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The Star in the WestBYCAPTAIN J. F. C. FULLERFOURTH LARGE EDITION NOW IN PREPARATIONTHROUGH THE EQUINOX AND ALL BOOKSELLERSSIX SHILLINGS NETA highly original study of morals andreligion by a new writer, who is asentertaining as the average novelist isdull. Nowadays human thought hastaken a brighter place in the creation: ouremotions are weary of bad baronets andstolen wills; they are now only excited byspiritual crises, catastrophes of the reason,triumphs of the intelligence. In thesefields Captain Fuller is a masterdramatist.
This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellorof the A∴A∴]Persons wishing for information, assistance, furtherinterpretation, etc., are requested to communicate withTHE CHANCELLOR OF THE A∴A∴c/o THE EQUINOX,124 Victoria Street,S.W.Telephone 3210 VICTORIA,or to call at that address by appointment. A representativewill be there to meet them.Probationers are reminded that the object of Probationsand Ordeals is one: namely, to select Adepts. But themethod appears twofold: (i) to fortify the fit; (ii) to eliminatethe unfit.The Chancellor of the A∴ A∴ views without satisfactionthe practice of Probationers working together. A Probationershould work with his Neophyte, or alone. Breach of this rulemay prove a bar to advancement.
THE EQUINOX
The Editor will be glad to considercontributions and to return such as areunacceptable if stamps are enclosed forthe purpose.
THE EQUINOXTHE OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE A∴ A∴THE REVIEW OF SCIENTIFIC ILLUMINISMAn VII VOL. I. No. VI. ! in gSEPTEMBER MCMXIO. S.“THE METHOD OF SCIENCE—THE AIM OF RELIGION”WIELAND & CO.3 GREAT JAMES STREET, GRAY’S INNLONDON, W.C.PRINTED BYTURNBULL AND SPEARSEDINBURGH
Boring but necessary legal stuff etc.(c) Ordo Templi OrientisJAF Box 7666New York NY 10116 USAwww.oto.orgOriginal key entry and proofreadingby W.E. Heidrick, Treasurer-General O.T.O.and others.Further proofing and formattingby Frater T.S.for Celephaïs PressThis edition may be freely distributed unmodifiedprovided no charge other than reasonable costs of mediaand transmission / postage (where applicable) is made.Not for commercial or ‘shareware’ distribution.
C O N T E N T SPAGEEDITORIAL 1LIBER X 3LIBER XVI 9LIBER XC 17LIBER CLVI 23LIBER CC 29LIBER CCCLXX 33THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRON. BY ALEISTER CROWLEY 41CIRCE. BY ETHEL ARCHER 52THE ELECTRIC SILENCE 53SONG 66THE SCORPION. BY ALEISTER CROWLEY 67THE EARTH. BY FRANCIS BENDICK 108SLEEP. BY ETHEL ARCHER 112THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON. BY MARTIAL NAY 113THE AUTUMN WOODS. BY VICTOR J. I. NEUBURG 149THE DANGERS OF MYSTICISM 153THE BIG STICK. BY JOHN YARKER, E. WHINERAY, ALEISTER CROWLEY, ETC. 160SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTTHE RITES OF ELEUSIS[The necessity of giving immediate publication to the text of The Rites of Eleusis has obligedus to hold over the instalment of The Temple of Solomon the King until next March.]i
EDITORIALSLOWLY but surely the EQUINOX climbs from crest to crest of prosperity.Such as been the response to the appeal in our last number that wehave been able to put in hand the task of translating the Official Instructionsof A∴A∴ into French, and, if it continues, we shall be able topublish them in every important language of the world within the nexttwo years.Your overworked Editor, too, have been able to take the longest andhappiest holiday of his life. River and forest have given him all thatnature can; and this was the least part of his contentment. Moreover,he has been able to prepare, under sublime guidance, a dozen OfficialInstructions of A∴A∴, to conclude the great Qabalistic Dictionary ofGematria, and to begin the almost equally important Greek Dictionaryon similar lines.He has had leisure to produce more play, sketches, poems, andstories in this last year than he has done in any previous five years ofhis life.For all this his gratitude is due, and must be expressed, to the selfsacrificingdevotion of our sworn sub-editor, Mr. Victor J. I. Neuburg.Rarely in all history has so unpleasing an exterior concealed suchsterling qualities of heart and brain, such indomitable courage, suchinflexibility of will, such loyalty and truth. We are glad to hear that heis about to accept a highly paid post on the staff of our bright littlecontemporary The Looking-Glass, and that he who himself sings somusically may be in his turn the means of making others sing.As we observed above, we are causing several extracts from theEQUINOX to be translated into French.1
THE EQUINOXWe are further glad to hear such good reports from every branch.The North and the Midlands are already making London look to itslaurels; the West has surpassed all hope; America, South Africa,Burma, India, the Malay Peninsula, West Africa, all thrive. Australiahas received an important addition to its strength; we have excellentaccounts from British Columbia, Paraguay, and Brazil. France is beingspecially nursed at present, but Holland, Switzerland, and Germanyneed no such aid. The work in Spain is still hampered by politicalconditions, and we are sorry to hear little from Italy. In Algeria andEgypt work has got somewhat into arrear, but we hope that the winterwill see the fundamental task fairly accomplished.As we go to press, we are overjoyed to receive the most excellentaccounts from the Caucasus, where the good work done by MonsieurNelidoff twenty years ago has come to marvellous fruition.With regard to personal progress of Probationers, nothing can bemore satisfactory. The process of sifting, subtle but severe, initiatedby V.V.V.V.V., and carried out so thoroughly by the Præ monstrator ofA∴ A∴, has been perfectly successful.Every day brings a report illustrative of the fact that people whodo not do the practices, but gossip about the A∴ A∴, find themselvesmysteriously outside, without word spoken; and the correlative fact,that people who do the practices find that results do happen.It is most astonishing, even to us; under the old empirical,dogmatic methods people could work really hard for years, and getabsolutely nothing; in our three years' experience with the A∴ A∴,we have not found one man in whom three months' work has notproduced at least one notable result.What can we add but this: Blessing and worship to the Beast, theProphet of the Lovely Star!2
LIBERPORTA LVCISSVB FIGVRÂX
A∴ A∴Publication in Class A.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBERPORTA LVCISSVB FIGVRÂ X1. I behold a small dark orb, wheeling in an abyss ofinfinite space. It is minute among a myriad vast ones,dark amid a myriad bright ones.2. I who comprehend in myself all the vast and the minute,all the bright and the dark, have mitigated the brilliance ofmine unutterable splendour, sending forth V.V.V.V.V. as aray of my light, as a messenger unto that small dark orb.3. Then V.V.V.V.V. taketh up the word, and sayeth:4. Men and women of the Earth, to you am I come fromthe Ages beyond the Ages, from the Space beyond yourvision; and I bring to you these words.5. But they heard him not, for they were not ready toreceive them.6. But certain men heard and understood, and throughthem shall this Knowledge be made known.7. The least therefore of them, the servant of them all,writeth this book.8. He writeth for them that are ready. Thus is it knownif one be ready, if he be endowed with certain gifts, if he befitted by birth, or by wealth, or by intelligence, or by some5
THE EQUINOXother manifest sign. And the servants of the master by hisinsight shall judge of these.9. This Knowledge is not for all men; few indeed arecalled, but of these few many are chosen.10. This is the nature of the Work.11. First, there are many and diverse conditions of lifeupon this earth. In all of these is some seed of sorrow.Who can escape from sickness and from old age and fromdeath?12. We are come to save our fellows from these things. Forthere is a life intense with knowledge and extreme bliss whichis untouched by any of them.13. To this life we attain even here and now. The adepts,the servants of V.V.V.V.V., have attained thereunto.14. It is impossible to tell you of the splendours to whichthey have attained.Little by little, as your eyes grow stronger, will we unveilto you the ineffable glory of the Path of the Adepts, and itsnameless goal.15. Even as a man ascending a steep mountain is lost tosight of his friends in the valley, so must the adept seem.They shall say: He is lost in the clouds. But he shall rejoice inthe sunlight above them, and come to the eternal snows.16. Or as a scholar may learn some secret language of theancients, his friends shall say: “Look! he pretends to readthis book. But it is unintelligible—it is nonsense.” Yet hedelights in the Odyssey, while they read vain and vulgarthings.17. We shall bring you to Absolute Truth, Absolute Light,Absolute Bliss.6
LIBER PORTA LUCIS18. Many adepts throughout the ages have sought to dothis; but their words have been perverted by their successors,and again and again the Veil has fallen upon the Holy ofHolies.19. To you who yet wander in the Court of the Profane wecannot reveal all; but you will easily understand that thereligions of the world are but symbols and veils of theAbsolute Truth. So also are the philosophies. To the adepts,seeing all things from above, there seems nothing to choosebetween Buddha and Mohammed, between Atheism andTheism.20. The many change and pass; the one remains. Even aswood and coal and iron burn up together in one great flame, ifonly that furnace be of transcendent heat; so in the alembic ofthis spiritual alchemy, if only the zelator blow sufficientlyupon his furnace all the systems of earth are consumd in theOne Knowledge.21. Nevertheless, as a fire cannot be started with ironalone, in the beginning one system may be suited for oneseeker, another for another.22. We therefore who are without the chains of ignorance,look closely into the heart of the seeker and lead him by thepath which is best suited to his nature unto the ultimate endof all things, the supreme realization, the Life which abidethin Light, yea, the Life which abideth in Light.7
LIBER TVRRISVELDOMVS DEISVB FIGVRÂXVI
A∴ A∴Publication in Class B.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBER TVRRISVEL DOMVS DEISVB FIGVRÂ XVI0. This practice is very difficult. The student cannot hopefor much success unless he have thoroughly mastered Asana,and obtained much definite success in the meditationpracticesof Liber E and Liber HHH.On the other hand, any success in this practice is of anexceedingly high character, and the student is less liable toillusion and self-deception in this than in almost any otherthat We make known.[The meditation-practice in Liber E consisted in the restraint of the mind toa single predetermined imagined object exterior to the student, simple orcomplex, at rest or in motion: those of Liber HHH in causing the mind to passthrough a predetermined series of states: the Raja-Yoga of the Hindus is mainlyan extension of the methods of Liber E to interior objects: the Mahasatipatthanaof the Buddhists is primarily an observation and analysis of bodily movements.While the present practice differs radically from all of these, it is of the greatestadvantage of be acquainted practically with each of them, with regard firstly totheir incidental difficulties, and secondly to their ascertained results in respect ofpsychology. ED.]1. First Point. The student should discover for himselfthe apparent position of the point in his brain where thoughtsarise, if there be such a point.11
THE EQUINOXIf not, he should seek the position of the point wherethoughts are judged.2. Second Point. He must also develop in himself aWill of Destruction, even a Will of Annihilation. It maybe that this shall be discovered at an immeasurable distancefrom his physical body. Nevertheless, this must hereach, with this must he identify himself even to the lossof himself.3. Third Point. Let this Will then watch vigilantly thepoint where thoughts arise, or the point where they arejudged, and let every thought be annihilated as it is perceivedor judged.*4. Fourth Point. Next, let every thought be inhibited inits inception.5. Fifth Point. Next, let even the causes or tendenciesthat if unchecked ultimate in thoughts be discovered andannihilated.6. Sixth and Last Point. Let the true Cause of All† beunmasked and annihilated.7. This is that which was spoken by wise men of old timeconcerning the destruction of the world by fire; yea, thedestruction of the world by fire.8. [This and the following verses are of modern origin.]Let the Student remember that each Point represents adefinite achievement of great difficulty.9. Let him not then attempt the second until he be wellsatisfied of his mastery over the first.* This is also the “Opening of the Eye of Shiva.” ED.† Mayan, the Magician, or Mara. Also the Dweller on the Threshold in avery exalted sense. ED.12
LIBER TVRRIS10. This practice is also that which was spoken by Fra. P. ina parable as follows:11. Foul is the robber stronghold, filled with hate;Thief strangling thief, and mate at war with mate,Fronting wild raiders, all forlorn to Fate!There is nor health nor happiness therein.Manhood is cowardice, and virtue sin.Intolerable blackness hems it in.Not hell’s heart hath so noxious a shade;Yet harmless and unharmed, and undismayed,Pines in her prison an unsullied maid.Penned by the master mage to his desire,She baffles his seductions and his ire,Praying God’s all-annihilating fire.The Lord of Hosts gave ear unto her song:The Lord of Hosts waxed wrathful at her wrong.He loosed the hound of heaven from its thong.Violent and vivid smote the levin flash.Once the tower rocked and cracked beneath its lash,Caught inextinguishable fire; was ash.But that same fire that quelled the robber strife,And struck each being out of lust and life,Left the mild maiden a rejoicing wife.13
12. And this:THE EQUINOX13. There is a well before the Great White ThroneThat is choked up with rubbish from the ages;Rubble and clay and sediment and stone,Delight of lizards and despair of sages.Only the lightning from His hand that sits,And shall sit when the usurping tyrant falls,Can purge that wilderness of wills and wits,Let spring that fountain in eternal halls.1414. And this:15. Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury:Which is master of the three?Salt is Lady of the Sea;Lord of Air is Mercury.Now by God’s grace here is saltFixed beneath the violet vault.Now by God’s love purge it throughWith our right Hermetic dew.Now by God wherein we trustBe our sophic salt combust.Then at last the Eye shall seeThree in One and One in Three,Sulphur, Salt, and Mercury,Crowned by Heavenly Alchemy!
LIBER TVRRISTo the One who sent the SevenGlory in the Highest Heaven!To the Seven who are the TenGlory on the Earth, Amen!16. And of the difficulties of this practice and of theResults that reward it, let these things be discovered by theright Ingenium of the Practicus.15
LIBER TZADDIVELHAMVS HERMETICVSSVB FIGVRÂXC
A∴ A∴Publication in Class A.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBER TZADDIVEL HAMVS HERMETICVSSVB FIGVRÂ XC0. In the name of the Lord of Initiation, Amen.1. I fly and I alight as an hawk: of mother-of-emerald aremy mighty-sweeping wings.2. I swoop down upon the black earth; and it gladdensinto green at my coming.3. Children of Earth! rejoice! rejoice exceedingly; for yoursalvation is at hand.4. The end of sorrow is come; I will ravish you away intomine unutterable joy.5. I will kiss you, and bring you to the bridal; I will spreada feast before you in the house of happiness.6. I am not come to rebuke you, or to enslaveyou.7. I bid you not turn from your voluptuous ways, fromyour idleness, from your follies.8. But I bring joy to your pleasure, peace to your languor,wisdom to your folly.9. All that ye do is right, if so be that ye enjoy it.10. I am come against sorrow, against weariness, againstthem that seek to enslave you.19
20THE EQUINOX11. I pour you lustral wine, that giveth you delight bothat the sunset and the dawn.12. Come with me, and I will give you all that is desirableupon the earth.13. Because I give you that of which Earth and its joys arebut as shadows.14. They flee away, but my joy abideth even unto the end.15. I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a blackand terrible God.16. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me:ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting thesweep of the sword.17. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips;and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy.18. Only those who fear shall fail. Those who have benttheir backs to the yoke of slavery until they can no longerstand upright; them will I despise.19. But you who have defied the law; you who haveconquered by subtlety or force; you will I take unto me, evenI will take you unto me.20. I ask you to sacrifice nothing at mine altar; I am theGod who giveth all.21. Light, Life, Love; Force, Fantasy, Fire; these do Ibring you: mine hands are full of these.22. There is joy in the setting-out; there is joy in thejourney; there is joy in the goal.23. Only if ye are sorrowful, or weary, or angry, ordiscomforted; then ye may know that ye have lost the goldenthread, the thread wherewith I guide you to the heart of thegroves of Eleusis.
LIBER TZADDI24. My disciples are proud and beautiful; they are strongand swift; they rule their way like mighty conquerors.25. The weak, the timid, the imperfect, the cowardly, thepoor, the tearful—these are mine enemies, and I am come todestroy them.26. This also is compassion: an end to the sickness of earth.A rooting-out of the weeds: a watering of the flowers.27. O my children, ye are more beautiful than the flowers:ye must not fade in your season.28. I love you; I would sprinkle you with the divine dew ofimmortality.29. This immortality is no vain hope beyond the grave: Ioffer you the certain consciousness of bliss.30. I offer it at once, on earth; before an hour hath struckupon the bell, ye shall be with Me in the Abodes that arebeyond Decay.31. Also I give you power earthly and joy earthly; wealth,and health, and length of days. Adoration and love shall clingto your feet, and twine around your heart.32. Only your mouths shall drink of a delicious wine—thewine of Iacchus; they shall reach ever to the heavenly kiss ofthe Beautiful God.33. I reveal utno you a great mystery. Ye stand betweenthe abyss of height and the abyss of depth.34. In either awaits a Companion; and the Companion isYourself.35. Ye can have no other Companion.36. Many have arisen, being wise. They have said “Seekout the glittering Image in the place ever golden, and uniteyourself with It.”21
THE EQUINOX37. Many have arisen, being foolish. They have said,“Stoop down unto the darkly splendid world, and be weddedto that Blind Creature of the Slime.”38. I who am beyond Wisdom and Folly, arise and say untoyou: achieve both weddings! Unite yourself with both!39. Beware, beware, I say, lest ye seek after the one andlose the other!40. My adepts stand upright; their head above the heavens,their feet below the hells.41. But since one is naturally attracted to the Angel,another to the Demon, let the first strengthen the lower link,the last attach more firmly to the higher.42. Thus shall equilibrium become perfect. I will aid mydisciples; as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joyso faster will I push them.43. They shall in their turn speak from this InvisibleThrone; their words shall illumine the worlds.44. They shall be masters of majesty and might; they shall bebeautiful and joyous; they shall be clothed with victory andsplendour; they shall stand upon the firm foundation; thekingdom shall be theirs; yea, the kingdom shall be theirs.In the name of the Lord of Initiation. Amen.22
LIBER CHETHVELVALLVM ABIEGNISVB FIGVRÂCLVI
A∴ A∴Publication in Class A.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBER CHETHVEL VALLVM ABIEGNISVB FIGVRÂ CLVI1. This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacredvessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Motherof Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rideth upon ourLord the Beast.2. Thou shalt drain out thy blood that is thy life into thegolden cup of her fornication.3. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life.Thou shalt not keep back one drop.4. Then shall thy brain be dumb, and thy heart beat nomore, and all thy life shall go from thee; and thou shalt becast out upon the midden, and the birds of the air shall feastupon thy flesh, and thy bones shall whiten in the sun.5. Then shall the winds gather themselves together, andbear thee up as it were a little heap of dust in a sheet thathath four corners, and they shall give it unto the guardians ofthe abyss.6. And because there is no life therein, the guardians ofthe abyss shall bid the angels of the winds pass by. And theangels shall lay thy dust in the City of the Pyramids, and thename thereof shall be no more.25
26THE EQUINOX7. Now therefore that thou mayest achieve this ritual ofthe Holy Graal, do thou divest thyself of all thy goods.8. Thou hast wealth; give it unto them that have needthereof, yet no desire toward it.9. Thou hast health; slay thyself in the fervour of thineabandonment unto Our Lady. Let thy flesh hang loose uponthy bones, and thine eyes glare with thy quenchless lust untothe Infinite, with thy passion for the Unknown, for Her that isbeyond Knowledge the accursè d one.10. Thou hast love; tear thy mother from thine heart, andspit in the face of thy father. Let thy foot trample the belly ofthy wife, and let the babe at her breast be the prey of dogsand vultures.11. For if thou dost not this with thy will, then shall We dothis despite thy will. So that thou attain to the Sacrament ofthe Graal in the Chapel of Abominations.12. And behold! if by stealth thou keep unto thyself onethought of thine, then shalt thou be cast out into the abyssfor ever; and thou shalt be the lonely one, the eater of dung,the afflicted in the Day of Be-with-Us.13. Yea! verily this is the Truth, this is the Truth, this isthe Truth. Unto thee shall be granted joy and health andwealth and wisdom when thou are no longer thou.14. Then shall every gain be a new sacrament, and it shallnot defile thee; thou shalt revel with the wanton in themarket-place, and the virgins shall fling roses upon thee, andthe merchants bend their knees and bring thee gold andspices. Also young boys shall pour wonderful wines forthee, and the singers and the dancers shall sing and dance forthee.
LIBER CHETH15. Yet shalt thou not be therein, for thou shalt beforgotten, dust lost in dust.16. Nor shall the æ on itself avail thee in this; for from thedust shall a white ash be prepared by Hermes the Invisible.17. And this is the wrath of God, that these things shouldbe thus.18. And this is the grace of God, that these things shouldbe thus.19. Wherefore I charge you that ye come unto me in theBeginning; for if ye take but one step in this Path, ye mustarrive inevitably at the end thereof.20. This Path is beyond Life and Death; it is also beyondLove; but that ye know not, for ye know not Love.21. And the end thereof is known not even unto Our Ladyor to the Beast whereon She rideth; nor unto the Virgin herdaughter nor unto Chaos her lawful Lord; but unto theCrowned Child is it known? It is not known if it be known.22. Therefore unto Hadit and unto Nuit be the glory inthe End and the Beginning; yea, in the End and theBeginning.27
LIBER RESHVELHELIOSSVB FIGVRÂCC
A∴ A∴Publication in Class D.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBER RESHVEL HELIOSSVB FIGVRÂ CC0. These are the adorations to be performed by allaspirants to the A∴A∴1. Let him greet the Sun at dawn, facing East, giving thesign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:Hail unto Thee who art Ra in Thy rising, even unto Theewho art Ra in Thy strength, who travellest over the Heavensin Thy bark at the Uprising of the Sun.Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Night!2. Also at Noon, let him greet the Sun, facing South,giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loudvoice:Hail unto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy triumphing, evenunto Thee who art Ahathoor in Thy beauty, who travellestover the Heavens in Thy bark at the Mid-course of the Sun.Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Morning!3. Also, at Sunset, let him greet the Sun, facing West,31
THE EQUINOXgiving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even untoThee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over theHeavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Day!4. Lastly, at Midnight, let him greet the Sun, facing West,giving the sign of his grade. And let him say in a loud voice:Hail unto Thee who art Khephra in Thy hiding, even untoThee who art Khephra in Thy silence, who travellest over theHeavens in Thy bark at the Midnight Hour of the Sun.Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.Hail unto Thee from the Abodes of Evening!5. And after each of these invocations thou shalt give thesign of silence, and afterwards thou shalt perform theadoration that is taught thee by thy Superior. And then dothou compose thyself to holy meditation.6. Also it is better if in these adorations thou assume thegod-form of Whom thou adorest, as if thou didst unite withHim in the adoration of That which is beyond Him.7. Thus shalt thou ever be mindful of the Great Workwhich thou hast undertaken to perform, and thus shalt thoube strengthened to pursue it unto the attainment of the Stoneof the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and PerfectHappiness.32
LIBER A’ASHVELCAPRICORNI PNEVMATICISVB FIGVRÂCCCLXX
A∴ A∴Publication in Class A.Imprimatur:N. Fra. A∴ A∴
LIBER A’ASHVEL CAPRICORNI PNEVMATICISVB FIGVRÂ CCCLXX0. Gnarled Oak of God! In thy branches is the lightningnested! Above thee hangs the Eyeless Hawk.1. Thou art blasted and black! Supremely solitary in thatheath of scrub.2. Up! The ruddy clouds hang over thee! It is thestorm.3. There is a flaming gash in the sky.4. Up.5. Thou art tossed about in the grip of the storm for anæon and an æ on and an æ on. But thou givest not thy sap;thou fallest not.6. Only in the end shalt thou give up thy sap when thegreat God F. I. A. T. is enthroned on the day of Be-With-Us.7. For two things are done and a third thing is begun.Isis and Osiris are given over to incest and adultery. Horusleaps up thrice armed from the womb of his mother. Harpocrateshis twin is hidden within him. Set is his holy covenant,that he shall display in the great day of M. A. A. T., that isbeing interpreted the Master of the Temple of A∴A∴, whosename is Truth.35
THE EQUINOX8. Now in this is the magical power known.9. It is like the oak that hardens itself and bears up againstthe storm. It is weather-beaten and scarred and confident likea sea-captain.10. Also it straineth like a hound in the leash.11. It hath pride and great subtlety. Yea, and glee also!12. Let the magus act thus in his conjuration.13. Let him sit and conjure; let him draw himself togetherin that forcefulness; let him rise next swollen and straining;let him dash back the hood from his head and fix his basiliskeye upon the sigil of the demon. Then let him sway the forceof him to and from like a satyr in silence, until the Word burstfrom his throat.14. Then let him not fall exhausted, although the mighthave been ten thousandfold the human; but that whichfloodeth him is the infinite mercy of the Genitor-Genetrix ofthe Universe, whereof he is the Vessel.15. Nor do thou deceive thyself. It is easy to tell the liveforce from the dead matter. It is no easier to tell the live snakefrom the dead snake.16. Also concerning vows. Be obstinate, and be notobstinate. Understand that the yielding of the Yoni is onewith the lengthening of the Lingam. Thou art both these;and thy vow is but the rustling of the wind on MountMeru.17. Now shalt thou adore me who am the Eye and theTooth, the Goat of the Spirit, the Lord of Creation. I am theEye in the Triangle, the Silver Star that ye adore.18. I am Baphomet, that is the Eightfold Word that shallbe equilibrated with the Three.36
LIBER A’ASH19. There is no act or passion that shall not be a hymn inmine honour.20. All holy things and all symbolic things shall be mysacraments.21. These animals are sacred unto me; the goat, and theduck, and the ass, and the gazelle, the man, the woman, andthe child.22. All corpses are sacred unto me; they shall not betouched save in mine eucharist. All lonely places are sacredunto me; where one man gathereth himself together in myname, there will I leap forth in the midst of him.23. I am the hideous god; and who mastereth me is uglierthan I.24. Yet I give more than Bacchus and Apollo; my giftsexceed the olive and the horse.25. Who worshippeth me must worhsip me with manyrites.26. I am concealed with all concealments; when the MostHoly Ancient One is stripped and driven through themarketplace I am still secret and apart.27. Whom I love I chastise with many rods.28. All things are sacred to me; no thing is sacred from me.29. For there is no holiness where I am not.30. Fear not when I fall in the fury of the storm; for mineacorns are blown afar by the wind; and verily I shall rise again,and my children about me, so that we shall uplift our forest inEternity.31. Eternity is the storm that covereth me.32. I am Existence, the Existence that existeth not savethrough its own Existence, that is beyond the Existence of37
THE EQUINOXExistences, and rooted deeper than the No-Thing-Tree in theLand of No-Thing.33. Now therefore thou knowest when I am within thee,when my hood is spread over thy skull, when my might ismore than the penned Indus, and resistless as the GiantGlacier.34. For as thou art before a lewd woman in Thy nakednessin the bazar, sucked up by her slyness and smiles, so art thouwholly and no more in part before the symbol of the beloved,though it be but a Pisacha or a Yantra or a Deva.35. And in all shalt thou create in Infinite Bliss, and thenext link of the Infinite Chain.36. This chain reaches from Eternity to Eternity, even intriangles—is not my symbol a triangle?—ever in circles—isnot the symbol of the Beloved a circle? Therein is allprogress base illusion, for every circle is alike and everytriangle alike!37. But the progress is progress, and progress is rapture,constant, dazzling, showers of light, waves of dew, flames ofthe hair of the Great Goddess, flowers of the roses that areabout her neck, Amen!38. Therefore lift up thyself as I am lifted up. Holdthyself in as I am master to accomplish. At the end, be theend far distant as the stars that lie in the navel of Nuit, dothou slay thyself as I at the end am slain, in the death that islife, in the peace that is the mother of war, in the darknessthat holds light in his hand as a harlot that plucks a jewel fromher nostrils.39. So therefore the beginning is delight, and the End isdelight, and delight is in the midst, even as the Indus is water38
LIBER A’ASHin the cavern of the glacier, and water among the greaterhills and the lesser hills and through the ramparts of thehills and through the plains, and water at the mouth thereofwhen it leaps forth into the mighty sea, yea, into the mightysea.[The Interpretation of this Book will be given to members of the Grade ofDominus Liminis on application, each to his Adeptus.]39
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRON
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRONITHE WAIF OF OCEANUSSHE is like a flower washed upOn the shore of life by the sea of luck;A strange and venomous flower, intentTo prove an unguessed continent.New worlds of love in the curve of its cup!New fruits to crush, new flowers to pluck.TO FRANK HARRISWhite waif, white champak-blosso blownFrom the jungle to the lost lagoon!White lily swayed by the wind of time!Grey eyes that crave the chrism of crime!Blanched face like a note on a clarion!Red mouth like the sun through simoon, typhoon!Hurricanes howl, howl in her heart;Serpents sleep in her smile; I hearHorrible happenings long ago,Direful deeds, weirds of woe,43
THE EQUINOXThings beyond history and artIn the tresses that tumble over her ear!In what grim gloom did Satan getThis child on what wood-nymph dishevelled?Whence was the wind that swayed the woodsOn their bestial beatitudes?Or what garden of rose and violetLay under the moon wherein they revelled?She is like a poppy-petal.All the seas of sleep are hiddenUnder the languorous eyelids, whoseLashes are long and strong to bruiseMy heart where her lusts like hornets settleOn sacred leaves, on flowers forbidden.She is like a drug of wonder.All the limits of sense dissolveWhen we fall like snows from the precipiceSun-kissed to the black ravines of ice.I am drowned in the universal thunder;The hours disrupt, the aeons involve.Ah! not in any mortal moodEnds the great verb we conjugate.From the highest hyberbole she doth swerveIn an incommensurable curve,And the line of our beatitudeIs one with the sigil of our Fate.44
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRONPallid, a mummy throned, she sits;The Egyptian eyes, the Egyptian hair,The band on her brows, the slender hands,All hieroglyphs of a God's commandsBeyond the rimes that a poet knitsWith fruitless travail, sterile care!Marvellous! marvellous, marvellous!And again a marvel, a lotus-budDropt from the brows of a Goddess unknownOn the ivory steps of the golden throne,Virginal brows and luminousWith the star-stream flowing therein for blood.Ah, but electric thrills the HostOf the esoteric Eucharist!The Pagan power of the corn and wineMystical, magical, hers and mine,The dove-plumed snake of the Holy GhostThat wings and writhes in the wounds unkissed!Lie there, love—if I love you indeedWho adore and wonder and faint for drouthOf the passion-flower fallen from the other sideOf time and space the tedious tide.Lie there, lie there, and let me bleedTo death in the breath of the murderous mouth!45
THE EQUINOXIITHE SNOW MAIDENMY love is like the lucent globesThat drip from lips of cool crevasses,To clothe them with the virgin robesOf mosses, flowers, and grasses.O spheres compact of fire and dew,Lamps of the hollows of the mountain,What dream angelic fathered youOn what celestial fountain?Nay! but I lay on lower earthStagnant in sunless meres! The prisonOf monstrous spawn, detested birth—Behold me rearisen!TO MARGARET CALLAGHANIt was yon fierce diurnal starThat licked me up with his huge kisses,And dropped me in his rain afarUpon these frore abysses!Yea! as I press to the cool mossMy mouth, and drink at its deliriousDelight—acclaim the Sun acrossThe menaces of Sirius!46
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRONDoth not the World's great AlchemistRule earth's alembic with the sun?Is not the mind a foolish mist,And is not water one?The slim white body that you gave,Wild Jaja’, with exotic nautchesWanton and wonderful, a waveOf debonair debauches,Is worth the virgin limbs and lipsOf her the virtuous, the viceless,With life who never came to grips,Who gave me nothing priceless.Give me the purity distilledFrom dervish sweat and satyr bruises.The Holy Graal with wine is filledFrom no unbroken cruses.Doth not the World's great AlchemistCorrupt His oysters to make pearls?Shall not these lips praise Him? They kissedNo cold reluctant girl’s.Jaja' hath woven the web of GodFrom threads of lust and laughter spun.In heaven the rose is worth the rod;And love as water, One.47
THE EQUINOXIIIJEANNEA PASTORALTO RAYMOND RADCLYFFE“Hey diddle diddle! the cat and the fiddle!The cow jumped over the moon.”I LAID mine ear against your heart,Jeanne!A masterpiece of nature turnedA masterpiece of art,With your blanched Egyptian beauty foiledBy the hungry eyes, and the red mouth soiledBy the honey of mine that your greed has spoiled,Jeanne!The body a corpse and the soul inurned!Against your heart I laid mine ear,Jeanne!And the clock went ticking, ticking.How could I choose but hear,Jeanne!Ah me! what thoughts came prickingLike spurs in the flanks of a weary horse?Nor heart nor clock could feel remorse,But kept their definite deadly course,Jeanne!Alas! for man, for his life's disaster:The clock beats fast, but a heart beats faster.48
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRONOh, your love was a marvellous thing,Jeanne!It was dawn, it was fire, it was birth, it was spring,Jeanne!But this is the curse, that it quickens its rate,Lest man by love should escape from fateAnd win from the dust to the Uncreate,Jeanne!Nay, we are lovers, you and I—And we must die, and our love must die!How have we striven, each of us,Jeanne!To break the bars of the prison-house,Jeanne!We have raged like cats in a ring of fire,Driven by desire that was true Desire,The hate of the lower, the love of the Higher,Jeanne!What is the end of it, Jeanne? Why, that'sA mystery not to be solved by cats!In the fields we wandered through to-day,Jeanne!Hand in hand, this wonderful May,Jeanne!This May we have made so marvellousWith the infinite longing and love of us,49
THE EQUINOXIn the fields all faery with flowers there layThe placid cows—that had nothing to say,Jeanne!No flame of words from maddening blood,But complacent chewing of the cud.I dared not whisper the sudden fearOf my heart in your miracle of an ear,Jeanne!I tightened my lips, and my hand on yours;So that you might think I loved you more.But now in the midnight the thought endures,And the love—ah what is the dream we adore?Suppose the infinite peace of the heart,Jeanne!The crest and crown of labour and art,Of the mystic quest, of the toil of the saint,The mount on whose slopes the strongest faint,Jeanne!Suppose that peace of God, that HouseOf Delight of the Bridegroom and the Spouse,Were only the calm of the chewing cows,Jeanne!Suppose that in all the worlds inaneThere were one thing only vexed and vain,Turbulent, troubled, and insane,Jeanne!Suppose that the universal planHad but one flaw, and that flaw were man!50
THREE POEMS FOR JANE CHÉRONThen—even then—we are here,Jeanne!We love—we shall die, sweet heart, take cheer,Jeanne!We are bound to a fate that brings release;We move in a moil that must one day cease;We shall win to the everlasting peace,Jeanne!And how things are, and why, and whenceAre puzzles for fools that lack the senseOf cows—enough of the future tense,Jeanne!For the end of love and the end of artIs just—my ear against your heart!ALEISTER CROWLEY.51
CIRCEHER mouth a rosebud of delight,Low-laughing ’mid the languid curls,Whose kissing cadence seems to citeThe rhythmic melody of Night.Her hair a saraband where whirlsA wanton witch, whose perfumes smiteThe shuddering air; a summer nightWhere summer lightning darts and curls.Her soul a Parian marble shrine,Centred in lily-cups that foldTheir carven petals, smooth and cold,Far o’er a lake of frozen wine—Yet deep within whose inmost foldSleepeth a snake: the crystal brineOf endless sorrow seals his shrine;Wiser than Sin is he, so old!ETHEL ARCHER.52
THE ELECTRIC SILENCE
THE ELECTRIC SILENCE[This parable is a synopsis of The Temple of Solomon the King, with whichit may be collated.—ED.].I WAITED for news that my heart beat. The severing night wasbetween me and my love. There was no god of sleep; sleepwere traitor. I sought to praise my love, and to lament thehours that divided us; and I could not. Therefore I wrotedown the story of my life.And it is this:* * * * *Gilded and painted to hide its worm-eaten planks, mypleasure-boat was foundering. I cursed the treachery of theworkmen, and resolved to trust myself to my own arms ratherthan to abide any longer therein.No sooner had I taken off my clothes and plunged intothe river than I perceived that it was now become dark. Onthe one hand glowed a star, curious indeed, but of no greatbrightness, and promising but little; while on the otherwas a sombre and fantastic lamp, whose fascination wasits horror.If I swam lazily towards either of these, it was becausetheir light, confused and difficult on the one part, and tenebrouson the other, was yet light in comparison with that aimlessand abiding gloom which had now settled upon the bosom of55
THE EQUINOXthe river. And these lamps were above the river, children ofa nobler element. And in the river is the great Leviathanthat devours men.But before I had come within the sphere of attraction ofeither of these, suddenly mine eyes were gladdened with amarvellous vision. Infinitely far off, as it seemed, a ray ofsunlight shot through the Saturnine gloom of the skies, and litthe surface of the water. And then I perceived that upon theriver there floated, within that small circle of light, an ark, oras it might be, a coffin. Then looking up into that piercedcloud I saw within the light a certain house surrounded by agrove. Within, all was dark; yet from it proceeded a ray assilvery as the first ray was golden.And I desired ardently to enter that house. Yet, having nowings, the task appeared beyond my human force. Then theheavens closed as suddenly as they had opened, and I was leftdarkling. Yet I had this candle of hope, that within the ark,could I reach it, might be some help of knowledge or powerwhereby that house might be attained.So I swam steadily toward, though with some fear, forthe eddies in that great stream were numerous, and mysole guide was a slender snake of light that moved uponthe water.Or so it appeared; for I have since discovered that I had aninterior sense of direction as trusty as the mariner's compass;so that, though I knew it not, it was never possible for me togo astray.Now as I swam I came upon one floundering andspluttering in the stream, who with mighty puffings urged meto continue.56
THE ELECTRIC SILENCEFor but a little way beyond us (quoth he) is a mightyswimmer and a dexterous.So with a mighty effort my comrade put forth all hisstrength, and we gained upon this one, and greeted him.Thereupon he (and he was a goodly man, and fair) didmost heartily welcome me as a fellow-traveller to that house,and confirmed me in my belief that the ark did indeed holdthe secret of the way thereto. And as for the guide that mightconvey us through the darkness and the tumult of the stream,he spoke (something darkly) of one appointed, and moreclearly that he was aware of divers marks upon the way; for,said he, to them that view it from above this trackless waste ofwater is mapped out and charted with a perfect science.Behold! quoth he. And at that moment was there aglimmer just before me of a white shining triangle, and whatwas most strange, rather an impression than a vision of a manthat hung upon a gibbet by one heel. This, said the fair man,is a most notable sign that we travel the right road.Now by the light of the triangle I perceived anotherwonder; for my friend was not swimming as I was in thestream, but was borne by a boat, frail indeed, yet sufficient.Within this shallop or cockleshell he pulled me, and set me atthe bench. Then (still by the light of the triangle) I saw adark man at the thwart, rowing a strong stroke. We pulled onalmost in silence; for when I asked of the fair man his name heanswered me only “I wish to know,” and of the dark man “Iwish it were light,” the first clearly a confession of ignorance,the second a patent evasion; which things discomforted memuch.Yet we progressed evenly and rapidly, and were mightily57
THE EQUINOXcheered after a while to see just a flash of lightning sunderingtwo dark clouds; next a pale crescent, heavy and slow, yetsilvered; next, as if it had dropped from the stars, an unicorngalloped past us and was gone ere we could fix it; next a talllighthouse upon the water.“Here,” said the dark man my comrade, “is a pleasantplace for refreshment before we turn to the further journey.”As he spoke, although no sun was visible, a mighty rainbowappeared, and crowned the tower. I cried out joyfully, “Thebow of promise,” but they answered nothing. And at that Iunderstood that they had travelled further already, and werebut returned for an hour to succour me who had no boat.Seven days then we remained in the tower, eating anddrinking. Also in my sleep I had many marvellous dreams,of greater sustenance than sleep itself. And there was givenunto me by my fair brother (for so I may now call him) alittle book, wherein it was written how a man might buildhimself a shallop, and have for steersman one appointedthereunto.This then I laboured to build, and the toil was great.Moreover, certain vile fish rose from the water, and withtheir fins beat upon the planks of my boat, that I might notend it.However, at last I had it perfect, and was about to setsail at dawn. But first the dark man my brother departedfrom us, and went his way. And then the old man of the towertook me aside and offered me a seat at the funeral feastof his master. And although I verily believe that this oldman was a rogue, a very knavish fellow, and a sot, yet in thatfuneral I took great pleasure. For the gentlest perfume was58
THE ELECTRIC SILENCEborne upon the breeze, and the air was lit with faint electricflames that gathered themselves into a hill of light. So I,being lifted up, and my heart overflowing, came into the funeralchamber that was exceeding bright, and there was the tablefor the feast, and beneath it the coffin wherein lay the bodyof the master. There too I saw barren wood bear roses, andI heard the voice of the master. After that I was shewn allthe kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and manyother things of great use and beauty.Then I took my leave of the old man of the tower, andboarded the shallop that I had made, when he cried outpiteously that he feared earthquake, and asked me for my aid.So with a heart both heavy and light I abandoned myshallop and the dreadful labour of its fashioning, and cameback to him.Then came earthquake as he had foreseen; and he andthe boats also were swallowed up. In the tidal wave of theearthquake I was borne far away, even from the fair man mybrother; and in the darkness he was lost to me. I knew noteven whether he had perished.But fashioning a raft from the loose planks of thewreckage, I made shift to paddle. The ark was invisible,and I had no more memory thereof, so turned away was Iand absorbed in the bright signs upon the way. And nowmy raft was like to sink, and my arms were exceeding weary,when a voice sounded but a little above me: “Enter the ark!”And I looked up and beheld a bearded man, mighty, withthe signs of labour and long journeying writ upon him. Iknew him; and for this reason was I much amazed, for Ihad believed him far from that place. But taking my hand59
60THE EQUINOXhe drew me not without pain into the ark. Here (quoth he)forget all that thou hast seen and heard; for in this ark they arenot lawful.So I obeyed him, else I had drawn after me the raft thathad brought me hither.Then he questioned me, saying:What lieth above the ark?And I answered him:The house of the silver ray, that is lighted by the ray ofgold.He: How many roofs hath the ark?I: One.He: Thou must pass through this one. Yet thou lookesteagerly upon the four walls of the ark.I: I seek a door.He: The door is in the roof.I: Lead me to it, I pray thee!He: Fix thine eyes upon it.I: Sir, I will. Yet I pray thee to tell me thy name.He: Thou didst know it of old, didst thou not?I: The son of the mountain?He: The Stone of the Crossways.I: It is enough. Let me fix mine eye upon the door.He: It is well.Then I obeyed him, and in that obedience forgot him. Forthough mine eye wandered often, and although once theplanks beneath me threatened to give way and plunge meonce more into the stream, yet I strove as a man may.Then, mine eye being accustomed to the gloom, I beheldby my side, yet a little above me, the dark man my brother.
