SCENE II.[Hades.][Enter LUCIFER and CAIN.]/Cain./ How silent and how vast are these dim worlds!For they seem more than one, and yet more peopledThan the huge luminous brilliant orbs which swungSo thickly in the upper air, that IHad deem'd them rather the bright populaceOf some all unimaginable heaven,Than things to be inhabited themselves,But that on drawing near them I beheldTheir swelling into palpable immensityOf matter, which seem'd made for life to dwell on,Rather than life itself. But here, all isSo shadowy and so full of twilight, thatIt speaks of a day past./Lucifer./ It is the realmOf death. -- Wouldst have it present?/Cain./ Till I knowThat which it really is, I cannot answer.But if it be as I have heard my fatherDeal out in his long homilies, 'tis a thing --O God! I dare not think on't! Cursed beHe who invented life that leads to death!Or the dull mass of life, that, being life,Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it --Even for the innocent!/Lucifer./ Dost thou curse thy father!/Cain./ Cursed he not me in giving me my birth?Cursed he not me before my birth, in daringTo pluck the fruit forbidden?/Cain./ Thou say'st well:The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee --But for thy sons and brother?/Cain./ Let them share itWith me, their sire and brother! What else isBequeath'd to me? I leave them my inheritance.Oh, ye interminable gloomy realmsOf swimming shadows and enormous shapes,Some fully shewn, some indistinct, and allMighty and melancholy -- what are ye?Live ye, or have ye lived?/Lucifer./ Somewhat of both./Cain./ Then what is death?/Lucifer./ What? Hath not He who made yeSaid 'tis another life?/Cain./ Till now He hathSaid nothing, save that all shall die./Lucifer./ PerhapsHe one day will unfold that further secret./Cain./ Happy the day!/Lucifer./ Yes; happy! when unfoldedThrough agonies unspeakable, and clogg'dWith agonies eternal, to innumerableYet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms,All to be animated for this only!/Cain./ What are these mighty phantoms which I seeFloating around me? -- they wear not the formOf the intelligences I have seenRound our regretted and unenter'd Eden,Nor wear the form of man as I have view'd itIn Adam's, and in Abel's, and in mine,Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in my children's:And yet they have an aspect, which, though notOf men nor angels, looks like something, whichIf not the last, rose higher than the first,Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and fullOf seeming strength, but of inexplicableShape; for I never saw such. They bear notThe wing of seraph, nor the face of man,Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that isNow breathing; mighty yet and beautifulAs the most beautiful and mighty whichLive, and yet so unlike them, that I scarceCan call them living./Lucifer./ Yet they lived./Cain./ WhereThou livest./Cain./ When?/Lucifer./ On what thou callest earthThey did inhabit./Cain./ Adam is the first./Lucifer./ Of thine, I grant thee -- but too mean to beThe last of these./Cain./ And what are they?/Lucifer./ That whichThou shalt be./Cain./ But what /were/ they?/Lucifer./ Living, high,Intelligent, good, great, and glorious things,As much superior unto all thy sire,Adam, could e'er have been in Eden, asThe sixty-thousandth generation shall be,In its dull damp degeneracy, toThee and thy son; -- and how weak they are, judgeBy thy own flesh./Cain./ Ah me! and did /they/ perish?/Lucifer./Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade from thine./Cain./ But was /mine/ theirs?/Lucifer./ It was./Cain./ But not as now.It is too little and too lowly toSustain such creatures./Lucifer./ True, it was more glorious./Cain./ And wherefore did it fall?/Lucifer./ Ask Him who fells./Cain./ But how?/Lucifer./ By a most crushing and inexorableDestruction and disorder of the elements,Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaosSubsiding has struck out a world: such things,Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity. --Pass on, and gaze upon the past./Cain./ 'Tis awful!/Lucifer./And true. Behold these phantoms! they were onceMaterial as thou art./Cain./ And must I beLike them?/Lucifer./ Let He who made thee answer that.I show thee what thy predecessors are,And what they /were/ thou feelest, in degreeInferior as thy petty feelings andThy pettier portion of the immortal partOf high intelligence and earthly strength.What ye in common have with what they hadIs life, and what ye /shall/ have -- death: the restOf your poor attributes is such as suitsReptiles engender'd out of the subsidingSlime of a mighty universe, crush'd intoA scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled withThings whose enjoyment was to be in blindness --A Paradise of Ignorance, from whichKnowledge was barr'd as poison. But beholdWhat these superior beings are or were;Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and tillThe earth, thy task -- I'll waft thee there in safety./Cain./ No: I'll stay here./Lucifer./ How long?