"
But the Angel unfurling the rainbow of her wings and
shaking her curls of gold : " Lord !
But the Angel unfurling the rainbow of her wings and
shaking her curls of gold : " Lord !
Krasinski - The Undivine Comedy
.
Look ! . . . they are drops of blood ! . . .
Masinissa. 'Tis nothing, son !
Iridion. A wild storm gatliers out upon yon sea !
Who calls me there ? . . . up there ! . . . farther . . .
and ever farther !
Do you not hear that voice? Alas ! alas !
444
IRIDION.
Masijiissa. And now ?
Indian. Silence!
Masinissa. Together through eternity!
Together without end, repose, hope, love,
Until the Everlasting Vengeance be fulfilled !
Jridion. I swear ! Together for eternity
When Rome is ruined, earthly vengeance full !
Masinissa. Now all is finished ! Follow me, my son.
Iridion. Whither?
Masinissa. To a cool cave upon the shore,
Covered with clustering vines and wreaths of ivy.
No crimson morning ever breaks its gloom.
No moon, no stars, no echo from the living;
No pleasure, pain, nor dreams shall haunt thee there !
Thou shalt sleep on through coming centuries,
Unconscious till I come to waken thee,
The hour my kingdom's gates open for thee !
Iridion. I follow. Rome to me ! To you, my soul !
EPILOGUE.
Son of my Thought, long centuries have rolled over
thee! Thou slumberedst through the days of Alaric,
the days of Attila ; and neither the clangor of the impe-
rial crown on the rugged brow of Charlemagne, nor the
tumult of Rienzi, the Tribune of the peoj)le, availed to
waken thee ! And the Holy Masters of the Vatican
glided by thee, one after another, as shadows past a
shade !
Eut to- day thou wilt awaken. Son of my Thought !
In the Roman Campngna the sun only shines upon
wastes of desolation, and is now sinking sadly over the
deserted plains. The long shadows of evening are creep-
ing over the burnt Avormwood of the sands and the sway-
ing reeds of the swamps. And over the lonely pines of
the hills, the cypress-trees of the valleys, the star of the
IRIDION. 445
evening — a goddess for the men of the past — rises
mournfully, and tears of dew fall here and there beneath
her. The foaming waves still play upon the sea, illu-
mined by the sunset's bloody shimmer.
The silence of a stifling heat weighs on the air ; not a
cloud, not the lightest movement in the ether; and yet
the depths of the sea are strangely stirred ; the waves,
with full and purple breasts, utter wild plaints to Heaven.
For he who dwells in the Abyss ; he who once made
the solemn promise, rises from the boiling bosom of the
waters, and moves with feet far blacker than the night
over the surging bodies of his myriad slaves.
A sombre light streams from his form, as if a darker
crimson sun went down behind him ; shadowy clouds rise
from his arms, and roll over the distant waves.
He is alone, as centuries ago ; still bearing on his brow
his immortality of age.
When he attains the shore, the unburdened sea respires !
The tired waves fall into sleep in the fast deepening
twilight !
He leaves no traces of his path as he moves by the Sam-
nite hills and seeks the hidden grotto.
There, by the power of his spells, the sleeping life be-
gins to wake in thee, O Son of Vengeance !
The sentient sleeping at thy feet begins to move and
shiver. He seems already to divine the approach of his
master. The livid scales grow brighter, rise and fall ; as
he untwines his coils, sparks flash and glitter from them
o'er thy bed of marble. Uncoiled, he rises, stands erect;
and like a blazing torch, he waits ! By his strange light
are seen the black stones of thy couch, the cliff behind
thee, thy darkened features, my Hero !
The first faint dawn of life quivers across thy brow, like
ignes-fatui over graves; but from the threshold of the
cavern, and calling on thee by thy name, a solemn voice
intones the chant of resurrection. At every triplet of the
mystic song, renewed force of life returns to thee. A
38*
446 IRIDION.
consciousness of all the ages passed since thy long sleep
began is given tliee, as thou hadst lived them all, and,
like the history of a single day, thou seest unroll before
thine eyes the cruel torments Rome has suffered, and all
the triumphs of the Cross.
The whole Past lives before thee, as if in hues of flame.
The neighing of horses, and the noise of arms; the clash
of swords; rattling of armor; the chimes of bells and
chanting of calm hymns float on around thee, splendid
and vivid, as they, in their reality, had formerly swept
by above thee, during thy centuries of slumber. Dead
Bishops pass in long procession on before thee. And
preceding each of them is a monarch, bearing upon his
shoulders the open Book of the Holy Word. They cross
and recross the Seven Hills, up and down, and down and
up, moving in ceaseless course. Over some float groups
of angels in the air, throwing down crowns of palms;
while some move on in silence and alone, bearing in the
right hand the holy symbol of redemption, and in the
left the insignia of war.
And as the hour of thy awakening draws near and nearer
still, their train grows less and less; their bands fall off;
duller sound the footfalls; whiter and whitergrow the heads
of the Lords of Rome, and more tremulous their hands.
Then above all the varied chanting peals a voice of
wondrous power; a voice of fierce command which does
not reach the skies, but which the earth re-echoes from her
inmost depths ; and this voice cries : " My son 1"
Then on the surface of the lake, over its mossy banks,
under thy cavern's vault, a flash of lightning gleams, and
the thunder of renewed life reverberates through thy dor-
mant breast. And young and beautiful, such as thou wert
in centuries long past, thou risest from thy couch of
marble. Thy flashing eyes first meet pale Dian's face
above the Latine Hills ; thou sayest : " Lo ! I am ! "
He beckons with his hand and leads thee on . . .
but the footstejjs wake no echo, and the two forms glide
over dark ravines like two black clouds.
IRIDION. 447
Thou standest in the Campagna of Rome, and nothing
veils its shame from thy keen eyes. Like myriad golden
memories twinkle the stars, as myriad mocking smiles.
The black and stagnant aqueduct, once bearing its clear
water to the city, is broken, choked ; great blocks of stone
fallen from its walls lie round like rags of vestment, or form
in heaps like gravestones, funeral piles, o'ergrovvn with
trailing vines; winds thick with dust blow over them ; and
birds of prey and night flit round with melancholy cry !
The son of centuries gazes around him, and rejoices in
the justice of his vengeance. Each ruin seems to him a
recompense. He ponders o'er the widowed amphitheatre,
the orphaned temples. He shakes the dust from his feet
where once stood the circus of Caracalla, and o'er the
mausoleum of Cecilia, the wife of Crassus. His dreadful
leader guides him ever on ; up through the street of ancient
tombs to the gates of Rome. They open, but they grate
not on their hinges ; no rattling of bolts and bars is heard ;
they enter, but the sentinels seem all asleep, supported
on their arms. Like shadows they pass by the sleeping
shadows !
Through long and lonely temples, halls, they wind
their narrow way. " Night of my love ! My only night !
My last ! Thou shinest for me with all the brilliancy of
day ! Above each wreck thou tearest the veil of shadow,
and thou deliverest ruins, trembling and naked, to the
gaze of their worst foe! Thou, moon, pierce with thy
rays these mouldering buildings ! With thy white rays
of scorn, show me the wretched remnants of Rome's few
inhabitants ! "
Under the portico of the Basilica stand two old men,
invested with a purple mantle; some monks salute them by
the name of Princes of the Church and Holy Fathers, and
on their faces may be read poverty of spirit. They enter a
chariot drawn by a])air of black and meagre horses; behind
them is a servant with a lantern, such as is held by a poor
widow o'er a child dying with hunger. And on the panels
of this carriage still remain the marks of former gilding.
448 IRIDION.
Slowly vanish the creaking wheels; slowly disappear
the bent and hoary heads.
The fearful leader says : " They are the successors of
the haughty Csesars ! That is the chariot of the Fortune
of the Capitoline ! " The son of Greece looks on and claps
his hands in triumph !
And now they climb a slope, mount a broad stairway
over mutilated steps and prostrate pillars, and enter a
desert court. And in its midst is seen the equestrian
statue of Marcus Aurelius, still stretching out his hand
in empty space. Cresar without a subject! A conqueror
without triumphal pKans! and behind him appear in the
shadow the black walls of the Capitol.
Not far from the statue is the Tarpeian rock. With
the shattered stump of his sword the young man strikes
fiercely upon the brow of the best of the Csesars. Under
the blow of the Greek blade, the Roman bronze wails
like the toll of a death-knell. To this melancholy clang
only answer the piteous cries of the owl, watching from
the pinnacles of the castle, and the bowlings of the dogs
prowling through the ruins of some desert street,
Down steps covered with mud and crumbling sand,
they descend toward the Forum: it is the " F/a Sacra,'^
the route of the Conquerors!
The arch of Septimius Severus is buried breast-high in
earth; the columns of the Temple, sunk to their throats
in mouldy rottenness, lift their sad capitals above the soil,
like heads of the damned! Other wrecks remain stand-
ing, high and solitary, on mounds, glaring nakedly out in
the ghastly symmetry of skeletons. Their cajiilals, their
flowers, their acanthus-leaves, which in their snowy white-
ness used to glitter so pitilessly upon thee in the cen-
turies past, api)ear to thee now, O my hero, begrimed and
bristling like the unkempt locks on the brow of a con-
vict. 'l"he marble cracks, and breaks from their sides;
it disappears in dust and ashes, — and thou canst recog-
nize nothing, and name nothing, in the hour of thy
triumph !
