Hag of the Past

by Brett Rutherford
Adapted from Victor Hugo, l'Annee Terrible, May 1871 - Paris in Flames, Part 4

Stand here at the bar,
where I accuse you, Poverty,
but also this blind and deaf bandit,
this barbarian called The Past.
I denounce this chaos
which royalty sustains, preserves,
from which the old scourges come!
They weigh on us,
     even in these modern times,
with the dumb-bell of frightening ignorance;
they change us all, sworn brothers once,
     into avowèd enemies;
they alone have done this evil;
they put the torch
     they barely knew how to hold upright
into the hands of implacable sufferers.

Poverty and the dead Past,
     sigils of relentless kings —
it is they who forge the brass knuckles,
     the groaning chains,
the dogmas and errors with which
     they want to entangle us.

With schools shut down,
     the workshops for the unemployed
          abandoned and forgotten,
the rich in their bright palaces hang
     the wretched mistletoe
and dance, while in the shops
     they squint all day
         with a near-sighted gaze,
their wills bent down beneath
      the suffocating yoke,
selling to the cottager
      a little puff of air,
or placing before the tender child
     an alphabet of lies,
calling their murk a clarity of vision,
failing to dig today
    the furrow the field requires,
while blasting away at tomorrow’s
     pit of Hell.

Unable to either teach truth,
     or even soothe with promises,
they have the gold in hand
     to offer up to any Judas.
If some Columbus wanted a blessing,
they would refuse to send him forth.
They have been set in their ways
     since the times of Cyrus,
Astyages, Cecrops, Deucalion, and Moses,
and what is their plan, always?
Declare a bloody and craven retaliation!
Deliver the weak into the hold of the strong!
Deny that women even have souls or wills!
The orthodox are imbeciles,
     ferocious and infamous!

I denounce the false pontiffs,
     the false gods, too,
loveless and eyeless idols.
No, I do not accuse
anything of the present-day,
nor anyone now living.

Hear me! The cry I utter here,
and the bell I toll,
are against the Past,
the ever-pervading ghost,
the starched sheet hiding
in laws, in morals, in hate,
a haunting so utterly full
as though each squeaking board
was a nest of termites.

I accuse, o ancient ones —
because the time is fraught —
you entire society in one:
a hunch-back criminal hag.

Who knew this villainness
was in on everything?
The things that clutched the soul
and choked it, were her filthy hands,
blocking our eyes as the sun rose,
halting the flow of fresh spring water;
she who flipped one disk before another,
     until the eclipse
cast us in darkness, Reason obscured
by Faith after so many years
in which pure Reason was affirmed;
she who took the ziggurat of laws
and topped it with a prison
(you again, with your ardent torturers!);
she who, misleading people — yes,
even in France! — engendered in many
the blindness we call ignorance;
she who them not to trust in science;
evil stepmother, turning to unlit caves
     the minds of the young, and making dark
          as coal the hearts that should have loved.

Persona of these times,
     I want her convicted.
This terrible year
     is what she delivered us,
after a long and terrible confinement.
She whispers, and a dreadful wish
for chaos and annihilation
spreads like ants among the people,
the very ones, who, if they knew
her origin, would turn away.
Is there a limit? When does
the bruised ox stand and strike,
impaling its tormenter with a roar?

She stirred up the unthinking and gloomy crowd.
The list of her enemies is endless, it seems.
Where things had been allowed their beauty,
she wishes everything to be crumpled and bent.
Where ancient rancor had been put aside,
     she digs it up again.
Alas! hatred re-opens its wounds,
     declaring itself a debt unpaid.

This cabal the evil crone heads up,
has reigned for two millennia in secret.
Proclaiming new injuries on the fly,
she usurps any idea of property,
however peaceably enjoyed; she strips
to the bare walls the hovels that had
no more than Bible, bed, and board.

Up come new parasites to devour the people.
The witch’s successes are counted out
in casualties of war, the scaffold’s toll.
She leaves nothing to the individual
except one instinct in a forest of evil
in which the predator awaits its prey.
That men have sunk so low, she smiles.
To unleash the Beast from a beast of burden,
to send the rebellious slave whimpering
into the shadows, to push all down
until the broken ones attain Hell’s portal
and beg of the inferno: “We’re ready now.” —
this is her pleasure and purpose.

You may be surprised later,
o sowers of storms, by hubris
and its eternal punishment;
that making a scapegoat of those above,
finally comes back to spoil your game;
that your victim proves you wrong
     on every point,
though you have hounded him, haggard
     and gloomy to his appointed fate,
those very same fists
     may come back suddenly,
one hand on your throat
     for your murders,
the other into your heart
     to avenge the fires!

Behind the hag, the eidolon
of the Past itself, still lurks.
At it I hurl my hatred;
     the adamantine wall
shows not a crack.
The mute Past has all the blame.
A brutalized people.
The triumph of a monolith.
It has God as its ghost
and Satan as its minister.
By merely being there
and darkly worshiped,
its shadow elongates
the trough of sinister poverty,
the bleeding poor
    who take revenge at random.
If only they knew where to aim!
Instead, their hatred becomes despair.

My Gentle Reader, whomever you are,
you whom I have sought to serve,
and whom I love,
     who I have always pitied and warned,
and defended when it was within my power —
you, overwhelmed, distraught,
Brothers! Push back the one who exploits you!

There are minds that soar,
    and others who limp:
follow the one with wings!
Rise with it toward the future,
attain the heights where things
     are bright and clear;
but ever and always be vigilant —
trust your own sense
and do not get carried away
if a winged dream has hate in its heart.

Resist, no matter how famed he is,
     no matter what his name is called,
anyone who drives you against
     your fellow man.
Resist pain. Resist hunger. Live for the day
so that a better thing may follow.
If only you knew
     how close we were to the end!