Classic Poem

" MANKIND alone, to whom I've freely given
All blessings that I know how to bestow —
Mankind alone, whom I have so devised
And made that he toward Heaven turns his face —
Mankind alone, whom I have brought to birth
Bearing the very likeness of his God —
Mankind alone, for whom I toil and moil,
Who is the very culmination of my work,
Who has no more, except what I have given,
As to his body, in his trunk and limbs,
Than what a ball of pomander would buy,
And, as to soul, but just one single thing:
For, as I may assert who am his dame,
He has from me in body and in soul
Three energies — existence, feeling, life —
Of great advantage to the wretch if he
Were wise and good, for he's provided well
With all the good things God has placed on earth —
Companion he to creatures everywhere
And sharer of the blessings they enjoy —
Being he owns in common with the stones;
Life he enjoys in common with the herbs;
Feeling he has in common with the beasts;
Thinking in common with the angel host
He has, excelling all the others thus
(What more need I enumerate of him?)
He has whatever humans can conceive;
He is a microcosm in himself —
Yet worse than any wolf cub uses me.
" Man's understanding I well recognize
As something not provided him by me;
My jurisdiction does not stretch to that.
I'm neither wise nor powerful enough
To make a creature so intelligent.
Whate'er I make is mortal; I create
Nothing that lasts throughout eternity
Plato gives testimony when he speaks
Of my domain and of the deathless gods.
They're kept by their Creator, and maintained
Eternally, and by His will alone;
For they would die if not sustained by Him.
" Perishable are Nature's works," he says;
" Her power is but obscure and weak, compared
To that of God, who in His presence sees,
In one eternal moment, present, past,
And future — triple temporality."
God is the king and emperor who tells
The other gods that He their father is,
According to the words that Plato wrote,
Which in modern tongue this signify:
" O gods, I am your maker and your sire;
Creator and the God of gods am I;
You are my creatures and my handiwork;
By Nature you are mortal, but I make
My works to be immortal by my will;
For nothing made by Nature can but fail,
In season due, however carefully
She fashion it; but whatsoever God
Joins and rules with good intelligence
Is wise and good and strong without a flaw;
He never willed nor wills that it dissolve
Or to corruption come. So I conclude
That, though you had by your Creator's will
Beginning of your being, and by that
Engendered were and formed, and still are kept
And will be kept, yet not completely you
Are freed from dissolution and from death;
For I should see you dying, one and all,
If I did not sustain you. You would die
By nature if I did not will your life.
My will has jurisdiction o'er the threads
Of life for you, which bind your being fast;
Thence comes your hope of immortality."
" This is the substance of what Plato wrote,
Who better far might dare to write of God,
Since he more prized and feared Him, than might all
The rest of worldly old philosophers.
But certainly he could not say enough;
For he could never fully understand
The mystery that could not be explained
Till comprehended in the virgin womb.
Yet doubtless she whose womb was swollen thus
Knew more of it than even Plato could;
For just as soon as she perceived she bore
That comfortable weight, she knew that it
Must be that marvelous, eternal sphere
Whose center would be fixed in every place
But whose circumference would nowhere be;
She knew it was the mystic triangle
Whose angles superpose in unity
So that the three are one and one is three.
Triangular the circle is, or else
The triangle is round, that found a home
Within the Virgin. Plato did not know
So much as that; no trinal unity
In that most simple trinity he saw
(Nor deity hid in a human skin).
It was the God who Maker calls Himself
Who planned and formed the intelligence of man
And gave it to him. How was God repaid?
Most badly, for man thought he could deceive
His God, though really he deceived himself.
Because of this my Lord came to His death,
Having, without my aid, assumed man's flesh,
To rescue that poor wretch from punishment.
I know not how, without me, He became
A mortal man, except that His command's
Omnipotent; and much I was amazed
When He was of the Virgin Mary born,
And then, incarnate, hanged upon the cross
For wretched man; since it could never be
By Nature that a virgin could give birth.
And yet by Jews and Paynims, formerly,
This incarnation had been prophesied
To ease men's hearts and give them greater faith
That what was prophesied would come to pass.
In Vergil's books, Bucolics called, we read
The Sibyl's saying, by the Holy Ghost
Inspired, " New lineage has now been sent
From Heaven above to us on earth below,
Upon the proper road to set the feet
Of such men as have gone astray, and end
The iron age and bring the age of gold."
