To Evening and morn the Thirty Traced from the right on linen white 10 And with one voice the Thirty To Clusium's royal dome; 11 And now hath every city A proud man was Lars Porsena 12 90 For all the Etruscan armies Were ranged beneath his eye, 72. The Etruscan writing was from right to left. 83. Tale of men. Compare Milton's lines in L' Allegro,· "And every shepherd tells his tale Under the hawthorn, in the dale.” The tally which we keep is a kindred word. 86. Sutrium is Sutri to-day. And many a banished Roman, And many a stout ally; And with a mighty following 35 To join the muster came The Tusculan Mamilius, Prince of the Latian name. 13 But by the yellow Tiber Was tumult and affright: 105 The throng stopped up the ways; 14 For aged folks on crutches, And women great with child, And mothers sobbing over babes That clung to them and smiled, 110 And sick men borne in litters High on the necks of slaves, And troops of sunburnt husbandmen With reaping-hooks and staves, 115 15 And droves of mules and asses Laden with skins of wine, And endless flocks of goats and sheep, And endless herds of kine, And endless trains of wagons That creaked beneath the weight 120 of corn-sacks and of household goods, 16 Now, from the rock Tarpeian, They sat all night and day, 17 130 To eastward and to westward 135 Have spread the Tuscan bands; Hath wasted all the plain; And the stout guards are slain. 18 Iwis, in all the Senate, There was no heart so bold, 122. The Tarpeian rock was a cliff on the steepest side of the Capitoline Hill in Rome, and overhung the Tiber. 123. Burghers. Macaulay uses a very modern word to describe the men of Rome. 126. The Fathers of the City, otherwise the Senators of Rome. 134. Ostia, at the mouth of the Tiber, was the port of Rome. 136. The Janiculan Hill was on the right bank of the Tiber. 138. Iwis. Compare Lowell's lines in Credidimus Jovem regnare: "God vanished long ago, iwis, A mere subjective synthesis." Its meaning is "certainly." 140 But sore it ached, and fast it beat, 145 When that ill news was told. In haste they girded up their gowns, And hied them to the wall. 19 They held a council standing Before the River-Gate; Short time was there, ye well may guess, For musing or debate. 150 Out spake the Consul roundly: 155 "The bridge must straight go down; For, since Janiculum is lost, Naught else can save the town." 20 Just then a scout came flying, All wild with haste and fear; Lars Porsena is here." On the low hills to westward 160 And saw the swarthy storm of dust 21 And nearer fast and nearer Doth the red whirlwind come; And louder still and still more loud, 165 From underneath that rolling cloud, 151. The bridge was the Sublician bridge, said to have been thrown across the Tiber by Ancus Martius in the year 114 of the city. Is heard the trumpet's war-note proud, The trampling, and the hum. Now through the gloom appears, 175 In broken gleams of dark-blue light, 22 And plainly, and more plainly 180 The terror of the Umbrian, 185 The terror of the Gaul. 23 And plainly and more plainly Each warlike Lucumo. There Cilnius of Arretium On his fleet roan was seen; And Astur of the fourfold shield, Girt with the brand none else may wield, 190 Tolumnius with the belt of gold, 177. The Etruscan confederacy was composed of twelve cities. 184. By port and vest, i. e., by the way he carried himself and by his dress. Vest, an abbreviation of vesture. 185. Lucumo was the name given by the Latin writers to the Etruscan chiefs. |