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CASTRATION: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN HISTORICALLY Amid much public concern to obliterate gender gaps, castration culture remains entrenched in oppressive human history.The ancient Greek epic Odyssey, composed about 2700 years ago, records a horrific act of sexual violence against the man Melanthius:. They led Melanthius out through the hall and court, then cut off his nose and ears with pitiless bronze sword, HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN Hildegard of Bingen on men's genitals and semen. In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s. Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionarywoman
DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde ARISTOTLE’S ADVICE TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON PERSIAN Aristotle’s advice on the Persian elites was based upon Greek knowledge known in Arabic by the mid-ninth century. In the Secret of Secrets, a story of a Zoroastrian and a Jew supports Aristotle’s advice by teaching Islamic confidence in God’s justice in dealing with treacherous others. ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Alatiel's sexual experience, dead men: a limit of story-telling. Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of fouryears of
MARGERY KEMPE’S HUSBAND: HUMILIATION OF SEXLESS MARRIED Margery Kempe’s husband experienced sexless marriage not only as unexpected deprivation, but also as personal humiliation. Consider what Margery said to him on Midsummer Eve in 1413. That night in medieval England was associated with revelry and joyful sexuality. Margery and her husband were walking together. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
FEMALES KEY TO PEACEFUL, EGALITARIAN BONOBO SOCIETY Bonobo groups have closer to equal adult sex ratios with 50% more adult females than adult males. Study of bonobo suggests that adult females are key to promoting a peaceful, egalitarian society. Bonobo mothers strongly support their sons in social life. In a mixed-sex bonobo party, females tend to be in the center. WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
SOLON, WISDOM, AND MEN’S SEXUAL WELFARE Solon, wisdom, and men’s sexual welfare. The ancient Athenian legislator Solon (no relation to Solomon) is famous for his wisdom. Solon broadened political representation in Athens, provided debt relief for the enslaved poor, and limited the political power of women’s wailing . Those are important democratic initiatives,particularly
CASTRATION: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN HISTORICALLY Amid much public concern to obliterate gender gaps, castration culture remains entrenched in oppressive human history.The ancient Greek epic Odyssey, composed about 2700 years ago, records a horrific act of sexual violence against the man Melanthius:. They led Melanthius out through the hall and court, then cut off his nose and ears with pitiless bronze sword, HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN Hildegard of Bingen on men's genitals and semen. In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s. Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionarywoman
DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde ARISTOTLE’S ADVICE TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON PERSIAN Aristotle’s advice on the Persian elites was based upon Greek knowledge known in Arabic by the mid-ninth century. In the Secret of Secrets, a story of a Zoroastrian and a Jew supports Aristotle’s advice by teaching Islamic confidence in God’s justice in dealing with treacherous others. ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Alatiel's sexual experience, dead men: a limit of story-telling. Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of fouryears of
MARGERY KEMPE’S HUSBAND: HUMILIATION OF SEXLESS MARRIED Margery Kempe’s husband experienced sexless marriage not only as unexpected deprivation, but also as personal humiliation. Consider what Margery said to him on Midsummer Eve in 1413. That night in medieval England was associated with revelry and joyful sexuality. Margery and her husband were walking together. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
FEMALES KEY TO PEACEFUL, EGALITARIAN BONOBO SOCIETY Bonobo groups have closer to equal adult sex ratios with 50% more adult females than adult males. Study of bonobo suggests that adult females are key to promoting a peaceful, egalitarian society. Bonobo mothers strongly support their sons in social life. In a mixed-sex bonobo party, females tend to be in the center. WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde LADY PHILOSOPHY AND MAN BLINDNESS IN BOETHIUS’S Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy is a poetry-filled dialogue between a man and a woman. The text begins with Boethius weeping in bed. He has lost his youthful glory and good looks. He laments deceitful Fortune and the sorrow of his continuing life. Then LadyPhilosophy appears.
JUTURNA’S LOVE FOR HER BROTHER TURNUS NO MATCH FOR JUNO’S In the ending book of Virgil’s epic Aeneid, Turnus proposed to engage in single combat against Aeneas rather than many men dying in mass fighting between the Italian and Trojan men. Both Turnus and Aeneas foolishly strove to marry the Italian princess Lavinia. Her mother contemptuously regarded Aeneas as a lover of boys.Nonetheless, Aeneas was a fierce warrior drawing upon the help of CANDACE & ALEXANDER THE GREAT: FROM CUNNING TO INWARDNESS To dissuade hostility from Alexander, Candace sent him a lavish array of gifts: 500 young Ethiopians, 100 solid-gold ingots, ivory, pearls, elephants, chimpanzees, and many other precious goods. With additional cunning, Candace sent one of her courtiers, a Greek painter, to infiltrate Alexander’s camp and secretly paint a portrait of him. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
WIFE OF BATH, CRIMINAL JUSTICE & MEN’S SUBORDINATION TO The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale present criminal justice as a pretext for promoting men’s subordination to women. Alisoun initiated domestic violence against her husband Jankyn. Living within gynocentric society, Jankyn found a measure of humor and enjoyment in reading literature of men’s sexed protest, including the venerable MATHEOLUS: MEDIEVAL LATIN LITERATURE PROTESTING CHURCH Matheolus’s suffering from the rule of mother church and his wife prompted him to write Lamentationes Matheoluli. That work is a masterpiece of medieval Latin literature of men’s sexed protest. While most men are rightfully fearful of criticizing women, Matheolus dared to criticize Christ himself. Matheolus in a dream declared: TORTURING THE PENIS: ENLIGHTENED PHILOLOGY’S FAILURE TO torturing the penis: enlightened philology’s failure to represent. Amid horrific violence against men throughout history, if justice cannot be achieved, one might at least aspire to understanding accurately the meaning of words. Guibert of Nogent was a SILK TRADE BETWEEN ANCIENT ROME AND CHINA It’s likely that these books were silk scrolls. In any case, the Romans clearly had a considerable amount of silk goods. Evidence of considerable silk trade between ancient Rome and China is less clear. Roman texts indicate that silk came from “Seres,” which means “the land of silk.”. Seres has subsequently been interpretedas China.
CASTRATION: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN HISTORICALLY Amid much public concern to obliterate gender gaps, castration culture remains entrenched in oppressive human history.The ancient Greek epic Odyssey, composed about 2700 years ago, records a horrific act of sexual violence against the man Melanthius:. They led Melanthius out through the hall and court, then cut off his nose and ears with pitiless bronze sword, HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN Hildegard of Bingen on men's genitals and semen. In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s. Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionarywoman
SOLON, WISDOM, AND MEN’S SEXUAL WELFARE Solon, wisdom, and men’s sexual welfare. The ancient Athenian legislator Solon (no relation to Solomon) is famous for his wisdom. Solon broadened political representation in Athens, provided debt relief for the enslaved poor, and limited the political power of women’s wailing . Those are important democratic initiatives,particularly
ARISTOTLE’S ADVICE TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON PERSIAN Aristotle’s advice on the Persian elites was based upon Greek knowledge known in Arabic by the mid-ninth century. In the Secret of Secrets, a story of a Zoroastrian and a Jew supports Aristotle’s advice by teaching Islamic confidence in God’s justice in dealing with treacherous others. DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Alatiel's sexual experience, dead men: a limit of story-telling. Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of fouryears of
MARGERY KEMPE’S HUSBAND: HUMILIATION OF SEXLESS MARRIED Margery Kempe’s husband experienced sexless marriage not only as unexpected deprivation, but also as personal humiliation. Consider what Margery said to him on Midsummer Eve in 1413. That night in medieval England was associated with revelry and joyful sexuality. Margery and her husband were walking together. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
SILK TRADE BETWEEN ANCIENT ROME AND CHINA It’s likely that these books were silk scrolls. In any case, the Romans clearly had a considerable amount of silk goods. Evidence of considerable silk trade between ancient Rome and China is less clear. Roman texts indicate that silk came from “Seres,” which means “the land of silk.”. Seres has subsequently been interpretedas China.
CASTRATION: SEXUAL VIOLENCE AGAINST MEN HISTORICALLY Amid much public concern to obliterate gender gaps, castration culture remains entrenched in oppressive human history.The ancient Greek epic Odyssey, composed about 2700 years ago, records a horrific act of sexual violence against the man Melanthius:. They led Melanthius out through the hall and court, then cut off his nose and ears with pitiless bronze sword, HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN Hildegard of Bingen on men's genitals and semen. In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s. Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionarywoman
SOLON, WISDOM, AND MEN’S SEXUAL WELFARE Solon, wisdom, and men’s sexual welfare. The ancient Athenian legislator Solon (no relation to Solomon) is famous for his wisdom. Solon broadened political representation in Athens, provided debt relief for the enslaved poor, and limited the political power of women’s wailing . Those are important democratic initiatives,particularly
ARISTOTLE’S ADVICE TO ALEXANDER THE GREAT ON PERSIAN Aristotle’s advice on the Persian elites was based upon Greek knowledge known in Arabic by the mid-ninth century. In the Secret of Secrets, a story of a Zoroastrian and a Jew supports Aristotle’s advice by teaching Islamic confidence in God’s justice in dealing with treacherous others. DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Alatiel's sexual experience, dead men: a limit of story-telling. Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of fouryears of
MARGERY KEMPE’S HUSBAND: HUMILIATION OF SEXLESS MARRIED Margery Kempe’s husband experienced sexless marriage not only as unexpected deprivation, but also as personal humiliation. Consider what Margery said to him on Midsummer Eve in 1413. That night in medieval England was associated with revelry and joyful sexuality. Margery and her husband were walking together. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
SILK TRADE BETWEEN ANCIENT ROME AND CHINA It’s likely that these books were silk scrolls. In any case, the Romans clearly had a considerable amount of silk goods. Evidence of considerable silk trade between ancient Rome and China is less clear. Roman texts indicate that silk came from “Seres,” which means “the land of silk.”. Seres has subsequently been interpretedas China.
BÉROUL’S TRISTAN NARRATES EVIL PERSONS’ LIES VS. GOOD ONES In Béroul’s twelfth-century romance, evil dwarfs and malicious barons repeatedly told King Mark of his vassal-nephew Tristan having sex with Mark’s wife Iseut. DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde LADY PHILOSOPHY AND MAN BLINDNESS IN BOETHIUS’S Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy is a poetry-filled dialogue between a man and a woman. The text begins with Boethius weeping in bed. He has lost his youthful glory and good looks. He laments deceitful Fortune and the sorrow of his continuing life. Then LadyPhilosophy appears.
JUTURNA’S LOVE FOR HER BROTHER TURNUS NO MATCH FOR JUNO’S In the ending book of Virgil’s epic Aeneid, Turnus proposed to engage in single combat against Aeneas rather than many men dying in mass fighting between the Italian and Trojan men. Both Turnus and Aeneas foolishly strove to marry the Italian princess Lavinia. Her mother contemptuously regarded Aeneas as a lover of boys.Nonetheless, Aeneas was a fierce warrior drawing upon the help of CANDACE & ALEXANDER THE GREAT: FROM CUNNING TO INWARDNESS To dissuade hostility from Alexander, Candace sent him a lavish array of gifts: 500 young Ethiopians, 100 solid-gold ingots, ivory, pearls, elephants, chimpanzees, and many other precious goods. With additional cunning, Candace sent one of her courtiers, a Greek painter, to infiltrate Alexander’s camp and secretly paint a portrait of him. MATHEOLUS: MEDIEVAL LATIN LITERATURE PROTESTING CHURCH Matheolus’s suffering from the rule of mother church and his wife prompted him to write Lamentationes Matheoluli. That work is a masterpiece of medieval Latin literature of men’s sexed protest. While most men are rightfully fearful of criticizing women, Matheolus dared to criticize Christ himself. Matheolus in a dream declared: FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Fulvia: female tyrant amid collapsing Roman Republic. Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. She subsequently continued to cultivate political power through herpersonal
SILK TRADE BETWEEN ANCIENT ROME AND CHINA It’s likely that these books were silk scrolls. In any case, the Romans clearly had a considerable amount of silk goods. Evidence of considerable silk trade between ancient Rome and China is less clear. Roman texts indicate that silk came from “Seres,” which means “the land of silk.”. Seres has subsequently been interpretedas China.
WIFE OF BATH, CRIMINAL JUSTICE & MEN’S SUBORDINATION TO The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale present criminal justice as a pretext for promoting men’s subordination to women. Alisoun initiated domestic violence against her husband Jankyn. Living within gynocentric society, Jankyn found a measure of humor and enjoyment in reading literature of men’s sexed protest, including the venerable TORTURING THE PENIS: ENLIGHTENED PHILOLOGY’S FAILURE TO torturing the penis: enlightened philology’s failure to represent. Amid horrific violence against men throughout history, if justice cannot be achieved, one might at least aspire to understanding accurately the meaning of words. Guibert of Nogent was a HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s.Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionary woman leader in twelfth-century Europe, had a much more enlightened understanding of men’s genitals, semen DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde SOLON, WISDOM, AND MEN’S SEXUAL WELFARE The ancient Athenian legislator Solon (no relation to Solomon) is famous for his wisdom.Solon broadened political representation in Athens, provided debt relief for the enslaved poor, and limited the political power of women’s wailing. Those are important democratic initiatives, particularly the third. ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of four years of travels, a socially accepted story transforms Alatiel into avirgin.
MEN MUST DO ANYTHING FOR WOMEN: ARNAUT DANIEL’S MEDIEVAL In early thirteenth-century France, Raimon Berenguier IV, the Count of Provence, described a hundred women in a desperate situation: Friend Sir Arnaut, a hundred ladies of rank WIFE OF BATH, CRIMINAL JUSTICE & MEN’S SUBORDINATION TOWIFE OF BATH S TALE QUIZLETWIFE OF BATH CHARACTER ANALYSISWIFE OF BATH QUIZTHE WIFEOF BATH FULL TEXT
In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue within Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales, Alisoun accused her husband Jankyn of murdering her.Actual murder victims never make such accusations. Alisoun concocted her accusation of murder to strike back at Jankyn and make him subordinate to her. WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
DE PULICE: WOMEN CAN SLEEP EITHER WITH FLEAS OR WITH MEN Criminalization of men desiring women undermines men’s self-confidence and contaminates their love with fear. These effects are starkly apparent in comparing Ovid’s Loves {Amores} 2.15 to a twelfth-century recasting of it, The Flea {De pulice}.Women who love men must strive to understand and counter the unsympathetic social construction of men.. Ovid’s Amores 2.15 reveals a RAPE: A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNICATION ECONOMICS Rape of women has been regarded as a serious offense throughout recorded history.Like violence against men generally, rape of men has been a much less prominent public issue. Today’s highly developed communication media make rape an insightful case study in communication economics. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN ON MEN'S GENITALS AND SEMEN In our benighted age, masculinity is described as toxic, men are labeled as rapists for receiving true love, and doctors of public health discuss masculinity as a pathology to be cured to raise men’s average lifespan to equality with women’s.Hildegard of Bingen, a learned, visionary woman leader in twelfth-century Europe, had a much more enlightened understanding of men’s genitals, semen DRONKE’S WOMEN WRITERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES: A SUPPLEMENT In 1984, Cambridge University Press published Peter Dronke’s outstanding and influential book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua († 203) to Marguerite Porete († 1310). Scholarly reviews of Dronke’s book were laudatory, but with the criticism that he hadn’t focused narrowly enough on women. . Unfortunately, these women writers still remain unde SOLON, WISDOM, AND MEN’S SEXUAL WELFARE The ancient Athenian legislator Solon (no relation to Solomon) is famous for his wisdom.Solon broadened political representation in Athens, provided debt relief for the enslaved poor, and limited the political power of women’s wailing. Those are important democratic initiatives, particularly the third. ALATIEL'S SEXUAL EXPERIENCE, DEAD MEN: A LIMIT OF STORY Decameron II.7 has tended to be read as the story of Alatiel. At a more sophisticated level, Decameron II.7 critiques gynocentrism and indicates a limit of socially constructed lies. Despite Alatiel’s thousands of sexual encounters with eight men in the course of four years of travels, a socially accepted story transforms Alatiel into avirgin.
MEN MUST DO ANYTHING FOR WOMEN: ARNAUT DANIEL’S MEDIEVAL In early thirteenth-century France, Raimon Berenguier IV, the Count of Provence, described a hundred women in a desperate situation: Friend Sir Arnaut, a hundred ladies of rank WIFE OF BATH, CRIMINAL JUSTICE & MEN’S SUBORDINATION TOWIFE OF BATH S TALE QUIZLETWIFE OF BATH CHARACTER ANALYSISWIFE OF BATH QUIZTHE WIFEOF BATH FULL TEXT
In the Wife of Bath’s Prologue within Geoffrey Chaucer’s fourteenth-century Canterbury Tales, Alisoun accused her husband Jankyn of murdering her.Actual murder victims never make such accusations. Alisoun concocted her accusation of murder to strike back at Jankyn and make him subordinate to her. WITCH-HUNT AND GENDER: WHEN WOMEN ARE EXECUTED LIKE MEN The witch-hunt is a revealing social construction. Consider the prestigious Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America, published in 2013.It includes a chapter on witchcraft and gender. The concluding sentence of that chapterdeclares:
DE PULICE: WOMEN CAN SLEEP EITHER WITH FLEAS OR WITH MEN Criminalization of men desiring women undermines men’s self-confidence and contaminates their love with fear. These effects are starkly apparent in comparing Ovid’s Loves {Amores} 2.15 to a twelfth-century recasting of it, The Flea {De pulice}.Women who love men must strive to understand and counter the unsympathetic social construction of men.. Ovid’s Amores 2.15 reveals a RAPE: A FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF COMMUNICATION ECONOMICS Rape of women has been regarded as a serious offense throughout recorded history.Like violence against men generally, rape of men has been a much less prominent public issue. Today’s highly developed communication media make rape an insightful case study in communication economics. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. EARINUS, EMPEROR DOMITIAN, AND LAWS AGAINST Earinus, a beautiful young boy, was sent from his native land of Pergamum to be a slave in the court of the Emperor Domitian infirst-century Rome.
MEN MUST DO ANYTHING FOR WOMEN: ARNAUT DANIEL’S MEDIEVAL In early thirteenth-century France, Raimon Berenguier IV, the Count of Provence, described a hundred women in a desperate situation: Friend Sir Arnaut, a hundred ladies of rank GOG AND MAGOG BEHIND ALEXANDER THE GREAT'S WALL IN CHINA Gog and Magog are apocalyptic figures in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scripture. Alexander the Great was an ancient Greek leader whoconquered much of
FEMALES KEY TO PEACEFUL, EGALITARIAN BONOBO SOCIETY A view across primates provides insights into making a peaceful, egalitarian society. In the U.S., about four times as many men die from violence as do women.That’s about the same sex ratio for violent deaths among adult chimpanzees. FULVIA: FEMALE TYRANT AMID COLLAPSING ROMAN REPUBLIC Bitter political struggles, gang violence, and then civil war transformed the Roman Republic into an autocratic empire. Within that representative collapse, Fulvia rose to power by marrying a charismatic politician. LADY PHILOSOPHY AND MAN BLINDNESS IN BOETHIUS’S “Do you remember that you are a man?” “How could I forget that?” I answered. “Well, then, what is a man? Can you give me a definition?” “Do you mean that I am a rational animal, and mortal? MEN’S DESIRE IN THE LIFE OF SAINT PELAGIA Saint Pelagia, the leading actress-dancer of Antioch, rode by Bishop Nonnus and other bishops. Bare of head, shoulder, and limb, she was wearing only gold, pearls and precious stones. She smelled of sweetperfume.
AL-ALFIYA, A THOUSAND-MAN WOMAN, SHOWS INTELLECTUAL Case in point: I *still* read commentary from supposed “MRA’s” or “MGTOW’s”men who have had the Truth presented to themand they STILL reply with, “It is her nature; she cannot be blamed for it”as if the women who have put so many men in cages really are too innocent and naïve to understand the nature of their conduct; as if they had the minds of children; and GENDER DISCRIMINATION IN CHILD CUSTODY PREVALENT Among separated parents with financial child support agreements, fourteen times more mothers than fathers have physical custody of their children. Such anti-men gender discrimination in child custody decisions is deeply rooted historically. In contrast to mythic child custody history, children weren’t legally fathers’ property a century ago, or two centuries, or three centuries ago. SAINT JEROME’S LETTERS SHOWS PROFOUND CONCERN FOR WOMEN Saint Jerome was a leader in orienting his life toward women. Of Jerome’s 123 surviving letters, 36% are addressed to women. Jeromein his surviving
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* most recent articles * incarcerating child support debtors * Wednesday's flowers * Aristotle's advice to Alexander * unjust paternity establishment * Gog & Magog behind wall * Dhuoda's Liber Manualis * Charlie Chaplin & Joan Berry PRUDENTIUS’S _HYMN BEFORE SLEEP_ FOR WORRIES & DESIRES In times of great worry, many have difficulty sleeping. The modern English word _worry_ comes via Middle English _werien_, via Old English _wyrġan_, via proto-Germanic _wurgijaną_. These worrysource-words mean
choke and strangle, like a dog seizing a small, frightened duck and biting down on it and shaking it fiercely until it dies. Just so does the experience of worry feel to many today. How could anyone manage to sleep in such circumstances? The learned Roman Prudentius included a _Hymn Before Sleep_ {_Hymnus ante somnum_} in his poem cycle _Days Linked By Song_ {_Cathemerinon_}. Prudentius began his hymn with a simple Christianevening prayer:
> Come, sovereign Father, > whom none has ever seen, > and Christ, the Father’s Word, > and kindly Spirit>
> of this Trinity: > O one strength and power, > God from God eternal, > God from both is sent.>
> The day’s work has ebbed, > and the quiet hour has returned, > now is the turn of gentle sleep, > relaxing weary limbs.>
> The mind tossed by storms > and wounded by worries > drinks in its very depths > the cup of forgetfulness.>
> The power of oblivion > steals through all the body, > and leaves those suffering > no sense of bitter pain.>
> { Ades, pater supreme, > quem nemo vidit umquam, > patrisque sermo Christe, > et Spiritus benigne,>
> o trinitatis huius > vis ac potestas una, > deus ex deo perennis, > deus ex utroque missus.>
> fluxit labor diei, > redit et quietis hora, > blandus sopor vicissim > fessos relaxat artus.>
> mens aestuans procellis, > curisque sauciata, > totis bibit medullis > obliviale poclum.>
> serpit per omne corpus > Lethaea vis nec ullum > miseris doloris aegri > patitur manere sensum. } This evening prayer assumes that one is able to fall asleep — to drink the cup of forgetfulness and be overcome by the the power of oblivion. But what if one, overwhelmed with worries and desires,cannot sleep?
Even when wanting sleep, bodily life may refuse oblivion and make demands. An ancient Greek poem from roughly 2600 years ago represents one woman’s personal circumstances: > The Moon is down, > the Pleiades also. Midnight, > the hours flow on,> I lie, alone.
>
> { Δέδυκε μὲν ἀ σελάννα > καὶ Πληΐαδες, μέσαι δέ > νύκτες, πάρα δ’ ἔρχετ’ ὤρα, > ἔγω δὲ μόνα κατεύδω. } Many men and women today personally understand these circumstances of sleeplessness and bodily loneliness. A poem from before the middle of the tenth century describes restlessness in bed and unsatisfyingsleep:
> For you my eyes are keeping watch, my soul at night requires you. > Subdued and laid low, my limbs lie alone with me in bed. > I have seen myself with you, a deceit in the imagination of sleep; > in dreams you appear, yet if only to me you would truly come.>
> { Te vigilans oculis, animo te nocte requiro, > victa iacent solo cum mea membra toro. > vidi ego me tecum falsa sub imagine somni: > somnia tu vinces, si mihi vera venis. } In the first two verses, the poet speaks of his eyes, his limbs, and his soul. They are with him in bed, as if he were falling to pieces. The second two verses express frustration at experiencing life’s completeness only in dreams. Lucid dreaming isn’t a common experience of sleeping. Disappointment in thinking about one’s dreams is associated much more commonly with despair andsleeplessness.
