On one such disastrous day the young poet Junius, presented himself on the square, filled to overflowing with the sorrowing populace.

With swift steps he ascended a specially-constructed tribune and made a sign that he wished to recite a poem.

The lictors immediately brandished their staves.  “Silence!  Attention!” they shouted in stentorian tones.

“Friends!  Comrades!” began Junius, in a loud, but not altogether firm voice: 

    “Friends!  Comrades!  Ye lovers of verses! 
    Admirers of all that is graceful and fair! 
    Be not cast down by a moment of dark sadness! 
    The longed-for instant will come ... and light
        will disperse the gloom!"[70]

Junius ceased speaking ... and in reply to him, from all points of the square, clamour, whistling, and laughter arose.

All the faces turned toward him flamed with indignation, all eyes flashed with wrath, all hands were uplifted, menaced, were clenched into fists.

“A pretty thing he has thought to surprise us with!” roared angry voices.  “Away from the tribune with the talentless rhymster!  Away with the fool!  Hurl rotten apples, bad eggs, at the empty-pated idiot!  Give us stones!  Fetch stones!”

Junius tumbled headlong from the tribune ... but before he had succeeded in fleeing to his own house, outbursts of rapturous applause, cries of laudation and shouts reached his ear.

Filled with amazement, but striving not to be detected (for it is dangerous to irritate an enraged wild beast), Junius returned to the square.

And what did he behold?

High above the throng, above its shoulders, on a flat gold shield, stood his rival, the young poet Julius, clad in a purple mantle, with a laurel wreath on his waving curls....  And the populace round about was roaring:  “Glory!  Glory!  Glory to the immortal Julius!  He hath comforted us in our grief, in our great woe!  He hath given us verses sweeter than honey, more melodious than the cymbals, more fragrant than the rose, more pure than heaven’s azure!  Bear him in triumph; surround his inspired head with a soft billow of incense; refresh his brow with the waving of palm branches; lavish at his feet all the spices of Arabia!  Glory!”

Junius approached one of the glorifiers.—­“Inform me, O my fellow-townsman!  With what verses hath Julius made you happy?—­Alas, I was not on the square when he recited them!  Repeat them, if thou canst recall them, I pray thee!”

“Such verses—­and not recall them?” briskly replied the man interrogated.—­“For whom dost thou take me?  Listen—­and rejoice, rejoice together with us!”

’Ye lovers of verses!’—­thus began the divine Julius....

    “’Ye lovers of verses!  Comrades!  Friends! 
    Admirers of all that is graceful, melodious, tender! 
    Be not east down by a moment of heavy grief! 
    The longed-for moment will come—­and day will chase away the night!’