Thus mourned old Peleus for Achilles slain, And thus Ulysses' father did complain. How fortunate an end had Priam made, Among his ancestors a mighty shade, While Troy yet stood; when Hector, with the race Of royal bastards, might his funeral grace; Amidst the tears of Trojan dames inurned, And by his loyal daughters truly mourned! Had heaven so blest him, he had died before The fatal fleet to Sparta Paris bore: But mark what age produced,--he lived to see His town in flames, his falling monarchy. In fine, the feeble sire, reduced by fate, To change his sceptre for a sword, too late, His last effort before Jove's altar tries, A soldier half, and half a sacrifice: Falls like an ox that waits the coming blow, Old and unprofitable to the plough.[156] At least he died a man; his queen survived, To howl, and in a barking body lived.[157] I hasten to our own; nor will relate Great Mithridates,[158] and rich Croesus' fate;[159] Whom Solon wisely counselled to attend The name of happy, till he knew his end. That Marius was an exile, that he fled, Was ta'en, in ruined Carthage begged his bread; All these were owing to a life too long: For whom had Rome beheld so happy, young? High in his chariot, and with laurel crowned, When he had led the Cimbrian captives round The Roman streets, descending from his state, In that blest hour he should have begged his fate; Then, then, he might have died of all admired, And his triumphant soul with shouts expired. Campania, Fortune's malice to prevent, To Pompey an indulgent fever sent; But public prayers imposed on heaven to give Their much loved leader an unkind reprieve; The city's fate and his conspired to save The head reserved for an Egyptian slave.[160] Cethegus, though a traitor to the state, And tortured, 'scaped this ignominious fate;[161] And Sergius, who a bad cause bravely tried, All of a piece, and undiminished, died.[162] To Venus, the fond mother makes a prayer, That all her sons and daughters may be fair: True, for the boys a mumbling vow she sends, But for the girls the vaulted temple rends: They must be finished pieces; 'tis allowed Diana's beauty made Latona proud, And pleased to see the wondering people pray To the new-rising sister of the day. And yet Lucretia's fate would bar that vow; And fair Virginia[163] would her fate bestow On Rutila, and change her faultless make For the foul rumple of her camel back. But, for his mother's boy, the beau, what frights His parents have by day, what anxious nights! Form joined with virtue is a sight too rare; Chaste is no epithet to suit with fair. Suppose the same traditionary strain Of rigid manners in the house remain; Inveterate truth, an old plain Sabine's heart;