The Temptation of St. Anthony

Damis. "Ah! that is a city! that Babylon! everybody there is rich! The houses, which are painted blue, have doors of bronze, and flights of steps descending to the river."

(Drawing lines upon the ground, with his stick:)

"Like that, seest thou? And then there are temples, there are squares, there are baths, there are aqueducts! The palaces are roofed with red brass; and the interior … ah! if thou only knewest!"

Apollonius. "Upon the north wall rises a tower which supports a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, and there are also three others! The eighth is a chapel containing a bed. No one enters it save the woman chosen by the priests for the God Belus. I was lodged there by order of the King of Babylon."

Damis. "As for me, they hardly deigned to give me any attention! So I walked through the streets all by myself. I informed myself regarding the customs of the people; I visited the workshops; I examined the great machines that carry water to the gardens. But I soon wearied of being separated from the Master."

Apollonius. "At last we left Babylon; and as we travelled by the light of the moon, we suddenly beheld an Empusa."

Damis. "Aye, indeed! She leaped upon her iron hoof; she brayed like an ass; she galloped among the rocks. He shouted imprecations at her; she disappeared."

Anthony (aside).

"What can be their motive?"

Apollonius. "At Taxilla, the capital of five thousand fortresses, Phraortes, King of the Ganges, showed us his guard of black men, whose stature was five cubits, and under a pavilion of green brocade in his gardens, an enormous elephant, which the queens amused themselves by perfuming. It was the elephant of Porus which had taken flight after the death of Alexander."

Damis. "And which had been found again in a forest."

Anthony. "Their speech is superabundant, like that of drunken men!"

Apollonius. "Phraortes seated us at his own table."

Damis. "How strange a country that was! During their drinking carousels, the lords used to amuse-themselves by shooting arrows under the feet of a dancing child. But I do not approve…"

Apollonius. "When I was ready to depart, the king gave me a parasol, and he said to me: 'I have a stud of white camels upon the Indus. When thou shalt have no further use for them, blow in their ears. They will come back.'

"We descended along the river, marching at night by the light of the fire-flies, which glimmered among the bamboos. The slave whistled an air to drive away the serpents; and our camels bent down in passing below the branches of the trees, as if passing under low gates.

"One day a black child, who held a golden caduceus in his hand, conducted us to the College of the Sages. Iarchas, their chief, spoke to me of my ancestors, told me of all my thoughts, of all my actions, of all my existences. In former time he had been the River Indus; and he reminded me that I had once been a boatman upon the Nile, in the time of King Sesostris."

Damis. "As for me, they told me nothing; so that I know not who or what I have been."

Anthony. "They have a vague look, like shadows!"

Apollonius. "Upon the shores of the sea we met with the milk-gorged Cynocephali, who were returning from their expedition to the Island Taprobana. The tepid waves rolled blond pearls to our feet. The amber crackled beneath our steps. Whale-skeletons were whitening in the crevasses of the cliffs. At last the land became narrow as a sandal; and after casting drops of ocean water toward the sun, we turned to the right to return.

"So we returned through the Region of Aromatics, by way of the country of the Gangarides, the promontory of Comaria, the country of the Sachalites, of the Adramites and of the Homerites; then, across the Cassanian mountains, the Red Sea, and the Island Topazos, we penetrated into Ethiopia through the country of the Pygmies."

Anthony (to himself).

"How vast the world is!"

Damis. "And after we had returned home, we found that all those whom we used to know, were dead."

(Anthony lowers his head. Silence.)

Apollonius (continues).

"Then men began to talk of me the world over.

"The plague was ravaging Ephesus; I made them stone an old mendicant there."

Damis. "And forthwith the plague departed."

Anthony. "What! Does he drive away pestilence?"

Apollonius. "At Cnidos, I cured the man that had become enamored of Venus."

Damis. "Aye! a fool who had even vowed to espouse her! To love a woman is at least comprehensible; but to love a statue – what madness! The Master placed his hand upon the young man's heart; and the fire of that love was at once extinguished."

Anthony. "How! does he also cast out devils?"

Apollonius. "At Tarentum they were carrying the dead body of a young girl to the funeral pyre."

Damis. "The Master touched her lips; and she arose and called her mother."

Anthony. "What! he raises the dead!"

Apollonius. "I predicted to Vespasian his accession to power."

