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 THE LOST ORACLES 
 
THE LOST ORACLES 
 
 A Masque 
 
 By 
 James Westfall Thompson 
 
 "Every rite, every ceremony or belief that at 
 any time has made the path of life easier to 
 any one, demands my reverence." 
 
 — Bishop Creighton 
 
 WALTER M. HILL 
 CHICAGO 
 

 Copyright 1921 
 By James Westfaix Thompson 
 
 Published Jime 192 1 
 
 Composed and Printed By 
 
 The University of Chicago Press 
 
 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. 
 
 JUN 22 1921 
 
 1CI.A6I744O 
 
 -Vw^ ( 
 
THIS EDITION CONSISTS OF 
 FIVE HUNDRED NUMBERED 
 AND SIGNED COPIES, OF 
 WHICH THIS IS NO. 
 
JOHANNI 
 HENRICO 
 FRATRI 
 DILECTO 
 
That was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and 
 afterwards that which is spiritual. — St. Paul. 
 
 Stir in the dark of the stars unborn that desire 
 
 Only the thrill of a wild, dumb force set free; 
 Yearn of the burning heart of the world on fire 
 
 For life and birth and battle and wind and sea ; 
 Groping of life after love till the spirit aspire, 
 
 Into divinity ever transmuting the clod ; 
 Higher and higher and higher and higher and higher 
 
 Out of the Nothingness, world without end into God. 
 
 — Richard Hovey, Taliesin. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Act I. Capri. In the Year 33 a.d 15 
 
 Act II. Patmos 29 
 
 Act III. Space: The Seven Heavens 37 
 
 Act IV. Heaven: The Last Judgment 49 
 
 Act V. The Lost Oracles 
 
 Egypt 73 
 
 Babylon 80 
 
 Tyre 88 
 
 Phrygia 95 
 
 Persia loi 
 
 Hellas 108 
 
 Rome 116 
 
 Interlude: Procession of the Exiled Gods . . . .125 
 Act VI. The Consecration and the Poet's Dream 
 
 Patmos 131 
 
 The Vale of Tempe in Thessaly 136 
 
 zi 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 The Book of Revelation, sometimes known as the 
 Apocalypse, and traditionally but erroneously ascribed to 
 Saint John, was the basis of many a mediaeval mystery. In 
 more modern times its sublime scenes and gorgeous imagery 
 has furnished forth a number of oratorios (though no opera, 
 so far as I am aware) , and been the subject of many a painter's 
 brush. Under the circumstances it may seem presumptuous 
 to think that any new and fresh interpretation of so old 
 a theme is possible. Yet I venture to hope that in the 
 dramatization of the struggle between the pagan cults of 
 antiquity and early Christianity here presented, both the 
 Apocalypse and the ''Death of the Gods" have received a 
 new literary valuation. For I have tried to touch with 
 modern poetry and modern passion one of the most tragically 
 beautiful episodes in the history of human culture. 
 
 Nietzsche, in his Birth of Tragedy, has magnificently 
 said that "A people, and for the rest also a man, is worth 
 just as much only as its ability to impress on its existence 
 the seal of eternity." This has been the aim of every great 
 religion of the world. But the effect has been sought in 
 different modes or ways by different religions. Buddhism 
 finds it in the doctrine of impermanence and detachment, and 
 in ultimate mergence with nature. "The One remains, the 
 many change and pass." 
 
 The Greek, on the other hand, found the ultimate in no 
 ultimate. To him search was life, finality was death. His 
 was the Dionysian ecstasy to experience the eternal delight 
 of becoming. To the Greek never-ending grovv^th was the 
 law of life. To him living had no value, life had. To him 
 what justified man, and would justify him to all eternity, was 
 
 (i) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 his own reality. The majesty of mysteries was self-realization, 
 for in self-realization God also was revealed. This is the 
 profound truth at the bottom of the myth of Prometheus: 
 man seeking to become God — the will, not to be like God, but 
 to become God. To become one's greatest self, with the 
 Greeks, was piety. 
 
 The power in this aspiration was not faith, but reason. 
 "Mind sees, mind hears, all besides is dumb and blind," 
 said Empedocles. The panic of God in Genesis, and of the 
 Gods in Greek mythology, was fear lest man's reason might 
 come to rival that of God himself; that man's self-sufficient 
 wisdom might some day make him equal with God. If the 
 day were ever to come when man had no need of God, then 
 God were not. Hence God's stigmatizing of man's search 
 for truth as sin, and the wish to acquire knowledge as a crime, 
 as if truth were something which one may possess and another 
 be denied. Hence, too, the break-up of the nations at Babel, 
 and the destruction of "sinful" man by the Flood. 
 
 The passion for the forbidden, the determination to 
 acquire that beyond what is easily attainable, the courage for 
 achievement, the struggle for the labyrinthine, the search 
 for truth, requires the highest qualities of mind and heart. 
 There is a deep symbolism in the nailing of Prometheus to the 
 snow-capped peaks of Caucasus. The man who lives out the 
 highest that he knows must "have a thirst for thunderbolts," 
 and get used to loneliness and cold. "Life always gets 
 harder towards the summit," wrote Nietzsche, "the cold 
 increases." The period of ancient history when the Greek 
 body bloomed, when the Greek soul brimmed over, was also 
 the epoch of that Olympic struggle, in the dust cloud of which, 
 perhaps transfigured by the mists of time and the "pathos of 
 distance," we see the towering figures of men like Prometheus, 
 walking as Gods. 
 
 (2) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Historical Christianity has found the destiny of man, his 
 highest and best, not in impermanence and detachment, nor 
 yet again in the Greek principle of eternal becoming, but in 
 finality — a final heaven of eternal bliss for the good, a final 
 hell of eternal torment for the wicked. From the point of 
 view of intelligence and reason, such a solution is degrading. 
 For there can be no finality without immobility, and immo- 
 bility is death. 
 
 Finality of itself were bad enough. But Christianity 
 makes its case worse by pivoting the conduct of man not upon 
 reason and intelligence, but upon faith, which is often blind 
 belief in what is denied by intelligence, and the refusal to 
 know what is true. "The search for truth is made hopeless if 
 the world, mistrusting reason, weary of argument and wonder, 
 flings itself passionately under the spell of a system of author- 
 ized revelation, which acknowledges no truth outside itself 
 and stamps free inquiry as sin." This is what orthodox 
 Christianity does. Better Cain and Esau, who were of the 
 race of the strong, than the supple and pliant Abel and Jacob. 
 Better Prometheus, who defied the Gods, than Oedipus 
 who exhibited only "the heroism of passivity." Tyndall's 
 utterance rings like a clarion: "No worse infidelity could seize 
 upon the mind than the belief that a man's earnest search 
 after truth should culminate in his perdition." 
 
 The idea of revealed religion implies man's incapacity to 
 think for himself, and the presumption that truth is dangerous 
 for him to know. It nurtures error and suppresses truth. 
 God becomes either a tyrant pursuing man with his wrath 
 for seeking truth, and endeavoring to become his greatest 
 self; or else everything strong, masterful, quick, proud, 
 becomes eliminated from the idea of God. Why find weeping 
 sweet? Man should be, and has a right to be, noble and 
 proud and swift of heart and mind. It is mind, reason, will, 
 
 (3) 
 
Ube Xost ©raclcs 
 
 that redeems man, not faith. Faith cultivates ignorance, 
 error, superstition, morbidity, moral and intellectual degrada- 
 tion. Contempt of man for himself is its keynote. 
 
 To the honor of the cults of antiquity, they never con- 
 ceived the vicious idea of a revealed religion, or developed 
 the principle of authority in religion, or created a systematic 
 theology. The Greek's business was with thought and action, 
 not with reward; least of all did the Greek believe in any 
 atonement for sin outside of himself. His sacrifices were 
 propitiatory, not expiatory. 
 
 Under the syncretic influences and impulses of the time 
 in which Christianity was born and expanded, it imbibed and 
 assimilated much from the beliefs and practices of the many 
 pagan cults with which it came in contact. But unfortunately 
 it chose the worse and not the better parts of these religions. 
 It developed a Christian mythology of its own, while it 
 condemned the mythology of the Greek and oriental cults, 
 although the spiritual suggestiveness of the latter exceeds 
 that in the former. To those who have eyes to see and hearts 
 to understand, the myths of Aphrodite and of Kronos and 
 Rhea were intimations of God, But they taught by allegory 
 and mystery, not by dogmatism and theological exposition. 
 Just here was the ground of feud between Julian and the 
 church fathers of the fourth century. The d3dng paganism 
 of the fourth century believed that Greek philosophy and 
 mythology were the relics of a primeval revelation. "There 
 is truth in the myths, but irksome and hard to the mind is 
 faith," said Empedocles. 
 
 It is the demerit of historical Christianity to have devised 
 dogma, invented exegesis, and formulated the principle of 
 intolerance, under the influence of Hellenistic sophistry and 
 dialectic and Roman legalism. The Greek believed in the 
 moral ascent of man through use of his faculties of will, reason, 
 
 (4) 
 
Zbc %03t ©racles 
 
 knowledge, and understanding. He put a premium on intelli- 
 gence and the essential worth of the individual. Better were 
 it for a man to go to ruin like a broken cloud than humiliate 
 his heart by slavishly accepting that which his intelligence 
 knows to be untrue or absurd. 
 
 Religion is a tragic business. For human life, with all its 
 beauty and its possibiUties, after all rests upon a sub-stratum 
 of suffering. But why make that suffering ignoble, instead 
 of ennobling ? To know God, to seek for Him who is beyond 
 all darkness, is the majesty of mysteries, and never was man 
 yet who completely penetrated behind the veil. But it is not 
 religious to bear about a shattered and bleeding soul, and 
 ever to be spiritually miserable and morbid. It is not sinners 
 who are saved, but the noble of soul. The man who has to be 
 saved by atonement is not worth saving at any price, even a 
 penny's worth. Life transcends life. But it is not heaven 
 or immortality in the end, but a higher magic plane of spiritual 
 existence which establishes a new world on the ruins of 
 the old. 
 
 He who scoffs at the spiritual values found in the cults of 
 antiquity is either ignorant or bigoted, or both. If there 
 were only one religion in the world it would be too easily 
 recognized. Christianity is not that merle blanche among 
 religions which it is commonly reputed to be. It has sprung 
 from the same root of paganism, and is just one more branch 
 of the great tree of religion. 
 
 We are apt to forget that the religions of Isis and Osiris, 
 of Attis, of Dionysos, were as real to their worshipers as the 
 Christian religion is today to its votaries. The pagans whom 
 the early Christians execrated were as certain of their Vege- 
 tation Gods, their Sun Gods, as modern Christians are of 
 their God-in-Christ; and the pretenses to biographical 
 knowledge of their Gods which we call mythology have little 
 
 (S) 
 
Xlbe Xost ©racles 
 
 less historicity than the pious mythology which has encrusted 
 the life of Jesus. Jesus was an historical person. The Christ 
 is a character of Christian mythology. As, back of Osiris, 
 perhaps once lived a great religious teacher in oldest Egypt; 
 as, back of Zoroastrianism, once lived another great religious 
 teacher in Iran, the one to become a God, the other an 
 energumen, so back of the energumatic Christus was the his- 
 torical Jesus. But the connection between the two, in each 
 case, is an imaginary one. The few historical statements 
 which can be made concerning Jesus cannot be admitted as 
 evidence concerning Christ, for "Christ" is not an historical 
 person, but an invention of the theological mind. 
 
 One who reads ancient Greek poetry, philosophy, mythol- 
 ogy, with his spiritual senses on the alert, can hardly avoid 
 a feeling of poignant regret that early Christianity read the 
 message of those ancient cults with so literal an eye instead 
 of tr3dng to understand the spirit of their parole, and to view 
 the search of the ancient cults after God at least with tolera- 
 tion, even if not with sympathy. There is no room for 
 imagination or poetry or beauty in dogma or ecclesiastical 
 legalism. The spiritual loss to the world owing to early 
 Christianity's dogmatism, hardness of heart and deliberate 
 determination not to see what was best and greatest in the 
 heart of the ancient mystery religions is enormous. 
 
 In this day of ours no two men have so sympathetically 
 interpreted the grandeur of Greek religious thought as have 
 Nietzsche and Sir Gilbert Murray, or felt more deeply the 
 tragedy of its extinction. The former has written: 
 
 The world grew older and the dream vanished For this 
 
 is the manner in which rehgions are wont to die out: when, under 
 the stern, intelligent eyes of an orthodox dogmatism, the mjrthical 
 presuppositions of a reUgion are systematised as a completed sum of 
 historical events, and when one begins apprehensively to defend the 
 
 (6) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 credibility of the myth — when, accordingly, the feeling of myth dies out 
 and its place is taken by the claims of religion to historical foundations.' 
 
 Sir Gilbert Murray has formulated this brief for ancient 
 paganism : 
 
 The kind of religion which ancient paganism had become at the 
 time of its final reaction against Christianity [is] a more or less intelligible 
 whole, and succeeds better than most religions in combining two great 
 appeals. It appeals to the philosopher and the thoughtful man as a 
 fairly complete and rational system of thought, which speculative and 
 
 enlightened minds in any age might believe without disgrace 
 
 At the same time this religion appeals to the ignorant and the humble- 
 minded. It takes from the pious villager no single object of worship that 
 has turned his thoughts heavenwards. It may explain and purge, it 
 never condemns or ridicules. In its own eyes that was its greatest 
 
 glory; in the eyes of history, perhaps, its fatal weakness After 
 
 the time of Constantine .... it is paganism, not Christianity, that 
 must uphold the flag of a desperate fidelity in the face of a hostile world. 
 .... The battle is over, and it is poor work to jeer at the wounded 
 
 and the dead Like other vanquished, these vanquished have 
 
 been tried at the bar of history without benefit of counsel, have been 
 condemned in their absence and died with their lips sealed. The 
 polemic literature of Christianity is loud and triumphant, the books of 
 the pagans have been destroyed. Only an ignorant man will pronounce 
 
 a violent or bitter judgment here No one man's attitude towards 
 
 the Uncharted can be quite the same as his neighbor's [But] for- 
 gotten things, if there be real life in them, will sometimes return out 
 of the dust, vivid to help still in the fonvard groping of humanity.' 
 
 May I quote at some length from another ? One of the 
 weightiest books of its size published within the century is 
 Dr. L. R. Farriell's The Evolution of Religion.^ The five great 
 volumes by this scholar upon "The Cults of the Greek States" 
 have amply qualified him to write this admirable interpreta- 
 tive synthesis. He says: 
 
 The reasonable and sympathetic study of the various religions of 
 mankuid, which are perhaps the clearest murror we possess of human 
 
 ' Birth of Tragedy, p. 84. ^Four Stages of Greek Religion, pp. 177-84. 
 
 3 L. R. Farnell, The Evolution of Religion, New York and London, 1905. 
 
 (7) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 feeling, aspiration, and thought in its highest and lowest forms, is only 
 possible for the individual or for the age that feels no constraining call 
 
 to suppress and obliterate all save one cherished creed We 
 
 owe to it [anthropology] the positive induction that the religious product 
 at the different stages and in the diiferent branches of mankind was a 
 
 complex growth from many different germs Greek mythology 
 
 has often its striking affinities It is necessary for comparative 
 
 folklore and anthropology to point this out and often to insist on the 
 beauty of the legend and the dignity of the religious thought. . . . • 
 Greek mythology, after all, is the most beautiful of any of which we 
 have record. 
 
 Yet what is less its own than a people's gods ? We greatly desider- 
 ate an anthropology of the Mediterranean basin, including anterior Asia; 
 for there are strong reasons for the belief that from very early times 
 the frequent intercourse of the leading peoples in this region endowed 
 them with a common stock of reUgious ideas, ritual and legend which 
 have probably left their impress on the higher religions of the world. 
 .... For probably every one of the world-creeds has inherited, apart 
 from its own achievement, a double tradition, a tradition from the 
 
 more remote and one from the more immediate past Neither 
 
 our sacred books nor Judaic hterature nor Greek philosophy explain the 
 whole complex of historic Christianity The old Phrygian reli- 
 gion .... must be seriously taken into account People 
 
 insist on telling the old stories under changed names St. Augus- 
 tine, mistaking Greek legends for Greek religion, could discover no 
 morality in it at all, and modern scholars have inherited the fallacy. 
 .... The myth that is an essential fact for the student of religion is 
 that which enshrines some living religious idea or institution, or one 
 which proves the survival of some ritual or faith that belonged to an 
 older system. 
 
 .... The divine character of the Virgin owed much, directly or 
 
 indirectly, to the great Anatohan cult of the Mother-Goddess 
 
 When St. Paul promises to "show you a mystery" he is borrowing the 
 language of paganism.' .... Bishop Clemens uses the phraseology of 
 
 the Eleusinian and Attis Mysteries The formula nomina sunt 
 
 numina was valid in all the old religions of the Mediterranean area, 
 including earlier and even later Christianity In the history of 
 
 'I Cor. 15:51. So in I Cor. 2:7 he writes: "We speak the wisdom of 
 God in a mystery." 
 
 (8) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 divine names none has been of greater import for paganism and Christ- 
 ianity alike than Kore-Parthenos and that of the Greek and Phrygian 
 
 Divine Mother The goddess who proffered salvation in the 
 
 pre-Christian Hellenic world aflforded strong stimulus to the later 
 growth and diffusion of Mariolatry, which is one of those phenomena in the 
 history of the Church which cannot be adequately explained without look- 
 ing beyond the limits of Christianity proper In the veneration 
 
 of images .... we infallibly detect the abiding influence of Graeco- 
 
 Roman paganism Idolatry, in this sense, is a higher form of 
 
 fetichism We probably all inherit some faint impress of the 
 
 fetichistic spirit, nor need we be startled if we find it in the higher 
 religions. 
 
 .... Even at the present time we can easily recognize the 
 
 fetichistic value of the sacred objects, relics, crucifixes The 
 
 "adoration of the true wood of the cross" .... if we merely consider 
 the nature of the religious object and the value of the material thing 
 
 for , faith, must be called fetichistic The fetichism, then, of 
 
 the higher religions and of the savage faith is morphologically the 
 same 
 
 Finally, there remains the question .... concerning the affinities 
 of the Christian and the pre-Christian religions in primary ideas and 
 
 essential belief The incarnation of the Godhead in human form 
 
 was a familiar conception to the civilized and half-civUized races of the 
 
 old world More important still for the purposes of religious 
 
 comparison is the wide prevalence in the Mediterranean communities of 
 
 the belief in the death and resurrection of the divinity The 
 
 comparative student must also give careful consideration to what are 
 called the eschatologic doctrines, the beliefs concerning posthumous 
 happiness, salvation and damnation, not only of the Judaic, but also of 
 the Hellenic, Anatolian and Egyptian religions 
 
 Our own religious history should be traced back to the period of 
 
 our ancestral paganism We shall not know ourselves .... in 
 
 fact we may say that no account of the history of Christianity in any 
 European state can be real and complete unless we can get back to the 
 
 pre-Christian past of that community Hellas has dominated the 
 
 creed as she has dominated the intellectual history of Christendom. 
 The new faith, in spite of its fierce or contemptuous intolerance of the 
 past, was only able to transform but not to abolish the Mediterranean 
 tradition. 
 
 (9) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 If the religions of antiquity were full of error and illusion, 
 so is Christianity. It is simply a question of degree. In last 
 analysis logically there is no such thing as a false God or a 
 false religion, as Max Miiller said. For every religion is a 
 search after Him who is beyond all darkness. One of the 
 saddest facts in the history of the spread of Christianity 
 is its failure to perceive this fundamental truth of religion. 
 This the various cults of antiquity, on the other hand, 
 perceived. While not co-operating, they were not hostile 
 to one another, they were not intolerant of one another. 
 Every votary was at liberty to pass from one religion 
 to another if he failed to find spiritual refreshment in one 
 cult and chose to seek for it in another cult. Dogmatism, 
 intolerance, heresy, are the inventions of the Christian mind, 
 not of the pagan. Instead of holding out the right hand of 
 fellowship to the other reHgions in the Roman world, Christ- 
 ianity regarded them all as enemies and at last slew them, 
 to the enormous spiritual impoverishment of mankind. For 
 in destroying paganism Christianity destroyed profound 
 spiritual agencies working among men, and itself had not 
 sufficient spirituality to recompense for the loss. 
 
 "Few indeed, but those roses," as the poet Meleager 
 said of the fragments of Sappho, are the precious survivals 
 of paganism which the ferocity of the early church fathers 
 has spared unto us. 
 
 The imagination of poets, musicians, artists, has fed upon 
 the paganism of antiquity, at least since the Renaissance, as a 
 rose feeds upon sunlight and air. Milton, for all his puritan- 
 ism, was profoundly imbued with paganism. The Ode on the 
 Morning of Christ's Nativity is saturated with allusions to 
 the cults of ancient Israel, Egypt, Babylonia, Phoenicia, 
 Greece, and Rome. It is almost as much pagan as it is 
 Hebrew and Christian. So, too, Handel's operas are redolent 
 
 do) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 of pagan memorials. With a greater delicacy than Milton's, 
 Handel perceived shades or gradations in ancient paganism. 
 The late Samuel Butler, an ardent admirer of Handel's 
 music, has acutely pointed out the contrast "between the 
 polished and refined Roman paganism in 'Theodora,' the 
 rustic paganism of 'Bid the maids the youths provoke' in 
 'Hercules,' the magician's or sorcerer's paganism of the blue 
 furnace in 'Chemosh no more,' or the Dagon choruses in 
 'Samson.'" 
 
 But neither Milton nor Handel, nor yet Swinburne nor 
 Tennyson nor Walter Pater \dsualized the spiritual content of 
 the ancient cults. Their mythology, to them, was sometimes 
 a pretty fairy tale or legend, but the reUgious message em- 
 bodied in it escaped their discernment. It is only of late 
 years, since the development of the science of comparative 
 rehgion, that we have come to understand that behind the 
 veil of myth lay a deep rehgious motive, which taught, how- 
 ever, not by direct speech, but by allegory and symbol. 
 With the new key to our understanding which the study of 
 comparative rehgion has put in our hands, the ancient 
 Greek and oriental cults have come to have a new significance 
 and a new beauty. 
 
 A behef may be very far from real truth, but if it is 
 sincere, it may yet be Hfe-preserving. Whichever form of 
 deity any worshiper wishes to worship, if he worships in spirit 
 and in truth, there is God. God has many tones and many 
 ways by which He calls man unto Himself. God dwells at 
 the top of the mountain, and many are the paths which 
 lead thither. 
 
 (II) 
 
ACT I. CAPRI. IN THE YEAR 33 A.D. 
 
.... about the evening the vessel was becahned near the Isles 
 Echinades, whereupon their ship drove with the tide till it was carried 
 near the Isles of Paxi; when immediately a voice was heard calling 
 unto one Thammoz; which Thammoz was a mariner of Egypt. He 
 returned no answer to the first calls; but at the third he repUed, "Here, 
 here. I am the man." Then the voice said aloud to him, "When you 
 are arrived at Palodes, take care to make it known that the Great God 
 Pan is dead." Being come to Palodes, there was no wind stirring, and 
 the sea was as smooth as glass. Whereupon Thammoz, standing on the 
 deck with his face towards the land, uttered with a loud voice his 
 message, saying, "The Great Pan is dead." He had no sooner said this 
 than they heard a dreadful noise, not only of one, but of several who 
 groaned and lamented with a kind of astonishment. An account of this 
 was soon spread over Rome, which made Tiberius the Emperor send 
 for Thammoz. And he seemed to give such heed to what was told him 
 that he earnestly enquired who this Pan was. — Plutarch, Moralia: 
 Why the oracles cease. 
 
 The lonely mountains o'er, 
 And the resounding shore 
 
 A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament. 
 
 — MiLTONj Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity. 
 
ACT I. CAPRI. IN THE YEAR 33 A.D. 
 