IRIDION.
449
Under the remains of this portico, two wretched beggars
are asleep, wrapped in the rags of the same cloak. In the
pale light of the moon their faces gleam like monumental
marbles; a lizard glides over their entwining arms; it flies
before thee like a leaf in the wind of autumn. In them
thou greetest the last of the Roman People on the ruins
of the Forum ! Thou strikest them with thy foot, — but
they awake not !
Thy leader guides thee through a way bordered with
dying trees: there sleep the shadows of the Palatine : there
lie the battered breasts and broken limbs of heroes; there
headless gods and demigods of jasper and of porphyry
strew the ground, rolling together in the dust! Thou
passest through the broken arch of Titus, gaping like a
great wound into the empty, desolate space beyond.
Here it seems to thee, just risen from the sleep of centuries,
that the Coliseum still stands entire: — but the terrible one
takes thy hand — and laughs convulsively !
And 'midst the deadly silence of the arena, on its silver
sands, under its long arcades with broken arches, like
formless rocks with ivy growing on their tops and gashes
through their hearts, — thou thankest Fatum for the com-
plete abasement of the seven-hilled city!
And here must end thy pilgrimage!
From the arena's sands thou art to go where millions
upon millions have before thee gone !
All that thou hadst once seen, all in which thou hadst
thyself borne a part, returns to thy remembrance. There
stood the throne of Caesar; there suffered Elsinoe; there
writhed Heliogabalus ; there conquered Alexander. Con-
tests, struggles, blood, curses, mingling with trumpets,
flutes, roll on before thee. But there is no sunshine now,
and no velarium,* whose purple folds floated about the
circus, now shades the hill of Livius. The moon alone
*Durin<:j the games in the amphitheatre, an awning called the Vela-
rium was thrown across its whole length and breadth, to shelter the
spectator from the rays of the sun.
45°
IRIDION.
shines coldly down upon the throng of the moving, acting,
vanishing phantoms which glide before thee.
Of all these varying sounds the accents of a hymn alone
swell on thy ear; thou didst hear it formerly; this for-
merly was yesterday ; yesterday died the Nazarenes within
this amphitheatre, their faces calm as an eve in summer.
And where they fell stands now a cross: — a black and
silent cross in the midst of the arena. Thy leader turns
away his dark and stormful face from its peaceful shadow.
A wondrous feeling now awakes in thee. Not pity for
lost Rome; her desolation equals not her crimes. Nor is
it dread of the destiny which thou hast chosen ; for thou
hast suffered far too deeply to know fear. Nor is it a
regret to leave thy mother Earth; in thy long sleep of
centuries, thou hast forgotten all the love of life. But a
virgin's tender face, full of melancholy sadness, floats o'er
the cross, — that cross once scorned by thee, because thou
couldst not sharpen it to steel, and make of it an arm of
vengeance.
And now thou hast no wish to fight against it. It seems
to thee, that like thyself, it, too, is weary. Its fate appears
to thee as sad as that of thy loved Hellas.
And under the rays of the moon, thou hast felt that it
is Holy for evermore !
However, thou hast no desire to escape from thy sworn
faith. Thou risest and walkest to the old man of the
Desert. He shudders, for he reads the secrets of thy soul.
He throws his long arms round thee, and clasps thee in
their gloomy circle; he tears thee step by step away from
the sign of man's redemption ; and thou followest him
slowly on, as once thy father followed him.
But thou, my hero! strong and benutiful, with thy dark
tunic wrajijicd around thee, and thy Greek co/Iiunii on thy
feet, — thou sto|)pest ; — thine arms stretched towards the
sky, thy being vibrates witli a sudden as|)iration, like rapid,
powerful music, harmonizing in its own unity a thousand
wandering tones: — an aspiration in itself uniting the thou-
IRIDION.
451
sand voices of thy soul ! . . . And all the ruins of the
Corinthian capitals, the acanthus-leaves, seem to sigh with
thee, Iridion!
" My son, the time is here. Thou hast drained to the
dregs the drink the centuries prepared for thee and poured
into thy life-cup. The time has come ! The crimson
dawn is nigh, our way is long, and we must enter on a
darker path ! "
Moans are heard issuing from the earth ; it seems as if
the bones of those who have sealed their faith in blood
awake from sleep. Sighs fill the air; the souls faithful to
Christ appear to float on through space. Then, o'er the
summits of the amphitheatre, above all the plaintive
voices, resounds a chant full of glory 1
And in the air a form reveals itself of dazzling white-
ness and transparent splendor; and round this form floats
the charity of the celestials; sometimes the rays like flut-
tering pennons twine and intertwine, then sunder to ex-
pand in the white moonlight into two still, outstretched
angel-wings.
Thou raisest thine eyes to gaze upon that calm face ;
thou recognizest features once known to thee, but fresh-
ened by celestial dew, and luminous with the breath of
Heaven. Thou gazest into it, and, in bidding it adieu,
it seems to thee that thou art bidding farewell forever to
all beauty.
A Voice calls the old man of the Desert back before
the cross, to await a judgment not yet decided. Humbled
by that voice, he covers his withered brows with his hands
as the angels chant their hymn of love, and turns his dark
face toward the gates of the arena. He seizes thy hand,
gnashes his teeth and mutters: "Damned! Damned!
Who can tear him froni me? "
And now at the foot of the symbol of redemption, as
the first crimson of dawn flushes the sky, and tlie moon
sinks behind the amphitheatre, while the whole arena
452
IRIDION.
glitters with the brilliancy of the wings of the angel, be-
gins the music of an invisible choir, and commences the
last, the supreme combat which is to decide thy eternal
destiny !
Above thy Tempter, and below thy Angel, thou stand-
est upon the steps of the cross. No fear is on thy brow;
no prayer breathes through thy lips : — thou art as thou
hast ever been : — alone in the universe !
He plants his swarthy feet deep in the sand, supporting
his bowed head upon his scathed breast, and asserts his
claims: "Immortal Enemy! He is surely mine! He
lived for vengeance, and he hafcd V. . om& !
"
But the Angel unfurling the rainbow of her wings and
shaking her curls of gold : " Lord ! He is mine ! for he
/oved Hellas ! "
The air grows sad and dark with this majestic struggle.
New agony awakes within thee. Thy life entire becomes
an expectation, a harrowing laceration. Infernal fires
burn at thy feet ; splendors of heavenly glory dazzle
thine eyes ; dark bands of s})irits drag thee toward the
abyss ; hosts of angels draw thee to the sky ; sometimes
a hope divine illumes thy soul ; it vanishes ! it flickers
like a dying spark ! it dies ! Then like a meteor it again
awakes, ex[)ires, and all grows dark, silent, and desolate
as in blank nothingness ; bitter and woeful, unendurable
as black despair; weak, doubting, wretched, as in grovel-
ing shame I
Dark hour of terror, destined for all who live, — begone !
Avert thy face from the Son of my Thought !
Father in Heaven ! If once Thou didst forsake Thine
own Son, it was that Thou mightst never more forsake a
single one of Thy poor finite children !
No, no. None of Thy works shall disappear forever !
Rise, son of Greece! Look up! Thine enemy buries
his face deep in his withered hands, and this old edifice
of men trembles with his vain struggles !
IRIDION.
453
And in the gathering mists of morn, his form, ever more
dark, more dim, fades slowly away ! His head supported
on the gates of the old amj^hitheatre, he writhes in agony;
while his voice dies away like ever-lessening sounds of
distant waters !
Metella testifies for thee ! Metella prays for thee !
And thou art saved, because thou lovedst Hellas !
Arise ! Dost thou not hear the Voice which breaks the
hush, the reverential silence of the spirits? Like light-
ning-flashes, it breaks through the shimmer of the dawn ;
and all the perfumes of the valley-flowers awake to greet
it!
"Go toward the North; go in the name of Christ!
Go ! and halt not until thou standest in the land of
graves and crosses: — thou wilt know it by the silence of
the warriors, and by the sadness of the little children !
Thou wilt know it by the burned and smoking cottage of
the poor, the ruined palace of the exile !
" Thou wilt know it by the moans of my pitying
angels, who pass over it by night !
" Go ! dwell with the new brethren I now give to thee !
In that sad land shall be thy second trial ! There, for the
second time, thou' It see the object of thy love transpierced
and ruined ; thou canst do nothing to avert the wrong,
nor canst thou die ! . . .
"The agonies of myriad souls shall incarnate them-
selves in thee !
"Go! and have faith in my name ! . . .
" Think not of thine own glory ! Only seek the good
of those I have intrusted to thee ! Be calm before the
pride, oppression, and contempt of the unjust !
"They all shall pass away ; but thou and my Word, ye
shall endure forever and forever !
"After a long, long martyrdom, then I will light My
golden Dawn above thee ! I will give thee that wliich I
have given to my angels through the centuries : Hai)pi-
39
454
IRIDION.
ness ! — That which I promised men from Golgotha:
Liberty !
" Go and act ! Act, though thy lieart be withering in
thy breast !
"Act, even when thou doubtest the Brothers I have
given thee !
"Act; shouldst thou doubt thyself, despair of aid from
Me!
" Act without ceasing and without repose ! Thou shalt
outlive the vain, the fortunate, the haughty, the illustri-
ous !
"And thou shalt rise again, not from the sterile sleepy
but from the work of centuries !
" Thou shalt become one of the free sons in My
Heavenly kingdom ! "
The sun rises upon the ruins of Rome !
