But meekly perished with their wives and children,
Even to the number of a thousand souls?
We who are fighting for our laws and lives 145
Will not so perish.
CAPTAINS.
Lead us to the battle!
JUDAS.
And let our watchword be, “The Help of God!”
Last night I dreamed a dream; and in my vision
Beheld Onias, our High-Priest of old,
Who holding up his hands prayed for the Jews. 150
This done, in the like manner there appeared
An old man, and exceeding glorious,
With hoary hair, and of a wonderful
And excellent majesty. And Onias said:
“This is a lover of the Jews, who prayeth 155
Much for the people and the Holy City, —
God’s prophet Jeremias.” And the prophet
Held forth his right hand and gave unto me
A sword of gold; and giving it he said:
“Take thou this holy sword, a gift from God, 160
And with it thou shalt wound thine adversaries.”
CAPTAINS.
The Lord is with us!
JUDAS.
Hark! I hear the trumpets
Sound from Beth-horon; from the battle-field
Of Joshua, where he smote the Amorites,
Smote the Five Kings of Eglon and of Jarmuth, 165
Of Hebron, Lachish, and Jerusalem,
As we to-day will smite Nicanor’s hosts
And leave a memory of great deeds behind us.
CAPTAINS AND SOLDIERS.
The Help of God!
JUDAS.
Be Elohim Yehovah!
Lord, thou didst send thine Angel in the time 170
Of Esekias, King of Israel,
And in the armies of Sennacherib
Didst slay a hundred fourscore and five thousand.
Wherefore, O Lord of heaven, now also send
Before us a good angel for a fear, 175
And through the might of thy right arm let those
Be stricken with terror that have come this day
Against thy holy people to blaspheme!
Act IV.
The Outer Courts of the Temple at Jerusalem
SCENE I. — JUDAS MACCABÆUS; CAPTAINS; JEWS.
JUDAS.
BEHOLD, our enemies are discomfited.
Jerusalem has fallen; and our banners
Float from her battlements, and o’er her gates
Nicanor’s severed head, a sign of terror,
Blackens in wind and sun.
CAPTAINS.
O Maccabæus, 5
The citadel of Antiochus, wherein
The Mother with her Seven Sons was murdered,
Is still defiant.
JUDAS.
Wait.
CAPTAINS.
Its hateful aspect
Insults us with the bitter memories
Of other days.
JUDAS.
Wait; it shall disappear 10
And vanish as a cloud. First let us cleanse
The Sanctuary. See, it is become
Waste like a wilderness. Its golden gates
Wrenched from their hinges and consumed by fire;
Shrubs growing in its courts as in a forest; 15
Upon its altars hideous and strange idols;
And strewn about its pavement at my feet
Its Sacred Books, half-burned and painted o’er
With images of heathen gods.
JEWS.
Woe! woe!
Our beauty and our glory are laid waste! 20
The Gentiles have profaned our holy places!
(Lamentation and alarm of trumpets.)
JUDAS.
This sound of trumpets, and this lamentation,
The heart-cry of a people toward the heavens,
Stir me to wrath and vengeance. Go, my captains;
I hold you back no longer. Batter down 25
The citadel of Antiochus, while here
We sweep away his altars and his gods.
SCENE II. — JUDAS MACCABÆUS; JASON; JEWS.
JEWS.
Lurking among the ruins of the Temple,
Deep in its inner courts, we found this man,
Clad as High-Priest. 30
JUDAS.
I ask not who thou art,
I know thy face, writ over with deceit
As are these tattered volumes of the Law
With heathen images. A priest of God
Wast thou in other days, but thou art now 35
A priest of Satan. Traitor, thou art Jason.
JASON.
I am thy prisoner, Judas Maccabæus,
And it would ill become me to conceal
My name or office.
JUDAS.
Over yonder gate
There hangs the head of one who was a Greek. 40
What should prevent me now, thou man of sin,
From hanging at its side the head of one
Who born a Jew hath made himself a Greek?
JASON.
Justice prevents thee.
JUDAS.
Justice? Thou art stained
With every crime ‘gainst which the Decalogue 45
Thunders with all its thunder.
JASON.
If not Justice,
Then Mercy, her handmaiden.
JUDAS.
When hast thou
At any time, to any man or woman,
Or even to any little child, shown mercy?
JASON.
I have but done what King Antiochus 50
Commanded me.
JUDAS.
True, thou hast been the weapon
With which he struck; but hast been such a weapon,
So flexible, so fitted to his hand,
It tempted him to strike. So thou hast urged him
To double wickedness, thine own and his. 55
Where is this King? Is he in Antioch
Among his women still, and from his windows
Throwing down gold by handfuls, for the rabble
To scramble for?
