Poem against Cadalus
Lokrantz describes the meter in this manner: stanzas of three lines of fifteen syllables with a caesura after the octave, with a proparoxytone cadence in the middle and end of the line.
Peter Damian wrote several poems railing against this anti-Pope, especially that of Epigram 37. Cadalus was Bishop of Parma and anti-Pope from 1061 to 1072 as Honorius II. He was appointed and supported by those opposed to the reform movement led by Hildebrand (later Pope Gregory VII) and Peter Damian. Cadalus himself was accused of simony. The anti-reformers had managed to win over the Empress Agnes, widow of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry III and regent for her son Henry IV. This was just one of many fascinating machinations in the struggle between Empire and Papacy which would continue for centuries in such divisions as the Guelphs and Ghibbelines.
1.
Heu sedes apostolica, orbis olim gloria,
Nunc pro dolor efficeris officina Simonis;
Terunt incudem mallei, nummi sunt Tartarei.
Alas the apostolic chair, once the glory of the world,
Now through pain you have made it the workshop of Simon;
Hammers wear away the anvil, they are the money of hell.
2.
Iusto Dei iudicio fit ista condicio,
Ut quisquis apostolicam sedem semel comparat,
Redimere non desinat, [donec male pereat.
By the just judgement of God that awful condition of life happens,
So that whoever purchases once the apostolic chair,
Does not cease paying for it, until he dies badly.
3.
Cathedram pestilentiae pressus anathemata
Tenet cum sacerdotibus Christi peremptoribus;
Fit sibi terra ferrea, caeli sedes aenea.
Have been assaulted with anathema
He holds the pestilential seat with priest murderers of Christ;
The earth becomes to him hard as iron, the seat of heaven as bronze.
