{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_43611/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_43611","id":"gutenberg_43611","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43611","summary":null,"tags":["Category: British Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Loneliness -- Fiction","Mysticism -- Fiction","Nobel Prizes in Literature","Religion -- Fiction","Spiritual life -- Fiction"],"text":"THE TABLES OF THE LAW; &\nTHE ADORATION OF THE MAGI\n\n\n\n\n_Five hundred and ten copies printed;\ntype distributed._      _No._ 311\n\n\n\n\nTHE TABLES OF THE LAW; &\nTHE ADORATION OF THE MAGI\nBY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS\n\n\n\n\nTHE SHAKESPEARE HEAD PRESS\nSTRATFORD-UPON-AVON MCMXIV\n\n\n\n\nTHE TABLES OF THE LAW\n\n\n\n\nTHE TABLES OF THE LAW\n\n\nI\n\n'Will you permit me, Aherne,' I said, 'to ask you a question, which I\nhave wanted to ask you for years, and have not asked because we have\ngrown nearly strangers? Why did you refuse the berretta, and almost\nat the last moment? When you and I lived together, you cared neither\nfor wine, women, nor money, and had thoughts for nothing but theology\nand mysticism.' I had watched through dinner for a moment to put my\nquestion, and ventured now, because he had thrown off a little of\nthe reserve and indifference which, ever since his last return from\nItaly, had taken the place of our once close friendship. He had just\nquestioned me, too, about certain private and almost sacred things, and\nmy frankness had earned, I thought, a like frankness from him.\n\nWhen I began to speak he was lifting to his lips a glass of that old\nwine which he could choose so well and valued so little; and while\nI spoke, he set it slowly and meditatively upon the table and held\nit there, its deep red light dyeing his long delicate fingers. The\nimpression of his face and form, as they were then, is still vivid\nwith me, and is inseparable from another and fanciful impression:\nthe impression of a man holding a flame in his naked hand. He was to\nme, at that moment, the supreme type of our race, which, when it has\nrisen above, or is sunken below, the formalisms of half-education and\nthe rationalisms of conventional affirmation and denial, turns away,\nunless my hopes for the world and for the Church have made me blind,\nfrom practicable desires and intuitions towards desires so unbounded\nthat no human vessel can contain them, intuitions so immaterial that\ntheir sudden and far-off fire leaves heavy darkness about hand and\nfoot. He had the nature, which is half monk, half soldier of fortune,\nand must needs turn action into dreaming, and dreaming into action;\nand for such there is no order, no finality, no contentment in this\nworld. When he and I had been students in Paris, we had belonged to a\nlittle group which devoted itself to speculations about alchemy and\nmysticism. More orthodox in most of his beliefs than Michael Robartes,\nhe had surpassed him in a fanciful hatred of all life, and this hatred\nhad found expression in the curious paradox--half borrowed from some\nfanatical monk, half invented by himself--that the beautiful arts were\nsent into the world to overthrow nations, and finally life herself, by\nsowing everywhere unlimited desires, like torches thrown into a burning\ncity. This idea was not at the time, I believe, more than a paradox,\na plume of the pride of youth; and it was only after his return to\nIreland that he endured the fermentation of belief which is coming upon\nour people with the reawakening of their imaginative life.\n\nPresently he stood up, saying: 'Come, and I will show you, for you at\nany rate will understand,' and taking candles from the table, he lit\nthe way into the long paved passage that led to his private chapel. We\npassed between the portraits of the Jesuits and priests--some of no\nlittle fame--his family had given to the Church; and engravings and\nphotographs of pictures that had especially moved him; and the few\npaintings his small fortune, eked out by an almost penurious abstinence\nfrom the things most men desire, had enabled him to buy in his travels.\nThe pictures that I knew best, for they had hung there longest,\nwhether reproductions or originals, were of the Sienese School, which\nhe had studied for a long time, claiming that it alone of the schools\nof the world pictured not the world but what is revealed to saints in\ntheir dreams and visions. The Sienese alone among Italians, he would\nsay, could not or would not represent the pride of life, the pleasure\nin swift movement or sustaining strength, or voluptuous flesh. They\nwere so little interested in these things that there often seemed to\nbe no human body at all under the robe of the saint, but they could\nrepresent by a bowed head, or uplifted face, man's reverence before\nEternity as no others could, and they were at their happiest when\nmankind had dwindled to a little group silhouetted upon a golden abyss,\nas if they saw the world habitually from far off. When I had praised\nsome school that had dipped deeper into life, he would profess to\ndiscover a more intense emotion than life knew in those dark outlines.