Judgment (2)

Poem by Théodore Agrippa D'Aubigné Period 16th century

… Here is the death of heaven in its dolorous throes
That blackens its mouth and makes its eyes bleed.
The Sky groans with panting; all its sinews draw back;
Its lungs breathe closely, without respite.
The Sun clothes in black the fair gold of its fires;
The fair eye of this world is deprived of its eyes.
The soul of so many flowers is no longer bloomed;
There is no more life in the principle of life.
And, as a human body is all dead, struck down
As soon as it is hit by the least blow to the heart,
So must the world both die and be confounded
From the least wound to the Sun, heart of the world.
The Moon loses the silver of its clear and white complexion,
The Moon turns upward its face of blood;
Every star dies; the faithful prophets
Of Destiny will suffer eternal eclipses;
Everything hides for fear; fire flees into air,
Air into water, water into earth; to the funeral mingled
All beauty loses its color; and behold, likewise
In the pallor from above, so many pale faces
Take the impression of these darkened fires,
Such as one sees in the furnace the frozen appear.
But more, as the sons of heaven have on their faces
The form of their head, of Christ the living image,
The others from their father have the bearing and features,
Of prince Beelzebub true portraits.
At the first death they were frightful,
The second redoubles, where the abominable
Cry to the horned mountains: “O Mountains, what are you doing?
Shake your rocks and burst open upon us;
Hide us, and hide the opprobrium and infamy
That, like dogs, puts us outside the city of life;
Hide us so as not to see the high majesty
Of the Lamb triumphant on the ascended throne.”

… O children of this age, O deluded mockers,
Unyielding spirits, incorrigible hearts,
Your spirits will find in the deep pit
True what they thought a fable in this world.
They will languish in vain with merciless regret.
Your soul to its measure will swell with care.
Who will console you? The friend who grieves
Will gnash his teeth at you instead of speaking.
The Saints loved you? An abyss is between them;
Their flesh no longer stirs, you are odious.
But do you not hope for an end to your suffering?
In hell the dawn of hope gives no light.
Would God have without end removed His mercy?
Who has sinned without end suffers without end also.
The clemency of God does its office in heaven,
He deploys in hell His wrath and His justice.
But the sulphurous fire, so great, so violent,
Will it not destroy the bodies by burning them?
No, God will keep them whole for vengeance.

… Frozen, despairing, there is no more death
That is for your sea of storms the port.
But if your eyes of fire cast the burning glance
To the hope of the dagger, the dagger no longer kills.
Though death (you will say) was a sweet pleasure,
Death dead cannot kill you, seize you.
Do you want poison? In vain this artifice.
You throw yourself down? In vain the precipice.
Run to the fire to burn, the fire will freeze you;
Drown yourself, water is fire, water will set you ablaze;
The plague will no longer have mercy on you;
Strangle yourself, in vain you twist a rope;
Cry after hell, from hell there comes
Only the eternal thirst for impossible death.
You complained of the fires: how many times your soul
Will desire to have to do only with the flame!
Your eyes are coals that set ablaze and smoke,
Your teeth are stones that ignite as they grind.
God is angered by your cries and by false repentance,
Which could only begin within the feeling.
This fire, through your sides ravaging and running,
Will make live again what it is devouring;
The chariot of God, His torrent and His hail,
Mingle harsh life and death pell-mell.
Bark like dogs, howl in your torments,
The abyss answers only with other howls;
The Satans unleashed with nails and cutting teeth
Without death will tear their reborn prey;
These tormenting Demons will howl tormented;
Their brows will furrow, shod with cruelties;
Their sparkling eyes will have the same image
That you had bathing in the blood of carnage;
Their frozen faces, tyrants, will freeze you,
They will avenge on you what they endure.
O misfortune of misfortunes, when such executioners measure
The force of their blows by the great blows they endure!…

Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-judgment-2-theodore-agrippa-d-aubigne/