A Handbook to the Works of Browning Part 4

Sordello buries himself once more in the contemplation of nature; but finds in it only a short-lived peace. The marshy country about Mantua is suddenly converted into water; and with the shock of this catastrophe comes also the feeling: Nature can do and undo; her opportunities are endless. With man

"...youth once gone is gone: Deeds let escape are never to be done." (vol. i. p. 135.)

He has dreamed of love, of revel, and of adventure; but he has let pa.s.s the time when such dreams could be realized; and worst of all, the sacrifice has been useless. He has sacrificed the man in him to the poet; and his poetic existence has been impoverished by the act. He has rejected experience that he might _be_ his fullest self before living it; and only _living_, in other words, experience, could have made that self complete. His later years have been paving the way for this discovery; it bursts on him all at once. He has been under a long strain. The reaction at length has come. He yearns helplessly for the "blisses strong and soft" which he has known he was pa.s.sing by, but of which the full meaning never reached him until now. He must live yet.

The question is, "in what way." And this is unexpectedly answered. Palma sends for him to Verona: tells him of her step-mother's death--of strange secrets revealed to herself--of the secret influence Sordello has exercised over her life--of a great future awaiting his own, and connecting it with the Emperor's cause. She summons him to accompany her to Ferrara, and hear from Salinguerra's lips what that future is to be.

Sordello has entered on a new phase of existence. He feels that henceforward he is not to _act men_, but to _make them act_; this is how his being is to be fulfilled. It is a first step in the direction of unselfishness, but not yet into it. The soul is not yet awake.

At this point of his narrative Mr. Browning makes a halt, and carries us off to Venice, where he muses on the various questions involved in Sordello's story. The very act of digression leads back to the comparison between Eglamor and Sordello: between the artist who is one with his work, and him who is outside and beyond it--between the completeness of execution which comes of a limited ideal, and the true greatness of those performances which "can never be more than dreamed."

And the case of the true poet is farther ill.u.s.trated by that of the weather-bound sailor, who seems to have settled down for life with the fruits of his adventures, but waits only the faintest sign of a favourable wind to cut his moorings and be off.

Then comes a vision of humanity, also in harmony with the purpose of the poem. It takes the form of some frail and suffering woman, and is addressed by the author with a tenderness in which we recognize one of his constant ideals of love: the impulse not to wors.h.i.+p or to enjoy, but to comfort and to protect. He next considers the problem of human sorrow and sin, and deprecates the absolute condemnation of the sinner, in language which antic.i.p.ates that of "Fifine at the Fair." "Every life has its own law. The 'losel,' the moral outcast, keeps his own conceit of truth though through a maze of lies. Good labours to exist through evil, by means of the very ignorance which sets each man to tackle it for himself, believing that he alone can."[16] Mr. Browning rejects at least the _show_ of knowledge which gives you a name for what you die of; and that deepening of ignorance which comes of the perpetual insisting that fountains of knowledge spring everywhere for those who choose to dispense it. "What science teaches is made useless by the shortness of human existence; it absorbs all our energy in building up a machine which we shall have no time to work. All direct truth comes to us from the poet: whether he be of the smaller kind who only see, or the greater, who can tell what they have seen, or the greatest who can make others see it." Corresponding instances follow.[17]

Mr. Browning is aware that one is a poet at his own risk; and that the poetic chaplet may also prove a sacrificial one. He will still wear it, however, because in his case it means the suffrage of a "patron friend"[18]

"Whose great verse blares unintermittent on Like your own trumpeter at Marathon,--" (vol. i. p. 169.)

He recalls his readers to the "business" of the poem:

"the fate of such As find our common nature--overmuch Despised because restricted and unfit To bear the burthen they impose on it-- Cling when they would discard it; craving strength To leap from the allotted world, at length They do leap,--flounder on without a term, Each a G.o.d's germ, doomed to remain a germ In unexpanded infancy, unless...." (pp. 170, 171.)

admits that the story sounds dull; but suggests the possibility of its containing an agreeable surprise. An amusing anecdote to this effect concludes the chapter.[19]

BOOK THE FOURTH.

We are now introduced to Taurello Salinguerra: a fine soldier-like figure; the type of elastic strength in both body and mind. We are told that he possesses the courage of the fighter, the astuteness of the politician, the knowledge and graces of the man of leisure. He has shown himself capable of controlling an Emperor, and of giving precedence to a woman. He is young at sixty, while the son who is half his age, is "lean, outworn and really old." And the crowning difference between him and Sordello is this: that while Sordello only draws out other men as a means of displaying himself, he only displays himself sufficiently to draw out other men. "His choicest instruments" have "surmised him shallow."

