[Previously: lines 273-315]
Vos ideo, aligeri cœtus, gens aetheris alti,------------
qui levibus magnum pedibus pulsatis Olympum,
(nam vos saepe polo missi peragrâstis et oram,
et gentis crebri hospitio indulsistis amicae),
este duces mihi, dum tota regione vagantem [320]
raptat amor: longum vos mecum ferre per aevum
nomina, quae cecidere, juvet, deletaque gentis
oppida, et antiquas antiqui nominis arces.
Pôst autem vestra sublatus ad aethera penna
carmine mortales oras visusque relinquam. [325]
Vos me sublimi sistetis tramite vectum
avia per superûm loca: me iuvet alite curru
aurea nubifugo mulcentem sidera cantu
intactas primum ire vias mortalibus aegris,
et petere insolitam cœli alta è rupe coronam. [330]
Haec olim, audentem ni deserat aetheris aura:
nunc mecum populos percurrite templa petentes.
Non alias illuc aditum est majoribus unquam
et numero et studiis; nec tantùm sacra petebant,
quantùm avidos Christi visendi traxerat ardor. [335]
Orti autem à magno primi ingrediuntur Iüda
per multos ductum reges genus: haec tribus usque
et numero et virtute caput super extulit omnes;
tantùm alias superans, quantùm leo cuncta ferarum
semina inexhaustis animis et viribus anteit. [340]
Littorea innumeri Gaza venere, Sabeque,
Engada deseruere, racemiferosque recessus,
urbis Adulaeae sedes, humilemque Raphean.
Hic Lyde, atque Selis, ventosaque Jamnia, et Hippa,
Ascalo, Azotique arces, Acharonque, Sochonque, [345]
quaeque fluentisonis Iope perfunditur undis,
projectae rupes, pontoque minantia saxa.
Parte alia antiquam cives liquere Damascum,
primus ubi (ut perhibent) limo felice creatus
natus homo est, cœlique novas erupit in auras. [350]
Deseriturque Emaüs, Nepseque exhausta silescit,
quaesivitque suos AEgypti proxima regnis
Anthedon, natique Dei cunabula Bethle.
Tum deserta silent et Galgala, Bessuraque omnis,
arvaque, qua Marethon, qua proxima nubibus Erme, [355]
qua Sigoris mirata nurum, dum incendia versa
respicit, humanos servâsse in marmore vultus,
concretique salis subitum traxisse rigorem,
qua calet Asphaltis flammis infamibus unda,
ingentesque palus ad cœlum exaestuat aestus, [360]
aera contristans graveolenti sulfuris aura.
Quondam hic laeta seges, riguisque rosaria campis:
nunc stat ager dumis, obductaque sentibus arva,
crimen, amor malesuade, tuum: vim tendere adorti
infandam indigenae pueris cœlestibus olim [365]
divina capti facie, et florentibus annis;
fecissentque, fuga nisi se illi ad sidera lapsi
remigio nixos rapuissent praepetis alae.
Non tulit altitonans Pater: atque ultricibus omnem
involvit flammis tractum, immersitque profundo: [370]
squalet adhuc cinere et putri latè ora favilla,
infoecunda ideo terra, et sine frugibus agri,
difficilesque aditus, et inaccessi secessus.
Illic, ut fama est, nitidum florem educat arbos,
quem cupiunt juvenes, cupiunt decerpse puellae: [375]
at simul atque gravi perflante evanuit austro,
succedunt poma hirsutis asperrima barbis,
quae nulli juvenes, nullae cupiere puellae.
Haec tamen aspectu solida et sincera putares;
fœda sed illuvies intus, subitoque fatiscunt [380]
ad tactum cinefacta, hominum nihil usibus apta.
Pallida item flavis cùm vix seges albet aristis,
dira immaturas messes interficit aura.
You, winged congregation, race of high heaven,------------
who tread great Olympus with so light a step,
—you who often descend to travel these shores,
tasting the kind hospitality of friends—
lead me now, as I wander those regions [320]
seized by love: help me tell to distant ages
the names of these vanished tribes and races, their
fallen towns, antique cities of ancient fame.
And here, lifted to the ether on your wings,
my song leaves mortal lands and sights below. [325]
You!—take me along that sublime high path
of divine remoteness: sky-chariot, raise
my cloud-dispelling song to the gold-bright stars!
I’ll walk ways untrodden by plodding mortals,
through air, to claim a crown hitherto unclaimed. [330]
This is my hope, should heaven’s breath inspire me.
