Page:The Satire of Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius.djvu/146

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Phoebus already had passed the highest point of his circuit, Wearily shaking the reins as his car drew nearer the evening, Leading away the half-spent light on its down-dipping pathway.

Claudius began to give up the ghost, but couldn’t find a way out for it. Then Mercury, who had always had a fancy for his character, led aside one of the three Fates and said: “Why, O hard-hearted woman, do you let the wretched man be tormented? Isn’t he ever to have a rest, after being tortured so long? It is the sixty-fourth year that he has been afflicted with life. What grudge have you got against him and the nation? For once let the prophets tell the truth, who have been taking him off every year, every month even, since he was made emperor. And still it’s no wonder if they go wrong and nobody knows his hour; for nobody ever made any account of his being born. Do what is necessary:

‘Give him over to death: let a better man reign in his palace.’”

But Clotho remarked, “I swear I intended to give him a trifle more time, till he should make citizens out of the few that are left outside—for he had made up his mind to see everybody, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, wearing togas. However, since it is perhaps a good thing to have a few foreigners