by Edgar Quinet
3.
Like a shepherd’s dog, let us remain lying down, to watch, here, at the gate of the world. Let us listen to everything that surrounds us. If some rumor happens to reach us of a city’s collapse, a new god or a people in revolt, we shall howl, all together, with our mouths of stone and our voices of granite: Hola! Hola! Shepherd of the sky, come out of the fold; someone’s coming.
THEBES
My beautiful hundred-cubit sphinx, what is causing you to bark so loudly? Has a messenger come from Sheba or Taurus?
THE SPHINX
Neither messenger nor groom. Go back to sleep.
THEBES
During my long night I had a bad dream on my bolster, as if I had forgotten a god in my great temple.
THE SPHINX
Don’t think about your god any longer; have you not made a roof for the eternity that bears the firmament in his arms, as a woman bears her child?
THEBES
Yes, a roof of granite. To clothe him, I have carved a loincloth in the rock; in order that he might sit down, a fine black marble bench.
THE SPHINX
That’s enough. No other gods have come for a long time.
THEBES
What news is there?
THE SPHINX
Of your date-palm, which is verdant; your camel, which is ruminating; your hawk, which is shrieking; and your desert, which is thirsty.
THEBES
Are you sure of that?
THE SPHINX
I have not quit your threshold. Go, sleep for another thousand years.
VIII.
THEBES
The sphinx’s thousand years have passed; my granite eyelid is heavy to raise; my bed is hard. Still I dream of hawks with human bodies, owls that carry spheres on their backs. I get bored alone in my temple, when I have lit my lamp. If I dared, I would rather go up on my terrace to call to my sisters. Where have they gone, since the day when the ibises and the gryphons led us here, each by a different path?
BABYLON
Is that you whispering, my sister? Is that you, Thebes, wearing those bandlets on your head? Is it you to whom a reaper has given these baskets of sculpted acanthus leaves that sphinxes will browse? If it is you, go up to the highest of your towers with your sisters. Speak to me, all of you, with the noise of the chariot, with the noise of ruin, with the tip of the blade, with the murmur of the crowd, with the footsteps of armies beneath your gates, with your crumbling columns, with the zithers in your temples, with the scepter of the king who falls, with the whistle of the arrow in battle, with the oar of the galley in the river; speak to me more loudly, so that I can hear your voice on my terrace.
NINEVEH
I reside close to you, but I am too old to go up to my terrace. My staircase is crumbling underfoot. Neither golden zithers nor people in my streets any longer swell my voice. In my palace, I no longer have anything to reply to you but the murmur of nettles and grasses, which is now my song.
PERSEPOLIS
My land is in Iran. When you called, I was leading my herd of gryphons to drink at my naphtha well. In the morning, in my tower, I spin a robe for my peris; in the evening, I light my fire in my ashes in order to lend a brand to a star that is going out. Can you hear me? I have screeched with the chariot’s axle, whined with the mare, whistled with the arrow, resounded with the sword against the buckler, shivered with the battle on the Granicus.11
SHEBA
My land is further away. Neither astrologers nor diviners can tell you where it is. Spirits built my tower; peris built my walls; enchantresses dwell therein. My queen is always the wisest. Enigmas or hieroglyphs, she can read the books of stone without moving her lips. Her throne is made of coral, her wand is magic, the road to her pagoda is sprinkled with golden sand.
BACTRA
My fiancé brought me to the mountain of Media. I climbed up after him by a rugged path; he gave me amulets to make a necklace, three arrows to defend myself, three towers to climb, three gods to adore. Now a Chaldean diviner is telling my fortune at my door.
PALMYRA
Yesterday, all alone, I went into the desert to pick dates. Oh, how sad the desert is! My column is weary of seeing nothing but sand, the hinges of my gate cry: Let’s go away! No one passes here, neither merchant nor shepherd, and I am afraid that the unicorns might come to gnaw my steps and dragons to slither beneath my marble sandals. This time, my sister, have you heard me? I have spoken with the voice of a people; I have spoken with the hoof-beats of horsemen in my courtyards, with the whips of grooms, with the clash of lances, with the litanies of priests, with walls crumbling in my halls, with crowns falling from the heads of my kings.
BABYLON
Yes, I hear you; your crowd is rumbling. To make more noise, you strike in cadence people against people, empire against empire, kings against kings, Asia against Asia, cymbals against cymbals, ruins against ruins and shield against shield. I hear you, but I cannot see you yet through the cracks in my walls. I am bent too low beneath my burden of gods. My head is so laden with their amulets that it has slumped on to my knees, like that of a sleeping woman. Their names are so numerous that my tongue is exceedingly thick from having spoken them without making a mistake. Listen to me, my sisters, since you are gathered together, what would you think if, out of all of our gods heaped one atop another, we were to make just one God. Like a founder stirring his crucible, what would you say to throwing all our idols, bronze rams, hawks’ beaks, copper amulets and golden serpents pell-mell into a divine melting-pot, in order to make a single idol that would have but one name? We would no longer have to carry so many little penates in our arms, which we lose on the way. One boundless colossus, as great as the universe, we could follow everywhere, as one man; at a single stride, he would encompass our seas and our years.
