章节正文
Hacked off their straining arms; then maimed they sank
Below the seething waves, to rise no more.
Now every dart was hurled and every spear,
The soldier weaponless; yet their rage found arms:
One hurls an oar; another's brawny arm
Tugs at the twisted stern; or from the seats
The oarsmen driving, swings a bench in air.
The ships are broken for the fight. They seize
The fallen dead and snatch the sword that slew.
Nay, many from their wounds, frenzied for arms,
Pluck forth the deadly steel, and pressing still
Upon their yawning sides, hurl forth the spear
Back to the hostile ranks from which it came;
Then ebbs their life blood forth.
But deadlier yet
Was that fell force most hostile to the sea;
For, thrown in torches and in sulphurous bolts
Fire all-consuming ran among the ships,
Whose oily timbers soaked in pitch and wax
Inflammable, gave welcome to the flames.
Nor could the waves prevail against the blaze
Which claimed as for its own the fragments borne
Upon the waters. Lo! on burning plank
One hardly 'scapes destruction; one to save
His flaming ship, gives entrance to the main.
Of all the forms of death each fears the one
That brings immediate dying: yet quails not
Their heart in shipwreck: from the waves they pluck
The fallen darts and furnishing the ship
Essay the feeble stroke; and should that hope
Still fail their hand, they call the sea to aid
And seizing in their grasp some floating foe
Drag him to mutual death.
But on that day
Phoceus above all others proved his skill.
Well trained was he to dive beneath the main
And search the waters with unfailing eye;
And should an anchor 'gainst the straining rope
Too firmly bite the sands, to wrench it free.
Oft in his fatal grasp he seized a foe
Nor loosed his grip until the life was gone.
Such was his frequent deed; but this his fate:
For rising, victor (as he thought), to air,
Full on a keel he struck and found his death.
Some, drowning, seized a hostile oar and checked
The flying vessel; not to die in vain,
Their single care; some on their vessel's side
Hanging, in death, with wounded frame essayed
To check the charging prow.
Tyrrhenus high
Upon the bulwarks of his ship was struck
By leaden bolt from Balearic sling
Of Lygdamus; straight through his temples passed
The fated missile; and in streams of blood
Forced from their seats his trembling eyeballs fell.
Plunged in a darkness as of night, he thought
That life had left him; yet ere long he knew
The living rigour of his limbs; and cried,
"Place me, O friends, as some machine of war
Straight facing towards the foe; then shall my darts
Strike as of old; and thou, Tyrrhenus, spend
Thy latest breath, still left, upon the fight:
So shalt thou play, not wholly dead, the part
That fits a soldier, and the spear that strikes
Thy frame, shall miss the living." Thus he spake,
And hurled his javelin, blind, but not in vain;
For Argus, generous youth of noble blood,
Below the middle waist received the spear
And failing drave it home. His aged sire
From furthest portion of the conquered ship
Beheld; than whom in prime of manhood none,
More brave in battle: now no more he fought,
Yet did the memory of his prowess stir
Phocaean youths to emulate his fame.
Oft stumbling o'er the benches the old man hastes
To reach his boy, and finds him breathing still.
No tear bedewed his cheek, nor on his breast
One blow he struck, but o'er his eyes there fell
A dark impenetrable veil of mist
That blotted out the day; nor could he more
Discern his luckless Argus. He, who saw
His parent, raising up his drooping head
With parted lips and silent features asks
A father's latest kiss, a father's hand
To close his dying eyes. But soon his sire,
Recovering from his swoon, when ruthless grief
Possessed his spirit, "This short space," he cried,
"I lose not, which the cruel gods have given,
But die before thee. Grant thy sorrowing sire
Forgiveness that he fled thy last embrace.
Not yet has passed thy life blood from the wound
Nor yet is death upon thee -- still thou may'st (31)
Outlive thy parent." Thus he spake, and seized
The reeking sword and drave it to the hilt,
Then plunged into the deep, with headlong bound,
To anticipate his son: for this he feared
A single form of death should not suffice.
Now gave the fates their judgment, and in doubt
No longer was the war: the Grecian fleet
In most part sunk; -- some ships by Romans oared
Conveyed the victors home: in headlong flight
Some sought the yards for shelter. On the strand
What tears of parents for their offspring slain,
How wept the mothers! 'Mid the pile confused
Ofttimes the wife sought madly for her spouse
And chose for her last kiss some Roman slain;
While wretched fathers by the blazing pyres
Fought for the dead. But Brutus thus at sea
First gained a triumph for great Caesar's arms. (32)
ENDNOTES:
(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 1.)
