_A Cry of Wo_
My first object was to ascertain the fate of my family. From Constantius
I could learn nothing, for the severity of his wound had reduced him
to such a state that he recognized no one. I sat by him day after
day, watching with bitter solicitude for the return of his senses. He
raved continually of his wife, and of every other name that I loved.
The affecting eloquence of his appeals sometimes plunged me into the
deepest depression—sometimes drove me out to seek relief from them,
even in the horrors of the streets. I was the most solitary of men. In
those melancholy wanderings, none spoke to me; I spoke to none. The
kinsmen whom I had left under the command of my brave son were slain or
dispersed, and on the night when I saw him warring with his native ardor,
the men whom he led to the foot of the rampart were an accidental band,
excited by his brilliant intrepidity to choose him at the instant for
their captain. In sorrow, indeed, had I entered Jerusalem.
[Sidenote: The Devastation of Jerusalem]
The devastation of the city was enormous during its tumults. The great
factions were reduced to two, but in the struggle a large portion of the
Temple had been burned. The stately chambers of the priests were dust and
embers. The cloisters which surrounded the sanctuary were beaten down
or left naked to the visitation of the seasons, which now, as by the
peculiar wrath of heaven, had assumed a fierce and ominous inclemency.
Tremendous bursts of tempest constantly shook the city, and the popular
mind was kept in perpetual alarm at the accidents which followed those
storms. Fires were frequently caused by the lightning; deluges of rain
flooded the streets, and falling on the shattered roofs, increased the
misery of their famishing inhabitants; the sudden severity of winter in
the midst of spring added to the sufferings of a people doubly unprovided
to encounter it, by its unexpectedness and by their necessary exposure on
the battlements and in the field.
Within the walls all bore the look of a grave, and even that grave shaken
by some great convulsion of nature. From the battlements the sight was
absolute despair. The Roman camps covered the hills, and we could see
the soldiery sharpening the very lances that were to drink our blood.
The fires of their night-watches lighted up the horizon round. We hourly
heard the sound of their trumpets and their shouts, as the sheep in the
fold might hear the roaring of the lion and the tiger, ready to leap
their feeble boundary. Yet the valor of the people was never wearied
out. The vast mound, whose circle was to shut us up from the help of man
or the hope of escape, was the grand object of attack and defense; and
tho thousands of my countrymen covered the ground at its foot with their
corpses, the Jew was still ready to rush on the Roman spear. This valor
was spontaneous, for subordination had long been at an end. The names
of John of Giscala, and Simon, influential as they were in the earlier
periods of the war, had lost their force in the civil fury and desperate
pressures of the siege. No leaders were acknowledged but hatred of the
enemy, iron fortitude, and a determination not to survive the fall of
Jerusalem!
In this furious warfare I took my share with the rest; handled the spear,
and fought and watched without thinking of any distinction of rank. My
military experience, and the personal strength which enabled me to render
prominent services in those desultory attacks, often excited our warriors
to offer me the command; but ambition was dead within me.
[Sidenote: A Universal Outcry]
I was one day sitting beside the bed of Constantius, and bitterly
absorbed in gazing on what I thought the progress of death, when I heard
a universal outcry, more melancholy than human voices seemed ever made
to utter. My first thought was that the enemy had forced the gates. I
took my sword down and prepared to go out and die. I found the streets
filled with crowds hurrying forward without any apparent direction, but
all exhibiting a sorrow amounting to agony; wringing their hands, beating
their bosoms, tearing their hair, and casting dust and ashes on their
heads. A large body of the priesthood came rushing from the temple with
loud lamentations. The DAILY SACRIFICE had ceased![45] The perpetual
offering, which, twice a day, burned in testimonial of the sins and the
expiation of Israel, the peculiar homage of the nation to Heaven, was no
more! The siege had extinguished the resources of the Temple; the victims
could no longer be supplied, and the people must perish without the power
of atonement! This was the final cutting off—the declaration of the
sentence—the seal of the great condemnation. Jerusalem was undone!
Overpowered by this fatal sign, I was sadly returning to my worse than
solitary chamber, for there lay, speechless and powerless, the noblest
creature that breathed in Jerusalem—when I was driven aside by a new
torrent of the people, exclaiming “The prophet! the prophet! wo to the
city of David!”
[Sidenote: Wo, Wo, Wo]
They rushed on in haggard multitudes, and in the midst of them came
a maniac bounding and gesticulating with indescribable wildness. His
constant exclamation was “Wo!—wo!—wo!” uttered in a tone that searched
the very heart. He stopped from time to time, flung out some denunciation
against the popular crimes, and then recommenced his cry of “Wo!” and
bounded forward again.
He at length came opposite to the spot where I stood, and his features
struck me as resembling those I had seen before. But they were full of
a strange impulse—the grandeur of inspiration mingled with the animal
fierceness of frenzy. The eye shot fire under the sharp and hollow brows;
the nostrils contracted and opened like those of an angry steed, and
every muscle of a singularly elastic frame was quivering and exposed from
the effects alike of mental violence and famine.
“Ho, Prince of Naphtali! we meet at last!” was his instant outcry. His
countenance fell, and tears gushed from lids that looked incapable of a
human feeling. “I found her,” said he, “my beauty, my bride! She was in
the dungeon. The ring that I tore from that villain’s finger was worth a
gold-mine, for it opened the gates of her prison. Come forth, girl!”
[Sidenote: Sabat the Ishmaelite]
With these words he caught by the hand and led to me a pale creature,
with the traces of loveliness, but evidently in the last stage of mortal
decay. She stood silent as a statue. In compassion, I took her hand,
while the multitude gathered round us in curiosity. I now remembered
Sabat, the Ishmaelite, and his story.
“She is mad,” said Sabat, shaking his head mournfully, and gazing on the
fading form at his side. “Worlds would not restore her senses. But there
is a time for all things.” He sighed, and cast his large eyes on heaven.
“I watched her day and night,” he went on, “until I grew mad too. But the
world will have an end, and then—all will be well. Come, wife, we must be
going. To-night there are strange things within the walls, and without
the walls. There will be feasting and mourning; there will be blood and
tears; then comes the famine—then comes the fire—then the sword; and then
all is quiet, and forever!”
He paused, wiped away the tears, then began again wilder than ever:
“Heaven is mighty! To-night there will be wonders; watch well your walls,
people of the ruined city! To-night there will be signs; let no man sleep
but those who sleep in the grave. Prince of Naphtali, have you too sworn,
as I have, to die?” He lifted his meager hand. “Come, thunders! come,
fires! vengeance cries from the sanctuary. Listen, undone people! listen,
nation of sorrow! the ministers of wrath are on the wing. Wo!—wo!—wo!”
In pronouncing those words with a voice of the most sonorous yet
melancholy power, he threw himself into a succession of strange and
fearful gestures; then beckoning to the female, who submissively followed
his steps, plunged away among the multitude. I heard the howl of
“Wo!—wo!—wo!” long echoed through the windings of the ruined streets, and
thought that I heard the voice of the angel of desolation.