—Gerusalemme Liberata,
Canto VII., Stanza 52.
Rendered thus by Wiffen into English:
“As with its bloody locks let loose in air
Horribly bright, the Comet shows whose shine
Plagues the parched World, whose looks the Nations scare,
Before whose face States change, and Powers decline,
To purple Tyrants all, an inauspicious sign.”
The great English poets, on their part, have lifted up their voices to sing of the dire effects of Comets.
Shakespeare, the greatest of them all, abounds in allusions to these dread wandering stars.