Ballade Of Doge Enrico Dandolo And The Fourth Crusade Poem by Gert Strydom

(after W. E. G. Louw)

Being against citizens of his country being detained
at the Byzantine Court as the ambassador of Venice
Enrico Dandolo's eyes was burnt out by emperor Manuel
and later Dandolo becomes the Doge, the ruler of his own country.

Chorus:
Enrico Dandolo:
"My blindness cuts trough my heart like a dagger
and how can I interpret God's will in this?
No human will bring me justice
and I will claim my own ransom
as everything is set on the self and are distorted,
even for the Pope this is but a trivial thing."

For the forth crusade Doge Enrico Dandolo comes to a agreement
to use the ships of Venice to transport the crusaders
and all of the crusaders are together in an enormous army
but they cannot pay him and are drawn into a attack on Byzantium
where as pretence they first do attack the town of Zara,
where after five days it does fall before the assault of the huge army
and the letter of Pope Innocent is in vain and laughed at
while the crusaders do plunder, do destroy and let Greek fire explode.

When Pope Innocent does excommunicate them
Doge Enrico Dandolo takes that great crusader army,
sail with five hundred galleys to the Byzantine Empire over the Bosporus River
with knights, horsemen and horses incited to an attack on Constantinople.
With the lion of Mark that flutters under a baldachin of red silk
the Doge of the Venetian republic at eighty-eight does go to war,
dressed in white while cymbals do keep the rhythm for the oarsmen and he is very happy
that the great attack on his enemy and for huge monetary gain has started

In Constantinople Alexius does believe that the spear and cross,
Jacob's rock and the staff of Moses and the Bosporus that does flow strong,
does protect him and his kingdom as it has for a thousand years,
that angels like a huge wind will come down from heaven,
where mechanical lions do roar in his palace,
where drunk in the arms of whores he does every night lie and twist with pleasure,
where eunuchs do disconcerted look on and where his throne does ascend with a cord
and nobody can depend on his kingly word
but as a human, emperor, Patriarch and immanent God,
Alexius lives as an insult, as a bluff,
where Jesus, the Father and Holy Ghost are being mocked by his way of life
where he has refined lust and perversion to an art,
where churches and images of the saints do usurp each other in the city
as if these people do press Christianity upon others
but as it goes it's only a big game
as many do live like their ruler totally twisted.

Under attack by Greek-fire
the threefold armoured wall of Constantinople does fall
with crusaders dishonouring women and children of both sexes
and do plunder whatever their hearts do desire,
where they do rape the sanctified Sofia,
do murder Christians to accentuate their blood lust
and as if they do mock God and scoff in laughter at Him
they do force a naked whore to sit open legged on the Patriarch's throne
and the blind Doge Enrico Dandolo has got his gigantic booty
that does join with his wealth in Venice and with that of the state
as gemstones, gold and silver, patens, chalices and chandeliers
and the four bronze horses at St Mark's Cathedral in Venice is part of it.

[Reference: "Vierde Kruistog" (Forth Crusade)by W. E. G. Louw.]

© Gert Strydom