The spirits of the
patriarchs
see Him with joy from their
solar mansion.
solar mansion.
World's Greatest Books - Volume 17 - Poetry and Drama
But _he_ also underwent his training
in rhetoric.
So, since the world with writing is possessed,
_I'll versify in spite_, and do my best
To make as much wastepaper as the rest!
It may be asked, why write satire? The reason is to be found in the
ubiquitous presence of offensive men and women. It would goad anyone
into fury to note the social abuses, the mannish women, and the
wealthy upstarts of the imperial city.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair
Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried,
When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp with cloak of purple dye--
I cannot keep from satire, though I try!
There is an endless succession of figures to annoy: the too successful
lawyer, the treacherous spy, the legacy-hunter. How one's anger blazes
when a ward is driven to evil courses by the unscrupulous knavery of a
guardian, or when a guilty governor gets a merely nominal sentence!
Marius, who pilled his province, 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause:
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three--
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, victorious province, to complain!
Such villainies roused Horace into wrath,
And 'tis more noble to pursue his path
Than an old tale of Trojan brave to treat,
Or Hercules, or Labyrinth of Crete.
It is no time to write fabulous epics when cuckolds connive at
a wife's dishonour, and when horse-racing ne'er-do-wells expect
commissions in the army. One is tempted to fill volumes in the open
street about such figures as the forger carried by his slaves in a
handsome litter, or about the wealthy widow acquainted with the mode
of getting rid of a husband by poison.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferment climb?
Be bold in mischief--dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves,
For virtue is but drily praised--and starves.
To crime men owe a mansion, park, and state,
Their goblets richly chased and antique plate.
Say, who can find a night's repose at need,
When a son's wife is bribed to sin for greed,
When brides are frail, and youths turn paramours?
If nature can't, then wrath our verse ensures!
Count from the time since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float:
Whatever since that golden age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun,
Joy, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, transport, rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page.
And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell avarice so engross the mind?
Or when the lust of play so curse mankind?
O Gold, though Rome beholds no altar's flame,
No temples rise to thy pernicious name,
Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared,
Or Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard,
Yet is thy full divinity confessed,
Thy shrine established here, in every breast.
After a vigorous outburst against the degrading scramble among
impoverished clients for doles from their patrons, and a mordant
onslaught upon the gluttony of the niggardly rich, Juvenal sees in his
age the high-water mark of iniquity.
Nothing is left, nothing for future times,
To add to the full catalogue of crimes:
Vice has attained its zenith; then set sail,
Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale.
_II. --A Satire on Rome_
This sharp indictment is put in the mouth of one Umbricius, who is
represented as leaving his native city in disgust. Rome is no place
for an honourable character, he exclaims.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell.
Ah, mine no more! There let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white.
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
But why, my friend, should _I_ at Rome remain?
_I_ cannot teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
The worst feature is the predominance of crafty and cozening Greeks,
who, by their versatility and diplomacy, can oust the Roman.
I cannot rule my spleen and calmly see
A Grecian capital--in Italy!
A flattering, cringing, treacherous artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!
The insinuating flatteries of these aliens are so masterfully
contrived that the blunt Roman has no chance against such a nation of
actors.
Greece is a theatre where all are players.
For, lo! their patron smiles--they burst with mirth;
He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat;
"'Tis warm," he cries--the Greeks dissolve in sweat!
Besides, they are dangerously immoral. Their philosophers are
perfidious. These sycophant foreigners can poison a patron against a
poor Roman client. This leads to an outburst against poverty and its
disadvantages.
The question is not put, how far extends
One's piety, but what he yearly spends.
The account is soon cast up: the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Add that the rich have still a gibe in store,
And will be monstrous witty on the poor.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed--
Slow rises worth by property depressed.
At Rome 'tis worse; where house-rent by the year,
And servants' bellies costs so devilish dear.
It is a city where appearance beyond one's means must be kept up;
whereas, in the country one need never spend money even on a toga.
Everything has its price in Rome. To interview a great man, his
pampered lackeys must have a fee.
Then there are risks in a great capital unknown in country towns.
There are tumble-down tenements with the buttresses ready to give;
there are top garrets where you may lose your life in a fire. You
could buy a nice rustic home for the price at which a dingy hovel is
let in Rome. Besides, the din of the streets is killing. Rome is bad
for the nerves. Folk die of insomnia. By day you get crushed, bumped,
and caked with mud. A soldier drives his hobnails into your toe. You
may be the victim of a street accident.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight
Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight
On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain,
What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain?
The body, with the soul, would vanish quite,
Invisible, as air, to mortal sight!
Meanwhile, unconscious of their master's fate,
At home they heat the water, scour the plate,
Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil,
And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil.
But he, the mangled victim, now a ghost,
Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast,
A stranger shivering at the novel scene,
At Charon's threatening voice and scowling mien,
Nor hopes a passage thus abruptly hurled,
Without his farthing to the nether world.
In the dark there are equal perils.
Prepare for death if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.
Lucky if people throw only dirty water from their windows! Be thankful
to escape without a broken skull. A drunken bully may meet you.
There are who murder as an opiate take,
And only when no brawls await them, wake.
And what chance have you, without attendants, against a street rough?
Then there is the burglar; and the criminal classes are regularly
increased in town whenever the authorities grow active enough to clear
the main Italian roads of bandits.
The forge in fetters only is employed;
Our iron-mines exhausted and destroyed
In shackles; for these villains scarce allow
Goads for our teams or ploughshares for the plough.
Oh, happy ages of our ancestors,
Beneath the kings and tribunician powers!
One jail did all the criminals restrain,
Whom now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
_III. --A Satire on the Vanity of Human Wishes_
Look round the habitable world; how few
Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue.
To headlong ruin see whole houses driven,
Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven.
The several passions and aspirations of mankind, successively
examined in the light of legend and history, prove how hollow, if not
pernicious, are the principal objects of pursuit. Wealth is one of the
commonest aims.
But avarice spreads her deadly snare,
And hoards amassed with too successful care.
For wealth, in the black days, at Nero's word,
The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword.
Cut-throats commissioned by the government
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The traveller freighted with a little wealth,
Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth:
Even then he fears the bludgeon and the blade--
Starts in the moonlight at a rush's shade,
While, void of care, the beggar trips along,
And to the robber's face will troll his song.
What would the "weeping" and the "laughing" sages of ancient Greece
have thought of the pageants of modern Rome? Consider the vanity of
ambition. It is illustrated by the downfall of the powerful minister
Sejanus. On his overthrow, the fickle mob turned savagely upon his
statues.
What think the people? They!
They follow fortune, as of old, and hate
With all their soul the victim of the state.
Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd
Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud,
If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed)
Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed;
For since our votes have been no longer bought,
All public care has vanished from our thought.
Romans, who once with unresisted sway,
Gave armies, empire, everything, away,
For two poor claims have long renounced the whole
And only ask--the circus and a dole.
Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some
safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a
Pompey? Or a victorious Caesar? Why, the realisation of their own
soaring desires.
Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift
of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and
Rome--Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad
verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his
"Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).
"I do congratulate the Roman state
Which my great consulate did recreate! "
If he had always used such jingling words
He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.
A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all?
Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for
even a tree may split them!
Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the paltry dust which yet remains.
AND IS THIS ALL? Yet THIS was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold.
Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds;
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps and snows. O'er these with torrent force
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.
Already at his feet Italia lies.
Yet, thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries,
"Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls,
And Afric's standards float without her walls! "
But what ensued? Illusive glory, say.
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state,
With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate,
Sits, mighty suppliant, of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian monarch's nap be out!
Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,
Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world:
The vengeance due to Cannae's fatal field,
And floods of gore, a poisoned ring shall yield!
Fly, madman, fly! At toil and danger mock,
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,
To please the rhetoricians, and become
A declamation--for the boys of Rome!
Consider next the yearning after long life.
Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend
Still on the old, as to the grave they bend:
A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown;
For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown;
And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape
In Tabraca's thick woods is seen to scrape.
The old man rouses feelings of impatient loathing in those around him;
his physical strength and faculties for enjoyment are gone. Even if
he remain hale, he may suffer harrowing bereavements. Nestor, Peleus,
and Priam had to lament the death of heroic sons; and in Roman history
Marius and Pompey outlived their good fortune.
Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate,
Sent a kind fever to arrest his date:
When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise,
And public prayers obtain him of the skies.
The city's fate and his conspired to save
His head, to perish near the Egyptian wave.
Again, there is the frequent prayer for good looks. But beauty is a
danger. If linked with unchastity, it leads to evil courses. Even if
linked with chastity, it may draw on its possessor the tragic fate
of a Lucretia, a Virginia, a Hippolytus, or a Bellerophon. What is a
Roman knight to do if an empress sets her heart on him?
Amid all such vanities, then, is there nothing left for which men may
reasonably pray?
Say, then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,
Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice?
Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust.
_Their_ thoughts are wise, _their_ dispensations just.
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow;
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;
More dear to them than to himself is man.
By blind desire, by headlong passion driven,
For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven;
Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,
If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe.
But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove),
That thou mayst still ask something from above,
Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,
And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer:
O THOU, who know'st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;
A soul prepared to meet the frown of fate,
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains,
Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.
THE PATH TO PEACE IS VIRTUE. We should see,
If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee:
But _we_ have deified a name alone,
And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum,
about 55 A. D. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death
is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience.
But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in
declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery
of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile
for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal
denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in
his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce
a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free
and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a
complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has,
with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been
incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and
"The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.
FRIEDRICH KLOPSTOCK[R]
The Messiah
_I. --The Mount of Olives_
Rejoice, ye sons of earth, in the honour bestowed on man. He who was
before all worlds, by Whom all things in this visible creation were
made, descended to our earth as your Redeemer. Near Jerusalem, once
the city where God displayed His grace, the Divine Redeemer withdrew
from the multitude and sought retirement. On the side where the sun
first gilds the city with its beams rises a mountain, whose summit He
had oft honoured with His presence when during the solitary night He
spent the hours in fervent prayer.
Gabriel, descending, stands between two perfumed cedars and addresses
Jesus.
Wilt Thou, Lord, here devote the night to prayer,
Or weary, dost thou seek a short repose?
Permit that I for Thine immortal head
A yielding couch prepare. Behold the shrubs
And saplings of the cedar, far and near,
Their balmy foliage already show.
Among the tombs in which Thy prophets rest
The cooling earth yields unmolested moss.
Jesus answered not, but regarded Gabriel with a look of divine
complacency. He went up to the summit, where were the confines of
heaven, and there prayed. Earth rejoiced at the renewal of her beauty
as His voice resounded and penetrated the gates of the deep, but
only He and the Eternal Father knew the whole meaning of the divine
petition. As Jesus arose from prayer, in His face shone sublimity,
love, and resignation.
Now He and the Eternal Father entered on discourse mysterious and
profound, obscure even to immortals; discourse of things which in
future ages should display to man the love of God. A seraph entered
the borders of the celestial world, whose whole extent is surrounded
by suns. No dark planet approaches the refulgent blaze.
There, central of the circumvolving suns,
Heaven, archetype of every blissful sphere,
Orbicular in blazing glory, swims,
And circumfuges through infinitude
In copious streams, the splendour of the spheres.
Harmonious sounds of its revolving motion
Are wafted on the pinions of the winds
To circumambient suns. The potent songs
Of voice and harp celestial intermingle
And seem the animation of the whole.
Up to this sacred way Gabriel ascended, approaching heaven, which, in
the very centre of the assemblage of suns, rises into a vast dome.
When the Eternal walks forth, the harmonic choirs, borne on the wings
of the wind to the borders of the sunny arch, chant His praise,
joining the melody of their golden harps. During the hymn the seraph,
as messenger of the Mediator, stood on one of the suns nearest heaven.
The Eternal Father rewarded the choirs with a look of benignity and
then beheld the Chief Seraph, whose name with God is _The Chosen_, and
by the heavenly host is called _Eloah_.
The awful thunder seven times rolled forth,
The sacred gloom dispelling, and the Voice
Divine gently descended: "God is Love.
E'er beings gently emanated I was Love.
Creating worlds, I ever was the same,
And such I am in the accomplishment
Of my profoundest, most mysterious deed.
But in the death of the Eternal Son
Ye learn to know Me wholly--God, the Judge
Of every world. New adoration then
Ye will to the Supreme of heaven address. "
The seraph having descended to the altar of the earth, Adam, filled
with eager expectation, hastened to him. A lucid, ethereal body was
the radiant mansion of his blessed spirit, and his form was as lovely
as the bright image in the Creator's mind when meditating on the form
of man in the blooming fields of Paradise. Adam approached with a
radiant smile, which suffused over his countenance an air of ineffable
and sweetest dignity, and thus with impassioned accents he spoke.
Hail, blessed seraph, messenger of peace!
Thy voice, resounding of thy message high,
Has filled our souls with rapture. Son of God,
Messiah, O that Thee I could behold,
Behold Thee in the beauty of Thy manhood,
E'en as this seraph sees Thee in the form
Which Thy compassion prompted Thee to take
My wretched progeny from death to save.
Point out to me, O seraph, show to me,
Where my Redeemer walked, my loving Lord;
Only from far I will His step attend.
Gabriel descends again to earth, the stars silently saluting him with
a universal morn. He finds Jesus placidly sleeping on a bare rock, and
after long contemplation, apostrophises all nature to be silent, for
her Creator sleeps.
_II. --Of Satan Warring, and the Council of the Sanhedrim_
The morn descends over the forest of waving cedars, and Jesus
awakes.
The spirits of the patriarchs see Him with joy from their
solar mansion. Raphael, John's guardian angel, tells Jesus that this
disciple is viewing a demoniac among the sepulchres on the Mount of
Olives. He goes thither, and puts Satan to flight, who, returning to
hell, gives an account of what he knows of Jesus, and determines that
He shall be put to death. Satan is opposed by Abaddon. Another grim
fiend speaks.
Then Moloch fierce approached, a martial spirit.
From mountains and entrenchments huge he came,
Which still he forms, thus the domains of hell
To fence, in case the Thundering Warrior e'er
(He thus the dread Eternal nominates)
From heaven descending, should th' abyss molest.
All before Moloch with respect retired.
In sable armour clad, which to his pace
Resounded, he advanced as does a storm
Amid dark lowering clouds. The mountains shook
Before him, and behind, a trembling rock
In shattered fragments sunk. Thus he advanced
And soon attained the first revolter's throne.
After the council of fiends, all hell approves Satan's determination.
Satan and Adramelech return to earth to execute their design. Abaddon,
following them at a distance, sees at the gate of hell Abdiel, the
seraph who was once his friend, whom he addresses. But Abdiel ignoring
him, he presses forward, bewails the loss of his glory, despairs of
finding grace, and after vainly endeavouring to destroy himself,
descends to earth. Satan and Adramelech also advance to earth and
alight on Mount Olivet.
They both advanced and stormed against the Mount
Of Olives, the Redeemer there to find
Assembled with His confidential friends.
