Chapter III: Part I: Discovery and Prophecy (2)

_Vashti_. What joys? The joys of rutting beasts, tamed to endure, Tamed to be always swift to answer Spirit, Yet fiercer for their taming, wilder hungers; So that the Spirit, if he hunt them not, Fears to be torn by them in mutiny. Now know you woman's beauty! 'Tis these joys, The heat of the blood's desires, changed and mastered By the desire of spirit, trained to serve Spirit with lust, spirit with woman enjoy'd.

_2nd Woman_. Queen, I am beautiful, and cannot boast Thy subtle thinking; and to one like me, What matters whence come beauty, so I have it? Let it be but the witless mating of beasts, Tamed and curiously knowing itself And cunning in its own delight: What then? The nightingale desires his little lass, And that brings out of his heart a radiant song; A man desires a woman, and for song Out of his heart comes beauty, that like flame Reaches towards her, and covers her limbs with light. If it so please thee, say that neither loves Aught but his life's desire, fashioning it Adorably to marvellous song and beauty. What then? Enough that the wonder lights on me, To me is paid the worship of the wonder.

_Vashti_. O well I know how strong we are in man; His senses have our beauty for their god, And his delight is built about us like Towering adoration, housing worship.-- The spirit of man may dwell in God: the world, From the soft delicate floor of grass to those Rafters of light and hanging cloths of stars, Is but the honour in God's mind for man, Wrought into glorious imagination. But women dwell in man; our temple is The honour of man's sensual ecstasy, Our safety the imagined sacredness Fashion'd about us, fashion'd of his pleasure. Beauty hath done this for us, and so made Woman a kind within the kind of man. Yea, there is more than this: a mighty need Hath man made of his woman in the world. Now man walks through his fate in fellowship Of two companion spirits; ay, and these With double mastery go on with him. The one in black disgraceful weeds is Toil; She sows with never-ending gesture all The path before his feet, cursing the way She drags him on with growth of flouting crops, Urchin thistles, and rank flourishing nettles. But the other has a wear of woven gleam, And with soft hand beseeches him his face Away from the hardships of his hurt stung feet, That with his eyes he may desire her looks: And she is Beauty of Woman, man's dear blessing. And if you would be wise, be well afraid To think you have more office than to be A sweet delicious while amid man's hours Of worldly labour: we are too precious, so. Yet see you not how this that Spirit hath done Is also dangerous?--For there are mightier needs! There's no content for Spirit in the world Till he has striven out of bounded fate, And sent an infinite desire forth Into the whole eternity of things. Yea, spirit ails with loathing secretly The irremediable force of being; Unless, with free expatiate desire, He shape into the endless burning flux Of starry world blindly adventuring Some steady righteous destiny for Spirit: Even as dreaming brain fashions the fume Of life asleep to marshall'd imagery. But we are in the way of this: and man, The more he needs to announce upon the world, Over him going like a storming air, That fashioning word which utters the divine Imagination working in him like anger; The more he finds his virtue caught and clogged In the fierce luxury he hath made of woman. Thence are we sin, thence deliciously Persuading man refuse his highest ardour. Too easily kindled was the ecstasy Of fleshly passion, with a joyous flame Too readily answering the Spirit's fire! He burns with us alone, so fragrantly His noblest vigour swoons delighted. Yea, Women, I tell you, not far now is man From hating us, so passionate the joy Of loving us, so mightily drawing down Into the service of his pleasure here All forces of his being. The pleasure soon Becomes a shame, scarce to be spoken aloud; And in best minds, either detested doting Man's joy in woman's beauty will become; Or a strict binding fire, holding him down In lust of beauty where no beauty is.

[_The_ KING'S MESSENGER _comes in_.

_Messenger_. To Vashti, to the Queen of the world, to her In whom the striving beauty of the world Hath made perfection, from the King I come. And the King bids me say, Rise from thy feast; For thou must be to-night thyself a feast: The vision of thy loveliness must now Feed with astonishment my vassals' hearts. Therefore thou art to come.

_Vashti_. And tell the King I will not come.

_Messenger_. What was there in my words Thou dost not understand?--I say, the King Would show thy beauty to his under-kings, That with this also they may be amazed And utterly fear his fortune.

_Vashti_. So. Go back, Tell the King I have hearkened to his message, And tell him I will not come.

