But his work Was still unfinished, and with pious hand (Fearing some foe) he seizes on the bones Now half consumed, and sinews; and the wave Pours in upon them, and in shallow trench Commits them to the earth; and lest some breeze Might bear away the ashes, or by chance Some sailor's anchor might disturb the tomb, A stone he places, and with stick half burned Traces the sacred name: HERE MAGNUS LIES.
And art thou, Fortune, pleased that such a spot Should be his tomb which even Caesar's self Had chosen, rather than permit his corse To rest unburied?
Why, with thoughtless hand Confine his shade within the narrow bounds Of this poor sepulchre?
Where the furthest sand Hangs on the margin of the baffled deep Cabined he lies; yet where the Roman name Is known, and Empire, such in truth shall be The boundless measure of his resting-place.
Blot out this stone, this proof against the gods! Oeta finds room for Hercules alone, And Nysa's mountain for the Bromian god; (21) Not all the lands of Egypt should suffice For Magnus dead: and shall one Pharian stone Mark his remains?
Yet should no turf disclose His title, peoples of the earth would fear To spurn his ashes, and the sands of Nile No foot would tread.

But if the stone deserves So great a name, then add his mighty deeds: Write Lepidus conquered and the Alpine war, And fierce Sertorius by his aiding arm O'erthrown; the chariots which as knight he drove; (22) Cilician pirates driven from the main, And Commerce safe to nations; Eastern kings Defeated and the barbarous Northern tribes; Write that from arms he ever sought the robe; Write that content upon the Capitol Thrice only triumphed he, nor asked his due.
What mausoleum were for such a chief A fitting monument?
This paltry stone Records no syllable of the lengthy tale Of honours: and the name which men have read Upon the sacred temples of the gods, And lofty arches built of hostile spoils, On desolate sands here marks his lowly grave With characters uncouth, such as the glance Of passing traveller or Roman guest Might pass unnoticed.
Thou Egyptian land By destiny foredoomed to bear a part In civil warfare, not unreasoning sang High Cumae's prophetess, when she forbad (23) The stream Pelusian to the Roman arms, And all the banks which in the summer-tide Are covered by his flood.

What grievous fate Shall I call down upon thee?
May the Nile Turn back his water to his source, thy fields Want for the winter rain, and all the land Crumble to desert wastes! We in our fanes Have known thine Isis and thy hideous gods, Half hounds, half human, and the drum that bids To sorrow, and Osiris, whom thy dirge (24) Proclaims for man.

Thou, Egypt, in thy sand Our dead containest.

Nor, though her temples now Serve a proud master, yet has Rome required Pompeius' ashes: in a foreign land Still lies her chief.