" It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v.
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v.
Byron
]
[ca] {228} _What can_ he be _who places love in ignorance? _--[MS. M. ]
[107] {228}["One of the second order of angels of the Dionysian
hierarchy, reputed to excel specially in knowledge (as the seraphim in
love). See Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, i. 28: 'The first place is
given to the Angels of loue, which are tearmed Seraphim, the second to
the Angels of light, which are tearmed Cherubim,'"-_N. Eng. Dict. _, art.
"Cherub. "]
[cb] {229} _But it was a lie no doubt_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[cc] {230}_What else can be joy? _----. --[MS. M. ]
[108] {231}[Compare--"She walks in Beauty like the night. " _Hebrew
Melodies_, i. 1, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 381. ]
[109] {232}[Lucifer was evidently indebted to the Manichaeans for his
theory of the _duplex terra_--an infernal as well as a celestial
kingdom. ]
[110] {233}["According to the prince of the power of the air" (_Eph_.
ii. 2). ]
[cd] _An hour, when walking on a petty lake_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[ce] {234}
_Yon round blue circle swinging in far ether_
_With an inferior circlet dimmer still_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[111] [Compare--
"And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon. "
_Paradise Lost_, ii. 1051-1053.
Compare, too--
"The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab, Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 106. ]
[112] {235}["Several of the ancient Fathers, too much prejudiced in
favour of virginity, have pretended that if Man had persevered in
innocence he would not have entered into the carnal commerce of
matrimony, and that the propagation of mankind would have been effected
quite another way. " (See St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, xiv. cap.
xxi. ; Bayle's _Dictionary_, art. "Eve," 1735, ii. 853, note C. )]
[113] {236}[Compare--
"Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In many motions intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal Nature's laws. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, ii. _ibid. _, p. 107. ]
[cf] {239} _And with serpents too? _--[MS. M. ]
[cg] {240} _Rather than things to be inhabited_. --[MS. M. ]
[114] {241}["I have . . . supposed Cain to be shown in the _rational_
pre-Adamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but
totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and
person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and
Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical. "--Letter to Moore,
September 19, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 368. ]
[115] {243}[Compare the "jingle between king and kine," in
_Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. I, lines 483, 484. It is hard to say whether
Byron inserted and then omitted to erase these blemishes from negligence
and indifference, or whether he regarded them as permissible or even
felicitous. ]
[116] ["_Let_ He. " There is no doubt that Byron wrote, or that he should
have written, "Let Him. "]
[ch] {246} _And being of all things the sole thing sure_. --[MS. M. ]
[ci] _Which seems like water and which I should deem_. --[MS. M. ]
[117] {247}[Lucifer's candour and disinterested advice are "after" and
in the manner of Mephistopheles. ]
[118] {250}["If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom,
which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of
men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence,
it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who
should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all
the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who
should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his
kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them. . . . This is
that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, 'Felix culpa quae
talem Redemptorem meruit! '"--Bayle's _Dictionary_, 1737, art.
"Paulicians," note B, 25, iv. 515. ]
[119] {251}[Lucifer does not infect Cain with his cynical theories as to
the origin and endurance of love. For the antidote, compare Wordsworth's
sonnet "To a Painter" (No. II), written in 1841--
"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful--in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy," etc.
_Works_, 1889, p. 772. ]
[cj] {252} _Which my sire shrinks from--Death_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[120] {254}[In Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we find the following
entry--
"_Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain_.
"Were _Death_ an _evil_, would _I_ let thee _live_?
Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives.
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore! "
_Letters_, 1901, v. 191. ]
[121] [Matthew Arnold (_Poetry of Byron_, 1881, p. xxii. ) quotes these
lines as an instance of Byron's unknowingness and want of humour. It
cannot be denied that he leaves imbedded in his fabric lumps of unshapen
material, which mar the symmetry of his art. Lucifer's harangue involves
a reference to "hard words ending in _ism_. " The _spirit_ of error, not
the Manichaean heresy, should have proceeded out of his lips. ]
[122] ["Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdoms, etc. , it
would _elate_ him: the object of the Demon is to _depress_ him still
further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him
infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of
mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere _internal_ irritation,
_not_ premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him
contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his
state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against
Life, and the author of Life, than the mere living. "--Letter to Moore,
November 3, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 470. Here, no doubt, Byron is
speaking _in propria persona_. It was this sense of limitation, of human
nothingness, which provoked an "internal irritation . . . a rage and fury
against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions. " His "spirit
beats its mortal bars," not, like Galahad, to be possessed by, but to
possess the Heavenly Vision. ]
[123] {255}[Compare--
"What though the field be lost,
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield. "
_Paradise Lost_, i. 105-108. ]
[124] {257}[An obsolete form of _carnation_, the colour of "flesh. "]
[125] [Compare--
"Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark-blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, i. , _ibid. _, p. 104. ]
[126] {258}["Time is our consciousness of the succession of ideas in our
mind. . . . One man is stretched on the rack during twelve hours, another
sleeps soundly in his bed. The difference of time perceived by these two
persons is immense: one hardly will believe that half an hour has
elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his
agony. "--Shelley's note to the lines--
" . . . the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness. "
_Queen Mab_, viii. , _ibid. _, p. 136. ]
[127] {259}[_Vide ante_, p. 208. ]
[128] {260}[It is Adah, Cain's wife, who suggests the disastrous
compromise, not a "burnt-offering," but the "fruits of the earth," which
would cost the giver little or nothing--an instance in point of
Lucifer's cynical reminder (_vide ante_, act ii. sc. 2, line 210, p.
247) "that there are some things still which woman may tempt man to. "]
[129] {262}["From the beginning" the woman is ineligible for the
priesthood--"He for God only, she for God in him" (_Paradise Lost_, iv.
299). "Let the women keep silence in the churches" (_Corinthians_, i.
xiv. 34). ]
[130] {264}[Compare the following passage from _La Rapresentatione di
Abel et di Caino_ (in Firenze l'anno MDLIV. )--
"Abel parla a dio fatto il sacrifitio,
Rendendogli laude.
Signor per cui di tanti bene abondo
Liquali tu sommamente mi concedi
Tanto mi piace, et tanto me' giocondo
Quanto delle mie greggie che tu vedi
El piu grasso el migliore el piu mondo
Ti do con lieto core come tu vedi
Tu vedi la intentione con lequal vegno," etc. ]
[ck] {265} _Which must be won with prayers--if he be evil_. --[MS. M. ]
[131] {266}[See Gessner's _Death of Abel_. ]
[132] {268}[Compare--
"How wonderful is Death--
Death and his brother Sleep! "
_Queen Mab_, i. lines 1, 2. ]
[133] {271}[Compare--
"And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee. . . .
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee in vain. "
_The Curse of Kehama_, by R. Southey, Canto II. ]
[134] [The last three lines of this terrible denunciation were not in
the original MS. In forwarding them to Murray (September 12, 1821,
_Letters_, 1901, v. 361), to be added to Eve's speech, Byron says,
"There's as pretty a piece of Imprecation for you, when joined to the
lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your
business. But don't forget the addition of these three lines, which are
clinchers to Eve's speech. "]
[135] [If Byron had read his plays aloud, or been at pains to revise the
proofs, he would hardly have allowed "corse" to remain in such close
proximity to "curse. "]
[136] {272}["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as in Scripture
(though Milton does, and not very wisely either); but have adopted his
angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings
on the subject, by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall
short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence
of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and this
is avoided in the New. "--Letter to Murray, February 8, 1822, _Letters_,
1901, vi. 13. Byron does not seem to have known that in the older
portions of the Bible "Angel of the Lord" is only a name for the Second
Person of the Trinity. ]
[cl] {273} _On thy brow_----. --[MS. ]
[137] {274}[The "four rivers" which flowed round Eden, and consequently
the only waters with which Cain was acquainted upon earth. ]
HEAVEN AND EARTH;
A MYSTERY.
FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 1, 2.
"And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose. "
"And woman wailing for her demon lover. "
Coleridge [_Kubla Khan_, line 16]
INTRODUCTION TO _HEAVEN AND EARTH_.
_Heaven and Earth_ was begun at Ravenna October 9, 1821. "It occupied
about fourteen days" (Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, p. 231), and was
forwarded to Murray, November 9, 1821. "You will find _it_," wrote Byron
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 474), "_pious_ enough, I trust--at least some of
the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves
for that, and perhaps for the melody.
" It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v. 475; vi. 31). It was to be published, he insists, at the same
time, and, if possible, in the same volume with the "others"
(_Sardanapalus_, etc. ), and would serve, so he seems to have _reflected_
("The moment he reflects, he is a child," said Goethe), as an antidote
to the audacities, or, as some would have it, the impieties of _Cain_!
He reckoned without his publisher, who understood the temper of the
public and of the Government, and was naturally loth to awaken any more
"reasonable doubts" in the mind of the Chancellor with regard to whether
a "scriptural drama" was irreverent or profane. The new "Mystery" was
revised by Gifford and printed, but withheld from month to month, till,
at length, "the fire kindled," and, on the last day of October, 1821,
Byron instructed John Hunt to "obtain from Mr. Murray _Werner: a Drama_,
and another dramatic poem called _Heaven and Earth_. " It was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_ (pp. 165-206), January 1, 1823.
The same subject, the unequal union of angelic lovers with the daughters
of men, had taken Moore's fancy a year before Byron had begun to
"dramatize the Old Testament. " He had designed a long poem, but having
discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to
restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the
chance of . . . an _heliacal rising_," before he was outshone by the
advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the
"translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the
"Mystery" by eight days. The _Loves of the Angels_ (see _Memoirs_, etc. ,
1853, iv. 28) was published December 23, 1822. None the less, lyric and
drama were destined to run in double harness. Critics found it
convenient to review the two poems in the same article, and were at
pains to draw a series of more or less pointed and pungent comparisons
between the unwilling though not unwitting rivals.
Wilson, in _Blackwood_, writes, "The first [the _Loves, etc. _] is all
glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark
and massy like a block of marble. . . . Moore writes with a crow-quill, . . .
Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_,
likens Moore to "an _aurora borealis_" and Byron to "an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius"!
There is, indeed, apart from the subject, nothing in common between
Moore's tender and alluring lyric and Byron's gloomy and tumultuous
rhapsody, while contrast is to be sought rather in the poets than in
their poems. The _Loves of the Angels_ is the finished composition of an
accomplished designer of Amoretti, one of the best of his kind, _Heaven
and Earth_ is the rough and unpromising sketch thrown off by a great
master.
Both the one and the other have passed out of the ken of readers of
poetry, but, on the whole, the _Loves of the Angels_ has suffered the
greater injustice. It is opined that there may be possibilities in a
half-forgotten work of Byron, but it is taken for granted that nothing
worthy of attention is to be found in Moore. At the time, however, Moore
scored a success, and Byron hardly escaped a failure. It is to be noted
that within a month of publication (January 18, 1823) Moore was at work
upon a revise for a fifth edition--consulting D'Herbelot "for the
project of turning the poor 'Angels' into Turks," and so "getting rid of
that connection with the Scriptures," which, so the Longmans feared,
would "in the long run be a drag on the popularity of the poem"
(_Memoirs, etc. _, 1853, iv. 41). It was no wonder that Murray was
"timorous" with regard to Byron and his "scriptural dramas," when the
Longmans started at the shadow of a scriptural allusion.
Byron, in his innocence, had taken for his motto the verse in _Genesis_
(ch. vi. 2), which records the intermarriage of the "sons of God" with
the "daughters of men. " In _Heaven and Earth_ the angels _are_ angels,
members, though erring members, of Jehovah's "thundering choir," and the
daughters of men are the descendants of Cain. The question had come up
for debate owing to the recent appearance of a translation of the _Book
of Enoch_ (by Richard Laurence, LL. D. , Oxford, 1821); and Moore, by way
of safeguarding himself against any suspicion of theological
irregularity, is careful to assure his readers ("Preface" to _Loves of
the Angels_, 1823, p. viii. and note, pp. 125-127) that the "sons of
God" were the descendants of Seth, and not beings of a supernatural
order, as a mis-translation by the LXX. , assisted by Philo and the
"rhapsodical fictions of the _Book of Enoch_" had induced the ignorant
or the profane to suppose. Nothing is so dangerous as innocence, and a
little more of that _empeiria_ of which Goethe accused him, would have
saved Byron from straying from the path of orthodoxy.
It is impossible to say for certain whether Laurence's translation of
the whole of the _Book of Enoch_ had come under Byron's notice before he
planned his new "Mystery," but it is plain that he was, at any rate,
familiar with the well-known fragment, "Concerning the 'Watchers'" [? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [Peri\ ton E)grego/ron]], which is preserved in the
_Chronographia_ of Georgius Syncellus, and was first printed by J. J.
Scaliger in _Thes. temp. Euseb. _ in 1606. In the prophecy of the Deluge
to which he alludes (_vide post_, p. 302, note 1), the names of the
delinquent seraphs (Semjaza and Azazel), and of the archangelic monitor
Raphael, are to be found in the fragment. The germ of _Heaven and Earth_
is not in the _Book of Genesis_, but in the _Book of Enoch_.
Medwin, who prints (_Conversations_, 1824, pp. 234-238) what purports to
be the prose sketch of a Second Part of _Heaven and Earth_ (he says that
Byron compared it to Coleridge's promised conclusion of
_Christabel_--"that, and nothing more! "), detects two other strains in
the composition of the "Mystery," an echo of Goethe's Faust and a
"movement" which recalls the _Eumenides_ of AEschylus. Byron told Murray
that his fourth tragedy was "more lyrical and Greek" than he at first
intended, and there is no doubt that with the _Prometheus Vinctus_ he
was familiar, if not at first hand, at least through the medium of
Shelley's rendering. But apart from the "Greek choruses," which "Shelley
made such a fuss about," Byron was acquainted with, and was not
untouched by, the metrical peculiarities of the _Curse of Kehama_, and
might have traced a kinship between his "angels" and Southey's
"Glendoveers," to say nothing of _their_ collaterals, the "glumms" and
"gawreys" of _Peter Wilkins_ (see notes to Southey's _Curse of Kehama_,
Canto VI. , _Poetical Works_, 1838, viii. 231-233).
