Satires
I.—Of Satire and its Subjects
Still shall I hear and never pay the score, Stunned with hoarse Codrus' "Theseid" o'er and o'er? Shall this man's elegies and the other's play Unpunished murder a long summer day?
The poet exclaims against the dreary commonplaces in contemporary poetry, and against recitations fit to crack the very statues and colonnades of the neighbourhood! But he also underwent his training in rhetoric.
So, since the world with writing is possessed, I'll versify in spite, and do my best To make as much wastepaper as the rest!
It may be asked, why write satire? The reason is to be found in the ubiquitous presence of offensive men and women. It would goad anyone into fury to note the social abuses, the mannish women, and the wealthy upstarts of the imperial city.
When the soft eunuch weds, and the bold fair Tilts at the Tuscan boar with bosom bare, When all our lords are by his wealth outvied Whose razor on my callow beard was tried, When I behold the spawn of conquered Nile, Crispinus, both in birth and manners vile, Pacing in pomp with cloak of purple dye— I cannot keep from satire, though I try!
There is an endless succession of figures to annoy: the too successful lawyer, the treacherous spy, the legacy-hunter. How one's anger blazes when a ward is driven to evil courses by the unscrupulous knavery of a guardian, or when a guilty governor gets a merely nominal sentence!
Marius, who pilled his province, 'scapes the laws, And keeps his money, though he lost his cause: His fine begged off, contemns his infamy, Can rise at twelve, and get him drunk ere three— Enjoys his exile, and, condemned in vain, Leaves thee, victorious province, to complain! Such villainies roused Horace into wrath, And 'tis more noble to pursue his path Than an old tale of Trojan brave to treat, Or Hercules, or Labyrinth of Crete.
It is no time to write fabulous epics when cuckolds connive at a wife's dishonour, and when horse-racing ne'er-do-wells expect commissions in the army. One is tempted to fill volumes in the open street about such figures as the forger carried by his slaves in a handsome litter, or about the wealthy widow acquainted with the mode of getting rid of a husband by poison.
Wouldst thou to honours and preferment climb? Be bold in mischief—dare some mighty crime, Which dungeons, death, or banishment deserves, For virtue is but drily praised—and starves. To crime men owe a mansion, park, and state, Their goblets richly chased and antique plate. Say, who can find a night's repose at need, When a son's wife is bribed to sin for greed, When brides are frail, and youths turn paramours? If nature can't, then wrath our verse ensures! Count from the time since old Deucalion's boat, Raised by the flood, did on Parnassus float: Whatever since that golden age was done, What human kind desires, and what they shun, Joy, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, transport, rage, Shall form the motley subject of my page. And when could Satire boast so fair a field? Say, when did vice a richer harvest yield? When did fell avarice so engross the mind? Or when the lust of play so curse mankind? O Gold, though Rome beholds no altar's flame, No temples rise to thy pernicious name, Such as to Victory, Virtue, Faith are reared, Or Concord, where the clamorous stork is heard, Yet is thy full divinity confessed, Thy shrine established here, in every breast.
After a vigorous outburst against the degrading scramble among impoverished clients for doles from their patrons, and a mordant onslaught upon the gluttony of the niggardly rich, Juvenal sees in his age the high-water mark of iniquity.
Nothing is left, nothing for future times, To add to the full catalogue of crimes: Vice has attained its zenith; then set sail, Spread all thy canvas, Satire, to the gale.
II.—A Satire on Rome
This sharp indictment is put in the mouth of one Umbricius, who is represented as leaving his native city in disgust. Rome is no place for an honourable character, he exclaims.
Here, then, I bid my much-loved home farewell. Ah, mine no more! There let Arturius dwell, And Catulus; knaves, who, in truth's despite, Can white to black transform, and black to white. Build temples, furnish funerals, auctions hold, Farm rivers, ports, and scour the drains for gold! But why, my friend, should I at Rome remain? I cannot teach my stubborn lips to feign; Nor when I hear a great man's verses, smile, And beg a copy, if I think them vile.
The worst feature is the predominance of crafty and cozening Greeks, who, by their versatility and diplomacy, can oust the Roman.