_Messenger_. What sickness shall I say has lighted on thee, So that thou canst not come?

_Vashti_. Thou weariest me. Say this to the King, Vashti will not come. Are they not plain, my words? Canst thou not learn them?

_Messenger_. Give me some softer speech. Must I not fear I shall earn whipping if I take these words?

_Vashti_. I pray thee, go. Thou art a trouble here; Seest thou not how all these feasting women Pause, and the pleasure is distrest in them? Thou hast thy message: say, She will not come.-- Back to the King, now!

_Messenger_.
I am whipt for this.

[_He goes_.

_Vashti_. It seems, my sisters, we have changed our moods. But now, my mind was heavy, you were blithe; And in a moment, you, behold, are fixt Gazing like desperate things, while I rejoice.

_1st Woman_. Rejoice! thou dost rejoice? then madness does.

_Vashti_. I know not that: but certainly I know A mind, that has been feeling for long time The greatness of some hovering event Poised over life, will rejoice marvellously When the event falls, suddenly seizing life: Like faintness when a thunderstorm comes down, That turns to exulting when the lightning flares, Shattering houses, making men afraid. And this is my event: I am its choice. Yea, not as a storm, but as an eagle now It stoops on me; and, though I am its prey, I am lifted by majestic wings, my soul Is clothed in swiftness of a mighty soaring.

_3rd Woman_. What glory can her wondrous eyes behold?

_4th Woman_. Seemeth her flesh to glow! and her throat pants As one who feels a god within her, come Out of his heaven to enjoy her.

_2nd Woman_. Ay, Now it is true, the Queen is beautiful; She could, so looking, enrage love in one Whose blood a hundred years had frozen dry.

_1st Woman_. Ah, but I fear thee, Queen: this dreadful mood Will break the pleasantness of friendship thou Hast kept for me, as a ship in a gale is broken.

_Vashti_. Ay, very like: and the event will rouse Such work in the water where your comfort sails, More than my fortune will to pieces blow; You too I think will get some perilous tossing From what proves my destruction.

_2nd Woman_. And, so knowing, For mere insane delight in violent things, Wilt thou awake in the fickle mood of men Again that ancient ignominy which once, Till beauty freed them, loaded the souls of women?

_3rd Woman_. Truly, long time will work what now thou doest.

_Vashti_. I know not rightly what I here begin; No more than one, who stands in midst of wind On a tall mountain, knows what breaking down The earth must have ere the wind's speed is done, And it hath drawn out of the drenched soil The clinging vapours, and made bright the air.

_2nd Woman_. But we'll not have thee disobedient. The King's mind is a summer over us; Thou with a storm wilt fill him, and the hail That shatters thee will leave us bruised and weeping.

_Vashti_. Be sulky in his arms: the weather soon Will pleasantly favour thee again.

_4th Woman_. No, no; Not because from our heaven of man's mind Thou wilt bring down on us a rain of scorn, But because thou art wicked, thou must go And tell the King the wine was rash in thee.

_Vashti_. I must!

_3rd Woman_. Thou must indeed: words such as thine Never were impudent in men's ears before.

_2nd Woman_. We will not have thee disobedient.

_1st Woman_. Here comes another: gentle words, my Queen, Let him take from thee now, and swiftly follow Contrite, and let the beauty of thy grief Bend pleading against the King's furious eyes.

[_The_ POET _comes in, and kneels_.

_Poet_. I will not ask thee what strange anger sent That blaze of proud contempt in the King's face: But ere the voice of the King seals up thy life In an unalterable judgment, I Am granted now to come as his last message: And, as I will, to speak. Here then I am Not as commanding, but on my knees beseeching, And for myself beseeching.

_Vashti_. What hast thou To do with this? and wherefore wert thou chosen?

_Poet_. I was to praise the splendour of the King; And I made thee his splendour; and the King, Knowing my truth, would have thee brought, to break All the pride of his under-kings, already Desperate with his riches, and now seeing What marvellous fortune also hath his love, How marvellously delighted.

_Vashti_. Get thee back: And tell the King 'tis time his judgment fell.

_Poet_. Not till thou hearest me.

_Vashti_. I will not hear thee. Wouldst thou go on before me, and say, Look, This is the woman which I told you of, You kings; does she not, as I said, stir up Quaking desire through all your muscles? Look, And thank the King for showing you his lust!-- I will not hear thee.