Goethe was interested in _Heaven and Earth_. "He preferred it," says
Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 434), "to all the other serious
poems of Byron. . . . 'A bishop,' he exclaimed, though it sounded almost
like satire, 'might have written it. ' Goethe must have been thinking of
a _German_ bishop! " (For his daughter-in-law's translation of the
speeches of Anah and Aholibamah with their seraph-lovers, see
_Goethe-Jahrbuch_, 1899, pp. 18-21 [Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. p.
518]. )
_Heaven and Earth_ was reviewed by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_,
February, 1823, vol. 38, pp. 42-48; by Wilson in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, January, 1823, vol. xiii. pp. 71, 72; and in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, N. S. , 1823, vol. 7, pp. 353-358.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ANGELS.
SAMIASA.
AZAZIEL.
RAPHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL.
MEN.
NOAH AND HIS SONS.
IRAD.
JAPHET.
WOMEN.
ANAH.
AHOLIBAMAH.
_Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. --Chorus of Mortals_.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
PART I.
SCENE I. --_A woody and mountainous district near Mount
Ararat. --Time, midnight_.
_Enter_ ANAH _and_ AHOLIBAMAH. [138]
_Anah_. OUR father sleeps: it is the hour when they
Who love us are accustomed to descend
Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat:--
How my heart beats!
_Aho. _ Let us proceed upon
Our invocation.
_Anah_. But the stars are hidden.
I tremble.
_Aho. _ So do I, but not with fear
Of aught save their delay.
_Anah_. My sister, though
I love Azaziel more than----oh, too much!
What was I going to say? my heart grows impious.
_Aho. _ And where is the impiety of loving 10
Celestial natures?
_Anah_. But, Aholibamah,
I love our God less since his angel loved me:
This cannot be of good; and though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears
Which are not ominous of right.
_Aho. _ Then wed thee
Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin!
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long:
Marry, and bring forth dust!
_Anah_. I should have loved
Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet
I am glad he is not. I cannot outlive him. 20
And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre
Of the poor child of clay[139] which so adored him,
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:
His grief will be of ages, or at least
Mine would be such for him, were I the Seraph,
And he the perishable.
_Aho. _ Rather say,
That he will single forth some other daughter
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah. 30
_Anah_. And if it should be so, and she loved him,
Better thus than that he should weep for me.
_Aho. _ If I thought thus of Samiasa's love,
All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me.
But to our invocation! --'Tis the hour.
_Anah_.
Seraph!
From thy sphere!
Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven
Albeit thou watchest with "the seven,"[140] 40
Though through space infinite and hoary
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven,
Yet hear!
Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!
And though she nothing is to thee,
Yet think that thou art all to her.
Thou canst not tell,--and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,--
The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thine years, 50
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathise,
Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne'er wept beneath the skies.
Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least
Of those cast out from Eden's gate:
Yet, Seraph dear! 60
Oh hear!
For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forget'st in thine eternity
Her whose heart Death could not keep from o'er-flowing
For thee, immortal essence as thou art!
Great is their love who love in sin and fear;
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart
A war unworthy: to an Adamite
Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear, 70
For sorrow is our element;
Delight
An Eden kept afar from sight,
Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near
Which tells me we are not abandoned quite. --
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!
My own Azaziel! be but here,
And leave the stars to their own light! 80
_Aho. _
Samiasa!
Wheresoe'er
Thou rulest in the upper air--
Or warring with the spirits who may dare
Dispute with him
Who made all empires, empire; or recalling
Some wandering star, which shoots through the abyss,
Whose tenants dying, while their world is falling,
Share the dim destiny of clay in this;
Or joining with the inferior cherubim, 90
Thou deignest to partake their hymn--
Samiasa!
I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!
Though I be formed of clay,
And thou of beams
More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams, 100
Thine immortality can not repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray
In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine,
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine.
It may be hidden long: death and decay
Our mother Eve bequeathed us--but my heart
Defies it: though this life must pass away,
Is _that_ a cause for thee and me to part?
Thou art immortal--so am I: I feel-- 110
I feel my immortality o'ersweep
All pains, all tears, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth--"Thou liv'st for ever! "
But if it be in joy
I know not, nor would know;
That secret rests with the Almighty giver,
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are 120
Of as eternal essence, and must war
With him if he will war with us; with _thee_
I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;
For thou hast ventured to share life with _me_,
And shall _I_ shrink from thine eternity?
No! though the serpent's sting should pierce me thorough,
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil
Around me still! and I will smile,
And curse thee not; but hold
Thee in as warm a fold 130
As----but descend, and prove
A mortal's love
For an immortal. If the skies contain
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain!
_Anah_. Sister! sister! I view them winging
Their bright way through the parted night.
_Aho. _ The clouds from off their pinions flinging,
As though they bore to-morrow's light.
