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Page 1 of 11901 · PDF PAGE 71
…flamed within the altar-cake: 'tis done! [Szlence: presently the leper breaks into a hor- rible, silent, smooth laughter. Again silence. PACHAD. I am done with godhead: let me be a man. CHORUS. Hail, Pachad, king of Egypt and the Nile! Hail, Pachad, Lord of the two lands, all hail ! PACHAD. King of himself and lord of life and death, No lesser throne! I have borne me as a god, Avenging on my nearest blood the sin That brought me shameful to the shameless light. I have not faltered nor turned back at all, Nor moved my purpose for a moment’s thou…
1901 · PDF PAGE 51
THE FATAL FORCE 37 PACHAD. I have heard you as a god Immutable. CHORUS. Thou art as proud and calm As statued Memnon. Thou art more than god And less than man. Thine eyelids tremble not. PACHAD. I shall avenge it as a god. The land Shall be made free. AMENHATEP. And the old gods have sway, Re-born from incorruption. PACHAD. The old gods! - I must muse deeply. Keep your ancient ways A little. I must play the part through so. CHORUS. In the ways of the North and the South, Whence the dark and the dayspring are drawn, We pass with the song of the …
1901 · PDF PAGE 70
56 THE FATAL FORCE RATOUM. I have loved thee ever, I have made thee god. PACHAD. I hate myself, and therefore I hate thee. RATOUM. I am still goddess, still desire thy love. That leper lies: thou art indeed a god. PACHAD. I am a god to execute my will. [ Threatens her with his dagger. RATOUM. Mercy! Thou canst not strike a woman down! PACHAD. So! The thin casing of the godhead rots, Mere mummy-cloth: the rotten corpse within, Dust and corruption! I am still the god, And gods slay women: therefore I slay thee. RATOUM. Then thou shalt see me once…
1901 · PDF PAGE 57
…burn her with fire! So the avenging master shall cleanse his fate of shame, Set his seal of disaster, a royal seal to his name. [Exeunt. PACHAD. I am not Horus, but I shall be king. Enter LEPER. THE LEPER. I am a leper, but I am the king. PACHAD. Monstrous illegible horror, let thy mouth Frame from its charnel-house some pregnant word Intelligible. THE LEPER. I am king; thy mother’s limbs Clung fast to mine when I begot thy father. PACHAD. He died in battle; thou art not the king.
1901 · PDF PAGE 44
…r which hath Seven Steps, and therein is established the throne of an evil and fatal force.”— ZOROASTER. PEOPLE. RATOUM, Queen of Egyft. PACHAD, her son (by the son of herself and the LEPER). THE LEPER, her divorced husband. THE KING OF SYRIA. AMENHATEP, High Priest. Chorus of Priests. Soldiers of Egypt. Syrian Troops. PACHAD. HY is thy back made stiff, unrighteous priest, ! Thy knee reluctant? Thine old eyes, grown blind, Stare into silence, and behold no god Longer. Thy forehead knows no reverence Nor sign of worship. Or sits mutiny Blasphemo…
1901 · PDF PAGE 46
…dhead guards Her people, sleeps. The altars are thrown down ; The people murmur. She hath done thee wrong, But be thou mighty to avenge! PACHAD. To-day I, Horus, am to grow Osiris. Yea, Strange secret dreams of some mysterious fate Godlike have come upon me, and the throne Totters for your disloyalty. AMENHATEP. Beware ! How died thy father ? PACHAD. That amazing god Incarnate in him chose a nobler form, And in my mother’s body sought his home, Whose double incarnation is divine Beyond th’ old stories. Yes, I am a god.
1901 · PDF PAGE 69
…s fall off. THE LEPER. I am the resurrection and the death! [Ratoum falls back shrieking. The priests raise a chant to stifle the sound. PACHAD (tearing off his mask). I am the hideous poison of thy veins And foulest fruit of thy incestuous womb. RATOUM. I am thy mother! I have nurtured thee With woman’s tenderness and godhead’s strength. PACHAD. I am the avenger of my own false birth.
1901 · PDF PAGE 59
…chief of all the priests; And thou, in thine own eyes, art a young god, Strong, beautiful, and lithe, a leaping fawn Upon the mountains. PACHAD. Yea, I am a god. I am fire against the fountain of my birth, The storm upon the earth that nurtured me! Leave me: we twain have no more words to speak. THE LEPER. Neither in heaven nor in hell. I go, The dead king, worshipping the living man. [/xiz. PACHAD. I have been a god so long, my thoughts run halt From many contemplations. Like the flow Of a slow river deep and beautiful, My even life moved onwa…
1901 · PDF PAGE 60
…resently Borne in a coffin. See thou fill it not, But take the lion’s mask and play his part Before the throne. Be ready, and be strong. PACHAD. I shall do so. Come, let us go together In hateful love and sacrilegious hate, Disease and godhead. I am still the god. [ Exeunt. Enter RATOUM. RATOUM. I stood upon the desert, and my eyes Beheld the splendid and supernal dawn Flame underneath the single star that burns
1901 · PDF PAGE 68
… sacred fountains draw Essences of dim being, mated With lofty substance uncreated, Concluding the full period That makes all being God. PACHAD (desguised in the mask of a lion). I lift the censer. Hail, immortal queen, From the vast hall of death! Dead Horus cries Towards the dawn. Bid me awake, O mother! O mother! from the darkness of the tomb, That live Osiris may cry back to thee, O spouse! O sister! from the halls of life, The profound lake, the immeasurable depth, The sea of the three Loves! O mother, mother! Isis, the voice that even Ame…
1901 · PDF PAGE 58
…my breast the livid mark of sin That was the leprosy of her own soul, And drove me forth to compass my disgrace With infamies ineffable. PACHAD. I know; I shall avenge. The old gods come again. THE LEPER. Nay! I have lived through all these barren years, Discrowned, diseased, abominable, cast out, And meditating on the event of life, And that initiated Hope that we, Royal, inherit, of the final life, Nor newer incarnation, and possessed Of strange powers, who have moved about this court Loathed, and unrecognised, and shunned, have thought That …
1901 · PDF PAGE 50
… Is broken, and the balance of her mind Made one with the fool’s bauble, and her wand, That was of steel and fire, like a reed, snapped! PACHAD. So lived my father. Tell me of his death. AMENHATEP. At thy first breath the gods were patient still, Till the abomination filled its cup, And hatred took her heart. She slew thy sire, And made his body the banquet of her sin In the infernal temple. “So,” she said, ‘‘T reap the incarnation of the god.” So, gloomy and hideous, she would prowl about Seeking fresh human feasts, and bloody rites Stained th…
1901 · PDF PAGE 45
…n as I. CHORUS. Thou art not Horus, buta man. Thy life Is not of the immortals, but, as ours, Stands at the summons of the hooded death. PACHAD. Speak! I have this much of a god in me— I am not shaken at your cries; my lips
1901 · PDF PAGE 47
…t! For she is great and evil, and her voice Howls blasphemy against yet living gods. Thou knowest not the story of thy birth, The truth. PACHAD Then speak the truth, if so a priest May tune his tongue to anything but lies. AMENHATEP. Sixteen strange seasons mingle gold and grey Since in this very temple she, the Queen, Spake, and threw open to our reverent gaze A ‘royal womb made pregnant with that seed Of which thou art the harvest. She spake thus: ‘Princes, and people of the Egyptian land, And broken priests of broken deities Discrowned this …