Emo, is situated about four miles from Florence. It was founded about
1341. It is Gothic, and is built in a grand style, like that of a castle.
l. 186, _mannaia_: an instrument for beheading criminals, much like the
guillotine. l. 188, _"Mouth-of-Truth"--Bocca della Verità_: S. Maria in
Cosmedin, in ancient Rome. From the mouth of a fountain to the left is the
portico, into which, according to a mediæval belief, the ancient Romans
thrust their right hands when taking an oath. l. 261, "_Merry Tales_": the
novels and tales of Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400). He wrote some three
hundred _novelle_ in pure Tuscan. l. 272, _Albano_, or _Albani, Francesco_
(1578-1660): a celebrated Italian painter, who was born at Bologna. He
lived and taught in Rome for many years. Among the best of his sacred
pictures are a "St. Sebastian" and an "Assumption of the Virgin," both in
the church of St. Sebastian at Rome. l. 274, "_Europa and the bull_":
Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Phoenicia. Jupiter became
enamoured of her, and assumed the form of a beautiful bull. When Europa
mounted on his back he carried her off. l. 291, _Atlas_ and _axis_ are
bones of the neck on which the head turns: the _atlas_ is the first
cervical vertebra, the _axis_ is the second cervical vertebra;
_symphyses_, the union of bones with each other. l. 327, "_Petrus, quo
vadis?_" "Peter, whither goest thou?" On the Appian Way at Rome there is a
small church called Domine Quo Vadis, so named from the legend that St.
Peter, fleeing from the death of a martyr, here met his Master, and
inquired of Him, "Domine, quo vadis?" ("Lord, whither goest Thou?") to
which he received the reply, "Venio iterum crucifigi" ("I come to be
crucified again")--whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness,
returned. l. 569, _King Cophetua_: an imaginary king of Africa, who fell
in love with a beggar girl. He married her, and lived happily with her for
many years. l. 683, "_and tinkle near_": at the mass, when the priest
consecrates the elements, a small bell is rung by the server to acquaint
the worshippers with the fact that the consecration has taken place. This,
of course, is the most solemn part of the mass, when the worshippers are
most attentive. l. 685, _Trebbian_: from Trevi, in the valley of the
Clitumnus. l. 786, "_Hocus-pocus_"; Nares says these words represent Ochus
Bochus, an Italian magician invoked by jugglers; but there are other
explanations. _Vallombrosa Convent_: a famous convent near Florence.
Milton says, "Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in
Vallombrosa" (_Paradise Lost_, i. 302). But the trees are pines, and _not
deciduous_. l. 1119, "_the Etruscan monster_": Mr. Browning was a student
of Etruscan art and archæology. The Etruscans were the nation conquered by
the Romans, and their antiquities are abundant in the district between
Rome and Florence. The monster is the Chimæra, represented with three
heads--those of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. Bellerophon, mounted on the
horse Pegasus, attacked and overcame it. l. 1413, _Armida_: a beautiful
sorceress, a prominent character in Tasso's _Jerusalem Delivered_. l.
1416, _Rinaldo_, in the same poem, was the Achilles of the Crusaders'
army. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen, and was enrolled in the
adventurers' squadron. Rinaldo fell in love with Armida, and wasted his
time in voluptuous pleasures. l. 1420, _zecchines_, or _sequins_: Venetian
gold coins, worth about 9_s._ 6_d._ l. 1669, _stinche_: a prison. l. 1808,
"_Helping Vienna_": this refers to the second siege of Vienna by the Turks
in 1683, when 150,000 Turks sat down before the city, Cara Mustapha being
their leader. Pope Innocent XI. and John Sobieski, king of Poland, entered
into a league to oppose the common enemy of Christian Europe. The whole
Turkish army was defeated, and fled in the utmost disorder after the great
battle fought under the walls of Vienna on Sept. 12th, 1683. l. 1850,
_Gaudeamus_, "let us be glad." l. 1925, _Jove Ægiochus_: Jupiter was
surnamed Ægiochus because, according to some authors, he was brought up by
a goat. Properly the name is from the _ægis_ which the god bore. l. 1928,
"_Seventh Æneid_": Virgil's great poem was the "Æneis," which has for its
subject the settlement of Æneas in Italy. The passage referred to is in
the _Eighth Book_ (426), and begins "His informatum, manibus jam parte
politâ." l. 2034, "_Romano vivitur more_": Life goes on in the Roman way.
l. 2051, "_Byblis in fluvius_": Byblis fell in love with her brother, and
was changed into a fountain. l. 2052, "_sed Lycaon in lupum_": a cruel
king of Arcadia, named Lycaon, was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because
he offered human sacrifices on the altar of the god Pan. l. 2144,
_Paynimrie_, heathendom. l. 2184, _Olimpia_, in _Orlando Furioso_:
Countess of Holland and wife of Bireno: when her husband deserted her she
was bound naked to a rock by pirates, but Orlando delivered her and took
her to Ireland. _Bianca_: wife of Fazio. She tried to save her husband
from death; failed, went mad, and died of a broken heart. l. 2185, _Ormuz
wealth_: the island Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, is a mart for diamonds. l.
2211, _Circe_: a sorceress, who turned the companions of Ulysses into
swine. Ulysses resisted the metamorphosis by virtue of the herb _moly_,
given him by Mercury. l. 2214, _Lucrezia di Borgia_: she was thrice
married, her last husband being Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Through her
influence many persons were put to death. Her natural son Gennaro having
been poisoned, she died herself as he expired. l. 2414, "_Who are these
you have let descend my stair?_" They were the Brothers of Mercy, whose
duty it was to attend criminals on the scaffold. Their chant was the
Office of the Dying.