Anthony. "What! he foretells the future!"

Damis. "At Corinth there was a …"

Apollonius. "It was when I was at table with him, at the waters of Baia …"

Anthony. "Excuse me, strangers – it is very late …"

Damis. "At Corinth there was a young man called Menippus …"

Anthony. "No! no! – go ye away!"

Apollonius. "A dog came in, bearing a severed hand in his mouth."

Damis. "One evening, in one of the suburbs, he met a woman."

Anthony. "Do ye not hear me? Begone!"

Apollonius. "He wandered in a bewildered way around the couches …"

Anthony. "Enough!"

Apollonius. "They sought to drive him out."

Damis. "So Menippus went with her to her house; they loved one another."

Apollonius. "And gently beating the mosaic pavement with his tail, he laid the severed hand upon the knees of Flavius."

Damis. "But next morning, during the lessons in the school, Menippus was pale."

Anthony (starting up in anger).

"Still continuing! Ah! then let them continue till they be weary, inasmuch as there is no …"

Damis. "The Master said to him: 'O beautiful youth, thou dost caress a serpent; by a serpent thou art caressed! And when shall be the nuptials?' We all went to the wedding."

Anthony. "Assuredly I am doing wrong, to hearken to such a story!"

Damis. "Servants were hurrying to and fro in the vestibule; doors were opening; nevertheless there was no sound made either by the fall of the footsteps nor the closing of the doors. The Master placed himself beside Menippus. And the bride forthwith became angered against the philosophers. But the vessels of gold, the cupbearers, the cooks, the panthers disappeared; the roof receded and vanished into air; the walls crumbled down; and Apollonius stood alone with the woman at his feet, all in tears. She was a vampire who satisfied the beautiful young men in order to devour their flesh, for nothing is more desirable for such phantoms than the blood of amorous youths."

Apollonius. "If thou shouldst desire to learn the art …"

Anthony. "I do not wish to learn anything!"

Apollonius. "The same evening that we arrived at the gates of Rome …"

Anthony. "Oh! yes! – speak to me rather of the City of Popes!"

Apollonius. "A drunken man accosted us, who was singing in a low voice. The song was an epithalamium of Nero; and he had the power to cause the death of whosoever should hear it with indifference. In a box upon his shoulders he carried a string taken from the Emperor's cithara. I shrugged my shoulders. He flung mud in our faces. Then I unfastened my girdle and placed it in this hand."

Damis. "In sooth, thou wert most imprudent!"

Apollonius. "During the night the Emperor summoned me to his house. He was playing at osselets with Sporus, supporting his left arm upon a table of agate. He turned and, knitting his brows, demanded: 'How comes it that thou dost not fear me?' 'Because,' I replied, 'the God who made thee terrible, also made me intrepid."

Anthony (to himself).

"There is something inexplicable that terrifies me!"

(Silence.)

Damis (breaking the silence with his shrill voice).

"Moreover, all Asia can tell thee …"

Anthony (starting up).

"I am ill! let me be!"

Damis. "But listen! At Ephesus, he beheld them killing Domitian, who was at Rome."

Anthony (with a forced laugh). "Is it possible?"

Damis. "Yes: at the theatre at noon-day, the fourteenth of the Kalenda of October, he suddenly cried out: 'Cæsar is being murdered!' and from time to time he would continue to ejaculate: 'He rolls upon the pavement … Oh! how he struggles … He rises … He tries to flee … The doors are fastened … Ah! it is all over! He is dead!' And in fact Titus Flavius Domitianus was assassinated upon that very day, as thou knowest."

Anthony. "Without the aid of the Devil … certainly …"

Apollonius. "He had purposed putting me to death, that same Domitian! Damis had taken flight according to my order, and I remained alone in my prison."

Damis. "A terrible hardihood on thy part, it must be confessed!"

Apollonius. "About the fifth hour, the soldiers led me before the tribunal. I had my harangue all ready hidden beneath my mantle."

Damis. "We others were then upon the shores of Puteoli, we believed thee dead; we were all weeping, when all of a sudden about the sixth hour, thou didst suddenly appear before us, exclaiming: 'It is I.'"

Anthony (to himself). "Even as He…!"

Damis (in a very loud voice). "Precisely!"

Anthony. "Oh! no! ye lie! is it not so? – ye lie!"

