Collected Poems Anthony Burgess (best pdf reader for ebooks txt) 📖

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