What is it then, that they want, that they are forever rampant and
unsatisfied, the king of beasts and the defender of virgins? What is
this Crown that hovers between them, unattainable? Does either of them
ever hope to get it?
But think of the king of beasts lying serene with the crown on his head!
Instantly the unicorn prances from every heart. And at the thought of
the lord of chastity with the crown ledged above his golden horn, lying
in virgin lustre of sanctity, the lion springs out of his lair in every
soul, roaring after his prey.
It is a strange and painful position, the king of beasts and the beast
of purity, rampant for ever on either side of the crown. Is it to be so
for ever?
Who says lion?--who says unicorn? A lion, a lion!! Hi, a unicorn! Now
they are at it, they have forgotten all about the crown. It is a
greater thing to have an enemy than to have an object. The lion and the
unicorn were fighting, it is no question any more of the crown. We know
this, because when the lion beat the unicorn, he did not take the crown
and put it on his head, and say, “Now Mr. Purity, I’m king”. He drove
the unicorn out of town, expelled him, obliterated him, expurgated him
from the memory, exiled him from the kingdom. Instantly the town was all
lion, there was no unicorn at all, no scent nor flavour of unicorn.
“Unicorn!” they said in the city. “That is a mythological beast that
never existed.”
There was no question any more of rivalry. The unicorn was erased from
the annals of fact.
Why did the lion fight the unicorn? Why did the unicorn fight the lion?
Why must the one obliterate the other? Was it the _raison d’être_ of
each of them, to obliterate the other?
But think, if the lion really destroyed, killed the unicorn: not merely
drove him out of town, but annihilated him! Would not the lion at once
expire, as if he had created a vacuum around himself? Is not the unicorn
necessary to the very existence of the lion, is not each opposite kept
in stable equilibrium by the opposition of the other.
This is a terrible position: to have for a _raison d’être_ a purpose
which, if once fulfilled, would of necessity entail the cessation from
existence of both opponents. They would both cease to be, if either of
them really won in the fight which is their sole reason for existing.
This is a troublesome thought.
It makes us at once examine our own hearts. What do we find there?--a
want, a need, a crying out, a divine discontent. Is it the lion, is it
the unicorn?--one, or both? But certainly there is this crying aloud,
this infant crying in the night, born into a blind want.
What do we find at the core of our hearts?--a want, a void, a hollow
want. It is the lion that must needs fight the unicorn, the unicorn that
must needs fight the lion. Supposing the lion refuses the obligation of
his being, and says, “I won’t fight, I’ll just lie down. I’ll be a lion
couchant.”
What _then_ is the lion? A void, a hollow ache, a want. “What am I?”
says the lion, as he lies with his head between his paws, or walks by
the river feeding on raspberries, peacefully, like a unicorn. “I am a
hollow void, my roaring is the resonance of a hollow drum, my strength
is the power of the vacuum, drawing all things within itself.”
Then he groans with horrible self-consciousness. After all, there is
nothing for it but to set upon the unicorn, and so forget, forget,
obtain the precious self-oblivion.
Thus are we, then, rounded upon a void, a hollow want, like the lion.
And this want makes us draw all things into ourselves, to fill up the
void. But it is a bottomless pit, this void. If ever it were filled,
there would be a great cessation from being, of the whole universe.
Thus we portray ourselves in the field of the royal arms. The whole
history is the fight, the whole _raison d’être_. For the whole field is
occupied by the lion and the unicorn. These alone are the living
occupants of the immortal and mortal field.
We have forgotten the Crown, which is the keystone of the fight. We are
like the lion and the unicorn, we go on fighting underneath the Crown,
entirely oblivious of its supremacy.
It is modest common sense for us to acknowledge, all of us, nowadays,
that we are built round a void and hollow want which, if satisfied,
would imply our collapse, our utter ceasing to be. Therefore we regard
our craving with complacence, we feel the great aching of the Want, and
we say, with conviction, “I know I exist, I know I am I, because I feel
the divine discontent which is personal to me, and eternal, and present
always in me.”