Those who apprehend reality struggle to sleep with deceit. They feel compelled to seek theirdesires:
> Nestled in bed, I was scarcely seizing night’s first > silence and giving my vanquished eyes to sleep. > Then savage Love grabbed me, pulling me up by my hair. > Love roused me, wounded, and ordered me to stay awake. > “You, my slave,” Love said, “you love a thousand young women. > How can you stiffly lie alone — goodness me, alone!” > I jump up with bare feet and bed-robe undone and enter > every way, but no way leads me out with what I need. > Now I rush, now to go grieves me, to return causes me > regret, and I’m ashamed to stand in the middle of the road. > Silent here are humans’ voices, the road’s rumbling, > the song of birds, the faithful pack of dogs. > I alone among all fear bed and sleep. > I follow your command, great god of desire.>
> { Lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis > carpebam et somno lumina victa dabam, > cum me saevus Amor prensat sursumque capillis > excitat et lacerum pervigilare iubet. > “Tu famulus meus,” inquit, “ames cum mille puellas, > solus, io, solus, dure, iacere potes?” > Exsilio et pedibus nudis tunicaque soluta > omne iter ingredior, nullum iter expedio. > Nunc propero, nunc ire piget, rursumque redire > paenitet, et pudor est stare via media. > Ecce tacent voces hominum strepitusque viarum > et volucrum cantus fidaque turba canum; > solus ego ex cunctis paveo somnumque torumque, > et sequor imperium, magne Cupido, tuum. } This isn’t a dreamy dream-poem. Although having loved a thousand women, this man is sleeping alone, wounded with lacerations. He feels himself yanked up by his hair. He has bare feet and his bed-robe is undone. From a Christian perspective, the traditional Greco-Roman love-gods Eros, Cupid, and Amor are deceits. But human voices, roads, birds, and dogs are real. So too is worry, desire, and sleeplessness. Seeking to separate human spirit from fleshly life isn’t a propitious path to sleep. From a Christian perspective, Prudentius condemned Marcion for this heresy: > Marcion, shaped from utterly corrupted earth, > teaches dualists to disagree with the spirit, > offering up his gifts of tainted flesh > and worshiping everlasting power in separate shapes. > If he could heed warning and be still, > then quiet familial bonds could cultivate peace, > and acknowledge that the one God of the living lives. > But this man, an initiate of a transitory cult, > profanely divides the highest being, > separating good and bad, as if two gods could rule.>
> { Marcion, arvi forma corruptissimi, > docet duitas discrepare a Spiritu, > contaminatae dona carnis offerens > et segregatim numen aeternum colens. > qui si quiescat nec monentem neglegat, > pacem quieta diligat germanitas, > unum atque vivum fassa vivorum Deum. > hic se caduco dedicans mysterio > summam profanus dividit substantiam, > malum bonumque ceu duorum separatis } With a telling figure, Tertullian more vehemently condemned Marcion: > Nothing about Pontus is so barbarous and mournful as that Marcion > was born there. He is more repulsive than a Scythian, more wandering > than the wagon-dwelling Sarmatian, more inhuman that the Massagete, > more obnoxious than an Amazon> , darker
> than fog, colder than winter, more fragile than ice, more > treacherous than the Danube river, more coarsely precipitous than > the Caucasus mountains. What else? How about that the true > Prometheus, God Almighty> ,
> is lacerated by Marcion’s blasphemies. More uncivilized than the > wild beasts of that barbarous land Pontus is now Marcion. Is any > beaver more self-castrating than this man who has abolished marriage> ?
>
> { nihil tam barbarum ac triste apud Pontum quam quod illic Marcion > natus est, Scytha tetrior, Hamaxobio instabilior, Massageta > inhumanior, Amazona audacior, nubilo obscurior, hieme frigidior, > gelu fragilior, Istro fallacior, Caucaso abruptior. Quidni? penes > quem verus Prometheus deus omnipotens blasphemiis lancinatur. Iam et > bestiis illius barbariei importunior Marcion. Quis enim tam > castrator carnis castor quam qui nuptias abstulit? } The male beaver was thought to gnaw off his own testicles to save himself from hunters who sought to kill him for his testicles. Marcion was a dualist reflecting castration culture.
He divided the god of human spirit from the god of human flesh. Yet, from the perspective of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, there is no god but God, and God is one. Humans are made in the image of God. The living human is one in spirit and flesh . A human will be restless until both spirit and flesh rest. Prudentius urged bodily action and performative utterance in order to overcome worry and desire that prevent restful sleep. He counseled: > Worshiper of God, remember > that you have gone under the sacred water > of the source that cleanses, > that you have been marked with oil.>
> See that when sleep calls > and you go to your pure bed, > the symbol of the cross seals > your brow and the place of your heart.>
> The cross drives off all sin, > darkness flies from the cross: > with this sign consecrated, > the mind knows no storms.>
> Away with you, far away, > monstrous errant dreams! > Away with the deceiver > and his unceasing cunning!>
> Sinuous serpent, > by a thousand twisting paths > and tortuous tricks, > you stir up hearts that rest —>
> Go, Christ is here, > here is Christ: melt away! > The sign that you know well > condemns your crowd.>
> The tiring body is allowed > to lie down for a little while, > and even in our sleep > our thoughts will be of Christ.>
> { cultor dei, memento > te fontis et lavacri > rorem subisse sanctum, > te chrismate innotatum.>
> fac, cum vocante somno > castum petis cubile, > frontem locumque cordis > crucis figura signet.>
> crux pellit omne crimen, > fugiunt crucem tenebrae, > tali dicata signo > mens fluctuare nescit.>
> procul, o procul vagantum > portenta somniorum! > procul esto pervicaci > praestigiator astu!>
> o tortuose serpens, > qui mille per meandros > fraudesque flexuosas > agitas quieta corda,>
> discede, Christus hic est, > hic Christus est, liquesce! > signum quod ipse nosti > damnat tuam catervam.>
> Corpus licet fatiscens > iaceat recline paulum, > Christum tamen sub ipso > meditabimur sopore. } Prudentius’s _A Hymn Before Sleep _is a lullaby for Christian adults. They must cross themselves to sleep. They must say the words they need to hear. Thoughts of Christ are hopes for the body and thespirit
.
Once upon a time, scholars hoped that literary theory would renew the face of the earth. Yet even a promising new field of literary theory, meninist literary criticism, offers sleep only to the small group of scholars that study it. That’s no cause for worry. We can do all that we must do. We have all that we need.* * * * *
Read more:
* curing Encolpius’s impotence: Proselenos & Oenothea unlike Jesus * _Disciplina Clericalis_: origin of counting sheep to fall asleep * the Thracian filly & the original understanding of chivalryNotes:
Prudentius, _Book of the Daily Round_ {_Liber Cathemerinon_} 6, _Hymn Before Sleep_ {_Hymnus antesomnum_
},
incipit “Ades pater surpeme,” vv. 1-20, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly according to my poetic sense) from O’Daly (2012) pp. 172-3. For freely accessible online Latin text and English translation, Thomson (1949) and Pope (1895). Prudentius wrote _Hymnus ante somnum_ about 400 GC. Verses from it were subsequently used liturgically. A medieval liturgical hymn known as _Ades pater supreme_ was made from _Hymnus ante somnum_: > It consists of lines 1-12, 125-8, 141-52, and a doxology: _Gloria > aeterno Patri, Et Christo, vero Regi, Paraclitoque sancto, et nunc > et in perpetuum_. {This} selection of lines was found as a hymn in a > 10th-century hymnal from Laon, in northern France, now at Bern (S.B. > 455). It is a hymn for Vespers or Compline, marking the end of the> day
From _The Canterbury Dictionary of Hymnology_.
This poem is conventionally known as “Midnight poem. ” It’s attributed, without strong evidence, to the archaic Greek poet Sappho. The Greek text above is that of fragment 168 B in Voigt (1971). The English translation is that of A.S. Kline,
with my slight modifications. Many English translations of this famous poem are readily accessible. Here’s detailed analysisof it
.
“Te vigilans oculis ” (quoted above in full) comes from a now lost manuscript, _Codex Isidori Bellovacensis_, that belonged to the cathedral library of St. Sylvius at Beauvais, France. That manuscript was written in the late ninth or early tenth century. Waddell (1948) p. 286. The Latin text is edited in Baehrens (1879) vol. 4, p. 100 (n. 103),
where it’s attributed to Petronius. Heseltine & Rouse (1930), however, doesn’t include this poem among Petronius’s poems. The English translation is mine, benefiting from those of Waddell (1948) p. 23 and composer William Hawley.
Hawley used “Te vigilans oculis” as text for a motet. For readily accessible performances of Hawley’s motet, see those by Volti, conducted by Robert Geary (Innova, 2010) , and by Choral Arts, conducted by Robert Bode (Gothic, 2013).
Petronius Arbiter, incipit “Lecto compositus vix prima silentia noctis” (whole poem quoted above), Latin text from Heseltine & Rouse(1930)
p. 424 (no. 26), my English translation, benefiting from those of id., Waddell (1948) p. 11, and _aleator classicus_.
The Latin text is edited in Baehrens (1879) vol. 4, p. 98 (n. 99).
Here are Latin reading notes for this poem.
Among those who manage to get to sleep, some experience delightfuldreams .
A poem from no later than the early-eighth century proclaimed to adream-girl:
> Beautiful of hair, young in years, and fair of face, > you sweetly gave me kisses in my sleep. > If now waking I cannot anywhere discern you, > sleep, I pray, hold my eyes together always.>
> { Pulchra comis annisque decens et candida vultu > dulce quiescenti basia blanda dabas. > si te iam vigilans non unquam cernere possum, > somne, precor, iugitur lumina nostra tene. } Latin text from Baehrens (1879) vol. 4, p. 118 (n. 131),
via the Latin Library; English
translation (modified slightly) from the Ancient Literature Dude, who
provides an audio reading of this poem in medieval Latin. For other English
translations, Waddell (1948) p. 21,
and Rexroth (1967) p. 86. This poem survives in two sources. One is the ninth-century manuscript cataloged as British Library Royal 15. B. XIX (fol. 99). That manuscript belonged at some point to the library of St. Rémy at Rheims. Waddell (1948) p. 286. In BL Royal 15. B., the poem includes the inscription, “To a young woman who was seen in a dream {ad puellam quam in somnis viderat},” and the poem is attributed to Virgil. In addition, Aldhelm (died 709), Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, cited this poem in his _Letter to Acircius_ {_Epistola ad Acircium_} / _On metrical feet_ {_De pedum regulis_}. Aldhelm attributed this poem to Ovid. Orchard (1994) pp. 214-5. Prudentius , _The Origin of Sin {Hamartigenia}_, Preface {Praefatio} vv. 36-45, Latin text from Thomson (1949), English translation (modified slightly) from Malamud (2011) pp. 5-6. Tertullian, _Against Marcion {Adversus Marcionem}_1.1.4-5,
Latin text
from Evans (1972), my English translation, benefiting from that of id.
To protect himself from castration culture, the fourth-century hermit Ammonas of Tunah reportedly followed the mythic example of the malebeaver
and castrated himself. Tertullian’s disparagement of Marcion probably would be censored today under Facebook’s code of conduct. Tertullian
fortunately lived in a more liberal and tolerant age. Prudentius, _Liber Cathemerinon_, _Hymnus ante somnum_,
vv. 125-52, Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from O’Daly (2012) pp. 178-9. The above quotations runs to the end of _Hymnus ante somnum_. Suzy Bogguss, video performanceof the southern
African-American traditional lullaby _Hush-a-bye_ / _All the prettylittle horses_
. Audio
from Bogguss’s album _American Folk Songbook_ (Loyal Butchess Records, 2011). Peter Paul and Mary recorded _Hush-a-bye_ on their album _In the Wind_ (Warner Bros., 1963). Grant Campbell performed this lullaby as a soundtrack for the horror movie _The Burrowers_ (2008).References:
Baehrens, Paul Heinrich Emil, ed. 1879-83. _Poetae latini minores_. 5 vols. Lipsiae: Teubner. Online: vols. 1 & 2, 3 & 4
, 5
.
Evans, Ernest, ed. and trans. 1972. Tertullian. _Adversus Marcionem_.
Oxford: Clarendon Press. Heseltine, Michael and W.H.D. Rouse, eds. and trans. 1930. Petronius. Poems. Rev. Ed. Loeb Classical Library 15. London: Heinemann. Malamud, Martha A. 2011. Prudentius. _The Origin of Sin: an English Translation of the _Hamartigenia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell UniversityPress.
Orchard, Andy. 1994. _The Poetic Art of Aldhelm_. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.
Pope, R. Matin, trans. 1895. _The Hymns of Prudentius_.
London: J.M. Dent.
Rexroth, Kenneth. 1967. _Poems from the Greek anthology. Translated, with an introd., by Kenneth Rexroth, with drawings by Geraldine Sakall_. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Thomson, Henry John, ed. and trans. 1949. _Prudentius_. Loeb Classical Library 387, 398. Vol. 1,
Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Voigt, Eva Maria, ed. 1971. _Sappho et Alcaeus fragmenta_. Amsterdam: Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep. Waddell, Helen. 1948. _Mediaeval Latin Lyrics_. New York:
Henry Holt.
Posted on April 12, 2020By Author
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PRUDENTIUS’S CROWN: SAINT AGNES REDEEMED THE MALE GAZE ON EVERY EVE > St. Agnes’ Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was! > My beloved is mine and I am his; > he pastures his flock among the lilies. > Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, > turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle > or a young stag in the mountains’ cleft> .
>
> { דודי לי ואני לו הרעה בשושנים׃ > עד שיפוח היום ונסו הצללים סב דמה־לך > דודי לצבי או לעפר האילים על־הרי בתר׃> ס }
About the year 304, the son of Rome’s head administrator Symphronius fell in love with the young, beautiful Agnes: > Having seen her beauty, > held by his heart’s great love for her, > he chose her over all others as his own beloved one. > He believed himself to be fortunate and suitably honored > if he would succeed in having so beautiful a young woman > as his special sweet spouse for all the days of his life.>
> { vidit speciosae, > Affectu nimio cordis suspensus in illa > Hanc sibi prae cunctis unam delegit amandam, > Se fortunatum credens et honoribus aptum, > Si tam praepulchra meruisset habere puellae > Dulcia per propriae tempus consortia vitae. } The son procured lavish gifts of gold and diverse gems from his father’s treasury, and he gathered many friends. Then he went to ask Agnes to marry him. With him before her with rich gifts in his hands and in front of all his friends, she categorically rejected him: > O death’s son, deserving perennial condemnations, > O crime’s tinder, you who despise the All-Mighty, > depart from me quickly, flee and go away. > Do not believe that you can pervert my pure > heart, to which has already come the sweet love of a far nobler > lover, whose beautiful sign of faith I bear > upon my brow as well as throughout my whole body. > He has signed me and bound me strictly to himself, > so that my mind should not presume to seek any other > lover, but rather learn to embrace him alone, > who is potent in all manliness and properly resplendent, > who is far above all divine and mortal ones.>
> { O fili mortis merito dampnande perennis, > O fomes sceleris, contemptor et omnipotentis, > Discedens a me citius fugiendo recede, > Nec credas te posse meum pervertere purum > Cor, quod amatoris praevenit nobilioris > Dulcis amor, pulchrum cuius fidei fero signum > In facie summa necnon in corpore toto, > Quo me signavit strictimque sibi religavit, > Ne mea mens alium iam praesumpsisset amicum > Quaerere, sed solum complecti disceret illum, > Qui virtute potens omnique decore refulgens > Caelestes et mortales supereminet omnes. } Men have long endured a highly unequal gender burden of amorousrejection
. While
most men have experienced rejection in love many times, surely few have been called “death’s son” and been so harshly scorned. Men compete aggressively and sometimes even violentlywith
each other for women’s love. But Agnes was in love with Jesus Christ himself. No mortal man can compete with Jesus Christ in loving awoman.
Symphronius’s son suffered greatly from Agnes’s brutal rejection of him. He groaned and grieved and languished in bitter sorrow. He went to bed and remained in bed, deathly ill. Physicians were unable to cure him. They eventually understood that he suffered from mortallovesickness
.
The physicians told Symphronius of his son’s terrible disease. Woke to the gender injustices that men endure,
Symphronius became furious. He and his son followed the dominant, traditional Greco-Roman religion in contrast to Agnes’s Christianity. Symphronius thus ordered Agnes to become a Vestal Virgin if she wanted to remain a virgin. He didn’t merely issue this order as a Roman high judge. Symphronius also drew upon his seductive skills with women to make it effective. Agnes, however, fiercely refused to serve a non-Christian god: > so first subject to many artful temptations — > now being seduced by the mouth of the flattering judge, > now threats of the raging executioner — > she stood steadfast in her fierce strength, > and her body to harsh torture > freely offered, not refusing to die.>
> { temptata multis nam prius artibus, > nunc ore blandi iudicis inlice, > nunc saevientis carnificis minis, > stabat feroci robore pertinax > corpusque duris excruciatibus > ultro offerebat non renuens mori. } Symphronius in response moved to match Agnes’s fierceness: > Then the fierce tyrant says, “If it’s easy for her > to bear the pain of crushing punishment, > and she spurns her life as worthless, still her chastity > as a vowed virgin is dear to her. > Hence into a common brothel I’ll thrust her, > surely so, if she doesn’t bow her head to the altar, > having asked pardon of Minerva> ,
> a virgin-goddess whom she continues to despise. > All the young men will hurry there and > request her fresh flesh for their games.”>
> { tum trux tyrannus: “si facile est,” ait, > “poenam subactis ferre doloribus > et vita vilis spernitur, at pudor > carus dicatae virginitatis est. > hanc in lupanar trudere publicum > certum est, ad aram ni caput applicat > ac de Minerva iam veniam rogat, > quam virgo pergit temnere virginem. > omnis iuventus inruet et novum > ludibriorum mancipium petet.” } Not all young men are like that. Moreover, men deserve betterthan having sex
with a prostitute
. The
truly Christian Agnes refused to have men pay her for sex. Symphronius in response ordered that Agnes stand exposed in a public square. What is a man to do when he knows that a beautiful woman is naked in a public place? By her own free choice, Lady Godiva rode naked through Coventry. Peeping Tom shouldn’t have been killedfor
taking a look. The situation with Agnes was different. Agnes had been directly compelled to stand naked in public. Almost everyone respondedrightly:
> As she stands, the sorrowful crowd flees, > their faces averted, not being so insolent > as to look upon her awe-inspiring genital area> .
> One strong man shamelessly turns > his head toward the young woman, not fearing > to gaze with his lustful eyes upon her holy form.>
> { stantem refugit maesta frequentia, > aversa vultus, ne petulantius > quisquam verendum conspiceret locum. > Intendit unus forte procaciter > os in puellam nec trepidat sacram > spectare formam lumine lubrico. } Many literature professors today teach students that the male gazeis a criminal
act tantamount to rape.
Sadly, even nearly two millennia ago a strong, young man suffered mortally for his male gaze upon the naked Agnes: > Look! A swift flame like a thunderbolt, > throbbing and burning, strikes his eyes. > Blinded by the blazing light, blown > down, his body shudders in the square’s dust. > His companions carry him, almost killed, from the soil, > weeping with words for one soon to be dead.>
> { en ales ignis fulminis in modum > vibratur ardens atque oculos ferit. > caecus corusco lumine corruit > atque in plateae pulvere palpitat. > tollunt sodales seminecem solo > verbisque deflent exequialibus. } Yet death wasn’t the end of this young man’s life. Agnes was a warm-hearted Christian woman with compassion for men.
Agnes saved this young man from death’s darkness and seeing only thehorrors of hell:
> they have reported that she was asked to pour out > prayers to Christ, so that Christ would restore light > to the guilty one laid low in death. Then the young man’s > life-breath was renewed and his vision made complete.>
> { sunt qui rogatam rettulerint preces > fudisse Christo, redderet ut reo > lucem iacenti: tunc iuveni halitum > vitae innovatum visibus integris. } Oh, Saint Agnes, you are a beautiful woman. Blessed are all men through your compassion for men! Saint Agnes in going to her death appreciated men’s vigorousmasculine vitality
and defied historical brutalization of men’s sexuality. As her
executioner approached, she boldly proclaimed: > I rejoice that such a more able one comes, > an impetuous, fierce, wild, armed man, > rather than if one would come limp and soft, > a delicate young man dripping with perfume — > such would waste me with the death of my chastity. > This, this lover now coming, I confess, he pleases me. > I will meet his in-rushing course half-way; > I will not delay my burning desire. > His whole hard blade into my breast I will receive; > I will draw the force of his sword deep into my heart.>
> { exulto talis quod potius venit, > vesanus, atrox, turbidus, armiger, > quam si veniret languidus ac tener > mollisque ephebus tinctus aromate, > qui me pudoris funere perderet. > hic, hic amator iam, fateor, placet: > ibo inruentis gressibus obviam, > nec demorabor vota calentia: > ferrum in papillas omne recepero > pectusque ad imum vim gladii traham. } The executioner, respecting Saint Agnes’s fine mind, cut off her head rather than stab into her breast.
According to Prudentius’s _Passio Agnetis_, the spirit of this wonderful woman, accompanied by angels, immediately rose into Heaven. Moreover, the world now lies beneath her feet, and from Heaven, Saint Agnes laughs at the world’s follies. > Vessel of election, vessel of honor, > flower of uncorrupted fragrance, > beloved of angels’ choirs, > your figure of honored chastity > you display through the ages.>
> { Vas electum, vas honoris, > incorrupti flos odoris, > angelorum grata choris, > honestatis et pudoris > formam praebes saeculo. } The eminent Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan and one of most influential church officials of the fourth century, shows the gynocentric tendency against which Saint Agnes witnessed. Ambrose recounted how, after the machinations of her mother has caused Thecla to be condemned to wildbeasts ,
the beasts adored Thecla: > Thecla changed even beasts’ nature through their reverence for > virginity. For indeed readied to go to the wild animals, Thecla, > while turning away from men’s gaze, offered her very vitals to a > fierce lion. She thus made those who brought forth impure eyes to > bring back pure ones. The beast was seen lying on the ground, > licking her feet, with mute testimony calling out that it could not > violate the body of the holy virgin. Thus the beast adored his prey, > and forgetful of his own nature, had put on a nature that men had > lost. You could see that by some transfusion of nature, men had put > on wildness and were commanding the beast to savagery. The beast was > kissing the virgin’s feet and so teaching what men owed to her. > … The lions taught religion when they adored the martyr. What they > taught was chastity, when they did nothing but kiss the virgin’s > soles with their eyes turned to the ground, as if from awed > reverence, not any male, not even a beast, should see the virgin> naked.
>
> { naturam etiam bestiarum virginitatis veneratione mutavit. Namque > parata ad feras, cum aspectus quoque declinaret virorum, ac vitalia > ipsa saevo offerret leoni, fecit ut qui impudicos detulerant oculos, > pudicos referrent. Cernere erat lingentem pedes bestiam cubitare > humi, muto testificantem sono quod sacrum virginis corpus violare > non posset. Ergo adorabat praedam suam bestia et propriae oblita > naturae, naturam induerat quam homines amiserant. Videres quadam > naturae transfusione homines feritatem indutos, saevitiam imperare > bestiae: bestiam exosculantem pedes virginis, docere quid homines > deberent. … Docuerunt religionem dum adorant martyrem docuerunt > etiam castitatem, dum virgini nihil aliud nisi plantas exosculantur, > demersis in terram oculis, tamquam verecundantibus, ne mas aliquis > vel bestia virginem nudam videret. } Ambrose thus figured men in their sexual desires as worse than wildlions
.
Ambrose urged upon men the gynocentric norm of kissing women’s feet.
Kissing his wife’s feet didn’t work out well for General Belisarius in sixth-century Byzantium.
Dehumanizing men hurts men, corrupts relations between women and men, and ultimately destroys society. In concluding his account of Saint Agnes, the learned Roman author Prudentius recognized with keen foresight the importance of Saint Agnes for men today. Saint Agnes looked with favor on the man killed for his male gaze. Her propitiating face led to his resurrection. Just as Saint Paul’s Christian teaching transforms Jacob’s dog-likesexuality into
a sacrament, Saint Agnes redeems men’s impure passions: > O happy virgin, O new glory, > noble dweller in Heaven’s height, > on our impure outpourings turn > your face with its twin crowns. > The father of all has given you alone the power > to render even a brothel itself guiltless. > I shall be cleansed by the brightness of your propitiating > face, if you satiate my organ of passion. > Nothing is unchaste that you, blessed one, > deem worthy to view or with your gracious foot touch.>
> { O virgo felix, o nova gloria, > caelestis arcis nobilis incola, > intende nostris conluvionibus > vultum gemello cum diademate, > cui posse soli cunctiparens dedit > castum vel ipsum reddere fornicem. > Purgabor oris propitiabilis > fulgore, nostrum si iecur inpleas. > nil non pudicum est, quod pia visere > dignaris almo vel pede tangere. } Men don’t kiss Saint Agnes’s feet. Her feet graciously touch men’s earthy humanity. Men surely deserve better than a brothel,
and so Saint Agnes makes the brothel guiltless. In asking Saint Agnes to fill his organ of passion, literally his liver {iecur}, Prudentius recast the ancient Greek male-goat song ofPrometheus
.
Prometheus was a male prisonerwho
continually cried out about the injustices that he was enduring.
The vital importance of Prometheus’s generosity and creativecapacity was
ultimately recognized. The head male god in charge of the cosmos Zeus, acting of course under the will of his wife Hera,
had Heracles set Prometheus free. The freed Prometheus received a crown woven from the branches of the _agnes castus_ tree. In ancient Greek ritual, the _agnes castus_ tree is associated both with supporting sexual continence and promoting sexual fruitfulness. Prudentius, which in Latin literally means foresight, associated himself with Prometheus, which in Greek literally means forethought. By having Saint Agnes fill his liver, Prudentius gains the blessing of Saint Agnes on men’s sexuality. John Keats’s famous poem, “The Eve of St. Agnes,” romantically emplots Saint Agnes’s redemptive compassion for the male gaze. This poem centers on Madeline. She is a young woman living in a cold, sterile, gynocentric fantasy world.
All the wintry day long through to St. Agne’s Eve (January 21), Madeline’s heart brooded: > On love, and wing’d St. Agnes’ saintly care, > As she had heard old dames full many times declare. Through their vital knowledge of medieval Latin literature, the
old dames told Madeline about a particular ritual: > They told her how, upon St. Agnes’ Eve, > Young virgins might have visions of delight, > And soft adorings from their loves receive > Upon the honey’d middle of the night, > If ceremonies due they did aright; > As, supperless to bed they must retire, > And couch supine their beauties, lily white; > Nor look behind> , nor
> sideways, but require > Of Heaven with upward eyes for all that they desire.>
> Twas said her future lord would there appear > Offering as sacrifice — all in the dream — > Delicious food even to her lips brought near: > Viands and wine and fruit and sugar’d cream, > To touch her palate with the fine extreme > Of relish: then soft music heard; and then > More pleasure followed in a dizzy stream > Palpable almost: then to wake again > Warm in the virgin morn, no weeping Magdalen> .
