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[[Latin Hymn]]
Mille, mille, mille
Mille, mille, mille
Decollavimus, unus homo!
Mille, mille, mille, mille, decollavimus!
Mille, mille, mille!
Vivat qui mille mille occidit!
Tantum vini habet nemo
Quantum sanguinis effudit![[*]]
—— which may be thus paraphrased:
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand!
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand!
We with one warrior have slain.
A thousand, a thousand, a thousand, a thousand!
Sing a thousand over again.
Soho! let us sing
Long life to our king
Who knocked over a thousand so fine.
Soho! let us roar
He has given us more
Red gallons of gore
Than all Syria can furnish of wine!
*Flavius Vopiscus says that the hymn which is here introduced was sung by the rabble upon the occasion of Aurelian, in the Sarmatic war, having slain with his own hand nine hundred and fifty of the enemy.
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Notes:
This version of the poem is contained in his manuscript for the tale “Epimanes.” Poe sent this manuscript to Joseph and Edwin Buckingham, editors of the New England Magazine. To his disappointment, they never printed the story. Poe revised the tale and published it in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1836. The manuscript is currently in a private collection, and the poem is printed here from that manuscript, with permission of the owner.
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[S:1 - MS, 1833] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Poems - Latin Hymn (Text-02)