Overlord

“ Well he knows that your very existence is an affront to all real civilization, but he holds that even such vileness incarnate, as are the Fenachrone, may perchance have some obscure place in the Great Scheme of Things, and he will not destroy you if you are content to remain in your proper place, upon your own dank and steaming world. Through me, the two thousand three hundred and forty-sixth Sacner Carfon of Dasor, the Overlord has given you your first, last and only warning. ”

“ Then, in the last minutes of the long-drawn-out agony of death, the Overlords were wont to feed, with a passionate, greedy, ineradicably ingrained lust utterly inexplicable to any civilized mind, upon the life forces which the mangled bodies could no longer contain. ”

“ Sometimes they were sent to organize and govern a march, sometimes they were rewarded with benefices, and as, with the growth of feudalism, these developed into hereditary fiefs, the word vassus or vassallus was naturally retained as implying the relation to the king as overlord, and was extended to the holders of all fiefs whether capital or mediate. As feudal independence increased, the word vassal lost every vestige of its original servile sense, and, since it had come to imply a purely military relation, acquired rather the meaning of “free warrior.” ”

“ I will sing to them of fearful heart, be strong and fear not; for the high ones of authority shall be hewn down, and the haughty shall lick the dust like serpents. The proud lords amongst us buy up the dastard hirelings with gold and silver, and they clothe them in their livery! They wear the badge of cruelty and oppression in their hats; but we shall tread them down like the mire in the streets. Our king, too, is in bondage, and heareth not the groans of them that are in fetters!—for he is encompassed by the cold and the cruel—but the cold and the cruel shall be swept away. ”

“ Thou knowest my case and that which hath befallen me with this tyrannical King, and I, Thine oppressed servant, beseech Thee, of the abundance of Thy mercy, to deliver me from the hand of this unjust ruler and send down on him Thy vengeance; for Thou art not unmindful of the unright of every oppressor. Wherefore, if Thou know that he hath wronged me, loose on him Thy vengeance this night and send down on him Thy punishment; for Thy rule is just and Thou art the Helper of every mourner, O Thou to whom belong the power and the glory to the end of time! ”

“ The nobility, who fatten on public calamity, endeavour to plunge him into pleasures, that he may never learn what is his duty. Towns are burned, lands are wasted, temples are plundered, innocent citizens are slaughtered, while the prince is playing at dice, or dancing, or amusing himself with puppets, or hunting, or drinking. O race of the Bruti, long since extinct! O blind and blunted thunderbolts of Jupiter! We know indeed that those corrupters of princes will render account to Heaven, but not easily to us. ”

“ It was considered that everybody must have a superior over him. The villain had his lord, the lord had his over-lord, the over-lord had the king over him. Every one was bound together in a graduated hierarchy of rank. ”

“ But more frequently it happened that the King was the worst man on earth, bare of all virtues, cruel, unjust, even a madman—yet even then he remained the mysterious one who ruled over millions, and his power increased with his misdeeds. All the world hated and cursed him, but he, the one, ruled over those who hated and cursed, and this savage dominion became an enigma, and the dread of man before man was increased by the mystic terror of the unfathomable. ”

“ Creeps slow round the world, till the feet of the throne
Are lapped by the waves that shall seethe and ride
Where the titles are gulfed and the shields overblown.
Our Kings are the same as the Kings of old.
But a Man stands up where there crouched a clown;
The Evil shall die when his hand grows bold,
And the touch of the People is laid on the Crown! ”

“ This tyrant, stained with lust and wine and blood; this robber chieftain who privily in his lurking dens murders the innocent, and ravishes the poor when he getteth him into his net; this slave-hunting king who kills the captives whom he cannot sell; and whose children after him will inevitably imitate his cruelties and his rapine and treacheries—deal with him and his as they deserve. Set an ungodly man to be ruler over him ”

