Book 6, lines 782-812

[Previous: lines 732-781]

Jesus has ascended. His disciples, below, sing his praises.

“Tu surdis aures, oculos tu lumine captis,
et vocem mutis, et vires sufficis aegris.
Tu revocas in vitam, obitaiam morte, sepultos,
et rursum potes amissos accendere sensus.                 [785]
Non te vis crudi perterruit horrida leti,
non erebi confusa domus, loca fœta timoris.
Te manes tremuere; plagae regnator opacae
umbrarum passim populantem immitia regna
non tulit, atque imis trepidus se condidit antris;         [790]
prostrataeque metu procul Eumenides latitârunt;
dum superas praedâ ingenti vehereris ad arces,
nunc ubi iam victor regnas, superûmque beato
concilio imperitas, provisaque tempora longè
disponens, reparas fugientia secula mundo,                [795]
nec requiêsse sinis solis volventia lustra.
Salve, opifex rerum vastique salutifer orbis,
aspice nos propiùs, propiùs genus aspice nostrum!
Morte tua patet aetherei cui ianua Olympi;
et veteres tandem Pater obliviscitur iras.”                    [800]

Talia littorea laeti sub rupe canebant
undeni proceres, omnisque effusa iuventus.
Non tamen exuerant vanum inter tanta timorem
gaudia, nondum animos firmati numinis aura
aetherea, sed adhuc latebras cavaque antra petebant.    [805]
Sicut, ubi accipiter celsa de sede columbam
sustulit apprensam, quam rostro evisceret unco,
diffugiunt aliae huc illuc; mox turribus imis
condunt se celeres, et inania murmura miscent.
Haud illi secus, attoniti post funera regis,                        [810]
inclusi tecto stabant, promissa magistri
cœlo exspectantes, venturum numen ab alto.

-------

“You give the deaf ears and eyes to the blind
a voice to the dumb, and strength to the weak.
You recall to life those gone and in their tombs,
reilluminating their absent senses.                                [785]
The raw horror of terrifying death
could not affright you, nor Erebus’ house.
Their spirits trembled before you; that dark lord
could not bear to see you empty his kingdom
of souls, and hid himself in his deepest caves;              [790]
the Eumenides abased themselves and hid
until you had ascended heavens with your spoils,
where now you reign in triumph, surveying glad
councils of angels, disposing far futures
with providence until the end of the world,                   [795]
suffering no respite to the revolving sun.
Hail, maker of the lasting health of the world!
Look favourably on us, your people!
Your death has opened the celestial door;
the Father has finally forgotten his wrath.”                   [800]

So, on the seashore, joyfully sang these
eleven men, joined by all the country’s youths.
Yet even in their joy they were scared, heaven’s
breath not in them yet—hiding inside caves.                  [805]
As when a high-perched hawk has seized a dove
eviscerating it with its hooked beak
the other doves scatter—hiding in towers
plunging away at speed, cooing in vain;
even so, stunned after the death of their king,                 [810]
these men shut themselves in, awaiting the masters
promised reward—spirit descending from above.

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The ‘Eumenides’ in line 791 are, of course, the Furies. Line 809’s et inania murmura miscent is a direct lift from Aeneid 4:210 (et inania murmura miscent) though in Virgil it’s stormclouds that make the vain murmuring, not doves. Otherwise this strikes me as a strange, rather wrenching shift in Vida’s throughline—after hundreds of lines of Jesus ascending to heaven and a lengthy (lines 732-800) hymn of praise by the disciples—eleven now (line 802), since Judas’s suicide; not until after the Ascension is his place taken by Matthias (Acts 1:26)—the tone shifts again to them as gripped with terror, hiding inside. They are waiting for something, and that something is the coming of the Holy Spirit:

And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” [Acts 1:4-8]

So it happens, as described in Acts (and by Vida in line 898-986, the concluding episode of the entire epic). We’ll come back to that.

I wonder if the poem is flagging at precisely the moment when it should be raising itself, tonally, to its big thrilling climax. These last few passages by Vida have not been him at his poetic best, I think. Is this because he's trying to write something that passes beyond what words can express? Or is it something else? It's hard to think of great poetry that has been inspired by this particular moment in the passion narrative. Christina Rossetti, who can be do lyrically deft, clangs and clonks through this poem, for instance:

“When Christ went up to Heaven the Apostles stayed”
Gazing at Heaven with souls and wills on fire,
Their hearts on flight along the track He made,
Winged by desire.

Their silence spake: “Lord, why not follow Thee?
Home is not home without Thy Blessed Face,
Life is not life. Remember, Lord, and see,
Look back, embrace.

“Earth is one desert waste of banishment,
Life is one long-drawn anguish of decay.
Where Thou wert wont to go we also went:
Why not today?”

Nevertheless a cloud cut off their gaze:
They tarry to build up Jerusalem,
Watching for Him, while thro' the appointed days
He watches them.

They do His Will, and doing it rejoice,
Patiently glad to spend and to be spent:
Still He speaks to them, still they hear His Voice
And are content.

For as a cloud received Him from their sight,
So with a cloud will He return ere long:
Therefore they stand on guard by day, by night,
Strenuous and strong.

They do, they dare, they beyond seven times seven
Forgive, they cry God's mighty word aloud:
Yet sometimes haply lift tired eyes to Heaven—
“Is that His cloud?”

Ah well.

At the head of this post: ‘The Ascension of Christ’ (c.1510) by Adriaen van Overbeke. At the top: legs eleven!

[Next: lines 813-897]