Series 1 > Grameid: an heroic poem descriptive of the campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689, and other pieces

2
PANURGI PHILOCABALLI
[I4-3I
Bella nefanda fremens convulso cardine rerum
Impia civil! ruit in sua vulnera motu,
Condit et exertum sua rursus in ilia ferrum.
Hectoridumque genus fatali exscindere bello
Brutigenum quod nulli unquam potuere tyranni
Ipsa parat demensque suo se robore sternit ?
Quod si adeo insani jam prurit amore Gradivi,
Nunc eat, et Geticum detrudat moenibus hostem
Pannoniis, patriaeque vehat victricia signa
Ethiopas ultra occiduos Maurosque feroces,
Pulchraque barbaricum circumferat arma per orbem.
Ite, animae illustres, incoctaque pectora honesto
Queis meliore animos finxit natura metallo,
Christiadumque jugo subducite colla profano,
Lassa diu, fessisque Europae accurrite rebus.
O invicti animi j uvenes pia ducite signa
In Mahometicolas, quaque omnipotentis Iesu
Busta Dei repetenda vocant, felicibus ite
impious war—the centre of things overthrown—she rushes in
civil commotion to her own destruction, and again buries the
naked sword in her own vitals. Does she herself prepare to cut
off, in fatal strife, the British1 race, whom no Roman 2 tyrant could
ever overcome, and madly destroy herself by her own strength ?
But if she longs for war with such an insane love, let her now
go and drive the Tartar3 host from the besieged walls of Hungary,4
and carry her conquering banners among the Ethiopians and the
fierce Moors, and encompass the barbarous world in honourable
warfare. Go! illustrious spirits, unsullied hearts, for whom
Nature has fashioned souls of the nobler metal, and loosen the
necks of Christians—so long oppressed—from the yoke of the
Infidel, and aid the wearied state of Europe. Oh! youths of
unconquered spirit! carry your pious banners against the Moslem,
where the Sepulchre of Jesus, the Almighty God, calls you to
recover it. Go ! under happy auspices—for, what will it avail you
1 ‘ Brutigenum’ = British. Brutus, according to Historia Britonum, quoted
by Skene, Four Books of Wales, vol. ii. p. 99, was first King of Britain.
s ‘ Hectoridum’ = Roman, I fancy. He may, however, mean hectoring
tyrants, or heroic kings.
8 ‘Geticum,’ probably applied to Turks and Tartars, who were at this time
the masters of the Danubian Provinces.
4 ‘Pannoniis’: Hungary probably referred to. Turks not expelled till 1686.
Siege of Vienna raised only in 1683.