CUERVO - Biblioteca Nacional de Colombia

98 PARACELSUS
To fill my chair, and so efface the stain
Basil had long incurred. I sought no better­
Nought but a quiet dismissal from my post;
While from my heart I wished them better suited,
And better served. Good night to Basil, then I
But fast as I proposed to rid the tribe
Of my obnoxious back, I could not spare them
The pleasure of a parting kick.
Festus. You smile:
Despise them as they merit I
Paracelsus. If I smile,
'Tis wilh as very contempt as ever turned
Plesh into stone: this courteous recompense;
This grateful ... Festus, were your nature fit
To be defiled, your eyes the eyes to ache
At gangrened blotches, eating poisonous blains,
TI)e ulcered barky scurf of leprosy
'Vhich tinds-a man, and leaves-a hideous thing
That cannot but be mended by hell fire,
-I say that, could you see as I could show,
I would lay bare to you these human hearts .
Which God cursed long ago, and devils make since
Their pet nest and their never-tiring home.
0, sages have discovered we are born
For various ends-to love, to know; has ever
One stumbled, in his search, on any signs
Of a nature in him formed to hate? To hate?
If that be our true object which evokes
Our powers in fullest strength, be sure 'tis hate I
Festus. But I have yet to learn your purpose, Aureole I
Paracelsus. What purpose were the fittest now for me ?
Decide I To sink beneath such ponderous shame­
To shrink up like a crushed snail-undergo
In silence and desist from further toil,
And so subside into a monument
Of one their censure blasted; or to bow
Cheerfully as submissively-to lower
IVIy old pretensions even as Basil dictatcs­
To drop into the rank her wits assign me,
And live as they prescribe, and make that use
Of my poor knowledge which their rules allow­
Proud to be patted now and then, and careful
To practise the true posture for receiving
The amplest benefit from their hoofs' appliance,
\Vhen they shall condescend to tutor me.
Then one may feel resentment like a flame,
Prompting to deck false systems in Truth's garb,
And tangle and entwine mankind with error,
And give them darkness for a dower, and falsehood
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