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The poet, by way of epic catalogue, is listing all the different Jewish tribes and peoples coming to Jerusalem for passover.
Protinus hinc subeunt populi Simeone creati,------------
qui Saroen, Molodamque viri, Sicelegidaque oram [385]
felicem frugum, laetosque uligine campos;
qui Sipabota colunt, Asanesque biverticis arces,
Quique Atharin quondam generosos palmite colles,
Remmona qui, cultisque erectam in collibus Aïn;
et quos thurilegae pascunt centum oppida Idumes, [390]
ruraque odoriferas Arabum vergentia ad oras.
Ecce autem Isachari magno clamore nepotes
ingressi delubra petunt, aramque salutant,
gens victu facilis, contentaque finibus arctis.
Hic adsunt, quos Hermonius sub vertice pascit, [395]
Hermonius generator apum, generator equorum:
qui Taburi capita alta tenent; quibus ardua rupes
Carmeli domus: haec rapido gens turbine quondam
sublatum vatem cœli per aperta repentè
vidit flammifero ferri super aethera curru. [400]
Sensena quos misit, quos Hennada, quos alit Affra
nobilis, in summis sitientes rupibus urbes;
qui Senum, et Reboten liquere, Remetiaque arva,
vitibus et variis intersita littora pomis.
At taciti incedunt gens Dani è sanguine creti, [405]
deiectique oculos, dejectique ora per urbem
templa petunt; qualis, cùm frigora prima lacessunt
autumnum, necdum ramis decussit honorem
bruma suum, coluber latebras meditatur, iterque
fert tacitum lapsu repens per saxa quieto, [410]
sibilaque ora premit, neque caudae surrigit orbes.
Iamque viros tristes credas, quòd sanguine ab illo
praedixere ducem fore pleni numine vates,
qui genus humanum Christi sub imagine falsa
terreat, atque hominum vitas et crimina quaerat; [415]
deterior fas atque nefas ubi verterit aetas,
et rebus feret exitium mortalibus ignis.
Protinus at multis aderit cum millibus ultor,
vera Dei soboles, verus datus arbiter orbi.
Illum nequicquam pugnantem et vana moventem [420]
turbine corripiens, terrae ima in viscera trudet.
Insequitur iuvenum nimbus, genus Asere ductum,
spicea queis capita obnubit de more corona
omnibus, et nexae ludunt per tempora aristae.
Hi Betagumque Hormamque serunt; his Aphega sedes: [425]
illos Ama dedit ; illos misere Robaeae:
non numero Arctipus Labanae, non Aziba cessit.
Hos iuxta, seram in noctem soliti urere myrtos
littoreas, ponti gens accola Zabulones
dona ferunt: pars Ieptaphiles ab sede profecti; [430]
pars Iedaba venere; Canam hi liquere modò atra
miratam puras in vina rubescere lymphas.
Hos Nazara tulit, tulit illos ardua Sembros;
quaeque modò aerias iterum venisse sub auras
vidit morte obita puerum, Galileia Naïs, [435]
millia multa tulit, totitemque uberrima Dotha;
atque suis Nalole, Cathetiaque alta relicta est.
At quis Nephtalidum numeraverit oppida et arces
innumeras, quas et Cedar, quas et sacer altis
fert humeris Libanus cœli confinibus aequus? [440]
Qui celsam Nasona habitant, qui Nephtalis urbem,
gens oris fandique potens, fœcundaque veri,
nascentem gemino Jordanem fonte salutat.
Omnis iit Galilaea; omnis Samarea penates
deseruit, studio gens tantùm accita videndi. [445]
Sœpe hac rege satus superûm tellure moratus
sponte Deum se detexit: miracula rerum
asseda nunc etiam meminit, meminere Caperna,
et vetus amisit quae nomen Graia Sebaste.
It Bethole, eductaque ad sidera Bessaïs arce; [450]
et quos piscosis Gennesara proluit undis.
Levigenae verò, sacrum genus, omnibus ibant
immixti, neque enim propria his regio ulla colenda
sorte data est; sed diversas dux legifer olim
huc illuc oras aequè est partitus in omnes; [455]
praefecitque sacros aris, proque ubere glebae
et jugulare dedit pecudes, atque exta cremare.
At non contentus regnis sceptrisque Manasseus,
sortitus quae trans fluvium sibi iunxerat ampla,
Protulit imperium, qua Nepheca, Bersaque surgunt [460]
venatrix, pecorumque altrix et Dora ferarum.
Olli etiam parent Tenachos, nemorosaque Iebla,
et Magedos nulli populis opibusque secunda;
quasque rigat Taphua claris argenteus undis,
ver ubi perpetuum, scatebrisque recentia prata. [465]
Succedunt qui trans Iordanis flumen opima
arva serunt, tribus ipso etiam deducta Manasseo.
