Azevedo is a horsemen riding through the rugged ‘moon hunted’ redwood forests of the American Northwest when he comes across a spine-chilling sight.
Three hills “…like Red Indians around a camp-fire, grave and dark, mountain-high, hams on heels…” are judging mankind, more specifically the American mind.
One of the hills has gathered a handful of humans for inspection and spills them out before the huge bonfire that is the center of their ‘camp,’ commenting, “It seems hardly possible
“Such fragile creatures could be so noxious.”
The inquisition proceeds with Azevedo looking on from a distance. The event that has brought the three mountains to judgmental life was the advent of the Atomic Age.
During this period other writers were penning such anti-atomic war tales as The Day the Earth Stood Still. Jeffers takes a mystically view as if out of a past age and critiques Man’s latest insane step on the road to oblivion from a fantastical vantage. If you are a prose reader who has an affinity for H. P. Lovecraft then perhaps Jeffers should be your door into the world of verse. There is something very Lovecraftian about The Inquisitors in both tone and scale.
Jews did it first, and better:
Rabbi Simon said, “When the Holy One, blessed be He, came to create Adam, the ministering angels formed themselves into groups and parties, some of them saying, ‘Let him be created,’ whilst others urged, ‘let him not be created.’ Thus it is written, Love and Truth fought together, Righteousness and Peace combated each other (Ps. 85:11). Love said, ‘Let him be created, because he will dispense acts of love;’ Truth said, ‘Let him not be created, because he is compounded of falsehood;’ Righteousness said, ‘Let him be created, because he will perform righteous deeds;’ Peace said, ‘Let him not be created, because he is full of strife.’ What did the Holy One do? He took Truth and cast it to the ground.” (Genesis Rabbah, 8:5)
Thanks, B.
The last line, in particular, appeals to me.
It's intentionally ambiguous.
My understanding of the parable-you have a tie on whether to create man, between the ideals of love and peace on one hand vs truth and righteousness on the other. G-d acts as a tiebreaker, throwing truth to the ground, i.e., where we live, so that we can exist.
Truth shatters into many small pieces.
And so we see that there is, in our world, never a black and white, that there is never one truth on an issue, that there is always ambiguity-and this is what allows us to continue to exist. Otherwise, who could withstand judgement?