See! his knees writhe!--his sides sink in! The bloom of his face hath
dampened the purple. He is dead, dead! O weep for him! Lament for him!"
(_In long procession they ascend to lay between the torches the
offerings of their several tresses, that seem from afar off like
serpents, black or blond;--and the catafalque is lowered gently to the
level of, a grotto,--the opening of a shadowy sepulchre that yawns
behind it._
_Then_--)
A WOMAN (_bends over the corpse. Her long hair, uncut, envelopes her
from head to feet. She sheds tears so abundantly that her grief cannot
be as that of the others, but more than human--infinite!_
_Anthony dreams of the Mother of Jesus. She speaks_:--)
"Thou didst emerge from the Orient, and didst take me, all trembling
with the dew, into thy arms, O Sun! Doves fluttered upon the azure
of thy mantle; our kisses evoked low breezes among the foliage; and I
abandoned myself wholly to thy love, delighting in the pleasure of my
weakness.
"Alas! alas--Why didst thou depart, to run upon the mountains! A boar
did wound thee at the time of the autumnal equinox!
"Thou art dead; and the fountains weep,--the trees bend down. The wind
of winter whistles through the naked brushwood.
"My eyes are about to close, seeing that darkness covers them! Now thou
dwellest in the underworld near the mightiest of my rivals.
"O Persephone, all that is beautiful descends to thee, never to return!"
(_Even while she speaks, her companions lift the dead, to place him
within the sepulchre. He remains in their hands! It was only a waxen
corpse._
_Wherefore Anthony feels something resembling relief._
_All vanish;--and the hut, the rocks, and the cross reappear._
_But upon the other side of the Nile, Anthony beholds a Woman,
standing in the midst of the desert._
_She retains in her hand the lower part of a long black veil that hides
all her face; supporting with her left arm a little child to whom she
is giving suck. A great ape crouches down in the sand beside her._
_She uplifts her head toward heaven; and in spite of the great
distance, her voice is distinctly heard_:)
ISIS. "O Neith, Beginning of all things! Ammon, Lord of Eternity;
Pthah, demiurgos; Thoth, his intelligence; gods of the Amenthi,
particular triads of the Nomes,--falcons in the azure of heaven,
sphinxes before the temples, ibises perched between the horns of oxen,
planets, constellations, shore, murmurs of the wind, gleams of the
light,--tell me where I may find Osiris.
"I have sought him in all the canals and all the lakes--aye, further
yet, even to Ph[oe]nician Byblos. Anubis, with ears pricked up, leaped
about me, and yelped, and thrust his muzzle searchingly into the tufts
of the tamarinds.
"Thanks, good Cynocephalos--thanks to thee!"
(_She gives the ape two or three friendly little taps upon the head._)
"Hideous Typhon, the red-haired slew him, tore him in pieces! We have
found all his members. But I have not that which rendered me fecund!"
(_She utters wild lamentations._)
ANTHONY (_is filled with fury. He casts stones at her, reviles her._)
"Begone! thou shameless one!--Begone!"
HILARION. "Nay! respect her! Her religion was the faith of thy
fathers!--thou didst wear her amulets when thou wert a child in the
cradle!"
ISIS. "In the summers of long ago, the inundation drove the impure
beasts into the desert. The dykes were opened, the boats dashed against
each other; the panting earth drank the river with the intoxication of
joy. Then, O God, with the horns of the bull, thou didst lie upon my
breast, and then was heard, the lowings of the Eternal Cow!
"The seasons of sowing and reaping, of threshing and of vintage,
followed each other in regular order with the years. In the eternal
purity of the nights, broad stars beamed and glowed. The days were
bathed in never-varying splendour. Like a royal couple the Sun and the
Moon appeared simultaneously, at either end of the horizon.
"Then did we both reign above a sublimer world, twin-monarchs, wedded
within, the womb of eternity--he bearing a concupha-headed sceptre; I,
the sceptre that is tipped with a lotus-flower; both of us erect with
hands joined; and the crumblings of empires affected not our attitude.
"Egypt extended, below us, monumental and awful, long-shaped like the
corridor of a temple; with obelisks on the right, pyramids on the
left, and its labyrinth in the midst. And everywhere were avenues
of monsters, forests of columns, massive pylons flanking gates
summit-crowned with the mysterious globe--the globe of the world,
between two wings.
"The animals of her Zodiac also existed in her pasture lands; and
filled her mysterious writing with their forms and colours. Divided
into twelve regions as the year is divided into-twelve months--each
month, each day also having its own god--she reproduced the immutable
order of heaven. And man even in dying changed not his face; but
saturated with perfumes, invulnerable to decay, he lay down to sleep
for three thousand years in another and silent Egypt.