THE ELECTRIC SILENCEHim I greeted most gladly, and told him of the earthquake.Whereat he sighed heavily.Brother, quoth I, canst thou now tell me thy name? But heonly answered me: “It is a pity!”And with that I returned to my task, and he guided metherein with his counsel and example. Yet in the ark thegloom is fierce; the river without is but twilight, whereinshadows are free; within is darkness itself, and the essenceand quintessence of darkness.In this terrific silence I abode for very long; then for aninstant that seemed longer than many lives the sun of heavenbroke in and smote mine eye, so that I fell backward nighfainting. But he bade me be of good cheer and return to thetask. I obeyed; and behold! again the sun, and behind the suna glimpse of one appointed equally to be hidden and to beseen, each as may be fitting.But the brightness of the sun and its heat dazzled me andscorched me. My members refused to obey; and I slidbackward into the great stream that was here so icy cold, andit refreshed me and comforted me.Now then I was minded to enter again the ark when thereflew unto me, I wot not whence, a dove, and perched uponmy shoulder. And thus I swam for a while, and the waters ofthe stream were soft and warm, caressing me.Yet I felt that this aimless drifting was enervating mylimbs; so I gathered some stray planks of my raft—for theystill floated round the ark—and began half playfully to paddle,with what purpose I cannot tell.And so it was ordered that the dove flew to me with anoak-leaf in its beak.61
THE EQUINOXThereat I was silent. But gazing eagerly thereon, I beheldone appointed, and I understood that the oak-leaf was sentfrom the House.Then I took counsel of him who is to this end appointed,and with his own hand he brought to me a champak-blossom,a mustard-seed, and again an oak-leaf.And these I treasured in my bosom, though I hardly knewwherefore. Nor could I understand what purpose they shouldserve, save darkly. And seeing this, the dove came to meagain bearing an olive-branch; and with this I was so mightilypleased that for awhile I forgot all else, and swam lustily in thestream for my pleasure.But now came a current of ice-cold water and enwrappedme; and when I looked, it bore spots of blood upon it. Then Iwent hastily into the ark that was ever near by; and, climbingto the roof by the ladder that I had before made, lookedthrough. And all the sky was a hurricane, a madness ofstorm.Now in my eagerness I had approached closely to the roof,so that the storm whirled me away into itself. One might saythat I was the storm. And when I came to myself I wasfloating upon the bosom of the river, borne by that very barkthat once I had built myself in the lighthouse. And in thestorm I had lost my hair and beard; for the wind had torn allout by the root. So that I heard a voice saying, “It is a babeupon the waters.” And looking at the bark, I found itrefashioned by him that is appointed to refashion. For it hadplanks of my old shallop, and planks also of the ark, and it wasshaped like a cradle rather than like a boat. And I heard thevoice of one appointed to speak saying: “Behold thou me!”62
THE ELECTRIC SILENCEAnd I could not. Nevertheless I gazed earnestly, and paddledin the direction of the sound.While this was a-doing suddenly the river fell in a cataract.And I looked for the olive-branch, and it was withered, andsunk beneath the stream. And I looked for the dove, and itwas wrapped round with a most hideous serpent. And I washelpless. In the end he devoured that rose-winged companionof my journey, and went seeking a new prey.Now in this cataract I had most surely been wrecked butthat I clung tightly to the boat. This indeed floated asserenely as if it had been upon the still waters of a lake; andwhen I had a little plucked up courage, I saw sitting at thehelm him that is appointed to steer; I saw him face to face.This then endured for a space; and with his aid I beganship-building. “For” (said he) “there are many that swim, andfind no boats. Be it thy task to aid them.” Of my journey tothe House he spake nothing. But in the ship-building camethe fair man my brother to my help; and one evening as wesate at meat he said: May it please you to enter the House; forthere is prepared for you a goodly bedchamber. But I wouldnot at that time; for I was ashamed, being unclothed; notunderstanding that in the House robes are provided by himthat is appointed to provide them.Thus we laboured, and built many fair shallops upon themodel of that wherein we sailed. In all these there was notone splinter of wood too much, or too little; and there was noornament; and neither paint nor varnish covered the planks,for they were planks of a tree that cometh neither from theEast nor from the West. But the sails were of gold tissue, verybrave, with figures inwoven.63
THE EQUINOXNow at last the time being come, did I take my chamber inthe House. And upon the secret things that were there shownto me I ponder yet; so that in this place I shall make nomention of them. But this treasure will I give out, thateverything noble in that House seemeth vile to them that areswimming in the stream; and everything vile to themappeareth noble. Thus they endure not the delicate stuffswith rough and impure handling; and the rubbish they carryaway with them, and devour. Thus wisely hath the master ofthe House ordained.Now of the silver radiance that issueth from the darknessof the House I will say nothing; nor of the golden ray thatilluminateth the darkness of the House.But for the sake of one that may come to share my bedchamberwill I speak of the last adventure.Upon the breast of the river came a wild swan, singing, andfor a moment rested upon mine image reflected in the water.And I said: “Come up hither.”And the wild swan said: “How shall I come up thither?”I: I will guide thee.The Swan: Who art thou?I: My Father is the keeper of the King's Cup: I haveprepared a little ship wherein I may go my journeys upon thegreat river.Who will draw it?The Swan: I will draw it.So we set forth together; and of the horrible tempeststhat arose it is unworthy discourse. And of what followed afteris discourse unprofitable; but the wild swan still guides myship.64
THE ELECTRIC SILENCEAnd the end shall be as is appointed by the master of theHouse; but this I know, that this ship is the King's ship. Andin my bosom are the champak-blossom, and the mustard seed,and the oak-leaf, more lovely than before.And upon us watcheth ever he that is appointed to watch.And the wild swan sings ever; and my heart sings ever.. . . . . .Now then I had laid aside the pen, and a voice cried:Write!Fear not!Turn not aside!Is it not written that Sorrow may endure for a night, but joycometh in the morning?Sleep therefore in peace and in faith: shall he not watchwhose eye hath no eyelid, who to this end is appointed?And my heart answered: Amen!65
SONGCOME, Love awaken! O’er the wild salt sea,Shadows strange-shapen whirl themselves and fleeAs eddying mist, by storm winds overtaken,And sunbeams kissed—the shafts all curled and shakenIn shuddering ecstasy!Come, Love, nor list to tired dreams that twistThy lithe long limbs in fierce abandonment,Awake, and learn of me the secret of the sea,Whose meaning is the sum of all things blentIn fiercest harmony.Soft winds are calling on the cloudy deep,(Like foam-flowers falling from the breasts of SleepTheir Lotus-kiss is), such a world forestallingOf wanton blisses, that the fear of pallingMakes e'en the Sirens weep.Ah me! What serpent hisses from out those purple bysses,Far in the womb of the long-lying sea?She wakes! Nor dare he creep back to her soul, whence SleepHas torn aside the mist-hung drapery;Too strange the way, and steep.ETHEL ARCHER.66
THE SCORPIONA TRAGEDY IN THREE ACTSBYALEISTER CROWLEY“God is Love.”—Epistles of St. John
To AGAQA in memory of the Hour ofInitiation, and to Lampada Tradam andMohammed ibn Rahman in memory of ourwanderings in the Desert, and to my brothersof the O∴ of K. D. S. H. in memory of theMartyrdom of our G∴ M∴J. B. M.I dedicate this tragedy.
THE SCORPIONPERSONS OF THE TRAGEDYACT ISIR RINALDO DE LA CHAPELLE, Preceptor of the Knights TemplarsSIR RAYMOND, SIR JAMES, SIR EUSTACHE, and OTHERS, his KnightsJOCELYN, a Troubadour, in their companyESQUIRES, etc., to theseSAID OMAR, an Arabian Emir. His band of WarriorsLAYLAH, his newly-wedded brideA NYMPH, and children attendant on her
ACT ISCENE: The desert. In the foreground, a walled well witha lever. Three palms. Tall grasses. The ground isuneven. In the background other palms, among which areseveral military chargers, held by esquires. Around the wellare Knights Templars, armed, reposing. AlsoJOCELYN, a troubadour.JOCELYN [sings to his harp]:Noon slumbers softly in the palmsThe desert breezes whisper psalms;And we who rest must rise and rideBeneath the banner cruciformThat braves the Saracen and the storm,This blessed Christmastide.For we are hardy, and worn with blowsAnd battles,And languish for our mother snows.What is the gladness of the wellTo us who pine for citadel,And joyous burg, and Christian feast?But we are vowed to Christ to fightFor God, our honour, and our rightAgainst the recreant East.70
THE SCORPIONWe have left our ladies, you and I,My brothers!To keep our castles, and to sigh!Oh! could some holy hermit giveOne short day's dalliance fugitive!Speed hither through the enchanted airOur ladies, for our faith's reward!Would it not sharpen every swordAnd perfume every prayer?Love sharp as holly and pure as snow,And kissesBeneath the moon for mistletoe!SIR RAYMOND. Something ill sung, Jocelyn, and too sadly,forsooth! Here the hermits are foul and malicious. I wouldclear the land of them.SIR JAMES. Spies, every one. And enchanters to boot.SIR EUSTACHE. The maids are worse, to my mind. Thinkof the gallant Florimond, as tall a knight of his hands as everswung sword or couched lance.SIR RAYMOND. Netted like a fish!SIR JAMES. And now lives in the desert with the witch, awild man, and banned.SIR RAYMOND. Little better than a robber. And the wordgoes that he hath apostatized from our holy faith.[ALL cross themselves.]JOCELYN [sings]Heigho! Heigho! the Crescent and Cross!If the one is a bargain, the other's a loss.71
THE EQUINOXWho would be foundOn the groundOf MahoundA recreant knight, and a renegade boaster?Better we eachLeave our bones here to BleachAnd be saved, than go burn with the Paynim impostor!For the infidel swineLack our spirit divine;There crazy old prophet prohibits them wine!Drink, every knight!God and my right!We'll drive the black dogs to their kennels to-night!SIR JAMES. Peace to thy ribaldry! Here comes thePreceptor. To saddle!JOCELYN. Why cannot he ride with us, as a good knightand gay?SIR JAMES. Who poises in his mind the destinies ofChristendom needs not in his ear thy fool's prattle, or thyfool's face at his elbow. Though he have seen but five-andtwentysummers he is wiser than many a greybeard! See, evenafar, how weightily he sits his horse. His forehead bent, hisshoulders arched—JOCELYN. The seat of a hunchback!SIR JAMES. Like Atlas supporting the world.SIR RAYMOND. Good Jocelyn, could thy wisest thoughtmatch his most foolish, thou would'st sit at the council.JOCELYN. Gramercy! I smile awry. With a hawk onmy wrist, and a madrigal at my lips, a prayer in the morning72
THE SCORPIONgiven, and a kiss stolen at night, I want none of your dustyconclaves. I had as lief be a scholar.SIR JAMES. If the world were like thee, Christendomwould perish in a year and a day. Thy good knights comradeswould row the Turkish galleys, and a few prize fools—such asthou—make sport for their Emirs or guard their women.JOCELYN. And a good thing. I am weary of crusading. Thesacred Sepulchre is empty—praise God, Who performed amiracle to make it so!—and we must perforce come and fillthousands more with good Christian flesh and blood, that wasalive and jolly. Let us be off, though! The Preceptor shedsdullness as the sun sheds light, alike on the evil and on thegood. One, two, three—I’ll race you all to Sidi Khaled.[They go off R. toward their horses, JOCELYN singing ashe goes.What is the worthOf a hound or a hawk?A monkey for mirth!A parrot for talk!Rosamond's skinIs whiter than milk,Seductive as sinAnd softer than silk.Would I were backFrom crusade for an hour,My limbs lying slackIn Rosamond's Bower![From the palms C. comes forward LAYLAH, veiled, with apitcher. She attaches it to the cord of the lever and73
THE EQUINOXdips it into the well. She looks about her, and seeing noone, raises her veil.LAYLAH. From the heart of the sandThe water wells upPurer than the rain.So in my heartLove springsChaster than the grace of heaven itself.Earth purifiesMore subtly than the sea.Only through matterCan spirit understand itself,Justify itself, become itself.This mystery I heardFrom the holy man of Bassu.His beard was whiter than snowBecause it had once been blacker than burnt wood.So will I cherish my love,The love which I owe,Which I give, to my husbandThe noblest of the Emirs;For I and my love and my serviceAnd my dutyAll are his.I have no duty to GodBut to obey my husband.So my heart is freerThat all other hearts,74
THE SCORPIONAs the dweller among the palmsIs freer than the wanderer in the desert.The wanderer must find the palms;The dweller is at ease.My heart is a young gazelleLeaping with love toward my husband.He is black-bearded and bold and magnificent.Even on the morn of the wedding he rode forthAgainst the infidel.He is so strong and brave:God must look favourably upon him,Bidding him return a conquerorTo the flower of his gardenThat awaits his hand to pluck.[During the last part of the song SIR RINALDO DE LACHAPELLE, preceptor of the Knights Templars, hasentered L. quitely, dismounted, tethered his palfrey topalm, and approached LAYLAH. As she pullsthe pitcher from the water he claps his hands over hereyes. She shudders with fear, but gives no sound.SIR RINALDO. You are a brave maiden.LAYLAH. You are—an infidel. I had not my dagger,or your shriek—not mine—would have summoned mykin.RINALDO. I have a score good knights within sound of myhorn. And your kin are but the dotards and women and littlechildren. Your fighting men are away.LAYLAH. Ay, slaying your good knights.75
THE EQUINOXRINALDO. It may be so. But you are my hostage.[He releases her. She faces him.LAYLAH. A worthless pledge.RINALDO. These silks and pearls! I could draw your veilthrough a link in my chain mail.LAYLAH. I am the bride of the Emir.RINALDO. A fair bride. I guessed you his daughter.LAYLAH. My feet have not entered his house.RINALDO. Your feet are fair. . . . Can you tell fortunes?LAYLAH. On the forehead of every man his destiny iswritten.RINALDO. Read mine.LAYLAH. Let me go to my house.RINALDO. Then I will read yours. You are to be captive toa strange knight.LAYLAH. Not to you, Sir Knight!RINALDO. The rest is dark.LAYLAH. You dare not touch me.RINALDO. Sit there! [He seats her on the wall of the well.]Do you guess what I have been thinking as I rode through thesun to these palms?LAYLAH. Some new plot to carry fire and sword throughour quiet villages.RINALDO. No. I was wondering why men should not liveat peace. I was wondering what was the quarrel that hasbeggared Europe and made Asia a shambles these nigh fivescore years.LAYLAH. I cannot tell you.RINALDO. This is all I know, that in the time of PopeUrban the Second, some pilgrims to Jerusalem began to76
THE SCORPIONgrumble. And a madman screamed so loud on their behalfthat all Europe was infected. All pilgrims grumble. Allmankind grumbles. Can chivalry do nothing better thanredress grievances? Progress and learning are dead inthis eternal redressing. Or if we must redress grievances,let us redress the great grievance, man misunderstandingman!LAYLAH. Let me go to my house. [She tries to slipaway.]RINALDO. Sit there! [He puts her back very accurately.] Weworship one God, as you do. That is the essence of agreement.We have one prophet, as you have; there's little odds in aname. Let our fools go worship at the tomb of our prophets, asyour fools go worship at the tomb of yours; and let us breakthe heads only of those who break the peace.LAYLAH. Let me go to my house. You are breaking thepeace now, and I will break your head.[She has unloosened a stone from the Well and strikes him.His cheek bleeds.]RINALDO. [unmoved.] Sit there! . . . So this is my readingof the future. I who met you in hate shall leave you inlove . . . and there an end of the Crusades!LAYLAH. Love! [bitterly sarcastic.]RINALDO. Love! [enthusiastic.]LAYLAH. I had rather a scorpion stung me.RINALDO. My crest is a scorpion. [He points to the goldenbejewelled crest upon his light helmet.] I am thirsty. Give mewater.LAYLAH. I would give water to a thirsty dog. [She pourswater into his hands.]77
THE EQUINOXRINALDO. For water I will give you fire. Twelve hundredyears ago came peace on earth and goodwill toward menthrough a virgin sacrifice. . . . History repeats itself.LAYLAH. I am on the edge of the well; but I shall not fallin. You are a renegade, I see; and, I think, a monster. You aremad with pride and conceit of your own wisdom. So I knowyou for a fool.RINALDO. The wisdom of this world is foolishness withGod.LAYLAH. Prate on! Even the dust mocks at you.RINALDO. There are snakes in the dust.LAYLAH. What do you mean?RINALDO. I saw it in your eyes three minutes since. I didnot need to turn my head to know that on the horizon gallopyour husband and his band.LAYLAH. You are clever.RINALDO. And you were forced despite yourself to drop ahint that might warn me to rejoin my knights.LAYLAH. No!RINALDO. Yes. By that I knew that you loved me.LAYLAH. And by this (she strikes him) know that I hateyou.RINALDO. You are too young. I have seen lions.LAYLAH. You are a savage.RINALDO. Nature is savage. Passion is savage. The Godalike of Jews and Moslems delights in death. Or why aremen and beasts slain in His honour? Brutal force is atthe heart of things. Man is dragged crying from hismother's womb in dire agony; man fights his surroundings—the nearer they are the more bitterly must he fight them78
THE SCORPION—and at last he is hurled fighting into the hungry mouth ofdeath.LAYLAH. The cloud grows.RINALDO. Indeed you love me, if you bid me waste notime.LAYLAH. Oh no! . . .I must respect you. You treat me as if I were a pebble in thesand. Nothing moves you.RINALDO. Love moves me.LAYLAH. We are opposites in all.RINALDO. So Nature hath ordained. Man hates hisneighbour: but when he finds his opposite, he loves it. All joyis the warfare of enemies, from the clash of lance and sabre,when Saracen meets Christian on the plain to—this, whenChristian rushes Saracen in his arms and——[He clasps her.LAYLAH. Oh! [The pitcher is overturned and the waterflows out.RINALDO. I love you.LAYLAH. I am a speck of dust in the simoom.RINALDO. Let it whirl! There is no more Christian andSaracen, but man and woman—as it was in the beginning andfor ever shall be.He has borne her in his arms to the tall grasses. Shestruggles uselessly. They are now invisible.LAYLAH. Help me, O God of Battles!RINALDO. God is love.[Music. From the well issues a nymph dressed in silver andazure gauze, with jewels and roses in her hair. After hera cluster of children.]79
THE EQUINOXTHE NYMPH [sings.]In the wellWhere I dwell,It is cool, it is dusk;But the truthOf my youthIs a palace of musk.Truth comes bubbling to my brim;Light and night are one to Him!In the darkYou may markThe slow ooze of my springs,But you knowNot the glowWhere the soul of me sings.Truth comes bubbling to my brim;Life and death are one to Him!There is coldIn the oldGrey gloom of my caves;There is heatIn the beatOf my passionate waves.Truth come bubbling to my brim;Love and hate are one to Him.[They dance and return to the well. R. and L. are nowseen behind the grasses, she sobbing upon hisshoulder.]80
THE SCORPIONRINALDO. The cloud blackens all the sky. Laylah![He takes the scorpion from his helmet.Keep this token of me.LAYLAH. For a token of hate and of revenge!RINALDO. As you will. But the Crusades are ended![He draws her to the well, and lays her down. With herarms on the low wall, and her face hidden, she sobs.RINALDO takes his palfrey, and, with one glance overhis shoulder towards the enemy and another toLAYLAH, rides off, driving the spurs into his horse.LAYLAH remains sobbing. After a long interval she halfrises,and stretching her arms after him, callsbrokenly:LAYLAH. Come back! . . . Come back! . . .[Sobs again take her more violently than ever. Shestruggles to her feet, holds out the scorpion crest andcalls:]Come back! . . . Come back![She collapses. Dead silence. After a little the distantgalloping of horses is heard. It grows louder andlouder. LAYLAH rises, mistress of herself, kisses thegolden scorpion and hides it at her heart, and refillsthe pitcher.[Enter a band of Saracens, who dismount. Their leader,the EMIR SAID OMAR, rushes forward to the well.SAID OMAR. Victory! we have chased the infidels threedays, and the vultures of the desert are gorged, and the jackalsburst with fatness. My gazelle, didst thou languish forme? My rose, my tulip, my anemone, slim palm of theoasis, sweet water of the well! We shall feast to-night,81
THE EQUINOXlittle one, star of the night, beautiful young moon over thesand-dunes![He clasps her in his arms.LAYLAH [tonelessly]. Victory! Ay, victory is sweet. Weshall feast to-night.[She shudders.SAID OMAR [seeing that all is not well]. What is it?What is it?LAYLAH. I have had evil dreams.SAID OMAR [to his men]. On to the houses! We mustfeast; we must sleep.[He takes LAYLAH on his saddlebow.]You must sleep, whisper of the west wind!LAYLAH. I shall have evil dreams.SAID OMAR. No! you shall not sleep to-night, white fairy ofParadise, black-eyed gazelle of the wilderness!LAYLAH. Be gentle with me . . . I ache . . . I have beenstung by a scorpion.SAID OMAR. There are no scorpions in the winter. Whereis the wound?[LAYLAH puts her hand to her heart, and falls faintinglimp across the saddlebow.]Call Ibrahim, the wise physician! On to the houses![Exeunt. The voice of the nymph of the well, faintly frombelow.“ Truth comes bubbling to my brim:Love and Hate are one to Him!”]CURTAIN82
PERSONS OF THE TRAGEDYACT IILAYLAH, wife of Sidi OmarSILMAN, her son by Sir Rinaldo de la ChapelleOTHMAN,}AKBAR,MOHAMMED,her sons by Sidi OmarFATMA, her aged Nubian nurseLEDMIYA, a young handmaiden, musical. Other waiting-women. Pipe-slaves.ABDUL KHAN, an eunuch. Other eunuchsACHMET, equerry to SlimanA FAIR-HAIRED CHRISTIAN MAIDEN, daughter to Sir Rinaldo de la ChapelleMESSENGERSTHE POPULACE83
ACT IITwenty years later. An Oriental Palace in a city nearJerusalem; the Hall of Audience. In the throne is LAYLAHveiled. Around her are waiting-women and her old nurseFATMA. At the door an eunuch on guard with drawnscimitar.LEDMIYA [a young girl with a stringed instrument].As the flower waits for the rain,As the lover waits for the moon,We wait, we wait, an hungry pain,For tidings from the battle plain—If those we love are hurt or slain,Or if the Lord hath smitten againThe legions of the Cross, and hewnA path of blood where glory flares.The sabre strikes, the trumpet blares,The war horse neighs,—Oh let us seeThe Crescent borne to victory!LAYLAH. Is there no news?FATMA. It is rumoured that the battle has begun.LEDMIYA. Under the very walls of Jerusalem!ABDUL KHAN. Within the southern gate.FATMA. Many, many will fall. Alas, alas!84
THE SCORPIONLAYLAH. Sliman is strong and brave — my splendidboy.FATMA. Ay, there are hairs on his chin. But the strongestand the bravest fall first.LAYLAH. Thou ominous owl! Be silent, or I will have theewhipped.FATMA. Oh! Oh! indeed I only say what we all know. Ifhe should die indeed, thou mayst have Sidi Omar left, thydear lord. And Othman, and Akbar, and Mohammed!LAYLAH. Sliman is my first-born.FATMA. Ay, he is not like his brothers. He is square andsolid-set. He is more like the cedar than the palm.LAYLAH. Sidi Omar's mother was a princess fromLebanon.FATMA. He is silent and stern.LAYLAH. Sidi Omar's father was the holiest man of Syria.He lived alone forty years in the mountain.FATMA. He is relentless in anger, and obeys not. Onewould say there was Christian blood in him.LAYLAH. On the night of his begetting there was Christianblood on Sidi Omar's hands.FATMA. He is as fair as a Christian.LAYLAH. The men of Sidi Omar's tribe are white men,thou wizened old black witch.FATMA. Ah! Sidi Omar! Sidi Omar! Sidi Omar! Happythe prince whose wife is as faithful as thou. Thou canst notopen thy mouth without uttering his name.LAYLAH. Do not take it in thine, mother of lies!FATMA. My mouth has been shut these twenty years.LAYLAH. What? Any time these twenty years thou hast85
THE EQUINOXdeserved a beating, old scandal-monger! And often thou hasthad it.FATMA. It was not a beating that thou didst earn, princess.Many a time I have fetched water from the well by—LAYLAH. Abdul Khan! take out this prating hag and beather soundly. Fatma! this is the last time I leave thy lyingtongue in that camel-lipped old face of an unbelievingJinneeyah![The eunuch drags her out, screaming and scolding.What news! What news!LEDMIYA [at the window]. A horseman gallops fromJerusalem.LAYLAH. Oh, quick, quick, quick, his tidings! For pity'ssake. Would it were the winged horse of brass! I am distracted.Mind me not! I can wait. A queen must be ableto wait.LEDMIYA. He is quite near now. And in the distance isa glint, and a faint shouting. I think the battle is cominghere.LAYLAH. Oh, we cannot have been beaten! Silman is sostrong and brave.FATMA [re-entering]. All is lost! All is lost! Let us allflee!LAYLAH. Peace, parrot![Enter Messenger.MESSENGER. Pardon, princess!LAYLAH. Thy news, or thy head shall pay it.MESSENGER. Glorious news! Sidi Omar hath enteredJerusalem, and sacked the House of the Knights Templars,and the House of the Knights Hospitallers, and——86
THE SCORPIONLEDMIYA. [at window]. Oh, I can see the spears shiningthrough the dust of the horses!MESSENGER. —but—LAYLAH. Speak, if thou wouldst ever speak again!MESSENGER. But the Knights of Malta appeared in greatstrength, riding from the valley on their noble chargers, armedat all points—LAYLAH. Yes? Yes?MESSENGER. So that we judged it best to fall back uponthe reserves. The Maltese fell upon us—you may see themfighting now.LAYLAH. What news of my brave Sliman?FATMA. And Sidi Omar? And Othman? And Akbar?And Mohammed?LAYLAH. Peace. What news?MESSENGER. Sidi Omar is hurt.LAYLAH. And Sliman?MESSENGER. I do not know, princess.LAYLAH. Get forth, back to the fight. Reward him, ye!FATMA. Reward for such bad news! What is the worldcoming to? In my young days—LAYLAH. Such withered weeds were burnt.FATMA. Alas, Sidi Omar! The strong, the brave, thecomely! He is dead, he is dead.LAYLAH. Hurt, said the messenger.LEDMIYA. Now comes another from the fight, ridinghard. he bears a fair-haired child across the saddle. Oh,do look!LAYLAH. Is there no messenger?LEDMIYA. It is Achmet! It is good Achmet!87
THE EQUINOXLAYLAH. The equerry of Prince Silman! Out of the way,girl! [She pushes LEDMIYA roughly from the window.]Booty! He must be well and victorious! Bring him in! Nowwe shall know—good tidings! good tidings![She paces up and down impatiently. Enter ACHMET witha young girl.ACHMET. The duty of my Lord! Good tidings from thebattle. The spoils of my lord's spear! He prays you to keepher among the women until he return and place her in hisharem.LAYLAH. A man! He is a man! I have borne a man-child,a lion, a conqueror!ACHMET. Indeed, he has slain twenty Christians with hisown hand. And still he is in the front of the battle. Helaughed: “To-day I am a man, I need thee no more; be mychamberlain and carry this toy to my mother.” I think she is aprincess.THE CHILD. My father is the Grand Master of theTemple, and he is coming to cut all your heads off.LAYLAH. Leave her with us! Ride back on a fresh horse,and bear aid to the prince.[Exit ACHMETLEDMIYA [at window]. There is a tumult in the courtyard,and a great wailing.[Wailing without.LAYLAH. The sun will be set in an hour. One hour more offavour and protection for my boy, oh God of Battles!THE CHILD. Our God is love! He will protect me, I know.LAYLAH. Imp! Be silent! How you startled me! And now Ilook at you—what is it? what is it? You frighten me. Take heraway—there, with the pipe-slaves.[FATMA takes the child down stage to the pipe-slaves.88
THE SCORPIONTHE CHILD. You are ugly, you black creature!LEDMIYA. Oh! Oh![She runs to LAYLAH and hides in the folds of her dress.LAYLAH. What now?LEDMIYA. They are bringing in a corpse.LAYLAH. Oh my God—if Achmet lied![The door opens. The corpse of SIDI OMAR is brought in bysix eunuchs.]Ah! [She goes down hall.] Lay him there! [She rends herveil.] Sidi Omar, these twenty years have I been wedded tothee and thou hast not known my heart! Leave me, that Imay bewail him as is fitting.[All depart but FATMA and LEDMIYA and the PIPE-SLAVESwith their prisoner.]Fatma, do thou lament. I await tidings of the battle. Isthere sign of a messenger?[FATMA goes to corpse and mutters over it.LEDMIYA [at window]. There are many that make hither.Some bear the dead away—two, three, five, eight, oh so many!Some ride weary or wounded . . .LAYLAH. Some ride like messengers?LEDMIYA. No. Yes, one. No, he has fallen from his horse,and lies still.[Wailing without.LAYLAH. Go, bid those fools be quiet. Is there notenough woe in this house but that their shrieks shouldedge it?[LEDMIYA goes out. The wailing stops. Then suddenly itbegins again more loudly than before.FATMA. More death! More misery![LEDMIYA returns, and goes again to window.89
THE EQUINOXLAYLAH. Silence, thou blotchy spider! Thou baboon ofugliness! Mother of curses![Four eunuchs bring in the corpse of the boy MOHAMMED.Ah God! my youngest, my own delicate darling! Lay himby his sire! [She goes down and bends over him.] Was not thisarm too tender to bear a sword? Why would he go to thebattle? He was made for luting and the zephyr. His eyeswere larger and lovelier than the gazelle’s! His eyebrowswere blacker than the kohl upon mine eyelids. Alas, my baby!My young one, my tender one! . . . Is there tidings, girl?LEDMIYA. One rides fast. His horse stumbles at the gate.He leaps clear. The horse has fallen. He runs hither.LAYLAH. News! News![LEDMIYA goes out. Enter a Messenger.2ND MESSENGER. The duty of my lord to his mother! Wekeep the hounds at bay now. Prince Sliman is like the Angelof Death. No man can stand before him. The Christianstremble, and give back when he rides against them.LAYLAH. A man! A man! He is not hurt?2ND MESSENGER. Scratches. As if a lion were at play withkittens!LAYLAH. I am glad he has scratches. Every one shall besung by the poets as if it were the axe-blow of old Duke Walter.[Again the wailing surges in the courtyard. LEDMIYArushes in.LEDMIYA. Alas, alas, my queen! I cannot say it! Do notask me to say it! . . . They are bringing him in.LAYLAH. Who? Devil-child! [She strikes her. Foureunuchs bring in the corpse of AKBAR.] Forgive me! I amnot myself. I am not a woman. Lay him there, beside his90
THE SCORPIONfather! [She goes down to corpse.] Akbar, my little one!Strong wast thou and greater than thy brothers. Thou hadstthe hawk’s eye, and the deer’s foot; and thine hand on thebowstring was surer and stronger than thy father’s! Three, ofmy five, my five that should guard me and cherish me! Threetaken, and two left! Yet, while one is left . . .LEDMIYA [at window]. The battle is fiercer everymoment. Hundreds and hundreds must be killed. But thepress is thinner. I can make out the banners. Oh! I can seeSliman's banner!LAYLAH. Let me see! let me see! [She rushes to window.]Yes! it flows free in the good air! How fierce he fights. Icannot see him; but he must be there. Yes! it moves forwardnow; the Christians part before him like the air before anarrow. The dust swallows all up again.[Wailing rises without, louder and more insistent.A curse upon these fools! But for them I could hear hisbattle-cry. . . . Has he ever cried, and I not heard him? Oh,why did the strange knight not bear me on his palfrey? Imust be mad.FATMA. You must be mad!LAYLAH. Bewail the dead, thou bald vulture, shaggy toothlesscrone, dam of perdition! There floats the banner again,above them all. The Templar's banner dips; some one has cutthrough the staff. The Christians are in rout. . . .[Four eunuchs enter, bearing the corpse of OTHMAN.FATMA. Othman is dead! Alas! Alas! Weep, mother,three brave boys beside their sire! All dead! dead!LAYLAH [not turning from window]. Lay him besidehis father and his two brothers! Brave banner! Brave91
THE EQUINOXbanner! We go through the Christians as a wedge cleaves aplank, as a ship cleaves the sea, as a bird cleaves the air!Victory! Sliman! Sliman! Drive them, like cattle, to theirwalls again!FATMA. She has always been mad! I wonder what reallyhappened.LAYLAH. The sun is setting in blood. There are stormcloudslit like burning charcoal blown upon by the mightiestof the Djinn. I cannot see the banner. It grows dark. Theymust stop fighting soon. They will withdraw to their walls—nay, let them camp among the dead! Come back with tidings!Tell me, Sliman is safe. Ah! there sounds the horn of truce.THE CHILD. My father is the Grand Master of theTemple, and he will come and cut all your heads off.LAYLAH [goes down to her]. Thou preposterous little curdof sour milk! Thy father is dead! I saw the Banner of theTemple snap like a dry twig. My brave son Sliman cut it at asingle blow. He will whip home the dogs, your friends, andyou shall be his toy to play with and break and make sport of.He will twist your skinny arm—so![She catches the child's wrist, twists it, and makes herscream.Spindle-legged little spider! [The child bites her wrist.]Venomous as a scorpion!THE CHILD. My father's crest is a scorpion.LAYLAH. No! No! it cannot be. I am mad. I hear a strangething. Now I know what I saw in your face. Child!Child! I am sorry I hurt you. I want to be friends with you.I am all-powerful here. No harm shall come to you! Hischild! Come and kiss me! [The child shrinks away.]92
THE SCORPIONNo! I am sorry. I am your good friend. I will take youback to your father. He is not dead. I am sure he is notdead.THE CHILD. I do not understand you.LAYLAH. Oh, you shall understand. Your father will makeyou understand! [changing again to roughness]. What wasyour mother like? Had she your golden hair, and thecomplexion like a shaved sow? And the simper, and the greyeyes! I have grey eyes too; but mine are steel-grey, true assteel; and yours are chill and watery. But you have yourfather's temper, and his silence, and his will.THE CHILD. What do you know of my father?LAYLAH. Nothing. I only jested; I wanted to tryyou, to hear what you would say. Tell me about yourmother.THE CHILD. She was a fair and noble lady. She died whenI was born.LAYLAH. Thank God!THE CHILD. I do not understand.LAYLAH. Oh! will your father say, “I do not understand?”What am I? Yet I gave him my greatest gift—and I have yet agreater gift to give him—and I have a gift that he has alwayshad and I have never lost.THE CHILD. Are you an enchantress? You do not talksense.LAYLAH. Your are the child of an enchanter.THE CHILD. My father burns enchanters alive when hecatches them.LEDMIYA [at window]. There is a great concourse without.The men are returning. They ride slowly, as in peace.93
94THE EQUINOXBut one rides fast, for I can hear his hoofs ring the gallopabove all the trampling.LAYLAH. It is Sliman! His horse has silver shoes. Waitthere, child! I have joy for you to come.[A horse is heard galloping into the courtyard, and a battlecry,La Allah illa Allah, rings out in a boy's clear voice,a voice weary yet supremely happy.[Almost beside herself] Sliman! to me! to your mother![Sliman enters, in his right hand his sword still drippingblood.SLIMAN. Splendid fun, mother! We should have had thewhole city, but those cursed Knights of Malta threatened ourflank. And father told me I was a better leader forwithdrawing than if I had gone on and taken the city. There!Aha! little one! you are caged safely, canary. Thanks, mother!Don't kiss me. I’m all blood.[She smothers him with kisses.LAYLAH. Oh, you're wounded. Ledmiya, the kerchief,quick. And the Arabian oil, and the balsam.SLIMAN. Nonsense, mother, it's nothing. But think! Islew twenty knights—they haven't the strength of babies.It was like cracking eggshells. All except one. He was asstrong as I, but not so quick. So I cut him down, and took hiscrest for a brooch for you, mother dear.[He holds out a golden crest.LAYLAH. The scorpion!THE CHILD. The scorpion! [She retires and watches.LAYLAH. Boy, you have killed your father.[She stands thunderstuck.SLIMAN. Oh, no, mother! Father and the boys all died in
THE SCORPIONthe melee when we were thrown back on the reserve. TheKnights of St John charged in line. It was rough-and-tumblefor a few minutes, indeed it was. When I got out, theirbanners were swept far down the fighting line. There was amess of varlets between us; before I could sweep them awaythe Knights had rolled over Sidi Omar and my brothers—thewhole wing was destroyed. I rallied the right on the centre,and—why, mother, you are not listening!LAYLAH [taking his sword]. This sword killed yourfather. Listen! Sidi Omar was not your father. Yourfather ravished me, a virgin and a princess, and left me onlythis for token. [She takes the jewelled scorpion from her breast.]I took it for hate and revenge; wherein I lied, for I loved him,and I love him. God has punished my lie, making you—thetoken of love—the minister of revenge. So then—be heavenged![She strikes the neck of SLIMAN and he falls dead. Shestands stupefied.THE CHILD [coming forward and picking up the scorpionthat SLIMAN had in his hand]. I thank thee, lady. Mybrother is avenged.[She dips the scorpion in his blood and fastens it in herdress.LAYLAH [shortly]. Your brother lies there dead.THE CHILD. I am sorry, if he was my brother. He was abrave boy. He picked me up and threw me to a servant just asif I had been an old tabard.LAYLAH. Your father's trick!THE CHILD. I do not understand.LAYLAH. Understand this. I have slain my son because he95
THE EQUINOXslew his father; and all I look for is for some one to slay mealso!THE CHILD. But you say his father is my father.LAYLAH. Was! was!THE CHILD. But is is my brother who was slain by Sliman.My father is in Rome; he is coming hither with the next fairwind.LAYLAH. Fair wind! God! It is I than who have slain ourson. The scorpion! My sole token.[She falls on SLIMAN'S corpse.]My son! only son of my love! one sole jewel of the worldwert thou. And the accursed scorpion has betrayed me. Oh,let me from this hour throw off all womanhood, all kindness,all compassion—all but my love that has made my heart a hell.From this hell spring forth fiery scorpions—Eunuchs! Girls!let us be men! Take swords! take spears! Truce or no truce,night or no night, out to the field. Let us slay the dogs as theylie. God, hear me! Make me mightier than Semiramis! Hateand revenge! Battle and death! To arms! To arms! Out intothe night![During this speech the eunuchs, girls, and slaves, catchingher madness, have all armed themselves from thetrophies on the wall. They troop out, running andjostling. LAYLAH turns to the Name of God above thethrone, and waving her sabre, cries:]Hear me, hear me, thou God of Battles![Exit.THE CHILD. God is love. And he has protected me.[Alone among the corpses.]CURTAIN.96
PERSONS OF THE TRAGEDYACT IIISIR RINALDO DE LA CHAPELLE, Grand Master of the TempleA BISHOPREPRESENTATIVE OF THE KING OF JERUSALEMTHE GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF ST JOHNTHE GRAND MASTER OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTACLERKS, USHERS, ADVOCATES, etc.TORTURERSA PHYSICIANTHE KING OF JERUSALEMMANY DIGNITARIES AND THEIR LADIESTHE CROWDISAAC, a JewAN URCHINLAYLAH, now known as Princess Koureddin97
SCENE98ACT IIII: Twenty years later. Jerusalem. The CouncilChamber of the Grand Tribunal. A Bishop, as GrandInquisitor. On his right, RINALDO; now become GrandMaster of the Temple; on his left the Grand Master ofthe Knights of Malta. Beyond these, the Grand Masterof the Knights of St John and the representative of theKing of Jerusalem. Clerks, Ushers, etc. A militaryguard. Clerical functionaries of all sorts. Under guardLAYLAH, unveiled, scarred with sword-cuts, a stern savagevirago.BISHOP. Let the indictment be read.THE CLERK OF THE COURT. Princess Kahar-ud-din orKoureddin, you are arraigned of witchcraft. Firstly that on thenight of the victory to the Crusaders' arms, by God's grace,during a period of truce, you did sally forth with a horde ofslaves and women, by many accounted devils, and did attackand destroy the armies of the Crusaders.PROSECUTOR. We say this was by witchcraft. How elsecould a rabble of slaves and women defeat the heroes who,though barely two thousand strong, had that day destroyedfour hundred thousand and above of your best warriors?LAYLAH. On our side was the God of Battles.BISHOP. My daughter, God is love.
THE SCORPIONLAYLAH. Lord Bishop, I have heard that phrase thrice inthree score years. The first time a man used it to destroy achild: the second time a child used it to murder her brother;this time you use it to torture and burn an honourableadversary.BISHOP. Child of the devil, you blaspheme. Be silent! Onthe first count, guilty.[Several JUDGES, but not RINALDO, echo “Guilty.” Throughoutthis scene RINALDO sits absolutely silent andmotionless, except that now and then he makes agesture of weariness and impatience.THE CLERK. Secondly, that you have in these twentyyears past gathered a band of lawless ruffians, and constantlyassailed the defenders of the sepulchre, with malice anddeadly hatred.PROSECUTOR. We say that no woman could do thus,unless aided by Satan.LAYLAH. Dido, Queen of Carthage, was renowned as awarrior, and Semiramis, Queen of Nineveh.BISHOP. Both pagans. On the second count, guilty.[JUDGES echo “Guilty.”CLERK. Thirdly, that you did discard the modesty ofwomanhood and put on armour enchanted.PROSECUTOR. We say that, forasmuch as many goodknights have ridden against it with sword and lance and notavailed to pierce it, this was by magic and forbidden art.LAYLAH [contemptuously]. It was good armour.BISHOP. The prisoner mocks us. On the third count,guilty.[JUDGES echo “Guilty.”CLERK. Fourthly, that you did at midnight upon Martinmas,99
THE EQUINOXeighteen years ago, in the valley of Hinnom, on the stonecalled Succoth, bind yourself in a diabolical pact with Satan,whereby he granted the power to change your sex at will,since which time you have become the father of aninnumerable brood of devils, and in particular have travelledby night in the form of an owl to assault the virtue of manyholy servants of the True Faith, notably at the Convent of StAnne in this city, whereby the bodies and souls of the nunswere possessed and destroyed.PROSECUTOR. We say this is plain witchcraft.[LAYLAH takes no notice.BISHOP. Silence under such a charge is contumacious, andequivalent to confession. On the fourth count, guilty.[JUDGES echo “Guilty.”CLERK. Fifthly, that you do take the form of a bat, andsuck the blood of sleeping children, and moreover havebewitched divers cows to the prejudice of the Holy Orders ofKnights Hospitaller and others, lawful owners of the aforesaidcows.PROSECUTOR. All clear marks of a witch!LAYLAH. Your Saviour sent devils into swine.BISHOP. Blasphemy on blasphemy! [crosses himself]. Sureonly the devil could speak thus. On the fifth count, guilty.[JUDGES echo “Guilty.”CLERK. Sixthly—BISHOP. Stay, gentle sir. Have we not heard enough?Must the ears of the Court be further polluted with a recital ofthese abominations?G. M. OF ST J. We have heard enough.G. M. OF ST MALTA. Enough, my lord Bishop.100
THE SCORPIONREP. OF K. OF JERUSALEM. Enough.BISHOP [to RINALDO]. And you, Grand Master?RINALDO. More than enough.BISHOP. My beloved daughter! God is not willing that anyshould perish, but that all should repent and be saved. It istherefore the most merciful provision of our just and mercifullaw that none be condemned without confession. Let meurge you to make peace with God and man.LAYLAH. Peace, peace! when there is no peace.BISHOP. There spoke a lost soul. Confess, my deardaughter. Break the bonds of Satan at the last.LAYLAH [straining at her handcuffs]. They hold fast.BISHOP. We are not moved by insult from our mostmerciful purpose. Summon the executioners.[A CLERK goes with the order. Enter torturers with theirimplements. Also a Physician.LAYLAH. Your steel against my will. It is a fair bout.BISHOP. Apply the thumbscrews.[The torturers bind LAYLAH and apply the torture.[To G. M. of St John] My cook is a great knave, you mustknow. I bade him prepare me a pasty of quails toward tonight,and the varlet swears there are no quails on the market.Now this morning riding I saw quails with these eyes. The airwas as thick with them as when the Children of Israel weremiraculously fed.G. M. OF ST J. A new miracle if the knave escape. But willnot your lordship sup with me to-night?BISHOP. Thanks, good Grand Master.FIRST TORTURER. My lord, I think I heard a sigh.PHYSICIAN. Only a natural motion of the body, by your101
THE EQUINOXleave, my lord, I venture to opine. Her lip is bittenthrough.BISHOP. What wickedness! Truly, my lords, Satan hathgreat power in these latter days, spoken of by St Paul in hisEpistle to the Romans. Force the mouth open.[A torturer obeys.PHYSICIAN. Pardon, my lord, if she utters no sound. Shehath swallowed her tongue, a notorious devilry of Arabianenchanters. By your leave, my lord, the tongue should bepulled forward. Her soul would be lost (begging yourLordship's pardon) should she choke now.BISHOP. Rightly said. And on your head be it! Redoublethe thumbscrews.[A torturer pulls her tongue forward with pincers.LAYLAH groans.TORTURER. I certainly heard somewhat.BISHOP. Articulate?TORTURER. I dare hardly say, my lord.BISHOP. The needles.TORTURER. They are white-hot. How many, my lord?BISHOP. Three behind each eyeball should suffice.TORTURER. It is done. There is a sound like “wa.”PHYSICIAN [in triumph]. “Aiwa,” my lord Bishop,“aiwa” without a doubt. It is “yes” in their heathentongue.BISHOP. I heard it. We all heard it. Glory to God! Releasethe prisoner.[LAYLAH is released. She is unconscious and falls limp.]Sir Clerk, write down that the prisoner made full confessionand repented of her crimes, desiring to be reconciled102
THE SCORPIONwith God and His holy church. My own chaplain shallbaptize her and administer the sacrament. Glory to Godin the Highest for one more soul torn from the grasp ofSatan.My beloved daughter, behold you now at peace with Godand with His holy church. Your sins are forgiven you. But thesecular arm is not yet satisfied; your crimes, the crimes towhich you have confessed, must by expiated according to law.The sentence of the Court is that you be handed over to thesecular arm; and I beg of you [turning to the Representativeof the King of Jerusalem], the Court begs of you, that youwill deal mercifully with the Prisoner, without shedding ofblood.REP. OF K. OF J. A stake shall be prepared.[To the soldiers] Remove the prisoner to the strongestdungeon, and let the guard be trebled. Witchcraft has manytricks.BISHOP. The Court is dissolved. My lords, will you pleasebreakfast with me?[JUDGES murmur assent.RINALDO. Thank you, my lord, but I have my bellyful.[The others exchange glances and go out. RINALDO is leftalone. He goes to the place of torture.]There is blood on the floor. It fell from her lip that shebit through. . . . Pilate washed his hands in water. Had Ipower I would wash mine in blood, in the blood of thesemonsters of cruelty—no, of stupidity. But I am too old. Igave all for power, and I used all my power to reconcile, toheal, to amend the matter. So at the end I find myself atoothless dog. Bigotry I could have beaten: it is this mountainof stupidity that crushes me. Shall I summon my103
THE EQUINOXknights and join the Saracen army? That were only to changethe balance, to change the cross, soaked in the blood ofhumanity, for the crescent, pale flame of madness. Oh couldI destroy both! . . . Forty years ago I strove to reconcilethem by love, by sympathy. What came of it? A froliccrime, sterile as all my thoughts are. Nothing, nothing hasever come of anything that I have ever done. Yet that camenearest to success; for it was my one touch of love. I have neverloved since, as most surely I had never loved before. She isdead long ago. . . . Oh, these years of carnage! The HolySepulchre that hid the body of Him whose innocent blood wasshed is not worth one drop of innocent blood—like this. [Hebows, takes the blood on his finger and crosses his forehead withit.] The brand of Cain! Would it have saved her if I hadthrust my poniard into that hypocrite's throat? I can donothing but wait, binding chosen knights with an oath—theoath of the Knights of the Royal Mystery . . . that God isone; that to love God and man is enough. . . . Peace, Tolerance,Truth. Paul may plant, and Apollos may water, butGod giveth the increase. If I cry out “Down with tyranny!Down with superstition and imposture!” the first knightthinks me mad; the second that I have some politic basenesstoward; the third that I mean Saracens; the fourth suspects thetruth, and destroys me. Anon . . . Anon . . .[He goes sorrowfully out.CURTAIN.104
THE SCORPIONSCENE II. A few days later. A public place in Jerusalem. Inthe midst a stake with faggots. Seats for the dignitaries,some thirty or forty of whom are present, most with theirladies. There is present moreover a motley crowd of allclasses of society, Christian and Saracen. Note especiallyISAAC, a fat good-tempered Jew, and an URCHIN of sometwelve years old. In front are jugglers, tumblers, singersand dancers, hucksters, etc., all of whom ply their trademerrily. The Official Procession now enters, the guardclearing away these folk. All take their seats, chatting.The Bishop is enthroned, in full canonicals. He issupported by three acolytes, bearing bell, book and candle.LAYLAH brought in and bound to stake. The Bishop risesat a signal from the King, and begins a long declamationin Latin. The general confusion gradually subsides.URCHIN. Uncle Isaac, take me on thy stout shoulder. Iwant to see the witch burnt.ISAAC. All in good time. The holy Bishop is still cursing, Ithink.BISHOP [concluding, raises his voice to drown the generalconversation]. In Sæ cula Sæ culorum. Amen!ALL. Amen!K. OF J. [enthroned near the Bishop]. Let the sentence beexecuted.[The Executioner brings forward his torch, which he lightsat the BISHOP'S candle.BISHOP [blessing]. Absolvo te.[The Executioner thrusts his torch into the pyre. The flames105
THE EQUINOXspring up. At this moment the wind suddenly rises in afury, and the sky darkens. There is no light but the flickerof the straw.][All present are alarmed; many cry out.BISHOP. Witchcraft! [He cowers on his throne.][The people move confusedly about, some trying to escape,others to get better places.K. OF J. Keep order, guards![The guards restore order after a struggle.URCHIN. O do lift me up, Uncle Isaac!ISAAC. What do you want to see a witch burnt for, boy?[He takes the boy on his shoulder.URCHIN. O, it's jolly!ISAAC. Well then, you're a fool for your pains. This womanisn't a witch at all. But she was a better and braver soldier thanany of their knights, so when they caught her at last—thereyou are!URCHIN. She's a Saracen, isn't she?ISAAC. Yes. If we only had a Jewess now-a-days like her!There was Deborah once, and Jael, and Judith. But the gloryis departed, boy, the glory is departed.URCHIN. I'm a Saracen, you know.ISAAC. You're a heavy little old Man of the Sea!URCHIN. The flames are creeping up her body now. Oh!I'm so angry; I'm so angry.ISAAC. You mustn't be angry, or you'll never be fat.URCHIN. I don't wan't to be fat. I wan't to kill all thepeople.ISAAC. Well, well, you shall one day, if you're good.URCHIN. Yes, I will.106
THE SCORPIONISAAC. There, the wind has blown her robe open. What'sthat? Diamonds, by Abraham! What waste! What terriblewaste!RINALDO [leaping from his seat]. The scorpion![He rushes to the pure and clasps LAYLAH in his arms.]Laylah! my one love!LAYLAH. Rinaldo!RINALDO. We might not live together. God is love; He letsus die together.LAYLAH. Together at last!RINALDO. You and I, love, you and I.LAYLAH. You and I.[The flames blaze to heaven with a roar. RINALDO andLAYLAH are blotted out.URCHIN. What has he done?ISAAC. He was trying to save his diamonds. That was theGrand Master of the Temple. It was his crest; she must havestolen it. A diamond scorpion! Oh dear! Oh dear!URCHIN. I'll be a dragon, with wings. They shan't burnme; I'll burn them.ISAAC. Of course, you will, you little fire-eater. What'syour great name?URCHIN. Saladin.CURTAIN.107
108THE EARTHTHE child of miracle to the world, greeting.I reach my hands to the leaves and dabble in the dew: Isprinkle dew on you for kisses. I kneel down and hold thegrass of the black earth to my bosom; I crush the earth to mylips as if it were a grape. And the wine of Demeter flushes mycheeks; they burn with joy of youth.Why should I greet the world? Because my heart isbursting with love for the world. Love, say I? Why not lust?Is not lust strength, and merriment, and the famine that onlythe infinite can stay?And why do I call myself the child of miracle? Because Ihave entered a second time into my mother's womb and amborn. Because to the knowledge of manhood has come thepassion, even the folly, of adolescence; with all its pride andpurity.It is for this that you see me lying upon the thick wet grass,unquenchable; or rejoicing in the fat black loam.Now the manner of the miracle was this. In the beginningis given to a youth the vision of his mate. This one must hehenceforth seek blindly; and many are the enchantments anddisenchantments. Through this his vision fades; even hishunger dies away unless he be indeed Elect. But in the end itmay be that God shall send him the other half of that Token
THE EARTHof Paradise. Then, if he have kept the holy fire alight,perhaps with much false fuel, that fire shall instant blaze andfill the temple of his soul. By its insistent energy it shalldestroy even the memory of all those marsh-lights that cameto greet it; and the priest shall bow down in the glory, andgrasp the altar with his hands, and strike it with his foreheadseven times. Now this altar is the earthen altar of Demeter.Then understanding all things by the light of that love, heshall know that this is love, that this is the soul of the earth,that this is fertility and understanding, the secret of Demeter.Nay, (even!) the Oracle may speak in his heart and foretell orforeshadow the greater mysteries of Persephone, of Death thedaughter of Love.Those, too, who are thus reborn will understand that I whowrite these words am stretched on the wet earth on the day ofSpring. It is night, but only the sea whispers of Persephone,as the stars intimate Urania whose mystery is the third, andbeyond. My body is absorbed in scent and touch; for theconsuming fire of my sight has burnt itself out to blindness,and in my mouth is only the savour of an infinite kiss. Themoist earth burns my lips; my fingers search down about theroots of the grass. The life of earth itself is my life: I shall beglad to be buried in the earth. Let my body dissolve into hers,putrefy in her reviving limbeck. He never loved who let themcase him in a coffin from the supreme embrace.It is from the earth, bride of the sun, that all bodilystrength derives. It is no figure that Antaeus regained all hisforce when he touched earth. It is no pedantry and folly ofthe Hindus, who (fearing bodily lust) isolate their acolytesfrom earth, no futility their doctrine of Prana and the Tamo-109
THE EQUINOXGuna. It is not mere faith healing, this hygiene of FatherKneipp, and his failures are those who retain decorum andmelancholy, who follow the letter and not the spirit, coldbloodedtreaders upon earth instead of passionate lovers of itsstrength.It is no accident of mythology that the Titans made warupon the Gods, and in Prometheus overthrew them. It waswhen Canute failed to drive back the sea that his dynasty waslost to that Norman William who caught hold of Mother Earthwith both hands.When I was a child I fell; and the scars of the earth are onmy forehead at this hour.When I was a boy I was hurt by the explosion of a buriedjar of gunpowder; and the scars of the earth are on my face atthis hour.Since then I have been the lover of the earth, that wooedme thus roughly. Many a night have I slept upon her nakedbreast, in forest and on glacier, upon great plains and uponlonely crags, in heat and cold, fair weather and foul; and myblood is the blood of the earth. My life is hers, and as she is aspark thrown off from the whirling brilliance of the sun, so doI know myself to be a spark of infinite God.Seek earth, and heaven shall be added unto you! Backto our mother, drive the shining spade into her womb!Wrinkle her with your furrows, she will only smile morekindly!Let your sweat, the sweat of your toil, which is yourpassion, drip like benediction from on High upon her; shewill render corn and wine. Also your wife shall be desirablein your eyes all the days of your life, and your children shall110
THE EARTHbe strong and comely, and the blessing of the Most High shallbe upon you.Then let your grasp relax in the satiety of death, and yourweight shall cumber the earth, and the little children of theearth shall make merry with you until the rose strike its rootinto your breast. Then shall your body be one again with themother, and your soul one with the Father, as it is written inthe Book of the Law.All this have I been taught by her whose purity andstrength are even as Earth's, chosen before the foundation ofTime. Lioness with lion, may we walk by night among theruins of great cities, when, weary with happiness too greateven for our immortality, we turn from the fragrance andfertility of Earth. And at the sunrise return where the peopledvalleys call us; where, bronzed and buoyant, our children singaloud as they drive home the spade.Glory be to the Earth and to the Sun and to the holy bodyand soul of Man; and glory be to Love and to the Father ofLove, the secret Unity of things!Glory be to the Shrine within the Temple, and to the Godwithin the Shrine, to the Word and to the Silence that bore itunto Him that is beyond the Silence and the Speech!Also thanksgiving in the Highest for the Gift of all thesethings, and for the maiden in whom all these things are found,for the holy body and soul of man, and for the sun, and for theearth. AMEN.FRANCIS BENDICK.111
SLEEPAlong the silver pathways of the moon,(With lilies strewn to mark her passing hours)A mighty goddess strays.Her rapt eyes gaze in calm undying swoon,Like stars in June that guard earth's sleeping flowers,The guests of summer days.Moving she plays some sweetly slumbrous tune,As mothers croon; through faint Æ olian showers,Her mist-hung garment sways.And in her shadow chaste as starlit snows,A vestal goes, scattering sweet roses:Roses deep-thorned and red—Whose leaves are shed in perfumed dreams, where glowsA world that blows and fairy-like disclosesThe fields that Flora fled.And some are sped where dream brings that reposeThe thorn bestows—(where naught that is, reposes)—Goring the sleeper's headETHEL ARCHER.112
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONITHE RED HOURTO I, J, AND KTHERE was myrrh in the honey of the smile with whichEdgar Rolles turned from the façade of the Pantheon. “Auxgrandes hommes la patrie reconnaissante”—he reflected thatthe grateful fatherland never gives her great men anything buta tomb.Then the full blast of it struck him. The Gargantuanjest! The solemn ass that had devised the motto; thelaborious ass that had put it up there; the admiring assesthat had warmed their skinny souls at the false fire of itspompous sentimentality.Perhaps he was the first to see the joke! He rocked andreeled with laughter—to find himself caught, as he stumbledagainst a table, in the sturdy arms of a solidly built youngwoman, who—he had in her a glance—joined in Celticharmony the robust brutality of the peasant to the decadentrefinement of the latter Greek. The face of a Bacchanal, evenof a satyr, perhaps; but a satyr of Raphael; the face of amadonna, perhaps; but a madonna of Rodin. Besides this, she115
THE EQUINOXwas seductive, alluring, a Messalina rather than anAspasia. Chienne de race! She was young, and her lips rathersneered than smiled, rather gloated than sneered. Oneinstinctively muttered the word cannibal. She had a perfectand perverse enjoyment of life, a perfect and perversecontempt of life; the contempt of the philosopher, theenjoyment of the wallowing pig. Porcus e grege Epicuri.This much Edgar Rolles smelt rather than saw; for as heturned to her, he caught her eyes. They were the eyes of anenthusiast, of a saint, of an ascetic—but of a saint who, strongin his agony through faith and hope and love, still endures theDark Night of the Soul.“You shall lunch with me, nice boy” (she said), “and begmy pardon for your stumble, and pay for your lunch by tellingme what drives you mad with laughter at the sight of thePantheon. Is it ‘L’homme aux trois sous’?” For so theirreverent Frenchman, mindful of his daily need, calls Rodin's‘Le Penseur.’ ”“Mademoiselle,” said Rolles, “I accept your kind invitation;I abandon the Church for the Tavern.” They turnedinto the Taverne du Pantheon, threading their way throughthe professors and their mistresses, a clever, incurious,domestic, fascinating crowd.“I kiss your hands and your feet, and I will tell you thejoke before lunch; so that you may repent in time if it is notamusing. In your ear, enchantress! The truth is—I am a greatman.”She saw it in a flash. “Then, my friend, I must buryyou!”“In your hair!” he cried. She had huge rolling masses of116
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONbrown-bronze hair, as if a great sculptor had wished toimmortalise the sea in storm.“Anoint me first,” he added, with a low sob, suddenlyclairvoyant of some vision of Christ and Magdalene.“Need you die?” They were seated, and her hand fell onhis lap. “Great men die never.”“Nor kind words,” he retorted. “You have flattered me;tu veux me perdre.” His English had no equivalent. Shegave a little shiver.“What do you want?” he said, with the man’s alarm whenhe at last meets the woman he may be able to love.“Your body and soul,” she answered solemnly; her eyessank into his, like a dagger into the belly of a faithless Kabylewoman. “But beyond that, your secret! You know life, yet youcan laugh from a mad heart!”“It is easily said. I am going to London to-morrow.There they will make me bankrupt, because I love my neighbourbetter than myself, and prosecute me for blasphemy andindecency, because I uttered a few simple truths thateverybody knows.”“Why, my friend, you will be famous!” she cried. “Auxgrands hommes la patrie reconnaissante!”“Probably,” said he. “Already I run to a full page in theAmerican papers, my name intimately coupled with that of aduke’s daughter whom I have never seen.”“Good, good!” she agreed—“so much for fame. But areyou really great? Your laughter was better than Zarathoustra!What is your real secret? Why did you love your neighbour?Why did you speak the truth? How did you cometo know anything at all well enough to be able to laugh as117
THE EQUINOXyou laughed! Such abandonment to mirth implies a standardof seriousness unshakable.”“You are a witch,” said he. “It is sorcery to knowthat I have a secret. But to discover it you must be anadept.”“I know this,” she answered, making a secret sign.“This,” he retorted, with the mano in fica.“If you can laugh at me,” she said, “you must indeed be agreat man!”“Know,” said he pompously, “that you speak to anAbsolute Grand Patriarch of the Rite of Mizraim.“A button!” she laughed back. “I was born to undo them.So I always wear laced boots.”“True enough,” said Edgar Rolles. “I will take youseriously then. If you really understand the sign you gave me,you know that the mano in fica is but a caricature of theanswer to it. Why are you painted and perfumed?”“Because I am ambitious, may I not be vicious?” sherimed. “If I see anyone that seems likely to amuse me, Itry and amuse him—or her,” she laughed. "Is not that theGolden Rule?”“Well," said Edgar hesitatingly, “well . . .”“I am so abstemious, so self-restrained, that I fear thereproach of the ascetic. Love is my balancing-pole.” Shethrew her arm round his neck, and her mouth shuddered onhis in a long, deliberate, skilful kiss.“Art?” sighed he, fallen back half fainting in his seat.“Art concealed;” she glowed, radiant, intoxicated with herown enthusiasm.“Yes,” he agreed, “consummate art!”118
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON“And to all arts there is but One summit!” continued thegirl.“You are a nymphomane,” he said; “your aspiration isthe lie you tell yourself.”She struck him across the face. “Devil!” she cried, so loudthat even in the Taverne Pantheon folk looked up andlaughed, “have I not heard that from conscience since I wassixteen? A blow is the one answer possible.”“A blow is but your male desire,” he said, unmoved.“How shall I prove my truth?” she sobbed, disquieted andangry.“Live it down, little girl,” he said kindly. “Trust me; I willprove you and justify you. Afterwards!”“Do you think!—now—?” she began indignantly.“I know it,” said he. “In the grey light, to-morrow, we willtalk.”She suddenly felt chill and afraid. “I am not ready,” shesaid; “I am not worthy . . .”“It is to prove you worthy,” said he, “that I was sent toyou.”“Well, God aid me,” said the girl. She was serious andalmost sobbing, her face drawn and white beneath its paint.Her emotion added piquancy to her voluptuousness, pathos toher brute appeal.“At this moment, of all moments? How should I find you?It was one chance in a million million.”Edgar lifted the knife that lay by his side. There was a flyon the tablecloth. Adroit and salmon-swift, he cut it fairly inhalf. “Bad luck on the fly?” he laughed. “But I did it.Chance only means ignorance of causes.”119
THE EQUINOX“Then you believe in the Brothers?”“As I revel in the kisses of your mouth,” said the boy,crushing her face against his.A rich gladness filled her eyes, moist gladness; one mightsay the first gush of an artesian well amid the seas of sand.“Well,” quoth she, cheerful and brisk, to let the mask fallon her blushing soul, “we have got through six dozen oystersand a devil of a lot of Burgundy. . . . I wonder if I am hungry!”She looked him between the eyes.“Hors d'oeuvres!” said Edgar. “I have a box for the SamHall fight.”“Oh do take me,” she panted. “Will he beat Joe Marie?”she added, with a touch of anxiety. “He has the weight, andthe experience, and the record.”“Fools are betting he will. My money is on the manwith three years younger, six inches taller, and twelve incheslonger reach to his credit. And a twenty-four times harderskull.”“It’s his skin I love.”“The only thing a woman ever can love.”“And his activity.”“Exactly. You cannot understand Being, which isPeace.”“Don't! You are near my secret, now.”“Wait till the grey hours!”She dropped three napoleons on the plate, and disdainingto wait for the change, took Edgar's arm in hers. They haileda fiacre.“By the way, I don't know your name,” he began, as theyclattered down the Boul’ Mich’.120
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON“Ida Pendragon. But call me Poppy, because my lips arered, because I give sleep, and death!”A pause. “And you name, nice boy?”“Edgar Rolles—you may call me Monkshood.”“What—the Edgar Rolles?”“As ever is.”“Oh, they'll hang you! They'll certainly hang you! forthat last book of yours. . . . But you shall hang here first.”Her long white fingers went to her neck, like a cuttle-fishfeeling for its prey. Her eyes closed: her throat workedconvulsively for a moment. Rolles too leaned back, pale withexcitement. He drank the fresh air. Then, like a man shot,he lifted himself and fell forward, his head in the nest of herbosom.“Please sit up and behave sensibly, Mr Rolles!” was thenext word that fell on his ears. “We are crossing the Seine.Passion may not pass the gloomy river; here stalks Vice, andthe Englishman on its heels. The very coffee sent sonAnglais.”“Et les femmes,” muttered Edgar.She slapped his hand half fiercely.“It's Poster Art of immorality.”“I remember going with an American girl to the Guignolonce. They played a comedy one could have acted in aSunday-school in Glasgow; but Verro-nika, as they calledher, who didn't understand a word of French, said theatmosphere was one of the most awful lust. Poor girl! she hadpaid a lot to see Yurrup and its wickedness. I had not theheart to undeceive her.”“You sympathised, and offered to take her away?”121
THE EQUINOX“Of course.”“And she preferred to stay?”“Of course.”“Here's the Cirque, anyhow.”“We'll hope for a clean fight.”The second round was just over as they took their seats.Sam Hall was solid and furious, looking an ounce or twoovertrained; Joe Marie looked hardly human, his black skingleaming, his arms so long as to seem almost disproportionate.He seemed apathetic; he reminded one of indiarubber.It was not till the sixth round that any warm exchangestook palace. Then Ida sat up. Joe had sent a sharp upper cutto the Englishman’s lip. She dug her nails into Rolles' hand,that lay idly on her knee. Sam Hall returned a blow on theheart that sent the negro staggering across the ring. He wasafter him like a flash, thinking to finish the fight; but theblack countered unexpectedly hard, and the round finished ina clinch.In the seventh round both men seemed cautious and afraidof punishment. Joe Marie, in particular, seemed half asleep.The lazy grace of his feints was admirable; he was tiring theEnglishmen, and paying nothing for the advantage.In the ninth round Sam Hall reached his eye; but he onlylaughed, and leapt at his opponent, rushing him to the ropesdespite the extra stone and a half. In the furious exchangesboth men gave and took a great deal of punishment. In asense, it was bad boxing.The tenth round showed Joe Marie awake at last. He ledrepeatedly, and thrice got home on the white man's face.Ida was rubbing her body against Edgar's like a cat.122
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON“He is like a black leopard,” she purred. “Is anything in theworld so beautiful as that lithe black body?”“I have seen blood in the sunlight on a bull's shoulder,”replied Rolles.“I love to see the pure animal beat the mere brute. Whitemen ought not to fight: they ought to think, and do lovelyphysical things, things gracious and of good report.”“Ida! my Ida! Could you see your nostrils twitching! I canimagine you fighting with all their fierceness, incapable ofkeeping to the rules of boxing.”“I hate you,” she said. “In everything you see——”“Your lust of blood,” he answered gravely.“It is true,” said Ida slowly. “There is no light of battle inyour eye. You see it as a picture.”“It is a hieroglyph.”“But it is a fight!”“I do not believe in fights. I only believe in beauty.”“Oh how true, how right your are! How noble!” She hidher face in her hands and began to cry to herself. “I see! Isee! That is how God must see the universe, or He couldnever tolerate such cruelty, such idiotcy, ineptitude.”“Exactly. Suppose now that the world is only symbol—Ihad rather say sacrament—suppose for example that all thesestars swimming in boundless aether are but corpuscles in theblood of some toy terrier of the Creator.”“You frighten me. I don't want to suppose.”“Think of the eternal battles of hæ moglobin, oxyhæ moglobin,carboxyhaemoglobin in our blood. It is the same idea.Do we express sympathy for the fallen? Have we a stop-thewarparty? On the contrary, we take good care that these123
THE EQUINOXmurderous conflicts shall go on. So when you call the God towhom you aspire ‘The Compassionate,’ ‘The Merciful,’ praybe very careful as to exactly what you mean!”“I am cold. I am frightened. The world has fallen awayfrom me. Take me away. Put me into the ordeal; I havenothing more to lose.”“In the grey hours of the morn.”But the crowd was already on its feet, cheering. JoeMarie had fallen on his opponent, now too weak to counter orto guard, and smashed him here, there, and everywhere. Itwas as one-sided as a man beating a carpet. Twice heknocked him through the ropes. The first time he roseunsteadily, only to fall instantly. The second time his friends,careless of the rules, helped him to rise. A mistaken kindness;the black rushed him round the ring under a hail of pitilessblows, and with a last smashing drive flung him clean throughthe ropes out of the ring before the referee had time to stopthe fight.Edgar Rolles drove Ida Pendragon back to his studio inMontparnasse. All the way she clung to him, sobbing like achild. He sat very still, save to caress her hair from whichthe turban had fallen. “It is the victory of Essence overForm,” he mused, “of Matter over Motion. Woman is Form,and thinks Form is Being. Oh my God!” he started up. “Iam a man. Suppose I, who am Being, think Being is Form!. . . I cannot even attach a meaning to the phrase! I amblinder than shorn Samson. Both must be equal, equally true,equally false, in His eyes wherein all is false and true, Hebeing beyond them. Only the brains of a child—of TheChild—can grasp it. 'Except ye become as little children, ye124
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONcannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven!' I am blinder thanshorn Samson! . . . Well, I'm in charge of Delilah at present,and here's the House where we don't admit Philistines! Getup, little girl!”He lifted her gently from the fiacre and paid the driver.“Stamp!” said he, “stamp like Dr Johnson! The ground isfirm.”“E pur si muove,” murmured she, and clung (O illogicalsex!) still closer to his arm.125
IITHE GREY HOUR“TO resume,” observed Rolles as he removed the tea-tray,“since you have done no prescribed practices (wicked littlesister!) you cannot banish the body by bidding it keep silence.So it must be banished by exhaustion, and the spiritawakened by a sevenfold dose of the Elixir.”“Have you the Elixir?” she asked, rather awed.“It is entrusted to me,” he answered simply. “To thislaudable end I have appointed a sufficiency of Bisque Kadoshat the Café Riche, followed by Homard Cardinal and Truffesau champagne. With a savoury of my own invention. Thetruffes au champagne of the Café Riche are more to bedesired than all the hashish dreams of all the wicked, and thanall the divine dreams of all the good. We shall walk there, anddrive back. This incense shall be kindled, and this lamp leftburning.”He took a strange object from a locked cabinet. It hadflowered chased pipes of gold, copper and platinum, coilingabout an egg of crystal. The three snakes met just above theegg, as if to bite or to kiss. Rolles filled the egg with a paleblue liquid from a Venetian flask, then pressed the heads ofthe serpents just a little closer together. Instantly a coruscatingflame leapt between them, minute, dazzling, radiant. It126
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONcontinued to burn with a low hissing noise rarely interruptedby a dry crackle.“It is well,” said Rolles, “let us depart.”Ida Pendragon had not said a word. She put on her hat andfollowed to the door as fatalistically as the condemned manwalks to the gallows. She had passed through anticipation;she was content to await what might be.At the door she whispered, hushed in awe of the realsilence of the room with its monotonous hiss, in his ear. “Youhave the Lamp. I almost begin to wonder if you have not theRing!”“ ‘This is a secret sign,’ ” he quoted, “ ‘and thou shalt notdisclose it unto the profane.’ To-night yours be the ring—theEternal Ring, the Serpent to twine about my heart.”“Ah! could I crush it!”He closed the door. Like a priest celebrating his first highmass he led her through Paris. Neither spoke. Only as theymounted the steps of the Cafe he took her arm and said,sharply and sternly: “Attention! From this moment I amEdgar Rolles, and you are Ida Pendragon. No more: not athought of our real relation. Man and woman, if you will;beasts in the jungle, if you will; flowers by the wayside, if youwill; but nothing more. Else you will not only fail in theordeal, but you will be swept aside out of the Path. You werein greater danger than you knew this afternoon; you will yetpay the price.”“I understand,” she said. “You devil! I love you.” “And Ilove every inch of your white body!”They ran laughing arm in arm through the swing doors.. . . . . . . .127
THE EQUINOXEdgar Rolles sat curled up Hindu fashion on his bed.The sacred lamp still hissed. At his side lay Ida, her armsstretched out cruciform. She hardly breathed; there was nocolour in her face. One would have said the corpse of amartyred virgin. On her white body its own purity hoveredlike a veil.Edgar Roles watched the lamp, erect, attentive. It wentout. Hardly a hint of grey filtered through the blackness.In his hands he held two threads. “One is black, and oneis white, he mused, and only God knows which is which.So only God knows what is sin. In our darkness we whopresume to declare it are liars—charlatans, groping quacksat the best. Will the sun never dawn? For us on whom thelightning of ecstasy hath flashed for a moment—‘much maybe seen by its light’—the light of the tempest. But theLight of the Silver Star? Oh, my Brothers (he began tospeak aloud) give me wisdom as you have given me understanding!Knowledge and grace and power? These arenothing and less than nothing. Is not this a precious thingthat you have given into my charge? Am not I too youngamong you to bear so wonderful a burden? It is the firsttime that I have dared so far. The Abyss! The Razor-Edge! Frail bridge and sharp! Yet is it not a ray of theEvening Star, a ray of Venus, of the Love Supernal! . . .“Can I tell black from white? It seems I can—and thenthe certainty flickers, and I doubt. I doubt. I am alwaysdoubting. Perhaps a wise man grows angry, and declares hiswill. ‘It shall be what o’clock I say it is,’ or . . . see! I lay thethreads on her white breast. No doubt remains.”Then clear and loud: “Ave Soror!”128
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONThe girl, as it seemed mechanically, murmured the words“Rosae Rubeae.”“Et Aureae Crucis,” he rejoined.Then together, very slowly and distinctly: “Benedictus sitDominus Deus Noster qui nobis dedit signum.”It seemed hardly possible that her voice joined his. Thelips hardly moved; it was as if an interior voice spoke in herheart. Yet the room was suddenly filled with a pale greenlight—or was it rosy?—or was it golden?—or was it like themoon? That was the strange thing about it. To everyname one put to it an inward voice answered: No, not that;like that, but not quite that. Luminous, spectral, cloudy,shimmering— it was all these, and something more.He placed his hand upon the girl's forehead.“Are you perfectly awake?”“I am awake, frater.”“Can you give me the sign of your grade?”“I must not move. But I am poised for diving,frater.”“The word?”Haltingly came the answer: “Ar—ar—it—a.”“One is His beginning; one is His individuality; Hispermutation one. Do not forget it, little sister.”“Are you ready?”“I am ready. Farewell—farewell for ever!”“Farewell.”He took his signet-ring, and pressed a spring. The bezelopened and disclosed a small jewelled wheel, divided intomany compartments. He pressed a second spring. Thewheel began to revolve, and in the silence sang a tiny tune.129
THE EQUINOXIt was a faint tinkle, like a distant cow-bell, or like a chimeheard far off, heard from the snow. There was an icy qualityin the note.“Where are you?”“I—I—” she broke off.His eyes lit with joy.“I am in the sand; I am buried to the wast in the sand. Isee nothing but sand.”His face fell again.“What is sand?” he asked.“Oh—just sand, you know. Leagues and leagues of sand;like a great bowl of sand.”“But what is sand?”“Sand—oh! sand is God, I suppose.” There was apatience and weariness in her voice, as of one who hassuffered long and is at rest, or convalescent.“And who are you?”She did not answer the question. “Now I see sky,” shesaid. “Sky is God, too, I think.”“Then do you see God?”“Oh no! I think I am God, somehow. It is all like it wasbefore, long ago. I was once a spider in the sand. God is aspider; the Universe is flies. I am a fly, too. . . . And now thedesert is full of flies.”Rolles bit his lip; his face was drawn with pain. At thatmoment he looked an old man.“Black flies,” she went on. “Horrible white maggots.And now there are corpses. The maggots play abouttheir mouths and eyes. There are three corpses that wereGod when they were alive. I killed Him. That was130
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONwhen I was a camel in the sand. Now there are only mybones.”“It may be only a veil,” he muttered, not wishing her tohear. But she heard.“It is a veil,” she said. “But is there anything behindveils?”“Look!”“Only the sand.”“Tear it down!”“There might be Nothing behind.”“There is Nothing behind. It is through that that youmust pass.”“This veil is God. I am a holy nun in the trance calledRampurana. I am canonised. My name is on every banner.My face is worshipped by every nation. I am a pure virgin; allthe others are soiled. Thought is worse than deed. All mythoughts are holy. I think. I think. I think. By the power ofmy thought I created the Word; and by the Word came theWorlds. I am the creator. I will write my law upon tablets ofjade and onyx.”Rolles bowed his head in silence.“I am thought itself,” she went on quietly. “And allthought is I. I am knowledge. All knowledge is in three.Three hundred and thirty-three. I am half the Master. I havecut him in two.”The adept shuddered.“That was when I was an axe. I will not be an arrow. I willbe an axe. . . .” She gave a giggle.“I am gleeful by reason of hate.”There was a pause.131
THE EQUINOX“And I am gleeful because I am reason. . . .”“All reason ends in two. I have cut the Master in two.”“Can she pass through?” wondered Edgar. “Is it a fault tobe identified so well with that which she beholds?”“There are devils,” she cried. “Black, naked screamingdevils. They touch, and at a touch each oozes back to hisslime. This slime is Chaos.”“Ararita!” he breathed the word upon her brow.“Don't touch me! don't touch me!” she screamed. “I amholy! I am God! I am I!” Her face was black and distortedwith sudden passion.“It's quite different to my own experience in many ways,”thought the watcher. “Yet—is it not the essence of all ordeal,all initiation, that it should be unexpected? Otherwise, thecandidate would have passed through the gate before heapproached it. Which is absurd.”The last word must have been audible.“Absurd!” she cried. “Indeed, it is not absurd. It is allrational. It is you who are absurd.”“Do you understand what you are saying?”“No! No! I hate all who understand. I will bite them. Iwill bite their waists.” Dropping her voice suddenly: “Thatwas when I was a mouse-trap.”“Dear God! this is like delirium.”“Oh! go on about God. I don't mind God. I could tellyou wonderful things about what I have done to God. I wasa Nonconformist preacher once: I had secret sins. Theywere mine! Mine! How proud I was of them! EverySunday I used to preach against the sin that I had donemost in the week. There are many butterflies in the desert;132
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONever so many more than one would think. This proves thatGod is good. And then, you see, there are beetles. Beetlesand beetles. And scorpions. Dear little amber beasts.There! one has stung me. It is the sacrament of hate. Iwill sleep in a bed of scorpions and rose-leaves. Scorpionsare better than thorns. Why do I wander about naked? Andwhy do I thirst? And this torment of cold? It ought to be hotin the desert. And it isn’t. Now that proves—oh yes, my cat!you shall have milk. I will strike a rock for you. Milk andhoney.”She started up suddenly, and put her hands to her face,then threw them round his neck.“Edgar, darling!” she cried, “your pussy has had such adreadful dream. Come and love his girl!”He dared not tell her that she had tried and failed, that shehad come back as she set out. He flung his will into that act ofmercy; his kisses ravished her into delight.It was late morning when they woke, faint with rapture,fresh kisses blossoming on their young lips, as the sun himselflit their awakening with his love.Only then came memory, and solemnity, and sorrow.“I must catch the four o’clock,” he said, as he left her;“one of these addresses always finds me. Telegraph if youneed me. I would come from the ends of the earth, if I must:but you know the Brothers? When you need me really I shallbe at your shoulder. O my darling! my darling!” he broke out,falling to tenderness, half human and half superhuman; “howI love you! how I love you! I hate going to England.”“Oh yes! your martyrdom! I wish I were worthy to shareit.”133
THE EQUINOX“God! God! why must we part? It's my fool vanity thatmakes me want the martyrdom. And all the time I only wantyou.”“But you're not only Edgar Rolles.”“And when I return, be more than Ida Pendragon. Keep astout heart, wench!”So, with a thousand tear and kisses, they parted. Shewould not come to see him off; her self-command wasweakened alike by her new love and by the terrible ordealthat she had undergone. Her mind remembered nothing ofit—such is the merciful order of things; but her soul, beatenwith rods, was sore.So Edgar Rolles went to England to his martyrdom, with alock of her hair in his pocket-book; and he turned martyrdomto battle, and battle to victory. Kingdoms have been won foran eyelash, before now.134
IIITHE BLACK HOUR“DISGUSTING!” said Ida Pendragon. She was at theLuxembourg Gallery, regarding a too faithful portrait of anorator addressing his constituents. She spoke over hershoulder to the long negro, Joe Marie. His eyes rolled, and hishands twitched, and his thick mouth grinned. He seemed tosniff her hair. A pitiable creature—a tamed leopard. All smilesand yes! yes! to a discourse of whose purport he had no idea.“Realism!” she went on. “We want truth, but we wantbeauty too. We don't want what our silly eyes call truth.We want the beauty that is seen by artists' souls. A photographis a lie because a camera is not a God. And we wouldrather the truth coloured by the artist's personality than the liethat his mere eyes tell him. The women of Bougereau andGerome are more like what the eyes tell one of life than thewomen of Degas and Manet. I want the truth of Being, notthe truth of Form. Do you hear?” she cried, “I want truth, Iwant Truth.”“I want you,” said Joe Marie.“We are both in trouble, then,” she smiled back. “Andperhaps if we had our wish, we should both be disappointed.Now I am going home to write letters, and if you are good youshall lunch with me to-morrow.”135
THE EQUINOX“Then let me pay! I want to pay for your lunch.”“You shall have a great treat, Joe! I have a friend and hisgirl coming, too. You shall pay for all of us.”The negro beamed. “Ida Pendragon!” he spluttered. “Ilove you, Ida Pendragon.”“And Ida Pendragon loves her leopard. Now leave me.”She glanced round. They were alone in the gallery.“You may kiss the back of my neck, if you like.”The negro buried his head between her shoulders.She shivered; her hair hissed under his kiss. She writhedround, and gave her mouth to his for one clinging moment.Then she pushed herself away, and he, poor troubled animal,went swiftly and sleekly from the room. At the corner hestaggered. The girl saw it; her smile was like sheetlightning.A quarter of a mile away, at that moment, Edgar Rolles wastearing the edges from a “petit bleu.”“I am paying the penalty,” he read. “Lunch with me atLavenue’s at one to-morrow. Bring a girl.”“Right,” said he. “But I wonder what she means.”And he strolled out to the Dôme to find good-hearted Ninon,“la grande hystérique” of the Quarter, half-mad and whollyamorous, half gamine and half great lady, satiated andunsatisfied indeed, but innocent withal. La Dame de Montparnothey called her; she dominated her surroundingswithout effort. Yet none could analyse or explain thefascination to which all surrendered. She had more friendsthan lovers, and no one ever told a lie about her, or let herwant for anything.She welcomed the invitation with joy. “Ida Pendragon!”136
