Virgilian Cento 0.1–1.517

Leader of the sons of Romulus, a second light of the bright sun, you who rule the kingdoms of the East with just governance, hope of the world and glory of your brother: deign to recognize Maro changed for the better into a divine sense, which you had ordered your servant to write. Here the beginning of the world, the form of the sky, and man created from clay will be set out for you; here the birth of Christ will be brought forth, the plots of the king, the gifts of the Magi, the learned disciples, the threats of the sea and the walking on the water; here the yoke of slavery broken, and life restored by the help of the one cross, and the return from a buried death, and the ascent of him who likewise seeks his kingdom. These things may you read again and keep long, and hand them on to the younger Arcadius; these may he hand on to his offspring; these may your august line always receive and teach to its own.

Long ago, I confess, I wrote how leaders had violated the holy treaties of peace, wretched men whom a dread desire to reign had seized; the various slaughters, the cruel wars of kings, the kindred battle lines, the famous shields defiled with the blood of parents, and trophies taken from no foreign enemy, the triumphs spattered with blood that rumor had reported, the cities so often bereaved of countless citizens. It is enough to remember evils. Now, almighty God, receive, I pray, a sacred song; unseal the mouths of your eternal sevenfold Spirit, and unlock the inner chambers of my heart, so that I, Proba the poet, may tell all the hidden things. It is not now my care to seek ambrosial nectar, nor do I wish to bring the Muses down from the Aonian peak; let no empty error persuade me that rocks speak, or to follow the laurel-bearing tripods and vain vows, the quarreling gods of the great and conquered household gods. For it is no labor to extend one's fame with words and to seek a little praise in the pursuits of men. But soaked from the Castalian spring, imitating the blessed, I will begin to sing from here the libations of holy light that I drank in my thirst. Be present, God, lift up my mind; I will tell how Virgil sang the holy gifts of Christ.

I will proceed, retelling from its origin a matter obscure to no one, if my mind has any faith, if a true mind, poured through the limbs, moves the mass and mingles itself with the whole body as spirit, insofar as harmful bodies do not slow it, and earthly limbs and dying members do not dull it. O Father, O eternal power over men and things, give an easy course and glide into our minds; and you, be present and run through with me the labor begun, Son, the strength of the highest Father and heavenly origin, whom we worship first and to whom we renew deserved honors, now the new offspring, in whom every age has believed. For I remember, turning over the records of the men of old, that Musaeus before all sang through your world what things are, what have been, what will soon be drawn on; and how the tender sphere of the world itself grew together in all its parts. Happy the one who has been able to know the causes of things, whence comes the race of men and beasts and the life of flying things, and the monsters the sea bears beneath its marble surface, and the liquid fire together and the moving moisture of the sky. Not otherwise, I would believe, did the days shine at the first beginning of the growing world, nor did they have another course. A greater order of things is born for me, if antiquity will bring any belief to so great a work. For, I will confess, I used to sing of the spectacles of trivial things, always of horses and the arms of men and battles, and I was willing to exercise a labor in vain.

As I tried all things, the better resolve seemed to be to reveal deep things sunk in earth and darkness. Day by day my mind has long been stirring to undertake something great, and it is not content with peaceful quiet. Keep holy silence, all of you, and turn glad minds to me, mothers and men, boys and unwedded girls. In the beginning the Father himself established the sky and the lands and the liquid plains, and the shining globe of the moon and the labors of the sun, you, O brightest lights of the world, who lead the year as it glides through the sky. For there were neither fires of stars nor bright upper air, but black night, borne up in her two-horse chariot, held the sky, and chaos stretched headlong toward the shadows, as far as the view up to the heavenly Olympus of the sky. Then the almighty Father, who holds the supreme power of things, moved apart the darkened air and scattered the shadows, and now divided the world in the middle between light and shadow. He marks all the stars gliding in the silent sky, turning his intent eyes, in what part he would bring the southern heats, what parts would turn their backs to the pole. After he saw that everything stood fixed in the clear sky, the Almighty made numbers and names for the stars, and a year equal in its four different seasons, heats and rains and winds that bring cold.

