Permit me, my God, also to say something about my innate talent, Your gift, and the foolishness on which I squandered it. I was set a task that greatly worried me because of the prospect of praise or shame, and the dread of being beaten: the task was to speak the words of Juno as she raged and grieved, unable as she was to “keep the Prince of Troy from seeking the shores of Italy,” even though I knew she had never spoken such words. But we were forced to go astray in the footsteps of those poetic creations, and to say in plain speech what Virgil had said in verse. The declaimer who was most praised was the one who best brought forth, shrouded in the most fitting words, the grandeur of the feigned characters in their passion of rage and grief. What is it to me, my God and true life, that my declamation was applauded over that of so many of the pupils of my age and in my class? Is all this not smoke and wind? Was there nothing else on which to exercise my talent and my tongue? Your praises, Lord, Your praises through Your Scriptures, would have trellised the young vines of my heart, and foolish nonsense would not have snatched at it, vile prey for winged scavengers. There is more than one way for man to pay homage to fallen angels.

THE PHOENIX

‘Idyll 1’

Claudian

Translated by A. Hawkins, 1817

Claudian (c. AD 370–c. 404) was probably born in Alexandria in Egypt, but travelled to Italy, where he became court poet to the emperor Honorius, who ruled from 393 to 423 and whose reign witnessed the sack of Rome by the Visigoths. Claudian also wrote in praise of Honorius’ regent, a Roman general named Stilicho. This story takes Claudian back to his Egyptian roots.

In Orient realms, beyond where Indus flows,

A wood, with Ocean round, in verdure grows,

The panting coursers of the god of day

First touch the foliage in their rapid way,

When humid gates with dewy chariot quake,—

The whistling whips, the lofty branches, shake,—

The rising ray discloses glances red,—

The glitt’ring wheels, resplendent brightness, spread,—

And NIGHT, far off, turns pale, constrained by light,

Her sable robe draws in, and takes to flight.

THE solar bird, within this happy clime,

Resides, protected by the FLAME SUBLIME,

Possesses tracts, frail animals ne’er trace,

And feels no suff’rings of the human race;

Immortal as the pow’rs, that dwell on high:

Eternal like the stars of azure sky;

The constant waste, which rolling ages view,

Replenished is with limbs that rise anew.

To satiate hunger or his thirst assuage,

No food nor liquids e’er, his sight, engage;

Him nourishment, the SUN’s pure heat procures:

From vapours Tethys, fluids thin, assures.

His eyes are ever darting secret rays:

Encircling beams of flame, his beak displays.

A tuft arises o’er his lofty crown: