Canticle of Loosened Bonds
XLVI
When the seventy years shall begin to be accomplished in Babylon,
I will visit you: and I will perform my good word in your favour,
To bring you again to this place.
See, o Edessa, o city of towers with waters foundations,
Wherefore we walked in a day from across Earth, found a direction
Taking us six-cent miles defying the meek expectations
Might we have thought, to the edge of the cedars by Tigris reflection
Visible near to its ranges of mountains and heavenly white host
Scattering showers of life-soaked rains north-west from our tropic
Where we had entered, and washing ourselves and in drink we had rightmost
Cared for our bodies with water and found we had been us myopic
Twice to our world, for at first we ignored great pageantries guarded,
Summer in bloom and a fanned oscillation of flora unmasking
Showing their wonderful colors, and rivers, so watery-hearted,
Snaking a path in the loam from its mount ice-swollen uncasking
Leading to either the River or Twin, in the dance dialectic
Cleaving in twain Near Asia, and touched by the seasonal leaves’ grace
Carried it down to a grave of renewal, a destiny septic
Cleansing the world of its scattered debris, its contours to the lees’ place
Foliaged cedars aloft, in their perfect and haunted formation
Blocking the blue of the heavens, but not our appearance, for coming,
Numbering twelve and a hundred, were horsemen of militant station
Coming to water their mounts, and their tassels and weapons and drumming
Royal occasion, suggested, a hunt by the season for princes,
Rode up with hostile intent, but no weapon was drawn for inspection,
Seeing our hopeless condition: we shared not tongues but from fringes
Trotted a soldier with tassels, Judean it seemed, whose detection
When we had spoken was keen on our language, for this he explained us:
Brethren, afar have you come to Edessa so barren and needful,
Whence was your start? and I said to him Babylon, that it be famous,
Far and misleading, and then he responded, As traveled by eagle,
This would be possible; this is a curious thing, I confess you,
Lonesome and light, and concerning indeed is it since we are warring
Jews of a kind, so if possible, come with us, that we may bless you,
Bidding your journey along if hostility is not us aforeing,
More than acceptable, this we agreed, but the fact was sufficient
Many a time we were tied by our hands and we asked it forgotten:
This Jew, named Ananias, said It is well, on condition,
Let us relieve you of weapons and travel equestrian-trodden,
Equal and same to our tastes, and we want to negotiate little
That we be free and in hands most equal, so both of us saddled,
Carried we were back from the wood of Edessa and seated in middle
Lest we be lost, I had nothing to say to the man with me straddled
While we withdrew from the wood, and the afternoon’s solar container
Bled from its blues to a fig-red, made us beyond any doubting
Weather was fair for a time; Ananias relayed us the retainer,
Which I had counted a hundred and twenty, were dutif’ly scouting,
Running the wood for their new King Abgar for hunt in the autumn,
Sooner than what I expected, for though I was still, and am, Abel,
Time as had space were dislodged, and as though to confirm was a solemn,
Sensible sign: see! ibex with coat of a delicate sable,
Leaping along in the bare wood, horn’d, territorial strutting,
Shewn to be spirit, no animal merely, an element mystic,
Look! disappearing to cedars in mist, horns nary ajutting,
Watched us remove to Edessa, and whether to warn, or it wished it,
None of the Parthians saw it, and one on a mutual bearer
Turned to inspect me my staring, but gone had the sight to surroundings;
When we arrived at the walls, I had suddenly harbored a terror:
Maybe the King would admit to his treasury many our foundings,
Like my retrieved sword (carried by others for royal assurance);
Passing along the congestion of populous streets in a fervor
Watching the hunters, with gold-trimmed armor and helmet’s concurrence
Marking the resolute horsem’n as each hand-picked and no server,
Men of renown, for indeed, each bore with his burdens a weapon
Fair to behold, bows shaped as if petrified eagles and falcons
Colored from wear, and as such they were mighty, no vandal could threaten:
These were the veterans, gold were their wounds and their scars, their medall’ons;
Marched to the palace, a stone-brick organ with shadowy corr’dors
Painted in white-gold murals, depicting the beast we encountered:
Sky-blue head and its horns branched; most were relieved of their orders,
Leaving a few with us: then, King Abgar descended from downward
Where he was seated, and said: I am sixth of the regents
Honoring Abgar the First with his name, and I reign with a meekness
Fitting the Kingdom Between both Persia and Rome, and my regions
Come to me thankful, so I ask you whomever be briefest,
What had you drinking from springs in the shade of my woods’ demarcation?