Thus down into the vale destructive cars
Of battle roll, against th' intrepid chief
Of the advancing and undaunted host.
Now brazen warriors throng from every point.
The thundering crash of the encounter, clash
Of sword and shield, a sullen iron din
O'er distant rocks resounds tow'rd heaven aloft,
And in the valley scatters death around.
Caiaphas assembles the Sanhedrim, and relates a vision which has
terrified him. He declares that Jesus must die, but counsels caution
as to the manner of the execution. Philo, a dreaded priest and
Pharisee, steps forward, and with great vehemence pronounces the dream
of Caiaphas a mere empty fiction, yet joins in counselling the death
of Jesus. He declares Caiaphas a disgrace to the priesthood of God,
but that Jesus would abolish the priesthood altogether.
So saying, Philo, with uplifted arms,
Advanced in the assembly and exclaimed:
"Spirit of Moses, reigning now in bliss,
Whether in thy celestial robes thou art,
Or whether thy yet mortal children now
In council met beneath a humble roof,
Thou deign'st to visit. Solemnly
I swear to thee, by yon dread covenant,
Which thou to us hast brought out of the storm
From God, to thee on Sinai revealed:
I will not rest till this thine adversary,
Who hates thy laws and thee, be from this earth
Exterminated. "
The evil counsel is warmly opposed by Gamaliel and Nicodemus. Judas
has a private conference with Caiaphas. The Messiah sends Peter
and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover. Jesus, going to
Jerusalem, is met by Judas. Jesus institutes a memorial of His death.
Judas goes out from the supper. Then Jesus prays for His disciples,
and returns to the Mount of Olives.
_III. --Eloah Sings the Redeemer's Glory_
God descends towards the earth to judge the Mediator, and rests
on Tabor. The Almighty sends the seraph Eloah to comfort Jesus in
Gethsemane by singing a triumphant song on His future glory.
He soared on golden clouds and sang aloud:
"Hail me, I was found worthy after Thee
To feel what Thou dost feel, and to behold
At humble distance the Messiah's thoughts,
Which in the fearful and most dreadful hour
Of His humiliation, fill His mind.
No finite being ever saw God's thoughts:
Yet I have been found worthy from afar,
From an obscure dimension of created
And but finite understanding, to extend
My view into Divine Infinitude!
O with what feelings of creation new,
Divine Messiah, those redeemed by Thee--
With what surpassing transport they will see
Thee on Thy everlasting throne of glory!
How they will then behold those radiant wounds,
The splendid testimonies of Thy love
To Adam's race! How they will shout Thy praise
In never-ceasing songs and alleluias!
Ah, then the angel Death's tremendous trump
Will nevermore be heard, nor thunders, then,
O'er Thy redeemed from the Throne will roll,
The depths will bow before Thee, and the heights
To Thee, the Judge, will folded hands uplift.
The last of days will evanescent die
Before the throne, lost in eternity.
And Thou wilt gather all the righteous souls
Around Thee, that they, face to face, may see
Thy glory and behold Thee as Thou art. "
Now the Messiah from the crimsoned dust
Rose victor, and the heavens sang aloud--
The third heaven, of the great Messiah's most
Transcendent sufferings which brought endless life
To precious souls, as now gone over Him.
So sang the heavens.
_IV. --Pilate's Wife Bewails the Saviour's Sufferings_
The Messiah is seized and bound. The assembled priests are seized
with consternation, but their fears are removed by the arrival of
successive messengers. Jesus being taken before Annas, Philo goes
thither and brings Him to Caiaphas. Portia, Pilate's wife, comes to
see Jesus. She approaches from the Procurator's palace near the hall
of assembly, by an arcade lit by lamps.
Impelled by curiosity at last
The great and wondrous Prophet to behold,
She to the high-priest's palace came in haste,
Only few attendants being with her.
And Portia saw Him Who awoke the dead,
And Who serenely bore the hellish rage
And malice of indignant priests, and now,
With wondrous magnanimity stood forth
Resolved to act with greatness, unadmired,
To beings so degenerate still unknown.
With fervid expectation and with joy
She stood and gazed upon the Holy Man,
And saw how He, sublime with dignified
Serenity, His base accusers faced.
On false evidence of suborned witnesses Jesus is condemned. Eloah and
Gabriel discourse on the Saviour's sufferings.
GABRIEL: Eloah! He at whose command the dead
Of the renewed creation shall arise,
The tempest of the resurrection shaking
The earth around, that she with bearing throes
Will yield the dust at His almighty call.
He then with thunders and attendant hosts
Of angels and in terrors clad, that stars
Before Him sink, will judge that sinful world.
ELOAH: He said, Let there be light! And there was light.
Thou, Gabriel, sawest how at His command
Effulgent beams rushed forth! With thought profound
He still advanced: and lo, at His right hand
Ten thousand times ten thousand beings bright
Collected, and an animating storm
Advanced before Him. Then the suns
Rolled in their orbits! Then the harmony
Of morning spheres resounded round the poles.
And then the heavens appeared!
GABRIEL: And at His word
Eternal night sank far below the heavens!
Thou sawest, Eloah, how He stood on high
O'er the Profound. He spake again, and, lo,
A hideous mass inanimate appeared
And lay before Him, seeming ruins vast
Of broken suns, or of a hundred worlds
To chaos crushed. He summoned then the flame,
And the nocturnal blaze rushed in the fields
Of everlasting death. Then misery
Existed, which from the depths ascended
In cries of anguish and despondency.
Then was created the infernal gulf!
Thus they communed. Portia no longer could
The Blessed Saviour's sufferings behold,
And lone ascended to the palace roof.
She stood and wrung her hands, her weeping eyes
To heaven uplifted, while she thus express'd
The agitated feelings of her heart:
"O Thou, the First of Gods, who didst create
This world from night of darkness, and who gav'st
A heart to man! Whatever be Thy name--
God, Jupiter, Jehovah, Romulus?
Or Abraham's God? Not of chosen few,
Thou art the Judge and Father of us all!
May I before Thee, Lord, with tears display
The feelings of my heart, and rend my soul?
What is the crime of this most peaceful man?
Why should He thus be barbarously used
And persecuted even unto death
By these inhuman and relentless men?
Dost Thou delight from Thine Olympus, Lord,
To look on suffering virtue? Is to Thee
The object sacred? To the heart of men,
That is not of humanity devoid,
It is most awful, wondrous, and endearing;
But He who formed the stars, can He admire
And wonder? No, far too sublime is He
To admiration ever scope to give!
Yet th' object must e'en to the God of Gods
Be sacred, else He never could permit
That thus the good and guiltless be oppress'd.
My tears of pity and compassion flow,
But thou discernest suffering virtue's tears
That flow in secret and to Thee appeal.
Great God of Gods, reward and if Thou canst,
Admire the magnanimity He shows. "
Peter, in deep distress, tells John he has denied his Master, then
departs and deplores his guilt.
_V. --The Day of Oblation_
Eloah welcomes the returning morn with a hymn, and hails the Day of
the Atonement, precious, fair day of oblation, sent by Love Divine.
The Messiah is led to Pilate, and is accused by Caiaphas and Philo.
Judas, in despair, destroys himself. Jesus is sent to Herod, who,
expecting to see a miracle, is disappointed. After being treated with
derision, Jesus is sent back to Pilate, who seeks to save Him, but is
persuaded to release Barabbas. Jesus is scourged, arrayed in a purple
robe, crowned with thorns, and delivered to the priests, who cause Him
to be led to crucifixion. Eloah descends from the throne and proclaims
that the Redeemer is led to death, on which the angels of the earth
form a circle round Mount Calvary. Jesus is nailed to the cross. One
of the two thieves crucified with Him is converted. Uriel places a
planet before the sun to obscure the dreadful scene on Calvary, and
then conducts to earth the souls of all future generations of mankind.
