Book 2, lines 530-548

[Previous: lines 384-529]

Iam duodena tribus magnae successerat urbi.                 [530]
Ipse etiam, templo ut solitos inferret honores,
munere nec tali tam laeta luce careret,
affatur socios Christus: “Lux sacra propinquat;
omnis se dapibus festâ domus apparat urbe.
Ecquis erit vestrûm, primus qui ad mœnia tendat,          [535]
si quis forte opibus fessos invitet abundans,
nos quoque ut, ante meos obitus ac funus acerbum,
solemnes epulas celebremus et annua sacra?
Nec longè quaerendus: erit puer obvius ultrò
urnam humero lymphasque ferens de fonte recentes:      [540]
quò tendat gressus, aut quò sese ille receptet,
observate, locumque acie capite usque sequendo;
limina vos eadem accipiant, tectumque subite.
Tum dominum affati coram, hospitiumque rogantes
exiguam sacris sedem, nostrum edite nomen.                  [545]
Tectum auratum, ingens, pictisque insigne tapetis,
protinus ostendet: structas ibi ponite mensas:
ipse adero, atque eadem socios ad limina ducam.”

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The twelve tribes had come to the great city.               [530]
Determined to perform the customary rites,
and not omit anything on that holy day,
Christ told his disciples: “The sacred day is near;
every house in the city is readying a feast
Who of you will run off to find, between these           [535]
walls, someone ready to invite the weary we
into their house, before my harsh untimely death,
so we might celebrate the ritual one last time?
It won’t take long: you’ll soon see a young boy
carrying an urn of clear water on his shoulder             [540]
watch where he goes, and see who receives him,
follow him, and make a note of the address;
make yourself known at that house’s threshold.
Ask the owner, beg for his hospitality—
a humble place for our sacred feast. Say my name.      [545]
A room with gilded ceiling and fine tapestries
will be shown to you: lay the meal out there:
Then I myself will come, with my disciples.”

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Finally, after the seeming interminability of Vida's ‘epic catalogue’ of (it seems) all the Jews in the world arriving in Jerusalem, the poem moves the story on. Jesus is now planning the Last Supper. The poem takes most of the detail for this from Luke 22:8-14:

He sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare us the passover, that we may eat. And they said unto him, Where wilt thou that we prepare?

And he said unto them, Behold, when ye are entered into the city, there shall a man meet you, bearing a pitcher of water; follow him into the house where he entereth in. And ye shall say unto the goodman of the house, The Master saith unto thee, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? And he shall shew you a large upper room furnished: there make ready.

And they went, and found as he had said unto them: and they made ready the passover. And when the hour was come, he sat down, and the twelve apostles with him.

Vida expands upon the ‘large upper room’, giving it a golden ceiling and fine tapestries on the walls. At the same time he describes the house as exiguus (that is: paltry, inadequate; I’ve gone with ‘humble’). It’s as if he can’t quite square the need to portray Jesus as a magnificent celestial hero, with all the golden and bejewelled magnificence such a figure merits, and Jesus as a humble carpenter, having one last meal of unleavened bread and bitter herbs in the upstairs room of some shabby rat-and-mouse. It's a larger problematic for the poem as a whole, I think.

At the top of today’s blog is Tiepolo’s ‘Last Supper’ (c. 1760). Clearly not an upper room (those stone pillars mean it must be on the ground floor). Good dog, though.

[Next: lines 549-592]