A Ballad.
Dedicated, Without Permission, To Victor Emanuel.
God prospereth King Stephen!
His sway is o’er the land.
The Empress Maud hath bowed her head;
Her knights are slain, her armies fled,
Herself beneath his hand!
God prospereth King Stephen!
The land is all his own.
From north to south, from east to west,
The whole wide kingdom is at rest—
Firm sits he on his throne.
God prospereth King Stephen!
Yet he hath cast his eye
On the rich lands of Sherbourn, spread
O’er many a hill and kie‐cropt mead,
And many a bosky lea.
King Stephen sware a grimly oath—
God wis he kept it true:
“Since Roger Niger (bishop then)
Hath led against us armèd men,
Roger shall dearly rue!”
Roger hath lands and riches too,
Marks forty thousand told;
And well I wot the monarch’s vow
Hath less to do with justice now
Than with the bishop’s gold.
Roger hath to Devizes ta’en
His wealth with all his speed;
Stout men‐at‐arms, and billmen true,
And bowmen armed with sturdy yew,
Attend him in his need.
Now he hath stored his fortelace well
With beeves and sheep and grain.
He standeth on his topmost tower;
And sayeth in the pride of power,
The king shall knock in vain!
What, O my knights! the monarch cries,
Shall he thus brave our wrath?
Shake forth our banner to the blast,
And gather round us, liegemen fast;
We’ll sweep him from our path!
The king, with mighty following,
Hath sat before the tower;
But massy walls and valiant hearts
Have nobly played their several parts—
The bishop mocks his power!
And loudly sware King Stephen then
A fearful oath to hear:
“Build me a gallows‐tree before
The haughty prelate’s guarded door;
This yet shall cost him dear.”
Now they have built the gallows‐tree,
And raised it in the air—
Its height is forty feet and three,
A laidly thing it is to see—
And led his nephew there.
Roger the bishop stands and sees
Young Roger led to die—
The nephew he had reared with care,
His only sister’s son and heir:
A tear steals from his eye.
Now he hath turned him to his knights;
His words are sad and low:
“God wot I am an old man now;
He layeth sorrow on my brow,
He willeth I should go.
My nephew hath his course to run,
And mine is near its close.
I straight will render up my lands,
My gold shall pass from out mine hands—
I’ll yield me to my foe!
But as God lives he prospereth not
King Stephen’s arms again;
His latest triumph he hath won.
Henceforth his is a setting sun;
His efforts shall be vain!
God prospereth not King Stephen now—
The Empress Maud hath fled;
Fitz‐Empress Henry snatcheth now
The golden circlet from the brow,
The glory from his head.
God prospereth not King Stephen’s arms—
Anjou is in the field,
And Winchester and Gloucester band
To wrest the sceptre from his hand,
And vanquished he must yield.
God prospereth not King Stephen’s cause—
Henry is named his heir;
Still may he sit upon the throne
Weakness forbids him call his own,
In sorrow and despair.
God prospereth not his family—
Eustace, his only son,
Pines from that moment, droops his head,
And, withering like a flower, is dead,
And his last prop is gone.
God prospereth not King Stephen’s health—
His heart is stricken sore;
Sleep shunneth now his eyes by night;
His days are stricken with a blight;
He smileth now no more.
And still ’tis said God prospereth not
The holder of those lands,
And Sarum’s heirs ne’er live to claim
The heritage of land and name—
It slippeth from their hands;
For one, ’tis said, hath fallen by chance;
Another falls in strife;
A father’s hand unwitting smote
Another scion through the throat;
Law claims another’s life.
God prospereth not that family—
Two hundred years have sped,
And still the bishop’s curse clings fast,
As fell and fatal to the last
As when those words were said.
Then the Third Edward rendered back
Unto the church its own,
And the broad lands to Robert gave
(Thou’lt see it figured on his grave);
And now the curse is gone!
The Poem Of Izdubar.
