Chapter 28

92. _A certain moment._ The moment between the fading of the sunset glory and the shutting down of evening darkness is here selected as the moment in which to appraise the work of the day. In the application of the simile to the life of man (lines 97-102) the "moment" apparently refers to old age when man has leisure and wisdom to appraise the Past.

102. _The Future._ The life of his "adventure brave and new" after death.

109-111. In "Old Pictures in Florence" Browning applies this idea to the development of art. As soon as men were content to repose in the perfection of Greek art (the thing "found made") stagnation ensued; the new life of art came when men strove for something new and original, even though their first attempts were crude ("acts uncouth").

120. _Nor let thee feel alone._ The solitude of age gives a chance for unhampered thought.

133-150. One of the things he has learned is that any judgment to be fair must take into account instincts, efforts, desires, as well as accomplishment.

151-186. This metaphor of the wheel is found in _Isaiah_ lxiv, 8; _Jeremiah_ xviii, 2-6; _Romans_ ix, 21. Throughout this metaphor as Browning uses it, man seems to be "passive clay" in the hands of the potter, and under the power of the "machinery" the potter uses to give the soul its bent. The tone of the whole poem is, however, one of strenuous endeavor. Ardor, effort, progress, are the keynotes of life from youth to age. But life is finally counted a divine training for the service of God, and in this training the pious Rabbi sees joined the will of man and the care and guidance of God.

157. _All that is_, etc. Cf. "Abt Vogler," ll. 69-80.

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS

The idea of this poem was evolved from Shakspere's Caliban, a strange, misshapen, fish-like being, one of the servants of Prospero in _The Tempest_. He was the son of a foul witch who had potent ministers and could control moon and tides, but could not undo her own hateful sorceries, and who worshiped a god called Setebos. Morally, Shakspere's Caliban was insensible to kindness, had bestial passions, was cowardly, vengeful, superstitious. He had keen animal instincts and knew the island well. He understood Prospero in some measure; learned to talk, to know the stars, to compose poetry, and took pleasure in music.

_Thou thoughtest_, etc. A quotation from _Psalms_ 1, 21. This sentence is the keynote of Caliban's theological speculations.

1. _Will_. For "he will" instead of "I will." Through most of the poem Caliban speaks of himself in the third person as a child does. But note lines 68-97, where Caliban rises to unusual mental heights under the stimulus of the gourd-fruit-mash and uses the first person. How is it in ll. 100-108, 135-136, 160?

1-23. This portion of Caliban's soliloquy and the portion in lines 284-295 give the setting for his speculations. The hot, still summer day creates a mood in which Caliban's ideas flow out easily into speech. The thunderstorm at the end abruptly calls him back from his speculations to his normal state of subservience and superstitious fear.

24. _Setebos._ The god of the Patagonians. When the natives were taken prisoners by Magellan, they "cryed upon their devil Setebos to help them." Eden, _History of Travaile_.

25. _He._ The pronoun of the third person when referring to Setebos is capitalized.

31. _It came of being ill at ease._ Each step in Caliban's reasoning proceeds from some personal experience or observation. In this case he reasons from the fish to Setebos. Caliban attributes to Setebos unlimited power to create and control in whatever is comparatively near at hand and changeable. But Caliban had been affected by the mystery of the starry heavens. The remoteness and fixedness of the stars had suggested a quiet, unalterable, passionless force beyond Setebos, who must, therefore, have limitations. He did not make the stars (l. 27), he cannot create a mate like himself (ll. 57-8), he cannot change his nature so as to be like the Quiet above him (ll. 144-5). Hence, like the fish, Setebos had a dissatisfied consciousness of a bliss he was not born for. Discontent with himself, spite, envy, restlessness, love of power as a means of distraction, are the motives that, according to Caliban's reasoning, actuated Setebos in his creation of the world.

45. _The fowls here, beast and creeping thing._ Browning's remarkably minute and accurate knowledge of small animals is well illustrated by this poem. For further illustration see _Saul_, the last soliloquy in _Pippa Passes_, and the lyric "Thus the Mayne glideth."

75. _Put case_, etc. In determining the natural attitude of Setebos toward his creations, the formula Caliban uses is, Caliban plus power equals Setebos. The illustration from the bird (ll. 75-97) shows cruelty, and unreasoning, capricious exercise of power. The caprice of Setebos is further emphasized in ll. 100-108.

