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."