Necnon Gade sati, necnon Rubene creati
belligero, fratrum cunctorum maximus aevo
qui fuit, unà omnes urbem ingrediuntur, ut olim [470]
unà etiam sedem optârunt trans flumen eandem,
indigenis quondam regnata gigantibus arva.
Argobiae qui rura colunt, Basanidaque oram,
qui saltus, Galadina, tuos, Ogique subactas
sexaginta urbes, Galaticaque oppida, Iabin, [475]
et Sebamam, Balmenque, Ramotha, Golanque, Nabenque,
Edrenque, Selcamque, et semirutam Cariathen.
Haec tunc nomina, numc alio sunt nomine terrae.
Tum qui cedriferae pascunt asperrima Arimnes,
omnes fronde caput tecti, omnes terga veruti: [480]
qui Bosorim, Rabathenque tenent, qui Gaulida, et omnem
fortibus exercent tauris Bathaltidos oram;
et quos humectat praeceps de montibus Arnos.
Nec vos transierim qui prata feracis Abillae,
quique Eleale, viri, metitis, viridemque Aserota. [485]
Seoniamque Esebon saxis horrentia regna,
desertasque Cades, quas Phasga habet arduus, et quas
hinc atque hinc Hermus praeruptas sustinet urbes;
quas Abaris, cuius nimboso è vertice quondam
pastores admirati videre morantem [490]
Iordanem ingenti subsidere mole coacta
undarum, et cursu cedentia flumina retro,
dum domus Isacidum promissa capesseret arva.
Postremi subeunt advecti è sede propinqua
Benjamidae, data sorte quibus laetissima tellus, [495]
maxima ubi et Solyme totius regia gentis,
altaque Iarephile, Luzaeque binominis arces;
quaeque modô quarta regem iam luce sepultum
Bethane obstupuit revocari ad munera vitae,
et Tarela, et Samare, et lentisciferae Gabaothae [500]
gens infesta feris: ideo exuviasque luporum
induti incedunt iuvenes, canibusque fatigant,
quas sepire plagis iuvat usquè et frangere, sylvas:
atque adeô assiduo venatu manè recentes
convectant humeris praedas; quas, vesper Olympum [505]
claudit ubi, gaudent partiri, epulisque fruuntur,
atque inter sese per agros convivia curant.
Hic adsunt, queis Maspha domus, quibus arduus Hemen,
difficiles colles, ac scabra crepidine terga;
qui liquere Recen, celsasque Berothidos arces, [510]
atque Sylum quondam gaudentem paupere templo;
qui longumque Helephon, Avinque Amosamque Selamque
atque ululata Rhamae passim Rachellidos arva:
qui Gabeone domo, quique Hierichunte profecti.
Indigenas, est fama, viae assiduique meatûs [515]
oblitum vidisse diu considere solem,
imperio ducis, atque diem decedere serum.
Hos inter facie egregia puer altior ibat,
qui prisco genus à Saulo nomenque trahebat.
Iam tum illum vates uno omnes ore canebant [520]
praestanti clarum eloquio factisque futurum.
Quantis ille tamen mentem caligine pressus
in nostros odiis primùm furiisque feretur!
Omnipotens aderit Pater, et se pectore toto
altiùs infundet iuveni, excutietque furorem. [525]
Protinus afflatus divinitus aetheris aura
implebit terras monitis, latumque per orbem
mortales meliora docens ad sacra vocabit,
nec letum horrescet pro relligione cruentum.
Next came Simeon’s people, who dwelt in------------
Sharuhan, Molodah and by Ziklag’s shores [385]
and fields, rich in fruit and vineyards; and also
Sipabota, and by Ashan’s two mountains,
and in Ether, whose hills once boasted palms,
from Remmon, and Ain’s well-cultivated fields;
and here were those from Edom’s hundred towns, [390]
whose fragrant fields border Arabia.
And here: the celebrated sons of Isaac
entered the temple to salute its altars:
a people who lived happily within small borders.
Here came some from Hermus’s tall peaks, [395]
Hermus, breeder of bees, breeder of horses:
others from high Tabor, whose steep cliff is
called Carmel: where once a rising whirlwind
carried a great prophet up into the open sky—
he was seen riding a flaming chariot. [400]
Sansannah had come, Enhaddah, Haphraim
the noble, cities of the thirsty heights;
folk came from Shunem, and Reboth and the fields
of Remeth, fruitful with brightly coloured grapes.