The Angel of Death descends to address Jesus, Who dies. The earth
shakes, the veil of the Temple is rent, the Old Testament saints are
raised. The converted thief dies. Joseph of Arimathea begs the body
of Jesus, and he and Nicodemus wrap it in spices and perform the
interment. Mary and some devout women meet in John's house, to which
Nicodemus brings the crown of thorns taken from the body at burial.
The interment is solemnised by choirs of risen saints and angels.
FOOTNOTES:
[R] Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who was born at Quedlinburg
on July 2, 1724, and died on March 14, 1803, was one of Germany's
most famous eighteenth century poets. While studying theology at Jena
University, he conceived the idea of a great spiritual epic, and
actually planned in prose the first three cantos of "The Messiah,"
which he afterwards finished at Leipzig. These were published
anonymously in the _Bremische Beitrage_ in 1748, the remaining five
appearing in 1773. Although the poem perhaps lacks in unity of
conception and precision of style, it contains many noble passages
that are admitted by critics to mark a very high order of lyrical
genius. One of the chief distinctions of Klopstock was that he was
the real inaugurator of the emancipation of the German intellect from
the superficialism of French literary ascendancy. This distinction
was generously acknowledged by Goethe, who rejoiced at Klopstock's
success in first striking the keynote of intellectual freedom in
the Fatherland. Various odes, Biblical dramas, tragedies, and hymns
constitute his other works. The "Messiah" was translated into both
English prose and verse by G. Egerstorff, his work being published at
Hamburg in 1821.
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING[S]
Nathan the Wise
_Persons in the Drama_
SALADIN, _the Sultan_
SITTAH, _his sister_
NATHAN, _a rich Jew_
HAFI, _a Dervish_
RECHA, Nathan's _adopted daughter_
DAYA, _a Christian woman, companion to_ Recha
CONRADE, _a young Templar_
ATHANASIOS, _Patriarch of Palestine_
BONAFIDES, _a friar_
ACT I
SCENE I. --_Jerusalem. A hall in_ NATHAN'S _house_. NATHAN, _in
travelling dress_. DAYA _meeting him_.
DAYA: 'Tis he, 'tis Nathan, thanks to God, returned,
At last!
NATHAN: Yes, Daya, thanks; but why "at last"?
'Tis far to Babylon, and gathering in
One's debts makes tardy journeying.
DAYA: Oh, Nathan! How near you came to misery; when afar,
The house took fire, and Recha, 'mid the flames,
Had all but perished.
NATHAN: Recha, O my Recha!
DAYA: Your Recha, _yours_? My conscience bids me speak----
NATHAN: See what a charming silk I bought for you
In Babylon, and these Damascus jewels.
DAYA: I shall be silent.
NATHAN: Say, does Recha know I am arrived?
DAYA: This morn of you she dreamed; Her thoughts have only been with
you and him Who saved her from the fire.
NATHAN: Ah, who is he?
DAYA: A young knight Templar lately captive ta'en,
But pardoned by the sultan. He it was
Who burst through flame and smoke; and she believes
Him but a transient inmate of the earth--
A guardian angel! Stay, your daughter comes!
[_Enter_ RECHA.
RECHA: My very father's self! Oh, how I feared
Perils of flood for thee, until the fire
Came nigh me. Now, I think it must be balm
To die by water! But you are not drowned:
I am not burned! We'll praise the God Who bade
My angel _visibly_ on his white wing
Athwart the roaring flame----
NATHAN (_aside_): White wing? Oh, ay.
The broad white fluttering mantle of the Templar.
RECHA: Yes, visibly he bore me through the fire
O'ershadowed by his pinions--face to face
I've seen an angel, father, my own angel!
NATHAN: A man had seemed an angel in such case!
RECHA: He was no real knight; no captive Templar
Appears alive in wide Jerusalem.
DAYA: Yet Saladin granted this youth his life,
For his great likeness to a dear dead brother.
NATHAN: Why need you, then, call angels into play?
DAYA: But then he wanted nothing, nothing sought;
Was in himself sufficient, like an angel.
RECHA: And when at last he vanished----
NATHAN: Vanished! Have you not sought him?
What if he--
That is, a Frank, unused to this fierce sun--
Now languish on a sick-bed, friendless, poor?
RECHA: Alas, my father!
NATHAN: What if he, unfriended,
Lies ill and unrelieved; the hapless prey
Of agony and death; consoled alone
In death by the remembrance of this deed.
DAYA: You kill her!
NATHAN: You kill him.
RECHA: Not dead, not dead!
NATHAN: Dead, surely not, for God rewards the good
E'en here below. But ah, remember well
That rapt devotion is an easier thing
Than one good action. Ha! What Mussulman
Numbers my camels yonder? Why, for sure,
It's my old chess companion, my old Dervish,
Al Hafi!
DAYA: Treasurer now to Saladin.
[_Enter_ HAFI.
Ay, lift thine eyes and wonder!
NATHAN: Is it you?
A Dervish so magnificent?
HAFI: Why not?
Is Dervish, then, so hopeless? Rather ask
What had been made of me. I'm treasurer
To Saladin, whose coffers ever ebb
Ere sunset; such his bounty to the poor!
It brings me little, truly; but to thee
'Twas great advantage, for when money's low
Thou couldst unlock thy sluices; ay, and charge
Interest o'er interest!
NATHAN: Till my capital
Becomes all interest?
HAFI: Nay, but that's unworthy,
My friend; write _finis_ to our book of friendship
If that's thy view. I count on thee for aid
To quit me of my office worthily.
Grant me but open chest with thee. What, no?
NATHAN: To Hafi, yes; but to the treasurer
Of Saladin, Al Hafi, nay!
HAFI: These twain
Shall soon be parted: by the Ganges strand
I'll with my Dervish teachers wander barefoot,
Or play at chess with them once more!
NATHAN: Al Hafi,
Go to your desert quickly. Among men
I fear you'll soon unlearn to be a man. [_Goes out_.
What? Gone? I could have wished to question him
About our Templar. Doubtless he will know him.
DAYA (_bursting in_): Nathan, the Templar's yonder, 'neath the palms.
Recha hath spied him, and she conjures you
To follow him most punctually. Haste!
NATHAN: Take him my invitation.
DAYA: All in vain.
He will not visit Jews.
NATHAN: Then hold him there
Till I rejoin you. I shall not be long.
SCENE II. --_A place of palms. Enter the_ TEMPLAR, _followed by a_
FRIAR.
TEMPLAR: This fellow does not follow me for pastime.
FRIAR: I'm from the Patriarch: he is fain to learn
Why you alone were spared by Saladin.
TEMPLAR: My neck was ready for the blow, when he
Had me unbound.
in rhetoric.
So, since the world with writing is possessed,
_I'll versify in spite_, and do my best
To make as much wastepaper as the rest!
It may be asked, why write satire? The reason is to be found in the
ubiquitous presence of offensive men and women. It would goad anyone
into fury to note the social abuses, the mannish women, and the
wealthy upstarts of the imperial city.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair
Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare,
When all our lords are by his wealth outvied
Whose razor on my callow beard was tried,
When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile,
Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile,
Pacing in pomp with cloak of purple dye--
I cannot keep from satire, though I try!
