Canst hear my
lightest
whisper now?
Krasinski - The Undivine Comedy
The daughter of Amphilochus
has been brought up from infancy in the idea that she is
to be the victim to expiate the shame of her fathers and
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the sufferings of many nations ; she has been taught by
Masiiiissa; and the decrees of her brother have hitherto
been her law. But Avhen the fatal moment arrives for the
accomplishment of her destiny, her soul revolts, and, like
Antigone, she bursts into lamentations upon her doom,
upon her youth condemned to pain, her beauty to pro-
fanation. Iridion remains inexorable, and refuses all
temptation to pity. He leads Elsinoe to the statue of their
father.
" Formerly" — he says to her — " the sacrifice of the life
of a man sufficed for nations; now even honor must be
offered up ! . . . Maiden, listen to me as to the dying, as
if never again to hear my voice on earth ! Thou art to
enter the Palace of the Accursed, to live with the damned ;
to yield thy body to the son of shame: — see to it that
thy soul remains high, pure, and free ! Let Caesar never
sleep upon thy breast ! Alarm him constantly with cries
that the Praetorians call to arms, that the patricians con-
spire, and that the people storm his palace gates ! and
slowly, day by day, and hour by hour, madden him with
rage and fear ; drink all the life-blood of his heart ! Now
rise and bow thy head ! Conceived in the desire of ven-
geance, grown up in hope of this revenge, destined to
shame and to perdition, I consecrate thee to the infernal
gods — and to the manes of Amphilochus the Greek. "
It has sometimes been given to poetry to render history
probable, thus, for example, the Richard III. of the Chro-
nicles first becomes possible for our intellect, or acceptable
for our imagination, in the tragedy of Sliakespeare. The
Anonymous Poet has, in the same manner, succeeded in
making us believe in the existence, the reality, of one of
those Roman Csesars, who, in spite of Suetonius and
Tacitus, have always seemed to us inexplicable enigniiis.
Through an ingenious and ])rofound art our author has
succeeded in unraveling all the elements constituting that
remarkable and fantastic being called Heliogabalus. Born
under the burning sky of Asia, the son of Caracalla became
High-Priest at Emesus at fourteen years of age, and was
familiar with all the sanguinary voluptuousness of the
worship of Mithras. At seventeen, he was Cnesar, master
of the world ; and placed upon this giddy height, the
TIJE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 53
young man rapidly exhausted all feelings, all sensations.
He was a child, with the instincts of a decrepit old man ;
his passions were worn out; his soul was only lighted by
the flickering gleams of lubricity. Worlds couM not fill
the ennui of his heart; it was the incarnate void ! In
spite of his power, his eye could rest but upon one thing,
the abyss into which so many of his predecessors had
fallen ; the thought of death everywhere pursued him,
and what he most feared in it was the idea of giving up
his tender limbs, white as snow, to the rage of the pojni-
lace, for in his own manner he was an artist, he was in
love with his own divine form, and if he must die, he in-
tended that " his blood should flow over diamonds before
descending to Erebus. " He had had a jeweled court pre-
pared, into which he might precipitate himself in case of
sudden danger.
We may now understand the plans founded by Iridion
on such a character when it should be shaken and tortured
by an arm vigorous as the hammer of Thor, supple as a
serpent, white as a lily ; — and Elsinoe knew well her part !
Slie became the strong virgin borne in the bosom of Crim-
hild, the Scandinavian Valkyria, with proud looks and
haughty scorn when in the presence of the enfeebled son
of Asia. Why did he speak to her, this weak Caesar, of
his divinities of light, of his Genii of the night, and of
his sacrificial powers, so adored by the highest pontiffs of
the East ? The daughter of ice and snow despised the
effeminate gods who float in clouds of incense, rocked by
the sound of flutes, and bathed in the blood of trembling
roes or infants newly born ! Ah ! he was very different,
her mother's god and hers, strong Odin, made of oak and
steel, who, calm amid rains, snows, and tempests, held a
cup of foaming blood of heroes in his stalwart hands, and
saw the Northern seas break at his feet ! Why did he
speak to her of sharing all his splendor, greatness, and
infinite power? She knew too well the end of all the
Caesars; the first chance centurion might plunge his knife
into the swan-like throat, and throw the divine majesty of
Caracalla's son to the dogs to tear ! Does not Severus
plot against him even in his own palace? are not the
cohorts in revolt even at the gates of his own capital ?
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Before pretending to make the chaste body of a virgin of
Odin seek shelter in his arms, he must learn not to tremble
himself before his eunuchs and Praetorians; she has no
dream of bliss for him who has no morrow! Heliogabalus
foams with baffled desire, with spite, with rage, with fear,
— beyond all, \\\\. \\ fear ! Yes, it is too true; he is sur-
rounded with plots and snares, he must be crushed, and
no one can possibly save him ! . . . Yes, replies the
Valkyria ; in her pity for this wretched master of the
world she has prayed for him to her strong gods, and these
gods have revealed to her the name of one who could
secure the throne of Cresar ; — but she will not give this
word. Why should she? The Emperor would not have
sufficient courage to appeal to this hero of fate, — he who
shivers at his own slaves ! At last, however, she suffers this
name to be torn from her lips, — it is the son of Amphi-
lochus, her brother ! Heliogabalus then sends for Iridion.
The palace of the Csesars opens to the descendant of
Philopoemen, nor does he enter it as "Grceculus,^' as had
so many of his countrymen, as simple poet, ranting rhe-
torician, or amusing epigrammist. No, he comes as master,
who dictates his commands, and looks scornfully upon the
debased throng encumbering the Court. It is an easy
thing for him to augment the terror of Heliogabalus, to
represent to him his situation as utterly desperate, treason
everywhere hatching, and a convulsion ready to break
forth, but, after having raised the fears of the crowned
child to their utmost height, he suddenly changes his
tone, tells him to take courage, y^r in this eternal war be-
tween the EjHperor and the city, shall the victory never be
with the Emperor? He then unfolds to him a complete,
strange, and demoniacal philosophy of history ; he shows
him Rome in perpetual struggle with its Emperors, ren-
dering all government impossible ; Rome, always dream-
ing of a republic, and revenging itself upon its rulers by
stoical opposition, by well-devised treason, or by bribing
the Praetorians ! Rome has unceasingly conspired against
and massacred its Csesars; then let Ceesar in his turn play
conspirator ! let him give the death-wound to his mortal
enemy ! The question now is not of Alexander Severus,
of such a cohort, of such a senator; it is of his great and
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
95
implacable Persecutor ; it is of this Rome, always enraged
against the successors of Augustus ; — of the Eternal City,
— not, however, more eternal than Babylon or Jerusalem —
both in ruins ! Let but the son of Caracalla bear himself
with a strong will ; let him become that which but few
heroes have ever dared to be, a Destroyer ; let liim leave
this accursed place, always in rebellion, to scorpions and
serpents ! The source of the eternal evil thus destroyed,
he can return to the country of his birth, "Where men
speak freely with the stars," and under the bright and
sunny sky of Asia he will found a new empire. Freed
from his sleepless nights, High-Priest and at the same time
Caesar, like an Egyptian demigod surrounded by the odor-
ous incense of myrrh and aloes, he will pass his happy
days, the great names of the past will perish in his brighter
fame, and there will no longer be senators nor jurists to
dream of republics, nor daring to sneer at Mithras, or the
long hanging sleeves of the Oriental costume loved by the
Emperor. . . . The perspective shown is full of sublime
horror, and well calculated to fire the brain of the son of
Caracalla, but the most striking point in this fantastic
scene is that it has its ;ra/side ; that it unseals a pregnant
thought, to germ in future time and become an historic
reality. For the hour will come when the Cresars, step
by step, will actually withdraw from the city of the Tiber ;
when they will sacrifice Rome to save the empire ; when
Constantine shall at last transport the capital of the world
into the East; — and it is curious to observe how skillfully
the presentiment of the work of future ages is wrought into
the texture of this extraordinary scene of vengeance and
of folly. As to the execution of this plan of destruction,
let him confidently trust in the son of Amphilochus. He
will introduce into the city the revolted troops who are
about to proclaim Alexander Severus ; he will advance
against them with the Prastorians who are as yet faithful,
and while the two armies are slaughtering each other, he
will let loose upon them the slaves, the gladiators, the
barbarians, and the Nazarenes. The onslaught would be
truly grand, the devastation general, Rome would be
ruined, and the peace of the successors of Augustus for-
ever secured ! Heliogabalus is fascinated by this poetry
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of desolation ; Iridion seems to him a new Prometheus
with the stolen heaven-fire. He names him Prefect of
the Praetorians, and confides to him the fortune of the
Csesars.
The only grave care now of the Greek is with respect
to the Christians, the confessors of the Prophet of Naza-
reth, whose name we now for the first time hear, although
they have for a long time been a subject of anxiety to
the Son of Vengeance, for Masinissa had predicted to
him that the only danger of the resurrection of Rome
would arise from these despised sectaries. Aside from
this dark prophecy, the Christians would necessarily enter
into the plans of one about to unite all the heterogeneous
elements of the empire, in order to unchain them against
the empire itself. Obscure, despised, and persecuted,
breathing freely only in the Catacombs, the new commu-
nity had not the less attracted to itself much that was
really great and living, both from among the Romans
and barbarians; it had grown rapidly, and had be-
come an imposing force. Alexander Severus had already
counted upon it, and Avas a Christian. The son of Am-
philochus had also joined these worshipers of a crucified
God ; he had been baptized. Iridion for the Greeks,
Sigurd for the Germans, for the Christians he was called
Hieronymus. But it was only an external sign and name
he had received from them. He did not understand
their mystic dogmas; their doctrines of resignation and
pardon only irritated him; but he intuitively saw that
the most dangerous resistance to his plans would spring
from them. He did not, however, despair of conquering
this rebellious element. He based his hopes upon the
fact that he had seen secret and involuntary curses
against their butchers germing in the souls of the young,
even in the midst of words of charity and forgiveness.
From the Forum and Palace of Rome we are taken into
the Catacombs. Poetry and history have alike delighted
in placing the empire of Christ in opposition to that of the
Caesars ; in contrasting the purity of the primitive Chris-
tians with the abject corruption of expiring paganism ;
from which has been drawn a glorification for the true
God, which, however brilliant, is not just in its method.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
97
The comparison would only be equitable, if, in opposi-
tion to this new world, in all the fullness of its vigorous
youth and purity of origin, should be placed tlie old
world, with all it possessed of good and true, and in the
beauty of its maturity. Every living being would easily
triumph if brought near a corpse ! The advantage would
not the less surely be with the new law ; it would in fact
\>Q far greater, for the proportions would not have been
falsified at the pleasure of the writer. The Anonymous
Poet took good care to fall into no such injustice. The
conception of the symbolic type, Iridion, the ideal of
both ancient and modern Hellas, has enabled the poet to
bring epochs widely distant in time near to each other,
and place the classic genius, in its most perfect mani-
festation, in direct opposition with Christianity, in all its
pristine vigor. From paganism in its age of decay, the
poet has taken the only grand thing of the era which re-
lieved the vices of the Cjesars : I mean the great spirit of
legislation which, under the most vicious of reigns, col-
lected the statutes of the future code, of the Roman law,
for which so glorious a future was reserved. With rare
skill he has managed to make the celebrated jurist, Domi-
tian, a vigorous representative of the antique Roman
virtue, as well as a decided antagonist of the Nazarenes.