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONshe said, “oh! I know the type. Name of a tigress . . .”and she rattled off a story of a stag-hunt at Fontainebleau inwhich the Cornish girl had played the principal, an incrediblepart.The cafe pricked up its ears, and dissolved in laughter atthe culminating impossibility.But Edgar Rolles only frowned. “I am sorry for Ida,” hesaid slowly. “If your story were true I should be glad; butshe is only the painter with his palette mixing paints: shenever gives her soul up to the canvas. Tigress? yes: but notthe Bodhi-sattva who let the tigress eat him. She always wins;she cannot lose. As the proverb says: ‘Lucky at play, unluckyin love—and ‘God is love.’ ”“Listen! he is saying the Black Mass again,” cried Ninon,and springing on a table began the Dance of the Postman'sKnock, just then the rage of Montparnasse before the infectionspread to Paris and London. A Polish youth jumped on tothe table opposite and joined her; in a minute the whole cafewas aflame with it.But Edgar Rolles, his hands thrust deep into his pockets,and the threat of tears in his eyes, was walking back to hisstudio.“If only life were folly!” he sighed. “But the silliest thingswe do are wisdom—somehow, somewhere——”And he let himself in.* * * * *The lunch in the private room at Lavenue's was secretlyamusing. Joe Marie had only dog's eyes for Ida; Ninonamused herself by trying to distract him. Edgar held forth atlength upon Art, passionlessly expository.137
THE EQUINOX“Art,” said he, “and do not imagine that Art or anythingelse is other than High Magic!—is a system of holy hieroglyph.The artist, the initiate, thus frames his mysteries. The rest ofthe world scoff, or seek to understand, or pretend tounderstand; some few obtain the truth. The technical abilityof the artist is the lucidity of his language; it has nothing to dowith the degree of his illumination. Bougereau is bettertechnically than Manet; he explains more clearly what he sees.But what does he see? He is the priest of a false God. Formhas no importance except in this sense; we must not berevolted by the extravagance of new symbolic systems.Gauguin and Matisse may live to be understood. Weacquiesce in the eccentricities of Raphael.”Ida gave a little laugh of pleased scorn of him.“My good girl, perspective is an eccentricity, a symbol;no more. How can one ever represent a three-dimensionalworld in two dimensions? Only by symbolism. We haveacquiesced in the method of the primitives—do you think menand women are really like Fra Angelico's pictures look to theeye of the untaught? We may one day acquiesce in all thenoughts and crosses of Nadelmann! It’s the same everywhere.I draw a curve and a circle and a waggle up and down; andeverybody who can read English is perfectly satisfied that Imean that placid ruminant, female, herbivorous, and lactiferous,to which we compare our more domesticated courtesans andour less domesticated policemen. So Being is not in Form;it is however only to be understood through Form. Henceincarnations. The Universe is only a picture in the Mind ofthe Father, by which He wishes to convey—what? It is ourMagnum Opus to discover what He means! Hence ‘the eye138
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONof faith.’ Mere eyesight tells us that a plaster mould is truer tonature than the greatest masterpiece of Phidias; so doesscience, with her gross calipers. Sensible men prefer a goodphotograph of nature to a bad landscape. The photographshows them the view of their own normal eye through themedium of an accepted symbolism; the picture shows theview of an indifferent bad soul through a medium of mud.But Corot! But Whistler! But Morrice! Corot sees a wood,and paints Pan; Bougereau sees a pretty model, and paints apretty model. He doesn't paint Woman. Morrice paints theVenice of Byron, of our historic and voluptuous dreams; notthe Venice of the Yankee and the churning steamers. Raphaelfound Madonna in his mistress; Rembrandt a queen of sombrepassion and seduction in his wife. In one way or another wemust get to God’s meaning through a medium that itself ismeaningless.”“Just as through dejeuner we get to the dessert!” laughedIda, who had something more to say than her face showed. Allthrough lunch she had allured the big black savage, untilbeneath her glances he was in agony. All the primitivepassions fought one another in his heart. He could have killedRolles for the very nonchalance of his small-talk. It hurt himthat anyone should speak to Ida save in words of love.Equally, he could have killed him for a trace of inflection inhis voice.Edgar Rolles understood his torture, understood the suppressedintensity of Ida's purpose, though he could not guessits nature. Somehow he distrusted the event.“Take literature!” he went on, in that even vigilant voiceof his. “Take Zola with his million marshalled facts. What139
THE EQUINOXdo they matter? Nothing. We get the truth about the SecondEmpire—and if Zola's facts were all false, it would not alterthe truth he came to tell, poor, provincial, time-serving truthas it is.”“Take Ibsen! It is no accusation to say that Norwegiansnever act as his characters do; no defence to prove thatNorwegians always do act so. It has nothing to do with thequestion. Romeo and Juliet make love in English—nobodyminds! Macbeth is not obliged to say, ‘Hoots! ma leddy!’every time he addresses his wife. The fool who bothers withlocal colour misses the sunshine. The man with the burettemisses the sea. Some pious Dutchman of yore, who wanted topaint Abraham and Isaac, gave the old man a blunderbuss.Why not? You can shoot your soon with a blunderbuss! I tellyou it's all symbolism, all hieroglyphics. Take Wagner!”“Take a cigarette,” said Ida.He shrugged his shoulders, and surrendered to the event.“Mr Rolles,” she said, “it is your advice on life that weare asking. Let us talk seriously. This dear boy (she tookthe negro’s lips in her slim fingers and pinched them)likes me.”“I love her! I would die for her!” broke in the black,crying with pleasure and pain, utterly unable to hold himselfin. He caught the table to draw himself to it, so violently thattwo glasses fell. “I love her! I love her! I want her.”“Hush, Joe! Well, you see, Mr Rolles, I love himtoo. . . .” Rolles flashed one glance at her. She would notsee it.—“I love him passionately, indeed I do. Oh, I love him,I love him!”She threw herself on the broad chest of the boxer and hid140
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGONher face. His long arms wound convulsively round her. Hiseyes seemed to start from his head; foam gathered on his drylips; he could not speak. The breath came through his dilatednostrils hot and fierce; one would have said a bull in the arena.She disengaged herself.“You see, he wants to marry me. I love him! I want to bewith him for ever. But—” the great fighter was limp in hischair. “It is difficult,” she went on. “There are complications.My mother . . .”Edgar Rolles detected the false note in her voice. Heunderstood. He was angry, angry at his implication in such anaffair. His teeth snapped.“Yes?” he said, though he wanted to shout, to break thefurniture.“We cannot marry,” she went on, and this time themordant malice almost tore her silky pathos with a rendingshriek. “So, Joe . . .” She turned her great eyes on him,lustrous, pleading.“I want you!” was all he said. But his voice was like thelow and terrible cry of an elephant.“You would not make me”—she hesitated a moment—“you would not make me—impure?” Her inflection was lowand tremulous; but the Caucasions understood. It was like thescream of the typhoon, ripping the sails.Ninon broke into a high hysterical sob of utmost laughter.She had not seen such a comedy since—she had never seensuch a comedy. What a dull brute that black creature was!Edgar Rolles rose with a jerk. He did not know whatwas coming.And then light dawned in the dense brain of the African.141
THE EQUINOXThe thousand meshes of her spider web were torn. Heunderstood. He understood that she cared nothing, had nevercared, would never have given a hair of her head for all hisbody and soul. Understanding was to his brain a momentarydeath.Then with a silent snarl he sprang at her. She and herchair crashed backwards to the floor, and the black leopardwas upon her, his teeth sunk in her throat.Edgar Rolles was only just in time. His boot caught themurderer behind the ear—and Edgar Rolles had playedfootball.The beast was dead.Edgar stooped and caught her up, blood leaping from herthroat, while Ninon, shriek upon shriek rising in torment,rushed to rouse the people of the restaurant.“Oh, my brother,” gasped the girl. “Could you notunderstand? I wanted to die, so.”There were her last words for long.Lavenue's was a storm of chattering and gesticulatingfools. The police pushed them aside. The corpse to themortuary; the girl to the hospital; the man to the Poste.Ninon, wringing her hands and crying and laughing, had runlike a Bacchante up the Boulevard to the Dôme.142
IVTHE HOUR OF GOLDIT was easy to satisfy French justice. Ida Pendragon wascompared to several early Christian martyrs whose namesI have forgotten; Edgar Rolles was asked to sit for a pictureof St George by Follat, the success of the year's salon.Humanitarian papers urged the law to suppress boxing andits brutalities. Texans in Paris argued and rejoiced;Parisians in Texas went with a clear conscience to suchlynchings as occurred.Ida was convalescent. She would never lose the awfulscars that jagged her throat; but would her face ever lose itsmysterious exaltation? When Edgar saw her, he was almostafraid to understand. Leaving her, he went through the heartof Paris to a certain house. He wished to be certain; hewished to consult a Brother of the Silver Star.Now it is very easy to find a Brother, when you know thepassword. But it is not always easy to get that Brother totell you what you want. He is almost certain to be exceedinglyrude; he is extremely likely to insist on talkingcommon sense, which is annoying when you go for exaltedmysticism; and quite possibly he may just nod, and continuehis labours, which is maddening when your business is of thehighest importance to you, and to him, and to the Brother-143
THE EQUINOXhood itself, not to mention humanity—while he is occupiedin playing spillikins, and further insults you by explainingthat he is trying to prove that, if you only do it carefullyenough, you can detach planets from the solar system withouthurting it.On this occasion, however, Rolles was fortunate enoughto find the Brother whom he knew at leisure—even for him.His feet were on the mantlepiece; a long pipe was in hismouth, and he was twiddling his thumbs.“Avé, Frater!” said he, as Rolles entered. "Also Valé. Howyou young brothers manage to find trouble!”“Miss Pendragon will be out of the hospital in four days,”began Edgar in explanation.“Lucky dog!” said the great man. “But the funny thing isthat I am in trouble too.”“Oh! I am sorry.”“I wonder if you could help. It's this way. Sometimes Itwiddle my thumbs so—we call that the plus direction: andsometimes so—the minus direction. Now I lost count yearsand years ago; and so whichever way I twiddle, I may begetting further and further from equality. Then how—I askyou!—may man attain to the Universal Equilibrium?”“Wouldn't it be safer not to twiddle at all?” suggestedRolles meekly.“Inglorious youth!” retorted the Brother. “BaseBuddhist! So you could never equalize the count! No!My plan is—always to twiddle one way. It is an even chancethat my way is right.”“But if you should be wrong?”“I shall be damned, I suppose.”144
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON“And if you should succeed, and equalise the count?”“I have no idea.”“But——”“Ungenerous, unsympathetic youth! I wager you have notdivined my difficulty?”“It all seems very difficult.”“But my supreme, my crushing doubt?”“I cannot guess, sir.”“This! In your ear, my young friend. This! I cannotremember which way always to twiddle.”Rolles drew back dazed.“Read Nietzsche!” snapped the Brother.“But—but—” he stammered. “Oh! this is it. MissPendragon comes out in four days’ time . . .”“I wish you'd learnt twiddling,” said the Brother sadly.“But what am I to do, sir?”“Twiddle, you damned fool!”“I know you always mean something . . .”“Never. There is Nothing to mean!”“Oh!”“Be off, I can't be bothered with you—be off! I send youpacking. Is that clear?”“You have nothing to say to me?”“What have I been saying this priceless past fourteenminutes twenty-seven seconds? Ape! Goat! Imbecile!Dullard! Poopstick! Do you think one can recover lost time?One must talk English to you—English, you hotelblotting-paper, you unabsorbent wad of pulp! English, youEnglishman!”Rolles nearly lost his temper at the final insult.145
THE EQUINOX“Well, then, I send you packing. Go and pack, dolt! Pack!Trunks, portmanteaux, bags, boxes, and for the Lord's sakepack some brains! Take the girl to Jericho or Johannesburg,and get some sense, and triplets, if you can!”“Twiddle so—Being! Twiddle so—Form! Balance them,cheating grocer! Nation of shopkeepers! Twiddle! Twiddle!Twiddle! Isn't the Balance in the Babe? Teach her tounderstand children!” The Brother paused to re-light hispipe, thrusting the bowl into the glowing carbon of the grate.“To understand children? It is hard. But we lovechildren, sir.”“And what the devil is the difference between love andunderstanding? If you have one, you have the other. Oh,twiddle, twiddle!—You can send me one of those rotten paperknives from Jericho,” added the adept more peaceably. “Withthe rotten Sephardi pointing—blasphemers! And here!don't you blaspheme, young feller my lad. You've got a goodwoman: make the most of her.”“A great woman, perhaps.”“A good woman. In the next siege of Paris I hope I shallnot have to boil your head; I prefer thick soup. A goodwoman. A sister of the Silver Star, my good goat!”“I do not understand, master!”“You never will, I think. O generation of vipers! Oprosy princox! O coxcomb of Kafoozelum!”“I beg your pardon, sir! You know she failed in theabyss?”“I? You? This is intolerable. Give me mere Hafiz!Here, thickhead! she was your mistress, I suppose? Mostwomen in Paris seem to be.”146
THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON“Sir!”“Yes or no? Well, silence gives consent—No! she wasn't!You lie! she never gave herself but once—go and look at themark on her throat!”Rolles reeled back, stunned by the bludgeon truth.“I am a Fool!”“Not by a long chalk! Keep your end up, and you'll be aMagus in this life yet, though. In the meantime—oh, be aDevil!”The younger man divined the infinite love and wisdombeneath the brusquerie of the Brother.His eyes filled with tears.“I'll win her, sir, by God!” he said enthusiastically.“Lose yourself to her. Only so. Off now, boy! I am busy.I must twiddle—twiddle—twiddle.”Edgar bowed and went. He could not trust himself tospeak: the Love that was the whole being of the Brothermelted the snow of his soul. He loved. Not Ida, not theworld, not anything. It was pure love; love without object,love as love is in itself. He did not love; he was Love.But he strode straight back to Ida Pendragon. Before sheleft her bed, they were married. A week later they drovethrough the cool swift air to the South; and there, among thevines, they learnt how—once in a century—the phœ nixPassion may rise from the fire of Vice, and how in the beak ofthe phoenix proved by the fire is the ring of Love.* * * * *A year later. They were in a villa at Mustapha. The seaand sky strove enviously which should best answer the sun'squestion with the word blue.147
THE EQUINOXBut Ida Pendragon, pale and fragile as rare porcelain,twisted herself and found no peace. Edgar bent over her, asvigilant as on the night of her first ordeal. In the shadow stooda physician; at the bedside sat a nurse, and in her arms a child.“Brother!” she said faintly, “the number of the grade isThree, and I have given myself three times. Once to thebrute, once to the man—my man! (her hand pressed his, oh!too feebly!) and now—to God!” The tears sprang to his eyes.“It is for you,” she whispered, “to understand the child.”She fell back. The physician ran forward. He knew thathe had no useful purpose there: but he motioned Edgar away.Too late. Edgar had understood the Event.He fell upon the dead girl's breast, crash!The nurse shook herself, half angrily, as a retriever shakesoff water. Then she put the child into his arms.MARITAL NAY148
THE AUTUMN WOODSTHE eye of Fate is closed; the olden doomLies in the wrack of things. There is no sigh;Only the wind cries through the lonely woods,And the barren motherhood of the world is manifestShamelessly; in the dank, pale Autumn woodsThe fallen leaves lie squelching under the feetOf the desolate gnomes; and now the birds are silent,And the streams flow sluggishly through the veins of theworld.Dark gray and cloudy, the skies no more are blue,And grayness reigning solitary makes musicDrearily through the wind-harp. The dripping rainSoddens the earth, and the stones lie thick and wetAmong the leaves; and the trees wave naked armsIn despair to the sky. The light is quickly dying,And there is no more day; the dull red sun—A sore and aching eye in a face of gray—Droops down to slumber. All the world is dead.Rose! Rose! Where art thou? O my Rose, my Rose!My secret Rose, art lost among the gray?There is no voice in the silence; in the woodsThe brownness glistens under the weeping rain,149
THE EQUINOXAnd I am in despair of Thee and Time.Weeping the trees, and all the streams grown sullenUnder the lowering skies, and the bitter winds.There is no living thing in the temple of Summer,And the ashes of Spring lie cold on the hearth of day.Gray dreams again! And all my hope is fled.Gray dreams, gray dreams, and the day is tired and dead.The bitter aftermath of Summer bringsTime's memory back to the world: there are no stings,In the world's pain, but only bitternessOf the memory of Time; no sore distress,Save for the thought of Summer waned and dead,And faded with the gold skies overhead,And the young green beneath; ah! secret Rose,Here in the heart of the woods I pluck thee forth,Fraught with the swell of Summer, crimson-bright!And for the world under the stars to-night—It shall be thine, and thine the star that drawsThe world to worship thee: the days are fledUnder the heavens; there is no more sun,And no more love; the world is hushed and dead.Slim-passing dryad through the lonely woods!I will follow thee in the paths of dank decay;Decadent Autumn, with thy lonely broodsOf active gnomes, and little red-capped Fays,Feasting in the Summer dead under the treesDripping with Autumn rains—ah! take me too,Me too into the silence of the past,150
THE AUTUMN WOODSThe grave of desolation! I am wearyOf all things; let me sleep my life away!The breast of Fate is pregnant with despairGot on her by the piercing shaft of Time.Ah! Unborn child of Fate and Time, I am wearyOf them that gave thee birth. Shall I love thee?O darling, wilt thou come to me in the silence,Saying: I hear the mystery of Time,And the secret of Fate? I know not yet, but surelyThou shalt know of the Rose, the rose, the Rose of theworld;With thee shall I bear the chalice of blood-tipped lilies,The chalice of red, sweet lilies under the moon?But now there is no moon, nor any sun;The world's gray noon only is for thee and me;There is no sound in the nerveless silencesOf the fading world; there is a quiver of lightOn the river of life; we are unwed, my Rose,Nor knoweth each the other; we are undone,My Rose, my secret Rose, my unknown Rose!And still the Autumn woods are rustling dumblyWith sodden leaves made brown by wind and rain;And the satyrs are fled under the earth to hideFrom the sunless world, and the nymphs are faded to air,To be reborn in the sun-light: there is no more joy,For mournfulness is fallen on the world,And decadence and decay and the odour of eld.151
THE EQUINOXThe spirit sleeps; the Rose of the world is buriedUnder the soil of every star that glows,A hanging lamp, under the firmament.There shall be no more roses, no more roses,Until the spring of the stars shall fall on the world.Then shall be light again, O secret Rose,And thou shalt be born anew, with radiant star-lightFor dew, and all thy petals shall be dreamsCrystallised of the gods who swing the chainsOf the worlds in space; and at the heart of theeShall be the secret knowledge, the sacred word,The logos of the throbbing universe.And the years shall pass in myriads over the treeWhereon thou bloomest, O my Rose of the worlds!And one shall pluck thee forth, and love and deathShall lie together, and there shall be bornHe who shall bear for ever into lifeThe rose-tipped lilies under the silent stars,The silent stars, and the red-blushing roses.O Rose, my Rose of the world, my Rose of Roses,Thou shalt be born anew, and live for ever!VICTOR J. I. NEUBURG.152
THE DANGERS OF MYSTICISMAFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED TOARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.A CURIOUS idea is being sedulously disseminated, and appearsto be gaining ground, that mysticism is the “Safe” Path tothe Highest, and magic the dangerous Path to the Lowest.There are several comments to be made on this assertion.One may doubt whether anything worth doing at all is freefrom danger, and one may wonder what danger can threatenthe man whose object is his own utter ruin. One may alsosmile a little grimly at the integrity of those who try to includeall Magic under Black Magic, as is the present trick of theMystic Militant here on earth.Now, as one who may claim to a slight acquaintance withthe literature of both paths, and to have been honoured bypersonal exposition from the adepts of both paths, I believethat I may be able to bring them fairly into the balance.This is the magical theory, that the first departure fromthe Infinite must be equilibrated and so corrected. So the“great magician,” Mayan, the maker of Illusion, the Creator,must be met in combat. Then “if Satan be divided againstSatan, how shall his kingdom stand?” Both vanish: theillusion is no more. Mathematically, 1 + (–1) = 0. Andthis path is symbolised in the Taro under the figure of the153
THE EQUINOXMagus, the card numbered 1, the first departure from 0, butreferred to Beth, 2, Mercury, the god of Wisdom, Magic andTruth.And this Magus has the twofold aspect of the Magicianhimself and also of the “Great Magician” described in Liber418 (EQUINOX, No. V., Special Supplement, p. 144).Now the formula of the mystic is much simpler.Mathematically, is is 1 – 1 = 0. He is like a grain of salt castinto the sea; the process of dissolution is obviously easierthan the shock of worlds which the magician contemplates.“Sit down, and feel yourself as dust in the presence of God;nay, as less than dust, as nothing,” is the all-sufficientsimplicity of his method. Unfortunately, many peoplecannot do this. And when you urge your inability, themystic is only too likely to shrug his shoulders and be donewith you.This path is symbolised by the “Fool” of the Tarot, whois alike the Mystic and the Infinite.But apart from this question, it is by no means certainthat the formula is as simple as it seems. How is the mysticto assure himself that “God” is really “God” and not somedemon masquerading in His image? We find Gersonsacrificing Huss to his “God”; we find a modern journalistwho has done more than dabble in mysticism writing, “Thismystic life at its highest is undeniably selfish”; we findanother writing like the old lady who ended her criticism ofthe Universe, “There’s only Jock an’ me’ll be saved; an’ I’mno that sure o’ Jock”; we find another who at the age ofninety-nine foams at the mouth over an alleged breach of her154
THE DANGERS OF MYSTICISMalleged copyright; we find another so sensitive that themention of his name by the present writer induces an attackof epileptic mania; if such are really “united with” or“absorbed in” God, what of God?We are told in Galations that the fruits of the Spirit arepeace, love, joy, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,meekness, temperence; and somewhere else, “By their fruitsye shall know them.”Of these evil-doers then we must either think that they aredishonest, and have never attained at all, or that they haveunited themselves with a devil.Such are “Brethren of the Left Hand Path,” described sothoroughly in Liber 418 (EQUINOX, No. V., SpecialSupplement, pp. 119 sqq.).Of these the most characteristic sign is their exclusiveness.“We are the men.” “Ours is the only Way.” “AllBuddhists are wicked,” the insanity of spiritual pride.The Magician is not nearly so liable to fall into thisfearful mire of pride as the mystic; he is occupied with thingsoutside himself, and can correct his pride. Indeed, he isconstantly being corrected by Nature. He, the Great One,cannot run a mile in four minutes! The mystic is solitaryand shut up, lacks wholesome combat. We are all schoolboys,and the football field is a perfect prophylactic of swelledhead. When the mystic meets an obstacle, he “makesbelieve” about it. He says it is “only illusion.” He hasthe morphino-maniac’s feeling of bien-ê tre, the delusions ofthe general paralytic. He loses the power of looking anyfact in the face; he feeds himself on his own imagination; he155
THE EQUINOXpersuades himself of his own attainment. If contradicted onthe subject, he is cross and spiteful and cattish. If I criticiseMr X, he screams, and tries to injure me behind my back; ifI say that Madame Y is not exactly St Teresa, she writes abook to prove that she is.Such persons “swollen with wind, and the rank mist theydraw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread,” as Miltonwrote of a less dangerous set of spiritual guides.For their unhappy followers and imitators, no words ofpity suffice. The whole universe is for them but “the glassof their fool’s face”; only, unlike Sir Palamedes, they admireit. Moral and spiritual Narcissi, they perish in the watersof illusion. A friend of mine, a solicitor in Naples, has toldme strange tales of where such self-adoration ends.And the subtlety of the devil is shown particularly in themethod by which neophytes are caught by the BlackBrothers. There is an exaggerated awe, a solemnity ofdiction, a vanity of archaic phrases, a false veil of holinessupon the unclean shrine. Stilted affectation masquerades asdignity; a rag-bag of mediæ valism apes profundity; jargonpasses for literature; phylacteries increase about the hemof the perfect prig, prude, and Pharisee.Corollary to this attitude is the lack of all human virtue.The greatest magician, when he acts in his human capacity,acts as a man should. In paraticular, he has learnt kindheartednessand sympathy. Unselfishness is very often hislong suit. Just this the mystic lacks. Trying to absorbthe lower planes into the higher, he neglects the lower, amistake no magician could make.156
THE DANGERS OF MYSTICISMThe Nun Gertrude, when it came to her turn to wash upthe dishes, used to explain that she was very sorry, but at thatparticular moment she was being married, with full choralservice, to the Saviour.Hundreds of mystics shut themselves up completely andfor ever. Not only is their wealth-producing capacity lost tosociety, but so is their love and good-will, and worst of all, so istheir example and precept. Christ, at the height of his career,found time to wash the feet of his disciples; any Master whodoes not do this on every plane is a Black Brother. TheHindus honour no man who becomes “Sannyasi” (nearly our“hermit”) until he has faithfuly fulfilled all his duties as a manand a citizen. Celibacy is immoral, and the celibate shirks oneof the greatest difficulties of the Path.Beware of all those who shirk the lower difficulties: it’s agood bet that they shirk the higher difficulties too.Of the special dangers of the path there is here no space towrite; each student finds at each step temptations reflectinghis own special weakness. I have therefore dealt solely withthe dangers inseparable from the path itself, dangers inherentin its nature. Not for one moment would I ask the weakest toturn back or turn aside from that path, but I would ask eventhe strongest to apply these correctives: first, the sceptical orscientific attitude, both in outlook and method; second, ahealthy life, meaning by that what the athlete and theexplorer mean; third, hearty human companionship, anddevotion to life, work, and duty.Let him remember that an ounce of honest pride is betterthan a ton of false humility, although an ounce of true157
THE EQUINOXhumility is worth an ounce of honest pride; the man whoworks has no time to bother with either. And let himremember Christ’s statement of the Law “to love God with allthy heart, and thy neighbour as thyself.”ALEISTER CROWLEY.158
REVIEWS
THE BIG STICKTHE DWELLER ON THE THRESHOLD. ROBERT HITCHENS. Methuen, 6s.Mr Hichens once wrote “Flames.” This was a pretty powerful book. Today(tempted, as I suppose, by a heavy bribe, for he is an artist in his way)he gives us this book with a title borrowed, not from Lytton, whom he hasobviously not read, but from some eighteenth-hand source, and contentsborrowed from his own “Flames.” Hence a tedious novel,dull novelunconvincing novel,stupid novel,futile novel,pseudo-occult novel, banal novel,pot-boiling novel,senseless novel,tired novel,ground-out novel,pointless novel,fatuous novel,unreal novel,sorry novel,etc., etc., etc.The above method of filling space I took from Rabelais. Mr Hichens' methodis just as obvious.PANURGE.MYSTICISM. EVELYN UNDERHILL. Methuen. 15s. net.This lengthy treatise upon the simplest of subjects is more free frompedantry and theological bias than was perhaps to be expected. It is verycomplete in its way as regards Christian mysticism; but the attempt to restrictthe term mysticism to Christian mysticism must fail. It is indeed selfdestructive.To exclude the authors of the Bhagavadgita, the Voice of theSilence, Knox Om Pax, and the Tao Teh King is to exclude by implication St.Teresa. To deny Crowley is to deny Christ. Similarly, the attempt to defineMagic in terms contrary to its tradition, is sectarian folly. I may disagree withHuxley, but I shall not confute him by saying that he was a bigoted opponentof Evolution.Roosevelt, in calling Thomas Paine a dirty little Atheist, when he wasdemonstrably a clean tall Deist, established only the record for falsehood. Mr (or160
THE BIG STICKMrs or Miss?) Evelyn Underhill does the same thing when he abuses the Magiby attributing to them the doctrines and practices of sorcerers. And we thinkthat his sense of awe misleads him in one respect. The Buddha, theChrist, and He whom some of us know as Frater Perdurabo, were all men beforethey became lost in the Infinity of what some call the One, others the All, othersthe Naught; and their documents are accessible. These documents areof immeasurably greater value than the lesser writings of the mediaeval saints.In fact, this word mediaeval is of use to us in describing Evelyn Underhill’s stateof mind. He, she, or it is rather narrow, vastly learned and curiously ignorant,capable of seeing far from within, utterly incapable of seeing an inch fromwithout, a bit of a heresy-hunter and so on. It is clear that the mystic visioneven is not his, or how could he remain sectarian? Had he only enoughimagination to think of the earth as seen from Cor Scorpionis, all such diatribeswould seem infinitely petty. We may splutter about with our little verbalfireworks, as I am doing now; but to take it seriously! “There's nothingserious in mortality;” God is All in All. The Universe is but a mote playingin that sunbeam; why bother to fill 600 dull pages? Nothing is worth writingbut literature. Art is the expression of divine Truth; Mr. Underhill, being noartist, expresses only human error.CANDLESTICK.DEATH. HEREWARD CARRINGTON and JOHN R. MEADER. Wm. Rider & Son,8s. 6d. net.A most interesting and fairly able book. Mr Carrington's hysteria isthoroughly diluted by Mr Meader, or else he has taken a little nourishmentand feels better. The Vitality book was the scream of a schoolgirl.The “theories” of these writers are, however, too comic to discuss seriously.One believes in “Life,” a mystical entity flowing through one like a grease-spotthrough a greenback; the other believes that Death is caused by a man'shypnotising himself into the belief that it must come!Big as is the present volume, it is necessarily far from complete. Yet I amcompelled to admit much against my will that he makes out a very strong case forthe persistence of personality after death, and its manifestation through certainmediums. Yet I think that the “coincidence” argument is a little better than issupposed.The point is that the failures are unrecorded. Take “pure chance” roulette forexample. Scientifically, any given run (say 500 on the red) is no more and no lessremarkable than any other given run, say R B B R R B B B R R R B BB B, etc., to 500 coups. But the one is acclaimed as a miracle, the other goesunremarked.161
THE EQUINOXNow in the millions of séances of the last sixty years the “evidential”records can be counted in the fingers of one hand.And it is not antecedently so very improbable that pure chance might dictatecorrect answers in so small a proportion of cases.Further, the spiritists have thrown upon science the task of proving a universalnegative.If Sir Oliver Lodge, or Professor Munsterberg, or Lord Cholly Cauliflower,or Mr Upthe Pole comes to me with a tale of unicorns in Piccadilly, I merelyhumour him. Munsterberg, at least, might be dangerous.But I should not investigate his statement, and I certainly should not claim tobe able to disprove it on à priori grounds.Even in the evidential cases, there is so much room for a mixture of fraud,telepathy, chance, and hysteria, and humanity is so cleaver at stopping chinkswith putty and then leaving the door open, that we must continue to suspendjudgment.An amusing case occurred some years ago at Cambridge. I offered toreproduce roughly the performance of the Zancigs (which was then puzzling thefoolish in London) without preparation. A stranger to me offered to act as my“medium.”The conditions were these. The ten small cards of a suit were laid on thefloor; one was to be touched in the medium's absence and in my presence. Themedium was to return and say which it was. The rest of the company were toprevent us from communicating if they could.Well, they tried everything. In a minute’s interview I arranged a buttontouchingcode with my medium, and as each new restriction was put on me Imanaged to invent a new code. Shifting my pipe, coughing, arranging books,winking, altering the position of my fingers, etc., etc., all were provided against.Then I obtained a confederate. Ultimately the grand sceptic of all devised thefollowing test just as I had passed the note to my medium, “If I can’t manage anyof the old ways, I’ll try and write down the number and put it on themantelpiece.”And this was the test.The medium was to be taken from Whewell’s Court (were we were) overto the Great Court of Trinity—well out of all hearing. I was to be left alonewith the sceptic, who by this time suspected everybody of being a confederate.He was to touch the card in my presence and then take me away in theopposite direction. The medium was then (at a given time) to return, and tellthe card. Now it happened that in the course of general argument about fairness,which I encouraged to enable myself to plot unnoticed in the confusion of talk,that I had stipulated for my sceptic to write down the number that he had162
THE BIG STICKtouched, to avoid dispute. This he agreed to; he was allowed to hide it as hechose.I gave up all hope but in bringing off the 9 to 1 chance of my medium's beingright. The sceptic kept both eyes on me all the time; if I stirred a finger, he wasup in arms. I did keep my back to the mantelpiece, but there was no way ofwriting down the number.But it was just at that point that my sceptic’s magnificent brain broke down.He had correctly argued everything so far; but then his brain said, “It isimportant that Crowley shall not know where I hide the paper with the numberon it: I must hide it somewhere where he cannot see.”So instead of slipping it into one of the hundreds of books on the shelves, thehid it behind my back, i.e. on the mantlepiece, where it was duly found!I must tell just one other story to the point. It throws possibly some light onone or two of the “miracles” which Blavatzsky performed in order to disgust themore foolish of her followers.In June 1906 I was at Margate (God help me!), and asked my friend J——to lend me his copy of Abramelin.“Sorry!” said he. “I lent it to So-and-so, and it has not been returned.”He forgot this conversation: I remembered it.Staying at his house six months later, I was alone one morning and found thebook, which he “knew for a fact” to be in London sixty miles away. It washidden by the panel of a glass-fronted bookcase.I hid it in the stuffing of a music-stool, led the conversation at lunch-time to“apports,” got my host to suggest my doing this very thing which he was sure Icould not do, and, in the evening, did it.If I had been a cheat, could I have produced better evidence? My host wouldhave sworn that the book was in London in a house unknown to me, whoseoccupants were unknown to me. He is a man of science and of most accurateand balanced judgment. One little lapse of memory: he forgot that he had toldme that the book was not in his shelves; another little lapse of memory: he forgotwhere the book was; and there is your miracle!Now for my constructive policy. I suggest that a “spirit” be cultivated on thelines laid down by Eliphaz Levi, “Dogma and Ritual,” Chap. XIII., so that hemay manifest more wholly. Then let him dictate to two or three segregatedmediums a long passage, or a long set of meaningless figures, and get so high adegree of agreement that hardly any doubt remains.Or if anybody wants a really high evidential proof, let him get the proof ofFermat’s Last Theorem, which Fermat died without revealing, and which theunited efforts of mathematicians have hitherto failed to discover.ALEISTER CROWLEY.163
THE EQUINOXTHE PORCH. Vol. I., No. 8. 3d. J. M. WATKINS. THE MIRROR OFSIMPLE SOULS.Of all this admirable series this is the best. Such prose I have rarely found inall my reading. I am beggared of wit to review it; but I implore all who seek thepure Light mirrored in flawless imagery to obtain it.ALEISTER CROWLEY.THE APOCALYPSE UNSEALED. Being an Estoeric Interpretation of THEINITIATION OF IOANNES. By JAMES M. PRYSE. New York; John M. Pryse,9-15 Murray Street, 1910. London: J. M. Watkins. 8s. 6d. netIt is possible to write upon this book in a freer manner, without offence,than upon any other book in the Canon of Scripture, for there is no other bookwhich has caused so much disquiet to theologians, in all ages, as has the“Revelation of St John the Divine,” and it is but in comparatively recent timesthat it has been generally accepted as Canonical, and this even by those whoadmit that they do not understand it; and to such as these the “ApocalypseUnsealed” will be a veritable “Revelation” indeed. Mr James M. Pryseaccepts it unreservedly as the work of the Apostle John, but we ought tomention that there is a long string of authorities against this view. Dionysius,who was surnamed the Great, of Alexandria, was a pupil of Origen, and he ofClement of Alexandria, all catechists of the Arcane Discipline which taught aChristianised version of the older Gnosis, which Clement and others had broughtinto the Church from the older secret, or occult, societies of which they were, orhad been members. This Dionysius makes a certain John the Presbyter, as ofnote in Asia Minor in the 1st century, and distinct from the Apostle, to be theauthor of the book. Presbyter Cajus, or Gaius, of Rome, and the Alogi,attributed it to Cerinthus, a Gnostic of the independent sect of these, and Eusebiusquotes both Dionysius and these Alogi; Nicephorus Callistus uses the sameas saying that some who had preceded them had manipulated the book in suchway, in every chapter, that the original could not be recognised. This may bean exaggeration, but amongst the eminent critics who have denied theauthenticity of the book may be mentioned these, and what else can we expectwhen none to the present time could understand it? Against it are De Wett,Bleek, Ewald, Credner, Schott, Lucke, Neander, Michaelis, who treat the styleas utterly foreign to that of John the Apostle. The first-named observes that“Revelation” is characterised by strong Hebraisms, ruggedness, and exhibitsthe absence of pure Greek words, whilst in the Gospel of John is to be found acalm, deep feeling, but in the Apocalypse we have great creative power offancy;—the two minds are at variance with each other. St Jerome had an164
THE BIG STICKexalted opinion of the book, and says that it has much of mystery therein;possibly he saw it with the same eyes as Mr Pryse. Even both Luther andErasmus were doubtful as to its acceptance. The “Encyclopaedia Britannica”argues that its allusions are of the 4th or 5th century. It may be mentioned here,that Dom John Chapman, D.O.S., has made an examination of the question thisyear, and argues, with doubtful success, that John the Presbyter and John theApostle were the same person, and accepts both the Gospel and the Apocalypseas the works of Apostle John, and accounts for the difference in style as that ofthe amanuensis whom the Apostle John employed.Two noticable, but irreconcilable, attempts have in recent years been madeto interpret the book, theologically and historically. The learned Dr E. V.Kenealy made sense out of it, but overdid the subject. He believed it torepresent the Apocalyptic church of Adam, and found in its addresses to the “SevenChurches” the existence of a great Asian hierarchy of the seven temples of the“twenty-four Ancients,” and further, in its various characters, the acts ofthe twelve divine incarnations, or messengers, who follow each other atperiods of 600 years, as taught in regard to the manifestations of Vishnu.Then, in 1906, we have a book of the astronomer, Nicholas Marazoff, verifiedby the astronomers Ramin and Lanin, who attempt an astrological view,grounded on the state of the heavens at Patmos on the 30th September 395, at5 o'clock at night. Jupiter—the white horse—was then in Sagittarius; whilstSaturn —the pale horse—was in Scorpio; the sun in Virgo, and the moon underher feet. John Chrysostom was then in Patmos, and immediately after 395was called to Rome to become a presbyter; but Rome finding that the “SecondComing” did not take place, it is argued that he was deprived and banished asa “false prophet.” Against this we have the fact that Chrysostom does notmention the book, but the date assigned agrees with criticisms as the book nowstands.We must defer to the superior knowledge of this modern “Unveiler,”though personally I am inclined to accept the views of those early Fathers whoassign the authorship to Cerinthus, and also the later German critics, whobelieve that the first three chapters and the last have been added by a laterhand, and other portions altered to agree with the Scriptures held to be orthodox.Of course this, if it were so, does not effect in any way the views of Mr Pryse,but rather strengthens them, as I look upon the imagery of the book as essentiallythat of the earlier and pre-Christian Gnostics. Though we may not haveabsolute proof of the great antiquity of the Gnosis, such as Mr Pryse unveils,yet it is clearly Aryan, dating from the time of Momu—the thinker; then againthe development of the Kundalini—serpent fire—world's mother, also termedrousing the Brahm—is said to be shown as issuing from the foreheads of early165
166THE EQUINOXEgyptian kings; Apollonius of Tyana, a contemporary of our Jesus, visited theGymnosophists of the Upper Nile, but said that they were not equal to those ofIndia. The British Druids must have had a knowledge of the “Serpent fire” intheir secret instruction, or why exclaim, “I am a serpent.” The MythraicMysteries, and all the Eranoi Societies, were equally protected by the laws ofSolon seven centuries B.C., and Mr Pryse observes that only once does the wordHalleluiah occur in the Bible, yet we know that it formed the close of a chant inthe “Rites of Purification” in a call to the slain god for deliverance, in pre-Christian centuries, and further there are Mythraic traces in Revelation. We alsoknow from a large mass of inscriptions found in recent times, that the earlyChristians made use of the very ancient societies, and by that course spread theirdoctrine. Before the issue of the “Unsealing,” the same translator published the“Magical Message of Iôannes,” a translation of great value which receives muchadditional light from the later work, and the more so as it supplies, in a knowledgeof Hermetic Greek, much meaning which escapes us in the authorised version.In the “Unsealing,” Mr. Pryse goes solid for the book, the whole book, andnothing but the book, as the veritable work of the Apostle John, hence the clergymay extend a welcome hand to it. He quite believes it is a work of the ApostleJohn, and defends the style; amongst these there are some doubtless who arenarrow-minded, but here, and still more prominently in America, there arebroad-minded clergy who will welcome the Unsealing.The Freemasons too in their higher grades, which have more or less reachedus through the Rosicrucians, have very strong allusions to the Apocalypse, andmay profit by it, and this refers to several systems practised throughout theworld. Thus the Order of Hérédom (Harodim) Rosy Cross, which has anunchanged Ritual from 1740, at least, draws upon Dionysius the Areopagite, adisciple of St Paul, and it has also a rhythmetical description of the NewJerusalem. Again, two entire degrees of the Scottish Rite of 33° are drawnfrom the Apocalypse, and certainly entered the Rite before 1758, and seem as ifthey were drawn bodily from the Rosicrucian Militia of the Cross: I allude to the17° Knight of the East and West, and the 19° of Grand Pontiff, which treatupon the Heavenly Jerusalem, and the opening scene of the Revelations. It wasrather a pity that when the late Albert Pike was revising the Rituals, hedid not consolidate the Rite by changing the places of the 17° with the 20°,which latter treats of Zerubbabel. His predecessor Morin, in 1767, did a likething by the Amalgamation of Prince Adept, which he had in his patent of 1762,with Knight of the Sun, and supplying the blank thus created with PatriarchNoachite. There is also the Royal Oriental Order of the Sat Bhai which wasfounded 1743-5 by a Brahmin Pundit at Prag, for certain Anglo-Indian officers,and which is now well established in America.
