I asked, “How long has the city been here?” And he answered me, as he plucked away— “It has always stood where it stands today, And here it will stand forever and aye.” Five hundred years rolled by, and then I traveled the self-same road again. No trace of the city there I found: A shepherd sat blowing his pipe alone; His flock went quietly nibbling round. I asked, “How long has the city been gone?” And he answered me, and he piped away— “The new ones bloom and the old decay, This is my pasture ground for aye.” Five hundred years rolled by, and then I traveled the self-same road again. And I came to the sea, and the waves did roar, And a fisherman threw his net out clear, And when heavy laden he dragged it ashore. I asked, “How long has the sea been here?” And he laughed, and he said, and he laughed away— “As long as yon billows have tossed their spray They’ve fished and they’ve fished in this self-same bay.” Five hundred years rolled by, and then I traveled the self-same road again. And I came to a forest, vast and free. And a woodman stood in the thicket near— His axe he laid at the foot of a tree. I asked, “How long have the woods been here?” And he answered. “These woods are a covert for aye; My ancestors dwelt here alway, And trees have been here since creation’s day.” Five hundred years rolled by, and then I traveled the self-same road again. And I found there a city, and far and near Resounded the hum of toil and glee, And I asked, “How long has the city been here? And where is the pipe, and the wood, and the sea?” And they answered me, as they went their way. “Things always have stood as they stand today. And so they will stand forever and aye.” I’ll wait five hundred years, and then I’ll travel the selfsame road again. In England, Shelley was the most famous poet to become fascinated by the legend. In his lengthy poem “The Wandering Jew,” written or partly written when he was seventeen, the Wanderer is called Paulo. A fiery cross on his forehead is kept concealed under a cloth band. In the third Canto, after sixteen centuries of wandering, Paulo recounts the origin of his suffering to Rosa, a woman he loves:
How can I paint that dreadful day, That time of terror and dismay, When, for our sins, a Saviour died, And the meek Lamb was crucified! As dread that day, when, borne along To slaughter by the insulting throng, Infuriate for Deicide. I mocked our Saviour, and I cried, “Go, go,” “Ah! I will go,” said he, “Where scenes of endless bliss invite; To the blest regions of the light I go, but thou shall here remain— Thou diest not till I come again.” The Wandering Jew is also featured in Shelley’s short poem “The Wandering Jew’s Soliloquy,” and in two much longer works, “Hellas” and “Queen Mab.” In “Queen Mab,” as a ghost whose body casts no shadow, Ahasuerus bitterly denounces God as an evil tyrant. In a lengthy note about this Shelley quotes from a fragment of a German work “whose title I have vainly endeavored to discover. I picked it up, dirty and torn, some years ago….”
In this fragment the Wanderer describes his endless efforts to kill himself. He tries vainly to drown. He leaps into an erupting Mount Etna where he suffers intense heat for ten months before the volcano belches him out. Forest fires fail to consume him. He tries to get killed in wars but arrows, spears, clubs, swords, bullets, mines, and trampling elephants have no effect on him.
CARL SAGAN
The Demon-Haunted World
A tremendous number of people owe their portion of scientific education to the elegant and witty Carl Sagan (1934–1996). His academic work in astronomy and his gift for clear exposition took him from the pinnacles of Harvard and Cornell to the more demotic arena of television and film and fiction, where his novel Contact won him widespread renown. Not unlike Bertrand Russell, Sagan had the faculty of connecting ancient superstitions to modern ones: in The Demon-Haunted World he calmly showed how religion drew on primitive fears and helped to reinforce them, and in his Gifford lectures at the University of Glasgow he connected the slavish belief in gods to the idiotic cult of UFOs and other post-modern delusions.
