Joseph and His Brothers, page 177
keep walking on and singing 'He's alive!' And when you get to your grandfather Jacob, you shall sit down at his feet and sing as sweetly as you know how: 'Joseph is not dead, but alive.' And he, too, will ask you what that means and what is this you've dared put into song. But don't answer him, either, just keep plucking and singing. Then the eleven of us will come after you and offer him a reasonable explanation. So will you now be a proper little songbird and do it just like that?"
"I'll be happy to," Serah replied in a ringing voice. "I never before had words like these to put to the music of my strings, and a person would really like to show what she can do! There are many songsters in town and country, but I've been given a theme to sing before any of them and with it I shall sing them all from the field."
And with that she picked up her lute from the stone where she had been sitting, cradled it in her arm, spread her tapered brown fingers—the thumb here, the other four there—and, setting out across the flowers with an unswerving stride, though its rhythm might vary, she sang her psalm:
"Sing, O my soul, a new song while homeward I'm coming! My heart tells a verse on eight strings that I'm strumming. For full is my heart with a song that demands to be told, and its worth far outweighs fine silver and gold; sweet is its taste like the honeycomb, for spring's glad tidings I now bring home.
Listen, you people, and hear my tune's air! Heed the good word that I may now declare! For the lot is cast so sweet and unexpected, and of all earth's daughters I have been elected to spread the finest wonder of a wondrous story e'er to lend a poet fame and glory. This I may sing, with eight strings' assistance, and to grandfather bear great news from a distance.
By sweet music we're persuaded
that its balm can heal our woe;
but all the more when high silence is aided
by the telling word that man should know.
Word and music, once united, make the voice of reason strong! Let us praise with hearts excited Psaher's verse and finest song!"
Singing these words she strode across the pasture toward the hills and the gap between them, strumming and plucking her strings till they thumped and chirped, and sang anew:
"Word and tune have but one duty: be the song for which I strive, share its message, share its beauty, and it says: The boy's alive!
Yes, Endless Goodness, what have I learned lately and what has surprised my young ears now so greatly! With mouth agape, the fair news that I pondered comes from these men who in Egypt have wandered! Which is to say, both my uncles and him I call father. They gave me the news worth a rhymer's best bother. They've offered me the finest of tales for my wonder, for whom did they meet in that country down under? Grandfather, 'twill be beyond understanding, but accept it you must that notwithstanding. Like to a dream it seems merely fanciful, yet is as real as it's wonderful.
What a bird of rarest feather, when these two at last agree: truth and beauty joined together, life as purest poetry! Here for once the soul succeeded, learned how both can best survive. Let this grand refrain be heeded: Truth is beauty! Your boy's alive!
Yet for now perhaps 'tis better
that you think it only beauty. Self-restraint
should assist your pounding heart to fetter
lest at once you fall back in a faint,
as you did that day they brought the bloody token.
Silently they lied, a grievous fault,
left your weary soul in night, and though unbroken
like a pillar made of salt.
You, in agony and sorrow,
thought you'd see him nevermore,
dead he was for every morrow.
Now he rises in your heart on morrow's shore!"
Here a man, who had been standing further up the hill, a shepherd in his sunshade hat, tried to ask her something. He had been gazing down at her for a long while and listening in astonishment; now he descended to her, matched his stride with hers, and asked, "Miss, what are you singing there as you march? It sounds so unusual. I've often heard your songs of joy, and it's no news to me that you can strum the strings brightly, but I've never heard anything so topsyturvy, never such insinuations as these. And all the while you're marching straight ahead. Are you on your way to Jacob, our lord, and is it for him that you sing? It seems to me it is. But what is this story for which you've been elected? What is as real as it is wonderful? And what is that refrain supposed to mean: 'The boy's alive'?"
But striding straight ahead, she did not even look his way, merely shook her head with a smile and lifted her hand from her strings for a moment to lay a finger to her lips. But then she resumed her chanting:
"Sing now Serah, Asher's child, this happy tiding from eleven who in Egypt were abiding! Sing of God's kindness. His grand dispensation, tell of the man that they met in that nation. And who is this man? It is Joseph, I say, it is my uncle, the man of the day. Behold, old man, it's your own dear son, Pharaoh alone is greater by comparison. He is named the Lord of Two Lands, foreign folk he also commands, and before kings men sing his praise, for he serves his land in most noble ways. The domain of his power is vast and unbounded, every nation and tribe is astounded, for from thousands of barns he furnishes bread
to a world in hunger and dread.
For he took precaution, he had a plan,
and is the world's most well-loved man.
His robes laid in aloe and myrrh are sweet-smelling,
ivory palaces are his dwelling,
from where he comes like a bridegroom fair.
Old man, see what your lamb's become down there!"
