An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry Part 44

Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs {120} --Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, And leave me in my church, the church for peace, That I may watch at leisure if he leers-- Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone, As still he envied me, so fair she was!

-- 1. Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!: "The Bishop on his death-bed has reached Solomon's conclusion that 'all is vanity'. So he proceeds to specify his particular vanity in the choice of a tombstone."

--N. Brit. Rev. 34, p. 367. "In 'The Palace of Art', Mr. Tennyson has shown the despair and isolation of a soul surrounded by all luxuries of beauty, and living in and for them; but in the end the soul is redeemed and converted to the simple humanities of earth.

Mr. Browning has shown that such a sense of isolation and such despair are by no means inevitable; there is a death in life which consists in tranquil satisfaction, a calm pride in the soul's dwelling among the world's gathered treasures of stateliness and beauty. . . .

So the unbelieving and worldly spirit of the dying Bishop, who orders his tomb at Saint Praxed's, his sense of the vanity of the world simply because the world is pa.s.sing out of his reach, the regretful memory of the pleasures of his youth, the envious spite towards Gandolf, who robbed him of the best position for a tomb, and the dread lest his reputed sons should play him false and fail to carry out his designs, are united with a perfect appreciation of Renaissance art, and a luxurious satisfaction, which even a death-bed cannot destroy, in the splendor of voluptuous form and color."

--Edward Dowden.

46. Frascati: a town of central Italy, near the site of the ancient Tusculum, ten or twelve miles S. E. of Rome; it has many fine old villas.

53. Did I say, basalt for my slab, sons?: Note how all things else, even such reflections as are expressed in the two preceding verses, are incidental with the Bishop; his poor, art-besotted mind turns abruptly to the black basalt which he craves for the slab of his tomb; and see vv. 101, 102.

66. travertine: see note to v. 67 of 'Pictor Ignotus'.

71. pistachio-nut: or, green almond.

79. Ulpian: Domitius Ulpia.n.u.s, one of the greatest of Roman jurists, and chief adviser of the emperor, Alexander Severus; born about 170, died 228; belongs to the Brazen age of Roman literature.

95. Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount: the poor dying Bishop, in the disorder of his mind, makes a 'lapsus linguae' here; see v. 59.

99. elucescebat: "he was beginning to shine forth"; a late Latin word not found in the Ciceronian vocabulary, and therefore condemned by the Bishop; this word is, perhaps, what is meant by the "gaudy ware"

in the second line of Gandolf's epitaph, referred to in v. 78.

A Toccata of Galuppi's.

1.

Oh Galuppi, Balda.s.saro, this is very sad to find!

I can hardly misconceive you; it would prove me deaf and blind; But, although I take your meaning, 'tis with such a heavy mind!

-- St. 1. Galuppi, Balda.s.saro (rather Balda.s.sare): b. 1703, in Burano, an island near Venice, and thence called Buranello; d. 1785; a distinguished composer, whose operas, about fifty in number, and mostly comic, were at one time the most popular in Italy; Galuppi is regarded as the father of the Italian comic opera.

2.

Here you come with your old music, and here's all the good it brings.

What, they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the kings, Where Saint Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

-- St. 2. Saint Mark's: see Ruskin's description of this glorious basilica, in 'The Stones of Venice'.

3.

Ay, because the sea's the street there; and 'tis arched by. . .

what you call . . .Shylock's bridge with houses on it, where they kept the carnival: I was never out of England--it's as if I saw it all.

4.

Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May?

b.a.l.l.s and masks begun at midnight, burning ever to mid-day, When they made up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say?

5.

Was a lady such a lady, cheeks so round and lips so red,-- On her neck the small face buoyant, like a bell-flower on its bed, O'er the breast's superb abundance where a man might base his head?

6.

Well, and it was graceful of them: they'd break talk off and afford --She, to bite her mask's black velvet, he, to finger on his sword, While you sat and played Toccatas, stately at the clavichord?

-- St. 6. Toccatas: the Toccata was a form of musical composition for the organ or harpsichord, somewhat in the free and brilliant style of the modern fantasia or capriccio; clavichord: "a keyed stringed instrument, now superseded by the pianoforte {now called a piano}."--Webster.

7.

What? Those lesser thirds so plaintive, sixths diminished, sigh on sigh, Told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions--"Must we die?"

Those commiserating sevenths--"Life might last! we can but try!"

-- St. 7. The musical technicalities used in this stanza, any musician can explain and ill.u.s.trate.

8.

"Were you happy?"--"Yes."--"And are you still as happy?"--"Yes.

And you?"

--"Then, more kisses!"--"Did I stop them, when a million seemed so few?"

Hark, the dominant's persistence till it must be answered to!

-- St. 8. The questions in this stanza must be supposed to be caused by the effect upon the revellers of the "plaintive lesser thirds", the "diminished sixths", the "commiserating sevenths", etc., of the preceding stanza.

9.

So, an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say!

"Brave Galuppi! that was music! good alike at grave and gay!

I can always leave off talking when I hear a master play!"

10.

Then they left you for their pleasure: till in due time, one by one, Some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, Death stepped tacitly, and took them where they never see the sun.