Heaven’s Jester or The Message of a White Rose

Mrs. Havelock Ellis

“It is dawn! Men and women are in the city of sleep. Waken, thou strange child of many dreams, and hear my message. A woman gave me to thee, a woman thou lovest, whose fragrance for thee is as delicate as mine, whose whiteness is thy strength and hope. But hark! the gods are pitiless. Thy name is entered in the call-book of heaven by a woman thou lovest also. In gentle jest she wrote the scrawl when thy soul passed into Paradise with hers for one brief hour. She entered those gates in the sweet sleep of Death and thou, by force of her love for thee, in the sleep of life. “Heaven’s Jester” was inscribed in the registers of Paradise and heaven’s jester thou must remain. Thy soul, after her passing from Earth, had barely gained thy body again before the cap and bells were donned by thee. Thy jests for men were written down. The jingle of thy bells drew laughter and tears. God found he had need of the fool the woman had signed to him. Hush! the jester of heavenly courts must not lower his head or hide his face. Tears ill become the piebald suit and trappings of mirth. Thou crazy clown! Didst think the woman who gave me to thee needed thy heart? Hear the message the white rose by thy bed gives to thee. She also needs thy cap and bells. It is not for thee to choose thy way of love. God’s jester is neither man nor woman nor child, but a singer of joys and woes to ease men’s souls and dry the eyes of women. Play thy part, then, and laugh thy laugh. Men win her lips, women crave her help, the world takes her service, and thou her smiles. Wouldst thou have more, thou poet lover in the guise of a fool?

Then throw thy cloak down for a lover to kneel on if Fate shows thee his face. Drown the world’s chatter with thy bells while lips kiss. In his absence make songs and sing them to ease the travail of love in her body. If no lover comes, then hearten and hasten even thine own enemy into her service, if so be she gets strength and comfort from the strange enterprise. Then make thine own soul white as the rose she has given thee. On with thy cap and bells! Grow nimble and dance. Dance and sing in thy jester’s way, for the homesickness of the heaven thou hast seen will teach thee strange melodies. When death claims thee, and the cap and bells are laid aside, God’s Jester shall sleep with a white rose on his breast.

“Dead,” they will say, but no! At last thou shalt hear the eternal song of the souls of women and be satisfied!

HEAVEN’S JESTER TO THE BODY OF HIS LADY

Heaven’s Jester said unto himself, “I have no need of my lady’s body, her soul suffices. In the passionate pressure of lips the Fool has known his God and the man has found the woman. Let that suffice!”

In the dawn the white rose spoke once more to the jester. “Thou hast lied. Thy lady’s unknown body is untried music to thee. Thy hands would touch the strings, thy ear catch the vibrations her soul modulates to sounds of sighs and sobs at the call of love. Look at my whiteness! Think of thy unrest! The secrets of thy lady’s body are not learnt through the strong desires common to the herd of men or the fainting dreams of impassioned women. Fool! inscribed as thou art in the heavenly registers by a woman as God’s Fool, thou must learn the mystic’s lore about the body of thy Love. Thy desire is towards thy lady, and her will, not thine, is thy law. Hearken then! It were the work of an instant to close thy strong hands round her throat and bruise her into forgetfulness that love is pain. To force her mouth, so much desired, into an open well for slaking thine own thirst is love’s delicious robbery. To hurtle to her breast, as if to rob and forestall the child who may one day drink there, is to have found a shrine for prayer and peace. Yes! even to rest in the hallowed forests of her body ere thou storm the citadel where thy weapon shall break into the silent house of life, is easy and has always been the way of men with woman. Woman the abandoned, man the triumphant, woman the flower, man the gatherer, woman the luscious wine and man the thirsty drinker. Thy old-world needs desire thy lady in the way of men, though prayer before and after would grace thy feasting. Listen to the secret the white rose whispers to thee. It does not suffice that thou dost need thy lady or even that thy lady needs thee. Thou must prepare thyself for her even if she has no need of thee. The gateways of thy body must be clean, pure as snow and free from taint. Thy thoughts must shine through thine eyes like stars, thy passions burn with fires at white heat, without smoke or noise. Heaven’s jester may not approach the Holy of Holies till Desire is as white flame. The sacrament of thy Lady’s Body is precious bread and wine, to be partaken of at her desire, not thine, and only in Heaven’s good time. It is not for thee to choose. Thy part is to watch and pray and laugh and sing, and maybe lead another in to the feast thou hast prepared. Thou must bring to thy lady’s white feet frankincense and myrrh, the spoils of the sorrows thou hast borne for the tired travellers on thy journey. Precious stones, too, thou must gather for her neck, from the shores of thy past desolations. Pearls thou must also offer, burnished out of the memories of thy wayward desires which knew not her chastity or her smiles. For her breasts thou must bring shields forged from thy gluttonies and petty aims. For her arms crystals wrought out of thy dreams. For her girdle rubies made from all thy heart’s desire. For her eyes? Ah! perhaps thy kiss, delicate and passionate as is the way of seas and clouds when the earth sleeps. For her forehead thou mayest weave a crown of myrtle, for friendship, as thy Love is thy Friend and is steadfast. For her ears I will tell thee the dreams of my sister, almost black with the redness the sun has poured into her heart. For her hair, only a wreath of “love in the mist,” for in that little flower is the wonder of the Great Heart thou art learning to understand. For her lips, only thy hopes made chaste and thy fears made passionate, if God wills.

