[Previous: lines 589-615]
The angels have armed themselves ready to invade the world and prevent the crucifixion.
Pugnae igitur superi admoniti, veterisque trophaei,------------
aetheris ardebant fractis erumpere portis.
Iamque adeô evâssent omnes, terrisque potiti
sontem incendissent oram; jamque urbibus igni
correptis, Judaea nocens, commissa luisses; [620]
ni Pater altitonans stellanti nixus Olympo
(motus enim tanto subitò flagrante tumultu)
cœpta redargueret, verbisque inhiberet acerbis
bellum importunum, cunctis haud mollia mandans.
Nam circumspiciens, sibi centum astare ministras, [625]
virgineas volucrum humana sub imagine formas,
hinc atque hinc videt, et nutum observare paratas:
Quarum quae placido mitis Clementia vultu est,
eligitur numero ex omni, cui talia mandet:
“Vade,” ait, “et volucri per cœlum labere curru: [630]
Fratribus haec fer dicta tuis: non aetheris illis,
non illis vasti commissas orbis habenas;
ut ferro injussas meditantes edere pugnas
omne ausint miscere meo sine numine cœlum
terramque, et tantos animis accendere motus: [635]
Considant, positisque adsint huc ociùs armis.”
Dixerat: illa viam raptam secat alite curru,
et Patris ingentes passim denuntiat iras,
ni redeant, positisque quiescant protinus armis.
Addunt se comites Pietas, Paxque aurea; it unà [640]
Spesque, Fidesque, piique parens placidissima Amoris:
Omnibus in manibus rami canentis olivae;
Quaque egere viam, videas procul ilicet arma
proiicere, et studiis cunctos mitescere versis.
Iamque in conspectu positis exercitus armis [645]
regis adest: dicto parentes, sede locârunt
ordine sese quisque sua, pariterque quiêrunt.
Reminded of former fame by these trophies------------
the angels yearned to burst through heaven’s gates.
Even now they would have invaded mortal lands
lighting-up those coasts and burning those cities,
seizing Judea, making it pay for its crimes. [620]
But the far-thundering Olympian Father
(moved by so sudden and large a tumult)
checked this new uprising with sharp words,
this importunate war, in no uncertain terms.
Looking around, he saw hundreds of envoys [625]
who took the shape of virginal bird-women
on every side ready to obey his commands.
He chose calm and placid-faced Clementia
from all their number, giving her this command:
“Go,” he said, “glide through the sky in a chariot: [630]
Say this to your brethren: the ether’s not theirs.
Nor are they vouchsafed the reins of the world
to plot unbidden the steel of battle
and throw all heaven into turmoil, and earth,
creating chaos without my permission. [635]
They must stand-down, drop their weapons and come here.”
He spoke. Swiftly she left in her sky-car
to spread the word of the Father’s growing rage—
unless they returned and lay down their arms.
Piety and golden-haired Peace went with her. [640]
Hope and Faith went too, parents of pious Love.
Each carried an olive branch in their hand.
Wherever they went you could see troops dropping
their weapons, growing calm, their zeal reversed.
And once they had surrendered all their arms [645]
they came as the king commanded: seating
themselves in proper order, silently.
Line 619’s incendissent (from incendō: ‘I set on fire, burn scorch’; ‘I make bright or shining, light up, brighten’; ‘I ruin, destroy, lay waste’) might be poorly served by my ‘lighting up’; but that’s what artillery officers say, as I understand it, when giving the order to fire, and that's more-or-less appropriate here, I think.
At line 625 Vida says that God, looking about him, saw on every side a hundred ministri, where minister means ‘attendant, servant, waiter agent, aide’ and sometimes (but obviously not here) ‘accomplice’: I’ve gone with ‘envoys’, since a prime meaning of the word angel is ‘messenger’. Then there’s line 626. We're told that these envoy angels take the form of virgineas volucrum humana, where volucris = ‘bird’, humana is human and virgineas is indeed the accusative feminine plural of virgineus. So human female virgins/birds. Lines 640-1, briefly (very briefly) introduces the poem’s second moment of personified allegory—a topic on which I blogged here. The main bird-woman-virgin-angel is somwhere between allegory and something else. On the one hand she is Clementia (line 628), the allegorical personification of Clemency, Mercy, who, bringing with her Piety, Peace, Hope and Faith, not to mention Love, defuses the belligerent fury that leads to war. Fair enough. But on the other she is the Roman pagan goddess Clementia, to whom temples were dedicated in Rome. Here's a first-century statue of her, presently in the Museo Chiaramonti:
As a goddess she has particular Caesarian associations:
In Roman mythology, Clementia was the goddess of clemency, leniency, mercy, forgiveness, penance, redemption, absolution and salvation. She was defined as a celebrated virtue of Julius Caesar, who was famed for his forbearance, especially following Caesar's civil war with Pompey from 49 BC. In 44 BC, a temple was consecrated to her by the Roman Senate, possibly at Caesar's instigation as Caesar was keen to demonstrate that he had this virtue.... There is not much information surrounding Clementia's cult; it would seem that she was merely an abstraction of a particular virtue, one that was revered in conjunction with revering Caesar and the Roman state. Clementia was seen as a good trait within a leader (in addition to meaning “clemency” this is the Latin word for “humanity” or “forbearance”, a quality opposed to Saevitia , savagery and bloodshed). In traditional imagery, she is depicted holding an olive tree branch.She was the Roman counterpart of Eleos, the Greek goddess of mercy and forgiveness who had a shrine in Athens. A goddess then rather than, or in addition to, being the allegorical personification of a particular quality. Allegory is hard.
[Next: lines 648-702]
No comments:
Post a Comment