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Poetry by George Eliot.
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The Legend of Jubal, and Other Poems (1874)
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The Legend of Jubal
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Interesting, that usually there's a pretence in abrahmic faiths about non existence of Gods, other than one admitted and demanded faith to; but in history and mythology of Greece, Rome, Egypt and even of West Asia, other Gods are not only mentioned, they are well described and characterised.
George Eliot begins with mention of them, and quickly covers up with ascribing them only to imagination of Cain, but bible itself is a matter of faith according to church dogma and not admitted as history of the region; and yet, she then goes on to indicate Cain possibly going yo India.
This last is merely another infliction of contempt on India, of course, by someone of colonial empire rulers; India has very rich treasure of knowledge, branded mythology by West, but since much proven true history by science of West - including, for example, history of rising of Himaalayan ranges from ocean, and too, evolution theory that parallels Dashaavataara of India's traditional lore.
But India has no memory, no tradition of any tale, whatsoever, of even a Cain (or anyone arriving from West across what was prehistorically an ocean - hence the name, Sindhu, literally meaning ocean, for the river called Indus by west), much less of a whole Aaryan race that is foundation of civilisation of India. Tradition of India reaches prehistory of Indian subcontinent, and has no whiff of arriving from across Sindhu. It has, instead, memories of Himaalayan ranges rising out of the ocean, and of Gangaa being brought down to earth by efforts of a single man, Bhagieratha.
So Cain going East, of Eden - presumably from West Asia - might have reached, say, western borders of the region known as Central Asia.
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It isn't just that George Eliot- daughter of a clergyman - mentions other Gods, before covering it up as his lack of doubt in their existence, and seeing them mirrored there - so church could easily brand it all as thinking of a fallen one who murdered hus brother, even though history really point at flesh consumers and monotheist conversionists as perpetrators of massacres on humongous scale, not vegetarians of a happy land inhabited by Gods.
It also that the author says, "When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land ", so, not only he did not leave of his own volition, not only he was ordered to leave, but was "driven out"; what's more, "driven from Jehovah’s land", and "He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand, Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings"! So concept within Eden is of a god who "owns" that land, whik e others are "ruled" by other Gods; moreover, the owner of Eden asked for offerings, which, Cain hoped, those other Gods elsewhere were kind enough not to ask!
And yet, church fraudulently demands exclusive faith in one who so demands, and more, denial of all others, not denial of offerings, but of their very existence!
"When Cain was driven from Jehovah’s land
"He wandered eastward, seeking some far strand
"Ruled by kind gods who asked no offerings
"Save pure field-fruits, as aromatic things,
"To feed the subtler sense of frames divine
"That lived on fragrance for their food and wine:
"Wild joyous gods, who winked at faults and folly,
"And could be pitiful and melancholy.
"He never had a doubt that such gods were;
"He looked within, and saw them mirrored there.
"Some think he came at last to Tartary,
"And some to Ind; but, howsoe’er it be,
"His staff he planted where sweet waters ran,
"And in that home of Cain the Arts began."
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Beautiful content and beautifully flow the verses -
"Man’s life was spacious in the early world:
"It paused, like some slow ship with sail unfurled
"Waiting in seas by scarce a wavelet curled;
"Beheld the slow star-paces of the skies,
"And grew from strength to strength through centuries;
"Saw infant trees fill out their giant limbs,
"And heard a thousand times the sweet birds’ marriage hymns."
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And it reverts to memory of terror -
"In Cain’s young city none had heard of
"Death Save him, the founder; and it was his faith
"That here, away from harsh Jehovah’s law,
"Man was immortal, since no halt or flaw
"In Cain’s own frame betrayed six hundred years,
"But dark as pines that autumn never sears
"His locks thronged backward as he ran, his frame
"Rose like the orbed sun each morn the same,
"Lake-mirrored to his gaze; and that red brand,
"The scorching impress of Jehovah’s hand,
"Was still clear-edged to his unwearied eye,
"Its secret firm in time-fraught memory."
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Here's a clue to location of Eden-
"He said, “My happy offspring shall not know
"That the red life from out a man may flow
"When smitten by his brother.” True, his race
"Bore each one stamped upon his new-born face
"A copy of the brand no whit less clear;
"But every mother held that little copy dear.
"Thus generations in glad idlesse throve,
"Nor hunted prey, nor with each other strove;
"For clearest springs were plenteous in the land,
"And gourds for cups; the ripe fruits sought the hand,
"Bending the laden boughs with fragrant gold;
"And for their roofs and garments wealth untold
"Lay everywhere in grasses and broad leaves:
"They labored gently, as a maid who weaves
"Her hair in mimic mats, and pauses oft
"And strokes across her hand the tresses soft,
"Then peeps to watch the poised butterfly,
"Or little burthened ants that homeward hie."
