Forever veiled

The title refers to a poem by Friedrich von Schiller, but applies to a variety of ancient sources and myths. The Veiled Image of Saïs. (My own translation, copyright 2015) A young man, whom his burning thirst for knowledge drove to Saïs in Egypt, there to learn the secret wisdom of the priests, had reached with his quick intellect a dozen levels - yet, hardly there, his spirit drove him on, and barely could his mentor priest restrain the youth's impatience. "Don't I have naught if I don't have it all?" the student asked, "can ever truth exist as less, as more? Could your truth be perhaps, like body's pleasures, be but a simple sum one can possess in larger or, as well, in smaller measure? Is truth not indivisible and whole? Out of a chord remove a single tone, out of a rainbow take a single hue and all that's left is naught if there is missing the splendid whole of harmony or colors." As thus they talked, they held their steps and stood in a rotunda, all alone, where a gigantic statue covered by a veil did catch the student's eye. "What might it be that hides behind this veil?", the young man asked. "The truth", was the reply. "Why", he exclaimed, I'm searching for the truth, and truth alone, and that one truth you try to hide from me?" "That", spoke the priest, "you take up with the Goddess. 'No mortal may', she says, 'remove this veil until I shall remove it by myself. And he, whose unanointed, guilty hand dares lift this sacred and forbidden veil before I do, he' —" — "Yes?" — "He sees the truth." "A puzzling oracle, I say! And you yourself, you never did indeed remove this veil?" "Not me, for certain not! Nor was I ever tempted." — "I fail to understand. If only this flimsy cloth would keep the truth from me —" "This and the law", his teacher interrupts. "Much heavier, my son, than you perceive, is this thin drape — so flimsy on your hand, but weighty as a ton upon your conscience." The student, full of thoughts, leaves for his home. His burning thirst for knowledge does not let him sleep, he turns and tosses in his bed and then gets up at midnight. To the temple do turn his timid steps against their will. Not hard is it for him to scale the wall, and right into the big rotunda's reach takes a courageous jump the daring youth. So there he stands, and full of dread and awe envelops him the a frightful, lifeless silence - just interrupted by his furtive steps that echo hollow through the secret pathways. The pallid moon is casting from the zenith his rays of silver blue into the dome and threat'ning, like an omnipresent god, shines through the wide rotunda's darkness the statue in her all-enrobing veil. He now approaches with uncertain steps and boldly reaches for the holy veil when, running hot and cold across his bones, an unseen arm is pushing him away. You cursed man, how dare you touch? Thus calls inside his soul to him a faithful voice. Are tempting you the holiest of holies? No mortal, did the oracle proclaim, shall lift this veil till I myself shall lift it. But did the self-same voice not also say, he, who shall lift the veil, shall see the truth? "Whate'er the veil may hide, lift it I shall!" (his voice proclaims aloud.) "I want to see her!" 'See her', the echo mockingly repeats his cry. And thus he cried and lifted up her veil. You're asking me, what was revealed to him? I do not know. The priests found him next day, unconscious and infirm, just lying there at the foundation stones of Isis' statue. Whatever had occurred, whate'er he saw, he never spoke of. But forever had the happiness of life abandoned him: Deep sadness lead him to an early grave. "Woe him", he always said as words of warning at questioners' impetuous insistence, "Woe him, who does approach the truth through sin: such truth shall bar his ev'ry joy forever."