Vox Clamantis, Book II

Translation by Robert J. Meindl and Mark Riley

     Here he says that, now awake, he intends to write what he saw and

heard about the world just as he received it from the voice in his dream,

and he calls this petition The Voice of One Crying, because it was created as if from the voice and clamor of all, to which end he invokes the assistance of the Holy Spirit in his task.

The prologue of the second book begins.

     I have seen and noted many different things

My mindful pen now wants to write for you.

I don’t invoke muses at the start, make offerings

To gods, but sacrifice to God alone.

God of the soul's spirit, kindling the breast's senses,

Inflame your servant’s heart unto its depths.

And in your name, O Christ, I shall cast forth my net,

That my mind may catch what’s pleasing to it.

I pray this work, begun to the praise of your name,

Enjoys through you a successful ending.                               10

I beg you, the man who reads these words, handle them

Respectfully, not mindful of my faults.

Accept in them the matter, not the man, the thought,

Not the form, for I’m a wretched fellow.

Yet often in a worthless mine something precious

Turns up that, removed, has a pleasing use.

Whatever in these words plain virtue offers you,

Take, and ask peremptorily no more.

If my pen dripping in your ear irritates you,

Let it be the doctor that soothes your hurt.                             20

If I don’t use fancy words, so that the meters

Are elegant, examine what they mean.

And if, untaught, I have done poorly, forgive me,

You who read this, and take what lies within.

If incorrect meters lead my verses astray,

Take my prayers as suiting what my mind means.

Whatever formal rhetorical leaves they lack,

The fruit of their matter shall not be less.

Though these verses formally have but modest worth,

The strength of their content will be greater.                         30

     Although dull sense may hinder me, without a blush

I’ll offer what my artlessness affords.

Knowing little was once great shame in an old man,

For the gravity of the time he’d lost;

But if old age now knows or teaches what it sees,

The voice of youth scarce gives it a welcome.

What old men write, although zealous in its fervor,

Is rarely able to please youth enough;

However, although canine jaws may bark insults,

I will not flee but sing indeed my song.                                 40

Suck your oil from the rocks and honey from a stone,

And take the sweet notes from my untaught song.

Whatever morals Scripture furnishes within,

Ought to have a place for instruction’s sake.

He who put words in an ass’s mouth is my hope

That my mouth for a fact speaks to his praise.

Let thus my simplicity’s detractor depart,

That gnawing envy not consume my words.

Let readers’ ears be free of strife, and obstructive

Mutters end; envious throng, cease your work.                      50

Yet if Sinon should rant and the serpent rear up,

I mean to do what my pen has begun.

The eye is blind and the ear is as good as deaf

That conveys to the heart’s depths nothing wise;

And the heart that does not teach what it knows is like

A glowing coal hidden beneath ashes.

A light shining beneath a bushel does nothing,

Or sense in a heart refusing to speak.

If little, it’s fitting I write the few things that

I know, helping another to know them.                                  60

A man of modest means, I’ll give a modicum

That helps a bit rather than not at all.

No one’s so poor he’s unable to give something;

If I cannot give gifts, I’ll give my words.

To the man trusting in the Lord, no achievement

Is impossible, when his work means well.

     The one whom Christ’s grace enriches is never poor;

Nay, whom God augments will have sufficient. 

Great feats are often accomplished by modest sense;

Little hands often manage great estates.                               70

A little light often dissipates deep shadows,

And rivulets deliver sweet waters.

Nothing is hard for one who wishes to do right;

Thus God may provide the words that I want.

I do not speak the words that follow on my own,

But bring them like an informed messenger.

As honeycomb is gathered from many flowers,

And seashells are gathered on diverse shores,

So diverse mouths have bestowed this work upon me,

And various visions are my work’s cause.                             80

I confess that my songs were strengthened in writing

By the examples of learned ancients.

The name of this volume shall be Vox Clamantis,

For the book brings word of today’s distress.

Book II Begins

Chapter 1

     Here he tells how, according to what he has heard from the clamor of the commons, the estates and governance of the world have changed mostly for the worse in these parts, and how everyone blames Fortune for this.