M. FRANÇOIS LENORMANT, in continuing the publication of his _Essay on the
Propagation of the Phœnician Alphabet in the Ancient World_, and in
editing a _Selection of Cuneiform Texts_, has just issued two volumes of
important and interesting studies on _Primitive Civilizations_.(34)
The steps of this learned writer in the almost unknown regions which he
explores so fearlessly, and usually with so much success, are not always
perfectly sure; but, with a good faith so natural to him that it does not
seem to cost him even an effort, he knows how to retrace his path and
correct whatever may require rectification.
_Les Premières Civilisations_, several portions of which have been
published in various collections, reappears developed and raised to the
present level attained by scientific discovery. The work opens by a notice
of prehistoric archæology and fossil man, the monuments of the neolithic
period, and the invention of the use of metals and its introduction into
the West. Studies on Egypt follow, including the _Poem of Pentaour_ and
the _Romance of the Two Brothers_. The second volume, with the exception
of the “Legend of Cadmus, and the Phœnician Establishments in Greece,” is
entirely devoted to Chaldæa, presenting us with a Chaldæan Vêda, or
collection of liturgical and devotional hymns in honor of the principal
gods worshipped on the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates; the biography of
a Babylonian prince of the VIIIth century before our era, Merodach
Baladan, with whose name the Bible has already made us acquainted;(35)
and, lastly, the Babylonian epic poem of Izdubar. It is this last work of
which the range is the most general and the value the greatest in
connection with the comparative history of the Semitic races, their
national genius, and their religious ideas. It touches, amongst other
things, upon three points which it is important to put particularly in
relief, on account of the manner in which the inferences resulting from
them strengthen the ground of Christian apologists—namely, the myths of
one of the most important branches of the race of Sem (or, to speak
accurately, the race that was equally descended from Sem and Cham), the
Assyrio‐Chaldæan belief in the immortality of the soul, and the origin of
the signs of the Zodiac. There is also a fourth point—that of the
tradition of the Deluge.
It has been repeatedly maintained by the sceptic, M. Renan, and is in fact
one of his favorite ideas, that the Semites were radically incapable of
producing an epic poem. He refuses everything to this race—imagination,
the power of invention, the knowledge of the experimental method,
philosophy, and science. One thing alone he accords to them—the
monotheistic instinct. Now, the cuneiform tablets demonstrate that the
sciences, especially those of astronomy and mathematics, held a very
considerable place in the intellectual pursuits of the Babylonians and
Assyrians. The poem of Erech, published by Mr. G. Smith, is sufficient of
itself alone, by means of the fragments which are known to us, to reduce
to nothing all the assertions in his history of the Semitic languages, in
which M. Renan affirms that “the imagination of the Semitic races has
never gone beyond the narrow circle traced around it by the exclusive idea
of the divine greatness. God and man, in presence of each other, in the
bosom of the desert—behold the summary, or, as it is termed in the present
day, the formula, of all their poetry.”(36) Assuredly one never found
one’s self less in the desert in presence of God alone and of man alone
than in the Semitic poems of Chaldæa.
