Clotho replied: "Upon my word, I did wish to give him another hour or two,
until he should make Roman citizens of the half dozen who are still
outsiders. (He made up his mind, you know, to see the whole world in the
toga, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards, Britons, and all.) But since it is your
pleasure to leave a few foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so
be it." She opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for
Augurinus, one for Baba, one for Claudius. [Footnote: "Augurinus" unknown.
Baba: see Sep. Ep. 159, a fool.] "These three," she says, "I will cause to
die within one year and at no great distance apart, and I will not dismiss
him unattended. Think of all the thousands of men he was wont to see
following after him, thousands going before, thousands all crowding about
him, and it would never do to leave him alone on a sudden. These boon
companions will satisfy him for the nonce."

This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once, 4
Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
Pierian laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands crowned,
Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as snow,
Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go,
Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering gaze,
As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days.
World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful wool!
Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners know:
Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles go;
Fewer than these are Tithon's years, not Nestor's life so long.
Phoebus is present: glad he is to sing a merry song;
Now helps the work, now full of hope upon the harp doth play;