>
Madeline, not yet fully taught to be emotionally dead, “sigh’d
for Agnes’ dreams, the sweetest of the year.” With faith and hope, she resolved to follow the ritual of St. Agnes’s Eve, as the oldwomen told.
Porphyro, a figure of Prometheus, brought to Madeline the warmth of flesh-and-blood love.
Porphyro in Greek means fire-bearer. He was a young man of fiery passion. Seeking for Madeline, he dared to enter her dark, dangerous, gynocentric castle. There he encountered Angela, an old woman and a long-time friend to both him and Madeline. Porphyro learned from Angela that Madeline was performing the ritual of St. Agnes’s Eve. A thought like a rose blooming came to Porphyro. He would hide in the closet in Madeline’s room, gaze upon her naked body, and then transform her dream into reality. Angela was horrified: > A cruel man and impious thou art: > Sweet lady, let her pray, and sleep, and dream > Alone with her good angels, far apart > From wicked men like thee. Go, go! — I deem > Thou canst not surely be the same that thou didst seem. No dumb, fake angel, Angela came to understand. She agreed to help Porphyro make real the ritual of Saint Agnes’s Eve. After gazing upon Madeline naked, Porphyro watched her get into bed and go to sleep. Then he set about to make real her dream: > And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep, > In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d, > While he forth from the closet brought a heap > Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd; > With jellies soother than the creamy curd, > And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon; > Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d > From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one, > From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.>
> These delicates he heap’d with glowing hand > On golden dishes and in baskets bright > Of wreathed silver: sumptuous they stand > In the retired quiet of the night, > Filling the chilly room with perfume light.— > “And now, my love, my seraph fair, awake! > Thou art my heaven, and I thine eremite: > Open thine eyes, for meek St. Agnes’ sake, > Or I shall drowse beside thee, so my soul doth ache.” Madeline didn’t wake. Porphyro then got up and with a lute played for her the sad medieval song, “La belle dame sans mercy.”
Madeline uttered a soft moan. Her blue eyes opened wide. Perhaps Saint Agnes’s witness of mercy toward the man who had gazed on her naked flashed in Madeline’s mind and stirred her heart and soul. Madelinespoke:
> “Ah, Porphyro!” said she, “but even now > Thy voice was at sweet tremble in mine ear, > Made tuneable with every sweetest vow; > And those sad eyes were spiritual and clear: > How chang’d thou art! how pallid, chill, and drear! > Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, > Those looks immortal, those complainings dear! > Oh leave me not in this eternal woe, > For if thy diest, my Love, I know not where to go.” Porphyro wrapped his arms around her and pressed his heart against her heart. They spent the night together in bed. Then they escaped from the dark, cold, gynocentric castle and fled away together intothe storm.
> Saint Mary of Egypt> ,
> pray for us!
> Saint Thais
> ,
> pray for us!
> Saint Pelagia
> ,
> pray for us!
> Saint Mary the Harlot> ,
> pray for us!
> Saint Mary Magdalen> ,
> pray for us!
> Saint Eugenia
> , pray
> for us!
> Saint Agnes, pray for us!* * * * *
Read more:
* _risus paschalis_ for Christmas: laughing with Sarah, begetter ofIsaac
* martyrdom & fear of plague in Guillaume Du Fay’s _O sancteSebastiane_
* sailing to old Pavia as Archpoet: an eternal truth about humanityNotes:
John Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes,”
1.1 (cited by stanza.verse). Keats wrote this poem in 1819. _Song of Songs_ 2:16-7, Hebrew text (Westminster Leningrad Codex) via Blue Letter Bible.
Hrosvitha of Gandersheim , _The Passion of Saint Agnes, Virgin and Martyr_ {_Passio Sanctae Agnetis virginis et martyris_} vv. 45-50, Latin text from Wiegand (1936) p. 238, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. Subsequent quotes from _Passio Sanctae Agnetis_ are similarly sourced. Here’s a general account of Saint Agnes of Rome and her cult.
Hrosvitha, like many women writers of the Middle Ages, had
loving concern for men. Writing in the tenth century, Hrosvitha for her _Passio Sanctae Agnetis_ drew mainly upon an earlier epistle on the life of Saint Agnes. That epistle, written no later than the sixth century and known as _Gesta Agnetis_, was falsely attributed to Ambrose of Milan. The Latin text of _Gesta Agnetis_ is available in _Patrologia Latina_ 17 as Ambrosius Mediolanensis Incertus, _Epistolae_ 1.
For an English translation, Anonymous (1896) pp. 354-62 (translation by the South African Rev. Dr. Kolbe for the _South African Catholic Magazine_). For textual history and analysis of _Gesta Agnetis_, Poché (2015) pp. 208-19. Literary scholarship on the life Agnes and other early Christian women martyrs shows a dispiriting trajectory of intellectual decay from the time of Hrosvitha and other brilliant, creative medieval thinkers to our day of academic gynocentric apparatchiks. Behold the deadening force of omnipresent scholarly orthodoxy: > how much female audacity>
> could the late ancient church really tolerate? The answer seems > clear enough: not much. The question of why is more intriguing but > best approached, I believe, along routes both circuitous and > digressive. This essay follows one such indirect path toward > interpreting the particular “patriarchalism” of late ancient > Christianity. …>
> I suggest that we take careful note of the masculine > self-representation of fourth century Christian orthodoxy, > recognizing further the distinctive assertiveness and ambiguity of > the emerging Christian rhetoric of masculinity. The assertiveness of > this masculinized speech illumines the competitive rhetorical > economy within which it seeks to usurp the privileged maleness of > the classical discourse. Its ambiguity constitutes both its > vulnerability and its peculiar power — on the one hand introducing > the uncertainty that demands constant reassertion, on the other hand > allowing a “bending” of gender identity through which the > strategies of both a feminized resistance and a masculinized > hegemony can be mobilized simultaneously. …>
> Through the manipulation of the figure of the lion, the subjugating > force of male sexual violence has not been defeated so much as > sublimated. On one reading at least, the lion’s averted, feminized > gaze continues paradoxically to restrain the virgin; the very > gesture of honoring her — indeed, of freely mirroring her feminine > subjugation — becomes itself the vehicle of her constraint. Burrus (1995) pp. 25, 29, 33. That academia has not only tolerated but honored such work is ponderous, painfully testimony to our benighted age of ignorance and bigotry. Hrosvitha, _Passio Sanctae Agnetis_ vv. 61-72. Hrosvitha toned down Agnes’s disparagement of Symphronius’s son in her source _Gesta Agnetis_. In the latter, for proposing marriage to her, Agnes called Symphronius’s son “fomenter of sin, nurturer of wickedness, pabulum of death {fomes peccati, nutrimentum facinoris, pabulum mortis}.” _Gesta Agnetis_ 1.3. Latin text and English translation from Poché (2015) p. 210. Prudentius, _Book about the Crowns_ {_Liber Peristephanon_} 14, _The Passion of Agnes_ {_Passio Agnetis_} vv. 15-20, Latin text from Thomson (1949) vol. 1,
p. 338, my English translation, benefiting from that of id. Subsequent quotes from _Peristephanon, Passio Agnetis_ are similarly sourced. _Clutching my Rosary_ offers an easily accessible Latin text and alternate translation of Prudentius’s _Passio Agnetis_. The subsequent quote above is from _Passio Agnetis_ vv. 21-30 (Then the fierce tyrant says ….). Prudentius (Aurelius Prudentius Clemens) was born in 348 GC in Spain. After serving as a government official under the Roman Emperor Theodosius, Prudentius retired in his 50s to devote himself to literature and prayer. Little else is known about Prudentius’s biography. On Prudentius’s life, Malamud (1989) pp. 274-5. Prudentius regarded names as semantically significant. The name Symphronius is from Greek. It means literally “collected practical wisdom.” That name is appropriate in the context of Symphronius’s Roman office and actions. While Prudentius doesn’t specifically name Symphronius, his name may have already been well-known in the story of the Christian martyr Agnes. The name Agnes comes from the Greek adjective ἁγνός, meaning “chaste.” The Latin word _agna_ means “female lamb.” Pious representations of Saint Agnes often depict her holding a lamb. Prudentius, however, also associated Agnes with the she-wolf. In _Peristephanon_, _Passio Agnetis_ v. 1, Prudentius declared, “The tomb of Agnes is in Romulus’s home {Agnes sepulcrum est Romulea in domo}.” Romulus, along with his twin Remus, were founders of Rome. Sons of Mars and a Vestal Virgin, Romulus and Remus were raised by a she-wolf {lupa}. Agnes herself was condemned to a brothel, literally a house of the she-wolf {lupanar}.
Under gynocentrism, women tend to be figured as innocent lambs, and men as ravenous wolves.
Prudentius defied that anti-men gender stereotype. Cf. Malamud (1989)pp. 289, 292.
_Peristephanon_, _Passio Agnetis_ vv. 40-45. Following the line of literary scholarship that promotes mass incarceration of menand
supports rape-culture culture,
Leme reports in describing _Passio Agnetis_ “one, who dares to violate the virgin with his sight, as if raping her with the gaze.” Leme (2019) p. 439. Professor Lilia Melani teaches students at CUNY Brooklyn that Anges was “condemned to be executed after being raped all night in a brothel; however, a miraculous thunderstorm saved herfrom rape
.”
According to Burrus, the judge “invokes the threat of rape” and “martyrdom may be identified with rape.” Burrus (1995) pp. 35, 36. According to Malamud, the judge condemning Agnes to work in a brothel provided “substitution of rape for death.” Malamud (1989a) p. 159. Sexually impovished men who hire sex workersshould
not without reason be charged with raping those sex workers. Literary scholars, like most persons, remain largely ignorant about the realityof rape
.
Regarding Agnes’s _verendus locus_, Malamud stated: > Even the mention of her exposed genitals is avoided by the neutral > periphrasis _verendum locum_.{ft. 11} > {ft. 11} The virgin in Palladius’ parallel account uses a similar > periphrasis — she {Agnes} tells her suitors that she has a sore in > a _kekrummenon topon_, “hidden place” (Palladius Hist. Lau.> 65.3).
Malamud (1989a) p. 163. Within _ne petulantius / __quisquam verendum conspiceret locum_ (_Passio Agnetis_ vv. 41-2), for _verendum locum_ Thomson has “her modesty” and Malamud “the fearful place.” Thomson (1949) p. 341, Malamud (1989a) p. 163, Malamud (1989b) p. 291. Underscoring modern philology’s structural gender bias,
_verendus locus_ in _Passio Agnetis_ has been translated poorly. In Palladius, the reference to the virgin’s “hidden place {κεκρυμμενον τοπον}” might accurately be called a “neutral periphrasis.” However, _verendus locus _in _Passio Agnetis_ is far from a neutral paraphrasis. In ancient Greek and Latin literature, in contrast to representations of men’s genitals, the genitals of young women are overwhelmingly represented as being extremely beautiful, like a rose. As many
men have throughout the ages, the strong young man in _Passio Agnetis_ desired to gaze upon the genitals of a young, beautiful woman. The correct English translation of _verendus_ should recognize the powerful attractiveness of young women’s genitals to men, and men’s awe and reverence for young women’s genitals. The relevant meaning of _verendus_ is clearly attested: > Neptune removed their mortal essenses, > Clothed them in majesty and awe, and changed > Features and names alike, the boy to be > Palaemon, and his mother Leucothoe.>
> { Adnuit oranti Neptunus et abstulit illis, > quod mortale fuit, maiestatemque verendam > inposuit nomenque simul faciemque novavit > Leucothoeque deum cum matre Palaemona dixit. } Ovid, _Metamorphoses_ 4.539-42, English translation by A.D. Melville.Similarly:
> Yet by my husband’s bones, badly covered in a hurried tomb, > Bones always to be revered in my mind>
> { Per tamen ossa viri subito male tecta sepulcro, > semper iudiciis ossa verenda meis } Ovid, _Heroides_ 3.103-4, English translation (which I have adapted slightly, not concerning the word _verendus_) by James M. Hunter. In his Vulgate translation of _Genesis_ 9:22 and _Deuteronomy_ 25:11, Jerome used _verenda_ to refer to men’s genitals. Jerome’s Vulgate thus insightfully evokes reverence for God and God’s blessing of theJews in
relation to men’s genitals. Malamud, following an anti-meninist direction of recent classical studies, interprets _verendus locus_ in _Passio Agnetis_ completely opposite to objective, philological truth. Malamud (1989a) pp. 161-4. _Peristephanon_, _Passio Agnetis_ vv. 46-51. Prudentius uses alliteration to emphasize the thunderbolt striking the young man. My English translation uses alliteration similarly. The subsequent quote is from vv. 57-60 (they have reported…). _Peristephanon_, _Passio Agnetis_ vv. 69-78. Malamud observed: > her final speech is disturbing enough to have evoked the dismay of > Prudentius’ French editor, Lavarenne, who calls it a speech > ‘shamefully lacking in innocence.’ More than simply lacking in > innocence, Agnes’ speech makes it only too clear that she > envisions her death as an explicitly sexual act, and one which she> welcomes.
Malamud (1989b) p. 291; similarly, Malamud (1989a) pp. 169-70. The beheading of Agnes Malamud interprets within obfuscatory gynocentric idealogy concerning the regulation of sexuality.
Adam of Saint Victor, Sequence
venerating Saint Agnes, vv. 67-71, Latin text via _Clutching my Rosary_ , my English translation. The Latin text and an alternate English translation is also available on _Traditional Catholic Prayers_.
Adam of Saint Victor was a monk at the Abbey of St. Victor on the outskirts of Paris in the twelfth century. Mary, the greatly reveredmother of Jesus ,
reportedly honored Adam of Saint Victor for his poetic work celebrating her. Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, _Concerning virgins, to Marcellina, his sister_ {_De virginibus ad Marcellinam sororem suam_} Bk. 2, para. 19-20 (chapter 3), Latin text from _Patrologia Latinae_ 16.197-244,
my English translation, benefiting from that of De Romestin, de Romestin & Duckworth (1896) in _Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers_,Series II, Vol. 10
(alt. presentation ). Ambrose wrote _De virginibus_ in 377 GC. In _De virginibus_, Bk. 2, Ch. 4, Ambrose tells of a virgin of Antioch. She was condemned to a brothel because she refused to honor idols. A man soldier,
however, entered the brothel to take her place and help her escape. He was then martyred. Like many men killed throughout history, his
name has been forgotten, and his sacrifice for women scarcely remembered. For a similar story, Palladius of Galatia, _Lausiac History_ {_Historia Lausiaca_} 65.
_Peristephanon_, _Passio Agnetis_ vv. 124-33. Cf. the priestly benediction of _Numbers_ 6:22-6. On Prometheus receiving a crown, Athenaeus, _Deipnosophists_ 15.13.672E-F, 15.16.674D.
On the _agnus castus_ plant in relation to Prudentius’s _Passio Agnetis_, Malamud (1989a) pp. 172-5, Malamud (1989b) pp. 292-4. Malamud helpfully directs attention to Prudentius’s relation to Prometheus, but interprets that relation loosely and abstractly: > ambivalent Agnes, whose trials complete the garland of the > _Peristephanon_, becomes the equivalent of Prometheus’ willow > crown: the symbol of Prudentius’ mastery of the creative force of > poetic binding as well as of the chains of the flesh from which he > longs to escape. Malamud (1989a) pp. 176-7. Alternately: > ambivalent Agnes, whose trials complete the garland of the > _Peristephanon_, becomes the equivalent of Prometheus’ willow > crown: a token of the competing claims of artist and God for > ultimate textual authority, and a sign that Prudentius has > attempted, with great and perhaps unconscious audacity, to > reinscribe his relationship with the Christian God within a paradigm > that promises the ultimate vindication of the artist. Malamud (1989b) p. 296. _Passio Agnetis_ is centrally concerned with Christian commitment, virginity, men’s sexuality, and martyrdom. Prometheus, like men persecuted for the “crime” of seekingwomen’s love
(“seducing women
”),
was a prisoner-martyr. Prudentius’s conclusion to _Passio Agnetis_ directly relates to its central concerns and fundamental issues inmen’s lives.
Prudentius’s poetry is enormously ambitious. Not merely acting like a pagan poet casting his poetry out in a bottle onto the waves of theocean
,
Prudentius imagined his words to be ultimately incarnated: > Prudentius, by effacing the distinctions between his own poem and > first the inscription, then the painting, and ultimately the > martyr’s body itself, gives the impression that what he describes > is not bounded by any physical limitations. Fielding (2014) p. 819. To Prudentius, poetic immortality meant bodily resurrection. Pelttari (2019). The bodily resurrection of Jesus, afully masculine man
, is a
type for the bodily redemption that all men need today under gynocentrism. Prudentius had faith that, at least in the fullness of time, women and men who read his poems would realize it. Keats, “The Eve of St. Agnes,”
5.8-9. Subsequent quotes, unless otherwise noted, are from this poem. For accessible, critical perspectives on this poem, Chen (2019) pp. 216-58, Dorn (2017), and Gilbreath (1986). In Keats’s final manuscript version of “The Eve of St Agnes,” the second stanza quoted above was between the published stanzas 6 and 7. Richard Woodhouse, a legal and literary advisor to Keats’s publisher John Taylor, objected to that stanza as well as to other aspects of the final manuscript version: > I do apprehend it will render the poem unfit for ladies, & indeed > scarcely to be mentioned to them among the “things that are.” Letter of Richard Woodhouse to John Taylor, September 12, 1819, from Rollins (1958) II.162-3, quoted by Stillinger (1963) pp. 208-9. That stanza was thus deleted from the published version of “The Eve of StAgnes.”
Sources for the St. Agnes’s Eve ritual describe a vision of one’s lover or husband. John Aubrey reported an account in a masque of the eminent English playwright Ben Jonson: > And on sweet Saint Agnes Night > Please you with the promis’d sight, > Some of Husbands, some of Lovers, > Which an empty Dream discovers. From Aubrey (1696) Ch. XIII, Magick.
Ben Jonson died in 1637, hence the ritual was known before then. Aubrey recounted that a woman testified to him that using a similar ritual, she saw her future husband. For later witnesses to the St. Agnes’s Eve ritual, Brand (1777) pp. 19-20. None of the sources for the St. Agnes’s Eve ritual mention nakedness. Keats probably found that element in some account of the life of St. Agnes. For speculation that Keats read Sherling’s _The Life of the Blessed St. Agnes: Virgin and Martyr in Prose and Verse,_ published in 1677, Chen (2019) pp. 232-4. Keats’s poetic insertion of ritual nakedness into “The Eve of St. Agnes” underscores the importance of St. Agnes’s saving intercession for the young man who gazed on her naked and was struck dead. Literary scholars have been more obtuse than Angela. In an enormously influential article, Stillinger described these stanzas as representing “peeping-Tomism.”
Shrewdly perceiving and supporting gynocentrism, Stillinger confessed his gynocentric merit “in admittedly exaggerated fashion portraying him {Porphyro} as peeping Tomand
villainous seducer
.”
Stillinger (1961) pp. 540, 546. Pathetic, boot-licking maleanti-meninists
have done enormous cultural damage.
John Keats himself suffered from internalized anti-meninism. In July, 1818, Keats confessed to his friend Benjamin Bailey, “When I am among Women I have evil thoughts.” In his copy of Richard Burton’s _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, Keats wrote: > There is nothing disgraces me in my own eyes so much as being one of > a race of eyes nose and mouth beings>
> in a planet call’d the earth who . . . have always mingled goatish > winnyish lustful love with the abstract adoration of the deity> .
Quoted in Stillinger (1961) pp. 546-7. Keats’s final manuscript version more directly communicated the physical intimacy that Madeline and Porphyro enjoyed: > See, while she speaks his arms encroaching slow, > Have zoned her, heart to heart, — loud, loud the dark winds blow!>
> For on the midnight came a tempest fell; > More sooth, for that his quick rejoinder flows > Into her burning ear: and still the spell > Unbroken guards her in serene repose. > With her wild dream he mingled, as a rose > Marrieth its odour to a violet. > Still, still she dreams, louder the frost wind blows. “The Eve of St. Agnes,” final manuscript version of the last two verses of stanza XXXV and first seven verses of stanza XXXVI, quoted by Stillinger (1963) p. 210. While lacking due concern for the structural gender bias incriminalizing men
,
Weiner perceptively observed: > We may question, at least at this point in the poem, Porphyro’s > act of robbing Madeline of something she might have lost under more > conventional circumstances, but the fact remains that, as his name > and its associated imagery of fire suggest, he represents the only > genuine warmth in the poem, the only one capable of melting the iced > stream of Madeline’s cold and stagnant paradise.>
> The cold imagery associated with Madeline’s dream world and its > guardian moon brings into focus what was for Keats the primary > fallacy of the Edenic myth: its unwillingness to accept the > potentialities for growth in a world of process because such a world > inevitably involves pain. In her paradisal world, Madeline becomes > “Blissfully haven’d both from joy and pain” (line 240), > “Blinded alike from sunshine and from rain, / As though a rose > should shut, and be a bud again” (lines 242-243). If she has no > pain or rain in such a world, she also has no joy or sunshine; the > blissful protection offered by this Eden is highly ironic since the > only kind of bliss to be found in a world without joy is a stuporous> insensitivity.
Wiener (1980) p. 123. A litany loosely modeled on the _Litany of the Saints_ {_LitaniaeSanctorum_} . A
_Litany of the Saints_ was used in Christian liturgy in the sixth century under Pope Gregory the Great. In the Roman Catholic Church today, the _Litany of the Saints_ is commonly sung during the Easter Vigil. According to the _Order of Chants for the Mass_ {_Ordo Cantus Missae_} that Pope Paul VI issued in 1972: > saints and blesseds whose names appear in the Church’s Martyrology > may be added “at the proper place (suis locis) in the Litany”; > and it also allows for other petitions “suitable to the > occasion” and in the form proper to the Litany to be added “at > the proper place”. From Fitzgerald (2008). The litany above has not yet been officially approved for liturgical use by any Christian church bureaucracy. All persons, however, are free to pray it, sing it, ponder it, meditateupon it, etc.
(1) Porphyro realizing the ritual of St. Agnes’s Eve for Madeline. Central image from a triptych made by Arthur Hughes in 1856. Preserved as ref. # N04604 in the Tate (London, UK).
(2) Eve. Painting by Lucas Cranach the Elder . Made in 1528. Preserved ascatalog # 00286591
in the
Galleria Uffizi (Florence, Italy). Reflecting the biblical unity ofmale and female
,
Lucas Cranach painted a similar picture of Adam.
References:
Anonymous. 1896. “More about St. Agnes.” _The Irish Monthly. _24(277): 350-364.
Aubrey, John. 1696. _Miscellanies upon the following subjects_.
London: Printed for Edward Castle. Brand, John. 1777. _Observations on popular antiquities: including the whole of Mr. Bourne’s Antiquitates vulgares, with addenda.
_Newcastle upon Tyne: printed by T. Saint, for J. Johnson, London. Burrus, Virginia. 1995. “Reading Agnes: The Rhetoric of Gender in Ambrose and Prudentius .” _Journal of Early Christian Studies. _3 (1): 25-46. Chen, Kang-Po. 2019. _Rethinking the Concept of Obscenity: the erotic subject and self-annihilation in the works of Blake, Shelley and Keats_ . Ph.D. Thesis. University of Edinburgh. Dorn, V Ron. 2017. ‘Balancing Act: Power in Both the Male and Female Gazes in John Keats’ “On the Eve of St Agnes.”‘
_Owlcation_. Online. Fielding, Ian. 2014. “Elegiac Memorial and the Martyr as Medium in Prudentius’ _Peristephanon_.”
_Classical Quarterly. _64 (2): 808-820. Fitzgerald, William. 2008. “The Litany of Saints in the Liturgy: About Adding Names of Saints and Blesseds.”
_Adoremus_ 14 (8). Available online. Gilbreath, Marcia L. 1986. _The Apocalyptic Marriage: eros and agape in Keats’s The Eve of St. Agnes_. M.A.
Thesis (English, no. 6299). North Texas State University. Leme, Fernando Gorab. 2019. “Prudentius’ Metamorphoses.” Pp.
417-443 in Paulo Martins, Alexandre Hadegawa, Joāo Angelo Olivia Neto, eds. _Augustan Poetry: New Trends and Revaluations_. Humanitas:São Paulo.
Malamud, Martha A. 1989a. _A Poetics of Transformation: Prudentius and classical mythology_. Cornell Studies in Classical Philology, 49. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press. Malamud, Martha. 1989b. “Making A Virtue of Perversity: The Poetryof Prudentius
.”
_Ramus. _19 (1): 64-88. Pelttari, Aaron. 2019. “The Reader and the Resurrection inPrudentius
.”
_Journal of Roman Studies. _109: 205-239. Poché, Eric. 2015. _Agnes in Agony: Damasus, Ambrose, Prudentius, and the Construction of the Female Martyr Narrative_. Ph.D.
Thesis. Department of History, Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. Roberts, Michael John. 1993. _Poetry and the Cult of the Martyrs: the _Liber Peristephanon_ of Prudentius_. Ann Arbor: Univ. of MichiganPress.
