A T H A L I A H.
ACT FIRST.—Scene I.
JOAD, ABNER.
ABNER.
TO worship the Eternal, yea, I come
Into his temple, come to celebrate,
According to our ancient, solemn use,
In company with you, the hallowed day
On which upon Mount Sinai unto us
The law was given. How changed are the times!
No sooner did the sacred trumpet sound
That day's return, than holy people thronged
In multitudes the temple's porticos;
And all in order 'fore the altar placed,
Bearing the fields' new produce in their hands,
Those first-fruits offered up to the One God:
The sacrifices overtaxed the priests!
Stopping that concourse, an audacious woman
Has changed those glorious days to days of gloom.
Scarce a small number of true worshippers
Dare give faint semblance of the ancient times;
The rest have shewn a fatal thoughtlessness
Towards their God, or worse, have even rushed
To Baal's altars to initiate
Themselves into his shameful mysteries;
And curse the name their fathers have invoked.
To speak right openly, I am in dread
That Athaliah from the altar will
Tear you, yourself; and casting off, at length,
The remnants of her forced respect, complete
On you her deadly vengeance.
JOAD.
Whence comes to-day this dark presentiment?
ABNER.
Think you that with impunity you can
Be just and pure? since, for so long a time
The queen has hated that rare constancy
Which adds, in Joad, new splendour to his office;
Since, for so long, your ardour for your faith
Has been construed sedition and revolt.
The jealous-minded queen hates, above all,
The dazzling worth of Josabet, your wife.
Though Joad is the successor of the priest—
The high priest, Aaron—Josabet is still
The last king's sister. Mathan, besides, Mathan—
Apostate priest—more vile than Athaliah,
Is importuning her at every hour;
Mathan, the base deserter from our altars,
And persecutor of all righteous zeal.
'Tis not enough his brow's encircled with
A foreign mitre; e'en his ministry
This Levite lends to Baal: this temple frets him,
And his impiety doth wish to crush
The God he has abjured. To ruin you
No snare he can devise will be unwrought.
Sometimes he pities you, and frequently
He even praises, and affects for you
A treacherous gentleness; and by this means
He deepens his malignity's dark dye.
Now, to that queen he paints you terrible;
Now, seeing her insatiate lust for gold,
He feigns that in a place, to you but known,
You hide the treasures David had amassed.
At last, the sombre Athaliah's seemed
For two days buried in a dark chagrin.
I saw her yesterday, and watched her eye
Flash on this holy place a furious glance,
As if the depths of this vast edifice
Concealed God's 'venger, armed to punish her.
Believe me, more I think of it and less
I doubt that 'tis on you her wrath's to burst;
And that the cruel Athaliah will
Assail our God, e'en in His sanctuary.
JOAD.
He who can rein the fury of the waves
Knows also how to check the base one's plots:
Submit with reverence to His holy will.
Dear Abner, I fear God, and no one else
I have to fear. I thank you, ne'ertheless,
For the observant zeal with which your eyes
Are open to my peril. Secretly,
I see injustice galls you,—that you have
Within you still the heart of Israel:
Thank God for that! But are you satisfied
With this unpractised virtue—secret wrath?
Ah! Can that faith which acts not be sincere?
Usurping all the rights of David's sway,
An impious stranger, now for eight years past,
Hath weltered in the blood of Judah's kings
Unpunished,—odious murderer of her sons;
And now e'en raiseth her perfidious arm
'Gainst God: and you, though nourished in the camp
Of Josaphat, the saintly king, are one
Of the upholders of this tottering state;
Who led our armies under Joram's son,
And who alone revived our towns alarmed
When the abrupt decease of Ochoziah
Dispersed all his camp at Jehu's sight;
God fear, I say you, and His word affects me!
Hear, how that God rebukes you by my mouth:—
"What use to vaunt your ardour for My law?
By empty vows think you to honour Me?
What value all your offerings to Me?
Need I the blood of he-goats and of heifers?
The blood of kings exclaims and is not heard:
Break, break all compact with the impious!
Drive out the offences from your people's midst;
And then return to offer Me your victims."
ABNER.
Ah! what can I amongst this down-trod race?
