The Poetry Of Robert Browning Part 24

For a time she has pa.s.sed on earth through the realms of pain; and now, stabbed to her death, she looks back on the pa.s.sage, and on all who have been kind and unkind to her--on the whole of the falsehood and villany.

And the royal love in her nature is the master of the moment. She makes excuses for Violante's lie. "She meant well, and she did, as I feel now, little harm." "I am right now, quite happy; dying has purified me of the evil which touched me, and I colour ugly things with my own peace and joy. Every one that leaves life sees all things softened and bettered."

As to her husband, she finds that she has little to forgive him at the last. Step by step she goes over all he did, and even finds excuses for him, and, at the end, this is how she speaks, a n.o.ble utterance of serene love, lofty intelligence, of spiritual power and of the forgiveness of eternity.

For that most woeful man my husband once, Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath, I--pardon him? So far as lies in me, I give him for his good the life he takes, Praying the world will therefore acquiesce.

Let him make G.o.d amends,--none, none to me Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate Mockingly styled him husband and me wife, Himself this way at least p.r.o.nounced divorce, Blotted the marriage bond: this blood of mine Flies forth exultingly at any door, Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow We shall not meet in this world nor the next, But where will G.o.d be absent? In His face Is light, but in His shadow healing too: Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!

And as my presence was importunate,-- My earthly good, temptation and a snare,-- Nothing about me but drew somehow down His hate upon me,--somewhat so excused Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him,-- May my evanishment for evermore Help further to relieve the heart that cast Such object of its natural loathing forth!

So he was made; he nowise made himself: I could not love him, but his mother did.

His soul has never lain beside my soul: But for the unresisting body,--thanks!

He burned that garment spotted by the flesh.

Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague It caught, and disinfection it had craved Still but for Guido; I am saved through him So as by fire; to him--thanks and farewell!

Thus, pure at heart and sound of head, a natural, true woman in her childhood, in her girlhood, and when she is tried in the fire--by nature gay, yet steady in suffering; brave in a h.e.l.l of fears and shame; clear-sighted in entanglements of villany; resolute in self-rescue; seeing and claiming the right help and directing it rightly; rejoicing in her motherhood and knowing it as her crown of glory, though the child is from her infamous husband; happy in her motherhood for one fortnight; slain like a martyr; loving the true man with immortal love; forgiving all who had injured her, even her murderer; dying in full faith and love of G.o.d, though her life had been a crucifixion; Pompilia pa.s.ses away, and England's men and women will be always grateful to Browning for her creation.

CHAPTER XV

_BALAUSTION_

Among the women whom Browning made, Balaustion is the crown. So vivid is her presentation that she seems with us in our daily life. And she also fills the historical imagination.

One would easily fall in love with her, like those sensitive princes in the _Arabian Nights_, who, hearing only of the charms of a princess, set forth to find her over the world. Of all Browning's women, she is the most luminous, the most at unity with herself. She has the Greek gladness and life, the Greek intelligence and pa.s.sion, and the Greek harmony. All that was common, prattling, coa.r.s.e, sensual and spluttering in the Greek, (and we know from Aristophanes how strong these lower elements were in the Athenian people), never shows a trace of its influence in Balaustion. Made of the finest clay, exquisite and delicate in grain, she is yet strong, when the days of trouble come, to meet them n.o.bly and to change their sorrows into spiritual powers.

And the _mise-en-scene_ in which she is placed exalts her into a heroine, and adds to her the light, colour and humanity of Greek romance. Born at Rhodes, but of an Athenian mother, she is fourteen when the news arrives that the Athenian fleet under Nikias, sent to subdue Syracuse, has been destroyed, and the captive Athenians driven to labour in the quarries. All Rhodes, then in alliance with Athens, now cries, "Desert Athens, side with Sparta against Athens." Balaustion alone resists the traitorous cry. "What, throw off Athens, be disloyal to the source of art and intelligence--

to the life and light Of the whole world worth calling world at all!"

And she spoke so well that her kinsfolk and others joined her and took ship for Athens. Now, a wind drove them off their course, and behind them came a pirate ship, and in front of them loomed the land. "Is it Crete?" they thought; "Crete, perhaps, and safety." But the oars flagged in the hands of the weary men, and the pirate gained. Then Balaustion, springing to the altar by the mast, white, rosy, and uplifted, sang on high that song of aeschylus which saved at Salamis--

'O sons of Greeks, go, set your country free, Free your wives, free your children, free the fanes O' the G.o.ds, your fathers founded,--sepulchres They sleep in! Or save all, or all be lost.'

