Four Mystery Plays

Four Mystery Plays

The Soul's Probation

Scene 11

The same meditation-chamber as in Scene 2. Maria, Ahriman.

Ahriman:
So Benedictus spun a cunning web
Of thought, whose pattern thou hast followed out,
And now thou art fast bound in error's toils.
Thornasius too and e'en Capesius
Are victims of this same illusion's spell.
For at the same time as thine eyes beheld
This long-past earthly life — so too did theirs.
Henceforward 'tis in that time thou dost seek
To find the causes of thy present life;
But only error can be error's fruit
If thou art ready to allow thyself
To make the path of duty here and now
Depend upon such vain imaginings.
That Benedictus took from thine own brain,
And placed these visions in an earlier age,
Thine own self's knowledge can quite clearly prove.
Thou sawst people of this present time
But little changed from those of former days.
Woman thou sawst as woman, man as man,
And all their attributes were similar;
Thou canst not therefore any longer doubt
That what thou didst transfer to time's dim past
By spirit-vision, far from being truth
Was but the vain delusion of thy soul.

Maria:
In thee I see the sire of all deceit
Yet know I too thou oft dost speak the truth.
And any one who chose to set aside
All counsel that might reach him through thy words
To utmost error soon would fall a prey.
And as illusion wears the mask of truth
The better to ensnare the souls of men,
So 'tis but easy for a man to yield
Thereto, by trying like a coward to slink
Past every place where error might be hid.
More than illusion finds the soul in thee
For in the Spirit of Deceit doth live
The force that gives mankind discernment true.
I therefore shall oppose thee without fear.
Thou hast attacked that portion of my soul
Which must at all times keep the most alert,
If I weigh all the evidence which thou
In clever calculation hast advanced,
'Twould seem that only pictures from my brain