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A SAMARITAN WOMAN. THE SUN is hot; and the dry east-wind blowing | |
| Fills all the air with dust. The birds are silent; | |
| Even the little fieldfares in the corn | |
| No longer twitter; only the grasshoppers | |
| Sing their incessant song of sun and summer. | 5 |
| I wonder who those strangers were I met | |
| Going into the city? Galileans | |
| They seemed to me in speaking, when they asked | |
| The short way to the market-place. Perhaps | |
| They are fishermen from the lake; or travellers, | 10 |
| Looking to find the inn. And here is some one | |
| Sitting beside the well; another stranger; | |
| A Galilean also by his looks. | |
| What can so many Jews be doing here | |
| Together in Samaria? Are they going | 15 |
| Up to Jerusalem to the Passover? | |
| Our Passover is better here at Sychem, | |
| For here is Ebal; here is Gerizim, | |
| The mountain where our father Abraham | |
| Went up to offer Isaac; here the tomb | 20 |
| Of Joseph,—for they brought his bones from Egypt | |
| And buried them in this land, and it is holy. | |
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CHRISTUS. Give me to drink.
SAMARITAN WOMAN. How can it be that thou, | |
| Being a Jew, askest to drink of me | |
| Which am a woman of Samaria? | 25 |
| You Jews despise us; have no dealings with us; | |
| Make us a byword; call us in derision | |
| The silly folk of Sychar. Sir, how is it | |
Thou askest drink of me?
CHRISTUS. If thou hadst known | |
| The gift of God, and who it is that sayeth | 30 |
| Give me to drink, thou wouldst have asked of Him; | |
| He would have given thee the living water. | |
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SAMARITAN WOMAN. Sir, thou hast naught to draw with, and the well | |
| Is deep! Whence hast thou living water? | |
| Say, art thou greater than our father Jacob, | 35 |
| Which gave this well to us, and drank thereof | |
| Himself, and all his children and his cattle? | |
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CHRISTUS. Ah, whosoever drinketh of this water | |
| Shall thirst again; but whosoever drinketh | |
| The water I shall give him shall not thirst | 40 |
| Forevermore, for it shall be within him | |
| A well of living water, springing up | |
Into life everlasting.
SAMARITAN WOMAN. Every day | |
| I must go to and fro, in heat and cold, | |
| And I am weary. Give me of this water, | 45 |
| That I may thirst not, nor come here to draw. | |
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CHRISTUS. Go call thy husband, woman, and come hither. | |
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SAMARITAN WOMAN. I have no husband, Sir.
CHRISTUS. Thou hast well said | |
| I have no husband. Thou hast had five husbands; | |
| And he whom now thou hast is not thy husband. | 50 |
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SAMARITAN WOMAN. Surely thou art a Prophet, for thou readest | |
| The hidden things of life! Our fathers worshipped | |
| Upon this mountain Gerizim; and ye say | |
| The only place in which men ought to worship | |
Is at Jerusalem.
CHRISTUS. Believe me, woman, | 55 |
| The hour is coming, when ye neither shall | |
| Upon this mount, nor at Jerusalem, | |
| Worship the Father; for the hour is coming, | |
| And is now come, when the true worshippers | |
| Shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth! | 60 |
| The Father seeketh such to worship Him. | |
| God is a spirit; and they that worship Him | |
| Must worship Him in spirit and in truth. | |
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SAMARITAN WOMAN. Master, I know that the Messiah cometh, | |
| Which is called Christ; and He will tell us all things. | 65 |
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CHRISTUS. I that speak unto thee am He!
THE DISCIPLES, returning Behold, | |
| The Master sitting by the well, and talking | |
| With a Samaritan woman! With a woman | |
| Of Sychar, the silly people, always boasting | |
| Of their Mount Ebal, and Mount Gerizim, | 70 |
| Their Everlasting Mountain, which they think | |
| Higher and holier than our Mount Moriah! | |
| Why, once upon the Feast of the New Moon, | |
| When our great Sanhedrim of Jerusalem | |
| Had all its watch-fires kindled on the hills | 75 |
| To warn the distant villages, these people | |
| Lighted up others to mislead the Jews, | |
| And make a mockery of their festival! | |
| See, she has left the Master; and is running | |
Back to the city!
SAMARITAN WOMAN. Oh, come see a man | 80 |
| Who hath told me all things that I ever did! | |
Say, is not this the Christ?
THE DISCIPLES. Lo, Master, here | |
| Is food, that we have brought thee from the city. | |
We pray thee eat it.
CHRISTUS. I have food to eat, | |
Ye know not of.
THE DISCIPLES, to each other. Hath any man been here, | 85 |
| And brought Him aught to eat, while we were gone? | |
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CHRISTUS. The food I speak of is to do the will | |
| Of Him that sent me, and to finish his work. | |
| Do ye not say, Lo! there are yet four months | |
| And cometh harvest? I say unto you, | 90 |
| Lift up your eyes, and look upon the fields, | |
| For they are white already unto harvest! | |
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