\n'Put even Francesca, who felt the supernatural as deeply,' he would\nsay, 'beside the work of Siena, and one finds a faint impurity in his\nawe, a touch of ghostly terror, where love and humbleness had best\nbeen all.' He had often told me of his hope that by filling his mind\nwith those holy pictures he would help himself to attain at last to\nvision and ecstasy, and of his disappointment at never getting more\nthan dreams of a curious and broken beauty. But of late he had added\npictures of a different kind, French symbolistic pictures which he had\nbought for a few pounds from little-known painters, English and French\npictures of the School of the English Pre-Raphaelites; and now he stood\nfor a moment and said, 'I have changed my taste. I am fascinated a\nlittle against my will by these faces, where I find the pallor of souls\ntrembling between the excitement of the flesh and the excitement of the\nspirit, and by landscapes that are created by heightening the obscurity\nand disorder of nature. These landscapes do not stir the imagination\nto the energies of sanctity but as to orgiac dancing and prophetic\nfrenzy.' I saw with some resentment new images where the old ones had\noften made that long gray, dim, empty, echoing passage become to my\neyes a vestibule of Eternity.\n\nAlmost every detail of the chapel, which we entered by a narrow Gothic\ndoor, whose threshold had been worn smooth by the secret worshippers\nof the penal times, was vivid in my memory; for it was in this chapel\nthat I had first, and when but a boy, been moved by the medi\u00e6valism\nwhich is now, I think, the governing influence in my life. The only\nthing that seemed new was a square bronze box which stood upon the\naltar before the six unlighted candles and the ebony crucifix, and was\nlike those made in ancient times of more precious substances to hold\nthe sacred books. Aherne made me sit down on an oak bench, and having\nbowed very low before the crucifix, took the bronze box from the altar,\nand sat down beside me with the box upon his knees.\n\n'You will perhaps have forgotten,' he said, 'most of what you have\nread about Joachim of Flora, for he is little more than a name to even\nthe well read. He was an abbot in Cortale in the twelfth century,\nand is best known for his prophecy, in a book called _Expositio in\nApocalypsin_, that the Kingdom of the Father was passed, the Kingdom\nof the Son passing, the Kingdom of the Spirit yet to come. The\nKingdom of the Spirit was to be a complete triumph of the Spirit, the\n_spiritualis intelligentia_ he called it, over the dead letter. He had\nmany followers among the more extreme Franciscans, and these were\naccused of possessing a secret book of his called the _Liber Inducens\nin Evangelium \u00c6ternum_. Again and again groups of visionaries were\naccused of possessing this terrible book, in which the freedom of the\nRenaissance lay hidden, until at last Pope Alexander IV. had it found\nand cast into the flames. I have here the greatest treasure the world\ncontains. I have a copy of that book; and see what great artists have\nmade the robes in which it is wrapped. The greater portion of the book\nitself is illuminated in the Byzantine style, which so few care for\nto-day, but which moves me because these tall, emaciated angels and\nsaints seem to have less relation to the world about us than to an\nabstract pattern of flowing lines that suggest an imagination absorbed\nin the contemplation of Eternity. Even if you do not care for so formal\nan art, you cannot help seeing that work where there is so much gold,\nand of that purple colour which has gold dissolved in it, was valued at\na great price in its day. But it was only at the Renaissance the labour\nwas spent upon it which has made it the priceless thing it is. The\nwooden boards of the cover show by the astrological allegories painted\nupon them, as by the style of painting itself, some craftsman of the\nschool of Francesco Cossi of Ferrara, but the gold clasps and hinges\nare known to be the work of Benvenuto Cellini, who made likewise the\nbronze box and covered it with gods and demons, whose eyes are closed,\nto signify an absorption in the inner light.'\n\nI took the book in my hands and began turning over the gilded,\nmany-coloured pages, holding it close to the candle to discover the\ntexture of the paper.\n\n'Where did you get this amazing book?' I said. 'If genuine, and I\ncannot judge by this light, you have discovered one of the most\nprecious things in the world.'\n\n'It is certainly genuine,' he replied. 