University of Virginia Library

Scene I

A silent wintry night on the seashore of Smyrna; at the back the dark flow of the sea. Rabbis stand together in their dark turbans; at a little distance Abraham Rubio squats on the sand.
Rabbis
(speaking among themselves).
The sea is cold.
The sea is very cold.
The sea is starry.
Like wounds upon the sea are the large stars.

Rubio.

And our young Rabbi is down in the
winter-sea—cold as death; if this bath is purification,
Abraham Rubio will be unclean till the day
of the promise. How Sabbataï must shiver!

Rabbis
(among themselves).
Hush, hush, the stars are shivering as they shine,
Hush, we are shivering.
It is very cold.
It is cold, and yet the stars are gay at heart.
Do you not feel them gay, as maidens shake
On the verges of a dance, on the shores of music,
That has not touched their ears to stir their feet?
We are waiting, and the sea and stars are waiting,
The Heavens, the Earth, the people of our God,
Who made the Heavens and Earth and chose our tribes.
We wait—O God, how long we wait—we wait!

Primo.
Why should ye hope this dreamy Cabalist,
This self-tormentor, with the ardent lips,
And eyes wrapped in their secrecy as clearly
As summer's crystal blueness, will arise
And make avowal he is born of God?

Rabbis.
We wait.
The sea is waiting and the stars.
We all are ready and the night grows deep.
You see him?
Do you see the Sainted?
Yonder,
Clean arrows of the stars shoot round a darkness
That should be he, tranquil and set with waves.

Rubio.

What a patience! His entrails must be
cold as the belly of a corpse in its new grave:
mine starve at the thought.

Primo.
Why should he break his silence? Sabbataï
Is silent ever, and he will not speak.

Rabbis.
He will.
The stars have told us,
The sea has told us,
The Heavens—the Earth,
Our hearts.

Rubio.

What do I do here? The city is gone away
from life into sleep. It is deaf. Minarets and
cypresses are tipped with snow, the Acropolis lies
under a roof of snow; I should lie under my
Syrian rug, if I were not too much of a beggar to
own one. God of Israel, we are all beggars here,
we are all hungry and cold! Have mercy, have
mercy—feed Thou our emptiness!

Rabbis.
The sea is icier than the snow.
The stars are whiter.
He is gone from sight, he has closed himself away.
No, no, he is there again.
He moves.
He is coming....
He comes up from the waters of the deep.
O everlasting Ocean!
See, he moves,
As rhythmic as a wave on toward the land,
Dripping the ocean from his head: the stars
Scatter their silver tresses round.
The stars,—
The stars are wild and rapturous.
He is coming....
It is silent.
The rams' horns
Are silent so from new moon to new moon.
The thunder of the sky
Is silent thus before its instant.
God,
We will be silent, for our hearts have voice
Waiting for breath breathed on them by thy Will!
[They make no sound, but as Sabbataï comes nearer they draw back.
We dare not....
We must move or cry.
O terror!
God moves upon the waters. Who abides
His coming?
On the shore he sets his feet.
The waving stars, the flame-haired Seraphim!
Beautiful is his coming;
Bare the star-rays
About his naked form ... the night's expansion!
Peace!
He is standing silent.
Heaven and Earth
And sea and stars and men are therefrom silent.
Oh!

[They hold their breath.
[Sabbataï seems to be drinking in power from the universe as he stands naked before them. At last over the shore and city is heard one cry.
Sabbataï.
Jhwh!

[There is a moment of panic as the forbidden name is spoken.
A Rabbi
(in the whisper of a death-chamber).
Who may speak the Name but one?

A Chorus.
Messiah!
Hail, Messiah!
Sent of God!
Born to his people!
Our Deliverance!
See, see, he stands before us.

Primo.
He has spoken,
The stars have heard the Name and did not fall,
The sea has heard it and the sea extends
Floating and calm; the night has heard and shines
Across its ragged cloud; we too have heard,
And live and shout our joy—out of our joy
We see and know God's Chosen.

Rabbis.
Sabbataï!
Our King, our Lord of Lords!
The true Messiah!
The King of all Kings, the Celestial Lion!
Who will redeem his people!
Who will gather
The remnant from the winds!
Our joy, our joy!
He is the true Messiah!
Sabbataï!
And without weapons he shall wage his war,
And quell the dragon with no weapon raised.

Rubio.

He will take away our reproach, he will fill
us with good things and gold will pertain to him.
Let us believe and we shall be princes.

Primo.
We must believe, for the sky stands; the sea,
And stars of heaven are white as snow about him
Who has joined heaven and earth
With the four sounds of God's mysterious Name,
Uniting the Creator and His World.
We must believe; it is not left to faith—
We have heard the Name and live, we have seen the night,
The host of heaven, the ocean and the shore
Secure while the intolerable touched
Voiceful each mortal substance. Let us pray
To God, our God, we be of His true Kingdom,
And of Messiah's Kingdom that begins.

[They lift their arms. From all the snowy minarets come voices.
The Muéddin.
God is great, there is no God but God,
Mohammed is God's prophet.

[Sabbataï, as if waking from a trance, shivers.
Sabbataï.
It is cold.

Rubio.
Prince, your entrails must be chilled in your belly.
The God of Jacob warm them!

Primo.
Holy One, let us go back with praises!
We have outstripped the dawn now thou art risen—
Our Sun that shineth. We are blest, we are saved.

(The Rabbis fall on their faces before him, but Rubio lifts up to him his gabardine and turban from under the stones of a rock.