Jesus and his disciples are in the temple at Jerusalem. Christ has just predicted the downfall of the city; now he and his followers will examine a series of representations of the history of the world.
Sic fatus, monstrat miras in marmore formas,------------
argumentum ingens, senûm monimenta dierum,
magna quibus magni compacta est machina mundi;
et veterum eventus, et prisca ex ordine avorum [585]
facta, haud humanis opus enarrabile verbis.
Non illic hominum effigies, simulacrave divûm,
arcanis sed cuncta notis signisque notavit
obscuris manus artificis, non hactenus ulli
cognita; non potuere ipsi deprendere vates. [590]
Saying this, he pointed to the fine temple art------------
sculpted marble, showing those great six days,
in which the great world machine was created,
and ancient events, and the great patriarchs’ [585]
deeds, things that human words can scarcely express.
Not mere effigies or men, or simulacra of gods,
they had been set down with arcane notation
obscurely, by the artist’s own hands, and to
this day undeciphered by man or priests. [590]
Another linking passage, this: a prelude to a lengthy ekphrasis (lines 591-724) describing, via these supposed sculptures, or perhaps bas reliefs (‘bases relief’?), everything from the beginning of time to the epoch of Moses: God looking down on the shapeless mass and creating light, matter and everything (hard to picture this rendered in sculpture, but there you go); Adam in the garden, the virtuous dead waiting in Limbo, Noah’s flood and Moses the lawgiver. Achilles and Aeneas had shields; Christ has a temple. Fitting, really.
[Next: lines 591-643]
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