 The terrace of the imperial palace of the emperor Tiberius in the isle 
 of Capri, a magnificent slriicture of vast extent and imposing appear- 
 ance, perched on a rocky promontory above the sea, from the edge of 
 which it is a sheer drop of over a thousand feet to the shore below. It is 
 a warm, soft flight in April, balmy with the scent of spring. The 
 gentle land breeze brings over the bay the odor of jasmine and orange 
 blossoms. A nightingale is singing in a coppice in the cherry orchard 
 near by. The moon, almost full, is riding high, and her bright light 
 makes an argent path of rippling radiance across the face of the waters. 
 The mountains, not too distant, are veiled in a misty haze, half light, 
 half moisture. The dead cone of Vesuvius looms up majestically, its 
 crown still covered with gleaming patches of lingering snow. Along 
 the shore a few lights in Puteoli wink and blink, and shifting reflec- 
 tions corns from Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae. The solitary 
 phare on Cape Misenum burns with steady flame, like a planet fallen 
 to earth. The low ripple of the waves upon the beach far beneath may 
 be heard like a muffled undertone to the throbbing notes of the nightin- 
 gale. Tiberius is leaning over the balcony on the side of the terrace 
 toward the sea. He is an old man with a frowning, even morose 
 countenance, of robust appearance in spite of signs of age; he is 
 deep of chest and broad of shotdders, and has a fair complexion. 
 The most striking thing about him are his eyes, which are grey-blue, 
 large, and very penetrating beneath bushy eyebrows. Tiberius' 
 hair is thin; he wears an ivy wreath upon his head, atid when he 
 walks a slight limp is observable in his left foot. The measured tread 
 of the centurion of the guard tnay be heard as he paces back and forth in 
 the corridor behirtd a row of columns to the right of the terrace, through 
 which access to the palace is given. 
 
 Tiberius (musing) 
 
 Where mighty Rome now h'es outspread was once 
 But grass and hills. Where stands the Palatine 
 Evander's herd its pasturage once found. 
 The ancient race of Rome used estimate 
 
 (is) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 Their little hearths a realm, where Remus' house 
 Is perched. The founders of imperial Rome 
 Were robed in skins then. Three score gathered in 
 A mead together once the senate made. 
 
 And now, since when Rome flung back Hannibal, 
 A foiled, circuitous adventurer. 
 From 'fore her gates, might and dominion, 
 Power, majesty and principality, 
 Like Pelion on Ossa she has piled 
 Until her empire's topmost pinnacle 
 Doth rake the very stars. Her eagle wings 
 Stretch from the Gates of Hercules unto 
 The Caucasus; from cataracts of Nile 
 Far as Germania's forests deep. O Rome, 
 Rome, Rome! O wolf of Mars, thou wert the best 
 Of nurses. From thy milk what walls have sprung! 
 
 And yet, what boots it all ? Have not empires 
 Their seasons, like the year ? Their spring of birth, 
 The summer of their power, the autumn of 
 Their declination, then the winter long 
 Of void and death till they are covered o'er 
 By myth and legend hoar — a thousand years 
 Of pulsing life, perchance, reduced to five 
 Brief lines upon the page of some obscure 
 Thucydides. Shall some strange traveler 
 From Hindustan, in days that are to come, 
 Climb the steep Capitol, perchance, to view 
 The mighty ruins of the Palatine 
 Across the Forum's monumental woe ? 
 The indecipherable boasts of kings ! 
 The cry of vanished empires past and gone! 
 Where's Ninevah ? the Pharaohs ? Cyrus now ? 
 Can Memnon musical the secret tell ? 
 
 (i6) 
 
Ubc %05t ©racles 
 
 Or the huge wedge-shaped pyramids ? Do they 
 
 Still keep within their hearts of porphyry 
 
 The embalmed corses of the Pharoahs dead ? 
 
 Go thither: see how even their granite walls 
 
 Are pierced by vulgar raveners of tombs; 
 
 Houses of clay are they also, whose sides 
 
 Are crushed before the moth. "Res accendent 
 
 Lumina rebus — things shall light the torch 
 
 Of things." Lucretius, thou dost bewray 
 
 Thine own philosophy. Shall not the flame 
 
 That's Rome burn out ? Empires are not like stars, 
 
 Perduring ever in their firmament. 
 
 From Romulus the Romans of today 
 
 Naught but the name possess. Spawn of the newt 
 
 Are they, not whelps of that she-wolf whose dugs 
 
 Nurtured on iron milk that sturdy babe. 
 
 Is 't fate, immutable necessity, 
 Or chance, mere circumstance, that rules the world ? 
 Is our beginning and our end, is man 
 Himself naught to the gods ? the course of Rome 
 No more than children's markings in the sand, 
 Or line in water writ ? Is all that brain 
 And hand of man have patiently achieved 
 To ruination doomed ? — the cumulate 
 Results of centuries of labor, thought, 
 By vagrant winds of history to be 
 Dispersed ? Is Rome to sink to grassy mounds 
 O'er whose green slopes Campagna's kine shall feed 
 On herbage made more rich by what's beneath ? 
 
 Tiberius leans over the parapet and moodily regards the farther shore. 
 Suddenly he starts. 
 
 .... A boat. By all the gods, what mystery's 
 Afloat ? Who dare invade the privacy 
 
 (17) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Which I have sought within this island, far 
 From the noisome crowd of Rome ? Are kings 
 Like 'pothecaries, to be routed out 
 At midnight by some witless wight who thinks 
 His grievance large as an affair of state ? 
 .... Like some huge water-beetle it doth look, 
 Its oars outstretched as slender insects' legs 
 Oft seen in stagnant ponds in summer time. . . . 
 Black bats and evil birds do fly by night; 
 The honest man is not afraid of light. 
 
 The measured plash of oars is faintly heard, then the rattle of a chain 
 being run through an iron ring on the mole below. A man climbs 
 out of the boat and without hesitation begins to ascend the steep path 
 up the face of the cliff. The ring of swift and firm footsteps is heard 
 in the corridor, and in another minute the centurion of the guard 
 appears, followed by a tall, half-nude Egyptian, clad in the costume of 
 a sailor, his forehead tightly bojmd with a linen bandeau. His 
 swarthy visage is sombre, his eyes are deep and grave; his speech 
 , plaintive and in mixed Greek and Latin. 
 
 Centurion (saluting) 
 Majesty ! 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 Who dares the isolation 
 Of Tiberius to penetrate must 
 
 Bear important news. Who art thou ? Whence art 
 Thou ? Thy look betokens thee a sailor. 
 Speak. 
 
 Thammoz 
 
 My name is Thammoz. Out of the great 
 Port of Alexandria I sail as 
 Pilot of a corn ship bringing Egypt's 
 Tributary wheat Rome's red maw to fill. 
 Much have I travelled. Neither Jason nor 
 
 (i8) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Ulysses farther voyaged, or marvels more 
 
 In strange seas saw than I have seen. I've sailed 
 
 'Twixt Scylla and Charybdis; I have heard 
 
 The sirens' song, and 'scaped from Circe's wiles; 
 
 Upon the Euxine's waters black I've seen 
 
 The phosphorescent spectres of men dead 
 
 For years, like seaweed floating in the foam; 
 
 Off Cythera, against the rosy dawn, 
 
 I once saw Aphrodite from the wave 
 
 Rise like an exhalation, her white limbs 
 
 With bright sea water dripping, her moist hair 
 
 Curling in tendrils delicate around 
 
 Her shapely head, bedecked with orchids pink 
 
 Plucked from the floor of the Aegean Sea; 
 
 At midnight off Great Syrtis have I met 
 
 The black and silent barque of Serapis, 
 
 Laden with human souls, which oarless moves. 
 
 Nor sails nor rudder has. My heart has ne'er 
 
 Felt fear. Such sights befall a sailor's lot. 
 
 But seven days ago, on such a night 
 As this, along Arcadia's shore I heard 
 A voice. "Thammoz," it cried. At first no heed 
 I gave. One's eyes and ears at sea do oft 
 Play prankish tricks. Again the voice rang out. 
 And this time right imperiously, "Thammoz, 
 Thammoz, dost thou hear ? " A great fear gripped me 
 Then, and timorously I answered hail with 
 Hail. "Who calls?" I cried. Across the water 
 Came reply: "Pan is dead. Great Pan is dead. 
 HAN MEFAS TEGNHKH. Go thou to Rome. 
 Tell thou Tiberius this oracle." 
 
 Then all the air and waters round till dawn 
 With wailings, sobbings, dirges, did resound. 
 
 (19) 
 
Zhc %ost ©racles 
 
 The sky was clear, and yet it wept with rain; 
 
 The bosom of the sea, as 't were with pent 
 
 Emotion torn, did rise and fall and tossed 
 
 Like fevered sleeper whose untranquil mind 
 
 Pictures fantastic shapes upon the walls 
 
 Of the dark chamber where he Hes in pain. 
 
 During this strange recital Tiberius has stood silent, his eyes intently 
 
 fixed on Thammoz' face. His glance alone betrays the depth of his 
 
 emotion. 
 
 Tiberius (hoarsely) 
 
 Thou are not mad. The gods are, Thammoz. They 
 
 Communicate with man by oracle 
 
 And sign, by portent, dream and omen strange. 
 
 But Delphi's self were baffled by this word 
 
 Out of Arcadia come. " Great Pan is dead." 
 
 Methought that Arcady was least among 
 
 My provinces. Degenerate Greece, is this 
 
 Thy subtle vengeance for Rome's tyranny ? 
 
 That thou wouldst frustrate Rome's proud empire by 
 
 Destruction of the gods ?— the twelve great gods 
 
 Upon whose will her sovereignty is piered ? 
 
 Thammoz 
 
 Take heed, Tiberius. May there not be 
 Truth even in Arcady ? as Httle towns 
 Sometunes to great men give nativity. 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 Thou art bold of speech Stand thou here and 
 
 wait. 
 This cryptic utterance solution prompt 
 Demands. I will consult Thrasyllus straight. 
 The emperor claps his hands. The centurion of the guard appears 
 and salutes. ' 
 
 (20) 
 
Xlbe Xost ©cades 
 
 Centurion 
 
 Your majesty hath called. 
 
 Teberius 
 
 Bring hither now 
 And speedily, Thrasyllus, from the dome 
 Where he consults the motions of the stars. 
 
 The guard salutes and witMraws. While he is wailing Tiberius 
 paces back and forth moodily. Thammoz seems lost in reverie. 
 There is dead silence. Even the nightingale's song is hushed. 
 
 .... The gods die not, and yet their gifts may fail 
 
 Centurion {returning) 
 Behold he comes. 
 
 Enter Thrasyllus, the emperor's astrologer. He is a lUile man of 
 grave dignity vestured in a sky-blue robe broidered with gold and 
 purple; his head-dress is a yellow-gold turban so arranged that a 
 front view of him gives the effect of a nimbus or halo around his head. 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 Kings are like stars. The world 
 Doth worship them. 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 I have a problem which 
 
 ShaU test the metal of thy sorceries. 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 Let the emperor speak, and I shall tell 
 The truth with warrant, else am I a seer 
 That knows not how to wheel an orrery, 
 And read the constellations and the signs. 
 The Babylonian Archytas gat 
 Me, and the gods bear witness I have not 
 Beshamed my kin. What rare thing is it that 
 The emperor requireth ? 
 
 (21) 
 
tlbe Xost ©raclcs 
 
 Tiberius {signing to Thammoz) 
 
 Rehearse 
 
 Thy tale. 
 
 Thammoz 
 
 The signs and wonders of the sea 
 Are nothing strange to me. For they who go 
 Down to the sea in ships are doomed to learn 
 More things than landsmen on the steadfast shore 
 Do dream in their philosophy. Seven days 
 Ago, hard by Arcadia's coast, my ship 
 Her passage made, when sudden from the shore 
 A voice unhuman, yet articulate 
 Did cry three several times my name: "Thammoz, 
 Thammoz, Thammoz." At first I listed not, 
 Surmising that imagination duped 
 The sensual ear. Yet thrice again it came. 
 "Who calls ? " I hailed, and marvelled echo none 
 The viewless voice gave back, for we were less 
 Than fifty fathoms distant from a cliff 
 So high Deucalion might have refuge found 
 Upon its frowning top. And then meseemed 
 The crag itself gave voice and cried aloud: 
 " Go, tell the emperor Tiberius 
 Great Pan is dead." A mighty dread seized hold 
 Upon me then, I shook with fear. For all 
 Around the air was vibrant with strange cries; 
 The water's face did creep and crinkle like 
 
 A serpent's cast-off skin Dawn brought surcease, 
 
 Yet still in dreams I hear that anguished cry. 
 
 As 't were some wounded god This is my tale. 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 Read me this riddle now. 
 
 (22) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 I must survey 
 The stars. No common magic will avail. 
 There's more of truth in poetry and myth 
 Than dwells in all the prose was every writ. 
 Arcadia was Hellas' primal home 
 Of poesy and song and prophesy. 
 Though Greece be sunk upon her lees, mayhap 
 The lyric cry, the authentic note, vibrates 
 Within her yet. Still, still, with living voice 
 For them with spiritual sense endowed, 
 Hellas her thunders and her whispers has. 
 Perfect beauty is imperishable. 
 A race may forfeit all its ancient worth; 
 But truth, with alienated majesty, 
 Returns at last, as every drop of blood 
 Comes back unto its dwelling in the heart. 
 
 Tiberius (drily) 
 
 For a Chaldaean thou dost much extol 
 A people alien unto thee. What of 
 Rome thinkest thou ? 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 Two voices there are. One 
 Of the land, one of the sea. So 't is of 
 Nations, too. One lives for sense and action; 
 One for the mind, the heart, the soul. The choice 
 Is free. But made, what destiny awaits 
 Is fixed and ordered as the skyey spheres. 
 
 Tiberius (irritably) 
 
 What augury dost thou attach unto 
 This tale ? 
 
 (23) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Thr.\syllus 
 
 For every man of woman born 
 
 There is a star. Never was there but one 
 
 Pylades, or but one Orestes, fain 
 
 His life to give away to save a friend. 
 
 Most men to one another hostile are; 
 
 And therefore does the world have war, while peace, 
 
 Fair exile, wanders up and down the earth 
 
 Like Egypt's Isis seeking for the lost 
 
 Osiris in Nilotic fens But this 
 
 Strange sign deals not with war. For all war comes 
 
 From man, not God. This near concerns the soul. 
 
 TrBERIUS 
 
 An end to thy philosophy. Read now 
 This planetarium. 
 
 He indicates a table near by on which is affixed a steel mirror, the 
 face of which is covered with geometrical lines graven on the surface, 
 which intersect at many angles. The signs of the zodiac encircle the 
 mirror. Thrasyllus bends over the table and for some minutes attent- 
 ively studies the reflection of the stars in the mirror, while Tiberius 
 watches him with visible anxiety. 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 The stars incline .... 
 Towards Asia. 
 
 He hastily traces some cabalistic figures upon another table lightly 
 covered with sand. The rising wind at once obliterates them. 
 
 Tiberius ., ., , 
 
 Absit omen! 
 
 T^^^^^^^^ ....They are fixed 
 
 Above Judea .... o'er Jerusalem 
 
 Does Caesar trust his procurator there ? 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 Pontius Pilate ? None is better for those 
 Stiff-necked Jews He knows the law. 
 
 (24) 
 
TTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Thrasyllus (with great agitation) 
 Aye. But does 
 He faithfully sustain Rome's justice there ? 
 He has delivered over to the rage 
 Of the chief priests one who is innocent. 
 By them he has been crucified. I see 
 Him hanging on the tree, and bloody sweat 
 Is on his brow. The scandal of this cross 
 Shall bring disaster down on all the gods. 
 Their sanctuaries shall be crushed. Their priests 
 Shall fail. Across their cold white altar stones 
 The snail shall chart his path. The Great God Pan, 
 Of truth, is dead! The gods are mortal, too! 
 
 Tiberius (fiercely) 
 
 The empire ? and the emperor ? . . . . 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 .... The sky 
 
 Is mute. The wind is sinister. Didst thou 
 
 Not see this moment past how mockingly 
 
 It swept the fatal sand and blotted out 
 
 The signs I writ ? 
 
 Tiberius (striving to shake of his sense of fear) 
 
 Bah! What to Rome is one 
 Cross more ? 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 Caesar, say not so. Truth may be 
 
 Imprisoned, tortured, scourged, chained, crucified; 
 
 It is the weakest, yet the mightiest thing 
 
 In all the world. However darkly read, 
 
 Scorn not the intimation of the signs. 
 
 Remember how great Julius failed to heed 
 
 The soothsayer upon the Ides of March; 
 
 (25) 
 
TLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 How there was found beneath his toga clasped, 
 By his own blood incarnadined, the fell 
 Papyrus that too vainly warned him of 
 The assassin's dagger. Be thou also warned. 
 A strange, wild word of eastern sibyl long 
 Ago comes to me now. "Repent, repent." 
 When comes the day of visitation, what 
 Wilt thou do ? Whither wilt thou flee for help ? 
 Where wilt thou leave thy glory ? Caesar, think. 
 Dominion of the great alone would fain 
 Be feared. Yet who is to be feared but God ? 
 Out of His power what can be wrested or 
 Withdrawn ? Say when, or whither, or by whom. 
 
 Tiberius (moodily, yet with a ring of pride in his voice) 
 While looms the Pantheon Rome shall stand. When 
 Falls the Pantheon, then Rome shall fall; 
 And when Rome falls, the world. For all the gods 
 Are congregated there, and vigil keep. 
 Thou sayest God. I say the gods. 'T is they 
 Who fill life full of love; 't is they who caused 
 Savagery to cease and hallowed holy 
 Rites; 't is they who gave men laws and set up 
 Courts, and men's minds filled with thoughts of justice. 
 
 Tkrasyllus 
 
 Nay, Caesar, not the gods, but God these fair 
 Inventions gave to men. 
 
 Tiberius 
 
 Peace. Thou shalt yet 
 
 Perish of thy wisdom, my Thrasyilus. 
 
 Thrasyllus 
 
 The stars in their courses be against thee, 
 Caesar, and 'gainst Rome. Memento crucis! 
 
 (26) 
 
ACT II. PATMOS 
 
I, John, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of 
 God and for the testimony of Jesus. — Revelation i : 9. 
 
 Monumenta aperta sunt, et multa corpora sanctorum qui dormi- 
 erant, surrexenint. Et exeuntes de monvunentis post resurrectionem 
 Ejus, venerunt in civitatem, et apparuerunt multis. — Matthew 27:52. 
 
ACT II. PATMOS 
 
 The isle of Patmos. It is little more than a mass of volcanic rocks 
 covered imth stunted cedars and cypresses. In the distant offing the 
 sail of a vessel may be discerned. The harsh scream of the fish-hawk, 
 and the heavy puffing of the dolphin accentuate the loneliness of the 
 situation. In the foreground, amid a grove of dwarf trees on a low 
 promontory, is seated a very old man vestured in white and with a staff 
 in his thin hatids. His face is that of a mystic, almost shining from 
 the spiritual effulgence within his soul. His voice, when he speaks, 
 in spite of his advanced years, is astonishingly deep and sonorous . 
 It is the apostle John, the last survivor of the twelve disciples of Jesus. 
 He is surrounded by seven of his disciples, who lean eagerly upon his 
 words. The chief of these is Cephas, whose tenderness and devotion to 
 his master is strongly manifested. 
 
 Cephas 
 
 Dear Father, is it true, when Jesus was 
 Delivered from the sepulchre, the graves 
 Were oped and many bodies of the saints 
 WTiich slept arose, and walked in cerements clad 
 Into Jerusalem, whom many saw ? 
 
 John (slightly trembling with emotion, and closing his eyes as if 
 to recover a vanished dream) 
 Children mine, that which I saw with my own 
 Eyes shall I declare. But yesterday it 
 Seems. These things are true, and I, John, of them 
 
 Witness bear: that which Cephas saith is so 
 
 .... None lives who saw Him in the flesh save me 
 
 To bear that record I, John, who on that 
 
 Night perfidious in which He was betrayed 
 
 Leaned on His bosom Aye, 't is true the night 
 
 He died upon the cross, the dead in Christ 
 
 (29) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Arose, and came into Jerusalem 
 
 The Son of God expired on the tree 
 
 A frightful tempest o'er the whole land raged. 
 I felt the earthquake wherewith Nature, in 
 
 Great awe, shook the foundations of the hills 
 
 Thick darkness covered all the sky; the moon 
 Was red like blood; the ground like ashes seemed. 
 It was the agony of all things, earth 
 
 And man From Golgotha, how I returned 
 
 To my poor lodging in the city, know 
 
 I not I dragged myself along, feeling 
 
 The hard stones of the path as 't were my feet 
 
 Were eyes. Within the gate I numbly felt 
 
 The walls of houses, touching, as one blind, 
 
 The pillars of the porticos. So worked 
 
 I my way until at last the quarter 
 
 Where the remnant sorrowing of them that 
 
 Loved Him dwelt. .... Jesus' mother followed me, 
 
 With Mary Magdalene. All we did reel 
 
 And stagger in our steps like ships in storm. 
 
 Came Peter, afar off. Among us all 
 
 The bravest were the women. Sad, yet borne 
 
 Up by a noble confidence, these walked. 
 
 The mystery which like a wall blanked us, 
 
 To them seemed as a door whose portal oped 
 
 Upon an undiscovered country, far 
 
 Beyond the sense, or number, time and space. 
 
 .... The storm abated. O'er Jerusalem 
 
 A death-like silence hung. The Pascal moon 
 
 At last from forth behind the wrack of clouds 
 
 Began to look, and shone on Calvary. 
 
 .... Mary Magdalene and I the house roof 
 
 Sought above. Below, within the house, sad, 
 
 (30) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 And alone, knelt Mary, mother of God 
 
 In prayer for them who slew her Son We two 
 
 In silence gazed upon the red- tiled roofs, 
 
 Beyond the walls into the valleys dim, 
 
 And on the mountains grey with so great grief 
 
 That nature was convulsed Ever our eyes 
 
 To that bad eminence were turned where stood 
 
 Those three trees gaunt against the bitter sky. 
 
 Near us the Temple's mighty dome arose, 
 
 Its dark bulk vague and sinister. In front 
 
 The gorgeous Porch was stretched, from which He drave 
 
 The money-changers and the base born crowd 
 
 Of peddlers who on worship battened Round 
 
 Were spread the houses of the priests, the home 
 
 Of pitilessness, pride, hypocrisy 
 
 .... At midnight the racked moon blew clear. A cold 
 
 Wind rose, colder than Caucasus' iced breath. 
 
 At first it was a murmur, then it seemed 
 
 Like tramp of legions which invisible. 
 
 Were marching on Jerusalem. Soon, soon. 
 
 From all directions — in dry torrent's bed. 
 
 In deep ravines, along the rocky paths. 
 
 Across the vineyards, in the olive groves. 
 
 We saw fantastically moving forms, 
 
 Phantoms in gleaming whiteness clothed, which seemed 
 
 Not so much to be walking as to glide. 
 
 Like unto strips of wind-blown fog Then said 
 
 The Magdalene, "The spirits of the dead 
 
 Are come to seek the living. They that slept 
 
 In ancient sepulchres have waked to greet 
 
 His resurrection." .... By the ramparts stopped. 
 
 The ghostly multitude like water flowed 
 
 Along the walls until the gates were found. 
 
 (31) 
 
Ube %03t ©racles 
 
 Before the frightened sentries' eyes, dilate 
 With terror, this procession of the dead 
 Poured through the city gate with silent step 
 
 And slow The mighty past of Israel 
 
 In serried shadows marched. The patriarchs 
 Were there with turbans white upon their heads. 
 Priests, judges, captains of Joshua who 
 Saw the moon stand still on Ajalon. Kings 
 Purple-clad, high priests of eld in broidered 
 Surplices. Barefooted prophets clothed in 
 
 Camel's hair All in silence onward streamed. 
 
