Temptation Of St. Anthony — Chapter Eight
V.
ANTHONY (_walking to and fro, slowly_).
"That one, indeed, seems in himself equal to all the powers of Hell!
"Nebuchadnezzar did not so much dazzle me with his splendours;--the Queen of Sheba herself charmed me less deeply.
"His manner of speaking of the gods compels one to feel a desire to know them.
"I remember having beheld hundreds of them at one time, in the island of Elephantius, in the time of Diocletian.
The emperor had ceded to the Nomads a great tract of country, upon the condition that they should guard the frontiers; and the treaty was concluded in the name of the 'Powers Invisible.'
For the gods of each people were unknown unto the other people.
"The Barbarians had brought theirs with them.
They occupied the sand-hills bordering the river.
We saw them supporting their idols in their arms, like great paralytic children;--others, paddling through the cataracts upon trunks of palm tree, displayed from afar off the amulets hung about their necks, the tattooings upon their breasts; and these things were not more sinful than the religion of the Greeks, the Asiatics, and the Romans!
"When I was dwelling in the temple of Heliopolis I would often consider the things I beheld upon the walls:--vultures bearing sceptres, crocodiles playing upon lyres, faces of men with the bodies of serpents, cow-headed women prostrating themselves before ithyphallic gods:--and their supernatural forms attracted my thoughts to other worlds.
I longed to know that which drew the gaze of all those calm and mysterious eyes.
"If matter can exert such power, it must surely contain a spirit.
The souls of the Gods are attached to their images ...
"Those possessing the beauty of forms might seduce.
But the others those of loathsome or terrible aspect ...
how can men believe in them?..."
(_And he beholds passing over the surface of the ground,--leaves, stones, shells, branches of trees,--then a variety of hydropical dwarfs: these are gods.
He bursts into a laugh.
He hears another laugh behind him;--and Hilarion appears, in the garb of a hermit, far taller than before, colossal.
_) ANTHONY (_who feels no surprise at seeing him_).
"How stupid one must be to worship such things!"
HILARION.
"Aye!
--exceedingly stupid!"
(_Then idols of all nations and of all epochs--of wood, of metal, of granite, of feathers, of skins sewn together,--pass before them.
_ _The most ancient of all anterior to the Deluge are hidden under masses of seaweed hanging down over them like manes.
Some that are too long for their bases, crack in all their joints, and break their own backs in walking.
Others have rents torn in their bellies through which sand trickles out.
_ _Anthony and Hilarion are prodigiously amused.
They hold their sides for laughter.
Then appear sheep-headed idols.
They totter upon their bandy-legs, half-open their eye-lids, and stutter like the dumb,_ "Ba!
ba!
ba!"
_The more that the idols commence to resemble the human forms, the more they irritate Anthony.
He strikes them with his fist, kicks them, attacks them with fury.
They become frightful,--with lofty plumes, eyes like balls, fingers terminated by claws, the jaws of sharks.
_ _And before these gods men are slaughtered upon altars of stone; others are brayed alive in huge mortars, crushed under chariots, nailed upon trees.
There is one all of red-hot iron with the horns of a bull, who devours children.
_) ANTHONY.
"Horror!"
HILARION.
"But the gods always demand tortures--and suffering.
Even thine desired ..."
ANTHONY (_weeping_).
"Ah!
say no more!
--do not speak to me!"
(_The space girdled by the rocks suddenly changes into a valley.
A herd of cattle are feeding upon the short grass.
_ _The herdman who leads them, observes a cloud;--and in a sharp voice, shouts out words of command, as if to heaven.
_) HILARION.
"Because he needs rain, he seeks by certain chants to compel the King of heaven to open the fecund cloud."
ANTHONY (_laughing_).
"Verily, such pride is the extreme of foolishness!"
HILARION.
"Why dost thou utter exorcisms?"
(_The valley changes into a sea of milk, motionless and infinite.
In its midst floats a long cradle formed by the coils of a serpent, whose many curving heads shade, like a dais, the god slumbering upon its body.
_ _He is beardless, young, more beautiful than a girl, and covered with diaphanous veils.
The pearls of his tiara gleam softly like moons; a chaplet of stars is entwined many times about his breast, and with one hand beneath his head, he slumbers with the look of one who dreams after wine.
_ _A woman crouching at his feet, awaits the moment of his awaking.
_) HILARION.
"Such is the primordial duality of the Brahmans,--the Absolute being inexpressible by any form."
(_From the navel of the god has grown the stem of a lotus flower; it blossoms, and within its chalice appears another god with three faces.
_) ANTHONY.
