This poem by Commodianus “De Saeculi Istius Fine” is one of the easiest and most interesting pieces of poetry a beginner can hope to understand. It is as the French would put it Baroque avant la lettre, full of pathos and magnificence, of a grave and yet a simple language. Hardly any other Christian poem has struck me so much, perhaps the most sombre of all. Of how many countless fire and brimstone sermons it does remind me. Here comes the text, as it appears in Latin Library and how I have read it
D at tuba caelo signum sublato leone,
E t fiunt subito tenebrae cum caeli fragore.S ummittit oculos Dominus, ut terra tremescat,
A cclamat ut et audiant omnes in orbem:
E cce diu tacui sufferens tanto tempore uestra!
C onclamant pariter plangentes sero gementes,
U lulatur, ploratur, nec spatium datur iniquis:
L actanti quid faciet mater, cum ipsa crematur?
I n flamma ignis Dominus iudicabit iniquos:I ustos autem non tanget ignis, sed immo delinquet.
S ub uno morantur, sed pars in sententia flebit.
T antus erit ardor, ut lapides ipsi liquescant,
I n fulmine coeunt uenti, furit ira caelestis,
U t, quacumque fugit, impius occupetur ab igne;
S uppetium nullum erit, nec nauticae puppes:F lamma tamen gentes Medi Parthique feruent
I n annis mille, ut feruunt corpora sanctis.
N am inde post annos mille gehennae traduntur,
E t fabrica cuius erant cum ipsa cremantur.
My translation:
The trumpet undergirds the sign of a lion, and suddenly darkness arises betwixt with the sky’s crumbling. The Lords lowers his eyes, as to make the earth shatter, and thunder from the skys can be heard across the world. There stand the long silenced in your times. Now equallly are enjoined those who cry, who will also now suffer. To make nuisances, to cry, that will not be accorded to them. What will the mother who milks her child do, when she is burning? In burning fire the Lord will judge the wicked. But as to the Just ones, he will not touch them with but he will instead let them indulge. By one they shall die, but part of the sentence will be alleviated. The flames will be so great as to turn stones or tombstones into a liquid. The winds will be filtered to flames. Heaven’s wrath will rage. It will be so as if one of the wicked escapes, the fire will visit him. There will be no refuge not even in the bows of sailor ships. The flames moreover will reach the Medes and Parthians and they will burn for a thousand years, just like the bodies of Saints still burn. And after a thousand years they will be brought to Gehenna and bear the flames with their bearings and belongings.
I could not find any translation of the poem. But I kept reminding myself of Gongora, Quevedo and Gregorio de Matos, all those Baroque XVII century versemakers with a strong pendant for the memento mori motif