Speaker 1: The Sad Shepherd by Henry van Dyke. One darkness, out
of the valley of Gardens, where a film of newfall
and snow lay smooth as feathers on the breast of
a dove. The ancient pools of Solomon looked up into
the night sky with dark, tranquil eyes wide open and passive,
reflecting the crisp stars and the small round moon. The
full springs, overflowing on the hill side, melted their way
through the field of white in winding channels, and along
their course the grass was green even in the dead
of winter. But the Sad Shepherd walked far above the
friendly valley, in a region where ridges of gray rock
welted and scarred the back of the earth, like wounds
of half forgotten strife and battles long ago. The solitude
was forbidding and disquieting. The keen air that searched the
wanderer had no pity in it, and the myriad glances
of the night were curiously cold. His flock straggled after him.
The sheep, weather beaten and dejected, followed the path with
low heads, nodding from side to side, as if they
had traveled far and found little pasture. The black, lop
eared goats leaped upon the rocks, restless and ravenous, tearing
down the tender branches and leaves of the dwarf oaks
and wild olives. They reared up against the twisted trunks
and crawled and scrambled along the boughs. It was like
a company of gray, downcast friends and a troop of merry,
little black devils. Following the sad shepherd afar off. He walked,
looking on the ground, paying small heed to them now
and again. When the sound of pattering feet and panting breath,
and the rustling and rending among the copses fell too
far behind, he drew out his shepherd's pipe, and blue
a strain of music, shrill and plaintive, quavering and lamenting
through the hollow night. He waited while the little troops
of gray and black scuffled and bounded and trotted near
to him. Then he dropped the pipe into its place again,
and strode forward, looking on the ground. The fitful, shivery
wind that rasped the hill top fluttered the rags of
his long mantle of Tyrian blue, torn by thorns and
stained by travel, The rich tunic of striped silk beneath
it was worn thin, and the girdle about his loins
had lost all its ornaments of silver and jewels. His
curling hair hung down, disheveled under a turban of fine
linen in which the gilt threads were frayed and tarnished,
and his shoes of soft leather were broken by the road.
On his brown fingers, the places of the vanished rings
were still marked in white skin. He carried not the
long staff nor the heavy nail studded of the shepherd,
but a slender stick of carved cedar, battered and scratched
by hard usage, and the handle, which must once have
been of precious metal, was missing. He was a strange
figure for that lonely place and that humble occupation, A
branch of faded beauty from some royal garden, tossed by
rude winds into the wilderness, a pleasure craft adrift, buffeted
and broken on rough seas. But he seemed to have
passed beyond caring. His young face was frayed and threadbare
as his garments. The splendor of the moonlight flooding the
wild world meant as little to him as the hardness
of the rugged track which he followed. He wrapped his
tattered mantle closer around him and strode ahead, looking on
the ground. As the path dropped from the summit of
the ridge to the valley of mills and passed among
huge broken rocks, three men sprang at him from the shadows.
He lifted his stick, but let it fall again, and
a strange ghost of a smile twisted his face as
they gripped him and threw him down. You are rough beggars,
he said. Say what you want. You are welcome to it.
Your money dog of a courtier, they muttered fiercely, Give
us your golden collar, Herod's hound, quick or you die.
The quicker the better, he answered, closing his eyes. The
bewildered flock of sheep and goats, gathered in a silent ring,
stood at gaze while the robbers fumbled over their master.
