 | Joseph And His Brethren |  |
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Scene V.
—A Vale at Dothan.Simeon, Issachar, Judah, &c. sharing money.
Judah.
Yonder comes Reuben: hide the silver up,
And let us keep the secret to ourselves.
Enter Reuben.
Reuben.
My gentle brothers, have you seen the boy
Since you did cast him down into the pit?—
I pray you tell me; come, be plain and fair.
Issachar.
What would you know? We did desist our course
And turn our justice round at your request;
Still you would govern us in this affair,
And still you are displeas'd.
Reuben.
You have not seen him, then?
Simeon.
No.
Judah.
How should we?
Reuben.
May the first thunderbolt that spurns the hand
Of the avenging archer of the clouds
Sink in amongst you! And I would that now
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Made havoc o'er your heads!
Simeon.
What—what is this?
Reuben.
Oh, ye detested slaves! ye murderers!—
Blood—blood, ye dogs! that is your precious food—
Nought less than the deep current of man's life
Can hiss your passions cool. Do you not fear
Lest you should grow proficient in your trade,
And murder men till men are scarce on earth,
That Heaven will cramp you with some sudden death?
Issachar.
Madman!
Reuben.
You are a villain, Issachar!
Aye, raise your clubs and tarr your angry dogs;
For dogs or devils I will never budge
Till I have eas'd the spirit of my grief
By telling you with curses what ye are.—
Nay, Simeon, flourish not your threatening staff:
You are too mean for fear. I defy all.
Oh! had I got you in a narrow pass,
So that a single coward at a time
Might use his wrath against my careless life,
I'd bring you low past kneeling.—Child-killers!
I do so hate you that I have a mind
To strike thee, Issachar, unto my foot.
Bustle, and shift your stands—I will be heard:
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Though but to wave it doubtful of offence,
I'll mar his manhood with so sure a blow
As deadly dealt as is the eye of fate,
And dangerously scuffle with the odds.
A giant well may fear a desperate man:
And ye do look so mean and impotent
That I should scorn myself for shunning you.
Issachar.
I ne'er was brav'd before.
Reuben.
That he who strives to justify his act
Shall die upon the spot, I say aloud;
You are all villains, all.—Who answers, ho!
Simeon.
He dares and threats!
Reuben.
Listen, ye kites! and hear yourselves proclaim'd.
The greatest of all villains is that man
Who doth debauch him in the greatest crime.
Mean theft and slander and ill-will are bad,
But they are virtues when compar'd with one
Which none but the gross villain doth commit—
'Tis callèd murder, and its act is this:—
By banishing all honour from its thought
(Pity turn'd forth to wander in the blast),
A heart as absent in the love of truth
As a cold stone within an iron chest,
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That with a violent and wilful hand
The sleeping and the helpless it destroys
But as all villanies do boast a head,
A measur'd standard of enormity,
So murder has, which still seems white and clear
Beside the fratricide's inhuman act.
'Tis treating Heaven with a high contempt,
Who made man for its end, not for man's wrath;
'Tis touching Heaven with a cruel thought
To cast its love back into its own face;
Therefore you are a breed of abject slaves,
A team of villains, guilty of man's blood;
Hated of Heaven and to be shunn'd on earth.
Your names are curses, which henceforth I'll use
To vilify my thoughts.
Judah.
Why, how is this?
Young Joseph is not dead, but cast alive
Into the pit, which you yourself propos'd;
For all I guess, he's breathing at this hour.
Reuben.
Ah! where?—Ah! where?—For I have sought for him:
The pit is empty, and he is destroy'd
By some fell danger; helpless, and alone.
Issachar.
Why, then, chance had a hand in his decease:
And as you told us when you urg'd the thing,
Then chance is guilty of his death, not we.
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I woo'd you with a lie, which you believ'd
Knowing it was a lie; and, like a knave,
Sweeten'd your shaken passion to content.
You are not wont to give your senses up
At any beck of mine: why did you then?
Only to compromise your villainy!
You wish'd his death, however it has come;
And through your means it is that he is dead—
Wherefore you're written down a murderer.
Simeon.
And all this railing will not mend it now:
What we have done, is done, and there's an end.
Reuben.
