Classic Poem

Preface

Eagles may not rear their young without the sun's permission and the goodwill of heaven. So soon as the chicks have shattered their shells and issued forth, after that the warmth of their mother's body has cracked the opening egg, the father bird makes haste to carry the unfledged nestlings aloft and bids them gaze at the sun's fires with unblinking eye. He takes counsel of those bright beams and under light's schooling makes trial of the strength and temper of his sons. The angry father strikes with pitiless talons the degenerate who turns away his glance, but he whose eye can bear the searching flame, who with bolder sight can outstare the noonday sun, is brought up a king of birds, heir to the thunderbolt, destined to carry Jove's three-forked weapon. So mighty Rome fears not to send me, oft tested e'er now in the Muses' caverns, to face the emperor, her god. Now have I won an emperor's ear, the entrance to an emperor's palace and the emperor himself as judge of my lyre's song.