Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 04: 24.01.19 X Strain's Part 1

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Church Fathers: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 04: 24.01.19 X Strain's Part 1



TOPIC: Post-Nicene Fathers Vol 04 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 24.01.19 X Strain's Part 1

Other Subjects in this Topic:

X. Appendix.hyperlink



1 [Elucidation.]



1. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.

After the living, aye-enduring death

Of Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires

Penal, attested by time-frosted plains

Of ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,

5 Born but to feed the eye; after the death

Of sea and brine, both in like fate involved;

While whatsoe'er is human still retains

In change corporeal its penal badge:hyperlink

A city-Nineveh-by stepping o'er

10 The path of justice and of equity,

On her own head had well-nigh shaken down

More fires of rain supernal. For what dreadhyperlink

Dwells in a mind subverted? Commonly

Tokens of penal visitations prove

15 All vain where error holds possession. Still,

Kindly and patient of our waywardness,

And slow to punish, the Almighty Lord

Will launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first

Admonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,

20 Rousing with mind august presaging seers.

For to the merits of the Ninevites

The Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell

Destruction; but he, conscious that He spare;

The subject, and remits to suppliants

25 The dues of penalty, and is to good

Ever inclinable, was loth to face

That errand; lest he sing his seerly strain

In vain, and peaceful issue of his threats

Ensue. His counsel presently is flight:

30 (If, howsoe'er, there is at all the power

God to avoid, and shun the Lord's right hand

'Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held

In check: but is there reason in the act

Which inhyperlink his saintly heart the prophet dares?)

35 On the beach-lip, over against the shores

Of the Cilicians, is a city poised,hyperlink

Far-famed for trusty port-Joppa her name.

Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque

Seeks Tarsus,hyperlink through the signal providence

40 Of the same God;hyperlink nor marvel is's, I ween,

If, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,

He found Him in the waves. For suddenly

A little cloud had stained the lower air

With fleecy wrack sulphureous, itselfhyperlink

45 By the wind's seed excited: by degrees,

Bearing a brood globose, it with the sun

Cohered, and with a train caliginous

Shut in the cheated day. The main becomes

The mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so

50 With black encirclement; the upper air

Down rushes into darkness, and the sea

Uprises; nought of middle space is left;

While the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all

Are mingled by the bluster of the winds

55 In whirling eddy.'Gainst the renegade,

'Gainst Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,

While one sole barque did all the struggle breed

'Twixt sky and surge. From this side and from that

Pounded she reels; 'neath each wave-breaking blow

60 The forest of her tackling trembles all;

As, underneath, her spinal length of keel,

Staggered by shock on shock, all palpitates;

And, from on high, her labouring mass of yard

Creaks shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself

65 Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.

Meantime the risinghyperlink clamour of the crew

Tries every chance for barque's and dear life's sake:

To pass from hand to handhyperlink the tardy coils

To tighten the girth's noose: straitly to bind

70 The tiller's struggles; or, with breast opposed,

T' impel reluctant curves. Part, turn by turn,

With foremost haste outbale the reeking well

Of inward sea. The wares and cargo all

They then cast headlong, and with losses seek

75 Their perils to subdue. At every crash

Of the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out

They stretch their hands to majesties of gods,

Which gods are none; whom might of sea and sky

Fears not, nor yet the less from off their poops

80 With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.

Unconscious of all this, the guilty one

'Neath the poop's hollow arch was making sleep

Re-echo stertorous with nostril wide

Inflated: whom, so soon as he who guides

85 The functions of the wave-dividing prow

Saw him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud

In his repose, he, standing o'er him, shook,

And said, "Why sing's", with vocal nostril, dreams,

In such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,

90 Why keep'st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave

Whelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.

Thou also, whosoever is thy god,

Make vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,

Win o'er thy country's Sovran!" Then they vote

95 To learn by lot who is the culprit, who

The cause of storm; nor does the lot belie

Jonah: whom then they ask, and ask again,

"Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,

What people, hail'st thou?" He avows himself

100 A servant, and an over-timid one,

Of God, who raised aloft the sky, who based

The earth, who corporally fused the whole:

