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THE TEMPLE CLASSICS
Edited by
ISRAEL
GOLLANCZ M.A.
A1,TERIVS MON. SIT
(^)VI
SVVS
AVRr,OA,VS
PHUAt'fVS AB HOHENHLTM,
t^tui
*fte
oajof
lltluna iJartt £rcmuj /iurnit. tjir ora IxJu.rum ptur-itna itmnum
Duanu ,/iuJio
per
Idui Jeat itir
POTEST
THE0PHRA5TV5 BOMBAST \
DKTVS PARACELSVS
L!fjfra
Qua
ESSf.
ntnum
ft
muHum
I'util.l^firo
^jtra ^uaUr Jena ^f^Aptfimhtj P.
Chfuiunw
,
anif
luce Juhiuit:
fcaipjit-
IWVCELSUS
$S
^
<^
Jfe
^9?
ROBERT ^
i^
's(:>
ck
?fe
BROWNING .V'
bV
';j-M-DeJHT' •A^DCCCXCVLllPUBLlSHeD •J\ND-CO: Al/DIMC- MOOSe-LOJSDOM-C-CI
——
2
!
PARACELSUS j
g^
J
'^
1835
PART
I
PARACELSUS ASPIRES Scene.
—
Wiir-zburg environs.
a garden
; i
5
in the
1
Festus, Paracelsus, Michal Paracelsus.
I
Come
closer
still
;
close to me, dear friends
it
it
least
beats
— perchance
Quiet and fragrant
Nor
a long, long time
henceforth your memories shall
shall
Alas, that
as befits their
my memory it
want
a
make
home.
home
yours
in
requires too well such free
I'orgiving love as shall
embalm
it
there
!
you would remember me aright, As I was born to be, you must forget '\ll fitful, strange and moody waywardness
I'
or
10
if
Which
.
hisfrien
again beat quicker, pressed to yours,
As now At
long time ,^ ^^
though
by
roll
Paracelsus
Close to the heart which,
Ere
;
thus
e'er confused
my
Only on moments such
better
s])irit,
to dwell
as these, dear friends
I
PARACELSUS
2
He
dis
courses
au
,
My
°
umn
heart no truer, but
More
to
true
it
as
:
my words
Michal,
and ways some months
hence,
^.^^
^_^^^
^
autumn was
^j^.^
For some few sunny days
;
a pleasant time,'
and overlook
wind, hankering after pining leaves. Autumn would fain be sunny I would look 20 Liker my nature's truth and both are frail, And both beloved, for all our frailty. Aureole Michal. Its bleak
;
:
!
Paracelsus.
Drop by drop!
like a child
she
is
weeping
—
more than content I am content Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute Appeal to sympathy for its decay
Not
so
!
;
:
Look Your
up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less stained and drooping vines their grapes
bow down. Nor blame those creaking
trees bent with their
fruit.
30 apple-tree with a ^X^nfter-birth peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among Then for the winds what wind that ever raved
That
Of
!
—
Shall vex that ash
which overlooks you both.
Ah, at length, wears its berries ? The old smile meet for her, the lady of this this kingdom, limited Sequestered nest! Alone by one old populous green wall Tenanted by the ever-busy flies. Grey crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders, So proud
it
—
—
Each family of the silver-threaded moss Which, look through near, this way, and appears
A stubble-field
or a cane-brake, a marsh
40 it
PARACELSUS Of
bulrush whitening in the sun
3 :
laugh
now
Fancy the crickets, each one in his house, Looking out, wondering at the world or
—
Yon
He
!
pictures best,
f^-|.^
painted snail with his gay shell of dew,
friends
Travelling to see the glossy balls high up
during his
Hung by
absence
the caterpillar, like gold lamps.
we have
Michal. In truth
lived
carelessly
and well. Paracelsus.
And
shall,
my
perfect
pair!
each, trust me, born
For the other
;
nay,
— 50
very hair, when
your
mixed, For where save in this nook one hue. Shall you two walk, when I am far away. And wish me prosperous fortune ? Stay that Is of
:
plant
Shall never
As
wave
tangles lightly and softly.
its
and imperial arm crowns among her lovers, but you Shall be reminded to predict to me a queen's languid
Which Some
scatters
great success
!
Ah,
see,
the sun sinks
broad Behind Saint Saviour's: wholly gone, at last! Tjo Fcslus. Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile You arc ours to-night, at least and while you ;
fij)oke
Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none Could willing leave what he so seemed to love But that last look destroys my dream that look :
—
As
where'er you ga/cd, there stood a star was Wiirzburg with its church and spire garden-walls and all things they contain,
if,
How
And From
!
far
that look's far alighting
?
PARACELSUS
4
and
I but spoke looked alike from simple joy to see 70
Paracelsus.
strives to
And
'^^^th"'^^
The beings I love best, shut in so well From all rude chances like to be my lot, That, when
To
afar,
lose awhile
my
its
weary
spirit,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
disposed
care in soothing thoughts
Of
them, their pleasant features, looks and words, Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend Encroaching trouble may have reached them too, Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid And fashion even a wish in their behalf Beyond what they possess already here 80 But, unobstructed, may at once forget Itself in them, assured how well they fare. Beside, this Festus knows he holds me one Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain. One scarce aware of all the joys I quit, Too filled with airy hopes to make account Of soft delights his own heart garners up Whereas behold how much our sense of all When I'^stus That 's beauteous proves alike ;
:
!
learns
That every common Affects
me
pleasure of the world
As varied appetite for From common things Like That
his life
He may
;
90
that I have just
as himself;
joy derived ;
a stake in
life, in
short.
which rash pursuit of aims not, would as soon destroy
a stake
affords
;
convince himself that, this
I shall act well advised.
Though heaven and
And
earth and
last, all
in
view,
because, things
were
at stake.
Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve.
PARACELSUS True
Festus.
:
and the eve
is
5
deepening, and Festus
^' ^' little anxious to begin our talk though to-morrow 1 could hint of
'"^
.
As it As As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town At sun-dawn or could whisper it by fits
^j^j^ ^^^^
;
(Trithemius busied with his
class the
while)
In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer Half-frightened by the awful tomes around ;
Or in some grassy lane unbosom all From even-blush to midnight but, to-morrow no Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind !
:
?
We have been brothers, and henceforth the world Will
between us
rise
'Tis the
last night,
:
—
all
my
freest
dear Aureole
mind
?
!
Oh, say on Paracelsus. Devise some test of love, some arduous feat If night To be performed for you say on :
Be
My
!
!
Recall how oft wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and
spent the while, the better
!
fears
Have
— never wearied you, oh no! —
as I
Recall, and never vividly as now. Your true affection, born when liinsiedeln
And And
its
green
still
hills
were
all
increasing to this night
further stay at Wijrzburg.
You
shall
Festus.
120
the world to us
My
which ends
Oh, one day
Say on, dear friends be very proud In truth ? 'Tis for my proper peace, !
indeed.
Rather than yours; for vain all jjrojects seem To stay your course I said my latest hope story tells Is fading even now, Of some far embassy despatched to win :
A
Se"s
PARACELSUS
6
Para- The favour of an eastern king, and how 130 celsus 'X'he gifts they offered proved but dazzling dust protests j.j^^^ ^^^^^ j.j^^^ ore-beds native to his clime. Just so, the value of repose and love,
meant should tempt you, better far than I and yet desist to comprehend No whit from projects where repose nor love I
You seem Has
;
part.
Paracelsus.
Once more
?
Alas
As
!
I fore-
told.
A solitary briar the bank
Festus.
To
puts forth
save our swan's nest floating out to sea.
Paracelsus. it
What
Festus, hear me.
Dear
you wish
is
140
?
That I should lay aside my heart's pursuit. Abandon the sole ends for which I live, Reject God's great commission, and so die
You
bid
me
listen for
your true love's sake
Yet how has grown that love
And It
:
in a long
patient cherishing of the self-same spirit
now would
To
Even
?
quell
stay the lusty
;
as
though
manhood of
a
mother hoped
the child
I was not born knees. Informed and fearless from the first, but shrank From aught which marked me out apart from
Once weak upon her
men
151
:
would have lived their life, and died their death, Lost in their ranks, eluding destiny But you first guided me through doubt and fear. Taught me to know mankind and know myself: I
:
And now that I am strong and full of hope. That, from my soul, I can reject all aims Save those your earnest words made plain to me,
Now
that
I
touch the brink of
my
design.
PARACELSUS When
I
would have
triumph
a
A
glad cheer in their voices And Festus ponders gravely
hear
purpose
.
^f Festus
you deign
.
.
Hear
Paracelsus.
I
it ?
can say
Beforehand all this evening's conference first, 'Tis this way, Michal, that he uses 1
:
Or
he declares, or
I,
the leading points
Of our best scheme of life, what is man's end And what God's will no two faiths e'er agreed As his with mine. Next, each of us allows ;
Faith should be acted on as best we Accordingly, I venture to submit
My
may
170
;
plan, in lack of better, for pursuing
The
path which
God's
seems to authorise.
will
Well, he discerns much good in it, avows This motive worthy, that hope plausible, danger here to be avoided, there An oversight to be repaired in fine Our two minds go together all the good Approved by him, I gladly recognise, 180 All he counts bad, I thankfully discard, And naught forbids my looking up at last I'or some stray comfort in his cautious brow. I learn that, spite of all, there lurks Wiicn, lo
A
:
—
!
Some
Of
innate and inex])licable
failure in
It all
my
amounts
scheme
to this
That we devote
—
;
the sovereign jiroof
In living just as though no
A I'"
germ
so that at last
ourselves to
God,
God
is
seen
there were
which, ])rompted by the sad and oily of man, Festus abhors the most; life
liut
which these
He chides the
!
When
my
i6o
in their eyes,
— Michal weeps,
Festtis.
To
7
tenets sanctify at once,
;
lilinl
100
PARACELSUS
8
Festus Though to persists Consider in his
less subtle wits
it
how
it
Mkhal.
"" ^
seems the same,
they may. Is
He
it
Festus
so,
?
is it so ? speaks so calmly and kindly Paracelsus. Reject those glorious visions of :
God's
And
love
man's design
laugh loud that
;
God
should
send
Vast longings
Power
to direct us
say
;
how
satiates these, or lust, or gold
soon I
;
know
world's cry well, and how to answer But this ambiguous warfare . . .
The
Festus.
That you
To To
urge send
.
—
my
.
Wearies so
200
your friend I wish for his sake, not yours ? soul in good hopes after you
will grant
it ?
.
it.
no
last leave to
;
sorrow that uncertain words Erringly apprehended, a new creed
Never
to
understood, begot rash trust share in your undoing.
111
in
you,
Had
Choose your
Paracelsus.
Hold
or renounce
:
but meanwhile blame
side.
me
not
dare to act on your own views. Nor shrink when they point onward, nor espy 210 peril where they most ensure success.
Because
I
A
—
Prove Prove that to me but that you abide Within their warrant, nor presumptuous boast God's labour laid on you prove, all you covet and, most of all, mortal may expect Prove the strange course you now affect, will Festus.
!
;
A
;
lead
To
its
attainment
—and
Nay, count the minutes
you speed, you venture forth
I bid till
!
PARACELSUS You
smile
;
but
had gathered
I
9 from slow
thought—
He If^f^ J
—
220 musing on the fortunes of my friend ^ Matter I deemed could not be urged in vain But it all leaves me at my need in shreds And fragments I must venture what remains. Michcil. Ask at once, Festus, wherefore he
Much
;
:
should scorn Festus.
Stay,
,
.
.
Michal
:
Aureole,
I
speak
guardedly
And
knowing well, whate'er your error. no ill-considered choice of yours, No sudden fancy of an ardent boy. Not from your own confiding words alone I aware your passionate heart long since 230 Gave birth to, nourished and at length matures This scheme. 1 will not speak of Liinsiedeln, Where I was born your elder by some years Only to watch you fully from the first In all beside, our mutual tasks were fixed Even then 'twas mine to have you in my view As you had your own soul and those intents Which filled it when, to crown your dearest wish, With a tumultuous heart, you left with me 239 Our childhood's home to join the favoured few Whom, here, Trithemius condescends to teach and not one youth portion of his lore Of those so favoured, whom you now despise, Came earnest as you came, resolved, like you. To grasp all, and retain all, and deserve 15y patient toil a wide renown like his. Now, this new ardour which sup])lant8 the old watched, too ; 'twas significant and strange, In one matched to his soul's content at length
This
gravely, is
Am
—
A
I
:
PARACELSUS
lo
traces the
With
To
rivals in the search for
growing p^yni of Paracelsus
1"
'"O"^
To
wisdom's prize, 250
see the sudden pause, the total change
pressing
onward
as his fellows pressed,
a blank idleness, yet
The
;
contest, the transition to repose
most unlike
dull stagnation of a soul, content.
Once foiled, to leave betimes a thriveless quest. That careless bearing, free from all pretence Even of contempt for what it ceased to seek Smiling humility, praising much, yet waiving though not so well it professed to praise
—
What
Maintained but that rare outbreaks,
and
fierce
261
brief,
Revealed the hidden scorn, as quickly curbed That ostentatious show of past defeat.
—
That ready acquiescence in contempt, I deemed no other than the letting go His shivered sword, of one about to spring
Upon
his foe's throat
;
but
it
was not thus
:
Not that way looked your brooding purpose then. For after-signs disclosed, what you confirmed, That you prepared to task to the uttermost 270 Your strength, in furtherance of a certain aim Which while it bore the name your rivals gave Their own most puny efforts was so vast
—
In scoi)e that
—
it
included their best
Combined them, and
—
flights,
desired to gain one prize
the secret of the world. In place of many, Of man, and man's true purpose, path and fate. That you, not nursing as a mere vague dream This purpose, with the sages of the past.
—
Have struck upon a way to this, if all You trust be true, which following, soul.
280
heart and
n
PARACELSUS You,
man may, dare
if a
And that this Of aims alike Mostly
in
in this,
aspire to
know
and de-
:
signates
from a host character and kind,
aim
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
shall differ
that in itself alone
reward be, not an alien end no hope nor fear nor joy Blending therewith Nor woe, to elsewhere move you, but this pure Devotion to sustain you or betray Thus you aspire. Shall
its
;
Paracelsus.
You
shall not state
it
thus
:
290
should not differ from the dreamy crew You speak of. I profess no other share I
my lot, than this ready answer to the will of God Who summons me to be his organ. All In the selection of
My
Whose
innate
strength
supports
them
shall
succeed
No
better than the sages.
Such the aim, then,
Festus.
God
you and 'tis doubtless need That he appoint no less the way of praise Than the desire to praise ; for, though I liold 300
With
The And
sets before
;
you, the setting forth such
])raisc to
be
natural end and service of a man,
hold such
])raise is best attained
when man
Attains the general welfare of his kind Yet this, the end, is not the instrument.
Presume not to serve God apart from such Appointed channel as he wills shall gather Tmjierfect tributes, for that sole oiiedicncc
He seeks not that his altars Valued perchance Blaze, careless how, so that they do but blaze. 310 that God selected you Su|)pose this, then To KNOW (heed well your answers, for my faith !
;
PARACELSUS
12
but Shall meet implicitly what they affirm) I cannot think you dare annex to such his smgleSelection auuht beyond a steadfast will, _„rnncp An intense hoi)e ; nor let your gifts create Scorn or neglect of ordinary means questions
Conducive to success, make destiny Now, dare Dispense with man's endeavour. you search 320 Your inmost heart, and candidly avow Whether you have not rather wild desire
For
this distinction
Of its existence The path to the
than security
whether you discern fulfilment of your purpose and again, that purpose Clear as that jiurpose Clear as your yearning to be singled out For its pursuer. Dare you answer this ? No, I have Paracelsus \_after a pause~\. Who will may know nought to fear What The secret'st workings of my soul. though ?
—
!
It be so
?
—
if
Indeed the strong desire 330 me ? if splendour break
—
Eclipse the aim in
Upon
And
the outset of
my
path alone.
duskest shade succeed
Shall 1 require to
Than
this fierce
Because
its
my
energy
nature
is
What
?
fairer seal
authentic mission ?
—
this instinct striving
to strive
?
—
enticed
the security of no broad course, Without success forever in its eyes
By
How But
in
know
I
else such glorious fate
my
own,
the restless irresistible force
That works within me
?
Is
it
—
for
34"
human
still less, To institute such impulses To disregard their promj)tings What ?
!
will
should I
PARACELSUS
13
your loves, your cares, Parakept among you all Your life— all to be mine ? Be sure that God ^^^^ Ne'er dooms to waste the strength he deigns j^-^
Do,
;
impart
Ask
mission
the geier-eagle
why
she stoops at once
Into the vast and unexplored abyss, full-grown power informs her from the
What
first,
Why
she not marvels, strenuously beating boundless regions of the sky sure they sleep not whom God needs
The Be
silent
350
!
Nor
!
fear
Their holding
That
light his charge,
finds that
when every hour is a new death.
charge delayed,
for the faith in which I trust ; and hence can abjure so well the idle arts These pedants strive to learn and teach ; Black
This I
Arts,
Great Works, the Secret and Sublime, forsooth Let others prize too intimate a tie sullen fiend 360 Connects me with our God To do my bidding, fallen and hateful sprites To help me what arc these, at best, beside :
!
A
—
God So
helping,
God
directing everywhere,
that the earth shall yield her secrets up,
And
every object there be charged to strike, gratify iicr master God appoints ? I am young, my Festus, happy and free
Teach,
And I
can devote myself;
To
give
;
I,
I
have a
singled out for this, the
Think, think! the wide
i'.ast,
where
bright South, where she dwelt ful
North,
One Wisdom !
all
sprung
The
!
life
;
37° the hope-
PARACELSUS
14
Festus All are passed o'er questions j.^^j
method
—
it
me
on
lights
'I'is
!
^\^^^^Q
hopes should New ,,',,-
animate the world,
,,, iShould dawn from new reveahngs
Weighed down
new
light
.
to a race
so long, forgotten so long
;
thus
shall
The
heaven reserved for us at last receive Creatures whom no unwonted splendours blind, But ardent to confront the unclouded blaze Whose beams not seldom blessed their pilgrimage, 380 Not seldom glorified their Hfe below. words have their old fate and Festus.
My
make
faint stand
Against your glowing periods. Call
Why
not pursue
this, truth
in a fast retreat,
it
Some one of Learning's many palaces. seeking there After approved example ? Calm converse with the great dead, soul to Who laid up treasure with the like intent
—
— So And
lift fill
soul,
yourself into their airy place. full their unfulfilled careers.
out
Unravelling the knots their baffled
—
skill
390
but left Pronounced inextricable, true fresh eye, a fresh hand. Far less confused. Might do much at their vigour's waning-point Succeeding with new-breathed new-hearted !
A
force.
As at From
old games the runner snatched the torch this way success might be. runner still :
But you have coupled with your enterprise, An arbitrary self-repugnant scheme Of seeking it in strange and untried paths. What books are in the desert ? Writes the sea
The
secret of her yearning in vast caves
401
PARACELSUS
15
Where yours will fall the first of human feet ? and reproves Has wisdom sat there and recorded aught Why turn aside from her j-gigctjon You jiress to read ?
To visit, where Now solitudes
— By God's Now —
her vesture never glanced, consigned to barrenness
decree, which
who
shall
of the
wisdom
dare impugn
where she paused but would not
ruins
stay,
Old ravished cities that, renouncing her, She called an endless curse on, so it came Or worst of all, now men you visit, men,
410
:
—
?
Ignoblest troops who never heard her voice Or hate it, men without one gift from Rome Or Athens, these shall Aureole's teachers be
—
Rejecting past example, practice, precept. Aidless 'mid these he thinks to stand alone Thick like a glory round the Stagirite Your rivals throng, the sages here stand you Whatever you may protest, knowledge is not
!
:
:
Paramount You would
in
your love
collect
all
or for her sake
;
the
420
help from every source
Rival, assistant, friend, foe, In
!
would merge
all
who showed
broad class of those
her
haunts.
And
who showed
those
tliem not.
What
Paracelsus.
Festus, from childhood
By As
—
shall 1 say
?
have been ])Ossessed
I
by a true fire, or faint or fierce. from without some master, so it seemed, Repressed or urged its current this but ill I'lxprcKses what would I convey: but rather a fire
:
1
will believe an angel ruled
Than
that
my
soul's
own
me
thus,
workings,
own
nature.
So became
I
manifest.
I
knew
not then
430 high
of the
P^^'
PARACELSUS
i6
Paracelsus ^.
^.°
What whispered in the evening, and spoke out At midnight. If some mortal, born too soon, Were laid away in some great trance the ages
—
—
till dawned timations Coming and going all the while of a great His true time's advent; and could then record destiny The words they spoke who kept watch by his
bed,— Then I might tell more of the breath so Upon my eyelids, and the fingers light
Among my So I
dull
Youth
liair.
was
I
but,
when
is
confused
;
light
440 yet never
that spirit passed,
turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns
A
water-snake when fairies cross his sleep. having this within me and about me While Einsiedeln, its mountains, lakes and woods
And
Confined
When
—
what oppressive joy was mine grew plain, and I first viewed the,
me
life
thronged,
The
everlasting concourse of
Believe that ere
The
I
mankind
joined them, ere
1
!
knew
450
purpose of the pageant, or the place Consigned me in its ranks while, just awake. Wonder was freshest and delight most pure 'Twas then that least supportable appeared
—
—
A station with the brightest of the crowd, A portion with the proudest of them all.
from the tumult in my breast, this only Could I collect, that I must thenceforth die Or elevate myself far, far above The gorgeous spectacle. I seemed to long 460 At once to trample on, yet save mankind, To make some unexampled sacrifice In their behalf, to wring some wondrous good From heaven or earth for them, to perish, winning
And
PARACELSUS
17
Describes as who should dare Eternal weal in the act his early Pluck out the angry thunder from its cloud, That, all its gathered flame discharged on him, ^f^^^ No storm might threaten summer's azure sleep :
:
Yet never
to be
As
to
In
my own
I
mixed with men
have part even
in
my own
Once
largess.
would withdraw from
so
much
work, share 470
the feat achieved,
their oflScious praise,
Would
gently put aside their profuse thanks. some knight traversing a wilderness,
Like
Who, on his way, may chance to free a Of desert-people from their dragon-foe
When His
tribe ;
the swarthy race press round to kiss and choose him for their king, and yield poor tents, pitched among the sand-
all
feet,
Their
hills, for
His realm
479
and he points, smiling, to
:
Heavy
his scarf
with riveled gold, his burgonet and to the East, twinkling stones must be displayed Good let us hear Fettus. No more about your nature, ' which first shrank
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Gay set with Where these
!
:
From
'
that
all
Paracelsus.
marked you out apart from men tiicse words but I touch on that !
;
analyse
The
mad
first
impulse
'twas as brief as fond,
:
gazed again upon the show, I soon distinguished here and there a shape Palm-wreathed and radiant, forehead and l""or
as
I
eye.
Well
])lea8ed
was
1
their state should
once
my own
Interpret
To
all,'
I
thoughts
rashly said,
*
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
*
490 thus at
Pjchold the clue
and what It
full
I
pine
PARACELSUS
i8
To
we are peers, do, these have accomplished They know and therefore rule I, too, will k"o^ aTms You were beside me, Festus, as you say You saw me plunge in their pursuits whom fame
his unfitness
:
:
'
Is lavish to attest the lords of
Not pausing
Would
make
to
my
satiate
mind.
sure the prize in view
when
cravings
But since they strove
I strove.
obtained,
500
Then came
a
slow
And
was
but
all-sufficient, strong,
staggered only at his
While
aspired alike.
the meanest plodder, Tritheim counts
A marvel, Or
We
strangling failure.
Yet not
own
was restless, nothing Distrustful, most perplexed. I
vast wits satisfied,
would slur over That struggle suffice it, that I loathed myself As weak compared with them, yet felt somehow mighty power was brooding, taking shape 510 I
;
A
Within me
till one night and more, 'Seest thou not. still voice from without said Desponding child, whence spring defeat and loss? Even from thy strength. Consider hast thou gazed Presumptuously on wisdom's countenance. No veil between and can thy faltering hands, Unguided by the brain the sight absorbs. Pursue their task as earnest blinkers do Whom radiance ne'er distracted ? Live their
When,
;
and
this lasted
as I sat revolving
A
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
;
520
life
If thou wouldst share their fortune, choose their
eyes
Unfed by splendour.
Let each
task present
PARACELSUS Its petty
good
19
Waste not thy
to thee.
and
gifts
In profitless waiting for the gods' descent, But have some idol of thine own to dress
With their
array.
But to become
Know,
a
^^^j^
Know, not for knowing's sake, star to men for ever ;
for the gain
it
gets, the praise
it
brings,
The wonder it inspires, the love it breeds Look one step onward, and secure that step!' :
And
I
sought to comprehend the works of
And God With
My
530
smiled as one never smiles but once. first discovering my own aim's extent.
Then Which
the
himself, and
human mind
all
I
;
God's
God,
intercourse
understood, no
less.
whose true worth I saw. But smiled not, well aware who stood by me. And softer came the voice ' There is a way 'Tis hard for flesh to tread therein, imbued fellows' studies,
—
With Have
frailty
—
hopeless, if indulgence
:
540
first
ripened inborn germs of sin to strength Wilt thou adventure for my sake and man's. And last it breathed Apart from all reward ?
:
'
Be happy, my good soldier I am by thee. I answered not, Be sure, even to the end Knowing him. As he spoke, I was endued With comprehension and a steadfast will And when he ceased, my brow was sealed his
'
;
'
!
—
;
own. no special change in me, comes it all things wore a different hue 550 pregnant with vast conseThenceforward? If there took place
How
—
quence,
Teeming with grand result, loaded with fate So that when, quailing at the mighty range
Of
secret truths
which yearn
for birtii,
I
his
u^"!^
?
haste
PARACELSUS
20
He rejects To
contemplate undazzled some one truth, the Its bearings and effects alone at once
^th
°t
—
^^^^^ ^^^ ^ speck expands into
Asking Till
I
near craze.
my way
I see
I shall arrive I
ask not
Or
a star,
a life to pass exploring thus, I
!
what time, what
God
but unless
:
go to prove
my
as birds their trackless
soul
way.
560
circuit first,
sent his hail
blinding fireballs, sleet or stifling snow.
In some time, his good time, I shall arrive In his good time! guides me and the bird. Michal. Vex him no further, Festus; it is so! :
He
Festus. Just thus you help
me
ever.
This
would hold
Were
the trackless
it
air,
and not
a
path
Inviting you, distinct with footprints yet
Of many
a mighty marcher gone that way.
