Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NEW APOCRYPHA: THE SINGLE STANDARD, by EDGAR LEE MASTERS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NEW APOCRYPHA: THE SINGLE STANDARD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It was known through judea, we knew it
Last Line: And lives with him still.


(St. John, Chapter VIII.)

It was known through Judea, we knew it: --
That Joseph beguiled
By mercy for Mary espoused,
And already with child,

Before they had come to each other,
Would put her away
In secret, before the Sanhedrin
Could summon, array,

The witnesses, judge her and make her
A noise and a shame --
We knew this, and what would he do
If the case were the same

As his father believed was the case
With his mother? would he,
A prophet, fulfill all the law,
Or let her go free? --

This Sarah, you know, that I caught,
Was a witness and saw.
Now what would he do, shade away,
Or judge by the law?

For Moses decreed if a woman
Who is married shall lie
With a man, whether wedded or not,
The woman shall die

With the man in a volley of stones;
And Moses decreed
If a virgin already betrothed
Shall lust in the deed

With a man not the bridegroom, and whether
The man shall be wed,
The people shall stone them with stones
Until they be dead.

Now mark you, how equal the law
Of weight and of span:
One law for the woman in sin,
The same for the man.

If Moses be still the law-giver,
By nothing dethroned,
And this be the law, then this Sarah
Was fit to be stoned.

And if it be true, as he says,
That he came to fulfill
The law, nor destroy it, why then
We thought he would will

The death of this woman we took
In adultery, yes in the act,
So we argued together beforehand
The law and the fact.

Now the case was this way: this Josiah
Late journeyed from Tyre,
Three wives to his household already,
Yet alive with desire,

And free by our custom and law
To add to his hearth
A fourth for the heirs to his house,
And for comfort and mirth,

Came back in the cause of a field
He had bought; as it chanced
Met up with this Sarah, a wife,
They feasted and danced,

Her spouse being absent, what's more
In Egypt for good.
So Josiah and Sarah were found
In the act in the wood.

We brought her before him, accused,
And told him the case.
He stooped, as it seemed, to conceal
A blush on his face,

And wrote in the sand, as we stood
And pressed him he wrote:
"Anise" and "cummin" and "gnat"
And "Moses" and "mote."

We cried all the more, he uplifted
Himself, said: "Begin
Your throwing of stones, let the first
Be him without sin."

So there I was caught, for he knew --
Like wheat from the scythe
We shrank -- I was guilty of sin,
I had failed in my tithe

Of anise. But why have clean hands
To work at our smudges?
And how will you ever stop sin
If you ask of the judges

To be without sin ere they punish
A matter of lust?
I call this a ruling where morals
Fall down in the dust.

The most of us left then. He asked her:
"Does no man condemn?
Nor do I." And so he made one
With me and with them.

So here in a sense was the world
Spiritual, civil,
Prophet and Pharisee, judge
Leagued up with the devil.

For what did it matter to say
To go and no more
Sin as she had, if the sin
Would fare as before?

It followed that Sarah went free,
And Josiah the man.
One standard for both is the rule,
And the modern plan.

What's that? Why to sin if you wish --
For what is a sin
If no stones are hurled for the lack
Of a man to begin?

And so it all ended. This Sarah
Was given a bill.
She married Josiah, they say,
And lives with him still.





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