And no one can say where are the traces of my
Thought !
But I know that it exists ! I know it lives !
NOTES TO IRIDION.
NOTES TO THE PROLOGUE.
1 The scene of Iridion is laid in the third century after Christ. The
Roman Empire was then in a state of disorganization, dissolution, and
approaching death. All that had once been its force and life was losing
form and lapsing into nothingness. Three widely-differing religious
systems stood face to fiice in the Eternal City : Classic Paganism, Barbar-
ism, and Christianity. Classic Paganism was, indeed, already lifeless,
pushed aside and trampled upon by the creeds of the East, yet like a
richly-adorned but still unburied corpse, though stiff and motionless, it
was still visible, and still held its place on earth. Christianity, as yet
without form or body, was persecuted and oppressed, but was notwith-
standing constantly increasing in numbers, combating all the symbolic
creeds of past ages, now pronouncing utter condemnation upon them,
and now reconciling, through the solvent power of its own higher truths,
all that was valuable in them with the eternal Reason.
Barbarism, shifting and restless as a stormy sea, brought with it its own
wild, rude, and melancholy myths, yet frequently forgot them in the lap
of Rome. Sometimes it was found fighting in the Roman legions ; some-
times, as in the northern provinces, it raged against Rome; it thronged
from all sides into Italy, either to supply her with mercenaries, or to con-
quer her. never attaining self-consciousness or knowledge, always blind
and reckless, but vivid and formidable as the powers of nature herself.
This Barbarism offered a glowing material to be cast into the mould ; to
form the Body of that Spirit already existing in the catacombs, — Chris-
tianity. The calm which preceded the great storm in which Rome van-
ished and became Christian Europe, was the last festival time of the
Caesars, while an indescribable wretchedness weighed upon the people
and slaves in every part of the empire. Material superfluity, or material
want, always causes mental silence, the utter suppression of the intellect,
whether with individuals or nations ; for on the highest step of sensuous
well-being, or the lowest grade of want, moral life is quiescent, and
human existence approaches that of the brute ; the moral and mental
essence seems to sleep that it may awake refreshed, and make itself more
fully heard. As the old world was rather a world of forms and numbers
than of free and independent movements of the soul, it was forced in its
convulsive death-throes to writhe and twist in the rigid moulds of its own
mjterialism : our world, on the contrary, is oppressed by mental super-
fluity.
2 The Fatum of the Romans, the uvuyKTj of the Greeks, was, according
to Hesiod, the son of Night and Chaos, and was that Necessity, Fatality,
455
456
NOTES ro tRIDION.
higher than al! the Gods and Spirits of Heaven and Hell. It was repre-
sented as an old man holdintr an urn in his hands, in which slumbered
the destiny of all mortals. This figure was symbolic, and principally
conceived of in an ideal sense; it signified the Divine Unity, the logical
sequence and final aim, the eternal reason and order, the Mathematics of
the Universe, which neither gods nor men were able to resist.
3 Under the rule of the Cassars, arose gradually a general equality of
all subjects in regard to their sovereigns ; the rights of citizenship, so
scantily distributed by the patricians, were at length granted to all the
provinces of the empire. Many of the emjjerors were from the provinces.
Trajan was a Spaniard, Heliogabalus a Syrian, Maximinus a Goth, etc.
Rome, full of the idea of conquering the world, and standing, as the
Almighty after creation, sole Lord of all, was forced by the press of cir-
cumstances to open her gates to the people both of the north and of the
south. Even her haughty egotism did not suffice to keep her in her iso-
lated position, although she always struggled to retain her individuality,
even while the conquered nations were gradually mingling with her, each
imparting its peculiar share, and taking in return its peculiar portion.
Grecian art and philosophy pressed first into the city ; the Greeks taught
the Romans, thus taking possession of the spiritual culture of Rome. In
this way was the fall of Rome brought about, for a coarse material ego-
tism is only powerful as long as it remains ntierly material. To awaken
a living spirit in it, is to destroy it. For the very essence of such a spirit
is to seek external development, and, sooner or later, through its strivings
for wider life and power, the material mass is broken asunder, and its
bonds ruptured. Oriental sagas, myths, customs, manners, and luxuries
also came to take and give their part in Rome. They exercised as much
influence over the people, as Greek art and philosophy over the senate
and patricians. The egotistic and exclusive type of the Eternal City was
destroyed in this way, and the visible consequences of these unseen
moral causes came, in after-times, fully to the light. Rome became
Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor; while Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor
were not Rome. Barbarians sat in the Roman senate ; all creeds and
laws mingled in this flux of nations; and in this disorganizing formation,
this heterogeneous culture, all the old Roman enactments and ordinances
fell to the ground ; the aristocracy disappeared, partly through the jeal-
ousy of the Cresars, and partly through the exhaustion of its own vital
powers. The emperors confiscated the property of the patricians, seized
their privileges, and constituted themselves their heirs. They held in their
own hands the rights of the priests, nobles, and people ; whatever they
deemed advantageous to their own interest to destroy, was at once de-
stroyed. They thus united in themselves the powers of those whom they
had ruined. But one thing they could not destroy, — the rco|)le over
whom they reigned. The people alone remained forever with them, and
as the material power was placed in the people, the existence of the em-
pire depended upon them, and the emperors were frequently forced to
bow to them, to flatter them with gifts and costly shows, with triumphs,
games, and festivals. Thus were People and Caesar the whole of Rome !
♦ Considered with regard to religion, the Germanic stem branched into
two leading divisions. Germania, as spoken of by Tacitus, in which the
Ruevi (Hermioncs) seem to have had the first rank, held the religion of
nature, worsliijjeil the elements, trees, waters, and the goddess Hertlia
(Earth). She was supposed to visit the earth at stated intervals, when
NOTES TO IRIDION. 457
her coming was celebrated with great rejoicing's ; she was brought in a
closely-covered carriage from the forests of the islands of the North Sea.
Different local ceremonies were practiced among the different hordes, and
their creeds were confused and uncertain. But stronger colors were im-
pressed upon this pale, vague canvas by the tribes dwelling still farther
north, unknown to the Romans. These northern people had already
made some progress, believing in the virtue of heroic though savage
courage ; they accepted some religious revelations deemed to have been
given them by their god, Odin. Odin of Iceland, where his worship
afterwards attained its fullest development, ruled the souls of men even
to the shores of the Rhine. The Goths, Sa. xons, Gepidas, Lombards,
Burgundians, were worshipers of Odin and believed in his incarnation,
in the sanctity and power of certain ceremonies, in immortality, and in
rewards to be conferred after death upon the brave in the Palace of Odin,
Valhalla; in a holy place upon earth, Asgard, whence their fathers came,
and to which, sooner or later, they were themselves to return. Their
courage and warlike energies sprang from these wild myths ; their whole
development centred round them. It was this creed which set in motion
the Germanic races then vegetating in lower Germania. They went from
Scandinavia as far as the coast of the Baltic Sea, turned toward the
Danube, and passed through the whole of Germany to the limits of the
empire. This incursion from the north generated an utter chaos in Ger-
mania, which afterwards passed on to Italy.
5 The catacombs are spacious vaults lying under the entire city as well
as under part of the Roman Campagna ; it has even been asserted that
they extend as far as the shore of the sea. They were used by the early
Romans as places of burial ; the bodies of slaves and of the poorer classes
who could not be placed upon funeral pyres were deposited there. They
were afterwards places of resort and refuge for the Christians during the
persecutions. They are still in a state of preservation in some parts of
their extent, and are in a measure accessible to visitors, though they are
much obstructed with ruins. They consist of numerous and apparently
almost interminable, low, narrow, dark passages, sometimes widening into
round or quadrilateral apartments. The walls are covered with tomb-
stones, and inscriptions to the memory of the martyrs, whose bones are
still e-Ycavated from these mysterious vaults.
NOTES TO ACT I.
' The Grecian women had not then attained the freedom of their Euro-
pean sisters ; Oriental manners still lingered among them, and they were
kept secluded in apartments called Gyneceum (from the word, ')v\-rt,
woman), which they never left before marriage.
= So was called the son of Varius Marcellus and Scemias, from the god
Halgah-Baal or Mithras, whose High-Priest he had been in Emessa,
before he became Emperor of Rome. The history of Heliogabalus is the
most significant exponent, and offers us the strongest proof, of the weak-
ness and degeneracy of the world at that time. He ascended the throne
at the age of fifteen, and was murdered by the preetorians when but
39*
458 NOTES TO IRIDION.
eighteen ; having exhausted in this short space of time all the enjoyments
which luxury and power could procure.
He had no youth, and was never young. He might indeed be called
the very personification of age. The influences of the past seemed to
have left a void in his soul which nothing ever sufficed to fill. Sensuality
and weariness were the two strongest traits of his character ; these are also
the traits of old age. Weariness of lite {ennui), is the martyrdom which
springs from the feeling of eternal emptiness, and from the unceasing but
fruitless efforts to escape from its torment. Voluptuous sensuality is the
work of the imagination striving to find something which will have the
power to awaken and rekindle the dead senses. Passion is always vigor-
ous, it is the synthesis, the poetry of the body ; sensuality, on the contrary,
is full of ingenuity and research ; it stretches forth to and embraces a
thousand details, it individualizes and separates ; it is analysis, prose.
