The souls of the dead in his skiff: 'tis a fleet that is needed!

Thou, Pallid Tisiphone, slake with wide ruin, thy thirsting

And tear ghastly wounds: mangled earth sinks to hell and the
spirits.'"

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-SECOND.

"But scarce had she finished, when trembled the clouds; and a
gleaming

Bright flash of Jove's lightning transfixed them with flame and was
gone.

The Lord of the Shades blanched with fear, at this bolt of his
brother's,

Sank back, and drew closely together the gorge in Earth's bosom.

By auspices straightway the slaughter of men and the evils

Impending are shown by the gods. Here, the Titan unsightly

Blood red, veils his face with a twilight; on strife fratricidal

Already he gazed, thou hadst thought! There, silvery Cynthia

Obscuring her face at the full, denied light to the outrage.

The mountain crests riven by rock-slides roll thundering downward

And wandering rivers, to rivulets shrunk, writhed no longer

Familiar marges between. With the clangor of armor

The heavens resound; from the stars wafts the thrill of a trumpet

Sounding the call to arms. AEtna, now roused to eruption

Unwonted, darts flashes of flame to the clouds. Flitting phantoms

Appear midst the tombs and unburied bones, gibbering menace

A comet, strange stars in its diadem, leads a procession

And reddens the skies with its fire. Showers of blood fall from
heaven

These portents the Deity shortly fulfilled! For now Caesar

Forsook vacillation and, spurred by the love of revenge, sheathed

The Gallic sword; brandished the brand that proclaimed civil
warfare.

There, high in the Alps, where the crags, by a Greek god once
trodden,

Slope down and permit of approach, is a spot ever sacred

To Hercules' altar; the winter with frozen snow seals it

And rears to the heavens a summit eternally hoary,

As though the sky there had slipped down: no warmth from the
sunbeams,

No breath from the Springtime can soften the pile's wintry rigor

Nor slacken the frost chains that bind; and its menacing shoulders

The weight of the world could sustain. With victorious legions

These crests Caesar trod and selected a camp. Gazing downwards

On Italy's plains