No More Learning

30) that it is Lucifer and not Byron who puts such awkward questions
with regard to the "politics of paradise" and the origin of evil. Nobody
seems to have believed him. It was taken for granted that Lucifer was
the mouthpiece of Byron, that the author of _Don Juan_ was not "on the
side of the angels. "

Little need be said of the "literature," the pamphlets and poems which
were evoked by the publication of _Cain: A Mystery_. One of the most
prominent assailants (said to be the Rev. H. J. Todd (1763-1845),
Archdeacon of Cleveland, 1832, author _inter alia_ of _Original Sin_,
_Free Will_, etc. , 1818) issued _A Remonstrance to Mr. John Murray,
respecting a Recent Publication_, 1822, signed "Oxoniensis. " The sting
of the _Remonstrance_ lay in the exposure of the fact that Byron was
indebted to Bayle's _Dictionary_ for his rabbinical legends, and that he
had derived from the same source his Manichean doctrines of the _Two
Principles, etc. _, and other "often-refuted sophisms" with regard to the
origin of evil. Byron does not borrow more than a poet and a gentleman
is at liberty to acquire by way of raw material, but it cannot be denied
that he had read and inwardly digested more than one of Bayle's "most
objectionable articles" (_e. g. _ "Adam," "Eve," "Abel," "Manichees,"
"Paulicians," etc. ). The _Remonstrance_ was answered in _A Letter to Sir
Walter Scott, etc. _, by "Harroviensis. " Byron welcomed such a "Defender
of the Faith," and was anxious that Murray should print the letter
together with the poem. But Murray belittled the "defender," and was
upbraided in turn for his slowness of heart (letter to Murray, June 6,
1822, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 76).

Fresh combatants rushed into the fray: "Philo-Milton," with a
_Vindication of the "Paradise Lost" from the charge of exculpating
"Cain: A Mystery_," London, 1822; "Britannicus," with a pamphlet
entitled, _Revolutionary Causes, etc. , and A Postscript containing
Strictures on "Cain," etc. _, London, 1822, etc. ; but their works, which
hardly deserve to be catalogued, have perished with them. Finally, in
1830, a barrister named Harding Grant, author of _Chancery Practice_,
compiled a work (_Lord Byron's "Cain," etc. , with Notes_) of more than
four hundred pages, in which he treats "the proceedings and speeches of
Lucifer with the same earnestness as if they were existing and earthly
personages. " But it was "a week too late. " The "Coryphaeus of the Satanic
School" had passed away, and the tumult had "dwindled to a calm. "

_Cain_ "appeared in conjunction with" _Sardanapalus_ and _The Two
Foscari_, December 19, 1821. Last but not least of the three plays, it
had been announced "by a separate advertisement (_Morning Chronicle_,
November 24, 1821), for the purpose of exciting the greater curiosity"
(_Memoirs of the Life, etc. _ [by John Watkins], 1822, p. 383), and it
was no sooner published than it was pirated. In the following January,
"_Cain: A Mystery_, by the author of _Don Juan_," was issued by W.
Benbow, at Castle Street, Leicester Square (the notorious "Byron Head,"
which Southey described as "one of those preparatory schools for the
brothel and the gallows, where obscenity, sedition, and blasphemy are
retailed in drams for the vulgar"! ).