This is a stray dog, said one, He has lost
his collar. There is not even the price of a
mouthful of wine on him. Shall we kill him and
leave him for the vultures? What have the vultures done
for us? Said another, that we should feed them. Let
us take his cloak and drive off his flock and
leave him to die in his own time. With a
kick and a curse, they left him. He opened his
eyes and lay quiet for a moment with his twisted smile,
watching the stars. You creep like snails, he said, I
thought you had marked my time to night, but not
even that is given to me for nothing. I must
pay for all. It seems far away. Slowly scattering and receding,
he heard the rustling and bleating of his frightened flock
as the robbers, running and shouting, tried to drive them
over the hills. Then he stood up and took the
shepherd's pipe, a worthless bit of reed, from the breast
of his tunic. He blew again, that plaintive, piercing air,
sounding it out over the ridges and distant thickets. It
seemed to have neither beginning nor end, a melancholy, pleading
tune that searched forever after something lost while he played,
the sheep and the goat slipping away from their captors
by roundabout ways, hiding behind the laurel bushes. Following the
dark gullies leaping down the broken cliffs came circling back
to him, one after another, and as they came. He
interrupted his playing now and then to call them by name.
When they were nearly all assembled, he went down swiftly
toward the lower valley, and they followed him. Panting. At
the last crook of the path on the steep hill side,
a straggler came after him along the cliff. He looked
up and sought outlined against the sky. Then he sought
leap and slip and fall beyond the path into a
deep cleft. Little fool, he said, fortune is kind to you.
You have escaped for the big trap of life. What
you are crying for help? You are still in the trap,
And I must go down to you, little fool, for
I am a fool too. But why I must do it,
I know no more than you know. He lowered himself
quickly and perilously into the cleft and found the creature
with its leg broken and bleeding. It was not a sheep,
but a young goat. He had no cloak to wrap
it in, but he took off his turban and unrolled
it and bound it around the trembling animal. Then he
climbed back to the path and strode on at the
head of his flock, carrying the little black kid in
his arms. There were houses in the valley of the mills,
and in some of them lights were burning, and the
drone of the millstones, where the women were still grinding,
came out into the night like the humming of drowsy bees.
As the women heard the pattering and bleating of the flock,
they wondered who was passing so late. One of them,
in a house where there was no mill but many lights,
came to the door and looked out, laughing, her face
and bosom bare. But the sad shepherd did not stay.
His long sh shadow, and the confused mass of lesser
shadows behind him drifted down the white moonlight, past the
yellow bars of lamp light that gleamed from the doorways.
It seemed as if he were bound to go somewhere
and would not delay. Yet, with all his haste to
be gone, it was plain that he thought little of
where he was going, For when he came to the
foot of the valley where the paths divided, he stood
between them, staring vacantly, without a desire to turn this way,
or that the imperative of choice halted him like a barrier.
The balance of his mind hung even because both scales
were empty. He could act, he could go, for his
strength was untouched, but he could not choose, for his
will was broken within him. The path to the left
went up toward the little town of Bethlehem, with huddled
roofs and walls in the silhouette along the double crested hill.
It was dark and foreboding as a closed fortress. The
sad shepherd looked at it with indifferent eyes. There was
nothing there to draw him. The path to the right
round through rock strewn valleys toward the dead Sea, but
rising out of that crumpled wilderness a mile or two away,
the smooth, white ribbon of a chariot road lay upon
the flank of a cone shaped mountain and curled in
loops toward its peak. There, the great cone was cut
squarely off, and the leveled summit was capped by a
palace of marble, with round towers at the corners and
flaring beacons along the walls, and the glow of an
immense fire hidden in the central courtyard painted a false
dawn on the eastern sky. All down the clean cut
mountain slopes, on terraces and blind arches, the lights flashed
from lesser pavilions and pleasure houses. It was the secret
orchard of Herod and his friends, their trysting place with
the spirits of mirth and madness. They called it the
mountain of the Little Paradise. Rich gardens were there, and
the cool water from the pools of Solomon flashed in
the fountains, and trees of the knowledge of good and
evil fruited blood red and ivory white above them, and smooth, curving,
glistening shapes whispering softly of pleasure, lay among the flowers
and glided behind the trees. All this was now hidden
in the dark. Only the strange bulk of the mountain,
a sharp black pyramid, girded and crowned with fire, loomed
across the night, a mountain once seen, never to be forgotten.