A renegade from Him he owns himself,

And tells the reason. Rigid turned they all

105 With dread."What grudge, then, ow'st thou us? What now

Will follow? By what deed shall we appease

The main?" For more and far more swelling grew

The savage surges. Then the seer begins

Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:hyperlink

110"Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum

Of the world'shyperlink madness: 'tis in me," he says,

"That the sea rises, and the upper air

Down rushes; land in me is far, death near,

And hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl

115 Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast

This single mighty burden to the main,

A willing prey!" But they-all vainly!-strive

Homeward to turn their course; for helm refused

To suffer turning, and the yard's stiff poise

120 Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord

They cry: "For one soul's sake give us not o'er

Unto death's maw, nor let us be besprent

With righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand

Leadeth." And from the eddy's depth a whale

125 Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,hyperlink

Unravelling his body's train, 'gan urge

More near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,

Seizing-at God's command-the prey; which, rolled

From the poop's summit prone, with slimy jaws

130 He sucked; and into his long belly sped

The living feast; and swallowed, with the man,

The rage of sky and main. The billowy waste

Grows level, and the ether's gloom dissolves;

The waves on this side, and the blasts on that,

135 Are to their friendly mood restored; and, where

The placid keel marks out a path secure,

White traces in the emerald furrow bloom.

The sailor then does to the reverend Lord

Of death make grateful offering of his fear;hyperlink

140 Then enters friendly ports. Jonah the seer

The while is voyaging, in other craft

Embarked, and cleaving 'neath the lowest waves

A wave: his sails the intestines of the fish,

Inspired with breath ferine; himself, shut in;

145 By waters, yet untouched; in the sea's heart

And yet beyond its reach; 'mid wrecks of fleets

Half-eaten, and men's carcasses dissolved

In putrid disintegrity: in life

Learning the process of his death; but still-

150 To be a sign hereafter of the Lordhyperlink -

A witness was he (in his very self),hyperlink

Not of destruction, but of death's repulse.



Footnotes



1 These two lines, if this be their true sense, seem to refer to Lot's wife. But the grammar and meaning of this introduction are alike obscure.

2 "Metus;" used, as in other places, of godly fear.

3 Lit. "from," i.e., which, urged by a heart which is that of a saint, even though on this occasion it failed, the prophet dared.

4 Libratur.

5 "Tarshish," Eng. ver.; perhaps Tartessus in Spain. For this question, and the "trustiness" of Joppa (now Jaffa) as a port, see Pusey on Jonah i. 3.

6 Ejusdem per signa Dei.

7 i.e., the cloud.

8 Genitus (Oehler); geminus (Migne) = "twin clamour," which is not inapt.

9 Mandare (Oehler). If this be the true reading, the rendering in the text seems to represent the meaning; for "mandare" with an accusative, in the sense of "to bid the tardy coils tighten the girth's noose," seems almost too gross a solecism for even so lax a Latinist as our present writer. Migne, however, reads mundare-to "clear" the tardy coils, i.e., probably from the wash and weed with which the gale was cloying them.

10 Tunc Domini vates ingesta Spiritus infit. Of course it is a gross offence against quantity to make a genitive in "us" short, as the rendering in the text does. But a writer who makes the first syllable in "clamor" and the last syllable of gerunds in do short, would scarcely be likely to hesitate about taking similar liberties with a genitive of the so-called fourth declension. It is possible, it is true, to take "vates" and "Spiritus" as in apposition, and render, "Then the seer-Spirit of the Lord begins to utter words inspired," or "Then the seer-Spirit begins to utter the promptings of the Lord." But these renderings seem to accord less well with the ensuing words.

11 Mundi.

12 i.e., apparently with shells which had gathered about him as he lay in the deep.

13 This seems to be the sense of Oehler's "Nauta at tum Domino leti venerando timorem Sacrificat grates"-"grates" being in apposition with "timorem." But Migne reads: "Nautaelig; tum Domino laeti venerando timorem Sacrificant grates:"-

"The sailors then do to the reverend Lord

Gladly make grateful sacrifice of fear:"and I do not see that Oehler's reading is much better.

14 Comp. Matt. xii. 38-41; Luke xi. 29,30.

15 These words are not in the original, but are inserted (I confess) to fill up the line, and avoid ending with an incomplete verse. If, however, any one is curious enough to compare the translation, with all its defects, with the Latin, he may be somewhat surprised to find how very little alteration or adaptation is necessary in turning verse into verse.



2. A Strain of Sodom.

(Author Uncertain.)