I cannot rule my spleen and calmly see A Grecian capital—in Italy! A flattering, cringing, treacherous artful race, Of torrent tongue, and never-blushing face; A Protean tribe, one knows not what to call, Which shifts to every form, and shines in all: Grammarian, painter, augur, rhetorician, Rope-dancer, conjurer, fiddler, and physician, All trades his own your hungry Greekling counts; And bid him mount the sky—the sky he mounts!
The insinuating flatteries of these aliens are so masterfully contrived that the blunt Roman has no chance against such a nation of actors.
Greece is a theatre where all are players. For, lo! their patron smiles—they burst with mirth; He weeps—they droop, the saddest souls on earth; He calls for fire—they court the mantle's heat; "'Tis warm," he cries—the Greeks dissolve in sweat!
Besides, they are dangerously immoral. Their philosophers are perfidious. These sycophant foreigners can poison a patron against a poor Roman client. This leads to an outburst against poverty and its disadvantages.
The question is not put, how far extends One's piety, but what he yearly spends. The account is soon cast up: the judges rate Our credit in the court by our estate. Add that the rich have still a gibe in store, And will be monstrous witty on the poor. This mournful truth is everywhere confessed— Slow rises worth by property depressed. At Rome 'tis worse; where house-rent by the year, And servants' bellies costs so devilish dear.
It is a city where appearance beyond one's means must he kept up; whereas, in the country one need never spend money even on a toga. Everything has its price in Rome. To interview a great man, his pampered lackeys must have a fee.
Then there are risks in a great capital unknown in country towns. There are tumble-down tenements with the buttresses ready to give; there are top garrets where you may lose your life in a fire. You could buy a nice rustic home for the price at which a dingy hovel is let in Rome. Besides, the din of the streets is killing. Rome is bad for the nerves. Folk die of insomnia. By day you get crushed, bumped, and caked with mud. A soldier drives his hobnails into your toe. You may be the victim of a street accident.
Heavens! should the axle crack, which bears a weight Of huge Ligurian stone, and pour the freight On the pale crowd beneath, what would remain, What joint, what bone, what atom of the slain? The body, with the soul, would vanish quite, Invisible, as air, to mortal sight! Meanwhile, unconscious of their master's fate, At home they heat the water, scour the plate, Arrange the strigils, fill the cruse with oil, And ply their several tasks with fruitless toil. But he, the mangled victim, now a ghost, Sits pale and trembling on the Stygian coast, A stranger shivering at the novel scene, At Charon's threatening voice and scowling mien, Nor hopes a passage thus abruptly hurled, Without his farthing to the nether world.
In the dark there are equal perils.
Prepare for death if here at night you roam, And sign your will before you sup from home.
Lucky if people throw only dirty water from their windows! Be thankful to escape without a broken skull. A drunken bully may meet you.
There are who murder as an opiate take, And only when no brawls await them, wake.
And what chance have you, without attendants, against a street rough? Then there is the burglar; and the criminal classes are regularly increased in town whenever the authorities grow active enough to clear the main Italian roads of bandits.
The forge in fetters only is employed; Our iron-mines exhausted and destroyed In shackles; for these villains scarce allow Goads for our teams or ploughshares for the plough. Oh, happy ages of our ancestors, Beneath the kings and tribunician powers! One jail did all the criminals restrain, Whom now the walls of Rome can scarce contain.
III.—A Satire on the Vanity of Human Wishes
Look round the habitable world; how few Know their own good; or, knowing it, pursue. To headlong ruin see whole houses driven, Cursed with their prayers, by too indulgent heaven.
The several passions and aspirations of mankind, successively examined in the light of legend and history, prove how hollow, if not pernicious, are the principal objects of pursuit. Wealth is one of the commonest aims.
But avarice spreads her deadly snare, And hoards amassed with too successful care. For wealth, in the black days, at Nero's word, The ruffian bands unsheathed the murderous sword. Cut-throats commissioned by the government Are seldom to an empty garret sent. The traveller freighted with a little wealth, Sets forth at night, and wins his way by stealth: Even then he fears the bludgeon and the blade— Starts in the moonlight at a rush's shade, While, void of care, the beggar trips along, And to the robber's face will troll his song.
