On Jonah and Nineveh (poem)

After Sodom and Gomorrah, living funerals for ever, and the burnings of punishment marked by the old age of their ashes, and fruits that grow there only for the eyes and in vain, and the death, alike, of sea and salt made there, and if there is any human being who, with changed body, keeps the punishment: a city had almost shaken out the other rains of fire from above, a city, as the transgression of the just [?], called Nineveh. For what fear has a mind overturned? All the lessons of punishment go for nothing among the crowd where error holds sway. But the good Lord almighty, patient with us and slow to strike, will hurl no anger without first warning and knocking at hardened hearts, stirring his foreseeing prophets with his majestic mind. For the Lord had commanded Jonah to foretell destruction to the Ninevites for their deserts. But he, knowing that God spares the submissive and that the threatened punishment gives way to suppliants, and that he is easily moved by the good, held back from going, lest he should proclaim something vain when peace made the threats give way. Soon he resolved on flight, if there is any such possibility of avoiding God and escaping the right hand of the Lord, beneath which the whole trembling world is held. Or is there reason in what the prophet does from his holy heart? On the lip of the shore, most famous for its safe harbour, the city of Joppa faces across toward the coasts of the Cilicians. From there, then, Jonah in haste boards a ship for Tarsus.

… God brings about the acts of the same; nor, in the end, is it surprising if he who fled the Lord on land found him on the waves. For suddenly a little cloud had stained the air, aware of the wind from its sulphurous fleece, and little by little the mass gathered close against the sun and shut in the deceived day with a host of darkness. The sea becomes the mirror of the sky: a black rim stains the waves; the heaven rushes into darkness and the sea rises, while in vain the clouds touch the middle of the waves, the glory of the winds, which every one of them stirs up with its whirlwind. A varied fury raged against the fugitive Jonah; a single ship was the contest of sky and sea. It is pounded from this side and that; the whole forest of timbers trembles under the wave-breaking blow; beneath, the spine of the keel is shaken; the yard quivers; the creaking labour shudders from on high; the mast itself, uncertain whether it will break, bends. Meanwhile the groaning and the voice of the sailors try everything for the ship and for their lives: to secure the lingering coils, to bind the girdle-cable round, to grip the effort of the rudders and push against the resisting turns with their breasts. Some in turn bail out the foul water of the bilge, heavy with stench; but others seize the cargo and throw all the load overboard, and strive to overcome dangers by losses. There are wretched cries at every breaking of the sea, and they stretch out their hands to the powers of gods that are none.

… those whom the force of sea and sky does not fear: no less do they sink them, hidden in the sterns, with angry whirlwind. Unaware of this, the guilty one himself, snoring under the hollow vault of the stern, sounded his sleep with puffing nostrils, already then, in his sleep, shaping the figure of the Lord. As soon as he who directs the duties of the prow, following the waves, found him lulled in peace and proud in quiet rest, he rebuked him, shaking him: “What,” he says, “in such danger do you take your dreams in the usual way, and have them alone in so great a storm of the sea? See, the wave is covering us; the only hope is in the gods. You too, whoever your god is, say your vows and prayers!” Then they decide to learn by lot who is nearer to guilt, who is the cause of the storm; and the lot does not lie about Jonah. Then they ask: “Who are you, and from where among men, and of what estate, of what people, of what place are you called?” He confesses himself the most fearful and faithful servant of God, who raised the heaven on high, who set the earth and who poured out the seas. They grew stiff with fear: “What fault, then, is ours toward you? What is to happen now? By what means shall we appease the seas?” For the fierce waters swelled more and more. “Behold, I am the storm, I am the whole madness of the world; because of me”, he says, “the heaven rushes on you and the sea rises;

because of me the land is far off, death is very near, there is no hope from God. Rather, throw me headlong, lightening the ship of its cause: throw this one great burden, willing, into the sea.” But they strive in vain to turn their course back; for neither did the rudder allow turning, nor would the hard balance of the yards be changed. At last, to the Lord: “Do not give us into the jaws of death for the sake of one soul, and do not wish us to be spattered with the blood of a just man, if your right hand so leads.” And now there a whale rising from the bottom of the deep, rolling the scaly host of its body covered with shells, pressed on its own waves through the shaken marble of the sea, seeking the prey of its own accord, which, as it rolled from the height of the lofty stern, it greedily swallowed with muddy jaws, and took the living feast into its long belly, and with the man swallowed the rage of sky and sea. The wave of the sea is laid flat; the shadow of the heaven is dispelled; on this side the waves, on that the winds, are made friendly again. And as the calm keel marks a safe way, foamy tracks gleam white in the blue furrow. Then the sailors joyfully worship the Lord and offer him sacrifices of thanks: the ship is borne along, and the prophet in the belly. The ship cuts the waves, and under the lowest waves Jonah is carried down while the beast breathes; shut in and not wetted by the waters, deep within the sea and outside it, among half-eaten flesh and bodies dissolved by putrid digestion, learning at any moment his own funeral; but because he was to be a sign of the Lord, there was no destruction for him, but he was made the glory of heaven.