BOOK XII., THE BOOK AND THE RING.--On Feb. 22nd, 1698, Guido and his
confederates were executed. We have, in the concluding book of this long
poem, the reports of the execution, and the comments made concerning it in
Rome, from four persons. The first which the poet gives is a letter from a
stranger, a man of rank, on a visit to Rome from Venice. He begins his
letter on the evening of the day in question, by stating that the Carnival
is nearly over, the city very full of strangers, the old Pope tottering on
the verge of the grave, and the people already beginning to discuss his
probable successor. The Pope took daily exercise a week ago by the
river-side, for the weather was like May. Then, after more gossip about
politics, he says he has lost his bet of fifty sequins by the execution of
the Count: he had felt, up to two days ago, that he would win the wager,
as everybody seemed to think the Count would save his head; but the Pope's
was the one deaf ear to every appeal for a reprieve, and so "persisted in
the butchery." One of the writer's friends was so annoyed at the Pope's
refusal to spare the life of a man with whom he had dined, that he would
have actually stayed away from the execution, had it not been for a lady,
whose presence on that occasion made it a desirable amusement for him. Of
course, everybody of any importance was there, and the people made a
general holiday of the occasion. Then he narrates how the ecclesiastics
who had attended Guido on the eve of his execution considered that their
efforts to prepare him for the next world had been crowned at last with
complete success. The procession from the prison to the place of execution
is described; and severe exception is taken to the choice of the Piazza
del Popolo, as a deliberate affront to the aristocracy residing there.
Still, it had its compensations, as it afforded a fine spectacle, and
made, on the whole, a very pleasant day. There were the usual incidents of
a street crowd: the man run over and killed; the pushing and struggling
for good places; outcries there were, also, against the Pope for
forbidding the Lottery; and a miracle was worked upon a lame beggar by the
prayer of the holy Guido as he glanced that way. The Count was the last to
mount the scaffold steps, and the nobility were so occupied with observing
him and his behaviour in the presence of death, that they paid no
attention to the peasants who dangled on their respective ropes at the
gallows. The Count made a speech to the multitude, and comported himself
as became a good Christian gentleman. He begged forgiveness of God, and
hoped his fellow-men would put a fair construction on his acts; asked
their prayers for his soul, suggesting that they should forthwith say an
"Our Father" and a "Hail, Mary!" for his sake. Then he turned to his
confessor, made the sign of the cross, and cast a fervent glance at the
church over the way; rose up, knelt down again, bent his head, and with
the name of Jesus on his lips received the headsman's blow. That
functionary showed the head to the populace in due form, and the spectacle
was over. The strangers present were a little disappointed at the Count's
height and general appearance. They understood he was fully six feet high,
and youngish for his years, and if not handsome, at least dignified; but
his face was not one to please a wife. No doubt something was due to the
rough costume in which he committed the murder,--a coarse and shabby dress
enough. His end was peace. If his friend wishes to bet on the next Pope,
he will give him a hint; and now will conclude with the last new
pasquinade which has amused the city.
There were three letters which were bound up with Mr. Browning's famous
"find" at Florence. One of these was written by the Count's advocate, De
Archangelis, concerning certain fresh points intended to be used in
mitigation of the sentence; but the lawyer explains that the Pope had set
every plea aside, and had hastened the execution. The letter is addressed
to the friends of the Count, and the client is referred to as a gallant
man, who died in faith in an exemplary manner. He considers that no blot
has fallen on the escutcheon of his noble house, as he had respect and
commiseration from all Rome, and from the cultivated everywhere. He
concludes by hoping that God may compensate for this direful blow by
sending future blessings on the family. Enclosed with this communication
is another, not intended for the noble persons to whom the above polite
effusion is addressed. This is for their lawyer, and is to be kept to
himself. He tells him that their "Pisan aid" was of no avail: the Pope was
determined to see Guido's head drop off, and would not listen to reason.
Especially annoying was it that his superb defence was wasted: he got
nothing for his work, and he does not care how soon the obstinate and
inept Pope dies. He tells his correspondent, who is his boy's godfather,
how much the lad enjoyed the fine sight at the execution. He had promised
him, if his defence failed to save the Count's head, that he should go and
see it chopped off. This was exactly to the boy's taste; and he sat at a
window with a great lady, who twitted the boy on the triumph of his
father's opponent Bottini, saying that his "papa, with all his eloquence,
cannot be reckoned on to help as before." The boy cleverly replied that
his "papa knew better than offend the Pope and baulk him of his grudge
against the Count; he would else have argued off Bottini's nose." He would
have his opponent see that he was a man able to drive right and left
horses at once.--The next letter is from the Fisc Bottini, who says the
case ended as he foresaw: Pompilia's innocence was easily proved. Guido
had made very good sport, and "died like a saint, poor devil!" Bottini
regrets he had not been on the other side. Pompilia gave him no
opportunity to show his skill; he could have done better with the Count.
He can imagine how De Archangelis crows and boasts that he kept the Fisc a
month at bay; he knows how he would grin and bray; but the thing which
most annoys him is the behaviour of the monk, whose report of the dying
Pompilia's words took all the freshness from his best points; and then,
when preaching at San Lorenzo yesterday about the case, from the text "Let
God be true, and every man a liar," said this, which he encloses from a
printed copy of the sermon all Rome is reading to-day. "Do not argue from
the result of this trial," said the preacher, "that truth may look for
vindication from the world." God seems to acquiesce with those who say 'He
sleeps,' and will not always put forth His hand and be recognised:
"Because Pompilia's purity prevails,
Conclude you, all truth triumphs in the end?"
