Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 35

Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!

Let me sit all the day here, that when eve Shall find performed thy special ministry, And time come for departure, thou, suspending Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending, Another still, to quiet and retrieve.

II

Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more, From where thou standest now, to where I gaze, --And suddenly my head is covered o'er With those wings, white above the child who prays Now on that tomb--and I shall feel thee guarding Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.

III

I would not look up thither past thy head Because the door opes, like that child, I know, For I should have thy gracious face instead, Thou bird of G.o.d! And wilt thou bend me low Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together, And lift them up to pray, and gently tether Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?

IV

If this was ever granted, I would rest My head beneath thine, while thy healing hands Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast, Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands, Back to its proper size again, and smoothing Distortion down till every nerve had soothing, And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.

V

How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!

I think how I should view the earth and skies And sea, when once again my brow was bared After thy healing, with such different eyes.

O world, as G.o.d has made it! All is beauty: And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.

What further may be sought for or declared?

VI

Guercino drew this angel I saw teach (Alfred, dear friend!)--that little child to pray, Holding the little hands up, each to each Pressed gently,--with his own head turned away Over the earth where so much lay before him Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him, And he was left at Fano by the beach.

VII

We were at Fano, and three times we went To sit and see him in his chapel there, And drink his beauty to our soul's content --My angel with me too: and since I care For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power And glory comes this picture for a dower, Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)--

VIII

And since he did not work thus earnestly At all times, and has else endured some wrong-- I took one thought his picture struck from me, And spread it out, translating it to song.

My love is here. Where are you, dear old friend?

How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?

This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.

The three poems, _Caliban on Setebos, Rabbi Ben Ezra_, and _A Death in the Desert_, should be read in that order; for there is a logical order in the thought. The first is G.o.d as an amphibious brute would imagine him: the second is n.o.ble Hebrew theism: the third is the Christian G.o.d of Love. Whilst the second is the finest poem of the three, the first is the most original. The word "upon" is ironical: it is Caliban's treatise on theology. We read Caliban on G.o.d, as we read Mill on Political Economy: for Caliban, like many a human theologian, does not scruple to speak the last word on the nature of the Supreme Being. The citation from the Psalms is a rebuke to gross anthropomorphism: Caliban, like the Puritans, has simply made G.o.d in his own image.

The difference between Shakespeare's and Browning's Caliban is simply the difference between Shakespeare and Browning. Shakespeare made the monster for decorative purposes, to satisfy his love of the grotesque, as an architect placed gargoyles on a cathedral: the grotesque is an organic part of romantic art. Browning is interested not in Caliban's appearance, but in his processes of thought.

Suppose a monster, half fish, half beast, living with supreme comfort in the slime, could think: what kind of G.o.d would he imagine had created this world?

Caliban speaks in the third person (does Browning make a slip when he changes occasionally to the first?) in order to have indicated the low order of his intelligence; just as a little child says, "Don't hurt her: she hasn't done anything wrong." He is lying in liquid refuse, with little lizards deliciously tickling his spine (such things are entirely a matter of taste, what would be odious to us would be heaven to a sow) and having nothing to do for the moment, like a man in absolute leisure, turns his thoughts to G.o.d. He believes that G.o.d is neither good nor bad, but simply capricious.

What's the use of being G.o.d, if you can't do what you like? He treats earth's creatures as a wanton boy treats his toys; they belong to me; why shouldn't I break them if I choose? No one ought to complain of misfortunes: you can not expect G.o.d is going to reward the virtuous and punish the guilty. He has no standards whatever.

Just as I, Caliban, sit here and watch a procession of crabs: I might lazily make up my mind, in a kind of sporting interest, to count them as they pa.s.s; to let twenty go in safety, and smash the twenty-first, loving not, hating not, just choosing so. When I feel like it, I help some creatures; if in another mood, I torment others; that's the way G.o.d treats us, that's the way I would act if I were G.o.d.