 I saw Isaiah there in robe all flecked 
 With crusted blood, walking beside one whose 
 Grey countenance with iron lines was graved. 
 'T was Jeremias. With a sad salute 
 
 They hailed Jerusalem Behind them walked 
 
 Ezekiel, with look of mystery 
 On his thin face. Of sombre grandeur was 
 The countenance of Daniel, whose dread words 
 Like a scorched flower had withered Babylon. 
 .... Anon came figures lamentable, those 
 With sorrow bowed, who suffered poverty, 
 Who had anhungered, been outcast, the sick, 
 Slaves, widows, orphans, all the victims of 
 The priests and Pharisees, troops of exiles 
 From countries far away, the innocents 
 
 Of Herod's massacre at Bethlehem 
 
 .... With stifled murmurs and with sobbings deep, 
 
 With timid utterance like whispered prayers, 
 
 This haggard legion of the dead enfiled 
 
 Hour after hour before us, while we stood 
 
 Like frozen monuments upon the roof 
 
 And watched All disappeared at last within 
 
 (32) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 The Temple vast whose great bronze gates, untouched 
 
 By mortal hands, oped wide, and silent shut 
 
 Again The last leaf on the bough am I 
 
 John's voice trails off so that his disciples bend eagerly to hear him. 
 As he ceases, over-awed, they silently steal away leaving him alone, 
 sitting as if dreaming. 
 
 .... All things continue as they were Rome's rod 
 
 Like iron is upon the nations' backs 
 
 The promise of His coming .... Lord .... how long ? 
 .... How beautiful, how beautiful shall be 
 
 His feet upon the hills When shall the last 
 
 Trump sound ? When, when, shall this corruption put 
 On incorruption ? . . . . Death, where is thy sting ? 
 Or grave thy victory? .... Faith, faith! .... Wait, 
 
 wait. 
 In patience. Knowst thou not the martyrs' blood 
 Is seed unto the church ? . . . . Faith, faith ! Thy word 
 Is lamp unto my feet and light unto 
 My path. O soul disconsolate, for his 
 Appointed time the vision lingers yet. 
 The dreams of saints are God's thoughts after Him. 
 The archangel Astrophel abruptly appears before the apostle. 
 
 Archangel 
 
 Apostle John, awake. Because thou wert 
 
 The Son of Thunder called. He that appoints 
 
 The thunder hath sent me. Make haste. Thine eyes 
 
 Shall see the King in all His glory, they 
 
 Shall look upon the land that is far off. 
 
 The Day of Judgment draweth nigh, and thou 
 
 Shall see God sitting on His throne of clouds. 
 
 In intense astonishment a'nd awe John falls upon his face before the 
 angel as if in worship. 
 
 (33) 
 
Zbc %ost ©racles 
 
 Archangel 
 
 See thou do it not. Worship God. Behold 
 This wand. I am God's angel messenger 
 Unto thee sent to bear thee straight to heaven. 
 Terrible things in righteousness await; 
 The world's assize impends. For time and times 
 And dividing of time be ended now. 
 
 (34) 
 
ACT III. SPACE: THE SEVEN HEAVENS 
 
I saw a Point Around the Point a circle of fire was whirl- 
 ing .... and this was by another circumcinct, and that by the 
 third, and the third then by the fourth; by the fifth the fourth, and 
 then by the sixth the fifth. Thereon the seventh followed .... and 
 that zone had the clearest flame from which the Pure Spark was least 
 distant. — ^Dante, Faradiso, canto xxviii. 
 
ACT III. SPACE: THE SEVEN HEAVENS 
 
 FIRST HEAVEN 
 Space. Nothing is visible except the angel, majestically flying, like 
 an eagle, and sustaining the apostle John with his outstretched hand. 
 
 John 
 
 For thirty days these folded mists have we 
 Been traversing. Heaven seemeth far to me. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Peace, peace, grave saint. Heaven's golden state is 
 
 bound 
 By seven zones of flaming ramparts round. 
 Wider than distance be from west to east 
 Each several zone. This outer-most is least 
 In breadth. Look down, and open wide thy lids. 
 What seest thou ? 
 
 John 
 
 Than Egypt's pyramids 
 
 Vaster, and chiselled square, a rock I see; 
 
 Lord Angel, what is it ? Tell unto me. 
 
 Angel 
 
 It is Earth's corner-stone, by God's right hand 
 Set there, when God the waters made to stand, 
 And separate the seas from the dry land. 
 What seest thou upward ? 
 
 John 
 
 I see pillars grand, 
 
 As 't were the fingers of God's mighty hand; 
 
 Each one seems plinthed upon a separate world, 
 
 Their chapiters in cloud and darkness furled. 
 
 (37) 
 
XCbe Xost ©racles 
 
 The columns vast in Dian's pillared nave 
 
 In Ephesus were but a beggar's stave 
 
 To them compared. What be they, Angel Guide ? 
 
 Angel 
 
 The columns of God's house thou hast descried ; 
 These are the pillars of the firmament 
 Whereto the rafters of the sky be bent. 
 A gigantic door appears. 
 
 John 
 
 Are we now come unto the gate of heaven ? 
 
 Angel 
 
 Thou hast forgotten that I told thee seven 
 
 Zones, and each one wider than the last, 
 
 Encircle space ere heaven is overpast. 
 
 This is the House of Cloud, behind whose hold 
 
 God keeps the woolly clouds in skyey fold. 
 
 On fair days in the earth thou hast espied 
 
 The shepherd winds them drive to pastures wide, 
 
 To feed upon the flowery stars, and crop 
 
 The grasses on the bright moon's mountain top. 
 
 John 
 
 How wilt thou enter ? Is thy magic rod 
 Sovran to operate the bolts of God ? 
 
 Angel {making the sign of the cross with his wand before the 
 gate) 
 
 Portal to my bidding bowed. 
 Open thou the Gate of Cloud; 
 Honor this majestic sign, 
 Symbol of the Godhead trine. 
 The door silently swings open and they enter. 
 (38) 
 
Ube Xo3t ©racles 
 
 space: second heaven 
 John 
 
 Lo, sixty days thy potent wings have fanned 
 This high, thin atmosphere. Is not thy hand 
 Fatigued with bearing me, poor wingless wight, 
 Through these dominions of eternal light ? 
 Angel 
 
 God's ministers, that on His errands speed, 
 
 His flaming avatars, no respite need. 
 
 The margin of this zone is near. Before 
 
 Thine eyes ere long shall show another door .... 
 
 Lo, yonder. Seest thou not the ancient posts 
 
 Mortised by Him who is the Lord of Hosts ? 
 
 A second door appears. 
 
 This is the Storehouse of the Rains. Lest drouth 
 Dry up the earth when hot winds from the south. 
 With furnace heat do blow, God doth impound 
 The waters here against what time the ground 
 Grows parched, when harvests wither up, and hay, 
 And men's tongues black with thirst do curse the day. 
 Then is the threshold lowered that the rain 
 Refresh the earth and make it green again. 
 The angel approaches the door and makes the sign of the cross. 
 
 Open, open slide amain, 
 
 Gate of Rain; 
 Open, open wide amain, 
 
 Gate of Rain. 
 The double doors silently slide open. They enter through. 
 
 space: third heaven 
 John 
 
 Four score and ten days are agone, and still 
 This vague immensity the eye doth fill 
 
 (39) 
 
tTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 With nothingness. Nor land nor sea nor star 
 
 Is visible. Above, below, afar, 
 
 Is space, space, space. Its awful amplitude 
 
 Oppresses the imagination. Rood 
 
 Of Christ! How God mankind hath loved, to send 
 
 His Son to that small speck at the world's end ! 
 
 O puny Earth, which thinkest thyself large. 
 
 Thou 'rt but a grain of sand on the far marge 
 
 Of sea so vast the Milky Way's loud roar 
 
 Not even a whisper makes on thy dim shore. 
 
 Man, man, what art thou worth, that God should span 
 
 Eternity and space, thee in His plan 
 
 To take? 
 
 Angel 
 
 Yet man loves God the less, ingrate! 
 For that out of the dust God did create 
 In His own image him, O gratitude. 
 The desert stones than man have more of blood. 
 
 John 
 
 Lo, yonder looms another door more vast 
 
 Than that which held the impounded waters fast. 
 
 A third door appears. 
 
 Angel 
 
 This is the Granary of Snow and Hail. 
 
 Hast thou not seen, when summer 'gins to fail 
 
 Upon the earth, the figure of the Storm 
 
 Stalk o'er the sky, an awful, giant form, 
 
 Flinging broadcast, like sower sowing seed, 
 
 The white flakes of the snow ? With frosty brede 
 
 His coat is wove, and icy are his shoon; 
 
 And while he sows, he sings a boisterous tune. 
 
 (40) 
 
ZTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Angel {approaching the gate with outstretched wand and mak- 
 ing the sign of the cross.) 
 
 Minions of Snow, 
 
 Minions of Hail. 
 God is all mighty, 
 
 His word shall prevail. 
 By the splendor of God, 
 
 Whom angels adore, 
 By this baton of God, 
 Open the door. 
 The door opens. They enter. 
 
 space: fourth heaven 
 John 
 
 O chartless road in air. For six score days, 
 
 Wingless with winged, I've travelled in amaze. 
 
 Horizons on horizons leap. The noon 
 
 Follows the morn, night treads on noon. How soon. 
 
 Lord Angel, tell me, shall we reach the edge 
 
 Of this celestial zone ? Heaven's glittering ledge 
 
 Seems ever and forever to retreat 
 
 Soever fast we flying follow fleet. 
 
 Angel 
 
 From centre to circumference of space 
 
 Heaven reaches. But the Seventh Heaven's place 
 
 (Centre and core of the celestial sphere), 
 
 Is distant yet for year of days from here. 
 
 John 
 
 Methought the wideness of God's mercy much; 
 His spatial attribute seems wide as such. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Patience, apostle John. God's love hath charm 
 
 To reach immensities beyond His arm. 
 
 A fourth door appears, from behind which a dull, but formidable 
 
 growling and roaring is to be heard. 
 
 (41) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 John 
 
 For my timidity mislike me not, 
 Great ministering spirit. Tell me what 
 Wonders or terrors wait beyond yon door; 
 Ne'er thought I heaven terrible before. 
 
 Angel 
 
 This is the Cavern of the Thunders, where. 
 Enchained like dogs, the thunders are in lair 
 Until what time Jehovah's car and horse 
 Ride down the sky in brazen-clangored course. 
 Then are these hounds of heaven unleashed to run 
 Beside His flaming wheels through cloud and sun. 
 Of apparition terrible, and voice 
 Reverberant like lion's roar, the noise 
 These storm dogs make scatters the stars in flight, 
 Moon pales, the great sun veils his ruddy light. 
 But be thou not afraid. My sign hath charm 
 To shut their mouths. Thou shalt receive no harm. 
 
 The angel approaches the door and makes the sign of the cross. 
 
 Portal of Thunder, 
 Ope wide asunder; 
 Portal of brass, 
 Let thou us pass. 
 Ye hounds of heaven. 
 By the stars that are seven, 
 Shut your fierce jaws, 
 Down, down on your paws 
 Lest the angel of God 
 You scourge with his rod. 
 
 The door opens and they enter. 
 
 (42) 
 
Ube Xost ©raclea 
 
 space: fifth heaven 
 John 
 
 Thrice fifty days, ah me, thrice fifty days! 
 Lord God of Hosts, Omnipotent, Thy ways 
 Are past the finding out by erring man. 
 Heaven hath few milestones mortal eyes may scan. 
 The pilgrim road to Palestine, how short 
 It was, with this great highway to Thy court 
 Compared. Forgive me, God, but heaven is hard 
 To reach, its way by mighty bastions barred. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Thou thinkest, John, of time in terms of years. 
 Finite art thou. Time unto God appears 
 But as the pastime of eternity; 
 Years, centuries, millenniums, to thee 
 Seem an eternity. But unto Him 
 Ages, which unto thee seem hoar and dim. 
 Are less than watches in the night — an hour — 
 Aye, less, the minutes of an April shower. 
 
 John 
 
 Wonder on wonder piles. I never thought 
 God was so great, or such a world had wrought. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Beyond yon cloud of glowing topaz mist 
 Thou shalt see loom a gate of amethyst. 
 It is the portal of His Arsenal 
 Where dreadful lightnings lie and wait His call ; 
 Barbed, forked, ball, chain, spearhead lightnings stand 
 A-quiver day and night, for God's red hand 
 Instant, what time He choose the levin-spar 
 Across the frightened sky to hurl afar. 
 
 (43) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 John 
 
 I am afraid. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Be not afraid. No harm 
 To thee shall come. God vouched to me a charm 
 Shall soothe their temper and restrain their ire; 
 And quench like rain the hot wrath of their fire. 
 Like dogs which leap to lick their master's hand 
 They shall be tame with us, and understand. 
 A fifth door appears, which the angel addresses. 
 
 By these words which I rehearse, 
 By incantation of this verse. 
 Portal dread, 
 Lift up thy head. 
 Livid lightnings, be at ease; 
 Vivid lightnings, to your knees. 
 The gate rises like a portcullis. They enter, 
 
 space: sixth heaven 
 John 
 
 Six times the sickled moon her circle's filled, 
 And evening vapors the bright dew distilled 
 Since we essayed to cross this zone of light; 
 Still, still, good angel, thou thy tireless flight 
 Continuest. How far is yet the goal ? 
 Days merge with months, the months to seasons roll, 
 While we through limnless aether hasten on, 
 Like pigeon-carriers towards the dawn. 
 
 Angel 
 
 Thou seest that distant bar of light like gold 
 'Neath yonder gate. That is the high threshold 
 
 (44) 
 
Ubc %05t ©racles 
 
 Of Palace of the Luminaries, where 
 
 God keeps the stars in day time from the glare 
 
 Of the hot sun, which else might withered be 
 
 By the fierce fervence of his radiancy. 
 
 Each star abides within a separate cell 
 
 As thou hast seen in honeycomb bees dwell ; 
 
 At night, like bees in day time, they fare forth 
 
 Across the skyey fields, east, west, south, north, 
 
 Each with his lanthorn hid beneath his wing, 
 
 Like fireflies around Castalia's spring. 
 
 Within this house is balance delicate : 
 
 According to its light is each star's weight. 
 
 Like jewels; some are ruby red, some blue, 
 
 Some be like topaz, some be dazzling white, 
 
 As lustrous diamonds are they for light. 
 
 The sixth door appears. It is stvdded with precious stones of every 
 
 kind, and has the magnificence of the Apocalyptic description. The 
 
 angel again addresses the door with magical incantation. 
 
 Ruby red, 
 Emerald, 
 Sapphire blue. 
 Ye are called. 
 Gate of Wonder, 
 Gate of Light, 
 Gate of Beauty, 
 Beaming, bright. 
 Like the moon-moth's fans 
 Open thou thy vans. 
 The gate opens. They enter. 
 
 space: seventh heaven 
 John 
 
 My spirit flies in feathers now. Meseems 
 We do approach the haven of my dreams. 
 
 (45) 
 
Ubc Xo9t ©racles 
 
 Angel 
 
 The wall of heaven is great and high and wide, 
 
 And three gates open in each several side; 
 
 Each level of the wall is different stone: 
 
 Jasper and emerald and chalcedone, 
 
 Sardonyx, sardius and chrysolite, 
 
 Beryl and jacinth, pearl and sapphire bright, 
 
 Rose amethyst, green jade and chrysoprase, 
 
 Ligure and turquoise, carbuncle, topaz. 
 
 The seventh gate appears. The angel calls in a loud voice as if hailing 
 
 a sentry. 
 
 Lift up your heads, O gates. 
 
 God's ministering angel waits; 
 
 For I am he whom God late sent 
 
 To earth across the firmament. 
 Voice from within the Gate of Heaven 
 
 Who summons Michael, captain of the host 
 
 Of heaven ? Who art thou ? From what distant coast 
 
 Of earth or star or sun art thou arrived ? 
 
 Angel or man art thou ? If man, art shrived 
 
 Of thy iniquities by instrument 
 
 Of Holy Church ? If angel, wert thou sent 
 
 By God's own mandate forth from heaven's gate. 
 
 And now, again, outside its portal wait ? 
 
 Angel 
 
 Lord Michael, I am Astrophel. Awhile 
 
 Ago was I despatched to Patmos Isle 
 
 To bring the apostle John to heaven's gates. 
 
 Much wearied with fatigue, he with me waits. 
 Michael {like an army captain giving command) 
 
 Ye gates of heaven on golden hinges hung. 
 
 Swing wide your panels now. Give tongue ! Give tongue ! 
 
 With long, reverberant roar the gates of heaven open. John and the 
 
 angel enter. 
 
 (46) 
 
ACT IV. HEAVEN: THE LAST JUDGMENT 
 
I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one 
 sat on the throne. And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and 
 a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in 
 sight like unto an emerald. 
 
 And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and 
 upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white 
 raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold. 
 
 And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and 
 voices: and there were seven lamps burning before the throne, which 
 are the seven Spirits of God. And before the throne there was a sea of 
 glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about 
 
 the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind And 
 
 they rest not day and night saying. Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God 
 Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come 
 
 And when those beasts give glory and honour and thanks to Him 
 that sat on the throne, who liveth for ever and ever, the four and twenty 
 elders fall down before Him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast 
 their crowns before the throne, saying: Thou art worthy, O Lord, to 
 receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, 
 and for thy pleasure they are and were created. — Revelation 4:2-11. 
 
ACT IV. HEAVEN: THE LAST JUDGMENT 
 
 The Heaven of heavens. The ihrane of God, high atid lifted up. 
 God, sitting upon the throne, is invisible. His apparition is that of a 
 gigantic ruby-darting flame through a cloud of incense which hangs 
 as a canopy over and around the throne. Seven rainbows are arched 
 over the throne. Four archangels flank the throne on either side: 
 On the right, Raphael, Saraquel, Remiel, Azrael; on the left: Michael, 
 Raguel, Zophiel, Uriel. Seven lamps, from which vari-colored 
 exhalations rise, burn on the lowest step of the throne, behind each of 
 which stands an angel trumpeter. At the left front is a squadron of 
 cherubim; at the right front a squadron of seraphim. Sitting in double 
 row, in the center, in front of the throne, are the four and twenty 
 elders, clad in white raiment, and facing the throne. Behind them 
 are ranged the noble army of martyrs, clad in red robes and wearing 
 crowns. When they worship they fall on their knees, with foreheads 
 bowed in obeisance upon the floor of heaven in adoration. The train of 
 God fills all the temple of heaven, above and behind the throne. As far 
 as eye can reach it is a vast panorama of themes, theories, and rectitudes 
 of myriads of angels gleaming in white array, stretching even unto 
 the outer court of heaven. An old man stands, an isolated and rapt 
 figure, in the middle foreground. It is the apostle John. 
 
 Grand Chorus in Heaven 
 
 O Thou great One, before whose awful nod 
 
 Thrones and dominions tremble and do swoon: 
 Thy ways are on the sea, the mountains trod 
 
 By thy bright feet smoke hot beneath thy shoon. 
 
 The thunder is thy voice, the levin-spar 
 
 That lambent leaps from cloud to cloud thy glance ; 
 
 Moon pales, the sun grows chill, and every star 
 Hides from the storm of thy dread countenance. 
 
 (49) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Far as the Milky Way o'er space extends, 
 Where zoned Saturn drives his chariot flight, 
 
 Themes, theories and rectitudes ascend 
 Of hierarchic angels gleaming bright. 
 
 Jasper and sardonyx and jacinth pave 
 The parvis laid before thy burning chair, 
 
 O'er which, as 't were auroral architrave. 
 The Seven Rainbows of the Presence flare. 
 
 Before thy throne in flaming rhythm whirled 
 The cherubim and seraphim adore: 
 
 Maker and Sovereign, Judge of the World, 
 From all eternity for evermore. 
 
 With twain coruscant wings their face they hide, 
 With twain their feet, with twain they fly along; 
 
 Like voice of falling waters in a tide 
 
 Of dreams the beat of their celestial song. 
 
 Seven Lamps, the which seven sleepless angels are. 
 Do guard the seat wherefrom thy glories blaze; 
 
 Seven Trumpeters, and each a jeweled star. 
 Herald thy power, O Lord, Ancient of Days. 
 
 Chorus of the Four and Twenty Elders 
 Heard were the prophets, 
 
 Heard were the sages, 
 
 The seers and the mages, 
 
 In vain through the ages; 
 
 Void were the pages 
 Of Babel and Tyre, 
 
 The confusion of Egypt, 
 Gomorrah's dread fire. 
 
 (so) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Chorus of the Cherubim 
 
 The seas in terror crawl, 
 
 The continents do shrink; 
 The mountains, toppling fall, 
 
 The isles of ocean sink. 
 The rivers swoon with dread, 
 The sea gives up its dead. 
 
 Pharpar and Abana 
 Their fountains bright withdraw 
 To subterranean cisterns deep. 
 But earth, with a great shout, 
 Shall spew their waters out. 
 High as the stars the frightened waves shall leap. 
 
 Antephony of the Seraphim 
 
 Now Bel bows down, Nebo stoops, 
 
 Moloch and Rimmon fail; 
 Chemosh withers, Dagon droops 
 
 With Merodach and Baal. 
 Soon, soon, shall blow His breath 
 On mooned Ashtoreth. 
 Egyptian Isis' eyes 
 
 Are red with weeping for 
 Osiris. Dead he lies. 
 
 His worship is no more. 
 Peor and Baalim 
 Are fallen now with him. 
 
 Ode of an Angel 
 
 God is not prey to sleep and slumber; 
 Naught to Him is time and number. 
 What was before He knoweth ; 
 What shall come after showeth; 
 
 (51) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 All space, all time, He filleth; 
 Men grasp but what He willeth. 
 The earth is His, and heaven, 
 The stars, the planets seven. 
 Of nothing hath He need. 
 With Him who shall dare plead ? 
 
 Voice of the Revealing Angel 
 
 Apostle John, knowst thou what these things be ? 
 
 John 
 
 No, Lord. Heaven is too wonderful for me. 
 Who art thou, pray ? 
 
 Voice of Revealing Angel 
 
 I am a Voice. Hear thou: 
 The line of His confusion shall God draw 
 Across the face of the whole earth this day. 
 The valley of decision shall be choked 
 With multitudes of perished men. The son 
 And moon shall darkened be; the stars shall fall. 
 
 The Four and Twenty Elders rise and receive John into their midst. 
 
 Chant of the Four and Twenty Elders 
 
 What doth the past require ? the future hold in store ? 
 No more is past or present. Forever, ever more, 
 While sinners suffer fires that never shall go out, 
 The saints in heaven shall praise God's mercy with a 
 shout. 
 
 Enter the Revealing Angel. 
 
 Revealing Angel 
 
 In the beginning God 
 Stretched forth His awful rod 
 And called the world from darkness into being. 
 
 (52) 
 
^be Xost ©raclcs 
 
 He fashioned the dry land, 
 
 He bade the waters stand; 
 The darkness from the light He made went fleeing. 
 
 Cattle and creeping thing and bird, 
 Beauty of flowers and trees and grass came from 
 His word. 
 
 Observe ye every thing: 
 
 Stars in their journeying, 
 Sun, moon, in their appointed orbits glide; 
 
 Betimes they rise and set, 
 
 Nor e'er His love forget; 
 In rhythmic order flows and ebbs the tide. 
 
 His wisdom rules both works and days; 
 And all, the recreant heart of man except, obeys. 
 
 Summer and winter time, 
 
 April and autumn's prime, 
 Beneficently change and alternate. 
 
 Trees bare with winter's rage 
 
 Blossom with foliage 
 When spring comes up the land with step elate; 
 And 'neath her vaporous touch the streams 
 IVIurmur and talk like happy children in their 
 dreams. 
 
 Rivers have flowed forever 
 
 Seaward, yet ocean never 
 Hath over-flowed the goal of ordinance; 
 
 The new fallen mask of snow 
 
 Performs its task below, 
 Warming the seed beneath its white expanse; 
 
 The winds, which messenger God's will, 
 And thunder, uttering God's voice. His law fulfill. 
 
 (55) 
 
JLbc Xo9t ©racles 
 
 Man only, rebel man, 
 
 Rejects the heavenly plan ; 
 Corrupting what were perfect otherwise. 
 
 His selfish purpose sterile 
 
 Hath put the earth in peril, 
 And God repents He made man in His^'guise: 
 
 His fan is in His hand, the cup. 
 Red w^ith His righteous indignation, is filled up. 
 