"How strange an invention!"
HILARION.
"Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but one and the same Person!"
(_The three faces separate; and three great gods appear.
_ _The first, who is pink, bites the end of his great toe.
_ _The second, who is blue, uplifts his four arms.
_ _The third, who is green, wears a necklace of human skulls.
_ _Before them instantly arise three goddesses--one is enveloped in a net; another offers a cup; the third brandishes a bow.
_ [Illustration: ...
instantly arise three goddesses] _And these gods, these goddesses, decuple themselves, multiply.
Arms grow from their shoulders; at the end of these arms hands appear bearing standards, axes, bucklers, swords, parasols and drums.
Fountains gush from their heads, plants grow from their nostrils.
_ _Riding upon birds rocked in palanquins, enthroned upon seats of gold, standing in ivory niches,--they dream, voyage, command, drink wine, respire the breath of flowers.
Dancing girls whirl in the dance; giants pursue monsters; at the entrances of grottoes solitaries meditate.
Eyes cannot be distinguished from stars; nor clouds from banderolles;
peacocks quench their thirst at rivers of gold dust; the embroidery of pavilions seems to blend with the spots of leopards; coloured rays intercross in the blue air, together with flying arrows, and swinging censers.
_ _And all this develops like a lofty frieze, resting its base upon the rocks, and rising to the sky.
_) ANTHONY (_dazzled by the sight_).
"How vast is their number!
What do they seek?"
HILARION.
"The god who rubs his abdomen with his elephant-trunk, is the solar Deity, the inspiring spirit of wisdom.
"That other whose six heads are crowned with towers, and whose fourteen arms wield javelins,--is the prince of armies,--the Fire-Consumer.
"The old man riding the crocodile washes the soul of the dead upon the shore.
They will be tormented by that black woman with the putrid teeth, who is the Ruler of Hell.
"That chariot drawn by red mares, driven by one who has no legs, bears the master of the sun through heaven's azure.
The moon-god accompanies him, in a litter drawn by three gazelles.
"Kneeling upon the back of a parrot, the Goddess of Beauty presents to Love, her son, her rounded breast.
Behold her now, further off, leaping for joy in the meadows.
Look!
Look!
Coiffed with dazzling mitre, she trips lightly over the ears of growing wheat, over the waves; she rises in air, extending her power over all elements.
"And among these gods are the Genii of the winds, of the planets, of the months, of the days,--a hundred thousand others;--multiple are their aspects, rapid their transformations.
Behold, there is one who changes from a fish into a tortoise: he assumes the form of a boar, the shape of a dwarf."
ANTHONY.
"Wherefore?"
HILARION.
"That he may preserve the equilibrium of the universe, and combat the works of evil.
But life exhausts itself; forms wear away;
and they must achieve progression in their metamorphoses."
(_All upon a sudden appears a_ NAKED MAN _seated in the midst of the sand, with legs crossed.
_) (_A large halo vibrates, suspended in air behind him.
The little ringlets of his black hair in which blueish tints shift symmetrically surround a protuberance upon the summit of his skull.
His arms, which are very long, hang down against his sides.
His two hands rest flat upon his thighs, with the palms open.
The soles of his feet are like the faces of two blazing suns; and he remains completely motionless--before Anthony and Hilarion--with all the gods around him, rising in tiers above the rocks, as if upon the benches of some vast circus.
His lips, half-open; and he speaks in a deep voice_): "I am the Master of great charities, the succor of all creatures; and not less to the profane than to believers, do I expound the law.
"That I might deliver the world, I resolved to be born among men.
The gods wept when I departed from them.
"I sought me first a woman worthy to give me birth: a woman of warrior race, the wife of a king, exceedingly good, excessively beautiful, with body firm as adamant;--and at time of the full moon, without the auxiliation of any male, I entered her womb.
"I issued from it by the right side.
Stars stopped in their courses."
HILARION (_murmurs between his teeth_).
"And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy!"
[1] (_Anthony watches more attentively.
_) THE BUDDHA[2] (_continuing_).
"From the furthest recesses of the Himalayas, a holy man one hundred years of age, hurried to see me."
HILARION.
"A man named Simeon ...
who should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord."
[3] THE BUDDHA.
"I was led unto the schools; and it was found that I knew more than the teachers."
HILARION.
"...
In the midst of the doctors ...
and all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom!"
[4] (_Anthony makes a sign to Hilarion to be silent.
_) THE BUDDHA.
"Continually did I meditate in the gardens.
The shadows of the trees turned with the turning of the sun; but the shadow of that which sheltered me turned not.