That "maid who weaves Her hair in mimic mats" evokes Africa, where braiding of hair isn't the simple one or two braids the rest of the world is content with; so if thus is the subconscious memory, Eden must gave been therein, or an island off African coast, if not Africa itself. The continent still bears innocence of an Eden with species wild abounding and humans living in harmony, except where spoiled by colonial rulers from Europe, and their heritage.
Recent discoveries under ocean speak of another continent off East coast of Africa, now mostly submerged, that smaller islands of Seychelles and Madagascar and so on are a clue to; and Tamil lore speaks of a continent (that they originated from, migrating to India some time as continents travelled, submerged, and more?), named Kumaarikhanda. Was this Eden?
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Then it changes, and again, there's the motif of connection of an angry god of Cain's past land, evoked by death that was unknown to his descendents, bringing memories of a curse!
"Time was but leisure to their lingering thought,
"There was no’ need for haste to finish aught;
"But sweet beginnings were repeated still
"Like infant babblings that no task fulfil;
"For love, that loved not change, constrained the simple will.
"Till, hurling stones in mere athletic joy,
"Strong Lamech struck and killed his fairest boy,
"And tried to wake him with the tenderest cries,
"And fetched and held before the glazed eyes
"The things they best had loved to look upon;
"But never glance or smile or sigh he won.
"The generations stood around those twain
"Helplessly gazing, till their father
"Cain Parted the press, and said, “He will not wake;
"This is the endless sleep, and we must make
"A bed deep down for him beneath the sod;
"For know, my sons, there is a mighty God
"Angry with all man’s race, but most with me."
This is the memory carried by Cain, of "a mighty God, Angry with all man’s race, but most with me." Nothing godly about this one, unless he's merely one of the Gods, and not one of the greater ones.
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And more - it isn't merely memory, or fear, but a certainty, of persecution, and of wrath, but more, of extermination -
"I fled from out His land in vain!—’tis
"He Who came and slew the lad; for
"He has found This home of ours, and we shall all be bound
"By the harsh bands of His most cruel will,
"Which any moment may some dear one kill.
"Nay, though we live for countless moons, at last
"We and all ours shall die like summers past.
"This is Jehovah’s will, and He is strong;
"I thought the way I travelled was too long
"For Him to follow me: my thought was vain!
"He walks unseen, but leaves a track of pain,
"Pale Death His footprint is, and He will come again!”"
What is mirrored here seems far more a memory of a persecution of a race, that has gone on for well over centuries before two millennia that they were driven from their homeland. So one wonders, did George Eliot write this based on bible, and therefore was the twentieth century culminating in genocide something that mirrored a past memory that's recorded in the bible, with what's called a god only a mighty and terrible Lord of a land?
The flight of Cain from Eden, is that really the migration East that's visible in the obvious connection between populations of Africa, Australia, Fiji, Andaman and Nicobar, and , not all, but a large section of, Tamil people of India?
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"And a new spirit from that hour came o’er
"The race of Cain: soft idlesse was no more,
"But even the sunshine had a heart of care,
"Smiling with hidden dread-a mother fair
"Who folding to her breast a dying child
"Beams with feigned joy that but makes sadness mild.
"Death was now lord of Life, and at his word
"Time, vague as air before, new terrors stirred,
"With measured wing now audibly arose
"Throbbing through all things to some unknown close."
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"Now glad Content by clutching Haste was torn,
"And Work grew eager, and Device was born.
"It seemed the light was never loved before,
"Now each man said, “Twill go and come no more.”
"No budding branch, no pebble from the brook,
"No form, no shadow, but new dearness took
"From the one thought that life must have an end;
"And the last parting now began to send
"Diffusive dread through love and wedded bliss,
"Thrilling them into finer tenderness.
"Then Memory disclosed her face divine,
"That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine
"Within the soul, and shows the sacred graves,
"And shows the presence that no sunlight craves,
"No space, no warmth, but moves among them all;
"Gone and yet here, and coming at each call,
"With ready voice and eyes that understand,
"And lips that ask a kiss, and dear responsive hand.
"Thus to Cain’s race death was tear-watered seed
"Of various life and action-shaping need.
"But chief ‘the sons of Lamech felt the stings
"Of new ambition, and the force that springs
"In passion beating on the shores of fate. They said,
"“There comes a night when all too late
"The mind shall long to prompt the achieving hand,
"The eager thought behind closed portals stand,
"And the last wishes to the mute lips press
"Buried ere death in silent helplessness.
