Saturday 10 November 2012

270

Racine : ATHALIE, Act I, Scene I  

                       JOAD.
And what time was ever as fertile in miracles?
When has God shown his power with more effect?
Will you always have such eyes that see nothing,
Ingrate people? What? The grandest miracles
Come to your ears without shaking your hearts?
Must I, Abner, remind you the course of
Famous prodigies accomplished in our days?
Of the celebrated disgrace of the tyrants of Israel,
Where God delivered upon his every threat?
The impious Achab destroyed, and the field that
He had usurped by murder drenched in his blood ;
Near to that fatal field, Jezebel immolated,
This queen trampled under horses' hooves, the dogs
Quenching their thirst with her inhuman blood,
And the members of her hideous corpse torn off ;
The crowd of lying prophets confounded as the
Flame of the heavens came down upon the altar ;
Eli, sovereign, in conference with the elements,
The heavens shut up and made brazen by him,
And the earth for three years without rain or dew ;
The dead reanimating at the voice of Elisha—
Recognise in these brilliant signs, Abner,
A God who today is such as he has always been.
He will, when it pleases him, let his glory break.
His people are always present in his memory.

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