Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/188

 lively interest in the youthful Antichrist, and, on the occasion of his birth, was seen and heard fluttering overhead, crowing and chanting in an unmusical voice the Sibyline verses announcing the birth of the Arch-persecutor:—

“Papa pater patrum, Papissæ pandito partum Et tibi tunc eadem de corpora quando recedam!”

which lines, as being perhaps the only ones known to be of diabolic composition, are deserving of preservation.

The Reformers, in order to reconcile dates, were put to the somewhat perplexing necessity of moving Pope Joan to their own times, or else of giving to the youthful Antichrist an age of seven hundred years.

It must be allowed that the accouoliement of a Pope in full pontificals, during a solemn procession, was a prodigy not likely to occur more than once in the world’s history, and was certain to be of momentous import.

It will be seen by the curious woodcut reproduced as frontispiece from Baptista Mantuanus, that he consigned Pope Joan to the jaws of hell, notwithstanding her choice. The verses accompanying this picture are: