Dipsychus - Scene 6
Spirit
Insulted! by the living Lord!
He laid his hand upon his sword.
Fort , did he say? a German brute,
With neither heart nor brains to shoot.
Dipsychus
What does he mean? he's wrong, I had done nothing.
'Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine.
He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go.
Spirit
Go up to him!—you must, that's flat.
Be threatened by a beast like that!
Dipsychus
He's violent: what can I do against him?
I neither wish to be killed nor to kill:
What's more, I never yet have touched a sword,
Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life.
Spirit
Oh, never mind, 'twon't come to fighting—
Only some verbal small requiting;
Or give your card—we'll do't by writing.
He'll not stick to it. Soldiers too
Are cowards, just like me or you.
What! not a single word to throw at
This snarling dog of a d——d Croat?
Dipsychus
My heaven! why should I care? he does not hurt me.
If he is wrong, it is the worse for him.
I certainly did nothing—I shall go.
Spirit
Did nothing! I should think not; no,
Nor ever will, I dare be sworn!
But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born—
You to behave so in these quarrels
Makes me half doubtful of your morals!
. . . . . . . . . . . It were all one,
You had been some shopkeeper's son
Whose childhood ne'er was shown aught better
Than bills of creditor and debtor.
Dipsychus
By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain
From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see
How he and I at some great day shall meet
Before some awful judgement-seat of truth;
And I could deem that I behold him there
Come praying for the pardon I give now,
Did not I think these matters too, too small
For any record on the leaves of time.
Spirit
Oh Lord! and walking with your sister,
If some foul brute stept up and kissed her,
You'd leave that also, I dare say,
On account for the judgement day.
Dipsychus
Oh, these skin-bites, these airy words,
Which at the moment seem to pierce us through,
And one hour after are acknowledged nought;
These pricks of pride, these petty personal hurts,
O thou great Watcher of this noisy world,
What are they in thy sight? or what in his
Who finds some end of Action in his life?
What e'en in his whose sole permitted course
Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk,
And live his brief life purely in Thy sight,
And righteously towards his brother-men?
Spirit
And whether, so you're just and fair,
Other folks are so, you don't care;
You who profess more love than others
For your poor sinful human brothers.
But this anon we'll come, my friend, to,
My previous question first attend to.
Dipsychus
For grosser evils their gross remedies
The laws afford us; let us be content.
For finer wounds the law would, if it could,
Find medicine too; it cannot, let us bear;
For sufferance is the badge of all men's tribes.
Spirit
Because we can't do all we would,
Does it follow, to do nothing's good?
No way to help the law's rough sense
By equities of self-defence?
Dipsychus
Draw the line where you will, it will exclude
Much it should comprehend. I draw it here.
Spirit
Well, for yourself it may be nice
To serve vulgarity and vice:
Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers
Fare like their patient sons and brothers?
Dipsychus
He that loves sister, mother, more than me—
Spirit
But the injustice—the gross wrong!
To whom on earth does it belong
If not to you, to whom 'twas done,
Who see it plain as any sun,
To make the base and foul offender
Confess, and satisfaction render?
At least before the termination of it
Prove your own lofty reprobation of it.
Though gentleness, I know, was born in you,
Surely you have a little scorn in you?
Dipsychus
Heaven! to pollute one's fingers to pick up
The fallen coin of honour from the dirt—
Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie!
To take up any offence, where't may be said
That temper, vanity—I know not what—
Had led me on!
To enter the base crowd and bare one's flanks
To all ill voices of a blustering world,
To have so much as e'en half-felt of one
That ever one was angered for oneself!
Beyond suspicion Caesar's wife should be,
Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall.
Did he say scorn? I have some scorn, thank God.
Spirit
Certainly. Only if it's so,
Let us leave Italy, and go
Post-haste, to attend—you're ripe and rank for't—
The Great Peace-Meeting up at Frankfort.
Joy to the Croat! Take our lives,
Sweet friends, and please respect our wives.
Myself, a trifle quite, you slaughter;
But pray be decent with my daughter.
Joy to the Croat! Some fine day
He'll see the error of his way,
No doubt, and will repent and pray.