 The Flood was all in vain; 
 
 Gomorrah's fiery rain; 
 Babylon, Ninevah no lesson hath. 
 
 No saving remnant more, 
 
 No grape from cluster, nor 
 Frantic prayer shall moderate His wrath. 
 
 His truth and justice stand. Behold, 
 The sombre leaves of the great Judgment Book unfold. 
 
 The Seven Angels, bearing the Seven Vials of the Wrath of God, 
 appear. The vials are in the form of huge, glowing urns. Their 
 covers are sealed. 
 
 Imprecatory Psalm of the Martyrs 
 
 God of the ages, known of old 
 
 Through prophet, priest and sage. 
 Bring Thy redeemed into Thy fold, 
 
 And claim Thy heritage. 
 Avenge Thy martyred saints, O God, 
 Who for Thee thorns and ashes trod. 
 
 Bind Thou the nations in Thy hand 
 
 As reapers bind the corn; 
 Against their names for ever stand 
 
 Imperishable scorn. 
 Pronounce on them the doom of Tyre; 
 Save us, but melt the world in fire. 
 
 (54) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Let them be torn with fear, and gnaw 
 Their tongues for anguished pain. 
 
 'T is time, who clave unto the law, 
 Should gift of merit gain. 
 
 The pagan heart hath built on dust: 
 
 Thy word and sacrifice we trust. 
 
 Make them to drink Thy cup's red wrath 
 
 Who made us sup of theirs; 
 Through blood and torment be their path, 
 
 Who marked us for our prayers. 
 
 Red be Thy garments like the dress 
 
 Of him who treadeth the wine-press. 
 
 A prolonged blast of trumpets by the Seven Trumpeters before the 
 thrane. Enter Gabriel, the Strong Angel of the Book of Judgment, 
 with the Great Book of Judgment in his hand. 
 
 Gabriel 
 
 The Lord leaned out of heaven's window bright, 
 Broidered with trellised stars and tendrilled light 
 
 To see if there were any righteous man, 
 And none there is, not one, that doeth right. 
 
 Hear, all ye nations, and give ear, O Earth. 
 Before the bar of God come prove your worth. 
 
 The years of many generations end. 
 The great world, gravid with the sins of birth, 
 
 Groaneth and travailleth upon her path 
 Among the stars, nor rest nor respite hath. 
 
 God's patience is o'erborne. His finger-ring 
 Is wrapt around the chalice of His wrath. 
 
 Out of His hand is no deliverance; 
 
 He works and who shall let ? His glance 
 
 Embraces space, time and eternity. 
 Matter and mind, men's souls and circumstance. 
 
 (55) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Red is that wine of which mankind shall quaff; 
 Red are His garments; iron is His staff 
 
 Upon the nations' backs; and He that sits 
 Above the circle of the heaven shall laugh. 
 
 The doom of nations draweth nigh, thus saith 
 The Lord. The stars already pant for breath; 
 
 Earth's surface 'gins to creep like serpent's skin, 
 Alone the just shall see this Day of Death 
 
 And live. Hot fires and molten flames unquenched 
 Shall lap the world, mountains and hills be wrenched 
 
 From their foundations, and thrown in the sea; 
 Men shall be torn with fear, their faces drenched; 
 
 Blood shall exude from wood; stones utter speech; 
 The sun withdraw his light, the moon beseech 
 
 The sun for heat to warm her frigid disc; 
 Reason shall hide; wisdom forget to teach; 
 
 Sown places shall appear unsown, as by 
 Black magic done. The birds from all the sky 
 
 Shall disappear; sweet water bitter turn. 
 From all the earth a lamentable cry 
 
 Shall rise. But He that sitteth in the heaven 
 Shall laugh. For seventy times seven 
 
 Hath He forgiven man. Like fuller's soap, 
 As a refiner's fire shall the leaven 
 
 Of His red wrath accomplish, till destroyed 
 Is the whole earth which once He joyed 
 
 To make. Heaven only shall survive this day, 
 And Hell, suspended in the fearful void. 
 Raphael undertakes to intercede for condemned man. 
 
 (56) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Rapil^el 
 
 Have mercy on whom Thou wilt mercy have, 
 
 O Lord. Compassionate Thou erring man, 
 
 Else in deaf ears do heaven and earth Thy praise 
 
 Extol. Drive Thou away with Thy heart's hand 
 
 From face of Thy remembrance memory 
 
 Of man's first disobedience. Wilt thou 
 
 Iniquities of fathers visit on 
 
 Their children and their children's children through 
 
 Unnumbered generations. Lord ? Hast Thou 
 
 Forgot Thou didst the Flood repent ? and hid 
 
 Thine eyes when bloated corpses floated o'er 
 
 The turbid waters like dead reeds ? how Thou 
 
 Didst stop Thy nostrils from the stench of vile 
 
 Corruption, which in exhalation foul 
 
 Arose from earth ? Rememberest Thou, Lord, 
 
 How even as frightened dogs the angels crouched 
 
 And cowered 'neath Thy throne, for fear the Flood 
 
 Would suck them down like men ? Wilt Thou repeat 
 
 What Thy foreknowledge knows Thou wilt repent ? 
 
 Uriel {deeply shocked at Raphael, argues for God) 
 Who dare to question God, or argue with 
 The Almighty ? Raphael, these words of thine 
 Become the fallen Lucifer, not thee. 
 Yet shall I answer thee, although not for 
 Thy reasoning, but for indulgence of 
 Thy charity. Just as the husbandman 
 Much seed doth sow upon the ground, and yet 
 Not all which sown were shall, in season due. 
 Be reaped, so also they that in the world 
 Are sown shall not all garnered be. It must 
 Needs be that some seed corn, for lack of rain 
 
 (57) 
 
TLbc %03t ©racles 
 
 Or tilth, or peradventure choking thorn, 
 Shall perish. 
 
 Raphael 
 
 Aye. But if the soul no root 
 May take, whose is the fault ? Not every soul 
 Is amply watered by the waters of 
 God's spirit. Yet whose is the soul hath not 
 The germ of God within ? For justice do 
 I plead, not for compassion, Uriel. 
 
 Uriel 
 
 Each one his righteousness himself shall wear; 
 Each one his own unrighteousness shall bear. 
 As the ground lies, so is the sowing; 
 As there is credit, so is there owing; 
 As the tree falls, so must it lie; 
 As is the flower, so is the dye; 
 As is the workman, so is his labor; 
 As there is plow, so is there sabre. 
 
 During the course of this argument the Voice of God has not spoken, 
 although the wrath of the Deity at Raphael's questioning of His 
 justice has been manifested by a deeper flare of the ruby Light on 
 the throne, and a lessening of the flame of anger when Uriel argued 
 for God. 
 
 John {rises from among the Four and Twenty Elders, and inter- 
 cedes for sinful man) 
 
 O Lord, thy servant suffer, if thou wouldst. 
 To intercede. Give unto men seed of 
 New heart whence fruit may grow whereby they may 
 Yet live who bear thine image. All we like 
 Sheep do stray. Of one fashioning are we, 
 And Thy devizing. When Thou quickenest 
 The body which Thou fashionest within 
 The womb, both that which keeps and which is kept 
 
 (s8) 
 
Xlbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Is of Thy keeping. And when, at nine moons' term 
 The womb gives up Thy creature, it is Thou 
 Commandest breasts of milk to nourish it. 
 Wilt Thou, God, slay what Thou has quickened ? or 
 Thy creature kill ? If with light word Thou shalt 
 Destroy what Thou hast framed, then unto what 
 Design are men made ? Travelled have I much 
 Through the nations, and seen much. When was it, 
 Lord, the inhabitants of earth before Thee 
 Did no sin ? Few, few. Thou mayest find who 
 Have Thy precepts kept in spirit and in 
 Truth. But nations none. 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 Thou thinkst the way of 
 The Most High to comprehend. Behold, shall 
 I set three similitudes before thee; 
 If one of these thou canst declare then will I 
 Teach thee evil's origin. Come now: weigh 
 The weight of fire for Me, or measure Me 
 The measure of the wind, or else recall 
 Me yesterday. 
 
 John 
 
 Who of earth can so do 
 That Thou shouldst ask me ? 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 If I had thee told 
 To plumb for Me the ocean's depth, or asked: 
 Where is the dwelling-place of light ? or what 
 The breadth of earth is, then thy ignorance 
 Had not thee shamed. But I have only asked 
 Of fire, of wind, of yesterday' — things which 
 Thou canst not be without. And yet thou hast 
 
 (59) 
 
TLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 No answer pertinent. Familiar things 
 Art thou incapable to understand. 
 How shouldst thou comprehend the ways of God ? 
 John 
 
 Yea, Lord. Yet it had better been that man 
 Had been created never than have come 
 Into the world to live in sin and pain, 
 And know not why he suffers. 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 I shall be 
 Lenient with thee, apostle John; that thy 
 Simplicity may understand shall I 
 A parable tell unto thee. Once on 
 A time the woods and trees went forth and took 
 Deliberation, saying: "Come, let us 
 Go forth and make war 'gainst the sea, that it 
 May be retired, and we may have more land 
 For woods. But, Lo, the counsel of the trees 
 Was vain. For fierce fire came and utterly 
 Destroyed the woods. Then took the ocean's waves 
 Encouragement, and said: "Go to, let us 
 Make war against the land that we may have 
 More room." But then the sand stood up in heaps 
 And choked the estuaries with great dunes, 
 That ocean's stream was split, and dammed his tides. 
 If thou, apostle John, hadst been a judge 
 Between them, whom wouldst thou have justified, 
 And whom condemned ? 
 
 John 
 
 The counsel of them twain 
 Was foolishness, O Lord. For to the trees 
 The land has been assigned, and to the sea 
 A place to bear his waves. 
 
 (60) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 Thou hast judged right. 
 But hast thou not given judgment 'gainst thyself ? 
 For as the land has been assigned to woods, 
 And depths unto the sea, even so hath man's 
 Dominion and his function been assigned. 
 My ways are not the woods' ways, nor the sea's 
 Nor man's. For God's ways are inscrutable. 
 
 Intercessory Prayer of the Saints 
 
 Judgment and justice are the dwelling of thy throne; 
 Power, kingdom, glory, honor, sovereignty alone 
 Pertain to Thee. Let not Thy righteousness forget 
 That truth and mercy, too, before Thy seat are met. 
 Thou madest of one blood all nations for to dwell; 
 All men Thy offspring are, O God. Wilt Thou to hell 
 Damn all ? For wickedness of some condemn the race ? 
 Millions there be who blindly grope to find Thy face. 
 Can man know more of God than God wills man to see ? 
 As in a glass men catch but broken lights of Thee. 
 Thou hast seen children play with dolls in nursery; 
 Thou knowest that to children dolls real people be: 
 Men be but grown-up children. Figurines of clay 
 And stone and wood they reverence. Wilt thou, God, say 
 The savage's dark mind is one at enmity 
 With Thee because of ignorance ? Afar off he 
 Pursues some spark of fire by thine own spirit fanned, 
 Some lamp, some "light that never was on sea or land." 
 
 Imprecatory Protest of World-Philosophers and 
 Teachers, ascending from the Earth below 
 Base Deity, how mocking is thy word. 
 Who claimeth to be just, who power had 
 To make earth's children good instead of bad, 
 
 (6i) 
 
TLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 And yet omnipotently hath preferred 
 
 To make them bad ; who mightest have averred 
 
 Their happiness, yet chose to make them sad. 
 He were a coward worshiper, to make 
 
 Propitiation unto Thee, as though 
 His were the sin, not thine. 'T is men who owe 
 Human forgiveness Thee. Thou shalt not shake 
 
 The rod of thy injustice thus 
 Without protest from us. 
 
 monstrous masquerade of Deity! 
 
 For Thy sin chastening him. What mockery! 
 Thou mouthest justice, yet inventedst sin; 
 
 Pratest of mercy, yet devizedst hell. 
 Thou hypocrite, create new heart within 
 
 Thyself, ere Thou to others virtues tell. 
 Heaven were hell with Thee! Forfend that lot! 
 And hell a heaven, so Thou wert not. 
 Thy wrath shall Thy own self consume, O Lord. 
 Wretch, coward, cruel, insensate and abhorred ! 
 
 Angry rejoinder of the Voice of God. The Light on the throne blazes 
 with awful splendor. 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 Be still and know that I am God. I AM 
 THE GREAT I AM. By will I save, I damn. 
 
 1 make alive, I kill. I sent the flood ; 
 I made the Nilus river run with blood; 
 
 All Egypt's first-born sons were slain by ME ; 
 
 I sank the host of Pharaoh in the sea; 
 
 Horses and men; I sent the fiery rain 
 
 Which overcame the cities of the plain. 
 
 I am a jealous God. None other gods 
 
 Shall be. The strong, the proud, I break with rods. 
 
 (62) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 I think, I calculate, I make, I form. 
 
 The sea unto its bed returns. The storm 
 
 Is of MY doing. Blades of harvest corn 
 
 Balance themselves in wind, yet are down shorn 
 
 By reaper's scythe. Men march in caravans 
 
 For their appointed stage. MY vision scans 
 
 Past and futurity. The dust flies from 
 
 The rim of time's swift wheel; the cities, dumb 
 
 With pain, collapse at word of MY command. 
 
 ME all shall fear, nor hope to understand. 
 
 My word of desolation goeth forth; 
 
 To right and left it flies— east, west, south, north. 
 
 Like dromedary loosed 'mid standing corn 
 
 I tread down whom I will. I whelm with scorn. 
 
 The earth is MINE, and men are MINE— their thought, 
 
 Their implements, the things which they have wrought, 
 
 The soil they till, the metals they do mine. 
 
 Their souls, their sons, their sons' sons — all are MINE. 
 
 The Seven Angels of the Seven Vials of the Wrath of God raise the 
 lids of the vials. Dense, acrid, lurid smoke wreaths issue therefrom, 
 which vaguely take human form, and begin to gyrate weirdly and to dance. 
 
 Incantatory Dance of the Seven Smokes 
 Worst is best, and best is worst; 
 First is last, and last is first; 
 With sinful man is earth accursed. 
 No more are truth and mercy twin; 
 God's justice o'er His ruth shall win. 
 Now is truth danger 
 
 Unto ruth; 
 Now is ruth stranger 
 
 Unto truth. 
 
 (63) 
 
Ubc %03t ©racles 
 
 His nostrils' breath 
 Suspires death. 
 God's laugh 
 Like chaff 
 Before the wind, 
 Shall blow 
 Below 
 
 Souls of mankind. 
 Hell's jaws are wide; 
 See, see the fire; 
 Woe, woe betide 
 Who feel His ire. 
 
 Dirge of the Doomed ascending from Earth 
 
 Midian's curtains tremble, Kedar's tents are bare; 
 Laughter is but madness, mirth is dull despair. 
 Hath earth a refuge now, where all the mountains smoke ? 
 The seas steam 'neath God's wrath. Can we their 
 
 depths invoke ? 
 Though higher were we than vultures, or hid within the core 
 Of Caucasus, what matter when God goes forth to war ? 
 Oh, truly light is sweet, and pleasant is the sun: 
 Cometh the Great Darkness, and death to every one. 
 The day of darkness comes. Alas, how long, how long! 
 The silver cord is loosed, and broken is the song. 
 The grinders cease from grinding, sadly the mourners go ; 
 All music's lovely daughters faces wan do show. 
 The cistern's wheel is broken, the flagon by the well; 
 The earth's sweet life doth perish as we go down to hell. 
 
 Sweet, sweet to us is breath, 
 
 While we go down to death. 
 
 Sweet, sweet are lovers' kisses; 
 
 Sweet, sweet a mother's blisses; 
 
 Sweet, sweet are baby hands; 
 (64) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Sweet, sweet the light that lies 
 
 In baby eyes, 
 Big with the large surprise 
 Of birth in what far faery lands. 
 Stay, stay, the word of Thy prediction ! 
 Stay, stay, the day of our aflfliction ! 
 But let us longer live, for that Thou mayst; 
 
 Yea, let us live, O Lord of Life. Restore 
 The lovely earth Thy wrath would haste to waste 
 
 To heritage of harmless life once more. 
 By all the love that ever woman bore 
 For man, by all the love of man for wife, 
 
 By all the love of little children for 
 The breasts which nourish them, O leave us life! 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims tlie doom of Egypt) 
 
 The doom of Egypt is decreed. Behold, 
 
 Out of the south the waters of the Nile 
 
 Shall come in overflowing flood. They shall 
 
 O'erflow the land and all that is therein. 
 
 The cities great and all that there do dwell. 
 
 Thy men shall cry, thy women wail. All thy 
 
 Inhabitants shall howl. The waters of 
 
 The Nile shall compass them about, even 
 
 Thy soul, O Egypt. Noisome weeds shall be 
 
 Wrapt round thy head. The land thou swimmest in 
 
 Shall blood become even to the hills which edge. 
 
 From pools which, since befell the deluge, have 
 
 Remained, Behemoth hideous shall rise. 
 
 What bloody Nilus spares, he shall consume. 
 
 A team of monstrous and hideous hippopotami, harnessed to a 
 chariot which is driven by Typho, the Egyptian god of evil, appears.^ 
 
 ' If I have introduced more theriomorphic actors than appear in the 
 Apocalypse, I have not exaggerated the crassness and superstition of the popular 
 Christian mind of the first century. 
 
 (6S) 
 
xrbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doofn of Babylon) 
 MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. GOD 
 Thy days hath numbered. It is done with thee, 
 Mother of Harlots, Babylon the Great. 
 In place of dragons red, where since the Flood 
 Hermaphroditic beasts and monsters dread 
 Have slumbered, fierce Leviathan awaits 
 Thee. Like a lion roused up by the swell 
 Of Jordan he shall come. From river bed 
 Of Tigris, from Euphrates' reeds, he shall 
 Arise. Thou shalt not draw him by a hook; 
 The doors of his dread face thou shalt not shut. 
 His eyelids be like eyelids of the morn, 
 And very terrible. Out of his mouth 
 Go sparks. His neesings shake the ground. With him 
 Comes Gorgon, at whose name the world shall grow 
 Pale with dread. Ho, Leviathan, come forth! 
 A team of huge crocodiles appears, yoked to a chariot driven by 
 Gorgon. He is formidably armed and armored. 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Tyre) 
 
 O Tyre of the Zidonians, O thou 
 
 That dwellest upon many waters, end 
 
 To thee is come. The sea's strength shall not save 
 
 Thee, O thou shameless one. A dragon lies 
 
 In cavern couched for thee. When he shall leap 
 
 The sea shall flee, Orontes river hide 
 
 Among his flags, and cover up his face. 
 
 Rahab, come forth! 
 
 Rahab, a formidable dragon of antediluvian time, reputed to dwell 
 in the depths of the Dead Sea, appears. 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Phrygia) 
 O Phrygia, O Phrygia, with thy 
 Abominations infamous hast thou 
 
 (66) 
 
TLbc %05t ©racles 
 
 Defiled all Asia. Hark, a dreadful doom: 
 Lay now thy hand above thine eyes, since thou 
 Shalt see a sight right terrible. For God 
 A monstrous serpent hath commanded : He 
 Shall bite thee with his fangs, his venomed breath 
 Shall melt thy bones. Though deeper yet thou dig 
 Than Cappadocia's mining-shafts, or hide 
 Thyself within the clefts of Caucasus, 
 His fangs shall find thee and his coils shall crush. 
 Aksar, come forth! 
 
 A gigantic violet-colored snake, seventy cubits in length, appears. 
 It has a trilobite crest and two teeth, one in each jaw. It is the great 
 serpent Aksar, which Arabic legend says once frightened Moses when 
 alone in the wilderness. 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Persia) 
 Iran! Iran! God's wrath the whirlwind rides. 
 The storm His chariot is. Beneath His feet 
 The clouds are dust. Lo, now His cavalry 
 Cometh against thee, horsemen terrible, 
 Horses than leopards swifter, fiercer than 
 Wolves. Thy pleasant fields shall they destroy. 
 The north and south shall be consumed by them. 
 When they shall touch Iran the land shall melt. 
 The hoofbeats of their steeds shall beat thy soil 
 As on an anvil iron's hammered out. 
 Hail, Phobos, not for naught thy name of Fear. 
 A team of white horses, prancing violently and neighing furiously, 
 appears, attached to a chariot in which sits Phobos, the Genius of 
 Fear. 
 
 Gabriel {blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Hellas) 
 Howl, Hellas. As a potter treadeth clay 
 Shall God tread thee. He shall not spare. Even as 
 The breaking of a potter's shard shall God 
 
 (67) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Break thee in fragments. Run thou to and fro 
 Between thy hedges green and ripening vines; 
 Press thou thy hands upon thy loins, for thou 
 Shalt travail like a woman great with child, 
 And none be to deliver Malek, come. 
 
 A team of jet black horses appears yoked to a chariot in which sits a 
 dark and forbidding figure, attired like a Chaldaean charioteer. 
 Malek means commander. 
 
 Gabriel (blowing his trumpet, proclaims the doom of Rome) 
 Wail for the multitude of Rome whose graves 
 Now yawn beneath their feet. Rome's site shall sink 
 Into the nether part of earth. Behold, 
 The Lord shall rend the ground. By earthquake great 
 Shall God plead with thee, O infernal Rome. 
 Where tarryest thou. Mors ? Why is thy car 
 So long in coming ? Wherefore are thy wheels 
 So slow ?....! hear the stamping of the hoofs 
 Of thy strong steeds impatient of the bit. 
 A team of blood red horses appears, yoked to a chariot in which stands 
 the grisly figure of Death, erect and terrible. 
 
 The Seven Angels of the Wrath of God, with flaming swords, parade 
 before the throne. 
 
 The Seven Angels of the Wrath of God 
 The wine of His communion cup 
 
 To scarlet ichor turns; 
 The bread of life men used to sup 
 
 Like bitter wildroot burns. 
 Cry haro ! Let loose down the wind 
 The hounds of heaven upon mankind! 
 
 Voice of God 
 
 Fire, Water, Stormy Vapors, Hail, Snow, Wind, 
 Go forth. Devour the whole earth, and behind 
 
 (68) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Let pestilence and famine stalk, until 
 
 The world be all consumed. Such is MY will. 
 
 Blow Lebanon and Carmel clean of trees; 
 
 The rivers fill, throw mountains into seas; 
 
 Blot out the stars and sun, to ashes turn 
 
 The moon; with quenchless fires let ocean burn. 
 
 Across the universe shall MY red wrath 
 
 A road of desolation cut, like path 
 
 Of reaper when the corn is ripe for blade. 
 
 Go forth, and utterly destroy the earth I made. 
 
 Forthwith the whole celestial company disappears. The Light of God goes 
 out upon the throne. The roof of the temple of heaven is rolled together 
 like a scroll by a terrible wind which arises. An earthquake follows. 
 The floor of heaven cracks and is heaved up, and water gushes out. A rain 
 of blood pours down, intermingled with hailstones. The thunder and light- 
 ning become terrific, the roar of the earthquake and the voice of the tempest 
 appalling. Finally thick darkness falls, and a silence ensues that seems to 
 be palpitating and alive, and to be pacing back and forth in the dreadful 
 gloom like some unseen beast of prey in a jungle. 
 
 (69) 
 
ACT V. THE LOST ORACLES 
 
Dark the shrine and dumb the fount of song thence welling, 
 Save for words more sad than tears of blood, that said: 
 
 "Tell the king on earth has fallen the glorious dwelling, 
 And the water springs that spake are quenched and dead. 
 
 Not a cell is left the God, no roof, no cover; 
 In his hand the prophet laurel flowers no more." 
 
 They are conquered, they break, they are stricken. 
 
 Whose magic made the whole world pale; 
 They are dust that shall rise not nor quicken. 
 
 Though the world for their death's sake wail. 
 
 — Swinburne, The Last Oracle. 
 