Powerless is Benjamin, and Judah droops:
The day which saw their race of kings no more
Extinguished all their spirits' ancient fire;
E'en God, say they, withholds Himself from us:
So jealous, formerly, of Hebrews' fame,
He sees, unmoved, our grandeur crushed to earth,
And, in the end, His mercy's wearied out:
No more, for us, His terrible arm is seen
To awe mankind with marvels numberless:
The ark is mute, its oracles unspoken.
JOAD.
Yet, when was time so full of miracles?
When did God show His power with more effect?
Will you have always eyes that do not see
A people thankless?—still your ear be struck
With greatest wonders, and your heart unmoved?
Must I, then, Abner, call to mind the course
Of prodigies accomplished in our days?
Of Israel's tyrants, the notorious shame,
And God found true in all His menaces;
The impious Ahab ruined, and his blood
That drenched the field by homicide usurped;
Jezebel slaughtered near that fatal field;
That queen beneath the feet of horses crushed;
The dogs in her inhuman blood quenched full,
And the torn members of her hideous corpse;
Of lying prophets, the confounded crew,
And flames upon the altar fall'n from heaven;
Elijah speaking like a potentate
Unto the elements, the firmament
As heated brass becoming, closed by him;
The earth three years without both rain and dew;
The dead reviving at Elisha's voice?
O, Abner, own in these transcendant deeds,
A God such as He was throughout all time.
Who knoweth, when He wills, to show His glory,
His people always present in His thoughts.
ABNER.
But where the dignities to David promised,
And e'en foretold by Solomon, his son?
Alas! we hoped that from that happy race
Was to descend a numerous train of kings;
That over every nation, every tribe,
His domination one of them should fix;
Make war and tumult cease in every land,
And at their feet behold all earthly kings.
JOAD.
Wherefore renounce the promises of heaven?
ABNER.
Where shall we seek that monarch, David's son?
Can heaven itself repair that withered tree,
Dead, even to its roots? The infant king,
By Athaliah murdered in his cradle;
Can those, for eight years dead, forsake the tomb?
Ah! in her fury were she but deceived!
If of the royal blood one drop escaped!
JOAD.
What would you then?
ABNER.
O happy day for me!
O with what ardour would I own my king!
Doubt you, that at his feet our eager tribes—
But wherefore flatter me with these vain thoughts?
The wretched heir of our triumphant kings
Alone was Ochoziah, with his children;
By Jehu's shafts I saw the father pierced;
You, by the mother, saw the son despatched.
JOAD.
I say no more; but when the star of day
Shall have performed a third part of his course
On the horizon, come with this same zeal
Again into the temple, whilst to prayers
The third hour summons us, and God to you
Will show, by benefactions weighty, that
His word is stable, that it ne'er deceives.
Depart: I must prepare for this great day,
And dawn already gilds the temple's summit.
ABNER.
What are those favours that I cannot fathom?
The illustrious Josabet approaches you:
I go to mingle with the faithful band
Which this day's solemn pomp enticeth forth.
Scene II.
JOAD.
Princess, the time's accomplished, I must speak!
You may conceal your rescued charge no longer.
The guilty vauntings of Jehovah's foes,
Misdeeming against Him His silence deep,
Too long of falsehood's taxed His promises:
What do I say? Success imparting life
Into their fury, even on our shrines
Your cruel stepmother would offer up
To Baal idolatrous incense. Let us show
The infant monarch, whom your hands have saved,
Raised in the temple 'neath the Lord's defence.
He will possess the courage of our princes;
His mind already mounts above his years.
Before my voice explains his destiny,
I go to offer him to God, by Whom
Our sovereigns rule; our Levites and our priests,
Immediately assembling, I to them
The offspring of their princes will declare.
JOSABET.
Knows he his name and noble parentage?
JOAD.
He answers only to Eliacin,
And by his mother thinks himself abandoned,
To whom I have in pity served as father.
JOSABET.
Alas! what perils I have known him 'scape!
What peril is he nigh to come to, still?
JOAD.
What! does your faith, already weak, shrink back?
JOSABET.
To your wise counsels, lord, I yield myself:
For, from the day I snatched that child from death,
Into your hands I've placed the care of him;
Dreading the violence of my love, I have,
As much as possible, e'en shunned his sight,
For fear, when seeing him, some foolish grief
Should bring to light my secret with my tears.
But, above all, I have believed it good
To consecrate three days and nights entire
To tears and prayers. However, may I ask
Of you to-day, What friends have you prepared
To second you? Will Abner, the brave Abner,
Come to defend us? Has he taken oath
To show himself beside his king?
