A Handbook to the Works of Browning Part 10

"And what is all this preaching," resumes Bottinius, "but a way of courting fame? The inflation of it! and the spite! and the Molinism! As its first pleasant consequence, Gomez, who had intended to appeal from the absurd decision of the Court, declines to ask the lawyers for farther help.[29] There is an end of that job and its fee. Nevertheless, his 'blatant brother' shall soon see if law is as inadequate, and advocacy as impotent, as he fancies. Providence is this time in their favour. Pompilia was consigned to the 'Convert.i.te' (converted ones). She was therefore a sinner. Guido has been judged guilty: but there was no word as to the innocence of his wife. The sisterhood claims, therefore, the property which accrued to her through her parents' death, and which she has left in trust for her son. Who but himself--the Fisc--shall support the claim, and show the foul-mouthed friar that his dove was a raven after all." (He too can drive left and right horses on occasion.)

This he actually did. But once more the Pope intervened: and Mr.

Browning proceeds to give the literal substance of the "Instrument" of justification as it lies before him. In this, Pompilia's "perfect fame"

is restored, and her representative, Domenico Tighetti, secured against all molestations of her heir and his ward, which the Most Venerable Convent, etc. etc., may commit or threaten.

What became of that child, Gaetano, as he was called after the new-made saint? Did he live a true scion of the paternal stock, whose heraldic symbols Mr. Browning has described by Count Guido's mouth?--

"Or did he love his mother, the base-born, And fight i' the ranks, unnoticed by the world?" (vol. x. p. 277.)

This question Mr. Browning asks himself, but is unable to answer. He concludes his book by telling us its intended lesson, and explaining why he has chosen to present it in this artistic form. The lesson is that which we have already learned from his Pope's thoughts:--

"... our human speech is naught, Our human testimony false, our fame And human estimation words and wind." (vol. x. p. 277.)

Art, with its indirect processes, can alone raise up a living image of that truth which words distort in the stating.

And, lastly, he dedicates the completed work to the "Lyric Love," whose blessing on its performance he has invoked in a memorable pa.s.sage at the close of his introductory chapter.

TRANSCRIPTS FROM THE GREEK, WITH "ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES."

Another group of works detaches itself from any possible scheme of cla.s.sification: These are Mr. Browning's transcripts from the Greek.

The "Alkestis" of Euripides, imbedded in the dramatic romance called "Balaustion's Adventure." 1871.

The "Herakles" of Euripides, introduced into "Aristophanes' Apology."

1875.

The "Agamemnon" of aeschylus, published by itself. 1877.

They are even outside my subject because they are literal; and therefore show Mr. Browning as a scholar, but not otherwise as a poet than in the technical power and indirect poetic judgments involved in the work. All I need say about this is, that its literalness detracts in no way from the beauty and transparency of "Alkestis" or "Herakles," while it makes "Agamemnon" very hard to read; and that Mr. Browning has probably intended his readers to draw their own conclusion, which is so far his, as to the relative quality of the two great cla.s.sics. Some critics contend that a less literal translation of the "Agamemnon" would have been not only more pleasing, but more true; but Mr. Browning clearly thought otherwise. Had he not, he would certainly have given his author the benefit of the larger interpretation; and his princ.i.p.al motive for this indirect defence of Euripides would have disappeared.

Mr. Browning has also given us an original fragment in the cla.s.sic manner:--

"ARTEMIS PROLOGIZES." ("Men and Women,"[30] published in "Dramatic Lyrics," in 1842.) This was suggested by the "Hippolytos" of Euripides; and destined to become part of a larger poem, which should continue its story. For, according to the legend, Hippolytos having perished through the anger of Aphrodite (Venus), was revived by Artemis (Diana), though only to disappoint her affection by falling in love with one of her nymphs, Aricia. Mr. Browning imagines that she has removed him in secret to her own forest retreat, and is nursing him back to life by the help of Asclepios; and the poem is a monologue in which she describes what has pa.s.sed, from Phaedra's self-betrayal to the present time. Hippolytos still lies unconscious; but the power of the great healer has been brought to bear upon him, and the unconsciousness seems only that of sleep. Artemis is _awaiting the event_.

The ensuing chorus of nymphs, the awakening of Hippolytos, and with it the stir of the new pa.s.sion within him, had already taken shape in Mr.

Browning's mind. Unfortunately, something put the inspiration to flight, and it did not return.[31]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 21: The song professedly refers to Catherine Cornaro, the Venetian Queen of Cyprus, and is the only one in the poem that is based on any fact at all.]

[Footnote 22: This pamphlet has supplied Mr. Browning with some of his most curious facts. It fell into his hands in London.]

[Footnote 23: The first hour after sunset.]

[Footnote 24: "Villa" is often called "vineyard" or "vigna," on account of the vineyard attached to it.]

[Footnote 25: It is difficult to reconcile this explicit denial of Pompilia's statements with the belief in her implied in her merely nominal punishment: unless we look on it as part of the formal condemnation which circ.u.mstances seemed to exact.]

[Footnote 26: A letter written in this strain was also produced on the trial; and Pompilia owned to having written it, but only in the sense of writing over in ink what her husband had traced in pencil--being totally ignorant of its contents.]

[Footnote 27: Count Guido thought, or affected to think, that these had been thrown by Caponsacchi.]

[Footnote 28: The disciple of Michael de Molinos, not to be confounded with Louis Molina, who is especially known by his attempt to reconcile the theory of grace with that of free will. Molinos was the founder of an exaggerated Quietism. He held that the soul could detach itself from the body so as to become indifferent to its action, and therefore non-responsible for it; and it was natural that all who defied the received laws of conduct, or were suspected of doing so, should be stigmatized as his followers. Molinism was a favourite bugbear among the orthodox Romanists of Innocent the Twelfth's day.]

