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And one by one they'll see and they will run
In which I futz around with Lucan. I believe I've managed to err on the side of translation rather than version, because the latter is not what I'm interested in right now, but I still worry it's one of those Venn orphans that happen when you're trying to avoid being the Loeb Classical Library, but the other alternative is Robert Fitzgerald. (I quite liked Fitzgerald when I couldn't read Greek.) I have also realized that I suck at vaguely worded, philosophically reassuring sententiae. This may be a problem; Cato is a Stoic and kind of talks in nothing but.
In any case, the following forty-four lines are the prophecy Sextus Pompeius receives from the zombie oracle in Book 6, after an appropriate corpse has been reanimated by the witch Erictho in an elaborate and disgusting ceremony which I will probably translate next. Note that the degree of whiskey tango foxtrot currently being experienced by the Roman Republic can be measured by the fact that Sulla is here classified as a good guy. All rights reserved to decide I'm still dissatisfied and delete it.
Revoked from the silent river's quays,
I did not see for myself the griefs on the Parcae's loom,
yet all the shades gave me to understand the same:
savage strife assails the ghosts of Rome
and cracks the peace of the underworld with unholy war.
Figures from both sides of Latin history have left
the seats of Elysium and dismal Tartarus; they make plain
what the Fates have planned. The blessed shades
were saddened—I saw the Decii, father and son both
souls offered up to the wars, and Camillus in tears
and the Curii, and Sulla railing of you, Fortune.
Scipio grieves his luckless offspring to be lost
on Libyan soil, Cato the elder enemy of Carthage
mourns the fate of grandchildren who will not be slaves.
Only you, first consul after the tyrants were cast out,
Brutus, did I glimpse rejoicing among the holy shades.
Threatful Catiline, his shackles smashed and broken,
exults with the brawling Marii and bare-shouldered Cethegi.
With my own eyes I saw them cheering, the populists,
those lantern-lawyers the Drusi and the Gracchi, fire-eaters—
hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
applauded and the criminal tumult presses for
the fields of the just. The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment. Take back with you this solace,
young man, that in a peaceable vale the ghosts await
your father and his house, saving a place for the Pompeys
in a tranquil space of the realm, and do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together. So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb,
and trample on the ghosts of the Roman gods.
Whose grave the Nile will lave with its tides, whose the Tiber,
is all the question: the generals fight only for their funeral games.
And do not ask after your own fate: the Parcae will give you to know
what I must refrain from. A surer seer will sing it all to you,
your father Pompey himself, in the fields of Sicily,
yet even he unsure where to call you, where to warn you off,
what regions, what reaches of the world to bid you shun.
You poor men, you must fear Europe and Libya and Asia—
Fortune has dealt out your tombs between your triumphs.
You pitiable family, in all the world you will see
nowhere safer than Emathia.
—Lucan, Pharsalia 6.776—820.
In any case, the following forty-four lines are the prophecy Sextus Pompeius receives from the zombie oracle in Book 6, after an appropriate corpse has been reanimated by the witch Erictho in an elaborate and disgusting ceremony which I will probably translate next. Note that the degree of whiskey tango foxtrot currently being experienced by the Roman Republic can be measured by the fact that Sulla is here classified as a good guy. All rights reserved to decide I'm still dissatisfied and delete it.
Revoked from the silent river's quays,
I did not see for myself the griefs on the Parcae's loom,
yet all the shades gave me to understand the same:
savage strife assails the ghosts of Rome
and cracks the peace of the underworld with unholy war.
Figures from both sides of Latin history have left
the seats of Elysium and dismal Tartarus; they make plain
what the Fates have planned. The blessed shades
were saddened—I saw the Decii, father and son both
souls offered up to the wars, and Camillus in tears
and the Curii, and Sulla railing of you, Fortune.
Scipio grieves his luckless offspring to be lost
on Libyan soil, Cato the elder enemy of Carthage
mourns the fate of grandchildren who will not be slaves.
Only you, first consul after the tyrants were cast out,
Brutus, did I glimpse rejoicing among the holy shades.
Threatful Catiline, his shackles smashed and broken,
exults with the brawling Marii and bare-shouldered Cethegi.
With my own eyes I saw them cheering, the populists,
those lantern-lawyers the Drusi and the Gracchi, fire-eaters—
hands cramped by knots of indissoluble steel and Dis' custody
applauded and the criminal tumult presses for
the fields of the just. The lord of the unmoving realm
throws open his pale house, he roughs out fetters
from broken stone and strong adamant, readying
the victor's punishment. Take back with you this solace,
young man, that in a peaceable vale the ghosts await
your father and his house, saving a place for the Pompeys
in a tranquil space of the realm, and do not fret over the glory
that goes with a short life—the hour is coming that will blur
all leaders together. So run for your deaths, go down
in pride of your great spirit no matter how small the tomb,
and trample on the ghosts of the Roman gods.
Whose grave the Nile will lave with its tides, whose the Tiber,
is all the question: the generals fight only for their funeral games.
And do not ask after your own fate: the Parcae will give you to know
what I must refrain from. A surer seer will sing it all to you,
your father Pompey himself, in the fields of Sicily,
yet even he unsure where to call you, where to warn you off,
what regions, what reaches of the world to bid you shun.
You poor men, you must fear Europe and Libya and Asia—
Fortune has dealt out your tombs between your triumphs.
You pitiable family, in all the world you will see
nowhere safer than Emathia.
—Lucan, Pharsalia 6.776—820.