{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/004/0040027.htm","path":"chr/ecf/004/0040027.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/004/0040027.htm","text":"(Author Uncertain.)\nAlready had Almighty God wiped off\nBy vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined\nWhich heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plain1\nOutspued) the times of the primeval age:\n5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring\nThe winters in their course, ne'er to decree,\nBy liquid ruin, retribution's due;\nAnd had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow\nOf many hues, sealing the clouds with band\n10 Of purple and of green, Iris its name,\nThe rain-clouds' proper baldric.2\nBut alike\nWith mankind's second race impiety\nRevives, and a new age of ill once more\nShoots forth; allotted now no more to showers\n15 For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land\nOf Sodom earn to be by glowing dews\nUpburnt, and typically thus portend\nThe future end.3 There wild voluptuousness\n(Modesty's foe) stood in the room of law;\n20 Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose\nAt Scythian or Busirian altar's foot\n'Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour\nHis blood to Bebryx, or to satiate\nLibyan palaestras, or assume new forms;\n25 By virtue of Circaean cups, than lose\nHis outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven's gate\nThere knocked for vengeance marriages commit\nWith equal incest common 'mong a race\nBy nature rebels 'gainst themselves;4 and hurts\n30 Done to man's name and person equally.\nBut God, forewatching all things, at fix'd time\nDoth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying\nThe hour when crime's ripe age-not any force\nOf wrath impetuous-shall have circumscribed\n35 The space for waiting.5 Now at length the day\nOf vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host\nAngelical, two, youths in form, who both\nWere ministering spirits,6 carrying\nThe Lord's divine commissions, come beneath\n40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot\nA transplantation from a pious stock;\nWise, and a practicer of righteousness,\nHe was the only one to think on God:\nAs oft a fruitful tree is wont to lurk,\n45 Guest-like, in forests wild. He, sitting then\nBefore the gate (for the celestials scarce\nHad reached the ramparts), though he knew not them\nDivine,7 accosts them unsolicited,\nInvites, and with ancestral honour greets;\n50 And offers them, preparing to abide\nAbroad, a hospice. By repeated prayers\nHe wins them; and then ranges studiously\nThe sacred pledges8 on his board,9 and quits10\nHis friends with courteous offices. The night\n55 Had brought repose: alternate11 dawn had chased\nThe night, and Sodom with her shameful law\nMakes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliant wise,\nWithstands: \"Young men, let not your new fed lust\nEnkindle you to violate this youth!12\n60 Whither is passion's seed inviting you?\nTo what vain end your lust? For such an end\nNo creatures wed: not such as haunt the fens;\nNot stall-fed cattle; not the gaping brood\nSubaqueous; nor they which, modulant\n65 On pinions, hang suspended near the clouds;\nNor they which with forth-stretched body creep\nOver earth's face. To conjugal delight\nEach kind its kind doth owe: but female still\nTo all is wife; nor is there one that has\n70 A mother save a female one. Yet now,\nIf youthful vigour holds it right13 to waste\nThe flower of modesty, I have within\nTwo daughters of a nuptial age, in whom\nVirginity is swelling in its bloom,\n75 Already ripe for harvest-a desire\nWorthy of men-which let your pleasure reap!\nMyself their sire, I yield them; and will pay\nFor my guests' sake, the forfeit of my grief!\"\nAnswered the mob insane: \"And who art thou7\n80 And what? and whence? to lord it over us,\nAnd to expound us laws? Shall foreigner\nRule Sodom, and hurl threats? Now, then, thyself\nFor daughters and for guests shalt sate our greed!\nOne shall suffice for all!\" So said, so done:\n85 The frantic mob delays not. As, whene'er\nA turbid torrent rolls with wintry tide,\nAnd rushes at one speed through countless streams\nOf rivers, if, just where it forks, some tree\nMeets the swift waves (not long to stand, save while\n90 By her root's force she shall avail to oppose\nHer tufty obstacles), when gradually\nHer hold upon the undermined soil\nIs failing, with her bared stem she hangs,\nAnd, with uncertain heavings to and fro,\n95 Defers her certain fall; not otherwise\nLot in the mid-whirl of the dizzy mob\nKept nodding, now almost o'ercome. But power\nDivine brings succour: the angelic youths,\nSnatching him from the threshold, to his roof\n100 Restore him; but upon the spot they mulct\nOf sight the mob insane in open day,-\nFit augury of coming penalties!\nThen they unlock the just decrees of God:\nThat penalty condign from heaven will fall\n105 On Sodom; that himself had merited\nSafety upon the count of righteousness.\n\"Gird thee, then, up to hasten hence thy flight,\nAnd with thee to lead oat what family\nThou hast: already we are bringing on\n110 Destruction o'er the city.