De laudibus Dei (Carmen de Deo)
· Dracontius (Blossius Aemilius Dracontius)
· c. 490-496
· poetry
Latin · domain: latin-poetry-late-antique · researched 2026-11-14
partial / older only. An English translation exists but is partial or older than the critical edition. The gap is a modern, complete translation from the original. A rendering of a daughter version does not count here: it is recorded on the dossier of the text it actually translates.
Why this is in the register
Dracontius's three-book poem on creation, the fall and redemption survives complete in Latin but has never been translated into English as a whole. The only English rendering located is a short excerpt - De Laudibus Dei 1.562-695 - in Carolinne White's anthology Early Christian Latin Poets (Routledge, 2000), whose contents list the passage explicitly (https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/alma990085386220203941). A broad HOLLIS search on 'Dracontius' returns German critical commentaries (Otto Zwierlein on the Carmina christiana, 2019), German and Italian editions of the profane Romulea and Medea, and an English translation of the profane Orestes (Routledge, 2023) - but no English version of the Christian poems (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Dracontius&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 A targeted search for an English translation returns only a 1942 Catholic University of America study of Book I (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Dracontius%20De%20laudibus%20Dei%20translation&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 the nature of that dissertation was not verified, so it is not counted as a translation here.
Three books of hexameters on creation theology written by a Roman poet imprisoned by the Vandal king Gunthamund - the most substantial Latin theological poem between Prudentius and Avitus, and a key witness to how a Catholic poet handled Arian rule in Africa. An English reader can currently see roughly one fiftieth of it.
Zwierlein, Otto. "Die "Carmina christiana" des Dracontius : kritischer Kommentar." Berlin ; Boston : De Gruyter, [2019]. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/99153823710703941
Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. "Latin writers of the fifth century." New York, H. Holt and company [c1930]. https://hollis.harvard.edu/permalink/f/1s5nto6/990012707060203941