[Previous: lines 629-690]
Jesus ascends to heaven.
Pars pendent speculis, et propugnacula laeti-------
cœli summa tenent, et mœnia celsa coronant:
obvia pars portis parat ire patentibus, et se
quisque auris credunt, ac pennis aethera obumbrant.
Hi plectro indulgent fidibusque: his tibia cantus [695]
dat bifores: alii cava cornua flatibus implent,
raucisonasque tubas, et ahenea cymbala iactant.
Atque ubi ter Patris ad solium pernice chorea
indulsere choris, ter ludo lucida regna
lustravere, polique è vertice decurrere; [700]
non aliter sunt ingressi volucri agmine contrà
concentu vario, et multisono modulatu,
quàm, prolapsa Remi cum nondum urbs altaiaceret,
tarpeiaeque arces starent, lateque subactis
iura daret populis rerum pulcherrima Roma, [705]
consul victor, ovans, pugnatis undique bellis,
intrabat rediens, Capitoliaque alta subibat.
Talis nubivago tendebat ad aethera gressu
vera Dei soboles: ut verò flectere quiret,
iratus quoties Genitor mortale pararet [710]
exercere genus meritis ob crimina pœnis,
omnia fert secum caedis monimenta nefandae:
in primis duplicemque trabem; infandamque columnam,
brachia cui vinctus tulit aspera verbera; et acres
virgarum fasces; infectaque sanguine lora; [715]
hastamque, et calamo pendentia pocula levi.
Tres deinde ingentes et acuta cuspide vectes
cernere erat, quibus effossus palmasque pedesque;
sertaque nexilibus vepribus conserta rigebant.
illic et longo Romani signa senatûs [720]
hastili suspensa; cavoque latentia cornu
lumina, quod superas abies tollebat ad auras;
quamque manu rex pro sceptro gestavit arundo;
omnia quae pueri cœlestes antè gerebant,
singula quisque, polique arcem per inane petebant. [725]
Suspexere viri attoniti, acieque sequentes
alituum nubem, ac regem videre per auras
tollentemque manus, cœlique serena secantem;
cum subitò rutila haec venit vox reddita ab aethra:
“Ne trepidate: quid haeretis supera alta tuentes? [730]
Cum genitore Deus regnandum accepit Olympum.”
Some hang from the defensive towers, joyfully-------
crowning the highest of heaven’s battlements:
others processed through the open gateways
working their wings over a shadowing sky.
Some struck lyres with plectrums; others fluted [695]
doubled-pipes, or blew on hollow horns,
and raucous trumpets, shaking bronze cymbals.
They sang three songs before the throne of the Father
dancing in choirs, three times passing brightly
through the lucid kingdom, and swooping down. [700]
These flying groups came swiftly together
harmonizing many melody-lines—
as in Remus’s city, before it fell,
when the Tarpeian rock stood proud over all,
and Rome, the most beautiful, ruled the world, [705]
a victorious consul returning from war,
would march in triumph to the high Capitol.
Even so with his airy step came the
the true son of God. Though, to mitigate
his Father's wrath, wont to punish mortals [710]
to pay them back for their crimes, he carried
as reminder the instruments of his
shameful death: copies of the beam and pole
to which he had been pinned, the sharp goad which
had beaten him, stained with blood on its straps; [715]
the spear, and the cup hanging from a reed;
then there were the three large pointed spikes that
had pierced his feet and his hands; and the garland
of intertwining prickly thorns from his head.
A long lance carried banners of Rome’s Senate [720]
and lights set inside shells were suspended
from the shafts of pinewood spears raised high. Here
was the reed he, as king, had borne as sceptre—
each carried by a different celestial youth,
as they all rose to the heavenly palace. [725]
The disciples watched this procession, amazed,
following their king’s cloudy rise with their eyes
saw him raise his hands aloft in the serene.
Suddenly a voice came from the blushing sky:
“Be not afraid! Why stare up at high heaven? [730]
God has returned to his Olympian Father.”
The ‘some’ mentioned at the beginning of this excerpt refers to the angels accompanying and celebrating Jesus's rise through the skies. In lines 703-707 Vida compares Jesus arriving back in heaven to a Roman triumphal processions: successful generals would parade through the streets of Rome, displaying the spoils (including, often, captured prisoners) to the citizens. The successful general ‘was drawn in procession through the city in a four-horse chariot, under the gaze of his peers and an applauding crowd, to the temple of Capitoline Jupiter. The spoils and captives of his victory led the way; his armies followed behind. Once at the Capitoline temple, he sacrificed two white oxen to Jupiter and laid tokens of his victory at Jupiter's feet, dedicating his victory to the Roman Senate, people, and gods.’ The Tarpeian Rock’ is that place, on its southward flank, where the Capitoline hill ends in a steep cliff.
Line 723 arundo means ‘reed’, but also a rod, and the shaft of an arrow. That Jesus was given this in place of a royal sceptre is not a detail in the Gospels: they [Matthew 27:29–30, Mark 15:17–19 and John 19:2–3] records that, his trial by Pilate and flagellation, Christ was mocked by the soldiers guarding him as king by (a) putting a purple robe on him, (b) placing a Crown of Thorns on his head, and (c) affixing a sign to his cross sarcastically calling him the King of the Jews (the whole INRI thing).
I don’t know enough about medieval and Renaissance Catholic dogma to know from where Vida gets the idea that Jesus carries replicas (not the actual items: duplices, ‘duplicates’, line 713) of his cross, nails, thorn-crown and so on up to heaven—to remind God the Father of his sacrifice and so defuse His wrath with respect to humanity (one might thing this reminder more likely to inflame the Father’s wrath, but there you go). Duplicates, presumably, because otherwise the sacred relics worshipped down on earth would all be fakes—the very idea!—although, once you go down this path, you find yourself wondering: why not, though? Why not take the originals to heaven and leave perfect copies on earth for humanity? Would that impair their function as devotional objects? If I take something and make a copy of it, then that's clearly a copy; but if God does it, surely it's another thing, not a copy of a thing? No?
Line 729’s ‘blushing’ is my rendering of Vida’s rutile aethra, which literally means ‘reddening sky’, as at dawn or sunset. With interesting exactness, Lewis and Scott define rutilus as ‘(yellowish) red; strawberry blonde’. Onward and, indeed, upward!
The image at the top of this post is John Singleton Copley's ‘Ascension’ (1775). Copley, born in Boston, Massachusetts, established himself as a portrait painter of the wealthy in colonial New England; but he moved to London in 1774, and never thereafter returned to America, which neatly avoided certain unpleasantnesses that happened on the other side of the Atlantic. In London he was at first successful, and branched out into larger group historical or religious canvases, like this one; although in the nineteenth-century he went out of fashion and died in debt. My favourite bit of this image is the angel's leather shoulder-strap, bottom right hand corner.
[Next: lines 732-781]
Presumably having copies on earth would be a bit close to metaphoricality, the crux of Luther's position on the bread and wine in communion, as against the "literalism" of transubstantiation. If I remember correctly.
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