JASON.
Nay, he is gone from there,
Gone with an army into the far East. 60
JUDAS.
And wherefore gone?
JASON.
I know not. For the space
Of forty days almost were horsemen seen
Running in air, in cloth of gold, and armed
With lances, like a band of soldiery;
It was a sign of triumph.
JUDAS.
Or of death. 65
Wherefore art thou not with him?
JASON.
I was left
For service in the Temple.
JUDAS.
To pollute it,
And to corrupt the Jews; for there are men
Whose presence is corruption; to be with them
Degrades us and deforms the things we do. 70
JASON.
I never made a boast, as some men do,
Of my superior virtue, nor denied
The weakness of my nature, that hath made me
Subservient to the will of other men.
JUDAS.
Upon this day, the five-and-twentieth day 75
Of the month Caslan, was the Temple here
Profaned by strangers, — by Antiochus
And thee, his instrument. Upon this day
Shall it be cleansed. Thou, who didst lend thyself
Unto this profanation, canst not be 80
A witness of these solemn services.
There can be nothing clean where thou art present.
The people put to death Callisthenes,
Who burned the Temple gates; and if they find thee
Will surely slay thee. I will spare thy life 85
To punish thee the longer. Thou shalt wander
Among strange nations. Thou, that hast cast out<
br />
So many from their native land, shalt perish
In a strange land. Thou, that hast left so many
Unburied, shalt have none to mourn for thee, 90
Nor any solemn funerals at all,
Nor sepulchre with thy fathers. — Get thee hence!
Music. Procession of Priests and people, with citherns, harps, and cymbals. JUDAS MACCABÆUS puts himself at their head, and they go into the inner courts.
SCENE III. — JASON alone.
JASON.
Through the Gate Beautiful I see them come,
With branches and green boughs and leaves of palm,
And pass into the inner courts. Alas! 95
I should be with them, should be one of them,
But in an evil hour, an hour of weakness,
That cometh unto all, I fell away
From the old faith, and did not clutch the new,
Only an outward semblance of belief; 100
For the new faith I cannot make mine own,
Not being born to it. It hath no root
Within me. I am neither Jew nor Greek,
But stand between them both, a renegade
To each in turn; having no longer faith 105
In gods or men. Then what mysterious charm,
What fascination is it chains my feet,
And keeps me gazing like a curious child
Into the holy places, where the priests
Have raised their altar? — Striking stones together, 110
They take fire out of them, and light the lamps
In the great candlestick. They spread the veils,
And set the loaves of shewbread on the table.
The incense burns; the well-remembered odor
Comes wafted unto me, and takes me back 115
To other days. I see myself among them
As I was then; and the old superstition
Creeps over me again! — A childish fancy! —
And hark! they sing with citherns and with cymbals,
And all the people fall upon their faces, 120
Praying and worshipping! — I will away
Into the East, to meet Antiochus
Upon his homeward journey, crowned with triumph.
Alas! to-day I would give everything
To see a friend’s face, or to hear a voice 125
That had the slightest tone of comfort in it!
Act V.
The Mountains of Ecbatana
SCENE I. — ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; ATTENDANTS.
ANTIOCHUS.
HERE let us rest awhile. Where are we, Philip?
What place is this?
PHILIP.
Ecbatana, my Lord;
And yonder mountain range is the Orontes.
ANTIOCHUS.
The Orontes is my river at Antioch.
Why did I leave it? Why have I been tempted 5
By coverings of gold and shields and breast-plates
To plunder Elymais, and be driven
From out its gates, as by a fiery blast
Out of a furnace?
PHILIP.
These are fortune’s changes.
ANTIOCHUS.
What a defeat it was! The Persian horse-men 10
Came like a mighty wind, the wind Khamáseen,
And melted us away, and scattered us
As if we were dead leaves, or desert sand.
PHILIP.
Be comforted, my Lord; for thou hast lost
But what thou hadst not.
ANTIOCHUS.
I, who made the Jews 15
Skip like the grasshoppers, am made myself
To skip among these stones.
PHILIP.
Be not discouraged.
Thy realm of Syria remains to thee;
That is not lost nor marred.
ANTIOCHUS.
Oh, where are now
The splendors of my court, my baths and banquets? 20
Where are my players and my dancing women?
Where are my sweet musicians with their pipes,
That made me merry in the olden time?
I am a laughing-stock to man and brute.
The very camels, with their ugly faces, 25
Mock me and laugh at me.