The shepherd, who was still walking beside her, listened with evergrowing amazement. Whenever he saw anyone, maid or man, he would beckon with one arm for them to come here and listen to this. And so Serah was soon accompanied by a small attentive band of men, women, and children that grew as it approached the family camp. The children skipped, the adults strode in step, and they all turned their faces to her as she sang:
"You have long thought he was torn into pieces. The flow of your tears never ebbs, never ceases. Twenty years have passed and still you're mourning, as if ashes your gray head were adorning. Look, old man, behold it and see: after His lash God gives healing. Ah, how wonderful are the works that He to His children is revealing! Far beyond our ken the reach of His rule, great each deed His breath enkindles, grandly did He make you a fool. With what majesty he swindles. The whole of creation is filled with heavenly glee. Tabor and Hermon delight in His comedy. He took from your heart what you most treasure, but returns him now just for good measure. In your pain you turned and twisted, in sad certainty persisted. And now He gives him back in turnabout, a beauty still, if perhaps a little stout. You will not know him, not know his name or how to show him proper respect, afraid to blunder as to who should fall before whom in wonder.
And so it's God that we must thank for having played such a lovely prank."
By now, together with her escort, she was very near her family's dwellings beneath the terebinths of Mamre and could see Jacob, the venerable man of blessing, seated on a mat before the curtain to his house. And so she took her instrument more firmly in hand, held it higher, and whereas the tones she had just plucked from it had been skillful dissonances to underscore the joke, she now coaxed from it a full surge of harmony and from her breast and throat came purest tones of song for her verses:
"Hear the word of lasting beauty that my song must now revive, lovely tones shall do their duty, speak that word: The boy's alive.
Sing, my soul, in exultation,
to my strings fair golden hue.
For the grave's made restoration,
in your heart, he rises new. Heart, rejoice, be glad, and soften, 'tis the son they put away, whom they lured into his coffin, whom the boar's tusk tried to slay.
Ah, he lay in death's dark prison,
and the fields were left to grieve.
Hear the word: He is arisen.
Father Jacob, please believe. Like a god he strides in power, radiant birds wheel into view, as from fields that burst in flower, he comes forth to welcome you.
Winter's grief and death's dark sorrow
flee before each word he speaks;
God's fair blessing for the morrow
lies upon his lips and cheeks. Read it in his rascal glances: This was God's eternal jest. Greet him now as he advances, take him to your heart and breast."
Jacob had long since seen his granddaughter, the songstress, coming and had Hstened with pleasure to her voice. As she approached, he had been gracious enough to tap his hands together in soft accompaniment, the way audiences enjoy clapping in rhythm to songs and verses. Once she arrived, the maiden had sat down on the mat beside him, not saying a word, but continuing to sing, while the band of locals she had attracted came to a halt at a polite distance from the two of them. The old man Hstened and slowly dropped his hands. And what had been a gentle rocking of his head gradually became a puzzled shaking.
When she had finished, he said, "Well and sweetly done, my grandchild. How considerate of you to have come this way, Serah, to provide this little treat for a bereft old man's ears. You see, I even know your name, though not that of all my grandchildren—there are too many. You, however, are remarkable among the others because the talent for song with which you were born lends prominence to your person, and your name is easily recalled. But you should know, my talented child, that I listened with some thought, and not without concerns of the spirit. For poetry, my dear little girl, always has its own dangerous and flattering allure. Melody is, sad to say, not far from malady, and the first tends to revert to the second, a precarious deviation if left unbridled by a concern for godly things. The play of the mind is lovely, but the mind itself is holy. Poetry is the mind at play, and when my heart is touched I join in by clapping my hands—that is, if the mind holds to godly concerns and is not compromised by the play. But what have you been warbling there for me, and what should I think of someone who comes strolling across flowering fields with a rascal look in his eye and summer birds wheeling round him? That would seem to me to be a dubious god of the meadows, evidently one that local people call 'lord,' much to the confusion of my family and the deception of the children of Abraham. For we, too, speak of the Lord, but mean something different, and there is no end to my having to keep a close watch on Israel's soul and to my preaching beneath the oracle tree that this 'lord' is not the Lord, for the people are always on the verge of confusing them and lustily reverting to this meadow god. For God is hard work, but the gods are a pleasure. Can it be right and good, my dear child, that you have let your talent slip into carelessness and sing to me the psalms of the country folk?"
Serah just shook her head with a smile, however, and did not respond in words, but plucked her strings again and sang:
"Who is this man that I sing of? It is Joseph, I say! It is my uncle, the man of the day. Behold, old man, it's your own dear son, Pharaoh alone is greater by comparison. Grandfather, 'twill be beyond understanding, but accept it you must, that notwithstanding.
Word and tune have this one duty:
be the song for which I strive,
share its message, share its beauty,
and it says: The boy's ahve!"
"Child," Jacob said, deeply touched, "it is indeed sweet and polite of you to come here and sing to me about Joseph, my son, whom you never knew, and to dedicate your talent to him in order to bring me joy. But your song sounds confused, and although your rhymes ring true, you sing without rhyme or reason. I cannot allow it, for how can you possibly sing *the boy's alive'? That cannot give me joy, for it is a pretty but empty melody. Joseph died long ago. He is torn apart, mutilated."
And Serah replied, strumming with all her might:
"Sing, my soul, in exultation, to my strings' fair golden hue, that the grave's made restoration; in your heart, he rises new.
