No More Learning

C. , and
52 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
the alphabet would have been employed for monumental pur poses long before it was applied to the manufacture of books. As Wolf's theory of the origin and late date of the Homeric Poems avowedly rested on the belief that the literary use of writing in Greece was of late date, so too the theory of the analysts of the Hexateuch rests tacitly on the belief that the Israelites of the age of Moses and the Judges were wholly illiterate. Moses did not write the Pentateuch because he could not have done so.
The huge edifice of modern Pentateuchal criticism is thus based on a theory and" an assumption. The theory is that of " the literary analysis of the Hexateuch, the assumption that a knowledge of writing in Israel was of comparatively late date. The theory, however, is philological, not historical. The analysis is philological rather than literary, and depends entirely on the occurrence and use of certain words and phrases. Lists have been drawn up of the words and phrases held to be peculiar to the different writers between whom the Hexateuch is divided, and the portion of the Hexateuch to be assigned to each is determined accordingly. That it is some times necessary to cut a verse in two, somewhat to the injury of the sense, matters but little; the necessities of the theory require the sacrifice, and the analyst looks no further. Great things grow out of little, and the mathematical minuteness with which the Hexateuch is apportioned among its numerous authors, and the long lists of words and idioms by which the apportionment is supported, all have their origin in Astruc's separation of the book of Genesis into two documents, in one of which the name of Yahveh is used, while in the other it is replaced by Elohim.
The historian, however, is inclined to look with suspicion upon historical results which rest upon purely philological evidence. It is not so very long ago since the comparative philologists believed they had restored the early history of the Aryan race. With the help of the dictionary and grammar they had painted an idyllic picture of the life and culture of the primitive Aryan family and traced the migrations of its offshoots from their primeval Asiatic home. But anthropology has rudely dissipated all these reconstructions of primitive his tory, and has not spared even the Aryan family or the Asiatic home itself. The history that was based on philology has been banished to fairyland. It may be that the historical results
WHO WKOTE THE PENTATEUCH? 53
based on the complicated and ingenious system of Hexateuchal criticism will hereafter share the same fate.
In fact, there is one characteristic of them which cannot but excite suspicion. A passage which runs counter to the theory of the critic is at once pronounced an interpolation, due to the clumsy hand of some later "Redactor. " Indeed, if we are to believe the analysts, a considerable part of the professedly historical literature of the Old Testament was written or "redacted " chiefly with the purpose of bolstering up the ideas and inventions either of the Deuteronomist or of the later Code. This is a cheap and easy way of rewriting ancient history ; but it is neither scientific nor in accordance with the historical method, however consonant it may be with the methods of the philologist.
When, however, we come to examine the philological evi dence upon which we are asked to accept this new reading of ancient Hebrew history, we find that it is wofully defective. We are asked to believe that a European scholar of the nine teenth century can analyze with mathematical precision a work
composed centuries ago in the East for Eastern readers in a language that is long since dead, can dissolve it verse by verse, and even word by word, into its several elements, and fix the approximate date and relation of each. The accomplishment of such a feat is an impossibility, and to attempt it is to sin as much against common sense as against the laws of science. Science teaches us that we can attain to truth only by the help of comparison ; we can know things scientifically only in so far as they can be compared and measured one with another. Where there is no comparison there can be no scientific result. Even the logicians of the Middle Ages taught that no conclu sion can be drawn from what they termed a single instance. It is just this, however, that the Hexateuchal critics have essayed to do. The Pentateuch and its history have been compared with nothing except themselves, and the results have been derived not from the method of comparison, but from the so-called "tact" and arbitrary judgment of the in dividual scholar. Certain postulates have been assumed, the consequences of which have been gradually evolved, one after another, while the coherence and credibility of the general hypothesis has been supported by the invention of further subordinate hypotheses as the need for them arose. The " critical " theory of the origin and character of the Hexa
64 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
teuch closely resembles the Ptolemaic theory of the universe ; like the latter, it is highly complicated and elaborate, coherent in itself, and perfect on paper, but unfortunately baseless in reality.
Its very complication condemns it. It is too ingenious to be true. Had the Hexateuch been pieced together as we are told it was, it would have required a special revelation to dis cover the fact. We may lay it down as a general rule in science that the more simple a theory is, the more likely it is to be correct. It is the complicated theories, which demand all kinds of subsidiary qualifications and assistant hypotheses, that are put aside by the progress of science. The wit of man may be great, but it needs a mass of material before even a simple theory can be established with any pretense to scientific value.
But it is not only science, it is common sense as well, which is violated by the endeavor to foist philological speculations into the treatment of historical questions. Hebrew is a dead language ; it is, moreover, a language which is but imperfectly known. Our knowledge of it is derived entirely from that fragment of its literature which is preserved in the Old Testa ment, and the errors of copyists and the corruptions of the text make a good deal even of this obscure and doubtful. There are numerous words, the traditional rendering of which is ques tionable ; there are numerous others in the case of which it is certainly wrong ; and there is passage after passage in which the translations of scholars vary from one another, sometimes even to contradiction. Of both grammar and lexicon it may be said that we see them through a glass darkly. Not unfre- quently the reading of the Septuagint — the earliest manuscript of which is six hundred years older than the earliest manuscript of the Hebrew text — differs entirely from the reading of the Hebrew; and there is a marked tendency among the Hexa- teuchal analysts to prefer it, though the recently discovered Hebrew text of the book of Ecclesiasticus seems to show that the preference is not altogether justified.
How, then, can a modern Western scholar analyze with even approximate exactitude an ancient Hebrew work, and on the strength of the language and style dissolve it once more into its component atoms? How can he determine the relation of these atoms one to the other, or presume to fix the dates to which they severally belong ? The task would be impossible
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 66
even in the case of a modern English book, although English is a spoken language, with which we are all supposed to be thoroughly acquainted, while its vast literature is familiar to us all. And yet, even where we know that a work is composite, it passes the power of man to separate it into its elements, and define the limits of each. No one, for instance, would dream of attempting such a task in the case of the novels of Besant and Rice ; and the endeavor to distinguish in certain plays of Shakespeare what belongs to the poet himself and what to Fletcher has met with the oblivion it deserved. Is it likely that a problem which cannot be solved in the case of an Eng lish book can be solved where its difficulties are increased a thousand fold? The minuteness and apparent precision of Hexateuchal criticism are simply due, like that of the Ptole maic theory, to the artificial character of the basis on which it rests. It is, in fact, a philological mirage ; it attempts the im possible, and in place of the scientific method of comparison, it gives us as a starting point the assumptions and arbitrary principles of a one-sided critic.