I will use my tears as a kind of ink, in which

Heavy-hearted I’ll write with a new reed. 

Solomon said man is empty and all is vanity,

And nothing gives surety but loving God.

Whosoever are born, the voice of pain comes first,

For every man begins his life wailing.

Temptation plagues everybody after the font,

The devil’s craft, carnal war, avarice.

Man stands and falls, breathes and dies, flowers and withers;

No place is stable for him in the world.                                 10

A man begins to die when his mother casts him

From her womb, and a brief hour concludes him.

Crying plagues infants; school, youngsters; lust, young adults;

Ambition, men; and avarice, oldsters;

Not a single day brings a man so much success

That grief will not harm him in some respect.

     But if there can be happiness upon the earth,

God long since granted that we be happy.

Of all that his hand on high could grant his creatures,

He conferred on us this prosperous place.                            20

The glory of this supreme life (if such it is),

Has been enlarged for us above the rest.

Once the talk was everywhere that God had favored

Us especially, more than any folk.

And the rumor throughout the world was that our days

Were more blessed than any people’s. But look

How disgracefully have disappeared our good old

Days, for a bitter day now torments us.

As swiftly as blessings of better fortune rose,

Just as rapidly have they tumbled down.                                30

We flowered quickly, but that flower was fleeting,

And that brief fire of ours was made with straw.

Suffering and care, fortune not matching our conduct,

Cause what was high to fall lawlessly down.

Our praises used to go forth throughout great nations,

Which now present dangers by our changed lot.

     For that cause, many ask why our state of affairs

Today is worse than once it used to be.

They ask why so many more grave and unusual

Problems assail us now than yesterday.                                 40

For nothing in the land happens without a cause,

Just as Job taught, who endured much travail.

Nevertheless, everybody says they are not

The cause, as if nobody were guilty.

In fact, they now call fickle Fortune to account,

Maintaining that she is more guilty here.

Every man now blames Fortune, because she changes,

And reverses quickly what was before.

And anyone can discern by our example,

That what was sweet has now become bitter.                        50

Chapter 2

     Here he rebukes Fortune and deplores her inconstant outcomes.

     O you who call yourself Fortune, why do you cast

Down so viciously those whom you raise up!

To those you’ve been a loving mother, you become

By your guile a harsh lying stepmother. 

Your lot has dispersed in wrath those whom you’ve built up;

What you've united, you’ve scattered to harm.

If there were any shame in your deceiving face,

You would not be so hostile to your friends.

You were a blooming rose, but, a stinging nettle

Burning, you now grieve those you once refreshed.              60

Your wheel is much too fickle, and with sudden moves

It changes opulence for poverty.

But I would climb the wheel’s top from the bottom up,

Rather than slip and fall from high to low.

God forbid high to low! From low to high let me

Ascend, for slips from prosperity smart.

For I think to have been happy is the worst pain

That can afflict a wretch in his lifetime.

     How true it is that much is given those who have,

And he who has little must give it up!                                   70

This is shown in us, to whose glories all people

Alike, as it were, once bowed down their necks.

There was no land where we were not held in honor,

But now our praise of yore has disappeared.

For every land once wanted to have peace with us;

Now everywhere our enemy seeks wars.

Who formerly appeared with a smooth forehead, lo!

Comes thrusting his horns with hostile intent.

And he who had been horned, his head now turned aside,

Harmless without his horns, scarce holds his place.                 80

What had been a fortunate land in all respects,

They say has already lost its fortune.

But say, Fortune, if you do prove to be to blame—

Though I do not believe you are the cause

Even if the people’s voice falsely credits you—

I’d still say that I think you are nothing.

Whatever others do, I can’t believe in fate,

At least while God has power over all.

I shan’t believe that you, Fortune, impact on me,

Like people who mutter you are their fate.                            90

Nonetheless, I’ve determined on this page to show

Your false image, though it’s nothing to me.

Chapter 3

     Here he describes Fortune according to those who say Fortune is fate and chance.

     O Fortune, hear what is openly said of you;

Fickle at heart, you’re neither here nor there.

