The Emperor and the Rabbi
.
There are some curious and some interesting reliques of tradition
still to
be found among the Jewish people. Their dispersion, and the infinite miseries
inflicted on them, in every country
where they fled from their own, inevitably
extinguished their general cultivation of literature ; but they still possessed
scholars, philosophers, and teachers of the Law, who might have been distin-
guished in better times, and among a more prosperous
people. The Talmud
is well known to European scholarship as containing, amid much extraordinary
and fantastic matter, some
valuable records of the national history and feelings.
Its sententious and moral narratives, its Agadetha, are
sometimes striking and
noble ; and the allegories, mysticisms, visions, and parables of the Medras-
biim are
sometimes not less sagacious than sublime.
The subject of the following verses is from a tradition of the wisdom of Rabbi
Joshuah. The Jews to this day speak with
malediction of Titus, the destroyer
of the temple, and of Hadrian, the destroyer of the
nation. But Trajan is
sometimes spoken of with more respect, probably from the contrast of his cha-
racter, stern as it was,
with that of his fierce and sanguinary successor, Hadrian ;
and from the comparative security of the Jews under an emperor who was
too
much engrossed with his incessant wars to have any leisure for persecution.
“ Old Rabbi, what tales
Would’st thou pour in mine ear ;
What visions of glory,
What phantoms of fear ?”
“ Of a God, all the gods
Of the Roman above,
A mightier than Mars,
A more ancient than Jove !”
“ Let me look on those splen-
dours,
I then shall believe ;
’Tis the senses alone
That can never deceive.
Nay, show me your idol,
If earth is his shrine,
And your Israelite God
Shall, old dreamer, be mine.”
’Twas Trajan that spoke,
And the stoical sneer
Still play’d on his features
Sublime and severe.
And round the proud hall
As his dark eye was thrown,
He saw but one God,
And himself was that one.
“ The God of our forefathers !”
Low bow’d the seer ;
“ Is unseen by the eye,
Is unheard by the ear.
He is Spirit, he knows not
The body’s dark chain ;
Not the Heaven of the Heavens
Can his glory contain.
“ He is seen in his power
When the storm is abroad :
The clouds by the wheels
Of his chariot are rode.
He is seen in his mercy,
When mountain and plain
Rejoice in the sunshine
And smile in the rain.
“ He is seen when the lightnings
Are shot through the heaven,
And the crests of the mountains
In embers are riven.
He is heard when the tempest
Has sent up its roar,
And the ocean in thunder
Is flung on the shore.”
“ Those are dreams,” said the mo-
narch,
“ Wild fancies of old ;
But what God can I worship,
When none I behold ?
Can I kneel to the lightning,
The wave, or the wind ?
Can I worship the shape
That but lives in the mind ?”
“ I’ll show thee his footstool,
I’ll show thee his throne :”
Through the halls of the palace
The Rabbi led on,
Till above them was spread :
But the sky’s purple dome,
And like surges of splendour
Beneath them was Rome.
Round the marble-crown’d mount
Where the Emperor stood,
Like a silver-scaled snake,
Swept the Tiber’s bright flood ;
Beyond lay the vales ;
Of the rich Persian rose,
All glowing with beauty,
All breathing repose ;
And flaming o’er all,
In the glow of the hour,
The Capitol shone,
Earth’s high altar of power—
A thousand years old,
Yet still in its prime ;
A thousand years more
To be conqueror of time !
But the East now was purple,
The eve was begun ;
Like a monarch at rest
On the wave, lay the sun :
Above him the clouds
Their rich canopy roll’d,
With pillars of diamond,
And curtains of gold.
The Rabbi’s proud gesture
Was turn’d to the orb ;
“ Great King, let that splendour
Thy worship absorb.”
“ What ! gaze on the sun,
And be blind by the gaze ?
No eye but the eagle’s
Can look on that blaze !"
“ Ho, Emperor of earth,
If thine eyeball is dim,
To see but the rays
Of the sun’s sinking limb,”
Cried the Rabbi, “ what eyeball
Could dare but to see
The Sovereign of him,
And the Sovereign of thee ?”
’Ε
ως
.