Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/681



PON the Sixth Day there was a difference made between heaven and earth, that there might lie no envy as of one toward the other. Therefore there was taken earth from the earth, and a soul from among the angels of heaven, and of the two a man was shaped.

Now the beasts that roamed to and fro: lions and leopards, tigers, apes, and divers others: eyed the man how he stood erect and alone. He seemed perfect, complete. There was none like him. So they made to worship him as a god. Thereupon woman was created, and their regard fell away from him; for they saw he varied no whit from the beasts of the field.

For in the beginning, beast, bird, and reptile, as well as the great monsters that plow the deep seas, had each his mate. But for man there was not found a help meet for him. As who should say: he could nowhere behold a female of any species worthy to be a wife unto him. But when he impended to become a god, then this thing was thrust on him, that should yet detract from him. First he was cast into profound sleep. Then, as he lay lax and helpless, came One and took a rib from his body, and made therefrom a wife unto him.

Therefore he was made to sleep, that he might not grow nauseate of her, his wife, that she was issue of his very body. Since when, whenso a man is impious, he getteth a wife that shall be loving and helpful unto him. Whenso, however, he is virtuous and worthy, One sendeth him a wife which is as his body is: she maketh him to lose both this world and any, world that is to come: she is worse, verily, than bitter death itself. A wife bendeth her husband from his native humour, always, as is to be read in the legend of the devotee: He, it is related, had to wife one that was a woman most pious; nonetheless they had no children and he put her from him with divorce. Presently she took to husband a great rogue and made a saint of him. He, per contra, took to wife a shrew:—