Gems of price And yellow jasper on the couches shone.
Lustrous the coverlets; the major part Dipped more than once within the vats of Tyre Had drunk their juice: part feathered as with gold; Part crimson dyed, in manner as are passed Through Pharian leash the threads.

There waited slaves In number as a people, some in ranks By different blood distinguished, some by age; This band with Libyan, that with auburn hair Red so that Caesar on the banks of Rhine None such had witnessed; some with features scorched By torrid suns, their locks in twisted coils Drawn from their foreheads.

Eunuchs too were there, Unhappy race; and on the other side Men of full age whose cheeks with growth of hair Were hardly darkened.
Upon either hand Lay kings, and Caesar in the midst supreme.
There in her fatal beauty lay the Queen Thick daubed with unguents, nor with throne content Nor with her brother spouse; laden she lay On neck and hair with all the Red Sea spoils, And faint beneath the weight of gems and gold.
Her snowy breast shone through Sidonian lawn Which woven close by shuttles of the east The art of Nile had loosened.

Ivory feet Bore citron tables brought from woods that wave (6) On Atlas, such as Caesar never saw When Juba was his captive.

Blind in soul By madness of ambition, thus to fire By such profusion of her wealth, the mind Of Caesar armed, her guest in civil war! Not though he aimed with pitiless hand to grasp The riches of a world; not though were here Those ancient leaders of the simple age, Fabricius or Curius stern of soul, Or he who, Consul, left in sordid garb His Tuscan plough, could all their several hopes Have risen to such spoil.