The Cardinal’s Curse
“The Jackdaw of Rheims” is better known than the majority of the “Ingoldsby Legends,” with the dreadful curse which the cardinal called down upon the thief who had stolen his ring:
The Cardinal rose with a dignified look.
He called for his candle, his bell, and his book!
In holy anger and pious grief,
He solemnly cursed that rascally thief!
He cursed him at board, he cursed him in bed;
He cursed him in sleeping that very night,
He should dream of the devil and wake in a fright;
He cursed him in eating, he cursed him in drinking;
He cursed him in coughing, in sneezing, in winking;
He cursed him in sitting, in standing, in lying;
He cursed him in walking, in riding, in flying;
He cursed him in living, he cursed him dying!
Never was heard such a terrible curse!
But what gave rise to no little surprise,
Nobody seemed one penny the worse!
In twitting again at Holy Church, Mr. Barham makes Pope Gregory, in setting a penance for Sir Ingoldsby Bray, break out in the following extraordinary though highly entertaining dog Latin:
O turpissime! Vir nequissime!
Sceleratissime!—quissime!—issime!
Never, I trow, have the Servi servorum
Had before ’em such a breach of decorum,
Such a gross violation of morum bonorum,
And won’t have again sæcula sæculoram!