Paulus Diaconus (c. 720s – 13 April probably 799) is not only known
for his Historia Longobardorum, but
he is also the writer of several poems. In the following short poem he
describes a small tragedy: a Thracian boy plays in wintertime on
the river Hebrus, the modern river Maritsa, which runs through the Balkans. The
ice breaks, the boy is dragged away by the fast running river under the ice,
but his head his cut off by the broken ice. His mother finds the head, cremates
it and puts the ashes in an urn. The last sentence of the poem alludes to the
alleged laconic mentality of the Thracians in classical sources. For good
order: the Thracians were already for centuries extinct when Paulus Diaconus
wrote this poem. Anyway, let this poem be a warning: don’t let you children
play on the Maritsa when frozen!
De puero, qui in glacie extinctus est
Trax puer adstricto glacie dum ludit in Hebro,
Frigore concretas
pondere rupit aquas.
Dumque imae partes rapido
traherentur ab amni,
Praesecuit tenerum
lubrica testa caput.
Orba quod inventum mater
dum conderet urna,
«Hoc peperi flammis,
cetera», dixit, «aquis».
Trax: Thracian
ludo lusi lusum: to play
adstricto glacie: when the ice was hard
pondus –eris (n): weight
rumpo rupi ruptum: to break
imae partes: the lower parts of his body
praeseco –secui –sectum: to cut off
lubricus: slippery
testa: a testa is a piece of
broken earthen-ware, but here of course (broken) ice on water. For this image
cf. Ovid Tristia 3.10.37-8: Vidimus
ingentem glacie consistere pontum, / lubricaque inmotas testa premebat aquas.
orbus: bereft
condo condidi conditum: to hide, put away
quod: referring back to caput
pario peperi partum: to give birth
No comments:
Post a Comment