_Anah_.
[ca] {228} _What can_ he be _who places love in ignorance? _--[MS. M. ]
[107] {228}["One of the second order of angels of the Dionysian
hierarchy, reputed to excel specially in knowledge (as the seraphim in
love). See Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, i. 28: 'The first place is
given to the Angels of loue, which are tearmed Seraphim, the second to
the Angels of light, which are tearmed Cherubim,'"-_N. Eng. Dict. _, art.
"Cherub. "]
[cb] {229} _But it was a lie no doubt_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[cc] {230}_What else can be joy? _----. --[MS. M. ]
[108] {231}[Compare--"She walks in Beauty like the night. " _Hebrew
Melodies_, i. 1, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 381. ]
[109] {232}[Lucifer was evidently indebted to the Manichaeans for his
theory of the _duplex terra_--an infernal as well as a celestial
kingdom. ]
[110] {233}["According to the prince of the power of the air" (_Eph_.
ii. 2). ]
[cd] _An hour, when walking on a petty lake_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[ce] {234}
_Yon round blue circle swinging in far ether_
_With an inferior circlet dimmer still_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[111] [Compare--
"And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon. "
_Paradise Lost_, ii. 1051-1053.
Compare, too--
"The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab, Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 106. ]
[112] {235}["Several of the ancient Fathers, too much prejudiced in
favour of virginity, have pretended that if Man had persevered in
innocence he would not have entered into the carnal commerce of
matrimony, and that the propagation of mankind would have been effected
quite another way. " (See St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, xiv. cap.
xxi. ; Bayle's _Dictionary_, art. "Eve," 1735, ii. 853, note C. )]
[113] {236}[Compare--
"Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In many motions intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal Nature's laws. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, ii. _ibid. _, p. 107. ]
[cf] {239} _And with serpents too? _--[MS. M. ]
[cg] {240} _Rather than things to be inhabited_. --[MS. M. ]
[114] {241}["I have . . . supposed Cain to be shown in the _rational_
pre-Adamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but
totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and
person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and
Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical. "--Letter to Moore,
September 19, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 368. ]
[115] {243}[Compare the "jingle between king and kine," in
_Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. I, lines 483, 484. It is hard to say whether
Byron inserted and then omitted to erase these blemishes from negligence
and indifference, or whether he regarded them as permissible or even
felicitous. ]
[116] ["_Let_ He. " There is no doubt that Byron wrote, or that he should
have written, "Let Him. "]
[ch] {246} _And being of all things the sole thing sure_. --[MS. M. ]
[ci] _Which seems like water and which I should deem_. --[MS. M. ]
[117] {247}[Lucifer's candour and disinterested advice are "after" and
in the manner of Mephistopheles. ]
[118] {250}["If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom,
which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of
men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence,
it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who
should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all
the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who
should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his
kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them. . . . This is
that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, 'Felix culpa quae
talem Redemptorem meruit! '"--Bayle's _Dictionary_, 1737, art.
"Paulicians," note B, 25, iv. 515. ]
[119] {251}[Lucifer does not infect Cain with his cynical theories as to
the origin and endurance of love. For the antidote, compare Wordsworth's
sonnet "To a Painter" (No. II), written in 1841--
"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful--in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy," etc.
_Works_, 1889, p. 772. ]
[cj] {252} _Which my sire shrinks from--Death_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[120] {254}[In Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we find the following
entry--
"_Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain_.
"Were _Death_ an _evil_, would _I_ let thee _live_?
Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives.
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore! "
_Letters_, 1901, v. 191. ]
[121] [Matthew Arnold (_Poetry of Byron_, 1881, p. xxii. ) quotes these
lines as an instance of Byron's unknowingness and want of humour. It
cannot be denied that he leaves imbedded in his fabric lumps of unshapen
material, which mar the symmetry of his art. Lucifer's harangue involves
a reference to "hard words ending in _ism_. " The _spirit_ of error, not
the Manichaean heresy, should have proceeded out of his lips. ]
[122] ["Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdoms, etc. , it
would _elate_ him: the object of the Demon is to _depress_ him still
further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him
infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of
mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere _internal_ irritation,
_not_ premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him
contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his
state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against
Life, and the author of Life, than the mere living. "--Letter to Moore,
November 3, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 470. Here, no doubt, Byron is
speaking _in propria persona_. It was this sense of limitation, of human
nothingness, which provoked an "internal irritation . . . a rage and fury
against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions. " His "spirit
beats its mortal bars," not, like Galahad, to be possessed by, but to
possess the Heavenly Vision. ]
[123] {255}[Compare--
"What though the field be lost,
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield. "
_Paradise Lost_, i. 105-108. ]
[124] {257}[An obsolete form of _carnation_, the colour of "flesh. "]
[125] [Compare--
"Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark-blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, i. , _ibid. _, p. 104. ]
[126] {258}["Time is our consciousness of the succession of ideas in our
mind. . . . One man is stretched on the rack during twelve hours, another
sleeps soundly in his bed. The difference of time perceived by these two
persons is immense: one hardly will believe that half an hour has
elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his
agony. "--Shelley's note to the lines--
" . . . the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness. "
_Queen Mab_, viii. , _ibid. _, p. 136. ]
[127] {259}[_Vide ante_, p. 208. ]
[128] {260}[It is Adah, Cain's wife, who suggests the disastrous
compromise, not a "burnt-offering," but the "fruits of the earth," which
would cost the giver little or nothing--an instance in point of
Lucifer's cynical reminder (_vide ante_, act ii. sc. 2, line 210, p.
