Bridging the Continental divide: neo-Latin and its cultural role in Jacobean Scotland, as seen in the Delitiae Poetarum Scotorum (1637)

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[Paraphrase of the Book of] Job, chapter 3

1 When finally a slender path for his voice was freed from his grief, a beside himself, Job curses his own undeserved birth: and he breaks forth such words from his heart: 'Oh that hateful day and night inauspiciously passed! Which first unhappily gave the breath of day to me, and joylessly provided a father with a son.

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7 O let that light of day disappear, obliterated by pitch-black night, and let neither the all-powerful father look upon this day from high heaven, b nor let the brightening wheel of the sun fire up its flashing spokes. Instead, let the gloomy night darken the day with dulling shades, and let the darkening sky brood with blackening storms: and, like the hideous roaring from men driven by the avenging furies of sins, who are overcome by a mountain of evils and earnestly wish to end their unpleasant existence, let the storms in fear-inducing groans send shivers up the spine. O let that night of my birth disappear, plunged into the deep gloom, erased from the calendar, banished from the months of the year. Let it be solitary, and let it be empty, abandoned: alone in the shade let it neither as a joyful day behold the games, nor as a festive day witness weddings. Instead, renewing its lingering lamentation in funereal song, let grief scream at the cruel Gods above and the cruel heavens, and let it make a new land of the dead with its gloomy tones.

22 Now let there neither be bright fires from the stars, nor let the heavens shine with a starry sky: rather let there always be clouds in a covered heaven and darkest night in an endless abyss. Let day await the light in vain: and let Lucifer, the forerunner of nourishing Dawn, block the splendor of her rosey face.

27Finally, let a shade cover that day of my birth in eternal darkness, which brought forth an unhappy me into the light of day from inside the womb, and lay open the threshold of a door about to open. By unjust fate, that day threw out unspeakable sorrow, worries, hardships, and tears before my eyes.

32 Ah, why could I have not died when enclosed within the maternal bosom? Why could I have not given up the ghost in birth itself, or having slipped out of the womb, not met death soon after the very beginning of my life? And thus through death averted so many sorrows?

36 Why was I received on my mother's knees? Why the breast, pray tell, did I unhappily feed upon? For calmed in sleep beneath a silent night, a sweet and deep sleep embracing me in its bosom would now keep me warm, and I would be a companion to the rulers of the great globe, and now a partner in dignity with the illustrious lords, who erected with fresh mass the buildings now laid waste and ancient, and who, in those palaces of theirs, concealed treasures buried far within the ground, an unkown amount of gold and silver.

44 I would now have been (just like the infant deprived of life, without sweet air, who lies imprisoned in the depths of the womb, in a cell   [p92] devoid of light) lifeless without light, without air. Where the cruel stop harassing the innocent: where limitless rest is acquired by those worn out by their lot, and ground down by toil: where the defeated no longer endure their broken chains: nor do they hear the oppressor, who would compel them to work with dire commands; here are both the rich in wealth and the destitute in harsh conditions. Here are the powerful in lineage and illustrious in dignity, and also those unknown in their own lifetime and lowly in birth: here, with the master driven out, the slave's collar is released.

55 What gave the gift of life to the suffering man? What gave the gift of life to the dejected in spirit? Those who, in vain with all their prayers, long for death alone: and who, with grave-trenches dug, search with their eyes to the depths below, and when they have later found their grave, gladly they rejoice and exult: for whom grim fortune haunts their burdensome life in gloomy mist: and God blocks the impassable way.

62 Often groaning, I let out many sighs before I eat, and also in tears, in grumbles, and in loud doleful lament c I raise up terrible shouts to the heavens. Just so pours forth the vast and fastest-flowing flood of swirling water: and the resounding wave rumbles loudly. What I feared, the onerous prophecy which my divining mind fled, now bears down upon me with its burden, and with unyielding misfortunes oppresses me. Not lazy, nor indifferent, nor flourishing in blessed rest was I, as some languid numbness pursued me with a whirlwind of misfortunes.' Such plaintive cries did Job continually burst forth from his heart.