You may
liave purer
570
views than theirs, perhaps,
—
But they were famous in their day the proofs Remain. At least accept the light they lend. Paracelsus. Their light the sum of all is !
briefly this
:
They laboured and grew famous, and Are best seen in a dark and groaning
the fruits earth
Given over
to a blind
With
evils,
No And
I reject
what of all their lore abates and spurn them utterly
;
all
they teach.
and endless
Shall I
i
strife
still sit
?
beside
1
and filmed ey While in the distance heaven is blue above Mountains where sleep the unsunned tarns ?
Their dry
wells, with a white lip
And
Festus.
As strong Men have
delusions have prevailed ere now. set out as gallantly to seek
j-
yet
PARACELSUS
21
Festus I have heard of such : yourself yields hitherto have failed and fallen. Michal. Nay, Festus, when but as the pilgrims
Their
ruin.
Avow
all
faint
the drear way, do you expect to see
Through Their
dawn amid the Ay, sounds
city
clouds afar
Paracelsus.
well-known
tale
590
?
not like
it
some old
?
For me, I estimate their works and them So rightly, that at times I almost dream too have spent a
I
And
tread once
life
more
I perished in an
the sages' way.
Perchance
familiar paths.
arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago and in that act, a prayer For one more chance went up so earnest, ;
Instinct with better light let in
—
That
so
by death.
not so completely 600 life was blotted out But scattered wrecks enough of it remain. Dim memories, as now, when once more seems The goal in sight again. All which, indeed. the flesh I wear, Is foolish, and only means
—
The
earth
Than my Festus.
^
belief,
And who am
he fc
''
I
shall
great and grand
— and
challenge and disjmtc
is
God's commissary!
all
for us
No, sweet!
Jot great and grand.
I
I, to
Paracelsus.
'Tis well
;
If
I
610
can serve mankind
but there our intercourse must end:
never will be served by those Festus.
me
will divest all fear.
Then Aureole
Michal.
clear to
explained to you or no.
rhat clear belief? '
more
tread, are not
I
Look
spot, here,
well to this
;
1
serve.
here
is
a plague-
PARACELSUS
22
but Disguise it how you may! 'Tis true, you utter reproves This scorn while by our side and loving us but it will break ^«^<-»^J.t 'Tis but a spot as yet
contempt of love
ij hideous '
^"'^^
'1
:
i
u -r
i
blotch
ir
j overlooked. i
How can that course be safe
i
which from the
first
620 Produces carelessness to human love ? It seems you have abjured the helps which men Who overpass their kind, as you would do.
Have humbly
sought
;
dare not thoroughly
I
probe
Let be lest I learn too much. That po])ular praise would little instigate Your efforts, nor particular approval Reward you put reward aside alone This matter,
;
;
You shall go forth upon your arduous task, None shall assist you, none partake your toil. None share your triumph still you must retain 631 Some one to cast your glory on, to share Your rapture with. Were I elect like you, I would encircle me with love, and raise :
A rampart of my fellows
;
should seem
it
me to fail, so watched friends who made my cause
Impossible for
their own. envy the great gift, Extravagant when claimed by me alone, Being so a gift to them as well as me.
By gentle They should ward
off fate's
If danger daunted
me
—
or ease seduced,
640
How calmly their sad eyes should gaze reproach M'lchal. O Aureole, can I sing when all alone. Without
To Do
listen
first calling, in
by
you not
my
side
fee! this
Paracelsus. at length
my
—even ?
I feel 'tis
Say
fancy, both I
!
that
And you
pleasant that
you
?
feel this
my
aims,
PARACELSUS Allowed
their weight, should be
A further strengthening My
course allures for
23
supposed to need and makes goodly helps
in these
own
its
!
sake,
sole
its
appeal
worth and ne'er shall boat of mine 650 Adventure forth for gold and apes at once. Your sages say, if human, therefore weak If weak, more need to give myself entire To my pursuit ; and by its side, all else I deny myself but little No matter In waiving all assistance save its own. Would there were some real sacrifice to make Your friends the sages threw their joys away, Intrinsic
;
'
'
.
.
.
!
!
must be content with keeping mine. But do not cut yourself from human 660 weal
While
I
Festtis.
You
cannot thrive
To
—
a
man
that dares affect
s]5end his life in service to his kind
For no reward of theirs, unbound By any tie nor do so. Aureole !
;
to
them
No
are strange jnmishments for such. Give up Although no visible good flow thence ) some part
There (
Of
the glory to another
Even from
Say, say almost to God For her, not for myself to rejoice in
Whom
should
all is
—
*
I
for yourself.
have done
I
my
know
love but both of you
A
1
this,
you, that
'tis
no
will
670
? ?
know
not
of mine
should abjure the lofty claims you make I can no longer seek this the cause overlook the truth, that there would be
You And
To
but lately
success like you
Festus. liut
all
' !
And who
Paracelsus.
Was
hiding thus,
;
yourself, that
—
monstrous spectacle upon the earth,
;
PARACELSUS
24
Michal Beneath the pleasant sun, among the trees warns being knowing not what love is. Hear me Paray^^ ^^e endowed with faculties which bear 680 against Annexed to them as 'twere a dispensation success To summon meaner spirits to do their will And gather round them at their need inspiring :
—^
;
Such with
a love themselves can never feel,
Passionless 'mid their passionate votaries. I
know
Or
not
if
you joy
ever dream that
in this or no,
common men
can
live
which make Their heart's sole treasure the affections seem Beauteous at most to you, which we must taste 690
On
objects you prize lightly, but :
Or die and this I know not how, :
strange quality accords,
with you ; sits well upon That luminous brow, though in another it scowls An eating brand, a shame. I dare not judge you. The rules of right and wrong thus set aside, There 's no alternative I own you one Of higher order, under other laws therefore, curb not one bold Than bind us
—
;
glance
'Tis best aspire. Once mingled with us all cast those Michal. Stay with us. Aureole .
.
.
!
hopes away,
700
An angel warns me, too, And stay with us Man should be humble you are very proud And God, dethroned, has doleful plagues for !
:
;
such
—Warns me No
to have in dread no quick repulse, slow defeat, but a complete success :
you seek, and perish so Paracelsus \_after a pause^. Are these the
You
will find all
barren
firstfruits
of
my
quest
?
PARACELSUS
25
of
Is love like this the natural lot
all
?
How many
years of pain might one such hour Dearest Michal, dearest Festus, O'erbalance ?
What
To
shall I say, if not that I desire
justify
your love
;
and
In swerving nothing from See, the great
moon
!
^^in
711
dear friends,
will,
my
He tells how truth
first
resolves.
and ere the mottled owls It seems was to go.
Were wide awake, I You acquiesce at last in all save this If I am like to compass what I seek By the untried career I choose and ;
then,
If that career, making but small account
Of much
of
life's
delight, will yet retain
Sufficient to sustain I
soul
720
for thus
:
understand these fond fears just expressed.
And The I
my
first ; the lore you praise and I neglect. labours and the precepts of old time,
But, friends,
have not lightly disesteemed.
Truth
From
within ourselves ; it takes no rise outward things, whate'cr you may believe.
There
Where
is
is
an inmost centre in us
all.
truth abides in fulness;
and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 730 This jK'rfect, clear perception which is truth. baffling and perverting carnal mesh and to know Binds it, and makes all error
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
A
:
opening out a way Whence the im])risoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Watch narrowly Su])])osed to be without.
Rather consists
in
The demonstration of a truth, its birth, And you trace back the effluence to its spring And source within us where broods radiance ;
vast,
740
PARACELSUS
26
till To be elicited ray by ray, as chance chance Shall favour for hitherto your sage chance makes an ]7y^^ ^g knows not how those beams are
—
:
.^^f.
outlet
born,
As little knows he what unlocks their fount And men have oft grown old among their books
To
die case-hardened in their ignorance.
Whose
careless youth
had promised what long
years
Of unremitted labour ne'er performed While, contrary, it has chanced some idle day. 750 To autumn loiterers just as fancy free As the midges in the sun, gives birth at last To truth produced mysteriously as cape ;
—
Of
cloud grown out of the invisible air. Hence, may not truth be lodged alike in all, The lowest as the highest ? some slight film
The
which binds a soul makes the sage Some film removed, the happy outlet whence Truth issues proudly ? See this soul of ours How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed 760 In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled By age and waste, set free at last by death interposing bar
And makes
the idiot, just as
!
Why
is it,
What
flesh enthrals
it
or enthrones
?
we have to penetrate ? Oh, not alone when life flows still, do truth And power emerge, but also when strange chance is
Ruffles
this flesh
its
current
When sickness ing*
;
in
unused conjuncture. hunger, watch-
breaks the body
—
—
Excess or languor oftenest death's approach, Peril, deep joy or woe. One man shall crawl 770
Through
life
surrounded with
all stirring
things,
PARACELSUS Unmoved and ;
Of
he goes
what he was, by
You
first
collect
27
mad and from :
the
wreck
It is his
^^ *o
his wild talk alone,
how
great a spirit he hid.
^^^ ^^^^
Therefore, set free the soul alike in all, Discovering the true laws by which the flesh may not be doomed Accloys the spirit !
We
To
cope with seraphs, but at least the rest Shall cope with us. Make no more giants, God, ask 780 But elevate the race at once
We
!
To put forth just our strength, our human strength All starting fairly, all equipped alike, Gifted alike, all eagle-eyed, true-hearted See if we cannot beat thine angels yet Such is my task. I go to gather this The sacred knowledge, here and there dispersed About the world, long lost or never found. And why should I be sad or lorn of hope ? Why ever make man's good distinct from God's,
Or, finding they are one, why dare mistrust? 790 succeed if not one pledged like me no mad attempt to build a world Apart from his, like those who set themselves
Who
shall
Mine
is
To
?
find the nature of the spirit they bore.
And,
taught
betimes
that
all
their
gorgeous
dreams
Were
only born to vanish in this life. Refused to fit them to its narrow sphere. But chose to figure forth another world And other frames meet for their vast desires,â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Tlius was life scorned ; but And all a dream !
800
life
Shall yet be
crowned
:
twine amaranth
priest
And
all
for yielding with a lively spirit
!
I
am
PARACELSUS
28
A
poor existence, parting with a youth An earnest Like those who squander every energy °^ ^^^ Convertible to good, on painted toys. And though Breath-bubbles, gilded dust
I
!
spurn
All adventitious aims, from empty praise love's award, yet whoso deems such helps Important, and concerns himself for me, May know even these will follow with the rest
To As
in
My
Mayne,
the steady rolling
Yonder,
is
mixed
its
8ii
asleep
mass of schistous ore.
affections laid to rest awhile.
own
purified, subdued alone . till then have achieved. Till then Ah, the time-wiling loitering of a page Through bower and over lawn, till eve shall bring The stately lady's presence whom he loves The broken sleep of the fisher whose rough coat
Will waken
By all
—
I
.
,
—
Enwraps the queenly pearl these are faint types 821 I triumph now See, see, they look on me I have told But one thing, Festus, Michal say All I shall e'er disclose to mortal :
1
!
:
Do
you believe I shall accomplish Festus. I do believe
this
?
!
Michal.
I
from out
my
brain
This earnest of the end
Are
ever did believe
Those words
Paracelsus.
shall
never
!
fade
!
shall
never fade
!
there not, Festus, are there not, dear Michal, points in the adventure of the diver,
Two One One
— when, — when,
Festus,
I
Festus.
a beggar,
a ])rince,
plunge
he prepares to plunge, 830 he rises with his pearl ?
!
We wait
you when you
rise
!
PART
II
PARACELSUS ATTAINS Scene.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Constantinople
;
the house of a
Greek
1521
Conjurer.
Paracelsus
Over the waters
The
sun goes
in the
down
vaporous
Para-
West
of gold which between,
as in a sphere
Behind the arm of the
city,
With all that length of domes and minarets. Athwart the splendour, black and crooked runs Like a Turk verse along a scimitar. There lie, sullen memorial, and no more Possess
Strange
my
aching sight
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;and
'Tis done
!
at last.
the juggles of a sallow cheat
'Tis as yon cloud 10 Have won me to this act Should voyage unwrecked o'er many a mountain!
top
And break upon a Come to a pause
molehill.
with
I
have dared
knowledge
scan for
;
once
The
To All
A
heights already reachetl, without regard
the extent above 1
;
fairly com])utc
have clearly gained
;
brilliant future to supj)ly
tor
once excluding
and
jierfect
39
celsus j^jg
gains
PARACELSUS
3°
and All half-gains and conjectures and crude hopes inscribes And all because a fortune-teller wills 19 his Ufe's j^jg credulous seekers should inscribe thus much results rj^^j^^j^ previous life's attainment, in his roll, Before his promised secret, as he vaunts, and here amid the scrawled up the sum Uncouth recordings of the dupes of this Old arch-genethliac, lie my life's results
Make
:
A few blurred characters suffice to note A stranger wandered long through many lands reaped the fruit he coveted in a few Discoveries, as appended here and there. The fragmentary produce of much toil, In a dim heap, fact and surmise together
And
30
Confusedly massed as when acquired he was Intent on gain to come too much to stay And scrutinise the little gained the whole Slipt in the blank space 'twixt an idiot's gibber ;
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
And
a
And
yet those blottlngs chronicle a
mad
lover's ditty
A
there
it lies.
life
Nothing to do, whole life, and my life No problem for the fancy, but a life 40 Spent and decided, wasted past retrieve Or worthy beyond peer. Stay, what does this !
Remembrancer set down concerning life ? " Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty '
'
'
It
is
Beat
Was
dream," the echo of time
and he whose heart beneath a human heart, whose speech copied from a human tongue, can never ;
first
Recall when he was living yet knew not Nevertheless long seasons pass o'er him
this.
PARACELSUS
31
some one hour's experience shows what
Till
nothing,
49
seemed, could clearer show; and ever after, altered brow and eye and gait and speech Attest that now he knows the adage true " Time fleets, youth fades, life is an empty It
An
'
dream."
Ay, my brave
As
Now
I
!
:
now,
my
let
can go no farther
same hour
time be well or
;
!
ill,
must desist and take my chance. cannot keep on the stretch 'tis no back-
'Tis done. I
chronicler, and this
well as any
I
:
shrinking
For
some assurance beam, some grow visible, and I proceed
let
but
To my
toil
At any
price,
I'llse,
here
though closing
pause.
I
The
Is like to turn out true
His chamber
Was
An I
it
till
I
:
!
I
shall not quit
know what
strange
it
how
has
it
kept so long
?
desire
I
' !
o'er the sea
?
the notion, once
encountered, gathers strength by
Where
60
to die.
it,
old Greek's prophecy '
the light wind sang
end, a rest
close
this
moments
Rest throbbing brow !
I
To cease, this beating heart to cease, all cruel And gnawing thoughts to cease To dare let !
down
70
My strung, so high-strung brain, to dare unnerve My harassed o'ertasked frame, to know my ])lacc. My portion, my reward, even my failure, Assigned, made sure for ever
Among
!
To
lose
myself
the conmion creatures of the world.
He contemplates
PARACELSUS
32
leaving To draw some gain from having been a man, the event Neither to hope nor fear, to live at length !
to
God
jTygjj
And
But power and recompense once jj,
failure, rest
rest in truth
!
...
I
hoped that
!
What, sunk
insensibly so deep
Been undergone
My
for this
labour qualified
With no
me
fear of refusal
80
all
to present
Had
?
my
Slightingly through
Has
?
This the request
?
I gone and so judged
task,
lit
moderate my hopes nay, were it now My sole concern to exculpate myself. End things or mend them, why, I could not choose humbler mood to wait for the event
To
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
A
no, there needs not this
No,
At
worst task
By
;
have performed
no, after
my
all.
share of the 90
:
mine, merely this, know that I have obstinately held my own work. The mortal whose brave foot
The
To
I
Has
rest
is
God's concern
;
trod, unscathed, the temple-court so far
That he descries at length the shrine of shrines, Must let no sneering of the demons' eyes.
Whom Upon
He
he could pass unquailing, fasten now him, fairly past their power ; no, no
must not stagger,
Having
He
a
charm
bares his front
:
down
faint, fall
to baffle
them
;
at last.
behold,
100
a mortal ventures thus
Serene amid the echoes, beams and glooms If he be priest henceforth, if he wake up The god of the place to ban and blast him there, !
Both well
!
What's
failure or success to
me
?
I
II
PARACELSUS have subdued my life I ordained it
I
Whereto
No
way
doubt, that
to the
He
one purpose
there alone I spy
;
may
I
33
be
sacrSices
satisfied.
beyond Yes, well have I subdued my life no The obligation of my strictest vow, The contemplation of my wildest bond. Which gave my nature freely up, in truth. !
But in its actual state, consenting fully All passionate impulses its soil was formed To rear, should wither but foreseeing not ;
The tract, doomed to perpetual barrenness, Would seem one day, remembered as it was, Beside the parched sand-waste which now it is, faint blooms, viewless then.
Already strewn with I
ne'er engaged to root up loves so frail
I felt
them not
Some
soft spots
;
yet
had
now,
'tis
120
very plain
their birth in
me
at first.
was a time wolfish hunger after knowledge
If not love, say, like love
When
:
there
yet this Set not remorselessly love's claims aside. This heart was human once, or why recall
Cinsiedeln, now, and Wiir/.burg which the Maync Forsakes her course to fold as with an arm ? I
And And With I
Festus
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; my poor Festus, with
counsel and grave fears
where
his praise is
he
the sweet maiden, long ago his bride
them
surely loved
When we
.
.
.
gone
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; !
now ?
131
that last night, at least,
gone
!
the better.
I
am
saved
The
sad review of an ambitious youth
Choked by vile lusts, unnoticed in their But let grow up and wind around a will
tells
birth,
PARACELSUS
34
No, I have gone of the Till action was destroyed. my path successively of aught of his "Wi-aring the distant likeness of such lusts.
tyranny Purging I
have made
Ere
consist of one idea
memory
I bear a
Whose
life
was master, up
that
till
that
of a pleasant
small events I treasure
:
140
was born,
life ;
till
one morn
I ran o'er the seven little grassy fields,
Startling the flocks of nameless birds, to tell
Poor Festus, leaping
To
leave
all
the while for joy.
all
trouble for
my
future plans,
determined to become The greatest and most glorious man on earth. And since that morn all life has been forgotten ; 151 All is one day, one only step between The outset and the end one tyrant allAbsorbing aim fills up the interspace, One vast unbroken chain of thought, kept up Since
I
had
just
:
Through
To
its
a career apparently adverse
existence
:
life,
death, light and shadow,
The shows of the world, were bare receptacles Or indices of truth to be wrung thence, Not
ministers of sorrow or delight
A wondrous natural
robe in which she went. 160 would dimly beacon me From mountains rough with pines,and flit and wink O'er dazzling wastes of frozen snow, and tremble Into assured light in some branching mine Where ripens, swathed in fire, the liquid gold And all the beauty, all the wonder fell On either side the truth, as its mere robe then I saw the form. I see the robe now So far, then, I have voyaged with success, So much is good, then, in this working sea 170
For some one
truth
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
PARACELSUS
35
Which
and of parts me from that happy strip of land ^^e bitterBut o'er that happy strip a sun shone, too And fainter gleams it as the waves grow rough, f^^yj.g And still more faint as the sea widens last I sicken on a dead gulf streaked with light :
!
;
From
its
Then,
God
own
Now, any
My
putrefying depths alone.
was pledged
to take
me by
the hand
;
miserable juggle can bid
All
pride depart.
God may take
is
alike at length
:
pleasure in confounding pride
i8o
By hiding secrets with the scorned and base— so little have I paused I am here, in short I never glanced behind to know Throughout :
!
If
had kept
I
And Oh,
my
primal light from wane,
am
thus insensibly
bitter
;
very
bitter
— what
I
am
!
!
And more
To
bitter.
fear a deeper curse, an inner ruin.
Plague beneath plague, the
To
last
turning the
first
Let me weep 189 My youth and its brave hojjcs, all dead and gone. Would I were sure to win In tears which burn light beside
darkness.
its
!
Some
Of
startling secret in their stead, a tincture
force to flush old age with youth, or breed
Gold, or imprison moonbeams
To
opal shafts!
—
til!
thoy change
only that, hurling
it
Indignant back, I might convince myself aims remained supreme and ])ure as ever
My
why
I'-vcn
now,
That
if I fail,
That, though
O
God,
Shut out
not desire, for mankind's sake.
some I
fault
may
sink, another
be the cause,
may succeed
the despicable heart of us this
?
200
!
hideous mockery from
my
heart
PARACELSUS
36
He
fears 'Twas politic in you, Aureole, to reject some- Sint^lc rewards, and ask. them in the lump thing Y\t all events, once launched, to hold straight on
:
For now 'tis all or nothing. Mighty profit Your gains will bring if they stop short of such As a man, you had Full consummation !
A
certain share of strength
Already
;
and that
is
gone
the getting these you boast.
in
210
Do not
they seem to laugh, as who should say ' Great master, we are here indeed, dragged forth To light this hast thou done be glad Now, ;
!
:
seek
The
strength to use getting!
which thou hast spent
in
'
I
And
yet
Thus
to
'tis much, surely 'tis very much. have emptied youth of all its gifts. To feed a fire meant to hold out till morn Arrived with inexhaustible light ; and lo, I have heaped up my last, and day dawns not And I am left with grey hair, faded hands, 220 And furrowed brow. Ha, have I, after all, Mistaken the wild nursling of my breast ? Knowledge it seemed, and power, and recomâ&#x20AC;˘
pense
Was
siie
!
who
glided through
my room
of nights.
Who laid my head on her soft knees and smoothed The damp locks,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;whose
sly soothings just
began
When my sick spirit craved repose awhile God was I fighting sleep off for death's sake !
God Mind All
!
Thou
art
mind
!
Unto
else I will
endure
;
the master-mind
Spare
should be precious. if,
?
my mind alone
as I stand
231
PARACELSUS
my gains, thy thunder smite me down,
Here, with I
bow me
37
'tis
;
thy will, thy righteous will
^» \ IT' A J Ao erpass lire s restrictions, and i die And if no trace of my career remain
;
j^^^^^
Save a thin corpse at pleasure of the wind In these bright chambers level with the air. But if my spirit fail. See thou to it My once proud spirit forsake me at the last, 239 Hast thou done well by me ? So do not thou Crush not my mind, dear God, though I be !
crushed
Hold me
!
before the frequence of thy seraphs ' I crushed him, lest he should disturb
—
And
say
My
law.
Men
must not know their strength
:
behold
Weak
and alone,
But
delusions trouble me, and thou.
if
how
he had raised himself!
'
Not seldom felt with rapture in thy help Throughout my toils and wanderings, dost intend
To work
man's
my weak
through
welfare
endeavour,
To
crown
my
mortal forehead with a
own
I'Vom thine guide
Be
styled
An It
my
influx of
work,
new
let
the
far, a
man
;
!
so I
wrought
covet not
j)Ower, an angel's sou/
let
Give but one hour of
l)ut
me
invincible faith,
That
may
I
first
;
have reac/ied
conclude, a
my
Of that I
work
— hear me
were no marvel then
Thus
beam 250
blinding crown, to smile, and
This puny hand and
man
energy.
but only one!
cover with an eagle-glance
!
cries *°
^°^
renew
T
1
and *°
;
PARACELSUS
38 Aprile
speaks
truths I have, and spy some certain way 260 mould them, and completing them, possess Yet God is good I started sure of that,
The
To
1
:
And why
dispute
it
now
'11
I
?
not believe
But some undoubted warning long ere this Had reached me a firc-labarum was not deemed :
Too much for the old founder of these walls. Then, if my life has not been natural, yet, till late, my course It has been monstrous :
So
ardently engrossed me, that delight,
A
270 pausing and reflecting joy, 'tis plain, Could find no place in it. True, I am worn But who clothes summer, who is life itself? God, that created all things, can renew And then, though after-life to please me now Must have no likeness to the past, what hinders Reward from springing out of toil, as changed As bursts the flower from earth and root and ;
stalk.
What Be
use
?
were punishment,
detected
first
No man
?
let
unless
me know
could ever offend as
I
some
that
sin
first
have done
.
.
.
280
[^jI voice from ivithin.~]
I
hear a voice, perchance I heard ago, but all too low,
Long So
that scarce a care
it
stirred
If the voice were real or no
:
heard it in my youth when first The waters of my life outburst But, now their stream ebbs faint, I hear I
That
As
voice,
still
if all poets,
low, but fatal-clear
God
ever meant
PARACELSUS
39
Should save the world, and therefore lent and tells Great gifts to, but who, proud, refused 291 °' *|*^ To do his work, or lightly used failed
Those
or failed through
gifts,
weak en-
deavour.
—
So, mourn cast off by him for ever, if these leaned in airy ring To take me ; this the song they sing.
As
'
Lost,
lost
yet come,
!
With our wan Come, come !
make we so much
troop for
Will not breathe, Reproach to thee. Knowing what thou
So sank we
We
who
in
thy home. as breathe
300
sink'st beneath.
those old years.
bid thee,
come
!
thou
last
Who, living yet, hast life o'erpast. And altogether we, thy peers. Will pardon crave
Whose
trial is
who watch
With
those
Who
gaze on
Yet we
for thee, the last
done, whose life
but
lot is cast
work no more.
but live no more.
The
message which our li])s, too weak. shouldst redeem Refused to utter, Our fault such trust, and all a dream Yet we chose thee a birth])Iacc
—
:
Where
310
trusted thou shouldst speak
the richness ran to flowers
!
:
Couidst not sing one song for grace ? Not make one blossom man's and ours? Must one more recreant to his race 320 Die with unexerted ])Ower8, And join us, leaving as he found
PARACELSUS
40
He greets ^f""^"
ce sus
Still
world, he was to loosen, bound ever and for ever ; beginning, ending never.
Ygj^
jQgj .jn(i i^st one,
The
Anguish
?
!
come
!
How
couldst understand, alas, What our pale ghosts strove to say, their shades did glance and pass Before thee night and day ? 330 Thou wast blind as we were dumb come! Once more, therefore, come, How should we clothe, how arm the spirit Shall next thy post of life inherit How guard him from thy speedy ruin ? Tell us of thy sad undoing Here, where we sit, ever pursuing
As
O
task, ever renewing Sharp sorrow, far from God who gave Our powers, and man they could not save
Our weary
Aprile
' !
enters.
Ha, ha our king that wouldst be, here at last? Art thou the poet who shall save the world ? 341 !
Thy
hand mine
Thou
to
mine
Stay, fix thine eyes on
!
wouldst be king
?
Still fix
thine eyes on
mme Pararelsus. I not
So
torture
Have my lair
Ha, ha! why crouchest
king is
not?
Am
?
not wholly unavailing
fierce
spasms compelled thee from thy
?