He is in his palace at Ferrara, musing over the past--that past which held the turning-point of his career; which began the feud between himself and the now Guelph princes, and which naturally merged him in the Ghibelline cause. He remembers how the fathers of the present Este and San Bonifacio combined to cheat him out of the Modenese heiress who was to be his bride--how he retired to Sicily, to return with a wife of the Emperor's own house--how his enemies surprised him at Vicenza. He sees his old comrade Eccelino, so pa.s.sive now, so brave and vigorous then. He sees the town as they fire it together: the rush for the gates: the slas.h.i.+ng, the hewing, the blood hissing and frying on the iron gloves. His spirit leaps in the returning frenzy of that struggle and flight. It sinks again as he thinks of Elcorte--Adelaide's escape--her rescued child; his own doom in the wife and child who were not rescued.

"And now! he has effaced himself in the interests of the Romano house.

Its life has grafted itself on his own; and to what end? The Emperor is coming. His badge and seal, already in Salinguerra's hands, bestow the t.i.tle of Imperial Prefect on whosoever a.s.sumes the heads.h.i.+p of the Ghibellines in the north of Italy; and Eccelino, its proper chief, recoils; withdraws even his name from the cause. Who shall wear the badge? None so fitly as himself, who holds San Bonifacio captive--who has dislocated if not yet broken the Guelph right arm. Yet, is it worth his while? Shall he fret his remaining years? Shall he rob his old comrade's son?" He laughs the idea to scorn....

Sordello has come with Palma to Ferrara. He came to find the men who were to be the body to his spirit, the instrument to his will. But he came, expecting that these would be great. And now he discovers that very few are great; while behind and beneath, and among them, extends something which has never yet entered his field of thought: the ma.s.s of mankind. The more he looks the more it grows upon him: this people with the

"... mouths and eyes, Petty enjoyments and huge miseries,--" (vol. i. p. 181.)

and the more he feels that the few are great because the many are in them--because they are types and representatives of these. Hitherto he has striven to impose himself on mankind. He now awakes to the joy and duty of serving it. It is the magnified body which his spirit needs. And in the new-found knowledge, the new-found sympathy, his soul springs full-grown into life.

But another check is in store for him. He has taken for granted that the cause in which he is to be enlisted is the people's cause. The new soul in him can conceive nothing less. A first interview with Salinguerra dispels this dream, and dispels it in such a manner that he leaves the presence of his unknown father years older and wearier than when he entered it. He wanders through the city, mangled by civil war. The effects of Ghibelline vengeance meet him on every side. Is the Guelph more humane? He discusses the case with Palma. They weigh deeds with deeds. "Guelph and Ghibelline are alike unjust and cruel, alike inveterate enemies of their fellow-men." Who then represents the people's cause? A sudden answer comes. A bystander recognizing his minstrel's attire begs Sordello to sing, and suggests the Roman Tribune Crescentius as his theme. Rome rises before his mind--the mother of cities--the great constructive power which weaves the past into the future; which represents the continuity of human life. _The reintegration of Rome must typify the triumph of mankind._ But Rome is now the Church; she is one with the Guelph cause. The Guelph cause is therefore in some sense the true one. Sordello's new-found spiritual and his worldly interests thus range themselves on opposite sides.

BOOK THE FIFTH.

The day draws to its close. Sordello has seen more of the suffering human beings whom he wishes to serve, and the ideal Rome has collapsed in his imagination like a mocking dream. Nothing can be effected at once. No deed can bridge over the lapse of time which divides the first stage of a great social structure from its completion. Each life may give its touch; it can give no more; through the endless generations.

The vision of a regenerate humanity, "his last and loveliest," must depart like the rest. Then suddenly a voice,

"... Sordello, wake!

G.o.d has conceded two sights to a man-- One, of men's whole work, time's completed plan, The other, of the minute's work, man's first Step to the plan's completeness: what's dispersed Save hope of that supreme step which, descried Earliest, was meant still to remain untried Only to give you heart to take your own Step, and there stay--leaving the rest alone?" (vol. i. p. 217.)

The facts restate themselves, but from an opposite point of view. No man can give more than his single touch. The whole could not dispense with one of them. The work is infinite, but it is continuous. The later poet weaves into his own song the echoes of the first. "The last of each series of workmen sums up in himself all predecessors," whether he be the type of strength like Charlemagne, or of knowledge like Hildebrand.