And so that we might learn these things by sure signs, in spring the lands swell and ask for life-giving seeds, and in the middle of the scorching heat the threshing floor threshes the parched grain, and autumn lays down its varied fruits, and black winter comes: the Sicyonian olive is crushed in the presses, and the year rolls back on itself along its own tracks. From that time on the mighty upper air, mingled with her mighty body, nourishes all offspring with fruitful showers. And now Dawn was first sprinkling the lands with new light and leading in the day, the stars put to flight. Then the ground begins to harden and to shut Nereus away in the sea, and little by little to take on the forms of things; and the huge whales of the varied faces of the sea swept the waters with their tails and cut the swell. And the moist race of the vast sea round about, with the sun now poured in, now with things uncovered by light, leaping, scatters the bitter spray far and wide. And now the next day was rising with the first dawn. The ground pours out flowers and unfolds all leaves, and the untilled bird-haunts are red with blood-red berries, not under rakes, not subject to any care of men. The third light had moved the chill shadow from the sky; then the pathless thickets resound with tuneful birds, and the ravens give clear calls from a pressed throat, nor did the turtledove cease to moan from the lofty elm.

On the fourth day the earth suddenly brings forth from the woods the monsters of various wild beasts, and cattle of every kind with no keeper through the grass, a marvel to see. Then at last the lion takes up his arms, then the most dangerous tiger, the scaly serpent and the tawny-necked lioness began to rage, and the shapes of great wolves to howl. The other herds graze through the green grasses, and the flocks lack neither clear springs nor grass. And now one day and another day had passed, and the Father, looking forth on all this work of power, the draughts of a divine mind, with things completed in order, cannot satisfy his mind and burns as he gazes on the lands and the stretches of sea and the deep sky, the race of birds and beasts, and turns over within himself who should hold the sea, who the lands, under full dominion, and lest the lands lie idle. It is pleasant to linger always. As he pondered such things, a resolve suddenly settled: he takes up fertile clay and shapes it by pressing, the rich soil, at once in the first months of the year. And now, unexpectedly, an image of such great piety goes forth, a new form of man, most beautiful, first, like God in face and shoulders, whose mind and spirit a greater god drives and sends on to greater works. Another is sought for him; nor does anyone out of so great a throng dare to approach the man and be called his companion in the kingdom.

Without delay he at once gives peaceful rest through the young man's limbs and closes his eyes in sweet sleep. And to him, in the middle course of the dark night, the almighty Father lays bare his ribs and inmost parts. One of these he snatched from the young man, from the tight joints of his sides, and suddenly a marvelous gift arises (a mighty proof) and shone out in clear light, a maiden notable in face and with lovely breast, now ripe for a husband, now of full years for marriage. A great dread breaks the man's sleep: his bones and limbs call it marriage, and astonished, pressed by the divine power, he received her with his hand and, embracing her right hand, clung to her. These things at last completed, he who turns the stars of the world speaks; as he speaks the sea calms its peaceful waters, and the earth trembles from its foundation, the lofty heaven is silent: "Live happily among the shining tilled fields and the blessed seats of the fortunate groves. This is your home, this your country, this the sure rest from labors. To these I set neither bounds of things nor times: I have given an empire without end, and for many years the ground will not suffer rakes, nor the vine the pruning hook. But the race remains immortal, nor does slow old age weaken the strength of the mind and change its vigor. You, on the other hand, turn your minds to what I shall say.

There is in sight a tree with fruitful branches, which it is lawful for no one to fell with fire or iron, by sacred religion never allowed to be moved. Whoever plucks the sacred fruits from this tree will pay with a deserved death: nor does my resolve turn. Let no adviser, however shrewd, persuade you to stain your hands (let it be permitted to warn you by voice), woman; and let the violence of no one overcome you, if the glory of the divine countryside awaits you as worthy." After the Father, whom the stars of the sky obey, had set all things in order, and given laws, he shows them from above the shining fields, the glory of things so great. And behold, beneath the threshold and rising of the first sun, they came to the places where soft marjoram embraces them with flowers and breathing sweet shade. Here is purple spring, and summer in months not its own; here clear springs; here at a fixed time they press sweet honey; here a white poplar overhangs the cave, and the pliant vines weave shady bowers. Gardens breathing with saffron flowers invite them, among a fragrant grove of laurel, and the earth itself bore all things more freely, with no one asking. Fortunate both, if the mind of the unspeakable wife had not been perverse: the great outcome afterward taught it.

