Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Authority, experience — pushed aside

  By any upstart who pleads throng and press

  O’ the people! ‘Think, say, do thus!’ Wherefore, pray?

  ‘We are the people: who impugns our right

  Of choosing Kleon that tans hide so well,

  Huperbolos that turns out lamps so trim,

  Hemp-seller Eukrates or Lusikles

  Sheep-dealer, Kephalos the potter’s son,

  Diitriphes who weaves the willow-work

  To go round bottles, and Nausikudes

  The meal-man? Such we choose and more, their mates,

  To think and say and do in our behalf!’

  While sophistry wagged tongue, emboldened still,

  Found matter to propose, contest, defend,

  ‘Stablish, turn topsyturvy, — all the same,

  No matter what, provided the result

  Were something new in place of something old, —

  Set wagging by pure insolence of soul

  Which needs must pry into, have warrant for

  Each right, each privilege good policy

  Protects from curious eye and prating mouth!

  Everywhere lust to shape the world anew,

  Spurn this Athenai as we find her, build

  A new impossible Cloudcuckooburg

  For feather-headed birds, once solid men,

  Where rules, discarding jolly habitude,

  Nourished on myrtle-berries and stray ants,

  King Tereus who, turned Hoopoe Triple-Crest,

  Shall terrify and bring the gods to terms!

  “Where was I? Oh! Things ailing thus — I ask,

  What cure? Cut, thrust, hack, hew at heap-on-heaped

  Abomination with the exquisite

  Palaistra-tool of polished Tragedy?

  Erechtheus shall harangue Amphiktuon,

  And incidentally drop word of weight

  On justice, righteousness, so turn aside

  The audience from attacking Sicily! —

  The more that Choros, after he recounts

  How Phrixos rode the ram, the far-famed Fleece,

  Shall add — at last fall of grave dancing-foot —

  ‘Aggression never yet was helped by Zeus!’

  That helps or hinders Alkibiades?

  As well expect, should Pheidias carve Zeus’ self

  And set him up, some half a mile away,

  His frown would frighten sparrows from your field!

  Eagles may recognize their lord, belike,

  But as for vulgar sparrows, — change the god,

  And plant some big Priapos with a pole!

  I wield the Comic weapon rather — hate!

  Hate! honest, earnest and directest hate —

  Warfare wherein I close with enemy,

  Call him one name and fifty epithets,

  Remind you his great-grandfather sold bran,

  Describe the new exomion, sleeveless coat

  He knocked me down last night and robbed me of,

  Protest he voted for a tax on air!

  And all this hate — if I write Comedy —

  Finds tolerance, most like — applause, perhaps

  True veneration; for I praise the god

  Present in person of his minister,

  And pay — the wilder my extravagance —

  The more appropriate worship to the Power

  Adulterous, night-roaming, and the rest:

  Otherwise, — that originative force

  Of nature, impulse stirring death to life,

  Which, underlying law, seems lawlessness,

  Yet is the outbreak which, ere order be,

  Must thrill creation through, warm stocks and stones,

  Phales Iacchos.

  “Comedy for me!

  Why not for you, my Tragic masters? Sneaks

  Whose art is mere desertion of a trust!

  Such weapons lay to hand, the ready club,

  The clay-ball, on the ground a stone to snatch, —

  Arms fit to bruise the boar’s neck, break the chine

  O’ the wolf, — and you must impiously — despise?

  No, I’ll say, furtively let fall that trust

  Consigned you! ‘T was not ‘take or leave alone,’

  But ‘take and, wielding, recognize your god

  In his prime attributes!’ And though full soon

  You sneaked, subsided into poetry,

  Nor met your due reward, still, — heroize

  And speechify and sing-song and forego

  Far as you may your function, — still its pact

  Endures, one piece of early homage still

  Exacted of you; after your three bouts

  At hoitytoity, great men with long words,

  And so forth, — at the end, must tack itself

  The genuine sample, the Satyric Play,

  Concession, with its wood-boys’ fun and freak,

  To the true taste of the mere multitude.

  Yet, there again! What does your Still-at-itch,

  Always-the-innovator? Shrugs and shirks!

  Out of his fifty Trilogies, some five

  Are somehow suited: Satyrs dance and sing,

  Try merriment, a grimly prank or two,

  Sour joke squeezed through pursed lips and teeth on edge,

  Then quick on top of toe to pastoral sport,

  Goat-tending and sheep-herding, cheese and cream,

  Soft grass and silver rillets, country-fare —

  When throats were promised Thasian! Five such feats, —

  Then frankly off he threw the yoke: next Droll,

  Next festive drama, covenanted fun,

  Decent reversion to indecency,

  Proved — your ‘Alkestis’! There’s quite fun enough,

  Herakles drunk! From out fate’s blackening wave

  Calamitous, just zigzags some shot star,

  Poor promise of faint joy, and turns the laugh

  On dupes whose fears and tears were all in waste!