The soul of Cato dwells in the breast of this confidant of
Alexander, for whose accession he schemes like a true
son of daring antiquity. Imbued with the philosophy of
the Stoics, bearing in his heart the image of Rome once
so glorious and free, Domitian still does not think the re-
turn to a republic possible ; it was too late for that even
in the days of Cassius ; he only prays the gods to give
Rome a master capable of rejuve;"iating the decrepit em-
pire, even if, instead of the olive branch, he be forced to
bear the axe of the lictor ! But let them never speak to
him of a crucified God ; let them never seek new vigor
there ! The glory of the Eternal City can never be re-
stored but by the aid of the principles which had first
raised it from the dust : "the mystic rites of the ances-
tors, and their inflexible courage. "
This is not, however, the supreme denial of the doc-
trines of the Saviour. Their utter negation has been in-
9*
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carnated by the poet in the person of Masinissa, who is
perhaps the most profound and original conception of
the whole drama. The counselor of Iridion is not
simply a ^^ wa'idelote,^^ he is the Spirit of Evil, Satan
himself, — but Satan ingloriously reduced to antique pro-
portions, such as a mythology always seeking beauty and
serenity, even in the darkest and saddest creations, would
have pictured him. Masinissa has neither the bitter and
desolating irony of Mephistopheles, nor the tempestuous
rage of Milton's fallen angel ; he is a grave and majestic
old man. Seek not in him that "eternal and infinite ne-
gation" which Goethe has given to Evil; his hatred
is, on the contrary, very determinate and very plastic.
Christianity repels him by that which must have deeply
wounded all minds truly and classically antique, — by its
apparent absence of virile energy, its want of sensuous
beauty. The doctrines of submission and resignation,
always preached by the confessors of the Cross, appeared
to him unworthy of a manly spirit, of a free man ; he
called them cowardice ; and there was nothing in Chris-
tianity, even to its rehabilitation of woman, — one of
the immense benefits of the Gospel, — which was not re-
volting to all his instincts. " They adore a maid," he
says, " a creature whose infancy is eternal, whose old age
precocious ; they build a strange, mysterious worship
upon the ruins of their carnal lusts, and they prostrate
themselves before a woman, — before the slave of the hus-
band. " . . . Thus, as he saw it, but little fit to inspire
vigorous acts, the Christian ideal seemed also to him
essentially ugly. " They are full of admiration for this
crucified body, for the features they imagine so exquisite
in the hour they call the triumph of love. They have not
known him ; they did not see him when he agonized, a pi'ey
to all the hideousness of suffering, faint with torture, cov-
ered with blood, and with his hair disordered by the
winds which whistled round his head. " . . . Here is in-
deed the beauty-seeking naturalism of the ancient world
protesting against modern spirituality, which exalts the
soul, even at the exi)ense of the body. Let the reader
examine for a moment the figures of the antique group
which our poet has placed in contrast with the spirit of
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
99
Christianity, that he may obtain a due conception of the
grand sense of justice and poetry which presides over the
whole of this remarkable composition.
Thus impartial in his pictures of the classic world, our
author is no less just in his sketches of the early societies
of the Christians. He has taken care not to give them
that beatified placidity, that detachment from all the pas-
sions of humanity, so willingly attributed to them by mer-
cenary and conventional art. In the primitive church, as
represented in our drama, the Holy Spirit alone is great
and infallible ; man is weak as he ever is, subject to
temptation and sudden falls. Not that the association of
Christians does not contain characters of sublime abne-
gation and sanctity, of invincible resolution, and of
angelic purity, such as Bishop Victor, the true servant of
God, the admirable head of a Christian community; but
together with those who realize the Christian ideal in all
its purity, we also meet with Christians less resigned, em-
bittered by grief, and aspiring to sunshine, joy, and life.
They are men, and as men they suffer, hope ; they want
a terrestrial base for their actions ; they wish to tear the
cross from the bowels of the earth, and plant it on the
Roman Forum. Remark attentively Simeon of Corinth,
only an episodic sketch, but drawn with a bold, free
hand, as is the wont of the Anonymous Poet. ' Simeon
had once loved ; a single day separated him from wedded
bliss, when a centurion tore the plighted maiden from his
arms to throw her to the Flavian amphitheatre. A skull
was all left to him by the tiger's teeth ! Then he em-
braced the cross with fervor, a burning asceticism puri-
fied his soul from all dreams of vengeance, he meditated
profoundly on the passion of the Lord, and was touched
with boundless love by memories of Golgotha. . . .
"And if God himself, to save the world, has taken a
body, why should not His Bride, the Church, to save the
world, also put on a body? Until now, she has been
only spirit; where are her temples, sanctuaries, powers? "
He exclaims in one of his solitary ecstasies, " To possess
the world, — not that which glitters in gold or groans in
iron ; but the infinite world, — the world of souls, — and
there in Thy name to reign, O God ! " Here we may
UNIVERSITY
fERfelTY \
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already see the Spiritual contemplating the reign over the
Temporal. With spirits of this stamp Iridion succeeds,
and is listened to when, in place of the victory promised
them by Victor, "before the face of the Lord," he in-
cites them " to a combat and triumph which are of this
world, near them, and not at an infinite distance. "
Above all, however, it behooved the son of Amphilochus
to gain to his side Cornelia Metella, the saintly virgin
whom the Christians loved. The poet has surrounded
this noble victim with every grace, and the Son of
Vengeance is himself moved by the divine charm she
exhales around her, but Masinissa has designated her
as the principal and indispensable instrument of his un-
dertaking. To associate Christianity with his work of
destruction, to incarnate in human passions a force which
is not of this world, a woman is a necessity ! These Naza-
renes adore a virgin ! Then let Iridion choose the purest
and fairest of their maidens, inflame her with his own
ideas, and like a burning brand throw her in their midst.
With Satanic perspicacity the terrible old man has per-
ceived the danger incurred by the female heart in the
depths of Christian mysticism, the tendency of all ec-
static love to materialize itself even through the excess of
its own refinement, and he has traced for Iridion his line
of conduct : " Praise her God, adore his wounds, speak
tenderly of the nails which pierced his limbs, . . . and
then attract her thoughts from the crucified, and fix them
on yourself. . . . He is so far, He has been on the
earth, but will never return to it : but you live, breathe,
and are beside her. . . . You will become her God !
And when her head shall rest upon your breast, then will
the soul forget itself in the passion of the body, — then,
O my Son, my spirit will be with you, and you will find
adherents in the Catacombs. " The struggle which oc-
curs between Iridion and Metella, between the ideal of
classic beauty and the ascetic spirituality of the Christian
heart, is full of pathos and passion. The son of Amphilo-
chus breaks forth before the sainted maid in all the vio-
lence of his love, his hate; he kindles her soul with his
burning breath, he explains to her the odious past of
Rome, he entreats her to love, to live, and to revetige the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. loi
Saviour. The Christian resists, but is fascinated ; for the
first time she fears tlie dead who lie around her ; she makes
an effort to fly to Christ, to escape the Greek, who ap-
pears to her as Prophet or Archangel. At last the de-
cisive moment comes. Before the tombs of the martyrs,
and appealing to their bones to bear him witness, the
Greek tears off the veil of the maiden while lost in prayer,
and sullies her brow with a kiss, while she believes him
now to be a messenger from heaven.
Master of Metella, Iridion hastily repairs to Ehitn,
the most holy s])Ot within the Catacombs, where the faith-
ful are assembled. Clad in armor, and sword in hand, he
declares to the just that the time of resignation is past, the
measure full ; that this is the decisive moment : division
distracts the city, the son of shame totters on his throne,
the Prtetorians have turned away their hearts from him,
the people, like a troubled sea, know not to what wind to
yield. The legions throughout Asia are in insurrection ;
the Germans on the Rhine revolt ; Cssar and Alexander
arm for their last combat ; but what matters it to the
Christians who shall be the conqueror? Whoever it may
be, will he not murder them, and blaspheme Christ?
The signs perdicted are upon them, let them be recog-
nized ; let them K'/7//V_/fr;;//)'— and they are /r^<? . /" . . .
But who has commissioned him to lead the people of God ?
ask those who hesitate. Who will assure them that the
Lord has ordered them to rise? Simeon of Corinth
answers that he will bear witness to the mission of Iridion.
He begs the brethren not to suffer the propitious hour to
escape. From this moment, which will never return, let
them strike the spark of life, for in it, and in it alone,
sleeps the germ of future ages. Metella, maddened, in-
spired, and panting with haste, rushes in at this moment,
crying: "To arms ! to arms ! " This testimony from the
consecrated virgin determines the doubters. The bap-
tized barbarians are glad to find the messenger of the
Messiah in the grandson of Sigurd ; the young, the strong,
they who live and feel, swear to be exact at the hour and
place of meeting: the old, the pure, the saints, resist and
pray. The confusion is at its height, the eartli yawns
and trembles, the community disperses on all sides,
I02 POLISH POETRY IN
some applauding the avenger, others crying Anathema,
and mercy ! The holy place is finally empty, and Masi-
nissa appears in Eloim, thus deserted by the Christians,
surrounded by the infernal spirits who chant their victory.
Here, and in this scene alone, the Spirit of Evil steps
beyond the frame so ingeniously wrought for him by the
poet. For this time only he assumes the vast proportions
of the Christian Satan, and betrays the boundless hate of
Lucifer ; indeed, the spectacle he had just witnessed was
well fitted to swell his pride. He has seen the first rup-
ture in the Christian community founded upon peace,
unity, and love ; he regards it as the forerunner of all the
schisms yet to be, of the persecutions in the name of faith,
and of the terrible religious wars which through ages yet
to come shall rend and distract that humanity which
Christ had died to redeem. His soul dilates with this
hope, and he hurls defiance at Christ, his enemy.
"Great Enemy! Thou knowest that the souls of men
have gone astray from the beginning of the world ! From
this time forth no day will ever pass in which, disputing
on thy nature and thy substance, they will not excite
sterile, but bloody contests !
" In Thy name will they rise, revolt, destroy, burn, mas-
sacre ; in Thy name will they lose human life in dreamy
ecstasies, renounce the gift of speech, and die !
"And without ceasing, will they crucify Thee; as in
their wisdom so in their ignorance ; their reason as their
folly ; in their prayers of base humility, as in the haughty
blasphemy of their pride !
"On Thy far Heaven heights, empty the cup of gall they
hold to Thy wrung lips, until in Thy turn, Thou tooshalt
curse them !
" And even on the summit of Thy sky, with all Thy
glory and omnipotence, Thou shalt at last feel agony,
and learn to know what our hell truly is ! "
The denouement approaches, and Iridion redoubles his
activity. Sent by Caesar to treat with tiie revolted troops
marching upon the city, and whom Severus has joined,
he intentionally irritates them, and renders all accommo-
dation impossible. When returned to Rome, he prepares
the Praetorians to attack the invaders, and at the same
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
103
time marshals the slaves, gladiators, and barbarians to
fall on either party, to massacre and burn the city as soon
as they shall see him appear at the head of the Christians.
He again visits Heliogabalus to tear from him the last
symbol of power, the imperial ring ox\. which the Genius
of Rome is graven. Possessor of this talisman, he no
longer thinks of the son of Caracalla, but another has
thought of this crowned child :
^' £Isinoe. Brother, what will become of him?
*' I}-idion. It matters not. I care not for his life, nor
for his death. That which he was, now glitters on my
hand (showing the ring) ; that which he is, is scarcely
worth a thought.
