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10. A HYMN FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD
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HYMNS Let the streams with running waters, let the shores of all the seas, ' Snow and frost and summer showers, winds and woodlands, night and day,52 Join in praising Thee forever, through the endless ages long. 52. cr. Ps. 148.8-9; Dan. 3.64-71, 78. 69 10. A HYMN FOR THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD o God, of our souls the bright fountain,1 Who, mingling in one our two natures, Pure spirit with clay that is mortal, Mankind, Thou our Father, didst fashion, Thine they are, Thine, 0 Lord, both these natures; 5 In Thee is the bond of their union, And while living, they flourish together Both the flesh and the spirit obey Thee.2 1. cr. Tertullian, Apology 17.6 (Trans. in Vol. 10, this series, p. 53); Augustine, De quantitate animae 1.2; Vergil, Aeneid 6.730732 . 2. Early Christian philosophers, including St. Augustine, never satisfactorily answered the question of the nature of the union of soul and body. Cf. Augustine, De quantitate animae 13.22 and 33.70; De civitate Dei 10.29 and 21.10. 70 AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS But when bonds that unite them are severed,3 Each back to its source is then summoned; The bright soul seeks its heavenly fountain, And the earth claims the dust of the body. For all things created are destined To die and to perish forever, When their elements, parted and sundered, Revert to their primitive substance. Thou hast willed, 0 God, in Thy goodness, To destroy this death for Thy servants, And to show them a way, sure and certain, That leads to the body's resurgence. 10 15 20 11. Cf. TertuIlian, Apology 48.9. Lines 9·16 vary in the manu· scripts. Bergman follows the oldest MS A. The text in later MSS, some of which have both versions or the A version in the margin, is as follows: rescissa sed ista seorsum/ solvunt hominem perimuntque;/ humus excipit arida corpus,/ animae rapit aura liquorem;/ quia cuncta creata necesse est/ labefacta senescere tandem,/ campactaque dissociari,/ et dissona texta retexi. This variant version may be translated thus: But when these asunder are riven Dissolution and death are man's portion; The dry earth claims the dust of the body And Heaven receives the pure spirit. For all things created are destined To grow old and at length and to perish, What is joined to be parted and sundered And dissimilar fabrics unravelled. Thomson (Prudentius, Loeb Classical Library, 1949) thinks that this is a revision by Prudentius himself and not the work of an interpolator. [100.26.1.130] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 06:29 GMT) HYMNS So that, while the pure spirit is captive In the chains of its prison terrestrial,· That part of man's being may triumph Which has its high source in the heavens. If the will is attached to the earthly And wallows in sordid corruption, The soul, by this grossness encumbered, With the body sinks down to its ruin.1> But if, of its origin mindful, The spirit avoids sin's contagion, It carries with it back to Heaven The flesh of its early sojourning. For the body we see here reposing, Bereft of its life-giving spirit, In the sepulcher stays a brief season, Then rejoins its noble companion. The swift years will soon bring that moment, When the soul shall revisit these members6 And cherish its earlier dwelling, Now glowing with life's glad renewal. The motionless corpse, cold and lifeless, That long in its grave lay moldering, Will wing its swift flight to the heavens With the spirit that, time was, informed it. 4. cr. Ambrose, De bona mortis 3.9. 5. cr. Horace, Satires 2.2.77. 6. cr. VergiI, Aeneid 9.475. 71 25 30 35 40 72 AURELIUS PRUDENTIUS CLEMENS Hence the care we bestow on the sepulcher, Hence the last solemn rites that are offered For the body, unfeeling and lifeless, And the pomp of the funeral procession. Hence with linen resplendent in whiteness We are wont to array the dead members, And with Sabaean myrrh we embalm them, From corruption the body preserving.7 For what, pray, is the hollowed stone coffin,S Or the monument rich in its splendor, Unless we believe the form placed there Is not dead, but is peacefully sleeping? Enlightened by faith, devout Christians Thus the dead hold in reverence, believing That the body enwrapt in cold slumber,9 With new life will...