Collected Poems

1 THE BONDAGE

SO Joseph came to die, in some pain, dreaming he was lying

On a thorny bed called Canaan (drought and famine

And they went into Egypt and in Egypt they prospered),

Being a hundred and ten years old, and they embalmed him,

And he was put in a coffin in Egypt, being a

Prince of Egypt, the Israelite Joseph a prince of

Egypt. So Joseph died, the pain passing,

Smiling on the fulfilment: Egypt the promised land,

Brown tough shepherds and plump laughing wives

And son like swords and daughters like date-trees,

Children tumbling like lambs, the benison of mud.

Not all shepherds and shepherds’ wives –

Some rose high, though not so high as Joseph,

Becoming priests of the gods, Egypt having many gods,

Officers with seals of their office, officers

On horseback leading troops, gentlemen,

Ladies, but mostly men and women in the

Good air of the delta, lambs and children frisking.

And the children of Israel were fruitful and increased abundantly,

And multiplied, and waxed exceeding mighty,

And the land was filled with them, filled with the

Tribe of Jacob and of Reuben, Simeon, Levi,

Judah, Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin,

Dan, Naphtali, Gad, Asher,

The tribes keeping their distance one from another,

But all with a memory of a dead land called Canaan

And of a dead prince of god of Egypt called Joseph.

Now there arose up a new king over Egypt,

Which knew not Joseph

Behold, the people of the children of Israel

Are more and mightier than we.

The great intellectual eroded face of the Pharaoh,

The tired eroded voice, the wasted body in gold cloth,

The ringed claws grasping the sphinx-arms

Of the pharaonic throne, aromatic gums asmoke,

Slaves with feather-fans, effigies, effigies,

All empty-eyed. The councillors listened.

‘Their men are bursting with seed. Their women

Are round like fruit. Their encampments are loud

With the bleating of children. They multiply, multiply.’

A councillor said: ‘Your divine majesty

Has some immediate danger in mind?’ And Pharaoh:

‘War. Should there be war

With some alien people, might not these

Aliens in our midst join with our enemies.

Immediate danger. Let danger be always immediate.

It is a sound thesis. Let us defend ourselves

Before we are attacked.’ And another councillor:

‘Your divine majesty’s immediate orders?’

‘I specify nothing,’ Pharaoh said. ‘I say:

Deal wisely with them. Use – immediate wisdom.’

So immediate wisdom, in the dust of hooves

And the shine of metal, thundered into the sheep-shearing.

The pipe faltered and the song ceased and the dance,

Israelite mouths open in wonder and fear

As the captain in metal looked about him, taking his time,

Picking at length on one: ‘You. Yes, you. Your name?’

The man drew his wife and son and daughter to him, saying:

‘Amram. Of the tribe of Levi.’ And the captain:

‘Pay heed, Amram, of the tribe of Levi. You,

Your wife, your son, your daughter, your beasts and chattels,

All that is yours, these from this day stand confiscate

And are given up to the power of Egypt. In the name of

Horus the god, ruler of the world of the living

And of the dead.’ He signalled abruptly and

The ravaging began: the soldiers, going baaaaaah,

Herding the men and women and children like sheep

While the sheep ran bleating in disorder, foodstores trampled,

Tents fired, garments torn, and Amram cried: ‘Why? Why?’

And the grinning captain answered: ‘Immediate wisdom.’

Therefore did they set over them taskmasters

To afflict them with their burdens.

And they were set to build for Pharaoh treasure-cities,

And the names of the cities were Ra’amses and Pithom.

Amram was surprised, pushed down the dusty street

Of Pithom with wife and family, that the enslavement

Had already gone so far: Israelites

Of other tribes long-settled, ready to laugh

At a wavering old man, a newcomer, who cried out:

‘You can’t cram us in here like so many

Dates in a jar. We’re shepherds. We live on the

Open plains. Shut us up here and we’ll die.’ –

‘Oh no, not die,’ jabbed a soldier. ‘Work, you’ll work.’

Work, and a whip cracked. The quarters were overcrowded,

Suitable for slaves. Amram at the door, shy, said:

‘Jochebed, my wife, and my son Aaron and

Miriam my daughter, and I am Amram of the

Tribe of Levi.’ A woman said: ‘Woman of the

Tribe of Levi, help me to help yourselves to a

Little space. A very little.’ A blind old man

Groped through the noise and smells and dark towards Amram:

Ah, a good fresh smell of shepherd. Share this

Bit of bread with me, take it, go on. I’d say

That Egyptian food is good food, not that I

See much of it, not that I

See much. Near-blind and old, no good as a worker.

The workers get all. Where are you from then?’

Amram: ‘From the vale of Shefru.’ – ‘I’d say you were a

Liar. I’d say the tribe of Levi was

Never in Shefru.’ And Amram, patiently:

‘My father was Cheat, my father’s father was Levi.

Do you follow me? My father’s father was

Levi the son of Jacob.’ And the old man: ‘I’d

Say that was a possible story. Me and my family,

We’re from the tribe of Gad. But you’ll find a

Lot of the tribes all mashed together here –

Benjamin, Reuben, Zebulon – a lot of tribes and

All slaves. I’d say there was a sort of mystery in it,

The twelve tribes brought together at last. But in

Slavery, as it’s called. I’d say that he was

Laughing at us, it, if he exists that is, you know, the

Old one, older than me, the

God of Abraham, as they call him.‘Where the children were playing

There was a cry and a rattling of little stones

On the clay floor: Miriam, daughter of Amram,

Had pulled a necklace from the neck of an

Older girl, crying: ‘It’s sinful. To wear a thing like that.

An Egyptian thing.’ Tears and reproaches and the

Mothers and fathers stepping in, but Aaron grinned.

‘Grin, then,’ cried Miriam. ‘Grin in your slavery.

But he – ’ And she ran to her mother, putting her head

To her mother’s belly to hear the heartbeat within.

‘He would not grin, he – ’ A woman nodded and said:

‘So that’s the way of it. I wondered.’ And Jochebed:

‘I thought he would be born in Tabris, in the pastures.

We would have been there in three fullnesses of the moon,

At the forest of Nisim.’ – ‘He, you said. You seem sure.’

And the blind old man: ‘All babies are called

He before they’re born. And some of them

Afterwards too.’ He did not understand the laughter,

Turning his open mouth, like an eye, to the laughter.

Laughter in a place of slaves but in the place of

Royal divinity no laughter. Aromatic oil-lamps,

Shadows, effigies, a cross-legged scribe

Reading to the Pharaoh, Pharaoh cutting in to say:

‘The sons of the men of the sand. The name diminishes them.

But they are not diminished.’ Dutiful smiles

From the assembled councillors. ‘Continue reading.’

‘Majesty. They came from the land of Canaan,

Driven by famine and plague. In Egypt sought they

Grain and pasture, and behold they found them both.

Their sons and their sons’ sons grow fat and

Multiply in the houses of the lord of the house of

Life, the house of death. They multiply and are become

An immense multitude. In order that they may not,

In the event of war, unite with our enemies …’

The sentence unfinished, the stylus poised. Pharaoh:

‘So it is written, so shall our

Posterity read it. But the sentence is unfinished,

The stylus poised. Let me hear,’ and he looked at them, ‘wisdom.’

There was a pause. The head councillor said:

‘This present mode of oppression is clearly

Inefficacious. As I see it, the tribes of Israel,

Mingled together in slavery as they now are,

Lose each its special code of law and restraint.

Constrained from above, they are grown loose beneath.

Lechery, adultery, incest. They grow loose.

They grow. This zest for breeding – it is the mark of

An animal race. They couple like dogs of the desert.’

But the Pharaoh said, and they had to strain to hear him:

‘And we – we glory in stability, changelessness, power.

Along comes the god of death and says: Behold,

I am all these things. The sentence stands unfinished.

Let the sentence now be pronounced.’ The poised stylus

Dove to the tablet. ‘Every son that is born

Shall be cast into the river. But every daughter

Shall be saved alive.’ The scribe looked up at that.

So it was rods and whips and the occasional

Salutary thrust of the spear that held them back,

The wailing and cursing, as the farm-carts filled

With wailing babies. It became a game,

On Nile bank, to see who could throw the furthest,

Bets laid, but some of the soldiers were sick,

And not only on a won bet of a jar of palm-wine.

They’re things, man, no more, go on, throw. They threw.

It was a long business. General commanding commanded

A free day and an extra beer ration. They threw,

Some of them, in their sleep. And then calm,

Nile unperturbed, birdsong, a gorgeous day

As the princess came down to the river, a cortège

Of priests intoning:

Lord of the river and of the quickening mud

Whence all manner of lowly things are brought to birth,

Bring to thy servant the gift of fecundity,

That she may not be despised among the daughters of earth,

And the worth of her birth be matched by the worth of thy gift.

Lift her, O river lord, to the ranks of the mothers.

The ritual disrobing: the golden headpiece lifted

To disclose a painful baldness, then the silks

Whistling away from scars, emaciation

On slenderness otherwise comely, framed in

Palms and stonework, royalty unimpaired

By the absurd daubing of Nile mud, the carven

Beauty of the face unmoved, unmoved still

As the filthy rite proceeded, ended, the silks

Were laid to the ulcered flesh, the golden headpiece

Restored, and, to a wordless chant with the rising

Notes of hope in it, the cortège left the river.

The river flowed clear, save for lotus and riverweed,

But then the first of the infant corpses appeared,

Floating downstream.

There had been no craft,

Or perhaps cruelty had its limit, to snatch out the foetus

And examine its sex. So Jochebed came to her time,

Groaning in their corner of a hovel of heavy sleep,

And Amram kneeling anxious by her, each cry of her pain

Forcing him to stifle it with his hand:

‘Forgive me, my love. Forgive me. Someone may hear.

I trust no one.’ And some of the sleepers stirred,

Dreaming perhaps of a dead son, then resettled.

One of the sleepers awoke and came softly to him,

And he started, but it was his daughter Miriam.

‘There is a sort of shed a little way off,

Full of mattocks and brick-moulds. It must be there.’

He nodded. It was a heavy task, under the moon, dogs baying.

The deformed door creaked. ‘A space under that cart.’

Her agony mounted, Miriam looked wide-eyed, and then

He came out on the flood, crying to the world. As in response

The feet of a patrol could be heard on cobbles

Not too far off, soldiers marching in moonlight

And that cry going out, moonlight flooding his sex.

Sing, Miriam prayed and, as in response,

The soldiers sang, and the dirty song was a blessing:

Here’s the way

We earn our pay

Who’s the enemy we slay?

Baby Israelites if they

Have balls between their legs

That’s no way

To earn your pay

We would rather any day

Take their mothers and then lay

Our balls between their legs

Amram in wonder held the howling child in his arms,

In agony and joy for a second son. And yet, how, how –

‘None comes here,’ Miriam said. ‘I know. And if any comes,

I shall be in the way of his coming. It must be three

Roundings of the moon. I shall sit here and guard

And I shall weave.’ Weave? She wove out of bulrushes

And parried queries in the sun. But where did she go?

To the house of a cousin, just north of Pithom.

And when will she return? She still has fever.

She sends greeting but begs that none come near her.

The fever is catching. What is that thing you weave?

A basket. A cage. A cage for doves. A cage indeed.

A cage within a cage. When the cage was finished,

Miriam took it, eager-eyed, to her mother

And the three-month child, milk bubbling on his lip,

And said: ‘Listen.’ And Jochebed listened in wonder.

But it was in fear, in working daylight, that Miriam

Carried her cradle or ark to the Nile, opening it

Often and often as she sped through the meadows

To cluck at the child, to whisper ‘Can you breathe’?

The river’s weedy length no longer carried

Human corpses. Rats swam, a fish smote the surface and snapped.

And then a cage of bones, a child’s bones. She wept,

Heard an ass bray, started, then was able to smile,

Then to laugh. ‘Be brave’, she whispered. ‘You have much to do.’

The baby cried and she hushed him. Then a voice asked:

‘What have you in there?’ A man’s voice. From her crouch

She saw strong legs, hair, leather, a countryman

With a bag and leather bottle, the face stupid

But not unkind. ‘My things’, she said. ‘My treasure.’

He laughed, and the ass brayed, and the laughter of ladies

Could now be heard, downstream. ‘Treasure,’ he brayed,

Moving off, then whistled a dog. She, from the reeds,

Watched covertly. Downstream, ladies playing at ball.

And then a deep drum from within the

Palace gardens, it must be, and a male chant

As of some holy procession coming. The ladies quietened,

Made moues at each other, then scattered through green.

Then Miriam saw a lady immensely tall,

A gold headpiece, silks liquid in the sun,

Well-attended, languid priestesses, they must be,

And burly priests, coming slowly to the river, intoning:

You who nourish the reed and tamarind,

The date-palm and the pepper-tree,

From whose mud the crocodile breeds,

Many-toothed, tough as a chariot…

And it was at that moment that Miriam saw a child’s corpse,

Ravaged by rats, float drunkenly downstream. It was the

Moment of courage, to answer the dead with the living,

And delicately consigned the bulrush cage or cradle

To the waters. The princess, she must be, said, seeing

In revulsion that bloated and bitten cadaver,

‘You address the river as a river of life. Leave me.’

They waited, unsure. ‘Leave me, leave me.’ And they left,

Save for her, it must be, waiting-woman, maid.

‘Live,’ whispered Miriam, ‘live.’ A current took the

Cage, cradle, ark, and swirled it shoreward,

Into the reeds. The lady saw. The ladies saw. The

Princess, it must be, said: ‘That. What is it? Go in and

Bring it to me. Quick, before the river

Takes it again.’ And it was so. To what or whom,

Miriam wondered, did one pray now? She prayed to the

Infant now passing from arms to arms, yelling hard

Against the melting wall of surprise: Let them that would kill

Preserve and nourish. More. The royal river

Gives you to a royal house. A prince in Egypt.

Joseph was a prince in Egypt. They were lost in green,

The child’s crying, the ladies’ cooing. Miriam’s task

Was not yet done. She left the river. In the royal garden

A twitter of ladies (who is he where is he from wellfed

Look at those ringlets of fat why is he here who is his

Mother the Nile is his father anyway) about the arms of the

Princess, hushing him, saying to him not to cry, singing:

Out of the desert the wind blows strong

But cool but cool from out of the sea

The desert burns and the day is long…

‘He is hungry.’ She stopped, they turned to the source of the voice,

Miriam standing boldly at the fringe of the garden,

An empty vase in her hands (a servant to get flowers,

No questions asked). ‘He is good. He only cries

When he is hungry.’ And then the flurry of who are you

Who let you in here call the guards. But the princess:

‘Wait.’ They desisted. ‘Come here, girl.’ She came,

Uneasy but without deference. ‘You know this little child?’

Miriam: ‘I am an Israelite. We know no

Men children. The Egyptians kill them at birth.’

‘How do you know this child is a boy?’ No answer.

‘Do you know his mother?’ And Miriam said boldly:

‘I know many mothers who weep for their sons. Whose

Breasts are heavy with milk.’ And the princess:

‘You mean you can find me a nurse among the Israelites?’

‘Yes. One who weeps and whose

Breasts are heavy with milk.’ The princess was eager:

‘Bring her. For my son. For he is my son.

And his father is the Nile. His name shall be

Moses. Meaning my son.’ But Miriam, full of light, said:

‘Meaning, in our tongue: I have brought him forth.’

And she sped back to Pithom for Jochebed. A royal summons.

The eyes of the other women narrowed. Why? What?

What is this about? Saying more, seeing

Daughter and mother leave and the mother, fevered so long,

So heavy-breasted. But the princess said

(And Jochebed had no eyes for the garden, only the marble,

Effigies, effigies, only for the one she suckled):

‘What is your name?’

‘Does your breast hurt you?’

‘I am sorry that your little boy

Died.’ But Miriam, bold, said: ‘Was killed.’

And the princess: ‘We – mothers cannot easily understand

High state policy. We are the givers of life,

Daughters of the sun. Men turn their backs on the sun

To build labyrinths out of the light. The labyrinths

Breed strange monsters. These become the

Gods of darkness. Men love their dark gods.’

The ladies look at her strangely. Heresy? The leavings of

Some ancient faith, destroyed because inconvenient,

Hence heresy? But the princess said to Jochebed:

‘You will come back. In four hours time.

And you will keep coming back until he has

No further need of you. When he has done with your breast,

He shall be wholly mine. You will forget him.

Entirely. Completely. For ever. My son.

You will be paid, of course. One of you, pay her.’

A coin in her unwilling hand, a coin in

Amram’s hand, a gold coin in Pithom. And the women said:

‘She sold her child to the Egyptians. To save him.

Why should her child be saved and none of ours?

Cunning. What is so special about her son that he

He should be saved? She sold her child for

Money. Whores sell their children,

Whores.’ A man said whore at Jochebed,

And she said nothing. Another spat in her path.

Amram said nothing. And then he said, to Jochebed:

‘What name have they given him?’ She shrugged, saying:

‘Moses.’ Moses. Amram tasted the name,

Not liking it much. It was not the name

That he would have given the boy. Miriam said, full of light:

‘Meaning, in our tongue, I have brought him forth.’

They looked at her strangely, a strange girl, full of

Strange imaginings, not like other girls. Moses, then.

Mouths round on the name, they went in to supper.

Corn mash, garlic, dates, beer. A gold coin

Useless in Pithom. I have brought him forth.

2 THE YOUNG MOSES

And she whom he called mother came to die.

During dalliance in a royal garden, close to sunset,

He thought he heard, raising his lips from the

Offered lips to listen. The girl teased:

‘You hear bats. You hear fieldmice. You hear locusts.

But you always hear them at the wrong time – ’

‘I thought,’ he said, ‘I heard,’ frowning, ‘my mother – ’

‘My mother,’ in mockery gentle enough, and she tried to

Pull his mouth down to hers, he resisted, she pouted.

He rose and ran, she running after, laughing,

Through green mazes, reaching cool stone, effigies,

Effigies, the palace of the princess. The princess

Lay in cool gloom, a jewel, muted by the gloom,

In a bone cage that had been hands, her voice muted,

Saying: ‘Give this to her, send her away, you will have

Many jewels, many girls to give them to. But to-

Night there is one girl who must say, must say:

Where is my lord? I am taken from him. She is

Lingering outside. I can smell desire and life.

Take it to her.’ So he took it to where she waited,

Plump among the effigies, and she snatched it, saying:

‘What is it worth?’ And he: ‘If it were worth all the

Gold of the king’s,’ smiling, ‘goldmines – ’

‘I know, I know, it could not be so precious

As our night together. Which we shall not have.’

Pouting, then smiling, fingering her jewel.

‘I shall be hungry tonight for your hands.’ Thinking already

Of other hands, but then only of his hands,

For there were no hands like his in all Egypt.

He left her, taking those hands to the mother’s body,

Hands of a healer, saying as he kneaded kneaded

Gently: ‘The body. Is a mystery. Like the heavens.

If we could turn for a moment. The skin.

The flesh. To glass. Then we could see the.

Wonders of the streets. Of the city within.

The streets are sometimes roaring. With evil invaders.

Then we talk. Of a sickness. Here are two roads.

That lead to the. Citadel of your lungs. If I could

Clear those. Infested ways. You would be

Well again.’ And she said, lulled: ‘They tell me

That you love wisdom, but not all the time. Your senses

Get in the way of thought. You hear bats and fieldmice

Crying. They say that you become impatient.’

And Moses, rapt in the office his hand performed:

‘Impatient. Sometimes. They say that the

Wisdom of Egypt is. Complete and sealed. That there is

No new wisdom. To be learned. The death of a

Man. Means more than the. Birth of a. Child.

For what new wisdom. Can the. Child bring to the

World? Egypt looks to the. End. The closure. The

Seal.’ And she: ‘You do not see things as an

Egyptian does, as a true Egyptian does. They want

Certainty. Death is all too certain – ’

‘If it is so. Certain why is it not. More simple?

It is expressed though. So many gods. Hawk-faced.

Dog-headed. Crocodile-toothed. It is a. Darkness.

Full of monsters.’ And she: ‘When I was a girl,

I remember, there were men who taught a simple faith.

A faith of the sun, which it seemed right to worship,

The lifegiver. The men were heard for a time,

Then soon not even heard of.’ And he, half to himself,

Lulled by his own hands’ ministry: ‘The wise men.

Have taught me to see. Beauty in the many. Beautiful.

Death in the many. Forms of death. Could there not be a

Light that is not. The sun. But which the sun. Uses?’

She then, urgent: ‘Give me light, Moses. Light the torches.’

‘But,’ he said, ‘the sun is not yet down.’

‘Light them just the same. I fear the dark.

I would go to the sun and be consumed in him.

But soon there will be no sun.’ So he lighted them,

And she said: ‘You came from the water. I must return to it.

Embark on a boat whose pennant is the sun that shines in the dark.

Whose name is the name of the god of the harvest of souls.

Whose oars are the arms of a god whose face I must not see.

And the keel of the boat is truth. Or justice.

I am ferried to the western bank of the river,

For there the sun has his setting. And there I

Find a secret way into the earth.

I am going to the river. And you

Were brought out of the river. The same river?’

So Moses, with troubled affection, stroked her brow,

But the hands had no magic… A grain-city,

In wood and baked clay and wire, a toy for Mernefta,

Crown prince of Egypt, cousin to Moses, only a child

But imperious enough, filled the chamber and he strode over it,

Seeing the whole city from his sky like a god, while a

Chamberlain pointed out this and this, not quite a toy then

But a projected glory of the empire, a torment for the slaves.

Moses came and said: ‘You summoned me, my lord.’

And the boy: ‘It is highness you must call me, cousin.

Your highness. I have searched for you all day

And everywhere. That is not right.’ (‘Not right.

Your highness.’) ‘You promised to take me to hunt

Crocodiles.’ Deferential, a little amused, sad:

‘Ah, yes, your highness. But then. I reconsidered.

Your highness. What would have happened to me.

If the crocodiles had. Snapped and eaten you?

What would have happened. To the throne of. Egypt?’

A child’s scowl: ‘You, I suppose, would have taken it.

I am angry with you, cousin.’ A little bemused, sad:

‘Do not be angry. You highness. Not now. I am come.

To tell you sad news.’ Then the chamberlain, a man’s scowl:

‘His highness is not to be given sad news. That is laid down.’

Moses, ignoring him: ‘My mother is dead. Your

Father’s sister. The Princess Bithiah.

Is dead.’ A child’s cruelty: ‘Dead? Like the

Three thousand men who built the treasure-city,

And the ones who will die building this?’ hitting it.

‘Yes. Highness. There is only. One way of being

Dead.’ But the child was more than a child: ‘No.

Those dead will be forgotten. Not one name

Of one of them will be remembered. But

My name will be written there. They will take hammers

And hammer my name into stone. Mernefta,

Fifth king of his dynasty, first of them all for glory.

And the thousands of dead, five or six thousand,

Forgotten. A fine thing.’ The chamberlain, impatient:

‘Highness, you have forgotten the purpose

For which your cousin was sent here.’ And the boy: ‘Ah, yes.

You, cousin, are to go and see the workers.

To see that they are building right. I asked my father

That you be sent. It is a punishment, you see.

You should have taken me hunting.’ A little amused, sad,

Bowing: ‘As your highness says. A punishment.’

But there was a task to perform first. Among the effigies,

In the reek of the holy fires, he stood, watching,

While, with wands of obsidian, the priests and priestesses

Opened her dead eyes and mouth, intoning:

Your lips I open in the god’s name,

That you may speak and eat.

Your eyes I open in the god’s name,

That light and sight may bless them.

But not the gross tastes and speech of the earth.

But not the insubstantial light of the sun

That warms the earth. When you awaken

And depart from the tomb, at the endless

End of the sacred river underground,

You will raise your eyes to light eternal,

Open your mouth in speech

That is soundless since it is the soul of speech.

Let all my offences be forgotten dust.

Let tribulation be as motes in the sun

When the sun is down.

Greetings to you, greatest god of the underworld.

At length my eyes are brought to the

Witness of your beauty, whose eternal contemplation

Is my sole care. I know your name at last,

As I know the names of the two and forty gods

Who preside in the halls of the eternal.

I am become one to whom sin is not even a name.

I am become one who had no eyes for the false path.

And line by coil the winding-sheet rose to the

Neck, the mouth, the nostrils. Then eyes alone

Where uncovered. So Moses took the linen, trembling,

And covered them, saying: ‘You who became my mother

Out of your goodness

Who leave me motherless

And yet with a mother

Still to be sought,

Farewell.’ And the ceremony was ended. It was time to

Engage the sun, the living and dying, not the dead: duty.

Officers of the court invested him in the

Travelling robes of a prince. A princely horse,

With jewelled caparison, pawed dust out of the earth.

He mounted, was saluted, rode off with officers,

Attendants, a body-servant, towards Pithom, asking:

‘Pithom. And what is the life of Pithom?’ –

‘Slaves, your highness. But sometimes unruly. Enslaved,

But a stubborn people. A very alien people.’

Dust and sun and travel. Birds screaming.

But, in a hovel in Pithom, a woman screaming.

The workers passed to work, shrugging, an Egyptian

Overseer claiming his rights from a woman of Israel,

Wife of a slave, what could they do? Still – cuckold.

Always a hard word. But what could the cuckold do?

The cuckold, Dathan, inclining to the side of the rulers,

Hence a foreman of workers, opened his own door

To see himself being cuckolded. Inclining to the side

Of the rulers, but showing truculence. The overseer

Looking up, grinning, from the bed, the frightened wife,

To say: ‘You should not be here, should you, Dathan?’ –

‘It seems not,’ said Dathan, ‘but I have certain rights.’ –

‘No rights, Dathan.’ – ‘Not even the right

To report to my superior official? Officially?’ –

Grinning, ‘Not even that right. You will report

When you are officially ordered to report. In the meantime,

You have duties to carry out.’ And Dathan, truculent:

‘Duties to my manhood.’ The Egyptian laughed at that,

And rose from Dathan’s bed, though lazily, saying:

‘Only free men can talk of manhood. What does Dathan

The unfree have to say?’ And the unfree: ‘Straw.

The straw has arrived.’ The overseer: ‘Oh,

Use some of your own. Man of straw.’ The hands of Dathan,

As of their own, were on to the ravisher,

Slid, sweating, on the tunic near the neck. Teeth gritted.

Teeth grinned: ‘An example, little Dathan.

An example is required. Would you not say so? An example.’

On the worksite, where the Israelites slapped mud into brick-forms,

All eyes looked up in a sort of relief (relief at the prospect of

Change in any shape, even change for the worse)

At arriving hooves. Gold, snorting horses, Egyptians.

Whips cracked, work you dogs and so on, they were used to whips.

Miriam the woman was bringing water in a jar. She too looked up

And her brother Aaron, a man now, or slave, drinking, too

Looked up at an unknown voice. An Egyptian prince

But not quite an Egyptian, the voice hopping like a bird

Not clanking like endless metal: ‘Is not this man

Too ill to work?’ And an officer, idly swishing a fly-fan;

‘He is not too ill to work he is still working.’

And the prince saw, frowning, the lashed back of another,

Asking: ‘What is this?’ And the worker replied:

‘It is what might be termed an inducement to increased effort.’ –

‘You speak like a scholar. Are you a scholar?’ –

‘I was a scholar of sorts. When scholarship was allowed.’

Aaron and Miriam looked at each other. Was it not perhaps

Just possible that – The prince said: ‘Their quarters.

I will see their. No. Alone. I will go alone.’ So it was

That, alone on the Pithom street between the hovels,

The women looking up curious, the children following,

Moses heard pain and the crunch of a rod. He opened a door

On to a naked man held by two men, grinning, Israelites

All three, and a sweating overseer, panting, punishing,

The man howling, a woman sobbing on a bed. The overseer,

Seeing an Egyptian aristocrat come in, smirked

With an air of virtue and smote hard: Dathan howled.

Moses cried: ‘Stop. What is this?’ Paused, panting, saying:

‘Punishment. My lord. For inefficiency. For insolence.

For insubordination.’ And raised the rod. Dathan: ‘For

Not. Wanting. To be a.’ The rod fell, he howled. Moses:

‘You. Assistants. Are Israelites?’ And the overseer panted:

‘They are Israelites, my lord. This is their foreman.

They naturally have no love for their foreman. Now.

If you will permit me.’ And he raised, and the hand of Moses,

To the surprise of Moses, rose and grasped the rod,

And the mouth of Moses, to the surprise of Moses, said:

‘I gave an order. I said stop. I call that also

Insolence. Insubordination.’ And Moses, to the surprise

Not only of Moses, leapt from a rock into a

Gorgeous sea of anger, beating beating, following the

Crawling stupefied beaten about the floor, beating.

The Israelites watched with pleasure different from

Their former pleasure, Dathan bled in pleasure but

Shock crowned the pleasure: this surely was what was the word

This was insanity. Without the door women listened,

Children, old men, young men coming off shift,

Screams and beating but soon no more of either,

Only breath sharply intaken and a desperate sobbing

For breath from one. And, within, that one

Dropped the rod, looking narrowly, saw then about him

Eyes not narrow at all, the women’s eyes especially

Wide in incredulity, then found breath to, to his surprise,

Excuse the beast that had possessed and was now departing:

‘It was. Too much. But a. Man does not.

Die of a beating. His heart stopped. His heart

Suddenly stopped.’ And Dathan, to the two

Who had held him: ‘My time will come for you. Friends.

Now back to work. This is none of your concern.’

They shuffled. ‘I have things to remember, have I not?

Bloody things. Quick to leave, leaving the door wide,

Shocked faces to look in, elation, fear, feelings

Not easily definable.’ Dathan: ‘You killed him, you.

You will go away and say that I did it.

They will all say that I did it.’ But Moses, calm now:

‘No one killed him. His heart suddenly stopped.

But the responsibility. Is mine.’ He then, addressing the clamour:

‘You see a dead Egyptian in your midst.

But you have no cause. For fear. The

Blame will not. Be visited on you. He was

Killed by his own. Brutality. His heart burst.

Have no fear.’ An old man, near-blind, said: ‘I’d say that

It was a strange thing to hear an Egyptian lord

Speak against brutality. Who are you, young man, who

Speak of Egyptian brutality?’ And at last in Pithom

It was heard aloud at last: ‘My name is Moses.’

And he thrust through them, man of authority, yet drawn

In a way he could not yet explain to himself

To these vigorous slaves. Moses. The crowd handled it,

Rang it like a coin, tasted it, the corpse bloody on the floor,

The killer at large, the police pushing in: ‘Who did it?

Who saw?’ ‘I saw, I saw, his name is Moses.’ ‘The prince Moses?’

This is nonsense, an Egyptian slaying an Egyptian

In the presence of slaves. But, in her father’s house,

Miriam, ecstatic, spoke: ‘Moses. It has come true.’

Aaron, far from ecstatic, carper and doubter,

Said: ‘Nothing has come true. Except that

What seems to you a beginning is really an end.

All Pithom talks of him already as if he were

Already the deliverer. You have kept his name

Alive of their lips, though in a whisper, these twenty years.

So now he is an Israelite who has killed an Egyptian.

There is no promise of anything save further servitude.

We must go on grovelling to Egyptian gods for, believe me,

These gods will prevail and will always prevail.’ Amram, old now,

Said: ‘The voice is the voice of a prophet, my son,

But the words are a slave’s words.’ Wild-eyed, Aaron:

‘I see things as they are. I am not, like my sister here,

Wild-eyed.’ And Jochebed the old woman: ‘When he

When he walks into this house – ’ Aaron: ‘If, if.

He must leave, or else be a sacrifice to Egypt.

He will have no time for walking into houses.’

But she: ‘When he talks into the house of his parents,

I shall be expected to have words, but what words

I do not know. I loved a child I lost.

And now I must expect the pain of learning to

Love a child who is found. And must be lost again.’

But Moses, walking alone, touching and smelling this

Alien race, finding it not alien, exerting authority

That did not seem to him that of an alien, came to a place

Where one Israelite fought another, both bloody from fists,

With a divided crowd making cockfight noises,

And cried ‘Stop this’ so that they stopped an instant,

But only that one of the fighters could pant out: ‘Ah,

The Lord Moses. Are you come then to be our judge?

To strike us down as you struck the Egyptian down?’

And Moses said nothing but felt the tremor of the

Fear of the hunted, wondering why. ‘Moses,’ the jeer went,

‘Our judge and our executioner?’ A boy in the crowd

Came to Moses and tugged at the princely robe

And spoke and Moses bent to hear, not understanding,

Not at all well understanding, not at first.

But Dathan, blood washed off, bruised, limping,

But in his best robe, understood well enough,

Going from man to man in authority,

Telling his story: ‘I have served well, sir, my lord,

And it is my ambition to serve better.

I would not utter the dirty word payment, of course – ’

You will be paid whatever your information

Is worth. Do not waste time.

‘I had thought of, perhaps, some small promotion.’

Do not waste time. ‘Waste time, no. I have witnesses

Outside to testify to the murder of our overseer,

A good just man. A senseless murder, if I may say so.’

Do not. ‘The Lord Moses was the slayer.’

He had authority to exert discipline. Go on.

‘The Lord Moses, with respect, sir, had no such authority.

He is an Israelite. The Princess Bithiah

(May her soul have rest) took him out of the Nile.

It is a long story which I will be happy to tell.

He is the son of Jochebed and Amram of the tribe of Levi.

He was saved by his sister in the old time of the

Necessary execution of the children.’ And then,

Not liking the silence, ‘I tell no lie. Sir, my lord,

Gentlemen, I tell no lie.’ But the silence was the

Silence of rumination of the delectable bread of

Coming intrigue. There were some who hated Moses.

Something unegyptian about him. Bastard spewed by the river.

Stories, stories. ‘I tell no lie.’ Give him some

Bauble or other. Tell him to wait outside.

And the boy from the crowd led Moses to Miriam,

By a tree near the house of Amram. Miriam spoke,

Moses listened, things coming clear, though in pain.

‘You believe?’ she asked. ‘Believe?’ He said: ‘I was told

Of a taking from the water. My mother. As I

Called her. Hid nothing. Save for names. And names

She did not know. Perhaps not. Wishing to know.

Said that I was nourished. On Israelite milk. That a

Girl of the Israelites. Found me my nurse.’ And Miriam:

‘I know the palace, can describe the chamber,

The gardens. There was an inscription said,

Or they said it said, he was to be born in the

House of a king, but a lady said that every

House in Egypt was a house of the king.’ Moses: ‘Who?

Who?’ She said: ‘He who was to come, the child of the

Sun they called him. But to me he was to be

More than the child of the sun. Will you come home?’

‘You mean,’ he said, ‘I am to. Find a mother?’

Miriam said: ‘You are to find a family.’

Torches, horsemen, heralds positioning themselves

Among public effigies, effigies, the political men at work,

The trumpet and then the proclamation:

‘Be it known that Moses the Israelite,

Once falsely known as the Lord Moses,

Stands accused of the murder of a

Servant of the king, a free man, an Egyptian.

Let him be rendered up to authority.

Any who hide him or otherwise grant comfort

Render themselves liable to the exaction of the

Capital penalty. So written, so uttered.’

So the time for shy discovery in the house of Amram,

For the turning of an Israelite into an Israelite,

Was not long. The fine Egyptian silks

Were stuffed in a hollow in the wall, lidded with a stone,

And the Lord Moses was turned into an Israelite,

In a worn grey cloak, with the wanderer’s staff

In hands that were not yet hands of an Israelite.

He smiled. ‘I will learn to be an Israelite.

But not in. Slavery. In exile rather. Not a

Slave. Merely a. Fugitive.’ They wept. Miriam said:

‘We shall be together in the time of the setting free.’

But Aaron, bitterly: ‘If ever such a time should come.’

But Moses, not yet understanding: ‘In the time of the.’

The time that stretched now was the time of understanding,

Trying to learn to understand. With the sun setting,

He set his face to the desert. Be it known that

Moses the Israelite. Set his face to the desert.

3 THE BURNING BUSH

IT was not, he thought, if it could be called thought,

This shuffling or churning in his skull,

That the desert was empty. The desert was not empty,

Far far from empty: it was a most intricate poem

On the theme of thirst and hunger, it was a

Crammed gallery of images of himself, suffering,

And it rang with songs that never got beyond

The opening phrase, like: Went to find an Israelite

And found himself athirst or I am baked meat

I cannot eat. Once in joy he contended with

The collective appetite of a million flies

Over a migratory quail, almost fleshless, fallen in flight.

Twice he found porous rock that, struck with his staff

Though feebly, disgorged a fresh trickle. He lapped, blessing,

Thought what to bless? There was once stone

That he wished to take for some effigy but a

Thought of last night’s stars made him ashamed.

The way of Egypt with the stars was to make them

Bow down to the muddy god of the Nile, but here

They were, in a manner, unmolested. Nor, so it seemed to him,

Was it all straight lines up there, joining star to star,

No Egyptian geometry. Curves rather. Seeing that

Egypt was all measuring-rods, squares, cubes, pyramids,

But Unegypt, which could be, might as well be,

Israel, was curves – fruit and the leaping of lambs

And the roundness of the body gloried in not constrained

In geometry. Was he delirious, hearing himself say

God is round? The term meant nothing except that the

Sun and the moon possessed this perfect roundness,

But one day he saw sun and moon in the morning together

And saw more than that, heard himself saying:

Not one not the other but the light that is given to both.

Given, that was it, but by what given? What or whom?

The god of the, the gods of the. Miriam had talked

Of the God of the Israelites, the God of Jacob.

Again the god of the. And you tamed the stars then

And set them to prophesying mud. God. The stars were back

In their firmament, aloof. Words mean what exists.