_Poet_. Dost thou not know, my Queen, That, when I taught thee songs, thou taughtest me The divine secret, Beauty? My small tunes Were games to thee; but now I am he who knows How man may walk upon Eternity Wearing the world as a god wears his power, The world upon him as a burning garment; For I am he whose spirit knoweth beauty,-- And thou art the knowledge, Queen! Therefore thou must Come with me to the kings of all the nations; For the whole earth must know of thee. These kings, Though it be but a lightning-moment struck Upon the darkness of their ignorant hearts, Must know what I know; that there is a beauty, Only in thee shown forth in bodily sign, Which can of life make such triumphant glee, The force of the world seems but man's spirit utter'd.

_Vashti_. And what am I to know?--This must, no doubt, Content me, that we are as wine, and men By us have senses drunk against his toil Of knowing himself, for all his boasting mind, Caught by the quiet purpose of the world, Burnt up by it at last, like something fallen In molten iron streaming. But I know Not drunken may man's soul master his world; And I now make for woman a new mood, Wherein she will not bear to know herself A heady drug for man.--I will not come.

_Poet_. I, who have brought thy insult on the King, Will scarce escape his judgment. But not this My pleading. Seest thou not how wonderfully The mean affairs of living fill with gleam, Like pools of water lying in the sun, Because above men's minds renown of thee, The certain knowledge of beauty, now presides? It must not be that thou, for a whim of scorn, Wilt let thyself be made unseen, unheard of. Beauty is known in thee; but, without thee, It is a rumour buzzing hardly heard. And without beauty men are scurrying ants, Rapid in endless purpose unenjoyed; Or newts in holes under the banks of ponds, Feeding and breeding without sound or light. For the one thing that is the god in man Is a delight that admirably knows Itself delighted; and it is but beauty. And thou art beauty known.

_Vashti_. Truly, I say, I know not how to bear it; that for you To feel yourselves, though in the depth of the world, Dizzy, and thence as if elate on high, We women are devised like drunkenness. And what are we to make of ourselves here, When in the joy of us you think the world No more than your spirits crying out for joy? Is this your love, to dream a god of man, And women to keep as wine to make you dream?-- Now, back! or the eunuchs handle thee.

[_He goes_.

_Vashti_. You will not hear of me after this night, And thus I say farewell. It may be, far In time not yet appointed, our life's spirit Will know its fate, through all the thickets of grief, As simply and as gladly as one's eyes Greet the blue weather shining behind trees. Yea, and I think there will be more than this: Is not the world a terrible thing, a vision Of fierce divinity that cares not for us? Do we not seem immortal good desire, Mortally wronged by capture in swift being Made of a world that holds us firm for ever? And yet is it not beautiful, the world? How read you that? How is our wrong delightful? Thus it is: Spirit finding the world fair, Is spirit in dim perception of its own Radiant desire piercing the worldly shadow. But what is dim will become glorious clear: All in a splendour will the Spirit at last Stand in the world, for all will be naught else But Spirit's own perfect knowledge of itself; Yea, this dark mighty seeming of the world Is but the Spirit's own power unsubdued; And as the unruled vigours of thought in sleep Crowd on the brain, and become dream therein; So the strange outer forces of man's spirit Are the appearing world. But all at last, Subdued, becomes self-knowing ecstasy, The whole world brightens into Spirit's desire. This is for Spirit to be lord of life; And man, with foolish hope looking for this, Takes the ravishing drunkenness he hath From us, for knowledge of the Spirit's power. But it will come by love. It will be twain Who go together to this height of mastery Over the world, governing it as song Is govern'd by the heart of him who sings; But never one by means of one shall reach it: Not man alone, nor woman alone, but each Enabling each, together, twain in one.

[_The_ KING'S MESSENGER _comes in_.

_Messenger_. I speak to the rebellious woman Vashti. Thou art no more a Queen; thou hast no place In the King's house, nor in the life of men: Thus art thou judged. Go forth now; let the night Befriend thee, for no other friend thou hast, For the day shall reveal thee to men's eyes, And they, obedient to the King, will hate thee. Therefore be gone: and as the beasts have homes In the wild ground, have thy home from henceforth.

