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diff --git a/43611-0.txt b/43611-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..643dd53 --- /dev/null +++ b/43611-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,708 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43611 *** + +THE TABLES OF THE LAW; & +THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI + + + + +_Five hundred and ten copies printed; +type distributed._ _No._ 311 + + + + +THE TABLES OF THE LAW; & +THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI +BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS + + + + +THE SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS +STRATFORD-UPON-AVON MCMXIV + + + + +THE TABLES OF THE LAW + + + + +THE TABLES OF THE LAW + + +I + +'Will you permit me, Aherne,' I said, 'to ask you a question, which I +have wanted to ask you for years, and have not asked because we have +grown nearly strangers? Why did you refuse the berretta, and almost +at the last moment? When you and I lived together, you cared neither +for wine, women, nor money, and had thoughts for nothing but theology +and mysticism.' I had watched through dinner for a moment to put my +question, and ventured now, because he had thrown off a little of +the reserve and indifference which, ever since his last return from +Italy, had taken the place of our once close friendship. He had just +questioned me, too, about certain private and almost sacred things, and +my frankness had earned, I thought, a like frankness from him. + +When I began to speak he was lifting to his lips a glass of that old +wine which he could choose so well and valued so little; and while +I spoke, he set it slowly and meditatively upon the table and held +it there, its deep red light dyeing his long delicate fingers. The +impression of his face and form, as they were then, is still vivid +with me, and is inseparable from another and fanciful impression: +the impression of a man holding a flame in his naked hand. He was to +me, at that moment, the supreme type of our race, which, when it has +risen above, or is sunken below, the formalisms of half-education and +the rationalisms of conventional affirmation and denial, turns away, +unless my hopes for the world and for the Church have made me blind, +from practicable desires and intuitions towards desires so unbounded +that no human vessel can contain them, intuitions so immaterial that +their sudden and far-off fire leaves heavy darkness about hand and +foot. He had the nature, which is half monk, half soldier of fortune, +and must needs turn action into dreaming, and dreaming into action; +and for such there is no order, no finality, no contentment in this +world. When he and I had been students in Paris, we had belonged to a +little group which devoted itself to speculations about alchemy and +mysticism. More orthodox in most of his beliefs than Michael Robartes, +he had surpassed him in a fanciful hatred of all life, and this hatred +had found expression in the curious paradox--half borrowed from some +fanatical monk, half invented by himself--that the beautiful arts were +sent into the world to overthrow nations, and finally life herself, by +sowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning +city. This idea was not at the time, I believe, more than a paradox, +a plume of the pride of youth; and it was only after his return to +Ireland that he endured the fermentation of belief which is coming upon +our people with the reawakening of their imaginative life. + +Presently he stood up, saying: 'Come, and I will show you, for you at +any rate will understand,' and taking candles from the table, he lit +the way into the long paved passage that led to his private chapel. We +passed between the portraits of the Jesuits and priests--some of no +little fame--his family had given to the Church; and engravings and +photographs of pictures that had especially moved him; and the few +paintings his small fortune, eked out by an almost penurious abstinence +from the things most men desire, had enabled him to buy in his travels. +The pictures that I knew best, for they had hung there longest, +whether reproductions or originals, were of the Sienese School, which +he had studied for a long time, claiming that it alone of the schools +of the world pictured not the world but what is revealed to saints in +their dreams and visions. The Sienese alone among Italians, he would +say, could not or would not represent the pride of life, the pleasure +in swift movement or sustaining strength, or voluptuous flesh. They +were so little interested in these things that there often seemed to +be no human body at all under the robe of the saint, but they could +represent by a bowed head, or uplifted face, man's reverence before +Eternity as no others could, and they were at their happiest when +mankind had dwindled to a little group silhouetted upon a golden abyss, +as if they saw the world habitually from far off. When I had praised +some school that had dipped deeper into life, he would profess to +discover a more intense emotion than life knew in those dark outlines. +'Put even Francesca, who felt the supernatural as deeply,' he would +say, 'beside the work of Siena, and one finds a faint impurity in his +awe, a touch of ghostly terror, where love and humbleness had best +been all.' He had often told me of his hope that by filling his mind +with those holy pictures he would help himself to attain at last to +vision and ecstasy, and of his disappointment at never getting more +than dreams of a curious and broken beauty. But of late he had added +pictures of a different kind, French symbolistic pictures which he had +bought for a few pounds from little-known painters, English and French +pictures of the School of the English Pre-Raphaelites; and now he stood +for a moment and said, 'I have changed my taste. I am fascinated a +little against my will by these faces, where I find the pallor of souls +trembling between the excitement of the flesh and the excitement of the +spirit, and by landscapes that are created by heightening the obscurity +and disorder of nature. These landscapes do not stir the imagination +to the energies of sanctity but as to orgiac dancing and prophetic +frenzy.' I saw with some resentment new images where the old ones had +often made that long gray, dim, empty, echoing passage become to my +eyes a vestibule of Eternity. + +Almost every detail of the chapel, which we entered by a narrow Gothic +door, whose threshold had been worn smooth by the secret worshippers +of the penal times, was vivid in my memory; for it was in this chapel +that I had first, and when but a boy, been moved by the mediævalism +which is now, I think, the governing influence in my life. The only +thing that seemed new was a square bronze box which stood upon the +altar before the six unlighted candles and the ebony crucifix, and was +like those made in ancient times of more precious substances to hold +the sacred books. Aherne made me sit down on an oak bench, and having +bowed very low before the crucifix, took the bronze box from the altar, +and sat down beside me with the box upon his knees. + +'You will perhaps have forgotten,' he said, 'most of what you have +read about Joachim of Flora, for he is little more than a name to even +the well read. He was an abbot in Cortale in the twelfth century, +and is best known for his prophecy, in a book called _Expositio in +Apocalypsin_, that the Kingdom of the Father was passed, the Kingdom +of the Son passing, the Kingdom of the Spirit yet to come. The +Kingdom of the Spirit was to be a complete triumph of the Spirit, the +_spiritualis intelligentia_ he called it, over the dead letter. He had +many followers among the more extreme Franciscans, and these were +accused of possessing a secret book of his called the _Liber Inducens +in Evangelium Æternum_. Again and again groups of visionaries were +accused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the +Renaissance lay hidden, until at last Pope Alexander IV. had it found +and cast into the flames. I have here the greatest treasure the world +contains. I have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have +made the robes in which it is wrapped. The greater portion of the book +itself is illuminated in the Byzantine style, which so few care for +to-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and +saints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an +abstract pattern of flowing lines that suggest an imagination absorbed +in the contemplation of Eternity. Even if you do not care for so formal +an art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold, +and of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at +a great price in its day. But it was only at the Renaissance the labour +was spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. The +wooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted +upon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the +school of Francesco Cossi of Ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges +are known to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini, who made likewise the +bronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed, +to signify an absorption in the inner light.' + +I took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded, +many-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the +texture of the paper. + +'Where did you get this amazing book?' I said. 'If genuine, and I +cannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most +precious things in the world.' + +'It is certainly genuine,' he replied. 'When the original was +destroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a +lute-player of Florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so +from generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who +was father to Benvenuto Cellini, and from Benvenuto Cellini to that +Cardinal of Ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to +a natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its +wandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of +the family of Aretino, and to Giulio Aretino, an artist and worker in +metals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola. +He spent many nights with me at Rome, discussing philosophy; and at +last I won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his +greatest treasure; and, finding how much I valued it, and feeling that +he himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold +it to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.' + +'What is the doctrine?' I said. 'Some mediæval straw-splitting about +the nature of the Trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many +things are unimportant to us, which once shook the world?' + +'I could never make you understand,' he said, with a sigh, 'that +nothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this +book goes to the heart. Do you see the tables on which the commandments +were written in Latin?' I looked to the end of the room, opposite to +the altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that +two large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little +tablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. 'It has swept +the commandments of the Father away,' he went on, 'and displaced the +commandments of the Son by the commandments of the Holy Spirit. The +first book is called _Fractura Tabularum_. In the first chapter it +mentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things +and the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and +the second the names of the great wits who took the name of the Lord +their God in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems +of sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise +of breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet +lived comely and pleasant days. Those two chapters tell of men and +women who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was +older than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of +Michael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and +so won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et +vestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured +raiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of +the noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed +into memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet +flames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who +lived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the +twittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those +two last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore +false witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal +wrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of +God, and all things that are His, which no man has seen and handled, +except in madness and in dreams. + +'The second book is called _Lex Secreta_, and describes the true +inspiration of action, the only Eternal Evangel; and ends with a +vision, which he saw among the mountains of La Sila, of his disciples +sitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with +a laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of Time: _C[oe]lis +in cæruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat +risus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus_.' + +'I know little of Joachim of Flora,' I said, 'except that Dante set him +in Paradise among the great doctors. If he held a heresy so singular, I +cannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of Dante; and +Dante made no peace with the enemies of the Church.' + +'Joachim of Flora acknowledged openly the authority of the Church, and +even asked that all his published writings, and those to be published +by his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of +the Pope. He considered that those whose work was to live and not to +reveal were children and that the Pope was their Father; but he taught +in secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were +elected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of God which +is colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these +have no father but the Holy Spirit. Just as poets and painters and +musicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful +things alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the +grave, these children of the Holy Spirit labour at their moments with +eyes upon the shining substance on which Time has heaped the refuse of +creation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming +generations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred, +and the fruit of the Tree, are but instruments for that supreme art +which is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves +into their dove-cots. + +'I shall go away in a little while and travel into many lands, that +I may know all accidents and destinies, and when I return will write +my secret law upon those ivory tablets, just as poets and romance +writers have written the principles of their art in prefaces; and when +I know what principle of life, discoverable at first by imagination +and instinct, I am to express, I will gather my pupils that they may +discover their law in the study of my law, as poets and painters +discover their own art of expression by the study of some Master. I +know nothing certain as yet but this--I am to become completely alive, +that is, completely passionate, for beauty is only another name for +perfect passion. I shall create a world where the whole lives of men +shall be articulated and simplified as if seventy years were but one +moment, or as they were the leaping of a fish or the opening of a +flower.' + +He was pacing up and down, and I listened to the fervour of his words +and watched the excitement of his gestures with not a little concern. +I had been accustomed to welcome the most singular speculations, and +had always found them as harmless as the Persian cat who half closes +her meditative eyes and stretches out her long claws before my fire. +But now I would battle in the interests of orthodoxy, even of the +commonplace: and yet could find nothing better to say than: 'It is +not necessary to judge everyone by the law, for we have also Christ's +commandment of love.' + +He turned and said, looking at me with shining eyes: 'Jonathan Swift +made a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbour as +himself.' + +'At any rate, you cannot deny that to teach so dangerous a doctrine is +to accept a terrible responsibility.' + +'Leonardo da Vinci,' he replied, 'has this noble sentence: "The hope +and desire of returning home to one's former state is like the moth's +desire for the light; and the man who with constant longing awaits +each new month and new year, deeming that the things he longs for are +ever too late in coming, does not perceive that he is longing for his +own destruction." How, then, can the pathway which will lead us into +the heart of God be