" Elsinoe. If that be so, come near, come nearer still !
Canst hear my lightest whisper now?
'' Iridion. What is the matter, sister? Wherefore
tremble so? (He takes her in his arms. ) Thy small
hand burns in mine, — I feel thy heart throb wild against
my breast-plate !
" E/sinoe. The eyes whose fires withered my soul, must
die ! The arms which clasped my neck, must fall like
mangled adders ! The lips which first touched mine,
must crumble into dust !
*' Iridion. Yes. He shall perish. "
At last the hour for the execution of the plot arrives.
All have kept faith except the Christians, who do not
come. What can detain them ? Simeon swore to lead
them forward at the appointed time ; all hope for the
avenger lies in them. Iridion's anguish is extreme, the
anguish of Prometheus, when but a cloud divides him from
the heaven flame he means to seize ! " Why are you silent ?
Masinissa, speak! Cry: Long live Hellas! " — "I am
silent" — replies the old man — "because the hour ap-
pointed has already passed ! • Each feather in its wings
as it flies on rustles with long-drawn sneers. " — Iridion feels
that the work of his whole life is escaping his grasp ; he
hastes from his palace to unearth the Christians, his un-
sheathed sword in his hand, his head bare: "To con-
quer, his sword suffices; to die, he needs no helmet! "
His fears were well founded with regard to the Catacombs.
Bishop Victor had arrested, on the threshold of Eloim,
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all the armed men who were marching upon the city.
When Iridion enters the sanctuary, most of the men had
already deserted him. Simeon persists in the revolt, and
is excommunicated. Metella, too, ceases not to acknowl-
edge the envoy of heaven in Iridion, or to cry : " To
arms! " and around this deluded, wandering soul Victor
and Iridion hold their last combat. Exorcised by the
Bishop, touched by the cross, she grows weak and faint,
and dies, renouncing the Spirit of Evil. Iridion casts a
last curse at the cowards, placing their whole trust in the
words of a woman, and departs to fight without a hope of
conquest. Indeed, victory is no longer possible ; the de-
fection of the Christians has ruined all ; the Praetorians
have not resisted the troops of Severus ; the gladiators,
slaves, and barbarians have fallen in the streets without
plan or direction, and have been everywhere repulsed.
The son of Amphilochus will sell dearly his defeat ; he
reunites all those still devoted to him, fights fiercely, and
repels with disdain the pardon sent him by the new Em-
peror through Domitian. In the long and admirable
scene between Domitian and himself, the combat between
Hellas and Rome is renewed and brilliantly discussed, —
the contest between the beautiful genius of Ancient Lib-
erty and the harsh and cruel domination of the Romans
is eloquently argued. All negotiations are broken, and
the struggle is renewed ; the issue is no longer doubt-
ful. Heliogabalus has been murdered, Elsinoe has taken
her own life, Rome still stands, and Alexander Severus
is proclaimed Emperor. The triumph of Severus, who
neither in Christian graces nor antique virtues ever soars
above mediocrity, is one of the deepest lessons contained
in the Drama; it is therefore intentionally that the poet
has given to the son of Mammea a character deprived of
all the stronger traits. For in the sublime struggle of
two titanic princij)les, the victory too often remains with
dull mediocrity ! Happy indeed if it should prove honest,
— as Alexander really was.
At last Iridion, without forces, deserted even by the most
faithful, his friends dead, gorged with bitterness, mounts
the funeral pyre to end his days. At this moment Masi-
nissa appears, of whom nothing had been seen after the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
105
defection of the Christians. He takes Iridion in his
arms, carries him away, and places him upon a mountain
near the sea, whence he can see Rome still standing entire,
"still showing its marbles to the sun like the white teeth
of a tiger. " Then the first doubt of the legitimacy of
his work rushes upon the son of Amphilochus ; then for
the first time he asks " if the God of Metella be not per-
chance the greatest of the gods, and if the Nazarenes do
not possess the only truth in the world? " "The Naza-
renes? " replies Masinissa, sneeringly, to him, — "truly
you owe them much in the past ; will owe them more in
the future ! . . . Not falsely did your mother Crimhild
speak ; her predictions will be all accomplished ! The
peoi)le of the North will yet ravage Italy, covering it with
blood and ashes ; but do you know who will tear the
accursed city from the hands of your barbarian brothers ?
The Nazarene ! In him the perfidy of the senate and the
cruelty of the Roman people will still live, as an eternal
heritage ; his heart will be as merciless as that of the first
Cato, although his words will often be sweet and effemi-
nate. And the warriors of the North will be as little
children at his feet, and for the second time he will
make Rome godlike, above all the nations of the earth ! "
— "What! " cries the Greek in the accents of despair,
"After Rome, will there be still another Rome? The
city accursed is then to be eternal? And this is the an-
nouncement which the friend of Amphilochus reserves for
Crimhild's son to bless his dying hour? " . . . Masi-
nissa replies: "Do not despair! The time is coming
wlien the shadow of the cross will oppress the nations
like a tropic heat ; when it too will stretch out its arms
in vain to press again to its heart those who forsake it !
One after another they will arise and say : ' We will no
longer serve thee ! ' Then will be heard at all the city
gates complaints and sobs, and the Roman Genius will
veil his face, his tears will never end, his humiliation will
be as great as has ever been his pride. " — The heart of
Iridion again begins to beat, his eyes regain their lustre.
— "O that I might see that day of chastisement and
vengeance ! " — " Then be it so ! " replies Masinissa. He
bears away his pupil from the life of earth, rocks him to
Io6 POLISH POETRY IN
sleep upon oblivion's heart, from which he will not wake
for many centuries, until the appointed hour comes:
" When on the Forum only dust shall be, — the Am[)hi-
theatre hold only skeletons, — the Capitol be crumbled
into infamy. " The antique drama is now finished, and
the epilogue transports us into modern times, into the
Rome of our own days. Through centuries, Iridion has
slept the sleep of Epimenides; neither the terrible days
of Alaric nor of Attila, nor the renovation of the em-
pire by Charlemagne nor the struggle of Rienzi, have
been able to arouse him from his sleep; the holy masters
of the Vatican have, one by one, like shadows glided by
this shade : " but in our times he awakes. " Masinissa has
kept his word, and he again places his pupil before Rome,
o'errun with creeping vines, through which a creeping
people move. The Son of the Centuries now crosses the
deserted Forum, and gazes round the desolate city, and
"every ruin is to him a recompense. "
" Two hoary-headed old men stand in the vestibule of
a Basilica, robed in purple mantles ; and monks salute
them with the names of Fathers, Princes of the Church ;
and poverty of spirit is graven on their faces. They en-
ter a chariot drawn by two dark, meagre horses, behind
them is a servant holding a dim lantern, such as a poor
widow hangs above a child who dies of hunger ; on the
panels of this chariot are seen what once was gilding.
The creaking wheels have passed, and with them disap-
pear two snowy, bent, and weary heads. "
"The fearful leader says: ' Such are the successors of the
Caesars ! Such is the Car of Fortune ! Such the Victors ! '
"And the son of Greece looks on, and claps his hands
in joy. "
As striking as may be this final picture, as closely as it
may seem to respond to the preoccui)ations and passions
of the times we are traversing, we would be mistaken if
we should think to see in it the innermost thought of the
drama; above all, we would be wrong not to observe
closely the change which has occurred in Iridion himself;
for if Rome is no longer to be recognized, the son of
Amphilochus has also been transformed during his sleep
of ages. He no longer hates the Cross ; its fate appears
rilE NINETEENril CENTURY.
107
as sad to him as did in other days that of his Hellas;
" under the rays of the moon, he has felt that the sign of
redemption is holy for ever and ever; he clasps his arms
round it, — and Masinissa leaves him step by step y . . .
Here, in truth, lies the bearing of the poem ; it flashes
clearly upon us in the voice from Heaven which sends
Iridion to Poland, to be subjected there to another and
more glorious proof.
"Go," cries the voice to him, — "go toward the North
in the name of Christ ! Go, and stop not until thou
standest in the land of graves and crosses ! Thou wilt
know it by the silence of the warriors, the wails of the
women, and the sadness of the children ; thou wilt know
it by the burning cottages of the poor and the desolated
palaces of the exiled ; thou wilt know it by the moans of
my angels who pass there by night ! Go, and dwell among
the new brothers I give to thee. There shall thy second
trial be ! There thou shalt again see the object of thy love
in agony ; again transpierced ; and thou wilt not be able
to die, and the anguish of thousands of souls will be in-
carnated in thee ! Go, and have faith in my name !
Think not of thine own glory, but of the welfare of those
I intrust to thee. Becalm before the pride, oppression,
and the scorn of the unjust ! They will pass away, but
my Thought and Thou, ye shall endure forever!
"And after a long martyrdom I will kindle my dawn
around thee ; I will give thee what my angels have enjoyed
for ages, — bliss ! And tliat which I promised men from
the beginning, from the summit of Golgotha, — Liberty !
Go and act ! Act, even though thy heart be withering
in thy breast; act even when thou doubtest thine own
brethren, when thou despairest of my aid ! Act ! Act
without cessation or repose ! And thou shalt outlive the
vain, the happy, the illustrious ; thou shalt arise again,
not from a sterile sleep, but from the work of the centu-
ries, and shalt become one of the free sons of the skies! "
Such is the dramatic poem of Iridion in its original and
powerful unity. That such a poem should have been
hitherto almost unknown in Western Europe, — so eager to
know and enjoy the literary productions of all nations as
almost to realize that " universal literature" (Welt litter-
lo8 POLISH POETRY IN
atur) whicli was the dream of Goethe, — proves how, heavily
the forgetfuhiess of the world still weighs upon the unfor-
tunate country of the Anonymous Poet ; it also proves
how much the easy enjoyment of light productions, void
of all sublime ideas, has deteriorated our tastes, causing
us to turn away from all serious, even if eloquent, works.
At any rate, they who pretend to penetrate the meaning
of Faust and Manfred, can find no difficulty in the com-
prehension of Iridion. It is at least certain that Poland
immediately caught the dominant idea of the drama, and
easily unraveled the profound signification of its allegory.
This poem told them that patriotic suffering effects no-
thing when it is based on negation and hatred. It further
told them that an enemy might find new strength, life,
and rejuvenation in the very means by which an imscru-
pulous vengeance sought to overthrow him or sharpen
mortal arms against him ; as Rome found a second era of
greatness in Christianity, which Iridion intended should
become the instrument of his hatred ; as the Teutonic
order encountered the like in the Reformation ; or as
Russia shall perhaps yet meet in the material civilization
of our century. That which Poland above all understood,
was the mysterious voice which ordered Iridion toward
the North, to be there subject to a second proof, that com-
mand which sent this ideal of Hellenic patriotism " to the
land of graves and crosses," but which at the same time
sent it transformed, purified from all pagan feelings of
hate, illumined by the Christian faith, and holding in its
arms the cross. The national ideal of Wallenrod thus
received a complete and moral transfiguration in Iridion,
after having passed through its transition in the admirable
and significant character of Robak, in the Sir Thaddeus.