117. _Hath cut a pipe._ In his attitude toward his creatures Setebos is envious of all human worth or happiness if it is for a moment unconscious of absolute dependence on him.

150. _Himself peeped late_, etc. As Caliban gets some poor solace out of imitating Prospero, so one reason for Setebos's creation of the world was a half-scornful attempt to delude himself into apparent content. His imitations, his "make believes," are the unwilling homage his weakness pays to the power of the Quiet.

170-184. The weaknesses of all living beings were special devices whereby Setebos could, through need and fear, torture and rule.

185-199. Setebos worked also out of pure ennui. He liked the exercise of power, he liked to use his "wit," and he needed distraction.

200-210. Setebos hates and favors human beings without discoverable reason.

211-285. It is impossible to discover a way to please Setebos. His favor goes by caprice as does Caliban's with the daring squirrel and the terrified urchin, who please one day, and, doing the same things the next, would bring down vengeance. The only philosophy at which Caliban can arrive is that it is best not to be too happy. Simulated misery is more likely to escape than any show of happiness.

MAY AND DEATH

In memory of Browning's cousin, James Silverthorne, the "Charles" of the poem. The "one plant" of the last two stanzas is supposed to be the _Spotted Persicaria_, "a common weed with purple stains upon its rather large leaves." According to popular tradition this plant grew beneath the Cross, and the stains were made by drops of blood from the Savior's wounds. (Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_, page 268, quoting from Rev. H. Friend, _Flowers and Flower Lore_.)

PROSPICE

"Prospice" ("Look forward") was written in the autumn following Mrs. Browning's death. "It ends with the expression of his triumphant certainty of meeting her, and breaks forth at last into so great a cry of pure passion that ear and heart alike rejoice. Browning at his best, Browning in the central fire of his character, is in it." (Brooke, _The Poetry of Browning_, page 251.)

A FACE

"No poem in the volume of _Dramatis Personae_ is connected with pictorial art, unless it be the few lines entitled 'A Face,' lines of which Emily Patmore, the poet's wife, was the subject, and written, as Browning seldom wrote, for the mere record of beauty. That 'little head of hers' is transferred to Browning's panel in the manner of an early Tuscan piece of ideal loveliness." (Dowden, _Life of Browning_.)

14. _Correggio._ A famous Italian painter of the Lombard school. These lines well describe his style.

O LYRIC LOVE

These are the closing lines of the first book of _The Ring and the Book_. The passage is generally and probably rightly interpreted as an invocation to the spirit of his wife.

A WALL

This poem was written and printed as the Prologue to _Pacchiarotto and How he Worked in Distemper_, published in 1876. It was, however, given the title "A Wall" when published in 1880 in _Selections from Robert Browning's Poems, Second Series_. The last two stanzas express one of the fundamental ideas of Browning's poetry. Under the figure of the wall with its pulsating robe of vines and the eagerness of the lover to penetrate to the life within the house, he sets forth his thought of the barrier between himself and a longed-for future life in heaven. The "forth to thee" is to be interpreted as referring to his wife.

HOUSE AND SHOP

Three of Browning's poems, "At the Mermaid," "House," and "Shop," refer with more or less explicitness to Shakspere. The last stanza in "House" contains a quotation from Wordsworth's "Scorn not the Sonnet" to the effect that in his sonnets Shakspere revealed the most intimate facts of his life. "At the Mermaid" and "House" both combat this idea. In "At the Mermaid" Browning in the person of Shakspere says:

"Which of you did I enable Once to slip within my breast, There to catalogue and label What I like least, what love best, Hope and fear, believe and doubt of, Seek and shun, respect--deride? Who has right to make a rout of Rarities he found inside?"