ACT V. THE LOST ORACLES 
 SCENE I. EGYPT 
 Interior of the Temple of Isis at Memphis. The appearance is that 
 of vast rectitiidinal lines, both vertical and horizontal, the geofmtrical 
 form of the structure heightening the impression of indestructibility 
 and eternal duration. A forest of pillars of cedar, sycamore, and 
 cypress wood supports the roof. By a clever architectural device the 
 illusion is that of the roof floating like the sky above the heads of the 
 worshipers, an ejffect accentuated by the sky-blue vaulting, in which 
 bright gold patens glow like stars. This imitation of the large impress- 
 ion of nature is continued along the side walls, the pilasters seeming to 
 be palm tree trunks, their tops terminating in the graceful, featfiery 
 crests of that tree, while the wall spaces are ornamented with flying 
 birds. So, too, the pillars are chased with papyrus steins, as if the 
 trees were growing up out of a clump of them. A gigantic frieze runs 
 around the four sides of the interior, in which one vaguely distinguishes 
 allegorical and mythological scenes, the meaning of which is inter- 
 preted by huge panels of hieroglyphic inscriptions inlaid with colors, 
 after the manner of ancient Egyptian writing, which divide the whole 
 painting into separate pictures. 
 
 The fore part of the nave is bright with sunlight; in the middle part 
 the sunshine is strained through stained glass windows in a kind of 
 clerestory, giving that air of mystery which was so striking an attribute 
 of Egyptian worship. Two immensely long violet-colored curtains 
 which fall from a cross-beam of the ceiling, and are but half drawn 
 back impart the impression of a reredos dividing the nave from the 
 holy of holies. The ejffect of distance created by this ground-plan is 
 enhanced by the gradual diminution of light, and the gradual elevation 
 of the nave and aisles, so that the perspective is more than normal. 
 The air is redolent with odors of frankincense and galbanum, and 
 music of a strange, sombre beauty, half voluptuous, half sorrowftd, 
 faintly pulsates i?t the heavy air. It comes from behind the violet cur- 
 tains, and is that of lutes. 
 
 The action begins in the fore-court of the temple, in front of the 
 imposing faqade, and in a blaze of sunlight. In the dry climate 
 the air is of almost incandescent purity, and in the translucent 
 
 (73) 
 
Ube %ost ©racles 
 
 atmosphere the entablature of the temple, the pylons and the points 
 of the obelisks which adorn the approach stand out with startling 
 clarity. First come in procession twenty-four priestesses of Isis, 
 their heads and faces muffled in glittering white, transparent veils, 
 and robed in white; then twenty-four priests of Isis, dressed in 
 white linen; over their shoulders are hung leopard skin capes; 
 their heads are tonsured and gleam with nard; they walk with 
 a languid, sinuous motion as if unconsciously simulating the lithe 
 gait of a leopard. Both priests and priestesses carry acacia wands, 
 and gold or silver sistra, with which they keep up an incessant, 
 low tinkling. Last of all comes the high priest of Isis, his vesture of 
 white cendal bordered with a deep purple fringe, and on his head a mitre 
 in the front of which is fixed the cross of Isis. On his breast is a kind 
 of ephod, richly jeweled, in the shape of a crescent, the sacred symbol of 
 the goddess. His hands are gloved in white kid-skin gloves. His 
 shoes (as well as those of all the others) are made of bright Tyrian 
 leather, and have gilded soles. 
 
 Chant to the Nile (the choir of priests and priestesses 
 marching down the nave of the temple, singing) 
 Olden stream! Golden stream! 
 River of our thought and dream. 
 Where lieth that mysterious spring, 
 Mother of thy issuing ? 
 Where are those boon fountains, 
 Hid in what Moon Mountains ? 
 Men say thy annual rise is 
 Due to the tears of Isis 
 Mourning for lost Osiris 
 'Mid reeds and flags of iris. 
 Hail! Hail! Mysterious River, 
 Bountiful Life Giver. 
 From the grey Moon Mountains far, 
 Where the jewels of Ophir are. 
 Thou dost come with magic stealth, 
 Dowering the earth with wealth. 
 
 (74) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Without thee Eg>'pt's land 
 
 Were of swart and barren sand. 
 
 River of God, thou makest the barley grow; 
 
 Com for bread dost thou on man bestow; 
 
 Thou waterest the ridges of the field; 
 
 The furrows settlest that they may yield. 
 
 Of thy gift, too, is seed in man; 
 
 The child within the womb thy plan. 
 
 The river-horse and crocodile 
 
 Worship thee, fair river Nile; 
 
 Thee papyrus and date palm 
 
 Greet with decorous salaam. 
 
 Thee Morning waits with trembling lids; 
 
 The stony-hearted Pyramids 
 
 Watch where thy deep current thrids. 
 
 Even, 't is said, the hoary Sphinx 
 
 Each midnight of thy water drinks. 
 
 O guardian Nile, vouchsafe for aye 
 
 Thy smile on Egypt, else we die. 
 
 The choir of priests and priestesses, at the threshold of the holy of 
 holies separates into two bodies, letting the high priest of Isis alone 
 pass through the midst of them. The music of the lutes throbs more 
 sorrowfully than ever. The light in this chamber of the God is very 
 dim. Within the chamber is a missive porphyry sarcophagus, on 
 the lid of which, as on a bier, is sculptured the recumbent figure of 
 Osiris. The body is draped, but the face is bare. It is a countenance 
 of great dignity and majesty. On Osiris' head is the white crown of 
 Upper Egypt. In his hands which issue from beneath the pall are 
 a sceptre and a scourge, the characteristic emblems of the God. At the 
 corners of the sarcophagus stand four sculptured lions. Four hawks, 
 representing the four children of Horus, each with the banner of 
 Eorus in its beak, hang suspended over the tomb. A fifth hawk is 
 perched upon the breast of Osiris, and is gently fanning his face with 
 her wings as if to restore hijn to life. It represents Isis. 
 
 (7S) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 The High Priest (breaking the clay seal of the grille which 
 separates the holy of holies from the nave) 
 Clean of heart and clean of hand, 
 Goddess, I before thee stand. 
 Broken is the clay, loosened is the seal: 
 
 Holy One, O Holy One, Thy love reveal. 
 
 Voice of the Oracle 
 
 1 am whatever was, or is, or shall 
 
 Be, and my veil no mortal ever raised. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Sweet goddess, comforter of man's distress. 
 
 Pour forth on us thy draught of deathlessness. 
 The Choir of Priests and Priestesses 
 
 Children are we in darkness pent; 
 
 Like desert bedouin in tent, 
 
 To-day we dwell. To-morrow, Oh, 
 
 Who knows which way the wind will blow ? 
 
 Whether for us the dawn will glow, 
 To-morrow ? 
 
 Goddess, let us from Thy store borrow 
 
 Strength for weakness, joy for sorrow. 
 
 Death stands before us with his smell of myrrh; 
 
 Life swiftly flows away like bright water. 
 
 Intonation of Choir 
 
 Mooned mountains, 
 Sunny plains, 
 Deserts wan, 
 Watery mains. 
 Rivers running into seas, 
 Lichens growing into trees. 
 Animal and plant their span 
 Of the universal plan 
 
 (76) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 Fulfill since when time began. 
 The child is father of the man, 
 And God is father of us all: 
 O Father, hear Thy children call. 
 
 The cold figure of Osiris seems to grow warm in the dim obscurity. 
 A faint tinge suffuses his cheeks. His hands move slightly. The 
 hawk {I sis) upon his breast beats her wings furiously and screams as if 
 in ecstasy. The fumes of incense rise and curl in thick clouds. The 
 choir chants, at first softly, and then with the rapture of song, to the 
 quicker music of the lutes. 
 
 Choral Chant 
 
 List, O list, beneath my feet 
 
 I feel the pulse of earth; 
 The throb of the eternal heart 
 
 That giveth all things birth. 
 
 Hist, O hist, within my ear — 
 
 Far-called, a voice — a voice. 
 Creation's song of songs I hear, 
 
 O soul of mine, rejoice. 
 
 Kissed, O kissed, upon my lips 
 
 The wine of God I taste: 
 Drink, drink, my soul, to death's eclipse. 
 
 O soul of mine, make haste. 
 
 Life, O life, and ever more 
 
 More life be all my quest. 
 There is no Past, there is no Fore, 
 
 Nor north, nor east, nor west. 
 
 The High Priest {standing on tlie threshold of the chapel of the 
 holy of holies, and raising his hands as if in a benediction) 
 God sitteth on the flood. Rejoice. 
 Nile riseth. Make a joyful noise. 
 
 (77) 
 
Zbc %ost ©racles 
 
 The choir forms in procession, and to the now joyful sound of sistra, 
 tabers, flutes, and drums played by a band of choir boys which joins 
 them, begins to dance rather than to march down the nave of the tefnple. 
 Suddenly the sunlight, which hitherto has shone brightly, pales, and 
 a yellowish-green light suffuses the great interior. A low, angry 
 roaring is heard. The company of priests, priestesses, and choir 
 boys shows visible agitation, but keeps its formation. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Lo, the voice of many waters. Nile, Nile, 
 
 Egypt's sweet land shall blossom 'neath thy smile. 
 
 A long, tongue-like stream of water comes running swiftly aiid sinu- 
 ously down the floor of the nave, the crest of the wavelet erect like a ser- 
 pent's head. Wave follows wave with a sinister sotmd, half hiss and 
 half roar, until the worshipers are splashing to their knees in the flood. 
 
 A Priest 
 
 The Nile hath overflowed his banks; 
 The Nile hath burst his earthen tanks. 
 
 A Priestess (shrieking) 
 
 Egypt, the Nile shall drag thee down; 
 Egypt, the Nile shall thy sons drown. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Deep calleth unto deep. 
 
 Hear ye his water-spout ? 
 Death calleth unto death, 
 
 I hear his mad waves shout. 
 
 A Priest 
 
 Flood! Flood! Flood! 
 A Priestess 
 
 Blood! Blood! Blood! 
 A Priest 
 
 The flood shall suck us down. 
 
 A Priestess 
 
 In blood shall we all drown. 
 
 (78) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 By this time the water has risen to the waists of the company, and 
 gleams with the purple-red tint of fresh bullock's blood. The whole 
 group manifests the wildest conster>mtion. In the midst of the uni- 
 versal terror a gigantic hippopotamus appears swimming down the 
 flooded nave, bearing the body of a young girl in his formidable jaws. 
 
 A Priest {wildly shrieking) 
 Worse, worse, worse. 
 Curse, curse, curse. 
 The river-horse with dripping jaw. 
 The river-horse with giant maw. 
 
 The Hippopotamus {snorting furiously) 
 Blood, blood, who would think ? 
 Blood, blood, for me to drink! 
 Meat, meat, human meat, 
 Human meat for me to eat! 
 Sup, sup. Behemoth, sup! 
 Up, up, eat Egypt up! 
 
 The yellowish-green sutdight goes out in a flash of darkness. The 
 walls of the temple fall in with a thunderous roar, the columns and 
 pillars crumble and topple over into the water. The bubbling cries 
 of human beings in the agony of drowning are heard, commingled 
 with the furious snorting of the hippopotamus. Finally thick darkness 
 and silence settle down. 
 
 (79) 
 
SCENE 2. BABYLON 
 
 The platform of the great Ziggurab, or Temple of Bel and Istar in 
 Babylon. The structure is a huge tower made of earth and faced with 
 sun-baked brick mortared with bitumen, composed of seven massive 
 quadrangular blocks, each one smaller than the one below it, so that 
 the effect is that of a series of gigantic terraces tapering upward to a 
 flat top, or platform. A half cosmological, half religious symbolism 
 is represented by the structure, the seven stories symbolizing the seven 
 planetary deities whom the Babylonians believed to be mediators 
 between heaven and earth. An inclined roadway, or ramp, wide 
 enough for four chariots to be driven abreast, zigzags upward around 
 the tower. In the Babylonian religion the long and arduous ascent of 
 this roadway was a meritorious approach to the gods, the pious per- 
 formance of which conferred grace or indulgence upon the actor, much 
 as the ^^ stations" in the church of Rome are reverently traversed, one 
 by one, by worshipers. The exterior walls of the temple are faced 
 with richly colored glazed tiles and embellished with enormous human- 
 headed and winged btdls carved in alabaster. The outer edge of the 
 roadway and platform are guarded by a brick parapet. Black basalt 
 "metae" or posts, covered with hieratic inscriptions in cuneiform 
 writing, mark the turnings in the roadway. 
 
 The great, richly adorned altar smokes with sacrifice. The air is 
 redolent with the smell of burning flesh commingled with the odors 
 of incense and the aroma of spices. As both Night and Morning were 
 worshiped by the Babylonians under a variety of names, the god Bel 
 being a Sun-God, and Istar, the Moon-Goddess, being primarily an 
 evening deity, the hour is midnight, halfway between the Night and the 
 Morning. Flakes of fire blown by the high wind traverse the darkness 
 like flying stars. Two theories of priests, fourteen {twice seven) in 
 each theory, are officiating before the high altar. One company of them 
 is attired in white linen robes broidered with gold Babylonian figura- 
 tion; the other is similarly clad, but the brede of their robes is blue 
 instead of gold. All wear high, peaked caps or hats, those of the first 
 company of priests having a blazing sun affixed in the front; those 
 of the second company wearing a crescent moon and stars. The High 
 Priest is attired in white and gold raiment, but wears a sort of tiara to 
 
 (80) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 distinguish him. All the priests except the High Priest carry golden 
 censers which they ceaselessly swing. The whole platform roundabout 
 the altar is crowded with richly clad tiobles and gentle ladies of the 
 court, atid civil and military officials in great profusion. The road- 
 way below, on every level, is packed with the populace of Babylon. In 
 the moonless night the vast city lies dimly outspread, the silver ribbon 
 of the river being especially conspicuous. In the far distance the 
 great walls of Babylon, with their huge bastion towers darkly sil- 
 houetted against the sky are discernible, the whole effect giving the 
 weird impression of a gigantic antediluvian dragon sleeping coiled 
 around the city. 
 
 First Theory 
 
 O Bel, King of Blessedness, Monarch of high renown, 
 Thy sceptre is in Babylon, Borsippa is thy crown. 
 
 Second Theory 
 
 O Bel, who dwellest in the Temple of the Sun, 
 
 Shower down and pour thy mercy great on Babylon. 
 High Priest 
 
 The circuit of heaven and earth is thine; 
 
 The song which gladdens the heart is thine; 
 
 The breath that giveth Hfe is thine. 
 
 First Theory 
 
 O Thou who destiny decreest for distant days, 
 In heaven are thy ways. 
 
 Second Theory 
 
 O Beautiful, whose knees do ne'er grow weary. 
 Hear me. 
 
 All the Priests 
 
 Thy strong command in heaven is proclaimed ; 
 Thy strong command o'er earth is flamed. 
 At thy command the storm and darkness passes ; 
 When thy command goes forth, the earth blooms green 
 with grasses. 
 
 (81) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 High Priest (intoning) 
 
 The fear of God endeth strife; 
 Contrition wipeth away sin. 
 Sacrifice prolongeth life; 
 Prayer doth renew the heart within. 
 
 All the Priests (turning to face the people) 
 Narrow are the mansions of our souls, 
 Enlarge thou them. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Thy pilgrim people sigh for Thee, O Bel. 
 
 All the Priests 
 
 Dust and ashes are we before Thee. 
 
 First Theory 
 
 How deep are all Thy ways, inscrutable. 
 
 Second Theory 
 
 Thou only great that silent art on high, 
 Whose fairness maketh all things fair. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Come imto us, O thou of the four winds, 
 Who breathest spirit into hearts of men; 
 Whose muses hymn thy glorious name; 
 Whom the eight wardens guard. 
 
 All the Priests ((chanting) 
 
 Thy years fail not. 
 
 Thy years are one to-day. 
 
 How many of ours and our fathers' years 
 
 Have flowed away through thy To-Day, 
 
 And others still shall flow away. 
 
 But thou art yet the same, O Bel. 
 
 All things of Yesterday, 
 
 All things To-day, 
 
 Thou hast done. 
 
 Eternal One. 
 
 (82) 
 
Zbc %03t ©racks 
 
 Prayer (intoned by choir of priests) 
 The quiet rest of night, 
 
 The day which hfts, 
 The darkness and the light, 
 
 These are thy gifts. 
 O that we, too, hke morn, 
 
 Might be reborn. 
 Shadows from our poor past 
 On eternity's radiance cast 
 Stains we would outblot. 
 O Bel, remember not 
 Our thoughtless life, 
 Our envious strife; 
 Chasten and deepen our heart, 
 Help us to choose the better part; 
 Make sense of thy great nearness fill 
 Our minds, our hearts, our will. 
 Keep thou, O keep, our eyes from tears. 
 Our feet from falling, and our souls from fears. 
 
 Hymn to Bel 
 
 Thee, Thee we seek, who makest 
 
 Orion, Pleiads' skein; 
 Thee, thee we seek, who shakest 
 
 The bottles of the rain. 
 Thee, thee we seek, who fillest 
 
 All the air with light; 
 Thee, thee we seek, who millest 
 
 The floury snowflakes white. 
 Thee, thee we seek who foldest 
 
 The waters in thy hand; 
 Thee, thee we seek, who boldest 
 
 The rain for the dry land ; 
 
 (83) 
 
XTbe XoBt ©racles 
 
 Thee, thee we seek, who warmest 
 
 The blessed earth below; 
 Thee, thee we seek, who formest 
 
 The seed so that it grow. 
 Thee, thee we seek, who knittest 
 
 The child within the womb ; 
 Thee, thee we seek, who sittest 
 
 By them within the tomb. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 The feet of the goddess Istar we kiss and wash with tears. 
 
 First Theory 
 
 Convert thy wrath to mercy. Remember not past years. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 May the wrongs which we have done be as a tale that's 
 
 told; 
 Cast our transgressions from us as a garment that is old. 
 
 Second Theory 
 
 Let the flowing waters wash us, that we be clean to behold; 
 Make us pure of heart within like sheen of sparkling gold. 
 
 Hymn to Istar 
 
 Istar, Goddess of morning, 
 
 Light of the eastern sky, 
 Istar, horizon-adorning, 
 
 List to thy children's cry. 
 We entreat thee, be not thou scorning, 
 
 Else we die. 
 
 Would that, even as art thou. 
 
 We were effulgent and bright; 
 Give, O give us the heart now 
 
 To live and to die for the right. 
 Day Star, vouchsafe us a part now 
 
 Of thy Hght. 
 
 (84) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Istar, Goddess of even, 
 
 Thy foot on the western steep, 
 From the gold threshold of heaven 
 
 Shower down thy blessing of sleep; 
 Bid the Moon and the Stars that are Seven 
 
 Our ward keep. 
 
 Istar, Goddess immortal. 
 
 Remember the children of clay; 
 All we must pass through the portal 
 
 Of Death, and know not the way: 
 For we are of seeds that are mortal, 
 
 Thou art for aye. 
 
 Of a sudden the stars are blotted out, and a low, sullen moaning of the 
 wind is heard which rapidly rises to a shriek and a roar. The torches 
 gutter and go out. The odors of the holocaust are scattered to the four 
 winds. The air is filled with a thick, dense cloud of fine dust. It is the 
 Simoom. Consternation seizes upon the worshipers, who fight for 
 breath in the strangling darkness. Many of them run to and fro in 
 great dread. Others fall to the ground prostrated. 
 
 Voice of the Simoom 
 
 Punishment cometh from the desert. 
 
 And destruction from the waste places. 
 Thy men shall gnaw their tongues with pain, O Babylon, 
 And black shall be all faces. 
 
 A Priest 
 
 Babylon is fallen, fallen, fallen, 
 
 And all the images of her high gods. 
 Thou who wert over the nations 
 
 Art now bescourged with rods. 
 
 Meanwhile the terrorstricken multitude upon the roadway }ias broken 
 away in a wild panic, and has begun to retreat down the inclined 
 slopes. But a terrible cry arises from the vanguard, which arrests 
 the crowd's advance. In the melee men, women, and children are 
 
 (8s) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 thrust over the parapet and Jail shrieking from the dizzy heights. A 
 troop oj huge crocodiles led by a moftster saurian appears, ramping 
 up the roadway, bellowing like bulls and snapping their frightful 
 jaws as they advance. 
 
 The Crowd 
 
 Leviathan, Leviathan, comes up from Tigris' slime. 
 Leviathan, Leviathan, besmeared is he with rime. 
 Flood-begotten, 
 Mud-begotten 
 Monster he of prehistoric time. 
 
 His dreadful jaws 
 Be armed with saws; 
 His mighty tail 
 Is like a flail; 
 His carrion breath 
 Foredoometh death. 
 
 Chorus of the Crocodiles 
 
 From caverns bHnd to stars and suns, 
 
 Where Raksh, the evil river runs; 
 
 From caverns subterranean, 
 
 From caverns measureless to man. 
 
 We come, we come. Leviathan. 
 
 Before our eyeballs' shine 
 
 Men's blood runs cold like gelid wine. 
 
 Fire our spittle is; 
 
 Men's flesh between our Jaws, 
 
 Like faggots, brittle is. 
 
 With horny paws. 
 
 With hungry maws. 
 
 With bellies cavernous, 
 
 With famine ravenous, 
 
 (86) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 We seek whom we devour. 
 Now is the awful hour. 
 'Ware, 'ware our reptile line; 
 'Ware, 'ware the saurian sign; 
 Not Gorgon's glance more terrible than 
 our fierce eyen. 
 
 The wind rises to a furious hiirricajie. The air is filled with dust 
 and flying debris. The temple tower collapses with a dull roar. The 
 darkness becomes appalling. In the universal confusion are heard 
 the cries, shrieks, moans, weeping, wailing of men, women, and chil- 
 dren, commingled with which are the fearful bellowings and gnashing 
 of teeth of the crocodiles. Gradually silence ensues. Ruin invests the 
 scene. Babylon is reduced to a heap — a confused array of tnounds 
 around whose bases the sullen waters of the Tigris river lap and lick. 
 
 (87) 
 
SCENE 3. TYRE 
 
 The gorge of Aphaka, at the source of the river Adonis, halfway 
 between Byblus and Baalhec. The river emerges as a rushing torrent 
 from a grotto or cavern at the foot of a mighty cliff, which itself is part 
 of a huge amphitheatre of towering cliffs, and plunges in a series of 
 three cascades down the vale. The higher walls of rock are denuded 
 of vegetation and fissured and cracked with alternate heat and frost. 
 But the lower strata are covered with lianas and vines, clinging to the 
 crannies and interstices in the face of the rock. Here and there fan- 
 tastic natural buttresses protrude. So lofty are the walls that goats 
 browsing along the edge of the precipices appear like ants. Against 
 the patch of Tyrian blue sky overhead an eagle may be seen wheeling. 
 The temple, sacred to the worship of Attis and Tammuz, is built of 
 massive hewn foundation blocks of syenite granite, but the Ionic 
 columns are of marble. It is little more than a roof resting upon 
 pillars, and without side walls, covering the '^ place, ^^ the way to which 
 is indicated by sacred striped posts called asherim, themselves also 
 phallic emblems. Many ancient religious beliefs and practices had 
 their inception in the processes of vernal nature, and were various 
 manifestations of nature translated into the form of magical drama. 
 Even when not converted into a religious symbolism these phenomena 
 were often yet invested with personality, thus giving rise to myths of 
 many kinds, but especially solar myths. In Genesis 4g : ii-ij, the 
 story of Judah and Tamar, we have a solar myth, or a mythical picture 
 of the sun pairing with the vegetation of the earth in springtime. So, 
 too, there are solar mythical elements crystallized around the tale of 
 Samson and Delilah. No one of these ancient nature "mysteries" 
 is more intense, or more beautiful, when rightly read, than the worship 
 of Attis and Tammuz. Although somewhat gross and sensual among 
 the Zidonians and Phoenicians, the Greeks etherealized this nature 
 worship in the legend of Aphrodite and Adonis. Indeed, the vale of 
 Aphaka is the original site of the myth, where the red tint of the stream 
 in the spring, owing to the red soil roundabout, and the myriads of 
 red-colored flowers, especially the anemone and the hyacinth, gave birth 
 to the legend of the mortal wound suffered by Adonis, who is the Greek 
 Tammuz, the Semitic word of honorable address, "adonai," or "my 
 
Zbc Xost ©raclcs 
 
 lord," being mistaken by the Greeks for a proper name. The worship 
 ofAttis and Tammiiz, since it was Jundafnentally an adoration of the 
 procreative force of vernal nature, made a peculiar appeal to women. 
 It even influenced Judaism. For Ezekiel 8: 14 mentions the "women 
 weeping for Tammuz" on the north side of the temple in Jerusalem, and 
 so late as 400 A.D. according to St. Jerome, the worship of Tammuz 
 prevailed at Bethlehem. The veneration of the Virgin in the church 
 of Rome is a form of worship of this Virgin-Venus force, so potent 
 and so creative, which penetrated into Christianity, and stUl persists, 
 although the token has been lost. Unfortunately protestantism, 
 in its revolt again^ Roman Catholicism, has wholly destroyed the 
 sentiment. Puritanism converted sensuousness into prudery by 
 corrupting the origi'nal idea of virtue, with the result that the world 
 is aesthetically and spiritually the poorer. That sensuous imagina- 
 tion which endowed so many of the pagan ctdts of antiquity with 
 beauty lias been crushed. 
 
