Nicephorus Cheilas, Monody for Cleofe Palaiologhina (Malatesta)

Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission Nicephorus CHEILAS, Monodia in Cleopam Palaeologinam 144. To my lot lament has fallen,rather than the praises which I ought to have raised happily to our best and most holy queen. If only this were not part of the seemly tribute owed to her by all of us. But since even to mourners it is given for them to celebrate the virtues of those who are gone, and to hymn in dirges the good deeds done by them, even though it has surely befallen us to grieve over our present and grievous loss, this suffering that has come to us compels us to utter from the depths of our souls some sort of halting mention of them together with our laments. Not even for the Muses is it possible to raise up funerary songs and to sing the burial hymn that will befit her passing, not even when the most skilled in rhetoric and wisdom appear to be competing to do so, though preferring only one thing in life, to excel in the eyes of those just like them. But yet, it wouldbe dreadful if, yielding to this (note reading of τούτῳ, and ἡμεῖς for ἡμᾶς)we were not to cry out at all over this misfortune and, even more, it is impossible, since we are suffering and grieving so, and deeply lamenting what has some over us, whether it be called the action of incompetents or some dark fate, not to cry Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (145)out in our mournful voice as loudly as we can. But why should one weep? Why should we groan? Who is there, crying out and rivalling the tears of Jeremiah, who could adequately bewail the present disaster, so that it might become a double disaster if we were unable to cry out against it as it deserves. For even if we all thought it right to crown her that lies here with hymns and eulogies, and not to mourn her at all, since she is worthy of diadems and fame,yet who among us has that nature so much stronger than steel that it could avoid anguish and intense lamentation, so to bequeath our despondency to the entire age? Is there anyone to be seen that is not overwhelmed by sorrow? Our best and most godly despot mourns; the despots, his relatives, mourn; her most dear daughter, alas, mourns; all the choirs of priests, the monastic orders, the honored senators, and all the others in order from them mourn and the cities and villages all grieve.But what would I achieve by such an oration, and why should I continue once I have mourned. The land of Hesperia sent her, a light flowing out from a golden race, but she shone back with a radiance that made all the brilliance of that race seem less. This ruling city of Pelops received her and enriched her as an ornament and image of all that is good. Our most godly despot, of whom I speak, whose name echoes the purple, led her in marriage matched to him and worthy of the imperial fillets. Oh, what can I fail to include, what parts of her can I treat as more important than others, how will it be possible to speak of only some as superior. How would I speak with my head reeling,almost senseless,driven to cry out rather than to speak. O bright emblem of nature, oh figure of all graces and virtues. Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (146)You gave us then a celebration, showing us all something new, a reason to sing sweetly,songs worthy of your goodness and of the good fortune that came to us from you, which time as it passed increased through you, showing you so resplendent in virtue,that if it were possible for all the queens of past ages to gather in one place, all would truly learn from you and pass the primacy to you. But now you set us to deep grieving, to uttering long cries of pain, to weaving a tragic song,antiphonal to our former hymns,singing farewell to the hopes we had in better times. For there were many hopes of good resting on you, and these have all vanished from Hesiod's jar. What tempest of suffering has befallen us. How utterly our fortune had changed. Gone is the shrine of all virtues and graces, the most holy queen, the rainbow shining brilliantly in the beauty of her body, scintillating more intensely than any statue or image, she that continually, so to speak, as she stood by her husband, the most holy despot, yielded to the men around him and enjoyed a sort of splendor and radiance while doing only what seemed right to her. She was not, in her mind, in competition with women, even as she worked to surpass the best of them, both ancient and modern, but although she was counted among women, she possessed a truly masculine intelligence, adorning her spirit with gentleness, adorning the constitution of her character with the guidance of philosophy and the practice of all the virtues and graces, and presenting herself as one belonging to a royal race. Driving away everything unseemly, you left it to others to be absorbed in pleasure,and kept your mind always in flight toward the good. You paid no heed to the pleasures of the belly, and fleeing the so-called overbearing power of satiety, Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (147) you remained upright all night, not on your knees, but devoted to prayer. You gave so generously to those needing benefactions that there was left no way for those from the past, who were celebrated for liberality to surpass you, and you tried to do this secretly, more than can be talked about, even though there was no way to hide such a splendor of godly works.The falsities of this present life, she laughed off, and kept her intellect fixed on the divine, and kept apart from worldly matters as well as she could. In the midst of turmoil, when present among the imperial councillors she gave virtuous advice of every sort, and made herself available to help everyone, from which both sides learned the better, and the better triumphed over both, I mean the spirit, to which she was always devoted, making her intelligence the ruler. From this she discovered truly a firm resolution of what was really good.since she had grown up always inclined to the better, drawing on advice toward the better from the holy scriptures which she did not cease from studying night and day, setting everything else aside for her delight in these. She kept the true beauty of her spirit spotless and, while she lived, of her heavenly voice which asked for her to be accounted as with Christ only just before her death, that is, of those to whom the Savior promises that they will shine in the kingdom of heaven like the sun and to have courage in this and to strive in virtue to surround her with ever more grace.{Daniel, 12:3}. It was from this, I think that the end bore her off. She knew even before her time, and shared it with those she should and in the way she should, except that it was made even clearer by God himself who brings reward O masterpiece of every sort of good, O ornament of queens or, rather queen, as you shone out, among all queens, through your surpassing them all in your virtues, O, earlier the most beautiful of all visions, Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (148) now utterly invisible to all, O, you, that received so many praises and, now that you have left us, the greatest laments we can manage, O,marvel to all who saw you and marvel to all who never saw you, how much your goodness has spread in wonder throughout almost the entire world. O, you who adorned reason with speech and speech with action. O, you that beautified yourself absolutely with the forms of all the virtues, why, having brought to us all, having shown us all blessed by the wealth of hasving you as queen, having inspired us to take pride in the greatness of your many goodnesses, and from whom we enjoyed so many gifts beyond recounting, whether it beyour setting spiritual conflicts in order, even this, you achieved, or otherwise following the goodness of your understanding, your belief that those who attain kingship must act as benefactors, and wishing to keep the kingly order undiminished, knowing well how to handle kingly matters with propriety so that spiritual conflicts not mar them, capable of bringing them together from their furthest extent. Why, then, when you had filled us with so much good, have you flown off and bequeathed to us such grief for them all, and turned us from blessed to wretched and unfortunate? Why did you so quickly intend to be apart from us, who surely never met pain in return for your sweetness, such that the small experience [of it ?] blunted her [effect] in her actions in even the most insignificant way (αὐτὴν τά τι italicized in text, and no discoverable antecedent for αὐτήν —might be for Cleofe herself, with τά as a very generic adverbial limiting accusative). [Was it that] you chose the blessed and thus the greatest thing, going off to that longed for mansion to receive the prize for your virtue, the prize about which you left the message here, but we, in contrast lamenting ourselves make the apostolic utterance, “The dayhas surrendered, the night is near.” (Can you find this? Lambros does not give a biblical reference---ἡ ἡμέρα προέκυψεν, ἡ δὲ νὺξ ἤγγικεν). You, our sun, have set, and we are imprisoned in the darkness of wailing and lamentation, so that to you, O, most holy one, the swiftness of your departure from among men Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (149) has become the greatest argument for your praise. What for others is impossible in the longest time, she in little time gathered all together and, leaving out none of the virtues known to men here, and departed leaving behind amazement, after so short a time. You displayed so much virtue as you were carried away at the peak of your life, being embellished by so many forms of virtue, To us, O, shell of our common existence, what a change has come to hide away what was sweetest and best, igniting the entire flame of griefs and wretchedness. O, who was it that did not spare this loveliest and most beautiful eye for us, cutting it out? Who was it that made this loveliest object and image of all the virtues and graces vanish? O, what a thing has been looted from us in her beauty, what loveliness has been destroyed? What light is now hidden under the bushel? O, what a sun has abruptly gone down into the tomb and is now miserably concealed? What a tongue full of grace has been imprisoned in final silence. Where has such loveliness ever before been extinguished? When has a flower so utterly withered, how has that precious gem been shattered? How is the splendour now hidden, and the sun, which cut in its path through the stars of heaven, as some of the poets say, no longer continues its motion, and that most beautiful marvel, I mean our most holy queen, in a way that brings evil to the entire race, has departed from her course. O, the anguish. Who brought on this storm? Who gathered up this entire disaster so that most of the people inhabiting this city did not hear of it until the saw her suddenly carried off on her bier? When they saw her carried out, all came close to expiring, and wounded by the unexpected disaster, they saw themselves caught up in the same incurable and hopeless catastrophe. Thus Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (150) the affairs of mortals, that is, phantoms, end up obscured by time and they must, in the many vicissitudes of time they have a share in, being in slavery to them just as they are in its flux, combine with its grievousness. O, that unmentionable day, that displayed her lying lifeless. O, the catastrophe, and the gathering in about her of all from every age and family. O, bitter ark, that made away with such beauty. The psalmist of old even danced before the ark, when it was returning whence it came, but before this bitter ark which carries off our great queen to the tomb, it is entirely right for us to stand and wail continuously, and to mourn, and do everything short of trying to exhume her from it. What Trojan sufferings, what disasters of the steadfast, could be equalled by this present death? What tragedies of the poets could set up a manyvoiced chorus of sons of Pelops or of Priam that would come near to this present disaster? She now, O Sun, has set and is hiddeen by the tomb, and you, looking down from above, carry her off and give her brilliance equal to the daughter of Pelops. Why, when she is held fast by this untimely death and already whirled away by her illness would he not hide away his own brilliance, as he would be deprived of hers. I believe that the present grief exists not only in this city, as also in the imperial city, but wherever the choir of heavenly kings shall give ear to us and it will remain not only with her most famous relatives nor only with her close family and friends, not going further than there, but will overwhelm those living in the remotest reaches, since I think no one is ignorant of her excellence. For she showed every virtue through examples of even a few of them, as the saying goes, partaking in the concern for these, and passing all her life Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (151) standing apart, as far as is possible, from earthly things, and longed for the sight of those in heaven. She was constantly in the considerations about her departure from this life, and never let that slip from her mind, for she aimed steadfastly at achieving the crowns of the kingdom of heaven soon, and so was already about to be called from there by God to her rest. She forecast her death, but obscurely, so as not to induce great sadness and trouble for her most godly husband, I mean the purple-adorned despot of the Romans, but nonetheless, she truly forecast it. Thus, she presented herself as worthy of appropriate recompense from God. When the appointed day came, the day on which our Saviour consented for our sake to be nailed to the cross, on that same day and at that same hour of His sufferings and burial, she died and was entombed together with Christ (was it Friday when whe died, not Saturday?) and this event shows that she stands together with him and rules with him. She, when she received the simple call, went off happily to a better fortune, and claimed a prize worthy of her labors. For us, deprived of such a queen, being beside ourselves, there is pain, and wailing, and mourning, and there will be no rest from it. O, time, sparing no one, him we may call the father of all things, and the origin of all decay, as he fosters some things, and buries others, as some poet has said. He had no pity for her for her youth and beauty, but wanted it to fade and vanish into mere dust. O, change, lacking all reverence, the rivers and the sea seem to me to flow in mourning for this catastrophe. But you, who were for us all best and holiest and most regal, you must be among the kings, conversing royally in meadows and groves, and appearing as something new in the cosmos, demonstrating all the virtues and for all those whose habit is Preliminary Draft. Please do not cite without permission (152) to distribute benefaction generously, to many times that number you offer a recompense for troubles, as is your custom, and rule so many peoples and their rulers, and we, seeing this must clap, and sing paians, and pay out our service to you, insofar as each of us in our station is able. Now, alas,she is enclosed in the dust, and there is left for mortals as a reason for comfort. only your name anf the fame of your governance, for I think, as I have already said that no one has not heard of your goodness. Therefore I think that for all time and among all nations, this account, both as a written and as unwritten message will be sent out, and you will be remembered among all men until day and night yield to one another. Now all kingdoms that have lost you mourn you, the groves and meadows alike, the whole beauteous ring of the graces is in pain, since you have left their holy place and they can find nothing else worthy of acceptance among them and go about in aimless wandering. Widows, O, how shall I say it, mourn you deeply, and orphans, and captives, and all the class of the impoverished, since they have lost the one who cared for them. How they all who were your subjects lament and bewail you is impossible to describe. Accept these words offered by us to you, O, in all things for us best and most holy, and most regal lady, they are entirely insufficient, but we could not mourn our loss in silence,