Heliogabalus cannot be said to have gratified his passions, for he had
none to gratify; he had only the burning desire to have passions. He
sought throughout nature, in every part of his wide realm, in his whole
being, for the excitants, the sparks which might kindle a fire of whatsoever
character, to inflame, to warm, to stimulate the cold void in his own soul.
His whole life was spent in this restless and miserable struggle, and con-
sequently everything he did was only a caprice. Such a character and
position in a young man would be utterly inexplicable, were it not that
the fatal old age of the world in which he was born had cast its burden
of years upon him. Thus Heliogabalus was old through the world which
surrounded him, and young through his own youth ; and from this melan-
choly contrast sprang the eternal contradiction in which his life was passed :
eternal impotence and eternal desire !
This impotent old man, this self-warring, decaying, worn-out, and ex-
hausted child, was born in Syria, the land of magical myths and consuming
climates. His grandmother Moesa was the sister of Julia, the wife of
Septimius Severus. After the death of this emperor, his whole family,
robbed of their power and influence, were banished to Syria. Moesa had
two daughters, Scemias and Mammea ; Mamniea was the mother of Alexis,
afterwards famous under the name of Alexander Severus. Heliogabalus
had been from the fourteenth year of Iiis age High-Priest in the temple
at Emessa, dedicated to the worship of the great god, Halgah-Baal or
Mithras, who was the god of the Chaldeans, and with whom all the Ori-
ental and Egyptian myths were closely linked. He was the symbol of
the Sun, and was revered as the most famous among the gods, the Highest,
the One, and, so to speak, the Abstract Essence ; for this reason no image
was made of him ; a round black stone was his symbol. Other gods were
worshiped in this temple; Baal-Fegor, or the sun materialized, the
Power which quickened and lived in vegetation; Gad- Baal, or the sun
incorporated, from whom came the Oracles; Phirbe, Astarte Baalis, the
great goddess, the spouse of Halgah-Baal, or the moon lighted by the
sun, nature ciuicUened by the sim ; Baalis Benoth or Venus, and Baalis
Dercote or the Grecian Ajihrodite, both designating nature already in-
carnated, woman. The death and resurrection of Adonis were celebrated
in this temple ; a symbol of nature forsaken by the sun in winter and re-
vivified in the spring by his warming rays. Presents were sent to it from
every part of Asia. Its solemnities were celebrated with incredible
luxury, but with the most brutal licentiousness. In this vast temple of
phantasms, luxuries, and crimes, the soul of Heliogabalus received its first
lessons, its earliest development. His healthful energies, his free will,
NOTES TO I RID I ON. 459
were thus crushed at his very entrance into life by fantastic scenes and
creeds, into which there entered neither truth nor reality ; luxury enervated
his mind, and voluptuousness sated his soul; the effects of both were in-
creased by the influence of a stimulating and exciting climate. In accord-
ance with all the accounts given of him, he was exceedingly beautiful.
It was a general rumor that he was the son of Caracalla, by whom his
mother had been loved, and whose memory was idolized by the soldiers
of the legions. After the murder of Caracalla, Macrinus, the Prefect of
the praetorians, ruled Rome and the world, but his reign was without
strength. One of the legions, passing through Emessa, saw the young
Heliogabalus. His exceeding beauty, associated with the memory of his
father, struck the legionaries; and Moesa, who could not forget that her
sister had once been the foremost woman in Rome, struggled with all her
powers to advance the interests of her grandson. She took Heliogabalus
and Scemias secretly at night from the temple, and conducted them to the
camp of the legion. The son of Caracalla was there proclaimed Coesar,
and Ulpius Julius, who had been sent thither by Macrinus, was killed.
Heliogabalus, for the first and last tmie in his life, displayed considerable
courage in the struggle which then occurred. Macrinus fled on receiving
the intelligence of the death of his son, and, springing from his chariot,
broke his arm, when his head was stricken off and taken to Heliogabalus.
Then commenced the reign of Heliogabalus, and his unceasing efforts to
escape from ennui.
To escape from these haunting feelings of weariness, he caused Halgah-
Baal to be brought to Rome, and had all the other gods transported into
his sanctuary, as well as all the heroes who received worship ; he had
in his possession the Troian Palladium and the shield of Vesta and
Numa ; he amused himself by making of these gods proconsuls, officers,
and servants to Halgah-Baal ; of the goddesses, he made mistresses or
consorts; first he gave Baal the Athenian Pallas as wife, but afterwards
took her away from him, and gave him the Carthaginian Venus, whom he
suffered to remain consort.
To escape from feeling weary : he brought chariots from Sicily, flute-
players from ^-Egium, cooks from Elis, bakers from Athens; he covered
the ground with Lvdian tapestries, used incense and perfumes from Syria,
he sent for doves to Cyprus, for pearls to Lydia, for horses to the island
of Melos, for oysters to Pylos, for fish to the Hellespont, for crabs to
Minturncie, for pears to Eubosa, for plums to Damascus, for grapes to
Rhodes, for oranges to Persia, for cedars to Palmyra, for pomegranates
to . Antioch, for dates to Phoenicia, for almonds to Naxos, for wine to the
apple-perfumed Thasos and to Cyprus.
And to escape from weariness: he drove out with cainels, elephants,
and lions harnessed to his chariot; he clothed himself in long, graceful
garments, instead of the short tunic of the Romans; and in the interior
of the palace he wore, to the great ilisgust of the Romans, the diadem
upon his brow, although he did not venture to appear in public with it.
He wore cothurni richly adorned with precious stones. He never put
the same garment on twice, nor the saiue shoes nor rings; he bathed in
immense baths of marble, with saffron and the most costly perfumes in
the water which he used ; he slept upon a couch cf silver, covered with
cushions of partridge and swan's-down ; he drank from goblets of crystal,
amber, onyx, and gold. After each course of food, the wreaths were
changed for his brows ; at the first course they were of roses, at the second
of violets, at the third of myrtle, at the fourth of narcissus-flowers, at the
46o NOTES TO IRIDION.
fifth of ivy, at the sixth of roses and papyri mingled, and at the seventh
of tlie Alexandrian lotus.
And to escape from weariness: he had the combs torn from the heads
of cocks while they were still living, and the tongues from peacocks and
nightingales; he had the brains pressed out of partridges and thrushes,
and the heads twisted off pheasants, canary-birds, and parrots. When
he passed through the halls of the palace, or went into the garden, slaves
strewed roses and silver sand before him. At one time he ordered ten
thousand spiders to be brought to him ; at another, ten thousand mice ;
then ten thousand martens ; and again, ten thousand cats. At the closing
of the games he would throw adders and basilisks among the assembled
people. To his parasites he would send as presents costly vessels closely
soldered, filled with toads and scorpions. Sometimes he would invite
some among them to banquets, and the ceiling would suddenly open
above them, and roses, violets, and other flowers would be thrown down
upon thein ; at first they would stretch themselves out delightedly under
the fragrant sliower, but the rain did not cease, flowers upon flowers con-
tinued to fall, until the room was filled; and the next day weie dragged
forth the corpses of the unhaj^py men who had been stifled under the un-
ceasing fall of tulips, lilies, violets, and roses. He would often have
favorite lions and tigers brought into the hall, and delight himself with
the fear and anguish of the senators, consuls, and courtiers, who had been
invited to his banquet.
. \nd to escape from weariness : at a time when prizes were distributed
for horsemanship at the circus, he resolved to play the charioteer, and
caught and seized in his own royal person the pieces of silver thrown by
the spectators ; then he played the part of a simple musician. As his
father, Caracalla, had been a passionate admirer and imitator of Alexan-
der the Great, he selected as his model Nero, who, stabbing himself in
a grotto in the Roman Campagna, cried to his followers: " See how an
artist can die ! "
And to escape from weariness: he caused Pomponius Bassus to be
murdered, tore the young wife Irom the corpse on which she lay pros-
trate, bathing it with bitter tears, forced the outraged widow to his own
bed, and dismissed her at daybreak : — he being already hopelessly wearied !
'I'iien he hoped to find relief in the profanation of the pure and unsul-
lied vestals; as no one in all antiquity had ever before thought of seizing
upon one of these consecrated virgins, his idea had all the s[)ice of nov-
elty, having consequently the greater charm for him : he had tlie audacity
to tear away . A. quilia Sevcra herself from the sacred fire of Vesta, but dis-
missed her the following day, even more hopelessly wearied !
Then he directed nautical machines, and games at the circus upon
water, and upon seas of wine and absinthe. Mammoa, the sister of
Scemias, inherited a strong will, a keen intellect, and a soaring ambition
from her mother. Scemias had studied the old systems of magic, and w. as
familiar with all the Oriental symbols of immortality, but Mammea liad
adopted the idealism of Neo-platonism, and tlie creed of Christianity.
She indoctrinated her son. Alexander Severus, in these principles, and he
had in hissacrarium the statues of Pythagoras, Orplieus, Abraham, Apol-
lonius 'Ihyancus, and Jesus Christ. He lived upon milk, in its various
prep. irations, and fruit. 'wrote verses, and read Seneca, Virgil, and Cicero
unceasingly.
Mainmca persuaded her sister's son, Heliogabalus, that as High-Priest
of the Sun, it accorded better with his dignity to occupy himself with the
NOTES TO J RID ION. 461
supersensual, supernatural, and magical arts alone, and to leave earthly,
vain, and trifling things to Alexander. Hcliogabalus at first approved
of this counsel, and intVustcd the charge of his mundane affairs to Alexis,
naming him Alexander Severus, Ca;sar, and Consul. But thereupon
commenced a strife, at first secret, but afterwards public, in the imperial
palace.
