A Handbook to the Works of Browning Part 13

P. 49. _Free dinner in the Prutaneion._ (Prytaneion.) Such was accorded to certain privileged persons. _Ariphrades._ A man of infamous character, singer to the harp: persistently attacked by Aristophanes.

_Karkinos._ Comic actor: had famous dancing sons.

P. 50. _Exomis._ A woman's garment. _Parach.o.r.egema._ Subordinate chorus, which sings in the absence of the princ.i.p.al one. _Aristullos._ Bad character satirized by Aristophanes, and used in one of his plays as a travesty of Plato. This incident, and Plato's amused indifference, are mentioned at p. 137 of the Apology.

P. 51. _Murrhine_, _Akalantis_. Female names in the Thesmophoriazusae.

_New Kalligeneia._ Name given to Ceres, meaning, "bearer of lovely children." _The Toxotes._ A Syrian archer in the "Thesmophoriazusae."

_The Great King's Eye._ Mock name given to an amba.s.sador from Persia in the Acharnians. _Kompolakuthes._ Bully-boaster: with a play on the name of Lamachus.

P. 52. _Silphion._ A plant used as a relish. _Kleon-Clapper._ Corrector of Kleon.

P. 54. _Trugaios._ Epithet of Bacchus, "vintager;" here name of a person in the comedy of "Peace." _Story of Simonides._ Simonides, the lyric poet, sang an ode to his patron, Scopas, at a feast; and as he had introduced into it the praises of Castor and Pollux, Scopas declared that he would only pay his own half-share of the ode, and the Demi-G.o.ds might pay the remainder. Presently it was announced to Simonides that two youths desired to see him outside the palace; on going there he found n.o.body, but meanwhile the palace fell in, killing his patron. Thus was he _paid_.

P. 58. _Maketis._ Capital of Macedonia.

P. 60. _Lamachos._ General who fell at the siege of Syracuse; satirized by Aristophanes as a brave, but boastful man.

P. 67. _Sophroniskos' Son._ Socrates.

P. 74. _Kephisophon._ Actor, and friend of Euripides; enviously reported to help him in writing his plays.

P. 79. _Palaistra._ A wrestling-school, or place of exercise.

P. 82. _San._ Letter distinguis.h.i.+ng race-horses. _Thearion's Meal-Tub Politics._ Politics of Thearion the baker. _Pisthetarios._ Character in the "Birds," alias "Mr. Persuasive." _Strephsiades._ Character in the "Clouds."

P. 83. _Rocky ones._ Epithet given to the Athenians.

P. 85. _Promachos._ Champion.

P. 86. _The Boule._ State Council. _Prodikos._ Prodicus. A Sophist, satirized in the "Birds" and "Clouds."

P. 87. _Choes._ Festival at Athens. "The Pitchers."

P. 89. _Plataian help._ The Plataeans sent a thousand well appointed warriors to help at Marathon. The term stands for _timely_ help.

P. 94. _Plethron square._ 100 feet square.

P. 98. _Palaistra tool._ Tool used at the Palaistra, or wrestling school: in this case the strigil.

P. 99. _Phales._ _Iacchos._ Two epithets of Bacchus--the former indecent.

P. 112. _Kinesias._ According to Aristophanes, a bad profligate lyric poet, notable for his leanness.

P. 113. _Rattei._ Like "Neblaretai," an imitative or gibberish word expressing joyous excitement. _Aristonumos._ _Sannurion._ Two comic poets, the latter ridiculed by Aristophanes for his leanness.

P. 124. _Parabasis._ Movement of the chorus, wherein the Coryphoeus came forward and spoke in the poet's name.

P. 128. _Skiadeion._ Sunshade. Parasol.

P. 129. _Theoria._ _Opora._ Characters in the Eirene or "Peace:" the first personifying games, spectacles, sights; the second, plenty, fruitful autumn, and so on.

P. 133. _Philokleon._ Lover of Kleon. (Cleon.) _Bdelukleon._ Reviler of Kleon.

P. 135. _Logeion._ Front of the stage occupied by the actors.

P. 137. _Kukloboros-roaring._ Roaring like the torrent Cycloborus (in Attica).

P. 140. _Konnos._ The play by Ameipsias which beat the "Clouds."

_Euthumenes._ One who refused the pay of the comic writers, while he tripled that of those who attended at the a.s.sembly. _Argurrhios._ As before. _Kinesias._ As before.

