Marco Girolamo Vida: The Lightening of Hell

 Introduction

Christ is risen!  

I intended to post this closer to Pascha, originally on Great and Holy Saturday, but it is still fitting even now.  This poem is a loose translation, close to a paraphrase, of a passage from the Christiad, a Latin epic poem by Marco Girolamo Vida (1485-1566).  Here, he represents the descent of Christ into Hades to free the souls imprisoned there; Vida's description of Hell and Satan, throughout the Christiad, was a key influence on John Milton's descriptions in Paradise Lost.  My translation is written in a kind of four-foot blank verse, an unrhymed, loosely iambic tetrameter.  (True blank verse, as in Milton, is unrhymed iambic pentameter.)  It is not perfectly metrical, but I inclined more towards closeness to the original than to metrical perfection.

There are a number of full English translations of Vida's epic; the 18th-century translations (John Cranwell, Edward Granan) are in heroic couplets; the 20th-century translations by Drake and Forbes (see Source below) and James Gardner (I Tatti Renaissance Library) are in prose. 

The Lightening of Hell

(A Paraphrase of Marco Girolamo Vida’s Christiad VI.198-221)

Behold, there comes, without delay,
Avenger of the greatest might
up to the doors, and light divine
there splendid shines.  Enormous gate,
with hundred bars of bronze, stays shut,
eternal gate.  None availed
to conquer this, no flame, no force,
no strength of hardest iron.  But here
stands God, and strikes with His right hand.
At the blow, earth, terror-struck,
quakes in every place, the stars
which wander all throughout the sky
tremble, darkness’ kingdom’s shadowed
caverns echo the sovereign boom.
From deepest vale, with horrid march,
in haste, light-fliers’ brothers’ band
comes forth, in fear of sound—
human in form unto the groin
and dragons from there—and with unwonted
roar they shout, and dire fire
flows from out their jaws, and all
the house is wrapped in smoke of pitch.
At once the doors are open—behold!—
suddenly the posts from hinges spring,
shaken, shattered by their own will.
Within the house all seems confused,
and, round the highest atria,
the darkness shrinks, and once-blind night
recedes.  For God, thus so beheld,
blinding eyes within the halls
obscure, shines with light divine.
And as a gem in royal chambers,
imitating fire’s glow,
gleams with splendor in the night,
and blackest darkness puts to flight,
and all the place with largesse clothes,
casting round its crimson light—
so is God in Satan’s halls.

Source: Marco Girolamo Vida, The Christiad: A Latin-English Edition, ed. and tr. Gerturde C. Drake and Clarence A. Forbes (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978), 250.

Translation ©2024 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

Lope de Vega: Mary's Solitude

Introduction: Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (1562-1635) was one of literature's most prolific writers, a monument of the Spanish Golden Age; among his many works are hundreds of plays and poems, including multiple epics, as well as some novels.  Though he had a variety of lovers and mistresses, he was ordained a priest in 1614, and many of his poems are religious.  Among them is the collection Romancero Espiritual (Spiritual Romance-Book, a romance being a type of Spanish folk ballad).  Below are the opening lines of one of these romances, "On the Solitude of Our Lady."  I find the sharp contrasts of these opening lines quite effective as their own poem, separated from the full romance.  They are also fitting lines for Great and Holy Friday.  The source is Lope Félix de Vega Carpio, Obras Escogidas, ed. Federico Carlos Sainz de Robles (Madrid: Aguilar, 1953), II:124.

From Romancero Espiritual XVIII

"On the Solitude of Our Lady"

Lope de Vega

(1562-1635)

Without a Father, because He’s hid;

without a Son, because He’s dead;

without a light, because sun cries;

without a voice, because Word dies;

without a soul, absent her own;

without a body, her body enterred;

without the earth, for all is blood;

without the air, for all is flame;

without the flame, for all is water;

without the water, for all is ice.

 

Translation ©2023 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

A Christian's Task

Holy Prophet Micah

"He has showed you, O man, what is good;

and what does the Lord require of you

but to do justice, and to love kindness,

and to walk humbly with your God?"--Mic 6:8

A Christian's task is simple: to love God with his entirety, and to love his neighbor as himself.  All other duties and tasks in the Christian life derive from these two.  As the Lord Himself said, "On these two commandments all the law and the prophets are suspended."  We must always return to these two commandments as we navigate our way through the stormy seas of earthly life.