You are two-faced, the one of which contorts and looks 

Askance, and from that one your wrath thunders;

The other beams with a happy mien, and they who

Behold it receive everything prosperous.

Thus your odious face and your loving visage

Relieve anxious hearts and oft crush happy.                          100

You weep with the first face and smile with the second,

Or vice versa, but man never knows you.

You wear two faces on earth because you're fickle;

It’s fitting you don’t walk straightforward paths.

If your prosperity makes me happy on earth,

Just when I think I’m safe, just then I fall.

In grief’s shadow, the mind oft fears uncertainties,

When lo! tomorrow new joy comes to me.

Everything is dependent on your slender thread,

And he who trusts in it will be deceived.                               110

For if the blink of an eye is quick, yet quicker

Is the headlong fall from your pendant fate.

     No gifts can help that are able to retain you,

And no home is safe that stands in your orb. 

You are heavier than stone, lighter than a breeze,

Sharper than a thorn, softer than a rose.

You are lighter than the sere leaves, when without weight

They flutter, dried out by the shifting winds,

And there is less weight in you than the dried-out tips

Of wheat burnt crisp by unrelenting suns.                              120

You’re now bright day, now a night replete with horror;

You’re peaceful now, tomorrow you’re in arms.

Now your lot beams with joys, and now pales with bitter

Pangs, as you, fickle, may grant good and bad.

You grant each reward with a free or stingy hand;

You take from whom you wish and bring their doom.

     Iris has not as many colors in her clouds,

Or the month of March as many seasons,

As you, your times divided in a thousand parts,

All of them painted a different color.                                     130

Your love is more deceptive than is any whore’s,

And like the sea’s wave you ebb and you flow.

No one knows at night what your morning wish will be,

For your mind doesn’t know how to focus.

You wander every nation, but stay long in none,

And you behave just like a whirling wind.

Your kisses do not show that you’ve made peace with me,

Because you don’t end the way you’ve begun.

Your cutting is without a root, nor is its bloom

Praised for lasting long, for, sudden, it wilts.                          140

Your wisdom confers nothing that proves permanent,

And each of your gifts is untrustworthy.

Your prosperity is neighbor to ruination,

And your glory, such as it is, is brief.

Chapter 4 

     Here he talks further concerning what people say about fickle Fortune.

In the end, however, he concludes that those things which befall people are neither by fate or chance, but according to their merits or faults.

     All who seek the joys of the world are deluded,

For Fortune can’t give honey without gall.

Fortune is Envy’s good comrade, although, never

True to anyone, she remains fickle.

What ignorant wretch could not know Fortune’s doings?

She steals what she gives, topples what she lifts.                150

Fortune regulates her sphere like the rambling moon,

Which suddenly wanes and swiftly waxes.

She waxes, she wanes, nor in turn is she constant;

She’s now beneath and now above the earth.

“I’ll reign, I reign, I’ve reigned, I am without a reign,”

Thus for a short time that path fools us all.

Her dooms are allowed to destroy all they ordain,

To change the days’ moments in countless ways.

Beware of Fortune’s favor, because her round wheel

Spins and sends low what had been borne on high.               160

She spurns whom she calls, casts down whom she lifts, spins all,

Claims guile for her personal property.

Fortune wanders with twisting, uncertain step,

And day-by-day abides in no one place.

Whatever good Fortune has given, she takes back,

And who was just now fat is sudden thin.

When Fortune aids and smiles benignly with her face,

Then wealth follows every lucky kingdom.

When she flees, it flees, and he who had been circled

By flocks of companions becomes unknown.                                    170

     The year’s changing season by its example shows

How changeable Fortune is in her ways.

Fortune is not such a friend that she won’t deceive,

Since her wheel’s law rules her deceitful deeds.

Her wheel continually turns smoothly through its

Gyre, and never remains fixed in one place.

Her wheel does not exempt anyone in the world;

Her wheel restrains, releases, and binds all.

You won’t turn her with prayers, appease her with a bribe;

Nobody will move her with any tears.                                   180

Not your sex, your free status, your rank or your age,

Nothing compels her to feel merciful.

