Hymn 6

6. Hymn in Honour of the Most Blessed Martyrs Fructuosus, Bishop of the Church of Tarragona, and Augurius and Eulogius, Deacons.

Happy Tarragona, Fructuosus, by your fires

lifts up its head, glittering,

shining from afar with two deacons.

God looks kindly upon the Spaniards,

since the powerful Trinity crowns

the Spanish citadel with a threefold martyr.

Burning Augurius seizes the heavens,

and Eulogius too, at the same time, radiant,

stretches toward the throne of Christ on high.

Their leader, going before, and their master

toward so great a glory, illustrious

in his episcopal name, was Fructuosus,

for, summoned suddenly by the governor’s

command, the priest had come to the forum

with his two deacons accompanying him.

Then to the prison’s chain the executioner,

fed on blood, was dragging the men;

Fructuosus rejoices to run forward of his own will.

And, lest any fear should strike his companions,

the vehement teacher strengthens them as they go

and kindles their faith with the warmth of Christ.

“Stand with me, men. The bloody serpent

calls God’s ministers to their punishment;

let not death frighten you; the palm is prepared.

Prison, for Christ’s worshippers, is a step to the crown,

prison carries them up to the heights of heaven,

prison reconciles God to the blessed.”

With these words they enter the cave of the accused,

they perform there the mystic washing,

and the darkness is amazed at the cleansing of the water.

Here for six continuous days they lie hidden;

at last they stand before the savage enemy’s tribunal:

the racks tremble at the three brothers.

The judge Aemilianus loomed over them,

fierce, turbulent, insolent, profane;

he ordered the demonic altars to be worshipped.

“You who, a teacher,” he says, “sow a new

kind of fiction, so that fickle girls

forsake the groves and abandon Jupiter,

condemn, if you are wise, this old wives’ dogma.

It is commanded by the mouth of Caesar Gallienus

that what the prince worships, all of us should worship.”

To him speaking thus the calm priest replies:

“I worship the eternal prince of days,

the maker and lord of Gallienus,

and Christ, sprung from the everlasting Father,

whose servant I am, and the shepherd of his flock.”

Smiling, that man says: “You were such once.”

Nor does his fury delay or curb its anger,

he dooms them to be burned in savage fires.

They exult and forbid the crowd to weep.

The priest sees some of the people

offering him a cup to sip:

“We are fasting,” he says; “I refuse the drink:

not yet does the ninth hour unseal the day;

never will I violate the dedicated law,

nor will death itself dissolve my holy rule.

So Christ, thirsting beneath the hour of the cross,

refusing the cup offered to him

and unwilling to taste, carried his thirst through.”

Meanwhile they enter a place shut in

by a rounded cage, soaked with the blood

of many beasts, which fury frequents,

when bloody spectacles resound

and a worthless gladiator, struck

by the hard sword, falls, and pleasure roars.

Here, with a blazing pyre, a black minister,

ordered to prepare the burning punishment,

built up the pyre with the final torches,

who, while he frees the bodies to be burned,

might release their souls, fervent with the love of light,

from the broken cave of the prison.

The pious companions vie in their services:

with the sandals loosed from his feet,

one, bending down, was eager to draw them off,

but holy Fructuosus forbids his bowed

face to be pressed upon: “Be gone,” he says,

“nor let your service burden my death.

Rather I myself will loosen my own feet,

lest my steps, hindered by the bonds,

rush into the fire with slow paces.

Why do laments wet your dripping cheeks?

Why do you ask that I be mindful of you?

For all the peoples I shall ask Christ.”

Scarcely had he said this when he himself loosens

the coverings of his feet, as Moses

once had done, drawing near to the bush.

It was not permitted to tread on the sacred burning

or to stand before God

before pure feet were set forward.

He stood with bare heel: lo, behold,

his spirit leaps up to heaven and sows a saying

which made all who heard it tremble:

“It is not, believe me, a punishment that you see,

which, hastened, passes in a thin moment,

nor does it snatch away life, but reshapes it.

Happy the souls to whom it falls

to climb on high to the Thunderer through fire,

whom one day the everlasting fire will flee.”

Amid these words they enter with swift steps

the crackling hearths, and threaten

the very trembling furnaces of the flames.

At last the bonds, which had drawn back their hands,

bound behind upon their backs,

fall away, burned, the skin untouched.

The punishment did not dare to hold back the palms,

to be raised to the Father in the manner of the cross;

it loosed the arms that they might pray to God.

You would think it the likeness of the three of old,

whom once, singing through the Babylonian fire,

the trembling tyrant beheld amazed.

But the pious flame then spared them,

the time of their passion not yet ripe,

and Christ not yet beginning the glory of death.

When the steaming heat shrank from these,

they pray that swift fire might fly to them

and give an end to their anxious perils.

Entreated, the Majesty at last bids

his servants to die, sent forth

from their perishing bodies and given back to himself.

An attendant from the governor’s house saw

heaven lie open to the martyrs

and the glorious men borne through the stars.

Indeed, warning his master’s little daughters,

he showed the mark of his father’s crime,

that those whom the forum slew live in heaven.

Then virginity was granted openly to see these things

through the clear sky, while the parent was blind,

that the house might fear its lord’s crime.

Then from the holy bodies the ashes

and the bones, drenched with wine, are gathered,

which in haste each one claimed for himself.

So great was the brethren’s love to carry home

the dedicated gifts of the holy ashes,

or to bear the faithful pledge in their bosom.

But lest they should divide among separate tombs,

in different places, the relics that must be raised again

and that soon will be with the Lord together,

they are seen, clad in snow-white robes,

commanding that the dust to be consecrated be restored

and shut up, mingled, in a hollow of marble.

O threefold honour, O three-formed summit,

by which the head of our city is exalted,

eminent above all the Spanish cities!

It is fitting to exult in three patrons,

by whose protection we are all cherished,

the peoples of the Pyrenean lands.

Let a choir of both sexes stand around;

hero, maiden, boy, old man, old woman,

sing duly the psalm of your Fructuosus.

Let the hymn echo, praising Augurius,

matching Eulogius with mingled measures;

let us render equal songs to equals.

Here let the gilded roofs sound in the citadel,

there let the soothing murmur of the shore arise,

and let the holiday seas compose a song.

One day there will be a time, as the world falls,

when Fructuosus, covering you, Tarragona,

from the fire, will free you from sharp torment.

Perhaps he will deign to give a remedy too

to my torments, with Christ’s favouring grace,

as he turns over these sweet hendecasyllables.