'When the original was\ndestroyed, one copy alone remained, and was in the hands of a\nlute-player of Florence, and from him it passed to his son, and so\nfrom generation to generation until it came to the lute-player who\nwas father to Benvenuto Cellini, and from Benvenuto Cellini to that\nCardinal of Ferrara who released him from prison, and from him to\na natural son, so from generation to generation, the story of its\nwandering passing on with it, until it came into the possession of\nthe family of Aretino, and to Giulio Aretino, an artist and worker in\nmetals, and student of the kabalistic heresies of Pico della Mirandola.\nHe spent many nights with me at Rome, discussing philosophy; and at\nlast I won his confidence so perfectly that he showed me this, his\ngreatest treasure; and, finding how much I valued it, and feeling that\nhe himself was growing old and beyond the help of its teaching, he sold\nit to me for no great sum, considering its great preciousness.'\n\n'What is the doctrine?' I said. 'Some medi\u00e6val straw-splitting about\nthe nature of the Trinity, which is only useful to-day to show how many\nthings are unimportant to us, which once shook the world?'\n\n'I could never make you understand,' he said, with a sigh, 'that\nnothing is unimportant in belief, but even you will admit that this\nbook goes to the heart. Do you see the tables on which the commandments\nwere written in Latin?' I looked to the end of the room, opposite to\nthe altar, and saw that the two marble tablets were gone, and that\ntwo large empty tablets of ivory, like large copies of the little\ntablets we set over our desks, had taken their place. 'It has swept\nthe commandments of the Father away,' he went on, 'and displaced the\ncommandments of the Son by the commandments of the Holy Spirit. The\nfirst book is called _Fractura Tabularum_. In the first chapter it\nmentions the names of the great artists who made them graven things\nand the likeness of many things, and adored them and served them; and\nthe second the names of the great wits who took the name of the Lord\ntheir God in vain; and that long third chapter, set with the emblems\nof sanctified faces, and having wings upon its borders, is the praise\nof breakers of the seventh day and wasters of the six days, who yet\nlived comely and pleasant days. Those two chapters tell of men and\nwomen who railed upon their parents, remembering that their god was\nolder than the god of their parents; and that which has the sword of\nMichael for an emblem commends the kings that wrought secret murder and\nso won for their people a peace that was _amore somnoque gravata et\nvestibus versicoloribus_, heavy with love and sleep and many-coloured\nraiment; and that with the pale star at the closing has the lives of\nthe noble youths who loved the wives of others and were transformed\ninto memories, which have transformed many poorer hearts into sweet\nflames; and that with the winged head is the history of the robbers who\nlived upon the sea or in the desert, lives which it compares to the\ntwittering of the string of a bow, _nervi stridentis instar_; and those\ntwo last, that are fire and gold, are devoted to the satirists who bore\nfalse witness against their neighbours and yet illustrated eternal\nwrath, and to those that have coveted more than other men the house of\nGod, and all things that are His, which no man has seen and handled,\nexcept in madness and in dreams.\n\n'The second book is called _Lex Secreta_, and describes the true\ninspiration of action, the only Eternal Evangel; and ends with a\nvision, which he saw among the mountains of La Sila, of his disciples\nsitting throned in the blue deep of the air, and laughing aloud, with\na laughter that was like the rustling of the wings of Time: _C[oe]lis\nin c\u00e6ruleis ridentes sedebant discipuli mei super thronos: talis erat\nrisus, qualis temporis pennati susurrus_.'\n\n'I know little of Joachim of Flora,' I said, 'except that Dante set him\nin Paradise among the great doctors. If he held a heresy so singular, I\ncannot understand how no rumours of it came to the ears of Dante; and\nDante made no peace with the enemies of the Church.'\n\n'Joachim of Flora acknowledged openly the authority of the Church, and\neven asked that all his published writings, and those to be published\nby his desire after his death, should be submitted to the censorship of\nthe Pope. He considered that those whose work was to live and not to\nreveal were children and that the Pope was their Father; but he taught\nin secret that certain others, and in always increasing numbers, were\nelected, not to live, but to reveal that hidden substance of God which\nis colour and music and softness and a sweet odour; and that these\nhave no father but the Holy Spirit. Just as poets and painters and\nmusicians labour at their works, building them with lawless and lawful\nthings alike, so long as they embody the beauty that is beyond the\ngrave, these children of the Holy Spirit labour at their moments with\neyes upon the shining substance on which Time has heaped the refuse of\ncreation; for the world only exists to be a tale in the ears of coming\ngenerations; and terror and content, birth and death, love and hatred,\nand the fruit of the Tree, are but instruments for that supreme art\nwhich is to win us from life and gather us into eternity like doves\ninto their dove-cots.