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(From Paradise, Canto VI) Translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
BEHOLD how great a power has made it worthy | |
| Of reverence, beginning from the hour | |
| When Pallas died to give it sovereignty. | |
| Thou knowest it made in Alba its abode | |
| Three hundred years and upward, till at last | 5 |
| The three to three fought for it yet again. | |
| Thou knowest what it achieved from Sabine wrong | |
| Down to Lucretia’s sorrow, in seven kings | |
| O’ercoming round about the neighboring nations; | |
| Thou knowest what it achieved, borne by the Romans | 10 |
| Illustrious against Brennus, against Pyrrhus, | |
| Against the other princes and confederates. | |
| Torquatus thence and Quinctius, who from locks | |
| Unkempt was named, Decii and Fabii, | |
| Received the fame I willingly embalm; | 15 |
| It struck to earth the pride of the Arabians, | |
| Who, following Hannibal, had passed across | |
| The Alpine ridges, Po, from which thou glidest; | |
| Beneath it triumphed while they yet were young | |
| Pompey and Scipio, and to the hill | 20 |
| Beneath which thou wast born it bitter seemed; | |
| Then, near unto the time when heaven had willed | |
| To bring the whole world to its mood serene, | |
| Did Cæsar by the will of Rome assume it. | |
| What it achieved from Var unto the Rhine, | 25 |
| Isère beheld and Saône, beheld the Seine, | |
| And every valley whence the Rhone is filled; | |
| What it achieved when it had left Ravenna, | |
| And leaped the Rubicon, was such a flight | |
| That neither tongue nor pen could follow it. | 30 |
| Round toward Spain it wheeled its legions; then | |
| Towards Durazzo, and Pharsalia smote | |
| That to the calid Nile was felt the pain. | |
| Antandros and the Simois, whence it started, | |
| It saw again, and there where Hector lies, | 35 |
| And ill for Ptolemy then roused itself. | |
| From thence it came like lightning upon Juba; | |
| Then wheeled itself again into your West, | |
| Where the Pompeian clarion it heard. | |
| From what it wrought with the next standard-bearer | 40 |
| Brutus and Cassius howl in Hell together, | |
| And Modena and Perugia dolent were; | |
| Still doth the mournful Cleopatra weep | |
| Because thereof, who, fleeing from before it, | |
| Took from the adder sudden and black death. | 45 |
| With him it ran even to the Red Sea shore; | |
| With him it placed the world in so great peace, | |
| That unto Janus was his temple closed. | |
| But what the standard that has made me speak | |
| Achieved before, and after should achieve | 50 |
| Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath it, | |
| Becometh in appearance mean and dim, | |
| If in the hand of the third Cæsar seen | |
| With eye unclouded and affection pure, | |
| Because the living Justice that inspires me | 55 |
| Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of, | |
| The glory of doing vengeance for its wrath. | |
| Now here attend to what I answer thee; | |
| Later it ran with Titus to do vengeance | |
| Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin. | 60 |
| And when the tooth of Lombardy had bitten | |
| The Holy Church, then underneath its wings | |
| Did Charlemagne victorious succor her. | |
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