The Beast

“ And so I did be an horrid minute, and fought with the Beast, with no more than the strength of my body; and it was as that an human went with his hands to slay a monster so strong as an horse. And the breath of the Man-Beast came at me, and did sicken me; and I held the face off from me; for I had died with horror, if that it had come more anigh; and surely the mouth of the Man was small and shaped so that I knew that it did never eat of aught that it did slay; but to drink as a vampire; and in truth, I did mean that I chop the Man to pieces, if that I have chance to the Diskos. ”

“ Beast, how you frightened me!’ she cried. ‘I never knew how much I loved you until just now, when I feared I was too late to save your life.’
‘Can you really love such an ugly creature as I am?’ said the Beast faintly. ”

“ And I was standing on the sand of the sea, and saw a wild beast ascending out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems, and on his heads names of reviling. And the wild beast, which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his throne, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world admired and followed the beast. ”

“ On the shore of the forest stream you left long since the mangled body of Timaride. The Beast has sated himself with the fine blood of your friend—he has devoured the flesh which should have tasted earthly happiness; the wonderful human form has been destroyed, and that in it which was more than human has perished, all to give a moment's satisfaction to the ever insatiable Beast. The blood, the marvellous blood, godly wine of joy, the wine of more than human blessing—where is it now? ”

“ The Beast that dwells under every man's skin, in a greater or less degree, was in the full ascendancy at last. The unnamable ferocity that marks the death-leap of the wild hunters was in his face. In his eyes was cunning,—such craft as marks the pack in its hunting. All over him was written that unearthly rage that is alone the property and trait of the woods creatures: the fury with which a she-wolf fights for her cubs or a rattlesnake avenges the death of its mate. Mercy, remorse, compassion there was none. ”

“ Men who stood vacantly staring in muttered, "Beast!" women, shrinking from the unsightly spectacle, whispered, "Beast!" and children, gazing in silent horror with the rest, stared "Beast!" out of their wonder-stricken eyes. ”

“ Are not these beasts, then, much wiser and better than we? We will honour them, and pray to them not to devour us—to make us cunning and powerful as they are themselves. And if they are no better than us, surely they are no worse than us. After all, what difference is there between a man and a beast? The flood which drowned the beasts drowned the men too. A beast is flesh and blood, what more is a man? If you kill him, he dies, just as a beast dies ”

“ The beast is the very incarnation of familiar qualities of man; and such names as lion, bear, fox, owl, parrot, viper, worm, when we apply them as epithets to men, condense into a word some leading feature of a human life. Consistently with this, we see in looking over details of savage transmigration that the creatures often have an evident fitness to the character of the human beings whose souls are to pass into them, so that the savage 18philosopher’s fancy of transferred souls offered something like an explanation of the likeness between beast and man. ”

“ I am not "my lord." I am the Beast; and your words will not save you from the death you deserve.'
The merchant, although in fear of his life, plucked up courage to tell the monster that the rose which he had been bold to pluck was for one of his daughters, by name Beauty. Then, in hope either to delay the Beast's vengeance or to touch his compassion, he launched into the tale of all his misfortunes, and of his reasons for the journey, not forgetting to mention Beauty again and her request. ”

“ Who, think you, are they who shall gain the victory over the Beast? They, assuredly, who have not received his mark. Grant, O God, to thy soldier that with thy might he may manfully bear him against the Dragon, who gave such power to the Beast. ”

“ All this time the beast outside was snorting like a race-horse catching its breath after a run, the demon walking in front of it, examining its teeth, or mouth, or eyes, or whatever you do examine when you go poking around in front of it. ”

“ Once more the beast springs up, once more he rages on his path of torture, howling he seeks to terrify, gnashing his teeth he attempts defiance, but in vain—there is no escape from the dread noose, and in a few minutes he is throttled. ”

“ Shall we put off the man and put on the beast? shall we strip off Christ, and be clothed over and over with the garments of Satan? The very heathen sages held that pleasure was not to be esteemed honourable, lest they should seem to couple men with brutes, and can we instil the habits of animals into the human breast, and engrave on the rational mind the irrational instincts of wild beasts? ”

“ This lasted until they reached the avenue of orange trees, where were statues holding flaming torches, and when they got nearer to the palace they saw that it was illuminated from the roof to the ground, and music sounded softly from the courtyard.
"The Beast must be very hungry," said Beauty, trying to laugh, "if he makes all this rejoicing over the arrival of his prey." ”

“ The beast left him no blood, licked up his marrow and blood and poured fire into him instead. When the beast smacked its lips voluptuously, when it greedily swallowed the blood and the marrow, when the man thought that he was dying, then the beast pricked him with a needle of its fiery tongue and goaded him to shivering-point ”

“ The beast that was now before me, when stimulated by hunger, was accustomed to assail whatever could provide him with a banquet of blood. He would set upon the man and the deer with equal and irresistible ferocity. ”

“ Could he never do that again? Must he, when cured, remain for all the rest of his life the man conquered by the beast, the man eaten up by the beast, the man broken in the contest with the dragon-beast? ”

“ The beast tale is a very old form which was a story of some successful primitive hunt or of some primitive man's experience with animals in which he looked up to the beast as a brother superior to himself in strength, courage, endurance, swiftness, keen scent, vision, or cunning. ”

“ Did you desire so much?’ said Puck.
‘I desired to master The Beast. It is not right that The Beast should master man. But my people were afraid. Even, my Mother, the Priestess, was afraid when I told her what I desired. We were accustomed to be afraid of The Beast. When I was made a man, and a maiden—she was a Priestess—waited for me at the Dew-ponds, The Beast flitted from off the Chalk. ”