God not a word then. A cantrip. A device for

Keeping the stars free. At some uncounted dawn

On whatever day it was he saw ahead a mountain,

Must be a mountain, no mirage, with a nap of green,

But that could be mirage, as could as must be that,

Tree in the distance, solitary palm, fronds soon able to be

Counted. Counting, though, was Egyptian arithmetic,

Not apt for the desert. Reality was too royal,

Must be accorded the courtesy of averted eyes,

Not too boldly approached. Tried the cantrip God

To hold the tree there, and it held. Too weak to hurry, though.

The song of the daughters he could not yet hear,

Was a real song, royal, more than a first line:

What will love bring

When he comes?

A silver ring.

Earth will ring

With his tread

When he comes.

On his head

Kingly crown

When he comes down

From the hill.

What will he bring?

A silver ring

When he comes…

The mountain had a name: Horeb. This was a tree-grown pasture

In a valley, and from the well at dawn,

Jethro’s daughters drew, singing. But the song stopped

When the leering shepherds arrived, pushing in their buckets,

With Away there, bitches, find another well,

Scratch, would you, if you want to scratch

Scratch this itch. Then he came down from the hill,

Wearing dust not silver, crowned with his second anger,

His staff held high, then he smote like a king,

But after fell for faintness, seeing them run

And calling Mad, mad, he is mad, leaving blood in the dust.

Surrounded by round-armed girls, he smiled then

Turned up his eyes, seeing round flesh and green

And after nothing but ringing indistinguishable

Suns and moons. But he awoke in a tent smelling

Sheep’s cheese, sheep’s milk, new bread, an old shepherd

Smiling over him, a girl named Zipporah

Solicitous with a bowl, bread torn into warm milk.

He ate and gave his name, a man cast out of Egypt,

Seeking a new life. Jethro, set around with girls,

Was all to ready to talk to a man, talking at length:

‘I was once a priest of the town of Midian.

But I grew sick of stone idols, grew to believe

That faith was concerned with – well, not with,

If you know the word, multiplicity. A man

Must worship something great and simple. In the desert

Sometimes one sees an image of this. On Mount Horeb there

A man, I sometimes think, might see an even greater

Image of the truth. Out of meditation.

I have seen no visions. Perhaps I am too old.

I am certainly too old to climb it.’ Zipporah,

Gently: ‘Come to our story, father.’ Jethro smiled,

Saying: ‘Yes yes, I wander. It is easily told.

I turned against these idols, the people against me.

We are cut off. My daughters must draw water

Before the Midian shepherds leave their beds,

Otherwise they may draw no water. But they come

Earlier and earlier. Depriving us of water

Has become a cruel sport. I am grateful for what you did.’

Moses: ‘You have said that. Many times. Already.’

But Zipporah: ‘Gratitude is not a word.

It is the desire to keep on saying the word.’

‘My daughters,’ Jethro said, ‘are forward in their speech,

If not in their deeds. How can one man prevail

Against so many women’? Then, after a pause:

‘You are travelling further? Perhaps to the town itself?’

Moses said: ‘For the moment. My own story.

Ends here. My journey has been. Into exile.

For exile is everywhere. For the exile.’

Jethro asked: ‘Can you do shepherd’s work?’

Moses said: ‘I had always been taught. That work.

Was for slaves. Egypt taught me. Many false things.’

Jethro, urgently: ‘Put off that word exile.

It is your people who know exile, not you.’ And Moses, softly:

‘Yes. I must learn. To think of them. As my people.’

My people, lashed to labour under the disdainful eyes

Of a growing prince, and Moses already growing

Into a myth. The time would soon come in Pithom

For a story told by the old to the young: ‘Moses.

That was his name. He was brought up a royal prince

But one day he turned against the Egyptians. He

Killed some of them. Oh, I do not know how many,

But there were certainly many. He was strong, you see,

Like a bull or a lion. Yes yes, or a crocodile.

And then he escaped out of Egypt for they wished to kill him.

Some say he will come back. But I believe he is

Dead in the desert, eaten by vultures or something,

Just very white bones now, picked clean.

No no, not eaten by crocodiles, where is your sense?

There are no crocodiles in the desert. It is in the

Water you get crocodiles. They are full of water.

Their eyes are full of water. They cry when they eat you.’

Then the old king died and the prince Mernefta

Rules in his turn, the new Pharaoh, remembering Moses,

But not yet as a myth. ‘His accusers,’ he said one day.

‘Are any of these still living?’ And a minister:

‘Majesty, the accusation was naturally

Brought by the Crown. The Crown is still living.’

But Pharaoh said: ‘The Crown is he who wears it.

I hardly need my father’s dusty archives

As part of my inheritance. Is there a

Living accuser who does not wear a crown?’

‘Some Israelites,’ was the answer, ‘who swore that the

Accused was himself an Israelite.’ Pharaoh rose

And walked his council chamber among effigies, effigies,

Slaves following with fans. ‘I knew him. Moses. I

Remember him with some tenderness – an elder cousin

Who was always promising to take me hunting.

He would listen to bats and the cries of fieldmice.

No one else would hear them – only he. I cannot

Easily see him as a great vengeful lion, striking

Men dead with a rod.’ A minister said: ‘There

Was a death, majesty. An Egyptian corpse. Very bloody.’

‘Men,’ said Pharaoh, ‘are not, I think, beaten to death.

The beater must die of exhaustion first. So. It was

Officially I who sent him to Pithom and to this

Old accusation. Did I also send him

To death in the desert’? Another minister said:

‘There is no certainty of his death. At least

Two caravans have brought back news. News of a sort.

Of, for instance, a hero who came out of Egypt

And into Midian, killed twenty men with a blow,

Married seven or eight sisters – the exact number is unclear.

The name we heard seemed to be some

Outlandish deformation of his true name.’ Pharaoh smiled.

‘I would prefer him to be back with us. It would be

Good to see him smiling at my triumphs.

His smile was like none else’s – no fanfare of teeth.

It always seemed to hold back, to hold something back.’

And the first minister said: ‘So, majesty,

The sentence is quashed? The accusation cancelled?’

Pharaoh said: ‘Let us have him in Egypt again.’

But not even a king of Egypt could put time back.

Moses, the shepherd, with his, or Jethro’s flocks,

Dreaming under Horeb, dreamed of no future other than

A shepherd’s future. A husband and a father,

His wife, as was to be foreseen, the eldest, Zipporah,

His son named Ghersom, a strange name, apter for himself:

Stranger in a strange land. And the future? Well –

There was the taking of Jethro’s place, when the time came,

And the time could not be long. Problem of girls

Without dowries, a whole family cut off

From the idolators of Midian. He turned now to wave

As Jethro watching him, Zipporah, Ghersom in her arms,

Up there by the tents and the palm, rain-clouds behind them,

This being a place of rare rain, but of rain.

Jethro was saying to Zipporah: ‘Now you see how

A good shepherd works. First he takes to pasture

The very young, so that they may eat of the

Tender grass, full of juice, and then the older ones

That they may eat what is fitting for them, and last

The full-grown sheep that can chew the tough grass. All this

I did not teach him: he seemed to know it already.’

The child Ghersom cried, and Zipporah rocked him,

Singing: ‘Ghersom – Ghersom – stranger in a

Strange land.’ Her father said: ‘A gloomy lullaby.

A gloomy name. It rings somehow of his father.

Settled and not settled. Never quite at rest.

But a good son-in-law. An only son-in-law.’

In sad affection he turned his eyes to the other girls,

Washing clothes and squabbling. A good son-in-law,

Carrying a lamb to the desert for sacrifice,

The knife raised, Jethro intoning: ‘Unknown of the desert,

Great one, faceless, voiceless, we offer thee this

Fruit of the fertile lands. Accept it of thy goodness,

Eternal unity, whatever, whoever thou art.’ But the name

Moses, Moisha, Musa was no unknown of the desert.

The Egyptian patrols heard it among nomads, searching,

As they had been bidden, but long in finding.

Until at dawn, walking to birdsong, smiling he suddenly

Started, and she said: ‘What do you hear? I hear nothing,

Nothing but birdsong.’ But grasped his robe, rising,

And left the tent to see horsemen on the hill crest,

Egyptians. The daughters of Jethro welcomed them,

With yesterday’s bread, pitchers of well-water,

And their leader spoke to Moses, saying: ‘You have proof

That this is your name?’ Moses smiled and replied:

‘A name is merely. What a man is called. I am

Called Moses. My wife is called Zipporah. My son is

Ghersom. And here is my. Wife’s father. Jethro.’ –

‘The documents I hold’, said the officer, taking bread

With a desert courtesy, ‘are signed by the royal hand.

They attest your right to return to Egypt freely,

To resume your former status, former office.’

‘My status. And office. You see. I am a shepherd.

I am an Israelite.’ But the leader swallowed and said:

‘You are the Lord Moses, cousin to the Pharaoh.

As such, your place and duty are self-evident.

If I may say so. With respect.’ But Moses said:

‘You are not then come. To force me. Back to Egypt?’ –

‘I have no such authority. I am but the bearer

Of a royal message.’ And Moses spoke his last words to them

(They were welcome to rest. Then let them return to Egypt):

‘My compliments. To the Pharaoh. Tell him that I

Too have my kingdom.’ He left them, broke bread alone,

Then led his lambs to pasture. But that day

Was to be no common day. Tending his flocks,

He heard a sound from Horeb, a sound as of the

Manifold cracking of twigs in the fire, and he turned

To see the mountain melting, shifting towards him,

Then setting in its old shape: an illusion

Of a more than Egyptian kind, occasioned no doubt

By today’s voices from Egypt. But, peering, he saw

What seemed no magic: there on the upper slope

A flame that burned steady. Who had made fire on Horeb?

He left his lambs and, staff in hand, incredulous,

Moved to the mountain. The flame burned steady.

Its reality was somehow fixed in his brain by the

Smell of wool-grease on the hand that he lifted to

Shade his eyes from the light, to see better the

Flame that burned steady on the upper slope. So, slowly,

Driven solely by desire for a strange thing to be

No longer strange, he began to climb, and the climb

Hid the flame from him until, sweating, panting,

No longer a young prince racing over the delta,

He faced at length a boulder on the upper slope

And rounded, panting, the boulder and there he saw a

Flame burning steady but the flame calm as a diamond

And the flame the flame of a bush burning, its leaves

Burning but not consumed, and sound from the flame

As of the noise of some element striving with little skill

To become a voice, then finding more skill and becoming the

Voice of his sister Miriam. ‘Miriam!’ And, in Miriam’s voice:

‘Come no closer. Put off your shoes from your feet.

For the place whereon you are standing is holy ground.’

He was slow to obey. ‘Miriam? How is it possible?

Miriam?’ And the voice: ‘I speak through the voices

Of those who are near and yet far. The voice of your father.’

And the voice was of his father. ‘Put off your shoes.

For this is holy ground.’ And Moses, not without trembling,

His fingers clumsy, clumsily obeyed. ‘I speak also

With your own voice, but a voice no longer

Slow and unassured.’ And so it was, his own voice,

Saying: ‘I am the God of your father,

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

The God of Jacob. And also the God of Moses.

Listen. I have surely seen the affliction

Of my people in Egypt, and have heard their cry

By reason of their taskmasters. For I know their sorrows.

And I am come to deliver them out of the hands

Of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land

Unto a good land and a large, a land that

Flows with milk and with honey. Now therefore behold:

The cry of the children of Israel is come unto me.

Therefore I will send unto Pharaoh

You, Moses, charged with the task of

Bringing forth my people, the children of Israel,

Out of the land of Egypt.’ But Moses, hesitant,

Stumbling, in his own voice, what there was of his voice,

Said: ‘Who am I. That I should. Go to Pharaoh.

And should should. Bring the children. Of Israel.

Out of.’ But the voice said: ‘I will be with you,

I. And when you have brought them out of Egypt,

You shall serve God upon this mountain.’ God.

‘It is God who sends you. God. The God of your fathers.’

But Moses: ‘And if I say. The God of your fathers

Has sent me to you. And they say. What is his name?

What shall I. Say to them?’ And the voice replied:

‘You shall say to the children of Israel that he is called,

For what he is called he is: I am that I am.

And say too: the Lord God of your fathers,

The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

The God of Jacob has sent me unto you. And I am sure

That the king of Egypt will not let you go,

No, not by a mighty hand. But I will stretch out

My hand, my, and smite Egypt with all my wonders.’

Moses said: ‘But they will. Not believe me. They will

Say: the Lord has. Not appeared unto you.’

But the voice: ‘What is that in your hand?’ And Moses:

‘My shepherd’s staff.’ – ‘Cast it to the ground.’

And Moses, bewildered, did so, and the staff,

Touching the ground, writhed, hissed, a snake.

A snake. He started back, afraid. And the voice said:

‘Put out your hand. Take it by the tail.’

And Moses did so, still afraid, and what he took

Was his own shepherd’s staff, no snake. Then the voice said:

‘Through this power they will believe. And through this, too:

Put your hand into your bosom.’ Moses slowly did so,

Doubtful still. ‘Now remove it.’ Did so, and his hand

Was white as leprosy. ‘Return it your bosom,

Then remove it.’ Did so, and the hand was of its

Former colour. ‘If’, said the voice, ‘they will not

Believe one sign, then let them believe the other.’

Moses, now near weeping, said: ‘O Lord. I am not

Eloquent. Not before. Not now. I am

Slow of speech. I am of a. Slow tongue.’

The voice was thunder, crying in fire and thunder:

‘Who has made man’s mouth?

Who makes the dumb or deaf of the seeing or the blind?

Am I not the Lord? For a time, for a time,

Your brother Aaron shall speak for you, and you

Shall put the staff in his hand. But with you, with you

Shall be the power of the Lord.’ And the bush burned

But was silent. Burned still, the leaves and branches

Still unconsumed. He believed, he had to believe,

Believed, had to believe, descending to his sheep,

To the evening fire, the meat roasting, to Jethro saying:

‘You believe what you saw what you saw, heard what you heard?’

Believed, had to believe. ‘And thus a heavy burden

Is placed upon you. So.’ Seeing it all. ‘It is true.

The one. The great simplicity. The is what he is.

Well, at least I can die in the truth, knowing it the truth.

But for you a heavy burden.’ Moses, sighing:

‘My shoulders are too narrow. My voice is not the. Voice.

Of a deliverer. Easier to believe. It was a dream.

It was a whiff of magic. Delivered out of Egypt.’

His head fell to his bosom in a sudden sleep.

Zipporah started but Jethro shook his head, saying:

‘He does not wish the belief. The belief is a burden

His very flesh rejects. But we must believe, even though

It means we must lose him for a while and, in a sense,

For ever. He was not, as I always knew,

Meant to be this kind of shepherd.’ But Zipporah wept.

‘It must be with our blessing’, Jethro said. ‘We must all

Not merely bow but bless, we must will our loss,

For think what we stand to gain.’ And he repeated: ‘True.

The one. The great simplicity.’ But Zipporah wept.

And when Moses woke, bewildered, he sought his tent

Shivering, as though belief were an ague. Sleep now

Would not come, but a storm came, and he went to the tent-flap

To secure it against the rain. In lightning he saw Horeb

And cried in agony to it: ‘Who am I?

I am. No judge in Israel. Let the task be given.

To one of the wise. One of the strong. Do not

Place the burden on me. I refuse the burden.’

Wife and son, awake, heard, then they saw in terror

The naked body of the husband, father, hurled,

In another flash, as though taken and thrown

And lie writhing, groaning, then still. The wife cried

Aloud to Horeb: ‘Whoever you are, what do you want of him?

Is it his life? For you shall not have his life.’

Lightning showed metal, a blade. In this dark she groped,

Her fingers finding, as though told to find,

A shepherd’s knife, his. Over thunder: ‘Take the child’s

Life, if you must have a life’, and raised it.

But with fresh lightning came the right words:

‘Not a life. But a token of life. Not the body.

But flesh of the body that the body will not miss.

Will that satisfy you?’ And, in an impulse, drew

Taut the child’s foreskin and, with the sharp blade,

Cut. The child, maimed, screamed, clutched where blood

Flowed on to the flesh of the father, the loins and his father,

And the father stirred, groaning in air,

While blood dripped on the father. Then the father arose

And the child was in his arms, then in the mother’s arms,

Kissed, soothed, while the storm travelled on

And dark hid Horeb. So morning came,

Fresh after rain, with birdsong, and the child was sleeping.

They lay in love awhile, and after, in sad calm,

Zipporah said: ‘Today?’ Kissing her eyelids, he:

‘It has to be today. It has to be. Alone.’ She wept,

He comforted, and they rose as the day warmed.

At least it was a known way. Staff in hand, he

Blessed, awkwardly, a family that had done with weeping;

‘The blessing of the God of Abraham.

The God of Isaac. The God of Jacob. The God whom

Jethro has long sought. My love. My blessing.

The blessing of Moses. For what it is worth.’

And then: ‘We shall be together. In the

Time of the setting free.’ He turned and strode

Uphill to the solitary palm, blessing that too,

Then engaged the desert. But he already knew the desert.

It was Moses he did not know.

4 RETURN INTO EGYPT

Aaron dreamed of an eagle made of fire,

Consuming, unconsumed, swooping out of the sun,

Yet this time now, as in the other dreams, in the desert,

But here, in Pithom. And as it swooped, men ran

To hide their own long shadows. He awoke

To a relay of distant cock-crows. His wife Eliseba,

Eleazar his son, slept on. He lay, loving and troubled,

As the light advanced, dreading action, longing for action.

(Alive, at least they were alive, they could live out their lives.

No man could have everything.) Sighing, he arose,

And he took his dream to Miriam’s house, but she

Had left her pallet, earlier than he, her children

Undisturbed, happy in sleep. At least the children

Knew no other life. Was it right then to impose

The promise of long agony on them? Troubled, he walked

Down the street of the workers’ dwellings, open doors,

Bodies obscenely huddled, flies, ordure.

(Better the long agony, but still agony,

Still long, perhaps endless.) Where the slave town ended,

Miriam the widow cleaned out the bulrush cages

She had woven for doves, and the white doves throbbed around her.

Miriam the prophetess, as some called her, prophesying

The long agony, but then freedom, whatever that was,

Vigorous, laughing often, smiling now at her brother,

A question in her smile. ‘I saw him again’,

Aaron said, sighing. ‘This time as an eagle,

Flying almost above us here. No longer in the desert.

I knows what it means. It means he is close to us.

It means I must go to meet him. I know, I know.’

She said: ‘You still have too much doubt, like the others.

But for the others there is excuse. None remembers him.

Or, if he is remembered, it is in the wrong way –

A far-off hero who could tame snakes, who could

Strike men dead with a glance. Here once and hence,

They accept or half-accept, may come again.

But again is a future so far off as to be a

Sort of past. A past like the beginning of the world.

For us it is different. For our mother and father

It was different, though they had to die with the hope

Not yet bursting into dreams. Your dream is clear.

I have silver hidden in the house. We need to bribe,

Our overseer is bribable enough. You need to go

Over the river.’ He said: ‘Silver? Where from?’

And she, laughing: ‘Theft is too much virtue in you,

Virtue meaning timidity.’ Laughing, launching a dove

Into the light. He nodded, troubled, knowing it true:

Why was the long agony reserved for him

Who would have been content with quietness, or with words,

The action left to his son, or his son’s son?

So, when the work-day started, he trudged to the river,

The ferry just arriving, loaded with farmers,

A bull-calf snorting at a flutter of squawking hens,

The boat emptied, the ferryman, black, from the south,

His carven face swimming with light, swigged from a jug,

Sour-faced on a mouthful of sour wine. Aaron said:

‘Will you take me to the other side?’ – ‘Double fare.

A lot come into Egypt. Not a lot

Go out, as you see. It’s always double fare.’

Aaron said: ‘But you have to go back there anyway.’ –

‘Always double fare. Some are very glad

To be paying double fare.’ So it was double fare.

The ferryman was curious: why the journey? And then,

Incredulous: ‘A dream? You say a dream? You

Seek somebody because of a dream? Paying double fare too.

A dream?’ Aaron said: ‘There was a time

When dreams were considered important in Egypt.’

The boatman spat. ‘That was Joseph. The old days.

My grandfather told me about him. This is today.

All science today. Nobody follows dreams, not any more.’

Aaron said: ‘I do. There was a time

When I did not. But I follow this dream. I have to.’

The ferryman said: ‘Then you’re mad.’ Aaron spoke angrily:

‘I see. And the rest of the world bursts with sanity,

Is that it? Mad because I dreamed of the coming of

Salvation? The others sane because they are slaves –

Is that it?’ The boatman earnestly said (and would have

Laid a hand on Aaron’s arm had not his hands

Been engaged in rowing): ‘Never be taken in by

Words is what I say. Say that word slavery

And it sounds bad. Say instead a mouthful of bread

And fish and palm-wine for a day’s work and it sounds

A great deal better. Who is this one you’re going to meet then?’

Aaron told him. ‘Hear that, you fish down there?

He’s going to meet his brother and his brother

Is going to save the world. Look.’ (Earnestly,

Squinting at Aaron across the blinding river light.)

‘If you’re going to have salvation, as you call it,

It won’t be through your brother or my brother or

Through anybody else’s brother. Forget all about it.

You’re wasting your time. Nobody’s coming from over there.

This Lord God you talk about has forgotten.

He has other things on his mind. Let me take you back.’

But Aaron smiled. ‘You seem,’ said the ferryman, ‘to be a

Decent sort of a man. Touched, a bit, but that may be the sun.

I’ll take you back. I’ll return your fare to you.

Half of it anyway.’ But Aaron smiled. The fight, he saw,

Was a fight against a man who, ferrying from bank to bank,

Believed they were travelling. Good men, no doubt of it.

Given time, they could be fought with words. Words:

Words were a comfort as well as a weapon. So he landed,

Sketched a blessing, smiling, and the ferryman

Offered a swig of sour wine. Then, head-shaking,

He waited for a boatload of the sane, seeking the world,

Egypt. Aaron now left the freedom of slavery

And sought the prison of the desert. Solitary, terrified,

When night fell, of the geometry of the stars,

He spoke to himself, or to someone: ‘There is, you see,

The question of convincing them. So set,

All of them, in their ways. Made soft by slavery.

Who is he? Who? Never heard of him. Show us a

Sign. Give us a sign. What signs does he have?

Does he have any signs? Signs are what we need. Signs.

You know what we mean? Signs. Signs. Signs.

Something out of nothing. Miracles,

Miracles is the word. You know the word. Miracles.’

A star shot. The sky swung like a pendulum.

Then day, a mirage of green, mirage of a caravan,

Vultures gyrated, swooped. The corpse of a dog

In the rocks. Vultures swooped. ‘Listen, Moses.

Listen, brother. Brother. You know that word?

You know these words I speak now? The joys of

Slavery. The relief at not having to be

Free any more. A terrible word, freedom.

We are degraded, yes. But it is hardly our fault,

Is it, hardly our fault. Only slaves.

We are only slaves. You see, Moses? Do you

Understand the words I speak to you, Moses?’

A black sky, starless, with a dying moon.

‘Signs. You know, signs. You know what we mean?

Signs, signs.’ Day and a fierce wind and he lay then

Talking talking, half-buried in a sand-drift.

Sand in the furrows of his face, till a hand came

Gently to clear the sand, and he saw the hand,

The arm. It was the eyes, he knew the eyes then,

And the mouth quiet in the beard of one who, he saw

With shock, was no longer young. Said to himself: No word.

And no word. It is the first sign. No word.

For though the word is in him it is I I I

Who must speak the word. And so, together,

With few words, words unneeded, they

Stumbled back into Egypt. And, in black night,

Unseen to Miriam’s house in Pithom. Unseen

But heard of, guessed at. There was a morning

When the whip was hardly felt: Came two days ago

Over the river. And the children talked: ‘Gave signs.

Turned his stick into a snake.’ – ‘But signs of what?’

‘Signs that he is a god. They’re always saying

That we’re going to have a god. Well, here he is.’ –

‘But what is a god for?’ And the old men talked:

‘Something about his arm having leprosy on it.

Then he puts his arm on his robe and pulls it out

And the leprosy’s gone.’ – ‘That’s an Egyptian trick.

He sounds like an Egyptian to me. Somebody coming

To make us all work harder.’ But Dathan, plumper now,

His linen bright, his fingers flashing in the sun,

Spoke of the newcomer not to fellow-slaves

But to the enslavers: ‘Moses. Brother of Aaron.

The one who killed the Egyptian and ran away.

He’s back now, thinks no one remembers.’

What is all this? What tale do you think you’re

‘True. Look, sir, I was always a friend of Egypt.

I can give good information. Valuable. This Moses

Is up to no good. I would appreciate,

Sir, a little Egyptian generosity…’

To work. You are drunk. Go on, friend of Egypt.

Young girls spoke of a god, golden-haired,

With a firm strong body, young, bearing comfort,

Making life easier (said the older women).

But to Aaron fell the task of talk, to the elders,

To the young who bore authority: Joshua was one,

Hard-eyed but supple of thought, as though thought were muscle.

‘What god’? an elder said, and patiently,

Aaron: ‘The God who spoke from the burning bush

On Mount Horeb. The bush burned and was not consumed.’

And the voice said: ‘I am the God of Abraham,

Of Isaac, Jacob. I am sending one who shall

Set my people free.’ But another elder, doubtful:

‘It is the notion of the one god that I

Find tough to eat. What is this god’s position

In relation to the other gods? That, I would say,

Is a reasonable thing to ask.’ Patiently, Aaron:

‘There are no other gods. God is God.

The God of the Israelites is God, the one God.’ –

‘The one remaining god, is that what you mean?’ –

‘Our thinking’, Aaron said firmly, ‘has become

Egyptian thinking. The Egyptians see the world

As multiple, various. Do you understand me?

There are, they say, many things in the world of sense

And, so the Egyptians argue, there must accordingly

Be many things in the heavens, matching, ruling

The many things of earth. We Israelites

Never believed that. In the beginning we knew

That all was one, that All was made by One.

We forgot the knowledge. Now, my brothers, we are

To remember that knowledge. Remember it in action.

It is that knowledge that is to set us free.’

And an elder wavered in doubt: ‘Free – you mean

Free to leave Egypt?’ Aaron said: ‘Just that.’ And Joshua:

‘Mere knowledge, I would say, sets no man free.

Man, I would say, does not find freedom through God,

But God through freedom.’ Aaron: ‘And how does he,

How do we find freedom? We cannot fight

These Egyptians with Egyptian weapons. We have no

Battering-rams or crossbows. We can achieve freedom

Only by knowing the power of God and knowing

That one man can call down that power.’ – ‘Knowing?’ –

‘You have heard of the signs. Of the miracles.’ – ‘Heard, yes.

But seen, no.’ – ‘You will see, will certainly see.

But meantime, you must believe.’ – ‘Must? Must believe?’

‘A man must believe there is a better life

Than this life of bondage. Our God is not a

God of slavery.’ An elder shook his head:

‘If you say there is one God, then it is this

One God that has sold us into slavery.’ And another:

‘Or else one could say that there are at least two Gods –

One to enslave and one to free. And to have two Gods

Is the beginning of having many gods. So we are back where we started.’

Aaron cried: ‘No. Not that. Cannot you see

That our God may have let the wicked work on the innocent,

The enslavers enslave the enslaved? God will in no wise

Interfere if he sees not fit to do so.

Is this our bondage not perhaps a test,

A proving of our right to be the

Chosen of God?’ An elder said: ‘Unconvincing.

I am unconvinced.’ Caleb, another of the young,

Spoke boldly: ‘There are weapons other than

Bows and battering-rams and pitchballs.

There are bricks and mattocks. There are muscles.’ –

‘Fools, fools’, cried Aaron. ‘Egypt is the world.

Only the maker of the earth and sun and stars

Can prevail over Egypt. God is our way, God.

And our way to God is through him.’ Head-shakings.

‘His that is come.’ Wistfully one old man said:

‘Free to leave Egypt. We are all, I fear,

Growing too old for that kind of freedom.’ But Joshua,

A trumpet to that plaintive piping, said: ‘We

Will help you to courage. None is too old to be free.

We, the young.’ Head-shakings still: ‘I am not convinced.’ –

‘Nor I. Very far from convinced. Convinced. Nor I.’

In the house of Aaron, at sunset, a ceremony,

A celebration: the bathing and clothing of Moses

For his visit to the Pharaoh. It was women’s work,

And they sang, bringing water from the well, a song of water,

How water would yield to man, but only so far,

Water as flood or river or sea, never yield.

And Moses, smiling in a fodder-trough turned to a bath,

Was laved by his sister, who said, clucking: ‘So dirty.

It seems you carry the dirt of a twelvemonth journey.’

And Moses: ‘Dirty or not. You knew that. It was I.’

Nodding, ‘I knew. I will always know. Remember your name:

It means I have brought him forth. And the I means I.’ –

‘And yet you do not’, he said. ‘Know me. We have had

No youth together. Have not rejoiced. In each

Other’s marriage. Or children. Though I can rejoice in

Your children now. If only I can find out

Which they are. Ah, I know. You are Lia.’ –

‘No’, said the child. ‘I am Rachel.’ Miriam said:

‘There, that is Lia.’ And then: ‘My husband died

Soon after she was born. Soon after our mother…’

And Moses, sighing: ‘Yes. Before I had time. To know them.

Both dead. Too many dead. Before the promise.’

Miriam, brisk to his sudden melancholy: ‘When do I meet

Your wife? Your son?’ Moses, brightening: ‘They will be

Waiting for us. On the way. To the land. A long

Long journey. And we,’ in gloom again, ‘are not yet even

In the way of being able. To start on the journey.

My first. Door out of Egypt. Is a door into the

Very core and temple and shrine. Of Egypt. Pharaoh

Must be asked. Then begged. Then entreated. Then

Threatened. Then the threats. Must start to be

Fulfilled.’ Miriam said softly: ‘It will be a hard time.’ –

‘Ah’, said Moses, brightening, ‘you are Elisa.’ –

‘No’, the child said, ‘I am Rachel. I

Told you I was Rachel.’ Moses begged graceful pardon,

Then said: ‘Hard? It will, I fear, be a hard time

For all the innocent. It is always the innocent who

Must suffer first. We sacrifice a lamb.

Not a crocodile. One of the great mysteries.’

Then he turned to women’s noises of pride, pleasure,

And saw what they had drawn forth from a hiding-place –

Cleaned but worn, ravagings of moth and white ant

But poorly disguised, that former princely robe,

Robe of a lord of Egypt. The smiles turned to pain

And puzzlement when he thundered ‘No’ at them.

‘No’, he thundered, ‘I go as an Israelite.

I go. As what I am.’ And so he went

In the summer evening, in a pilgrim’s jerkin,

His old rough cloak, carrying his staff, to the palace.

At first they tried to beat him away but he said:

‘Moses. My name is Moses. Formerly a prince.

And still cousin to the king. I am expected.’

So he was half-bowed in, in puzzlement, and was expected

In the room where the models of treasure-cities,

Grain-cities, were built. A new rich project gleamed

Among torches, candles, gold effigies, effigies,

Rich on the walls. Then Pharaoh entered, softly,

Alone, with the face Moses remembered, a clever face

Though hard (and it must learn, he sighed, to soften),

And Pharaoh said: ‘Is it you? Is it really you?’

Moses smiled. ‘I fear. I can give you. No

Proof of. Who I am.’ But Pharaoh: ‘The voice is enough.

Everything else has changed. But the voice, no.

That sudden cutting off between phrases, as if

Speech were sometimes being whipped out of you.

Moses. Cousin Moses. You look,’ smiling, ‘like a

Very poor relation, if I may say so.’ Moses said:

‘You summoned me back to Egypt. I did not come.

Now I am come in my own time. But tell me why

You summoned me.’ Pharaoh said: ‘Simple. I could not

Forget you easily. Others I forgot –

Streams of courtiers, glorying in self-abasement,

Wise men, men who were called wise, sycophants,

Relations, none of them poor relations. A time came

When I felt homesick for you – you, the cousin

Who taught me, against his will, how to hunt gazelle.

The enigmatic prince of my boyhood. I must have been

A most unlikely boy. I was, of course,

Too young to use you.’ Moses said: ‘And now

You are old enough.’ – “Old enough. Also, smiling,

‘Master of the world, of the sacred blood of Horus,

Blood that, the poets write, is knitted from the stars.

Divine and holy, wholly divine, cousin Moses.

Gods work through men. And gods need men

Who know what godhead is. Do you still listen

To the voices of bats at nightfall?’ Moses said:

‘In the desert there are many voices. Voices

I had not. Heard in Egypt.’ – ‘You did not hear

My voice calling you? Or any voice

That spoke of me?’ Moses said: ‘Yes. I did.’ –

‘A human voice?’ said Pharaoh. And Moses: ‘No.

No human. Not a. Human voice.’ Pharaoh fingered

An ornament, gold-chained, dangling from his neck, saying:

‘Voices of the desert. That formless shifting world,

Whistling and singing nonsense. There is no

Solidity, no certainty in the desert.

Reality is here, cousin. For a thousand years

We Egyptians have been the masters of reality.

We have an exact and perfect, an exquisite,

An almost painful knowledge of the nature of

Power, power. The means of its acquisition,

Its growth, its maintenance. Power is here and for ever.

This is the real world, and you belong to it.

You, who know reality, have been whoring too long

After dreams of the desert. You are recalled to

Reality.’ But Moses, softly, ‘Called, not

Recalled.’ And his eyes were lost an instant

Among the effigies, and Pharaoh did not

Well, for an instant, understand. But then he

Looked up, showing pleasure, for into the chamber

His queen came, and also a nurse, and in the nurse’s arms…

‘My son,’ cried Pharaoh in joy. ‘My first-born.

Is he not beautiful?’ Moses nodded sadly. ‘Beautiful.’

Pharaoh took the child in his arms, saying in joy:

‘My son. He will reign after me.

The unbroken and unbreakable chain of rule.

The strength which sets the desert winds

Howling in impotence. And you, and you

Choose these empty voices out of the dead sand.

This I cannot comprehend.’ Moses said:

‘It is a simple matter, majesty. It is a

Matter of one’s race. One’s people. The

Destiny of that people. I have discovered

Where I belong.’ The child cried, putting out arms

Towards his mother, and Pharaoh kissed and

Hugged him, handing him reluctantly over,

The queen saying: ‘He is ready to sleep,

Now he has seen his father.’ And she left,

Looking curiously at Moses, whom she did not know.

‘Where you belong?’ said Pharaoh. ‘You belong to us.

To me. Bemused by the fable of your birth,

You ignore the truth. And the truth is that you are of Egypt.

Of the blood. For the blood is not what passes

From mother to son. That belongs to

The order of the beasts. It is rather what is of the soul,

Whatever the soul is. The woman who

Made herself your mother – she was the substance. She

Remains the substance, even in death. You, Moses

You are of Egypt, and one of my tasks

Is to confirm that truth – in your own life,

In that bigger life called history.’ But Moses,

Impatient: ‘This is the. Mysticism. I must

War against. The voices of the. Desert spoke hard

Metal. The shifting. Swirling. Insubstantial.

Those are in your words. I reject Egypt.

I embrace my people.’ And Pharaoh, harder now,

Metal: ‘Your people, as you call them,

Belong to Egypt. They are the tough skin of the

Hands and feet of Egypt, no more, but the

Body does not disown them.’ And Moses, urgent:

‘Beware of such. Images. The reality is that

We are a. Different animal. We scent our.

Own destiny. We must be free. To track it.’

And Pharaoh, hard, metal: ‘Never. Never.’ Moses said:

‘I know. You will never be. Persuaded by.

Entreaties. Egypt is locked against

Voices from the desert. It must be signs, signs.’

‘Signs from whom or what or where?’ asked Pharaoh. –

‘From the Maker of the World who is the

God of my people. The God. Of what he has made.’ –

‘Signs?’ cried Pharaoh. ‘Tricks? The Egyptian conjurers

Know them all. You are being more Egyptian

For thinking of signs. What will you do, cousin Moses –

Turn that stick to a snake? My sorcerers

Can do that yawning. Make your snake swallow theirs?

We must from Moses, must we not, expect

Big magic? I should be appalled if Moses let mere

Magicians, salaried nameless men of trickery,

Beat him at that game.’ But Moses shook his head.

‘My Lord Pharaoh. Highness. Majesty. There must be

None of that manner of. Commerce between us. No

Ambiguity in your mind. You must believe that the

Signs and the demands. Come from a true. Israelite.’

But Pharaoh could smile, saying: ‘You are an Egyptian.

Will always be an Egyptian.’ Moses did not smile.

‘So you will believe. Until the signs

Persuade you otherwise. Let the tale begin now.

I shall not at first be in it. I am not qualified.

Being so. Slow of speech.’ And Pharaoh, smiling again:

‘Another of your fallacies, cousin Moses.’

But Moses was troubled at having to hate this man.

5 THE PLAGUES

THUS the tale beginning, the voice was Aaron’s.

And all was done, in the beginning to a

Strict pattern of decorum. For, to an official,

An overseer of overseers, Aaron brought the petition

That was partly a lie, but a lie was part of the pattern.

Saying, with proper humility: ‘Three days in the desert.

A small request, your honour. We have orders

To sacrifice to the God of our people.’ But the official

Stormed, according to the pattern: ‘Orders? Orders?

We give the orders. You interest me, little man.

Why in the desert?’ Aaron duly replied:

‘Since it was in the desert that my brother Moses

Heard the command.’ – ‘Whose command?’ – ‘The command

of Him who demands the sacrifice.’ The official said:

‘You talk round and round, round and round.’ –

‘Three days in the desert, your honour.’ The official said:

‘Request refused’ – ‘What request?’ spoke a voice.

It was in the open air, near a half-built wall

Of the new half-built treasure-city, and the voice

Was that of some peacock of the royal household,

Gorgeous, his face already an effigy,

On a horse sumptuously caparisoned. ‘My lord’,

Grovelled the overseer of overseers, ‘this slave here

Asks on behalf of other slaves permission to spend

Three days in the desert. Request refused, my lord.’ –

‘Who put you up to this nonsense?’ His lordship asked,

And Aaron: ‘With respect, we do not consider it

Nonsense. We must sacrifice in the desert.

You have your gods. We have our God. Only one.

We make no high pretensions.’ His lordship said:

‘You have not answered my question.’ So Aaron answered:

‘It was my brother Moses who in the desert

Heard the word of God.’ – ‘Why does your brother

Not make the request himself?’ And Aaron said,

True to the pattern, ‘My brother is slow of speech.’ –

‘And slow perhaps of understanding. When will you

Israelites realise what you are?’ Decorously, Aaron:

‘We are beginning to realise, sir.’ – ‘Take him back this answer.

And deliver it as slowly as you will.’ He raised his whip,

Its handle gorgeously patterned, and lashed. The blow was feeble,

Apt for the giver of the blow, but blood came,

Rippling through Aaron’s beard, first blood. Aaron bowed,

Humble, submissive to the pattern. But his word travelled

Quickly enough. Israelite insolence, to the palace,

And one day two high ministers sat at a game

Of senet, an intricate, geometrical game, one saying:

‘Three days in the desert. How do we construe that?’

The other: ‘Israelite insolence, but we know its origin.’

And the first: ‘Moses, yes. And what precisely

Is the present position of Moses?’ The other shrugged,

Eyes on the game-board: ‘The situation between him and the

Pharaoh – forgive me, I have that in the wrong order –

Is that he, of his own free will, has cast himself

Clean out of favour. I gather that Pharaoh

Had an accession of chagrin, something to do with the past,

A kind of nostalgia, but that everything now

Is perfectly clear.’ The first one took a piece,

Grinning, and said: ‘The fable – you know the fable.

The lion prepared to eat the lamb and the lamb said:

Before I am eaten, sir, let me put my

Affairs in order. I assure you, noble sir,

I will be back in time for dinner.’ The other laughed,

Examined the board, then said: ‘The Israelites, I gather,

Are buzzing with hope. There is a little device

I have always been interested in trying. Bricks. Bricks.

Have you had any experience of brick-making? No,

Of course not. It is a simple process. Listen…’

So it happened, the next day, at the mudpits,

That the workers stood around, puzzled, and the foreman,

Not Dathan, an honest man, sincerely puzzled,

Went to his overseer, noticing that, usually,

There were soldiers around, and asked: ‘Sir. Where is the straw?’

There was no answer but grins began among the soldiers,

A kind of expectant lip-licking. ‘The straw, sir, straw.

To make bricks with. We have not straw. The straw hasn’t come.

Straw.’ An officer said: ‘What’s going on?

With respect, I mean, sir. Of course we have to have straw.

Mud, straw, water, the sun – that is how bricks are made.

Give us straw and we give you bricks. As always. Sir.’

A scribe sitting by, busy with accounts, said: ‘Changes.

There have been some changes. Nobody brings you straw,

Not ever again. You gather your own straw.

Or you do without. Is that clear? Is that perfectly clear?’

The foreman frowned, very puzzled, and the laughs began

Among the soldiers. He took the word back to the workers,

And Joshua, one of the workers, said: ‘No straw.

No bricks. A simple enough equation.’ Caleb nudged him,

And Joshua saw soldiers with bows and arrows at the ready.

A deputation – Aaron, and Moses also,

But a silent Moses at this stage of the tale,

Joshua, Caleb, others, the foreman leading –

Went to say to what was now a

Grinning knot of officials, well-backed by arrows:

‘Sir, sirs, with respect, we do not

Understand. If we get the straw ourselves

That doubles the work. I thought you needed bricks.

If this, of course, is just a way of saying

We don’t work hard enough – I mean, you can have more bricks,

If that’s what you mean. But give us the straw first.’

The Egyptians said nothing still, but smiles were wider.

Then Joshua cried out: ‘New Egyptian injustice!

We have had enough and more than enough!’ The smiles went

And the soldiers were on him. He spat

Lavishly into a military face, and then the fists started.

The other workers drew back – they had not meant this –

They had merely wanted to – Aaron looked at Moses

But Moses did, said nothing, abiding to the pattern,

While Joshua was lashed to a whipping-post and

Lashed to near-death. Joshua, when the sun set,

Still there, soldiers around him, guarding, covered with rod-marks,

Dried blood, flies frantic around the

Wounds still open. The foreman spoke to Moses:

‘You. You put the rod in their fists. You.

You’ll put the sword in their hands tomorrow.

Or tonight perhaps. You and your brother.

This God of yours. I hope he strikes you down.

Both of you. Strikes you dead.’ Moses was silent

But the voice within him spoke bitterly to a fire on Horeb:

Why have you done this? Why do you bring only

Evil to your people? Why did you send me back here?

Why could I not be left alone? The sun dipped,

And soon the bats circled, whistling, and then the

Irrelevant constellations, no answer. No speech

At the table in Aaron’s house – bread, fruit,

A meagre supper – and eyes averted from Moses,

Moses eating nothing, Aaron little, his eyes

Not averted though very troubled. When Moses left

To look at the stars in bitterness, Aaron followed

And said at one: ‘I want no more of it.’

Moses nodded. ‘You want to be free of me.’ –

‘Free of this business’, Aaron said, ‘Of having to

Speak in your name.’ – ‘You think it all a lie,

That the voice was a delusion, that I’m

Mad. Or misled. – ‘So our people think.’

But Moses: ‘They think wrong. The voice spoke

True. It made no false promises. Nothing will be easy.

But the Lord did make. One error. The error of choosing

Me.’ They were both silent then and, for a whole day,

Silent with each other. Silent to his face the

People Moses was sent to deliver, but behind his back

Not silent. Children would throw feeble stones

And old men spit in his path, no more. Joshua,

Broken, groaning on his bed with the flies about him,

Was a sufficient witness against him. To the fire on Horeb

Moses spoke desperately: See, Lord. See what you have done.

Since the moment of my return there has been

Nothing but sullenness and a renewal of evil ways.

Your people are sunken into a deeper slavery.

You do not wish to set them free. He walked through Pithom,

So speaking, seeing whores offer themselves,

A young man sunk far in disease and neglected,

Children squabbling for a cheap Egyptian toy.

And are they not right to have lost hope?

Lord, why was it I who had to be chosen?

What shall I do? What shall I say to them?

And then the Lord spoke, but in the voice of Moses:

Moses. I begin now. Go to Pharaoh.

Say to him all that I bid you say. But the voice

Must be Aaron’s still. He must stand in your place.

But you must stand in the place of the Lord your God.

So Moses stood entranced a moment on the street in Pithom,

Saying aloud: ‘The Lord my God.’ There were jeers

As at a madman. A stone was hurled, and not by a child.

But he stood transfixed, impervious. ‘Lord my God.’

So there came the day, in a day or so, of the petitions.

A royal pavilion, with pennants, a throne, effigies,

Trumpeters, drummers, the whole court in attendance,

On a bank where the Nile narrowed, the water muddy,

Turbulent over a bed of slippery stones.

And on the opposed bank the suppliants,

With petitions for the Pharaoh, waited in the heat,

Swatting flies with palm-fronds. Aaron and Moses

Waited with them. After hours of waiting,

Trumpets sounded, and a herald spoke:

‘Whatsoever person desires to present his

Petition to the most sacred majesty of the Pharaoh,

The divine Mernefta, must do so as follows. He must

Step into the sacred waters and be purified.

Thus purified, he may proceed to the royal shore.’

Trumpets, then trumpets, drums, cymbals as

Pharaoh himself, well-attended, came to his throne.

On his throne, he saw many eyes quick to avert themselves

From blinding majesty, but the eyes of Moses

Were not averted. The suppliants entered the water

And, as was foreseen, stumbled, slithered,

Crawled back again, some, to their own bank,

While the court grinned, laughed when one old man

Had to be saved from drowning. Pharaoh smiled,

Perhaps dutifully, but he did not smile

When Moses and Aaron, upright among the slitherers,

Trod the river-bed towards him, Aaron crying:

‘Pharaoh… We humbly request… that your majesty

Accede to our…’ The king signed to the herald,

And the herald signed to the captain of trumpeters,

And the trumpeters blasted forth, so the words of Aaron,

Save for ‘strike’ and ‘punish’ and ‘revenge’,

Were smothered, and all speech and laughter smothered

When the drums and cymbals added their clamour. The eyes of Moses,

The eyes of one who had foreseen all, held steady

And now Pharaoh avoided them. But those eyes turned,

Again as one who had foreseen, upstream where a

Man cried soundlessly, and the eyes of Pharaoh

Followed. The man was as though painted red,

And viscous red ran from him and he shouted.

Pharaoh stilled the clamour of the silver and skin,

And the shout was heard: ‘Blood. The water has turned to

Blood.’ Laughter, and then not laughter.

For red was tumbling, sluggish at first, downstream,

Then bubbling over the stones, and the smell

Was, without doubt, the smell of blood. Moses and Aaron

Stood as it surged about them, let the others,

Terrified, crying It’s blood blood the water has

Turned to blood, slither and stumble out, stood till

Pharaoh himself came down to the river-verge and

Dipped his hand in. Blood. His eyes found the eyes of Moses,

And they said, surely: ‘Clever, cousin Moses.

But no more clever than my own

Magicians can do.’ And then they looked on blood.

Servants rushed with towels, wiping off the blood

From the royal hand, throwing the towels in

Blood, the towels filling with blood, floating sluggishly,

While the cry of blood blood went on, and Moses and Aaron

Strode through blood, their backs to Pharaoh,

Back to their bank. And now, all along the Nile bank,

The cry or scream was blood, and in the fountains

Blood seethed and frothed, but in the wells of Pithom

Water sang clear. Then, from the waterways

Which were now boiling bloodtides, the frogs came croaking,

Blood on their skin, frogs countless, in droves,

With a deafening croaking, on to the land, advancing.

Water blood, and the land all frogs, then the air

Filling with gnats, beasts and men

Thrashing and screaming, the sky black with gnats.

At the core of maddened Egypt, fires burning

To keep off the gnats, in a gauze tent

In a room of the palace, the chief magician used words,

Reasonable words, to calm the ministers, saying:

‘Maintain, my lords, a scientific approach.

Approach by way of reality, by observation,

Analysis, never by way of theory. You ask:

Is it blood? If blood, whose blood? I reply:

That is not to the purpose. The substance, true,

Behaved like blood, smelt, tasted like it.

Whose blood? That is no question for the

Physical investigator. Think now. There are records

Of mud-pollution on the Nile, followed inevitably

By an immediate exodus of creatures that live

And breed in clear water. Swarms of frogs and gnats –

Inevitable. We may expect also flies, locusts,

A murrain on the cattle – all stemming from

The pollution, by whatever cause, of the river.

You ask: is the blood, or whatever it is, a product

Of thaumaturgical conjuration? I say in reply:

The term has never been adequately defined. Miracle,

Magic – what do the words, scientifically considered,

Really mean? But, my lords, we have to remember

That this perverse and defecting Moses is, by upbringing,

Education, an Egyptian. He has had, doubtless, access

To obscure lore which, in this age of stability

And power, has never had to be invoked

Against enemies. To talk, as some are doing,

Of the magical potency of a new god, a god moreover

Of an enslaved people, is, to say the least,

Premature. Again, you ask: how is it that the

Israelites remain immune from these – nuisances?

The reason, my lords, may well be geographical.

Goshen, remember, is some way from the Nile,

Sheltered, removed from the causative pollution.

How dark it is getting.’ It was true.

They peer through their mesh at thickening air. Flies.

Thick, black, buzzing irritably, flies.

Clouds of flies. But none in Pithom. There

Aaron addressed the elders, saying: ‘The signs are before you.

Can you harbour further doubts? I know, I know

It is hard to take in. The God of the universe

Has chosen a people weak, enslaved, hopeless,

Indolent.’ – ‘Chosen for what?’ said one. And Aaron:

‘For the working out of his divine purpose on earth.

So it would seem. We must not ask too much.

What we must rather do is gird our loins,

Prepare for the coming of the day.’ But an elder said:

‘The day, you mean, of leaving a bondage that has become –

Well, all that some of us have known. We are old.

It is hard to face the new life. It is a hard God,

This God of yours, ours.’ But Aaron cried:

‘We must learn to think of ourselves as a people,

Not as mere tribes, families, lone beings with

Individual sufferings. Many of us

May be discarded on the way – worn-out, useless –

But the people goes on, the race continues. They that

End the journey may not be those that began it.

We are all one, and the dead and the yet unborn

Share in the common purpose, the common goal.’

And one said: ‘I don’t like this sort of talk at all.

It’s all blown-up, like a sheep’s stomach full of wind.

Life is, life is what we see, smell, feel –

The taste of a bit of bread, a mouthful of water,

Sitting at the door, watching the evening come on

With the circling of the bats. The things you talk of

Are only in the mind. We are too old, I tell you,

For this talk of common goals and purposes and journeys.’

And Aaron was angry, shouting: ‘You speak thus,

When the Lord your God exerts himself beyond

What may be thought of as proper for a God.

For God has shown himself in the running blood of the

Rivers, in the swarming gnats and flies.

God leaves us unscathed and wholesome while all Egypt

Screams. Does this mean nothing?’ And one said:

‘It means, I suppose, that we are the chosen people.

Means we must face the desert and dream of the promise.

It means – oh, is it so blasphemous

To wish to be left alone?’

Then came the locusts,

Stripping the trees, save in the vale of Goshen,

Where Pithom sat. And then came boils and ulcers,

And lancings, and running of pus, the afflicted

Wretched, waiting in line for the lancet, and the

General wonder that things should be as they were.

Had the gods failed Pharaoh? How could they fail

One who was one of themselves? Was it some demon?

But no demon could be mightier than the gods’

Whole army. Pharaoh had done so much

To the glory of the gods – opulent monuments.

He had done for the gods far more than the

Gods might reasonably expect to be done. The pyramids.

Take the pyramids. To count the bricks in

One pyramid alone would take up years. What then

Had gone wrong? ‘They wonder’, Aaron said,

In conclave in Pithom, ‘what has gone wrong. But they know

That we remain untouched, this they know. They fear us.

It is a new thing for the Israelites to be feared.’

Miriam said: ‘We were always feared. If the Egyptians

Had merely destroyed us, our memory still

Would have been feared. There are many dead nations

That growl out of their ashes. But they brought us low,

They made us despised among nations. And the fear –

How is it now expressed? They are already beginning

To bribe us into leaving, to skulking out

In the dark.’ And she looking at Dathan, who,

In a corner of Aaron’s house, gloated over

A little hoard of jewels and gold pieces,

Egyptian bribes. Dathan said: ‘I shall be happy

To take charge of all this side of our

Operation. We need such resources presumably.

Nor is there any need to wait to be given.

One may take. Take. There are any number

Of fine villas already abandoned. Death. The plague.

I knew some of the victims well. Through my position.

They’re well served now, God curse them.’ Now Moses spoke,

Saying: ‘The potter has his craft, so has the builder,

So has the maker of songs. The Lord too

Has his craft. And it may be called. A

Dance of numbers. So far he has smitten

Egypt seven times. Rivers of blood.

Frogs. Gnats. Flies. A striking down of their

Sheep and cattle. The curse of the teeth of the

Locusts. Now the plague.’ On the mud floor

He marked in strokes with his staff to the number seven.

‘The making of the world,’ he said, ‘was a dance of seven.

The bringing low of Egypt. Will be a

Dance of ten.’ They listened. ‘For in the heart of

Pharaoh there must be a kind of dance.

It must soften. It must harden. It must

Soften again. Must harden for one last time.

And then, like stone, it must crack. It must

Shatter. And Egypt. Must shatter with it. Delay.

Some of you think of delay and fret. But remember.

The Lord must have his craft. And we need the delay.

We must gather our possessions. Our carts. Cattle.

There is a matter of supplies. Grain. Water.

We must prepare. Our order of march. Think of the

Sick. The unwilling. The cries of those who

Would be left. To last out their days. In Goshen.

Women with child. Many problems. The question of

Unifying the clans. Creating degrees of leadership.’

‘The question of arms, defence,’ Joshua said,

Eager though battered, scarred, limping. ‘The army.

The training of an army.’ – ‘That too, Joshua.’ –

‘The treasury,’ Dathan smiled.

In the imperial palace,

In full assembly, ministers about him, Pharaoh paced,

Hiding his deep agitation, while a scribe

Read figures out: ‘One hundred and seventeen thousand

Five hundred and sixty-seven. This is the latest

Computation, your divine majesty.’ Pharaoh said:

‘I am not greatly interested in numbers. So many dead,

So many lost cattle, devastated fields. It is not

Flesh and bone and possessions we lose,

For these can be replaced a millionfold.

It is the heart of the empire, the central idea…’

And a minister said, in pain: ‘With respect, majesty,

You cannot so easily ignore the suffering of

Your subjects. It is an essential in kingship:

The king must see himself as a head, his kingdom the body.

Must not the head feel the anguish of the body?’ But Pharaoh:

‘It is the heart that feels, not the head.

The head must be clear. The heart clouds and confuses.

Let us hear no talk of feeling. Thinking –

That concerns us now.’ But the minister cried:

‘If you have suffered – if you had lost – ’ And another:

‘If I may say this, majesty, our friend is distraught.

He has lost both his wife and daughter.’ But Pharaoh said:

‘He can have another wife within a day.

Another daughter within a year. I do not wish

To listen to womanish laments and improper rebukes.

Let us quieten our hearts. Let the head speak. Listen.’

And they listened. Pharaoh said: ‘This empire, Egypt,

Is the greatest the world has ever seen, perhaps

The greatest it will ever see. Our cities

Are crammed with all manner of merchandise, our ships

Sail all the known seas. Our towers kiss heaven,

Our armies shake the earth. We prosper, prospered…

At the very core of our empire lies a truth.

Or shall I say a belief that has long been taken

For a truth – the belief that the ruler of the empire

Has been appointed by the gods themselves,

That the Pharaoh is the issue of their flesh. How then can

The Nile fail to bless the land, the land

Fail to groan with the overwhelming

Blessing of increase? But now the gods

Seem to turn against their own flesh. Starvation.

Disease. Dissension. Fratricide. Distrust of authority.

Why? Why? Can the changeless gods then change?

Can the eternally strong grow weak? Can, from nowhere,

A new god appear to overthrow the

Tables of the eternal?’ The chief magician spoke,

After a pause: ‘Your majesty has touched upon

An interesting, indeed compelling, theological point.

The gods are the gods, eternal, self-created,

Subsisting out of time. There are no new gods.

But, your majesty, the gods, so we must believe,

Have no essential interest in human affairs.

It is only by virtue of prayer, sacrifice,

The raising of monuments, even the skills of conjuration,

That they can be swirled into the human orbit.

Now, as it seems to me, one god forgotten,

One long removed from the concerns of the state of Egypt,

Has been conjured. You know which god. You know

By whom.’ A nerve beat on Pharaoh’s brow.

Then he said: ‘You take us back to an old time –

A time when the false belief in a

Single god possessed many of the most subtle and

High-placed of Egyptians. You refer to Moses.

This belief has come back and it has attached itself

To a race of slaves.’ The chief magician said:

‘Logical, majesty, as you will admit. Will the slaves

Willingly embrace the gods of their masters?

These questions, as I said, are of immense

Theoretical interest, but – there remains

The matter of what is to be done. I would, I know,

Be overtreading the bounds of my office if I

Ventured to – ‘ But the first minister cut in with:

‘It is a simple matter, divine majesty.

The devotees of the god ask that they may do

Sacrifice to him. They request three day

Away from their holy work of building monuments

To the glory of the true gods of imperial Egypt.

It would be a mark of a kingly clemency to grant…’

And Pharaoh cried: ‘Be forced to grant, impelled to?”

For the slave to cease to be a slave? For the

Power of his God to be recognised, acknowledged?’ –

‘Only three days, majesty. With guarantees of return.’ –

And Pharaoh began to see what was meant. ‘Guarantees?’

He smiled. – ‘Guarantees, your divine majesty.’

Then the hailstones came, thudding on the street

And roofs and deafening, and, landing,

Spurting out flame. But not Goshen, land of

Servitude but also of sun and clean water. From Pithom

Moses and Aaron came to the palace, knowing it was

Time to ask again, and were admitted to a

Dark chamber full of candlelight, where magicians

Consulted entrails, burned rare gums and powders,

Intoned in an old tongue. Pharaoh was there.

Aaron spoke at once, saying: ‘We are come again,

King of Egypt, to ask that we be released

From our labours in order to…’ Pharaoh ignored him,

Addressing Moses instead: ‘Have you no respect

For our religion, cousin? We are at holy work.

We seek to avert these inexplicable nuisances

From the innocent Egyptian people.’ Aaron said:

‘Not innocent. Not inexplicable.’ Pharaoh sighed,

Saying: ‘Our ceremonies are tainted by the presence

Of the unbeliever. Go.’ And the magicians

Put out their fires, made obeisance, departed.

‘You seem to have reached the limit, clever cousin,

Of your resources’, Pharaoh said. ‘This magic

Hail of yours can harm no one.’ Aaron replied:

‘Harm was never intended. Not at first.

It was thought the signs of God’s power would be enough.’

But Pharaoh ignored him still, fixing Moses

With a look malevolent, admiring, even affectionate.

And Aaron: ‘Do we have an answer, sir? May we

Take an answer back to our people?’ Pharaoh still

Ignored him, addressing Moses: ‘Are you pleased

With your power, cousin? Does it satisfy you

To have impaired, even part-destroyed, this great

Flower of order? Do you wish me to bow down

To a god who is the enemy of the State?

For, believe me, the State can be hated only by the

Eternal forces of disruption, little of whose power

You have, through your trickery, shown us.

Without the State we are nothing, any of us.

Order, beauty, majesty, the unbroken

Chain of rule. To destroy the state

Is to betray us to those windy voices out there in the desert.

You wish to see Egypt become broken stone,

Lizards sunning themselves on broken stone.’

Then Moses spoke: ‘You cannot. Maintain order – ’

Pharaoh feigned amazement: ‘You have recovered your voice?’ –

‘Cannot. Maintain order. On slavery.’ Pharaoh cried:

‘What slavery? Any slavery? Or merely the

Slavery of your people? If you were to be made free,

Would you not have your highest and your lowest?

Would you not build your own pyramid?’ Aaron said:

‘Sir, we need your answer.’ And Pharaoh, in scorn:

‘Quiet, little man. I am talking to your better.’

Moses said: ‘We will build on the covenant.

On the bond. Freely embraced. The contract

Between man and man.’ Then Pharaoh bitterly:

‘Your high talk in a land you have turned into a

Charnel. I cannot stand your smell much longer.

You had better go.’ Aaron, eagerly: ‘May we then

Have a scribe called in? May we have this written

And stamped with the royal seal?’ Pharaoh spoke still

Only to Moses: ‘The word of the Pharaoh, Moses.

You may go to the desert and perform your sacrifice.

I have, may the gods forgive me, spoken.’

Moses said: ‘You have not finished, majesty.

I would rather you had said it now than shouted it

To our backs as we left your presence.’ Pharaoh cried:

‘What have I not then said?’ And then, quieter:

‘Ah yes. The men may go to the desert

And do sacrifice to the god of destruction.

The women and children shall remain behind.

As this is a kind of war, cousin Moses,

Shall we call them a hostage?’ Aaron was ready to

Rave, but Moses held him back, half-smiling:

‘Your heart is still hard, Pharaoh. This must mean

You have not yet had enough signs.

Or enough suffering.’ So they left,

And Egypt, as Moses knew, was ready for the

Ninth course. The hail had departed, the sun shone.

And God said to Moses: Take up a handful

Of the dust of the earth and hurl it into the sky.

He did so, and blackness fell. Thick, palpable

Dark in a black dark wind that doused all lights.

Nor did the other curses abate – the water blood,

Frogs, gnats, flies, locusts, murrain, plague,

Hailstones that flamed fire. Misery.

Death-carts through the dark. So, as foreseen,

Moses and his brother were summoned again to the palace,

But this time met by a minister, who said:

‘The order is that you leave Egypt and go

Into the desert, there to conduct your

Sacrifice.’ But Aaron, quickly: ‘The women?

The children?’ – ‘They are to go with you.’

Moses waited, holding Aaron back,

Aaron anxious to leave, so the minister said:

‘You expect something more?’ – ‘Something more.’ –

‘There is nothing more in the royal instructions.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Moses, ‘there is something more.

We must wait for that something more.’ The minister cried:

“’hat manner of man are you? If you wish something more,

You may have it from me – the loathing of

One who did ill to no man and yet was compelled

To suffer. Who lost two of his dearest – No matter.

You are stone men. You ask something more

That our suffering may be prolonged. Go. You heard the order.

See – it is written clear. Why can you not go?’

And a voice said: ‘Yes. Why can they not go?’ The Pharaoh

Stood by a door of ornate gold, attended

By torchbearers, cold loathing on his face, saying:

‘They cannot go because they know there is something more.

What is the something more? You, Aaron, his voice –

What is it?’ Aaron said: ‘We are to go

Into the desert for three days, there to do sacrifice

In the middle of our month of Nissan. Men, women, children.

With our beasts, our goods – ’ But Pharaoh cried out: ‘No.

You have eaten of the bread of Pharaoh, drunk his wine.

For three days you shall neither eat nor drink.

You will sacrifice fasting. Then you will return.

Your beasts will bleat and bellow a welcome home.

Your pitiful goods will lie snug, awaiting you.

This is the contract. That the god cease his torments.

That you go forth for three days, three days only.’

But Moses said, ‘This, Pharaoh, will not do.

Your covenant with us was broken. Long ago.

There is no bond between us. When we leave this land

It shall be as free men. Taking with us our wives.

Taking our children. Sheep. Oxen. Goods –

Such as they are. Not the paring of a nail

Shall be left in Egypt. Not a hair or a scale

Of the skin of the beast.’ But Pharaoh cried:

‘You go forth naked. Naked you return.’

‘No.’ And Moses was not now slow of speech.

‘Your heart is still hard against the Lord and against the

Servants of the Lord. The land has suffered,

The king of the land must see the suffering brought home.

There is, Pharaoh, one last trial, the tenth,

And it will still not fall directly on your head.

You will live, whole and free, to see

The Israelites leave Egypt. But the trial to come

Will be the worst trial in the world. Do you now relent?’

But Pharaoh said: ‘The Pharaoh is not threatened.’

And then his stone face became flesh, then the flesh writhed,

And the tongue ground out: ‘If I see your face again…’

But Moses bowed to the words, calm, saying:

‘So be it. This is the last time, Pharaoh,

The last time you will ever see my face.’

They left the presence, the palace, walking surely through

Howling darkness, until, on Goshen’s border,

They walked through howling darkness like a wall

Into sun, clean air, and the song of fresh water.

Moses shuddered. The last thing coming. The last.

The tenth figure of the dance. But Pharaoh had willed it.

Men will even their own destruction. A heavy burden,

Free will, Moses sighed to himself, seeking fresh water,

No torment in the world greater than freedom.

6 THE PASSOVER

Moses, in sunlight, with the whirring of Miriam’s doves

And the cry of children about him, sighed and spoke

Softly of the Angel of Death. ‘Who shall describe him?

Or her? Or it? Like a trained hound of the hunters

He has the scent in his nostrils. He follows the scent.

He will follow the scent of the first-born.’ Miriam said:

‘You were told this?’ And Moses replied: ‘It is the

Last thing. The tenth figure of the dance.

Four days from now on the night of the

Fourteenth day of Nissan. The nose and the teeth of the

Angel of Death will dart straight

For the first-born. Whether Egyptian or Israelite –

It will be no matter to him of the

Separating of the nations. Even the

First-born whelp of a bitch’s litter. The

Hatchling of the hen. He will go for the scent.’

And Miriam, in terror: ‘For ours? For our

First-born?’ But Moses said: ‘Have no fear.

We have a secret. We will put him off the scent.’

So Aaron that day addressed the people, saying:

‘With your loins girded, sandals on your feet,

Staff in your hand, you shall be ready. So says the Lord.

For the time is with us. You shall eat the flesh of the lamb

Roasted, eat it in haste. And the bread your eat with it

Shall be unleavened, shall be a bread of haste,

With no time for the leavening. And you shall

Season your meat with bitter herbs, that the

Bitterness of the exile shall be in your mouths

At the very door of the exodus. Kill now and

Pray as you kill, for you kill in the name

Of the Lord’s Passover.’ So the knives came down

On the necks of the lambs, and Pithom was

All blood and bleating for a space. Passover,

Some said, what is Passover? Moses explained

In his old halting way: ‘We call it Passover,

And shall call it Passover till the end of our race,

For tomorrow we pass over from death to life.

And this strange supper we take tonight

In a ceremony. We shall have need of ceremonies.

To remind us who we are. What we are.

Till the end of our race. And the lamb we kill,

Each of our households, the lamb we eat

Is an offering to the Lord, who leads us

In our passing over from death to life.’ But of that other

Passing over he did not for the moment speak,

Learning fast the beneficent wiles of the leader.

So Aaron said: ‘On the lintels of your dwellings

And on the doorposts, you shall daub some of the

Lamb’s blood, as a sign.’ As a sign of what?

So the bolder asked, and Aaron said: ‘As a sign

Of the primal sacrifice, wherein we kill,

And of the second sacrifice, wherein we eat,

Marking the place where ‘we eat’’ [beneficent wiles].

The daubing was done and inspected, and, on the fires,

The tender flesh seethed, while in the ovens

The heard heavy bread was baked. So at nightfall

All were ready to sit, girded, sandalled,

The children excited, and there was laughter,

Even song, for the time was coming. ‘The time is coming,’

They said, but not really believing,

For this was a ceremony only of deliverance.

But in Aaron’s house where all the blood of Amram

Sat, fingering bitter herbs, ‘The time is coming’,

Moses said, and shuddered. ‘This is Passover,

And will be so till the end of our race, to mark

The hour of his passing over.’ Shuddering. ‘But it is a

Terrible thing, a terrible burden, and the

Burden is just beginning.’ He put his head in his hands,

But Miriam held his shoulders, saying: ‘Courage.

Courage.’ Then all suddenly listened.

But there was nothing to hear. ‘The silence,’ Aaron said,

‘Strikes like a new noise.’ Then Moses heard.

‘He is coming. God help them. He is coming. Now.’

Then, from afar, a scream, and another,

And soon the sound of wailing. They sat silent,

The meat grown cold on the table, listening.

Then the noise of a nearing wind at the door,

And the door shaking, but then the shaking ceased,

And the wind passed over.

In the imperial palace

They heard the wailing without, even Pharaoh heard,

And his queen, in the innermost chamber, listened dumbly.

The infant prince slept in his cradle, placed in the heart

Of a magical pentacle, and the chief magician,

His assistants all about him, intoned, intoned:

‘For the safety of the house and all within it.

May the first nameless, who guards the doors of the eyes,

Be doubly watchful. May the second nameless,

Who sits in the doorways of the ears, be this night aware

Of the rustling and breathing of the malign intruder.

May the third nameless, who lives suspended in the

Air of the nostrils, smell out the evil of him

Who approaches with the intent of evil…’ A little cry

From the cradle, and the king froze, and the queen,

But they bent over and Pharaoh said: ‘He is dreaming.

It is a good dream – see, he smiles in his sleep.

My precious. See, he holds out his little arms.’

And he lifted the child from his cradle and held him, crooning,

Like any father, then said: ‘No harm, no harm,

No harm shall come to him, for he is my precious.’

A sudden scream from afar stopped the magician’s chant

An instant, but he continued: ‘And the nameless one

Who sits in the cup of the navel…’ Pharaoh said:

‘Be quiet. What was that?’ And a minister, soothing:

‘A servant, majesty. The child of a servant.’

Pharaoh whispered: ‘Nothing shall. Nothing.

Stand round us with your torches. Burn your incense.

Say your prayer. Say it.’ So the magician intoned:

‘Gods of the seven worlds, hear, hearken.

Let the word of your servant be sweet in the ear

Of the guardians of the living. Let no evil

Touch your servant this night, let the dark be

Beneficent, and the vapours of the night

Be like the balm of the morning. Let the souls

Of the evil dead lie in sleep, unenticed

By the smell of smoke that puts out the light

Till the morning comes again, and the world is living

And the sun blesses and there is nothing more to fear.’

Pharaoh looked down on his child, cradled in his arms,

Looked and looked and did not believe and looked

Incredulously towards his queen and all looked and

None was in any doubt as a bank of candles

Flickered as in the draught of a great wind,

And from Pharaoh went up the cry of an animal,

Filling the chamber, the palace, spilling into the night,

Spilling into one pair of ears in Pithom, those

That had listened to fieldmice chatter and bats at nightfall.

The palace took up the cry and gongs and drums

Turned it to a geometry of lamentation,

While, like a thing of wood or metal, the king

Carried the child blindly, the mother following,

Choked in pain the gongs muffled, till they stood

Before a god of metal and Pharaoh whispered:

‘What do I do now? Beg you to comfort him

On his passage through the tunnels of the night?

Beseech you to remember that he is still

Of your divine flesh, and to restore him to the light

Where he is – needed? Or do I see you already

As very hollow, very weak, impotent, a sham?

Am I born too early or too late? Does heaven

Remake itself? Has the dominion passed over

To that single God who was neither sun nor moon

But the light of both? But in your eyes there is nothing.

Your head is the head of a bird.’

The mother took the tiny body, weeping under the gongs,

And Pharaoh turned his back on the god, looking towards

Goshen, Moses, saying, ‘Did you hear my cry?

And the cries of the other fathers of Egypt, mothers

Of Egypt? Go, then. Take your women and your

Unscathed children. Take your cattle and sheep

And your wretched possessions. Leave my people in peace.

Go, serve your God in what manner you will.

And come no more into Egypt.’ And said again:

Rise up and go forth among my people,

Both you and the people of Israel, and go,

Serve the Lord, as you have said.

Take your flocks and your herds and bless your freedom

Be gone. And bless me also. Me also.

7 THE EXODUS

Before dawn, with a foredawn wind blowing,

With the blowing of ram’s horns, answering

From tribe to tribe, under the moon and stars,

They got themselves ready, hardly able to believe it,

Many sad at leaving the evil known for the unknown good,

Especially as the hovels emptied of chattels,

The meagre good were roped to carts, and

Home, such as it was, dissolved with the

Fading of the stars. There were tears enough

As the cocks crew, answering from

Village to village. The cows were milked in haste

And, lowing, herded for the journey. A choral bleat

Of sheep drowned the horn and the cock-crow. Oxen

Were harnessed. While Aaron marshalled the tribal leaders

And then the leaders marshalled the tribes,

Moses walked among them all, cutting off thought,

For thought was mostly doubt of himself, seeing

The women with child, the children, the champing old

Lifted on to ox-carts. The stars were gone,

The east promised another day of fire,

The desert beckoned. Miriam released her doves

And her doves flew eastward, into the light

That was not yet cruel light. Dathan was a flame

About the cart whereon the treasury was loaded,

Gold, jewels, all Egyptian bribes. Then Moses spoke

To the God within him, saying: ‘Be with me, be

With me,’ raising his staff, setting his face

With smarting eyes to the east, and so it began,

The ragged exodus, with none to oppose them,

Through the delta land, through scrub, then to the desert,

Already, as the sun warmed, the lineaments

Of fatigue, despair, the promise of rebellion

Among some who, tasting that word freedom,

Were ready enough to spit it out of a dry mouth,

Longing sickly for the slave’s day, the known evil.

So Pithom was empty. In the empty house of Aaron

A lone dog crunched the paschal bone. In the

Empty heart of Pharaoh bitterness

Found a house, then the house grew to a palace,

Then massive portals of the palace heaved to opening,

After the funeral, one of many, the priests

Giving unctuous comfort, saying: ‘It will pass

As a bad dream passes. For the pestilence is gone,

The rivers flow silver not red, the air is

Filled with the song of birds not the buzz of gnats

And the fretful cry of locusts. The land, you will see,

Will be fruitful again, your loins, you will see,

Will be fruitful.’ But the bereaved wept.

‘The evil,’ spoke the priests, ‘that visited our land

Was an emanation of an evil people.

But the Israelites are no longer with us: the gods

Gave us a sign to drive them out of our midst.

And lo they are gone…’ At Pithom, in the empty mudpits,

A scribe drank palm-wine with an overseer of workers,

His occupation, for the moment, gone. ‘Quiet,’ said the scribe.

‘The silence is a sort of memory of their noise.’

‘Not quiet in the other mudpits,’ the overseer said.

‘He should never have done it. Now all the slaves –

Greeks, Berbers, the rest – want to go to the desert,

To do sacrifice to what they call their gods.

Of course, it could all be a coincidence –

The plague, the flies, the locusts. But the

Blood was real, though. Red, thick,

As any in a slaughterhouse. All against nature.

It was as if nature went wrong for a time.

And these – ’ He gestured towards the huge absence.

‘These took advantage. They cause it, no.

They pretended to cause it. Cunning.’ The scribe said:

‘This too is against nature. This not having slaves.

How does one build a city without slaves?

A civilisation – do you know that word? – without slaves

Is totally against reason, meaning nature.