The Cross, Icon of Christ's Love

 "When you see the cross, know and believe that you are seeing Christ enthroned on it; when you pray before the cross, believe that you are doing so concerning Christ our God and not with inanimate matter. For it is Christ Who receives the veneration you offer before the cross; and it is He Who hears the supplications of your mouth and fulfills the desires of your heart, which you ask with faith. Whoever does not honor the cross, or insults it, insults Christ Himself."--St. Nerses Shnorhali

We are to preach nothing except Christ Crucified, following the example of Paul: on the Cross Christ bore our iniquities.  He was lashed, stripped, beaten, plucked, mocked, and finally forced to carry His death-wood to the Place of the Skull, where men of hubris dared to kill the Almighty Author of Life.  Yet He did this willingly!  It is this which changes the Crucifixion from merely a horrific deed of men into an infinitely loving act of God.  For it was God Who deigned to make Himself one of us, like us in all ways but sin, to be our great High Priest, yet a High Priest Who sacrifices Himself for those whom He shepherds.  And He sacrificed Himself in the most painful way.

The Holiness of the Name

"When the priests and the people which stood in the Temple Court heard the Expressed Name come forth from the mouth of the High Priest, they used to kneel and bow themselves and fall down on their faces and say, 'Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever!'"--Yoma 6:2

For many cultures throughout the world, a name is a powerful thing.  It was no different for our forefathers in faith, the sons of Israel, for to them had been revealed the Holy Name of God.  His Name was seen to be so powerful that only the high priest could pronounce it, and that only once a year.  The Name was so great and so holy that Jews to this day do not pronounce it when reading the Scriptures, instead only saying "Adonai" (Lord).  For the holiness of God is an immense flood that soaks everything relating to Him, so that from the Ark of the Covenant to the Holy Name, all is imbued with His sanctity.  And this sanctity is of such a power that the one who is unprepared and unworthy is destroyed by it, as was Uzziah when he tried to touch the ark.  (Just so the Eucharist is Holy, and he who partakes of it unworthily eats and drinks condemnation on himself.)

Myrrh Is Fitting For the Dead

 "Myrrh is fitting for the dead, but Christ has shown Himself not subject to corruption..."

--Troparion of the Myrrh-Bearers

Christ is risen!  He is risen from the dead, He is risen from the tomb!  The rock which once held His Body is now rolled away, and He walks once more among the living, eating with them, speaking with them, proclaiming the Gospel to them.  To so many does He appear: to Peter and John and the rest of the Eleven, to the 500 disciples, to the men on the road to Emmaus...yet He first appears to the myrrh-bearers.  They who were at His side for His burial He honors with the first revelation of His Resurrection.

A Marian Hymn from An Unlikely Source

 The Protection of the Theotokos

Hymns of petition to the Theotokos are of no recent invention in the Church: indeed, the oldest hymn to her, known in Latin as the "Sub tuum praesidium," dates back to a Coptic text in the 3rd century.  Further hymns have not been infrequent in the intervening centuries, and Christians around the world pray constantly for her intercession.  She is also not tardy in responding to these requests: do we not have an entire feast recalling her protection of Constantinople?  The miracles wrought through her intercession, through the means of icons, springs, statutes, or merely prayers, are countless, and so she has inspired many to proclaim the greatness that the Lord has bestowed upon her, the greatness she prophesied in her canticle: "From now will all generations bless me."  Her greatness has inspired saints (such as St. Romanos the Melodist and St. Bernard of Clairvaux) and those whose fate is not known for certain, such as great musicians (think of Franz Schubert's Ave Maria) and artists (as one example, Jean Augustine Dominique Ingre's The Virgin of the Host),  Yet sometimes she inspires those whom one might not think of as at all inclined towards the Lord or His Mother.  The following is a poem written by Edgar Allan Poe, entitled "Hymn," which first appeared in his short story "Morella," and then appeared as a stand-alone poem.  I do not know if there was any deep-seated love of the Theotokos in Poe's heart, but the poem still speaks of Marian devotion, regardless of the author's overall mindset.  May it remind us of how we can find hints of truth in even the most unlikely places.

Mary, Tier and Untier of Knots

"Rejoice, Binder of the faithful to the Lord!"