other than dangerous? why should you, who are no +materialist, cherish the continuity and order of the world as those do +who have only the world? You do not value the writers who will express +nothing unless their reason understands how it will make what is called +the right more easy; why, then, will you deny a like freedom to the +supreme art, the art which is the foundation of all arts? Yes, I shall +send out of this chapel saints, lovers, rebels and prophets: souls who +will surround themselves with peace, as with a nest made with grass; +and others over whom I shall weep. The dust shall fall for many years +over this little box; and then I shall open it; and the tumults, which +are, perhaps, the flames of the last day, shall come from under the +lid.' + +I did not reason with him that night, because his excitement was great +and I feared to make him angry; and when I called at his house a few +days later, he was gone and his house was locked up and empty. I have +deeply regretted my failure both to combat his heresy and to test the +genuineness of his strange book. Since my conversion I have indeed done +penance for an error which I was only able to measure after some years. + + +II + +I was walking along one of the Dublin quays, on the side nearest the +river, about ten years after our conversation, stopping from time +to time to turn over the books upon an old bookstall, and thinking, +curiously enough, of the terrible destiny of Michael Robartes, and his +brotherhood; when I saw a tall and bent man walking slowly along the +other side of the quay. I recognized, with a start, in a lifeless mask +with dim eyes, the once resolute and delicate face of Owen Aherne. I +crossed the quay quickly, but had not gone many yards before he turned +away, as though he had seen me, and hurried down a side street; I +followed, but only to lose him among the intricate streets on the north +side of the river. During the next few weeks I inquired of everybody +who had once known him, but he had made himself known to nobody; and I +knocked, without result, at the door of his old house; and had nearly +persuaded myself that I was mistaken, when I saw him again in a narrow +street behind the Four Courts, and followed him to the door of his +house. + +I laid my hand on his arm; he turned quite without surprise; and +indeed it is possible that to him, whose inner life had soaked up +the outer life, a parting of years was a parting from forenoon to +afternoon. He stood holding the door half open, as though he would keep +me from entering; and would perhaps have parted from me without further +words had I not said: 'Owen Aherne, you trusted me once, will you not +trust me again, and tell me what has come of the ideas we discussed in +this house ten years ago?--but perhaps you have already forgotten them.' + +'You have a right to hear,' he said, 'for since I have told you the +ideas, I should tell you the extreme danger they contain, or rather the +boundless wickedness they contain; but when you have heard this we must +part, and part for ever, because I am lost, and must be hidden!' + +I followed him through the paved passage, and saw that its corners were +choked, and the pictures gray, with dust and cobwebs; and that the +dust and cobwebs which covered the ruby and sapphire of the saints on +the window had made it very dim. He pointed to where the ivory tablets +glimmered faintly in the dimness, and I saw that they were covered with +small writing, and went up to them and began to read the writing. It +was in Latin, and was an elaborate casuistry, illustrated with many +examples, but whether from his own life or from the lives of others +I do not know. I had read but a few sentences when I imagined that a +faint perfume had begun to fill the room, and turning round asked Owen +Aherne if he were lighting the incense. + +'No,' he replied, and pointed where the thurible lay rusty and empty on +one of the benches; as he spoke the faint perfume seemed to vanish, and +I was persuaded I had imagined it. + +'Has the philosophy of the _Liber Inducens in Evangelium Æternum_ made +you very unhappy?' I said. + +'At first I was full of happiness,' he replied, 'for I felt a divine +ecstasy, an immortal fire in every passion, in every hope, in every +desire, in every dream; and I saw, in the shadows under leaves, in +the hollow waters, in the eyes of men and women, its image, as in a +mirror; and it was as though I was about to touch the Heart of God. +Then all changed and I was full of misery, and I said to myself that +I was caught in the glittering folds of an enormous serpent, and was +falling with him through a fathomless abyss, and that henceforth the +glittering folds were my world; and in my misery it was revealed to me +that man can only come to that Heart through the sense of separation +from it which we call sin, and I understood that I could not sin, +because I had discovered the law of my being, and could only express or +fail to express my being, and I understood that God has made a simple +and an arbitrary law that we may sin and repent!' + +He had sat down on one of the wooden benches and now became silent, his +bowed head and hanging arms and listless body having more of dejection +than any image I have met with in life or in any art. I went and stood +leaning against the altar, and watched him, not knowing what I should +say; and I noticed his black closely-buttoned coat, his short hair, +and shaven head, which preserved a memory of his priestly ambition, +and understood how Catholicism had seized him in the midst of the +vertigo he called philosophy; and I noticed his lightless eyes and his +earth-coloured complexion, and understood