outlined after the fashion of my lips; and her mountains, whiter than
my doves, palpitated beneath the hands of the statuaries. My spirit's
manifestation was found in the ordinances of the festivals, in the
arrangement of coiffures, in the dialogues of philosophers, in the
constitution of republics. But I have doted too much upon men! It is
Love that has dishonoured me!"
(_She casts herself back weeping_):
"This world is abominable;--there is no air for me to breathe!
"O Mercury, inventor of the lyre, conductor of souls, take me away!"
(_She places one finger upon her lips, and describing an immense
parabola, falls into the abyss._
_Nothing is now visible. The darkness is complete._
_Only, that from the eyes of Hilarion escape two flashes, two rays of
lurid light._)
ANTHONY (_begins at last to notice his immense stature_):
"Already several times, while thou wert speaking, it seemed to me thou
wert growing taller; and it was no illusion! How? Explain to me ... Thy
aspect terrifies me!"
(_Footsteps are heard approaching._)
"What is that?"
HILARION (_extending his arm_):
"Look!"
(_Then, under a pale beam of moonlight, Anthony distinguishes an
interminable caravan defiling over the summit of the rocks;--and each
voyager, one after the other, falls from the cliff into the gulf below._
_First comes the three great gods of_ Samothrace,--AXIEROS, AXIOKEROS,
AXIOKERSA,--_united together as in a fascia, purple-masked, all with
hands uplifted._
_Æsculapius advances with a melancholy air, not even perceiving
Samos and Telesphorus, who question him with gestures of anguish._
ELEAN SOSIPOLIS, _of python-form, rolls his coils toward the abyss._
DOSIPOENA, _becomes dizzy, leaps in of her own accord._ BRITOMARTIS,
_shrieking with fear, clutches fast the meshes of her net. The Centaurs
come at a wild gallop, and roll pell-mell into the black gulf._
_Behind them, all limping, advance the bands of the mourning Nymphs.
Those of the meadows are covered with dust; those of the woods moan and
bleed; wounded by the axes of the woodcutters._
_The Gelludes, the Strygii, the Empusæ, all the infernal goddesses,
form one pyramid of blended fangs, vipers, and torches;--and seated
upon a vulture-skin at its summit, Eurynome, blue as the flies that
corrupt meat, devours her own arms._
_Then in one great whirl simultaneously disappear the bloody Orthia,
Hymina of Orchomenus, the Laphria of the Patræns, Aphia of Agina,
Bendis of Thrace, Stymphalia with thighs like a bird's. Triopas, in
lieu of three eyes, has now but three empty orbits. Erichthonius, his
legs paralysed, crawls upon his hands like a cripple._)
HILARION. "What a pleasure, is it not!--to see them all in the
abjection of their death-agony! Climb up here beside me, on this rock;
and thou shalt be even as Xerxes, reviewing his army.
"Beyond there, very far, dost thou behold that fair-bearded giant,
who even now lets fall his sword crimsoned with blood?--that is
the Scythian Zalmoxis between two planets,--Artimpasa, Venus, and
Orsiloche, the Moon.
"Still further away, now emerging from pallid clouds, are the gods whom
the Cimmerians adore, even beyond Thule.
"Their huge halls were warm, and by the gleam of swords that tapestried
the vault, they drank their hydromel from horns of ivory. They ate the
liver of the whale in dishes of brass wrought by the hammers of demons;
or, betimes, they listened to captive sorcerers whose fingers played
upon harps of stone.
"They are feeble! They are cold! The snow makes heavy their bearskins;
and their feet show through the rents in their sandals.
"They weep for the vast fields upon whose grassy knolls they were
wont to draw breath in pauses of battle; they weep for the long ships
whose prows forced a way through the mountains of ice;--and the skates
wherewith they followed the orb of the poles, upbearing at the length
of their mighty arms all the firmament that turned with them."
(_A gust of frosty wind carries them off. Anthony turns his eyes
another way. And he perceives--outlined in black against a red
background--certain strange personages, with chinbands and gauntlets,
who throw balls at one another, leap over each other's heads, make
grimaces, dance a frenzied dance._)
HILARION. "Those are the divinities of Etruria, the innumerable Æsars.
"There is Tages, by whom augury was invented. With one hand he seeks to
augment the divisions of the sky; with the other he supports himself
upon the earth: let him sink therein!
"Nortia gazes at the wall into which she drave nails to mark the number
of the passing years. Its whole surface is now covered; and the period
is accomplished.
"Like two travellers overtaken by a storm, Kastur and Pulutuk,
trembling, seek to shelter themselves beneath the same mantle."
