“The
Chesterton party
arrived at Notre Dame on the evening of October 4th, 1930. The lectures
began
on the following Monday. On Friday, the 10th, in the evening, the
stadium was
solemnly dedicated. Navy had come on for the dedicatory game, and
Father
O'Donnell was busy with them. He had told Johnny Mangan, the University
chauffeur, to look after the Chestertons, and to see that they got into
the
stadium and that Mr. Chesterton had a seat on the platform from which
the
speeches were to be made, There were about twenty thousand people
present, and
when the students saw the magnificent bulk of Chesterton going toward
the
platform, they cheered wildly: "He's a man! Who's a man? He's a Notre
Dame
man!" Chesterton turned nervously to Mangan, saying: "My, they're
angry!" "Angry!" exclaimed Johnny, "golly man, they're
cheerin' you!" Whereat Chesterton began such a fit of laughing and
sputtering as almost to choke himself.”
On
Saturday, Oct. 11, 1930, the Irish beat Navy, 26-2.
What follows is Chesterton's poem commemorating the occasion:
The Arena
Causa
Nostrae Laetitiae
(Dedicated
to the University of Notre Dame, Indiana)
There
uprose a golden giant
On the gilded house of Nero
Even his far-flung flaming shadow and his image swollen large
Looking down on the dry whirlpool
Of the round Arena spinning
As a chariot-wheel goes spinning; and the chariots at the charge.
And the molten monstrous visage
Saw the pageants, saw the torments,
Down the golden dust undazzled saw the gladiators go,
Heard the cry in the closed desert
Te salutant morituri,
As the slaves of doom went stumbling, shuddering, to the shades below.
“Lord
of Life, of lyres and laughter,
Those about to die salute thee,
At thy godlike fancy feeding men with bread and beasts with men,
But for us the Fates point deathward
In a thousand thumbs thrust downward,
And the Dog of Hell is roaring through the lions in their
den.”
I
have seen, where a strange country
Opened its secret plains about me,
One great golden dome stand lonely with its golden image, one
Seen afar, in strange fulfillment,
Through the sunlit Indian summer
That Apocalyptic portent that has clothed her with the Sun.
She
too looks on the Arena
Sees the gladiators grapple,
She whose names are Seven Sorrows and the Cause of All Our Joy,
Sees the pit that stank with
slaughter
Scoured to make the courts of
morning
For the cheers of jesting kindred and the scampering of a boy.
“Queen of Death and deadly weeping
Those about to live salute thee,
Youth untroubled; youth untutored; hateless war and harmless mirth
And the New Lord's larger largesse
Holier bread and happier circus,
Since the Queen of Sevenfold Sorrow has brought joy upon the
earth.”
Burns above the broad arena
Where the whirling centuries circle,
Burns the Sun-clothed on the summit, golden-sheeted, golden
shod,
Like a sun-burst on the mountains,
Like the flames upon the forest
Of the sunbeams of the sword-blades of the Gladiators of God.
And I saw them shock the whirlwind
Of the World of dust and dazzle:
And thrice they stamped, a thunderclap; and thrice the sand-wheel
swirled;
And thrice they cried like thunder
On Our Lady of the Victories,
The Mother of the Master of the Masterers of the World.
“Queen of Death and Life undying
Those about to live salute thee;
Not the crawlers with the cattle; looking deathward with the swine,
But the shout upon the mountains
Of the men that live for ever
Who are free of all things living but a Child; and He was
thine.”
--G.K.
Chesterton (1930)