The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 119

A DRAMA.

INTRODUCTION TO _THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED_.

The date of the original MS. of _The Deformed Transformed_ is "Pisa, 1822." There is nothing to show in what month it was written, but it may be conjectured that it was begun and finished within the period which elapsed between the death of Allegra, April 20, and the death of Sh.e.l.ley, July 8, 1822. According to Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p.

227), an unfavourable criticism of Sh.e.l.ley's ("It is a bad imitation of _Faust_"), together with a discovery that "two entire lines" of Southey's--

"And water shall see thee, And fear thee, and flee thee"--

were imbedded in one of his "Songs," touched Byron so deeply that he "threw the poem into the fire," and concealed the existence of a second copy for more than two years. It is a fact that Byron's correspondence does not contain the remotest allusion to _The Deformed Transformed_; but, with regard to the plagiarism from Southey, in the play as written in 1822 there is neither Song nor Incantation which could have contained two lines from _The Curse of Kehama_.

As a dramatist, Byron's function, or _metier_, was twofold. In _Manfred_, in _Cain_, in _Heaven and Earth_, he is concerned with the a.n.a.lysis and evolution of metaphysical or ethical notions; in _Marino Faliero_, in _Sardanapalus_, and _The Two Foscari_, he set himself "to dramatize striking pa.s.sages of history;" in _The Deformed Transformed_ he sought to combine the solution of a metaphysical puzzle or problem, the relation of personality to individuality, with the scenic rendering of a striking historical episode, the Sack of Rome in 1527.

In the note or advertis.e.m.e.nt prefixed to the drama, Byron acknowledges that "the production" is founded partly on the story of a forgotten novel, _The Three Brothers_, and partly on "the _Faust_ of the great Goethe."

Arnaud, or Julian, the hero of _The Three Brothers_ (by Joshua Pickersgill, jun., 4 vols., 1803), "sells his soul to the Devil, and becomes an arch-fiend in order to avenge himself for the taunts of strangers on the deformity of his person" (see _Gent. Mag._, November, 1804, vol. 74, p. 1047; and _post_, pp. 473-479). The idea of an escape from natural bonds or disabilities by supernatural means and at the price of the soul or will, the _un_-Christlike surrender to the tempter, which is the _grund-stoff_ of the Faust-legend, was brought home to Byron, in the first instance, not by Goethe, or Calderon, or Marlowe, but by Joshua Pickersgill. A fellow-feeling lent an intimate and peculiar interest to the theme. He had suffered all his life from a painful and inconvenient defect, which his proud and sensitive spirit had magnified into a deformity. He had been stung to the quick by his mother's taunts and his sweetheart's ridicule, by the jeers of the base and thoughtless, by slanderous and brutal paragraphs in newspapers. He could not forget that he was lame. If his enemies had but possessed the wit, they might have given him "the sobriquet of _Le Diable Boiteux_"

(letter to Moore, April 2, 1823, _Letters_, 1901, vi. 179). It was no wonder that so poignant, so persistent a calamity should be "reproduced in his poetry" (_Life_, p. 13), or that his pa.s.sionate impatience of such a "thorn in the flesh" should picture to itself a mysterious and unhallowed miracle of healing. It is true, as Moore says (_Life_, pp.

45, 306), that "the trifling deformity of his foot" was the embittering circ.u.mstance of his life, that it "haunted him like a curse;" but it by no means follows that he seriously regarded his physical peculiarity as a stamp of the Divine reprobation, that "he was possessed by an _idee fixe_ that every blessing would be 'turned into a curse' to him" (letter of Lady Byron to H. C. Robinson, _Diary, etc._, 1869, in. 435, 436). No doubt he indulged himself in morbid fancies, played with the extravagances of a restless imagination, and wedded them to verse; but his intellect, "brooding like the day, a master o'er a slave," kept guard. He would never have pleaded on his own behalf that the tyranny of an _idee fixe_, a delusion that he was predestined to evil, was an excuse for his shortcomings or his sins.

Byron's very considerable obligations to _The Three Brothers_ might have escaped notice, but the resemblance between his "Stranger," or "Caesar,"

and the Mephistopheles of "the great Goethe" was open and palpable.

If Medwin may be trusted (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 210), Byron had read "_Faust_ in a sorry French translation," and it is probable that Sh.e.l.ley's inspired rendering of "May-day Night," which was published in _The Liberal_ (No. i., October 14, 1822, pp. 123-137), had been read to him, and had attracted his attention. _The Deformed Transformed_ is "a _Faustish_ kind of drama;" and Goethe, who maintained that Byron's play as a whole was "no imitation," but "new and original, close, genuine, and spirited," could not fail to perceive that "his devil was suggested by my Mephistopheles" (_Conversations_, 1874, p. 174). The tempter who cannot resist the temptation of sneering at his own wiles, who mocks for mocking's sake, is not Byron's creation, but Goethe's. Lucifer talked _at_ the clergy, if he did not "talk like a clergyman;" but the "bitter hunchback," even when he is _solus_, sneers as the river wanders, "at his own sweet will." He is not a doctor, but a spirit of unbelief!