Should thy Love waken with thy kisses on her closed eyes and turn towards thee with wonder and joy at the things thou hast learned and the gifts thou hast given to her, then have a care! Women are not drunk with wine but with pity, and pity is no use to Heaven’s Jester. There are signs, though, which even thou canst understand, and when Love is born, the Fool is wise. If by chance, for there is no hope in this message of the dawn, there is a resurrection day for thee, if by chance or God’s pure will, she turns to thee as God allows one spirit to turn to another spirit, when Love has prepared the altar, then clash thy cymbals, blow thy trumpet, shout till the sleepy world rejoices, shake thy bells and fling thy Jester’s cap and cloak aside, for to eat the sacramental bread and drink the wine of thy love’s pure body thou wilt not need raiment, and as thou wert born and as thou wilt die thou wilt enter into thy Holy of Holies. And if thou die of joy, thou criest:

THE FOOL TO THE SOUL OF HIS LADY

The Jester said to himself, “If the body of my lady is so fair a tabernacle for her soul, how can I, a Fool, understand the ways of her spirit? My lute and pipes can only render the voices of the wind, the sea, the trees and the cries of beasts in joy and pain. My bells are a Jester’s toys for assuaging the griefs of the children of men. The travailings of my lady’s spirit, like the snow on the mountains, are out of reach of a fool’s understanding. For one brief hour I heard a faint whisper in the halls of peace when my name was signed in the heavenly registers, but, except in my heart, I carried no trophy to earth by which I could tell men of the music I heard.

This is the birthday of my Lady, the festival which calls for prayer and joy. Prayer, because the paths of earth are hard for the feet of her whose tread awakens a longing for wings in the Fool standing near. Joy, because her eyes are mirrors of a time to come when love and peace will renew earth into heaven, and men and women will become as wise as eagles and children. Through her body, I love the soul of my lady, and through her soul I love her body. Neither her soul nor her body may help and comfort the Jester even though God leads and helps him by both grace and mercy. Though his heart be sore and his body sick unto death and there seems none to comfort him, he can still sing songs for men and pipe melodies for women of the wonders revealed to him.”

The White Rose, dying by the Jester’s bed, spoke once more to the Fool.

“Cast self pity out of thine heart. Learn to live as I have learned to die, and then learn to die as I have learned to live. For thee absence seems death, but trace the meaning of the soul of the woman thou lovest. Her soul is also absent from the Oversoul as her body is absent from a Lover. Only through absence can the Oversoul draw its own to itself, and only through loneliness can the Great Lover and the Lesser Lover understand one another. Words confuse and touch enslaves. Souls speak clearly in the silence. In absence a note becomes a chord, and in silence the chord becomes a symphony. The discord dissolves into harmony, and the darkness into dawn. The absence of Death is not different from that of Life, for Death is Life, and Life the discord making Death’s music. The soul of thy Lady will find thine by the aid of both Life and Death, for it is not God’s Fool who hath declared that there is no Love nor a Creater thereof. Thou art learning that all is Love. In thy prayers today for thy Lady’s peace incline thy spirit towards hers as both approach the maternal source of the Universe. It is the Mother-Spirit of the world who has hidden thy love from thy sight, and taken thine head from the touch of her hands and torn thy lips from her kisses. Is it not always so that the mothers of the smaller world wean their children into growth and knowledge? Thou art still hers even if her body is out of sight and touch, for pure love is the simple miracle of thine heritage as a son of man and of God. Nothing can take from me what the sun made of me through his shining. Even as I die the fragrance remains. Nothing can rob thee of the hours when all things seem possible because of thy hopes and her vows. Love is pain but over-love is peace. Turn thy tears into help and pity for those who weep without thy hope and for those who dwell in dungeons and are not yet registered in heaven as wise or foolish. Let thy longings for one break into prayer for the weal of the world. Thou wert not sent here only for thy pleasure or thy peace, nor was the body of thy Lady sent for thy delight, or her soul for thy strength alone. Pain is ordained for the bringers of good tidings and love lent for the redemption of the many through the loneliness of the one. Accept thy lot and thy vision shall make thee free. Resist thy fate and thy Love’s soul and thine shall sleep embedded in flesh and with no power to grow wings. On thy knees then and pray for strength and courage with thy cap and bells in readiness by thy side, and joy within thy heart. As I die thou must live.”

