To the Priests, Poem by Victor Hugo

Poem by Victor Hugo Themes ReligionPeriod 19th century

It befits one to resemble the gods. Thy God, flamen,
Devours his children; thy God, magus, exterminates;
Augur, thy God lies; ulema, thy God places
The earth beneath the impure saber of Muhammad;
Thy God, Rome, is the lamb, but he suckles the she-wolf;
O dark Dominican who dreamest, thy God finds
Pleasing the infamous odor of the stakes;
Hideous temples, having butchers for priests,
Are the dwelling of thy God, corybant;
Brahmin, thy gloomy God loves the falling night;
Rabbi, thy God curses the race of Japheth,
And nails to the depths of the sky the stunned sun;
Sabaoth is cruel, Jupiter is foul,
And not one God knows how the world is made;
The peoples have the choice, to bend the knee,
Between the monster Asgar and the monster Vishnu;
This God brays, that one roars, this one bellows;
That is why man’s ideal is to be blind,
Dark, vile, ferocious, ignorant, hateful,
In order to be as near as possible to the gods.

August 4, 1874.

Victor Hugo

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-to-the-priests-victor-hugo/