The veritable name of the hero on the banks of the Euphrates, sung by
Homer, has remained unknown to this day. It is constantly found written in
ideographic characters, which, pronounced phonetically, give the three
syllables Iz‐du‐bar; but we know that they were pronounced in quite a
different manner by the Assyrio‐Chaldæans. We are equally certain, from
the testimony of other cuneiform inscriptions, that this Izdubar was one
of the gods of Chaldæa. Nevertheless, he figures here as a simple hero,
and, according to M. Lenormant, is probably Nemrod, “the mighty hunter,”
as he is called in the Book of Genesis, alluding to a popular saying, of
which the remembrance is still preserved in Assyria, as well as in
Palestine, and also in the Egyptian tradition. The historical inscriptions
of Assurbanipal name Resen, one of the cities of Assyria, “the town of the
hunter.”(37)
The Izdubar of the Babylonian inscription, like the Nemrod of the Bible,
reigns over four cities,(38) three of which, named in Genesis, are
certainly identical with those mentioned on the tablet, and which
therefore furnish an argument in favor of the supposition. But however
that may be, Izdubar, whose name signifies “God of fire,” “God of the body
or mass of fire,” is without doubt the ancient Arcadian God of fire whose
worship had so great an importance in the primitive epochs; and this idea
throws much light on the Babylonian poem, to which it, in some sort,
furnishes the key. This poem is divided into twelve _cantos_, if we may so
call them, each forming a distinct episode and inscribed in a separate
tablet. Sir Henry Rawlinson has proved that each canto relates to one of
the twelve signs of the zodiac, and to one of the twelve months of the
year. The god of fire is thus represented as being one with the sun, and
the entire epic consists of a poetical history of the annual revolution of
that luminary, and its accomplishment in the course of twelve months,
around which revolution various incidental episodes have been grouped,
amongst others the narrative of the Deluge. The _dénouement_ of the poem
is the cure of Izdubar, who, at the instigation of the man saved from the
Deluge, plunges into the sea, from whence he issues delivered from a sort
of leprosy which had threatened his life. M. Gubernatis remarks that this
is identical with the Vedic myth of Indra, and also the Hellenic one of
Tithonus. Leprosy is invariably the malady of kingly heroes, and signifies
old age, which, according to popular belief, could only be cured either by
the waters of youth or by the blood of a child. The old solar hero, the
dying sun, sprang forth with renewed youth in the morning, after
traversing the sea of night—a symbol which would naturally possess an
additional force to the nations who beheld the departing sun‐god sink
beneath the Western sea. The Chaldæan epic presents us, therefore, with
the same mythological groundwork as the other polytheistic religions with
regard to the worship of fire and of the sun—a groundwork presenting a
point of contact among the Semitic, Aryan, and Egyptian races which it is
necessary to bear in mind in tracing the comparative histories of the
descendants of the sons of Noe.
The details of the Babylonian poem exhibit a mythology as multitudinous as
that of India or of Greece; the adventures also of Izdubar for the most
part closely resemble those of the classic heroes. He is a great
conqueror, who wins immortality by his splendid exploits and his mighty
labors, some of which remind one of those of Hercules. We see him
successively capture the winged ox, and put an end to the ravages of a sea
monster to which is given the name of Boul—two exploits almost identical
with those of Perseus. As in Egypt the sun, under the name of Osiris, is
the husband of Isis, the personification of the productive power, and
sometimes the moon, so in Chaldæa the sun, Izdubar, espouses Istar, the
moon, who is also the Assyrian Venus, and daughter of the god Sin. Istar
is, however, at this period, already a widow, having lost her first
spouse, whose name signifies “Son of Life.”
In the poem of Erech a great number of other deities appear, together with
Istar. Besides her father, Sin, who is god of the months, we have firstly
Anou, the Oannes of the Greeks, and the first personage of the supreme
triad; then the second member of this triad, Bel, the demiurge; and lastly
the third, Ao, Nesroch,(39) or Nouah. Around these great divinities are
grouped Adar, the god of the planet Saturn; Samas, god of the sun;
Nabo,(40) god of the planet Mercury, and his companion, Sarou; Bin, god of
the atmosphere and tempest; Nergal, of the planet Mars; besides a vast
army of Annunaki, or secondary genii; of Guzalu, or destroying spirits,
and others of inferior race and power. These deities did not agree among
themselves any better than did the gods of the Greek Olympus. Their heaven
appears to have been anything but an abode of peace or love; and in heaven
or hell they quarrelled alike. Istar seems especially to have
distinguished herself by her unaccommodating disposition.