Strength comes first in the scheme of life; it is the joyousness of childhood. Step by step Strength works Knowledge with its groans and tears. And then, in its turn, Knowledge works Strength, Knowledge controls Strength, Knowledge supersedes Strength. It is Knowledge which must prevail now. May it not be he who at this moment resumes its whole inheritance--its acc.u.mulated opportunities, in himself? He could stand still and dream while he fancied he stood alone; but he knows now that he is part of humanity, and it of him. Goito is left behind; Ferrara is reached; he must do the one thing that is within his grasp.

He must influence Salinguerra. He must interest him in the cause of knowledge; which is the people's cause. With this determination, he proceeds once more to the appointed presence. His minstrelsy is at first a failure. He is, as usual, outside his song. He is trying to guide it; it is not carrying him away. He is paralysed by the very consciousness that he is urging the head of the Ghibellines to become a Guelph.

Salinguerra's habitual tact and good-nature cannot conceal his own sense of the absurdity of the proposal. Sordello sees in

"a flash of bitter truth: So fantasies could break and fritter youth That he had long ago lost earnestness, Lost will to work, lost power to even express The need of working!" (vol. i. p. 228.)

But he will not be beaten. He tries once more. We see the blood leap to his brain, the heart into his purpose, as he challenges Salinguerra to bow before the royalty of song. He owns himself its unworthy representative: for he has frittered away his powers. He has identified himself with existing forms of being, instead of proving his kings.h.i.+p by a new spiritual birth--by a supreme, as yet unknown revelation of the power of human will. He has resigned his function. He is a self-deposed king. He acknowledges the man before him as fitter to help the world than he is. But this is shame enough. He will not see its now elected champion scorn the post he renounces on his behalf. And his art is still royal though he is not. It is the utterance of the spiritual life: of the informing thought--which was in the world before deeds began--which brought order out of chaos--which guided deeds in their due gradation till itself emerged as SONG: to react in deed; but to need no help of it; to be (so we complete the meaning) as the knowledge which controls strength, which supersedes strength.[20]

The walls of the presence-chamber have fallen away. Imaginary faces are crowding around him. He turns to these. He shows them human life as the poet's mirror reflects it: in its varied masquerade, in its mingled good and evil, in its steady advance; in the rainbow brightness of its obstructed lights; the deceptive gloom of its merely repeated shadows.

He enforces in every tone that continuity of the plan of creation to which the poet alone holds the clue. Finally, in the name of the unlimited truth, the limited opportunity, the one duty which confronts him now, the People whose support, in his performance of it, he may claim for the first time, he forbids the Emperor's coming, and invokes Salinguerra's protection for the Guelph cause.

Salinguerra is moved at last, though not in the intended way. He does not yield to Sordello's enthusiasm, but he sees that it is worth employing. There is no question of his becoming a Guelph, but why should not Sordello turn Ghibelline? The cause requires a youth to "stalk, and bustle, and att.i.tudinize;" and he clearly thinks this is all the youth before him wants to do, whether conscious of the fact or not. He thinks the thought aloud. "Palma loves her minstrel; it is written in her eyes; let her marry him. Were she Romano's son instead of his daughter, she could wear the Emperor's badge. Himself fate has doomed to a secondary position. To contend against it is useless." Before he knows what he has done, without really meaning to do it, he has thrown the badge across Sordello's neck, and thus created him Eccelino's successor.

It was a prophetic act. At the moment of its performance

"... each looked on each: Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech." (vol. i. p. 243.)

Palma's moment is come, and she relates the story, as she received it from Adelaide, of Sordello's birth. With blanched lips, and sweat-drops on his face, the old soldier takes the hand of his poet-son, and lays its consecrating touch on his own face and brow. Then, recovering himself, with his mailed arms on Sordello's shoulders, he launches forth in an eager survey of the situation as it may shape itself for both.

Palma at last draws him away, and Sordello, exhausted and speechless, is left alone. The two are in a small stone chamber, below the one they have left. Half-drunk with his new emotions, Salinguerra paces the narrow floor. His eyes burn; his tread strikes sparks from the stone.

The future glows before him. He and Sordello combined will break up Hildebrand. They will rebuild Charlemagne; not in the brute force of earlier days; but as strength adorned with knowledge, as empire imposing law. Palma listens in satisfied repose; her task is done.

