Paedagogium

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At that moment boys playing warmed the Palatine rooms. Pius Severus, the princeps, was away from the city, for at long last he had restrained the Picts with arms and a wall. Many hostages were cared for in the depths of that hall itself and free guardianship protected those princes stolen from throughout Roman lands. There they learned letterettes, the flogging-stick, and pius Vergil; and the glistening gymnasiums - places with both nutshells and discuses - made bare their limbs. There was time to spare, when the swift-moving hoop with its rays sunk into western lands. Forgetting their fatherlands, hidden by those clouds or smoke, or lying wild below the eastern sun, the lads played: the Irishboy sent a ball, the Arab accepted; the throwing collapsed the Briton’s castles which the African constructed with nutshells. Henceforth, with a great roar, there was a jest of little brawl.

As when the rain of hurled nutshells hassled diverse birds and drove them into one place, all kinds come together into the leaf-dense garden or the grove of the storm, and are silent, while it thunders, hidden together below the leaves. There the sparrow doesn’t know he’s almost like the striving lark, the nightingale that he resembles the titmouse: the many-colored sun hardly began to shine through the trickling around all of the branches when the one now applauds, the other chirps. They murmured softly, the latter red one revealed her little ruddy freedman’s hat from behind a leaf, the former her black cap. Then they played. Look! The whole grove glimmered with wings and the rooms resounded with varied melodies.

“Hey, you!” the rusty-haired boy called out to the lad with the black locks. “You Syrian or Aramaean or-”

“My name is Alexamenos.”

“Follow Curtus, as the third part of the triangle!”

“I’d much prefer to learn these lines, YOU WILL BE RULED BY EMPIRE, that I’ll soon have to recite.”

He stopped speaking suddenly, because he’d gone away, taking the oft-folded skins.

“Put down the booklet, munched by moths, and pick up our ball like you should.”

“Kareius, I’m a total newbie at that game.”

“Playing, as the wise man says, is the best teacher.”

“Actually, doing, not playing, I think, if you remember.”

Both laughed, the latter more shyly. He was a different shade than his comrade in respect to all bodily parts, as well as in his face and voice, slender-framed, his cheeks suffused with sallow olive. He then said, laughing: “I will try to play with the others, but now I’ll play alone, because the teacher often gets mad since I’m more or less foreign and mess up in Latin letters.”

“Doesn’t he order me, born on the very shore of the ocean, to speak Greek, as if I’m somebody from Athens? But, stinking greekling, let him try to wash Ethiopians! Play with us!”

“You forgive me. I hoped to seem like I wanted to.”

“Huh? Don’t we ourselves, and now you, ambitious boy, mess up more often in Greek than in Latin?”

“That’s not true! Calm down. I don’t want this game to corrupt me, so that now it bores me to recite verse to the old man.”

“You kiss up to that donkeyette, so he won’t be sad.”

“Stop it! The teacher is calling us, as he’s allowed to.”

“Actually, he oughta be called a tormentor.”

“But he’s pious.”

“If the wicked cross helps, use it.”

“What’s that?”

“There are people who love the cross.”

“What, really?”

“It stands so that you can worship that foul cow, like those weirdos, munching on bread mixed with blood. Why are you always avoiding us? Why do you mutter? Why shun the other boys, your playmates? I don’t want to believe it, but it’s because you recite your poetry to that ridiculous guy, Christ.” Then there he turned over the ball with both hands, and said: “What? Are you playing or not?”

Alexamenos said nothing to this. Yet now the rapid flame had licked the swarthy color of his mouth, now he gaped and leapt back. His weeping wets his eyes. He averted his gaze. Then, he darts forward and pushes the ball from Kareius, who had held it in his hands, with great force. Suddenly Alexamenos, offended, catches fire with rage. He lunged at the robust Gaul with the weight of an assault, just as the lithe-bodied panther leaps from the verdant grass of the Euphrates’ homeland. But with a savage voice and cane the opposing guard separates the just-begun fight. He seizes the warlike Gaul, who had hurt the holy boy unnecessarily. Chiding, the doors thrown open, he forces and compels the struggling child into the neighboring room.

Here the lad pounds the door and ground with his hands and feet. He continues to both tear at his cheeks and pull his red hair. Now shrieking mindlessly the horrible boy threatens many things, now, unavenged, he sighed submissively. Hating the other lad he suffers his punishment and fumes. Meanwhile, with an unsatisfying sob, silent in respect to his pencil and full of foreboding, he remained stuck where he pressed with his feet. Look, he seizes the pencil! Look, he inscribes the bitter wall! A cross appears from the double wound of the wall. A human body is affixed in a cross, wide with unfolded elbows, and a horizontal line supports the feet.

Then the neck and floppy-eared head of an ass were attached to the person. Now the eyes of the scribbler don’t swell with tears. Then he draws a boy standing and offering kisses or, by his left hand, incense to the animal affixed on the post. Now Kareius doesn’t sob. He said, “Who can deny this seems to be the devout and decent dude himself? But it helps to carve the name, so nobody doubts the figure’s identity. I’ll use Greek words and marks. Here slipping is permitted. That fowler won’t hunt for a single mistake, whatever it might be.”

Then, freed from the gloomy cloud, he wrote ‘ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ ΣΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ’ and applauded himself.

But the day being over, the lad realized he was alone in the shadows, because every murmur rang out for longer. All the things which he had laughed at and wept over vanished. Rage fell away. Wicked joys abandoned his mind. Whatever went on recently was nothing. It slipped away. But those things, which had been long ago and far off, and not yet ready to return, remained with him.

He went to bed, having been ordered to do so. The narrow bed accepted the familiar form. A lamp illuminated the depths. He saw, hardly in order, uncertain cots all around in the night and gloom. Earlier sleep overtook the bodies of these companions and the light breath of the boys filled up the hall.

He felt uneasy. Many things returned to his mind.

O Dad! O Mom! O black earth, planted with oak, and shores spread with the soft leather of the white sea! Anything was allowed there, if not forbidden by Dad himself. Chastise nothing, Mom, aside from that which you don’t want us to avoid. Who does he think is there now? what things do the living suffer? and in which shadows or below what earth are they buried? He can’t do a thing but mourn, joined to them only by his heart: it doesn’t help to have had so many fellows-in-sorrow. While the sleepless boy mused to himself about these matters, he noticed another youth nearby was awake and moving. He listens attentively. He slips gently from the bed. His knees touch the ground, since in the darkness he’s suited to believe. Kareius understands Alexamenos. “What hurts him?” he asks, “And which god does he see in the darkness? What does he ask and pray for?”

“O FATHER,” that whisper begins to reveal itself to the tender lad. “WHO ART IN HEAVEN.” Night absorbs the rest and, in a confused murmur, words pierce the waiting ear.

Finally Kareius says in a soft voice: “I ask that you forgive me, please.”

Unhearing, the other responds: “And you yourself, Kareius, are awake?”

“I’m trying to sleep, but I can’t.”

“Sorry, what happened was my fault.”

“No, really, I hurt you for no reason.”

“I should have put up with my classmate and been kind to a suffering person. Would I have said to you that I’m not miserable, brother, if you said the same to me? Even when you’re playing, sadness bothers you.”

“Yet shall I ever see my fatherland and sweet Mom again? Because I’ve given up on my dear parent. That’s why I’m so miserable - oh! - and much too troublesome.” Having said this, Kareius begins to cry, and reaches out into the gloom, about to join his friend's right hand to his own. Alexamenos gets up and, mournful, gives kisses to the mournful boy. They rejoice with tears and cherish shared pain. The deep, silent night and sleep-bringing shadows encircle them. Meanwhile, from here and there a sleeping lad cried out, weeping, with stuttered words.

Kareius said, “Why does anger torment me more often?”

“Because, brother, I myself am less miserable than you,” said Alexamenos.

“What? Aren’t you also an exile? robbed of a Dad, a pius Mom, like me? alone and hopeless? Or are you not sure you survived your parents?”

“Nothing is certain.”

“And so?”

“But my faithful mom gave me that place where I may be able to see and hug her again at a certain time.”

“What place?”

“Heaven.”

“Who will be your boss there?”

“God.”

“That guy you were just asking for something, whom neither of us can see?”

“He’ll see both of us.”

“Do you think Teutates will be there, leading us through dark ways?”

“We don’t have any God, aside from this God with one name.”

“He’s more powerful than death?”

“Now Death will neglect her work: she serves him, and she herself will lead us home again at some point.”

“Why do you always go on about these grand things, buddy?”

“Hugging me for the last time on the shore Mother ordered me to deny nothing, to betray nothing willingly.”

“You gave some kind of gloomy comfort to a miserable person. Now I’ll go to bed. Nobody is dearer to me than you. Sleep now.”

“Brother, rest in tranquil peace!”

Both boys began to placidly go to sleep, having fallen silent for a long while, when in a soft voice the Gaul said: “Why do you often call me ‘brother’?”

“God is the one father of all of us.”

“The God that lives in heaven?”

“And by this king you may rise up and, at last, live again.”

“And I’ll be able to see Mom.”

In the morning the teacher calls Alexamenos to himself, while the boys stood.

He said, “You seem a wise and honest boy, although we know that a while ago an unconfirmed rumor hurt you. The rumor has been spread about: even the walls themselves say it now. They slander you, excellent boy, claiming that you yield to Christ and piously give incense to a cow.”

He said, “What might something holy have in common with a cow?”

“The same is true of a cross, if you ask me. That cross needs to be relinquished by evil highwaymen and fugitives. Ravens have the right to honor a cross. You’re quiet now, eh? But no more of this, boy, you know that your lord and ours is named Pius Severus. Now speak against Christ.”

“I praise him.”

“Wretched lad, you know the law.”

“Christ, Lord God, is my law.”

“Get away from those pure boys. Come. My group will be safe. Come away with your pestilence, while you’re still the only one carrying that disease.”

“You’re wrong: see, here’s another,” Kareius exclaims and offers himself to his brother, joining himself with a clasped hand to the boy who was leaving.

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Forte Palatinae pueris ludentibus aedes
fervebant. Princeps aberat Pius urbe Severus
cum tandem muro Pictos arceret et armis.
Multus at ipsius procul in penetralibus aulae

obses alebatur deductosque undique Romam
libera servabat teneros custodia reges.
Litterulas ibi discebant ferulamque piumque
Vergilium, et nitidae nudabant membra palaestrae:
et nucibus locus et discis, et tempus erat, cum

iret in occiduos radio trochus incitus orbes.
Obliti patriae, nebulis seu fumida late
sive oriente ferax illis sub sole iacebat,
ludebant pueri: follem mittebat Hiberus,
excipiebat Arabs; nucibus quae struxerat Afer,

collabebantur iactu castella Britanni.
Hinc iocus et parvae magno cum murmure rixae.
Ut cum deiectus subitis de nubibus imber
diversas oppressit aves et adegit in unum:
omnigenae coeunt in densum frondibus hortum

aut nemus impluvii, et tacitae, dum detonet, una
sub foliis latitant, ubi nescit passer alaudam
iuxta tendentem necnon acalanthida parus:
vix autem coepit per destillantia circum
omnia ramorum splendescere versicolor sol,

altera iam plaudit, iam pipilat altera, mussant,
pileolum de fronde rubens haec exserit, atrum
illa galericulum, dein ludunt, en micat alis
omne nemus variisque sonant concentibus aedes.
«Heus tu (crine nigrum rutilus puer ipse capillo

increpitat puerum) Syre vel Chaldaee vel...» «Est mi
nomen Alexameno». «Curto succede trigoni
tertius». «Hos immo versus ediscere malim
TU REGERE IMPERIO, qui mox proferre iubebor».
Constitit in verbo cum iam secretus abiret

multiplici rapta membrana. «Linque libellum
hunc sordescentem tineis atque excipe nostram
rite pilam». «Tiro, Karei, prorsus in isto
sum lusu». «LUSUS, sapiens ait ille, MAGISTER
OPTIMUS». «USUS id est, teneo si verba monentis».

Ambo riserunt: hic lenius, omnia quippe
discolor et faciem vocemque et membra sodali,
exilis glaucaque genas suffusus oliva.
Qui tunc arridens: «Alias colludere certem:
nunc sine: nam crebro stomachatur grammaticus, quod

in latiis verbis tamquam peregrinus oberrem».
«Nonne loqui graece, velut est qui cretus Athenis,
me iubet Oceani maris ipso in litore natum?
At lavet Aethiopes putidus sine graeculus. Adsis».
«Ignosces mihi tu: cupio voluisse videri».

«Quid? Nonne in graecis peccamus vocibus ipsi
saepius ac iam tu, puer ambitiose, latinis?»
«Non ita, pace tua: quin me sic corripit, ut iam
me pigeat dare verba seni». «Palparis asello,
ne feriat». «Non sic, qui possit iure, vocat nos

praeceptor». «Tortor potius sine fraude vocandus».
«Quin pius est». «Si te mala crux iuvat, utere porro».
«Quid loqueris?» «Sunt quos et crux delectat». «Ain tu?»
«Restat ut et turpem pecudem venereris, ut isti
fossores, panem qui mixtum sanguine rodunt.

Nam quid secedis? quid muttis usque? quid arces
et fugis aequales? utne, hoc sed credere nolo
ridiculo cuidam, dicas sua carmina Christo?»
Inde pilam versans dextra laevaque «Quid?» inquit:
«ludis?» Alexamenos nihil his respondet, at oris

iam velox aquilum lambebat fiamma colorem:
iamque hiat et resilit. Madefiunt lumina fletu:
obvertit faciem. Tum quam Kareius habebat
in manibus, libravit agens multaque pilam vi
impegit puero: subitoque exarsit in iram

laesus Alexamenos: qui Gallum mole valentem
assultu petit, e viridi velut exsilit ulva
Euphratis patrii subtili corpore pardus.
Inceptam saeva sed pugnam voce diremit
obvius et ferula custos, Gallumque rebellem

arripuit, sanctum puerum qui laeserat ultro,
atque in contiguum foribus conclave reclusis,
impulit increpitans obluctantemque coegit.
Hic pugnoque fores terramque diu pede tundit,
et lacerare genas et rufum scindere crinem

pergit, et absenti dirus modo multa minatur
vociferans, modo submissim suspirat inultus,
alteriusque odio se rursum plectit et odit:
donec inexpleto singultu pectora ducens
in graphio tacitus, quod ibi pede presserat, haeret.

En graphium rapit, en paries inscribitur asper.
Crux oritur duplici de muri vulnere: corpus
humanum cubitis suffigitur in cruce late
explicitis, transversa pedes at linea fulcit.
Tum fixi est hominis cervix asinina caputque

auritum. Iam non scribentis lumina turgent.
Dein facit adstantem pecudique in stipite fixae
oscula praebentem puerum seu thura sinistra.
Iam non singultit Kareius. «Quis neget» inquit
«hunc ipsum puerum purum putumque videri?

Sed ne quis dubitet, iuvat ipsum scalpere nomen.
Utar, ut in graeco, graecis verbisque notisque.
Non, licet exciderit, mendum venabitur auceps
hic unum quodvis». Tunc tristi nube solutus
scribit ΑΛΕΞΑΜΕΝΟΣ AΕΒΕΤΕ ΘΕΟΝ, et sibi plaudit.

At vergente die, cum longius omne sonaret
murmur, et ipse magis solum sentiret in umbris
se puer, en abeunt quae riserat omnia quaeque
fleverat, ira cadit, linquunt mala gaudia mentem.
Quidquid erat nuper, nihil est: effluxit: at adsunt

quae procul atque olim, nec iam reditura, fuerunt.
It iussus cubitum. Notos torus excipit artus.
Emicat extremum lychnus. Vix ordine vidit
incertos circum tenebris et nocte grabatos.
Obruerat pridem consortia corpora somnus,

et levis implebat puerorum spiritus aulam.
Ipsi nulla quies, et menti multa recurrunt.
O pater! o genetrix! o nigra consita quercu
tellus et sparsum cani maris aequor alutis!
Omne ibi permissum, nisi quod pater ipse vetaret:

verbera quae, mater, nolles avertere, nulla.
Quos ubi nunc putet esse? quid omnia vivere passos?
aut quibus in latebris aut qua tellure sepultos?
Nil praeter maerere datur, modo corde tenus: nil
tam multos prodest socios habuisse doloris.

Dum vigil haec secum meditatur, forte sodalem
sensit adhuc alium prope se vigilare, moveri.
Auscultat. Lecto sensim delabitur ille,
tangit humum genibus, tenebris si credere par est.
Noscit Alexamenon Kareius. «Quid dolet?» inquit

«quemve deum videt in tenebris? quid poscit et orat?»
«O PATER» ille infit tenui proferre susurro
«QUI CAELOS HABITAS». Nox cetera sorbet, et aurem
confuso feriunt intentam murmure verba.
Tandem Kareius soppressa voce: «Mihi tu

ignoscas, precor». Attonitus respondet: «Et ipse,
Karei, vigilas?» «Frustra dormire laboro».
«Hoc, ignosce, mea tibi culpa contigit». «Immo
ultro ego te laesi». «Debebam ferre sodalem
atque aliquam misero veniam dare. Num dabit alter,

si mihi tu, frater, tibi si miser ipse negaro?
Cura tibi sensus ipsis in lusibus angit
tristior». «En unquam patriam dulcemque revisam
matrem? Nam carum despero posse parentem.
Ex quo sum miser heu nimis et nimis improbus idem».

Haec fatus lacrimas fundit Kareius, et umbram
praetentat, dextram dextrae iuncturus amicam.
Surgit Alexamenos maestoque dat oscula maestus,
et gaudent lacrimis socioque dolore fruuntur.
Circumstat nox alta silens tenebraeque soporae.

Interdum sonat in somnis hinc fletus et illinc
alterius balbis subito querimonia verbis.
Kareius «Cur» inquit «ego te saepius ira
excrucior?» «Frater, quia sum minus ipse miser te»
inquit Alexamenos. «Quid? tu non exul item? non

orbus item patre, matre pia? non solus et exspes?
Aut tibi compertum est aliqui superesse parentes?»
«Compertum nihil est». «Ergo?» «Sed mater eunti
constituit mihi fida locum quo visere rursus
complectique iterum decreto tempore possem».

«Quemne locum?» «Caelum». «Quis erit tibi dux?» «Deus». «Illen
a quo poscebas aliquid modo, nec mihi prorsus
nec tibi conspectus?» «Videt ambos ille». «Putemne
Theutaten quandoque ducem per opaca viarum
affore?» «Quin Deus hoc Deus uno nomine nobis».

«Morte quidem potior?» «Iam desiit esse sui mors:
servit, et ipsa domum nos quandocumque reducet».,
«Cur haec ore diu pressisti magna, sodalis?»
«Extremum complexa tenens in litore mater
abiurare nihil, nihil ultro prodere iussit».

«Nescioquae misero solatia maesta dedisti.
Nunc somnum capiam. Nemo mihi carior est te.
Obdormi». «Frater, tranquilla in pace quiescas».
Coepit uterque puer placide dormire: diuque
conticuere: levi cum Gallus voce: «Quid» inquit

«saepe vocas fratrem ?» «Deus est pater omnibus unus».
«Qui caelos habitat Deus?» «Et quo rege resurgas
et vivas demum». «Et liceat mihi visere matrem».
Praetor Alexamenon, pueris adstantibus, ad se
mane vocat. «Sapiens» inquit «frugique videris

esse puer, quamquam scimus rumore vago te
iampridem laedi. Rumor percrebuit: ipse
nunc paries loquitur. Te rodunt, optime, Christo
addictum, pecudique pium dare thura». «Quid» inquit
«cum pecude est commune pio?» «Neque cum cruce, opinor.

Crux linquenda malis latronibus et fugitivis
illa. Crucem corvi venerentur iure. Tacesne?
Sed ne plura, puer, domino nostroque tuoque
cognomen scis esse Pio nomenque Severo.
Iam Christo maledic». «Benedico». «Pessime, legem

nosti». «Lex Christus, dominus Deus est mihi». «Castis
a pueris discede. Veni. Mihi salvus erit grex.
Decedas cum peste tua dum pestifer unus».
«Falleris: ecce alium» exclamat Kareius, et offert
se fratri, iunctaque manu comitatur euntem.

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