 | Joseph And His Brethren |  |
Scene I.
—Outside of Jacob's Tent.Enter Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Dan, Naphtali; and Joseph meeting them.
Issachar.
The weed is at the threshold of our tent
To sting us as we enter. My eye is gall'd,
Seeing how merely all our frowns are lost
And overlaid in his smooth courtesy.
Reuben.
My brother, you say right. Like to the wind
That gently sleeks the rugged lion's mane,
Sings in his ears, and daunts his savage eye,
So he your anger woos with kindly breath,
Laughs out of mirth, and, looking in your face,
E'en wonders at your wrath.
Simeon.
This Reuben says:
Fruits of his milky disposition.
He counts as nothing all our father's love,
Regard, or praise, or ancient tenderness;
The honour of attending on a flock
Increasing daily 'neath the watchful eye
Of a wise shepherd; husbanding the grain
Craftily sown, with sweating labour gather'd,
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Knowledge of seasons, lusty pastures green
That fill the cow with milk and fat the lamb,—
The honour and regard which this should buy
Is cast about our brother like a mist;
Yet no more muffled than the goodly Sun
When he begilds the clouds. This new-found star,
This boy has all the praise, the labour we;
Till like a drone he slumbers in our sweets.
Reuben.
I've heard your speech, and freely pardon it.
Simeon.
'Tis just to hate, when love is canker'd thus,
And less than nothing swallows up the whole.
And let me tell you, Reuben, if you fall
Within the limit of my boisterous speech,
So that my censure graze your patience—
Reuben.
Come, peace. I pr'ythee, peace.
Simeon.
Nay, I will speak.
Reuben.
Hold, Simeon! thou'lt get no fear of me.
I am no child to rid thee of thy spleen,
Nor will I back one step for thee or thine.
Silence!—I do command thee. What art thou
Thou younger brother, second unto me,
That thus presumest on my temperance?—
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And I am nimble, full of exercise,
Not cold and sullen; laugh when the sun shines bright,
Sing, and rejoice, light as the summer air—
Out of thy gloom and stately pondering
Art thou at once to carve away the love
I bear thyself, my brother, and my sire;
To task my courage and to tempt it too?—
Oh, trust me, Simeon, I have a gall
(Though commonly 'tis overlaid with love),
And such a one, that had the father's son
Of any sire from hence through Canaan
But cast such sore and undeserving words
On my forbearance, had he thrice thy breadth,
And thrice thy skill, I would have grappled him
And ta'en his heart; but, Simeon, for thee,—
There is a past all precious to my breast.
Can I forget our childhood and our youth,
Our scorching labours in the furrow'd field,
The generous drops of emulation
That cours'd along our swart fraternal brows,
Reaping and sowing with a jealous zeal,
The merry winters under the same tent?
Count o'er the days we've fed at the same board,
The nights we have repos'd on the same skins,—
Thou wilt not wonder then to find my heart
O'erflowing thus in fellowship and love.
Can I forget the many days gone by,
The weeks, and months, and comfortable years,
And raise my hands in any other way
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Lo! see young Joseph weeps.—
Issachar.
So do not I.
Reuben.
The worse for Issachar.
Joseph.
Alas, my brethren!
Come not to words for such a thing as I.
I am but worth your loves and not your wrath,
Which never shows but it augments my grief.
What have I done, or wherein thought amiss?
If to our parent I am dutiful,
It is because his happiness is mine:
I do no more than every youthful son
Should practise on the age of such a sire.
No end have I in this, indeed; no wish
To put your image further from his breast,
Blemish your names (a thing I never thought),
Or place my childhood 'fore your graver years.
Perhaps you think your birthright tempts me on;
That I would work upon our father, so
That all your well-earn'd interest should to seed
While mine would bloom and grow?—Why, this is weak:
For still the power is yours to take it back
(And justice too), for cozening the age
Of our good sire. Yet this must be the cause:
For nought else I have done, I'm well assur'd,
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Forget your frowns; and throw my innocence
Food to your hate, and grieve the while 'tis raven'd.
Issachar.
I have a mind to strike him.
Judah.
Patience awhile:
Offer no spleen before our father's tent;
Each one pass by him mute, and each unload
The burthen of contempt full in his eye.
Reuben.
Love, like the dew upon the myrtle tree,
Is thus bedashèd with a raven wing,
And swath'd in its own fragrance.
Issachar.
Witherèd be his heart. I'll lead the way.
Reuben.
Oh! you do keep your pity in a cage
And whip it to a starv'd obedience.—
Our father comes. Forbear.
Enter Jacob.
Jacob.
