University of Virginia Library

SCENE IV.

—Eber and Irad approach. Irad runs forward to his mother.
IRAD.
See! mother! mother!
See what a ship Eber has made for me!
The keel is carved from cedar-wood, the prow
Is beaked and curled, the hull is hollowed out,
And holds a cargo of the richest dates,
We plucked together. From the canes that grow,—
You know them, mother,—on the Euphrates' banks,
He cut these great tall masts, and from their leaves,
Hauled from the water, shaped their flapping sails.
The cordage is of palm-pith, and the crew
Moulded from river-slime. They are at work,
Tug at the ropes, feel at the helm, and sit
Among the shrouds like living mariners.
Is it not wonderful?

NOEMA.
A splendid toy.
How kind of Eber! Have you thanked him for it?

IRAD.
O yes! But 'tis no toy. How foolish, mother!
It is a real, real ship, with force to skim
What Eber calls the ocean. Oh! I wish
That there were water here, and I could show you
What a grand giant of a ship it is,
And how it butts the wave, when dragged along!

NOEMA.
Where is the trough on which thou sail'st thy boats?

IRAD.
The trough! What, mother, are you thinking of?
'Tis well enough for little paper skiffs,
Such as thou mak'st for me. But Eber says
The river's self is yet too small to bear
A huge live vessel. Oh! that I could see
This ocean, and upon it sail my boats,
And ride on the rough waves along with them!
[Eber comes up.
I have been showing mother my rare ship.
O Eber, thank you, thank you! But I want
To launch it on the ocean. Mother thinks
A trough will serve for monsters like to this.
When will you show me the broad ocean, Eber?

NOEMA.
Welcome, good Eber! and a mother's thanks
That thou hast so much kindliness to waste
Upon her child.

IRAD.
When will you take me, Eber?

NOEMA.
Tax Eber now no more with thy demands,
But with thy silence pay thy gratitude.
Take thy ship, Irad, thy magnificent ship,
And find it storage 'mong thy dwarfer boats.

IRAD.
But see the name Eber has burnt on it!
The Tower! The Tower! My ship is called The Tower!
Why, everybody loves the Tower but mother,
But chiding, darling mother.
[He throws his arms round Noema and kisses her.
Now I go,
To find my ship a good dry landing-place.
Again, I thank you, Eber,—thank you, thank you!

[Exit.
NOEMA.
I wish thou hadst not called his toy The Tower.
I hate the name.

EBER.
Hate! What is there to hate?
It is a toy like Irad's: bigger truly,
As are its builders; but a toy at which
The Gods but smile, even as we smile at his!

NOEMA.
Why dost thou speak of Gods? There is one God,
Tradition tells, one only, one in Heaven.

EBER.
Tradition is a senile counsellor,
With memory half gone. The same old tales
She loves to mumble, and distort afresh.
She is a toothless crone, whose jumbling wit
Ranges through gossip, dreams, fears, tattered scraps
Of musty prophecy, report, surmise,
And quick-grown rumour, which when pierced, betrays,
Like to a specious spurious agaric,
But smoke and stench inside. Tradition chokes
Discovery's highway, nor can single truth
Elbow its road through fable's dense-packed crowd.
Gods there may be, or God; 'tis yet to prove.
Perchance we ne'er shall prove it. But 'tis well
To clinch this on the mind,—that oft there hides
A treasure-trove in e'en old women's tales,
Though, like a rubbish-heap, they scarcely tempt
A nice hand to disturb them.

NOEMA.
I am a woman;
And likely we are all,—old, young, and those
Nor young nor old,—to wisdom foolishness.
Yet, may be, we have ever and anon
Glimpses of things too coy to let the wise
Upon their delicate proportions stare.
But tell me, what is doing at the Tower;
If Aran wields authority as sure
As when he first affirmed it?

EBER.
More, far more.
Rebellion stooped to pick up brands this morn,
But quick he snatched them from its half-raised arm,
And smote its back with its own instruments.
Oh! it was rare to see the front with which
He frowned down Korah, and the flashing eyes
Before whose scorching fire e'en Peleg shrank,
Lest it should blister him! For though I rate
Their Tower but as a ladder whence I may,
Deciphering, read Heaven's starry hieroglyphs,
Male courage in the male breast echo wakes,
And like an instant hurricane that straight
Tears out the heart o' the forest with its teeth,
He carried all before him. Long live Aran!
Long live our liberation! loudly rang
Up all the massive whorls of the huge Tower,
That seemed to shake with shouting.

NOEMA.
And the end?

EBER.
I am nor prophet nor priest; and he who scans
The certain skies, learns to be diffident
Of what is all uncertain. But of late
Have I marked strange conjunctions which if read
With due intelligence, to portents point:
Convulsion in the top and bottom worlds,
With trouble in their middle atmospheres;
Quakes, tremors, tempests, tides irregular,
All order topsy-turvy, ordered yet
By supereminent Order which defies
The reach of calculation short as mine.

NOEMA.
But hast thou not warned Aran of all this?

EBER.
Warned Aran! 'Twere as sane to warn the wave
'Twill 'gainst the shore but pound itself to spray,
Warn the fierce-grinning tiger, ere it springs,
'Twill only leap upon the hunter's spear,
As Aran warn with message from the skies.
Doth he not listen to thy homely voice,
The cracking universe would find him deaf.
But pardon me if in my quick retort
I had forgotten who thou art, and who,
He whom I seem to slight. I do not slight him.
His road towards Heaven and mine are different,
And I should tack and trim where he sails slap
In the gale's brunt. But 'tis a fearless heart.
And fearlessness, accounted much by men,
Sums conquest over women. Fare thee well!

[Exit.
NOEMA.
(sol.)
But why should we be conquered? Why not won
With patient arts of gentle mastery?
We are crushed easily; that's sure enough.
But is it well or wise, manly or just,
To plant the heel of domination down
With such an emphasis on things so soft?
For we are less than they, more subtle, weak,
Unstable, more the straws of accident;
And only that perverseness, which is part
Of our infirmity, would claim a place
Of equal sway beside them. Like control
Begets a like responsibility;
And Heaven forbid that we should ever be
Responsible against the storms, the cuffs,
And rude surprises of the world, that would
Swift whelm us utterly! We need a shicld,
But shield which, rough upon the foeful side,
Wears yet a smooth concavity, nor galls
The following breast, it has to save from hurt.
If fearlessness were all, why then one might
As well go couple with the hugging bear,
Lie with the pard and suckle his hot cubs,
Be littered with the lion, kiss the wolf,
Or feel the scratching of the tiger's claws
Upon one's back in amorous savagery!
O gentle-touching Spirit! thou dost not crush,
Nor make me feel my inequality,
Though betwixt thee and me extends the space
That lies 'twixt Earth and Heaven! I to thee
Could live subservient ever, and look up
Theeward, as fondly as at some one star,
Seen through blue rifts of fleecy-scudding clouds!
Yet in thy star remain, nor answer me
With the fulfilment of my timid wants,
Which, if they saw the long-feigned goal too near,
Would turn and run affrighted, to regain
The safe confinement of their starting-place.
Such contradiction fights in woman's veins!
He must not come to-night!