"Then while the soul its way with sound can cleave,
"And while the arm is strong to strike and heave,
"Let soul and arm give shape that will abide
"And rule above our graves, and power divide
"With that great god of day, whose rays must bend
"As we shall make the moving shadows tend.
"Come, let us. fashion acts that are to be,
"When we shall lie in darkness silently,
"As our young brother doth, whom yet we see
"Fallen and slain, but reigning in our will
"By that one image of him pale and still.”
"For Lamech’s sons were heroes of their race:
"Jabal, the eldest, bore upon his face
"The look of that calm river-god, the Nile,
"Mildly secure in power that needs not guile.
Interesting - the name of Jabal occurs in Indian Flores of past, in a very different context, very different story; but names common to India and West asia are rare until the islamic invasions, and Jabal was long before.
Also interesting, mention of Nile - or is that omly the author? Sojourn to egypt was long after time of Cain, wasn't it?
"But Tubal-Cain was restless as the fire
"That glows and spreads and leaps from high to higher
"Where’er is aught to seize or to subdue;
"Strong as a storm he lifted or o’erthrew,
"His urgent limbs like rounded granite grew,
"Such granite as the plunging torrent wears
"And roaring rolls around through countless years.
"But strength that still on movement must be fed,
"Inspiring thought of change, devices bred,
"And urged his mind through earth and air to rove
"For force that he could conquer if he strove,
"For lurking forms that might new tasks fulfil
"And yield unwilling to his stronger-will."
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George Eliot describes each brother by turn - Jabal the shepherd with magic handling of all animals, till he reared canines domesticated from wild wolves, and Tubal-Cain the handler of tools who crafted things from earth.
"Such Tubal-Cain. But Jubal had a frame
"Fashioned to finer senses, which became
"A yearning for some hidden soul of things,
"Some outward touch complete on inner springs
"That vaguely moving bred a lonely pain,
"A want that did but stronger grow with gain
"Of all good else, as spirits might be sad
"For lack of speech to tell us they are glad."
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"Jubal, too, watched the hammer, till his eyes,
"No longer following its fall or rise,
"Seemed glad with something that they could not see,
"But only listened to—some melody,
"Wherein dumb longings inward speech had found,
"Won from the common store of struggling sound.
"Then, as the metal shapes more various grew,
"And, hurled upon each other, resonance drew,
"Each gave new tones, the revelations dim
"Of some external soul that spoke for him:
"The hollow vessel’s clang, the clash, the boom,
"Like light that makes wide spiritual room
"And skyey spaces in the spaceless thought,
"To Jubal such enlarged passion brought,
"That love, hope, rage, and all experience,
"Were fused in vaster being, fetching thence
"Concords and discords, cadences and cries
"That seemed from some world-shrouded soul to rise,
"Some rapture more intense, some mightier rage,
"Some living sea that burst the bounds of man’s brief age."
Story of Jubal is that of discovery of an inner realm, that of music, as told by George Eliot.
"Then with such blissful trouble and glad care
"For growth. within unborn as mothers bear,
"To the far woods he wandered, listening,
"And heard the birds their little stories sing
"In notes whose rise and fall seem melted speech—
"Melted with tears, smiles, glances—that can reach
"More quickly through our frame’s deep-winding night,
"And without thought raise thought’s best fruit, delight.
"Pondering, he sought his home again and heard
"The fluctuant changes of the spoken word:
"The deep remonstrance and the argued want,
"Insistent first in close monotonous chant,
"Next leaping upward to defiant stand
"Or downward beating like the resolute hand;
"The mother’s call, the children’s answering cry,
"The laugh’s light cataract tumbling from on high;
"The suasive repetitions Jabal taught,
"That timid browsing cattle homeward brought:
"The clear-winged fugue of echoes vanishing;
"And through them all the hammer’s rhythmic ring.
"Jubal sat lonely, all around was dim,
"Yet his face glowed with light revealed to him:
"For as the delicate stream of odor wakes
"The thought-wed sentience, and some image makes
"From out the mingled fragments of the past,
"Finely compact in wholeness that will last,
"So streamed as from the body of each sound
"Subtler pulsations, swift as warmth, which found
"All prisoned germs and all their powers unbound,
"Till thought self-luminous flamed from memory,
"And in creative vision wandered free.
"Then Jubal, standing, rapturous arms upraised,
"And on the dark with eager eyes he gazed,
"As had some manifested god been there."
"Such patience have the heroes who begin,
"Sailing the first toward lands which others win.
