Gregory of Nazianzus on Basil: the box set

Following on from my last blog post, I've now translated all eleven surviving epigrams by Gregory on the death of his close friend and colleague, Basil, the bishop of Caesarea Mazaca (modern Kayseri) in what is now Turkey but was then Cappadocia. Basil was subsequently canonised as St Basil 'the Great'. Gregory 'the Theologian' followed him into sainthood, but not quickly enough for his own liking.

Gregory was a crucial figure in the formation of Christian doctrine and helped shape the Byzantine church: you can read about his achievements on Wikipedia. His poetic epitaphs for family and friends don't get a lot of love, but I think they're rather wonderful. He felt deeply, and his life was shaken by repeated and devastating personal losses.

Two of these translations appear in my forthcoming World's Classics translation, but the rest are new for the blog. He signs off the sequence as a 'dozen epigrams', so one has probably dropped out along the way.

Further epigrams from Gregory of Nazianzus

8.2

On the great Basil, Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia

I sooner thought body could outlive soul

Than I could live without you, Basil, friend,

Christ’s workman. Yet I bore it, and remained.

So must we wait? Will you not take me up,

And place me in the chorus of the Blessed,

Where you are stationed? Do not leave me here;

Do not, I beg: I swear upon your tomb,

Never will I forget you and move on;

I could not, if I wanted. Gregory.

8.3

On the same Basil the Great

When godly-minded Basil sped away,

Snatched by the Trinity and glad to go,

The whole of Heaven’s host rejoiced he came;

But all of Cappadocia’s city sighed.

And not alone; the world cried out in pain:

Gone is our messenger, and with him gone

The one who bound us in majestic peace.

8.4

On the Same

Now all the world is rocking to and fro,

The portion due to balanced Trinity, 

As rival words fight for the upper hand.

It is disgraceful. And I cry in pain —

For Basil’s lips are sealed and speak no more.

Only awake, and all the storm will cease

To hear your sermon, know your ministry.

For you alone were seen to be your match:

Living, you matched the legend told of you;

And your own legend rose to meet your life.

8.5

On the Same

There is one God, who rules us from on high;

And our age knew but one exalted priest:

You, Basil, angel shouting forth the truth,

A blazing eye for Christians everywhere,

Resplendent in the beauties of your soul,

Pontus’ and Cappadocia’s greatest pride.

Now as before, I pray, stand firm for us

And offer up your talents for the world.

8.6

On the Same

Basil’s son, Basil, their exalted priest,

The citizens of Caesarea laid

Within this tomb; and I was Gregory’s friend.

I loved him from the bottom of my heart.

I pray that God may grant him every boon,

But most of all to change his life for this,

That we enjoy. What good to tarry long

On earth, and pine away, missing your friend

Who has become a citizen of Heaven?

8.7

On the Same

You only breathed on earth a little time,

But you laid all your gifts before the Christ:

Body and soul, words and accomplishments;

Basil, Christ’s glory and the priests’ defence,

And to this day a bastion filled with truth

Against the blossoming of heresy.

8.8

On the Same

You conversations, and you home we shared

In friendship, and you Athens that we loved;

You mutual bond we swore at long remove

To lead a godly life: know Basil now

Is up in Heaven, as his heart desired;

Gregory is on earth, his lips in chains.

8.9

On the Same

Great hymn of Caesarea, shining friend:

Basil, your voice was thunder, and your life

A flash of lighting. Yet despite all this

You left your holy seat: for Christ desired

Your company in Heaven urgently.

8.10

On the Same

You knew the furthest reaches of the soul,

And all such wisdom as this earth can claim;

You were a holy temple come to life.

8.10b

On the Same

Eight years you grasped the reins and steered the folk

Whose care is God; and, Basil, of your deeds

This was the only one that counted small.

11

On the same

Fond greeting, Basil, though you went away.

This little epitaph is Gregory’s;

Mine was the talk you liked to listen to.

My Basil, please accept from your friend’s hand

The gift I prayed never to have to give.

My godly Basil, to your mortal dust

I dedicate these dozen epigrams.

New translations: Gregory of Nazianzus

These two fourth-century AD poems by Gregory are part of a long sequence (8.2-11) mourning the death of his close friend, Basil, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia (the modern Kayseri). Basil was an important advocate of the doctrinal orthodoxy hammered out at the Council of Nicaea and expressed in the new Nicene Creed; he was also one of the founding fathers of monasticism. He is a saint to both the Catholic and Orthodox faiths, the latter of which awards him the epithet Οὐρανοφάντωρ, ‘Revealer of Heaven’.

