Ahasuerus

by Edgar Quinet

  THE STAR

  No, he is not there.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Now, here is a noisy city that has painted walls like a sash around its hips. Its columns are less weighty to bear than our scepters in our hands. Seated on multicolored horse-coats, agas and sheikhs are riding out of the gates with a pack of greyhounds. Its guards are signaling to us with silver pikes. To salute us on their thresholds, its women stand up straight, more lavishly perfumed than the lemon-trees in the hedge. The keys to the gate are brought to us by two cup-bearers, on a silver plate. Toward sunset, a date-palm planted there donates its sheet of shadow; a wood-pigeon nourished there brings its messages of war around its neck. Without saying anything, the amorous sea has rolled under its windows during the night, to cradle it while it sleeps, with its rumbling walls, its panting people and its towers drawing breath, in its giant arms. Is the palace we seek not there, we wonder?

  THE STAR

  Not yet.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Now we are entering the gate of Herod’s kingdom. Over there, in the distance, is his city, which has climbed on to its hill in order to see us coming from further away. It has climbed up its highest stairway like a messenger in search of news. Like a diviner tearing his cloak, it has shredded its walls. Its towers and ruined turrets are lying on their sides and will not get up again. Absinthe has climbed through its windows in order to discover its secret: the crane has alighted on its roof to ask for news, and the evening wind is crying through the gap under its door: “Come on, Jerusalem; prophesy for me!”

  THE STAR

  Pass by quickly. He is not here.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  It’s at the end of the earth, then, that the castle of this king’s son is built? The cities and villages of Moors and Indians, the columns and the colonnades, the pyramids and the minarets, the tombs of kings under the palm trees, and the peoples in the sand are the porticos that lead to his pagoda; the gods on the road are his messengers; the temples of granite and African stone are for his squires, and those of polished marble in the isle of Candia are good for his cupbearers; he desires only ever to sleep beneath a roof of rubies.

  THE STAR

  Whip your mules; we’re nearly there.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Beautiful star, what are you thinking? Have you gone astray? The palaces and cities are far away. The path is damaging our wheels. No more women in the doorways, no more silver pikes, no more baldaquins or caravanserais, no more guitar-players or zither-players in the streets, no more carpet beneath our mules’ hooves. There is nothing to be seen but a thatched cottage with little birds on the roof. The staircase is crumbling, the rail worn; shepherds tremble as they go up it. Let’s go back; truly, this is not a road of kings.

  THE STAR

  Kneel, kings. Here it is.

  X.

  THE LITTLE BIRDS ON THE ROOF, to Christ

  1.

  Wake up, beautiful little infant. We are the same age as you. Our down-feathers serve as an aureole over our heads. Our father and mother have brought us to you. How high the sky is! Oh, how large the earth is! Oh, how well-built the cities are! Truly, our bed of moss and white linen washed in the spring was nothing compared to their walls. Open your eyelids, beautiful little infant; wake up. It is for you that we are singing our song. Come and see, at your door, how the sun is rising, and how beautiful the world is becoming! Come and see how green the olives are, when they ripen in the Garden of Olives, how Calvary smiles in looking down at you from the height of its summit!

  2.

  Kings! Kings! Come and see! Here are three mage-kings on their knees, taking off their golden spurs! All in silver robes! All in scarlet cloaks! All in multicolored turbans! Their carts travel as rapidly on their wheels as we do on our wings. Their diadems weigh them down as much as our crests of dew. Oh, how far away their kingdoms are, how great their age and their wisdom too! Never has our father, when he has returned from the fields, brought diamonds back on the blades of morning grass as shiny as the gifts that they have brought you in their cassolettes.

  CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS

  If it’s us you’re talking about, we’re not mages and we’re not kings. The presents we’ve brought are an otter-fur, a cord necklace, a hazel-wood cross and a clasp of carved wood. Our coffers are empty, our slave-wages haven’t been paid; we haven’t been able to buy silk or jewelry in the city.

  There, good laborer on your bed of straw; come to labor in our glebe.

  Gentle harvester, get up to carry away your sheaf of peoples on your back.

  Little vine-grower asleep in your manger, get dressed quickly to gather from your vines the grapes of the world, which the sun has ripened.

  Handsome cowherd, in your stable, take your bagpipe from your neck and your cattle-prod, to drive before you the stars and the idle kings who dawdle on the road.

  THE ANGEL RACHEL

  1.

  My viol, which you father has given me, has three silver strings. The first is for him, in the clouds, the second is for your mother, beneath her veil, the third is to sing you a carol in your manger. Dream your dream while listening to my viol; dream sweetly that your stable is a golden ship, that your manger is made of diamond, that your roof is built with the stones of the sky. Don’t weep, God of the earth! If the wind blows, if the rain falls, I have opened above your head my two wings, which the winter wind cannot dampen.

  2.

