Martha Marchina (1600-1646) wrote Latin poetry, and her work was published posthumously by the Spada family, a powerful family in Rome. Her poetry often had deeply religious and symbolic themes that placed women, particularly Mary, in positions of power. She also tended to describe Jesus when he was an infant, juxtaposing Jesus’s infancy with his death. In “De Puero Jesu,” though, she focuses on Jesus as a boy and the role that his parents had in raising him. She plays with two meanings of the word regere in this poem, which makes for rather delightful reading. Although I personally tend to dislike religious poetry, Martha is different. I particularly enjoyed…
