At last, coming to herself,
she perceived there was no time to be lost in tears and
lamentations, and therefore hastened through the town to the sea.
Pompey ran to meet her, and received her to his arms as she was
just going to fall. While she hung upon his neck, she thus
addressed him: "I see, my dear husband, your present unhappy
condition is the effect of my ill fortune, and not yours. Alas!
how are you reduced to one poor vessel, who, before your marriage
with Cornelia, traversed the sea with 500 galleys! Why did you
come to see me, and not rather leave me to my evil destiny, who
have loaded you, too, with such a weight of calamities? How happy
had it been for me to have died before I heard that Publius, my
first husband, was killed by the Parthians! How wise, had I
followed him to the grave, as I once intended! What have I lived
for since, but to bring misfortunes upon Pompey the Great?"
Such, we are assured, was the speech of Cornelia; and Pompey
answered: "Till this moment, Cornelia, you have experienced
nothing but the smiles of fortune; and it was she who deceived
you, because she stayed with me longer than she commonly does with
her favorites. But, fated as we are, we must bear this reverse,
and make another trial of her.
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