Art thou the sage I only seemed to Myself of after-time, my very self
be,
PARACELSUS With
sight a
little
41
clearer, strength
more
firm,
Who robes him in my robe and grasps my crown For
just a fault, a
weakness, a neglect
351 Q^jjgj.
?
God
with the surmise That such might come, and thou didst hear the while Aprile. Thine eyes are lustreless to mine my I scarcely trusted
!
;
hair to talk with thee Is soft, nay silken soft Flushes my cheek, and thou art ashy-pale. Truly, thou hast laboured, hast withstood her :
lips.
The
Yes, 'tis like thou hast attained mc, dear master, wherefore now thou comest ? thought thy solemn songs would have their siren's
!
Tell I
meed
360
In after-time; that I should hear the earth Exult in thee and echo with thy praise.
While
I
was
laid forgotten in
Ah
Paracelsus.
(lend, I
my
know
grave.
thee,
I
am
not
thy dupe Thou art ordained to follow in my track, Reaping my sowing, as I scorned to reaj) The harvest sown by sages passed away. !
Thou
As
if,
art the
sober searcher, cautious strivcr.
except through me, thou hast searched
or striven
Ay,
To To
Degrade me after the world! an aspirant after fame, not truth all but envy of thy fate, be sure tell
all,
370
!
Apr'de.
Nay, sing them
to
me
;
I
shall
envy
not
Thou
shall be king
!
Sing thou, and
Each miscon-
I
will sit
PARACELSUS
42 Aprile Beside, and tells his
fate
worship thee, |-jj| jj^y throne
-^-"p
:
me
Sing to
for thy songs,
deep silence
call
And
had ne'er been meant but none shall ever know
as I
!
for already thy wild eyes
;
Unlock my heart strings, as some crystal-shaft Reveals by some chance blaze its parent fount 380 After long time so thou reveal'st my soul. All will Hash forth at last, with thee to hear :
(His secret!
Paracelsus.
—
secret I
am he
I
get
shall
!
his
fool !
that aspired to
know
:
and thou
?
would love infinitely, and be loved Paracelsus. Poor slave! I am thy king indeed.
Apr'tle.
1
!
Thou
Apr'tle.
That Born
My
— born for
a spirit,
thy
fate
dowered even
— because
yearnings to possess
Enjoyment, but neglected
Of
I
could not curb
once the
at
all
deem'st
as thou,
full
the means
390
even the frailest joy, Gathering no fragments to appease my want, Yet nursing up that want till thus I die Thou deem'st I cannot trace thy safe sure march O'er perils that o'erwhelm me, triumphing. Neglecting nought below for aught above. realising
Despising nothing and ensuring all Nor that I could (my time to come again)
Lead
thus
my
spirit securely as thine
Listen, and thou shalt see I
would love
Oh
infinitely
.
I .
who armed me
own.
know thee Ah, lost
.
well. 400 !
lost
such cost, How shall I look on all of ye With your gifts even yet on me ? Paracelsus. (Ah, 'tis some moonstruck creature ye
after all
!
at
PARACELSUS Such fond
fools as are like to haunt this
So
den
:
how
:
!
With
eve's last
Which
turns to
How
sunbeam staying on his it as if they were akin
hair
410
:
those clear smiling eyes of saddest blue set free, so far they rise above
And
Nearly
The And
brow
painful fruitless striving of the
enforced knowledge of the lips, firm-set In slow despondency's eternal sigh Has he, too, missed life's end, and learned the !
cause ?)
charge thee, by thy fealty, be calm Tell me what thou wouldst be, and what I am. Apnle. I would love infinitely, and be loved. 420 First: I would carve in stone, or cast in brass, The forms of earth. No ancient hunter lifted I
to the gods by his renown, no nymph Supposed the sweet soul of a woodland tree
Up Or
he
contagion, doubtless yet he seemed ]^?J*JJ^^g echo one foreboding of my heart carved he stands truly, that ... no matter
They spread
To
43
sa])phirine spirit of a twilight star,
Should be too hard for me no shepherd-king no youth who stands Regal for his white locks Silent and very calm amid the throng, His right hand ever hid beneath his robe no lawgiver, 430 Until the tyrant jiass No swan-soft woman rubbed with lucid oils Given by a god for love of her too hard livery passion sprung from man, conceived by :
;
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
man,
Would I Or blend Or show Oh,
if
express and clothe it in its right form, with others struggling in one form, repressed by an ungainly form.
you marvelled
at
some mighty
spirit
PARACELSUS
44
and With
a
fit
frame to execute
will
its
painted,
Kven unconsciously to work its will and sung Yqu should be moved no less beside some Rare spirit, fettered to a stubborn body,
strong 441
subdue it and inform it All this I would do With its own splendour And I would say, this done, 'His sprites created, God grants to each a sphere to be its world, Appointed with the various objects needed
Endeavouring
to
!
To
satisfy its
So,
I create a
own
peculiar
world
want
for these
my
shapes
Fit to sustain their beauty and their strength
!
And, at the word, I would contrive and paint 450 Woods, valleys, rocks and plains, dells, sands and wastes.
Lakes which, when morn breaks on
their quiver-
ing bed,
Blaze like a wyvern flying round the sun. ocean isles so small, the dog-fish tracking dead whale, who should find them, would
And
A
swim thrice Around them, and
The
offspring of
fare
my
onward
brain.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Nor
all
to hold
these alone
:
pyramid and crypt, Baths, galleries, courts, temples and terraces, 459 all filled with men, Marts, theatres and wharfs Men everywhere And this performed in turn,
Bronze labyrinth,
palace,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
When
those
who looked
on, pined to hear the
ho])es
And
fears and hates and loves which moved the crowd, I would throw down the pencil as the chisel. And 1 would speak no thought which ever stirred ;
A human breast should be untold
;
all
passions,
PARACELSUS
45
express-
soft emotions, from the turbulent stir Within a heart fed with desires like mine,
All
To
*"S ^" '
the last comfort shutting the tired lids
noon away 470 Beneath the tent-tree by the wayside well And this in language as the need should be, Now poured at once forth in a burning flow. Now piled up in a grand array of words. This done, to perfect and consummate all,
Of him who
sleeps the sultry
Even as a luminous haze links star to star, I would supply all chasms with music, breathing Mysterious motions of the soul, no way
To
be defined save in strange melodies. Last, having thus revealed all I could love,
480
Having received all love bestowed on it, preserving so throughout my course I would die God full on me, as I was full on men He would approve my prayer, ' I have gone :
:
through
The
loveliness of life
If not for
create for
;
men, or take me
me
to thyself,
'
Eternal, infinite love
!
If thou hast ne'er
Conceived
Thou
No
mighty aim,
this
hast not passed
my
this full desire.
trial,
and thou
art
king of mine.
Paracelsus.
Ah me
!
But thou art here 490 Thou didst not gaze like me upon that end Till thine own powers for comjjassing the bliss Apr'ile.
!
Were blind with glory At once the prize long Nor spurn Would do
all
;
nor grow jjaticnt toil
mad
granted short of that.
as thou, a second time
:
to grasp
should claim.
And
I
nay, listen
!
PARACELSUS
46
He Knowing
ourselves, our world, our task so great,
should Our time so
have the best of his
means
rpj^^
brief, 'tis clear if
we
refuse
limited, the tools so rude
means so
500 To execute our ])urpose, life will fleet, And we shall fade, and leave our task undone,
We will
be wise in time: what though our work fashioned in despite of their ill-service.
Be Be
way
crippled every
'Twere
?
praise
little
resources wait on our goodwill Let all be as it is. every turn.
Did
At
full
even so contrived
Some
say the earth
That
tree and flower, a vesture gay, conceal
is
A bare and skeleton framework. Answering
mind
to our
Had we means
But now
!
how
I
seem 510
rear thereon
Wrecked on
a savage isle
My palace?
Branching palms the props
Fruit glossy mingling
Who
heeds them
?
;
:
gems
can pass them.
I
shall be,
are for the East
Serpents'
scales.
And
painted birds' down, furs and fishes' skins and a little here and there ;
Must help me Is
all I
'
Had
I 'd
can aspire to
show
Shall
I
its
birth
:
still
was
my
art
in a gentler clime.
green jars of malachite, this way where those sea-shells glisten
range them
:
5^°
above,
Cressets should hang, by right : this way we set The purple carpets, as these mats are laid.
Woven of fern and rush and blossoming Or if, by fortune, some completer grace
flag.'
Be
spared to me, some fragment, some slight
Of
the
sample prouder workmanship boasts.
my own home
PARACELSUS Some
trifle little
47
prizing *"^
heeded there, but here with what joy
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
The place's one perfection Would I enshrine the relic,
cheerfully
the marvels out of reach
-^ ^f
Foregoing
all
Could
one strain of all the psalm word of the fiat of God, followers know what such things are
Of
To
530
!
gggd
I retain
the angels, one let
my
would adventure nobly for their sakes When nights were still, and still the moaning I
:
And
far
Whence
away I
I
sea,
could descry the land
departed, whither
I return,
would dispart the waves, and stand once more At home, and load my bark, and hasten back, I
fling my gains to them, worthless or true. 540 Friends,' I would say, 'I went far, far for them. Past the high rocks the haunt of doves, the
And '
mounds
Of
red earth
grow
from whose sides strange
trees
out.
Past tracts of milk-white minute blinding sand, by a mighty moon, I tremblingly
Till,
Gathered these magic herbs, berry and bud. In haste, not pausing to reject the weeds. But happy plucking them at any price. To me, who have seen them bloom in their own soil,
They
And
549
are scarce lovely
guess, from
:
plait
what they
and wear them, you arc, the springs that
fed them.
The stars that sparkled o'er them, night by night. The snakes that travelled far to sip their dew Thus for my higher loves and thus even weakness Would win me honour. But not these alone Should claim my care for common life, its wants '
!
;
;
PARACELSUS
48 not
And
ruined, as
Xhe
now, by
^
ways, would
I set forth in
beauteous hues
lowest hind should not possess a hope, ^^.^^^ ^^^ j ^ be by him, saying better .
language. I would ^trS^ure Than he his own heart's For ever in the thoughts I thus explored,
As
a discoverer's
To
all
memory
is
live
561
attached
he finds; they should be mine henceforth.
Imbued with me, though free to all before For clay, once cast into my soul's rich mine. Nor Should come up crusted o'er with gems. :
this
Would need
a meaner spirit, than the first Nay, 'twould be but the selfsame spirit, clothed In humbler guise, but still the selfsame spirit As one spring wind unbinds the mountain snow
And
comforts violets
in their
hermitage.
571
But, master, poet, who hast done all this. didst thou 'scape the ruin whelming me ? Didst thou, when nerving thee to this attempt.
How
Ne'er range thy mind's extent, as some wide hall. Dazzled by shapes that filled its length with light;. Shapes clustered there to rule thee, not obey,
',
That
will not wait thy
Singly, nor
Can
when thy
summons,
will not rise
practised eye and
well transfer their loveliness, but
hand
crowd
580
By
thee for ever, bright to thy despair ? Didst thou ne'er gaze on each by turns, and ne'er Resolve to single out one, though the rest
Should vanish, and to give that one, entire forgetting, so, In beauty, to the world Its peers, whose number baffles mortal power ? And, this determined, wast thou ne'er seduced By memories and regrets and passionate love. ;
PARACELSUS
49
To glance
once more farewell ? and did their eyes His fall Fasten thee, brighter and more bright, until 590 ^"" "^^ Thou couldst but stagger back unto their feet. And laugh that man's applause or welfare ever
Could tempt thee to forsake them ? Or when years Had passed and still their love possessed thee wholly,
When from Of darkling
without some
murmur
startled thee
mortals famished for one ray
Of thy so-hoarded luxury of light. Didst thou ne'er strive even yet to break those spells
And Thy And And
prove thou couldst recover and fulfil 600 early mission, long ago renounced, to that end, select some shape once more ?
did not mist-like influences, thick films. Faint memories of the rest that charmed so long Thine eyes, float fast, confuse thee, bear thee ofi^.
As
whirling snow-drifts blind a
man who
treads
A
mountain ridge, with guiding spear, through storm ? >ay, though I fell, I had excuse to fall say but this, ?ay, I was tempted sorely :
Dear
lord, Aprile's lord
Clasp
Paracelsus.
Aprile
VVe
!
are
That the weak dust.
/Iprile.
My
me
not thus,
truth should reach
Nay,
me
clasp not or
609
thus
I
I faint!
king! and envious thoughts could
outrage thee
Lo,
!
my
?
and rejoice Let our God's ])raise What care bravely through the world at last I forget
ruin,
In thy success, as thou!
Go
!
Through me tears
?
or thee?
I feel
thy breath.
Why,
PARACELSUS
50
Para- Tears celsus
the darknesR, and from thee to me ? Love me henceforth, Aprile, while
in
Paracelsus.
awakens
j
To
6i8
j^..^^^
love
and, merciful
;
God,
forgive us both
We wake at length from weary dreams
;
!
but both
slept in fairy-land though dark and drear Appears the world before us, we no less Wake with our wrists and ankles jewelled still.
Have
:
—
I too have sought to know as thou to love Excluding love as thou refusedst knowledge. wake Still thou hast beauty and I, power. What penance canst devise for both of us ? Aprile. I hear thee faintly. The thick dark-
We
ness
Even
!
Thine eyes
And now
:
'Tis as
are hid.
I
knew
I speak,
:
But I have seen thy face 630 O poet, think of me, and sing of me But to have seen thee and to die so soon Paracelsus. Die not, Aprile! We must never I die.
!
!
!
part.
Are we
not halves of one dissevered world,
Whom
this
strange chance unites once
more
?
Part ? never Till thou the lover, know ; and I, the knower. Love until both are saved. Aprile, hear
—
We
!
—
and use them now Aprile God, he will die upon my breast yet by Aprile. To speak but once, and die will accept our gains,
!
!
!
!
640
his side.
Hush! hush!
Ha
!
go you ever girt about I have created such, ?
With phantoms, powers But these seem Paracelsus.
real as I.
Whom
can you see
PARACELSUS Through
the accursed darkness
Para-
?
know, celsus who should know them well as I ? ^"^'"^ Stay
^prile. 1 know them White brows,
:
Paracelsus.
reward Apr'tle.
51
lit
up with glory
Let him but
poets
;
live,
I
;
and
all
my
have
I
!
Yes
;
I see
God
now.
is
the perfect
poet,
Who
you but told me Paracelsus. Live
my
To
help
And
own
person acts his
in his
Had
this at first !
my
for
creations.
Hush
649
hush sake, because of !
!
!
great sin,
my
their
by these wild words
brain, oppressed
Live us, and
deep import.
!
have a quiet home for Michal shall smile on you. I
'tis
not too
late.
friends.
Hear you
Lean
?
thus,
And breathe my breath. Of all your sjx'ech, one Apr'tle.
No,
of you
no.
one word word, Aprile Crown me ? I am not one I shall not lose
little
!
'Tis he, the king, you seek. Paracelsus.
me I
!
Thy
I
am
spirit, at least,
not one.
Aprile
love
have attained, and now
!
Let 6rx3
I
may
depart.
PART
III
PARACELSUS Scene.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Basil o/"
a chamber In the house
;
Paracelsus.
1526
Paracelsus, Festus
A
Paracelsus.
renewal "'^liSi's
Heap
logs and let the blaze laugh
out
True, true!
^'""'' .
'Tis very
fit all,
Have wrought
And
time and chance and change
since last
soul to soul
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
all
we
sat thus, face to face
cares, far-looking fears.
Vague apprehensions,
all vain fancies bred your long absence, should be cast away. Forgotten in this glad unhoped renewal
By
Of our
affections.
Paracelsus.
Which
Affection
The
Oh, omit
witnesses your
spare not that
:
not aught
own and Michal's own !
Only
forget
ro
honours and the glories and what not,
you to tell profusely out. Nay, even your honours, in a sense, I waive The wondrous Paracelsus, life's dispenser, Fate's commissary, idol of the schools And courts, shall be no more than Aureole still, Still Aureole and my friend as when we parted It pleases
Festus.
:
PARACELSUS Some twenty
years ago, and
I
53
RecoUec-
restrained
As best I could the promptings of my spirit Which secretly advanced you, from the first,
To
the pre-eminent rank which, since, your
ii?"vi
20
own
Adventurous ardour, nobly triumphing.
Has won
for you.
Yes, yes. And Michal's face wears that quiet and peculiar light Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl ? Paracelsus.
Still
Just so.
Feslus.
Paracelsus.
And
yet her calm sweet counten-
ance.
Though
saintly, was not sad for she would sing Alone. Does she still sing alone, bird-like. Not dreaming you are near ? Her carols dropt In flakes through that old leafy bower built under The sunny wall at Wiirzburg, from her lattice 31
Among
;
the trees above, while
1,
unseen.
Sat conning some rare scroll from Tritheim's shelves
Much
wondering notes so simple could divert from study. Those were happy days. Respect all such as sing when all alone Festus. Scarcely alone her children, you may
My mind
!
:
guess.
Arc wild
beside her.
Ah,
Paracelsus.
those children quite
Unsettle the pure picture in my mind girl, she was so perfect, so distinct
A
:
40
:
No change, no change Not but this added grace May blend and harmonise with its comjjecrs, And Michal may become her motherhood !
;
I'ut 'tis a
And
change, and
most a change
in
I
detest
aught
I
all
change.
loved long since.
i
PARACELSUS
54
Festus So, Michal recalls
ear^
^"''^gi"^
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; you have proud
said she thinks of nic
O
Festus.
very
^ow we
sat,
will
?
Michal be of you
!
long winter-nights,
ii^cheniing and wondering, shaping your presumed 50 Para- Adventure, or devising its reward celsus Shutting out fear with all the strength of hope. For it was strange how, even when most secure
hopes of
In our domestic peace, a certain dim flitting shade could sadden all ; it seemed restlessness of heart, a silent yearning, sense of something wanting, incomplete Not to be put in words, perhaps avoided
And
A A
By mute
consent
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
but, said or unsaid, felt
To point to one so loved and so long lost. And then the hopes rose and shut out the fears
59
How you would laugh should I recount them now I
still
With
predicted your return at last greatest of
beyond the
gifts
All Tritheim's wondrous troop
them ;
all,
did one ot
which Attain renown by any chance, I smiled, As well aware of who would prove his peer.
Michal was sure some woman, long ere this, beautiful as you were sage, had loved
As
.
Paracelsus.
.
.
Far-seeing, truly, to discern so
much In the fantastic projects and day-dreams
Of a raw
restless
boy
70
!
Oh, no the sunrise Festus. Well warranted our faith in this full noon Can I forget the anxious voice which said :
!
<
Festus,
have thoughts like these ere shaped
themselves In other brains than mine
I
have their possessors
PARACELSUS Existed
circumstance
in like
As
I, or
As
spider-films the shackles
?
55
were they weak and
ever constant from the first, Despising youth's allurements and rejecting Is there
As
hope for
me
? '
— and
I
I
change
an acknowledged elder, calmer, wiser,
More For
gifted mortal.
all
your glorious
Paracehus. These hands
—
O .
j^^
f^^^^
in
him
endure ? answered gravely 8i
you must remember. .
.
Glorious ? ay, this hair, nay, touch them, they are mine !
Recall
With
To
all
lay
the said recallings, times
them by your own
As now.
Most
when
ne'er turned
glorious, are they not
thus
you pale ?
Why — why
Festus.
Something must be subtracted from success So wide, no doubt. He would be scrupulous,
Who
should object such drawbacks.
Still, still,
9° Aureole, 'Twere losing You are changed, very changed nothing To look well to it you must not be stolen From the enjoyment of your well-won meed. !
:
Parnrelsus. ])a8t a
My
friend
you seek
!
my
pleasure,
doubt
will best gain your point, by talking, not me, but of yourself.
You
Of
Have
Festus.
All touching Michal and
You know, by
my
this, full well
I
not said
children
?
Sure
how Aennchen
looks
Gravely, while one (lis])arts her thick brown hair And Aureole's glee when some stray gannet ;
builds
'oo
PARACELSUS
56
Para-
Amid
celsus
Have
Small hope the birch-trees by the lake. that he will honour (the wild imp)
I
'tis too much to ask Sigh not ^^^^ namesake. r'"h^^ f should reach the same proud hit own That all we love fate. achievement But you are very kind to humour me !
By showing interest in my quiet life You, who of old could never tame yourself ;
To
tranquil pleasures, must at heart despise . . . Paracelsus. Festus, strange secrets are let out
by death
Who
blabs so oft the follies of this world
:
no
know. I helped a man to die, some few weeks since, Warped even from his go-cart to one end The living on princes' smiles, reflected from No mean trick mighty herd of favourites.
And
I
am
death's familiar, as you
A
left untried, and truly well-nigh wormed All traces of God's finger out of him Then died, grown old. And just an hour before. Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes, He sat up suddenly, and with natural voice 120 Said that in spite of thick air and closed doors God told him it was June and he knew well. Without such telling, harebells grew in June
He
:
;
And
all
Would
that kings could ever give or take not be precious as those blooms to him.
Just so, allowing I
am
passing sage.
me much
worthier argument pansies,! gygg that laugh, bear beauty's prize From violets, eyes that dream (your Michal's
seems to
It
Why
choice) ^
aris.
—
—
Citrinula (flammula) herba Paracelso
— DoRN.
multum
famili-
PARACELSUS Than all fools find Or in my fortunes. I
wonder
to
And
57
me
at in
130
say this from no prurient restlessness, self-complacency, itching to turn.
lectures
No
pleasure from
Vary and view its And, in this instance,
all
willing other
points,
men
May
be at pains, demonstrate to itself The realness of the very joy it tastes. What should delight me like the news of friends
Whose memories were a solace to me oft, As mountain-baths to wild fowls in their iiight? 141 Ofter than you had wasted thought on me
Had
you been wise, and rightly valued bliss. But there 's no taming nor repressing hearts God knows I need such! So, you heard me :
—
speak
?
Speak
Festus.
class
noise and
you not. Surely you know
To As
?
but this morning at
my
?
There was
The
when
?
When
Paracelsus.
chair here
?
1
—
crowd enough.
am engaged
that
'tis
to
I
saw
till
part of my proud fate
lecture to as many thick-skulled youths please, each day, to throng the theatre,
To my great
150
reputation, and no small
Basil's benches long unused crack beneath such honour ?
Danger of
To
Festus.
I
was
tlicre
;
shall I avow mingled with the throng too intent Small care was mine to listen? On gathering from the murmurs of the crowd full corroboration of my hopes What can I learn about your powers ? but they I
A
:
—
!
He speaks
be very sure
PARACELSUS
58
and Know, care for nought beyond your actual perplexes Your actual value ; yet they worship you, th^h"^
Those
whom
various natures
you sway
^
as
state,
i6o
one
!
^"""^ ^ ^^'^^^ attend . irony ^"'^ ^'"^ ^ S*'* Paracelsus. Stop, o' God's name the thing .
.
:
's
by no means yet Past remedy
—At
Shall I read this morning's labour
!
substance
in
least
?
Nought
worth
so
the gaining
As
an apt scholar
Thus
!
then, with all due you, beside, are clearly
— of understanding more, — allowed than your
Precision and emphasis
a whit.
Guiltless
The subject
A
stool
to be
notable advantage.
Surely, Aureole,
Festtts.
You
laugh
at
me
170
1
thank heaven, Paracelsus. I laugh ? Ha, ha for I forget charge you, if 't be so Much, and what laughter should be like. No !
I
!
less.
However, Since
it
I forego that luxury alarms the friend who brings
True, laughter
To
thinking
make me
like
men
;
it
back.
my own a
must echo strangely smile were better far ;
If the exulting looks You wore but now be smiling, 'tis so long Alas, such smiles are Since I have smiled
So,
smile
!
!
born
180
Alone of
hearts like yours, or herdsmen's souls
Of ancient Saw And
time,
whose eyes, calm as their flocks. mere garnishry of heaven.
in
the stars
in
the earth a stage for altars only.
Never change, Festus Festus.
My
God,
:
if
I say, never change he be wretched after all
PARACELSUS When
Paracelsus.
last
we
59
parted, Festus, you Festus
cannot
declared,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Or Michal,
yes, her soft lips whispered
words Q^iugnd
She told me she believed have preserved. should succeed (meaning, that in the search 190 I then engaged in, I should meet success) And yet be wretched now, she augured false. I
I
:
Thank
but you spoke heaven strangely could I venture To think bare apprehension lest your friend, Dazzled by your resplendent course, might find Henceforth less sweetness in his own, could move Fear not, dear Such earnest mood in you ? Festus.
!
:
friend.
That Your
leave you, inwardly repining
I shall
my own
was not
lot
!
And
Paracelsus.
For
this for ever
who may,
!
they will be gulled 200 They will not look nor tliink ; 'tis nothing new but surely he is not of them In them Festus, do you know, I reckoned, you ever! gull
!
!
:
My
Though
all
beside were sand-blind
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
you,
my
friend.
Would
look at me, once close, with piercing eye Untroubled by the false glare that confounds weaker vision would remain serene. Though singular amid a ga])ing throng. I feared you, or I had come, sure, long ere this. To I'.insiedeln. Well, error lias no end, 210 And K basis is a sage, and Basil boasts tribe of wits, and I am wise and blest
A
:
A
Past I
all
dispute
!
'Tis vain to fret at
have vowed long ago
Shall
owe
to their
my
it.
worshipjK-rs
own deep
sagacity
PARACELSUS
6o
Para- All further information, good or bad. celsus Small risk indeed my reputation runs, explains Unless perchance the glance now searching
me Be fixed much longer for it seems to spell 220 Dimly the characters a simpler man Might read distinct enough. Old Eastern books ;
Say, the fallen prince of morning some short space Remained unchanged in semblance; nay, his brow Was hued with triumph every spirit then :
Praising, his heart on flame the while
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a tale
Well, Festus, what discover you, I pray ? Fes t us. Some foul deed sullies then a
which
Were
raised
supreme
?
Good
:
make men
strive to
I
do
well,
most well them;
hear, feel, fret
selves
With what I
229 is
past their
should not strive
The
faint
One,
Not
Of
now
power :
to
comprehend
?
only, having nursed
surmise that one yet walked the earth. not the utter fool of show,
at least,
absolutely formed to be the dupe
shallow plausibilities alone
:
One who, in youth, found wise enough to The happiness his riper years approve,
Was
choose
yet so anxious for another's sake.
That, ere his friend could rush upon
And His
life
else
Paracelsus.