You have to have slaves.’ So they drank palm-wine

To protect themselves from the evil emptiness.

In that other emptiness, nearly a day’s march done,

The emptiness began to fill with the

First of the new signs: a dust-cloud swirling

And many fearful and talking of being lost,

We’re lost already, and look at this evil dust

Enveloping us, I said we should never have left,

At least we were safe there. The words of Moses

Relayed through leaders to tribe after tribe:

‘You say we are lost. But we are not lost.

You see this cloud of dust. It is God’s sign

That he is with us. See how the wind

Drives the cloud before us. God works through

Everything. Even a cloud of dust. God works

Through the smoke and rain. And dust of the desert.

God works through this pillar of cloud. See –

How it moves ahead of us. It bids us follow.’

Follow, some said, follow where? The answer was ready

On the lips of the leaders: ‘The promised land.

Where else.’ We shan’t see much of it.

Not with the dust in the way. And then there’s night.

What do we follow at night? ‘The Lord,’ said Moses,

‘Will think of something.’ And, indeed, at nightfall

A blinding company of fireflies, was it fireflies?,

Flashed into view. Fireflies? Glowworms? ‘Let’s follow,’

Moses said. A pillar of fire, moving ahead of them.

They followed, marvelling some, some grumbling.

How did they know it was not Egyptian magic,

Leading them back to slavery? Ah, slavery, some said.

The word is worse than the thing. But they followed.

And, in the council-chamber, the Lord Pharaoh

Followed his ministers’ words distractedly,

His ears still filled with the sobbing of his queen

And his own sobbing. ‘The shock of the people, majesty,

Has been, naturally, profound. It is manifested,

So to speak, in a slow numbing

Illness of doubt. Such doubt has not

Previously been known.’ And ‘The whole concept of the

Monarchy is inevitably in jeopardy,

Since there seems, in the eyes of the commonalty,

To have been a withdrawal of divine power.’ And Pharaoh:

‘What reports from the worksites, my lords?’ They answered:

‘Majesty, the recent riots have been contained.

There has been what is termed in this message here

A slackening of fibre, the sense of a

Silent but massive insolence in the face of the

Threat of…’ And Pharaoh: ‘Yes yes yes, and of course

The great evil is already a great dream.

Except among the bereaved.’ So one said:

‘Wounds heal, majesty. A truism, but true.’ Pharaoh answered:

‘Anger does not heal. Hatred. But then of course

Comes doubt – doubt as to the validity

Of the whole ancient system. New modes of justice.

New gods. Can there be new gods?’ The chief magician:

‘The gods, as I have said, majesty, subsist

Outside time. Only in time is change possible.

There are no new gods. You may, majesty, take that

As an irrefutable fact.’ Then a minister:

‘History, as our records show, is full of the

Inexplicable. The sudden famine, the muddying of the Nile,

Plagues, storms – Nature is wayward, self-willed.

But this has nothing at all to do with the gods.’

Pharaoh said: ‘Vague theology, half-chewed theory.

What is to be done? What practical measures

Offer themselves? There shoring up of a whipped monarchy

With the gods yawning…’ The chief magician said:

‘With respect, your divine majesty, such cynicism

Is in itself a corroborative of the already increasing

Popular lack of confidence in the…’ A minister

Spoke firmly: ‘The following narrative is no lie.

The Pharaoh, out of his divine benevolence,

Granted the request of the Israelite work-force

That they be permitted to do sacrifice

To their god in the desert. The period of leave requested

Was three days.’ Pharaoh saw. ‘How many days

Have they now been out of Egypt? Five, is it not?’

Five, five. ‘So’, Pharaoh pronounced.

‘We bring them back. Nothing could be simpler.’

Nothing simpler. Smiles, but he did not smile.

At the end of the fifth day in the desert, Aaron spoke,

Dissatisfied, to Moses, looking ahead,

Pharaoh and Pithom already far in the past:

‘The mistake, I say, lies in the organisation.

Old men, hereditary leaders of tribes and clans –

What true leadership can you expect from them?

They will be good enough at sitting in tents, cross-legged,

Giving judgments on marriage and property. But for a

Desert march…’ Moses looked back at Pithom,

Into the sunset, faintly troubled at something

He must wait for time to define, and said: ‘I know.

But this is no time to reorganise.’ Aaron cried:

‘We cannot survive if we do not. Already

Water discipline is bad. Food is stolen,

Selfishly hoarded. We need police, weapons,

A disciplinary court.’ Moses said: ‘The time is not yet.

We are not yet out of Egypt.’ Joshua spoke:

‘We’re a five days’ march out of Pithom. As for Egypt,

It belongs to our past, a past to be wiped out.

We are already living in the future.

Perhaps Aaron is too old to feel the flame of the future.

We organise in a new way – from within.

Not the Egyptian way. He talks of police,

Of disciplinary courts. That won’t be our way.’ –

‘There is only one way’, said Aaron hotly. But Moses:

‘Not yet. I say again not yet. Nor is the past

To be wiped out. If all others forget,

If even Egypt forgets, we have to remember.

He brought us out of Egypt. Write that in your hearts.’

Then Miriam spoke: ‘Many of our women, I fear,

Still have their hearts in Egypt. All they remember

Is gossip around the fountain at nightfall,

The daily baking of bread. They whine for it –

The bread of Egypt.’ Joshua said: ‘Even the young,

A few of them, talking about going back. To the

Only life they knew – whips and tyranny

As part of the order of nature. But I dealt with them.’

Moses smiled, asked how. ‘Talked with them,

I and some of the other progressives.’ Moses said:

‘A good word, progressive. Progress means

Going forward. No matter to what. Just forward.

Tomorrow we go forward to meet the water.’ –

‘Water to cross?’ asked Aaron. And Moses: ‘Hardly.

No boats, no bridging, no fording places.

We have to keep to the western shore, upstream.’

Joshua said: ‘Still on Pharaoh’s soil. Or sand.

I somehow still feel him breathing down my neck.’

‘Let us’, smiled Moses, ‘now do what must be done –

Go round the encampments. See to the sick.

Soothe the querulous. Put our

Fractious children to bed.’ Smiling. They all smiled,

With the first faint lines forming on mouth and brow

Of loving exasperation.

And Pharaoh said,

From his chariot, in his ornate armour, the lines forming

Of geometrical pursuit, the squadron leaders

Calling out names, said to his chief of staff:

‘A minimum of violence you understand.

We are not fighting a war. There are no army.

Threats, however, will be much in order. Hostages,

Especially high ones. As for Moses…’ Moses, sir?

‘No violence, no. He is to be brought back.

Stand trial. A public execution. Formal charge.

Formal arrest. The charge? All the charges in the world –

Blasphemy, disaffection, treason, murder.

Very much murder.’

In rocky terrain, at sunset,

Joshua sat alone, fashioning a bow. Arrows,

Already fashioned, lay neatly by him. Then he saw,

Out of the sun, a cloud of moving dust,

He peered narrowly, then ran to make his report.

But Moses already had heard, saying to Aaron:

‘You hear nothing?’ – ‘Nothing unusual.’ Moses said:

‘Pharaoh must know I can hear him. We expected this.’

Joshua running towards them, pointing. ‘A cloud of dust,’

Moses said. ‘The dust of his chariots. The masters

Are coming to reclaim their property.’ And Joshua:

‘What do we do? What do we fight with? I always said

That sooner or later it would be a matter of fighting.’ –

‘Sooner or later, yes,’ said Moses. ‘But not now.

We do not fight the Egyptians. Nor do we

Go back into slavery. What is left to us?

We progress, Joshua. We move on.’ Joshua, gulping:

‘I say it with respect, but – ‘ And Moses: ‘Yes, I am mad.

And our cause is mad. And the Lord God is mad.’

But, those miles distant, at nightfall, Pharaoh was saying:

‘They will never cease to be slaves. Slaves

To hunger and thirst, no doubt, at this very moment.

At least we can liberate them from that. Slaves

To geographical circumstance. They cannot progress.

They can, of course, go sideways like crabs. But,

Whatever they do, they are certainly pincered.’

At first light, sir? ‘Oh yes’, said the Lord Pharaoh.

‘Their humiliation must be clearly visible.’

But, those miles distant, at nightfall, Moses stood

On a rock, looking down into a swirl of waters.

A wind blew from the west. The voices in his head

Were louder than the turbulent Sea of Reeds.

Why could we not stay in Egypt? At least we were fed.

At least we slept in a bed. Let us go back to

Slavery, as you call it. If that was slavery,

What name do we find for this? Are there not enough

Graves in Egypt? Dathan’s words. Dathan,

Truculent with his rebels, crying out:

‘Are there not enough graves in Egypt,

Since you bring us into the desert to find them here?

I was well enough off in Egypt. The lords of Egypt

Could be generous to those they knew were their friends.

Are there any ready to return with me to Egypt?’

And then the shame of it, Joshua’s discovery:

Dathan and his runagates, stuffing into sacks

The Israelite treasury, then, discovered, crying:

‘We were just protecting the treasury, no more.

There are thieves among us. I know what you are thinking.

But we have no such intention. We are all together in this.

We trust Moses. We trust Aaron. We trust you, Joshua.’

Then Joshua and some more of the young progressives,

Hit out, hit. Warm in his cloak, Moses

Reviewed all this sadly, snatching sleep,

Praying even in his sleep, then waking to the

First streak of dawnlight, aware of

Some change that had dawned in his sleep.

The wind was blowing out of the dawn.

‘The wind,’ he whispered, ‘is blowing out of the…’

And then: ‘Lord, if it be your will, if it be your will.’

He stood, praying as others came to see

The morning over the waters. They looked down in awe

At the waters ruffled by the wind out of the dawn,

A wind that seemed, oh God, to be parting the waters

As a comb parts hair. ‘Look,’ Aaron said,

‘See what the wind is doing to the waters.’

But they could not see what the wind was doing to the

Vanguard of Pharaoh’s army, the pillar of the cloud

Swollen and all about the horsemen, the sand in their eyes,

And in their horses’ eyes, hindering the advance,

Nor were their eyes turned to the west. Into the east,

As the sun rose, moved the Israelites, towards

Moses on the shore, making his decision, offering

A wordless prayer, stoutly raising his staff,

Then Moses, first, into the whistling wind,

Into the hair-parting of the Sea of Reeds,

Aaron after, the others after Aaron, timidly at first

But then with confidence growing – men, women,

Children, sheep, cattle, ox-carts, the young

Strong, fearless, astounded at something in the heavens,

Unseen of the others, pointing, then hurried on,

The waters seething on either side of them,

But the channel near-dry and safe.

At the water’s edge

The cavalrymen of Egypt stood hesitant, seeing

Moses and Aaron on the further shore, helping,

Bidding hurry, the eyes of Moses on the army

About which a dust-storm whirled and howled, seeing

One pair of eyes for the last time. And there were the eyes

Of Pharaoh, seeing trickery, not more, evil magic,

Pharaoh calling: ‘Why the hesitation? Why the delay?

The way is open. Go for them.’ So the charioteers

Went hurtling into the channel, seeking the further bank.

Some of the old and feeble were slow in reaching.

(A donkey grew stubborn, a cart-wheel broke). But the wheels

Of the chariots did not break, rather mud and reeds

Clogged them. Then the wind changed.

The wind changed and the water tumbled in,

And Pharaoh did not think now of mere magic,

Seeking men swimming but trapped in mud and reeds,

The horses struggling, the chariots overturned,

Dumb cries in the tumult of water. The eyes of Pharaoh

And the eyes of Moses sought each other, but in vain…

So the crossing was accomplished. The Israelite camp

Was joyous that night with fires and wine,

The flute, the harp, the drum, and Miriam

Led the maidens in song and dance, singing:

The Lord is our captain,

His helmet the sun, the moon his shield.

The night sky is pierced by his arrows.

Halleluiah.

The hands of the Lord were with us.

They pushed the water aside and aside

Like the hands of the farmer dividing grain.

Halleluiah.

The horse and his rider were cast into the waters.

The Lord is just, quick to smite the tyrant,

Quick to heal the oppressed, comfort the afflicted.

He dips his sword in honey, in balm his spear.

Halleluiah.

We have seen the wonders of the Lord – in fire, hail,

Plague, famine, in the parting of the waters.

He leads us to a green abode, bursting like a pod with richness.

Praised for his name for ever and ever.

Halleluiah halleluiah.

But there some who listened to the tale of a child,

The child repeating and repeating to the questioners:

‘It was heaven, I say. I saw it. God was there.’

How do you know? Who has ever seen God?

‘It was God, I say. A beast with a man’s face.

And he was all made out of gold.’ What kind of beast?

‘Like that one there with a cow, his mother.’

‘It’s the children that see heaven’, said someone drunk,

‘That’s well-known. That’s written down in books.’ –

‘I saw it, I tell you,’ said the child, ‘crossing the water.’

Eat up your cake and go to bed. ‘I saw it.’

Moses grave amid the revelling, spoke to the elders:

‘You must make it clear to the tribes. That the worse is to come.

It is good to rejoice now. If we are truly rejoicing

In the Lord. His goodness. His omnipotence.’

And he looked with stern sadness on a

Passionate embrace in the shadows, the lurching

Of three men full of wine. ‘Tomorrow,’ he said,

‘Will be a hard day. Especially for some.’ An elder spoke:

‘The worst is to come, you say. It would be, surely,

Unwise to speak to the people of that. Is it not enough

To live for the day, hoping that the next day

Will bring sight of the land we are promised?

The day’s march is enough, the repose at nightfall.’ –

‘No,’ said Moses. ‘We enter on our inheritance

In the knowledge that freedom is a bitter gift.

It will bring many days of hardship. Shortage of

Water and of food. Sickness. Death. Cursing and grumbling.

Your task is to teach. The agonies of freedom.’

Another elder said: ‘It is hard for a man to keep

Authority with such a slogan.’ But Moses, with energy,

With bitterness: ‘Must we build on false promises?

It is dangerous to think in terms of the day.

If we eat and drink what the day sends

We shall have nothing for the morrow. The day is for

Slaves. Slaves. There is a bigger time for men

Who are free. Let us begin by thinking of the

Week. The week.’ And with his staff he traced

Seven strokes in the earth. ‘The Lord took six days

To make the heavens and the earth. On the seventh day

He rested. We shall follow the Lord. The seventh day

Shall be called the Sabbath. On that day we shall rest.

Think of the Lord. Drink in the new strength from the Lord.

And this this this shall be the law.’ A law? ‘And those who

Break the law must be punished.’ A third elder said:

‘Punished? How punished?’ Moses smiled a little,

Saying: ‘I will start to think of punishments later.

It is for the present enough to think of the

Lord’s displeasure. There will come a day

When that will seem punishment enough. Punishment enough.’

Dathan came with his friends to the assembly, drunk,

A bowl of palm-wine in his hands, saying, slurring:

‘Moses, we have come to express our

Complete confidence in your leadership.’ Moses said:

‘You will always have confidence, Dathan, when these things go well.’ –

‘No, no,’ said Dathan. ‘Well or ill, we

Acknowledge you as our undoubted leader.’ And Moses,

Sternly: ‘I am not your leader, Dathan. The Lord God –

He is your leader. I am but his instrument.

Never forget the Lord.’ But Dathan said, tottering:

‘Oh, this is a night for rejoicing, not for

Thinking about the Lord. We ask you, Moses,

In token of our amity and awareness of our confidence,

To drink wine with us.’ To which Moses replied:

‘I have but a weak head, Dathan. But I am

Sincerely grateful for your confidence.’

Then, with a drum-thud, a flute-skirl, and a

Sweep of the harp-string, the evening came to an end.

You must make it clear to the tribe that the

Worst is to come. The worst. Starting tomorrow.

8 MIRACLES OF THE DESERT

Sand-caked, sweat-blind, inexpressibly weary,

Through the scorching wilderness, Aaron panted:

‘Do you know where we are?’ And Moses, squinting about him,

Not showing weariness, upright, said: ‘The tribes

Called it the wilderness of Shur. We cross this wilderness

To reach Elim, Elim.’ And Aaron said: ‘What

Is at Elim?’ – ‘Palms. Tamarinds. Water. It will be a

Hard climb.’ And Aaron: ‘Can they make the hard climb?

They need water in order to reach that water.’

‘They drink too much,’ said Moses. ‘The tribal elders

Are too old to set a good example there.’ –

‘As I said,’ cried Aaron, ‘as I always said.’

I’d give all his Promised Land to be

Coming home from work in Goshen. Water.

A bite to eat. More water. So they were all saying.

They came to rock, a rocky land, and Moses,

Showing no weariness, comforting the snarling weary,

Saw two young men, not of his tribe, but of Joshua’s tribe,

Wresting from a wailing group of the old a water-skin,

Then drinking thirstily, spilling wantonly in the sand

Much water in their haste and greed. The old wailed.

And Moses said: ‘Theft, my brothers, theft.

We will have no theft. They have prudently saved their water.

You have imprudently used up yours. Now you steal.’

An insolent youth said: ‘Moses, this is the law.

The law that this desert of yours has taught us.

God made them weak. God makes us strong’, water

Dripping from his insolent young mouth. And Moses said:

‘The strength of the body is nothing. Is a crocodile

Better than a man? Men, my young brothers,

Are strong in a different way. What a man has

He has through foresight and prudence.

You shall not take from him what he has.’ And the other youth:

‘What will you do to us, Moses?’ Sneering. ‘Send down

Another plague? You would do far better to

Lead us to water. Including these weak and

Prudent snivellers here.’ And Moses said:

‘I will lead you to water. In time. But now I tell you

That you must not steal.’ Grinning: ‘No more than that?’ –

‘No more,’ said Moses, ‘for the moment. The time shall come

When we will try a man for stealing. Will exact

On the common behalf just punishment. But that time

Is not yet. For now, think that you are

Displeasing to the Lord. And that the Lord

Could strike you down if he wished. But that the Lord

Would prefer you to learn how to be men.

Not crocodiles.’ And he passed on. And they sneered.

But did not sneer at Joshua, the young, the muscled

Progressive. So the thirsty journey continued,

Until, in that rocky wilderness, under a copper sky,

The sun all burning bronze, they came upon

A spring, a feeble spring running through rock,

And they feebly cheered, limping with their

Pots and cups and water-skins, while Joshua

And Caleb and the young of the tribe of Levi

Watched grimly, keeping guard, letting the old

To the stream first, trembling with relief and joy as they…

And then the old man screeched feebly: ‘No. No.

Nobody can drink this. Salt. It’s salt.’ Groans

And spittings and the mutter of anger, then more than a mutter.

The sneering youth: ‘He said he’d lead us to water.

But what kind of water he didn’t say.’ And Dathan:

‘You said you knew this place like the back of your hand.

Every rock and spring you said you knew,

Every tree and stone. But you were lying.

Lying, weren’t you? The Lord was lying too.

If he exists, that is. What now, great one,

Do you propose to do?’ Moses, wearily,

Humbly even: ‘One cannot always. Be exactly sure.

We have been taken. So much off the path. That I knew.

Strayed sheep. Stragglers. I promise you, promise.’

Faltering. But Dathan cried: ‘All promises.

Promised freedom, promised land, promised

Milk and honey, promised, promised. We can

Do without the milk and honey. We want water.

Water.’ That one word taken up – water water

Water water. And later, to the night sky,

Moses spoke, wretched, solitary: ‘Lord Lord,

What shall I do with these peevish children? Lord,

Tell me what I must do. Man is strangely made.

Fill him with bread, or water, and his spirit

Comes alive, ready to brood on heaven, on you, on

Human freedom. But let the meanest of your gifts

Elude him, and he croaks like a fractious frog.

Tell me, Lord, tell me. What shall I do?’

And what the Lord said or seemed to say,

Not from the silver and empurpled firmament

But from some dank small room in the skull of Moses,

Even in sunlight, the dead tree-trunk in his arms,

Ready to hurl. ‘Throw,’ said Moses. ‘Believe.’

And Aaron hurled the trunk into the salt stream,

Unbelieving. ‘Now,’ said Moses, ‘let them drink.

Let them at least taste it.’ Some tasted,

With sour faces of unbelief, then, believing, drank,

The wonder of thirst satisfied occluding

Simple wonder. Joshua, Caleb, others policed

The thirsty, screeching their joy, while Aaron said:

‘How much longer will they have to be given miracles?

They cry like babies, expecting the breast

Always ready to be bared to them.’ But Moses:

‘They must be led easily. Easily.

They have to be weaned into freedom.’ And the water

Bubbled in preternatural clarity and sweetness,

In potability, never-ending, and Dathan grinned,

Sleek with water, in forgiveness. ‘Weaned, weaned.’

So the weeks passed, the days notched by Moses,

And the Sabbath observed, though not clearly understood,

With the cries of water water renewed, the journey

Upwards, over rocky land, the old and sick faltering,

The young learning to help the old and sick,

And Moses as weary as any, showing his age,

Till at last they reached a summit of rock and looked down,

And Joshua opened his mouth in joy and a cry:

‘Elim?’ They looked. Mountain beyond, but below

Springs, tamarind, palm, green grass like a

Torrent of emeralds. ‘This,’ said Aaron, ‘this

Is the true miracle.’ So they descended and encamped,

Some thinking that this was already the promised land,

The sheep and cattle going hungrily to grass,

The young bathing, playing in the springs,

The hungry eating dates from the date-palms,

Sheltering under the palms. ‘The promised land?’

But Moses smiled and shook his head. At night,

Under the incredible heaven, the flute sounded,

The drum, the harp, there was song and dance,

And Moses, walking, came across love in the shadows,

A couple starting guiltily as the shadow

Of Moses came upon them, Moses saying,

Gently, always gently: ‘You, my brother,

I do not know. The woman I think I know. Sister,

Are you not the wife of Eliphaz?’ She nodded,

Dumbly, and the man was ready to speak, truculent.

‘Eliphaz’, said Moses, ‘is old, near-blind.

He is content to play with his children, yours.

Youth is drawn to youth and to the

Lusty pleasures of the bed. I know, I know.

But it is a sinful bed.’ The man replied,

Truculent: ‘There is no sin in pleasure.’

‘Nor’, said Moses, ‘should there be pleasure in sin.

For good or ill, a family should not be broken.

Your husband, sister, if he knew, could

Rightly put you away. And the children would grieve,

Lacking their mother. It is a bad business.’

The woman spoke. ‘He knows nothing. We have been careful.’ –

‘Not careful enough’, said Moses, ‘to prevent my knowing.

If I know, others know. He will know. Soon, if not yet.

We face the hard task of building a nation.

The bricks of that edifice are the families.

If the families crack the whole structure totters.’

The man said: ‘We are a very small crack. In a

Very small brick.’ But Moses: ‘Never think of yourself

As an exception that makes no difference to the whole.

For why should not everyone, if he so desires,

Be an exception? Only God is above the law.

But God works through the law. You, my children,

Are breaking the law.’ The woman said: ‘What will you do?’

And Moses: ‘I have done all that I wish to do.

For the moment. But remember – in your bed

Another lies, a third. He parted the waters.

He killed the masters who enslaved you. And already

You destroy what he bids you build.’ And so he left them.

The woman said to the man: ‘Does he have a wife?’ –

‘He’s old’, said the man. ‘He’s beyond passion. Love.’

And so they fell once more to their embrace,

But she started, uneasy, thinking she heard

One of the children crying, and though he tried

To imprison her once more in his embrace,

She resisted, rose and left him. In an embrace

Wholly sanctified, Aaron and Eliseba,

She of the smooth brow and sweet tongue, lay,

Quiet after love, the children sleeping,

Fruit in a bowl, water in a pitcher near by,

And Eliseba said: ‘Why then not here? Here

Is everything.’ But Aaron said: ‘Because the promise

Is to be fulfilled elsewhere, not here. Simple,

Simple as that.’ But she: ‘Will we live to see it?’ –

‘If by we’, said Aaron, ‘you mean our people –

Yes, I believe so. If by we you mean yourself,

Myself – I am not sure. But I believe our children

Will see it.’ She said: ‘We could settle here

Very comfortably. Fine pastures. Much water.

The whole place laughs and rings with water.’ He:

‘No. We have to have more than a mere oasis.

We have to build a city, build a temple.’ – ‘Have to?’ –

‘Have to, yes. Call it the fate of a nation.’

She mocked gently, smiling: ‘Those big words.’

Aaron said: ‘I do not, I think, believe

There is anything after this life. We die alone

And go alone into the dark. Us – you, me,

Each and all of the others. But all of us

Made into a nation – that is different. Here is a

Man called Aaron and a woman called Eliseba.

There is a new kind of human being we call Israel.’ –

‘And where’ she asked, ‘is this new kind of human being?’

‘Trudging through the desert,’ Aaron answered,

‘Seeking the appointed place. And still being made.

It is a formless lump so far – it has to be moulded,

Kneaded, like bread. But when it is made,

This new being, when it lives and breathes and follows

The laws that sustain it, there will be no end to it.’

She thought and said: ‘There have been others, nations.

They died. You told me once that Egypt is dying.’

Aaron said: ‘We are different. We cannot die,

Because, for the first time, the nation will not be

Greater than the smallest within it. It will live for ever

While men and women will dies, but it will not live

By eating the flesh of those within it. Not like Egypt.

Do you understand?’ She grimaced, saying: ‘No.

We had better sleep. Did he tell you all this?’ –

‘Some of it,’ Aaron said. ‘Some of it

I worked out for myself.’ She said: ‘Poor Moses.

Alone. No wife. No children. Does he even know

If they are still alive?’ Aaron said: ‘He does not doubt it.

Nor do I doubt it. They will be there, waiting,

Under Mount Horeb. That,’ he smiled, ‘is one reason

Why we hurry. Why we leave early tomorrow.’

But so many left with regret, some weeping,

Some loud in anger at once more engaging the desert,

When here were date-palms and springs and rest and pasture.

Soon hunger and thirst, under that metal sky,

Sand and sand and sand beneath, raised voices:

Good fish and meat and bread, onions, garlic,

In Egypt, Egypt. Why did you take us from Egypt?

We were happy there. And some spoke of the oasis

As a home they were wrenched from, till Moses rose and cried:

‘Will you never cease to complain? Why God chose you

From all the peoples of the earth I do not know,

Will never understand. Did you not have your chance

To fill your store-bags in the oasis of Elim?

You were careless, wasteful, improvident. Ill-disciplined,

Selfish, totally ungrateful. You say you lack bread.

You say you lack meat. Well, believe me –

You shall have flesh to eat this evening and

In the morning bread to the full. You have the

Lord’s promise, through me, that this will be so.

And now you smile, changing the set of the face

Like a child that howls to be picked up and then sees

Its mother come running. Ah, I am sick of you’,

Seeing the petulant, scolded children’s faces,

Adding: ‘But, God help me, you are all I have.’

But there was no petulance, only relief and wonder

When, at nightfall, a monstrous cloud of quails

Was thrown out of the sky. Joshua, Caleb,

The provident young, schooled by foreknowing Moses,

Were ready with the nets they had improvised,

And they caught the quails, and the quails were spitted

And roasted and eaten – another miracle,

And they were ready, picking the bones, to grow used to miracles.

Miriam said to Moses: ‘You take credit for

A miracle when there is none. You told me

About the migration of quails when we were in Pithom

And I was scrubbing the dirt off you.’ Moses smiled.

‘I never take credit for miracles. Yes, the quails.

They rest at night in the scrublands. They are easily caught.

A miracle, I suppose, is the thing we need

Happening when we need it. I suppose now

They would like bread to sop up the drippings.’ –

‘Will they get their bread?’ she asked, and Moses said:

‘I said in the morning. I did not say which morning.

Have you heard of manna?’ – ‘Bread’, she said, ‘from heaven.’ –

‘True, it comes from heaven, even when it is the

Resin that falls from the tamarisk tree. I have tasted it.

It is blown by strong wind, lying like a gift on the ground.

A fine flakelike thing, fine as hoarfrost,

White as coriander weed, and the taste of it

Is the taste of wafers made with honey.’ She smiled.

‘A poem?’ – ‘A song’, he said, ‘sung by Jethro.

He taught me the song and I sang it to Zipporah.

I sang it about the body of Zipporah.’ –

‘How soon’ she asked, ‘shall I meet her? And see Ghersom?’

‘Oh,’ he answered, ‘there will be more days of grumbling

And days of short-lasting joy. And, God help us,

There will be a time of bloodshed.’ He brooded, but she

Asked no question. He, brooding, looking into the fire,

Saw enough blood in it. But one thing at a time,

For soon the tamarisk resin came blowing in, another miracle,

So many miracles, bread from heaven: they crammed their mouths,

Their baskets. There seemed no end to it, soon

No urgency in the gathering: it was always there.

But one day a family was manna-gathering blithely

And Caleb came to them, stern, to say: ‘Come.

You must come with me. And bring your baskets.’

‘What is this?’ said the father. ‘Why? Who are you?’ –

‘My name is Caleb, not that it matters. You,

Do you know the law of the Sabbath?’ – ‘What law? What Sabbath?’

The elders, sitting in judgment, were patient enough.

‘The law’, said the presiding magistrate,

‘Has been clearly laid down. The Sabbath is for rest,

For thinking of the Lord’s justice and goodness.

No journeying – so it is enjoined. No work.’ But the father,

Spluttering, indignant, said: ‘But we were hungry.

We were not working. We were gathering food.’ –

‘You must have your food ready on the eve of the Sabbath.

We make no distinction between kinds of work.

Shear the sheep, mend a tent, gather food –

It is all work, and it all fills time that should be filled

With the contemplation of the Lord. Work must not defile

The Sabbath of the Lord.’ – ‘Mad, it’s madness!’ –

‘Oh, can you not see’, the chief elder said, ‘can you not – ’

But Aaron, silently arriving, completed the sentence

And added more: ‘Can you not see, you fool,

That if God rested from his work on the seventh day

Then man, made in God’s image, must rest too?

That only to slaves is every day the same –

Toil, toil and again toil? That man, God’s image,

Is not just toiling flesh but contemplative mind,

And for contemplation there must be leisure?

That leisure must not come capriciously,

Irregular, but in a known rhythm?

That leisure must be total?’ And the elder added:

‘Thus saith the Lord. Have you, friend,

Anything now to say?’ And the man mumbled that he was

Sorry. ‘This is a first offence? Very well, then:

Discharged with a solemn warning. And, ah yes –

Go hungry till tomorrow.’ The father, mother,

Children looked glum at that. But Aaron smiled,

Saying: ‘Tomorrow begins at sunset today.’

So they smiled and got them gone. The rule was mild

In those early days of the journey, the children of Israel

Truly children in the knowledge of the blessing of freedom,

The harshness of freedom. The blessing would be long delayed

In the eyes of the many, but the harshness they had known

Was nothing to what was to come: it was coming.

9 THE MOUNTAIN

They struggled through the wilderness of Rephidim,

Where there was no bounty of quails or manna,

And soon, with their bags and water-flasks long empty,

They yet found strength to stone Moses, stone him,

For there was no shortage of rock. Aaron, Joshua, Caleb,

Even Miriam were swift to protect him,

The whole tribe of Levi, stronger-hearted than the rest,

Was a jagged fortress about him, but even there

Despair rose and the old cry of water water.

He could only raise his face to the burning sky

And cry: ‘What shall I do with this people?

Tell me, what shall I do?’ The answering voice,

His own voice, was angry and strident, saying:

‘Stride forth to the rocks. Strike the rocks

With your rod. They shall have their fill of water,

My thirsty people.’ So he struck and struck,

Rock after rock after rock, and it gushed out,

Silver water, and bellies and vessels were filled with it.

There was little gratitude: miracles were their due.

And Dathan was even ready to doubt the miracle,

Saying to his cronies: ‘See. Anyone can do it.’

He smote the rock with his cudgel, saying: ‘See.’

And water trickled forth. ‘Porous, you see.

This rock holds rain like a sponge. You hit it,

No more. The Lord God, indeed.

Cunning, cleverness. Anyone could have thought of it.’

So they went about, hitting out trickles. The Lord, indeed.

It seemed certain to many that the Lord was not with them,

Never more so than when, one night among rocks,

The night fires burning out, on the verge of the encampment

Rods struck, knives struck, rocks rained,

And where there had been night quiet was shrieking,

Cursing, bellowing, bleating, and the

Laugh of triumph in a strange tongue. A raid,

With the carrying off of cattle and women,

Men lying brained in the sick dawn. Moses saw

And said: ‘The Amelekites. This is their territory.’

Joshua cursed: ‘We are weak. We have no weapons,

None except these wretched arrows and bows.

I always said we should be ready for this.’

A tremulous elder kept saying: ‘It is the Sabbath.

By my computation it is the Sabbath.

We need a ruling. Do we fight on the Sabbath?’

And Moses: ‘Oh, yes. We fight on the Sabbath.’

Aaron looked on the crude weapons

Joshua had made, Joshua and some of the other,

And said: ‘When did you make these?’ Joshua answered:

‘In my leisure hours, such as they are, and, of course, on the Sabbath.

There was nothing else to do except contemplate God,

And this, surely, does not count as work?’ There was silence,

A rather embarrassed silence. A young man named Koreh

Broke it by saying: ‘I have no experience of war,

Nor have any of us. Slaves are not warriors.

But I think I could suggest a simple strategy.’

Moses said: ‘We are listening.’ So they listened.

When the next night raid came they were ready with

Lambs laid out as decoys, temptingly bleating,

And, when the Amalekites appeared, Joshua and his

Warriors rushed out of the rocks with rocks and arrows

And killed and put to flight, killing with daggers

Dropped by the put to flight. ‘Next time,’ Koreh said,

‘It will not be a little matter of a night raid.’

Nor was it. When, in strengthening light,

The Israelites, with goods and flocks and cattle,

Were ready at the mountain foot for the march,

Hidden among boulders on a high slope Moses stood,

With Aaron and Koreh, watching. He watched and saw,

In dust, the entire tribe of the Amalekites

Approaching in the distance. He raised his staff.

Joshua and his warriors, on a lower slope,

Hidden among rocks, armed with rocks, saw the sign.

The raiders came nearer, bold, seeing only

Tired wanderer and cattle and flocks,

And greed quickened their pace towards the prey.

So Joshua signalled and shocked them with a quick fire

Of arrows, till all the arrows were spent.

Then came the hurling of stones, stone after stone

After stone, for there was no shortage of rock.

They had not expected this, the Amalekites:

Howling, they turned tail, in spite of the

Howls of the leaders, their retreat thickening and growing.

And now was the turn of the hidden reserve,

Lurking behind the non-combatant Israelites,

Rushing on the rear, busy with rocks and daggers,

Picking up daggers. Carnage, delectable spoils

Of swords and spears, breastplates even, helmets,

For the Amalekites were a warlike people.

So as the Israelites trudged on their way,

There was a breastplate on Joshua, and a helmet,

And a dagger in a sheath – the general Joshua,

Close to Moses, and Aaron some way behind,

The office of Aaron somewhat less clear than it had been.

They trudged towards Midian, and the heart of Moses

Beat painfully as he said to himself: ‘Thick and strong

It beats, the desert blood. In the women,

As much as in the men. What law prevents her

Yielding to some young red mouth of Midian,

Black-bearded, a storm in the pulse? And, if she has waited,

Believing me still to be among the living,

There begins the double burden – that of a man

With two families, two.’ There it was, then,

At least, old territory, loved, fateful –

The solitary tree on the hill, the sacred mountain,

The wells of Midian and, yes, a group waiting,

Waving. Moses ceased to be a leader,

Breaking with an unwonted speed from the van of the progress,

Becoming the husband and father. Joshua smiled,

The Israelites waited in wonder. And so – Zipporah,

Ghershom grown, Jethro old, the sisters

(Some married, one dead), embraces, tears,

And embraces and tears in the tent of Zipporah

In the following dawn, Moses saying: ‘My love,

It will take time for me. To be again what I was.’

And she: ‘You have grown thin. You have lacked

Too long the roasted firstlings and the broths

Of herbs and mutton I cooked for you. Also the love.

You are very thin.’ – ‘Also old? Also very old?’ –

‘I did not,’ she smiled, ‘say that. But you need time

And rest to make those eyes lose their fierceness,

Those hard lines round your lips melt to tenderness.’

So they embraced, but a voice outside called: ‘Moses!’

And Moses wearily smiled: ‘So it will always be.

Israel lying in bed between us.’ He donned his robe

And left the tent to hear news of fighting.

‘Reuben and Judah?’ he said. ‘Impossible.’

‘All too possible,’ Joshua said. ‘Tribal war.

It was some matter of a woman.’ Bitterly, Moses:

‘A woman. A woman of Reuben and a man of Judah.

Is that the story?’ Joshua said: ‘A man of Reuben,

Single, and a married woman of Judah.’ –

‘So,’ said Moses, ‘they’ve developed a taste for war.’ –

‘We shall all’, said Joshua, ‘need to develop that taste.’ –

‘But.’ Moses cried: ‘this is not a matter

Of repelling invaders. It is brother against brother.

Do not the followers yet see that we must be one,

One, one, not a loose parcel of tribes?’

Joshua said: ‘To be truthful, the possession of weapons

Drove to the use of weapons.’ – ‘It is always so’,

Sighed Moses. ‘You must construct an armoury.

You must keep our weapons clean and locked away.

If we are to fight with nations – then, so be it.

But we are not to make war amongst ourselves.

How many are dead? – ‘Only one dead,’ said Joshua.

‘A very small war. Caleb and I soon stopped it.’ –

‘Brother killed brother’, sighed Moses. ‘Cain and Abel

Back to life, or death. And was the man… ?’

