Happy Tarraco, Fructuosus lifts up its head, glittering with your fires, shining afar through its twin Levites. God looks graciously upon the Spaniards, since the mighty Trinity crowns the Iberian citadel with a triple martyr. Burning Augurius lays hold of heaven, and Eulogius too, radiant, presses on at the same time toward the highest seat of Christ. Their leader and forerunner and master to so great a glory, illustrious by the episcopal name, Fructuosus went, since by the governor's sudden command the priest had come to the forum, accompanied by his two deacons. Thence to the prison chain the executioner, fed on blood, dragged the men; Fructuosus rejoices to run forward of his own accord. And, lest any fear should strike his companions, the vehement teacher, as he went, strengthens and kindles their faith with the warmth of Christ:
'Stand with me, men; the bloody serpent summons God's ministers to punishment; let not death affright! The palm is prepared. The prison is a step to the crown for Christians; the prison carries us on to the heights of heaven; the prison reconciles God to the blessed.' Having said this, they enter the den of the accused, there they perform the mystic laver, and the shadows are amazed at the cleansing of the water. Here they lie hidden for six continuous days; at last they stand at the tribunal of the savage enemy, and the racks tremble at the three brothers. Aemilianus the judge loomed over them, harsh, turbulent, insolent, profane; he kept ordering them to the altars of the demons. 'You,' he says, 'who as a teacher sow a newfangled kind of fiction, so that fickle maidens forsake the groves and abandon Jupiter—condemn, if you are wise, this old-wives' dogma;
it is commanded by the mouth of Caesar Gallienus that all of us should worship what the emperor worships.' To him speaking thus the calm priest replies: 'I worship the eternal prince of days, the Maker and Lord of Gallienus, and Christ begotten of the everlasting Father, whose servant I am and the shepherd of his flock.' Smiling, that man says: 'You have already been.' Nor does his fury brook delay or curb its wrath; he assigns them to be burned in cruel fires; they exult and forbid the people to weep. The priest sees some from the people offering him a cup to drink. 'We are fasting,' he says, 'I refuse the drink: not yet does the ninth hour unseal the day. I will never violate the law I have vowed, nor shall death itself dissolve my sacred duty. So Christ, thirsting at the hour of the cross, refusing the cup offered to him and unwilling to drink, completed his thirst.'
Meanwhile they enter a place enclosed by a round arena, soaked with much blood of wild beasts, which fury frequents, when the bloody spectacles roar and the worthless gladiator, struck by the hard sword, falls, and pleasure roars. Here, beside the flaming pyre, the black attendant, blazing, ordered to prepare the punishment, built the funeral pile with the final torches—the pile which, while it loosens the bodies to be burned together, might set free the souls fervent with love of the light, the den of the prison being broken open. The pious comrades vie in their offices: one was eager, bending forward, to draw the sandals from his loosened feet, but holy Fructuosus forbids his bowed face to be pressed down: 'Be gone,' he says, 'nor let your dutiful service weigh down my death;
rather let me myself loosen my own feet, lest my steps, hindered by bonds, rush into the fire with tardy gait. Why do tears moisten your weeping cheeks? Why do you ask that I be mindful of you? I will pray to Christ for all peoples.' Scarcely had he uttered this when he himself loosens the coverings of his feet, just as Moses had once done when approaching the bush. He was not permitted to tread the sacred burning, or to stand before God, before his footprints were made pure. He stood with bare heel, and lo, his spirit leaps back to heaven and weaves a discourse which made all the hearers tremble: 'It is no punishment, believe me, what you see, which, called up in a tiny moment, passes by, nor does it snatch away life, but reforms it.'
'Happy the souls to whom it has been granted to climb through fire to the lofty heights of the Thunderer, souls whom one day the everlasting fire shall flee!' Amid these words they enter with swift steps the crackling hearths and threaten the very furnaces of flames that tremble at them. The bonds, then, which had drawn their hands back, bound behind their backs, fall away scorched, while the skin remains untouched. The punishment did not dare to hold back their palms, to be raised toward the Father after the manner of the cross; it loosed their arms, that they might pray to God. You would have thought it the very likeness of those three of old, whom once, singing through the Babylonian fire, the trembling tyrant beheld in amazement. But the pious flame spared them then, the fitting time of passion not yet come, and Christ not yet inaugurating the glory of death.
When the steaming heat fled from them, they pray that the swift fire might fly to them and put an end to their anxious perils. At last, entreated, Majesty bids his servants to die, sent forth from their perishable bodies and restored to himself. An attendant from the governor's household saw heaven lying open to the martyrs and the illustrious men borne through the stars. Nay, even warning his master's little daughters, he pointed out the mark of his father's crime—that those whom the forum had slain were living in heaven. This virginity then merited to see openly, through the clear sky, while their father was blind, that the lord's household might fear the crime of its master. Then from the holy bodies the ashes and the bones drenched with wine are gathered, which each one hastily claimed for himself. So great was the brothers' love—to carry home the consecrated gifts of the holy ashes, or to bear in their bosom the faithful pledge.
But lest divided sepulchers should distribute among different places the relics that are to be raised again and soon to be together with the Lord, the saints are seen, clothed in snow-white stoles: they command that the dust to be consecrated be restored and shut up mingled together in a hollow marble. O triple honor, O threefold summit, by which the head of our city is lifted up, eminent above all the Iberian cities! It is fitting to rejoice in three patrons, by whose protection we are all cherished, the peoples of the Pyrenean lands. Let a choir of both sexes stand around—hero, virgin, boy, old man, old woman—sing your Fructuosus duly! Let the hymn praising Augurius resound, matching Eulogius with mingled measures; let us render equal songs to equals. On this side let the gilded roofs sound forth in the citadel, on that let the soft murmur of the shore arise, and let the festive seas chant their song.
One day there will be a time, as the world falls to ruin, when Fructuosus shall deliver you, Tarraco, from the keen punishment, sheltering you from the fire. Perhaps too he will deign to grant healing to my torments, by Christ's favor, as he turns over again these sweet hendecasyllables.