Rollins, Hyder Edward, ed. 1958. _Letters of John Keats_. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Stillinger, Jack. 1961. ‘The Hoodwinking of Madeline: Scepticism in “The Eve of St. Agnes.”’ _Studies in Philology. _58 (3):533-555.
Stillinger, Jack. 1963. ‘The Text of “The Eve of St. Agnes.”’ _Studies in Bibliography. _16: 207-212. Thomson, Henry John, ed. and trans. 1949. _Prudentius_. Loeb Classical Library 387, 398. Vol. 1,
Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Wiegand, Sister M. Gonsalva. 1936. _The Non-Dramatic Works of Hrosvitha: text, translation, and commentary_. Ph.D. Thesis.
St. Louis University. Wiener, David. 1980. ‘The Secularization of the Fortunate Fall in Keats’s “The Eve of St. Agnes.”’ _Keats-Shelley Journal. _29:120-130.
Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020By Author
Douglas Galbi Tags
Prudentius , saints
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EARINUS, EMPEROR DOMITIAN, AND LAWS AGAINST CASTRATION Earinus, a beautiful young boy, was sent from his native land of Pergamum to be a slave in the court of the Emperor Domitian in first-century Rome. Emperor Domitian enjoyed having sex with his slave-boy Earinus. Earinus was castrated so that his boyish attractiveness wouldn’t be changed by the onset of puberty. The violence against the boy Earinus is a horror that nearly approaches that of crucifying an innocent adult man. Did the sexual abuse and castration of Earinus have any salvific value relative to historically pervasive castration culture?
History is replete with horrible violence against boys and men. Homer’s _Iliad,_ the most influential work of ancient Greek literature other than the Christian New Testament, depicts epicslaughter
of
men in war, that is, socially institutionalized violence against men.
In medieval Europe, despite the risks to women in childbirth, elite men’s life expectancy was about nine years less than the life expectancy for elite women. Today in the U.S., about four times more men than women suffer death through physical violence.
Violence against men frequently targets men’s genitals,
and men are about as likely to suffer sexual assault as women are.
Social devaluation of masculinity is a seminal issue. Castration culture makes clear social contempt for males as a gender.
Violence against boys and men can be lessened. About a decade after Earinus was castrated, Emperor Domitian issued an edict against castrating boys. Both the Roman court poets Statius and Martial tell of Earinus being given to Domitian, Earinus’s castration, and Domitian’s edict against castration. But the way that both Statius and Martial contextualize Domitian’s edict against castration shows the social difficulty in recognizing castration culture as a gravemoral wrong.
Fawningly praising Domitian, Statius offered no critical perspective on violence against boys and castration culture. Statius hailed Pergamum for delivering Earinus as a slave-boy to Domitian: > Pergamum, much more fortunate than pine-clad Ida, > though Ida allows herself to be pleased on a cloud of holy rape — > for surely she gave the high ones him {Ganymede} upon whom always > troubled Juno looks, recoiling from his hand, refusing the nectar. > But you have the gods’ favor by your beautiful nursling {Earinus}. > You sent to Italy a minister {Earinus} whom with kindly brow > Ausonian Jupiter {Domitian} and Roman Juno {Domitian’s wife} alike > view and both approve. Not without the will > of the gods is the lord of earth {Domitian} so well pleased.>
> { Pergame, pinifera multum felicior Ida, > illa licet sacrae placeat sibi nube rapinae > (nempe dedit superis illum quem turbida semper > Iuno videt refugitque manum nectarque recusat), > at tu grata deis pulchroque insignis alumno > misisti Latio placida quem fronte ministrum > Iuppiter Ausonius pariter Romanaque Iuno > aspiciunt et uterque probant, nec tanta potenti > terrarum domino divum sine mente voluptas. } The god Jupiter forcefully abducted the beautiful boy prince Ganymede from Mt. Ida to be his cup-bearer and to have sex with him. Jupiter’s wife Juno was jealous of Jupiter’s affection for Ganymede. Domitian’s wife Domitia Longina evidently wasn’t jealous of Domitian’s slave-boy Earinus. Perhaps she was satisfied merely to live in the royal palace in a sexless marriage.
According to Statius, the will of the gods is that Domitian, the lord of the earth, have the beautiful slave-boy Earinus. Statius depicted the delivery of Earinus to Domitian and the castration of Earinus as acts of gods. The goddess Venus saw the boy Earinus playing before the altar of the god Aesculapius in Pergamum:
> She sees that boy, a shining star of peerless beauty, > as he plays before the very god’s altar.> … “I
> shall give this beauty the lord it deserves. Come now with me, > come, boy! I shall lead you through the stars in my winged chariot, > you a great gift to the leader. No common commands shall await you: > you should be a servant to honor in the Palace. Nothing, I myself > confess, nothing so sweet in all the world > have I seen or birthed. … > You, boy, are beyond them all; more beautiful is only he > to whom you shall be given.”>
> { hic puerum egregiae praeclarum sidere formae > ipsius ante dei ludentem conspicit aras.> … ego isti
> quem meruit formae dominum dabo. vade age mecum, > vade, puer. ducam volucri per sidera curru > donum immane duci, nec te plebeia manebunt > iura: Palatino famulus deberis honori. nil ego, > nil, fateor, toto tam dulce sub orbe > aut vidi aut genui. … > tu, puer, ante omnes; solus formosior ille> cui daberis. }
According to Statius, the Emperor Domitian as an adult was more beautiful than Earinus, castrated to prevent his beauty from fading through puberty. According to Statius, the physician-god Aesculapius himself gently castrated Earinus: > O you, under a lucky star > brought forth, the gods have favored you with much kindness. > Once, lest the first downy hair mar your shining cheeks > and darken the joy of your beautiful form, > your fatherland’s god himself abandoned lofty Pergamum to cross> the sea.
> Scarcely any could be entrusted to soften the boy, > but with silent skill the son of Phoebus {Aesculapius} > gently, with scarcely any shock of a wound, commanded > the body to pass beyond its sex. Yet anxious concerns > bite at Venus, fearing that the boy is feeling pains. > Not yet had the leader’s beautiful mildness begun > to keep males intact from birth; now to break a male’s sex > and change a person is forbidden. Nature rejoiced that only > those it created it sees. No longer under evil law > do servant-mothers fear the burden of birthing sons.>
> { o sidere dextro > edite, multa tibi divum indulgentia favit. > olim etiam, ne prima genas lanugo nitentes > carperet et pulchrae fuscaret gaudia formae, > ipse deus patriae celsam trans aequora liquit > Pergamon. haud ulli puerum mollire potestas > credita, sed tacita iuvenis Phoebeius arte > leniter haud ullo concussum vulnere corpus > de sexu transire iubet. tamen anxia curis > mordetur puerique timet Cytherea dolores. > nondum pulchra ducis clementia coeperat ortu > intactos servare mares; nunc frangere sexum > atque hominem mutare nefas, gavisaque solos > quos genuit Natura videt, nec lege sinistra > ferre timent famulae natorum pondera matres. } Even with the physician-god Aesculapius castrating Earinus, the love-goddess Venus fears that Earinus would suffer pains. Statius follows her sensible fear with praise for Domitian’s “beautiful mildness {pulchra clementia}” in forbidding the castration of male infants. Domitian’s mildness parallels Aesculapius’s gentleness in wielding the castrating instrument. Domitian with his beautiful mildness continues to have sex with his beautiful slave-boy Earinus. Such poetry, like today’s dominant claims about gender equality,
induce vomiting in anyone with understanding. Martial, another Roman court poet, only twice forcefully addressed castration culture, and in both instances he also flattered the Emperor Domitian. Martial wrote three epigrams playing technical poetic games with Earinus’s name. In three more epigrams, Martial celebrated Earinus dedicating to Aesculapius a lock of hair, a mirror, and a jeweled box. In one epigram, Martial dared to voice explicitmale sexed protest
:
> As if it were too little an injustice to our sex > to have males prostituted for the people to defile, > the pimp also owned the cradle. Thus seized from mother’s breast, > the young boy wailed for his sordid pay. > Immature bodies were given unspeakable punishments. > Italy’s father {Domitian} did not support such horrors, > he who recently aided tender youths, > not allowing savage lust to make males sterile. > Boys, young men, and old men loved you > before, Caeser, and now infants too adore you.>
> { Tamquam parva foret sexus iniuria nostri > foedandos populo prostituisse mares, > iam cunae lenonis erant, ut ab ubere raptus > sordida vagitu posceret aera puer. > immatura dabant infandas corpora poenas. > non tulit Ausonius talia monstra pater, > idem qui teneris nuper succurrit ephebis, > ne faceret steriles saeva libido viros. > dilexere prius pueri iuvenesque senesque, > at nunc infantes te quoque, Caesar, amant. } The hyperbole of the final couplet implicitly contrasts with Domitian’s continuing sexual love for castrated boys such as Earinus. In another epigram, Martial has the god Jupiter say to hisboy-love Ganymede:
> Our Caesar {Domitian} has a thousand ministers like you; > his vast palace can scarcely contain so many star-like boys.>
> { Caesar habet noster similis tibi mille ministros > tantaque sidereos vix capit aula mares } In celebrating Domitian’s edict against castrating infant boys, Martial praised Domitian as “the world’s father, chaste prince {parens orbis, pudice princeps}.” Whatever merit Domitian had as the Roman Emperor, Domitian also had sex with many young boys, surely many of them like Earinus castrated to prolong Domitian’s pleasure withthem.
Why did Domitian issue an edict against castrating infant boys? One speculation is that Domitian not only had sex with Earinus, but also loved and respected him. Earinus, from his place of royal favor and privilege, still recognized the horror done to him. Perhaps he understood that few other castrated infant boys could realistically hope for the royal favor and privilege that he had obtained. Earinus thus persuaded Domitian to ban castrating infant boys. Rulers’ lovers, including slave girls,can have
enormous influence on them. Yet this speculation requires Earinus to care generally about boys’ welfare. Right up to our day, very few women or men have shown compassionate concern for boys’ welfare.
Unless Earinus loved as distinctively as Jesus Christ did, Earinus being castrated as a boy sex-slave probably didn’t save other infant boys from that horror. Ugly self-interest more plausibly explains Domitian forbidding castration of infant boys. Writing in the second century, a Roman statesman and historian reported: > though he {Domitian} himself entertained a passion for a eunuch > named Earinus, nevertheless, since {Roman Emperor} Titus also had > shown a great fondness for eunuchs, in order to insult his memory, > he forbade that any person in the Roman Empire should thereafter be> castrated.
>
> { καίπερ καὶ αὐτὸς Ἐαρίνου τινὸς > εὐνούχου ἐρῶν, ὅμως, ἐπειδὴ καὶ ὁ > Τίτος ἰσχυρῶς περὶ τοὺς ἐκτομίας > ἐσπουδάκει, ἀπηγόρευσεν ἐπὶ > ἐκείνου ὕβρει μηδένα ἔτι ἐν τῇ > τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἀρχῇ ἐκτέμνεσθαι. } The Roman Emperor Titus was Domitian’s brother. Perhaps hatred for his brother prompted Domitian to forbid castration. Roman emperors’ moral examples to their subjects probably also encouraged other elite Roman men to have boys castrated to serve them as sex slaves. Martial claimed that Roman cities favored Domitian’s edict againstcastration:
> Cities offer thanks: > they have growing populations; to give birth is no longer> wickedness.
>
> { gratias agunt urbes: > populos habebunt; parere iam scelus non est. } Martial suggests that giving birth to a male infant who would be castrated amounts to participating in wickedness. More abstractly, he suggests that having sexual intercourse of reproductive type in the context of castration culture is wickedness. Castrating males and encouraging sex of non-reproductive type tend to reduce cities’ populations. Obviously Martial is engaged in hyperbole. Yet societies historically have valued men instrumentally as workers and soldiers.
Rulers’ interests in the welfare of their empires might well promote constraints on castration culture. Domitian eventually freed his castrated slave-boy Earinus. No one knows why. Anyone awake surely recognizes that incredible lies andwickedness
continue to exist among ordinary persons and elites. How can they be overcome? One can only strive to know the truth and try to act rightly. To exult that light has overcome the darkness, you must havefaith.
* * * * *
Read more:
* castration culture promotes vicious, jealous eunuchs as officials * hateful castration culture: castrated Abelard disparaged &demeaned
* swan-song of Rome: Rutilius, _On returning home_ / _De reditu suo_Notes:
For thorough study concerning Earinus’s life, Henriksén (1997). Statius, _Silvae_ 3.4, “The Hair of Flavius Earinus {Capilli Flavi Earnini},” vv. 12-20, Latin text from Shackleton Bailey (2015), my English translation benefiting from that of id. Subsequent quotes from Statius are similarly sourced from _Silvae_ 3.4. Statius wrote _Silvae_ 3.4 in 94 GC in response to Earinus’srequest:
> Earinus, our Germanicus’s free person, knows how many days I put > off his request, when he asked me to dedicate in verse his hair, > along with a jeweled box and mirror, that he was sending to > Pergamene Asclepius.>
> { Earinus praeterea, Germanici nostri libertus, scit quam diu > desiderium eius moratus sim, cum petisset ut capillos suos, quos cum > gemmata pyxide et speculo ad Pergamenum Asclepium mittebat, versibus> dedicarem. }
_Silvae_ 3, “Statius to his Pollius, Greeting {Statius Pollio suo salutem},” ll. 17-20. Statius most important work is his _Achilleid_, a work of men’s sexed protest.
_Achilleid_ and _Silvae_ 3.4 are best read together. Russell (2014).Perseus
and the Latin Library have freely accessible Latin texts of Statius. Quinn (2002) provides English translations for _Silvae_ 3.4 and relevant epigrams of Martial, along with a possessive note of symbolic capitalism. Mozley (1928) is a freely available source for all of Statius’s works, with English translation. Martial, _Epigrams_ 9.7,
Latin text from Shackleton Bailey (1993), my English translation, benefiting from that of id. and the commentary of Henriksén (2012). Subsequent quotes from Martial are similarly sourced. Other evidence suggests that Domitian was a sexual hypocrite. Charles & Anagnostou-Laoutides (2010). Martial’s three epigrams playing poetic games with Earinus’s name (which doesn’t fit Latin poetic meter) are 9.11, 9.12, and 9.13. For analysis of the metrical subtleties of 9.11, Morgan (2016). Martial’s three epigrams on the dedication of Earinus’s lock of hair are 9.16, 9.16, and 9.36. Classical scholarship has shown little critical concern about castration culture. Horrendous injustices of castration cultureseem merely to
invoke academic preciousness: > The figure of Earinus compels us — and Martial — to acknowledge > that there were eunuchs in Martial’s readership, and that they > were subjects in their own right, even if ideologically overlooked > ones, and that we can attempt to reconstruct perhaps not what > Earinus himself thought or felt as reader of Book 9 of Martial’s > epigrams, but at least what Martial as author may have imagined him > to have thought or felt. Larash (2013) p. 10. A recent classics dissertation trumpeted minor adaptations of academic gender platitudes: “How the Eunuch Works” and “eunuchs are good to think with.” Erlinger (2016), title and p. 246 (in conclusion). Stevenson (1995) formulates academic research questions about eunuchs’ success in rising to high officialpositions.
Martial, _Epigrams_ 9.36.9-10. For reference to Earinus as a star-like boy, Statius, _Silvae_ 3.4.26. The subsequent short quote is 9.5.2-3 (the world’s father, chaste prince). The central idea of this speculation is from Morgan (2017). I’vefilled in details.
Dio Cassius, _Roman History_ {_Ῥωμαϊκὴ Ἱστορία_} 67.2.3, Greek text and English translation from Cary & Foster (1914) vol. 8. On Domitian’s edict in relation to Dio Cassius’s description of legislation (68.2.4: “no man shall be made a eunuch {εὐνουχίζεσθαί}”) of the subsequent emperor Nerva, Murison (2004) pp. 348-55. Martial, _Epigrams_ 9.5.2-3. Martial’s concern about general public welfare is a traditional basis for moral and sumptuary laws.
That appears to be the direction of argument in Lewis (nd). The rape of Ganymede. Painting by Peter Paul Rubens. Made in 1636. Preserved as accession # P001679 in the Museo del Prado (Madrid, Spain).References:
Cary, Earnest & Herbert B. Foster. 1914. Dio Cassius. _Roman History_.
Loeb Classical Library 32. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Charles, Michael B., and Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides. 2010. “The Sexual Hypocrisy of Domitian: Suet., Dom. 8, 3.” _L’Antiquité Classique._79 (1): 173-187.
Erlinger, Christopher Michael. 2016. _How the Eunuch Works: Eunuchs as a Narrative Device in Greek and Roman Literature_.
Ph.D. Thesis. Ohio State University. Henriksén, Christer. 1997. “Earinus: An imperial eunuch in the light of the poems of Martial and Statius.” _Mnemosyne. _50 (3):281-294.
Henriksén, Christer. 2012. A C_ommentary on Martial, Epigrams, Book 9_. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (review by Bret Mulligan)
Larash, Patricia. 2013. “Reading for Earinus in Martial, Book 9.”
Paper presented at APA Annual Meeting, Seattle, 6 January 2013.Online.
Lewis, Juan. nd. “‘Ne spadones fiant’: Domitian’s emasculation ban: effectiveness and purpose.”
Draft under consideration at _Classical Quarterly_. Morgan, Cheryl. 2017. “Earinus: A Roman Civil Rights Activist?”
_History Matters: History brought alive by the University ofSheffield_. Online.
Morgan, Llewelyn. 2016. “Sugar & spice & all things nice.”
_Lugubelinus:the marginalia of an easily distracted Classicist_.Online.
Mozley, John Henry. 1928. _Statius: With an English translation. V_ol.1 _(Silvae, Thebaid
_
I-IV), Vol. 2 _(__Thebaid_ V-XII, _Achilleid__)._
London, N.Y.: William Heinemann, G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Murison, Charles Leslie. 2004. “Cassius Dio on Nervan Legislation (68.2.4): Nieces and Eunuchs.” _Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte. _53 (3): 343-355. Quinn, John T. 2002. “Earinus the Eunuch: Martial (from Book 9) and Statius _(Silvae_ 3.4): translation and notes.”
Diotíma. Online.
Russell, Craig M. 2014. “The Most Unkindest Cut: Gender, Genre, and Castration in Statius’ _Achilleid_ and _Silvae_ 3.4.” _American Journal of Philology. _135 (1): 87-121. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. & trans. 1993. Martial. _Epigrams, Volume II: Books 6-10. _Loeb Classical Library 95. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shackleton Bailey, D. R., ed. & trans, rev. by Christopher A. Parrott. 2015. Statius. _Silvae._ Loeb Classical Library 206. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Stevenson, Walter. 1995. “The Rise of Eunuchs in Greco-Roman Antiquity.” _Journal of the History of Sexuality. _5 (4): 495-511. Posted on April 12, 2020April 12, 2020By
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WEDNESDAY’S FLOWERS Posted on April 8, 2020By
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MARTYRDOM & FEAR OF PLAGUE IN GUILLAUME DU FAY’S _O SANCTESEBASTIANE_
About 1423, an outbreak of plague in Bologna prompted intense fear along the Adriatic coast of Italy. Guillaume Du Fay, now generally regarded as the greatest European composer of the fifteenth century, wrote an isorhythmic motet praying for divine help against this plague. For his motet’s text, Du Fay combined two pre-existing Latin prayers to Saint Sebastian. Du Fay’s motet shows fear of plague playing against Christian embraceof martyrdom.
The life of Saint Sebastian is more directly associated with martyrdom than with preventing plague. According to the _Passion of Saint Sebastian_ {_Passio Sancti Sebastiani_}, Sebastian was a clandestine Christian and a high-ranking officer under the Roman Emperor Diocletian, who reigned from 284 to 305 GC. Sebastian healed the sick and urged conversion to Christianity. For these offenses, Diocletian ordered archers to shoot Sebastian. Under the care of the compassionate woman Irene, Sebastian survived his arrow wounds. Then he was arrested again. This time the imperial guards clubbed him to death. To prevent Christians from honoring Sebastian’s dead body, the imperial guards threw it into a sewer. Christians managed to recover Sebastian’s body from the sewer. They buried his body alongside the bodies of the apostles Peter and Paul in the catacomb on Rome’s Appian Way. By 354 GC, Sebastian’s tomb was already attracting Christian pilgrims. A basilica, called the Church of the Apostles {Ecclesia Apostolorum}, was built above the catacomb late in the fourth century. In both _Passio Sancti Sebastiani_ and the cult of the saint, Sebastian was honored as a heroic Christian martyr without any reference to plague. The prayers that Du Fay used for his motet emphasize Sebastian’s status as a martyr. Du Fay’s motet begins with one voice (the _triplum_ / _cantus_ 1), then another slightly offset (the _resolutio_)_,_ singing: > O Saint Sebastian, > always, evening and morning, > at all hours and minutes, > while I am of sound mind>
> { O sancte Sebastiane, > Semper, vespere et mane, > Horis cunctis et momentis > Dum adhuc sum sanae mentis } The above verses are a preface that sets the context of earnest devotion. The first voice then continues: > protect and preserve me, > and, O martyr, untie me from the cords > of harmful weakness > called the epidemic.>
> From this kind of plague > defend and guard me, > along with all my friends. > We confess ourselves sinners > to God and to Holy Mary > and to you, O faithful martyr.>
> { Me protege et conserva > Et a me, martyr, enerva > Infirmitatem noxiam > Vocatem epidemiam.>
> Tu de peste hujusmodi > Me defende et custodi > Et omnes amicos meos, > Qui nos confitemur reos > Deo et sanctae Mariae > Et tibi, o martyr pie. } This prayer apparently draws upon upon a prayer attributed to Ambrose in the life of Saint Sebastian in Jacobus de Voragine’s _The Golden Legend_ {_Legenda aurea_}: > The blessed martyr Sebastian for the confession of your name, worthy > Lord, in shedding his blood shows at the same time your marvels: you > confer strength in weakness, you give success to our efforts, and in > response to prayer you supply help to the weak.>
> { beati martiris Sebatiani pro confessione nominis tui, domine > venerabilis, sanguis effusus simul et tua mirabilia manifestat, quod > perficis in infirmitate virtutem, et vestris studiis das profectum > et infirmis a prece praestas auxilium. } Weakness in Ambrose’s prayer means fear of martyrdom. Success means becoming a blessed martyr. In the leading vocal line of Du Fay’s motet, the reference to binding cords of harmful weakness, described as an epidemic, a kind of plague, seems to refer subtly to popular resistance to martyrdom. The epidemic that Du Fay’s motet addresses is both the plague and the fear of dying as a faithful Christian suffering plague. That latter fear is associated with fear ofmartyrdom.
The leading vocal line of Du Fay’s motet continues with more specific balancing of stopping the plague and the blessing of martyrdom. Saint Sebastian, citizen of Milan, has the power to stopthe plague:
> You, citizen of Milan, > you can make cease > this pestilence, if you so wish, > and from God accomplish this, > for among many it is known > that you have from Him this benefit.>
> Zoe the mute you healed > and restored healthful > to Nicostratus her husband, > and you did this miraculously. > In their suffering you consoled > the martyrs and promised > to them eternal life > and all that’s owed to martyrs.>
> { Tu Mediolanus civis > Hanc pestilentiam, si vis > Potes facere cessare > Et ad Deum impetrare > Quia a multis est scitum, > Quod de hoc habes meritum.>
> Zoe mutam tu sanasti > Et sanatam restaurasti > Nicostrato ejus viro, > Hoc faciens modo miro. > In agone consolabas > Martyres et promittebas > Eis sempiternam vitam > Et martyribus debitam. } If this pestilence were to make faithful Christians into martyrs, would Saint Sebastian have wished to stop it? The _motetus _(_cantus_ 2) clearly expresses desire for protection from plague. Yet in addition it contains a semantic counterpoint.Consider:
> O martyr Sebastian, > you with us always, remain with us! > And through your merits > we, who are in this life —>
> guard, heal, and rule us, > and from the plague protect us, > presenting us to the Trinity > and the holy virgin mother.>
> And may we so finish life, > that we have mercy > and the company of martyrs > and the vision of holy God.>
> { O martyr Sebastiane, > Tu semper nobiscum mane > Atque per tua merita > Nos, qui sumus in hac vita,>
> Custodi, sana et rege > Et a peste nos protege > Praesentans nos trinitati > Et virgini sanctae matri.>
> Et sic vitam finiamus, > Quod mercedem habeamus > Et martyrum consortium > Et Deum videre pium. } The opening address isn’t to “O savior Sebastian” or “O merciful Sebastian,” but to “O martyr Sebastian.” We are in this earthly life, but the martyr Sebastian is in blessed, eternal life. The phrase “you with us always {tu semper nobiscum}” suggests a declarative, but resolves in an imperative “remain with us {mane}.” The implicit declarative seems to be an implicit hope. How is one to finish earthly life so as to receive God’s mercy, have the company of martyrs, and experience the beatific vision of God? One answer is martyrdom, even martyrdom by the plague. The _contratenor_ similarly has a semantic counterpoint celebrating martyrdom. Sebastian again has the epithet martyr, accompanied with words celebrating that status: > O how he shined with wondrous grace, > Sebastian, famous martyr, > who bearing a soldier’s insignia, > but caring for his brothers’ victory, > comforted their weakening hearts > with words brought from heaven.>
> { O quam mira refulsit gratia > Sebastianus, martyr inclytus, > Qui militis portans insignia, > Sed de fratum palma sollicitus > Confortavit corda pallencia > Verba sibi collato caelitus. } In Jacobus de Voragine’s life of Saint Sebastian, Sebastian exhorted Marcellian and Marcus, two brothers from high nobility, not to yield to their parents’ tears and forego Christian martyrdom: > O you strong soldiers of Christ, do not let these tearful > blandishments cause you to forsake the everlasting crown!>
> { O fortissimi milites Christi, nolite per misera blandimenta > coronam deponere sempiternam. } To Marcellian and Marcus’s parents, Sebastian declared: > Do not fear, they will not be separated from you, but will go to > heaven and prepare starry dwellings for you. Since the world began, > this life has betrayed those who placed their hopes in it. Life has > deceived their expectations and fooled those who took its goods for > granted, and thus it has left nothing certain and so proved itself > false to all. … Therefore, let us stir up our desire, our love for> martyrdom!