At any rate he'll open his eyes,
If not before, at the Last Assize.
Not, if I rightly understood you,
That even then, you'd punish, would you?
Nay, let the hapless soul escape.
Mere murder, robbery, and rape,
In whate'er station, age, or sex,
Your sacred spirit scarce can vex.
De minimis non curat lex.
To the Peace Congress—ring the bell!
Horses to Frankfort and to hell!
Dipsychus
I am not quite in union with myself
On this strange matter. I must needs confess
Instinct turns instinct in and out; and thought
Wheels round on thought. To bleed for other's wrongs
In vindication of a Cause, to draw
The sword of the Lord and Gideon—O, that seems
The flower and top of life! But fight because
Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say
I lie, when I do not lie, or is rude
To some vain fashionable thing, some poor
Curl-paper of a doll that's set by chance
To dangle a dull hour on my vext arm,
Why should I? Call you this a Cause? I can't.
Oh he is wrong, no doubt. He misbehaves—
But is it worth so much as speaking loud?
And things more merely personal to myself
Of all earth's things do least affect myself.
Spirit
Sweet eloquence! at next May Meeting
How it would tell in the repeating!
I recognise, and kiss the rod—
The Methodistic ‘voice of God’;
I catch contrite that angel whine,
That snuffle human, yet divine.
The doctrine own, and no mistaker,
Of the bland Philanthropic Quaker.
O come, blest age, from bloodshed cease.
Bewildered brothers, dwell at peace.
This holy effluence from above
Shall fill your wildest hearts with love,
Shall bring the light of inward day
To Caffre fierce and sly Malay;
Soften hard pirates with a kiss
And melt barbarian isles with bliss—
Leaving, in lieu of war and robbing,
Only a little mild stock-jobbing:
O, doubtless! Let the simple heart
Mind her own business, do her part,
Her wrongs repel, maintain her honour—
O fiend and savage, out upon her!
Press, pulpit, from each other borrow
The terms of scandal, shame and sorrow;
Vulgarity shrieks out in fear of it,
And Piety turns sick to hear of it.
The downright things, twixt you and me,
The wrongs we really feel and see,
The hurts that actually try one,
Like common plain good deeds close by one,
Decidedly have no existence—
They are at such a little distance!
But to protect the lovely figures
Of your half ourang-outang niggers,
To preach the doctrine of the Cross
To worshippers in house of joss,
To take steps for the quick conversion
Of Turk, Armenian, Jew and Persian,
Or send up missions, per balloon,
To those poor heathens in the moon—
Oh that—But I'm afraid I storm;
I'm quite ashamed to be so warm.
Dipsychus
It may be I am somewhat a poltroon.
I never fought at school. Whether it be
Some native poorness in my spirit's blood,
Or that the holy doctrine of our faith
In too exclusive fervency possessed
My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain.
Spirit
Yes; you would argue that it goes
Against the Bible, I suppose.
But our revered religion—yes,
Our common faith—seems, I confess,
On these points to propose to address
The people more than you or me—
At best the vulgar bourgeoisie.
The sacred writers don't keep count,
But still the Sermon on the Mount
Must have been spoken, by what's stated,
To hearers by the thousands rated.
I cuff some fellow; mild and meek,
He should turn round the other cheek.
For him it may be right and good;
We are not all of gentle blood
Really, or as such understood.
Dipsychus
There are two kindreds upon earth, I know—
The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me,
If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept,
May my last end, and life too, be with these.
Yes, whatsoe'er the reason—want of blood,
Lymphatic humours, or my childhood's faith—
So is the thing, and be it well or ill,
I have no choice. I am a man of peace,
And the old Adam of the gentleman
Dares seldom in my bosom stir against
The good plebeian Christian seated there.
Spirit
Forgive me, if I name my doubt,
Whether you know ‘ fort ’ means ‘get out.’
Insulted! by the living Lord!
He laid his hand upon his sword.
Fort , did he say? a German brute,
With neither heart nor brains to shoot.
Dipsychus
What does he mean? he's wrong, I had done nothing.
'Twas a mistake—more his, I am sure, than mine.
