The Epic of Paul

by William Cleaver Wilkinson

"But what we are, conforms at length our looks,"
Surprised, amused, in doubt, but dallying, matched
The Roman his rejoinder. Then the Jew,
Adventuring on one more avoidance, said:
"Well dost thou say 'at length'; for it might chance
That looks were obstinate, requiring time."

"Coiner of wisdom into apothegm!
An undiscovered Seneca in sooth,
Where least expected, seems I meet to-night!
But spare to bandy sentences with me."
With change to chilling dignity from sneer,
The Roman so rebuffed the cringing Jew;
Who, cringing, yet was no least whit abashed,
But answered: "Pardon, sir, thy servant, who
Has missed his mark in his simplicity.
I thought, 'If I might spare my lord his time!'
And dutifully thereto spared my words.
The farthest was it from my humble aim
To mint my silly thought in adages.
Forgive me, if, unconsciously set on
By thy example of sententious speech—
True wisdom closed in fitting words and few—
I seemed to match my worthless wit with thine.
I have a helpless habit of the mind,
A trick of mimicry that masters me;
When I observe in them what I admire,
I can not but my betters imitate.
I fear me I have compromised my cause;
Had I been deeper, I had less seemed deep!
I lack the art to show the artless man
That in my own true self, sir, thou shouldst see.
With my superiors, I am not myself;
I take on airs, or seem to, copying them.
Quite other am I with my proper like;
I feel at home, and am the man I am.
Ask that plain-spoken, honest sentinel—
He now was my own sort, I never thought
To strain myself above my natural mark
With him; we were hail fellows, he and I,
And talked the harmless wise that such know how.
With thee—oh, sir, myself I quite forsook,
And slipped into a different Shimei.
Pity my weakness, I am sick of it;
To ape the great is folly for the small—
But small may hope forgiveness from the great!"

The chiliarch listened, unconvinced; yet charmed,
Like the bird gazing by the serpent charmed.
"Pretend that I am of thy kind," said he,
"And show me how thou with the sentry talkedst."

Now Lysias nursed a proudly Roman mind
Disdainful of all nations save his own—
Disdainfully a Roman but the more,
That he by purchase, not by birth, was such;
The nation that he ruled he most disdained.
Child of the high-bred fashion of his time,
By choice and culture he a skeptic was.
Skeptic, he yet was superstitious too,
Open and weak to supernatural fears;
He easily believed in magic powers,
Charms, sorceries, witchcrafts, incantations, spells,
And all the weird pretensions of the East.
His habit of disdain and skepticism
Made him a cynic in his views of men;
Whereby he oft, wise-seeming, was unwise.
He took upon himself laconic airs
In speech, in action airs abrupt, as who
Bold was, and strong, and from reflection deep—
The manner, rather than the matter, his.
To any chance observer of his ways
In use of office and position, these
Could but have seemed comportable and fair.
Accesses too of gentleness he had,
Wherein a strain of kindly in the man
Opened and gushed in flow affectionate,
Or well-becoming courtesy and grace.

This Roman chiliarch, Claudius Lysias, now
Found himself much at leisure and at ease,
Rid of that worrying case of prisoner strange;
Unconscious satisfaction with himself
Warmed at his heart, a pleasurable glow—
He had so neatly got it off his hands!
He was quite ready, mind acquitted thus,
Heart buoyant, to disport himself. He saw
That in the man before him he had met
No dull mere mediocrity, but one
Who, besides being ruler of the Jews,
As Paul pronounced him, had a quality,
An individual difference, all his own.
Claudius might test this man, get him to talk—
An interesting study, learn his make.
Besides the pleasure to his appetite
For piquant knowledge of his fellow-man,
It might in some way, indirect the better,
Give him a point or two of policy
To guide the conduct of his rulership
Among a people difficult to rule.
In such mood, idle, curious, partly wise,
This half-wise man, unwise through cynicism,
Gave himself leave to say to Shimei:
"Pretend that I am of thy kind, like him,
Let me hear how thou with the sentry talked."

Hardly could Shimei, through the mask he wore
Of feigned simplicity, help leering out,
Confessed the mocker that he ever was,
In that sardonic grin, as he replied:
"Pretense, of whatso sort, be far from me—
Save when my betters wish it of me; then,
I think it right to put my conscience by;
Or rather place it at their service—that,
The dearest thing the poor good man can claim!
I reason in this way, 'Why should I presume
To scruple, where those wiser far than I
Are clear?' That sure would be the worst pretense—
Pretending to be holier than the saints.
My will, thou seest, is tractable enough;
But how, with thee, to feel sufficient ease
To do what thou desirest, go right on
And talk and chatter as we simple did!