\n\n'I shall go away in a little while and travel into many lands, that\nI may know all accidents and destinies, and when I return will write\nmy secret law upon those ivory tablets, just as poets and romance\nwriters have written the principles of their art in prefaces; and when\nI know what principle of life, discoverable at first by imagination\nand instinct, I am to express, I will gather my pupils that they may\ndiscover their law in the study of my law, as poets and painters\ndiscover their own art of expression by the study of some Master. I\nknow nothing certain as yet but this--I am to become completely alive,\nthat is, completely passionate, for beauty is only another name for\nperfect passion. I shall create a world where the whole lives of men\nshall be articulated and simplified as if seventy years were but one\nmoment, or as they were the leaping of a fish or the opening of a\nflower.'\n\nHe was pacing up and down, and I listened to the fervour of his words\nand watched the excitement of his gestures with not a little concern.\nI had been accustomed to welcome the most singular speculations, and\nhad always found them as harmless as the Persian cat who half closes\nher meditative eyes and stretches out her long claws before my fire.\nBut now I would battle in the interests of orthodoxy, even of the\ncommonplace: and yet could find nothing better to say than: 'It is\nnot necessary to judge everyone by the law, for we have also Christ's\ncommandment of love.'\n\nHe turned and said, looking at me with shining eyes: 'Jonathan Swift\nmade a soul for the gentlemen of this city by hating his neighbour as\nhimself.'\n\n'At any rate, you cannot deny that to teach so dangerous a doctrine is\nto accept a terrible responsibility.'\n\n'Leonardo da Vinci,' he replied, 'has this noble sentence: \"The hope\nand desire of returning home to one's former state is like the moth's\ndesire for the light; and the man who with constant longing awaits\neach new month and new year, deeming that the things he longs for are\never too late in coming, does not perceive that he is longing for his\nown destruction.\" How, then, can the pathway which will lead us into\nthe heart of God be other than dangerous? why should you, who are no\nmaterialist, cherish the continuity and order of the world as those do\nwho have only the world? You do not value the writers who will express\nnothing unless their reason understands how it will make what is called\nthe right more easy; why, then, will you deny a like freedom to the\nsupreme art, the art which is the foundation of all arts? Yes, I shall\nsend out of this chapel saints, lovers, rebels and prophets: souls who\nwill surround themselves with peace, as with a nest made with grass;\nand others over whom I shall weep. The dust shall fall for many years\nover this little box; and then I shall open it; and the tumults, which\nare, perhaps, the flames of the last day, shall come from under the\nlid.'\n\nI did not reason with him that night, because his excitement was great\nand I feared to make him angry; and when I called at his house a few\ndays later, he was gone and his house was locked up and empty. I have\ndeeply regretted my failure both to combat his heresy and to test the\ngenuineness of his strange book. Since my conversion I have indeed done\npenance for an error which I was only able to measure after some years.\n\n\nII\n\nI was walking along one of the Dublin quays, on the side nearest the\nriver, about ten years after our conversation, stopping from time\nto time to turn over the books upon an old bookstall, and thinking,\ncuriously enough, of the terrible destiny of Michael Robartes, and his\nbrotherhood; when I saw a tall and bent man walking slowly along the\nother side of the quay. I recognized, with a start, in a lifeless mask\nwith dim eyes, the once resolute and delicate face of Owen Aherne. I\ncrossed the quay quickly, but had not gone many yards before he turned\naway, as though he had seen me, and hurried down a side street; I\nfollowed, but only to lose him among the intricate streets on the north\nside of the river. During the next few weeks I inquired of everybody\nwho had once known him, but he had made himself known to nobody; and I\nknocked, without result, at the door of his old house; and had nearly\npersuaded myself that I was mistaken, when I saw him again in a narrow\nstreet behind the Four Courts, and followed him to the door of his\nhouse.\n\nI laid my hand on his arm; he turned quite without surprise; and\nindeed it is possible that to him, whose inner life had soaked up\nthe outer life, a parting of years was a parting from forenoon to\nafternoon. He stood holding the door half open, as though he would keep\nme from entering; and would perhaps have parted from me without further\nwords had I not said: 'Owen Aherne, you trusted me once, will you not\ntrust me again, and tell me what has come of the ideas we discussed in\nthis house ten years ago?