A Good Works Translation from Bellum Civile 1.436-457
Lucan's first book turns Caesar's march into civil war into a catalogue of peoples left unguarded by the Roman army. In that catalogue he gives one of Rome's most famous poetic witnesses to Gaulish religion: Teutates, Esus, Taranis, bards, seers, Druids, sacred groves, and the doctrine that death is only the middle of a longer life.
Translation
You too, Trevir, rejoiced that the battles had turned; and you, Ligur, now shorn, once foremost among all Long-Haired Gaul because of the hair poured down over your neck.
And you, by whom cruel Teutates is appeased with dreadful blood, and Esus with his savage altars, and Taranis with an altar no gentler than that of Scythian Diana.
You too, seers, who send brave souls killed in war far down the ages with your praises, poured out many songs without fear, bards.
And you, Druids, when the weapons had been set aside, returned to your barbarous rites and the dark custom of your sacrifices. To you alone it has been granted to know the gods and the powers of heaven, or to you alone not to know them. You dwell in deep groves, in hidden sacred woods. By your teaching, shades do not seek the silent seats of Erebus or the pale kingdoms of deep Dis. The same spirit rules the limbs in another world. If what you sing is known, death is the middle of a long life. Certainly the peoples whom the northern sky looks down upon are blessed in their error, because the greatest of terrors does not drive them: the fear of death. From this comes a mind ready to rush upon the sword, souls able to bear death, and the shame of sparing a life that will return.
Colophon
This page translates Lucan, Bellum Civile 1.436-457 from Latin for the Celtic continental expansion of the Good Work Library. Lucan is a poet, not an ethnographer, so the passage is preserved as Roman epic evidence for how Gaulish religion and Druidic teaching were imagined in Latin literature.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: Lucan, Bellum Civile 1.436-457
Latin source text from The Latin Library's text of Lucan, Bellum Civile, Book 1. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
- tu quoque laetatus conuerti proelia, Treuir,
- et nunc tonse Ligur, quondam per colla decore
- crinibus effusis toti praelate Comatae,
- et quibus inmitis placatur sanguine diro
- Teutates horrensque feris altaribus Esus
- et Taranis Scythicae non mitior ara Dianae.
- uos quoque, qui fortes animas belloque peremptas
- laudibus in longum uates dimittitis aeuum,
- plurima securi fudistis carmina, Bardi.
- et uos barbaricos ritus moremque sinistrum
- sacrorum, Dryadae, positis repetistis ab armis.
- solis nosse deos et caeli numina uobis
- aut solis nescire datum; nemora alta remotis
- incolitis lucis; uobis auctoribus umbrae
- non tacitas Erebi sedes Ditisque profundi
- pallida regna petunt: regit idem spiritus artus
- orbe alio; longae, canitis si cognita, uitae
- mors media est. certe populi quos despicit Arctos
- felices errore suo, quos ille timorum
- maximus haut urguet leti metus. inde ruendi
- in ferrum mens prona uiris animaeque capaces
- mortis, et ignauum rediturae parcere uitae.
Source Colophon
The Latin source was captured from The Latin Library on 2026-05-13 and inspected on disk at Tulku/Tools/celtic/sources/continental_batch_2026-05-13/lucan_pharsalia_1_latin_library.html. The Latin Library text prints Dryadae at line 446; this translation follows the traditional sense of the passage and renders the word as Druids, noting the printed form in the source text. The English translation is a New Tianmu Anglican Church Good Works Translation made from the Latin source.
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