Of all the birds that flew from the ark, one only returned: how many
perished? So--
"How many chaste and noble sister-fames
Wanted the extricating hand, and lie
Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above
The welter, plucked from the world's calumny?"
Truth has to wait God's time; for how long did the pagans of old Rome
point to the Catacombs and say, "Down there, below the ground, foul and
obscene rites are practised, far from the sight of men"? The most hideous
and fearful practices were charged upon the early Christians, who
worshipped in those places of refuge; but not for ages did God's lightning
expose to the world those holy receptacles for the mangled remains of His
martyred saints, and permit the gaze of the multitude to penetrate the
sacred chambers, where the faith of Christ was kept alive in those
dreadful centuries of persecution. Then, when God did call the world to
see the whole secret so long preserved from the world above, what was
there to behold?--a poor earthen lump by the rock where the corpse lay,
the grave which held the treasured blood of the martyr:
"The rough-scratched palm branch, and the legend left
_Pro Christo_."
And so these abhorred ones turned out to be saints. The best defence the
law can make for Pompilia is to say that wickedness was bred in her, and
after this specimen of man's protection, one wave of God's hand bids the
mists dispel, and the true instinct of a good old man, who hates the dark
and loves the light, adduces another proof that "God is true, and every
man a liar": he who trusts to human testimony for a fact thereby proves
himself a fool: man is false, man is weak, and "truth seems reserved for
heaven, not earth." As for himself, added the friar, "he has long since
renounced the world, yet he is not forbidden to estimate the value of that
which he has forsaken. If any one were to press him as to his content in
having put the pleasures of the world aside, he would answer that, apart
from Christ's assurances, he dare not say whether he had not failed to
taste much joy; how much of human love in varied forms he had lost; how
much joy, from 'books that teach and arts that help,' he had missed. He
might have learned how to grow great as well as good. Many precious
things, no doubt, he had forsaken; but there was one--the chief object of
men's ambition--earthly praise and the world's good repute; in renouncing
these, his loss, he is sure, was light, and in choosing obscurity he was
convinced he had chosen well." Bottini thinks this is vanity and spite:
how dare he say "every man is a liar"! What next? He finds that the sermon
has already had its effect for Gomez, who had decided to appeal to another
court, and declines to have any more to do with lawyers; he has resolved
to let the liars possess the world, and so he must whistle for his job and
his fee. He is happy to say, however, that he shall soon be able to show
the rabid monk whether law be powerless or not; for by a great piece of
luck the convent to which Pompilia was first sent has claimed all her
property which she had willed to those who were to act as trustees for her
son and heir; as Pompilia had not been relieved at the trial from her
imputed fault, the convent had a right to claim its due, and take the
whole of the property. It has therefore become the lawyer's duty to
institute procedure against this very Pompilia, whom last week he held up
as a saint, and charging her with having been a very common sort of
sinner, perform a volte-face before the selfsame court which he had so
recently addressed, and show this "foul-mouthed friar" that his white dove
is a sooty raven. The Pope, however, soon rectified this bad business, and
issued an "instrument," which the poet says is contained in his precious
little account of the trial, by which the Supreme Pontiff restores the
perfect fame of the dead Pompilia, and quashes all proceedings brought or
threatened to be brought against the heir, by the Most Venerable Convent
of the Convertites in the Corso. So was justice done a second time. Two
years later died good Innocent XII., after a rule of nine years in Rome;
and so there is an end of the story. Mr. Browning is unable to say what
became of the boy Gaetano, the child of Guido and Pompilia.
NOTES.--Line 12, _Wormwood Star_: a star which (it was fabled) appeared at
the approach of death. l. 43: If the writer did bet on Spada for Pope he
lost, as Cardinal Albani became the next Pope, in 1700. l. 62, _Holy
Doors_: certain doors in St. Peter's, at Rome, which are opened only at
the commencement of a Papal jubilee, and at its close are at once bricked
up again. l. 65, "_Fenelon will be condemned_": Fenelon was one of the
Jansenist leaders in France, and Jansenism was on its trial in Rome. l.
89, _Dogana-by-the-Bank_: a new customhouse. l. 104, _Palchetto_: a
balcony made of scaffolding, used for public spectacles. l. 105, _The
Pincian_: the Pincian hill, beyond the Piazza del Popolo, is a hill of
gardens. Here were once the gardens of Lucullus, in which Messalina
celebrated her orgies. This is a fashionable drive in the evening for the
modern Romans. l. 114, _The Three Streets_ diverge from the Piazza del
Popolo on the south; to the right is the _Via di Ripetta_; to the left the
_Via del Babuino_, leading to the Piazza di Spagna; in the centre is the
_Corso_. l. 139, _The New Prisons--Carceri Nuovi_: these were built by
Pope Innocent X. They are situated in the Via Giulia, leading to the
Bridge of St. Angelo. l. 140, _Pasquin's Street_: the street in Rome where
there stands a mutilated statue in a corner of the palace of Ursini; so
called from a cobbler who was remarkable for his sneers and gibes, and
near whose shop the statue was dug up. On this statue it has been
customary to paste satiric papers. Hence a lampoon _à Pasquinade_ is a
piece of satirical writing (_Webster's Dict._). _Place Navona_: the Piazza
Navona is the largest in Rome after that of St. Peter. It is officially
called Circo Agonale. The name is said to be derived from the _agones_
(corrupted to Navone, Navona), or contests which took place in the circus.
