[Previous: lines 80-122]
John narrates. Adam has sinned and fallen. For two thousand years humanity lives a bestial life. But what of those few who manage to be virtuous? Read on!
“Casti autem interea manes, animaeque piorum,------------
sub terram umbrosa expectabant valle sedentes.
Iam vatum memores numerabant tempora, et ambas [125]
tendebant paribus votis ad sidera palmas,
cœlestum regem orantes, desisteret ira,
parceret unius genus omne extinguere noxâ.
‘Parce, Pater, parce omnipotens,’ vox omnibus una:
‘Nos promisso olim, longè disiungimur unde [130]
luminis expertes blandi, memor assere cœlo:
haud nos eduxti nequicquam lucis ad auras.
Siqua tamen veteris superant vestigia culpae,
dilue rore tuo facilis, fontesque reclude
divinos. O quis superûm cœlestia tandem [135]
flumina, cœlestes nobis bonus irriget imbres?
Vos ô flammiferi labentes aetheris orbes
irrorate: vagae nobis succurrite nubes;
optatam pluviam, felicem effundite rorem.
Tuque adeò, quem iam expectant tot secula votis [140]
promissum, inferni cui nutant mœnia mundi,
summi vera Patris soboles, cœli aureus imber,
rumpe moras age, sidereos rumpe ociùs orbes;
aetheris huc fractis vi multa allabere portis!’
Talibus orabant omnes, eademque canebant.” [145]
“Meanwhile the souls of the chaste and pious------------
sat waiting under the earth, in a shady vale.
Remembering the words of the prophets, they [125]
bided their time, all raising hands in prayer
asking heaven’s king to forego his anger
not destroy the whole race for one man’s sin.
‘Spare, Almighty Father, spare us,’ they cry as one:
‘We are far removed from the promised heaven [130]
cut-off from blessed light—be mindful of us!
Surely we were not brought to the light for nothing.
If a trace of original sin remains
let it be washed from us by high heaven’s
fountains. Oh, may some celestial angel [135]
bedew us with good heavenly waters!
And you, flowing spheres of flaming ether—
irrigate us! Help us, you wandering clouds:
empty your longed-for rain and dew onto us!
You too, many-centuries-awaited one [140]
promised us from above as release from hell
True son of the Father, rain of heaven’s gold,
hurry and come! leave your celestial orbs
glide down the air and force open these gates!’
So they prayed, singing out as if with one voice.” [145]
This is Vida's second trip, imaginatively speaking, to Limbo. The first was all the way back in Book 1; and in that post, linked there, I talked a bit about Vida's fundamentally Augustinian views on Hell. In fact the notion that there must be a bit of hell where dead souls ineligible for heaven but who did nothing wrong (beyond being born with original sin) are not punished, or not punished so severely, goes back a lot further than Augustine. At the end of the 2nd-century Celement of Alexandria wrote:
Did not the same dispensation obtain in Hades, so that even there, all the souls, on hearing the proclamation, might either exhibit repentance, or confess that their punishment was just, because they believed not? And it were the exercise of no ordinary arbitrariness, for those who had departed before the advent of the Lord (not having the Gospel preached to them, and having afforded no ground from themselves, in consequence of believing or not) to obtain either salvation or punishment. For it is not right that these should be condemned without trial, and that those alone who lived after the advent should have the advantage of the divine righteousness. But to all rational souls it was said from above, “Whatever one of you has done in ignorance, without clearly knowing God, if, on becoming conscious, he repent, all his sins will be forgiven him.” [Clement, Stromata 6:6]Head of the post: Jesus in Limbo (1535) by Domenico Beccafumi.
[Next: lines 146-198]
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