-wracked bosoms! Youths carry their
fathers

Bowed down with old age, uninured to the bearing of burdens.

They seize what they dread to lose most. Inexperience drags all

Its chattels to camp and to battle: as, when powerful Auster

Piles up the churned waters and tumbles them: never a yard-arm

Nor rudder to answer the hand, here, one fashions a life-raft

Of pine planks, another steers into some bay on a lee shore,

Another will crack on and run from the gale and to Fortune

Trust all! But why sorrow for trifles? The consuls, with Pompey

The Great--he, the terror of Pontus, of savage Hydaspes

Explorer, the reef that wrecked pirates, caused Jove to turn livid,

When thrice was a triumph decreed him, whom Pontus' vexed water

And pacified billows of Bosphorus worshipped! Disgraceful their

Flight! Title and glory forsaking! Now Fortune capricious

Looks down on the back of great Pompey retreating in terror!"

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FOURTH.

"So great a misfortune disrupted the concord of heaven

And gods swelled the rout in their panic! Behold through creation

The gentle divinities flee from the ravening earth; in

Their loathing they turn from humanity, doomed to destruction!

And first of all, Peace, with her snowy white arms, hides her visage

Defeated, her helmet beneath and, abandoning earth, flees

To seek out the realm of implacable Dis, as a refuge

Meek Faith her companion, and Justice with locks loosely flowing,

And Concord, in tears, and her raiment in tatters, attend her.

The minions of Pluto pour forth from the portals of darkness

That yawn: the serpent-haired Fury, Bellona the Savage,

Megoera with firebrands, destruction, and treachery, livid

Death's likeness! Among them is Frenzy, as, free, with her lashings

Snapped short, she now raises her gory head, shielding her features

Deep scarred by innumerous wounds 'neath her helmet blood-clotted.

Her left arm she guards with a battle-scarred shield scored by
weapons,

And numberless spear-heads protrude from its surface: her right hand

A flaming torch brandishes, kindling a flame that will burn up

The world! Now the gods are on earth and the skies note their
absence;

The planets disordered their orbits