P. 144. _Triballos._ A supposed _country_ and clownish G.o.d.

P. 172. _Propula._ (Propyla.) Gateway to the Acropolis.

P. 248. _Elaphebolion month._ The "Stag-striking" month.

P. 249. _Bakis prophecy._ Foolish prophecies attributed to one Bacis, rife at that time; a collective name for all such.

P. 255. _Kommos._ General weeping--by the chorus and an actor.

"FIFINE AT THE FAIR."

"Fifine at the Fair" is a defence of inconstancy, or of the right of experiment in love; and is addressed by a husband to his wife, whose supposed and very natural comments the monologue reflects. The speaker's implied name of Don Juan sufficiently tells us what we are meant to think of his arguments; and they also convict themselves by landing him in an act of immorality, which brings its own punishment. This character is nevertheless a standing puzzle to Mr. Browning's readers, because that which he condemns in it, and that which he does not, are not to be distinguished from each other. It is impossible to see where Mr.

Browning ends and where Don Juan begins. The reasoning is scarcely ever that of a heartless or profligate person, though it very often betrays an unconsciously selfish one. It treats love as an education still more than as a pleasure; and if it lowers the standard of love, or defends too free an indulgence in it, it does so by a.s.serting what is true for imaginative persons, though not for the commonplace: that whatever stirs even a sensuous admiration appeals also to the artistic, the moral, and even the religious nature. Its obvious sophistries are mixed up with the profoundest truths, and the speaker's tone has often the tenderness of one who, with all his inconstancy, has loved deeply and long. We can only solve the problem by referring to the circ.u.mstances in which the idea of the poem arose.

Mr. Browning was, with his family, at p.o.r.nic many years ago, and there saw the gipsy who is the original of Fifine. His fancy was evidently sent roaming, by her audacity, her strength--the contrast which she presented to the more spiritual types of womanhood; and this contrast eventually found expression in a poetic theory of life, in which these opposite types and their corresponding modes of attraction became the necessary complement of each other. As he laid down the theory, Mr.

Browning would be speaking in his own person. But he would turn into someone else in the act of working it out--for it insensibly carried with it a plea for yielding to those opposite attractions, not only successively, but at the same time; and a modified Don Juan would grow up under his pen, thinking in some degree his thoughts, using in some degree his language, and only standing out as a distinctive character at the end of the poem. The higher type of womanhood must appear in the story, at the same time as the lower which is represented by Fifine; and Mr. Browning would instinctively clothe it in the form which first suggested or emphasized the contrast. He would soon, however, feel that the vision was desecrated by the part it was called upon to play. He would disguise or ward it off when possible: now addressing Elvire by her husband's mouth, in the terms of an ideal companions.h.i.+p, now again reducing her to the level of an every-day injured wife; and when the dramatic Don Juan was about to throw off the mask, the flickering wifely personality would be extinguished altogether, and the unfaithful husband left face to face with the mere phantom of conscience which, in one sense, Elvire is always felt to be. This is what actually occurs; and only from this point of view can we account for the perpetual encroaching of the imaginary on the real, the real on the imaginary, which characterizes the work.

A fanciful prologue, "Amphibian," strikes its key-note. The writer imagines himself floating on the sea, pleasantly conscious of his bodily existence, yet feeling unfettered by it. A strange beautiful b.u.t.terfly floats past him in the air; her radiant wings can be only those of a soul; and it strikes him that while the waves are his property, and the air is hers, hers is true freedom, his only the mimicry of it. He sees little to regret in this, since imagination is as good as reality; and Heaven itself can only be made up of such things as poets dream. Yet he knows that his swimming seems but a foolish compromise between the flight to which he cannot attain, and the more grovelling mode of being which he has no real wish to renounce; and he wonders whether she, the already released, who is upborne by those sunlit wings, does not look down with pity and wonder upon him. So also will Elvire, though less dispa.s.sionately, watch the intellectual vagaries of her Don Juan, which embrace the heavens, but are always centred in earth. This prologue is preceded by a quotation from Moliere's "Don Juan," in which Elvire satirically prescribes to her lover the kind of self-defence--or something not unlike it--which Mr. Browning's hero will adopt.