“ Arise, O Satire!—tune thy useful song, Silence grows criminal, when crimes grow strong; Of meaner vice, and villains, sing no more, But Monsters crown'd, and Crime enrobed with Power! At vice's high Imperial throne begin, Relate the ancient prodigies of sin; With pregnant phrase, and strong impartial verse, The crimes of men, and crimes of Kings rehearse! What though thy labour shall to us be vain, And the World's bondage must its time remain; Let willing slaves in golden fetters lie, There's none can save the men who will to die. ”

“ For why, say they, should we apply the name of king, the title of Jupiter the Beneficent, and not rather the title of tyrant, to a man ambitious of sole authority and power, lording it over a degraded multitude? For a tyrant may be as merciful as a king may be oppressive; so that the whole difference to the people is, whether they serve an indulgent master or a cruel one, since serve some one they must. ”

“ Rebel helping royalist, and royalist helping rebel. And always, here and there, down through those ages, the delicate girl standing with her back to a door and her arms outstretched across it, and facing, with flashing eyes, the soldiers of the king or of the church—or entertaining and bluffing them with beautiful lies—to give some poor hunted devil time to hide or escape, though she a daughter of royalists and the church, and he a rebel to his king and a traitor to his creed. ”

“ And as such princes are, I think without exception, oppressors of their people, they must fear those whom they oppress, and depend for their security either upon a nobility or an army, or upon an army only; two sorts of men equally ambitious and insatiable, who will expect to riot upon the spoils of the prince, as he does upon the spoils of the people, and will turn upon him if he disappoint their avarice and pride, nor spare him if he spare his subjects. ”

“ Trace the first Tyrants to their fancied thrones, Placed in that heaven that all their crimes disowns:— If in the Royal lists some monsters reign'd, Abborr'd by heaven, and hated by mankind, By lust and blood exalted to a throne, For all the exquisites of Tyrant known, The meaner name of monarch they despise, Alive, usurp the throne, and dead, the skies; Above the clouds th' incarnate devil stands, And nations worship with polluted hands! ”

“ What plots prepared against her virtue, ay, by splendid soldiers, beautiful young lords, and even clergymen; above all, by one monster whom she had discovered to be, not only a monster, but a traitor to the King, and an agent of the Pretender. She was a young thing then, married to an old lord, all unprotected, on every side beset by flattery. ”

“ A despot’s will is law. In preparing to obey it the masons came upon the wheel. The King, being informed of the discovery, roared like a wounded tiger.
“Burn the thing to ashes!” he thundered, and, on the very word, turned white and mumbled. “Nay,” he said, in a fallen voice, “put it where the arts of Satan may not prevail with it; hide it away in my royal chapel, and the fiend shall be baffled. And look you that none comes near me in the night again to choke me in my shroud.” ”

“ You see how this combination of tyrant and mob succeeded in crushing all the layers of society which lay between them, till there were left only two agencies in all the world—the Emperor on his throne, and the millions fed by his bounty. The hereditary nobility—the safest bulwark of a people and least dangerous support of a throne—were extirpated before the end of the century, and impartiality makes us confess that they fell by their own fault. ”

“ Among those most frank and fearless in the avowal of loyalty, and who suffered the severest penalties, were men of the noblest character and of the highest position. So, also, bearing the same odious title, were men of the most despicable nature, self-seeking and unprincipled, ready for any act of evil. ”

“ With a great crowd of select followers, amongst whom were both the worthy statesmen who had already been there before, he went to the cunning impostors, who were now weaving with all their might, but without fibre or thread.
‘Is it not splendid!’ said both the old statesmen who had already been there. ‘See, your Majesty, what a texture! What colours!’ And then they pointed to the empty loom, for they believed that the others could see the cloth quite well.
‘What!’ thought the Emperor, ‘I can see nothing! This is indeed horrible! Am I stupid? Am I not fit to be Emperor? ”

“ This rather portentous proposition was limited by defining the tyrant to be one who is endeavoring through cupidity, fraud, sorcery, or evil mind to deprive the king of his authority, and the subject or vassal is assumed to be one who is inspired by loyalty, and him the king should cherish and reward. ”