ANTHONY (_closes his eyes_):
"Enough! Enough!"
(_But with a mighty noise of wings, all the Victories of the Capitol
pass through the air,--hiding their faces with their hands, dropping
the trophies hanging upon their arms._
_Janus,--lord of crepuscules,--flees upon a black ram; and one of his
two faces is already putrified; the other slumbers with fatigue._
_Summanus, the headless god of the dark heavens, presses against his
heart an odd cake shaped like a wheel._
_Vesta, beneath a ruined cupola, tries to relight her extinguished
lamp._
_Bellona gashes her cheeks,--without being able to make that blood flow
by which her devotees were purified._)
ANTHONY. "Mercy!--they weary me!"
HILARION. "Before, they amused thee!"
(_And he shows him in a grove of bean-trees,_ A WOMAN, _naked....
.........and a black man, holding in each hand a torch._[8])
"It is the goddess of Aricia, with the demon Virbius. Her sacerdote,
the King of the grove, had to be an assassin;[9] and the fugitive
slaves, the despoilers of corpses, the brigands of the Via Salaria, the
cripples of the Pons Sublicius, all the human vermin of the Suburra
worshipped no deities so fervently.
"In the time of Marcus Antonius the patrician women preferred Libitina."
(_And he shows him under the shadow of cypresses and rose-trees_,
ANOTHER WOMAN, _clad in gauze. Around her lie spades, litters, black
hangings, all the paraphernalia of funerals. She smiles. Her diamonds
shine afar off through spiders' webs. The Larvæ, like skeletons, show
their bones through the branches; and the Lemures, who are phantoms,
extend their bat-like wings._
_At the end of a field lies the god Terminus, uprooted, and covered
with ordures._
_In the centre of a furrow, the great corpse of Vertumnus is being
devoured by red dogs._
_The rustic deities all depart, weeping:--Sartor, Sarrator, Vervactor,
Collina, Vallona, Hostilinus--all wearing little hooded mantles, and
carrying either a hoe, a pitchfork, a hurdle, or a boar-spear._)
HILARION. "Their spirits made prosperous the villa,--with its dovecots,
its parks of dormice, its poultry-yards protected by nets, its warm
stables fragrant with odours of cedar.
"Also they protected all the wretched population who dragged the irons
upon their legs over the flinty ways of the Sabine country,--those who
called the swine together by sound of horn,--those who were wont to
gather the bunches at the very summits of the elms,--those who drove
the asses, laden with manure, over the winding bypaths. The panting
labourer, leaning over the handle of his plough, prayed them to give
strength to his arms; and under the shade of the lindens, beside
calabashes filled with milk, the cow-herds were wont, in turn, to sound
their praises upon flutes of reed."
ANTHONY (_sighs._)
(_And in the centre of a chamber, upon a lofty estrade, an ivory bed is
visible, surrounded by persons bearing torches of pine._)
"Those are the deities of marriage. They await the coming of the bride.
"Domiduca should lead her in,--Virgo unfasten her girdle,--Subigo place
her in the bed,--and Præma open her arms, and whisper sweet words into
her ear.
"But she will not come!--and they dismiss the others:--Nona and Decima
who watch by sick-beds; the three Nixii who preside over child-birth;
the two nurses, Educa and Potina; and Carna, guardian of the cradle,
whose bouquet of hawthorne keeps evil dreams from the child.
"Afterwards, Ossipago should strengthen his knees;--Barbatus give him
his first beard; Stimula inspire his first desires; Volupia grant him
his first enjoyment; Fabulimus should have taught him to speak, Numera
to count, Cam[oe]na to sing, Consus to reflect."
(_This chamber is empty; and there remains only the centenarian Nænia
beside the bed,--muttering to herself the dirge she was wont to howl at
the funerals of aged men._
_But her voice is soon drowned by sharp cries. These are uttered by_--
_The_ LARES DOMESTICI, _crouching at the further end of the atrium,
clad in dog-skins, with flowers wreathed about their bodies,--pressing
their clenched hands against their cheeks, and weeping as loudly as
they can._)
"Where is the portion of food we received at each repast, the kindly
care of the maid-servant, the smile of the matron, the merriment of
the little boys playing at knuckle-bones on the mosaic pavement of the
court-yard? When grown up, they used to hang about our necks their
bullæ of gold or leather!
"What happiness it was, when on the evening of a triumph, the master,
entering, turned his humid eyes upon us! He would recount his combats;
and the little house would be prouder than a palace; sacred as a temple!
"How sweet were the family repasts, above all on the morrow of the
Feralia! Tenderness for the dead appeased all discords; all kissed each
other, while drinking to the glories of the past, and the hopes of the
future.
