By way of introduction to what follows, I would like to draw the readers’ attention to a very interesting perspective put forward by George Murnu, which I shall expand upon to the best of my ability: ‘Strictly speaking, we owe Eminescu’s great contribution – the one that has been accepted and transfigured into the very blood of the nation – to his virile, affirmative attitude, which is predominant throughout his work. Through this, Eminescu appears to us as a true vates, a shepherd of the flock, a prophet and singer of our aspirations, a mystagogue who, with a priestly gesture, officiates in the nation’s inner sanctums. A Moses who grows angry at the materialisation and degradation of the people and, with his brass trumpet, awakens within them a sense of lost dignity and pride’1
1. In Letter IV, we find the following verses, which illustrate a biblical theme: ‘Do you not see that your laughter is turned to weeping in your children’s hearts, / That it is to blame that the line of Cain has not yet died out?’ Every Romanian fears to sin against God and watches over his deeds, lest his sins be paid for by those who come after him—his children. For him, it is certain that: ‘The parents eat sour grapes and the children’s teeth are set on edge’. This is a biblical parable that has become part of Romanian folk tradition. In Lamentations it is written: ‘Our fathers have sinned and are no more, but we bear their iniquities’ (Lamentations 5:7). Things were to change in sacred history. Thus, promising the Jewish people their return from Babylonian captivity, God conveys, through the prophet Jeremiah, the following change: ‘In those days they shall no longer say, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. But each person will die for their own iniquity; whoever eats bitter herbs, their teeth will be set on edge’” (Jeremiah 31:29–30). And to the prophet Ezekiel, God speaks thus: ‘Why do you tell this proverb in the land of Israel, saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge”? As surely as I live, says the Lord God, so surely this proverb shall no longer be spoken in Israel. For behold, all souls are Mine; just as the soul of the father is Mine, so also is the soul of the son; the soul that has sinned shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:2–4). In his poem, Eminescu addressed the Romanians like a prophet, honouring tradition, yet driven by the desire to make them understand the gravity of the situation in which their society found itself and just how great a responsibility rested upon them, to put their nation’s life in order. It was the duty of their parents’ generation to save future generations!
2. The biblical Ecclesiastes, the wise man, appears in Eminescu’s ‘First Letter’ in the guise of the ‘old teacher’. Before our eyes lies the portrait of a poor man, a portrait painted with great tenderness and subtle understanding:
his coat worn thin at the elbows and cold against his chest /
and he fastens his old robe, trembling, /
tucking his neck into the collar and cotton wool in his ears.
This is his wise man. And it could not be otherwise, for the poet knew that ‘where there is much wisdom, there is also much bitterness, and he who increases his knowledge increases his suffering’ (Ecclesiastes I, 18). The teacher was a labourer, ‘for neither by day nor by night do his eyes know sleep’ (Ecclesiastes VIII, 16). Whilst everyone else slept, he thought, sought, and discovered something of the world’s mystery:
Withered as he is, stooped and of no account,/
The boundless universe rests upon his little finger;/
For beneath his brow the future and the past coalesce,/
The deep night of eternity he unravels in sequences;/
Just as Atlas of old supported the heavens upon his shoulder,/
So he supports the world and eternity in a single number.
In the Book of Ecclesiastes we find this rhetorical question from which, it seems, the poet drew his inspiration: ‘Who is like the wise man, and who can know the meaning of things as he does? A man’s wisdom brightens his face, and the sternness of his countenance is transformed’ (Ecclesiastes VIII, 1–2).
Thoughts flood the inquiring mind of the wise teacher, seeking answers to questions, with the desire to fathom the mystery of the universe, the mystery of God. Ecclesiastes explains what the result of such toil is: ‘Then I realised, as I contemplated the work of God, that man cannot comprehend all that is done under the sun, but he toils to seek it out, without making sense of it, and even if the wise man thinks he knows them, he cannot fathom them’ (Ecclesiastes 8:17).