The sad shepherd remembered it well. He looked at it
with the eyes of a child who has been in hell.
It burned him from afar. Turning neither to the right
nor to the left, he walked without a path, straight
out upon the plain of Bethlehem, still whitened in the hollows,
and on the sheltered side of its rounded hillocks by
the veil of snow. He faced a wide and empty
world to the west in sleeping Bethlehem, to the east,
in flaring Herodium. The life of man was infinitely far
away from him. Even the stars seemed to withdraw themselves
against the blue black of the sky. They diminished and
receded till they were like pin holes in the vault
above him. The moon in mid heaven shrank into a
bit of burnished silver, hard and glittering, immeasurably remote. The
ragged inhospitable ridges of Toccoa lay stretched in mortal slumber
along the horizon, and between them he caught a glimpse
of the sunken Lake of Death, darkly gleaming in its
deep bed. There was no movement, no sound on the
plain where he walked, except the soft padding feet of
his dumb, obsequious flock. He felt an endless isolation strike
cold to his heart, against which he held the limp
body of the wounded kid, wondering the while, with a
half contempt for his own foolishness, why he took such
trouble to save a tiny scrap of the worthless tissue
which is called life. Even when a man does not
know or care where he is going. If he steps onward,
he will get there in an hour or more. Of
walking over the plain, the sad shepherd came to a
sheep fold of gray stones, with a rude tower beside it.
The fold was full of sheep, and at the foot
of the tower a little fire of thorns was burning,
around which four shepherds were crouching, wrapped in their thick
woolen coats. As the stranger approached, they looked up, and
one of them rose quickly to his feet, grasping his
knotted club. But when they saw the flock that followed
the sad shepherd, they stared at each other and said,
it is one of us, a keeper of sheep. But
how comes he here in this rain? It is what
men wear in king's houses. No, said the one who
was standing. It is what they wear when they have
been thrown out of them. Look at the rags. He
may be a thief and a robber with his stolen flock.
Salute him when he comes near, said the oldest shepherd.
Are we not four to one? We have nothing to
fear from a ragged traveler. Speak him fair. It is
the will of God, and it costs nothing peace be
with you, brother, cried the youngest shepherd. May your mother
and father be blessed. May your heart be enlarged, the
stranger answered, and may all your families be more blest
than mine, For I have none. A homeless man, said
the old shepherd has either been robbed by his fellows
or punished by God. I do not know which it was,
answered the stranger. The end is the same as you
see by your speech. You come from Galilee. Where are
you going? What are you seeking here? I was going nowhere,
my masters, But it was cold on the way there,
and my feet turned to your fire. Come then, if
you are a peaceable man, and warm your feet with us.
Heat is a good gift, Divide it, and it is
not less. But you shall have bread and salt too,
if you will. May your hospitality enrich you. I am
your unworthy guest, but my flock. Let your flock shelter
by the south wall of the fold. There is good
picking there and no wind. Come you and sit with us.
So they all sat down by the fire, and the
sad shepherd ate of their bread but sparingly, like a
man to whom hunger brings a need, but no joy
in the satisfying of it, and the others were silent
for a proper time out of courtesy. Then the oldest
shepherd spoke, My name is Zadok, the son of Eliezer
of Bethlehem. I am the chief shepherd of the flocks
of the temple, which are before you in the fold.
These are my sister's sons, Jotham and Shamma and Nathan.
Their father, Elkanah, is dead. And but for these I
am a childless man. My name, replied the stranger is Amile,
the son of Jocanin, of the city of Bessidah by
the Sea of Galilee, And I am a fatherless man.
It is better to be childless than fatherless, said Zadok.
Yet it is the will of God that children should
bury their fathers. When did the blessed Jocanin die? I
know not whether he be dead or alive. It is
three years since I looked upon his face or had
word of him. You are in exile, then has he
cast you off? It was the other way, said Amle,
looking on the ground. At this, the shepherd Shama, who
had listened with doubt in his face, started up in anger.