Look ! . . . they are drops of blood ! . . .
Masinissa. 'Tis nothing, son !
Iridion. A wild storm gatliers out upon yon sea !
Who calls me there ? . . . up there ! . . . farther . . .
and ever farther !
Do you not hear that voice? Alas ! alas !
444
IRIDION.
Masijiissa. And now ?
Indian. Silence!
Masinissa. Together through eternity!
Together without end, repose, hope, love,
Until the Everlasting Vengeance be fulfilled !
Jridion. I swear ! Together for eternity
When Rome is ruined, earthly vengeance full !
Masinissa. Now all is finished ! Follow me, my son.
Iridion. Whither?
Masinissa. To a cool cave upon the shore,
Covered with clustering vines and wreaths of ivy.
No crimson morning ever breaks its gloom.
No moon, no stars, no echo from the living;
No pleasure, pain, nor dreams shall haunt thee there !
Thou shalt sleep on through coming centuries,
Unconscious till I come to waken thee,
The hour my kingdom's gates open for thee !
Iridion. I follow. Rome to me ! To you, my soul !
EPILOGUE.
Son of my Thought, long centuries have rolled over
thee! Thou slumberedst through the days of Alaric,
the days of Attila ; and neither the clangor of the impe-
rial crown on the rugged brow of Charlemagne, nor the
tumult of Rienzi, the Tribune of the peoj)le, availed to
waken thee ! And the Holy Masters of the Vatican
glided by thee, one after another, as shadows past a
shade !
Eut to- day thou wilt awaken. Son of my Thought !
In the Roman Campngna the sun only shines upon
wastes of desolation, and is now sinking sadly over the
deserted plains. The long shadows of evening are creep-
ing over the burnt Avormwood of the sands and the sway-
ing reeds of the swamps. And over the lonely pines of
the hills, the cypress-trees of the valleys, the star of the
IRIDION. 445
evening — a goddess for the men of the past — rises
mournfully, and tears of dew fall here and there beneath
her. The foaming waves still play upon the sea, illu-
mined by the sunset's bloody shimmer.
The silence of a stifling heat weighs on the air ; not a
cloud, not the lightest movement in the ether; and yet
the depths of the sea are strangely stirred ; the waves,
with full and purple breasts, utter wild plaints to Heaven.
For he who dwells in the Abyss ; he who once made
the solemn promise, rises from the boiling bosom of the
waters, and moves with feet far blacker than the night
over the surging bodies of his myriad slaves.
A sombre light streams from his form, as if a darker
crimson sun went down behind him ; shadowy clouds rise
from his arms, and roll over the distant waves.
He is alone, as centuries ago ; still bearing on his brow
his immortality of age.
When he attains the shore, the unburdened sea respires !
The tired waves fall into sleep in the fast deepening
twilight !
He leaves no traces of his path as he moves by the Sam-
nite hills and seeks the hidden grotto.
There, by the power of his spells, the sleeping life be-
gins to wake in thee, O Son of Vengeance !
The sentient sleeping at thy feet begins to move and
shiver. He seems already to divine the approach of his
master. The livid scales grow brighter, rise and fall ; as
he untwines his coils, sparks flash and glitter from them
o'er thy bed of marble. Uncoiled, he rises, stands erect;
and like a blazing torch, he waits ! By his strange light
are seen the black stones of thy couch, the cliff behind
thee, thy darkened features, my Hero !
The first faint dawn of life quivers across thy brow, like
ignes-fatui over graves; but from the threshold of the
cavern, and calling on thee by thy name, a solemn voice
intones the chant of resurrection. At every triplet of the
mystic song, renewed force of life returns to thee. A
38*
446 IRIDION.
consciousness of all the ages passed since thy long sleep
began is given tliee, as thou hadst lived them all, and,
like the history of a single day, thou seest unroll before
thine eyes the cruel torments Rome has suffered, and all
the triumphs of the Cross.
The whole Past lives before thee, as if in hues of flame.
The neighing of horses, and the noise of arms; the clash
of swords; rattling of armor; the chimes of bells and
chanting of calm hymns float on around thee, splendid
and vivid, as they, in their reality, had formerly swept
by above thee, during thy centuries of slumber. Dead
Bishops pass in long procession on before thee. And
preceding each of them is a monarch, bearing upon his
shoulders the open Book of the Holy Word. They cross
and recross the Seven Hills, up and down, and down and
up, moving in ceaseless course. Over some float groups
of angels in the air, throwing down crowns of palms;
while some move on in silence and alone, bearing in the
right hand the holy symbol of redemption, and in the
left the insignia of war.
And as the hour of thy awakening draws near and nearer
still, their train grows less and less; their bands fall off;
duller sound the footfalls; whiter and whitergrow the heads
of the Lords of Rome, and more tremulous their hands.
Then above all the varied chanting peals a voice of
wondrous power; a voice of fierce command which does
not reach the skies, but which the earth re-echoes from her
inmost depths ; and this voice cries : " My son 1"
Then on the surface of the lake, over its mossy banks,
under thy cavern's vault, a flash of lightning gleams, and
the thunder of renewed life reverberates through thy dor-
mant breast. And young and beautiful, such as thou wert
in centuries long past, thou risest from thy couch of
marble. Thy flashing eyes first meet pale Dian's face
above the Latine Hills ; thou sayest : " Lo ! I am ! "
He beckons with his hand and leads thee on . . .
but the footstejjs wake no echo, and the two forms glide
over dark ravines like two black clouds.
IRIDION. 447
Thou standest in the Campagna of Rome, and nothing
veils its shame from thy keen eyes. Like myriad golden
memories twinkle the stars, as myriad mocking smiles.
The black and stagnant aqueduct, once bearing its clear
water to the city, is broken, choked ; great blocks of stone
fallen from its walls lie round like rags of vestment, or form
in heaps like gravestones, funeral piles, o'ergrovvn with
trailing vines; winds thick with dust blow over them ; and
birds of prey and night flit round with melancholy cry !
The son of centuries gazes around him, and rejoices in
the justice of his vengeance. Each ruin seems to him a
recompense. He ponders o'er the widowed amphitheatre,
the orphaned temples. He shakes the dust from his feet
where once stood the circus of Caracalla, and o'er the
mausoleum of Cecilia, the wife of Crassus. His dreadful
leader guides him ever on ; up through the street of ancient
tombs to the gates of Rome. They open, but they grate
not on their hinges ; no rattling of bolts and bars is heard ;
they enter, but the sentinels seem all asleep, supported
on their arms. Like shadows they pass by the sleeping
shadows !
Through long and lonely temples, halls, they wind
their narrow way. " Night of my love ! My only night !
My last ! Thou shinest for me with all the brilliancy of
day ! Above each wreck thou tearest the veil of shadow,
and thou deliverest ruins, trembling and naked, to the
gaze of their worst foe! Thou, moon, pierce with thy
rays these mouldering buildings ! With thy white rays
of scorn, show me the wretched remnants of Rome's few
inhabitants ! "
Under the portico of the Basilica stand two old men,
invested with a purple mantle; some monks salute them by
the name of Princes of the Church and Holy Fathers, and
on their faces may be read poverty of spirit. They enter a
chariot drawn by a])air of black and meagre horses; behind
them is a servant with a lantern, such as is held by a poor
widow o'er a child dying with hunger. And on the panels
of this carriage still remain the marks of former gilding.
448 IRIDION.
Slowly vanish the creaking wheels; slowly disappear
the bent and hoary heads.
The fearful leader says : " They are the successors of
the haughty Csesars ! That is the chariot of the Fortune
of the Capitoline ! " The son of Greece looks on and claps
his hands in triumph !
And now they climb a slope, mount a broad stairway
over mutilated steps and prostrate pillars, and enter a
desert court. And in its midst is seen the equestrian
statue of Marcus Aurelius, still stretching out his hand
in empty space. Cresar without a subject! A conqueror
without triumphal pKans! and behind him appear in the
shadow the black walls of the Capitol.
Not far from the statue is the Tarpeian rock. With
the shattered stump of his sword the young man strikes
fiercely upon the brow of the best of the Csesars. Under
the blow of the Greek blade, the Roman bronze wails
like the toll of a death-knell. To this melancholy clang
only answer the piteous cries of the owl, watching from
the pinnacles of the castle, and the bowlings of the dogs
prowling through the ruins of some desert street,
Down steps covered with mud and crumbling sand,
they descend toward the Forum: it is the " F/a Sacra,'^
the route of the Conquerors!
The arch of Septimius Severus is buried breast-high in
earth; the columns of the Temple, sunk to their throats
in mouldy rottenness, lift their sad capitals above the soil,
like heads of the damned! Other wrecks remain stand-
ing, high and solitary, on mounds, glaring nakedly out in
the ghastly symmetry of skeletons. Their cajiilals, their
flowers, their acanthus-leaves, which in their snowy white-
ness used to glitter so pitilessly upon thee in the cen-
turies past, api)ear to thee now, O my hero, begrimed and
bristling like the unkempt locks on the brow of a con-
vict. 'l"he marble cracks, and breaks from their sides;
it disappears in dust and ashes, — and thou canst recog-
nize nothing, and name nothing, in the hour of thy
triumph !
IRIDION.