Where philology has failed, archaeology has come to our help. The needful comparison of the Old Testament record with some thing else than itself has been afforded by the discoveries which have been made of recent years in Egypt and Babylonia, and other parts of the ancient East. At last we are able to call in the aid of the scientific method, and test the age and character, the authenticity and trustworthiness, of the Old Testament history by monuments about whose historical authority there can be no question. And the result of the test has, on the whole, been in favor of tradition, and against the doctrines of the newer critical school. It has vindicated the antiquity and credibility of the narratives of the Pentateuch ; it has proved that the Mosaic age was a highly literary one, and that con sequently the marvel would be, not that Moses should have written, but that he should not have done so ; and it has un dermined the foundation on which the documentary hypothesis of the origin of the Hexateuch has been built. We are still, indeed, only at the beginning of discoveries ; those made dur ing the past year or two [1895-1896] have, for the student of Genesis, been exceptionally important ; but enough has now been gained to assure us that the historian may safely disregard the philological theory of Hexateuchal criticism, and treat the books of the Pentateuch from a wholly different point of view.
56 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
They are a historical record, and it is for the historian and archaeologist, and not for the grammarian, to determine their value and age. To determine the age and trustworthiness of our literary authorities is doubtless of extreme importance to the historian, but unfortunately the materials for doing so are too often absent, and the fancies and assumptions of the critic are put in their place.
The trustworthiness of an author, like the reality of the facts he narrates, can be adequately tested in only one way. We must be able to compare his accounts of past events with other contemporaneous records of them. Sometimes these records consist of pottery or other products of human industry, which anthropology is able to interpret ; often they are the far more important inscriptions which were written or engraved by the actors in the events themselves. In other words, it is to archaeology that we must look for a verification or the reverse of the ancient history that has been handed down to us, as well as of the credibility of its narrators. The written monuments of the ancient East which belong to the same age as the patri archs or Moses can alone assure us whether we are to trust the narrative of the Pentateuch, or to see in it a confused medley of legends, the late date of which makes belief in them impossible.
As has been said above, Oriental archaeology has already dis closed sufficient to show us to which of these two alternatives we must lean. On the one hand, much of the history contained in the book of Genesis has been shown, directly or indirectly, to be authentic ; on the other hand, the new-fangled theory of the composition of the Hexateuch has been decisively ruled out of court.
The Tel el-Amarna tablets have shown that the western Asia conquered by the Egyptian kings of the eighteenth dynasty was wholly under the domination of Babylonian culture. All over the civilized Oriental world, from the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates to those of the Nile, the common medium of literary and diplomatic intercourse was the language and script of Chaldaea. Not only the writing material, but all that was written upon it, was borrowed from Babylonia. So powerful was this Babylonian influence, that the Egyptians themselves were compelled to submit to it. In place of their own singular and less cumbrous hieratic or cursive script, they had to com municate with their Asiatic subjects and allies in the cuneiform characters and the Babylonian tongue. Indeed, there is evi
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
57
dence that the memoranda made by the official scribes of the Pharaoh's court, at all events in Palestine, were compiled in the same foreign speech and syllabary. That the Babylonian language and script were studied in Egypt itself we know from the evidence of the Tel el-Amarna tablets. Among them have been found fragments of dictionaries as well as Babylonian mythological tales. In one of the latter certain of the words and phrases are separated from one another in order to assist the learner.
The use of the Babylonian language and system of writing in western Asia must have been of considerable antiquity. This is proved by the fact that the characters had gradually assumed peculiar forms in the different countries in which they were employed, so that by merely glancing at the form of the writing we can tell whether a tablet was written in Pales tine or in northern Syria, in Cappadocia or Mesopotamia. The knowledge of them, moreover, was not confined to the few. On the contrary, education must have been widely spread ; the Tel el-Amarna correspondence was carried on, not only by professional scribes, but also by officials, by soldiers, and by merchants. Even women appear among the writers, and take part in the politics of the day. The letters, too, are sometimes written about the most trivial matters, and not un- frequently enter into the most unimportant details.
They were sent from all parts of the known civilized world. The kings of Babylonia and Assyria, of Mesopotamia and Cappadocia, the Egyptian governors of Syria and Canaan, even the chiefs of the Bedawin tribes on the Egyptian frontier, who were subsidized by the Pharaohs' government like the Afghan chiefs of to-day, all alike contributed to the correspondence. Letters, in fact, must have been constantly passing to and fro along the highroads which intersected Western Asia. From one end of it to the other the population was in perpetual lit erary intercourse, proving that the Oriental world in the cen tury before the Exodus was as highly educated and literary as was Europe in the age of the Renaissance. Nor was all this literary activity and intercourse a new thing. Several of the letters had been sent to Amenophis III. , the father of the " Heretic King," and had been removed by the latter from the archives of Thebes when he transferred his residence to his new capital. And the literary intercourse which was carried on in the time of Amenophis III. was merely a continuation of
58 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
that which had been carried on for centuries previously. The culture of Babylonia, like that of Egypt, was essentially literary, and this culture had been spread over western Asia from a remote date. The letters of Khammu-rabi or Amraphel to his vassal, the king of Larsa, have just been recovered, and among the multitudinous contract tablets of the same epoch are speci mens of commercial correspondence.
We have, however, only to consider for a moment what was meant by learning the language and script of Babylonia in order to realize what a highly organized system of education must have prevailed throughout the whole civilized world of the day. Not only had the Babylonian language to be acquired, but some knowledge also of the older agglutinative language of Chaldsea was also needed in order to understand the system of writing. It was as if the schoolboy of to-day had to add a knowledge of Greek to a knowledge of French. And the sys tem of writing itself involved years of hard and patient study. It consisted of a syllabary containing hundreds of characters, each of which had not only several different phonetic values, but several different ideographic significations as well. Nor was this all. A group of characters might be used ideographi- cally to express a word, the pronunciation of which had nothing to do with the sounds of the individual characters of which it was composed. The number of ideographs which had to be learned was thus increased fivefold. And, unlike the hiero glyphs of Egypt, the forms of these ideographs gave no assist ance to the memory. They had long since lost all resemblance to the pictures out of which they had originally been developed, and consisted simply of various combinations of wedges or lines. It was difficult enough for the Babylonian or Assyrian to learn the syllabary; for a foreigner the task was almost herculean.
That it should have been undertaken implies the existence of libraries and schools. One of the distinguishing features of Babylonian culture were the libraries which existed in the great towns, and wherever Babylonian culture was carried this feature of it must have gone too. Hence in the libraries of western Asia clay books inscribed with cuneiform characters must have been stored up, while beside them must have been the schools, where the pupils bent over their exercises and the teachers instructed them in the language and script of the foreigner. The world into which Moses was born was a world as literary as our own.