He is quite wrong—I feel it. Come, let us go.
Spirit
Go up to him!—you must, that's flat.
Be threatened by a beast like that!
Dipsychus
He's violent: what can I do against him?
I neither wish to be killed nor to kill:
What's more, I never yet have touched a sword,
Nor fired, but twice, a pistol in my life.
Spirit
Oh, never mind, 'twon't come to fighting—
Only some verbal small requiting;
Or give your card—we'll do't by writing.
He'll not stick to it. Soldiers too
Are cowards, just like me or you.
What! not a single word to throw at
This snarling dog of a d——d Croat?
Dipsychus
My heaven! why should I care? he does not hurt me.
If he is wrong, it is the worse for him.
I certainly did nothing—I shall go.
Spirit
Did nothing! I should think not; no,
Nor ever will, I dare be sworn!
But, O my friend, well-bred, well-born—
You to behave so in these quarrels
Makes me half doubtful of your morals!
. . . . . . . . . . . It were all one,
You had been some shopkeeper's son
Whose childhood ne'er was shown aught better
Than bills of creditor and debtor.
Dipsychus
By heaven, it falls from off me like the rain
From the oil-coat. I seem in spirit to see
How he and I at some great day shall meet
Before some awful judgement-seat of truth;
And I could deem that I behold him there
Come praying for the pardon I give now,
Did not I think these matters too, too small
For any record on the leaves of time.
Spirit
Oh Lord! and walking with your sister,
If some foul brute stept up and kissed her,
You'd leave that also, I dare say,
On account for the judgement day.
Dipsychus
Oh, these skin-bites, these airy words,
Which at the moment seem to pierce us through,
And one hour after are acknowledged nought;
These pricks of pride, these petty personal hurts,
O thou great Watcher of this noisy world,
What are they in thy sight? or what in his
Who finds some end of Action in his life?
What e'en in his whose sole permitted course
Is to pursue his peaceful byway walk,
And live his brief life purely in Thy sight,
And righteously towards his brother-men?
Spirit
And whether, so you're just and fair,
Other folks are so, you don't care;
You who profess more love than others
For your poor sinful human brothers.
But this anon we'll come, my friend, to,
My previous question first attend to.
Dipsychus
For grosser evils their gross remedies
The laws afford us; let us be content.
For finer wounds the law would, if it could,
Find medicine too; it cannot, let us bear;
For sufferance is the badge of all men's tribes.
Spirit
Because we can't do all we would,
Does it follow, to do nothing's good?
No way to help the law's rough sense
By equities of self-defence?
Dipsychus
Draw the line where you will, it will exclude
Much it should comprehend. I draw it here.
Spirit
Well, for yourself it may be nice
To serve vulgarity and vice:
Must sisters, too, and wives and mothers
Fare like their patient sons and brothers?
Dipsychus
He that loves sister, mother, more than me—
Spirit
But the injustice—the gross wrong!
To whom on earth does it belong
If not to you, to whom 'twas done,
Who see it plain as any sun,
To make the base and foul offender
Confess, and satisfaction render?
At least before the termination of it
Prove your own lofty reprobation of it.
Though gentleness, I know, was born in you,
Surely you have a little scorn in you?
Dipsychus
Heaven! to pollute one's fingers to pick up
The fallen coin of honour from the dirt—
Pure silver though it be, let it rather lie!
To take up any offence, where't may be said
That temper, vanity—I know not what—
Had led me on!
To enter the base crowd and bare one's flanks
To all ill voices of a blustering world,
To have so much as e'en half-felt of one
That ever one was angered for oneself!
Beyond suspicion Caesar's wife should be,
Beyond suspicion this bright honour shall.
Did he say scorn? I have some scorn, thank God.
Spirit
Certainly. Only if it's so,
Let us leave Italy, and go
Post-haste, to attend—you're ripe and rank for't—
The Great Peace-Meeting up at Frankfort.
Joy to the Croat! Take our lives,
Sweet friends, and please respect our wives.
Myself, a trifle quite, you slaughter;
But pray be decent with my daughter.