_Vashti_. Gives the King reason for this judgment?

_Messenger_. Yea; Because thou art a danger to all marriage, Because men are dishonoured in their rule Of women by thy insult, thou art judged.

_2nd Woman_. But if the King had heard her crazy words He would have put her where they tame with thongs Maniacs.

_4th Woman_. When the King hath slept, we will To-morrow crave his presence, and will stand In humble troop before him, thanking him For that his virtue hath this wicked woman Purged from among us, saved us from infection.

_1st Woman_. Alas, my Queen! where lies thy journey now?

_Vashti_. Ay, where to go? What shelter for me now Will any of the dwelt earth dare to give? My beauty as a branding now will mark me; And shame will run before me, and await My coming, wheresoever I would lodge. For out of Shushan to the ends of the earth Great news runs, with a hidden soundless speed Through secret channels in the folks' dim mind, As water races through smooth sloping gutters. Swifter than any feet could bear the tale, Going unheard, already posts abroad A buried river, and will soon burst up In towns and markets, far as the width of day, A bubbling clamour, wonderful wild news: "Vashti the Queen is judged and forced to go Roaming the earth, outcast and infamous; Look out for her! Be ready, if she comes, With stones and hooting voices!"--Fare you well, Women whom once I knew. You are quit of me: Pardon me if I add, And I of you.

IV

Into the darkness fared the outcast Queen; Fearless her face, and searching with proud gaze The impenetrable hour. Behind her burned The sky, held by the open kiln of the town In a great breath of fire, yellow and red, From out the festival streets, and myriad links. Still might she taste, and still must choke to taste, The fragrance of sweet oils and gums aflame Capturing the cool night with spicy riches; Still after her through the hollow moveless air The sounded ceremonies came, the cry Of dainty lust in winding tune of fifes, The silver fury of cymbals clamouring Like frenzy in a woman-madden'd brain; And drumming underneath the whole wild noise, Like monstrous hatred underneath desire, The thunder of the beaten serpent-skins. Yea, in the town behind her, flaring Shushan, She heard Man, meaning to adore himself, Throned on the wealth of earth as God in heaven, And making music of his glorying thought, Merely betray the mastery of his blood, His sexual heart, his main idolatry,-- Woman, and his lust to devour her beauty, Himself devoured ceaselessly by her beauty. And well she knew, to herself bitterly smiling, How the King seated amid his fellow-kings Devised his grievous rage, feeling himself Insulted in his dearest mind, his rule Over the precious pleasure of his women Wounded: how the man's wrath would hiss and swell Like gross spittle spat into red-hot coals. But as the Queen fared through the blinded hour, Sudden against the darkness of her eyes There came a wind of light. Crimson it was, With smokey lightnings braided, in its first Swift surge into the gloom before her face; But it began to golden, and became Astonishingly white. And as she stood With rigour in her nerves, a mighty shudder Ravish the light, and in the midst appeared Vision, a goddess, terrible and kind; And to the Queen the goddess spoke, in voice That healed her anger with its quietness.

_Ishtar_. I am the goddess Ishtar, and thou art My servant. Wilt any of thou help me?

_Vashti_. Am I then one whom gods may help? I am By men judged hateful: surely I am thereby Made over to the demons, and not thine.

_Ishtar_. Yet art thou mine, because thou knowest well Thou disobeyest me.

_Vashti_.
How do I so?

_Ishtar_. I am the goddess of the power of women, And passion in the hearts of men is my Divinity.

_Vashti_.
Yea, then I disobey thee.

_Ishtar_. And yet thou shalt not fear me wronging thee: Tell me, O thou Despair, whither thou goest?

_Vashti_. Thy taunt goes past me; I am not despair.

_Ishtar_. Verily, but thou art. Is not thy mind A hot revolter from the service due To my divinity, passion in men's hearts? Is there aught else that thou mayst serve? Thou knowest There is naught else: therefore thou art Despair.

_Vashti_. That I am infamous, I know. But even now, Now when I learn I am to gods no more Than to the lust of men, I will not be Despair.

_Ishtar_. Who means so greatly to serve pride, That the service of the world is a thing loath'd, Is desperate, avoided by mankind, Unpleasing to the gods. We, who look down, Know that the world and pride may both be served. Yet also that it was too hard for thee We know, and pardon. Thou shalt tell me now Why thou refusest the life given thee.