Citizen and farmer, king, peasant, light and dark,

Learned and lewd, the rich and poor alike,

Meek and rash, pious, wicked, the just and unjust,

Are all judged the same when Chance is the judge.

She fells some, frees some, lifts some to thrust to the depths;

She summons each one, whom she mocks in turn.

She jests and toys with things, until her slippery wheel

Slips and everything slips along with it.                                190

This capricious wheel spins about so much in its

Motion that nothing can remain at rest.

  Her capriciousness upsets all the hopes Fortune

Gives, and she never grants us a fixed place.

Alas! Why was such power given such a one,

To whom no rights on earth were rightly given?

If she has any law, it's said to be deceit,

For by law she should have no dominion.

That’s what men say who think that she controls by chance

Everything that our God has created.                                           200

For Fortune is naught, nor is destiny or fate,

And chance plays no role in human affairs.

But each one makes his own destiny, incurs chance

As he pleases, and creates his own fate.

And a free mind calls acts it does of its own will,

With diverse results, by destiny’s name.

For destiny is always handmaid to the mind,

Which chooses what its own renown shall be.

If you want good, good fate ensues; if you want ill,

You cause by your mind’s impulse an ill fate.                       210

If you lift your mind to the stars by virtue’s aid,

Fortune takes you to the top of her wheel.

But if you’re borne down by the weight of your vices,

You’ll take your fortune with you to the pit.

It’s best that you decline the lesser destiny,

While your soul is free to follow either.

Chapter 5 

     Here he speaks according to the Scriptures and alleges how all creatures serve and obey the righteous man.

     God said that he would give to him prosperity

Who would observe what he commanded him:

Fruitful fields and vineyards overflowing with grapes,

A due mingling of sunshine and shower;                               220

He would curb the stars and make Saturn show favor;

Who’d been a plague would be a remedy;

The sword would not run loose within his borders, nay

He’d put all wars to flight by his virtue.

Thus peace, thus a sound body, and thus abundance

Are the righteous man’s the while he dreads God.

When righteous he arose, his good luck rose with him,

And if he falls his good luck rightly falls;

If he’s perverse, his prosperity will reverse,

When he’s evil, he shall garner evils.                                     230

Thus God disposes our seasons by our merits,

As his narratives show, if you pay heed.

Descending to men on earth, angel Raphael

Flew down from heaven to heal blind Tobit.

Conquered hell’s demons cannot withstand a righteous

Man’s command, but are made servant to him.

And the celestial elements, subdued by right,

Tend the righteous man and fulfill his prayers.

     By virtue of God, the wise man will rule the stars,

And all of heaven’s might will attend him.                            240

Orbits and cycles and all the spheres on high, too,

Are at the foot of the man God assists.

The sun stood in Gibeon for righteous Joshua,

And was unable to maintain its path.

At Joshua’s command, the sun’s wheel did not dare

Run, but stood fixed, uncertain of its course.

Indeed, an emissary star announced Christ’s birth,

By which God gave his peace to the righteous.

We read that Saint Gregory cured an airborne plague

In Rome by means of prayers that brought relief.                  250

Moses struck the sea with his rod, it split apart,

And the people entered it dry on foot.

When Peter’s firm faith began to believe in Christ’s

Words, the sea’s wave made a way for his feet.

For Elisha, iron sunk in swirling waters

Hastened to return upon the surface.

The fiery furnace took the three Hebrew youngsters,

But the flames, conquered, spared them without harm.

For blessed Hillary, the earth that had been flat

Raised up, and a lofty seat received him.                               260

Moses ordered streams in the desert to flow forth

From dry rocks, that the folk and cattle drink.

The king of the Macedonians joined cleft mountains;

God granted this because of righteous prayers.

     Every wild beast is conquered by a righteous man’s

Strength, the snake and lion, too, whom man subdues.

Babylon knew by this that Daniel was righteous,

And Rome saw that Sylvester was sacred.

And the birds of the air fell by Moses’ command,

And became food for the people of God.                               270

A fish saved Jonah for three days in its belly,

‘Til it spewed him out at Nineveh’s port.