  “For which sufficient reasons, in truth’s name,

  I closed with whom you count the Meaner Muse,

  Classed me with Comic Poets who should weld

  Dark with bright metal, show their blade may keep

  Its adamantine birthright though a-blaze

  With poetry, the gold, and wit, the gem,

  And strike mere gold, unstiffened out by steel,

  Or gem, no iron joints its strength around,

  From hand of — posturer, not combatant!

  “Such was my purpose: it succeeds, I say!

  Have not we beaten Kallikratidas,

  Not humbled Sparté? Peace awaits our word,

  Spite of Theramenes, and fools his like.

  Since my previsions, — warranted too well

  By the long war now waged and worn to end —

  Had spared such heritage of misery,

  My after-counsels scarce need fear repulse.

  Athenai, taught prosperity has wings,

  Cages the glad recapture. Demos, see,

  From folly’s premature decrepitude

  Boiled young again, emerges from the stew

  Of twenty-five years’ trouble, sits and sways,

  One brilliance and one balsam, — sways and sits

  Monarch of Hellas! ay and, sage again,

  No longer jeopardizes chieftainship,

  No longer loves the brutish demagogue

  Appointed by a bestial multitude

  But seeks out sound advisers. Who are they?

  Ourselves, of parentage proved wise and good!

  To such may hap strains thwarting quality,

  (As where shall want its flaw mere human stuff?)

  Still, the right grain is proper to right race;

  What’s contrary, call curious accident!

  Hold by the usual! Orchard-grafted tree,

  Not wilding, race-horse-sired, not rouncey-born,

  Aristocrat, no sausage-selling snob!
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  Nay, why not Alkibiades, come back

  Filled by the Genius, freed of petulance,

  Frailty, — mere youthfulness that’s all at fault, —

  Advanced to Perikles and something more?

  — Being at least our duly born and bred, —

  Curse on what chaunoprockt first gained his ear

  And got his . . . well, once true man in right place,

  Our commonalty soon content themselves

  With doing just what they are born to do,

  Eat, drink, make merry, mind their own affairs

  And leave state-business to the larger brain.

  I do not stickle for their punishment;

  But certain culprits have a cloak to twitch,

  A purse to pay the piper: flog, say I,

  Your fine fantastics, paragons of parts,

  Who choose to play the important! Far from side

  With us, their natural supports, allies, —

  And, best by brain, help who are best by birth

  To fortify each weak point in the wall

  Built broad and wide and deep for permanence

  Between what’s high and low, what’s rare and vile, —

  They cast their lot perversely in with low

  And vile, lay flat the barrier, lift the mob

  To dizzy heights where Privilege stood firm.

  And then, simplicity become conceit, —

  Woman, slave, common soldier, artisan,

  Crazy with new-found worth, new-fangled claims, —

  These must be taught next how to use their heads

  And hands in driving man’s right to mob’s rule!

  What fellows thus inflame the multitude?

  Your Sokrates, still crying ‘Understand!’

  Your Aristullos, — ’Argue!’ Last and worst,

  Should, by good fortune, mob still hesitate,

  Remember there’s degree in heaven and earth,

  Cry ‘Aischulos enjoined us fear the gods,

  And Sophokles advised respect the kings!’

  Why, your Euripides informs them — ’Gods?

  They are not! Kings? They are, but . . . do not I,

  In Suppliants, make my Theseus, — yours, no more, —

  Fire up at insult of who styles him King?

  Play off that Herald, I despise the most,

  As patronizing kings’ prerogative

  Against a Theseus proud to dare no step

  Till he consult the people?’

  “Such as these —

  Ah, you expect I am for strangling straight?

  Nowise, Balaustion! All my roundabout

  Ends at beginning, with my own defence.

  I dose each culprit just with — Comedy.

  Let each be doctored in exact the mode

  Himself prescribes: by words, the word-monger —

  My words to his words, — my lies, if you like,

  To his lies. Sokrates I nickname thief,

  Quack, necromancer; Aristullos, — say,

  Male Kirké who bewitches and bewrays

  And changes folk to swine; Euripides, —

  Well, I acknowledge! Every word is false,

  Looked close at; but stand distant and stare through,

  All’s absolute indubitable truth

  Behind lies, truth which only lies declare!

  For come, concede me truth’s in thing not word,

  Meaning not manner! Love smiles ‘rogue’ and ‘wretch’

  When ‘sweet’ and ‘dear’ seem vapid: Hate adopts

  Love’s ‘sweet’ and ‘dear’ when ‘rogue’ and ‘wretch’ fall flat:

  Love, Hate — are truths, then, each, in sense not sound.

  Further: if Love, remaining Love, fell back

  On ‘sweet’ and ‘dear,’ — if Hate, though Hate the same,

  Dropped down to ‘rogue’ and ‘wretch,’ — each phrase were false.

  Good! and now grant I hate no matter whom

  With reason: I must therefore fight my foe,

  Finish the mischief which made enmity.

  How? By employing means to most hurt him

  Who much harmed me. What way did he do harm?

  Through word or deed? Through word? with word, wage war!

  Word with myself directly? As direct

  Reply shall follow: word to you, the wise,

  Whence indirectly came the harm to me?