Already had Almighty God wiped off

By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined

Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plainhyperlink

Outspued) the times of the primeval age:

5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring

The winters in their course, ne'er to decree,

By liquid ruin, retribution's due;

And had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow

Of many hues, sealing the clouds with band

10 Of purple and of green, Iris its name,

The rain-clouds' proper baldric.hyperlink

But alike

With mankind's second race impiety

Revives, and a new age of ill once more

Shoots forth; allotted now no more to showers

15 For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land

Of Sodom earn to be by glowing dews

Upburnt, and typically thus portend

The future end.hyperlink There wild voluptuousness

(Modesty's foe) stood in the room of law;

20 Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose

At Scythian or Busirian altar's foot

'Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour

His blood to Bebryx, or to satiate

Libyan palaestras, or assume new forms;

25 By virtue of Circaean cups, than lose

His outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven's gate

There knocked for vengeance marriages commit

With equal incest common 'mong a race

By nature rebels 'gainst themselves;hyperlink and hurts

30 Done to man's name and person equally.

But God, forewatching all things, at fix'd time

Doth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying

The hour when crime's ripe age-not any force

Of wrath impetuous-shall have circumscribed

35 The space for waiting.hyperlink Now at length the day

Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host

Angelical, two, youths in form, who both

Were ministering spirits,hyperlink carrying

The Lord's divine commissions, come beneath

40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot

A transplantation from a pious stock;

Wise, and a practicer of righteousness,

He was the only one to think on God:

As oft a fruitful tree is wont to lurk,

45 Guest-like, in forests wild. He, sitting then

Before the gate (for the celestials scarce

Had reached the ramparts), though he knew not them

Divine,hyperlink accosts them unsolicited,

Invites, and with ancestral honour greets;

50 And offers them, preparing to abide

Abroad, a hospice. By repeated prayers

He wins them; and then ranges studiously

The sacred pledgeshyperlink on his board,hyperlink and quitshyperlink

His friends with courteous offices. The night

55 Had brought repose: alternatehyperlink dawn had chased

The night, and Sodom with her shameful law

Makes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliant wise,

Withstands: "Young men, let not your new fed lust

Enkindle you to violate this youth!hyperlink

60 Whither is passion's seed inviting you?

To what vain end your lust? For such an end

No creatures wed: not such as haunt the fens;

Not stall-fed cattle; not the gaping brood

Subaqueous; nor they which, modulant

65 On pinions, hang suspended near the clouds;

Nor they which with forth-stretched body creep

Over earth's face. To conjugal delight

Each kind its kind doth owe: but female still

To all is wife; nor is there one that has

70 A mother save a female one. Yet now,

If youthful vigour holds it righthyperlink to waste

The flower of modesty, I have within

Two daughters of a nuptial age, in whom

Virginity is swelling in its bloom,

75 Already ripe for harvest-a desire

Worthy of men-which let your pleasure reap!

Myself their sire, I yield them; and will pay

For my guests' sake, the forfeit of my grief!"

Answered the mob insane: "And who art thou7

80 And what? and whence? to lord it over us,

And to expound us laws? Shall foreigner

Rule Sodom, and hurl threats? Now, then, thyself

For daughters and for guests shalt sate our greed!

One shall suffice for all!" So said, so done:

85 The frantic mob delays not. As, whene'er

A turbid torrent rolls with wintry tide,

And rushes at one speed through countless streams

Of rivers, if, just where it forks, some tree

Meets the swift waves (not long to stand, save while

90 By her root's force she shall avail to oppose

Her tufty obstacles), when gradually

Her hold upon the undermined soil

Is failing, with her bared stem she hangs,

And, with uncertain heavings to and fro,

95 Defers her certain fall; not otherwise

Lot in the mid-whirl of the dizzy mob

Kept nodding, now almost o'ercome. But power

Divine brings succour: the angelic youths,

Snatching him from the threshold, to his roof

100 Restore him; but upon the spot they mulct

Of sight the mob insane in open day,-

Fit augury of coming penalties!

Then they unlock the just decrees of God:

That penalty condign from heaven will fall

105 On Sodom; that himself had merited

Safety upon the count of righteousness.

"Gird thee, then, up to hasten hence thy flight,

And with thee to lead oat what family

Thou hast: already we are bringing on

110 Destruction o'er the city." Lot with speed

Speaks to his sons-in-law; but their hard heart

Scorned to believe the warning, and at fear

Laughed. At what time the light attempts to climb

The darkness, and heaven's face wears double hue

115 From night and day, the youthful visitants

Were instant to outlead from Sodoma

The race Chaldaean,hyperlink and the righteous house

Consign to safety: "Ho! come, Lot! arise,

And take thy yokefellow and daughters twain,

120 And hence, beyond the boundaries be gone,

Preventinghyperlink Sodom's penalties!" And eke

With friendly hands they lead them trembling forth,

And then their final mandates give: "Save, Lot,

Thy life, lest thou perchance should will to turn

125 Thy retroverted gaze behind, or stay

The step once taken: to the mountain speed!"

