The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
Now sisters! What said our pious father, Maro, Pentref Andes;8 son of Maia, queen of Mantua, in Gallia Transpadana. There’s always a Mari9 in it, I warrant you!
But fetch the codex, Mabli,10 No, no, not Ofydd,11 not the Ars—how your mind runs—and we’ve metamorphoses enough! The chemist’s12 book, Mabli, the First Book with the ten shepherd-songs, cerdd13 number four, should be.
Yes, yes, here is it, more or less:
Time is already big by sacred commerce with the Timeless courses. Fore-chose and lode-bright, here is the maiden, Equity! The chthonica old Sower restores the Wastelands. The First-Begotten, of the caer of heaven (which is a long way off!), would bring his new orient down for our alignment.14
David Jones notes
8 Pentref (pen-trev) Andes, ‘village of Andes’, Virgil’s actual birthplace near Mantua in Transpadane Gaul.
9 Mari, mah-ree, accent on first syllable, a Welsh colloquial form of Mair or Mary. Very appropriately, the name of Virgil’s mother was Maia, the name of the mother of Hermes by Zeus, one of the Pleiades and the name also of the goddess Maia Majesta whose feast was kept on the first day of May, the whole month being sacred to her. Although in the Roman Liturgy no feast of our Lady falls in May, widespread extra-liturgical devotions have christened these ancient pre-Christian associations and the month of May is now popularly known as ‘Mary’s month’.
10 Mabli, mab-lee, accent on first syllable, Mabel.
11 Ofydd, ov-ith, ith as in hither, Ovid .
12 The modem Welsh word for chemist is a variant of the word fferylI, alchemist, or maker, which is simply the name Virgilius, Fferyl (fer-ril), used as a common noun.
13 Cerdd, kerrth, th as in nether, song. Eclogue is bugailgerdd, shepherd-song.
14 Cf. Virgil, Ecloga IV.
additional notes
The ten Eclogues of Publius Vergilius Maro, universally known as Virgil, are a set of pastoral poems which made his name as an up-and-coming young Roman poet around 40 BCE. They have been very widely imitated ever since, especially by English poets. They have been extensively translated; one freely available example is that by Kline.
The most famous of these poems is the fourth, or Messianic, eclogue, in which Virgil prophesies the birth of a child who will usher in a new golden age when peace will prevail, humanity and nature will become self-sufficient, commerce will cease, and the land will need no further plowing and pruning. The poet laments that he will not survive to see this new age come to fruition, but he rejoices at being able to bid the infant to smile at his mother.
The identity of the expected child has been cause for extensive speculation; both Antony and Augustus became fathers about this time, and Virgil may have refused out of political expediency to single out one or the other. Throughout the Middle Ages, however, Virgil was thought to have foreseen the birth of Christ; for this reason, he became for later ages a kind of pagan saint.
Needless to say, the witch’s translation is somewhat free, but technically ingenious.
DJ note 11: Two of Ovid’s books are the Ars Amatoria (Art of Love), which is about teaching basic civilised male and female relationship skills and techniques; and the Metamorphoses, a set of mythical stories about gods and humans changing (or being changed) into various different forms.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a chthonic: dwelling in or beneath the earth.
comments
The witches turn to Virgil for guidance in interpreting the significance of the Nativity.