Page:Juvenal and Persius by G. G. Ramsay.djvu/301

 Carthage that he had conquered. What could Nature ever in all the world have produced more glorious than him, if after parading his troops of captives with all the pomp of war he had breathed forth his soul in glory as he was about to step down from his Teutonic car? Kindly Campania gave to Pompey a fever, which he might have prayed for as a boon ; but the public prayers of all those cities gained the day; so his own fortune and that of Rome preserved him to be vanquished and to lose his head. No such cruel thing befell Lentulus ; Cethegus escaped such punishment and fell whole; and Catiline's corpse lay unviolated.

When the loving mother passes the temple of Venus, she prays in whispered breath for her boys—more loudly, and entering into the most trifling particulars, for her daughters—that they may have beauty. "And why should I not?" she asks; "did not Latona rejoice in Diana's beauty?" Yes; but Lucretia forbids us to pray for a face like her own; and Verginia would gladly take Rutila's hump and give her own fair form to Rutila. A handsome son keeps his parents in constant fear and misery; so rarely do modesty and good looks go together! For though his home be strict, and have taught him ways as pure as those of the ancient Sabines, and though Nature besides with kindly hand have lavishly gifted him with a pure mind and a cheek mantling with modest blood—and what better thing can Nature, more careful, more potent than any guardian, bestow upon a youth?—he will not be allowed to become a man. The lavish wickedness of some seducer will tempt the boy's own parents; such 215