‘The man,’ Joshua said, ‘was the single

Man of Reuben, no longer able to love the

Married woman of Judah.’ So they walked through the camp

And saw the adulterer, pitifully broken and rent,

Lying on the ground, and assembly fearful

As Moses spoke: ‘This is no war but murder.

The law says that you shall not kill, but we

Make an exception to the law. For if the enemy

Seeks to kill you, then you may justly,

And out of the need of nature, kill him first,

If you can. But what is your enemy?

He is someone remote, of strange tongue, of evil intention.

You will meet many such enemies, believe me,

Before you cross to the land of the Lord’s promise,

And even thereafter there will be enemies enough.

But we are one, of common custom and speech,

And – note this, note it well – chosen together,

As one people, as one family, for the special favour

And the special chastening of the Lord our God.

Therefore I say this to you: that the deed

That was done was no brave deed of warfare

But a foul act of murder. And if there was a murder,

There must of necessity be one accused of murder.

Let him come forward.’ There was silence for a space,

And eyes turned to the ground, and the eyes of Moses

Saw that dead man as he had once been, alive,

Embracing lustily, and remembered his own words,

Gentle, warning, in vain. Sly, shamed eyes

Fixed on one young man, who now came boldly,

And Moses said, gently enough: ‘What have you to say?’ –

‘I acted under order,’ the youth said.

‘We were ordered to attack the enemy.’

Moses said: ‘There was no enemy.

A man killed a man and that is murder.

And what is the punishment for murder?

Let us hear from the heads of the tribes concerned.’

These came forward, doubtful, and Moses asked again:

‘What is the punishment for murder?’ The head of Judah

Said, full of the old way: ‘The washing out of

Blood by compensation. Let the young man

Or his parents make good the loss of

An able-bodied member of our tribe.

Let us then have a warrior or a slave.

Or cattle. Or sheep. We can discuss the details now.’

But Moses cried: ‘No! No! We cannot and must not

Value human life in terms of possessions.

For human life is precious and irreplaceable

And cannot be treated as a kind of money. So I say again:

What is the punishment for murder?’ The leader of Reuben

Said, cunningly as he considered: ‘If we cannot

Put a value on human life, then we cannot

Compute the punishment.’ And Moses answered: ‘That is

Right. And yet also wrong. For human life

Can be valued only in its own terms. So I say:

A life for a life. Which means: a death for a death.’

The silence was full of fear, and Joshua spoke

To break the silence, resolve the fear: ‘How shall the

Murderer – What I mean to say is: how

Is it to be done?’ Moses answered, sighing:

‘Joshua, Joshua, to think of that now. Did you suppose

I intended his immediate execution for

His life is still a precious life.

The judges of his guilt must, as I see it,

Learn to revel in their own confusion, thinking:

Did he do it or did not? Can the witnesses

Be trusted? Did not perhaps the dead man

Drop dead in fright when he saw the knife approaching?’

And he looked on the butchered body and trembled, saying:

‘You have hardly begun to conceive, any of you,

Of the preciousness of a human life.’ Of this he spoke

To Jethro, in the pasture below Horeb,

Soothed by the old shepherd’s trade, and Jethro said:

‘Give them the law, then delegate, delegate.

Change now, now. This will not do,

This wearing out of one poor brain and body

In the service of so many. Organise, delegate.

And first, get rid of your hereditary chiefs.

Heredity is not enough, it does not of necessity

Qualify a man to rule. Then remember this:

The basis of good government is the ten,

The ten, the ten. Good junior officers –

Each one in charge of ten. Then senior officers,

Each one in charge of fifty. Then you climb

The ladder – very good men charged with a hundred.

And then at last the cream – the superb, the

Incorruptible leaders of a thousand.

God-fearing men, trustworthy, humorous,

Preferably young men. There is no great virtue in age.’ –

‘Men like Joshua, you mean,’ Moses said.

‘He is one who carries the new fire.

But first I must tend his fire for him. Also,

Warm my own hands by it.’ – ‘Joshua?’

Jethro said. ‘Is he married?’ Moses said not,

And Jethro sighed with a faint hope. ‘All this,’

Moses said, ‘will strike them as – subversive.’ –

‘Good,’ said Jethro, ‘good.’ – ‘Something like the

Organisation of an army.’ And Jethro: ‘So it is. You

Are an army. But an army of human souls:

Let none forget that. You will be fighting

Your way towards this land of milk and honey.

The zest is all in the fighting. It will be a long time

Before the cows and goats are born that will yield that milk,

And for that honey – the bees must gather. A bland diet,

Very bland.’ And then the mountain shook,

As out of sleep, and Moses said: ‘It sounds

As if I am to be summoned. Ah, God help me.’

Jethro smiled. ‘That, my son, is a prayer

You will be able to deliver in person.’ And Moses smiled,

And looked towards the rumbling of the mountain.

That day, with pain, he climbed it, saw the bush

That had once burned, but this time heard the voice

Come from the very peak, saying: ‘Say this

To the house of Jacob, this to the people of Israel.

Say: If if if you will obey my voice

And keep my covenant, you shall be to me a

Kingdom of priests and a nation of holiness.

But the choice is theirs, the choice, I say, is theirs.

And if they choose this covenant with me,

Then let them spend two days in the holy rites

Of purifying themselves. On the third day

I will come in a thick cloud on the mountain top.

What I speak with you the people shall hear,

And may also believe you for ever. And the words of the covenant

Shall be set down on stone imperishable,

That they may be beheld by the eyes of men.’

The peak was silent, and so Moses descended

To the world of his waiting people, bidding craftsmen

Prepare two tables of stone for the covenant, speaking

Patiently, but with no hesitation,

No sense of the words being whipped from him, to his leaders:

‘Thus I leave to you the duties of

Administering, of ordering, or judging.

The task which will long absorb my time,

My energy, and such poor brains as I have,

Will be the task of making the law of our people,

The law you will administer. The law

Is like the blood-channels of the body, or shall I say

That first there are the great trees of blood,

And then the numberless branches and twigs. It is the

Trunks that we must think of first, the solidities

Which even the weak of sight can see. The branches

And twigs can come later. First, we must remember

That the great laws come from God. They are the laws for all men,

And yet they are laws the world has not seen before.

But I say this to you, that so long as men shall live –

In freedom, unoppressed – it is on such laws

That their lives must be based. They must know that

These laws are sanctified by the Lord himself,

And they must see the ground from which the great trees spring

As the godhead that sustains them. God is not a

Demon of the rivers, or of fire or air.

He is not a stone idol – he is a spirit,

And it is as spirit that men must worship him.

So there shall be no making of gods of stone

or wood or iron or silver. Nor shall the name of God

Be thrown in the air like a ball or kicked like a pebble.

The very name is sacred and its use shall be sacred.

The day of rest, which is God’s day, shall be sacred –

Given to the contemplation of the eternal,

While the body rests from labour. It shall be a day

For the family, and the family itself

Shall be seen on that day as sacred. Nay, the family

And the bond of marriage, and the children that are

The fruit of that bond – shall always be bound in a garland

Of love and honour. And what a man owns shall be sacred,

Since it comes from God – be it his goods or his life.

Both are inviolate – no killing, no stealing. Nay, more:

No coveting of the things our brothers possess,

For sin begins in desire. Above all, we are free,

Free beings, copies of that God

Who is the first and last free being – free

Even to choose to enter the covenant

With him, with him who made us. And now I ask:

‘Will you accept the covenant?’And again he asked

Not the leaders alone but all the people:

‘Will you accept the covenant?’ The word bounced,

Echoed – covenant covenant – and the reply

Echoed and bounced all along the valley.

The tablets in his arms, the graver’s tools

In the hands of Joshua, who was to be with him

The long climb of his absence, Moses began

To climb the mountain, slowly, Joshua after,

And the Israelites watched him leave – for how long? – their lives.

But Aaron was with them, Aaron still, in Aaron’s hands

The rule, in Aaron’s head the law, on Aaron’s

Tongue the word. They watched, and Aaron watched,

Till Moses was lost to view, then turned to their lives,

Their grumbling wives, the cow in labour, sheep

With foot-rot, work and sleep, the common lot,

Thinking of God and Moses and the covenant

But not too much, having other things to do.

10 A RESTIVE PEOPLE

Up high on Horeb, with the evening coming on,

They looked at the rolling cloud that, somehow, beckoned,

And Moses nodded slowly, saying to Joshua:

‘I must enter now. Do you understand? I must be

Entirely alone with the voice of all things. Make you

Camp somewhere down there, in the rocks’ shelter.’

And Joshua asked: ‘How long will it be?’ Moses smiled.

‘The world and the seas and the stars were made in

Six days. To make laws for the Israelites

May take somewhat longer. A good deal longer.

But I think we are well enough supplied.’ Joshua said:

‘It will be a bread and water matter.’ – ‘Bread and water

Will suffice me. At dawn and at sundown.

But you are a young man. Hunt by all means,

But do not wander too far. Remember – if all this

Should be too much for me – if – ’ But Joshua said:

‘You are not to talk in that manner.’ And Moses: ‘I

Grow aware of my age. The laws of living and dying

Will not be suspended for a mere

Instrument of the Lord. There will be others.

Already this one shows signs of wear. Remember,

I say, that you are the next chosen.’ – ‘No,’ said Joshua,

‘There must be others before me – your brother – ’

‘Aaron,’ said Moses, ‘grows old too. And – I may say this –

The faith wavers in the old and the ageing. They

Dream too much of the past, a past of old gods.

I must look to the young. To you. And now – ’

Joshua saw the solemnity of the moment

And sank to his knees. Moses blessed him, saying:

‘May your body be washed in the waters of the eternal.

May the eternal dwell in muscle, nerve, sinew.

Be near, Joshua, near, for you too are called.’

So Moses entered the cloud and was lost to view.

But Joshua, in moonlight, tending his fires, hearing

Owls and the bark and squeal of hunter and hunted,

Heard also a voice, and it was not the voice of Moses.

‘It is true’, he whispered to the fire. ‘All is true.’

So time passed, and a time passed below

Among the Israelites, neither exciting nor exacting,

Feeding their flocks and their children, baking bread,

Loving, quarrelling, sitting at night around fires,

Talking of the past not the future. One such night,

Aaron and Koreh strolled among the tents

On an informal patrol when a voice hailed them

With ‘Any news from up there?’ It was Dathan,

A little drunk, stepping out of the shadows.

‘News?’ said Aaron. And Dathan: ‘I apologise.

A very homely and earthly word. What news

Of the cow in calf? What news

Of the woman stoned by the well for alleged adultery?

I merely wondered – well, when he is returning to us.

It seems to be already a long time.’ –

‘Two Sabbaths,’ said Koreh, ‘if you would be precise.

One of which, you will recall, you neglected to keep.’ –

‘I forgot,’ said Dathan. ‘You will remember that I said I forgot.

You will also remember that I said I thought it was nonsense.’ –

‘And that you were rebuked for blasphemy,’ said Aaron.

‘The Lord’s Day is not to be termed nonsense.’ –

‘I thought we were all free men now,’ Dathan said,

‘All entitled to a free opinion. Rebuked, indeed,

For blasphemy, indeed. Who says it’s blasphemy?

You? Him?’ And Koreh: ‘You should be sleepy, Dathan,

Not ready for argument. Go to your bed now.’

And Dathan: ‘When I wish, sir. When I am ready.

Or is there a law about going to bed?’ Aaron answered:

‘Do not sneer at the law. The law is your

Tent and your blanket. The law watches over you

While you sleep.’ – ‘Pretty words,’ Dathan sneered,

‘But tell me this: where is this law you sing about?

Is it written in books? Is it engraved on stone?

I hear much of the law but see nothing of it.’ –

‘All in good time,’ said Koreh. ‘You will see

All that you wish to see. The law on stone

Will soon come down from that mountain. Then, Dathan,

You can pore over the law to your heart’s content.’ –

‘I wonder,’ Dathan said. ‘Is that blasphemy too?

Blasphemy to wonder whether he’ll ever come down again?

He’s growing old and weak: the wolves could get him.

His heart could stop. He may have received new orders:

Go down, Moses, to the other side. There are

Other slaves to bring to freedom.’ Aaron frowned.

‘Have a care, Dathan. You do not know what you are saying.’ –

‘Ah, more blasphemy, is it?’ Dathan said.

‘More law-breaking? I’d be glad to see that law

Written down somewhere. And now I shall go to bed,

Like a good law-abiding citizen. God watch over you.’

And he stumbled off in the shadows. Aaron and Koreh

Looked at each other. Aaron shrugged. The two

Continued their patrol. The next day came

With the things it had to bring – sheep to pasture,

A cow calving, a human child brought forth

And, that night, to the blowing of bull’s horns

And the plucking of the harp and the breathing of the flute,

A celebratory song from Miriam, a dance from the maidens,

Extolling their God of life:

His strength is the strength of the bull that charges in thunder,

His wonder is in the flow of the seed of men.

Again and again, above in the skies and under

The skies, in the gold noon and the moon’s gold,

His power and his wonder are told.

Halleluiah, halleluiah.

Outside their tent, in fireglow, Eliseba,

The wife of Aaron, spoke to Aaron: ‘So no news.’ –

‘As I have said before,’ said Aaron, ‘we do not

Talk of news.’ – ‘I thought perhaps Joshua

Might have come down – with news, or whatever I am to call it.’ –

‘Joshua has his orders.’ – ‘And you have yours.’ –

‘And I have mine,’ said Aaron. ‘Orders to give orders.

My order was to keep order. Which I am doing.’ –

‘Yes,’ said Eliseba, ‘which you are doing’. –

‘You have some strange thought in that head of yours,’

Aaron smiled, and she said: ‘No strange thought.

A very natural thought. You keep order

Until Joshua is ready to come from that mountain.

Then Joshua keeps order.’ – ‘But this is nonsense’,

Aaron said. ‘Joshua has his work. I have mine.’ –

‘Whatever it is,’ she said, and he: ‘I am his voice.

Joshua is his right arm. That has been understood,

Clearly, ever since the war.’ – ‘War?’ she said,

In feigned puzzlement. ‘Oh, the little desert skirmish

With those unwashed desert people. General Joshua.

Joshua the great warrior.’ – ‘Joshua’ Aaron said,

‘Is a good man and good leader. Believe me,

We shall need good military leaders before that time comes

When we settle down in peace. What have you against him?’ –

‘Nothing,’ Eliseba said. ‘I just wonder sometimes

How I fit in – How you, I mean – ‘ He was stern, saying:

‘What you mean, I think, is that you have not been

Accorded the respect you consider your due.

You want the deference you consider owing

To the wife of a great man. The consort

Of a great man. Did I ever pretend to be

A great man? There are no great men here,

Believe me. Not even my brother. He is under orders

More than anyone. He is thrown into that position

Against his will. Against his will, do you understand?

We ask very little. To build our nation. That means

Law, law and more law. What we are doing

Is waiting for that law to be hammered out,

Painfully. When we have law we will have judges.

I shall be a judge – is that great enough for you?

Eliseba, the judge’s wife. Will that do?’

But she said: ‘You misunderstand me. You

Misunderstand my meaning. Ah, I am not even sure

I understand it myself. But, let me say this:

Once there seemed so much to look forward to.

Now there seems to be nothing.’ – ‘Nothing?’ he cried.

‘Nothing to come out of Egypt a free people,

Free, I say. Nothing the wonders, miracles?’ –

‘Miracles,’ Eliseba echoed. ‘Or is it trickery?

There are some who are saying it was trickery,

His trickery. That he knew a strong wind

Would blow back the waters. It’s happened before, they say.

And the water in those rocks, and the quails, the manna.

Cunning, clever – but it was all supposed to be

The power of this God. His God. And where is this God?’ –

‘You forget,’ said Aaron wearily, ‘the miracles in Egypt.

God was in those, God is in everything –

In the strength of the wind and the lightning and the sea.

And now he talks to my own brother, gives him the law,

Makes a covenant with our people. Beware,

Beware of blasphemy, woman.’ Eliseba, unabashed,

Said: ‘You say that to everyone. And now you say it

To your own wife. Blasphemy blasphemy blasphemy.

But what I say is this: What comes next?

We move on to some other place full of sheep,

After General Joshua has kindly won more battles for us,

And then we obey the law, smelling of sheep-dung.

Is that life?’ Aaron said: ‘We are the builders.

We are the beginners. We will make kingdoms

Greater than Egypt when the time comes. But

That time is not yet.’ And Eliseba answered:

‘We will look up at the sky, pretending we see

A God who is not really there – who only lives

In the mind of your brother Moses. Have you ever thought

That your brother may be mad – that he’ll starve to death

Up there, brooding on his God? And that we have to wait

While he starves to death or wanders away on the

Other side of the mountain, forgetting us,

All the big promises. Not that they are so big,

Those big promises. Looking after sheep

And bearing children and having lots of laws

And an invisible God grumbling all the time.’ –

‘I think,’ said Aaron sighing, ‘we should go to bed.’ –

‘Bed,’ said Eliseba. ‘Bed and work and bread

And goat’s milk. And occasionally, if we are good,

A song and dance from your sister Miriam. Life.

At least in Egypt there was – ah, it is no matter.’ –

‘In Egypt’, Aaron cried, ‘there was misery,

Whips and pyramids and filthy stone idols. Misery.’ –

‘Also’, she said, ‘baked Nile fish and palm wine.

What are you going to do, Aaron –

Aaron of the golden mouth, what are you going

To do? The people are unhappy, Aaron.’

‘They have no right,’ he muttered, ‘to be unhappy.

They must be patient. Patience, the great thing is patience.’ –

‘And where did patience,’ she said, ‘ever lead them?

What did patience ever get them? They want to live.

He may never come back, Aaron of the golden mouth.

What are you going to do? This is your kingdom.’

So she left him alone by the fire and he looked

Bitterly after her. They want to live.

Next day a strange thing, a new thing, though small.

One of the idle appeared before the children

With little figures of stone, crudely carved,

And a crude platform of wood, and he set the figures

Acting on that stage, lending them his voices,

One voice a mouse-squeak, the other heavy, solemn,

A bearded voice, which rumbled: ‘Tell them all

That nobody is to work on the Sabbath, the Sabbath

Being my day, my day.’ – ‘Why not give us that day

And you have all the others? Then we should be able

To rest nearly all the time.’ The children laughed.

‘Because’, in thunder, ‘I tell you. And you tell them

That if they do wrong I will punish them, punish them.’ –

‘How will you punish them?’ – ‘I’ll swoop down from on high

Like a mountain-lion. I’ll crash like a thunderbolt.’

And one of the bolder children grasped the God-effigy

And chased the weak with it, crying: ‘Go on,

On your knees, bow down, bow down or I will

Clout you on the head.’ And a sickly child,

Grinning, abased himself to joyful laughter.

But then a voice of true anger, Koreh’s crying:

‘Stop! Stop that!’ Surprised by unabashed,

The puppeteer and the children: what wrong had they done?

Here came some official spoilsport. Koreh said:

‘You know the law. You know that there is to be no

Worshipping of graven images. And that means also

The pretence of worshipping –’ The puppeteer cried back:

‘Are there to be no children’s games then any more?’ –

‘I admit,’ admitted Koreh, ‘that the line is

Hard to draw. It will be drawn firmly when

He comes down. Meanwhile remember

What you have already been taught that there is

Danger even in children’s play.’ And he took the

Crude God of stone and hurled it, hurled it,

And the children looked at him with open mouths.

The law was a problem everywhere, on every level,

As Aaron found with the thieves arraigned before him,

Saying, calmly, clearly: ‘I am saying

Not that you stole as men steal in the

General way, the old way – from other men,

From this man or from that man – do you follow me? –

But that you stole from us all. The gold and silver

And jewels that the Egyptians gave to us,

Gave us to go away – do you follow me? –

Are the wealth not of one man, of one family,

Of one tribe, but of the entire people,

Of what we now call Israel.’ And the first thief,

Wall-eyed and hulking, said: ‘What you’re saying then

Is that we stole from ourselves. But how can people

Steal from themselves? Answer me that.’ And Aaron:

‘Listen carefully. Listen. A whole nation

Can own a thing in common – do you follow me?

Perhaps some public monument, some statue – ’

‘Some god, you mean?’ said thief, a youth

Golden, angelic. And Aaron: ‘I did not say that.

Some fine piece of craftsman’s work, shall we say,

That is set up in a public place, that would be

Seen and enjoyed by the whole people. It would be theft

For one man or three men to remove it. Now do you

Follow me?’ But the first thief said: ‘That gold,

Silver and stuff was shut away in a wagon,

And not very well guarded, if I may say so.

Anybody could have taken some, but it happened to be

Us. And it happened that one of these Midianites

Didn’t keep his mouth shut.’ Aaron turned to Caleb:

‘Not very well guarded, do you hear?’ And to the thieves:

‘What have the Midianites to do with it?’ The third thief said,

An upright clipped man, like a warrior:

‘They wanted to sell us palm-wine. As for us,

We wanted to buy it. We had nothing to buy it with.

Except sheep. But they said they had plenty of those.’ –

‘I see,’ sighed Aaron. ‘Caleb, sequester the palm-wine.

It belongs to the community. There may some time

Be occasion to celebrate something. As for you three – ’

And then he cried out in impotence: ‘Punishment, punishment –

What punishment can we give? By rights you should each

Have a hand cut off at the wrist. But who would be so

Foul as to order such bloody execution

And who so depraved as to do it? Nor can you be

Cast into prison. We are not a township –

We have no prisons. Throw you back to the wilderness?

That would be death, and theft hardly warrants it.

All I can say is that you must abide the

Coming of the covenant, the return of the

Ordained lawgiver. Be warned. You are free to go.’

So they went, and the voice of the clipped and upright

Warrior-looking thief could be heard some way off,

Mimicking Aaron, while the others laughed.

‘If I may speak,’ said Caleb – ‘Speak by all means,’

Aaron said, and Caleb: ‘We have here a nation

Of town-dwellers who have almost forgotten

That their forebears were herdsmen. It is hard to turn them so quickly

Into tenders of sheep again. They think of enslaving Egypt

As a land of fair cities. What have they, after all, here?

Goat’s cheese and sheep-fat, and that useless glittering hoard

Out of a fair land of fine craft and richness.

Melt it down.’ And Aaron started at that.

‘Melt it down,’ said Caleb. ‘We have men here wasted –

Men who have learned the crafts of smith and carver,

Brought down here to be mere shepherds. Melt the gold

And melt the silver and give them work to do.

Some effigy of skill and beauty that shall

Stand in the midst of the encampment. Some symbol of

The unity of the people.’ Aaron shook his head:

‘But this is no time for that. We are still waiting

To go to the lands we are promised, there to build our

Cities and fill them full of the craftsman’s work.

This is a time between times, it is not yet

Even an era of making. Except for the law,

The law comes first. We build first with law

And then out of stone and marble and metal.’ –

‘A very long time of waiting,’ Caleb said.

To many it feels that this is to be their life.

A life full of toil with nothing at all to look at

Save that sky and that mountain. He has been

A long time up that mountain. If, of course, he is

Still there.’ Glumly, both looked up

At the mountain. If he is still there.

‘Even he said that,’ said Aaron to Eliseba,

The following dawn, as they lay hearing the cock crow

And smelt the baking of bread. ‘Even Caleb.

The people are wavering, full of doubt. Some of them

Talk with regret of leaving Egypt. They forget so quickly.

They forget Moses. If he is still there, he said.’ –

‘Whether he is there or not,’ Eliseba replied,

‘You are here, you. The time is come, I think,

For you to rule.’ – ‘I do what I can’, said Aaron. –

‘And what you can do is to say either no or wait.

No more. Have they been asking you for gods?’ –

‘For what?’ Aaron was startled. ‘For gods, gods,’

She said. ‘Not some big bearded father

Up the mountain or in the sky. Gods such as

The Egyptians have. Gods they can touch and speak to

And chide and beat if they do not behave well.’ –

They are ‘fools’, Aaron said. ‘They do not realise

How far we have come. We, of all the people of the earth,

Know what God is. Not gods – God –

The one containing the many. It is staggering.

Too staggering. Yes, they have been asking for

Gods.’ – ‘And what,’ said Eliseba, ‘do you say to them?

Wait, I will tell you. You thunder and use big words.

You talk of the big invisible God who has brought us

Out of Egypt and into the bondage of sheep-dung.

And they don’t understand.’ – ‘He will make them understand,

My brother.’ She said: ‘You used to be the great explainer.

He was supposed to be slow of speech. Well, talking

Is not enough now. What are you going

To do?’ Roused, he cried: ‘Will you understand

What I say now? I will show them what God is,

Not talk and explain, but show. They need an

Image for their poor minds to cling to. They must

See the strength of God. He carries the sun and the moon

On his brow. He has the power of all the

Beasts of the earth and yet he is gentle, loving.

But that is not God: it is but a picture of God.’ –

‘Time to get up,’ she said. ‘You have ruling to do.’

So that very morning the treasure hoard swung open,

And the gold and silver and jewels of the Israelites

Were brought in baskets joyously while Aaron explained

To the craftsmen and artists what was to be made. One art,

The art of song, was fired while the kiln was built

And the fire puffed within it, and the song was sung

By the people, joyous, their eyes at last to be fed

With something other than promises:

His head is the sun,

He carries the moon on his brow,

His limbs are the north, the west,

The east, the south,

And his breath the winds thereof.

His coat is speckled with the stars.

He strides in power over all the world.

Halleluiah halleluiah.

11 THE GOLDEN CALF

Out of the fire came an indeterminate lump

Of fused gold and silver, but mostly gold,

And the craftsmen worked on it: it became

An indeterminate beast with a crescent moon

On its brow like horns, so that a certain child

Cried: ‘That’s it – that what I saw that time

When we walked through the water – up in the sky it was,

A baby bull.’ The father said: ‘A calf, you mean,

A bull-calf. I see. Like that, was it? A heavenly bull-calf.’

And the parents smiled at each other: Children. Soon

On a rough tumulus the image was ready to be raised

And blocked into place with stone. Aaron was there,

And Aaron spoke to the people who watched, saying: ‘Listen,

Children of Israel, you have asked for gods.

You were wrong to do so, sinful indeed, but the sin

Sprang mostly from ignorance and from inability

To grasp what great thing has happened to us.’ (The craftsmen

Polished the back, the horns, the blunt muzzle.) ‘For what has happened

Is this: we have been chosen by God himself

– Not by gods, not even by a king of gods, but by God,

The one true indivisible God who made us

And made everything. At this moment my brother Moses,

Our leader, our giver of laws, is in converse with the

Voice of God on the mountain top. The voice he hears

Is perhaps his own voice, animated by God,

For God has no voice as a man has a voice. God

Has no body, God is in no one place.

God is spirit, and spirit is unshackled by the

Chains of time and space. God is everywhere.

The image you see before you is not God –

The very idea is absurd. But it will serve

To remind you of God, each day as you pass it. God

Is strength, and this is an image of strength – its head

The sun, the moon on its forehead, its limbs the four

Corners of the world. But it is a loving strength,

A mild strength, the strength of an eternal being

That will never use its strength against us.’ The child cried:

‘A bull-calf, that’s what it is,’ and the people smiled

And Aaron smiled, saying: ‘It is not what it looks like

That is important. What is important is that you

See in it an image of our unity as a people

Chosen by the one true God. At last the silver and gold

Of the Egyptians who enslaved us have been put to

Holy use – the profane made holy, remember that.

What was hidden away is now here to be seen by all

– The richness of a people’s unity – (And now there were jewels for eyes)

And the ultimate unthinkable richness of God himself,

Whose silver is the moon, whose gold the sun,

Whose jewels the eternal constellations of heaven.’

He smiled at the applause, but Miriam,

Standing near with her children, did not smile,

Nor smiled when, in huge moonlight, the young danced about it,

Singing:

Where will our wedding breakfast be?

Up in the fronds of a dikla tree.

What will we drink? What will we eat?

The moon for wine and the sun for meat.

As the old sat by, approving, a bit of life in the evening

Now. ‘It has become the centre of life,’ smiled Aaron.

‘A gathering place for talk and play. It is as if we were

Building a city.’ But Miriam said: ‘Not for long,

Not for that long. I saw some old men this morning

Touching it for luck, as they said. And there was a

Young man giving thanks.’ – ‘It is good to give thanks,’

Said Aaron. – ‘Thanks to an image?’ Miriam said.

‘His wish had come true, something to do with a girl,

And he said that thing was magical.’ – ‘Harmless, Miriam,

Harmless. A simple people needs something simple

To feed its senses.’ – ‘Wait,’ said Miriam. ‘Wait.’

And one evening, the moon still huge, Dathan and his wife

Sat drinking palm-wine, the three thieves with them, and he said:

‘Can you get any more of this stuff?’ – ‘What do we buy it with?’

Said the wall-eyed one. ‘That chunk of gold up there?’ –

‘Risky,’ said the angelic one. ‘I somehow doubt

That you’d get away with it.’ – ‘Well,’ Dathan said,

‘I’d rather drunk this than drink that smoke that the

Young ones drink, snuff up rather, that grass that grows

By the wall. Visions of golden cities,

That’s what it’s said to give you. Men of my age,

It makes us sick’. Dathan’s wife tipsily sang:

‘Where will our wedding breakfast be?’ – ‘I’d rather,’

Dathan said, ‘drink this than take that smoke stuff’.–

‘Some of the tribe of Judah,’ said the soldierly thief,

‘Mash up dates and add honey and water. It bubbles,

Bubbles you know.’ – ‘I suppose it’s against the law,’

Said the angelic thief, his gold hair moon-ensilvered. –

‘Nothing,’ Dathan said, ‘is against the law,

Because there is no law. It has to be written down,

Then it becomes law. Not that anybody can read it,

Except those that pretend they can. The bondage

Of unintelligible signs. That is well put,

Remember that.’ And Dathan’s wife went: ‘Unin-

Telligibubble.’ – ‘He’s coming down soon’,

Said the soldierly thief. ‘Still, I suppose it’s

Time we knew where we stood. Then we get the law.’ –

‘We ought to have a sort of celebration,’

Dathan said, ‘not when he gets here, but before.

I suppose he’ll have a law against celebrations,

All nicely carved out.’ – ‘What will we celebrate?’

Asked the angel. – ‘Oh’, said Dathan, ‘we’ll think of

Something or other’ – ‘Rother,’ giggled his wife.

But it was not till the new moon that something or other

Got into the people, helped by palm-wine, date-wine.

Some drunken women were singing Miriam’s song

About the effigy:

His strength is the strength of the bull that charges in thunder,

His wonder is in the flow of the seed of men.

Again and again, above in the sky and under

The sky, in gold noon and the moon’s gold,

His power and wonder are told.

Halleluiah halleluiah.

Some of the young sang their marriage song, and others

Drank smoke, while some of their elders kept to date-wine,

Date-wine. All very harmless: the young dancing about

The effigy, the old clapping their hands

To the rough music. Harmless enough perhaps

The fixing, by drunken women, to the effigy’s loins,

And Dathan swinging grinning with a pair of pomegranates.

But then the calf was jerked, to cheers, from its plinth,

Brought down to strong young shoulders, carried about

In song, while the tremulous old touched it, praying

For an end of the journey, for all to go well. Song

And a claw-buttock dance behind it, one young girl

Shedding her garments one by one in the dance,

Then by two young men, screaming and laughing.

Aaron and Miriam were far from all this, tending

A sick child in a distant tent, Aaron saying

(And the child was the child who had had the vision) to the mother:

‘The fever must come to its height. And then, we hope,

He will grow cool again. Give him nothing to drink

But bathe his forehead.’ – ‘Listen,’ Miriam said.

He listened, both listened. ‘So’, she said, ‘it is come.

God help us.’ They hurried, meeting on the way

Grave members of the tribe of Levi: We can do

Nothing. We always knew it was a

Grave mistake. Graven images. Aaron saw,

Miriam saw a woman, near naked, on the ground,

And the calf’s phallus in pretended hammering rut,

The calf in strong arms, and cheers and cheers,

The old, clawing buttocks, dancing, men and women,

Men and men, in a dance mime of sodomy,

The young, mad on the smoke they had drunk, dancing

Crazed dances of their own, a hugely corpulent

Sot draining, to cheers, a carboy of palm-wine,

And Caleb, crying for order, sense, near-trampled,

And other Levites brutally stricken with staves.

‘God help us,’ Miriam said. ‘You see what it is –

They are back to the worship of – Wasted, all wasted.’

‘I will speak to them’, Aaron said. ‘Let me mount the

Plinth.’ (Was that woman Zipporah, was that

Zipporah?) An obese matron, naked,

Pig-squealed, pleasured by a skeletal youth. Aaron smote,

Smote with his stave, mounting. ‘Listen,’ he cried.

‘Listen.’ And a few turned and groaned and cheered.

‘Brothers and sisters – children of Israel – listen.

Return to your dwelling at once, under pain of death.

Sin, sin – the Lord sees – the Lord will strike.’ Cheers,

And many were swift to drag him down, drowning his shouts,

Stripped him, thrust a jug of wine to his

Shouting mouth, dragged him into the throng.

(Far above, on Horeb, Joshua,

Tending his night fire, thought he heard revelling,

Riot, war. He turned to the cloud, heard a

Stronger noise of hammer and chisel on stone,

And a kind of – or did he imagine it only? –

Disheartened thunder.) Dancing, rutting,

The disrobing of a screaming boy by men who

Slavered in lust. Lust, drunken fighting,

And Dathan, drunk, screaming ecstatic: ‘There has to be

A sacrifice, the god wants a sacrifice’ pointing

Among cheers and growls to a trembling girl. Miriam

Stood in Aaron’s place, hardly heard: ‘Cannot you

Understand? This is another kind of

Slavery. God, the true God, sees all and will punish

Terribly. Turn away from your sin before it is

Too late.’ A cloud covered the thin moon,

And some, in slow fear, looked up. ‘A sign,’ she cried.

Then the cloud passed. ‘Cease your wickedness.

God will forgive, God will understand.’ But they

Dragged her down, stripping and beating her, lifting

The battered dull gold effigy to its old place,

Holding the terrified naked girl beneath

A jagged slab, while a gross lout as priest

Prayed gibberish to the calf – O guk O guk

Bondage of unintelligibubble. Gaaaaaar!

And he raised the knife and plunged, plunged

Till he was tired of plunging. Horror, awe,

Joy. He covered his arms and head with blood,

He daubed the loins of the calf in it, and now

The calf surged about, dripping in blood,

Anointing their own loins. They brought a boy,

Already stunned with a sharp rock, and rent him,

And some drank the blood and chewed and spat out

The rent flesh. (A drunk made slobbering love

To a woman equally drunk, and, equally drunk,

Another man wrestled with him in jealousy

And then took a stone and spilled his brains.

All brains and blood about them, he and she

Made slobbering love.) The dull gold effigy

Was everywhere daubed with blood and brains and seed

And, like red seed, blood dripped from its loins.

Battered and sobbing, Miriam crawled to her tent

And found Eliseba there, and the children, safe,

But where was Zipporah? The moon was setting.

The faintest dawn-streaked flushed. And high on Horeb

Moses emerged from the cloud, under his arms

Two tablets, intricately carved, grim, growing gentle

As he bade the sleeping Joshua awake.

Joshua looked up, saw the tablets, saw

A kind of white light about the head of Moses,

And, seeing, knelt. ‘Rise, Joshua,’ he was told.

‘We have mischief below. We must go down to the mischief.’

So they descended as dawn grew, till at length,

From a ridge above the encampment, they saw enough:

A beast of metal drunkenly on a plinth,

Daubed with dried blood, some of it flaking off,

A naked body, too mauled to show its sex,

Men and women sleeping naked, corpses,

Bloody everywhere, odd whimpering cries

From sources unseen, half-devoured whole sheep,

The flies already at their work, shattered wine jugs,

Blood. ‘Call’, said Moses quietly. ‘Call, Joshua.’

So Joshua put his hollowed hands to his cheeks

And called a long sound. He called and called.

Some stirred, then slept again, moaning. Some

Stirred and listened and wondered, dazed, then saw

Dried blood in the sun. Miriam heard,

Ceasing to sob, and Aaron, bruised, dry blood on him,

Heard. Many heard, looking in fear, wonder,

Seeing bones, spilt wine, soon, silent in the camp,

Two men walking. Zipporah, lying alone,

Blood on her garment, saw: light from his head,

His, shining, and behind his head an instant

The battered horns. He did not seem to see her,

Then Aaron stood before Moses, saying nothing,

Having nothing to say, then fell down in tears,

And Moses said, in sadness: ‘Not enough knowledge.

Never enough. And out of ignorance, evil.

The work wasted. All the work wasted.’

In his arms were the stones, painfully chiselled.

‘The covenant is broken. We must start again.’

And soon to an assembled nation, weeping and fearful:

‘The covenant is broken. We must start again.

You said you would accept the covenant.

But you had no faith, a frail and ignorant people.

And now the tablets of the law, so lovingly,

So painfully inscribed, must be smashed to dust.

For what was accepted in freedom was rejected in freedom.

Men are born free to do good and free to do ill.

You chose the latter way. You must suffer for that,

Suffer, since freedom always has its price.

You must suffer for that, in modes of suffering

That soon you will see, hear, smell, taste, feel in the

Very nerve and the very marrow. But first

We must perform the rite of the breaking of the covenant.

So be it.’ And he threw the stones to the earth.

Aaron and Koreh took stones and broke the stones,

Ground the stones to dust, sweating. The words

Were released to the sphere of the spirit, but the stone

Was dust. ‘We must start again,’ said Moses.