Murray had paid Byron ? 2710 for the three tragedies, and in order to
protect the copyright, he applied, through counsel (Lancelot Shadwell,
afterwards Vice-Chancellor), for an injunction in Chancery to stop the
sale of piratical editions of _Cain_. In delivering judgment (February
12, 1822), the Chancellor, Lord Eldon (see _Courier_, Wednesday,
February 13), replying to Shadwell, drew a comparison between _Cain_ and
_Paradise Lost_, "which he had read from beginning to end during the
course of the last Long Vacation--_solicitae jucunda oblivia vitae_. " No
one, he argued, could deny that the object and effects of _Paradise
Lost_ were "not to bring into disrepute," but "to promote reverence for
our religion," and, _per contra_, no one could affirm that it was
impossible to arrive at an opposite conclusion with regard to "the
Preface, the poem, the general tone and manner of _Cain_. " It was a
question for a jury. A jury might decide that _Cain_ was blasphemous,
and void of copyright; and as there was a reasonable doubt in his mind
as to the character of the book, and a doubt as to the conclusion at
which a jury would arrive, he was compelled to refuse the injunction.
According to Dr. Smiles (_Memoir of John Murray_, 1891, i. 428), the
decision of a jury was taken, and an injunction eventually granted. If
so, it was ineffectual, for Benbow issued another edition of _Cain_ in
1824 (see Jacob's _Reports_, p. 474, note). See, too, the case of
Murray _v_. Benbow and Another, as reported in the _Examiner_, February
17, 1822; and cases of Wolcot _v_. Walker, Southey _v_. Sherwood, Murray
_v_. Benbow, and Lawrence _v_. Smith [_Quarterly Review_, April, 1822,
vol. xxvii. pp. 120-138].

"_Cain_," said Moore (February 9, 1822), "has made a sensation. " Friends
and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs. " Gifford
shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective"
(letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_, was
regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the _Quarterly_, was fault-finding
and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa"
(letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority
in the land," his Majesty King George IV. , "expressed his disapprobation
of the blasphemy and licentiousness of Lord Byron's writings"
(_Examiner_, February 17, 1822). Byron himself was forced to admit that
"my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain" (_Don Juan_, Canto XI. stanza lvi. line
2). The many were unanimous in their verdict, but the higher court of
the few reversed the judgment.

Goethe said that "Its beauty is such as we shall not see a second time
in the world" (_Conversations, etc. _, 1874, p. 261); Scott, in speaking
of "the very grand and tremendous drama of _Cain_," said that the author
had "matched Milton on his own ground" (letter to Murray, December 4,
1821, _vide post_, p. 206); "_Cain_," wrote Shelley to Gisborne (April
10, 1822), "is apocalyptic; it is a revelation never before communicated
to man. "

Uncritical praise, as well as uncritical censure, belongs to the past;
but the play remains, a singular exercise of "poetic energy," a
confession, _ex animo_, of "the burthen of the mystery, . . . the heavy
and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world. "

For reviews of _Cain: A Mystery_, _vide ante_, "Introduction to
_Sardanapalus_," p. 5; see, too, _Eclectic Review_, May, 1822, N. S. vol.
xvii. pp. 418-427; _Examiner_, June 2, 1822; _British Review_, 1822,
vol. xix. pp. 94-102.

For O'Doherty's parody of the "Pisa" Letter, February 8, 1822, see
_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, February, 1822, vol. xi. pp. 215-217;
and for a review of Harding Grant's _Lord Byron's Cain, etc. _, see
_Fraser's Magazine_, April, 1831, iii. 285-304.





TO

SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART. ,

THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN

IS INSCRIBED,

BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND

AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR. [86]




PREFACE


The following scenes are entitled "A Mystery," in conformity with the
ancient title annexed to dramas upon similar subjects, which were styled
"Mysteries, or Moralities. "[87] The author has by no means taken the
same liberties with his subject which were common formerly, as may be
seen by any reader curious enough to refer to those very profane
productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. The author
has endeavoured to preserve the language adapted to his characters; and
where it is (and this is but rarely) taken from actual _Scripture_, he
has made as little alteration, even of words, as the rhythm would
permit. The reader will recollect that the book of Genesis does not
state that Eve was tempted by a demon, but by "the Serpent[88];" and
that only because he was "the most subtil of all the beasts of the
field. " Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the Fathers may have put
upon this, I take the words as I find them, and reply, with Bishop
Watson[89] upon similar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him
as Moderator in the schools of Cambridge, "Behold the Book! "--holding up
the Scripture. It is to be recollected, that my present subject has
nothing to do with the _New Testament_, to which no reference can be
here made without anachronism. [90] With the poems upon similar topics I
have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty I have never read
Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make
little difference. Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have never read since I
was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my
recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's
wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza; in the following pages I have
called them "Adah" and "Zillah," the earliest female names which occur
in Genesis. They were those of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and Abel
are not called by their names. Whether, then, a coincidence of subject
may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as
little. [I[91] am prepared to be accused of Manicheism,[92] or some
other hard name ending in _ism_, which makes a formidable figure and
awful sound in the eyes and ears of those who would be as much puzzled
to explain the terms so bandied about, as the liberal and pious
indulgers in such epithets. Against such I can defend myself, or, if
necessary, I can attack in turn. "Claw for claw, as Conan said to Satan
and the deevil take the shortest nails" (Waverley). [93]]

