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

34
PANURGI PHILOCABALLI [712-735
Unde tibi tanti sceleris tam dira cupido
Purpureoque sitis Regum satianda cruore ?
En erit ilia dies, cum tu funesta laborum
Supplicia et meritas referes pro crimine poenas.
Teque tuosque manent scelerati praemia facti.
Tuque adeo tali conjunx o digna marito,
Tullia Tarquinio merito conjuncta superbo
Impia quae Patrios foedasti in pulvere vultus,
Non te foemineas credam suxisse mamillas;
Sed rapidae tygres infantem lacte ferino
Te sub Caucaseis enutrivere cavernis :
Te quoque nascentem nimis exitialibus astris
Sanguineo procul igne rubens Mars lumine torvo
Vidit, et infausto volucer Cyllenius ortu,
Et strix triste gemens summoque a culmine tecti
Noctua natalem devovit carmine lucem.
Heu nimium coeli sub iniquo sidere juncti,
Et dicti auspiciis Rex et Regina sinistris.
O pudor Imperii! Nate infelicibus annis
Tu licet arctoum quatias terroribus orbem,
Et soceri manibus teneas jam sceptra superbis,
Exitii venit bora tui cum triste cadaver
Projectum medios caesorum augebit acervos,
Aut Batavas saturabit aves miserabile corpus,
a love of crime; a thirst so insatiable for the purple blood of
kings ? Lo! there will come the day when thou shalt undergo
the punishment of thy wicked deeds, and suffer merited venge¬
ance for thy crime. For thee and thine there abides the
reward of evil. Thou too, oh worthy consort of such a hus¬
band, a Tullia well mated with a Tarquin the proud, impious
woman who didst defile a father’s face in the dust! I will
not believe that woman’s breast nourished thee, but that thou
wert suckled by the fierce tigress in Caucasian cave. On thee,
at thy birth, ruddy Mars, shining in bloody fire, and swift Mercury
too, turned baneful eye on thy unhappy birth, and the doleful
owl, hooting from the house-top, cursed thy natal day in nocturnal
song. Alas ! too well united under the sinister constellations of
Heaven, and entitled King and Queen under evil omens. Oh
shameful rule! Bom in unfortunate time, although thou shake
the North with thy terrors, and now hold the sceptre in proud
hands, the hour of thy destruction approaches, when thy miserable
carcase, cast into the midst, shall increase the heaps of the slain.