‘Once more I ascend the mountain, there to take

Once more counsel of the Lord our God, but first – ’

It was evening, and a great fire was being blown

To white heat. ‘What you worshipped,’ Moses cried,

‘Must be your bane. The thing you took unto yourselves

In the spirit you must now in chastisement take

Unto yourselves in the flesh. Not all, but some.

For you are all one people, and it suffices

That one limb, tooth, nerve, eyeball be enforced

To shriek out for the entire body to know

Pain. Pain. I have appointed officers

Of the tribe of Levi to see that mouths which cried

In obscene ecstasy shall now, in a diverse mode,

Cry out. Not all but some, the grosser sinners.

What you kissed you now must eat and drink.’

The calf on it plinth was dragged down by the Levites

And cast into the fire, there to dissolve

To a scalding broth. ‘This,’ he cried, ‘was your God.’

It was mingled with water and thrust down the sinners’ throats.

Nor was this all. The grosser sinners were stoned,

Hanged, pierced by arrows, hurled from the slopes

(But not Dathan, whose destiny lay otherwise,

Whose potency of grossness was, as it were,

Decreed as a thorn for Moses). The masons chose

New stone and shaped it for a new covenant.

And Moses, before he sought the peak of Horeb

Once more, Joshua with him, asked the people:

‘Will you remember that this is the Lord your God,

Who brought you out of Egyptian bondage? Will you

Promise to worship no other God but Him,

Nor to make images of things that are on the earth

Or in the sky or rivers or seas for profane

And sinful worship? Will you keep the Sabbath holy,

Preserve the holiness of the family, honour your parents,

Respect the sanctity of the bond of marriage? Do you

Promise never to steal, never to murder,

Never to lust after that what is another’s? Will you

Keep the covenant the covenant will you

Keep the covenant?’ Will will we will.

The valley rang with shamed affirmation.

Yes hurtled through the air as the last of the

Condemned hurtled from the slopes. So Moses and Joshua

Climbed Horeb for the second time, leaving below

A chastened nation burying its dead,

Burying much else. So time passed, with the covenant

Unbroken, the covenant the sacred body of the law

Inscribed not in the riddling signs of the priests

They had known in Egypt but in a new way, a way

Apt for a covenant, with signs for sounds of speech

That all might read if they would, but the sacred stones

Had to be housed in a sacred place. The craftsmen

Built an arc of wood, with beauty and cunning

Spent on it to the utmost, and here the covenant

Was tabernacled. Moses said Aaron:

‘It is in your keeping, Aaron. Aaron the priest.’ –

‘The priest,’ Aaron said. ‘How must I take that?

In a manner of a punishment?’ But Moses said:

‘A priest is God’s voice. Could any man wish

To be higher than God’s voice?’ – ‘Once,’ Aaron said,

‘I was your voice.’ – ‘And so,’ his brother replied,

‘Take this not in manner of a punishment but in

Manner of a promotion’. They looked at each other,

A curve unreadable on each other’s lips,

And Aaron said: ‘Well then – to my first office.’

And Moses: ‘God be with you, man of God.’

So Aaron was enrobed and he walked to the ark

And reverently shut the covenant within,

Improvising a ceremony: ‘Hereon is inscribed

God’s law. The very stone shall be accounted

Sacred. Behold our God is a just God.’

Stiff-jointed the people knelt. Then Moses knelt.

And Aaron the priest prayed: ‘God, who art a just God,

Be also, we beseech, a forgiving God.

For men are weak, being made but of earth’s clay,

Quick to transgress. If, Lord, we have sinned once,

Will we not sin again? If we were perfect,

Would we not have need of thee?’ Moses, kneeling,

Was thoughtful (weak – forgiving). After sunset,

Zipporah, his wife, preparing Ghersom, his son,

For sleep, heard Ghersom’s question once more:

‘Is he still very busy?’ – ‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘busy.

He has the whole of Israel to look after.’ –

‘When’ asked Ghersom, ‘will he be with us again?’

But, before she could answer, a shadow stood between

His bed and the lamp of sheep-fat. Ghersom said:

‘You had better not stay too long, sir. Israel needs you.’

And Moses smiled and wept and took his wife

In trembling arms. ‘Who am I’, trembling, ‘to reproach,

Even to talk of sin or weakness? To forgive

If forgiveness is needed – enough. Forgive me too,’

As she sobbed in his arms. ‘We all have to start again.’ –

‘It was little enough’, she sobbed. ‘Wine in my head,

A pair of young arms in the dance. But it was too much.’ –

‘Learning is heard,’ he said. ‘We all have to learn.

And now we can start again.’ There were family embraces,

Sobs, even laughter as Ghersom said once more:

‘Israel needs you. How long will you stay?’

But the time of staying under the mountain in the valley

Of Jethro was now to end. An order of march was worked out,

Moses drawing with his stave on the sandy earth,

Saying: ‘There in the midst the ark of the covenant,

With its own bodyguard drawn from the Levites. No enemy

Shall take it, no infidel defile it. It is our hub,

And, as twelve spokes, the fixed and changeless posts

Of the tribes,’ showing – Dan, Reuben, Benjamin…

‘A battle order,’ Joshua said. And Moses:

‘You may call it that.’ Then Caleb: ‘When do we march?’

And Moses pondered. ‘Miriam,’ he said to Aaron.

‘How is she?’ Aaron said: ‘Very sick. But ready.

Ready to go to the land.’ She will not see it,

Moses told himself. But it is better thus,

To die striving forward, in others’ hope.

‘So,’ he pronounced, ‘we move tomorrow at dawn.’

There was weeping at the well when they took their leave of Jethro

And his daughters, some now married, some not. Weeping

Of many over many graves, brethren buried,

Much else buried. Miriam, pale, wasted,

Lay in rugs on an ox-cart, Eliseba tending her.

Just before the raising of the staff as signal, incorrigible

Dathan rooted in the ashes of the punitive fire

And came up with a thumb-nail fragment of the gold, holding

That nothingness up to the sun; the sun swallowed it.

They took their last look of Horeb, its peak no longer

Enmisted: eagles circled there. Towards rock,

Desert, thirst, hunger, the law in their midst,

They moved.

12 DEATH AND THE LAW

At the next oasis Miriam’s end drew near.

Moses wiped her fever, in the coolness of a cave,

And Miriam shuddered painfully, hearing from without

That marriage song of the young: ‘It will happen again.

Again.”’But Moses soothed her, saying: ‘This

Is a different excitement: they already smell

The air of our promised land, or think they do.

The hope lies with the young. The old, alas,

Are more than ever set in the old ways.

They have learned fear but not yet understanding.

And you, my sister, how is it with you?’

She murmured: ‘I lose blood. I am weak. But feel

Little pain. I shall be glad to move on.

Move on. No more. Towards something even if we

Never reach it.’ – ‘We shall reach it,’ he said.

‘There’s a hunger to build – especially with the young.

To build, say, a temple and then a city

To hold the temple.’ She said: ‘I will not see it,

But it matters little enough. My work, the work

I was ordained to do has been long done.

You were my work. My name perhaps will be known

For that. Girls given the name of Miriam.

It is something. I rescued a child from murderers.

And if I had not rescued that child – ’ He said:

‘You were ordained to. It was all laid down.

We are all in God’s pattern.’ But she, distressed:

‘Was that too part of God’s pattern? Is then evil

Part of God’s pattern?’ – ‘We must believe it,’ he said.

‘If evil is in man it must come from his maker.’

‘And it goes on’, she said. ‘It will go on.

Law will not quench it. I see much evil to come.

Law will not contain it. Nor will punishment.’ –

‘But men,’ he insisted, ‘learn from their own transgressions.

There will be no more building of golden calves.

Other things perhaps – man is ingenious.

He gets his ingenuity from God.’

And then she wept. ‘They had ceased to be men and women.

I could do nothing.’ Later her mind rambled

Or grew prophetic. ‘I heard the soldiers singing

Their dirty song. And God surely was there,

For if they had not been singing they would have heard,

Heard him crying. A new-born cry, very loud

In the night. But God made them sing their song,

Which was filthy and evil, and so they did not hear.

Little floating cradle. Meant to live,

He was meant to live. Girl girl, they said,

Who are you, girl, can you get him a wet nurse, girl?

And I did. Poor mother. But he lived, lived.

A pretty baby. They made him an Egyptian.’

(The moon showed Passover, the angel passing over.

‘Will he pass over tonight?’ the children asked,

Making sour faces over the bitter herbs,

The hard dry bread.) ‘They would not see it,’ said Miriam.

‘Many gods, like bits of pottery,

A housewife’s pride, but not the one true God.

So simple, and so many thousands of years

For it to come to the light. And still they will not

See it. And when they see it they will always say:

What good is it, what good? For the pains of life

Will not be easier. Truth makes nothing easier.

But truth must be sought.’ Eliseba, hiding tears,

Said: ‘Rest my dear, rest.’ But Miriam said:

‘Oh, there will be no rest. And when it is built,

The city, it will be knocked down, and the temple

Destroyed with the city. And it will go on and on.

They will wander and be made to wander further.

For there is no abiding city. Only the dark.

I must speak to my brother Moses.’ Moses said:

‘I am here, Miriam.’ She said: ‘You will not see it.

You will be forbidden to see it. It will take a

Long time to be made clean.’ Then they waited

For Miriam to say more, but she said no more.

Her eyes were open, but said no more. And Aaron

Closed her eyes, and then the wailing began.

The angel, it was shuddered about the camp.

Aaron said: ‘Let the soul of this thy servant

Go calmly to its haven, where is no pain,

Where the mill of the heart grinds no more

Of the bread of tribulation.’ Moses touched her face.

‘Rest, Miriam, rest.’ Then left and went

Into the dark to weep. So they buried her –

Another grave to mark their journey. Buried her,

With rites according to the law of Israel.

Nothing stayed, but there was always the law…

And Moses was administering the law one day

When Caleb appeared to speak of a monstrous serpent

Voided from a child’s body. ‘A bad omen.

That is the general feeling.’ But Moses said:

‘Let us hear nothing of omens. Let us hear rather

Of foolishness. What has the child been eating?’

So the story came out: some of the Israelites

Sick of their diet of mutton, traded a sheep

For a pig from a wandering tribe that herded pigs.

‘The pig,’ said Moses, ‘is not like other beasts.

It harbours worms in its gut and gives the worms

To those who eat it. Call it an act of revenge,

Though posthumous.’ Nobody smiled. Loudly he said:

‘Does it occur to no one that this serpent

Is a consequence of eating forbidden flesh –

Not a sign from heaven, but the passing on

Of a disease from beast to man? Can they not think?

Are they to be treated for ever like children?’ Caleb said:

‘There is no instruction about this. What is the law?

It seems not to be covered by the basic ten.’ –

‘More laws,’ said Moses. ‘No food from now on may be eaten

Without some act of supervision, God help us.

We need priestly intervention even there.

The body of the law must wax fat

Because the brain of the Israelite is small.

They cannot eat, God help us, without being

Told what to eat. Shall we put the spoon to their mouths?’

And, on another day, when Aaron was called

To see a sick child, its loins inflamed,

And its parents applying some filth of fat and spittle,

He saw that the child was uncircumcised. ‘Dust,’ he said,

‘Dirt has been trapped there.’ The father: ‘We did not think.’ –

‘You did not think,’ said Aaron. ‘And yet Zipporah,

Wife of our leader Moses, herself gave to God

As an offering the foreskin of her firstborn.

Was she not at that moment divinely inspired

To do what was for the child’s good? We are, above all,

A people of cleanliness. Remember that.

We are not disease-ridden rats of the wilderness.

Your son shall be circumcised.’ But the mother said:

‘I am not Zipporah. I could not take the knife

To my precious.’ Aaron sighed. ‘It shall be done for you.

So God be with you.’ And wearily he left.

But there was yet another day when Moses

Sat with his problems, in the cool of a cave,

And a tribal leader came with another problem,

A violation of the law of the Sabbath.

‘What were they doing?’ Moses wearily asked. –

‘Gathering palm fronds to feed a fire. It seemed

Harmless enough, but, knowing that the covenant

Is strict on the matter, knowing that you yourself – ’

‘Yes?’ said Moses. ‘ – Set great store by the

Punctilious observance, as you term it

Somewhat grandiloquently, is of the very

Essence of the law. It is to do with man’s duty,

Duty, not right, to abstain from labour

That the body may be at peace and the spirit

At one with God. With God. One day in seven –

Can we not spare that day to honour our God?’ –

‘This,’ said the tribal leader, ‘is generally

Recognised and accepted, but – after all,

The gathering of a few palm fronds’ – ‘Yes?’ said Moses.

‘Wel,’ said the leader, ‘we were somewhat unsure

Of an appropriate penalty. The men in question

Were, naturally, rebuked. But they did not seem to be

Truly repentant. And then what happened was – ’

‘Yes?’ said Moses. – ‘What happened was that one of them

Was discovered later looking for dry sticks –

For tinder. The rebuke had been of no avail.’ –

‘So now?’ said Moses. – ‘Now I seek instruction.

As to the appropriate mode of punishment.’

Then Moses felt the wrestling within

And the curse of his leadership was sour in his mouth,

But, wearily, hopelessly, he said: ‘The holy rest

Of the Sabbath must not be defiled. Let the miscreants

Be stoned to death.’ The tribal leader did not

Think that he… ‘Forgive me, I do not think that I

Quite.’ And Moses: ‘My sentence was, I fancy,

Clearly enough articulated. Let the miscreants

Be stoned to death.’ The leader: ‘With respect and deference,

I do not think that my people could at all

Possibly accept such a harsh, a disproportionate –

Forgive me. Sir.’ And Moses stood and said:

‘Can you or your people think of

An alternative punishment? More rebukes? Torture?

Turn them into living martyrs? Imprisonment?

We are all imprisoned until we reach the land.

Best be bold and have done with it. The law is the law,

One, indivisible. To kill another man

Merits death. To kill the Lord’s day,

The living breathing peace that belongs to the Lord,

Can that be accounted a lesser crime? The Lord God

Is thus blasphemed against. Blasphemy,

A sneer, a gob of spit in the face of God.

Let them be stoned to death.’ He said no more,

Returning to his rock seat and his problems,

But the tribal leader was aghast. That very day

The penalty was exacted – a wall-eyed thief,

A thief whose hair shone gold in the sun, transfixed

With twisted ropes to tree trunks, the crowd around

Murmuring, and soon doing more than murmur

When the muscles of the executioners

Glistened in the sunlight. They took, in an easy rhythm,

Rock after rock from the pile and hurled,

Hurled. The one died quickly, faceless, but the other

Lasted till there was not much of the human about him,

And then his head dropped to his shoulder. Not murmurs,

But yells of anger before the cave of Moses,

And stones thrown. The armed guard held steady.

Justice not murder to hell with your commandments

Break your stones again murderer your laws are

Nothing but murder. Grim, he came out. The stones flew.

He bled from his brow. The guard hit back with staves.

Many dispersed, yelling, but Dathan and the

Third thief, the soldierly one, held their ground,

And, inside the cave, Dathan spoke of barbarism.

‘Barbarism?’ Moses said. ‘You talk to me

Of barbarism? When you, to my certain knowledge,

Were one of the leaders of the most filthy display

Of barbarism known in the annals of all the tribes.

Count yourself lucky, Dathan, that you were not chosen

For the ultimate punishment after that abomination

Which stinks still in God’s nostrils.’ Dathan replied:

‘Very well, Moses. If I was a sinner,

I was unenlightened. What excuse can you show?’

And Moses cried: ‘Excuse, Dathan? Must we

Have excuses to sustain the law,

The law that sustains the life of man? For I

Am in the service of life, while you are

All given over to death. You, the nay-sayer,

The sneerer, the denier, you still live,

While better than you could ever be granted a dream

Of becoming are struck down by your sneers,

Your greed and your lust.’ The soldierly thief said:

‘It is a strange way of serving life,

Killing men. It was my brother you killed,

Do you know that? A man who had his faults,

Like all men, but meant to harm to any, dead

And dead like a dog beaten to pulp by children.

Dead because of some nonsense about the Sabbath,

For nonsense it is, and all the world knows it for nonsense.’ –

‘All the word’, said Moses, ‘the little world

Of the stupid who disdain the vision. Your brother, you say,

On your head and the heads of the evil like you

Lies my sister’s death. Ah, but it is no matter.’ –

‘Ah, it comes clearer now,’ Dathan said, in glee.

‘It is not the law that drives you – it is revenge.’ –

‘No, Dathan,’ said Moses, ‘not revenge.

Vengeance is not for me. Vengeance is for

The Lord God, in his own time. There is for me

The law and the enforcing of the law –

Yes, by murder if need be, since you hold

That just execution is murder – until men

Cease to be ignorant and know that their own good

Is the good of the commonalty, and that that good

Is enshrined in the law. You will learn, be made to learn.

Perhaps you are already learning, you,

Dathan, the most obdurate of my children.’ –

‘Oh yes,’ sneered Dathan. ‘I am learning one thing:

Remember thou to keep holy the Sabbath day.’

In torment of spirit, Moses walked the night,

Addressing bitterly the torrent of stars

And the silence of the wilderness. ‘My people,’ he said.

‘Your people.

They are a stiffnecked people. They are a people

Who savour their ignorance like manna. Why why,

O Lord, am I set above them? Why, of all the

Men that walk the earth, was I chosen

To lead them to a fair land that is

None of their deserving? Why, Lord, was I chosen

To bring them to the law they despise and spurn?

They speak harshly of me, spit in my shadow,

Cast stones at my son, send my wife home weeping.

Am I not a man like any other,

Deserving of peace – deserving of wine at sundown,

A glowing fire to dream into under the stars?

Was I not better off as a prince in Egypt,

Jewelled with office, wearing the perfume

Of the respect and the worship of men? God, my Lord,

I speak from the heart and I have ever done.

I am sick to death of the burden of rule I bear.

What will you do if I renounce it now –

If I pass it to Aaron or to Joshua

Or to any of the young who promise richly?

You can do little more than strike me down

As you have struck down others. Well, it may be

That I am willing to be struck down – lie at peace

In the earth, where is no more trouble, pain

Or oppression of the wicked. I defy you, then,

Or am willing to do so, as others have.

Am I not free to do so? Am I not a man

Like other men, clothed in the garment

Of liberty of choice? And yet I have not forgotten

The humility of the servant before the master.

In humility I ask – let your servant

Go, let your servant go.’ But there was no answer

From the array of the stars or the night’s silence.

So he went to his bed, finding his wife asleep,

His son happy in a dream, and tried to sleep.

Then he heard a voice, his own, grown old,

Speak slow and tired: ‘Moses, my servant Moses,

I will ride you as a horseman rides a horse.

You will always know my weight at your back,

My spurs in your flank. I will never let you go.

You have doubted, and will doubt again and again,

But in spite of your doubts, you will bear the burden

To life’s end. You will lead your people to the land

That is promised, since that is my will. You will lead them,

But you yourself will never eat or drink

Of the fruit of the fulfilment of the promise.

I will never let you go, but I will never

Let you enter. Nor will any one

Of your generation, sick with the doubt

Of the Lord’s promise, ever enter that land.

The milk of my beneficence and the honey

Of my jealous love – neither is for you

Nor for the generation that is yours.

Those will flow in a land you may see from far

But whose soil will never bless your foot, whose air

Never delight your nostrils, and whose sun

Never warm your grey head. I have spoken.’

Ghersom lay silently awake now, listening

In wonder to a sound he had never heard:

The sobbing of his father.

So at daybreak

They addressed themselves to the march, with Moses grim

In the vanguard, and the young, guarding the tablets,

Sang with a hope they had a right to feel:

We go to the land

Where the hand of the Lord

Showers blessings, and

The sun fails not, nor the soil

And man’s toil is a prayer

Of thankfulness to the Lord.

There it lies, beyond our eyes

And yet within reach of our hand.

We go to the unknown land.

Lustily singing,

The young, guarding the Ark of the Covenant.

13 EVER UNREST

The wilderness of Paran. Wilderness

After wilderness, and now this wilderness.

Sand, rock, distant mountain. A copper sun

Riding a wilderness of bronze. Thirst,

Their close companion in the wilderness.

Here? Here? they cried. We camp here?

A wife said humbly: ‘I should think there must be

A good reason for it. I have a feeling – ’

What feeling, woman? ‘There must be a reason.

What are they doing up there?’ Pointing

Into the distance, and they squinted into

The distance, to the mountain range,

To two lone figures, high up, scanning the distance.

Moses pointed afar. ‘Is that Canaan?’

Aaron asked. ‘It is what I saw in my dream,’

Said Moses. ‘I heard the name.’ What Aaron saw

Was wilderness and mountain. ‘Now,’ said Moses,

‘We must spy out the land. There will be a long

Time of waiting still. Set up the tabernacle.

Our symbol of permanency.’ Aaron groaned:

‘Permanency. What do we live on?’ What do we live on?

They asked that question down in the wilderness,

Setting up their tents. One man said to another:

‘Can you see anything beyond there?’ –

‘The same as lies beyond there – the way we came.’ –

‘Then what is all the fuss about?’ – “He says

We’re near it. But we’ve been near it

Ever since we left Egypt. It’s always the same.

Sand sand sand and more sand.” –

‘Be reasonable. We have rocks as well, sometimes.’

And, in mock solemnity, the other intoned:

‘Beyond there, O my people, lieth Canaan.

And what is Canaan?’ Another growled: ‘It’s a word

Meaning a dry throttle and an empty glut.

And sand, of course.’ He spat towards the sand.

The sun and sand wrestled for the moisture

And the sand won. In the midst of the encampment

The ark of the covenant, magnificently adorned,

(Nothing too good for the law, they growled) shone out,

And artists still worked on its adorning. Aaron

Called out the names of those who were to spy

Into the wilderness ahead, one from each tribe:

‘Shammua, son of Zaccur, from the tribe of Reuben.

Shaphat, son of Hori, from the tribe of Simeon.

Caleb, son of Jephunneh, from the tribe of Judah.

Igal, son of Joseph, from the tribe of Issachar.

Joshua, son of Nun, from the tribe of Ephraim.

Palti, son of Raphu, from the tribe of Benjamin.

Gaddiel, son of Sodi, from the tribe of Zebulun.’

And so to the end of the twelve. Moses addressed them:

‘Over there, my sons – the land of Canaan.

Yes, the promised land. But a land so fertile

That it is doubtless inhabited by men

Of rich flesh and strong bone. Yet remember:

Whoever now possesses the land possesses it

Not by God’s promise. You will find people wild, uncircumcised,

Worshipping idols. The land is ours,

But not ours for the easy taking. Your task

Is to spy out the land.’ They listened, alert.

‘Get you up this way southward and go up

Into the mountain, and see the land, what it is.

Whether it is fat or lean, whether there is timber

Or not. And be of good courage, my children,

And bring of the fruit of the land.’ In his tent, near dawn,

Joshua lay with a girl, who said: ‘How long?’ –

‘Who knows?’ he answered. – ‘But will you be back?’ –

‘Again, who knows? But you will be a good reason

For wanting to come back,’ embracing her.

‘Why,’ she asked, ‘is it you who have to go?

I thought you were learning to stand in his place’. –

‘He would go himself’, said Joshua, ‘if he were younger.

He’s as curious as I am.’ The girl pouted:

‘That is the trouble with me. Too much curiosity.

Never at rest.’ He kissed her. – ‘You are my rest,

You are my heart’s ease, my soul’s tranquillity.’ –

‘But curiosity comes first’, she said. – ‘Alas,

Daybreak,’ and he gave her a final kiss. She said,

Sardonic: ‘You had better blow your horn.’

He smiled, strode out, and blew it. They assembled,

The eleven others, armed for adventure,

Hearing, as they went, with Joshua leading,

Words Moses had spoken: See the people

That dwell therein, whether they be strong or weak,

Few or many. And what cities they dwell in –

Whether in tents or in strongholds. Search the land

From the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob.

You will come, so says the Lord, to Hebron,

Where Ahiman, Sheshai and Tamlai dwell,

The powerful children of Anak. Be of good courage…

So time passed and the spies did not return,

But the men of Israel said: ‘It is always the same.

He starts something off, and then we wait.’

The women: ‘Like laying dishes for a meal

When you know there is nothing to eat.’ And the men, impatient:

‘Is anything being done? Magic, that is.

Spells, anything, to get something done?’

But other men said: ‘That is against the law.’

What was against the law appealed to Dathan,

Who lighted a fire and seasoned it with nitre

And addressed the coloured flames: ‘Tell us, we beg you,

O spirits of the desert, when these twelve

Are going to return.’ There was no reply.

‘What do they say?’ asked the credulous. Dathan said:

‘They say they do not know.’ – ‘Try something else.’

Dathan drew charcoal, sulphur mixed with nitre

And raised a flashing spurt. ‘They say,’ he said,

‘Never.’ But over mountain slopes in the sunlight,

Under stars, standing on hilltops, seeing

Distant night-fires, and soon – ah, blessed – hearing

Tumbling horns hurtling down rocks, dauntless the twelve

Fared on. One day, from behind bushes, some saw

Huge-limbed laughing men, bathing in a spring,

Speaking strange language, laving metal muscles,

Tough of sinew. Ahimen? Sheshnai? Tamlai?

If so, God help the Israelites, muttered Joshua.

While, back there in the encampment, the Israelites,

Mercifully shut off from future troubles,

Pondered present agonies, as they called them.

Dathan said: ‘Manna, nothing but manna. How about some

Flesh to eat, as in the old days?’ chewing his manna

With a sour face, and his wife said: ‘Kill a sheep.’ –

‘A priest has to do that for you,’ Dathan said.

‘And no priest will do it. We have to, he says, he,

Conserve the livestock. God help us, or somebody.’

His wife dreamed, looking into their fire, of Egypt:

‘Remember the fish we used to eat, and the melons,

The leeks, cucumbers, onions, garlic?’ – ‘Don’t,’ he cried.

‘You make me thirsty. Not till tomorrow midday

Does he strike the rock, his twice-weekly miracle.’

No miracles in Eshcol, or all miracle,

The crystal plashing down, the pomegranates,

The grape-clusters heavy on the vine,

While the spies stared incredulous before

Their thirst and hunger growled at idle fingers,

And then the fingers tore, cluster after cluster,

And the noon was a riot of juice. Juice-stained, they heard

What greatly qualified this juicy heaven,

Mouths open, dripping juice, listening to

An undoubted war-chant. Some, from hill-slopes, saw

A distant dust of an army, armour and swords

Catching the light, heard drums and horns and shouts,

And at each other, dismayed. Be of good courage,

So he had said. Much good would good courage do them,

Strong-limbed armies barring the way to Canaan

Of a people weak and weaponless, a people now

Cursing Moses: Worker of miracles, work

A proper miracle, give us proper food,

Or at least let us slaughter some of the sheep and kine

That we may fill our bellies with meat. He cried:

‘Is there no end to your complaining?

Is not the Lord God looking after your needs

Have I not told you till my very teeth

Are shaped like the letters of the words, that we are

Here but for a space? The antechamber of your inheritance,

I call it that, and soon the doors will open

On Canaan, where you will feed fully of its richness,

Be clothed in suet like the kidney of the ox?

I warn you now – if any of you shall seek

To eat flesh meat against my will and the will

Of the Lord your God, it shall be accounted a curse.’

And then the lifting of rocks and pebbles began,

The regular stoning of Moses who, angrily,

Shouted: ‘Fools, can you not understand?

We have no Egyptian gold or silver now.

We have only our flocks and cattle – the wealth

We take with us to Canaan. If we start killing –

Even a ram, even a bullock – all too soon

We shall have nothing.’ But still they hurled their stones

Till the troops hit back, and then they hurled only curses.

That evening, in proper furtiveness, a ewe was slain,

Some said by Dathan: Dathan was certainly one

Of the greasy tearers and munchers about a fire

Spitting with fat in the small hours. When arrest was made,

It was Dathan who smiled: ‘Very well, do your worst.

At least our bellies sing and roll with meat.

Would you gentlemen of the law care for a kidney

Or a hunk of haunch?’ Moses, sitting in judgement,

Sighed, said: ‘I believe that some of you

Would eat your own mothers.’ Dawn was coming up.

‘Meat meat – is there no other thought in your heads?

The gravity of the crime must be matched by – O Lord help me –

Must I go down in their annals as the hard man,

Moses the cruel?’ Dawn mounted, higher. He heard,

Or thought he heard, jubilant noises from the sun,

And then he turned and, striding through the dew,

Twelve men seemed to be singing. Aaron said:

‘The punishment – what is the punishment?’

And Moses said: ‘Not now, Aaron. Let us not talk of

Punishments now. See, they return, all twelve,

Singing and bearing poles, and on those poles – ’

Soon they could see jostling pomegranates,

Figs ready to burst with sweetness, grapes,

All tied with vine-ropes to poles borne on shoulders,

The poles sagging midway with the weight,

And the cheerful faces of the spies. ‘You see,’ Moses said

To his people, whose eyes were eating the promise

Of sugared juice in the distance, ‘that land, as we were told,

Is flowing with milk and honey, at least with fruit,

You wretched grumbling ingrates.’ Some ran out,

Not listening, to greet the approaching twelve, cheering,

And soon they were approaching with them, munching,

Dripping with juice. It was Shammua spoke first:

‘We entered the land, Moses, as you instructed,

And it bursts with richness. These grapes and figs and pomegranates

We gathered by a brook that we call Eshcol.’ –

‘Well-named, Eshcol,’ Moses smiled. ‘A grape-cluster.

So we have planted at least one name of our own

In the land of Canaan. See, you foolish children,

The wealth of that land. And that land is ours.’ –

‘The land is not ours,’ Shammua said. ‘We saw the people.

They dwell in walled cities and are warlike.’ –

‘Giants,’ Shaphat said, ‘the children of Anak.

We saw them. Hittites, Jebusites – who were the others?’

Igal said: ‘Amorites, the mountain people.

And by the sea the Canaanites. It is not ours,

That land. We could not possibly prevail.’ –

‘True,’ Shaphat said. ‘We have not the numbers.

We have not the weapons.’ Caleb spoke up at last

To cry that this was foolish and feeble talk.

‘We are strong enough. We can strike now. Must strike now.’

Moses turned to Joshua: ‘What do you say?’

And Joshua said: ‘I am of Caleb’s mind.

We can do it. We have certain advantages.

They do not know our numbers. We can strike from the mountains.’ –

‘And what’ asked Moses of the others, ‘say the rest of you?’

At once a protesting babble: There is no comparison

As to strength we saw them on parade

Huge armies we lack the power we lack the training

The weapons. But Caleb cried aloud: ‘It is

Strength of purpose you lack.’ Shaphat said:

‘Look, we have been through all that land, a land

That would swallow us as a toad swallows a gnat.

The sons of Arak are giants. Compared to them,

We are as grasshoppers are to us.’ Then Dathan,

With whom Abiram stood, Abiram, a man

Who had suffered but said little, also Koreh,

Koreh, that strong upholder of the law,

Spoke in no loud voice, not at first. He said:

‘Listen to me, Moses. We have borne much trouble

With hardly a murmur.’ Moses smiled at that.

‘We were given a promise, and that was that we were to

Walk into this land of yours – without trouble,

For we have not had enough and more than enough

Of that? I say this now to you and think I say it

On behalf of all: I would to God

We had died in the land of Egypt. I would to God

We had died in the wilderness. Why, tell us why,

We have been brought towards this land to fall by the sword,

To see our wives and children cut to pieces.

What strong plan does this God of yours have in mind?’

Abiram spoke. ‘I vote we choose a new captain –

One who will better consult the people’s interests –

One who will lead us back to Egypt.’ And he

Looked at Dathan, who looked modestly

Down at the ground. Moses spoke now to Koreh:

‘You, sir, were the rigorous upholder

Of God’s law. Do you then join this new party?’

Koreh, embarrassed, said: ‘I have to confess that –

Well, my confidence in your leadership (with respect)

Has long been wavering. I am of the people,

For the people. The people with me must come first,

And if the law turn sour and if the people

Cease to see good where no good is to be seen,

Then am I not right to waver? There is a feeling

That we ought to return to Egypt.’ Moses said:

‘Never waver, Koreh. Ever be firm

For one thing or another. Never waver.’

But now, spilling grape-pips, fig-sap, many mouths

Began to cry scorn for Moses, and for Abiram,

Dathan, Koreh, strong sounds of support.

Till Joshua cried: ‘Listen.’ But they would not.

So he took his horn from his side and blasted loud

And, taken by surprise, they listened. He said:

‘The land we passed through – it is a good land.

It is our land. If the Lord delight in us,

He will bring us to that land. He will give it to us,

Against the opposition of mere giants.’

Moses looked towards his own tribe of the Levites,

Saying: ‘The sons of Levi have no word

Either against or for me.’ Indeed, they stood

With blank sad faces, shut mouths. ‘Decide’, he said.

At least decide’. But they stood there, gnawing their lips.

‘Milk and honey,’ sneered Abiram. It was taken as a sign

For the throwing of stones. Joshua cried again:

‘I say this – do not rebel against the Lord.

Do not fear the peoples of that land.

We can chew them up like bread, for our teeth will be

The Lord’s teeth. Their defence will melt like

Honey in the sun. The Lord is with us, not them.

Do not be afraid. Follow me. Fight.’

So they threw and threw, there being plenty of stones.

And then a sharp-sided flint caught the brow of Moses

And he cursed the people, or tried to: ‘God’s curse

On you who curse the Lord.’ He was struck again

And this time fell, though at once found himself standing

In a crystal desert, looking at a tabernacle

That was twenty suns, unflinching, hearing a voice:

‘How long will this people provoke me?

How long will it be ere they believe me,

For all the signs which I have shown among them?

Because all those men which have seen my glory

And my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness,

And have tempted me now these ten times,

And have not hearkened to my voice,

Surely they shall not see the land which I

Promised unto their fathers.

Their carcasses shall fall in the wilderness.

They shall wander many years in the wilderness.

None now living shall come into that land,

Save Caleb the son of Jephunneh

And Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones –

Them I will bring in, them,

And they shall know the land which ye have despised.’

So Moses in the spirit stood erect,

But in the body lay stricken on his pallet,

While Zipporah wept and tended his wounds. Without,

In the place of assembly, Abiram spoke to many:

‘He is about to die. I have this, friends,

On the best authority. He is only a mortal man.

You have now the choice of living or dying yourselves.

Who will lead you to life, if it is life you choose?

Egypt is far. Beyond these mountains there

There is hope that is near – food, water, life.

We do not seek a kingdom. We seek a place

Where we can enter quietly, live in peace –

In slavery, if need be. Slavery –

Is slavery worse than this life-in-death?’ Doubtful,

Divided, the people knew now which way to turn.

Dathan had counselled Egypt, so had Abiram:

Now they tugged different ways: a choice of enslavements.

But when Moses, weak but beyond fear of dying,

Lay awake in his tent, Aaron came in to say

That now they had various kinds of revolt on their hands.

Some had gone over the mountains. Moses rose,

Helped by his brother, to look afar and saw them,

A band of climbing Israelites. He wept and raged,

Though feeble: ‘The Lord is not with them.

They enemy will see them – the Amalekites,

The Canaanites. Ah, the fools. The foolish children…’

By the Ark of the Covenant, Levites, some with packs,

Already ripe to move, still strove in

Justification of their timid revolt:

We are the tribe of Moses, brothers, yes –

But are we not also the chosen of God?

Is it not of God himself we must seek counsel?

At least we find that God does not speak against us.

Has perhaps the Lord God forsaken Moses?

In Canaan, Ahiman and Sheshnai looked,

From the stream where they were bathing, up in wonder

At a strange horde, unarmed, on the mountain-top,

With sheep and goats in plenty. They ran in glee

And wetness the sun drank to speak of it,

To summon the drums and trumpets. And all too soon

The fugitives looked down, panic dawning,

Ripening, to see a dusty army flashing,

And many began to scramble back, ready to curse,

When they had breath, the plan of Abiram.

Some held out longer, then fled, having seen things

They later were to unlade in front of Joshua:

Cut to pieces. My own father. They started

With chopping off his ring-finger. They could not

Get the ring off so they. Horror, sobbing.

They are coming. They’re getting their army together.

The Israelite camp filled with weeping, cursing,

The fluttering of fowls at the scent of the fox.

Joshua blew his horn, brought order, order,

Order of a sort. ‘Let no more try to leave.

You are all under my orders.’ At least forewarned,

Seeing in no surprise the flash of weapons

Coming over the mountain, the army, such as it was,

Had not time to arm and assemble under Joshua.

A small armed guard, under the command of Aaron,

Guarded the tabernacle, rich gold in sunlight,

The enemy’s, without a doubt, prime target.

So down they came, yelling, with drum-thump,

With bray of horn, in dust stabbed with points of silver,

To the Israelite plain. The women screamed and scattered

While Joshua raised his spear. In the first skirmish,

The enemy was surprised – these were, then, after all,

No enfeebled people sucking goat-teats. Joshua smote

Hard and hard. Caleb killed a giant.

But the enemy drove in to the centre, seeing gold.

Aaron was pierced in the thigh, but the inner guard

Fought the more for his scream, beating them off,

The dirty defiling fingers. Within his tent,

Moses prayed, tried to rise, was held down

By Zipporah and Ghershom, so prayed again:

They may not prevail. You, O Lord God,

May not suffer them to prevail. And the earth shook,

But it may have been a natural fault of the earth,

Or the shaking of the armies. He heard a trumpet

Crying retreat. Joshua, wiping the sweat away, saw it –

Retreat. But it was the retreat of an army

That had had enough for the day, driving before it

Herds and cattle, also women. (They would return:

Rich fields for reaping here.) Among the women

Was the wife of Dathan, but Dathan did not weep,

Rather blew his rage to a white fire.