--but perhaps you have already forgotten them.'\n\n'You have a right to hear,' he said, 'for since I have told you the\nideas, I should tell you the extreme danger they contain, or rather the\nboundless wickedness they contain; but when you have heard this we must\npart, and part for ever, because I am lost, and must be hidden!'\n\nI followed him through the paved passage, and saw that its corners were\nchoked, and the pictures gray, with dust and cobwebs; and that the\ndust and cobwebs which covered the ruby and sapphire of the saints on\nthe window had made it very dim. He pointed to where the ivory tablets\nglimmered faintly in the dimness, and I saw that they were covered with\nsmall writing, and went up to them and began to read the writing. It\nwas in Latin, and was an elaborate casuistry, illustrated with many\nexamples, but whether from his own life or from the lives of others\nI do not know. I had read but a few sentences when I imagined that a\nfaint perfume had begun to fill the room, and turning round asked Owen\nAherne if he were lighting the incense.\n\n'No,' he replied, and pointed where the thurible lay rusty and empty on\none of the benches; as he spoke the faint perfume seemed to vanish, and\nI was persuaded I had imagined it.\n\n'Has the philosophy of the _Liber Inducens in Evangelium \u00c6ternum_ made\nyou very unhappy?' I said.\n\n'At first I was full of happiness,' he replied, 'for I felt a divine\necstasy, an immortal fire in every passion, in every hope, in every\ndesire, in every dream; and I saw, in the shadows under leaves, in\nthe hollow waters, in the eyes of men and women, its image, as in a\nmirror; and it was as though I was about to touch the Heart of God.\nThen all changed and I was full of misery, and I said to myself that\nI was caught in the glittering folds of an enormous serpent, and was\nfalling with him through a fathomless abyss, and that henceforth the\nglittering folds were my world; and in my misery it was revealed to me\nthat man can only come to that Heart through the sense of separation\nfrom it which we call sin, and I understood that I could not sin,\nbecause I had discovered the law of my being, and could only express or\nfail to express my being, and I understood that God has made a simple\nand an arbitrary law that we may sin and repent!'\n\nHe had sat down on one of the wooden benches and now became silent, his\nbowed head and hanging arms and listless body having more of dejection\nthan any image I have met with in life or in any art. I went and stood\nleaning against the altar, and watched him, not knowing what I should\nsay; and I noticed his black closely-buttoned coat, his short hair,\nand shaven head, which preserved a memory of his priestly ambition,\nand understood how Catholicism had seized him in the midst of the\nvertigo he called philosophy; and I noticed his lightless eyes and his\nearth-coloured complexion, and understood how she had failed to do more\nthan hold him on the margin: and I was full of an anguish of pity.\n\n'It may be,' he went on, 'that the angels whose hearts are shadows of\nthe Divine Heart, and whose bodies are made of the Divine Intellect,\nmay come to where their longing is always by a thirst for the divine\necstasy, the immortal fire, that is in passion, in hope, in desire, in\ndreams; but we whose hearts perish every moment, and whose bodies melt\naway like a sigh, must bow and obey!'\n\nI went nearer to him and said: 'Prayer and repentance will make you\nlike other men.'\n\n'No, no,' he said, 'I am not among those for whom Christ died, and this\nis why I must be hidden. I have a leprosy that even eternity cannot\ncure. I have seen the whole, and how can I come again to believe that a\npart is the whole? I have lost my soul because I have looked out of the\neyes of the angels.'\n\nSuddenly I saw, or imagined that I saw, the room darken, and faint\nfigures robed in purple, and lifting faint torches with arms that\ngleamed like silver, bending, above Owen Aherne; and I saw, or imagined\nthat I saw, drops, as of burning gum, fall from the torches, and a\nheavy purple smoke, as of incense, come pouring from the flames and\nsweeping about us. Owen Aherne, more happy than I who have been half\ninitiated into the Order of the Alchemical Rose, and protected perhaps\nby his great piety, had sunk again into dejection and listlessness,\nand saw none of these things; but my knees shook under me, for the\npurple-robed figures were less faint every moment, and now I could\nhear the hissing of the gum in the torches. They did not appear to see\nme, for their eyes were upon Owen Aherne; and now and again I could\nhear them sigh as though with sorrow for his sorrow, and presently I\nheard words which I could not understand except that they were words of\nsorrow, and sweet as though immortal was talking to immortal. Then one\nof them waved her torch, and all the torches waved, and for a moment it\nwas