Why
!
a
mad
ruinous course, the converse of his own, 240 gentle spirit essayed, prejudged for
him
The perilous path, foresaw its destiny. And warned the weak one in such tender Such accents
That
oft
When
it
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
words,
whole heart in every tone their memory comforted that friend by right should have increased despair his
:
PARACELSUS
— Having At
portion
even
— how should
my
from the
lose the light thus
gain
if it
I refuse to
He
man
believed, I say, that this one
Could never
His
6i
first
f^^f^^
grieve
disturb our old
y^^^ failed
250
Relation, if it make me out more wise ? Therefore, once more reminding him how well
He
prophesied,
That
I
note the single flaw In plain words,
spoils his prophet's title.
You were deceived, and thus were you deceived I have not been successful, and yet am Most miserable 'tis said at last nor you Give credit, lest you force me to concede That common sense yet lives upon the world Festus. You surely do not mean to banter me ;
;
!
Paracelsus.
You know,
—
or
if
?
you have been
261 wise enough knew, your memory of such matters As far as words of mine could make it clear. That 'twas my purpose to find joy or grief Solely in the fulfilment of my plan
—
To cleanse
rejoicing plot or whatsoe'er it was Alone as it proceeded ])rosperous]y. Sorrowing then only when mischance retarded That was in those Wiirzburg Its progress.
Or
;
days
theme I thoroughly hate, 270 have pursued this plan with all my strength ; And having failed therein most signally. Cannot object to ruin utter and drear As all-excelling would have been the prize Had fortune favoured me. I scarce have right To vex your frank good spirit late so glad
Not
to prolong a
I
In
my
supposed prosjierity,
And, were
I
lucky
1
in a glut
know, of friends,
PARACELSUS
62
and pro- Would well agree to let your error live, phesies Nay, strengthen it with fables of success. condition to refuse exDOsm-e ^"'' """^ ^^ "°
The
My
280
transient solace of so rare a godsend,
my one friend Accordingly I venture to put off The wearisome vest of falsehood galling me, I lay me bare, Secure when he is by. Prone at his mercy but he is my friend Not that he needs retain his aspect grave solitary luxury,
—
!
That answers not my purpose
Some sunny morning
—
;
for
'tis like.
Basil being drained
290
Of its wise population, every corner Of the amphitheatre crammed with learned clerks. Here Qicolampadius, looking worlds of Here Castellanus, as profound as he,
wit,
Munsterus here, Frobenius there, all squeezed that the zany of the show, staring,
—
And
Even Paracelsus, shall put His trappings with a grace Expedient in such cases Is will go round!
That
:
off before
them
but seldom judged
— the grim smile
it
not therefore best 300
To
venture a rehearsal like the present In a small way ? Where are the signs I seek. The first-fruits and fair sample of the scorn
Due
to all
Festus.
quacks
?
These
Why,
are
foul
this will
never do
vapours,
Aureole
!
nought beside
The effect of watching, study, weariness. Were there a spark of truth in the confusion Of these wild words, you would not outrage thus Your youth's companion. I shall ne'er regard These wanderings, bred of faintness and much study.
310
PARACELSUS
63
Festus
'Tis not thus you would trust a trouble to me,
still Michal's friend. ^ ^^^ ^^^^^ I have said it, dearest Festus Paracelsus. probably ungracious For the manner, 'tis You may have it told in broken sobs, one day, And scalding tears, ere long but I thought best
To
!
:
To Do
keep that off as long you wonder still ?
as possible.
No
Festus.
That one whose
;
it
must
oft fall out
labour perfects any work.
with eye so worn that he 320 can measure the extent Of what he has accomplished. He alone Who, nothing tasked, is nothing weary too. May clearly scan the little he effects But we, the bystanders, untouched by toil, Shall rise from
Of
all
men
it
least
:
Estimate each aright.
This worthy Festus 'Tis so with all one of them, at last First, they set down all progress as a dream ; And next, when he whose quick discomfiture Was counted on, accomplishes some few Paracelsus.
Is
And
!
doubtful steps in his career,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; behold,
330
Tliey look for every inch of ground to vanish Ik-neath his tread, so sure they sj)y success Festus. Few doubtful steps ? when death retires
before
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Your presence when the noblest of mankind. Broken in body or subdued in soul. May through your skill renew their vigour, raise
The shattered frame to jiristine stateiiness? When men in racking pain may purchase dreams Of what dcliglits them most, swooning at once Into a sea of
bliss or rajit
along
340
PARACELSUS
64 Para-
As
celsus
When we may
in a flying
insists rp^
^^^^ ^j^^
jj^^l^
Our Luther's
When
.
.
sphere of turbulent light ? look to you as one ordained ^^^^^
l^^jl
jjggjjge^
jjg
frees
burning tongue the fettered soul
?
.
Paracelsus.
When
and where, the devil, did
you get
This notable news ? Even from the common voice Festus. From those whose envy, daring not dispute The wonders it decries, attributes them
To
magic and such
folly.
Why not Folly ? comfort doubtless 351 In holding, God ne'er troubles him about Us or our doings once we were judged worth The devil's tempting ... I offend forgive me, And rest content. Your prophecy on the whole Was fair enough as prophesyings go Paracelsus.
To
magic, pray
You
?
find a
:
:
At
fault a little in detail, but quite
Precise enough in the main ; and hereupon you guessed long ago I pay due homage :
(The
prophet
)
I
should
Festus.
You mean
to tell
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and I have failed. me, then, the hopes
fail
!
which fed
360
not been realised as yet obstacle has barred them hitherto ?
Your youth have
Some Or that
their innate
.
.
.
As
Paracelsus.
?
I said but
now,
a very decent prophet's fame. So you but shun details here. Little matter Whether those hopes were mad, the aims they
You have
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
sought.
Safe and secure from
all
ambitious fools
PARACELSUS
65
Or whether my weak wits are overcome He wishes By what a better spirit would scorn I fail. And now methinks 'twere best to change a theme ^? <^j'^"£® the theme T J r L LI J 1 am a sad tool to have stumbled on. 371 :
I
I
say confusedly what comes uppermost
But there are times when patience proves
As now
at fault,
—
morning's strange encounter you Beside me once again you, whom I guessed Alive, since hitherto (with Luther's leave) No friend have I among the saints at peace, To judge by any good their prayers effect. I knew you would have helped me why not he, My strange competitor in enterprise, 380 Bound for the same end by another path, Arrived, or ill or well, before the time. :
this
!
—
At
our disastrous journey's doubtful close ? goes it with Aprile ? Ah, they miss Your lone sad sunny idleness of heaven, Our martyrs for the world's sake ; heaven shuts
How
fast
The
poor mad poet is howling by this time Since you are my sole friend then, here or theie, I could not quite repress the varied feelings 389 !
This meeting wakens
;
they have had their vent.
And now forget them. Do the rear-mice still Hang like a fretwork on the gate (or what In my time was a gate) fronting the road From Linsiedcin to Lachen ?
Trifle not
I'estus.
:
Answer me, for my sake alone You smiled Just now, when I supposed some deed, unworthy !
Yourself, might blot the else so bright result
Yet
your motives iiave continued
if
Your
will unfaltering,
and E
in spite
]Hire,
of
this,
PARACELSUS
66 but
Festus still
You have
is I
un^
why
experienced a defeat,
then
400
say not you would cheerfully withdraw
fMom
contest
— mortal
not
arc
hearts
so
fashioned
But surely you would nc'ertlieless withdraw. sought not fame nor gain nor even love, No end distinct from knowledge, I repeat Your very words once satisfied that knowledge Is a mere dream, you would announce as much. Yourself the first. But how is the event ? You are defeated and I find you here Paracelsus. As though here did not signify
You
—
:
—
'
'
defeat
410
spoke not of my little labours here, But of the break-down of my genera! aims For you, aware of their extent and scope, To look on these sage lecturings, approved By beardless boys, and bearded dotards worse. As a fit consummation of such aims, I
:
worthy
Is
notice.
A professorship
At Basil Since you And think my life was !
Of life's For
Be
To
see so
much
delights to render
me
a
duties arduous as such post
it
far
fill
from
me
to
in
it.
reasonably drained
deny
my
match demands,
420
power
the ])etty circle lotted out
Of infinite space, or justify the host Of honours thence accruing. So, take notice, This jewel dangling from my neck preserves The features of a prince, my skill restored
To plague his people some few And all through a pure whim.
years to
He
the earth
For me,
Init
that the droll despair
come
:
liad eased
429
which seized
PARACELSUS
67
Para-
me. Here, drivelled the physician, Whose most infallible nostrum was at fault There quaked the astrologer, whose horoscope Had promised him interminable years Here a monk fumbled at the sick man's mouth With some undoubted relic a sudary Of the Virgin while another piebald knave Of the same brotherhood (he loved them ever)
The I
vermin of
came
his household, tickled
to see.
^^y^^^
^^
;
;
—
;
Was
actively preparing 'neath his nose
440
once fired. Had stunk the patient dead ere he could groan. I cursed the doctor and upset the brother, Brushed past the conjurer, vowed that the first
Such
Of
a sufFumigation as,
gust stench from the ingredients just alight
my sword. and ere an hour the prince Slept as he never slept since prince he was. day and I was posting for my life, 449 Placarded through the town as one whose spite
Would Not
A
raise a cross-grained devil in
easily laid
:
—
Had near availed to stop the blessed effects Of the doctor's nostrum which, well secondetl By
the sudary, and most by the costly
Not leaving out the strenuous Hard by in the abbey raised
—
To
smoke
])rayers sent
the prince to
up lite
:
the great reputation of the seer
Who, confident, The glad event
exjK-cted
—
all
along
the doctor's recompense
Mucii largess from
his highness to the
monks
And the vast solace of his loving peo])le, Whose genera! satisfaction to increase. The prince was jileascd no longer to defer The burning of some dozen heretics
gj^.
perience
460
PARACELSUS
68 typical of many
such
Remanded Touching
Ample
To
till
God's mercy should be shown
his sickness
directions to
last
:
of
all
were joined
loyal folk
all
complement by seizing me endeasome rank sorcerer
swell the
Who — doubtless
—
voured To thwart these pious offices, obstruct The prince's cure, and frustrate heaven by help Of certain devils dwelling in his sword. 471 By luck, the prince in his first fit of thanks Had forced this bauble on me as an earnest Of further favours. This one case may serve To give sufficient taste of many such,
them
Those
shelves support a pile
So,
let
Of
patents, licences, diplomas, titles
pass.
From Germany, France, Spain, and Italy; They authorise some honour ne'ertheless, ;
I set
He
more
trusts
And him
store
me
;
by
this
Erasmus
our Frobenius
is
sent
480
his friend,
*I raised' (nay, read
it)
*froni the
dead.' I merely sought I see. show, there 's no great wonder after all That, while I fill the class-room and attract I
weary you,
To
A
crowd
to Basil, I get leave to stay,
And The
utmost they can
For
'tis
therefore need not scruple to accept offer,
if"
I please
but right the world should be prepared
To
treat with favour e'en fantastic
Of
one
like
me, used up
Just as the mortal,
Devoured, received
whom in
wants
490
in serving her.
the gods in part
place of his lost limb
—
Some virtue or other cured You mind the fables we have
disease, I think
read together.
;
PARACELSUS
69
You do not think. I comprehend ^ord. time was, Aureole, you were apt enough
Feslus.
The
To clothe
the airiest thoughts in specious breath
But surely you must
feel
how
a
soe^akine ;
499
you know my hopes I am assured, at length, those hopes were vain That truth is just as far from me as ever That I have thrown my life away that sorrow On that account is idle, and further effort To mend and patch what 's marred beyond Well, then
Paracelsus.
:
;
;
;
repairing,
As By Of
useless
and
:
all this
was taught your friend method
the convincing good old-fashioned
— by sheer compulsion.
force
Dear Aureole, can
Fes/us. just
Gotl
it
Is that plain
be
my
fears
?
were
?
wills not
Paracelsus.
.
.
509
.
Now, 'tis this I most admire talk men of your stamp keep up
The constant Of God's will, as they style it one would swear Man had but merely to uplift his eye. And see the will in question charactered On the heaven's vault. 'Tis hardly wise to moot ;
Such I
topics
know
as
:
doubts are
much of any
As knows some dumb
many and will
faith
is
weak.
God
of
and tortured brute what
Man, His stern lord, wills from the perplexing blows That plague him every way but there, of course, ;
Where
My
least
he
suffers, longest
;
—
he remains I plod on,
and for such reasons I Subdued but not convinced. case
know
521
as little
is
fT''°kin
vague and strange
These speeches sound.
He
PARACELSUS
70
Why
1 deserve to fail, as why I hoped He confesses Better things in my youth. 1 simply know to certain j ^^ ^^ master here, but trained and beaten and here I stay, delights ^"^o the path I tread ;
Until some further intimation reach mc, Like an obedient drudge. Though I prefer To view the whole thing as a task imposed 530 Which, whether dull or pleasant, must be done
Yet,
I
deny
not, there
Of joys which
is
tastes less
made
provision
jaded might affect
Nay, some which please me too, for all my pride the iron ring Pleasures that once were pains Festering about a slave's neck grows at length :
Into the flesh
A
it
I hate
eats.
host of petty vile delights,
no longer
undreamed of
such now supply the place spurned before dead aims : as in the autumn woods 540 Where tall trees used to flourish, from their roots Springs up a fungous brood sickly and pale. Chill mushrooms coloured like a corpse's cheek.
Or
;
Of my
Festus. It troubles
If I interpret well your words, me hut little that your aims.
I
own
Vast in their dawning and most likely grown Extravagantly since, have bafBed you. Perchance I am glad you merit greater praise Because they are too glorious to be gained, You do not blindly cling to them and die ; 550 You fell, but have not sullenly refused To rise, because an angel worsted you In wrestling, though the world holds not your ;
peer
And
To
though too harsh and sudden is the change still you pursue ungracious path as though 'twere rosy-strewn.
yield content as yet,
The
PARACELSUS
71
He and your reward, or soon or late, Will come from him whom no man serves in vain. ^^'^ °^ ^ For my part, T j^ng Paracelsus. Ah, very fine 'Tis well
:
!
conceive very pausing from
The Which
To To I
charge
find heinous,
you
further
all
would become
my
a seal
deeds.
the sincerity of
all
be consistent
should die
I
560
toil,
at
once
calculated on no after-life
in, how fostered, I know not) Here am I with as passionate regret For youth and health and love so vainly lavished,
Yet (how crept
As if their preservation had been first And foremost in my thoughts and this ;
strange
fact
Humbled me wondrously, and had due
force 570
In rendering me the less averse to follow certain counsel, a mysterious warning You will not understand but 'twas a man With aims not mine and yet pursued like mine,
A
—
With
the same fervour and no
l\-rishing in
As
I
To
serve
my
sight
;
more
success,
who summoned me
would shun the ghastly
my race at once That God should interfere
;
fate 1
to wait in
my
saw. no longer
behalf.
But to distrust myself, put pride away,
And
To
give
men.
my 1
580
gains, imperfect as they were, liave not leisure to explain
How, since, a singular scries Has raised me to the station
of events
you behold. Wherein I seem to turn to most account The mere wreck of the past, perhaps receive Some feeble glimmering token that God views And may ap])rovc my penance therefore here
—
:
PARACELSUS
72
which has You ''^°"^!'''
Basil
find
^^^
*^
me, doing most good or least harm. wonder much and profit little 590
^°"^^
'^'^ "^'' "^y ^'^^^^
'
°"'y' ^
^^''*^^
rejoice
When my part in the farce is shuffled through, And the curtain falls: I must hold out till then. Festiis.
when, dear Aureole ? Till I 'm fairly thrust proud eminence. Fortune is fickle Till
Paracelsus.
From my
And You
even professors fall should that arrive, no sin in ceding to my bent. little fancy what rude shocks apprise us
We
sin
:
I see
;
God's
intimations rather
fail
In clearness than in energy 'twere well 600 Did they but indicate the course to take Like that to be forsaken. I would fain Be spared a further sample. Here I stand, And here I stay, be sure, till forced to flit. Festus. Be you but firm on that head long ere then All I expect will come to pass, I trust The cloud that wraps you will have disappeared. Meantime, I see small chance of such event They praise you here as one whose lore, already Divulged, eclipses all the past can show, 6io But whose achievements, marvellous as they be. Are faint anticipations of a glory About to be revealed. When Basil's crowds Dismiss their teacher, I shall be content That he depart. Paracelsus. This favour at their hands T look for earlier than your view of things Would warrant. Of the crowd you saw to-day, Remove the full half sheer amazement draws. Mere novelty, nought else ; and next, the tribe :
!
PARACELSUS Whose
73
innate blockish dulness just perceives 620
He
analyses works) in their behalf, their chance is slight -Jj^jgnrTo puzzle the devil next, the numerous set Who bitterly hate established schools, and help The teacher that oppugns them, till he once
That unless Be wrought
miracles (as seem
my
;
Have
planted his
own
doctrine,
when
the teacher
May
reckon on their rancour in his turn ; Take, too, the sprinkling of sagacious knaves Whose cunning runs not counter to the vogue But seeks, by flattery and crafty nursing, 630 To force my system to a premature Short-lived development. Why swell the list ? Each has his end to serve, and his best way Of serving it: remove all these, remains scantling, a poor dozen at the best. Worthy to look for sympathy and service, And likely to draw profit from my pains, Feslus. 'Tis no encouraging picture still these few
A
:
Redeem
their fellows.
growth,
Its
if
slow,
is
Once the germ
implanted,
sure.
God
Paracelsus.
grant
it
so
!
640
would make some amends but if I fail, The luckless rogues have this excuse to urge. That much is in my method and my manner, My uncouth habits, my impatient spirit. Which hinders of reception and result I
:
My
doctrine
These
:
much
to say, small skill to speak!
old aims suffered not a looking-off
Though
for an instant
;
therefore, only
when
them and resolved to reaj) Some present fruit~to tcacii mankind some truth I
thus renounced
So dearly purchased
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; only then
I
found
651
PARACELSUS
74 It is
too Such teaching was an art requiring cares
late to
a ge
And
qualities peculiar to itself:
"-pj^m
J.Q
possess
was one thing
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
to display
my
Another.
With renown
Or po])ular One grows
])raise, I
had soon discovered
but
apt to learn these things.
If
Festus.
it
little
first in
thoughts, it
be so, which nowise I believe,
There needs no waiting
fuller dispensation
To
little use.
leave a labour of so
Why
660
not throw up the irksome charge at once
Paracelsus.
A task,
?
a task!
But wherefore hide the whole Extent of degradation, once engaged In the confessing vein ? Despite of all fine talk of obedience and repugnance, Docility and what not, 'tis yet to learn
My If
when
My I
the task shall really be performed.
once more, modify
inclination free to choose
do aught but
shall
The
slightly
nature of the hated task I quit.
am
In plain words, I As first it tended
;
To my
;
spoiled
;
my
670
tends
life still
I am broken and trained they are part of me. I know, and none so well, my darling ends Are proved impossible no less, no less,
old habits
:
Even now what humours me, fond when Their
faint ghosts sit
And
send
How
can
me back I
change
with
me and
content to this soul
?
my
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
flatter
dull
-this
intricate
me
round
?
a])paratus
Constructed solely for their purposes, So well adapted to their every want, To search out and discover, prove and
This
as
fool,
680
])crfect
machine whose most minute
PARACELSUS And
A
His aim
me
meanest motions have their chai in to an aptitude I seize, to none else object I perceive, a use, a meaning,
—
Though
An
75
be"know' ledge
property, a fitness, I explain
And And
alone
I
this
:
— how can
tasked
Under
my
change
I
soul
?
wronged body, worthless save when
that soul's
dominion
—used
to care
690
bright master's cares and quite subdue not to ail nor pine Its proper cravings
For
its
So he
but prosper
Tried
patient
To To
this
God
I
body
live like that
love alone
And
— —whither drag
;
?
mad poet, how I
and
twisted and deformed
how
!
poor
essayed
for a while.
too warped
felt
What
!
should
I
do,
liven tho' released from drudgery, but return Faint, as you see, and halting, blind and sore.
To my
old
life
and die as
1
began
700
?
cannot feed on beauty for the sake Of beauty only, nor can drink in balm I
From
My I
lovely objects for their loveliness; first imprint
nature cannot lose her
must hoard and
still
heaj)
and
class all truths
With one ulterior purpose I must know Would God translate me to his throne, believe That I should only listen to his word For other men, To further my own aim !
:
!
prodigally strewn around,
Beauty
is
And
were
I
ha])])y
could
I
quench
710 as they
mad and thriveless longing, and With beauty for itself alone alas,
'I'his
content
me
:
I
have adilrcsaed
Yet may not
And now
a frock
of heavy mail
join the troo]) of sacred knights
the forest-creatures
11
y
from me,
;
PARACELSUS
76
Festus cannot :.h°J^A prehend
The
warm no
grass-banks cool, the sunbeams more.
^^^^ follow, dreaming that ere night arrive,
company and
I shall o'crtake the
ride
Glittering as they Festus.
think I apprehend
I
What
720
you would say if you, in truth, design To enter once more on the life thus left, Seek not to hide that all this consciousness Of failure is assumed :
!
My
Paracelsus.
you
I toil,
listen
I explain,
;
friend,
my
friend,
perhaps
You understand there our communion ends. Have you learnt nothing from to-day's discourse When we would thoroughly know the sick man's :
?
state
We
awhile the fluttering pulse, press soft hot brow, look upon the languid eye, 730 Must I lay bare thence divine the rest.
feel
The And
My My
and beating, or tear up your gaze, ere you will deem
heart, hideous vitals for
Enough made known forsooth
That
By
is
You
?
earth the audience.
Secure
who
are
you,
the crowning operation claimed heaven the hall,
the arch demonstrator
And
!
?
good
places
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Let Aprile and you be worth the
'twill
while.
Are you mad. Aureole?
Festus.
What
can I have said
To
call
for
this
?
I
judged from your
words. Paracelsus.
own 740
Oh,
doubtless!
describes the ape
A sick wretch
PARACELSUS That mocks him from
the
77
and
bed-foot,
all
You The
thither turn at once
or he recounts
:
f
perilous journey he has late performed,
And
you are puzzled much
You
find
It
me
makes no
I
am
my
part of
that could be
less
but so
;
led to trust
mad
:
delight to search
much
Into these matters,
And And
how
here, half stupid and half
Another's scrutiny
That
my
it
undergo chances
you
state to
750
you combine, contrast ponder on my foolish words as though They thoroughly conveyed all hidden here Here, loathsome with despair and hate and rage Is there no fear, no shrinking and no shame ? Will you guess nothing ? will you spare me the event
nothing
Must
I
is,
?
go deeper
Ay
?
Paracelsus.
The
:
am
I
?
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
friend
brutal
.
.
'tis
.
a
])art
it;
should you it
I
True
plague's sign
How
or no
Dear
Festus.
of
you â&#x20AC;&#x201D; know
are not a lazar-haunter.
Well
?
then, you think
strange
760
should profess to have failed utterly,
And
To
yet propose an ultimate return
courses void of hope
You know
:
and
this,
not what temptation
'Tis like to ply
You
men
is,
because nor
how
in the sickliest part.
are to understand that
we who make
Sport for the gods, are hunted to the end There is not one sharj) volley shot at us.
Which
Paracclsus
pravelv
'scaped
slacken pace
with
life,
though
:
hurt,
we
'rther"^
PARACELSUS
78
He And hints at
de-rada' "^ tion
gather by the wayside herbs and roots 770 our wounds, secure from further
-"Po
staunch
^^
^""^
''''""
'
assailed to life's extremest verge.
It will be well
A I
indeed
harmless busy
would
if I return,
my
fool, to
Significant enough,
which
Have
me
lately scared
Another
Paracelsus. I
silent
After
hours
with.
Fes/us.
A
old ways
forget hints of another fate,
all,
and what
!
?
Festus, you say well
am
I need never humble me. yet would have been something, I know not 780 what But though I cannot soar, I do not crawl. There are worse portions than this one of mine.
man
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I
You
say well
Ah
Festus.
And
Paracelsus.
If the
mean
deeper degradation
!
stimulants of vulgar praise.
If vanity should become the chosen food a sunk mind, should stifle even the wish
Of
To
find
its
early aspirations true.
Should teach
it
to breathe falsehood like life-
breath
An
atmosphere of craft and trick and lies 790 Should make it jjroud to emulate, surpass Base natures in the practices which woke No, no Its most indignant loathing once. Utter damnation is reserved for hell such shall never I had immortal feelings Be wholly quenched no, no My friend, you wear .
;
:
!
.
.
!
PARACELSUS
79
A
melancholy face, and certain 'tis There's little cheer in all this dismal work. T, L J . But was It my desire to set abroach I foresaw forebodings ? Such memories and Where they would drive. 'Twere better we .
â&#x20AC;˘
I
800
discuss
News from Lucerne
ask and tell Of Egypt's flaring sky or Spain's cork-groves. trust me, this I have thought Festus. or Zurich
;
:
I
mood will pass away know you and the lofty
And
!
These
you bear,
spirit
easily ravel out a clue to
all.
are the trials meet for such as you.
Nor must you hope exemption
:
to be mortal
Is to be plied with trials manifold.
Look round
!
The
obstacles
which kept the 809
rest
From
your aml)ition, have been spurned by you;
Their fears, their doubts, the chains that bind them all. Were flax before your resolute soul, which nought Avails to awe save these delusions bred
From
its
own
its
selfsame
brave,
dear
strength,
strength
disguised,
Mocking
itself.
Be
Aureole
Since
The rabbit has his shade to frighten The fawn a rustling bough, mortals And higher natures yet would slight
him, their cares.
and laugh
At these entangling fantasies, as you At trammels of a weaker intellect, Measure your mind's casts
iieight
by the shade
820 it
Festus
f"^5i^^^ that these ^^^ ^^j^ sions
PARACELSUS
8o
He denies that love
I
know
you.
Paracelsus.
And
know
I
you, dearest Festus
has made ^^^^ j^^^ j^^^ unworthily him bhnd a n j j a All admiration renders blmd.
w
•
;
Festus.
That admiration f??
blinds
how
You
hold
Ay
Nought
!
?
Paracelsus.
^Festus.
and
blinds
and alas you less than ad!
miration, friend! it be that all love renders wise degree ; from love which blends with
Whether In
its
love
Heart answering heart
—
to
love
which spends
itself
In silent mad idolatry of some Pre-eminent mortal, some great soul of
Which
ne'er will
know how
well
it
is
830 souls,
adored.
but rather never blind Alive to every the minutest spot I say, such love
is
Which
its
mars
;
object,
and
which
hate
supposed So vigilant and searching) dreams not of. When Love broods on such: what then? first perceived Is there no sweet strife to forget, to change, To overflush those blemishes with all The glow of general goodness they disturb ? 840 (
— To
make
those
very
defects
an
endless
source
Of new affection grown from hopes and fears ? And, when all fails, is there no gallant stand Made even for much proved weak ? no shrinking-back Lest, since
all
love assimilates the soul
PARACELSUS To
what
Almost
loves,
it
a rival of
it
should
its
idol
8i
length
at
He
become
sees the
Trust me,
?
weakIf there be fiends who seek to work our hurt, ness, but > J J J o rum and drag down earth s mightiest spirits only Even at God's foot, 'twill be from such as loves the
Ti
â&#x20AC;˘
1
1
â&#x20AC;˘
love,
Their
850
zeal will gather
most
to serve their cause
And
least from those who hate, who most By contumely and scorn to blot the light Which forces entrance even to their hearts
For thence will our defender And show within each heart,
The
;
essay
:
tear the veil as in a shrine,
giant image of perfection,
grown
In hate's despite, whose calumnies were spawned In the untroubled presence of its eyes.
