THE "PARADISE LOST" OF ST. AVITUS.
The indebtedness of Milton to Andreini for the conception of Paradise Lost, is proved not only by internal evidence, but by the ascertained fact that the English poet was well acquainted with the work of the Italian. Another poet of merit, centuries before, had produced a noble work on the subject, with which we may suppose, from Milton's classical and theological learning, he was familiar, though no proof exists that he had read it. We refer to the three poems of St. Avitus, Bishop of Vienne, The Creation, Original Sin, and The Judgment of God, which form a triad, or a poem in three parts. Its resemblance to Paradise Lost, in general idea and in some important details, is very striking, and a curious fact in literature. These, with other works of the author, were published at the beginning of the sixteenth century, though written long before.
Alcimus Ecdicius Avitus, born about the middle of the fifth century, was of a senatorial family in Auvergne. He became bishop A.D. 490, dying in 525. His part in the church of Gaul was active and important, as he was chief among the orthodox bishops of the east and south of Gaul, and Vienne belonged to the Burgundian Arians. In the struggle to maintain the true faith against the Arians, St. Avitus had to contend not only against theological adversaries, but the civil power. In the year 499 he held a conference at Lyons with some Arian bishops, in the presence of King Gondebald; and he influenced King Sigismund to return to the true belief.
He was the most distinguished among all the Christian poets from the sixth to the eighth century, and only the obscurity of the age can account for the oblivion into which his works have fallen. It is true that his poetry abounds in labored comparisons and artificial antitheses; but in treating of sacred subjects he adheres to the scriptural simplicity, and though living much nearer to the days of paganism than Milton, has nothing like his mythological allusions and ornaments. He wrote a hundred letters on his own times, besides homilies and treatises. His six poems are in hexameter verse. They are, The Creation, (De Initio Mundi,) Original Sin, (De Originali Peccato,) The Judgment of God, (De Sententia Dei,) The Deluge, (De Diluvio Mundi,) The Passage of the Red Sea, (De Transitu Maris Rubri,) and In Praise of Virginity, (De Consolatoria Laude Castitatis, etc.) The first three constitute what may be called the Paradise Lost of St. Avitus.
In the Creation, the peculiar features of the descriptive poetry of the sixth century appear, resembling the school founded by the Abbé Delille; elaborate beyond good taste, dissecting and anatomizing in details. This is almost painfully shown in the account of the creation of man, in which the anatomical particulars are minute and scientific to the utter destruction of the picturesque. Then comes the description of paradise, which is in curious analogy to Milton's. We translate part of it:
"Beyond the Indies, where the world begins,
Where, it is said, the confines meet of earth
And heaven, there spreads an elevated plain
To mortals inaccessible, inclosed
By barriers everlasting since for sin
Adam was cast out from that happy home.
There never change of seasons brings the frost;
There summer yields not place to winter's reign;
And while elsewhere the circle of the year
Brings stifling heat, or fields with crisp ice bound,
There bides eternal spring. Tumultuous winds
Come not, and clouds forsake skies always pure.
No need of rains; the ever genial soil
With warm, sweet moisture of its own, keeps fresh
Its vivid verdure; herbs and foliage live
Fadeless, their vigor drawn from their own sap,
Mingling their leaves with blossoms. Annual fruits
There ripen every month; the lily's sheen
The sunbeams taint not, nor the violet's blue;
The fresh rose never fades; the laden boughs
Shed odoriferous balm; the gentle breeze
Skimming the woods, with softest murmur stirs
The leaves and flowers, thence wafting sweet perfume.
Clear founts gush out from their pellucid source,
And polished gems have not their flashing lustre.
Along the crystal's margin emeralds gleam,
With varied hues of every jewel's sheen
The world holds rich, enamelling the sands,
And glistening in the meads like diadems."