449
Under the remains of this portico, two wretched beggars
are asleep, wrapped in the rags of the same cloak. In the
pale light of the moon their faces gleam like monumental
marbles; a lizard glides over their entwining arms; it flies
before thee like a leaf in the wind of autumn. In them
thou greetest the last of the Roman People on the ruins
of the Forum ! Thou strikest them with thy foot, — but
they awake not !
Thy leader guides thee through a way bordered with
dying trees: there sleep the shadows of the Palatine : there
lie the battered breasts and broken limbs of heroes; there
headless gods and demigods of jasper and of porphyry
strew the ground, rolling together in the dust! Thou
passest through the broken arch of Titus, gaping like a
great wound into the empty, desolate space beyond.
Here it seems to thee, just risen from the sleep of centuries,
that the Coliseum still stands entire: — but the terrible one
takes thy hand — and laughs convulsively !
And 'midst the deadly silence of the arena, on its silver
sands, under its long arcades with broken arches, like
formless rocks with ivy growing on their tops and gashes
through their hearts, — thou thankest Fatum for the com-
plete abasement of the seven-hilled city!
And here must end thy pilgrimage!
From the arena's sands thou art to go where millions
upon millions have before thee gone !
All that thou hadst once seen, all in which thou hadst
thyself borne a part, returns to thy remembrance. There
stood the throne of Caesar; there suffered Elsinoe; there
writhed Heliogabalus ; there conquered Alexander. Con-
tests, struggles, blood, curses, mingling with trumpets,
flutes, roll on before thee. But there is no sunshine now,
and no velarium,* whose purple folds floated about the
circus, now shades the hill of Livius. The moon alone
*Durin<:j the games in the amphitheatre, an awning called the Vela-
rium was thrown across its whole length and breadth, to shelter the
spectator from the rays of the sun.
45°
IRIDION.
shines coldly down upon the throng of the moving, acting,
vanishing phantoms which glide before thee.
Of all these varying sounds the accents of a hymn alone
swell on thy ear; thou didst hear it formerly; this for-
merly was yesterday ; yesterday died the Nazarenes within
this amphitheatre, their faces calm as an eve in summer.
And where they fell stands now a cross: — a black and
silent cross in the midst of the arena. Thy leader turns
away his dark and stormful face from its peaceful shadow.
A wondrous feeling now awakes in thee. Not pity for
lost Rome; her desolation equals not her crimes. Nor is
it dread of the destiny which thou hast chosen ; for thou
hast suffered far too deeply to know fear. Nor is it a
regret to leave thy mother Earth; in thy long sleep of
centuries, thou hast forgotten all the love of life. But a
virgin's tender face, full of melancholy sadness, floats o'er
the cross, — that cross once scorned by thee, because thou
couldst not sharpen it to steel, and make of it an arm of
vengeance.
And now thou hast no wish to fight against it. It seems
to thee, that like thyself, it, too, is weary. Its fate appears
to thee as sad as that of thy loved Hellas.
And under the rays of the moon, thou hast felt that it
is Holy for evermore !
However, thou hast no desire to escape from thy sworn
faith. Thou risest and walkest to the old man of the
Desert. He shudders, for he reads the secrets of thy soul.
He throws his long arms round thee, and clasps thee in
their gloomy circle; he tears thee step by step away from
the sign of man's redemption ; and thou followest him
slowly on, as once thy father followed him.
But thou, my hero! strong and benutiful, with thy dark
tunic wrajijicd around thee, and thy Greek co/Iiunii on thy
feet, — thou sto|)pest ; — thine arms stretched towards the
sky, thy being vibrates witli a sudden as|)iration, like rapid,
powerful music, harmonizing in its own unity a thousand
wandering tones: — an aspiration in itself uniting the thou-
IRIDION.
451
sand voices of thy soul ! . . . And all the ruins of the
Corinthian capitals, the acanthus-leaves, seem to sigh with
thee, Iridion!
" My son, the time is here. Thou hast drained to the
dregs the drink the centuries prepared for thee and poured
into thy life-cup. The time has come ! The crimson
dawn is nigh, our way is long, and we must enter on a
darker path ! "
Moans are heard issuing from the earth ; it seems as if
the bones of those who have sealed their faith in blood
awake from sleep. Sighs fill the air; the souls faithful to
Christ appear to float on through space. Then, o'er the
summits of the amphitheatre, above all the plaintive
voices, resounds a chant full of glory 1
And in the air a form reveals itself of dazzling white-
ness and transparent splendor; and round this form floats
the charity of the celestials; sometimes the rays like flut-
tering pennons twine and intertwine, then sunder to ex-
pand in the white moonlight into two still, outstretched
angel-wings.
Thou raisest thine eyes to gaze upon that calm face ;
thou recognizest features once known to thee, but fresh-
ened by celestial dew, and luminous with the breath of
Heaven. Thou gazest into it, and, in bidding it adieu,
it seems to thee that thou art bidding farewell forever to
all beauty.
A Voice calls the old man of the Desert back before
the cross, to await a judgment not yet decided. Humbled
by that voice, he covers his withered brows with his hands
as the angels chant their hymn of love, and turns his dark
face toward the gates of the arena. He seizes thy hand,
gnashes his teeth and mutters: "Damned! Damned!
Who can tear him froni me? "
And now at the foot of the symbol of redemption, as
the first crimson of dawn flushes the sky, and tlie moon
sinks behind the amphitheatre, while the whole arena
452
IRIDION.
glitters with the brilliancy of the wings of the angel, be-
gins the music of an invisible choir, and commences the
last, the supreme combat which is to decide thy eternal
destiny !
Above thy Tempter, and below thy Angel, thou stand-
est upon the steps of the cross. No fear is on thy brow;
no prayer breathes through thy lips : — thou art as thou
hast ever been : — alone in the universe !
He plants his swarthy feet deep in the sand, supporting
his bowed head upon his scathed breast, and asserts his
claims: "Immortal Enemy! He is surely mine! He
lived for vengeance, and he hafcd V. . om& !
"
But the Angel unfurling the rainbow of her wings and
shaking her curls of gold : " Lord ! He is mine ! for he
/oved Hellas ! "
The air grows sad and dark with this majestic struggle.
New agony awakes within thee. Thy life entire becomes
an expectation, a harrowing laceration. Infernal fires
burn at thy feet ; splendors of heavenly glory dazzle
thine eyes ; dark bands of s})irits drag thee toward the
abyss ; hosts of angels draw thee to the sky ; sometimes
a hope divine illumes thy soul ; it vanishes ! it flickers
like a dying spark ! it dies ! Then like a meteor it again
awakes, ex[)ires, and all grows dark, silent, and desolate
as in blank nothingness ; bitter and woeful, unendurable
as black despair; weak, doubting, wretched, as in grovel-
ing shame I
Dark hour of terror, destined for all who live, — begone !
Avert thy face from the Son of my Thought !
Father in Heaven ! If once Thou didst forsake Thine
own Son, it was that Thou mightst never more forsake a
single one of Thy poor finite children !
No, no. None of Thy works shall disappear forever !
Rise, son of Greece! Look up! Thine enemy buries
his face deep in his withered hands, and this old edifice
of men trembles with his vain struggles !
IRIDION.
453
And in the gathering mists of morn, his form, ever more
dark, more dim, fades slowly away ! His head supported
on the gates of the old amj^hitheatre, he writhes in agony;
while his voice dies away like ever-lessening sounds of
distant waters !
Metella testifies for thee ! Metella prays for thee !
And thou art saved, because thou lovedst Hellas !
Arise ! Dost thou not hear the Voice which breaks the
hush, the reverential silence of the spirits? Like light-
ning-flashes, it breaks through the shimmer of the dawn ;
and all the perfumes of the valley-flowers awake to greet
it!
"Go toward the North; go in the name of Christ!
Go ! and halt not until thou standest in the land of
graves and crosses: — thou wilt know it by the silence of
the warriors, and by the sadness of the little children !
Thou wilt know it by the burned and smoking cottage of
the poor, the ruined palace of the exile !
" Thou wilt know it by the moans of my pitying
angels, who pass over it by night !
" Go ! dwell with the new brethren I now give to thee !
In that sad land shall be thy second trial ! There, for the
second time, thou' It see the object of thy love transpierced
and ruined ; thou canst do nothing to avert the wrong,
nor canst thou die ! . . .
"The agonies of myriad souls shall incarnate them-
selves in thee !
"Go! and have faith in my name ! . . .
" Think not of thine own glory ! Only seek the good
of those I have intrusted to thee ! Be calm before the
pride, oppression, and contempt of the unjust !
"They all shall pass away ; but thou and my Word, ye
shall endure forever and forever !
"After a long, long martyrdom, then I will light My
golden Dawn above thee ! I will give thee that wliich I
have given to my angels through the centuries : Hai)pi-
39
454
IRIDION.
ness ! — That which I promised men from Golgotha:
Liberty !
" Go and act ! Act, though thy lieart be withering in
thy breast !
"Act, even when thou doubtest the Brothers I have
given thee !
"Act; shouldst thou doubt thyself, despair of aid from
Me!
" Act without ceasing and without repose ! Thou shalt
outlive the vain, the fortunate, the haughty, the illustri-
ous !
"And thou shalt rise again, not from the sterile sleepy
but from the work of centuries !
" Thou shalt become one of the free sons in My
Heavenly kingdom ! "
The sun rises upon the ruins of Rome !
And no one can say where are the traces of my
Thought !
But I know that it exists ! I know it lives !
NOTES TO IRIDION.