The second part of _The Deformed Transformed_ represents, in three scenes, the Siege and Sack of Rome in 1527. Byron had read Robertson's _Charles the Fifth_ (ed. 1798, ii. 313-329) in his boyhood (_Life_, p.

47), but it is on record that he had studied, more or less closely, the narratives of contemporary authorities. A note to _The Prophecy of Dante_ (_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 258) refers to the _Sacco di Roma_, descritto da Luigi Guicciardini, and the _Ragguaglio Storico ... sacco di Roma dell' anno_ MDXXVII. of Jacopo Buonaparte; and it is evident that he was familiar with Cellini's story of the marvellous gests and exploits _quorum maxima pars fuit_, which were wrought at "the walls by the Campo Santo," or on the ramparts of the Castle of San Angelo.

The Sack of Rome was a great national calamity, and it was something more: it was a profanation and a sacrilege. The literature which it evoked was a cry of anguish, a prophetic burden of despair. "Chants populaires," writes M. Emile Gebhart (_De l'Italie_, "Le Sac de Rome en 1527," 1876, pp. 267, _sq._), "_Nouvelles_ de Giraldi Cintio, en forme de Decameron ... recits historiques ... de Cesar Grollier, _Dialogues_ anonymes ... poesies de Pasquin, toute une litterature se developpa sur ce theme douloureux.... Le _Lamento di Roma_, uvre etrange, d'inspiration gibeline, rappelle les esperances politiques exprimees jadis par Dante ... 'Bien que Cesar m'ait depouillee de liberte, nous avons toujours ete d'accord dans une meme volonte. Je ne me lamenterais pas si lui regnait; mais je crois qu'il est ressuscite, ou qu'il ressuscitera veritablement, car souvent un Ange m'a annonce qu'un Cesar viendrait me delivrer.'... Enfin, voici une chanson francaise que repetaient en repa.s.sant les monts les soldats du Marquis de Saluces:--

"Parlons de la deffaiete De ces pouvres Rommains, Aussi de la complainete De notre pere saint.

"'O n.o.ble roy de France, Regarde en pitie L'Eglise en ballance ...

Pour Dieu! ne tarde plus, C'est ta mere, ta substance; O fils, n'en faictz reffus.'"

"Le dernier monument," adds M. Gebhart, in a footnote, "de cette litterature, est le singulier drame de Byron, _The Deformed Transformed_, dont Jules Cesar est le heros, et le Sac de Rome le cadre."

It is unlikely that Byron, who read everything he could lay his hands upon, and spared no trouble to master his "period," had not, either at first or second hand, acquainted himself with specimens of this popular literature. (For _La Presa e Lamento di Roma_, _Romae Lamentatio_, etc., see _Lamenti Storici dei Secoli xiv., xv_. (Medin e Fratri), _Scelta di Curiosita_, etc., 235, 236, 237, Bologna, 1890, vol. iii. See, too, for "Chanson sur la Mort du Connetable de Bourbon," _Recueil de Chants historiques francais_, par A. J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, 1842, ii. 99.)

_The Deformed Transformed_ was published by John Hunt, February 20, 1824. A third edition appeared February 23, 1824.

It was reviewed, unfavourably, in the _London Magazine_, March, 1824, vol. 9, pp. 315-321; the _Scots Magazine_, March, 1824, N.S. vol. xiv.

pp. 353-356; and in the _Monthly Review_, March, 1824, Enlarged Series, 103, pp. 321, 324. One reviewer, however (_London Magazine_), had the candour to admit that "Lord Byron may write below himself, but he can never write below us!"

For the unfinished third part, _vide post_, pp. 532-534.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT

This production is founded partly on the story of a novel called "The Three Brothers[201]," published many years ago, from which M. G. Lewis's "Wood Demon"[202] was also taken; and partly on the "Faust" of the great Goethe. The present publication[203] contains the two first Parts only, and the opening chorus of the third. The rest may perhaps appear hereafter.

DRAMATIS PERSONae.

Stranger, _afterwards_ Caesar

Arnold.

Bourbon.

Philibert.

Cellini.

Bertha.

Olimpia.

_Spirits, Soldiers, Citizens of Rome, Priests, Peasants, etc._

THE DEFORMED TRANSFORMED:[cv]

PART I.

SCENE I.--_A Forest_.

_Enter_ ARNOLD _and his mother_ BERTHA.

_Bert._ Out, Hunchback!

_Arn._ I was born so, Mother![204]

_Bert._ Out, Thou incubus! Thou nightmare! Of seven sons, The sole abortion!