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Page 21
_Ishtar_.
I am the goddess Ishtar, and thou art
My servant. Wilt any of thou help me?
_Vashti_.
Am I then one whom gods may help? I am
By men judged hateful: surely I am thereby
Made over to the demons, and not thine.
_Ishtar_.
Yet art thou mine, because thou knowest well
Thou disobeyest me.
_Vashti_.
How do I so?
_Ishtar_.
I am the goddess of the power of women,
And passion in the hearts of men is my
Divinity.
_Vashti_.
Yea, then I disobey thee.
_Ishtar_.
And yet thou shalt not fear me wronging thee:
Tell me, O thou Despair, whither thou goest?
_Vashti_.
Thy taunt goes past me; I am not despair.
_Ishtar_.
Verily, but thou art. Is not thy mind
A hot revolter from the service due
To my divinity, passion in men's hearts?
Is there aught else that thou mayst serve? Thou knowest
There is naught else: therefore thou art Despair.
_Vashti_.
That I am infamous, I know. But even now,
Now when I learn I am to gods no more
Than to the lust of men, I will not be
Despair.
_Ishtar_.
Who means so greatly to serve pride,
That the service of the world is a thing loath'd,
Is desperate, avoided by mankind,
Unpleasing to the gods. We, who look down,
Know that the world and pride may both be served.
Yet also that it was too hard for thee
We know, and pardon. Thou shalt tell me now
Why thou refusest the life given thee.
_Vashti_.
Because I will not, woman should be sin
Amid man's life. You gods have given man
Desire that too much knows itself; and thence
He is all confounded by the pleasure of us.
How sweetly doth the heart of man begin
Desiring us, how like music and the green
First happiness of the year! But this can grow
To uncontrollably crowding lust, beyond
All power of delight to utter, thence
Inwardly turned to anger and detesting!
Till, looking on us with strange eyes, man finds
We are not his desire: it was but sex
Inflamed, so that it roused the breaking forth
Of secret fury in him, consuming life,
Yea, even the life that would reach up to know
The heaven of gods above it.
_Ishtar_.
And what, for this,
Dost thou refuse?
_Vashti_.
I refuse woman's beauty!
Not merely to be feasting with delight
Man's senses, I refuse; but even his heart
I will not serve. Are we to be for ever
Love's passion in man, and never love itself?
Always the instrument, never the music?
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