True admiration blinds not nor am I So blind. I call your sin exceptional
860
;
It
springs from one
whose
;
life
has passed the
Compound
that fault with
bounds Prescribed to
life.
God! of men to common men like me weakness you reveal endears you more, Like the far traces of decay in suns. I bid you have good cheer I
s])eak
;
The
Pdidcelsus.
Think of
Prtrclarc !
Instructing Paracelsus!
Come, Tis
I
will
in the
That
Oplinif !
a quiet mountain-cloistered priest
the
yet
'tis so.
show you where my merit
expectation
Eventually to follow
Waits ages
lies.
advance of individual minds slow crowd should ground
in its
bed
;
as the sea till
some one wave
870
tlieir
more
PARACELSUS
82
Para- Out of the multitudinous mass, extends l"'i^p cnii)irc of the whole, some feet perhaps, Over the strij) of sand whicli could confine p celsus
.
,
•
thenceforth the rest, merit ^^^ fellows so long time lies Even to the meanest, hurry in at once, And so much is clear gained. I shall be glad :
If
all
my
labours, failing of aught else,
Suffice to
make such
88i
inroad and procure
A
nay, they do this wider range for thought For, whatsoe'er my notions of true knowledge :
And I
am
a legitimate success,
may
be,
my
undoubted rank I precede classed with others
not blind to
When And whoso These
my
:
wills
is
age
:
very free to mount
labours as a platform
May
;
whence
his
own
have a prosperous outset. But, alas 890 My followers they are noisy as you heard ; But, for intelligence, the best of them
So
!
—
clumsily wield the weapons
And
they extol, that
Whether
their
own
I 8u])ply
begin to doubt
I
rude
clubs
pebble-
and
stones
Would not do better Thus vilely swayed
service than
—
if
my
error will not
arms fall
Sooner before the old awkward batterings
Than my more Festus.
T
subtle warfare, not half learned.
would supply that
art,
then,
or
withhold 900 New arms until you teach their mystery. Paracelsus. Content you, 'tis my wish I have recourse To the simplest training. Day by day I seek ;
To wake Can make
the
mood, the
spirit
which alone
those arms of any use to men.
PARACELSUS Of course
83
they are for swaggering forth
once explains w^at he
at
Graced with Ulysses' bow, Achilles' shield— Flash on
Make
A
us, all in
armour, thou Achilles
teach
our hearts dance to thy resounding step
proper sight to scare the crows
Pity
Festus.
you
choose
away
910
!
then
not
some
other method
Of coming
at
The
your point.
marvellous art
At
length established in the world bids
To
remedy
fixir
hindrances like these Trust to Frobenius' press the precious lore Obscured by uncouth manner, or unfit all
:
For raw beginners
types secure
let his
;
A deathless monument to
after-time
;
Meanwhile wait confidently and enjoy
The You
ultimate effect
:
sooner or later
The
Pardcelsits.
In a
920
shall be all-revealed.
new form
no more.
;
Two sorts of knowledge
old dull question
Thus:
—
I
possess
one vast, shadowy, Hints of the unbounded aim I once ])ursued The other consists of many secrets, caught While bent on nobler ])rize, perhaps a few Prime princijjles which may conduct to much ;
:
—
:
These
Now,
My
last I offer to
bid
me
my
chronicle
followers here.
llie lirst
of these,
ancient study, and in effect you bid
930
Revert to the wild courses just abjured I must go find them scattered through :
the
world.
Then, (
for the principles, they are so simjjlc
I'eing chiefly of the overturning sor*),
That one time
As
any other
is
as projKT to ])roj)ound
— to-morrow
at
my
class,
them
PARACELSUS
84
and Or half a century hence embalmed in print, defends For if mankind intend to learn at all, 1 hey must begin by giving faith to them h' f and I do not see 940 lecturing And acting on them ,
:
But that my lectures serve indifferent well No doubt these dogmas fall not to the earth. For all their novelty and rugged setting. I think my class will not forget the day I let them know the gods of Israel, Aetius, Oribasius, Galen, Rhasis, Serapion, Avicenna, Averrcies,
Were
blocks
And
Festus,
me,
that reminds
something About your waywardness
1
heard
you burned their
:
books. It seems, instead of
Paracelsus.
answering those sages.
And who
said that
Some
Festus.
As
With OEcolampadius.
950
?
met yesternight you know, the
I
purpose
Of this
short stay at Basil was to learn
His pleasure touching certain missives sent For our Zuinglius and himself. 'Twas he Apprised
Was my
me
famous teacher here
that the
old friend.
Ah,
Paracelsus.
I
forgot
:
you went
.
.
•
From Zurich with advices for the ear Of Luther, now at Wittenberg (you know, Festus.
make no doubt, the With Carolostadius) I
—
differences of late
— and
Basil and
.
.
960
returning sought
.
Paracelsus. I remember.
Will teach you
why
I
Here
's
a case,
now.
answer not, but burn
PARACELSUS
85
The
books you mention. Pray, does Luther and of bold dream His arguments convince by their own force ^'l*^ The crowds that own his doctrine ? No, indeed Luther His plain denial of established points Ages had sanctified and men supposed Could never be oppugned while earth was under And heaven above them points which chance .
!
—
or time
Affected not
970
—
did more than the array
Of
argument which followed. Boldly deny There is much breath-stopping, hair-stiffening Awhile; then, amazed glances, mute awaiting The thunderbolt which does not come and next, Reproachful wonder and inquiry those !
:
:
Who To To
else
had never
him who
outstrip
—As never And
will
my
set the
its
perhaps at
work,
instructor.
980
?
'Tis a wondrous soul
Festus.
Paracelsus.
True
:
the so-heavy chain which
mankind
Ls shattered,
Must bow
whole
wise class
you saw Luther
galled
now
stirred, are able
find the rest out for themselves,
and the noblest of us
to the deliverer
—
—
all
nay, the worker
Of our own project we who long before Had burst our trammels, but forgot the crowd.
We
should have taught, their load
still
groaned beneath
:
This he has done and nobly. Speed that may Whatever be my chance or my mischance. What benefits mankind must glad me too 990 And men seem made, though not as I believed, For something better than the times produce. ;
'
•
PARACELSUS
86
Festus Witness these gangs of peasants your new lights speaks of Pio,-,^ Suabia have possessed, whom Miinzer
And whom
the duke, the landgrave and
the
elector
Will calm in blood world
Well, well
!
'tis
;
my
not
!
Fes/us.
Hark
!
'Tis the melancholy wind Within the trees the embers too are grey Morn must be near. Paracelsus.
;
Best ope the casement
Festus.
The
:
astir :
see,
night, late strewn with clouds and flying
looo
stars,
Is blank and motionless
how
:
peaceful sleep
The tree-tops altogether The wind slips whispering
Like an asp. from bough to bough. you would gaze on a wind!
Paracelsus,
Ay
;
shaken tree the hour, nor count time
By
Festus.
lost.
So you shall gaze come again. Gone, gone. Does not the moaning :
Those happy times
will
Paracelsus.
Those pleasant times wind Seem to bewail that we have gained such !
And
bartered sleep for them
It is
Festus.
That
there
is
gains
?
yet another world to
our trust
mend
loio
All error and mischance.
Another world
Paracelsus.
And why
A
this
make-shift, a
To
some fme
!
common world, to mere foil, how fair soever.
world, this life
to
come
?
Man
be
must be fed
PARACELSUS With
Of
87
and some few traces Paracelsus which look out corporeal baseness, warrant him I^^ch
angels' food, forsooth
;
a diviner nature
Through
his
In a supreme contempt of
For
his inferior tastes
all
—some
provision
comfort
straggling
marks
Which constitute his essence, just as truly As here and there a gem would constitute The rock, their barren bed, one diamond. But were
A
it
so
— were man
mind
—he
gains
From God
station little enviable.
Down
all
1020
to the lowest spirit ministrant.
Intelligence exists
which
Into immeasurable shade.
—
mind No, no these make humanity casts our
:
Love, hope,
fear, faith
These
and note and character. have lost gone, shut from me for
And
are
its
these I
;
sign
!
—
ever,
1030
Like a dead friend safe from unkindness more See, morn at length. The heavy darkness seems !
Diluted, grey and clear without the stars The shrubs bestir and rouse themselves as
Some
snake, that weighed
let
them down
all
if
night,
go
His hold Day, like
and from the Last, fuller and fuller, mighty river, flowing in ; But clouded, wintry, desolate and cold. Yet see how that broad ])rickly star-shaped ])lant. Half-down in the crevice, s])reads its woolly leaves All thick and glittering with diamond dew. io.(t And you depart for llinsietleln this day, And we have sj)ent all night in talk like this! if you would have me better for your love, Revert no more to these sad themes. I'csliis.
;
a
One
favour,
PARACELSUS
88
They And
I have done. I leave you, deeply moved part Unwilling to have fared so well, the while
My friend
has changed so sorely.
Shall pass away, if light once
Where
To
all is
hope and
You
will
darkness now, trust again,
remember
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
if
and
If this
more you
mood
arise
see
fit
1050
strive again,
not our love alone
But that my faith in God's desire that man Should trust on his support (as I must think You trusted) is obscured and dim through you: For you are thus, and this is no reward. Will you not call me to your side, dear Aureole ?
PART
IV
PARACELSUS ASPIRES
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Colmar
Scene
in yf/satia
:
1528
an Inn.
Paracelsus, Festus Paracelsus
Oporinus,
Johannes
[to
Secrelary\
Sir
itur
ad
asira
!
his
Para-
Dear
celsus
Von Viscnburg
BasF^
and poor Torinus jiaralysed. And every honest soul that Basil holds Aghast and yet we live, as one may say, .lust as though I>iechtenfels had never set So true a value on his sorry carcass. Is scandalised,
;
And
We
and
;
shall as surely start
For Nuremberg,
To
as
we drink speedy
scathe
Basil in this mantling wine, suffused
A
delicate blush, no fainter tinge
r
the shut heart of a bud.
John '
dumb. to-morrow
learned Piitter had not frowned us live
Basil
;
Oppose
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a hot plague ravage
the plague
' !
10
born Pledge me, good
it,
l'>ven so
is
and Piitter Do you too ?
share
Their panic,
the
through these, Desist for these !
At
Basil,
'tis
like:
reptiles?
Ha, ha;
faint
They manage matters so but others may find means 80
PARACELSUS
90
He greets To
bring the stoutest braggart of the tribe
Festus Once more
—
crouch
in silence means to breed each fool again, 20 Now big with admiration at the skill Which stri])t a vain pretender of his plumes And, that done, means to brand each slavish
A
to
wonder
stupid
in
:
—
brow So deeply, surely, inefFaceably, That henceforth flattery shall not pucker it Out of the furrow there that stamp shall stay To show the next they fawn on, what they are. ;
This Basil with
its
magnates,
—
my
fill
cup,
Whom I curse soul and limb. And now despatch, Despatch, my trusty John and what remains 30 To do, whate'er arrangements for our trip Are yet to be completed, see you hasten This night ; we '11 weather the storm at least ;
to-morrow
For Nuremberg
!
Now
leave us
grave
this
;
clerk
Has
my
divers weighty matters for
ear
[OpoRiNUs^ofj
And I
spare
am
my
lungs.
rid of this
As a May
arch-knave
give a loose to
very kind, my Why, this looks like
I
I
at last
How
fidelity. ?
your love time show
Right you ;
!
you
shall
40
!
Embrace me
!
shall live
be proud.
Did you not wonder ? compact weighed conscience (you recall the night wliich the gods confound ) because
but
let
!
sent to you because our
Upon my At Basil,
kind.
best only friend
am worth
—
;
delight.
first
a hair silvered yet
Till I
And
my
out.
my gallant Festus, that dogs my heels
last,
gaunt crow a gasping sheep
How Not
At
—
!
—
PARACELSUS
91
Once more I aspire. I call you to my side You come. You thought my message strange
tells
:
So
Festus.
That
?
strange
must hope, indeed, yoar messenger 50 Has mingled his own fancies with the words Purporting to be yours. He said no more, Paracelsus. I
'Tis probable, than the precious folk
I leave
Well-a-day, Said fiftyfold more roughly. 'Tis true poor Paracelsus is exposed At last a most egregious quack he proves And those he overreached must spit their hate On one who, utterly beneath contempt. Could yet deceive their topping wits. You heard Bare truth and at my bidding you come here 60 To sjieed me on my enterprise, as once Your lavish wishes sped me, my own friend Festus. What is your purpose. Aureole ? !
:
;
;
!
Oh,
Paracelsus.
for purpose,
There is no Like mine
lack of precedents in a case
The
men
;
To
case of
at least, if not precisely
mine,
by those they sought
benefit.
They
Festus. I
cast off
really cast
you off?
only heard a vague tale of some priest.
who wrangled at your claim, worth best and how the judge The matter was referred to, saw no cause 71 To interfere, nor you to hide your full Contempt of him nor he, again, to smother His wrath thereat, which raised so fierce a liamc That Basil soon was made no place for you. Cured by your
Knowing his
skill,
life's
;
;
Paracelsus.
The
affair
shallowest fable,
of
I
,i<'(litenfels
?
the
him
^°'^ Basil "^^^^
Jf^^
PARACELSUS
92 the
reason
The
—
mere pretence from the first, How soon the stupid wonder you mistook For genuine loyalty a cheering promise 80 Of better things to come would pall and pass And every word comes true. Saul is among The prophets Just so long as I was pleased To play off the mere antics of my art, Fantastic gambols leading to no end, I got huge praise: but one can ne'er keep down j
and
last
j^new
silliest
outrage
I foretold
it,
!
it
—
—
!
Our
foolish
There they
weakness.
nature's
flocked,
Poor
swearing and perspiring, and all for me ; I had a kindness for them, which was right ; 90 But then I stopped not till I tacked to that trust in them and a respect a sort Of sympathy for them ; I must needs begin To teach them, not amaze them, ' to impart The spirit which should instigate the search devils, jostling,
Till the walls rang again
!
—
A
Of truth,' Filed
ofl^
a
— 'the
Redoubling
The
what you bade me I spoke mighty squadron, in disgust,
just
Forthwith
rest.
!
sifted chaff
of the sack,'
my endeavours to secure When lo one man had !
I said.
tarried so
long
Only This
out.
ICX5
to ascertain if I supported
tenet of his, or that
;
another loved
To hear impartially before he judged, And having heard, now judged this bland disciple Passed for my dupe, but all along, it seems. ;
Spied error where his neighbours marvelled most
That fiery doctor who had hailed me friend. Did it because my by-paths, once proved wrong
PARACELSUS
93
And beaconed properly, would commend again and the The good old ways our sires jogged safely o'er, no l"^^'^^^ Though
not their squeamish sons
the other
;
worthy Discovered divers verses of
John,
St.
successively, refreshed the soul, But, muttered backwards, cured the gout, the
Which, read stone.
QuuImultaP
The end
The
colic
Was
a clear class-room, and a quiet leer
and what not.
From grave folk, and a sour reproachful glance From those in chief who, cap in hand, installed The new professor scarce a year before
And
120
a vast flourish about patient merit
Obscured awhile by flashy tricks, but sure Sooner or later to emerge in splendour Of which the example was some luckless wight Whom my arrival had discomfited. But now, it seems, the general voice recalled
To
my chair and so efl^ace the stain I sought no better, had long incurred. Only a quiet dismissal from my ))Ost, And from my heart I wished them better suited fill
Basil
And But
better served.
Good
night to Basil, then
fast as I ))roposed to rid the tribe
Of my obnoxious The pleasure of a
back,
I
parting kick.
You
Festus.
Despise them
131
could not spare them sniilf
:
as they merit
If
Paracelsus.
I
smile,
'Tis with as very contempt as ever turned This courteous recompense, Flesh into stone.
This
To
graceful
.
.
.
Festus, were your nature
be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache
fit
gj^g^
PARACELSUS
94
Festus asks to
At
gangrene-blotches, eating poison-blains, barky scurf of leprosy
'file ulcerous
140
know his Which finds— a man, and leaves— a hideous thing ^
That cannot but be mended by
—
would
I
Which God
hell fire,
human
lay bare to you the
heart
cursed long ago, and devils
make
since
Their pet
nest
and their never-tiring home. we are born
Oh, For
various ends
One
stumbled,
sages have discovered
—
to love, to
in his search,
know
:
has ever
on any signs
To hate ? nature in us formed to hate ? 150 If that be our true object which evokes Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 'tis hate Of a
Yet men have doubted if the best and bravest Of spirits can nourish him with hate alone. I had not the monopoly of fools. It seems, at Basil.
But your plans, your plans Festus. have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole Paracelsus. Whether to sink beneath such !
I
!
ponderous shame.
To
shrink up like a crushed snail, undergo
In silence and desist from further
And so subside into a monument Of one their censure blasted? or
toil,
160 to
bow
Cheerfully as submissively, to lower old pretensions even as Basil dictates.
My To
drop
into the rank her wits assign
And live as Of my poor Proud
To
they prescribe, and
make
me that use
knowledge which their rules allow. now and then, and careful
to be patted
practise the true posture for receiving
The
amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance
PARACELSUS When
95
they shall condescend to tutor
me
170 Paxa-
?
celsus Then, one may feel resentment like a flame Within, and deck false systems in truth's garb, lAnd tangle and entwine mankind with error, old aims And give them darkness for adower and falsehood For a possession, ages or one may mope Into a shade through thinking, or else drowse .
:
Into a dreamless sleep and so die
But
I,
Am
— now Festus
shall divine
off.
— but
!
I
merely setting out once more, embracing My earliest aims again What thinks he now ? Festus. Your aims? the aims? to Know? and where is found 181 !
—
The
early trust
.
.
.
Nay, not
Paracelsus.
The
aims
so fast
— not the old means.
;
I
You know
say.
they
made me
A
laughing-stock
The when again
Not
;
I
was
and the how
a fool :
you know
;
hardly those means
!
but they had
their
beauty
;
who
should
know Their passing beauty, if not I ? They were, so let them vanish, If that
may
be.
dreams
Still,
yet in beauty
Stay: thus they pass
in
song!
[^Ifc SIII^S.
Heap
cassia, sandal-buds and stripes 190 labdanum, and aloe-balls. Smeared with dull narcl an Indian wipes From out her hair such balsam falls Down sea-side mountain iK-destals, From tree-tops where tired winds arc fain, Spent with the vast and howling main,
Of
:
To
treasure half their island-gain.
PARACELSUS
96
Festus
And
protests
strew faint sweetness from some old
Egyptian's
fine
worm-eaten shroud
Which breaks to dust when once unrolled Or shredded perfume, like a cloud From closet long to quiet vowed, With mothed and dropping Mouldering her
As when
a
arras hung.
lute
!
And
on such
pile shall die
lovely fancies, with fair perished things,
Themselves
Or why That
No
200
and books among. queen, long dead, was young.
Mine, every word
My
;
fair
and forgotten
abjure them
fitting
little
So,
?
I
;
yes, forgotten,
made
this
dignity might be preserved
proud was
I
;
though
the
rhyme 210
;
list
of
drugs
Smacks of my old vocation, and the verse Halts like the best of Luther's psalms. Festus. But, Aureole, Talk not thus wildly and madly. I am here Did you know all! I have travelled far, indeed. To learn your wishes. Be yourself again For in this mood I recognise you less Than in the horrible despondency You may account this, joy I witnessed last. But rather let me gaze on that despair 220 Than hear these incoherent words and see This flushed cheek and intensely-sparkling eye. Paracelsus. Why, man, I was light-hearted in my prime ; I am light-hearted now; what would you have? Aprile was a poet, I make songs 'Tis the very augury of success I want Why should I not be joyous now as then ? !
;
PARACELSUS
97
and how? and what remains Para-
Festus. Joyous!
celsus
for joy?
You have
Of
declared the ends (which I naming) are impracticable.
Paracelsus.
Pursued
as I
Listen
my
:
pursued them
—
am
7^^'^ ^.^^^
sick
and know
Ay,
230 at once
the arch-fool
plan will please you not,
like,
'tis
But you are little versed in the world's ways. This is my plan (first drinking its good luck)
—
—
accept
I will
all
helps
;
despised
all I
So rashly at the outset, equally With early impulses, late years have quenched I have tried each way singly now for both :
All helps I
seek to
no one sort
!
know and
Not one without Suppose
my
Once more,
shall
:
!
exclude the
rest.
to enjoy at once,
240
the other as before.
labour should seem as first I
dreamed,
God's own cause
—
it
shall not
baulk
me
Of the
meanest earthliest sensualest delight for every joy is gain, ;
That may be snatched
And Can
gain
gain,
is
however
die then, nor be taunted
My — what was gained small.
soul
'
?
Nor, on the other hand, shoultl pleasure follow As though I had not spurned her hitherto. Shall
she
o'ercloud
my
spirit's
rapt
com-
munion
With
250 the tumultuous past, the teeming future,
Glorious with visions of a Festus. Success
full
success.
!
Paracelsus.
And
wherefore not?
not prefer
Results obtained in
To
my
best state of being.
those derived alone from seasons dark
Why
PARACELSUS
98
and so fight the a e ou
As
the thoughts they bred
my
When
?
Unwasted, seemed success not It
is
was
best,
surest too
?
the nature of darkness to obscure.
am a wanderer One journey, how I
So long
remember well
I
:
Lay
I
youth
track was missed,
I feared the
the city I desired to reach
hid
when suddenly
;
its
261
spires afar
Flashed through the circling clouds
you may
;
conceive
My
transport.
But
I
No
darkness
Soon the vapours closed again, had seen the city, and one such glance obscure
could
nor
:
shall
the
present
A few dull
hours, a passing shame or two, Destroy the vivid memories of the past. I will fight the battle out
a little spent
;
an able combatant. 270 You look at my grey hair and furrowed brow ? But I can turn even weakness to account Perhaps, but
still
Of many tricks I know, To push the ruins of my The
fire
'tis
not the least
frame, whereon
of vigour trembles scarce
alive.
Into a heap, and send the flame aloft.
What
should I do with age
An
aid
We
boast of:
And
;
?
So, sickness lends
being, I fear, the source of
it
mind
natural health
is is
all
nothing but disease, ignorance.
Festus.
I see
280
But one good symptom in this notable scheme. I feared your sudden journey had in view To wreak immediate vengeance on your foes; *Tis not so
:
Paracelsus.
I
am
glad.
And
if I
please
PARACELSUS To
on them,
spit
99
them, what then
to trample
He
?
sneers
'Tis sorry warfare truly, but the fools I would spare their self-conceit Provoke it. T, r ,r but it they must provoke me, cannot sutler 1
Forbearance on
No
^*
;
my
may keep
part, if I
quality in the shade, must needs put forth 290
Power
to
match power,
my
strength against their
strength.
And
teach them their
own game with
their
own
arms
Why, I
be
it
so and let
am above them
Hiding the
Were
fact
them take
what
:
idle scruples, then,
those that ever bade
Communicate
it
chance no
their
like a god, there 's
me
soften
it.
gently to the world.
Instead of proving
my
supremacy,
Taking my natural station o'er their head. Then owning all the glory was a man's And in my elevation man's would be.
300
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
and learn, though life 's short, learning, hard And therefore, though the wreck of my past self, I fear, dear Putter, that your lecture-room Must wait awhile for its best ornament.
But
live
!
The
penitent empiric,
For somebody,
Now, His
who
but soon
set uj)
was taught
but too happy to be
let
error, snutf the candles,
his place
Vour
medicine's soundness
Good
Piitter
Fcsliu.
Paracelsus.
glad
;
confess
and
illustrate
fiat experietilia corporc vili)
310
Wait,
in his jMjrson.
!
He who Ay,
sneers thus,
ay, laugh at
me
!
is I
a
god very
am
.
enemies
1
!
PARACELSUS
loo
Festus You are not gulled by all this swaggering ; you remains Q^n see the root of the matter how I strive ^^ ^ Sood face on the overthrow I'"^ ""^^n^hi" faith ^ have experienced, and to bury and hide My degradation in its length and breadth How the mean motives I would make you think Just mingle as is due with nobler aims, 320 The appetites I modestly allow !
—
;
May
influence
me
as being
mortal
still
Do
goad me, drive
and
My
youth's
are no stupid dupe
You
To
find
me on, desires. You
me
out
Yes,
!
—
The
Festus.
Proves nothing
Yet
No
to begin
!
Aureole, of love
past, then.
Have
flattery in this
:
!
Is our interchange
?
?
supplant
had sent for you upon you, Festus
I
palm these childish lies you shall laugh at me
Laugh
fast
I to swear speech or that ?
mean For you,
I
330
Whate'er you say, there is no degradation These low thoughts are no inmates of your mind. Or wherefore this disorder ? You are vexed ;
As much
by the intrusion of base views. Familiar to your adversaries, as they Were troubled should your qualities alight
Amid
their
murky
souls
A stray wolf which the From
our bleak
A village
;
not otherwise,
winter forces
down
hills, suffices to affright
in the vales
Sleep calm, though
—while
all
foresters 340 night long the famished
troop Snuff round and scratch against their crazy huts. These evil thoughts are monsters, and will flee. Paracelsus. May you be happy, Festus, my
own
friend
!
PARACELSUS Nay, further would think
the delights you fain Paracelsus ^^^^^ superseders of your nobler aims, f ?"
Festus.
The
^
;
.
Though
,
Hush
Paracelsus.
.
I
!
Of toil's strict value And humbler spirits these
which urges
Bitter contempt
And
350
accept what we refuse when some such comfort is doled delights, we cannot long retain
In short,
hurl
a jot
but time passes o'er,
;
back, but hug
it
it
:
out
us at first
to our breast
This life of mine and a grave thoroughly earned I am just fit for that and nought beside. I told you once, I cannot now enjoy, 360 Unless I deem my knowledge gains through joy ; thankfully retire.
