Book 6, lines 405-440

[Previous: lines 392-404]

There is uncertainty as to whether Christ has risen or not.

Interea socii, quos in diversa paventes                         [405]
iamdudum terror longè disiecerat omnes,
tabescunt mœsti: cœlo cecidisse videtur
omnibus extinctum aeterna caligine solem,
et penitus mundo iucundum lumen ademptum.
Tandem conveniunt, et adhuc loca nota frequentant     [410]
tectaque, quae vivo sibi quondam rege fuissent
dulcia, sed casu nunc desolata recenti.
Dux nusquam: miseris nusquam datur illa tueri
ora, illosve oculos aspectu luce serenâ
iucundos magis, aut cœlo radiantibus astris;                [415]
et cunctis nomen dulce obversatur ad aures.
Aegrescunt moesti; squalent circum omnia luctu
haud secus atque olim exemit cùm subere pastor
cerea dona cavo, vacuumque alveare reliquit:
tunc etiam, fumus quas longè dispulit ater,                   [420]
hinc illinc glomerantur apes, et inania frustra
tecta adeunt, denso volitantes agmine circum,
direptosque favos aegrae, populataque passim
mella vident nequicquam hyemi congesta futurae.
Ecce viros autem tali mœrore sepultos                           [425]
attonitae miris matres rumoribus implent,
vidisse aligeros cœli de gente ministros,
regem ipsum vidisse novo fulgore micantem,
et vacuum porrò tumulum, vestesque relictas.
Protinus ergo alii montis petere ardua cursu                  [430]
contendunt rapido festini, ubi inane sepulcrum.
ast aliis incredibile, ac mirabile visum:
et primò ancipites, delusos credere matrum
effigie pavitantum oculos, et imagine falsâ;
ut nobis saepe in somnis spectare videmur                     [435]
absentum vultus, simulacraque luce carentum:
donec serâ illis sub luce in tecta coactis
ingrediens sese ostendit manifestiùs heros,
voce habituque Deum confessus imagine notâ,
divinum toto iaciens de corpore lumen.                         [440]

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Meanwhile his comrades, in various different                  [405]
locations—long since scattered in terror—
were grieving. It felt like the sky had fallen,
as if the sun had been extinguished in eternal dark
the world robbed of delight and left blinded.
Finally, they returned to the houses                                [410]
they knew, places of joy when their king still lived
but desolated now by recent events.
Their leader was nowhere: the poor men could
no more look upon the brightness of his face
lovelier to them than daylight or starflash.                     [415]
His sweet words still resounded in their ears.
They grew ever sadder; rotting with neglect.
As when a shepherd takes the honied wax
from a hollow cork-tree, leaving the hive empty:
the bees, driven away by black smoke                              [420]
regather from all directions—vainly come
looking for their home, flying in dense clouds
sad, finding their combs plundered, all the honey
they had gathered for the coming winter gone.

But now these men, buried under such grief                  [425]
heard the amazing news of the women—
that they had seen winged ministers from heaven,
and the king himself, wearing a new brightness,
the tomb empty and a pile of discarded clothes.
At once some ran to the steep mountain place              [430]
in a hurry to witness the vacant tomb;
Others, thought it beyond belief, and that
the foolishly deluded women had only
seen a mirage or likeness with uncertain eyes;
as in a dream, when we often seem to see                      [435]
the faces of the dead and those we are missing.
Until one evening his light shone in their houses—
the hero himself, manifesting himself
clearly in his voice and face and dress, showing
himself divine by the light his body cast.                       [440]

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The bee simile in lines 418-424, here, is interesting, if only because now Vida is troping the disciples as bees, where earlier in his epic—in Book 1 as I’m sure you remember—he was describing the devils assembling in Hell in bee-y terms:

Striding through air they beat their hairy wings
through the black void until they reached upper land.
No cloud as dense was ever formed, not even when
bees swarm hungrily upon the summer flowers
when cloudbusting Boreas and rainy Auster grow calm,
and the warlike kings of the hives charge out
hurrying to battle under their opposing flags.
Woe! Which countries and regions will they visit
that dire cohort, what ruin will they bring? [Christiad 1:228-235]

This was one of the bits of Vida that Milton directly lifted:

                                   they anon
With hunderds and with thousands trooping came
Attended: all access was throng'd, the Gates
And Porches wide, but chief the spacious Hall
... Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,
Brusht with the hiss of russling wings. As Bees
In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth thir populous youth about the Hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Flie to and fro, or on the smoothed Plank,
The suburb of thir Straw-built Cittadel,
New rub'd with Baum, expatiate and confer
Thir State affairs. So thick the aerie crowd
Swarm'd [Paradise Lost 1: 759-76]

Here, at the end rather than the beginning of the epic, the bees are sad and unhoused rather than alarming and sting-ish. There's something interesting to be said, here, about the shifting valences of Vida's use of epic simile, although I haven't the energy to get into it at length right now.

Otherwise there's some confusion here as to how the news of Christ's resurrection got out. In the previous few lines Vida says that the men set to guards the tomb were blabbing at what they'd seen, and that the news was all across Judea. Vida also says that the Jewish authorities then bribed the guards to stop blabbing, which seems shutting the stable door after the horse has come back to life in a blaze of divine glory, rather. Here, though, he touches on a more interesting problematic: that the gospels (who say nothing of these notionally blabbing guards) indicate that the first folk to see the risen Christ were women. That's interesting, not least because of the structural sexism of the time, when female testimony lacked legal force for instance (for more on this see for instance Claudia Setzer, ‘Excellent Women: Female Witness to the Resurrection’, Journal of Biblical Literature, 116:2 (1997), 259-272].

At the head of the post: William-Adolphe Bouguereau, ‘Les saintes femmes au tombeau’ (1876)

[Next: lines 441-486]