/ How Bacchus howls, and the followers of Bacchus, / chanting their orgies on Theban Aracynthus,8 [65] / while astonished Asopus trembles under the glassy waves, / and afar off Cithaeron itself echoes from its hollow rock. /

Then at last, these things performed in a solemn fashion, / silent Night9 left the embraces of old Erebus, / and now drives her headlong horses with a goading whip–[70] / blind Typhlos and spirited Melanchaetes, / torpid Siope, sprung from an infernal father, / and shaggy Phrix with bristly hair. / Meanwhile the tamer of kings, the heir of hell, / enters his chambers (for the secret adulterer [75] / does not spend sterile nights without a gentle concubine); / but sleep was scarcely closing his ready eyes, / when the dark lord of the shadows, the ruler of the dead, / the plunderer of man stood before him, concealed by a false shape. / His temples flashed with the gray hairs he had assumed; [80] / a long beard covered his breast; his ash-colored attire / swept the ground with a long train; and his hood hung down / from his shaven crown; and so that none might be absent from his frauds / he bound his lustful loins with hempen rope, / thrusting his slow feet into open sandals. [85] / In like manner, as rumor has it, Francis10 used to wander alone / in the vast, loathsome desert through the haunts of wild beasts; / he carried the pious word of salvation to the people of the wood, / himself impious, and tamed the wolves and the Libyan lions. /

But clothed in such garb, the cunning serpent, [90] / deceitful, separated his accursed lips with these words: / “Are you sleeping, my son? Does slumber still overpower your limbs? / O negligent of faith and neglectful of your flocks! / while a barbarous nation born under the northern sky / ridicules your throne and triple diadem, O venerable one, [95] / and while the quivered English contemn your laws! / Arise, up, arise, lazy one, whom the Roman emperor adores, / and for whom the unlocked gate of arched heaven lies open; / crush their swelling pride and insolent arrogance, / and let the sacrilegious know what your curse may be capable of, [100] / and what custody of the Apostolic key may avail; / and remember to avenge the scattered armada of the Spanish / and the banners of the Iberians swallowed up by the broad deep, / and the bodies of so many saints hanged on infamous gallows / recently by the reigning Amazonian virgin.11 [105] / But if you prefer to become indolent in your soft bed / and refuse to crush the increasing strength of the foe, / he will fill the Tyrrhene Sea with a vast army / and set his glittering standards on the Aventine hill:12 / he will destroy and burn with flames the remains of the ancients, [110] / and with profane feet will trample upon your sacred neck, / you whose shoes kings were glad to give their kisses. / Yet you will not challenge him to wars and open conflict; / such would be useless labor; you are shrewd to use deception, / of which any kind is fitting in order to spread traps for heretics; [115] / and now the great king calls the nobles with foreign speech / to council, and those sprung from the stock of celebrated men / and old venerable sires with their robe of state and gray hairs. / You will be able to scatter them limb by limb throughout the air / and to give them up to cinders, by the fire of nitrous [120] / powder exploded beneath the last chambers where they have assembled. / Immediately therefore advise whatever faithful there are in England / of the proposed deed; will any of your followers / dare not dispatch the commands of the supreme Pope? / And instantly may the fierce Gaul and the savage Spaniard [125] / invade them, smitten with dread and stupefied by calamity. / Thus at last the Marian era13 will return to that land / and you will rule again over the warlike English. / And, so you fear nothing, accept the gods and subordinate goddesses, / as many deities as are honored on your feast days.” [130] / The deceiver spoke, and laying his disguise aside, / he fled to Lethe, his abominable, gloomy kingdom. /

Now rosy dawn, throwing open the eastern gates, / dresses the gilded world with returning light; / and hitherto grieving for the sad death of her swarthy son,14 [135] / she sprinkles the mountain tops with ambrosial tears, / then the keeper15 of the starry court banished sleep, / repeating his nocturnal visions and delightful dreams. /