And now the unspeakable day was at hand: through the flowery countryside, behold, a fierce enemy, a serpent with immense coils, twisting seven huge circles, sevenfold folds, neither easy to look on nor approachable to speak to for anyone, hung on a leafy bough in slanting envy, breathing out a viper's breath, whose heart delights in sad wars, angers, plots and harmful crimes. Even its own father hates it: it turns itself into so many shapes and bristles with raised scales; and, so as to leave nothing undared or unattempted of crime or guile, it approaches first with words and offers itself unasked: "Tell me," it says, "O maiden (we dwell in shady groves and live on couches of riverbanks and meadows fresh with streams), what such sloth has come into your minds? The fruits lie strewn everywhere, each beneath its own tree; the clear springs are your cups: but to touch the heavenly gifts is forbidden: this one thing was lacking to your affairs. What prevents you from probing deeply the hidden causes? It is vain superstition; the other part of things has been taken away. For what did he give eternal life? Why was the condition of death taken away? If you do not think my words vain, I am the author of daring to loosen the sacred laws. You are the wife: it is lawful for you to test his mind by entreaty.

I will be your leader, if your will is sure for me, and we will build couches and feast on rich banquets." So he spoke, and quicker than the word, they put under their feast the once venerable wood that is held by law, and set out the meal and defile everything by touch. Above all the unhappy woman, doomed to the coming plague, marveling at the new leaves and fruits not her own, the cause of so great an evil, touched it with the edge of her lips. Undertaking a greater crime and beginning a greater madness, alas, she offers her wretched husband the fruit from the forbidden tree and moved his mind with sudden sweetness. At once a new light flashed in their eyes; but they are terrified by the sudden sight, and without delaying further they shade their bodies under the branches with a covering of leaves: a joined covering; nor was any hope of help given. But the maker of men and things, watching with eyes not blind the slaughter and the deeds of the tyrant, perceived it beforehand, and knowing what a woman in a rage could do, at once rushes in: "Away, O away, you profane ones!" cries he who establishes heaven and earth by his power. And they, when they saw him striding from afar and roaring dreadfully, turned in fear and rushing back, scatter to the woods and wherever there are hollow rocks, and secretly seek them. They regret what they began and the light, nor do they look at the air: it wearies them to gaze on the vault of heaven.

Nor was there a long time between, when the frequent sound of feet seemed to be at their ears, and the Father through the air, when he recognized him, grieving, in the deep shadow, addresses him with such words and rebukes him unasked: "Unhappy one, what such madness has seized your mind? What is this new frenzy? Where now, where are you heading," he says, "forgetful of your kingdom? What insanity changes your mind? Tell me, what so dreadful a desire for the light do the wretched have? Hasten flight, and keep away from the whole grove: nor is it permitted to recall your step, if ever adverse things call you back. A river with torrents of flame surrounds it, hissing through the middle, whirling sounding rocks, and it raises globes of flame and licks the stars." He in reply: "Your image, Father, your sad image ... [they] placed in these places: I have deserved it and do not beg off," he says, "Almighty, and I tremble at the sound of feet and your voice, conscious of a daring deed; and with ill-omened counsel the woman brings sad juices and a lingering taste. She, turning over guile and dire crime in her breast, with an unspeakable charge, the girl about to die, while she rages, destroyed the innocent and unwary by a cruel death; for she persuaded me, you yourself know, nor can anyone deceive you. As I saw, how I perished, how evil error carried me away! And we touched with our hand what its own tree does not sow." Then the almighty Father begins thus from his high throne:

"Receive these things, then, into your minds and fix these words of mine: and you first, more monstrous than all others in crime, whom neither length of days nor any piety softens, inciter of crimes, serpent, fed on evil grasses, dragging your broad belly ingloriously in sloth, depart from these places, with no man compelling you, yourself, to where the clay is thin and the pebbles in thorny fields." "But for you, for your crime," he cries, "for such daring, every age is worn away with iron; and first by skill, alas, pitiable boy, you will harass the earth with rakes and scare the birds with noise; the thistle will bristle in the fields and the paliurus rise with sharp thorns, burrs and caltrops and the deceitful weed of poison. But if you work the ground for a harvest of wheat and hardy spelt, you will look in vain on another's heap and relieve your hunger in the woods with shaken acorns. Besides these come diseases, and sad old age, and labor, and the harshness of hard death snatches you away. These things will always be yours. And you, O most savage wife, not ignorant of evil, head and cause of these evils, a great plague committed to you: alas, lost one, you do not know, nor do you see the dangers that stand around you then. Now die, as you have deserved, since you sought it with your whole mind: nor does my sentence, once changed, now yield its place." But first a savage horror stood round the young man;