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 59
If western Asia were the home of a long-established literary culture, Egypt was even more so. From time immemorial the land of the Pharaohs had been a land of writers and readers. At a very early period the hieroglyphic system of writing had been modified into a cursive hand, the so-called hieratic; and as far back as the days of the third and fifth dynasties famous books had been written, and the author of one of them, Ptah-hotep, already deplores the degeneracy and lit erary decay of his own time. The traveler up the Nile, who examines the cliffs that line the river, cannot but be struck by the multitudinous names that are scratched upon them. He is at times inclined to believe that every Egyptian in ancient times knew how to write, and had little else to do than to scribble a record of himself on the rocks. The impression is the same that we derive from the small objects which are dis interred in such thousands from the sites of the old cities.
Wherever it is possible, an inscription has been put upon them, which, it seems taken for granted, could be read by all. Even the walls of the temples and tombs were covered with written texts ; wherever the Egyptian turned, or whatever might be the object he used, it was difficult for him to avoid the sight of the written word. Whoever was born in the land of Egypt was perforce familiarized with the art of writing from the very days of his infancy.
Evidence is accumulating that the same literary culture which thus prevailed in Egypt and western Asia had extended also to the peninsula of Arabia. . . .
The Exodus from Egypt, then, took place during a highly literary period, and the people who took part in it passed from a country where the art of writing literally stared them in the face to another country which had been the center of the Tel el-Amarna correspondence and the home of Babylonian literary culture for unnumbered centuries. Is it conceivable that their leader and reputed lawgiver should not have been able to write, that he should not have been educated " in the wisdom of Egypt," or that the upper classes of his nation should not have been able to read ? Let it be granted that the Israelites were but a Bedawin tribe which had been reduced by the Pharaohs to the condition of public slaves ; still, they necessarily had leaders and overseers among them, who, according to the State regula tions of Egypt, were responsible to the Government for the rest of their countrymen, and some, at least, of these leaders
60 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
and overseers would have been educated men. Moses could have written the Pentateuch, even if he did not do so.
Moreover, the clay tablets on which the past history of Canaan could be read were preserved in the libraries and archive chambers of the Canaanitish cities down to the time when the latter were destroyed. If any doubt had existed on the subject after the revelations of the Tel el-Amarna tablets, it has been set at rest by the discovery of a similar tablet on the site of Lachish. In some cases the cities were not destroyed, so far as we know, until the period when it is allowed that the Israelites had ceased to be illiterate. Gezer, for example, which plays a leading part in the Tel el-Amarna correspond ence, does not seem to have fallen into the hands of an enemy until it was captured by the Egyptian Pharaoh and handed over to his son-in-law Solomon. As long as a knowledge of the cuneiform script continued, the early records of Canaan were thus accessible to the historian, many of them being contemporaneous with the events to which they referred.
A single archaeological discovery has thus destroyed the base of operations from which a one-sided criticism of Old Testament history had started. The really strong point in favor of it was the assumption that the Mosaic age was illiterate. Just as Wolf founded his criticism and analysis of the Homeric Hymns on the belief that the use of writing for literary purposes was of late date in Greece, so the belief that the Israelites of the time of Moses could not read or write was the ultimate foundation on which the modern theory of the composition of the Hexateuch has been based. Whether avowed or not, it was the true starting point of critical skepti cism, the one solid foundation on which it seemed to rest. The destruction of the foundation endangers the structure which has been built upon it.
In fact, it wholly alters the position of the modern critical theory. The onus prohandi no longer lies on the shoulders of the defenders of traditional views. Instead of being called upon to prove that Moses could have written a book, it is they who have to call on the disciples of the modern theory to show reason why he should not have done so. . . . As historians, we are bound to admit the antiquity of writing in Israel. The scribe goes back to the Mosaic age, like the lawgiver, and in this respect, therefore, the Israelites formed no exception to the nations among whom they lived. They were no islet of illiter
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61
ate barbarism in the midst of a great sea of literary culture and activity, nor were they obstinately asleep while all about them were writing and reading.
There was one period, and, so far as we know, one period only, in the history of western Asia, when the literature of Babylonia was taught and studied there, and when the literary ideas and stories of Chaldaea were made familiar to the people of Canaan. This was the period of Babylonian influence which ended with the Mosaic age. With the Hittite conquests of the fourteenth century B. C. , and the Israelitish invasion of Canaan, it all came to an end. The Babylonian story of the Deluge, adapted to Palestine as we find it in the Pentateuch, must belong to a pre-Mosaic epoch. And it is difficult to believe that the identity of the details in the Babylonian and Biblical versions could have remained so perfect, or that the Biblical writer could have exhibited such deliberate intention of con troverting the polytheistic features of the original, if he had not still possessed a knowledge of the cuneiform script. It is difficult to believe that he belonged to an age when the Phoeni cian alphabet had taken the place of the syllabary of Babylonia, and the older literature of Canaan had become a sealed book.
But if so, a new light is shed on the sources of the histori cal narratives contained in the Pentateuch. Some of them at least have come down from the period when the literary culture of Babylonia was still dominant on the shores of the Mediter ranean. So far from being popular traditions and myths first committed to writing after the disruption of Solomon's king dom, and amalgamated into their present form by a series of " redactors," they will have been derived from the pre-Mosaic literature of Palestine. Such of them as are Babylonian in origin will have made their way westwards like the Chaldaean legends found among the tablets of Tel el-Amarna, while others will be contemporaneous records of the events they describe. We must expect to discover in the Pentateuch not only Is raelitish records, but Babylonian, Canaanitish, Egyptian, even Edomite records as well.
The progress of archaeological research has" already in part fulfilled this expectation. " Ur of the Chaldees has been found at Muqayyar, and the contracts of early Babylonia have shown that Amorites — or, as we should call them, Canaanites — were settled there, and have even brought to light such distinctively Hebrew names as Jacob-el, Joseph-el, and Ishmael. Even the
62 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
name of Abram, Abi-ramu, appears as the father of an " Amo- rite " witness to a contract in the third generation before Amraphel. And Amraphel himself, along with his contempo raries, Chedor-laomer or Kudur-Laghghamar of Elam, Arioch of Larsa, and Tid'al or Tudghula, has been restored to the history to which he and his associates had been denied a claim. The " nations " over whom Tid'al ruled have been explained, and the accuracy of the political situation described in the fourteenth chapter of Genesis has been fully vindicated. Jeru salem, instead of being a name first given to the future capital of Judah after its capture by David, is proved to have been its earliest title ; and the priest-king Melchizedek finds a parallel in his later successor, the priest-king Ebed-Tob, who, in the Tel el-Armana letters, declares that he had received his royal dignity, not from his father or his mother, but through the arm of "the mighty king. " If we turn to Egypt, the archaeo logical evidence is the same. The history of Joseph displays an intimate acquaintance on the part of its writer with Egyp tian life and manners in the era of the Hyksos, and offers the only explanation yet forthcoming of the revolution that took place in the tenure of land during the Hyksos domination. As we have seen, there are features in the story which suggest that it has been translated from a hieratic papyrus. As for the Exodus, its geography is that of the nineteenth dynasty, and of no other period in the history of Egypt.
