No More Learning

Shall it be war or peace?

JUDAS.
War, war, and only war. Go to thy tents
That shall be scattered, as by you were scattered
The torn and trampled pages of the Law,
Blown through the windy streets.

NICANOR.
Farewell, brave foe!

JUDAS.
Ho, there, my captains! Have safe-conduct given
Unto Nicanor's herald through the camp,
And come yourselves to me. --Farewell, Nicanor!



SCENE IV. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS AND SOLDIERS.

JUDAS.
The hour is come. Gather the host together
For battle. Lo, with trumpets and with songs
The army of Nicanor comes against us.
Go forth to meet them, praying in your hearts,
And fighting with your hands.

CAPTAINS.
Look forth and see!
The morning sun is shining on their shields
Of gold and brass; the mountains glisten with them,
And shine like lamps. And we who are so few
And poorly armed, and ready to faint with fasting,
How shall we fight against this multitude?

JUDAS.
The victory of a battle standeth not
In multitudes, but in the strength that cometh
From heaven above. The Lord forbid that I
Should do this thing, and flee away from them.
Nay, if our hour be come, then let us die;
Let us not stain our honor.

CAPTAINS.
'T is the Sabbath.
Wilt thou fight on the Sabbath, Maccabaeus?

JUDAS.
Ay; when I fight the battles of the Lord,
I fight them on his day, as on all others.
Have ye forgotten certain fugitives
That fled once to these hills, and hid themselves
In caves? How their pursuers camped against them
Upon the Seventh Day, and challenged them?
And how they answered not, nor cast a stone,
Nor stopped the places where they lay concealed,
But meekly perished with their wives and children,
Even to the number of a thousand souls?
We who are fighting for our laws and lives
Will not so perish.

CAPTAINS.
Lead us to the battle!

JUDAS.
And let our watchword be, "The Help of God! "
Last night I dreamed a dream; and in my vision
Beheld Onias, our High-Priest of old,
Who holding up his hands prayed for the Jews.
This done, in the like manner there appeared
An old man, and exceeding glorious,
With hoary hair, and of a wonderful
And excellent majesty. And Onias said:
"This is a lover of the Jews, who prayeth
Much for the people and the Holy City,--
God's prophet Jeremias. " And the prophet
Held forth his right hand and gave unto me
A sword of gold; and giving it he said:
"Take thou this holy sword, a gift from God,
And with it thou shalt wound thine adversaries. "

CAPTAINS.
The Lord is with us!

JUDAS.
Hark! I hear the trumpets
Sound from Beth-horon; from the battle-field
Of Joshua, where he smote the Amorites,
Smote the Five Kings of Eglon and of Jarmuth,
Of Hebron, Lachish, and Jerusalem,
As we to-day will smite Nicanor's hosts
And leave a memory of great deeds behind us.

CAPTAINS and SOLDIERS.
The Help of God!

JUDAS.
Be Elohim Yehovah!
Lord, thou didst send thine Angel in the time
Of Esekias, King of Israel,
And in the armies of Sennacherib
Didst slay a hundred fourscore and five thousand.
Wherefore, O Lord of heaven, now also send
Before us a good angel for a fear,
And through the might of thy right arm let those
Be stricken with terror that have come this day
Against thy holy people to blaspheme!



ACT IV.

The outer Courts of the Temple at Jerusalem.

SCENE I. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; CAPTAINS; JEWS.

JUDAS.
Behold, our enemies are discomfited.
Jerusalem is fallen; and our banners
Float from her battlements, and o'er her gates
Nicanor's severed head, a sign of terror,
Blackens in wind and sun.

CAPTAINS.
O Maccabaeus,
The citadel of Antiochus, wherein
The Mother with her Seven Sons was murdered,
Is still defiant.

JUDAS.
Wait.

CAPTAINS.
Its hateful aspect
Insults us with the bitter memories
Of other days.

JUDAS.
Wait; it shall disappear
And vanish as a cloud. First let us cleanse
The Sanctuary. See, it is become
Waste like a wilderness. Its golden gates
Wrenched from their hinges and consumed by fire;
Shrubs growing in its courts as in a forest;
Upon its altars hideous and strange idols;
And strewn about its pavement at my feet
Its Sacred Books, half burned and painted o'er
With images of heathen gods.

