[Previous: lines 369-400]
Christ, having been scourged, must now carry his cross to the place of crucifixion.
Tum vero Solymi victores cuncta parare------------
supplicia, atque omnes poenarum exquirere formas,
perferat ut saevos crudeli morte dolores.
Iamque illum erecto properant distendere ligno
affixum, et lenta paulatim perdere morte. [405]
Nec mora, diffindunt malos. Sonat acta securis,
altaque quadrifidis fabricatur roboribus crux,
tormenti genus. Hac olim scelera impia reges
urgebant poena, sontesque hac morte necabant,
difficiles miserorum obitus, longique dolores. [410]
Tum neque honos erat, infami neque gloria trunco.
at nunc numen habet sanctum, et venerabile liguum
suppliciter cuncti colimus, sacrisque minores
argento, atque auro contectum imponimus aris,
et laetum ex illo memores celebramus honorem. [415]
Illa etiam caelo fulgebit lampadis instar
aethereae , et totum lustrabit lumine mundum,
cum dabit exitio una dies animalia cuncta,
interitumque feret rebus mortalibus ignis .
Vix terris lux alma aderat, cum iam undique tota [420]
urbe ruit studio visendi accita iuventus,
implenturque viae, concursuque omnia fervent.
Et iam purpureos habitus insignia ludicra
exutum, vinctumque manus clamore trahebant
dirum ad supplicium magna sectante caterva. [425]
Per medios longis raptatus funibus ibat
semianimisque, artusque tremens, plagisque cruentus
nocturnis, humeroque trabem duplicem ipse gerebat
praecisis gravidam nodis, ac robore iniquo,
qua super infando mortales linqueret auras [430]
supplicio, et duros finitet morte labores.
The victorious Jerusalemites readied------------
all manner of penal torment for him
so he'd suffer the sharpest pains of cruel death.
Quickly they split a length of timber to build
a cross, to take his tough life little by little: [405]
swiftly cutting the apple-wood. The axe rang
as the tall timber was shaped to a fourfold cross—
an engine of torture. Kings had long punished
the guilty with this murderous agony,
a lingering and a most shameful death. [410]
Back then, the cross meant not honour, nor glory;
though now that holy wood has sacred power!
Those of us born later humbly adore it,
dress it with silver and gold upon our altars,
and, remembering, gladly celebrate it. [415]
And it will shine in heaven like a lamp
illuminating the entire bright world
on that day when all life will be destroyed
and fire will consume all mortality.
Scarcely did such light shine on the land now. [420]
Young men rushed from the city, eager to see,
filling the roads with loud commotion.
And now, laughingly, the purple robe was
torn off; with loud yells they tied his hands,
dragged him to that dire place, followed by a crowd. [425]
He was hauled there by long ropes, only half
conscious, limbs trembling, wounds still bleeding from
the night before: shoulders bore the doubled-beam,
though his strength was unequal to its gnarled weight:
on this he was to breath his last mortal breath [430]
ending these punitive labours with his death.
That the cross was made from apple-wood (line 406, mālus; there is a venerable theological pun here on the similar-sounding Latin word malus, evil, wickedness—but here, since the metre requires a long a, the poem can only be specifying fruit-tree planks, not evil timber) is not Vida’s invention. It is, however, a merely theological detail, in the sense that apple is an impracticable kind of timber from which to make a cross big enough to carry a full-grown man, and uncommon in the Holy Land. Just as the fruit-tree of forbidden knowledge was the occasion for mankind’s painful fall, so this painful ritual upon the wood of a different but equivalent tree will redeem us. That there is something inherently suspicious and banalising, unworthy of the sort of God otherwise manifest in the cosmos, in such trivial harmonies has not, it seems, occurred to theologians.
The image at the head of this post is by Vida's contemporary, Sebastiano del Piombo (c.1515).
[Next: lines 432-480]
No comments:
Post a Comment