l. 158, _Tern Quatern_: a tern is a prize in a lottery, resulting from the
favourable combination of three numbers in the drawing; a quatern is a
combination of four numbers; and a combination of these is, I presume,
some very exceptional prize for the holders of the tickets. l. 178:
"_Pater_," the Lord's Prayer; "_Ave_," the angelical salutation to the
Virgin. l. 179, "_Salve Regina Coeli_": a hymn to the Virgin, sung at
Vespers, which begins with the words "Hail, Queen of Heaven!" l. 184, This
is a satire against relic-worship, and not in very good taste. l. 199,
_just-a-corps_: a short coat fitting tightly to the body. l. 208,
_quatrain_: a stanza of four lines rhyming alternately. l. 217, _socius_:
an ally, a confederate. l. 224, _Tarocs_: a game at cards played with
seventy-eight cards. l. 277, "_Quantum est hominum venustiorum_": and all
men who have any grace. l. 290, "_hactenus senioribus_": hitherto for our
superiors. l. 320, _Themis_: a daughter of Coelus and Terra, who married
Jupiter against her own inclination. She is represented as holding a sword
in one hand and a pair of scales in the other. l. 326, "_case of Gomez_":
this was a legal matter before the courts, and which was referred to in
one of the manuscripts consulted by Mr. Browning when engaged upon the
poem. l. 327, "_reliqua differamus in crastinum!_" the rest let us put off
till to-morrow; _estafette_: courier. l. 361, "_Bartolus-cum-Baldo_": the
names of two eminent Italian jurists. l. 367, "_adverti supplico humiliter
quod_": I have observed, I humbly beg that. l. 435, _Spreti_: the
subordinate of "De Archangelis"; he is "advocate of the poor." l. 504,
"_their idol god an ass_": the early Christians were accused by their
pagan persecutors of all sorts of horrible and degrading superstitions,
amongst other things of worshipping the head of an ass. There has recently
been discovered amongst the wall scratchings on some relics of ancient
Roman buildings the figure of a crucified man with the head of an ass; and
an inscription roughly scratched implying that this was the god of some
Christian thus held up to ridicule. l. 520, "_the rude brown lamp_": used
in the Catacombs, both for light and for burning at the martyrs' tombs to
honour them. l. 521, _the cruse_: thousands of these have been discovered,
and are exhibited in the museum at the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome.
l. 522, "_the palm branch_": graven in countless parts of the Roman
catacombs, as a sign that the martyr buried beneath it had won the
victory, and had conquered by his faith. l. 523, "_pro Christo_," for
Christ: that is to say, the martyrs had shed the blood presented in the
cruse for Christ's sake. l. 647, _ampollosity_: windbag behaviour. l. 679,
"_claim every paul_": paolo, an Italian coin worth sixpence. l. 715,
"_Astræa redux_": justice brought back. l. 745, "_Martial's phrase_":
_Mart._ iv. 91. l. 787, _Gonfalonier_: Lord Mayor, who bore the standard,
or _gonfalon_. l. 811, _Buonarotti_ == Michael Angelo. l. 812,
_Vexillifer_, standard-bearer. l. 813, _The Patavinian_: _i.e._, Livy of
Padua. l. 815, "_Janus of the double face_": Janus, a Roman deity
represented with two faces, because he was acquainted with the past and
future, or because he was taken for the sun who opens the day at his
rising and shuts it at his setting (_Lemprière_). l. 865, "_Deeper than
ever the Andante dived_": a movement or piece in _andante_ (rather slow)
time, as the _andante_ in Beethoven's fifth symphony. l. 872, "_Lyric
Love_": the poet's dead wife invoked in the first part of this work. Her
poems on Italy are referred to in the last line.--The _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, vol. xiii., p. 85, says that Innocent XI. was the Pope of
_The Ring and the Book_. Mr. Browning, however, says that Antonio
Pignatelli (Innocent XII.) was the Pope in question. The character of the
earlier sovereign pontiff certainly agrees better with the story told by
the poet than does that of the latter. It may be, as has been suggested by
Mr. George W. Cooke, in his _Guide-Book to Browning_, that the poet
confounded the two men with each other, or, what is more probable, that
he deliberately gave to Innocent XII. qualities which belonged only to
Innocent XI. (p. 339). The following sketch of the life of Innocent XI.
(Benedetto Odelscalchi) is taken from the _Encyclopædia Britannica_: "He
was Pope from 1676 to 1689; was born at Como in 1611, studied law at Rome
and Naples, [and] held successively the offices of protonotary, President
of the Apostolic Chamber, Commissary of the Marca di Roma, and Governor of
Macerta; in 1647 Innocent X. made him cardinal, and he afterwards
successively became legate to Ferrara and bishop of Novara. In all these
capacities the simplicity and purity of character which he displayed had,
combined with his unselfish and open-handed benevolence, secured for him a
high place in the popular affection and esteem; and two months after the
death of Clement X. he was (Sept. 21st, 1676), in spite of French
opposition, chosen his successor. He lost no time in declaring and
practically manifesting his zeal as a reformer of manners and a corrector
of administrative abuses. He sought to abolish sinecures, and to put the
papal finances otherwise on a sound footing; beginning with the clergy, he
endeavoured to raise the laity also to a higher moral standard of living.
Some of his regulations with the latter object, however, may raise a smile
as showing more zeal than judgment. In 1679 he publicly condemned
sixty-five propositions, taken chiefly from the writings of Escobar,
Suarez, and the like, as '_propositiones laxorum moralistarum_,' and
forbade any one to teach them under pain of excommunication. Personally
not unfriendly to Molinos, he nevertheless so far yielded to the enormous
pressure brought to bear upon him as to confirm in 1687 the judgment of
the inquisitors by which sixty-eight Molinist propositions were condemned
as blasphemous and heretical. His pontificate was marked by the prolonged
struggle with Louis XIV. of France on the subject of the so-called
'Gallican Liberties,' and also about certain immunities claimed by
ambassadors to the papal court. He died after a long period of feeble
health on August 12th, 1689. Hitherto repeated attempts at his
canonisation have invariably failed, the reason popularly assigned being
the influence of France. The fine moral character of Innocent has been
sketched with much artistic power, as well as with historical fidelity, by
Mr. Robert Browning in _The Ring and the Book_."--Innocent XII. (Antonio
Pignatelli), whose name Mr. Browning expressly gives, as fixing the
identity of the Pope whose character he portrayed, was born at Naples in
1615. He took Innocent XI. for his model. This pontiff made him, in 1681,
cardinal, bishop of Faenza, legate of Bologna, and archbishop of Naples.