JEWS.
Woe! woe!
Our beauty and our glory are laid waste!
The Gentiles have profaned our holy places!

(Lamentation and alarm of trumpets. )

JUDAS.
This sound of trumpets, and this lamentation,
The heart-cry of a people toward the heavens,
Stir me to wrath and vengeance. Go, my captains;
I hold you back no longer. Batter down
The citadel of Antiochus, while here
We sweep away his altars and his gods.


SCENE II. -- JUDAS MACCABAEUS; JASON; JEWS,


JEWS.
Lurking among the ruins of the Temple,
Deep in its inner courts, we found this man,
Clad as High-Priest.

JUDAS.
I ask not who thou art.
I know thy face, writ over with deceit
As are these tattered volumes of the Law
With heathen images. A priest of God
Wast thou in other days, but thou art now
A priest of Satan. Traitor, thou art Jason.

JASON.
I am thy prisoner, Judas Maccabaeus,
And it would ill become me to conceal
My name or office.

JUDAS.
Over yonder gate
There hangs the head of one who was a Greek.
What should prevent me now, thou man of sin,
From hanging at its side the head of one
Who born a Jew hath made himself a Greek?

JASON.
Justice prevents thee.

JUDAS.
Justice? Thou art stained
With every crime against which the Decalogue
Thunders with all its thunder.

JASON.
If not Justice,
Then Mercy, her handmaiden.

JUDAS.
When hast thou
At any time, to any man or woman,
Or even to any little child, shown mercy?

JASON.
I have but done what King Antiochus
Commanded me.

JUDAS.
True, thou hast been the weapon
With which he struck; but hast been such a weapon,
So flexible, so fitted to his hand,
It tempted him to strike. So thou hast urged him
To double wickedness, thine own and his.
Where is this King? Is he in Antioch
Among his women still, and from his windows
Throwing down gold by handfuls, for the rabble
To scramble for?

JASON.
Nay, he is gone from there,
Gone with an army into the far East.

JUDAS.
And wherefore gone?

JASON.
I know not. For the space
Of forty days almost were horsemen seen
Running in air, in cloth of gold, and armed
With lances, like a band of soldiery;
It was a sign of triumph.

JUDAS.
Or of death.
Wherefore art thou not with him?

JASON.
I was left
For service in the Temple.

JUDAS.
To pollute it,
And to corrupt the Jews; for there are men
Whose presence is corruption; to be with them
Degrades us and deforms the things we do.

JASON.
I never made a boast, as some men do,
Of my superior virtue, nor denied
The weakness of my nature, that hath made me
Subservient to the will of other men.

JUDAS.
Upon this day, the five and twentieth day
Of the month Caslan, was the Temple here
Profaned by strangers,--by Antiochus
And thee, his instrument. Upon this day
Shall it be cleansed. Thou, who didst lend thyself
Unto this profanation, canst not be
A witness of these solemn services.
There can be nothing clean where thou art present.
The people put to death Callisthenes,
Who burned the Temple gates; and if they find thee
Will surely slay thee. I will spare thy life
To punish thee the longer. Thou shalt wander
Among strange nations. Thou, that hast cast out
So many from their native land, shalt perish
In a strange land. Thou, that hast left so many
Unburied, shalt have none to mourn for thee,
Nor any solemn funerals at all,
Nor sepulchre with thy fathers. --Get thee hence!

(Music. Procession of Priests and people,
with citherns, harps, and cymbals. JUDAS
MACCABAEUS puts himself at their
head, and they go into the inner courts. )


SCENE III. -- JASON, alone.

JASON.
Through the Gate Beautiful I see them come
With branches and green boughs and leaves of palm,
And pass into the inner courts. Alas!
I should be with them, should be one of them,
But in an evil hour, an hour of weakness,
That cometh unto all, I fell away
From the old faith, and did not clutch the new,
Only an outward semblance of belief;
For the new faith I cannot make mine own,
Not being born to it. It hath no root
Within me. I am neither Jew nor Greek,
But stand between them both, a renegade
To each in turn; having no longer faith
In gods or men. Then what mysterious charm,
What fascination is it chains my feet,
And keeps me gazing like a curious child
Into the holy places, where the priests
Have raised their altar? --Striking stones together,
They take fire out of them, and light the lamps
In the great candlestick. They spread the veils,
And set the loaves of showbread on the table.
The incense burns; the well-remembered odor
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back
To other days. I see myself among them
As I was then; and the old superstition
Creeps over me again! --A childish fancy! --
And hark! they sing with citherns and with cymbals,
And all the people fall upon their faces,
Praying and worshipping! --I will away
Into the East, to meet Antiochus
Upon his homeward journey, crowned with triumph.
Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend's face, or to hear a voice
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it!



