Delphi Complete Works of Sidonius Apollinaris, page 10
31 Who aforetime didst pass in a double portion into the breast of Elisha, when the time came for the fiery chariot to bear aloft the Tishbite in his old age, and the rough-clad charioteer, leaving as a gift his torn coat of skin, entered the flaming car:
35 Who also, when minded to send to earth the second Elias, didst in thy mercy bind the tongue of righteous Zacharias, till such time as a mother in wrinkled eld should make him a father in his old age; and who in bidding the prophet to be silent about thy message didst give token that with the dawn of Grace the Law must know that silence was coming upon it:
40 Who also, born of a pure virgin, before all time God and in time Christ, didst create thyself, as touching the body; who wert wont to give to the blind sight, to the lame the power to walk, to the deaf hearing, and to loosen the tongue of the mute, and didst come that dead bodies might be able to rise from bed bier, and tomb; who didst in thine adopted flesh suffer torments, enduring buffets, scoffs, stripes, thorns, casting of lots, chains, the cross, the nails, the gall, the spear, the vinegar, and finally didst meet death, though only to rise again, delivering whatsoever had passed into the dominion of the old Enemy through our transgression, when the first woman broke the commandment and so fettered us with abiding guilt (But the Enemy, when he sought thy destruction nor found in thee aught that he could prove to be his own, lost all that Eve gave him by her fall; and this recompense of thine dissolved the bond by which man became a robber’s possession. Free from sin thou didst become an ample ransom for sinners, and thou, the new Adam, didst by dying pay the price and snatch the old Adam from death. Thus Death is dead, caught in the very trap himself had made; for attacking without distinction innocent and guilty, he brought it to pass that even those enslaved by sin received the power to be absolved):
64 Who didst likewise bid the ashes of the just to rise with thee at the appointed time, when salvation of a sudden burst upon them who had long been covered up, and a flood of life poured into them and swept their re-knit ashes from the tomb —
68 Do thou grant that I may praise thy servant Faustus, that I may pay my debt of gratitude, which even after this payment I am glad to owe. Thee, great priest, this lyre of mine doth hymn, albeit with a quill unequal to the task.
The first cause and burden of my praises is that when my brother was at an age that is prone to slip his virtue was preserved with thy help through the grace of our Lord, and stands approved — yea, and with no wavering in his good report. This blessing in all its immensity is to be ascribed to thee; the reward will be due to him, but he will be due to thee. If he has of his own free will refused to stumble, let the praise be his; but that he could not have stumbled even if he would redounds by right entirely to thy credit. I praise thee too because when I came aforetime to Reii, while Procyon was raging and the sun’s parching fire was marking the thirsty fields with winding cracks, thy hospitality straightway greeted my hot discomfort with peace, home, shade, water, benediction, bed, and board. But a far greater boon than all these was that thou wert willing for me to approach also the hallowed threshold of the hallowed mother. I stood stockstill, I confess, as I felt my unworthiness, and all at once fearful awe coloured my face as it thrilled with adoration; yea, I trembled as if Israel were bringing me to Rebecca or long-haired Samuel to Hannah.
Wherefore I honour thee without ceasing even in my prayers, and now I acknowledge in paltry verse my great affection.