247) "that there are some things still which woman may tempt man to. "]
[129] {262}["From the beginning" the woman is ineligible for the
priesthood--"He for God only, she for God in him" (_Paradise Lost_, iv.
299). "Let the women keep silence in the churches" (_Corinthians_, i.
xiv. 34). ]
[130] {264}[Compare the following passage from _La Rapresentatione di
Abel et di Caino_ (in Firenze l'anno MDLIV. )--
"Abel parla a dio fatto il sacrifitio,
Rendendogli laude.
Signor per cui di tanti bene abondo
Liquali tu sommamente mi concedi
Tanto mi piace, et tanto me' giocondo
Quanto delle mie greggie che tu vedi
El piu grasso el migliore el piu mondo
Ti do con lieto core come tu vedi
Tu vedi la intentione con lequal vegno," etc. ]
[ck] {265} _Which must be won with prayers--if he be evil_. --[MS. M. ]
[131] {266}[See Gessner's _Death of Abel_. ]
[132] {268}[Compare--
"How wonderful is Death--
Death and his brother Sleep! "
_Queen Mab_, i. lines 1, 2. ]
[133] {271}[Compare--
"And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee. . . .
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee in vain. "
_The Curse of Kehama_, by R. Southey, Canto II. ]
[134] [The last three lines of this terrible denunciation were not in
the original MS. In forwarding them to Murray (September 12, 1821,
_Letters_, 1901, v. 361), to be added to Eve's speech, Byron says,
"There's as pretty a piece of Imprecation for you, when joined to the
lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your
business. But don't forget the addition of these three lines, which are
clinchers to Eve's speech. "]
[135] [If Byron had read his plays aloud, or been at pains to revise the
proofs, he would hardly have allowed "corse" to remain in such close
proximity to "curse. "]
[136] {272}["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as in Scripture
(though Milton does, and not very wisely either); but have adopted his
angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings
on the subject, by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall
short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence
of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and this
is avoided in the New. "--Letter to Murray, February 8, 1822, _Letters_,
1901, vi. 13. Byron does not seem to have known that in the older
portions of the Bible "Angel of the Lord" is only a name for the Second
Person of the Trinity. ]
[cl] {273} _On thy brow_----. --[MS. ]
[137] {274}[The "four rivers" which flowed round Eden, and consequently
the only waters with which Cain was acquainted upon earth. ]
HEAVEN AND EARTH;
A MYSTERY.
FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 1, 2.
"And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose. "
"And woman wailing for her demon lover. "
Coleridge [_Kubla Khan_, line 16]
INTRODUCTION TO _HEAVEN AND EARTH_.
_Heaven and Earth_ was begun at Ravenna October 9, 1821. "It occupied
about fourteen days" (Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, p. 231), and was
forwarded to Murray, November 9, 1821. "You will find _it_," wrote Byron
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 474), "_pious_ enough, I trust--at least some of
the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves
for that, and perhaps for the melody.
" It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v. 475; vi. 31). It was to be published, he insists, at the same
time, and, if possible, in the same volume with the "others"
(_Sardanapalus_, etc. ), and would serve, so he seems to have _reflected_
("The moment he reflects, he is a child," said Goethe), as an antidote
to the audacities, or, as some would have it, the impieties of _Cain_!
He reckoned without his publisher, who understood the temper of the
public and of the Government, and was naturally loth to awaken any more
"reasonable doubts" in the mind of the Chancellor with regard to whether
a "scriptural drama" was irreverent or profane. The new "Mystery" was
revised by Gifford and printed, but withheld from month to month, till,
at length, "the fire kindled," and, on the last day of October, 1821,
Byron instructed John Hunt to "obtain from Mr. Murray _Werner: a Drama_,
and another dramatic poem called _Heaven and Earth_. " It was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_ (pp. 165-206), January 1, 1823.