As applied to Browning the poems represent the indignation with which he regarded such personal revelations, such utterance of sighs and groans, as characterized Byron (the "Last King" of "At the Mermaid"); but they overstate the impersonal nature of Browning's own work which is frequently a very direct statement of his own emotions and views, while even from his dramatic work it is not difficult to find his "hopes and fears, beliefs and doubts." In stanzas 10-12 of "At the Mermaid," for example, just after he has protested against "leaving bosom's gate ajar," he fully sets forth the joy, the optimism, of his own outlook on life. "Shop" is an indirect protest against the assumption that Shakspere wrote mainly for money, caring merely for the material success of his work. (See _Poet-Lore_, Vol. III, pp. 216-221, April, 1889, for Browning's tribute to Shakspere.) More directly the poem represents the starved life of the man whom "shop," the business necessary to earn a living, occupies "each day and all day long" with no spirit-life behind.

HERVE RIEL

This poem was written during Browning's second visit to Le Croisic in Brittany, in September, 1867. It was published in _The Cornhill Magazine_, March, 1871, the proceeds of one hundred guineas being sent by Browning to the Paris Relief Fund, to provide food for the people after the siege of Paris. The story is historic. Mrs. Lemoyne, in 1884, read "Herve Riel" to Browning and he then told her that it was his custom to learn all about the heroes and legends of any town that he stopped in and that he had thus, in going over the records of the town of St. Malo, come upon the story of Herve Riel, which he narrated just as it happened in 1692, except that in reality the hero had a life holiday. "The facts of the story had been forgotten, and were denied at St. Malo; but the reports of the French Admiralty were looked up, and the facts established." (Dr. Furnivall quoted in Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_.)

"GOOD TO FORGIVE"

This little poem was written and printed as the Prologue to _La Saisiaz_ in 1878, but in the _Selections_ it appeared as No. 3 of "Pisgah-Sights."

"SUCH A STARVED BANK OF MOSS"

Prefatory stanzas to _The Two Poets of Croisic_.

EPILOGUE TO THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

This fate of the musician and the cricket has the same fundamental idea as the prefatory stanzas, the power of love to soften what is gruff and brighten what is somber in life.

64. _Music's son._ Goethe. The "Lotte" of the next line, the heroine of Goethe's _Sorrows of Werther_, was modeled in part on Charlotte Buff, with whom Goethe was at one time in love.

PHEIDIPPIDES

[Greek: Chairete, nikomen.] Rejoice we conquer!

2. _Daemons._ In Greek mythology a superior order of beings between men and the gods.

4. _Her of the aegis and spear._ Athena, whose aegis was a scaly cloak or mantle bordered with serpents and bearing Medusa's head.

5. _Ye of the bow and the buskin._ Artemis or Diana, the huntress. Ancient statues represent her as wearing shoes laced to the ankle.

8. _Pan._ The god of nature, half goat and half man. To him was ascribed the power of causing sudden fright by his voice and appearance. He came suddenly into the midst of the Persians on the field of Marathon--so the legend runs--and threw them into such a "panic" that, for this reason, they lost the battle.

9. _Archons of Athens, topped by the tettix._ _Archon._ One of the nine rulers of Athens. _Tettix._ A grasshopper. "The Athenians sometimes wore golden grasshoppers in their hair as badges of honor, because these insects are supposed to spring from the ground, and thus they showed they were sprung from the original inhabitants of the country." (Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_, p. 336.)

12. _Reach Sparta for aid._ The distance between Athens and Sparta is about 135 miles.

18. _Persia bids Athens proffer slaves'-tribute, water and earth._ The Persians sent to those states which they wished to subject, messengers who were to ask earth and water as symbols of submission.

19. _Eretria._ An important city on the island of Euboea.

20. _Hellas._ Greece.

38. _The moon, half-orbed._ Spartan troops finally came to Athens after the full moon.

47. _Filleted victim._ A victim whose head was decked with ribbons.

52. _Parnes._ Herodotus refers in this connection to the Parthenian mountain.

62. _Erebos._ Hades, the abode of shades or departed spirits.

83. _Fennel._ The Greek word Marathon means fennel.

89. _Miltiades._ One of the ten Athenian generals.

105. _Unforeseeing one._ The poet finishes the story, which he has hitherto allowed Pheidippides to tell for himself.

105. _Marathon day._ In the month of September, B. C. 490.

106. _Akropolis._ The stronghold of Athens.

MULEYKEH

The love of the Arab for his horse is traditional. "The story is a common one and seems adapted from a Bedouin's anecdote told in Rollo Springfield's _The Horse and His Rider_." (Berdoe, _Browning Cyclopaedia_, p. 280.)