What would the "weeping" and the "laughing" sages of ancient Greece have thought of the pageants of modern Rome? Consider the vanity of ambition. It is illustrated by the downfall of the powerful minister Sejanus. On his overthrow, the fickle mob turned savagely upon his statues.
What think the people? They! They follow fortune, as of old, and hate With all their soul the victim of the state. Yet in this very hour that self-same crowd Had hailed Sejanus with a shout as loud, If his designs (by fortune's favour blessed) Had prospered, and the aged prince oppressed; For since our votes have been no longer bought, All public care has vanished from our thought. Romans, who once with unresisted sway, Gave armies, empire, everything, away, For two poor claims have long renounced the whole And only ask—the circus and a dole.
Would you rather be an instance of fallen greatness, or enjoy some safe post in an obscure Italian town? What ruined a Crassus? Or a Pompey? Or a victorious Cæsar? Why, the realisation of their own soaring desires.
Another vain aspiration covets fame in eloquence. But the gift of oratory overthrew the two greatest orators of Greece and Rome—Demosthenes and Cicero. If Cicero had only stuck to his bad verses, he would never have earned Antony's deadly hatred by his "Second Philippic" (see Vol. IX, p. 155).
"I do congratulate the Roman state Which my great consulate did recreate!" If he had always used such jingling words He might have scorned Mark Antony's swords.
A different passion is for renown in war. What is the end of it all? Only an epitaph on a tombstone, and tombstones themselves perish; for even a tree may split them!
Produce the urn that Hannibal contains, And weigh the paltry dust which yet remains. And is this all? Yet this was once the bold, The aspiring chief, whom Afric could not hold. Spain conquered, o'er the Pyrenees he bounds; Nature opposed her everlasting mounds, Her Alps and snows. O'er these with torrent force He pours, and rends through rocks his dreadful course. Already at his feet Italia lies. Yet, thundering on, "Think nothing done," he cries, "Till Rome, proud Rome, beneath my fury falls, And Afric's standards float without her walls!" But what ensued? Illusive glory, say. Subdued on Zama's memorable day, He flies in exile to a petty state, With headlong haste; and, at a despot's gate, Sits, mighty suppliant, of his life in doubt, Till the Bithynian monarch's nap be out! Nor swords, nor spears, nor stones from engines hurled, Shall quell the man whose frown alarmed the world: The vengeance due to Cannæ's fatal field, And floods of gore, a poisoned ring shall yield! Fly, madman, fly! At toil and danger mock, Pierce the deep snow, and scale the eternal rock, To please the rhetoricians, and become A declamation—for the boys of Rome!
Consider next the yearning after long life.
Pernicious prayer! for mark what ills attend Still on the old, as to the grave they bend: A ghastly visage, to themselves unknown; For a smooth skin, a hide with scurf o'ergrown; And such a cheek, as many a grandam ape In Tabraca's thick woods is seen to scrape.
The old man rouses feelings of impatient loathing in those around him; his physical strength and faculties for enjoyment are gone. Even if he remain hale, he may suffer harrowing bereavements. Nestor, Peleus, and Priam had to lament the death of heroic sons; and in Roman history Marius and Pompey outlived their good fortune.
Campania, prescient of her Pompey's fate, Sent a kind fever to arrest his date:
When lo! a thousand suppliant altars rise, And public prayers obtain him of the skies. The city's fate and his conspired to save His head, to perish near the Egyptian wave.
Again, there is the frequent prayer for good looks. But beauty is a danger. If linked with unchastity, it leads to evil courses. Even if linked with chastity, it may draw on its possessor the tragic fate of a Lucretia, a Virginia, a Hippolytus, or a Bellerophon. What is a Roman knight to do if an empress sets her heart on him?
Amid all such vanities, then, is there nothing left for which men may reasonably pray?