That is because we are incomplete, we stand upon one side of the shield,
or on the other. On the one side we are in darkness, our eyes gleam
phosphorescent like cat’s eyes. And with these phosphorescent gleaming
eyes we look across at the opposite pure beast, and we say, “Yes, I am
a lion, my _raison d’être_ is to devour that unicorn, I am moulded upon
an eternal void, a Want.” Gleaming bright, we see ourselves reflected
upon the surface of the darkness and we say: “I am the pure unicorn, it
is for me to oppose and resist for ever that avid lion. If he ceased to
exist, I should be supreme and unique and perfect. Therefore I will
destroy him.”
But the lion will not be destroyed. If he were, if he were swallowed
into the belly of the unicorn, the unicorn would fly asunder into chaos.
This is like being a creature who walks by night, who says: “Men see by
darkness, and in the darkness they have their being.” Or like a creature
that walks by day, and says: “Men live by the light.”
We are enveloped in the darkness, like the lion: or like the unicorn,
enveloped in the light.
For the womb is full of darkness, and also flooded with the strange
white light of eternity. And we, the peoples of the world, we are
enclosed within the womb of our era, we are there begotten and
conceived, but not brought forth.
A myriad, myriad people, we roam in the belly of our era, seeking,
seeking, wanting. And we seek and want deliverance. But we say we want
to overcome the lion that shares with us this universal womb, the walls
of which are shut, and have no window to inform us that we are in
prison. We roam within the vast walls of the womb, unnourished now,
because the time of our deliverance is ripe, even overpast, and the body
of our era is lean and withered because of us, withered and inflexible.
We roam unnourished, moulded each of us around a core of want, a void.
We stand in the darkness of the womb and we say: “Behold, there is the
light, the white light of eternity, which we want.” And we make war upon
the lion of darkness, annihilate him, so that we may be free in the
eternal light. Or else, suddenly, we admit ourselves the lion, and we
rush rampant on the unicorn of chastity.
We stand in the light of Virginity, in the wholeness of our unbroached
immortality, and we say: “Lo the darkness surrounds us, to envelop us.
Let us resist the powers of darkness.” Then like the bright and virgin
unicorn we make war upon the ravening lion. Or we cry: “Ours is the
strength and glory of the Creator, who precedes Creation, and all is
unto us.” So we open a ravening mouth, to swallow back all time has
brought forth.
And there is no rest, no cessation from the conflict. For we are two
opposites which exist by virtue of our inter-opposition. Remove the
opposition and there is collapse, a sudden crumbling into universal
nothingness.
The darkness, this has nourished us. The darkness, this is a vast
infinite, an origin, a Source. The Beginning, this is the great sphere
of darkness, the womb wherein the universe is begotten.
But this universal, infinite darkness conceives of its own opposite. If
there is universal, infinite darkness, then there is universal, infinite
light, for there cannot exist a specific infinite save by virtue of the
opposite and equivalent specific infinite. So that if there be
universal, infinite darkness in the beginning, there must be universal,
infinite light in the end. And these are two relative halves.
Into the womb of the primary darkness enters the ray of ultimate light,
and time is begotten, conceived, there is the beginning of the end. We
are the beginning of the end. And there, within the womb, we ripen upon
the beginning, till we become aware of the end.
We are fruit, we are an integral part of the tree. Till the time comes
for us to fall, and we hang in suspense, realising that we are an
integral part of the vast beyond, which stretches under us and grasps us
even before we drop into it.
We are the beginning, which has conceived us within its womb of
darkness, and nourished us to the fulness of our growth. This is ours
that we adhere to. This is our God, Jehovah, Zeus, the Father of Heaven,
this that has conceived and created us, in the beginning, and brought us
the fulness of our strength.
And when we have come to the fulness of our strength, like lions which
have been fed till they are full grown, then the strange necessity comes
upon us, we must travel away, roam like falling fruit, fall from the
initial darkness of the tree, of the cave which has reared us, into the
eternal light of germination and begetting, the eternal light, shedding
our darkness like the fruit that rots on the ground.