"None could equal me in the knowledge of the Scriptures, the enumeration of atoms, the conduct of elephants, the working of wax, astronomy, poetry, pugilism, all the exercises and all the arts!
"In accordance with custom, I took to myself a wife; and I passed the days in my kingly palace;--clad in pearls, under a rain of perfumes, refreshed by the fans of thirty thousand women,--watching my peoples from the height of my terraces adorned with fringes of resonant bells.
"But the sight of the miseries of the world turned me away from pleasure.
I fled.
"I begged my way upon the high roads, clad myself in rags gathered within the sepulchres;--and, hearing of a most learned hermit, I chose to become his slave.
I guarded his gate!
I washed his feet.
"Thus I annihilated all sensation, all joy, all languor.
"Then, concentrating my thoughts within vaster meditation, I learned to know the essence of things, the illusion of forms.
"Soon I exhausted the science of the Brahmans.
They are gnawed by covetousness and desire under their outward aspect of austerity; they daub themselves with filth, they live upon thorns,--hoping to arrive at happiness by the path of death!"
HILARION....
"Pharisees, hypocrites, whited sepulchres, generation of vipers!"
THE BUDDHA.
"I also accomplished wondrous things,--eating but one grain of rice each day (and the grains of rice in those times were no larger than at present)--my hair fell off; my body became black; my eyes receding within their sockets, seemed even as stars beheld at the bottom of a well.
"During six years I kept myself motionless, exposed to the flies, the lions and the serpents; and the great summer suns, the torrential rains, lightnings and snows, hails and tempests,--all of these I endured without even the shelter of my lifted hand.
"The travellers who passed by, believing me dead, cast clods of earth upon me!
"Only the temptation of the Devil remained!
"I summoned him.
"His sons came,--hideous, scale-covered, nauseous as charnel-houses,--shrieking, hissing, bellowing; interclashing their panoplies, rattling together the bones of dead men.
Some belched flame through their nostrils; some made darkness about me with their wings; some wore chaplets of severed fingers; some drank serpent-venom from the hollows of their hands;--they were swine-headed; they were rhinoceros-headed or toad-headed; they assumed all forms that inspire loathing or affright."
ANTHONY (_to himself_).
"I also endured all that in other days!"
THE BUDDHA.
"Then did he send me his daughters--beautiful with daintily painted faces, and wearing girdles of gold.
Their teeth were whiter than the jasmine-flower; their thighs round as the trunk of an elephant.
Some extended their arms and yawned, that they might so display the dimples of their elbows; some winked their eyes; some laughed; some half-opened their garments.
There were blushing virgins, matrons replete with dignity, queens who came with great trains of baggage and of slaves."
ANTHONY (_aside_).
"Ah!
he too ..."
THE BUDDHA.
"Having vanquished the Demon, I nourished myself for twelve years with perfumes only;--and as I had acquired the five virtues, the five faculties, the ten forces, the eighteen substances, and had entered into the four spheres of the invisible world, Intelligence became mine!
I became the Buddha."
[Illustration: Intelligence became mine!
I became the Buddha.
] (_All the gods bow themselves down.
Those having several heads, bend them all simultaneously.
He lifts his mighty hand aloft, and resumes_:) "That I might effect the deliverance of beings, I have made hundreds of thousands of sacrifices!
To the poor I gave robes of silk, beds, chariots, houses, heaps of gold and of diamonds.
I gave my hands to the one-handed, my legs to the lame, my eyes to the blind;--even my head I severed for the sake of the decapitated.
In the day that I was King, I gave away provinces;--when I was a Brahman I despised no one.
When I was a solitary, I spake kindly words to the robber who slew me.
When I was a tiger I allowed myself to die of hunger.
"And having, in this last existence, preached the law, nothing now remains for me to do.
The great period is accomplished!
Men, animals, the gods, the bamboos, the oceans, the mountains, the sand-grains of the Ganges, together with the myriad myriads of the stars,--all shall die;--and until the time of the new births, a flame shall dance upon the wrecks of worlds destroyed!"
(_Then a great dizziness comes upon the gods.
They stagger, fall into convulsions, and vomit forth their existences.
Their crowns burst apart; their banners fly away.
They tear off their attributes, their sexes, fling over their shoulders the cups from which they quaffed immortality, strangle themselves with their serpents, vanish in smoke;--and when all have disappeared_ ...
) HILARION (_solemnly exclaims_): "Thou hast even now beheld the belief of many hundreds of millions of men."
(_Anthony is prostrate upon the ground, covering his face with his hands.
Hilarion, with his back turned to the cross, stands near him and watches him.
_
