The Como Poem: A Tension
Between Religious Devotions
Bethany Rallis
At the end of the “Como Poem,” Paul the Deacon begs the “redemptor” to spare him. This last couplet of the poem seems out of place within the larger context of the poem that praises Lake Como. However, a close reading of the poem reveals more than just a glorification of Lake Como as the semblance of nature. Although Paul begins by extolling the virtues of Como as a part of nature, his praise turns into a fear of the nature that consumes his attentions and distracts him from Christianity. By the end of the poem Paul has changed the image of nature from pleasant and pastoral to fearful, dark and hellish. Paul reveals the duality of nature: it brings both life and death. In the end, Paul is a man who has almost lost himself to the temptation of nature. He comes to the realization that it has distracted him from the divine, and he asks to be spared.
Throughout the first half of the poem, Paul portrays Lake Como as the ideal image of nature bringing bounty and beauty to earth. He begins by extolling praise on the lake and the gifts that it brings to earth. He writes “dant quoque sic nomen cornua panda tibi” (line 3). This line explains why in the first line Paul named the lake Larius, after the Roman tutelary gods of the hearth and harvest, who brought prosperity from the cornucopiae. Thus, cornua panda makes reference to the cornucopia and the image of plenty. Like gods, the lake that is in the shape of a cornua panda brings forth bounty on earth with its gifts to the churches and to the table.
Paul seems to be equating the power that he attributes to Lake Como to that of the gods. At the beginning of the poem he names the Lake, “Lari.” Then, in line 4, he speaks of “dives”(gods) in the vocative. Here the reader barely differentiates between the “dives” and the lake, both of which could be bringing bounty to the earth, churches and tables. He continues to describe the godlike powers that Lake Como exerts upon the earth in lines six and seven: it is able to make spring come even after winter. Thus, Paul puts the Lake into a position of power and begins to act as if he worships it as the Pagans worshiped their Lares when they ask for good harvest.
The cornua panda are also likened to the horns of a bull. In actuality, Lake Como had two branches flowing from its south. Through this connection Paul creates another powerful image of the Lake being like a bull's head from whose sometimes-lethal horns waterways might flow. In this case they are not the horns of plenty as before when they were associated with the Lares and the cornucopia. Now the image of the horns alludes to the Lake's power; the two branching horns indicate two paths that might sprout from the Lake. In the context of the darker side of the Lake that Paul reveals to us later in the poem, these branches could be allusions to two separate routes that the Lake's power can take, one towards good, the other towards evil.
At this point Paul continues explicating the goodness in nature that surrounds Lake Como by depicting the ideal image of lush growth around the Lake. “Cinctus oliviferis utroque es margine silvis” (line 9), pomegranates (the fruit of the underworld—a reference to pagan religion) and twigs of myrtle that smell like berries. Here he seems to be completely enthralled in nature's powers. He describes every twig on every tree surrounding the Lake right down to the type of flower or fruit that adorns it and the smell that flows from it. Like Paul, the reader cannot help but to revel in the beauty of nature around the Lake. But Paul's reference to fruits such as the pomegranate force the reader to begin to regard nature with some skepticism.
Just as the reader is lost with Paul in the beauty and pleasure of nature, Paul turns the poem's serenity to hostility. The reader's senses are no longer focused on the sweet smell of berries but rather the smell of overripe peaches just fallen from the tree and probably rotting on the ground—delatum Perside malum (line 15). This is the first direct hint of death in the poem. In lines 15 and 16 Paul portrays the trees as fighting, each attempting to conquer the other with its odor. Here at the midpoint of the poem, at line 15, the image of Lake Como as the prototype of ideal nature declines. No longer is the imagery bountiful, serene, beautiful and fresh but rather sour, dark, turbulent and even deadly.
An image of darkness and foreboding descends on the Lake as Paul introduces four other lakes that yield to Como. The first lake is the Avernus. “Famous in classical lore as the marker of the entrance to the underworld, it was thus considered owing to the fumes exhaled from it, noxious enough to kill even birds flying overhead” (line 17, note). This image brings death into the poem that until this point had praised life. The infamy of Avernus' fumes also dominates the description of the trees' odors in the previous lines. Paul then mentions the Lake of Epyrus. Epyrus was a Greek province that was purported to lead to the underworld, thus giving this lake another link to death.