Say, then, shall man, deprived all power of choice, Ne'er raise to Heaven the supplicating voice? Not so; but to the gods his fortunes trust. Their thoughts are wise, their dispensations just. What best may profit or delight they know, And real good for fancied bliss bestow; With eyes of pity they our frailties scan; More dear to them than to himself is man. By blind desire, by headlong passion driven, For wife and heirs we daily weary Heaven; Yet still 'tis Heaven's prerogative to know, If heirs, or wife, will bring us weal or woe. But (for 'tis good our humble hope to prove), That thou mayst still ask something from above, Thy pious offerings to the temple bear, And, while the altars blaze, be this thy prayer: O Thou, who know'st the wants of human kind, Vouchsafe me health of body, health of mind; A soul prepared to meet the frown of fate, And look undaunted on a future state; That reckons death a blessing, yet can bear Existence nobly, with its weight of care; That anger and desire alike restrains, And counts Alcides' toils, and cruel pains, Superior far to banquets, wanton nights, And all the Assyrian monarch's soft delights!
Here bound, at length, thy wishes. I but teach What blessings man, by his own powers, may reach. The Path to Peace is Virtue. We should see, If wise, O Fortune, nought divine in thee: But we have deified a name alone, And fixed in heaven thy visionary throne!
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] Juvenal was born, it is usually believed, at Aquinum, about 55 a.d. He lived to an advanced age, but the year of his death is unknown. Rome he evidently knew well, and from long experience. But there is great obscurity about his career. His "Satires," in declamatory indignation, form a powerful contrast to the genial mockery of Horace (p. 91): where Horace may be said to have a Chaucerian smile for human weakness, Juvenal displays the wrath of a Langland. Juvenal denounces abuses at Rome in unmeasured terms. Frequently Zolaesque in his methods of exposing vice, he contrives by his realism to produce a loathing for the objects of his attack. Dryden rendered into free and vigorous English several of the satires; and Gifford wrote a complete translation, often of great merit. The translation here has, with adaptations, been drawn from both, and a few lines have been incorporated from Johnson, whose two best-known poems, "London" and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," were paraphrases from Juvenal.
[FRIEDRICH KLOPSTOCK][R]
[The Messiah]
I.—The Mount of Olives
Rejoice, ye sons of earth, in the honour bestowed on man. He who was before all worlds, by Whom all things in this visible creation were made, descended to our earth as your Redeemer. Near Jerusalem, once the city where God displayed His grace, the Divine Redeemer withdrew from the multitude and sought retirement. On the side where the sun first gilds the city with its beams rises a mountain, whose summit He had oft honoured with His presence when during the solitary night He spent the hours in fervent prayer.
Gabriel, descending, stands between two perfumed cedars and addresses Jesus.
Wilt Thou, Lord, here devote the night to prayer, Or weary, dost thou seek a short repose? Permit that I for Thine immortal head A yielding couch prepare. Behold the shrubs And saplings of the cedar, far and near, Their balmy foliage already show. Among the tombs in which Thy prophets rest The cooling earth yields unmolested moss.
Jesus answered not, but regarded Gabriel with a look of divine complacency. He went up to the summit, where were the confines of heaven, and there prayed. Earth rejoiced at the renewal of her beauty as His voice resounded and penetrated the gates of the deep, but only He and the Eternal Father knew the whole meaning of the divine petition. As Jesus arose from prayer, in His face shone sublimity, love, and resignation.
Now He and the Eternal Father entered on discourse mysterious and profound, obscure even to immortals; discourse of things which in future ages should display to man the love of God. A seraph entered the borders of the celestial world, whose whole extent is surrounded by suns. No dark planet approaches the refulgent blaze.
There, central of the circumvolving suns, Heaven, archetype of every blissful sphere, Orbicular in blazing glory, swims, And circumfuges through infinitude In copious streams, the splendour of the spheres. Harmonious sounds of its revolving motion Are wafted on the pinions of the winds To circumambient suns. The potent songs Of voice and harp celestial intermingle And seem the animation of the whole.
Up to this sacred way Gabriel ascended, approaching heaven, which, in the very centre of the assemblage of suns, rises into a vast dome. When the Eternal walks forth, the harmonic choirs, borne on the wings of the wind to the borders of the sunny arch, chant His praise, joining the melody of their golden harps. During the hymn the seraph, as messenger of the Mediator, stood on one of the suns nearest heaven. The Eternal Father rewarded the choirs with a look of benignity and then beheld the Chief Seraph, whose name with God is The Chosen, and by the heavenly host is called Eloah.