  To whom is your mother married, that you are so poor? Is he a weaver without work, a spinner of yarn without a distaff, or a maker of footstools? To earn his living, his weaver has woven over his work the cloth of the firmament; his spinner has spun the rays of the sun with his spindle; his maker of footstools has carved Golgotha beneath his awning. Don’t weep, God of the earth; the falcon had gone to seek spring water for you to drink, on his highest summit; the bee has flown up into heaven from her hive to gather golden honey for your meal; and the lion of Judea is lashing himself with his tail as he runs, in order to bring you blessed figs in his claws more rapidly.

  3.

  A diviner I have found has told me your good fortune, and a very young prophetess has read your fate in the palm of your hand. When you are grown up, the sons of princes will say to you: “Let us exchange cloaks;” the sons of kings: “Let us exchange crowns;” the rosemary, when it is born, will say to you: “Will you give me the scent of your hair?” the swan, when it hatches: “Let us exchange down;” and the star, when it appears: “Let us exchange aureoles.” Don’t weep, God of the earth; I have made you a robe, a scarlet robe. The firmament has spun you, a long time ago, a girdle of azure, and the desert has sown you, without receiving any wage, an entirely white tunic.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  1.

  Angel Rachel, is your father not coming? Is it true that he has abandoned me for a better-adorned virgin in a spring star? Tomorrow I want to go to look for him, to sit down with my veil on the benches of fisherman’s boats, in the carved bow of sailing ships, at crossroads, under the lamp in hostelries. I shall go sit down beneath a soldier’s shield, in a hermit’s tower, at the door of churches, without roof or awning on the boundary-markers of streets. I want to climb up the highest stairway in a cathedral, to an open niche, in order to cry to the four winds: “Father, we are hungry and thirsty, and I have no more milk: bring your infant what he needs to live until tomorrow.”

  2.

  I’m not asking for the golden veil or girdle of a newly-wed. I’m not asking for the two bracelets or the glass necklace that virgins wear when they go to a fête. I’m asking for a sheet of cloth for the greatest king of kings. If he dies in my arms so young, who will make me mourning-dress in order to weep? The night, in winter, will not be dark enough; the snow, at Yule, would not be white enough; to make my tower, ebony would not be black enough; to make my veil, the firmament would not be long enough.

  3.

  Go away, nightingales, don’t sing so early; little storks, don’t get up
so soon. I’m the one who has put me lord to sleep; I’m the one who wants to wake him up. You have nothing to carry but your crests of dew; he, so small, must carry, without flinching, his divine crown. Let him sleep, let him continue sleeping! I’ve sown basil in his garden, but I’m afraid that he will gather nothing but tears when he gets up.

  CHRIST, waking up

  Mother, take me in your arms. The nightingales are already singing, the little storks are already flapping their wings.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  I will rock you on my shoulder while the dew is born, when the sun rises.

  CHRIST

  Mother, are you alone? Where has my father gone? I have not seen him yet.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  Your father lives a long way from here.

  CHRIST

  What will we do, if he doesn’t come?

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  He has a burden to bear as heavy as the world.

  CHRIST

  Is it necessary to walk for a long time to reach the city where he dwells?

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  Longer than your feet can carry you.

  CHRIST

  As soon as his work is done, he’ll come back to us.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  His work is never done; we’re the ones who must leave in order to discover where he is.

  CHRIST

  Don’t weep, Mother; when I’m older, I’ll go in search of him on my own.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  You’ll take me with you.

  CHRIST

  Tell me, Mother, has he, like you, an aureole around his head?

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  His aureole is the clouds, and the clasp of his mantle is a star.

  CHRIST

  And his house is larger than yours?

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  You shall see his house. His roof is the azure of the sky; the sun is his workman’s lamp; and the haze of the morning is the dust he shakes off at his door.

  CHRIST

  Since he’s so rich, he’ll send us fine messengers.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  Here come his messengers now.

  XI.

  A CROWNED LION

  For a thousand years, I have worn my crowd on my head. Neither the desert wind nor the unicorns of Iran have knocked it down; I have kept it until now, all shiny, in order to lay it in your manger.

  CHRIST

  I’d also like to touch the mane on your back.

  THE LION

  My back is dirtied by the sand; my mane is too high. I you want to touch it, I’ll lie down on your bed of straw.

  A GRYPHON

  Neither the claws on my feet nor my equine rump could run fast enough. I took to my silken wings in order to reach your door before the kings. Here is the golden sand that I collected in the Euphrates; here is a piece of Persian linen, with which to make you a tunic.

  CHRIST

  And you, beautiful eagle, what are you holding in your beak?

  THE EAGLE

  My cargo of down for your aerie; here, as well, to distract you, is a globe of the world that a Calabrian eaglet brought from its nest in Rome, from the summit of the Capitol.

  CHRIST

  Lay it at my feet; it’s tiring you to move it.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Is that you, king of the abundant skies? When your eyes are open, the stars close their eyelids and their golden lashes. When your mother lets down your hair over your shoulders, you shake the daybreak around you, as a swan shakes off the dew. The sprig of rosemary that saw you first told the road, the road told the river, the river the sea, the sea the mountain, the mountain our scepters, and our scepters repeated it to us; and in order to adore you, we are kneeling down, like the sprig of rosemary. As a present, we have brought you a beautiful silver-plated chalice. All we kings have drunk from it, one after another, and all our gods before us. The most powerful has mixed the tears and sweat of worlds therein, with his finger, like water and wine. Drink from it in your turn; drink for your thirst from this enchanted cup.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  Don’t take that chalice in your hand, my lord, I beg you; there’ bile and absinthe on its rim.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  That’s not bile, truly, and not absinthe; it’s only tears.

  CHRIST

  My hands are too small to hold that large chalice.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  A genius in a hollow mountain has been polishing this ruby crown for a thousand years. Brahma has put it on his head; Memnon wore it after him; but in order to give it to you, we have discrowned him on his seat of oblivion. Try it on your infant’s head.

  THE VIRGIN MARY

  What do I see in the depths of that crown? Blood pouring out, sharp thorns of Judean wood. Don’t touch it, my lord.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  That’s not blood, truly, and those aren’t the thorns of bushes or forests; they’re golden nails.

  CHRIST

  The head on my shoulders is still too inexperienced to bear that heavy crown.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Although these presents are too heavy, they will be useful to you later, when you reach our age. We have others yet: amulets to suspend around your neck, hookahs of amber and gum, the silver keys to a hundred cities and as many castles, twenty carts filled with furbished steel broadswords and incense, which the Moors have gathered from the branch, a thousand idols of white ivory with the workmen that have made them, an odorous miter of topaz, for kings the color of night to wash your feet, and four kings the color of bronze to wipe them dry.

  A SHEPHERD

  Farewell, Master, master vine-grower, who fills your chalice with all the tears of the vine; farewell, Master, master woodcutter, who puts all the thorns of the earth in your crown. After the king of Babylon and the king of Persia, if we showed our presents, we would be scorned, mocked for our mattocks and our carts.

  CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS

  For our carts and our handcarts, our scythes, our sickles and our ploughshares. Let’s go home. Shepherds’ wives, open the latch. Pick up your coarse cloaks and put your heavy pitchers, brim-full of your tears, on your heads. Sweep the thorns and lilies-of-the-valley from our thresholds. The child-God, who was to make us richer than mages, has not looked at us. We have nothing to give him in his cradle of straw but the dawn that whitens the morning, nothing but the yellowing thatch, nothing but the gold of the sunlight on our foreheads, nothing but the dew beneath our feet, nothing but the dainty skylark above our heads.

  CHRIST

  Better than the thousand ivory idols with the workmen who have made them, I like the color of the dew beneath the shepherds’ feet.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  Back, slaves! Son of a king, come with us to our palaces glistening with precious stones. Our elephants will carry you in silken palanquins. Our peoples will hold parasols over your head. The peris of Persia, clad in diamonds, will rock you lovingly, better than your mother in your stable. From the depths of cisterns, the middle of lakes, avatars with the bodies of virgins will sing you to sleep; and sphinxes crowned with bandlets will tell you tales older than the world every evening, in the desert.

  CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS

  If you come with us, our rods are hard, harder than our carts. Under our roofs, the snow will fall at your feet, and the robins will eat your bread in your hand while warming themselves by the fireside. For your enjoyment you will have our cloaks hanging on the walls, and our mattocks, wary of the day’s work, resting at our doors. Fairies, as big as palm-leaves at the most, scarcely dressed in scraps of cloth, very poor and very old, will beg at your bedside in the evening, and fire-follets will come, at midnight, to try your divine crown on their smoky heads.

  THE MAGE-KINGS

  In our land, the sun rises like a mage-king going up to his tower; date-palms flourish and lemon-trees too; gum grows on the trees, incense on the branches, amour in the women’s tents. There, the stork builds its nest on
the roof it likes the best; the sand is golden, the shade scented with myrrh; in the depths of the cisterns the pure sky slakes its thirst by mirroring itself therein all day long. Come to our kingdoms; the sea, which touches them, will bring you pearls to its shore; and you shall caress its green tresses, without making it angry, whenever you wish.

  CHORUS OF SHEPHERDS

  In our land, the sun sets like a reaper wearied by his day’s work; the pine grows verdantly on the mountain, the birch in the forest; there, the clouds are black, the north wind murmurs and the dead leaves sob on our threshold; then the thatched cottage sighs and the grotto weeps; the Ocean brings its unmuzzled flocks to graze in the storm; you will be hungry; you will be thirsty, and there is nothing beside us to protect you but our dogs.

  CHRIST

  Better than the country of the kings, I like the country where the thatched cottage sighs, where the grotto weeps, where the leaf sobs.