how she had failed to do more +than hold him on the margin: and I was full of an anguish of pity. + +'It may be,' he went on, 'that the angels whose hearts are shadows of +the Divine Heart, and whose bodies are made of the Divine Intellect, +may come to where their longing is always by a thirst for the divine +ecstasy, the immortal fire, that is in passion, in hope, in desire, in +dreams; but we whose hearts perish every moment, and whose bodies melt +away like a sigh, must bow and obey!' + +I went nearer to him and said: 'Prayer and repentance will make you +like other men.' + +'No, no,' he said, 'I am not among those for whom Christ died, and this +is why I must be hidden. I have a leprosy that even eternity cannot +cure. I have seen the whole, and how can I come again to believe that a +part is the whole? I have lost my soul because I have looked out of the +eyes of the angels.' + +Suddenly I saw, or imagined that I saw, the room darken, and faint +figures robed in purple, and lifting faint torches with arms that +gleamed like silver, bending, above Owen Aherne; and I saw, or imagined +that I saw, drops, as of burning gum, fall from the torches, and a +heavy purple smoke, as of incense, come pouring from the flames and +sweeping about us. Owen Aherne, more happy than I who have been half +initiated into the Order of the Alchemical Rose, and protected perhaps +by his great piety, had sunk again into dejection and listlessness, +and saw none of these things; but my knees shook under me, for the +purple-robed figures were less faint every moment, and now I could +hear the hissing of the gum in the torches. They did not appear to see +me, for their eyes were upon Owen Aherne; and now and again I could +hear them sigh as though with sorrow for his sorrow, and presently I +heard words which I could not understand except that they were words of +sorrow, and sweet as though immortal was talking to immortal. Then one +of them waved her torch, and all the torches waved, and for a moment it +was as though some great bird made of flames had fluttered its plumage, +and a voice cried as from far up in the air: 'He has charged even his +angels with folly, and they also bow and obey; but let your heart +mingle with our hearts, which are wrought of divine ecstasy, and your +body with our bodies, which are wrought of divine intellect.' And at +that cry I understood that the Order of the Alchemical Rose was not of +this earth, and that it was still seeking over this earth for whatever +souls it could gather within its glittering net; and when all the faces +turned towards me, and I saw the mild eyes and the unshaken eyelids, I +was full of terror, and thought they were about to fling their torches +upon me, so that all I held dear, all that bound me to spiritual and +social order, would be burnt up, and my soul left naked and shivering +among the winds that blow from beyond this world and from beyond the +stars; and then a faint voice cried, 'Why do you fly from our torches +that were made out of the trees under which Christ wept in the Garden +of Gethsemane? Why do you fly from our torches that were made out of +sweet wood, after it had perished from the world and come to us who +made it of old times with our breath?' + +It was not until the door of the house had closed behind my flight, and +the noise of the street was breaking on my ears, that I came back to +myself and to a little of my courage; and I have never dared to pass +the house of Owen Aherne from that day, even though I believe him to +have been driven into some distant country by the spirits whose name is +legion, and whose throne is in the indefinite abyss, and whom he obeys +and cannot see. + + + + +THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI + + + + +THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI + + +I was sitting reading late into the night a little after my last +meeting with Aherne, when I heard a light knocking on my front door. I +found upon the doorstep three very old men with stout sticks in their +hands, who said they had been told I should be up and about, and that +they were to tell me important things. I brought them into my study, +and when the peacock curtains had closed behind us, I set their chairs +for them close to the fire, for I saw that the frost was on their +great-coats of frieze and upon the long beards that flowed almost to +their waists. They took off their great-coats, and leaned over the +fire warming their hands, and I saw that their clothes had much of the +country of our time, but a little also, as it seemed to me, of the +town life of a more courtly time. When they had warmed themselves--and +they warmed themselves, I thought, less because of the cold of the +night than because of a pleasure in warmth for the sake of warmth--they +turned towards me, so that the light of the lamp fell full upon their +weather-beaten faces, and told the story I am about to tell. Now one +talked and now another, and they often interrupted one another, with +a desire like that of countrymen, when they tell a story, to leave +no detail untold. When they had finished they made me take notes of +whatever conversation they had quoted, so that I might have the exact +words, and got up to go. When I asked them where they were going, and +what they were doing, and by what names I should call them, they would +tell me nothing, except that they had been commanded to travel over +Ireland continually, and upon foot and at night, that they might live +close to the stones and the trees and at the hours when the immortals +are awake. + +I have let some years go by before writing out this story, for I am +always in dread of the illusions which come