"And that Egypt, vaster than the Egypt of the living, extended beneath
the earth.
"Thither one descended by dark stairways leading into halls where were
represented the joys of the good, the tortures of the wicked, all that
passes in the third and invisible world. Ranged along the wall the dead
in their painted coffins awaited their turn; and the soul, exempted
from migrations, continued its heavy slumber until the awakening into a
new life.
"Nevertheless, Osiris sometimes came to see me. And by his ghost I
became the mother of Harpocrates."
(_She contemplates the child._)
"Aye! it is he. Those are his eyes; those are his locks, plaited into
ram horns! Thou shalt recommence his works. We shall bloom again like
the lotus. I am still the Great Isis!--none has yet lifted my veil! My
fruit is the Sun!
[Illustration: I am still the Great Isis!none has yet lifted
my veil! My fruit is the Sun!]
"Sim of Springtime, clouds now obscure thy face! The breath of Typhon
devours the pyramids. But a little while ago I beheld the Sphinx flee
away. He was galloping like a jackal.
"I look for my priests,--my priests clad in mantles of linen, with
their great harps, and bearing a mysterious bark, adorned with
silver pateras. There are no more festivals upon the lakes!--no more
illuminations in my delta!--no more cups of milk at Philæ! Apis has
long ceased to reappear.
"Egypt! Egypt! thy great motionless gods have their shoulders already
whitened by the dung of birds; and the wind that passes over the desert
rolls with it and the ashes of thy dead!--Anubis, guardian of ghosts,
abandon me not!"
(_The Cynocephalos has vanished. She shakes her child._)
"But ... what ails thee ... thy hands are cold, thy head droops!"
(_Harpocrates expires. Then she cries aloud with a cry so piercing,
funereal, heart-rending, that Anthony answers it with another cry,
extending his arms as to support her._
_She is no longer there. He lowers his face, overwhelmed by shame._
_All that he has seen becomes confused within his mind. It is like the
bewilderment of travel, the illness of drunkenness. He wishes to hate;
but a vague and vast pity fills his heart. He begins to weep, and weeps
abundantly._)
HILARION. "What makes thee sorrowful?"
ANTHONY (_after having long sought within himself for a reply_):
"I think of all the souls that have been lost through these false gods!"
HILARION. "Dost thou not think that they ... sometimes ... bear much
resemblance to the TRUE?"
ANTHONY. "That is but a device of the Devil to seduce the faithful more
easily. He attacks the strong through the mind, the weak through the
flesh."
HILARION. "But luxury, in its greatest fury, has all the
disinterestedness of penitence. The frenzied love of the body
accelerates the destruction thereof,--and proclaims the extent of the
impossible by the exposition of the body's weakness."
ANTHONY. "What signifies that to me! My heart sickens with disgust
of these beautiful bestial gods, forever busied with carnages and
incests!"
HILARION. "Yet recollect all those things in the Scripture which
scandalize thee because thou art unable to comprehend them! So also may
these Gods conceal under their sinful forms some mighty truth. There
are more of them yet to be seen. Look around!"
ANTHONY. "No, no!--it is dangerous!"
HILARION. "But a little while ago thou didst desire to know them! Is
it because thy faith might vacillate in the presence of lies? What
fearest thou?"
(_The rocks fronting Anthony have become as a mountain. A line of
clouds obscures the mountain half way between summit and base; and
above the clouds appears another mountain, enormous, all green,
unequally hollowed by valleys nestling in its slopes, and supporting at
its summit, in the midst of laurel-groves a palace of bronze, roofed
with tiles of gold, and supported by columns having capitals of ivory._
_In the centre of the peristyle Jupiter,--colossal, with torso
nude,--holds Victory in one hand, his thunderbolts in the other; and
his eagle, perched between his feet, rears its head._
_Juno, seated near him, rolls her large eyes, beneath a diadem whence
her wind-blown veil escapes like a vapour._
_Behind them, Minerva, standing upon a pedestal, leans on her spear.
