Page:The Pharsalia of Lucan; (IA cu31924026485809).pdf/85

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BOOK III

MASSILIA

WITH canvas yielding to the western windThe navy sailed the deep, and every eyeGazed on Ionian billows. But the chiefTurned not his vision from his native shoreNow left for ever, while the morning mistsDrew down upon the mountains, and the cliffs.Faded in distance till his aching sightNo longer knew them. Then his wearied frameSank in the arms of sleep. But Julia's shape,In mournful guise, dread horror on her brow, 10Rose through the gaping earth, and from her tombErect,[1] in form as of a Fury spake:'Driven from Elysian fields and from the plains'The blest inhabit, when the war began,'I dwell in Stygian darkness where abide'The souls of all the guilty. There I saw'Th' Eumenides with torches in their hands'Prepared against thy battles; and the fleets[2] 'Which by the ferryman of the flaming stream'Were made to bear thy dead: while Hell itself 20'Relaxed its punishments; the sisters three
  1. ↑ Reading adscenso, as Francken (Leyden, 1896).
  2. ↑ So
    'The rugged Charon fainted,And asked a navy, rather than a boat,To ferry over the sad world that came.'(Ben Jonson, 'Catiline,' Act i., scene I.)
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