On Steadiness and Integrity
Not the rage of the people pressing to hurtful measures, not the aspect
of a threatening tyrant can shake from his settled purpose the man who
is just and determined in his resolution; nor can the south wind, that
tumultuous ruler of the restless Adriatic, nor the mighty hand of
thundering Jove; if a crushed world should fall in upon him, the ruins
would strike him undismayed. By this character Pollux, by this the
wandering Hercules, arrived at the starry citadels; among whom Augustus
has now taken his place, and quaffs nectar with empurpled lips. Thee, O
Father Bacchus, meritorious for this virtue, thy tigers carried, drawing
the yoke with intractable neck; by this Romulus escaped Acheron on the
horses of Mars--Juno having spoken what the gods in full conclave
approve: "Troy, Troy, a fatal and lewd judge, and a foreign woman, have
reduced to ashes, condemned, with its inhabitants and fraudulent prince,
to me and the chaste Minerva, ever since Laomedon disappointed the gods
of the stipulated reward. Now neither the infamous guest of the
Lacedaemonian adulteress shines; nor does Priam's perjured family repel
the warlike Grecians by the aid of Hector, and that war, spun out to
such a length by our factions, has sunk to peace. Henceforth, therefore,
I will give up to Mars both my bitter resentment, and the detested
grandson, whom the Trojan princes bore. Him will I suffer to enter the
bright regions, to drink the juice of nectar, and to be enrolled among
the peaceful order of gods. As long as the extensive sea rages between
Troy and Rome, let them, exiles, reign happy in any other part of the
world: as long as cattle trample upon the tomb of Priam and Paris, and
wild beasts conceal their young ones there with impunity, may the
Capitol remain in splendor, and may brave Rome be able to give laws to
the conquered Medes. Tremendous let her extend her name abroad to the
extremest boundaries of the earth, where the middle ocean separates
Europe from Africa, where the swollen Nile waters the plains; more brave
in despising gold as yet undiscovered, and so best situated while hidden
in the earth, than in forcing it out for the uses of mankind, with a
hand ready to make depredations on everything that is sacred. Whatever
end of the world has made resistance, that let her reach with her arms,
joyfully alert to visit, even that part where fiery heats rage madding;
that where clouds and rains storm with unmoderated fury. But I pronounce
this fate to the warlike Romans, upon this condition; that neither
through an excess of piety, nor of confidence in their power, they
become inclined to rebuild the houses of their ancestors' Troy. The
fortune of Troy, reviving under unlucky auspices, shall be repeated with
lamentable destruction, I, the wife and sister of Jupiter, leading on
the victorious bands. Thrice, if a brazen wall should arise by means of
its founder Phoebus, thrice should it fall, demolished by my Grecians;
thrice should the captive wife bewail her husband and her children."
These themes ill suit the merry lyre. Whither, muse, are you
going?--Cease, impertinent, to relate the language of the gods, and to
debase great things by your trifling measures.
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