And let us dwell for a moment upon the fact that this suc-
cessive purification of the patriotic sentiment in ourpoetry
was not accomplished at a time even relatively mild and
peaceful; it coincided with a period of the most bitter
suffering ; with the epoch of the direst and most impla-
cable punishments and persecutions, with the reign of the
cruel Emperor Nicholas. The very year in which Iridion
appeared saw an auction opened assuredly, at least, en-
tirely new in the annals of the world ; at Warsaw, and in
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
109
the principal cities of the country, the transportation of
thousands of Polish children into the steppes and among the
Oural Mountains was offered at public sale to the highest
bidder. Certainly if the feeling of national hate were
ever to be permitted to poets, it would be to those fired
by the manifold torments inflicted upon the most unfor-
tunate of nations; — and it stamps the character of origi-
nal greatness upon the Anonymous Poet to have raised,
precisely at such a dark epoch, a protest so energetic
against all ideas of vengeance, to have placed Eternal
Love, not only as did Dante at the gates of the city of
Eternal Grief, but in the very deepest of the Circles of
Hell!
IV.
Hate is impotent, vengeance creates nothing; to en-
able us to triumph over an enemy, it is not sufficient
to have just causes of complaint, we must also surpass
him by moral superiority ! Such was the lesson the Anon-
ymous Poet gave to his subjugated nation. But how to
attain this superiority? How to maintain it? By devo-
tion, immolation, self-sacrifice, replies the Poet. To
expect deliverance, not from the evil which may be called
down on or inflicted upon the oppressor, but from the
good ^\vic\\ maybe developed in the stormful bosom of
the avenger ; to look to God alone for decisive justice,
and to renounce all measures of dissimulation and con-
spiracy, which only tarnish the national character and ob-
scure the purity of the Polish soul ; to persevere in faith,
in spite of all possible trials; to defy heaven itself by the
absolute trust we repose in it ; and on great occasions to
give witness of true life by receiving death without giving
it, going to execution even as the early Christians, the
cross in hand, and prayer and confession on the lips; —
it was thus that this inspired patriot understood the duties
of the enslaved Poles ; duties which he summed up in the
word sacrifice. Round this word will henceforth revolve
the works of the author of Iridion ; it will illumine them
all with its rays, it will be their very soul. He passed his
whole life in developing this doctrine under the must
10*
no
POLISH POETRY IN
varied ft)rms and in the most diverse creations; it may
be found in "The Temptation," as in "The Dream of
Cesara;" in the " Christmas Night," as in "The Present
Day;" in the "Last," as in "The Dawn," "The Psalms
of the Future," and the " Resurrecturis. "
Abstraction made of the genius which flashes through
these various works, there is assuredly something very im-
posing in this perseverance in upholding an idea so com-
pletely out of keeping with the general modes of thought
in the times in which we live. It required the greatest
courage, and a faith no less great, to attempt to convert
one of the most ardent, most impulsive, high-mettled,
and fiery people on the face of the earth to such a doc-
trine. But what exquisite art, what passion did he not
employ to persuade the nation to adopt the truths with
which he was himself so fully penetrated ! Let Poland be
but once confirmed in this belief in pure and fruitful mar-
tyrdom, and the Poet will fear for her neither the reverses
of fortune nor the temptations of despair ; he accepts
even with joy all that separates her from the living world,
and all that renders her a stranger to the happy of the
earth ! What matters it to Poland that others declare
her "as obstinate as she is powerless"? — that they cry
out importunately to her to " fold the shroud around her
dying limbs as rapidly as possible ; to die at once, and
not disturb the world by the protracted agony of her
death-rattle"? What matters it? The time will come
when both the refined and the cruel will beg her to arise
and walk ! Whilst waiting this, she must submit with
tranquillity to the outrages always heaped on the unfortu-
nate ; look trustingly on high, "as only an orphan has
the right to look ;" and, to insulting pride, oppose a
silent dignity. He says: "The angel of pride, before
his fall, had a sister in the sky, who remained there, —
and she is called Dignity f
Our author did not limit himself to the preaching of
this doctrine of sacrifice for the Present and Future ; he
extends it and applies it to the whole Past of his People,
presenting it as the soul of their entire secular existence.
With lofty art and perfect sincerity, he labors to prove
that Poland has always realized the ideal of a Christian
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. m
nation ; has always been disinterested for herself, and
ever interested for humanity, and he finds the proof of
this in the very character of the calamities which have
finally overwhelmed her. Here lies the sole debatable
ground of his magnanimous doctrines. It cannot be de-
nied that the seal of chivalric generosity and self-sacrifice
has been set upon the history of Poland. Her people
have always defended Christianity against its most dan-
gerous enemies, never asking anything from Europe in
exchange for the service rendered ; demanding no pay-
ments for troops ; showing neither astonishment nor re-
sentment at the subsequent ingratitude. Suffer us also to
remark that Poland has never known aught of the cruel-
ties, the regicides, the revolutions of the palace, the
religious wars, which have dyed in blood the annals of
so many other countries ; that she has always given a
generous asylum to all the victims of persecution ; that
it was in her bosom the Jews found refuge, as well as the
emigrants of the wars of the Hussites, of the Reforma-
tion, and of the Thirty Years' War; that they not only
found in her the widest tolerance, but even the unwonted
power of governing themselves by their own laws. We
must, however, confess that more than one of these merits
arose from a defect as much as from a virtue ; that this
policy was more the result of an impulsive generosity
than the growth of a firm and logical will ! It was de-
cidedly virtue, but virtue singularly favored by the im-
providence and recklessness of the national spirit. If the
thinker can scarcely accept, without protest, this high
claim for the whole past of a nation, will he not exclaim
against the extension of this idea, even through the times
of the fall of Poland, and protest against the bold image
of the "Christ of nations," to which the patriot poet
has given so strange a development in " The Dawn" and
the "Psalms"? Poland, in accordance with the views
of the Anonymous Poet, has not only been crucified
as Christ was, to rise as he did to higher life, but per-
ished voluntarily to redeem the sins of other nations, and
died pure of all reproach! Is this historically true?
May it not contain a latent poison even for those whose
faith it was intended to revive in the depths of despair ?
112 POLISH POETRY IN
Alas ! though not so deeply burdened as other nations,
Poland cannot pretend to expiate their faults, — she has
too many of her own ! She has no right to proclaim
herself innocent of all her calamities ; she has herself
contributed to them ; she went to sleep upon a volcano ;
she was guilty of a marvelous inertia, of a frivolous im-
providence, of an incomprehensible torpidity. (Gen-
erous to others, ay; provident for herself, nay! ) Bat
these internal faults in nowise justify or excuse the assas-
sination committed against her, and this assassination is
so much the more odious in that it was consummated at
the very moment in which Poland began to rise, — to
waken from her anarchic torpor ; at the moment in
which she originated for herself the Constitution of the
3d of May, 1 791 ; a constitution which will be her eter-
nal defense against all the slanders of her enemies. But
even this noble and generous effort, as well as all her
magnanimous attempts for more than half a century,
prove that Poland had much to amend, to learn, and to
forget. It is not by blinding herself to her old caprices,
but rather by enlightening herself with regard to her past
mistakes, that she will be able to save herself from future
disasters, and conciliate the sympathies of all honest
minds. As Poland and her poets are so fond of quoting
the Bible and of speaking of the People of God, it
might perhaps be useful to remind them that it is pre-
cisely the ])eople of Israel who have, in the Book of
books, left us the example of three great prophets, whose
reunion forms a complete circle of the poetry inspired by
an ardent patriotism. First comes Isaiah, who scathes
the fiiults of the nation, and predicts its chastisement ;
then Jeremiah, who, when the yoke grew heavy upon the
people, weeps over the ruins of the city once so power-
ful ; finally, it is Ezekiel who, in the captivity of Baby-
lon, falls into sublime ecstasies, and sees the temple and
the city rebuilt. Certainly Poland has had her Jere-
miahs and her Ezekiels, but she needs an Isaiah with a
tongue of fire, a pitiless and courageous Dante, to sing
boldly in her ears some painful truths, to probe her many
wounds in i)lace of caressing them.
It is above all in his poem of *' The Dawn" (^1843)
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. n^
that our author has exposed his views with regard to the
Past and Future of his nation, in all the exaltation of his
generous errors. It possesses also the additional interest
of standing as a monument of a feeling of the heart. It
is the only work in which the author has given utterance
to his personal sentiments ; effusions in nowise com-
monplace, but of a highly poetic and elevated form. As
Dante made of Beatrice the symbol of his faith, the type
of theology, the Anonymous Poet regards his Beloved
as the type and ideal of his patriotic aspirations. He
expressly says, like Dante, he has passed through Hell,
and like him has had for guide a lady of grace and pity,
. . . *' a Beatrice as beautiful as the first, but far more
Christian, for she has not chosen the sky as her abode to
shelter herself from sufferings below; she has remained
with her brother upon earth. " Sad and gloomy, they
have met in highest spheres, " like two dark clouds
which, meeting in the air, pour forth torrents of tears,
but from which flash the lightnings which pierce the
vault of heaven, and for a moment show the glittering
Home of God," It is this Beatrice who is the confidante
of all his thoughts upon his country; it is to her he re-
lates all his emotions, all his presentiments; his nation
and his beloved melt into each other in the successive
stanzaf of "The Dawn. " The poem begins with a de-
scription of one of those lovely nights in Italy which
have before awakened so many deep emotions. Lost in
a sweet ecstasy, the two lovers of their fatherland breathe
the fragrant freshness of the air, and gaze into the im-
mensity of the starry vault. What holy calm ! What
divine peace ! The universe is an immense Lyre. , . .
A sublime chant is heard, — a chant of concord, — the
harmony of the spheres. . . . But in this concord is
there not one tone wanting? In this sheaf of light, has
not one ray been broken ? " O my sister, utter the tone
wanting in the lyre of life; point out the star eclipsed
but not extinct ; pronounce, pronounce the name : Po-
land ! — our Poland ! At such an hour ])erhaps God
hearkens to us ; will gather from thy lips the long-lost
tone, and will again restore it in His glorious Hymn !
. . . Ah ! thy lips tremble, and thy breast oppressed can
114
POLISH POETRY IN
only breathe a sigh. . . . My sister, God will under-
stand thee well ; He knows a sigh is now the only name
of thy sad country. " Thus begins a series of stanzas
in which the Poet paints with high poetic power the mis-
ery of the Present, the glories of the Past, and the hopes
of the Future. We are born orphans, — he says to his
Ladye when speaking of the actual generations, — posthu-
mous children ; our only cradle has been the grave of
our mother; "the sweet maternal gaze has ne'er illu-
mined our innocent play; and our young heads have
never reposed upon a warm and palpitating breast, but
on the cold stones of the cemeteries. "
One of the most beautiful stanzas of the poem is that in
which the Poet invokes the ancient senators, the heroes,
the illustrious captains and glorious kings of Poland, from
their graves. Covered with their armor of steel, and
wearing their rusty helmets, they march in endless train ;
and before this sublime Diet of Shadows, the Poet, at first
discouraged, accusing the ancestors of having destroyed
in advance the inheritance of their children, is reanimated
to new hope by the words of one of the shades, Stephen
Czarniecki, one of the purest heroes of the country. The
poet here introduces his idea of the " Christ of nations. "
It is not only Poland that he sees, he embraces humanity
entire. He compares our epoch to that which preceded
the Christian era, and many analogies are not wanting.