"But the ancestors, of painted wax, locked up behind us, are slowly
becoming covered with mold. The new races, visiting their own
deceptions upon us, have shattered our jaws; our wooden bodies are
disappearing piece-meal under the teeth of rats."
(_And the innumerable gods, watching over doors, kitchens, cellars,
baths, disperse in every direction--under the form of enormous ants
running over the pavement, or great butterflies soaring away._
_Then a roll of thunder is heard._)
A VOICE:
"I was the God of Armies, the Lord, the Lord God! I pitched the tents
of Jacob on the hills; and in the midst of the sands I nourished my
chosen people in their flight.
"It was I who consumed the city of Sodom with fire! It was I who
overwhelmed the world with the waters of the Deluge! It was I that
drowned Pharaoh, with all the princes, sons of Kings,--making the sea
to swallow up his chariots of war, and his charioteers!
"I, the Jealous God, held all other gods in abomination. I brayed the
impure in my anger; the mighty I cast down; and swiftly the desolation
of my wrath ran to the right and to the left, like a dromedary loosened
in a field of maize.
"I chose the humble to deliver Israel. Angels, flame-winged, spake to
them from out the bushes.
"Perfumed with spikenard, with cinnamon and myrrh, clad in transparent
robes, and shod with high-heeled sandals,--women of valiant heart went
forth to slay captains. The passing wind carried my prophets with it.
"My law I graved upon tables of stone. Within that law my people were
enclosed, as within a strong citadel. They were my people. I was their
God! The land was mine; the men also belonged to me, together with
their every thought, and all their works, and the tools they wrought
with, and their prosperity.
"My ark reposed within a triple sanctuary,--surrounded by curtains
of purple and lighted candelabra. I had a whole tribe to serve me as
servants, swinging censers; and the high-priest, robed in robes of
hyacinth, wore upon his breast precious stones disposed in symmetrical
order.
"Woe! Woe! the Holy of Holies is open, the veil is rent, the perfumes
of the holocaust are dissipated by all the winds of heaven! The jackal
whines in the sepulchres; my temple is destroyed; my people dispersed!
"The priests have been strangled with the girdles of their robes. The
women languish in captivity; the holy vessels have all been melted!"
(_The voice, becoming more distant_):
"I was the God of Armies; the Lord, the Lord God!"
(_An enormous silence follows,--and deepest night._)
ANTHONY. "All have passed away!"
SOME ONE (_replies_):
"I remain!"
(_And Hilarion stands before him--but transfigured wholly,--beautiful
as an archangel, luminous as a sun, and so lofty that in order to
behold his face_--
ANTHONY
_is compelled to throw back his head, to look up as though gazing as a
star_):
"Who art thou?"
HILARION. "My kingdom is vast as the universe; and my desire knows no
limits. I go on forever,--freeing minds, weighing worlds,--without
hatred, without fear, without pity, without love, and without God. Men
call me SCIENCE!"
ANTHONY (_recoiling from him_):
"Say, rather, that thou art ... the Devil!"
HILARION (_fixing his eyes upon him_:)
"Wouldst thou behold him?"
ANTHONY (_cannot detach his eyes from that mighty gaze:--the curiosity
of the Devil comes upon him. His terror augments; yet his wish grows
even to boundlessness_):
"Yet if I should see him ... if I were to see him!"
(_Then in a sudden spasm of wrath_):
"The horror that I have of him will free me from his presence
forever!... Yes!"
(_A cloven foot appears. Anthony regrets his wish._
_But the Devil flings him upon his horns and bears him away._)
[1] Matthew II: 10--T.
[2] "Buddha, or more correctly, the Buddha, for Buddha is an
appellative meaning Enlightened."--Max Müller (Chips, Vol. I., 206).
[3] Luke II: 25-26.--T.
[4] Ibid II: 46-47.--T.
[5] Or, Haoma, also Hom, the sacred plant, whose fermented juice
occupied an important place in the practical rites of Iran. Supposed
to be the same plant known in botany as _Sarcostemma viminalis._
Deified in Iranian worship, like the sacred drink _Soma_ in the Vedic
hymns. The _Soma_ was the fermented extract of the _Asclepias acida_
or _Sarcostemma ritalis._ See Marius Fontane, "L'Inde Védique," "Les
Iraniens."--Trans.
[6] Apuleius says, "a silken mantle."--Trans.
[7] Apuleius says, "strung with knuckle-bones of sheep."--Trans.
[8] This scene, like certain paintings in the Naples museum, is all
suited for public exhibition.--Trans.
