Michael Choniates was Metropolitan of Athens in the early 13th century, a learned man who loved the ancient world and wrote with sadness about the barbarous conditions to which Athens had fallen in his time. I found him through a letter he’d written which in part praised the work another man had done in making Nicander accessible to others. In the following poem (number 6) the opening is unmistakably–though metaphorically–Nicandrean:
- Δράκοντι δηχθεὶς καὶ νοητοῖς σκορπίοις,
- θνήσκων τε μικροῦ καὶ τὰ λοίσθια πνέων
- ἀναθεωρῶ τὸν κρεμασθέντα ξύλῳ,
- ὡς καὶ θανών πως ἀναβιῴην πάλιν.
‘Having been bitten by a dragon and by mental scorpions, close to death and breathing my last, I reconsider the one hanging on the wood, how even having died I might somehow return to life.’
The poem continues (with two more Nicandrean images), but I’ll leave it for now since I really should be getting ready for the German exam. There are a few things I have questions about (ζωὴ μόνος?), but for the most part it’s clear: a prayer for everlasting life.
- Ἀνάστασις γάρ ἐστι καὶ ζωὴ μόνος,
- ὡς ἀμνὸς αἴρων κοσμικὴν ἁμαρτίαν.
- Εἰ χάλκεος γὰρ καὶ τυπικός τις ὄφις
- ἑρπυστικῶν δήγμασι θανατουμένους
- ἐζωοποίει προςδεδορκότας μόνον,
- πῶς οὐκ ἂν αὐτὸς ἐξαναστήσεις, ἄναξ,
- κέντρῳ πεπληγότα με τῆς ἁμαρτίας
- καὶ κείμενον δείλαιον ὡς τεθνηκότα
- καὶ βλέμμ’ ἀνατείνοντα πρὸς σὲ καὶ μόνον;
- Ἀλλ’, ὦ πρὸς ὕψος ἀναβὰς θεοῦ λόγε,
- ὡς πάντας ἄρδην πρὸς σεαυτὸν ἑλκύσαις,
- ὡς αἰχμαλωτεύσειας αἰχμαλωσίαν,
- ὡς αὐτὸς εἶπας καὶ Δαυὶδ ψάλλων ᾄδει,
- ἕλκυσον, ἀπάλλαξον αἰχμαλωσίας
- καὶ προςλαβοῦ με τὸν κακοῖς ἀπωσμένον
- χερσὶ ταθείσαις σταυρικῇ διατάσει,
- καὶ ζωοποιῷ σῷ τριταίῳ θανάτῳ
- ἔμπνευσον ἐμπνεύσαντι παλινζωίαν
- ὡς πνεύματι ζῶ σήν τε νέκρωσιν φέρω
- καὶ συμμετάσχω, σῶτερ, ἀειζωίας.