Book i. 211-257
The Latin is as follows:
"Ergo ubi transmissis mundi caput incipit Indis,
Quo perhibent terram confinia jungere cœlo,
Lucus inaccessa cunctis mortalibus arca
Permanet, æterno conclusus limite, postquam
Decidit expulsus primævi criminis auctor,
Atque reis digne felici a sede revulsis,
Cœlestes hæc sancta capit nunc aula ministros,
Non hic alterni succedit temporis unquam
Bruma, nec æstivi redeunt post frigora soles,
Excelsus calidum cum reddit circulus annum,
Vel densante gelu canescunt arva pruinis.
Hic ver assiduum cœli clementia servat;
Turbidus Auster abest, semperque sub ære sudo
Nubila diffugiunt jugi cessura sereno.
Nec poscit natura loci quos non habet imbres,
Sed contenta suo dotantur germina rore.
Perpetuo viret omne solum, terræque tepentis
Blanda nitet facies; stant semper collibus herbæ,
Arboribusque comæ; quæ cum se flore frequenti
Diffundunt, celeri confortant germina succo.
Nam quidquid nobis toto nunc nascitur anno;
Menstrua maturo dant illic tempora fructu.
Lilia perlucent nullo flaccentia sole,
Nec tactus violat violas, roseumque ruborem
Servans perpetuo suffundit gratia vultu.
Sic cum desit hiems, nec torrida ferveat æstas,
Fructibus autumnus, ver floribus occupat annum.
Hic quæ donari mentitur fama Sabæsis
Cinnama nascuntur, vivax quæ colligit ales,
Natali cum fine perit, nidoque perusta
Succedens sibimet quæsita morte resurgit;
Nec contenta suo tantum semel ordine nasci;
Longa veternosi renovatur corporis ætas,
Incensamque levant exordia crebra senectam,
Illic desudans fragrantia balsama ramus
Perpetuum promit pingui de stipite fluxum.
Tum si forte levis movit spiramina ventus,
Flatibus exiguis, lenique impulsa susurro,
Dives silva tremit foliis, ac flora salubri,
Qui sparsus late maves dispensat odores.
Hic fons perspicuo resplendens gurgita surgit.
Talis in argento non fulget gratia, tantam
Nec crystalla trahunt nitido defrigore lucem.
Margine riparum virides micuere lapilli,
Et quas miratur mundi jactantia gemmas,
Illis saxa jacent; varios dant arva colores,
Et naturali campos diademate pingunt."
The parallel passage of Milton runs thus:
"Thus was this place,
A happy rural seat of various view;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose;
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; meanwhile, murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their choir apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan
Knit with the graces and the hours in dance,
Led on th' eternal spring."
Paradise Lost, iv. 246, etc.
The Nile, according to religious traditions, was one of the four rivers of paradise. In his description of its fertilizing inundation, St. Avitus paints, in a poetical figure, the view presented in after-years:
"When, swollen, the river overflows its banks,
Strewing the plains with dark slime, fertile then
The soil with calm skies and terrestrial rain;
Then Memphis in the midst of a vast lake
Appears, and o'er their fields submerged in crafts
The laborers sail. The flood's decree sweeps forth
All boundaries, equalizing all, and stays
The season's labors. Joyful sees the shepherd
His meadows swallowed, and from foreign seas
Strange shoals of fish where erst his herds were fed.
Then, when the waters have espoused the earth,
Impregnating its gems, the Nile recedes,
Calls back its scattered waters, and the lake,
Once more a river, to its bed returns,
Its floods encompassed in the ancient dyke."
Book i. 266-281.
We give also the original:
"Nam quoties tumido perrumpit flumine ripas
Alveus, et nigris campos perinundat arenis,
Ubertas taxatur aqua, cœloque vacante
Terrestrem pluviam diffusus porrigit annis.
Tunc inclusa latet lato sub gurgite Memphis,
Et super absentis possessor navigat agros.
Terminus omnis abest, æquatur judice fluctu
Annua suspendens contectus jurgia limes.