(3) I take "tepido busto" as the dative case; and, as referring
to Pompeius, doomed, like Cornelia's former husband, to
defeat and death.
(4) It may be remarked that, in B.C. 46, Caesar, after the
battle of Thapsus, celebrated four triumphs: for his
victories over the Gauls, Ptolemaeus, Pharnaces, and Juba.
(5) Near Aricia. (See Book VI., 92.)
(6) He held no office at the time.
(7) The tribune Ateius met Crassus as he was setting out from
Rome and denounced him with mysterious and ancient curses.
(Plutarch, "Crassus", 16.)
(8) That is, the liberty remaining to the people is destroyed by
speaking freely to the tyrant.
(9) That is, the gold offered by Pyrrhus, and refused by
Fabricius, which, after the final defeat of Pyrrhus, came
into the possession of the victors.
(10) See Plutarch, "Cato", 34, 39.
(11) It was generally believed that the river Alpheus of the
Peloponnesus passed under the sea and reappeared in the
fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse. A goblet was said to have
been thrown into the river in Greece, and to have reappeared
in the Sicilian fountain. See the note in Grote's "History
of Greece", Edition 1863, vol. ii., p. 8.)
(12) As a serpent. XXXXX is the Greek word for serpent.
(13) Conf. Book VI., 473.
(14) The Centaurs.
(15) Probably the flute thrown away by Pallas, which Marsyas
picked up and then challenged Apollo to a musical contest.
For his presumption the god had him flayed alive.
(16) That is, the Little Bear, by which the Phoenicians steered,
while the Greeks steered by the Great Bear. (See Sir G.
Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients", p. 447.) In Book VI.,
line 193, the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star
itself, which is much nearer to the Little than to the Great
Bear, and is (I believe) reckoned as one of the stars
forming the group known by that name. He may have been a
Phoenician.
(17) He did not in fact reach the Ganges, as is well known.
(18) Perhaps in allusion to the embassy from India to Augustus in
B.C. 19, when Zarmanochanus, an Indian sage, declaring that
he had lived in happiness and would not risk the chance of a
reverse, burnt himself publicly. (Merivale, chapter xxxiv.)
(19) That is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they
came from the other side of the equator. (See Book IX.,
630.)
(20) See Book I., 117.
(21) A race called Heniochi, said to be descended from the
charioteer of Castor and Pollux.
(22) "Effusis telis". I have so taken this difficult expression.
Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten
thousands by being packed close together and having a circle
drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so
measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the
subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It
is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being
so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made to agree
with that of Herodotus. Francken, on the other hand, quotes
a Scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an
arrow.
(23) Agamemnon.
(24) Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocaea in Asia Minor
about 600 B.C. Lucan (line 393) appears to think that the
founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed
by the Persians sixty years later. See Thucydides I. 13;
Grote, "History of Greece", chapter xxii.
(25) A difficult passage, of which this seems to be the meaning
least free from objection.
(26) Murviedro of the present day. Its gallant defence against
Hannibal has been compared to that of Saragossa against the
French.
(27) See note to Book I., 506.
(28) Three islands off the coast near Toulon, now called the
Isles d'Hyeres.
(29) This was Decimus Brutus, an able and trusted lieutenant of
Caesar, who made him one of his heirs in the second degree.
He, however, joined the conspiracy, and it was he who on the
day of the murder induced Caesar to go to the Senate House.
Less than two years later, after the siege of Perasia, he
was deserted by his army, taken and put to death.
(30) According to some these were the lines which Lucan recited
while bleeding to death; according to others, those at Book
ix., line 952.
(31) It was regarded as the greatest of misfortunes if a child
died before his parent.
(32) It was Brutus who gained the naval victory over the Veneti
some seven years before; the first naval fight, that we know
Below the seething waves, to rise no more.
Now every dart was hurled and every spear,
The soldier weaponless; yet their rage found arms:
One hurls an oar; another's brawny arm
Tugs at the twisted stern; or from the seats
The oarsmen driving, swings a bench in air.
The ships are broken for the fight. They seize
The fallen dead and snatch the sword that slew.