"His election as pope took place February 12th, 1691. At the beginning of
his reign he endeavoured to abolish nepotism by means of a bull, in 1692.
His nepotes were the poor--the Lateran his hospital. The Bullarium
_magnum_ contains many rules relating to cloister discipline and the life
of the secular clergy. His efforts for the restoration of discipline were
so great, that scoffers boasted he had reformed the Church both in its
head and members. He died on September 27th, 1700. Shortly before his
decease he settled a large sum on the hospital he had erected, and ordered
that his goods should be sold and the proceeds given to the poor. He was a
benevolent and pious prelate" (_Imp. Dict. Univ. Biog._). There is such
frequent reference to Molinos and the doctrines of Molinism or Quietism in
_The Ring and the Book_, and the subject is so unfamiliar to the general
reader, that I have thought it wise to extract the following admirable
note on the question from Butler's _Lives of the Saints_, under the date
November xxiv., "St. John of the Cross":--"Quietism was broached by
Michael Molinos, a Spanish priest and spiritual director in great repute
at Rome, who, in his book entitled _The Spiritual Guide_, established a
system of perfect contemplation. It chiefly turns upon the following
general principles. 1. That perfect contemplation is a state in which a
man does not reason, or reflect, either on God or himself, but passively
receives the impression of heavenly light without exercising any acts, the
mind being in a state of perfect inaction and inattention, which this
author calls quiet. Which principle is a notorious illusion and falsity:
for even in supernatural impressions or communications, how much soever a
soul may be abstracted from her senses, and insensible to external
objects, which act upon their organs, she still exercises her
understanding and will, in adoring, loving, praising, or the like, as is
demonstrable both from principle and from the testimony of St. Teresa, and
all true contemplatives. 2. This fanatic teaches, that a soul in that
state desires nothing, not even his own salvation; and fears nothing, not
even hell itself. This principle, big with pernicious consequences, is
heretical; as the precept and constant obligation of hope of salvation
through Christ is an article of faith. The pretence that a total
indifference is a state of perfection is folly and impiety, as if
solicitude about things of duty was not a precept. And so if a man could
ever be exempt from the obligation of that charity which he owes both to
God and himself, by which he is bound, above all things, to desire and to
labour for his salvation and the eternal reign of God in his soul. A third
principle of this author is no less notoriously heretical: that in such a
state the use of the sacraments and good works becomes indifferent; and
that the most criminal representations and motions in the sensitive part
of the soul are foreign to the superior, and not sinful in this elevated
state; as if the sensitive part of the soul was not subject to the
government of the rational or superior part, or as if this could be
indifferent about what passes in it. Some will have it that Molinos
carried his last principles so far as to open a door to the abominations
of the Gnostics; but most excuse him from admitting that horrible
consequence (see F. Avrigny, Honoré of St. Mary, etc.). Innocent XI., in
1687, condemned sixty-eight propositions extracted from this author as
respectively heretical, scandalous and blasphemous. Molinos was condemned
by the Inquisition at Rome, recalled his errors, and ended his life in
imprisonment in 1696 (see Argentere, _Collect. Judiciorum de Novis
Erroribus_, t. iii., part 2, p. 402; Stevaert, _Damnat. Prop._, p. 1).
Semi-Quietism was rendered famous by having been for some time patronised
by the great Fenelon. Madame Guyon, a widow lady, wrote _An Easy and Short
Method of Prayer_, and _Solomon's Canticle of Canticles interpreted in a
Mystical Sense_, for which, by order of Lewis XIV., she was confined in a
nunnery, but soon after enlarged. Then it was that she became acquainted
with Fenelon; and she published the Old Testament with explanations, her
own life by herself, and other works, all written with spirit and a lively
imagination. She submitted her doctrine to the judgment of Bossuet,
esteemed the most accurate theologian in the French dominions. After a
mature examination, Bossuet, bishop of Meaux, Cardinal Noailles, Fenelon,
then lately nominated archbishop of Cambray, and M. Trowson, superior of
S. Sulpice, drew up thirty articles concerning _the sound maxims of a
spiritual life_, to which Fenelon added four others. These thirty-four
articles were signed by them at Issy in 1695, and are the famous
'Articles of Issy' (see Argentere, _Collectio Judiciorum de Novis
Erroribus_, t. iii.; Du Plessis, _Hist. de Meaux_, t. I., p. 492;
_Mémoires Chronol._, t. iii., p. 28). During this examination Bossuet and
Fenelon had frequent disputes for and against disinterested love, or
divine love of pure benevolence. This latter undertook in some measure the
patronage of Madame Guyon, and in 1697 published a book entitled _The
Maxims of the Saints_, in which a kind of Semi-Quietism was advanced. The
clamour which was raised drew the author into disgrace at the court of
Lewis XIV., and the book was condemned by Innocent XII. in 1699, on the
12th of March, and on the 9th of April following, by the author himself,
who closed his eyes to all the glimmerings of human understanding to seek
truth in the obedient simplicity of faith. By this submission he
vanquished and triumphed over his defeat itself, and, by a more admirable
greatness of soul, over his vanquisher. With the book, twenty-three
propositions extracted out of it were censured by the Pope as rash,
pernicious in practice, and erroneous respectively; but none were
qualified as heretical. The principal error of Semi-Quietism consists in
this doctrine,--that, in the state of perfect contemplation, it belongs to
the entire annihilation in which a soul places herself before God, and to
the perfect resignation of herself to His will, that she be indifferent
whether she be damned or saved; which monstrous extravagance destroys the
obligation of Christian hope. The Divine precepts can never clash, but
strengthen one another. It would be blasphemy to pretend that because God,
as a universal ruler, suffers sin, we can take a complacence in its being
committed by others. God damns no one but for sin and final impenitence;
yet, whilst we adore the Divine justice and sanctity, we are bound to
reject sin with the utmost abhorrence, and deprecate damnation with the
greatest ardour, both which by the Divine grace we can shun. Where, then,
can there be any room for such a pretended resignation, at the very
thought of which piety shudders? No such blasphemies occur in the writings
of St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, or other approved spiritual authors.