Lot feared to creep the heights with tardy step,

Lest the celestial wrath-fires should o'ertake

And whelm him: therefore he essays to crave

130 Some other ports; a city small, to wit,

Which opposite he had espied."Hereto,"

He said, "I speed my flight: scarce with its walls

'Tis visible; nor is it far, nor great."

They, favouring his prayer, safety assured

135 To him and to the city; whence the spot

Is known in speech barbaric by the name

Segor.hyperlink Lot enters Segor while the sun

Is rising,hyperlink the last sun, which glowing bears

To Sodom conflagration; for his rays

140 He had armed all with fire: beneath him spreads

An emulous gloom, which seeks to intercep

The light; and clouds combine to interweave

Their smoky globes with the confused sky:

Down pours a novel shower: the ether seethe

145 With sulphur mixt with blazing flames:hyperlink the air

Crackles with liquid heats exust. From hence

The fable has an echo of the truth

Amid its false, that the sun's progeny

Would drive his father's team; but nought availed

150 The giddy boy to curb the haughty steeds

Of fire: so blazed our orb: then lightning reft

The lawless charioteer, and bitter plaint

Transformed his sisters. Let Eridanus

See to it, if one poplar on his banks

155 Whitens, or any bird dons plumage there

Whose note old age makes mellow!hyperlink

Here they mourn

O'er miracles of metamorphosis

Of other sort. For, partner of Lot's flight,

His wife (ah me, for woman! even thenhyperlink

160 Intolerant of law!) alone turned back

At the unearthly murmurs of the sky)

Her daring eyes, but bootlessly: not doomed

To utter what she saw! and then and there

Changed into brittle salt, herself her tomb

165 She stood, herself an image of herself,

Keeping an incorporeal form: and still

In her unsheltered station 'neath the heaven

Dures she, by rains unmelted, by decay

And winds unwasted; nay, if some strange hand

170 Deface her form, forthwith from her own store

Her wounds she doth repair. Still is she said

To live, and, 'mid her corporal change, discharge

With wonted blood her sex's monthly dues.

Gone are the men of Sodom; gone the glare

175 Of their unhallowed ramparts; all the house

Inhospitable, with its lords, is gone:

The champaign is one pyre; here embers rough

And black, here ash-heaps with hoar mould, mark out

The conflagration's course: evanished

180 Is all that old fertilityhyperlink which Lot,

Seeing outspread before him, ...

No ploughman spends his fruitless toil on glebes

Pitchy with soot: or if some acres there,

But half consumed, still strive to emulate

185 Autumn's glad wealth, pears, peaches, and all fruits

Promise themselves full easelyhyperlink to the eye

In fairest bloom, until the plucker's hand

Is on them: then forthwith the seeming fruit

Crumbles to dust 'neath the bewraying touch,

190 And turns to embers vain.

Thus, therefore (sky

And earth entombed alike), not e'en the sea

Lives there: the quiet of that quiet sea

Is death!hyperlink -a sea which no wave animates

Through its anhealant volumes; which beneath

195 Its native Auster sighs not anywhere;

Which cannot from its depths one scaly race,

Or with smooth skin or cork-like fence encased,

Produce, or curled shell in single valve

Or double fold enclosed. Bitumen there

200 (The sooty reek of sea exust) alone,

With its own crop, a spurious harvest yields;

Which 'neath the stagnant surface vivid heat

From seething mass of sulphur and of brine

Maturing tempers, making earth cohere

205 Into a pitch marine.hyperlink At season due

The heated water's fatty ooze is borne

Up to the surface; and with foamy flakes

Over the level top a tawny skin

Is woven. They whose function is to catch

210 That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin. down

With balance of their sides, to teach the film,

Once o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo!

Raising itself spontaneous, it will swim

Up to the edge of the unmoving craft;

215 And will, when pressed,hyperlink for guerdon large, ensure

Immunity from the defiling touch

Of weft which female monthly efflux clothes.