Thus it’s plain that all divine creatures come under

The righteous man and are subject to him.

How rich, how happy with his great reward is man,

To whom alone all the world owes service!

Happy above all, he for whom all that the world

Holds rises up and obeys his commands!

But if the righteous man should act unrighteously,

He will experience a turn for the bad.                                    280

Chapter 6 

     Here he tells and relates how, according to the Scriptures, all creatures oppose and disobey a sinful man.

     When David committed wickedness, pestilence

Thickened the air and scattered his people.

And fire utterly consumed Sodom for its sins,

And Korah’s house was burned down for his crime.

The watery flood arrived because of our sins,

In which every kind suffered and perished.

And earth’s solid parts were liquified by their sins,

When cleft ground swallowed Dathan and Abiram.

And the Lord’s angel put Syria’s hosts to the sword,

And made their leader Lysias take flight.                              290

By night the demon Asmodeus slew Sarah’s

Seven wicked husbands, for God wished it.

     Fortune cannot bring unrighteous men well-being,

For creation and Creator deny it.

Fortune takes from the righteous man naught of value,

For God provides him aid, and fate nothing.

Who gave strength to Sampson, wisdom to Solomon,

His good looks to Absalom? Lo! Indeed

Nature gave them their bodies, and she’ll have them back;

God’s grace alone bestowed the soul’s virtues.                     300

It’s thus clear that Fortune bestows nothing on us,

Or takes aught away, since she grants nothing.

When Solomon governed such a peaceful kingdom,

And when he possessed so many riches,

When David stood against the giant Philistine

With his sling, did not God bring this to pass?

And when the days of the dying Hezekiah

Were prolonged, and death departed from him,

And when Susannah was found innocent of guilt,

And Esther was honored among her folk,                              310

Say, what good luck did Fortune confer on them then?

None, I think, nor do I ask who caused it.

You cannot venerate Fortune and worship God,

Nor can Fate be good if it does evil.

     In what way was Pharaoh able to blame Fortune,

When many of his men died for his rage?

Why did Nebuchadnezzar live among cattle,

His shape changed, unless he had been sinful?

What of Saul, who destroyed his kingdom and himself;

Did he not sin against God’s commandment?                        320

Did not perchance white leprosy fell Azariah,

When he usurped the temple priest’s functions?

What might Ahab say? When he took Naboth’s field,

His avarice was the cause of his death.

Or Rehoboam? Since he scorned the elders’ counsel,

He beat his breast to have his realm sundered.

Or Phineas and Hophni, whom war’s sword scattered

And the ark was seized? They had sinned before.

And why did Eli, toppling back with broken neck,

Fall from his chair when the reports stunned him?                330

Fortune’s lot could not bring such endings upon them,

Which happened to them because of their sins.

Who did evil earned in the end evil rewards,

For evil by right does in the evil.

     When the Hebrews sinned, venerating images,

God’s wrath delivered them up to their foes.

Forsaking images, they begged heaven with prayer,

And God made their enemies show their backs.

Then the Jewish kings prevailed over everyone,

When they did not transgress the laws of God.                     340

The Jewish people under arms always conquered

Their enemy’s forces when they were good.

But when they had transgressed, then their foe everywhere

Began to scatter them, conquered, captive.

Thus whatever is meant to be among mankind

Happens according to merit or fault.

So the dice tossed in the world will fall differently,

Since God is wont to put his hand in the game.

Chapter 7 

     Here he talks about God, the Highest Creator, who is triune and unitary,

in whose knowledge and disposition all created beings are ruled.

     God alone, who governs all, is omnipotent;

Abiding everywhere, he foresees all.                                     350

All the things to come are always present to him,

And he sees them made before they are made.

God was Father before the begotten and, first 

Creatures begotten, Mover and First Cause.

All that is had its time appointed to exist,

But God existed before there was time.

God is everything that is, was, will be, that he

Brings forth, but he exists outside of time.

No times can hold themselves coterminous with God,

But it’s plain he’s Lord God by prior right.                           360

     God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, 

The three names thus proclaim his three persons.