The awful thunder seven times rolled forth, The sacred gloom dispelling, and the Voice Divine gently descended: "God is Love. E'er beings gently emanated I was Love.
Creating worlds, I ever was the same, And such I am in the accomplishment Of my profoundest, most mysterious deed. But in the death of the Eternal Son Ye learn to know Me wholly—God, the Judge Of every world. New adoration then Ye will to the Supreme of heaven address."
The seraph having descended to the altar of the earth, Adam, filled with eager expectation, hastened to him. A lucid, ethereal body was the radiant mansion of his blessed spirit, and his form was as lovely as the bright image in the Creator's mind when meditating on the form of man in the blooming fields of Paradise. Adam approached with a radiant smile, which suffused over his countenance an air of ineffable and sweetest dignity, and thus with impassioned accents he spoke.
Hail, blessed seraph, messenger of peace! Thy voice, resounding of thy message high, Has filled our souls with rapture. Son of God, Messiah, O that Thee I could behold, Behold Thee in the beauty of Thy manhood, E'en as this seraph sees Thee in the form Which Thy compassion prompted Thee to take My wretched progeny from death to save. Point out to me, O seraph, show to me, Where my Redeemer walked, my loving Lord; Only from far I will His step attend.
Gabriel descends again to earth, the stars silently saluting him with a universal morn. He finds Jesus placidly sleeping on a bare rock, and after long contemplation, apostrophises all nature to be silent, for her Creator sleeps.
II.—Of Satan Warring, and the Council of the Sanhedrim
The morn descends over the forest of waving cedars, and Jesus awakes. The spirits of the patriarchs see Him with joy from their solar mansion. Raphael, John's guardian angel, tells Jesus that this disciple is viewing a demoniac among the sepulchres on the Mount of Olives. He goes thither, and puts Satan to flight, who, returning to hell, gives an account of what he knows of Jesus, and determines that He shall be put to death. Satan is opposed by Abaddon. Another grim fiend speaks.
Then Moloch fierce approached, a martial spirit. From mountains and entrenchments huge he came, Which still he forms, thus the domains of hell To fence, in case the Thundering Warrior e'er (He thus the dread Eternal nominates) From heaven descending, should th' abyss molest. All before Moloch with respect retired. In sable armour clad, which to his pace Resounded, he advanced as does a storm Amid dark lowering clouds. The mountains shook Before him, and behind, a trembling rock In shattered fragments sunk. Thus he advanced And soon attained the first revolter's throne.
After the council of fiends, all hell approves Satan's determination. Satan and Adramelech return to earth to execute their design. Abaddon, following them at a distance, sees at the gate of hell Abdiel, the seraph who was once his friend, whom he addresses. But Abdiel ignoring him, he presses forward, bewails the loss of his glory, despairs of finding grace, and after vainly endeavouring to destroy himself, descends to earth. Satan and Adramelech also advance to earth and alight on Mount Olivet.
They both advanced and stormed against the Mount Of Olives, the Redeemer there to find Assembled with His confidential friends. Thus down into the vale destructive cars Of battle roll, against th' intrepid chief Of the advancing and undaunted host. Now brazen warriors throng from every point. The thundering crash of the encounter, clash Of sword and shield, a sullen iron din O'er distant rocks resounds tow'rd heaven aloft, And in the valley scatters death around.
Caiaphas assembles the Sanhedrim, and relates a vision which has terrified him. He declares that Jesus must die, but counsels caution as to the manner of the execution. Philo, a dreaded priest and Pharisee, steps forward, and with great vehemence pronounces the dream of Caiaphas a mere empty fiction, yet joins in counselling the death of Jesus. He declares Caiaphas a disgrace to the priesthood of God, but that Jesus would abolish the priesthood altogether.
So saying, Philo, with uplifted arms, Advanced in the assembly and exclaimed: "Spirit of Moses, reigning now in bliss, Whether in thy celestial robes thou art, Or whether thy yet mortal children now In council met beneath a humble roof, Thou deign'st to visit. Solemnly I swear to thee, by yon dread covenant, Which thou to us hast brought out of the storm From God, to thee on Sinai revealed: I will not rest till this thine adversary, Who hates thy laws and thee, be from this earth Exterminated."
