Where thy soul shall go These shall companion thee; no higher flight In airy realms is thine, nor smoother couch Beneath the Stygian darkness; for the dead No fortune favours, and our Mother Earth All that is born from her receives again, And he whose bones no tomb or urn protects Yet sleeps beneath the canopy of heaven.
And thou, proud conqueror, who would'st deny The rites of burial to thousands slain, Why flee thy field of triumph?
Why desert This reeking plain?
Drink, Caesar, of the streams, Drink if thou can'st, and should it be thy wish Breathe the Thessalian air; but from thy grasp The earth is ravished, and th' unburied host, Routing their victor, hold Pharsalia's field.
Then to the ghastly harvest of the war Came all the beasts of earth whose facile sense Of odour tracks the bodies of the slain.
Sped from his northern home the Thracian wolf; Bears left their dens and lions from afar Scenting the carnage; dogs obscene and foul Their homes deserted: all the air was full Of gathering fowl, who in their flight had long Pursued the armies.

Cranes (29) who yearly change The frosts of Thracia for the banks of Nile, This year delayed their voyage.

As ne'er before The air grew dark with vultures' hovering wings, Innumerable, for every grove and wood Sent forth its denizens; on every tree Dripped from their crimsoned beaks a gory dew.
Oft on the conquerors and their impious arms Or purple rain of blood, or mouldering flesh Fell from the lofty heaven; or limbs of men From weary talons dropped.

Yet even so The peoples passed not all into the maw Of ravening beast or fowl; the inmost flesh Scarce did they touch, nor limbs -- thus lay the dead Scorned by the spoiler; and the Roman host By sun and length of days, and rain from heaven, At length was mingled with Emathia's plain.
Ill-starred Thessalia! By what hateful crime Didst thou offend that thus on thee alone Was laid such carnage?
By what length of years Shalt thou be cleansed from the curse of war?
When shall the harvest of thy fields arise Free from their purple stain?
And when the share Cease to upturn the slaughtered hosts of Rome?
First shall the battle onset sound again, Again shall flow upon thy fated earth A crimson torrent.

Thus may be o'erthrown Our sires' memorials; those erected last, Or those which pierced by ancient roots have spread Through broken stones their sacred urns abroad.
Thus shall the ploughman of Haemonia gaze On more abundant ashes, and the rake Pass o'er more frequent bones.