XXI. Theodori Prodromi, philosophi doctissimi, Epithalamium, fortunatissimis imperatoris filiis dictum.
A 1. To the construction of the ancient tabernacle, most learned Emperor, hair of goats was needed; and certainly it is expedient that the names of Caesars, now of the Julii, now of the Augusti, become known. But I, who have to celebrate my venerable Emperor with very many new names, shall never depart from that which signifies the type of a wise man, doing this so that with the organ of my voice I may consolidate the betrothal and nuptials of your sons; in which place the hair meant something and lacked no ornamentation. But in this place there is no need of words to proclaim perfection. For how could the ornament itself have need of ornament, or beauty itself need to be made beautiful? To what purpose, then, is perfection for those to whom nothing is lacking? But it is to be estimated solely by the goodwill of those contributing. It is not surprising, then, if we were not present among the beginnings of the mysteries; for we were not oblivious to the affair through ignorance. To whom, furthermore, should we show favor if not to public masters and benefactors? If, then, you assign one time with Solomon for taking a wife, and another for writing books, you will also hold to the principle of harmony, which bids one sacrifice to peace and lay down arms. But before all things let us set the evangelical parable, which I fear I may not clearly understand. For I am penitent to cite the father of reason because the nuptials are not solemnly performed, as if the hands and feet of reason were cast away from the epithalamium. Hence, I shall conceal the ailment and with overflowing joy shall declare the power of reason. Know, however, that pleasure with which the soul is imbued is equally disturbed by the bonds of logic as is sorrow.
B 2. You have the reason why I was slower in performing my duties. Up to this point I was silent indeed, yet I do not approach the panegyric altogether intemperately. For just as when this visible sun is about to rise, rays as harbingers precede it; but when it turns towards setting, the rays remain on the surface C of the earth; so in royal festivities, festive preludes precede the great panegyric and introduce it as it were from on high; but also postludes (if I may be forgiven the word) follow, which is what can be said of our oration, which hesitated for a long time as to whether it should peruse the nuptials with a poem in the ancient manner, or address the bride and groom before the wedding feast, which indeed it also did subsequently. For one D
A should not try to establish by argument a matter that is already confirmed by nature, by law, and by time; though this is even higher than our discourse, yet it is notwithstanding the sum of the whole feast, so to speak.
3. I greet you, therefore, a couple yoked together under the one yoke of brotherhood; but now joined by two wedding ties, beautiful shoots of a beautiful olive tree, being not more brothers in nature than in character, nor more in character than in the good gifts of those scepters from which you have sprung, and each of you confirming your own lot no less by your ways than by your titles. And you, B O active spirit, Alexios, beautiful youth, gray-haired intelligence, truly a station worthy of the fortune of your ancestors, who represent in yourself entirely your grandfather the emperor, in character more than in the name of Komnenos and Alexios, and who demonstrate the mystery of the succession of nations through things concerning you; for if one were to grant even those myths that men were once born, some parts of the body... and the other of the shoulders ivory-colored, and from which ancestor they were made flesh by succession, and thus again the things of our own time are far more wonderful than the mythical ones, inasmuch as we do not confirm the lineage from one part, and that a bodily one, but from the whole body, and from all the dispositions of the soul. And you, too, O offshoot of the Doukian root, Charitonyme, the flower of the season, the image of youth, whom I have never seen without bringing that boundless beauty to mind—if one asks what is the first form worthy of tyranny, I shall answer. Rejoice both collectively and individually, you who possess the C widely heralded happiness, having become wealthy in all, and who having established the things that until now lay in disbelief, have confirmed all good things in one, to those who are related to them.
4. And if one should wish, I shall display the happiness of the bridal couple, even if only in part, coarsely and cursorily, as if the matter were not already near the bridal feast; for I would not, if I were able, have spared any of all these things. Two scepters, then, were shining forth to the Romans, reflecting beautifully upon one another; the one, a little earlier, the Komnenian, and the one immediately at its heels, the Doukian, both fortunate and illustrious and not unworthy of secular virtue; but just as if by agreement they had come together into one, this one, which is much clearer and brighter, this Komnenodoukian and imperial state of the bridal couple. Remember, O those present, the Alexian authority; yet, so that you do not weep over the marriage, recall that good order in peace, those feats of valor in battles, without lamenting, O sacred empresses, without lamenting, for the sake of the beautiful feast; remember that gentleness, that stability, that other grace. But what is this? D I see the senate looking gloomy at this; wait, therefore, to sing another ode, and we are singing it now. Behold for me this holy empress, the namesake Irene, the Doukian offshoot, who has ruled no less over all the Romans; well done, for the listener has again been eased in his soul. Behold this hand, which you have always tested, and we test it, the hand that distributes wealth, that is God-loving, merciful, and full of every other virtue. From such grandparents as these have these beautiful bridal couple been offered to us; from such great roots have these fair fruits been raised.
