ACT I.
“Therefore we are carefully to proceed in Magic, lest that Syrens and other monsters deceive us, which likewise do desire the society of the human soul.”
Arbatel of Magic. Aphorism 35.
A lonely and desolate plain. Tannhäuser riding towards a great mountain.
Tannhäuser.
S IX days. Creation took no longer! Yet
I wander eastward, and no light is found.
The stars their motion shirk, or else forget.
The sun—the moon? Imprisoned underground!
Where gnomes disport, and devils do abound.
Six days. I journey to the black unknown,
Always in hope the Infinite may rise
Some unexpected instant, as ’twere grown
A magic palace to enchanted eyes;
A wizard guerdon for a minstrel wise.
Perhaps I am a fool to think that here,
Merely by rending Nature’s hollow veil,
I may attain the Solitary Sphere,
Achieve the Path; or, haply, if I fail,
Gain the Elixir, or behold the Grail.
I seek the mystery of Life and Time,
The Key of all that is not and that is,
And that which—climb, imagination! climb!—
Transcends them both—the mystical abyss
Where Mind and Being marry, and are Bliss.
So have I journeyed—like a fool! Ah, well!
Let pass self-scorn, as love of self is past!
But—am I further forward? Who can tell?
God is the Complex as the Protoplast:
He is the First (not “was”), and is the Last
(Not “will be”). Then why travel? To what end?
What is the symbol I am set to find?
What is that burning heart of blood to spend
Caught in a sunset with the night behind,
The Grail of God? I would that I were blind!
I would that I were desolate and dumb,
Naked and poor! That He might manifest
A crimson glory subtly caught and come,
An opal crucible of Alkahest!
And yet—what gain of vital gold expressed?
This were my guerdon: to fade utterly
Into the rose-heart of that sanguine vase,
And lose my purpose in its silent sea,
And lose my life, and find my life, and pass
Up to the sea that is as molten glass.
I mind me of that old Egyptian,
Met where Aurora streamed her rainbow hair,
Who called me from the quest. An holy man!
A crown of light scintillant in the air
Shone over him: he bade me not despair.
“The Blood of the Osiris” was his word:
(Meaning the Christ?) “The life, the tears, the tomb!
The Love of Isis is its name!” (I heard
This for the love of Mary.) In her womb
Brews the Elixir, and the roses bloom.
For the Three Maries (so he said) were One:
Three aspects of the mystic spouse of God,
Isis! This pagan! “Look towards the Sun”
(Quoth he) “And seek a winepress to be trod;
With Beauty girdled, garlanded, and shod.”
“Thus,” riddled he, “thy heart shall know its Peace!”
Let be! I ride upon the sand instead,
Look to the Cross, whereon I take mine ease!
Let be! Just so the Roman soldier said.
Esaias? He is dead—as I am dead!
What was his symbol and his riddle’s key?
Go, seek the stars and count them and explore!
Go, sift the sands beyond a starless sea!
So, find an answer where the dismal shore
Of time beats back eternity! No more!
Let me ride on more hastily than this,
That so my body may be tired of me,
And fling me to the old forgetful kiss,
Sleep’s, when my mind goes, riderless and free,
Into some corner of eternity.
Alas! that mind returns from its abode
With newer problems, fiercer thoughts! But stay!
Suppose it came not? It must be with God!—
Then this dull house of gold and iron and clay
Is happy also—’tis an easy way!
So easy, I am fearful of mishap.
Some fatal argument the God must find
That linked us first. The dice are in His lap—
Let Him decide in His imperial mind!
My choice; to see entirely—and be blind!
Yet I bethink me of that holy man,
(Pagan albeit) my stirrup’s wisdom-share:
“Learn this from Thothmes the Egyptian.
Use only in thine uttermost despair!”
He whispered me a Word. “Beware! Beware!”
“Two voices are there in the sullen sea;
Two functions hath the inevitable fire;
Earthquake hath earth, and yet fertility:
See to thy purpose, and thy set desire!
Else, dire the fate—the ultimation dire!”
Vague threats and foolish words! Quite meaningless
The empty sounds he muttered in mine ear.
Why should their silly mystery impress
My thoughtful forehead with the lines of fear?
(This riding saps my courage as my cheer.)
Still, I must see his symbol of the Sun,
The Winepress, and the Beauty! Puerile
And pagan to that old mysterious one,
The awful Light and the anointed Vial,
The Dawning of the Blood, even as a smile:—
Even as a smile on Beauty’s burning cheek—
Ha! In a circle? As this journey is?
How vain is man’s imagining and weak!
Begod my lady, and my lady’s kiss?
Back swing we to the pitiful abyss.
Liken God’s being to the life of man.
So reason staggers. Angels, answer me!
Ye who have watched the far unfolding plan—
How is time shorter than eternity?
Prove it and weigh! By mind it cannot be.
All our divisions spring in our own brain.