The reader will please to bear in mind (what few choose to recollect),
that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of
Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. For a reason for this
extraordinary omission he may consult Warburton's "Divine
Legation;"[94] whether satisfactory or not, no better has yet been
assigned. I have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, any
perversion of Holy Writ.

With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make
him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I
could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness. If he
disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of the Serpent, it is only
because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to
anything of the kind, but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine
capacity.

_Note_. --The reader will perceive that the author has partly adopted in
this poem the notion of Cuvier,[95] that the world had been destroyed
several times before the creation of man. This speculation, derived from
the different strata and the bones of enormous and unknown animals found
in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it;
as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although
those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown.
The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-Adamite world was also peopled by
rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably
powerful to the mammoth, etc. , etc. , is, of course, a poetical fiction
to help him to make out his case.

I ought to add, that there is a "tramelogedia" of Alfieri, called
"Abele. "[96] I have never read that, nor any other of the posthumous
works of the writer, except his Life.

RAVENNA, _Sept_. 20, 1821.



DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

MEN.

ADAM.
CAIN.
ABEL.

SPIRITS.

ANGEL OF THE LORD.
LUCIFER.

WOMEN.

EVE.
ADAH.
ZILLAH.




CAIN: A MYSTERY.




ACT I.


SCENE I. --_The Land without Paradise. --Time, Sunrise_.


ADAM, EVE, CAIN, ABEL, ADAH, ZILLAH, _offering a Sacrifice_.

_Adam_. God, the Eternal! Infinite! All-wise! --
Who out of darkness on the deep didst make
Light on the waters with a word--All Hail!
Jehovah! with returning light--All Hail!

_Eve_. God! who didst name the day, and separate
Morning from night, till then divided never--
Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call
Part of thy work the firmament--All Hail!

_Abel_. God! who didst call the elements into
Earth, ocean, air and fire--and with the day 10
And night, and worlds which these illuminate,
Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them,
And love both them and thee--All Hail! All Hail!

_Adah_. God! the Eternal parent of all things!
Who didst create these best and beauteous beings,
To be beloved, more than all, save thee--
Let me love thee and them:--All Hail! All Hail!

_Zillah_. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all,
Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in,
And drive my father forth from Paradise, 20
Keep us from further evil:--Hail! All Hail!

_Adam_. Son Cain! my first-born--wherefore art thou silent?

_Cain_. Why should I speak?

_Adam_. To pray.

_Cain_. Have ye not prayed?

_Adam_. We have, most fervently.

_Cain_. And loudly: I
Have heard you.

_Adam_. So will God, I trust.

_Abel_. Amen!

_Adam_. But thou my eldest born? art silent still?

_Cain_. 'Tis better I should be so.

_Adam_. Wherefore so?

_Cain_. I have nought to ask.

_Adam_. Nor aught to thank for?

_Cain_. No.

_Adam_. Dost thou not _live_?

_Cain_. Must I not die?

_Eve_. Alas!
The fruit of our forbidden tree begins 30
To fall.

_Adam_. And we must gather it again.
Oh God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?

_Cain_. And wherefore plucked ye not the tree of life?
Ye might have then defied him.

_Adam_. Oh! my son,
Blaspheme not: these are Serpent's words.

