Classic Poem

Her name was Ate, mother of debate,
And all dissension, which doth daily grow
Amongst frail men, that many a public state
And many a private oft doth overthrow.
Her false Duessa who full well did know,
To be most fit to trouble noble knights,
Which hunt for honour, raised from below,
Out of the dwellings of the damned sprights,
Where she in darkness wastes her cursed days and nights.
Hard by the gates of hell her dwelling is,
There whereas all the plagues and harms abound,
Which punish wicked men, that walk amiss:
It is a darksome delve far under ground,
With thorns and barren brakes environed round,
That none the same may easily out win:
Yet many ways to enter may be found,
But none to issue forth when one is in;
For discord harder is to end than to begin.
And all within the riven walls were hung
With ragged monuments of times forepast,
All which the sad effects of discord sung:
There were rent robes and broken sceptres placed,
Altars defiled, and holy things defaced,
Disshivered spears, and shields ytorn in twain,
Great cities ransacked, and strong castles razed,
Nations captived, and huge armies slain;
Of all which ruins there some relics did remain.
There was the sign of antique Babylon,
Of fatal Thebes, of Rome that reigned long,
Of sacred Salem, and sad Ilion,
For memory of which on high there hung
The golden apple, cause of all their wrong,
For which the three fair goddesses did strive:
There also was the name of Nimrod strong,
Of Alexander, and his Princes five,
Which shared to them the spoils that he had got alive.
And there the relics of the drunken fray,
The which amongst the Lapithes befell,
And of the bloody feast, which sent away
So many Centaurs' drunken souls to hell,
That under great Alcides' fury fell;
And of the dreadful discord, which did drive
The noble Argonauts to outrage fell,
That each of life sought others to deprive,
All mindless of the golden fleece, which made them strive.
And eke of private persons many mo,
That were too long a work to count them all;
Some of sworn friends, that did their faith forgo;
Some of born brethren, proved unnatural;
Some of dear lovers, foes perpetual:
Witness their broken bands there to be seen,
Their garlands rent, their bowers despoiled all;
The monuments whereof there biding been,
As plain as at the first, when they were fresh and green.