Whether thou dost tarry roughly garbed in a cheerless wilderness by the sun-fired Syrtes or choosest rather a marsh full of green slime or the dark recesses of rocks where deep sunless caves maintain an age-long gloom; or whether the Alps, stretching afar with their long line of precipitous crags, tremble before thee, great anchorite, as thou snatchest brief slumber on the chill ground (and with all their cold they never overcome the warm glow that Christ hath set in thy heart); for this is the way that thou art urged to go, now by Elias, now by John, now by the two Macarii, now by the great Paphnutius, now by Or, now by Ammon, now by Sarmata, now by Hilarion; and another time the call comes from Antonius, clad only in that tunic which the kindly hand of his master made of palm-leaves:
104 Or whether Lirinus hath welcomed thee, its erstwhile father, whither thou, instead of resting long when thy strength is exhausted, dost often come to serve thy disciples, and thou wilt scarce repose thyself in sleep or take cooked food, but livest a life of self-denial and makest thy fasts rich with intervals of psalmody, meanwhile instilling lessons into the brethren, telling how many great eminences that flat island hath sent soaring to the skies, of what kind was the holy life of old Caprasius and young Lupus, what favour was destined for Honoratus their founder, and who was that Maximus over whose city and monks thou, twice his successor, wert set as bishop and abbot; and thou dost also acclaim in these praises the coming of Eucherius and the return of Hilarius:
116 Or whether the people committed to thy charge now have thee among them, and the lesser folk, with thee in their midst, dare to despise the proud ways of the great; or whether thou dost anxiously take heed what food the sick or the stranger has and how even he is fed whose legs the prison wastes until they slide loosely beneath the fetters; or whether the burial of the dead has all thy thoughts, and loathing not the body of one of the poor although a green hue be spreading over the livid remains, thou with thine own hands dost bear it to the tomb; or whether thou art about to preach from the conspicuous steps of the holy altar, and the eager crowd take their stand around thee that their ears may drink in the healing medicine of the Law’s exposition — whatever thou doest, wherever thou art, I wish thee for evermore the blessings of thy three names, Fortunate, Honoured, Greatest.
XVII. TO OMMATIUS, SENATOR
Four days before the first dawn of August raises above the earth its corn-wreathed head there will be celebrated by my family a sixteenth birthday, which craves to be made lucky by your coming. You shall not have a meal set for you on jewelled tables, nor shall Assyrian purple provide your dining-couch. I shall not bury in the manifold recesses of a glittering side-board masses of dark old silver-plate; nor shall there be offered here a cup whose twisted handles clasp sides overlaid with ruddy gold. Our salvers are of moderate size, and not so made that their artistry atones for their lack of bulk. The rustic table of your Gallic friend will not receive loaves that were wont to make the fields yellow by the Libyan Syrtes. As for wines, I have none of Gaza, no Chian or Falernian, none sent by the vines of Sarepta for you to drink. There are here no cups distinguished by the name of that canton which the triumvir himself established in our land. Nevertheless, we beg you to come; Christ will provide all things, by whose grace this has been made a real homeland for me through your love.
XVIII. ON THE BATHS OF HIS COUNTRY HOUSE
Whoe’er you be, if you deign to visit our Avitacum, let it not dissatisfy you: so may what you possess satisfy you. Here a roof rises that rivals the cone of Baiae, and no whit inferior shines the peaked top with its proud crest. There the chattering water that falls from the brow of the neighbouring hill babbles more busily than the streams that flow from Gaurus. Rich Campania would be ill-pleased with the Lucrine mere if she beheld the waters of our lake. That other shore is adorned by red sea-urchins, but in our fish, O stranger, you see both characters. If you are willing, and if you share our joys with contented heart, gentle visitor, whoever you be, you can create a Baiae here in your fancy.
XIX. ON HIS SWIMMING-BATH
Enter ye the chill waves after the steaming baths, that the water by its coldness may brace your heated skin; and though you plunge your limbs in this liquid alone, our pond makes your eyes swim.
XX. TO HIS BROTHER-IN-LAW ECDICIUS
The genius of my birth reminds me that the Nones of November are at hand. I do not invite you, I order you to come to me. Bring your wife with you; hasten — a couple this time, but next year I hope there will be three of you.
XXI. FISH CAUGHT AT NIGHT
This night for the first time fixed four fishes on my hooks. Of these I have kept two; do you also take two. Those I am sending are the largest; the arrangement is perfectly just, for you are the larger portion of my heart.
XXII. SIDONIUS TO HIS FRIEND PONTIUS LEONTIUS, GREETING
1. As I was trying to spin out the days at Narbo — which was named of old and has in recent times become in reality the town of Mars — it occurred to me to put together some hexameters after your own heart. I hoped that when you read them you might feel well assured that, although our respective household gods are set in places a bit farther from one another than they ought to be, it does not follow that our souls are as far apart as our homes. 2. Here, then, you can find Dionysus bemused amid the delights of his Indian triumph, and Phoebus also, who, as is well known, is for you a god no longer but rather, through a poet’s privilege, an inmate of your house — that same Phoebus who is a great crony of my friend Anthedius, head of the Apolline college, a man who surpasses in the art of lecturing not only all musicians but all geometers, arithmeticians, and astrologers; for I should think no one knows more perfectly the special influences of the various heavenly bodies — the slanting signs of the zodiac, the roaming planets, or the scattered stars of the extra-zodiacal region. 3. He is indeed so eminent in these members (if I may so term them) of philosophy that he seems to me to have mastered without an interpreter, solely by dint of his own genius, the greatest savants among writers on astrology, Iulius Firmicus, Iulianus Vertacus, and Fullonius Saturninus. Following reverently the footsteps of such learning, I pretend to no higher title than a hoarse gander in the presence of a tuneful swan. But why delay you further? I have made your home, “The Castle,” my own, using a friend’s proper privilege, knowing full well that my subject-matter will please you even though the poem should be entirely displeasing.