The bloodline of Dan came, walking in silence, [405]
eyes downcast, faces downcast, through the city
to the temple; as when the first chill shivers
autumn, and the summer foliage has yet
to be shaken off by storms, a snake slides
secret and silent, passing through rocks in search [410]
of a lair, unhissing, not shaking its tail.
These men were sad, you can believe, because from
from their bloodline (the prophets foretell) will come
a man in the false image of Christ, who will
terrorise humanity, all lives and crimes [415]
open to him—in a worse age when good and
evil swap places and fires roast the world.
But then an avenger will come, leading thousands,
the true son of God, here to judge the world.
He will fling the other, his plots vain, struggling [420]
and flailing, into the bowels of the earth.
Next came a crowd of young men, Asher’s kin, ears
of corn crowning their heads, as was their custom
and with stalks of wheat braided in their hair.
Some worked the fields of Betan and Ramah; others [425]
came from Aphek, or from Amad and Rehob:
from Lebanese Arctipus and Achib.
Next came those who burn myrtle at night on
the beach, the seafaring tribe of Zebulun
bringing gifts. The sons of Japhtahel came; [430]
as did Idalah; others came from Cana
which had seen limpid water turned into wine.
They came from Nazareth and hard Shimron
under the towering heights of the air:
From Nain in Gallilee, where a boy was brought [435]
back to life, thousands came; as many from fertile
Dothan; and from Nahallal, and high Katteh.
Who can count how many from Naphthali's
many towns and castles? Or Kedar? Or from
Lebanon, as high and holy as heaven itself? [440]
And from Enhzaor, Naphthali citizens,
a folk strong in eloquence and truthfulness
proud that the two-headed Jordan rises there.
All Galilee and Samaria had come
united in their desire to see this man. [445]
Often the son of God had revealed his
divinity in that place: his miracles
were still remembered there, in Capernaum,
and his name was mentioned in Greek Sebaste.
All Bethole came, and star-high Bethsaida; [450]
and Gennesaret, whose waters teem with fish.
The priestly tribe of Levi came, mingling with
the others. For these people only no land
was allotted; instead the Lawgiver
assigned their dwellings to be here and there [455]
maintaining the sacred altars, making
sacrifice of sheep and burning up their entrails.
So: Manasseh, not content with the kingdom
amply given, on both sides of the river,
expanded to take Nepaca and Bersa [460]
and also Dora’s hunting grounds and fields.
Tenaach fell to them too, and woody Iblea,
and Meggido, famed for its people’s wealth;
and Entappuah of the clear silvery streams,
where spring lasts forever and fields evergreen. [465]
Then came those who till the fertile ground beyond
Jordan, a tribe also descended from Manasseh.
Gad’s bloodline came, and Ruben’s warrior race,
once warring brothers, now living in peace
entering the city together, since [470]
settling the land beyond the river together,
territory once ruled over by giants.
Argob’s fields were emptied, and Bashan’s land,
and your ravines Gilead; and Og’s sixty
conquered cities; and warred-down Galatia, Jabesh, [475]
and Shibmah, Baalmeon, Ramoth, Golan, Nebo,
Edar, Salcak, and half-ruined Kirjathaim.
These were your names; now these lands have new ones.
Behind these came the people from harsh Aram,
rich in cedars, crowned with leaves and holding spears; [480]
and from Bezer, Rabath-Ammon, and Golan’s
strong folk whose oxen plough Bethalto’s soil
and drink the Arno’s mountain-fed stream.
Not to forget you, who till Abel’s rich fields,
Elealeh’s brave farmers, or green Ashteroth. [485]
Sionian Heshbon, jagged with rocks, and
deserted Kadesh, and Pisgah’s steep cities
Hermus, whose heights are littered with shattered towns;
or Abaris’ cloud-capped summit, from where
shepherds watched in amazement to see the [490]
slow-flowing Jordan stop, its great waters stilled, and
then its waves turned backwards in their path until
the sons of Isaac possessed their promised fields.
Finally, from their nearby home, came the sons
of Benjamin:—to them was given the finest [495]
land of all, and great Jerusalem’s royal seat,
lofty Japheti, the twice-named fortress Luz,
and the place that saw the king rise on the fourth
day and return to the business of his life: Bethany.
and Taralah, and Zemaraim, Gibea [500]
rich in gumtrees: a predator folk—its
young men came wearing wolf-skins—they exhaust the
woods with their hunting dogs: tearing up trees
fencing with nets. After a fresh day’s hunt
they shoulder their quantities of spoil; as evening [505]
descends from Olympus they share the meat and eat,
filling the fields with their convivial chatter.
Men from Mizpah also came, and steep Hammon,
a land of tiring hills and scabrous mountains;
They came from Rakem, and Beeroth’s tall towers, [510]
and Siloh, with its once-famous small temple;
and Heleph, and Aven, and Mosa, and Selah
and Ramah, still echoing Rachel’s loud grief:
the house of Gibeon came, and Jericho.
