| |
(From Saul, Act II, Scene 1)
Translated by C. Lloyd
THIS dawn how splendid! The universal sun | |
| Arises not wrapt in a bloody shroud; | |
| He seems to promise a propitious day. | |
| O my past years! where now are ye all fled? | |
| Saul never from his martial bed, till now, | 5 |
| Rose in the camp, without the certain trust | |
| That, ere at eve his pillow he resumed, | |
| He should be victor. * * * * * | |
| O Abner, with what different eyes do youth | |
| And hoary age contemplate the events | 10 |
| Of human life. When with a well-knit arm | |
| I grasped this ponderous and gnarled spear, | |
| Which now I scarcely sway, I ill conceived | |
| The possibility of self-mistrust, | |
| But I have now not only lost my youth,— | 15 |
| Ah! were the invincible right-hand of God | |
| E’en yet with me! or were with me at least | |
| David, my champion! * * * * * | |
| And what? Wouldst thou | |
| Conceal from me the horror of my state? | 20 |
| Ah! were I not a father, as I am, | |
| Alas! too certainly, of much-loved children, | |
| Would I have now life, victory, or the throne? | |
| I should already, and a long time since, | |
| Headlong have cast myself mid hostile swords: | 25 |
| I should already, thus at least, at once | |
| Have closed the horrible life that I drag on. | |
| How many years have now past, since a smile | |
| Was seen to play upon my lips? My children, | |
| Whom still I love so much, if they caress me, | 30 |
| For the most part inflame my heart to rage. | |
| Impatient, fierce, incensed, and turbulent, | |
| I am a burthen to myself and others; | |
| In peace I wish for war, in war for peace; | |
| Poison concealed I drink in every cup, | 35 |
| In every friend I see an enemy; | |
| The softest carpets of Assyria seem | |
| Planted with thorns to my unsolaced limbs; | |
| My transient sleep is agonized with fear; | |
| Each dream with imaged terrors that distract me. | 40 |
| Why should I add to this dark catalogue? | |
| Who would believe it? The sonorous trumpet | |
| Speaks to my ears in an appalling voice; | |
| And fills the heart of Saul with deep dismay. | |
| Thou seest clearly that Saul’s tottering house | 45 |
| Is desolate, bereft of all its splendor; | |
| Thou seest that God hath cast me off forever. * * * * *
That selfsame voice. | |
| Imperative and visionary voice, | |
| Which as a youth my nightly slumbers broke, | |
| When I in privacy securely lived | 50 |
| Far from the throne, and all aspiring thoughts | |
| For sundry nights hath that same voice been heard | |
| In menacing, denunciatory tones; | |
| Like the deep murmur of the stormy waves, | |
| Thundering repulsively, to me it cried,— | 55 |
| “Depart, depart, O Saul.” The sacred aspect, | |
| The venerable aspect of the prophet, | |
| Which I had seen in dreams before he had | |
| Made manifest that God had chosen me | |
| For Israel’s king, that Samuel, in a dream, | 60 |
| Now with far different aspect I behold, | |
| I, from a hollow, deep, and horrible vale, | |
| Behold him sitting on a radiant mount: | |
| David is humbly prostrate at his feet: | |
| The holy prophet on his forehead pours | 65 |
| The consecrated oil: with the other hand | |
| Stretched to my head, a hundred cubits length, | |
| He snatches from my brow the royal crown, | |
| And would replace it on the brow of David: | |
| But wouldst thou think it? David prostrate falls, | 70 |
| With piteous gesture, at the prophet’s feet, | |
| Refusing to receive it; and he weeps, | |
| And cries, and intercedes so fervently, | |
| That he refits it on my head at last. | |
| |
