The old from such affairs is only freed,
Which vig’rous youth and strength of body need;
But to more high affairs our age is lent,
Most properly when heats of youth are spent. 
Did Fabius and your father Scipio
(Whose daughter my son married) nothing do? 
Fabricii, Coruncani, Curii;
Whose courage, counsel, and authority,
The Roman commonwealth restored did boast,
Nor Appius, with whose strength his sight was lost, 120
Who when the Senate was to peace inclined
With Pyrrhus, shew’d his reason was not blind,
Whither’s our courage and our wisdom come
When Rome itself conspires the fate of Rome? 
The rest with ancient gravity and skill
He spake (for his oration’s extant still). 
’Tis seventeen years since he had Consul been
The second time, and there were ten between;
Therefore their argument’s of little force,
Who age from great employments would divorce. 130
As in a ship some climb the shrouds, t’unfold
The sail, some sweep the deck, some pump the hold;
Whilst he that guides the helm employs his skill,
And gives the law to them by sitting still. 
Great actions less from courage, strength, and speed,
Than from wise counsels and commands proceed;
Those arts age wants not, which to age belong,
Not heat but cold experience make us strong. 
A Consul, Tribune, General, I have been,
All sorts of war I have pass’d through and seen; 140
And now grown old, I seem t’abandon it,
Yet to the Senate I prescribe what’s fit. 
I every day ’gainst Carthage war proclaim,
(For Rome’s destruction hath been long her aim)
Nor shall I cease till I her ruin see,
Which triumph may the gods design for thee;
That Scipio may revenge his grandsire’s ghost,
Whose life at Cannae with great honour lost
Is on record; nor had he wearied been
With age, if he an hundred years had seen; 150
He had not used excursions, spears, or darts,
But counsel, order, and such aged arts,
Which, if our ancestors had not retain’d,
The Senate’s name our council had not gain’d. 
The Spartans to their highest magistrate
The name of Elder did appropriate: 
Therefore his fame for ever shall remain,
How gallantly Tarentum he did gain,
With vig’lant conduct; when that sharp reply
He gave to Salinator, I stood by, 160
Who to the castle fled, the town being lost,
Yet he to Maximus did vainly boast,
’Twas by my means Tarentum you obtain’d;—­
’Tis true, had you not lost, I had not gain’d. 
And as much honour on his gown did wait,
As on his arms, in his fifth consulate. 
When his colleague Carvilius stepp’d aside,
The Tribune of the people would divide
To them the Gallic and the Picene field;
Against the Senate’s will he will not yield; 170