Thus, then, directly or indirectly, much of the history con tained in the Pentateuch has been shown by archaeology to be authentic. And it must be remembered that Oriental archae ology is still in its infancy. Few only of the sites of ancient civilization have as yet been excavated, and there are thou sands of cuneiform texts in the museums of Europe and America which have not as yet been deciphered. It was only in 1887 that the Tel el-Amarna tablets, which have had such momentous consequences for Biblical criticism, were found; and the disclosures made by the early contracts of Babylonia, even the name of Chedor-laomer itself, are of still more recent dis covery. It is therefore remarkable that so much is already in our hands which confirms the antiquity and historical genuine ness of the Pentateuchal narratives ; and it raises the presump tion that with the advance of our knowledge will come further confirmations of the Biblical story. At any rate, the historian's path is clear ; the Pentateuch has been tested by the compara
WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH? 68
tive method of science, and has stood the test. It contains history, and must be dealt with accordingly like other histori cal works. The philological theory with its hair-splitting distinctions, its Priestly Code and "redactors," must be put aside, with all the historical consequences it involves.
But it does not follow that because the philological theory is untenable, all inquiries into the character and sources of the Pentateuch are waste of time. The philological theory has failed because it has attempted to build up a vast superstruc ture on very imperfect and questionable materials ; because, in short, it has attempted to attain historical results without the use of the historical method. But no one can study the Penta teuch in the light of other ancient works of a similar kind with out perceiving that it is a compilation, and that its author — or authors — has made use of a large variety of older materials.
If the Pentateuch was originally compiled in the Mosaic age, it must have undergone the fate of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and been enlarged by subsequent additions. Inser tions and interpolations must have found their way into it as new editions of it were made. That such was the case there is indirect testimony. On the one hand the text of the pro phetical books was treated in a similar manner, additions and modifications being made in it from time to time by the prophet or his successors in order to adapt it to new political or religious circumstances. . . . On the other hand, a long-established Jewish tradition, which has found its way into the Second Book of Esdras (xiv. 21-26), makes Ezra rewrite or edit the books of Moses. There is no reason to question the substantial truth of the tradition : Ezra was the restorer of the old paths, and the Pentateuch may well have taken its present shape from him. If so, we need not be surprised if we find here and there in it echoes of the Babylonish captivity.
Side by side with materials derived from written sources, the book of Genesis contains narratives which, at all events in the first instance, must have resembled the traditions and poems orally recited in Arab lands, and commemorating the heroes and forefathers of the tribe. Thus there are two Abra hams : the one an Abraham who has been born in one of the centers of Babylonian civilization, who is the ally of Amorite chieftains, whose armed followers overthrow the rear guard of the Elamite army, and whom the Hittites of Hebron address as " a mighty prince " ; the other is an Abraham of the Beda
64 WHO WROTE THE PENTATEUCH?
win camp-fire, a nomad whose habits are those of the rude independence of the desert, whose wife kneads the bread while he himself kills the calf with which his guests are entertained. It is true that in actual Oriental life the simplicity of the desert and the wealth and culture of the town may be found combined in the same person ; that in modern Egypt Arab shekhs may still be met with who thus live like wild Bedawin during one part of the year, and as rich and civilized townsmen during another part of it ; while in the last century a considerable portion of upper Egypt was governed by Bedawin emirs, who realized in their own persons that curious duality of life and manners which to us Westerns appears so strange. But it is also true that the spirit and tone of the narratives in Genesis differ along with the character ascribed in them to the patri arch : we find in them not only the difference between the guest of the Egyptian Pharaoh and the entertainer of the angels, but also a difference in the point of view. The one speaks to us of literary culture, the other of the simple circle of wandering shepherds to whose limited experience the story teller has to appeal. The story may be founded on fact ; it may be substantially true ; but it has been colored by the surroundings in which, it has grown up, and archaeological proof of its historical character can never be forthcoming. At most, it can be shown to be true to the time and place in which its scene is laid.
Such, then, are the main results of the application of the archaeological test to the books of the Pentateuch. The philological theory, with its minute and mathematically exact analysis, is brushed aside ; it is as little in harmony with archaeology as it is with common sense. The Pentateuch substantially belongs to the Mosaic age, and may therefore be accepted as, in the bulk, the work of Moses himself. But it is a composite work ; has passed through many editions ; is full of interpolations, lengthy and otherwise. But in order to dis cover the interpolations, or to determine the written documents that have been used, we must have recourse to the historical method and the facts of archaeology. The archaeological evi dence, however, is already sufficient for the presumption that, where it fails us, the text is nevertheless ancient, and the nar rative historical — a presumption, it will be noticed, the exact contrary of that in which the Hexateuchal theory has landed its disciples.
THE LEGEND OF JDBAL. 66
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL. By GEORGE ELIOT.
[George Eliot, pseudonym of Mrs. Marian Evans Cross : A famous English novelist; born in Warwickshire, England, November 22, 1819. After the death of her father (1849) she settled in London, where she became assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851). In 1854 she formed a union with George Henry Lewes, and after his death married, in 1880, John Walter Cross. " Scenes of Clerical Life " first established her reputation as a writer, and was followed by the novels "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," " Silas Marner," " Rom- ola," "Felix Holt," " Middlemarch," and "Daniel Deronda. " Among her other works may be mentioned " The Spanish Gypsy," a drama, and the poems " Agatha," " The Legend of Jubal," and " Armgart. "]
When Cain was driven from Jehovah's land
He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings
Save pure field fruits, as aromatic things,
To feed the subtler sense of frames divine
That lived on fragrance for their food and wine : Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly, And could be pitiful and melancholy.
He never had a doubt that such gods were ;
He looked within, and saw them mirrored there. Some think he came at last to Tartary,
And some to Ind; but, howsoe'er it be,
His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,
And in that home of Cain the Arts began.
Man's life was spacious in the early world :
It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled
Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled ;
Beheld the slow star paces of the skies,
And grew from strength to strength through centuries ;
Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,
And heard a thousand times the sweet bird's marriage hymns.