[9] Readers will recollect the lines in Macaulay's _Lays of Ancient
Rome_:
"Beneath Aricia's trees,
Those trees in whose dim shadow
A ghastly priest doth reign,
The priest who slew the slayer,
And must himself be slain."
VI
(_He flies beneath him, outstretched like a swimmer; his vast-spreading
wings, wholly concealing him, seem like one huge cloud._)
ANTHONY. "Whither do I go? But a little while ago I beheld in a glimpse
the form of the Accurst. Nay!--'tis a cloud that upbears me! Perhaps I
am dead, and am ascending to God....
"How freely I respire. The immaculate air seems to vivify my soul. No
sense of weight!--no more suffering.
"Far below me the lightning breaks,--the horizon broadens, widens,--the
rivers cross each other. That blond-bright spot is the desert; that
pool of water the ocean!
"And other oceans appear!--vast regions of which I knew nothing!
There are the countries of the blacks, which seem to smoke like
brasiers!--then is the zone of snows always made dim by fog! Would I
might behold those mountains where the sun, each evening, sinks to
rest!"
THE DEVIL. "The sun never sinks to rest; the sun never rests!"
(_Anthony is not surprised at this voice. It seems to him an echo of
his own thought--a response made by his own memory._
_Meanwhile the earth gradually assumes the shape of a ball; and he
beholds it in the midst of the azure, turning upon its poles, and
revolving with the sun._)
THE DEVIL. "So it does not form the centre of the universe! Pride of
man! humiliate thyself!"
ANTHONY. "Now I can scarcely distinguish it. It mingles confusedly with
other glowing worlds. The firmament itself is but one tissue of stars."
(_And they still rise._)
"No sound!--not even the hoarse cry of eagles! Nothing? I listen for
the harmony of the spheres."
THE DEVIL. "Thou wilt not hear them! Nor wilt thou behold the
antichtonus of Plato,--or the central furnace of Philolaüs,--or the
spheres of Aristotle, or the seven heavens of the Jews, with the great
waters above the vault of crystal!"
ANTHONY. "Yet from below the vault seemed solid as a wall!--on the
contrary I penetrate it, I lose myself in it!"
(_And he beholds the moon,--like a rounded fragment of ice filled with
motionless light._)
THE DEVIL. "Formerly it was the sojourn of souls! Even the good
Pythagoras adorned it with magnificent flowers, populated it with
birds!"
ANTHONY. "I can see only desolate plains there, with extinct craters
yawning under a black sky!
"Let us go towards those milder-beaming stars, that we may contemplate
the angels who uphold them at arms' length, like torches!"
THE DEVIL (_bears him into the midst of the stars_):
"They attract at the same time that they repel each other. The
action of each one results from that of others, and contributes
thereunto,--without the aid of any auxiliary, by the force of a law,
the virtue of order alone!"
ANTHONY. "Yes!...yes! My intelligence grasps the great truth! It is
a joy greater than all tender pleasures! Breathless I find myself with
astonishment at the enormity of God!"
THE DEVIL. "Even as the firmament ever rises as thou dost ascend, so
with the expansion of thy thought will He become greater to thee; and
after this discovery of the universe thou wilt feel thy joy augment
with the broadening and deepening of the infinite."
ANTHONY. "Ah! higher!--higher still!--- forever higher!"
(_Then the stars multiply, scintillate. The Milky Way develops in the
zenith like a monstrous belt, with holes at intervals; through these
rents in its brightness stretches of prolonged darkness are visible.
There are rains of stars, long trains of golden dust, luminous vapours
that float and dissolve.
At times a comet suddenly passes by; then the tranquillity of
innumerable lights recommences.
Anthony, with outstretched arms, supports himself upon the Devil's
horns, and thus occupies all the space between them.
He remembers with disdain the ignorance of other days, the mediocrity
of his dreams. And now those luminous globes he was wont to gaze upon
from below, are close to him. He distinguishes the intercrossing of
the lines of their orbits, the complexity of their courses. He beholds
them coming from afar,--and, like stones suspended in a sling, describe
their circles, form their hyperbolas.
He perceives, all within the field of his vision at once, the Southern
Cross and the Great Bear, the Lynx and the Centaur, the nebula of
Dorado, the six suns in the constellation of Orion, Jupiter with his
four satellites, and the triple ring of the monstrous Saturn!--all the
planets, all the stars that men will discover in the future. He fills
his eyes with their light; he over-burthens his mind with calculation
of their distances: then, bowing his head, he murmurs_):
"What is the purpose of all that?"
THE DEVIL. "There is no purpose. How could God have a purpose? What
experience could have instructed him?--what reflection determined him?
[Illustration: Anthony: What is the purpose of all that? The
Devil: There is no purpose.]
