Bridging the Continental divide: neo-Latin and its cultural role in Jacobean Scotland, as seen in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637)

  [p378]

A visitor to La Rochelle, freed from siege

Near the warmed lap of roaring Neptune is a town hostess to every part of the world, La Rochelle, you who draw your famous name from 'rock': and the sign of manly strength: fortified on every side with ditches, and sea inlets, and palisades competing with heaven: and you dash the seas as they splash over your sea walls: and whatever else is grim, you keep at a distance in the sea with your barrier. You whom stepmother earth labours to bring forth cattle for, which Thetis blesses with nourishing fish, and sacrifices for foreign commerce: whose presses burst for foaming Bacchus, and granaries swell for Ceres: you who forces the watery expanse of the sea to rise up in a heap of salted hail: you who brings together on every side goods to be redeemed for coin out of fleets from across the whole world: and wealth everywhere, which itself is more blessed than the salt alone which you gird yourself with: Nurseling of heaven, darling of the world, honour of Europe, flower of the Christian territory, queen of the sea, through whom the remarkable Ocean bathes the blessed French:  [p379] as often as you have been drawn in to my ears, opening with admiration, you have been desired by my mind: now you have been seen by my eyes: hello! And be a welcoming host to the visitor who welcomes you, embrace he who embraces you, and in turn wrap up with close bonds the person tangled up in you. What dire calamity laid prostrate these steep towers? What Aeolus, previously hidden, now bursts forth from the deepest pits of the earth? What flaming device of the Thunderer shook the lower world? So that a visitor sees only ruins, fissures and cracks spread far and wide, and piles of rocks? Indeed if any of the Gods in Olympus burn with anger amid their citadels, you have an ally: and which, indeed, of the offspring of Iapetus stood out as the author of your slaughter? Which adulterer among mortals, a I say, dared to scheme violence against you, a virgin? Lucretia, b ashamed, you remain silent, and you blush to bring forth your shameless suitor: and because he arranged to catch your attention as patron, chief, author and father, c he orchestrated the violence, while you blush and remain silent. But well done! He has only prepared a purely political force, and has not raised a more solid force against you: d pull yourself together, and stop being suffocated! The bold adulterer barely touched your ankle hem, or your covered inner parts. You flourish with your bashful breast, with your body unharmed; you worry for your cloak alone. The Marcher struck the towers with cannonballs, and pounded the rocks with flaming globes. But the circle of the besiegers was in vain, and realised its attempts were useless. The citizens and gods of the inner house endure, and do not die easily before Mars. Thus live, rock, for whom the phalanxes of the Thunderer,   [p380] sent from the heavens, perform military service: and safely ponder in your grateful breast how much you owe to the powerful maker of things, who liberated you from the ravenous throats of Cerberus: who holds in reserve his own aid in dire straits, which will never be absent, if, having been saved, you should keep the faith, and as his fiancée not defile the bed of Jove with unspeakable wickedness. To him, you, joyfully sing eternal praises! And to you I shall harmoniously sing, and will profess that you are the citadel of the sacred army, and the obstacle to the impious flock.