\" Lot with speed\nSpeaks to his sons-in-law; but their hard heart\nScorned to believe the warning, and at fear\nLaughed. At what time the light attempts to climb\nThe darkness, and heaven's face wears double hue\n115 From night and day, the youthful visitants\nWere instant to outlead from Sodoma\nThe race Chaldaean,14 and the righteous house\nConsign to safety: \"Ho! come, Lot! arise,\nAnd take thy yokefellow and daughters twain,\n120 And hence, beyond the boundaries be gone,\nPreventing15 Sodom's penalties!\" And eke\nWith friendly hands they lead them trembling forth,\nAnd then their final mandates give: \"Save, Lot,\nThy life, lest thou perchance should will to turn\n125 Thy retroverted gaze behind, or stay\nThe step once taken: to the mountain speed!\"\nLot feared to creep the heights with tardy step,\nLest the celestial wrath-fires should o'ertake\nAnd whelm him: therefore he essays to crave\n130 Some other ports; a city small, to wit,\nWhich opposite he had espied.\"Hereto,\"\nHe said, \"I speed my flight: scarce with its walls\n'Tis visible; nor is it far, nor great.\"\nThey, favouring his prayer, safety assured\n135 To him and to the city; whence the spot\nIs known in speech barbaric by the name\nSegor.16 Lot enters Segor while the sun\nIs rising,17 the last sun, which glowing bears\nTo Sodom conflagration; for his rays\n140 He had armed all with fire: beneath him spreads\nAn emulous gloom, which seeks to intercep\nThe light; and clouds combine to interweave\nTheir smoky globes with the confused sky:\nDown pours a novel shower: the ether seethe\n145 With sulphur mixt with blazing flames:18 the air\nCrackles with liquid heats exust. From hence\nThe fable has an echo of the truth\nAmid its false, that the sun's progeny\nWould drive his father's team; but nought availed\n150 The giddy boy to curb the haughty steeds\nOf fire: so blazed our orb: then lightning reft\nThe lawless charioteer, and bitter plaint\nTransformed his sisters. Let Eridanus\nSee to it, if one poplar on his banks\n155 Whitens, or any bird dons plumage there\nWhose note old age makes mellow!19\nHere they mourn\nO'er miracles of metamorphosis\nOf other sort. For, partner of Lot's flight,\nHis wife (ah me, for woman! even then20\n160 Intolerant of law!) alone turned back\nAt the unearthly murmurs of the sky)\nHer daring eyes, but bootlessly: not doomed\nTo utter what she saw! and then and there\nChanged into brittle salt, herself her tomb\n165 She stood, herself an image of herself,\nKeeping an incorporeal form: and still\nIn her unsheltered station 'neath the heaven\nDures she, by rains unmelted, by decay\nAnd winds unwasted; nay, if some strange hand\n170 Deface her form, forthwith from her own store\nHer wounds she doth repair. Still is she said\nTo live, and, 'mid her corporal change, discharge\nWith wonted blood her sex's monthly dues.\nGone are the men of Sodom; gone the glare\n175 Of their unhallowed ramparts; all the house\nInhospitable, with its lords, is gone:\nThe champaign is one pyre; here embers rough\nAnd black, here ash-heaps with hoar mould, mark out\nThe conflagration's course: evanished\n180 Is all that old fertility21 which Lot,\nSeeing outspread before him, ...\nNo ploughman spends his fruitless toil on glebes\nPitchy with soot: or if some acres there,\nBut half consumed, still strive to emulate\n185 Autumn's glad wealth, pears, peaches, and all fruits\nPromise themselves full easely22 to the eye\nIn fairest bloom, until the plucker's hand\nIs on them: then forthwith the seeming fruit\nCrumbles to dust 'neath the bewraying touch,\n190 And turns to embers vain.\nThus, therefore (sky\nAnd earth entombed alike), not e'en the sea\nLives there: the quiet of that quiet sea\nIs death!23 -a sea which no wave animates\nThrough its anhealant volumes; which beneath\n195 Its native Auster sighs not anywhere;\nWhich cannot from its depths one scaly race,\nOr with smooth skin or cork-like fence encased,\nProduce, or curled shell in single valve\nOr double fold enclosed. Bitumen there\n200 (The sooty reek of sea exust) alone,\nWith its own crop, a spurious harvest yields;\nWhich 'neath the stagnant surface vivid heat\nFrom seething mass of sulphur and of brine\nMaturing tempers, making earth cohere\n205 Into a pitch marine.24 At season due\nThe heated water's fatty ooze is borne\nUp to the surface; and with foamy flakes\nOver the level top a tawny skin\nIs woven. They whose function is to catch\n210 That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin. down\nWith balance of their sides, to teach the film,\nOnce o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo!\nRaising itself spontaneous, it will swim\nUp to the edge of the unmoving craft;\n215 And will, when pressed,25 for guerdon large, ensure\nImmunity from the defiling touch\nOf weft which female monthly efflux clothes.\nBehold another portent notable,\nFruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast\n220 Therein do swim: gone is its native power\nFor sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch\nA torch's lightsome26 hull (where spirit serves\nFor fire) therein, the apex of the flame\nWill act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath\n225 The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go!\nSuch Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties,\nFor ages sealed as signs before the eyes\nOf unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts\nGod's fear have quite forsaken,27 will them teach\n230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights,28 and lift\nTheir gaze unto one only Lord of all.","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol IV: 2. A Strain of Sodom.","type":"page"}