by Robert Frost
Pray tell me what does that mean. Anything?
Perhaps that earth is going to crack someday
Like a big egg and hatch a heaven out
Of all the dead and buried from their graves.
One simple little statement from the throne
Would put an end to such fantastic nonsense;
And, too, take care of twenty of the four
And twenty freedoms on the party docket.
Or is it only four? My extra twenty
Are freedoms from the need of asking questions.
(I hope You know the game called twenty questions.)
For instance, is there such a thing as Progress?
Job says there’s no such thing as Earth’s becoming
An easier place for man to save his soul in.
Except as a hard place to save his soul in,
A trial ground where he can try himself
And find out whether he is any good,
It would be meaningless. It might as well
Be Heaven at once and have it over with.
God
Two pitching on like this tend to confuse me.
One at a time, please. I will answer Job first.
I’m going to tell Job why I tortured him
And trust it won’t be adding to the torture.
I was just showing off to the Devil, Job,
As is set forth in chapters One and Two.
(Job takes a few steps pacing.) Do you mind?
(God eyes him anxiously.)
Job
No. No, I musn’t.
’Twas human of You. I expected more
Than I could understand and what I get
Is almost less than I can understand.
But I don’t mind. Let’s leave it as it stood.
The point was it was none of my concern.
I stick to that. But talk about confusion!
How is that for a mix-up, Thyatira?
Yet I suppose what seems to us confusion
Is not confusion, but the form of forms,
The serpent’s tail stuck down the serpent’s throat,
Which is the symbol of eternity
And also of the way all things come round,
Or of how rays return upon themselves,
To quote the greatest Western poem yet.
Though I hold rays deteriorate to nothing,
First white, then red, then ultra red, then out.
God
Job, you must understand my provocation.
The tempter comes to me and I am tempted.
I’d had about enough of his derision
Of what I valued most in human nature.
He thinks he’s smart. He thinks he can convince me
It is no different with my followers
From what it is with his. Both serve for pay.
Disinterestedness never did exist
And if it did, it wouldn’t be a virtue.
Neither would fairness. You have heard the doctrine.
It’s on the increase. He could count on no one:
That was his look out. I could count on you.
I wanted him forced to acknowledge so much.
I gave you over to him, but with safeguards.
I took care of you. And before you died
I trust I made it clear I took your side
Against your comforters in their contention
You must be wicked to deserve such pain.
That’s Browning and sheer Chapel Non-conformism.
Job
God, please, enough for now. I’m in no mood
For more excuses.
God
What I mean to say:
Your comforters were wrong.
Job
Oh, that committee!
God
I saw you had no fondness for committees.
Next time you find yourself pressed on to one
For the revision of the Book of Prayer
Put that in if it isn’t in already:
Deliver us from committees. ’Twill remind me.
I would do anything for you in reason.
Job
Yes, yes.
God
You don’t seem satisfied.
Job
I am.
God
You’re pensive.
Job
Oh, I’m thinking of the Devil.
You must remember he was in on this.
We can’t leave him out.
God
No. No, we don’t need to.
We’re too well off.
Job
Someday we three should have
A good old get-together celebration.
God
Why not right now?
Job
We can’t without the Devil.
God
The Devil’s never very far away.
He too is pretty circumambient.
He has but to appear. He’ll come for me,
Precipitated from the desert air.
Show yourself, son. I’ll get back on my throne
For this I think. I find it always best
To be upon my dignity with him.
(The Devil enters like a sapphire wasp
That flickers mica wings. He lifts a hand
To brush away a disrespectful smile.
Job’s wife sits up.)
Job’s Wife
Well, if we aren’t all here,
Including me, the only Dramatis
Personae needed to enact the problem.
Job
We’ve waked her up.
Job’s Wife
I haven’t been asleep.
I’ve heard what you were saying—every word.
Job
What did we say?
Job’s Wife
You said the Devil’s in it.
Job
She always claims she hasn’t been asleep.
And what else did we say?
Job’s Wife
Well, what lead up—
Something about—(The three men laugh.)—The
Devil’s being God’s best inspiration.
Job
Good, pretty good.
Job’s Wife
Wait till I get my Kodak.
Would you two please draw in a little closer?
No—no, that’s not a smile there. That’s a grin.
Satan, what ails you? Where’s the famous tongue,
Thou onetime Prince of Conversationists?
This is polite society you’re in
Where good and bad are mingled everywhichway,
And ears are lent to any sophistry
Just as if nothing mattered but our manners.
You look as if you either hoped or feared
You were more guilty of mischief than you are.
Nothing has been brought out that for my part
I’m not prepared for or that Job himself
Won’t find a formula for taking care of.
Satan
Like the one Milton found to fool himself
About his blindness.
Job’s Wife
Oh, he speaks! He can speak!
That strain again! Give me excess of it!
As dulcet as a pagan temple gong!
He’s twitting us. Oh, by the way, you haven’t
By any chance a Lady Apple on you?
I saw a boxful in the Christmas market.
How I should prize one personally from you.
God
Don’t you twit. He’s unhappy. Church neglect
And figurative use have pretty well
Reduced him to a shadow of himself.
Job’s Wife
That explains why he’s so diaphanous
And easy to see through. But where’s he off to?
I thought there were to be festivities
Of some kind. We could have charades.
God
He has his business he must be about.
Job mentioned him and so I brought him in
More to give his reality its due
Than anything.
Job’s Wife
He’s very real to me
And always will be. Please don’t go. Stay, stay
But to the evensong and having played
Together we will go with you along.
There are who won’t have had enough of you
If you go now. Look how he takes no steps!
He isn’t really going, yet he’s leaving.
Job
(Who has been standing dazed with new ideas)
He’s on that tendency that like the Gulf Stream,
Only of sand not water, runs through here.
It has a rate distinctly different
From the surrounding desert; just today
I stumbled over it and got tripped up.
Job’s Wife
Oh, yes, that tendency! Oh, do come off it.
Don’t let it carry you away. I hate
A tendency. The minute you get on one
It seems to start right off accelerating.
Here, take my hand.
(He takes it and alights
In three quick steps as off an escalator.
The tendency, a long, long narrow strip
Of middle-aisle church carpet, sisal hemp,
Is worked by hands invisible off stage.)
I want you in my group beside the throne—
Must have you. There, that’s just the right arrangement.
Now someone can light up the Burning Bush
And turn the gold enameled artificial birds on.
I recognize them. Greek artificers
Devised them for Alexius Comnenus.
They won’t show in the picture. That’s too bad.
Neither will I show. That’s too bad moreover.
Now if you three have settled anything
You’d as well smile as frown on the occasion.
(Here endeth chapter forty-three of Job.)
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.
[The end of A Masque of Reason by Robert Frost]