ACT V.

The Mountains of Ecbatana.

SCENE I. -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; ATTENDANTS.

ANTIOCHUS.
Here let us rest awhile. Where are we, Philip?
What place is this?

PHILIP.
Ecbatana, my Lord;
And yonder mountain range is the Orontes.

ANTIOCHUS.
The Orontes is my river at Antioch.
Why did I leave it? Why have I been tempted
By coverings of gold and shields and breastplates
To plunder Elymais, and be driven
From out its gates, as by a fiery blast
Out of a furnace?

PHILIP.
These are fortune's changes.

ANTIOCHUS.
What a defeat it was! The Persian horsemen
Came like a mighty wind, the wind Khamaseen,
And melted us away, and scattered us
As if we were dead leaves, or desert sand.

PHILIP.
Be comforted, my Lord; for thou hast lost
But what thou hadst not.

ANTIOCHUS.
I, who made the Jews
Skip like the grasshoppers, am made myself
To skip among these stones.

PHILIP.
Be not discouraged.
Thy realm of Syria remains to thee;
That is not lost nor marred.

ANTIOCHUS.
O, where are now
The splendors of my court, my baths and banquets?
Where are my players and my dancing women?
Where are my sweet musicians with their pipes,
That made me merry in the olden time?
I am a laughing-stock to man and brute.
The very camels, with their ugly faces,
Mock me and laugh at me.

PHILIP.
Alas! my Lord,
It is not so. If thou wouldst sleep awhile,
All would be well.

ANTIOCHUS.
Sleep from mine eyes is gone,
And my heart faileth me for very care.
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable
Told us when we were boys, in which the bear
Going for honey overturns the hive,
And is stung blind by bees? I am that beast,
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais.

PHILIP.
When thou art come again to Antioch
These thoughts will be as covered and forgotten
As are the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot-wheels
In the Egyptian sands.

ANTIOCHUS.
Ah! when I come
Again to Antioch! When will that be?
Alas! alas!


SCENE II -- ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; A MESSENGER

MESSENGER.
May the King live forever!

ANTIOCHUS.
Who art thou, and whence comest thou?

MESSENGER.
My Lord,
I am a messenger from Antioch,
Sent here by Lysias.

ANTIOCHUS.
A strange foreboding
Of something evil overshadows me.
I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures;
I know not Hebrew; but my High-Priest Jason,
As I remember, told me of a Prophet
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea
Like a man's hand and soon the heaven was black
With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read; I cannot;
I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim
Before mine eyes.

PHILIP (reading).
"To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes. "

ANTIOCHUS.
O mockery!
Even Lysias laughs at me! --Go on, go on.

PHILIP (reading).
"We pray thee hasten thy return. The realm
Is falling from thee. Since thou hast gone from us
The victories of Judas Maccabaeus
Form all our annals. First he overthrew
Thy forces at Beth-horon, and passed on,
And took Jerusalem, the Holy City.
And then Emmaus fell; and then Bethsura;
Ephron and all the towns of Galaad,
And Maccabaeus marched to Carnion. "

ANTIOCHUS.
Enough, enough! Go call my chariot-men;
We will drive forward, forward, without ceasing,
Until we come to Antioch. My captains,
My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor,
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown.
My elephants shall trample him to dust;
I will wipe out his nation, and will make
Jerusalem a common burying-place,
And every home within its walls a tomb!

(Throws up his hands, and sinks into the
arms of attendants, who lay him upon
a bank. )

PHILIP.
Antiochus! Antiochus! Alas,
The King is ill! What is it, O my Lord?

ANTIOCHUS.
Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of pain,
As if the lightning struck me, or the knife
Of an assassin smote me to the heart.
'T is passed, even as it came. Let us set forward.

PHILIP.
See that the chariots be in readiness
We will depart forthwith.