If they are, or seem to be, expressed in certain parts of some spiritual
works, as those of Bernieres, or in the Italian translation of Boudon's
_God Alone_, these expressions are to be corrected by the rule of solid
theology. Fenelon was chiefly deceived by the authority of an adulterated
edition of _The Spiritual Entertainments of St. Francis of Sales_,
published at Lyons, in 1628, by Drobet. Upon the immediate complaint and
supplication of St. Francis Chantal and John Francis Sales, brother of the
saint, then bishop of Geneva, Lewis XIII. suppressed the privilege granted
for the said edition by letters patent given in the camp before Rochelle
in the same year, prefixed to the correct and true edition of that book
made at Lyons by Coeurceillys in 1629, by order of St. Francis Chantal.
Yet this faulty edition, with its additions and omissions, has been
sometimes reprinted; and a copy of this edition imposed upon Fenelon, whom
Bossuet, who used the right edition, accused of falsifying the book (see
_Mem. de Trev._ for July, anno 1558, p. 446). Bossuet had several years
before maintained in the schools of Sorbonne, with great warmth, that a
love of pure benevolence is chimerical. Nothing is more insisted on in
theological schools than the distinction of the love of chaste desire and
of benevolence. By the first, a creature loves God as the creature's own
good--that is, upon the motive of enjoying Him, or because he shall
possess God and find in Him his own complete happiness,--in other words,
because God is good to the creature himself, both here and hereafter. The
love of benevolence is that by which a creature loves God purely for His
own sake, or because He is in Himself infinitely good. This latter is
called pure or disinterested love, or love of charity; the former is a
love of an inferior order, and is said by most theologians to belong to
hope, not to charity; and many maintain that it can never attain to such a
degree of perfection as to be a love of God above all things; because, say
they, he who loves God merely because He is his own good, or for the sake
of his enjoyment, loves Him not for God's own increated goodness, which is
the motive of charity; nor can he love Him more than he does his own
enjoyment of Him, though he makes no such comparison, nor even directly or
interpretatively forms such an act, that he loves Him not more than he
does his own possession of Him--which would be criminal and extremely
inordinate. So this love is good, and of obligation, as a part of hope;
and it disposes the soul to the love of charity. Bossuet allowed the
distinct motives of the loves of chaste desire and of benevolence; but
said no act of the latter could be formed by the heart which does not
expressly include an act of the former; because, said he, no man can love
any good without desiring to himself at the same time the possession of
that good or its union with himself, and no man can love another's good
merely as another's. This all allow, if this other's good were to destroy
or exclude the love of his own good. Hence the habit of love of
benevolence must include the habit of the love of desire. But the act may
be and often is exercised without it, for good is amiable in itself and
for its own sake; and this is the general opinion of theologians. However,
the opinion of Bossuet, that an act of the love of benevolence or of
charity is inseparable from an actual love of desire is not censured, but
is maintained also by F. Honoratus of St. Mary (_Tradition sur la
Contempl._, t. iii., ch. iv., p. 273). Mr. Morris carries this notion so
far as to pretend that creatures, in loving God, consider nothing in His
perfections but their own good (Letter 2, 'On Divine Love,' p. 8). Some
advised Fenelon to make a diversion by attacking Bossuet's sentiments and
books at Rome, and convicting him of establishing theological hope by
destroying charity. But the pious archbishop made answer that he never
would inflame a dispute by recriminating against a brother, whatever might
have seemed prudent to be done at another season. When he was put in mind
to beware of the artifices of mankind, which he had so well known and so
often experienced, he made answer: "Let us die in our simplicity"
(_moriamur in simplicitate nostrâ_). On this celebrated dispute the
ingenious Claville (_Traité du Vrai Mérite_) makes this remark,--that some
of those who carried the point were condemned by the public as if they
lost charity by the manner in which they carried on the contest; but if
Fenelon erred in theory he was led astray by an excess in his desire of
charity. By this adversity and submission he improved his own charity and
humility to perfection, and arrived at the most easy disposition of heart,
disengaged from everything in the world, bowed down to a state of
pliableness and docility not to be expressed, and grounded in a love of
simplicity which extinguished in him everything besides. Those who admired
these virtues in him before were surprised at the great heights to which
he afterwards carried them: so much he appeared a new man, though before a
model of piety and humility. As to the distinction of the motives in our
love of God, in practice, too nice or anxious an inquiry is generally
fruitless and pernicious; for our business is more and more to die to
ourselves, purify our hearts, and employ our understanding in the
contemplation of the Divine perfections and heavenly mysteries, and our
affections in the various acts of holy love--a boundless field in which
our souls may freely take their range. And while we blame the
extravagances of false mystics, we must never fear being transported to
excesses in practice by the love of God. It can never be carried too far,
since the only measure of our love to God is to 'love without measure,' as
St. Bernard says. No transports of pure love can carry souls aside from
the right way, so long as they are guided by humility and obedience. In
disputes about such things, the utmost care is necessary that charity be
not lost in them, that envy and pride be guarded against, and that
sobriety and moderation be observed in all inquiries; for nothing is more
