Hereafter will be counted as a martyr!
Finale
St. John
SAINT JOHN wandering over the face of the Earth.
SAINT JOHN.
THE AGES come and go,
The Centuries pass as Years;
My hair is white as the snow,
My feet are weary and slow,
The earth is wet with my tears! 5
The kingdoms crumble, and fall
Apart, like a ruined wall,
Or a bank that is undermined
By a river’s ceaseless flow,
And leave no trace behind! 10
The world itself is old;
The portals of Time unfold
On hinges of iron, that grate
And groan with the rust and the weight,
Like the hinges of a gate 15
That hath fallen to decay;
But the evil doth not cease;
There is war instead of peace,
Instead of Love there is hate;
And still I must wander and wait, 20
Still I must watch and pray,
Not forgetting in whose sight,
A thousand years in their flight
Are as a single day.
The life of man is a gleam 25
Of light, that comes and goes
Like the course of the Holy Stream,
The cityless river, that flows
From fountains no one knows,
Through the Lake of Galilee, 30
Through forests and level lands,
Over rocks, and shallows, and sands
Of a wilderness wild and vast,
Till it findeth its rest at last
In the desolate Dead Sea! 35
But alas! alas for me
Not yet this rest shall be!
What, then! doth Charity fail?
Is Faith of no avail?
Is Hope blown out like a light 40
By a gust of wind in the night?
The clashing of creeds, and the strife
Of the many beliefs, that in vain
Perplex man’s heart and brain,
Are naught but the rustle of leaves, 45
When the breath of God upheaves
The boughs of the Tree of Life,
And they subside again!
And I remember still
The words, and from whom they came, 50
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!
And Him evermore I behold
Walking in Galilee,
Through the cornfield’s waving gold, 55
In hamlet, in wood, and in wold,
By the shores of the Beautiful Sea.
He toucheth the sightless eyes;
Before him the demons flee;
To the dead He sayeth: Arise! 60
To the living: Follow me!
And that voice still soundeth on
From the centuries that are gone,
To the centuries that shall be!
From all vain pomps and shows, 65
From the pride that overflows,
And the false conceits of men;
From all the narrow rules
And subtleties of Schools,
And the craft of tongue and pen; 70
Bewildered in its search,
Bewildered with the cry:
Lo, here! lo, there, the Church!
Poor, sad Humanity
Through all the dust and heat 75
Turns back with bleeding feet,
By the weary road it came,
Unto the simple thought
By the great Master taught,
And that remaineth still: 80
Not he that repeateth the name,
But he that doeth the will!
JUDAS MACCABÆUS
A POETIC DRAMA
The writing of this tragedy followed immediately upon the dismissal of The Divine Tragedy, and was in a measure an offshoot from it. While the poet’s mind was charged with the contemplation of Judaic scenes, there came back to him the thought of a tragedy based upon the history of Judas Maccabæus, which had first visited him twenty years before. In 1850 he had entered it in his note-book as a subject for a poem.
Now, he repeats the suggestion December 5, 1871, and five days later he records: “At home all day. Began the tragedy of Judas Maccabæus. The subject is a very striking one — the collision of Judaism and Hellenism.” Elsewhere, he raises the question: “The subject is tragic enough, but has it unity, and a catastrophe to end with?” He began the drama on the 10th of December; on the 12th The Divine Tragedy was published, and on the 21st he had finished his first draft of the new work. “The acts are not long,” he writes, “but there are five of them.” Judas Maccabæus formed one division of the volume Three Books of Song, which was published May 25, 1872; the other two divisions were The Second Day of Tales of a Wayside Inn and A Handful of Translations.
CONTENTS
Act I.
Act II.
Act III.
Act IV.
Act V.
JUDAS MACCABÆUS
Act I.
The Citadel of Antiochus at Jerusalem
SCENE I. — ANTIOCHUS; JASON.
ANTIOCHUS.
O ANTIOCH, my Antioch, my city!
Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!
The dowry of my sister Cleopatra
When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now
Won back and made more wonderful by me! 5
I love thee, and I long to be once more
Among the players and the dancing women
Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes,
Thy river and mine. O Jason, my High-Priest,
For I have made thee so, and thou art mine, 10
Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful?