The final two lakes refer to forces attempting to manipulate nature. The mentions of Lake Fucinus and Lake Lucrinus depart from the idea of death and the underworld, moving to the notion of human intervention with nature. Lake Fucinus alludes to the seventh book of the Aeneid in which Virgil refers to Umbro, a priestess and a snake charmer, who tried to command the thoughts of nature (7.989). The last lake that Paul names is Lake Lucinus. Men built a canal to link this lake to the sea. Thus the reference to the lake speaks to the aim of humans to control nature. Here he alludes to the dangers of men becoming interested in nature and trying to intervene with it.
Next, turning from lakes to a larger body of water, Paul places Lake Como on par with the ocean, writing “vinceres omne fretum” (21). Equated with the ocean, the Lake acquires even greater power—one strong enough to surpass the oceans. At the same time in this part of the poem Paul presents Christianity as stronger than the Lake: “Vinceres omne fretum, si te calcasset Iesus” (21). With this line he introduces Christ's influence over the water by alluding to his walking on the water. This contrasts with the beginning of the poem when Paul refers to Como, using its Latin name, after the Lares, the tutelary gods that bring harvest and bounty to earth. At line 21, Paul is recognizing Christ's influence over nature, which until this point he had disregarded. This illuminates a tension between the two divines—pagan gods to which Paul refers to in the beginning of the poem, and Christianity through his reference to Christ's influence over nature.
With tension created, Lake Como shows its violent side. Not only does Paul suggest that it might battle with the sea but, in lines 23 and 24, Paul expresses his fear that the Lake's waves might shipwreck sailors. This image is in direct opposition to the earlier image of the Lake bringing forth bounty. The new image shows the hostile side of nature that with its godly powers can bring waves to a lake and drown boats full of men. The contrast of these images confronts the duality of nature in its ability to proffer both good and bad.
Able to see this duality, Paul suggests, in line 25, that praising nature is impious and encourages flight from this practice. He instead extends praise to the Trinity: “Sit tibi laus et honor, trinitas inmensa, per aevum” (27). This line parallels the first line of the poem, when Paul writes “ordiar unde tuas laudes, O maxime Lari?” Thus, he begins the poem praising Lari, Lake Como, with the allusion to paganism and leads into the poems conclusion extending praise and honor to Christianity and the divine.
Having come to the realization that nature produces both good and evil, as well as life and death, Paul asks for the “redemptor” to spare him. A man who was in danger of losing himself to nature and disregarding Christianity, Paul has come back to seek forgiveness. However, the noun “redemptor” has various meanings that lend to different interpretations of the line in which Paul asks for forgiveness. On one level “redemptor” can mean a buyer, contractor or farmer. These options do not fit as well into the meaning of the poem as an interpretation of the word to mean undertaker or redeemer. This metaphor follows the darkening imagery in the poem and puts Paul at death's door asking for forgiveness for his near submission to nature's temptations.
The part of the line reading “qui legis ista, precur” (29) lends further credence to the interpretation of “redemptor” as undertaker or redeemer. Legis can mean, “to read” in which case Paul is speaking to those who are reading the poem. But legis can also mean, “to collect” and in some cases carries the connotation of “to collect bones”. This fits into the grammar of the phrase because ista could be interpreted as neuter, plural, accusative and the Latin word for bones is neuter (os, ossis). Therefore, a possible translation of this phrase is “you who collect these (bones), I beg.” Therefore, in the final moments of the poem Paul is standing at death's door, asking death itself to spare him.
This interpretation also ties into the link to the Virgilian underworld that Paul established with his reference to Lakes Avernus and Epyrus. In Book Six of the Aeneid, Aeneus travels to the underworld to visit his father. Virgil portrayed an afterlife in which people are judged for their earthly actions. The idea of the “redemptor” as undertaker and judge having the power to forgive Paul his digression toward nature is similar to the idea of the underworld. Thus, with these references and words Paul creates an extremely dark setting for himself at the end of the poem as he faces death and begs for forgiveness and salvation. Similarly the “redemptor” can be Christ, the savior whose own death ensures forgiveness.
This poem is about a tension between paganism and Christianity. In the beginning of the poem, Paul introduces us to nature in all its splendor and glory and fills it with pagan images. Through the middle of the poem he continues with pagan images but alters them to the darkness of the underworld. Once he sees that nature has led him to the underworld, Paul returns to thoughts of the divine and the influence Christ exerts over nature. This contrast of the pagan and Christian is what reconciles the beginning, middle and end of the poem with Paul returning to Christianity.
Paul the Deacon. 1997. “The Como Poem,” in Medieval Latin, Second edition. Ed. K.P. Harrington; rev. Joseph Pucci. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.