Christ is on the cross. The poet breaks away from his narration to rebuke Jerusalem.
Infelix Solyma, infelix Judaea propago!------------
Ultro infesta piis, non ipsis vatibus aequa!
Haec digna hospitia, has sedesque torosque parâsti
cœlicolûm regi? hos socios, hunc addis honorem,
qui, mortale genus propter, delapsus Olympo [725]
sponte sub humana lustravit imagine terras?
Hic genus ipse tuum Phariis eduxit ab oris,
et pedibus salsas dans ire impunè per undas,
marmoreum tibi stravit iter, pontumque diremit.
Idem etiam to coelesti dape pavit euntem. [730]
Per deserta tuos miseratus vasta labores.
Huius ope hausisti dulcem de caute liquorem,
cùm procul et fontes et liquida flumina abessent.
Hic te posthabitis aliis longè omnibus unam
gentibus elegit, meritis quam ad sidera ferret, [735]
muneribusque suis sublimi aequaret Olympo.
Promeritum his cumulas donis? haec digna rependis?
Non vatum voces, non te miracularerum
ulla movent, aut non praesentia numina sentis?
Cui unquam scelerum auctori tam dira parâsti [740]
supplicia? aut usquam quis tam crudeliter hosti
acceptus tale luit alter corpore pœnas?
Ill-omened Jerusalem, ill-omened Jews!------------
Molesting holiness—and your own prophets!
Is this the hospitality you show
the king of the angels? These the companions,
this the respect you show one from Olympus [725]
who came of his own accord to redeem mankind?
He led our people out of Pharaoh’s land,
walking you with impunity across the seas,
dividing the waters to leave a path marble-smooth.
Then heaven fed you as you journeyed on [730]
through the vast deserts, pitying your travails.
By His means you drank the sweet water that
that flowed as a fountain, liquid from the rock.
He selected you above all the other
folk of the world, to raise you to the stars, [735]
granting, in His generosity, Olympus.
Is this how you treat his gifts? This His due reward?
Do the prophets’ words, or these miracles
not move you? Do you not feel God’s presence?
Has any criminal been served with such dire [740]
penalties? Has anyone captured by
their enemies been so painfully punished?
Line 725's Olympus, as ever in this poem, is Vida's classicising way of referring to Heaven. Line 739’s non numina sentis is a rehashing of Aeneid 5:466: Non vires alias conversaque numina sentis?; ‘can you not feel the presence of the gods has changed?’ (Aeneas rebuking Entellus for not accepting that Dares has beaten him during the funeral games). Otherwise this is an awkward little linking passage: Vida stepping in to wag his finger at the Jews, all of them, for being responsible for the death of Christ, and in doing so to, once again, let the Romans off that particular hook. We don’t need to excavate the long and baleful anti-Semitic discourse, and its ghastly mass-murderous real-world consequences, of this position. Better to move on.
[Next: lines 743-57]
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