 Attis, under the form of a beautiful and sensuous woman, was the 
 incarnation of the productive capacity of natural farces, sunlight, 
 moonlight, sky, winds, rain, to fructify the earth, represented by 
 Tammuz under the guise of a young and very beaiitiful youth. The 
 double worship of the two symbolized in a religious "mystery" the 
 magic drama of the spring, when the cold and apparently dead, but 
 actually only sleeping earth, gradually wakens to new life {hence 
 Tammuz is a youth), under the warm kisses of the sun and the touch 
 of vernal winds. 
 
 The goddess is attired in a sky-blue robe broidered with stars and 
 blazoned with the signs of the zodiac. Her long hair flows free, and 
 seems an aureole around her head. Her neck and throat and bosom 
 are bare, as are also her feet. Her breasts, as white as curded cream, 
 are not concealed, attd the pinks upon their hill-tops are red as anem- 
 ones growing in snow. Her hands are filled with violets and hya- 
 cinths. The seemingly dead body of Tammuz lies covered with 
 J^owers.^ Under the temple roof the altar smokes with incense. The 
 "gain," or priests, wear purple robes fringed with stars; their breasts 
 are bare atid tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves. The "damsels," or 
 priestesses, are similarly clad, but their breasts are unadorned; their 
 hair flows free over their shoulders. All, priests atul priestesses, are 
 barefooted. The musical instruments are cymbals, castanets, drums 
 (for the monotones), and flutes. 
 
 (89) 
 
tlbe Xost ©racles 
 
 The action takes place in a natural meadow immediately in front of 
 the temple, which is surrounded by venerable walnut, oak and sycamore 
 trees. The deep green of the verdure in the bottom of the vale, with 
 the white, flashing stream coursing through it, sharply contrasts with 
 the red and yellow tints of the cliffs and the patch of blue sky above. 
 Scarlet anemones, red and purple hyacinths, violets, and red roses 
 diadem the ground. 
 
 Hymn to Attis {galli and damsels standing with upstretched 
 hands) 
 Mother and Queen of Heaven, Goddess, haste, 
 
 Down from the sun where is thy bright abode; 
 Vouchsafe thy love to man, for that thou mayst. 
 
 Hark, how in ode and palinode 
 We chant thy praises, divinest power. 
 See how with hyacinths and roses sowed, 
 The portals of thy temple are bestrowed. 
 Incense from Kandahar afar, 
 Myrrhodion in golden jar. 
 Woo thee as spring winds woo the flower, 
 
 Attis appears walking out of the temple, with slow step and downcast 
 eyes. She is weeping. When she reaches the recumbent figure of 
 Tammuz, she breaks into passionate sobs, and scatters the flowers 
 over his corse. 
 
 Monody by Attis 
 
 Here hungry generations tread 
 
 Each other down; 
 Too soon the Hving are the dead, 
 
 The flooding years soon drown 
 All that the mind and hand hath wrought, 
 All things man's made or fancy thought. 
 
 Spring Song {damsels, marching in a circle around the body 
 of Tammuz. From time to time one of them cuts off her hair 
 and flings it down upon the corse) 
 
 Dead to time and space and number, 
 Sleeps the seed in winter slumber; 
 (90) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 Cold clay wraps its tiny form. 
 Broken boughs and leaves encumber; 
 Chill the snow and harsh the storm. 
 
 Galli {moving in a circle around the inner circle of priestesses) 
 Be not downcast, O despondent 
 Heart of man. Soon, soon, respondent 
 
 To the Spring's warm touch a blossom 
 (Harbinger of corn abundant), 
 Shall emerge from earth's warm bosom. 
 
 D.\MSELS 
 
 Lapt within the mother's womb, 
 Mankind's marvellous nursery room, 
 
 Nine moons long, like seed in earth, 
 Sleeps the babe, until the doom 
 
 Of nature opes the door of birth. 
 
 Galli and Damsels {singing together) 
 
 Life, Life, Life! Chmb, Climb, Climb! 
 Song, Song, Song! Chime, Chime, Chime! 
 
 Spring after winter is on the wing. 
 Time, Time, Time! Rhyme, Rhyme, Rhyme! 
 
 God is Life, and Life is everything. 
 
 Tammuz stirs slightly like a sleeper waking. At the faint sign of 
 life Attis, in an abandon of joy and passion, kneels down beside him, 
 kisses his mouth, his forehead, caresses him, presses her glowing 
 bosom against his breast, and even seems as if to give him suck. She 
 typifies the sunlight shamelessly caressing earth. 
 
 Attis (singing) 
 
 Is it death, or swoon, or sleep 
 
 That holds him in her quiet arms ? 
 Death is death. But sleep brings dreams 
 Which stir the sleeper with their charms. 
 
 (91) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 See .... he moves. It is not death : 
 Mouth, forehead, cheeks grow roseate; 
 
 Moist the hair upon his brow; 
 His eyes half ope with thought elate. 
 Aitis throws herself upon the body of Tammuz, every accent of her 
 voice, every movement of her body and limbs bespeaking excessive 
 sexual passion. She tears away the flowers which cover Tammuz, 
 and lying close to him, puts her rosy thigh against his, as if she would 
 charm from him that seed of life, that seminal radiance, that male fire 
 which she so craves. Slowly Tammuz wakens. Finally he rises up, 
 smiling, and with a half abashed look in his youthful face. Attis, 
 radiantly happy now, takes him by the hand, and blushing and smil- 
 ing, leads him towards the temple, where the last act of the symbolical 
 marriage of earth and sky was consummated. 
 
 Choral Rhapsody {danced with frantic ecstasy) 
 
 O floreate Earth, where flowers spring. 
 O aureate sky, where the stars swing. 
 O laureate air, where skylarks sing: 
 Give, O give us of your gladness, 
 
 Your rich life bestow. 
 Teach, O teach us half the madness 
 That your souls do know. 
 Abruptly the sky takes on a fearful glare, and a rain of fire begins to 
 fall. The temple breaks into flame, Attis and Tammuz come running 
 forth from it with wild cries of alarm. The priests and priestesses, 
 in dire terror, huddle together and vainly hold up their instruments 
 in order to ward ojf the drops of living fire. The fire runs through 
 the grass, withering the flowers. The trees begin to smoke in the 
 fervent heat. In the midst of the cataract of flame the great dragon 
 Rahab emerges from the cavern from which the river Ado7iis springs. 
 With one gigantic leap he gains the meadow in front of the temple, 
 whose shrivelling structure he beats into flakes of fire. 
 
 The Dragon 
 
 The stagnant waters of the Dead Sea, dark 
 With over-hanging clouds, where stark 
 
 (92) 
 
Xlbe X09t ©racles 
 
 The bodies of the drowned dead swing, nor rot, 
 
 Me, Rahab, dragon of the wrath of God, begot. 
 
 When God cleft chaos by His word, 
 
 And stars and suns and earth averred. 
 
 And cleft the waters from the land, 
 
 And made the mountains to upstand, 
 
 He left the Dead Sea's pool 
 
 Exception to the waters' rule— 
 
 A bit of chaos still, a lake 
 
 Wherein no man his thirst may slake; 
 
 A sea wherein no fish e'er swims; 
 
 Whose shore no flag nor herbage rims; 
 
 A sea whose breath 
 
 Exhaleth death; 
 
 Across whose face no bird may wing; 
 
 A sea which has no living thing 
 
 Save me. I slake my thirst with brine; 
 
 For food I sulphur eat; 
 
 Hot brass and iron are my meat. 
 
 My lungs breathe smoke instead of air; 
 
 A pit of pitch-slime is my lair. 
 
 The dragon coils himself like a huge anaconda around the bodies of 
 
 Attis and Tammuz, which he proceeds to devour, while the frightened 
 
 group of worshipers, too terrified to flee, stand in a huddled mass. 
 
 Priests aistd Priestesses 
 Fire, fire, fire. 
 Tyre, Tyre, Tyre. 
 Lament, lament, lament. 
 The floor of hell is rent; 
 The Dead Sea's womb is split. 
 From his dread pit. 
 The dragon Rahab's crawled, 
 His eyes like emerald. 
 
 (93) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 His tongue is molten lead for heat; 
 Iron is his belly, brazen are his feet. 
 
 Dragon {gohheting a morsel of human fiesh, and belching flame 
 from his nostrils) 
 Luck, luck, luck! 
 To eat a goddess like a duck! 
 To dine on limbs like these for meat ! 
 Attis' breasts be morsels sweet; 
 Tammuz, thy body is fair flagon, 
 With good wine filled, for a dragon. 
 
 Threnody of Priests and Priestesses 
 Tyre, Tyre, Tyre, 
 The music of thy viols 
 Is silenced now. 
 Tyre, Tyre, Tyre, 
 God hath poured out His phials 
 Of wrath upon thy brow. 
 Askalon, thou desolate shalt be; 
 Anthedon, thou execrate shalt be. 
 Daughters of Tyre, 
 Cut off your hair; 
 Blackened by fire 
 Your faces fair. 
 
 Turban thee with black cloth. Tyre. 
 Girdle thee with sackcloth, Tyre. 
 Woe, woe, woe, 
 Now Tyre is brought low. 
 
 The voices of the singers grow fainter and fainter until, at last, men 
 and women are sunk into one crumbled, shrivelled heap of human 
 remains — in one red burial blent. The fiery rain ceases to fall, and 
 a red and acrid smoke envelopes everything. Through the scarlet 
 obscurity the dragon, now gorged, heavily drags himself away into 
 the cavern in the face of the cliff. 
 
 (94) 
 
SCENE 4. PHRYGIA 
 
 Phrygia, the mountainous interior portion of Asia Minor, where 
 are the sources oj the Sangaros, the Rhyndacos, the Hermos and the 
 Meatuler rivers, was the original hotne of the worship of Cybele, the 
 incarnation of the maternity of Nature in the form of a woman. 
 Cybele hears resemblance to Attis among the Syro-Phoenicians, to 
 Demeter among the Greeks, to Bona Dea among the Romans. The 
 generative faculty of nature was extravagantly adored by the Phrygians 
 in a mystery ritual in which phallic emblems and sexual symbolism 
 were employed to an intense degree. The worship was eminently 
 naturalistic. But under the refining influence of Hellenism many 
 of the grosser characteristics of the worship were relieved or elimi- 
 nated, so tliat the cult of Cybele approxitnated to, and was even 
 fused with, the worship of Aphrodite. 
 
 One of the saddest things pertaining to the history of Greek religion is 
 the degeneracy of the worship of Aphrodite. Usually conceived as 
 the goddess of sensual lust, actually Aphrodite was one of the fairest 
 and divinest concepts of the Greek genius. Originally she was the 
 Queen of Life, the idealized personification of the creative power of 
 nature. She was the beauty and power of Nature incarnate. The 
 fall of man, the breaking up of the Golden Age of the gnomic poets, 
 was the end of the reign of Aphrodite. The degeneration of Aphrodite- 
 worship was the prostitution of the functional production of life to 
 sensual gratification by which the elemental beauty of her worship was 
 debased and then destroyed. The fruit it bore was bitter and rotten. 
 As the late John Addington Symonds has written in his "Studies of 
 Greek Poets," with reference to Sappho atui the Lesbian school of 
 poetry: "The passions which for a moment had flamed into the gorgeous- 
 ness of art, burnt their envelope of words and images, and remained a 
 mere furnace of sensuality, from which no expression of the divine in 
 human life could be expected." But as it is not just to judge of the 
 beauty of the human form and the function of the human body by its 
 lesions in disease, so it is not just to judge the worship of Aphrodite- 
 Cybele only by its baser and more debauched manifestations. At its 
 highest and best it was very beautiful. 
 
 (95) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 The temple is that of Cybele- Aphrodite near Pessinante, in a gorge 
 of the Sangaros river. The edifice is of white marble in the Ionic 
 style of architecture — an architecture singularly feminine and chaste, 
 so to speak, contrasting with the sterner, masculine Doric, and the rich, 
 hut weaker and degenerate Corinthian, which was the rococo of the 
 ancient Greeks. In form the temple is a roofless quadrilateral. At 
 the corners of the faqade are pedestalled griffins, with lifted talons, 
 beaks wide open, and having woman's breasts. Within, in the center 
 of the roofless temple, standing on a pedestal of bluish-grey marble, as 
 if to typify the sea whence she arose, is a Parian marble statue of 
 Aphrodite Anadyomene, cold and clean, naked and chaste, the visible, 
 embodied symbol of the most beautiful thing in nature, the female 
 form divine. The late afternoon sun of springtime bathes the figure 
 in rosy shadows. A flock of pigeons, birds sacred to Venus- Aphrodite, 
 sit around the interior ledge of the quadrilateral, cooing softly. Aphro- 
 dite stands as if listening to their dulcet notes, with a far away wistful 
 look in her eyes as if she saw, too, the sea whence she derived her birth. 
 The statue is the supreme product of Greek sculpture, radiantly 
 expressive of mind and soul as well as of physical beauty. The 
 pedestal is situated in a tiny garden brillant with hyacinths and red 
 roses. In front of the statue is an altar ornamented by a crystal ball at 
 each angle. The smoke of incense is slowly curling upwards. The 
 odor is that of myrrhodion, the champagne of incenses, which imparted 
 an exquisitely light and volatile sense of intoxication to the worshipers. 
 The action takes place on a marble parvis before the altar. From this 
 point of view the pine trees on the surrounding hills stand out with dark 
 and majestic dignity, being actually pointed firs fretted against the 
 western sky, now bright with azure, rose and pearl-grey lights. Both 
 priests and priestesses, of which there are eighteen, evenly divided 
 between the sexes, are clad in pure white linen robes with fluted purple 
 borders. Each priest carries a calathos, or white wand in his hand. 
 The priestesses, technically called "dactyls," carry Lydian pipes, and 
 a few of them have tambourines. 
 
 Pbiests and Dactyls {together) 
 
 Whist, O whist, Aegean wind, 
 
 She is too pure for thy warm kisses. 
 Go, woo the violets entwined 
 In Arcady's deep vale of blisses, 
 (96) 
 
Ube %03t ©racles 
 
 Priests {singing, con sordino) 
 
 Daughter of Phrygia, veil those eyes of thine, 
 
 Their beauty pierceth me; 
 Blinded by loveliness divine, 
 
 I can not see 
 The altar of thy worship, nor the shrine. 
 Daughter of Phrygia, reach thy hand. 
 
 I, too bewildered worshiper, 
 
 A baffled wanderer. 
 Thy hand in mine, my hand in thine, 
 Guided by thee, O then shall understand. 
 
 The Dactyls {to music of a soft Lydian air) 
 Breathless with adoration 
 
 The moon and stars do stand; 
 Mute with sweet contemplation 
 
 Silent lies all the land. 
 The rose her petals showers 
 
 In the soft evening air. 
 And all the other flowers 
 
 Seem kneeling as in prayer. 
 
 The Priests {standing erect, hut with their hands over their eyes, 
 as if the goddess were too pure for mortal eyes' to regard. The 
 dactyls, kneeling behind them, play so softly upon their pipes 
 that the music is barely audible as a low undertone, and seems 
 to come from the upper air rather than from the instruments) 
 Pure as the dew of the damask rose, 
 
 Sweet as the breath of violets, 
 Soft as the light at even's close. 
 Tender as plaint of flageolets. 
 Dear as remembered kisses seem 
 
 Of youth's sweetheart one half forgets, 
 Fleeting as melodies in dream, 
 Or April showers wet. 
 
 (97) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Thy beauty baffles every sense, 
 
 O more than rose to me. 
 Odors of galbanum and myrrh, 
 
 What are they, close to thee ? 
 O Soul as white as heaven, 
 
 What are snows to thee ? 
 
 All rise, and an exquisitely beautiful dance of priests and priestesses 
 is begun before the altar, in which the litheness, the lightness, the 
 symmetry of the Greek body is manifested almost in perfection. Before 
 beginning each actor takes a handful of bright and very fine sand, 
 which glitters like gold dust, from a shell-shaped vessel not unlike a 
 holy water basin inform, and scatters the sand upon the floor. As they 
 dance the brilliant particles are distributed like a host by their flying 
 feet, so that the air becomes that of a golden mist, an effect enhanced 
 by the rays of the late afternoon sun shining through. 
 
 Choral Dance 
 
 With dactyled beat 
 
 Of twinkling feet, 
 
 Clothed in a mist of motion. 
 
 We dance and flow 
 
 As waters go 
 
 From mountain source to ocean. 
 
 Time chimes, 
 
 Life cHmbs, 
 
 The sun is in heaven. 
 
 The earth's in God's hand, 
 
 The piUars of truth 
 
 Ever shall stand. 
 
 Suddenly the tender daylight goes out, and the sky becomes ashen-grey 
 in hue. The pigeons, with frightened cries, take flight. While the 
 happy worshipers are standing in mute wonderment at what has 
 happened, the head of a gigantic violet-colored snake with a trilobite 
 crest rises menacingly over the architrave of the temple. His body 
 rapidly follows in huge, scaly coils. Simultaneously the great bronze 
 gates of entrance to the temple are shut with brazen clangor, as if by 
 
 (98) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 an unseen hand, thus locking the priests and priestesses within. Too 
 petrified with fear to cry out or run, the hapless company stands mute, 
 while the python sinuously advances and slowly folds his coils around 
 the figure of Aphrodite. In the semi-darkness his eyes glow like 
 carbuncles, and a fetid fume is ejected from his mouth which at last 
 overpowers all. 
 
 The Snake 
 
 Hell's gate's ajar. 
 
 I am Aksar, 
 
 The avatar 
 
 Of God's red Justice flaming far. 
 
 I come with doom 
 
 Forth from the gloom 
 
 Of subterranean brake 
 
 Beside Avernus lake. 
 
 I am Aksar the Snake. 
 
 Moses I frightened in 
 
 The wilderness of Sin; 
 
 When Greece, in ages gone, 
 
 Made war 'gainst Ilion, 
 
 The priest Laocoon 
 
 With his three sons I choked, 
 
 While Troy with burning smoked. 
 
 Off of Charybdis' rips 
 
 I lie in wait for ships 
 
 What time the red moon drips 
 
 With storm, and tempest lips 
 
 Wild gales blow up that sweep the decks 
 
 Of laboring ships. 
 
 And pile with wrecks 
 
 The iron coast of Sicily 
 
 And reefs of Lipari. 
 
 My sinewy coils can Taurus range 
 
 Into a heap of crushed rock change. 
 
 (99) 
 
TTbe %OBt ©racles 
 
 The darkness is as light to me, 
 The frightened day from me doth flee. 
 Full well, full well, ye know your lot, 
 Laocoon is not forgot. 
 
 As this awftd chant proceeds the worshipers gradtially sink down 
 to the pavement and fail. The darkness becomes complete. But from 
 the carbuncle-like eyes of the great snake there is light enough to 
 discern his python folds coiled around the figure of Aphrodite, his 
 sinister, forked tongue licking her body. The slime with which the 
 serpent covers her gives ojff a baleful, phosphorescent glow in the dark- 
 ness. He is the visible embodiment of all that is horrible, the incarna- 
 tion of a desolation not m^ely physical, but of the soul. 
 
 (loo) 
 
SCENE 5. PERSIA 
 
 A wide plain in Iran. The hour is just before sunrise in the spring. 
 On the flattened top of a knoll is a square altar built of stones, on 
 which a fire of faggots and aromatic herbs is burning. Five priests 
 in brilliant red robes {to simulate the sacred fire), with veiled faces and 
 gloved hands, in order not to pollute the holy flame by either breath 
 or touch, are officiating. Save for the vesture of the priests the apparatus 
 of worship is simple, even primitive. The worshipers are gathered 
 around the knoll. In the darkness their rude shepherd costumes are 
 but vaguely discernible. Farther out beyond the ring of men and 
 women the forms of cattle, horses, and sheep feeding or at rest may 
 be descried. Against the grey horizon line, toward the east, where the 
 sun is just beginning to relieve the black wall of cloud, the peaks of 
 some of the huge, round skin or felt tents of the Persians are outlined 
 like silhouettes. 
 
 The ancient Persians were a pastoral people, dwelling with their flocks 
 and herds on the high and windy plateaus of Iran, and kept the 
 primitive faith of Zoroaster long after the more cultivated and refined 
 urban populations of the great cities like Ctesiphon and Susafell away, 
 or fused the ancient belief and ritual with those of other cults. The 
 Persians were Jiot idolators. They venerated the greater manifestations 
 of nature. Wind and rain, tempest and sunshine, day and flight 
 were regarded by them as special theophanies of one supreme God, 
 namely the Sun. For this reason Fire was regarded as holy, and 
 was the chief medium of their worship. The Sun was the symbol of 
 light, of goodness, of mercy, of justice, of virtue. Naturally this 
 way of thinking ultimately led to a dualistic form of belief. The 
 antithesis of light being darkness, of day being night, of white being 
 black, of good being bad, of right being wrong, of justice being injustice, 
 belief in a god of evil was gradually developed in the Persian mind. 
 Both were personified, God, or "Good," under the name of Mazda, or 
 Ahuramazda, whose chief archangel was Mithras, or Light, originally 
 thought of as a manifestation of the sun, but who later absorbed or 
 effaced Ahuramazda, giving rise to Mithraism, the form of Persian 
 worship which prevailed in the time of the Roman Empire. From 
 the Persian personification of the Spirit of Darkness and Evil came 
 
 (lOl) 
 
Ube %ost ©racles 
 
 the Satan, or Prince of Darkness and Evil, of Christianity, the Tempter 
 who carried Christ up into a high mountain and ojffered him all the 
 kingdoms of the earth if he would fall down and worship him. The 
 founder of the Iranian religion was Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, who 
 perhaps flourished about looo B.C. In the Avesta we have the Bible 
 or Koran of the Persians. In it, however, Zoroaster has ceased to be 
 a great religious teacher and become an energumen, much as the 
 supernatural and miraculous Christ-God succeeded the man and 
 religious teacher called Jesus. 
 
 Priests (singing) 
 
 Change, change, change! 
 Range, range, range! 
 Strange, strange, strange! 
 Nothing's ever twice the same; 
 Nothing lasts. Life is flame, 
 A moment kindled. 
 Then to socket dwindled. 
 Time and flow 
 Wash all below. 
 All things swiftly go. 
 Whither? Whence? 
 Impermanence 
 Pervades all things. 
 Moon's wanderings — 
 The stars in their courses 
 Speed like chariot horses; 
 Winds blow as they list. 
 Come and go, dost thou wist 
 Whence they come or whither go ? 
 Thence ? Thither ? 
 Whence ? Whither ? 
 Dost thou know ? 
 
 The High Priest throws new wood upon the fire, which blazes brightly, 
 illuminating the dark faces of the throng gathered around. 
 
 (102) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 High Priest 
 
 The eternal God is Fire. 
 
 His voice is in the thunder. 
 Priests 
 
 ffis whisper is in the wind. 
 
 The dawn is his, for he made it. 
 High Priest 
 
 The twilight is his, for he made it. 
 
 Night and day are of his generation, 
 
 Of thy generation, O glorious Sun. 
 Priests 
 
 The sky is the cape of his shoulders, 
 
 The earth is his footstool. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Rain and snow are manifestations of thee. 
 