Apollonius. "He descended from heaven. I rise thither, by the power of my virtue that has lifted me up even to the height of the Principle of all things!"

Damis. "Thyana, his natal city, has established in his honor a temple and a priesthood!"

Apollonius (draws near Anthony, and shouts in his ear: – )

"It is because I know all gods, all rites, all prayers, all oracles! I have penetrated into the cave of Trophonius, son of Apollo! I have kneaded for Syracusan women the cakes which they carry to the mountains. I have endured the eighty tests of Mithra! I have pressed to my heart the serpent of Sabasius! I have received the scarf of Kabiri! I have laved Cybele in the waters of the Campanian gulfs! and I have passed three moons in the caverns of Samothracia!"

Damis (with a stupid laugh).

"Ah! ah! ah! at the mysteries of the good Goddess!"

Apollonius. "And now we recommence our pilgrimage.

"We go to the North to the land of Swans and of snows. Upon the vast white plains, the blind hippopodes break with the tips of their feet the ultramarine plant."

Damis. "Hasten! it is already dawn. The cock has crowed, the horse has neighed, the sail is hoisted!"

Anthony. "The cock has not crowed! I hear the locusts in the sands, and I see the moon still in her place."

Apollonius. "We go to the South, beyond the mountains and the mighty waters, to seek in perfumes the secret source of love. Thou shalt inhale the odor of myrrhodion which makes the weak die. Thou shalt bathe thy body in the lake of Rose-oil which is in the Island Junonia. Thou shalt see slumbering upon primroses that Lizard which awakes every hundred years when the carbuncle upon its forehead, arriving at maturity, falls to the ground. The stars palpitate like eyes; the cascades sing like the melody of lyres; strange intoxication is exhaled by blossoming flowers; thy mind shall grow vaster in that air; and thy heart shall change even as thy face."

Damis. "Master! it is time! The wind has risen, the swallows awaken, the myrtle leaves are blown away."

Apollonius. "Yes! let us go!"

Anthony. "Nay! I remain here!"

Apollonius. "Shall I tell thee where grows the plant Balis, that resurrects the dead?"

Damis "Nay; ask him rather for the audrodamas which attracts silver, iron and brass!"

Anthony. "Oh! how I suffer! how I suffer!"

Damis. "Thou shalt comprehend the voices of all living creatures, the roarings, the cooings!"

Apollonius. "I shall enable thee to ride upon unicorns and upon dragons, upon hippocentaurs and dolphins!"

Anthony (weeping). "Oh … oh!.. oh!"

Apollonius. "Thou shalt know the demons that dwell in the caverns, the demons that mutter in the woods, the demons that move in the waves, the demons that push the clouds!"

Damis. "Tighten thy girdle, fasten thy sandals!"

Apollonius. "I shall explain to thee the reason of divine forms – why Apollo stands, why Jupiter is seated, why Venus is black, at Corinth, square-shaped at Athens, conical at Paphos."

Anthony (clasping his hands).

"Let them begone! let them begone!"

Apollonius. "In thy presence I will tear down the panoplies of the Gods; we shall force open the sanctuaries, I will enable thee to violate the Pythoness!"

Anthony. "Help! O my God!"

(He rushes to the cross.)

Apollonius. "What is thy desire? What is thy dream? Thou needst only devote the moment of time necessary to think of it …"

Anthony. "Jesus! Jesus! Help me!"

Apollonius. "Dost thou wish me to make him appear, thy Jesus?"

Anthony. "What? How!"

Apollonius. "It shall be He! – no other! He will cast off his crown, and we shall converse face to face!"

Damis (in an undertone).

"Say thou dost indeed wish it! say thou dost desire it!"

(Anthony kneeling before the cross, murmurs prayers. Damis walks around him, with wheedling gestures.)

"Nay, nay! good hermit. Be not horrified! These are only exaggerated forms of speech, borrowed from the Orientals. That need in no way …"

Apollonius. "Let him alone, Damis!

"He believes, like a brute, in the reality of things. The terror which he entertains of the Gods prevents him from comprehending them; and he debases his own God to the level of a jealous king!

"But thou, my son, do not leave me!"

(He moves to the edge of the cliff, walking backward, passes beyond the verge of the precipice, and remains suspended in air.)

