Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 4: 4.01.14 Tertullian - Appendix Part 1 of 5

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Church Fathers: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 4: 4.01.14 Tertullian - Appendix Part 1 of 5



TOPIC: Ante-Nicene Fathers Volume 4 (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 4.01.14 Tertullian - Appendix Part 1 of 5

Other Subjects in this Topic:

The Writings of Tertullian

Part Fourth (Cont.)

X. Appendix. 1

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:2 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 dread3 Dwells in a mind subverted? Commonly Tokens of penal visitations prove 15 All vain where error holds possession. 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 spares 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 in4 his saintly heart the prophet dares?) 35 On the beach-lip, over against the shores Of the Cilicians, is a city poised,5 Far-famed for trusty port - Joppa her name. Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque Seeks Tarsus,6 through the signal providence 40 Of the same God;7 nor marvel is’t, 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, itself8 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 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; 128 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 rising9 clamour of the crew Tries every chance for barque’s and dear life’s sake: To pass from hand to hand10 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’st, 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:11 110 “Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum Of the world’s12 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,13 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, 135 129 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;14 140 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 Lord (Cf. Mat_12:38-41; Luk_11:29, Luk_11:30) - A witness was he (in his very self),15 Not of destruction, but of death’s repulse.





FOOTNOTES



1 [Elucidation.]

2 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.

3 “Metus;” used, as in other places, of godly fear.

4 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.

5 Libratur.

6 “Tarshish,” Eng. ver.; perhaps Tartessus in Spain. For this question, and the “trustiness” of Joppa (now Jaffa) as a port, see Pusey on Jon_1:3.

7 Ejusdem per signa Dei.

8 i.e., the cloud.

9 Genitus (Oehler); geminus. (Migne) = “twin clamour,” which is not inapt.

10 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 = toclear the tardy coils,” i.e., probably from the wash and weed with which the gale was cloying them.

11 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 rendering seem to accord less well with the ensuing words.

12 Mundi.

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

14 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: “Nautae 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.

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 plain1 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. (See Gen_9:21, Gen_9:22, Gen_10:8-17) 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. (Cf. 2Pe_3:5-14) 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 commixt With equal incest common ’mong a race By nature rebels ’gainst themselves;2 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.3 Now at length the day Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host Angelical, two, youths in form, who both Were ministering spirits,4 carrying The Lord’s divine commissions, come beneath 40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot, A transplantation from a pious stock; 130 Wise, and a practiser 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,5 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 pledges6 on his board,7 and quits8 His friends with courteous offices. The night 55 Had brought repose: alternate9 dawn had chased The night, and Sodom with her shameful law Makes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliantwise, Withstands: “Young men, let not your new-fed lust Enkindle you to violate this youth!10 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 right11 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 thou? 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 out 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 Chaldaan,12 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, Preventing13 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!” 131 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.14 Lot enters Segor while the sun Is rising,15 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 intercept The light; and clouds combine to interweave Their smoky globes with the confused sky: Down pours a novel shower: the ether seethes 145 With sulphur mixt with blazing flames:16 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!17 Here they mourn O’er miracles of metamorphosis Of other sort. For, partner of Lot’s flight, His wife (ah me, for woman! even then18 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 range 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 hear mould, mark out The conflagration’s course: evanishèd 180 Is all that old fertility19 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 easely20 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!21 - a sea which no wave animates Through its anhealant volumes; which beneath 195 132 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.22 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,23 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 lightsome24 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 wreckt 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;25 will them teach 230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights,26 and lift Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.





FOOTNOTES



1 Maris aequor.

2 The expression, “sinners against their own souls,” in Num_16:38 - where, however, the LXX. have a very different version - may be compared with this; as likewise Pro_8:36.

3 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 subjoin 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 aetas

Cessandi spatium vis nulla coëgerit irae.”

4 Cf. Heb_1:14. It may be as well here to inform the reader once for all 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.

5 “Divinos;” i.e., apparently “superhuman,” as everything heavenly is.