Ye callous brood!—Oh! never pray again,
Nor cast your faces to the open heaven;
But stoop your bestial heads prone to the earth!
Clearness of seasons freshening our delights
Be to your senses but as marshy fogs!
The finer air to you be thick and damp!
Veil thee, oh! sun, and temper not the winds,
When they come charg'd with pestilence and plague,
So they may strike them with their baneful breath,
For they have forfeited at Nature's hands
Partition in her bounty and her love;
Therefore their spirits being thus reprov'd,
Having offended Nature's gentleness,
Shall die of comfortless and sad disease,
And rot upon themselves.
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Oh! this is well.
Reuben.
Take from their food, oh, God! all wholesome taste,
Which Thou hast sent to nourish generous man;
That they may loathe to keep a life on foot
Sustain'd with such monotonous distaste.
And the deep relish of the wine they drink,
Oh! flavour with their fault: then it will force
The sense to ache, and curl upon the lip
Worse than when poison, or a cup of balm
Wherein a speckled viper hath been steep'd,
Meets both the gorge and eye.—Whene'er they sleep
Clothe them with heaviness and with mad dreams,
And fill their fancy full of objects dire,
Hanging their hair with agonising drops
Of retributive horror and remorse;
For they most carelessly have put away
All claim upon Thy mercy bountiful,
And for a little passion barterèd
Their title to Thy most paternal love.—
May they never laugh again!—
Simeon.
All this is vain!
Reuben.
Blight all their fortunes, and destroy their peace!—
A murrain be upon their cattle's lives,
Wether and lamb, that gather'd vultures may
Make house about their tents and in their sheds,
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While they shall sink and famish on the taint.—
Where'er their plough furrows the embrownèd slope
So rich and fruitful in its idleness,
Or dibble drills the pregnant-moulded earth,
Come wombless barrenness; and all the seed
They shower in the promise of the spring,
By harvest time turn to as many stones;
So may they never shear the curlèd wool,
Nor give a heifer for a sacrifice—
So that they never may enrich the eye
And scan the sober beauty of the corn;
Where on that golden carpet roll'd around,
Walks mother Autumn on the rosy eves
Coming to worship Summer ere she fades,
And see her fiery clouds and mellow leaves
And fruits luxurious yielding from the stalk,
And taste of the blown fragrance of the air;
And mount her throne of beautiful decay
O'erhung with flowers sicken'd of the sun,
Where she expires on Winter's icy hand!—
May all their labour an abortion prove,
And all their hopes sit brooding o'er their graves!—
So they may never smile in the green fields,
Sweetening their spirits at the combing hay;
Nor grieve when mute and perpendicular
Dispungings of the hollow-bosom'd clouds
Gutter the fruitful surface of the earth:
Nor joy when Temperance with silver wings
Sits pluming her bright feathers in the sky,
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And larks and thrushes with deep, mellow throats
Rejoicing in the splendour of the scene
Make wanton in the echoes of the vale—
Oh! never may the jocund harvest bell
(Inspiring all the spirits of our tribe)
Ring its sweet battery unto their ears,
Tuning the anthem voluble and loud,
Sacred to plenty for the garners full—
So they may wander with a doleful step,
In sullen sadness twin to heavy pain
Plucking a leaf of myrtle or of bay,
Not for the cap, but to tread under foot.—
Thus let them crave!—Bondsmen at strangers' stalls,
Where choking be their hire!—
Judah.
This is enough.
Reuben.
Oh, God! turn mercy to Thy angel's hands!—
Young Joseph was not pitied in the storm,
Therefore no mercy yield!—
Dan.
We can bear more.
Reuben.
The angel's fatal trumpet did announce,
Judging the highest vengeance to be wreck'd
On the chief criminal in God's reproof.—
Down with it on these brothers' guilty heads!
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Give him his way.
Simeon.
Aye, let him take his round.
Reuben.
Be still, my sincere heart!—Oh! give me peace!—
Anger and tears contend within my throat
Like fire and water in contention mix'd;
And passion smoulders in my very heart.
Oh! I could weep that Joseph is no more
Till marble should be furrow'd with my tears—
Oh! I could rave on your enormities
Till words were wanting me to name ye plagues,
Then like the forlorn image of despair
Sit dumb and think past words.—My passion cries for blood!