Then, as now, social wars had upturned the soil and de-
stroyed the old institutions; then, as now, a Caesar ap-
peared (Napoleon), who arrested society upon the brink
of the abyss, re-established a ma/eria/ order, and inaugu-
rated an epoch of great expansion for a civilization
thoroughly materialistic.
has been brought up from infancy in the idea that she is
to be the victim to expiate the shame of her fathers and
92
POLISH POETRY IN
the sufferings of many nations ; she has been taught by
Masiiiissa; and the decrees of her brother have hitherto
been her law. But Avhen the fatal moment arrives for the
accomplishment of her destiny, her soul revolts, and, like
Antigone, she bursts into lamentations upon her doom,
upon her youth condemned to pain, her beauty to pro-
fanation. Iridion remains inexorable, and refuses all
temptation to pity. He leads Elsinoe to the statue of their
father.
" Formerly" — he says to her — " the sacrifice of the life
of a man sufficed for nations; now even honor must be
offered up ! . . . Maiden, listen to me as to the dying, as
if never again to hear my voice on earth ! Thou art to
enter the Palace of the Accursed, to live with the damned ;
to yield thy body to the son of shame: — see to it that
thy soul remains high, pure, and free ! Let Caesar never
sleep upon thy breast ! Alarm him constantly with cries
that the Praetorians call to arms, that the patricians con-
spire, and that the people storm his palace gates ! and
slowly, day by day, and hour by hour, madden him with
rage and fear ; drink all the life-blood of his heart ! Now
rise and bow thy head ! Conceived in the desire of ven-
geance, grown up in hope of this revenge, destined to
shame and to perdition, I consecrate thee to the infernal
gods — and to the manes of Amphilochus the Greek. "
It has sometimes been given to poetry to render history
probable, thus, for example, the Richard III. of the Chro-
nicles first becomes possible for our intellect, or acceptable
for our imagination, in the tragedy of Sliakespeare. The
Anonymous Poet has, in the same manner, succeeded in
making us believe in the existence, the reality, of one of
those Roman Csesars, who, in spite of Suetonius and
Tacitus, have always seemed to us inexplicable enigniiis.
Through an ingenious and ])rofound art our author has
succeeded in unraveling all the elements constituting that
remarkable and fantastic being called Heliogabalus. Born
under the burning sky of Asia, the son of Caracalla became
High-Priest at Emesus at fourteen years of age, and was
familiar with all the sanguinary voluptuousness of the
worship of Mithras. At seventeen, he was Cnesar, master
of the world ; and placed upon this giddy height, the
TIJE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 53
young man rapidly exhausted all feelings, all sensations.
He was a child, with the instincts of a decrepit old man ;
his passions were worn out; his soul was only lighted by
the flickering gleams of lubricity. Worlds couM not fill
the ennui of his heart; it was the incarnate void ! In
spite of his power, his eye could rest but upon one thing,
the abyss into which so many of his predecessors had
fallen ; the thought of death everywhere pursued him,
and what he most feared in it was the idea of giving up
his tender limbs, white as snow, to the rage of the pojni-
lace, for in his own manner he was an artist, he was in
love with his own divine form, and if he must die, he in-
tended that " his blood should flow over diamonds before
descending to Erebus. " He had had a jeweled court pre-
pared, into which he might precipitate himself in case of
sudden danger.
We may now understand the plans founded by Iridion
on such a character when it should be shaken and tortured
by an arm vigorous as the hammer of Thor, supple as a
serpent, white as a lily ; — and Elsinoe knew well her part !
Slie became the strong virgin borne in the bosom of Crim-
hild, the Scandinavian Valkyria, with proud looks and
haughty scorn when in the presence of the enfeebled son
of Asia. Why did he speak to her, this weak Caesar, of
his divinities of light, of his Genii of the night, and of
his sacrificial powers, so adored by the highest pontiffs of
the East ? The daughter of ice and snow despised the
effeminate gods who float in clouds of incense, rocked by
the sound of flutes, and bathed in the blood of trembling
roes or infants newly born ! Ah ! he was very different,
her mother's god and hers, strong Odin, made of oak and
steel, who, calm amid rains, snows, and tempests, held a
cup of foaming blood of heroes in his stalwart hands, and
saw the Northern seas break at his feet ! Why did he
speak to her of sharing all his splendor, greatness, and
infinite power? She knew too well the end of all the
Caesars; the first chance centurion might plunge his knife
into the swan-like throat, and throw the divine majesty of
Caracalla's son to the dogs to tear ! Does not Severus
plot against him even in his own palace? are not the
cohorts in revolt even at the gates of his own capital ?
9
94
POLISH POETRY IN
Before pretending to make the chaste body of a virgin of
Odin seek shelter in his arms, he must learn not to tremble
himself before his eunuchs and Praetorians; she has no
dream of bliss for him who has no morrow! Heliogabalus
foams with baffled desire, with spite, with rage, with fear,
— beyond all, \\\\. \\ fear ! Yes, it is too true; he is sur-
rounded with plots and snares, he must be crushed, and
no one can possibly save him ! . . . Yes, replies the
Valkyria ; in her pity for this wretched master of the
world she has prayed for him to her strong gods, and these
gods have revealed to her the name of one who could
secure the throne of Cresar ; — but she will not give this
word. Why should she? The Emperor would not have
sufficient courage to appeal to this hero of fate, — he who
shivers at his own slaves ! At last, however, she suffers this
name to be torn from her lips, — it is the son of Amphi-
lochus, her brother ! Heliogabalus then sends for Iridion.
The palace of the Csesars opens to the descendant of
Philopoemen, nor does he enter it as "Grceculus,^' as had
so many of his countrymen, as simple poet, ranting rhe-
torician, or amusing epigrammist. No, he comes as master,
who dictates his commands, and looks scornfully upon the
debased throng encumbering the Court. It is an easy
thing for him to augment the terror of Heliogabalus, to
represent to him his situation as utterly desperate, treason
everywhere hatching, and a convulsion ready to break
forth, but, after having raised the fears of the crowned
child to their utmost height, he suddenly changes his
tone, tells him to take courage, y^r in this eternal war be-
tween the EjHperor and the city, shall the victory never be
with the Emperor? He then unfolds to him a complete,
strange, and demoniacal philosophy of history ; he shows
him Rome in perpetual struggle with its Emperors, ren-
dering all government impossible ; Rome, always dream-
ing of a republic, and revenging itself upon its rulers by
stoical opposition, by well-devised treason, or by bribing
the Praetorians ! Rome has unceasingly conspired against
and massacred its Csesars; then let Ceesar in his turn play
conspirator ! let him give the death-wound to his mortal
enemy ! The question now is not of Alexander Severus,
of such a cohort, of such a senator; it is of his great and
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95
implacable Persecutor ; it is of this Rome, always enraged
against the successors of Augustus ; — of the Eternal City,
— not, however, more eternal than Babylon or Jerusalem —
both in ruins ! Let but the son of Caracalla bear himself
with a strong will ; let him become that which but few
heroes have ever dared to be, a Destroyer ; let liim leave
this accursed place, always in rebellion, to scorpions and
serpents ! The source of the eternal evil thus destroyed,
he can return to the country of his birth, "Where men
speak freely with the stars," and under the bright and
sunny sky of Asia he will found a new empire. Freed
from his sleepless nights, High-Priest and at the same time
Caesar, like an Egyptian demigod surrounded by the odor-
ous incense of myrrh and aloes, he will pass his happy
days, the great names of the past will perish in his brighter
fame, and there will no longer be senators nor jurists to
dream of republics, nor daring to sneer at Mithras, or the
long hanging sleeves of the Oriental costume loved by the
Emperor. . . . The perspective shown is full of sublime
horror, and well calculated to fire the brain of the son of
Caracalla, but the most striking point in this fantastic
scene is that it has its ;ra/side ; that it unseals a pregnant
thought, to germ in future time and become an historic
reality. For the hour will come when the Cresars, step
by step, will actually withdraw from the city of the Tiber ;
when they will sacrifice Rome to save the empire ; when
Constantine shall at last transport the capital of the world
into the East; — and it is curious to observe how skillfully
the presentiment of the work of future ages is wrought into
the texture of this extraordinary scene of vengeance and
of folly. As to the execution of this plan of destruction,
let him confidently trust in the son of Amphilochus. He
will introduce into the city the revolted troops who are
about to proclaim Alexander Severus ; he will advance
against them with the Prastorians who are as yet faithful,
and while the two armies are slaughtering each other, he
will let loose upon them the slaves, the gladiators, the
barbarians, and the Nazarenes. The onslaught would be
truly grand, the devastation general, Rome would be
ruined, and the peace of the successors of Augustus for-
ever secured ! Heliogabalus is fascinated by this poetry
96
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of desolation ; Iridion seems to him a new Prometheus
with the stolen heaven-fire. He names him Prefect of
the Praetorians, and confides to him the fortune of the
Csesars.
The only grave care now of the Greek is with respect
to the Christians, the confessors of the Prophet of Naza-
reth, whose name we now for the first time hear, although
they have for a long time been a subject of anxiety to
the Son of Vengeance, for Masinissa had predicted to
him that the only danger of the resurrection of Rome
would arise from these despised sectaries. Aside from
this dark prophecy, the Christians would necessarily enter
into the plans of one about to unite all the heterogeneous
elements of the empire, in order to unchain them against
the empire itself. Obscure, despised, and persecuted,
breathing freely only in the Catacombs, the new commu-
nity had not the less attracted to itself much that was
really great and living, both from among the Romans
and barbarians; it had grown rapidly, and had be-
come an imposing force. Alexander Severus had already
counted upon it, and Avas a Christian. The son of Am-
philochus had also joined these worshipers of a crucified
God ; he had been baptized. Iridion for the Greeks,
Sigurd for the Germans, for the Christians he was called
Hieronymus. But it was only an external sign and name
he had received from them. He did not understand
their mystic dogmas; their doctrines of resignation and
pardon only irritated him; but he intuitively saw that
the most dangerous resistance to his plans would spring
from them. He did not, however, despair of conquering
this rebellious element. He based his hopes upon the
fact that he had seen secret and involuntary curses
against their butchers germing in the souls of the young,
even in the midst of words of charity and forgiveness.
From the Forum and Palace of Rome we are taken into
the Catacombs. Poetry and history have alike delighted
in placing the empire of Christ in opposition to that of the
Caesars ; in contrasting the purity of the primitive Chris-
tians with the abject corruption of expiring paganism ;
from which has been drawn a glorification for the true
God, which, however brilliant, is not just in its method.
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
97
The comparison would only be equitable, if, in opposi-
tion to this new world, in all the fullness of its vigorous
youth and purity of origin, should be placed tlie old
world, with all it possessed of good and true, and in the
beauty of its maturity. Every living being would easily
triumph if brought near a corpse ! The advantage would
not the less surely be with the new law ; it would in fact
\>Q far greater, for the proportions would not have been
falsified at the pleasure of the writer. The Anonymous
Poet took good care to fall into no such injustice. The
conception of the symbolic type, Iridion, the ideal of
both ancient and modern Hellas, has enabled the poet to
bring epochs widely distant in time near to each other,
and place the classic genius, in its most perfect mani-
festation, in direct opposition with Christianity, in all its
pristine vigor. From paganism in its age of decay, the
poet has taken the only grand thing of the era which re-
lieved the vices of the Cjesars : I mean the great spirit of
legislation which, under the most vicious of reigns, col-
lected the statutes of the future code, of the Roman law,
for which so glorious a future was reserved. With rare
skill he has managed to make the celebrated jurist, Domi-
tian, a vigorous representative of the antique Roman
virtue, as well as a decided antagonist of the Nazarenes.