WANTING IS--WHAT?

This poem is in the nature of a prelude to the group of poems published under the title _Jocoseria_, 1883. Each poem in this volume shows the lack of some element that would have brought the human action or experience to perfection.

8. _Comer._ The invocation probably refers to the spirit of love with its inspiring, transforming power.

"NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE"

This poem was published in _Jocoseria_ in 1883. It is doubtless to be grouped with the poems that refer directly to Mrs. Browning.

THE PATRIOT

Browning says that this poem has no direct historical reference. He calls it "An Old Story," because in all ages men have experienced this unjust reversal of public approval. The poem is merely an imaginative, dramatic representation of the fickleness of popular favor.

INSTANS TYRANNUS

The title of this poem means "Threatening Tyrant." It comes from Horace's "Ode on the Just Man," in _Odes_, III, 3, i. The just man is not frightened by the frown of the threatening tyrant--_non vullus instantis tyranni_. Archdeacon Farrar refers the incidents to persecution of the early Christians. The poem certainly deals with some period when the ruler of a great realm had unlimited power to follow out his most insignificant animosities, and when just men and just causes had no human recourse.

The general idea of the poem is clear and forcible, but there are many minor difficulties of interpretation.

6. _What was his force?_ An ironic question. The man groveled because he was powerless to resist, and (line 10) because resistance might bring even worse punishment.

11. _Were the object_, etc. If the man could be made rich, if his life could be crowded with pleasures, if there could be found relatives or friends whom he loved, then there would be obvious ways of hurting him, he would stand forth in sufficient importance to make the swing of the tyrant's hand effective. But as it is, the man's poverty and friendlessness and meagerness of life render it difficult to find out vulnerable points of attack. He remains hidden (_perdue_) and, like the midge of the egg of an insect (_nit_), is safe through his very insignificance.

21. _spilth._ That which is poured out profusely. The _flagon_ is a vessel with one handle and a long narrow neck or spout.

35. _Then a humor_, etc. The tyrant goes through various changes of mood in his attitude toward his enemy. In lines 35-43 he feels a moment of contemptuous compunction at the man's suffering, and recognizes the absurdity of a contest between a great king and a person as insignificant as a tricksy elf, a toad, or a rat. But in line 44 his mood turns. He perceives that the burden (_gravamen_) of the whole matter lies in the incredibly petty nature of this unconquerable, baffling opposition to his will. He sees how the situation would awaken the wonder of the great lords who abjectly obey his lightest word, but he concludes that, after all, the small becomes great if it vexes you.

53. _I soberly_, etc. Even the tyrant sees a kind of grotesque humor as he narrates first the elaborate plans to entrap and crush so seemingly powerless a foe, and then the striking reversal of position when the man proves to have God on his side, and the tyrant becomes the one to cower in fear.

THE ITALIAN IN ENGLAND

At the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, Lombardy and Venetia were assigned to Austria. Most of the inhabitants submitted to the foreign rule, but there were always small bands of patriots who stirred up revolutions against Austria. The chief revolution was that led by Mazzini in 1848, and when he was in exile he read this poem with much appreciation. In _Pippa Passes_ (1840), in the story of Luigi and the Austrian police, Browning had already given a picture based on Italy's struggle for freedom. In 1844 he visited Italy and then wrote "The Italian in England," which appeared in 1845. This poem does not represent a definite historic incident, but such a one as might have occurred in the life of some Italian patriot. For a similar feeling towards Italian independence see Mrs. Browning's _Casa Guidi Windows_ (written 1848-1851). For earlier poems see Byron's "Ode" beginning "O Venice, Venice, when thy marble walls," Shelley's "Lines Written Among the Euganean Hills," and the following sonnet by Wordsworth:

"Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; And was the safeguard of the west: the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest Child of Liberty. She was a maiden City, bright and free; No guile seduced, no force could violate; And, when she took unto herself a Mate, She must espouse the everlasting Sea. And what if she had seen those glories fade, Those titles vanish, and that strength decay; Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid When her long life hath reached its final day: Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade Of that which once was great, is passed away."

8. _Charles._ Carlo Alberto, King of Sardinia. He had used severe measures against "Young Italy," the party founded by Mazzini.