Behold another portent notable,

Fruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast

220 Therein do swim: gone is its native power

For sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch

A torch's lightsomehyperlink hull (where spirit serves

For fire) therein, the apex of the flame

Will act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath

225 The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go!

Such Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties,

For ages sealed as signs before the eyes

Of unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts

God's fear have quite forsaken,hyperlink will them teach

230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights,hyperlink and lift

Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.



Footnotes



1 Maris aequor.

2 See Gen. ix. 21, 22, x. 8-17.

3 Comp. 2 Pet. iii. 5-14.

4 The expression, "sinners against their own souls," in Num. xvi. 38 - where, however, the LXX. have a very different version - may be compared with this; as likewise Prov. viii. 36.

5 Whether the above be the sense of this most obscure triplet I will not presume to determine. It is at least (I hope) intelligible sense. But that the reader may judge for himself whether he can offer any better, I sugjoin the lines, which form a sentence alone, and therefore can be judged of without their context: -"Tempore sed certo Deus omnia prospectulatus,Judicat injustos, patiens ubi criminis aetasCessandi spatium vis nulla coëgerit irae."

6 Comp. Heb. i. 14. It may be as well here to inform the reader once for that prosody as well as syntax is repeatedly set at defiance in these metrical fragments; and hence, of course, arise some of the chief difficulties in dealing with them.

7 "Divinos;" i.e., apparently "superhuman," as everything heavenly is.

8 Of hospitality - bread and salt, etc.

9 "Mensa;" but perhaps "mensae" may be suggested - "the sacred pledges of the board."

10 "Dispungit," which is the only verb in the sentence, and refers both to pia pignora and to amicos. I use "quit" in the sense in which we speak of "quitting a debtor," i.e., giving him his full due; but the two lines are very hard, and present (as in the case of those before quoted) a jumble of words without grammar; "pia pignora mensa Officiisque probis studio dispungit amicos;" which may be somewhat more literally rendered than in our text, thus: "he zealously discharges" (i.e., fulfils) "his sacred pledges" (i.e., the promised hospitality which he had offered them) "with (a generous) board, and discharges" (i.e., fulfils his obligations to) "his friends with honourable courtesies."

11 Altera = alterna. But the statement differs from Gen. xix. 4.

12 "Istam juventam," i.e., the two "juvenes" (ver. 31) within.

13 "Fas" = osion, morally right; distinct from "jus" or "licitum."

14 i.e., Lot's race or family, which had come from "Ur of the Chaldees." See Gen. xi. 26, 27, 28.

15 I use "preventing" in its now unusual sense of "anticipating the arrival of."

16 Shgwr in the LXX., "Zoar" in Eng. ver.

17 "Simul exoritur sol." But both the LXX. and the Eng. ver. say the sun was risen when Lot entered the city.

18 So Oehler and Migne. But perhaps we may alter the pointing slightly, and read: -

"Down pours a novel shower, sulphur mixt

With blazing flames: the ether seethes: the air

Crackles with liquid exust."

19 The story of Phaëthon and his fate is told in Ov., Met., ii. 1-399, which may be compared with the present piece. His two sisters were transformed into white poplars, according to some; alders, according to others. See Virg., Aen., x. 190 sqq., Ec., vi. 62 sqq. His hal-brother (Cycnus or Cygnus) was turned into a swan: and the scene of these transformations is laid by Ovid on the banks of the Eridanus (the Po). But the fable is variously told; and it has been suggested that the groundwork of it is to be found rather in the still-standing of the sun recorded in Joshua.

20 i.e., as she had been before in the case of Eve. See Gen. iii. 1 sqq.

21 I have hazarded the bold conjecture - which I see others (Pamelius at all events) had hazarded before me - that "feritas" is used by our author as - "fertilitas." The word, of course, is very incorrectly formed etymologically; but etymology is not our author's forte apparently. It will also be seen that there is seemingly a gap at this point, or else some enormous mistake, in the mss. An attempt has been made (see Migne) to correct it, but not a very satisfactory one. For the common reading, which gives two lines,

"Occidit illa prior feritas, quam prospiciens Loth

Nullus arat frustra piceas fuligine glebas,"which are evidently entirely unconnected with one another, it is proposed to read,

"Occidit illa prior feritas, quam prospiciens Loth,

Deseruisse pii fertur commercia fratris.

Nullas arat," etc.This use of "fratris" in a wide sense may be justified from Gen. xiii. 8 (to which passage, with its immediate context, there seems to be a reference, whether we adopt the proposed correction or no), and similar passages in Holy Writ. But the transition is still abrupt to the "nullus arat," etc.; and I prefer to leave the passage as it is, without attempting to supply the hiatus.