Which I began, We were chased, but see! in the dark, in the terror,
Leaving behind from the Zealots we came from the kin of our nation,
Added Baruch, It was random, Your Majesty, which as our bearer
Saved us and led us to water, and found us your men, undefended,
Staying your hand from our pitiful state, but you find us resourceful,
Being we routed and starving, to pledge us to what you f’nd splendid
Lest we be ignorant, lest we be bid to be thankless, remorseful,
Meekly determine our judgment, and Abgar considered: A king has his morals,
Duties perhaps, to the stranger, and Zealots impede us to stagger
Even today, so I sympathize; even so thinking our quarrels,
This is the case: I cannot be parading with regency’s swagger
Leading you out: you shall come from the city to hunting apartments
Manacled, till I should levy a judgment in pertinent writing
Which shall be merciful, thinking it such, but until it has parchments
Think of me fearfully, think it be better to die from your fighting
Rather be lost in my forests, and swiftly he took to enchainment,
Having us taken in shackles from palace with soldiers’ parading
Whilst we, Baruch and I, hardly pretend to be pleased with arraignment
Life had remained with us mercif’ly, while Edessa was fading
Thence on horizon of evening, we came to a place of seclusion
Hidden in hills and the gnarls of red oaks dwarfed by the cedars
Sentinel-standing on mountainous feet in the hilly profusion,
Weaving their articles, whereto a song-bird passerine teeters
Calling its mournful reproach, our captivity shared in remembrance
Whether by custom, we men are within, or in birds’ understanding
Whose intellection is naught; and I thought of it nothing for vengeance,
Rather I thought him but calm, indisposed as a king to demanding,
Though in the heat of apartments I chanced to regret our egression
Out in the open, the soggy and musty interior haunted
Seemed me unfitting for princes and kings, for the autumn’s oppression
Seeped into skin and so dried us we, parched and reliably daunted
Haunted the space we were placed, in it steeling ourselves as were castles
Waiting for weather to halt by the warmth of our rational fire
Comforting both of our hearts, from the lattices sunset bedazzled
Flickering through, a reminder of care to dispense and retire,
After it came dark, welcomed we gray clay packing (unpadded)
Not as if punitive, neither were men who had captive us heartless,
Though it was far from designed to detain us or leave us so: matted,
Sweaty and hungry, emerged from a forest of mysteries chartless
Left us with nothing to share with Edessa but riddles unanswered,
Save us for captive release, but Baruch had his doubts: For our faring,
Abel, I say it is likely our captor has us grasped by our antlers,
That he intends to release us! a lie in the bus’ness him sparing
Struggle or flight, we are dead men; dusk had the heavens to darken,
Wherewith our countenance, trapped in a desolate, forested palace
Waiting for arbitr’y words from the king for our captors to hearken,
Whether we waited for reason, capricious mendation or malice,
Time had us tormented, little we might do but settle to quiet
Finding a respite in anxious awaiting if not unto slumber;
Jolted awake I discerned in the night, reminiscent of riot
Out by the lattice, a y’wl and a thud, dark-crowded in lumber
Waking me full, but Baruch was asleep or convincingly brooding
Made no response, but I climbed to my feet and aroused to a clamor
Joining my eye’s acclimation to dark with a man who was hooting
Next to the lattice, and pass; and a thrashing and clanging of hammer
Signaling something of battle, and then in the sudden commotion
Came Ananias, who opened us this dispensation:
Swinging the door and announcing We travel, with stilted emotion
Urged us to join if we wanted a flight from the fresh conflagration
Over allegiance to Abgar, and then it was clear for detection
Each of the men who were raiding had spake Aramaic paroch’al,
Making us, even if only by former decree, as if brethren
Which would suffice to accompany these from the simmering opal,
Scar on the reddening gloom as if heaven recoiled from sin’s horr’r,
