{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/004/0040026.htm","path":"chr/ecf/004/0040026.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/004/0040026.htm","text":"After the living, aye-enduring death\nOf Sodom and Gomorrah; after fires\nPenal, attested by time-frosted plains\nOf ashes; after fruitless apple-growths,\n5 Born but to feed the eye; after the death\nOf sea and brine, both in like fate involved;\nWhile whatsoe'er is human still retains\nIn change corporeal its penal badge:1\nA city-Nineveh-by stepping o'er\n10 The path of justice and of equity,\nOn her own head had well-nigh shaken down\nMore fires of rain supernal. For what dread2\nDwells in a mind subverted? Commonly\nTokens of penal visitations prove\n15 All vain where error holds possession. Still,\nKindly and patient of our waywardness,\nAnd slow to punish, the Almighty Lord\nWill launch no shaft of wrath, unless He first\nAdmonish and knock oft at hardened hearts,\n20 Rousing with mind august presaging seers.\nFor to the merits of the Ninevites\nThe Lord had bidden Jonah to foretell\nDestruction; but he, conscious that He spare;\nThe subject, and remits to suppliants\n25 The dues of penalty, and is to good\nEver inclinable, was loth to face\nThat errand; lest he sing his seerly strain\nIn vain, and peaceful issue of his threats\nEnsue. His counsel presently is flight:\n30 (If, howsoe'er, there is at all the power\nGod to avoid, and shun the Lord's right hand\n'Neath whom the whole orb trembles and is held\nIn check: but is there reason in the act\nWhich in3 his saintly heart the prophet dares?)\n35 On the beach-lip, over against the shores\nOf the Cilicians, is a city poised,4\nFar-famed for trusty port-Joppa her name.\nThence therefore Jonah speeding in a barque\nSeeks Tarsus,5 through the signal providence\n40 Of the same God;6 nor marvel is's, I ween,\nIf, fleeing from the Lord upon the lands,\nHe found Him in the waves. For suddenly\nA little cloud had stained the lower air\nWith fleecy wrack sulphureous, itself7\n45 By the wind's seed excited: by degrees,\nBearing a brood globose, it with the sun\nCohered, and with a train caliginous\nShut in the cheated day. The main becomes\nThe mirror of the sky; the waves are dyed so\n50 With black encirclement; the upper air\nDown rushes into darkness, and the sea\nUprises; nought of middle space is left;\nWhile the clouds touch the waves, and the waves all\nAre mingled by the bluster of the winds\n55 In whirling eddy.'Gainst the renegade,\n'Gainst Jonah, diverse frenzy joined to rave,\nWhile one sole barque did all the struggle breed\n'Twixt sky and surge. From this side and from that\nPounded she reels; 'neath each wave-breaking blow\n60 The forest of her tackling trembles all;\nAs, underneath, her spinal length of keel,\nStaggered by shock on shock, all palpitates;\nAnd, from on high, her labouring mass of yard\nCreaks shuddering; and the tree-like mast itself\n65 Bends to the gale, misdoubting to be riven.\nMeantime the rising8 clamour of the crew\nTries every chance for barque's and dear life's sake:\nTo pass from hand to hand9 the tardy coils\nTo tighten the girth's noose: straitly to bind\n70 The tiller's struggles; or, with breast opposed,\nT' impel reluctant curves. Part, turn by turn,\nWith foremost haste outbale the reeking well\nOf inward sea. The wares and cargo all\nThey then cast headlong, and with losses seek\n75 Their perils to subdue. At every crash\nOf the wild deep rise piteous cries; and out\nThey stretch their hands to majesties of gods,\nWhich gods are none; whom might of sea and sky\nFears not, nor yet the less from off their poops\n80 With angry eddy sweeping sinks them down.\nUnconscious of all this, the guilty one\n'Neath the poop's hollow arch was making sleep\nRe-echo stertorous with nostril wide\nInflated: whom, so soon as he who guides\n85 The functions of the wave-dividing prow\nSaw him sleep-bound in placid peace, and proud\nIn his repose, he, standing o'er him, shook,\nAnd said, \"Why sing's\", with vocal nostril, dreams,\nIn such a crisis? In so wild a whirl,\n90 Why keep'st thou only harbour? Lo! the wave\nWhelms us, and our one hope is in the gods.\nThou also, whosoever is thy god,\nMake vows, and, pouring prayers on bended knee,\nWin o'er thy country's Sovran!\" Then they vote\n95 To learn by lot who is the culprit, who\nThe cause of storm; nor does the lot belie\nJonah: whom then they ask, and ask again,\n\"Who? whence? who in the world? from what abode,\nWhat people, hail'st thou?\" He avows himself\n100 A servant, and an over-timid one,\nOf God, who raised aloft the sky, who based\nThe earth, who corporally fused the whole:\nA renegade from Him he owns himself,\nAnd tells the reason. Rigid turned they all\n105 With dread.\"What grudge, then, ow'st thou us? What now\nWill follow? By what deed shall we appease\nThe main?\" For more and far more swelling grew\nThe savage surges. Then the seer begins\nWords prompted by the Spirit of the Lord:10\n110\"Lo! I your tempest am; I am the sum\nOf the world's11 madness: 'tis in me,\" he says,\n\"That the sea rises, and the upper air\nDown rushes; land in me is far, death near,\nAnd hope in God is none! Come, headlong hurl\n115 Your cause of bane: lighten your ship, and cast\nThis single mighty burden to the main,\nA willing prey!\" But they-all vainly!-strive\nHomeward to turn their course; for helm refused\nTo suffer turning, and the yard's stiff poise\n120 Willed not to change. At last unto the Lord\nThey cry: \"For one soul's sake give us not o'er\nUnto death's maw, nor let us be besprent\nWith righteous blood, if thus Thine own right hand\nLeadeth.\" And from the eddy's depth a whale\n125 Outrising on the spot, scaly with shells,12\nUnravelling his body's train, 'gan urge\nMore near the waves, shocking the gleaming brine,\nSeizing-at God's command-the prey; which, rolled\nFrom the poop's summit prone, with slimy jaws\n130 He sucked; and into his long belly sped\nThe living feast; and swallowed, with the man,\nThe rage of sky and main. The billowy waste\nGrows level, and the ether's gloom dissolves;\nThe waves on this side, and the blasts on that,\n135 Are to their friendly mood restored; and, where\nThe placid keel marks out a path secure,\nWhite traces in the emerald furrow bloom.\nThe sailor then does to the reverend Lord\nOf death make grateful offering of his fear;13\n140 Then enters friendly ports. Jonah the seer\nThe while is voyaging, in other craft\nEmbarked, and cleaving 'neath the lowest waves\nA wave: his sails the intestines of the fish,\nInspired with breath ferine; himself, shut in;\n145 By waters, yet untouched; in the sea's heart\nAnd yet beyond its reach; 'mid wrecks of fleets\nHalf-eaten, and men's carcasses dissolved\nIn putrid disintegrity: in life\nLearning the process of his death; but still-\n150 To be a sign hereafter of the Lord14 -\nA witness was he (in his very self),15\nNot of destruction, but of death's repulse.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IV: 1. A Strain of Jonah the Prophet.","type":"page"}