THE ORIGIN OF SIN
An English Translation of the Hamartigenia
PRUDENTIUS
Translated and with an Interpretive Essay by
MARTHA A. MALAMUD
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON
In memory of my beloved aunt,
GISELA WEHRHAN CHRISTIAN
. . . though fall’n on evil dayes,
On evil days though fall’n, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compast round,
And solitude; yet not alone . . .
MILTON, Paradise Lost
Acknowledgments
Note on Translations and Editions
THE ORIGIN OF SIN: AN English TRANSLATION
Preface
The Origin of Sin
AN INTERPRETIVE ESSAY
Introduction
1. Writing in Chains
2. Figuring It Out
3. Seeking Hidden Truth
4. Falling into Language
5. Under Assault
6. Generation of Vipers
7. Signs of Woe
8. In Aenigmate
Notes
References
THIS BOOK HAS BENEFITED GREATLY from the hard work of others—especially Christopher Francese and Marc Mastrangelo, who had no reason, other than collegiality at the highest level, and love of scholarship, for expending so much effort on a project not their own. Chris Francese sent me detailed, cogent comments on almost every page of the translation, and Marc Mastrangelo provided equally detailed and challenging comments on the essay. I gratefully acknowledge their expertise and generosity.
Emily Albu read and commented on both the text and the translation in several versions and helped clarify the structure of the argument and the placement of notes in the translation. Rebecca Krawiec made me aware of significant bibliography that would have otherwise escaped me. Margaret Malamud and Don McGuire put up with reading and hearing about innumerable versions of the evolving manuscript; I thank them for their patience and encouragement. Neil Coffee deserves thanks for taking up the slack in the department when I was on leave and distracted by administrative duties. Brad Ault and Renee Bush provided crucial support in the late stages of the project. John Dugan, coeditor of Arethusa, shouldered an extra editorial burden and provided advice, encouragement, and friendship throughout the writing of this book. And I thank Frederick Ahl, who has been an inspiration for many years; my approach to Latin poetry bears his indelible stamp.
The anonymous readers for Cornell University Press set high standards and offered incisive comments that have substantially improved the translation. I also benefited from the comments of the lively students and faculty of the University of Toronto Department of Classics, and the participants in the Pacific Rim Roman Literature Seminar in Christchurch, New Zealand. Portions of this essay (Malamud 2002) first appeared in the Journal of Early Christian Studies, whose anonymous readers were extremely helpful. I thank Bruce McCombe, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo, and the Department of Classics there for granting me a semester of research leave that enabled me to complete this project.
PRUDENTIUS is a pivotal poet: his poetry is steeped in the work of his classical predecessors, especially Vergil, Lucretius, Horace, Ovid, Statius, and Juvenal, but it also anticipates the Christian worldview and the sophisticated allegorical and linguistic experiments of his successors Dante, Chaucer, Spenser, and Milton. Like the Roman god Janus, Prudentius looks forward and back at the same time. His radically experimental verse earns him a place in the European epic tradition, though he has been largely underappreciated because those radical qualities have been for the most part ignored. The goal of this translation, and of the essay that accompanies it, is to make his fascinating and complicated verse accessible to a wider audience.
But Prudentius is a difficult poet on every level: syntax, style, diction, and content. The Hamartigenia consists of a preface, composed of sixty-three lines in iambic senarii, and the poem proper, 966 lines of dactylic hexameter, the meter of classical epic and didactic poetry. Prudentius used his prefaces to provide an interpretive framework for the poems they introduce, and the words are chosen and arranged with great care. Though the preface to the Hamartigenia is brief, it is densely packed with meaning. I have chosen to translate it line for line, in prose that reflects as closely as possible the literal meaning of the Latin, and provide notes to explain subtleties I was unable to render in the translation. The poem itself I have translated into loosely iambic pentameter verse, a meter that evokes the long tradition of epic poetry in English, much as Prudentius’s hexameters would have evoked the tradition of the great Latin hexameter writers—especially Lucretius, Vergil, and Ovid. Consequently, although the line numbering in my English translation of the preface is the same as the Latin, the line numbering of the English translation of the poem is not. For easy reference, the lines of the translation are numbered in the margins of every page, and at the top of every other page the reader will find the line numbers corresponding to Prudentius’s Latin text. In the essay, when both the text and translation are quoted, the line numbers of the Latin appear below the Latin text; the line numbers of the translation appear below the English text. When only the English translation is quoted, the English line numbers appear first, followed by reference to the Latin line numbers, e.g., (H. 173–280; Lat. 124–205).
Translations of biblical passages are from the New King James Version. Translations of Aeneid passages are by Frederick Ahl. Except when otherwise noted, all other translations are my own. I have used Thomson’s edition of the Hamartigenia, which is the most easily accessible for readers who wish to consult the Latin, with frequent recourse, especially in the notes to the translation, to Palla’s 1981 edition and commentary. Both Thomson’s and Palla’s texts are based on Bergman’s 1926 CSEL edition. Quotations from Paradise Lost are from the second edition (1674).