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Crowns of Martyrdom
Prudentius, tr. Thackeray, 1890; selections
Chapter 10
BY this they reached the deathful place,1
The mother bears in fond embrace
Her darling child caressed:
So Abel for his offering
The firstling of the flock did bring,
Whiter than all the rest.
The headsman claimed, the parent gave,
Nor stayed for tears that could not save,
But printed one last kiss.
“Farewell! When thou thy crown hast won,
My advocate, no more my son,
Remember me in bliss.”
She spake, and meekly to the cruel knife
Resigned his life,
And while that tender neck is cleft in twain,
E’en then was fain
From David’s psalm, as she would oft rehearse,
To chant a verse:
“Right dear to God and precious in His eyes2
His saint who dies;
He is Thy servant and Thy handmaid’s son.
Thy will be done!”
This stave she chaunted and unbound
Her robe beneath the ghastly wound,
And while from streaming veins3
She strives to catch the life-blood shed,
The circle of his quivering head
Fast to her bosom strains.
Elsewhere upon the plain the while
One wrapt in smoke prepared a pile
With twigs and pinewood dry,
Where mingled hay and oozing store
Of pitch was feeding more and more
The blaze that mounts the sky.
And now with arms bound back and high
Uplifted on the pyre to die,
Romanus thus exclaims:
“Such martyr’s prize shall ne’er be mine;
I wait from Heaven some mighty sign;4
Not mine the doom of flame.”
Scarce had he speech essayed, ’mid crash
Of blinding storm dark rainclouds lash
The unavailing fires;
The half-burnt brands new-steep’d in oil
Fierce torrents quench, in vain their toil,
The smouldering heap expires.
Notes
- These seven stanzas are selected from a poem consisting of 1,140 lines, longer than some of the books of Lucretius. It is composed in the ordinary trimeter iambic metre, but in strophes of five verses each. To explain why such a large proportion of the “Martyrs’ Garland” should be devoted to one so little known, two theories have been suggested: (1) that the name of this martyr had caused him to be specially honoured at Rome; (2) which is much more probable, that the story of his martyrdom afforded a suitable opportunity for an attack on heathenism. It is not so much a lyric ode as an epic, with a didactic colouring. This will best explain its lengthy digressions and speeches, one of which, put into the mouth of Romanus, exceeds 260 lines. Or it may be regarded as a tragedy in five acts.
The persecution in which Romanus suffered at Antioch—he is at last strangled, after a series of tortures—was that of Diocletian, A.D. 304. He was a deacon and a native of Caesarea, and it is from the accounts by Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, in his “Martyrs of Palestine,” and his much fuller description in the “De Resurrectione,” that Prudentius has drawn his materials. It is remarkable, however, that on the episode of the boy who is cruelly tortured and beheaded before his mother’s eyes, as described in this passage, Eusebius is silent.
The simple testimony of a child (parvum nec olim lacte depulsum) as to Christ being God and one with the Father is appealed to by Romanus. The account of his answer, as is the whole of this episode, is extremely touching and striking.
Adrisit infans, nec moratus rettulit:
“Est quidquid illud, quod ferunt homines Deum,
unum esse oportet, et quod uni, est unicum;
cum Christus hoc sit, Christus est verus Deus,
genera deorum multa nec pueri putant.” - P. 146. Pretiosa. No translation could represent the deep pathos of this passage from Psalm cxvi. in the mother’s mouth. It is almost word for word the same as the Vulgate rendering. (See the Introduction, Part III., p. lvii.) Prolis for proles is a form to which Prudentius is partial. (Cf. pubis, famis, luis, &c., thus written in the Paris MS. 8084.) The employment of sub in “sub adspectu Dei” is also observable. Prudentius’ laxity in the use of prepositions generally might be largely illustrated from his writings. In this poem (l. 676) he has “stupuit tyrannus sub pudore fluctuans.” It is a sign of the disintegration of the language. But here, as Mr. Robinson Ellis suggests, it is probable that it is designed, as is also the shortening of the final syllable in proles, and forms part of the powerful effect the two lines convey. Both of these uses are non-classical, and they give a touch of simplicity, which constitutes the charm of the passage.
It is worthy of notice that in the Decian persecution, Babylas, Bishop of Antioch, sang these words of Psalm cxvi. cheerfully on his way to his martyrdom. - P. 148. profluam. A post-Augustan word, similar to defluus in the poem on St. Cyprian.
- fiat. On the quantity, see Introduction, p. lxvii.