The
friends of truth would be fighting no more
With curs in the press; the arena
They would figure in rather, at mortal grips
With the lion, jackal, hyena.
dt
text .
note.
10
We
should now have had only one, instead
Of six-and-thirty, Neros.
To defy the tyrant's myrmidons
We had opened our veins like heroes.
dt
text .
x
11
Our
Schelling, known as Seneca,
Would have perished like him. Our dictum
In the works of our own Cornelius had been,
"Cacatum non est pictum."
dt
text .
x
12
Thank
God! the Romans were put to flight,
And the victory was Hermann's;
Varus succumbed with his legions doomed,
And we remained good Germans.
dt
text .
x
13
We're
a German folk with a German tongue, '
Which will serve its turn, and pass in us;
And the Swabianswell, they are Swabians still,
And an ass is an ass, not asinus.
dt
text .
x
14
The
eagle-order Raumer wears
As scamp, and not scampatius;
And Freiligrath writes in his wretched rhyme
Of a truth he's no Flaccus Horatius.
dt
text .
x
15
Massmann,
thank God! speaks no Latin at all;
The drama Birch-Pfeifer's trade is,
And she tipples no nasty turpentine
Like the gallant Roman ladies.
dt
text .
16
O
Hermann, to you we owe it all!
It is right you should be rewarded
With a monument brave at Detmold built.
I myself have subscribed toward it.