[Previous: lines 426-464]
Joseph narrates. Mary, miraculously impregnated by God, decides to visit her relative Elizabeth, whose barren old-age has been the occasion for a similarly miraculous pregnancy. Now read on!
Haud mora, prodigiis tantis facit ipsa fidem res. [465]------------
Iam diffusa canit Galilaea per oppida fama
inventam (portentum ingens) in montibus altis
nuper anum, quae, suprema iam affecta senecta,
plena viro attulerit sobolis spem, cùm tamen acta
infœcundailli fuerit sterilisque iuventa. [470]
Tum mihi sponsa: ‘Puer cœli demissus ab oris
hoc, inquit, mihi praedixit; nam cuncta recordor.
Haec anus est, haec Elisabe mihi sanguine iuncta,
cui sextum luna gravidae iam circuit orbem.’
Nec plura: extemplo placet ire, et stirpe propinquam [475]
visere anum; gradimurque ambo super alta locorum,
tectaque Zacchariae petimus procul ardua vatis.
Vix primum attigeram limen, (mirabile dictu)
occurrit tremebunda anus, intrantique puellae
optatos dedit amplexus: Deus amplexantem [480]
invasit, subitusque sub ossa repentè cucurrit
ima calor, talesque dedit venerata loquelas:
‘Longè una ante alias tu fortunata parentes,
tuque, uterique tui, virgo sanctissima, pondus:
unde repentè mihi tanta indulgentia cœli? [485]
Unde haec affulsit serae tam clara senectae
tempestas? fas ecce Dei vidisse parentem,
et coram affari lectam de millibus unam,
dignantem has sedes, meaque ultro in tecta profectam.
Nam mihi (vix primùm attigeras haec limina) pectus [490]
emicuit, saliensque utero signum edidit infans.
Felix diva parens, superûm gratissima regi,
sincera spectata fide, quae credere veris,
dum tua nondum animo praesagis gaudia, dictis
haud verita es: promissa manent pueri alitis ecce [495]
certa tibi: iam nunc ades, orbisque aspice casus,
o cœli regina, hominum miserata labores.’
Dixerat: ac teneri qualis rosa plena pudoris,
haud animis elata tumentibus, aurea virgo
cœlicolûm regi laudes laetata canebat: [500]
Quòd se tam prope sidereo aspexisset Olympo
indignam bonus, atque humilem, nil tale merentem;
exultansque suos sibi vaticinatur honores,
promissos atavis priscisque parentibus olim.”
“Straightaway great portents revealed this as truth. [465]------------
Throughout the town of Galilee the news
spread (a great marvel!) that in the high hills
a woman of advanced years, end of her line,
was sprouting a new shoot of hope, a child,
though she had been barren since her youth. [470]
My wife said: ‘the heavenly angel told
me this would happen; I recall it all now.
This old woman, it’s Elizabeth, my blood
relative, and she's now six months pregnant.’
She stopped, but wanted immediately to see [475]
that old woman. We travelled into the hills
to Zacchariah the prophet’s lofty house.
As we stood at the doorstep (amazing to say)
the tottering old woman came forward and
gave my wife a hug: God was in that embrace [480]
and it sent a heavenly fire through her bones
warming them. She spoke these reverent words:
‘You are more blessed by far than other women,
you and the child in your womb, holiest virgin.
Why has heaven granted me such indulgence? [485]
Why such fructifying rainstorms falling on
my old age? Allowed to see the mother of God,
to speak with one chosen from many thousands,
to have her visit my house, sit under my roof?
And, no sooner had you crossed the threshold, I [490]
felt the infant quicken in my womb and move.
Blessed mother of God, pleasing to heaven’s king,
You were found sincere in faith, never doubting
the words of the angel even before you knew
what joy was yours: but the angel’s promises [495]
to you are sure—so now, consider the world’s grief
o queen of heaven, and pity mankind’s woe.’
She spoke: and then like a rose of modesty,
not in the least pride-swollen, the golden virgin
sang hymns of praise to the king of heaven: [500]
How he'd looked down on her from Olympus
despite her unworthiness, deserving no
such reward, and exulting the high honours
that had been promised by her ancestors.”
This is what Christians refer to as ‘the Visitation’: Mary, pregnant with Jesus, calling on Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke [1:39–56] (Vida stays close to that account, here). In Luke's account it's a touching scene, but this, I have to be honest, is not my favourite passage in the Christiad, choked with a bindweed piousness and inflated by a rather by-the-rote ‘enthusiasm’ of tone. The insistence on the characters' superhuman humility and virtue, the way everybody keeps breaking into hymn-singing at a moment's notice, it's all starting to get a touch grating. Indeed, Book 3 has pretty comprehensively run the momentum of the epic into the sand by this point. It’s possible I know that I’m merely missing the beauties of these sections because I’m not cathecting the appropriate Catholic (or more broadly Christian) emotional commitment into my reading. Perhaps so. But quite apart from the flatness of tone here, there’s the larger context. Let’s not forget, all of this is notionally narrated by Joseph—old at the events described, surely frankly decrepit by the time he is telling the story—to Pontius Pilate. At least Coleridge had the common-sense to insert the idea that his Wedding Guest, preternaturally silent and receptive to the Mariner’s immense story, had been put under some kind of spell. What is Pilate doing as Joseph meanders on with this immense retrospective, the intimate ins-and-outs of a bunch of provincial Jews? Fidgeting somewhat I would guess. And we’re only at the halfway point of Book 3! There’s another 500-lines of this to go. Hmph. Harumph!
The image at the head of the post is ‘La Visitation’, by the seventeenth-century French painter Philippe de Champaigne.
[Next: lines 505-540]
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