le cose di Dio, che di bontate
Denno essere spose, voi rapaci
Per oro e per argento adulterate."

These ejaculations are closed by an address to the manes of Darius, and
a promise to immortalize him in the verse of the poet. The grief of
Alexander for the Persian queen is now renewed for the sovereign. The
Hebrew Apelles is charged to erect in his honor a lofty pyramid in white
marble, with sculptures in gold. Four columns of silver, with base and
capitals of gold, support with admirable art a concave vault where are
represented the three continents of the terrestrial globe, with their
rivers, forests, mountains, cities, and people. In the characteristic
description of each nation, France has soldiers and Italy wine:--

"_Francia militibus_, celebri Campania Bacco."

From funeral the poet passes to festival, and portrays the banquets and
indulgence to which Alexander now invites his army. A sedition ensues.
The soldiers ask to return to their country. Alexander makes an
harangue, and awakens in them the love of glory. They swear to affront
all dangers, and to follow him to the end of the world.

The eighth book chronicles the march into Hyrcania; the visit of
Talestris, queen of the Amazons, and her Amazonian life, with one breast
burnt so as to accommodate the bent bow; then the voluntary sacrifice of
all the immense booty of the conqueror, as an example for the troops;
then the conspiracy against Alexander in his own camp; then the
examination and torture of the Son of Parmenio, suspected of complicity;
and then the doom of Bessus, the murderer of Darius, who is delivered by
Alexander to the brother of his victim. Then comes the expedition to
Scythia. The Macedonian, on the banks of the Tanais, receives an
embassy. The ambassador fails to delay him: he crosses the river, and
reduces the deserts and the mountains of Scythia to his dominion. And
here the poet likens this people, which, after resisting so many
powerful nations, now falls under the yoke, to a lofty, star-seeking
Alpine fir, _astra petens abies_, which, after resisting for ages all
the winds of the east, of the west, and of the south, falls under the
blows of Boreas. The name of the conqueror becomes a terror, and other
nations in this distant region submit voluntarily, without a blow.

The ninth book commences with a mild allusion to the murder of Clitus,
and other incidents, teaching that the friendships of kings are not
perennial:--