What's this?—Cannot I kneel
And breathe my evening prayer for your preserving,
But you will fright the Angel from my thought
With waspish clamour from your evil throats?—
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Cast down the grapes, the fruits and figs you bear,
That were to sup their graceless, hungry lips;
Down with them in the mire close to their feet;
And since they throw away the love of men
As 'twere but the contemnèd rind of life,
Like their own oxen let them stoop and feed,
Befitting their wild passions; for I swear,
Nought shall they eat or drink from off my board
Until the dawn: nor then unless their love
Be-curd and thicken, and their anger melt
Like icicles away.
Judah.
We grieve, indeed,
That you, so partial, stint us of your love.
Jacob.
A lie!—a lie!—You envy this young slip.
Wilt thou teach me, thou climbing, scanty elm,
With joints unsettled, and with eye amaz'd,
Full of fantastic ignorance and youth;
Me, who have kept my brow upon men's deeds
More than six times thine observation
(Being so much more thine age, six times as wise,
Stricken in body, but mature in mind)—
Will you tell me your love degrades you thus?
Do I not know when favours are bestow'd
On young deservers, ye who lag behind
Make wings of envy, forkèd round with spleen;
And, like the foul and ugly bats of night,
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Directly channell'd from the heart, you suck
More valiant blood?—I have a fear of you;
For envy might lead men to cast poor stones
At heaven while it thunders; death waits on it;
On hatred still it feeds and hideous dreams,
And, like a serpent, tracks its victim's heels.
In meanness it begins; proceeds to blood;
And dies of sallow horror by itself.
If it could take the glory that it kills,
It were more nobly bad; but bad indeed,
While it but sweeps it from before its eye,
And like a spider (but more like a flower)
Blends it to earth beneath a fretful foot.
Joseph.
Oh, sir! long time my brothers must have seen
That I may often grieve, but cannot hate.
But since more patience doth beget more spleen,
More tameness harsher words, more grief desire,
I shall take up the manhood they let fall,
Retreat to what defence of mind I have,
And, fortified with conscious honesty,
Tremble no more like to a troubled spring
That every hail-drop shakes with timid fear;
But front them and confront them as I may:
Like to a brother answering their rebukes
With all the sense and wisdom that I have;
Not like my father's bondmen in the stall.—
Why should I not? They act as if the world,
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Were no such things: as if this spot of ours,
Our fields, our cattle, were the all in being.—
Would they be envious, let them then be great,
Envy old cities, ancient neighbourhoods,
Great men of trust, and iron-crownèd kings;
For household envy is a household rat;
Envy of state a devil of some fear.
For me—this Bethel limits not my sight;
For in imagination I can see
Countries beyond, nurs'd by the wit of man,
Wiser in harvest, greater in defence,
With state and pomp and majesty serene:
E'en in my sleep my mind doth eat strange food,
Enough to strengthen me against this hate.
With you, my brethren, I was binding sheaves,
When mine arose and stood in front of yours,
And yours bent grievous low unto the ground:
Nay, more, (yet think me not irreverent),
The sun, and moon, and the eleven stars
Sank, and obey'd me; which is sure a sign
That I am greater than my sire and ye,
However passive in humility;
Be it in love, or act, I leave to time.
Or Heaven of purpose put this in my view,
Or else my mind being troubled of the grief
Of your displeasures, vain of some great power,
Might fancy this in sleep. I do not know;
But feel resolv'd no more to plague my heart,
While you, my brothers, treat me with such scorn.
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Joseph, the eye of Heav'n is on thee:
Shall I and all thy brethren bow us down?—
So be it, if the will of God be so;
And this thy dream soretelleth such event.
Simeon.
The moon is risen: shall we in and sup?
Jacob.
No—not with me; your faces are too dull.
Moody displeasure sits upon your brows,
And conscious malice being over-aw'd
Turns short upon disgust. The time has been
When I have govern'd well the nimble flail
From morning until night; bedash'd the grain,
And stiffen'd not with labour; now I am old:
But could I borrow from my lusty youth,
This staff I carry here to stay my steps
Should strike obedience from you.—Go, and mend!—
Reuben, will you come in and sup with us?
Reuben.
All honour to my father. I am pleas'd
To tend my brothers in the outward tent.
[Exeunt Jacob and Joseph.
Simeon.
So—Reuben, is this well? It cannot last.
Issachar.
Oh, surely not; for those who run so swift
Must stop for want of breath.
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I know not, I:
Yet I do think our honest services
Deserve a better treatment than they meet.
Naphtali.
I hate this Joseph.
Judah.
So, Naphtali, do I;
He frets me like a thorn beneath the skin.
Not Jacob's anger, nor a host of sires
Can breed so much affection in my heart
E'en as a drop of dew.
Zebulun.
Oh, I am sick!—
Why should a fellow here, made up of dreams,
With blue and beaming eyes and snaking hair,
Born after us so far, so green in years,
Vault like a nimble leaper at one jump
Between our sire and us, and charm his sight
Like to a subtle serpent in a brake?