Issachar.
It is a madman's.
Reuben.
Oh! ye kites!
Naphtali.
What good
Can come of this?
Reuben.
No good can ever come
Within the limits of thy crimson sphere.
Thou'st sorely wounded good, and therefore good
Will tremble in thy presence like a flower
That's ruffian'd by the blast.—Thou'rt shunable:
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Than lay its perfect and congenial hand
Upon thy unbless'd head.
Judah.
I have a fear
He will betray us to our father's wrath.
Reuben.
Hast thou a fear? Thou wert a better man
Ere thou had'st work'd a cause to fear thy friends.
Simeon.
I fear his folly too.
Reuben.
Banish it then.
If 'twere a spotted leprosy, 'twere thine
Even to rotting. But since your foul disgrace
Like to a canker-worm would gnaw the heart
With shame and anguish of your reverend sire,
I'll keep the fiery secret to myself,
And leave your icy bosoms to promulge
Some subtle lie, which forg'd to his belief
Will raise a cunning ladder to his heart,
While he shall thank your griefs.—Oh! perfect slaves!
Judah.
This is the best.
Reuben.
Why, do I not say so?
And does not my device hug your desire?
Yet for this stead you are so far beholden,
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Tell me, I pray you, whence comes your content,
Like a cold fountain through a pool of stone?
For I am sick to drink of such a stream.
What shall I do, and whither shall I go,
To ease my pain, and shun my father's face?
What well were deep enough to hold my grief?
What secret place would hide my anguish up?—
You who have help'd me to this hard estate,
Oh! help me to some comfort. The poor boy
(Whom I shall never more hear speak again)
Lies mutely shrouded in my weeping mind,
With all his innocent look. Old Jacob, too,
Sobs at the sight and groaneth in my ear,
And wrings his hands, and ravisheth his beard,
And takes no relish in his faltering prayers.—
Oh! give me back my peace, ye envious men!
And gather up the thorns that ye have cast
Upslanting in my path of life to come.—
I am consum'd with passion, and but fool
My graver senses that should be my guides—
I have nowhere to go!—
[Exit.
Levi.
Is this the May-born Reuben, whose low song
Ever beguil'd his hearers of some tears?—
Is this the gentle brother of our band,
The minstrel of all revels and all hymns,
The first to pity and the last to rave?
I never knew the compass of his voice,
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Until this hour: nor such a swoln display
Of words and actions ever did I find
In any other man.
Zebulun.
I am amaz'd!
Issachar.
I had a mind to beat him to the ground.
Simeon.
A man may hide the dragon in his mind
For twenty years in torpid solitude,
Like to an earthquake 'neath a flowery plain;
But when commotion (bred of some rough cause)
Plays on the secret spring of his command,
Then the great giant passion rears his arms,
And wakes to know himself. Like the milch cow
Whose cub is ravin'd by the nightly wolf,
This Reuben runneth lowing up and down
Devoid of reason, blatant at the moon,
With all his instinct in extremity.
Levi.
The hand of Nature swayeth in these things,
And Reuben answers her in her design.
He is a man who loves his injuries;
Patience and meekness are his qualities.—
With such, their love is long and deep in growth
(Like to the rooted spurs of some fair pine
That spreads its beauties by the river's side);
But when the storm is up, all meekness then
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And patience curdles into feasèd wrath.
They have no force to place against the force,
No temperance stretching into fortitude;
But bind their hands unto their very grief:
Thus all their gentleness is set on fire,
Frighting its boasted guides of many years,
And madness triumphs in the overthrow.
There is no man so dangerous as he
Whose desperation doth contemn his fear;
Except it be the cunning or the wise.
Dan.
Nay, waste no time in scanning his reproof:
We are the gainers, his the loss alone.
Naphtali.
One way we are reveng'd; his grief is vain,
For that the boy still lives upon the earth.
Judah.
And all those curses he hath shed on us
Are blown to waste.
Issachar.
Why, let him go and mystify his days
With an ideal sorrow of the mind,—
His folly thus begets his punishment.
Simeon.
And his loud anger woundeth but himself.
[Exeunt.
| Joseph And His Brethren | |