Our faith was strong in th’ Orient It ruled in all of Asia In Moorish lands and Africa But now [since the seventh century] for us these lands are gone… We perish sleeping one and all The wolf has come into the stall And steals the Holy Church’s sheep The while the shepherd lies asleep Four sisters of our Church you find They’re of the patriarchic kind Constantinople, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch But they’ve been forfeited and sacked And soon the head [Rome] will be attacked.39