Next, in Eminescu’s work, comes a description of the event of Creation, which, upon reading it, fills one with the unique emotion evoked by reading Scripture:
In the beginning, when there was neither being nor non-being,/
When all was devoid of life and will,/
When nothing was hidden, though everything was concealed,/
When, imbued with himself, the unfathomable rested,/
Was there an abyss? A chasm? Was there a vast expanse of water?/
There was no world to comprehend, nor a mind to comprehend it,/
For there was a darkness like a sea without a single ray of light,/
Yet it had never been seen, nor was there an eye to behold it./
The shadow of the unmade had not yet begun to disperse,/
And, at peace within itself, eternal peace reigned!
Upon this ‘formless and empty earth’, in the ‘darkness over the deep’ (Genesis 1:2), appears ‘the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters’. In Eminescu’s work, the moment is presented thus:
And suddenly a point stirs… the first and only one. Behold it—
how from chaos it creates the mother, whilst He Himself becomes the Father? That moving point, far fainter than a speck of foam,
is the boundless ruler over the ends of the world./
... From then on, the world, the moon, the sun and the elements arise./
From then until today, colonies of lost worlds/
Come from dark valleys of chaos along unknown paths/
Behold, time has entered this world. Only the Creator is eternal, says Eminescu: ‘Eternal is only the river: the river is the Demiurge/’ (Letter IV). The comparison with the eternal river is linked to the saying in the Proverbs of Solomon: ‘The fountain of wisdom is a stream that overflows its banks’ (Proverbs XVIII, 4), and this is the Creator.
The prophets spoke at length of God’s wisdom, which is made known both in the natural order and in historical events, revealing the marvellous plan through which God intended to save all humanity. God’s intervention in creation was recognised and accepted without any attempt to comprehend it, for man was aware that he could not understand the motive behind such an intervention. The Book of Job asserts, using many and varied poetic figures, that God alone possesses Wisdom, that He alone knows and understands the universal Law which manifests itself everywhere in a great variety of forms. For man, ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding’, as it is said in Proverbs (IX, 10).
Man is mortal, and even the wise man, for all his wisdom, dies too. But the ‘old teacher’ hoped for immortality. He dreamt of it for his writings:
‘If I should die,’ he says to himself, ‘my name will be borne /
through the centuries, from mouth to mouth, and carried on /
for ever, everywhere; in the recesses of some minds/
And my writings will find refuge, bearing my name!
Sceptical, the poet points out that society is drawn more to ‘all the evils that are/ Fatally bound to a handful of earth’, and less, if at all, to the wise man’s thoughts. Ecclesiastes draws attention to the fact that, after death, we are all equal: ‘For in the realm of the dead, to which you are going, there is neither deed, nor purpose, nor knowledge, nor wisdom’ (IX, 10).
3. ‘What is has already been, and what will be has already been in former times; and God brings back what has passed away’ (Ecclesiastes 3:15). This is precisely the theme of the poem Glossa:
All that has been or will be/
We have it all in the present,/
But as for their futility/
You must ask yourself and ponder.
The poet’s conclusion:
What is a wave, for the wave passes by,/
Do not hope and do not fear,/
Ask yourself and consider/
What is evil and what is good;/
All things are old and all things are new: Time passes, passes and comes again.
4. ‘With my face to the wall, let me lie amongst strangers,/ Let the light in my eyes freeze beneath my eyelids./ And when the earth returns to the earth,/ Who will know where I came from, who I am?’ The theme of the body returning to the earth from which it was made is a biblical theme. God made man from the earth: ‘Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being’ (Genesis 2:7). Because of his disobedience, man lost his immortality and death entered into him. Then God said to him: ‘By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread, until you return to the ground from which you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return’ (Genesis 3:19).
5. In the Old Testament, the punishment for certain sins was stoning, death by being struck with stones. Through this punishment, members of society showed God and other people that they rejected the sin of which the condemned person was guilty. Stoning served as a reparation for the offence committed against God and as a purification of the entire community. In the first century of the Christian era, this punishment existed, for it was in this manner that the First Martyr and Archdeacon Stephen was put to death (Acts of the Apostles 7:58). Jesus Himself was threatened with stones: ‘I have shown you many good things from my Father. For which of these are you stoning me?’ (John 10:32).
