How sad the state of war, the evil fate of things!

How suddenly a great kingdom falls!

The carved peaks which long stood happily

Lie in ashes, laid low by catastrophe.

The palace hall where culture flourished

Covered sadly, instead of a roof, with ashes.

Heights once adorned with shining metal

Crushed beneath pale glowing embers,

Put in the power of an enemy lord,

Fallen from glory to the lowest depths.

Servants who stood in a shining crowd

All are now funereal ashes.

The bright crown of powerful ministers

Receives no burial honors.

Flame triumphs in glowing golden streams.

The milk-white aunt lies alone in the dirt.

Ah, the bodies of the dead, shamefully unburied on the plain,

Thus a whole people lies in a common grave.

Not only the ruins of Troy are mourned;

The land of Thuringia too suffered and saw slaughter.

Torn away by her hair, the matron, her clothes rent,

Cannot say a sad farewell to the household gods.

The captive cannot kiss the doorpost

Nor look back at lost places.

The wife’s naked feet steeped in blood;

The sister steps over her fallen brother...

from “The Fall of Thuringia” - Radegund/Fortunatus

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