his eyes stiffened, nor could he hide any longer in the darkness, or hear and return familiar words. Without delay, as ordered, they hurry and are carried with swift steps, and walking side by side through the dark ways they cover the space between and leave the threshold, weeping, and plant their steps with equal cares. Then in the woods the branches give them food, berries and stony cornels, and the plants feed them with roots plucked up. Meanwhile the sun circles round the great year: ten months brought long weariness to the mother, whence men were born, a hard race. Thereafter by skill either grasses appear in the field or leaves on the tree, and the grasses dare to trust themselves safely to new suns; and they begin to let the grape down from pliant branches and teach it to grow into the moist bark. Then, while the twin brothers burn the altars with torches, one envied the other the honor preferred to him (I shudder to tell it): he catches his kinsman off guard and cuts him down at his father's altars, defiling with blood the fires he himself had consecrated. Then the Father added venom to black serpents, and shook the honey from the leaves, and removed fire, and ordered wolves to prey and the sea to be stirred, and checked the wine that ran everywhere in streams.

Soon labor was added to the grain too, so that evil blight ate the stalks and the sick crop denied food. Then catching wild beasts with snares and deceiving them with birdlime was invented, and want, pressing in hard circumstances, moved the fields, sharpening mortal hearts with cares, until little by little a worse and discolored age, an iron offspring, raised its head from the hard fields, and the madness of war and the love of having came after. Justice, departing from the earth, left her last footprints. Nor was there a long time between: fury and anger drive the mind headlong; they rejoice, drenched in the blood of brothers. One hoards wealth and broods over buried gold, nor did he grieve in pity for the poor or stretch out his right hand. Then the almighty Father, deeply moved, sends himself from the high heaven: he pours out the earth into waves, mixing it with the flood, and dissolves the sky into Tartarus. He lays low the fields, lays low the glad crops and the labors of the oxen, washes them away: the ditches fill and the hollow rivers rise; and he gave to death the whole race of cattle, the whole race of wild beasts. Then he snatched from death one heavy with piety and merits (wondrous to tell), who was on earth and most observant of the right, while such great waves rose, so that he might have a source from which the race of a new stock could be recalled. From that flood the Almighty gives laws to the assembled fathers: they spend their age under great laws.

Why should I recall the unspeakable slaughters, the deeds of the tyrant, and hearts that know not how to grow gentle at human prayers? Egypt and the forces of the East and the last wars, and great-hearted leaders and the whole race in order; by what course the tribes and the people, a great nation of men, sought the desert, never unmindful of so great a mind; and the priests who were chaste beside the altars, and the pious prophets who rushed forward for liberty; what kings were roused to war, what battle lines filled the plains by the Red shore, with what arms the king, of noble race, blazed, driven by great fury, leading a column of horsemen and companies bright with bronze? The other deeds of the fathers and the wars fought in order I pass by and leave for others after me to record. Now I return to you and to your great counsels, Father. I set in motion a greater work: I approach the predictions of the earlier prophets, how, though the bound of a narrow age may receive me, a way must be tried by which I too may raise myself from the ground and carry my name in fame through so many years: that your offspring came down from high heaven, and that time brought to us, longing for it at last, the help and the coming of God, when first a woman, bearing the face and dress of a virgin (wondrous to tell), brought forth a child neither of our race nor of our blood; and the prophets of terror had long sung the omens that a man was coming, proud over peoples and lands, from heavenly seed, to take possession of the world by his strength.

