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Crowns of Martyrdom
Prudentius, tr. Thackeray, 1890; selections
Chapter 3
BORN of a noble race,1
More by her death ennobled, Eulalie
Still by her dust on Merida sheds grace,
Still dowers it with her filial piety.
A region in the West2
There lies, in men and in its city’s pride3
Rich, in its Virgin-Martyr still more blest,
Than in all other braveries beside.
How brief her span of years!
But thrice four winters had the maiden seen,
When welcoming the stake, she filled with fears
Death’s pursuivants by stern undaunted mien.4
Proof early had she given
Of high emprise, to reach the Father’s throne,
No earthly bride, but dedicate to Heaven;
E’en childhood’s toys and rattles were forgone.
Roses were left disdained,5
And necklace-amber: grave of aspect, staid,
And wrapt in deepest musings she attained
Ripe wisdom of old age, this gentle maid.
* * * * *6
Hark how the crackling fires,7
Driven against cheek and brow, with fiercer breath
Feed on her locks and tower in wreathèd spires!
She courts the flames, and drinks the longed-for death.
’Tis said you then might see
Dart sudden from her lips a snow-white dove,8
The spirit pure of guileless Eulalie,
Winging its eager way to realms above.
Ye boys and maidens, cull
Violet and crocus with its sanguine hues:
That genial clime shall heap your baskets full,9
Where Spring to burst the soil doth earlier use.
Shed on her flowers and leaves!
Take these my dactyls—take my humble gift—
A poor and withered wreath my music weaves,
E’en these may grace the Feast, and hearts uplift.
So we these relics prize,
This altar-slab in reverence we hold.
Touched by my song, where at God’s feet she lies,
She marks, and doth her own in love enfold.
Notes
- The metre (dactylic tetrameter catalectic), in strophes of five lines, is the same as that of Cathemerinon, iii. (Hymn before Food, p. 26). It had been employed by Damasus in his Hymn on St. Agatha.
Prudentius is the first who mentions St. Eulalia. It has been already noticed (Introduction, p. xlviii), that she figures among the colossal figures of the Virgin Martyrs represented in mosaic in the Church of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, A.D. 534. She stands next to St. Agnes in that deeply interesting group, the earliest list of martyrs known in the history of art. She is not to be confounded with another Eulalia of Barcelona, who is not mentioned by anyone before Eulogius, in the ninth century. They are both named, according to Ruinart (Acta Martyrum Sincera) in the Mozarabic Liturgy. The festival of St. Eulalia of Merida is December 10. Her martyrdom took place during the persecution of Diocletian, when Datian was governor of Spain, in the year A.D. 304. It was thus removed by less than fifty years from the time of Prudentius’ birth. St. Agnes and St. Vincentius also suffered in the same persecution.
The poem opens in a simple, natural manner, without any proem. - P. 120. Proximus occiduo. In the far West, relatively to the neighbourhood of Tarragona.
- urbe potens. Augusta Emerita (Merida), on the Anas (the Guadiana), some distance above Badajoz, was the chief city of Lusitania; it has been called the “Rome of Spain,” in respect of the grand remains of antiquity that it possesses.
- Terruit carnifices. Somewhat similarly the tortures are represented as terrified by St. Vincentius (p. 128).
- Flare. The reading of the Paris MS. (8084) is here FLERE, that of the Ambrosian, the Oxford, and the illuminated MS. at Corpus Christi, Cambridge (eleventh century), is FLORE. That flare here means to puff away with contempt seems borne out by a passage in Suetonius, to which Mr. Robinson Ellis has drawn my attention, where the compound verb, deflo, is so used: “Iulii et Augusti diplomata (grants of privileges) ut vetera et obsoleta deflabat” (Caligula, 38).
- After stanza v. there follows a long description of the circumstances leading to her martyrdom. On the publication of Diocletian’s terrible edict, she escapes from her mother’s home, confronts the tyrant prefect at his tribunal, and reproaches him with his cruelty and impiety. She is seized, and, with the instruments of torture on one side, and on the other the salt and frankincense, she is given the alternative of offering a mere pinch of them with the tip of her finger—
“Modicum salis eminulis
turis et exiguum digitis
tangere.”
She indignantly tramples the offering under her feet, after which her cruel tortures begin. - P. 122. Flamma, &c. Traces of rhyme may be observed in this stanza.
- columba. There is a tradition of the same thing having happened at the martyrdom of St. Polycarp. A custom is said to exist at Seville Cathedral, of letting go a dove over an interment. In the seven stanzas that follow, the soldier on guard is said to have seen the dove, as in the martyrdom of Fructuosus the attendant sees a vision of Fructuosus and his companions ascending into heaven from their funeral pyre (p. 136). Heaven itself celebrates her obsequies, a sudden snowstorm covering her remains in its shroud. Over the place a church, rich with marble and mosaic, is erected.
- genialis hiems. The milder climate of the south-western portion of the Peninsula brings on spring before its arrival in the Provincia Tarraconensis, Prudentius’ home. Traces of Virgil will be recognized in these lines. The tone of the poet with regard to his offering is in keeping with the humility of his character. See especially the Epilogue (p. 182), and for the saint’s intercession, in the last line, see Introduction, Part II., p. xliii, where other illustrations are given.