"Above all forms, further than the ends of the earth, beyond the heavens themselves, lies the world of Idea, replete with the splendor of the Word! With one bound we shall traverse the impending spaces, and thou shalt behold in all his infinity, the Eternal, the Absolute, the Being! Come! give me thy hand! Let us rise."

(Side by side, both rise up through the air, slowly. Anthony, clinging to the cross, watches them rise. They disappear.)

V

Anthony (walking to and fro, slowly).

"That one, indeed, seems in himself equal to all the powers of Hell!

"Nebuchadnezzar did not so much dazzle me with his splendours; – the Queen of Sheba herself charmed me less deeply.

"His manner of speaking of the gods compels one to feel a desire to know them.

"I remember having beheld hundreds of them at one time, in the island of Elephantius, in the time of Diocletian. The emperor had ceded to the Nomads a great tract of country, upon the condition that they should guard the frontiers; and the treaty was concluded in the name of the 'Powers Invisible.' For the gods of each people were unknown unto the other people.

"The Barbarians had brought theirs with them. They occupied the sand-hills bordering the river. We saw them supporting their idols in their arms, like great paralytic children; – others, paddling through the cataracts upon trunks of palm tree, displayed from afar off the amulets hung about their necks, the tattooings upon their breasts; and these things were not more sinful than the religion of the Greeks, the Asiatics, and the Romans!

"When I was dwelling in the temple of Heliopolis I would often consider the things I beheld upon the walls: – vultures bearing sceptres, crocodiles playing upon lyres, faces of men with the bodies of serpents, cow-headed women prostrating themselves before ithyphallic gods: – and their supernatural forms attracted my thoughts to other worlds. I longed to know that which drew the gaze of all those calm and mysterious eyes.

"If matter can exert such power, it must surely contain a spirit. The souls of the Gods are attached to their images …

"Those possessing the beauty of forms might seduce. But the others … those of loathsome or terrible aspect … how can men believe in them?.."

(And he beholds passing over the surface of the ground, – leaves, stones, shells, branches of trees, – then a variety of hydropical dwarfs: these are gods. He bursts into a laugh. He hears another laugh behind him; – and Hilarion appears, in the garb of a hermit, far taller than before, colossal.)

Anthony (who feels no surprise at seeing him).

"How stupid one must be to worship such things!"

Hilarion. "Aye! – exceedingly stupid!"

(Then idols of all nations and of all epochs – of wood, of metal, of granite, of feathers, of skins sewn together, – pass before them.

The most ancient of all anterior to the Deluge are hidden under masses of seaweed hanging down over them like manes. Some that are too long for their bases, crack in all their joints, and break their own backs in walking. Others have rents torn in their bellies through which sand trickles out.

Anthony and Hilarion are prodigiously amused. They hold their sides for laughter. Then appear sheep-headed idols. They totter upon their bandy-legs, half-open their eye-lids, and stutter like the dumb, "Ba! ba! ba!"

The more that the idols commence to resemble the human forms, the more they irritate Anthony. He strikes them with his fist, kicks them, attacks them with fury. They become frightful, – with lofty plumes, eyes like balls, fingers terminated by claws, the jaws of sharks.

And before these gods men are slaughtered upon altars of stone; others are brayed alive in huge mortars, crushed under chariots, nailed upon trees. There is one all of red-hot iron with the horns of a bull, who devours children.)

Anthony. "Horror!"

Hilarion. "But the gods always demand tortures – and suffering. Even thine desired …"

Anthony (weeping). "Ah! say no more! – do not speak to me!"

(The space girdled by the rocks suddenly changes into a valley. A herd of cattle are feeding upon the short grass.

The herdman who leads them, observes a cloud; – and in a sharp voice, shouts out words of command, as if to heaven.)

Hilarion. "Because he needs rain, he seeks by certain chants to compel the King of heaven to open the fecund cloud."

Anthony (laughing).

"Verily, such pride is the extreme of foolishness!"

Hilarion. "Why dost thou utter exorcisms?"

(The valley changes into a sea of milk, motionless and infinite. In its midst floats a long cradle formed by the coils of a serpent, whose many curving heads shade, like a dais, the god slumbering upon its body.

He is beardless, young, more beautiful than a girl, and covered with diaphanous veils. The pearls of his tiara gleam softly like moons; a chaplet of stars is entwined many times about his breast, and with one hand beneath his head, he slumbers with the look of one who dreams after wine.