THE BIG STICKThe idea that Revelation is a book of Initiation is not altogether new toFreemasons, as the late Dr Geo. Oliver elaborated that view at considerablelength, but Mr Pryse's view is quite a different sort of Initiation; it is thedevelopment of the semi-miraculous powers of the Gnosis of Clement, Origen,and the early Christian Church, the birth of the divine three principles, theCrestos, in the human soul. The key to this “Unsealing” is the text itself, inwhich is found the Nos. 333, 444, 666, 777, 888, 999, 1000, as applied to the sevenprincipal “chakras” of the human body, as taught by Greek Yogis. Apartaltogether from the possession of a reliable literal translation of the book, thereare seventy-five pages upon the development of the Kundalini, and each subjectis followed in the text by a commentary in application. Mr Pryse expresses theview that the book is necessarily incomprehensible to the conventionaltheologian, yet easily comprehended by the esoteric Initiate, i.e. by him whopossesses the Gnosis, and that the drama is perfect in all its parts. I may addthat most of this class of Initiative books had a double interpretation, and hencethat the same may be equally found in the Apocalypse, but into this Mr Prysedoes not enter.JOHN YARKER.Mr Pryse has undoubtedly found the key of the Apocalypse, and many of hisinterpretations are profound and accurate. But he is afflicted by sexual maniato an extent positively shocking, and does not understand the harmony of theprinciples. Adeptship is balanced growth, not lopping. A rose dies if youremove the root and stalk, Mr Pryse!He is unfortunately a poor scholar, and has developed the American literarysense to an incredible point. He translates ¢krasia, “impotence, lack ofcontrol,” as “sensuality,” ¢ggeloj as “divinity,” and gives us “saucers” for“vials”!Unfortunately, too, he has studied Eastern Mysticism at second-hand,through Theosophical spectacles. Nor has he kept even to Blavatsky the genius,but relied upon her commentators, who had neither her learning nor herexperience.But he has the key, and it opens the way for a real study of “St John” by aperson of greater ability.It is a very remarkable fact, however, that Akrasia (333) and Akolasia (333)should so accurately describe Choronzon (333). No higher test of the truth of“The Vision and the Voice” could be desired.Again, 666 is ‘H Frhn, not the Lower Mind, as Mr Pryse unhellenically says,but Tiphereth, the Lion that lieth down with the Lamb. Nor, by the way, isIacchos a phallic God except as ‘O Nikwn himself is phallic, and has his mystic167
THE EQUINOXname written upon that organ, according to Mr Pryse! Iacchus = IAO = Jehovah,and concentrates I.N.R.I.We recommend the book for its suggestion and insight; it is one of the best ofthe kind.NICK LAMB.SALAMAN ET ABSAL, POÉME ALLÉGORIQUE PERSIAN DE DJAMI. Traduit parAUGUSTE BRICTEUX, Ph.D., Litt.D., etc. etc., avec une Introduction sur leMysticisme persan, etc. Bruxelles, 10 rue de la Tribune (Librairie Ch.Carrington). 10 francs.A magnificent volume without and within. This, with the single exceptionof the “Bagh-i-muattar” (Probsthain & Co., 1910, 3gs., and therefore difficult ofaccess), is the greatest of Persian mystic treatises, though it is rather elementary.But we can recommend no better volume for those who know but a little. DrBricteux has no experience of mysticism, and so makes mistakes. This was to beexpected, but I am surprised at the scholar's error of asserting that the Hindusystem lacks the method of love. As ninety-five Hindus practise Bhakti-Yogafor five that practise any other kind, we advise Dr Bricteux to be more careful.But this is a small blemish on a very fine essay.ABHAVANANDA.RUBAIYAT D’OMAR KHÁYYÁMI. Mis en Rimes françaises par JULES DEBARTHOLD. Bruxelles, 10 rue de la Tribune (Librairie Ch. Carrington).5 francs.Since the “loathsome and abominable” disclosures with regard to EdwardFitzgerald and “Posh,” I suppose every decent Englishman has burnt his copy ofthe Quatrains. It is consequently very pleasant to find a new translation,accurately representing the original, in beautiful and lucid French. The versesflow with the sound of wine poured in a thirsty country. We can recommendthis book to all lovers of whom the Daily Telegraph would call “the astronomerpoetof Persia,” and then “the tent-maker of Naishapur.” A. L.MAURICE MAETERLINCK. Par GÉRARD HARVEY. Bruxelles, Ch. Carrington.2.50 francs.I hope I shall find a Gérard Harvey at the Day of Judgment. There is noneof that nasty carping spirit which spoils so many sunny natures. When thegreat Maurice dines alone, it is his almost monachal asceticism; when he hascompany, it is his genial bonhomie. He smokes—how brave of him; but ofcourse it is denicotinised tobacco—how prudent of him! He sometimes sleepsalone—the modern Galahad; and sometimes with somebody else—“even his168
THE BIG STICKHeinesque moods are steeled through with a strong man's virility.” In short,Dr Pangloss was indeed the greatest of philosophers—until Gérard Harveywiped the floor with him. A. L.THE LIMIT. By ADA LEVERSON. 6s.Mrs Leverson is easily the dantiest and wittiest of our younger femininewriters; but she does well to call her latest masterpiece “the limit.” MrsLeverson offers us a picture of an aged, wrinkled, and bedizened Jewess withfalse hair and teeth, painted and whitewashed with kohl, rouge, and chalk, untilthere seems hardly any woman there at all. Yet not content with addiction toindiscriminate adultery and morphine, she finds pleasure in seducing youngmen and picking their pockets.Fie! you can surely show us a prettier picture than that. Why not return toyour earlier manner? Not necessarily the manner of “An Idyll in Bloomsbury,”but you might advantageously find material in Brixton or in Bayswater.FELIX.THE SOUL OF THE MOOR. William Rider & Son. 2s. net.“Success meant life! Failure—worse than death, for there would be theeverlasting self-reproach! Dare I attempt the experiment?”This sounds familiar, but, if memory serves me right, Mr Dion ClaytonCalthorpe's drama continues in this strain,—“He carefully surveyed his ashenface in the tiny glass suspended over his washhand stand, then, with hasty,trembling fingers, he dipped his leaky shaving-brush into the icy water, andproceeded, at the ghastly hour of 6 a.m., TO SHAVE!”Perhaps the fact that “My wife was very ill” accounts for the variation.Mr Stratford D. Jolly is much too busy a man to devote much time to the“Serious study of the occult,” and it is a pity he should have spent so much timeupon the forty-five chapters which comprise this work, instead of upon someother subjects with which he might be more conversant.In short, it is a flabby, gentlemanly book, which should find a ready saleamong the more “goody” portion of Suburbia, the only place where the Herocould be appreciated!Despite the author's obvious endeavour, there is absolutely nothing immoralin this book, and I can recommend it to great-grandchildren as a suitableChristmas present for their grandmother's aunt.My congratulations to the illustrator for so thoroughly seizing the spirit of thebook.BUNCO169
THE EQUINOXCHRONICLES OF PHARMACY. By A. C. WOOTTON. Macmillan & Co. 2 vols. 21s.The title of this work justifies itself as the reader reaches the end of thesecond volume. To the pharmacist it is an extremely useful book, and in a greatmany instances furnishes information of an interesting character, which the busyman would have difficulty in finding in pharmaceutical history. To the studentof the occult it ought to appeal strongly, as the author gives a long list of drugsused in religious ceremonies in different ages, and although the present centuryis so much in advance, we find that the incenses and sweet odours used inceremonial magic to-day are the same as those used in Egypt, in the worship ofIsis, and in the services held in the Temple of Solomon. Mention is also made ofthe preparations made by the ancient alchemists which were thought to havemagic power. Short biographical sketches of some of the old masters ofpharmacy appear, but after Liebig we have no special mention of the pharmacistsof the last century.A interesting chapter on Poisons in History, introducing the stories ofpoisoners and the drugs employed, furnishes material for the budding novelist, towhom in fact the whole of this excellent work may be recommended. To theoccult reader the concluding chapter on names and symbols would be ofconsiderable service, and might be useful for reference.The book, which is published in two volumes, is profusely illustrated, andwell printed and bound. Had the author not been known as the popular editor ofa pharmaceutical newspaper and an authority on all matters connecting withpharmacy, “The Chronicles” would have proved an excellent monument to hismemory; unfortunately Mr Wootton died before his book left the publisher'shands.E. WHINERAY, M.P.S.170
SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTNOTEThese Rites were writtenand produced byALEISTER CROWLEYexcept parts of the Rites of Marsand of Mercurywhich were written by an adeptwho wishes to remain anonymous—————The solos were chosen from herrepertoire by Miss Leila Waddell.————————[In view of the absurd statements as to the character of theserites which have been made in certain quarters, it has been thoughtthat the best reply is the publication of the text in full. ED.]i
THE RITES OF ELEUSIS ASPERFORMED AT CAXTONHALL WESTMINSTER INOCTOBER AND NOVEMBER1910 BY MISS LEILA WAD-DELL AND MR ALEISTERCROWLEY WITH DIS-TINGUISHED ASSISTANCE
I. THE RITE OF SATURN.II. THE RITE OF JUPITER.III. THE RITE OF MARS.IV. THE RITE OF SOL.V. THE RITE OF VENUS.VI. THE RITE OF MERCURY.VII. THE RITE OF LUNA.
viTO MY FRIENDCOMMANDER G. M. MARSTON, R. N.to whose suggestionthese riteare duethey are gratefully dedicated.
THE RITE OF SATURN1
THE OFFICERS OF THE TEMPLEMAGISTER TEMPLI, the representative of Binah, Saturn.MATER CŒLI, Venus in Libra, the house of Saturn's exaltation.BROTHER AQUARIUS, the house of Saturn; in Chesed, because Pisces is water:“Hope.”BROTHER CAPRICORNUS, in the throne of Capricornus, the house of Saturn; inGeburah, because Mars is exalted therein. He is Mars in Capricornus.BROTHER CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUS.THE LEADER OF THE CHORUS, or CHORAGOGE.SCENE.—In the East is a veiled shrine, containing an altar. To its Chokmah,Binah, Chesed, and Geburah are M. T., M. C., Bro. A., and Bro. C.respectively. Bro C. E. is disguised as an ordinary member of thegarrison.3
THE RITE OF SATURNPART IBROTHER CAPRICORNUS enters and turns off Blue light.Red lamps are brought in by BROTHER CAPRICORNUSand the LEADER OF THE CHORUS.First the Temple is lighted by two red lamps. PRO-BATIONERS chant the Capricornus and Aquariussections from 963 while others wait without in darkness.Red lights are then hidden within veil. BROTHERCAPRICORNUS turns on the Blue light.The Temple being in darkness, and the assistants seated, letBROTHER CAPRICORNUS arise from his throne, andknock thrice with his spear-butt upon the floor.MAGISTER TEMPLI in the shrine, with MATER CΠLI.CAPRICORNUS. Procul, O procul este profani![He performs the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram.He next lights the hell-broth and recites:]Even as the traitor's breathGoeth forth, he perishethBy the secret sibilant word that is spoken unto death.Even as the profane handReacheth to the sacred sand,Fire consumes him that his name be forgotten in the land.5
THE RITES OF ELEUSISEven as the wicked eyeSeeks the mysteries to spy,So the blindness of the gods takes his spirit: he shall die.Even as the evil priest,Poisoned by the sacred feast,Changes by its seven powers to the misbegotten beast:Even as the powers of ill,Broken by the wanded will,Shriek about the holy place, vain and vague and terrible:Even as the lords of hell,Chained in fires before the spell,Strain upon the sightless steel, break not fetters nor compel:So be distant, O profane!Children of the hurricane!Lest the sword of fire destroy, lest the ways of death be plain!So depart, and so be wise,Lest your perishable eyesLook upon the formless fire, see the maiden sacrifice!So depart, and secret flameBurn upon the stone of shame,That the holy ones may hear music of the sleepless Name!Holy, holy, holy spouseOf the sun-engirdled house,With the secret symbol burning on thy multiscient brows! . . .Even as the traitor's breathGoeth forth, he perishethBy the secret sibilant word that is spoken unto death.CAPRICORNUS. Brethren, let us awaken the Master of theTemple.[THE LEADER OF THE CHORUS beats the tom-tom, and theother brethren clap and stamp their feet. No result.]6
THE RITE OF SATURNSilence—it is in vain! Brethren, let us invoke theassistance of the Mother of Heaven![He goes to veil and reaches through with his hands.MATER CŒ LI. [Passes through Throne of MAGISTER TEMPLIand enters the Temple.] Children, what is your willwith me?CAPRICORNUS. Mother of Heaven, we beseech thee toawaken the Master.MATER CŒ LI. What is the hour?CAPRICORNUS. Mother of Heaven, it lacks a quarter ofmidnight.MATER CŒELI. Be it unto your desire![She plays.* As she ends she kneels: the veil slowly parts,and MAGISTER TEMPLI "is seen standing in shrine. Heslowly enters Temple." MATER CŒ LI returns to throne,having been blessed and raised by him.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. Mother of Heaven, beloved of theStars, wherefore hast thou awakened the Poison of Eld, theDweller in Eternity?MATER CŒ LI. Shabbathai.[MAGISTER TEMPLI comes down to hell-broth and recites“The Eyes of Pharaoh.”]Dead Pharaoh's eyes from out the tombBurned like twin planets ruby-red.Enswathed, enthroned, the halls of gloomEcho the agony of the dead.Silent and stark the Pharaoh sate:No breath went whispering, hushed or scared.Only that red incarnate hateThrough pylon after pylon flared.* Kuyawiak: Wieniawski.7
THE RITES OF ELEUSISAs in the blood of murdered thingsThe affrighted augur shaking skriesEarthquake and ruinous fate of kings,Famine and desperate destinies,So in the eyes of Pharaoh shoneThe hate and loathing that compelIn death each damned minionOf Set, the accursèd lord of Hell.Yea! in those globes of fire there sateSome cruel knowledge closely curledLike serpents in those halls of hate,Palaces of the Underworld.But in the hell-glow of those eyesThe ashen skull of Pharaoh shoneWhite as the moonrays that surpriseThe invoking Druse on Lebanon.Moreover pylon shouldered roundTo pylon an unearthly tune,Like phantom priests that strike and soundSinister sistrons at the moon.And death's insufferable perfumeBeat the black air with golden fansAs Turkis rip a Nubian's wombWith damascened yataghans.Also the taste of dust long deadOf ancient queens corrupt and fairStruck through the temple, subtly spedBy demons dominant of the air.Last, on the flesh there came a touchLike sucking mouths and stroking handsThat laid their foul alluring smutchEven to the blood's mad sarabands.8
THE RITE OF SATURNSo did the neophyte that would gazeInto dead Pharaoh's awful eyesStart from incalculable amazeTo clutch the initiate's place and prize.He bore the blistering thought aloft:It blazed in battle on his plume:With sage and warrior enfeoffed,He rushed alone through tower and tomb.The myriad men, the cohorts armed,Are shred like husks: the ensanguine brandLeaps like a flame, a flame encharmedTo fire the pyramid heaven-spannedWherein dead Pharaoh sits and stares,Swathed in the wrappings of the tomb,With eyes whose horror flits and flaresLike corpse-lights glimmering in the gloomTill all's a blaze, one roar of flame,Death universal, locked and linked:—Aha! one names the awful Name—The twin red planets are extinct.[A pause.[The lamp burns out, and darkness covers all.[LEADER OF THE CHORUS secretly removes hell-broth vase.9
10PART IIThe Temple in DarknessMAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Brother Aquarius, what is the time?AQUARIUS. Midnight.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Brother Capricornus, what is theplace?CAPRICORNUS. The Fortress that is upon the Frontier ofthe Abyss.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Brothers Aquarius andCapricornus, is the Beloved with us?AQUARIUS and CAPRICORNUS. The Mother of Heaven isenthroned.MAGISTER TEMPLI. Mother of Heaven, let us lamenttogether![Recites Swinburne's “Ilicet.”*[MATER CŒ LI plays accordingly.†MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Brother Aquarius, to what end arewe assembled?AQUARIUS. [Rises and whispers in his ear.] Shabbathai.ALL [aloud]. Shabbathai.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Are the brethren fed? The figures represent knocks. 1. a single knock; 22. a battery of twoknocks; and so on.* Swinburne’s poems being in copyright, we can only give titles or first lines.The reader should consult Messrs Chatto & Windus’ edition of his works.† Aria arranged for G string: Bach.
THE RITE OF SATURNAQUARIUS. Upon the corpses of their children.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Have they quenched their thirst?AQUARIUS. Upon poppy-heads infused in blood.MAGISTER TEMPLI. The raven has croaked.AQUARIUS. The owl has hooted.CAPRICORNUS. The bat has flapped its wings.MAGISTER TEMPLI. Then . . .Lights! [CAPRICORNUS switches on the blue glare.1. Brother Aquarius, I scent danger.AQUARIUS. 1. Master, there are evil things abroad. [ToCAPRICORNUS] Turn out the guard!CAPRICORNUS. Brethren, stand to your arms![All PROBATIONERS rise and follow him. He pricks allassistants with his spear, inspects doors, etc.]Master, every man is vigilant at his post. There is noalarm.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Brother Aquarius, I scent danger.AQUARIUS. 1. Master, there is a traitor within the gates.[To CAPRICORNUS] Inspect the garrison!CAPRICORNUS. Brethren, purify your hearts![He rises and looks into every eye. When he comes to BRO.CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUS, he hales him forth by thehair, before the altar, and plunges his spear into him.He completes inspection. Returns and bows toMAGISTER TEMPLI.]Master, justice has been executed upon the traitor. Onlythe faithful remain.MAGISTER TEMPLI. So perish all traitors![CAPRICORNUS extinguishes light.[A pause.11
12PART IIIDarknessAQUARIUS. [Comes forward and kneels to MAGISTERTEMPLI.] Master, we beseech thee to permit the ceremonyto proceed.MAGISTER TEMPLI. There was no crackling in the driedleaves.[CAPRICORNUS joins AQUARIUS kneeling.AQUARIUS and CAPRICORNUS. Master, we beseech thee topermit the ceremony to proceed.MAGISTER TEMPLI. There was no heart in the black lamb.[All PROBATIONERS join AQUARIUS and CAPRICORNUSkneeling.]ALL. Master, we beseech thee to permit the ceremony toproceed.MAGISTER TEMPLI. The sacred python was found dead.[MATER CΠLI comes forward, kneels before MAGISTERTEMPLI, thus making the apex to the pyramid ofpetitioners, rises and plays her petition,* then againkneels.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. Let the ceremony proceed.[MATER COELI returns to her throne. AQUARIUS rises, andCAPRICORNUS returns to his post and lights the lamp.* Abendlied: Schumann.
THE RITE OF SATURNAQUARIUS and all present dance wildly for joy to thesound of the tom-tom.][During the confusion BRO. CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUSslips into the temple and hides behind the veil, where heremoves his disguise and dons his dancing robe.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. Silence![A pause.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1.AQUARIUS. 1.MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Holy be the Lamps of Joy!AQUARIUS. Holy be the Lamps of Sorrow!MAGISTER TEMPLI. Let us enter the ark of IncreasedKnowledge!CAPRICORNUS. Hail, thou that sittest in the City of thePyramids!AQUARIUS. Hail, thou that art encamped upon the GreatSea!MAGISTER TEMPLI. Hail, brethren!CAPRICORNUS. Master, what is Increased Knowledge?MAGISTER TEMPLI. Death.AQUARIUS. Master, what is the Ark thereof?MAGISTER TEMPLI. The grave.AQUARIUS and CAPRICORNUS. Master, how shall we enter it?MAGISTER TEMPLI. Arise and follow me![He rises and circumambulates the temple widdershins.CAPRICORNUS plucks forth every third person andmakes them follow him, continuing this process untilone only is left. To this one MAGISTER TEMPLIaddresses the allocution, as he hales him forth.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. Thou also must die![MAGISTER TEMPLI stops in E.13
THE RITES OF ELEUSISMAGISTER TEMPLI. Brethren! let us humbly seek for helpbehind the veil![He throws veil open, showing the empty shrine. BRO.CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUS must have well dissimulatedhimself so that he is not discovered. MAGISTER TEMPLIdraws veil again. CAPRICORNUS puts out light.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. Alas! there is no God![Returns to his throne. All move confusedly about wailingaloud.]MAGISTER TEMPLI. 1. Silence. [All resume seats.Behold, I declared it unto you and ye believed me not![A pause.14
PART IVDarknessAQUARIUS. In truth, master, the ceremony cannot proceed.There is no god in the shrine.MAGISTER TEMPLI. Brother Aquarius, let search be made.AQUARIUS. Brother Capricornus, let search be made.[Light on.[CAPRICORNUS enters veil and walks up and down. Hereturns.][Lights off.Brother Capricornus, what do you find?CAPRICORNUS. Master, there is nothing but a little pile ofdust.AQUARIUS. There is no living thing therein?CAPRICORNUS. There is no living thing therein.MAGISTER TEMPLI. [Recites poem: "Colloque sentimental.”]In the ancient frozen solitary parkTwo figures passed anon—now mark!Their eyes are dead, their lips are soft and grey;One scarce can hear the words they say.In the ancient frozen solitary parkTwo ghosts evoke the past—oh hark!“Dost thou remember our old ecstasy?”“Why do you wish to remind me?”“Does thy heart beat still at my name, and glow?“Seest thou my soul in dreams, dear?” “No.”15
16THE RITES OF ELEUSIS“Ah! the fair days of joyance and of gree“When our mouths kissed, ah hissed!” “Maybe!”“How blue the sky was, as our hope was clear!”“Hope has gone down to Hell's nadir.”So in the foolish alleys they conferred,And only midnight overheard.AQUARIUS. Master, it is not to be borne.MAGISTER TEMPLI. Mother of Heaven, let us lamenttogether![Recites Swinburne's “The Garden of Proserpine.”[MATER CŒ LI plays accordingly.*CAPRICORNUS. Master, it is not to be borne!MAGISTER TEMPLI. Mother of Heaven, let us work together!MATER CŒLI. Behold thine handmaiden![MAGISTER TEMPLI and MATER CŒin hand, within the veil. CAPRICORNUS turns light up.]LI go together hand[MATER CŒ LI plays a Paean of despair.†[MAGISTER TEMPLI, rending veil, appears standing on altar.O melancholy Brothers, dark, dark, dark!O battling in black floods without an ark!O spectral wanderers of unholy Night!My soul hath bled for you these sunless years,With bitter blood-drops running down like tears:Oh, dark, dark, dark, withdrawn from joy and light!My heart is sick with anguish for your bale!Your woe hath been my anguish; yea, I quailAnd perish in your perishing unblest.And I have searched the heights and depths, the scopeOf all our universe, with desperate hopeTo find some solace for your wild unrest. {16}* Légende: Wieniawski. † Wiegendlied: Hauser
THE RITE OF SATURNAnd now at last authentic word I bring,Witnessed by every dead and living thing;Good tidings of great joy for you, for all:There is no God; no Fiend with names divineMade us and tortures us; if we must pine,It is to satiate no Being’s gall.It was the dark delusion of a dream,That living Person conscious and supreme,Whom we must curse for cursing us with life;Whom we must curse because the life He gaveCould not be buried in the quiet grave,Could not be killed by poison or by knife.This little life is all we must endure,The grave's most holy peace is ever sure,We fall asleep and never wake again;Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh,Whose elements dissolve and merge afreshIn earth, air, water, plants, and other men.We finish thus; and all our wretched raceShall finish with its cycle, and give placeTo other beings, with their own time-doomInfinite aeons are our kind began;Infinite aeons after the last manHas joined the mammoth in earth’s tomb and womb.We bow down to the universal laws,Which never had for man a special clauseOf cruelty or kindness, love or hate:If toads and vultures are obscene to sight,If tigers burn with beauty and with might,Is it by favour or by wrath of fate?All substance lives and struggles evermoreThrough countless shapes continually at war,By countless interactions interknit:If one is born a certain day on earth,All times and forces tended to that birth,Not all the world could change or hinder it.17
THE RITES OF ELEUSISI find no hint throughout the UniverseOf good or ill, of blessing or of curse:I find alone Necessity Supreme;With infinite Mystery, abysmal, dark,Unlighted ever by the faintest sparkFor us the flitting shadows of a dream.O Brothers of sad lives! they are so brief;A few short years must bring us all relief:Can we not bear these years of labouring breath?But if you would not this poor life fulfil,Lo, you are free to end it when you will,Without the fear of waking after death.[Blow out red lights.[BRO. CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUS runs out with tom-tomand dances wildly. At the conclusion AQUARIUS andCAPRICORNUS run up, tearing the veil asunder. BRO.CAPRICORNUS EMISSARIUS "flings himself at foot ofaltar. CHORAGOGE lights salt again, or other glare.MAGISTER TEMPLI is discovered lying dead, his headsupported by MATER CŒ LI weeping.][CAPRICORNUS extinguishes the light.[AQUARIUS draws the veil.[MATER CŒ LI plays the final hopeless dirge.*] [Silence.AQUARIUS. Brother Capricornus, what is the hour?CAPRICORNUS. Noon.AQUARIUS. Let us depart; it is accomplished. [Full light.[CAPRICORNUS stands with drawn sword before the veil; theothers escort the people out.]* Marche funébre: Waddell.18
THE RITE OF JUPITER
OFFICERSCENTRUM IN CENTRI TRIGONO. Black Robe, Swastika,SPHINX. Green Robe, Violin and Sword.HERMANUBIS. Violet Robe, Caduceus.TYPHON. Red Robe, Prong two-forked, or Sword.HEBE.GANYMEDE. }Cup-bearers and Dancers. White Robes.The Temple represents the Wheel of Fortune of the Tarot. At its axle is theAltar on which sits C.I.C.T. On the rim, S. at East spoke, H. atNorth-West, T. at South-West. Hebe and Ganymede are seated at thefeet of C.I.C.T. To the West of the Wheel is the Veil.21
THE RITE OF JUPITERPART IC.I.C.T. 1-333.SPHINX. 22-22.HEBE. Pisces Section from 963. [See EQUINOX, No. III.,Special Supplement.]SPHINX. Brother Hermanubis, summon the guests to thebanquet of the Father of the Gods!HERMANUBIS. 4444, Brother Typhon, summon the gueststo the banquet of the Father of the Gods![TYPHON draws aside veil as GANYMEDE begins his dance.Lights down.]HERMANUBIS. Welcome to the banquet of the Father ofthe Gods!Bear the bowls of Libation! (done).Be silent and secret! For it is by stealth that we are hereassembled. Know that Saturn hath been deceived, havingswallowed a black stone, thinking it to be his son, the childJupiter. But Jupiter is here enthroned, and shall overthrow hisfather. Beware then lest ye break silence—until Jupiter beready to make war!TYPHON. Him that speaketh will I slay forthright![A long pause.23
24PART IICENTRUM IN CENTRI TRIGONO 1.SPHINX 1. HERMANUBIS 1. TYPHON 1.TYPHON. Hail unto thee, thou great god Hermanubis!Art thou not the messenger of Jupiter?HERMANUBIS. Hail unto thee, thou great god Typhon!Art thou not the executor of his vengeance?TYPHON. Brother Hermanubis, what is the hour?HERMANUBIS. Noon. Brother Typhon, what is the place?TYPHON. The summit of Olympus. Brother Hermanubis,what is thy position?HERMANUBIS. Upon the rim of the Wheel. And Thine?TYPHON. Upon the rim of the Wheel.HERMANUBIS. Let us seek the centre of the Wheel.[They with SPHINX rise and walk, faster and faster roundthe rim, returning exhausted to their places.]TYPHON. Brother Hermanubis, we are no nearer to thecentre of the wheel.HERMANUBIS. We are no nearer to the centre of the wheel.TYPHON. Hast thou no message from the Gods?HERMANUBIS. None, brother. Let us seek an oracle ofthe Gods.[They rise and go round the rim, stopping and prostratingthemselves before the SPHINX.]
THE RITE OF JUPITERHERMANUBIS. Hail unto Thee, that hast the secret ofJupiter!Declare unto us, we beseech Thee, the mystery wherebywe may approach the centre of the wheel.[SPHINX plays a riddling sarcastic music.*[TYPHON goes to his place in terror.[HERMANUBIS goes to his place in wonderment.SPHINX. Neither by sloth nor by activity may even mysecret be attained. Neither by emotion nor by reason mayeven I be understood. How then should ye come to thecentre of the wheel?HERMANUBIS. Mother of mystery, what is thy position onOlympus?SPHINX. Upon the rim of the wheel.C.I.C.T.Feeling, and thought, and ecstasyAre but the cerements of Me.Thrown off like planets from the SunYe are but satellites of the One.But should your revolution stopYe would inevitably dropHeadlong within the central Soul,And all the parts become the Whole.Sloth and activity and peace,When will ye learn that ye must cease?TYPHON. How should I cease from lethargy?HERMANUBIS. How should I quench activity?SPHINX. How should I give up ecstasy?C.I.C.T. What shines upon your foreheads?S.H.T. (together). The Eye within the Triangle.* Serenade: Drdla.25
26THE RITES OF ELEUSISC.I.C.T. What burns upon your breasts?S.H.T. (together). The Rosy Cross.C.I.C.T. Brethren of the Rosy Cross! Aspirants to theSilver Star! Not until these are ended can ye come to thecentre of the wheel.When the chill of earth black-breasted is uplifted at the glanceOf the red sun million-crested, and the forest blossoms danceWith the light that stirs and lustres of the dawn, and with the bloomOf the wind's cheek as it clusters from the hidden valley's gloom;Then I walk in woodland spaces, musing on the solemn waysOf the immemorial places shut behind the starry rays;Of the East and all its splendour, of the West and all its peace;And the stubborn lights grow tender, and the hard sounds hush and cease.In the wheel of heaven revolving, mysteries of death and birth,In the womb of time dissolving, shape anew a heaven and earth,Ever changing, ever growing, ever dwindling, ever dear,Ever worth the passion glowing to distil a doubtful tear.These are with me, these are of me, these approve me, these obey,Choose me, move me, fear me, love me, master of the night and day.These are real, these illusion: I am of them, false or frail,True or lasting, all is fusion in the spirit's shadow-veil,Till the Knowledge-Lotus flowering hides the world beneath its stem;Neither I, nor God life-showering, find a counterpart in themAs a spirit in a vision shows a countenance of fear,Laughs the looker to derision, only comes to disappear,Gods and mortals, mind and matter, in the glowing bud dissever:Vein from vein they rend and shatter, and are nothingness for ever.In the blessed, the enlightened, perfect eyes these visions pass,Pass and cease, poor shadows frightened, leave no stain upon the glass.One last stroke, O heart-free master, one last certain calm of will,And the maker of Disaster shall be stricken and grow still.Burn thou to the core of matter, to the spirit's utmost flame,Consciousness and sense to shatter, ruin sight and form and name!Shatter, lake-reflected spectre; lake, rise up in mist to sun;Sun, dissolve in showers of nectar, and the Master's work is done.Nectar perfume gently stealing, masterful and sweet and strong,Cleanse the world with light of healing in the ancient House of Wrong!
THE RITE OF JUPITERFree a million million mortals on the wheel of being tossed!Open wide the mystic portals, and be altogether lost!SPHINX 1. HERMANUBIS 1. TYPHON 1.CENTRUM IN CENTRI TRIGONO 1.[A pause.[A pause.27
28PART IIITYPHON. I desire to begin the banquet.HERMANUBIS. Brother Typhon, I will inquire of the Oracle.Mother of Mystery, I beseech thee to begin the Banquet;for it is certainly necessary that this should be done.[SPHINX turns, bows, and stretches her hands in muteappeal to C.I.C.T.]C.I.C.T. 1. I heed not the passion, or the reason, or thesoul of man. Mother of Mystery, declare my will.[SPHINX plays the most exalted (passionless because beyondpassion) piece that she may.*HERMANUBIS. This means nothing to me.TYPHON. I feel nothing.C.I.C.T. 1. Mother of Mystery, declare my mind.[SPHINX plays a cold, passionless, intellectual piece.†HERMANUBIS. Ah! Ah! This is music; this is the secret ofJupiter.TYPHON. I feel nothing.C.I.C.T. 1. Mother of Mystery, declare my heart.[SPHINX plays an intensely sensual passionate piece.‡TYPHON. Ah! Ah! This is music; this is the secret ofJupiter.* Samadhilied: Waddell.† Adagio: Brahms.‡ Preislied: Wagner.
THE RITE OF JUPITERHERMANUBIS. Accursed! Accursed! be the soul of impurity,the body of Sin!C.I.C.T. 1. Irreconcilable, my children, how shall ye partakeof the Banquet of Jupiter, or come to the centre of the wheel?For this is the secret of Jupiter, that He who created you isin each of you, yet apart from all; before Him ye are equal,revolving in time and in Space; but he is unmoved andwithin.TYPHON. 1.[A pause.[TYPHON recites.Sweet, sweet are May and June, dear,The loves of lambent spring,Our lamp the drooping moon, dear,Our roof, the stars that sing;The bed, of moss and roses;The night, as long as death!Still, breath!Life wakens and reposes,Love ever quickeneth!Sweet, sweet, when Lion and Maiden,The motley months of gold,Swoop down with sunlight laden,And eyes are bright and bold.Life-swelling breasts uncoverTheir warm involving deep—Love, sleep!—And lover lies with loverOn air’s substantial steep.Ah! sweeter was September—The amber rain of leaves,The harvest to remember,The load of sunny sheaves.In gardens deeply scented,In orchards heavily hung,Love flungAway the days dementedWith lips that curled and clung.29
THE RITES OF ELEUSISAh! sweeter still October,When russet leaves go grey,And sombre lovers and soberMake twilight of the day.Dark dreams and shadows tenserThrob through the vital scroll,Man’s soul.Lift, shake the subtle censerThat hides the cruel coal!Still sweeter when the BowmanHis silky shaft of frostLets loose on earth, that no manMay linger nor be lost.The barren woods, deserted.Lose echo of our sighs—Love—dies?—Love lives—in granite skirted,And under oaken skies.But best is grim December,The Goatish God his power;The Satyr blows the ember,And pain is passion’s flower;When blood drips over kisses,And madness sobs through wine:—Ah, mine!—The snake starts up and hissesAnd strikes and—I am thine![He crouches at the feet of SPHINX toward C.I.C.T.[HERMANUBIS recites.HERMANUBIS. 1.O coiled and constricted and chosen!O tortured and twisted and twined!Deep spring of my soul deep frozen,The sleep of the truth of the mind!As a bright snake curledRound the Vine of the World!30
SPHINX. 1.THE RITE OF JUPITERO sleeper through dawn and through daylight,O sleeper through dusk and through night!O shifted from white light to gray light,From gray to the one black light!O silence and soundIn the far profound!O serpent of scales as an armourTo bind on the breast of a lord!Not deaf to the Voice of the Charmer,Not blind to the sweep of the sword!I strike to the deepThat thou stir in thy sleep!Rise up from mine innermost being!Lift up the gemmed head to the heart!Lift up till the eyes that were seeingBe blind, and their life depart!Till the Eye that was blindBe a lamp to my mind!Coil fast all thy coils on me, dying,Absorbed in the sense of the Snake!Stir! leave the flower-throne, and up-flying!Hiss once, and hiss thrice, and awake!Then crown me and cling!Flash forward—and spring!Flash forth on the fire of the altar,The stones, and the sacrifice shed;Till the Three Worlds flicker and falter,And life and her love be dead!In mysterious joyAwake—and destroy![He crouches at the feet of SPHINX toward C.I.C.T.C.I.C.T. 1. [SPHINX plays an enchantment.*C.I.C.T. (recites.)* Andante: Mendelssohn31
THE RITES OF ELEUSISLift up this love of peace and bliss,The starry soul of wine,Destruction's formidable kiss,The lamp of the divine:This shadow of a nobler nameWhose life is strife, whose soul is fame!I rather will exalt the soulOf man to loftier height,And kindle at a livelier coalThe subtler soul of light.From these soft splendours of a dreamI turn, and seek the Self supreme.This world is shadow-shapen ofThe bitterness of pain.Vain are the little lamps of love!The light of life is vain!Life, death, joy, sorrow, age and youthAre phantoms of a further truth.Beyond the splendour of the world,False glittering of the gold,A Serpent is in slumber curledIn wisdom's sacred cold.Life is the flaming of that flame.Death is the naming of that name,The forehead of the snake is brightWith one immortal star,Lighting her coils with living lightTo where the nenupharSleeps for her couch. All darkness dreamsThe thing that is not, only seems.That star upon the serpent's headIs called the soul of man.That light in shadows subtly shedThe glamour of life's plan.32
THE RITE OF JUPITERThe sea whereon that lotus growsIs thought's abyss of tears and woes.Leave Sirenusa! Even GreeceForget! they are not there!By worship cometh not the Peace,The Silence not by prayer.Leave the illusions, life and timeAnd Death, and seek that star sublime,Until the lotus and the seaAnd snake no longer are,And single through EternityExists alone the Star,And utter Knowledge rise, and ceaseIn that which is beyond the Peace![GANYMEDE dances and falls as dead.TYPHON. O that the banquet of Jupiter might begin!HERMANUBIS. O that the banquet of Jupiter might begin!SPHINX. O that the banquet of Jupiter might begin!C.I.C.T. Let the banquet of Jupiter begin![All go without veil, except C.I.C.T. and SPHINX.HERMANUBIS and TYPHON draw and guard the veil.SILENCE.]C.I.C.T. 1-333.SPHINX. 22-22.[HERMANUBIS and TYPHON draw veil. SPHINX is standingbefore altar. C.I.C.T. has disappeared. He hasdonned a white robe, and panther-skin, and white andgold nemmes. HERMANUBIS, TYPHON, and others returnto their places. HERMANUBIS and TYPHON comeforward and salute SPHINX.]TYPHON. 1. Mother of Mystery, hast thou the secret ofJupiter?33
34THE RITES OF ELEUSISHERMANUBIS. 1. Mother of Mystery, hast thou the secretof Jupiter?[SPHINX plays a triumphant melody.*TYPHON. Brother Hermanubis, what is the place?HERMANUBIS. The Summit of Mount Kithairon.TYPHON. Procul, o Procul este viri![All male probationers retire to back of stage.TYPHON. Sisters, let us invoke the Father to manifest inthe Son.SPHINX. Per Spiritum Sanctum, Amen.[She also retires to her place on wheel.MÆ NADS. Evoe! Evoe Ho! Iacche! Iacche!TYPHON.Hail, O Dionysus! Hail!Winged Son of Semele!Hail, O Hail! The stars are pale;Hidden the moonlight in the vale;Hidden the sunlight in the sea.Blessed is her happy lotWho beholdeth God; who movesMighty-souled without a spot,Mingling in the godly routOf the many mystic loves.Holy maidens, duly weaveDances for the mighty motherBacchanal to Bacchus cleave!Wave his narthex wand, and leaveEarthly Joys to earth to smother!Io! Evoe! Sisters, mingleIn the choir, the dance, the revel!He divine, the Spirit single,He in every vein shall tingle.Sense and sorrow to the devil!* Obertass: Wieniawski.
THE RITE OF JUPITERMingle in the laughing measure,Hand and lip to breast and thigh!In enthusiastic pleasureGrasp the solitary treasure!Laughs the untiring ecstasy!Sisters! Sisters! Raise your voicesIn the inspired divine delight!Now the sun sets; now the choice isWho rebels or who rejoices,Murmuring to the mystic night.Io! Evoe! Circle splendid!Dance, ye maids serene and subtle!Clotho’s task is fairly ended.Atropos, thy power is ended!Ho, Lachesis! ply thy shuttle!Weave the human dance togetherWith the life of rocks and trees!Let the blue delirious weatherBind all spirits in one tether,Overwhelming ecstasies!Io! Evoe! I faint, I fall,Swoon in purple light; the grapeDrowns my spirit in its thrall.Love me, love me over all,Spirit in the spirit shape!All is one! I murmur. DistantSounds the shout, Evoe, Evoe!Evoe, Iacche! Soft, insistentLike to echo's voice persistent:—Hail! Agave! Autonoe!AGAVE.[TYPHON goes up stage.Evoe, Ho! Iacche! Hail, O Hail!Praise him! What dreams are these?35
THE RITES OF ELEUSISAUTONOE. Sisters, O sisters!AGAVE. Say, are our brothers of the rocks awake?AUTONOE. The lion roars.MÆ NADS.O listen to the snake!AUTONOE. Evoe, Ho! Give me to drink!AGAVE.Run wild!Mountain and mountain let us leap uponLike tigers on their prey!MAENADS.Crush, crush the world!AGAVE. Tread earth as 'twere a winepress!AUTONOE.Drink its blood,The sweet red wine!MAENADS.Ay, drink the old earth dry!AGAVE. Squeeze the last drops out till the frame collapseLike an old wineskin!AUTONOE.So the sooner supAmong the stars!AGAVE.The swift, swift stars!MAENADS.O night!Night, night, fall deep and sure!AUTONOE.Fall soft and sweet!AGAVE. Moaning for love the woods lie.AUTONOE.Sad the landLies thirsty for our kisses.MÆ NADS.All wild thingsYearn towards the kiss that ends in blood.AGAVE.Blood! Blood!Bring wine! Ha! Bromius, Bromius!MÆ NADS.Come, sweet God,Come forth and lie with us!36
THE RITE OF JUPITERAUTONOE.Us, maidens nowAnd then and ever afterwards!AGAVE.Chaste, chaste!Our madness hath no touch of bitterness,No taste of foulness in the morning mouth.AUTONOE. O mouth of ripe red sunny grapes! God! God!Evoe! Dwell! Abide!AGAVE.I feel the wingsOf love, of mystery; they waft soft streamsOf night air to my heated breast and brow.MÆ NADS. He comes! He comes!AGAVE. Silence, O girls, and peace!The God's most holy presence asks the hymn,The solemn hymn, the hymn of agony,Lest, in the air of glory that surroundsThe child of Semelé, we lose the earthAnd corporal presence of the Zeus-begot.AUTONOE. Yea, sisters, raise the chant of riot! LiftYour wine-sweet voices, move your wine-stained limbsIn joyful invocation!MÆ NADS.Ay, we sing.AGAVE.Hail, child of Semelé!To her as unto theeBe reverence, be deity, be immortality!Shame! treachery of the spouseOf the Olympian house,Hera! thy grim device against the sweet carouse!Lo! in red roar and flameDid Zeus descend! What claimTo feel the immortal fire had then the Theban dame!37
THE RITES OF ELEUSISCaught in that fiery wave,Her love and life she gaveWith one last kissing cry the unborn child to save.And thou, O Zeus, the sireOf Bromius—hunter dire!—Didst snatch the unborn babe from that Olympian fire:In thine own thigh most holyThat offspring melancholyDidst hide, didst feed, on light, ambrosia, and moly.Ay! and with serpent hairAnd limbs divinely fairDidst thou, Dionysus, leap forth to the nectar air!Ay! thus the dreams of fateWe dare commemorate,Twining in lovesome curls the spoil of mate and mate.O Dionysus, hear!Be close, be quick, be near,Whispering enchanted words in every curving ear!O Dionysus, startAs the Apollonian dart!Bury thy horned head in every bleeding heart!1ST MAENAD.AUTONOE.AGAVE.AUTONOE.He is here! He is here!Tigers, appear!To the clap of my handAnd the whish of my wand,Obey!I have foundA chariot crownedWith ivy and vine,And the laurel divine,And the clustering smell38
THE RITE OF JUPITEROf the sage asphodel,And the Dæ dal flowerOf the Cretan bower;Dittany's force,And larksupur's love,And blossoms of gorseAround and above.AGAVE. The tiger and pantherAre there at my cry.Ho, girls! Span thereTheir sides!1ST MÆ NAD. Here am I.2ND MÆ NAD. And I! We are ready.AGAVE. Strong now and steady!IST MÆ NAD. The tiger is harnessed.2ND MÆ NAD. The nightingale urgesOur toil from her far nest.3RD MÆ NAD. Ionian surgesRoar back to our chant.4TH MÆ NAD. Aha! for the tauntOf Theban sagesIs lost, lost, lost!The wine that enragesOur life is enforced.We dare them and daunt.AGAVE. The spirits that hauntThe rocks and the river,The moors and the woods,The fields and the floods,Are with us for ever!39
THE RITES OF ELEUSIS1ST MÆ NAD. Are of us for ever.Evoe! Evoe!AUTONOE. Agave! He cometh!AGAVE. Cry ho! Autonoe!ALL. Ho! Ho! Evoe, Ho! Iacche! Evoe! Evoe!AGAVE. The white air hummethWith force of the spirit.We are heirs: we inherit.Our joys are as theirs;Weave with your prayersThe joy of a kiss!Ho! for the blissOf the cup and the rod.He cometh! O lover!O friend and O God,Cover us, coverOur faces, and hoverAbove us, within us!Daintily shod,Daintily robed,His witcheries spin usA web of desire.Subtle as fireHe cometh among us.The whole sky globedIs on fire with delight,Delight that hath stung us,The passion of night.Night be our mistress!That tress and this tress40
THE RITE OF JUPITERWeave with thy windInto curls deep-vined!Passionate bliss!Rapture on rapture!Our hymns recaptureThe Bromian kiss.Blessed our souls!Blessed this even!We reach to the goalsOf the starriest heaven.Daphnis, and Atthis, and Chrysis, and Chloe,Mingle, O maidens! Evoe! Evoe![C.I.C.T. rises upon the altar; he wears a white and goldrobe and the panther skin, and a white and goldnemmes. Throwing off his veil and raising his handsin blessing, he recites:]C.I.C.T.I bring ye wine from above,From the vats of the storied sun;For every one of ye love,And life for every one.Ye shall dance on hill and level;Ye shall sing in hollow and height,In the festal mystical revel,The rapturous Bacchanal rite!The rocks and trees are yours,And the waters under the hill,By the might of that which endures,The holy heaven of will!I kindle a flame like a torrentTo rush from star to star;Your hair as a comet's horrent,Ye shall see things as they are!41
42THE RITES OF ELEUSISI lift the mask of matter;I open the heart of man;For I am of force to shatterThe cast that hideth—Pan!Your loves shall lap up slaughter,And dabbled with roses of bloodEach desperate darling daughterShall swim in the fervid flood.I bring ye laugher and tears,The kisses that foam and bleed,The joys of a million years,The flowers that bear no seed.My life is bitter and sterile,Its flame is a wandering star.Ye shall pass in pleasure and perilAcross the mystical barThat is set for wrath and weepingAgainst the children of earth;But ye in singing and sleepingShall pass in measure and mirth!I lift my wand and wave youThrough hill to hill of delight;My rosy rivers lave youIn innermost lustral light.I lead you, lord of the maze,In the darkness free of the sun;In spite of the spite that is day'sWe are wed, we are wild, we are one![The lights go out and the company join in universaldance.]HERMANUBIS. Silence.TYPHON. Silence.C.I.C.T. 1-333. The Secret of the Father is in the Secret ofthe Son.SPHINX. 22-22. And the Secret of the Son is in the Secretof the Holy Ghost.GANYMEDE. 4444 Gloria Patri.
