[Previous: lines 349-391]
Christ has risen from the dead, a fact the authorities try to keep secret.
Fama Palaestinas subitò haec impleverat urbes.------------
Iamque sacerdotes trepidare, et quaerere, siqua
multiplici vulgi sermoni occurrere possint,
rumoremque astu premere, atque extinguere famam. [395]
Custodes busti in primis, qui cuncta canebant,
mumeribus superant, subiguntque haud vera profari,
sublatum furto intempestâ nocte cadaver
sed non ulla datur verum exsuperare facultas:
quòque magis tendunt serpentem sistere famam, [400]
ampliùs hoc volat illa, omnemque exsuscitat oram.
Sunt etiam, qui se ore canant vidisse patentes
sponte sua tumulos, multosque exîsse sepulcris,
quorum jampridem tellus acceperat ossa.
The fame of this soon spread through Palestine’s towns.------------
The priests, alarmed, looked for a strategy
to silence the continuous chatter of the people,
trying to stifle the rumour any way they could. [395]
First they bribed the guards at the tomb (who were
revealing everything) not to tell the truth—
to say that the corpse had been stolen in the night.
But there was no getting around the truth.
The more they tried to stop the creeping report, [400]
the more it went around, rousing all the land.
Some claimed they had seen with their own eyes graves
open of their own accord; folk walking out
whose bones had long been buried in the earth.
This is a bridging passage between the episode of Mary Magdelene at the empty tomb at the main episode of Book 6, which is the disciples re-encountering Christ and passing through doubt and incredulity into acceptance.
[Next: lines 405-440]
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