Men and Women Part 11

Live long and happy, and in that thought die; Glad for what was! Farewell. And for the rest, I cannot tell thy messenger aright Where to deliver what he bears of thine To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 340 Indeed, if Christus be not one with him-- I know not, nor am troubled much to know.

Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew, As Paulus proves to be, one circ.u.mcised, Hath access to a secret shut from us?

Thou wrongest our philosophy, 0 king, In stooping to inquire of such an one, As if his answer could impose at all!

He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write.

Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 350 Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander) Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

NOTES

"Cleon" expresses the approach of Greek thought at the time of Christ towards the idea of immortality as made known by Cleon, a Greek poet writing in reply to a Greek patron whose princely gifts and letter asking comment on the philosophical significance of death have just reached him. The important conclusions reached by Cleon in his answer are that the composite mind is greater than the minds of the past, because it is capable of accomplis.h.i.+ng much in many lines of activity, and of sympathizing with each of those simple great minds that had reached the highest possible perfection "at one point." It is, indeed, the necessary next step in development, though all cla.s.ses of mind fit into the perfected mosaic of life, no one achievement blotting out any other. This soul and mind development he deduces from the physical development he sees about him. But since with the growth of human consciousness and the increase of knowledge comes greater capability to the soul for joy while the failure of physical powers shuts off the possibility of realizing joy, it would have been better had man been left with nothing higher than mere sense like the brutes. Dismissing the idea of immortality through one's works as unsatisfactory to the individual, he finally concludes that a long and happy life is all there is to be hoped for, since, had the future life which he has sometimes dared to hope for been possible, Zeus would long before have revealed it. He dismisses the preaching of one Paulus as untenable.

"As certain also of your own poets have said": this motto hints that Paul's speech at Athens (Acts 17.22-28) suggests and justifies Browning's conception of such Greek poets as Cleon seeking "the Lord, if haply they might feel after him." Paul's quotation, "For we are also his offspring," is from the "Phoenomena" by Aratus, a Greek poet of his own town of Tarsus.

1. Sprinkled isles: probably the Sporades, so named because they were scattered, and in opposition to the Cyclades, which formed a circle around Delos.

51. Phare: light-house. The French authority, Allard, says that though there is no mention in cla.s.sical writings of any light-house in Greece proper, it is probable that there was one at the port of Athens as well as at other points in Greece. There were certainly several along both sh.o.r.es of the h.e.l.lespont, besides the famous father of all light-houses, on the island of Pharos, near Alexandria. Hence the French name for light-house, phare.

53. Poecile: the portico at Athens painted with battle pictures by Polygnotus the Thasian.

60. Combined the moods: in Greek music the scales were called moods or modes, and were subject to great variation in the arrangement of tones and semitones.

83. Rhomb . . . lozenge . . . trapezoid: all four-sided forms, but differing as to the parallel arrangement of their sides and the obliquity of their angles.

140. Terpander: musician of Lesbos (about 650 B. C.), who added three strings to the four-stringed Greek lyre.

141. Phidias: the Athenian sculptor (about 430 B. C.) --and his friend: Pericles, ruler of Athens (444-429 B.C.). Plutarch speaks of their friends.h.i.+p in his Life of Pericles.

304. Sappho: poet of Lesbos, supreme among lyricists (about 600 B. C.). Only fragments of her verse remain.

305. AEschylus: oldest of the three great Athenian dramatists (525-472 B. C.).

340. Paulus; we have have heard his fame: Paul's mission to the Gentiles carried him to many of the islands in the AEgean Sea as well as to Athens and Corinth (Acts 13-21).

RUDEL TO THE LADY OF TRIPOLI

1842

I I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives First, when he visits, last, too, when he leaves The world; and, vainly favored, it repays The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze By no change of its large calm front of snow.

And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know, He cannot have perceived, that changes ever At his approach; and, in the lost endeavor To live his life, has parted, one by one, With all a flower's true graces, for the grace 10 Of being but a foolish mimic sun, With ray-like florets round a disk-like face.

Men n.o.bly call by many a name the Mount As over many a land of theirs its large Calm front of snow like a triumphal targe Is reared, and still with old names, fresh names vie, Each to its proper praise and own account: Men call the Flower, the Sunflower, sportively.

II Oh, Angel of the East, one, one gold look Across the waters to this twilight nook, 20 --The far sad waters. Angel, to this nook!

III Dear Pilgrim, art thou for the East indeed?

Go!--saying ever as thou dost proceed, That I, French Rudel, choose for my device A sunflower outspread like a sacrifice Before its idol. See! These inexpert And hurried fingers could not fail to hurt The woven picture; 't is a woman's skill Indeed; but nothing baffled me, so, ill Or well, the work is finished. Say, men feed 30 On songs I sing, and therefore bask the bees On my flower's breast as on a platform broad: But, as the flower's concern is not for these But solely for the sun, so men applaud In vain this Rudel, he not looking here But to the East--the East! Go, say this, Pilgrim dear!

