Cesare

About your father, this indecent talk, These dreadful blasphemies. Nothing is done by Him Except with sovereign Providence and Wisdom. 60 And if at times quite otherwise it seems To mortal eyes, that is because, weighed down By weight of bodily members and by mists Of passion, they can never penetrate The secret chambers of my mind. All things That I perform, permit, or hinder, work Towards the maintenance and benefit Of the universe, for every thought I have, My every action, turns to jovial use. Hence was I named Jove. I am the fount 70 And head of every good-nay, that same good I am, nor is there good in the universe Derives not from me nor to me returns, As from the sea all rivers have their birth, And all the rivers to the sea return. How then can I be source of any evil? For every good that men possess is there ... Is it not all my gift? that man's alive, That he has discourse, joys in heav'ns bright look, And lords it o'er the animals, to his use 80 Converts whatever's covered by the sky; Is it not all my bounty? Often indeed Men are oppressed by ills and sore afflicted. But wars, calamities, and fell diseases, Floods, famines, and the score of other evils (To call them so as doth the erring world) With which at times now this, now another part Of the world I torment, are, if judged aright And without passion, benefits, not ills; Both since they emanate from me, from whom 90 Nothing can come that is not good, and since To holy ends they are ordained by me Because my end is naught but happiness. When man I castigate, 'tis as a father His son chastises but to make him good .... Dost thou not know that not to punish only Sinners I order whips and fling down fire, But even more to exercise the good, To purify and render them more perfect, As in a furnace gold is purified? . . . 100

So Julius, for whose death you feel such grief, Such anguish, and for whom you sigh and moan, Will shine resplendent in the heav'ns tomorrow Among the stars his peers. Beneath his feet The clouds you'll see, and tempests; this because Jove's promises stand firm, and ere they fail The elements and Nature herself will fail. And those who steep their arms in sacred blood Within a little time shall all be slain In bloody death and quite extinguished. 110 So with an adamantine firm resolve, With letters irremovable and eternal, Within the impenetrable and profound abyss Of my unchanging mind is fixed and written ....