/Cain./ For ever! sinceI must one day return here from the earth,I rather would remain; I am sick of allThat dust has shewn me -- let me dwell in shadows./Lucifer./ It cannot be: thou now beholdest asA vision that which is reality.To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thouMust pass through what the things thou seest have pass'd --The gates of death./Cain./ By what gate have we enter'dEven now?/Lucifer./ By mine! But, plighted to return,My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regionsWhere all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on;But do not think to dwell here till thine hourIs come./Cain./ And these, too; can they ne'er repassTo earth again?/Lucifer./ /Their/ earth is gone for ever --So changed by its convulsion, they would notBe conscious to a single present spotOf its new scarcely harden'd surface -- 'twas --Oh, what a beautiful world it /was!//Cain./ And is.It is not with the earth, though I must till it,I feel at war, but that I may not profitBy what it bears of beautiful untoiling,Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughtsWith knowledge, nor allay my thousand fearsOf death and life./Lucifer./ What thy world is, thou seest,But canst not comprehend the shadow ofThat which it was./Cain./ And those enormous creatures,Phantoms inferior in intelligence(At least so seeming) to the things we have pass'd,Resembling somewhat the wild habitantsOf the deep woods of earth, the hugest whichRoar nightly in the forest, but tenfoldIn magnitude and terror; taller thanThe cherub-guarded walls of Eden, withEyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them,And tusks projecting like the trees stripp'd ofTheir bark and branches -- what were they?/Lucifer./ That whichThe Mammoth is in thy world; -- but these lieBy myriads underneath its surface./Cain./ ButNone on it?/Lucifer./ No: for thy frail race to warWith them would render the curse on it useless --'Twould be destroy'd so early./Cain./ But why /war?//Lucifer./ You have forgotten the denunciationWhich drove your race from Eden -- war with all things,And death to all things, and disease to most things,And pangs, and bitterness; these were the fruitsOf the forbidden tree./Cain./ But animals --Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die?/Lucifer./ Your Maker told ye, /they/ were made for you,As you for Him. -- You would not have their doomSuperior to your own? Had Adam notFallen, all had stood./Cain./ Alas! the hopeless wretches!They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons;Like them, too, without having shared the apple;Like them, too, without the so dear-bought /knowledge!/It was a lying tree -- for we /know/ nothing.At least it /promised knowledge/ at the /price/Of death -- but /knowledge/ still: but what /knows/ man?/Lucifer./ It may be death leads to the /highest/ knowledge,And being of all things the sole thing certain,At least leads to the /surest/ science: thereforeThe tree was true, though deadly./Cain./ These dim realms!I see them, but I know them not./Lucifer./ BecauseThy hour is yet afar, and matter cannotComprehend spirit wholly -- but 'tis somethingTo know there are such realms./Cain./ We knew alreadyThat there was death./Lucifer./ But not what was beyond it./Cain./ Nor know I now./Lucifer./ Thou knowest that there isA state, and many states beyond thine own --And this thou knewest not this morn./Cain./ But allSeems dim and shadowy./Lucifer./ Be content; it willSeem clearer to thine immortality./Cain./ And yon immeasurable liquid spaceOf glorious azure which floats on beyond us,Which looks like water, and which I should deemThe river which flows out of ParadisePast my own dwelling, but that it is banklessAnd boundless, and of an ethereal hue --What is it?/Lucifer./ There is still some such on earth,Although inferior, and thy children shallDwell near it -- 'tis the phantasm of an ocean./Cain./ 'Tis like another world; a liquid sun --And those inordinate creatures sporting o'erIts shining surface?/Lucifer./ Are its inhabitants;The past leviathans./Cain./ And yon immenseSerpent, which rears its dripping main and vastyHead ten times higher than the haughtiest cedarForth from the abyss, looking as he could coilHimself around the orbs we lately look'd on --Is he not of the kind which bask'd beneathThe trees of Eden?/Lucifer./ Eve, thy mother, bestCan tell what shape of serpent tempted her./Cain./ This seems too terrible. No doubt the otherHad more of beauty./Lucifer./ Hast thou ne'er beheld him?/Cain./ Many of the same kind (at least so call'd),But never that precisely which persuadedThe fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect./Lucifer./ Your father saw him not?