Only five survived, who
afterwards
assisted him to build the city of
Thebes.
Thebes.
Camoes - Lusiades
Never did the history of any court afford such instances of villainy and
all the baseness of intrigue as that of the pope's. That this view of
the lower ranks in the pope's dominions is just, we have the indubitable
testimony of Addison. Our poet is justifiable in his censures, for he
only follows the severe reflections of the greatest of the Italian
poets. It were easy to give fifty instances; two or three, however,
shall suffice. Dante, in his sixth canto, del Purg. --
_Ahi, serva Italia, di dolore ostello,
Nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta,
Non donna di provincie, bordello. _
"Ah, slavish Italy, the inn of dolour, a ship without a pilot in a
horrid tempest:--not the mistress of provinces, but a brothel! "
Ariosto, canto 17:--
_O d' ogni vitio fetida sentina
Dormi Italia imbriaco. _
"O inebriated Italy, thou sleepest the sink of every filthy vice! "
And Petrarch:--
_Del'empia Babilonia, ond'e fuggita
Ogni vergogna, ond'ogni bene e fuori,
Albergo di dolor, madre d'errori
Son fuggit'io per allungar la vita. _
"From the impious Babylon (the Papal Court) from whence all shame and
all good are fled, the inn of dolour, the mother of errors, have I
hastened away to prolong my life. "
[448] _The fables old of Cadmus_. --Cadmus having slain the dragon which
guarded the fountain of Dirce, in Boeotia, sowed the teeth of the
monster. A number of armed men immediately sprang up, and surrounded
Cadmus, in order to kill him. By the counsel of Minerva he threw a
precious stone among them, in striving for which they slew one another.
Only five survived, who afterwards assisted him to build the city of
Thebes. --Vid. Ovid. Met. iv.
_Terrigenae pereunt per mutua vulnera fratres. _
[449]
_So fall the bravest of the Christian name,
While dogs unclean. --_
Imitated from a fine passage in Lucan, beginning--
_Quis furor, O Cives! quae tanta licentia ferri,
Gentibus invisis_ Latium _pr? bere cruorem? _
[450] The Mohammedans.
[451] Constantinople.
[452] _Beyond the Wolgian Lake. _--The Caspian Sea, so called from the
large river Volga, or Wolga, which empties itself into it.
[453]
_Their fairest offspring from their bosoms torn,
(A dreadful tribute ! )--_
By this barbarous policy the tyranny of the Ottomans was long sustained.