22 This use of "easely" as a dissyllable is justifiable from Spenser.

23 This seems to be the sense, but the Latin is somewhat strange: "morsest maris illa quieti," i.e., illa (quies) maris quieti mors est. The opening lines of "Jonah" (above) should be compared with this passage and its context.

24 Inque picem dat terrae haerere marinam.

25 "Pressum" (Oehler); "pretium" (Migne): "it will yield a prize, namely, that," etc.

26 Luciferam.

27 Oehler's pointing is disregarded.

28 "De caelo jura tueri;" possibly "to look for laws from heaven."



3. Genesis.

(Author Uncertain.)

In the beginning did the Lord create

The heaven and earth:hyperlink for formless was the land,hyperlink

And hidden by the wave, and God immensehyperlink

O'er the vast watery plains was hovering,

5 While chaos and black darkness shrouded all:

Which darkness, when God bade be from the polehyperlink

Disjoined, He speaks, "Let there be light; "and all

In the clear worldhyperlink was bright. Then, when the Lord

The first day's work had finished, He formed

10 Heaven's axis white with nascent clouds: the deep

Immense receives its wanderinghyperlink shores, and draws

The rivers manifold with mighty trains.

The third dun light unveiled earth'shyperlink face, and soon

(Its name assignedhyperlink ) the dry land's story 'gins:

15 Together on the windy champaigns rise

The flowery seeds, and simultaneously

Fruit-bearing boughs put forth procurvant arms.

The fourth day, withhyperlink the sun's lamp generates

The moon, and moulds the stars with tremulous light

20 Radiant: these elements ithyperlink gave as signs

To th' underlying world,hyperlink to teach the times

Which, through their rise and setting, were to change.

Then, on the fifth, the liquidhyperlink streams receive

Their fish, and birds poise in the lower air

25 Their pinions many-hued. The sixth. again,

Supples the ice-cold snakes into their coils,

And over the whole fields diffuses herds

Of quadrupeds; and mandate gave that all

Should grow with multiplying seed, and roam

30 And feed in earth's immensity. All these

When power divine by mere command arranged,

Observing that things mundane still would lack

A ruler, thus Ithyperlink speaks: "With utmost care,

Assimilated to our own aspect,hyperlink

35 Make We a man to reign in the whole orb."

And him, although He with a single wordhyperlink

Could have compounded, yet Himself did deign

To shape him with His sacred own right hand,

Inspiring his dull breast from breast divine.

40 Whom when He saw formed in a likeness such

As is His own, He measures how he broods

Alone on gnawing cares. Straight way his eyes

With sleep irriguous He doth perfuse;

That from his left rib woman softlier

45 May formed be, and that by mixture twin

His substance may add firmness to her limbs.

To her the name of "Life"-which is called "Eve"hyperlink -

Is given: wherefore sons, as custom is,

Their parents leave, and, with a settled home,

50 Cleave to their wives.

The seventh came, when God

At His works' end did rest, decreeing it

Sacred unto the coming ages' joys.

Straightway-the crowds of living things deployed

Before him-Adam's cunning skill (the gift

55 Of the good Lord) gives severally to all

The name which still is permanent. Himself,

And, joined with him, his Eve, God deigns address

"Grow, for the times to come, with manifold

Increase, that with your seed the pole and earthhyperlink

60 Be filled; and, as Mine heirs, the varied fruits

Pluck ye, which groves and champaigns render you,

From their rich turf." Thus after He discoursed,

In gladsome courthyperlink a paradise is strewn,

And looks towards the rays of th' early sun.hyperlink

65 These joys among, a tree with deadly fruits,

Breeding, conjoined, the taste of life and death,

Arises. In the midst of the demesnehyperlink

Flows with pure tide a stream, which irrigates

Fair offsprings from its liquid waves, and cuts

70 Quadrified paths from out its bubbling fount

Here wealthy Phison, with auriferous waves,

Swells, and with hoarse tide wearshyperlink conspicuous gems,

This prasinus,hyperlink that glowing carbuncle,hyperlink

By name; and raves, transparent in its shoals,

75 The margin of the land of Havilath.

Next Gihon, gliding by the Aethiops,

Enriches them. The Tigris is the third,

Adjoined to fair Euphrates, furrowing

Disjunctively with rapid flood the land

80 Of Asshur. Adam, with his faithful wife,

Placed here as guard and workman, is informed

By such the Thunderer'shyperlink speech: "Tremble ye not

To pluck together the permitted fruits

Which, with its leafy bough, the unshorn grove

85 Hath furnished; anxious only lest perchance

Ye cull the hurtful apple,hyperlink which is green

With a twin juice for functions several."