There is an endless succession of figures to annoy: the too successful
lawyer, the treacherous spy, the legacy-hunter. How one's anger blazes
when a ward is driven to evil courses by the unscrupulous knavery of a
guardian, or when a guilty governor gets a merely nominal sentence!
Marius, who pilled his province, 'scapes the laws,
And keeps his money, though he lost his cause:
His fine begged off, contemns his infamy,
Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three--
Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain,
Leaves thee, victorious province, to complain!
Such villainies roused Horace into wrath,
And 'tis more noble to pursue his path
Than an old tale of Trojan brave to treat,
Or Hercules, or Labyrinth of Crete.
It is no time to write fabulous epics when cuckolds connive at
a wife's dishonour, and when horse-racing ne'er-do-wells expect
commissions in the army. One is tempted to fill volumes in the open
street about such figures as the forger carried by his slaves in a
handsome litter, or about the wealthy widow acquainted with the mode
of getting rid of a husband by poison.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferment climb?
Be bold in mischief--dare some mighty crime,
Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves,
For virtue is but drily praised--and starves.
To crime men owe a mansion, park, and state,
Their goblets richly chased and antique plate.
Say, who can find a night's repose at need,
When a son's wife is bribed to sin for greed,
When brides are frail, and youths turn paramours?
If nature can't, then wrath our verse ensures!
Count from the time since old Deucalion's boat,
Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float:
Whatever since that golden age was done,
What human kind desires, and what they shun,
Joy, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, transport, rage,
Shall form the motley subject of my page.
And when could Satire boast so fair a field?
Say, when did vice a richer harvest yield?
When did fell avarice so engross the mind?
Or when the lust of play so curse mankind?
O Gold, though Rome beholds no altar's flame,
No temples rise to thy pernicious name,
Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared,
Or Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard,
Yet is thy full divinity confessed,
Thy shrine established here, in every breast.
After a vigorous outburst against the degrading scramble among
impoverished clients for doles from their patrons, and a mordant
onslaught upon the gluttony of the niggardly rich, Juvenal sees in his
age the high-water mark of iniquity.
Nothing is left, nothing for future times,
To add to the full catalogue of crimes:
Vice has attained its zenith; then set sail,
Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale.
_II. --A Satire on Rome_
This sharp indictment is put in the mouth of one Umbricius, who is
represented as leaving his native city in disgust. Rome is no place
for an honourable character, he exclaims.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell.
Ah, mine no more! There let Arturius dwell,
And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite,
Can white to black transform, and black to white.
Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold,
Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold!
But why, my friend, should _I_ at Rome remain?
_I_ cannot teach my stubborn lips to feign;
Nor when I hear a great man's verses, smile,
And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
The worst feature is the predominance of crafty and cozening Greeks,
who, by their versatility and diplomacy, can oust the Roman.
I cannot rule my spleen and calmly see
A Grecian capital--in Italy!
A flattering, cringing, treacherous artful race,
Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face;
A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call,
Which shifts to every form, and shines in all:
Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician,
Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician,
All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts;
And bid him mount the sky--the sky he mounts!
The insinuating flatteries of these aliens are so masterfully
contrived that the blunt Roman has no chance against such a nation of
actors.
Greece is a theatre where all are players.
For, lo! their patron smiles--they burst with mirth;
He weeps--they droop, the saddest souls on earth;
He calls for fire--they court the mantle's heat;
"'Tis warm," he cries--the Greeks dissolve in sweat!
Besides, they are dangerously immoral. Their philosophers are
perfidious. These sycophant foreigners can poison a patron against a
poor Roman client. This leads to an outburst against poverty and its
disadvantages.
The question is not put, how far extends
One's piety, but what he yearly spends.
The account is soon cast up: the judges rate
Our credit in the court by our estate.
Add that the rich have still a gibe in store,
And will be monstrous witty on the poor.
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed--
Slow rises worth by property depressed.
At Rome 'tis worse; where house-rent by the year,
And servants' bellies costs so devilish dear.
It is a city where appearance beyond one's means must be kept up;
whereas, in the country one need never spend money even on a toga.
Everything has its price in Rome. To interview a great man, his
pampered lackeys must have a fee.
Then there are risks in a great capital unknown in country towns.
There are tumble-down tenements with the buttresses ready to give;
there are top garrets where you may lose your life in a fire. You
could buy a nice rustic home for the price at which a dingy hovel is
let in Rome. Besides, the din of the streets is killing. Rome is bad
for the nerves. Folk die of insomnia. By day you get crushed, bumped,
and caked with mud. A soldier drives his hobnails into your toe. You
may be the victim of a street accident.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight
Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight
On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain,
What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain?
The body, with the soul, would vanish quite,
Invisible, as air, to mortal sight!
Meanwhile, unconscious of their master's fate,
At home they heat the water, scour the plate,
Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil,
And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil.
But he, the mangled victim, now a ghost,
Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast,
A stranger shivering at the novel scene,
At Charon's threatening voice and scowling mien,
Nor hopes a passage thus abruptly hurled,
Without his farthing to the nether world.
In the dark there are equal perils.
Prepare for death if here at night you roam,
And sign your will before you sup from home.
Lucky if people throw only dirty water from their windows! Be thankful
to escape without a broken skull. A drunken bully may meet you.
There are who murder as an opiate take,
And only when no brawls await them, wake.
And what chance have you, without attendants, against a street rough?
Then there is the burglar; and the criminal classes are regularly
increased in town whenever the authorities grow active enough to clear
the main Italian roads of bandits.
The forge in fetters only is employed;
Our iron-mines exhausted and destroyed
In shackles; for these villains scarce allow
Goads for our teams or ploughshares for the plough.
Oh, happy ages of our ancestors,
Beneath the kings and tribunician powers!
One jail did all the criminals restrain,
Whom now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
_III. --A Satire on the Vanity of Human Wishes_
Look round the habitable world; how few
Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue.
To headlong ruin see whole houses driven,
Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven.
The several passions and aspirations of mankind, successively
examined in the light of legend and history, prove how hollow, if not
pernicious, are the principal objects of pursuit. Wealth is one of the
commonest aims.
But avarice spreads her deadly snare,
And hoards amassed with too successful care.
For wealth, in the black days, at Nero's word,
The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword.
Cut-throats commissioned by the government
Are seldom to an empty garret sent.
The traveller freighted with a little wealth,
Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth:
Even then he fears the bludgeon and the blade--
Starts in the moonlight at a rush's shade,
While, void of care, the beggar trips along,
And to the robber's face will troll his song.
What would the "weeping" and the "laughing" sages of ancient Greece
have thought of the pageants of modern Rome? Consider the vanity of
ambition. It is illustrated by the downfall of the powerful minister
Sejanus. On his overthrow, the fickle mob turned savagely upon his
statues.
What think the people? They!
They follow fortune, as of old, and hate
With all their soul the victim of the state.
Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd
Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud,
If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed)
Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed;
For since our votes have been no longer bought,
All public care has vanished from our thought.
Romans, who once with unresisted sway,
Gave armies, empire, everything, away,
For two poor claims have long renounced the whole
And only ask--the circus and a dole.
Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some
safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a
Pompey? Or a victorious Caesar? Why, the realisation of their own
soaring desires.
Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift
of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and
Rome--Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad
verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his
"Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).
"I do congratulate the Roman state
Which my great consulate did recreate! "
If he had always used such jingling words
He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.
A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all?
Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for
even a tree may split them!
Produce the urn that Hannibal contains,
And weigh the paltry dust which yet remains.
AND IS THIS ALL? Yet THIS was once the bold,
The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold.
Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds;
Nature opposed her everlasting mounds,
Her Alps and snows. O'er these with torrent force
He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course.
