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

339-361] SCOTI GRAMEIDOS LIB. III.
97
Conveniunt; Gramique petunt sublimia castra.
Quos procul ut densa juvenum stipante corona.
Adventare videt, venientes ordine longo
Excipit amplexu heroes ; et talibus infit:
‘ Vos ego belligeri prisco de sanguine Scoti,
Grampigenae fortes, et duri Martis alumni,
Caesaris arctoi jussu procul usque remotis
Finibus Oceani excitos, perque ultima mundi,
Nunc in bella voco, socialiaque agmina posco
Grassantes contra furias et iniqua superbi
Arma ducis Batavi, conjuratasque cohortes
Saxonidum, quae jam funesto viliter auro
Vendiderint libertatem, Regemque stupendo
Mancipio prius expositum, tacitisque petitum
Insidiis, dare terga fugae, tristique paternum
Exilio mutare solum, proavitaque sceptra
Impulerint, cursuque novas sibi quaerere terras.
O viles animae ! venaliaque agmina ! et Oreo
Vendita mancipia, atque emptae mercede catervae,
Degeneresque viri victor quos respuet, et nunc
Venales tanquam Sardos versa agmina ridet,
Atque exarmatae veluti ludibria gentis
Secum Flandriacos rapit impletura macellos.
various paths seek the camp. As he beholds them advancing in
their various companies, he receives the chiefs with an embrace,
and welcomes them in these w ords:—
‘ Ye warlike Scots of ancient blood, ye martial sons of the moun¬
tain, roused from your distant homes, I call you now to battle, and
claim your aid against the Batavian general, and the conspiring band
of Saxons who have vilely sold their liberty and their King for
cursed gold, and have compelled him to leave the sceptre of his
ancestors, and pass as an exile to foreign shores. O degenerate men!
O mercenary soldiery, sold to Orcus ! O mean spirits ! whom the
victor already slights and laughs at, and now treats as the treacher¬
ous bands of Sardinians1 were treated, carrying them, a disarmed
race, to swell the empty Flemish ranks. But the father of his
1 ‘Venales Sardos : ’ a proverbial expression for anything cheap and worth¬
less, arising out of a Sardinian revolt, which, when quelled, overstocked the
slave-market with numbers of Sardinians. Already William was raising levies
in England and Scotland for Flemish wars, and carrying them with him to the
seat of war.