Long he lay in death's dark prison,
while the fields were left to grieve.
Hear the word: He is arisen.
Father Jacob, please believe. To all the nations he supplies bread, to a world of hunger and dread. For much like Noah, he had a plan, and is the world's most well-loved man. His robes laid in aloe and myrrh are sweet-smelling, ivory palaces are his dwelling, from where he comes like a bridegroom fair. Old man, see what your lamb's become down there!"
"Serah, my grandchild, you wayward songstress," Jacob said with urgency, "what am I to think of you? Except in psalms and songs it would hardly be polite for you to call me 'old man.' I would let it pass as poetic license if it were the only presumption in your song! But it consists of nothing but impertinences and mad illusions, with which, it would appear, you would like to delight me—but delight in what is null and void is delusion and cannot profit the soul. Can poetry presume as much, and is it not a misuse of talent to announce things that have no relation to reality? A little reason must accompany beauty, or it is only mockery of the heart."
"Behold," Sarah sang,
"Behold this bird of rarest feather, in which two at last agree: beauty and pure truth together, Hfe as God's great poetry! Yes, for once the soul's succeeded, knows how both can best survive, thus this song's what you have needed: Truth is beauty: Your boy's alive!"
"Child," Jacob said, his head trembling now. "Dear child ..." But she rejoiced with verses that took wing to tones that leapt and soared:
"Look, old man, don't you now see? After His lash God gives healing. Ah, how wonderful are the works that He to His children is revealing!
He took from your heart the son you most treasure, and returns him now just for good measure.
In your pain you turned and twisted, through the years you have persisted; and now He gives him back to you, a beauty still, though plumper, true. And so it's God that we must thank for having played His lovely prank."
Turning aside, he thrust a hand toward her, as if to stop her, his weary brown eyes filled with tears. "Child," he kept saying.
"child .. .** And he Hkewise paid no attention to the commotion that had now arisen nearby or the glad tidings someone told him. For now the band of curiosity seekers who had come with Serah were joined by others who announced the happy homecoming, and as people from the camp came running from all sides, two men hurried to precede them, proclaiming: "Israel, the eleven have returned from Egypt, your sons with servants and wagons and far more asses than they left with."
But here they were now. They dismounted and approached, and in their midst was Benjamin, all the other ten holding on to him in one way or another, for each wanted to be the one to bring him back to their father.
"Peace and good health," they said, "to our father and lord. Here is Benjamin. We have kept him for you in sacred trust, even though for a time we were in tight straits with him, but now you may put him back on the leash. Here is Shimeon again as well, your hero. Besides which we bring food and ample gifts from the Lord of Bread. Behold, we are happily returned—in fact, 'happily' is not even close to the right word for it."
"Boys," Jacob replied, having risen to his feet. "Boys, I do indeed bid you welcome."
As if claiming his property, he laid an arm around his youngest, without even realizing what he had done. He looked dazed.
"You are here again," he said, "are all back together from your perilous journey—that would be a great moment under any other circumstances, and would doubtless fill my soul entirely were it not already preoccupied. Yes, you greet me here in a highly preoccupied state, and it is because of this young maiden—your child, Asher— who sat down beside me, babbling in sweet song her mad tales about my son Joseph, until I do not know how to preserve my reason in her presence, and have therefore greeted your arrival primarily in the expectation that you will protect me from this child and the delusions of her harp, for surely you will not allow my gray head to be mocked."
"We will never allow that," Judah responded, "if we can prevent it in any way. But in the opinion of us all, father—and a well-founded opinion it is—you would do better to entertain the possibility, if only a remote one to begin with, that there might be some truth in the song of her harp."
"Some truth?" the old man repeated, and pulled himself up erect. "Do you dare come to me with such feeble ideas and suggest Israel accept truth half-and-half? Where would we be, where would God be, if we had ever let ourselves be put off with such ifs and maybes? The truth is one and indivisible. Three times your child sang: 'The boy's alive!' There can be nothing true about those words, unless they be the truth. So, what is it?"
"The truth," the eleven said in chorus, each man raising his hands to show his palms.
And a cry of jubilant amazement burst from the crowd gathered behind them. "The truth!" the voices of children, women, and men echoed exultantly. "She sang the truth!"
"My dear papa," Benjamin said, embracing Jacob, "you hear and understand this just as we had to understand it—the one sooner, the other later. That man down there, who asked about me and asked so many things about you—Ts your father still alive?'—he is Joseph, he and Joseph are one and the same. He was never dead, my mother's son. Travelers tore him from the claws of that beast and led him to Egypt, where he grew as if beside a spring and has become the first among men down there. The sons of that foreign land flatter him, for they would perish without his wisdom. Would you like to see tokens of this wonder? Behold the train that follows us. He has sent you twenty asses, whose burden is food, the reward of Egypt, and those wagons there come from Pharaoh's warehouse and are intended to bring us all down to your son. For that you should come—that was his purpose from the start, but I saw through it. And he wants us to graze our flocks in rich pastures near him— though not where it is all too Egyptian, but in the land of Goshen."