And now the promised day was at hand, at which time the origin of a divine stock first lifted up his sacred face, sent into his rule, and power came in a body mingled with God: the image of his dear Father came forth. Without delay, at once in a clear region of the sky, a star drawing a torch ran with much light. The chiefs recognized God and at once heap him with all gifts and adore the holy star. Then indeed faith was plain, and the name of his Father's power was clear; and they themselves recognize the face and the signs of divine beauty of the blazing God. At once rumor flies to the king, raging with great heat, and sharpens his anger with great reports and kindles his mind, and glides to the mother's ears. She, not ignorant of things, foresaw the guile and dire crime and was first to catch the coming upheavals. Foreseeing what was coming, she had secretly entrusted him to be nursed, while cares wavered, while the mind seethed with anger. But the king, anxious, orders the stock and all the future race to be hurled down and burned with flames placed beneath, and, plotting much, orders men to be sent to bring back sure news. Just as ordered they do, and are carried with swift steps, and fill the city with great terrors. At once voices were heard, wailing and a huge cry, and the weeping souls of infants: before the faces of their parents the bodies of the children are laid low on the very threshold.

But the mother, not in vain terrified by such groaning, carrying him herself in her bosom before her amid the confusion, flees with the infant and brings him back to the full manger. Here she nursed her son beneath the gables of a narrow roof, milking her breasts into his tender lips. Here for you first, child, the cradle will pour out flowers, and the earth, mixing the colocasia with the smiling acanthus everywhere, will pour it out with soft bear's-foot little by little. And now the end had come, the circle of time completed. As soon as the fury ceased and the raging mouths fell quiet, bearing a mind beyond his years, the heavenly origin walks through the middle of cities and the neighboring peoples. All the young men, pouring out of houses and fields, gape with astonished minds and gaze at him as he goes, and the crowd of mothers marvels: "What spirit he has, what a face, what sound of voice, and what a step as he goes!" At once the prophet (for he is the surest witness), when he saw him far off, apart by the chill river, said: "It is the time: God, behold, God, in whom is the greatest faith of things and words. You now will be second to him, fortunate boy, whom the stars of the sky obey. So indeed I was supposing in my mind and believed it would be: long awaited you come, the hope and comfort of us." When he had said these things, he received the one coming to be plunged in the healing river and lifted him out of the soft waves.

And the shallows leap, and suddenly a dove, stirred, flies down and stood above his head; then at once it skims its liquid way and does not move its swift wings. Here the whole crowd, poured out onto the banks, rushed, vying to pour abundant dew on their shoulders. Then the Father addresses his Son with friendly words: "Son, my strength, alone my great power, sweetest glory, who will return great to your parent: from you is the beginning, in you it will end. Receive, I bear witness, O my offspring: where the sun returning sees both Oceans, you will see, glad in completed honor, all things beneath your feet turned and ruled. You, rule the peoples with your command, mothers and men; long sluggish minds and hearts unaccustomed, and those ignorant of the way, pitying them with me, approach them as they are inert, and now grow accustomed to be called upon in prayers." He had spoken: the Son was preparing to obey the command of his great Father, pressing on to the work and to the kingdom to come. Alas, piety, alas, ancient faith! What thanks shall I begin to say, if it is permitted to compare small things with great? I had now no hope of seeing my ancient homeland, no hope of freedom, nor any care for salvation. Here he first gave an answer to me as I asked: he removed the stain that had grown hard and left the heavenly sense pure, and sent me back into my kingdom.

Him I would follow through flames, if I were driven an exile in the Syrtes, through various chances, through a thousand pursuing weapons, wherever things will fall out, for so great a name alone, and I would heap altars with their gifts. At his coming, for the reward of praises so great, the unshorn mountains themselves cast their voices to the stars in joy: all the valleys answer. At no other time (a great and memorable name) must the raging evil of the serpent be remembered. Indeed it even dared (the story is obscured by years) to accost the man and demand the reasons for his coming. When it saw him advancing toward it through the grass, it stopped and roared fiercely, and, wounded, the serpent addresses the powerful lord with a proud voice: "Is your face true? Are you a true messenger to me? What race are you? From what home, you who are making for our thresholds? Tell me, come, why you come; for they say you give laws. Or who ordered you, most confident of young men, to approach our homes and impose a custom on peace? I do not envy you; I wonder rather. Hear further what I doubt and what resolve now rises in my mind. There is a lofty house: call the west winds and glide on wings, seeking the high roofs, daring to trust yourself to the sky, if indeed he whom you mention is your Father, whom the stars obey."

