Have been unmindful, and his child
At the hest of cringing[1] fear betrayed.290
Not so of old: then Rome could boast
Of manly virtue, martial blood.
There lived a race of heroes then
Who curbed the power of haughty kings
And drove them forth from Rome; and thee,
O maiden, slain by thy father's hand,295
Lest thou shouldst in slavery's bonds be held,
And lest foul lust its victorious will
Should work on thee, did well avenge.
Thee, too, a bloody war avenged,
O chaste Lucretia; for thou,300
By the lust of an impious tyrant stained,
With wretched hand didst seek to cleanse
Those stains by thy innocent blood.
Then Tullia with her guilty lord,
Base Tarquin, dared an impious deed,
Whose penalty they paid; for she305
Over the limbs of her murdered sire,
A heartless child, drove cruel wheels,
And left his corpse unburied there.
Such deeds of dire impiety
Our age has known, our eyes have seen,
When the prince on the mighty Tyrrhene deep310
In a fatal bark his mother sent,
By guile ensnared.
The sailors at his bidding haste
To leave the peaceful harbor's arms;
And soon the rougher waves resound315
Beneath their oars, and far away
Upon the deep the vessel glides;
When suddenly the reeling bark
With loosened beams yawns open wide,
And drinks the briny sea.
A mighty shout to heaven goes,320
With women's lamentations filled,
And death stalks dire before the eyes
- ↑ Reading, saevo.