"Jubal must dare as great beginners dare,
"Strike form’s first way in matter rude and bare,
"And, yearning vaguely toward the plenteous choir
"Of the world’s harvest, make one poor small lyre.
"He made it, and from out its measured frame
"Drew the harmonic soul, whose answers came
"With guidance sweet and lessons of delight
"Teaching to ear and hand the blissful Right,
"Where strictest law is gladness to-the sense,
"And all desire bends toward obedience.
"Then Jubal poured his triumph in a song—
"The rapturous word that rapturous notes prolong
"As radiance streams from smallest things that burn,
"Or thought of loving into love doth turn.
"And still his lyre gave companionship
"In sense-taught concert as of lip with lip."
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Here shows bias of West, again - literally, for West. This is strange, considering Nordic latitudes hunger for the light and warmth they need, and it's brought by sun sun that rises East- but this glory of West viewed each evening, however beautiful, only brings the dreaded darkness and cold, especially dreadful for the dark Nordic latitudes.
"He who had lived through twice three centuries,
"Whose months monotonous, like trees on trees
"In hoary forests, stretched a backward maze,
"Dreamed himself dimly through the travelled days
"Till in clear light he paused, and felt the sun
"That warmed him when he was a little one;
"Knew that true heaven, the recovered past,
"The dear small Known amid the Unknown vast,
"And in that heaven wept. But younger limbs
"Thrilled toward the future, that bright land which swims
"In western glory, isles and streams and bays,
"Where hidden pleasures float in golden haze."
No, it's not primitive natural instinct, this glorification of West - it has to be about a prehistoric migration East and a nostalgic memory if West, thus recounted in Cain being driven East of Eden.
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"The sun had sunk, but music still was there,
"And when this ceased, still triumph filled the air:
"It seemed the stars were shining with delight
"And that no night was ever like this night."
"“Hearing myself,” he said, “I hems in my life,
"And I will get me to some far-off land,
"Where higher mountains under heaven stand
"And touch the blue at rising of the stars,
"Whose song they hear where no rough mingling mars
"The great clear voices. Such lands there must be,
"Where varying forms make varying symphony
"Where other thunders roll amid the hills,
"Some mightier wind a mightier forest fills
"With other strains through other-shapen boughs;
"Where bees and birds and beasts that hunt or browse
"Will teach me songs I know not. Listening there,
"My life shall grow like trees both tall and fair
"That rise and spread and bloom toward fuller fruit each year.”
"He took a raft, and travelled with the stream
"Southward for many a league, till he might deem
"He saw at last the pillars of the sky,
"Beholding mountains whose white majesty
"Rushed through him as new awe, and made new song
"That swept with fuller wave the chords along,
"Weighting his voice with deep religious chime,.
"The iteration of slow chant sublime.
"It was the region long inhabited
"By all the race of Seth; and Jubal said,
"“Here have I found my thirsty soul’s desire,
"Eastward the hills touch heaven, and evening’s fire
"Flames through deep waters, I will take my rest,
"And feed anew from my great mother’s breast,
"The sky-clasped Earth, whose voices nurture me
"As the flowers’ sweetness doth the honey-bee.”
"He lingered wandering for many an age,
"And, sowing music, made high heritage
"For generations far beyond the Flood
"For the poor late-begotten human brood
"Born to life’s weary brevity and perilous good.
"And ever as he travelled he would climb
"The farthest mountain, yet the heavenly chime,
"The mighty tolling of the far-off spheres
"Beating their pathway, never touched his ears.
"But wheresoe’er he rose, the heavens rose,
"And the far-gazing mountain could disclose
"Nought but a wider earth; until one height
"Showed him the ocean stretched in liquid light,
"And he could hear its multitudinous roar,
"Its plunge and hiss upon the pebbled shore:
"Then Jubal silent sat, and touched his lyre no more.
"He thought, “The world is great, but I am weak,
"And where the sky bends is no solid peak
"To give me footing, but instead, this main
"Like myriad maddened horses thundering o’er the plain."
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"The way was weary. Many a date-palm grew,
"And shook out clustered gold against the blue,
"While Jubal, guided by the steadfast spheres,
"Sought the dear home of those first eager years,
"When, with fresh vision fed, the fuller will
"Took living outward shape in pliant skill;
"For still he hoped to find the former things,
"And the warm gladness recognition brings.