We travel across between the two great opposites of the Beginning and
the End, the eternal night and everlasting day, and the transit is a
stride taken, the night gives us up for the day to receive us. And what
are we between the two?
But before the transit is accomplished, whilst we are yet like fruit
heavy and ripe on the trees, we realise the delirious freedom of the
end, the goal, and we cry: “Behold, I, who am here within the darkness,
I am the light! I am the light, I am Unicorn, the beam of chastity.
Behold, the beam of Virginity gleams within my loins, in this
circumambient darkness. Behold, I am not the Beginning, I am the End.
The End is universal light, the achieving again of infinite unblemished
being, the infinite oneness of the Light, the escape from the infinite
not-being of the darkness.”
All the time, these cries take place within the womb, these are the
myriad unborn uttering themselves as they come towards maturity, cry
after cry as the darkness develops itself over the sea of Light, and
flesh is born, and limbs; cry after cry as the light develops within the
darkness, and mind is born, and the consciousness of that which is
outside my own flesh and limbs, and the desire for everlasting life
grows more insistent.
These are the cries of the two adversaries, the two opposites.
First of all the flesh develops in splendour and glory out of the
prolific darkness, begotten by the light it develops to a great triumph,
till it dances naked in glory of itself, before the Ark, naked in glory
of itself in the procession of heroes travelling towards the wise
goddess, the white light, the Mind, the light which the vessel of living
darkness has caught and captured within itself, and holds in triumph.
The flesh of darkness triumphant circles round the treasure of light
which it has enveloped, which it calls Mind, and this is the ecstasy,
the dance before the Ark, the Bacchic delirium.
And then, within the womb, the light grows stronger and finds voice, it
cries out: “Behold, I am free, I am not enveloped within this darkness.
Behold, I am the everlasting light, the Eternity that stretches forward
for ever, utterly the opposite of that darkness which departs backward,
backward for ever. Come over to me, to the light, to the light that
streams into the glorious eternity. For now the darkness is revoked for
ever.”
It is the voice of the unicorn crying in the wilderness, it is the Son
of Man. And behold, in the fight, the unicorn beats the lion, and drives
him out of town.
But all of this is within the Womb. The darkness builds up the warm
shadow of the flesh in splendour and triumph, enclosing the light. This
is the zenith of David and Solomon, and of Assyria and Egypt. Then the
light, wrestling within the vessel, throws up a white gleam of universal
love, which is St. Francis of Assisi, and Shelley.
Then each has reached its maximum of self-assertion. The flesh is made
perfect within the womb, the spirit is at last made perfect also, within
the womb. They are equally perfect, equally supreme, the one adhering to
the infinite darkness of the beginning, the other adhering to the
infinite light of the end.
Yet, within the womb, they are eternally opposite. Darkness stands over
against light, light stands over against dark. The lion is reared
against the unicorn, the unicorn is reared against the lion. One says,
“Behold, the darkness which gave us birth is eternal and infinite: this
we belong to.” The other says, “We are of the Light, which is
everlasting and infinite.”
And there is no reconciliation, save in negation. From the present, the
stream flows in opposite directions, back to the past, on to the future.
There are two goals, at opposite ends of time. There is the vast
original dark out of which Creation issued, there is the Eternal light
into which all mortality passes. And both are equally infinite, both are
equally the goal, and both equally the beginning.
And we, fully equipped in flesh and spirit, fully built up of darkness,
perfectly composed out of light, what are we but light and shadow lying
together in opposition, or lion and unicorn fighting, the one to
vanquish the other. This is our eternal life, in these two eternities
which nullify each other. And we, between them both, what are we but
nullity?
And this is because we see in part, always in part. We are enclosed
within the womb, we are the seed from the loins of the eternal light, or
we are the darkness which is enveloped by the body of the past, by our
era.