And even Albumazer testifies
That he knew well that in the virgin sign
A worthy maiden should be born, who'd be
A virgin and a mother both at once
And give her father suck, and lie beside
Her husband, who'd not know her carnally.
He who will seek in Albumazer's book,
Where 'twill be found ready to meet his eye,
May read this statement. Therefore Christian folk
Every September hold a holiday
Commemorating that nativity.
" Jesus, our Lord, knows how I've worked for man,
As what I've said would indicate. I've had
That labor for the wretch; he is the end
And consummation of my work. And yet
The traitorous renegade is satisfied
With nothing I can do, and he alone
Thinks he's ill paid. Against my rules he works.
What further can I say? What is the use?
I've honored him more than I can recount,
Yet countless and immeasurable shames
He heaps upon me, thus repaying me!
Fair chaplain, gentle priest, is it then right
That I should reverence and love a wretch
Whom I have found in such a way of life?
Therefore, so help me God the Crucified,
I much regret that e'er I made mankind.
But, by the death He suffered on the Cross
Whom Judas kissed, Longinus pierced with lance,
Man's fall I will recount before that God
Who when he first was in God's image made
Gave him to me, since that he thwarts me so.
As I'm a woman, I cannot keep still
But will tell all, for women naught conceal.
I'll shame him as he ne'er was shamed before.
Evil the day when he deserted me!
His vices I'll recite, and tell the truth.
" Man is a boastful thief and murderer —
A tricky felon, covetous and mean —
A glutton, evil-mouthed and desperate —
A hateful, spiteful, lying miscreant —
An envious forger and a perjured fool —
A changeful, silly, vain idolater —
Disgusting traitor and false hypocrite —
A lazy sodomite. In brief, the wretch
So simple is he makes himself a slave
To all the vices — gives them harborage,
And of them forges chains more strong than steel.
Does he not purchase death who to such sins
Devotes himself? And since all things must go
Back to their source, when man shall stand before
His Maker, whom he should forever serve
And honor with his best ability,
And keep himself from sin, how can he dare
To look his Lord and Master in the face?
And with what eye will He who is the Judge
Regard mankind, disloyal proved to be
Toward Him, and found to be in such default,
Poor wretch, whose heart is so infirm and weak
That with his talent he can do no good?
Saving their honors, both the small and great
Do but the very worst that they know how,
As if together they had sworn an oath;
But honor is not saved to anyone
By such a vow, which should instead result
In death or suffering or worldly shame.
What can the caitiff think when he reviews
His crimes as he shall stand before the Judge
Whose sentence none can circumvent or dodge,
Who sums and weighs all things in equity
And does no wrong? What fate can he expect
Except a halter knotted at his throat
To drag him to be miserably hanged
Upon a gibbet tree in deepest Hell,
Where first he will be bound in iron chains
Welded to an adamantine ring
Before the prince of all the lower world?
There in a caldron he will scalded be,
Or roasted front and back on glowing coals
Or on a grill, or pinned like Ixion
Upon an ever-turning, sharp-edged wheel
With heavy spikes, propelled by demon paws;
Or else with thirst and hunger put to death,
Pinioned in a swamp like Tantalus,
Who stood in water reaching to his chin,
But, howsoever much he suffered thirst,
Could ne'er succeed to reach it with his lips
Because it lowered as toward it he bent,
And who with hunger sorely was oppressed
Yet could not be appeased, but died insane,
Since he could never reach the apple hung
Before his nose because it always rose
Whene'er he tried to seize it with his teeth;
Or ceaselessly employed like Sisyphus,
Compelled to roll forever up a hill
A millstone which as oft rolled down again
And must be sought anew and upward rolled;
Or made to fill a barrel bottomless
And so unfillable, as, for their sins,
The Danaides were compelled to do.
You know, fair Genius, how the vulture tore
At Tityus' liver, nor could be driven off;
And there are many other punishments
Cruel and vile and great, to which mankind
Will be subjected, and I'll be revenged
By all their tribulation and great pain,
Their awful torture, and their suffering.
If He who judges every word and deed
Were merciful alone, then laudable
And right would be the loans of usurers;
But He is ever just and to be feared
By those who enter on the sinful path.
" I leave to God the sins with which mankind
Is fouled; He'll punish as it pleases Him,
Or let the wretches exculpate themselves.
As for the ones of whom Love makes complaint,
Which I indeed have heard, these I myself,
As best I can, denounce, and should denounce,
Since they refuse the tribute they should pay,
Which all, so long as they enjoy my tools
Have owed, and owe, and evermore will owe to me. "