Chapter 33
PAUL. -- LUIS.
PAUL. It is the voice Of my master. Succour cometh Opportunely now in me. Sir!
LUIS. Ah! why return, dread monster? I am overwhelmed, I faint here At your voice.
PAUL [aside]. God help his noddle! He's gone mad! -- Dread monster? No, [Aloud. I am Juan Paul, that donkey Who, not knowing why or wherefore, Is your servant.
LUIS. Ah! good, honest Paul, I knew you not, so frightened Am I. But at that why wonder, If myself I do not know? Did you see a fearful corse here, A dead body with a soul, An apparent man supported By his skeleton alone, Bones from which the flesh had rotted, Fingers rigid, gaunt, and cold, Naked trunk, uncouth, abhorrent, Vacant spaces whence the eyes, Having fallen, left bare the sockets?-- Whither has he gone?
PAUL. If I Saw that ghost, upon my honour, I could never say I saw it; For more dead than that dead body I had fallen on the other side At the moment.
LUIS. And no wonder; For my voice was mute, my breath Choked, my heart's warm beat forgotten, Clothed with ice were all my senses, Shod with lead my feet, my forehead Cold with sweat, I saw suspended Heaven's two mighty poles upon me, The brief Atlases sustaining Such a burden being my shoulders. It appeared as if there started Rocks from every tender blossom, Giants from each opening rose; For the earth's disrupted hollows Wished from out their graves to cast Forth the dead who lay there rotten; Ah, among them I beheld Luis Enius! Heaven be softened! Hide me, hide me, from myself! Bury me in some deep corner Of earth's centre! Let me never See myself, since no self-knowledge Have I had! But now I have it; Now I know I am that monster Of rebellion, who defied, In my madness, pride, and folly, God Himself; the same, whose crimes Are so numerous and so horrid, That it were slight punishment, If the whole wrath of the Godhead Was outpoured on me, and whilst God was God, eternal torments I should have to bear in hell. But I have this further knowledge, They were done against a God So divine, that He has promised To grant pardon, if my sins I with penitent tears acknowledge. Such I shed; and, Lord, to prove That to-day to be another I begin, being born anew, To Thy hands my soul I offer. Not as a strict judge then judge me, For the attributes of the Godhead Are His justice and His mercy; With the latter, not the former, Judge me, then, and fix what penance I shall do to gain that object. What will be the satisfaction Of my life?
[Music (within). The Purgatory.
LUIS. Bless me, heaven! what's this I hear? A sweet strain divine and solemn; It appears a revelation From on high, since heaven doth often Help mysteriously the sinner. And since I herein acknowledge A divine interposition, I will go into the Purgatory, Called, of Patrick, and fulfil, Humbly, faithfully, the promise Which I gave him long ago, If it is my happy fortune To see Patrick. If the attempt Is, as rumour hath informed me, Most terrific, since no human Strength avails against the horrors Of the place, or resolution To endure the demons' torments, Still my sins I must remember Were as dreadful. Skilful doctors Give for dangerous diseases Dangerous remedies to stop them.-- Come, then, with me, Paul, and see How here penitent and prostrate At the bishop's feet I'll kneel, And confess, for greater wonder, All my awful sins aloud.
PAUL. Go alone, then, for that project, Since so brave a man as you are Has no need of an accomplice; And there's no one I have heard of Who e'er went to hell escorted By his servant. I'll go home, And live pleasantly in my cottage Without care. If ghosts there be, I'm content with matrimony. [Exit.
LUIS. Public were my sins, and so Public penance I will offer In atonement. Like one crazed, Crying in the crowded cross-ways, I'll confess aloud my crimes. Men, wild beasts, rude mountains, forests, Globes celestial, flinty rocks, Tender plants, dry elms, thick coppice, Know that I am Luis Enius, Tremble at my name, that monster Once of pride, as now I am Of humility the wonder. I have faith and certain hope Of great happiness before me, If in God's great name shall Patrick Aid me in the Purgatory. [Exit.
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