هيباتيا وكيرلس
هيباتيا وكيرلس
1886
المشهد الأول هيباتيا في الحضانة
المرضعة
- O my child, an immense disturbance is in the city.
- From all sides, rolling like vile foam,
- Under their hideous beards and their tattered robes,
- The men of the desert emerge from their tombs.
- Slashed, bleeding, muddy, fierce,
- Full of hate, your name, my daughter, is in their mouths.
- Stay ! don't leave the quiet house
- where my arms cradled you in your young season,
- where my blessed milk saved and nourished you,
- where I saw your flowery childhood grow in the day,
- Where your father, oh dear soul, eloquent and pious,
- In a last kiss entrusted you to the Gods!
هيباتيا.
Nurse, calm down. This terror is vain: I have not deserved anger and hatred. What harm have I done? My life is without remorse. The Desert Monks, you say, want me dead? I don't know them, they don't even know me, And false rumors trouble your heart that loves me.
الجليسة.
No ! I have heard too many of their barbaric cries! No, I'm not mistaken. All curse your name. Their soul is furious, and their face inflamed. They will tear you apart, my beloved daughter, These ragged monsters, like impure animals, who always prophesy evils, Who, gnawed with desires and consumed with envy, Blaspheme beauty, light and life! Remain, safe and sound, in the shade of the hearth.
هيباتيا.
I have in my conscience a surer shield. The benevolent people await me under the portico Where my voice reminds them of ancient wisdom. I will go, dear nurse; and, long before evening, You will see your daughter again, having done her duty.
الجليسة.
I beg you, child, by your life and mine!
المشهد الثاني هيباتيا، المرضعة ومساعد الكاهن.
مساعد الكاهن.
امرأة وكيرلس الأسقف، على عتبة دارك.
هيباتيا.
أدخليهم !
المشهد الثالث نفسهم بالاضافة لكيرلس.
كيرلس.
- I wanted to speak to you, to hear you without witnesses;
- Your own interests demanded no less.
- We praise your virtues; if there is any in souls
May God not yet illuminate with his flames! I want to believe in it, and I come, not as an enemy, In a spirit of hatred, to harm you strengthened, But as an afflicted father who advises his daughter And wants to bring her back to the family hearth. It is a duty, no less than a right; and I counted
That you would answer me with sincerity. Through a century of storms and through disastrous times Where the sky no longer makes its signs manifest, I have lived, I have whitened under my sacred burden; Happy if, close to reaching the desired end, I poured light and life into your bosom! My daughter, wake up, the Lord invites you. Your Gods are dead, their impure worship is rejected: Finally confess the unique and holy truth.
هيباتيا.
My father has judged well of the respect that animates me, And I revere in him his sublime function; But it shows me too great an interest, And this speech touches me as much as it surprises me. By the mere memory of the divine ideas Towards the unique ideal souls are guided: I have not forgotten Timaeus and the Phaedo; Did not John speak as Plato once did? The words differ little, the meaning is the same. We both confess the supreme hope, And the God of Cyril, in my respected heart, Like the Attic Bee, spoke the truth.
كيرلس.
To confuse such names is blasphemy or madness: But so much blindness is worthy of clemency. No ! the God whom I adore and who with divine blood Of ancient Sin washed the human race,
Woman, did not speak like, in profane centuries, The pagan sophists lying under the plane trees; And if some brightness in their dark night has him, The immutable light bursts alone in him! It came ; voices proclaimed it from age to age; Wisdom and love marked his passage; He conquered death, and, for new heavens, Purified the heart of a world already old, With a breath swept away centuries of defilement, Driven from their altars the impure Powers, And made irreversible by his oblation The strength with life to every nation! Speak ! of the human work is it the character? Compare to Christ the savior the wise men of the earth And measure their glory by his humility.
هيباتيا.
That would be taking too much care of vanity. No doubt every virtue has a right to our homage, And it is always a God who speaks in the sages. I render what I owe to the inspired Prophet, And as to you, my father, he is also sacred to me; But know how to dispense equal justice, And from your master to mine marks the interval better. Finally, be fair. What do you blame us for? Do we not watch alone near a demolished temple, On divine tombs that are broken and insulted? Priests of a silent sky, castaways of a great cult,
Uncertain heirs of an ancient treasure, Without strength and scattered, what more do you need? Yes, times are bad, not for your church, Father, but for us whom your pride despises, For us who only teach, in our abasement, Only study, peace and meditation. Turn your eyes to the past; recall in your memory The destinies fulfilled in the days of our glory. Were our gods only a dream? Did they lie? See what immortal world has come from their hands, This living symbol, harmonious work Marked with their genius and made in their image, Venerable forever, and which they gave birth to Only to flourish in order and clarity ! What ! Could this past so beautiful be only a dream, A real specter animated by a spirit of lies, A secular error in which we take pleasure? But you stammered the language and the lessons, And I hear, as in the days of Homer and Virgil, The sounds that cradled me explain the Gospel! Ah! in the echo that comes from the glorious past Listen to them, Cyrille, and you will understand better. Listen, at the edge of the seas, at the top of the hills, To sound the golden rhythms on divine lips, And the eloquent marble, in the white Parthenons, Of pious artists eternalize the names. Look, under the azure that a single century illuminates, From the islands of Ionia to the waves of Salamis, love of country and freedom
Triumph on the altar of holy Beauty; In the austere rest of domestic hearths The great legislators regulate the Republics, And the sages, of the True clearing the harsh way, Of its own greatness seize the human Spirit! You can deny our Gods or insult them, But tear this page from their written book, Set our sun among the dead stars... Go! the task is endless and laughs at your efforts! No ! O Gods protectors, O Gods of Hellas my mother, That old Homer sang on the Golden Pavement, You who still live, but who are silent, I do not curse you, O Forces and Virtues, Who once sufficed for the magnanimous races, And I recognize you by your sublime works!
كيرلس.
It's good ! Recognize them by the fruits they have borne, These Demons of Hell under other sung names, Who, with a secret poison infecting the entire soul, Wanted to suffocate it in filthy matter, And under the golden dress of a vain beauty Have hidden the nothingness of fornication. When peoples nourished in such doctrines, Like trunks dried up in their roots, Flourishing outside, but death in the heart, Fall in ashes before the blow of the avenging iron; When Rome, succeeding enslaved Greece,