Emollit rabiem praedae mortisque facultas. praetereunt subiecta ferae, torvique leones, quae stravisse calent, eadem prostrata relinquunt nec nisi bellantis gaudent cervice iuvenci 30 nobiliore fame. secuit nascentia vota livor et ingesto turbavit gaudia luctu: iamiam suppliciis fessos humilesque serenus respice. quid tanta dignaris mole clientem? in brevibus numquam sese probat Aeolus undis, 35 nec capit angustus Boreae certamina collis: Alpes ille quatit, Rhodopeia culmina lassat. incubuit numquam caelestis flamma salictis * * * * * Page 199 been too severe; spare a fallen foe. Behold me; I confess my faults and ask pardon for my sin. Fierce Achilles showed mercy to the shade of Hector, Orestes appeased his mother’s avenging furies, Hercules restored to Priam the cities which he had taken. A king’s overthrow won the pity of Pella’s youthful monarch, who wept, men say, for the death of Darius at a slave’s hand, and consoled his ghost with a lofty mausoleum. To captive Porus Alexander gave back an ampler kingdom. ’Twas thus the founder of our country[74] spared his conquered foes. Thine own nobility demands that thou shouldst follow his example. If it is one of the gods that I have insulted let him send down punishment upon me and sate his anger. Now that I have lost thy favour I am become a prey to grinding poverty, my house is desolate, my friends reft from me. Death with torture is the fate of one, exile of another. What further losses can I suffer? What more cruel plagues can befall me? The power to despoil and kill softens anger. Wild beasts turn away from their stricken prey, and fierce lions, eager to destroy, abandon the dead victim, and with a nobler hunger riot only in the flesh of the warlike steer. Envy has snapped the thread of my prosperity and turned my happiness into mourning. I am fordone with punishment and my pride is broken; look on me again with favour. Is a humble client worth so heavy a weight of anger? Aeolus makes not trial of himself where the sea’s waters are shallow; no lowly hill encounters Boreas’ blasts; ’tis the Alps he shakes, the summit of Rhodope he harasses. Never doth the lightning [74] Alexander is called the founder of Claudian’s country (Egypt) because the first Ptolemy was one of his generals and became king of Egypt on Alexander’s death. * * * * * Page 200 nec parvi frutices iram meruere Tonantis: ingentes quercus, annosas fulminat ornos. 40