THE CITIES
You are the oldest of us; you are the greatest; tell us what we need to do
BABYLON
Harness your unicorns; each of you mount your resounding chariots; form an enchanted round around my furnace. Hurry, Bactra, throw your bronze centaur into my melting-pot as you pass by; Persepolis, throw me the gilded feet of the dragons of Iran; Memphis, collect the scales of your crocodiles on your stairways; Thebes, cut the flattened tresses of your goddess with your scissors; Nineveh, bring me the scintillating stars that your priests have attached to your miter; Sheba, send me, on an Indian elephant, the God with a thousand ivory heads lying in your pagoda. Pass by, turn your chariots rapidly around my magic fire, cities of the Orient. I shall mix and crush heavens and earth with my diviners.
THE CITIES
We shall do as you say. Will you soon be finished? Here are our gods of brass, and also those of bronze.
BABYLON
Look, and behold the great idol that is appearing; it is boiling in the crucible of the world, like a rumor growing within our walls; look, it has neither beaks, nor gryphon’s claws, nor wings to fly, nor serpents’ coils to crawl. Behold one who stands on his feet like a human being. Truly, one might think him an old man from Chaldea who has been alive forever, but who is leaving his abode for the first time. What shall we call him? Allah? Elohim? Jehovah? Who knows?
JERUSALEM
Me?
BABYLON
Who’s that?
JERUSALEM
Your sister Jerusalem? Wait for me; I’m coming; leave your work there.
BABYLON
Where are you?
JERUSALEM
In the direction of Joppa. I have cried with the army that besieged me, with the herald’s trumpet, with the rasp that eats me away, with the soldier that whips me, with my crumbling roof.
BABYLON
Oh, it’s you, my sister. Where did you come from? You haven’t brought your share either of amulets or relics from your neck; all you have in your temple is a worn piece of cloth with which to swathe an idol. Have you come once again as a beggar, to borrow my gods without a pledge?
JERUSALEM
I’m bringing you a better one than all of yours.
BABYLON
Keep your ancient god, sister; what use is he to us? He has neither linen nor a scrap of clothing in which to dress himself; he is as naked in his abyss as you are beneath your roof. He is wandering through his empty eternity as you do on our roads. When night comes, there are no temples to enclose him; when rain falls, no cloak to keep him dry. At his age, old in years, he goes forth alone in exile to the utmost depths of the universe, beaten by the wind and the rain, without ever resting, like you, poor captive, traversing the desert under the rods of our archers.
JERUSALEM
Listen to me; I bring news.
THE CITIES
What news?
JERUSALEM
I have traveled far, farther than you, to the edge of the sea of Joppa to bathe my feet and gaze where the world finishes. My prophets climbed up to my highest tower. That night, before daybreak, they summoned me to see, in Bethlehem, a God hidden in a stable manger. Look, look, Jerusalem; he has an aureole around his head; he is a tiny infant. The shepherds are playing their pipes to amuse him.
THEBES
Why have we not found him before you? Have you already taken him on to your knees to rock him and offer him the teat?
JERUSALEM
To rock him there is a Galilean virgin, clad in linen, whom he loves more than me.
MEMPHIS
Does he wear broad bandlets on his temples, like those worn by my kings in their tombs near Aleppo?
JERUSALEM
No, his hair is as radiant as the sun in a dusty haze.
BABYLON
Does he not have a robe the color of the sky, which diviners have embroidered with the stars of the night?
JERUSALEM
When I saw him, the cold wind was making him a tunic and the warm wind sowing him a cloak.
PERSEPOLIS
I know him. At his door he has two gryphons whose claws make naphtha wells spring forth from the earth.
JERUSALEM
No, the one I saw had two angels on his threshold, carrying a palm-leaf.
BABYLON
We’ll finish the work we’ve begun another time. Let’s go see the new god.
THEBES
I already know what place I shall make for him in my great temple of Luxor. I want to hang his cradle from my portico, so that my sphinxes can rock him without getting up, day and night.
PERSEPOLIS
I shall have him suckled by a unicorn, in my desert.
BABYLON
And I shall carry him in my arms on my terrace, in order that he might learn to count the stars by night.
THE CITIES
Jerusalem, our sister, climb your staircases in order to see him at closer range. Tell him that tomorrow, before daybreak, we shall send him three royal mages as messengers. We shall choose the oldest and the wisest, the kings of Sheba, Persia and Babylon; each will bring him presents under his cloak—truly rich presents, from the mountain and the plain, amulets and enchanted stones, as many as he pleases.
Tell him, on our behalf, that although he is still a little child, and our towers are high, we shall take him up to our summit; that our gates are very heavy, but that he shall make them screech merely by touching them; that our chariots are fast, but that he shall hold the reins of our unbroken mares on his own, for his amusement; that our royal crowns are heavy on the heads of men, but that we shall coif him with them in his cradle, that he might play with them; that our voices are the great resounding voices of empires, but that we shall sing him softly to sleep with young women’s canticles. Tell him that we are very old within our old walls, but that if he wishes, he shall take up in the palm of his hands with all our towers and bastions, like a little woodland bird in its nest of ferns.