It is believed that the account of the journey of Istar into hell (for the
story of such a journey in the _Odyssey_ and the _Æneid_ had also its
precursor in Chaldæa) formed one of the episodes of the poem of Izdubar,
although the tablet containing it has not yet been discovered; but we
possess it on another fragment, and one which is of great value, as it
furnishes an incontestable proof of the belief of the Assyrio‐Chaldæans in
the immortality of the soul. The abode of the dead is called the
“immutable land,”(41) and corresponds to the Hades of the ancient Greek
poets. It is divided into seven circles, after the model of the celestial
spheres, and is depicted as follows by the Chaldæan poet: “Towards the
unchangeable land; the region [from whence none return]; Istar, the
daughter of Sin, her ear—has turned: the daughter of Sin [has turned] her
ear,—towards the dwelling of the dead, the throne of the god Ir
...,—towards the abode into which he has entered, and whence he has not
come forth,—towards the way of his own descent, by which none
return:—towards the dwelling whereinto he has entered, the prison,—the
place where [the dead] have naught but dust wherewith [to appease] their
hunger; and mud for nourishment:—from whence the light is not seen, and in
darkness they dwell where shades (ghosts), like birds, fill the vaulted
space,—where, above the uprights and lintel of the portal the earth is
upheaped.”(42) Allusion is also made several times to this “unchangeable
land” in other poems in the collection of Assurbanipal, as well as to
spirits who wander back to earth, and dead who return to torment the
living. In a note on the religious belief of the Assyrians Mr. Fox Talbot
publishes two prayers composed to ask for eternal life to be granted to
the king. The meaning of the first is not perfectly clear, but of the
second, which is very explicit, we give the most important passage: “After
the gift of the present days, in the festivals of the land of the silver
sky, in the shining courts, in the abode of benedictions, in the light of
the fields of felicity, may he live an eternal life, sacred in the
presence of the gods of Assyria.”(43) Also, in a hymn to the god Marduk,
are traces of a belief in the resurrection of the dead. This deity is
repeatedly called “the merciful, who restores the dead to life.”
Thus, then, the Semites believed in the immortality of the soul; but
monotheism was far from being a privilege of their race, by which it would
be possible to explain the origin of the Judaic religion without
providential intervention and regulation; and thus we see the Chaldæan
poets combat along the whole line the assertions of M. Renan respecting
their belief and genius alike. Never did facts with more pitiless emphasis
give the lie to the learned; and it seems as if the historian of the
Semetic languages had had a secret presentiment of humiliations which
would result to him from a more generally extended study of Assyriology,
when at its outset, about fifteen years ago, he attacked it with a
determination which has not been forgotten.(44)
Another historical fact which may be gathered from the Babylonian epic is
the mythological signification of the signs of the zodiac. The cuneiform
inscriptions have already shown us that not only was Asia the cradle of
the human race, but that it was also the primitive nursery of
civilization. It can no longer be doubted that it was from thence, instead
of, as has been supposed, from Egypt, that Greece herself received
indirectly her first lessons in the arts, as it was also from thence that
she received her metals. It is equally in Chaldæa that we find the origin
of astronomy and of the zodiacal signs; the nomenclature of the latter, as
it remains at the present day, differing in no essential point from that
established by the Babylonian astronomers, although its value and
signification have hitherto been very obscure. This obscurity has been
dissipated by _The Poem of Izdubar_, which shows that the ancient Assyrian
mythology bestowed on the signs their figures and their names. The myths
relating to each of the months formed the subjects of the twelve episodes
of the poem. Thus, for instance, the second narrated the capture of the
winged bull; and the second month is designated as “the month of the
propitious bull,” and has Taurus for its sign. Again, the sixth song
related the marriage of Istar with Izdubar, and began with the goddess’
message to the hero: the sixth month is called “the month of the message
of Istar,” and has for its sign the archeress, of which we have made
Virgo, the virgin, who, according to the attestation of the prism of
Assurbanipal, was the goddess Istar herself. The eleventh tablet is
consecrated to the god Bin, “the inundator—he who pours abroad the rain,”
and the sign of that month is the shedder of water, or the vase pouring it
forth. Thus crumbles away the whole chronological scaffolding raised by
the school of Dupuis, according to whom the zodiacal signs were only to be
explained as having direct relation to agricultural labors, and the phases
of the seasons to be regarded in reference to the productions of the
earth—an interpretation which made it necessary to withdraw the origin of
man to an enormously distant period of the past, in order to reach a time
in which, owing to the precession of the equinoxes, the presence of the
sun in the sign Taurus should coincide with the season of ploughing. All
these calculations were equally fanciful with those founded on the famous
zodiac of Denderah, and it is now ascertained beyond all reasonable doubt
that the zodiacal signs have a religious or rather mythological, and not
an agricultural, origin.