JASON.
Never, my Lord.
ANTIOCHUS.
Then hast thou never seen
The wonder of the world. This city of David
Compared with Antioch is but a village,
And its inhabitants compared with Greeks 15
Are mannerless boors.
JASON.
They are barbarians,
And mannerless.
ANTIOCHUS.
They must be civilized.
They must be made to have more gods than one;
And goddesses besides.
JASON.
They shall have more.
ANTIOCHUS.
They must have hippodromes, and games, and baths, 20
Stage-plays and festivals, and most of all
The Dionysia.
JASON.
They shall have them all.
ANTIOCHUS.
By Heracles! but I should like to see
These Hebrews crowned with ivy, and arrayed
In skins of fawns, with drums and flutes and thyrsi, 25
Revel and riot through the solemn streets
Of their old town. Ha, ha! It makes me merry
Only to think of it! — Thou dost not laugh.
JASON.
Yea, I laugh inwardly.
ANTIOCHUS.
The new Greek leaven
Works slowly in this Israelitish dough! 30
Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altar
Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus
To Hellenize it?
JASON.
Thou hast done all this.
ANTIOCHUS.
As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason,
And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek, 35
So shall this Hebrew nation be translated,
Their very natures and their names be changed,
And all be Hellenized.
JASON.
It shall be done.
ANTIOCHUS.
Their manners and their laws and way of living
Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language, 40
And learn the lovely speech of Antioch
.
Where hast thou been to-day? Thou comest late.
JASON.
Playing at discus with the other priests
In the Gymnasium.
ANTIOCHUS.
Thou hast done well.
There ‘s nothing better for you lazy priests 45
Than discus-playing with the common people.
Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews call me
When they converse together at their games.
JASON.
Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord;
Antiochus the Illustrious.
ANTIOCHUS.
Oh, not that; 50
That is the public cry; I mean the name
They give me when they talk among themselves,
And think that no one listens; what is that?
JASON.
Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord!
ANTIOCHUS.
Antiochus the Mad! Ay, that is it. 55
And who hath said it? Who hath set in motion
That sorry jest?
JASON.
The Seven Sons insane
Of a weird woman, like themselves insane.
ANTIOCHUS.
I like their courage, but it shall not save them.
They shall be made to eat the flesh of swine 60
Or they shall die. Where are they?
JASON.
In the dungeons
Beneath this tower.
ANTIOCHUS.
There let them stay and starve,
Till I am ready to make Greeks of them,
After my fashion.
JASON.
They shall stay and starve. —
My Lord, the Ambassadors of Samaria 65
Await thy pleasure.
ANTIOCHUS.
Why not my displeasure?
Ambassadors are tedious. They are men
Who work for their own ends, and not for mine
There is no furtherance in them. Let them go
To Apollonius, my governor 70
There in Samaria, and not trouble me.
What do they want?
JASON.
Only the royal sanction
To give a name unto a nameless temple
Upon Mount Gerizim.
ANTIOCHUS.
Then bid them enter.
This pleases me, and furthers my designs. 75
The occasion is auspicious. Bid them enter.
SCENE II. — ANTIOCHUS; JASON; the SAMARITAN AMBASSADORS.
ANTIOCHUS.
Approach. Come forward; stand not at the door
Wagging your long beards, but demean yourselves
As doth become Ambassadors. What seek ye?
AN AMBASSADOR.
An audience from the King.
ANTIOCHUS.
Speak, and be brief. 80
Waste not the time in useless rhetoric.
Words are not things.
AMBASSADOR (reading).
“To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes; a Memorial
From the Sidonians, who live at Sichem.”
ANTIOCHUS.
Sidonians?
AMBASSADOR.
Ay, my Lord.
ANTIOCHUS.
Go on, go on! 85
And do not tire thyself and me with bowing!
AMBASSADOR (reading).
“We are a colony of Medes and Persians.”
ANTIOCHUS.
No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten Tribes;
Whether Sidonians or Samaritans
Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me; 90
Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews.
When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred with them;
When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians;
I know that in the days of Alexander
Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute 95
In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said,
Your fields had not been planted in that year.
