saeva indignatio

saeva indignatio [ˈsaɪvə ɪndɪgˈnɑːtɪəʊ] n. phr.

1.) An intense feeling of contemptuous anger at human folly. Originally and in later allusive use with reference to the epitaph of Jonathan Swift (O.E.D. 2nd Ed.).

Etymology: Latin, lit. "savage indignation".

"Swift beating on his breast in sibylline frenzy blind
Because the heart in his blood-sodden breast had dragged him down into mankind,
Goldsmith deliberately sipping at the honey-pot of his mind,
And haughtier-headed Burke that proved the State a tree,
That this unconquerable labyrinth of the birds, century after century,
Cast but dead leaves to mathematical equality;
And God-appointed Berkeley that proved all things a dream,
That this pragmatical, preposterous pig of a world, its farrow that so solid seem,
Must vanish on the instant if the mind but change its theme;
Saeva indignatio and the labourer’s hire,
The strength that gives our blood and state magnanimity of its own desire;
Everything that is not God consumed with intellectual fire" ("Blood and the Moon", William Butler Yeats, 1929).

(De toren van Babel, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1563)