_Vashti_. Because I will not, woman should be sin Amid man's life. You gods have given man Desire that too much knows itself; and thence He is all confounded by the pleasure of us. How sweetly doth the heart of man begin Desiring us, how like music and the green First happiness of the year! But this can grow To uncontrollably crowding lust, beyond All power of delight to utter, thence Inwardly turned to anger and detesting! Till, looking on us with strange eyes, man finds We are not his desire: it was but sex Inflamed, so that it roused the breaking forth Of secret fury in him, consuming life, Yea, even the life that would reach up to know The heaven of gods above it.

_Ishtar_. And what, for this, Dost thou refuse?

_Vashti_. I refuse woman's beauty! Not merely to be feasting with delight Man's senses, I refuse; but even his heart I will not serve. Are we to be for ever Love's passion in man, and never love itself? Always the instrument, never the music?

_Ishtar_. I have not done with man.--Thou sayest true, Women are as a sin in life: for that The gods have made mankind in double sex. Sin of desiring woman is to be The knowledgeable light within man's soul, Whereby he kills the darken'd ache of being. But shall I leave him there? or shall I leave Woman amid these hungers? Nay: I hold The rages of these fires as a soft clay Obedient to my handling; there shall be Of man desiring, and of woman desired, A single ecstasy divinely formed, Two souls knowing themselves as one amazement. All that thou hatest to arouse in man Prepareth him for this; and thou thyself Art by thy very hate prepared: wherefore The gods forgive thee, seeing what comes of thee. Behold now! of my godhead I will make Thy senses burn with vision, storying The spirit of woman growing from loved to love.

_The First Vision: Helen_. Helen am I, a name astonishing The world, a fame that rings against the sky, Like an alarm of brass smitten to sound The news of war against the stone of mountains. I move in power through the minds of men, And have no power to hold my power back. Men's passions fawn upon my feet, as waves That fiercely fawn after the going wind; But not as the wind, shaking off the foam Of the pursuing lust of the moaning waves, And over the clamour of the evil seas' Monstrous word running lightly, unhurt. They fawn upon me, all the lusts of the world, Bewildering my steps with straining close, And breathe their horrible spittle against me. Passions cry round me with the yelling cry Of dogs chained and starving and smelling blood. Yea, for through me the world becomes a den Of insane greed. In helpless beauty I stand Alone in the midst of dreadful adoration; And, round me thronged, the fawning, fawning lusts Open their throats upon me and whine and lick My feet with dripping tongues, or gaze to pant Hot hunger in my face. For I am made To set their hearts grim to possess my life, And with an anger of love devour my beauty; And yet to seal up in their mastered hearts The rage, and bring them in croucht worship down Before me, bent with impotent desire. A quiet place the world was ere I came A strife, a dream of fire, into its sleep; And with their senses ended men's delights. But I struck through their senses burning news Of impossible endless things, and mixt Wild lightning into their room of darkness.--Then Agony, and a craving for delight Escaping sensual grasp, began in men; And the agony was poison in the health Of sweet desire.--The joy of me men tried To compass with strange frenzy and desire Made new with cunning. But still at my feet The lusts they tarr on me crouch down and fawn And snarl to be so fearful of their prey. I see men's faces grin with helpless lust About me; crooked hands reach out to please Their hot nerves with the flower of my skin; I see the eyes imagining enjoyment, The arms twitching to seize me, and the minds Inflamed like the glee-kindled hearts of fiends. And through the world the fawning, fawning lusts Hound me with worship of a ravenous yearning: And I am weary of maddening men with beauty.

