Brave men love The sword which, wielded by a stalwart arm, Drives home the blow and makes the battle sure.
Not such their weapons; and the first assault Shall force the flying Mede with coward hand And empty quiver from the field.

His faith In poisoned blades is placed; but trustest thou Those who without such aid refuse the war?
For such alliance wilt thou risk a death, With all the world between thee and thy home?
Shall some barbarian earth or lowly grave Enclose thee perishing?
E'en that were shame While Crassus seeks a sepulchre in vain.
Thy lot is happy; death, unfeared by men, Is thy worst doom, Pompeius; but no death Awaits Cornelia -- such a fate for her This king shall not reserve; for know not we The hateful secrets of barbarian love, Which, blind as that of beasts, the marriage bed Pollutes with wives unnumbered?
Nor the laws By nature made respect they, nor of kin.
In ancient days the fable of the crime By tyrant Oedipus unwitting wrought, Brought hate upon his city; but how oft Sits on the throne of Arsaces a prince Of birth incestuous?
This gracious dame Born of Metellus, noblest blood of Rome, Shall share the couch of the barbarian king With thousand others: yet in savage joy, Proud of her former husbands, he may grant Some larger share of favour; and the fates May seem to smile on Parthia; for the spouse Of Crassus, captive, shall to him be brought As spoil of former conquest.

If the wound Dealt in that fell defeat in eastern lands Still stirs thy heart, then double is the shame First to have waged the war upon ourselves, Then ask the foe for succour.

For what blame Can rest on thee or Caesar, worse than this That in the clash of conflict ye forgot For Crassus' slaughtered troops the vengeance due?
First should united Rome upon the Mede Have poured her captains, and the troops who guard The northern frontier from the Dacian hordes; And all her legions should have left the Rhine Free to the Teuton, till the Parthian dead Were piled in heaps upon the sands that hide Our heroes slain; and haughty Babylon Lay at her victor's feet.

To this foul peace We pray an end; and if Thessalia's day Has closed our warfare, let the conqueror march Straight on our Parthian foe.