Nay, many from their wounds, frenzied for arms,
Pluck forth the deadly steel, and pressing still
Upon their yawning sides, hurl forth the spear
Back to the hostile ranks from which it came;
Then ebbs their life blood forth.
But deadlier yet
Was that fell force most hostile to the sea;
For, thrown in torches and in sulphurous bolts
Fire all-consuming ran among the ships,
Whose oily timbers soaked in pitch and wax
Inflammable, gave welcome to the flames.
Nor could the waves prevail against the blaze
Which claimed as for its own the fragments borne
Upon the waters. Lo! on burning plank
One hardly 'scapes destruction; one to save
His flaming ship, gives entrance to the main.
Of all the forms of death each fears the one
That brings immediate dying: yet quails not
Their heart in shipwreck: from the waves they pluck
The fallen darts and furnishing the ship
Essay the feeble stroke; and should that hope
Still fail their hand, they call the sea to aid
And seizing in their grasp some floating foe
Drag him to mutual death.
But on that day
Phoceus above all others proved his skill.
Well trained was he to dive beneath the main
And search the waters with unfailing eye;
And should an anchor 'gainst the straining rope
Too firmly bite the sands, to wrench it free.
Oft in his fatal grasp he seized a foe
Nor loosed his grip until the life was gone.
Such was his frequent deed; but this his fate:
For rising, victor (as he thought), to air,
Full on a keel he struck and found his death.
Some, drowning, seized a hostile oar and checked
The flying vessel; not to die in vain,
Their single care; some on their vessel's side
Hanging, in death, with wounded frame essayed
To check the charging prow.
Tyrrhenus high
Upon the bulwarks of his ship was struck
By leaden bolt from Balearic sling
Of Lygdamus; straight through his temples passed
The fated missile; and in streams of blood
Forced from their seats his trembling eyeballs fell.
Plunged in a darkness as of night, he thought
That life had left him; yet ere long he knew
The living rigour of his limbs; and cried,
"Place me, O friends, as some machine of war
Straight facing towards the foe; then shall my darts
Strike as of old; and thou, Tyrrhenus, spend
Thy latest breath, still left, upon the fight:
So shalt thou play, not wholly dead, the part
That fits a soldier, and the spear that strikes
Thy frame, shall miss the living." Thus he spake,
And hurled his javelin, blind, but not in vain;
For Argus, generous youth of noble blood,
Below the middle waist received the spear
And failing drave it home. His aged sire
From furthest portion of the conquered ship
Beheld; than whom in prime of manhood none,
More brave in battle: now no more he fought,
Yet did the memory of his prowess stir
Phocaean youths to emulate his fame.
Oft stumbling o'er the benches the old man hastes
To reach his boy, and finds him breathing still.
No tear bedewed his cheek, nor on his breast
One blow he struck, but o'er his eyes there fell
A dark impenetrable veil of mist
That blotted out the day; nor could he more
Discern his luckless Argus. He, who saw
His parent, raising up his drooping head
With parted lips and silent features asks
A father's latest kiss, a father's hand
To close his dying eyes. But soon his sire,
Recovering from his swoon, when ruthless grief
Possessed his spirit, "This short space," he cried,
"I lose not, which the cruel gods have given,
But die before thee. Grant thy sorrowing sire
Forgiveness that he fled thy last embrace.
Not yet has passed thy life blood from the wound
Nor yet is death upon thee -- still thou may'st (31)
Outlive thy parent." Thus he spake, and seized
The reeking sword and drave it to the hilt,
Then plunged into the deep, with headlong bound,
To anticipate his son: for this he feared
A single form of death should not suffice.
Now gave the fates their judgment, and in doubt
No longer was the war: the Grecian fleet
In most part sunk; -- some ships by Romans oared
Conveyed the victors home: in headlong flight
Some sought the yards for shelter. On the strand
What tears of parents for their offspring slain,
How wept the mothers! 'Mid the pile confused
Ofttimes the wife sought madly for her spouse
And chose for her last kiss some Roman slain;
While wretched fathers by the blazing pyres
Fought for the dead. But Brutus thus at sea
First gained a triumph for great Caesar's arms. (32)
ENDNOTES:
(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 1.)
(3) I take "tepido busto" as the dative case; and, as referring
to Pompeius, doomed, like Cornelia's former husband, to
defeat and death.
(4) It may be remarked that, in B.C. 46, Caesar, after the
battle of Thapsus, celebrated four triumphs: for his
victories over the Gauls, Ptolemaeus, Pharnaces, and Juba.