NOTES TO THE PROLOGUE.
1 The scene of Iridion is laid in the third century after Christ. The
Roman Empire was then in a state of disorganization, dissolution, and
approaching death. All that had once been its force and life was losing
form and lapsing into nothingness. Three widely-differing religious
systems stood face to fiice in the Eternal City : Classic Paganism, Barbar-
ism, and Christianity. Classic Paganism was, indeed, already lifeless,
pushed aside and trampled upon by the creeds of the East, yet like a
richly-adorned but still unburied corpse, though stiff and motionless, it
was still visible, and still held its place on earth. Christianity, as yet
without form or body, was persecuted and oppressed, but was notwith-
standing constantly increasing in numbers, combating all the symbolic
creeds of past ages, now pronouncing utter condemnation upon them,
and now reconciling, through the solvent power of its own higher truths,
all that was valuable in them with the eternal Reason.
Barbarism, shifting and restless as a stormy sea, brought with it its own
wild, rude, and melancholy myths, yet frequently forgot them in the lap
of Rome. Sometimes it was found fighting in the Roman legions ; some-
times, as in the northern provinces, it raged against Rome; it thronged
from all sides into Italy, either to supply her with mercenaries, or to con-
quer her. never attaining self-consciousness or knowledge, always blind
and reckless, but vivid and formidable as the powers of nature herself.
This Barbarism offered a glowing material to be cast into the mould ; to
form the Body of that Spirit already existing in the catacombs, — Chris-
tianity. The calm which preceded the great storm in which Rome van-
ished and became Christian Europe, was the last festival time of the
Caesars, while an indescribable wretchedness weighed upon the people
and slaves in every part of the empire. Material superfluity, or material
want, always causes mental silence, the utter suppression of the intellect,
whether with individuals or nations ; for on the highest step of sensuous
well-being, or the lowest grade of want, moral life is quiescent, and
human existence approaches that of the brute ; the moral and mental
essence seems to sleep that it may awake refreshed, and make itself more
fully heard. As the old world was rather a world of forms and numbers
than of free and independent movements of the soul, it was forced in its
convulsive death-throes to writhe and twist in the rigid moulds of its own
mjterialism : our world, on the contrary, is oppressed by mental super-
fluity.
2 The Fatum of the Romans, the uvuyKTj of the Greeks, was, according
to Hesiod, the son of Night and Chaos, and was that Necessity, Fatality,
455
456
NOTES ro tRIDION.
higher than al! the Gods and Spirits of Heaven and Hell. It was repre-
sented as an old man holdintr an urn in his hands, in which slumbered
the destiny of all mortals. This figure was symbolic, and principally
conceived of in an ideal sense; it signified the Divine Unity, the logical
sequence and final aim, the eternal reason and order, the Mathematics of
the Universe, which neither gods nor men were able to resist.
3 Under the rule of the Cassars, arose gradually a general equality of
all subjects in regard to their sovereigns ; the rights of citizenship, so
scantily distributed by the patricians, were at length granted to all the
provinces of the empire. Many of the emjjerors were from the provinces.
Trajan was a Spaniard, Heliogabalus a Syrian, Maximinus a Goth, etc.
Rome, full of the idea of conquering the world, and standing, as the
Almighty after creation, sole Lord of all, was forced by the press of cir-
cumstances to open her gates to the people both of the north and of the
south. Even her haughty egotism did not suffice to keep her in her iso-
lated position, although she always struggled to retain her individuality,
even while the conquered nations were gradually mingling with her, each
imparting its peculiar share, and taking in return its peculiar portion.
Grecian art and philosophy pressed first into the city ; the Greeks taught
the Romans, thus taking possession of the spiritual culture of Rome. In
this way was the fall of Rome brought about, for a coarse material ego-
tism is only powerful as long as it remains ntierly material. To awaken
a living spirit in it, is to destroy it. For the very essence of such a spirit
is to seek external development, and, sooner or later, through its strivings
for wider life and power, the material mass is broken asunder, and its
bonds ruptured. Oriental sagas, myths, customs, manners, and luxuries
also came to take and give their part in Rome. They exercised as much
influence over the people, as Greek art and philosophy over the senate
and patricians. The egotistic and exclusive type of the Eternal City was
destroyed in this way, and the visible consequences of these unseen
moral causes came, in after-times, fully to the light. Rome became
Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor; while Greece, Egypt, and Asia Minor
were not Rome. Barbarians sat in the Roman senate ; all creeds and
laws mingled in this flux of nations; and in this disorganizing formation,
this heterogeneous culture, all the old Roman enactments and ordinances
fell to the ground ; the aristocracy disappeared, partly through the jeal-
ousy of the Cresars, and partly through the exhaustion of its own vital
powers. The emperors confiscated the property of the patricians, seized
their privileges, and constituted themselves their heirs. They held in their
own hands the rights of the priests, nobles, and people ; whatever they
deemed advantageous to their own interest to destroy, was at once de-
stroyed. They thus united in themselves the powers of those whom they
had ruined. But one thing they could not destroy, — the rco|)le over
whom they reigned. The people alone remained forever with them, and
as the material power was placed in the people, the existence of the em-
pire depended upon them, and the emperors were frequently forced to
bow to them, to flatter them with gifts and costly shows, with triumphs,
games, and festivals. Thus were People and Caesar the whole of Rome !
♦ Considered with regard to religion, the Germanic stem branched into
two leading divisions. Germania, as spoken of by Tacitus, in which the
Ruevi (Hermioncs) seem to have had the first rank, held the religion of
nature, worsliijjeil the elements, trees, waters, and the goddess Hertlia
(Earth). She was supposed to visit the earth at stated intervals, when
NOTES TO IRIDION. 457
her coming was celebrated with great rejoicing's ; she was brought in a
closely-covered carriage from the forests of the islands of the North Sea.
Different local ceremonies were practiced among the different hordes, and
their creeds were confused and uncertain. But stronger colors were im-
pressed upon this pale, vague canvas by the tribes dwelling still farther
north, unknown to the Romans. These northern people had already
made some progress, believing in the virtue of heroic though savage
courage ; they accepted some religious revelations deemed to have been
given them by their god, Odin. Odin of Iceland, where his worship
afterwards attained its fullest development, ruled the souls of men even
to the shores of the Rhine. The Goths, Sa. xons, Gepidas, Lombards,
Burgundians, were worshipers of Odin and believed in his incarnation,
in the sanctity and power of certain ceremonies, in immortality, and in
rewards to be conferred after death upon the brave in the Palace of Odin,
Valhalla; in a holy place upon earth, Asgard, whence their fathers came,
and to which, sooner or later, they were themselves to return. Their
courage and warlike energies sprang from these wild myths ; their whole
development centred round them. It was this creed which set in motion
the Germanic races then vegetating in lower Germania. They went from
Scandinavia as far as the coast of the Baltic Sea, turned toward the
Danube, and passed through the whole of Germany to the limits of the
empire. This incursion from the north generated an utter chaos in Ger-
mania, which afterwards passed on to Italy.
5 The catacombs are spacious vaults lying under the entire city as well
as under part of the Roman Campagna ; it has even been asserted that
they extend as far as the shore of the sea. They were used by the early
Romans as places of burial ; the bodies of slaves and of the poorer classes
who could not be placed upon funeral pyres were deposited there. They
were afterwards places of resort and refuge for the Christians during the
persecutions. They are still in a state of preservation in some parts of
their extent, and are in a measure accessible to visitors, though they are
much obstructed with ruins. They consist of numerous and apparently
almost interminable, low, narrow, dark passages, sometimes widening into
round or quadrilateral apartments. The walls are covered with tomb-
stones, and inscriptions to the memory of the martyrs, whose bones are
still e-Ycavated from these mysterious vaults.
NOTES TO ACT I.
' The Grecian women had not then attained the freedom of their Euro-
pean sisters ; Oriental manners still lingered among them, and they were
kept secluded in apartments called Gyneceum (from the word, ')v\-rt,
woman), which they never left before marriage.
= So was called the son of Varius Marcellus and Scemias, from the god
Halgah-Baal or Mithras, whose High-Priest he had been in Emessa,
before he became Emperor of Rome. The history of Heliogabalus is the
most significant exponent, and offers us the strongest proof, of the weak-
ness and degeneracy of the world at that time. He ascended the throne
at the age of fifteen, and was murdered by the preetorians when but
39*
458 NOTES TO IRIDION.
eighteen ; having exhausted in this short space of time all the enjoyments
which luxury and power could procure.
He had no youth, and was never young. He might indeed be called
the very personification of age. The influences of the past seemed to
have left a void in his soul which nothing ever sufficed to fill. Sensuality
and weariness were the two strongest traits of his character ; these are also
the traits of old age. Weariness of lite {ennui), is the martyrdom which
springs from the feeling of eternal emptiness, and from the unceasing but
fruitless efforts to escape from its torment. Voluptuous sensuality is the
work of the imagination striving to find something which will have the
power to awaken and rekindle the dead senses. Passion is always vigor-
ous, it is the synthesis, the poetry of the body ; sensuality, on the contrary,
is full of ingenuity and research ; it stretches forth to and embraces a
thousand details, it individualizes and separates ; it is analysis, prose.
Heliogabalus cannot be said to have gratified his passions, for he had
none to gratify; he had only the burning desire to have passions. He
sought throughout nature, in every part of his wide realm, in his whole
being, for the excitants, the sparks which might kindle a fire of whatsoever
character, to inflame, to warm, to stimulate the cold void in his own soul.