A 5. But what are we to say of their venerable parents, whom to call—to use a name suited to their character—victorious in all things, would be to fall short of the magnitude of their deeds? I speak of this empress, daughter of the purple, whose circular eye—moving of itself toward itself and revolving—signifies a motion that is intellectual and divine, driven by an agitation that we have recognized as being from themselves and toward themselves. If, as the Greeks claim, there is any truth in this, we would add a fourth Grace to the Graces and a tenth Muse to the Muses, or rather, one who has initiated herself into the whole of philosophy—for which the end is not knowledge, but practice—through the exercise of virtue. Furthermore, having thought more nobly and regally, and having considered that, just as the purple is the ornament of the royal body, so too is the science of the knowledge of beings the ornament of the royal soul, she searched out the truth in these things and showed that virtue is an acquisition of the will, not of lineage. Having surpassed all others in every excellence, she surpassed even herself in the happiness brought about by her marriage; for she entered into the bed of such a man—my master and Caesar—the likes of which neither sight has presented to us, nor have the histories of the ancients taught us. For while other Greeks and Romans may have succeeded in different things—some in demagoguery, some in military command, others in achieving fame through letters, with one having practiced philosophy and another poetry—to be the same man at the same time a general, a master of poetry, a philosopher, a voter, an arbiter among rhetoricians, and to fall short of excellence in nothing, but to be the center of praise for each of these—this was given by fate to our Emperor alone. B
6. Being placed under such fathers, therefore, and having such brides and grooms as brothers, and looking upon such examples, tell me, how were their souls to be trained? I think in no other way than how they were trained; and they were trained in such a way as, indeed, Plato legislates for the man who is to govern his own state. As for the goods that nature has generously bestowed upon them—I mean beauty, speed, strength, and whatever pertains to a liberal upbringing—to ride expertly, to play ball, to hunt with skill, to command a phalanx with no lack of noble spirit—and furthermore, those things concerning the body, royal garments, silver and gold, and whatever other material man has deemed valuable; and splendid houses, and Arabian horses, and a crowd of subjects not ignoble, for these things too snatch up the whole of happiness, let the eyes of each witness for each one; but I for my part marvel most at their humble-mindedness and gentleness in such circumstances, and the obedience they have rendered to their parents, as part of the whole, to which my discourse has turned, and to the others...
C 7. For such persons, then, and from such origins, what is still lacking for the completion of their total happiness? Surely nothing other than to marry luckily and to be called parents of children. Since, therefore, the marriage has already been celebrated, and we are chanting a paean today for two royal and fair children—and two maidens—the first in lineage, the peerless in form, and of the most lawful, noble, and moral union—one might call these two, in their new-appearing union, a sun and a moon.
A Let the entire body of subjects, or more truly, all of us, rejoice; for it is not the part of unfeeling servants to fail to rejoice when their masters rejoice, nor to remain unmoved by the joy of their betters, just as the opposite is also true. But, B O Christ the King, ward off from us everything of evil report. If thou hast any perception, O bedchamber and bridal house, share thou too in this joy; let no one here be sullen, let no one be downcast; let all smile, let all rejoice, let all exult together at these completed rites.
The matter of skilled craft and many children—the other aspect—remains yet to be seen, but the sequence from the ancestors up to this day is well-omened. What sayest thou to these things, O divinely inspired soul and tongue of the Caesar? “Did not the discourse show your children to be as fortunate as it was possible for them to be?” I, indeed, think so, and perhaps I am not far from the mark. What else, then, is there to do in this, but to rejoice, and for all others to do so, but especially those who are most intimate? Do thou, therefore, rejoice for me before all others, O sacred and divine Empress; for the one who is the leader of the lineage ought also to be the leader of the joy; and as for thee, O—I know not what worthy title to call thee by, O most divine Porphyrogenita—rejoice and rejoice with me for my master, the wise Caesar.
8. See, the prayer is brought to an end, and the longing is fulfilled. You have seen your sons successfully led as bridegrooms, crowned, and proclaimed to the Senate, to the people, and to the forum; escorted to the bridal chambers, following him who Yesterday was escorted in victory as kinsman and Emperor. Let all envy be far away; you have wedded fair sons to fair daughters—the Pythian oracle would rightly have said this as well. And do you, divine sovereigns of these children, rejoice, and divine empresses, and, above all, you yourselves, O bridegrooms; for you who have become the cause of joy to others would much more so be such to yourselves; for you who have been joined have found fortune, and you who have been joined in return—the maiden out of noble descent with the offspring of kings, the offspring of kings with the maiden out of noble descent, the young women with the young men, and the young men in turn with the young women. And you, thrice-happy brides, rejoice, and you have joined in the joy of the noble Doukaina and of the sister of the handsome bridegrooms, whom you emulate in all other things, besides that of an untimely widowhood; over these things let us exult.
9. C I overcome you, O Myth, in the matter of weddings, even if we grant credence to the fabled tales. For you unite to Peleus the daughter of the old man of the sea, Thetis, but I, to the child of most glorious sovereign-parents, [unite] daughters; and whereas you arrange the nuptials in a rocky cave, I arrange them in the royal palaces themselves; and you invite to the banquet Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena, but I, absolute ladies—some more imperial than Hera, more prudent than Athena, and more beautiful than Aphrodite. And you bring in Eris, supposedly uninvited, and cast an apple into the midst—that apple which was the pretext for the whole Iliad—and you disturb the drinking, and, as the saying goes, you cause the seats to be overturned and set the banqueters at odds with one another. But I, too, invite Eris to the banquet, D and I do not violate the face of the festival; this Eris whom I bring is not the contentious one, nor the one who delights in evil, but one who, when understood, would be praised; so much more noble—and even if it were not a myth, more glorious—are the events among us.
10. Who, then, is so envious and so unappreciative of the good that he does not rejoice at these present things and pray for the best for the masters of these ceremonies? As for me, I am all but leaping at the matter, and I skip for joy, and I imitate in this part the prophet of Jesse...