There is a place enclosed in the eternal darkness of night, / once the vast foundation of a ruined dwelling, [140] / now the den of savage Murder and double-tongued Treason, / whom fierce Discord bore at one birth. / Here among the unhewn stones and broken rock lie / the unburied bones of men and corpses pierced by steel; / here malicious Deceit sits forever with distorted eyes, [145] / and Contentions and Calumny, its jaws armed with fangs, / Fury and a thousand ways of dying are seen, / and Fear and pale Horror hasten around the place, / and nimble ghosts howl perpetually through the mute silences, / and the conscious earth stagnates with blood. [150] / Besides, Murder and Treason themselves lie hid, quaking, / in the inmost depths of the cave with no one pursuing them through it, / the rough cave, full of rocks, dark with deathly shadows. / The guilty ones disperse and run away with backward glance; / these defenders of Rome, faithful through the long ages, [155] / the Babylonian high-priest16 summons, and thus he speaks: / “A race odious to me lives on the western limits / in the surrounding sea; prudent nature has thoroughly denied / that unworthy people to join our world. / Thither, so I command, journey with swift pace, [160] / and may the king and his nobles together, that impious race, / be blown into thin air by the Tartarean powder, / and whoever for true faith have glowed with love / invite as partners of the plot and accomplices of the deed.” / He ended, and the stern twins obeyed with eagerness. [165] /

Meanwhile turning the heavens in a spacious arc, / the Lord, who shines forth from his ethereal height, looks down / and laughs at the efforts of the evil crew,17 / and orders the defense of his people to be upheld. /

They say there is a section where fertile Europe is separated [170] / from Asian land, and looks toward Mareotidan waters; / here is situated the lofty tower of Titanean Fame,18 / brazen, broad, resounding, closer to the glowing stars / than Athos or Pelion piled on Ossa.19 / A thousand doors and entrances lie open, and as many windows, [175] / and spacious courts shine through the thin walls; / here the accumulated people raise various whispers; / how the swarms of flies make noise about the milk pails / by buzzing, or through the sheepfolds of woven reed, / when the lofty Dog Star20 assails the summer height of the sky. [180] / Indeed Fame herself, avenger of her mother, sits in her topmost fortress; / her head, girt with innumerable ears, projects out from that place, / attracting the faintest sound and seizing the lightest / murmur from the farthest limits of the wide world. / And you, O Argus,21 unjust guardian of the heifer [185] / Io, did not roll so many eyes in your fierce face, / eyes never faltering in silent sleep, / eyes gazing over the adjacent lands far and wide. / With them is Fame accustomed always to survey places deprived of light, / and even those impervious to the radiant sun. [190] / And with a thousand tongues the blabbing one pours out / things heard and seen to anyone who chances by, and now lying, she lessens / the truth, and now she increases it with fabricated rumors. / Nevertheless, Fame, you deserved the praises of my song, / for one good deed than which no other speaks more truly, [195] / worthy to be sung by me, nor shall I repent having commemorated you / at such length in my song. To be sure, we unharmed English / bestow on you what is just for your services, O inconstant goddess. / God who restrains the eternal fires from their agitation / with his dispatched thunderbolt, the earth trembling, exhorts you: [200] / “Fame, are you silent? or does the impious throng of Papists / hide you, conspired against me and my English, / and a new massacre designed against scepter-bearing James?” / No more said, she discerned at once the Thunderer’s commands, / and swift enough before, she puts on strident wings, [205] / and clothes her slender body with variegated feathers; / in her right hand she carries a loud trumpet of Temesan22 brass. / With no delay, she now oars on her wings through the yielding air, / and seems not content to outrun the swift clouds by her flight; / now the winds, now the horses of the sun she leaves behind her back. [210] / But first, in her usual way, through the English cities / she spreads ambiguous rumors and uncertain whispers; / directly, in clear voice, she divulges the deceits and the detestable / work of treason, and likewise deeds frightful when spoken, / and she adds the authors of the crime, nor, being garrulous, is she silent [215] / about the places prepared for secret ambush; men are stunned by the reports, / and youths as well as maidens and weak old men / tremble, and the significance of such great ruin / has penetrated quickly to every age. / But meanwhile the heavenly Father from on high has compassion [220] / on his people, and thwarts the cruel and daring attempts / of the Papists; the captives are dragged to fierce punishments; / but pious incense and grateful honors are paid to God; / all the happy streets smoke with genial bonfires; / the youthful throng moves in dancing groups: and throughout the whole year [225] / no day occurs that is more celebrated than the fifth of November.

(Nov. 1626)

1 See El.