ANTIOCHUS.
A moment more.
I cannot stand. I am become at once
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead me.
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name
Thou wouldst be named,--it is alike to me,--
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat
To live a little longer.

PHILIP.
O my Lord,
Thou shalt not die; we will not let thee die!

ANTIOCHUS.
How canst thou help it, Philip? O the pain!
Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against
This unseen weapon. God of Israel,
Since all the other gods abandon me,
Help me. I will release the Holy City.
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple.
Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy
To be so much as buried, shall be equal
Unto the citizens of Antioch.
I will become a Jew, and will declare
Through all the world that is inhabited
The power of God!

PHILIP.
He faints. It is like death.
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear him
In to the camp, while yet he lives.

ANTIOCHUS.
O Philip,
Into what tribulation am I come!
Alas! I now remember all the evil
That I have done the Jews; and for this cause
These troubles are upon me, and behold
I perish through great grief in a strange land.

PHILIP.
Antiochus! my King!

ANTIOCHUS.
Nay, King no longer.
Take thou my royal robes, my signet-ring,
My crown and sceptre, and deliver them
Unto my son, Antiochus Eupator;
And unto the good Jews, my citizens,
In all my towns, say that their dying monarch
Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health.
I who, puffed up with pride and arrogance,
Thought all the kingdoms of the earth mine own,
If I would but outstretch my hand and take them,
Meet face to face a greater potentate,
King Death--Epiphanes--the Illustrious!
[Dies.


*****



MICHAEL ANGELO

Michel, piu che mortal, Angel divino. -- ARIOSTO.

Similamente operando all' artista
ch' a l'abito dell' arte e man che trema. -- DANTE, Par. xiii. ,
st. 77.



DEDICATION.

Nothing that is shall perish utterly,
But perish only to revive again
In other forms, as clouds restore in rain
The exhalations of the land and sea.
Men build their houses from the masonry
Of ruined tombs; the passion and the pain
Of hearts, that long have ceased to beat, remain
To throb in hearts that are, or are to be.
So from old chronicles, where sleep in dust
Names that once filled the world with trumpet tones,
I build this verse; and flowers of song have thrust
Their roots among the loose disjointed stones,
Which to this end I fashion as I must.
Quickened are they that touch the Prophet's bones.


PART FIRST.

I.

PROLOGUE AT ISCHIA

The Castle Terrace. VITTORIA COLONNA, and JULIA GONZAGA.

VITTORIA.
Will you then leave me, Julia, and so soon,
To pace alone this terrace like a ghost?

JULIA.
To-morrow, dearest.

VITTORIA.
Do not say to-morrow.
A whole month of to-morrows were too soon.
You must not go. You are a part of me.

JULIA.
I must return to Fondi.

VITTORIA.
The old castle
Needs not your presence. No one waits for you.
Stay one day longer with me. They who go
Feel not the pain of parting; it is they
Who stay behind that suffer. I was thinking
But yesterday how like and how unlike
Have been, and are, our destinies. Your husband,
The good Vespasian, an old man, who seemed
A father to you rather than a husband,
Died in your arms; but mine, in all the flower
And promise of his youth, was taken from me
As by a rushing wind. The breath of battle
Breathed on him, and I saw his face no more,
Save as in dreams it haunts me. As our love
Was for these men, so is our sorrow for them.
Yours a child's sorrow, smiling through its tears;
But mine the grief of an impassioned woman,
Who drank her life up in one draught of love.

JULIA.
Behold this locket. This is the white hair
Of my Vespasian. This is the flower-of-love,
This amaranth, and beneath it the device
Non moritura. Thus my heart remains
True to his memory; and the ancient castle,
Where we have lived together, where he died,
Is dear to me as Ischia is to you.

VITTORIA.
I did not mean to chide you.

JULIA.
Let your heart
Find, if it can, some poor apology
For one who is too young, and feels too keenly
The joy of life, to give up all her days
To sorrow for the dead. While I am true
To the remembrance of the man I loved
And mourn for still, I do not make a show
Of all the grief I feel, nor live secluded
And, like Veronica da Gambara,
Drape my whole house in mourning, and drive forth
In coach of sable drawn by sable horses,
As if I were a corpse. Ah, one to-day
Is worth for me a thousand yesterdays.

