In the heat of a mid-summer’s day, ancient Armenians gathered to honor Astghik, the little star, goddess of water, beauty, and carnal love. According to one legend, while running unshod to be with her wounded consort, Vahagn, the warrior-god associated with fire and the sun, she stepped on thorns of white roses. The blood she shed turned the roses red. And so on her day, Armenians offered her the roses that from now on wore the color of her blood. Her day is Vardavar, from the Armenian words for rose (vard) and flame (var), the festival of the burning rose, burning with the passion for her lover and the scorching sun of summer.
To honor Astghik’s patronage of water and to provide relief from the heat, Armenians still observe the practice of dousing each other with water on her day. These pagan practices never died, even after Christianity took hold of Armenia, and so the church fathers resolved to baptize Astghik and transform her day into the feast of the Transfiguration, commemorating Jesus’ manifestation before three of his disciples in radiant glory with Moses and Elijah. The feast is movable, falling on the 14th Sunday after Easter, which this year is tomorrow (July 16).
The “Ode on Vardavar” by St. Gregory of Narek (c. 945-1003) is a brilliant composition on the feast. Remarkably, the only explicitly Christian content is the doxology of the last stanza. David and his harp appear in the sixth couplet, providing a clue that much of the imagery is drawn from the psalms. But the focus for the reader is on the vitality and vividness of nature and its sensuous power. The first line contains the name of the pagan feast: the jeweled rose (vard) bursting in flames (var). And water is present in the mysterious sea-flower that spreads out over the oceans. That and the dew recall Astghik’s role as benefactor of water. But the water also prefigures baptism and the wind that blows from the mountains represents the grace of the Holy Spirit. And just as Astghik’s blood turns the white roses red, Christ’s blood, symbolized by the red rose at the beginning of the ode, is supplanted by the whiteness of the lily of the valley. It is the blood that restores purity to the world and brings a cool breeze from the north that provides relief on the season’s hottest days.
My translation of the ode is somewhat free and tries to reproduce the meter of the original while not always being literal. For a better and more faithful translation (together with his comprehensive notes on the biblical allusions), see Prof. Abraham Terian’s The Festal Works of St. Gregory of Narek (Liturgical Press, 2016).
An Ode of Vardavar
The jeweled rose did burst aflame
from the sun’s beams high above.
From high above the solar beams,
a sea-flower stretched out its reach.
Along the ocean’s far extent,
the flower’s bright colors foamed.
And from the flower’s dappled shades,
fruit from its broad branches blazed.
The ripened soft saffron fruit was
fed by the flower’s lush leaves.
The leaves of the harpist’s psalter
of which blessed David sang.
From a wreath of varied roses,
many-hued flowers bloomed.
These poplar and boxwood arbors
unfurled their rose-tinctured boughs.
These cypress trees and budding firs
took the rose to deck the lily.
The lily gleamed in the valley,
glistening toward the sun.
As that wind blew from the north,
the jeweled lily gently swayed.
And from that mountain in the south,
misty streams revived the lily.
The lily was doused with dew,
evening-drops and strings of pearls.
All the flowers received the dew,
the dew from clouds, clouds from sun.
All the stars, an assembled host,
turned round about to face the moon,
A host in a cruciform globe,
a formation in the sphere.
Glory to the Father and the Son, always,
and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever.
St. Gregory of Narek (c. 945-1003)