The skin of the Gorgon covers her breast, and a linen peplos falls in
regular folds to the nails of her toes. Her glaucous eyes, which gleam
beneath her vizor, gaze afar off, attentively._
_On the right of the palace, the aged Neptune bestrides a dolphin
beating with its fins a vast azure expanse which may be sea or sky, for
the perspective of the Ocean seems a continuation of the blue ether:
the two elements are interblended._
_On the other side weird Pluto in night-black mantle, crowned with
diamond tiara and bearing a sceptre of ebony, sits in the midst of an
islet surrounded by the circumvolutions of the Styx;--and this river of
shadow empties itself into the darknesses, which form a vast black gulf
below the cliff,--a bottomless abyss!_
_Mars, clad in brass, brandishes as in wrath his broad shield and his
sword._
_Hercules, leaning upon his club, gazes at him from below._
_Apollo, his face ablaze with light, grasps with outstretched right
arm the reins of four white horses urged to a gallop; and Ceres in her
ox-drawn chariot advances toward him with a sickle in her hand._
_Behind her comes Bacchus, riding in a very low chariot, gently drawn
by lynxes. Plump and beardless, with vine leaves garlanding his brow,
he passes by holding in his hand an overflowing cup of wine. Silenus
riding beside him reels upon his ass. Pan of the pointed ears, blows
upon his syrinx; the Mimalonæides beat drums; the Mænads strew
flowers; the Bacchantes turn in the dance with heads thrown back and
hair dishevelled._
_Diana, with tunic tucked up, issues from the wood together with her
nymphs._
_At the further end of a cavern, Vulcan among his Cabiri, hammers the
heated iron; here and there the aged Rivers leaning recumbent upon
green rocks pour water from their urns; the Muses stand singing in the
valleys_.
_The Hours, all of equal stature, link hands; and Mercury poses
obliquely upon a rainbow, with his caduceus, winged sandals, and winged
petasus._
_But at the summit of the stairway of the Gods,--among clouds soft
as down, from whose turning volutes a rain of roses falls,--Venus
Anadyomene stands gazing at herself in a mirror:--her eyes move
languorously beneath their slumbrous lids._
_She has masses of rich blond hair rolling down over her shoulders; her
breasts are small; her waist is slender; her hips curve out like the
sweeping curves of a lyre; her thighs are perfectly rounded; there are
dimples about her knees; her feet are delicate: a butterfly hovers near
her mouth. The splendour of her body makes a nacreous-tinted halo of
bright light about her; while all the rest of Olympus is bathed in a
pink dawn, rising gradually to the heights of the blue sky._)
ANTHONY. "Ah! my heart swells! A joy never known before thrills me to
the depths of my soul! How beautiful, how beautiful it is!"
HILARION. "They leaned from the heights of cloud to direct the way of
swords; one used to meet them upon the high roads; men had them in
their houses--and this familiarity divinized life.
"Life's aim was only to be free and beautiful. Nobility of attitude was
facilitated by the looseness of garments. The voice of the orator,
trained by the sea, rolled its sonorous waves against the porticoes of
marble. The ephebus, anointed with oil, wrestled all naked in the full
light of the sun. The holiest of actions was to expose perfection of
forms to all.
"And these men respected wives, aged men, suppliants.
"Behind the temple of Hercules there was an altar erected to Pity.
"Victims were immolated with flowers wreathed about the fingers of the
sacrificer. Even memory was exempted from thoughts of the rottenness
of death. Nothing remained but a little pile of ashes. And the Soul,
mingling with the boundless ether, rose up to God."
(_Bending to whisper in Anthony's ear_:--)
"And they still live! The Emperor Constantine adores Apollo. Thou wilt
find the Trinity in Samothracian mysteries,--baptism in the religion of
Isis,--redemption in the faith of Mithra,--a martyrdom of a God in the
festivals of Bacchus. Prosperpine is the Virgin!... Aristæus is Jesus!"
ANTHONY (_remains awhile with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought;
then suddenly repeats aloud the Symbol of Jerusalem, as he remembers
it, uttering a long sigh between each phrase_):--
"I believe in one only God, the Father,--and in one only Lord, Jesus
Christ,--the first born son of God, who was incarnated and made
man,--who was crucified, and buried,--who ascended into Heaven,--who
will come to judge the living and the dead,--of whose Kingdom there
shall be no end;--and in one Holy Spirit,--and in one baptism of
repentance,--and in one Holy Catholic Church,--and in the resurrection
of the flesh,--and in the life everlasting!"
(_Immediately the cross becomes loftier and loftier; it pierces the
clouds, and casts its shadow upon the heaven of the gods._
_All grow pale;--Olympus shudders._
_And at its base Anthony beholds vast bodies enchained, sustaining the
rocks upon their shoulders,--giant figures half buried in the deeps
of caverns. These are the Titans, the Giants, the Hecatonchires, the
Cyclops._)
A VOICE
(_rises, indistinct and awful, like the far roar of leaves, like the
voice of forests in time of tempest, like the mighty moaning of the
wind among the precipices_):
"We knew these things!--we knew them! There must come an end even for
the Gods! Uranus was mutilated by Saturn,--Saturn by Jupiter. And
Jupiter himself shall be annihilated. Each in his turn;--it is Destiny!"