14 THE DEATH OF DATHAN

There were three of them, then, all in a sort of accord

Hammered out of necessity, as they saw it,

And, adorned like men of partition, with men behind them,

They marched on Moses and Aaron. Moses, weak still,

Lay pale on the bed, seeing three princes approach –

Abiram, Koreh – and, ahead of them, Dathan.

Dathan’s rage was in check. ‘If I may speak – ’

‘You do not look like a man who seeks permission,’

Moses said. ‘Speak by all means, Dathan.’

So Dathan spoke. ‘What I say I say

On behalf of my peers. What I say

I do not lightly say. What I say I say

After grave and long consideration.’ –

‘And’ said Aaron, ‘What is it that you have to say?’

Dathan said: ‘This. That we have reached the limit

Of endurance of your tyranny over us,

Prince Moses. You made promise of milk and honey

And silver and gold and a land over which our people,

The children of Israel, should rule.’ Moses said:

‘The milk and honey were certainly promised, Dathan.’ –

And what’, said Dathan, ‘have we been given instead?

Starvation in the wilderness, death in the wilderness’.

Moses said: ‘You, Dathan, have avoided

Both starvation and death with exemplary cunning.

Now will you come to your point?’ And Dathan said:

‘My point is that your day of rule is over –

Or soon will be. We have support in all the tribes.’

Moses said: ‘I see. And what then do the

Usurping princes seek to do with their power?

Koreh is one of them, I see. At least he is no longer

Wavering.’ Dathan cried out: ‘You have failed.

The whole expedition has been a failure.

With your tricks and talk of an all-powerful God

You’ve swollen yourself to an imitation Pharaoh,

Forcing your failure upon us.’ Moses sighed.

‘You forget much, Dathan. You forget that I

Was once a prince of Egypt, laden with gems,

Stuffed with sweetmeats, suffocated with the

Perfume of courtesans. This is a strange power

I have taken on, is it not? – The burden of rule

Without its comforts: my palace a tent, my kingdom

A wilderness. I ask again: what is your policy,

Prince Dathan?’ And Dathan replied: ‘To lead the tribes

Back to Egypt, but not into slavery.

To make, out of a sufficiency of power,

A treaty with the Pharaoh. To demand

That the God of the Israelites be of equal status

With any of the gods of Egypt.’ Aaron smiled

Frostily: ‘At least at last you believe in a

Sort of God of the Israelites. It is a beginning.’ –

‘A true beginning’, Dathan said, ‘will be to

Show your impotence by wresting this thing away –

This ark you use for holding the people down.

We can provide our own priests – ’ Aaron said:

‘For holding the people down.’ And Moses: ‘Dathan,

Dathan – I confess my failure as a teacher.

It seems I have taught you nothing. God chooses man.

Man does not choose God. God shows how he chooses

Through signs – signs. What signs do you have?’

Dathan said: ‘If by signs you mean trickery – ’

And Moses: ‘I see you all carry your rods

Of potential rule. Those are a kind of sign.’ –

‘Those sticks,’ said Dathan, ‘stand for the confidence

Of the twelve tribes in our mission,’ raising his.

‘We are delegated to speak for them all.’ Moses said:

‘Aaron, cast your rod to the ground.’ He did so.

‘Now, let the rest of you contend

With the priestly power of Aaron. Signs, signs –

What have we, any of us, but signs?’ Then Dathan:

‘More Egyptian trickery. Foolishness.

An old man’s foolishness.’ Moses said to him:

‘Indulge an old man’s foolishness a while longer.’

So Dathan, sneering, cast his rod down, and the others,

Abiram, and Koreh, cast down theirs.

‘What will you do with Aaron’s?’ Dathan grinned.

‘Turn it into a serpent? That’s an old trick.’

But as he spoke he ceased to smirk: the rod

Of Aaron put out leaves and flowers and fruit.

The others stayed but rods. Then Moses said,

Wearily: ‘I have warned you often enough

In my time, Dathan, and now I swear to you

That this warning shall be final. Hear me, then.

Seek not to rise against the Lord your God.

To you all I say this – bear back my word to the others.

Tempt not the Lord your God, lest the ground

Open under your feet and swallow you.’

But Dathan and his fellows strode away,

With no further word, while Aaron

Picked up his rod, smelt at a budding rose,

Saw the rose fade, the fruit wrinkle, the leaves

Drop, become nothing before they reached the earth.

That night, in torchlight, Moses spoke to his people:

‘Keep, I warn you, away from the tents of the wicked.

Touch, I warn you, touch nothing of theirs, lest ye

Be consumed in all their sins. Pay heed to my words.

You shall now know, once for all, that the Lord chooses,

That men do not. And if these men – pay heed –

Die the common death of all men,

Be visited after the visitation

Of all men, then the Lord has not sent me.

But if the Lord your God makes a new thing,

And the earth opens her mouth and swallows them

And they go down swiftly to the pit then, pay heed,

You shall understand these men have provoked the Lord.’

But Dathan, Abiram, Koreh blasphemously

Attired themselves like priests, scoffing at his words,

And they stood before the tabernacle like priests,

And Dathan spoke out strong: ‘So, we stand here

By the tabernacle to tell you that your God,

The God of the people, speaks through the people

By means of the voice of them that the people have chosen,

That what the people have chosen as prudent and wise

Will be confirmed by the God the people. We,

The people, choose to return to Egypt, there

To live in peace and fatness. Will our God

Say nay?’ And that word was caught up: nay and nay

In the torchlight. So Moses shut his eyes

That he might not see what he knew must follow,

Hearing only thunder, the jolting of the earth,

Cries of terror, opening his eyes to see

What he knew he must see: dust and enveloping smoke

About the tabernacle, and the three false priests

Not there, but the people on their knees in terror.

Dathan no more: the earth had eaten Dathan.

And Moses spoke to himself: Yet mercy is infinite.

At least let us believe so. Dathan, Dathan,

I shall miss your thorn in my side . . .

Now, by a different way, skirting the mountains

And the fierce foes beyond them, in a new unity,

But wretched, they fared on, leaving behind

Carcasses in the desert, as foretold,

Seeking Mount Hor. Jolted in a cart,

Attended by his wife and sons, Aaron lay,

The wound on his thigh grown green, in great pain,

With nauseous ointments lapped by the blowflies. ‘So’,

Eliseba his wife said, ‘your reward

For protecting that tabernacle of yours’. She wept.

‘The pain’, he said, ‘grows less. The wound will sleep.’ –

‘But not the fever. The fever is very much awake.’

Aaron said: ‘I will be better at the oasis.

Trees and running water. Fruit.’ She wiped his lips

With a towel, and he spoke to Eleazar,

His son, saying: ‘You know what you must do

When we reach Mount Hor?’ And the son replied:

‘I must become a priest.’ – ‘A priest,’ said his father.

‘You must take over my office, wear my garments.

Eleazar the priest. Your mother will be proud.’

But she said: ‘Do not talk like that.’ And Aaron:

‘It is never too soon to prepare him for the task.

It is the task and the glory that his sons

And his son’s sons must fulfil till the end of our race.

A task and a glory he will take with him into Canaan.

It is he who will perform the rite of thanksgiving.’

But Eliseba said: ‘You will be well soon.

You will be there in all your robes and glory.’

But Aaron replied: ‘The journey is by no means over.

We cannot enter in peace. Bitter enemies –

Those are to be faced. Oasis to oasis,

Skirting the promised land, seeking a way in

That is not to be granted so easily. Eliseba,

You have known a hard life.’ – ‘All life is hard,’

She said. ‘It is the nature of life

To be hard. But there have been – Well, shall I say

The hardness has made the pleasures more pleasurable.

I do not complain. Try now to sleep a little.’

So she laid his head in her bosom, and he slept.

But slept less, raving, as the fever raved,

And ceased to rave when they came in sight of the mountain,

Speaking strange words softly, and soon no words,

No breath for words. She shut his eyes for ever.

He was borne on a litter, in his priestly robes,

Up to the mountain-top. Gently, Moses

Took off the priestly garments, and invested

Eleazar, the son of Aaron, in them,

And Eleazar led the chant, against the morning,

Blessing all, finally blessing his father

Who lay in the morning for ever. Moses spoke:

‘I speak of him as my brother first – faithful,

Unwavering in his faith. My very voice,

My other heart. And of the house of Israel

None was more brave, more steadfast. His mouth was of gold,

The spirit of the Lord burned in him. Now we see him

Gathered to his fathers. God grant him rest.

God grant that his spirit ever animate

The race he so adorned, lending it

Something of his strength, of his faith.

So be it.’ But to himself he said:

And how long will the race last? We are dying,

The old men are dying. Can the young

Survive? Can they keep the fire alight? He foresaw

A desert of corpses, foreheard travelling voices:

Dead so long ago. So much time passed.

That body there – that could be my father’s.

A powerful people – at least a numerous people.

Have they disappeared? Are they gone for ever?

The end of them, the end of them, I’d say.

It would be a kind act to bury these dead.

But they are already buried. Already forgotten.

Just dead bodies. Without a name.

Without a race. He shook the voices away,

And turned again to the task of quieting

Real voices, living voices. So they moved towards Edom,

Living bodies, with a name, with a race, moved.

And one day, in the palace of the king of Edom,

A crude barbaric throneroom, eating grapes,

Handmaidens about him, the king sat

While a chamberlain spoke. ‘Ganas voti,’ the king said.

So in they came, dusty, travel-worn, bowing,

Joshua and Caleb: ‘May we speak, sir king?’

The king nodded, spitting grape-seeds. Joshua:

‘You will have heard of our nation. Israel.

We have been in bondage to Egypt for many years,

Not only our generation but generations

And generations before us. We cried out to the Lord

And the Lord brought us forth out of Egypt. Now we are in

Kadesh, on the border of your kingdom.

We are sent to ask leave to pass

Peacefully through your country.’ The chamberlain

Translated into the dialect of the kingdom:

The king showed little interest. Caleb said:

‘We promise, majesty, not to pass through your fields,

Or through your vineyards. We promise not to drink

Of the waters of your wells. We promise to go

Only by the king’s highway – yours, majesty.

We will not turn to the right hand nor to the left,

Until we have passed your borders.’ The king listened,

Spitting a fig now, and at length said: ‘Nor vah.’

‘I am instructed’, said the chamberlain, ‘to inform you

That the answer is no’. The king spoke a longer sentence:

‘Go nadi daya, goro mi nadi nadi in vebu.’ –

‘His majesty’s words are these: if you try to pass,

We will slay you all with the sword.’ Regretfully.

‘That was sufficiently plain,’ Joshua said.

‘I am instructed to add that if our people

Or their cattle drink of the water of your kingdom,

Then we will pay for it.’ The king waved a violent fig:

‘Garata karvol. Nor vah nor vah.’ The chamberlain

Began to translate, but Joshua said:

‘We understand.’ They looked at each other wearily.

The king offered grapes, figs. They refused.

Handmaidens. Regretfully, they refused.

So Moses sought another road, young men about him,

Men even younger than Caleb and Joshua,

While he traced a map in the sand, saying: ‘Yes,

We are ready to progress, Joshua.’ They smiled.

‘But not by the northern road. We are, thank God,

Much better warriors than we were, but hardly

Good enough yet to face those northern armies.

So we have to think of another road.’ But all roads

Led, it seemed, to war – skirmishes

With dirty desert people, formal battles

With men in armour, their trumpets sweet and polished,

Encounters with barbarous hosts that spoke a language

Of growls and coughs. But, as time passed, the Israelite banners

Prevailed more. A matter of training. Stolen arms.

Even a matter of silver trumpets. There was a night

When the Israelite warriors, proud of being warriors,

Feasted and listened, full to a blind harpist

Who sang of their strength: ‘Woe to thee, Moab.

Thou are undone, O people of Chemosh.

We have shot at them. Heshbon is perished

Even unto Dibon. We have laid them

Waste even unto Nophah.’ Caleb, wine-flushed, said:

‘And yet there was a time, not long ago,

When we couldn’t win a single battle.’ Joshua,

Wine-flushed, said: ‘Discipline. Generalship.

Youth. New methods.’ The blind bard sang:

‘And we turned and went up by the way of Bashan.

And Og king of Bashan went out against us.

He and all his people, to the battle at Edrei.

And the Lord said unto Moses: Fear him not,

And thou shalt do unto him as thou didst

Unto Sihon, king of the Amorites.

So we smote them and his sons and all his people.

Until, halleluiah, none was left alive,

And we possessed his land.’ Warriors listening,

Scarred, patched, amputated, reminiscent,

Not above tears, cheering the end of the song.

‘Discipline’, Joshua said. ‘Generalship.

And God, of course. God is on our side.’

Wine-flushed, scarred, tough in the flare of the fires.

15 BALAAM

Woe to thee, Moab. That was a proleptic phrase.

They were hearing, in Moab, of a tough, scarred people,

Young, with a leader so aged as to be mythical

And hence unaging. In the royal palace at Moab

The king, Balak, listened to a minister saying,

In loud agitation to another minister:

‘Have I ever denied it? I said all along

They were, are a dangerous people.’ The king said:

‘Where are they now?’ The second minister pointed

To a crude map on sheepskin: ‘There. You see.

The side of Jericho. By Jordan river.

They have set up their tents on the plains of Moab.’

So the king cried: ‘My territory. Do you mark that?’

And the first minister: ‘As I said before,

They were, are, a dangerous people. Also they are

A breeding people. Babies scarce out of the cradle

Doing arms drill, or so we are told. And look what they did

To the Amorites.’ The king said: ‘What did they

Do to the Amorites?’ The second minister said:

‘Your majesty is presented with a comprehensive report.’

King Balak said: ‘Yes, yes, mass castration or something.

I know.’ And the first: ‘With respect, your majesty.

Slaughter, yes. But no atrocities. They are not a

Castrating people.’ The king said: “Slaughter is enough.

Slaughter will do very well. They’ll lick us up,

As the ox licks up the grass of the meadow. Eh?

Eh?’ An apt simile, they all agreed.

‘How many men can we put in the field?’ said the king.

‘Not enough’, he was told. ‘It’s a matter of numbers,

Not of courage or organisation. No,

Certainly by no manner of means enough.’

King Balak thought and at length said: ‘How about a curse?’

A curse, sir? ‘A curse, a malediction. Scare them off.

A religious people, are they? Very well,

They will know all about curses. Potent weapons.

Also economical. A curse.’ The second minister

Smiled wanly, and said: ‘Ah, Balaam. Balaam.’ –

‘Balaam, Balaam, a very powerful blesser

And an equally powerful, if not more so, curser.

Where is Balaam these days?’ The ministers knew.

‘In Pethor, your majesty. You know – by the river.’

Balaam was fishing happily in the river,

Singing a song of his youth. As he grew older

His youth grew clearer. A song of his childhood.

A fat short man, amiable, a powerful curser,

This being his profession. Fishing in the sun,

He scowled when he saw a shadow come over him

And yet the sun still there. Looking up,

He saw that the shadow was of four men, gentlemen,

Of high rank certainly, standing there. He said:

‘Ah, gentlemen. You I know, I think.

I am afraid the other gentleman – ’ Two elders from Moab:

These he knew. The others? ‘Greetings, Balaam’,

Said one of the Moabites. ‘We are come from the king.

These gentlemen are from Midian. We bear you word

From the court of Moab. The gentlemen of Midian

Wish to be associated with our mission.’

Balaam said: ‘Ah, come, come then, got you,’

Landing a carp. Then: ‘Mission? Message?’ A fine one.

The elder Moabite read aloud from a tablet:

‘Behold, there is a people come out of Egypt.

Behold, this people covers the face of the earth

And abides over against me. Come now, I pray you, therefore:

Curse me this people, for they are too mighty for me.

Then perhaps I shall prevail, drive them out of the land.

For I know well that he whom you bless is blessed,

And he whom you curse is cursed.’ Balaam heard that,

Complacent, then he said: ‘The king’s own words?’

The elder said: ‘You will recognise the style.’

Balaam rose and said: ‘Lodge here tonight.

Plenty of fish, as you see. I have to consult –

I must – You understand there are certain things

I shall have to do.’ They understood. ‘And in the morning

I hope you may take back word to – How is his majesty?’

Distressed, they said. Very fine carp, they said.

They ate them that night, sucking the bones,

And drank the thick black wine of Pethor. Balaam,

Expansive, told tales of cursings. ‘Ah, yes, gentlemen.

That was one of my better curses. It was

Extremely efficacious.’ The eldest Moabite:

‘I hope you can provide an even better one.

One worthy of this accursed people.’ – ‘Accursed?’

One of the Midianites said. ‘That is surely

A little premature.’ They laughed, finished the wine,

And Balaam said: ‘Now, I will go to my sanctum

And brew up my curse. Excuse me, gentlemen.’

In what he called his sanctum, reeking of mould,

Fish-glue, asafoetida, by a fish-oil lamp

He muttered over signs of old sheepskin, a skull,

A dried crocodile for company. Then the skull spoke.

Out of the sempiternal grin of the skull –

Or was it the crocodile’s? Words came,

Gentle enough: Who are those men with you?

Balaam gaped, gaped again, then answered:

‘Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab,

Sent them to me. But who are you, who are you?’

The voice said: With what word? ‘Who are you?’ gaped

Balaam. ‘Who?’ With what word? Balaam took the

Tablet and read from it, shaking: ‘Behold,

There is a people come out of Egypt, which

Covers the face of the earth. Come now, curse me

Them, then perhaps I shall prevail – ’ The voice said:

Listen, Balaam. You shall not curse this people.

For the Lord has already blessed them. You hear, Balaam?

‘Lord Lord what is the Lord?’ The Lord God,

Balaam. ‘But I have an instruction, an order –

From the king himself. What is this Lord God?’

The voice said, quietly still: I am the king

Of your king and all kings that ever were

And shall be. Therefore, Balaam, I say to you:

You shall not go forth and curse the children of Israel.

So the skull or crocodile was silent. Balaam sat,

Gaping. A dream? No, not a dream. Nor wine,

Not wine, he knew the effects of wine.

The emissaries snored. He sat there, gaping.

In the morning, at first light, as they smacked dry mouths,

Squinting for the wine-jug, he told them, spluttering,

Saying: ‘You understand? You understand me?

It was the voice of the Lord God, so he is called.’ –

‘And not,’ said an elder, ringing the taste of the wine

On his morning mouth, ‘some devil of your own conjuring?

Some devil that consults your interests? I’m empowered to say,

On the king’s behalf, that he had thought of some

Highly tangible reward.’ But Balaam cried:

‘If Balak should give me his palace crammed with silver,

Gold too, rubies, I could not go

Beyond the word of this Lord God, as he is called.

I fear him. It was a quiet voice.’ The elder said:

‘And if Balak should, say, order decapitation,

Preceded by certain ingenuities

Of torture?’ Balaam stoutly said: ‘This Lord God

Would intervene, of this I am sure.’ The second elder,

Not much of a talker, spoke, rasping, saying:

‘Why not call on him now for assurance, Balaam?

Are you certain, by the way, that he exists?

That he was not a phantom induced by carp-flesh

And the damnably heavy wine of Pethor?’ Balaam,

Distressed, said nothing. And the first elder smiled:

‘Come then, O Balaam of my heart, let us go.

There is work to be done, if cursing

Can properly be called work.’ Balaam gulped, saying:

‘Where do I have to go?’ The elders told him:

‘To the plains of Moab, the tents of the Israelites –

There to do your cursing. You have cursing to do.’

The road they took, Balaam ahead on his ass,

Led to a narrow way between two vineyards.

Balaam with servants behind, behind four elders,

Riding an ass, which he preferred to a horse,

Being easier, for one of his bulk, to mount,

Found that the ass responded with a bray of fear

To something she saw, something he did not see.

And she tried to get from the way of what she saw,

Thrusting towards one of the walls. He whipped her, while

The emissaries behind expressed impatience, anxious

To get the cursing over. So she took the road

Again and again brayed fear, thrusting towards the

Other wall. Balaam yelled and beat her,

But, taking the path again, this time she fell

And Balaam fell with her. He rose, his anger was great,

He whipped and whipped, panting. And now she spoke.

Now she spoke. She brayed: ‘What have I done to you?

Why must you beat me three times?’ Balaam cried:

‘Who said that? Who spoke then? Was it you?

You? If I had a sword I’d thrust it straight

Into your faithless flank.’ So the ass brayed:

‘Kill me? Faithless? Am I not your beast?

Have you not ridden me every day?’ He said,

Panting: ‘You mocked me. Do you hear? You mocked me.’

And the ass said: ‘Did I ever mock you before?’

Balaam wept (he is drunk, he is old, he is mad,

The emissaries said to each other). ‘No.’

And he turned to them and to his servants. ‘Did this

Animal really speak? Am I going mad?’

An elder from Midian spoke. ‘A touch of the sun.’

And on that word light brighter than sunlight struck

Balaam, him only, and he fell flat on his face,

Hearing the voice of last night out of the sky:

Your beast saw me and turned thrice from the path.

The Lord God is no figment of man’s mind

But very reality which even the beasts may know.

Your ass has saved you by turning you from the path.

For, Balaam, if you had ridden into my path,

Then surely I would have slain you. Balaam sobbed,

Raised his terrified head towards the light,

Then lowered it, blinded. ‘I have sinned, O Lord.

I have displeased you. I will go back again.’

No, said the voice. Go to the court of the king

And speak there what I shall put in your mouth to speak.

Then the great light faded, leaving the little light,

Birds singing, the ass cropping vineleaves

And Balaam said, trembling: ‘We must go to the king.’

The eldest elder nodded, saying: ‘Yes.

The king must see you. You are obviously

In no fit state for cursing.’ So, in the palace of Moab,

The king was loud: ‘Why? Why? You had your orders.

Your orders were clear. You were to put a curse

On the hosts of Israel. And now you come babbling

About the Lord God, whoever he is.

Are you now in the pay of the Israelites?

Have they cast a spell on you? Are even their

Magicians more potent than ours?’ But Balaam said:

‘I have no power to curse the Israelites.

All I may speak is what the Lord God

Puts in my mouth to speak.’ The king cried: ‘God?

God? You mean the god of the Israelites?’

Balaam said, humbly enough: ‘It seems to me

That such language is foolish. I speak with respect.

No, I do not. Respect and disrespect

To kings and men in high places – what do they mean

To me now? It seems to me that there is only

One God, and though the Israelites

May have found this out before other men, yet this

Does not make him merely a God of the Israelites.

But certainly this God will not curse the Israelites.’

King Balak cried: ‘We have a god of our own.

It seems to me that you have wronged our god.

Ba’al has turned against you. Reparation,

Sacrifice is called for.’ But Balaam shook his head,

Saying: ‘There is only one God,

So this Lord God said to me. And idolatry

Is an abomination before the Lord.’

He seemed ready then to fall into a trance.

The court was shocked at this blasphemy, the king

Outraged. When night fell, Before the idol Ba’al,

With flares and aromatic gums burning, priests

Despatching a ram with knives, then firing the flesh

On the altar, an abomination before the Lord,

Balaam was dragged, under guard, forcibly enrobed

And ordered by the king himself to curse, but he could not.

Now, Balaam. Beg of our god what I beg of you.

A curse on the Israelites. But he could not.

Instead he spoke, as it seemed, for some not present:

‘Balak the king has brought me to this high place

Before the idol Ba’al. And he has said:

Come, curse Israel, curse the blood of Jacob.

But how shall I curse whom God has not cursed? How

Defy whom the Lord has not defied? From the top

Of the rocks I see him, and from the hills

I behold him. Let me die the death of the righteous

Before I curse Israel and the God of Israel.’

The king wept aloud: ‘What have you done to me?

I took you to curse my enemies: behold, you bless them.’

And Balaam said: ‘The Lord God is not a man,

That he should lie, neither the son of man,

That he should repent. Has he said, and shall he not do it?

Has he spoken and shall he not make it good?

Behold, I have received commandment to bless and I cannot

Reverse it.’ At the king’s sign he was led away,

Crying out: ‘God brought them out of Egypt.

His strength is the strength of the unicorn. Behold,

The people shall rise up as a great lion,

And lift themselves up as a young lion.’ They imprisoned him,

Manacled him to a wall, with serpents about,

Toads and scorpions, and thonged whips ready.

The king, troubled, said: ‘If you will not curse them,

Then at least do not bless them. Let us have you

Neutral in the fight that is to come.’

But Balaam said: ‘I shall see him, though not now.

I shall behold him, but not nigh. There shall come

A star out of Jacob, and a sceptre

Shall rise out of Israel and shall smite

The corners of Moab and all the children of Midian.’

The king struck him in the face, twice, thrice,

But Balaam cried: ‘Moab shall be a possession,

And Israel shall do valiantly.’ The king, in disgust

Said: ‘Loosen his chains. Let the madman go.

Send him out into the wilderness,

On that talking donkey of his.’ And they did so.

The Israelites in the their tents woke at sunrise to hear

A voice raised to the sky, speaking their own tongue:

‘How godly are thy tents, O Jacob,

And thy tents, O Israel. As the valleys are they spread,

As gardens by the river’s side, as the trees

Of lign aloes which the Lord has planted,

And as cedar trees beside the waters.’ Balaam

Had come riding ecstatic into their camp,

His ass placid beneath him. He cried aloud:

‘He shall eat up the nations his enemies

And break the bones, and pierce them through with arrows.’

Moses came from his tent to see and hear

This prodigy: a fat old man on an ass,

Declaiming to heaven: ‘He couched, he lay down as a lion,

And as a great lion. Who shall stir him up?

Blessed is he that blesses thee, and cursed

Is he that curses thee.’ Moses said:

‘Whoever he is, he needs to be looked after.’

So gently Balaam on his ass was led

Towards the tents of the high. ‘She spoke,’ he cried.

‘She was fired with the fire of the Lord, and behold she spoke.’

The ass was led to grass, and Balaam laid

Gently in Joshua’s bed. They listened to him,

Joshua, Caleb, Eleazar, Moses,

With grave attention, while the younger children

Spoke to the ass, saying: ‘What is your name?

Where do you come from?’ And the ass said nothing,

Finding the grass good. But Balaam cried:

‘Behold the great truth is come upon me.

He is a God of all things, halleluiah.

To one of the uncircumcised, a son of Moab,

He shone like a great light and so shines still.

Halleluiah. And the vessel of the Lord,

Which is Israel, shall prevail, and God shall prevail.

Halleluiah, halleluiah.’ Moses spoke to Joshua,

Quietly, half-fearful, half-unwilling to believe:

‘So – the Lord God spreads his dominion.

Slowly. Almost cautiously. And the days of bloodshed

May soon be at an end. Our land may fall to us

Like a ripe pomegranate. Without a struggle.

Without the snipping of a single lock of hair

Or the bruising of finger.’ But Joshua knew

He spoke too soon. Balaam cried on and on:

‘Strong is the dwelling-place of the most high.

Thou puttest thy nest in a rock. And ships shall come

From the coast of Chittim, and the enemies of the Lord

Shall perish for ever and ever. Halleluiah.’

And the ass, without raising her teeth from the grass,

Raised her voice and brayed. ‘It was Amen.’

The children said. ‘It sounded like Amen.’

16 ZIMRI

So that, and they praised God for it, was all behind them:

The Dead Sea stretching in sunlight like a living one,

The boys diving into it for coolness

Shocked at not sinking, borne up by the hand

Of hidden water giants. They had shrieked, splashed,

Splashed, tasted. Salt, they had cried, salt.

Salt indeed, a salt lake set in a saltscape

Glooming with crystalline menace in the sun.

All we need is something to eat with it.

Salt salt salt. Remembering grandmothers’ stories,

The women saying: ‘The wife of Lot must be here

Somewhere.’ And the men: ‘She could be anywhere.’

Zipporah moaning: ‘Salt. Salt in my throat.

Soon surely we shall meet the fresh springs.

Why do we move so slowly, Ghersom?’ They were not

Moving at all: the tents had been set up

In the salt desert, salt under a salt moon.

But now the plain of Moab, with Moses saying:

‘You think we can travel safely?’ Joshua replying:

‘We can never travel safely. The strength of Moab

Is still an unknown, and Moab has many friends.

Do not take Balaam as a sign of the weakening of Moab.’

Moses smiled sadly: ‘Driven mad by the word of the Lord.

Poor Balaam.’ (Happy Balaam rode on his ass

Through the Israelite encampment, crying to the sky:

‘For the Lord of the Israelites is all things.

Behold, he is in the creeping worm of the earth

And in the fiery lioness that is the sun.

He is the unicorn and tiger and his name

Shall be blessed for ever and ever. Halleluiah.’

And a sardonic Israelite: ‘Halleluiah.’)

‘Caution, then,’ said Moses. ‘We must send patrols

To learn about their defences. And the general attitude

Of the Moabite population. We need them friendly.

We need their wells and pasturelands.’ Joshua said:

‘But we must push on. Time is short.’ Then Moses:

‘You were never a discreet man, Joshua. My time

Is certainly short, but do not remind me of it.

I shall see the Jordan before I die – fear not.’

Joshua said: ‘I did not mean that. I meant

That the patience of our people can hardly be

Tried much longer. They are sick of wandering.’ –

‘Oh, the young are patient enough. As for the old –

Well, there are few of us left. Aaron gone,

His poor wife Eliseba. And, soon, very soon – ’

He sighed. ‘None is exempt, Joshua. The earth

Is hungry for us all. But that is what I meant

When I said we must stay here a little while.

I do not think she can very well be – moved.’

Wasted with fever, Zipporah cried: ‘Tomorrow.

We shall see him tomorrow, then?’ And Ghersom:

‘Who, mother?’ – ‘My Father, of course. And my sisters.

Those that are left. But not those wicked men

Who keep beating us away from the well. He took his stick to them.

He ran down the hill and trounced them and they ran off howling.

He was very strong in those days.’ And Ghersom said:

‘Is still. Is still very strong.’ (Very strong

In the synod, explaining the law at that very moment:

‘The line must be drawn wide, very wide. It is the margin

That is the essence of the law. Thus we condemn

The eating of the flesh of swine, and why?

It is not enough to say that it is unclean.

If you eat the flesh raw you will, as we know,

Contract disease: you belly will writhe with serpents.

If you eat it well-roasted you will be safe,

Since great heat kills the eggs of the serpents within

The body of the beast. Now who is to draw the line

Between well-roasted and ill-roasted? Who, indeed,

Is to draw the line between the roast and the raw?

It is safer to draw the margin too far out

And condemn the eating of swine’s flesh altogether.

And so with marriage – always the safe margin.

Marry your brother’s daughter; soon enough

Others will marry their mother’s sisters, even

Their sisters, even their mothers. Draw the line

Far out, always far out, remember that.’)

And Zipporah rambled more. ‘It will be pleasant

To sit by the well and talk. And sing. And play

Games with the ball as we used to. Waiting still

For the strong man from the strange land over the mountains

To come and fight the bad men by the well.

He will come with sunrise. Is it sunrise yet?’

Not waiting for an answer. ‘Sunrise. There is a

God in the sun, did you know that? And a god in the moon.

But the god of the sun is made out of fire. He has a

Beard of fire. And he eats fire.’ Then she cried out:

‘Why do you give me fire to eat? Why do you

Keep pouring fire down my throat? Cold water –

From my father’s well. Give me that, give it to me.’

Moses stood, sad, resigned: a matter of waiting.

He went out into the sunrise. Joshua said:

‘The patrols are leaving now. It would be good

If you could give them a word of encouragement.’ –

‘I cannot give her water from her father’s well’,

Sighed Moses, ‘but I can always give encouragement.’

The patrols were assembling now. Moses saw

A young man he though he knew, one tall and clean

And upright. ‘Zimri’ he said. ‘Zimri, is it not?’

The young man held himself stiff, answering: ‘Sir.

The son of Salu. Of the tribe of Simeon.’ –

‘I knew your father,’ Moses said. ‘He was brave.

I trust his son takes after him.’ Sir. And then,

Raising his voice in the sunrise, Moses spoke

To the entire parade: ‘What you have to do

Is to find out what chance we have of passing

Through Moabite territory in safety. You may find

That the people are friendly. Do not be afraid

Of admitting you are Israelites. Watch out

Less for fights than for snares. The king or his princes

May arrange a feast and soak you in Moabite wine.

Then, while you are snoring, your throats may be quietly cut.

See what amenities are available: wells, pasture.

Avoid their women. This is a pagan people.

They worship a false god. Do not be drawn in.

They practise all manner of abominations.

Do not be corrupted. Go, with my blessing.’

Zimri, presenting the shiny face of one

Who is incorruptible, said, firmly: ‘Sir.’

And so they passed, in their several patrols, to Moab –

Gentle pasture, gentle people, pagan though,

Hence corruptive. Igal and Shaphat entered

A pleasant town, seeing a market-place

Where fruit and roots and sheep and goats were chaffered for,

Seeing a troupe of acrobats perform,

Seeing women, veiled but giggling,

Wagging provocative haunches. At an upper window

A lady sat in indolent enjoyment

Of the admiration of the street, fanned by a girl.

They sought and found a town office and, to a clerk,

In their own speech, slowly, said what their mission was.

The were understood and led to an inner room

Where an elegant officer sat but rose when they entered,

Offering cushions to sit upon, offering wine.

But they refused the wine, said who they were

And what they wished. ‘Yes. I understand you.’ –

‘We naturally undertake to respect all property

As well as human life. We will certainly pay

For damage inadvertently done.’ And the officer:

‘How will you pay?’ – ‘In sheep. In cattle.’ –

‘I see’, he said. ‘Not in slaves? Or women?’

Igal said: ‘We do not sell our women.

And we do not keep slaves.’ Shaphat added to that:

‘We have ourselves been enslaved – to the Egyptians.

Or so they tell us – it is rather a long time ago.’

The officer said: ‘The story of your people

Has travelled even to our cities. So. Now I see

Real live Israelites in the flesh. Not very much flesh,

If I may say so.’ Igal said: ‘We are a lean folk.

That comes, I would say, of not living in cities.’

And Shaphat: ‘A chosen people has to be

A lean people.’ The officer smiled. ‘But has also

To beg occasionally of the unchosen – and the fat.’ –

‘Oh, we do not beg, sir’, said Igal. ‘We merely request.’

The officer said: ‘With an army behind you? I do not

Think we can very well refuse your request.

We like to think of ourselves as hospitable.’ –

‘And the wells?’ said Shaphat. ‘The grazing lands to the north?’ –

‘You have, I hear, been living off salt,’ said the officer.

‘It would not be hospitable to send you back to it.

Salt is good, but only in moderation.’

And so the Israelites moved into the kingdom of Moab.

But Moses said to Joshua: ‘Towns. Towns.

Very corruptive places.’ Joshua said:

‘We shall, we hope, be building towns ourselves.’

But Moses shook his head: ‘Market-towns perhaps,

Full of sheep-dung. Call them disposable towns.

I am thinking rather of the cities where the citizens

Amass possessions – jewels and golden bedsteads.

Compromise, fatness, wavering in the faith.

Corruption. Even our short time here is dangerous.

The religion of Ba’al is seductive, Joshua.

We must watch our people.’ Caleb said: ‘We know that.

Zimri is watching. He has appointed himself

A kind of moral spy.’ And Moses said:

‘A young man of good family. Reliable.’

(Zimri walking watchfully in the evening,

Passing signs of corruption – laughing girls

Selling themselves for an hour or a night – swine flesh,

Drunken singing. He walked watchfully.)

‘Oh yes,’ Caleb said. ‘Very reliable.’

But Zipporah lingered at death’s gate. In the night,

Moses spoke to his God: ‘Let her go in peace.

I shall have no power over her final agony.

Then, soon, there will be very few of us

Left over from the old days. And Joshua and Caleb –

They alone of the old days shall enter the land.

Not I, because of my sin of doubt. So be it.

But what then is left for me now? Let the day come soon,

For all things are ready – a people in a good heart,

A people that learns to know its God. Let me see then

The river and the land from the high places,

And then be set free.’ He heard wailing

From the tent where Zipporah lay and bowed his head,

Though dry-eyed. What then is left for me now?

Zimri in daylight, walking the streets, observed

A public monument depicting men

Half-beast half-fish, engaged in contorted acts

Of love unknown to the Israelites. He saw

A woman, all brown blubber, laden with jewels,

Being carried on a litter, on her lap

A silver sweet-dish piled with powdery sweetmeats,

Powder and sugar about her mouth. Two flunkeys

Whipped beggars and children out of her path. He saw

A blind man, in the final stage of some pox

Unknown to the Israelites, being led by a boy

In the first stage of some pox unknown to the Israelites.

He saw a vendor crying his works of art:

A frank act of sodomy in silver,

A man eating a cat alive, an image

Of Ba’al both foul and seductive, the rarest modes

Of love on wood or copper. And then he came

To an open-air feast, a table loaded heavy

With strange dishes. Beggars hungrily watched

But were beaten away by men with staves. Odd scraps

Of odd-looking meat were thrown at them: they gnawed

At bones like dogs. And Zimri, horrified, saw

Two Israelites at the feast, wearing the apparel

Of the Army of Israel. Their host, a gross Moabite

With a moon-belly, urged them to eat and swill:

‘Nothing like this in the wilderness, my boys –

Lobsters fresh from the coast – crack one, crunch one,

Sausages – try one, try several. And this dish

Is one of my cook’s great prides: an unborn calf

Cooked in its mother’s milk. Fall to. Eat, eat.’

Zimri waited, collected a patrol,

And drove the drunken offenders, bellies taut,

Back to the camp and judgement. Joshua raged:

‘Why not? I will tell you why not – because it is

Expressly forbidden by the food laws: that’s why not.