The soul of Cato dwells in the breast of this confidant of
Alexander, for whose accession he schemes like a true
son of daring antiquity. Imbued with the philosophy of
the Stoics, bearing in his heart the image of Rome once
so glorious and free, Domitian still does not think the re-
turn to a republic possible ; it was too late for that even
in the days of Cassius ; he only prays the gods to give
Rome a master capable of rejuve;"iating the decrepit em-
pire, even if, instead of the olive branch, he be forced to
bear the axe of the lictor ! But let them never speak to
him of a crucified God ; let them never seek new vigor
there ! The glory of the Eternal City can never be re-
stored but by the aid of the principles which had first
raised it from the dust : "the mystic rites of the ances-
tors, and their inflexible courage. "
This is not, however, the supreme denial of the doc-
trines of the Saviour. Their utter negation has been in-
9*
98
POLISH POETRY IN
carnated by the poet in the person of Masinissa, who is
perhaps the most profound and original conception of
the whole drama. The counselor of Iridion is not
simply a ^^ wa'idelote,^^ he is the Spirit of Evil, Satan
himself, — but Satan ingloriously reduced to antique pro-
portions, such as a mythology always seeking beauty and
serenity, even in the darkest and saddest creations, would
have pictured him. Masinissa has neither the bitter and
desolating irony of Mephistopheles, nor the tempestuous
rage of Milton's fallen angel ; he is a grave and majestic
old man. Seek not in him that "eternal and infinite ne-
gation" which Goethe has given to Evil; his hatred
is, on the contrary, very determinate and very plastic.
Christianity repels him by that which must have deeply
wounded all minds truly and classically antique, — by its
apparent absence of virile energy, its want of sensuous
beauty. The doctrines of submission and resignation,
always preached by the confessors of the Cross, appeared
to him unworthy of a manly spirit, of a free man ; he
called them cowardice ; and there was nothing in Chris-
tianity, even to its rehabilitation of woman, — one of
the immense benefits of the Gospel, — which was not re-
volting to all his instincts. " They adore a maid," he
says, " a creature whose infancy is eternal, whose old age
precocious ; they build a strange, mysterious worship
upon the ruins of their carnal lusts, and they prostrate
themselves before a woman, — before the slave of the hus-
band. " . . . Thus, as he saw it, but little fit to inspire
vigorous acts, the Christian ideal seemed also to him
essentially ugly. " They are full of admiration for this
crucified body, for the features they imagine so exquisite
in the hour they call the triumph of love. They have not
known him ; they did not see him when he agonized, a pi'ey
to all the hideousness of suffering, faint with torture, cov-
ered with blood, and with his hair disordered by the
winds which whistled round his head. " . . . Here is in-
deed the beauty-seeking naturalism of the ancient world
protesting against modern spirituality, which exalts the
soul, even at the exi)ense of the body. Let the reader
examine for a moment the figures of the antique group
which our poet has placed in contrast with the spirit of
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
99
Christianity, that he may obtain a due conception of the
grand sense of justice and poetry which presides over the
whole of this remarkable composition.
Thus impartial in his pictures of the classic world, our
author is no less just in his sketches of the early societies
of the Christians. He has taken care not to give them
that beatified placidity, that detachment from all the pas-
sions of humanity, so willingly attributed to them by mer-
cenary and conventional art. In the primitive church, as
represented in our drama, the Holy Spirit alone is great
and infallible ; man is weak as he ever is, subject to
temptation and sudden falls. Not that the association of
Christians does not contain characters of sublime abne-
gation and sanctity, of invincible resolution, and of
angelic purity, such as Bishop Victor, the true servant of
God, the admirable head of a Christian community; but
together with those who realize the Christian ideal in all
its purity, we also meet with Christians less resigned, em-
bittered by grief, and aspiring to sunshine, joy, and life.
They are men, and as men they suffer, hope ; they want
a terrestrial base for their actions ; they wish to tear the
cross from the bowels of the earth, and plant it on the
Roman Forum. Remark attentively Simeon of Corinth,
only an episodic sketch, but drawn with a bold, free
hand, as is the wont of the Anonymous Poet. ' Simeon
had once loved ; a single day separated him from wedded
bliss, when a centurion tore the plighted maiden from his
arms to throw her to the Flavian amphitheatre. A skull
was all left to him by the tiger's teeth ! Then he em-
braced the cross with fervor, a burning asceticism puri-
fied his soul from all dreams of vengeance, he meditated
profoundly on the passion of the Lord, and was touched
with boundless love by memories of Golgotha. . . .
"And if God himself, to save the world, has taken a
body, why should not His Bride, the Church, to save the
world, also put on a body? Until now, she has been
only spirit; where are her temples, sanctuaries, powers? "
He exclaims in one of his solitary ecstasies, " To possess
the world, — not that which glitters in gold or groans in
iron ; but the infinite world, — the world of souls, — and
there in Thy name to reign, O God ! " Here we may
UNIVERSITY
fERfelTY \
lOO POLISH POETRY IN
already see the Spiritual contemplating the reign over the
Temporal. With spirits of this stamp Iridion succeeds,
and is listened to when, in place of the victory promised
them by Victor, "before the face of the Lord," he in-
cites them " to a combat and triumph which are of this
world, near them, and not at an infinite distance. "
Above all, however, it behooved the son of Amphilochus
to gain to his side Cornelia Metella, the saintly virgin
whom the Christians loved. The poet has surrounded
this noble victim with every grace, and the Son of
Vengeance is himself moved by the divine charm she
exhales around her, but Masinissa has designated her
as the principal and indispensable instrument of his un-
dertaking. To associate Christianity with his work of
destruction, to incarnate in human passions a force which
is not of this world, a woman is a necessity ! These Naza-
renes adore a virgin ! Then let Iridion choose the purest
and fairest of their maidens, inflame her with his own
ideas, and like a burning brand throw her in their midst.
With Satanic perspicacity the terrible old man has per-
ceived the danger incurred by the female heart in the
depths of Christian mysticism, the tendency of all ec-
static love to materialize itself even through the excess of
its own refinement, and he has traced for Iridion his line
of conduct : " Praise her God, adore his wounds, speak
tenderly of the nails which pierced his limbs, . . . and
then attract her thoughts from the crucified, and fix them
on yourself. . . . He is so far, He has been on the
earth, but will never return to it : but you live, breathe,
and are beside her. . . . You will become her God !
And when her head shall rest upon your breast, then will
the soul forget itself in the passion of the body, — then,
O my Son, my spirit will be with you, and you will find
adherents in the Catacombs. " The struggle which oc-
curs between Iridion and Metella, between the ideal of
classic beauty and the ascetic spirituality of the Christian
heart, is full of pathos and passion. The son of Amphilo-
chus breaks forth before the sainted maid in all the vio-
lence of his love, his hate; he kindles her soul with his
burning breath, he explains to her the odious past of
Rome, he entreats her to love, to live, and to revetige the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. loi
Saviour. The Christian resists, but is fascinated ; for the
first time she fears tlie dead who lie around her ; she makes
an effort to fly to Christ, to escape the Greek, who ap-
pears to her as Prophet or Archangel. At last the de-
cisive moment comes. Before the tombs of the martyrs,
and appealing to their bones to bear him witness, the
Greek tears off the veil of the maiden while lost in prayer,
and sullies her brow with a kiss, while she believes him
now to be a messenger from heaven.
Master of Metella, Iridion hastily repairs to Ehitn,
the most holy s])Ot within the Catacombs, where the faith-
ful are assembled. Clad in armor, and sword in hand, he
declares to the just that the time of resignation is past, the
measure full ; that this is the decisive moment : division
distracts the city, the son of shame totters on his throne,
the Prtetorians have turned away their hearts from him,
the people, like a troubled sea, know not to what wind to
yield. The legions throughout Asia are in insurrection ;
the Germans on the Rhine revolt ; Cssar and Alexander
arm for their last combat ; but what matters it to the
Christians who shall be the conqueror? Whoever it may
be, will he not murder them, and blaspheme Christ?
The signs perdicted are upon them, let them be recog-
nized ; let them K'/7//V_/fr;;//)'— and they are /r^<? . /" . . .
But who has commissioned him to lead the people of God ?
ask those who hesitate. Who will assure them that the
Lord has ordered them to rise? Simeon of Corinth
answers that he will bear witness to the mission of Iridion.
He begs the brethren not to suffer the propitious hour to
escape. From this moment, which will never return, let
them strike the spark of life, for in it, and in it alone,
sleeps the germ of future ages. Metella, maddened, in-
spired, and panting with haste, rushes in at this moment,
crying: "To arms ! to arms ! " This testimony from the
consecrated virgin determines the doubters. The bap-
tized barbarians are glad to find the messenger of the
Messiah in the grandson of Sigurd ; the young, the strong,
they who live and feel, swear to be exact at the hour and
place of meeting: the old, the pure, the saints, resist and
pray. The confusion is at its height, the eartli yawns
and trembles, the community disperses on all sides,
I02 POLISH POETRY IN
some applauding the avenger, others crying Anathema,
and mercy ! The holy place is finally empty, and Masi-
nissa appears in Eloim, thus deserted by the Christians,
surrounded by the infernal spirits who chant their victory.
Here, and in this scene alone, the Spirit of Evil steps
beyond the frame so ingeniously wrought for him by the
poet. For this time only he assumes the vast proportions
of the Christian Satan, and betrays the boundless hate of
Lucifer ; indeed, the spectacle he had just witnessed was
well fitted to swell his pride. He has seen the first rup-
ture in the Christian community founded upon peace,
unity, and love ; he regards it as the forerunner of all the
schisms yet to be, of the persecutions in the name of faith,
and of the terrible religious wars which through ages yet
to come shall rend and distract that humanity which
Christ had died to redeem. His soul dilates with this
hope, and he hurls defiance at Christ, his enemy.
"Great Enemy! Thou knowest that the souls of men
have gone astray from the beginning of the world ! From
this time forth no day will ever pass in which, disputing
on thy nature and thy substance, they will not excite
sterile, but bloody contests !
" In Thy name will they rise, revolt, destroy, burn, mas-
sacre ; in Thy name will they lose human life in dreamy
ecstasies, renounce the gift of speech, and die !
"And without ceasing, will they crucify Thee; as in
their wisdom so in their ignorance ; their reason as their
folly ; in their prayers of base humility, as in the haughty
blasphemy of their pride !
"On Thy far Heaven heights, empty the cup of gall they
hold to Thy wrung lips, until in Thy turn, Thou tooshalt
curse them !
" And even on the summit of Thy sky, with all Thy
glory and omnipotence, Thou shalt at last feel agony,
and learn to know what our hell truly is ! "
The denouement approaches, and Iridion redoubles his
activity. Sent by Caesar to treat with tiie revolted troops
marching upon the city, and whom Severus has joined,
he intentionally irritates them, and renders all accommo-
dation impossible. When returned to Rome, he prepares
the Praetorians to attack the invaders, and at the same
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
103
time marshals the slaves, gladiators, and barbarians to
fall on either party, to massacre and burn the city as soon
as they shall see him appear at the head of the Christians.
He again visits Heliogabalus to tear from him the last
symbol of power, the imperial ring ox\. which the Genius
of Rome is graven. Possessor of this talisman, he no
longer thinks of the son of Caracalla, but another has
thought of this crowned child :
^' £Isinoe. Brother, what will become of him?
*' I}-idion. It matters not. I care not for his life, nor
for his death. That which he was, now glitters on my
hand (showing the ring) ; that which he is, is scarcely
worth a thought.