_Cain_. Why not?
The snake spoke _truth_; it _was_ the Tree of Knowledge;
It _was_ the Tree of Life: knowledge is good,
And Life is good; and how can both be evil?

_Eve_. My boy! thou speakest as I spoke in sin,
Before thy birth: let me not see renewed 40
My misery in thine. I have repented.
Let me not see my offspring fall into
The snares beyond the walls of Paradise,
Which even in Paradise destroyed his parents.
Content thee with what _is_. Had we been so,
Thou now hadst been contented. --Oh, my son!

_Adam_. Our orisons completed, let us hence,
Each to his task of toil--not heavy, though
Needful: the earth is young, and yields us kindly
Her fruits with little labour.

_Eve_. Cain--my son-- 50
Behold thy father cheerful and resigned--
And do as he doth. [_Exeunt_ ADAM _and_ EVE.

_Zillah_. Wilt thou not, my brother?

_Abel_. Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy brow,
Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse
The Eternal anger?

_Adah_. My beloved Cain
Wilt thou frown even on me?

_Cain_. No, Adah! no;
I fain would be alone a little while.
Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass;
Precede me, brother--I will follow shortly.
And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind; 60
Your gentleness must not be harshly met:
I'll follow you anon.

_Adah_. If not, I will
Return to seek you here.

_Abel_. The peace of God
Be on your spirit, brother!
[_Exeunt_ ABEL, ZILLAH, _and_ ADAH.

_Cain_ (_solus_). And this is
Life? --Toil! and wherefore should I toil? --because
My father could not keep his place in Eden?
What had _I_ done in this? --I was unborn:
I sought not to be born; nor love the state
To which that birth has brought me. Why did he
Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or 70
Yielding--why suffer? What was there in this?
The tree was planted, and why not for him?
If not, why place him near it, where it grew
The fairest in the centre? They have but
One answer to all questions, "'Twas _his_ will,
And _he_ is good. " How know I that? Because
He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow?
I judge but by the fruits--and they are bitter--
Which I must feed on for a fault not mine.
Whom have we here? --A shape like to the angels 80
Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect
Of spiritual essence: why do I quake?
Why should I fear him more than other spirits,
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords
Before the gates round which I linger oft,
In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those
Gardens which are my just inheritance,
Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls
And the immortal trees which overtop
The Cherubim-defended battlements? 90
If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels,
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet--he seems mightier far than them, nor less
Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful
As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems
Half of his immortality. [97] And is it
So? and can aught grieve save Humanity?
He cometh.

_Enter_ LUCIFER.

_Lucifer_. Mortal!

_Cain_. Spirit, who art thou?

_Lucifer_. Master of spirits.

_Cain_. And being so, canst thou
Leave them, and walk with dust?

_Lucifer_. I know the thoughts 100
Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.

_Cain_. How!
You know my thoughts?

_Lucifer_. They are the thoughts of all
Worthy of thought;--'tis your immortal part[98]
Which speaks within you.

_Cain_. What immortal part?
This has not been revealed: the Tree of Life
Was withheld from us by my father's folly,
While that of Knowledge, by my mother's haste,
Was plucked too soon; and all the fruit is Death!

_Lucifer_. They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.

_Cain_. I live,
But live to die; and, living, see no thing 110
To make death hateful, save an innate clinging,
A loathsome, and yet all invincible
Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I
Despise myself, yet cannot overcome--
And so I live. Would I had never lived!

_Lucifer_. Thou livest--and must live for ever. Think not
The Earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is
Existence--it will cease--and thou wilt be--
No less than thou art now.

_Cain_. No _less_! and why
No more?

_Lucifer_. It may be thou shalt be as we. 120

_Cain_. And ye?

_Lucifer_. Are everlasting.

_Cain_. Are ye happy?

_Lucifer_. We are mighty.

_Cain_. Are ye happy?

_Lucifer_. No: art thou?

_Cain_. How should I be so? Look on me!

_Lucifer_. Poor clay!
And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!

_Cain_. I am:--and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?