In Cain's young city none had heard of Death Save him, the founder ; and it was his faith That here, away from harsh Jehovah's law, Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw
In Cain's own frame betrayed six hundred years, But dark as pines that autumn never sears
His locks thronged backward as he ran, his frame Rose like the orbed sun each morn the same,
66
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Lake-mirrored to his gaze ; and that red brand, The scorching impress of Jehovah's hand,
Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye,
Its secret firm in time-fraught memory.
He said, " My happy offspring shall not know That the red life from out a man may flow When smitten by his brother. " True, his race Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face A copy of the brand no whit less clear ;
But every mother held that little copy dear.
Thus generations in glad idlesse throve,
Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove ;
For clearest springs were plenteous in the land,
And gourds for cups ; the ripe fruits sought the hand, Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold ;
And for their roofs and garments wealth untold
Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves :
They labored gently, as a maid who weaves
Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft
And strokes across her palm the tresses soft,
Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly,
Or little burdened ants that homeward hie.
Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,
There was no need for haste to finish aught ;
But sweet beginnings were repeated still
Like infant babblings that no task fulfill ;
For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple wilL
Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy,
Strong Lamech struck and killed his fairest boy, And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries, And fetched and held before the glazed eyes
The things they best had loved to look upon ; But never glance or smile or sigh he won.
The generations stood around those twain Helplessly gazing, till their father Cain
Parted the press, and said : " He will not wake; This is the endless sleep, and we must make
A bed deep down for him beneath the sod ;
For know, my sons, there is a mighty God Angry with all man's race, but most with me. I fled from out His land in vain ! — 'tis He Who came and slew the lad, for He has found This home of ours, and we shall all be bound
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
By the harsh bands of His most cruel will,
Which any moment may some dear one kill.
Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last
We and all ours shall die like summers past.
This is Jehovah's will, and He is strong ;
I thought the way I traveled was too long
For Him to follow me : my thought was vain !
He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain, " Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again I
And a new spirit from that hour came o'er
The race of Cain : soft idlesse was no more,
But even the sunshine had a heart of care,
Smiling with hidden dread — a mother fair
Who folding to her breast a dying child
Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild. Death was now lord of Life, and at his word
Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
With measured wing now audibly arose
Throbbing through all things to some unknown close. Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
And Work grew eager, and Device was born.
It seemed the light was never loved before,
Now each man said, " 'Twill go and come no more. " No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
From the one thought that life must have an end ; And the last parting now began to send
Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss, Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
Then Memory disclosed her face divine,
That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,
And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,
No space, no warmth, but moves among them all ; Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,
With ready voice and eyes that understand,
And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.
Thus to Cain's race death was tear-watered seed Of various life and action-shaping need.
But chief the sons of Lamech felt the stings
Of new ambition, and the force that springs
In passion beating on the shores of fate.
They said, " There comes a night when all too late
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand, The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
And the last wishes to the mute lips press
Buried ere death in silent helplessness.
Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave, And while the arm is strong to strike and heave, Let soul and arm give shape that will abide
And rule above our graves, and power divide
With that great god of day, whose rays must bend As we shall make the moving shadows tend.
Come, let us fashion acts that are to be,
When we shall lie in darkness silently,
As our young brother doth, whom yet we see Fallen and slain, but reigning in our will
By that one image of him pale and still. "
For Lamech's sons were heroes of their race : Jabal, the eldest, bore upon his face
The look of that calm river god, the Nile, Mildly secure in power that needs not guile. But Tubal-Cain was restless as the fire
That glows and spreads and leaps from high to higher Where'er is aught to seize or to subdue ;
Strong as a storm he lifted or o'erthrew,
His urgent limbs like rounded granite grew,
Such granite as the plunging torrent wears
And roaring rolls around through countless years. But strength that still on movement must be fed, Inspiring thought of change, devices bred,
And urged his mind through earth and air to rove For force that he could conquer if he strove,
For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfill And yield unwilling to his stronger will.
Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame Fashioned to finer senses, which became
A yearning for some hidden soul of things,
Some outward touch complete on inner springs That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain,
A want that did but stronger grow with gain
Of all good else, as spirits might be sad
For lack of speech to tell us they are glad.
Now Jabal learned to tame the lowing kine,
And from their udders drew the snow-white wine That stirs the innocent joy, and makes the stream
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Of elemental life with fullness teem ;
The star-browed calves he nursed with feeding hand, And sheltered them, till all the little band
Stood mustered gazing at the sunset way
Whence he would come with store at close of day. He soothed the silly sheep with friendly tone
And reared their staggering lambs that older grown, Followed his steps with sense-taught memory ;
Till he, their shepherd, could their leader be
And guide them through the pastures as he would, With sway that grew from ministry of good.
He spread his tents upon the grassy plain
Which, eastward widening like the open main, Showed the first whiteness 'neath the morning star ; Near him his sister, deft, as women are,
Plied her quick skill in sequence to his thought
Till the hid treasures of the milk she caught Revealed like pollen 'mid the petals white,
The golden pollen, virgin to the light.
Even the she-wolf with young, on rapine bent,
He caught and tethered in his mat-walled tent, And cherished all her little sharp-nosed young Till the small race with hope and terror clung About his footsteps, till each new-reared brood, Remoter from the memories of the wood,
More glad discerned their common home with man. This was the work of Jabal : he began
The pastoral life, and, sire of joys to be,
Spread the sweet ties that bind the family
O'er dear dumb souls that thrilled at man's caress, And shared his pains with patient helpfulness.
But Tubal-Cain had caught and yoked the fire, Yoked it with stones that bent the flaming spire And made it roar in prisoned servitude
Within the furnace, till with force subdued
It changed all forms he willed to work upon,
Till hard from soft, and soft from hard, he won. The pliant clay he molded as he would,
And laughed with joy when 'mid the heat it stood Shaped as his hand had chosen, while the mass That from his hold, dark, obstinate, would pass, He drew all glowing from the busy heat,
All breathing as with life that he could beat
With thundering hammer, making it obey
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
His will creative, like the pale soft clay.
Each day he wrought and better than he planned, Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand. (The soul without still helps the soul within,
And its deft magic ends what we begin. )
Nay, in his dreams his hammer he would wield
And seem to see a myriad types revealed,
Then spring with wondering triumphant cry,
And, lest the inspiring vision should go by,
Would rush to labor with that plastic zeal
Which all the passion of our life can steal
For force to work with. Each day saw the birth
Of various forms which, flung upon the earth, Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour, But were as seeds instinct with hidden power.
The ax, the club, the spiked wheel, the chain,
Held silently the shrieks and moans of pain ;
And near them latent lay in share and spade,
In the strong bar, the saw, and deep-curved blade, Glad voices of the hearth and harvest-home,
The social good, and all earth's joy to come.
