Michal Saul's daughter looked through a window, and saw
King David leaping and dancing before the Lord; and she
despised him in her heart.
The whole story goes into about ten lines. Your psychological
novelist nowadays, given the wit to invent it, would make it
cover 500 pages at least.
Or take the end of David in the first two chapters of the First
Book of Kings, with its tale of Oriental intrigues, plots,
treacheries, murderings in the depths of the horrible palace
wherein the old man is dying. Or read of Solomon and his ships
and his builders, and see his Temple growing (as Heber put it)
like a tall palm, with no sound of hammers. Or read again the end
of Queen Athaliah:
And when Athaliah heard the noise of the guard and of the
people, she came to the people into the temple of the Lord.--
And when she looked, behold, the king stood by a pillar, as the
manner was, and the princes and the trumpeters by the king, and
all the people of the land rejoiced, and blew with trumpets:
And Athaliah rent her clothes, and cried Treason, Treason.--But
Jehoiada the priest commanded the captains of the hundreds, the
officers of the host, and said unto them, Have her forth
without the ranges....
--And they laid hands on her; and she went by the way by the
which the horses came into the king's house: and there was
she slain.
Let a youngster read this, I say, just as it is written; and how
the true East--sound, scent, form, colour--pours into the
narrative!--cymbals and trumpets, leagues of sand, caravans
trailing through the heat, priest and soldiery and kings going up
between them to the altar; blood at the foot of the steps, blood
everywhere, smell of blood mingled with spices, sandal-wood, dung
of camels!
Yes, but how--if you will permit the word--how the _enjoyment_ of
it as magnificent literature might be enhanced by a scholar who
would condescend to whisper, of his knowledge, the magical word
here or there, to the child as he reads! For an instance.--
No child--no grown man with any sense of poetry--can deny his ear
to the Forty-fifth Psalm; the one that begins 'My heart is
inditing a good matter,' and plunges into a hymn of royal
nuptials. First (you remember) the singing-men, the sons of
Korah, lift their chant to the bridegroom, the King:
Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty ... And in thy
majesty ride prosperously.
Or as we hear it in the Book of Common Prayer:
Good luck have thou with thine honour...
because of the word of truth, of meekness, and
righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee
terrible things....
All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia: out of
the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.
Anon they turn to the Bride:
Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear;
forget also thine own people, and thy father's house....
The King's daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is
of wrought gold.
She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework:
the virgins that be her fellows shall bear her company. And
the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift. Instead of thy
fathers shall be thy children, whom thou mayest make princes
in all the earth.
For whom (wonders the young reader, spell-bound by this), for
what happy bride and bridegroom was this glorious chant raised?
Now suppose that, just here, he has a scholar ready to tell him
what is likeliest true--that the bridegroom was Ahab--that the
bride, the daughter of Sidon, was no other than Jezebel, and
became what Jezebel now is--with what an awe of surmise would two
other passages of the history toll on his ear?
And one washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria; and
the dogs licked up his blood....
And when he (Jehu) was come in, he did eat and drink, and
said, Go, see now this cursed woman, and bury her: for she is
a king's daughter.
And they went to bury her: but they found no more of her
than the skull, and the feet, and the palms of her hands.
Wherefore they came again, and told him. And he said, This
is the word of the Lord, which he spake by his servant Elijah
the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezreel shall dogs eat
the flesh of Jezebel ... so that (men) shall not say, This is
Jezebel.
In another lecture, Gentlemen, I propose to take up the argument
and attempt to bring it to this point. 'How can we, having this
incomparable work, _necessary_ for study by all who would write
English, bring it within the ambit of the English Tripos and yet
avoid offending the experts?'