Must be
lived out
Nor can
know, but
I
warm
straight
tears reveal
My
need of linking also joy to knowledge iSo, on I drive, enjoying all I can, And knowing all I can. I speak, of course, Confusedly ; this will better explain feel here Quick beating, is it not? a fire of tlie heart :
—
—
To work
off
some way,
So, F'estus sees
me
I
this as well as any.
launched; his calm Compassionate look might have disturbed me fairly
once,
But now,
370 far
from rejecting,
I
invite
What
bids
Open
before him, and be soothed with
I
he
jiress
the closer, lay myself ])ity
command hope, and believe directs me satiating myself
hope,
As
me
if
he
—
need
of the joys of once despised them, the flesh are high at first .
But that soon passes. We In our demand, nor will abate
To
his
.
ordinary and harmless stimulants,
Will ne'er content you
As
loi
;
PARACELSUS
102
And Festus quits me enduring love. some credulous disciple holds that God is wise, but Paracelsus
and With describes ^'^
way
of
life
To
his
give place to
Who ^^s
his peculiar merits
And And
I
:
suck
in
o'er that admiration, 380
That homage, chuckle
then dismiss the fool ; for night I betake myself to study again,
is
come.
Till patient searchings after hidden lore Half wring some bright truth from its prison
;
my
frame Trembles, my forehead's veins swell out,
my
hair
Slow and sure the morn Tingles for triumph. Shall break on my pent room and dwindling lamp And furnace dead, and scattered earths and ores When, with a falling heart and throbbing brow, 1
my
captured truth, sum up what ends to what begins. present power with its eventual bearings,
must review
390
Its value, trace Its
Latent
And I
affinities,
its full
view
From
it
the views
it
opens.
length in perfecting
my
sternly circumscribed, cast
the high place
my
scheme.
down
fond hopes yielded
it.
Proved worthlessâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; which, in getting, yet had cost Another wrench to this fast-falling frame. Then, quick, the cup to quaff, that chases sorrow I lapse
back into youth, and take again
400
evidence that God Means good to me, will make my cause his own. I have cast oflF this remorseless care See Which clogged a spirit born to soar so free, And my dim chamber has become a tent,
My
fluttering pulse for
!
Festus
Why
is sitting
do you
by me, and
start
?
I
his
Mlchal
.
.
.
say, she listening here,
PARACELSUS
103
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Wiirzburg through the orchardbough Motions as though such ardent words should find 410 No echo in a maiden's quiet soul, But her pure bosom heaves, her eyes fill fast
(For yonder !
With tears, Ha, ha
lips
tremble
It seems, then,
Festus.
No
her sweet
the while
all
you expect
!
to reap
unreal joy from this your present course,
But rather
.
.
.
Death
Paracelsus.
!
To
die
I
!
owe
that
much
To To To
I should be sad what, at least, I was. live contented after such a fall, thrive and fatten after such reverse !
The whole
My I
To
is
a makeshift, but will last
time.
And
Festus. '
plan
had
you have never mused and and the strength
said,
a noble jmrpose,
421
have stopped half-way. And wrongly given the first-fruits of my toil To objects little worthy of the gift. Why linger round them still ? why clench my com])ass
fault
Why
it
;
but
I
?
seek for consolation
in defeat.
In vain endeavours to derive a beauty I" rom ugliness ? why seek to make the most
Of
what no ])Ower can change, nor
strive instead
With mighty effort to redeem the ])a8t 430 And, gathering up the treasures thus cast down,
To
hold a steadfast course
till
1
arrive
At their fit destination and my own You have never pondered thus ? Have Paracelsus.
?
I,
you ask
^
Festus hk°vi him g^^ j^g ^q
redeem the past
PARACELSUS
I04
He Often at midnight, when most fancies come, answers Would some such airy project visit me *L,* But ever at the end ... or will you hear The same thing in a tale, a parable ? You and I, wandering over the world wide, 440 Chance to set foot upon a desert coast. :
we cry, No human voice before Broke the inveterate silence of these rocks Their querulous echo startles us ; we turn
Just as
'
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
What
ravaged structure still looks o'er the sea ? While we read. Some characters remain, too The sharp salt wind, impatient for the last Of even this record, wistfully comes and goes. !
Or
sings
This
is
what we recover, mocking
the record
;
and
my
it.
voice, the wind's.
\_He sings.
Over With cleaving prows
the sea our galleys went,
To
wind and armament
a speeding
A
gallant
in
450
order brave a
bounding wave,
Each bark
built out of a forest-tree Left leafy and rough as first it grew. And nailed all over the gaping sides, Within and without, with black bull-hides, Seethed in fat and suppled in flame,
To
bear the playful billows' game So, each good ship was rude to see, Rude and bare to the outward view. But each upbore a stately tent Where cedar pales in scented row :
flakes of the dancing brine. an awning drooped the mast below, In fold on fold of the purple fine.
Kept out the
And
460
PARACELSUS
105
His song
That neither noontide nor starshine Nor moonlight cold which maketh mad, Might pierce the regal tenement. sun dawned, oh, gay and glad
When the
We
470
and plied the oar But when the night-wind blew like breath. For joy of one day's voyage more. sang together on the wide sea. Like men at peace on a peaceful shore set the sail
;
We
;
Each sail was loosed to the wind Each helm made sure by the
so free.
twilight
star,
And We,
in a sleep as
Lay In
calm
as death,
the voyagers from afar.
weary crew wondrous tent 481
stretched along, each
round gleamed
a circle
Whence
its
soft light
and curled rich
scent,
And So
with light and jjerfume, music too the stars wheeled round, and the dark:
ness past.
And And
at
morn we
still
started beside the mast,
each ship was sailing
hist.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
land appeared a speck trembling betwixt sea and sky ' Avoid it,' cried our pilot, ' check 490 The shout, restrain the eager eye liut the heaving sea was black behind
Now, one morn,
Dim
:
'
!
and many a day. though but a rock, drew nigh ; So, we broke the cedar pales away. Let the purple awning (lap in the wind. And a statue bright was on every deck
For many
And
a night
land,
!
PARACELSUS
io6
We
His song
man of us,
shouted, every
And
steered right into the harbour thus,
With pomp and
pasan glorious.
A hundred
shapes of lucid stone 500 All day we built its shrine for each, shrine of rock for every one, Nor paused till in the westering sun sat together on the beach !
A
We
To sing because our task was done. When lo what shouts and merry songs !
What
A
laughter
loaded
Of gentle '
Our '
raft
all
the distance stirs
islanders
isles are just at
Like
1
with happy throngs hand,' they cried,
510
cloudlets faint in even sleeping
Our temple-gates are opened wide. Our olive-groves thick shade are keeping
—
they For these majestic forms Oh, then we awoke with sudden '
From
How
cried. start
our deep dream, and knew, too bare the rock,
how
late.
desolate.
Which had received our precious freight Depart Yet we called out Our gifts, once given, must here abide. 520 Our work is done we have no heart To mar our work,' we cried.
—
'
;
—
Festus.
In truth
Paracelsus.
?
Nay, wait
On rugged stones strewn
:
all this in
The
To
sad
their
—
mark what follows rhyme of the men who proudly clung
In order once: then follows '
tracings faint
here and there, but piled
first fault,
and withered
in their pride.'
PARACELSUS Festus.
Come
back then, Aureole
God, come come back foul sin
fear
This
is
107
;
as
you
It is
!
fo°t irn^
Renounce the
!
;
^^^^j^
past,
Forswear the future look for joy no more, 530 But wait death's summons amid holy sights. ;
And
trust
—
me for the event peace, if not joy. me to Einsiedeln, dear Aureole
Return with
!
No
Paracelsus.
way, no way
!
it
would not
turn to good.
A
spotless child sleeps
'Tis well for him
but
;
IZnvying such slumber,
on the flowering moss when a sinful man,
may
desire to put
away, shall he return at once To rest by lying there ? Our sires knew well (Spite of the grave discoveries of their sons) 540 The fitting course for such dark cells, dim lamps, stone floor one may writhe on like a worm
His
guilt
:
A
:
No
mossy pillow blue with
violets
I see no sym])tom of these absolute You are calmer now. tyrannous passions. This verse-making can purge you well enough
Festus.
And
Without the
You
love
terrible ])enancc
me
still
you describe.
the lusts you fear will never
:
Outrage your friend. Say but the word
To
Einsiedeln, once
more
!
Paracelsus.
They
crouch,
No, no those lusts forbid know, cowering with half-shut :
;
I
eye
55
Beside you
;
'tis
their nature.
Between them and style
Or
their
jjrey
;
Thrust yourself some fool let
me
king or quack,
it
matters not
Your wisdom, urge them
— then
try
to forego their treat
PARACELSUS
io8
Festus No, no learn better and look deeper, Festus charges jf you knew how a devil sneers within me ^^^ile you are talking now of this, now that, seeking his own -^s though we differed scarcely save in trifles Festus. Do wc so differ ? True, change must glory, not God's proceed, 560 !
;
!
Whether
Do To
for
good or
not confide
hope, and you Listen
Festus.
.
.
To
Paracelsus.
ill
keep from me, which I was born
;
secrets
all
.
trust
do
I
:
!
:
you know the fruits what you call
:
!
believe,
trust
Was
self-delusion at the best
So long
A
:
for, see
!
God would
kindly pioneer path for you, and screen you from the world, as
Procure you
full
exemption from man's lot, fears, on the mere
Man's common hopes and
Of
pretext your engagement
A limitless
licence,
569
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; make you God, were content â&#x20AC;&#x201D;you What
And
turn your slave
Most
courtly praises
in his service
yield
you
in fact,
is it,
!
But selfishness without example ? Could trace God's will so plain
to say
at last,
None as you, while
yours
Remained implied
And
we,
who
in
it
;
but
now you
fail.
prate about that will, are fools
In short, God's service is established here he determines fit, and not your way, 579 And this you cannot brook. Such discontent
As
Renounce all Is weak. AflRrm an absolute right Your energies as though ' We rush to the ocean ; ;
creatureship at once to
have and use
the rivers should say
what have we
to
do
!
PARACELSUS With
He
feeding streamlets, lingering in the vales,
Sleeping
That
109
Set up that plea,
?
lazy pools
in
'
[u
will be bold at least
God's
'Tis like enough, are those, no doubt,
Paracelsus.
/ ^^
glory
is
one with The serviceable spirits ma.n s The East produces lo, the master bids, They wake, raise terraces and garden-grounds
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
In one night's space
and, this done, straight
;
begin
591
Another century's sleej), to the great praise Of him that framed them wise and beautiful. Till a lamp's rubbing, or some chance akin. Wake them again. I am of different mould. I would have soothed my lord, and slaved for him And done him service past my narrow bond,
And
thus I get rewarded for
Beside,
'tis
God's glory otherwise
The
sphere of
Increase
We
it
;
pains
;
this
is
alone
increase, as far as
its
why, then, look beyond
are his glory
;
and
if
Is not the thing achieved
Festus.
my
vain to talk of forwarding
we be
600
men this
sphere
?
glorious,
?
Shall one like
me
Judge hearts like yours ? Though years have changed you much, And you have left your first love, and retain Its empty shade to veil your crooked ways. Yet I still hold that you have honoured God. And who shall call your course witliout reward ? For, wherefore this repining at defeat 610 Had trium])h ne'er inured you to high hopes ? I urge you to forsake the life you curse, And what success attends me ? simply talk Of passion, weakness and remorse in short,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
;
PARACELSUS
no
—
He Anything but the naked truth you choose invokes This so-despised career, and cheaply hold Festus My happiness, or rather other men's, '^
contempt
^
•'
^
Once more,
return
Paracelsus.
Has
pilfered
And we I
know
My
,
!
And quickly. half my secrets by
depart by daybreak.
how
not
;
I
John the this
am
time
thief
:
weary, 620
not even the wine-cup soothes
brain to-night
.
.
.
Do
you not thoroughly despise me, Festus ? One like you needs not be told No flattery We live and breathe deceiving and deceived. Do you not scorn me from your heart of hearts, Me and my cant, each petty subterfuge. My rhymes and all this frothy shower of words, My glozing self-deceit, my outward crust 629 Of lies which wrap, as tetter, morphew, furfair Wrapt the sound flesh ? so, see you flatter not! !
—
my
Even God
flatters
Is true.
would depart, secure henceforth further insult, hate and wrong
I
:
but
friend, at least.
Against all From puny foes ; my one friend's scorn shall brand me No fear of sinking deeper No, dear Aureole Festus. No, no ; I came to counsel faithfully. :
!
!
There are old rules, made long ere we were By which I judge you. I, so fallible, So infinitely low beside your mighty
born.
— even can You own some higher law than ours which Sin, what no — weakness, what Majestic spirit! is
But
To
I
I
sin
640
see
is
call
strength.
have only these, such as they are. me ; and I blame you where they bid,
guide
m
PARACELSUS
Festus so long as blaming promises the more, that jells win peace for your soul sorrow MTchal's Has fallen on me of late, and they have helped me death
Only
To So
:
my
that I faint not under
But wherefore should In spite of
Your
And And
distress.
scruple to
I
avow
most inexplicable to me
fate is
650
as brother judging brother.
all,
?
should you perish without recompense too hastily satisfaction yet
—
have relied on love you may have sinned, But you have loved. As a mere human matter As I would have God deal with fragile men I say that you will triumph yet In the end Paracelsus. Have you felt sorrow, Festus ? I
:
—
'tis
659
because
Sorrow, and sweet Michal yours Well thought on never let her know this last these miscreants dared Dull winding-up of all
You
love me.
:
:
Insult
me
— me she loved —
Festus.
:
Your
ill
so, grieve
success can
little
her not
grieve her
now. Michal
Paracelsus.
do not craze Festus.
me
pray Christ
!
wc
Aureole, dear Aureole, look not on
thus
Fool, fool
I
dead
is
!
!
this
!
is
the heart
grown sorrow-
proof cannot bear those eyes.
Nay,
Paracelsus.
really
FcsiuSf 'Tis scarce a month.
Paracelsus.
have
Stone dead
laid her
Among the
flowers ere this.
!
dead
?
— then you 669
Now, do you know,
PARACELSUS
112
Paracelsus
I
can reveal a secret which shall comfort
jVyg,-,
yoy^
pQ
J [^jjyg
mcn
julcp, 38
think,
° cheat the grave ; but a far better secret. a secret for his Know, then, you did not ill to trust your love comfort To the cold earth I have thought much of it ^^
:
For
believe
I
we do
Festus. Aureole
not wholly die.
!
Nay, do not laugh
Paracelsus.
;
there
is
reason
For what
I say
:
I think, the soul
can never
you may see, 680 Very unfit to put so strange a thought In an intelligible dress of words ; But take it as my trust, she is not dead. Festus. But not on this account alone ? you
Taste death.
I
am,
just
now,
as
surely,
— Aureole, you have Paracelsus.
And
believed this
Michal
sleeps
all
along
among
?
the
roots and dews.
While I am moved at Basil, and full of schemes For Nuremberg, and hoping and despairing.
As
though
So
it
Have your Troop you
And
it
mattered
how the farce plays out. Away, away while we fight the prize,
be quickly played. will, rabble in safety to
!
!
the snug back-seats
leave a clear arena for the brave
About
to perish for your sport
!
— Behold
!
691
PART
V
PARACELSUS ATTAINS Scene.
— Sahburg of
a
;
cell in the
St. Sebastian.
I
Hospital
54
Festus, Paracelsus Festiis.
The
No
change
!
The weary
night
is
well-nigh spent, lamp burns low,
Festus ^^^tch.s
and through the case- ^eathbed of Grey morning glimmers feebly yet no change! Paracelsus Another night, and still no sigh has stirred That fallen discoloured mouth, no pang relit Those fixed eyes, quenched by the decaying body, ment-bars
:
I,
ike torch-flame
choked
in
dust.
While
all
beside
Was breaking, to the last they held out bright, As a stronghold where life intrenched itself;
—
very blind and dead But they are dead now will drowse into death without a groan.
10
:
He
My The
—
Aureole my forgotten, ruinetl Aureole How grand days arc gone, are gone !
!
thou wast
And now down
not
one of those
who
struck
thee
PARACELSUS
114
— concerns him even to stay
hoping Poor glorious spirit for a And satisfy himself
word of recognition
Q^^
Q
his little
j,y j^^ °
hand
^^
jQ ^ jjyjj
°
'Tis much Another night, and yet no change That I should sit by him, and bathe his brow. !
And chafe his hands Know me, and look
'tis much but he will sure on me, and speak to me 21 His hollow cheek Once more but only once Looked all night long as though a creeping laugh At his own state were just about to break my brain swam, my From the dying man :
;
—
!
:
throat swelled.
And
yet I could not turn away.
They
told
me how, when
first
In truth. brought here,
he seemed Resolved to live, to lose no faculty Thus striving to keep up his shattered strength, ;
Until they bore him to this
When
stifling cell
straight his features fell, an
30
:
hour made
white
The flushed Only
face,
and relaxed the quivering limb.
the eye remained intense awhile
As though it And then he
recognised the tomb-like place, lay as here he
lies.
Ay,
Here
is
here
!
earth's noblest, nobly garlanded
Her bravest champion with his well-won prize Her best achievement, her sublime amends For
And She
countless generations fleeting fast
followed by no trace instances
when
;
angels
The
—
the creature-god 40
would dispute
title of her brood to rank with them. Those bright forms Angels, this is our angel !
PARACELSUS
iiS
We clothe with purple, crown and call to thrones, Are human,
Whom
but not his
other
men
;
those are but
men
press round and kneel before
Those palaces are dwelt in by mankind Higher provision is for him you seek Amid our pomps and glories see it here
^^>h ;
:
God
Thou art
!
love
Now,
!
I build
!
49
!
raise thee, clay!
my faith
on
that.
watch beside thy tortured child Unconscious whose hot tears fall fast by him. So doth thy right hand guide us through the world
Even
as I
God
Wherein we stumble.
How
he sinned
has
!
what
How
?
shall
we
say
have done ? thy praise, for Surely he sought thy praise He might be busied by the task so much As half forget awhile its proper end.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Dost thou
well,
Lord
Thou
?
How
all
canst not but
60
prefer
That
?
should he
else
should range myself u])on his side could he stop at every ste]) to set I
glory forth ? Hadst tliou but granted him Success, thy honour would have crowned success, Or, say he erred, halo round a star.
Thy
A
Save him, dear
God
;
it
will
like thee
be
:
bathe him Thou art not made like us; In light and life! but thou should be wroth in such a case so, forgive these passionate thoughts Forgivest
We
;
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
unsought and will not pass away! 70 who hast kept my path, and made me in the darkness, tempering sorrow
Which come I
know
thee,
Ligiit for
G
^^^ y^^^
;
Behold earth's paragon
He d
PARACELSUS
ii6
Para- So that it reached me like a solemn joy celsus It were too strange that I should doubt thy love,
^^^p? ^"
^^^
'^^^^^
How
^^
^
Thou madest him and knowest
•
he was fashioned.
That way
:
could never err
I
the quiet place beside thy feet,
Reserved for me, was ever in my thoughts But he thou shouldst have favoured him as well! :
—
Ah
he wakens
!
Aureole,
!
am
I
here
'tis
!
80
Festus
away all wishes save one wish Let him but know me, only speak to me
I cast
He
mutters
Than
;
louder and louder
;
!
any other
with brain less laden, could collect Dear Aureole, do but he pours forth. look! Is it talking or singing, this he utters fast ? Misery that he should fix me with his eye. I,
What
Quick
talking to
some other
all
the while
!
If he would husband this wild vehemence
Which
frustrates
its
intent
!
—
I
heard, I
know
91 heard my name amid those rapid words. Could I divert Oh, he will know me yet This current, lead it somehow gently back His eye Into the channels of the past It must recognise me Brighter than ever I
!
!
—
!
!
I am Erasmus That Paracelsus :
The
here to pray
Padua send
questions for your learning to resolve.
are your students, noble master
class
:
leave
100
what business have you here come to us once more awaits you
This wretched
Our
am
use his skill for me.
schools of Paris and of
These
We
I
cell,
;
!
?
PARACELSUS (O
agony! the utmost ;
else arrest his ear ?)
God
Stay, stay with
Festus.
To
I will
—
craze like him.
I shall
Better be mute and see what Paracelsus.
me I
;
shall send. !
am come
here
Festus, you loved of old you Festus, you know, you must know stay with
Festus
Paracelsus.
Aprile, then
Has he
?
Where 's no
!
melodies
Get
to
for a cold
But
I
out his music well enough,
heard
I
With With They
will forgive
me
;
breast.
him
filled
full
he Loves
—
My
know
Ask him if I shall
hand, see
!
!
if
Ajirilc
Love and Know
but that cold hand, like lead
Festus.
—
so cold
? !
120
!
AJi, the curse, Ajirile, Aprile
Paracelsus.
We
my
too, I too shall
Festus, your Festus
Paracelsus.
Knows as try
could not
I
?
hand on
magical music, as they freight a star light, and have remitted all his sin.
Festus.
1
night
all
If they have
well enough!
;
not chanted softly
The
him made
His thoughts
can do
I
Touches him not how I am commissioned ...
117
get so near
—
so very, very near
!
!
'Tis an old tale Jove strikes the Titans down. Not when they set about their mountain-piling But when another rock would crown the work. And Phaeton doubtless his first radiant plunge :
—
Astonished mortals, though the gods were calm, And Jove prepared his thunder all old tales Festus. And what are these to you ? Paracelsus. Ay, fiends must laugh So cruelly, so well most like I never 130 :
!
Could tread
a single pleasure underfoot,
!
^pj-iig
PARACELSUS
ii8
He But they were grinning by my side, were chuckling triumphs 'Po see me toil and drop away by flakes *" ^/.^ glad, most glad, that thus 1 I am " Hell-spawn !
own
!
ill-
^'.,
,
fail!
fame
^ One
.
.
.
Your cunning has o ershot
One month, You should
its
ami.
year.
had served your turn have curbed your spite awhile. But perhaps, and
I
!
now,
Who
will believe 'twas you that held me back ? Listen: there's shame and hissing and contempt, And none but laughs who names me, none but spits 141 Measureless scorn upon me, me alone, The quack, the cheat, the liar, all on me And thus your famous plan to sink mankind In silence and despair, by teaching them One of their race had probed the inmost truth, Had done all man could do, yet failed no less
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Men
despair?
Your wise plan proves abortive. Ha, ha why, they are hooting
the empiric.
The
who
!
ignorant and incapable fool
rushed
150 Madly upon a work beyond his wits Nor doubt they but the simplest of themselves ;
to triumphant issue. So, pick and choose among them all, accursed Try now, persuade some other to slave for you, To ruin body and soul to work your ends
Could bring the matter
No, no
;
am
I
Festus.
has done ask that ?
.
first
friend, .
and
who
?
last, I
think.
are accursed
?
who
.
What have
Paracelsus.
Brave men
the
Dear
I
done
?
Fiends dare
or you.
Oh, you can chime in boldly, backed
By the others What had you to do, sage peers ? Here stand my rivals Latin, Arab, Jew, 161 !
;
PARACELSUS
119
and
all I ask. dead hands against me world enrol my name with theirs, ^1 V -I even this poor privilege, it seems,
Greek,
join
:
exults
Is, that the
A J And
over his
•
rivals of
They
range themselves, prepared to disallow. Only observe! why, fiends may learn from them
How
they talk calmly of
my
throes,
my
old time !
fierce
Aspirings, terrible watchings, each one claiming Its price
And Got
of blood and brain
;
how
they dissect
sneeringly disparage the few truths
170
About my
they too hanging the while neck, their lies misleading me
And
dead names browbeating
at a life's cost
their
;
me
!
Grey
crew.
Yet steeped
in fresh
malevolence from
Is there a reason for your hate
Have shaken
all
hell,
truths
palm about each prince
a little the
Just think, Aprile,
My
?
?
these leering dotards
Were bent on nothing less than to be crowned As wc That yellow blear-eyed wretch in chief To whom the rest cringe low with feigned respect, !
Galen
Pergamos and
—
181 nay 8]x?ak met there face to face I said the crown should fall from thee. Once more meet as in that ghastly vestibule Look to my brow Have 1 redeemed my pledge ?
The
ot
tale,
old
man
!
hell
We
We
:
!
Feslus.
Peace, peace
Oh
;
ah, see
Oh,
Paracelsus.
!
emjjtiness of
fame
!
Persic Zoroaster, lord of stars!
— Who
said these old renowns, dead long ago. Could make me overlook the living world To gaze through gloom at where they stood,
indeed,
190
But stand no longer ? What a warm light life After the shade In truth, my delicate witch, !
PARACELSUS
I20
He My serpent-queen, you did but well to hide The juggles I had else detected. Fire
regrets
^^^^ •""" harmless o'er a breast like yours! cave was not so darkened by the smoke But that your white limbs dazzled me oh, white, And panting as they twinkled, wildly dancing
/human ^^y love The
:
I
cared not for your passionate gestures then, I have forgotten the charm of charms.
But now
I came to seek, 201 While I remember that quaint dance and thus I am come back, not for those mummeries,
The foolish knowledge which
;
to love you, and to kiss your Soft as an ermine's winter coat
But
little feet
A light
Festus.
Will struggle through these thronging words
at
last.
As
in the
angry and tumultuous West
A soft star trembles through the drifting clouds. These are the strivings of a spirit which hates So sad a vault should coop it, and calls up 210
The past Were he
to stand
between
at liinsiedeln
Paracelsus. Cruel
—
I clasp
I shriek
her vesture
!
—
— I
and its fate. Michal here
it
or
seek her
now
but she fades,
—
still
1
I
kneel
fades
sweet human love is gone 'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels Reveal themselves to you they sit all day
And
she
is
gone
!
;
;
Beside you, and
Who And
We I
lie
down
at
are so fooled, so cheated
am
night by you
care not for their presence, muse or sleep, all at once they leave you, and you know 220 them !
Why,
not too secure against foul play
;
even
now
PARACELSUS The shadows deepen and No doubt some treachery TTTi Where Tis very dusk. .rr-..
.
.
121
the walls contract is
00 we
and clings
:
^
going on.
are
.
put,
.,
Aprile
j^i,:?" in nis
5 r
dreams
This murky
Have
they left us in the lurch ? loathsome Death-trap, this slaughter-house,
is
not the hall
Keep by me, Aprile In the golden city There is a hand groping amid the blackness !
!
To
Have the spider fingers got you. If once 230 Hold on me for your life Hold They pull you catch us.
Poet?
!
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
!
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
no more 'Tis but a dream have you still ; the sun comes out again ; Let us be happy all will yet go well
!
I
:
Let
us confer
That
The
spite
But
is it
not like, Aprile,
of trouble, this ordeal
value of
Just as
:
my
])assed.
labours ascertained,
some stream foams long among the rocks
after glideth glassy to the sea,
240 full content shall henceforth be my lot What think you, poet? Louder! Your clear voice
80,
?
