Mithridates, He Died Old

Map of Pontus with a portrait of the king of Pontus Mithridates VI as Heracles. Marble, Roman imperial period (1st century). Credit: Eric Gaba.


There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

 

by A.E Housman (1859-1936) 

From: A Shropshire Lad (1896)

 

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