“Arma virumque cano, qui first in Monongahela
Tarnally squampushed the sarpent, mittens horrentia tella,
Musa, look sharp with your banjo! I guess to relate this event, I
Shall need all the aid you can give; so nunc aspirate canenti.
Mighty slick were the vessels progressing, jactata per æquora ventis,
But the brow of the skipper was sad, cum solicitudine mentis;
For whales had been scarce in those parts, and the skipper, so long as he’d known her,
Ne’er had gathered less oil in a cruise to gladden the heart of her owner.
‘Darn the whales,’ cried the skipper at length, with a telescope forte videbo
Aut pisces, aut terras. While speaking, just two or three points on the lee bow,
He saw coming toward them as fast as though to a combat ’twould tempt ’em,
A monstrum horrendum informe (qui lumen was shortly ademptum),
On the taffrail up jumps in a hurry, dux fortis, and seizing a trumpet,
Blows a blast that would waken the dead, mare turbat et æra rumpit—
‘Tumble up, all you lubbers,’ he cries, ‘tumble up, for careering before us
Is the real old sea-sarpent himself, cristis maculisque decorus.’
‘Consarn it,’ cried one of the sailors, ‘if e’er we provoke him he’ll kill us,
He’ll certainly chaw up hos morsu, et longis, implexibus illos.’
Loud laughs the bold skipper, and quick premit alto corde dolorem;
(If he does feel like running, he knows it won’t do to betray it before ’em.)
‘O socii,’ inquit. ‘I’m sartin you’re not the fellers to funk, or
Shrink from the durem certamen, whose fathers fit bravely at Bunker;
You, who have waged with the bears, and the buffalo, prœlia dura,
Down to the freshets and licks of our own free enlightened Missourer;
You, who could whip your own weight, catulis sævis sine telo,
Get your eyes skinned in a twinkling, et ponite tela phæsello!’
Talia voce refert, curisque ingentibus æger,
Marshals his cute little band, now panting their foe to beleaguer.
Swiftly they lower the boats, and swiftly each man at the oar is,
Excipe Britanni timidi duo, virque coloris.
(Blackskin, you know, never feels how sweet ’tis pro patri mori;
Ovid had him in view when he said ‘Nimium ne crede colori.’)
Now swiftly they pull towards the monster, who seeing the cutter and gig nigh,
Glares at them with terrible eyes, suffectis sanguine et igni,
And, never conceiving their chief will so quickly deal him a floorer,
Opens wide to receive them at once, his linguis vibrantibis ora;
But just as he’s licking his lips, and gladly preparing to taste ’em,
Straight into his eyeball the skipper stridentem conjicit hastam.
Straight as he feels in his eyeball the lance, growing mightily sulky,
At ’em he comes in a rage, ora minax, lingua trusulca.
‘Starn all,’ cry the sailors at once, for they think he has certainly caught ’em,
Præsentemque viris intentant omnia mortem.
But the bold skipper exclaims, ‘O terque quaterque beati!
Now with a will dare viam, when I want you, be only parati;
This hoss feels like raising his hair, and in spite of his scaly old cortex,
Full soon you shall see that his corpse rapidus vorat æquore vortex.’
Hoc ait, and choosing a lance, ‘With this one I think I shall hit it,’
He cries, and straight into his mouth, ad intima viscera millit,
Screeches the creature in pain, and writhes till the sea is commotum,
As if all its waves had been lashed in a tempest per Eurum et Notum.
Interea terrible shindy Neptunus sensit, et alto
Prospiciens sadly around, wiped his eye with the cuff of his paletôt;
And, mad at his favourite’s fate, of oaths uttered one or two thousand,
Such as ‘Corpo di Bacco! Mehercle! Sacre! Mille Tonnerres! Potztausend!’
But the skipper, who thought it was time to this terrible fight dare finem,
With a scalping knife jumps on the neck of the snake secat et dextrâ crinem,
And, hurling the scalp in the air, half mad with delight to possess it,
Shouts, ‘Darn it—I’ve fixed up his flint, for in ventos vita recessit!’”
—Punch. |