frequent than for the greatest geniuses, in pursuing subtleties, to lose
sight both of virtue, of good sense and reason itself. (See Bossuet's
works on this subject, t. vi., especially his _Mystici in Tuto_, in which
he is more correct than in some of his other pieces; also Du Plessis,
_Hist. de l'Eglise de Meaux_, t. I., p. 485; the several lines of Fenelon,
etc.)" Mr. Browning in this poem is like a demonstrator of anatomy in a
famous school of dissection--some Sir Charles Bell lecturing to a crowded
room full of students; taking up nerve after nerve, following it through
all its ramifications, tracing it from its origin in brain or spinal cord,
and never leaving it till it is lost in microscopic fibres at the
periphery. He is as impartial as the anatomist, who asks no questions as
to the presence of the subject on his table: all he has to do with is the
science to which he is devoted. Mr. Browning is as happy with Guido in his
dungeon as with the Pope in the Vatican, or Pompilia in the presence of
the angels waiting to conduct her to God. The matter in hand is the human
soul; and as the greatest poet of the soul that the world has ever seen,
he is lost in his work. Count Guido never could have thought or said so
much for himself as Browning has said for him. Pompilia's innocent,
unsophisticated heart never attempted to formulate such a meditation on
her brief history. Caponsacchi, we may be sure, never rose from his
sonnets and gallantry to such a conscious elevation of soul as burst
suddenly forth in the splendour of Pompilia's soldier-saint on his
defence. If the Pope himself, the Vicar of Christ, came to his decision by
any such conscious process of reasoning and high-toned Christian
philosophy--Catholic because it is the highest expression of the highest
thought and noblest impulse of the human heart--as that with which Mr.
Browning has invested him, then Innocent XII. was a man of genius second
only to the poet who has "created" him nearly two hundred years after he
died. But no! These people lived indeed; they wrought all which their
histories tell of them; but how and why, they never knew. God alone
perfectly reads the human heart; and a few men like Browning are
privileged to catch a word of the record here and there.
=Roland.= (See CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME.)
=Rosny.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) Love, pure and passionate, unrestrained by
thought of self, and gluttonous of sacrifice, was the undoing of the hero.
No prudence could keep Rosny from his fate. Strength in love, and its
victory in death is judged by the maiden to be the best. Although there
does not seem to be any historical incident referred to in the poem, it
may be advisable to say that Maximilian de Béthune, duke of Sully
(1560-1641), the French statesman, was born at the château of Rosny, near
Mantes. The title of his baronetcy was derived from the name of his
birthplace, and he was commonly known by the name of Rosny all his life.
Murray says that "Rosny is a dirty little village about half-way between
Mantes and Bonnières. The château was the birthplace of Sully, where he
was frequently visited by his friend and master, Henri IV., who slept here
the night after his victory at Ivry. The king, having overtaken Sully on
the road desperately wounded, carried on a litter, accompanied by his
squires in a like plight, fell on his neck and affectionately embraced
him. The château is a plain, solid building of red brick, with stone
quoins and a high tent roof, surrounded by a deep ditch. It was rebuilt by
Sully at the beginning of the seventeenth century. From 1818 down to the
Revolution of 1830 Rosny was the favourite residence of the Duchesse de
Berri, who erected here a chapel to contain the heart of her husband."
=Rosamund Page.= (_Martin Relph._) She was the young girl who was shot by
the military for supposed treason, and whose innocence would have been
proved by her lover Parkes, if Mr. Martin had made known his presence when
he saw him arrive at the village from the eminence on which he was
standing.
="Round us the Wild Creatures."= (_Ferishtah's Fancies._) The lyric to
the first poem, "The Eagle," commences with this line.
=Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli.= (_Dramatic Lyrics_, in _Bells and
Pomegranates_, No. III., 1842. Since transferred to _Men and Women_ in
_Poetical Works_, 1863.) Geoffrey de Rudel was a gentleman of Blieux, in
Provence, and one of those who were presented to Frederick Barbarossa in
1154. He was a troubadour. Sismondi, in his _Literature of the South of
Europe_, vol. i., p. 87 (Bohn's Edit.), gives the following account of
Rudel:--"The knights who had returned from the Holy Land spoke with
enthusiasm of a Countess of Tripoli, who had extended to them the most
generous hospitality, and whose grace and beauty equalled her virtues.
Geoffrey Rudel, hearing this account, fell deeply in love with her without
having ever seen her, and prevailed upon one of his friends, Bertrand
d'Allamanon, a troubadour like himself, to accompany him to the Levant. In
1162 he quitted the court of England, whither he had been conducted by
Geoffrey, the brother of Richard I., and embarked for the Holy Land. On
his voyage he was attacked by a severe illness, and had lost the power of
speech when he arrived at the port of Tripoli. The Countess, being
informed that a celebrated poet was dying of love for her on board a
vessel which was entering the roads, visited him on shipboard, took him
kindly by the hand, and attempted to cheer his spirits. Rudel, we are
assured, recovered his speech sufficiently to thank the Countess for her
humanity, and to declare his passion, when his expressions of gratitude
were silenced by the convulsions of death. He was buried at Tripoli,
beneath a tomb of porphyry which the Countess raised to his memory, with
an Arabic inscription. I have transcribed his verses on "Distant Love,"
which he composed previous to his last voyage:--
"Angry and sad shall be my way,
If I behold not her afar:
And yet I know not when that day
Shall rise--for still she dwells afar.