And, no less blind meantime than Night herself,

Deep night 'gan hold them, nor had e'en a robe

90 Covered their new-formed limbs.

Amid these haunts,

And on mild berries reared, a foamy snake,

Surpassing living things in sense astute,

Was creeping silently with chilly coils.

He, brooding over envious lies instinct

95 With gnawing sense, tempts the soft heart beneath

The woman's breast: "Tell me, why shouldst thou dread

The apple'shyperlink happy seeds? Why, hath not

All known fruits hallowed?hyperlink Whence if thou be prompt

To cull the honeyed fruits, the golden worldhyperlink

100 Will on its starry pole return."hyperlink

But she Refuses, and the boughs forbidden fears

To touch. But yet her breast 'gins be o'er come

With sense infirm. Straightway, as she at length

With snowy tooth the dainty morsels bit,

105 Stained with no cloud the sky serene up-lit!

Then taste, instilling lure in honeyed jaws,

To her yet uninitiated lord

Constrained her to present the gift; which he

No sooner took, then-night effaced!:-their eyes

110 Shone out serene in the resplendent world.hyperlink

When, then, they each their body bare espied,

And when their shameful parts they see, with leaves

Of fig they shadow them. By chance, beneath

The sun's now setting light, they recognise

115 The sound of the Lord's voice, and, trembling, haste

To bypaths. Then the Lord of heaven accosts

The mournful Adam: "Say, where now thou art."

Who suppliant thus answers: "Thine address,

O Lord, O Mighty One, I tremble at,

120 Beneath my fearful heart; and, being bare,

I faint with chilly dread." Then said the

Lord:

"Who hath the hurtful fruits, then, given you? "

"This woman, while she tells me how her eyes

With brilliant day promptly perfused were,

125 And on her dawned the liquid sky serene,

And heaven's sun and stars, o'ergave them me!"

Forthwith God's anger frights perturbed Eve,

While the Most High inquires the authorship

Of the forbidden act. Hereon she opes

130 Her tale: "The speaking serpent's suasive words

I harboured, while the guile and bland request

Misled me: for, with venoms viperous

His words inweaving, stories told he me

Of those delights which should all fruits excel."

135 Straightway the Omnipotent the dragon's deeds

Condemns, and bids him be to all a sight

Unsightly, monstrous; bids him presently

With grovelling beast to crawl; and then to bite

And chew the soil; while war should to all time

140 'Twixt human senses and his tottering self

Be waged, that he might creep, crestfallen, prone,

Behind the legs of men,hyperlink -that while he glides

Close on their heels they may down-trample him.

The woman, sadly caught by guileful words,

145 Is bidden yield her fruit with struggle hard,

And bear her husband's yoke with patient zeal.hyperlink

"But thou, to whom the sentencehyperlink of the wife

(Who, vanquished, to the dragon pitiless

Yielded) seemed true, shalt through long times deplore

150 Thy labour sad; for thou shalt see, instead

Of wheaten harvest's seed, the thistle rise,

And the thorn plenteously with pointed spines:

So that, with weary heart and mournful breast,

Full many sighs shall furnish anxious food;hyperlink

155 Till, in the setting hour of coming death,

To level earth, whence thou thy body draw'st,

Thou be restored." This done, the Lord bestows

Upon the trembling pair a tedious life;

And from the sacred gardens far removes

160 Them downcast, and locates them opposite,

And from the threshold bars them by mid fire,

Wherein from out the swift heat is evolved

A cherubim,hyperlink while fierce the hot point glows,

And rolls enfolding flames. And lest their limbs

165 With sluggish cold should be benumbed, the Lord

Hides flayed from cattle's flesh together sews,

With vestures warm their bare limbs covering.

When, therefore, Adam-now believing-felt

(By wedlock taught) his manhood, he confers

170 On his loved wife the mother's name; and, made

Successively by scions twain a sire,

Gives names to stockshyperlink diverse: Cam the first

Hath for his name, to whom is Abel joined.

