Unless so many nations came in aid?
What thirst of spoil, O fates! In civil wars
Were you afraid to faint for want of blood?
But yet, O wretched state in Britons fond,
What needed they to stoop to Mordred’s yoke,
Or fear the man themselves so fearful made?
Had they but link’d like friends in Arthur’s bands,
And join’d their force against the foreign foes,
These wars and civil sins had soon surceas’d,
And Mordred, reft of rule, had fear’d his sire.