Four Poetic Translations
Epitaph for Sophia, My Niece, Who Died on the Eve of Her Marriage
—Paulus Diaconus (c. 720–799)
Translator’s Note: Paulus was an eighth-century Benedictine. He is known for his historical writing, but he also left a body of poetry that remains mostly unread and, I think, deserves recognition. As far as I can discover, my translation would be the first publication of this poem in English. It is a remarkable poem, a record of very specific grief, during an era when we don’t see much of the personal in poetry.
May earth bedewed with keening parents’ tears
Hold you, our gem, Sophie, in its embrace.
This land is lorn of any matching grace,
Marvelous girl, so bright above your peers.
Despite your tender age, you proved so wise
That long-lived old men hung on your apt speech,
And knowledge a long term will hardly teach
To other youth, you quickly made your prize.
Your grandmother could not bear a grief this wild
So followed you, weeping, into the gloom.
The chamber was decked out for bride and groom,
And we hoped someday to welcome a child,
But now, for bridal chamber, we raise your tomb,
For nuptial torches, this funeral flame,
For applause, we beat our breasts at your name,
For the lyre, a dirge labors to speak such doom.
Frost wasted our budding vine with its cruel touch.
The storm has dashed our rose in her morning blush.
Hymn for Easter Morning
—Sedulius Scottus (fl. 840–860)
Christ the true sun has risen from the dark;
the holy harvest is ripe in God’s rich tilth.
A blessed, wandering tribe, the bees now work
to load their hocks with honey, the flowers’ wealth.
Birds soothe the aether with doxology;
the nightingale has tuned her praise nightlong.
Now the Church in chorus lifts Zion’s melody,
and echoes Halleluia a hundredfold in song.
To you, Father, your people owe this Easter accord,
all merit yours at the thresholds of light: Hail, Lord.
Original Text
Carmen Paschale
Surrexit Christus sol verus vespere noctis,
surgit et hinc domini mystica messis agri,
nunc vaga puniceis apium plebs laeta labore
floribus instrepitans poblite mella legit.
nunc variae volucres permulcent aethera cantu,
temperat et pernox nunc philomela melos.
nunc chorus ecclesiae cantat per cantica Sion,
alleluia suis centuplicatque tonis.
Tado, pater patriae, caelestis gaudia paschae
percipias meritis limina lucis: ave.
On the Gilded Doors, Basilica of St. Denis
—Abbot Suger, c. 1140
Translator’s Note: The abbot was the chief architect of the basilica, and the inscription he placed above the doors can still be seen in Paris.
If you would praise these doors for their real worth,
then think on craft, not the price a buyer might pay.
The work is nobly bright, but noble work
must brighten minds to rise from artful glitter
to Illumination, and Christ the true doorway.
This gilded portal opens inscape to insight:
the stupored mind ascends to truth through matter.
Downcast, it startles up at the spur of light.
Original Text
Portarum quisquis attollere quaeris honorem,
Aurum nec sumptus, operis mirare laborem.
Nobile claret opus, sed opus quod nobile claret,
Clarificet mentes ut eant per lumina vera
Ad verum lumen, ubi Christus janua vera.
Quale sit intus in his determinat aurea porta.
Mens hebes ad verum per materialia surgit,
Et demersa prius hac visa luce resurgit.
Don’t Stand Too Near the Big Guy
—Aeneid X, 769–782
Translator’s Note: Here, some lines from the Aeneid are reimagined as a sonnet with contemporary resonance.
Aeneas saw vast Mezentius in the long battle-line
and went for him, who held his ground, fearless,
awaiting his great-hearted foe, an immovable mass,
and measured by eye the distance for a javelin:
“Right hand, my only god, and this loosed weapon,
help me! I vow that my son, Lausus, in the battle-dress
I strip from this marauder, will be my trophy of Aeneas.”
He launched his whistling spear at the famous man,
but the limber shaft sprang off Aeneas’s shield
and pierced the bystander Antores between flank and thigh.
An old pal of Hercules, an Argive and far-traveled,
a hanger-on of Evander’s who had settled there, he died
miserably from a borrowed wound on a foreign field,
remembering sweet Argos with his last glimpse of the sky.