 | A Messiah |  |
Scene I
The seashore beyond Smyrna. On the stony coast oleanders press their bloom together. It is dawn. A tall, winged, glancing figure is pacing the edges of the waves beside Sabbataï.Sabbataï
(stopping; then turning to front the figure).
Who art thou?
The Figure.
Gabriel.
Sabbataï.
Oh, then, thou bringest tidings of my God:
Thou art ever in His presence.
The Figure.
Thou art closer
To Him than I. He feeds thee from His fountains.
Sabbataï.
From the most secret places of the rocks
With the water that sprang forth at Moses' stroke.
Angel, I cannot show the world this fountain;
It makes green, silent pastures in my heart,
The song that beamed through David's blood, the springtide
That blossoms through these withies as a rose.
I have no speech—I am where silence is—
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By rising from the sea, as the sun rises
Apparent on his journey with no sound.
I have no voice.... Can there be voices, angel,
For anything we feel, our sleep, our waking,
The changes in us when we love, we die?
I have no tongue—
My hour is secret ... and the world athirst.
The Figure.
Speak, O Messiah, what is in your heart!
This perfect morning God would have you choose,
Taking no counsel, your devoted path,
As birds raise up their wings.
Sabbataï.
If He had told me!
What need, O Gabriel, you should leave His throne
If this had welled up in me?
The Figure.
It has welled—
That thou shouldst sail in a Saic barque,
Garnished with gold that men may mark;
Shouldst sail away to the Soldan's land,
And to sound of shawms take in thy hand
The crown of the world from the Soldan's head,
Thyself being crowned and no blood shed,
No crying from those that are slaughtered,
And no silence from those that are dead.
Atone, that for thy tarrying and thy doubt
I left God's presence.
Sabbataï.
Hie thee to the Throne.
My dream is given me. I will go alone
To the sound of music—
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No, Messiah, thou
Must lead the people to thy music now.
Call the Musicians—
Call the Mariners ...
[The Figure vanishes.
Sabbataï
(extending his arm toward the sea).
God, thou hast sent thy Angel Gabriel
To quicken me: Thou grievest me in this.
Thou sendest forth thy messengers to men
To warn them or forbid: to thine elect
Thou art as the sparkle in the diamond,
That has no entrance ...
[Nachmonides, in his black cloak and turban, comes along the shore with feeble steps. Sabbataï meets him.
Ah, Nachmonides!
I could embrace these towers of rose.
[Pointing to the shrubs.
What breath
Of roses and death and nard!—I have my dream.
Nachmonides.
Rabbi, we have seen your faith:
what is your dream?
Sabbataï.
Messiah's dream—to live the prophecies.
Nachmonides.
Messiah is the whole of the prophecies.
Think not of fulfilment if indeed you are
chosen. Rabbi, do not tempt God. Prophecies
come unto men—the cranes fly back to announce
the spring, but spring appears when the hour is
come. What joy of face you have! Can prophecies
awake such dominion?
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The prophecy of Nathan—
That I shall take the world with harmony
From all the instruments of string and vent,
Issuing their deep compulsion; that the Soldan
Shall let my hands discrown him, as the year,
With horns, with blaring trumpet, abdicates
To the new year of time. I sail, Nachmonides.
God bids me sail—sail with dispassioned music—
Then lead the Soldan captive to the river
Sabbation, then lead my people homeward
To Holy Land.... It is the prophecy.
Nachmonides.
But where are the words of the antique
prophets? Is there in Torah the naming
of your river Sabbation? Elijah, Isaiah! What
have they to do with the Soldan Mohammed?
What with Nathan Ghazati?
Sabbataï.
The Kabbala, Nachmonides, to me
Is more profoundly open than to any,
Even than to Chayim Vital: it foretells
The triumph of the Holy King, my triumph.
You are a Talmudist—your eyes are blind.
Nachmonides.
Ah, Rabbi—that book of destruction,
that nurse of falsehood, your Kabbala—would
you had never unrolled it!
Sabbataï.
Never without the treasures of its sea
Had I been called and given the voice of God!
Why take my spirit from me, unbeliever?
Why come on gladness as deficiency?
Go to your sick! Farewell, Nachmonides.
Nachmonides.
God's blessing preserve you, Rabbi!
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down among his patients; but, stretched on his
back, he would praise you as full of life, yet warn
you as nourishing death—to his subtle eyesight
even at this moment unconcealed—he would
instruct of the remedies, as thus: to stay in
Smyrna, to put a foot on no vessel for any port;
to burn your Kabbala with flame of fire, and let
the light within you shine out as a pharos.
Sabbataï.
God's angel has been with me out of heaven:
As from God's lips I am breathed on for this sailing.
The stress of Gabriel's pinion bore my doom.
Nachmonides.
I would I were laid on my back;
but behold, I am standing on feeble legs—and
Messiah needs no physician. Well, Rabbi, God
be with you!
| A Messiah | |