_The Second Vision: Sappho_. Into how fair a fortune hath man's life Fallen out of the darkness!--This bright earth Maketh my heart to falter; yea, my spirit Bends and bows down in the delight of vision, Caught by the force of beauty, swayed about Like seaweed moved by the deep winds of water: For it is all the news of love to me. Through paths pine-fragrant, where the shaded ground Is strewn with fruits of scarlet husk, I come, As if through maidenhood's uncertainty, Its darkness coloured with strange untried thoughts; Hither I come, here to the flowery peak Of this white cliff, high up in golden air, Where glowing earth and sea and divine light Are in mine eyes like ardour, and like love Are in my soul: love's glowing gentleness, The sunny grass of meadows and the trees, Towers of dark green flame, and that white town Where from the hearths, a fragrance of burnt wood, Blue-purple smoke creeps like a stain of wine Along the paved blue sea: yea, all this kindness Lies amid salt immeasurable flowing, The power of the sea, passion of love. I, Sappho, have made love the mastery Most sacred over man; but I have made it A safety of things gloriously known, To house his spirit from the darkness blowing Out of the vast unknown: from me he hath The wilful mind to make his fortune fair. Yea, here I stand for the whole earth to see How life, breathing its fortune like sweet air, Mixing it with the kindled heart of man, May utter it proud against the double truth Of darkness fronting him and following him, In a prevailing, burning, marvellous lie! And it is love kindles the burning of it, The quivering flame of spoken-forth desire, Which man hath made his place within the world,-- Love, learnt of Sappho! and not only bright With gladness: I have devised an endless pain, The fearful spiritual pain of love, to hold In a firm fire, unalterably bright, The shining forth of Spirit's imagination Declared against the investing dark, a light Of pain and joy, equal for man and woman.

_The Third Vision: Theresa_. Come, golden bridegroom, break this mortal night, Five times chained with darkness of my senses. At last now visit my desire, and turn Thy feet, and the flaming path of thy feet, Unto these walls lockt round me like a death. Death I would have them till thou comest; yea, The earthly stone whereof man's fortune here Is made, strongly into deliberate death I have built about my soul, to fend its life From gazes of the world. I am too proud To endure the world's desire of my beauty; I know myself too marvellous in love To be the joy of aught that thou hast made: I am to be bride of thee, of the world's maker. O God, the heart I have from thee, the heart Uttering itself in an endless word of love, Is sealed up in the stone of worldly night: Set hitherward the flaming way of thy feet, Break my night, and enter in unto me. Come, wed my spirit; and like as the sea, Into the shining spousal ecstasy Of sun and wind, riseth in cloudy gleam, So let the knowing of my flesh be clouds Of fire, mounting up the height of my spirit, Fire clouding with flame the marriage hour Wherein my spirit keeps thy dreadful light Away from Heaven in a bridal kiss,-- Fire of bodily sense in spiritual glee Held, as fire of water in sunlit air. Ah God, beautiful God, my soul is wild With love of thee. Hitherward turn thy feet, Turn their golden journeying towards this night,-- This night of cavernous earth; and now let shine These walls of stone, against thy nearing love, Like pure glass smitten by the power of the sun; And let them be, in thy descending love, Like glass in a furnace, falling molten down, Back from thy burning feet streaming and flowing, Leaving me naked to thy bright desire.-- Enjoy me, God, enjoy thy bride to-night.

_Vashti_. Too well I know the first, the scarlet clad; And she, that was in shining white and gold, Was as the sound of bees and waters, at last Heard by one long closed in the dins of madness. But what was she, the black-robed, with the eyes So fearfully alight, the last who spoke?

_Ishtar_. Take none of these for perfect: they are moods Purifying my women to become My unexpressive, uttermost intent.-- As music binds into a strict delight The manifold random sounds that shake the air, Even so fashioned must I have the being That fills with rushing power the boundless spirit: Amidst it, musically firm, a joy That is a fiery knowledge of itself, Thereby self-continent, a globed fire. And she who gave thee wonder, is the sign Of those who firmest, brightest hold their being Fastened and seized in one enjoyed desire. Yet even they are but a making ready For what I perfectly intend: in them Joy of self-bound desire hath burnt itself To extreme purity; I am free thereby To work my meaning through them, my divinity. Yea, such clean fire in man and such in woman To mingle wonderfully, that the twain Become a moment of one blazing flame Infinitely upward towering, far beyond The boundless fate of spirit in the world. But in the way to this are maladies And anguish; and as a perilous bridge Over the uncontrolled demanding world, Virginity, passionate self-possessing, Must build itself supreme, unbreakable. --I leave thee: as thou mayst, be comforted By prophecy of what I mean in life. Against thee is not Heaven, and thou must Endure the hatred men will throw upon thee.

* * * * *

The shining place where Ishtar looked at her Empty the Queen beheld; and into mist The glory fainted, and the stars came through Untroubled. Into the night the Queen went on.