 All things grow through thee, and without thee 
 
 Doth nothing grow that hath Ufe. 
 
 Priests 
 
 Who determineth the path of the stars ? 
 Whose power makes the moon to wax and wane ? 
 Who upholds the earth from beneath ? 
 And keeps the firmament from falling ? 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Who milks the clouds, and sendeth rain ? 
 Who hath yoked swiftness to the wind ? 
 What artist made light and darkness ? 
 Who giveth his beloved sleep ? 
 
 Priests 
 
 Who numbereth the winkings of men's eyelids ? 
 Who calculates the pulse-throbs in the wrist ? 
 Or measureth the breath of every one ? 
 Who createth welfare and giveth immortality ? - 
 Who is the source of right ? 
 
 (103) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 All 
 
 GOD. Even the Sun, which is the brightness of his glory, 
 And the express image of his person. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Great is the might of song. 
 
 It has made men out of stones, and men out of beasts; 
 
 It has composed the world in melodious order; 
 
 It has marked the bounds of ocean. 
 
 Men Hve by Hstening to song, 
 
 Let us adore the Holy One, even the Sun. 
 
 Hymn to the Sun 
 
 On high the all-possessing God, 
 The Sun, comes upward with a shout. 
 As they were thieves, flee from his rod 
 The myriad stars, their lanthorns out. 
 The steeds yoked to his car are seven. 
 Up, up, the wide highway of heaven 
 ' The Sun- God rides, his streaming hair 
 Like flame floats in the lambent air. 
 The clouds, like kine, go forth to feed 
 On stellar plants and comet-weed. 
 He milks the clouds when earth has need 
 Of rain. He makes the kine to breed. 
 Creatures of water and of land 
 He giveth birth unto. His hand 
 Scatters the seed, barley and wheat. 
 That hungry man may have to eat; 
 He giveth man the date fruit yellow; 
 He makes the tamarind grow mellow. 
 
 Blessings glow on us, Sun. 
 
 Blessings blow on us, O Wind. 
 
 Tell us, thou Glorious One, 
 
 If Night has fled, can Day be far behind ? 
 (104) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 The daivn begins to glow brightly. A priest piles more faggots and 
 aromatic herbs upon the fire, which mounts in a pillar of flame. 
 
 High Priest 
 
 The will of God is the law of holiness: 
 Sacrifice, propitiation and glory be unto Thee. 
 
 Fire Song 
 
 Fire, Fire, Fire, 
 
 With wings which never tire 
 Fly higher, higher, higher. 
 Over the mountain's ledge, 
 Over the cloudlet's edge, 
 Over the rainbow's bridge. 
 Over the starry ridge. 
 Poppy-red thy petals, 
 Yellow is thy stalk; 
 In thy flame the metals 
 Dance and sing and talk. 
 Odors of balsam and myrrh. 
 Spikenard, cedar and thorn 
 Up a ladder of smoke-wreaths 
 Climb like vines in the corn. 
 The sun comes up. 
 
 Fire, 
 
 Faster, faster, faster, 
 
 Zoroaster 
 
 Prays for thee. 
 
 Fire, 
 
 Faster, faster, faster. 
 
 Blaze for me. 
 
 Burn, burn, cleft wood. 
 
 Wood to fire should; 
 
 Leap, leap, red Fire, 
 
 To the stars aspire. 
 
 (los) 
 
Ube %05t ©tacles 
 
 Seethe, seethe, hot Water, 
 Of Mother Fire daughter. 
 
 Suddenly a shadow Jails. The startled worshipers regarding the sun 
 see the figure as of a mighty hand slowly moving across the disc. At 
 the same time the clouds pile up black with storm, and a freezing wind 
 begins to blow down from the north across the steppe. The fire seethes 
 and sizzles, and finally goes out, exlmling a black column of smoke 
 with a gasp like that of some expiring animal. Priests and people 
 break out into cries of lamentation. To the confused and frightened 
 minds of the observers, the black rack of clouds racing with the tempest 
 has the aspect of horses running wildly down the sky. An appalling 
 storm of ice and sleet envelopes everything in a furious blizzard. The 
 frightened horses and cattle stampede; the sheep begin to "mill" until 
 they sink down exhausted to die. The snow piles up in huge drifts. 
 Dismayed and frozen the wretched people stumble and fall in the blind- 
 ing gale. At last, when the storm has spent its fury and the sun blows 
 clear, it shines upon a white wilderness with no living thing visible. 
 The corpses of men and animals strow the ground like flies frozen upon 
 a blank, white wall. 
 
 A Shepherd 
 
 My father, my father. The chariots of the Storm. 
 Father, father, father, I see his dreadful form. 
 
 A Priest 
 
 Horse, horse, horse. 
 
 Drive down the skyey course. 
 
 Against their charge 
 
 No spear, no targe 
 
 Availeth man. 
 
 Let save himself who can. 
 
 Second Priest 
 
 The sun grows black, 
 
 A frightful rack 
 
 Of cloud is heaped upon his back. 
 
 (io6) 
 
TTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 High Priest 
 
 Earth crawls, 
 
 Sky falls, 
 
 Heaven's walls 
 
 With fear collapse. 
 
 Night and Day 
 
 Be driven away. 
 
 The world to chaos doth relapse. 
 
 Voice of the Blizzard 
 Blow, blow! 
 Zero! 
 
 Freeze, Cold! 
 Snow, fold! 
 Horses, kine, 
 Men are mine! 
 My frigid breath 
 Ordaineth death! 
 
 A Woman's Cry out of the Snow 
 Darkness wins, 
 Death begins. 
 
 (107) 
 
SCENE 6. HELLAS 
 
 The Temple of Demeter, on the highest part of the island of Cnidusi 
 near the Carian coast. Built wholly of Parian marble, its very 
 whitness is symbolic of purity. In form it is much like the Erectheum 
 at Athens, the faqade, instead of being supported by columns being 
 upheld by caryatids, or the figures of beautiful maidens whose superb 
 grace is a wonderful union of the static and the dynamic forces in 
 Greek architecture. Their calm eyes, which look seaward, seem as if 
 gazing over futurity into the eternity of time beyond. They seem, 
 indeed, as they dreamily gaze on the sunbeam's play and the shadow's 
 mark, to be lifted above time and place, and to be blessed in themselves. 
 Demeter was primarily worshiped as the goddess who brought forth 
 the wheat for man's sustenance, as Dionysos made the vine to grow- 
 But in a larger sense Demeter came to be worshiped as perhaps the 
 loveliest representative of beneficent nature. Ceres was the kindred 
 Latin deity. She was portrayed, not as of virginal beauty like 
 Aphrodite, but rather of matronly aspect, the personification of mother 
 love and of the maternal qualities of nature. The myth of Demeter has 
 appealed to the mind of many generations, and the telling of the legends 
 pertaining to her history and her worship has taxed the imagination of 
 many poets, among them Tennyson and Swinburne. The cult 
 of Demeter was singularly pure and refined, and the "mysteries" 
 possessed an elusive, delicate melancholy which was, perhaps, the 
 very limit of charm in Greek religion. 
 
 The statue of the goddess stands at the far end of the naos or nave. 
 The walls of the temple are unpierced by windows. The temple is 
 roofed. The only entrance into the nave is the single door, which, as 
 in all Greek temples, is toward the east in order to catch the rays of 
 the morning sun. The quiet and the dim light of the interior impart 
 that air of inalienable mystery found in the worship of many religions. 
 A golden lattice, answering to the r credos in a Christian cathedral, 
 separates the holy of holies from the nave. Two bronze censers of 
 exquisite workmanship, emit curling wreaths of fragrant smoke which 
 float around the capitals of the columns in light blue clouds. A single 
 lamp throws the parvis in front of the lattice into relief, but serves to 
 accentuate the darkness roundabout. The priests and priestesses 
 
 (io8) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 officiating are clad in white linen robes broidered with green and 
 yellow flutings indicative of green and ripened wheal, which are 
 gathered at the waist by a violet girdle. Their shoes are of white 
 leather with golden soles. Their brows are bound with fillets, the 
 ends of which hang down upon their shoulders, and terminate in tassels 
 shaped like beards of wheat. The hair of the priestesses is tightly 
 bound in a pretty knot, and that of both men and women powdered 
 with gold dust to simulate ripened grain. 
 
 Invocation to Demeter 
 
 The tidal waters at their priest-like task, 
 With touch of cleansing hand, 
 Wash round the island strand. 
 The daedal sunlight from day's golden flask 
 A liquid radiance pours 
 On hills and shores. 
 Demeter, dear Demeter, 
 Demeter, hear, Demeter! 
 O, let some cleansing tide flow in 
 To wash our hearts from taint of sin; 
 O, let an inward radiance 
 The thin flame of our souls enhance. 
 Sweeter, sweeter, sweeter 
 
 Than honey from the glen, 
 Demeter, O Demeter, 
 Thy name on lips of men. 
 O lovely Grecian idyl, 
 O flashing waters tidal, 
 O golden sunlight daedal. 
 Restore, restore. 
 Our hearts once more! 
 A Priestess (singing) 
 
 With muted strings 
 My sad heart sings. 
 The world is grey 
 With grief today; 
 
 (109) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 The skies are lead, 
 
 Cold is the ground, 
 
 The earth is dead, 
 
 Her drooping head 
 
 With sackcloth's bound. 
 
 No flower, no leaf. 
 
 No harvest sheaf 
 
 Is manifest, but only grief. 
 
 Time's cruel scythe 
 
 Has mowed the flowers. 
 
 No birdsong blithe 
 
 Beguiles the hours. 
 
 Alas, for life, 
 
 Alas, for breath; 
 
 The earth seems given 
 
 To conquering death. 
 
 Singer and song 
 
 Are gone with the throng; 
 
 Lover and lass. 
 
 Flower and grass. 
 
 Soon fade and pass. 
 
 Shepherd and sheep, 
 
 The flock, they that keep, 
 
 They that sing, they that weep. 
 
 Ebb and flow; 
 
 We come, we go. 
 
 Whence ? Who knows ? 
 
 Or whither goes ? 
 
 Where is the birdsong of last year ? — the birds ? 
 
 Where are the lovers of last year ? — the words 
 
 Which glowed upon their lips like gold ? . . . . 
 
 Spring flies fast, and youth is old. 
 
 (iio) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 Priests and Priestesses 
 
 One, one, to thee are watch and slumber; 
 
 One, one, to thee are space and number. 
 
 Thou, thou alone remainest, we 
 
 Do change and pass like ships at sea. 
 
 O Goddess, give to us a balm. 
 
 Lend us of thy marmoreal calm. 
 
 Some handjids of strongly aromatic incense are thrown upon the 
 censers, and the interior of the temple is pervaded by a soft, yellow light, 
 which makes it seem as if the glow of the outside sunlight had pene- 
 trated within. The relief from the sombreness hitherto prevailing is 
 spiritually reflected in the demeanor and the voices of the worshipers, 
 whose feelings change from one of half mystical melancholy to one 
 of buoyancy. 
 
 Second Priestess {singing) 
 
 I hear the seed cry 'neath the ground : 
 
 " O lightly lie on me. 
 From God to God my way runs round, 
 O, life is sweet to me." 
 
 I hear a bird-song in this shell. 
 
 It whispereth to me: 
 ''Wait, wait, till God shall break the spell. 
 
 Then I shall sing to thee." 
 
 I hear the sap pulse in the wood, 
 
 'T is eloquent of power. 
 I hear the murmur of the bud : 
 
 "Ah, wait until I flower." 
 
 I hear the breathing of the earth. 
 
 Her fragrant breath's like wine. 
 Comes back to me the dream at birth — 
 
 Mother thou art of mine. 
 
 (ill) 
 
Zbc Xost ©raclCB 
 
 I hear the beat of nature's heart, 
 
 No wind's so sweet, so wild. 
 Radiant Mother, O Earth, thou art, 
 
 And I thy wondering child. 
 
 With syrinxes in hand the now happy group dances and sings to the 
 soft music of the simple pipes. Save for the environment of marble 
 walls and columns instead of trees and walls of shrubbery, the scene 
 might seem to be in Arcadia. Nature seems articulate in their 
 singing. 
 
 All {singing) 
 
 In the clover, in the bee. 
 In the wind's sweet minstrelsy, 
 In the egg and in the bird, 
 In the rose's perfumed word 
 God is heard. 
 
 In the ocean's throbbing tide, 
 On the plains serene and wide, 
 On the rugged mountain side 
 God doth ride. 
 
 In the procreant fire of man. 
 In the womb's mysterious span. 
 In the babe that's generate 
 From the love of mate for mate 
 God's elate. 
 
 The golden gloom, ''no light, but rather darkness visible," abruptly 
 turns to dusk, the dusk to darkness. Simultaneously a wave of dark- 
 ness, as it were a wall of water, invades the temple, pouring through 
 the door in a flood of blackness so thick that it almost seems a tangible 
 entity. The great lamp hanging from the roof struggles and leaps, 
 and seems, as it were, to pant for light as a drowning man pants for 
 breath. The altar fire and the censers go out with something like a 
 sigh. The priests and priestesses break out into inarticulate lamenta- 
 
 (II2) 
 
Zhc %03t ©racles 
 
 tions. In (lie midst of the terror and consternation the statue of 
 Demeter finds voice hut her words sound as if coming from an almost 
 infinite distance, like the voices one hears in dreams. The tones are 
 remote, eerie, ancestral, as if the voice of ages past were speaking out 
 of the depths of infinite longing and imperishable regret. 
 
 The Statue of Demeter 
 Calling, calling, calling: 
 
 I hear Pan's anguished cry. 
 Falling, falling, falling, 
 
 The gods of Greece shall die. 
 Banished, banished, banished. 
 
 From hill- top and from highland; 
 Vanished, vanished, vanished, 
 
 From sunny vale and island. 
 On Sunium's promontory 
 
 Wild goats shall crop the steep, 
 While Hellas' lore and glory 
 
 In endless night shall sleep. 
 Delphi's oracle is dumb; 
 No joyous chants, no golden hum 
 Of Dionysian ecstasies 
 More shall greet the turquoise skies. 
 Eleusis' mysteries are mute. 
 Shivered pipe and timbrel, broken is the flute. 
 
 Lost, lost, lost! 
 Like butterflies in frost 
 The gods and goddesses of Greece 
 With broken wings sink down. Cease .... cease 
 Your wailing .... priestess .... priest. 
 Now is north south, now is west east ; 
 The world sinks down upon its corner-posts, 
 The mountains slide, the storied coasts 
 
 Of Hellas slip into the sea 
 
 Greece .... Greece .... is this .... thy destiny ? 
 
 (113) 
 
TLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 A horror of thick darkness by this time has enveloped the whole interior 
 of the temple, a darkness which weighs upon the senses, which can be 
 felt, which strangles like a noxious gas. Through it rises the wail of 
 the perishing worshipers, which, as the monody proceeds, becomes 
 fainter and fainter until the last verses are reduced to a mere whisper 
 which finally dies out in the sigh of a single priestess whose voice has 
 something divinely tragic in its utterance. It is more the voice of a 
 mortally wounded and dying god than of a human being. 
 
 Monody 
 
 To everything there is a season, 
 
 To every purpose under sun 
 
 There is a time, a rhyme, a reason; 
 
 Of myriad threads man's life is spun. 
 
 A time of birth, 
 
 A time to die, 
 
 A time to dwell on earth, 
 
 A time in earth to lie. 
 
 A time to weep, 
 
 A time to laugh, 
 
 A time to eat, 
 
 A time to quaff, 
 
 A time to creep, 
 
 A time to walk, 
 
 A time to be silent, 
 
 A time to talk. 
 
 A time to get, 
 
 A time to spend. 
 
 Time to forget. 
 
 And time to lend. 
 
 A time to plough, 
 
 A time to sow, 
 
 A time to reap, 
 
 A time to mow. 
 
 (114) 
 
TTbe X09t ©racks 
 
 A tkne to sleep, 
 
 A time to wander, 
 
 A time to keep, 
 
 A time to squander. 
 
 A time to travail, 
 
 A time to joy, 
 
 A time to ravel, 
 
 Time to employ. 
 
 A time .... when things are new. 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 . when things are through, 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 . when things are to be told, 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 . when silence is as gold. 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 .for ... . hopes, 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 .for ... . fears. 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 . for song .... 
 
 A time . 
 
 
 .for ... . tears .... 
 
 A . . . . time .... for breath .... 
 
 A . . . . 
 
 time .... for ... . death. 
 
 (lis) 
 
SCENE 7. ROME 
 
 Interior of the Pantheon at night. A colossal marble statue of 
 Olympian Zeus (the Roman Jupiter) stands in the middle of the 
 edifice. Its workmanship shows that it is the product of a Greek, not 
 a Roman sculptor. The countenance is one of great dignity and maj- 
 esty, with an Olympian serenity of brow becoming the Greatest of the 
 Gods, and all in all is evidence of the drift towards monotheism which 
 characterized the religious history of imperial Rome. This effect 
 of Olympian gra?ideur is heightened by the expanse of starred sky 
 seen through the enormous aperture in the dome, and the flood of 
 moonlight falling from above, which robes the majestic figure of the 
 God in a silver mantle, and gives the impression of Jove enthroned upon 
 Mount Olympus. In niches around the sides stand statues of the 
 twelve great gods and goddesses, before each of which an altar smokes. 
 The architrave is borne by fluted columns of giallo antico, or yellow 
 marble. A bove it, and corresponding with the niches, rises a series of 
 arches sustained by caryatids. The attica, or attic story, is adorned 
 with porphyry and serpentine decorations. The roof is coffered in 
 five rows of cassettes, which are covered with gold foil. Colossal bronze 
 lions stand at the corners of the base of the statue of Jupiter, which are 
 used as stationary censers, for their open mouths emit volumes of per- 
 fumed smoke which curls upward through the aperture in the dome. 
 An enormous and richly decorated altar of colored marbles is in front 
 of the God, with a fire of aromatic herbs and cleft wood burning upon 
 it, whose flames, reflected in numerous gold vessels upon the altar, 
 dance fantastically iti the commingled moonlight and firelight. The 
 pavement is a chequer-work of slabs of red and black Numidian marble. 
 Huge torches in bronze rings affixed to the walls give light. The 
 Pontifex Maximus, sustained by twelve flamens, is officiating before 
 the high altar All are clad in bright red robes. The Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus wears a tiara, the flamens have mitred ftats. Behind them are 
 twelve vestal virgins whose white vesture and white veils gleam like snow 
 in the moonbeams. A choir of boys stands on the right and left of the 
 statue, upon a dais, or raised platform. The great interior of the 
 Pantheon is crowded with imperial civil and military officials, senators, 
 high incumbents of consular rank, gentlemen and ladies of the Roman 
 
 (ii6) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 aristocracy, all richly costumed. The purple laticlave, the emblem of 
 the highest order of the empire, adorns many a breast, and underneath 
 many a military cape the gleam of rich armor may be seen. The 
 music is wholly of brass and percussion instruments. There are no 
 wood-minds or strings. 
 
 Hymn to Jove 
 
 Far up 'gainst the starred sky thou standest, 
 
 Great Jove, of years without number. 
 Like a sentry of war thou commandest, 
 
 With eyes never knowing of slumber. 
 
 The sun splashes thee with his glory, 
 
 The moon washes thee with her light; 
 Thy marmoreal forehead is hoary 
 
 With white-crusted years in their flight. 
 
 When skies are aglow with vermilion, 
 
 And the sun in the heavens is bowed, 
 Like a king in his secret pavilion 
 
 Thou art canopied over by cloud. 
 
 The storm flings his gonfalon o'er thee, 
 
 The clouds build a battlement under; 
 Darkness and dread bend before thee; 
 
 Thou art ramparted round by the thunder. 
 
 When the roar of the elements rages. 
 
 And the mountains shiver aghast. 
 Omnipotent God of the Ages, 
 
 Thou art symbol of Rome's mighty past. 
 
 On thy knees is the fate of to-morrow: 
 
 Of the future no mortal is sure. 
 But the future of Rome, it shall borrow 
 
 A strength from the past to endure. 
 
 (117) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 The Choir 
 
 From east to west, from north to south 
 
 Spreads Rome's wide battle-lme; 
 From Caledon to Nilus' mouth 
 
 Holds she domain. From pahn to pine 
 Her legions move, her galleys sail 
 On every sea, or calm or gale. 
 
 PONTITEX Maximus (intoning) 
 
 Cub of the she-wolf's breed, 
 
 Whelp of the wer-wolf's den, 
 Sprung from barbarian loins, 
 
 Flamens and Vestals 
 
 Rome, thou art mother of men. 
 
 PoNTiFEX Maximus 
 
 Mother of men and nations, 
 
 Wielder of legions and law, 
 Emancipator of peoples 
 
 Flamens and Vestals 
 
 From rule of tooth and claw. 
 
 Pontifex Maximus 
 
 Thee, in the ages lying 
 
 Beyond our time and ken 
 Shall men with praise undying 
 
 Flamens and Vestals 
 
 Praise, O mother of men. 
 
 The Choir 
 
 High on her throne of seven hills, august, 
 
 Imperial Rome in grandeur sits. 
 Beneath her feet the nations are as dust. 
 
 The spectacle of history flits 
 
 (ii8) 
 
XLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 Before her haughty eyes like caravan. 
 
 Greece, Egypt, Carthage, each hath passed ; 
 To each the gods have measured out its span. 
 
 Thy throne, eternal Rome, shall last. 
 As men on stepping-stones do rise 
 
 Of their dead selves to higher air. 
 Thou treadest down the years. Emprise 
 
 On emprise piled, the imperial stair 
 To world-power slopes through storm and sun. 
 
 Thine, thine, be all dominion! 
 
 Vest.^ls 
 
 The Twelve Great Gods of Rome we hymn. 
 The Pantheon, august and dim. 
 The Gods of all the world doth rim. 
 
 PoNTiFEX Maximus (in high and magnificent tones) 
 Only the Christians thee defy, O Rome. 
 Only the Christians thee deny, O Rome. 
 
 The Choer (mockingly) 
 A superstitious breed 
 From Jew and Gentile drawn. 
 Without the law, they dream 
 A judgment day shall dawn 
 When Rome shall pass away; 
 When Christ, their God, his sway 
 O'er earth and heaven shall hold. 
 Then will come back the old age, 
 Then will come back the gold age 
 By seer and sibyl told. 
 
 The Flamens 
 
 Vain were 't their superstition to deride. 
 He whom their ignorance hath deified 
 
 ("9) 
 
xrbe Xost ©racles 
 
 By Pilate's word was scourged and crucified. 
 
 Since time began what god hath ever died ? 
 
 Whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad. 
 
 Since man began to write hath history had 
 
 Record of such pursuit ? such wild design ? 
 
 Whereof a felon's cross is the ensign. 
 
 A commotion arises among the avAitors. Amid shouts of protest 
 and derision, an ascetic looking Christian priest, with dishevelled 
 hair and unkempt beard, haggard face, and the general appearance 
 of a religious fanatic, rushes wildly into the midst of the flamens and 
 vestals before the high altar, a)id begins a frantic harangue which 
 sounds like the chanting of a sinister incantation. 
 
 The Christian 
 
 Mystery, mystery, is unsealed! 
 History, history, is revealed! 
 New page for Rome our God hath writ; 
 With righteous ruin is Rome smit. 
 
 Mother of harlotry. 
 
 Sister of scarietry, 
 The blood of martyred saints 
 Cries from the ground their plaints; 
 Thy sin the whole world taints. 
 God shall double double unto thee ! 
 God shall treble trouble unto thee! 
 The cup which thou hast filled 
 
 With thy own doom shall bubble; 
 For blood which thou hast spilled 
 
 God shall exact thee double. 
 
