“And because I have loved you all you have said, ‘Too soft and yielding is his heart, and too undiscerning is his path. It is the love of a needy one, who picks crumbs even as he sits at kingly feasts. And it is the love of a weakling, for the strong loves only the strong.’
“And because I have loved you overmuch you have said, ‘It is but the love of a blind man who knows not the beauty of one nor the ugliness of another. And it is the love of the tasteless who drinks vinegar even as wine. And it is the love of the impertinent and the overweening, for what stranger could be our mother and father and sister and brother?’
“This you have said, and more. For often in the marketplace you pointed your fingers at me and said mockingly, ‘There goes the ageless one, the man without seasons, who at the noon hour plays games with our children and at eventide sits with our elders and assumes wisdom and understanding.’
“And I said ‘I will love them more. Aye, even more. I will hide my love with seeming to hate, and disguise my tenderness as bitterness. I will wear an iron mask, and only when armed and mailed shall I seek them.’
“Then I laid a heavy hand upon your bruises, and like a tempest in the night I thundered in your ears.
“From the housetop I proclaimed you hypocrites, pharisees, tricksters, false and empty earth-bubbles.
“The short-sighted among you I cursed for blind bats, and those too near the earth I likened to soulless moles.
“The eloquent I pronounced fork-tongued, the silent, stone-lipped, and the simple and artless I called the dead never weary of death.
“The seekers after world knowledge I condemned as offenders of the holy spirit and those who would naught but the spirit I branded as hunters of shadows who cast their nets in flat waters and catch but their own images.
“Thus with my lips have I denounced you, while my heart, bleeding within me, called you tender names.