Ten days on fatigues: you’ll soon learn why not.’

Zimri in night town, walking amid torches,

Music, dance, passed a man and a woman

Embracing naked and frankly in the shadows.

He shuddered, then grew angry when he observed

An Israelite he knew – Gaddiel, son of Sodi? –

Mounting steps to a temple, or what seemed to be

A temple, its front carved with contorted bodies

In acts of love unknown to the Israelites.

He followed but had already lost him in the shadows

When he entered a chamber leading off the porch of the temple,

Lighted by torches and splitting oil-lamps, gross

With pagan effigies. His heart thumped, he looked about him,

And then a woman emerged from the shadows, a Moabite,

In garments he took for those of a priestess, ugly,

Obscenely so, appallingly, seductively so.

She spoke honey: ‘You sir, are a stranger.’ –

‘An Israelite,’ he answered, his voice not

Well in control, and she said: ‘Ah a follower

Of the new god we are hearing so much about.

The god of vengeance which is called justice.’ He:

‘A God of love, we are taught. Of love. A God.’

But she said, smiling: ‘So – not a new god, then.

You are interested, stranger, in our faith?’

Stiffly he said: ‘My own faith is enough

To keep my organ of faith fully occupied.

Other faiths are an abomination, so we are taught.

Many gods – all of them unclean:

The way of the Moabites, we are taught, much like

The way of the accursed Egyptians.’ She said:

‘The Egyptian gods are gods of death – so we are taught.’

He said: ‘Madam, you have been well instructed.

I must tell you that I am here officially.

Are Israelites frequenting this temple? I thought I saw

One enter now.’ She said: ‘Israelites, Moabites –

The names mean nothing. Servants of Ba’al

Come to the temple to worship. I do not enquire

Beyond the faith, beyond the willingness

To embrace the faith.’ – ‘And what’ he said, ‘is the faith?’

She said to him softly: ‘Look about you.’ He looked

At effigies, paintings, showing modes of love

Not known to Israel, she talking the while,

Holding a torch to light the effigies:

‘The faith is love, but not perhaps love

As a desert people will know it. You desert-folk

Live in wide space and feel a desire to fill it.

You are a nation, so I hear, that is desirous

Of being great among the peoples of the earth.

You breed, you fill your tents with children. With you

The coupling of man and woman is to that end.

You do not talk or dream of the ecstasy of love –

Only the seed’s flow, the setting of the seed to work.

To you, the act of the man and the woman is like the

Sowing of a field. To us, it is not so.’

Zimri gulped at some of the effigies.

‘Whatever it is, this love of yours, it is an

Abomination before the Lord.’ – ‘Which Lord?’ she asked.

Zimri said: ‘There is only one – our God,

The creator and sustainer of the world,

The God of Israel, the God of mankind.’

She smiled ‘The God of a madman on a donkey –

That is how he appears to the Moabites.

But you must see what we mean by love. Come with me.’

He cried out: ‘No. Blasphemy. Filth.’ She said:

‘It is blasphemy and filth to know that ecstasy

Which divides men from the beasts of the field? It is

Blasphemy and filth to know oneself

In the very living presence of the god?

The ecstasy is sent by the god: it is blasphemy

To reject it. The cleanness of the spirit,

From which all earthly dross is purged away –

To reject that is the sin of wallowing

In the filth of animals.’ But Zimri cried: ‘No. No.’

But he suffered himself, saying no no the while,

To be led to the inner temple, drawn there

In his own despite. The priestess ordered, with a gesture,

Two servants to open the portal. Then he saw.

He saw, before an effigy of Ba’al

As god of love, votive lamps burning. He heard

Flutes and a harp, incense-boats clanging, smelt

The richness of roasting herbs. Above all, he saw.

His eyes throbbed at the sight of the men, exalted

In a kind of holiness of lust, prostrating themselves

Before the prospect of love, before the flesh

Of the temple houris. He saw them, evil beauty,

And saw eyes on himself. They stood there, naked,

Before unseeing Ba’al. Zimri moaned, fled, blinded.

And the priestess said, as he fumbled at the portal:

‘Well, Israelite – are you prepared

To become not an Israelite but merely

A worshipper at the shrine? You are heartily welcome.’

But he cried out: ‘No. No.’ Blindly stumbling

Down the steps of the temple, jostled and jostling

Along a street of the city (no no), followed by laughter,

Obscenity, out of the city by its gate,

Back to the camp, hearing ring in his head

Moabite voices crooning about love.

He lay alone in his tent, writhing (no

No), and, pale in the morning, went to Joshua

To render a report. Joshua said:

‘Filthy pagan rites. Any evidence

Of our people indulging in filthy pagan rites?’

Zimri said: ‘I thought I saw – but no matter.

Nothing as yet really to report.

Wait. I am watchful.’ – ‘We know are watchful, Zimri.

We call you Zimri the incorruptible.’

Was there a sneer in the voice? He went again,

That night, to the temple. The priestess greeted him:

‘The Israelite. Is this more official business?’

Zimri said: ‘I come with a warning.

Any of our people – engage – in your rites,

You yourselves will be in danger.’ She smiled:

‘You mean the Israelite god of love and justice

Will wipe us all out with the sword?’ Zimri said:

‘Admit none of our people. You who talk of love

Should not desire to see love followed by pain.

But they will be punished, I warn you. I am watching.’

She said: ‘Well, if your priests and priestesses

(Do you have priestesses? I am somewhat ignorant

About your faith) – if, I say, they are willing

To persuade us of the superior attractions

Of your god, then we will be ready to listen.

Conversions are made in men’s hearts and men’s loins.

They are not easily enforced with armies and thunder.’

Zimri said: ‘I warn. It is a warning.’

From out of the temple two men came with obeisances

To the priestess. They recognized Zimri, being Israelites,

But he had his eyes to the ground, unwilling

To meet hers, despite his ‘Warning, a solemn warning’.

The Israelites rushed away, and Zimri, emerging,

Saw men running, but did not know who they were.

So, watchful Zimri, he wandered the town in torment,

Not knowing his feeling – anger, lust, envy –

Not knowing what he felt but knowing its violence,

And he came to a tavern and drank of the wine of Moab,

Hearing song, drank of the wine till a girl came

To ask if he would drink yet more of the wine,

Of the wine more, more of the, Moab the wine of,

More. But no. He shook his head and could not

Stop shaking it. No. I warn. A warning. Solemn.

‘So’ the priestess said, ‘you are very persistent.

Another solemn warning?’ For he was back there,

His tongue thick, tottering, shaking his head,

Not able to stop shaking it, hearing laughter,

Then hearing the laugher cease, hearing himself

Fall to the floor, hearing, feeling nothing.

Servants came forward, solicitous to raise him.

He was helped away to a bed somewhere, and the priestess,

Smiling with the sadness of long knowledge,

Said: ‘As so often happens, he finds his way

Through the little god of wine towards the great god:

Blessed then be the little god,’ seeing him there,

Smirking on the wall, crowned with vine-leaves,

The great god waiting apart, master and servant,

Humbly on Zimri’s awakening. Most blessed be he.

17 ABOMINATIONS BEFORE THE LORD

Zimri emerged from the cave and saw bright morning

Beyond the casement – a fountain, oleanders –

And flooding the chamber, wondering where he was

And then remembering the waking in the night,

Her beside him. She now, with eyes laughing,

Poured from a pitcher into a cup. She said:

‘You have slept long and deep. Take this’, bringing it.

‘Take. It is no poison.’ Herbs, achingly pungent,

View with dried rose-petals on the bed where he lay.

He drank, tasting herbs and petals, seeing the cup

Cunningly embossed with arms and bosoms,

Then probed in his mind for shame but found none. She

Lay by him in a loose robe, her eyes laughing,

Her hair loose, a torrent of bronze. ‘Your name’, he said.

‘I forget your name, or did I hear your name?’

She told him he had heard it – Cozbi, daughter

Of a minor prince of Moab whose name did not matter,

Servant of Ba’al. ‘Daughter of a prince’,

He said, ‘and you are here.’ – ‘But this is holy work’,

She told him. ‘We are not street-girls. What we do

Is in honour of the god. We call it holy work –

To bring men closer to the god.’ She kissed him then,

Holy work. ‘We are the chosen ones.

Not every woman can take her place in the temple.

Today you are specially blessed, I also,

For today is a feast-day of the god. You came to us

On the eve of his feast-day: it was as if you knew.’

Ba’al, genially ferocious, in a hammered bronze,

Was carried about the town that day, drums beating,

Trumpets and shawms braying, flutes cooing,

Some of his votaries drunk, all half-naked,

Honouring the god. Two Israelite officers,

Biting their lips, watched the procession,

Looking for – ‘An abomination,’ said one.

‘Look at them – look at that couple there.’ – ‘I see them’,

The other said, seeing them. ‘But what can we do?

The Moabites are not our responsibility.’ –

‘But those are’, said the first, pointing. ‘Look at them.’

Israelites, drunk and gay, dancing along.

‘Some of ours’, said the other. ‘I see what you mean.

But can we make an arrest? Now?’ The first one gloomed,

Envy perhaps in his gloom. ‘I see what you mean.

They’d tear us to pieces, man.’ As night fell,

The Moabites set up their bronze Ba’al high on a plinth,

And the revellers danced about, in contrary circles,

A contradance, singing something filthy and ancient,

Ending exhausted on the sward, any with all,

Man with boy with woman with man with, not too exhausted

To frot away, very holy work, while the god grinned.

But in daylight, in the garden of the temple,

Jasmine, oleander, fountains, birdsong,

Zimri saw holiness of a different order,

Walking, fingers entwined, with Cozbi, saying:

‘Why was I so slow in learning?’ – ‘You were not slow.’ –

‘I mean, I mean, why did it never occur to me,

Or to any of our people, that truly we worship

A god of misery, a god who hates all joy?

I see the truth clearly now. A god descended

When first we lay together, and it was not our God,

Not the God of the Israelites. Yet this god,

Or goddess as it may be, is a true god,

Laughing, benign…’ – ‘The god will descend again,

Any time we call on him – or her’,

Cozbi said, ‘for Ba’al is both she and he,

Mother and father, taking a lover’s lineaments,

All things to us.’ He embraced her lovingly,

Saying: A new misery torments me.

You will leave me. You will give yourself to others.’

She said: ‘That may seem strange to you. To us

It is a sacred duty.’ – ‘But, beloved, might it not be

A duty more sacred to be my love, my one love?

If there is a god of love, there must also be

A god of marriage.’ – ‘The gods’ she said, ‘do not

Concern themselves with marriage. Marriage is for

The making of children, the fixing of – what is the word?’

He said: ‘Inheritances. Land. Wealth. Cattle.

Maintaining the power of a family. That is true.

But I have seen with my own eyes a god shine out

From the bodies of girls and boys who have entered marriage.

She said: ‘For how long? The god yawns after a time

And then departs. Or he reveals himself

As a god of bitterness. In our temple

There is only the ecstasy.’ – ‘But you,’ he said,

‘You are not just the vessel of the ecstasy.

You are yourself – you are my one dear love.

Love is not something out there, not a passage of joy,

Between people who have no names. Love is ourselves.

Love is a word invented for us and us only.

The god is alive when you and I

Lie embraced, alone, the world shut out.’

She said: ‘Our high priestess would call that heresy.’

But he: ‘Yet she would smile when saying the word,

As you are smiling now.’ So they embraced,

And his eyes watered with love, his limbs trembled.

While out there, in the city, a great banquet

In honour of Ba’al proceeded – spitting roasts,

Wine spilling. ‘Eat,’ cried the host. ‘Eat ye.

For this is the very flesh of the god Ba’al,

Whose name be blessed in the ten worlds for ever.

Eat, eat, and do homage, for he is here

In the flesh of the lands and seas, in the birds that sing,

In the beast that grunt, in the armoured fish of the waters.

Eat, eat: do homage to his greatness.’

And they ate and belched their praise. Moses heard of it,

Moses heard all from the moral patrols and cried:

‘Every abomination that defiled them

With the worship of the golden calf – worse, you tell me,

Since they are eating of filthy forbidden flesh –

Scavengers of the sea, filled with dirt,

Pig-flesh, milk and flesh-meat in the one vessel.

Who has allowed this to happen? Speak. Who?’

And he looked at Joshua, Caleb, Eleazar,

The patrol-leaders, but none said anything,

And their silence was in manner of a rebuke.

Sighing, he said: ‘It is, at the last, myself –

The bad shepherd who has let the lambs go astray.

I have had a bereavement to suffer, a black season

Of mourning and solitude. But Joshua, my son,

You who must take up the rod of office, you

Who must bear the burden of leadership, Joshua,

How is it possible?’ Joshua spoke softly.

‘There were reports of particular transgressions.

Action was taken. As for the recent events –

Information was slow in coming. We had no

Word from Zimri. We understood all was well,

More or less well. Odd acts of delinquency.

But nothing that seemed to require major action.’

Moses said: “Where is Zimri?” – ‘No one knows.

We surmise that he may have been killed, because of his zeal.

They are an unruly people, the people of Moab.’

Moses said: ‘He was of good family.

I knew his father well. Honest, steadfast,

Pious. Now, Joshua, what do you propose?’

Joshua said: ‘Some of our erring people

Have already come home, ashamed and sick.

Ready for punishment. I suppose we must march in,

Ferret out the others. Or perhaps show

Our power and our righteousness. Punish the whole town.

Massacre. Set fire to it. Though, to speak truly,

We have had enough of such wholesale slaughter.’

Moses said: ‘The time for a judgement on Moab

Must come later, come in the Lord’s own time.

Meanwhile, our punishments for our erring sons

Must be’, he said, ‘exemplary.’ – ‘Exemplary – how?’ –

Moses said: ‘The word will come to me.

I fear it will be a harsh word.’ Harsh word, harsh,

And more than a harsh word. Cozbi was weeping

In Zimri’s arms, in the room of a squalid inn.

He said, not unhappily: ‘Punishment

For loving too well. Or it may be a reward.’

She said: ‘I was always told,’ then she wept again,

‘It was not for the weak of heart.’ But he said: ‘Strong,

Strong of heart. Is not this love of ours

Better, holier, than all that nonsense of the temple,

That wickedness of the temple?’ She spoke of dishonour.

‘You do not understand the dishonour.’ Harsh words

From the high priestess. ‘How can I show my face

Again in the streets, in my father’s house? The god

Has turned his back on me.’ Zimri kissed her tears.

‘You have found out in time, through the grace of some other god,

That you were not meant for that service. And yet, of course,

It was that which brought us together. The world is strange,

God is strange.’ She said: ‘Which god do you mean?’

He said: ‘Who knows? Perhaps the God of my people.

What kind of,’ he said, ‘malediction

Did your high priestess pronounce on you?’

Cozbi sobbed again. ‘She said that I had

Disgraced the temple, but then she admitted

Her own share of the blame. After all, it was she who

Encouraged me to to. . .’ Zimri smiled:

‘Seduce me to a religion of love? There, you are smiling.

And you, my love, a princess among your people,

Shall be an ever higher princess among mine.

So all shall end well.’ They kissed and then she said:

‘Where is this promised land you talk about?’

He said: ‘Beyond the Jordan. Even now

The work of parcelling out the land goes on.

To my tribe comes a great tract of rich soil,

Rich grass. We shall build a fair palace of stone

And live in love for ever and ever.’ Then she said:

‘You must know now – but surely you already know –

That I may not have children. The temple of love

Was given over to joy, not fertility.’

But he cried: ‘What does it matter? Israel

Can grow and flourish with no need of our help.

We shall be a new twin star in its sky.

That word – it is meant as a word of shame,

But the moon is barren and its light shines on the earth

With a beauty that the sun does not know. As now.’

He embraced her tenderly. ‘We are the moon lovers.’

She said: ‘We must leave early. Put out the light.’

So he doused the lamp, saying however: ‘The light

Can never be put out.’ And the moon

Embraced them who embraced each other. Never

Be put out. In harsh sunlight Moses

Addressed the multitude: ‘You, children of Israel,

Have committed whoredoms with the daughters of Moab.

You have sacrificed to their gods, you have eaten

Of foul flesh and bowed down to Ba’al.

The anger of the Lord is a burning torrent.

For he is the one God, the God of mankind,

Who made mankind and all the earth and the heavens,

And he is a jealous God.

And his word has come to me, and this is his word.’

The sinners waited, rightly apprehensive,

The troops stern behind them. Moses said:

‘His word is this: Take all the heads of the people

That have sinned, and hang them before the Lord,

Up against the sun, that the Lord’s fierce anger

May be turned away from Israel. Judges,’ he cried.

And the judges, shocked but ready, looked towards him.

‘Judges, you have heard the order of the Lord.

Let justice be done.’ So Moses turned away

While justice was done, shutting his ears to torment

And curses, the terrified voices that cried:

The God of Jacob is a God of butchers

And Moses is the chief of butchers, saying:

‘I spoke too soon when I said the work was over.

I see now that the work is never over.

But, Lord God, may my work soon be over.’

The lovers stood, puzzled, when they came to the encampment,

Finding weeping and rending of garments by the tabernacle,

Then they looked up and saw. ‘Is this what they do?’

Cried Cozbi in fear. ‘Is this the kind of

Thing that the Israelites do?’ Zimri said: ‘Justice’,

In a weak voice. ‘They have been seeking justice.

For what crime?’ Cozbi cried: ‘Let us go.

Back to the city.’ But Joshua was upon them,

An armed squad behind him, saying: ‘So.

You came back to us, Zimri. With, as I see,

One of the whores of Moab.’ Zimri cried out:

‘Guard your tongue. The whore to whom you refer

Is the daughter of a prince of Moab, head

Of a great house in the kingdom. She is also my bride.’ –

‘Your bride,’ Joshua said. ‘That is a stage

Further than whoredom. You are both under arrest.’

Zimri said stoutly: ‘On what charge?’ And Joshua:

‘Abominations before the Lord our God.’ –

‘Wait’ Zimri said: ‘was I not sent to the city

On your instructions? What proof do you possess

That I have committed whoredoms, as you call them?’ –

‘The proof,’ said Joshua, ‘stands beside you.’ Zimri,

In a voice that rang out, said: ‘Ah, Joshua,

You who love the law so much that

Severed heads must grin in the sun for it,

You shall have the law, but she and I

Will have it too. For which of our law forbids

The converting of a pagan to the faith?

What law forbids the marriage of an Israelite

To the daughter of a foreign people?’ Joshua,

More doubtfully than before: ‘The situation

Is, at best, highly suspicious.’ – ‘I see.

Suspicion is enough for arrest, for threat’

For insult?’ – ‘The judges,’ now said Joshua, “must decide.

In the meantime, you are both under arrest.

On suspicion which, to a people at war, is enough.

And, if you will accept the word of our leader,

Which is also enough, the people of Moab,

From newborn child to doddering greybeard, are

Defined by him as an unclean people, source

Of disease of body and of spirit.’ Zimri said:

‘Do not talk to me of uncleanness, Joshua.

You smell of blood, blood, which, I fear,

Will not easily be washed out.’ – ‘No more talk.

Place them in the guard tents. Separately.’

But Zimri countered: ‘Wait. I claim, by right,

The protection of my own tribe.’ Joshua: ‘No.

The law of the whole people cancels out

The laws and customs of the tribes.’ – ‘Is that then

Written on the tablets? I think not.

The ancient custom of wedlock with the Simeonites

Demands that the bride be brought before the people

To be approved of the people.’ Joshua said:

‘Go, then. I am heartily sick of this matter.

It shall be left to the judges. But, Zimri, there will be

No escape. The perimeter guards have their orders.’

Now it happened that a new priest, freshly appointed,

Spoke that night to the people: ‘My name is Phinehas.

I know I am the youngest of your priests,

But the fire of faith burns the stronger therefor,

Nor is authority nor wisdom thereby abated.

I speak to you of the primal vessel of sin,

Woman. Sin and impurity. Of woman.’

But some of the women hearing hardened their faces

At his words, and at the words that followed:

‘It was Eve, the mother of all mankind,

That brought sin into the world, and that sin rests

With all her daughters, sin made manifest

In their uncleanness – filth of the mensal courses,

Of the very process of birth. Far more than men,

Women are lodged in the flesh and cling to the flesh,

Are rarely aroused to climb to the pure spirit.

If all women be unclean, how much more so

Are the women of the pagan peoples, in whom

Dwells the active devil of disruption –

The desire to draw men down from their purity

Into the stinking pit.’ Moses said

To Caleb: ‘I think he goes too far.’ But he listened:

‘Within our very gates still lies the stench

Of foreign idols and all their abominations,

Reeking from a vessel of pagan filth.

I demand that the vessel be shattered.’ A woman cried:

‘You spit on your own mother.’ And Moses said:

‘He does go too far.’ But Phinehas, inflamed,

Cried out: ‘The curse of the all highest fall

On all who shut their ears to the voice of holiness.

May they who hearken not to the words of their priests

Be thrust to the bottomless pit of the fires that fail not,

To the eternal dungeons of divine damnation.’

There was much more of this, but Cozbi,

Impure pagan vessel, and Zimri lay

In the peace of their after-love, but a troubled peace.

‘Believe me’, he said, ‘beloved, all will change

When we have crossed the river. There will be no more

Suspicion, hatred, panic. Our people tremble

With fear and disordered nerves.’ But she: ‘Your people –

The members of your tribe – they like me?’ Zimri:

‘Did they not show as much? We talk of nation,

But the reality does not lie out there –

With armies, flags, and tablets of the law.

It is in the tribe, which is but a family.

You are become a part of it.’ A shadow

Crossed them at that instant, obscuring the moon

An instant. Zimri said: ‘Who is there?’ And Cozbi

Whispered: ‘Are they setting spies on us?’

A voice was over them, in their tent, shouting:

‘A spy of the Lord God. Prepare you, woman,

To join your stinking idols in the abode of blackness.’ –

‘Who are you?’ Zimri cried, rising aghast,

Arms out. Then there was a knife to be seen. ‘And you, too –

Son of the prince Salu and foul shame

To the tribe of Simeon.’ He lunged, Zimri fought,

The strength of the fanatic prevailed. Struck down,

Blood welling, he lay. Cozbi, in fear and horror,

Cried to the moon. ‘And now’, Phinehas panted,

‘Whore of Moab –‘ A scream through the sleeping camp,

Unheeded, some beast or bird of the night. At daybreak,

Phinehas spoke with pride of his work. Zeal, zeal –

The zeal of them who love the Lord ‘Your zeal’,

Cried Moses. ‘Yes, your sacred zeal, as you call it.

But sacred zeal can go too far. I am sickened

By your sacred murderous zeal.’ But the priest, surprised,

Said: ‘We are an embattled people. Are not those your words?

The speck in the fruit corrupts the whole basket.

The accursed of God may be stricken down by the priests of God.

That is laid down in the law.’ But Moses said:

‘The law is written on stone – hard, unyielding –

But the law may still be as flexible as a song.

Examine your own heart, Phinehas. You took pleasure

In the slaying of that innocent woman.’ – ‘Innocent?

Innocent?’ – ‘Yes, she knew no better.

She was not one of the chosen. But perhaps

She was being drawn towards the light and the truth. Yet you

Took pleasure in slaying her perhaps because she was a woman.

You fear women, hence you see them as vessels of sin.

But I say this to you, Phinehas: that it is the women

Who will carry our faith when the men waver. Strength

Is in the woman and not in the man. Men dream,

But the divine vision is no dream. It is as real

As the sweeping of the hearth, real as the beaming of children.

The bones of women are strong to bear. Has the Lord

Spoken to you since your act of religious zeal?’

Phinehas said: ‘The Lord has sent dreams of sin

And dreams of killing. Then I wake howling.’ Moses

Shook his head: ‘You were not meant to be a priest.

A warrior perhaps. Well, you may soon be able

To plunge your steel into flesh less yielding. The news

Of your zeal may already have reached the divan of Balak.’

But Phinehas: ‘She was a whore and a foul whore.’ –

Moses spat. ‘Go from me, little man.

What do you know about whores?’

The apportioning

Of the land that they were yet to see went on.

Caleb read out the figures of the census, for the grant

Was to be by numbers. ‘The sons of Benjamin –

Forty-five thousand and six hundred. The families

Of the Shuhamites – sixty-four thousand four hundred.

Asher – the return is not yet in.’ Moses said:

‘Not one who was with us in the desert of Sinai.

Not one who remembers Egypt. Except Joshua

And you. And Me, but my day is over. The word

Of the Lord is fulfilled.’ Caleb, impatiently:

‘Yes yes. The families of Naphtali – little difference

In their numbers from the numbers of Benjamin – two hundred.

One might as well give them the same apportionment.’

Clerks were at work on a planed board. Eleazar,

The son of Aaron, supervised, marking proportion,

Location. Then women approached, and Caleb said:

‘Women? What can women want?’ Five women,

Making with purpose towards Moses. Eleazar frowned:

‘This is irregular. Women should stay with their children

And with their pots and pans.’ Moses said:

‘You have been infected by the misplaced zeal

Of your former colleague. Where is he now, by the way?’ –

‘Phinehas?’ Eleazar frowned still. ‘Out with the army.

He has a gift for fighting.’ – ‘He will enjoy it’

Moses sighed, ‘slaying the Midianite women.

God help us, when shall we ever be at peace?’

Eleazar said: ‘The holy war goes on.

Slay them, said the Lord. Feed the earth

With the blood of the idolator.’ – ‘Enough, Eleazar,’

Moses said, and then: ‘Welcome, daughters.’ –

‘This is highly irregular,’ cried the priest.

‘Many things are irregular’, said one of the women.

‘Including what we are about to speak about.

If it is permitted.’ Moses said:

‘It is certainly permitted. You are, are you not,

The daughters of, the daughters of – Forgive me,

An old man’s memory, or lack of it.’

The woman said: ‘I am Mahlah. These are my sisters:

Hoglah, Noah, Milcah, Tirzah – daughters of

Zelophehad, now dead.’ – ‘Ah yes’, said Moses.

‘Slain in battle, was he not?’ – ‘Slain.

With his sons, our brothers. Thanks to your holy wars

We are without menfolk. Though how a war can be holy – ’

Eleazar said: ‘Have a care, woman,’ but she:

‘Killing, killing, killing. Will your God

Strike me down because I cry against killing?

Well, let him. He is made in the likeness of a man.’

Gently Moses said: ‘God is a spirit.

His voice has come to me in many forms,

Because a spirit lacks a voice of its own.

The voice has sometimes been the voice of Miriam,

My own sister.’ Mahlah said: ‘Be that as it may,

Your God seems fond of killing. A woman brings forth

With pain, high priest, that few men could truly bear –

Only that her sons may be killed in some holy war.

But that is not directly to my purpose.’ –

‘What’, said Moses gently, ‘is your purpose?’

Mahlah said: ‘We are women without menfolk.

The name of our father has disappeared from your record.

What will happen to his portion of the promised land?’

Eleazar said: ‘Woman, it is clearly laid down

That the sons alone shall inherit. If there are no sons,

There is no inheritance.’ But Mahlah cried:

‘Injustice, man’s injustice.’ And Eleazar:

‘It is the law.’ – ‘That is always the answer:

It is the law. And how if the law be unjust?’

Eleazar said: ‘You merit the Lord’s malediction.

One does not question the law.’ But she, in anger:

‘High priest, I am questioning it.’ And Moses:

‘Daughter, you are right to question it.

Peace, Eleazar. And my response is this:

If a man die and leave no son, then the father’s

Inheritance shall pass to the daughters.’ Eleazar

Seemed ready to burn. ‘Heresy?’ Moses said.

‘An abomination? The Lord, as you see, high priest,

Has not yet offered to strike me dead. Nor will he.

Daughters of Israel, you have your inheritance.’

But still in the future, always it seemed, in the future.

Across the plain, soon, advancing armies,

And Joshua said: ‘They are coming for revenge.

Or shall we call it a pretext? You, priest,

Are certainly in the fight’, addressing Phinehas

Who, stripped of his sacerdotal robes,

Arrayed as a somewhat puny warrior,

Sweated as he heard drums. Moses said:

‘Is this the last battle, Joshua?

For all the kings of Midian will join Balak

Evi and Rekem and Zur and Hur and Reba.’ –

‘The last fight’, Joshua said, ‘this side of Jordan.

How do the words go? Speak the words again.’ –

‘The false gods crushed under the feet of Israel.

And you shall take the spoils of all their cattle

And all their flocks, yea, and all their goods,

And burn all the cities wherein they dwell

A holy war, but we have not provoked it.’

Joshua said: ‘You are tired. Stay in your tent.

I will send word.’ And Moses: ‘You will prevail.

The blessing of God go with you, Joshua.’

So banners, trumpets and drums proclaimed to the sky

The going forth of the Israelites to war –

While Moses prayed: ‘Let there be an end to war –

An end, O Lord’, but little hope in his words.

18 JORDAN

Moses half-slept in his lonely tent – Ghershom,

His son, gone with the army, Zipporah, his wife,

Dust; himself soon to be dust. He heard

His own voice, or the voice of the Lord, or of Israel:

And you have taken the spoils of all their cattle

And all their sheep, yea, and all their goods,

And burnt all the cities wherein they dwelt,

And all their goodly castles with fire and

All their goodly castles with fire and all their

Goodly castles with fire and he saw a

Castle innumerable cubits high falling

In flames and heard the screams of men falling,

Women and children. He came sharply awake

To sense a presence not a dreaming presence

And said: ‘Is it you, Lord?’ And the presence said:

‘All is fulfilled. The slain lie like leaves

In the fall tempests. Over those fallen leaves

You may fare forward. But first the sheep need

A new shepherd. Take Joshua, son of Nun,

A man in whom the spirit burns like a fire,

And lay your hands upon him.’ So Joshua, from the wars,

Scarred and ready for wine and a handmaiden,

Was told these words and at once was hushed and solemn.

Before the tabernacle Moses laid his hand

On the warrior’s head, saying: ‘You are not exalted

To any priesthood. You need no robes, no chrism.

You are become that humblest of beings – a leader

Accountable to the people and to the Lord,

With duties and no rights.’ He raised his arms

Before the assembled nation, bidding them

Acclaim their new shepherd, hearing however

Beneath the acclamation the growls of the restive,

As was to be expected. He smiled with relief

At being allowed the guerdon of fatigue,

Old age at last. Under a star-filled heaven

Their caravan moved in silence, under the sun,

Moses at rest in an ox-cart, Joshua ahead,

Until one day Joshua came and pointed

Ahead at a certain mountain. Pisgah? Pisgah.

So in the plain they set up the tabernacle,

Pitched their tents, the people in good heart,

The young singing and dancing about the fires,

Moses fulfilling his last duties. He said,

To the tribal leaders round a fire, plain words

About the necessity and beauty of the law

Or laws: ‘Too many laws, some will say –

A huge web woven of many webs – but remember

This, this: that the law is our city,

Complex, cunningly woven – many streets,

Buildings, rooms – yet a city we may carry

About with us, wherever we go. Remember

This: we are the chosen, and this means

Many enemies among the unchosen. Enemies.

They will slay us and pursue us. The unchosen.

And we may never finally be at rest.

But wherever we go we will carry our city with us.

The law. Break one single stone of the law,

However small, and a part of the city falls.

Soon the temples and palaces and dwellings

Will crash about our ears. And we shall be lost.

Keep the law. Teach the law. Teach it.’

Phinehas, a subdued man, lacking an arm,

Stiff with scars, taught the children, asking:

‘What are we allowed to eat?’The ox

The sheep the goat the roebuck ‘If you were asked

What kind of animal?’ Animals that have the

Hoof parted in two ‘Like the pig?’

No no no ‘Why not like the pig?’

Because the pig does not chew the cud

‘So the animal has to chew the cud. So we may

Eat the camel, the rabbit, the hare?’ No no

No no no ‘Why not?’ Because they do not

Divide the hoof in two ‘So we can

Eat beasts that divide the hoof and chew the cud,

But not beasts that just do one and no both.

Yes, my son?’ Why? ‘Well, let me put it

This way…’ Eleazar taught older boys,

Saying: ‘Well, let me put it this way.

Without the past the present can mean nothing.

Without the past a man is a sort of ghost

Trembling on the brink of a future

He cannot understand. So we remember

The past in ceremonies, force ourselves to remember.

In our promised land we shall remember

Our long exile, tribulations, thus

Becoming aware of our qualities as a nation,

A fighting nation, a law-abiding nation,

A proud nation.’ Rabbi – ‘Yes, my son?’

Why isn’t Moses going with us? ‘Well now,

Let me put it this way…’ Moses was saying,

Addressing the priests and elders: ‘Because of my doubt

Of God’s promise, because I cried out on my trust

And sought to reject it, I may not enter. You

Shall cross the Jordan, Joshua leading you,

But I – full of years, at the end of my journey –

Must await my end here. But I have taught you

The song I have written. Teach it. Remember it.

Remember me.’ So they taught it, and one day,

The whole of the people sang it, the song of Moses:

‘Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak.

And hear, O earth, the words of my mouth.

My doctrine shall drop as the rain,

My speech shall distil as the dew,

As the small rain upon the tender herb,

And as the showers upon the grass.

The Lord is the Rock, his work is perfect.

Rejoice, O ye nations, with his people:

For he will avenge the blood of his servants,

And will be merciful unto his land,

And to his people.’ And they danced to the flute, the harp,

The shawm, the trumpet, to the air of his song:

And Moses said: ‘Beloved, keep the commandments.

Love justice and mercy. Love the Lord our God,

For his ways are the ways of justice and mercy.’

And he saw that the time was coming for his people

To pass over the river and take up their inheritance.

So he bade the whole of the Israelite nation kneel,

And they knelt, and then he blessed them, saying:

‘Happy art thou, O Israel. Who is like unto thee,

O people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help

And the sword of thy excellency. There is none like unto your God,

Who rides upon the heavens. The eternal God

Is your refuge, and underneath

Are the everlasting arms.’ Then the Israelite Army

Saluted his greatness with shouts and with the clamour

Of drums and silver trumpets. So he moved

To the mountain, and Caleb and Joshua tried to help him

In his climb to the summit, but he waved their help aside.

He climbed and they watched him, thinking: Strong as an ox,

With the eyes of an eagle, but it was not true,

Not true any longer. The Israelites, shielding their sight

Against the sun, watched him long and long

Till he reached the top of the mountain. There he rested.

And after a time of rest he heard a voice,

His own voice, young again, saying to him:

‘Now, Moses, I will show you their inheritance.’

He said: ‘But not mine’, with his old boldness,

The boldness of a prince. ‘You are a hard

And unforgiving God.’ The voice said: ‘Unforgiving?

If you but knew, if you only knew. But I

Have sworn and made my covenant with man.

I shall not again destroy him for his sins.

Yet I shall torment him with dissatisfaction,

For only in me shall he be satisfied.

Look now – all the land of Gilead, unto Dan.’

And Moses stood to look, seeing the river,

And all the lands beyond the river, fair,

Rich and fair. ‘Look. And all Naphtali

And the land of Ephraim and Manasseh,

And the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea.

And the plain of the valley of Jericho, city of palm-trees,

Unto Zoar. This is the land which I swore

Unto Abraham, and Isaac, and unto Jacob,

Saying: I will give it unto thy seed.

Moses, I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes,

But thou shalt not go thither.’ Moses did not

Weep, but he said again, with a princely boldness:

‘You are a hard and unforgiving God.’ –

‘Go down now. Return to the valley of Moab,’

Said the voice. And Moses said: ‘To die.”

And the voice said: ‘What else?’ So he went down

And waited, willing death, which was not long,

For when a man’s work is done there is only death.

The women closing his eyes, wailing, but Joshua

Was dry-eyed. Eleazar made an obeisance

To the leader of the Israelites, and said

‘You must give the instructions as to his burial.’

And Joshua said: ‘Here in this valley of Moab,

This side of Jordan.’ And then Eleazar said:

‘You must now give instructions as to the gravestone

And what shall be written thereon.’ But Joshua said:

‘It is better that no man know where he is buried.

It is better that he be thought of as –

Not lying in one place. For he must not have

Idolators at his shrine. He is with us

In the water we drink, the food we eat. We breathe him.’

Eleazar said: ‘Will you make up the words

That shall be spoken to the people?’ But Joshua:

‘I have already made them.’ And so he spoke to the people:

‘There will never arise again in Israel

A prophet like unto Moses, whom the Lord

Knew face to face. In all the signs and wonders,

Which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt

And in all that mighty hand, and the great terror

Which Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.’

The muffled drums beat, and the body of Moses

Was borne away on a litter. Most of the people

Wished to follow, but Joshua forbade them.

The body of Moses was carried none knows whither

And rests now none knows where. And Joshua

The son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom.

For Moses had laid his hands upon him,

And the children of Israel hearkened unto him,

And did as the Lord commanded Moses. Joshua

Raised his blessed hand, and they fared forward,

Coming at length to a river. Caleb said:

‘At last.’ But Joshua: ‘We still have to cross it.

God will provide. This is only a river

Once we crossed a sea. Well – we have our orders.’

He smiled, and Caleb smiled, and so they marched.

And then at last, the voice spoke to Joshua:

‘Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore, Joshua

Go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people

Unto the land which I do give them. From the wilderness

Even unto the great river, the Euphrates,

And unto the great sea toward the going down

Of the sun. And as I was with Moses,

So will I be with thee: I will not fail thee,

Nor forsake thee. Be therefore not afraid,

Neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God

Is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’ The wilderness

Held a grave, but none would know the grave.

Not from the grave but from the living air

And the beating blood of Israel the voice

Of the living Moses echoed: For the Lord

Thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Rome,

March 9, 1974