Pig of a Galilean. He cried, despiser of parents, breaker
of the law. When I saw you coming, I knew
you for something vile. Why do you darken the night
for us with your presence? You have reviled him who
begot you away, or we stone you? And Myles did
not answer or move. A twisted smile passed over his
bowed face again, as he waited to know the Shepherd's
will with him, even as he had waited for the robbers.
But Zadok lifted his hand. Not so hasty, Shama ben Elkanah,
you also break the law by judging a man unheard.
The Rabbis have told us that there is a tradition
of the elders, a rule as wholly as the law itself,
that a man may deny his father in a certain
way without sin. It is a strange rule, and it
must be very holy, or it would not be so strange.
But this is the teaching of the elders. A son
may say of anything for which his father asks him,
a sheep, or a measure of corn, or a field,
or a purse of silver, it is corban a gift
that I have vowed unto the Lord. And so his
father shall have no more claim upon him. Have you, said,
Corban to your father, Amle ben Jocanin, have you made
a vow unto the lord? I have said, Korban, answered
a Myle, lifting his face still shadowed by that strange smile.
But it was not the lord who heard my vow.
Tell us what you have done, said the old man sternly,
For we will neither judge you nor shelter you unless
we hear your story. There is nothing in it, replied
Amle indifferently. It is an old story. But if you
are Cureurius, you shall hear it. Afterward you shall deal
with me as you will. So the shepherds, wrapped in
their warm cloaks, sat listening with grave faces and watchful,
unsearchable eyes, while a mile in his tattered silk, sat
by the sinking fire of thorns and told his tale
with a voice that had no room for hope or fear,
a cool, dead voice that spoke only of things. Ended
two night fire in my father's house. I was the
second son. My brother was honored and trusted in all things.
He was a prudent man, and profitable to the household.
All that he counseled was done all that he wished
he had. My place was a narrow one. There was
neither honor nor joy in it, for it was filled
with daily tasks and rebukes. No one cared for me.
My mother sometimes wept when I was rebuked. Perhaps she
was disappointed in me, but she had no power to
make things better. I felt that I was a beast
of burden, fed only in order that I might be useful.
And the dull life irked me like an ill fitting harness.
There was nothing in it. I went to my father
and claimed my share of the inheritance. He was rich,
he gave it to me. It did not impoverish him,
and it made me free. I said to him, Corbaan,
and shook the dust of Bethsida from my feet. I
went out to look for mirth and love and joy,
and all that is pleasant to the eyes and sweet
to the taste. If a god made me, thought I,
he made me to live. And the pride of life
was strong in my heart and in my flesh. My
vow was offered to that well known God. I served
him in Jerusalem, in Alexandria, in Rome. For his altars
are everywhere, and men worship him openly or in secret.
My money and youth made me welcome to his followers,
and I spent them both freely, as if they could
never come to an end. I clothed myself in purple
and fine linen, and fared sumptuously. Every day. The wine
of Cyprus and the dishes of Egypt and Syria were
on my table. My dwelling was crowded with merry guests.
They came for what I gave them. Their faces were hungry,
and their soft touch was like the clinging of leeches.
To them. I was nothing but money and youth, no
longer a beast of burden, a beast of pleasure. There
was nothing in it From the richest fare. My heart
went away empty, and after the wildest banquet, my soul
fell drunk and solitary into sleep. Then I thought, power
is better than pleasure. If a man will feast and revel,
let him do it with the great They will favor
him and raise him up for the service that he
renders them. He will obtain place and authority in the world,
and gain many friends. So I joined myself to Herod.