_Lucifer_. One who aspired to be what made thee, and
Would not have made thee what thou art.

_Cain_. Ah!
Thou look'st almost a god; and----

_Lucifer_. I am none:
And having failed to be one, would be nought
Save what I am. He conquered; let him reign! 130

_Cain_. Who?

_Lucifer_. Thy Sire's maker--and the Earth's.

_Cain_. And Heaven's,
And all that in them is. So I have heard
His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith.

_Lucifer_. They say--what they must sing and say, on pain
Of being that which I am,--and thou art--
Of spirits and of men.

_Cain_. And what is that?

_Lucifer_. Souls who dare use their immortality--
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good! If he has made, 140
As he saith--which I know not, nor believe--
But, if he made us--he cannot unmake:
We are immortal! --nay, he'd _have_ us so,
That he may torture:--let him! He is great--
But, in his greatness, is no happier than
We in our conflict! Goodness would not make
Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him
Sit on his vast and solitary throne--
Creating worlds, to make eternity
Less burthensome to his immense existence 150
And unparticipated solitude;[99]
Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone
Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant;
Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon
He ever granted: but let him reign on!
And multiply himself in misery!
Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise--
And, suffering in concert, make our pangs
Innumerable, more endurable,
By the unbounded sympathy of all 160
With all! But _He_! so wretched in his height,
So restless in his wretchedness, must still
Create, and re-create--perhaps he'll make[100]
One day a Son unto himself--as he
Gave you a father--and if he so doth,
Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!

_Cain_. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum
In visions through my thought: I never could
Reconcile what I saw with what I heard.
My father and my mother talk to me 170
Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see
The gates of what they call their Paradise
Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim,
Which shut them out--and me: I feel the weight
Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look
Around a world where I seem nothing, with
Thoughts which arise within me, as if they
Could master all things--but I thought alone
This misery was _mine_. My father is
Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind 180
Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk
Of an eternal curse; my brother is
A watching shepherd boy,[101] who offers up
The firstlings of the flock to him who bids
The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[by]
My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn
Than the birds' matins; and my Adah--my
Own and beloved--she, too, understands not
The mind which overwhelms me: never till
Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 190
'Tis well--I rather would consort with spirits.

_Lucifer_. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul
For such companionship, I would not now
Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent
Had been enough to charm ye, as before. [bz]

_Cain_. Ah! didst _thou_ tempt my mother?

_Lucifer_. I tempt none,
Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree
Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life
Still fruitful? Did _I_ bid her pluck them not?
Did I plant things prohibited within 200
The reach of beings innocent, and curious
By their own innocence? I would have made ye
Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye
Because "ye should not eat the fruits of life,
And become gods as we. " Were those his words?

_Cain_. They were, as I have heard from those who heard them,
In thunder.

_Lucifer_. Then who was the Demon? He
Who would not let ye live, or he who would
Have made ye live for ever, in the joy
And power of Knowledge?

_Cain_. Would they had snatched both 210
The fruits, or neither!

_Lucifer_. One is yours already,
The other may be still.

_Cain_. How so?

_Lucifer_. By being
Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can
Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself
And centre of surrounding things--'tis made
To sway.

_Cain_. But didst thou tempt my parents?

_Lucifer_. I?
Poor clay--what should I tempt them for, or how?

_Cain_. They say the Serpent was a spirit.

_Lucifer_. Who
Saith that? It is not written so on high:
The proud One will not so far falsify, 220
Though man's vast fears and little vanity
Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature
His own low failing. The snake _was_ the snake--
No more;[102] and yet not less than those he tempted,
In nature being earth also--_more_ in _wisdom_,
Since he could overcome them, and foreknew
The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys.
Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?

_Cain_. But the thing had a demon?

_Lucifer_. He but woke one
In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 230
I tell thee that the Serpent was no more
Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim
Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages
Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's,
The seed of the then world may thus array
Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute
To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all
That bows to him, who made things but to bend
Before his sullen, sole eternity;
But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 240
Fond parents listened to a creeping thing,
And fell. For what should spirits tempt them?