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| Scaliger insignia on Sirmione Castle |
In sleepless fits of the gout
I wrote two hundred verses in a night
but not for me to commend myself
or to be judged by a distich
lest I make a botch of it
as Dante and Petrarch did.
For fear my tomb might outlast my works
just five words I had incised
Julii Caesaris Scaligeri quod fuit:
Julius Scaliger that was.