(5) Near Aricia. (See Book VI., 92.)
(6) He held no office at the time.
(7) The tribune Ateius met Crassus as he was setting out from
Rome and denounced him with mysterious and ancient curses.
(Plutarch, "Crassus", 16.)
(8) That is, the liberty remaining to the people is destroyed by
speaking freely to the tyrant.
(9) That is, the gold offered by Pyrrhus, and refused by
Fabricius, which, after the final defeat of Pyrrhus, came
into the possession of the victors.
(10) See Plutarch, "Cato", 34, 39.
(11) It was generally believed that the river Alpheus of the
Peloponnesus passed under the sea and reappeared in the
fountain of Arethusa at Syracuse. A goblet was said to have
been thrown into the river in Greece, and to have reappeared
in the Sicilian fountain. See the note in Grote's "History
of Greece", Edition 1863, vol. ii., p. 8.)
(12) As a serpent. XXXXX is the Greek word for serpent.
(13) Conf. Book VI., 473.
(14) The Centaurs.
(15) Probably the flute thrown away by Pallas, which Marsyas
picked up and then challenged Apollo to a musical contest.
For his presumption the god had him flayed alive.
(16) That is, the Little Bear, by which the Phoenicians steered,
while the Greeks steered by the Great Bear. (See Sir G.
Lewis's "Astronomy of the Ancients", p. 447.) In Book VI.,
line 193, the pilot declares that he steers by the pole star
itself, which is much nearer to the Little than to the Great
Bear, and is (I believe) reckoned as one of the stars
forming the group known by that name. He may have been a
Phoenician.
(17) He did not in fact reach the Ganges, as is well known.
(18) Perhaps in allusion to the embassy from India to Augustus in
B.C. 19, when Zarmanochanus, an Indian sage, declaring that
he had lived in happiness and would not risk the chance of a
reverse, burnt himself publicly. (Merivale, chapter xxxiv.)
(19) That is to say, looking towards the west; meaning that they
came from the other side of the equator. (See Book IX.,
630.)
(20) See Book I., 117.
(21) A race called Heniochi, said to be descended from the
charioteer of Castor and Pollux.
(22) "Effusis telis". I have so taken this difficult expression.
Herodotus (7, 60) says the men were numbered in ten
thousands by being packed close together and having a circle
drawn round them. After the first ten thousand had been so
measured a fence was put where the circle had been, and the
subsequent ten thousands were driven into the enclosure. It
is not unlikely that they piled their weapons before being
so measured, and Lucan's account would then be made to agree
with that of Herodotus. Francken, on the other hand, quotes
a Scholiast, who says that each hundredth man shot off an
arrow.
(23) Agamemnon.
(24) Massilia (Marseilles) was founded from Phocaea in Asia Minor
about 600 B.C. Lucan (line 393) appears to think that the
founders were fugitives from their city when it was stormed
by the Persians sixty years later. See Thucydides I. 13;
Grote, "History of Greece", chapter xxii.
(25) A difficult passage, of which this seems to be the meaning
least free from objection.
(26) Murviedro of the present day. Its gallant defence against
Hannibal has been compared to that of Saragossa against the
French.
(27) See note to Book I., 506.
(28) Three islands off the coast near Toulon, now called the
Isles d'Hyeres.
(29) This was Decimus Brutus, an able and trusted lieutenant of
Caesar, who made him one of his heirs in the second degree.
He, however, joined the conspiracy, and it was he who on the
day of the murder induced Caesar to go to the Senate House.
Less than two years later, after the siege of Perasia, he
was deserted by his army, taken and put to death.
(30) According to some these were the lines which Lucan recited
while bleeding to death; according to others, those at Book
ix., line 952.
(31) It was regarded as the greatest of misfortunes if a child
died before his parent.
