Triumph of the Virtue and Patience of Job

Diego Basurto Henríquez

1649

First Triumph

At the time when the florid season,
joyful springtime of life,
the tender infancy of its ardent age,
made its first step in the Orient
placing flower before Aprils
to my first juvenile years.
At the time, yes, when my vital spirits
did salute the dawn,
I, crowned by one score and five summers,
set out to see this small world.
I went out from the city of innocence
to see the region of experience
and one day (attention I ask),
treading through the kingdoms of oblivion
in an unfamiliar part of this globe of Paradise,
I could make out an alcázar,
an eminent palace, an edifice,
fashioned with such art and artifice
that my vision became lost
in that excellent and beautiful vista,
for in such an abyss, even a prudent man
may become his own Babylon.
Amazed by such architecture
and letting myself be carried away by its beauty,
my flattering spirits,
deceiving mediators
of my vain passions, said to me,
“Tell us, who then intimidates your intentions?
Enter into that vessel, distinguished throne
of the admirable living frame
on whose human throne
one can enjoy the Damascene Capitol.”1
I entered the palace, and at the first step
the sun of reason searched for its sunset.
A goddess suddenly emerged to receive me
and as she tried to persuade me
to enjoy the temple of deception,
my appetite with a strange rigor
led me to the door
whichever for evil was open.
The nymph guided me and I followed her,
I judged her to be a goddess and she went on amusing me.
My ardors grew,
I hurled myself at all her errors,
she led me to her spacious private rooms,
in whose delightful labyrinths
I became lost to gluttony, with its delicacies,
to wealth, with possessions and sorrows,
to love, with pleasures and cares.
And I found my thoughts so disturbed
that when I wished to reject her enchantment,
the goddess quelled my anxieties,
keeping me asleep by letting
her henbane speak to my mind.
No sooner had the goddess
imprisoned my senses amid her burning favors
than an old man stopped next to me,
and seeing me in the arms of sin
said, “Remember your deception, young man,
for disillusionment is coming to save you.”2
On hearing the voice, I did recall, but
that exhalation of fire and snow was brief,
for since my appetite was blind,
adoring its barbarous offense,
as the goddess fawned on me
I thought that the disillusionment was deceiving me.
“So awaken, man,
for the second time today,” he said again,
“and free your lost spirit from the fire!”
Then, with my consciousness illuminated
by that ancient never-eclipsed Sun,
I shook off the shadows of sin.
“Follow me,” he continued. “I should follow you,”
I again replied, “but I do not like
the absence of that goddess.”
“If you are,” he said “her blind moth
you shall die in her flame.”
“How,” I replied, “shall my lady virtue
be my enemy?”
And he replied, “If my reasoning obliges you
to believe what I say,
I shall show you. Come with me.”
Overcome by his truth, I ceased to be the constant
and firm lover of that goddess
and when I left her vain captivity
through the regal hemisphere
that disillusionment itself had acquired for me,
to a great hall he took me, where there ran
an ocean of horror, a winged sea
in whose accelerated movement,
as a sign, clearly,
there sailed a fleet towards the precipice.
Fearful at seeing this portent,
as my understanding emerged from its error,
he said to me, “Disillusionment showed you
the error in which you blindly walked,
and shows you these ships, which to the precipice are bound
because of the one for whom you sigh.
Those swans of fire,
without calm or tranquility,
are wandering vessels,
tombs of lascivious seafarers.
“You imagine that the sea, meaning the world,
shall be a witness of your prosperous fair weather.
Well, you are deceived,
for he that has most trusted in
its abyss of confusion
became himself entombed in it,
and in its crescent moon,
was first of all a corpse, instead of a living being.
“You think that your vessel of pleasures,
blown onward through barbarous covetousness,
shall find repose among the vices.
Well its vain sacrifices deceive you:
with sin, in this age, there is no calm
that does not serve as a storm to the soul.
“The sea is changeable,
the whole world is mutable,
be not engulfed in it, my Voyager.
Let not your flattering vice deceive you,
for the most dexterous pilot of these seas
was at first ignorant of the sorrows it holds,
and being a Voyager in his state,
he is now cautious even of his own shadow.
“And be warned that the ambitious ships
that you watch amid tempestuous courses,
are named: Lie,
Pride, Wrath,
Bribery, Gluttony, Delight,
Fraud, Vengeance, Malice,
Odium, Ambition, Tyranny,
Robbery, Dishonor, Hypocrisy,
following the clumsy combat
that Mars introduced, heavenly bolt,
Apparel, Courtship,
Custom, Lordship, Idle talk,
Power, Love, Free will,
Command, Lordship,
whose crazed and bold actions
entombed souls and lives.”
Not in vain did that philosopher weep
to see what was happening
in this stormy sea of sorrows,
stating that this fabulous world
was naught but a theatre of sufferings,
of sorrows, of tears and rigors.
If it was Democritus who laughed
at this lesser world,
we should not think that
he was laughing at trivial matters,
as his laughter was meant for those who draw
life from vice, because vice shall be their death.
“Do not argue from your stupid and vain judgment
that you are eternal. No, for you are human,
and annals prophesize
that a man’s days are limited.
“The madman says: Let us enjoy the good things,
let delights give us their felicitations,
let us obtain the trophies in festivities,
let us fulfill our pleasures and desires,
for this fecund prize
we shall take with us from this world.
“No, friend. This delirium
in apparent glory confers martyrdom.
Come to your senses. Consider
that your soul, inhabiting another sphere,
after the storm
to the Supreme Judge must make account.
“Mend your errors,
before the vital splendors
are crowned with snow, and from the summit
the lustrous planets cease to give light,
and before the errant edifice trembles
and the Giant Tower with its
tidy pinnacles collapses,
and before the brushes
with pallid colors
portray with funerary splendors
on the canvas of life, robust and strong,
death’s fatal passages.”
This said the ancient, but then
with the infused fire
that my free will acquired,
to the argument issuing a challenge
and on the firm palaestra of the precept,
brandishing a rhetorical concept,
I told my Maecenas,
“Defend yourself if you can from my torments,
draw the unified sword of knowledge
and stab the shield of life,
because among the most clear-thinking men,
the invincible arms are those of reason.”

Translated by
David
Herman
.

Notes

[“Capitol” referred to a specific structure in Rome in this period, and by extension, to any impressive tower or high building.—Trans.]

[In these uses, “deception” means “you are deceived” and “disillusionment” roughly translates to “enlightenment.”—Trans.]

Credits

Diego Basurto Henríquez , El triumpho de la virtud y paciencia de Job (Triumph of the virtue and patience of Job) (Rouen: L. Maurry, 1649), 1–9.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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