See! As upsprings on the horizon there
A clefted hill contemptuous of the plain.
(Why, which is higher?) I am in despair.
Let me essay the Pharaoh and his prayer!
[Tannhäuser speaks the Word of Double Power.
Oh God, Thy blinding beauty, and the light
Shed from Thy shoulders, and the golden night
Of mingling fire and stars and roses swart
In the long flame of hair that leaps athwart,
Live in each tingling gossamer! Dread eyes!
Each flings its arrow of sharp sacrifice,
Eating me up with poison! I am hurled
Far through the vaporous confines of the world
With agony of sundering sense, beholding
Thy mighty flower, blood-coloured death, unfolding!
Lithe limbs and supple shoulders and lips curled,
Curled out to draw me to their monstrous world!
Warm breasts that glow with light ephemeral
And move with passionate music to enthrall,
To charm, to enchant, to seal the entrancing breath.
I fall! Stop! Spare me!—Slay me!
[Tannhäuser enters into an ecstasy.
This is death.
[The evil and averse Hathoör, or Venus, who hath arisen in the place of the Great Goddess, lifteth up her voice and chanteth:—
Venus.
Isis am I, and from my life are fed
All showers and suns, all moons that wax and wane,
All stars and streams, the living and the dead,
The mystery of pleasure and of pain.
I am the mother! I the speaking sea!
I am the earth and its fertility!
Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me—
To me!
Hathoör am I, and to my beauty drawn
All glories of the Universe bow down,
The blossom and the mountain and the dawn,
Fruit’s blush, and woman, our creation’s crown.
I am the priest, the sacrifice, the shrine,
I am the love and life of the divine!
Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness are surely mine—
Are mine!
Venus am I, the love and light of earth,
The wealth of kisses, the delight of tears,
The barren pleasure never come to birth,
The endless, infinite desire of years.
I am the shrine at which thy long desire
Devoured thee with intolerable fire.
I was song, music, passion, death, upon thy lyre—
Thy lyre!
I am the Grail and I the Glory now:
I am the flame and fuel of thy breast;
I am the star of God upon thy brow;
I am thy queen, enraptured and possessed.
Hide thee, sweet river; welcome to the sea,
Ocean of love that shall encompass thee!
Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me—
To me!
[Tannhäuser perceives that he is in the palace
of a Great Queen.
Rise, rise, my knight! My king! My love, arise!
See the grave avenues of Paradise,
The dewy larches bending at my breath,
Portentous cedars prophesying death!
See the long vistas and the dancing sea,
The measured motion of fecundity!
Bright winds set swaying the soft-sounding flowers
(Here flowers have music) in my woven bowers,
Where sweet birds blossom, and in chorus quire
The rapt beginnings of immense desire.
Here is the light and rapture of the will:
We touch the stars—and they are tiny still!
O mighty thews! O godlike face and hair!
Rise up and take me; ay, and keep me there,
One tingle at thy touch from head to feet;
Lips that cling close, and never seem to meet,
Melting as sunlight melts in wine! Arise!
Shame! Has thy learning left thee overwise?
Thy lips sing fondly—to another tune.
Nay! ’twas my breathing beauty made thee swoon,
Dread forkéd fire across the cloven sky;
Stripped off thy body of mortality—
Nay, but on steeper slopes my love shall strive!
Our bodies perish and our hearts revive
Vainly, unless the shaking sense beware
The crested snakes shot trembling through our hair,
Their wisdom! But our souls leap, flash, unite,
One crownéd column of avenging light,
Fixed and yet floating, infinite, immense,
Caught in the meshes of the cruel sense,
Two kissing breaths of agony and pleasure,
Mixed, crowned, divided, beyond age or measure,
Time, thought, or being! Now thine eyes awake,
Droop at my kisses; the long lashes slake
Their sleek and silky thirst in tears of light!
Thine eyes! They burn me, even me! They smite
Me who am scatheless, and a flame of fire.
See, in our sorrow and intense desire
All worlds are caught and sealed! The stars are taken
In love’s weak web, and gathered up, and shaken!
Our word is mighty on the magic moon!
The sun resurges to our triple tune!
(See, it is done!) O chosen of the Christ!
My knight, and king, and lover, wast thou priced,
A portion in the all-pervading bliss,
Thou, whom I value at my ageless kiss?
Chosen of Me! Thou heart of hearts, thou mine,
Man! Stamping into dust the Soul Divine
By might of that mere Manhood! Sense and thought
Reel for the glory of thee kissed and caught
In the eternal circle of my arms!
Woven in vain are the mysterious charms
Endymion taught Diana! For one gaze;
One word of my unutterable praise;
And I was utterly and ever lost,
Lost in the whirlwind of thy love, and tossed
A wreck on its irremeable sea!
Life! Life! This kiss! Draw in thy breath! To me!
To me![Tannhäuser is lost.