A woman crouching at his feet, awaits the moment of his awaking.)

Hilarion. "Such is the primordial duality of the Brahmans, – the Absolute being inexpressible by any form."

(From the navel of the god has grown the stem of a lotus flower; it blossoms, and within its chalice appears another god with three faces.)

Anthony. "How strange an invention!"

Hilarion. "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but one and the same Person!"

(The three faces separate; and three great gods appear.

The first, who is pink, bites the end of his great toe.

The second, who is blue, uplifts his four arms.

The third, who is green, wears a necklace of human skulls.

Before them instantly arise three goddesses – one is enveloped in a net; another offers a cup; the third brandishes a bow.

And these gods, these goddesses, decuple themselves, multiply. Arms grow from their shoulders; at the end of these arms hands appear bearing standards, axes, bucklers, swords, parasols and drums. Fountains gush from their heads, plants grow from their nostrils.

Riding upon birds rocked in palanquins, enthroned upon seats of gold, standing in ivory niches, – they dream, voyage, command, drink wine, respire the breath of flowers. Dancing girls whirl in the dance; giants pursue monsters; at the entrances of grottoes solitaries meditate. Eyes cannot be distinguished from stars; nor clouds from banderolles; peacocks quench their thirst at rivers of gold dust; the embroidery of pavilions seems to blend with the spots of leopards; coloured rays intercross in the blue air, together with flying arrows, and swinging censers.

And all this develops like a lofty frieze, resting its base upon the rocks, and rising to the sky.)

Anthony (dazzled by the sight).

"How vast is their number! What do they seek?"

Hilarion. "The god who rubs his abdomen with his elephant-trunk, is the solar Deity, the inspiring spirit of wisdom.

"That other whose six heads are crowned with towers, and whose fourteen arms wield javelins, – is the prince of armies, – the Fire-Consumer.

"The old man riding the crocodile washes the soul of the dead upon the shore. They will be tormented by that black woman with the putrid teeth, who is the Ruler of Hell.

"That chariot drawn by red mares, driven by one who has no legs, bears the master of the sun through heaven's azure. The moon-god accompanies him, in a litter drawn by three gazelles.

"Kneeling upon the back of a parrot, the Goddess of Beauty presents to Love, her son, her rounded breast. Behold her now, further off, leaping for joy in the meadows. Look! Look! Coiffed with dazzling mitre, she trips lightly over the ears of growing wheat, over the waves; she rises in air, extending her power over all elements.

"And among these gods are the Genii of the winds, of the planets, of the months, of the days, – a hundred thousand others; – multiple are their aspects, rapid their transformations. Behold, there is one who changes from a fish into a tortoise: he assumes the form of a boar, the shape of a dwarf."

Anthony. "Wherefore?"

Hilarion. "That he may preserve the equilibrium of the universe, and combat the works of evil. But life exhausts itself; forms wear away; and they must achieve progression in their metamorphoses."

(All upon a sudden appears a Naked Man seated in the midst of the sand, with legs crossed.)

(A large halo vibrates, suspended in air behind him. The little ringlets of his black hair in which blueish tints shift symmetrically surround a protuberance upon the summit of his skull. His arms, which are very long, hang down against his sides. His two hands rest flat upon his thighs, with the palms open. The soles of his feet are like the faces of two blazing suns; and he remains completely motionless – before Anthony and Hilarion – with all the gods around him, rising in tiers above the rocks, as if upon the benches of some vast circus. His lips, half-open; and he speaks in a deep voice):

"I am the Master of great charities, the succor of all creatures; and not less to the profane than to believers, do I expound the law.

"That I might deliver the world, I resolved to be born among men. The gods wept when I departed from them.

"I sought me first a woman worthy to give me birth: a woman of warrior race, the wife of a king, exceedingly good, excessively beautiful, with body firm as adamant; – and at time of the full moon, without the auxiliation of any male, I entered her womb.

"I issued from it by the right side. Stars stopped in their courses."

Hilarion (murmurs between his teeth).

"And seeing the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy!"17

(Anthony watches more attentively.)

The Buddha18 (continuing).

"From the furthest recesses of the Himalayas, a holy man one hundred years of age, hurried to see me."

Hilarion. "A man named Simeon … who should not see death, before he had seen the Christ of the Lord."19