THE RITE OF JUPITERHEBE. Et Filio.TYPHON. Et Spiritui Sancto.HERMANUBIS. Ut erat in Principio.SPHINX. Et nunc est.C.I.C.T. Et erit semper.ALL. Amen.SPHINXFasting.HERMANUBIS Song.TYPHON Feasting.C.I.C.T.Grace.SPHINXHERMANUBISTYPHONC.I.C.T.Music.Dancing.Love.The End.TYPHON draws the veil.43
THE RITE OF MARS
OFFICERSBROTHER SOL IN ARIES. White Robe, White and gold nemmes, Sceptre.(MARS) BROTHER MARS. Red Robe, Sword.(VENUS) SISTER SCORPIO. Green Robe, Violin, Sword.(ATHENA) BROTHER ARIES. Violet Robe, Spear.(VULCAN) BROTHER CAPRICORNUS. Black Robe, Tom-tom, Sword.A guard of PROBATIONERS, armed.Mars is throned in the South, Scorpio on his right, Aries on his left. In theEast is also a veil, behind which is Sol in Aries. In the North isCapricornus, crouching, kept from the altar by the guard.47
THE RITE OF MARSCharcoal in censer alight. No incense.BROTHER SOL is concealed behind the veil in the East,enthroned upon the Altar.MARS, ARIES, and SCORPIO enthroned.BRO. CAPRICORNUS. 4444-1.BRO. ARIES. 1-4444.[MARS reads the Twelvefold Affirmation from 963.[SOR. SCORPIO plays a short marital air.*[CAPRICORNUS draws aside veil, and admits Probationersand Guests.][The voice of Mars is heard reciting the 91st Psalm of David.BRO. ARIES. Let the sacred perfume be kindled upon theAltar of Mars (does so).SOR. SCORPIO. Hail unto the Master of the Battle!BRO. ARIES. Hail unto the Leader of the Armies of Jupiter!BRO. CAPRICORNUS. Hail unto the Warrior of Eternity!BRO. MARS. Hail, brethren![CAPRICORNUS returns.1. Let the Temple be purified and consecrated.[CAPRICORNUS does so.1. Are the Brethren prepared?* March: Beethoven49
THE RITES OF ELEUSISBRO. ARIES. They are prepared, Master! They are drawnup in military array around the sacred altar.BRO. MARS. 1. Brother Capircornus, I command you toperform the Ritual of the Pentagram.BRO. CAPRICORNUS. Fiat (does so).BRO. MARS. 1. Brother Aries, I command you to performthe Invocation of the Holy Fire.BRO. ARIES. Fiat (goes to altar).333. (erect). I swear by Djinn and by Shin and by the spacebetween that I will not stir from this place until the fire ofGod hath flamed upon the water that is upon the altar.(His face over lamp) Dost thou hear, Brother Ash?(Erect) By Aub, the witchery of the secret flame;By Aud, the subtlety of the inmost fluid;By Aur, the effulgence of the radiant light;I call thee, Ash! I adore thee, Ash!(Over lamp) Ash! Ash! Ash!I caress thee! I kiss thee! I suck thee up into my mouthand nostrils!Ohooatan! (three times). (The water flames).Behold! the fire of God upon the altar as I have sworn byDjinn and by Shin and by the space between! (returns to histhrone).BRO. MARS. 1. Hail, sister of the Scorpion!SOR. SCORPIO. Hail, Lord of the Eagle and the Serpent!BRO. MARS. Amen. I appoint you to lead the army.SOR. SCORPIO. Let us carry the holy symbols with sacredsong and dance round the altar of Mars.[The song* is sung as all march round five times deosil before50* Tune. Litany: Waddell.
THE RITE OF MARSMARS in procession headed by SCORPIO, ARIES,CAPRICORNUS.]Strike, strike the louder chord!Draw, draw the Flaming Sword!Crowned child and conquering Lord!Horus, avenger![All resume stations.Brother Aries, let us invoke the Master of the Battle.BRO. ARIES [advances and kneels to MARS]. Mighty andTerrible One, we beseech thee to lead us in the Battle. Here,by thy Symbols, thy Spear, the Sword, and The Drum, wepray thee to strengthen our arms and to defend our hearts.For we are thy chosen warriors, O thou Master of the Battle![Silence.We now invoke thee, O Ama-Inanna, whom our Brethrenworshipped in the days of ancient Babylon, great Goddessof Love and War, who made love and war to Gilgames, theruler of thine own city Erech. We invoke thee, our Mother,that thou entreat for us with the Master of Battles.SOR. SCORPIO. To what end do we ask the aid of the LordMars?BRO. ARIES. Unto Jupiter we have given the thunderboltand the lightning-flash; for we seek to enthrone him in thestead of Saturn his father. But Saturn yet reigns; we need theSword of Mars.SOR. SCORPIO. My heart and hand are with you, children.[She plays.*[MARS starts up and recites:1. . . . The Dukes of Edom were amazed: Trembling took hold on themighty of Moab!* Romance in G: Beethoven.51
THE RITES OF ELEUSIS2. Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir; when thou marchedst out of theField of Edom; the earth trembled, and the heaven dropped: the clouds alsodropped water.3. Curse ye Meroz, saith the angel of the Lord, curse ye bitterly theinhabitants thereof; because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the helpof the Lord against the Mighty!4. The river Kishon swept them away: that ancient river, the river Kishon!5. Oh, my soul, thou hast trodden down strength!1. He bowed the Heavens also and and came down: and darkness was underhis feet: at the Brightness that was before him thick clouds passed: hail stonesand flashes of fire!2. The Lord thundred through the Heavens, and the Highest gave forth hisvoice; hailstones and flashes of fire!3. He sent forth his arrows and scattered them: He hurled forth hislightnings and destroyed them!4. The Channels of the Waters were seen: and the Foundations of the Worldwere discovered.5. At thy Rebuke, oh Lord! At the Blast of the Breath of thy Nostrils!1. Oh Lord! I have heard thy Speech, and was afraid!2. The Voice of the Lord is upon the Waters.The God of Glory thundereth!The Lord is upon many Waters.3. The Voice of the Lord is strong and powerful!The Voice of the Lord is full of Majesty!4. The Voice of the Lord breaketh the Cedars!Yea! the Lord breaketh the Cedars of Lebanon!5. The Voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire!Yea! the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh!1. Eloah came out of Temani of Edom: And the Holy One from MountParan:2. He had Karnaim in his hand; and there was the Hiding of his Power.3. Before him went the Pestilence; and Flaming Fire went forth at his feet.4. He stood, and measured the Earth: He beheld, and drove asunder theNations.5. And the Everlasting Mountains were scattered; the Perpetual Hills didbow!52
THE RITE OF MARS1. Was the Lord displeased against the Rivers?Was thine anger kindled against the Rivers?Was thy wrath kindled against the Sea?That thou didst ride upon thy Horses and thy Chariots of Salvation?2. The Mountains saw thee and they trembled. The deluge of Water rolledby: the Deep uttered his voice; and lifted up his hands on high.3. The Sun and the Moon stood still in their habitations.At the light of thine arrows they went, at the shaking of thy glitteringspear!4. Thou didst march through the Land in thine indignation: thou didstthresh the Heathen in thine anger.5. Thou didst march through the sea with thine Horses: through the Depthof the Mighty Waters![CAPRICORNUS starts up wildly and dances the dance ofMARS.][CAPRICORNUS falls on floor near his place.SOR. SCORPIO. Brother Aries, let us crown the Master ofBattles.[They advance to altar. SOR. SCORPIO takes crown andcrowns MARS, all PROBATIONERS joining in chant asbefore.]BRO. MARS. May Victory crown your arms!PROBATIONERS. Let us join battle! We conquer! Weconquer.[CAPRICORNUS rushes forward and threatens them, reciting:My head is split. The crashing axeOf the agony of things shears throughThe stupid skull: out spurt the brains.The universe revolves, then cracks,Then roars in dissolution due;And I am counting up the gainsAnd losses of a life afireWith dust of thought and dulled desire.53
THE RITES OF ELEUSIS[SCORPIO, as if alarmed at the interruption, flees to throneof MARS and there with MARS defies the rabble. BRO.ARIES rallies PROBATIONERS.]So, all is over. I admitFutility the lord of will.Life was an episode for me.As for the meanest monad, knitTo man by mightier bonds than skillOf subtle-souled psychology.May sever. Aim in chaos? None.The soul rolls senseless as the sun.[All are driven back up to altar.BRO. CAPRICORNUS. [ends]. “There is no God.”MARS [leaps up and goes to altar with uplifted sword].1. Silence! [a pause]. There is no God—but God![ARIES and PROBATIONERS dance a war dance.[CAPRICORNUS slinks from temple.[MARS recites.This is the day which down the void abysmAt the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep;Love, from its awful throne of patient powerIn the wise heart, from the last giddy hourOf dead endurance, from the slippery steep,And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springsAnd folds over the world its healing wings.Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance—These are the seals of that most firm assuranceWhich bars the pit over Destructions's strength;And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,Mother of many acts and hours, should freeThe serpent that would clasp her with his length,These are the spells by which to reassumeAn empire o'er the disentangled doom.To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;54
THE RITE OF MARSTo defy Power, which seems omnipotent;To love, and bear; to hope till Hope createsFrom its own wreck the thing it contemplates;Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;This, like thy glory, Titan, is to beGood, great and joyous, beautiful and free;This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory![SCORPIO plays in accordance*BRO. ARIES. Hail to Thee that sailest heavenwards!Hail to Thee in whose eye is a Flame of Fire!Hail, Lord of the Destroying Army!MARS. Hail, brethren.BRO. ARIES. Hail unto Thee, that hast fought at the sideof our Lord in the great Battle!Hail unto Thee, our Lady of Tumult!Terrible and beautiful was thou in the midst of thebattle, upon thy chariot!Hail unto Thee, as unto thy Lord!SOR. SCORPIO. Hail, brethren!BRO. ARIES. Let us rejoice in our victory![He leads PROBATIONERS in the triumphal dance whichbecomes slow and voluptuous.][A pause.BRO. ARIES [to seal his triumph]. 1-4444.BRO. CAPRICORNUS [without]. 4444-1.[BRO. ARIES extinguishes all lights.[SCORPIO plays love poem.†[MARS recites:Who is this maiden robed for a bride,White shoulders and bright brows adorable,The flaming locks that clothe her, and abide,As God were bathing in the fire of Hell?* Polonaise: Vieuxtemps. † Romance: Ranz Ries.55
THE RITES OF ELEUSISThey change, they grow, they shakeAs sunlight on the lake:They hiss, they glisten on her bosom bare.O maiden, maiden queen!The lightning flows betweenThy mounting breasts, too magically fair.Draw me, O draw me to a dreaming death!Send out thine opiate breath,And lull me to the everlasting sleep,That, closing from the kisses of disdainTo ecstasy of pain,I may sob out my life into their dangerous deep.Who cometh from the mountain as a towerStalwart and set against the fiery foes!Who, breathing as a jasmine-laden bower?Who, crowned and lissome as a living rose?Sharp thorns in thee are set;In me, in me begetThe dolorous despair of this desire.Thy body sways and swingsAbove the tide of things,Laps me as ocean, wraps me round as fire!Ye elemental sorceries of song,Surge, strenuous and strong,Seeking dead dreams, the secret of the shrine;So that she drain my life and being upAs from a golden cup,To mingle in her blood, death’s kiss incarnadine.Who cometh from the ocean as a flower?Who blossometh above the barren sea,Thy lotus set beneath thee for a bower,Thine eyes awakened, lightened, fallen on me?O Goddess, queen, and wife!O lady of my life!Who set thy stature as a wood to wave?Whose love begat thy limbs?Whose wave-washed body swimsThat nurtured thee, and found herself a grave?56
THE RITE OF MARSBut thou, O thou, hast risen from the deep!All mortals mourn and weepTo see thee, seeing that all love must dieBesides thy beauty, see thee and despair!Deadly as thou art fair,I cry for all mankind—they are slain, even as I![SOR. SCORPIO takes crown off.[A pause.[BROTHER CAPRICORNUS dances the dance of Vulcan toanvil-music in gradually increasing red light, at endrushes to throne and finds MARS and SCORPIO, theirweapons laid aside, in each other’s arms.]BRO. CAPRICORNUS. Ah, wanton![SOR. SCORPIO takes violin and charms the offended deity,who retires pacified.*]MARS. Brethren in arms, this is not defeat, but victory!For though I be dethroned, not to Me, not to our lady was theglory. For always is the true God hidden—behold![One turns on the white light, and there stands SOL INARIES upon the throne of the East. MARS goes to himand recites:]Unity uttermost showed,I adore the might of thy breath,Supreme and terrible GodWho makest the Gods and deathTo tremble before thee:—I, I adore thee!O Hawk of gold with power enwalled,Whose face is like an emerald;Whose crown is indigo as night;Smaragdine snakes about thy brow* Romance from 2nd Concerto: Wieniawski.[He kneels.57
THE RITES OF ELEUSISTwine, and the disk of flaming lightIs on thee, seated in the prowOf the Sun's bark, enthroned aboveWith lapis-lazuli for loveAnd ruby for enormous forceChosen to seat thee, thee girt roundWith leopard’s pell, and golden soundOf planets choral in their course!O thou self-formulated sire!Self-master of thy dam's desire!Thine eyes blaze forth with fiery light;Thine heart a secret sun of flame!I adore the insuperable might:I bow before the unspoken Name.For I am Yesterday, and ITo-day, and I to-morrow, bornNow and again, on high, on highTravelling on Dian's naked horn!I am the Soul that doth createThe Gods, and all the Kin of Breath.I come from the sequestered state;My birth is from the House of Death.Hail! ye twin hawks high pinnacledThat watch upon the universe!Ye that the bier of God beheld!That bore it onwards, ministersOf peace within the house of Wrath,Servants of him that cometh forthAt dawn with many-coloured lights,Mounting from underneath the North,The shrine of the celestial Heights![He rises.[He bows, then turns toward altar.[He advances to altar.[At altar.58
THE RITE OF MARSHe is in me, and I in Him!Mine is the crystal radianceThat filleth aether to the brimWherein all stars and suns may dance.I am the beautiful and glad,Rejoicing in the golden day.I am the spirit silken-cladThat fareth on the fiery way.I have escaped from him, whose eyesAre closed at eventide, and wiseTo drag thee to the House of Wrong:—I am armed! I am armed! I am strong! I am strong!I make my way: opposing hornsOf secret foemen push their lustIn vain: my song their fury scorns;They sink, they grovel in the dust.[He turns to SOL.Hail, self-created Lord of Night!Inscrutable and infinite!Let Orpheus journey forth to seeThe Disk in peace and victory!Let him adore the splendid sight,The radiance of the Heaven of Nu;Soar like a bird, laved by the light,To pierce the far eternal blue![He turns to ARIES and SCORPIO.Hail! Hermes! thou the wands of illHast touched with strength, and they are shivered!The way is open unto will!The pregnant Goddess is delivered![He kneels to SOL.Happy, yea, happy! happy is heThat hath looked forth upon the BierThat goeth to the House of Rest!His heart is lit with melody;Peace in his house is master of fear;His holy Name is in the West59
THE RITES OF ELEUSISWhen the sun sinks, and royal raysOf moonrise flash across the day's.[He rises and faces altar.I have risen! I have risen! as a mighty hawk of gold!From the golden egg I gather, and my wings the world enfold.I alight in mighty splendour from the thronèd boats of light;Companies of Spirits follow me; adore the Lords of Night.Yea, with gladness did they pæan, bowing low before my car,In my ears their homage echoed from the sunrise to the star.I have risen! I am gathered as a lovely hawk of gold,I the first-born of the Mother in her ecstasy of old.Lo! I come to face the dweller in the sacred snake of Khem;Come to face the Babe and Lion, come to measure force with them!Ah! these locks flow down, a river, as the earth’s before the Sun,As the earth’s before the sunset, and the God and I are One.I who entered in a Fool, gain the God by clean endeavour;I am shaped as men and women, fair for ever and for ever.[He turns and falls clasping SOL'S feet. All prostratethemselves in adoration. SOR. SCORPIO plays hersolar chant.*[SOL in ARIES recites:The world's great age begins anew,The golden years return,The earth doth like a snake renewHer winter weeds outworn;Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam,Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.A brighter Hellas rears its mountainsFrom waves serener far;A new Peneus rolls his fountainsAgainst the morning star.Where fairer Tempes bloom, there sleepYoung Cyclads on a sunnier deep.* Papillon: Bohm.60
THE RITE OF MARSA loftier Argo cleaves the main,Fraught with a later prize;Another Orpheus sings again,And loves, and weeps, and dies.A new Uylsses leaves once moreCalypso for his native shore.Oh, write no more the tale of Troy,If earth Death’s scroll must be!Nor mix with Laian rage the joyWhich dawns upon the free;Although a subtler Sphinx renewRiddles of death Thebes never knew.Another Athens shall arise,And to remoter timeBequeath, like sunset to the skies,The splendour of its prime;And leave, if nought so bright may live,All earth can take or Heaven can give.Saturn and Love their long reposeShall burst, more bright and goodThan all who fell, than One who rose,Than many unsubdued.Not gold, not blood, their altar dowers,But votive tears and symbol flowers.Oh, cease! must hate and death return?Cease! must men kill and die?Cease! drain not to its dregs the urnOf bitter prophecy.The world is weary of the past.Oh, might it die or rest at last!BRO. ARIES. 1-4444. The battle is indeed fought.SOL. IN ARIES. 333-333. The victory is indeed won.BRO. ARIES. Brethren, the Sun is arisen. Let us departin joy.61
THE RITES OF ELEUSISSOR. SCORPIO. Let us depart in love.MARS. Let us depart in peace.[The officers leave the Temple, MARS and SCORPIO escortingSOL in ARIES, ARIES and CAPRICORNUS following at thehead of the Guard of PROBATIONERS.]62
THE RITE OF SOL
OFFICERSSOL. Leopard skin. Nemyss white-gold over white-sleeved robe. Spear.ARIES. White robe, spear.LEO. Red robe, spear.SATAN-TYPHON. Violet robe.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. Green robe.BEZ. Black-robe.FOUR PROBATIONERS.Sol is enthroned in the East; behind him is a black veil which conceals a greatscarlet cross. Before him is a second veil. He is supported by Aries onthe right, and Leo on the left. The other officers are without the temple,in waiting. In presentation in public, a third veil divides the temple fromthe congregation.65
THE RITE OF SOLLEO parts the outermost veil, and advancing, recites chorusfrom Atalanta in Calydon.Before the beginning of yearsThere came to the making of man ... etc.... His life is a watch or a visionBetween a sleep and a sleep.[Returns. A pause.ARIES. 333-333.LEO. 333-333.ARIES. Brother Leo, what is the place?LEO. The Temple of the Sun upon the Mountain ofAbiegnus!ARIES. Brother Leo, what is the hour?LEO. Sunset!ARIES. It is the hour of sacrifice.LEO. Brother Aries, what is the sacrifice?ARIES. It is hidden from me.[Silence.SOL. 1-22-22-1.ARIES. Hark! it is the Summons of the King.LEO. It is the Lord of Heaven that awakens the Childrenof the Light.[They draw the veil—full light—and kneel.ARIES. Let us adore the Exalted One!LEO.Life of Life, thy lips enkindleWith their love the breath between them;67
THE RITES OF ELEUSISAnd thy smiles before they dwindleMake the cold air fire; then screen themIn those looks, where whoso gazesFaints, entangled in their mazes.Child of Light! thy limbs are burningThrough the vest which seems to hide them;As the radiant lines of morningThrough the clouds, ere they divide them;And this atmosphere divinestShrouds thee wheresoe’er thou shinest.Fair are others; none beholds thee,But thy voice sounds low and tenderLike the fairest, for it folds theeFrom the sight, that liquid splendour,And all feel, yet see thee never,As I feel now, lost forever!Lamp of Earth! where’er thou movestIts dim shapes are clad with brightness,And the souls of whom thou lovestWalk upon the winds with lightness,Till they fall, as I am falling,Dizzy, lost, yet unbewailing!ARIES. Hail unto Thee, O thou that art exalted in thystrength, that travellest over the Heaven in Thy Bark in theSplendour of noon! [ARIES and LEO resume thrones.[A PROBATIONER recites the 12 fold glorification of Godfrom 963.][Enter SCORPIO-APOPHIS dressed in a filmy white robe, herhair in disorder.][ARIES and LEO rise and bow.ARIES. Hail thou! Whence comest thou?SCORPIO-APOPHIS. From the House of God.ARIES. What bringest thou as an offering to our Lord?68
THE RITE OF SOLSCORPIO-APOPHIS. The House of God is fallen. There isnothing left therein. Therefore I bring nothing but myself.LEO. Let us burn her upon the altar of burnt offering.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. But in the fire my tears would be driedup; and these tears are of mine offering to the Lord.LEO. Let us throw her to the sacred crocodile.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. But in the water my heart would bechilled; and this heart is of mine offering to the Lord.LEO. Let us throw her to the winds from the Watchtowersof Silence.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. But in the wind my hymns would notbe heard; and these hymns are of mine offering to the Lord.LEO. Let us bury her in the consecrated mountain!SCORPIO-APOPHIS. But in the earth the worms woulddevour my flesh; and this flesh is of mine offering to the Lord.Oh Lord, let thy servants return unto their thrones that I mayworship Thee as I will.SOL. 22-1-1-22.[ARIES and LEO return to their thrones.[SCORPIO-APOPHIS plays her passionate melody, her sirenmelody, her despairing “Venus in Tannhäuser”melody.* She clasps the feet and knees of SOL but hegives no sign of life.][At the end ARIES and LEO rise from their thrones—a pause.]ARIES. (Loudly). 333-333.LEO. (Louder). 333-333.ARIES. The hour of sacrifice is past.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. The hour of sacrifice is to come.* Liebstod from Tristan and Isolde: Wagner.69
THE RITES OF ELEUSISLEO. The sacrifice is not accepted.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. The sacrifice is accepted.ARIES. Depart from us, thou unclean thing![ARIES and LEO raise her and march from the temple, ARIESleading, LEO following her.][ARIES and LEO re-enter and resume thrones—a pause.ARIES. 333-333.LEO. 333-333.ARIES. Brother Leo, this is of evil omen.LEO. Brother Aries, it is indeed of evil omen.ARIES. There will be no more sacrifice to-day.LEO. There will be no more sacrifice to-day.ARIES. The sun is already setting.LEO. The night birds are already abroad.ARIES. It grows very dark.LEO. The path is too steep and dangerous for any pilgrimsto come hither.ARIES. There is no moon to-night.LEO. I think there will be rain.ARIES. Let us close the shrine.LEO. The disk of the sun is not yet quite obscured.ARIES. But no pilgrims can come now.LEO. No pilgrims can come now. But it is the rule of thetemple that the shrine is open unto the last spark of sunlight.ARIES. Brother Leo, I beg that you will close the shrinewith me.LEO. It cannot be.ARIES. Brother Leo, I know the rule. But evil willassuredly come to us from this.LEO. Brother Aries, the Law may not be broken.70
THE RITE OF SOLARIES. Brother Leo, the Law is made so that the wise maybreak it at their need.LEO. Brother Aries, in my heart is fidelity—fidelity—fidelity.ARIES. Brother Leo, a god has whispered in mine ear: it isfolly—folly—folly.LEO. The sun will be obscured in a moment: and nopilgrims can come to-night.ARIES. No pilgrims can come to-night.LEO. There will be no more sacrifice.ARIES. There will be no more sacrifice.[SATAN-TYPHON, SCORIPO-APOPHIS, and BESZ enter silentlyin procession. The light grows momentarily dimmer.]ARIES. Hail, brethren! Ye are come to adore the splendourof the sun?SATAN-TYPHON. We are come to sacrifice.ARIES. What are the offerings?BESZ. Dancing.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. Music.SATAN-TYPHON. Silence and Stillness.[He prostrates himself and remains motionless.[SCORPIO-APOPHIS bows to SOL and plays an adoration.*[BESZ dances in adoration in three-time.[SATAN-TYPHON rises and bows.ARIES. Whence come ye, brethren?SATAN-TYPHON. From the dwelling-place of the sun.ARIES. Who are ye, brethren?SATAN-TYPHON. I am the twin brother of the sun.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. I am the beloved of the sun.* Romance: Max Bruch.71
72THE RITES OF ELEUSISARIES. [To BESZ.] But who art thou, brother?[BESZ begins to stammer.LEO. Who art thou?[They threaten him with their spears. BESZ crouches interror and lurks toward West.]SATAN-TYPHON. I would have speech with my brother theSun.ARIES. It is well.LEO. It is not well. There is danger herein to my Lord.[He bars the way.ARIES. Speech cannot harm our Lord.LEO. Brother, if thou be indeed our borther, what wiltthou say?SATAN-TYPHON. O Sun, my brother, is it thy will that Ihave speech with thee? For I lay with thee nine moons in thewomb of our mother; for we have loved as none have loved;for I am closer knit with thee than light and darkness, or thanlife and death!SOL. 22-1-1-22.[LEO gives way and returns to his throne, very sad.[SATAN-TYPHON advances to SOL and ARIES closes the veilon them.][BESZ jumps up and runs off crouchingly.[The lights go out.[SCORPIO-APOPHIS plays her serpent melody.*[LEO "recites."Mortals never learn from storiesHow catastrophe becomes;How above the victor's gloriesIn the trumpets and the drums* Andante Religioso: Thomé
THE RITE OF SOLAnd the cry of millions “Master!”Looms the shadow of disaster.Every hour a man hath said:“That at least is scotched and dead.”Some one circumstance: “At lastThat, and its effects, are past.”Some one terror—subtle foe!“I have laid that spectre low.”They know not, learn not, cannot calculateHow subtly FateWeaves its fine mesh, perceiving how to wait;Or how accumulateThe trifles that shall make it master yetOf the strong soul that bade itself forget.[A dim red light dawns. BESZ enters, leading fourPROBATIONERS who bear the Pastos. They place itbefore the altar.]ARIES. What is this offering?BESZ. The eater of Flesh is my name.ARIES. Oh, our Lord, our Lord! Arise in thy might, and letthine enemies be scattered![ARIES and LEO draw veil. The throne has been castdown. On the black veil is a great red cross, whereonSOL has been crucified. Before him stands SATAN-TYPHON in the sign of Apophis and Typhon.][ARIES and LEO fall as if slain. SCORPIO-APOPHIS playsher murder melody.*][Meanwhile the PROBATIONERS advance and under thedirection of Typhon, who stabs SOL in the propermanner with the spear of SOL, take down SOL from thecross and lay him in the Pastos. They cover it. BESZdoes his brutal demoniac dance upon the lid of the coffin.* Mort d’Adonis: Waddell.73
74THE RITES OF ELEUSISExeunt OMNES exc. SOL. This ends in completedarkness. Silence. There is a flash of light, and the stageis shewn empty. Only a glimmer remains. NowSCORPIO-APOPHIS steals on to the stage, and plays alow secret melody.* The red lights increase. Sheuncovers and embraces the corpse. Then covers it again,goes to the throne, and instals herself thereon. The greenlight dawns and glows brighter and brighter, as the redlight dwindles and goes out.]SCORPIO-APOPHIS. 7777777.[The PROBATIONERS and other officers enter, erect.SCORPIO-APOPHIS. Children, array yourselves before me,and worship at my feet.ARIES. Our Lord is slain. And who art thou that hastassumed His Throne?LEO. Our Lord is slain. And who art thou that hastassumed His Throne?SCORPIO-APOPHIS. I am the Mother of the Gods and theSister of Time and the Daughter of Space. I am Nature thatholdeth sway when the effort of man is exhausted. . . .. . . Brother Leo, I am the goddess that cometh forth ridingupon the Lion. Behold! I strike thee with my wand, andinspire thee.I command thee to declare me unto the multitude.LEO.Lo! in the interstellar space of nightClothed with deep darkness, the majestic spacesAbide the dawn of deity and light,Vibrate before the passionless pale faces* Canzonetta: D’Ambrosio.
THE RITE OF SOLShrined in exceeding glory, eremite.The tortoise skies in sombre carapacesAwait the expression and the hour of birthIn silence through the adamantine girth.I rose in glory, gathered of the foam.The sea’s flower folded, charioting me risenWhere dawns rose stole from its pearl-glimmering home,And heaven laughed, and earth: and mine old prison,The seas that lay beneath the mighty dome,Shone with my splendour. Light did first bedizenEarth with its clusters of fiery dew and spray,When I looked forth and cried, “It is the day!”The stars are dewdrops on my bosom’s space;The sun and moon are glances through my lashes,Long, tender rays of night; my subtle faceBurns through the sky-dusk, lightens, fills, and flashesWith solemn joy and laughter of love; the graceOf all my body swaying stoops and dashesSwift to the daisy's dawn of love: and swiftest,O spirit of man, when unto me thou liftest!Dawn shakes the molten fire of my delightFrom the fine flower and fragrance of my tresses!Sunset bids darken all my body's light,Mixing its music with the sad caressesOf the whole world: I wheel in wingless flightThrough lampless space, the starless wildernesses!Beyond the universal bounds that roll,There is the shrine and image of my soul.I am Nature and God: I reign, I am, alone.None other may abide apart: they perish,Drawn into me, into my being grown.None other bosom is, to bear, to nourish,To be: the heart of all beneath my zoneOf blue and gold is scarlet-bright to cherishMy own life's being, that is, and is not other;For I am God and Nature and thy Mother.75
THE RITES OF ELEUSISI am the thousand-breasted milky spouse,Virginal also: Tartarus and GaiaTwinned in my womb, and Chaos from my browsShrank back abashed, my sister dark and dire,Mother of Erebus and Night, that ploughsWith starry-sandalled feet the fields of fire;My sister shrank and fell, the infernal gloomChanged to the hot sweet shadow of my womb.I am: that darkness strange and uterineIs shot with dawn and scented with the rose;The deep dim prison-house of corn and wine,Flowers, children, stars, with flame far subtler glowsFormless, all-piercing, death-defying, divine,A sweet frail lamp whose shadow gleams and showsNo darkness, is as light is where its raysCross, interweave, and marry with the day’s!I am: the heart that flames from central Me,Seeks out all life, and takes again, to mingleIts passion with my might and majesty,Till the vast floods of the man's being tingleAnd glow, self-lost within my soul and seaOf love, the sun of utter light, and singleKeen many-veined heart: our lips and kissesMarry and muse on our immortal blisses.I am: the greatest and the least: the soleAnd separate life of things. The mighty stressesOf worlds are my nerves twitching. Branch and boleOf forests waving in deep wildernessesAre hairs upon my body. Rivers rollTo make one tear in my superb caresses,When on myself myself begets a child,A system of a thousand planets piled!I am: the least, the greatest: the frail lifeOf some small coral-insect still may trembleWith love for me, and call me queen and wife;The shy plant of the water may dissemble76
THE RITE OF SOLIts love beneath the fronds; reply to strifeWith strife, and all its tiny being crumbleUnder my rough and warrior husband-kiss,Whose pain shall burn, and alter, and be bliss!I am: no word beside that solemn oneReigns in sound's kingdom to express my station,Who, clothed and crowned with suns beyond the sun,Bear on the mighty breast of foam Thalassian,Bear on my bosom, jutting plenilune,Maiden, the fadeless Rose of the Creation!The whole flower-life of earth and sky and seaFrom me was born, and shall return to me!I am: for men and beings passionate,For mine own self calm as the river-cleavingLotus-borne lord of Silence: I createOr discreate, both in my bosom heaving:My lightest look is mother of a Fate:My fingers sapphire-ringed with sky are weavingEver new flowers and lawns of life, designedNobler and newer in mine older mind.I am: I am not, but all-changing moveThe worlds evolving in a golden ladder,Spiral or helical, fresh gusts of loveFilling one sphere from the last sphere grown gladder;All gateways leading far to the above.Even as the bright coils of the emerald adderClimb one by one in glory of sunlight, climbMy children to me up the steep of Time.I am: before me all the years are dead,And all the fiery locks of sunrise wovenInto the gold and scarlet of my head:In me all skies and seas are shaken and cloven:All life and light and love about me shed,Begotten in me, in my moving moven,Are as my tears: all worlds that ever swamAs dew of kisses on my lips: I am.77
THE RITES OF ELEUSIS[She draws LEO up to her. The others kneel in adoration.SCORPIO-APOPHIS plays her soft voluptuous melody.*]ARIES. Brother Leo, what is the hour?LEO. The evening star is arisen.ARIES. The sacrifice is accomplished.LEO. What is the sacrifice?ARIES. Man.LEO. Who is the priestess?ARIES. Woman.LEO. Unto what God?ARIES. It is hidden from me.LEO. Let every man depart unto his house.ARIES. 1-333-1-1. LEO. 1-333-1-1. SCORPIO-APOPHIS. 1-1-333-1.* Romance: Saint Saens.78
THE RITE OF VENUS
THE OFFICERSVENUS. Blue Robe.TAURUS. Orange Robe.LIBRA. Green Robe.PISCES. Crimson Robe.LUNA IN TAURUS. Silver Robe.SATURN IN LIBRA. Black Robe.No officer has any weapon. Venus is throned, and on her right are Libra andSaturn in Libra, on her left Taurus and Luna in Taurus, while at her feetlies Pisces. Her throne is an oyster-shell, as in the picture by Botticelli.Before it a veil. Without, an altar; and without the temple, a further veil.81
THE RITE OF VENUSPRELUDEFull light. VENUS, seated before altar, LIBRA and TAURUSat its sides.VENUS. 7777777.LIBRA. 7777777.TAURUS. 7777777.VENUS. Brother Libra, I command thee to declare theSecret of Venus.LIBRA recites Swinburne's “Hertha.” [All present reclineand sleep.]VENUS. Having ears they hear not. Brothers Taurus andLibra, let the veil be drawn.[They do so.PART I[Twilight. VENUS is enthroned on high, swathed in massesof red hair and roses. The altar is covered with roses;there is a small flame thereon.]TAURUS and LIBRA draw the inner veil apart. LIBRAreturns and kneels.LIBRA.Daughter of Glory, childOf Earth's Dione mildBy the Father of all, the Ægis-bearing King!83
THE RITES OF ELEUSISSpouse, daughter, mother of God,Queen of the blest abodeIn Cyprus' splendour singly glittering.Sweet sister unto me,I cry aloud to thee!I laugh upon thee laughing, O dew caught up from sea!Drawn by sharp sparrow and dove,And swan’s wide plumes of love,And all the swallow's swifter vehemence,And, subtler than the Sphinx,The ineffable iynxHeralds thy splendour swooning into sense,When from the bluest bowersAnd greenest-hearted hoursOf Heaven thou smil'st toward earth, a miracle of flowers!Down to the loveless seaWhere lay PersephoneViolate, where the shade of earth is black,Crystalline out of spaceFlames the immortal face!The glory of the comet-tailèd trackBlinds all black earth with tears.Silence awakes and hearsThe music of thy moving come over the starry spheres.Wrapped in rose, green, and gold,Blues many and manifold,A cloud of incense hides thy splendour of light;Hides from the prayer’s distressThy loftier loveliness,Till thy veil’s glory shrouds the earth from night;And silence speaks indeed,Seeing the subtler speedOf its own thought than speech of the Pandean reed![LIBRA returns.84
THE RITE OF VENUSVENUS. 7777777.SATURN. Amen.VENUS. 333-1-333.LUNA. Amen.VENUS. 1-55555-1.LIBRA and PISCES. Amen.VENUS. Brother Saturn, what is the hour?SATURN. Twilight.VENUS. Sister Pisces, from whose house are we come out?PISCES. From the House of Death.VENUS. Brother Taurus, what is stronger than death?TAURUS. Love.VENUS. Brother Libra, what is the place?LIBRA. The Mountain of Venus, that hangeth from thenavel of the Universe over the Great Abyss.VENUS. Let us celebrate the Rite of Venus.[LUNA plays a waltz tune. The PROBATIONERS dancetogether.]VENUS. Children of Love, what is the hour?ALL. [A confused murmur.] It is the hour of love.[ALL sink down together. The lights go out. A longpause.]85
86PART IIVENUS. (Awakening.) 333-1-333.[Venus is brilliantly illuminated; the rest remain dark.VENUS. Little brother, what is the hour?PISCES. The dawn is at hand.VENUS. Little brother, what is the place?TAURUS. It is the holy mountain of our Lady Venus.VENUS. Children, awake and rejoice.LIBRA. Awake and rejoice.PISCES. How shall we rejoice?TAURUS. As our Lady hath appointed.LIBRA. As you like it.PISCES. Wherein shall we rejoice?TAURUS. In our Lady Venus.LIBRA. In what you will.TAURUS. Thy will, our lady, and not ours be done!PISCES. Mistress, let the adorations be performed!VENUS. Children, array yourselves before me, and rejoicein the adorations of my beauty.[They form, each with his partner. LIBRA disappearsbehind veil. TAURUS recites invocation.]TAURUS.Salutation to Hathor, holy cow in the pastures of Evening.Salutation to Hathor, in the Mountain of the West; in the land of perfectPeace, Salutation.
THE RITE OF VENUSA devouring fire is thy soul, and the corpses of the dead are enkindled at thybreath.Salutation to Hathor, the child of Isis and of Nephthys!Salutation to Hathor, the bride of Apis, of Apis that hath the beetle upon histongue!A devouring fire is thy soul, and the corpses of the dead are enkindled at thybreath.Salutation to Hathor, whose necklace is of the Souls of the blessed ones ofAmennti.Salutation to Hathor, whose girdle is of the Souls of the blessed ones of Seb!Salutation to Hathor, whose sandals are of the Souls of the blessed ones of Nu!A devouring fire is thy soul, and the corpses of the dead are enkindled at thybreath.[Returns to his throne.VENUS. Brother Libra, art thou silent? [A pause.Brother Libra, where art thou?LIBRA, still hidden, recites from Swinburne's “Atalanta.”We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love;Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove, etc.. . . Famine, and blighting of corn,When thy time was come to be born.[LIBRA appears and confronts her.All these we know of; but theeWho shall discern or declare? etc.. . . Wilt thou utterly bring to an end?Have mercy, mother!VENUS. Nay, brother, thou art the chiefest of my chosen.LIBRA. Alas.VENUS. Yea, brother: in the end all turn to me, and allreturn to me.Isis am I, and from my life are fedAll showers and suns, all moons that wax and wane;All stars and streams, the living and the dead,The mystery of pleasure and of pain.87
THE RITES OF ELEUSISI am the mother! I the speaking sea!I am the earth and its fertility!Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me—To me!Hathoor am I, and to my beauty drawnAll glories of the Universe bow down,The blossom and the mountain and the dawn,Fruit's blush, and woman, our creations's crown.I am the priest, the sacrifice, the shrine,I am the love and life of the divine!Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness are surely mine—Are mine!Venus am I, the love and light of earth,The wealth of kisses, the delight of tears,The barren pleasure never come to birth,The endless, infinite desire of years.I am the shrine at which thy long desireDevoured thee with intolerable fire.I was song, music, passion, death, upon thy lyre—Thy lyre!I am the Grail and I the Glory now:I am the flame and fuel of thy breast;I am the star of God upon thy brow;I am thy queen, enraptured and possessed.Hide thee, sweet river; welcome to the sea,Ocean of love that shall encompass thee!Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me—To me![PISCES performs a sleepy sinuous dance by herself, andreturns to Venus' throne lapsed into herself, and as ifexhausted.]Rise, rise, my knight! My king! My love, arise!See the grave avenues of Paradise,The dewy larches bending at my breath,Portentous cedars prophesying death!88
THE RITE OF VENUS[She is interrupted by the Violin of the throned LUNA, whoplays her unutterable melody.* PISCES manifests distress.VENUS. Brother Libra, what is this song?LIBRAMy soul is an enchanted boat,Which, like a sleeping swan, doth floatUpon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;And thine doth like an angel sitBeside a helm conducting it,Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.It seems to float ever, for ever,Upon that many-winding river,Between mountains, woods, abysses,A paradise of wildernesses!Till, like one in slumber bound,Borne to the Ocean, I float down, around,Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound.Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinionsIn music's most serene dominions;Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.And we sail on, away, afar,Without a course, without a star,But by the instinct of sweet music driven;Till through Elysian garden isletsBy thee, most beautiful of pilots,Where never mortal pinnace glided,The boat of my desire is guided;Realms where the air we breathe is love,Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,Harmonising this earth with what we feel above.We have past Age's icy caves,And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,And Youth's Smooth ocean, smiling to betray:Beyond the glassy gulphs we flee* Romance in D: Beethoven.89
90THE RITES OF ELEUSISOf shadow-peopled Infancy,Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;A paradise of vaulted bowers,Lit by downward-gazing flowers,And watery paths that wind betweenWildernesses calm and green,Peopled by shapes too bright to see,And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously![VENUS manifests distress. PISCES slips away to the throneof LUNA.][LUNA plays her conquering melody.*VENUS. Oh! Oh!LIBRA. Holier than pleasure is pain; nobler is abstinencethan indulgence; from sloth and faith we turn to toil andscience; from the tame victories of the body to the wildtriumphs of the mind.VENUS. It is the ruin of the temple.LIBRA. For from thee cometh the Utterance of thePresent; but of the Future no word.VENUS. And thou wilt?LIBRA. The Word.[SATURN comes out and dances his dance, and falls,clasping the hem of LIBRA'S robe.]VENUS. Who is this? These are not my dances; thesefootsteps tread not my measures; not me he worships by thepaces and pauses of his feet![LUNA plays a wild and horrible melody.†[SATURN drags LIBRA backwards into the dusk.[The PROBATIONERS group similarly; MARS with MARSand VENUS with VENUS. Some, too, stand isolated.]* Polonaise in D: Wieniawski. † Witches’ Dance: Paganini.