Do you ask remain on earth, should God
Vibrates too like a harp-string.
How
could
I still
Grant me the great approval which I seek ? I, you, and God can comprehend each other, But men would murmur, and with cause enough For when they saw me, stainless of all sin. Preserved and sanctified by inward
They would complain
;
light.
that comfort, shut
from
them, I drank thus unc8pied ; that they live on, 250 Nor taste the quiet of a constant joy, For ache and care and doulit and weariness. While 1 am calm help being vouchsafed to mc, ;
PARACELSUS
122
— 'Twere
feels
And
hid from them.
the need of a hfe
You
reason well, Aprile ; but at least jg ^j^jg ^QQ ^y^i^ ^^^ j^j^^^ ^l^jg^ .^^^ jjg
He
j^^j.
I
best consider that!
I
will learn this, if
If thou shalt
God
and die
so please,
God,
please, dear
if
>
1
thou shalt
please
We
are so weak,
we know
our motives least
If at In their confused beginning. I sought ... but wherefore bare
260
first
my
heart to
thee? thy mercy ; and already thoughts Flock fast about my soul to comfort it. And intimate I cannot wholly fail, I
know
For
love and praise
Could
And I
I
I
would
clasp
resolve to seek them.
me willingly Thou art good,
—
yet first show should be content. Yet Rather give in daring
have done wrong
!
The supernatural consciousness of strength Which fed my youth Only one hour of that 270 With thee to help O what should bar me then? !
—
Thus
Lost, lost!
God's
things are ordered here!
creatures.
And
—
none, none yet he takes no pride in us Truly there needs another life to come (I must tell Festus that) If this be all !
!
And I
say
other 'tis
a
— await us not —
life
A wretched failure. Against
it,
for one,
poor cheat, a stupid bungle,
and
I hurl
I, for it
one, protest
back with scorn.
279
Small time remains, Well, onward though alone And much to do I must have fruit, must reap !
;
PARACELSUS Some
profit
from
my
Will hardly serve
I
toils.
me
through
123
doubt my body as his while I have ; f °jj Jj^-j^j
laboured It has
decayed
and now that I demand it will crumble fast
;
Its best assistance,
A
sad thought, a sad fate
How
!
very
full
Of wormwood 'tis, that just at altar-service. The rapt hymn rising with the rolling smoke, When glory dawns and all is at the best. The sacred fire may flicker and grow faint 290 And die for want of a wood-piler's help! fades the flagging body, and the soul down in the overthrow. Well, well
Thus
Is pulled
them
Let men catch every word,
let
Of what
may
They
I
say
something
;
are ruins
!
lose
me who am
Trust
nought
yet be done.
one of
you!
All ruins, glorious once, but lonely now. It makes my lieart sick to behold you crouch the arches dim, 299 Beside your desolate fane :
crumbling columns grand against the moon, Could I but rear them up once more but that May never be, so leave them Trust me, friends. Why should you linger here when I have built far resplendent tcni])Ic, all your own ?
The
—
!
A
Sec, Ajjrile, Trust me, they are but ruins Yet were I not jjrepared Men will not heed With better refuge for them, tongue of mine !
!
Should ne'er reveal how blank their dwelling I would sit down in silence with the rest.
is:
Ha, what ? you sj)it at me, you grin and shriek 310 Contempt into my car my ear which drank
—
PARACELSUS
124
He
Why, you curse me ? men, men, Those hideous eyes ^ '"" ^^^ formed for it ? of men Will be before me sleeping, waking, praying, They will not let me even die. Spare, spare me. de-
God's accents once
:
precates
Sinning or no, forget that, only spare me horrible scorn You thought I could sup-
The
!
port
it.
But now you
what
see
silly fragile
creature
Cowers thus. I am not good nor bad enough. Not Christ nor Cain, yet even Cain was saved 320 From Hate like this. Let me but totter back! Perhaps I shall elude those jeers which creep
my very brain, and shut these scorched Eyelids and keep those mocking faces out.
Into
Listen, Aprile
Be
am very calm
I
!
:
no passion here Where the blood leaps like an imprisoned thing I will exterminate the race I am calm Enough of that 'tis said and it shall be. And now be merry safe and sound am I 330 Who broke through their best ranks to get at you. And such a havoc, such a rout, Aprile Festus. Have you no thought, no memory for not deceived, there
is
:
!
:
:
!
me. Aureole ? I am so wretched my pure Michal Is gone, and you alone are left me now. And even you forget me. Take my hand Lean on me thus. Do you not know me. Aureole ? Paracelsus. Festus, my own friend, you are
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
come
As
you
at last
say,
'tis
?
an awful enterprise
PARACELSUS But you believe c for
Flames
go through with it 340 He Thank him fives the thank you. fight up '^ *»
I shall
'Tis like you, and
I
me,
Dear Michal
:
See how bright
!
in the sunset
;
all its
Gay in the glancing light: own
their
for
white-haired Jews where redemption
land
dawns. Festus.
Not
that blest time
Ha— stay
done
since,
And
he
come
How
calm,
is
how
not our youth's
to judge
well
!
true, I forget
!
me.
yes,
it is
How
—
all is
he speaks.
true, all true; 350
myself can laugh deceit but still you desire obstacles which taught me tricks my nature envy and hate,
All quackery
all
;
The first at it, You know the So
—
God
time, dear
Paracelsus.
St. Saviour's spire
figures quaint
you might conceive them
A troop of yellow-vested, Bound
125
foreign to
;
if
:
—
Blind opposition, brutal prejudice.
—
To
what wonder if I sunk humour men the way they most a])proved
My
cheats were never palmed on such as you.
Bald ignorance
?
I will kneel if you require me. 3O0 Impart the meagre knowledge 1 jjossess, Explain its bounded nature, and avow My insufficiency whate'er you will let there be an end, I give the fight up privacy, an obscure nook for me. I want to be forgotten even by God. But if that cannot be, dear F'estus, lay mc. When I shall die, within some narrow grave, Not by itself for that would be too proud let it look But where such graves are thickest
Dear Festus
!
—
:
A
—
;
PARACELSUS
126
and asks Nowise distinguished from the hillocks round, to be 3o that the peasant at his brother's bed
370
my own
and know it not ; be equal at the last, death Or classed according to life's natural ranks, Fathers, sons, brothers, friends not rich, nor
"th"
in his
upon
^'-^y tread
And we
shall all
—
wise,
Nor
gifted
:
Too much They
lay
me
thus, then say,
advanced before
kept him
still
in front
But yet a dangerous
'
He
his brother :
station.
lived
men
;
'twas for their good It
were strange
That he should tell God he had never ranked 380 With men so, here at least he is a man.' Festus. That God shall take thee to his breast, :
dear
Unto
spirit.
and here on earth upon thy name for ever. Sun all the heaven is glad for thee what care If lower mountains light their snowy phares At thine effulgence, yet acknowledge not The source of day ? Their theft shall be their bale For after-ages shall retrack thy beams, his breast, be sure
Shall splendour
!
sit
:
!
And put aside the crowd of busy ones And worship thee alone the master-mind. The thinker, the explorer, the creator
—
390
!
Then, who should sneer a:t the convulsive throes With which thy deeds were born, would scorn as well
The
sheet of winding subterraneous
Which,
fire
pent and writhing, sends no less at last
Huge
islands up amid the simmering sea. thou hast infused Behold thy might in me Thy soul in mine and I am grand as thou, Seeing I comprehend thee I so simple, 400 !
;
—
PARACELSUS Thou
127
He
I recognise thee first
so august.
saw thee rise, I watched thee early and late, ^j.']^^JJ?g And though no glance reveal thou dost accept delirium My homage thus no less I proffer it, I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
And
bid thee enter gloriously thy rest.
Festus
Paracelsus. Festus. I
am upon
his side,
His portion
!
am
I
shall be
for noble Aureole,
He
mine.
God
!
or woe.
come weal
has done well.
been strong enough. As he has sinned. Reward him or I waive 410 If thou canst find no place for him. Reward I
would have sinned, had
I
!
He His
be king elsewhere, and
shall
There
slave for ever.
Dear Festus
Paracelsus.
ever by you
sjjeak on, or
Speak on story, anything
shall
us.
!
dream
Festus.
the
Mayne
Where my Love
!
dream
I
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;only your
Speak on
else.
Thus
again.
voice.
ay, leaning so
abideth. :
Meandering and musical. the niggard pasturage
Bears not on
Aught
but
its
shaven ledge
weeds and waving grasses
To
view the river as it ])asses. Save here and there a scanty patch
Of
A
primroses too
weary
bee.
!
glideth
it jjroceeds Sleep 's no softer On through lawns, on through meads, On and on, whate'er befall,
Though
!
!
Nay,
Paracelsus.
I
will be
1
two of
Here, dear Aureole
Festus.
Some
are
faint to
catch
420
PARACELSUS
128
Festus speaks soothing
Paracelsus.
More, more
And
Festus. Its gentle
words
;
say on
scarce
way through
it
430
!
pushes
strangling rushes
Where
the glossy kingfisher Flutters when noon-heats are near,
Glad
the shelving banks to shun,
Red and
Where
steaming
in
the sun.
the shrew-mouse with pale throat
Burrows, and the speckled stoat the quick sandpipers flit In and out the marl and grit That seems to breed them, brown Nought disturbs its quiet way.
Where
440 as
they
:
Save some lazy stork that springs. Trailing it with legs and wings, the shy fox from the hill Rouses, creep he ne'er so still. they loose my heart, heart Paracelsus.
Whom
My
!
those simple words
;
darkness passes, which nought else could touch Like some dark snake that force may not expel,
Its
Which glideth out to music sweet and low. 450 What were you doing when your voice broke through
A chaos of ugly Are you
images
alone here
cell
You, indeed
All alone
Festus.
This
?
1
? :
you know
me
?
?
An
unexceptionable vault the bats kept out, the rats Kept in a snug nook how should I mistake it ? Festus. But wherefore am I here ? Paracelsus.
Good
brick and stone :
Paracelsus.
Why,
for a purpose
:
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Ah,
well
remembered
for a purpose, Festus
!
!
PARACELSUS me
'Tis like
here I
:
trilie
129
while time
this occasion, lost, will ne'er return.
You
are here to be instructed.
God's message
460 celsus describes
I will tell
much
but I have so
;
Para-
fleets,
And
to say,
tions
All is confused doubt ; but doubtless you will learn in time. would not else have brought you here no doubt
I fear to leave half out.
No He
:
I shall see clearer soon.
me
Tell
Festus.
You
are not in despair
Paracelsus. Festus. Alas, alas
Paracelsus.
!
What
but this
?
I ? and for what ? he knows not, as I feared is it you would ask me with
that earnest
Dear searching
face
?
How
Festus.
feel
you, Aureole
Well.
'Tis a strange thing:
And now
how
I
was calm then, wlio
A
the thick of
j)artner
With
And
its
am
of
its
career.
:
470
dying, Festus,
life
subsides,
great the wliirl has been.
first
in
I
that fast the storm of
jxrrceive
t
Calm
?
Well
Paracelsus.
an) so
tiie
dizzy
now
tcmj)cst, but
no
less
motion and mixed up
The
hurricane
is
spent,
the good boat 8|)ccd8 through the brightciiing weatiier
But
The
earth or sea that heaves below ? 479 gulf rolls like a meadow-swell, o'crstrewn
is it
With ravaged l)oughs and remnants of the shore; And now some islet, loosened from tiÂťe land. Swims past with all its trees, sailing to ocean And now the air is full of uptorn canes, ;
Light Htrippings from the fan-trees, tamarisks I
PARACELSUS
I30
at the Unrooted, with their birds still clinging to them, approach All high in the wind. Even so my varied life of death ]j,.|fts by me I am young, old, happy, sad, Hoping, desponding, acting, taking rest. And all at once that is, those past conditions If I select 491 Float back at once on me. Some special epoch from the crowd, 'tis but To will, and straight the rest dissolve away. ;
:
And With
only that particular state is present all its long-forgotten circumstance
Distinct and vivid as at
A
first
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; myself
careless looker-on and nothing
more,
Indifferent and amused, but nothing more.
And
this is
Be
understand it all. new perceptions must 500 I plunge therein Death's affair and while I speak.
death
New
I
:
being waits me born in me before
;
Which
last is
;
;
Minute by minute he is With power and while ;
old
filling
me
my foot is on
the thresh-
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
Of boundless life the doors unopened All preparations not complete within I turn new knowledge upon old events. but I must not And the effect is .
It is not lawful.
One
.
.
Your own
Wait, Festus
day.
!
Festus. 'Tis of that past
Paracelsus.
now In truth,
Where'er
life
You wonder
tell
come
509
will die like
me.
turn will
You
yet,
that I burn to hear. it
engages
me
just
?
wonder
I
too.
What
's life
to
me
?
where'er I listen Music, and where I tend bliss evermore. Yet how can I refrain ? 'Tis a refined one last view. Delight to view those chances, I
look
is fire,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
PARACELSUS I
am Ml
otill,
•
•
It
IS
r, like,
r some further cause exists mood some hidden purpose you something of it, Festus ?
Did
I
had
not
tell
but
fast,
it
Away
message
•
1
this peculiar
—
it
has
somehow
;
slipt
from me it will return anon. Festus. (Indeed his cheek seems young again, ;
his voice
Complete with its old tones that little laugh Concluding every phrase, with upturned eye, As though one stooped above his head to whom He looked for coniirmation and approval, 530 Where was it gone so long, so well ])reserved ? Then, the fore-finger pointing as he speaks, I^ike one who traces in an open book :
The
matter he declares ; Since I remarked it last
But now
wreck
a ghastly
many
'tis
and
:
a year
him.
this in
!
And
can
it
be.
Dear Aureole, you have then found out at That worldly things are utter vanity ? That man is made for weakness, and should In patient ignorance, Paracelsus. that
How
is
it
could
I
I
thus!
I
know
till
fail
:
appoint
to aj)prchend
But no more all
God
Ha, the purpose:
my
last
If strength suffice.
trilling:
.
Hardly
befits
will arise.
.
.
last
wait 540
the true purpose
You
!
I
see
iicrc,
all,
mission shall be done
No
trifling!
Stay;
posture
I
is
must play with them and turn them over, reminded ^ feel how fully they are past and gone. sao ' I
For 1
He
so near the perils I escape,
That
To
131
one thus about to speak
:
this
PARACELSUS
132
and prepares
Nay, Aureole,
Fes/us.
You
to deliver
are
you wild
?
cannot leave your couch,
No
p^^^^^/,â&#x20AC;&#x17E;,.
So
Not even your hand. more
help
no help
;
;
there, I stand once
!
!
Speak from a couch
My
gown
The
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
I never lectured thus. 550
?
the scarlet lined with fur
chain about
my
neck
my
;
;
now
put
signet-ring
upon my hand, I think-^-even so good sword ah, trusty Azoth, leapest Beneath thy master's grasp for the last time ? This couch shall be my throne I bid these walls Be consecrate, this wretched cell become Is
still
Last,
my
;
:
A
God
shrine, for here
speaks to
men through
me.
Now,
am ready to begin. am dumb with wonder.
Festus, I
Festus.
I
Paracelsus.
There
Listen, therefore, Festus! 560
none to spare. must content myself with telling only The most important points. You doubtless feel That I am happy, Festus ; very happy. Festus. 'Tis no delusion which uplifts him will be time enough, but
I
thus!
Then you
are pardoned. Aureole,
Ay, pardoned:
Paracelsus.
bound
is
and you
to seek,
have to
God's
.
.
Have
Paracelsus.
We
your
sin
?
'Tis God's praise
Festus.
That man
all
yet why pardoned?
.
lived
!
live alone to set forth well
praise.
'Tis true,
I
sinned much, as I
thought,
570
And in effect need mercy, for I To do that very thing but, do ;
strove
your best
PARACELSUS
I33
Or
He
lays
worst, praise rises, and will rise for ever. Pardon from him, because of praise denied
his case
Who calls me to himself to He might laugh as I laugh
Festus
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
exalt himself? !
But
Festus.
all
comes
'Tis fruitless for mankind fret themselves with what concerns them
To To
the same thing.
not;
they should lie down are no use that way Content as God has made them, nor go mad 580 In thriveless cares to better what is ill. Paracelsus. No, no ; mistake me not ; let me
They
:
not
work than I have worked
More harm
This
!
is
my
case:
If
I
No
go joyous back
God,
to
yet bring
up my soul was ordained to bear,
offering, if I render
Without the
fruits
it
appear the better to love God For sin, as one who has no claim on him, It may be surely thus Be not deceived With me, while higher prizes still await The mortal |)ersevering to the end. If
I
!
590
Beside I am not all so valueless I have been something, though too soon I left Following the instincts of that hap])y time. i'or God's sake, Festus. What happy time ? :
for
What
man's sake.
time was hapi)y
That answer
When
Paracelsus. self to
Festus.
?
will decide.
man
All
I
hope to know
What happy
but the time
1
time
?
Great God, thy judgments arc
scrutable
!
?
vowed myin-
PARACELSUS
134
He
Paracelsus. Yes,
started in
for
was
it
in
me
;
I
was born 600
it
was mine by right. ^f other men Doubtless a searching and impetuous soul Might learn from its own motions that some task Like this awaited it about the world Might seek somewhere in this blank life of ours ^'
Paracelsus:
it
;
For fit delights to stay its longings vast And, grappling Nature, so prevail on her
To
fill
the creature
Hungry
for joy
she dared thus frame
full
and, bravely tyrannous,
;
Grow in demand, still craving more and more, 610 And make each joy conceded prove a pledge Of other joy to follow bating nought Of its desires, still seizing fresh pretence
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
To
turn the knowledge and the rapture
As
an extreme,
last
new covetings. doubtless new triumphs
Into occasion for
New
strifes,
wrung
boon, from destiny,
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
a strong
soul.
Alone, unaided might
attain to this,
So glorious is our nature, so august 620 Man's inborn uninstructed impulses, His naked spirit so majestical But this was born in me I was made so Thus much time saved the feverish appetites, ;
:
The
tumult of unproved desire, the unaimed Uncertain yearnings, aspirations blind. Distrust, mistake, and all that ends in tears Were saved me ; thus I entered on my course.
You may be sure I was not all exempt From human trouble just so much of doubt 630 As bade me plant a surer foot upon The sun-road, kept my eye unruined 'mid ;
PARACELSUS The
and flashing splendour, so much as warned me
fierce
Trembling
On
sufferance
Light on
To I
stand
knew,
—
first
I
where
all
;
felt,
nature
save for that doubt,
And change in the Of the body, even) In
infinite
Proceeds
With
A
still
what we
are,
tastes an infinite joy
all
in
;
;
is,
640
every pore
in
everlasting bliss.
whom
Includes
— nay,
—what God —how God ways —one
life is
From whom Yet
spirit,
being emanates,
whom
is life
existence in
its
all
power
for evermore.
lowest form
where dwells enjoyment there a flying point
of
bliss
is
he
:
remote,
happiness in store afar, a sphere glory in full view ; thus climbs
650
Of distant Pleasure
The And The
its
heights for ever and for ever.
centre-fire heaves underneath the earth.
the earth changes like a human face ; molten ore bursts up among the rocks, Winds into the stone's heart, outbranches bright
In hidden mines, spots barren river-beds. into fine sand where sunbeams bask
Crumbles
God
joys therein.
The wroth
sea's
waves are
edged
With foam, white as the bitten li]) of hate, When, in the solitary waste, strange groujjs Of young volcanos come up, cyclops-like, Staring together with
God
tiicir
eyes on flame
tastes a pleasure in their
uncouth
God
hfe
was mine.
(perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought. But somehow felt and known in every shift
What
of
and of
aspire at last
the secret of the world
:
I
my heart knowing stood there ^''°"^^"®
set
not to idly gaze, but cast
a darkling race
stood at
I
13S
])ridc.
660
PARACELSUS
136
Creation is
con-
summa
e
Then
all is still earth is a wintry clod spring-wind, like a dancing psaltress, passes q^,^^ j^g breast to waken it, rare verdure :
;
}'ju(.
upon rough banks, between withered tree-roots and the cracks of frost, Like a smile striving with a wrinkled face ; 670 The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln
faculties l^uds tenderly
of
man The
with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient
The
for the air.
shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, shivering for very joy white fishing-gulls ; is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets ; savage creatures seek 679 Their loves in wood and plain and God renews His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, From life's minute beginnings, up at last To man the consummation of this scheme Of being, the completion of this sphere
Afar the ocean sleeps Flit where the strand
—
—
Of life
whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o'er the visible world before. Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole, :
Imperfect qualities throughout creation, Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some
point where
meet Convergent
Power
—
in
all tliose
690
scattered rays should
the faculties of man.
neither put forth blindly, nor controlled
Calmly by perfect knowledge to be used risk, inspired or checked by hope and fear ;
At
Knowledge
—
not intuition, but the slow
:
PARACELSUS
I37
and Uncertain fruit of an enhancing toil, Strengthened by love love not serenely pure, receives from him 1-1 â&#x20AC;˘n . ^ r u i>ut strong rrom weakness, hke a chance-sown
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
:
I
plant
Which,
cast
on stubborn
soil,
illuminaputs forth changed tion
buds
And
700
softer stains,
unknown
in happier climes
;
Love which endures and doubts and is oppressed And cherished, suffering much and much sustained,
And
A
blind, oft-failing, yet believing love,
half-enlightened, often-chequered trust
:
Hints and previsions of which faculties, Arc strewn confusedly everywhere about The inferior natures, and all lead up higher. All shape out dimly the superior race. The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false, 710
And man
appears
So
at last.
far the seal
one stage of being complete, scheme wound uj) and from the grand
Is put
One
on
life
;
:
rcFult
A
supplementary reflux of
light.
Illustrates all the inferior grades, explains i'lach l'"or
back step
in
the circle.
their possessor
dawn
Not alone
those qualities,
But the new glory mixes with the heaven man, once descried, imprints for earth
And
;
ever
His presence on
all lifeless
things: the winds 720
Are
henceforth voices, wailing or a shout, querulous mutter or a quick gay laugh, Never a senseless gust now man is born.
A
The
herded thoughts,
pines
commune and have deep
PARACELSUS
138
yet man not yet
is
A
secret they assemble to discuss
When
completed
the sun drops behind their trunks
which
^j,^^^
Like
grates of hell
Of the
lake-lily
is
the peerless cup afloat
:
an urn, some
nymph
no bird bearing high above her head Whistles unseen, but through the gaps above 730
Swims
:
let light in upon the gloomy woods, shape peeps from the breezy forest-top,
That
A
with small puckered mouth and mocking
Arch
eye.
The morn
has enterprise, deep quiet droops evening, triumph takes the sunset hour, Voluptuous transport ripens with the corn
With
Beneath a warm moon like a happy face this to fill us with regard for man.
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; And With
apprehension of his passing worth. his proper nature out, And ascertain his rank and final place, For these things tend still upward, progress
Desire to work
The Nor
law of shall I
man deem his
life,
is
not
Man
740
is
as yet.
object served, his end
Attained, his genuine strength put fairly forth,
While only here and
there a star dispels
darkness, here and there a towering mind when the host O'erlooks its prostrate fellows
The
:
Is out at once to the despair of night.
When
all
Equal
in
mankind
alike
perfected,
is
full-blown powers
I say, begins
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
then, not
till
750 then,
man's general infancy.
For wherefore make account of feverish starts Of restless members of a dormant whole, Impatient nerves which quiver while the body Slumbers
as in a grave
?
Oh
long ago
PARACELSUS
139
The brow was twitched, the tremulous lids astir, With half-uttered his cornThe peaceful mouth disturbed ;
speech
geglns a new breath drawn sharp, the strong right-hand tendency 760 to God clenched stronger,
Ruffled the
The
lip,
and then the teeth were
As it would pluck, a lion by the jaw The glorious creature laughed out even But when
up and stand on his
shall
his
own
earth,
triumphant march begin, thus wholly being date,
shall his long
Thence
!
strung, the great heart pulsing fast.
shall start
Then
in sleep
roused, each giant-limb awake,
full
Each sinew
He
set,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
roused,
What
he achieves shall be
When all the As man, that
race is
;
is
all
down
set
to him.
perfected alike
tended to mankind,
770
And, man produced, all has its end thus far But in completed man begins anew A tendency to God. Prognostics told Man's near approach so in man's self arise
:
;
August anticipations, symbols, types Of a dim splendour ever on before In that eternal circle
For men begin
And
find
life
pursues.
to pass their nature's bound,
new hopes and
cares
which
fast
supplant
Their proper joys and
griefs
;
they grow too 780
great
For narrow creeds of
right
and wrong, which
fade
Before the unmeasured peace
thirst
for
good
Rises within them ever more and more.
:
while
PARACELSUS
I40
He Such men are even now upon the earth, describes Serene amid the half-formed creatures round should be saved by them and joined with task°and
how
^^^
them.
it
was Such was my
and I was born to it now, from much that chains Spirits, high-dowered but limited and vexed 790 By a divided and delusive aim,
marred Free,
A
task,
as I said but
shadow mocking
a reality
Whose truth avails not wholly to disperse The flitting mimic called up by itself.
And By
so remains perplexed and nigh put out
wavering gleam. was never cheated thus I never fashioned out a fancied good a service to be done, Distinct from man's I,
its
fantastic fellow's
from the
first,
;
A glory to
be ministered unto
With powers
put forth at man's expense, with800
drawn
From
labouring in his behalf; a strength Denied that might avail him. 1 cared not
Lest his success ran counter to success for God is glorified in man. Elsewhere And to man's glory vowed I soul and limb. Yet, constituted thus, and thus endowed, I failed I gazed on power till I grew blind. Power I could not take my eyes from that :
:
;
That
only,
I
thought, should
be
preserved,
increased
At any risk, displayed, The sign and note and saw no use
struck out at once
character of man.
in
the past
Of degradation,
ugliness
I
The
:
only a scene
and
tears,
record of disgraces best forgotten,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
810
PARACELSUS
A
page
sullen
in
human
141
by his insistence
chronicles
saw no cause why man Should not stand all-sufficient even now, Fit to erase.
Or why
I
at'the^^'^ qq^^ of
his annals should be forced to tell
That once
Upon
I
the tide of
lij^ht,
Love
about to break
the world, was sealed within
its
spring: 820
would have had one day, one moment's space,
Change man's
condition, push each slumbering
claim
Of mastery
o'er the elemental world once to full maturity, then roll Oblivion o'er the work, and hide from man What night had ushered morn. Not so, dear
At
child
Of after-days,
wilt thou reject the past
Big with deep warnings of the proper tenure By which thou hast the earth for thee the :
present
829 Shall have distinct and trembling beauty, seen
Beside that past's
own shade when,
Its brightness shall stand
in relief.
out: nor yet on thcc
Shall burst the future, as successive zones
Of several wonder
open on some spirit Flying secure and glad from heaven to heaven But thou shalt painfully attain to joy, While hope and fear and love shall keep thee :
man as one by one All this was hid from me My dreams grew dim, my wide aims circum:
scriljed.