Already at his feet Italia lies.
Yet, thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries,
"Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls,
And Afric's standards float without her walls! "
But what ensued? Illusive glory, say.
Subdued on Zama's memorable day,
He flies in exile to a petty state,
With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate,
Sits, mighty suppliant, of his life in doubt,
Till the Bithynian monarch's nap be out!
Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled,
Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world:
The vengeance due to Cannae's fatal field,
And floods of gore, a poisoned ring shall yield!
Fly, madman, fly! At toil and danger mock,
Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock,
To please the rhetoricians, and become
A declamation--for the boys of Rome!
Consider next the yearning after long life.
Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend
Still on the old, as to the grave they bend:
A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown;
For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown;
And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape
In Tabraca's thick woods is seen to scrape.
The old man rouses feelings of impatient loathing in those around him;
his physical strength and faculties for enjoyment are gone. Even if
he remain hale, he may suffer harrowing bereavements. Nestor, Peleus,
and Priam had to lament the death of heroic sons; and in Roman history
Marius and Pompey outlived their good fortune.
Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate,
Sent a kind fever to arrest his date:
When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise,
And public prayers obtain him of the skies.
The city's fate and his conspired to save
His head, to perish near the Egyptian wave.
Again, there is the frequent prayer for good looks. But beauty is a
danger. If linked with unchastity, it leads to evil courses. Even if
linked with chastity, it may draw on its possessor the tragic fate
of a Lucretia, a Virginia, a Hippolytus, or a Bellerophon. What is a
Roman knight to do if an empress sets her heart on him?
Amid all such vanities, then, is there nothing left for which men may
reasonably pray?
Say, then, shall man, deprived all power of choice,
Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice?
Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust.
_Their_ thoughts are wise, _their_ dispensations just.
What best may profit or delight they know,
And real good for fancied bliss bestow;
With eyes of pity they our frailties scan;
More dear to them than to himself is man.
By blind desire, by headlong passion driven,
For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven;
Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know,
If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe.
But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove),
That thou mayst still ask something from above,
Thy pious offerings to the temple bear,
And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer:
O THOU, who know'st the wants of human kind,
Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind;
A soul prepared to meet the frown of fate,
And look undaunted on a future state;
That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear
Existence nobly, with its weight of care;
That anger and desire alike restrains,
And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains,
Superior far to banquets, wanton nights,
And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach
What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach.
THE PATH TO PEACE IS VIRTUE. We should see,
If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee:
But _we_ have deified a name alone,
And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum,
about 55 A. D. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death
is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience.
But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in
declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery
of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile
for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal
denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in
his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce
a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free
and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a
complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has,
with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been
incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and
"The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.
FRIEDRICH KLOPSTOCK[R]
The Messiah
_I. --The Mount of Olives_
Rejoice, ye sons of earth, in the honour bestowed on man. He who was
before all worlds, by Whom all things in this visible creation were
made, descended to our earth as your Redeemer. Near Jerusalem, once
the city where God displayed His grace, the Divine Redeemer withdrew
from the multitude and sought retirement. On the side where the sun
first gilds the city with its beams rises a mountain, whose summit He
had oft honoured with His presence when during the solitary night He
spent the hours in fervent prayer.
Gabriel, descending, stands between two perfumed cedars and addresses
Jesus.
Wilt Thou, Lord, here devote the night to prayer,
Or weary, dost thou seek a short repose?
Permit that I for Thine immortal head
A yielding couch prepare. Behold the shrubs
And saplings of the cedar, far and near,
Their balmy foliage already show.
Among the tombs in which Thy prophets rest
The cooling earth yields unmolested moss.
Jesus answered not, but regarded Gabriel with a look of divine
complacency. He went up to the summit, where were the confines of
heaven, and there prayed. Earth rejoiced at the renewal of her beauty
as His voice resounded and penetrated the gates of the deep, but
only He and the Eternal Father knew the whole meaning of the divine
petition. As Jesus arose from prayer, in His face shone sublimity,
love, and resignation.
Now He and the Eternal Father entered on discourse mysterious and
profound, obscure even to immortals; discourse of things which in
future ages should display to man the love of God. A seraph entered
the borders of the celestial world, whose whole extent is surrounded
by suns. No dark planet approaches the refulgent blaze.
There, central of the circumvolving suns,
Heaven, archetype of every blissful sphere,
Orbicular in blazing glory, swims,
And circumfuges through infinitude
In copious streams, the splendour of the spheres.
Harmonious sounds of its revolving motion
Are wafted on the pinions of the winds
To circumambient suns. The potent songs
Of voice and harp celestial intermingle
And seem the animation of the whole.
Up to this sacred way Gabriel ascended, approaching heaven, which, in
the very centre of the assemblage of suns, rises into a vast dome.
When the Eternal walks forth, the harmonic choirs, borne on the wings
of the wind to the borders of the sunny arch, chant His praise,
joining the melody of their golden harps. During the hymn the seraph,
as messenger of the Mediator, stood on one of the suns nearest heaven.
The Eternal Father rewarded the choirs with a look of benignity and
then beheld the Chief Seraph, whose name with God is _The Chosen_, and
by the heavenly host is called _Eloah_.
The awful thunder seven times rolled forth,
The sacred gloom dispelling, and the Voice
Divine gently descended: "God is Love.
E'er beings gently emanated I was Love.
Creating worlds, I ever was the same,
And such I am in the accomplishment
Of my profoundest, most mysterious deed.
But in the death of the Eternal Son
Ye learn to know Me wholly--God, the Judge
Of every world. New adoration then
Ye will to the Supreme of heaven address. "
The seraph having descended to the altar of the earth, Adam, filled
with eager expectation, hastened to him. A lucid, ethereal body was
the radiant mansion of his blessed spirit, and his form was as lovely
as the bright image in the Creator's mind when meditating on the form
of man in the blooming fields of Paradise. Adam approached with a
radiant smile, which suffused over his countenance an air of ineffable
and sweetest dignity, and thus with impassioned accents he spoke.
Hail, blessed seraph, messenger of peace!
Thy voice, resounding of thy message high,
Has filled our souls with rapture. Son of God,
Messiah, O that Thee I could behold,
Behold Thee in the beauty of Thy manhood,
E'en as this seraph sees Thee in the form
Which Thy compassion prompted Thee to take
My wretched progeny from death to save.
Point out to me, O seraph, show to me,
Where my Redeemer walked, my loving Lord;
Only from far I will His step attend.
Gabriel descends again to earth, the stars silently saluting him with
a universal morn. He finds Jesus placidly sleeping on a bare rock, and
after long contemplation, apostrophises all nature to be silent, for
her Creator sleeps.
_II. --Of Satan Warring, and the Council of the Sanhedrim_
The morn descends over the forest of waving cedars, and Jesus
awakes.
The spirits of the patriarchs see Him with joy from their
solar mansion. Raphael, John's guardian angel, tells Jesus that this
disciple is viewing a demoniac among the sepulchres on the Mount of
Olives. He goes thither, and puts Satan to flight, who, returning to
hell, gives an account of what he knows of Jesus, and determines that
He shall be put to death. Satan is opposed by Abaddon. Another grim
fiend speaks.
Then Moloch fierce approached, a martial spirit.
From mountains and entrenchments huge he came,
Which still he forms, thus the domains of hell
To fence, in case the Thundering Warrior e'er
(He thus the dread Eternal nominates)
From heaven descending, should th' abyss molest.
All before Moloch with respect retired.