As well to build a wall 'tween us and him!
Dan.
When I was young I was not spoilèd thus.
Turn'd in the winter forth to break the ground;
In burning summer made to drive afield;
Fasting and thirsting, often have I cast
My weary body 'neath a shady tree,
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What is this Joseph made of—this nice youth—
That he to manhood claims a daintier way?
What are his limbs that they must clothe so warm?
What is his head that it must lie so soft?
What is his mettle, when the greatest deed
He ever does is, storm a wild bee's nest?
Simeon.
Thou oracle and champion of all this,
Reuben, I prythee in cool reason say,
Out of thine abstract honesty of thought,
Does not our father 'bate us in regard,
Labour to lay it upon Joseph's head;
And at all times by thought and word and deed,
O'erlooking us, reflect on him a worth
That he has neither earn'd nor yet deserv'd?
Lastly, his passion borders on revenge;
Suspicion leaps to serve him to the brink
Even of blood. He sees us like to shades
With instruments of death and brows severe
Ready to blight the image of the mind.
Reuben.
No more! No more!—come, let us in and sup.
This awkward after-quest of thine bespeaks
The evil thou dost deprecate, as truth.
Shame comes of such equivocation.
Simeon.
This will not serve. Thou canst not answer me.
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Nor am I bound; for if I sometimes speak
For general quiet and the love of peace,
I bargain not to hunt each flying thought
That breaketh cover from thy brambly mind;
But since I see contempt upon thy front,
Forestallèd triumph in thy sullen eye,
I'll answer thee, and with the simple truth
Defend myself, defeat thy argument
That in quaint cunning terms doth challenge me.
I'll give thee ground, and shame thee.—Say, our sire
Garlands his sprightly Joseph with his love,
Keeps him like honey in the winter stor'd
To feast the scanty comfort of his age:
Old men are full of years and full of pain,—
The world's worn out, to them, a garment us'd,
And novelty, the salt of youth, is dead.
Say they can cheat rude sadness with some joy
That lives in fancy and beguiles the mind,—
Is he not cruel who such comfort lames
(Like a rich beggar of a precious thing),
Crying, ‘Give me, I pr'ythee, thy regard;
I am right worthy, and I cannot bear
To see thy dotage sloven'd on a child?’
In sooth, I inwardly rejoice to see
The lucid pleasure in our father's eye,
(Like to the sun piercing a watery cloud)
When Joseph sings, or speaks a merry thought.
The pang of envy touches not my breast;
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The most forgotten reed upon a pipe,
Than mar the harmony his choice could breed,
With the loud discord of your ill content.
Say Jacob's choleric and sharp of speech;
It ever was the trick of thwarted age.
Why, ye are choleric and wroth, though young.
And trust me, sirs, our imperfections
Will follow age, nor die before the man,—
Rather as weeds nourish'd by habitude,
That overgrow the rotten outer fence,
Augment with plenitude of years: while life
Is life, man to the last is ever man.
The common fault is yours, and this it is—
All excellence in others you expect,
Ne'er looking backward to the lack within.
What right have you, ye disobedient boys,
To tax our father, whether right or wrong?
Is it his snowy beard that makes ye bold?
His honour'd head grac'd with the remnant curls?
His shoulders stoop'd, upholden by a staff?
His body worn to keep you warm in youth?
Is it because his love is old and good
That rear'd you up, gave you your flocks and herds,
And taught you how to tend them and to thrive,
And kept you from the stalls of other men,
Base bondmen hired for a scanty meal?
Is it because he holds you dear and warm
E'en as the life-blood coursing through his veins?
Trust me, my brethren, he hath goodly cause
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Why he should hug young Joseph to his heart.
Rachel, his mother, perish'd by the way,
Whom Jacob lov'd with rare affection;
And he, too, falling past his mellow years,
With earthly love grew fond of this same youth,
And as men cling unto the hope of life
E'en in the awful passage of stiff death,
So age doth fondle o'er the acts of youth,
And half re-lives those joys and hopes again;
When memory from dark oblivion calls
So long supine our former selves to life,
Making an hour of such deep repose
Worth all the life to come. Indeed, indeed,
Such things as these will meddle with the heart.
Come, brethren, let us in and woo our sire,
For it is dangerous, and tempting Heaven,
To harbour hate, where duty bids us love.
Simeon.
Well, I will go, yet 'tis against my will:
My feet obey your words; my mind remains
In stubborn pain, the prisoner of my breast.
Issachar.
This honey'd Reuben steals away my brain.—
Well, I will in; be gay and cheerful too;
That he may think my anger cheaply bought
For a few sugar'd words. Come! In with him!
[Exeunt.
| Joseph And His Brethren | |