[Previous: lines 671-700]
The Last Supper is almost at an end. Jesus has revealed that one of the disciples will betray him. Now read on!
Extemplo turbati omnes, gemitumque dedere,------------
suspensi, quem caecum adeò, furiisque subactum
ore premens signet venturi praescius heros.
Quem senior tali aggreditur sermone precando:
“O cœli decus, in quemquam tam immane putandum est [705]
posse scelus cadere? quisnam fœdissimus ille?
Faxo hodie nunquam nobis illudat inultis.
Non adeò effugit cum sanguine vivida virtus
pulsa annis, nec dextra mihi tam frigida languet.”
Sic ait; et pariter vagina liberat ensem. [710]
Dux autem signis manifestis prodidit hostem;
sed cunctis mentem eripuit, voluitque latere,
donec res perfecta: dehinc haec edidit ore:
“Immo omni ex numero mihi nemo hac nocte suprema
vestrûm non infidus erit; solusque relinquar. [715]
Tu quoque, magnanimo cui nunc ea copia fandi
sub tecto, atque amplis tendis super aethera dictis,
omnes irritans ventos omnesque procellas,
hinc atque hinc circumfusos ubi videris hostes,
me capto, quaeres latebras, iaciesque salutem [720]
mendaci in lingua pedibusque fugacibus acer.
Atque ubi curriculo mediam nox humida metam
attigerit, ter me tibi notum ille ipse negabis
futilis; incutietque metus tibi fœmina inermis.”
Dixerat: ille animi robur magis usque magisque [725]
spondebat, turpique metu impenetrabile pectus.
“Fœda alios servet fuga : nec tu me antè timoris
argue quàm terga urgenti dare videris hosti:
quò te cunque feres, adero; sequar ultima tecum:
nulla tuis poterit me vis abiungere rebus.” [730]
Everyone was agitated by this, all------------
muttering, unsure who could be so blind,
who this prescience could possibly mean.
Then the senior disciple addressed him:
“Pride of heaven! Could such a monstrous crime [705]
really happen? Who could be so filthy!
Well: this day won’t slip past my defences.
Blood and courage beats vividly in my veins
old though I am: my right hand is not cold
or tired.” He spoke, and unsheathed his sword. [710]
But though the leader clearly signalled who the
enemy was, he also veiled their minds
until the deed was done: and so he said:
“On the contrary, there’s not a one of you
but will betray me; I will be abandoned. [715]
Even you, who speak so magnaminously
under this roof, vaunting your words to the skies
loud enough to provoke all the storm-winds,
a time will come when you’ll see me surrounded
by enemies, and will run off and hide [720]
dissembling, fleeing as fast as you can.
Before that humid night is halfway through
three times you’ll deny that you know me, in vain,
and a harmless girl will strike fear in your heart.”
He spoke: but the other insisted his was [725]
a heart impervious to shameful fear.
“Others might basely flee: don’t call me coward
until you see me turn my back on your enemies:
wherever you go, I’ll follow, even to death:
no force can tear me from your service.” [730]
Jesus’s prophecy of Peter’s triple denial is mentioned by all the evangelists, but, as Gardner notes, Vida follows the chronology of John’s account (in which it happens before they leave the city):
Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice. [John 13:37-38]John doesn’t record Peter’s reply, so for that Vida goes to Mark 14:31: ‘But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all.’
What's neat, here, is that Vida is, in a small way, here addressing the problematic of the heroic idiom of epic for a story like this. Here's Peter's boast (empty, as we know it proves) in lines 708-9:
Non adeò effugit cum sanguine vivida virtusThis plays with one of the more famous lines in the Aeneid: where the cowardly Drances, goaded by taunts, argues with Turnus before battle. Vergil describes Drances as lingua melior, sed frigida bello dextera, excellent at speaking but with a right-hand frigid when it came to war [Aeneid 11: 338-9]. Peter reverses this, but he's not fooling anyone. The problem is not that Peter is a vacuous Drances-type, but rather a more meta-observation: the Christiad is not a poem of war in the way the Aeneid is. It's a small but meaningful gesture towards the incompatibility of this text to its mode.
pulsa annis, nec dextra mihi tam frigida languet.”
“Though I am weighed down with years, courage has not departed from my blood; my right-hand is not so frigid or weary.”
The image at the top is Marco Zoppo's Saint Peter (c. 1468).
[Next: lines 731-764]
No comments:
Post a Comment