That god we venerated in our shrines,
to reach the Tiber, left his land behind;
but Caesar is a god in his own city.
He’d won great triumphs in the field and worn
the statesman’s toga here at home—in sum,
he had a lightning-quick, a rich career—
but more than all of this, it was his son
who earned for Caesar apotheosis,
his change into a comet, a new star.
In truth, among the deeds of Caesar, none
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deserves more glory than his being one
who fathered our Augustus. Is there more
renown in having conquered seabound Britons;
in leading his triumphant fleet along
the course of the papyrus-bearing Nile,
up all its seven mouths; in his subjecting
to Rome the rebels of Numidia,
and Juba, Libya’s king; one Mithridates
after another, Pontus’ mighty kings;
in celebrating certain triumphs and
in earning many more—can such renown
surpass his having had so great a son?
O gods, in naming him—Augustus—lord
of all the world, you blessed the human race
abundantly! But such a king must be
a son of more than mortal seed: you need
to take his father Caesar from this earth.
You have to make of him a deity.
When Venus saw that this would come to pass,
but that it also meant a sorry death
for Caesar, her high priest—and there were signs
that an armed plot was being organized—
she paled; and to each god she met, she said:
“See this conspiracy, the cunning web
they weave, how faithlessly they would attempt
to kill the one descendant left to me
from lulus’ line—Dardanus’ progeny!
Must I forever be the only one
who has such cause for worry and affliction?
First I was wounded by King Tydeus’ son,
the lance of Diomedes; then I faced
despair—I saw the walls of Troy erased;
and I have had to watch the wanderings
of my Aeneas thrust along the sea,
and had to see my own dear son descending
into the region of the silent dead;
I watched him as he warred with Turnus—or,
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if it be truth that we would tell, with Juno.
But why need I recount the ancient trials
of my descendants? What awaits me now
does not allow me to recall old sorrows.
You surely see that sacrilegious blades
are being sharpened! Stop that threat, I pray;
prevent this crime; do not let Vestal’s flames
be quenched by bloodshed—with her high priest’s death!”
Such were the cries of Venus in distress;
across the sky they went—useless laments.
But they did stir the gods—who could not break
the ancient Sisters’ ironclad decrees
yet gave sure signs that grief was imminent.
They say the hideous crime was presaged by
the clash of arms among dark clouds, and horns
and trumpets blaring horribly. The sun’s
own orb was sorrowing; the light it shed
on frightened earth was lurid. Firebrands
would often flash beneath the stars; and gusts
of rain would often carry drops of blood.
The Morning Star was blue-gray, and his face
showed russet-colored blotches; and blood stained
the chariot of Luna. The sad owl,
that Stygian bird, was heard to mourn and warn,
and ivory statues wept throughout the land;
and from the sacred woods—so it is said—
came words of menace and distressing chants.
No sacrificial victim offered hope:
when augurs read the entrails, all they saw
were signs of imminent uproar in Rome;
the liver showed a severed upper lobe.
And in the Forum and around the homes
and, too, the temples of the gods—it’s told
—dogs howled by night and silent spirits roamed;
and tremors shook the city.
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Though the gods
had sent these omens, that was not enough
to curb the course of fate and human plots.
So unsheathed swords were to profane the shrine:
no other place was chosen for the crime—
Caesar was to be slaughtered in the Curia.
And Cytherea, learning of that act,
indeed beats at her breast with both her hands;
and now she leans to hiding the descendants
of her Aeneas in a cloud just like
the cloud that long ago had sheltered Paris
from Agamemnon’s wrath and saved Aeneas
from Diomedes’ sword. But father Jove
dissuades her with these words:
“Would you, dear daughter,
alone, change fate, which never can be altered?
All you need do is visit the three Sisters;
in their own home you’ll find the massive archive
of all the world: those tablets, made of brass
and tough iron, have no fear of lightning’s wrath
or heaven’s tremors; and they can withstand—
secure, eternal—any other shock.
There you will find the fate of your descendants
engraved on metal—indestructible.
I read those tablets; I remember them;
and so that you may not be ignorant
of what the future holds, I’ll now recount
all that I learned. The man whose cause you plead
has reached the term of years that destiny
assigns to him on earth! But this man’s son
together with you, Venus, will yet help
his entry into heaven as a god—
a god who will be worshipped in earth’s shrines.
As for his son, the one who will inherit
his name, he will sustain—alone—the weight
that will be placed on him; he will be brave—
the best avenger of his father’s murder;
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and in the wars he wages to that end,
I shall be at his side—his close ally.
Of him, the walls of Modena, besieged,
defeated, will ask peace; Pharsalia
will feel his force; and Macedonian
Philippi, too, will bathe in blood; the one
whose name is great will meet defeat upon
the seas of Sicily. And the Egyptian
wife of a Roman general will fall;
she will not do too well in letting all
depend upon her marriage pact—and thus
her threat to subject our own Capitol
to her Canopus will prove empty, futile.
But is there any need for me to tally
barbaric lands, and peoples who inhabit
the Ocean’s shores at both ends of the world?
All habitable places on the earth
will lie beneath his sway—and, too, the sea.
“And once he has endowed all lands with peace,
he’ll set his mind on civic polity:
the laws that he establishes will be
most just. He’ll discipline (and he himself
will set the best example) modes and manners;
and out of his concern for future times,
for generations yet to come, he will
command the son born of his pious wife,
to bear his name and carry on his mission.
But only when he reaches Nestor’s years
will he resign these tasks and then ascend
up to the starry heaven, to a place
among his kin.
“Meanwhile, o Venus, snatch
the soul of Caesar from his murdered flesh
and make of him a star: there, from on high,
he may forever be the deified
. . .
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Caesar who contemplates our Capitol
and Forum from his sacred place, his shrine.”
No sooner had Jove told greathearted Venus
these words, than she, invisible to all,
went to a place within the Senate hall
and, from her Caesar’s body, took his soul;
she would not have his spirit disappear
within the air; she bears it to the stars.
As Venus does so, she becomes aware
that it is growing bright, is catching fire;
at that, she lets the soul leave her own breast.
It flies on high, beyond the moon; behind,
it leaves a long and flaming trail until—
by now, a star—it glows. From there the soul
of Caesar recognizes that the toils
and triumphs of his son are greater than
his own: and he is glad to see his son
as his superior.
But though the son
forbids us to esteem what he has done
as finer than his father’s labors, Fame
(who does just what she would and can’t be tamed)
will not obey that order: Fame insists
on greater glory for the son—in this,
and this alone, Fame violates his edict.
So Atreus yields before great Agamemnon,
and Theseus outstrips Aegeus, and Achilles
surpasses Peleus. And if one should seek
an instance more appropriate than these,
Saturn is less than Jove. Just as Jove rules
high heaven and controls the triform world,
Augustus rules the earth; and thus, they both
are fathers and are sovereigns.
O you, gods
who were Aeneas’ comrades, you who saved
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the Trojan from the sword and from the flames;
and you, the native gods of Latium;
as well as you who fathered Rome, Quirinus;
you, Mars, invincible Quirinus’ father;
you, Vesta, who maintain a sacred place
among the tutelary gods of Caesar;
you, Phoebus, joined to Vesta as a god
who watches over Caesar’s house; and Jove,
who have your shrine atop Tarpeia’s rock;
and all you other gods to be invoked—
most properly—by one who is a poet:
I beg you to delay beyond my death
that day on which Augustus, having left
the world he governs, will ascend on high
and there, from heaven—one no longer present
on earth—will hear the prayers addressed to him.