THE CASTLE OF PONTIUS LEONTIUS
Stranger, whoever you may be, that have visited the Castle and yet are fain to keep silence about it, may you visit the stalls of the Bistonian king, the altars of Busiris, the table of Antiphates, the Tauric realm of Thoas, and the Cyclops who was robbed of his sight by the cunning of the man of Ithaca and bears on the wide expanse of his forehead, as he ranges through his mountain-cave, a gloomy cavern well-nigh as vast, the socket of his pierced eye: and although Phoebus suffers not all and sundry to give free rein to song and does not here spread out fully the sails of eloquence for every man, yet whoever you are who, with no praise on your lips, view that splendid home, you are thereby put on view yourself; your inclination loudly heralds itself though without voice, for your silence proclaims you dumb with jealousy.
Come then, Erato, strike the Pierian strings for me. Let the Satyrs accompany the strain, playing their part with movement of finger and of foot, but not interrupting the melody with jerky leaps. All the festive dances that Dryads or Hamadryads hand in hand with the nymphs of the glen have ever danced may they now bestow on thee alone, great Castle! Kindly choir of Nereids, teach the Naiads there at the season when the Garonne flows back thither and ye come, cleaving the sea in the midst of the river. Reveal then, O Erato, the origin of the house, and declare what protecting spirit watches that home; for so great an edifice cannot lack a divine guardian.
It chanced that Bacchus, having laid waste Erythrae, the famed haunt of bowmen, was subjecting vine-bridled tigers to his chariot where a pole that bore clustering grapes entered the double arch. In the car sat the god himself, all languorous; his proud neck sweated with exuded wine; from his head sprang golden horns, which hurled forth his native levin-fire (this he had first received at his birth long before, when he passed from his mother into his father’s thigh). Both his temples were covered with the bounties of springtime, and the vintage crop fastened the red flowers in their place; his right hand carried a goblet and his left a thyrsus, and his arms were bare, the cloak just touching without hiding them. There was charm in his swimming eyes, and if he chanced to turn them upon the enemy he dazed those Indians by his mere look and made them drunken. Whenever the wheel jolted, forced upward by rough places, the track was soaked all over with a falling shower of new wine. Bassarids, Satyrs, Pans and Fauns were being taught to frolic by Silenus; he was now filled with the divinity that he had reared, but his head was in orderly array; for on his bare pate he took pains to palliate the loss of hair with a garland.
The next show in this new triumph is horned Ganges. With hanging head he has taken his place; his face is unkempt and his cheeks bedewed, and with his glassy tears he has helped to replenish his parched stream. His hands have been cast into chains, and a vine-branch has fastened them behind his back; and gradually the water thus held prisoner has caused fresh growth, and of its own accord the vine-shoot sends forth new leafage all over those dewy arms.
There also walks in chains the wife of a stolen husband, Aurora. Her saffron-hued countenance is downcast, but her lamp may not be hidden, and she is flushed with the glow of the sun’s rays.
Here also appears the Phoenix, who has lost his cinnamon and fears that after this no second death can be his. Then comes a company of prisoners bearing trays laden with their treasures; here are carried ivory and ebony and gold and snow-white gems snatched from pitch-black bosoms. Whoever does not support a load is consigned to fragrant bonds, and it is plain that their very punishment is pleasing, for the verdant chains breathe forth the odour of violets.
Last of the spoil, the dusky elephants advance, a troop of unshapely shape. On their backs is a skin rough and stiff, that will scarce let steel pass through it; for even ruthless javelins fail to pierce that natural barrier, and the hide crackles as it stretches and contracts in turn and with practised defence repels the smiting missile by shaking out its -wrinkles.