When the sad Shepherd spoke this name, his listeners drew
back from him, as if it were a defilement to
hear it. They spat upon the ground and cursed the Adumian,
who called himself their king a slave. Jotham cried, a
bloody tyrant and a slave from Idam, a fox, a
vile beast who devours his own children. God burn him
in Gehenna. The old Zadok picked up a stone and
threw it into the darkness, saying, slowly, I cast the
stone upon the grave of the Idumian, the blasphemer, the
defiler of the temple. God send us soon, the deliverer,
the promised one, the true King of Israel. And myle
made no sign, but went on with his story. Herod
used me well for his own purpose. He welcomed me
to his palace and his table, and gave me a
place among his favorites. He was so much my friend
that he borrowed my money. There were many of the
nobles of Jerusalem with him, sadducees and proselyttes from Rome
and Asia, and women from everywhere. The law of Israel
was observed in the open court when the people were watching,
but in the secret feasts there was no law but
the will of Herod. And many deities were served, but
no God was worshiped there. The captains and the princes
of Rome consorted with the High Priest and his sons
by night, and there was much coming and going by
hidden ways. Everybody was a borrower or a lender, a
buyer or a seller of favors. It was a house
of diligent madness. There was nothing in it. In the
midst of this whirling life, a great need of love
came upon me, and I wished to hold some one
in my inmost heart. At a certain place in the city,
within closed doors, I saw a young slave girl dancing.
She was about fifteen years old, thin and supple. She
danced like a reed in the wind. But her eyes
were weary as death, and her white body was marked
with bruises. She stumbled and the men laughed at her.
She fell, and her mistress beat her, crying out that
she would fain be rid of such a heavy footed slave.
I paid the price and took her to my dwelling.
Her name was Tamar. She was a daughter of Lebanon.
I robed her in silk embroidered linen. I nourished her
with tender care, so that beauty came upon her like
the blossoming of an almond tree. She was a garden
enclosed breathing spices. Her eyes were like doves behind her veil,
Her lips were a thread of scarlet, Her neck was
a tower of ivory, and her breasts were as two
fawns which fed among the lilies. She was whiter than milk,
and more rosy than the flower of the peach, and
her dancing was like the flight of a bird among
the branches. So I loved her. She lay in my
bosom as a clear stone that one has bought and
polished and set in fine gold, at the end of
a golden chain. Never was she glad at my coming
or sorry at my going. Never did she give me
anything except what I took from her. There was nothing
in it. Now, whether Herod knew of the jewel that
I kept in my dwelling, I cannot tell. It was
sure that he had his spies in all the city,
and himself walked the streets by night in a disguise.
On a certain day he sent for me and had
me into his secret chamber, professing great love toward me,
and more confidence than in any man that lived. So
I must go to Rome for him, bearing a sealed
letter and a private message to Caesar. All my goods
would be left safely in the hands of the King,
my friend, who would reward me double. There was a
certain place of high authority at Jerusalem, which Caesar would
gladly bestow on a Jew who had done him a service.
This mission would commend me to him. It was a
great occasion suited to my powers. Thus Herod fed me
with fair promises, and I ran his errand there was
nothing in it. I stood before Caesar and gave him
the letter. He read it and laughed, saying that a
prince with an incurable hunger is a servant of value
to an emperor. Then he asked me if there was
nothing sent with the letter. I answered that there was
no gift, but a message for his private ear. He
drew me aside, and I told him that Herod begged
earnestly that his dear son and a Peter might be
sent back in haste from Rome to Palestine, for the
king had great need of him. At this Caesar laughed again,
to bury him, I suppose, said he with his brothers
Alexander and Aristobulus. Truly it is better to be Herod's
swine than his son. Tell the old fox, he may
catch his own prey with this. He turned from me,
and I withdrew, unrewarded, to make my way back as
best I could with an empty purse. To Palestine. I
had seen the Lord of the world. There was nothing
in it. Selling my rings and bracelets, I got passage
on a trading ship for Joppa. There I heard that
the king was not in Jerusalem at his palace of
the Upper City, but had gone with his friends to
make Mary for a month on the mountain of the
Little Paradise, On that hilltop over against us, where the
lights are flaring to night, in the banquet hall, where
couches are spread for a hundred guests, I found the
listening shepherds spat upon the ground again, and Jotham muttered,
may the worms that devour his flesh never die. But
Zadok whispered, we wait for the Lord's salvation to come
out of Zion. At this, the sad shepherd, looking with
fixed eyes at the firelet mountain far away, continued his story.
