{"collection":"African","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/afr/ife/ife6.htm","path":"afr/ife/ife6.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/afr/ife/ife6.htm","text":"Sacred-Texts Africa Index Previous Next\n| | Ar\u00e1ba continues: O\u00edbo I have told you of the days When Odud\u00fawa and Or\u00edsha fought; But of the times of peace our annals hold Strange legends also. . . Now in the age when mirth And Odud\u00fawa reigned, grief ever-growing Befell Great M\u00f3rimi, the wife of skilled | \n| M\u00f3rimi has no sons, | Ob\u00e1lufon\u2014for while his lesser wives Proudly bore many sons unto their lord, A daughter only, young Ad\u00e9to\u00fan, Was granted to his queen. And as the years Lagged by, a strangeness which he always seemed To keep in hiding chequered the fair day With doubtings, and waylaid her in the paths Of her fond nightly dreams. Once with the Spring, She saw the clustered tree-tops breaking into leaf Copper and red and every green, and she Remembered how beneath the new year's buds It was ordained by Pereg\u00fan \u2019Gbo, lord Of uninhabitable woods that Life p. 36 Should spring from Forest, and Life from Life,\u2014till all The Woods were gladdened with the voice of beasts And birds\u2014and thus she reasoned: \"Is it not told How Pereg\u00fan \u2019Gbo1 spoke, and from the womb Of Forest leaped the sloth that laughs by night? How 'mid the boughs the sloth brought forth the ape That bore the leopard? And did not Pereg\u00fan Watch o'er the birth of young Or\u00fanmila, And ever, when the morrow's sorrowing dawn Must yield up to the leaguing fiends the child's Fair life, did not the watchful God send down His messenger to stay the grasping hand Of Death? Thus do the Gods; and surely one Will give me sons. Ah! whom must I appease?\" | \n| She consults \u00cdfa: | Quick with new hope Great M\u00f3rimi sought out A priest of \u00cdfa2 in his court yard dim, Where from each beam and smoke-grimed pillar hung The charms the wise man set to guard his home, His wives and children from the ills contrived p. 37 By the bad spirits. To her gift she whispered, And laid it on Okp\u00e9ll\u00e8; and the priest Seizing the charm of \u00cdfa said: \"Okp\u00e9ll\u00e8, To you the woe of M\u00f3rimi is known; You only can reveal its secret cause, Its unknown cure!\" Then he laid down the charm And \u00d3ffun K\u00e1nran stood before them. The face Of \u00cdfa's priest was troubled, and he said: | \n| Who tells her to sacrifice her daughter. | \"M\u00f3rimi, this is the message of my lord \u00cdfa: a son, nay many sons, you long for. You have a daughter, and your husband's love Was yours. The Gods would give you many sons, But in your path stands \u00c9shu, the Undoer, Whose shrine calls out for blood, for sacrifice: Ad\u00e9to\u00fan.\" Without hope M\u00f3rimi Went forth, and loathing of the ways of the Gods Possessed her\u2014while indignation fed her love Of her one child. . . . | \n| | The months passed by: Moons came, | \n| | And in the smiles of happier wives she read A mockery; Moons faded from the sky, And grief and her Ad\u00e9to\u00fan remained Companions of her hours. At last she cried: \"But sons l asked for; I will go again p. 38 And pray for sons and my Ad\u00e9to\u00fan. The last word is not yet. Ol\u00f3kun's tide Has ebbed: will it not flow again?\" | \n| | Yet hope | \n| She consults \u00cdfa again. | Went not with M\u00f3rimi to the dark court Of \u00cdfa's priest; and when a torch disclosed The self-same bode of sorrow in the dusk\u2014 To her drear home Great M\u00f3rimi fled back In terror of the deed which love commanded, And love condemned. . . . Silently in the night | \n| \u00c9di advises her to act on \u00cdfa's message. | Came \u00c9di, the Perverter, the smooth of tongue, Who with his guileful reasoning compels To conscious sin: \"The forms of messengers Reveal the thoughts of \u00cdfa, and the ears Of \u00cdfa, the God-Messenger, have heard The far-off, thundrous voice. Would you hold back? Is not the birth of Nations the first law Ar\u00e1mf\u00e8 gave? Can any wife withstand His will, or maid stern \u00d3gun's call?1 To-day Is yours, oh, mother of great kings that shall be: The green shoots greet the Spring-rain and forget The barren months, and M\u00f3rimi shall know Her grief and her reproach no more.\" Then doubt p. 39 Seized M\u00f3rimi but still she answered; \"Will Gods Not give? Is the grim World a morning market Where they drive bargains with the folk they made? Are babes as bangles which Ob\u00e1lufon Fashions to barter?\" But \u00c9di answered her: \"But once Ar\u00e1mf\u00e8 spoke to Odud\u00fawa, And with what heavy hearts the Gods went forth From Heaven's valleys to the blackness! Now thrice,1 Thrice to the woman M\u00f3rimi the word Has come\u2014with promise of the World's desire: Not every wife is chosen for the mother Of a house of kings. And think!\u2014Ob\u00e1lufon!\" Then \u00c9di, the Perverter, hid his form In darkness; and with the dawn a young girl lay | \n| The death of Ad\u00e9to\u00fan. | On the Undoer \u00c9shu's altar\u2014while The lazy blue of early morning smoke Crept up the pass between the hills. | \n1 See Note VI on M\u00f3rimi's sacrifice.\n1 See Note XI on Pereg\u00fan \u2019Gbo.\n2 See Note XII on the divination of \u00cdfa.\n1 \u00d3gun kills unmarried girls of marriageable age.\n1 According to the legend, M\u00f3rimi consulted \u00cdfa three times before acting on his advice.","title":"IV. THE SACRIFICE OF M\u00d3RIMI.","type":"page"}