Whatsoever the person, he’s called Lord and God,

Sole God and at the same time only Lord.

There are the three persons, but only one being;

These three are one, not three, but three in one.

One essence abides in these three, one God is three;

Here nothing can be either more or less.

One mind in three, only one being in the three,

One goodness in the three, one wisdom trine                         370

     Fire, heat and motion appear to be three things,

But a burning fire ever has all three.

So Father, Son and Holy Ghost in the deity

Are three, and equally they denote one.

So when the Lord says, “Let us make man,” he teaches

Very clearly what the faith should maintain.

Here the one creator affirms the three persons,

While he remains one in his deity.

Chapter 8

     Here he talks about our Lord Jesus Christ, the incarnate son of God,

through whom we are reformed from wicked to good.

     Now it’s right we believe in the incarnate son,

Jesus Christ, whom we worship devoutly.                                380

The son took on the task; from the paternal mind,

God, from his bosom he came down below.

He proceeded, not receded, from the father,  

Came to the world below, but kept the stars.

Always he was of the father, in the father,

With the father, the same as the father.

Made flesh, he assumed flesh, although he did not cease,

Assuming it, to be what he had been.

Thus the flesh and the word are made one, so that they’re

Two persons in the same, true God throughout.                     390

He always remained what he was; what he was not,

He took from the virgin’s flesh, and was that.

A work equal to this work is nowhere seen, no

Honor, Mary, is thus equal to yours.

Weak in his flesh, but robust in his deity,

Less than Father by flesh, peer by godhead.

Here he eats, hence is eaten; here feeds, thence is fed,

Here is ruled, hence rules, here cannot, thence can.

Here he lies in a manger, seeks his mother’s breast,

Hence the heavenly order swears him God.                           400

Here a narrow stall holds him ‘neath a wretched roof,

Hence a guiding star leads kings unto him.

Here thirstiness, hunger, tears, hard work and sorrow,

But at the end he could endure his death.

A priceless possession offered for a price, God

Himself was betrayed and sold for some coins.

Delivered alive, he harrowed the savage close;

Then, seeking his father’s realm, he arose.

And when the end of the world has come, he’ll mete out

By his judgment to all what they have earned.                      410

     Thus perfect man and at the same time perfect God,

He fulfills fully what befits them both.

That he nursed on a breast shows he’s truly mortal;

That a new star announced him shows he’s God.

He’s seen to be man since a stall held him, God since

The three honored the one with threefold gifts.

That poor be rich; an infant, God; a king, homeless,

The Almighty demands to feed on milk,

Takes lodging in a stall, he whose home is the world’s

Framework, whose bedchamber is the sky’s high roof.         420

He came so that bread can hunger and rest can work,

Fountains run dry, so health can suffer pain,

Light be hidden by darkness, the sun lack its light,

So glory can be sad and life can die.

Thus moved by love he bore these things of his own will,

So that God might become man, in our flesh.

Just as weak Adam became our first sorrow’s cause,

Our mighty God has made joyous our task.

The sin of the first Adam wounds everyone born,

‘Til the second Adam’s water heals him.                               430

The first Adam governed the beasts, birds, and serpents;

Our second Adam bestrides everything.

The Fall in the old days led to tearful places;

The New Law makes a way to joyous sites.

So the man who wishes to be saved must believe,

And not know more than is permitted him.

Chapter 9

     Here he says that everyone ought to believe firmly and not probe the grounds of faith more than is seemly.

     When God brought forth the creation out of nothing,

He was God alone and without witness.

As he wished alone to act, so he wished alone

To know, and he shared this work with no one.                     440

No material, exquisite shape, unchanging

Structure has anything of our reason.

Submit your mind to faith, since a mortal likeness

Can’t grasp the eternal judge’s mysteries.

Sorrow, death, and tears do not know happiness, life,

And joys, nor does man know the things of God.

Shadows don’t receive the sun, a blind man, the light;

Man’s lowly mind can’t take the heights of God’s.