The king lay on his ivory couch, and the sweat
of his disease was heavy upon him, for he was
old and his flesh was corrupted, but his hair and
his beard were dyed and perfumed, and there was a
wreath of roses on his head. The hall was full
of nobles and great men. The sons of the high
priest were there, and the servants poured their wine in
cups of gold. There was a sound of soft music,
and all the men were watching a girl who danced
in the middle of the hall, and the eyes of
Herod were fiery, like the eyes of a fox. Was Tamar.
She glistened like the snow on Lebanon, and the redness
of her was ruddier than a pomegranate, and her dancing
was like the coiling of white serpents. When the dance
was ended, her tendons threw a veil of gauze over her,
and she lay among her cushions, half covered with flowers,
at the feet of the king. Through the sound of
clapping hands and shouting, two slaves led me behind the
couch of Herod. His eyes narrowed as they fell upon me.
I told him the message of Caesar, making it soft,
as if it were a word that suffered him to
catch his prey. He stroked his beard softly, and his
look fell on Ta mar, I have caught it, he murmured,
By all the gods, I have always caught it. And
my dear son Auntipeter, is coming home of his own
will I have lured him. He is mine. Then a
look of madness crossed his face, and he sprang up
with frothing lips and struck me. What is this? He cried?
A spy, a servant of my false son, A traitor
in my banquet hall. Who are you? I knelt before him,
protesting that he must know me, that I was his friend,
his messenger, that I had left all my goods in
his hands, that the girl who had danced for him
was mine. At this his face changed again, and he
fell back on his couch, shaken with horrible laughter. Yours,
he cried, When was she yours? What is yours? I
know you now, poor madman, you are a mile a
crazy shepherd from Galilee, who troubled us some time since.
Take him away, slaves. He has twenty sheep and twenty
goats among my flocks at the foot of the mountain.
See to it that he gets them, and drive him away.
I fought against the slaves with my bare hands, but
they held me. I called to Tamar, begging her to
have pity on me, to speak for me, to come
with me. She looked up with her eyes like doves
behind her veil, but there was no knowledge of me
in them. She laughed lazily, as if it were a
poor comedy, and flung a broken rose branch in my face.
Then the silver cord was loosened within me, and my
heart went out, and I struggled no more, there was
nothing in it. Afterward, I found myself on the road
with this flock. I led them past Hebron to the
south country, and so by the veil of Eschkal, and
over many hills beyond the pools of Solomon, until my
feet brought me to your fire. Here I rest on
the way to nowhere. He sat silent, and the four
shepherds looked at him with amazement. It is a bitter tale,
said Shama, and you are a great sinner. I should
be a fool not to know that, answered the sad shepherd.
But the knowledge does me no good. You must repent,
said Nathan, the youngest shepherd, in a friendly voice. How
can a man repent? Answered the sad shepherd unless he
has hope. But I am sorry for everything, and most
of all for living. Would you not live to kill
the fox? Herod, asked Jotham fiercely. Why should I let
him out of the trap? Answered the sad shepherd? Is
he not dying more slowly than I could kill him?
You must have faith in God, said Zadok, earnestly and gravely.
He is too far away. Then you must have love
for your neighbor. He is too near. My confidence in
man was like a pool by the wayside. It was shallow,
but there was water in it, and sometimes a star
shown there. Now the feet of many beasts have trampled
through it, and the jackals have drunken of it, and
there is no more water. It is dry, and the
mire is caked at the bottom. Is there nothing good
in the world. There is pleasure, but I am sick
of it. There is power, but I hate it. There
is wisdom, but I mistrust it. Life is a game,
and every player is for his own hand. Mine is played.
