The Portents

Now evermore, lest some one hope might ease
The Commons' jangling minds, apparent signs arose;
Strange sights appeared; the angry threatening gods
Filled both the earth and seas with prodigies;
Great store of strange and unknown stars were seen
Wandering about the north, and rings of fire
Fly in the air, and dreadful bearded stars,
And comets that presage the fall of kingdoms.
The flattering sky glittered in often flames,
And sundry fiery meteors blazed in heaven,
Now spear-like, long, now like a spreading torch;
Lightning in silence stole forth without clouds,
And from the northern climate, snatching fire
Blasted the Capitol. The lesser stars,
Which wont to run their course through empty night,
At noon-day mustered; Phoebe, having filled
Her meeting horns to match her brother's light,
Strook with th' earth's sudden shadow, waxed pale;
Titan himself, throned in the midst of heaven,
His burning chariot plunged in sable clouds,
And whelmed the world in darkness, making men
Despair of day, as did Thyestes' town,
Mycenae, Phoebus flying through the east.
Fierce Mulciber unbarred Aetna's gate,
Which flamed not on high, but headlong pitched
Her burning head on bending Hespery.
Coal-black Charybdis whirled a sea of blood;
Fierce mastiffs howled; the vestal fires went out;
The flame in Alba, consecrate to Jove,
Parted in twain, and with a double point
Rose like the Theban brothers' funeral fire;
The earth went off her hinges; and the Alps
Shook the old snow from off their trembling laps.
The ocean swelled as high as Spanish Calpe,
Or Atlas' head; their saints and household gods
Sweat tears, to show the travails of their city.
Crowns fell from holy statues; ominous birds
Defiled the day; at night wild beasts were seen,
Leaving the woods, lodge in the streets of Rome.
Cattle were seen that muttered human speech.
Prodigious births with more and ugly joints
Than nature gives, whose sight appals the mother,
And dismal prophecies were spread abroad.
And they, whom fierce Bellona's fury moves
To wound their arms, sing vengeance; Sibyl's priests,
Curling their bloody locks, howl dreadful things;
Souls quiet and appeased sighed from their graves;
Clashing of arms was heard in untrod woods,
Shrill voices shright, and ghosts encounter men.
Those that inhabited the suburb fields
Fled; foul Erinnys stalked about the walls,
Shaking her snaky hair and crooked pine
With flaming top, much like that hellish fiend
Which made the stern Lycurgus wound his thigh,
Or fierce Agave mad; or like Megaera
That scared Alcides, when by Juno's task
He had before looked Pluto in the face.
Trumpets were heard to sound; and with what noise
An armed battle joins, such and more strange
Black night brought forth in secret. Sulla's ghost
Was seen to walk, singing sad oracles,
And Marius' head above cold Tav'ron peering,
His grave broke open, did affright the boors.