  
And not my destined time of death prevent,  
But live for ever with vain fears diseased  
When ere Astrologers or Augurs pleased:  
Every beasts entrailes were a care to me,  
And flight of every bird a malady.  
If Caesar's danger grow from discontent  
Of Rome, not one days absence can prevent,  
Nor scarce reprieve my Fate; and once to die  
Better than ever fear conspiracy:  
What good can strongest guards on me confer  
But make me live perpetual prisoner?  
Why should I fear the people's discontent,  
Who now enjoy under my government  
More wealth, more safety, and prosperity  
Than by my death they could? The death of me,  
That have already reached the height of all  
Glory and State that can to man befall,  
And wrought my farthest ends, can never be  
So much mine own as their calamity;  
Who will again with Ciu●ll jars be rend,  
And wish a safe and settled government:  
Oh do not fear thy dream, Calphurnia,  
Nor sad presages from such trifles draw:  
If dreams were fatal, Love, sleep were not rest;  
Since most our cares would be by sleep increased:  
But if they were presages, tell me then,  
For our two dreams to night have different been,  
Which should prevail? Me thought I flew above  
The lofty Clouds, and touched the hand of Jove,  
And to myself did seem more great and high  
Than ere before: what but felicity  
Should this portend? I dare not now suspect  
In calmest peace, those powers, that did effect  
My roughest wars; Oh let no sad surmise  
With causeless grief distain Calphurnia's eyes.  
Aurora now from T●thon's purple bed  
Arose, and th' Eastern sky discoloured  
Gave cheerful notice of th' approaching Sun;  
When forth, through Rome, th' officious client's ●unne,  
The Palace all with early visitants  
Was filled, to wait when Caesar would advance  
Forth to the Senate; striving to be seen  
Near th' earthly Sun, and in his rays to shine:  
Some to do grace, and grace receive from him,  
Some, like malignant clouds prepared to dim,  
Or in eclipse eternal bury quite  
Before the set of Phoebus, Caesar's light.  
Among the rest did Decimus attend  
With feigned service, and the name of friend  
To Fatal ends abusing, hastened on  
Persuaded Caesar to destruction;  
Though, ere they go, the Sacrifices all  
Threatening and black appeared, and did appall  
The fearful Priests, who from those entrailes show  
Portent of dire calamity and woe:  
Some Bulls they could not at the Altar stay,  
Who breaking thence fled through the streets away;  
In others, which were slain and opened there,  
None but th' infernal gods deigned to appear:  
The hearts were perished, and corruption flowed  
Through all the vital parts, black was the blood.  
The burning entrailes yielded only fume,  
No flame at all, but darkly did consume  
Mouldering away to ashes, and with black  
Vnsavoury clouds through th' air a darkness make.  
But Caesar, maugre what the entrailes threat,  
Undaunted passes on (how wondrous great  
Is Destiny?) and as he goes, neglects  
That Scroll presented to him, which detects  
The whole conspiracy: which, as of small  
Import, he pockets up not read at all,  
And enters Pompey's bloody Court, led on  
By powerful Fate to his destruction:  
Where ominously received, he mounts his high  
Dictator's Sell of Gold and ivory:  
The Lord's obeisance make in humblest wise,  
When different passions in their breasts arise;  
Even those bold hearts that vowed his Tragedy,  
Almost relent: the man's great Majesty,  
That awful Fortune, that did still attend  
His deeds, in all extremes a constant friend  
Produce a fear t' encounter discontent:  
Nor do their fancies only him present  
Invincible in open field, as when  
He stood environed with his armed men:  
But such as when alone he wrought his ends,  
Aided by none but Fortune, as his friends,  
As when he scaped th' Egyptian treachery,  
When he appeased his Soldier's mutiny,  
Or when the stormy Seas he crossed over  
By night, and safely reached Brundusium's shore:  
And why should not that friendly Fortune now,  
As then (think they) prevent his overthrow  
And to their ruin quite defeat the plot.  
But shame forbid them to relent; the knot  
Among too many conscious breasts was tied  
To let them start; and on the other side  
Revenge encouraged by the multitude  
Of Actors, entered, and all fears subdued,  
First to his Sell bold Cimber made approach,  
And seized his Purple robe; at whose rude touch  
While Caesar's wrath together with amaze  
Began to rise, the rest from every place  
Drawn near, no longer hiding their intent  
The fatal Poniards to his breast present:  
The first wound on him Casca did bestow,  
Whose Poniard Caesar wresting, to his foe  
Returns a stab back for the stab he gave,  
Striving in vain with one poor strength to save  
A life assaulted by so many hands;  
No succours could approach, no guard, nor bands  
Of aiding friends were nigh; that courage quite  
Was lost, that ne'er was lost before in fight;  
Until enfeebled by a deeper wound,  
And by invading death environed round,  
Hopeless he hides his face, and fixed stands  
T' endure the fury of revenging hands  
Repressing groans or words, as loath to shame  
His former life, or dying stain the fame  
Of those great deeds through all the World expressed,  
These silent thoughts revolving in his breast:  
Yet has not Fortune changed, nor given the power  
Of Caesar's head to any Conqueror;  
By no Superiors proud command I die,  
But by subjected Rome's conspiracy:  
Who to the World confesses by her fears,  
My State and strength to be too great for hers,  
And from earth's highest Throne, sends me to be  
By after-ages made a Deity:  
Through many wounds his life disseized, fled  
At last; and he, who never vanquished  
By open war, with blood and slaughter strewed  
So many lands, with his own blood imbrued  
The seat of wronged justice, and fell down  
A sacrifice t' appease th' offended gown.  
FINIS.