 Simultaneously a tremor shakes the Pantheon and a crack runs 
 across the pavement like a mouse running across a floor. While the 
 auditors stand rooted to the spot in grave apprehensiofi, a second 
 shock comes. The crack in the pavement widens atid the crowd, with 
 loud cries, retreats pell-mell from its yawning edges. The statues of 
 the twelve gods tumble from their pedestals in the niches, and some of 
 the coders in the ceiling fall with a crash. With the third shock the 
 
 (120) 
 
Ubc Xost ©racles 
 
 walls of the Pantheon are ruptured. The marble decoration around 
 the attica falls down in a shower of broken fragments. Then ensues 
 a fourth and terrible shock. The great marble statue of Jove is cleft 
 from crown to fork, and topples in two gigantic masses over upon the 
 heads of the crowd. The dome of the Pantheon buckles and caves in 
 with a terrific roar of shattered stone and cement work. The chequered 
 pavement heaves like the face of the sea in a storm. The whole struc- 
 ture reels to and fro like a drunken man. In the midst of the darkness 
 and terror a ferocious growling and grumbling may be heard like the 
 diapason of a heavy surf upon a rocky coast. It is the Voice of the 
 Earthquake. 
 
 Voice of the Earthquake 
 
 Grumble, grumble, grumble, 
 
 Rumble, rumble, rumble. 
 
 Tumble, tumble, tumble! 
 
 Shock, shock, shock, 
 
 Knock, knock, knock, 
 
 Rock, rock, rock! 
 
 Shake, shake, shake, 
 
 Quake, quake, quake, 
 
 Break, break, break! 
 
 Crash, crash, crash, 
 
 Dash, dash, dash. 
 
 Smash, smash, smash! 
 
 Yawn, yawn, yawn, 
 
 Crack, crack, crack! 
 
 Dawn, dawn, dawn 
 
 Is black, black, black ! 
 
 Earth dips, 
 
 Rome slips, 
 
 Yawn, Earth, and crack your lips. 
 
 Flee, Sun, into eclipse, 
 
 Hide, Moon, your pallid face; 
 
 Run, Stars, God's knees embrace. 
 
 (I2l) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Cries of Consternation 
 
 The earth moves 
 
 The Seven Hills are shaken 
 
 The earth is clean dissolved 
 
 The earth reels like a drunkard 
 
 The hills are removed like shepherds' huts. . . 
 Rome falls .... 
 
 and shall not rise 
 
 The Christians' God shaketh terribly the earth. 
 
 A Vestal Virgin 
 
 From Vesta's hearth the fire is blown 
 
 Whose flame averted heaven's wrath. 
 Across her cold, white altar stone 
 
 The slimy snail shall chart his path. 
 
 A Senator 
 
 The Roman state is desolate. 
 
 The Praetorian Prefect 
 
 The law which held the world in awe 
 
 Is swallowed up in earth's maw. 
 
 A dense fog settles over the scene. The earthquake shocks lessen in 
 violence. The Pantheon is reduced to ruination. 
 
 PoNTiFEX Maximus {hi Solemn, agonized cry from the midst of 
 the ruins) 
 
 While stands the Pantheon Rome shall stand: 
 When falls the Pantheon Rome shall fall, 
 And when Rome falls then falls the world. 
 
 (122) 
 
INTERLUDE 
 
 PROCESSION OF THE EXILED GODS 
 
Visae per coelum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma, et subito 
 nubium igne collucere templum. Expassae repente delubri fores, et 
 audita major humana vox, excedere deos; simul ingens motus exceden- 
 tium. — Tacitus, Historiae v. 13. 
 
 There never was a false God, nor was there ever a false religion, 
 unless you call a child a false man. — Max jMuller. 
 
INTERLUDE 
 
 PROCESSION OF THE EXILED GODS 
 
 A gigantic bridge, black and sombre of aspect, in the form of an arc, 
 is suspended over the void between Earth and Hell. Its ends are envel- 
 oped in clouds and vapor. Far down in the gidf beneath it the River 
 of the Milky Way may be seen flaming arowid space. To sad and 
 solemn music the long procession of the fallen and exiled Gods is seen 
 fding across the bridge toward Hell, aiid singing as they march. In the 
 van are prehistoric gods who lived before the Flood, whose names have 
 been forgotten among men — idols in wood, stone, meted. Some are 
 antediluvian sea-monsters, some are of huge reptilian form; some look 
 like lumbering black boulders endowed with the power of locomotion. 
 These are meteorites and curious forms of rock worshiped as phalluses. 
 Others are misshapen figures roughly hewn out of wood; still others 
 appear as trees walking, their tangled roots a hundred crooked feet. 
 All of these are dripping with the ooze of the Deluge and covered over 
 with Crustacea and seaweed. This dreadfid company is followed by 
 the Gods of the early Semites — Moloch, Chiun, and Chemosh of the 
 Moabites; Baal-Berith, Baal-Zebub, the God of Flies, and Ashlar oth, 
 the gods of the Zidonians; Nibhaz and Tartak, gods of the Avites; 
 Milcom, the Ammonite god; Hadad-Rimmo7i, the god of the ancient 
 Idumaeans; Dagon, the great Philistine god; Sepharvaim, Adram- 
 melech and Annammelech, gods of the ancient Samaritans; Bel, Nebo, 
 Istar, Merodach, the great gods among the Babylonians and Assyrians, 
 together with lesser deities, Remphan, Nishroch, Nergal, Ashima; 
 Attis appears, weeping for Tammuz whom she does not see following 
 behind her; Osiris, Isis, Horus, Apis, Serapis, gods of the Egyptians. 
 Last of all comes the whole thearchy of Greece and Rome. 
 As the history of the development of religion is the history of an ascend- 
 ing symbolism, the deities which represent the great civilizations of 
 antiquity, notably Isis, Istar, Apollo, Demeter, Aphrodite and Zeus, 
 exhibit a refinement and nobUity of countenance which shoivs that 
 even under anthropomorphic guise the greatest and purest minds of 
 antiquity had conceptions of the attributes of deity and of the nature of 
 religion less gross, perhaps, than many beliefs and practices now 
 current in Christianity. 
 
 (125) 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Chant of the Fallen Gods 
 
 Across the Bridge of Breath, 
 Over the Ridge of Death, 
 Over the fearful arch. 
 We march, we inarch. 
 Tramp, tramp, tramp, 
 Down the dizzy ramp, 
 Below the dews and damp. 
 Scorned but undismayed. 
 To be tortured, yet unafraid. 
 
 Spin, spin, spin. 
 The potter turns his wheel, 
 And thinks a god's within 
 The clay his hands conceal. 
 Can God imprisoned be 
 In ware of pottery ? 
 
 Gold, gold, gold. 
 
 The craftsman melts the ore, 
 
 And runneth it in mould 
 
 (It is an ancient lore) ; 
 
 Doth inert metal hold 
 
 A power to adore ? 
 
 Man, man, man. 
 Ever since the world began, 
 From prehistoric, dim age. 
 Has made God in his image. 
 The fetich of a clan. 
 In wood, or stone, or bone 
 The patient savage lone, 
 With chisel carves and hews, 
 Or doth the metal fuse, 
 (126) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 And fashions with his hands. 
 To whom will ye God liken ? 
 May not material ikon, 
 With feet and hands and eyes, 
 To savage heart and reason 
 Give comfort in its season ? 
 To spark of good give rise ? 
 May not barbarian idol 
 Yet speak a message daedal ? 
 That one who doeth right 
 According to his light 
 God sees — and understands. 
 
 (127) 
 
ACT VI. THE CONSECRATION AND THE 
 POET'S DREAM 
 
Les Diexix sont en pouissiere et la terre est muette: 
 
 Rien ne parlera plus dans ton del deserte. 
 
 Dors! Mais, vivante en lui, chante au coeur du poete 
 
 L'hymne melodienx de la sainte Beaute. 
 
 Elle seule survit, inamuable, eternelle. 
 
 La mort pent disperser les univers tremblants, 
 
 Mais la Beaute flamboie, et tout renait en elle, 
 
 Et les mondes encor roulent sous ses pieds blancs. 
 
 — ^Leconte De Lisle, Hypatie. 
 
ACT VI. THE CONSECRATION AND THE POET'S 
 
 DREAM 
 
 SCENE I. PATMOS 
 Apostle John (slowly awakening, as from a dream) 
 
 It was a dream 
 
 The ocean stream 
 
 This island of volcanic ash 
 
 These twisted trees .... with seam and gash 
 
 Tom by tempest .... fire-scarred 
 
 Nothing is changed Alas, .... 'tis hard 
 
 Though sick with hopes deferred 
 
 Yet .... Lord, I trust thy word. 
 
 Voices in the Am (mockingly) 
 
 Faith's a wraith, 
 
 Faith's a bubble, 
 
 Faith's the false dawn, 
 
 Faith is stubble. 
 John 
 
 Foul spirits of the air 
 
 Seek to gird me with a snare. 
 Siiddenly a shaft of sunlight breaks through the clouds, and a dancing 
 shape appears on the ground before the apostle. 
 
 First Spirit (dancing and singing) 
 
 On a golden sunbeam bright 
 I slid hither fast as light 
 Through the clouds that veiled my sight. 
 A second spirit appears. 
 
 Second Spirit 
 
 On a poet's song I sped. 
 As I flew the sun rose red. 
 Night before the day fast fled. 
 
 (131) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 A third spirit appears. 
 
 Third-Spirit 
 
 On a lover's kiss I came 
 Hitherwards, my wings of flame 
 Rosy red with maiden shame. 
 A fourth spirit appears. 
 
 Fourth Spirit 
 
 From a baby's laugh I sprang, 
 While beside his mother sang 
 Songs wherewith the woodland rang. 
 
 The apostle John half rises out of his seat, and feebly beats around 
 him with his staff. 
 
 John 
 
 Out! Out! Ye sprites abominable, 
 
 Demons in angel guise. 
 Return, return, unto that Hell, 
 The abode of awful mysteries. 
 
 The elfish figures disappear with mocking laughter. Simultaneously 
 a troop of peasants of the island, both men and women, clad as vine- 
 dressers and small farm laborers, files slowly into view, singing a dirge. 
 
 Dirge for Pan 
 
 Trees do stand when the sap is fled, 
 
 With outward strength though the heart be dead. 
 
 Delphi and Delos are no more; 
 
 Tombs have outlasted temples hoar. 
 
 The pyramids with age were grey 
 
 Ere Parthenon rose in light of day. 
 
 In Tempe's vale the God Pan lies 
 
 With folded hands and curtained eyes; 
 
 And wingless dreams and hopes distorn 
 
 Lift tear-stained faces to the morn. 
 
 Pan is dead, and the lips of prayer 
 
 Are dumb in measureless despair. 
 
 (132) 
 
Zbc %05t ©racles 
 
 Tumultuous mid confused voices are heard, at first afar of, but 
 rapidly drawing nearer, commingled with the music of pipes and 
 timbrels. The apostle John stiffens with horror, while the peasants 
 stand in eager and startled expectation, half in wonder, half in awe, 
 as if doubting the evidence of their senses. 
 
 A Man's Voice {singing) 
 
 Swallow, swallow, swallow, 
 
 Whither fleest thou ? 
 Apollo, Apollo, Apollo, 
 
 Sun-God, where art thou now ? 
 Apollo, Apollo, Apollo, 
 We follow, we follow, we follow. 
 Hollo! Hollo! Hollo! 
 An Old Man 
 
 A heritage of racial memory, 
 
 Resurgent haunts my 'wildered brain. 
 
 Ancestral voices call me I descry 
 
 Dim figures moving through a golden rain; 
 Vast shapes of beauty and of power, limned 
 Like pointed firs against a western sun 
 
 The Peasants (shouting with exultation) 
 
 The gods! the gods! singing the Song of Earth— 
 
 The cosmic paean which Apollo hymned — • 
 
 The chant Deucalion 
 
 Sang after flood of life and death and birth! 
 
 A wild and hilarious troop of men and women, their heads crowned 
 with laurel garlands and clad in goat and panther skins, breaks 
 jubilantly into view. They are revellers celebrating the Dionysian 
 mysteries. 
 
 The Revellers {dancing around John's chair, and joined by 
 
 the peasants) 
 
 Pan, Pan, Pan, 
 
 E'er since the world began 
 
 Comrade and friend of man. 
 
 (133) 
 
Zbc Xost ©racles 
 
 Pulse, sap; 
 Throb, blood; 
 Leap, babe; 
 Break, bud. 
 
 O Spring, it is the glad time; 
 O Spring, it is the mad time. 
 O Spring, it is the blood time; 
 O Spring, it is the bud time. 
 What's blood in me 
 Is sap in tree; 
 Through veins of each, 
 In man and beech 
 
 There runs a new and wondrous speech. 
 It sings of bud and leaf, 
 Of wheat and barley sheaf, 
 It sings of love and youth, 
 It sings of beauty, truth, 
 It sings in cryptic rhyme 
 Of lovers' mating time. 
 Honey, yellow, yellow, 
 Fruits so mellow, mellow; 
 Birds and sweet birdsong, 
 Poetry and word-song. 
 Arbutus flower and eglantine. 
 Vine, vine, vine, 
 Wine, wine, wine. 
 That wine of olden numbers, 
 Give me of it to drain, 
 And dream in golden slumbers 
 The world is young again. 
 The apostle John swoons and fails from his chair. 
 
 (134) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 A Girl Reveller {singing) 
 
 Come, come with me 
 
 To Arcady. 
 
 There Pan shall set thy sad heart free. 
 
 The moaning strait 
 
 Shall not frustrate 
 
 Our hopes intent, our hearts elate. 
 
 From cliff and scar 
 
 Of Hellas, far 
 
 Poetic fires flash like a star; 
 
 Hymettus' side 
 
 Is glorified. 
 
 And Tempe's vale is deep and wide. 
 Revellers and peasants run gleefully away leaving John lying on the 
 ground. 
 
 (135) 
 
SCENE 2. THE VALE OF TEMPE IN THESSALY 
 
 An exquisitely beautiful woodland glade, walled by green trees, beech 
 and oak mingled with the white blossoms of dogwood and the blaze of 
 the oleander and wild pomegranate. The forest lawn is carpeted with 
 flowers, cyclamen, and violet, and starred with jonquils and anemones. 
 The wood opens toward the east where the sky — the hour is just before 
 dawn — glows with hues of rose-red and orient pearl. In the middle 
 ground a young man and a young woman are kneeling before a simple 
 green altar made of turfs and feeding the thin flame upon it with 
 dried twigs. The aromatic smoke ascends slowly in silver and purple 
 spirals, breathing a fragrance all its own which melts and commingles 
 with the smell of fresh earth, the breath of the dawn, and the odors of 
 jasmine and smilax, myrtle and lentisk and wild rosemary, which 
 hang invisible, yet palpitating, in the tender morning air. 
 
 The Man {singing) 
 
 Sparks of the eternal mind, 
 We have that fire forgot; 
 Pulses of the eternal heart 
 We are, and know it not. 
 The Woman {singing) 
 
 Clod, clod, clod. 
 With eyelids heavy and dry, 
 We stand and wait — 
 Too late, too late. 
 And God, God, God, 
 Goes unbeholden by. 
 Earth, earth, earth. 
 Men are, and ahen 
 To the birth, birth, birth, 
 That promised to make men. 
 The man and the woman blow vigorously upon the thin flame, seeking to 
 kindle it into larger life. As their effort is rewarded they rise up, 
 and standing hand in hand, alternately regard the fire, the exquisite 
 
 (136) 
 
TLbc Xost ©racles 
 
 litUe vale in which they are, and the growing dawn. A golden mist, 
 so fine that it may scarcely be distinguished from the vibrations of 
 light, sufuses the atmosphere. 
 
 Magnificat to Mother Earth {the man and woman singing 
 in unison) 
 
 This earth is not a rondured, steadfast globe 
 
 With mere material substance over-wrought. 
 The grasses are her hair, the seas her robe, 
 
 She is a creature bright of sentient thought; 
 A cosmic person in the Milky Way, 
 
 Sister to planets, brothered by the Sun, 
 Walking through starry meadows of the sky. 
 
 Waking or asleep, like benediction, 
 Alternate night and day 
 
 Giving to men who in her bosom lie. 
 
 The Woman 
 
 All hving things of earth are children of 
 
 The great Earth Mother — gods and faeries, we 
 Who have forgotten her sweet mother-love. 
 
 Bird, birdsong, animal, wild bee. 
 With unseen hand the migrant seal she guides; 
 By her the homing pigeon marks her flight, 
 And squirrels and ants their winter stores amass; 
 Her subtle influence directs the tides, 
 Darkness and light 
 In ordered sequence makes to come and pass. 
 
 The Man 
 
 The calmness of the unhastening earth. To walk 
 
 Through primal fire and dew as man at first; 
 To sport with stars and with the thunder talk; 
 
 Unblanched to view the vivid lightning burst. 
 
 (137) 
 
Ube Xost ©racles 
 
 O, the sweet nakedness of running streams, 
 Savor of soil, flavor of honey found 
 Within the heart of ancient forest tree, 
 Flutings of Pan to hear in magic dreams — 
 And then to feel aroimd 
 The arms of the Great Mother mothering me. 
 
 The Woman 
 
 Dear Mother Earth, majestical and grave. 
 
 Merge me with thy own self and make me kin 
 To flying shapes of hills and seas — me lave 
 
 With Hving waters that shall cleanse from sin. 
 I hear the Dawn's voice crying in the wind: 
 
 "O, Day Star, rise. Darkness its course has run." 
 Let me lie down even as a wondering child, 
 A pulse of thy own planetary mind. 
 Familiar of the Sun, 
 Pla)nnate of stars, with eyes of glory wild. 
 
 Man and Woman 
 
 O archetypal world, soul of the Earth, 
 
 Swim close to me, enormous, simple, vast. 
 Give me to feel within my heart the birth 
 
 Of those melodic harmonies thou hast. 
 Free me from time, from number and from space; 
 Break the sham barriers which men have made; 
 
 Ope thou the gates of ivory and horn; 
 Give me to see, naked and vmafraid 
 The vision of thy face 
 As man saw God upon creation's morn. 
 A company of white-robed figures appears from the edge of the woody 
 aiid slowly approaches the man and woman before the altar. They are 
 men of middle age, with beards tinged with grey and of singularly 
 lofty atid beautiful countenance and carriage. They are poets and 
 philosophers such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Heraclitus, 
 Plato, and Zeno were. 
 
 (138) 
 
Ube %03t ©racles 
 
 Chorus of Poets and Philosophers 
 
 We are the bards and the sages 
 
 Who know the wisdom of yore; 
 We are the wise men and mages 
 
 Of strange mythological lore; 
 Sibyls who translate the pages 
 
 Of volumes of history hoar. 
 We are the makers of truth, 
 
 We are the weavers of song; 
 We are the wooers of ruth, 
 
 We are the righters of wrong; 
 We are the knitters of time, 
 
 Teachers of what men have thought; 
 We are the makers of rhyme, 
 
 Preachers of what right hath wrought. 
 The now mingled company stands before the smoking altar, but less 
 regarding the flame tipon it than the glorious dawn. 
 
 First Philosopher 
 
 Darkling men hsten to that great undertone 
 
 Which sings through sky and sea and land; 
 Like shipwrecked sailors on a strange coast thrown, 
 
 Frightened by things they do not understand, 
 DarkUng men see, at their own shadows leap: 
 
 The wonder, beauty, sweetness, awe 
 Of nature's moods but frighten them as sheep; 
 
 Like blind force nature seems, not law. 
 
 The sun cotnes up in majestic drapery clad. The flame on the altar 
 springs and glows and crackles. 
 
 First Poet 
 
 Canst thou arrest the breath of violet ? 
 Or catch the nightingale's song in a net ? 
 Or clutch the wind ? or snatch the stars ? — 
 The rings of Saturn or the moons of Mars ? 
 
 (139) 
 
TLbc %03t ©racles 
 
 God is spirit, holiness, beauty, truth. 
 
 Life, love, law, justice, power, ruth. 
 
 For reason, mind eternal, supreme cause 
 
 Fast hold the world within eternal laws. 
 
 And earth, sea, mountains, sky, stars, planets, man. 
 
 Are subject to His all-pervading plan. 
 
 A merry group of nymphs, fauns, dryads, comes dancing and leaping 
 forth from the embowered woods. They form an inner circle around 
 the altar, and seem to dance in time with the dancing flames. 
 
 Chorus of Nymphs 
 
 God's a whisper, 
 God's a shout, 
 God's a sweet air 
 Blown about. 
 God is time, 
 God is chime, 
 God is rhyme. 
 God is wind, 
 God is art, 
 God is mind, 
 God is heart. 
 
 The Fauns {leaping and dancing) 
 
 God 
 
 is I, 
 
 
 God 
 
 is star. 
 
 
 God 
 
 is by, 
 
 
 God 
 
 is far. 
 
 
 God 
 
 is prayer. 
 
 
 God 
 
 is hymn. 
 
 
 God 
 
 is light, 
 
 
 God 
 
 is twilight dim. 
 
 
 Changeless spirit, yet 
 
 the change. 
 
 Rangeless spirit, yet the range. 
 
 Strangeless spirit, yet 
 
 how strange 
 
 
 (140) 
 
 
XTbe Xost ©racles 
 
 Chorus of Dryads 
 
 God is twilight, god is dawn, 
 
 God is shadow on a lawn, 
 
 God is near light, 
 
 God is dear light, 
 
 God is far light, 
 
 God is star light. 
 
 God is the depth, God is the plummet, 
 
 God is the base, God is the summit, 
 
 God is love, God is wrath, 
 
 God's the mountain, Gk)d's the path. 
 
 Chorus of Nymphs, Fauns, and Dryads 
 In the warp and in the woof, 
 In the pattern, in the proof. 
 In the color of the dye, 
 In the shuttle flying by. 
 In the thread, the knots which bind. 
 In the thought of weaver's mind. 
 
 God shalt thou find. 
 In the reft and in the dower, 
 In the storm and in the shower, 
 In the year and in the hour, 
 In the seed and in the flower, 
 
 God is power. 
 In the sowing and the reaping, 
 In our laughter and our weeping. 
 In the letting and the keeping, 
 In the wide and in the narrow. 
 In the eagle and the sparrow. 
 In the deep and in the shallow, 
 In the acorn and the mallow 
 
 God lies sleeping. 
 
 (141) 
 
Xlbe Xost ©racles 
 
 God is everywhere; 
 
 In the earth and in the air, 
 
 In the sun and in a star, 
 
 Very near and very far; 
 
 In the cloud and in the soil. 
 
 In man's joy and in his toil, 
 
 In a song and in a prayer, 
 
 God is there. 
 
 God fills all of space and time, 
 
 God sings in the poet's rhyme, 
 
 His spirit liveth in all art. 
 
 The rosy chamber of the heart 
 
 No less His dwelling-place apart. 
 
 The sun is now risen in full splendor. The company of woodland 
 worshipers merrily disperses through the glade, leaving only the phil- 
 osophers and poets by the altar. 
 
 Second Poet 
 
 From fire, water, air and earth 
 Cometh man at his birth. 
 Yet is he not of them whole: 
 From the fusion shines a soul 
 Subtler, purer than the things 
 Out of which himself took wings. 
 
 Third Poet 
 
 This is the quest of quests to men of heart — 
 Love nature first, and after nature art. 
 Seek nature first, and after nature song; 
 Man's life is short, but art and nature long; 
 The march of time forever forward goes, 
 And springs will ever follow winter's snows. 
 
 First Poet 
 
 He who the spirit's many lights 
 Has followed through the ages' nights 
 
 (142) 
 
Zbc %03t ©racles 
 
 Can see the answering torches gleam 
 Like stars upon a quiet stream. 
 
 First Philosopher 
 
 The fleetless dream of beauty everywhere 
 Is God's own revelation of himself. 
 Keep beauty pure that it be truly fair. 
 
 With slow and stately steps the philosophers and poets turn away and 
 leisurely disappear among the trees. The fire on the turf allar whispers 
 and sings to itself until it flickers out. A sylvan beauty and quiet 
 pervades everything. God is in the silence no less than He was in the 
 song. 
 
 FINIS 
 
 Q;bl0 book bas been written for love of poetri?, 
 
 toe latgeninfl of beautg, anO to restore 
 
 forgotten spiritual values in tbe 
 
 blstori2 of bumanltg. "©n 
 
 everg simile Dost tbou 
 
 bere rlOc to vers 
 
 trutb." 
 
 (143) 
 
Nl? 89 
 
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