Odes 3.5 (Gladstone): Caelo Tonantem

Jove's thunder proves for heaven his reign
On earth Augustus shall be crowned
A god, who unto Rome's domain
Hath Britain and the plaguy Persian bound.

One served with Crassus: yet he ties
His lot to a barbarian wife,
Wretch! and, Oh, sight for Senate's eyes!
With foes for kin will close in arms his life.

Apulians, Marsians, serve the Mede;
Our name, our sacred shields, forget,
Nor garb, nor deathless Vesta heed,
And all while Jove and Rome are standing yet.

'Twas this that Regulus foreknew,
And spurned the foul condition; lest
The future such example rue,
Our captive soldiers must as captives rest.

'T was thus he spake. These eyes have seen
Our standards hung in Punic fane,
And swords, that Roman once had been,
From unresisting legions vilely ta'en;

'Have seen the arms of Romans bound
On backs once free: seen gates unbarred
For passage, and a harvest found
On fields our bands had once with ruin scarred.

'Will the repurchased soldier dare
As once he dared? Add not the lie
To acted crime. Can wool repair
The colours that it lost, when soaked with dye?

'Ah no. True merit once resigned,
No trick nor feint will serve as well.
If, from strong meshes loosed, the hind
Will combat, then in these may courage dwell,

'Who cower before the foe abhorred.
Will he new Punic onsets try,
Who on bound wrists hath felt the cord
Without a pang, and hath not dared to die?

'Bewildered, yet for life athirst,
In one he mingled peace and war;
Great Carthage sees our shame accursed,
For our Italian fall how loftier far.'

His wife's pure kiss, his babes, 'tis said,
He brushed away, nor looked around,
As one to home and country dead,
But sternly set his manful gaze aground.

The wavering Fathers then he fixed,
With words that none but he could say,
And so, his sorrowing friends betwixt
The glorious exile sped his onward way.

Full well he knew he must abide
The savage captor's torturing wrath,
Yet none the less he thrust aside
Obstructing kin, and all that barred his path;

As though from clients' wrangling care
Some ended suit had set him free,
For his Venafran farm, or where
Tarentum Sparta-born salutes the sea.