Publish it not in the streets of Askelon;
Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice,
Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew,
Neither let there be rain, upon you,
Nor fields of offerings; for there the shield of the Mighty Is vilely cast away, The shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
From the blood of the slain,
From the fat of the mighty,
The bow of Jonathan turned not back,
And the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives,
And in their death they were not divided: They were swifter than eagles, They were stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep over Saul, Who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, Who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel.
How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!
0 Jonathan, thou wast slain in thine high places.
1 am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: Very pleasant hast thou been unto me:
Thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.
How are the mighty fallen, And the weapons of war perished.“
He lifted Jonathan lightly in his arms and laid him on the grass beside the well. He raised a bucket of water and, tearing a linen strip from his own tunic, bathed the blood from Jonathan’s face and started to bind the arrow wound in his chest. He turned the body in his lap, as one might turn a baby to sprinkle him with myrrh. Only then did he see the hunched and swollen back beneath the cloth.
“They have crippled you!” he cried. “How could I fail to see when I carried you from the town?”
Angrily he parted the back of Jonathan’s tunic to wash the wounds. Freed of encumbering cloth, amber wings expanded like flames into the air, the great burning glories of the time beyond remembering when the dead ascended, unwearied, to the Celestial Vineyard.
It is a dream, he thought. I sleep and miracles come to taunt me. (But what had Jonathan said? “ Perhaps you will find a sign…”)
One of the men from Jabesh-Gilead had wakened to David’s song and walked, unnoticed, to stand beside him.
He stared in wonderment at the sudden wings.
“The Goddess?” he asked.
“She must have called to him.
“I have heard of such things. There is a place where they go to meet her, those whom she calls. Sirens, and others too who have loved her in life.”
“The Celestial Vineyard?”
“It has many names. But it is not like Sheol. It lies above us, does it not? Beyond them” He pointed to the stars, which no longer seemed cold and uncompanionable, but friendly torches against the Liliths and the Night Stalkers. North Star, Dog Star, Great Bear…
I will greet them when Jonathan comes to find me, he thought. Yahweh, be with me and the queen I love. Forgive us; accept our forgiveness.
Now I must find a throne and join the mountains to the sea.
