Book 6, lines 487-509

[Previous: lines 441-486]

Jesus's disciples are arguing amongst themselves as to whether Jesus has really risen from the dead.

Necdum finis erat verbis, cum protinus, ecce,
cum clamore ruit Cleophas fidissimus unus
e multis, quos bis senis subjunxerat heros,
atque haec dicta dabat : “Vos ô iam solvite luctu:           [490]
vivit adhuc, socii, leti iam lege solutus,
vivit adhuc: vidi his oculis, vidi ipse, Deique
auribus his hausi vocem, consuetaque verba.
Audiit hic etiam mecum, viditque loquentem
(atque manu nutuque propinquum Amaona signat:)         [495]
nam modò fortè animis moesti dum incedimus ambo,
quà se demissi incipiunt subducere montes,
extulit aereas Emaüs ubi turribus arces,
advena in ignota nobiscum veste profectus,
externosque gerens habitus, comes additur ultro.             [500]
Taedia dumque viae vario sermone levaret,
interdum eruptis roramus fletibus ora,
et gemitus imis dolor exprimit ossibus ardens.
Ille aegros dictis solari, et quaerere causas
crebra resurgentis luctûs : nos ordine cuncta                   [505]
pandimus, atque ducis letum crudele profamur;
quo moriente, simul perierunt gaudia nostra:
ut factis verbisque animos spe arrexerit ingens
ingenti; sed dehinc nos morte fefellerit omnes.

------------

They had had finished speaking when, with a crash
in rushed Cleophas, the most faithful one
of all of the twelve the hero had chosen.
And this is what he said: “Stop your moaning!                 [490]
He lives, comrades, free from the grip of death!
I saw him with my own eyes, I saw God, and
I heard him too—speaking as he always used to.
And he heard and witnessed him as well—”
(here he pointed to Amaon, who stood nearby)                [495]
“—Just now we were walking where the plain
begins to rise into the plunging mountains
where Emmaus, windy city, stands with its towers.
A newcomer went with us on the way:
in his foreign clothes we didn't recognize him.                [500]
His conversation eased the journey’s dullness
though sometimes tears rolled down our faces,
and sounds of woe erupted from deep within.
He offered us comfort and asked for the cause
of our constantly recurring pain. We told it                     [505]
all: the cruel execution of the leader
whose death extinguished all our joy;
how his deeds and words had lifted our hopes
high; but that his death had dashed them all.”

------------

My decision to translate socii in line 491 as ‘comrades’, taken right back at the beginning of Book 1, has been, if I’m honest, only intermittently adhered-to. Well, what are you going to do? It is what the word means, after all.

Otherwise this is Vida’s version of the story reported in Luke, in which two disciples—the lesser-known figure of Cleophas and a second, unnamed disciple (‘Amaon’ or ‘Ammaon’ is Saint Ambrose’s guess as to his name; other authorities suggest different names)—encounter Jesus on the Road to Emmaus:

Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.

And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?”

Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have you not known the things which happened there in these days?”

And He said to them, “What things?”

So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened. Yes, and certain women of our company, who arrived at the tomb early, astonished us. When they did not find His body, they came saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said He was alive. And certain of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but Him they did not see.”

Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?” And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.

Then they drew near to the village where they were going, and He indicated that He would have gone farther. But they constrained Him, saying, “Abide with us, for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent.” And He went in to stay with them.

Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. [Luke 24:13–32]

This passage of Vida’s stops before Jesus reveals himself to the two; we’ll pick up on that tomorrow.

What is the episode ‘about’? There seems something like a consensus among theologians. R. W. L. Moberly thinks ‘the story is best understood as an exposition of the hermeneutical issue of discernment, focussing specifically on the question, “How does one discern the risen Christ?”’ [R W L Moberly, The Bible, Theology, and Faith: A Study of Abraham and Jesus (Cambridge University Press 2000), 46]. James L. Resseguie says, ‘the impediments to spiritual formation—disappointment, foolishness, mirthless trudging, and slowness of heart—are abandoned on this journey, and the disciples' eyes are opened to God’s working ways in this world.’ [James L. Resseguie, Spiritual Landscape: Images of the Spiritual Life in the Gospel of Luke (Academic, 2004), 30]. That the companion of Cleophas is unnamed is an interesting touch, adding to the description an unrecognisability, an unnamed-ness, that mirrors the way the two wanderers (who presumably knew one another's names) do not recognise, cannot put a name to, Jesus himself. It works on a narrative level, I suppose, by leaving a space in the story into which the reader, or auditor, can interpolate his/herself. But it also doubles down on the eerie absence in this trio, the sense that you're walking with a friend and a third unknown (ignotus, line 499) ‘something’ is travelling with you. Unnerving but also, perhaps, exciting.

The scene has often been taken as a starting point by artists. At the head of this post, for instance and more-or-less contemporaneous with Vida’s writing, is Italian artist Altobello Melone’s ‘The Road to Emmaus’ (1516-17). So far as that image is concerned I’m guessing … Jesus on the right, Cleophas in the middle and the unnamed third disciple, apparently a soldier, on the left. Is it? (Unless that's supposed to be Jesus on the left, in disguise?)

That's all fine, although for me the most potent place where this Biblical episode touches art is that bit in the last section of The Waste Land. I mean the Who is the third who walks always beside you? passage, or, to put it in its context:

Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water
If there were water we should stop and drink
Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think
Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand
If there were only water amongst the rock
Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even silence in the mountains
But dry sterile thunder without rain
There is not even solitude in the mountains
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From doors of mudcracked houses
                                                       If there were water
    And no rock
    If there were rock
    And also water
    And water
    A spring
    A pool among the rock
    If there were the sound of water only
    Not the cicada
    And dry grass singing
    But sound of water over a rock
    Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees
    Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop
    But there is no water

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you? [Eliot, The Waste Land V ‘What The Thunder Said’, lines 331-365]

In his own notes to this passage, Eliot wrote that the image of the unknown third walker alongside the other two was

stimulated by the account of one of the Antarctic expeditions (I forget which, but I think one of Shackleton's): it was related that the party of explorers, at the extremity of their strength, had the constant delusion that there was one more member than could actually be counted.

Fair enough, I suppose. I mean, to be fair, the notes to this section also say that ‘in the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay of eastern Europe’. There's nothing Antarctic about that dusty, parched, seaboard territory after all. I've always assumed the (spiritual) thirst of the travellers on the road to Emmaus is here combined with a poetic cast-back to the thirst of Christ on the cross, surrounded by angry red faces. Rather an obvious thing to note, now that I come to look at it.

[Next: lines 510-535]