These people, it is said, saw the sun forget [515]
its set course across the sky, standing still at
their leader’s command, drawing out the day.
Among them one noble-faced youth walked taller
than the rest: Saul was his name and lineage.
All the prophets sang of him with one voice [520]
destined to achieve great fame in words and deeds.
But, also: how darkness of mind will clutch him,
and he will rage with hatred against our people!
The Almighty Father will appear, infuse
himself in his heart and drive out youthful fury. [525]
Then, inspired by this divine etherial breath
he shall fill all the world with his teachings,
calling mortals to a better form of worship
and, untrembling, greeting death for his religion.
Here, then, is the remainder of Vida's version of the Homeric catalogue of ships: a catalogue of Jews. There’s no getting away from the fact that this is—well, dull. The ‘epic catalogue’ is that one of the standard conventions of epic poetry liable to inflation, and Vida inflates and inflates. There is, I suppose I’d concede, a kind of cumulative heft, an impressionistic sweep of canvas that conveys multitudes, all converging on one place. But the cost, in readerly patience, is very high. What I said in the comments on the previous post holds double for this one:
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.A few notes: line 478, haec tunc nomina, numc alio sunt nomine terrae (‘these were your names; now these lands have new ones’) is basically the same as Aeneid 6:776, haec tum nomina erunt, nunc sunt sine nomine terrae, where Vergil lists a number of Latin towns near to where Rome will be founded, adding ‘these will one day be the names of such, now, nameless places.’ The youth mentioned at the end, Saul of Tarsus who goes on to become Saint Paul (of course), is described as puer altior ibat, a youth standing taller than the rest; which is again from Vergil: Aeneid 8:162 altior ibat Anchises.
There's something interesting going on in the section (lines 405-421) describing the representatives of the Tribe of Dan entering with downcast eyes, because they know that the future Antichrist will spring from their bloodline. The origin of this idea is, it seems, quite complicated. To begin with, the Early Church attempted to bring together Old and New Testament statements concerning the end of the world.
The starting point for much of New Testament and later Christian thought, as well as much Jewish apocalyptic thought in this area, was the book of Daniel, particularly the portrayal of the final wicked ruler of Daniel's fourth kingdom in the visions of chapters 2 and 7, and filled in with details from chapters 8 and 11 which were thought to point beyond the past historical appear ance of Antiochus Epiphanes. Paul (assuming it was indeed Paul) plainly draws upon this tradition in his description of the 'man of lawlessness' in 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-12. The book of Revelation too is indebted to this tradition in its depiction of the beast from the sea (13: 1-9), who embodies in some sense the four kingdoms of Daniel 2 and 4. [C. E. Hill, ‘Antichrist from the Tribe of Dan’, The Journal of Theological Studies 46:1 (1995), 99]The early church read these passages in various ways, but with most assuming the antichrist would be a Roman. It was not until the 2nd-century AD that we get the idea the Antichrist might be Jewish. ‘The first explicit mention of a Jewish Antichrist comes in the writings of Irenaeus, where it occurs already in tandem with the opinion that he will also spring from the tribe of Dan’:
The Antichrist from the tribe of Dan makes his first known appearance in Irenaeus, but it is in Hippolytus that he find his most scrupulous and eloquent biographer. Hippolytus' copious description proceeds on the principle that ‘the deceiver seeks to liken himself in all things to the Son of God’. As Jesus was the lion from the tribe of Judah—referring to Jacob's blessing on Judah in Genesis 49: 9—so Antichrist will be the lion from the tribe of Dan—referring to Moses' blessing on the tribe of Dan in Deut. 33: 22. As Jesus is a king, this Antichrist will also be a king (earthly instead of heavenly); this Lion too will manifest himself as a Lamb (cf. Rev. 13: 11); he will gather the scattered sheep of Israel, as Christ has gathered God's true flock; and as ‘The Saviour raised up and showed his holy flesh like a temple’, so will this one ‘raise a temple of stone (αναστήσει τόν ... ναόν) in Jerusalem’ (all these from On Christ and Antichrist 6). Again, he will raise up (άναστήσειν) the kingdom and nation of the Jews, in order that he may be worshipped by them as God. [Hill, 104]Which is all very interesting, and shines a light on the deep history of Christian anti-semitism, amongst other things. What strikes me about this passage in Vida's poem, though, is the way it hints at a kind of shadow-epic, a project to darkly mirror his own. I wonder how that might have gone.
The image at the head of the post is ‘The twelve tribes of Israel camped around the tabernacle’ by Jan Luyken (1673).
[Next: lines 530-548]
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