Benek Babalon Benek Babalon

The Apology of Caligula

Blood is blood whether it’s shameful or proud

And you best be sure it is parceled and met out

Lest I grow upset

My name is Gaius Augustus Germanicus, Caligula for short

The horned devil who steals for pleasure and murders for sport

It’s your honor to be in my behest

But you should know better

2,000 years and you haven’t learned a thing

It’s about he who dies in poverty and powerless

That poets beatify and sing

Yes I wanted power, every minute and every hour

The only meat never to sour,

But for that you would poke your finger at me?

They say I planned to make a consul of Incitatus

Believe me, I was surrounded by so many murderous bastards

I should have done so more expediently

And I, emperor

You, a mere student, laugh in giddy joy

But I had an empire of millions, all I could’ve wanted

Prey tell, who of us is the man and who’s the boy?

And you compare these paupers to me

Who fly between groups of plebeians so diligently

Not even to me but to this cartoonish effigy

My horse commended far more respect than you or your scrutiny

(An apologia or an apology

apology [Gr.,=defense], literary work that defends, justifies, or clarifies an author's ideas or point of view. Unlike the ordinary use of the word, the literary use neither implies that wrong has been done nor expresses regret)

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