—The above is in great part translated from an article by M. Gregoire in
the _Revue des Questions Historiques_, for April, 1874.
New Publications.
LIFE OF ANNE CATHARINE EMMERICH. By Helen Ram. London: Burns &
Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)
Many of our readers must have read that part of the record of Catharine
Emmerich’s visions by Clement Brentano which has been translated into
English. Those who have been pleased and edified by them will be delighted
with this life of the holy and highly favored ecstatic virgin. It is a
charming and wonderful life, especially that portion which relates the
history of Anne Catharine’s miraculous infancy and childhood. The volume
makes one of F. Coleridge’s series, which we have frequently had occasion
to praise. We have been surprised to see in the pages of a book issued
under the supervision of so accurate and careful an editor a number of
inaccuracies in style and typographical errors.
BRIC‐A‐BRAC SERIES—NO. 2: ANECDOTE BIOGRAPHIES OF THACKERAY AND
DICKENS. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.
These recollections and anecdotes of the two favorite English writers of
fiction are very readable, and those which relate to Thackeray especially
interesting.
THE YOUNG CATHOLIC’S ILLUSTRATED SCHOOL SERIES, comprising: The
Young Catholic’s Illustrated Primer, Speller, First Reader, Second
Reader, Third Reader, and Fourth Reader. New York: The Catholic
Publication Society, 9 Warren St. 1874.
Every effort which is likely, in any way, to help on the great work of
Catholic education, has of course our entire sympathy. Humanly speaking,
the destiny of the church in the United States is to be determined by the
education which we give to our children, and the almost universal
recognition of this truth by the Catholics of America is, we are
persuaded, the most certain evidence that we have really made progress. It
is only within a comparatively recent time that we have come to fully
realize the inevitable and fatal results of allowing our children to
frequent the public schools, and to thoroughly understand that the common‐
school system of education, based, as it is, upon the implied assumption
of the untruth of positive religion, logically and in fact leads to
infidelity or to what is scarcely less an evil—religious indifference. The
church without the school‐house is incomplete, and can at best do but half
work; and we consequently find that almost all of our bishops are now
beginning to demand that every parish shall have its parochial school.
We have been at some pains to examine the returns made by the different
diocesan authorities to the publishers of the _Catholic Almanac_, and we
find that last year there were in the whole country about three hundred
and eighty thousand children attending our Catholic schools. This is
probably less than half the number of Catholic children of school age in
the United States; still, we are already doing enough to show that
Catholic primary education must be recognized as one of the institutions
of the country, and that those who have control of it should set to work
without delay to give it a thorough organization. It is well to teach our
people that the public schools are dangerous to the faith and morals of
their children; it is far better to render them useless by bringing our
own up to the standard of excellence which the more abundant means and
opportunities of the state have enabled it to give to its educational
establishments. There are, we know, many parochial schools which are in
every respect equal to those of the state; but under the present system
everything is left to the zeal and energy of the pastor. What we want is a
system which will cause every parochial school to come up to the
requirements of a prescribed standard of excellence. In a word, the
necessity of the times demands the organization of Catholic education.
Each diocese should have its school boards and its official examiners and
visitors. Annual diocesan school reports should be published, accompanied
by remarks on the defects observed in the practical management of the
schools and in the methods of teaching.
Out of these diocesan school boards and school reports in due time a
national Catholic school system would grow into vigorous life. More of
this another time; at present we are glad to take note of the greater
desire for excellence in our elementary schools, shown by the demand for
improved class‐books.