As Caliban's theology has much of the human in it, so his practical reasoning is decidedly human in its superst.i.tion. Granted that we are in the hands of a childish and capricious G.o.d, who amuses himself with torturing us, who laughs at our faces distorted with pain, what is the thing we ought to do? How shall we best manage? Caliban's advice is dear: don't let Him notice you: don't get prominent: above all, never boast of your good fortune, for that will surely draw G.o.d's attention, and He will put you where you belong. This superst.i.tion, that G.o.d is against us, is deep-seated in human nature, as the universal practice of "touching wood" sufficiently demonstrates. If a man says, "I haven't had a cold this winter," his friends will advise him to touch wood; and if he wakes up the next morning snuffling, he will probably soliloquise, "What a fool I was!

Why couldn't I keep still? Why did I have to mention it? Now see what I've got!"

Caliban disagreed with his mother Sycorax on one important point.

She believed in the future life. Caliban says such a belief is absurd.

There can be nothing worse than this life. Its good moments are simply devices of G.o.d to strengthen us so that He can torture us again, just as in the good old times the executioners gave the sufferers they were tormenting some powerful stimulant, so that they might return to consciousness and suffer; for nothing cheated the spectators worse than to have the victim die during the early stages of the torture. The object was to keep the wretch alive as long as possible. Thus in this life we have moments of comparative ease and rest, wherein we recuperate a little, just as the cat lets the mouse recover strength enough to imagine he is going to get away.

Caliban is of course an absolute and convinced pessimist. A malevolent giant is not so bad a G.o.d as an insane child. And Browning means that pessimism is what we should naturally expect from so rudimentary an intellect as Caliban's, which judges the whole order of the universe from proximate and superficial evidences.

The close of the poem is a good commentary on some human ideas of what kind of service is pleasing to G.o.d. Poor Caliban! he had saved up some quails, meaning to have a delicious meal. But in his fear he cries to G.o.d, I will let them fly, if you will only spare me this time! I will not eat whelks for a month, I will eat no chocolates during Lent, anything to please G.o.d!

CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS; OR, NATURAL THEOLOGY IN THE ISLAND

1864

"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."

['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best, Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire, With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.

And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush, And feels about his spine small eft-things course, Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh: And while above his head a pompion-plant, Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye, Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard, And now a flower drops with a bee inside, And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,-- He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross And recross till they weave a spider-web (Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times) And talks to his own self, howe'er he please, Touching that other, whom his dam called G.o.d.

Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha, Could He but know! and time to vex is now, When talk is safer than in winter-time.

Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep In confidence he drudges at their task, And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]

Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!

'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.

'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise; Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that: Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon, And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.

'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease: He hated that He cannot change His cold, Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived, And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid, A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave; Only, she ever sickened, found repulse At the other kind of water, not her life, (Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun) Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe, And in her old bounds buried her despair, Hating and loving warmth alike: so He Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle, Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.

Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech; Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam, That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue That p.r.i.c.ks deep into oakwarts for a worm, And says a plain word when she finds her prize, But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks About their hole--He made all these and more, Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?

He could not, Himself, make a second self To be His mate; as well have made Himself: He would not make what he mislikes or slights, An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains: But did, in envy, listlessness or sport, Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be-- Weaker in most points, stronger in a few, Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while, Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.

Because, so brave, so better though they be, It nothing skills if He begin to plague.

Look now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash, Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived, Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,-- Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all, Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain; Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme, And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.

Put case, unable to be what I wish, I yet could make a live bird out of clay: Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings, And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire, And there, a sting to do his foes offence, There, and I will that he begin to live, Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns Of grigs high up that make the merry din, Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.

In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay, And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh; And if he, spying me, should fall to weep, Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong, Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,-- Well, as the chance were, this might take or else Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry, And give the mankin three sound legs for one, Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg, And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.

Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme, Drinking the mash, with brain become alive, Making and marring clay at will? So He.

'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him, Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.

'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs That march now from the mountain to the sea; 'Let twenty pa.s.s, and stone the twenty-first, Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.

'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off; 'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm, And two worms he whose nippers end in red; As it likes me each time, I do: so He.

Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main, Placable if His mind and ways were guessed, But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!

Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself, And envieth that, so helped, such things do more Than He who made them! What consoles but this?

That they, unless through Him, do nought at all, And must submit: what other use in things?

'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue: Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt: Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth "I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing, I make the cry my maker cannot make With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!"

Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.