Gramina nota videt lactus subsidere pastor,
Inque pecorum viridantis jugere campi
Succedunt nantes aliena per æquora pisces.
Ast postquam largo fecundans germina potu
Lympha maritavit sitientis viscera terræ,
Regraditur Nilus, sparsasque recolligit undas:
Fit fluvius pereunte lacu; tum redditur alveo
Pristina riparum conclusis fluctibus obex," etc.
An analogous phenomenon—far more vast and terrible—the descent of the waters of the upper firmament, and the overflow of earthly floods, is described by St. Avitus in his poem on The Deluge.
In the second part of the triad, Original Sin, the sacred traditions are implicitly followed; something is to be found of Andreini's conception of the prince of hell preserving in the demon the grandeur of the angel, carrying into the pit of evil the traces of a heavenly nature. The Satan of St. Avitus is not the devil of mere traditions, odious, hideous, malignant, with no elevation of feeling. He retains some traits of his first estate and a certain moral grandeur. Nevertheless the conception lacks the sublimity of Andreini's and Milton's, presenting none of those fierce conflicts of the soul, those appalling contrasts, which are so effective. It has, however, originality and energy, forcibly impressing the reader.
Satan, first entering paradise, and perceiving Adam and Eve, is thus portrayed:
"When he beheld the new-created pair
In their fair home, their happy sinless life,
Under God's laws the sovereigns of the earth,
With tranquil joy surveying all around
In peace their sway confessing—jealous rage
Like lightning raised a tempest in his soul;
Like to volcanic fires his fury burned.
Too recent his great loss; hurled down from heaven,
Down to the infernal pit, and with him fallen
The troop who shared his fate! The agony,
The shame of such defeat, with added pangs
And horror, rose afresh, when he beheld
Those happy ones; and full of bitter grief,
Envy, despite, he poured his anger forth.
Ah! woe is me; this new world sprung to life,
This odious race the offspring of our ruin!
Woe! Heaven was mine; from heaven I am expelled,
This dust of earth to angels' pomp succeeding!
Frail clay, to fair form moulded, will usurp
The power, the sovereignty torn from our hands,
To him transferred! Yet not of all despoiled,
Some power we hold, some evil we can do.
Be it done without delay! I yearn for strife!
I long to meet these foes; yea, now to meet them,
In their simplicity, which knows as yet
Naught of deceit; naught but the things they see,
Which leaves them shieldless. Easier the task
To tempt them and mislead, while thus alone,
Ere they have thrown a vast posterity
Into the eternity of ages!—No—
We will not suffer any thing immortal
To rise from earth! Let us destroy the race
Here in its source! Oh! that its chiefs defeat
May be the seed of death! Life's principle
Give rise to pangs of death! all struck in one!
The root cut and the tree for ever prone!
Such consolation in my fall is mine;
If I must never more ascend to heaven,
At least its portals shall be closed 'gainst these!
The misery I suffer is less keen
Knowing these creatures lost by a like fall;
If they, accomplices in my destruction,
Become companions in my punishment,
Sharing with us the flames I now discern
Prepared for us!
But to allure them on,
I, who have fallen, must show them the same road,
That the same pride which drove me out of heaven
May chase man from the bounds of paradise.
He spoke, and heaving a deep sigh, was silent."
Book ii. 60-117.
The Latin is as follows:
"Vidit ut iste novos homines in sede quieta
Ducere felicem nullo discrimine vitam,
Lege sub accepta Domino famularier orbis,
Subjectisque frui placida inter gaudia rebus;
Commovit subitum zeli scintilla vaporem,
Excrevitque calens in sæva incendia livor.
Vicinus tunc forte fuit, quo concidit alto,
Lapsus, et innexam traxit per prona catervam.
Hoc recolens, casumque premens in corde recentem,
Plus doluit periisse sibi quod possidet alter.
Tunc mixtus cum felle pudor sic pectore questus
Explicat, et tali suspiria voce relaxat.
Proh dolor, hoc nobis subitum consurgere plasma,
Invisumque genus nostra crevisse ruina!
Me celsum virtus habuit, nunc arce reje
Pellor, et angelico limus succedit honori.
Cœlum terra tenet, vili compage levata
Regnat humus, nobisque perit translata potestas.
Non tamen in totum periit; pars magna retentat
Vim propriam, summaque cluit virtute nocendi,
Nec differre juvat; jam nunc certamine blando
Congrediar, dum prima salus, experta nec ullos
Simplicitas ignara dolos, ad tela patebit.
Et melius soli capientur fraude, priusquam
Fecundam mittant æterna in sæcula prolem,
Immortale nihil terra prodire sinendum est;
Fons generis pereat, capitis dejectio victi
Semen mortis erit; pariat discrimina lethi
Vitæ principium; cuncti feriantur in uno;
Non faciet vivum radix occisa cacumen.
Hæc mihi dejecto tandem solatia restant.
Si nequeo clausos iterum conscendere cœlos,
His quoque claudentur," etc.
Thus Milton's Satan:
"O hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
Into our room of bliss thus high advanced
Creatures of other mould; earth-born perhaps,
Not spirits, yet to heavenly spirits bright
Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue
With wonder, and could love, so lively shines
In them divine resemblance, and such grace
The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.
Ah gentle pair! ye little think how nigh
Your change approaches, when all these delights
Will vanish and deliver ye to woe!
More woe the more you taste is now of joy;
Happy, but for so happy ill secured
Long to continue, and this high seat your heaven
Ill fenced for heaven to keep out such a foe
As now is entered; yet no purposed foe
To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,
Though I unpitied; league with you I seek,
And mutual amity, so strait, so close,
That I with you must dwell, or you with me
Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,
Like this fair paradise, your sense; yet such
Accept your Maker's work; he gave it me,
Which I as freely give. Hell shall unfold,
To entertain you two, her widest gates,
And send forth all her kings; there will be room,
Not like these narrow limits, to receive
Your numerous offspring; if no better place,
Thank him who puts me loath to this revenge
On you, who wrong me not, for him who wronged.
And should I at your harmless innocence
Melt as I do, yet public reason just,
Honor and empire with revenge enlarged,
By conquering this new world, compel me now
To do what else, though damned, I should abhor."
Milton's Paradise Lost, iv. 358-392.
More elevated, impassioned, and complex are the feelings of Milton's Satan, more eloquent his expression; yet the simple energy, the menacing concentration of the arch-fiend painted by St. Avitus, has a powerful effect.
The third book exhibits the despair of Adam and Eve after the fall; the coming of the divine Judge; his sentence, and their expulsion from paradise. Where Milton represents Adam as giving way to indignation against Eve, St. Avitus causes him to rage against the Creator himself.
"Adam thus saw himself condemned: his guilt
By inquiry made manifest. Yet not
In humble suppliance did he sue for mercy:
Nor with deep penitence, and tears, and prayers,
And self-accusing, shamed confession, plead
For the remission of his punishment;
Fallen, miserable, no pity he invoked.
With lifted front, with anger flushed, his pride
Broke forth in clamorous reproach.
'Twas then
To bring my ruin that the woman was given
To be my helpmeet! That which from thy hand,
Creator! was received as best of blessings—
She—overcome herself—has conquered me
With counsels sinister! prevailed with me
To take the fruit she had already tasted;
She is the source of evil; from her came
The sin, beguiling me too credulous;
And thou, Lord, thou didst teach me to believe her
By giving her to be my own in marriage,
With sweet ties joining us! Ah! if my life,
Lonely at first, had so continued—happy!
If I had never known this fatal union,
The yoke of such companionship!
These words
Of Adam the divine Creator heard,
And thus severely spoke to desolate Eve;
Woman, why hast thou in thy fall drawn down
Thy wretched spouse? Deceived, and then deceiving,
Instead of standing in thy guilt alone,
Why sought'st thou to dethrone the higher reason
Of this thy husband?