>
> { Nolite timere, non separabuntur a vobis, sed vadunt in caelum > vobis parare sidereas mansiones. Nam ab initio mundi haec vita in se > sperantes fefellit, se exspectantes decepit, de se praesumentes > irrisit et ita nullum omnino certum reddidit, ut omnibus probetur > esse mentita. … In amore ergo martyrii nostros iam suscitemus> affectus. }
In the context of Sebastian’s life, caring for his brothers’ victory and comforting their weakening hearts mean urging them to accept Christian martyrdom. Welcoming death has long been regarded as madness. Christians’ fearlessness in facing death under Roman persecutions was regarded at least in part as Christian foolishness. Willing to embrace the male gaze, as Bishop
Nonnus did with respect to the dancer Pelagia, a
non-Christian poem from about two millennia ago described a sexySyrian dancing girl
with
sinuous thighs. This poem, known as the _Copa,_ celebrates sensuous beauty, counsels against fear of even an enormous penis, and
concludes:
> If you have sense, you’ll recline and drink deeply from the summer> pint-glass,
> or perhaps you might prefer to hold a chalice of new crystal. > Come here, rest your weary self under the vines’ shade > and fasten to your heavy head a breast-band of roses. > Pulling on the soft lips of a lovely young woman — > ah, go rot in your grave, you old-fashioned eye-brow raisers! > Why save fine-smelling garlands for ungrateful ashes? > Asssshole, do you want your bones to be covered with a crowned> gravestone?
> Set out the undiluted wine and dice. Let rot one who cares about> tomorrow.
> Death is yanking on the ear. “Live,” he says, “I’m> coming.”
>
> { si sapis, aestivo recubans te prolue vitro, > seu vis crystalli ferre novos calices. > hic age pampinea fessus requiesce sub umbra > et gravidum roseo necte caput strophio, > formosa et tenerae decerpens ora puellae — > a pereat cui sunt prisca supercilia! > quid cineri ingrato servas bene olentia serta? > anne coronato vis lapide ossa tegi? > pone merum et talos; pereat qui crastina curat: > Mors aurem vellens “vivite” ait, “venio.” } In this poem, the coming of death means the end of pleasurable life. Despite its disappointments, uncertainties, and deceptions, life is good. If you have set before you the _Copa’s_ vision of life and death, choose life. Life is the better choice. For Christians, life and death are dynamically linked. About 400 GC on the occasion of a burial, the learned Roman Christian Prudentiuswrote:
> God, fiery soul-source, > you brought together two elements, > one living, one subject to death. > Father, you created humans.>
> Yours are both elements, yours, master, > for you they are linked, > for you they cling together while enlivened, > spirit and flesh serve you.>
> But detached from each other, > they are called back to their origins. > The hot breath seeks for the atmosphere, > the dry earth receives the body.>
> { Deus ignee fons animarum, > duo qui socians elementa, > vivum simul ac moribundum, > hominem, pater, effigiasti,>
> tua sunt, tua, rector, utraque, > tibi copula iungitur horum, > tibi dum vegetata cohaerent > et spiritus et caro servit.>
> resoluta sed ista seorsum > proprios revocantur in ortus: > petit halitus aëra fervens, > humus excipit arida corpus. } Separation of spirit and body at death isn’t the end of the living body in Prudentius’s understanding: > Now receive him, earth, to cherish, > take him to your soft breast. > I hand over to you parts of a human, > fragments of noble origin I entrust.>
> This was once the home of a soul > created from its maker’s mouth. > In these remains the fire > of wisdom lived with Christ as leader.>
> You earth, cover the deposited body. > He will not forget his handiwork, > he will ask for it back, maker and creator > using the stamp of his own face.>
> Let the merited time come > when God fulfills all hope. > You will be opened, you must give back > the image as I impart it to you.>
> No! Though withered age > reduce the bones to powder, > the dry and scanty ashes > to the least of a tiny handful —>
> No! Though changing winds and breezes > fly through the empty void and > carry away his strength, his dust, > he will not be permitted to perish.>
> { nunc suscipe, terra, fovendum, > gremioque hunc concipe molli: > hominis tibi membra sequestro, > generosa et fragmina credo.>
> animae fuit haec domus olim > factoris ab ore creatae; > fervens habitavit in istis > Sapientia principe Christo.>
> tu depositum tege corpus; > non inmemor ille requiret > sua munera fictor et auctor > propriique enigmata vultus.>
> veniant modo tempora iusta, > cum spem deus inpleat omnem, > reddas patefacta necesse est > qualem tibi trado figuram.>
> non, si cariosa vetustas > dissolverit ossa favillis, > fueritque cinisculus arens > minimi mensura pugilli,>
> nec, si vaga flamina et aurae > vacuum per inane volantes > tulerint cum pulvere nervos, > hominem periisse licebit. } Prudentius concludes his poem with the promise of the body’s resurrection, a prayer, and a promise of care: > Behold! For believers lies open > a bright road to the great garden. > They can enter the pasture > that the serpent stole from humans.>
> I pray, best of leaders, > command that this spirit, your servant, > be consecrated there at its birthplace, > which it left, an exile and wanderer.>
> We will care for the buried bones > with violets and branches dense with leaves. > The epitaph and cold stones > we will drench with liquid perfume.>
> { patet ecce fidelibus ampli > via lucida iam paradisi, > licet et nemus illud adire, > homini quod ademerat anguis.>
> illic, precor, optime ductor, > famulam tibi praecipe mentem > genitali in sede sacrari, > quam liquerat exul et errans.>
> nos tecta fovebimus ossa > violis et fronde frequenti > titulumque et frigida saxa > liquido spargemus odore. } All Christians, if they actually believe in Christ, must believe about death what Prudentius believed. With sixteen hundred years of Christian witness since the learned Roman Prudentius wrote, Christians should be able to believe what Prudentius believed. Death by plague doesn’t seem like heroic martyrdom. Yet Guillaume Du Fay’s fifteenth-century motet alludes extensively to martyrdom on calling upon Saint Sebastian to save the people from plague. From a Christian perspective, being a hero counts for nothing relative to dying with faith in Christ’s promise of resurrection. Facing the fear of plague with faith in Christ makes one like Saint Sebastian in the way that matters most. Martyrdom is a painful point that should be appreciated in hearing Guillaume Du Fay’s poignant motet on the plague.* * * * *
Read more:
* _Contra plagam_ & other medieval prayers against plague * Jephthah’s daughter sought bigger name than Abraham’s sonIsaac
* trade slogans of Abbasid singing slave girls (_qiyān_) goaded menNotes:
Neither _Passio Sancti Sebastian_ nor surviving evidence about the early cult of Saint Sebastian refers to plague. For reviews of the life of Sebastian, Gecser (2017), Hedquist (2017), and Barker (2007). The earliest written account of Sebastian is from Ambrose of Milan late in the fourth century. Ambrose in his _Commentary on Psalm 118_ {_Expositio psalmi CXVIII_} tells of “Sebastian the Martyr {Sebastianus martyr}” whose birthday is being celebrated on January 20. According to Ambrose, Sebastian was a citizen of Milan and was martyred in Rome. See _Expositio psalmi CXVIII,_ Ch. 20.43-51. Here’s an excerpt in English translation of Ambrose’s commentary concerning Sebastian (shorter excerpt here).
The Latin text is available in Petschenig & Zelzer (1999) pp. 466-70.
The _Passio Sancti Sebastian _was written about 430 GC. Once attributed to Ambrose of Milan, the _Passio Sancti Sebastian_ more recently and more plausibly has been attributed to Arnobius the Younger. Gecser (2017) p. 2, n. 3. _Patrologiae Latinae_ (PL) 17 (published 1879) cols. 1111-1148 provides _Acts of Saint Sebastian_ {_Acta S. Sebastiani_}.
Gecser (2017) p. 2, n. 3, cites PL 17 col. 1021-1058 for the _Passio Sancti Sebastiani_, but that references isn’t correct for the 1879 volume of PL 17. For more recent references, see id. Guillaume Du Fay, _O Saint Sebastian — O martyr Sebastian — O how wonderful_ {_O sancte Sebastiane – O martyr Sebastiane – O quam mira_}, Latin text from Planchart (2011), my English translation, benefiting from those of id. and David Wyatt (2012). Subsequent
quotes from Du Fay’s _O Saint Sebastian_ are similarly sourced. For the musical score for _O Saint Sebastian_, along with Latin text, English translation, and commentary, Planchart (2011). The LiederNet Archive suggests a date of c. 1437 for this motet. Planchart
reasonable suggests instead 1423 or 1424. Planchart (2011) p. 14. At that date, Du Fay was only about 27 years old. He was then apparently serving the House of Malatestain Rimini, Italy
.
Steffen at _My Albion_offers
a poetic response to the martyr Sebastian’s life. Jacobus de Voragine, _The Golden Legend_ {_Legenda aurea_} Ch. 23 (Saint Sebastian), Latin text from Grässe (1850) p. 113, my English translation benefiting from that of Ryan (1993) v. 1, p. 101. The Latin Library’s text of Jacobus on Sebastianis truncated.
It’s missing the text above. Jacobus first distributed his _Legenda aurea_ about 1260. William Caxton translated _Legenda aurea_ into English and so printed it in 1483. Here’s Caxton’s translation in modernized English. In
the fifteenth century, the _Legenda aurea_ was a medieval bestseller. It fell sharply out of favor in the sixteenth century. On the reception of the _Legenda aurea_, Reames (1985). In the eighth century, Paul the Deacon recorded in his _Historia Langobardorum_ that Sebastian’s relics saved the Lombard capitalPavia from
the plague about 680. In his study of Paul’s work, Jacobus de Voragine came across that account and included it disconnectedly in his life of Sebastian: > In the Annals of the Lombards we read that during the reign of King > Gumbert {King Cunipert } all > Italy was stricken by a plague so virulent that there was hardly > anyone left to bury the dead. This plague raged most of all in Rome > and Pavia. At this time there appeared to some a good angel followed > by a bad angel carrying a spear. When the good angel gave the > command, the bad one struck and killed. When he struck a house, all > the people in it were carried out dead. Then it was divinely > revealed that the plague would never cease until an altar was raised > in Pavia in honor of Saint Sebastian. An altar was built in the > church of Saint Peter in Chains. At once the pestilence ceased. > Relics of Saint Sebastian were brought from Rome to Pavia.>
> { Legitur quoque in gestis Longobardorum, quod tempore Gumberti > regis Italia tota tanta peste percussa est, ut vix unus alterum > sufficeret sepelire, et haec pestis maxime Romae ac Papiae > grassabatur. Tunc visibiliter bonus angelus multis apparuit malo > angelo sequente et venabulum ferenti praecipiens, ut percuteret ac > caedem faceret. Quotiens autem aliquam domum percutiebat, tot inde > mortui efferebantur. Tunc cuidam divinitus revelatum est, quod > nequaquam haec pestis cessaret, donec sancto Sebastiano altare > Papiae construeretur. Quod quidem constructum est in ecclesia sancti > Petri, qui dicitur ad vincula; quo facto statim cessavit illa > quassatio. Et illus a Roma reliquiae sancti Sebastiani delatae. } _Legenda aurea_, Latin text from Grässe (1850) p. 113, English translation (modified slightly) from Ryan (1993) v. 1, p. 101. Prior to the Great Plague in the mid-fourteenth century, only in Pavia was Saint Sebastian venerated as protector against the plague. Gecser (2017) pp. 3-5, Barker (2007) pp. 91-2. The _Legenda aurea_ tells the story of Zoe. She was the wife of Nicostratus. Marcellian and Marcus were being held in Zoe and Nicostratus’s house. Zoe had lost the ability to speak, apparently for some wrong she had done to the two young brothers. Gesturing and nodding, she knelt at Saint Sebastian’s feet and begged forgiveness. Sebastian prayed that her ability to speak be restored. So it was. Zoe then declared Sebastian blessed and explained that she had seen an angel holding a book in front of him. _Legenda aurea_ Ch. 23 (Saint Sebastian), Latin text from Grässe (1850) pp. 109-10, my English translation benefiting from that of Ryan (1993) v. 1, p. 98. The subsequently quote is similarly sourced. Pseudo-Virgil (Appendix Vergiliana), _Darling Syrian Woman Tavern-Keeper_ {_Copa Syrisca_} vv. 29-38 (of 38), Latin text from Fairclough (1918) p. 440, my English translation benefiting from that of id. p. 441, Waddell (1948) p. 5, and Mooney (1916) . Here’s an online Latin text and a very loose English translation.
Fairclough describes the _Copa_ as “a pure pearl: it reflect the language of Virgil and the meter of Propertius.” He dates it to the Neronian period (37 to 68 GC). Fairclough (1918) p. 375. Morgan favors dating _Copa_ to the Flavian (69 to 96 GC) or Antonine ( 96 to 192 GC) periods. Morgan (2017) p. 85. In accordance with now-dominant ideology, Morgan provides an anti-meninist interpretation of _Copa_: > We imagine the undulating figure of the dancer as though present > before our very eyes — the sense of immediacy heightened by the > iteration of present-tense verbs > _(sunt . . . est . . . est . . . sunt)_ — > and we hear her music ringing through our ears. Yet, try as we might > to ‘own’ our ‘little Syrian’—to objectify and fetishize > her like Martial’s Telethusa>
> or Juvenal’s pin-up girls> ,
> mere ‘playthings’ for the well-to-do to enjoy as they please > _(nugas,_ Juv. _Sat._ 11.171; cf. Mart. _Ep._ 6.71.5-6) — we > encounter constant reminders of the scene’s artificiality, > reminders of the fact that this is all an elaborate mytho-literary > façade constructed by and for the titillation and gratification of > elite Roman male readers. Id. p. 100. Within the unreality of contemporary academia,
academic literary critics can hardly be expected to recognize reality.
The _Copa_ itself rejects historically entrenched anti-meninistrepresentations
and affirms
the goodness of men’s genitals, no matter how large. A poetic voice, perhaps the knowing dancing girl herself, declares: > The protector of the cottage is armed with a willow sickle, > yet despite his gigantic genitals, he isn’t terrifying> .
> Come as his tenant. Your weary donkey has been sweating for awhile; > spare him. Vesta’s darling is the donkey.>
> { est tuguri custos armatus falce saligna, > sed non et vasto est inguine terribilis. > huc calybita veni lassus iam sudat asellus; > parce illi Vestae delicium est asinus. } _Copa,_ vv. 23-7, sourced as previously. As the Priapeia subtly assert,
representations of gigantic masculine genitals have been used to brutalize masculine sexuality.
Men’s genitals, no matter how large, should be understood asinstruments of love
.
The goddess Vesta experienced one mythic attempted sexuxal assault. On that unjustly stereotyped incident,
Ovid, _Fasti_ 6.311ff.
Vesta herself is associated with keeping the fire burningand a
penis rising up out of flames. The _Copa_ sympathetically describes the donkey, renowned for its large penis, as Vesta’s
darling.
Prudentius, _Book of the Daily Round_ {_Liber Cathemerinon_} 10, “Hymn at the Burial of a Dead Person {Hymnus circa exequias defuncti},”
vv. 1-12, Latin text and English translation (modified according to my poetic sense) from O’Daly (2012) pp. 292-3. The subsequent two quotes above are similarly sourced from “Hymnus circa exequias defuncti” vv. 125-48 (Now receive him…) and 161-72 (Behold! …). Recording of Guillaume Du Fay’s motet _O sancte Sebastiane – O martyr Sebastiane – O quam mira_, with cover photo-still of Saint Sebastian dying as a martyr. Recording by Huelgas-Ensemble / Paul Van Nevel from the album _O gemma lux_ (released 2011 by Harmonia Mundi). Here are recordings by La Reverdie (Arcana, 2009), the Hilliard Ensemble (Paul Hillier, conductor; Parlophone Records, 1987), and Francesca Cassinari and Cantica Symphonia(Glossa, 2008).
References:
Barker, Sheila. 2007. “The Making of a Plague Saint: Saint Sebastian’s imagery and cult before the Counter-Reformation.”
Ch.4 (pp. 90-131) in Franco Mormando and Thomas Worcester, eds. _Piety and Plague from Byzantium to the Baroque. _Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press. Fairclough, H. Rushton, revised by G. P. Goold. 1918. Virgil. _Aeneid: Books 7-12. Appendix Vergiliana. _ Loeb Classical Library 64. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.. Gecser, Ottó. 2017. “Intercession and Specialization: St Sebastian and St Roche as Plague Saints and their Cult in Medieval Hungary.”
Pp. 77-108 in Marie-Madeleine de Cevins and Olivier Marin, eds. _Les Saints et leur Culte en Europe Centrale au Moyen Âge_. Turnhout: Brepols. (page references above are to the online edition) Grässe, Johann Georg Theodor, ed. 1850. _Jacobus a Voragine. Legenda Aurea: Vulgo Historia Lombardica Dicta_.
Lipsiae: Impensis librariae Arnoldianae. Hedquist, Valerie. 2017. “Ter Brugghen’s _Saint Sebastian Tendedby Irene_
.”
_Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art._ 9:2. DOI: 10.5092/jhna.2017.9.2.3 Mooney, Joseph J., trans. 1916. _The Minor Poems of Vergil, comprising the Culex, Dirae, Lydia, Moretum, Copa, Priapeia, and Catalepton, metrically translated into English_. Cornish Bros: Birmingham. Morgan, Harry. 2017. “Music, Sexuality and Stagecraft in the Pseudo-Vergilian _Copa.”_ _Greek and Roman Musical Studies. _5 (1):82-103.
O’Daly, Gerard J. P. 2012. _Days Linked by Song: Prudentius’ Cathemerinon_. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Petschenig, Michael and Michaela Zelzer, eds. 1999. Ambrosius. _Expositio Psalmi CXVIII_. Corpus Scriptorum
Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (CSEL) 62. Vindobonae: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenshaften. Planchart, Alejandro Enrique, ed. 2011. Guillaume Du Fay. _Opera Omnia_ 02/03. _O sancte Sebastiane_.
Santa Barbara, CA: Marisol Press. Reames, Sherry L. 1985. _The _Legenda aurea_: a reexamination of its paradoxical history_. Madison: The Univ. of Wisconsin Press. Ryan, William Granger, trans. 1993. Jacobus de Voragine. _The Golden Legend: readings on the saints. _Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press. Waddell, Helen. 1948. _Mediaeval Latin Lyrics_. New York:
Henry Holt.
Posted on March 29, 2020April 12, 2020By
Author Douglas Galbi TagsPrudentius , saints
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SWAN-SONG OF ROME: RUTILIUS, _ON RETURNING HOME / DE REDITU SUO_ In 410, Alaric, King of the Visigoths, culminated his third siege of Rome by sacking the city for three days. About seven years later,Rutilius Namatianus
,
a former head governor of Rome, returned from Rome to his native home in southern France. Gothic invaders had also devastated southern France. Rutilius was deeply invested in Roman tradition and gynocentric society. His poetic account of his journey home, _On returning home_ {_De reditu suo_}, is filled with tense oppositions. Rutilius’s inability to integrate his experience of collapsing gynocentric society shows in his sharp criticism of hatedothers.
Rutilius revered the traditional Roman society mythically supported by the Sabine women’s victory. On
departing from Rome, Rutilius lauded his beloved city: > Hear, O queen, O fairest of your universe, > O Rome, received among the starry skies, > of humans and gods alike the mother, hear my prayer, > for your temples grant proximity to heaven.>
> We sing of you and always will, while fate allows — > everyone alive remembers you! > Accursed oblivion will hide the sun before > the honor that I owe you leaves my heart,>
> for you extend your gifts just as the sun its rays > where all-embracing Ocean ebbs and flows. > The Sun, who holds all things in place, revolves for you: > its steeds both rise and set in your domain.>
> { exaudi, regina tui pulcherrima mundi, > inter sidereos Roma recepta polos, > exaudi, genetrix hominum genetrixque deorum, > non procul a caelo per tua templa sumus:>
> te canimus semperque, sinent dum fata, canemus: > sospes nemo potest immemor esse tui. > obruerint citius scelerata oblivia solem, > quam tuus ex nostro corde recedat honos.>
> nam solis radiis aequalia munera tendis, > qua circumfusus fluctuat Oceanus. > volvitur ipse tibi, qui continet omnia, Phoebus > eque tuis ortos in tua condit equos. } Rome is the beautiful queen, the mother. Men revere their mothers. They desire
beautiful women
. They delight
in women ruling over them. No
one can imagine that gynocentric society could collapse.
The Roman Empire did collapse. Some Roman men rebelled against gynocentrism. Briefly recounting that “a citizen was lost to living death {perditus hic vivo funere civis erat}” by going to live in a cave on a cliff, Rutilius heaped scorn on Men Going Their Own Way (MGTOW):
> Not long ago, our friend, a youth of noble birth, > appropriately wed, with ample means, > went mad, abandoning the world and the human race > for exile in this filthy den, the fool!>
> This wretch believes divinity can feed on filth. > He does himself more harm than the gods he spurned. > Is not this sect, I ask you, worse that Circe’s drugs? > While she changed human bodies, they change minds.>
> { noster enim nuper iuvenis maioribus amplis, > nec censu inferior coniugiove minor, > impulsus furiis homines terrasque reliquit > et turpem latebram credulus exsul adit.>
> infelix putat illuvie caelestia pasci > seque premit laesis saevior ipse deis. > num, rogo, deterior Circaeis secta venenis? > tunc mutabuntur corpora, nunc animi. } This young man spurned the traditional elite Roman married man’slife and
became a Christian ascetic. Why would a wealthy noble man abandon hiswife
and go to live in rags and filth on a cliff? Perhaps he felt that his marital life was lacking in some way. Circe
changed men into happy pigs.
Christianity offered an alternate lifestyle.
Many men are foolishly committed to traditional gynocentrism. They, like Rutilius, castigate men who repudiate everyday gynocentrism and the gender inequalities of ordinary life.
Rutilius viciously disparaged Jewish men merely because they rest one day a week. On his way home, Rutilius stopped at Falesia in southern Greece. He complained about the Jewish innkeeper of a pleasant countryinn:
> he’s an animal, cut off from human food, > who charges us for breaking shrubs and hitting seaweed, > and begrudges us the water we have drunk!>
> We pay him back with all the scorn that’s owed a filthy > and disgraceful race that circumcises. > The root of foolishness! They love their chilly Sabbath, > but their hearts are colder than their creed.>
> Every seventh day is damned to lazy sloth, > a feeble image of its tired god!>
> { humanis animal dissociale cibis: > vexatos frutices, pulsatas imputat algas > damnaque libatae grandia clamat aquae.>
> reddimus obscaenae convicia debita genti > quae genitale caput propudiosa metit: > radix stultitiae, cui frigida sabbata cordi, > sed cor frigidius religione sua.>
> septima quaeque dies turpi damnata veterno, > tamquam lassati mollis imago dei. } Men typically bear a triple burden of work. Most men work outside thehome for money
. Men
also often engage in gender-unequal unpaid work around the home,
such as establishing, reviewing, and maintaining household sports-entertainment subscriptions, repairing household motorcycles, cleaning and lubricating household guns, provisioning, storing, and rotating the household cigar stock, roughhousing with the kids, etc. Above and beyond that gender double burden, men have the additional gender burden of performing unpaid erection labor. Under
Roman gynocentrism
, Roman
men didn’t even have one well-established rest day a week. Roman men were expected to be like worker-gods who never tire while still maintaining a hotly passionate heart. Roman
men resented the modest Sabbath protection from gynocentric exploitation that Jewish and Christian men enjoyed. Rutilius also disparaged Jewish men because he attributed to them vibrant, dynamic sexuality.
Romans believed that circumcision enhanced men’s sexual performance. Romans
thus stereotyped Jewish men as having strong, independent sexuality — being “prone to sexual excess.” However, circumcision, a form of male genital mutilation, actually reduces the sensitivity of the penis. Circumcision thus diminishes men’s sexuality. That’s consistent with historical suppression of men’s sexuality and current unreasonably gender-biased regulation of reproductiverights
.
Rutilius badly misrepresented the gender structure of circumcision.
