Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  As clear recurred our last word-interchange

  Two years since, when I tried with ‘Ploutos.’ ‘Vain!’

  Saluted me the cold grave-bearded bard —

  ‘Vain, this late trial, Aristophanes!

  None baulks the genius with impunity!

  You know what kind’s the nobler, what makes grave

  Or what makes grin; there’s yet a nobler still,

  Possibly, — what makes wise, not grave, — and glad,

  Not grinning: whereby laughter joins with tears,

  Tragic and Comic Poet prove one power,

  And Aristophanes becomes our Fourth —

  Nay, greatest! Never needs the Art stand still,

  But those Art leans on lag, and none like you,

  Her strongest of supports, whose step aside

  Undoes the march: defection checks advance

  Too late adventured! See the “Ploutos” here!

  This step decides your foot from old to new —

  Proves you relinquish song and dance and jest,

  Discard the beast, and, rising from all-fours,

  Fain would paint, manlike, actual human life,

  Make veritable men think, say and do.

  Here’s the conception: which to execute,

  Where’s force? Spent! Ere the race began, was breath

  O’ the runner squandered on each friendly fool —

  Wit-fireworks fizzed off while day craved no flame:

  How should the night receive her due of fire

  Flared out in Wasps and Horses, Clouds and Birds,

  Prodigiously a-crackle? Rest content!

  The new adventure for the novel man

  Born to that next success myself foresee

  In right of where I reach before I rest.

  At end of a long course, straight all the way,

  Well may there tremble somewhat into ken

  The untrod path, clouds veiled from earlier gaze!

  None may live two lives: I have lived mine through,

  Die where I first stand still. You retrograde.

  I leave my life’s work. I compete with you,

  My last with your last, my Antiope —

  Phoinissai — with this Ploutos? No, I think!

  Ever shall great and awful Victory

  Accompany my life — in Maketis

  If not Athenai. Take my farewell, friend!

  Friend, — for from no consummate excellence

  Like yours, whatever fault may countervail,

  Do I profess estrangement: murk the marsh,

  Yet where a solitary marble block

  Blanches the gloom, there let the eagle perch!

  You show — what splinters of Pentelikos,

  Islanded by what ordure! Eagles fly,

  Rest on the right place, thence depart as free;

  But ‘ware man’s footstep, would it traverse mire

  Untainted! Mire is safe for worms that crawl.’

  “Balaustion! Here are very many words,

  All to portray one moment’s rush of thought, —

  And much they do it! Still, you understand.

  The Archon, the Feast-master, read their sum

  And substance, judged the banquet-glow extinct,

  So rose, discreetly if abruptly, crowned

  The parting cup, — ’To the Good Genius, then!’

  “Up starts young Strattis for a final flash:

  ’Ay the Good Genius! To the Comic Muse,

  She who evolves superiority,

  Triumph and joy from sorrow, unsuccess

  And all that’s incomplete in human life;

  Who proves such actual failure transient wrong,

  Since out of body uncouth, halt and maimed —

  Since out of soul grotesque, corrupt or blank —

  Fancy, uplifted by the Muse, can flit

  To soul and body, re-instate them Man:

  Beside which perfect man, how clear we see

  Divergency from type was earth’s effect!

  Escaping whence by laughter, — Fancy’s feat, —

  We right man’s wrong, establish true for false, —

  Above misshapen body, uncouth soul,

  Reach the fine form, the clear intelligence —

  Above unseemliness, reach decent law, —

  By laughter: attestation of the Muse

  That low-and-ugsome is not signed and sealed

  Incontrovertibly man’s portion here,

  Or, if here, — why, still high-and-fair exists

  In that ethereal realm where laughs our soul

  Lift by the Muse. Hail thou her ministrant!

  Hail who accepted no deformity

  In man as normal and remediless,

  But rather pushed it to such gross extreme

  That, outraged, we protest by eye’s recoil

  The opposite proves somewhere rule and law!

  Hail who implied, by limning Lamachos,

  Plenty and pastime wait on peace, not war!

  Philokleon — better bear a wrong than plead,

  Play the litigious fool to stuff the mouth

  Of dikast with the due three-obol fee!

  The Paphlagonian — stick to the old sway

  Of few and wise, not rabble-government!

  Trugaios, Pisthetairos, Strepsiades, —

  Why multiply examples? Hail, in fine,

  The hero of each painted monster — so

  Suggesting the unpictured perfect shape!

  Pour out! A laugh to Aristophanes!’

  “Stay, my fine Strattis” — and I stopped applause —

  “To the Good Genius — but the Tragic Muse!

  She who instructs her poet, bids man’s soul

  Play man’s part merely nor attempt the gods’

  Ill-guessed of! Task humanity to height,

  Put passion to prime use, urge will, unshamed

  When will’s last effort breaks in impotence!

  No power forego, elude: no weakness, — plied

  Fairly by power and will, — renounce, deny!

  Acknowledge, in such miscalled weakness strength

  Latent: and substitute thus things for words!

  Make man run life’s race fairly, — legs and feet,

  Craving no false wings to o’erfly its length!

  Trust on, trust ever, trust to end — in truth!