of that inquietude of the +veil of the Temple, which M. Mallarmé considers a characteristic of our +times; and only write it now because I have grown to believe that there +is no dangerous idea which does not become less dangerous when written +out in sincere and careful English. + +The three old men were three brothers, who had lived in one of the +western islands from their early manhood, and had cared all their +lives for nothing except for those classical writers and old Gaelic +writers who expounded an heroic and simple life; night after night in +winter, Gaelic story-tellers would chant old poems to them over the +poteen; and night after night in summer, when the Gaelic story-tellers +were at work in the fields or away at the fishing, they would read to +one another Virgil and Homer, for they would not enjoy in solitude, but +as the ancients enjoyed. At last a man, who told them he was Michael +Robartes, came to them in a fishing boat, like St. Brandan drawn by +some vision and called by some voice; and spoke of the coming again +of the gods and the ancient things; and their hearts, which had never +endured the body and pressure of our time, but only of distant times, +found nothing unlikely in anything he told them, but accepted all +simply and were happy. Years passed, and one day, when the oldest of +the old men, who travelled in his youth and thought sometimes of other +lands, looked out on the grey waters, on which the people see the dim +outline of the Islands of the Young--the Happy Islands where the Gaelic +heroes live the lives of Homer's Phæacians--a voice came out of the air +over the waters and told him of the death of Michael Robartes. They +were still mourning when the next oldest of the old men fell asleep +while reading out the Fifth Eclogue of Virgil, and a strange voice +spoke through him, and bid them set out for Paris, where a woman lay +dying, who would reveal to them the secret names of the gods, which can +be perfectly spoken only when the mind is steeped in certain colours +and certain sounds and certain odours; but at whose perfect speaking +the immortals cease to be cries and shadows, and walk and talk with one +like men and women. + +They left their island, at first much troubled at all they saw in the +world, and came to Paris, and there the youngest met a person in a +dream, who told him they were to wander about at hazard until those who +had been guiding their footsteps had brought them to a street and a +house, whose likeness was shown him in the dream. They wandered hither +and thither for many days, but one morning they came into some narrow +and shabby streets, on the south of the Seine, where women with pale +faces and untidy hair looked at them out of the windows; and just as +they were about to turn back because Wisdom could not have alighted +in so foolish a neighbourhood, they came to the street and the house +of the dream. The oldest of the old men, who still remembered some of +the modern languages he had known in his youth, went up to the door and +knocked, but when he had knocked, the next in age to him said it was +not a good house, and could not be the house they were looking for, and +urged him to ask for some one they knew was not there and go away. The +door was opened by an old over-dressed woman, who said, 'O, you are her +three kinsmen from Ireland. She has been expecting you all day.' The +old men looked at one another and followed her upstairs, passing doors +from which pale and untidy women thrust out their heads, and into a +room where a beautiful woman lay asleep in a bed, with another woman +sitting by her. + +The old woman said: 'Yes they have come at last; now she will be able +to die in peace,' and went out. + +'We have been deceived by devils,' said one of the old men, 'for the +immortals would not speak through a woman like this.' + +'Yes,' said another, 'we have been deceived by devils, and we must go +away quickly.' + +'Yes,' said the third, 'we have been deceived by devils, but let us +kneel down for a little, for we are by the deathbed of one that has +been beautiful.' They knelt down, and the woman who sat by the bed, and +seemed to be overcome with fear and awe, lowered her head. They watched +for a little the face upon the pillow and wondered at its look, as of +unquenchable desire, and at the porcelain-like refinement of the vessel +in which so malevolent a flame had burned. + +Suddenly the second oldest of them crowed like a cock, and until the +room seemed to shake with the crowing. The woman in the bed still +slept on in her death-like sleep, but the woman who sat by her head +crossed herself and grew pale, and the youngest of the old men cried +out: 'A devil has gone into him, and we must begone or it will go into +us also.' Before they could rise from their knees a resonant chanting +voice came from the lips that had crowed and said: 'I am not a devil, +but I am Hermes the Shepherd of the Dead, and I run upon the errands +of the gods, and you have heard my sign, that has been my sign from +the old days. Bow down before her from whose lips the secret names +of the immortals, and of the things near their hearts, are about to +come, that the immortals may come again into the world. Bow down, and +understand that when they are about to overthrow the things that are +to-day and bring the things that were yesterday, they have no one to +help them, but one whom the things that are to-day have cast out. Bow +down and very low, for they have chosen for their priestess this woman +in whose heart all follies have gathered, and in whose body all desires +have awaked; this woman who has been driven out of Time, and has lain +upon the bosom of