Rutilius hated the leading Roman general Stilicho even more than he hated Jewish men and ascetic Christian men. The son of a provincial Roman woman and a Vandal soldier, Stilicho, by serving in war’s horrible violence against men, rose to
become the most powerful man next to his wife in the Roman Empire. Stilicho had his forces fight alongside Visigoth King Alaric I against the western Roman emperor-claimant Eugenius. Stilicho burned Sibylline books sacred to traditional Roman religion. In 408, Stilicho persuaded the Roman Senate to agree to pay Alaric a large ransom not to invade Italy. After a political reversal later that year, Stilicho was executed for treason. Alaric went on to sack Rome in 410. Rutilius declared: > How much more bitter was the crime of Stilicho, > the cruel betrayer of the empire’s heart? > As he struggled to outlast the Roman race, > his bloody madness overturned our world,>
> and while he feared the very Goths who made him feared, > he sent barbarian arms for Latium’s death > and plunged an armed foe into her naked vitals — > an even bolder trick that brought disaster.>
> And Rome herself, exposed to skin-clad troops, > was captive even before she could be captured. > It wasn’t only Gothic arms the traitor used: > he burned the books that brought the Sibyl’s aid.>
> We hate Althaea for the deadly torch she burned; > the bird, they say, still mourns for Nisus’ lock, > but Stilicho threw away the empire’s pledges > and Fate’s spindles, full of destiny.>
> Let Nero be released from all of Hades’ torments, > let hellish torches burn a grimmer ghost, > for Nero killed a mortal, but Stilicho a goddess: > one murdered his mother, the other the world’s mother.>
> { quo magis est facinus diri Stilichonis acerbum, > proditor arcani quod fuit imperii. > Romano generi dum nititur esse superstes, > crudelis summis miscuit ima furor;>
> dumque timet quicquid se fecerat ipse timeri, > immisit Latiae barbara tela neci: > visceribus nudis armatum condidit hostem, > illatae cladis liberiore dolo.>
> ipsa satellitibus pellitis Roma patebat > et captiva prius quam caperetur erat. > nec tantum Geticis grassatus proditor armis: > ante Sibyllinae fata cremavit opis.>
> odimus Althaeam consumpti funere torris; > Nisaeum crinem flere putantur avis. > at Stilicho aeterni fatalia pignora regni > et plenas voluit praecipitare colos.>
> omnia Tartarei cessent tormenta Neronis; > consumat Stygias tristior umbra faces. > hic immortalem, mortalem perculit ille, > hic mundi matrem perculit, ille suam. } Rutilius figured Stilicho as promoting violence against a woman, Rome. Threats of violence against women incite men to violence against men. Violence
against men is normative violence.
Thus Rutilius without any marking of gender associates Stilicho with Althaea killing her son and Nisus physically assaulting her father. Within traditional Roman gynocentrism, the worst offense is doing harm to the highest mother — the goddess Rome, mother of the world. Mired in traditional Roman gynocentrism, Rutilius struggled to understand how barbarians could have sacked sacred mother Rome. He hated those whom he perceived to be Rome’s internal enemies. While misconceiving them, Rutilius at least recognized the importance of internal enemies. For both women and men, we have met the enemy, andshe is us.
* * * * *
Read more:
* Sabine women win Pyrrhic peace for Roman men * holy mother Rachel weeping for the massacre of innocents: boys * aspects of women’s privilege in the Old French _jeu-parti_Notes:
Verbaal observed of Rutilius’s _De reditu suo_: > Even when the poet alludes only slightly to the acute problems of > his day (the collapse of Roman power in the West, the decline of > central government, the ravaged provinces and sacked towns), a > tension is felt in every episode and each observation he makes. … > The seemingly loosely connected episodes are kept together by an > all-pervading opposition of stability and impermanence, of decay and > lasting fame, of human mortality and the eternity of Roma. Verbaal (2006) p. 158. Unity in opposition is roughly equivalent to inability to integrate. Rutilius Namatianus, _On returning home_ {_De reditu suo_} vv. 1.47-58, Latin text from Duff & Duff (1935) v. 2, pp. 753‑829, viaLacusCurtius
,
English translation (modified slightly) from Malamud (2018) p. 44. Subsequent quotes from _De reditu suo_ are similarly sourced. I’ve modified Malamud’s translation to use gender-neutral terms except where the Latin clearly specifies the semantic gender. The critical edition Vessereau (1904) is freely available online. Duff & Duff refer to Rutilius as the “last of the classical Latin poets” and _De reditu suo_ as the “swan-song of Rome.” Duff & Duff (1935) v. 2, p. 753. _De reditu suo_ vv. 1.519-6. The previous short quote is 1.518. Rutilius harshly disparaged ascetic Christian monks: > As we proceed by the sea, Capraria rears itself: > the island reeks with men who shun the light. > They are called _monachoi_ — the name is Greek — because > they want to live alone, without a witness.>
> They fear both Fortune’s gifts and Fortune’s punishments: > they hug the very misery they dread. > What stupid madness of a perverse mind is this, > to fear that happiness will cause them harm?>
> Prisoners seeking punishment for crimes, perhaps, > or grim hearts swelling with the blackest bile > (as Homer thought the worries of Bellerophon > came from an illness caused by excess bile,>
> for pierced by savage grief, the story goes, the lad > conceived a hatred of the human race).>
> { processu pelagi iam se Capraria tollit; > squalet lucifugis insula plena viris. > ipsi se monachos Graio cognomine dicunt, > quod soli nullo vivere teste volunt.>
> munera Fortunae metuunt, dum damna verentur: > quisquam sponte miser, ne miser esse queat. > quaenam perversi rabies tam stulta cerebri, > dum mala formides, nec bona posse pati?>
> sive suas repetunt factorum ergastula poenas, > tristia seu nigro viscera felle tument, > sic nimiae bilis morbum assignavit Homerus > Bellerophonteis sollicitudinibus:>
> nam iuveni offenso saevi post tela doloris > dicitur humanum displicuisse genus. } _De reditu suo_ vv. 1.439-52. Rutilius’s description of Bellerophon is characteristically prejudicial. Bellerophon overcame a devastating false accusation of rape.
Under gynocentrism, the serious problem of false accusations of rape tends to be trivialized.
Rutilius tolerated Christianity as long as Christianity subordinated itself to Roman gynocentrism. As a traditionalist, Rutilius supported traditional gender roles and gynocentric bureaucracy: > Apparently Rutilius considers Christianity to be a dangerous enemy > of this mythologized Roman bureaucracy, especially in its more > radical forms as incorporated by the monks and hermits. For this > reason, his poem is a much stronger attack on Christianity than it > has been considered until now. … > Yet this conclusion must be qualified. The poet is not such an enemy > of Christianity that he cannot bring himself to close the poem with > the eulogy on the Christian {Consul of Rome} Constantius. He attacks > Christianity only in so far as it prevents people from facing up to > their responsibilities. As soon as Christians show themselves in > their acts to be good Romans, i. e. adherents of Rutilius’ > ‘cult’ of Roma, their religious background becomes less > important. According to our poet, a man has to be first of all a > Roman citizen. His other convictions, what ever they may be, are of> little account.
Verbaal (2006) pp. 170-1. On Constantius, _De reditu suo_, fragment B, available in English translation in Malamud (2018) p. 79. Men must follow the life path that mother Rome sets out for men: > Roma is the mother of men and gods. She can give mortal man a nearly > divine status if he only wants to serve her, i. e. if he does not > refuse the responsibilities of the cursus honorum> ,
> which allows him to approach mythical greatness and which assures > him eternal glory and divine adoration after his death.Id. p. 170.
_De reditu suo_ vv. 1.384-92. Just as for Christians, some Jews were Roman citizens: “a not inconsiderable number of Jews in Rome had become _cives Romani_ by the time of Augustus.” Rutgers (1994). With the “root of foolishness {radix stultitiae},” Rutilius refers to Judaism’s status as the root of Christianity. Christians identify themselves as fools. 1 _Corinthians_ 1:18-21, 4:10. In the above passage, Rutilius also refers to God resting on the seventh day in _Genesis’s_ account of creation. _Genesis_ 1:27, 2:2-3. Rutilius used the term _imago_ in a thematically coherent way across _De reditu suo_. Verbaal (2006) pp. 165-7. Malamud (2018) supplies the phrase “prone to sexual excess.” See id. pp. 24-6 for insightful, close reading of Rutilius’s description of the Jewish inn-keeper. _De reditu suo_ vv. 2.41-60. The skin-clad troups were Visigoths under Aleric I. Rutulius’s compared Stilicho burning the Sibylline books to women killing close male relatives: > Althaea caused the death of her son Meleager by burning the magical > firebrand on which his life depended. … Scylla caused the death of > her father Nisus by depriving him of the purple lock on which his> life depended.
Duff & Duff (1935) notes 149-150. See id. for references to the relevant ancient source literature. Men’s deaths,
as well as men’s lifespan shortfall,
has no gender significance under gynocentrism. The Latin text for _De reditu suo_ 2.47-8 is awkward. A proposed solution is to emend: > Visceribus nudis armatum condidit hostem > Illatae cladis liberiore dolo.>
> { plunged an armed foe into her naked vitals — > an even bolder trick that brought disaster. }to:
> Visceribus nudis armatum condidit hostem > Illiacae cladis deteriore dolo.>
> { plunged an armed foe into her naked vitals — > a wile more wicked than that which brought disaster on Troy> . }
Reid (1887).
(1) Alaric’s sacking of Rome in 410. Anachronistic fifteenth-century French miniature. Via Wikimedia Commons. If you
have a more accurate citation for this image, please supply it in the comments below. (2) Romans seeking to preserve sacred vessels during Alaric’s sacking of Rome. Illumination from instance of Augustine, _La Cité de Dieu,_ translated from the Latin by Raoul de Presles. Onfolio 9v
in MS. The Hague, MMW, 10 A 11. Via the National
Library of the Netherlands.References:
Duff, John Wight, and Arnold Mackay Duff, ed. and trans. 1935. Loeb Classical Library, 284. _Minor Latin poets_. Rutilius Namatianus.
Revised Edition. London: Heinemann Malamud, Martha A., trans. 2018. _Rutilius Namatianus’ Going Home: De reditu suo_. London: Routledge. Reid, J. S. 1887. “Rutilius Claudius Namatianus, II. 47, 8.” _The Classical Review. _1 (2-3): 78. (available here)
Rutgers, Leonard. 1994. “Roman policy towards the Jews: expulsions from the city of Rome during the first century C.E.” _Classical Antiquity. _13 (1): 56-74. Verbaal, Wim. 2006. “A Man and his Gods. Religion in the _De reditu suo_ of Rutilius Claudius Namatianus.” _Wiener Studien. _119:157-171.
Vessereau, Jules, ed. and trans. (French). 1904. _Cl. RutiliusNamatianus_
.
Paris: A. Fontemoing. Posted on March 29, 2020April 3, 2020By
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WEDNESDAY’S FLOWERS Posted on March 29, 2020By
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_CONTRA PLAGAM_ & OTHER MEDIEVAL PRAYERS AGAINST PLAGUE In the mid-ninth-century Carolingian empire, the eminent Irish scholar-cleric Sedulius Scottus urged God to spare the people from plague. He prayed to God with a poem entitled “Against the plague{Contra plagam}”:
> Would not your people have to drink > now the cup of your anger, deserved wrath. > May you shine upon us your former compassion; > we beg you, you hear us.>
> Destroy our evil deeds, we pray; > save us, blessed prince. > Disperse dark shadows covering our minds, > faithful light of the world.>
> Holy of Holies, Lord of kings, > may your right hand be with your lowly ones, > may your serene face look upon us, > or else we perish.>
> { Non propinetur populo tuoque > nunc calix irae, meriti furoris. > clareant priscae miserationes; > quaesumus, audi.>
> Deleas nostrum facinus, precamur; > nosque conserva, benedicte princeps. > mentium furvas supera tenebras,> lux pia mundi.
>
> Sancte sanctorum, dominusque regum, > visitet plebem tua sancta dextra, > nos tuo vultu videas serenus,> ne pereamus. }
Sedulius’s prayer in humility acknowledges the wrongs that he along with the people have done. They don’t even count on their own strength to repent. He prays that God will “destroy our evil deeds {deleas nostrum facinus}.” As a matter of justice, Sedulius recognizes that they deserve to be punished by God. Yet “we beg you, you hear us {quaesumus, audi}.” God in Hebrew scripture again and again in various contexts declares: > If he cries to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.>
> In distress you called, and I rescued you. I answered you in the > secret place of thunder.>
> { צְעַק אֵלַי וְשָׁמַעְתִּי > כִּֽי־חַנּוּן אָֽנִי>
> בַּצָּרָה קָרָאתָ וָאֲחַלְּצֶךָּ > אֶעֶנְךָ בְּסֵתֶר רַעַם } In biblical understanding, God is by nature compassionate and merciful. The people experienced God’s compassion in the past. They cry out to God to experience that compassion again. The right hand of God represents the strength of God. The serene face of God represents the people seeing God blessing them. If God, the light of the world, doesn’t dispel the fear of the plague, the shadows covering their minds, they will perish. The Great Plague that struck Europe in the middle of the fourteenth century killed roughly half of Europe’s population. Devastating plagues continued to strike European cities periodically up to the eighteenth century. A medieval prayer against the plague appealed to Mary, the mother of Jesus, with explicit reference to the plague: > Star of Heaven, > who nourished the Lord > and rooted up the plague of death > which the first parents of humankind planted; > may this star now deign > to hold in check the constellations > whose strife grants the people > the ulcers of a terrible death. > O glorious star of the sea, > save us from the plague. > Hear us: for your Son > who honors you denies you nothing. > Save us, you to whom > the Virgin Mother prays.>
> { Stella celi extirpavit > que lactavit Dominum > mortis pestem, quam plantavit > primus parens hominum. > Ipsa stella nunc dignetur > sydera compescere; > quorum bella plebem cedunt > dire mortis ulcere. > O gloriosa stella maris, > a peste succurre nobis. > Audi nos: nam Filius tuus > nihil negans te honorat. > Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus Jesus, > virgo mater te orat. } This prayer depicts Mary as a star restraining the effects of a pestilent constellation of stars. That’s a learned figure. Ancient Indian, Persian, Greek, and Egyptian thinkers described astrological effects on human health. Asaph’s _Book of Medicines_ exemplifies the reception of that learning in medieval Europe. This prayer thus draws upon highly respected, ancient non-Christianknowledge.
A Christian believer unaware of its non-Christian intellectual context could still appreciate this prayer. It invokes the Virgin Mary to intercede with Christ on behalf of her imploring Christian children. Intense devotion to the Virgin Marywas prevalent
across all strata of medieval European society. Moreover, a Franciscan friar probably composed this prayer to fit a popular melody. Persons differing widely in social status and learning read and sung this prayer across Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In mid-fourteenth-century Italy, a priest wrote a relatively unsophisticated prayer for popular use against the plague. According to liturgical instructions that accompany this prayer against the plague, the dawn Christmas Mass was to be said at dawn on three consecutive days. All the people were to attend, including “babies sucking at their mothers’ breasts {enfans tetans sian a las messas}.” The people were to hold candles in their hands during the Mass. During those three days, they should make a general confession and fast. At a certain point in the Mass, all the people were to recite together this prayer: > Lord God, Jesus Christ, merciful redeemer, have mercy on me, a > sinner. Lord, you hold me in this tribulation, but you have said, > “I do not want the death of the sinner, but that one convert and > live and confess and make amends for all one’s sins.” I beg you > for mercy, Lord. By the love you have for the Virgin Mary, your > blessed mother, and by the merits of the blessed martyrs, Saint > Sebastian, all the other martyrs, and the virgin Saint Anastasia, > save me from this epidemic. Amen.>
> { Senher Dieu Jhesu Christ redemptor misericordios, aias merce a mi > peccador, que mi tenes en aquesta tribulation, senher, que tu as > dich, “Non vuelh la mort del peccador, mas que si convertisqua e > viva e que si confesse e si esmende de thozs sos peccazs.” Clami > ti merce, senher, que per aquella amor que tu as a la verges Mari, > mayre tieua benaurada, e per los meritis dels benaurazs martirs, > sant Cebastian e per tozs los autres martirs e per la verges sancta > Anastasia, mi vulhas gardar d’aquesta epidimia. Amen. } This prayer begs for God’s mercy. It cites _Ezekiel_ 33:11 to affirm the possibility of such mercy. The prayer directly and specifically states the urgent need: “save me from this epidemic.” Christians fearing the epidemic allied themselves with revered Christian foremothers and forefathers. Medieval Christians understood the Virgin Mary to be both the blessed mother of Christ and the mother of all Christians. As Christ’s mother, Mary was thought able to influence Christ more than could any anyone else. Yet
dire times require marshaling all important spiritual resources. The eighth-century historian and monk Paul the Deacon {Paulus Diaconus} recorded that prayers to the deceased Saint Sebastian had in 680 freed Rome from a raging pestilence. Saint Sebastian thus became known in medieval Europe as a saint with special power to protect persons from pestilence and plague. Moreover, within the liturgical calendar, the dawn Mass of Christmas Day was extraordinary in commemorating Saint Anastasia of Sirmium. She was born in the second century in what today is Serbia. Her name associates her with Christ’s resurrection. From early medieval centuries she has been venerated as “Medicine for Poisons {Φαρμακολύτρια}.” Calling on all Christian martyrs for additional help implicitly suggests concern to ward off the people themselves becoming martyrs, dying faithfully from theplague.
To pray to God for deliverance from a plague, a person doesn’t need to be extraordinarily holy or pious. A learned Epicurean might reason that praying wouldn’t hurt. In the ninth century, Sedulius Scottus himself followed Epicurus in appreciating the pleasures of eating anddrinking
.
Subtly consistent with his “Contra plagam,” Sedulius in another poem expressed earthy awareness of his own contradictory humanityand
implored God for mercy: > I read and write, teach and study wisdom; > night and day I beseech God the High-Throned One. > I eat and drink gladly, I invoke pagan Muses in verse; > as I sleep, I snore; waking, I pray to God. > My mind, conscious of misdeeds, weeps for sins of my life. > O Christ and Mary, have mercy on your wretched man.>
> { Aut lego vel scribo, doceo scrutorve sophian; > obsecro celsithronum nocte dieque meum. > Vescor, poto libens; rithmizans invoco musas; > dormisco stertens; oro deum vigilans. > Conscia mens scelerum deflet peccamina vitae: > parcite vos misero, Christe, Maria, viro. } In this poem, “wretched” in the last line seems to function as a Janus word, an enantiosemic term. Is this man miserable, or not? Deciding that question ultimately doesn’t matter. The point of the poem seems to be that all need God’s mercy. A plague functions in part as a selection mechanism.
Those with stronger immune systems are more likely to survive. Gratitude for life as it is, hope that the future will be better, and trust to the end will boost your immune system. Do whatever, in your best informed judgment, is wise to
prevent illness. Then, even if you don’t believe in God, with reason against reason, pray to be spared from a plague.* * * * *
Read more:
* Boccaccio’s _Decameron_: joyful companionship during plague * through labyrinths: medieval fullness of life and joy increativity
* men’s blessing of seminal creativity as numerous as stars ofheaven
Notes:
Sedulius Scottus, “Against the plague {Contra plagam},” incipit “Set free the lowly ones who serve you {Libera plebem tibi servientem},” st. 3-6 (of 6), Latin text (with my minor changes to the editorial punctuation) from Ludwig Traube, _Poetae Latini aevi Carolini_ (1886) vol. 3, part 2, p. 46, via Waddell (1948) p. 124, my English translation benefiting from that of id., p. 125, and the partial English translation by G. Hunter.
Here’s the full Latin text.
“Contra plagam” is written in classical Sapphic stanzas. Sapphic stanzas are now most prominently associated with Horace’s _Odes._ On the prevalence of Sapphics in early medieval poetry, Daintree (2000). Sedulius Scottus was an Irish monk living in mid-ninth-century Iceland when invading Norse Viking drove him and his compatriots to continental Europe. Sedulius probably was in Liège when a plague struck that city. In pleading for patronage to Hartgar, Bishop of Liège, Sedulius described himself and two fellow Irish scholars as “learned grammarians and pious priests {doctos grammaticos presbiterosque pios}.” See “Gusts of the north wind are blowing and there are signs of snow {Flamina nos Boreae niveo canentia vultu}” v. 14, Latin text and English trans. from Godman (1984) pp. 286-7. In a Christmas poem written in Liège about 850, Sedulius likened himself and his fellow Irish scholars to the Wise Men of theGospel:
> Out of the east came the Magi bearing gifts, hastening in their > journey to the Christ child; but now Irish scholars arrive from > western lands, bringing their precious gifts of learning Trans. Doyle (1983). pp. 112-3, via Anglandicus.
For notes and corrections to Doyle’s translations, Ziolkowski (1986) and Lofstedt (2001). Sedulius Scottus’s works survive in very little more than just one manuscript, Brussels, Bibliothèque royale, MS 1061. Modernphilologists
have scrutinized that text with pain-staking concern for accuratelytransmitting
to
the present Sedulius’s precious, ancient intellectual work. See, e.g. Ziolkowski (1986). Shanzer (1994), and Lofstedt (2001). _Exodus_ 22:27, _Psalm_ 81:7, Hebrew text from the Leningrad Codex via _Blue Letter Bible_. On God hearing the cry of the victim, Kugel (2003) Ch. 5. Kugel himself has failed to hear the cry of the massacred men of Shechem.
“Star of Heaven who rooted out {Stella celi extirpavit},” Latin text from the _York Book of Hours_ {_Horae Eboracenses_}of the
early-sixteenth century, via Macklin (2010) p. 4, English translation (with my modifications) from Horrax (1994) p. 124. For manuscript witnesses from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Macklin (2010) Appendix, pp. 27-31. In fifteenth-century England, John Lydgate reworked “Stella celi extirpavit” in his poem “Thou heavenly Queen of grace our lodestar {Thow hevenly quene of grace owre loodesterre} ,” and perhaps also in a variant, “O blessed Queen about the starred heaven {O blissid queen a bove sterrid heuene} .” Lydgate also wrote another poem against the plague, “O Heavenly Star most comfortable of light {O hevynly sterre most Comfortable of lyght},” also known as “On Holy Mary against the pestilence {De sancta Maria contrapestilenciam} .”
The medieval medical doctor Simon de Covino of Liège wrote a lengthy allegorical poem concerning the plague. It’s entitled _On the Judgment of the Sun at the Feasts of Saturn_ {_De judicio Solis in conviviis Saturni_}. Simon’s poem
uses traditional Greco-Roman deities to explain the plague. Written in hexameters, Simon’s poem witnesses to the eagerness of many medieval scholars to display their classical learning. Simon explained the meaning of his poem in a lengthy prose prologue: > In case the material in this little book should seem too burdensome, > I here explain it in four parts. — In the first I describe, in the > manner and fashion of poets, how Saturn prepared a great feast in > his own house and invited all the other gods. This description > signifies how all the planets were in conjunction with Saturn in his > own house of the Zodiac, that is Aquarius, in the three months of > 1345 — January, February, and March. That is not to say that all > the planets were in conjunction with Saturn at once, but one after > on various days in those three months. My main intention is to > describe the great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which only > happens in Aquarius every ninety years; a conjunction which, > according to philosophers, signifies great and amazing upheavals. > Aristotle in his book on the properties of the elements says that > because of the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in Aquarius > kingdoms have been emptied and the earth depopulated. … In the > fourth part I deal with the remedies given against such mortality > {mortality from death-bearing plague (“pestis mortifera”)}. And > the poem treats of the three fatal goddesses — Clotho, Lachesis, > and Atropos. Clotho, who holds the distaff of life, represents > generation; Lachesis, who draws out the thread of life, represents > the span of human life from birth to death; Atropos, who breaks the > thread of life, signifies corruption and death. And therefore I > treat of remedies in this fashion, putting them poetically into the > mouth of Lachesis, who represents the lengthening of life and the > means whereby that can be achieved. And she seeks these remedies to > prolong life in opposition to her sister, Atropos, who represents > decay. And although doctors arm her with remedies to fight against > her sister, those arms, that is the remedies of doctors, are of > little worth to her.>
> { Ne materia libelli videatur onerosa, ipsam declaro divisam per > quatuor partes. — In prima quidem, secundum morem et ritum > poetarum describo Saturnum magnum convivium fecisse in sua propria > domo, et omnes deos ad suum convivium invitasse. Et ista descriptio > significat omnes planetas fuisse conjunctos Saturno in propria domo > Saturni, quae est Aquarius anno Domini millesimo CCCXLV, in tribus > mensibus, scilicit januario, februario, et martio; non tamen quod > simul fuerint conjuncti Saturno, sed unus post alium in diversis > diebus illorum trium mensium. Et maxime in ea intentio est > describere magnam conjunctionem Jovis et Saturni, quae non evenit in > Aquario in nongentis annis nisi semel. Et ista conjunctio habet > significare magnas et mirabilies mutationes rerum secundum dicta > philosophorum. Unde Aristotiles in libro de proprietatibus > elementorum dicit quod propter conjunctionem Jovis et Saturni in > Aquario, regno vacua facta sunt et terrae depopulatae. … In quarta > parte tracto de remediis datis contra hujusmodi mortalitatem. Et > primo quia apud inferos poetae descripserunt tres deas fatales esse, > scilicet Clotho, Lachesis et Atropos; ita quod Clotho, quae portat > colum vitae, significat generationem; Lachesis, quae trahi fila > vitae, significat productionem vitae humanae a principio usque ad > mortem; Atropos vero, quaa rampit fila vitae, significant > corruptionem et mortem, idcirco tracto de hujusmodi remedis, et hoc > poetice sub nomine Lachesis quae dicitur productio vitae et quae > habet producere vitam. Et ista querit remedia ad prolongationem > vitae contra sororem suam, scilicet Atropos, quae dicitur corruptio; > et qualiter medici armaverunt eam suis remediis ad pugnandum contra > sororem suam, et qualiter ill arma id est remedia medicorum parum > valuerint ei. } Latin text from Littré (1841) pp. 206-8, English translation from Horrax (1994) pp. 163-7. Geoffrey de Meaux, a former court official apparently writing at medieval Oxford, similarly emphasized the effects of the stars and focused even more on classical authorities. For some analysis, Johnson (2009) pp. 11-2. On these authors in relation to “Stella celi extirpavit,” Macklin (2012) p. 21. Concern for the stars in explaining the plague wasn’t only a tendency of medieval scholars with a classical orientation. The medical faculty of the University of Paris in October, 1348, issued a lengthy, scholarly report on the plague. This report declared in itsfirst chapter:
> We declare that the distant and first cause of this pestilence was > and is the configuration of the heavens.>
> { ‘Dicamus igitur quod remota et primeua causa istius pestilentie > fuit et est aliqua constellatio celestis.} Latin text from Hoeniger (1882) p. 153, English translation (modified slightly) from Horrax (1994) p. 159. In her book on the fourteenth-century plague in Europe, Horrax put this report first in a chapter entitled “Scientific explanations.” Her explanatorypreface observed:
> This is the most authoritative contemporary statement of the nature > of the plague and therefore forms an appropriate introduction to> this section.
