Poema Latina

“There Webs were spread of more than common size

And half-starv’d Spiders prey’d on halfstarv’d Flies.”

The Prophecy of Famine.1

Tarantula tarantulæ

(Tzing boom)

Tarantulae tarantularum

(Tzing boom)2

Auctores insidiarum

Spoliatores muscarum

Magistri in hoco poco

Latitantes bino loco

Horrendissimis dapibus

Quibus nihil non est cibus

Nisi volucer impavidus

Genuina arte gravidus

Cuius caput pensa fulgens

Neque crinibus indulgens

Quasi sol in mesembrino

Apparens in bino bino

(Silet metuendum nomen)

Minax est arachnis omen

Ex quo discite puellæ

Pueri tarantulellæ

Et linguis favete dum vir

Ipse supremus triumvir

Voces emittit sonoras

Et nocturnas captat horas

Sic et modo sic istorum

Sit licentia susussorum

Vobis vilium quod fabro

Datur imperium in scabro

Audivistis verbum clarum

Nunc est tempus harum scarum

Omnium tarantularum

[Geoffrey Faber]

Notes
  1. 1.

    See the political satire by Charles Churchill (1731–64), The Prophecy of Famine: A Scots Pastoral (1763), vol. 2, ll. 323–4:

    There webs were spread of more than common size,

    And half-starved spiders prey’d on half-starved flies

  2. 2.

    The ‘Entrance and March of Peers’ – in the comic opera Iolanthe (1882) by W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan – includes this section for the tenors:

    Loudly let the trumpet bray,

    Tantantara, tantantara!

    Proudly bang the sounding brasses,

    As upon its lordly way

    This unique procession passes.

    Tantantara, tantara!

    Tantara, tantara, tantara,

    Tantara, tantara,

    Tzing, boom!

    Bow, bow, ye lower middle classes!

    Bow, bow, ye tradesmen, bow, ye masses,

    Blow the trumpets, bang the brasses,

    Tantantara! Tzing, boom!