VITTORIA.
Dear Julia! Friendship has its jealousies
As well as love. Who waits for you at Fondi?

JULIA.
A friend of mine and yours; a friend and friar.
You have at Naples your Fra Bernadino;
And I at Fondi have my Fra Bastiano,
The famous artist, who has come from Rome
To paint my portrait. That is not a sin.

VITTORIA.
Only a vanity.

JULIA.
He painted yours.

VITTORIA.
Do not call up to me those days departed
When I was young, and all was bright about me,
And the vicissitudes of life were things
But to be read of in old histories,
Though as pertaining unto me or mine
Impossible. Ah, then I dreamed your dreams,
And now, grown older, I look back and see
They were illusions.

JULIA.
Yet without illusions
What would our lives become, what we ourselves?
Dreams or illusions, call them what you will,
They lift us from the commonplace of life
To better things.

VITTORIA.
Are there no brighter dreams,
No higher aspirations, than the wish
To please and to be pleased?

JULIA.
For you there are;
I am no saint; I feel the world we live in
Comes before that which is to be here after,
And must be dealt with first.

VITTORIA.
But in what way?

JULIA.
Let the soft wind that wafts to us the odor
Of orange blossoms, let the laughing sea
And the bright sunshine bathing all the world,
Answer the question.

VITTORIA.
And for whom is meant
This portrait that you speak of?

JULIA.
For my friend
The Cardinal Ippolito.

VITTORIA.
For him?

JULIA
Yes, for Ippolito the Magnificent.
'T is always flattering to a woman's pride
To be admired by one whom all admire.

VITTORIA.
Ah, Julia, she that makes herself a dove
Is eaten by the hawk. Be on your guard,
He is a Cardinal; and his adoration
Should be elsewhere directed.

JULIA.
You forget
The horror of that night, when Barbarossa,
The Moorish corsair, landed on our coast
To seize me for the Sultan Soliman;
How in the dead of night, when all were sleeping,
He scaled the castle wall; how I escaped,
And in my night-dress, mounting a swift steed,
Fled to the mountains, and took refuge there
Among the brigands. Then of all my friends
The Cardinal Ippolito was first
To come with his retainers to my rescue.
Could I refuse the only boon he asked
At such a time, my portrait?

VITTORIA.
I have heard
Strange stories of the splendors of his palace,
And how, apparelled like a Spanish Prince,
He rides through Rome with a long retinue
Of Ethiopians and Numidians
And Turks and Tartars, in fantastic dresses,
Making a gallant show. Is this the way
A Cardinal should live?

JULIA.
He is so young;
Hardly of age, or little more than that;
Beautiful, generous, fond of arts and letters,
A poet, a musician, and a scholar;
Master of many languages, and a player
On many instruments. In Rome, his palace
Is the asylum of all men distinguished
In art or science, and all Florentines
Escaping from the tyranny of his cousin,
Duke Alessandro.

VITTORIA.
I have seen his portrait,
Painted by Titian. You have painted it
In brighter colors.

JULIA.
And my Cardinal,
At Itri, in the courtyard of his palace,
Keeps a tame lion!

VITTORIA.
And so counterfeits
St. Mark, the Evangelist!

JULIA.
Ah, your tame lion
Is Michael Angelo.

VITTORIA.
You speak a name
That always thrills me with a noble sound,
As of a trumpet! Michael Angelo!
A lion all men fear and none can tame;
A man that all men honor, and the model
That all should follow; one who works and prays,
For work is prayer, and consecrates his life
To the sublime ideal of his art,
Till art and life are one; a man who holds
Such place in all men's thoughts, that when they speak
Of great things done, or to be done, his name
Is ever on their lips.

JULIA.
You too can paint
The portrait of your hero, and in colors
Brighter than Titian's; I might warn you also
Against the dangers that beset your path;
But I forbear.

VITTORIA.
If I were made of marble,
Of Fior di Persico or Pavonazzo,
He might admire me: being but flesh and blood,
I am no more to him than other women;
That is, am nothing.

JULIA.
Does he ride through Rome
Upon his little mule, as he was wont,
With his slouched hat, and boots of Cordovan,
As when I saw him last?

VITTORIA.
Pray do not jest.
I cannot couple with his noble name
A trivial word!