Book 3, lines 397-425

[Previous: lines 277-396]

Joseph narrates. He is finding it hard to believe that his new wife has been made pregnant by God. Now read on!

“Talia narrabat virgo; simul ora rigabat
laetitia illacrymans: tum tendo ad sidera palmas,
multa orans, animi ambiguus; nec credere quibam
(mens adeô mihi laeva fuit) tam mira ferenti;                [400]
quandoquidem iuvenes plerumque innectere fraudes
virginibus soliti incautis, et fallere furto
ah! faciles dictis aurem prœbere puellas.
Quinetiam hanc volui (scelus) olim linquere demens.
Verùm eadem in somnis pueri redeuntis imago              [405]
visa mihi, vultusque habitusque simillimus illi,
ipsa sibi modô quem memorabat sponsa loquutum.
Nudus erat roseos humeros: tantùm aurea laevo
pendebat demissa chlamys, quam fibula subter
ilia tergemino mordebat rasilis auro;                             [410]
rubraque compactis pendebant cingula bullis;
molles à tergo tractim succrescere plumae,
ac sensim geminas humeris assurgere in alas:
tum suras gemmis inclusit, cœtera nudus.
Oris multus honos, gratique in corpore motus                [415]
haud nostri puerum generis testantur adesse,
sed cœli sobolem, atque aulœ stellantis alumnum.
Nec minùs ipsa etiam mira spectabilis arte
vestis erat, baccis superas illusa per oras.
Textile Maeandro duplici infrà circuit aurum                  [420]
admirabile opus. Tres hic impunè per ignes
laeti ibant pueri intexti, pariterque canebant
cœlicolûm regi conversi ad sidera laudes.
Cernere erat mediis acres fornacibus ignes
parcere corporibus, longeque absistere flammas.”            [425]

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“This was the virgin’s story; tears of joy
rolled down her face. I raised my hand to heaven,
and prayed with an unsure soul; I could hardly
believe (so blinded were my thoughts) what she said.  [400]
After all, young men often use fraud to
seduce incautious virgins, spinning tall tales
to girls—ah!—only too eager to believe such things.
Madly, I even thought (vile!) of leaving her.
But then an image from my dream came back               [405]
to me, an angel, in face and form just like
the one of whom my wife had just spoken.
His rosy shoulders were nude: hanging in gold
was a short robe fixed below with a clasp
and, studded with polished golden bosses,                     [410]
a scarlet belt was fixed about his waist.
Soft feathers sprouted from his shoulders
fanning out into two broad wings. Though his
calves were covered in gemstones his thighs were bare.
The beauty of his face and the grace of                          [415]
his movements showed him to be no normal boy
but a celestial child from the starry halls.
No less splendid was his rich cloak, its upper
fringes embellished with pearls. The textile
was embroidered with a double thread of gold                [420]
finely worked. It portrayed three youths, burning
in fire but unharmed and happy, singing praise
of God and turning their eyes to the stars.
You could see the arcing flames of the furnace
sparing their bodies, hot fire leaping away.”                      [425]

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The three boys depicted on the angel’s cloak are from Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, tossed by Nebuchadnezzar into the fiery furnace where, miraculously, they do not burn:

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire. [Daniel 3:24-26]

Otherwise this vignette is a rather fine, small-scale example of angelology. The semiotics of Renaissance angels is, I discover, after dipping my internet-toe in this morning, a large and lively discipline, and the ranking and construing of angels seems to have reached a particular high point in the late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-centuries. The Annunciation is traditionally seen as Gabriel's job, and Gabriel was an archangel: according to the Pseudo-Dionysian De Coelesti Hierarchia (5th century CE), which had been endorsed by Pope Gregory the Great, there are nine hierarchies of angels, from highest to lowest as follows:

Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones;
Dominations, Virtues, and Powers;
Principalities, Archangels, and Angels.

I haven't been able entirely to unpack the significance of all the details of Vida's angelic habilmentsin this passage, though I don't doubt they are all significant. Most angels from 16th-century art are fully clothed, but Vida goes out of his way to stress naked shoulders and thighs. It's possible (I hazard this, rather than assert it confidently) that the scarlet belt (strictly ruber, ruby-coloured) of line 411 symbolises marital chastity and fidelity. Titian's Amor Sacro e Amor Profano (1514) portrays heavenly Venus wearing a belt of rubies; and according to Beverly Louise Brown ‘Titian’s Heavenly Venus is austerely dressed, her only ornament a ruby-studded belt. Venus’s cestus or girdle was the sign of a chaste and honest marriage ... symbolically the fastening of a belt represented the unification of the couple’ [Brown, Art and Love in Renaissance Italy (Yale University Press), 241].

The image at the head of the post is a detauil from Annunciatory Angel by Fra Angelico (1437–1446).

[Next: lines 426-264]