Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “[Latin Hymn]” (Text-02), manuscript, May 4, 1833


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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!


[[Footnotes]]

*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)