(32) It was Brutus who gained the naval victory over the Veneti
some seven years before; the first naval fight, that we know
- snatch [snætʃ]
v.&n.抢，夺取，抓住 (初中英语单词) - deadly [´dedli] a.致命的 ad.死一般地 (初中英语单词)
- hostile [´hɔstail] a.敌方的，敌意的 (初中英语单词)
- welcome [´welkəm] a.受欢迎的；可喜的 (初中英语单词)
- prevail [pri´veil] vi.胜(过)；流行；普遍 (初中英语单词)
- destruction [di´strʌkʃən] n.破坏，毁灭 (初中英语单词)
- feeble [´fi:bəl] a.虚弱的，无力的 (初中英语单词)
- anchor [´æŋkə] n.锚 v.抛锚 (初中英语单词)
- firmly [´fə:mli] ad.坚固地，稳定地 (初中英语单词)
- frequent [´fri:kwənt] a.常见的，频繁的 (初中英语单词)
- vessel [´vesəl] n.容器；船；脉管 (初中英语单词)
- breath [breθ] n.呼吸；气息 (初中英语单词)
- wholly [´həul-li] ad.完全，十足；统统 (初中英语单词)
- generous [´dʒenərəs] a.慷慨的；丰盛的 (初中英语单词)
- portion [´pɔ:ʃən] n.嫁妆；命运 vt.分配 (初中英语单词)
- wretched [´retʃid] a.可怜的；倒霉的 (初中英语单词)
- triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- celebrated [´selibreitid] a.著名的 (初中英语单词)
- mysterious [mi´stiəriəs] a.神秘的；难以理解的 (初中英语单词)
- freely [´fri:li] ad.自由地；慷慨地 (初中英语单词)
- greece [gri:s] n.希腊 (初中英语单词)
- fountain [´fauntin] n.泉水；源泉；根源 (初中英语单词)
- apollo [ə´pɔləu] n.阿波罗 (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- indian [´indiən] a.印度的 n.印度人 (初中英语单词)
- circle [´sə:kəl] n.圆圈 v.环绕；盘旋 (初中英语单词)
- driven [´driv(ə)n] drive 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
- account [ə´kaunt] vi.说明 vt.认为 n.帐目 (初中英语单词)
- gallant [´gælənt, gə´lænt] a.英勇的；华丽的 (初中英语单词)
- lieutenant [lef´tenənt] n.陆军中尉；代理；副手 (初中英语单词)
- victory [´viktəri] n.胜利，战胜 (初中英语单词)
- mutual [´mju:tʃuəl] a.相互的；共同的 (高中英语单词)
- manhood [´mænhud] n.人格；男子气概 (高中英语单词)
- headlong [´hedlɔŋ] ad.&a.轻率地(的) (高中英语单词)
- anticipate [æn´tisipeit] vt.预期；指望；期待 (高中英语单词)
- rugged [´rʌgid] a.不平的；粗犷的 (高中英语单词)
- caesar [´si:zə] n.凯撒；暴君；独裁者 (高中英语单词)
- edition [i´diʃən] n.版本；很相似的 (高中英语单词)
- serpent [´sə:pənt] n.大毒蛇；阴险的人 (高中英语单词)
- presumption [pri´zʌmpʃən] n.推测；专横；冒昧 (高中英语单词)
- embassy [´embəsi] n.大使馆；大使职务 (高中英语单词)
- conspiracy [kən´spirəsi] n.密谋；协同作用 (高中英语单词)
- senate [´senit] n.参议院；上院 (高中英语单词)
- flaming [´fleimiŋ] a.熊熊燃烧的；热情的 (英语四级单词)
- shipwreck [´ʃiprek] n.&v.(船)失事；毁灭 (英语四级单词)
- wrench [rentʃ] n.&vt.拧；急拉；猛推 (英语四级单词)
- victor [´viktə] n.&a.胜利者(的) (英语四级单词)
- prowess [´prauis] n.勇猛；技术；本领 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- goblet [´gɔblit] n.高脚玻璃杯 (英语四级单词)
- allusion [ə´lu:ʒən] n.暗指；提及；引喻 (英语四级单词)
- equator [i´kweitə] n.赤道 (英语四级单词)
- javelin [´dʒævəlin] n.标枪 (英语六级单词)
- ruthless [´ru:θləs] a.无情的；残忍的 (英语六级单词)
- grecian [´gri:ʃən] a.古希腊的 n.希腊人 (英语六级单词)
- tribune [´tribju:n] n.<<论坛报>> (英语六级单词)
- publicly [´pʌblikli] ad.公然；公众所有地 (英语六级单词)
- enclosure [in´kləuʒə] n.包围；围墙；封入物 (英语六级单词)
- unlikely [ʌn´laikli] a.不像的；未必可能的 (英语六级单词)
- hundredth [´hʌndridθ] num.第一百(个) (英语六级单词)
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