[Footnote 29: A pa.s.sing allusion is made to this Gomez case in one of the ma.n.u.script letters, the writer of which begs Cencini (clearly also an advocate), to send him the papers concerning it. The place it occupies in the thoughts of the two lawyers, as Mr. Browning depicts them, is very characteristic of the manner in which his imagination has embraced and vivified every detail of the situation.]

[Footnote 30: The poems to which I refer as now included in "Men and Women" will be found so in the editions of 1868 and 1888-9; though the redistribution made in 1863 has much curtailed their number.]

[Footnote 31: It was in this poem that Mr. Browning first adopted the plan of spelling Greek names in the Greek manner. He did so, as he tells us in the preface to his "Agamemnon," "innocently enough;" because the change commended itself to his own eye and ear. He has even a.s.sured his friends that if the innovation had been rationally opposed, or simply not accepted, he would probably himself have abandoned it. But when, years later, in "Balaustion's Adventure," the new spelling became the subject of attacks which all but ignored the existence of the work from any other point of view, the thought of yielding was no longer admissible. The majority of our best scholars now follow Mr. Browning's example.]

CLa.s.sIFIED GROUPS.

ARGUMENTATIVE POEMS. SPECIAL PLEADINGS.

The isolated monologues have a special significance, which is almost implied in their form, but is also distinct from it. Mr. Browning has made them the vehicle for most of the reasonings and reflections which make up so large a part of his imaginative life: whether presented in his own person, or, as is most often the case, in that of his men and women. As such, they are among those of his works which lend themselves to a rough kind of cla.s.sification; and may be called "argumentative."

They divide themselves into two cla.s.ses: those in which the speaker is defending a preconceived judgment, and an antagonist is implied; and those in which he is trying to form a judgment or to accept one: and the supposed listener, if there be such, is only a confidant. The first kind of argument or discussion is carried on--apparently--as much for victory as for truth; and employs the weapons of satire, or the tactics of special-pleading, as the case demands. The second is an often pathetic and always single-minded endeavour to get at the truth. Those monologues in which the human spirit is represented as communing with itself, contain some of Mr. Browning's n.o.blest dramatic work; but those in which the militant att.i.tude is more p.r.o.nounced throw the strongest light on what I have indicated as his distinctive intellectual quality: the rejection of all general and dogmatic points of view. His casuistic utterances are often only a vindication of the personal, and therefore indefinite quality of human truth; and their apparent trifling with it is often only the seeking after a larger truth, in which all seeming contradictions are resolved. It was inevitable, however, that this mental quality should play into the hands of his dramatic imagination, and be sometimes carried away by it; so that when he means to tell us what a given person under given circ.u.mstances would be justified in saying, he sometimes finds himself including in the statement something which the given person so situated would be only likely to say.

The first of these cla.s.ses, or groups, which we may distinguish as SPECIAL PLEADINGS, contains poems very different in length, and in literary character; and to avoid the appearance of confusion, I shall reverse the order of their publication, and place the most important first:--

"Aristophanes' Apology;[32] or The Last Adventure of Balaustion."

(1875.)

"Fifine at the Fair." (1872.)

"Prince Hohenstiel-Schw.a.n.gau, Saviour of Society." (1871.)

"Bishop Blougram's Apology" (Men and Women). (1855.)

"Mr. Sludge, the Medium." (Dramatis Personae.) (1864.)

"ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY" is, as its second t.i.tle shows, a sequel to "Balaustion's Adventure" (1871). Both turn on the historical fact that Euripides was reverenced far more by the non-Athenian Greeks than by the Athenians; and both contain a transcript from him. But the interest of "Aristophanes' Apology" is independent of its "Herakles," while that of "Balaustion's Adventure" is altogether bound up with its Alkestis; and in so far as the "adventure" places Balaustion herself before us, it will be best treated as an introduction to her appearance in the later and more important work.

Balaustion is a Rhodian girl, brought up in a worship for Euripides, which does not, however, exclude the appreciation of other great Greek poets. The Peloponnesian War has entered on its second stage. The Athenian fleet has been defeated at Syracuse. And Rhodes, resenting this disgrace, has determined to take part against Athens, and join the Peloponnesian league. But Balaustion will not forsake the mother-city, the life and light of her whole known world; and she persuades her kinsmen to migrate with her to it, and, with her, to share its fate.

They accordingly take ship at Kaunus, a Carian sea-port belonging to Rhodes. But the wind turns them from their course, and when it abates, they find themselves in strange waters, pursued by a pirate bark. They fly before it towards what they hope will prove a friendly sh.o.r.e--Balaustion heartening the rowers by a song from aeschylus, which was sung at the battle of Salamis--and run straight into the hostile harbour of Syracuse, where shelter is denied them.

The captain pleads in vain that they are Kaunians, subjects of Rhodes, and that Rhodes is henceforward on Sparta's side. "Kaunian the ship may be: but Athenians are on board. All Athens echoed in that song from aeschylus which has been ringing across the sea. The voyagers may retire unhurt. But if ten pirate ships were pursuing them, they should not bring those memories of Salamis to the Athenian captives whom the defeat of Nicias has left in Syracusan hands." The case is desperate. The Rhodians turn to go.

Suddenly a voice cries, "Wait. Do they know any verses from Euripides?"

"More than that, they answer, Balaustion can recite a whole play--that strangest, saddest, sweetest song--the 'Alkestis.' It does honour to Herakles, their G.o.d. Let them place her on the steps of their temple of Herakles, and she will recite it there." The Rhodians are brought in, amidst joyous loving laughter, among shouts of "Herakles" and "Euripides." The recital takes place;[33] it is repeated a second day and a third; and Balaustion and her kinsmen are dismissed with good words and wishes, for, as she declares: