open and plain to perceive, that for the love of humankind,
of crime-workers, he suffered many things.
The sons of men will be able to understand clearly
how destitute they denied him in their thoughts,
taunting him with harmful words and also spat their spittle
into his face. They spoke their scorn against him
and also struck, the hell-hurrying men, his blessed countenance
with their hands, with fingers outstretched and fist as well—
and about his head bent a harsh and thorny ring,
blind in their thinking, foolish and led astray.
They observed mute creation, the ever-greening earth
and the high-heavens, feel the sufferings of the Lord
fearfully, and mournfully pronounce, though they lived not,
when the harmers seized the Shaper with sinful hands. (1115-32a)
The sun was washed out, smothered with sorrows—
when the folk in Jerusalem were looking up the best
of good weaving that once must be looked upon
as decoration in that holy house—it burst apart from above
and lay upon the earth in two patches. The sails of that temple,
wrought in wondrous hue to beautify that house,
rent itself in two, as if the sharp blade of a dagger
had passed through it. The glistening walls and many stones
burst apart across the earth and upon the ground as well,
wasted in terror, trembling at the sound of the voice,
and the broad sea revealed the power of its skill
and broke its bonds, angry, rising up from the embrace of the earth,
and in their shining orbit, the stars let go of their proper beauty.
In that same moment, the clear heavens understood him
who had loftily established the brightness
in the gems of heaven—therefore he had sent his herald,
when the shining king born first of all creation. (1132b-52a)
Listen as well! Guilty men have seen as a true token,
upon the same day that he suffered, a great miracle,
that the earth gave up those who lay within her.
Living again, they stood up, the ones who had been swallowed
up fast inside her, the buried dead, who kept in their breast
the Lord’s commandment. Hell also understood,
the wreaker of sin, that the Shaper had come,
the Wielding God, when the earth had given up that throng,
its spoils, from its fiery bosom. The hearts of many
were blessed, and sorrows slid away from their souls. (1152b-63a)
Listen as well! The sea revealed who established it
on its broad basin, the glory-mighty king—
therefore it made itself firm to walk upon,
when God wished to go across its waves.
The watery streams dared not submerge the Lord’s feet
in its flood. And the trees as well announced who
had shaped them with their fruits—many of them,
not just a few—when Mighty God mounted upon
one of them, where he suffered miseries
for the sake of the nation-dwelling,
a loathsome death as a help to humankind.
Then many trees became bedewed with bloody tears
beneath their bark, red and thick, their sap turned to gore. (1163b-76a)
This fact no earth-dweller can speak through wise understanding,
how many things, which cannot perceive, became aware
of the suffering of the Lord, these inanimate creations.
Those that are the most ennobled of the earth’s kindred,
and also the high-timbers of the heavens were fearful
because of that lone man, and seized by fright.
Although from their innate virtues they knew nothing
of spiritual understanding, even so they knew by a miracle
when their Sovereign journeyed from his body-house. (1176b-86a)
The people did not know how to perceive,
their Measurer, these mind-blinded men,
harder than flints, that the Master had saved them
from a hell-death by his holy powers,
the All-Wielding God. This fact, at the earliest,
forward-thinking men from the first of the world,
through their wise perception, the prophets of the Lord,
holy through their heart’s insight, have spoken to men
often—not just once—about that noble child,
that the dearest gemstone must enter into the world
as a shelter and comfort to all of the kindred of men,
the Driver of Glory, the Start of Blessings, by way of that noble queen. (1186b-98)
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