Free Count Belisarius by Robert Graves

into such knots that he won almost as much applause as my mistress did with her last dance, when she so contorted herself that her legs seemed arms, and her belly, buttock. Being drenched in wine, he utterly forgot that he was a Christian and indulged in the most scandalous abuse and blasphemyof the Son (whether single, double, or many-natured) — though not of the Father, whom he generously identified with Jupiter, the supreme Deity of his own race. He went on to tell how the ruin of Rome had been her forsaking of the Old Gods and her taking up of this Galilean impostor – whose meek, unwarlike philosophy had rotted the Empire through and through; so that unlettered barbarians must be hired to undertake the defence of the Empire not merely in the lower ranks of the Army, but also in the capacity of colonels and generals and even commanders of armies.
    Now, while I am on this subject, let me copy out from Modestus’s book of poems an example of his Latin hendecasyllabics – the metre that he favoured most. It will show both the weakness and the occasional strength of his verse. Its weakness, in the continual puns and word-play –
cuneus
, a military column, or phalanx, and
cuniculus
, a rabbit;
rupibus
, rocks, and
ruptis
, broken;
late
, widely, and
later
, lurks. Its strength when, for once, an antithetic contrast (the triumph of the rabbits, that is to say the Christians, by means of their unwarrior-like meekness) is felt with a noble and sincere disgust. Chorazin, I believe, is a village in Galilee which Jesus cursed, but is used instead of ‘Galilee’, the part for the whole, according to poetical convention.
    DE CUNICULOPOLITANIS
    Ruptis rupibus in Chorazinanis

Servili cuneo cuniculorum

Late qui later, allocutus isto

Adridens BASILEUS , inermis ipse… *
    ON THE INHABITANTS OF RABBITOPOLIS
    In Galilean rocks the rabbits breed,
A feeble folk, to whom their frail LORD said,
Smiling: ‘Be bold to cowardice, yea with speed
Dart from your Foe – unless he too has fled.’
    To our Eternal City these short-lived
Prolific coneys came, and burrows found
In catacombs, where they in darkness wived
And numerous grew and pitted all the ground.
    Thistles of controversy, coney-burrows,
Injured the farming of our frontier lands:
No more the Roman sword with straight plough-furrows
Securely drove through all marauding bands.
    Soon rabbits everywhere swarmed over-ground
–Constantine took to him a rabbit bride,
A white scut to his purple back he bound
And two long ears exchanged for laurel pride.
    Rabbitopolitans, long sunk in shame,
You bribe the fox, the ferrets and the stoats
To constable your warren in Rome’s name:
So blood spurts frequent from your furry throats.
    The next morning my mistress was thoughtful and silent, and I asked her at last what was on her mind.
    She replied: ‘Did you notice that boy Belisarius? Last night after the banquet he declared his love for me.’
    â€˜There was surely no harm in that, was there, Mistress?’ I asked.
    â€˜Such a strange declaration! Eugenius, imagine, he spoke of marrying me if I would have the patience to wait for him, and meanwhile he would look at no other woman. A boy of fourteen, indeed! Yet somehow I could not laugh.’
    â€˜How did you answer him?’
    â€˜I asked him whether he realized who I was — a public entertainer, a charioteer’s daughter, a Megaraean Sphinx – and his answer was: “Yes, a pearl from the muddy mussel.” He was evidently unaware that marriage between a man of his rank and a woman of my profession is forbidden by law. I did not know what to answer the poor fellow. I could not even kiss him. It was a foolish situation.’
    â€˜And now you are weeping, Mistress. That is more foolish still.’
    â€˜Oh, Eugenius, sometimes I wish I were dead!’ she cried.
    However, the melancholy fit soon passed when we were back again in Constantinople.
    *
    The story of