The evil counsel is warmly opposed by Gamaliel and Nicodemus. Judas has a private conference with Caiaphas. The Messiah sends Peter and John into Jerusalem to prepare the Passover. Jesus, going to Jerusalem, is met by Judas. Jesus institutes a memorial of His death. Judas goes out from the supper. Then Jesus prays for His disciples, and returns to the Mount of Olives.
III.—Eloah Sings the Redeemer's Glory
God descends towards the earth to judge the Mediator, and rests on Tabor. The Almighty sends the seraph Eloah to comfort Jesus in Gethsemane by singing a triumphant song on His future glory.
He soared on golden clouds and sang aloud: "Hail me, I was found worthy after Thee To feel what Thou dost feel, and to behold At humble distance the Messiah's thoughts, Which in the fearful and most dreadful hour Of His humiliation, fill His mind. No finite being ever saw God's thoughts: Yet I have been found worthy from afar, From an obscure dimension of created And but finite understanding, to extend My view into Divine Infinitude! O with what feelings of creation new, Divine Messiah, those redeemed by Thee— With what surpassing transport they will see Thee on Thy everlasting throne of glory! How they will then behold those radiant wounds, The splendid testimonies of Thy love To Adam's race! How they will shout Thy praise In never-ceasing songs and alleluias! Ah, then the angel Death's tremendous trump Will nevermore be heard, nor thunders, then, O'er Thy redeemed from the Throne will roll, The depths will bow before Thee, and the heights To Thee, the Judge, will folded hands uplift. The last of days will evanescent die Before the throne, lost in eternity. And Thou wilt gather all the righteous souls Around Thee, that they, face to face, may see Thy glory and behold Thee as Thou art."
Now the Messiah from the crimsoned dust Rose victor, and the heavens sang aloud— The third heaven, of the great Messiah's most Transcendent sufferings which brought endless life To precious souls, as now gone over Him. So sang the heavens.
IV.—Pilate's Wife Bewails the Saviour's Sufferings
The Messiah is seized and bound. The assembled priests are seized with consternation, but their fears are removed by the arrival of successive messengers. Jesus being taken before Annas, Philo goes thither and brings Him to Caiaphas. Portia, Pilate's wife, comes to see Jesus. She approaches from the Procurator's palace near the hall of assembly, by an arcade lit by lamps.
Impelled by curiosity at last The great and wondrous Prophet to behold, She to the high-priest's palace came in haste, Only few attendants being with her. And Portia saw Him Who awoke the dead, And Who serenely bore the hellish rage And malice of indignant priests, and now, With wondrous magnanimity stood forth Resolved to act with greatness, unadmired, To beings so degenerate still unknown. With fervid expectation and with joy She stood and gazed upon the Holy Man, And saw how He, sublime with dignified Serenity, His base accusers faced.
On false evidence of suborned witnesses Jesus is condemned. Eloah and Gabriel discourse on the Saviour's sufferings.
Gabriel: Eloah! He at whose command the dead
Of the renewed creation shall arise,
The tempest of the resurrection shaking
The earth around, that she with bearing throes
Will yield the dust at His almighty call.
He then with thunders and attendant hosts
Of angels and in terrors clad, that stars
Before Him sink, will judge that sinful world.Eloah: He said, Let there be light! And there was light.
Thou, Gabriel, sawest how at His command
Effulgent beams rushed forth! With thought profound
He still advanced: and lo, at His right hand
Ten thousand times ten thousand beings bright
Collected, and an animating storm
Advanced before Him. Then the suns
Rolled in their orbits! Then the harmony
Of morning spheres resounded round the poles.
And then the heavens appeared!Gabriel: And at His word
Eternal night sank far below the heavens!
Thou sawest, Eloah, how He stood on high
O'er the Profound. He spake again, and, lo,
A hideous mass inanimate appeared
And lay before Him, seeming ruins vast
Of broken suns, or of a hundred worlds
To chaos crushed. He summoned then the flame,
And the nocturnal blaze rushed in the fields
Of everlasting death. Then misery
Existed, which from the depths ascended
In cries of anguish and despondency.
