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THE GODS. A Drama. From the Coptic of IAO SABAO. [By Aleister Crowley]
Published in the International New York, New York, U.S.A. (pages 86-87)
In the blackness of infinite space are stars, Aldeboran, Gemini, Orion, Cor Leonis, accurately represented.
In the foreground is the top of a lemon-colored, luminous globe, around which is a set of darker rings, tilted at an angle of some 10 to 15 degrees sideways to the horizontal. Left, a tall man of green skin, clothed in a vast mantle of scarlet, with gold embroideries like flames; his right leg swings constantly in space upon the rim of the Ring. Left centre, a boy of bluish violet skin, clad fantastically in light yellow rays, plays upon the flute. Right, a woman, tawny orange, lies folded in her cloak of blue, which is adorned like the fan of a peacock.
Above, throned upon the globe, sits a man of immense size; his hair, his beard, his robe, his skin, are vast and snowy. The hair is rayed like a crown; the beard covers his whole body. His eyes, lost in the vastness of his face, are inky black. His name is Aoth; that of the man, Arogogorobrao; of the woman, Assalonai; of the boy, Atheleberseth.
Upon this scene the curtain rises. There is a long silence, while Arogogorobrao swings his leg.
Atheleberseth plays idly on the flute two or three short snatches, as in a mood of boredom.
ASSALONAI (as if summing a long consideration, shaking her head slowly): No. A pause.
AROGO—GOROBRAO (shrugs his shoulders heavily, then drops his head between them): No. A pause. How much ah—Time—did you say had passed?
AS.: Eighty-eight thousand, three hundred and sixty-three millions, five hundred and twelve thousand and forty-two aeons—of aeons.
AR.: I still do not understand. But it is very little.
AS.: Before me there was no Time at all?
AR.: No. A pause. It was very peaceful.
AS.: I cannot understand what it can have been. There was no motion?
AR.: Of course not. It was all Now.
AS.: Yet nothing has happened, ever since I came, and Time began.
AR.: Only the journey of that comet by which you measure this time of yours.
AS.: (brightly): Oh, yes! Every billion times it comes back it changes color a little; I count that one Wink. And a billion Winks make a Flash, and a billion Flashes make a Spark, and a billion Sparks make an Aeon.
AR.: It is clever. Yes. It is clever. But I do not see the use of it.
AS.: But, see! How useful it is now! Now that Atheleberseth has come.
AR.: But it does not explain how he has come—or why.
AS.: No.
AR.: (very sadly): No. A pause. I do not understand even why you came—bringing Time.
AS.: No. He does not know?
AR.: No. He was asleep even in the Now.
AS.: He has never stirred. What is that—“asleep”?
AR.: In the Now one either knows or knows not. Aoth knew not. I knew.
AS.: But——
AR.: You think that I am a dream of Aoth? It may be.
AS.: And shall we not sleep again?
AR.: Who may say—after that strange thing that came to us last Aeon?
AS.: (enthusiastic): That rushing sleep!
AR.: And we woke up to find Atheleberseth and his flute.
AS.: Then only did we speak.
AR.: He gave us our names. He gave—Him—His name.
AS.: I do not think these are the true names. (Atheleberseth plays a short tune upon his flute, dancing.)
AR.: Names cannot be true. Silence is truth—perhaps. This Time of yours is all a lie. It means that things change. And true things cannot change.
ATHELEBERSETH: Oh, tra-la-la! There was a foolish word. Change is itself truth. I am sorry I invented speech—or that I bestowed it on these elder gods—these beings without intelligence or experience.
AR.: Boy, you do not understand that the secret of Wisdom is in knowing nothing, in saying nothing, and, above all, in doing nothing.
ATH.: True, since you broke silence then to say a foolish thing.
AR.: Ay, you are but the fruit of a great curse.
AS.: Nay, he amuses me. He is dear, he is delicate. I love his mirth, his music.
AR.: It does not matter. Aoth will wake.
ATH.: Not he!
AR.: He will wake. He will see what he has done—us. And he will pass his hand over his brow—and we shall be as if we had never been.
ATH.: How could that be? We are.
AR.: (with a contemptuous little laugh): We are only the dreams of Aoth. What has been is not. What is no more was not. There is no substance, save only in the Now.
ATH.: Then it doesn’t matter what we do?
AR.: No. Not in the Silence, the Now, the Truth.
ATH.: Then I will have a wonderful time! I will set fire to the beard of Aoth!
AR.: (grimly): You would wake Him—and an End of your time!
AS.: What is End?
AR.: All would be Now—but we should be Not.
ATH.: I don’t believe it. It is all change. Change changes. Change cannot cease to change. (He plays the flute.)
AR.: Play not so loud!
ATH.: (alarmed): Is there really a danger?
AR.: For you, perhaps. It might be as fatal as if one should pronounce IAO backwards. But I should not find an end. All this time is terrible to me.
ATH.: All that is out of date. Assalonai is delighted.
AS.: Are you sorry that I came?
AR.: No—— (A pause.) Yes. (A pause.) It is contrary to Truth, to Silence. I am sorry.
ATH.: (with a trill upon the flute): I am glad. I am going to play games.
AR.: What are “games”?
ATH.: See! You know nothing! I mean to make this old Ring spin. After all, you are responsible. You made Assalonai; you made me.
AR.: I was lonely in the Now. I must have thought. I see that it was wrong. I have set a star in motion. Who can say what may come of it?
ATH.: Oh, tra-la-la! Mother, let us play a game!
AS.: (smiling and shaking her head): I do not know any games. I love; that is all I know.
ATH.: You invented this game Time.
AR.: A fearful thing! Something evil will come of it.
AS.: Why should not good come of it?
AR.: I have told you. It was “good” in the Now—— (A pause.) But I did not know it. So I thought. Alas!
ATH.: Oh, come! let us play a game! (Silence.) Then I must have a sister to play with.
AR.: Already he plots evil.
AS.: Surely that is harmless enough.
AR.: I tell you that you do not know; you do not understand.
AS.: Oh! but you fear without reason.
AR.: (with bitter contempt): Reason! I had Wisdom—until I thought.
ATH.: Come, she shall be all made of music.
(He plays upon the flute. From the Ring, beneath his feet, arises Barraio, a black hunchbacked dwarf, with a hooked nose, a hanging jaw, a single, bloodshot eye. She is dressed in rags of rusty red. Atheleberseth screams with laughter as he sees her; Assalonai shudders in disgust; Arogogorobrao nods his head, as if that which he had foreseen had come to pass. Barraio performs a dance of ever-increasing obscenity, which delights Atheleberseth as much as it disgusts the others. Presently she kisses him on the mouth. He is nauseated, and throws her back with a gesture of violent repulsion. She, screaming with laughter, produces, from her rags, a terrestrial globe.)
ATHELEBERSETH (in surprise and horror): Oh!
ASSALONAI (in agony): Ah!
ARAGOGOROBRAO (with hissing intake of the breath): Ih!
AOTH raises His hand, and draws it across His brow. Darkness. It clears for one blinding flash as He opens His eye. He is alone.
(Curtain.) |