Unless the sun were enveloped in the body of darkness, would a cast
shadow run with me as I walk? Unless the night lay within the embrace of
light, would the fish gleam phosphorescent in the sea, would the light
break out of the black coals of the hearth, would the electricity gleam
out of itself, suddenly declaring an opposite being?
Love and power, light and darkness, these are the temporary conquest of
the one infinite by the other. In love, the Christian love, the End
asserts itself supreme: in power, in strength like the lion’s the
Beginning re-establishes itself unique. But when the opposition is
complete on either side, then there is perfection. It is the perfect
opposition of dark and light that brindles the tiger with gold flame and
dark flame. It is the surcharge of darkness that opens the ravening
mouth of the tiger, and drives his eyes to points of phosphorescence. It
is the perfect balance of light and darkness that flickers in the
stepping of a deer. But it is the conquered darkness that flares and
palpitates in her eyes.
There are the two eternities fighting the fight of Creation, the light
projecting itself into the darkness, the darkness enveloping herself
within the embrace of light. And then there is the consummation of each
in the other, the consummation of light in darkness and darkness in
light, which is absolute: our bodies cast up like foam of two meeting
waves, but foam which is absolute, complete, beyond the limitation of
either infinity, consummate over both eternities. The direct opposites
of the Beginning and the End, by their very directness, imply their own
supreme relation. And this supreme relation is made absolute in the
clash and the foam of the meeting waves. And the clash and the foam are
the Crown, the Absolute.
The lion and the unicorn are not fighting for the Crown. They are
fighting beneath it. And the Crown is upon their fight. If they made
friends and lay down side by side, the Crown would fall on them both
and kill them. If the lion really beat the unicorn, then the Crown
pressing on the head of the king of beasts alone would destroy him.
Which it has done and is doing. As it is destroying the unicorn who has
achieved supremacy in another field.
So that now, in Europe, both the lion and the unicorn are gone mad, each
with a crown tumbled on his bound-in head. And without rhyme or reason
they tear themselves and each other, and the fight is no fight, it is a
frenzy of blind things dashing themselves and each other to pieces.
Now the unicorn of virtue and virgin spontaneity has got the Crown
slipped over the eyes, like a circle of utter light, and has gone mad
with the extremity of light: whilst the lion of power and splendour, its
own Crown of supreme night settled down upon it, roars in an agony of
imprisoned darkness.
Now within the withered body of our era, within the husk of the past,
the seed of light has come to supreme self-consciousness and has gone
mad with the flare of eternal light in its eyes, whilst the fruit of
darkness, unable to fall from the tree, has turned round towards the
tree and is become mad, clinging faster upon the utter night whence it
should have dropped away long ago.
For the stiffened, exhausted, inflexible loins of our era are too dry to
give us forth in labour, the tree is withered, we are pent in, fastened,
and now have turned round, some to the source of darkness, some to the
source of light, and gone mad, purely given up to frenzy. For the dark
has travelled to the light, and the light towards the dark. But when
they reached the bound, neither could leap forth. The fruit could not
fall from the tree, the lion just full grown could not get out of the
cave, the unicorn could not enter the illimitable forest, the lily could
not leap out of the darkness of her bulb straight into the sun. What
then? The road was stopped. Whither then? Backward, back to the known
eternity. There was a great, horrible huddle backwards. The process of
birth had been arrested, the inflexible, withered loins of the
mother-era were too old and set, the past was taut around us all. Then
began chaos, the going asunder, the beginning of nothingness. Then we
leaped back, by reflex from the bound and limit, back upon ourselves
into madness.
There is a dark beyond the darkness of the womb, there is a light beyond
the light of knowledge. There is the darkness of all the heavens for the
seed of man to invest, and the light of all the heavens for the womb to
receive. But we don’t know it. How can the unborn within the womb know
of the heavens outside; how can they?
How can they know of the tides beyond? On the one hand murmurs the
utter, infinite sea of darkness, full of unconceived creation: on the
other the infinite light stirs with eternal procreation. They are two
seas which eternally attract and oppose each other, two tides which
eternally advance to repel each other, which foam upon one another, as
the ocean foams on the land, and the land rushes down into the sea.