“ Then the man told him all; of his bootless journey to the distant seaport,—of how his eldest daughters had [Pg 25] desired jewels and gold raiment, and of Beauty’s wish for one white rose.
Silently, the Beast heard; then, drawing a deep breath, like a human sigh, he spake again very softly. “Merchant,” he said, “death is the price they pay who steal that without which life to me were one long death. But if life still to thee is sweet, thou must bring hither that young maid of whom thou spakest. ”

“ At these words Beauty imagined she saw the Unknown draw a dagger, and prepare to plunge it in the throat of the Monster, who made no attempt to defend himself, but, on the contrary, offered his neck to the blow with a submission and a calmness which caused the beautiful dreamer to fear the Unknown would accomplish his purpose before she could endeavour to prevent him, notwithstanding she had instantly risen to protect the Beast. ”

“ The beast advanced at the usual time for going to his watery abode, and the savages at once surrounded him on the plain; by firing arrows from all sides at once in rapid succession, the huge awkward beast knew not which man to set on first, and in its constant, fruitless, angry endeavours to reach the last assailant, he soon became exhausted, and was eventually overpowered. ”

“ And he seduced them that dwell on the earth, for the signs which were given him to do in the sight of the beast: saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make the image of the beast which had the wound by the sword and lived.
13:15. And it was given him to give life to the image of the beast: and that the image of the beast should speak: and should cause that whosoever will not adore the image of the beast should be slain.
13:16. And he shall make all, both little and great, rich and poor, freemen and bondmen, to have a character in their right hand or on their foreheads:
13:17. ”

“ But it is to the terrible character of its attack, to the fact that this is so frequently fatal, and to the awe-inspiring appearance of the beast as it comes on with dilated form and fire-darting eyes, that much of its reputation for more than ordinary ferocity is due. ”

“ The First Wild Beast, or the Spirit of Worldliness.—In the chapter of the Revelation which precedes the appearance of the beasts (Revelation xii, 12) the warning had been given, “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath.” We are now to witness the fulfillment of this warning. The apostle saw two wild beasts rise, one from the sea, the other from the land, both of them formidable foes and intense in their hostility to the kingdom of Christ. ”

“ The Beasts in the Apocalypse are the natural and fitting embodiment of brute force operating to control men in the sphere of religion. Some would prefer the translation of θηρίον as a “monster” rather than a “beast”,468 and perhaps, it is technically more accurate, but the long use of the term “beast” in this connection has made it familiar to our minds and also intelligible, for it is a beast in the bad sense that is intended, and to the average reader this term undoubtedly conveys the proper meaning. ”

“ To the savage mind, and even to the Chinese and the peasants of some European countries, the need of an explanation is satisfied by the myth that an evil beast is devouring the sun or the moon. The people even try by firing off guns, shrieking, and clashing cymbals, to frighten the beast (wolf, pig, dragon, or what not) from his prey. ”

“ The dragon is a monster serpent. “That old serpent” who seduced Eve (Gen. 3:5) , “called the devil” (Matt. 4:1-12) , and “Satan” (2 Cor. 2:11) , “who deceiveth the whole world,” is an appropriate representative of Rome.
The “head” of a beast, sustains a relation to the beast analogous to that of the government to the people of an empire. It is that by which the beast is directed and governed. When distinguished from the body of the beast (Dan. 7:11) , according to the analogy, it must be understood as a symbol of the directing and controlling power, in the kingdom indicated by the beast. ”

“ Forthwith like birds they fly, And through the wood they hie; The woeful beast they find, And him with cords they bind. One with a rope before Doth lead the captive Boar: Another on his back Doth make his bow to crack. The beast went wretchedly, For Venus horribly He feared; who thus him curst: "Of all the beasts the worst, Didst thou this thigh so wound? Didst thou my Love confound?" [Pg 140] The beast thus spake in fear "Venus, to thee I swear! By thee, and husband thine, And by these bands of mine, And by these hunters all, Thy husband fair and tall, I mindèd not to kill! ”

“ If any man worship the Beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb ”

“ The effect of this is, that the world renders homage really to the “dragon,” the source of this power, though in the form of adoration of the “beast,” ver. 4. That is, while the outward homage is rendered to the “beast,” the real worship is that of the “dragon,” or Satan. This beast is regarded as (1) incomparable—“Who is like unto the ‘beast?’” and (2) invincible—“Who is able to war with him?” ”

“ In part (no doubt) he is a divine being, born to follow the divine will; but in part he is an animal, born to follow animal propensity.” So far this agreed with Epictetus’s doctrine about the Beast. The Beast, at the beginning, tyrannizes over the divine Man, so that the human being may be said to be in sin—and indeed is in sin, as soon as he becomes conscious of the tyranny within him. “No lustral rites, no blood of bulls and goats,” the king seemed to say, “can purify this human heart of mine now that it has been tainted and corrupted by submitting to the Beast within me. ”

“ It proves that to the Rumanian peasant, there is no essential difference between man and beast. They are both treated alike, and even the Lady Mary knows no difference between them. She helps the beast in the same manner as she descends the “silver ladder” to help the man. And the evil spirits, who attack man and beast with the same virulence, are driven out by precisely the same method: charms and incantations. ”

“ The wild beast shall tear them; not only God will be as a lion and leopard to them, but the metaphor shall be fulfilled in the letter, for noisome beasts are one of the four sore judgments with which God will destroy a provoking people, Ezek. xiv. 15.
Now all this teaches us, 1. That abused goodness turns into the greater severity. Those who despise God and affront him, when he is to them as a careful tender shepherd, shall find he will be even to his own flock as the beasts of prey are. ”