"Before the beginning he could not have acted;--and now his action
would be useless."
ANTHONY. "Yet he created the world, at one time, by his word only."
THE DEVIL. "But the beings that people the earth come upon it
successively. So also, in heaven, new stars arise--different effects of
varying causes."
ANTHONY. "The varying of causes is the will of God!"
THE DEVIL. "But to admit several acts of will in God is to admit
various causes, and therefore to deny his unity.
"His will is inseparable from his essence. He can have but one will,
having but one essence; and inasmuch as he externally exists, he acts
eternally.
"Contemplate the sun! From its surface leap vast jets of flame, casting
forth sparks that disperse beyond to become worlds here-after;--and
further than the last, far beyond those deeps where thou seest only
night, whirl other suns,--and behind them others again, and beyond
those yet others ... without end!"
ANTHONY. "Enough! Enough! I fear!--I will fall into the abyss!"
THE DEVIL (_pauses, and rocks Anthony gently in the midst of space_).
"Nothingness is--not--there is no void! Everywhere and forever bodies
move upon the immovable deeps of space! Were there boundaries to
space, it would not be space, but a body only: it is limitless!"
ANTHONY (_stupefied by wonder_):
"Limitless!"
THE DEVIL. "Ascend skyward forever and forever,--yet thou wilt not
attain the summit. Descend below the earth for billions of billions of
centuries: never wilt thou reach the bottom. For there is no summit,
there is no bottom; there is no Above, no Below--nor height, nor
depth as signified by the terms of human utterance. And Space itself
is comprised in God, who is not a portion thereof of such or such a
size,--but is Immensity itself!"
ANTHONY (_slowly_):
"Matter ..., then, ... must be a part of God?"
THE DEVIL. "Why not? Canst thou know the end of God?"
ANTHONY. "Nay: on the contrary, I prostrate, I crush myself beneath his
mightiness!"
THE DEVIL. "And yet thou dost pretend to move him! Thou dost speak to
him,--thou dost even adorn him with virtues,--with goodness, justice,
mercy,--in lieu of recognising that all perfections are his!
"To conceive aught beyond him is to conceive God above God, the Being
above the Being. For He is the only being, the only substance.
"If the Substance could be divided, it would not be the Substance, it
would lose its nature: God could not exist. He is therefore indivisible
as infinite;--and if he had a body, he would be composed of parts,
he would not be One--he would not be infinite. Therefore he is not a
Person!"
ANTHONY. "What? my prayers, my sobs, my groans, the sufferings of my
flesh, the transports of my love,--have all these things gone out to a
lie,--to emptiness, unavailingly--like the cry of a bird, like a whirl
of dead leaves?"
(_Weeping_):
"Oh, no!--there is Some One above all things,--a great Soul, a Lord, a
Father whom my heart adores and who must love me!"
THE DEVIL. "Thou dost desire that God were not God;--for did he feel
love, or anger, or pity,--he would abandon his perfection for a greater
or a lesser perfection. He can stoop to no sentiment, nor be contained
in any form."
ANTHONY. "One day, nevertheless, I shall see him!"
THE DEVIL. "With the blessed, is it not?--when the finite shall enjoy
the infinite in some restricted place, containing the Absolute!"
ANTHONY. "Matters not!--there must be a paradise for the good, as there
is a hell for the wicked."
THE DEVIL. "Can the desire of thy mind create the law of the universe?
Without doubt evil is indifferent to God,--forasmuch as the Earth is
covered with it!
"Is it through impotence that he endures it, or through cruelty that he
maintains it?
"Dost thou fancy that he is eternally readjusting the world, like an
imperfect machine?--that he is forever watching the movements of all
beings, from the flight of a butterfly to the thought of a man?
"If he have created the universe, his providence is superfluous. If
Providence exists, then creation is defective.
"But evil and good concern only thee--even like night and day, pleasure
and pain, death and birth, which are relative only to one corner
of space, to a special centre, to a particular interest. Since the
Infinite is permanent, the Infinite is;--and that is all."
(_The Devil's wings have been gradually expanding: now they cover all
space._)
ANTHONY (_now perceives nothing: a great faintness comes upon him_):
"A hideous cold freezes me, even to the depths of my soul! This is
beyond the extreme of pain! It is like a death that is deeper than
death! I roll in the immensity of darkness; and the darkness itself
enters within me. My consciousness bursts beneath this dilation of
nothingness!"
THE DEVIL. "Yet the knowledge of things comes to thee only through the
medium of thy mind. Even as a concave mirror, it deforms the objects
it reflects; and thou hast no means whatever of verifying their
exactitude."