Truly, you ought never search the noble secret

Of the sacred spirit, which you can't probe.                             450

Or since it is not ours to know the world’s ages,

Why labors man to know the creation?

To fathom proven faith by means of our reason,

That task is beyond our human powers.

The human task is not to climb up to the stars,

Which mortal man can’t achieve by reason.

Only genius of great power goes to the heights,

Transcends the higher powers, dwells in God.

Let one who’s wise be more modest in these matters,

And ask to be able to have true faith.                                     460

Evil oft activates genius; it’s not for men

To know what God himself construes on high.

It’s better men not know some things; supreme matters

Vex the senses, so be soberly wise.

Let one entrust to faith what he can’t to reason;

Let a firm faith give what reason cannot.

     Exalt faith, for true faith hears, believes, and hopes what

It can’t see: this is way, life, salvation.

For faith provides the proofs that the mind cannot know,

And the reason is unable to grasp.                                          470

Whatever true faith seeks, it finds; it merits all;

I can believe whate’er can be believed.

The tongue stills, the mouth becomes dumb, the mind falters,

Ears don’t hear; nothing's here but faith alone.

How can one spark match the sun, one drop the ocean,

Or what can our ashes be to heaven?

But God wants us to worship him with loving heart,

The vast by the slight, highest by lowest.

Loving him, let there be no due measure or bound,

For nobody has loved him to his worth.                               480

He teaches whatever is right, but smooths what’s harsh,

Heals what's broke, casts out sin, lifts the fallen.

For the cross with its nails, suffused with rosy blood,

Is salvation when Satan is expelled.

     Whoever contemplates Jesus should put aside

His old conduct and tend to better things.

Through this name life is given to all, and no one

Can be blessed without Jesus’ name alone.

There’s no saint like this Lord, who makes sinners holy,

And who alone was free from every stain.                             490

And there’s none other but you, for they’re all nothing

Which a golden shape falsely proclaims gods.

Thus through you the Church blesses us, lavish of goods,

And the Synagogue is bereft of goods.

Chapter 10

     Here he says that no trust should be placed in a graven or molten image, nor should such be worshipped, but that a repentant mind may be more quickly moved to the contemplation of the one God by the sight of them in church.

     O cursed folk, traitor to God, indeed pagans,

Whom disbelief keeps from being holy,

Whom Christ’s true faith abhors, for outside the true law

Of the Creator, they worship mere wood.

Man is made to bow down, prostrates himself, adores

Wood, forgetting about his Creator.                                        500

Wood, stones, whatever he sees in a carved image,

That is what he declares to be his god.

Man, whom God raised up, lies prone before some embers,

And prays to a statue carved from a post.

He prays for wealth, begs for help, implores with his hands

Things his hand made, but they, mute, don’t reply.

How empty and wretched his reason and his sense,

That the master of things makes things his god!

     O you confused in mind, remember the lesson,

By whom man was made in the beginning.                      510

Recall to mind the high honor that God bestowed

On you once when he first gave you being.

Wasn’t the world made in the beginning for you,

And its riches subject to your command?

The world was not made for your worship, but your use,

To be your servant, not to be your god.

So, what reason persuades you that what the workman

Melts in fire or planes in wood is a god?

O wretch, why do you call your empty idols gods,

And, made in God’s likeness, fall before fakes?                    520

Alas! this madness to worship mute gods, when they

Know nothing, is the worst of all the sins.

Why attribute salvation to such images,

That do not have motion, touch, taste, nor sight?

What’s less to a rational being than a brute,

What’s less to living kind than what ne’er lived?

One part of the tree is a stake; one part, idol,

Part cooks your food; and it was all one tree.

Look how I abuse two parts, but cannot explain

By what reason the third should be worshipped.                    530

“Let he who makes them and he who has faith in them

Be made like them,” thus God himself commands.

The sculptor is worth more than the sculpture. Workers

Who worship their work are very foolish.

     We use our sculpted figures otherwise, I think,

Not by weakening God’s laws in our worship.

We have them in order that we be more mindful

To give the saints personal devotions.