The crew, impa.s.sioned by the girl, answered the song, and drove the boat on, "churning the black water white," till the land shone clear, and the wide town and the harbour, and lo, 'twas not Crete, but Syracuse, luckless fate! Out came a galley from the port. "Who are you; Sparta's friend or foe?" "Of Rhodes are we, Rhodes that has forsaken Athens!"

"How, then, that song we heard? All Athens was in that aeschylus. Your boat is full of Athenians--back to the pirate; we want no Athenians here.... Yet, stay, that song was aeschylus; every one knows it--how about Euripides? Might you know any of his verses?" For nothing helped the poor Athenians so much if any of them had his mouth stored with

Old glory, great plays that had long ago Made themselves wings to fly about the world,--

But most of all those were cherished who could recite Euripides to Syracuse, so mighty was poetry in the ancient days to make enemies into friends, to build, beyond the wars and jealousies of the world, a land where all nations are one.

At this the captain cried: "Praise the G.o.d, we have here the very girl who will fill you with Euripides," and the pa.s.sage brings Balaustion into full light.

Therefore, at mention of Euripides, The Captain crowed out, "Euoi, praise the G.o.d!

Oop, boys, bring our owl-shield to the fore!

Out with our Sacred Anchor! Here she stands, Balaustion! Strangers, greet the lyric girl!

Euripides? Babai! what a word there 'scaped Your teeth's enclosure, quoth my grandsire's song Why, fast as snow in Thrace, the voyage through, Has she been falling thick in flakes of him!

Frequent as figs at Kaunos, Kaunians said.

Balaustion, stand forth and confirm my speech!

Now it was some whole pa.s.sion of a play; Now, peradventure, but a honey-drop That slipt its comb i' the chorus. If there rose A star, before I could determine steer Southward or northward--if a cloud surprised Heaven, ere I fairly hollaed 'Furl the sail!'-- She had at fingers' end both cloud and star Some thought that perched there, tame and tuneable, Fitted with wings, and still, as off it flew, 'So sang Euripides,' she said, 'so sang The meteoric poet of air and sea, Planets and the pale populace of heaven, The mind of man, and all that's made to soar!'

And so, although she has some other name, We only call her Wild-pomegranate-flower, Balaustion; since, where'er the red bloom burns I' the dull dark verdure of the bounteous tree, Dethroning, in the Rosy Isle, the rose, You shall find food, drink, odour, all at once; Cool leaves to bind about an aching brow.

And, never much away, the nightingale.

Sing them a strophe, with the turn-again, Down to the verse that ends all, proverb like.

And save us, thou Balaustion, bless the name"

And she answered: "I will recite the last play he wrote from first to last--_Alkestis_--his strangest, saddest, sweetest song."

Then because Greeks are Greeks, and hearts are hearts.

And poetry is power,--they all outbroke In a great joyous laughter with much love: "Thank Herakles for the good holiday!

Make for the harbour! Row, and let voice ring, 'In we row, bringing more Euripides!'"

All the crowd, as they lined the harbour now, "More of Euripides!"--took up the cry.

We landed; the whole city, soon astir, Came rushing out of gates in common joy To the suburb temple; there they stationed me O' the topmost step; and plain I told the play, Just as I saw it; what the actors said, And what I saw, or thought I saw the while, At our Kameiros theatre, clean scooped Out of a hill side, with the sky above And sea before our seats in marble row: Told it, and, two days more, repeated it Until they sent us on our way again With good words and great wishes.

So, we see Balaustion's slight figure under the blue sky, and the white temple of Herakles from the steps of which she spoke; and among the crowd, looking up to her with rapture, the wise and young Sicilian who took ship with her when she was sent back to Athens, wooed her, and found answer before they reached Piraeus. And there in Athens she and her lover saw Euripides, and told the Master how his play had redeemed her from captivity. Then they were married; and one day, with four of her girl friends, under the grape-vines by the streamlet side, close to the temple, Baccheion, in the cool afternoon, she tells the tale; interweaving with the play (herself another chorus) what she thinks, how she feels concerning its personages and their doings, and in the comment discloses her character. The woman is built up in this way for us. The very excuse she makes for her inserted words reveals one side of her delightful nature--her love of poetry, her love of beauty, her seeing eye, her delicate distinction, her mingled humility and self-knowledge.

