|
When Adam sinned human nature turned to avarice, anger, envy, pride, sloth, lust and mean stupidity: innocence suffers, the guiltless are punished; Christ was shamed, stripped, and crucified to pay for all this. Look around you. Hate violates love, ugly scorn maims humility, bitter symbols are used cruelly about man who died all alone out of compassion for us. Then it was God gave his inward treasure, limitless, inalienable. The result? Lies. Raw wounds for the faithful heart. When people understood the meaning, force of the miracle, they martyred themselves. Paul, Dionysius, all who looked to reason. |
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition |
|
Notes: From V LXVI:226. See BS1:59:114; MS V2; Valgrisi 59. A fourth sonnet on early Christian figure, probably Dionysus the Areopagite converted by Paul at Athens who tradition conflated with Dionysus of Denys, bishop of Paris in 3rd century, dedicateee of the abbey that bears his name and a martyr said to have carrie his severed head to the site of his abbey. The conflated figure also took on aspects of the thought of Dionysius, a 5th century mystic. Key |
