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Crowns of Martyrdom
Prudentius, tr. Thackeray, 1890; selections
Chapter 14
WITHIN the walls of Rome is laid1
Agnes, brave martyr, holy maid;2
Twice blest, a martyr’s death to die
And to preserve her chastity.
’Tis said, as yet of tender age,3
But strong in love, that she defied
The edict and the praetor’s rage,
Still faithful to the Crucified.
By threats and blandishments assailed
In vain, she wavered not nor quailed;
Dauntless and resolute, whate’er
Man’s malice can devise to bear.
Then spake the judge: “This stubborn maid
May hold life cheap, nor be afraid
To bear the lash, and yet may be
Chary of her virginity.
Unless the maiden will incline
Her head before Minerva’s shrine,
Fling her among the vile to be
A toy for foulest ribaldry!”
She said, “I am not left alone:
Christ will not so forget his own.
Bloodstained the sword will be—but I,
Christ helping me, unstained shall die.”
* * * * *
Unscathed she faced it all—for none
Was bold to fix his gaze upon
Her comeliness, but turned away
Awestricken, and as those who pray.
* * * * *
Then cried the praetor, “Headsman, come!
“The culprit has deserved her doom.”
But when she saw him standing near,
The headsman with his naked blade,
Then with a spirit void of fear,
“Be praise to God,” the maiden said.
“Far better, grim and pitiless,
Thus, thus to woo me with thy sword,
Than with a smile and soft caress
To tempt me to forsake my Lord.
Thine ardour makes me not afraid;
Nor would I interpose delay.
I bare my bosom to thy blade—
Quick, sheathe it in my heart, I pray!
O! Father, ope Thy gates to me!
O! Christ, I come, Thy bride, to Thee!’”
Then low she bowed her gentle head,
That swiftly so the sword might fall;
And swiftly so her spirit fled
Obedient to the heavenly call.
* * * * *
Free and exultant soars on high
Her spirit, flashing through the sky,
Starlike, a bright, angelic band
Fit escort on her either hand.
This world of ours she sees below,
Far as the downward glance can go
Through earth’s dank vapours, in the swirl
And turmoil of its dizzy whirl,
Herself in brightness; thence she views,
What empty phantoms man pursues.
The pride, the pomp of earthly things,
The stately palaces of kings,
The din, the tumult of the mart,
The silken pageantries of art,4
The thousand troubles that annoy,
Long hours of sadness, fleeting joy,
The maddening thirst for gold, whereby
For paltry gains men cheat and lie,
And, worse, the envy turning all,
Which sweetest else might be, to gall;
These, as the night before the day,
Fast from her gazing fade away.
* * * * *
O! happy Agnes, thus to rise
On wings of glory through the skies!
* * * * *
O! happy thus without a stain
Thy maiden brightness to retain!
* * * * *
For all things to the pure are pure,
And they are blessèd, who endure.
I. Gregory Smith.
Notes
- This poem on the Roman Virgin Martyr is the counterpart to that on the Spanish Eulalia (Peristephanon, iii.). They were almost exactly of the same age at the time of their death. Both of these poems are simple, and open with the slightest of proems. The subject had been already treated by Damasus in a short poem, and by St. Ambrose in his “De Virginibus,” i. c. 2, and in his hymn, of which the following three stanzas are the best—
“Agnes beatae virginis
natalis est, quo spiritum
caelo refudit debitum
pio sacrata sanguine.
“matura martyrio fuit,
matura nondum nuptiis,
nutabat in viris fides
cedebat et fessus senex. . . . .
“Aras nefandi numinis
adolere taedis cogitur,
respondet ‘haud tales faces
sumpsere Christi virgines.”
St. Ambrose’s language here, as is usual with him, resembles that of his prose mention of the martyr.
St. Augustine and St. Jerome had also celebrated this victim of the Diocletian persecution in A.D. 304 or 310, to whose touching tale of Christian endurance, her youth, her beauty, and her innocence, lend such a charm.
The metre of this poem (technically the Alcaic hendecasyllable κατὰ στίχον) bears marks of great care. Prudentius, though he has written no poem in Alcaic stanzas, here uses the first line of that stanza continuously, as Claudian does. But whereas Claudian, in a piece of forty-one lines, five times admits a short syllable in the first place, Prudentius, in his poem of 133 lines, invariably begins with a spondee. And further, he does not once violate the caesura, which marks the division of the two halves of the line. - Agnes. Prudentius and Ambrose both use the Greek form of the name (Ἁγνή).
St. Ambrose says, “Nomen virginis titulus est pudoris.” St. Augustine (Serm. 273, c. 6) alludes to the Latin association, “Agnes latinè agnam significat, graecè castam. Erat quod vocabatur, merito coronabatur.” At a later date the word was declined as a Latin noun, Agnes, Agnetis. Her Church was conspectu in ipso condita turrium. The walls with their towers can be seen from the Basilica of Sant’ Agnese fuori le Mura, rather over a mile from the Porta Pia, on the Via Nomentana. Of the two churches named after St. Agnes, this one is the most interesting. It is said to have been erected by Constantia, a daughter of Constantine, in honour of the martyr buried in the neighbouring catacomb, which also bears her name. This, however, has been controverted, on the ground that the inscription assigned to Damasus makes no mention of the Emperor’s daughter, but attributes the building of the church to a Constantina. It is certain that in 625 it was an ancient edifice, and was then restored by Pope Honorius I.
On the day of St. Agnes, Jan. 21, a service is celebrated in this church, in which two lambs, typical of the purity of the virgin saint, are blessed upon the altar. Of their wool the archiepiscopal pallia are afterwards made. It will be observed that no mention of the lamb occurs in Prudentius’ poem. This, which was afterwards her inseparable attribute, was introduced at a later date, and is not found on the oldest mosaics and other images of St. Agnes, than whom there is no saint, excepting the Evangelists and Apostles, whose effigy is older.
Among the few churches in England dedicated to St. Agnes are one in Cornwall, at St. Perran, near St. Agnes’ Head (one of the Scilly Islands also bears her name), and one in London, conjointly with St. Anne. The village of Papworth St. Agnes, in Cambridgeshire, is also named after her, but not the church, which has now the dedication of St. John the Baptist. - P. 174. Primis in annis. According to Augustine she was of the age of thirteen. Ambrose says, “Duodecim annorum martyrium fecisse traditur.” But one Roman edition here reads tredecim.
- P. 180. Inlusa. An echo of Virgil’s “Inlusasque auro vestes.” Cf. note on lusit, p. 220.