George Eliot – The Legend of Tubal-cain

This passage from George Eliot’s epic poem describes the father of industry, Tubal-Cain.  Along with his brothers, Jubal, the father of music, and Jabal, the father of animal husbandry, he is a direct descendant of Cain. (Eliot’s touching description of Jabal’s trade was posted here in February of 2017.) Tubal-cain  is mentioned in passing in Genesis, along with his brothers Jubal and Jabal, as follows:

“And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron:”

Genesis 4:20 – 4:22

Eliot goes farther.  She portrays Tubal-cain as the source of technological civilization,

“Glad voices of the hearth and harvest-home,
The social good, and all earth’s joy to come”

but also as maniacal and obsessive. In another facet, she makes a connection between money and evil; also to the fear of death, which had newly been visited on a race of immortals as universal punishment for Cain’s fratricide. 

In Eliot’s words:]

But Tubal-cain had caught and yoked the fire,
Yoked it with stones that bent the flaming spire
And made it roar in prisoned servitude
Within the furnace, till with force subdued
It changed all forms he willed to work upon,
Till hard from soft, and soft from hard, he won.
The pliant clay he moulded as he would,
And laughed with joy when ‘mid the heat it stood
Shaped as his hand had chosen, while the mass
That from his hold, dark, obstinate, would pass,
He drew all glowing from the busy heat,
All breathing as with life that he could beat
With thundering hammer, making it obey
His will creative, like the pale soft clay.

Each day he wrought and better than he planned,
Shape breeding shape beneath his restless hand.
(The soul without still helps the soul within,
And its deft magic ends what we begin.)
Nay, in his dreams his hammer he would wield
And seem to see a myriad types revealed,
Then spring with wondering triumphant cry,
And, lest the inspiring vision should go by,
Would rush to labor with that plastic zeal
Which all the passion of our life can steal
For force to work with. Each day saw the birth
Of various forms, which, flung upon the earth,
Seemed harmless toys to cheat the exacting hour,
But were as seeds instinct with hidden power.
The axe, the club, the spiked wheel, the chain,
Held silently the shrieks and moans of pain;
And near them latent lay in share and spade,
In the strong bar, the saw, and deep-curved blade,
Glad voices of the hearth and harvest-home,
The social good, and all earth’s joy to come.

Thus to mixed ends wrought Tubal; and they say,
Some things he made have lasted to this day;
As, thirty silver pieces that were found
By Noah’s children buried in the ground.
He made them from mere hunger of device,
Those small white discs; but they became the price
The traitor Judas sold his Master for;
And men still handling them in peace and war
Catch foul disease, that comes as appetite,
And lurks and clings as withering, damning blight.
But Tubal-cain wot not of treachery,
Nor greedy lust, nor any ill to be,
Save the one ill of sinking into nought,
Banished from action and act-shaping thought.
He was the sire of swift-transforming skill,
Which arms for conquest man’s ambitious will;
And round him gladly, as his hammer rung,
Gathered the elders and the growing young:
These handled vaguely, and those plied the tools,
Till, happy chance begetting conscious rules,
The home of Cain with industry was rife,
And glimpses of a strong persistent life,
Panting through generations as one breath,
And filling with its soul the blank of death.