I have nothing to win or lose. You are young,
you have many years to live. I am old, yet
the days before me are too many. But you travel
the road you go forward. Do you hope for nothing?
I hope for nothing, said the sad shepherd. Yet if
one thing should come to me, it might be the
beginning of hope. If I saw a man or woman
a deed of kindness without a selfish reason, and a
proof of love gladly given for its own sake, only
that I might turn my face toward that light till
that comes. How can I have faith in God whom
I have never seen. I have seen the world which
He has made, and it brings me no faith. There
is nothing in it. Amle ben Jochanan, said the old
man sternly. You are a son of Israel, and we
have had compassion on you according to the law. But
you are an apostate, an unbeliever, and we can have
no more fellowship with you, lest a curse come upon us.
The company of the desperate brings misfortune. Go your way
and depart from us, for our way is not yours.
So the sad shepherd thanked them for their entertainment, and
took the little kid again in his own arms, and
went into the night, calling his flock. But the youngest shepherd, Nathan,
followed him a few steps and said, there is a
broken field at the foot of the hill. It is
old and small, but you may find shelter there for
your flock, where the wind will not shake you. Go
your way with God, brother, and see better days. Then
a Mile went a little way down the hill and
sheltered his flock in a corner of the crumbling walls.
He lay among the sheep and the goats, with his
face upon his folded arms. And whether the time passed
slowly or swiftly, he did not know, for he slept
he waked as Nathan came, running and stumbling across the
scattered stones. We have seen a vision, he cried, A
wonderful vision of angels. Did you not hear them? They
sang loudly, of the Hope of Israel. We are going
to Bethlehem to see this thing which has come to pass.
Come you and keep watch over our sheep while we
are gone. Of angels. I have seen and heard nothing,
said a Mile, But I will guard your flock with mine,
since I am in debt to you for bread and fire.
So he brought the kid in his arms, and the
weary flock straggling after him, to the south wall of
the great Fold again and sat there by the embers
at the foot of the tower, while the others were away.
The moon rested like a ball on the edge of
the western hills and rolled behind them. The stars faded
in the east, and the fires went out. On the
mountain of the little Paradise. Over the hills of Moab,
a great flood of dawn rose slowly, and arrows of
red shot far up before the sunrise. The shepherds returned
full of joy and told what they had seen. It
was even as the angel said unto us, said Shama,
and it must be true. The King of Israel has come.
The faithful shall be blessed. Herod shall fall, cried Jotham,
lifting his clenched fist toward the dark peaked mountain burn
black Adoumian in the bottomless pit where the fire is
not quenched, Zadok spoke more quietly. We found the new
born child of whom the angels told us, wrapped in
swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. The ways of
God are wonderful. His salvation comes out of darkness, and
we trust in the promised deliverance. But you a mild
ben jochanan, except you believe you shall not see it yet.
Since you have kept our flocks faithfully, and because of
the joy that has come to us, I give you
this piece of silver to help you on your way.
But Nathan came close to the sad Shepherd and touched
him on the shoulder with a friendly hand. Go you
also to Bethlehem, he said, in a low voice, For
tis good to see what we have seen, and we
will keep your flock until you return. I will go,
said a looking into his face, for I think you
wish me well. But whether I shall see what you
have seen, and whether I shall ever return, I know not. Farewell.
Three dawn, the narrow streets of Bethlehem were waking to
the first stir of life, as the Sad Shepherd came
into the town with the morning and passed through them
like one walking in his sleep. The courtyard of the
Great Khan and the open rooms around it were crowded
with travelers, rousing them from their night's rest and making
ready for the day's journey. In front of the stables
half hollowed in the rock beside the inn, men were
saddling their horses and their beasts of burden, and there
was much noise and confusion. But beyond these, at the
end of the line, there was a deeper grotto in
the rock, which was used only when the nearer stalls
were full. At the entrance of this an ass was
to and a man of middle age stood in the doorway.