The Jester took the rose in his hands, and, as its petals fell, a Fool’s prayer broke the silence.

“Maker of men,” he cried, “pour into a fool’s heart the understanding of life’s joy and pain. Make my spirit at one with the great order. Let me understand what is required of me and in understanding be at peace.” As he prayed, the Jester slept, for a great weariness was on him from much dancing. In his dream, a little child ran towards him. He opened his Jester’s cloak, and the little one held the sleeves in her tiny hands.

“Give all that thou hast and all that thou art even to one so small as I,” cried the child and ran from his sight.

The Jester was awakened by the opening and clanging of a door. He went out into the courtyard. A beggar, unshaved, and swollen with dropsy, stood before him. He had evil eyes and a mouth twisted by pain. He looked at the Jester and laughed.

“Give me thy cap and bells,” he said, “I have need of them.”

The Jester took money from his pouch.

“Take all this instead,” he cried.

The old man laughed.

“Any lord or lady can throw me that,” he said, “if only to keep me from defiling them by my presence. Gold costs less to give than to gather. It is dross and could only help my body to live and suffer. Thy cap and bells would succour my spirit so that I could forget my body. With the jingle of them I could smile at the curses of the healthy or the jibes of the well-washed. Give them to me. Thou art well and happy and hast no need of help.”

The Jester bowed his head and gave up his cap and bells, but with sorrow and pain in his heart. The beggar ran away shaking the bells and dancing with glee, the Jester’s cap all awry on his swollen head. A sweet melting tenderness and faintness took hold of the Jester and an ecstasy swayed him so that he nearly fell.

“It is the soul of my Lady speaking to mine,” he whispered. “What matter the cap and bells? Let them go.”

The woman he loved stood by him and her voice was like a lute on the air as she grasped the Jester’s shoulders.

“Give all thy music to me,” she whispered, “I am in sore travail because of things a Fool cannot understand. Thy music ravishes me and makes me know that love is a consuming fire in which one burns gladly. Thy wild notes make desire in me a quenchless thirst which no drinking can assuage. Thy soft piping fills my veins with a pain which is like joy and with a joy which is like pain. Give me all, keep nothing back. I would see as thou seest, hear as thou hearest, dream as thou dreamest, so that I can play as thou, but I must tune thy pipes to the voice of my heart.”

The Jester drew his hood over his head and went to his cell. His Lady had no doubt as to what he would bring back to her, for she had learnt from him that love gives all things without question or regret. The Jester quite simply collected all the instruments he had made during the long years of his youth and his manhood. They were precious to him, for he had not been able to buy as others because of his poverty. He had gone even to the offal of the slaughter-houses, and to the dank banks of the ponds, and the waste places in hills and valleys for the things which gave his instruments such power over men with the strange cries he evoked. The Jester’s sadness had been greater than even his poverty, but the music had never failed to comfort and strengthen him. Voices from the over-world and under-world spoke to him, and the strange secrets he translated into sound. The Jester’s heart was glad at last. His Lady had need of him and of what he had made. His music was hers as his heart was hers. He laid all his precious instruments at her feet and looked in her eyes. There were smiles for him there. She bent as he knelt and took his head, as of old, between her long cool hands, and kissed his brow.

“Happy, happy Fool,” she cried, “thus to be able to give all. I will break hearts with the sweetness of these strings, I will bind others to me and know it is thy gift. Happy Fool! Goodbye!”

“May God comfort thee and me,” said the Jester, as he turned toward his cell.

THE JESTER SLEEPS

“The Jester is dead.” The words were said gravely, and the Lady who heard them looked keenly in an old man’s face.

“Dead,” she cried.

“Yes! Found dead this morning. We could not find his cap and bells nor the instruments he loved more than all other things. There seems no more music in the world now, for we all grew happy through his music and the sun.”

“Dead!” she whispered. “May I....”

She hesitated. “Yes, come.”

The old man led the way.

“He is there. We found nothing by him but the leaves of a dead white rose and the wind from his window blew them on to his breast.”

“He smiles,” said the Lady.

There was silence in the cell except for the fierce howling of an April wind and the tiny fluttering of the leaves on the breast of the Jester.

The Lady turned towards the door.

“His instruments are at the gate,” she said, impatiently. “Why did he die, I wonder? The reeds are no use to me. I cannot play upon them ... not a sound will come.”