Now the conqueror was speeding his way to Thebes through the vast air and had taken up his revelling rout to the clouds, when he saw the god of Delos approaching from the Aonian height. This god likewise wields the rein, but his steeds are gryphons; curbs of leafy laurel bind their hooked beaks; the hanging reins are green with ivy intertwined. Slowly and steadily do those winged beasts fly along their paths in air and over land, lest haply by a violent flapping of their wings they break the woody reins. The countenance of the god shines with an eternal radiance; clusters of ivy-berries stand out upon his brow and his gilded car is swept by tresses of like hue. On his left he holds a sonorous lyre of ineffable sweetness, with Python graven upon it; on his right are arrows and strings that echo with a different twang. With him advance the Muses, all gathered around him and casting on the midst of his chariot the shadow of their ninefold robes. The serpent of Epidaurus hangs loosely coiled about the shapely tripod, with a hallowed essence diffused throughout his health-giving neck. Joined to them also is Pegasus with his hairy wings, carrying on his back Croton, whose skilled foot brings forth eloquent utterance.
When the two bands came together each god arose to give a brotherly embrace, but Bacchus a little more slowly than the other, for he was shy of betraying his unsteady feet by rising. Then Phoebus said, “Whither away? Can it be, Bacchus, that thou art seeking guilty Thebes? True, Echion’s descendant denies thy godhead: nevertheless, leave the city to them, I pray thee; yea, do so, and rather make thy wheels go my way. Agaue scorned thy worship and Niobe mine; hence was Niobe turned to stone in her pride, herself suffering a wound for every wound that she saw her offspring suffer; and as she longed for death my mercy gave her that rigid form, a boon worse than death; ’tis oft an ill service to spare and to inflict on pain longer suffering. So shall not even Pentheus’ mother, having slain her son, regain her senses only to become more frenzied still? Nay, can we dwell on the Aonian heights when in time to come an adulterer shall possess himself of his murdered father’s bride, to be reckoned brother of his sons, husband of his mother, and stepfather to himself? If thou art fain to go with me, I will tell thee in what land we should make our joint habitation.
“There is a place where two rivers, the Garunna, sped whirling down from a dripping mountain-crag, and the mossy Duranius, which rushes with like swoop to the plain and at last flows out from a bend in its sandy channel, gradually commingle their slowing streams. Here the sea rushes up against the current and with constant coming and going repels or courts the waters that the rivers roll down. But when the Garunna, repulsed by the waxing of the moon, once more gathers its own tidal flood upon its back, then it returns, speeding in headlong billows, and now seems to flow, not backwards, but downwards to its source. Then even the Duranius, though as the lesser it receives from its flooding brother but a lesser share of the water, is likewise swollen by the ocean, and its banks become sea-shores. Between these rivers, but nearer to one than to the other, there is a mountain piercing the sky, conspicuous in its towering height but destined to have owners still more elevated and to be the birthplace of senators. Some day, when his land shall be under Latin sway, Paulinus Pontius, the founder of the family, shall surround that hill with walls, and the towers shall soar beyond earth’s atmosphere; thus on their summits shall rest, shining with a common radiance, the two lights of Stateliness and Succour. Those walls no engine, no battering-ram, no high-piled structure or nearbuilt mound, no catapult hurling the hissing stones, no tortoise-roof, no mantlet, no wheel rushing onwards with ladders already in position shall ever have power to shake. Methinks I see the future that is in store for thee, O Castle (for so thou shalt be called). The house rises from the river’s brim and gleaming baths are set within the circuit of the battlements: here when the surging waters are troubled by the murky north-wind, the eaten, jagged rock sends forth a roar from the scarred bank; then from a cleft in the crags a torrent leaps forth and is shot aloft, showering spray on to the very roofs; it lifts up men in boats and often mocks them with a sportive shipwreck; for when the storm is over the flood retreats and strands whole fleets that have been forced up into the baths. But the columns that support the baths, of what manner and size are they? Before them must bow the costly dark hue in the purple quarry of Synnada and the Numidian hill that bears stones like ivory and the marble that burgeons with grass-like veins; henceforth I spurn gleaming Paros and Carystos; poorer now seems the purple suspended in the blushing rock.