" Elsinoe. If that be so, come near, come nearer still !
Canst hear my lightest whisper now?
'' Iridion. What is the matter, sister? Wherefore
tremble so? (He takes her in his arms. ) Thy small
hand burns in mine, — I feel thy heart throb wild against
my breast-plate !
" E/sinoe. The eyes whose fires withered my soul, must
die ! The arms which clasped my neck, must fall like
mangled adders ! The lips which first touched mine,
must crumble into dust !
*' Iridion. Yes. He shall perish. "
At last the hour for the execution of the plot arrives.
All have kept faith except the Christians, who do not
come. What can detain them ? Simeon swore to lead
them forward at the appointed time ; all hope for the
avenger lies in them. Iridion's anguish is extreme, the
anguish of Prometheus, when but a cloud divides him from
the heaven flame he means to seize ! " Why are you silent ?
Masinissa, speak! Cry: Long live Hellas! " — "I am
silent" — replies the old man — "because the hour ap-
pointed has already passed ! • Each feather in its wings
as it flies on rustles with long-drawn sneers. " — Iridion feels
that the work of his whole life is escaping his grasp ; he
hastes from his palace to unearth the Christians, his un-
sheathed sword in his hand, his head bare: "To con-
quer, his sword suffices; to die, he needs no helmet! "
His fears were well founded with regard to the Catacombs.
Bishop Victor had arrested, on the threshold of Eloim,
I04
POLISH POETRY IN
all the armed men who were marching upon the city.
When Iridion enters the sanctuary, most of the men had
already deserted him. Simeon persists in the revolt, and
is excommunicated. Metella, too, ceases not to acknowl-
edge the envoy of heaven in Iridion, or to cry : " To
arms! " and around this deluded, wandering soul Victor
and Iridion hold their last combat. Exorcised by the
Bishop, touched by the cross, she grows weak and faint,
and dies, renouncing the Spirit of Evil. Iridion casts a
last curse at the cowards, placing their whole trust in the
words of a woman, and departs to fight without a hope of
conquest. Indeed, victory is no longer possible ; the de-
fection of the Christians has ruined all ; the Praetorians
have not resisted the troops of Severus ; the gladiators,
slaves, and barbarians have fallen in the streets without
plan or direction, and have been everywhere repulsed.
The son of Amphilochus will sell dearly his defeat ; he
reunites all those still devoted to him, fights fiercely, and
repels with disdain the pardon sent him by the new Em-
peror through Domitian. In the long and admirable
scene between Domitian and himself, the combat between
Hellas and Rome is renewed and brilliantly discussed, —
the contest between the beautiful genius of Ancient Lib-
erty and the harsh and cruel domination of the Romans
is eloquently argued. All negotiations are broken, and
the struggle is renewed ; the issue is no longer doubt-
ful. Heliogabalus has been murdered, Elsinoe has taken
her own life, Rome still stands, and Alexander Severus
is proclaimed Emperor. The triumph of Severus, who
neither in Christian graces nor antique virtues ever soars
above mediocrity, is one of the deepest lessons contained
in the Drama; it is therefore intentionally that the poet
has given to the son of Mammea a character deprived of
all the stronger traits. For in the sublime struggle of
two titanic princij)les, the victory too often remains with
dull mediocrity ! Happy indeed if it should prove honest,
— as Alexander really was.
At last Iridion, without forces, deserted even by the most
faithful, his friends dead, gorged with bitterness, mounts
the funeral pyre to end his days. At this moment Masi-
nissa appears, of whom nothing had been seen after the
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
105
defection of the Christians. He takes Iridion in his
arms, carries him away, and places him upon a mountain
near the sea, whence he can see Rome still standing entire,
"still showing its marbles to the sun like the white teeth
of a tiger. " Then the first doubt of the legitimacy of
his work rushes upon the son of Amphilochus ; then for
the first time he asks " if the God of Metella be not per-
chance the greatest of the gods, and if the Nazarenes do
not possess the only truth in the world? " "The Naza-
renes? " replies Masinissa, sneeringly, to him, — "truly
you owe them much in the past ; will owe them more in
the future ! . . . Not falsely did your mother Crimhild
speak ; her predictions will be all accomplished ! The
peoi)le of the North will yet ravage Italy, covering it with
blood and ashes ; but do you know who will tear the
accursed city from the hands of your barbarian brothers ?
The Nazarene ! In him the perfidy of the senate and the
cruelty of the Roman people will still live, as an eternal
heritage ; his heart will be as merciless as that of the first
Cato, although his words will often be sweet and effemi-
nate. And the warriors of the North will be as little
children at his feet, and for the second time he will
make Rome godlike, above all the nations of the earth ! "
— "What! " cries the Greek in the accents of despair,
"After Rome, will there be still another Rome? The
city accursed is then to be eternal? And this is the an-
nouncement which the friend of Amphilochus reserves for
Crimhild's son to bless his dying hour? " . . . Masi-
nissa replies: "Do not despair! The time is coming
wlien the shadow of the cross will oppress the nations
like a tropic heat ; when it too will stretch out its arms
in vain to press again to its heart those who forsake it !
One after another they will arise and say : ' We will no
longer serve thee ! ' Then will be heard at all the city
gates complaints and sobs, and the Roman Genius will
veil his face, his tears will never end, his humiliation will
be as great as has ever been his pride. " — The heart of
Iridion again begins to beat, his eyes regain their lustre.
— "O that I might see that day of chastisement and
vengeance ! " — " Then be it so ! " replies Masinissa. He
bears away his pupil from the life of earth, rocks him to
Io6 POLISH POETRY IN
sleep upon oblivion's heart, from which he will not wake
for many centuries, until the appointed hour comes:
" When on the Forum only dust shall be, — the Am[)hi-
theatre hold only skeletons, — the Capitol be crumbled
into infamy. " The antique drama is now finished, and
the epilogue transports us into modern times, into the
Rome of our own days. Through centuries, Iridion has
slept the sleep of Epimenides; neither the terrible days
of Alaric nor of Attila, nor the renovation of the em-
pire by Charlemagne nor the struggle of Rienzi, have
been able to arouse him from his sleep; the holy masters
of the Vatican have, one by one, like shadows glided by
this shade : " but in our times he awakes. " Masinissa has
kept his word, and he again places his pupil before Rome,
o'errun with creeping vines, through which a creeping
people move. The Son of the Centuries now crosses the
deserted Forum, and gazes round the desolate city, and
"every ruin is to him a recompense. "
" Two hoary-headed old men stand in the vestibule of
a Basilica, robed in purple mantles ; and monks salute
them with the names of Fathers, Princes of the Church ;
and poverty of spirit is graven on their faces. They en-
ter a chariot drawn by two dark, meagre horses, behind
them is a servant holding a dim lantern, such as a poor
widow hangs above a child who dies of hunger ; on the
panels of this chariot are seen what once was gilding.
The creaking wheels have passed, and with them disap-
pear two snowy, bent, and weary heads. "
"The fearful leader says: ' Such are the successors of the
Caesars ! Such is the Car of Fortune ! Such the Victors ! '
"And the son of Greece looks on, and claps his hands
in joy. "
As striking as may be this final picture, as closely as it
may seem to respond to the preoccui)ations and passions
of the times we are traversing, we would be mistaken if
we should think to see in it the innermost thought of the
drama; above all, we would be wrong not to observe
closely the change which has occurred in Iridion himself;
for if Rome is no longer to be recognized, the son of
Amphilochus has also been transformed during his sleep
of ages. He no longer hates the Cross ; its fate appears
rilE NINETEENril CENTURY.
107
as sad to him as did in other days that of his Hellas;
" under the rays of the moon, he has felt that the sign of
redemption is holy for ever and ever; he clasps his arms
round it, — and Masinissa leaves him step by step y . . .
Here, in truth, lies the bearing of the poem ; it flashes
clearly upon us in the voice from Heaven which sends
Iridion to Poland, to be subjected there to another and
more glorious proof.
"Go," cries the voice to him, — "go toward the North
in the name of Christ ! Go, and stop not until thou
standest in the land of graves and crosses ! Thou wilt
know it by the silence of the warriors, the wails of the
women, and the sadness of the children ; thou wilt know
it by the burning cottages of the poor and the desolated
palaces of the exiled ; thou wilt know it by the moans of
my angels who pass there by night ! Go, and dwell among
the new brothers I give to thee. There shall thy second
trial be ! There thou shalt again see the object of thy love
in agony ; again transpierced ; and thou wilt not be able
to die, and the anguish of thousands of souls will be in-
carnated in thee ! Go, and have faith in my name !
Think not of thine own glory, but of the welfare of those
I intrust to thee. Becalm before the pride, oppression,
and the scorn of the unjust ! They will pass away, but
my Thought and Thou, ye shall endure forever!
"And after a long martyrdom I will kindle my dawn
around thee ; I will give thee what my angels have enjoyed
for ages, — bliss ! And tliat which I promised men from
the beginning, from the summit of Golgotha, — Liberty !
Go and act ! Act, even though thy heart be withering
in thy breast; act even when thou doubtest thine own
brethren, when thou despairest of my aid ! Act ! Act
without cessation or repose ! And thou shalt outlive the
vain, the happy, the illustrious ; thou shalt arise again,
not from a sterile sleep, but from the work of the centu-
ries, and shalt become one of the free sons of the skies! "
Such is the dramatic poem of Iridion in its original and
powerful unity. That such a poem should have been
hitherto almost unknown in Western Europe, — so eager to
know and enjoy the literary productions of all nations as
almost to realize that " universal literature" (Welt litter-
lo8 POLISH POETRY IN
atur) whicli was the dream of Goethe, — proves how, heavily
the forgetfuhiess of the world still weighs upon the unfor-
tunate country of the Anonymous Poet ; it also proves
how much the easy enjoyment of light productions, void
of all sublime ideas, has deteriorated our tastes, causing
us to turn away from all serious, even if eloquent, works.
At any rate, they who pretend to penetrate the meaning
of Faust and Manfred, can find no difficulty in the com-
prehension of Iridion. It is at least certain that Poland
immediately caught the dominant idea of the drama, and
easily unraveled the profound signification of its allegory.
This poem told them that patriotic suffering effects no-
thing when it is based on negation and hatred. It further
told them that an enemy might find new strength, life,
and rejuvenation in the very means by which an imscru-
pulous vengeance sought to overthrow him or sharpen
mortal arms against him ; as Rome found a second era of
greatness in Christianity, which Iridion intended should
become the instrument of his hatred ; as the Teutonic
order encountered the like in the Reformation ; or as
Russia shall perhaps yet meet in the material civilization
of our century. That which Poland above all understood,
was the mysterious voice which ordered Iridion toward
the North, to be there subject to a second proof, that com-
mand which sent this ideal of Hellenic patriotism " to the
land of graves and crosses," but which at the same time
sent it transformed, purified from all pagan feelings of
hate, illumined by the Christian faith, and holding in its
arms the cross. The national ideal of Wallenrod thus
received a complete and moral transfiguration in Iridion,
after having passed through its transition in the admirable
and significant character of Robak, in the Sir Thaddeus.