The same subject, the unequal union of angelic lovers with the daughters
of men, had taken Moore's fancy a year before Byron had begun to
"dramatize the Old Testament. " He had designed a long poem, but having
discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to
restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the
chance of . . . an _heliacal rising_," before he was outshone by the
advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the
"translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the
"Mystery" by eight days. The _Loves of the Angels_ (see _Memoirs_, etc. ,
1853, iv. 28) was published December 23, 1822. None the less, lyric and
drama were destined to run in double harness. Critics found it
convenient to review the two poems in the same article, and were at
pains to draw a series of more or less pointed and pungent comparisons
between the unwilling though not unwitting rivals.
Wilson, in _Blackwood_, writes, "The first [the _Loves, etc. _] is all
glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark
and massy like a block of marble. . . . Moore writes with a crow-quill, . . .
Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_,
likens Moore to "an _aurora borealis_" and Byron to "an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius"!
There is, indeed, apart from the subject, nothing in common between
Moore's tender and alluring lyric and Byron's gloomy and tumultuous
rhapsody, while contrast is to be sought rather in the poets than in
their poems. The _Loves of the Angels_ is the finished composition of an
accomplished designer of Amoretti, one of the best of his kind, _Heaven
and Earth_ is the rough and unpromising sketch thrown off by a great
master.
Both the one and the other have passed out of the ken of readers of
poetry, but, on the whole, the _Loves of the Angels_ has suffered the
greater injustice. It is opined that there may be possibilities in a
half-forgotten work of Byron, but it is taken for granted that nothing
worthy of attention is to be found in Moore. At the time, however, Moore
scored a success, and Byron hardly escaped a failure. It is to be noted
that within a month of publication (January 18, 1823) Moore was at work
upon a revise for a fifth edition--consulting D'Herbelot "for the
project of turning the poor 'Angels' into Turks," and so "getting rid of
that connection with the Scriptures," which, so the Longmans feared,
would "in the long run be a drag on the popularity of the poem"
(_Memoirs, etc. _, 1853, iv. 41). It was no wonder that Murray was
"timorous" with regard to Byron and his "scriptural dramas," when the
Longmans started at the shadow of a scriptural allusion.
Byron, in his innocence, had taken for his motto the verse in _Genesis_
(ch. vi. 2), which records the intermarriage of the "sons of God" with
the "daughters of men. " In _Heaven and Earth_ the angels _are_ angels,
members, though erring members, of Jehovah's "thundering choir," and the
daughters of men are the descendants of Cain. The question had come up
for debate owing to the recent appearance of a translation of the _Book
of Enoch_ (by Richard Laurence, LL. D. , Oxford, 1821); and Moore, by way
of safeguarding himself against any suspicion of theological
irregularity, is careful to assure his readers ("Preface" to _Loves of
the Angels_, 1823, p. viii. and note, pp. 125-127) that the "sons of
God" were the descendants of Seth, and not beings of a supernatural
order, as a mis-translation by the LXX. , assisted by Philo and the
"rhapsodical fictions of the _Book of Enoch_" had induced the ignorant
or the profane to suppose. Nothing is so dangerous as innocence, and a
little more of that _empeiria_ of which Goethe accused him, would have
saved Byron from straying from the path of orthodoxy.
It is impossible to say for certain whether Laurence's translation of
the whole of the _Book of Enoch_ had come under Byron's notice before he
planned his new "Mystery," but it is plain that he was, at any rate,
familiar with the well-known fragment, "Concerning the 'Watchers'" [? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [Peri\ ton E)grego/ron]], which is preserved in the
_Chronographia_ of Georgius Syncellus, and was first printed by J. J.
Scaliger in _Thes. temp. Euseb. _ in 1606. In the prophecy of the Deluge
to which he alludes (_vide post_, p. 302, note 1), the names of the
delinquent seraphs (Semjaza and Azazel), and of the archangelic monitor
Raphael, are to be found in the fragment. The germ of _Heaven and Earth_
is not in the _Book of Genesis_, but in the _Book of Enoch_.
Medwin, who prints (_Conversations_, 1824, pp. 234-238) what purports to
be the prose sketch of a Second Part of _Heaven and Earth_ (he says that
Byron compared it to Coleridge's promised conclusion of
_Christabel_--"that, and nothing more! "), detects two other strains in
the composition of the "Mystery," an echo of Goethe's Faust and a
"movement" which recalls the _Eumenides_ of AEschylus. Byron told Murray
that his fourth tragedy was "more lyrical and Greek" than he at first
intended, and there is no doubt that with the _Prometheus Vinctus_ he
was familiar, if not at first hand, at least through the medium of
Shelley's rendering. But apart from the "Greek choruses," which "Shelley
made such a fuss about," Byron was acquainted with, and was not
untouched by, the metrical peculiarities of the _Curse of Kehama_, and
might have traced a kinship between his "angels" and Southey's
"Glendoveers," to say nothing of _their_ collaterals, the "glumms" and
"gawreys" of _Peter Wilkins_ (see notes to Southey's _Curse of Kehama_,
Canto VI. , _Poetical Works_, 1838, viii. 231-233).
