Cain Abel Cain Abel Cain His senses he has lost. Sad sight! I tremble... Thou, Abel, do thou take What do I hear? That I should strike thee? Why, if I still love thee Thyself again: let's both our father seek: He waits for thee... My father? to my father [Strikes him. Alas!... I feel What, O what My strength depart... O mother!... Have I now done? his blood spurts o'er my face! He falls; he faints... Where hide myself? O Heavens! Forever from my hand, my eyes... What hear I? Alas! already doth the thund'ring voice Of God upon me call... O where to fly? There, raves my father in wild fury... Here, My dying brother's sobs... Where hide myself? Abel Adam Abel ABEL [dying], then ADAM. Ah dreadful pain!... O, how my blood Already towards the west The sun approaches fast, and I as yet Have found them not! The livelong day have I Alas! help, help!... O mother!... Adam [Flies. [Advances. O, what hear I? Abel Adam Abel Adam Abel Sobs of a human being, like the wails Of Abel!... Heavens! what see I there? a stream My father's voice, methinks... O! is it thou?... My son!... sad day!... sad sight!... How deep The wound with which his guiltless head is cloven! Who gave thee such a blow? and what the weapon? ... O Heavens! Is't not Cain's pickax that I see Lying all-bloody there?... O grief! O madness! A brother kill his brother? I myself Will arm, with thy own arms; and find thee out, The very earth to gape and swallow him In its profound abyss? Then, 'tis Thy will, Ah yes! that by my hand should punished be This crime irreparable: 'tis Thy will That I should follow on the bloody track Of that base villain: here it is: from me, Thou wicked Cain, shalt thou receive thy death ... O God! But leave my Abel breathing still. . . Father!... return, return! ... I fain would tell thee... My son, but how could Cain ... He was . . . indeed... it was not he... Moreover. O pardon him, . . . as I do... Thou only art my son. Devotion true! O Abel! my own image! thou, my all!... Abel Ah, father!... tell me . . . truly; Didst thou e'er plan . . . to take away . . . from Cain, . . . some mighty good, . . . which lies And give... to me... Adam What dost mean? one son Alone I deemed that I possessed in both. Abel Deceived . . . was Cain then; . . . this he said to me. breath, ... Father, . . . is failing. . . Adam ... Kiss me .. .. my He is dying... How O God!... He dies. Unhappy father! -- Is, then, the first to fall before thy blows A guileless youth like this? "Twas me the first, And this dear lifeless body, how can I From Eve conceal it? Hide from her the truth? How tear myself from him?-But, what behold I? From far! She promised me that she would wait Might in one moment kill her... How I tremble! Adam Eve EVE, and ADAM [running to meet her]. Why, woman, hast thou come? 'tis not allowed Unto our cottage; there will I erelong Heavens! what see I? in thy face Adam No: but, very soon Do thou meanwhile retrace thy steps, I pray ... Eve And leave thee?... And my children, where are they? But, what do I behold? thy vesture stained With quite fresh blood? thy hands, too, dyed with blood? Alas! what is't, my darling Adam, say! Yet on thy body are no wounds... But, what, What is the blood there on the ground? and near it Is not the ax of Cain? . . . and that is also All soiled with blood? ... I must approach; to see... Adam Ah, leave me; yes, I must, I pray thee, no ... Eve In vain... Adam O Eve, stop, stop! on no account Shalt thou go farther. Eve [pushing her way forward a little] — But, in spite of thee, From out thine eyes a very stream of tears We have no sons. Eve Alas! Abel, my life... 'Tis vain To hold me back... Let me embrace thee, Abel. Adam To hold her is impossible: a slight Relief to her immense maternal sorrow Eve Adam, has God the murderer not punished? O impious Cain! in vain thy flight; in vain Eve Abel, Abel... Alas, he hears me not!... -I ever told thee, That I discerned a traitor's Between Cain's eyebrows. Adam mark, yes, traitor's, Never on the earth That traitor peace shall find, security, It is clear that if the modern literary analysis of the Pentateuch is justified, it is useless to look to the five books of Moses. for authentic history. There is nothing in them which can be ascribed with certainty to the age of Moses, nothing which goes back even to the age of the Judges. Between the Exodus out of Egypt and the composition of the earliest portion of the so-called Mosaic Law there would have been a dark and illiterate interval of several centuries. Not even tradition could be trusted to span them. For the Mosaic age, and still more for the age before the Exodus, all that we read in the Old Testament would be historically valueless. Such criticism, therefore, as accepts the results of "the literary analysis" of the Hexateuch acts consistently in stamping as mythical the whole period of Hebrew history which precedes the settlement of the Israelitish tribes in Canaan. Doubt is thrown even on their residence in Egypt and subsequent escape from "the house of bondage." Moses himself becomes a mere figure of mythland, a hero of popular imagination whose sepulcher was unknown because it had never been occupied. In order to discredit the earlier records of the Israelitish people, there is no need of indicating contradictions-real or otherwise in the details of the narratives contained in them, of enlarging upon their chronological difficulties, or of pointing to the supernatural elements they involve; the late dates assigned to the medley of documents which have been discovered in the Hexateuch are sufficient of themselves to settle the question. The dates are largely, if not altogether, dependent on the assumption that Hebrew literature is not older than the age of David. A few poems like the Song of Deborah may have been handed down orally from an earlier period, but readers and writers, it is assumed, there were none. The use of writing for literary purposes was coeval with the rise of the monarchy. The oldest inscription in the letters of the Phoenician alphabet yet discovered is only of the ninth century B.C., and |