Thus to mixed ends wrought Tubal ; and they say Some things he made have lasted to this day ;
As, thirty silver pieces that were found
By Noah's children buried in the ground.
He made them from mere hunger of device,
Those small white disks ; but they became the price The traitor Judas sold his Master for ;
And men still handling them in peace and war Catch foul disease, that comes as appetite,
And lurks and clings as withering, damning blight. But Tubal-Cain wot not of treachery,
Nor greedy lust, nor any ill to be,
Save the one ill of sinking into naught,
Banished from action and act-shaping thought.
He was the sire of swift-transforming skill,
Which arms for conquest man's ambitious will ; And round him gladly, as his hammer rung, Gathered the elders and the growing young :
These handled vaguely and those plied the tools, Till, happy chance begetting conscious rules,
The home of Cain with industry was rife,
And glimpses of a strong persistent life,
Panting through generations as one breath,
And filling with its soul the blank of death.
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes,
No longer following its fall or rise,
Seemed glad with something that they could not see,
But only listened to — some melody,
Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found,
Won from the common store of struggling sound.
Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
Of some external soul that spoke for him :
The hollow vessel's clang, the clash, the boom,
Like light that makes wide spiritual room
And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,
To Jubal such enlarged passion brought
That love, hope, rage, and all experience
Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence
Concords and discords, cadences and cries
That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise, Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,
Some living sea that burst the bounds of man's brief age.
Then with such blissful trouble and glad care
For growth within unborn as mothers bear,
To the far woods he wandered, listening,
And heard the birds their little stories sing — In notes whose rise and fall seemed melted speech Melted with tears, smiles, glances — that can reach More quickly through our frame's deep-winding night, And without thought raise thought's best fruit, delight. Pondering, he sought his home again and heard
The fluctuant changes of the spoken word :
The deep remonstrance and the argued want, Insistent first in close monotonous chant,
Next leaping upward to defiant stand
Or downward beating like the resolute hand;
The mother's call, the children's answering cry, The laugh's light cataract tumbling from on high ; The suasive repetitions Jabal taught,
That timid browsing cattle homeward brought ; The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing ;
And through them all the hammer's rhythmic ring. Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim,
Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him : For as the delicate stream of odor wakes
The thought-wed sentience and some image makes
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
From out the mingled fragments of the past, Finely compact in wholeness that will last,
So streamed as from the body of each sound Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound, Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory, And in creative vision wandered free.
Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised, And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed,
As had some manifested god been there.
It was his thought he saw : the presence fair Of unachieved achievement, the high task,
The struggling unborn spirit that doth ask With irresistible cry for blood and breath, Till feeding its great life we sink in death.
He said, " Were now those mighty tones and cries That from the giant soul of earth arise,
Those groans of some great travail heard from far, Some power at wrestle with the things that are, Those sounds which vary with the varying form Of clay and metal, and in sightless swarm
Fill the wide space with tremors : were these wed To human voices with such passion fed
As does put glimmer in our common speech,
But might flame out in tones whose changing reach, Surpassing meager need, informs the sense
With fuller union, finer difference —
Were this great vision, now obscurely bright
As morning hills that melt in new-poured light, Wrought into solid form and living sound, Moving with ordered throb and sure rebound, Then — Nay, I, Jubal, will that work begin !
The generations of our race shall win
New life, that grows from out the heart of this,
As spring from winter, or as lovers' bliss
From out the dull unknown of unwaked energies. "
Thus he resolved, and in the soul-fed light
Of coming ages waited through the night, Watching for that near dawn whose chiller ray Showed but the unchanged world of yesterday ; Where all the order of his dream divine
Lay like Olympian forms within the mine ; Where fervor that could fill the earthly round With thronged joys of form-begotten sound
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Must shrink intense within the patient power That lonely labors through the niggard hour.
Such patience have the heroes who begin,
Sailing the first to lands which others win.
Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,
Strike form's first way in matter rude and bare, And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous quire Of the world's harvest, make one poor small lyre. He made and from out its measured frame Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came With guidance sweet and lessons of delight Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right, Where strictest law gladness to the sense
And all desire bends toward obedience.
Then Jubal poured his triumph in song —
The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong
As radiance streams from smallest things that burn, Or thought of loving into love doth turn.
And still his lyre gave companionship
In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip.
Alone amid the hills at first he tried
His winged song then with adoring pride
And bridegroom's joy at leading forth his bride,
He said, " This wonder which my soul hath found, This heart of music in the might of sound,
Shall forthwith be the share of all our race
And like the morning gladden common space
The song shall spread and swell as rivers do,
And will teach our youth with skill to woo
This living lyre, to know its secret will,
Its fine division of the good and ill.
So shall men call me sire of harmony,
And where great Song there my life shall be. "
Thus glorying as god beneficent,
Forth from his solitary joy he went
To bless mankind. It was at evening,
When shadows lengthen from each westward thing, When imminence of change makes sense more fine And light seems holier in its grand decline.
The fruit trees wore their studded coronal,
Earth and her children were at festival, — Glowing as with one heart and one consent Thought, love, trees, rocks, in sweet warm radiance
blent.
a
is,
;
I
:
a
is
it,
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
The tribe of Cain was resting on the ground,
The various ages wreathed in one broad round.
Here lay, while children peeped o'er his huge thighs, The sinewy man embrowned by centuries ;
Here the broad-bosomed mother of the strong
Looked, like Demeter, placid o'er the throng
Of young lithe forms whose rest was movement too — Tricks, prattle, nods, and laughs that lightly flew, And swayings as of flower beds where Love blew.
For all had feasted well upon the flesh
Of juicy fruits, on nuts, and honey fresh,
And now their wine was health-bred merriment, Which through the generations circling went,
Leaving none sad, for even father Cain
JSmiled as a Titan might, despising pain.
abal sat climbed on by a playful ring
Of children, lambs, and whelps, whose gamboling, With tiny hoofs, paws, hands, and dimpled feet,
Made barks, bleats, laughs, in pretty hubbub meet.
But Tubal's hammer rang from far away,
Tubal alone would keep no holiday,
His furnace must not slack for any feast,
For of all hardship work he counted least ;
He scorned all rest but sleep, where every dream
Made his repose more potent action seem.
Yet with health's nectar some strange thirst was blent, The fateful growth, the unnamed discontent,
The inward shaping toward some unborn power,
Some deeper-breathing act, the being's flower.
After all gestures, words, and speech of eyes,
The soul had more to tell, and broke in sighs.
