LXXV.
If verily most Christian you would be,
—I speak to you, that catholic are hight—
Why slain by you Christ’s people do I see?
Wherefore are they despoiled of their right?
Why seek you not Jerusalem to free
From renegades? By Turkish Moslemite
Impure, why is Byzantium, with the best
And fairest portion of the world, possest?
LXXVI.
Thou Spain, hast thou not fruitful Afric nigh[11]?
And has she not in sooth offended more
Than Italy? yet her to scathe, that high,
And noble, enterprize wilt thou give o’er.
Alas! thou sleepest, drunken Italy,
Of every vice and crime the fetid sewer!
Nor grievest, as a hand-maid, to obey,
In turn, the nations that have owned thy sway.
LXXVII.
If fear of famishing within thy cave,
Switzer, does thee to Lombardy convey,
And thou, among our people, dost but crave
A hand to give thee daily bread, or slay,
The Turk has ready wealth; across the wave,
Drive him from Europe or from Greece away:
So shalt thou in those parts have wherewithal
To feed thy hunger, or more nobly fall.