AMBASSADOR (reading).
“Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues,
And following an ancient superstition,
Were long accustomed to observe that day 100
Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath,
And in a temple on Mount Gerizim
Without a name, they offered sacrifice.
Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee,
Who art our benefactor and our savior, 105
Not to confound us with these wicked Jews,
But to give royal order and injunction
To Apollonius in Samaria,
Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor,
Thy procurator, no more to molest us; 110
And let our nameless temple now be named
The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius.”
ANTIOCHUS.
This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth me
Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews,
But Greeks; if not by birth, yet Greeks by custom. 115
Your nameless temple shall receive the name
Of Jupiter Hellenius. Ye may go!
SCENE III. — ANTIOCHUS; JASON.
ANTIOCHUS.
My task is easier than I dreamed. These people
Meet me half-way. Jason, didst thou take note
How these Samaritans of Sichem said 120
They were not Jews? that they were Medes and Persians,
They were Sidonians, anything but Jews?
‘T is of good augury. The rest will follow
Till the whole land is Hellenized.
JASON.
My Lord,
These are Samaritans. The tribe of Judah 125
Is of a different temper, and the task
Will be more difficult.
ANTIOCHUS.
Dost thou gainsay me?
JASON.
I know the stubborn nature of the Jew.
Yesterday, Eleazer, an old man,
Being fourscore years and ten, chose rather death 130
By torture than to eat the flesh of swine.
ANTIOCHUS.
The life is in the blood, and the whole nation
Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its faith!
JASON.
Hundreds have fled already to the mountains
Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabæus 135
Hath raised the standard of revolt against thee.
ANTIOCHUS.
I will burn down their city, and will make it
Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares
Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes.
It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is! 140
This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad
Shall have a broad and blood-red seal upon it,
Stamped with the awful letters of my name,
Antiochus the God, Epiphanes! —
Where are those Seven Sons?
JASON.
My Lord, they wait 145
Thy royal pleasure.
ANTIOCHUS.
They shall wait no longer!
Act II.
The Dungeons in the Citadel
SCENE I. — THE MOTHER of the SEVEN SONS alone, listening.
THE MOTHER.
BE strong, my heart! Break not till they are dead.
All, all my Seven Sons; then burst asunder,
And let this tortured and tormented soul
Leap and rush out like water through the shards
Of earthen vessels broken at a well. 5
O my dear children, mine in life and death,
I know not how ye came into my womb;
I neither gave you breath, nor gave you life,
And neither was it I that formed the members
Of every one of you. But the Creator, 10
Who made the world, and made the heavens above us,
Who formed the generation of mankind,
And found out the beginning of all things,
He gave you breath and lif
e, and will again
Of his own mercy, as ye now regard 15
Not your own selves, but his eternal law.
I do not murmur, nay, I thank thee, God,
That I and mine have not been deemed unworthy
To suffer for thy sake, and for thy law,
And for the many sins of Israel. 20
Hark! I can hear within the sound of scourges!
I feel them more than ye do, O my sons!
But cannot come to you. I, who was wont
To wake at night at the least cry ye made,
To whom ye ran at every slightest hurt, — 25
I cannot take you now into my lap
And soothe your pain, but God will take you all
Into his pitying arms, and comfort you,
And give you rest.
A VOICE (within).
What wouldst thou ask of us?
Ready are we to die, but we will never 30
Transgress the law and customs of our fathers.
THE MOTHER.
It is the voice of my first-born! O brave
And noble boy! Thou hast the privilege
Of dying first, as thou wast born the first.
THE SAME VOICE (within).
God looketh on us, and hath comfort in us; 35
As Moses in his song of old declared,
He in his servants shall be comforted.
THE MOTHER.
I knew thou wouldst not fail! — He speaks no more,
He is beyond all pain!
ANTIOCHUS (within).
If thou eat not
Thou shalt be tortured throughout all the members 40
Of thy whole body. Wilt thou eat then?
SECOND VOICE (within).
No.
THE MOTHER.
It is Adaiah’s voice. I tremble for him.
I know his nature, devious as the wind,
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 121