as though some great bird made of flames had fluttered its plumage,\nand a voice cried as from far up in the air: 'He has charged even his\nangels with folly, and they also bow and obey; but let your heart\nmingle with our hearts, which are wrought of divine ecstasy, and your\nbody with our bodies, which are wrought of divine intellect.' And at\nthat cry I understood that the Order of the Alchemical Rose was not of\nthis earth, and that it was still seeking over this earth for whatever\nsouls it could gather within its glittering net; and when all the faces\nturned towards me, and I saw the mild eyes and the unshaken eyelids, I\nwas full of terror, and thought they were about to fling their torches\nupon me, so that all I held dear, all that bound me to spiritual and\nsocial order, would be burnt up, and my soul left naked and shivering\namong the winds that blow from beyond this world and from beyond the\nstars; and then a faint voice cried, 'Why do you fly from our torches\nthat were made out of the trees under which Christ wept in the Garden\nof Gethsemane? Why do you fly from our torches that were made out of\nsweet wood, after it had perished from the world and come to us who\nmade it of old times with our breath?'\n\nIt was not until the door of the house had closed behind my flight, and\nthe noise of the street was breaking on my ears, that I came back to\nmyself and to a little of my courage; and I have never dared to pass\nthe house of Owen Aherne from that day, even though I believe him to\nhave been driven into some distant country by the spirits whose name is\nlegion, and whose throne is in the indefinite abyss, and whom he obeys\nand cannot see.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ADORATION OF THE MAGI\n\n\n\n\nTHE ADORATION OF THE MAGI\n\n\nI was sitting reading late into the night a little after my last\nmeeting with Aherne, when I heard a light knocking on my front door. I\nfound upon the doorstep three very old men with stout sticks in their\nhands, who said they had been told I should be up and about, and that\nthey were to tell me important things. I brought them into my study,\nand when the peacock curtains had closed behind us, I set their chairs\nfor them close to the fire, for I saw that the frost was on their\ngreat-coats of frieze and upon the long beards that flowed almost to\ntheir waists. They took off their great-coats, and leaned over the\nfire warming their hands, and I saw that their clothes had much of the\ncountry of our time, but a little also, as it seemed to me, of the\ntown life of a more courtly time. When they had warmed themselves--and\nthey warmed themselves, I thought, less because of the cold of the\nnight than because of a pleasure in warmth for the sake of warmth--they\nturned towards me, so that the light of the lamp fell full upon their\nweather-beaten faces, and told the story I am about to tell. Now one\ntalked and now another, and they often interrupted one another, with\na desire like that of countrymen, when they tell a story, to leave\nno detail untold. When they had finished they made me take notes of\nwhatever conversation they had quoted, so that I might have the exact\nwords, and got up to go. When I asked them where they were going, and\nwhat they were doing, and by what names I should call them, they would\ntell me nothing, except that they had been commanded to travel over\nIreland continually, and upon foot and at night, that they might live\nclose to the stones and the trees and at the hours when the immortals\nare awake.\n\nI have let some years go by before writing out this story, for I am\nalways in dread of the illusions which come of that inquietude of the\nveil of the Temple, which M. Mallarm\u00e9 considers a characteristic of our\ntimes; and only write it now because I have grown to believe that there\nis no dangerous idea which does not become less dangerous when written\nout in sincere and careful English.\n\nThe three old men were three brothers, who had lived in one of the\nwestern islands from their early manhood, and had cared all their\nlives for nothing except for those classical writers and old Gaelic\nwriters who expounded an heroic and simple life; night after night in\nwinter, Gaelic story-tellers would chant old poems to them over the\npoteen; and night after night in summer, when the Gaelic story-tellers\nwere at work in the fields or away at the fishing, they would read to\none another Virgil and Homer, for they would not enjoy in solitude, but\nas the ancients enjoyed. At last a man, who told them he was Michael\nRobartes, came to them in a fishing boat, like St. Brandan drawn by\nsome vision and called by some voice; and spoke of the coming again\nof the gods and the ancient things; and their hearts, which had never\nendured the body and pressure of our time, but only of distant times,\nfound nothing unlikely in anything he told them, but accepted all\nsimply and were happy. Years passed, and one day, when the oldest of\nthe old men, who