6 Of hospitality - bread and salt, etc.

7 “Mensa;” but perhaps “mensae” may be suggested - the sacred pledges of the board.

8 “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., fulfills) “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.”

9 Altera = alterna. But the statement differs from Gen_19:4.

10 “Istam juventam,” i.e., the two “juvenes” (ver. 31) within.

11 “Fas” = ὄσιον, morally right; distinct from “jus” or “licitum.”

12 i.e., Lot’s race or family, which had come from “Ur of the Chaldees.” See Gen_11:26, Gen_11:27, Gen_11:28.

13 I use “preventing” in its now unusual sense of “anticipating the arrival of.”

14 Σηγώρ in the L X X., “Zoar” in Eng. ver.

15 “Simul exoritur sol.” But both the LXX. and the Eng. ver. say the sun was risen when Lot entered the city.

16 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 heats exust.”

17 The story of Phaëton 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 half-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.

18 i.e., as she had been before in the case of Eve. See Gen_3:1 sqq.

19 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.

Nullus arat,” etc.

This use of “fratris” in a wide sense may be justified from Gen_13:8 (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.

20 This use of “easely” as a dissyllable is justifiable from Spenser.

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

22 Inque picem dat terrae haerere marinam.

23 “Pressum” (Oehler); “pretium” (Migne): “it will yield a prize, namely, that,” etc.

24 Luciferam.

25 Oehler’s pointing is disregarded.

26 “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:1 for formless was the land,2 And hidden by the wave, and God immense3 O’er the vast watery plains was hovering, 5 While chaos and black darkness shrouded all: Which darkness, when God bade be from the pole4 Disjoined, He speaks, “Let there be light;” and all In the clearworld5 was bright. Then, when the Lord The first day’s work had finished, He termed 10 Heaven’s axis white with nascent clouds: the deep Immense receives its wandering6 shores, and draws The rivers manifold with mighty trains. The third dun light unveiled earth’s7 face, and soon (Its name assigned8) 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, with9 the sun’s lamp generates The moon, and moulds the stars with tremulous light 20 Radiant: these elements it10 gave as signs To th’ underlying world,11 to teach the times Which, through their rise and setting, were to change. Then, on the fifth, the liquid12 streams receive Their fish, and birds poise in the lower air 25 Their pinions many-hued. The sixth, again, 133 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 It13 speaks: “With utmost care, Assimilated to our own aspèct,14 35 Make We a man to reign in the whole orb.” And him, although He with a single word15 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. Straightway his eyes With sleep irriguous He doth perfuse; That from his left rib woman softlier 45 May formèd be, and that by mixture twin His substance may add firmness to her limbs. To her the name of “Life” - which is called “Eve”16 - 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 earth17 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 court18 a paradise is strewn, And looks towàrds the rays of th’ early sun.19 65 These joys among, a tree with deadly fruits, Breeding, conjoined, the taste of life and death, Arises. In the midst of the demesne20 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 wears21 conspicuous gems, This prasinus,22 that glowing carbuncle,23 By name; and laves, 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’s24 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,25 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’s26 happy seeds? Why, hath not God All knows fruits hallowed?27 Whence if thou be prompt To cull the honeyed fruits, the golden world28 100 Will on its starry pole return.”29 But she Refuses, and the boughs forbidden fears To touch. But yet her breast ’gins be o’ercome 134 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, than - night effaced! - their eyes 110 Shone out serene in the resplendent world.30 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 perfusèd 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,31 - 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.32 “But thou, to whom the sentence33 of thy 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;34 155 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,35 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 stocks36 diverse: Caïn 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 curvèd plough. 135 These, when in course of time37 they brought their gifts To Him who thunders, offered - as their sense Prompted them - fruits unlike. The elder one Offered the first-fruits38 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 accèptable. Wherefore with anger cold did Caïn glow;39 185 With whom God deigns to talk, and thus begins: “Tell Me, if thou live rightly, and discern Things hurtful, couldst thou not then pass thine 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 cursèd 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 24 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_1:10.

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 See Gen_3:20, 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_2:8.

19 i.e., eastward.