Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
Octoechus (English)
For Christian
'I could not say that I have seen anything more beautiful.'
Cicero, Cato Major, 'On Old Age' 53
Yes, my dear Christian,
time is the outward sign,
the tangible face of eternity.
And we, my Friend, we are
the face of time's movement
and the measure of how long time's movement takes!
Thus spoke in ages past the great philosophers
who contemplated the well-ordered infinity of the stars
and the heavens beating in the loving hearts of men.
But we, we, my Friend,
enthralled by the beauty of shifting appearances,
engulfed in the infinite vanity of desire,
we believe ourselves to be for ever immortal.
But, sometimes, by the purest chance,
it happens that, absentmindedly, we enter a simple church
where the priests, in gold-embroidered vestments,
are singing the Divine Octoechus.
Then, intimately, silently,
and full of boundless sweetness
there lights in us the painful image of our Lord,
and our souls, moved, shaken,
for reasons we know only too well,
burst into tears
as if they had suddenly comprehended
that the Man on the Cross
gathered into his sublime humility
all the passing centuries
the whole harmonious parade of time!
Such, my dear Christian, is the invisible order,
the mobile architecture
which presides over the created world!
Translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodhes
01.12.2005.
Notes:
Octoechos or octoechus : Greek word meaning “eight tones”. The Octoechos is the fundamental structure for classifying and describing modes in byzantine music. According to tradition, the theory and practice of echoi (Greek plural of “echo”, word meaning tone) is codified a system comprising eight modes. Octoechos is also name, given, in the Greek Orthodox Church, to a Book which contains all that clerks and people sing during the Divine Offices, according to eight tones of Plain-Chant.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.): one of the greatest statesmen, philosophers and orators of Ancient Rome.
Cato Major (234-149 B.C.): Cato the Elder or Cato the Censor. In Latin Cato Major or Cato Censorius. Roman statesman and moralist, whose full name was Marcus Porcius Cato.
De senectute: about oldness
Chasuble: a long sleeveless vestment worn over the alb by a priest during services.
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Octoechus (English)
Octoechus (English)
