Chapter V: Part 5

"She is sorrowful; let us be sorrowful! Thereby your sins will be remitted. Blood purifies all--fling its red drops abroad like blossoms! She, the Great Mother, demands the blood of another creature--of a pure being!"

(_The Archigallus raises his knife above the head of a lamb._)

ANTHONY (_seized with horror_):

"Do not slay the lamb!"

(_There is a gush of purple blood. The priest sprinkles the crowd with it; and all--including Anthony and Hilarion--standing around the burning tree, silently watch the last palpitations of the victim._

_A Woman comes forth from the midst of the priests; she resembles exactly the image within the little box._

_She pauses, perceiving before her a Young Man wearing a Phrygian cap. His thighs are covered with a pair of narrow trousers, with lozenge-shaped openings here and there at regular intervals, closed by bow knots of coloured material. He stands in an attitude of languor, resting his elbow against a branch of the tree, holding a flute in his hand._)

CYBELE (_flinging her arms about his waist_).

"I have traversed all regions of the earth to join thee--and famine ravaged the fields Thou hast deceived me! It matters not! I love thee! Warm my body in thine embrace! Let us be united!"

ATYS. "The springtime will never again return, O eternal Mother! Despite my love, it is no longer possible for me to penetrate thy essence! Would that I might cover myself with a painted robe like thine! I envy thy breasts, swelling with milk, the length of thy tresses, thy vast flanks that have borne and brought forth all creatures! Why am I not thou?--Why am I not a woman?--No, never! depart from me! My virility fills me with horror!"

(_With a sharp stone he dismembers himself, and runs furiously from her ..._

_The priests imitate the god; the faithful do even as the priests. Men and women exchange garments, embrace;--and the tumult of bleeding flesh passes away, while the sound of voices remaining, becomes even more strident,--like the shrieking of mourners, like the voices heard at funerals._

_ ... A huge catafalque, hung with purple, supports upon its summit an ebony bed, surrounded by torches and baskets of silver filagree, in which are verdant leaves of lettuce, mallow and fennel. Upon the steps of the construction, from summit to base, sit women all clad in black, with loosened girdles and bare feet, holding in their hands with a melancholy air, great bouquets of flowers._

_At each corner of the estrade urns of alabaster, filled with myrrh, slowly send up their smoke._

_Upon the bed can be perceived the corpse of a man. Blood flows from his thigh. One of his arms hangs down lifelessly;--and a dog licks his finger nails and howls._

_The row of torches placed closely together, prevents his face from being seen; and Anthony feels a strange anguish within him. He fears lest he should recognize some one._

_The sobs of the women cease--and after an interval of silence_,)

ALL (_psalmody together_):

"Fair! fair!--all fair he is! Thou hast slept enough!--lift thy head!--arise!

"Inhale the perfume of our flowers--narcissus--blossoms and anemones, gathered in thine own gardens to please thee. Arouse thee! thou dost make us fear for thee!

"Speak to us! What dost thou desire? Wilt thou drink wine?--wilt thou lie in our beds?--dost wish to eat the honeycakes which have the form of little birds?

"Let us press his lips,--kiss his breast! Now!--now!--dost thou not feel our ring-laden fingers passing over thy body?--and our lips that seek thy mouth?--and our tresses that sweep thy thighs? O faint God, deaf to our prayers!"

(_They cry aloud, and rend their faces with their nails; then all rush,--and the howling of the dog continues in the silence._)

"Alas! alas! Woe!--the black blood trickles over his snowy flesh! 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!

"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._

_The sky is darkened._)

VENUS (_blue with cold, shivering_):

"Once with my girdle I made all the horizon of Hellas.

"Her fields glowed with the roses of my cheeks; her shores were 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?

"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."

"Never canst thou know the universe in all its vastness; consequently it will never be possible for thee to obtain an idea of its cause, to have a just notion of God, nor even to say that the universe is infinite,--for thou must first be able to know what the Infinite is!"

"May not Form be, perhaps, an error of thy senses,--Substance a figment of thy imagination?"

"Unless, indeed, that the world being a perpetual flux[1] of things, appearance, on the contrary, be wholly true; illusion the only reality."

"But art thou sure thou dost see?--art thou even sure thou dost live? Perhaps nothing exists!"

(_The Devil has seized Anthony, and, holding him at arms' length, glares at him with mouth yawning as though to devour him_):

"Adore me, then!--and curse the phantom thou callest God!"

(_Anthony lifts his eyes with a last effort of hope._

_The Devil abandons him._)

[1] The original text seems to me slightly obscure. The idea of the universe being a perpetual ebb and flow of shapes, is that of forms passing away to reappear like waves, is that of the Nidana-Sutris: "Individuality is only a form ... _Everything is only a flux of aggregates_, interminably uniting and disuniting," as Barth observes in his "Religions of India."--Trans.

VII

ANTHONY (_finds himself lying upon his back, at the verge of the cliff._

_The sky commences to blanch._)

"Is it the glow of dawn, or only an effect of moonlight?"

(_He tries to rise, falls back,--his teeth chattering_):

"I feel such a helplessness of weakness, as though all my bones were broken!

"Why?

"Ah! the Devil!--I remember!--he even repeated to me all that I learned from the aged Didymus respecting the opinions of Xenophanes, Heraclitus, of Melissus, of Anaxagoras,--concerning the infinite, the creation, the impossibility of knowing anything!

"And yet I believed that I could unite myself to God!"

(_Laughing bitterly_):

"Ah! madness! madness! Is the fault mine? Prayer has become intolerable to me! My heart is dry as a rock! Once, it was wont to overflow with love!...