Classic Poem

(Ballade contre les mesdisans de la France)

Now may he meet with beasts that vomit flame,
Like Jason, hunter of the Fleece of Gold,
Or change from man to brute seven years the same
As King Nebuchadnezzar did, or hold
To heart the times of suffering and pain
The Trojans held for their princess Helaine,
Or have a place as deep as Tantalus
And Proserpine in hell's infernal house.
May he, like Job, find grief and sufferance,
Prisoned in the same court with Daedalus,
Who could wish ill unto the realm of France.

For four months let him like the bittern scream
Head downward, or to the Grand Turk be sold
For money paid right down and with the team
Be harnessed like a bull to till the mould;
Or thirty sad years, like to Magdalene,
Live without cloth of wool or linen clean;
Or let him drown the same as Narcissus;
Or hang like Absalom by lengthy tress;
Or swing like Judas, viewed by all askance.
Let him like Simon Magus die, even thus,
Who could wish ill unto the realm of France.

For him again may days Octavian gleam
And in his belly molten coin grow cold;
And like Saint Victor crushed, as by a beam,
Beneath the mill-wheels may his corpse be rolled;
Or may his breath beneath the deep seas fail
Like Jonah's in the body of the whale.
Let him be banned for ay from fair Phaebus,
And damned for ay from Venus amorous,
And cursed by God beyond all utterance,
Even as old was Sardanapalus,
Who could wish ill unto the realm of France.

ENVOI

Prince, let him forth be borne by Æolus
To Glaucus in that forest far from us
Where hope nor peace may ever on him glance.
For he holds nought in him but worthlessness
Who could wish ill unto the realm of France.