Look at Baccheion's beauty opposite, The temple with the pillars at the porch!

See you not something beside masonry?

What if my words wind in and out the stone As yonder ivy, the G.o.d's parasite?

Though they leap all the way the pillar leads, Festoon about the marble, foot to frieze, And serpentiningly enrich the roof, Toy with some few bees and a bird or two,-- What then? The column holds the cornice up.

As the ivy is to the pillar that supports the cornice, so are her words to the _Alkestis_ on which she comments.

That is her charming way. She also is, like Pompilia, young. But no contrast can be greater than that between Pompilia at seventeen years of age and Balaustion at fifteen. In Greece, as in Italy, women mature quickly. Balaustion is born with that genius which has the experience of age in youth and the fire of youth in age. Pompilia has the genius of pure goodness, but she is uneducated, her intelligence is untrained, and her character is only developed when she has suffered. Balaustion, on the contrary, has all the Greek capacity, a thorough education, and that education also which came in the air of that time to those of the Athenian temper. She is born into beauty and the knowledge of it, into high thinking and keen feeling; and she knows well why she thought and how she felt. So finely wrought is she by pa.s.sion and intelligence alike, with natural genius to make her powers tenfold, that she sweeps her kinsfolk into agreement with her, subdues the sailors to her will, enchants the captain, sings the whole crew into energy, would have, I believe, awed and enthralled the pirate, conquers the Syracusans, delights the whole city, draws a talent out of the rich man which she leaves behind her for the prisoners, is a dear friend of sombre Euripides, lures Aristophanes, the mocker, into seriousness, mates herself with him in a whole night's conversation, and wrings praise and honour from the nimblest, the most cynical, and the most world-wise intellect in Athens.

Thus, over against Pompilia, she is the image of fine culture, held back from the foolishness and vanity of culture by the steadying power of genius. Then her judgment is always balanced. Each thing to her has many sides. She decides moral and intellectual questions and action with justice, but with mercy to the wrong opinion and the wrong thing, because her intellect is clear, tolerant and forgiving through intellectual breadth and power. Pompilia is the image of natural goodness and of its power. A spotless soul, though she is pa.s.sed through h.e.l.l, enables her, without a trained intellect, with ignorance of all knowledge, and with as little vanity as Balaustion, to give as clear and firm a judgment of right and wrong. She is as tolerant, as full of excuses for the wrong thing, as forgiving, as Balaustion, but it is by the power of goodness and love in her, not by that of intellect.

Browning never proved his strength more than when he made these two, in vivid contrast, yet in their depths in harmony; both equal, though so far apart, in n.o.ble womanhood. Both are beyond convention; both have a touch of impulsive pa.s.sion, of natural wildness, of flower-beauty. Both are, in hours of crisis, borne beyond themselves, and mistress of the hour. Both mould men, for their good, like wax in their fingers. But Pompilia is the white rose, touched with faint and innocent colour; and Balaustion is the wild pomegranate flower, burning in a crimson of love among the dark green leaves of steady and sure thought, her powers latent till needed, but when called on and brought to light, flaming with decision and revelation.

In this book we see her in her youth, her powers as yet untouched by heavy sorrow. In the next, in _Aristophanes' Apology_, we first find her in matured strength, almost mastering Aristophanes; and afterwards in the depth of grief, as she flies with her husband over the seas to Rhodes, leaving behind her Athens, the city of her heart, ruined and enslaved. The deepest pa.s.sion in her, the patriotism of the soul, is all but broken-hearted. Yet, she is the life and support of all who are with her; even a certain gladness breaks forth in her, and she secures for all posterity the intellectual record of Athenian life and the images, wrought to vitality, of some of the greater men of Athens. So we possess her completely. Her life, her soul, its growth and strength, are laid before us. To follow her through these two poems is to follow their poetry. Whenever we touch her we touch imagination. _Aristophanes'

Apology_ is illuminated by Balaustion's eyes. A glimpse here and there of her enables us to thread our way without too great weariness through a th.o.r.n.y undergrowth of modern and ancient thought mingled together on the subject of the Apology.