A stamp is heard overhead.

BOOK THE SIXTH.

Sordello is alone--face to face with his memory, with his conscience, and, as we presently find out, with the greatest temptation he has ever known. The moon is slowly rising; and just so the light of truth is overflowing his past life, and laying bare its every recess. He sees no fault in this past, except the want of a uniform purpose in which its various moods could have coalesced, the all-embracing sense of existence been translated into fact; but he unconsciously confesses its selfishness, in deciding that this purpose should have been outside him--a remote and uplifting, though sympathetic influence, such as the moon is to the sea. Smaller lives than his have attained a higher completeness, because they have worked for an ideal: because they have had their moon.

"Where then is _his_ moon? What the love, the fear, the motive, in short, that could match the strength, could sway the full tide, of a nature like his?" He doubts its existence. And if, after all, he has been destined to be a law to himself, must he not in some sense apply this relative standard to the rest of life; and may not the outward motive be at all times the embodiment of an inner want or law, which only the stronger nature can realize as such? He has found his purpose.

That purpose is the people. "But the people is himself. The desire to help it comes from within. Will he fulfil this the better for regarding its suffering part as an outward motive, as something alien to himself, and for which Self must be forsaken?" In plain words: would he not serve it as well by serving his own interests as by forsaking them?

This sophistry is so patent that it startles even him; but it is only silenced to rea.s.sert itself in another form. "The Guelph rule would doubtless be the best. But what can he do to promote it? Attest his belief by refusing the Emperor's badge? That would be something in the end. But meanwhile, how many sympathies to be broken, how many aversions defied, before the one ideal can be made to prevail. Is not the proceeding too arbitrary? Would it be justified by the result? The question is only one of ideas. If the men who supported each opposite cause were wholly good or bad, his course would be clear. But such divisions do not exist. All men are composite. All nature is a blending of good and evil, in which the one is often but a different form of the other. Evil is in fact indispensable; for it is not only the ground of sympathy, but the active principle of life. Joy means the triumph over obstruction. The suspended effort is death, so far as it goes.

Obstruction and effort must begin again and again. The sphere grows larger. It can never be more complete (more satisfying to those who are imprisoned within it). The only gain of existence is to be extracted from its hindrances, by each individual and for himself." The last plea for self-sacrifice is thus removed.

These arguments are often just, even profound; they might also have been sincere in this special case; for there was something to be said in favour of accepting the opportunities which offered themselves, and of guiding the course of events, instead of engaging in a probably fruitless opposition to it. But they are not sincere. Sordello is at best deceiving himself, and Mr. Browning intends us to to see this. He is struggling, if unconsciously, to evade the very trials which he thinks so good for other men. His true object soon stands revealed in a first and last effort at compromise. "The people's good is in the future. His is in the present. Can he not speed the one, and yet enjoy the other?" ... The present rises up, in its new-found richness, in its undisguised temptation. The joys which lure him become gigantic; the price of renunciation shrinks to nothing; and at last, the pent up pa.s.sion breaks forth--that pa.s.sion for life, for sheer life, which inspired his imagination as a boy, which nerved his ambition as a man; to which his late-found humanities have given voice and shape; which now gathers itself to a supreme utterance in the grasp of death. "The earthly existence now: the transcendent hereafter, if Fate will. A man's opportunities--a man's powers--a man's self-consciousness of joy and conflict--these things he craves while he may yet possess them."

Then a sudden revulsion. "He would drink the very dregs of life! How many have sacrificed it whilst its cup was full, because a better still seemed behind it."

"... the death I fly, revealed So oft a better life this life concealed, And which sage, champion, martyr, through each path Have hunted fearlessly--...."

(vol. i. p. 272.)

"But they had a belief which he has not. They knew what 'masters life.'

For him the paramount fact is that of his own being...."

This is the last protest of the flesh within him. Sordello is dying, and probably feels that he is so; and he lapses into a calm contemplation, which reveals to him the last secret of his mistaken career. He already knew that he had ignored the bodily to the detriment of his spiritual existence. He now feels that he has destroyed his body by forcing on it the exigencies of the spirit. He has striven to obtain infinite consciousness, infinite enjoyment, from finite powers. He has broken the law of life. He has missed (so we interpret Mr. Browning's conclusion) the ideal of that divine and human Love which would have given the freest range to his spirit and yet accepted that law. Eglamor began with love. Will Sordello find it, meeting that gentle spirit on his course?