The latter's care tended the harmless sheep;

175 The other turned the earth with curved plough.

These, when in course of timehyperlink they brought their gifts

To Him who thunders, offered-as their sense

Prompted them-fruits unlike. The elder one

Offered the first-fruitshyperlink of the fertile glebes:

180 The other pays his vows with gentle lamb,

Bearing in hand the entrails pure, and fat

Snow-white; and to the Lord, who pious vows

Beholds, is instantly acceptable.

Wherefore with anger cold did Cain glow;hyperlink

185 With whom God deigns to talk, and thus begins:

"Tell Me, if thou live rightly, and discern

Things hurtful, couldst thou not then pass shine age

Pure from contracted guilt? Cease to essay

With gnawing sense thy brother's ruin, who,

190 Subject to thee as lord, his neck shall yield."

Not e'en thus softened, he unto the fields

Conducts his brother; whom when overta'en

In lonely mead he saw, with his twin palms

Bruising his pious throat, he crushed life out.

195 Which deed the Lord espying from high heaven,

Straitly demands "where Abel is on earth? "

He says "he will not as his brother's guard

Be set." Then God outspeaks to him again:

"Doth not the sound of his blood's voice, sent up

200 To Me, ascend unto heaven's lofty pole?

Learn, therefore, for so great a crime what doom

Shall wait thee. Earth, which with thy kinsman's blood

Hath reeked but now, shall to thy hateful hand

Refuse to render back the cursed seeds

205 Entrusted her; nor shall, if set with herbs,

Produce her fruit: that, torpid, thou shalt dash

Thy limbs against each other with much fear."....



Footnotes



1 Terram.

2 Tellus.

3 Immensus. See note on the word in the fragment "Concerning the Cursing of the Heathen's Gods."

4 Cardine.

5 Mundo.

6 "Errantia;" so called, probably, either because they appear to move as ships pass them, or because they may be said to "wander" by reason of the constant change which they undergo from the action of the sea, and because of the shifting nature of their sands.

7 Terrarum.

8 "God called the dry land Earth:" Gen. i. 10.

9 i.e., "together with;" it begets both sun and moon.

10 i.e., "the fourth day."

11 Mundo.

12 Or, "lucid" - liquentia.

13 i.e., "Power Divine."

14 So Milton and Shakespeare.

15 As (see above, l. 31) He had all other things.

16 SeeGen. iii. 20, with the LXX., and the marg. in the Eng. ver.

17 Terrae.

18 The "gladsome court" - "laeta aula" - seems to mean Eden, in which the garden is said to have been planted. See Gen. ii. 8.

19 i.e., eastward. See the last reference.

20 Aedibus in mediis.

21 Terit. So Job (xiv. 19), "The waters wear the stones."

22 "Onyx," Eng. ver. See the following piece, l. 277.

23 "Bdellium," Eng. Ver.; anqrac, LXX.

24 Comp. Ps. xxix. 3, especially in "Great Bible" (xxviii. 3 in LXX.)

25 Malum.

26 Mali.

27 "Numquid poma Deus non omnia nota sacravit?"

28 Mundus.

29 The writer, supposing it to be night (see 88, 89), seems to mean that the serpent hinted that the fruit would instantly dispel night and restore day. Compare the ensuing lines.

30 Mundo.

31 Virorum.

32 "Servitiumque sui studio perferre mariti;" or, perhaps, "and drudge in patience at her husband's beck."

33 "Sententia:" her sentence, or opinion, as to the fruit and its effects.

34 Or,

"That with heart-weariness and mournful breast

Full many sighs may furnish anxious food."

35 The writer makes "cherubim" - or "cherubin" - singular. I have therefore retained his mistake. What the "hot point" - "calidus apex" - is, is not clear. It may be an allusion the "flaming sword" (see Gen. iii. 24); or it may mean the top of the flame.

36 Or, "origins" - "orsis" - because Cain and Abel were original types, as it were, of two separate classes of men.

37 "Perpetuo;" "in process of time," Eng. ver.; meq hmeraj, LXX. in Gen. iv. 3.

38 Quae porsata fuerant. But, as Wordsworth remarks on Gen. iv., we do not read that Caïn's offerings were first-fruits even.

39 Quod propter gelida Cain incanduit ira. If this, which is Oehler's and Migne's reading, be correct, the words gelida and incanduit seem to be intentionally contrasted, unless incandescere be used here in a supposed sense of "growing white," "turning pale." Urere is used in Latin of heat and cold indifferently. Calida would, of course, be a ready emendation; but gelida has the advantage of being far more startling.