In _Balaustion's Adventure_ she tells her tale, and recites, as she did at Syracuse, the _Alkestis_ to her four friends. But she does more; she comments on it, as she did not at Syracuse. The comments are, of course, Browning's, but he means them to reveal Balaustion. They are touched throughout with a woman's thought and feeling, inflamed by the poetic genius with which Browning has endowed her. Balaustion is his deliberate picture of genius the great miracle.

The story of the _Alkestis_ begins before the play. Apollo, in his exile, having served King Admetos as shepherd, conceives a friendship for the king, helps him to his marriage, and knowing that he is doomed to die in early life, descends to h.e.l.l and begs the Fates to give him longer life. That is a motive, holding in it strange thoughts of life and death and fate, which pleased Browning, and he treats it separately, and with sardonic humour, in the Prologue to one of his later volumes.

The Fates refuse to lengthen Admetos' life, unless some one love him well enough to die for him. They must have their due at the allotted time.

The play opens when that time arrives. We see, in a kind of Prologue, Apollo leaving the house of Admetos and Death coming to claim his victim. Admetos has asked his father, mother, relations and servants to die instead of him. None will do it; but his wife, Alkestis, does.

Admetos accepts her sacrifice. Her dying, her death, the sorrow of Admetos is described with all the poignant humanity of Euripides. In the meantime Herakles has come on the scene, and Admetos, though steeped in grief, conceals--his wife's death and welcomes his friend to his house.

As Alkestis is the heroine of self-sacrifice, Admetos is the hero of hospitality. Herakles feasts, but the indignant bearing of an old servant attracts his notice, and he finds out the truth. He is shocked, but resolves to attack Death himself, who is bearing away Alkestis. He meets and conquers Death and brings back Alkestis alive to her husband.

So the strong man conquers the Fates, whom even Apollo could not subdue.

This is a fine subject. Every one can see in how many different ways it may be treated, with what different conceptions, how variously the characters may be built up, and what different ethical and emotional situations may be imaginatively treated in it. Racine himself thought it the finest of the Greek subjects, and began a play upon it. But he died before he finished it, and ordered his ma.n.u.script to be destroyed. We may well imagine how the quiet, stately genius of Racine would have conceived and ordered it; with the sincere pa.s.sion, held under restraint by as sincere a dignity, which characterised his exalted style.

Balaustion treats it with an equal moral force, and also with that modern moral touch which Racine would have given it; which, while it removed the subject at certain points from the Greek morality, would yet have exalted it into a more spiritual world than even the best of the Greeks conceived. The commentary of Balaustion is her own treatment of the subject. It professes to explain Euripides: it is in reality a fresh conception of the characters and their motives, especially of the character of Herakles. Her view of the character of Alkestis, especially in her death, is not, I think, the view which Euripides took. Her condemnation of Admetos is unmodified by those other sides of the question which Euripides suggests. The position Balaustion takes up with regard to self-sacrifice is far more subtle, with its half-Christian touches, than the Greek simplicity would have conceived. Finally, she feels so strongly that the subject has not been adequately conceived that, at the end, she recreates it for herself. Even at the beginning she rebuilds the Euripidean matter. When Apollo and Death meet, Balaustion conceives the meeting for herself. She images the divine Apollo as somewhat daunted, and images the dread meeting of these two with modern, not Greek imagination. It is like the meeting, she thinks, of a ruined eagle, caught as he swooped in a gorge, half heedless, yet terrific, with a lion, the haunter of the gorge, the lord of the ground, who pauses, ere he try the worst with the frightful, unfamiliar creature, known in the shadows and silences of the sky but not known here. It is the first example we have of Balaustion's imaginative power working for itself. There is another, farther on, where she stays her recitation to describe Death's rush in on Alkestis when the dialogue between him and Apollo is over--

And, in the fire-flash of the appalling sword, The uprush and the outburst, the onslaught Of Death's portentous pa.s.sage through the door, Apollon stood a pitying moment-s.p.a.ce: I caught one last gold gaze upon the night, Nearing the world now: and the G.o.d was gone, And mortals left to deal with misery.