And we, in the great movement, are begotten, conceived and brought
forth, like the waves which meet and clash and burst up into foam,
sending the foam like light, like shadow, into the zenith of the
absolute, beyond the grasp of either eternity.
We are the foam and the foreshore, that which, between the oceans, is
not, but that which supersedes the oceans in utter reality, and gleams
in absolute Eternity.
The Beginning is-not, nor the eternity which lies behind us, save in
part. Partial also is the eternity which lies in front. But that which
is not partial, but whole, that which is not relative, but absolute, is
the clash of the two into one, the foam of being thrown up into
consummation.
It is the music which comes when the cymbals clash one upon the other:
this is absolute and timeless. The cymbals swing back in one or the
other direction of time, towards one or the other relative eternity. But
absolute, timeless, beyond time or eternity, beyond space or infinity,
is the music that was the consummation of the two cymbals in
opposition.
It is that which comes when night clashes on day, the rainbow, the
yellow and rose and blue and purple of dawn and sunset, which leaps out
of the breaking of light upon darkness, of darkness upon light, absolute
beyond day or night; the rainbow, the iridescence which is darkness at
once and light, the two-in-one; the crown that binds them both.
It is the lovely body of foam that walks for ever between the two seas,
perfect and consummate, the revealed consummation, the oneness that has
taken being out of the two.
We say the foam is evanescent, the wind passes over it and it is
gone--he who would save his life must lose it.
But if indeed the foam were-not, if the two seas fell apart, if the sea
fell departed from the land, and the land from the sea, if the two
halves, day and night, were ripped asunder, without attraction or
opposition, what then? Then there would be between them nothingness,
utter nothingness. Which is meaningless.
So that the foam and the iridescence, the music that comes from the
cymbals, all formed things that come from perfect union in opposition,
all beauty and all truth and being, all perfection, these are the be-all
and the end-all, absolute, timeless, beyond time or eternity, beyond the
Limit or the Infinite.
This lovely body of foam, this iris between the two floods, this music
between the cymbals, this truth between the surge of facts, this supreme
reason between conflicting desires, this holy spirit between the
opposite divinities, this is the Absolute made visible between the two
Infinities, the Timelessness into which are assumed the two Eternities.
It is wrong to try to make the lion lie down with the lamb. This is the
supreme sin, the unforgivable blasphemy of which Christ spoke. This is
the creating of nothingness, the bringing about, or the striving to
bring about the nihil which is pure meaninglessness.
The great darkness of the lion must gather into itself the little,
feeble darkness of the lamb. The great light of the lamb must absorb
elsewhere, in the whole world, the small, weak light of the lion. The
lamb indeed will inherit the world, rather than the lion. It is the
triumph of the meek, but the meek, like the merciless, shall perish in
their own triumph. Anything that _triumphs_, perishes. The consummation
comes from perfect relatedness. To this a man may _win_. But he who
triumphs, perishes.
The crown is upon the perfect balance of the fight, it is not the fruit
of either victory. The crown is not prize of either combatant. It is the
_raison d’être_ of both. It is the absolute within the fight.
And those alone are evil, who say, “The lion shall lie down with the
lamb, the eagle shall mate with the dove, the lion shall munch in the
stable of the unicorn.” For they blaspheme against the _raison d’être_
of all life, they try to destroy the essential, intrinsic nature of God.
But it is the fight of opposites which is holy. The fight of like things
is evil. For if a thing turn round upon itself in blind frenzy of
destruction, this is to say: “The lamb shall roar like the lion, the
dove strike down her prey like the eagle, and the unicorn shall devour
the innocent virgin in her path”. Which is precisely the equivalent
blasphemy to the blasphemy of universal meekness, or peace.
And this, this last, is our blasphemy of the war. We would have the lamb
roar like the lion, all doves turn into eagles.