e hence is no unrighteous judge,
no tyrant, but Nature, who brought thee hither; as when a player leaves
the stage at the bidding of the conductor who hired him. Sayest thou,
'I have not played five acts'? True! but in [211] human life, three
acts only make sometimes an entire play. That is the composer's
business, not thine. Withdraw thyself with a good will; for that too
hath, perchance, a good will which dismisseth thee from thy part."

The discourse ended almost in darkness, the evening having set in
somewhat suddenly, with a heavy fall of snow. The torches, made ready
to do him a useless honour, were of real service now, as the emperor
was solemnly conducted home; one man rapidly catching light from
another--a long stream of moving lights across the white Forum, up the
great stairs, to the palace. And, in effect, that night winter began,
the hardest that had been known for a lifetime. The wolves came from
the mountains; and, led by the carrion scent, devoured the dead bodies
which had been hastily buried during the plague, and, emboldened by
their meal, crept, before the short day was well past, over the walls
of the farmyards of the Campagna. The eagles were seen driving the
flocks of smaller birds across the dusky sky. Only, in the city itself
the winter was all the brighter for the contrast, among those who could
pay for light and warmth. The habit-makers made a great sale of the
spoil of all such furry creatures as had escaped wolves and eagles, for
presents at the Saturnalia; and at no time had the winter roses from
Carthage seemed more lustrously yellow and red.

NOTES

188. +Spenser, Shepheardes Calendar, October, 61-66.

200. +Transliteration: Hosper epigraphas chronon kai holon ethnon.
Pater's Translation: "the sepulchral titles of ages and whole peoples."

202. +Homer, Iliad VI.146-48.

202. +Transliteration: Earos epigignetai hore. Translation: "born in
springtime." Homer, Iliad VI.147.

210. +Transliteration: Eschatos tou idiou genous. Translation: "He was
the last of his race."

CHAPTER XIII: THE "MISTRESS AND MOTHER" OF PALACES

AFTER that sharp, brief winter, the sun was already at work, softening
leaf and bud, as you might feel by a faint sweetness in the air; but he
did his work behind an evenly white sky, against which the abode of the
Caesars, its cypresses and bronze roofs, seemed like a picture in
beautiful but melancholy colour, as Marius climbed the long flights of