Earlier, He had forgiven the sinful woman brought before Him by the Pharisees and scribes, so that they might condemn her according to the Law of Moses. The woman had been caught in the very act of adultery (John 8:4–5). Jesus pronounced the judgement: ‘Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her’ (John 8:7). The accusers withdrew in silence, and Jesus, left alone with the woman, said to her: ‘Woman, where are your accusers? Has no one condemned you?’ And she said: ‘No one, Lord.’ And Jesus said to her, ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go; from now on, do not sin any more’ (John 8:10–11). Jesus thus called her to repentance. Repentance is like being born again. It could be said that, by His decision, Jesus raised this woman from the dead. For Jesus does not punish the sinner, but the sin. Sin must be removed from the world, and sinners must repent, being baptised anew in the bath of their own tears.
In the Gospel according to Luke, Jesus forgives a sinful woman and says: ‘Her many sins are forgiven, for she has loved much. But the one who is forgiven little loves little. And he said to her: ‘Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you; go in peace!’ (Luke 7:47–48, 50).
Undoubtedly, Eminescu adopted this approach, which we see evident in many places in his poetry. In Eminescu’s love, there is a constant struggle between sin/mistake and forgiveness. He would like the triumph of forgiveness to be recognised and appreciated by the woman he loves. The melancholy that overwhelms him stems from the fact that, after she has wronged him, the woman leaves, abandoning him, as if denying herself and him forgiveness. For she, alas, does not understand how great his love was! I shall focus solely on Venus and the Madonna. After accusing the woman of many grave sins, the poet forgives her because her heart is full of love. Indeed, his love makes her a saint:
Wipe your eyes, weep no more! The accusation was cruel,/
It was cruel and unjust, without reason, without foundation,/
Souls! Even if you were a demon, you are a saint through love,/
And I adore this demon, with big eyes and fair hair.
This approach, in fact, defines the entirety of Eminescu’s lyric work, his love being characterised by intense emotional experience, yet also by a deep, silently borne pain. Before loving anyone, Eminescu makes us feel just how deeply he loved Love itself!
6. Eminescu loved and respected his people like no other. He knew their soul, appreciated their virtues, and understood their customs, which were rooted in faith in God. The poet uses the most evocative comparisons, the most beautiful metaphors and the words richest in meaning to express his strong, profound, steadfast and reverent attachment to his people. Let us consider a brief example: ‘A maiden whose soul was as holy as prayer’ (Venus and the Madonna); ‘Flocks, flocks pass through my mind/ Sweet illusions: Memories/ Fall heavily, soothingly/ And shatter in my sad soul/ As wax falls in drops/ At the feet of Christ’/ (Solitude); ‘And you shall rise before me like an icon/ Of the ever-virgin Mary,/ Wearing a crown upon your brow’ (So Tender...); “With her golden candlelight, pale wisdom,/ With her regal smile, like a star that never sets,/ The light of your life, a path strewn with roses:/ Your soul an angel, your heart a lyre,/ Which, stirred by the warm breeze, breathes gentle songs;/ Your eye beheld a palace in a world of icons” (The Epigones); “And you, Hyperion, remain/ Wherever you may set;/ You are of the first form,/ You are an eternal wonder” (Luceafărul); “Your Highness Stephen,/ Do not linger at Putna any longer,/ Leave to the Archimandrite/ All care for the hermitage,/ Leave the care of the saints/ to the fathers,/ Let the bells ring out/ All day long. All night long,/ May God have mercy,/ So that He may save your people!” (Doina).
In conclusion, I refer to the following passage:
For where it ends there is no boundary,/
Nor any eye to perceive it,/
And time strives in vain/
To be born from the void./
There is nothing, and yet there is/
A thirst that consumes it;/
It is a depth like/
That of blind oblivion
(Luceafărul). With his genius – though its true value is recognised by only a few – Eminescu reveals to us the realm of God, the Kingdom of Heaven, which is His Kingdom. Weary, exhausted by earthly life, we hope that he has found eternal rest up there!
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Mihai Eminescu, Poems, with an introduction and edited by G. Murnu, featuring 12 facsimile watercolours and numerous drawings by A. Murnu, Editura Națională – S. Ciornei, Bucharest, 1929, reprinted in Bucharest, 1995.