For we believe in God, not in the gods, nor does

The Gentile rite hold us: away with it!                                    540

But when one makes and decorates statues for gain,

So that he thinks to get gifts from the plebs,

When he who, devoted to gold, contrives such work,

I don’t think such craft has any merit.

And when God spoke to Moses upon the mountain,

The people saw no figure of their God.

For if the people had seen such an appearance,

Perchance they would have sculpted that same form.

But God, who spurned the honor of such a sculpture,

Did not want his shape noted any way.                                  550

But I think God’s image is flesh joined to reason,

Through which he lays claim upon his worship.

     In crucified Jesus’ honor, the cross’ sign

Pressed in our minds should be worship enough.

The cross’s strength conquered hell and, Satan cast down,

The cross repaired the burden of our fall.

The cross is true salvation, venerable wood,

Death’s death, life’s door, eternal ornament.

It purifies the breast, cleanses the mind from blight,

Brightens the heart, and makes the body pure;                      560

It gives sense, augments strength, both takes away the fear

Of death and prepares the heart for battle.

Freedom returns in the cross, and, the foe conquered,

That power dies that erstwhile brought us death.

Religion, rite, and worship join all the people’s

Sacred things nicely as one in the cross.

Eden’s gates open in the cross, the flaming sword

Ceases to be guard of that distant place.

Behold how many figures prefigure the cross,

How every page predicts it beautifully.                                 570

Wondrous is the tree’s power, where the high father’s

Only son was dragged that he might suffer.  

By the cross’s power Christ harrowed hell, and thence

He recovered the sheep that had been lost.

By the cross’s power he rose to heaven, and

In the father’s light reached his starry realms.

The glorified flesh, which bore his pains on the cross,

Presides in heaven, by the seat of God.

By virtue of the pious cross and divine love,

Grace rises in the Church with the New Law.                           580

Chapter 11

     Here he says that, since he alone created everything, God alone should be worshipped by his creatures, and also that it is most reasonable that he alone governs everything and judges man as he wishes according to merits and defects. 

     Always he is, was, and will be one triune God;

For him there is no beginning nor end.

Yet he gave everything a beginning and end;

Through him is all and without him, nothing.

Sufficient to himself, he can do what he wills;

He ordains, and what he ordains becomes.

I want him to be my heavenly God at whose

Command I believe all creation serves;

When God’s hand is open, it pours out abundance;

When he turns it away, he takes all back.                             590

Wise, he allocates all things with rightful judgment,

For God himself can’t want or be wanting.

It’s likewise right, since God created everything,

That he have jurisdiction over all.

Since all things were created by God’s will alone,

Is Fortune able to undo God’s work?

Who played no role at the start, nor will in the end,

I think will have no role in the meantime.

     Who made the earth’s mass, the heaven’s revolving dome,

 Or the stars move? Surely, was it not God?                          600

Who gave taste to the springs in the sweet flowing streams;

Who made the seas bitter? Was it not God?

Earth’s founder wanted beings for what he founded,

So that the whole creation would serve God.

He dressed the earth with plants and the plants with blossoms;

He caused the blossoms to swell into fruits.

With great devotion, he took care to enrich earth,

And to make it abundantly fruitful. 

Nor was he satisfied that the earth was wealthy

In rivers, springs, gardens, flowers and buds.                       610

He resolved to vary new things, form diverse shapes,

And separate them by their appearance.

The earth received living beings of diverse sorts,

And groaned with the weight of its new burden;

He assigned them place according to their natures,

According to their essence gave to each,

Mountains to these, valleys to those, woodlands to these,

To many the plains giving habitat.

Birds took to the air; fish claimed for themselves the sea;

Cattle, the flatlands; savage beasts, the wilds.                       620

Craft suggests forms for the work, and the workman shapes; 

The whole structure ensues from his hands’ skills.

     Fortune contributes nothing, but since God alone

Creates all, he alone rules creation.

Nothing is luckless and nothing is blessed by Chance;

God grants his gifts to man for his merits.

Whatever happens, wise men who ponder Scripture

Will not say Fortune is responsible.

I truly affirm, whatever happens on earth,

Whether good or evil, we are the cause.                                630