“ THO’ the torments I now suffer for my former tyrannies, are as great as they are just; yet you cursed villains, deserve much greater, for being the promoters of them. You, with your infernal praises, blind the eyes of princes, and hurry them on headlong to their ruin: therefore I charge you with all the ill actions of my reign. I was no sooner seated on my throne, but you so swell’d me with pride, by applauding all my perjuries, oppressions and cruelties, that I believ’d it lawful for our race to be tyrants, from father to son, with impunity. ”

“ From the emperor to the lowest subject in the realm there is a constant succession of prostrations. The former, in want of a human being superior to himself in rank, bows humbly to some pagan idol; and every one of his subjects, from prince to peasant, has some person before whom he is bound to cringe and crouch in the dirt: "that is, religious, political, and social subordination are expressed by the same form of behavior. ”

“ If those who are rulers, having the opportunity to render their subjects happy, neglect their duties, then where is the difference between them and the Prince of the Devils? In worldly matters it is not always mild means which conquer and subdue rude and evil persons, but sometimes stern measures have to be adopted. So when there are law-breakers or evildoers the ruler’s duty is to punish them sternly, putting aside all consideration of pity and sympathy. ”

“ In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. ”

“ But I speak before a prince, who, wiser than the world, and filled with a just indignation against a madness so contrary to the maxims of the gospel, as well as to the interests of the state, hath shown to his subjects what is the true honour, and who, in forcing criminal arms out of their hands, hath marked with lasting infamy those barbarous modes of revenge to which the public error had attached a deplorable glory. ”

“ An arbitrary prince will quickly grow into a tyrant; the uncontrolled dominions of the nobles will as certainly produce oligarchy, or the tyranny of a few; that is, pride, combination, and rapine in the sovereigns, and misery and dejection in the many ”

“ Bend thy back to thy superior, thy overseer of the king’s house, and thy house shall endure because of his (or its) possessions and thy reward shall be in the place thereof. It is evil to show disobedience to a superior. One lives as long as he is gentle. ”

“ They have given themselves a hundred thousand masters, these folks who laugh at monarchies, for example, and scorn the rule of a king, as if it were better to be bullied by a crowd than by an individual. ”

“ Thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people; and what did he get by that, when the wealth of the land and the multitude of the people are the strength and honour of the prince, who never rules so safely, so gloriously, as in the hearts and affections of the people? But tyrants sacrifice their interests to their lusts and passions ”

“ Not the least in conspicuous display was an allegorical representation on a ear of the devil inciting Tyranny, crowned and dressed as a monarch, to acts of cruelty towards a group of cowering wretches in chains, whilst the angel of Liberty was be degrees releasing them from slavery, and the tyrant eventually becomes the prey of the Arch-Fiend. ”

“ And behold now a King himself or say rather Kinghood in his person, is to expire here in cruel tortures;--like a Phalaris shut in the belly of his own red-heated Brazen Bull! It is ever so; and thou shouldst know it, O haughty tyrannous man: injustice breeds injustice: curses and falsehoods do verily return 'always home,' wide as they may wander. ”

“ The flattering talker possesses a power which turned angels into devils, and men into demons—which beguiled pristine innocence and introduced the curse—which has made half the world crazy with self-esteem and self-admiration. A power which has dethroned princes, involved kingdoms, degraded the noble, humbled the great, impoverished the rich, enslaved the free, polluted the pure, robbed the wise man of his wisdom, the strong man of his strength, the good man of his goodness. ”

“ The king, foiled in his attempt to weaken the stanch loyalty of the heroic marquis, who would not swerve one hair‘s-breadth from his conscientious principles, even for the longed-for boon of liberty, determined to wreak his mortified pride by inflicting further cruelties upon the helpless captives, whom, though he could not bribe to dishonor, he might still torture to death. ”

“ Is not your power Already vast enough? If the pale slave Whisper of you, he bends his brow to earth, Lifting in awe his trembling hand toward heaven, And mutters " Those above! " A power so boundless, Why would you make but tyranny? ”