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قراءة كتاب The Epic of Saul
تنويه: تعرض هنا نبذة من اول ١٠ صفحات فقط من الكتاب الالكتروني، لقراءة الكتاب كاملا اضغط على الزر “اشتر الآن"
of long malevolence
Fed on resentments such as abjects feel.
Saul listened, but Gamaliel bowed in prayer,
As Shimei thus, obliquely, sneering, spoke:
"Stoning is pleasant, doubtless, when, as now,
One's sense of righteousness is much engaged.
The reflex satisfaction to be had
From accurately casting a choice stone
To break the teeth of the ungodly, is
Superlative, perhaps the very highest
Relish attainable to mortals here.
The consciousness of sympathy with God
Always exhilarates delightfully;
But in particular if the sympathy
Be exercised in such a case as this,
Where the most glorious of God's attributes,
His justice, is involved. Borne far above
Pity, or any weakness of the sense,
You only feel a rapture of divine
Approval of the law you execute.
So subtly strong and sweet possesses you
The instinct to indulge your appetite
For righteousness, you might almost mistake
Your pleasure for the pleasure of revenge.
Know not Jehovah and His law contemn.
Jehovah's chosen we, our sentiment
Purged of all personal bias of mere hate,
We simply wash our feet in wicked blood
With pleasure—pleasure naturally enhanced,
If we have spilled said wicked blood ourselves.
Profoundly—grant the stoning be by you;
By you, not to you; being stoned, I judge,
Is less satisfactory. On this point who doubt
Or differ, have their opportunity
To clear their minds by prompt experiment—
They need but act upon the last advice;
For—grant our gracious masters smiled and pleased
To let us play a prank of self-misrule,
This once, wilful, but harmless, in their view,
Which might even turn out comedy for them—
Yet, stoning these, we should ourselves get stoned,
With expedition—past all chance of doubt.
Our friend, the vehement adviser here,
Might peradventure go himself as blithe
To be stoned by the people, as to stone
These pestilent fellows—for the glory of God.
But, then, more clearly how the glory of God
Would be subserved thereby, the rest of us,
Colder in heart perhaps, but certainly
Cooler in head, would wish to be advised,
Before we take our lives into our hands
To wreak the righteous judgment of the law
On favorites of a fierce and fickle mob
Whose palms, unless I much misread the signs,
Already itch for stones to throw at us,
While we sit here and talk of throwing stones
At whom they love and honor.
"Give them line
This wild Jerusalem mob, and they will change
Their mood. Remember how it chanced but late
With Jesus Nazarene. Hailed yesterday
Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords,
Ovation of hosannas greeting him
From thousand times a thousand throats—to-day,
A malefactor hooted through the streets,
With 'Crucify him! Crucify him!' cried
In multitudinous chorus like one voice—
The mouths to-day and yesterday the same.
Their second tune indeed we set for them
And sang precentors—but how well they joined!
In due time pitch them the like tune again,
And doubt not they will sing it with full breath.
My counsel is no less from sloth removed
Than hostile to crude, hasty violence.
Only, shun public note; with proper quest,
Ways may be found, ways pregnant too, that make
No noise. The nail that went so shrewdly through
Sisera's temples made no noise. It sped
Softly, but sped surely, and found the quick
Secret of life. Are there not Jaels yet?
You have guessed what I advise. The end you seek
Is holy; holy hold whatever means
Shall lead thereto. Let us commit this thing
To those the wisest found among us, few
Better than many, charging them to choose
Some suitable silent means of silencing
These praters, without stir or scandal made,
Likest the ways of nature, hint, perhaps,
Conveyed of overruling providence
At work through nature for revenging crime.
I do not court responsibility;
I am least wise among you; yet a trust
Imposed were duty sacred in mine eyes."
With youthful life-blood coursing joyously,
A deadly serpent, with protracted, cold
Belly incumbent, glide, beneath that touch
And creep the conscious flesh would creeping shrink,
And all the genial current in the veins
Curdle; so now, at Shimei's words, much more
At signs in him that spoke beyond his words,
The accent of the voice, the look, the port
Of figure, sinister suggestion couched
In action or grimace, there came a chill,
A shudder, of reaction and collapse
Over the council late with zeal aglow.
Even Mattathias, who, in attitude
Of menace, after Shimei arose,