And let us dwell for a moment upon the fact that this suc-
cessive purification of the patriotic sentiment in ourpoetry
was not accomplished at a time even relatively mild and
peaceful; it coincided with a period of the most bitter
suffering ; with the epoch of the direst and most impla-
cable punishments and persecutions, with the reign of the
cruel Emperor Nicholas. The very year in which Iridion
appeared saw an auction opened assuredly, at least, en-
tirely new in the annals of the world ; at Warsaw, and in
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
109
the principal cities of the country, the transportation of
thousands of Polish children into the steppes and among the
Oural Mountains was offered at public sale to the highest
bidder. Certainly if the feeling of national hate were
ever to be permitted to poets, it would be to those fired
by the manifold torments inflicted upon the most unfor-
tunate of nations; — and it stamps the character of origi-
nal greatness upon the Anonymous Poet to have raised,
precisely at such a dark epoch, a protest so energetic
against all ideas of vengeance, to have placed Eternal
Love, not only as did Dante at the gates of the city of
Eternal Grief, but in the very deepest of the Circles of
Hell!
IV.
Hate is impotent, vengeance creates nothing; to en-
able us to triumph over an enemy, it is not sufficient
to have just causes of complaint, we must also surpass
him by moral superiority ! Such was the lesson the Anon-
ymous Poet gave to his subjugated nation. But how to
attain this superiority? How to maintain it? By devo-
tion, immolation, self-sacrifice, replies the Poet. To
expect deliverance, not from the evil which may be called
down on or inflicted upon the oppressor, but from the
good ^\vic\\ maybe developed in the stormful bosom of
the avenger ; to look to God alone for decisive justice,
and to renounce all measures of dissimulation and con-
spiracy, which only tarnish the national character and ob-
scure the purity of the Polish soul ; to persevere in faith,
in spite of all possible trials; to defy heaven itself by the
absolute trust we repose in it ; and on great occasions to
give witness of true life by receiving death without giving
it, going to execution even as the early Christians, the
cross in hand, and prayer and confession on the lips; —
it was thus that this inspired patriot understood the duties
of the enslaved Poles ; duties which he summed up in the
word sacrifice. Round this word will henceforth revolve
the works of the author of Iridion ; it will illumine them
all with its rays, it will be their very soul. He passed his
whole life in developing this doctrine under the must
10*
no
POLISH POETRY IN
varied ft)rms and in the most diverse creations; it may
be found in "The Temptation," as in "The Dream of
Cesara;" in the " Christmas Night," as in "The Present
Day;" in the "Last," as in "The Dawn," "The Psalms
of the Future," and the " Resurrecturis. "
Abstraction made of the genius which flashes through
these various works, there is assuredly something very im-
posing in this perseverance in upholding an idea so com-
pletely out of keeping with the general modes of thought
in the times in which we live. It required the greatest
courage, and a faith no less great, to attempt to convert
one of the most ardent, most impulsive, high-mettled,
and fiery people on the face of the earth to such a doc-
trine. But what exquisite art, what passion did he not
employ to persuade the nation to adopt the truths with
which he was himself so fully penetrated ! Let Poland be
but once confirmed in this belief in pure and fruitful mar-
tyrdom, and the Poet will fear for her neither the reverses
of fortune nor the temptations of despair ; he accepts
even with joy all that separates her from the living world,
and all that renders her a stranger to the happy of the
earth ! What matters it to Poland that others declare
her "as obstinate as she is powerless"? — that they cry
out importunately to her to " fold the shroud around her
dying limbs as rapidly as possible ; to die at once, and
not disturb the world by the protracted agony of her
death-rattle"? What matters it? The time will come
when both the refined and the cruel will beg her to arise
and walk ! Whilst waiting this, she must submit with
tranquillity to the outrages always heaped on the unfortu-
nate ; look trustingly on high, "as only an orphan has
the right to look ;" and, to insulting pride, oppose a
silent dignity. He says: "The angel of pride, before
his fall, had a sister in the sky, who remained there, —
and she is called Dignity f
Our author did not limit himself to the preaching of
this doctrine of sacrifice for the Present and Future ; he
extends it and applies it to the whole Past of his People,
presenting it as the soul of their entire secular existence.
With lofty art and perfect sincerity, he labors to prove
that Poland has always realized the ideal of a Christian
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. m
nation ; has always been disinterested for herself, and
ever interested for humanity, and he finds the proof of
this in the very character of the calamities which have
finally overwhelmed her. Here lies the sole debatable
ground of his magnanimous doctrines. It cannot be de-
nied that the seal of chivalric generosity and self-sacrifice
has been set upon the history of Poland. Her people
have always defended Christianity against its most dan-
gerous enemies, never asking anything from Europe in
exchange for the service rendered ; demanding no pay-
ments for troops ; showing neither astonishment nor re-
sentment at the subsequent ingratitude. Suffer us also to
remark that Poland has never known aught of the cruel-
ties, the regicides, the revolutions of the palace, the
religious wars, which have dyed in blood the annals of
so many other countries ; that she has always given a
generous asylum to all the victims of persecution ; that
it was in her bosom the Jews found refuge, as well as the
emigrants of the wars of the Hussites, of the Reforma-
tion, and of the Thirty Years' War; that they not only
found in her the widest tolerance, but even the unwonted
power of governing themselves by their own laws. We
must, however, confess that more than one of these merits
arose from a defect as much as from a virtue ; that this
policy was more the result of an impulsive generosity
than the growth of a firm and logical will ! It was de-
cidedly virtue, but virtue singularly favored by the im-
providence and recklessness of the national spirit. If the
thinker can scarcely accept, without protest, this high
claim for the whole past of a nation, will he not exclaim
against the extension of this idea, even through the times
of the fall of Poland, and protest against the bold image
of the "Christ of nations," to which the patriot poet
has given so strange a development in " The Dawn" and
the "Psalms"? Poland, in accordance with the views
of the Anonymous Poet, has not only been crucified
as Christ was, to rise as he did to higher life, but per-
ished voluntarily to redeem the sins of other nations, and
died pure of all reproach! Is this historically true?
May it not contain a latent poison even for those whose
faith it was intended to revive in the depths of despair ?
112 POLISH POETRY IN
Alas ! though not so deeply burdened as other nations,
Poland cannot pretend to expiate their faults, — she has
too many of her own ! She has no right to proclaim
herself innocent of all her calamities ; she has herself
contributed to them ; she went to sleep upon a volcano ;
she was guilty of a marvelous inertia, of a frivolous im-
providence, of an incomprehensible torpidity. (Gen-
erous to others, ay; provident for herself, nay! ) Bat
these internal faults in nowise justify or excuse the assas-
sination committed against her, and this assassination is
so much the more odious in that it was consummated at
the very moment in which Poland began to rise, — to
waken from her anarchic torpor ; at the moment in
which she originated for herself the Constitution of the
3d of May, 1 791 ; a constitution which will be her eter-
nal defense against all the slanders of her enemies. But
even this noble and generous effort, as well as all her
magnanimous attempts for more than half a century,
prove that Poland had much to amend, to learn, and to
forget. It is not by blinding herself to her old caprices,
but rather by enlightening herself with regard to her past
mistakes, that she will be able to save herself from future
disasters, and conciliate the sympathies of all honest
minds. As Poland and her poets are so fond of quoting
the Bible and of speaking of the People of God, it
might perhaps be useful to remind them that it is pre-
cisely the ])eople of Israel who have, in the Book of
books, left us the example of three great prophets, whose
reunion forms a complete circle of the poetry inspired by
an ardent patriotism. First comes Isaiah, who scathes
the fiiults of the nation, and predicts its chastisement ;
then Jeremiah, who, when the yoke grew heavy upon the
people, weeps over the ruins of the city once so power-
ful ; finally, it is Ezekiel who, in the captivity of Baby-
lon, falls into sublime ecstasies, and sees the temple and
the city rebuilt. Certainly Poland has had her Jere-
miahs and her Ezekiels, but she needs an Isaiah with a
tongue of fire, a pitiless and courageous Dante, to sing
boldly in her ears some painful truths, to probe her many
wounds in i)lace of caressing them.
It is above all in his poem of *' The Dawn" (^1843)
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. n^
that our author has exposed his views with regard to the
Past and Future of his nation, in all the exaltation of his
generous errors. It possesses also the additional interest
of standing as a monument of a feeling of the heart. It
is the only work in which the author has given utterance
to his personal sentiments ; effusions in nowise com-
monplace, but of a highly poetic and elevated form. As
Dante made of Beatrice the symbol of his faith, the type
of theology, the Anonymous Poet regards his Beloved
as the type and ideal of his patriotic aspirations. He
expressly says, like Dante, he has passed through Hell,
and like him has had for guide a lady of grace and pity,
. . . *' a Beatrice as beautiful as the first, but far more
Christian, for she has not chosen the sky as her abode to
shelter herself from sufferings below; she has remained
with her brother upon earth. " Sad and gloomy, they
have met in highest spheres, " like two dark clouds
which, meeting in the air, pour forth torrents of tears,
but from which flash the lightnings which pierce the
vault of heaven, and for a moment show the glittering
Home of God," It is this Beatrice who is the confidante
of all his thoughts upon his country; it is to her he re-
lates all his emotions, all his presentiments; his nation
and his beloved melt into each other in the successive
stanzaf of "The Dawn. " The poem begins with a de-
scription of one of those lovely nights in Italy which
have before awakened so many deep emotions. Lost in
a sweet ecstasy, the two lovers of their fatherland breathe
the fragrant freshness of the air, and gaze into the im-
mensity of the starry vault. What holy calm ! What
divine peace ! The universe is an immense Lyre. , . .
A sublime chant is heard, — a chant of concord, — the
harmony of the spheres. . . . But in this concord is
there not one tone wanting? In this sheaf of light, has
not one ray been broken ? " O my sister, utter the tone
wanting in the lyre of life; point out the star eclipsed
but not extinct ; pronounce, pronounce the name : Po-
land ! — our Poland ! At such an hour ])erhaps God
hearkens to us ; will gather from thy lips the long-lost
tone, and will again restore it in His glorious Hymn !
. . . Ah ! thy lips tremble, and thy breast oppressed can
114
POLISH POETRY IN
only breathe a sigh. . . . My sister, God will under-
stand thee well ; He knows a sigh is now the only name
of thy sad country. " Thus begins a series of stanzas
in which the Poet paints with high poetic power the mis-
ery of the Present, the glories of the Past, and the hopes
of the Future. We are born orphans, — he says to his
Ladye when speaking of the actual generations, — posthu-
mous children ; our only cradle has been the grave of
our mother; "the sweet maternal gaze has ne'er illu-
mined our innocent play; and our young heads have
never reposed upon a warm and palpitating breast, but
on the cold stones of the cemeteries. "
One of the most beautiful stanzas of the poem is that in
which the Poet invokes the ancient senators, the heroes,
the illustrious captains and glorious kings of Poland, from
their graves. Covered with their armor of steel, and
wearing their rusty helmets, they march in endless train ;
and before this sublime Diet of Shadows, the Poet, at first
discouraged, accusing the ancestors of having destroyed
in advance the inheritance of their children, is reanimated
to new hope by the words of one of the shades, Stephen
Czarniecki, one of the purest heroes of the country. The
poet here introduces his idea of the " Christ of nations. "
It is not only Poland that he sees, he embraces humanity
entire. He compares our epoch to that which preceded
the Christian era, and many analogies are not wanting.
Then, as now, social wars had upturned the soil and de-
stroyed the old institutions; then, as now, a Caesar ap-
peared (Napoleon), who arrested society upon the brink
of the abyss, re-established a ma/eria/ order, and inaugu-
rated an epoch of great expansion for a civilization
thoroughly materialistic.
