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First page of the story with its original title in The Saturday Evening Post (1937)

"By the Waters of Babylon" is a post-apocalyptic short story by Stephen Vincent Benét first published July 31, 1937, in The Saturday Evening Post as "The Place of the Gods".¹ It was republished in 1943 in The Pocket Book of Science Fiction,²

John tells the tale of his exploration of the forbidden "Place of the Gods" in a world that has nearly forgotten the existence of 20th century civilization. John is the son of a priest of a tribe of hunters, heirs to a global catastrophe, whose curiosity takes him on a journey of discovery and search for truth about his civilized ancestors.

Plot summary

Set in a future following the destruction of industrial civilization, the story is narrated by a young man³ named John who is the son of a priest. The priests of John’s people are inquisitive "scientists" associated with the divine. They are the only ones who can handle metal collected from the homes (called the "Dead Places") of long-dead people whom they believe to be gods. The plot follows John’s self-assigned mission to get to the Place of the Gods. His father allows him to go on a spiritual journey, but does not know he is going to this forbidden place.

John takes a journey through the forest for eight days, and crosses the river Ou-dis-sun. Once John gets to the Place of the Gods, he feels the energy and magic there. He sees a statue of a "god" — in point of fact, a human — that says "ASHING" on its base. He also sees a building marked "UBTREAS". After being chased by dogs and sleeping in someone's apartment, John sees a dead god. Upon viewing the visage, he has an epiphany that the gods were simply humans whose power overwhelmed good judgment. After John returns to his tribe, he speaks of the places "newyork" and "Biltmore". His father tells him not to, for sometimes too much truth is a bad thing, that it must be told little by little. The story ends with John stating his conviction that, once he becomes the head priest, "We must build again."

References made

Cover of the play adaptation by Brainerd Duffield (1970)

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008)

• "The Great Burning" refers to the day a bomb was detonated in New York City.⁴
• The "great river" "Ou-dis-sun" is the Hudson River.⁵

The title quotes Psalm 137. The psalm tells of the Israelites's great sorrow over the destruction of their Temple in Jerusalem and their enslavement in the land of Babylon.

UBTREAS is part of SUBTREASURY, the statue of the God ASHING is part of WASHINGTON. The Bitter Waters that John speaks of is the Atlantic Ocean, because it is salty and bitter.

He also goes to the great Dead Place and learns that the ground does not burn.

See also

• List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction

Notes

1. ^ The term post-apocalyptic paraphrases Izzo.[1]
   Date of publication is from BENÉT, STEPHEN VINCENT in Miscellaneous Story Anthologies
   Benét changed the title when selecting works for Thirteen O'Clock. (Fenton, 1958)
2. ^ Book Information: Pocket Book of Science Fiction, the. Donald A. Wollheim, ed. (1943). Steven Jeffery / IBList.com, 2007
3. ^ Wagar, p. 163, who also calls him a "young savage" (p. 25). Macdonald, p. 267-268, which also calls him a "young brave". In the play adaptation, he appears as a young man and, in a non-speaking part, as a boy. (Duffield, 1971)
4. ^ Macdonald, p. 267-268.
5. ^ Source is Izzo, who also notes that Benét wrote other stories and poems in response to the threat of Fascism in the 1930s.

References

• Benét, Stephen Vincent; Henry C. Pitz (illus.) (July 31, 1937). "THE PLACE OF THE GODS". Saturday Evening Post 210 (5): 10–11, 59–60 (4p). 
• Benét, Stephen Vincent (c1937 repr. 1971). Thirteen O'Clock: Stories of Several Worlds. Ayer Co Pub. ISBN 0836937937. 
• Duffield, Brainerd; Stephen Vincent Benét (1971). Stephen Vincent Benet's By the waters of Babylon; a play in one act. Chicago: Dramatic Pub. Co.. (WorldCat) (preview)
• Fenton, Charles A. (1958 repr. 1978). Stephen Vincent Benet: The Life and Times of an American Man of Letters, 1898-1943. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313202001. 
• Izzo, David Garrett. "Stephen Vincent Benét (1898-1943)". The Literary Encyclopedia. Retrieved on 2007-06-20. (about the author)
• Macdonald, Andrew, Gina Macdonald, and MaryAnn Sheridan. (2000). Shape-shifting: images of Native Americans in recent popular fiction. Contributions to the study of popular culture, no. 71. Westport, Conn, Greenwood Press. ISBN 031330842X.
• Wagar, W. Warren (1982). Terminal Visions: The Literature of Last Things. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0253358477. 

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• This page was last modified on 8 January 2009, at 04:29.

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