Eternity. After you have bowed down the old things +shall be again, and another Argo shall carry heroes over sea, and +another Achilles beleaguer another Troy.' + +The voice ended with a sigh, and immediately the old man awoke out of +sleep, and said: 'Has a voice spoken through me, as it did when I fell +asleep over my Virgil, or have I only been asleep?' + +The oldest of them said: 'A voice has spoken through you. Where has +your soul been while the voice was speaking through you?' + +'I do not know where my soul has been, but I dreamed I was under the +roof of a manger, and I looked down and I saw an ox and an ass; and I +saw a red cock perching on the hay-rack; and a woman hugging a child; +and three old men, in armour, studded with rubies, kneeling with their +heads bowed very low in front of the woman and the child. While I was +looking the cock crowed and a man with wings on his heels swept up +through the air, and as he passed me, cried out: "Foolish old men, you +had once all the wisdom of the stars." I do not understand my dream or +what it would have us do, but you who have heard the voice out of the +wisdom of my sleep know what we have to do.' + +Then the oldest of the old men told him they were to take the +parchments they had brought with them out of their pockets and spread +them on the ground. When they had spread them on the ground, they took +out of their pockets their pens, made of three feathers, which had +fallen from the wing of the old eagle that is believed to have talked +of wisdom with St. Patrick. + +'He meant, I think,' said the youngest, as he put their ink-bottles +by the side of the rolls of parchment, 'that when people are good the +world likes them and takes possession of them, and so eternity comes +through people who are not good or who have been forgotten. Perhaps +Christianity was good and the world liked it, so now it is going away +and the immortals are beginning to awake.' + +'What you say has no wisdom,' said the oldest, 'because if there are +many immortals, there cannot be only one immortal.' + +Then the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes; +and the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down +the secret names,' and at his words a look of great joy came into her +face. Presently she began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though +she knew she had but a little while to live, and in the Gaelic of their +own country; and she spoke to them many secret powerful names, and of +the colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and +instruments of handicraft belonging to the owners of those names; but +most about the Sidhe of Ireland and of their love for the Cauldron, and +the Whetstone, and the Sword, and the Spear. Then she tossed feebly +for a while and moaned, and when she spoke again it was in so faint a +murmur that the woman who sat by the bed leaned down to listen, and +while she was listening the spirit went out of the body. + +Then the oldest of the old men said in French to the woman who was +still bending over the bed: 'There must have been yet one name which +she had not given us, for she murmured a name while the spirit was +going out of the body,' and the woman said, 'She was but murmuring +over the name of a symbolist painter she was fond of. He used to go to +something he called the Black Mass, and it was he who taught her to see +visions and to hear voices. She met him for the first time a few months +ago, and we have had no peace from that day because of her talk about +visions and about voices. Why! it was only last night that I dreamed I +saw a man with a red beard and red hair, and dressed in red, standing +by my bedside. He held a rose in one hand, and tore it in pieces with +the other hand, and the petals drifted about the room, and became +beautiful people who began to dance slowly. When I woke up I was all in +a heat with terror.' + +This is all the old men told me, and when I think of their speech and +of their silence, of their coming and of their going, I am almost +persuaded that had I gone out of the house after they had gone out +of it, I should have found no footsteps on the snow. They may, for +all I or any man can say, have been themselves immortals: immortal +demons, come to put an untrue story into my mind for some purpose I do +not understand. Whatever they were I have turned into a pathway which +will lead me from them and from the Order of the Alchemical Rose. I +no longer live an elaborate and haughty life, but seek to lose myself +among the prayers and the sorrows of the multitude. I pray best in poor +chapels, where the frieze coats brush by me as I kneel, and when I pray +against the demons I repeat a prayer which was made I know not how many +centuries ago to help some poor Gaelic man or woman who had suffered +with a suffering like mine. + + _Seacht b-páidreacha fó seacht + Chuir Muire faoi n-a Mac, + Chuir Brigbid faoi n-a brat, + Chuir Dia faoi n-a neart, + Eidir sinn 'san Sluagh Sidhe, + Eidir sinn 'san Sluagh Gaoith._ + + Seven paters seven times, + Send Mary by her Son, + Send Bridget by her mantle, + Send God by His strength, + Between us and the faery host, + Between us and the demons of the air. + + + + +_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at the Shakespeare Head Press, +Stratford-upon-Avon_. + + + + +Transcriber's Note: + +One printer's error or misspelling was found and fixed: + + Page 5. In the original book: orgaic dancing + changed in this ebook to: orgiac dancing + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Tables of the Law; & The Adoration of +the Magi, by William Butler Yeats + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 43611 *** |