Also salute by name, on our behalf, the virgin dressed in linen who loves him, and the two angels bearing palm-leaves.
IX.
The Mage Kings
THE KING OF SHEBA
Adieu, Queen of Sheba, don’t cry. I’m departing as a messenger with my brethren, the mage kings. If I should happen to die on the journey, embalm me with Syrian balm; put me, fully dressed, in a pyramid of emeralds as high as the pyramids of Memphis. In the meantime, devote yourself to what justice demands of you. Listen to the two parties without differentiating between them; let fortune and misfortune be as one to you, and know that a single loyal archer is worth more than a hundred felonious cavalrymen. Teach your two daughters to spin cotton and wash linen. If you marry them off, make sure that our son-in-law does not command where I am master. Build a pagoda full of amulets. Look after my chariots, my elephant towers, my brave men of war and my squire, in order that I might find, when I return, my kingdom as increased in power as you are in wisdom.
THE QUEEN OF SHEBA
Come back soon, my lord. I shall not be able to sleep without you, my love.
MELCHIOR, KING OF PERSIA
Remain behind, my gryphons, to close the gates of my city when I am no longer here. If a king comes to lay siege to it, light a fire of heather on the mountain to send me a signal. Every morning and evening, let my wives sing a prayer for me with their jasmine lips, before dawn and before dusk, before taking a bath and before tying or taking off their turbans; and let their veils trail on the ground, so that their amorous ankles are unseen. Have my history written with a chisel on a rock polished by the sirocco, in five-cubit letters, and, so that the lions can read them if they wish when they pass by. Sit down, to wait for me, at the place where my kingdom ends; and if my people ask after me, gather them, like the sand, to raise a mosque in Iran as large s their shadow.
THE GRYPHONS
To remain at the gate of your city my wings are too rapid. A divine breath has brushed my mane and I have heard the night of Eternity whinnying in the direction of Bethlehem. Since then, my claw has been digging an abyss in the desire to leave. My nostrils are sniffing the air. Let me run before you like a dog before its master.
THE KING OF PERSIA
Who, then, would watch over my walls?
THE GRYPHONS
The desert.
BALTHAZAR, KING OF BABYLON
My presents are the most beautiful. I have a hundred castles, and as many cities; every city has sent a hundred camels laden with silk, myrrh and vessels, every castle a hundred racehorses with Moors to guide them. My ivory baldaquin is carried by four Ethiopian kings, all the color of ebony wood, my cloak by four Mesopotamian kings, all armed with golden arrows. Damascened sabers, silver baldrics, diamond-encrusted miters, lighted candelabras, cassolettes of smoking incense and turbans embroidered by my wives fill my courtyard; mules are prancing on the paving-stones. The camels kneel and get up by themselves; the falcons and merlins are growing bored on the wrists of the squires; the carts are screeching on their axles; so you, beautiful Morning Star, rise in your turn to guide us.
THE STAR
Carts and chariots filled with myrrh, it is me who has been waiting for you since the middle of the night; do not lost the track of my wheels.
THE CARTS
Our wheels are heavier than yours, our road is rougher; but we shall whip the rumps of our mares with our hard shafts and give them the sweat of their manes to drink.
THE STAR
Follow me.
THE CARTS
We’re leaving.
THE STAR
Where are you?
THE CARTS
Here we are.
THE STAR
Are you coming?
THE CARTS
In your dust.
THE MAGE-KINGS
Beautiful star, our kingdoms are already far away; soon we shall no longer be able to see them. We are traversing many lands and many cities without stopping there. Our massive golden scepters are our traveling staffs and our diamond-encrusted crowns shelter us by night. Never, at our festivals, have so many people kissed our robes. We pass before caravanserais without sitting down at table. At the crossroads,
lions bring us dates and figs for our meals, and eagles come to fill our ruby cups from the springs they know. Impatiently, the rivers in which our diadems are mirrored set out to follow us; in their nests, the little storks stand up, beating their wings, when they discover where we are going; and the sea breeze, which can never quit the shore, says to us, wherever we encounter it: “Take me with you, great kings, in the flaps of your clothing.”
THE STAR
Neither here nor there, do not stop your mules with the bridle. A cloud draws my axle and the wind drives my wheels. In my hand I carry the presents of the firmament: an aureole of light that does not go out by day or by night; a mantle of azure that I have sown with my golden needle; and a cassolette full of the scent of the sky. Everywhere I have gone I have found my drink of dew prepared. The stars are taking their festival dawns from the vault, and the void is rising up with a start, propping itself up, in order to try to follow me to where I am leading you.
THE MAGE-KINGS
In the direction of the plain we can see seven pyramids emerging, which touch the sky. The smallest bows down and picks up the shadow of the largest, in order to veil itself, as a child does the hem of his mother’s cloak. Around it, obelisks, columns and colonnades, temples and frontons, are lying on the ground, like the booty of a god’s caravan that has unloaded its camels for the night beneath a grove of sycamores. At their feet, the desert has lain down to like their stairways. Is that not the dwelling of the king’s son to whom we are taking our presents?