/Cain./ No; 'twas my motherWho tempted him -- she tempted by the serpent./Lucifer./ Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy son's wives,Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange,Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted /them.//Cain./ Thy precept comes too late: there is no moreFor serpents to tempt woman to./Lucifer./ But thereAre some things still which woman may tempt man to,And man tempt woman: -- let thy sons look to it!My counsel is a kind one: for 'tis evenGiven chiefly at my own expense: 'tis true,'Twill not be follow'd, so there's little lost./Cain./ I understand not this./Lucifer./ The happier thou! --Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou thinkestThyself most wicked and unhappy: is itNot so?/Cain./ For crime, I know not; but for pain,I have felt much./Lucifer./ First-born of the first man!Thy present state of sin -- and thou art evil,Of sorrow -- and thou sufferest, are both EdenIn all its innocence compared to what/Thou/ shortly may'st be; and that state againIn its redoubled wretchedness, a ParadiseTo what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulatingIn generations like to dust (which theyIn fact but add to), shall endure and do. --Now let us back to earth!/Cain./ And wherefore didst thouLead me here only to inform me this?/Lucifer./ Was not thy quest for knowledge?/Cain./ Yes; as beingThe road to happiness./Lucifer./ If truth be so,Thou hast it./Cain./ Then my father's God did wellWhen He prohibited the fatal tree./Lucifer./ But had done better in not planting it.But ignorance of evil doth not saveFrom evil; it must still roll on the same,A part of all things./Cain./ Not of all things. No:I'll not believe it -- for I thirst for good./Lucifer./ And who and what doth not? /Who/ covets evilFor its own bitter sake? -- /None/ -- nothing! 'tisThe leaven of all life, and lifelessness./Cain./ Within those glorious orbs which we behold,Distant, and dazzling, and innumerable,Ere we came down into this phantom realm,Ill cannot come: they are too beautiful./Lucifer./ Thou hast seen them from afar --/Cain./ And what of that?Distance can but diminish glory -- they,When nearer, must be more ineffable./Lucifer./ Approach the things of earth most beautiful,And judge their beauty near./Cain./ I have done this --The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest./Lucifer./ Then there must be delusion. -- What is that,Which being nearest to thine eyes is stillMore beautiful than beauteous things remote?/Cain./ My sister Adah. -- All the stars of heaven,The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orbWhich looks a spirit, or a spirit's world --The hues of twilight -- the sun's gorgeous coming --His setting indescribable, which fillsMy eyes with pleasant tears as I beholdHim sink, and feel my heart float softly with himAlong that western paradise of clouds --The forest shade -- the green bough -- the bird's voice --The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love,And mingles with the song of cherubim,As the day closes over Eden's walls; --All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart,Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heavenTo gaze on it./Lucifer./ 'Tis fair as frail mortality,In the first dawn and bloom of young creation,And earliest embraces of earth's parents,Can make its offspring; still it is delusion./Cain./ You think so, being not her brother./Lucifer./ Mortal!My brotherhood's with those who have no children./Cain./ Then thou canst have no fellowship with us./Lucifer./ It may be that thine own shall be for me.But if thou dost possess a beautifulBeing beyond all beauty in thine eyes,Why art thou wretched?/Cain./ Why do I exist?Why art /thou/ wretched? why are all things so?Even He who made us must be, as the makerOf things unhappy! To produce destructionCan surely never be the task of joy,And yet my sire says He's omnipotent:Then why is evil -- He being good? I ask'dThis question of my father; and he said,Because this evil only was the pathTo good. Strange good, that must arise from outIts deadly opposite. I lately sawA lamb stung by a reptile: the poor sucklingLay foaming on the earth, beneath the vainAnd piteous bleating of its restless dam;My father pluck'd some herbs, and laid them toThe wound; and by degrees the helpless wretchResumed its careless life, and rose to drainThe mother's milk, who o'er it tremulousStood licking its reviving limbs with joy.Behold, my son! said Adam, how from evilSprings good!/Lucifer./ What didst thou answer?/Cain./ Nothing; forHe is my father: but I thought, that 'twereA better portion for the animalNever to have been /stung at all,/ than toPurchase renewal of its little lifeWith agonies unutterable, thoughDispell'd by antidotes./Lucifer./ But as thou said'stOf all beloved things thou lovest herWho shared thy mother's milk, and giveth hersUnto thy children --/Cain./ Most assuredly:What should I be without her?