They who proclaim as just such deed of blood:
Against a ladye, caitiff, felon wights!
how showed ye here, brute beasts or noble Knights?
"Thus on Polyxena, that beauteous maid,
last solace of her mother's age and care,
when doom'd to die by fierce Achilles' shade,
the cruel Pyrrhus hasted brand to bare:
But she (a patient lamb by death waylaid)
with the calm glances which serene the air,
casts on her mother, mad with grief, her eyes
and silent waits that awesome sacrifice.
"Thus dealt with fair Ignez the murth'erous crew,
in th' alabastrine neck that did sustain
the charms whereby could Love the love subdue
of him, who crown'd her after death his Queen;
bathing their blades; the flow'ers of snowy hue,
which often water'ed by her eyne had been,
are blood-dyed; and they burn with blinding hate,
reckless of tortures stor'd for them by Fate.
"Well mightest shorn of rays, O Sun! appear
to fiends like these on day so dark and dire;
as when Thyestes ate the meats that were
his seed, whom Atreus slew to spite their sire.
And you, O hollow Valleys! doomed to hear
her latest cry from stiffening lips expire--
her Pedro's name,--did catch that mournful sound,
whose echoes bore it far and far around!
"E'en as Daisy sheen, that hath been shorn
in time untimely, floret fresh and fair,
and by untender hand of maiden torn
to deck the chaplet for her wreathed hair;
gone is its odor and its colours mourn;
So pale and faded lay that Ladye there;
dried are the roses of her cheek, and fled
the white live color, with her dear life dead.
"Mondego's daughter-Nymphs the death obscure
wept many a year, with wails of woe exceeding;
and for long mem'ry changed to fountain pure
the floods of grief their eyes were ever feeding:
The name they gave it, which doth still endure,
revived Ignez, whose murthered love lies bleeding,
see yon fresh fountain flowing 'mid the flowers,
tears are its waters, and its name 'Amores!'[12]
"Time ran not long, ere Pedro saw the day
of vengeance dawn for wounds that ever bled;
who, when he took in hand the kingly sway,
eke took the murth'erers who his rage had fled:
Them a most cruel Pedro did betray;
for both, if human life the foemen dread,
made concert savage and dure pact, unjust as
Lepidus made with Anthony' and Augustus."
[6] Viriatus.
[7]
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