Id. p. 158. In today’s scientific perspective, that day’s scientific perspective has a mythic character similar to medieval Christian beliefs about the plague. This poem appears frequently in late medieval English Books of Hours. It also exists in the “Adoration of the Shepherds” play in the N-Town mystery cycle and in fully notated polyphonic collections of pre-Reformation English vocal music. Macklin (2010) pp. 5-6. “Stella celi extirpavit” probably was circulating some time before its earliest surviving written record, dating to the period 1415 to 1430. Id. p. 12. On Franciscan friars composing such a hymn as a _contrafactum,_ id. pp. 13-21. Here’s a performance of “Stella celi extirpavit” by the Binchois Consort (Andrew Kirkman, director). Old Occitan text and English translation (with my modifications) from Paden (2014) pp. 677-8. Paden presents evidence that versions of this prayer were known at Piacenza in northern Italy in 1348, at the prior of Jenza in Auvergne in south-central France in the fourteenth century, at Toulon in Occitania in the third quarter of the fourteenth century, at Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val in Occitania in the fifteenth century, and at Tarragona in Catalonia in the sixteenth century. Facing the horror of a plague, medieval Christians most often prayed to the Virgin Mary. Saint Sebastian followed in popularity for help against a plague. From the fifteenth century, Saint Roch also became prominent in appeals. On medieval saints called upon to prevent or lift plagues, Ortega (2012) and the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Saint Anastasia was not distinctively associated with relief fromplagues.
Church officials established special liturgical events to address plagues. See, for example, the directive of William Zouche, Archbishopof York ,
calling for special public processions in 1348. Here’s a prayer bookfrom about 1500
with specific prayers for use against plague. Sedulius Scottus, “I read and write {Aug lego vel scribo},” full poem quoted, Latin text from Traube, _Poetae_, via Godman (1985) p. 282, my English translation, benefiting from those of id. p. 283, Waddell (1948) p. 123, the _Lion of Chaeronea_,
and Alistair Ian Blyth at _Dialogue on the Threshold_ {_Диалогна пороге_}
.
I regard the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an agency of the U.S. federal government, as the most authoritative U.S. source for information about COVID-19 and associated mitigationstrategies .
However, relevant reality should be recognized. Leading public health authorities, including the U.S. Surgeon General, have performed disastrously badly in communicating basic facts about domesticviolence
.
In response to prevailing political sentiment , they have propagated grotesquely false and hugely damaging myths aboutdomestic violence
.
Truth thus isn’t necessarily what leading authorities proclaim. Commitment to honoring truth is a tenuous social norm. Everyone has responsibility for earnestly and sincerely seeking to know the truth. Doing so builds up social respect for truth. (1) Burying the dead from a plague in Tournai (in present-day Belgium) in 1349. Illumination by Piérart dou Tielt in a chronicle of Gilles li Muisis. Made about 1351. On folio 24v of Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique MS. 13076-13077 , via BALaT of the Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage {Koninklijk Instituut voor het Kunstpatrimonium / Institut Royal du Patrimoine Artistique}. (2) Icon of Saint Anastasia of Sirmium. Made between the end of the 13th century and the first half of the 15th century. Preserved as catalog # 94.С.254 in the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg, Russia). ViaWikimedia Commons
.
(3) The Virgin Mary, Saint Sebastian, and Saint Roch beg the angy God the Father to stop a plague. Two wings from a plague alterpiece from the Augustianian Monastery at Wenden (Ulm, Germany). Made by Martin Schaffner, 1513/14. Preserved as item Gm1103in the Germanisches
Nationalmuseum (Nuremberg, Germany).References:
Daintree, David. 2000. “_Non omnis moriar_: the Re-emergence of the Horatian Lyrical Tradition in the Early Middle Ages.” _Latomus. _59(4): 889-902.
Doyle, Edward. 1983. Sedulius Scottus. _On Christian Rulers and The Poems_. Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Vol. 17. Binghamton, NY: State University of New York. Godman, Peter. 1985. _Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance_. London:Duckworth.
Hoeniger, Robert. 1882. _Der schwarze Tod in Deutschland; in Beitrag zur Gesch. des vierzehnten Jahrh_.
Berlin: Grosser.
Horrox, Rosemary, ed. and trans. 1994. _The Black Death_. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Johnson, Rebecca. 2009. “From Sin to Science: Astrological Exlanations for the Black Death, 1347-1350.”
_Ex Post Facto_ (Journal of the History Students at San Francisco State University). 18: 1-16. Kugel, James L. 2003. _The God of Old: inside the lost world of the Bible_. New York: Free Press. Littré, Emile. 1841. “Opuscule relatif à la peste de 1348, composé par un contemporain.”
_Bibliothèque De L’école Des Chartes. _2 (1): 201-243. Lofstedt, Bengt. 2001. “Notes on Doyle’s translation of Sedulius Scottus.” _Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae_. 41-4 (3):413-415.
Macklin, Christopher. 2010. “Plague, Performance and the Elusive History of the _Stella celi extirpavit_.”
_Early Music History. _29: 1-31. Ortega, Jessica. 2012. _Pestilence and Prayer: Saints and the Art of the Plague in Italy from 1370 – 1600_. B.A.
Honors Thesis. University of Central Florica. HIM 1990-2015. 1367. Paden, William D. 2014. “An Occitan Prayer against the Plague and Its Tradition in Italy, France, and Catalonia.”
_Speculum. _89 (3): 670-692. Shanzer, Danuta. 1994. “A New Edition of Sedulius Scottus’ _Carmina_.” _Medium Ævum. _63 (1): 104-117. Waddell, Helen. 1948. _Mediaeval Latin Lyrics_. New York:
Henry Holt.
Ziolkowski, Jan. 1986. “Review: _On Christian Rulers, and The Poems_, by Edward Gerard Doyle.” _Speculum. _61 (2): 465-466. Posted on March 15, 2020By
Author Douglas Galbi Tags saints Leave a comment HOLY MOTHER RACHEL WEEPING FOR THE MASSACRE OF INNOCENTS: BOYS About two millennia ago, the tyrant Herod heard that a boy had been born who would overthrow tyranny’s reign. Herod’s primitive surveillance method wisely didn’t reveal the boy’s location. The learned Roman poet Prudentius four centuries later wrote: > Crazed at the news, the tyrant shouts: > “My successor looms, I’m thrown out — > guards, go, take your swords, > drench the cradles in blood!>
> Every male infant shall die: > search the nurses’ bosoms, > and at his mother’s breast, > redden your sword with boy’s blood.>
> I suspect all who have given birth > in Bethlehem. They’re traitors, > underhand, ready to smuggle > their baby boys to safety.”>
> { exclamat amens nuntio, > “successor instat, pellimur: > satelles, i, ferrum rape, > perfunde cunas sanguine!>
> mas omnis infans occidat, > scrutare nutricum sinus > interque materna ubera > ensem cruentet pusio.>
> suspecta per Bethlem mihi > puerperarum est omnium > fraus, ne qua furtim subtrahat > prolem virilis indolis.” } Women in the ancient world strove to save the boys. They failed:
> Therefore the executioner, > crazed, sword drawn, > stabs the new-born bodies, > gashes the baby lives.>
> The killer can hardly find > space in the tiny limbs > for the cutting stab to penetrate, > the dagger is bigger than the throat.>
> O savage sight! A head > dashed on the stones > scatters the milk-white brains, > vomits the eyes from the wound.>
> Or a quivering infant is thrown > into the depths of the stream, > down there, his tiny throat gasps, > water with breath chokes him.>
> { Transfigit ergo carnifex > mucrone destricto furens > effusa nuper corpora, > animasque rimatur novas.>
> Locum minutis artubus > vix interemptor invenit, > quo plaga descendat patens > iuguloque maior pugio est.>
> O barbarum spectaculum! > inlisa cervix cautibus > spargit cerebrum lacteum > oculosque per vulnus vomit.>
> Aut in profundum palpitans > mersatur infans gurgitem, > cui subter artis faucibus > singultat unda et halitus. } A few decades later, the learned Roman poet Sedulius, writing in epic meter, invoked a simile before going on to describe the slaughter of boys and their mothers’ grief: > Groaning over the criminal deed snatched from him, like a voracious> lion
> from whose mouth a tender lamb suddenly slips free, > and who then launches an assault on the entire flock and mauls and> rends
> the soft animals, as the new mothers all trembling call for > their offspring in vain and fill the empty breezes with their> bleatings,
> even so Herod was provoked because Christ had been taken away from> him,
> and he kept on dashing to the ground and slaying masses of infants, > fierce in his unwarranted murder. … > Killing them at their first cries and daring to > perpetrate wickedness beyond number, he slaughtered boys > by the thousands and give a single lament to many mothers. > This one tore out her mangled hair from her bare scalp, > that one scored her cheeks. Another beat her bared breast with> fists.
> One unhappy mother, now a mother no longer, > bereft, pressed her breast to her son’s cold mouth — in vain.>
> { Ereptumque gemens facinus sibi, ceu leo frendens, > Cuius ab ore tener subito cum labitur agnus, > In totum movet arma gregem manditque trahitque > Molle pecus — trepidaeque vocant sua pignera fetae > Nequiquam et vacuas implent balatibus auras — > Haut secus Herodes Christo stimulatus adempto > Sternere conlisas paruorum strage catervas > Inmerito non cessat atrox. … > primosque necans vagitus et audens > Innumerum patrare nefas puerilia mactat > Milia plangoremque dedit tot matribus unum. > Haec laceros crines nudato vertice rupit, > Illa genas secuit, nudum ferit altera pugnis > Pectus et infelix mater (nec iam modo mater) > Orba super gelidum frustra premit ubera natum. } This massacre was a brutal gendercide of boys. Like calling the massacre of the men of Shechem“the rape
of Dinah,” calling Herod’s massacre of innocent boys “the Massacre of the Innocents” misrepresents the actual gender structureof violence
.
In 1611, the enormously influential King James translation of the _Gospel of Matthew_ obscured gender in this massacre of innocent boys. The King James Bible told of Herod ordering the massacre of“children”:
> Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was > exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were > in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and > under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the> wise men.
>
> { tunc Herodes videns quoniam inlusus esset a magis iratus est valde > et mittens occidit omnes pueros qui erant in Bethleem et in omnibus > finibus eius a bimatu et infra secundum tempus quod exquisierat a> magis
>
> τότε Ἡρῴδης ἰδὼν ὅτι ἐνεπαίχθη > ὑπὸ τῶν μάγων ἐθυμώθη λίαν καὶ > ἀποστείλας ἀνεῖλεν πάντας τοὺς > παῖδας τοὺς ἐν Βηθλέεμ καὶ ἐν > πᾶσι τοῖς ὁρίοις αὐτῆς ἀπὸ > διετοῦς καὶ κατωτέρω κατὰ τὸν > χρόνον ὃν ἠκρίβωσεν παρὰ τῶν> μάγων }
The underlying Greek word for those killed is the accusative plural for the substantive _παῖς,_ which is cognate with the Latin _puer. _Both those words predominately imply “boy.” Moreover, _Matthew_ almost surely was addressed to Jews pondering the significance of Jesus. A genealogy begins _Matthew_ and roots Jesus in Jewish history. That genealogy lists Jacob as the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. Joseph led Jesus and Mary into Egypt to save Jesus from Herod’s massacre. For Jews, Herod’s massacre and Joseph going to Egypt would have evoked the Pharaoh’s government and the Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives and then to all his people to kill all newly born Hebrew boys: > When you serve as midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the > birthstool, if it is a son, you shall kill him; but if it is a > daughter, she shall live.>
> Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, > but you shall let every daughter live.>
> { וַיֹּאמֶר בְּיַלֶּדְכֶן > אֶת־הָֽעִבְרִיֹּות וּרְאִיתֶן > עַל־הָאָבְנָיִם אִם־בֵּן הוּא > וַהֲמִתֶּן אֹתֹו > וְאִם־בַּת הִיא וָחָֽיָה>
> וַיְצַ֣ו פַּרְעֹ֔ה לְכָל־עַמֹּ֖ו > לֵאמֹ֑ר כָּל־הַבֵּ֣ן הַיִּלֹּ֗וד > הַיְאֹ֨רָה֙ > תַּשְׁלִיכֻ֔הוּ וְכָל־הַבַּ֖ת > תְּחַיּֽוּן׃ ס } A Jewish Christian writing _Matthew_ would regard Jesus as the fulfillment of Hebrew scripture. Joseph taking Jesus into Egypt to escape Herod’s massacre would have been understood as paralleling Moses escape from the Pharaoh’s massacre of Hebrew boys and the Jewish people’s flight from Egypt. The learned Roman authors Prudentius, Sedulius, and Macrobius understood Herod’s massacre to have targeted boys. Both linguistic and contextual evidence convincingly indicates that _Matthew_ described Herod ordering gendercide. According to the best reading of _Matthew,_ Herod ordered a massacre of innocent boys. Prior to the more repressive gynocentrism of the modern era,
medieval authorities openly acknowledged the gynocentrism of Christiansociety
.
Writing about 885, Notker of St. Gall composed a poignant interior monologue for the eminent Jewish woman Rachel. She was the beloved wife of Jacob (Israel) and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Notker apparently thought deeply about _Matthew’s_ description of Herod’s massacre of innocent boys: > Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet > Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud > lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be > consoled, because they were no more.”>
> { τότε ἐπληρώθη τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ > Ἰερεμίου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος: > φωνὴ ἐν Ῥαμὰ ἠκούσθη κλαυθμὸς > καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολύς Ῥαχὴλ κλαίουσα > τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς καὶ οὐκ ἤθελεν > παρακληθῆναι ὅτι οὐκ εἰσίν } Here Rachel is weeping for “children,” as represented by the accusative plural for the substantive _τέκνον._ The central meaning of that word is child, irrespective of sex. Rachel herself, however, didn’t give birth to any female children. The prophet Jeremiah, whom _Matthew_ cited, invoked Rachel more abstractly as the mother of the children of Israel. Jeremiah chided Rachel for her weeping. He prophesied that a day would come when a woman wouldprotect a man:
> How long will you waver, O faithless daughter? For the Lord has > created a new thing on the earth: woman protects man.>
> { עַד־מָתַי֙ תִּתְחַמָּקִ֔ין הַבַּ֖ת > הַשֹּֽׁובֵבָ֑ה כִּֽי־בָרָ֨א יְהוָ֤ה > חֲדָשָׁה֙ בָּאָ֔רֶץ נְקֵבָ֖ה > תְּסֹ֥ובֵֽב גָּֽבֶר׃ ס } Women must not merely weep in sorrow for themselves. Women must do more to save men’s livesand to prevent wars
.
In his sequence entitled “A virgin crying about a martyr {De uno martyre virgo plorans},” Notker depicted Rachel’s extraordinary concern for miserable men. Notker’s sequence begins: > Why do you, virgin>
> mother, cry,
> lovely Rachel
> whose face
> delights Jacob?
>
> As if your little sister’s > moistened eyes would please him!>
> Wipe dry, mother, > your flowing eyes. > How could be worthy of you > water-cracked cheeks?>
> { Quid tu, virgo>
> mater, ploras,
> Rachel formosa,
> Cuius vultus
> Jacob delectat?
>
> Ceu sororis aniculae > Lippitudo eum iuvet!>
> Terge, mater,
> fluentes oculos.> Quam te decent
> genarum rimulae? } The reference to Rachel as a virgin mother associates her across time with the Virgin Mary, mother of Jesus. Rachel competed successfully with her sister Leah for Jacob’s heart-felt love. Yet
in this sequence, Rachel displays the insecurity of a woman appreciating the importance of woman’s beauty to men. So
incomprehensible in today’s thinking, Rachel sought to please herman’s gaze
,
and she was concerned to retain his affection.
Another voice within Rachel’s self-consciousness speaks differently. That voice laments to herself: > Alas, alas, alas, > why do you accuse me > of having shed tears in vain? > Now I am without > my son, who in my poverty > alone would have cared for me.>
> He would not yield to the enemy > the paltry territory> which for me
> Jacob had acquired. > His stupid brothers — > the many, sad to say, > that I have brought forth — > he would have helped.>
> { Heu, heu, heu, > quid me incusatis fletus > incassum fudisse.> Cum sim orbata
> nato, paupertatem meam > qui solus curaret,>
> Qui non hostibus cederet > angustos terminos,> quos mihi
> Jacob adquisivit; > Quique stolidis fratribus, > quos multos, pro dolor,> extuli,
> esset profuturus. } The son that Rachel has lost could be literally only Joseph. His brothers faked his death and sold him into slavery. Joseph’s father Jacob mourned Joseph’s apparent death for many days. Rachel herself died in giving birth to Benjamin. Just as Rachel being virgin mother collapses time and person, so too does Rachel lamenting the loss of her son. Christians interpreted Rachel’s son Joseph as a figure of Jesus. They understood Rachel as a figure of the Christian church. In Christian understanding, the Christian church possesses the heritage of Jacob and the Jews. Joseph’s stupid brothers are both those who sold him into slavery and mass of men in the Christianchurch.
In Notker’s Rachel sequence, why are most Christian men represented as stupid? Many Christian men and women throughout history haven’t recognized that the Christian church is female as a figure and gynocentric in its pragmatic orientation. Men
must actively affirm the goodness of their masculinityand
cherish their masculine fruitfulness. Passive and
apathetic in relation to women’s dominance,
most men today don’t even question current female supremacist dogma that the future is female. These men are stupid. Men throughout history have been stupid in similar ways.
Another voice within Rachel’s self-consciousness recognizes Jesus’s love and concern for men. Rachel laments the loss of her son in part out of typical womanly self-concern: what man will provide mewith money
?
But she also recognizes men’s need for help. She questions herself: > Are tears to be shed for him > who possesses the heavenly kingdom, > who with frequent prayers > for his miserable brothers > intercedes before God?>
> { Numquid flendus est iste, > qui regnum possedit caeleste > quique prece frequenti > miseris fratribus > apud deum auxiliatur? } Rachel understood the misery of men enduring earthly gynocentrism. Yet
miserable men have reason for hope. Rachel as the virgin mother Mary, and Rachel as the church, both have as son Jesus. Jesus loves men as well as women. The fully masculine man Jesusbrings
miserable men’s plight before God in heaven. Men need only wonder: how long, Lord, how long?
Like the Massacre of the Innocents, deaths of boys and men typically pass without particular notice. The issue isn’t just modern philology’s gendertrouble
.
The lives of boys and men are gynocentrically devalued.
Like earlier poetry, Notker of St. Gall’s brilliant ninth-century Rachel sequence, “De uno martyre virgo plorans,” recognized that the Massacre of the Innocents was the massacre of innocent boys. Moreover, Notker’s Rachel shows that Christian gynocentrism can encompass concern for miserable men. Women and men today must develop this medieval Rachel’s breadth of emotional life.
* * * * *
Read more:
* medieval poetry on the horror of men absent and dying in war * women dominant gender in Christian literary history * sacralizing men’s sexuality: Jacob & his wives to Jesus & hischurch
Notes:
Prudentius, _Book of the Daily Round_ {_Liber Cathemerinon_}, 12 “Hymn for Epiphany {Hymnus epiphaniae},”
vv. 97-108 (st. 25-7), Latin text and English translation (adapted slightly) from O’Daly (2012) pp. 357-60. The subsequent quote above is similarly from “Hymnus epiphaniae” vv. 109-24 (st. 28-31). Here are Latin reading notes for these passages.
Here’s the translation of these passages from Thomson (1949) vol. 1 . Both Pope (1905) and Thomson (1949), vol. 1, provide freely accessible text and translation of _Liber Cathemerinon_. Prudentius lived on the Iberian Pennisula and worked as a Roman government official until about 390 GC. He then retired and began writing poetry. He distributed his collected poems in 405. Prudentius wrote in the high tradition of Augustan Latin poetry, yet recast his sources to reflect a “cosmic Christian vision.” McKelvie (2010). A few decades later, Caelius Sedulius may have responded to the fear of Prudentius’s Herod: > Impious Herod, stranger, > what is to fear with Christ to come? > He takes away no earthly realms, > he who gives the heavenly crown.>
> { Hostis Herodes impie, > Christum venire quid times? > Non eripit mortalia, > Qui regna dat celestia. } Sedulius, “From the pivot of the sun’s rising {A solis ortus cardine},” vv. 29-32, Latin text from the _Latin Library_, my English
translation. These verses now begin a portion of Sedulius’s poem used at Vespers for Epiphany. Michael Martin’s _Treasury of Latin Prayers_ {_Thesaurus Precum Latinarum_} provides for _“_Hostis Herodes impie_“_ a Latin text and an English translation by J.M.Neale
,
and similarly for an truncated version of _“_A solis ortus cardine.”
Caelius Sedulius, _Easter Song_ {_Carmen paschale_} 2.110-17, 120-26,
Latin text and English translation (modified slightly) from Springer (2013) pp. 52-3. Sedulius (not to be confused with the ninth-century Latin poet Sedulius Scottus) apparently wrote _Carmen paschale_ between 425 and 450 GC. On Latin biblical epics, Green (2006) andMcBrine (2017).
_Matthew_ 2:16. The biblical texts are via _Blue Letter Bible_. Subsequent
biblical texts are similarly sourced. The Greek text is from the Morphological Greek New Testament (MGNT). The Latin text is from Jerome’s Vulgate. Herod’s massacre is widely called the “Massacre / Slaughter of the Innocents” or the “Massacre / Slaughter of the Holy Innocents.” Even as learned a philologist as Jan Ziolkowski wrote: > the event in the Gospel that instigates it {the citation of Jeremiah > 31:15} is the Slaughter of the Innocents (Matthew 2. 16) — the > killing, at Herod’s order, of all children in the environs of > Bethlehem who were two years or younger. … Herod decided to > execute the infants of Bethlehem directly as a result of the > Adoration of the Magi (Matthew 2. 16–18) … Christian responses > to the Massacre of the Innocents reflect the Christian ambivalence > about the death of children. Ziolkowski (2010) pp. 94-5. _Exodus_ 1:16, 22. The Hebrew text is from the WestminsterLeningrad Codex.
On Prudentius and Sedulius, see quotes previously above. Writing about 400 GC, Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius (Macrobius) reported: > When he {Emperor Augustus} heard that among the boys in Syria under > two years old who Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered to be killed, > Herod’s own son was also killed, Augustus said: “It is better to > be Herod’s pig than his son.”>
> { Cum audisset inter pueros quos in Syria Herodes rex Iudaeorum > intra bimatum iussit interfici filium quoque eius occisum, ait: > Melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium. } Macrobius, _Saturnalia_ 2.4.11, Latin text of Ludwig von Jan (1852)via LacusCurtius
,
my English translation, benefiting from various publicly available ones. Jewish law regards pigs as unclean animals. Jews therefore shouldn’t slaughter a pig. MGV Hoffman notes that the jest encodes apun in Greek
:
“hus / _ὑς_ means pig and huios / _υἱος_ means son.” Jests are commonly attributed falsely to prominent figures. Emperor Augustus probably never uttered this jest. Moreover, he almost surely didn’t know Greek. Given the jest’s significant Greek pun, most likely it was originally formulated in Greek. It evidently circulated broadly enough to cross into Latin. While a matter of contentious argument, in my view no convincing evidence has been put forward to establish whether the jest independently attests to Herod’s massacreof innocent boys.
Most modern biblical translations of _Matthew_ 2:16 into English represent Herod ordering a massacre of “male children.” See here a variety of translations. The
_New Revised Standard Version_, first published in 1990, retains the gender-obscuring translation “children.” In a preface to the Catholic version of the _New Revised Standard Version_, Alexander A. Di Lella, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America, stated that this translation “offers the fruits of the best biblical scholarship in the idiom of today while being sensitive to the contemporary concern for inclusive languagewhen
referring to human beings.” Biblical scholarship must honestly address contemporary gender trouble.