As
actual
While
To
good within
my
reach decreased,
obstacles sprung up this
way and
that
keep mc from effecting half the sum. Small as it proved ; as objects, mean within
840
PARACELSUS
142
How he The
primal aggregate, seemed, even the least, learned Itself a match for my concentred strength the worth "What wonder if I saw no way to shun °*^ ^°^^ sought for man, I
The power ? seemed God's.
Despair In
this conjuncture, as I
A
strange adventure
Had I
And
die,
my career from its uprise Aprile my Aprile there
spotted
saw
prayed to
made me know, one
—
sin
850
!
wretch disburthened and moaned his weakness in my ear, love's undoing I learned my own deep error Taught me the worth of love in man's estate. And what proportion love should hold with
His
as the poor melodious
heart,
;
power In his right constitution ; love preceding Power, and with much power, always
much
more love
Love
And I
still
too straitened in his present means. new power to set love free. 860
earnest for
learned
this,
learned
and supposed the whole was
:
stupid wonder would have worshipped me. despised and loathed their proffered
And thus, when men received with
My And
first
I
revealings,
praise
When, For
with awakened eyes, they took revenge
past credulity in casting
shame
knowledge, and I hated them It was not strange I saw no good in man, To overbalance all the wear and waste 870 Of faculties, displayed in vain, but born To prosper in some better sphere and why ? In my own heart love had not been made wise
On my
real
:
PARACELSUS
i43
To trace love's faint beginnings in mankind, To know even hate is but a mask of love's, To see a good in evil, and a hope In ill-success
Of their
to sympathise, be
;
but not love itself, failed
proud
half-reasons, faint aspirings,
dim
Struggles for truth, their poorest fallacies, Their prejudice and fears and cares and doubts
;
880 All with a touch of nobleness, despite Their error, upward tending all though weak,
Like plants in mines which never saw the sun, But dream of him, and guess where he may be, And do their best to climb and get to him. Let men All this I knew not, and I failed. Regard me, and the poet dead long ago Who loved too rashly and shape forth a third And better-tempered spirit, warned by both ;
:
As
star too
from the over-radiant
To
drink
the
life-springs,
mad
beamless
thence 890
itself
And
the dark orb which borders the abyss, might have its course Ingulfed in icy night,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
A temperate and
equidistant world.
have done well, though not all well. witiiout contempt 'Tis for their good, and therefore fit awhile That they reject the weak, and scorn the false, Rather than jiraise the strong and true, in me If I stooj) But after, they will know me. 900 Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
Meanwhile,
As
yet
I
men cannot do
:
It is
but for a time
Close to
Will
my
pierce
breast
I
;
press
God's
lamj)
si)lendour, soon or late,
its
;
the gloom
:
I
shall
emerge one
day.
You
understand
me
?
I
have said enough
?
PARACELSUS
144
He
dies
in
hope
Now
Festus.
die,
This hand, Aprile
!
Festus.
lie in
Hand
And
dear Aureole Festus,
Paracelsus.
!
my
let
hand
your own, my own true friend in hand with you, Aprile !
this
was Paracelsus
THE END
!
!
NOTE The
liberties
trifling
between pleaset,
I
leaves of
the
my
have taken with
and the reader
;
may
slip
To
join a popular account, translatdl Paris, 1822,
which
my
purpose.
I
also
very
appeml
a
prove
this, 1 sub-
from the Biographic
I select,
certainly, but as being at hand, for
are
any memoir of Paracelsus he
by way of commentary.
Uni-verielle,
subject
the foregoing scenes
not as the best,
and sufficiently concise few notes,
in
order to
which do not bear out my own view of the character of Paracelsus ; and have incorporated correct those parts
with them a notice
or
two, illustrative of the poem
itself,
Paracelsus (Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus BomHohenheim) was born in 1493 at Einsiedeln (i), a little town in the canton of Schwyz, some leagues *
bastus ab
distant
from Zurich.
His father, who exercised the was nearly
profession of mclicinc at Vilhich in Carinthia, related to
afterwards
George Bombast de Hohenheim, who became Grand Prior of the Order of Malta : con-
sequently Paracelsus could not spring from the dregs of the people, as tends.'
It
Thomas
Erastui, his sworn
enemy, pre-
appears that his elementary education was
dLiguiu M. Kenauldln's next Mntcnce a little. 'IIIc ParaceNum trimum a mililc quodam, nlii a sue excctum ferunt: conMat imbcrbcm ilium, mulicrumquc osorcm fui.sac.' A standing lli^'h- l>utcli joke in thrrtc dayt M the expense of a number of Ic.irncd men, 05 may be »cen by rcfcrrln({ lo iiuch rubbish In the prinli from his portrait by 09 Melandor'-i Jocouria, etc. >
I
shall
(Krastus
«c.)
ii barbatului, all events. Hut Eranlui was never without a K'X'd reason for his faith—«.f. 'Holvctium fuissc (I'aracelsum) vU credo, vix onim ea regie talc monstrum cdiderit.' (De Mtdicina AVnw.)
Tintoretto, painted a year before hii death, I'araceinus at
K
PARACELSUS
146
much
neglected, and that he spent part of his youth in
pursuing the age
that
;
common
life
to
is
say,
in
to the travelling literati of the
wandering from country
to
country, predicting the future by astrology and cheiro-
mancy, evoking
apparitions, and practising the different
operations of magic and alchemy, in which he had been initiated
among
whether by
the
Tritheim
number
whom
ecclesiastics,
he particularises the Abbot
many German
and
(2),
'As Paracelsus
by various
his father or
of
bishops.
displays everywhere an ignorance of the
rudiments of the most ordinary knowledge,
it
and
;
in
spite
he con-
:
Germany,
tented himself with visiting the Universities of
France, and Italy
not pro-
is
bable that he ever studied seriously in the schools
of his boasting himself
have been the ornament of those institutions, there
to
no proof of his having legally acquired the
which he assumes.
It
is
known
only
title
is
of Doctor,
that he applied
himself long, under the direction of the wealthy Sigis-
mond Fugger
Magnum
Schwatz, to
of
Paracelsus travelled
'
the East, and
in
discovery
the
of
the
Opus.
in
among the mountains Sweden,
in
order
to
of Bohemia, inspect
the
labours of the miners, to be initiated in the mysteries of the Oriental adepts, and to observe the secrets of nature
He
professes
Spain, Portugal, Prussia,
Poland,
and the famous mountain of loadstone also
to
have
visited
and Transylvania
;
everywhere
(3).
communicating
not merely with the physicians, but charlatans and
the
old
freely,
women,
conjurers of these several lands.
It
is
even believed that he extended his journeyings as far as
Egypt and Tartary, and that he accompanied the son of the
Khan
of the
Tartars
to
Constantinople, for
the
purpose of obtaining the secret of the tincture of Trismegistus
from a Greek who inhabited that
*The
period of his return to
Germany
capital. is
unknown
:
it
NOTE
147
only certain that, at about the age of thirty-three,
is
many
astonishing cures which he wrought on eminent
personages procured called
him such
1526, on the
in
padius (4), to
fill
a
University of Basil.
a
he was
celebrity, that
recommendation of OBcolam-
chair of physic and surgery at the
There Paracelsus began by burning works of Avicenna and
publicly in the amphitheatre the
his shoes
Galen, assuring his auditors that the latchets of
were more instructed than those two physicians writers put
Universities, all
together, were
;
that all
less
gifted
than the hairs of his beard and of the crown of his head
;
and
legitimate
that, in a
word, he was to be regarded
monarch of medicine,
" You
as the
shall follow
me,"
cried he,
"you, Avicenna, Galen, Rhasis, Montagnana,
Mesues
you, gentlemen of Paris, Muntpcllic-r,
;
Germany,
Cologne, Vienna,' and whomsoever the Rhine and the
Danube nourish you,
likewise,
thou, Greek
;
;
you who inhabit the
Dalmatians, thou,
Jew
:
all
isles
Athenians shall
;
of the sea
thou, Arab
5
;
follow me, ami the
monarchy shall be minc."*But at Basil it was speedily perceived that the new Professor was no belter than an egregious quack. Scarcely a year elapsed before his lectures had fairly driven away an audience incapable of comprehending their emphatic Eraslu<i, who relates thi>i, here oddly remarks, 'mirum quod non Garamantos, Indosct ^n^/oi adjunxit.' Not so wonderful neither, if wc believe what another adversary 'had heard somewhere,'— that all Paracelsus' system came of his pillaKing 'Anglum (jucndami Rot^criuin Hacchoncm.' ' Sec his works pastim. I must (;ivc one si)ccimcn :— Somebody had been styling him 'I.uthcr alter.' 'And why not?' (ho asks, as he well mlHht). 'I.uther is abundantly learned, therefore you hato him and me ; but wc arc at least a match for you.— Nam ct contra vosct vcstros universes princi|)CsAviccnnam, (Inlenum, Aristolclem, Kt vertex iste mcus etc. mc satis supcrquo munilum esse novi. calvus ac dcpilis multo plura et sublimiora novit qu.im vestcr vcl '
ct
I'rodite, ct sijcnum date, qui viri vel universic acadcmix. quid roboris habcatis? quid autcm sitis? iJoctoros ot mai;istri, pcdiculos pcctcntcs ct fricantcs podiccm.' (Frag. Mtd.)
Avicenna •iitis,
PARACELSUS
148
That which above
jargon.
all
reputation was the debauched
who
the testimony of Oporinus,
contributed to sully his
life
he
According to
led.
two years
lived
in
his
intimacy, Paracelsus scarcely ever ascended the lecture-
desk unless half drunk, and only dictated to his secre-
when
taries
attend
of intoxication
in a state
the
he
sick,
rarely
:
proceeded
summoned
if
thither
He was
previously drenching himself with wine.
tomed
to
retire
to
to
without accus-
bed without changing his clothes
;
sometimes he spent the night in pot-houses with peasants, and in the morning knew no longer what he was about ; and, nevertheless, up to the age of twenty-five his only
drink had been water (5). 'At length, fearful of being punished for a serious outrage on a magistrate (6), he
fled
from Basil towards
1527, and took refuge in Alsatia, whither he caused Oporinus to follow with his chemical
the end of the year
apparatus.
He
'
then
entered
once
ambulatory theosophist.^
more
upon the career of
Accordingly we find him at
at St. Gall in in 1528 at Nuremberg in 1529 1531 ; at Pfeffers in 1535 5 and at Augsburg in 1536 he next made some stay in Moravia, where he still further compromised his reputation by the loss of many
Colmar
;
;
:
distinguished
and
in
Chronicle
the
;
1538 was the
to
many
which compelled him
patients,
himself to Vienna
from thence he passed at Villach,
States
kindnesses
of
into
to
betake
Hungary
where he dedicated
;
his
Carinthia, in gratitude for
with which they had
honoured
'So migratory a life could afford Paracelsus but little leisure for application to books, and accordingly he informs us that for the space of ten years he never opened a single volume, and that his whole in cflect, the medical library was not composed of six sheets inventory drawn up after his death states that the only books which >
:
he St.
were the Bible, the New Testament, the Commentaries ol Jerome on the Gospels, a printed volume on Medicine, and seven left
manuscripts.'
NOTE from Mindelheim, which he
Finally,
his father.
149 visite<l
1540, Paracelsus proceeiled to Salzburg, where he
in
Hospital of St. Stephen {Sebaitian
in the
24,
1
541.*
which
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; (Here
is
tiled
meant), Sept.
follows a criticism on his writings,
I omit.)
would seem
(i) Paracelsus
Von Hohenhe'tm
Einsiedeln
;
whence Paracelsus
to be a fantastic version of
the
is
sometimes
is
spondence of Erasmus, Eremita
in the corre-
Bombast,
;
name, probably acquired, from the
Eremus,
Latinised
called, as
proper
liis
characteristic phraseo-
logy of his lectures, that unlucky signification which
it
has ever since retained.
Then Bishop
(2)
burg
Franconia
in
country, whence
a
town
situated
1536
staunch
Agrippa, to
Cornelius
friend
thence, in
1
5 10, a
letter
last
whom
his his
he dates
answer to the dedicatory
in
epistle prefixed to the treatise
fertile
He was much
may be seen by among others, by
Epistola Familiiiresy Hag.
:
Wurz-
in a grassy
name, Herbipolis.
its
by learned men, as
there
visited
of Spanheim, an<l rcsiiling at ;
De
Occult. Philosop/i.y
which
contains the following ominous allusion to Agrippa's
sojourn;
apud
'Quum
niiper
Herbipolim
tecum, R. P.
aliquamdiu
in
ccenobio tuo
multa
convcrsatus,
ile
chymicis, multa dc magicis, multa de cabalisticis, cjetcris-
que
quz adhuc
in
occulto dclitescunt, arcanis scicntiis
atquc artibus una contulisscmus,' etc.
(3)
'
Inexplcbilis
ilia
avi<litas
naturar
pcrscrutandi
sccrcta ct rcconditarum supellcctilc scicntiarum
locuptetandi, paticbatur, sed
urbcs
uno
eo<lemquc
loco
diu
animum
pcrsistcrc
non
Mcrcurii instar, omncs terras, nationes et
perlustrandi
igniculos
natiira; icrutatoribus,
supponcbat,
ut
cum
viris
chymicis praeicrtim, ore tcnui con-
PARACELSUS
I50 et
ferret,
una
communicatione
altera
vel
Prafat)
{Bitiskius in
laboribus nocturnisque
diuturnis
quae
invenerant
*
primiim, deinde
auxilio
Patris
vigiliis
obtineret.'
doctissimos viros in Germania, Italia,
propria industria
Gallia, Hispania, aliisque Europae regionibus, nactus est
praceptores
quorum
;
doctrina,
liberal!
potissimuni
et
propria inquisitione ut qui esset ingenio acutissimo ac fere profecit, ut multi testati sint, in universa
tantum
divine,
'
arcana
tarn
neminem.'
mortaliuni
Medic.)
ardua,
tarn
philosophia,
{Melch.
eruisse
abdita
et
Adam,
in
Vit.
Germ.
Paracelsus qui in intima naturae viscera sic
penitus introierit, metallorum stirpiumque vires et facultates
tarn
heminum nata
best
insanabiles
percurandum
described
adolesccntcm
difficillimi
pucUam
saltern
nebilissimarum tasdii pigebit suos.
?
'
1573.
itineris
fceminam
vel
cum Theophrasto
ut
for
haud
wandering
is
Ecce
amatorem
piget, ut
venustam
'
:
aspiciat
amore
artium
{Petri
videatur.'
His passion
own words
his
in
;
perfectaque
Oral, de Basika.)
ac
exploraverit
vel desperates et opinione
morbos omnes
prinium medicina
Rami
acumine
ingenii
incredibili
perviderit, ad
quanto minus
:
cujuslibct
ac
laboris
[Dcfensiones Septem ad-versus amtdos
etc.
Def.
'
4ta.
De
peregrinatienibus
et
exilie.')
(4)
The
reader
may remember
that
it
was
in
conjunc-
tion with CEcolampadius, then Divinity Professor at Basil, in 1528 an answer to Luther's and that both proceeded in company to the subsequent conference with Luther and Melanchthon at Marpurg. Their letters fill a large volume.
that Zuinglius published
Confession of Faith
;
D.D. Johannis (Ecolampadii larum
lib.
quattior.
Bas.
1 5
et
36.
Huldrichi Zuinglii EpistoIt
must be
also observed
that Zuinglius began to preach in 1516, and at Zurich in
1519, and that
in
115215
the
Mass was
abolished
in
the
NOTE The
cantons.
151
tenets of CEcolampadius were supposed to
more evangelical than those up to that perioii maintained by the glorious German, and our brave Bishop 'About this Fisher attacked them as the fouler heresy be
:
—
time arose out of Luther's school one CEcolampadius, a
mighty and
giant
fierce
who,
;
as his
like
master had gone
beyond the Church, went beyond his master
(or else
it
had been impossible he could have been reputed the better
who
scholar),
champion (like 80
denied the real presence
(the
him,
;
this
Bishop) sets upon, and with
many smooth
worthy
five
books
stones taken out of the river that
doth always run with living water) slays the Philistine
which 1
books were written
five
in
;
the year of our Lonl
526, at which time he had governed the sec of Rochester
twenty there
Now, {Life of Bis/wp Fis/icr, 1655.) no doubt of the Protestantism of Paracelsus,
years.'
is
Erasmus, Agrippa, celsus
etc.,
but the nonconformity of Para-
was always scandalous.
L. Crasso {Elogj d'lluomini
Ven. 1666) informs us that his books were Quenstedt {de Pat. excommunicated by the Church, Doct.) affirms 'ncc tantum novae mcdicinae, verum ctiam Letieraii,
novse
thcologia
Magkir, partim
autor
him
classes
hsereticos'
multa thcologica olcnt, ac
among
(lib.
in
iluriiisculc
Dclrio,
est.'
i.
cap.
cjusricm
sonant
those 3).
scriptis in
Dhqu'nit.
his
in
'partim
athcos,
'Oninino tamcn plane
alheismum
auribus vera Christiani.'
{D. Gabiielh Claudeii Sihediaima de Tincl. Univ., Norimb. 1736.) dicit
I
shall only
add one more authority
"«c (Paracclsuni) aliquando Luthcruni
:
tt
— 'Oporinus Pnpam, non
minus quam nunc Galcnum ct Hippocratcm redacturum in ordincm minabatur, ncquc cnim corum qui hactcnus in
scripturam
reccntiorcs, seel
sacram
scripsisst-nt,
sivc
quenquam scripturx nuclcum
circa corticem ct quasi
{Th. Erattiii, Diifiiitai. dr
vctcrei,
rcctc
mcmbranam lantum
Mtd.
Na-ttt.)
sivo
cruissc,
hxrcrc."
'
These and Bimihir
PARACELSUS
152
notions had their due effect on Oporinus, who, says Zuingerus, in his T/ieatrum,
longum
'
dixit ei (Paracelso),
vale
ncobpraeceptoris,alioquiamicissimi,horrendasblasphemias ipse
quoque aliquando poenas Deo Opt. Max.
est, a
:
'
Take
drunkenness.
His defenders allow the
(5)
sample of their excuses
lueret.'
Gentis hoc, non
Taciti seculo ad nostrum usque non interrupto
devolutum,
sinceritati forte
Germanae coaevum,
a
vitioluni
viri
filo
et nescio
[Bitisk'ius) an aliquo consanguinitatis vinculo junctum.' The other charges were chiefly trumped up by Oporinus
:
'
Domi, quod Oporinus amanuensis
nunquam
nisi
ejus sjepe narravit,
potus ad explicanda sua accessit, atque in
medio conclavi ad columnam TeTi'0W;U^i'OS adsistens, apprehenso manibus capulo ensis, cujus KoiXu/j-a hospitium prjebuit,
aiunt,
ut
spiritui
concepta sua protulit
:
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
alii
familiar!, illud
quod
imaginationes aut in
capulo habuit,
ab ipso Azoth appellatum, me<licinam fuisse prsestantis{Melc/i. lapidem Philosophicum putant.' This famous sword was no laughing-matter in
simam
aut
Adam)
those days, and
it is
idea of Paracelsus. in
our
own
now
a material feature in the popular
I recollect a
couple of allusions to
literature, at the
moment.
had been known Or Paracelsus with
his lon^ sword.
Ne
it
the Danish Gonswart, Volpone, act
ii.
scene
i.
cant.
3.
Bumbastus kept a devil's bird Shut in the pummel of his sword, That taught him all the cunning pranks Of past and future mountebanks. Hudibras, part
This Azoth was simply ^laudanum suum.' time he was tincture
metals,
â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the
commonly
believed
power of curing
ii.
But
to possess the
diseases
Oporinus often witnessed,
as
in
his
double
and transmuting he declares, both
these effects, as did also Franciscus, the servant of Para-
NOTE who
celsus,
153
Neamler, a successful which he was present, and the results of
describes, in a letter to
projection at
which, good golden ingots, were confided to his keeping.
For the other quality,
among many
others
let
vouch
the following notice
— 'Degebat
:
Theophrastus Norim-
bergae procitus a medentibus illius urbis, et vaniloquus
deceptorque proclamatus, qui, ut laboranti famse subveniat, viros adit,
quosdam
authoritatis
infamise
et
summae
in
amoliendae, artique
Republica suae
ilia
asserendae,
spcchnen ejus poUicetur editurum, nuUo stipcndio accepto
pretio,
horum
elephantiacos aliquot, a segrcgatos, et in
quos
eliguntur,
Theophrastus que sanitati
praebentium
faciles
communione honiinum caeterorum
valetudinarium detrusos, alieno arbitrio virtute
a foeda
restituit
;
singular!
Graecorum
suorum prislinae-
conservat illustre
harum curationum
(^Bitiskius.y
It
is
remarked that Oporinus afterwards repented of
treachery
:
defunctum vencratione prosequutiis,
famcs famae praeceptoris morsus conversi poenitentia, heu
cxanimi quae spiranti
pref.
Ob, Opor*
Testiimentif
;
in
in-
remorsus conscicntiae
nimis tarda, vulncra clauserc
inflixerant.'
Oporinus, sec D'upulat. Erani, y'lt. el
to his
'Sed resipuit tandem, et quern vivum convitiis
insectatus fuerat
de
rcmediorum mundat,
lepra
urbs in archivis suis testimonium.* be
vel
aures jussu
for the
anri *
For these 'bites' of Andrea: Jochci
remorse
*
Orat'to
Mic. Toxites
in
and Conringius (otherwise an enemy
The prem-nture death of I'nratclius ca»n no manner of doubt on the fact of his having po^scs^cd the l.lixir Vit.x: the nlchcinisls have abundant rca^on^ to ndMucc, from which I select the followini;, n< explanatory of a properly of the Tincture not calculated on by its votaries Ubjccl ioncm illam, quod I'aracelsuH non fucril lonKicvuii, nonnulli qiinquc •lolvunt |)cr raliones physical vil.c nimirum abbrcvintioncm fortansc lalibus acciderc posM;, oh 'rinrlumm frcqucnllorc ac lar^iore doii Kumlam, dum a ^ummo efTicici cl pcnelrabili hujus 1
:
—
'
:
virtuic calor innatui cjuosi suffocatur.'
diasma.)
((iabrielit Claudcrl Scho-
PARACELSUS
IS4 of Paracelsus),
who
says
was containeii
it
from
in a letter
Oporinus to Doctor Vegerus.^
Whatever
the
attributes, the
father
Paracelsus to be considered the
of
modern chemistry
of
De
Vossius,
moderns may think of these marvellous
title
Philoi"
et
Gerarihis
indisputable.
is
PMlos'""
sectis,
thus prefaces the
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
ninth section of cap. 9, ' De Chymia' 'Nobilem hanc medicinae partem, diu sepultam avorum aetate, quasi ab orco revocavit Th. Paracelsus.' lie
suppose
I
priators have since developed
appears from his treatise
many
hints
which clever appro-
scattered in his neglected books,
Thus,
with applause.
De Phkbotomia, and
it
elsewhere,
that he had discovered the circulation of the blood and
the sanguification of the heart
Colombo, and
more
still
as did
;
perfectly
after
Physiognomy,
enthusiast, a
Holcroft's
While on the
may
man
translation,
which
in
axioms are precise enough logical
work De Natura
passage from his
practical
he
:
was, as
have
I
di<l
iii.
subject of the
said,
anci
'though an astro-
p.
179
â&#x20AC;&#x201D;'The
See Eyes.'
writings of Paracelsus,
explain a passage in the third part of the
effect
Reriim, on
definitions
prodigious genius.'
of
vol.
the
acids,
of
Even Lavater
Arezzo, as Bayle and Bartoli observe. quotes a
him Realdo
Andrea Cesalpino
unwilling to publish his works, but
publish a vast number.
Valentinus
(in
1
He
Poem.
in
Pnefat.
Paramyr.) declares 'quod ad librorum Paracelsi copiam
in
attinet, audio, a
Germanis prope trecentos
fcECunditas ingenii
!'
adds he, appositely.
were, however, spurious
good edition solo ipsius fertur '
(3
of these,
and Fred. Bitiskius gives his
Gen. 1658)
'rejectis suppositis
nomine superbientibus quorum ingens circum-
numenis.'
For a
;
vols. fol.
*0
reccnseri.'
Many
The
rest
fjood defence of I'aracelsus
were I
'
charissimum
refer the reader to
et
Olaus
Hermeiis, elc. sapicntia vittdicata, 167.). f)r, no'more learned than myself in such matters, I mention simply that Paracelsus introduced the use of Mercury and Laudanum. norrichius' treatise if
he
is
NOTE
155
pretiosissimum authoris pignus, extorsum potius ab illo quam obtentum.' 'Jam minime eo volente atque jubente haec ipsius scripta
muro
quae
lucem prodisse videntur
in
quippe
;
ipso absente, servi ciijusdam
inclusa
indicio,
furto surrepta atque sublata sunt,' says Valentinus.
These
have been the study of a host of commentators, amongst
whose
labours
Medic'ma
most notable, Pari Severini Mic. Toxetis Bas. 1571
P«'
(This
Paris.
A
(6)
1574; Dornei last, a
Or.o-
Diet.
good book.)
One
disgraceful affair.
having been rescued
in
extremis
Liechtenfels, a canon,
by the ^laudanum' of
Paracelsus, refused the stipulated fee, and in
^Idea
;
Parac, Franc. 1584; Philoi" Compendium cum scholiis auctore Leone Sua-vio,
mattica, Arg.
and
are
Philosophic,
meanness by the
his
Paracelsus
authorities,
His own who found a
would not brook.
alloweil by his bitterest foes,
of his indifference to profit
in
was supported
whose interference liberality
was
ready solution
the aforesaid sword-handle
His freedom from the besetting sin of a (as he curiously says somewhere, profession he abhorred
and
its
guest.
—
'Quij quaeso dcinceps honorem <lcferat profession! tali, quse a tam facinorosis nebulonibus obitur ct administraj„r J')
sua
—
in
is
recorded in his epitaph, which affirms
pauperes
distribuenda
honoravit or ordinavit
—
for
coUocandaque
accounts
differ.
—'Bona
erogavit,'
This
issue
revised
of Browning's
edition,
has
been
'
Paracelsus,' based on edited
Dickinson, M.A., who has read
by
Mr.
the text
the
Lowes
G.
and added
marginalia, I.
October
I,
last
G.
1898.
167
the
Her Majesty Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to at the Edinburgh University Press
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