A shame-faced water saw her Lord and blushed: I saw this quoted in a Malayalam book some ten years ago as a wonderful poet's description of the miracle of Cana where Jesus turned water into vine. The quotation did not give the name of the author. I became curious. My first suspect was Milton. I took his Paradise Regained as a possible source. But it wasn't in 'Regained'.
After many failed searches, recently I saw success through the internet. The author is Richard Crashaw, seventeenth century English poet of Counter Reformation and Cambridge scholar. The English line is a loose popular translation of one from a collection of his Latin Epigrams published by Cambridge University Press in 1634. The Latin original is Nympha pudica Deum vidit, et erubuit. The line can also be translated as The conscious(or modest) Nymph(water) saw her Lord and blushed.
No comments:
Post a Comment