Omnia si quaeras, et Rhodos exsilium est.
Aurea mutasti Saturni saecula, Caesar:
Incolumi nam te, ferrea semper erunt.
Fastidit vinum, quia jam sit it iste cruorem:
Tam bibit hunc avide, quam bibit ante merum.
Adspice felicem sibi, non tibi, Romule, Sullam:
Et Marium, si vis, adspice, sed reducem.
Nec non Antoni civilia bella moventis
Nec semel infectas adspice caeda manus.
Et dic, Roma perit: regnabit sanguine multo,
Ad regnum quisquis venit ab exsilio.
> Obdurate wretch! too fierce, too fell to move
> The least kind yearnings of a mother’s love!
> No knight thou art, as having no estate;
> Long suffered’st thou in Rhodes an exile’s fate,
> No more the happy Golden Age we see;
> The Iron’s come, and sure to last with thee.
> Instead of wine he thirsted for before,
> He wallows now in floods of human gore.
> Reflect, ye Romans, on the dreadful times,
> Made such by Marius, and by Sylla’s crimes.
> Reflect how Antony’s ambitious rage
> Twice scar’d with horror a distracted age,
> And say, Alas! Rome’s blood in streams will flow,
> When banish’d miscreants rule this world below.Al principio quiso dar a entender que estos versos satíricos habían sido provocados por el resentimiento de aquellos que eran impacientes