Ad divam virginem Mariam quae Florentiae nuntiata nuncupatur

Antonio Geraldini


Aeterna o genitrix regis Olympici,
quem tu virgineo pectore concipis,
tunc cum dixit "ave" nuntius angelus,
virgo, es praecipuum numen Etruriae,
hic cunctis celebris gentibus Italis,
hic felix et ades gentibus exteris,
concedisque pia voce petentibus
optatum auxilium siderea manu.
Tyrrhenum decoras lampade lucida
hac virgo populum culta sub aede; nunc
hic maior tripodis numine Delphici
ara est, cornigeri nobilior dei
haec fonte est Libyco, denique quercubus
Dodonaeque sacris notior omnibus.
Templis ditior haec est Epidauriis
delubris Iovis et maior Olympii.
Exustos aliquos febribus aridis
tu sanas manibus fausta salubribus,
aestus abiiciens artubus igneos
Aetnaeis nimium persimiles iugis.
Morborumque abigis pestiferam luem,
si quando incubuit pectoribus virum
vel contagio vel temporis impii
execranda sitim vis rabidam ciens,
fibras luctificis ignibus ambiens.
Contractos rigidis articulis foves,
distendens solitum membra per ordinem,
claudis restituis officium pedum,
ut rectis hilares passibus ambulent,
et caecis tenebras luminibus fugas.
Obtusos aliis diva aperis favens
sensus, ut patulis auribus audiant.
Clausis eloquium fundis ab oribus
Caelesti nimium nectare dulcius,
et quod melle magis tangit Hymettio.
Horum lingua potest findere marmora,
plumbis visa mihi obtusior omnibus.
Te clamat miseris navita vocibus,
si vidit variis fluctibus aequora
spumosisque vadis cana tumescere,
convolvique nigris aestibus omnia,
visis flaminibus naufragium timens;
auscultasque virum vota precantium,
sive hi vulneribus letiferis iacent
perfossi galeis non capita abdita
securis, vel habent pectora saucia
non sananda manu sive Melampica
Chironis vel ope, aut arte Machaonis.
Audis diva preces pectore supplici
effusas hominum extrema videntium et
mortis supplicium, nocte natantibus
iam iam luminibus luce sub ultima.
Haec miranda facis, virgo perinclyta,
quae Lesboa nequit iungere barbitos
nervo nunc tenui versibus arduis.
Terras frugiferas, velivolum mare,
caelum nubiferum, claraque sidera
clemens innumeris tu meritis reples.
Sincerum validis me, dea, viribus
conserva, et solidus sit vigor artuum
totius generi stelligerae domus.
Sensus aetherii mentibus haereant
et voces placidis moribus insonent,
quae cunctis placeant gentibus et deo.


 

Read the English translation

This translation was influenced by H.D.'s and Anne Carson's approaches to reframing classical texts into English, specifically Carson's warning that "to live past the end of your myth is a perilous thing." If any language has been the source and medium of canonized myth, it is Latin. My liberal translation choices and the resulting poetic interpretation are a small step in preventing Geraldini's work from living past the end of its myth.

Stylistic choices were implemented to allow form and content to reciprocally create both tension and cohesion in this piece. "To Mary, the Goddess Announced in Florence" visually occupies the page as a representation of the columns and architectural aesthetic of Mary's temple. "Hail," originally spoken by an angel in Geraldini's Latin, is extracted from its position in the text and is used instead as the temple's visual cornerstones. I also intentionally emphasized Geraldini's choice to identify Mary as a goddess. This decision speaks to the tradition of H.D.'s feminist restructuring of classical texts and allows Mary to be granted agency outside of her sexuality. These unconventional renderings are intended to infuse modernity into the myth of Geraldini's work and to allow the two to occupy his poems harmoniously.

Geraldini's interest in the lyre's role in myth is embodied in his line, "You work these wonders of which the lyre cannot sing with strings and sound." He found the instrument both facilitated lived experience and was inadequate in expressing the full beauty of it, an instrument incredible and insufficient. The same can be said of translation; it is both incredible and insufficient. Just as there are things which the lyre can and cannot convey, so too are there poetic moments which translation both captures and allows to escape. This translation hopes to maintain a balance between all the things of which Geraldini's lyre can and cannot sing.

Antonio Geraldini was born in Amelia, a town in the central Italian region of Umbria; scholarly estimates place his birth in 1449. Beginning in his early twenties, Geraldini began writing and traveling extensively. Spain became his second home. He received the poet's crown and was appointed as Spain's ambassador to Florence by Ferdinand and Isabella. He used his political influence to advocate for the Spanish support of Christopher Columbus's expenditures until his own death in 1489. Geraldini's eclogues are considered to be his most prominent poetic work. Though most classical eclogues focus on pastoral imagery, Geraldini's verses are concerned with the life of Christ and were intended to be used as instructional material in Christian-based curricula. Heavily interested in how culture and geography act as our collective contextual framework and as the medium through which we relate, many of Geraldini's other works are individually dedicated to Italian intellectuals of his time.

Emily Wilson was born and raised in North Carolina. She graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in creative writing and religious studies. Currently pursuing an M.F.A. in poetry at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, she works as a graduate teaching assistant and served as the 2013-2014 Kert Green fellow. Her poetry and nonfiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Passages North, and Raleigh Review, among others. She received the 2012 Emma Howell Memorial Poetry Prize, was first runner-up in the Indiana Review 2014 Poetry Prize, and has a pending nomination for Best New Poets 2014.