(_And little by little they sink into the mountain, and disappear._
_Meanwhile the golden tiles of the palace rise and fly away._)
JUPITER (_has descended from his throne. At his feet the thunderbolts
lie, smoking like burning coals about to expire;--and the great eagle
bends its neck to pick up its falling feathers_):
"Then I am no longer the master of all things,--most holy, most
mighty, god of the phatrias and Greek peoples,--ancestor of all the
Kings,--Agamemnon of heaven.
"Eagle of apotheoses, what wind from Erebus has wafted thee to me? or,
fleeing from the Campus Martins, dost thou bear me the soul of the last
of the Emperors?
"I no longer desire to receive those of men. Let the Earth keep them;
and let them move upon the level of its baseness. Their hearts are now
the hearts of slaves;--they forget injuries, forget their ancestors,
forget their oaths,--and everywhere the folly of crowds, the mediocrity
of individuals, the hideousness of races, hold sway!"
(_He pants with such violence that his sides seem ready to burst
asunder; he clenches his hands. Weeping_, HEBE _offers him a cup. He
seizes it._)
"No, no! So long as there shall be a brain enclosing a thought, in
whatsoever part of the world;--so long as there shall exist a mind
hating disorder, creating LAW,--so long will the spirit of Jupiter
live!"
(_But the cup is empty. He turns its edge down over his thumbnail._)
"Not one drop left! When the ambrosia fails, the Immortals must indeed
depart!"
(_The cup drops from his hands; and he leans against a column, feeling
himself about to die._)
JUNO. "Thou shouldst not have had so many amours! Eagle, bull, swan,
rain of gold, cloud and flame, thou didst assume all forms,--dissipate
thy light in all elements,--lose thy hair upon all beds! This time
the divorce is irrevocable; and our domination, our very existence,
dissolved."
(_She passes away in air._)
MINERVA (_has no longer her spear; and the ravens nesting among the
sculptures of the friezes, wheel about her, peeking at her helmet._)
"Let me see whether my vessels cleave the bright sea, returning to my
three ports,--let me discover why the fields are deserted, and learn
what the daughters of Athens are now doing.
"In the month of Hecatombeon my whole people came to worship me, under
the guidance of their magistrates and priests. Then, all in white robes
and wearing chitons of gold, they advanced the long line of virgins
bearing cups, baskets, parasols; then the three hundred sacrificial
oxen, and the old men having green boughs, the soldiers with clashing
of armour, the ephebi singing hymns, flute players, lyre players,
rhapsodists, dancing women;--and lastly attached to the mast of a
trireme mounted upon wheel, my great veil embroidered by virgins who
had been nourished in a particular way for a whole year. And when it
had been displayed in all the streets, in all the squares, and before
the temples, in the midst of the ever-chanting procession, it was borne
step by step up the hill of the Acropolis, grazed the Propylæa, and
entered the Parthenon....
"But a strange feebleness comes upon me,--me the Industrious One! What!
what! not one idea comes to me! Lo! I am trembling more than a woman!"
(_She turns, beholds a ruin behind her, utters a cry, and stricken by a
fallen fragment, falls backward upon the ground._)
HERCULES (_has flung away his lion-skin; and with feet firmly braced,
back arched, teeth clenched, he exhausts himself in immeasurable
efforts to bear up the mass of crumbling Olympus._)
"I vanquished the Cercopes, the Amazons, and the Centaurs. Many were
the kings I slew. I broke the horn of the great river, Achelous. I cut
the mountains asunder; I freed nations from slavery; and I peopled
lands that were desolate. I travelled through the countries of Gaul;
I traversed the deserts where thirst prevails. I defended the gods
from their enemies; and I freed myself from Omphale. But the weight of
Olympus is too great for me. My arms grow feebler:--I die!"
(_He is crushed beneath the ruins._)
PLUTO. "It is thy fault, Amphytrionad;--wherefore didst thou descend
into my empire?
"The vulture that gnaws the entrails of Tityus lifted its head;--the
lips of Tantalus were moistened;--the wheel of Ixion stopped.
"Meanwhile the Kæres extended their claws to snatch back the escaping
ghosts; the Furies tore the serpents of their locks; and Cerberus
fettered by thee with a chain, sounded the death rattle in his throat,
and foamed at all his three mouths.