Joy to the Croat! Some fine day
He'll see the error of his way,
No doubt, and will repent and pray.
At any rate he'll open his eyes,
If not before, at the Last Assize.
Not, if I rightly understood you,
That even then, you'd punish, would you?
Nay, let the hapless soul escape.
Mere murder, robbery, and rape,
In whate'er station, age, or sex,
Your sacred spirit scarce can vex.
De minimis non curat lex.
To the Peace Congress—ring the bell!
Horses to Frankfort and to hell!
Dipsychus
I am not quite in union with myself
On this strange matter. I must needs confess
Instinct turns instinct in and out; and thought
Wheels round on thought. To bleed for other's wrongs
In vindication of a Cause, to draw
The sword of the Lord and Gideon—O, that seems
The flower and top of life! But fight because
Some poor misconstruing trifler haps to say
I lie, when I do not lie, or is rude
To some vain fashionable thing, some poor
Curl-paper of a doll that's set by chance
To dangle a dull hour on my vext arm,
Why should I? Call you this a Cause? I can't.
Oh he is wrong, no doubt. He misbehaves—
But is it worth so much as speaking loud?
And things more merely personal to myself
Of all earth's things do least affect myself.
Spirit
Sweet eloquence! at next May Meeting
How it would tell in the repeating!
I recognise, and kiss the rod—
The Methodistic ‘voice of God’;
I catch contrite that angel whine,
That snuffle human, yet divine.
The doctrine own, and no mistaker,
Of the bland Philanthropic Quaker.
O come, blest age, from bloodshed cease.
Bewildered brothers, dwell at peace.
This holy effluence from above
Shall fill your wildest hearts with love,
Shall bring the light of inward day
To Caffre fierce and sly Malay;
Soften hard pirates with a kiss
And melt barbarian isles with bliss—
Leaving, in lieu of war and robbing,
Only a little mild stock-jobbing:
O, doubtless! Let the simple heart
Mind her own business, do her part,
Her wrongs repel, maintain her honour—
O fiend and savage, out upon her!
Press, pulpit, from each other borrow
The terms of scandal, shame and sorrow;
Vulgarity shrieks out in fear of it,
And Piety turns sick to hear of it.
The downright things, twixt you and me,
The wrongs we really feel and see,
The hurts that actually try one,
Like common plain good deeds close by one,
Decidedly have no existence—
They are at such a little distance!
But to protect the lovely figures
Of your half ourang-outang niggers,
To preach the doctrine of the Cross
To worshippers in house of joss,
To take steps for the quick conversion
Of Turk, Armenian, Jew and Persian,
Or send up missions, per balloon,
To those poor heathens in the moon—
Oh that—But I'm afraid I storm;
I'm quite ashamed to be so warm.
Dipsychus
It may be I am somewhat a poltroon.
I never fought at school. Whether it be
Some native poorness in my spirit's blood,
Or that the holy doctrine of our faith
In too exclusive fervency possessed
My heart with feelings, with ideas my brain.
Spirit
Yes; you would argue that it goes
Against the Bible, I suppose.
But our revered religion—yes,
Our common faith—seems, I confess,
On these points to propose to address
The people more than you or me—
At best the vulgar bourgeoisie.
The sacred writers don't keep count,
But still the Sermon on the Mount
Must have been spoken, by what's stated,
To hearers by the thousands rated.
I cuff some fellow; mild and meek,
He should turn round the other cheek.
For him it may be right and good;
We are not all of gentle blood
Really, or as such understood.
Dipsychus
There are two kindreds upon earth, I know—
The oppressors and the oppressed. But as for me,
If I must choose to inflict wrong, or accept,
May my last end, and life too, be with these.
Yes, whatsoe'er the reason—want of blood,
Lymphatic humours, or my childhood's faith—
So is the thing, and be it well or ill,
I have no choice. I am a man of peace,
And the old Adam of the gentleman
Dares seldom in my bosom stir against
The good plebeian Christian seated there.
Spirit
Forgive me, if I name my doubt,
Whether you know ‘ fort ’ means ‘get out.’
Translation:
Language:
Reviews
No reviews yet.