Book 5, lines 940-958

[Previous: lines 913-939]

Christ on the cross is nearing his death.

Vix ea: nam vitae labentis fine sub ipso,                [940]
dum luctante anima fessos mors exuat artus,
aestuat: it toto semper de corpore sudor
largior, et siccas torret sitis arida fauces.
Tum, vix attollens oculos jam morte gravatos,
exiguum sitiens laticem suprema poposcit             [945]
munera: vix tandem corrupti pocula Bacchi
inficiunt felle, et tristi perfusa veneno,
ingratosque haustu succos, inamabile virus,
arenti admôrunt morientis arundine linguae;
quae, simul extremo libans tenus attigit ore,          [950]
respuit; atque diu labris insedit amaror.
Interea magno lis est exorta tumultu,
dum tunicam, nato genitrix quam neverat olim,
partiri inter se famuli certamine tendunt,
exuviasque petunt: sed erat non sutilis ipsa             [955]
vestis, et in partes ideo non apta secari.
Sorte trahunt igitur concordes: sic fore quondam
praedixere sacri corda haud improvida vates.

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He could scarcely speak, his life ending now,            [940]
his soul struggling to leave his exhausted body
in a fever: sweat drenched him all over
and a fiery thirst tormented his dry throat.
Then, scarcely raising his eyes, gravid with death,
he asked for something to drink, as one last               [945]
favour:—they mixed together some rancid wine
with gall, venom, and dark poisonous syrups:
into a thankless noxious cocktail, soaked
it into the siphon of a reed, and raised it
so that it poured into the dying man’s mouth.            [950]
He spat it out, but its bitterness stayed with him.

Meanwhile a noisy fight began below, over
the robe that the mother had woven for her son:
those on duty would have divided it up
but it was of a piece and couldn’t be                           [955]
separated neatly into component parts.
So they played dice for it. This was foretold
by sacred prophets in their provident hearts.

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In line 949 ‘lingua’ means ‘reed’ (specifically it means ‘tongue’, both the physical thing in your mouth and the language you speak; but it also means ‘ kind of plant (alternatively called lingulāca) the reed of the Roman tibiae’, this latter being a hollow read known in Greek as σίφων, hence my translation here. The Bible actually says that this vinegar was served up to crucified Jesus on a sponge: Vas ergo erat positum aceto plenum. Illi autem spongiam plenam aceto, hyssopo circumponentes, obtulerunt ori ejus. [John 19:29]: ‘now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.’ The long-short-long of spongiam is tough to fit into the metre, but this looks like more than this—as if the Vida has deliberately reinterpreted the scripture. At any rate the general sense is clear.

The Roman soldiers casting lots for his clothes is also in John. I’ve never understood this: wouldn’t they be ragged and blood-stained from the flogging etc? And even if they weren’t, wouldn’t they be humble, an intinerants preacher’s robe etc? If John says otherwise, it is more because he’s always looking for moments that fulfil what he regarded as prophecy from earlier sacred books:

Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be,” that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says:

“They divided My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.”

Therefore the soldiers did these things. [John 19:23-24]

Psalms 22:18 is the quoted bit. Vida doesn’t specify Roman soldiers, but talks instead of famulī (line 954) fighting over the clothes. This means, literally, servants (Gardner has: ‘a great tumult [arose] as servants fought over the cloak’) but that can’t be the right translation in this context, I think. I’ve gone with ‘those on duty’.

These two episodes, distinctively Johannine, remind us how much of the Passion narrative is not in John. R Alan Culpepper summarises:

Perhaps we should remind ourselves first of just how different John's account of Jesus' death is from the synoptics. Central elements of the synoptic accounts do not appear in John at all. There is (1) no mockery of Jesus at the cross; (2) no penitent thief; (3) no darkness, even though John often plays with the symbolism of light and darkness; (4) no counting of the hours (except for the comment in 19:14 that it was the sixth hour), though John has spoken repeatedly of the coming of Jesus' hour; (5) no rending of the veil, though John tells of the cleansing of the Temple at the beginning of Jesus' ministry; (6) no cry of dereliction; (7) no earthquake; (8) no opening of the tombs, though John has spoken earlier of the opening of the tombs and records the raising of Lazarus; and (9) no confession of the centurion, though John places particular emphasis throughout the Gospel on the recognition of Jesus as ‘the Son of God.’ [R Alan Culpepper, ‘The theology of the Johannine passion narrative: John 19:16b-30’ Neotestamentica, 31:1 (1997), 21-37]

He goes on to provide theological-typological interpretations for the specific Johannine additions (the seamless tunic, for instance: ‘that the tunic is all of one piece, and that the soldiers decide not to rend it suggests that the seamless tunic is related to John's repeated emphasis on the unity of the church. Jesus declared that there would be one flock, one shepherd (10:16), and that when he was lifted up he would gather all people to himself (12:32).’ I can take or leave this kind of analysis, to be honest (it's not intended for my benefit of course) but I like what Culpepper says about the fifth of the Last Words, I thirst: ‘the ironies evident in this scene call for comment. The contradictions could hardly be more ironic or more powerful: the giver of living water thirsts, a lack completes, giving is malevolent, and drinking aggravates thirst.’ The Greek is pleasingly laconic: δῐψῶ.

At the head of the post: ‘Christ Crucified with the Virgin Mary, St John, Mary Magdalene and Soldiers’ (1640); after Van Dyck, engraved by Schelte à Bolswert. It's in the Royal Academy.

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