Muirchu’s Vita Sancti Patricii
Perhaps in the seventh century, a churchman named Muirchu wrote the first biography of Patrick.
Use the glosses below, and the online Lewis-Short dictionary from Furman University to work through this selection from chapter 20.
The events in this chapter are set at the first Easter in Ireland. Patrick appears at the palace at Tara where nobles and druids have gathered for the festus maximus, “their greatest feast day”.
They stage a contest between Patrick and a druid named Lucet Máel. We pick up the story where Lucet Máel has just challenged Patrick to bring snow over the whole land.
Instructions
The passages have been outlined in the format we’ve been using all semester. Work on the main clauses first. Find subject and verb. If you don’t recognize vocabulary, one of your team should check the glosses, and try to find the word in the lexicon if it’s not glossed.
From chapter 20 of the Vita Sancti Patricii
Glosses
20.3:
- ait == dixit
- magus, magi (m), “magician, druid”
20.4:
- exordior, exordiri, -, orsus, “to unfold, begin”
- nix, nivis (f), “snow”
20.5:
- campus, i (m), “field”
- pluvia, ae (f), “rain”
- nebula, ae (f), “mist, fog”
- evanesco, evanescere, evanui, -, “disappear, vanish”
20.6:
- tenebra, tenebrae (f), “shadow”
20.7:
- gratias ago == “to thank”, “give thanks (to someone)”
Section 20.3
(3) ait Patricius:
“nolo contraria uoluntati Dei inducere”,
et dixit magus:
“ego inducam videntibus cunctis”.
Section 20.4
(4)
Tunc incantationes magicas exorsus
induxit nivem super totum campum …
et viderunt omnes
et mirati sunt.
Et ait sanctus: “…depone nunc”.
Et dixit:
“Ante istam horam cras non possum deponere”.
Et ait sanctus:
“Potes malum et non bonum facere.
Non sic ego”.
Section 20.5
(5)
Tunc benedixit campum
absque ulla pluvia aut nebulis aut vento evanuit nix,
et exclamaverunt turbae
et mirati sunt.
Section 20.6
(6)
Et paulo post
invocatis demonibus
induxit magus densissimas tenebras super terram in signum
et mormuraverunt omnes.
Et ait sanctus:
“expelle tenebras”.
At ille similiter non poterat.
(7)
Sanctus autem
orans
benedixit
et reppente expulsae sunt tenebrae
et refulsit sol
et exclamaverunt omnes et
gratias egerunt.