JOAD.
Though we can be assured of Abner's faith,
He even knows not yet, we have a king.
JOSABET.
To whom do you confide the care of Joas?
Obed or Ammon does that honour favour?
The benefits showered on them by my sire—
JOAD.
To Athaliah they have sold themselves.
JOSABET.
Whom, then, do you engage against her guards?
JOAD.
Have I not said? Our Levites and our priests.
JOSABET.
I know that under your foreseeing care
Their numbers are redoubled, secretly
Assembled near you; that full of love
For you, for Athaliah boundless hate,
A solemn oath anticipating, binds
Them to the son of David, when revealed;
But with that noble fire with which they burn
Can they, alone, avenge their prince's cause?
For such great object is their zeal sufficient?
Doubt you that Athaliah, at the word
First spread abroad—that Ochoziah's son
Is here concealed—will fail her barbarous troop
Of strangers to collect about the temple,
And violate its gates? Will it suffice
'Gainst them to place your sacred ministers,
Who never scattered but their victims' blood;
Who, raising to the Lord their harmless hands,
Can only groan and pray for our offences?
Perhaps, when in their arms, Joas pierced with wounds—
JOAD.
Then count you God for nought who fights for us!
God, who protects the orphans' innocence,
And in their weakness testifies His power;
God, who hates tyrants, who in Jezreel
Swore Jezabel and Ahab to uproot;
God, who smote Joram, husband of their daughter,
And even to his son pursued their house;
God, whose avenging arm, awhile withheld,
Is always threatening o'er that impious race:
JOSABET.
And 'tis His rigid justice on those kings
That throes me for my wretched brother's son.
For who can say that child, at birth, was not
Condemned with them—included in their guilt?
That God, for David's sake, will grant him favour,
And separate him from a hateful race?
Alas! the horrible perplexing state,
In which heaven represents itself to me,
Haunts me incessantly, and frights my soul.
The chambers gorged with princes massacred—
Inexorable Athaliah, armed
With poniard, fires her barbarous soldiery
Unto the carnage, and pursues the course
Of her assassinations. Left for dead,
Joas strikes my sight! Methinks I still behold
His nurse, distracted, throw her feeble form
In vain before the murderers; and him,
Extended on the earth, clasp to her breast
I take him up all bloody—with my tears
Bathing his visage—bring him back to life;
And still in terror, or caressing me,
I feel his innocent arms upon me press.
Great God! let not my love be fatal to him,
The precious relic of the loyal David:
Brought up within Thy house to love Thy law,
He knows no other father yet than Thee.
About to attack a homicidal queen,
If peril's aspect terrifies my faith,
If flesh and blood to-day, bewildered being,
Have too great part in tears I shed for him,
Heir of Thy sacred promises, preserve him,
And punish me alone for all my frailty!
JOAD.
Your griefs are crimeless, Josabet; but God
Would have us trust in His paternal care.
Upon the son who fears Him He does not
Call blindly in His wrath to answer for
His sire's impiety. All that remain
Still faithful Hebrews, will come forth to-day
To make their vows anew; all that revere
The race of David, Athaliah hate!
Joas will affect them with his modesty,
Through which appears to glow his royal blood,
And our example, by His very voice
The Lord supporting, will moreover speak
Within His temple straight unto their hearts.
Two unbelieving kings in turns have braved Him;
Tis now imperative a king be raised
Upon the throne, who shall avow hereafter
That, to the honour of his ancestors,
God caused him, by the influence of His priests,
To re-ascend; and, by their hands, hath snatched
Him, Joas, from the oblivion of the tomb,
To light again the fire of David's ashes.
Great God! if Thou foreseest that of his race
Unworthy, he will stray from David's footsteps,
Yea, let him be as fruit whilst growing, plucked,
Or blighted in its bloom by hostile blast!
But if this child, obedient to Thy rule,
Is to be useful aid in Thy designs,
Restore the sceptre to the rightful heir;
Give into my weak hands his potent foes;
Confound the councils of the cruel queen!
Deign, deign, my God, on Mathan and on her
To cast the spirit of vanity and falsehood,
Fatal forerunner of the fall of kings!
Adieu; the hour is pressing. Unto you,
His sister and our son advancing, bring
The daughters of the families most devout.
