AHASUERUS: Will I greet the sun again?

PROMETHEUS: This very sun which now is setting. Our friend the sun, eye of the ages, will never again close its eyelids. Gaze upon it, if you can.

AHASUERUS: I cannot.

PROMETHEUS: Later you will, when the circumstances of life have changed. Then your eyes will be able to gaze safely at the sun, because future mankind will be a concentration of all that is best in nature: robust and delicate, shimmering and pure.

AHASUERUS: Swear to me you’re not lying.

PROMETHEUS: You will see if I am lying.

AHASUERUS: Speak, tell me more; tell me everything.

PROMETHEUS: Describing life is not the same as feeling it; you will have it in abundance. The bosom of Abraham described in your old Scriptures is none other than this perfect world beyond. There you will see David and the prophets. There you will tell the astonished multitudes not only the great events of the extinct world, but also the evils that they will never know: illness and old age, deceit, selfishness, hypocrisy, tedious vanity, unimaginable foolishness, and all the rest. The soul, like the earth, will have an incorruptible sheath.

AHASUERUS: I will once again see this immense blue sky!

PROMETHEUS: Look, how beautiful it is!

AHASUERUS: As beautiful and serene as eternal justice. O magnificent sky, more beautiful even than the tents of Kedar, I will see you again and forevermore; you will gather up my thoughts as in ages past; you will grant me clear days and friendly nights . . .

PROMETHEUS: Sunrise upon sunrise.

AHASUERUS: Speak, speak! Tell me more. Tell me everything. Let me loosen these chains . . .

PROMETHEUS: Unchain me, new Hercules, last man of one world and first of the next. That is your destiny; neither you nor I, nor anyone else, can change it. You are greater even than your Moses. From the heights of Nebo, ready to die, he gazed upon all the lands of Jericho that would belong to his posterity; and the Lord said unto him: “You have seen it with your eyes, but you will not cross into it.” You will cross into it, Ahasuerus; you will reach Jericho.

AHASUERUS: Place your hand upon my head, look into my eyes; fill me with the reality and force of your prediction; let me feel something of this full, new life . . . King, you said?

PROMETHEUS: Chosen king of a chosen people.

AHASUERUS: It is no more than just amends for the utter scorn in which I have lived. Where one life spat mud at me, another will crown my head with a halo. Go on, tell me more . . . tell me more . . . (He continues dreaming. The two eagles approach.)

FIRST EAGLE: Woe is he, this the last man on earth, for he is dying and yet still dreams of life.

SECOND EAGLE: He only hated life so much because he loved it dearly.

The Canon, or the Metaphysics of Style

THE CANON, OR THE METAPHYSICS OF STYLE