"First, then, perhaps I said: 'This is dull work'—
And no offense to thee, sir, that I said it—
'Dull work,' said I, 'to stand, or pace, and watch,
Long hours alone, and nothing like to happen
That makes it needful thou shouldst thus keep watch!'
'Aye,' grunted he; I thought him stupid like,
But I had something I could tell him then
That might rub up his wits and brighten them.
'There is a plot,' said I. 'Aye, plots enough,'
Said he. 'And something thou shouldst know,' I said.
'I doubt,' said he; and added: 'Soldiers should
Know nothing but their duty, how to watch,
March, dig, fight, slay, be slain, and no word speak.
Thou hadst better go,' said he, like that, more frank
Than courteous, thou mightst think—he meant no harm,
But only like a loyal soldier spoke.
I did not go, but said: 'The plot I mean
Is of escape from prison.' But he replied:
'Nobody can escape these times from prison;
The emperor has a hundred million eyes,
That never wink, because they have no lids,
And never sleep, because they never tire,
And these run everywhere and all things see;
The emperor's arms are many, long and strong,
East, west, north, south, they range throughout the world.
Oh, he can reach thee wheresoever hiding,
And pluck thee thence and fetch thee safely home;
The world is all his prison, the emperor's.'
'Thou thinkest that?' said I. 'No doubt,' said he.
'But captives still,' said I, 'might try to escape?'
'Oh, aye,' said he, 'that is quite natural.'
'And should they try,' I said, 'with thee on watch,
And should they somehow skill to get by thee,
Then—and although they be thereafter caught—
How fares it then with thee?' said I to him—
'Yea, how with thee that lettest them go by?'
'Then there would be,' he said, 'account to give,
And I should wish I had not been on watch.'
'Nay, better wish, man, thou hadst better watched,'
Said I, 'and thyself caught the fugitive.'
'Aye, that were something better yet,' said he.
'Why, yea,' said I, 'that, laid to thy account,
Might win thee prompt promotion out of this.'
'I never dream,' said he, 'of anything
To lift me from the common soldier's lot.'
'Dreaming is idle, yea,' said I to him,
'But waking thought and action need not be.
For instance, now,' I then went on and said"—

The subtle Hebrew, drawing out his tale,
Mock-artless long, of gossip with the watch,
Had never intermitted an intent,
Considerate, sly, solicitous regard
Fixed on the chiliarch's face, therein to read
The reflex of the phases of his thought;
And now he marked with pleasure how their mere
Indifferent or incredulous cold scorn
Was fading from the haughty Roman's eyes,
Merged in a dawn of curious interest.
Disguisedly, but confidently, glad—
His course seen smooth before him to his goal—
Shimei thence eased that tension of the will
To simulate simplicity of speech,
As, more directly, his ambages spared,
He almost blithely, in his natural vein
Of fondness for the false and the malign,
Slid on, in fabrication of report,
Or in report of fabrication, thus:
"Inside those castle walls there is a man,
A Jew, one Paul, I know him very well,
Prisoner for crime that richly merits death.
The outraged people yesterday were fain
To wait no longer, but at once inflict,
Themselves, with righteous hands, the penalty.
The gentle chiliarch rescued him from them,
Not knowing, as of course how could he know?
What a base wretch he plucked from doom condign.
So here Paul is in Roman custody,
Safe for the moment, but full well aware,
As he deserves to die, that die he will,
Whenever once he shall be justly judged.
He therefore schemes it to attempt escape,
This very night, from his imprisonment.
He has his tool, tool and accomplice both,
In that young fellow thou hast seen pass by,
Entering and issuing through the castle-gate.
'Aye, I have seen him plying back and forth,'
The sentry said, 'a likely Hebrew lad;
I challenged him, but he had documents.
Wicked, ungrateful!—that good chiliarch
Had shown such grace to him for his fair looks.'
'Well, I will stay,' said I, 'and watch with thee,
And help thee foil their game, and thy chance mend.
But let us have two stout young fellows ready,
I can provide them, hidden nigh at hand—
No call for us to spend our breath in running!—
To give the prisoner chase, should need arise.
Arise it will not, if my guess is right,
And I know Paul so well, I scarce can miss.
Paul stakes his hope on craft, and not on speed;
Still, it is good to be at all points armed,
And should craft fail, there will be test of speed,
No doubt of that, since Paul would run for life,
And life is prize to make the tortoise fleet.
Paul is no stiff decrepit—far from such;
Old as his look is, he is light of heel.
Running, however, only last resort,
The desperate refuge of necessity;
Paul's main reliance is on something else,
To wit, a pretty ruse and stratagem.
A wary fellow Paul, and deep in wiles!"

Shimei was entered on a mingled vein
Of true and false reflection of his thought,
Wherein himself could scarce the line have drawn
To part the fabrication from the fact.
Partly, he thought indeed that Paul was such
As he was now describing him to be,
In image and projection of himself;
Partly, he painted an ideal mere,
Conscious creation of malicious mind.
He did uneasily believe, or fear,
That Paul would somehow cheat the malice yet
Of those who hated him; perhaps contrive
Escape by night from prison. His restless mind,
Hotbed of machination, equally
Was hotbed of suspicion and surmise.
His mere suspicion and surmise became,
To his imagination, certainty;
Or else he took, himself, for certainty,
At length, what he for certainty affirmed,
Swearing the false till he believed it true.

He thus the story of his talk prolonged:
"'Now hark thee, friend, and hear me prophesy,'
So to the worthy sentinel I said,
'Thou sawest Paul brought in, and he was Paul—
Tell me, was not he Paul, when he came in?
Aye, Paul he was, thou sayest. Well, what I say—
And this now, mark it, is my prophecy—
Paul will come out, not Paul, but some one else;
In short, will hobble forth—Gamaliel!
Gamaliel, thou must know, I said to him,
'Is the old man that lad this morn led in;
Making, forsooth, a touching sight to see,
So tenderly and gingerly the lad
Guided and stayed the steps of that old man.
A pretty acted piece of loyalty
To venerable age from blooming youth!
Watch, thou shalt see it acted over again
To-night, with haply some improvement made
On the rehearsal, when he leads out Paul.
Paul's hair and beard will not need dusting white,
Being as white as old Gamaliel's now;
But edifying it will be to mark
The careful studied totter of the step,
The tremble of the hand upon his staff,
The thin and querulous quaver of the voice,
The helpless meek dependence on his guide,
And all the various aged make-believe,
Wherewith that subtle master of deceit,
That natural, practised, life-long actor, Paul,
Will put the guise of old Gamaliel on.
'He-he!' I chuckled to the sentinel,
'To me the spectacle will be as good
And laughable, as I should guess a play,
A roaring one, of Plautus were to thee!'"