/Lucifer./ What am I?/Cain./ Dost thou love nothing?/Lucifer./ What does thy God love?/Cain./ All things, my father says; but I confessI see it not in their allotment here./Lucifer./And, therefore, thou canst not see if /I/ loveOr no, except some vast and general purpose,To which particular things must melt like snows./Cain./ Snows! what are they?/Lucifer./ Be happier in not knowingWhat thy remoter offspring must encounter;But bask beneath the clime which knows no winter!/Cain./ But dost thou not love something like thyself?/Lucifer./ And dost thou love /thyself?//Cain./ Yes, but love moreWhat makes my feelings more endurable,And is more than myself, because I love it./Lucifer./ Thou lovest it, because 'tis beautiful,As was the apple in thy mother's eye;And when it ceases to be so, thy loveWill cease, like any other appetite./Cain./ Cease to be beautiful! how can that be?/Lucifer./ With time./Cain./ But time has past, and hithertoEven Adam and my mother both are fair:Not fair like Adah and the seraphim --But very fair./Lucifer./ All that must pass awayIn them and her./Cain./ I'm sorry for it; butCannot conceive my love for her the less.And when her beauty disappears, methinksHe who creates all beauty will lose moreThan me in seeing perish such a work./Lucifer./ I pity thee who lovest what must perish./Cain./ And I thee, who lov'st nothing./Lucifer./ And thy brother --Sits he not near thy heart?/Cain./ Why should he not?/Lucifer./ Thy father loves him well -- so does thy God./Cain./ And so do I./Lucifer./ 'Tis well and meekly done./Cain./ Meekly!/Lucifer./ He is the second born of flesh,And is his mother's favourite./Cain./ Let him keepHer favour, since the serpent was the firstTo win it./Lucifer./ And his father's?/Cain./ What is thatTo me? should I not love that which all love?/Lucifer./ And the Jehovah -- the indulgent Lord,And bounteous planter of barr'd Paradise --He, too, looks smilingly on Abel./Cain./ INe'er saw Him, and I know not if He smiles./Lucifer./ But you have seen His angels./Cain./ Rarely./Lucifer./ ButSufficiently to see they love your brother:/His/ sacrifices are acceptable./Cain./ So be they! wherefore speak to me of this?/Lucifer./ Because thou hast thought of this ere now./Cain./ And ifI /have/ thought, why recall a thought that -- /(hepauses, as agitated)/ -- Spirit!/Here/ we are in /thy/ world: speak not of /mine./Thou hast shewn me wonders; thou has shewn me thoseMighty pre-Adamites who walk'd the earthOf which ours is the wreck; thou hast pointed outMyriads of starry worlds, of which our ownIs the dim and remote companion, inInfinity of life: thou hast shewn me shadowsOf that existence with the dreaded nameWhich my sire brought us -- Death; thou hast shewn me much --But not all: shew me where Jehovah dwells,In His special Paradise -- or /thine./Where is it?/Lucifer./ /Here,/ and o'er all space./Cain./ But yeHave some allotted dwelling -- as all things;Clay has its earth, and other worlds their tenants;All temporary breathing creatures theirPeculiar element; and things which haveLong ceased to breathe /our/ breath, have theirs, thou say'st;And the Jehovah and thyself have thine --Ye do not dwell together?/Lucifer./ No, we reignTogether; but our dwellings are asunder./Cain./ Would there were only one of ye! PerchanceAn unity of purpose might make unionIn elements which seem now jarr'd in storms.How came ye, being spirits, wise and infinite,To separate? Are ye not as brethren inYour essence, and your nature, and your glory?/Lucifer./ Art thou not Abel's brother?/Cain./ We are brethren,And so we shall remain; but were it not so,Is spirit like to flesh? can it fall out?Infinity with Immortality?Jarring and turning space to misery --For what?/Lucifer./ To reign./Cain./ Did ye not tell me thatYe are both eternal?/Lucifer./ Yea!/Cain./ And what I have seen,Yon blue immensity, is boundless?/Lucifer./ Ay./Cain./ And cannot ye both /reign/ then? -- is there notEnough? -- why should ye differ?/Lucifer./ We /both/ reign./Cain./ But one of you makes evil./Lucifer./ Which?/Cain./ Thou! forIf thou canst do man good, why dost thou not?/Lucifer./ And why not He who made? /I/ made ye not:Ye are /His/ creatures, and not mine./Cain./ Then leave us/His/ creatures, as thou say'st we are, or shew meThy dwelling, or His dwelling./Lucifer./ I could shew theeBoth; but the time will come thou shalt see oneOf them forevermore./Cain./ And why not now?/Lucifer./ Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to gatherThe little I have shewn thee into calmAnd clear thought; and thou wouldst go on aspiringTo the great double Mysteries! the /two Principles!