--The Akathist of St. Romanos the Melodist

Since the election of Pope Francis, the originally German devotion to the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary as the "Untier of Knots" as become quite popular.  And it is popular for its truth, for she is the one "who gave birth to the Captives' release," the one who "ripped the Athenians' meshes," the one through whom "we have been liberated from terror."  She can truly free us from so many ills through the grace that fills her: thus in our ails we pray to her, and we have confidence in her help, whether it is with cancer (the Pantanassa) or addictions (the Inexhaustible Cup) or any other ill.  She can truly undo knots, whether those of the devil or merely our own fallen nature.  She is, through Christ, "the freedom from our chains," and thus, "in her hands there is no knot that cannot be undone."

"Rejoice, Rabbi"

 

 "And immediately approaching Jesus [Judas] said, 'Rejoice, rabbi': and he kissed Him."--Mt 26:49

The apostate who ran to the high priests with the Bread of Heaven still in his mouth betrayed our Lord with a kiss.  What is a symbol of filial love, the kiss (φιληματος), Judas turned into a symbol of betrayal.  He who was one of the twelve chosen by Christ to follow Him gave full rein to his greed and allowed Satan entrance into his heart.  Since he betrayed with an act of love the Lover of Mankind, it is fitting that Jesus said, "It would be better for this man if he were never born."  And if the betrayal by an act of love were not horrific enough, ponder the words Judas spoke: "Rejoice, rabbi."

Christ Is Greater Than Ourselves

 

The Parable of the Precious Pearl or the Pearl of Great Price by Domenico Fetti (1589-1623)

We are never as great as we often think ourselves to be: this is the message of humility, the message of the Publican who we remember so often throughout Lent.  We are to strive for what is greater than ourselves, Christ, that He may lead us to be greater than ourselves.  By seeing how little we are in ourselves, we see how much we have to gain in the Lord.  For this we pray, "O Lord and King, grant me the grace to see my own sins."  Whenever we call out to the Lord for help, we are recognizing that we need help, that we are not enough in ourselves, and that He can help us.  We must remember always that He is the greater one; He is the summit of what we search for, the pearl of great price, and knowledge of Him is the greatest knowledge, and fear of Him is the beginning of wisdom.  Thus the following poem, "Christ and Our Selves" by Francis Quarles, can hopefully assist us in calling to mind all of these things:

Quia Amore Langueo

This is an anonymous English poem from the 15th century, which details a dialogue between Christ and the soul, inspired by the Song of Songs, for it is filled with spousal language.  The repeated refrain Quia amore langueo (for love I languish) is taken from the Vulgate (Sgs 5:8).  The stanzas that focus on Christ's sufferings for men make the poem apt for the time of Lent, as we focus even more on Christ's Passion.  Below is the original text of the poem; a modernized English version can be found here.  I hope this poem helps lead you deeper into your relationship with our Lord Who loves us and suffered for us "the Cross, the nails, the spear, and death" (St. Simeon Metaphrastes).

In the vaile of restless mynd
    I sowght in mownteyn & in mede,
trustyng a treulofe for to fynd:
    vpon an hyll than toke I hede;
    a voise I herd (and nere I yede)
        in gret dolour complaynyng tho,
    'see, dere soule, my sydes blede
        Quia amore langueo.'

Quia Amore Langueo (in modern English)

This is an anonymous English poem from the 15th century, which details a dialogue between Christ and the soul, inspired by the Song of Songs, for it is filled with spousal language.  The repeated refrain Quia amore langueo (for love I languish) is taken from the Vulgate (Sgs 5:8).  The stanzas that focus on Christ's sufferings for men make the poem apt for the time of Lent, as we focus even more on Christ's Passion.  The below is a modernization of the original poem (found here), which tries to stick as close to possible to the original; sadly, however, some words are not found in modern English and thus had to be completely changed, sometimes to the detriment of the poetry.  I hope this poem helps lead you deeper into your relationship with our Lord Who loves us and suffered for us "the Cross, the nails, the spear, and death" (St. Simeon Metaphrastes).

In the vale of restless mind,
    I sought in mountain & in meadow,
trusting a truelove for to find:
    upon a hill than took I heed;
    a voice I heard (and near I went)
        in great dolor complaining though,
    'see, dear soul, my sides bleed
        Quia amore langueo.'