Then from the east, with glory on his head
Such as low-slanting beams on corn waves spread, Came Jubal with his lyre : there 'mid the throng, Where the blank space was, poured a solemn song, Touching his lyre to full harmonic throb
And measured pulse, with cadences that sob, Exult and cry, and search the inmost deep Where the dark sources of new passion sleep. Joy took the air, and took each breathing soul, Embracing them in one entranced whole,
Yet thrilled each varying frame to various ends, As Spring new-waking through the creature sends Or rage or tenderness ; more plenteous life
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Here breeding dread, and there a fiercer strife.
He who had lived through twice three centuries,
Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees,
In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze,
Dreamed himself dimly through the traveled days
Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun
That warmed him when he was a little one ;
Felt that true heaven, the recovered past,
The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast,
And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs
Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze.
And in all these the rhythmic influence,
Sweetly o'ercharging the delighted sense,
Flowed out in movements, little waves that spread Enlarging, till in tidal union led
The youths and maidens both alike long-tressed,
By grace-inspiring melody possessed,
Kose in slow dance, with beauteous floating swerve
Of limbs and hair, and many a melting curve
Of ringed feet swayed by each close-linked palm :
Then Jubal poured more rapture in his psalm,
The dance fired music, music fired the dance,
The glow diffusive lit each countenance,
Till all the gazing elders rose and stood
With glad yet awful shock of that mysterious good. Even Tubal caught the sound, and wondering came, Urging his sooty bulk like smoke-wrapt flame
Till he could see his brother with the lyre,
The work for which he lent his furnace fire —
And diligent hammer, witting naught of this
This power in metal shape which made strange bliss, Entering within him like a dream full-fraught
With new creations finished in a thought.
The sun had sunk, but music still was there,
And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air :
It seemed the stars were shining with delight
And that no night was ever like this night.
All clung with praise to Jubal : some besought
That he would teach them his new skill ; some caught, Swiftly as smiles are caught in looks that meet,
The tone's melodic change and rhythmic beat :
'Twas easy following where invention trod —
All eyes can see when light flows out from God.
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
And thus did Jubal to his race reveal
Music, their larger soul, where woe and weal
Filling the resonant chords, the song, the dance, Moved with a wider-winged utterance.
Now many a lyre was fashioned, many a song
Raised echoes new, old echoes to prolong,
Till things of Jubal's making were so rife,
" Hearing myself," he said, " hems in my life,
And I will get me to some far-off land,
Where higher mountains under heaven stand
And touch the blue at rising of the stars,
Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars The great clear voices. Such lands there must be, Where varying forms make varying symphony — Where other thunders roll amid the hills,
Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills
With other strains through other-shapen boughs ! Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse
I know not. Listening there, My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair
Will teach me songs
That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year. "
He took a raft, and traveled with the stream Southward for many a league, till he might deem
He saw at last the pillars of the sky,
Beholding mountains whose white majesty
Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song That swept with fuller wave the chords along, Weighting his voice with deep religious chime,
The iteration of slow chant sublime.
It was the region long inhabiteJd
By all the race of Seth ; and
" Here have I found my thirsty soul's desire,
Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening's fire Flames through deep waters ; I will take my rest, And feed anew from my great mother's breast,
The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me
As the flowers' sweetness doth the honeybee. "
He lingered wandering for many an age,
And, sowing music, made high heritage
For generations far beyond the Flood —
For the poor late-begotten human brood
Born to life's weary brevity and perilous good.
And ever as he traveled he would climb
The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime,
ubal said :
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres
Beating their pathway, never touched his ears.
But wheresoe'er he rose the heavens rose,
And the far-gazing mountain could disclose
Naught but a wider earth ; until one height
Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,
And he could hear its multitudinous roar,
Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore :
Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more.
He thought, " The world is great, but I am weak,
And where the sky bends is no solid peak —
To give me footing, but instead, this main
Myriads of maddened horses thundering o'er the plain.
" New voices come to me where'er I roam,
My heart too widens with its widening home : But song grows weaker, and the heart must break For lack of voice, or fingers that can wake
The lyre's full answer ; nay, its chords were all Too few to meet the growing spirit's call.
The former songs seem little, yet no more
Can soul, hand, voice, with interchanging lore Tell what the earth is saying unto me :
The secret is too great, I hear confusedly.
" No farther will I travel : once again
My brethren I will see, and that fair plain
Where I and Song were born. There fresh-voiced youth Will pour my strains with all the early truth
Which now abides not in my voice and hands,
But only in the soul, the will that stands
Helpless to move. My tribe remembering
Will cry ' 'Tis he ! ' and run to greet me, welcoming. "
The way was weary. Many a date palm grew, And shook out clustered gold against the blue, While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres, Sought the dear home of those first eager years, When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will Took living outward shape in pliant skill ;
For still he hoped to find the former things,
And the warm gladness recognition brings.
His footsteps erred among the mazy woods
And long illusive sameness of the floods,
Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
With Gentile homes and faces, did he range,
And left his music in their memory,
And left at last, when naught besides would free His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries, The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes
No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech's son,
That mortal frame wherein was first begun
The immortal life of song. His withered brow Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now,
His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air, The unresting soul had worn itself quite bare
Of beauteous token, as the outworn might
Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer's light.
His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran : He was the rune-writ story of a man.
And so at last he neared the well-known land, Could see the hills in ancient order stand
With friendly faces whose familiar gaze
Looked through the sunshine of his childish days ; Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods, And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods Whirling and quivering o'er the flowers — to hear The selfsame cuckoo making distance near.
Yea, the dear Earth, with mother's constancy, Met and embraced him, and said, " Thou art he ! This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine, Where feeding, thou didst all thy life entwine With my sky-wedded life in heritage divine. "
But wending ever through the watered plain,
Firm not to rest save in the home of Cain,
He saw dread Change, with dubious face and cold That never kept a welcome for the old,
Like some strange heir upon the hearth, arise Saying, " This home is mine. " He thought his eyes Mocked all deep memories, as things new made, Usurping sense, make old things shrink and fade And seem ashamed to meet the staring day.
His memory saw a small foot-trodden way,
His eyes a broad far-stretching paven road
Bordered with many a tomb and fair abode ;
The little city that once nestled low
As buzzing groups about some central glow,
Spread like a murmuring crowd o'er plain and steep,
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Or monster huge in heavy-breathing sleep.
His heart grew faint, and tremblingly he sank Close by the wayside on a weed-grown bank,
Not far from where a new-raised temple stood, Sky-roofed, and fragrant with wrought cedar wood. The morning sun was high ; his rays fell hot
On this hap-chosen, dusty, common spot,
On the dry-withered grass and withered man : That wondrous frame where melody began
Lay as a tomb defaced that no eye cared to scan.
But while he sank far music reached his ear.
