Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.

Judas Maccabæus

Act I. The Citadel of Antiochus at Jerusalem

The writing of this tragedy followed immediately upon the dismissal of The Divine Tragedy, and was in a measure an offshoot from it. While the poet’s mind was charged with the contemplation of Judaic scenes, there came back to him the thought of a tragedy based upon the history of Judas Maccabæus, which had first visited him twenty years before. In 1850 he had entered it in his note-book as a subject for a poem.

Now, he repeats the suggestion December 5, 1871, and five days later he records: “At home all day. Began the tragedy of Judas Maccabæus. The subject is a very striking one—the collision of Judaism and Hellenism.” Elsewhere, he raises the question: “The subject is tragic enough, but has it unity, and a catastrophe to end with?” He began the drama on the 10th of December; on the 12th The Divine Tragedy was published, and on the 21st he had finished his first draft of the new work. “The acts are not long,” he writes, “but there are five of them.” Judas Maccabæus formed one division of the volume Three Books of Song, which was published May 25, 1872; the other two divisions were The Second Day of Tales of a Wayside Inn and A Handful of Translations.

O ANTIOCH, my Antioch, my city!

Queen of the East! my solace, my delight!

The dowry of my sister Cleopatra

When she was wed to Ptolemy, and now

Won back and made more wonderful by me!

I love thee, and I long to be once more

Among the players and the dancing women

Within thy gates, and bathe in the Orontes,

Thy river and mine. O Jason, my High-Priest,

For I have made thee so, and thou art mine,

Hast thou seen Antioch the Beautiful?

Never, my Lord.

Then hast thou never seen

The wonder of the world. This city of David

Compared with Antioch is but a village,

And its inhabitants compared with Greeks

Are mannerless boors.

They are barbarians,

And mannerless.

They must be civilized.

They must be made to have more gods than one;

And goddesses besides.

They shall have more.

They must have hippodromes, and games, and baths,

Stage-plays and festivals, and most of all

The Dionysia.

They shall have them all.

By Heracles! but I should like to see

These Hebrews crowned with ivy, and arrayed

In skins of fawns, with drums and flutes and thyrsi,

Revel and riot through the solemn streets

Of their old town. Ha, ha! It makes me merry

Only to think of it!—Thou dost not laugh.

Yea, I laugh inwardly.

The new Greek leaven

Works slowly in this Israelitish dough!

Have I not sacked the Temple, and on the altar

Set up the statue of Olympian Zeus

To Hellenize it?

Thou hast done all this.

As thou wast Joshua once and now art Jason,

And from a Hebrew hast become a Greek,

So shall this Hebrew nation be translated,

Their very natures and their names be changed,

And all be Hellenized.

It shall be done.

Their manners and their laws and way of living

Shall all be Greek. They shall unlearn their language,

And learn the lovely speech of Antioch.

Where hast thou been to-day? Thou comest late.

Playing at discus with the other priests

In the Gymnasium.

Thou hast done well.

There ’s nothing better for you lazy priests

Than discus-playing with the common people.

Now tell me, Jason, what these Hebrews call me

When they converse together at their games.

Antiochus Epiphanes, my Lord;

Antiochus the Illustrious.

Oh, not that;

That is the public cry; I mean the name

They give me when they talk among themselves,

And think that no one listens; what is that?

Antiochus Epimanes, my Lord!

Antiochus the Mad! Ay, that is it.

And who hath said it? Who hath set in motion

That sorry jest?

The Seven Sons insane

Of a weird woman, like themselves insane.

I like their courage, but it shall not save them.

They shall be made to eat the flesh of swine

Or they shall die. Where are they?

In the dungeons

Beneath this tower.

There let them stay and starve,

Till I am ready to make Greeks of them,

After my fashion.

They shall stay and starve.—

My Lord, the Ambassadors of Samaria

Await thy pleasure.

Why not my displeasure?

Ambassadors are tedious. They are men

Who work for their own ends, and not for mine

There is no furtherance in them. Let them go

To Apollonius, my governor

There in Samaria, and not trouble me.

What do they want?

Only the royal sanction

To give a name unto a nameless temple

Upon Mount Gerizim.

Then bid them enter.

This pleases me, and furthers my designs.

The occasion is auspicious. Bid them enter.

SCENE II.—ANTIOCHUS; JASON; the SAMARITAN AMBASSADORS.

Approach. Come forward; stand not at the door

Wagging your long beards, but demean yourselves

As doth become Ambassadors. What seek ye?

An audience from the King.

Speak, and be brief.

Waste not the time in useless rhetoric.

Words are not things.

“To King Antiochus,

The God, Epiphanes; a Memorial

From the Sidonians, who live at Sichem.”

Sidonians?

Ay, my Lord.

Go on, go on!

And do not tire thyself and me with bowing!

“We are a colony of Medes and Persians.”

No, ye are Jews from one of the Ten Tribes;

Whether Sidonians or Samaritans

Or Jews of Jewry, matters not to me;

Ye are all Israelites, ye are all Jews.

When the Jews prosper, ye claim kindred with them;

When the Jews suffer, ye are Medes and Persians;

I know that in the days of Alexander

Ye claimed exemption from the annual tribute

In the Sabbatic Year, because, ye said,

Your fields had not been planted in that year.

“Our fathers, upon certain frequent plagues,

And following an ancient superstition,

Were long accustomed to observe that day

Which by the Israelites is called the Sabbath,

And in a temple on Mount Gerizim

Without a name, they offered sacrifice.

Now we, who are Sidonians, beseech thee,

Who art our benefactor and our savior,

Not to confound us with these wicked Jews,

But to give royal order and injunction

To Apollonius in Samaria,

Thy governor, and likewise to Nicanor,

Thy procurator, no more to molest us;

And let our nameless temple now be named

The Temple of Jupiter Hellenius.”

This shall be done. Full well it pleaseth me

Ye are not Jews, or are no longer Jews,

But Greeks; if not by birth, yet Greeks by custom.

Your nameless temple shall receive the name

Of Jupiter Hellenius. Ye may go!

SCENE III.—ANTIOCHUS; JASON.

My task is easier than I dreamed. These people

Meet me half-way. Jason, didst thou take note

How these Samaritans of Sichem said

They were not Jews? that they were Medes and Persians,

They were Sidonians, anything but Jews?

’T is of good augury. The rest will follow

Till the whole land is Hellenized.

My Lord,

These are Samaritans. The tribe of Judah

Is of a different temper, and the task

Will be more difficult.

Dost thou gainsay me?

I know the stubborn nature of the Jew.

Yesterday, Eleazer, an old man,

Being fourscore years and ten, chose rather death

By torture than to eat the flesh of swine.

The life is in the blood, and the whole nation

Shall bleed to death, or it shall change its faith!

Hundreds have fled already to the mountains

Of Ephraim, where Judas Maccabæus

Hath raised the standard of revolt against thee.

I will burn down their city, and will make it

Waste as a wilderness. Its thoroughfares

Shall be but furrows in a field of ashes.

It shall be sown with salt as Sodom is!

This hundred and fifty-third Olympiad

Shall have a broad and blood-red seal upon it,

Stamped with the awful letters of my name,

Antiochus the God, Epiphanes!—

Where are those Seven Sons?

My Lord, they wait

Thy royal pleasure.

They shall wait no longer!