His actis, iam devexum cum vesper Olympum [830]------------
clauderet, egrediens malefida cessit ab urbe.
Tum Genitorem obitus affarier ante propinquos
exoptans, coramque arcanas promere voces,
ignaros socios Taburi ima in valle reliquit:
ipse autem ascensu superans capita ardua montis [835]
constitit, aërea feriunt ubi sidera cedri.
Addiderant comites se tantùm ex omnibus illi
fidus Ioannes cum fratre, Petrusque, vocati.
Stabant orantes taciti, pariterque supinas
tendebant sine voce manus ac lumina cœlo. [840]
Ipse autem his magno Genitorem affatur amore.
“O pater, en, insons nunc dira ad funera pergo
progenies tua, nec tot ferre indigna recuso,
quando certa tibi mens, atque haec fixa voluntas,
et tanti mortale genus: nil demoror, adsum. [845]
Hos saltem, qui me, patriaque suisque relictis,
per varios casus lectissima corda sequuntur,
aspice, et immeritos caecis averte periclis.
Haud vereor, quòd se his homines, gens impia, passim
opponunt: nil facta hominum mortalia terrent. [850]
Ipsi etiam (nihil hoc moveor) moriantur ad unum;
aut potiùs saevo, si vis, tu fulmine perde
correptos igni, et penitus res attere fractas
tu Genitor, tanto finemque impone labori;
si tantae est genus humanum cœlo addere molis, [855]
seclaque mutatis in pristina reddere rebus.
Tantùm oro, (scelus!) inferno summissa barathro
gens, pestem meditata viris, nil improba furtis
officiat, non infando praevertat amore
insidiis captos, nec corda improvida fallat, [860]
dum scelera hortatur, nostrique oblivia suadet.
Iamiam aderunt infandi hostes, armata dolis gens,
Nondum animos satiata, graves nondum ulta dolores.
Has fraudes, jamque has fraudes, artesque movebunt.
Quas non mentiti simulato corpore formas, [865]
ut capiant genus innocuum, vertantque venenis
pestiferis? tu frange dolos, ferque irrita in auras
cuncta, Pater: tandem victis edice quiescant.
Sint, qui per terras gentes post funera nostra
iustitiam erudiant, et relligionis amorem: [870]
hanc veniam concede: id nati cedat amori.”
After these events, and as twilight covered [830]------------
Olympus, he left the faithless city.
Resolving to speak to his father about his
coming death, and talk about certain hidden things,
he left his unwitting band below Mount Tabor:
and climbed to the peak of that difficult [835]
mountain, where lofty cedars jab at the stars.
He left his friends, choosing from among them
just faithful John and his brother, and Peter.
They stood quietly praying, stretching up
their hands and lifting their eyes to heaven. [840]
He himself framed words of love for his parent:
“Father, I go now to a ghastly death:
though I’m your son, I don’t refuse this pain,
since your mind is made up and your will fixed,
and mankind is worthy. No evasion: I’m here. [845]
But these men, these followers of mine,
whose hearts have been true through all adversity,
look to them: protect them from unseen peril.
I don’t worry that all men are impious, or will
oppose them: mortal doings don’t scare me. [850]
for all men (this doesn’t touch me) must die;
or smash them, if you choose, with your dread lightning
burn them up, grind them into little pieces
you yourself, father, can end your great work;
if lifting mankind’s dead-weight into heaven, [855]
restoring their first purity, is too much.
Only, I ask (weak of me!) that hell’s low pit
and its devils, that plague of men, don’t block
humanity, don’t let them pervert their love
snaring them and their still too fallible hearts [860]
urging them to sin and forget my teaching.
This heinous enemy, strong in wiles, will come,
cowardly, hungry with the pains of the grave.
and use these fraudulent practices and arts.
How will they not dissimulate, changing, [865]
as they seek to conquer an innocent race and
poison them? You have the power: scatter these
enemies, Father: compel them all to cease.
If men remain on earth after I have died who
follow the path of justice and love religion: [870]
then: grant this mercy, for the love of your child.”
I’m not sure what Vida means, exactly, by that parenthetical ‘(scelus!’) in line 857. I know what the word means: ‘an evil deed; a wicked, heinous, or impious action; a crime, sin.’ But I’m not sure whether Vida means it as a self-deprecating interjection by Jesus (in reference, perhaps, to his presumption in requesting things of his father) or as a way of characterising the devils of hell. The latter would make sense more broadly of course, but not where the brackets are concerned. Gardner, cannily, omits it entirely from his translation.
Mount Tabor is, traditionally, the site of Jesus’s transfiguration; and that’s where Vida’s epic is going. After this speech we get God’s reply, Christ shining with unearthly light, and that’s the moment on which Book 1 of the Christiad ends. It seems to me that Tabor is an awfully long way from Jerusalem—to which Christ, in the story, immediately returns. The Gospels don't specify the mount, but this is where tradition had decided it must have been—and who am I to deny tradition?
[Next: lines 872-963]
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