"His footsteps erred among the mazy woods
"And long illusive sameness of the floods,
"Winding and wandering. Through far regions, strange
"With Gentile homes and faces, did he range,
"And left his music in their memory,
"And left at last, when nought besides would free
"His homeward steps from clinging hands and cries,
"The ancient lyre. And now in ignorant eyes
"No sign remained of Jubal, Lamech’s son,
"That mortal frame wherein was first begun
"The immortal life of song. His withered brow
"Pressed over eyes that held no lightning now,
"His locks streamed whiteness on the hurrying air,
"The unresting soul had worn itself quite bare
"Of beauteous token, as the outworn might
"Of oaks slow dying, gaunt in summer’s light.
"His full deep voice toward thinnest treble ran:
"He was the rune-writ story of a man."
"And so at last he neared the well-known land,
"Could see the hills in ancient order stand
"With friendly faces whose familiar gaze
"Looked through the sunshine of his childish days;
"Knew the deep-shadowed folds of hanging woods,
"And seemed to see the selfsame insect broods
"Whirling and quivering o’er the flowers—to hear
"The selfsame cuckoo making distance near.
"Yea, the dear Earth, with mother’s constancy,
"Met and embraced him, and said, “Thou art he!
"This was thy cradle, here my breast was thine,
"Where feeding, thou didst all thy life intwine
"With my skly-wedded life in heritage divine.”"
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"The word was “Jubal!”.. “Jubal” filled the air,
"And seemed to ride aloft, a spirit there,
"Creator of the choir, the full-fraught strain
"That grateful rolled itself to him again.
"The aged man adust upon the bank—
"Whom no eye saw—at first with rapture drank
"The bliss of music, then, with swelling heart,
"Felt, this was his own being’s greater part,
"The universal joy once born in him."
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"His voice’s penury of tones long spent,
"He felt not; all his being leaped in flame
"To meet his kindred as they onward came
"Slackening and wheeling toward the temple’s face:
"He rushed before them to the glittering space,
"And, with a strength that was but strong desire,
"Cried, “I am Jubal, I! . . . I made the lyre!”"
"The tones amid a lake of silence fell
"Broken and strained, as if a feeble bell
"Had tuneless pealed the triumph of a land
"To listening crowds in expectation spanned.
"Sudden came showers of laughter on that lake;
"They spread along the train from front to wake
"In one great storm of merriment, while he
"Shrank doubting whether he could Jubal be,
"And not a dream of Jubal, whose rich vein
"Of passionate music came with that dream-pain,
"Wherein the sense slips off from each loved thing,
"And all appearance is mere vanishing."
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"Two rushed upon him: two, the most devout
"In honor of great Jubal, thrust him out,
"And beat him with their flutes. ’Twas little need;
"He strove not, cried not, but with tottering speed,
"As if the scorn and howls were driving wind
"That urged his body, serving so the mind
"Which could but shrink and yearn, he sought the screen
"Of thorny thickets, and there fell unseen.
"The immortal name of Jubal filled the sky,
"While Jubal lonely laid him down to die.
"He said within his soul, “This is the end:
"O’er all the earth to where the heavens bend
"And hem men’s travel, I have breathed my soul:
"I lie here now the remnant of that whole,
"The embers of a life, a lonely pain;
"As far-off rivers to my thirst were vain,
"So of my mighty years nought comes to me again."
When one has finished, one grows aware of the story George Eliot wished to tell (- that of the worshipped son of God who, if he were to return, could very well find himself not only ignored, but very likely persecuted, again, by the very ones who swear faith and call themselves in his name; of Europe that, seemingly converted to a creed of brotherhood and kindness, of meek inheriting heaven and of doing unto others as you would have them do into you, yet follows hypocrisy of paying obeisance to the creed, weekly, and goes to war for looting others lands -) yet finds the conflict in herself too great, having been outspoken about pride of an ancestry of invaders, and of righteousness of England in punishing India and China for resisting the domination of England - and so she dared not, but instead tells here the story of Jubal who discovered music and gave this great gift to humanity.
She combines it with his sojourn to find greatest mountains South, and having discovered great ocean thereafter, returning home, only to be beaten in his own name.
Which is the greater story, that of followers of a God assaulting him if he appears? Or the sojourner who cannot return home to recognition and love and peace, but is assaulted and humiliated instead?
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"Because thou shinest in man’s soul, a god,
"Who found and gave new passion and new joy
"That nought but Earth’s destruction can destroy.
"Thy gifts to give was thine of men alone:
"’Twas but in giving that thou couldst atone
"For too much wealth amid their poverty.”—"
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October 05, 2021 - October 05, 2021.
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Kindle Edition, 268 pages
Published October 16th 2014
by The Perfect Library
ASINB:- 00OLCW8QM
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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4272921607
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