Hymn 4

4. Hymn in Honour of the Eighteen Holy Martyrs of Zaragoza.

Twice nine our people keeps, beneath a single

tomb, the ashes of the martyrs:

Zaragoza we call the city

to which so great a thing belongs.

The house, full of mighty angels,

does not fear the ruin of the fragile world,

bearing in its bosom so many gifts at once

to be offered to Christ,

when God, brandishing his glittering right hand,

borne upon a reddening cloud, shall come

to set for the nations a just

balance with even weight.

Roused from the great world, the city,

each one carrying its precious

gifts in baskets, will hasten

to go to meet Christ.

African Carthage will bring forth your bones,

O learned Cyprian, eloquent of speech;

Cordova will give Acisclus and Zoellus,

and three crowns.

You with three gems will offer a fair diadem

to Christ, mother of the pious,

Tarragona, for whom Fructuosus wove

a stitched-together bond,

(this is the name of the gem bound in the band);

beside it gleam twin stones,

and an equal splendour of the two burns

with a glittering fire.

Wealthy Gerona will display the small glory

of Felix in his holy limbs;

our Calahorra will carry both

whom we venerate.

Barcelona, relying on illustrious Cucufas,

will rise, and Narbonne, made beautiful by Paul,

and powerful Arles will hold you,

holy Genesius.

The chief of the towns of the Lusitanians,

the city, seizing the ashes of the adored maiden,

to meet Christ will hold her out

herself to the altar.

The blood of Justus, to whom Pastor clings,

a twofold offering and a double gift,

Complutum will be glad to bring in its lap,

the limbs of two,

Tangier will heap up its Cassian,

the festal monuments of the Massylian kings,

whose ashes drove the conquered nations

to the yoke of Christ.

To each, a few; with three or two,

and perhaps with five, some will be pleasing

as witnesses of Christ, having first

discharged the pledge of their sacrifice:

you will bring back eighteen holy ones,

Zaragoza, zealous for Christ,

your head bound with golden olive,

with the honour of peace.

You alone have prepared for the Lord, to meet him,

more numerous throngs of martyrs,

you alone, most rich in great piety,

enjoy the light.

Scarcely the populous parent of the Punic world,

scarcely Rome herself, set upon her throne,

is worthy, our glory, to surpass you

in this gift.

At all the gates the sacred blood, offered up,

has shut out the race of envious

demons, and driven away the black darkness,

the city purified.

No horror of the shades lurks within,

for the plague, driven off, flees the people;

Christ dwells in all the streets,

Christ is everywhere.

You would believe this a homeland owed

to the martyrs’ sacred crowns, whence a choir, rising,

stretches toward heaven, snow-white with the toga’d

nobility,

thence, O conqueror, your palm was born,

the clergy here brought forth so great a triumph,

here the fillet-crowned house of the priestly

Valerii.

As often as a savage whirlwind, in the storms

of old, made the troubled world tremble,

a sadder fury brought its angers

against this temple,

and no madness departed without praise of ours,

or empty of illustrious blood;

the number of martyrs always grew

beneath every hailstorm.

Did you not, O conqueror, a martyr destined to be slain

abroad, mark for these lands with a thin

dew of blood the likeness of what was to come,

in your nearby death?

This the citizens honour, as though their own

turf enclosed his very limbs and, embracing,

kept in a father’s tomb the bones

of the blessed martyr.

He is ours, although, having suffered far from here

in an unknown city, he gave the glory

of his tomb, a conqueror, near the shore of high

Saguntum, as it chanced.

Ours too, a boy in our wrestling-school,

anointed with the oil of valour and of faith,

learned by his art to tame with strength

the dreadful foe,

he knew the palms won famous in this temple,

eight times and ten times gained;

taught by his country’s laurels, he ran

with the same praise,

here too, Encratis, rest the bones

of your virtues, with which, savage virgin,

you disgraced the spirit

of the violent world.

To none of the martyrs, while life remained,

has it fallen to dwell in our lands;

you alone, surviving your own death,

live in the world.

You live, and unfold the sequence of your suffering,

and, keeping the spoil of your mangled flesh,

you tell what bitter furrows the foul

wounds possess.

The barbarous torturer tore every side,

blood was spent, the limbs were lacerated,

the breast lay open, the nipple cut away

beneath the very heart.

Now of less worth is a death completed,

which, abolishing the venomed pains,

gives to the limbs a hastened rest

with a drowsy end.

A raw scar held you long,

and pain clung burning in your veins for long,

while a wasting humour thinned

your rotting marrow.

Though the persecutor’s envious sword

denied you the final death,

yet, martyr, a full penalty crowns you

as though slain,

we have seen a part of your liver torn away

and lying far off, gripped by the claws:

pale death has something of yours,

though you yet live.

This new title for our Zaragoza to enjoy

Christ himself has given,

that the house might be the consecrated dwelling

of a living martyr,

so, with three times six sacred white-robed ones,

O rich one, with Optatus and at the same time Lupercus,

go on to set forth in psalms the senate

enrolled for you,

name Successus, sing Martialis,

let the death of Urbanus be sung together for you,

let your song echo Julia and at the same time

Quintilianus.

Let the choir name Publius, and recount

what the trophy of Fronto was,

what good Felix bore, what fierce

Caecilianus,

how great a blood, Evotus, stained your wars,

how great yours, Primitivus,

then let lively praise recall your triumphs,

Apodemius.

After these there remains the name of four

men, which the metre refuses to raise up,

whom ancient antiquity records were called

the Saturnini.

The laws of song the love of golden

names sets at little worth, and the care

of speaking about the saints is not faulty

nor ever rude.

It is a measure full of art to recite to Christ

the noted forms of their names,

which the book of heaven holds, to be unfolded

in its due time,

then will the angel recall eight saints and ten

before the Father and the Son,

holding the governance of one city

by right of the tomb.

Indeed to the ancient number will be drawn

the maiden alive after the proof of her suffering,

and the death, O conqueror, which is for you the fount

of blood and of honour,

with Gaius added (for he is not to be passed in silence)

and you, Crementius, to whom it fell

to bear a bloodless glory from a second

contest of praise,

both stood having confessed the Lord

fiercely against the roaring of the robbers,

both lightly tasted the savour

of the martyrdoms.

This throng, set beneath the eternal altar,

prays pardon for our falls,

the throng whom the mother of the purple-robed

nobles keeps,

grant that with pious weeping we may wash through

the furrows of the marbles by which it is covered,

that I may loosen the bonds of my own

fetters of hope,

lay yourself down whole, noble city,

with me upon the holy tombs; then

soon you will follow, with souls and limbs

rising again, whole.