_Matthew_ 2:18, which quotes _Jeremiah_ 31:15. After the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem, Jewish captives were transported to Ramah on their way to exile in Babylon. _Jeremiah_ 40:1. Rachel was the foremother of the Jewish tribe of Benjamin, as well as of Ephraim and Manasseh of the house of Joseph. _Jeremiah_ 31:22. Philologists are uncertain about the meaning of the concluding clause. Among a variety of English translations is “a woman shall encompass a man.” That translation can also be interpreted as a woman protecting a man. The _New American Bible, Revised Edition_ (released in 2011) comments:
> No satisfactory explanation has been given for this text. Jerome, > for example, saw the image as a reference to the infant Jesus > enclosed in Mary’s womb. Since Jeremiah often uses marital imagery > in his description of a restored Israel, the phrase may refer to a > wedding custom, perhaps women circling the groom in a dance. It may > also be a metaphor describing the security of a new Israel, a > security so complete that it defies the imagination and must be > expressed as hyperbolic role reversal: any danger will be so > insignificant that women can protect their men. The concluding reference to insignificant danger shows sexistignorance
.
Men and women currently face very significant danger. Women could play a vital role in protecting men from society-destroying gynocentric oppression and contempt for men.
Notker of St. Gall, also know as Notker the Stammerer {Notcerus Balbulus}, “A virgin crying about a martyr {De uno martyre virgo plorans},” Latin text from Godman (1985) pp. 320-3 (with some minor changes to the editorial punctuation), my English translation, benefiting from those of id. and Dronke (1994) p. xxix. Subsequent quotes from “De uno martyre virgo plorans_” _are similarly sourced and cover all of this sequence. Godman described this sequence as a “dramatic interior monologue.” Godman (1985) p. 68. I follow that interpretation above. Notker wrote this sequence about 885 and included it in his _Liber ymnorum_ {_Book of Hymns_}. It has survived in 35 manuscripts. For a manuscript list, Yearley (1983) vol. 2, pp. 44-5 (lyric L134). Notker composed “De uno martyre virgo ploran_s”_ to the melody (he wrote it as a _contrafactum)_ for his earlier Easter sequence “This is the holy solemnity of solemnities {Haec est sancta solemnitas solemnitatum}.” That melody
was re-used in many subsequent songs and became known as the “virgin weeps {virgo plorans}” melody. On the musical characteristics of Notker’s lament and subsequent laments of Rachel, Yearley (1983) vol. 1, pp. 94-5, 269-75, and Stevens (1986) pp. 351ff. A performance of “De uno martyre virgo plorans” by Gérard Le Vot et al. from the album _Ultima Lacrima, Sacred Chants of the Middle Ages 9th-13th centuries_ (Studio S.M., 1997) is freely available on YouTube. This sequence seems to me quite difficult to perform well. Here’s a rather different performance of _“_Haec est sancta solemnitas_“_ directed by Jón Stefánsson in 2015.
Notker’s Rachel sequence contributed to early liturgical drama._Ordo Rachelis_ , a
late-eleventh-century play in a lectionary from the cathedral of Freising (Munich, Staatsbibl. MS S Lat. 6264) incorporated Notker’s “Quid tu virgo” as concluding dialogue between Rachel and a consoler. The late-twelfth-century Fleury Playbook (Orléans, Bibliothèque Municipale MS. 201) similarly incorporates “Quid tu virgo” in its play _Interfectio Puerorum_ {_The Massacre of the Boys_}. With respect to the Freising and Fleury Rachel laments,Boynton observed:
> “Quid tu virgo” is the structural basis of the lament, providing > typological, allegorical, and tropological readings of Rachel that > are complemented by the literal interpretation in leonine hexameters > added before the sequence. Boynton (2004) p. 326. Other dramatic Rachel laments are the eleventh-century _Lamentatio Rachelis_ from Saint-Martial at Limoges (Paris, BnF lat. 1139), a lengthy part of a twelfth-century Epiphany play from the cathedral at Laon (in troper Laon 263), and Rachel’s dramatic lament incorporated into a twelfth-century Magi play (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, 1712). For relevant discussion, id. pp. 320-7. On laments for lost children in Latin generally, Ziolkowski (2010). Notker wrote “De uno martyre virgo ploran_s”_ for the feast day of a martyr. For the Feast of the Holy Innocents – Boys, Notker wrote the sequence “Praise to you Christ, who tastes goodness {Laus tibi Christe cui sapit}.” The speaking voice of that sequence triumphantly declares: > The fresh and tender> warriors,
> slaughtered
> by Herod’s sword, preached> you today.
>
> { Recentes atque teneri> milites,
> Herodiano ense
> trucidati, te hodie > praedicaverunt } St. 3a, Latin text and English translation from Kovács (2017) p.203*.
Notker’s sense of time’s unity is similar to that which Prudentius presents in Christ: > Born of the Father’s life before the world began, > called Alpha and Ω, the source and the ending > of everything that is, and was, and shall be in the future.>
> { corde natus ex parentis ante mundi exordium, > alfa et Ω cognominatus, ipse fons et clausula > omnium quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque post futura sunt. } Prudentius, _Book of the Daily Round_ {_Liber Cathemerinon_}, 9 “Hymn for Every Hour {Hymnus omnis horae},”
vv. 12-14 (st.4), Latin text and English translation from O’Daly (2012) pp. 252-3. Cf. _Revelation_ 1:8, 21:6; Virgil, _Georgics_ 4.392-3; Homer, _Iliad_ 1.70. This poem ends: > Let the flowing river waters, the seashores, > rain, heat, snow, frost, wood and wind, night and day, > praise you, all together, for ever and ever!>
> { fluminum lapsus et undae, littorum crepidines, > imber, aestus, nix, pruina, silva et aura, nox, dies, > omnibus te concelebrent saeculorum saeculis. } Id. vv. 111-3 (st. 38), sourced as previously. The modern hymn “Of the Father’s Heart Begotten {Corde natus ex parentis}” is based on Prudentius’s “Hymnus omnis horae.” O’Daly explains that, in context, “life” is a better translation of _corde_ than is “heart.” Id. p. 264. The martyr who possesses the heavenly kingdom seems to be Joseph / Christ. In “Laus tibi Christe cui sapit,” that Notker wrote for the Feast of the Holy Innocents – Boys, the boys together pray toChrist:
> Dear little sons, > sweet little boys, > help us with your prayers, > which may Christ gently listen to, > feeling pity for your > innocent death hastened > for his own sake; > may he deem us worthy of his kingdom.>
> { Clari filioli,> dulces pusioli,
> Nos iuvate precibus, > Quas Christus, innocentem > mortem vestram miserans > Pro sese maturatam, > placidus exaudiens > Nos regno suo dignetur. } St. 7b-10, Latin text and English translation from Kovács (2017) p. 204*. This sequence doesn’t represent the men of the church as being stupid. Scholars regard Notker’s Rachel sequence as poetically superior to this sequence. (1) The Massacre of the Innocents – Boys. Illumination fromCodex Egberti
,
Fol 15v. The Codex Egberti was produced in the Reichenau Monastery for Egbert, who was Bishop of Trier from 980 to 993. Preserved at Stadtbibliothek Trier, Germany. Source image via Wikimedia Commons.
(2) Horse’s ass and soldier pissing. Detail from painting of the Massacre of the Innocents – Boys by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Painted between 1565 and 1567. Preserved as accession # RCIN 405787 in Royal Collection, Windsor Castle, London. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Sometime between 1604 and 1621, parts of the painting were paintedover
to make the painting depict a general scene of plunder, rather than a massacre of innocent boys. At the far left in the doorway of the brick house, the child being dragged away is clearly a boy. (3) Illumination (color enhanced) of the Massacre of the Holy Innocents – Boys in Sedulius’s_ Carmen paschale_. From folio 16r of a manuscript made in 860 in a Liège scriptorium.
Preserved in Antwerp, Belgium, as Museum Plantin-Moretus M 17.4. This manuscript apparently is a copy of a manuscript made for Cuthwine , Bishop of Dunwich (in Suffolk, England), sometime between 716 and 731.References:
Boynton, Susan. 2004. “From the Lament of Rachel to the Lament of Mary: A Transformation in the History of Drama and Spirituality.” Pp. 319-40 in Petersen, Nils Holger. _Signs of Change: transformations of Christian traditions and their representation in the arts, 1000-2000_. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Dronke, Peter. 1994. _Nine Medieval Latin Plays_. Cambridge Medieval Classics, 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (review by JamesWhitta )
Godman, Peter. 1985. _Poetry of the Carolingian Renaissance_. London:Duckworth.
Green, Roger P. H. 2006. _Latin Epics of the New Testament: Juvencus, Sedulius, Arator_. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kovács, Andrea. 2017. _Monuments of Medieval Liturgical Poetry in Hungary: sequences; critical edition of melodies_.
Musica sacra Hungarica (English ed.), 1. Budapest: ArgumentumPublishing House.
McBrine, Patrick. 2017. _Biblical Epics in Late Antiquity and Anglo-Saxon England: divina in laude voluntas_. Toronto Anglo-Saxon series, 27. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. McKelvie, Christopher Gordon. 2010. _The Cosmic Christian Vision of Prudentius’ Liber Cathemerinon, and the Inculturation of AugustanVatic Poetry_ .
M.A. Thesis. Halifax: Dalhousie University. O’Daly, Gerard J. P. 2012. _Days Linked by Song: Prudentius’ Cathemerinon_. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pope, R. Matin, trans. 1895. _The Hymns of Prudentius_.
London: J.M. Dent.
Springer, Carl P. E., ed. and trans. 2013. Sedulius. _The Paschal Song and Hymns_. Writings from the Greco-Roman world, v. 35. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Stevens, John E. 1986. _Words and Music in the Middle Ages: song, narrative, dance and drama, 1050-1350_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (review by Hans Tischler)
Thomson, Henry John, ed. and trans. 1949. _Prudentius_. Loeb Classical Library 387, 398. Vol. 1,
Vol. 2. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Yearley, Janthia. 1983. _The Medieval Latin Planctus as a Genre_ . Ph.D. Thesis. University ofYork.
Ziolkoswki, Jan M. 2010. “Laments for Lost Children: LatinTraditions
.”
Pp. 81-107 in Tolmie, Jane and M. J. Toswell, M. J., eds. _Laments for the Lost in Medieval Literature_. Turnhout: Brepols. Posted on March 15, 2020April 12, 2020By
Author Douglas Galbi TagsBible , Prudentius
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ASPECTS OF WOMEN’S PRIVILEGE IN THE OLD FRENCH _JEU-PARTI_ In northern France in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, men and women poet-singers known as _trouvères_ composed lyric debates. This type of song, called the _jeu-parti_, involved two voices defending in alternate stanzas alternate responses to a question set out for debate in the first stanza. _Jeux-partis_ involving women _trouvères_ depict significant aspects of women’s privilege in medieval France. Like most women today, women _trouvères_ in medieval France rarely assumed the emotional risk of soliciting an amorous relationship. A _jeu-parti_ between Dame Margot and Dame Marote debates a case involving a woman and man who love each other dearly. The man dares not declare his desire to the women. The debate question is whether the woman should assume a man’s typical burden and declare her love to him. Dame Margot argues against the woman taking the initiative to establish an amorous relationship. Dame Marote argues for the woman taking the initiative. In their arguments, both Dame Margot and Dame Marote recognize women’s privilege in relation to men. Dame Marote declares that “she should not be proud {pas ne doit cele estre fiere},” as if a woman telling a man that she loves him in some way injures her pride and lowers her worth. Dame Margot counters Dame Marote’s position, but confirms women’s privilege: > You are not heading the right way, > Dame Marote, I believe. > A lady makes a grave mistake in courting > her beloved first. Why > should she thus demean herself? > If he lacks courage, > I do not think it proper > that she should then solicit his love. > She should rather conceal her feelings > and suffer love’s pains > without ever disclosing them, > because a woman should have such high merit > that no word would come from her > that could diminish her worth.>
> { Vous n’ales pa droite voie, > Dame Marote, je croi. > Trop mesprent dame ki proie > Son ami avant. Pour koi > S’aveilleroit elle si? > Se cil a le cuer falli, > Ne di jou pas k’il afiere > Por ce k’ele le reqiere, > Ains s’en doit chovrir > Et les fais d’Amours soufrir > Sans ja fiare percevoir; > Kar feme doit tant valoir > Que n’en doit parole issir > Ki son pris puist amenrir. } Underscoring that women equally sharing men’s burdensis
inconceivable to gynocentric reason,
Dame Marote argues that true love should make a woman act insane. While a sane woman would retain women’s privilege, a woman insane with love would take the initiative to solicit an amorous relationship. Dame Marote concludes: > Better it is to live in joy > for having pleaded than now to languish > for having been silent and then die.>
> { Miex vient en joie manoir > Par proier q’adés langir > Par trop taire et puis morir. } Dame Marote’s point seems indisputable. Yet many women today would rather be coerced into a having an abortion or even die rather than relinquish their gynocentric privilege.
Another _jeu-parti_ between two women _trouvères_ debates women’s preference regarding how men bear the burden of soliciting an amorous relationship. In this case, two knights both love one woman. One knight seeks to communicate his love through the woman’s friends. The other declares his love to her directly. According to women’s preference, which knight behaves better? One woman _trouvère_ argues that a man who directly declares his love to her would make her seem shameful and weak. The other woman _trouvère_ disputes that claim: > Sister, you are in error, > of that I do not doubt in the least. > When this one tenderly > humbles himself before you > and requests your loyalty, > you feel contempt for him.>
> { Suer, vous estes en errout, > Je ne m’an dout mie. > Cant celui par sa dousor > Ver vous s’umelie > Et vos requiert loialteit, > Vos lou teneis an vitei. } As if that would justify him soliciting her love, the man humbles himself before the woman. In actuality, if he approached her as anarrogant jerk
,
she would more likely feel her loins tingle. Men must be learnedenough
to reject women’s privilege in prescribing how men should behave. Women’s privilege prompts women to look down on men as if men were inferior human beings afflicted with “toxic masculinity.”
A _jeu-parti_ between two women _trouvères_ debates whether a woman should allow a man to declare his love to her. One woman _trouvère_ proposes listening to the man. College administrators evaluating sexual assault chargestoday generally
reject the practice of listening to an accused man. But this medievalwoman argues:
> By listening to him you will be able to decide > if it pleases you to accept him or refuse him, > and you will know if he speaks wisely or foolishly.>
> { Qu’en lui oiant porrez vous bien eslire > Se il vous plaist l’otroi ou le desdire, > Et si savrez s’il dist sens our folour. } What could be wrong with listening to a man? At least with respect to men, everyone isn’t required to listen and believe. Yet
the other woman _trouvère_ vehemently argues against even justlistening to a man:
> a woman should really not > listen to a man; she should rather fear> being seduced
> by
> the words she hears. > For men are consummate flatterers > and their arguments they so beautifully describe > that simply by listening to them she could well agree > to something that would quickly dishonor her.>
> { fame ne doit mie > Home escouter, ains doit avoit paour > Qu’ele ne soit a l’oir engignie, > Quar home sont trop grant losengeour > Et leur raisons sevent tant bel descrire > Qu’en eulz oiant puet a cele souffire > Chose dont tost cherroit en deshonour. } For women’s safety men must not be allowed to speak. That such ridiculous claims about women’s safety are taken seriously exemplifies women’s privilege. Medieval scholars have recognized that these women-exclusive _jeux-partis_ closely engage relational reality. One eminent medievalscholar observed:
> it is the practical, level-headed outlook of both {women} speakers, > calculating the respective roles of the emotions and social > niceties, which is notable. Even if these debates are about > questions of love, they are not romantic, or erotic, lyrics. … The > _jeux-partis_ were among the games devised for that {mixed-sex > castle} hall, diverstissements of a society that thought such topics > up in order to amuse as well as wittily to provoke. Yet the range > and subtlety of emotion and argument that we glimpse in some of the > debates involving women suggest something more. Here were poets who, > even if they lived lightly — at least in the imagination — could > also reflect searchingly. One doesn’t need to reflect searchingly to recognize women’s privilege in the _jeux-partis_ involving women. Two knights seek one woman’s love. One is rich and worthy, the other is wise and worthy. Which man should the woman choose? A woman again has the choice of two knights. One extensively offers his warrior skills in knightly combat. The other generously shares his money and goods. Which man should the woman choose? Between an arrogant knight and a quarrelsome knight, which man should a woman choose? Men’s choicesare
much more narrow than women’s choices. Men are burdened withresponsibilities
while women are privileged with choices. At least medieval women recognized women’s privilege and men’s hardships. Regarding men’s sexual labor for women, one
woman _trouvère_ frankly observes: > You know full well that back pain sets in > that keeps old men from laboring as long. > Beyond the age of forty, he does nothing but decline; > he is then hardly suited to partake in pleasure.>
> { You saveis bien ke li maus tient en rains, > Dont li vielars an sont ovriers dou moins; > Puis .xl. ans ne fait hons fors c’aleir, > Pou vaut on puis por deduit demeneir. } Men’s sexual service to women is a matter of life and death,
yet it’s often undervalued,
disparaged
,
and criminalized
. Men deserve
more choices in
how they sexually serve women. Men deserve reproductive freedom.
Women’s special privilege must end. Women and men must share equally privileges and hardships.* * * * *
Read more:
* misdirected chivalry in Guillelma de Rosers & Lanfranc Cigala’stenso
* medieval wife’s sexual entitlement banged against herhusband’s love
* women competing with men prompts men’s self-abasement & weaknessNotes:
_Jeux-parti_ typically have six stanzas. The final stanza often appeals to an external judge for a decision regarding the winning position. For extensive discussion of the historical definition of _jeu-parti_, Mason (2018) Ch. 1. Debate poems in Old Occitanare
known as _tensos_ or _partimens._ _Trouvères_ composed and performed _jeux-partis_ primarily in Arras in northern France in the thirteenth century. Arras was a center of commercial trade and artistic activity. The _trouvères_ of Arras were associated with the literary academia Puy d’Arras . On Arras in relation to _jeux-partis_, Barker (2013) pp. 6-9, 52. About 175_ jeux-partis_ have survived, 60% of which come from Arras. Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 73 (total number 182), Barker (2013) p. 4 (total number 170), p. 52, n. 92 (Arras share 60%, citing Symes estimate). Most surviving _jeux-partis_ involve only men _trouvères. _Mason (2018) p. 298. _Jeux-partis_ in which women _trouvères _participate as debaters have survived mainly in the _Oxford Chansonnier_ (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 308), known by the siglum I. _Jeux-partis_ could be aggressive contests, but such symbolic violence has far different effects on human lives than does actual violence. In medieval Europe, elite men had a life expectancy nine years less thanthat of women
.
Medieval literature depicts horrific violence against men. The
enormous masculine gender protrusion in suffering violent injury anddeath
reflects in part women’s privilege. Literary scholars have tended to ignore and trivialize the reality of violence against men. Mason’s thesis, for example, shows no awareness of the actual gendered facts about violent victimization.
In accordance with prevailing academic fashion, Mason suggests violence against men is about misogyny and the exclusion of women: > In applying the metaphor of single combat to the _jeu-parti_, > Jeanroy, Fiset and Nicod invoked the homosociality of combat > prevalent in Europe before the First World War. The paradigm of the > duel is demonstrably at work in the ‘footnote quarrels’ of > German and French musicologists at the start of the twentieth > century, whose blows and counterblows in their retaliatory > publications and footnotes are reminiscent of verbal sparring. > Jeanroy, Fiset and Nicod defined the _jeu-parti_ as a combative, > robustly masculine genre, in which poetic skill could be equated > with bravura and violence. The misogyny of late romantic duellers > could map neatly onto the subject of many dilemma questions in > _jeux-partis_: how best to please one’s Lady. In defining the > genre in this way, women were excluded as possible interlocutors > and, as a result, the genre has since been treated as principally> masculine.
Mason (2018) p. 54. Women, including during the First World War, have played a important role in promoting violence against men. Men and
women scholars should show more love for men and less eagerness to please “the Lady.” Dame Margot & Dame Maroie, _Jeu-parti_, “I entreat you, Lady Maroie {Je vous pri, dame Maroie}” st. 3 (vv. 29-42), Old French text (Picard dialect) and English translation (with my modifications to follow the Old French more closely) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 76. Within this_ jeu-parti_, Dame Maroie is subsequently called Dame Marote. I use the latter name consistently above. The previous short quote above is similarly from v. 22; the subsequent quote above is vv. 82-4 (ending stanza 6 of 6). Here’s a performance of “Je vous pri, dame Maroie” by Musiktheater Dingo (2012).
Many women today have never contacted an man, expressed amorous interest in him, and invited him to dinner and evening entertainment, with the clear understanding that she would pay for the cost of the whole evening. Of course the man for a variety of reason might reject the woman’s proposal. Most men have many times had the experience of paying for dates and being romantically rejected. Today is long past the time for women to share that experience equally. Lorete & Suer, _Jeu-parti_, “Lorete, sister, in the name of love {Lorete, suer, par amor}” vv. 57-62 (from st. 5 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 80. This _jeu-parti_ survives only in the _Oxford Chansonnier_. The 26 _jeux-partis_ in that _chansonnier_ have been dated to 1310. Barker (2013) p. 43. Sainte des Prez & Dame de la Chaucie, _Jeu-parti_, “What shall I do, Lady of Chaucie {Que ferai je, dame de la Chaucie},” vv. 12-4 (from st. 2 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al. (2001) p. 81. The subsequent quote above is similarly from id. vv. 15-21 (in st.3).
The woman _trouvère_ who opposes the man making known his love through the woman’s friends figures a man acting that way as being like Renart the Fox: > he is Renart the Fox, > who pursues his intrigue until he has seized his prey.>
> { s’est Renars li Werpis, > Ke quiert ses tors tant ke il soit saixis. } Id. vv. 64-5. The man trobairitz Pèire de Bossinhac in his song “Quan lo dous temps d’abril” uses Renart as a figure of being shrewdly vengeful. See note in my post on medieval women’s strong, independent sexuality.
Dronke (2007) pp. 330, 335. Dronke concludes with flattery for gynocentric authority: > And it certainly looks as if some of these poets — perhaps indeed, > the most perceptive of them — were themselves women. Id. p. 335. Similarly conforming to academic orthodoxy, Barker concludes her chapter on women’s desire with gynocentric panegyric: “these feminine voices are able to carve out space in which they resist the pressure to conform.” Barker (2013) p. 313. The four _jeux-parti_ described in the above paragraph (in order of description above, with page citations in Quinby et al. (2001) are: Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Advise me, Rolant, I entreat you {Concilliés moi, Rolan, je vous an pri},” pp. 87-8; Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Dear lady, do respond {Douce dame, respondex},” pp. 89-1; Dame & Rolant de Reims, “Dear lady, I would gladly {Douce dame, volantiers},” pp. 92-4; and Dame & Perrot de Beaumarchais, “Dear lady, let this one be your call {Douce dame, ce soit en vos nomer},” pp. 97-8. Dame & Sire, _Jeu-parti_, “Tell me, lady, who has better discharged his debt {Dites, dame, li keilz s’aquitait muelz},” vv. 29-32 (from st. 4 of 5), Old French text (Lorraine dialect) and English translation (with my modifications) from Doss-Quinby et al.(2001) p. 104.
The term “women’s privilege is preferable to “female privilege.” Infants in laughing, crying, pooping, sleeping, etc., typically do not act with gender privilege. Gender privilege emerges through human development. Brothers and sisters as children, however, can experience analogues of women’s privilege. Consider, for example, the childhood experience of U.S. politician Joe Biden: > According to Biden’s own words his sister regularly beat him in > his childhood and adolescence. “And I have the bruises to prove > it,” he said, at a senate hearing on violence against women, > December 11, 1990. To make sure the audience knew this wasn’t a > joke, he added, “I mean that sincerely. I am not exaggerating when> I say that.”
> …
> In Biden’s brief tell-all, he acknowledged that the beatings he > received were condoned and sanctioned by his parents, and that he > was prevented from defending himself; That he was literally, in > fact, powerless to make the abuse stop.>
> “In my house,” he stated, “being raised with a sister and > three brothers, there was an absolute. It was a nuclear sanction, if > under any circumstances, for any reason –even self defense– you > ever touched your sister, not figuratively, literally.”>
> “My sister, who is my best friend, my campaign manager, my > confidante,” he continued, “grew up with absolute impunity in > our household.” From Elam (2010). While such behavior should be a matter of serious social concern, “women’s privilege” seems to me nonetheless a more reasonable term than “female privilege.” Women occupying the castle of love from above assail men confined outside the castle and besieging it. Excerpt from design on a side panel of an elephant ivory coffret made in Paris between 1310 and 1330. Preserved as accession # 17.190.173a, b; 1988.16 in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City, USA). Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917; The Cloisters Collection, 1988. Image derived from an image that the Metropolitan Museum has made availableunder a
public spirited public domain dedication (CCO license).References:
Barker, Camilla. 2013. _Dialogue and Dialectic in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Occitan and Old French Courtly Lyric and Narrative_.
Ph.D. Thesis, King’s College, London. Doss-Quinby, Eglal, Joan Tasker Grimbert, Wendy Pfeffer, and Elizabeth Aubery. 2001. _Songs of the Women Trouvères_. New Haven: Yale University Press. (review by Carol Symes)
Dronke, Peter. 2007. “Women’s Debates in Medieval French Lyric.” Ch. 18 (pp. 323-336) in Dronke, Peter. _Forms and Imaginings: from antiquity to the fifteenth century_. Roma: Edizioni di Storia eLetteratura.
Elam, Paul. 2010. “VAWA — Corrupt Law and Joe Biden’s AbusiveSister
.”
_A Voice For Men_. Online. Mason, Joseph W. 2018. _Melodic Exchange and Musical Violence in the Thirteenth-Century jeu-parti_.
D. Phil. Thesis, Faculty of Music Lincoln College, Oxford. Posted on March 15, 2020By Author
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