NOTES

"Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli": Rudel symbolizes his love as the aspiration of the sunflower that longs only to become like the sun, so losing a flower's true grace, while the sun does not even perceive the flower. He imagines himself as a pilgrim revealing to the Lady of Tripoli by means of this symbol the entire sinking of self in his love for her. Even men's praise of his songs is no more to him than the bees which bask on a sunflower are to it.

Rudel was a Provencal troubadour, and lived in the twelfth century.

The Crusaders, returning from the East, spread abroad wonderful reports of the beauty, learning, and wit of the Countess of Tripoli, a small duchy on the Mediterranean, north of Palestine. Rudel, although never having seen her, fell in love with her and composed songs in honor of her beauty, and finally set out to the East in pilgrim's garb. On his way he was taken ill, but lived to reach the port of Tripoli. The countess, being told of his arrival, went on board the vessel. When Rudel heard she was coming, he revived, said she had restored him to life by her coming, and that he was willing to die, having seen her. He died in her arms; she gave him a rich and honorable burial in a sepulchre of porphyry on which were engraved verses in Arabic.

ONE WORD MORE

TO E. B. B.

1855

[Originally appended to the collection of Poems called "Men and Women," the greater portion of which has now been, more correctly, distributed under the other t.i.tles of this edition.-R. B.]

I There they are, my fifty men and women Naming me the fifty poems finished!

Take them, Love, the book and me together: Where the heart lies, let the brain lie also.

II Rafael made a century of sonnets, Made and wrote them in a certain volume Dinted with the silver-pointed pencil Else he only used to draw Madonnas: These, the world might view--but one, the volume.

Who that one, you ask? Your heart instructs you. 10 Did she live and love it all her life-time?

Did she drop, his lady of the sonnets, Die, and let it drop beside her pillow Where it lay in place of Rafael's glory, Rafael's cheek so duteous and so loving-- Cheek, the world was wont to hail a painter's, Rafael's cheek, her love had turned a poet's?

You and I would rather read that volume, (Taken to his beating bosom by it) Lean and list the bosom-beats of Rafael, 20 Would we not? than wonder at Madonnas-- Her, San Sisto names, and Her, Foligno, Her, that visits Florence in a vision, Her, that's left with lilies in the Louvre-- Seen by us and all the world in circle.

IV You and I will never read that volume.

Guido Reni, like his own eye's apple Guarded long the treasure-book and loved it.

Guido Reni dying, all Bologna Cried, and the world cried too, "Ours, the treasure!" 30 Suddenly, as rare things will, it vanished.

V Dante once prepared to paint an angel: Whom to please? You whisper "Beatrice."

While he mused and traced it and retraced it, (Peradventure with a pen corroded Still by drops of that hot ink he dipped for, When, his left-hand i' the hair o' the wicked, Back he held the brow and p.r.i.c.ked its stigma, Bit into the live man's flesh, for parchment, Loosed him, laughed to see the writing rankle, 40 Let the wretch go festering through Florence)-- Dante, who loved well because he hated, Hated wickedness that hinders loving, Dante standing, studying his angel-- In there broke the folk of his Inferno.

Says he--"Certain people of importance"

Such he gave his daily dreadful line to) "Entered and would seize, forsooth, the poet."

Says the poet--"Then I stopped my painting."

You and I would rather see that angel, 50 Painted by the tenderness of Dante, Would we not?--than read a fresh Inferno.

VII You and I will never see that picture.

While he mused on love and Beatrice, While he softened o'er his outlined angel, In they broke, those "people of importance;"

We and Bice bear the loss forever.

VIII What of Rafael's sonnets, Dante's picture?

This: no artist lives and loves, that longs not Once, and only once, and for one only, 60 (Ah, the prize !) to find his love a language Fit and fair and simple and sufficient-- Using nature that's an art to others, Not, this one time, art that's turned his nature.

Ay, of all the artists living, loving, None but would forego his proper dowry-- Does he paint? he fain would write a poem-- Does he write? he fain would paint a picture, Put to proof art alien to the artist's, Once, and only once, and for one only, 70 So to be the man and leave the artist, Gain the man's joy, miss the artist's sorrow.

IX Wherefore? Heaven's gift takes earth's abatement!

He who smites the rock and spreads the water, Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him, Even he, the minute makes immortal, Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute, Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.

While he smites, how can he but remember, So he smote before, in such a peril, 80 When they stood and mocked--"Shall smiting help us?"

When they drank and sneered--"A stroke is easy!"

When they wiped their mouths and went their journey, Throwing him for thanks--"But drought was pleasant."

Thus old memories mar the actual triumph; Thus the doing savors of disrelish; Thus achievement lacks a gracious somewhat; O'er-importuned brows becloud the mandate, Carelessness or consciousness--the gesture.

For he bears an ancient wrong about him, 90 Sees and knows again those phalanxed faces, Hears, yet one time more, the 'customed prelude-- "How shouldst thou, of all men, smite, and save us?"

Guesses what is like to prove the sequel-- "Egypt's flesh-pots-nay, the drought was better."