"Thou didst leave the gate ajar; others have come. The daylight of men
has entered into Tartarus!"
(_He sinks into the darkness._)
NEPTUNE. "My trident can no longer call up the tempests. The monsters
that terrified of old, lie rotting at the bottom of the sea.
"Amphitrite whose white feet tripped lightly over the foam, the green
Nereids seen afar off in the horizon, the scaly Sirens who stopped
the passing vessels to tell stories, and the ancient Tritons mightily
blowing upon their shells, all have passed away. All is desolate and
dead; the gaiety of the great Sea is no more!"
(_He vanishes beneath the azure._)
DIANA (_clad in black and surrounded by her dogs, which have been
changed into wolves_).
"The freedom of the deep forests once intoxicated me; the odours of the
wild beasts and the exhalations of the marshes made me as one drank
with joy. But the women whose maternity I protected, now bring dead
children into the world. The moon trembles with the incantations of
witches. Desires of violence, of immensity, seize me, fill me! I wish
to drink poisons,--to lose myself in vapours, in dreams...!"
(_And a passing cloud carries her away._)
MARS (_unhelmed and covered with blood_).
"At first I fought alone;--singlehanded I would provoke a whole army by
my insults,--caring nothing for countries or nations, demanding battle
for the pleasure of carnage alone.
"Afterward I had comrades. They marched to the sound of flutes, in good
order, with equal step, respiring above their bucklers, with plumes
loftily nodding, lances oblique. Then on rushed to battle with mighty
eagle cries. War was joyous as a banquet. Three hundred men strove
against all Asia.
"But the Barbarians are returning;--by myriads they come, by millions!
Ah! since numbers, and engines, and cunning are stronger than valour,
it were better that I die the death of the brave!"
(_He kills himself._)
VULCAN (_sponging the sweat from his limbs_):
"The world is growing cold. The source of heat must be nourished, the
volcanoes and rivers of flowing metal underground. Strike harder!--with
full swing of the arms,--with might and main!"
(_The Cabiri wound themselves with their hammers, blind themselves with
sparks, and groping, lose themselves in the darkness._)
CERES (_standing in her chariot, impelled by wheels having wings at
their hubs_):
"Stop! Stop! Ah! it was with good reason that the exclusion of
strangers, atheists, Epicureans, and Christians was commended! Now the
mystery of the basket has been unveiled; the sanctuary profaned: all is
lost!"
(_She descends a precipitous slope--shrieking, despairing, tearing her
hair._)
"Ah! lies, lies! Daira has not been restored to me. The voice of brass
calls me to the dead. This is another Tartarus, whence there is no
return! Horror!"
(_The abyss engulfs her._)
BACCHUS (_with a frenzied laugh_).
"What matters it? The Archon's wife is my spouse! The law itself reels
in drunkenness! To me the new song, the multiplied forms!
"The fire by which my mother was devoured, flows in my veins! Let it
burn yet more fiercely, even though I perish!
"Male and female, complaisant to all, I abandon myself to you,
Bacchantes! I abandon myself to you, Bacchanalians!--and the vine shall
twine herself about the tree-trunks! Howl! dance! writhe! Loosen the
tiger and the slave!--rend flesh with ferocious bitings!"
(_And Pan, Silenus, the Bacchantes, the Mimalonæides, and the
Mænads,--with their serpents, torches, sable masks,--cast flowers at
each other ... shake their tympanums, strike their thyrsi, pelt each
other with shells, devour grapes, strangle a goat, and tear Bacchus
asunder._)
APOLLO (_furiously whipping his coursers, while his blanching locks are
falling from his head_):
"I have left far behind me stony Delos, so pure that all now there
seems dead; and I must strive to reach Delphi ere its inspiring vapour
be wholly lost. The mules browse in its laurel groves. The Pythoness
has wandered away, and cannot be found.
"By a stronger concentration of my power, I will obtain sublime hymns,
eternal monuments; and all matter will be penetrated by the vibrations
of my cithara!"
(_He strikes the strings of the instrument. They burst, lashing his
face with their broken ends. He flings the cithara away; and furiously
whipping his quadriga, cries_):
"No! enough of forms!--Further, higher!--to the very summit!--to the
realm of pure thought!"
(_But the horses back, rear, dash the chariot to pieces. Entangled by
the harness, caught by the fragments of the broken pole, he falls head
foremost into the abyss._
[Illustration: ... he falls head foremost into the abyss.]
_The sky is darkened._)
VENUS (_blue with cold, shivering_):
"Once with my girdle I made all the horizon of Hellas.