Saturday, October 8, 2016

Discedite!

Matthias Grünewald,
The Resurrection of Christ,
Isenheim Altarpiece (1512/1516),
right wing (detail).

Night and darkness and clouds,
confusion and disquiet

     of the world
the light is breaking through,
     the sky is brightening:
Christ is coming—begone!

Nox et tenebrae et nubila,
confusa mundi et turbida,
lux intrat, albescit polus:
Christus uenit, discedite!

Caligo terrae scinditur
percussa solis spiculo
rebusque iam color redit
uultu nitentis sideris. 


     Aurelius Prudentius Clemens (348-c. 410), "Hymnus matinus," Liber Cathemerinon (καθημερινω̑ν2, stanza 1, translation mine.  For an earlier critical edition of the Latin, see CSEL 61, ed. Bergman (1926), 9, but also CCSL 126, ed. Cunningham (1966), __.
     confusa and turbida can be either singular or plural, and therefore modify "O night and darkness and clouds" ("O night and darkness and clouds | of the world, confused and troubled").  On the other hand, turbida, at least, has functioned as a noun meaning roughly "disquiet," so maybe confusa is functioning that way here, too (in place of confusio)?  And the latter interpretation would make better sense of where the comma sits ("O confusion and disquiet of the world")?

Trans. Thompson, Loeb classical library, Prudentius I (1949):

"Night and darkness and clouds, all the world's perplexed disorder, get ye gone!  The dawn comes in, the sky is lightening, Christ is coming.  Earth's blackness is split asunder by the stroke of the sun's dart, and now the world resumes its color under the glance of his shining orb.  So presently will the darkness in us, the heart that knows its own sin, be cleared with the breaking of the clouds and grow light under the rule of God."

Trans. Eagan, FC 43 (1962), 8-9:

Ye shades of night and turbid clouds,
Confusion of the world, depart,
For light pervades the whitening sky,
And Christ, the Sun of Justice, comes.

Asunder now earth's gloom is rent,
Pierced by the sun's transfixing dart;
The day-star's shining glance restores
The hues of meadow and of plain. 

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