Smiling at him, he speaks with calm heart, not ignorant of the prophets and not unaware of the age to come: "Did you even hope to hide it, treacherous serpent? Do not doubt; for you see true things. Choose to follow the high stars on wings, or to hide yourself shut in the hollow earth. Where are you rushing, doomed one, and daring things greater than your strength? Yield to God, thrown down with your whole body on the earth." No more than this: he, marveling at the venerable gift, presses the earth with his forehead and foams bloody froth at his mouth, and content with flight mingled himself with the dark shadows. Meanwhile rumor goes flying through great cities. Men came together: all had one mind, to follow him into whatever lands he wished to lead them across the sea. Many besides, whom obscure fame hides, run together and crowd round in a dense roaring throng, and exult in spirit; for the great crowd holds him in their midst and looks up at him standing out with lofty shoulders. After they came to the high mountains, the eternal power was giving rights and laws to men, the secrets of the Father, and gave hope to the doubtful mind and dissolved its cares. Behold, he sees others thronging on right and left. When he saw them, crowded together, daring for the battles, he begins and breathes divine love into them with his words:

"Be warned and learn justice; help the weary, each for himself, men, gladly, with whatever resources each has, and call on the God of all. Let us follow better things and turn our way where it calls. The first way of salvation is unstained faith and a mind conscious of the right. For you rest is won, the circle of time completed. For those who alone brooded over the riches they found and set aside no share for their own while life remained, and the parent struck and the fraud woven against a client, then, when cold death has separated the limbs from the soul, shut in, await punishment, they who are the greatest throng, and they cry out in the infernal darkness and pay the penalties of old evils. For others, under a vast whirlpool, the stain of crime is washed away or burned out by fire. Here a whirlpool, thick with mud and with a vast abyss, seethes, and from the bottom of the pit belches up sand. From here groans are heard and savage lashes sounding, then the grating of iron and the dragging of chains, and always the darkness thickens with overspreading night. Besides, turn your minds to what I shall say. I will not hereafter hear of you worshiping, after the custom of your fathers' religion, with slaughtered bullocks, images born from trunks and oak, or made by mortal hand, and temples: and these things I will repeat and warn again and again:

but to have perished once is enough; it will profit more to remember the Son and the Father, if it is worthy to believe. But meanwhile time flies, flies beyond recovery, and the day of flames and its hostile force draws near." They clung with astonished minds; nor delaying more, he sings to wretched, sick mortals of another, greater judgment (and he announces sad wraths), to come for destruction, and that all things then, torn with vast ruin, will be mingled together in ruddy fire, and the stars wandering in the sky and the ruin of heaven. Then indeed new dread steals into all through their trembling breasts, and in silence they saw what was to come. While he was warning of many dreadful things about his coming, a youth marking his unshorn face with first youth, rich in wealth, flourishing in the pursuits of inglorious ease (five flocks of bleating sheep he had, five herds came home, and he loaded his tables with unbought feasts), at once eagerly stretched out both palms and, embracing his knees, spoke thus with friendly mouth: "O glory, O deservedly greatest part of our fame, I flee to you and as a suppliant beg your divine power. I have foreseen everything and gone through it in my mind beforehand. Snatch me from these evils, unconquered one. What, finally, remains, or what may I follow to overcome such great labors?

Receive me and give me your pledge: it is right for me to carry out your commands." And to him the hero gave answer thus in a few words: "O young man outstanding in spirit, cease entreating, and do not regret it: nothing, O friend, is left for you. This too I will add, if your will is sure for me: learn, boy, to despise wealth, and shape yourself too worthy of God, and you will be able to know what virtue is. Give your right hand to the wretched, and do not, a brother, desert your brother. If he hastens to be joined in hospitality, join him willingly. Let the chaste house keep its modesty. Come now, break off sluggish delays, and come, not harsh to the needy." He had said these things. The other at the word turned his steps away, sadder, raising a face wondrously pale, groaning much, and removes himself from his sight and goes away. Then, when first the sea could be trusted, the companions launch the ships on the calm deep, and with masterly skill one lashes the broad stream with a casting net, seeking the deep, and another drags his wet lines on the sea. After the boats held the deep and no lands any longer meet them, the sky flashes with frequent fires; clouds suddenly snatch away sky and day; winds rise up and lift the waves to the stars.