s he and
says: "Did not I tell you the Saturnalia could not last for ever?"

When Claudius saw his own funeral train, he understood that he was dead.
For they were chanting his dirge in anapaests, with much mopping and
mouthing:

"Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare,
Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air:
For he that is dead had a wit most keen,
Was bravest of all that on earth have been.
Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet:
Rebellious Parthians he did defeat;
Swift after the Persians his light shafts go:
For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow,
Swiftly the striped barbarians fled:
With one little wound he shot them dead.
And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas,
Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these
He chained by the neck as the Romans' slaves.
He spake, and the Ocean with trembling waves
Accepted the axe of the Roman law.
O weep for the man! This world never saw
One quicker a troublesome suit to decide,
When only one part of the case had been tried,
(He could do it indeed and not hear either side).
Who'll now sit in judgment the whole year round?
Now he that is judge of the shades underground
Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete,
Must yield to his better and take a back seat.
Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew,
And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!
And you above all, who get rich quick
By the rattle of dice and the three card trick."

Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung, 13
and would have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius
[Footnote: Talthybius was a herald, and _nuntius_ is obviously a gloss on
this. He means Mercury.] of the gods laid a hand on him, and led him across
the Campus Martius, first wrapping his head up close that no one might know
him, until betwixt Tiber and the Subway he went down to the lower regions.
[Footnote: By the Cloaca?] His freedman Narcissus had gone down before him
by a short cut, ready to welcome his master. Out he comes to meet him,
smooth and shining (he had just left the bath), and says he: "What make the
gods among mortals?" "Look alive," says Mercury, "go and tell them we are
coming." Away he flew, quicker than tongue can tell. It is easy going by
that road, all down hill. So although he had a touch of the gout, in a
trice they were come to Dis's door. There lay Cerberus, or, as Horace puts
it, the hundred-headed monster. [Sideno