/And gaze upon them on their secret thrones!Dust! limit thy ambition; for to seeEither of these, would be for thee to perish!/Cain./ And let me perish, so I see them!/Lucifer./ ThereThe son of her who snatch'd the apple spake!But thou wouldst only perish, and not see them;That sight is for the other state./Cain./ Of death?/Lucifer./ That is the prelude./Cain./ Then I dread it less,Now that I know it leads to something definite./Lucifer./ And now I will convey thee to thy world,Where thou shalt multiply the race of Adam,Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep, and die./Cain./ And to what end have I beheld these thingsWhich thou hast shewn me?/Lucifer./ Didst thou not requireKnowledge? And have I not, in what I shew'd,Taught thee to know thyself?/Lucifer./ Alas! I seemNothing./Lucifer./ And this should be the human sumOf knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness:Bequeath that science to thy children, and'Twill spare them many tortures./Cain./ Haughty spirit!Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, though proud,Hast a superior./Lucifer./ No! by heaven, which HeHolds, and the abyss, and the immensityOf worlds and life, which I hold with Him -- No!I have a victor -- true; but no superior.Homage He has from all -- but none from me:I battle it against Him, as I battledIn highest heaven. Through all eternity,And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades,And the interminable realms of space,And the infinity of endless ages,All, all, will I dispute! And world by world,And star by star, and universe by universe,Shall tremble in the balance, till the greatConflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease,Which it ne'er shall, till He or I be quench'd!And what can quench our immortality,Or mutual and irrevocable hate?He as a conqueror will call the conquer'd/Evil;/ but what will be the /good/ He gives?Were I the victor, /His/ works would be deem'dThe only evil ones. And you, ye newAnd scarce-born mortals, what have been His giftsTo you already, in your little world?/Cain./ But few! and some of those but bitter./Lucifer./ BackWith me, then, to thine earth, and try the restOf his celestial boons to you and yours.Evil and good are things in their own essence,And not made good or evil by the giver;But if He gives you good -- so call Him; ifEvil springs from /Him,/ do not name it /mine,/Till ye know better its true fount; and judgeNot by words, though of spirits, but the fruitsOf your existence, such as it must be./One good/ gift has the fatal apple given --Your /reason:/ -- let it not be over-sway'dBy tyrannous threats to force you into faith'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling:Think and endure -- and form an inner worldIn your own bosom -- where the outward fails;So shall you nearer be the spiritualNature, and war triumphant with your own. [They disappear.] 
Links:Domestic Pieces:Poetry: Lord Byron - Domestic Pieces - Part 1 - Fare thee well... - A Sketch - Bio - LinksPoetry: Lord Byron - Domestic Pieces - Part 2 - Stanzas to Augusta 1-2 - Epistle to Augusta - LinksPoetry: Lord Byron - Domestic Pieces - Part 2 - Lines - Well. Thou Art Happy - LinksThe Corsair: Poetry: Lord Byron - The Corsair - Canto I - Links to more Byron Poetry: Lord Byron - The Corsair - Canto II - Links to more ByronPoetry: Lord Byron - The Corsair - Canto III - Links to more ByronOthers:Poetry: Lord Byron - The Waltz - An apostrophic Hymn - Complete - LinksPoetry: Lord Byron - English bards and Scotch reviewers - Complete - Links to more Byron Theatre:Theatre: Lord Byron - Cain - Part I - Act I-II - Scene I - Closet Drama - Links Theatre: Lord Byron - Cain - Part II - Scene II - Closet Drama - Links Ricardo M Marcenaro - FacebookBlogs in operation of The Solitary Dog:Solitary Dog Sculptor:http://byricardomarcenaro.blogspot.comSolitary Dog Sculptor I:http://byricardomarcenaroi.blogspot.comPara:comunicarse conmigo,enviar materiales para publicar,propuestas comerciales:marcenaroescultor@gmail.comFor:contact me,submit materials for publication,commercial proposals:marcenaroescultor@gmail.comDiario La NaciónArgentinaCuenta Comentarista en el Foro:CapiscumMy blogs are an open house to all cultures, religions and countries. Be a follower if you like it, with this action you are building a new culture of tolerance, open mind and heart for peace, love and human respect.Thanks :)Mis blogs son una casa abierta a todas las culturas, religiones y países. Se un seguidor si quieres, con esta acción usted está construyendo una nueva cultura de la tolerancia, la mente y el corazón abiertos para la paz, el amor y el respeto humano.Gracias :)Source:http://byricardomarcenaro.blogspot.com/2013/08/theatre-lord-byron-cain-part-ii-scene.html
Theatre: Lord Byron - Cain - Part II - Scene II - Closet Drama - Links Images
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