Don Juan invites his wife to walk with him through the fair: and as he points out its sights to her, he expatiates on the pleasures of vagrancy, and declares that the red pennon waving on the top of the princ.i.p.al booth sends an answering thrill of restlessness through his own frame. He then pa.s.ses to a glowing eulogium on the charms of the dark-skinned rope-dancer, Fifine, who forms part of the itinerant show.

Elvire gives tokens of perturbation, and her husband frankly owns that as far as Fifine is concerned, he cannot defend his taste: he can scarcely account for it. "Beautiful she is, in her feminine grace and strength, set forth by her boyish dress; but with probably no more feeling than a sprite, and no more conscience than a flower. It is likely enough that her antecedents have been execrable, and that her life is in harmony with them." Still, he does not wish it supposed that he admires a body without a soul: and he tries to convince himself that Fifine, after all, is not quite without one. "There is no grain of sand on the sea-sh.o.r.e which may not, once in a century, be the first to flash back the rising sun; there can be no human spirit which does not in the course of its existence greet the Divine light with one answering ray."

But no heavenly spark can be detected in Fifine; and he is reduced to seeking a virtue for her, a justification for himself, in that very fact. If she has no virtue, she also pretends to none. If she gives nothing to society, she asks nothing of it. His fancy raises up a procession of such women as the world has crowned: a Helen, a Cleopatra, some Christian saint; he bids Elvire see herself as part of it--as the true Helen, who, according to the legend, never quitted Greece, contemplated her own phantom within the walls of Troy--and be satisfied that she is "best" of all. "All alike are wanting in one grace which Fifine possesses: that of self-effacement. Helen and Cleopatra demand unquestioning homage for their own mental as well as bodily charms; the saint demands it for the principle she sets forth. His love demands that he shall see into her heart; his wife that he shall believe the impossible as regards her own powers of devotion. Fifine says,'You come to look at my outside, my foreign face and figure my outlandish limbs.

Pay for the sight if it has pleased you, and give me credit for nothing beyond what you see.' So simply honest an appeal must touch his heart."

Don Juan well knows what his wife thinks of all this, and he says it for her. "Fifine attracts him for no such out of the way reason. Her charm is that she is something new, and something which does not belong to him. He is the soul of inconstancy; and if he had the sun for his own, he would hanker after other light, were it that of a tallow-candle or a squib." But he a.s.sures her that this reasoning is unsound, and his amusing himself with a lower thing does not prove that he has become indifferent to the higher. He shows this by reminding her of a picture of Raphael's, which he was mad to possess; which now that he possesses it, he often neglects for a picture-book of Dore's; but which, if threatened with destruction, he would save at the sacrifice of a million Dores, perhaps of his own life. And now he turns back to her phantom self, as present in his own mind; describes it in terms of exquisite grace and purity; and declares hers the one face which fits into his heart, and makes whole what would be half without it.

Elvire is conciliated; but her husband will not leave well alone. He has established her full claim to his admiration: but he is going to prove that so far as her physical charms are concerned, she owes it to his very attachment: "for those charms are not attested by her looking-gla.s.s. He discovers them by the eye of love--in other words--by the artist soul within him."

All beauty, Don Juan farther explains, is in the imagination of him who feels it, be he lover or artist; be the beauty he descries the attribute of a living face, of a portrait, or of some special arrangement of sound. The feeling is inspired by its outward objects, but it cannot be retraced to them. It is a fancy created by fact, as flame by fuel; no more identical with it. The fancy is not on that account a delusion. It is the vision of ideal truth: the recognition by an inner sense of that which does not exist for the outer. That is why hearts choose each other by help of the face, and why they choose so diversely. The eye of love, which again is the eye of art, reads soul into the features, however incomplete their expression of it may be. It reconstructs the ideal type which nature has failed to carry out.

He ill.u.s.trates this by means of three faces roughly sketched in the sand. At first sight they are grotesque and unmeaning. Yet a few more strokes of the broken pipe which is serving him as a pencil, will give to two of these a predominating expression; convert the third into a likeness of Elvire.

"These completing touches represent the artist's action upon life. By this method Don Juan has been enabled on a former occasion, to complete a work of high art. A block of marble had come into his possession, half shaped by the hand of Michael Angelo.

"... One hand,--the Master's,--smoothed and sc.r.a.ped That ma.s.s, he hammered on and hewed at, till he hurled Life out of death, and left a challenge: for the world, Death still,--...." (vol. xi. p. 260.)