ir names will
better express them: Ovid, Lucan, Virgil.
But our poets are beginning their career:
"Sit Cato, dum vivit, sane vel Caesare major,"
["Let Cato, whilst he live, be greater than Caesar."
--Martial, vi. 32]
says one.
"Et invictum, devicta morte, Catonem,"
["And Cato invincible, death being overcome."
--Manilius, Astron., iv. 87.]
says the second. And the third, speaking of the civil wars betwixt
Caesar and Pompey,
"Victrix causa diis placuit, set victa Catoni."
["The victorious cause blessed the gods, the defeated one Cato.
--"Lucan, i. 128.]
And the fourth, upon the praises of Caesar:
"Et cuncta terrarum subacta,
Praeter atrocem animum Catonis."
["And conquered all but the indomitable mind of Cato."
--Horace, Od., ii. 1, 23.]
And the master of the choir, after having set forth all the great names
of the greatest Romans, ends thus:
"His dantem jura Catonem."
["Cato giving laws to all the rest."--AEneid, viii. 670.]
CHAPTER XXXVII
THAT WE LAUGH AND CRY FOR THE SAME THING
When we read in history that Antigonus was very much displeased with his
son for presenting him the head of King Pyrrhus his enemy, but newly
slain fighting against him, and that seeing it, he wept; and that Rene,
Duke of Lorraine, also lamented the death of Charles, Duke of Burgundy,
whom he had himself defeated, and appeared in mourning at his funeral;
and that in the battle of D'Auray (which Count Montfort obtained over
Charles de Blois, his competitor for the duchy of Brittany), the
conqueror meeting the dead body of his enemy, was very much afflicted at
his death, we must not presently cry out:
"E cosi avven, the l'animo ciascuna
Sua passion sotto 'l contrario manto,
Ricopre, con la vista or'chiara, or'bruna."
["And thus it happens that the mind of each veils its passion under
a different appearance, and beneath a smiling visage, gay beneath a
sombre air."--Petrarch.]
When Pompey's head was presented to Caesar, the histories tell us that he
turned away his face, as from a sad and unpleasing object. There had
been so long an intelligence and society betwixt them in the management
of the public affairs, so great a community of fortunes, so many mutual
offices, and so near an alliance, that t
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