So: help me name all who came to the temple.
Never before had the city seen a crowd
so huge or eager: but they came less for
sacred rites and more in eagerness for Christ. [335]
First came those from the famous tribe of Juda
a bloodline rich in kings: this was a tribe
that, in size and strength, surpassed all others;
much as a lion surpasses other beasts in
inexhaustible courage and lasting force. [340]
Many came from Sheba, and from Gaza’s shores,
They left Engedi’s rich vineyards behind,
and Adullam City, lowly Raphaim.
From Lydda, Shilhim, windy Jabneel, Hippa,
Ascalon, Ekron, Acharon’s cliffs, Socoh, [345]
they came, and from well-watered Joppa whose
wave-lashed cliffs and bluffs menace the sea.
Many departed from ancient Damascus,
where (so it is said) man was first created
from fertile soil, springing up at heaven’s breath. [350]
Emaus was deserted; Nibshan stood silent,
Egypt gave up its citizens out of
Anthedon, and Bethlehem, God’s own cradle.
Empty Gilgal fell silent, and Bethsura’s
fields, and Maarath, and Hermon nigh the clouds, [355]
and Zoar—where once the wife, amazed, looked back
at the burning city, and lost her human
form in a statue shaped from the hardest salt;
and that land of Asphalt, where infamous flames
continually burn, and swamps fill the sky, [360]
belching gloomy clouds of fetid sulphur.
Once fertile, roses blooming in its meadows
now this place is all briar; thistle-clogged ground:—
your crime, your poisonous ‘love’ caused this; these
people tried to violate heaven’s angels [365]
enraptured by their divine beauty and youth:—
and would have done it, too, except the angels
slipped away, starward on their oaring wings.
The high-thundering Father was angry, and
scorched the land with lasting flame, drowned it deep: [370]
leaving it a place of reeking, crumbling ash,
barren to this day, its fields dry and waste,
difficult to enter, its paths hidden and steep.
According to legend a fruit tree blooms
here, desired by young boys and girls alike: [375]
until the South Wind blows, and its fruit changes
into a thorn-apple bristling with hairs
that neither young men nor girls could desire.
On the surface it looks good and solid;
but it is fetid inside, and breaks into [380]
ash when touched, quite useless to mankind.
No sooner has this pallid crop bloomed golden
than the winds blast its immature harvest.
With this passage, Vida begins his lengthy (lines 332-529) ‘catalogue of the ships’, repurposing the Iliad’s itinerary of Achaean naval forces and nations into an account of the many varieties of Jew converging on Jerusalem for Passover. We get a bit of actual cataloguing, and then an excursus on the fate of Lot’s wife (lines 356-8) and pendant account of the celebrated dead sea fruit. This latter is another place where Milton reworked Vida's Latin for Paradise Lost. The giveaway is his
The Frutage fair to sight, like that which grewMilton's ‘bituminous’ is a fair rendering of Vida's striking, even strange, characterisation of the cities of the plain as ‘asphalt’ (Asphaltis, line 359), and Milton's whole line, ‘that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd’ is (except for specifically naming Sodom, which this poem doesn't do) pretty close to the Vida's qua calet Asphaltis flammis infamibus unda.
Neer that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceav'd; they fondly thinking to allay
Thir appetite with gust, instead of Fruit
Chewd bitter Ashes, which th' offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: [Paradise Lost 10:520–527]
The ‘epic catalogue’ is part of the kit-and-caboodle of epic poetry, of course; although I’ve never been entirely sure I understand why. I can sort-of see how such lists pander to the audiences of Homeric epic: if you’re from Athens or Corinth or whatever, hearing the rhapsode singing the heroic story of how Greeks (like you!) went to war in Asia Minor, then I can see you’re liable to hear such a list with mounting excitement: ‘there’s the Boeotians! and the Minyans! and the Locrians—Alexis has a cousin who’s a Locrian. Any minute now Homer will mention my city! so exciting!’ and so on. But once the list becomes merely one of the things one does in an epic poem, it loses this specificity. Nobody, surely, reads through Milton's epic catalogue of devils, waiting for their favourite, home-town devil to be mentioned. And in the case of Vida's epic catalogue of Jewish towns and tribes, the most noticeable thing is just how prolonged and, frankly, interminable it all is. And I tell you what: we've barely got started on this one. You wait til tomorrow. It gets much longer.
[Next: lines 384-529]
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