His whole life was spent in this restless and miserable struggle, and con-
sequently everything he did was only a caprice. Such a character and
position in a young man would be utterly inexplicable, were it not that
the fatal old age of the world in which he was born had cast its burden
of years upon him. Thus Heliogabalus was old through the world which
surrounded him, and young through his own youth ; and from this melan-
choly contrast sprang the eternal contradiction in which his life was passed :
eternal impotence and eternal desire !
This impotent old man, this self-warring, decaying, worn-out, and ex-
hausted child, was born in Syria, the land of magical myths and consuming
climates. His grandmother Moesa was the sister of Julia, the wife of
Septimius Severus. After the death of this emperor, his whole family,
robbed of their power and influence, were banished to Syria. Moesa had
two daughters, Scemias and Mammea ; Mamniea was the mother of Alexis,
afterwards famous under the name of Alexander Severus. Heliogabalus
had been from the fourteenth year of Iiis age High-Priest in the temple
at Emessa, dedicated to the worship of the great god, Halgah-Baal or
Mithras, who was the god of the Chaldeans, and with whom all the Ori-
ental and Egyptian myths were closely linked. He was the symbol of
the Sun, and was revered as the most famous among the gods, the Highest,
the One, and, so to speak, the Abstract Essence ; for this reason no image
was made of him ; a round black stone was his symbol. Other gods were
worshiped in this temple; Baal-Fegor, or the sun materialized, the
Power which quickened and lived in vegetation; Gad- Baal, or the sun
incorporated, from whom came the Oracles; Phirbe, Astarte Baalis, the
great goddess, the spouse of Halgah-Baal, or the moon lighted by the
sun, nature ciuicUened by the sim ; Baalis Benoth or Venus, and Baalis
Dercote or the Grecian Ajihrodite, both designating nature already in-
carnated, woman. The death and resurrection of Adonis were celebrated
in this temple ; a symbol of nature forsaken by the sun in winter and re-
vivified in the spring by his warming rays. Presents were sent to it from
every part of Asia. Its solemnities were celebrated with incredible
luxury, but with the most brutal licentiousness. In this vast temple of
phantasms, luxuries, and crimes, the soul of Heliogabalus received its first
lessons, its earliest development. His healthful energies, his free will,
NOTES TO I RID I ON. 459
were thus crushed at his very entrance into life by fantastic scenes and
creeds, into which there entered neither truth nor reality ; luxury enervated
his mind, and voluptuousness sated his soul; the effects of both were in-
creased by the influence of a stimulating and exciting climate. In accord-
ance with all the accounts given of him, he was exceedingly beautiful.
It was a general rumor that he was the son of Caracalla, by whom his
mother had been loved, and whose memory was idolized by the soldiers
of the legions. After the murder of Caracalla, Macrinus, the Prefect of
the praetorians, ruled Rome and the world, but his reign was without
strength. One of the legions, passing through Emessa, saw the young
Heliogabalus. His exceeding beauty, associated with the memory of his
father, struck the legionaries; and Moesa, who could not forget that her
sister had once been the foremost woman in Rome, struggled with all her
powers to advance the interests of her grandson. She took Heliogabalus
and Scemias secretly at night from the temple, and conducted them to the
camp of the legion. The son of Caracalla was there proclaimed Coesar,
and Ulpius Julius, who had been sent thither by Macrinus, was killed.
Heliogabalus, for the first and last tmie in his life, displayed considerable
courage in the struggle which then occurred. Macrinus fled on receiving
the intelligence of the death of his son, and, springing from his chariot,
broke his arm, when his head was stricken off and taken to Heliogabalus.
Then commenced the reign of Heliogabalus, and his unceasing efforts to
escape from ennui.
To escape from these haunting feelings of weariness, he caused Halgah-
Baal to be brought to Rome, and had all the other gods transported into
his sanctuary, as well as all the heroes who received worship ; he had
in his possession the Troian Palladium and the shield of Vesta and
Numa ; he amused himself by making of these gods proconsuls, officers,
and servants to Halgah-Baal ; of the goddesses, he made mistresses or
consorts; first he gave Baal the Athenian Pallas as wife, but afterwards
took her away from him, and gave him the Carthaginian Venus, whom he
suffered to remain consort.
To escape from feeling weary : he brought chariots from Sicily, flute-
players from ^-Egium, cooks from Elis, bakers from Athens; he covered
the ground with Lvdian tapestries, used incense and perfumes from Syria,
he sent for doves to Cyprus, for pearls to Lydia, for horses to the island
of Melos, for oysters to Pylos, for fish to the Hellespont, for crabs to
Minturncie, for pears to Eubosa, for plums to Damascus, for grapes to
Rhodes, for oranges to Persia, for cedars to Palmyra, for pomegranates
to . Antioch, for dates to Phoenicia, for almonds to Naxos, for wine to the
apple-perfumed Thasos and to Cyprus.
And to escape from weariness: he drove out with cainels, elephants,
and lions harnessed to his chariot; he clothed himself in long, graceful
garments, instead of the short tunic of the Romans; and in the interior
of the palace he wore, to the great ilisgust of the Romans, the diadem
upon his brow, although he did not venture to appear in public with it.
He wore cothurni richly adorned with precious stones. He never put
the same garment on twice, nor the saiue shoes nor rings; he bathed in
immense baths of marble, with saffron and the most costly perfumes in
the water which he used ; he slept upon a couch cf silver, covered with
cushions of partridge and swan's-down ; he drank from goblets of crystal,
amber, onyx, and gold. After each course of food, the wreaths were
changed for his brows ; at the first course they were of roses, at the second
of violets, at the third of myrtle, at the fourth of narcissus-flowers, at the
46o NOTES TO IRIDION.
fifth of ivy, at the sixth of roses and papyri mingled, and at the seventh
of tlie Alexandrian lotus.
And to escape from weariness: he had the combs torn from the heads
of cocks while they were still living, and the tongues from peacocks and
nightingales; he had the brains pressed out of partridges and thrushes,
and the heads twisted off pheasants, canary-birds, and parrots. When
he passed through the halls of the palace, or went into the garden, slaves
strewed roses and silver sand before him. At one time he ordered ten
thousand spiders to be brought to him ; at another, ten thousand mice ;
then ten thousand martens ; and again, ten thousand cats. At the closing
of the games he would throw adders and basilisks among the assembled
people. To his parasites he would send as presents costly vessels closely
soldered, filled with toads and scorpions. Sometimes he would invite
some among them to banquets, and the ceiling would suddenly open
above them, and roses, violets, and other flowers would be thrown down
upon thein ; at first they would stretch themselves out delightedly under
the fragrant sliower, but the rain did not cease, flowers upon flowers con-
tinued to fall, until the room was filled; and the next day weie dragged
forth the corpses of the unhaj^py men who had been stifled under the un-
ceasing fall of tulips, lilies, violets, and roses. He would often have
favorite lions and tigers brought into the hall, and delight himself with
the fear and anguish of the senators, consuls, and courtiers, who had been
invited to his banquet.
. \nd to escape from weariness : at a time when prizes were distributed
for horsemanship at the circus, he resolved to play the charioteer, and
caught and seized in his own royal person the pieces of silver thrown by
the spectators ; then he played the part of a simple musician. As his
father, Caracalla, had been a passionate admirer and imitator of Alexan-
der the Great, he selected as his model Nero, who, stabbing himself in
a grotto in the Roman Campagna, cried to his followers: " See how an
artist can die ! "
And to escape from weariness: he caused Pomponius Bassus to be
murdered, tore the young wife Irom the corpse on which she lay pros-
trate, bathing it with bitter tears, forced the outraged widow to his own
bed, and dismissed her at daybreak : — he being already hopelessly wearied !
'I'iien he hoped to find relief in the profanation of the pure and unsul-
lied vestals; as no one in all antiquity had ever before thought of seizing
upon one of these consecrated virgins, his idea had all the s[)ice of nov-
elty, having consequently the greater charm for him : he had tlie audacity
to tear away . A. quilia Sevcra herself from the sacred fire of Vesta, but dis-
missed her the following day, even more hopelessly wearied !
Then he directed nautical machines, and games at the circus upon
water, and upon seas of wine and absinthe. Mammoa, the sister of
Scemias, inherited a strong will, a keen intellect, and a soaring ambition
from her mother. Scemias had studied the old systems of magic, and w. as
familiar with all the Oriental symbols of immortality, but Mammea liad
adopted the idealism of Neo-platonism, and tlie creed of Christianity.
She indoctrinated her son. Alexander Severus, in these principles, and he
had in hissacrarium the statues of Pythagoras, Orplieus, Abraham, Apol-
lonius 'Ihyancus, and Jesus Christ. He lived upon milk, in its various
prep. irations, and fruit. 'wrote verses, and read Seneca, Virgil, and Cicero
unceasingly.
Mainmca persuaded her sister's son, Heliogabalus, that as High-Priest
of the Sun, it accorded better with his dignity to occupy himself with the
NOTES TO J RID ION. 461
supersensual, supernatural, and magical arts alone, and to leave earthly,
vain, and trifling things to Alexander. Hcliogabalus at first approved
of this counsel, and intVustcd the charge of his mundane affairs to Alexis,
naming him Alexander Severus, Ca;sar, and Consul. But thereupon
commenced a strife, at first secret, but afterwards public, in the imperial
palace.