Then was created the infernal gulf!
Thus they communed. Portia no longer could
The Blessed Saviour's sufferings behold,
And lone ascended to the palace roof.
She stood and wrung her hands, her weeping eyes
To heaven uplifted, while she thus express'd
The agitated feelings of her heart:
"O Thou, the First of Gods, who didst create
This world from night of darkness, and who gav'st
A heart to man! Whatever be Thy name—
God, Jupiter, Jehovah, Romulus?
Or Abraham's God? Not of chosen few,
Thou art the Judge and Father of us all!
May I before Thee, Lord, with tears display
The feelings of my heart, and rend my soul?
What is the crime of this most peaceful man?
Why should He thus be barbarously used
And persecuted even unto death
By these inhuman and relentless men?
Dost Thou delight from Thine Olympus, Lord,
To look on suffering virtue? Is to Thee
The object sacred? To the heart of men,
That is not of humanity devoid,
It is most awful, wondrous, and endearing;
But He who formed the stars, can He admire
And wonder? No, far too sublime is He
To admiration ever scope to give!
Yet th' object must e'en to the God of Gods
Be sacred, else He never could permit
That thus the good and guiltless be oppress'd.
My tears of pity and compassion flow,
But thou discernest suffering virtue's tears
That flow in secret and to Thee appeal.
Great God of Gods, reward and if Thou canst,
Admire the magnanimity He shows."
Peter, in deep distress, tells John he has denied his Master, then departs and deplores his guilt.
V.—The Day of Oblation
Eloah welcomes the returning morn with a hymn, and hails the Day of the Atonement, precious, fair day of oblation, sent by Love Divine.
The Messiah is led to Pilate, and is accused by Caiaphas and Philo. Judas, in despair, destroys himself. Jesus is sent to Herod, who, expecting to see a miracle, is disappointed. After being treated with derision, Jesus is sent back to Pilate, who seeks to save Him, but is persuaded to release Barabbas. Jesus is scourged, arrayed in a purple robe, crowned with thorns, and delivered to the priests, who cause Him to be led to crucifixion. Eloah descends from the throne and proclaims that the Redeemer is led to death, on which the angels of the earth form a circle round Mount Calvary. Jesus is nailed to the cross. One of the two thieves crucified with Him is converted. Uriel places a planet before the sun to obscure the dreadful scene on Calvary, and then conducts to earth the souls of all future generations of mankind.
The Angel of Death descends to address Jesus, Who dies. The earth shakes, the veil of the Temple is rent, the Old Testament saints are raised. The converted thief dies. Joseph of Arimathea begs the body of Jesus, and he and Nicodemus wrap it in spices and perform the interment. Mary and some devout women meet in John's house, to which Nicodemus brings the crown of thorns taken from the body at burial. The interment is solemnised by choirs of risen saints and angels.
FOOTNOTES:
[R] Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, who was born at Quedlinburg on July 2, 1724, and died on March 14, 1803, was one of Germany's most famous eighteenth century poets. While studying theology at Jena University, he conceived the idea of a great spiritual epic, and actually planned in prose the first three cantos of "The Messiah," which he afterwards finished at Leipzig. These were published anonymously in the Bremische Beiträge in 1748, the remaining five appearing in 1773. Although the poem perhaps lacks in unity of conception and precision of style, it contains many noble passages that are admitted by critics to mark a very high order of lyrical genius. One of the chief distinctions of Klopstock was that he was the real inaugurator of the emancipation of the German intellect from the superficialism of French literary ascendancy. This distinction was generously acknowledged by Goethe, who rejoiced at Klopstock's success in first striking the keynote of intellectual freedom in the Fatherland. Various odes, Biblical dramas, tragedies, and hymns constitute his other works. The "Messiah" was translated into both English prose and verse by G. Egerstorff, his work being published at Hamburg in 1821.
[GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING][S]
[Nathan the Wise]
Persons in the Drama
Saladin, the Sultan
Sittah, his sister
Nathan, a rich Jew
Hafi, a Dervish
Recha, Nathan's adopted daughter
Daya, a Christian woman, companion to Recha
Conrade, a young Templar
Athanasios, Patriarch of Palestine
Bonafides, a friar