In sable armour clad, which to his pace
Resounded, he advanced as does a storm
Amid dark lowering clouds. The mountains shook
Before him, and behind, a trembling rock
In shattered fragments sunk. Thus he advanced
And soon attained the first revolter's throne.
After the council of fiends, all hell approves Satan's determination.
Satan and Adramelech return to earth to execute their design. Abaddon,
following them at a distance, sees at the gate of hell Abdiel, the
seraph who was once his friend, whom he addresses. But Abdiel ignoring
him, he presses forward, bewails the loss of his glory, despairs of
finding grace, and after vainly endeavouring to destroy himself,
descends to earth. Satan and Adramelech also advance to earth and
alight on Mount Olivet.
They both advanced and stormed against the Mount
Of Olives, the Redeemer there to find
Assembled with His confidential friends.
Thus down into the vale destructive cars
Of battle roll, against th' intrepid chief
Of the advancing and undaunted host.
Now brazen warriors throng from every point.
The thundering crash of the encounter, clash
Of sword and shield, a sullen iron din
O'er distant rocks resounds tow'rd heaven aloft,
And in the valley scatters death around.
Caiaphas assembles the Sanhedrim, and relates a vision which has
terrified him. He declares that Jesus must die, but counsels caution
as to the manner of the execution. Philo, a dreaded priest and
Pharisee, steps forward, and with great vehemence pronounces the dream
of Caiaphas a mere empty fiction, yet joins in counselling the death
of Jesus. He declares Caiaphas a disgrace to the priesthood of God,
but that Jesus would abolish the priesthood altogether.
So saying, Philo, with uplifted arms,
Advanced in the assembly and exclaimed:
"Spirit of Moses, reigning now in bliss,
Whether in thy celestial robes thou art,
Or whether thy yet mortal children now
In council met beneath a humble roof,
Thou deign'st to visit. Solemnly
I swear to thee, by yon dread covenant,
Which thou to us hast brought out of the storm
From God, to thee on Sinai revealed:
I will not rest till this thine adversary,
Who hates thy laws and thee, be from this earth
Exterminated. "
The evil counsel is warmly opposed by Gamaliel and Nicodemus. Judas
has a private conference with Caiaphas. The Messiah sends Peter
and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover. Jesus, going to
Jerusalem, is met by Judas. Jesus institutes a memorial of His death.
Judas goes out from the supper. Then Jesus prays for His disciples,
and returns to the Mount of Olives.
_III. --Eloah Sings the Redeemer's Glory_
God descends towards the earth to judge the Mediator, and rests
on Tabor. The Almighty sends the seraph Eloah to comfort Jesus in
Gethsemane by singing a triumphant song on His future glory.
He soared on golden clouds and sang aloud:
"Hail me, I was found worthy after Thee
To feel what Thou dost feel, and to behold
At humble distance the Messiah's thoughts,
Which in the fearful and most dreadful hour
Of His humiliation, fill His mind.
No finite being ever saw God's thoughts:
Yet I have been found worthy from afar,
From an obscure dimension of created
And but finite understanding, to extend
My view into Divine Infinitude!
O with what feelings of creation new,
Divine Messiah, those redeemed by Thee--
With what surpassing transport they will see
Thee on Thy everlasting throne of glory!
How they will then behold those radiant wounds,
The splendid testimonies of Thy love
To Adam's race! How they will shout Thy praise
In never-ceasing songs and alleluias!
Ah, then the angel Death's tremendous trump
Will nevermore be heard, nor thunders, then,
O'er Thy redeemed from the Throne will roll,
The depths will bow before Thee, and the heights
To Thee, the Judge, will folded hands uplift.
The last of days will evanescent die
Before the throne, lost in eternity.
And Thou wilt gather all the righteous souls
Around Thee, that they, face to face, may see
Thy glory and behold Thee as Thou art. "
Now the Messiah from the crimsoned dust
Rose victor, and the heavens sang aloud--
The third heaven, of the great Messiah's most
Transcendent sufferings which brought endless life
To precious souls, as now gone over Him.
So sang the heavens.
_IV. --Pilate's Wife Bewails the Saviour's Sufferings_
The Messiah is seized and bound. The assembled priests are seized
with consternation, but their fears are removed by the arrival of
successive messengers. Jesus being taken before Annas, Philo goes
thither and brings Him to Caiaphas. Portia, Pilate's wife, comes to
see Jesus. She approaches from the Procurator's palace near the hall
of assembly, by an arcade lit by lamps.
Impelled by curiosity at last
The great and wondrous Prophet to behold,
She to the high-priest's palace came in haste,
Only few attendants being with her.
And Portia saw Him Who awoke the dead,
And Who serenely bore the hellish rage
And malice of indignant priests, and now,
With wondrous magnanimity stood forth
Resolved to act with greatness, unadmired,
To beings so degenerate still unknown.
With fervid expectation and with joy
She stood and gazed upon the Holy Man,
And saw how He, sublime with dignified
Serenity, His base accusers faced.
On false evidence of suborned witnesses Jesus is condemned. Eloah and
Gabriel discourse on the Saviour's sufferings.
GABRIEL: Eloah! He at whose command the dead
Of the renewed creation shall arise,
The tempest of the resurrection shaking
The earth around, that she with bearing throes
Will yield the dust at His almighty call.
He then with thunders and attendant hosts
Of angels and in terrors clad, that stars
Before Him sink, will judge that sinful world.
ELOAH: He said, Let there be light! And there was light.
Thou, Gabriel, sawest how at His command
Effulgent beams rushed forth! With thought profound
He still advanced: and lo, at His right hand
Ten thousand times ten thousand beings bright
Collected, and an animating storm
Advanced before Him. Then the suns
Rolled in their orbits! Then the harmony
Of morning spheres resounded round the poles.
And then the heavens appeared!
GABRIEL: And at His word
Eternal night sank far below the heavens!
Thou sawest, Eloah, how He stood on high
O'er the Profound. He spake again, and, lo,
A hideous mass inanimate appeared
And lay before Him, seeming ruins vast
Of broken suns, or of a hundred worlds
To chaos crushed. He summoned then the flame,
And the nocturnal blaze rushed in the fields
Of everlasting death. Then misery
Existed, which from the depths ascended
In cries of anguish and despondency.
Then was created the infernal gulf!
Thus they communed. Portia no longer could
The Blessed Saviour's sufferings behold,
And lone ascended to the palace roof.
She stood and wrung her hands, her weeping eyes
To heaven uplifted, while she thus express'd
The agitated feelings of her heart:
"O Thou, the First of Gods, who didst create
This world from night of darkness, and who gav'st
A heart to man! Whatever be Thy name--
God, Jupiter, Jehovah, Romulus?
Or Abraham's God? Not of chosen few,
Thou art the Judge and Father of us all!
May I before Thee, Lord, with tears display
The feelings of my heart, and rend my soul?
What is the crime of this most peaceful man?
Why should He thus be barbarously used
And persecuted even unto death
By these inhuman and relentless men?
Dost Thou delight from Thine Olympus, Lord,
To look on suffering virtue? Is to Thee
The object sacred? To the heart of men,
That is not of humanity devoid,
It is most awful, wondrous, and endearing;
But He who formed the stars, can He admire
And wonder? No, far too sublime is He
To admiration ever scope to give!
Yet th' object must e'en to the God of Gods
Be sacred, else He never could permit
That thus the good and guiltless be oppress'd.
My tears of pity and compassion flow,
But thou discernest suffering virtue's tears
That flow in secret and to Thee appeal.
Great God of Gods, reward and if Thou canst,
Admire the magnanimity He shows. "
Peter, in deep distress, tells John he has denied his Master, then
departs and deplores his guilt.