Goethe was interested in _Heaven and Earth_. "He preferred it," says
Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 434), "to all the other serious
poems of Byron. . . . 'A bishop,' he exclaimed, though it sounded almost
like satire, 'might have written it. ' Goethe must have been thinking of
a _German_ bishop! " (For his daughter-in-law's translation of the
speeches of Anah and Aholibamah with their seraph-lovers, see
_Goethe-Jahrbuch_, 1899, pp. 18-21 [Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. p.
518]. )
_Heaven and Earth_ was reviewed by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_,
February, 1823, vol. 38, pp. 42-48; by Wilson in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, January, 1823, vol. xiii. pp. 71, 72; and in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, N. S. , 1823, vol. 7, pp. 353-358.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ANGELS.
SAMIASA.
AZAZIEL.
RAPHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL.
MEN.
NOAH AND HIS SONS.
IRAD.
JAPHET.
WOMEN.
ANAH.
AHOLIBAMAH.
_Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. --Chorus of Mortals_.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
PART I.
SCENE I. --_A woody and mountainous district near Mount
Ararat. --Time, midnight_.
_Enter_ ANAH _and_ AHOLIBAMAH. [138]
_Anah_. OUR father sleeps: it is the hour when they
Who love us are accustomed to descend
Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat:--
How my heart beats!
_Aho. _ Let us proceed upon
Our invocation.
_Anah_. But the stars are hidden.
I tremble.
_Aho. _ So do I, but not with fear
Of aught save their delay.
_Anah_. My sister, though
I love Azaziel more than----oh, too much!
What was I going to say? my heart grows impious.
_Aho. _ And where is the impiety of loving 10
Celestial natures?
_Anah_. But, Aholibamah,
I love our God less since his angel loved me:
This cannot be of good; and though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears
Which are not ominous of right.
_Aho. _ Then wed thee
Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin!
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long:
Marry, and bring forth dust!
_Anah_. I should have loved
Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet
I am glad he is not. I cannot outlive him. 20
And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre
Of the poor child of clay[139] which so adored him,
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:
His grief will be of ages, or at least
Mine would be such for him, were I the Seraph,
And he the perishable.
_Aho. _ Rather say,
That he will single forth some other daughter
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah. 30
_Anah_. And if it should be so, and she loved him,
Better thus than that he should weep for me.
_Aho. _ If I thought thus of Samiasa's love,
All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me.
But to our invocation! --'Tis the hour.
_Anah_.
Seraph!
From thy sphere!
Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven
Albeit thou watchest with "the seven,"[140] 40
Though through space infinite and hoary
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven,
Yet hear!
Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!
And though she nothing is to thee,
Yet think that thou art all to her.
Thou canst not tell,--and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,--
The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thine years, 50
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathise,
Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne'er wept beneath the skies.
Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least
Of those cast out from Eden's gate:
Yet, Seraph dear! 60
Oh hear!
For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forget'st in thine eternity
Her whose heart Death could not keep from o'er-flowing
For thee, immortal essence as thou art!
Great is their love who love in sin and fear;
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart
A war unworthy: to an Adamite
Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear, 70
For sorrow is our element;
Delight
An Eden kept afar from sight,
Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near
Which tells me we are not abandoned quite. --
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!
My own Azaziel! be but here,
And leave the stars to their own light! 80
_Aho. _
Samiasa!
Wheresoe'er
Thou rulest in the upper air--
Or warring with the spirits who may dare
Dispute with him
Who made all empires, empire; or recalling
Some wandering star, which shoots through the abyss,
Whose tenants dying, while their world is falling,
Share the dim destiny of clay in this;
Or joining with the inferior cherubim, 90
Thou deignest to partake their hymn--
Samiasa!
I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!
Though I be formed of clay,
And thou of beams
More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams, 100
Thine immortality can not repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray
In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine,
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine.
It may be hidden long: death and decay
Our mother Eve bequeathed us--but my heart
Defies it: though this life must pass away,
Is _that_ a cause for thee and me to part?
Thou art immortal--so am I: I feel-- 110
I feel my immortality o'ersweep
All pains, all tears, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth--"Thou liv'st for ever! "
But if it be in joy
I know not, nor would know;
That secret rests with the Almighty giver,
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are 120
Of as eternal essence, and must war
With him if he will war with us; with _thee_
I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;
For thou hast ventured to share life with _me_,
And shall _I_ shrink from thine eternity?
No! though the serpent's sting should pierce me thorough,
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil
Around me still! and I will smile,
And curse thee not; but hold
Thee in as warm a fold 130
As----but descend, and prove
A mortal's love
For an immortal. If the skies contain
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain!
_Anah_. Sister! sister! I view them winging
Their bright way through the parted night.
_Aho. _ The clouds from off their pinions flinging,
As though they bore to-morrow's light.
_Anah_.