  What wisdom I can muster waits on such.

  Word to the populace which, misconceived

  By ignorance and incapacity,

  Ends in no such effect as follows cause

  When I, or you the wise, are reasoned with,

  So damages what I and you hold dear?

  In that event, I ply the populace

  With just such word as leavens their whole lump

  To the right ferment for my purpose. They

  Arbitrate properly between us both?

  They weigh my answer with his argument,

  Match quip with quibble, wit with eloquence?

  All they attain to understand is — blank!

  Two adversaries differ: which is right

  And which is wrong, none takes on him to say,

  Since both are unintelligible. Pooh!

  Swear my foe’s mother vended herbs she stole,

  They fall a-laughing! Add, — his household drudge

  Of all-work justifies that office well,

  Kisses the wife, composing him the play, —

  They grin at whom they gaped in wonderment,

  And go off — ’Was he such a sorry scrub?

  This other seems to know! we praised too fast!’

  Why then, my lies have done the work of truth,

  Since ‘scrub,’ improper designation, means

  Exactly what the proper argument

  — Had such been comprehensible — proposed

  To proper audience — were I graced with such —

  Would properly result in; so your friend

  Gets an impartial verdict on his verse

  ‘The tongue swears, but the soul remains unsworn!

  “There, my Balaustion! All is summed and said.

  No other cause of quarrel with yourself!

  Euripides and Aristophanes

  Differ: he needs must round our difference

  Into the mob’s ear; with the mob I plead.

  You angrily start forward ‘This to me?’

  No speck of this on you the thrice refined!

  Could parley be restricted to us two,

  My first of duties were to clear up doubt

  As to our true divergence each from each.

  Does my opinion so diverge from yours?

  Probably less than little — not at all!

  To know a matter, for my very self

  And intimates — that’s one thing; to imply

  By ‘knowledge’ — loosing whatsoe’er I know

  Among the vulgar who, by mere mistake,

  May brain themselves and me in consequence, —

  That’s quite another. ‘O the daring flight!

  This only bard maintains the exalted brow,

  Nor grovels in the slime nor fears the gods!’

  Did I fear — I play superstitious fool,

  Who, with the due proviso, introduced,

  Active and passive, their whole company

  As creatures too absurd for scorn itself?

  Zeus? I have styled him — ’slave, mere thrashing-block!’

  I’ll tell you: in my very next of plays,

  At Bacchos’ feast, in Bacchos’ honour, full

  In front of Bacchos’ representative,

  I mean to make main-actor — Bacchos’ self!

  Forth shall he strut, apparent, first to last,

  A blockkead, coward, braggart, liar, thief,

  Demonstrated all these by his own mere

  Xanthias the man-slave: such man shows such god

  Shamed to brute-beastship by compariso
n!

  And when ears have their fill of his abuse,

  And eyes are sated with his pummelling, —

  My Choros taking care, by, all the while,

  Singing his glory, that men recognize

  A god in the abused and pummelled beast, —

  Then, should one ear be stopped of auditor,

  Should one spectator shut revolted eye, —

  Why, the Priest’s self will first raise outraged voice

  ‘Back, thou barbarian, thou ineptitude!

  Does not most license hallow best our day,

  And least decorum prove its strictest rite?

  Since Bacchos bids his followers play the fool,

  And there’s no fooling like a majesty

  Mocked at, — who mocks the god, obeys the law —

  Law which, impute but indiscretion to,

  And . . . why, the spirit of Euripides

  Is evidently active in the world!’

  Do I stop here? No! feat of flightier force!

  See Hermes! what commotion raged, — reflect! —

  When imaged god alone got injury

  By drunkards’ frolic! How Athenai stared

  Aghast, then fell to frenzy, fit on fit, —

  Ever the last the longest! At this hour,

  The craze abates a little; so, my Play

  Shall have up Hermes: and a Karion, slave,

  (Since there’s no getting lower) calls our friend

  The profitable god, we honour so,

  Whatever contumely fouls the mouth —

  Bids him go earn more honest livelihood

  By washing tripe in well-trough — wash he does,

  Duly obedient! Have I dared my best?

  Asklepios, answer! — deity in vogue,

  Who visits Sophokles familiarly,

  If you believe the old man, — at his age,

  Living is dreaming, and strange guests haunt door

  Of house, belike, peep through and tap at times

  When a friend yawns there, waiting to be fetched, —

  At any rate, to memorize the fact,

  He has spent money, set an altar up

  In the god’s temple, now in much repute.

  That temple-service trust me to describe —

  Cheaters and choused, the god, his brace of girls,

  Their snake, and how they manage to snap gifts

  ‘And consecrate the same into a bag,’

  For whimsies done away with in the dark!

  As if, a stone’s throw from that theatre

  Whereon I thus unmask their dupery,

  The thing were not religious and august!

  “Of Sophokles himself — nor word nor sign

  Beyond a harmless parody or so!

  He founds no anti-school, upsets no faith,

  But, living, lets live, the good easy soul

  Who, — if he saves his cash, unpoetlike,

  Loves wine and — never mind what other sport,