_V. --The Day of Oblation_
Eloah welcomes the returning morn with a hymn, and hails the Day of
the Atonement, precious, fair day of oblation, sent by Love Divine.
The Messiah is led to Pilate, and is accused by Caiaphas and Philo.
Judas, in despair, destroys himself. Jesus is sent to Herod, who,
expecting to see a miracle, is disappointed. After being treated with
derision, Jesus is sent back to Pilate, who seeks to save Him, but is
persuaded to release Barabbas. Jesus is scourged, arrayed in a purple
robe, crowned with thorns, and delivered to the priests, who cause Him
to be led to crucifixion. Eloah descends from the throne and proclaims
that the Redeemer is led to death, on which the angels of the earth
form a circle round Mount Calvary. Jesus is nailed to the cross. One
of the two thieves crucified with Him is converted. Uriel places a
planet before the sun to obscure the dreadful scene on Calvary, and
then conducts to earth the souls of all future generations of mankind.
The Angel of Death descends to address Jesus, Who dies. The earth
shakes, the veil of the Temple is rent, the Old Testament saints are
raised. The converted thief dies. Joseph of Arimathea begs the body
of Jesus, and he and Nicodemus wrap it in spices and perform the
interment. Mary and some devout women meet in John's house, to which
Nicodemus brings the crown of thorns taken from the body at burial.
The interment is solemnised by choirs of risen saints and angels.
FOOTNOTES:
[R] Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who was born at Quedlinburg
on July 2, 1724, and died on March 14, 1803, was one of Germany's
most famous eighteenth century poets. While studying theology at Jena
University, he conceived the idea of a great spiritual epic, and
actually planned in prose the first three cantos of "The Messiah,"
which he afterwards finished at Leipzig. These were published
anonymously in the _Bremische Beitrage_ in 1748, the remaining five
appearing in 1773. Although the poem perhaps lacks in unity of
conception and precision of style, it contains many noble passages
that are admitted by critics to mark a very high order of lyrical
genius. One of the chief distinctions of Klopstock was that he was
the real inaugurator of the emancipation of the German intellect from
the superficialism of French literary ascendancy. This distinction
was generously acknowledged by Goethe, who rejoiced at Klopstock's
success in first striking the keynote of intellectual freedom in
the Fatherland. Various odes, Biblical dramas, tragedies, and hymns
constitute his other works. The "Messiah" was translated into both
English prose and verse by G. Egerstorff, his work being published at
Hamburg in 1821.
GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING[S]
Nathan the Wise
_Persons in the Drama_
SALADIN, _the Sultan_
SITTAH, _his sister_
NATHAN, _a rich Jew_
HAFI, _a Dervish_
RECHA, Nathan's _adopted daughter_
DAYA, _a Christian woman, companion to_ Recha
CONRADE, _a young Templar_
ATHANASIOS, _Patriarch of Palestine_
BONAFIDES, _a friar_
ACT I
SCENE I. --_Jerusalem. A hall in_ NATHAN'S _house_. NATHAN, _in
travelling dress_. DAYA _meeting him_.
DAYA: 'Tis he, 'tis Nathan, thanks to God, returned,
At last!
NATHAN: Yes, Daya, thanks; but why "at last"?
'Tis far to Babylon, and gathering in
One's debts makes tardy journeying.
DAYA: Oh, Nathan! How near you came to misery; when afar,
The house took fire, and Recha, 'mid the flames,
Had all but perished.
NATHAN: Recha, O my Recha!
DAYA: Your Recha, _yours_? My conscience bids me speak----
NATHAN: See what a charming silk I bought for you
In Babylon, and these Damascus jewels.
DAYA: I shall be silent.
NATHAN: Say, does Recha know I am arrived?
DAYA: This morn of you she dreamed; Her thoughts have only been with
you and him Who saved her from the fire.
NATHAN: Ah, who is he?
DAYA: A young knight Templar lately captive ta'en,
But pardoned by the sultan. He it was
Who burst through flame and smoke; and she believes
Him but a transient inmate of the earth--
A guardian angel! Stay, your daughter comes!
[_Enter_ RECHA.
RECHA: My very father's self! Oh, how I feared
Perils of flood for thee, until the fire
Came nigh me. Now, I think it must be balm
To die by water! But you are not drowned:
I am not burned! We'll praise the God Who bade
My angel _visibly_ on his white wing
Athwart the roaring flame----
NATHAN (_aside_): White wing? Oh, ay.
The broad white fluttering mantle of the Templar.
RECHA: Yes, visibly he bore me through the fire
O'ershadowed by his pinions--face to face
I've seen an angel, father, my own angel!
NATHAN: A man had seemed an angel in such case!
RECHA: He was no real knight; no captive Templar
Appears alive in wide Jerusalem.
DAYA: Yet Saladin granted this youth his life,
For his great likeness to a dear dead brother.
NATHAN: Why need you, then, call angels into play?
DAYA: But then he wanted nothing, nothing sought;
Was in himself sufficient, like an angel.
RECHA: And when at last he vanished----
NATHAN: Vanished! Have you not sought him?
What if he--
That is, a Frank, unused to this fierce sun--
Now languish on a sick-bed, friendless, poor?
RECHA: Alas, my father!
NATHAN: What if he, unfriended,
Lies ill and unrelieved; the hapless prey
Of agony and death; consoled alone
In death by the remembrance of this deed.
DAYA: You kill her!
NATHAN: You kill him.
RECHA: Not dead, not dead!
NATHAN: Dead, surely not, for God rewards the good
E'en here below. But ah, remember well
That rapt devotion is an easier thing
Than one good action. Ha! What Mussulman
Numbers my camels yonder? Why, for sure,
It's my old chess companion, my old Dervish,
Al Hafi!
DAYA: Treasurer now to Saladin.
[_Enter_ HAFI.
Ay, lift thine eyes and wonder!
NATHAN: Is it you?
A Dervish so magnificent?
HAFI: Why not?
Is Dervish, then, so hopeless? Rather ask
What had been made of me. I'm treasurer
To Saladin, whose coffers ever ebb
Ere sunset; such his bounty to the poor!
It brings me little, truly; but to thee
'Twas great advantage, for when money's low
Thou couldst unlock thy sluices; ay, and charge
Interest o'er interest!
NATHAN: Till my capital
Becomes all interest?
HAFI: Nay, but that's unworthy,
My friend; write _finis_ to our book of friendship
If that's thy view. I count on thee for aid
To quit me of my office worthily.
Grant me but open chest with thee. What, no?
NATHAN: To Hafi, yes; but to the treasurer
Of Saladin, Al Hafi, nay!
HAFI: These twain
Shall soon be parted: by the Ganges strand
I'll with my Dervish teachers wander barefoot,
Or play at chess with them once more!
NATHAN: Al Hafi,
Go to your desert quickly. Among men
I fear you'll soon unlearn to be a man. [_Goes out_.
What? Gone? I could have wished to question him
About our Templar. Doubtless he will know him.
DAYA (_bursting in_): Nathan, the Templar's yonder, 'neath the palms.
Recha hath spied him, and she conjures you
To follow him most punctually. Haste!
NATHAN: Take him my invitation.
DAYA: All in vain.
He will not visit Jews.
NATHAN: Then hold him there
Till I rejoin you. I shall not be long.
SCENE II. --_A place of palms. Enter the_ TEMPLAR, _followed by a_
FRIAR.
TEMPLAR: This fellow does not follow me for pastime.
FRIAR: I'm from the Patriarch: he is fain to learn
Why you alone were spared by Saladin.
TEMPLAR: My neck was ready for the blow, when he
Had me unbound.
