Book 2, lines 731-764

[Previous: lines 701-730]

The Last Supper is over. Jesus leads his disciples, at night, to the Garden of Gethsemane.

His Deus exactis mensas urbemque reliquit,
et se cum sociis pura sub nocte virentes
transtulit in colles olea, et loca sola petivit;
atque omnes secum jussit vigilare: sed illi
assiduis noctisque dieque laboribus hausti                [735]
haud poterant invictum oculis defendere somnum;
et gelidi in summo recubantes aequore saxi,
infusum toto proflabant ore soporem.
Interea curis confectus tristibus heros,
cœlesti velut oblitus se semine cretum,                      [740]
indignos animo eventus, indigna labanti
supplicia, atque genus leti versabat acerbum;
horrebatque. Id enim matris de corpore traxit,
ut quaecunque hominum mortalia pectora terrent,
ipse etiam haec eadem mortali corde paveret.            [745]
Mens immota tamen, virtusque invicta manebat.
Ergo iterum atque iterum Genitorem affatus, et ambas
ad cœlum tendens palmas, hac voce rogabat:
“Omnipotens talin Pater ô me funere obire?
Mene aliena malis tantis commissa piare?                    [750]
Eripe me informi leto, et tua flecte severa
consilia in melius, durosque averte dolores.
Si tamen id fixum sedet, atque haec certa tibi mens,
nec generi humano nati nisi morte sequestra
placaris, non fas orbis me deesse saluti.                     [755]
Ibo ultro: crimen generis commune refellam.”
Dixerat, atque graves curas sub corde premebat,
multa agitans. Toto simulibat corpore sudor
proruptus, simul et sanguis, vel sanguinis instar.
Ecce autem, effulgens subitò dilapsus ab axe              [760]
stelligero pictis iuxtà puer astitit alis,
dicta ferens Patris, in tanto solatia rerum
turbine, mulcebatque aegrum, curasque levabat,
abstergens toto fluidum de corpore rorem.

------------

With that God rose from table and left the city:
under clear night skies he and his disciples
found a secluded olive-grove in the green hills;
He commanded them all to keep watch; but they
were so exhausted by the day's business                         [735]
that they could not keep sleep away from their eyes;
so they lay down on the cool rock surface
and were infused by all-conquering slumber.
The hero, though, was consumed by sharp sorrows.
As if oblivious to his divine birth,                                   [740]
unworthy thoughts temped him, as his unworthy
fate, and the harshness of coming death, filled him
with dread. From his mother he’d inherited
a mortal body, and in his mortal heart
he feared all the things that frighten mortal men.          [745]
Yet his mind was strong and his virtue matchless.
Again and again he called to his Father
raising his hands to heaven, crying out:
“Omnipotent Father, must I suffer this fate?
Must my suffering expiate others’ sin?                          [750]
Save me from hideous death, change your harsh
counsel to something better, avert this fate!
But if it is fixed, and your will is certain
that only your son’s death can redeem mankind,
and placate you, I will not be found wanting.                [755]
I will go. I will undo man’s common sin.”
He spoke, and mastered his agitated heart
Suddenly his whole body broke out in
sweat—blood, or something like blood, covered him.
At this a brightness came down from the pole star       [760]
a beautiful boy with many-coloured wings
bringing the Father’s consoling words, settling
beside him, calming his churning mind, and
wiping away the fluid from his whole body.

------------

The story of Christ’s agony in the garden of Gethsemane derives from Matthew 26:36-46, Mark 14:26-42 and Luke 22:39-46. Here’s the latter:

And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

This weird blood-sweat, and the consoling angel, are neither of them mentioned in Matthew or Mark, but there they are, at the end of Luke's account. What can it mean? Vida literalises Luke’s “he was sweating so much it was as if he were bleeding” (in this, he follows medieval tradition) and swaps about the order, so that the angel comes after the weird blood-sweat, specifically to wipe it away. The interpretive traditions identify this ‘blood sweat’ as hematidrosis and reason that Luke goes out of his way to mention it because Luke was a doctor and unusual medical conditions interested him, which seems a stretch.

The detail of the consoling angel dropping down specifically from the pole star is not Biblical however; it is, rather, out of pagan Rome, one of whose founding myths was that a divine shield, an ancile, fell from the pole-star down into the young city as a pledge from Jupiter that Rome’s destiny was to rule the world. Vida’s ‘dilapsus ab axe’ perhaps glances at Ovid’s account of this myth: ‘et gravis aetherio venit ab axe fragor’ [Fasti 3:368], the shield falling out of the pole star with a crash heavy enough to fracture the sky. Gardner notes several Vergillian lifts too: line 756's crimen generis commune refellam, ‘I will undo the common sin of mankind’, quotes Turnus who, seeing his nation shamefully defeated in war, notches up his own individual courage and faces the Trojan army alone, ready to die et solus ferro crimen commune refellam, ‘and with my single sword undo the common sin of my people’ [Aeneid 12:16].

And Jesus's struggle to smother the pain deep in his heart in line 757, atque graves curas sub corde premebat, mimics Aeneas's smothering the pain he feels at abandoning Dido: et obnixus curam sub corde premebat [Aeneid 4:332]. There are several more such verbal echoes in this passage, but this Aeneas-Dido one is pretty striking, I think. There aren't many critics prepared to defend Aeneas's shoddy behaviour here: seducing Dido and then abandoning her; and the whole ‘this break-up pains me just as much as it does you my dear, it's just that I'm keeping a manly lid on my feelings’ is perfectly unconvincing. But repurposing that for this moment, when Jesus struggles with the divine commandment that he put himself voluntarily forward for a painful and humiliating death, strikes a weird intertextual tone. In what way are those two things comparable, really?

The image at the top of the post is Andrea Mantegna's ‘Agony in the Garden’ (c. 1460).

[Next: lines 765-796]