The Hesperides & Noble Numbers/Hesperides/Duty to Tyrants

97. DUTY TO TYRANTS.

Good princes must be pray'd for; for the bad
They must be borne with, and in rev'rence had.
Do they first pill thee, next pluck off thy skin?
Good children kiss the rods that punish sin.
Touch not the tyrant; let the gods alone
To strike him dead that but usurps a throne.

Pill, plunder.