A couple of the other poems from this sequence are forthcoming in Epigrams from the Greek Anthology, published later this year, but these two translations are new. Gregory feels like a good poet to be translating right now.

8.3

On the same Basil the Great

When godly-minded Basil sped away,

Snatched by the Trinity and glad to go,

The whole of Heaven’s host rejoiced he came;

But all of Cappadocia’s city sighed.

And not alone; the world cried out in pain:

Gone is our messenger, and with him gone

The one who bound us in majestic peace.

8.4

On the Same

Now all the world is rocking to and fro,

The portion due to balanced Trinity, 

As rival words fight for the upper hand.

It is disgraceful. And I cry in pain —

For Basil’s lips are sealed and speak no more.

Only awake, and all the storm will cease

To hear your sermon, know your ministry.

For you alone were seen to be your match:

Living, you matched the legend told of you;

And your own legend rose to meet your life.

update: I've now translated the whole sequence of Gregory's poems to Basil. Enjoy? if that's the word.

From book 7 of the Anthology: brief lives

Three young lives cut short, for these uncertain times. The first was a famous author; the others, nobody in particular, except that each of them meant everything to someone.

AP 7.7 (Asclepiades)

This sweet work is ERINNA’s — it is small,

For she was but a girl of nineteen years,

And yet it is more powerful than most.

If Hades had not come for me so soon,

What other might now own so great a name?

AP 7.170 (Posidippus, or Callimachus)

He played beside the well, Archianax,

A boy of three. His mute reflection called.

The mother pulled him soaking out, her son,

To see if any trace of life remained. 

The child did not pollute the spring with death;

He slept upon her knee, and here sleeps sound.

7.185 (Antipater of Thessalonica)

Italian earth holds me, a Libyan girl:

Beneath these sands near Rome I lie unwed.

Pompeia raised me like I was her own,

And set me free, and wept to lay me here.

She hoped to see my marriage-torch ablaze;

But she was thwarted, and my brand was lit

Not as we’d prayed, but by Persephone.

I'm getting the urge to translate more Gregory (AP 8), the Anthology's most concentrated poet of loss.

World's Classics Greek Anthology update

I hope readers will be pleased to know that my new translation, 'Epigrams from the Greek Anthology', is now on the online catalogue for release this autumn, between Joyce and Trollope:

https://global.oup.com/ukhe/disciplines/literature/oxford-worlds-classics/?cc=ie&lang=en&

It has an ISBN and everything, so it must be very nearly real now. I had the pleasure of dealing with a most excellent copyeditor who completely understood what I was about, and the latest from my handler at the Press is that I can probably expect to see page proofs by the end of the month. At which, point, indexing, yay! (I love indexing; I know this makes me weird.)

The cover is a beauty: it's a detail from Lawrence Alma-Tadema's Spring (1894), currently at the Getty. That's the very same painting from which the cover of my World's Classics 'Martial' was also excerpted; I wanted to weave in a family connection.

AP 11 .102 and 108: one skinny, one short

Both of these are in my translation for The World’s Classics.

AMMIANUS, OR SOME SAY NICARCHUS

Diodorus was such a skinny runt,
One time he pulled a thorn out of his foot,
And poked his foot right through its sharpened spine.

ANONYMOUS

Cōnon is three feet tall, his wife is six.

In bed their feet lie all along a line;
Consider then where Cōnon’s mouth must go.

Ancient audiences were happy to laugh at physical difference, including disability and deformity; Robert Garland's The Eye of the Beholder is a good study of this.

AP 15.15: Constantine at Lindos

On the Cross he erected at Lindos

The son of John and of Eudocia

Wrought me here famous: he was Constantine,

Whom vaunting Lindos bore, the foremost man

Of all the generation that has gone,

And sceptred Leo’s trusty adjutant.

His brother, Alexander, and his son,

Also a Constantine, both carried forth

The kingdom’s sceptres warranted by God.

Lindos is a historic town of Rhodes. Alan Cameron has argued strongly that Constantine of Rhodes oversaw the production of the manuscript of the Palatine Anthology in the generation after Cephalas, and suggests that Book 15 was added by him. Leo VI died in 912, and was succeeded by his brother Alexander (emperor 912-13) and his son, Constantine VII ‘Porphyrogenitus’, sired out of wedlock but ‘born in the purple’ of the Imperial bedroom suite (913-959).