Of the drama itself I shall attempt no analysis, referring you
for this to the two books from which I have already quoted. My
purpose being merely to persuade you that this surpassing poem
can be studied, and ought to be studied, as literature, I shall
content myself with turning it (so to speak) once or twice in my
hand and glancing one or two facets at you.
To begin with, then, you will not have failed to notice, in the
setting out of the drama, a curious resemblance between "Job" and
the "Prometheus" of Aeschylus. The curtain in each play lifts on
a figure solitary, tortured (for no reason that seems good to us)
by a higher will which, we are told, is God's. The chorus of
Sea-nymphs in the opening of the Greek play bears no small
resemblance in attitude of mind to job's three friends. When job
at length breaks the intolerable silence with
Let the day perish wherein I was born,
And the night which said, There is a man child conceived.
he uses just such an outburst as Prometheus: and, as he is
answered by his friends, so the Nymphs at once exclaim to
Prometheus
Seest thou not that thou hast sinned?
But at once, for anyone with a sense of comparative literature,
is set up a comparison between the persistent West and the
persistent East; between the fiery energising rebel and the
patient victim. Of these two, both good, one will dare everything
to release mankind from thrall; the other will submit, and
justify himself--mankind too, if it may hap--by submission.
At once this difference is seen to give a difference of form to
the drama. Our poem is purely static. Some critics can detect
little individuality in Job's three friends, to distinguish them.
For my part I find Eliphaz more of a personage than the other
two; grander in the volume of his mind, securer in wisdom; as I
find Zophar rather noticeably a mean-minded greybeard, and Bildad
a man of the stand-no-nonsense kind. But, to tell the truth, I
prefer not to search for individuality in these men: I prefer to
see them as three figures with eyes of stone almost expressionless.
For in truth they are the conventions, all through,--the orthodox
men--addressing Job, the reality; and their words come to this:
Thou sufferest, therefore must have sinned.
All suffering is, must be a judgment upon sin.
Else God is not righteous.
They are statuesque, as the drama is static. The speeches follow
one another, rising and falling, in rise and fall magnificently
and deliberately eloquent. Not a limb is seen to move, unless it
be when job half rises from the dust in sudden scorn of their
conventions:
No doubt but _ye_ are the people,
And wisdom shall die with you!
or again
Will ye speak unrighteously for God,
And talk deceitfully for him?
Will _ye_ respect _his_ person?
Will _ye_ contend for God?
Yet--so great is this man, who has not renounced and will not
renounce God, that still and ever he clamours for more knowledge
of Him. Still getting no answer, he lifts up his hands and calls
the great Oath of Clearance; in effect 'If I have loved gold
overmuch, hated mine enemy, refused the stranger my tent,
truckled to public opinion':
If my land cry out against me,
And the furrows thereof weep together;
If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money,
Or have caused the owners thereof to lose their life:
Let thistles grow instead of wheat,
And cockle instead of barley.
With a slow gesture he covers his face:
The words of Job are ended.