Friday, April 06, 2007

bit in Ovid about Julius Caesar's murder


















"Men say that the crime was foreshadowed by clashing arms in the black clouds;
trumpets and horns were awesomely blaring and braying in heaven.
The sun's face also was gloomy and steeped the uneasy earth
in a ghostly pallor, shooting stars were constantly streaking
across the sky, and drops of blood were discharged from the rainclouds.
The face of the morning star was dimmed and bespeckled with dirty
rust-coloured spots; blood spattered the chariot bearing the moon.
All over the city the Stygian owl was hooting its sinister
omens, ivory statues wept, and voices chanting
dirges of doom, so they say, could be heard in the sacred groves.
The night was disturbed by the howling of dogs; the streets were haunted
by roaming ghosts of the dead; and the city was shaken by tremors.
But warnings from heaven were powerless to halt the plot or forestall
what fate had decreed."

-Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 15 (782-798)

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