  By truth of extreme passion, utmost will,

  Shame back all false display of either force —

  Barrier about such strenuous heat and glow,

  That cowardice shall shirk contending, — cant,

  Pretension, shrivel at truth’s first approach!

  Pour to the Tragic Muse’s ministrant

  Who, as he pictured pure Hippolutos,

  Abolished our earth’s blot Ariphrades;

  Who, as he drew Bellerophon the bold,

  Proclaimed Kleonumos incredible;

  Who, as his Theseus towered up man once more,

  Made Alkibiades shrink boy again!

  A tear — no woman’s tribute, weak exchange

  For action, water spent and heart’s-blood saved —

  No man’s regret for greatness gone, ungraced

  Perchance by even that poor meed, man’s praise —

  But some god’s superabundance of desire,

  Yearning of will to ‘scape necessity, —

  Love’s overbrimming for self-sacrifice,

  Whence good might be, which never else may be,

  By power displayed, forbidden this strait sphere, —

  Effort expressible one only way —

  Such tear from me fall to Euripides!”

  The Thasian! — All, the Thasian, I account!

  Whereupon outburst the whole company

  Into applause and — laughter, would you think?

  “The unrivalled one! How, never at a loss,

  He turns the Tragic on its Comic side

  Else imperceptible! Here’s death itself —


  Death of a rival, of an enemy, —

  Scarce seen as Comic till the master-touch

  Made it acknowledge Aristophanes!

  Lo, that Euripidean laurel-tree

  Struck to the heart by lightning! Sokrates

  Would question us, with buzz of how and why,

  Wherefore the berry’s virtue, the bloom’s vice,

  Till we all wished him quiet with his friend;

  Agathon would compose an elegy,

  Lyric bewailment fit to move a stone,

  And, stones responsive, we might wince, ‘t is like;

  Nay, with most cause of all to weep the least,

  Sophokles ordains mourning for his sake

  While we confess to a remorseful twinge: —

  Suddenly, who but Aristophanes,

  Prompt to the rescue, puts forth solemn hand,

  Singles us out the tragic tree’s best branch,

  Persuades it groundward and, at tip, appends,

  For votive-visor, Faun’s goat-grinning face!

  Back it flies, evermore with jest a-top,

  And we recover the true mood, and laugh!”

  “I felt as when some Nikias, — ninny-like

  Troubled by sunspot-portent, moon-eclipse, —

  At fault a little, sees no choice but sound

  Retreat from foeman; and his troops mistake

  The signal, and hail onset in the blast,

  And at their joyous answer, alalé ,

  Back the old courage brings the scattered wits;

  He wonders what his doubt meant, quick confirms

  The happy error, blows the charge amain.

  So I repaired things.

  “Both be praised” thanked I.

  “You who have laughed with Aristophanes,

  You who wept rather with the Lord of Tears!

  Priest, do thou, president alike o’er each,

  Tragic and Comic function of the god,

  Help with libation to the blended twain!

  Either of which who serving, only serves —

  Proclaims himself disqualified to pour

  To that Good Genius — complex Poetry,

  Uniting each god-grace, including both:

  Which, operant for body as for soul,

  Masters alike the laughter and the tears,

  Supreme in lowliest earth, sublimest sky.

  Who dares disjoin these, — whether he ignores

  Body or soul, whichever half destroys, —

  Maims the else perfect manhood, perpetrates

  Again the inexpiable crime we curse —

  Hacks at the Hermai, halves each guardian shape

  Combining, nowise vainly, prominence

  Of august head and enthroned intellect,

  With homelier symbol of asserted sense, —

  Nature’s prime impulse, earthly appetite.

  For, when our folly ventures on the freak,

  Would fain abolish joy and fruitfulness,

  Mutilate nature — what avails the Head

  Left solitarily predominant, —

  Unbodied soul, — not Hermes, both in one?

  I, no more than our City, acquiesce

  In such a desecration, but defend

  Man’s double nature — ay, wert thou its foe!

  Could I once more, thou cold Euripides,

  Encounter thee, in nought would I abate

  My warfare, nor subdue my worst attack

  On thee whose life-work preached ‘Raise soul, sink sense!

  Evirate Hermes!’ — would avenge the god,

  And justify myself. Once face to face,

  Thou, the argute and tricksy, shouldst not wrap,

  As thine old fashion was, in silent scorn

  The breast that quickened at the sting of truth,

  Nor turn from me, as, if the tale be true,

  From Lais when she met thee in thy walks,

  And questioned why she had no rights as thou:

  Not so shouldst thou betake thee, be assured,

  To book and pencil, deign me no reply!

  I would extract an answer from those lips

  So closed and cold, were mine the garden-chance!

  Gone from the world! Does none remain to take

  Thy part and ply me with thy sophist-skill?

  No sun makes proof of his whole potency

  For gold and purple in that orb we view:

  The apparent orb does little but leave blind

  The audacious, and confused the worshipping;

  But, close on orb’s departure, must succeed

  The serviceable cloud, — must intervene,

  Induce expenditure of rose and blue,

  Reveal what lay in him was lost to us.