As our system of education is distinctively Catholic, it of course
requires Catholic text‐books—books composed with a special view to the
principles which underlie the Catholic theory of pedagogy.
This truth has been recognized by the bishops of the United States, who,
both in the First and Second Plenary Councils of Baltimore, made this one
of the subjects of their thought.
That The Catholic Publication Society, which has done so much to elevate
the tone of our literature, has felt authorized to begin the issue of a
complete series of such works, is undoubtedly an indication of the general
feeling among Catholics of the want of improved class‐books, especially
for our elementary schools, which are by far the most important, since
they more directly concern the welfare of the masses of our people.
Whilst we are grateful for what has been done in this matter, we cannot
shut our eyes to the many defects of most of the text‐books now in use. We
have before us the Young Catholic’s Illustrated Primer, Speller, First,
Second, Third, and Fourth Readers; and we have read and examined them with
conscientious care, and we have at the same time compared them with
similar publications of other houses, and we therefore feel competent to
speak of their merits, if not with authority, at least with knowledge.
That they should be superior to any other books of the kind is only what
we had the right both to expect and to demand, and that they are has
already been generally recognized by the Catholic press of the country.
In the choice and arrangement of the matter we discern admirable good
sense and tact; in the illustrations, which are very numerous and nearly
all original, being explanatory of the text, excellent taste; whilst in
the mechanical execution we perceive the skilful workmanship that usually
characterizes the books of The Catholic Publication Society.
The series is graded in strict accordance with scientific principles of
education, and combines all that is important in the word and phonic
methods of teaching, without, however, excluding the _a, b, c_ drill.
Books must always remain the indispensable instruments for imparting
instruction in school, and hence it is of the greatest moment that the
pupil should from the very start be attracted to them. Most children enter
school eager to learn; the craving for knowledge is a divine instinct
implanted in their hearts by the Author of their being, which they have
already in a thousand ways sought to satisfy by their fruitless efforts to
penetrate the mystery of beauty with which Nature surrounds them. When
they enter school this intellectual activity should be stimulated, not
repressed. The books first placed in their hands should be simple,
offering many attractions and few difficulties, presenting to their minds
under new forms the objects with which observation has already rendered
them familiar, and which they now first learn to associate with printed
words. These truths have been felt and acted upon by the compilers of the
“Young Catholic’s Series,” which, in simplicity, in correct gradation, in
beauty and attractiveness, far surpasses anything of the kind that has yet
been offered to the Catholic English‐speaking public.
Another truth which can never be lost sight of in Catholic education is
that religion should be the vital element of the whole process of
instruction.
“Give me a lesson in geography,” said Mr. Arnold, “and I will make it
_religious_.” This is what Catholics desire: that the light of religion
should burnish as with fine gold all human knowledge. Indeed, in primary
education religion is almost the only subject of real thought, the only
power able to touch the heart, to raise the mind, and to evoke from
brutish apathy the elements of humanity, and more especially the reason.
As religion is the widest and deepest of all the elements of civilization,
it ought to be the substratum and groundwork of all popular education.
“Popular education,” says Guizot, “to be truly good and socially useful,
must be fundamentally religious.”
In the compilation of text‐books this is precisely the point which demands
the greatest amount of good sense and the most consummate tact. Religion
must run through the whole fabric like a thread of gold. It must form the
atmosphere in which the pupil breathes; it must give coloring to
everything, and everything must in one way or another be made to prove and
explain its dogmas, and yet there must be no cant, no attempt at
preaching, no dull moralizing, and above all no stupidity.
To accomplish all this, our readers will readily believe, is not an easy
task, and yet we have no hesitation in saying that if they will take the
trouble to examine thoroughly the “Young Catholic’s Series,” they will
agree with us in the opinion that it can stand the test of even this
standard of excellence.
‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐
We learn that the Holy Father has sent a letter of commendation to the
writer of “Italian Confiscation Laws” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for Oct.,
1873, and ordered a translation of the article.