THE RITE OF VENUSVENUS. Brother Taurus, art thou faithful, thou alone?TAURUS. [Seductively yet ironically.] Knowest thou not me?VENUS. Yea, my beloved, Lord of all my doves.TAURUS. Venus, our Lady!VENUS. Come unto me![She half rises and draws him to her.TAURUS. Within the veil?VENUS. There is no veil before my shrine![She unfastens his robe. As it falls he leaps up withthe Caduceus, as MERCURY, and tramples her beneathhis feet.]TAURUS. In the Beginning was the Word; and the Wordwas with God; and the Word was God![All come forward; SATURN with LIBRA linked; LUNA andPISCES linked; and bow to him.]LUNA. The Treason is accomplished.PISCES. The mind is nobler than the body.SATURN. Friendship is holier than love.LIBRA. Nature is overcome by wit.PISCES. How shall we adore thee?TAURUS. As you like it.SATURN. What shall we sacrifice?TAURUS. Want you will.[LUNA plays a moto perpetuo,* ALL, bowing in adorationto MERCURY.]LIBRA. Brother, what is the hour?PISCES. Dawn.LIBRA. Let us depart unto the work of the day.ALL. Amen.* Moto perpetuo: Ries.91
THE RITE OF MERCURY
OFFICERSMERCURY. Violet Robe.FR. and SOR. GEMINI. White Dancing Robe and Black Robe.VIRGO. Green Robe.FOUR PROBATIONERS.Mercury is throned between the Twins. At the west of the Altar is Virgo, andhis four attendants.95
THE RITE OF MERCURYIMERCURY. 22-333-333.[Full light.The Speech in the Silence.The Words against the Son of Night.The Voice of Mercury in the Universe in the Presence ofthe Eternal Gods.The Formulas of Knowledge.The Wisdom of Breath.The Radix of Vibration.The Shaking of the Invisible.The Rolling Asunder of the Darkness.The Becoming Visible of Matter.The Piercing of the Coils of the Stooping Dragon.The Breaking Forth of the Light.[All being seated, the FOUR PROBATIONERS rise fromamong the other PROBATIONERS and march to thealtar.]FIRST PROBATIONER. 333-333-22. Brethren, let us kindlethe holy perfumes in honour of the most divine God.ALL FOUR PROBATIONERS. [While he does so.] Hail untothe most divine Lord Mercury!FIRST PROBATIONER. [To FR. GEMINI] Our Brother, child97
THE RITES OF ELEUSISof the Voice, we ask Thee for thy help. Wilt thou purify theTemple, that we may proceed with the invocations?FR. GEMINI. I am one with you, Brethren![He rises and performs the Banishing Ritual of theHexagram. While he does so, the FOUR PROBATIONERSstand facing the assembly.]FR. GEMINI. Let the rites of Mercury be celebrated.[They turn round, facing the altar again.[MERCURY reads Gemini and Virgo sections from 963 ataltar.][The big lights are put out; only a small purple lightremains.]FIRST PROBATIONER. O Thou Lord of Harmony! Masterof the Right Will, Thou who hast brought unto us the divineseeds of self-knowledge—we, the humble Servants of thechildren of Thy voice, we call on Thee to lead us out of ourIgnorance!CHORUS OF THREE OTHER PROBATIONERS. We call Thee,O Thrice Holy!FIRST PROBATIONER. O Thou, Divine Worker! Master ofall that is Divine! Herald of all that is coming! Builder of ourHouse! Holy art Thou, Thou that knowest the SupremeMysteries!CHORUS. We call Thee, O Thrice Holy!FIRST PROBATIONER. O Thou, All Good, we call Thee!VIRGO. 1. [Rising.] Not Good alone, Brethren! But allcomplete in the perfect Equilibrium.FR. GEMINI. Ay, The Balance must be kept even. Sister,let us invoke the Lord of Knowledge!VIRGO. He gave unto you, children of His Voice, the98
THE RITE OF MERCURYPower of the making of fair things. Sing ye unto yourShepherd!FR. GEMINI. [Rises and stands before MERCURY.] O Spirit,O Divine Messenger, Mighty One, most mighty circling andall comprehending Divine Bearer of the Wand, hail!Cœ lestial, aethereal, inter-aethereal, water like, air like, firelike, earth like, like unto light, like unto darkness, shining asdo the Stars, moist, hot, cold Spirit, hail to Thee, everlaughing Child-God, all-knowing. Through Thee alone canwe hope to reach Light and Truth. [Returns to his seat.[SOR. GEMINI plays accordingly.*[A short pause.MERCURY. At the Ending of the Light,At the Limits of the Night,Stood Mercury before the Unborn ones of Time.Then was formulated the Universe;Then came forth the Gods thereof,The aeons of the Bornless Beyond.Then was the Voice vibrated;Then was the Name declared.At the Threshold of Entrance,Between the Universe and the Infinite,In the Sign of the EntererStood Mercury, as before himThe æons were proclaimed.In Symbols did he record them;In Breath did he vibrate them;For between the Light and the Darkness did hestand.* Hungarian Dance No. 2: Brahms.99
IIThe Temple in DarknessMERCURY.O Light in Light! O flashing wings of fire!The swiftest of the moments of the seaIs unto theeEven as some slow-foot EternityWith limbs that drag and wheels that tire.O subtle-minded flame of amber gyre,It seems a spark of goldGrown purple, and behold!A flame of gray!Then the dark night-wings glowWith iridescent indigo,Shot with some violet ray;And all the vision flames across the horizonThe millionth of no time—and when we say:Hail!—Thou art gone!The Moon is dark beside thy crown; the SunSeems a pale image of thy body bare;And for thine hairFlash comets lustrous with the dewfall rareOf tears of that most memorable One,The radiant Queen, the veiled Paphian.The wings of light divineBeneath thy body shine;The invisibleRayed with some tangible flame,Seeking to formulate a name,100
THE RITE OF MERCURYA citadel;And the winged heels are fiery with enormous speed,One spurning heaven; the other trampling hell;And thou—recede!O Hermes! Messenger of inmost thought!Descend! Abide! Swift coursing in my veinsShoot dazzling pains,The Word of Selfhood integrate of Nought,The ineffable Amen! the Wonder wrought.Bring death if life exceed!Bid thy pale Hermit bleed,Yet life exude;And Wisdom and the Word of HimDrench the mute mind grown dimWith quietude!Fix thy sharp lightnings in my night! My spirit free!Mix with my breath and life and name thy moodAnd self of Thee.[SOR. GEMINI plays accordingly.*[A short pause.FR. GEMINI. Master, be it thy pleasure to perform theInvocation of Mercury.[All PROBATIONERS rise and join the four others in front ofthe altar.]MERCURY. [Leaves throne.] Majesty of the Godhead,Wisdom-crowned Thoth, Lord of the Gates of the Universe:Thee, Thee we invoke!O Thou of the Ibis head: Thee, Thee we invoke!Thou who wieldest the Wand of Double Power: Thee,Thee we invoke!Thou who bearest in Thy left hand the Rose and Cross ofLight and life: Thee, Thee we invoke!O Thou whose head is as an Emerald, and Thy Nemyss* Sarabande: Bach.101
102THE RITES OF ELEUSISas the night sky-blue! Thou whose skin is of flaming orange,as though it burned in a furnace: Thee, Thee we invoke!Behold, I am yesterday, to-day, and the brother of TheMorrow! I am born again and again. Mine is the unseen forcefrom which the Gods are sprung; that giveth life unto thedwellers in the watch-towers of the universe.I am the charioteer of the East, Lord of the Past and theFuture. I see by mine own inward light; Lord of Resurrection,who cometh forth from the dusk, and whose birth is from theHouse of Death.O ye two divine hawks upon your pinnacles, who keepwatch over the Universe! Ye who company the bier unto theHouse of Rest. Ye who pilot the Ship of Ra, ever advancingonwards unto the heights of Heaven!Lord of the Shrine which standeth in the centre of theEarth!Behold He is in me and I in Him!Mine is the radiance in which Ptah floateth over hisfirmament.I travel upon high.I tread upon the firmament of Nu.I raise a flashing flame with the lightning of mine eye, everrushing forward in the splendour of the daily glorified Ra,giving my life to the dwellers of Earth.If I say “come up upon the mountains,”The Celestial waters shall flow at my word;For I am Ra incarnate,Kephra created in the flesh!
THE RITE OF MERCURYI am the image of my Father Tmu, Lord of the City ofthe Sun!The God who commands is in my mouth;The God of Wisdom is in my heart:My tongue is the sanctuary of Truth:And a God sitteth upon my lips!My word is accomplished each day, and the desire of myheart realises itself, like that of Ptah when he creates his works.I am Eternal; therefore everything acts according to mydesigns, and everything obeys my words.Therefore I say unto Thee: come forth unto me from thineabode in the Silence, unutterable Wisdom, All-light,All-power! Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Odin, by whatevername I call Thee, Thou art still un-named and nameless toEternity! Come thou forth, I say, and aid and guard me inthis Work of Art.Thou, Star of the East that didst conduct the Magi! Thouart the same, all present in Heaven and in Hell. Thou thatvibratest betwixt the Light and the Darkness. Rising,descending; changing ever, yet ever the same!The Sun is Thy Father!Thy Mother the Moon!The Wind hath borne Thee in its bosom!And Earth hath nourished the changeless Godhead of ThyYouth.Come thou forth, I say, come Thou forthAnd make all spirits subject unto me!So that every spirit of the firmament,103
104THE RITES OF ELEUSISAnd of the Ether,Of the Earth,And under the Earth,On dry land,And in the Water,Of whirling Air,And of rushing Fire,And every spell and scourge of God, may be obedientunto Me![A pause.[MERCURY goes to his throne.FR. GEMINI. 1. Brother Virgo, didst thou hear the Voice?VIRGO. Ay, Brother.FR. GEMINI. Tell me, Brother, is not Mercury a great God?VIRGO. Indeed, Son of Maia, the greatest of all Gods thattread upon the Milky Way.FR. GEMINI. It is so.SOR. GEMINI. Yet, Brother, there is the Sun-God!VIRGO. Is not Mercury the Sun-God, when hidden duringthe Night, among the souls of the dead? Hail unto Thee,Trismegistus, Hail unto thee!SOR. GEMINI. Hail, O Sender of Dreams!FR. GEMINI. Hail, O Supporter of Bacchus Infant!MERCURY. Hail, Twins!FIRST PROBATIONER. Thou art indeed the greatest of allGods, O Mercury!CHORUS. Hail, Mercury.MERCURY. Yet, ye will betray me!Bury me in a nameless grave!I came from God the world to save,I brought it wisdom from above,
THE RITE OF MERCURYWorship, and liberty, and love.So be my grave without a nameThat earth may swallow up my shame![SOR. GEMINI plays her saddest yet swiftest melody.*[A pause.VIRGO. O, who art Thou, most lovely form that killeth mewith the pleasure of Thy Vision?MERCURY. I am thyself—that which is of thyself anddependent upon thyself.VIRGO. Sister and Brother Gemini, kneel ye before thegreatest of all Gods.FR. GEMINI. Alas, Brother! Is the Speech greater than theSilence?VIRGO. 1. Brethren, kneel ye before the greatest of allGods![None obey.MERCURY. 1. Silence. . . . Thou hast no followers, Brother.SOR. GEMINI. Behold thine handmaiden! Where thougoest I will go; thy people shall be my people and thy God myGod![She walks to the throne.MERCURY. Peace upon thee, beloved! . . . But theBrethren say sooth. Even Mercury liveth not for ever.[He recites.The light streams stronger through the lamps of sense.IntelligenceGrows as we go. Alas: its icy glimmerShows dimmer, dimmerThe awful vaults we traverse. Were the sunHimself the oneGlory of space, he would but illustrateThe night of Fate.Are not the hosts of heaven in vain arrayed?Their light dismayed* Scherzo: Tschaikowski.105
THE RITES OF ELEUSISBefore the vast blind spaces of the sky?O galaxyOf thousands upon thousands closely curled,Your golden worldIncalculably small, its closest clusterMere milky lustreStaining the infinite darkness! Base and blindOur minion mindSeeks a great light, a light sufficient, lightInsufferably bright,Hence hidden for an hour: imaginingThis vast vain thing,We call it God, and Father. Empty handAnd prayer unplannedStretched fatuous to the void. Ah! men my friendsWhat fury sendsThis folly to intoxicate your hearts?Dread air dispartsYour vital ways from these unsavoury follies;Black melancholiesSit straddled on your bended backs. The throneOf the unknownIs fit for children. We are too well wareHow vain is prayer,How nought is great, since all is immanentThe vast contentOf all the universe unalterable.We know too wellHow no one thing abides awhile at all,How all things fall,Fall from their seat, the lamentable place,Before their face,Weary and pass and are no more. So we,Since hope must be,Look to the future, to the chance minuteThat life may shootSome flower at least to blossom in the night,Since vital lightIs sure to fail us on the hideous way.What? Must we pray!106
THE RITE OF MERCURYVerily, O thou littlest babe, too weakTo stir or speak,Capable hardly of a thought, yet seedOf word and deed!To thine assured fruition we may trustThis weary dust.We who are old, and palsied (and so wise!)Lift up our eyesTo little children, as the storm-tossed barkHails in the darkSome hardly visible harbour light; we holdThe hours of goldTo our own breasts, whose hours are iron and brass:—So swift they passAnd grind us down:—we hold the wondrous lightOur scattering sightYet sees, the one star in a night of woe.We trust, and soLift up our voices in the dying dayIndeed to pray:O little hands that are so soft and strong,Lead us along![SOR. GEMINI plays accordingly.*[A pause.FR. GEMINI. Brother Virgo, wilt thou not join us who lovenot Speech?VIRGO. Hail unto Mercury. He killeth Sol at the close ofevery Twilight, and hangeth up the sky of Night on the Treeof Heaven, fastened up with the Star-headed nails.MERCURY. Brother Gemini, do Thou perform the dance ofthy Virginal Sister.[FR. GEMINI dances.[At the end of his dance, he falls before the altar. SORORGEMINI and all PROBATIONERS circumambulate roundhim, then stop, facing MERCURY.]* Berceuse: César Cui.107
THE RITES OF ELEUSISMERCURY. Come, Sister, no Divine Being can be reached,save through Me.[He descends, and joins the PROBATIONERS, leading SORORGEMINI by the hand.][VIRGO, left now alone before the empty shrine of MERCURY,walks slowly in front of it.]VIRGO. Hail unto the Lord Mercury![A pause, during which all PROBATIONERS bend their headslow. MERCURY stands apart with SOR. GEMINI. VIRGOstands still before the shrine, hooded.]MERCURY. And this word I speak unto ye:[He is heard whispering.StiBeTTChePhMeFShiSS[A pause.MERCURY. (loudly). Konx Om Pax![Purple light off, white light on.[He seats SOR. GEMINI upon his Throne. She plays herbabe-music.*]FR. GEMINI. The will of the Gods be accomplished![All depart.* Nocturne: G. Boyle.108
THE RITE OF LUNA
OFFICERSLUNA. Silver Robe and Veil. Violin. Artemis. The Lady of the Moon.CANCER. Amber Robe. Cup. Warden of the Holy Graal.TAURUS. Orange Robe. Bow and Quiver. The Lord of the Bow.A NYMPH. White robe. The Head of the Dragon.A SATYR. Black Robe. The Tail of the Dragon.PAN. Black Robe, Tom-tom.In the East Luna is throned, Cancer on her right, Taurus on her left. Beyondthese the Satyr and the Nymph. At the apex of a descending Triangle, uponthe earth, Pan.111
THE RITE OF LUNAOne reciteth “The Twelvefold Certitude of God,” from 963.The veil is withdrawn.CANCER. 333-333-333.TAURUS. 333-333-333.CANCER. 1. Brother Taurus, what is the hour?TAURUS. Moonrise.CANCER. 1. Brother Taurus, what is the place?TAURUS. The Chapel of the Holy Graal.CANCER. 1. What is my office?TAURUS. Warden of the Graal.CANCER. 1. What is my robe?TAURUS. Chastity.CANCER. 1. What is my weapon?TAURUS. Vigilance.CANCER. 1. Whom do we serve?TAURUS. The Lady Artemis.CANCER. 1. How many are her servants?TAURUS. Nine.CANCER. 1. Who are they?TAURUS. Three for the dew; three for the rain; and threefor the snow.CANCER. 1. Who are the great Officers?113
114THE EQUINOXTAURUS. Thyself, the Warden of the Holy Graal.Myself, the Lord of the Bow.A nymph, a satyr ---PAN. 1. And Pan!CANCER. Brother Pan, I command thee to honour ourLady Artemis.TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333.[PAN recites chorus from Swinburne’s “Atalanta.”When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces . . .The wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.TAURUS. The Goddess stirs not.CANCER. Silence is the secret of our Lady Artemis.PAN. Hath no man lifted her veil?CANCER. No man hath lifted her veil.TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333. It is the hour of sealing up theshrine.TAURUS. Let us banish the spirits of the elements.[Performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagramand returns.]Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333. Let us banish the spirits of theplanets.[Performs the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Hexagramand returns.]CANCER. Bear the Cup of Libation!PAN. 333-333-333. Let us banish the holy Emanations fromthe One, lest our Lady's sleep be stirred.[He banishes the Sephiroth by the appointed Ritual.
THE VISION AND THE VOICEBear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333. Brother Taurus, the shrine iswell guarded.TAURUS. The shrine is perfectly guarded.SATYR. Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333.PAN.Hear me, Lord of the Stars!For thee I have worshipped everWith stains and sorrows and scars,With joyful, joyful endeavour.Hear me, O lily-white goat!O crisp as a thicket of Thorns,With a collar of gold for Thy throat,A scarlet bow for Thy horns!Here, in the dusty air,I build Thee a shrine of yew.All green is the garland I wear,But I feed it with blood for dew!After the orange barsThat ribbed the green west dyingAre dead, O Lord of the Stars,I come to Thee, come to Thee crying.The ambrosial moon that aroseWith breasts slow heaving in splendourDrops wine from her infinite snows,Ineffably, utterly, tender.O moon! ambrosial moon!Arise on my desert of sorrow,That the magical eyes of me swoonWith lust of rain to-morrow!Ages and ages agoI stood on the bank of a river,Holy and holy and holy, I know,For ever and ever and ever!115
THE EQUINOXA priest in the mystical shrine,I muttered a redeless rune,Till the waters were redder than wineIn the blush of the harlot moon.I and my brother priestsWorshipped a wonderful womanWith a body lithe as a beast’sSubtly, horribly human.Deep in the pit of her eyesI saw the image of death,And I drew the water of sighsFrom the well of her lullaby breath.She sitteth veiled for ever,Brooding over the waste.She hath stirred or spoken never.She is fiercely, manly chaste!What madness make me awakeFrom the silence of utmost eldThe grey cold slime of the snakeThat her poisonous body held?By night I ravished a maidFrom her father's camp to the cave.I bared the beautiful blade:I dipped her thrice i’ the wave;I slit her throat as a lamb’sThat the fount of blood leapt highWith my clamorous dithyrambs,Like a stain on the shield of the sky.With blood and censer and songI rent the mysterious veil:My eyes gaze long and longOn the deep of that blissful bale.My cold grey kisses awakeFrom the silence of utmost eldThe grey cold slime of the snakeThat her beautiful body held.116
THE VISION AND THE VOICEBut—God! I was not contentWith the blasphemous secret of years;The veil is hardly rentWhile the eyes rain stones for tears.So I clung to the lips and laughedAs the storms of death abated,The storms of the grievious graftBy the swing of her soul unsated.Wherefore reborn as I amBy a stream profane and foul,In the reign of a Tortured Lamb,In the realm of a sexless Owl,I am set apart from the restBy meed of the mystic runeThat reads in peril and pestThe ambrosial moon—the moon!For under the tawny starThat shines in the Bull aboveI can rein the riotous carOf galloping, galloping Love;And straight to the steady rayOf the Lion-heart Lord I career,Pointing my flaming wayWith the spasm of night for a spear!O moon! O secret sweet!Chalcedony clouds of caressesAbout the flame of our feet,The night of our terrible tresses!Is it a wonder, then,If the people are mad with blindness,And nothing is stranger to menThan silence, and wisdom, and kindness?Nay! let him fashion an arrowWhose heart is sober and stout!Let him pierce his God to the marrow!Let the soul of his God flow out!117
THE EQUINOXWhether a snake or a sunIn his horoscope Heaven hath cast,It is nothing; every oneShall win to the moon at last.The mage has wrought by his artA billion shapes in the sun.Look through to the heart of his heart,And the many are shapes of one!An end to the art of the mage,And the cold grey blank of the prison!An end to the adamant age!The ambrosial moon is arisen.I have bought a lily-white goatFor the price of a crown of thorns,A collar of gold for its throat,A scarlet bow for its horns;I have bought a lark in the liftFor the price of a butt of sherry:With these, and God for a gift,It needs no wine to be merry!I have bought for a wafer of breadA garden of poppies and clover;For a water bitter and dead,A foam of fire flowing over.From the Lamb and his prison fareAnd the Owl’s blind stupor, arise!Be ye wise, and strong, and fair,And the nectar afloat in your eyes!Arise, O ambrosial moon,By the strong immemorial spell,By the subtle veridical runeThat is mighty in heaven and hell!Drip thy mystical dewsOn the tongues of the tender fauns,In the shade of initiate yews,Remote from the desert dawns!118
THE VISION AND THE VOICESatyrs and Fauns, I call.Bring your beauty to man!I am the mate for ye all;I am the passionate Pan.Come, O come to the dance,Leaping with wonderful whips,Life on the stroke of a glance,Death in the stroke of the lips!I am hidden beyond,Shed in a secret sinew,Smitten through by the fondFolly of wisdom in you!Come, while the moon (the moon!)Sheds her ambrosial splendour,Reels in the redeless runeIneffably, utterly, tender!Hark! the appealing cryOf deadly hurt in the hollow:—Hyacinth! Hyacinth! Ay!Smitten to death by Apollo.Swift, O maiden moon,Send thy ray-dews after;Turn the dolorous tuneTo soft ambiguous laughter!Mourn, O Maenads, mourn!Surely your comfort is over:All we laugh at you lorn.Ours are the poppies and clover!O that mouth and eyes,Mischievous, male, alluring!O that twitch of the thighs,Dorian past enduring!Where is wisdom now!Where the sage and his doubt?Surely the sweat of the browHath driven the demon out.119
120THE EQUINOXSurely the scented sleepThat crowns the equal warIs wiser than only to weep—To weep for evermore!Now, at the crown of the year,The decadent days of October,I come to thee, God, without fear;Pious, chaste, and sober.I solemnly sacrificeThis first-fruit flower of wineFor a vehicle of thy vice,As I am Thine to be mine.For five in the year gone byI pray thee give to me one;A lover stronger than I,A moon to swallow the sun!May he be like a lily-white goat,Crisp as a thicket of thorns,With a collar of gold for this throat,A scarlet bow for his horns!CANCER. May our Lady Artemis be favourable!TAURUS. May our Lady Artemis never be awakened![NYMPH comes forward and dances her virginal dance.PAN. Of what worth is the gold in the mine?CANCER. Brother Pan, be silent.NYMPH. Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333.[Recites.PAN.Mother of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music awake!Silence and Speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at stake.By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the Snake and theSword;I am he that is sworn to endure—Bring us the word of the Lord!By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was my sire;By the Lord of the Flame and the Lightning, the King of the Spirits of Fire;
THE VISION AND THE VOICEBy the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the Hosts of the Sea,The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me;By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the King of the Spirits of Air,In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there;By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of the Spirits of EarthThat nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my birth;By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and Disk I constrain;I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again!I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake and the Sword;Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord;As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm of the air,As the quake of the earth—let it soar for a boon, for a bane, for a snare,For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for a sword—Bring us thy burden of bliss—Bring us the word of the Lord!TAURUS. In vain thou askest speech from our Lady ofSilence:CANCER. Bear the Cup of Libation!PAN. 333-333-333.[Recites.Roll through the caverns of matter, the world's irremovable bounds!Roll, ye wild billows of ether! the Sistron is shaken and sounds!Wild and sonorous the clamour, vast in the region of death.Live with the fire of the Spirit, the essence and flame of the breath!Sound, O sound!Gleam in the world of the dark, where the chained ones shall tremble and flee!Gleam in the skies of the dusk, for the Light of the Dawn is in me!Light on the forehead and life in the nostrils, and love in the breast,Shine, O Thou Star of the Dawning, thou Sun of the Radiant Crest!Shine, O shine!Flame through the sky in the strength of the chariot-wheels of the Sun!Flame, ye young fingers of light, on the west of the morning that run!121
122THE EQUINOXFlame, O thou Meteor Car, for my fire is exalted in thee!Lighten the darkness and herald the daylight, and waken the sea!Flame, O flame!Crown Her, O crown Her with stars as with flowers for a virginal gaud!Crown Her, O crown Her with Light and the flame of the down-rushing Sword!Crown Her, O crown Her with Love for maiden and mother and wife!Hail unto Isis! Hail! For She is the Lady of Life!Isis crowned!CANCER. In vain thou invokest our Lady of the Moon!TAURUS. Bear the Cup of Libation!CANCER. 333-333-333.PAN.Must every star that saves the nightGleam fearfully afar,Give no man love, but only light,Or cease to be a star?Nay, there's no man since time beganThrough the ages until now,But won the goal of his set soul,A star upon his brow!Oh! though no star serene as thouShine in my night forlorn,Come, let me set thee on my brow,And make its darkness morn!PAN. [Rises.] Brother Satyr, scourge forth these thatprofane the sanctuary of our Lady: for they know not thesecret of the shrine.[SATYR dances the dance of the scourge, driving the officersdown the stage, where they crouch.]PAN. [Goes to altar.] Brother Satyr, I command you toperform the dance of Syrinx and Pan, in honour of our LadyArtemis.
THE VISION AND THE VOICESATYR. And in thine honour![He dances the dance and falls prostrate in the midst.PAN. [Advancing to the Throne of Luna.]Uncharmable charmerOf Bacchus and Mars,In the sounding reboundingAbyss of the stars!O virgin in armour,Thine arrows unslingIn the brilliant resilientFirst rays of the spring!By the force of the fashionOf love, when I brokeThrough the shroud, through the cloud,Through the storm, through the smoke,To the mountain of passionVolcanic that woke—By the rage of the mageI invoke, I invoke!By the midnight of madness,The lone-lying sea,The swoon of the moon,Your swoon into me;The sentinel sadnessOf cliff-clinging pine,That night of delightYou were mine, you were mine!Your were mine, O my saint,My maiden, my mate,By the might of the rightOf the night of our fate.Though I fall, though I faint,Though I char, though I choke,By the hour of our powerI invoke, I invoke!123
THE EQUINOXBy the mystical unionOf fairy and faun,Unspoken, unbroken—The dusk to the dawn!—A secret communion,Unmeasured, unsung,The listless, resistless,Tumultuous tongue!—O virgin in armourThine arrows unsling,In the brilliant resilientFirst rays of the spring!No Godhead could charm her,But manhood awoke—O fiery Valkyrie,I invoke, I invoke![He tears down the veil.[LUNA plays accordingly.*[A long silence.CANCER. 333-333-333.TAURUS. 1. Brother Warden of the Graal, our task isended.CANCER. Let us depart, it is accomplished.* Chaccone: Bach.124
KONX OM PAXTHE MOST REMARKABLE TREATISE ON THE MYSTIC PATH EVER WRITTENContains an Introduction and Four Essays; the first an account of the progress of the soul toperfect illumination, under the guise of a charming fairy tale;The second, an Essay on Truth, under the guise of a Christmas pantomime;The third, an Essay on Magical Ethics, under the guise of the story of a Chinesephilosopher;The fourth, a Treatise on many Magical Subjects of the profoundest importance, under theguise of a symposium, interspersed with beautiful lyrics.No serious student can afford to be without this delightful volume. The second edition isprinted on hand-made paper, and bound in white buckram, with cover-design in gold.PRICE TEN SHILLINGSWALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., and through “THE EQUINOX”* *Some Press OpinionsDR. . M. D. EDER in “The New Age”“Yours also is the Reincarnation and the Life, O laughing lion that is to be!“Here you have distilled for our delight the inner spirit of the Tulip's form, the sweet secretmystery of the Rose's perfume: you have set them free from all that is material whilst preservingall that is sensual. ‘So also the old mystics were right who saw in every phenomenon a dog-faceddemon apt only to seduce the soul from the sacred mystery.’ Yes, but the phenomenon shall itnot be as another sacred mystery; the force of attraction still to be interpreted in terms of Godand the Psyche? We shall reward you by befoulment, by cant, by misunderstanding, and byunderstanding. This to you who wear the Phrygian cap, not as symbol of Liberty, O ribald ones,but of sacrifice and victory, of Inmost Enlightenment, of the soul's deliverance from the fettersof the very soul itself —fear not; you are not ‘replacing truth of thought by mere expertness ofmechanical skill.’“You who hold more skill and more power than your great English predecessor, Robertus deFluctibus, you have not feared to reveal ‘the Arcana which are in the Adytum of God-nourishedSilence’ to those who, abandoning nothing, will sail in the company of the Brethren of the RosyCross towards the Limbus, that outer, unknown world encircling so many a universe.”“John Bull,” in the course of a long review by Mr. HERBERT VIVIAN“The author is evidently that rare combination of genius, a humorist and a philosopher. Forpages he will bewilder the mind with abstruse esoteric pronouncements, and then, all of asudden, he will reduce his readers to hysterics with some surprisingly quaint conceit. I wasunlucky to begin reading him at breakfast and I was moved to so much laughter that I wateredmy bread with my tears and barely escaped a convulsion.”“The Times”“The Light wherein he writes is the L.V.X., of that which, first mastering and thentranscending the reason, illumines all the darkness caused by the interference of the oppositewaves of thought. . . . It is one of the most suggestive definitions of KONX—the LVX of theBrethren of the Rosy Cross—that it transcends all the possible pairs of opposites. Nor does thissound nonsensical to those who are acquainted with that LVX. But to those who do not it mustremain as obscure and ridiculous as spherical trigonometry to the inhabitants of Flatland.”“The Literary Guide”“The Literary Guide”“He is a lofty idealist. He sings like a lark at the gates of heaven. ‘Konx Om Pax’ is theapotheosis of extravagance. the last word in eccentricity. A prettily told fairy-story ‘for babes andsucklings’ has ‘explanatory notes in Hebrew and Latin for the wise and prudent’—which notes,as far as we can see, explain nothing—together with a weird preface in scraps of twelve or fifteenlanguages. The best poetry in the book is contained in the last section—‘The Stone of thePhilosophers.’ Here is some fine work.”
OCCULTISMTo the readers of “The Equinox.”—All who are interested in curious old Literature should writeto FRANK HOLLINGS for his Catalogue of over 1000 items. Sent post free on receipt of name andaddress, and all future issues. A few selected items below.THE BOOK OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC, including the Rites and Mysteries of GoëticTheurgy, Sorcery, and Infernal Necromancy. In Two Parts. I. An Analytical and Critical Account of the chief MAGICALRITUALS extant. II. A Complete GRIMOIRE of Black Magic. By ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE.The two chief sections are subdivided as follows: (a) Studies on the Antiquity of Magical Rituals; (b) The Rituals ofTranscendental Magic, so-called; (c) Composite Rituals; (d) The Rituals of Black Magic; (e) The descending Hierarchy ofSpirits; (f) The Lesser Key of Solomon the King; (g) The Mystery of the “Sanctum Regnum”; (h) The Rite of"Lucifuge"; (i) The Method of Honorius, etc., etc., etc.The main objects of the work are: (1) To determine the connection, if any, between the literature of CEREMONIALMAGIC AND THE SECRET TRADITION IN CHRISTIAN TIMES; (2) To show the fantastic nature of the distinction betweenWhite and Black Magic, so far, at least, as the texts are concerned.The work is issued in crown 4to, and includes about 180 engravings, some of which are full-page plates.Price 15s. net. Post free. Handsomely bound.JUST PUBLISHED.WAITE (A. E.). The Secret Tradition in Freemasonry, and an Analysis of the Inter-Relationbetween the Craft and the High Degrees, in respect of their term of Research, expressed by the way of Symbolism, 2 vols. large 8vo,with 26 full-page Portraits, and other illustrations, cloth extra t.e.g. 42s.Book I. Fundamental Relations of the Craft and the High Grades. II. Development of the High Grades in respect ofthe Ancient Alliance. III. Of the New Alliance in Freemasonry. IV. The Masonic Orders of Chivalry. V. Of Alchemy inMasonry. VI. Of Magical and Kabalistical Degrees. VII. Of the Mysteries on their Mystical Side, and of this Subject in itsrelation to Masonry.THE KABBALAH UNVEILED, containing the following Books of the Zohar: (1) The Bookof Concealed Mystery; (2) The Greater Holy Assembly; (3) The Lesser Holy Assembly; translated into English from the LatinVersion of Knorr von Rosenroth, and collated with the original Chaldee and Hebrew text, by S. L. MACGREGOR-MATHERS. Newand cheaper edition, demy 8vo.The Bible, which has been probably more misconstrued than any other book ever written, contains numberlessobscure and mysterious passages which are utterly unintelligible without some key wherewith to unlock their meaning.That key is given in the Kabbalah.ISIS UNVEILED: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology.By H. P. BLAVATSKY. In two volumes. Vol. I. Science, pp. xiv., 628. Vol. II. Theology, pp. iv., 640 and Index 52.£1, 1s. net.Vol. I.—Before the Veil—I. Old Things with New Names—II. Phenomena and Forces—III. Blind Leaders of theBlind—IV. Theories respecting Psychic Phenomena—V. The Ether, or “Astral Light”—VI. Psycho-PhysicalPhenomena—VII. The Elements, Elementals, and Elementaries—VIII. Some Mysteries of Nature—IX. CyclicPhenomena—X. The Inner and Outer Man—XI. Psychological and Physical Marvels—XII. The “Impassible Chasm”—XIII. Realities and Illusion—XIV. Egyptian Wisdom—XV. India the Cradle of the Race.Vol. II.—I. The Church; Where is it?—II. Christian Crimes and Heathen Virtues—III. Divisions amongst the EarlyChristians—IV. Oriental Cosmogonies and Bible-Records—V. Mysteries of the Kabala—VI. Esoteric Doctrines ofBuddhism Parodied in Christianity—VII. Early Christian Heresies and Secret Societies—VIII. Jesuitry and Masonry—IX. The Vedas and the Bible—X. The Devil Myth—XI. Comparative Results of Buddhism and Christianity—XII.Conclusions and Illustrations.TRANSCENDENTAL MAGIC: Its Doctrine and Ritual. By ELIPHAS LEVI (a completeTranslation of “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie”), with a Biographical Preface by ARTHUR E. WAITE, authorof “Devil Worship in France,” etc., etc. Portrait of the Author, and all the original engravings. 8vo, 406 pp. cloth1896. (Pub. 15s.). Postage Free. 10s. 6d.The Pillars of the Temple, Triangle of Solomon, The Tetragram, The Pentagram, Magical Equilibrium, The FierySword, Realsation, Initiation, The Kabbalah, The Magic Chain, Necromancy, Transmutations, Black Magic, Bewitchments,Astrology, Charms and Philtres, The Stone of the Philosophers, The Universal Medicine, Divination, TheTriangle of Pantacles, The Conjuration of the Four, The Blazing Pentagram, Medium and Mediator, The Septenary ofTalismans, A Warning to the Imprudent, The Ceremonial of Initiates, The Key of Occultism, The Sabbath of theSorcerers, Witch-craft and Spells, The Writing of the Stars, Philtres and Magnetism, The Mastery of the Sun, TheThaumaturge, The Science of the Prophets, The Book of Hermes, etc.BOOK OF THE SACRED MAGIC (The) OF ABRA-MELIN THE MAGE, asdelivered by Abraham the Jew unto his Son Lamech, A.D. 1458. Translated from the Original Hebrew into French, andnow rendered into English. From a unique and valuable MS. in the “Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal” at Paris; with copiousNotes and Magical Squares of Letters. By S. L. MACGREGOR-MATHERS. 4to, black cloth, Magical Square on side in gold.1900. (Pub. at 21s)., Postage free. 10s. 6d.The original work, of which this is a translation, is unique, no other copy being known, although both Bulwer Lyttonand Eliphas Levi were well aware of its existence; the former having based part of his description of the sage RosicrucianMenjour on that of Abra-Melin, while the account of the so-called Observatory of Sir Philip Derval in the Strange Storywas, to some extent, copied from that of the Magical Oratory and Terrace given in the present work. There are also otherinteresting points too numerous to be given here in detail. It is felt therefore that by its publication a service is renderedto lovers of rare and curious Books, and to Students of Occultism, by placing within their reach a magical work of somuch importance, and one so interestingly associated with the respective authors of Zanoni and of the Dogma and Ritualof Transcendental Magic. The Magical Squares or combinations of letters, placed in a certain manner, are said to possess apeculiar species of automatic intelligent vitality, apart from any of the methods given for their use; and students arerecommended to make no use of these whatever unless this higher Divine Knowledge is approached in a frame of mindworthy of it.————————FRANK HOLLINGS, 7 GREAT TURNSTILE, HOLBORN, W.C.
JENNINGS (Hargrave). The Rosicrucians: their Rites and mysteries, thick 8vo, fourth and last edition,revised, half-morocco, t.e.g., N.D.Portion of Contents:—Ever-burning Lamps; the Hermetic Philosophers; the Hermetic Brethren; Mystic History ofthe Fleur-de-lis; Sacred Fire; Fire-Theosophy of the Persians; Ideas of the Rosicrucians as to the Character of Fire;Monuments Raised to Fire—Worship in all Countries; Druidical Stones and their Worship; the Round Towers ofIreland; Cabalistic Interpretations by the Gnostics; Mystic Christian Figures and Talismans; the Rosy Cross in Indian,Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Mediaeval Monuments; the Great Pyramid; Myths of the Scorpion, or the Snake in itsmany Disguises; Rosicrucians Celestial and Terrestrial; Alchemy; Rosicrucians in Strange Symbols; Robert Flood; IndianMystic Adoration of Form; etc., etc.REAL HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS, founded on their own Manifestoes, and onFacts and Documents collected from the Writings of Initiated Brethren, by ARTHUR E. WAITE, illustrated, 8vo, cloth,uncut, 1887 (pub. 7s. 6d.) 5s.Written from the historical standpoint, giving the chief documents in extenso, together with an elaborate summary andanalysis of the various views which have prevailed from time to time about The Virgin Fraternity of the Rose.MYSTERIES OF MAGIC: a Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi, with Biographical andCritical Essay by ARTHUR E. WAITE, second edition, revised and enlarged, 8vo, cloth, 1897 (pub. 10s. 6d.). 6s.This work fulfils a purpose quite distinct from that of Transcendental Magic, inasmuch as it is not simply translation,but presents in an abridged and digested form the entire writings of Eliphas Levi.NOSTRODAMUS.—The True Prophecies and Prognostications of Michael Nostrodamus, Physicianto Henry II., Francis II., and Charles IX., Kings of France, and one of the best <strong>Astron</strong>omers that ever were; a Work full ofCuriosity and Learning, Translated and commented by THEOPHILUS GARIENCERES, M.D. Folio, fine portrait frontispieceby Dolle, orig. calf, fine sound copy, rare in this state, 1672. 45s.THE KEY OF SOLOMON THE KING (Clavicula Salomonis), translated and edited fromAncient MSS. in the British Museum, by S. LIDDELL MACGREGOR-MATHERS, author of “The Kabbalah Unveiled,”“The Tarot.” etc., with plates, crown 4to, cloth. 21s. net.The Key of Solomon gives full, clear, and concise instructions for Talismanic and Ceremonial Magic, as well as forperforming various Evocations; and it is therefore invaluable to any student who wishes to make himself acquainted withthe practical part of Occultism.Besides Seals, Sigils, and Magical Diagrams, nearly 50 Pantacles or Talismans are given in the plates.Among other authors both Eliphas Levi and Christian mention the “Key of Solomon” as a work of high authority,and the former especially refers to it repeatedly.WANTS SUPPLIED. NEW PUBLICATIONS SUPPLIED TO ORDER.Out of Print Books sought for and reported.Visitors to London who are interested should make a point of calling.—————FRANK HOLLINGS, 7 GREAT TURNSTILE, HOLBORN, W.C.Near to Chancery Lane, the Inns of Court, and First Avenue Hotels.A GREEN GARLANDBYV. B. NEUBURG———————Green Paper Cover. 2s. 6d. net.———————“As far as the verse is concerned there is in this volume something more than mere promise;the performance is at times remarkable; there is beauty not only of thought and invention—andthe invention is of a positive kind—but also of expression and rhythm. There is a lilt in Mr.Neuburg's poems; he has the impulse to sing, and makes his readers feel that impulse.”—TheMorning Post.“There is a certain given power in some of the imaginings concerning death, as 'The Dream'and 'the Recall,' and any reader with a liking for verse of an unconventional character willfind several pieces after his taste.”—The Daily Telegraph..“Here is a poet of promise.”—The Daily Chronicle.“It is not often that energy and poetic feeling are united so happily as in this littlebook.”—The Morning Leader.“There is promise and some fine lines in these verses.”—The Times.————————To be obtained ofPROBSTHAIN & CO.44 GREAT RUSSELL STREET, LONDON, W.C.And all Booksellers
THE NEW THOUGHT LIBRARY————————Crown 8vo. Crimson cloth extra, gilt tops 3d. 6d. net and 4s. 6d. net per volume.The “New Thought Library” has been designed to include only the best works in this class ofliterature. No volume will find a place in this series unless it has already an established position in thepopular favour. The first ten volumes are now ready.HAVE YOU A STRONG WILL? How to Develop and Strengthen Will Power, Memory, or anyother Faculty, or Attribute of the Mind by the Easy Process of Self- Hypnotism. By CHARLESGODFREY LELAND. Third and enlarged Edition, containing the Celebrated Correspondence betweenKant and Hufeland, and an additional Chapter on Paracelsus and his Teaching. Price 3s. 6d. net.THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT. A Selection from the Essays of PRENTICE MULFORD. Reprinted fromthe “White Cross Library.” With an Introduction by A. E. WAITE. Third Edition. 3s. 6d. net. “TheEssays of Prentice Mulford embody a peculiar philosophy, and represent a peculiar phase of insight into the mysterywhich surrounds man. The essays were the work, as the insight was the gift of a man who owed nothing to books,perhaps not much to what is ordinarily meant by observation, and everything, or nearly everything, to reflectionnourished by contact with nature.”—A. E. WAITE, in the Introduction.THE GIFT OF UNDERSTANDING. A Further Selection from the Works of PRENTICE MULFORD.Reprinted from the “White Cross Library.” With an Introduction by A. E. WAITE. 3s. 6d. net.ESSAYS OF PRENTICE MULFORD. Third Series. Price 3s. 6d. net.ESSAYS OF PRENTICE MULFORD. Fourth Series. Completing the entire set of the Essays.published in America under the title of “Your Forces and How to Use Them.” Price 3s. 6d. net.These four volumes constitute by far the best edition of the Essays of Prentice Mulford published in the English language.Special care has been taken to eliminate the errors and mistakes with which the American edition abounds.THE SCIENCE OF THE LARGER LIFE.A Selection from the Essays of URSULA N.GESTERFELD. Price 3s. 6d. net.CONTENTS.—Preface. Part I.—How we Master our Fate. The Inventor and the Invention. The Ascension of Ideas.Living by Insight or by Outsight. Destiny and Fate. The Origin of Evil. What is within the “Heir”? Words as StorageBatteries. How to Care for the Body. The Way to Happiness. You Live in your Thought World. The Language ofSuggestion. Constructive Imagination. The Power of Impression. How to Remove Impressions. Your Individualism.Making Things go Right. Utilising Energy. Master, or be Mastered. The Voice that is heard in Loneliness. TheIngrafted Word. The Law of Liberty. Part II.—The Evolution of an Invalid. The Invalid's Alter Ego. The Evolution ofa Thief; The Honest Man. The Evolution of a liar; The Truthful Man. The Evolution of a miser; The Benefactor.The Evolution of an Egotist; The Self-Forgetful Man. The Evolution of a Drunkard; The Self-Possessed Man. TheEvolution of a Libertine; The Strong Man. The Evolution of a Flirt; The Divine Womanly. Part III.—Stilling theTempest. Live in the Eternal, not in Time. Affirmation of Being. Affirmation for the Morning. Affirmation for theEvening. Affirmation for Fear of Heredity. Affirmation for Fear of Death.EVERY MAN A KING; or, Might in Mind Mastery. By ORISON SWETT MARDEN. Price 3s. 6d.net.“Happily written, with knowledge and insight as well as gaiety and charm.”—Light.“Admirable! It is a long time since we read a book on the fascinating subject of mind's influence over matter, especiallyin the building of character, with as much pleasure as this has afforded. Characterised throughout by a cheery optimism, theperusal of it is as good as any tonic, and far better than most.”—Pall Mall Gazette.MENTAL MEDICINE: Some Practical Suggestions from a Spiritual Standpoint. By OLIVERHUCKEL, S.T.D. With an Introduction by LEWELLYS F. BARKER, M.D. Price 3s. 6d. net.SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.—The New Outlook for Health. The Unique Powers of Mind. The Spiritual Mastery of theBody. Faith as a Vital Force. The Healing Value of Prayer. Glimpses of the Sub-conscious Self. The Training of theHidden Energies. The Casting Out of Fear. The Cause and Cure of the Worry Habit. The Gospel of Relaxation.Work as a Factor in Health. Inspiration of the Mental Outlook. 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By ORISON SWETT MARDEN, Author of "Every Man aKing.” Price 3s. 6d. net.———————London: WILLIAM RIDER & SON, Ltd., 164 Aldersgate Street, E.C
To be had of THE EQUINOX, 3 Great James Street, W.C.and through all BooksellersPRICE ONE GUINEA NETGOETIA vel ClaviculaSALOMONIS REGIS(The Lesser Key of Solomon the King.)The best, simplest, most intelligible and most effectivetreatise extant onCEREMONIAL MAGICCareful and complete instruction; ample illustration; beautifulproduction. This book is very much easier both tounderstand and to operate than the so-called “Greater”Key of Solomon.——————————————————————————ONLY A FEW COPIES REMAIN FOR SALE.
TTo be obtained ofTHE EQUINOX, 3 GREAT JAMES St. W.C.=================Crown 8vo, Scarlet Buckram, pp. 64.Price 10s net.Less than 100 copies remain. The price will shortly be raised toone guinea net.A∴ A∴ PUBLICATION IN CLASS B.=================BOOK777HIS book contains in concise tabulated form a comparative view of all the symbols of the greatreligions of the world; the perfect attributions of the Taro, so long kept secret by theRosicrucians, are now for the first time published; also the complete secret magical correspondencesof the G∴ D∴ and R. R. et A. C. It forms, in short, a complete magical and philosophical dictionary;a key to all religions and to all practical occult working.For the first time Western and Qabalistic symbols have been harmonized with those ofHinduism, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, Taoism, &c. By a glance at the Tables, anybody conversantwith any one system can understand perfectly all others.The Occult Review says:“Despite its cumbrous sub-title and high price per page, this work has only to come under the notice of the rightpeople to be sure of a ready sale. In its author’s words, it represents ‘an attempt to systematise alike the data of mysticismand the results of comparative religion,’ and so far as any book can succeed in such an attempt, this book does succeed; thatis to say, it condenses in some sixty pages as much information as many an intelligent reader at the Museum has been able tocollect in years. The book proper consists of a Table of ‘Correspondences,’ and is, in fact, an attempt to reduce to a commondenominator the symbolism of as many religious and magical systems as the author is acquainted with. The denominatorchosen is necessarily a large one, as the author's object is to reconcile systems which divide all things into 3, 7, 10, 12, as thecase may be. Since our expression ‘common denominator' is used in a figurative and not in a strictly mathematical sense, thetask is less complex than appears at first sight, and the 32 Paths of the Sepher Yetzirah, or Book of Formation of the Qabalah,provide a convenient scale. These 32 Paths are attributed by the Qabalists to the 10 Sephiroth, or Emanations of Deity, andto the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, which are again subdivided into 3 mother letters, 7 double letters, and 12 simpleletters. On this basis, that of the Qabalistic ‘Tree of Life,' as a certain arrangement of the Sephiroth and 22 remaining Pathsconnecting them is termed, the author has constructed no less than 183 tables.“The Qabalistic information is very full, and there are tables of Egyptian and Hindu deities, as well as of colours,perfumes, plants, stones, and animals. The information concerning the tarot and geomancy exceeds that to be found in sometreatises devoted exclusively to those subjects. The author appears to be acquainted with Chinese, Arabic, and other classictexts. Here your reviewer is unable to follow him, but his Hebrew does credit alike to him and to his printer. Among severalhundred words, mostly proper names, we found and marked a few misprints, but subsequently discovered each one of themin a printed table of errata, which we had overlooked. When one remembers the misprints in ‘Agrippa’ and the fact that theordinary Hebrew compositor and reader is no more fitted for this task than a boy cognisant of no more than the shapes of theHebrew letters, one wonders how many proofs there were and what the printer’s bill was. A knowledge of the Hebrewalphabet and the Qabalistic Tree of Life is all that is needed to lay open to the reader the enormous mass of informationcontained in this book. The ‘Alphabet of Mysticism,’ as the author says—several alphabets we should prefer to say—is here.Much that has been jealously and foolishly kept secret in the past is here, but though our author has secured for his work theimprimatur of some body with the mysterious title of the A∴ A∴, and though he remains himself anonymous, he appears tobe no mystery-monger. Obviously he is widely read, but he makes no pretence that he has secrets to reveal. On thecontrary, he says, ‘an indicible arcanum is an arcanum which cannot be revealed.’ The writer of that sentence has learned atleast one fact not to be learned from books.“G.C.J.”
WILLIAM NORTHAM,Robemaker,9 Henrietta Street, Southampton Street, StrandTELEPHONE—5400 CentralMR. NORTHAM begs to announce that he has been entrusted with themanufacture of all robes and other ceremonial apparel of members of theA∴ A∴ and its adepts and aspirants.No. 0. PROBATIONER’S ROBE . . . . . . . £5 0 01. ,, ,, superior quality . . . 7 0 02. NEOPHYTE’S . . . . . . . . . 6 0 03. ZELATOR Symbol added to No. 2 . . . 1 0 04. PRACTICUS ,, ,, 3 . . . 1 0 05. PHILOSOPHUS ,, ,, 4 . . . 1 0 06. DOMINUS LIMINIS ,, ,, 5 . . . 1 0 07. ADEPTUS (without) ,, ,, 0 or 1 . . 3 0 08. ,, (within) . . . . . . . . 10 0 09. ADEPTUS MAJOR . . . . . . . . 10 0 010. ADEPTUS EXEMPTUS . . . . . . . 10 0 011. MAGISTER TEMPLI . . . . . . . 50 0 0The Probationer's robe is fitted for performance of all general invocations and especially for the I. ofthe H. G. A.; a white and gold nemmes may be worn. These robes may also be worn by Assistant Magiin all composite rituals of the White.The Neophyte's robe is fitted for all elemental operations. A black and gold nemmes may be worn.Assistant Magi may wear these in all composite rituals of the Black.The Zelator's robe is fitted for all rituals involving I O, and for the infernal rites of Luna. In theformer case an Uraeus crown and purple nemmes, in the latter a silver nemmes should be worn.The Practicus' robe is fitted for all rituals involving I I, and for the rites of Mercury. In the formercase an Uraeus crown and green nemmes, in the latter a nemyss of shot silk, should be worn.The Philosophus' robe is fitted for all rituals involving O O, and for the rites of Venus. In the formercase an Uraeus crown and azure nemmes, in the latter a green nemmes, should be worn.The Dominus Liminis' robe is fitted for the infernal rites of Sol, which must never be celebrated.The Adeptus Minor's robe is fitted for the rituals of Sol. A golden nemmes may be worn.The Adeptus' robe is fitted for the particular workings of the Adeptus, and for the Postulant at the FirstGate of the City of the Pyramids.The Adeptus Major's Robe is fitted for the Chief Magus in all Rituals and Evocations of the Inferiors,for the performance of the rites of Mars, and for the Postulant at the Second Gate of the City of the Pyramids.The Adeptus Exemptus' robe is fitted for the Chief Magus in all Rituals and Invocations of theSuperiors, for the performance of the rites of Jupiter, and for the Postulant at the Third Gate of the City ofthe Pyramids.The Babe of the Abyss has no robe.For the performance of the rites of Saturn, the Magician may wear a black robe, close-cut, withnarrow sleeves, trimmed with white, and the Seal and Square of Saturn marked on breast and back. Aconical black cop embroidered with the Sigils of Saturn should be worn.The Magister Templi Robe is fitted for the great Meditations, for the supernal rites of Luna, and forthose rites of Babylon and the Graal. But this robe should be worn by no man, because of that which iswritten: “Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine.” ———————Any of these robes may be worn by a person of whatever grade onappropriate occasions.
George Raffalovich’s forthcoming works.———————THE HISTORY OF A SOULPrice 3s. 6. Edition strictly limited———————THE DEUCE AND ALLA COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES1s net.READY.———————Through THE EQUINOX and all booksellers———————————————————————READY SHORTLY.——————THE WHIRLPOOLBYETHEL ARCHERWITH A COVER SPECIALLY DESIGNED BYE. J. WIELAND;A DEDICATORY SONNET BYVICTOR B. NEUBURG;ANDAN INTRODUCTION BYALEISTER CROWLEY.——————Price One Shilling Net.
A. COLIN LUNN,Cigar Importer and Cigarette Merchant3 BRIDGE STREET; 19 KING'S PARADE, & 31 TRINITY STREET, CAMBRIDGE.Sole Agent for Loewe & Co.'s Celebrated Straight Grain Briar Pipes.YENIDYEH CIGARETTES, No. 1 A.—“A CONNOISSEUR'S CIGARETTE.” These are manufacturedfrom the finest selected growths of 1908 crop, and are of exceptional quality. They can be inhaled withoutcausing any irritation of the throat.Sole Manufacturer: A. COLIN LUNN, Cambridge.MESSRS. LOWE AND CO.,8 Stafford Street, Bond Street,beg to announce that they have been entrusted for twelve years pastwith the preparation of theOILS,PERFUMES,UNGUENTS,ESSENCES,INCENSES,and other chemical products useful to members of all the lesser gradesof the A∴ A∴Mr. GEORGE RAFFALOVICH’S charming volume of Essays and SketchesentitledON THE LOOSE:PLANETARY JOURNEYS AND EARTHLY SKETCHES.A new popular edition. Price 1s. netCrown 8vo, Pp. 164,May be obtained through THE EQUINOX.
[Once again, I have omitted some pages of advertisments:the usual full-page attempt by Crowley to shift his backcatalogue, and one on the back board for Crowley’s HailMary (absent in the Weiser facsimile).It appears that confusion arose in certain quarters from someextracts from the work of P.B. Shelley appearing uncreditedin various of the Rites; specifically, I have seen “My soul isan enchanted boat” (in the Rite of Venus) from PrometheusUnbound erroneously attributed to Crowley in print (albeitin a work with generally low editorial standards). Similarly,“This is the day which down the void abysm” in the Rite ofMars is the finale from Prometheus Unbound and “Theworld’s great age begins anew,” also in the Rite of Mars, isthe final chorus from Hellas. Not being particularly familiarwith Shelley’s work myself, I may have missed a few others.The works of Algernon Charles Swinburne are now out ofcopyright and I am therefore including the Swinburne poemscalled for in the Rites of Eleusis in this electronic edition(since I long ago went through the agony of key-bashingthem all in). Rather than work them back into the scriptsand mess up the pagination, they appear on the followingpages.—~]
ILICET(required for the Rite of Saturn)THERE is an end of joy and sorrow;Peace all day long, all night, all morrow,But never a time to laugh or weep.The end is come of pleasant places,The end of tender words and faces,The end of all, the poppied sleep.No place for sound within their hearing,No room to hope, no time for fearing,No lips to laugh, no lids for tears.The old years have run out all their measure;No chance of pain, no chance of pleasure,No fragment of the broken years.Outside of all the worlds and ages,There where the fool is as the sage is,There where the slayer is clean of blood,No end, no passage, no beginning,There where the sinner leaves of sinning,There where the good man is not good.There is not one thing with another,But Evil saith to Good: My brother,My brother, I am one with thee:They shall not strive nor cry for ever:No man shall choose between them: neverShall this thing end and that thing be.Wind wherein seas and stars are shakenShall shake them, and they shall not waken;None that has lain down shall arise;The stones are sealed across their places;One shadow is shed on all their faces,One blindness cast on all their eyes.Sleep, is it sleep perhance that coversEach face, as each face were his lover's?Farewell; as men that sleep fare well.The grave’s mouth laughs unto derisionDesire and dread and dream and vision,Delight of heaven and sorrow of hell.
No soul shall tell nor lip shall numberThe names and tribes of you that slumber;No memory, no memorial.“Thou knowest”—who shall say thou knowest?There is none highest and none lowest:An end, an end, an end of all.Good night, good sleep, good rest from sorrowTo these that shall not have good morrow;The gods be gentle to all these.Nay, if death be not, how shall they be?Nay, is there help in heaven? it may beAll things and lords of things shall cease.The stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes;The bronzèd brims are deep in ashes;The pale old lips of death are fed.Shall this dust gather flesh hereafter?Shall one shed tears or fall to laughter,At sight of all these poor old dead?Nay, as thou wilt; these know not of it;Thine eyes' strong weeping shall not profit,Thy laughter shall not give thee ease;Cry aloud, spare not, cease not crying,Sigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing,Thou shalt not raise up one of these.Burnt spices flash, and burnt wine hisses,The breathing flame’s mouth curls and kissesThe small dried rows of frankincense;All round the sad red blossoms smoulder,Flowers coloured like the fire, but colder,In sign of sweet things taken hence;Yea, for their sake and in death's favourThings of sweet shape and of sweet savourWe yield them, spice and flower and wine;Yea, costlier things than wine or spices,Whereof none knoweth how great the price is,And fruit that comes not of the vine.
From boy's pierced throat and girl's pierced bosomDrips, reddening round the blood-red blossom,The slow delicious bright soft blood,Bathing the spices and the pyre,Bathing the flowers and fallen fire,Bathing the blossom by the bud.Roses whose lips the flame has deadenedDrink till the lapping leaves are reddenedAnd warm wet inner petals weep;The flower whereof sick sleep gets leisure,Barren of balm and purple pleasure,Fumes with no native steam of sleep.Why will ye weep? what do ye weeping?For waking folk and people sleeping,And sands that fill and sands that fall,The days rose-red, the poppied hours,Blood, wine, and spice and fire and flowers,There is one end of one and all.Shall such an one lend love or borrow?Shall these be sorry for thy sorrow?Shall these give thanks for words or breath?Their hate is as the loving-kindness;The frontlet of their brows is blindness,The armlet of their arms is death.Lo, for no noise or light of thunderShall these grave-clothes be rent in sunder;He that hath taken, shall he give?He hath rent them: shall he bind together?He hand bound them: shall he break the tether?He hath slain them: shall he bid them live?A little sorrow, a little pleasure,Fate metes us from the dusty measureThat holds the date of all of us;We are born with travail and strong crying,And from the birth-day to the dyingThe likeness of our life is thus.
One girds himself to serve another,Whose father was the dust, whose motherThe little dead red worm therein;They find no fruit of things they cherish;The goodness of a man shall perish,It shall be one thing with his sin.In deep wet ways by grey old gardensFed with sharp spring the sweet fruit hardens;They know not what fruits wane or grow;Red summer burns to the utmost ember;They know not, neither can remember,The old years and flowers they used to know.Ah, for their sakes, so trapped and taken,For theirs, forgotten and forsaken,Watch, sleep not, gird thyself with prayer.Nay, where the heart of wrath is broken,Where long love ends as a thing spoken,How shall thy crying enter there?Though the iron sides of the old world falter,The likeness of them shall not alterFor all the rumour of periods,The stars and seasons that come after,The tears of latter men, the laughterOf the old unalterable gods.Far up above the years and nations,The high gods, clothed and crowned with patience,Endure through days of deathlike date;They bear the witness of things hidden;Before their eyes all life stands chidden,As they before the eyes of Fate.Not for their love shall Fate retire,Nor they relent for our desire,Nor the graves open for their call.The end is more than joy and anguish,Than lives that laugh and lives that languish,The poppied sleep, the end of all.
THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE(required for the Rite of Saturn)HERE, where the world is quiet;Here where all trouble seemsDead winds’ and spent waves’ riotIn doubtful dreams of dreams;I watch the green field growingFor reaping folk and sowing,For harvest-time and mowing,A sleepy world of streams.I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weep;Of what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hoursBlown buds and barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep.Here life has death for neighbour,And far from eye or earWan waves and wet winds labour,Weak ships and spirits steer;They drive adrift, and whitherThey wot not who make thither;But no such winds blow hither,And no such things grow here.No growth of moor or coppice,No heather-flower or vine,But bloomless buds of poppies,Green grapes of Proserpine,Pale beds of blowing rushesWhere no leaf blooms or blushesSave this whereout she crushesFor dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,In fruitless fields of corn,They bow themselves and slumberIll night till light is born;And like a soul belated,In heaven and hell unmated,By cloud and mist abatedComes out of darkness morn.Though one were strong as seven,He too with death shall dwell,Nor wake with wings in heaven,Nor weep for pains in hell;Though one were fair as roses,His beauty clouds and closes;And well though love reposes,In the end it is not well.Pale, beyond porch and portal,Crowned with calm leaves, she standsWho gathers all things mortalWith cold immortal hands;Her languid lips are sweeterThan love’s who fears to greet herTo men that mix and meet herFrom many times and lands.She waits for each and other,She waits for all men born;Forgets the earth her mother,The life of fruits and corn;And spring and seed and swallowTake wing for her and followWhere summer song rings hollowAnd flowers are put to scorn.There go the loves that wither,The old loves with wearier wings;And all dead years draw thither,And all disastrous things;Dead dreams of days forsaken,Blind buds that snows have shaken,Wild leaves that winds have taken,Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,And joy was never sure;To-day will die tomorrow;Time stoops to no man’s lure;And love, grown faint and fretful,With lips but half regretfulSighs, and with eyes forgetfulWeeps that no loves endure.From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernalNor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
Chorus “Before the Beginning of Years” from Atalanta(Required for the Rite of Sol)Before the beginning of years,There came to the making of manTime, with a gift of tears;Grief, with a glass that ran;Pleasure, with pain for leaven;Summer with flowers that fell;Remembrance fallen from heaven,And madness risen from hell;Strength without hands to smite,Love that endures for a breath:Night, the shadow of light,And life, the shadow of death.And the high gods took in handFire and the falling of tearsAnd a measure of shifting sandFrom under the feet of the years;And froth and drift of the sea;And dust of the labouring earth;And bodies of things to beIn the houses of death and birth;And wrought with weeping and laughter,And fashioned with loathing and loveWith life before and afterAnd death beneath and above,For a day and a night and a morrow,That his strength might endure for a spanWith travail and heavy sorrow,The holy spirit of man.From the winds of the north and the southThey gathered as unto strife;They breathed upon his mouth,They filled his body with life;Eyesight and speech they wroughtFor the veils of the soul thereinA time for labour and thought,A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,And love, and a space for delight,And beauty and length of days,And night, and sleep in the night.His speech is a burning fire;With lips he travaileth;In his heart is a blind desire,In his eyes foreknowledge of death;He weaves, and is cloaked with derision;Sows, and he shall not reap;His life is a watch or a visionBetween a sleep and a sleep.
HERTHA(Required for the Rite of Venus)I am that which began;Out of me the years roll;Out of me God and man;I am equal and whole;God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.Before ever land was,Before ever the sea,Or soft hair of the grass,Or fair limbs of the tree,Or the flesh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.First life on my sourcesFirst drifted and swam;Out of me are the forcesThat save it or damn;Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird; before God was, I am.Beside or above meNought is there to go;Love or unlove me,Unknow me or know,I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.I the mark that is missedAnd the arrows that miss,I the mouth that is kissedAnd the breath in the kiss,The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is.I am that thing which blessesMy spirit elate;That which caressesWith hands uncreateMy limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.But what thing dost thou now,Looking Godward, to cry'I am I, thou art thou,I am low, thou art high'?I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but theyself, thou art I.
I the grain and the furrow,The plough-cloven clodAnd the ploughshare drawn thorough,The germ and the sod,The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.Hast thou known how I fashioned thee,Child, underground?Fire that impassioned thee,Iron that bound,Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of or found?Canst thou say in thine heartThou hast seen with thine eyesWith what cunning of artThou wast wrought in what wiseBy what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to theskies?Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,Knowledge of me?Hath the wilderness told it thee?Hast thou learnt of the sea?Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counselwith thee?Have I set such a starTo show light on thy browThat thou sawest from afterWhat I show to thee now?Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou?What is here, dost thou know it?What was, hast thou known?Prophet nor poetNor tripod nor throneNor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.Mother, not maker,Born, and not made;Though her children forsake her,Allured or afraid,Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that haveprayed.
A creed is a rod,And a crown is of night;But this thing is God,To be man with thy might,To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.I am in thee to save theeAs my soul in thee saith;Give thou as I gave thee,Thy life-blood and breath,Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thydeath.Be the ways of thy givingAs mine were to thee;The free life of thy living,Be the gift of it free;Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give unto me.O children of banishment,Souls overcast,Were the lights ye see vanish meantAlway to last,Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.I that saw where ye trodThe dim paths of the nightSet the shadow called GodIn your skies to give light;But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.The tree many-rootedThat swells to the skyWith frondage red-fruited,The life-tree am I;In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leave: ye shall live and not die.But the Gods of your fashionThat take and that give,In their pity and passionThat scourge and forgive,They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shall die and notlive.
My own blood is what staunchesThe wounds in my bark;Stars caught in my branchesMake day of the dark,And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as aspark.Where dead ages hide underThe live roots of the tree,In my darkness the thunderMakes utterance of me;In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of thesea.That noise is of Time,As his feathers are spreadAnd his feet set to climbThrough the boughs overhead,And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with histread.The storm-winds of agesBlow through me and cease,The war-wind that rages,The spring-wind of peace,Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.All sounds of all changes,All shadows and lightsOn the world’s mountain-rangesAnd stream-riven heights,Whose tongue is the wind’s toungue and language of storm-clouds on earthshakingnights.All forms of all faces,All works of all handsIn unsearchable placesOf time-stricken lands,All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.
Though sore be my burdenAnd more than ye know,And my growth have no guerdonBut only to grow,Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.These too have their part in me,As I too in these;Such fire is at heart in me,Such sap is this tree's.Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.In the spring-coloured hoursWhen my mind was as May's,There brake forth of me flowersBy centuries of days,Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.And the sound of them springingAnd smell of their shootsWere as warmth and sweet singingAnd strength to my roots;And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were myfruits.I bid you but be;I have need not of prayer;I have need of you freeAs your mouths of mine air;That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.More fair than strange fruit isOf faiths ye espouse;In me only the root isThat blooms in your boughs;Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.In the darkening and whiteningAbysses adored,With dayspring and lightningFor lamp and for sword,God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.
O my sons, O too dutifulToward Gods not of me,Was not I enough beautiful?Was it hard to be free?For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.Lo, winged with world’s wonders,With miracles shod,With the fires of his thundersFor raiment and rod,God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.For his twilight is come on him,His anguish is here;And his spirits gaze dumb on him,Grown grey from his fear;And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.Thought made him and breaks him,Truth slays and forgives;But to you, as time takes him,This new thing it gives,Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.For truth only is living,Truth only is whole,And the love of his givingMan’s polestar and pole;Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.One birth of my bosom;One beam of mine eye;One topmost blossomThat scales the sky;Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.
Chorus “We have seen thee, o Love” from Atalanta.(Required for the Rite of Venus)We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love;Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove.Thy feet are as winds that divide the streams of the sea;Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee.Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire;Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire.And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid;Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid;As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath:But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death.For an evil blossom was bornOf sea-foam and the frothing of blood.Blood-red and bitter of fruit,And the seed of it laughter and tears,And the leaves of it madness and scorn;A bitter flower from the bud,Sprung of the sea without root,Sprung without graft from the years.The weft of the world was untornThat is woven of the day on the night,The hair of the hours was not whiteNor the raiment of time overworn,When a wave, a world's delight,A perilous goddess was born;And the waves of the sea as she cameClove, and the foam at her feet,Fawning, rejoiced to bring forthA flashing blossom, a flameFilling the heavens with heatTo the cold white ends of the north.And in air the clamorous birds,And men upon earth that hearSweet articulate words,Sweetly divided apart,
And in shallow and channel and mereThe rapid and footless herds,Rejoiced, being foolish of heart.For all they said upon earth,She is fair, she is white like a dove,And the life of the world in her breathBreathes, and is born at her birth;For they knew thee for mother of love,And knew thee not mother of death.What hadst thou to do being born,Mother, whose winds were at ease,As a flower of the springtime of corn,A flower of the foam of the seas?For bitter thou wast from thy birth,Aphrodite, mother of strife;For before thee some rest was on earth,A little respite from tears,A little pleasure of life;For life was not then as thou art,But as one that waxeth in yearsSweet-spoken, a fruitful wife;Earth had no thorn, and desireNo sting, neither death any dart;What hadst thou to do among these,Thou, clothed with a burning fire,Thou, girt with sorrow of heart,Thou, sprung of the seed of the seasAs an ear from the seed of the corn,As a brand plucked forth of a pyre,As a ray shed forth of the morn,For division of soul and disease,For a dart and a sting and a thorn?What ailed thee then to be born?Was there not evil enough,Mother, and anguish on earthBorn with a man at his birth,Waits underfoot, and aboveStorm out of heaven, and dearthShaken down from the shining thereof,Wrecks from afar overseas
And peril of shallow and firth,And tears that spring and increaseIn the barren places of mirth,That thou, having wings as a dove,Being girt with desire for a girth,That thou must come after these,That thou must lay on him love?Thou shouldst not so have been born:But death should have risen with thee,Mother, and visible fear,Grief, and the wringing of hands,And noise of many, that mourn;The smitten bosom, the kneeBowed, and in each man’s earA cry as of perishing lands,A moan as of people in prison,A tummult of infinite griefs;And a thunder of storms on the sands,And wailing of wives on the shore;And under thee newly arisenLoud shoals and shipwrecking reefs,Firece air and violent light;Sail rent and sundering oar,Darkness, and noises of night;Clashing of streams in the sea,Wave against wave as a sword,Clamour of currents, and foam;Rains making ruin on earth,Winds that wax ravenous and roamAs wolves in a wolfish horde;Fruits growing faint in the tree,And blind things dead in their birth;Famine, and blighting of corn,When thy time was come to be born.All these we know of; but theeWho shall discern or declare?In the uttermost ends of the seaThe light of thine eyelids and hair,The light of thy bosom as fire
Between the wheel of the sunAnd the flying flames of the air?Wilt thou turn thee not yet nor have pity,But abide with despair and desireAnd the crying of armies undone,Lamentation of one with anotherAnd breaking of city by city;The dividing of friend against friend,The severing of brother and brother;Wilt thou utterly bring to an end?Have mercy, mother!Chorus “When the hounds of spring” from Atalanta.(Required for the Rite of Luna)When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces,The mother of months in meadow or plainFills the shadows and windy placesWith lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;And the brown bright nightingale amorousIs half assuaged for ItylusFor the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.Come with bows bent and with emptying of quiversMaiden most perfect, lady of light,With a noise of winds and many rivers,With a clamour of water, and with might;Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!For the stars and the winds are unto herAs raiment, as songs of the harp-player;For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
For winter's rains and ruins are over,And all the season of snows and sins;The days dividing lover and lover,The light that loses, the night that wins;And time remembered is grief forgotten,And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,And in green underwood and coverBlossom by blossom the spring begins.The full streams feed on flower of rushes,Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,The fait fresh flame of the young year flushesFrom leaf to flower and flower to fruit;And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,And the oat is heard above the lyre,And the hoofèd heel of a satyr crushesThe chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,Follows with dancing and fills with delightThe Mæ nad and the Bassarid;And soft as lips that laugh and hideThe laughing leaves of the trees divide,And screen from seeing and leave in sightThe god pursuing, the maiden hid.The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hairOver her eyebrows hiding her eyes;The wild vine slipping down leaves bareHer bright breast shortening into sighs;The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,But the berried ivy catches and cleavesTo the limbs that glitter, the feet that scareThe wolf that follows, the faun that hides.
DOLORES(Not required in the Rites of Eleusis at all, included purely as an act of sado-masochismon my part: sadism in inflicting it on you, masochism in typing the whole bloody thing in)(Notre-dame de sept douleurs)Cold eyelids that hide like a jewelHard eyes that grow soft for an hour;The heavy white limbs, and the cruelRed mouth like a venemous flower;When these are gone by with their glories,What shall rest of thee then, what remain,O mystic and sombre Dolores,Our Lady of Pain?Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,And then they would haunt thee in heaven:Fierce midnights and famishing morrows.And the loves that complete and controlAll the joys of the flesh, all the sorrowsThat wear out the soul.O garment not golden but gilded,O garden where all men may dwell,O tower not of ivory, but buildedBy hands that reach heaven from hell;O mystical rose of the mire,O house not of gold but of gain,O house of unquenchable fire,Our Lady of Pain!O lips full of lust and of laughter,Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,Bite hard, lest remembrance come afterAnd press with new lips where you pressed.For my heart too springs up at the pressure,Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,Ere pain come in turn.
In yesterday’s reach and to-morrow’s,Out of sight though they lie of to-day,There have been and there yet shall be sorrowsThat smite not and bite not in play.The life and the love thou despisest,These hurt us indeed, and in vain,O wise among women, and wisest,Our Lady of Pain.Who gave thee thy wisdom? what storiesThat stung thee, what visions that smote?Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,When desire took thee first by the throat?What bud was the shell of a blossomThat all men may smell to and pluck?What milk fed thee first at what bosom?What sins gave thee suck?We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,Thou art noble and nude and antique;Libitina thy mother, PriapusThy father, a Tuscan and Greek.We play with light loves in the portal,And wince and relent and refrain;Loves die, and we know thee immortal,Our Lady of Pain.Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath,And alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death;Of languors rekindled and rallied,Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?Men touch them, and change in a triceThe lilies and languors of virtueFor the raptures and roses of vice;Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,These crown and caress thee and chain,O splendid and sterile Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
There are sins it may be to discover,There are deeds it may be to delight.What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,What new passions for daytime or night?What spells that they know not a word ofWhose lives are as leaves overblown?What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,Unwritten, unknown?Ah beautiful passionate bodyThat never has ached with a heart!On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,Though they sting till it shudder and smart,More kind than the love we adore is,They hurt not the heart or the brain,O bitter and tender Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.As our kisses relax and redouble,From the lips and the foam and the fangsShall no new sin be born for men’s trouble,No dream of impossible pangs?With the sweet of the sins of old agesWilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,Too bitter the core.Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,And bared all thy beauties to one?Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,If the worst that can be has been done?But sweet as the rind was the core is;We are fain of thee still, we are fain,O sanguine and subtle Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.By the hunger of change and emotionBy the thirst of unbearable things,By despair, the twin-born of devotion,By the pleasure that winces and stings,The delight that consumes the desire,The desire that outruns the delight,By the cruelty deaf as a fireAnd blind as the night,
By the ravenous teeth that have smittenThrough the kisses that blossom and bud,By the lips intertwisted and bittenTill the foam has a savour of blood,By the pulse as it rises and falters,By the hands as they slacken and strain,I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,Our Lady of PainWilt thou smile as a woman disdainingThe light fire in the veins of a boy?But he comes to the end,without feigning,Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;Less careful of labour and gloryThan the elders whose hair has uncurled;And young, but with fancies as hoaryAnd grey as the world.I have passed from the outermost portalTo the shrine where a sin is a prayer;What care though the service be mortal?O our Lady of Torture, what care?All thine the last wine that I pour is,The last in the chalice we drain,O fierce and luxurious Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.All thine the new wine of desire,The fruit of four lips as they clungTill the hair and the eyelids took fire,The foam of a serpentine tongue,The froth of the serpents of pleasure,More salt than the foam of the sea,Now felt as a flame, now at leisureAs wine shed for me.Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,Marked cross from the womb and perverse!They have found out the secrets to cozenThe gods that constrain us and curse;They alone, they are wise, and none other;Give me place, even me, in their train,O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,Our Lady of Pain.
For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit thereof dust;No thorns go as deep as a rose’s,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into corpses or wives;And marriage and death and divisionMake barren our lives.And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,And satiate with comfortless hours;And we know thee, how all men belie thee,And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;The passion that slays and recovers,The pangs and the kisses that rainOn the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,Our Lady of Pain.The desire of thy furious embracesIs more than the wisdom of years,On the blossom though blood lie in traces,Though the foliage be sodden with tears.For the lords in whose keeping the door isThat opens on all who draw breathGave the cypress to love, my Dolores,The myrtle to death.And they laughed, changing hands in the measureAnd they mixed and made peace after strife;Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;Death tingled with blood, and was life.Like lovers they melted and tingled,In the dusk of thine innermost fane;In the darkness they murmered and mingled,Our Lady of Pain.In a twilight where virtues are vices,In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,To a tune that enthralls and entices,They were wed, and the twain were as one.For the tune from thine altar hath soundedSince God bade the world’s work begin,And the fume of the incense abounded,To sweeten the sin.
Love listens, and paler than ashes,Through his curls as the crown on them slips,Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,And laughs with insatiable lips.Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,With music that scares the profane;Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,Our Lady of Pain.Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,In his dreams shall he feel thee and ache;Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue himAsleep and awake.Thou shalt touch and make redder his rosesWith juice not of fruit nor of bud;When the sense in the spirit reposes,Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,Who would live and not languish or feign,O sleepless and deadly Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,In a lull of the fires of thy life,Of the days without name, without number,When thy will stung the world into strife;When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passionSmote kings as they revelled in Rome;And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,Foam-white, from the foam?When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;When the city lay red from thy rods,And thine hands were as arrows to scatterThe children of change and their gods;When the blood of thy foemen made ferventA sand never moist from the main,As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,Our Lady of Pain.
On sands by the storm never shaken,Nor wet from the washing of tides;Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;But red from the print of thy paces,Made smooth for the world and its lords,Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,And splendid with swords.There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,Drew bitter and perilous breath;There torments laid hold on the treasureOf limbs too delicious for death;When thy gardens were lit with live torches;When the world was a steed for thy rein;When the nations lay prone in thy porches,Our Lady of Pain.When, with flame all around him aspirant,Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,The implacable beautiful tyrant,Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;And a sound as the sound of loud waterSmote far through the flight of the fires,And mixed with the lightning of slaughterA thunder of lyres.Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,For these, in a world of new things?But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,No hunger compel to complainThose lips that no bloodshed could satiate,Our Lady of Pain.As of old when the world’s heart was lighter,Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,The white wealth of thy body made whiterBy the blushes of amorous blows,And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,And branded by kisses that bruise;When all shall be gone that now lingers,Ah, what shall we lose?
Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,And thy limbs are as melodies yet,And move to the music of passionWith lithe and lascivious regret.What ailed us, O gods, to desert youFor creeds that refuse and restrain?Come down and redeem us from virtue,Our Lady of Pain.All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,But the flame has not fallen from this;Though obscure be the god, and though namelessThe eyes and the hair that we kiss;Low fires that love sits by and forgesFresh heads for his arrows and thine;Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgiesWith kisses and wine.Thy skin changes country and colour,And shrivels or swells to a snake’s.Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,We know it, the flames and the flakes,Red brands on it smitten and bitten,Round skies where a star is a stain,And the leaves with thy litanies written,Our Lady of Pain.On thy bosom though many a kiss be,There are none such as knew it of old.Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,Male ringlets or feminine gold,That thy lips met with under the statue,Whence a look shot out sharp after thievesFrom the eyes of the garden-god at youAcross the fig-leaves?Then still, through dry seasons and moister,One god hath a wreath to his shrine;Then love was the pearl of his oyster,And Venus rose red out of wine.We have all done amiss, choosing ratherSuch loves as the wise gods disdain;Intercede for us thou with thy father,Our Lady of Pain.
In spring he had crowns of his garden,Red corn in the heat of the year,Then hoary green olives that hardenWhen the grape-blossom freezes with fear;And milk-budded myrtles with VenusAnd vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;And ye said, ‘We have seen, he hath seen us,A visible God.What broke off the garlands that girt you?What sundered you spirit and clay?Weak sins yet alive are as virtueTo the strength of the sins of that day.For dried is the blood of thy lover,Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;Cry aloud, ‘Will he rise and recover,Our Lady of Pain?’Cry aloud; for the old word is broken:Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,And rears not the bountiful tokenAnd spreads not the fatherly feast.From the midmost of Ida, from shadyRecesses that murmer at morn,They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,A goddess new-born.And the chaplets of old are above us,And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;Old poets outsing and outlove us,And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.Who shall kiss, in thy father’s own city,With such lips as he sang with, again?Intercede for us all of thy pity,Our Lady of Pain.Out of Dindymus heavily ladenHer lions draw bound and unfedA mother, a mortal, a maiden,A queen over death and the dead.She is cold, and her habit is lowly,Her temple of branches and sods;Most fruitful and virginal, holy,A mother of gods.
She hath wasted with fire thine high places,She hath hidden and marred and made sadThe fair limbs of the Loves, the fair facesOf gods that were goodly and glad.She slays, and her hands are not bloody;She moves as a moon in the wane,White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,Our Lady of Pain.They shall pass and their places be taken,The gods and the priests that are pure.They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?Death laughs, breathing close and relentlessIn the nostrils and eyelids of lust,With a pinch in his fingers of scentlessAnd delicate dust.But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,As the rod to a serpent that hisses,As the serpent again to a rod.Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;Thou shalt live until evil be slain,And good shall die first, said thy prophet,Our Lady of Pain.Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,Sin’s child by incestuous Death?Did he find out in fire at his waking,Or discern as his eyelids lost light,When the bands of the body were breakingAnd all came in sight?Who has known all the evil before us,Or the tyrannous secrets of time?Though we match not the dead men that bore usAt a song, at a kiss, at a crime—Though the heathen outface and outlive us,And our lives and our longings are twain—Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,Our Lady of Pain.
Who are we that embalm and embrace theeWith spices and savours of song?What is time, that his children should face thee?What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?I could hurt thee—but pain would delight thee;Or caress thee—but love would repel;And the lovers whose lips would excite theeAre serpents in hell.Who now shall content thee as they did,Thy lovers, when temples were builtAnd the hair of the sacrifice braidedAnd the blood of the sacrifice split,In Lampsacus fervent with faces,In Aphaca red from thy reign,Who embraced thee with awful embraces,Our Lady of Pain?Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?Do their hands as we touch come between us?Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?From their lips have thy lips taken fever,With the blood of their bodies grown red?Hast thou left upon earth a believerIf these men are dead?They were purple of raiment and golden,Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,In marvellous chambers of thine.They are fled, and their footprints escape us,Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,O daughter of Death and Priapus,Our Lady of Pain.What ails us to fear overmeasure,To praise thee with timorous breath,O mistress and mother of pleasure,The one thing as certain as death?We shall change as the things that we cherish,Shall fade as they faded before,As foam upon water shall perish,As sand upon shore.
We shall know what the darkness discoversIf the grave-pit be shallow or deep;And our fathers of old, and our lovers,We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.We shall see whether hell be not heaven,Find out whether tares be not grain,And the joys of thee seventy times seven,Our lady of Pain.*** ***** ***
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