Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (668 page)

DON SILVA.

Reach it me now.

SEPHARDO.

By your leave, Annibal.

(He places ANNIBAL on PABLO’S lap and rises. The boy moves without

waking, and his head falls on the opposite side. SEPHARDO fetches a

cushion and lays PABLO’S head gently down upon it, then goes to reach the

parchment from a cabinet. ANNIBAL, having waked up in alarm, shuts his

eyes quickly again and pretends to sleep.)

DON SILVA.

I wish, by new appliance of your skill,

Reading afresh the records of the sky,

You could detect more special augury.

Such chance oft happens, for all characters

Must shrink or widen, as our wine-skins do,

For more or less that we can pour in them ;

And added years give ever a new key

To fixed prediction.

SEPHARDO (returning with the parchment and reseating himself).

True ; our growing thought

Makes growing revelation. But demand not

Specific augury, as of sure success

In meditated proj ects, or of ends

To be foreknown by peeping in God’s scroll.

I say — nay, Ptolemy said it, but wise books

For half the truths they hold are honored tombs —

Prediction is contingent, of effects

Where causes and concomitants are mixed

To seeming wealth of possibilities

Beyond our reckoning. Who will pretend

To tell the adventures of. each single fish

Within the Syrian Sea ? Show me a fish,

I’ll weigh him, tell his kind, what he devoured,

What would have devoured him, — but for one Blas?

Who netted him instead ; nay, could I tell

That had Blas missed him, he would not have died

Of poisonous mud, and so made carrion,

Swept off at last by some sea-scavenger ?

DON SILVA.

Ay, now you talk of fishes, you get hard.

I note you merciful men : you can endure

Torture of fishes and hidalgos. Follows ?

SEPHARDO.

By how much, then, the fortunes of a man

Are made of elements refined and mixed

Beyond a tunny’s, what our science tells

Of the stars’ influence hath contingency

In special issues. Thus, the loadstone draws,

Acts like a will to make the iron submiss ;

But garlic rubbing it, that chief effect

Lies in suspense ; the iron keeps at large,

And garlic is controller of the stone.

And so, my lord, your horoscope declares

Naught absolutely of your sequent lot,

But, by our lore’s authentic rules, sets forth

What gifts, what dispositions, likelihoods,

The aspects of the heavens conspired to fuse

With your incorporate soul. Aught else

Is vulgar doctrine. For the ambient,

Though a cause regnant, is not absolute,

But suffers a determining restraint

From action of the subject qualities

In proximate motion.

DON SILVA.

Yet you smiled just now

At some close fitting of my horoscope

With present fact, — with this resolve of mine

To quit the fortress ?

SEPHARDO.

Nay, not so, I smiled,

Observing how the temper of your soul

Sealed long tradition of the influence shed

By the heavenly spheres. Here is your horoscope :

The aspects of the moon with Mars conjunct,

Of Venus and the Sun with Saturn, lord

Of the ascendant, make symbolic speech

Whereto your words gave running paraphrase.

DON SILVA (impatiently).

What did I say ?

SEPHARDO.

You spoke as oft you did

When I was schooling you at Cordova,

And lessons on the noun and verb were drowned

With sudden stream of general debate

On things and actions. Always in that stream

I saw the play of babbling currents, saw

A nature o’er-endowed with opposites

Making a self alternate, where each hour

Was critic of the last, each mood too strong

For tolerance of its fellow in close yoke.

The ardent planets stationed as supreme,

Potent in action, suffer light malign

From luminaries large and coldly bright

Inspiring meditative doubt, which straight

Doubts of itself, by interposing act

Of Jupiter in the fourth house fortified

With power ancestral. So, my lord, I read

The changeless in the changing; so I read

The constant action of celestial powers

Mixed into waywardness of mortal men,

Whereof no sage’s eye can trace the course

And see the close.

DON SILVA.

Fruitful result, O sage !

Certain uncertainty.

SEPHARDO.

Yea, a result

Fruitful as seeded earth, where certainty

Would be as barren as a globe of gold.

I love you, and would serve you well, my Lord.

Your rashness vindicates itself too much,

Puts harness on of cobweb theory

While rushing like a cataract. Be warned.

Resolve with you is a fire-breathing steed,

But it sees visions, and may feel the air

Impassable with thoughts that come too late,

Rising from out the grave of murdered honor.

Look at your image in your horoscope :

(Laying the horoscope before SILVA.)

You are so mixed, my lord, that each to-day

May seem a maniac to its morrow.

DON SILVA (pushing away the horoscope, rising and turning to look out at

the open window).

No!

No morrow e’er will say that I am mad

Not to renounce her. Risks ! I know them all.

I’ve dogged each lurking, ambushed consequence.

I’ve handled every chance to know its shape

As blind men handle bolts. O, I’m too sane !

I see the Prior’s nets too well. He does my deed ;

For he has narrowed all my life to this, —

That I must find her by some hidden means.

(He turns and stands close in front of SEPHARDO.)

One word, Sephardo, — leave that horoscope,

Which is but iteration of myself,

And give me promise. Shall I count on you

To act upon my signal? Kings of Spain

Like me have found their refuge in a Jew,

And trusted in his counsel. You will help me ?

SEPHARDO.

Yes, my lord, I will help you. Israel

Is to the nations as the body’s heart :

Thus saith the Book of Light : and I will act

So that no man may ever say through me

“Your Israel is naught,” and make my deeds

The mud they fling upon my brethren.

I will not fail you, save, — you know the terms :

I am a Jew, and not that infamous life

That takes on bastardy, will know no father,

So shrouds itself in the pale abstract, Man.

You should be sacrificed to Israel

If Israel needed it.

DON SILVA.

I fear not that.

I am no friend of fines and banishment,

Or flames that, fed on heretics, still gape,

And must have heretics made to feed them still.

I take your terms, and, for the rest, your love

Will not forsake me.

SEPHARDO.

‘T is hard Roman love,

That looks away and stretches forth the sword

Bared for its master’s breast to run upon.

But you will have it so. Love shall obey.

(SILVA turns to the window again, and is silent for a few moments, looking

at the sky.)

DON SILVA.

See now, Sephardo, you would keep no faith

To smooth the path of cruelty. Confess,

The deed I would not do, save for the strait

Another brings me to (quit my command,

Resign it for brief space, I mean no more), —