(I am also posting this at my Substack.)
For Good Friday, here is a version of an epigram by the Neo-Latin poet Henrik Harder. (You can find more renderings of Harder poems in Joie de Vivre and Mere Orthodoxy.) I don’t quite call it a “translation” because I’ve taken some liberty with it via an addition at the end and a radically different meter; but I hope that it preserves the spirit of the original.
Christ, the Way and the Life, Crucified and Dead
After Henrik Harder, Epigrams 1
The Way whereby
One mounts the sky
Wants himself lifted up.
Life wants to die
Lest death abide.
He drinks the poisoned cup.
