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Few of thy spies, indeed, have ever returned with life; their heads have been left at the foot of the hill, with the scroll in their lips, 'Dic ad inferos quid in superis novisti. Tell to the shades below what thou hast seen in the heights above." "And the Walloons know Latin!" muttered the knight; "I respect them!"
He says that what an infinitely wise and free cause has chosen is better than what it has not chosen. Is not that recognizing that goodness is the object and the reason of his choice? In this sense one will here aptly say: Sic placuit superis; quaerere plura, nefas.
Few of thy spies, indeed, have ever returned with life; their heads have been left at the foot of the hill, with the scroll in their lips, 'Dic ad inferos quid in superis novisti. Tell to the shades below what thou hast seen in the heights above." "And the Walloons know Latin!" muttered the knight; "I respect them!"
"Postquam res Asiae, Priamique evertere gentem, Immeritam visum superis." AENEIS, I. iii., line 1. Augustus, it is true, had once resolved to rebuild that city, and there to make the seat of the Empire; but Horace writes an ode on purpose to deter him from that thought, declaring the place to be accursed, and that the gods would as often destroy it as it should be raised.
If a man were told to imitate the gods, it was by the virtues of justice, temperance, and benevolence ; and had he obeyed the mandate by emulating the intrigues of Jupiter, or the homicides of Mars, he would have been told by the more enlightened that those stories were the inventions of the poets; and by the more credulous that gods might be emancipated from laws, but men were bound by them "Superis sea jura" their own laws to the gods!
Bella pares superis faciunt civilia divos; Fulminibus manes radiisque ornabit et astris, Inque Deum templis iurabit Roma per umbras." Here is the satire of Cicero's second Philippic reappearing, but with added bitterness. Being thus without belief in a divine providence, how does Lucan govern the world? By blind fate, or blinder caprice! Fortuna, whom Juvenal ridicules, is the true deity of Lucan.
I had no sooner pronounced these words, than the old gentleman, running towards me, shook me by the hand, crying, "Fili mi dilectissime! unde venis? a superis, ni fallor?"
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