Stanza the third:
Hoc excitatus lucifer
solvit polum caligine,
hoc omnis erronum chorus
vias nocendi deserit.
Stirred up by this - i.e. by the cock-crow - Lucifer . . .
Now what is 'Lucifer' here? Raby glosses 'the sun', but this is not the
usual meaning of the word. Usually lucifer is the morning star, the planet
Venus. But this would not cause the effects which follow. I prefer to fall
back on the poetic use meaning simply 'day', found in Propertius and Ovid.
This is not, I think, an allusion to a title of the Devil, which would not
make sense here. But there may well be a suggestion of Christ, who as we
have seen in a previous hymn is commonly imaged as the day-star, the dawn. So,
. . . the day releases the heavens from darkness,
'polus' is the pole, i.e. the north pole, hence the pole star, but
frequently in the poets - Virgil, Ovid et al., 'the heavens'.
'caligo' is darkness, gloom, obscurity.
By this, all the choir of wanderers . . .
'erro, erronis' is a wanderer, a vagabond. Raby glosses, "erronum,
wandering demons. The manuscripts read errorum, which, (abstract for
concrete) can have a similar meaning." I'm not sure that we nead to
understand 'demons'. The word at face value means earthly vagabonds,
burglars, the thieves who lurk in the darkness and disperse with the coming
of the light. 'chorus' can mean a multitude, band, gang, group. It may be
that Ambrose simply means a gang of thieves. Or he could be thinking of demons.
. . . leave the ways of doing harm.
More tomorow.
Elasticus.
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