And the woman, full
Of shame and sorrow, daring not to raise
Her face with conscious blushes all suffused,
Answered: The serpent did beguile me; he
Persuaded me to taste the fruit forbidden."
Book iii. 96-112.
The original poem runs thus:
"Ille ubi convictum claro se lumine vidit,
Prodidit et totum discussio justa reatum,
Non prece submissa veniam pro crimine poscit,
Non votis lacrymisve rogat, nec vindice fletu
Præcurrit meritam supplex confessio pœnam.
Jamque miser factus, nondum miserabilis ille est.
Erigitur sensu, timidisque accensa querelis
Fertur in insanas laxata superbia voces.
Heu male perdendo mulier conjuncta marito!
Quam sociam misero prima sub lege dedisti,
Hæc me consiliis vicit devicta sinistris,
Et sibi jam notum persuasit sumere pomum.
Ista mali caput est, crimen surrexit ab ista.
Credulus ipse fui, sed credere tu docuisti,
Connubium donans, et dulcia vincula nectens
Atque utinam felix, quæ quondam sola vigebat,
Cœlebs vita foret, talis nec conjugis unquam
Fœdera sensisset, comiti non subdita pravæ.
Hac igitur rigidi commotus mente Creator,
Mœrentem celsis compellat vocibus Evam.
Cur miserum labens traxisti inprona maritum
Nec contenta tuo deceptrix femina casu,
Sublimi sensum jecisti, ex arce virilem!
Ilia pudens, tristique genas suffusa rubore,
Auctorem sceleris clamat decepta draconem,
Qui pomum vetito persuasit tangere morsu."
Thus Milton:
"Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she essayed;
But her with stern regard he thus repelled.
Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best
Befits thee with him leagued, thyself as false
And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,
Like his, and color serpentine, may show
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee
I had persisted happy; had not thy pride
And wandering vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
Not to be trusted, longing to be seen,
Though by the devil himself; him overweening
To overreach; but with the serpent meeting,
Fooled and beguiled; by him thou; I by thee
To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults;
And understood not all was but a show,
Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
More to the part sinister, from me drawn;
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary
To my just number found. Oh! why did God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven
With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on earth, this fair defect
Of nature, and not fill the world at once
With men, as angels, without feminine;
Or find some other way to generate
Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen,
And more that shall befall; innumerable
Disturbances on earth through female snares,
And strait conjunction with this sex.'"
Paradise Lost, x. 863-897.
The scriptural simplicity of this passage, as found in the poem of St. Avitus, will be by many esteemed better than Milton's ornamentation.
The book ends with a prediction of the advent of Christ, who is to triumph over Satan. The leaving of paradise is touchingly described at the close of the poem.
"The sentence given, and by the trembling pair
Received, with skins of beasts the Lord himself
Clothed both the man and woman.
Then he drove
Them out for ever from the happy garden
Of paradise. Prone to the ground they fell,
Those hapless ones. They entered on the world
That was to them a wilderness. They fled
With hasty steps, as by the avenging sword
Pursued. The earth before them had its bowers
Of trees and verdant turf; green meads and fountains,
And winding streams, appear to greet their sight;
Yet ah! how hideous is the landscape drear
After thy lovely face, O Paradise!
Startled, the pair survey the doleful scene,
And weep to think of all that they have lost;
They do not see the limits of the world;
And yet it seems a narrow cell; they groan
Immured in such a prison! Even the day
Is darkness to their eyes; while the clear sun
Is shining in his strength, they bitterly
Complain that all the light has vanished from them."
A Dutch poet also—Joost Van Den Vondel—wrote a drama on the fall of man, before Andreini's. Among the personages are Lucifer and his attendant evil spirits, Gabriel, the King of Angels, Michael, Uriel, etc. Adam and Eve are attended in paradise by a chief guardian angel. The lyrics of the heavenly host have considerable poetic beauty.