The sad shepherd saluted him and told him his name.
I am Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, replied the man.
Have you also seen the angels of whom your brother
shepherds came to tell us? I have seen no angels,
answered am ile, nor have I any brothers among the shepherds.
But I would fain see what they have seen. It
is our first born son, said Joseph, and the Most
High has sent him to us. He is a marvelous child.
Great things are foretold of him. You may go in,
but quietly, for the child and his mother marry our sleep.
So the sad shepherd went in quietly. His long shadow
entered before him, for the sunrise was flowing into the
door of the grotto. It was made clean and put
in order, and a bed of straw was laid in
a corner on the ground. The child was asleep, but
the young mother was waking, for She had taken him
from the manger into her lap, where her maiden veil
of white was spread to receive him, and she was
singing very softly as she bent over him in wonder
and content. And Myles saluted her and kneeled down to
look at the child. He saw nothing different from other
young children. The mother waited for him to speak of angels,
as the other shepherds had done. The sad shepherd did
not speak, but only looked, and as he looked, his
face changed. You have suffered pain and danger and sorrow
for his sake, he said gently. They are past, she answered,
and for his sake I have suffered them gladly. He
is very little and helpless. You must bear many troubles
for his sake. To care for him is my joy,
and to bear him lightens my burden. He does not
know you, he can do nothing for you. But I
know him. I have carried him under my heart. He
is my son and my king. Why do you love him?
The mother looked up at the sad shepherd with a
great reproach in her soft eyes. Then her look grew
pitiful as it rested on his face. You are a
sorrowful man, she said, I am a wicked man, he answered.
She shook her head gently. I know nothing of that,
she said, But you must be very sorrowful, since you
are born of a woman, and yet you ask a
mother why she loves her child. I love him for
love's sake, because God has given him to me. So
the mother Mary leaned over her little son again and
began to croon a song, as if she were alone
with him. But Emile was still there, watching and thinking,
and beginning to remember. It came back to him that
there was a woman in Galilee who had wept when
he was rebuked, whose eyes had followed him when he
was unhappy, as if she longed to do something for him,
whose voice had broken and dropped silent while she covered
her tear stained face. When he went away, his thoughts
flowed swiftly and silently toward her and after her, like
rapid waves of light. There was a thought of her
bending over a little child in her lap, singing softly
for pure joy, and the child was himself. There was
a thought of her lifting a little child to the
breast that had borne him as a burden and a pain,
to nourish him there as a comfort and a treasure,
and the child was himself. There was a thought of
her watching and tending and guiding a little child from
day to day, from year to year, putting tender arms
around him, bending over his first wavering steps, rejoicing in
his joys, wiping away the tears from his eyes, as
he had never tried to wipe her tears away. And
the child was himself. She had done everything for the
child's sake, but what had the child done for her sake?
And the child was himself. That was what he had
come to, after the night fire had burned out, after
the darkness had grown thin and melted in the thoughts
that pulsed through it like rapid waves of light. And
that was where he had come to in the early morning, himself,
a child in his mother's arms. Then he arose and
went out of the grotto, softly, making the threefold sign
of reverence, and the eyes of Mary followed him with
kind looks. Joseph of Nazareth was still waiting outside the door.
How was it that you did not see the angels?
He asked, were you not with the other shepherds? No, answered, Emma,
I was asleep, but I have seen the mother and
the child. Blessed be the house that holds them. You
are strangely clad for a shepherd, said Joseph. Where do
you come from, from a far country, replied a myle,
from a country that you have never visited. Where are
you going now, asked Joseph. I am going home, answered
a Myle, to my mother's and my father's house in Galilee.
Go in peace, friend, said Joseph, And the sad shepherd
took up his battered staff and went on his way, rejoicing.
And of the sad Shepherd, A Christmas story by Henry
van Dyke,