A Masque of Reason

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]