travelled in his youth and thought sometimes of other\nlands, looked out on the grey waters, on which the people see the dim\noutline of the Islands of the Young--the Happy Islands where the Gaelic\nheroes live the lives of Homer's Ph\u00e6acians--a voice came out of the air\nover the waters and told him of the death of Michael Robartes. They\nwere still mourning when the next oldest of the old men fell asleep\nwhile reading out the Fifth Eclogue of Virgil, and a strange voice\nspoke through him, and bid them set out for Paris, where a woman lay\ndying, who would reveal to them the secret names of the gods, which can\nbe perfectly spoken only when the mind is steeped in certain colours\nand certain sounds and certain odours; but at whose perfect speaking\nthe immortals cease to be cries and shadows, and walk and talk with one\nlike men and women.\n\nThey left their island, at first much troubled at all they saw in the\nworld, and came to Paris, and there the youngest met a person in a\ndream, who told him they were to wander about at hazard until those who\nhad been guiding their footsteps had brought them to a street and a\nhouse, whose likeness was shown him in the dream. They wandered hither\nand thither for many days, but one morning they came into some narrow\nand shabby streets, on the south of the Seine, where women with pale\nfaces and untidy hair looked at them out of the windows; and just as\nthey were about to turn back because Wisdom could not have alighted\nin so foolish a neighbourhood, they came to the street and the house\nof the dream. The oldest of the old men, who still remembered some of\nthe modern languages he had known in his youth, went up to the door and\nknocked, but when he had knocked, the next in age to him said it was\nnot a good house, and could not be the house they were looking for, and\nurged him to ask for some one they knew was not there and go away. The\ndoor was opened by an old over-dressed woman, who said, 'O, you are her\nthree kinsmen from Ireland. She has been expecting you all day.' The\nold men looked at one another and followed her upstairs, passing doors\nfrom which pale and untidy women thrust out their heads, and into a\nroom where a beautiful woman lay asleep in a bed, with another woman\nsitting by her.\n\nThe old woman said: 'Yes they have come at last; now she will be able\nto die in peace,' and went out.\n\n'We have been deceived by devils,' said one of the old men, 'for the\nimmortals would not speak through a woman like this.'\n\n'Yes,' said another, 'we have been deceived by devils, and we must go\naway quickly.'\n\n'Yes,' said the third, 'we have been deceived by devils, but let us\nkneel down for a little, for we are by the deathbed of one that has\nbeen beautiful.' They knelt down, and the woman who sat by the bed, and\nseemed to be overcome with fear and awe, lowered her head. They watched\nfor a little the face upon the pillow and wondered at its look, as of\nunquenchable desire, and at the porcelain-like refinement of the vessel\nin which so malevolent a flame had burned.\n\nSuddenly the second oldest of them crowed like a cock, and until the\nroom seemed to shake with the crowing. The woman in the bed still\nslept on in her death-like sleep, but the woman who sat by her head\ncrossed herself and grew pale, and the youngest of the old men cried\nout: 'A devil has gone into him, and we must begone or it will go into\nus also.' Before they could rise from their knees a resonant chanting\nvoice came from the lips that had crowed and said: 'I am not a devil,\nbut I am Hermes the Shepherd of the Dead, and I run upon the errands\nof the gods, and you have heard my sign, that has been my sign from\nthe old days. Bow down before her from whose lips the secret names\nof the immortals, and of the things near their hearts, are about to\ncome, that the immortals may come again into the world. Bow down, and\nunderstand that when they are about to overthrow the things that are\nto-day and bring the things that were yesterday, they have no one to\nhelp them, but one whom the things that are to-day have cast out. Bow\ndown and very low, for they have chosen for their priestess this woman\nin whose heart all follies have gathered, and in whose body all desires\nhave awaked; this woman who has been driven out of Time, and has lain\nupon the bosom of Eternity. After you have bowed down the old things\nshall be again, and another Argo shall carry heroes over sea, and\nanother Achilles beleaguer another Troy.'\n\nThe voice ended with a sigh, and immediately the old man awoke out of\nsleep, and said: 'Has a voice spoken through me, as it did when I fell\nasleep over my Virgil, or have I only been asleep?'\n\nThe oldest of them said: 'A voice has spoken through you. Where has\nyour soul been while the voice was speaking through you?'