PHILIP.
Alas! my Lord,
It is not so. If thou wouldst sleep awhile,
All would be well.
ANTIOCHUS.
Sleep from mine eyes is gone,
And my heart faileth me for very care.
Dost thou remember, Philip, the old fable 30
Told us when we were boys, in which the bear
Going for honey overturns the hive,
And is stung blind by bees? I am that beast,
Stung by the Persian swarms of Elymais.
PHILIP.
When thou art come again to Antioch, 35
These thoughts will be as covered and forgotten
As are the tracks of Pharaoh’s chariot-wheels
In the Egyptian sands.
ANTIOCHUS.
Ah! when I come
Again to Antioch! When will that be?
Alas! alas!
SCENE II. — ANTIOCHUS; PHILIP; A MESSENGER.
MESSENGER.
May the King live forever! 40
ANTIOCHUS.
Who art thou, and whence comest thou?
MESSENGER.
My Lord,
I am a messenger from Antioch,
Sent here by Lysias.
ANTIOCHUS.
A strange foreboding
Of something evil overshadows me.
I am no reader of the Jewish Scriptures; 45
I know not Hebrew; but my High-Priest Jason,
As I remember, told me of a Prophet
Who saw a little cloud rise from the sea
Like a man’s hand, and soon the heaven was black
With clouds and rain. Here, Philip, read; I cannot; 50
I see that cloud. It makes the letters dim
Before mine eyes.
PHILIP (reading).
“To King Antiochus,
The God, Epiphanes.”
ANTIOCHUS.
Oh mockery!
Even Lysias laughs at me! — Go on, go on!
PHILIP (reading).
“We pray thee hasten thy return. The realm 55
Is falling from thee. Since thou hast gone from us
The victories of Judas MaccabÆus
Form all our annals. First he overthrew
Thy forces at Beth-horon, and passed on,
And took Jerusalem, the Holy City. 60
And then Emmaus fell; and then Bethsura,
Ephrou and all the towns of Galaad,
And Maccabæus marched to Carnion.”
ANTIOCHUS.
Enough, enough! Go call my chariotmen;
We will drive forward, forward, without ceasing, 65
Until we come to Antioch. My captains,
My Lysias, Gorgias, Seron, and Nicanor,
Are babes in battle, and this dreadful Jew
Will rob me of my kingdom and my crown.
My elephants shall trample him to dust; 70
I will wipe out his nation, and will make
Jerusalem a common burying-place,
And every home within its walls a tomb!
Throws up his hands, and sinks into the arms of attendants, who lay him upon a bank.
PHILIP.
Antiochus! Antiochus! Alas,
The King is ill! What is it, O my Lord? 75
ANTIOCHUS.
Nothing. A sudden and sharp spasm of pain,
As if the lightning struck me, or the knife
Of an assassin smote me to the heart.
‘T is passed, even as it came. Let us set forward.
PHILIP.
See that the chariots be in readiness; 80
We will depart forthwith.
ANTIOCHUS.
A moment more.
I cannot stan
d. I am become at once
Weak as an infant. Ye will have to lead me.
Jove, or Jehovah, or whatever name
Thou wouldst be named, — it is alike to me, — 85
If I knew how to pray, I would entreat
To live a little longer.
PHILIP.
O my Lord,
Thou shalt not die; we will not let thee die!
ANTIOCHUS.
How canst thou help it, Philip? Oh the pain!
Stab after stab. Thou hast no shield against 90
This unseen weapon. God of Israel,
Since all the other gods abandon me,
Help me. I will release the Holy City,
Garnish with goodly gifts the Holy Temple.
Thy people, whom I judged to be unworthy 95
To be so much as buried, shall be equal
Unto the citizens of Antioch.
I will become a Jew, and will declare
Through all the world that is inhabited
The power of God!
PHILIP.
He faints. It is like death. 100
Bring here the royal litter. We will bear him
Into the camp, while yet he lives.
ANTIOCHUS.
O Philip,
Into what tribulation am I come!
Alas! I now remember all the evil
That I have done the Jews; and for this cause 105
These troubles are upon me, and behold
I perish through great grief in a strange land.
PHILIP.
Antiochus! my King!
ANTIOCHUS.
Nay, King no longer.
Take thou my royal robes, my signet ring,
My crown and sceptre, and deliver them 110
Unto my son, Antiochus Eupator;
And unto the good Jews, my citizens,
In all my towns, say that their dying monarch
Wisheth them joy, prosperity, and health.
I who, puffed up with pride and arrogance, 115
Thought all the kingdoms of the earth mine own,
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 123