19. _Metternich._ A noted Austrian diplomat and one of the most powerful enemies of Italian freedom.

75. _Duomo._ The most famous church in Padua.

78. _Tenebrae._ _Darkness._ A religious service commemorative of the crucifixion. Fifteen lighted candles are put out one at a time, symbolizing the growing darkness of the world up to the time of the crucifixion.

"ROUND US THE WILD CREATURES"

The first interlude in _Ferishtah's Fancies_. These interludes are love lyrics which follow the separate Fables and Fancies of the Persian Dervish Ferishtah, and state in terms of the affections the truth embodied in didactic or philosophical fashion in the fables. In the first fable, "The Eagle," the Dervish observes an eagle feeding some deserted ravens. His first inference is that men will be cared for as the ravens, without effort of their own; later he sees that men should be as eagles and provide for the weak. The Dervish at once seeks the largest sphere of human usefulness with the words

"And since men congregate In towns, not woods--to Ispahan forthwith!"

The lyric protests against the temptation to self-centered seclusion on the part of those who are entirely satisfied in each other's love.

PROLOGUE TO ASOLANDO

The volume of poems entitled _Asolando_ was, by a strange chance, published on the day of Browning's death. Most of these poems were written in 1888-1889. The book was dedicated to Mrs. Arthur Bronson. The "Prologue" should be compared with Wordsworth's "Ode on Intimations of Immortality."

13. _Chrysopras._ The ruby and the emerald of this passage stand for rich red and green. The chrysopras is also green (an apple green variety of Chalcedony), but the first part of the word is from the Greek [Greek: chrysos], "gold," and that may be the color intended here.

SUMMUM BONUM

The title means, The Chief Good. The poem came out in _Asolando_ in 1889.

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO

In the _Pall Mall Gazette_, Feb. 1, 1890 the following incident is given concerning the third stanza of this poem:

"One evening just before his death illness, the poet was reading this from a proof to his daughter-in-law and sister. He said: 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it; but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand.'"

Compare this poem and Tennyson's "Crossing the Bar."

PIPPA PASSES

Mrs. Sutherland Orr writes that while Browning was one day strolling through Dulwich Wood "the image flashed upon him of someone walking ... alone through life; one apparently too obscure to leave a trace of his or her passage, yet exercising a lasting though unconscious influence at every step of it; and the image shaped itself into the little silk-winder of Asolo, Felippa, or Pippa."

INTRODUCTION

_Asolo in the Trevisan._ Asolo, a fortified medieval town at the foot of a hill surmounted by the ruins of a castle, and situated in the center of the silk-growing and silk-spinning industries, is in the province of Treviso about thirty-three miles northwest of Venice.

62. _Monsignor._ A title conferred upon prelates in the Roman Catholic church. This Monsignor is the chief personage in Part III, or _Night_.

88. _Martagon._ A kind of lily with light purplish flowers. The common name is Turk's Cap. Perhaps that suggested to Browning his comparison to the round bunch of flesh on the head of a Turk bird, or turkey.

131. _Possagno church._ Designed by Canova, who was born at Possagno, an obscure village near Asolo.

181. _The Dome._ The Duomo, or Cathedral, in the center of the town. The palace of the Bishop's brother is close by.

MORNING

28. _St. Mark's._ There is an extensive view from Asolo. Venice, with its cupolas and steeples, is seen to the east. Ottima detects the belfry of the Church of St. Mark. The towns of Vicenza and Padua are also discernible.

59. _The Capuchin._ A branch of the Franciscan order of monks. Their habit is brown.

170. _Campanula chalice._ The flower of any one of a large genus of flowers with bell-shaped corollas.

INTERLUDE I

27. _El canibus nostris._ Virgil, _Eclogues_ iii, 67. "_Notior ut jam sit canibus non Delia nostris_"--"So that now not Delia's self is more familiar to our dogs." The boy Giovacchino of whose poetry they are making fun evidently had ideals not in harmony with the ways of these Venetian art students. These "dissolute, brutalized, heartless bunglers," as Jules calls them, attack with quick, clever, merciless tongues whatever savors of idealism, aspiration, purity. Their revenge for the scornful superiority manifested towards them by Jules is to secure, by a well-managed trick, a marriage between him and a paid model.