Cicerian Oration Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

“O tempora o mores”
Oh the times! Oh the customs!

Hung by his tongue, pierced by head-pin
His head severed from the trunk.
Gods bid him farewell, -virtue is human
Gifts are books; the play is politics, day to day.
Pliny the Younger, on how he matches talent
With varied subjects. If Homer be the Greek god,
Of verse, the Roman god of prose is Marcus Cicero.
Sophocles’ drama, pigment from Aristotle.
“Be indulgent towards the affection between us,
Somewhat more even than the truth will allow”,
He writes to Lucius Lucceius son of Quintus; on him
His Letter No 40, Cumea, April 55, before the Christ.
And when he turns six hundred years of age,
A modest view by then might be achieved.
For Hector in the play of Naevius exults, not merely
On being praised, but “By a person who is himself praised”.

Sadiqullah Khan
Peshawar
March 16,2014.

“…With these omens, O Catiline, be gone to your impious and nefarious war, to the great safety of the republic, to your own misfortune and injury, and to the destruction of those who have joined themselves to you in every wickedness and atrocity. Then do you, O Jupiter, who were consecrated by Romulus with the same auspices as this city, whom we rightly call the stay of this city and empire, repel this man and his companions from your altars and from the other temples, —from the houses and walls of the city, —from the lives and fortunes of all the citizens; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and infamous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments.”Excerpt from Circero’s speech against Catiline.

Cicero breaks it down to the Senate in Rome, fresco by CesareMaccari,1882-1888. @Emerson Kent.com