Part 5 (1/2)

_Vashti_.

And if thou seest not how slippery Is women's place in the world of men, 'tis like Thou wilt amazedly the vision take, When I have led thee up my tower of thought.

_2nd Woman_.

How are we dangerous? Are we not women, Man's endless need?

_Vashti_.

Ay, and therein the danger!

Is it not possible he hate the need?

For not as he were a beast it urges him: He is aware of it, he knows its force,-- The kind of beasts is in their blood alone, But man is blood and spirit. And in him, As in all creature, is the word from G.o.d, ”Utter thyself in joy.”

_2nd Woman_.

And we his joy.

_Vashti_.

But such an one that may become, perhaps, Something not utterance, but strict commanding, Yea, mastery, like the dancing in the blood Of one bitten by spiders. And it is Spirit, Spirit enjoying woman, that hath sent A beating poison in the blood of man, The poison which is l.u.s.t. Spirit was given To use life as a sense for ecstasy; Life mixt with Spirit must exult beyond s.e.x-madden'd men and s.e.x-serving women, Into some rapture where sweet fleshly love Is as the air wherein a music rings.

But blood hath captured Spirit; Spirit hath given The strength of its desire of joy to make What ecstasy it may of woman's beauty, And of this only, doing no more than train The joys of blood to be more keen and cunning; As men have trained and tamed wild lives of the forests, Breeding them to more excellent shape and size And tireless speed, and to know the words of men.

So the wise masterful Spirit rules the joys That come all fierce from roaming the dark blood; They are broken to his desire, they are wily for him, A pack of l.u.s.ts wherewith the Spirit hunts Pleasure; and the chief prey the pleasure hid In woman.

_1st Woman_.

What joys are these?

_Vashti_.

What joys?

The joys of rutting beasts, tamed to endure, Tamed to be always swift to answer Spirit, Yet fiercer for their taming, wilder hungers; So that the Spirit, if he hunt them not, Fears to be torn by them in mutiny.

Now know you woman's beauty! 'Tis these joys, The heat of the blood's desires, changed and mastered By the desire of spirit, trained to serve Spirit with l.u.s.t, spirit with woman enjoy'd.

_2nd Woman_.

Queen, I am beautiful, and cannot boast Thy subtle thinking; and to one like me, What matters whence come beauty, so I have it?

Let it be but the witless mating of beasts, Tamed and curiously knowing itself And cunning in its own delight: What then?

The nightingale desires his little la.s.s, And that brings out of his heart a radiant song; A man desires a woman, and for song Out of his heart comes beauty, that like flame Reaches towards her, and covers her limbs with light.

If it so please thee, say that neither loves Aught but his life's desire, fas.h.i.+oning it Adorably to marvellous song and beauty.

What then? Enough that the wonder lights on me, To me is paid the wors.h.i.+p of the wonder.

_Vashti_.

O well I know how strong we are in man; His senses have our beauty for their G.o.d, And his delight is built about us like Towering adoration, housing wors.h.i.+p.-- The spirit of man may dwell in G.o.d: the world, From the soft delicate floor of gra.s.s to those Rafters of light and hanging cloths of stars, Is but the honour in G.o.d's mind for man, Wrought into glorious imagination.

But women dwell in man; our temple is The honour of man's sensual ecstasy, Our safety the imagined sacredness Fas.h.i.+on'd about us, fas.h.i.+on'd of his pleasure.

Beauty hath done this for us, and so made Woman a kind within the kind of man.

Yea, there is more than this: a mighty need Hath man made of his woman in the world.

Now man walks through his fate in fellows.h.i.+p Of two companion spirits; ay, and these With double mastery go on with him.

The one in black disgraceful weeds is Toil; She sows with never-ending gesture all The path before his feet, cursing the way She drags him on with growth of flouting crops, Urchin thistles, and rank flouris.h.i.+ng nettles.

But the other has a wear of woven gleam, And with soft hand beseeches him his face Away from the hards.h.i.+ps of his hurt stung feet, That with his eyes he may desire her looks: And she is Beauty of Woman, man's dear blessing.

And if you would be wise, be well afraid To think you have more office than to be A sweet delicious while amid man's hours Of worldly labour: we are too precious, so.

Yet see you not how this that Spirit hath done Is also dangerous?--For there are mightier needs!

There's no content for Spirit in the world Till he has striven out of bounded fate, And sent an infinite desire forth Into the whole eternity of things.

Yea, spirit ails with loathing secretly The irremediable force of being; Unless, with free expatiate desire, He shape into the endless burning flux Of starry world blindly adventuring Some steady righteous destiny for Spirit: Even as dreaming brain fas.h.i.+ons the fume Of life asleep to marshall'd imagery.

But we are in the way of this: and man, The more he needs to announce upon the world, Over him going like a storming air, That fas.h.i.+oning word which utters the divine Imagination working in him like anger; The more he finds his virtue caught and clogged In the fierce luxury he hath made of woman.