He listened until wonder silenced fear
And gladness wonder ; for the broadening stream
Of sound advancing was his early dream,
Brought like fulfillment of forgotten prayer;
As if his soul, breathed out upon the air,
Had held the invisible seeds of harmony
Quick with the various strains of life to be.
He listened : the sweet mingled difference
With charm alternate took the meeting sense ;
Then bursting like some shield-broad lily red,
Sudden and near the trumpet's notes outspread,
And soon his eyes could see the metal flower,
Shining upturned, out on the morning pour
Its incense audible ; could see a train
From out the street slow-winding on the plain
With lyres and cymbals, flutes and psalteries,
While men, youths, maids, in concert sang to these
With various throat, or in succession poured,
Or in full volume mingled. But one word
Ruled each recurrent rise and answering fall,
As when the multitudes adoring call
On some great name divine, their common soul,
The common need, love, joy, that knits them in one whole. The word was "Jubal ! " . . . "Jubal " filledthe air
And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,
Creator of the quire, the full-fraught strain
That grateful rolled itself to him again.
The aged man adust upon the bank —
Whom no eye saw — at first with rapture drank The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart, Felt, this was his own being's greater part,
The universal joy once born in him.
But when the train, with living face and limb
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
And vocal breath, came nearer and more near,
The longing grew that they should hold him dear ;
Him, Lamech's son, whom all their fathers knew,
The breathing Jubal — him, to whom their love was due. All was forgotten but the burning need
To claim his fuller self, to claim the deed
That lived away from him, and grew apart,
While he as from a tomb, with lonely heart,
Warmed by no meeting glance, no hand that pressed,
Lay chill amid the life his life had blessed.
What though his song should spread from man's small race Out through the myriad worlds that people space,
And make the heavens one joy-diffusing quire ? —
Still 'mid that vast would throb the keen desire
Of this poor aged flesh, this eventide,
This twilight soon in darkness to subside,
This little pulse of self that, having glowed
Through thrice three centuries, and divinely strowed
The light of music through the vague of sound,
Ached with its smallness still in good that had no bound.
For no eye saw him, while with loving pride Each voice with each in praise of Jubal vied. Must he in conscious trance, dumb, helpless lie While all that ardent kindred passed him by ? His flesh cried out to live with living men And join that soul which to the inward ken
Of all the hymning train was present there.
Strong passion's daring sees not aught to dare :
The frost-locked starkness of his frame low-bent, His voice's penury of tones long spent,
He felt not ; all his being leaped in flame
To meet his kindred as they onward came Slackening and wheeling toward the temple's face : He rushed before them to the glittering space,
And, with a strength that was but strong desire,
Cried, "lam Jubal, I
!
. . . I made the lyre !
"
The tones amid a lake of silence fell
Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell
Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land
To listening crowds in expectation spanned. Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake ; They spread along the train from front to wake In one great storm of merriment, while he
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,
And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein
Of passionate music came with that dream pain
Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing
And all appearance is mere vanishing.
But ere the laughter died from out the rear,
Anger in front saw profanation near ;
Jubal was but a name in each man's faith
For glorious power untouched by that slow death
Which creeps with creeping time ; this too, the spot, And this the day, it must be crime to blot,
Even with scoffing at a madman's lie :
Jubal was not a name to wed with mockery.
Two rushed upon him : two, the most devout
In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out,
And beat him with their flutes. 'Twas little need ;
He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,
As if the scorn and howls were driving wind
That urged his body, serving so the mind
Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen
Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.
The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,
While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.
He said within his soul, " This is the end :
O'er all the earth to where the heavens bend
And hem men's travel, I have breathed my soul : I lie here now the remnant of that whole,
The embers of a life, a lonely pain ;
As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,
So of my mighty years naught comes to me again.
" Is the day sinking ? Softest coolness springs From something round me : dewy shadowy wings Enclose me all around — no, not above —
Is moonlight there ? I see a face of love,
Fair as sweet music when my heart was strong : Yea — art thou come again to me, great Song ? "
The face bent over him like silver night
In long-remembered summers ; that calm light
Of days which shine in firmaments of thought, That past unchangeable, from change still wrought. And gentlest tones were with the vision blent :
He knew not if that gaze the music sent,
Or music that calm gaze : to hear, to see,
Was but one undivided ecstasy :
THE LEGEND OF JUBAL.
The raptured senses melted into one,
And parting life a moment's freedom won
From in and outer, as a little child
Sits on a bank and sees blue heavens mild
Down in the water, and forgets its limbs,
And knoweth naught save the blue heaven that swims.
" Jubal," the face said, "lam thy loved Past, The soul that makes thee one from first to last. I am the angel of thy life and death,
Thy outbreathed being drawing its last breath. Am I not thine alone, a dear dead bride
Who blest thy lot above all men's beside ?
Thy bride whom thou wouldst never change, nor take Any bride living, for that dead one's sake ?
Was I not all thy yearning and delight,
Thy chosen search, thy senses' beauteous Eight, Which still had been the hunger of thy frame
In central heaven, hadst thou been still the same ? — Wouldst thou have asked aught else from any god Whether with gleaming feet on earth he trod
Or thundered through the skies — aught else for share Of mortal good, than in thy soul to bear
The growth of song, and feel the sweet unrest
Of the world's spring-tide in thy conscious breast ? No, thou hadst grasped thy lot with all its pain,
Nor loosed it any painless lot to gain
Where music's voice was silent ; for thy fate
Was human music's self incorporate :
Thy senses' keenness and thy passionate strife
Were flesh of her flesh and her womb of life.
And greatly hast thou lived, for not alone
With hidden raptures were her secrets shown,
Buried within thee, as the purple light
Of gems may sleep in solitary night ;
But thy expanding joy was still to give,
And with the generous air in song to live,
Feeding the wave of ever-widening bliss
Where fellowship means equal perfectness.
And on the mountains in thy wandering
Thy feet were beautifu' as blossomed spring,
That turns the leafless wood to love's glad home,
For with thy coming Melody was come.
This was thy lot, to feel, create, bestow,
And that immeasurable life to know
TUBAL CAIN.
From which the fleshly self falls shriveled, dead, A seed primeval that has forests bred.
It is the glory of the heritage
Thy life has left, that makes thy outcast age : Thy limbs shall lie dark, tombless on this sod, Because thou shinest in man's soul, a god,
Who found and gave new passion and new joy That naught but Earth's destruction can destroy. Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone :
'Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone
For too much wealth amid their poverty. "
The words seemed melting into symphony, The wings upbore him, and the gazing song Was floating him the heavenly space along, Where mighty harmonies all gently fell Through veiling vastness, like the far-off bell, Till, ever onward through the choral blue,
He heard more faintly and more faintly knew, Quitting mortality, a quenched sun wave,
The All-creating Presence for his grave.