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Crowns of Martyrdom
Prudentius, tr. Thackeray, 1890; selections
Chapter 6
LO! her head blest Tarragona reareth12
Bright far off with blaze of holy martyrs,—
You and your two deacons, Fructuosus.
God with love looks on the Spanish nation,
Since th’ Eternal Trinity encircles
This our citadel with triple honours.
Thence Augurius mounts to highest heaven,
With him is Eulogius ascending,
Up to Christ’s own Presence borne in glory.
To that majesty of Saints triumphant
Their true Guide and Captain and Instructor,
Bishop once, now Saint, rose Fructuosus.
Cited suddenly before the Prefect,
He undaunted ventured to the Forum
With two faithful ministers beside him.
Thence their torturer with bloodshed sated
Hales to chain and dungeon those three heroes:
Fructuosus gladly goes the foremost.
Then lest fear should paralyze his comrades,
As he walks to death, their Teacher in them
Kindles faith, with Christ-inspired fervour.
“Stand by me and play the man! to torture
Satan that old serpent calls God’s servants.
Let not Death appal you—palms await you!
“Chains for Christians mark the way to glory:
Chains upbear them to the heavenly summits:
Chains are God’s atonement with His blest ones.”
Thus he spake. They reach the cell, whose captives
Pass beneath the mystic bath,3 while darkness
At those cleansing waters shrinks astounded.
There three days they lie from sunlight hidden,
Stand at last before the fierce tribunal:
E’en the rack doth tremble at those brethren.4
* * * * *
He, while noting some among the people
Proffering him a cup to quaff, refuses.
“I am fasting, ’tis no time for drinking.
“Not yet gives the ninth hour its indulgence,5
Never will I break the rule ordained me.
No, not death itself my vow shall cancel.
“Christ thus in His hour of crucifixion
When the wine-cup mixed with myrrh was offered,
Would not slake His thirst therein, on tasting.”
Meantime they have entered the Arena
Reeking with the blood of beasts, where Frenzy
Throngs to see those spectacles inhuman.
* * * * *
Many in kind office, each with other
Vying, beg his sandals to unfasten.
Prostrate one was eager to unloose them.
Holy Fructuosus will not let him
Stoop so low. “Let be! and leave your Bishop,
Lest such service my decease embitter.
“Look! my feet will I release unaided,6
That with steps unfettered and untrammelled,
I may swiftly pass into the furnace.
“Why should tears adown your faces trickle?
Why entreat me to be mindful of you?7
I will pray to Christ, and plead for all men.”
Scarcely had he spoken thus when stooping
He undoes the latchet of his sandals,
As did Moses to the Bush approaching.
For to desecrate those fiery precincts
Or draw nearer God he deems unlawful,
Till he plant his feet without defilement.
See him standing barefoot now! the Spirit
Sounding out of Heaven, with words inspires him,
Words that strike all hearers with amazement.
“’Tis not punishment you see, believe me;
Quickly passeth it in one brief moment:
Life it does not take but recreates it.
“Happy souls! whose lot it is through death-flames
To ascend, and scale celestial places,8
Who shall scare the burnings everlasting.”
* * * * *
From the Prefect’s palace his attendant
Saw Heaven’s portal open to the martyrs,
And those heroes soaring up triumphant.
Straight he showed his master’s little daughter
What made manifest his guilt;—in Heaven
Live the men who in the Forum perished.
Virgin sight could penetrate that clearness
To her father dark: that so the household
For its lord’s iniquity might tremble.
Then collected are those hallowed ashes
And the bones, bedrenched with wine commingled:9
Each in haste some relic of them claiming.
* * * * *
O what pride have we in our three patrons,
We by sainted guardianship protected,
We that dwell ’neath Pyrenean mountains!
Time shall be, the universe shall crumble;
Thee then, Tarragona, Fructuosus
Shall redeem from flame, and shield from judgment.
Yea, and this my verse perchance recalling
By Christ’s gracious favour he may succour
Me—even me—upon my bed of torment.
Notes
- The details, as in the case of St. Vincentius, are taken from the “Acts of the Martyrs.” The martyrdom of the Bishop of Tarragona and his deacons (levitis geminis) Augurius and Eulogius took place in Valerian’s persecution, January 21, A.D. 259, in which Xystus, Bishop of Rome, with his deacon Laurentius, and St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, suffered. This poem illustrates several important subjects often touched on by Prudentius: (a) the belief in the intercession of saints, especially the concluding lines; (b) the importance attached to the possession of their relics, and (c) incidentally it affects the question of his birthplace. See the Introduction, Parts I. and II., pp. xv, xlii, xliii. The metre is noticeable, as composed in strophes of three lines each, with reference to the three martyrs. Otherwise, it is the hendecasyllabic metre of Catullus and Martial, but Prudentius never admits an iambus or a trochee in the first place.
- P. 130. Felix Tarraco. There is an obvious reminiscence here of Statius’ poem in the same metre on the “Birthday of Lucan”—
“Felix heu nimis et beata tellus—Baetica
Lucanum potes imputare terris.” - Exercent ibi mysticum lavacrum. The “Acta” mentions that Fructuosus baptized Rogatianus in the prison.
- Tremunt catastae. The same conceit has occurred above in the poem on Eulalia, and in that in Vincentius. Cf. St. Ambrose on St. Agnes’ Martyrdom, “Cerneres trepidare carnificem, quasi ipse addictus fuisset, tremere percussoris dextram.” The word catasta, originally a stage on which slaves were exposed for sale, was used in later Latin for an iron grating or bed, under which a fire was kindled to torture criminals and martyrs. Cf. Augustine on Psalm 96, “Habebant gaudia in catasta, qui Christum praedicabant inter tormenta.’
- Nondum nona diem resignat hora, i.e., 3 p.m., the hour when our Lord gave up the ghost. Dies here is probably used in the sense of victus diurnus. Du Cange quotes an example of this sense from the Instructiones of Cassiodorus. It has been suggested however, that the morning of the new-heavenly-life may be meant by dies. See p. 170, l. 1.
- Atquin. A post-Augustan form of atqui, common in Tertullian.
- Fĭam shortened by accent, in defiance of quantity.
- Celsa scandere—tonantis. Perhaps an echo of the Horatian—
“Tu cum Parentis regna per arduum
Cohors Gigantum scanderet impia.”
For the way in which Prudentius adapts Horace’s language to Christian subjects, see the Introduction, Part III., p. lx. - Perfusa mero. Cf. Virg., Æneid, vi. 227—
“Relliquias vino et bibulam lavere favillam.”