Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IV/Tertullian: Part Fourth/Appendix/A Strain of Jonah the Prophet

X.

Appendix.

[Translated by the Rev. S. Thelwall.]

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1.&#160; A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.

the living, aye&#8212;enduring death

Of Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires

Penal, attested by time-frosted plains

Of ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,

5&#160; Born but to feed the eye; after the death

Of sea and brine, both in like fate involved;

While whatsoe&#8217;er is human still retains

In change corporeal its penal badge:

A city&#8212;Nineveh&#8212;by stepping o&#8217;er

10&#160; The path of justice and of equity,

On her own head had well-nigh shaken down

More fires of rain supernal.&#160; For what dread

Dwells in a mind subverted?&#160; Commonly

Tokens of penal visitations prove

15&#160; All vain where error holds possession.&#160; Still,

Kindly and patient of our waywardness,

And slow to punish, the Almighty Lord

Will launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first

Admonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,

20&#160; Rousing with mind august presaging seers.

For to the merits of the Ninevites

The Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell

Destruction; but he, conscious that He spare;

The subject, and remits to suppliants

25&#160; The dues of penalty, and is to good

Ever inclinable, was loth to face

That errand; lest he sing his seerly strain

In vain, and peaceful issue of his threats

Ensue.&#160; His counsel presently is flight:

30&#160; (If, howsoe&#8217;er, there is at all the power

God to avoid, and shun the Lord&#8217;s right hand

&#8217;Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held

In check:&#160; but is there reason in the act

Which in his saintly heart the prophet dares?)

35&#160; On the beach-lip, over against the shores

Of the Cilicians, is a city poised,

Far-famed for trusty port&#8212;Joppa her name.

Thence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque

Seeks Tarsus, through the signal providence

40&#160; Of the same God; nor marvel is&#8217;t, I ween,

If, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,

He found Him in the waves.&#160; For suddenly

A little cloud had stained the lower air

With fleecy wrack sulphureous, itself

45&#160; By the wind&#8217;s seed excited: by degrees,

Bearing a brood globose, it with the sun

Cohered, and with a train caliginous

Shut in the cheated day.&#160; The main becomes

The mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so

50&#160; With black encirclement; the upper air

Down rushes into darkness, and the sea

Uprises; nought of middle space is left;

While the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all

Are mingled by the bluster of the winds

55&#160; In whirling eddy.&#160; &#8217;Gainst the renegade,

&#8217;Gainst Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,

While one sole barque did all the struggle breed

&#8217;Twixt sky and surge.&#160; From this side and from that

Pounded she reels; &#8217;neath each wave-breaking blow

60&#160; The forest of her tackling trembles all;

As, underneath, her spinal length of keel,

Staggered by shock on shock, all palpitates;

And, from on high, her labouring mass of yard

Creaks shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself

65&#160; Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.

Meantime the rising clamour of the crew

Tries every chance for barque&#8217;s and dear life&#8217;s sake:

To pass from hand to hand the tardy coils

To tighten the girth&#8217;s noose:&#160; straitly to bind

70&#160; The tiller&#8217;s struggles; or, with breast opposed,

T&#8217; impel reluctant curves.&#160; Part, turn by turn,

With foremost haste outbale the reeking well

Of inward sea.&#160; The wares and cargo all

They then cast headlong, and with losses seek

75&#160; Their perils to subdue.&#160; At every crash

Of the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out

They stretch their hands to majesties of gods,

Which gods are none; whom might of sea and sky

Fears not, nor yet the less from off their poops

80&#160; With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.

Unconscious of all this, the guilty one

&#8217;Neath the poop&#8217;s hollow arch was making sleep

Re-echo stertorous with nostril wide

Inflated:&#160; whom, so soon as he who guides

85&#160; The functions of the wave-dividing prow

Saw him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud

In his repose, he, standing o&#8217;er him, shook,

And said, &#8220;Why sing&#8217;st, with vocal nostril, dreams,

In such a crisis?&#160; In so wild a whirl,

90&#160; Why keep&#8217;st thou only harbour?&#160; Lo! the wave

Whelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.

Thou also, whosoever is thy god,

Make vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,

Win o&#8217;er thy country&#8217;s Sovran!&#8221;

Then they vote

95&#160; To learn by lot who is the culprit, who

The cause of storm; nor does the lot belie

Jonah:&#160; whom then they ask, and ask again,

&#8220;Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,

What people, hail&#8217;st thou?&#8221;&#160; He avows himself

100&#160; A servant, and an over-timid one,

Of God, who raised aloft the sky, who based

The earth, who corporally fused the whole:

A renegade from Him he owns himself,

And tells the reason.&#160; Rigid turned they all

105&#160; With dread.&#160; &#8220;What grudge, then, ow&#8217;st thou us?&#160; What now

Will follow?&#160; By what deed shall we appease

The main?&#8221;&#160; For more and far more swelling grew

The savage surges.&#160; Then the seer begins

Words prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:

110&#160; &#8220;Lo!&#160; I your tempest am; I am the sum

Of the world&#8217;s madness:&#160; &#8217;tis in me,&#8221; he says,

&#8220;That the sea rises, and the upper air

Down rushes; land in me is far, death near,

And hope in God is none!&#160; Come, headlong hurl

115&#160; Your cause of bane:&#160; lighten your ship, and cast

This single mighty burden to the main,

A willing prey!&#8221;&#160; But they&#8212;all vainly!&#8212;strive

Homeward to turn their course; for helm refused

To suffer turning, and the yard&#8217;s stiff poise

120&#160; Willed not to change.&#160; At last unto the Lord

They cry:&#160; &#8220;For one soul&#8217;s sake give us not o&#8217;er

Unto death&#8217;s maw, nor let us be besprent

With righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand

Leadeth.&#8221;&#160; And from the eddy&#8217;s depth a whale

125&#160; Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,

Unravelling his body&#8217;s train, &#8217;gan urge

More near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,

Seizing&#8212;at God&#8217;s command&#8212;the prey; which, rolled

From the poop&#8217;s summit prone, with slimy jaws

130&#160; He sucked; and into his long belly sped

The living feast; and swallowed, with the man,

The rage of sky and main.&#160; The billowy waste

Grows level, and the ether&#8217;s gloom dissolves;

The waves on this side, and the blasts on that,

135&#160; Are to their friendly mood restored; and, where

The placid keel marks out a path secure,

White traces in the emerald furrow bloom.

The sailor then does to the reverend Lord

Of death make grateful offering of his fear;

140&#160; Then enters friendly ports.

Jonah the seer

The while is voyaging, in other craft

Embarked, and cleaving &#8217;neath the lowest waves

A wave:&#160; his sails the intestines of the fish,

Inspired with breath ferine; himself, shut in;

145&#160; By waters, yet untouched; in the sea&#8217;s heart

And yet beyond its reach; &#8217;mid wrecks of fleets

Half-eaten, and men&#8217;s carcasses dissolved

In putrid disintegrity:&#160; in life

Learning the process of his death; but still&#8212;

150&#160; To be a sign hereafter of the Lord &#8212;

A witness was he (in his very self),

Not of destruction, but of death&#8217;s repulse.

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