Hymn 3

3. Hymn in Honour of the Passion of Eulalia, Most Blessed Martyr.

Eulalia, noble in her lineage

and nobler in her manner of death,

honours her own Merida, the holy maiden—

the city from whose breast she sprang—

with her bones, and cherishes it in love.

There is a place near the setting sun

that bore this rare distinction,

mighty in its city, rich in peoples,

but mightier in the blood of martyrdom

and powerful by the title of her virginity.

Through three courses and nine

she had four times reached three winters,

when with a crackling pyre she terrified

the trembling, harsh executioners,

counting the torment sweet to her.

She had given proof before

that she stretched toward the Father’s throne

and that her limbs were not dedicated to the marriage-bed:

she had pushed away her very rattles,

a little girl who knew not how to play;

to scorn amber, to spurn roses,

to reject golden necklaces,

stern of face, modest in her step,

and, with manners too tender,

she rehearsed the grey hairs of the old.

But when the maddened plague

rouses itself against the Lord’s servants

and bloodily bids the worshippers of Christ

burn incense, to make smoke

of a beast’s liver to deadly gods,

the holy spirit of Eulalia

roared up, and fierce in temper

prepared to break the turbulent wars,

and, a woman, with breath untrained,

she provokes God to the arms of men.

But the pious care of her mother contrives

that the spirited maiden should hide at home,

concealed in the country and far from the city,

lest the wild girl, in love with death,

should rush to the price of her blood.

She, loathing to bear the relief of rest

with a degenerate delay,

by night, with no witness, stirs the doors

and, escaping, opens the enclosed bars;

then by trackless ways she takes her road.

She sets out with torn feet

through places rough with neglect and brambles,

attended by an angelic choir,

and though the bristling night is silent,

yet she has light for her guide.

So the noble throng of the fathers

had a pillar-bearing ray,

which, able to cut a path through the dark

night with a clear torch,

gave it as chaos passed away.

No otherwise the pious maiden, following

her road by night, deserved the day,

nor was she covered by the darkness,

while she fled the realms of Canopus

and made her way above the stars.

She, swift with sleepless step,

covers many miles before

the eastern region opens the sky;

at morning, proud, she comes to the tribunal,

stands amid the fasces

crying out: “I ask, what madness is it

to destroy souls headlong,

and, hearts wickedly lavish of themselves,

to throw them down on polished crags,

and to deny God the Father of all?

Do you seek, O pitiable band,

the race of Christ’s worshippers? Lo, here am I,

an enemy to the demonic rites;

I trample the idols beneath my feet,

and with heart and mouth I confess God.

Isis, Apollo, Venus are nothing,

and Maximian himself is nothing:

they nothing, because made by hand,

he, because he worships the works of hands,

both frivolous and both nothing.

Maximian, lord of wealth

and yet himself a client of stones,

let him prostitute and vow

his own head to his deities:

why does he shake noble breasts?

A good leader, a rare judge,

he feeds on innocent blood,

and, gaping after pious bodies,

he tears apart sober flesh,

and rejoices to torture faith.

Come then, torturer, burn, cut,

divide my limbs compacted of clay.

To loosen a fragile thing is easy:

the inner mind will not be pierced,

though pain harass it.”

Roused to fury by such words

the praetor says: “Seize the headstrong girl,

lictor, and overwhelm her with torments,

let her feel there are gods of her fathers

and that the prince’s rule is no light thing.

Yet how I would wish, before your death,

if it be possible, to call back

your wickedness, you grim little girl;

look back on what great joys you reap,

which a wedded honour brings you.

Your house, shaken with tears,

follows you, and the anxious

nobility of your line laments

that you die in the tender flower,

so near to dowries and the marriage-bed.

Does the golden pomp of the marriage-couch not move you,

nor the venerable affection of the old,

whom your reckless frailty wounds?

See, the services are ready

of a torturing death:

either you will be struck on the head with a sword,

or your limbs will be torn by beasts,

or, given to smoking torches

and to be wailed over piteously by your kin,

dissolved into ashes you will flow away.

What labour, I ask, is it to flee these?

If a little salt with your fingertips

and a little incense with your fingers

you would, kind maiden, deign to touch,

a grievous punishment will be far away.”

To this the martyr says nothing; but indeed

she roars, and into the tyrant’s eyes

she throws her spittle, then scatters

the images, and the meal set

on the censers she crushes with her foot.

Without delay, two executioners

tear her reed-slender breast,

and the claw strikes her maiden side

on both sides and cuts to the bone,

while Eulalia counts the marks.

“See, you write upon me, Lord;

how it delights to read these letters

that mark your trophies, Christ!

The very purple of the blood drawn forth

speaks the sacred name.”

These things, without weeping or groan,

glad and undaunted she sang;

dread pain is absent from her spirit,

and her limbs, painted with fresh gore,

a warm-flowing fount washes her skin.

Then came the final torture—

not a wounding laceration,

nor the skin ploughed to the rib-cage,

but a flame on every side, with torches,

rages against her flank and breast.

As her fragrant hair had flowed

over her throat, floating on her shoulders,

with which her bashful modesty

and a maiden’s honour might lie hidden,

the covering of her head set in its way,

the crackling flame flies into her face

and, fed through her hair, seizes

her head and rises above its crown;

the maiden, longing for a swift death,

reaches out and drinks the pyre with her mouth.

Then suddenly a dove darts forth,

whiter than snow, seen to leave

the martyr’s mouth and to follow the stars;

this was Eulalia’s spirit,

milk-white, swift, and harmless.

Her neck sinks as the soul departs

and the fiery pyre dies down;

peace is given to the lifeless limbs,

her breath rejoices and exults in the air

and, winged, seeks the lofty temples.

The attendant himself saw the bird

pass openly from the woman’s mouth,

and, stupefied and thunderstruck,

he leaps up and flees his own deeds,

and the lictor himself flees in terror.

Behold, the icy winter heaps up snow

and covers the whole forum,

and at the same time covers the limbs of Eulalia

lying under the frozen sky

like the linen of a little shroud.

Let the love of weeping men give way,

who are wont to celebrate the last rites,

let the tearful service give way:

the very elements, at God’s command,

bear your funeral, O maiden.

Now there is a place at Merida for her tomb,

a famous colony of Vettonia,

which the memorable river Ana

passes by, and, swift with its greening

current, washes the fair walls.

Here, where with clear marble

a kindly brightness lights the halls,

both the stranger and the native,

the venerable earth keeps the relics

and sacred ashes in its bosom.

Above, the gleaming roofs glow red

with little golden panels,

and cut stones variegate the floor,

so that you would think rosy meadows

were reddening with flowers of every kind.

Gather the purple violets

and reap the blood-red crocuses,

the genial winter does not lack these,

and the warming frost loosens the fields,

that it may heap the baskets with flowers.

Give these gifts from leafy boughs,

maiden and boy, give them.

But I, in the midst of the choir,

will bring garlands woven in dactylic measure,

cheap, withered, yet festal.

So it pleases to venerate her bones

and the altar set upon her bones:

she, placed beneath the feet of God,

looks upon these things, and, won by song,

cherishes her own peoples.