Flush with embarrassment; though we were not a subject to their leering,
Both of us, me and Baruch, were content to be bid with our kin’s roar
After the message beset, but I felt in my bowels no fearing,
Only a quizzical charge and a redressed intention on speaking,
Though on Baruch was depicted foreboding, a yearning to stall them,
Asking his questions, accusing the men; curiosity piquing,
One of the men on my flank who ensured me addressed me as a problem,
Saying Be quiet, and then I proposed him a true reconvention
(That is, Baruch) to the place we departed, for then by returning
Little we risked with Zealots or other, and not but to mention
What they were planning along if the quarters no longer were burning;
This we agreed, and we slipped from the traveling troupe as if water
Finding the hunt lodge partially burned, and in patience
Both of us warmed by its cinders, the witness to what was a slaughter
Though we had now for the king a report, and no better complacence
Which was regarded on further discovery; none allegation,
Staying in faltering warmth, for he said You are men with no master,
That in captivity, virtue, and not chains, guided your station!
When he arrived, he was pleased we had staid to the charge all the faster
Not in our fear but in word and commitment to honor its service,
Thus King Abgar invited us further to stay with him nearer
Not as if guarded but free men, which we agreed, and in purchase
Trust should appear to me clearer than even a marvelous mirror
That he opined to us, Given you shewn to be men of your merit
Here I divulge to you what I am seeking, and fearing be mended:
Recent my reign has begun, for Edessa and what I inherit
Came to me stark from its priors, for when I had rightly ascended
Abgar before me had fallen to tricks and professed a conversion
Favoring Jews from a strange sect that I have come to inquire,
Strict to their laws to destabilize others, I treat their aversion,
What they all fear, as corruption, and something of cumbersome fire,
Fearsome, eternal; I found it myself to be not so deserving,
Though it has seemed to my Friends some fault in my reasoning powers
What can I say? a severity swallows it, such is unnerving
That it cannot be according to truth; but he, late in his hours
Thought it as much and he gave to their cause and epistl’d their leaders,
Whom I have naught spake words, and I think it is these who have vexed me
Now and again with their violence, in flames and in storming my theaters
Shouting and causing a riot, the reprobates! such they are testy,
Though it has gradu’lly come to me these are sectarian others,
Called Nazarenes, who have gathered support from all lands by the River
Havoc they wrought with a thinking aligned to their Isra’lite brothers;
Awful! it gladdens my heart to possess you my friends in my quiver,
That you could help me, for now their ideas have swift infiltration
Settled in synagogues over Edessa, a cloud unbromidic,
Which I cannot so reliably find, but with aid from their nation
Spread on the earth can be snared, since both of you, speaking Semitic,
Thereof possess ears capable, doing Edessa a favor,
Which we in unison said, Yea, thence we entreated suspicion
That we were told it was close to the Sabbath, to take to the paver
Out to the synagogue; rabbis and elders conferred to decision
Over a parcel of issues: on Torah, philosophies precious,
Others on ev’ryd’y topics, and soon it was clear all were frozen,
Turning the principles over again, for one who confesses
What he believes, so another refutes by the rights of the Chosen,
Watched by a whip and their uttermost elders abstaining from toil,
Hardly responding if asked for a judgment, and two so debaters,
One young, speaking on meaning, has one in his silver his foil,
Seeking the elders apiece, who in turn would the other he caters,
Comic indeed, but it instigates greater debate and digression,
Which to me calls into question if judgments are given sincerely,
Meaning to end a discussion, or thereby containing a lesson
Greater than what can be said from the Law in the thousands, or nearly,
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