  So, friends, what hinders, as we homeward go,

  If, privileged by triumph gained to-day,

  We clasp that cloud our sun left saturate,

  The Rhodian rosy with Euripides?

  Not of my audience on my triumph-day,

  She nor her husband! After the night’s news

  Neither will sleep but watch; I know the mood.

  Accompany! my crown declares my right!

  And here you stand with those warm golden eyes!

  “In honest language, I am scarce too sure

  Whether I really felt, indeed expressed

  Then, in that presence, things I now repeat:

  Nor half, nor any one word, — will that do?

  May be, such eyes must strike conviction, turn

  One’s nature bottom upwards, show the base —

  The live rock latent under wave and foam:

  Superimposure these! Yet solid stuff

  Will ever and anon, obeying star,

  (And what star reaches rock-nerve like an eye?)

  Swim up to surface, spout or mud or flame,

  And find no more to do than sink as fast.

  “Anyhow, I have followed happily

  The impulse, pledged my Genius with effect,

  Since come to see you, I am shown — myself!”

  I answered:

  “One of us declared for both

  ‘Welcome the glory of Aristophanes.’

  The other adds: and, — if that glory last,

  Nor marsh-born vapour creep to veil the same, —

  Once entered, share in our solemnity!

  Commemorate, as we, Euripides!”

  “What?” he looked round, “I darken the bright house?

  Profane the temple of your deity?

  That’s true! Else wherefore does he stand portrayed?

  What Rhodian paint and pencil saved so much,

  Beard, freckled face, brow — all but breath, I hope!

  Come, that’s unfair: myself am somebody,

  Yet my pictorial fame’s just potter’s-work, —

  I merely figure on men’s drinking-mugs!

  I and the Flat-nose, Sophroniskos’ son,

  Oft make a pair. But what’s this lies below?

  His table-book and graver, playwright’s tool!

  And lo, the sweet psalterion, strung and screwed,

  Whereon he tried those le-é-é-é-és

  And ke-é-é-é-és and turns and trills,

  Lovely lark’s tirra-lirra, lad’s delight!

  Aischulos’ bronze-throat eagle-bark at blood

  Has somehow spoiled my taste for twitterings!

  With . . . what, and did he leave you ‘Herakles’?

  The ‘Frenzied Hero,’ one unfractured sheet,

  No pine-wood tablets smeared with treacherous wax —

  Papuros perfect as e’er tempted pen!

  This sacred twist of bay-leaves dead and sere

  Must be that crown the fine work failed to catch, —

  No wonder! This might crown ‘Antiope.’

  ‘Herakles’ triumph? In your heart perhaps!

  But elsewhere? Come now, I’ll explain the case,

  Show you the main mistake. Give me the sheet!”
/>   I interrupted:

  “Aristophanes!

  The stranger-woman sues in her abode —

  ‘Be honoured as our guest!’ But, call it — shrine,

  Then ‘No dishonour to the Daimon!’ bids

  The priestess ‘or expect dishonour’s due!’

  You enter fresh from your worst infamy,

  Last instance of long outrage; yet I pause,

  Withhold the word a-tremble on my lip,

  Incline me, rather, yearn to reverence, —

  So you but suffer that I see the blaze

  And not the bolt, — the splendid fancy-fling,

  Not the cold iron malice, the launched lie

  Whence heavenly fire has withered; impotent,

  Yet execrable, leave it ‘neath the look

  Of yon impassive presence! What he scorned,

  His life long, need I touch, offend my foot,

  To prove that malice missed its mark, that lie

  Cumbers the ground, returns to whence it came?

  I marvel, I deplore, — the rest be mute!

  But, throw off hate’s celestiality, —

  Show me, apart from song-flash and wit-flame,

  A mere man’s hand ignobly clenched against

  Yon supreme calmness, — and I interpose,

  Such as you see me! Silk breaks lightning’s blow!”

  He seemed to scarce so much as notice me,

  Aught had I spoken, save the final phrase:

  Arrested there.

  “Euripides grown calm!

  Calmness supreme means dead and therefore safe,”

  He muttered; then more audibly began —

  “Dead! Such must die! Could people comprehend!

  There’s the unfairness of it! So obtuse

  Are all: from Solon downward with his saw

  ‘Let none revile the dead, — no, though the son,

  Nay, far descendant, should revile thyself!’ —

  To him who made Elektra, in the act

  Of wreaking vengeance on her worst of foes,

  Scruple to blame, since speech that blames insults

  Too much the very villain life-released.

  Now, I say, only after death, begins

  That formidable claim, — immunity

  Of faultiness from fault’s due punishment!

  The living, who defame me, — why, they live:

  Fools, — I best prove them foolish by their life,

  Will they but work on, lay their work by mine,

  And wait a little, one Olympiad, say!

  Then — where’s the vital force, mine froze beside?

  The sturdy fibre, shamed my brittle stuff?

  The school-correctness, sure of wise award

  When my vagaries cease to tickle taste?

  Where’s censure that must sink me, judgment big

  Awaiting just the word posterity

  Pants to pronounce? Time’s wave breaks, buries — whom ,