\n\n'I do not know where my soul has been, but I dreamed I was under the\nroof of a manger, and I looked down and I saw an ox and an ass; and I\nsaw a red cock perching on the hay-rack; and a woman hugging a child;\nand three old men, in armour, studded with rubies, kneeling with their\nheads bowed very low in front of the woman and the child. While I was\nlooking the cock crowed and a man with wings on his heels swept up\nthrough the air, and as he passed me, cried out: \"Foolish old men, you\nhad once all the wisdom of the stars.\" I do not understand my dream or\nwhat it would have us do, but you who have heard the voice out of the\nwisdom of my sleep know what we have to do.'\n\nThen the oldest of the old men told him they were to take the\nparchments they had brought with them out of their pockets and spread\nthem on the ground. When they had spread them on the ground, they took\nout of their pockets their pens, made of three feathers, which had\nfallen from the wing of the old eagle that is believed to have talked\nof wisdom with St. Patrick.\n\n'He meant, I think,' said the youngest, as he put their ink-bottles\nby the side of the rolls of parchment, 'that when people are good the\nworld likes them and takes possession of them, and so eternity comes\nthrough people who are not good or who have been forgotten. Perhaps\nChristianity was good and the world liked it, so now it is going away\nand the immortals are beginning to awake.'\n\n'What you say has no wisdom,' said the oldest, 'because if there are\nmany immortals, there cannot be only one immortal.'\n\nThen the woman in the bed sat up and looked about her with wild eyes;\nand the oldest of the old men said: 'Lady, we have come to write down\nthe secret names,' and at his words a look of great joy came into her\nface. Presently she began to speak slowly, and yet eagerly, as though\nshe knew she had but a little while to live, and in the Gaelic of their\nown country; and she spoke to them many secret powerful names, and of\nthe colours, and odours, and weapons, and instruments of music and\ninstruments of handicraft belonging to the owners of those names; but\nmost about the Sidhe of Ireland and of their love for the Cauldron, and\nthe Whetstone, and the Sword, and the Spear. Then she tossed feebly\nfor a while and moaned, and when she spoke again it was in so faint a\nmurmur that the woman who sat by the bed leaned down to listen, and\nwhile she was listening the spirit went out of the body.\n\nThen the oldest of the old men said in French to the woman who was\nstill bending over the bed: 'There must have been yet one name which\nshe had not given us, for she murmured a name while the spirit was\ngoing out of the body,' and the woman said, 'She was but murmuring\nover the name of a symbolist painter she was fond of. He used to go to\nsomething he called the Black Mass, and it was he who taught her to see\nvisions and to hear voices. She met him for the first time a few months\nago, and we have had no peace from that day because of her talk about\nvisions and about voices. Why! it was only last night that I dreamed I\nsaw a man with a red beard and red hair, and dressed in red, standing\nby my bedside. He held a rose in one hand, and tore it in pieces with\nthe other hand, and the petals drifted about the room, and became\nbeautiful people who began to dance slowly. When I woke up I was all in\na heat with terror.'\n\nThis is all the old men told me, and when I think of their speech and\nof their silence, of their coming and of their going, I am almost\npersuaded that had I gone out of the house after they had gone out\nof it, I should have found no footsteps on the snow. They may, for\nall I or any man can say, have been themselves immortals: immortal\ndemons, come to put an untrue story into my mind for some purpose I do\nnot understand. Whatever they were I have turned into a pathway which\nwill lead me from them and from the Order of the Alchemical Rose. I\nno longer live an elaborate and haughty life, but seek to lose myself\namong the prayers and the sorrows of the multitude. I pray best in poor\nchapels, where the frieze coats brush by me as I kneel, and when I pray\nagainst the demons I repeat a prayer which was made I know not how many\ncenturies ago to help some poor Gaelic man or woman who had suffered\nwith a suffering like mine.\n\n    _Seacht b-p\u00e1idreacha f\u00f3 seacht\n    Chuir Muire faoi n-a Mac,\n    Chuir Brigbid faoi n-a brat,\n    Chuir Dia faoi n-a neart,\n    Eidir sinn 'san Sluagh Sidhe,\n    Eidir sinn 'san Sluagh Gaoith._\n\n    Seven paters seven times,\n    Send Mary by her Son,\n    Send Bridget by her mantle,\n    Send God by His strength,\n    Between us and the faery host,\n    Between us and the demons of the air.\n\n\n\n\n_Printed by_ A. H. BULLEN, _at the Shakespeare Head Press,\nStratford-upon-Avon_.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\nOne printer's error or misspelling was found and fixed:\n\n  Page 5. In the original book: orgaic dancing\n  changed in this ebook to: orgiac dancing","title":"The Tables of the Law; & The Adoration of the Magi","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":7240}