God! who hast formed this fair array
Of worlds, and placed my love afar,
Strengthen my heart with hope, I pray,
Of seeing her I love afar.
"Oh Lord I believe my faithful lay,
For well I love her, though afar;
Though but one blessing may repay
The thousand griefs I feel afar,
No other love shall shed its ray
On me, if not this love afar;
A brighter one, where'er I stray
I shall not see, or near, or far."
In Mr. Browning's poem, Rudel chooses for his device a sun flower, which,
by ever turning towards the sun, has parted with the graces of a flower to
become a mimic sun. He says that men feed on his songs; but the
sunflower's concern is not for the bees which gather the sweetness of the
flower's breast,--its concern is solely for the sun. So turns Rudel
longingly to the East, where his lady dwells afar.
=St. John.= (_A Death in the Desert._) The poem is a monologue of the
dying saint in the desert near Ephesus. He records what he has seen of our
Lord, and sadly anticipates the time when men will ask, "Did he say he
saw?"
=St. Martin's Summer.= (_Pacchiarotto, with Other Poems_, 1876.) A husband
and wife, both young, are reflecting on the fact that they have each
buried love under some tomb now moss-grown and forgotten. The man admits
that somehow, somewhere, he has pledged his "soul to endless duty, many a
time and oft." Grief is fickle, for time is a traitor. Love, being mortal,
must pass away, and he does not think either of them so very guilty; they
grieved over their lost love at the time, though now it is forgotten. Yet,
though Love's corpse lies quiet, its ghost sometimes escapes, and it is
not well to build too durable a monument over it; trellis-work is better.
It is better to own the power of first love, recognise its permanence in
the soul, and let the succeeding love be estimated at its value, which to
the poet does not seem to be very high. Dead loves are the potent, though
living loves are ghost dispellers. From the oft-repeated expressions of
Mr. Browning's opinion, and from the drift of this poem, we might be
warranted in concluding that he believed only in first love.
NOTES.--_St. Martin's Summer_; or, _St. Martin's Little Summer_. From
October 9th to November 11th. At the close of autumn we generally have a
month of magnificent summer weather. "Expect St. Martin's summer, halcyon
days" (_Shakespeare_, _I Hen. VI._, Act i., sc. 2), and, "Farewell thou
latter spring! farewell All-hallown summer!" It is also called "St. Luke's
Summer," and Martinmas, and Martilmasse, because the feast of St. Martin
is kept on November 11th. St. Luke's Day is October 18th. Verse 12,
_Penelope_ was the wife of Ulysses. During the long absence of her husband
she was several times importuned by suitors to marry them. She told them
that she could not marry again, even if she were assured that Ulysses were
dead, until she had finished weaving a shroud for her aged father-in-law.
Every night she pulled out what she had woven during the day, and so her
work made no progress. _Ulysses_: is a corrupt form of Odusseus, the king
of Ithaca. He is one of the principal heroes in the Iliad of Homer, and
the chief hero of the Odyssey.
=St. Peter's at Rome.= (_Christmas Eve._) The great colonnade on either
side of St. Peter's Square is of semicircular form, and is beautifully
described by the poet as
"Arms wide open to embrace
The entry of the human race."
=Saul.= This is perhaps the grandest and most beautiful of all Mr.
Browning's religious poems. It is a Messianic oratorio in words. The
influence of music in the cure of diseases has long been a subject of
study by physicians. Disraeli, in his _Curiosities of Literature_, has an
article on "Medical Music." In Dr. Burney's _History of Music_ there is a
chapter on "The Medicinal Powers attributed to Music by the Ancients." Dr.
Burney thought this influence was partly due to its occasioning certain
vibrations of the nerves, as well as its well-known effect in diverting
the attention. Depression of mind, delirium and insanity, were anciently
attributed to evil spirits, which were put to flight by suitable
harmonies. It was for this reason that David was sent for to cure the
mental derangement of Saul. The influence of music on the lower animals is
often exceedingly marked, and can scarcely in their case, as in our own,
be due to the association of ideas. The peculiar and sweet melancholy
inspired by distant church bells on a calm summer evening in the country,
though difficult to account for, is not less real than is the inspiring
and invigorating effect produced by march music on weary soldiers. Life is
a harmonious process; where there is most health there is most harmony in
the way in which the bodily functions are performed. A great physician has
described health as "going easy." It would be strange, therefore, if
animal life were not attuned to sympathy with mechanical harmony. The most
modern theory is that "Music is one of the stimuli which regulates the
vaso-motor activity employed in tissue nutrition." (See _Lancet_, May 9th,
1891, p. 1055.) In another article in the same journal, for May 23rd, the
subject is still further treated. The writer says: "The value of music as
a therapeutic method cannot yet be so precisely stated that we may measure
it by dosage or by an invariably similar order of effects. Of its
wholesome influence in various forms of disease, however, there can be
little or no doubt. In making this assertion we do not, of course, assign
to it any specific or peculiar action. It is no quack's nostrum, no
reputed conqueror of ache or ailment. It is only, as we have already shown
in a recent article, one of those intangible but effective aids of
medicine which exert their healthful properties through the nervous
system. It is as a mental tonic that music acts. Accordingly, we may
naturally expect it to exert its powers chiefly in those diseases, or
aspects of disease, which are due to morbid nervous action. The evidence
of its utility on occasions where fatigue or worry has disturbed the
proper balance and relation between the mind and body of the so-called
healthy will explain its action in disease. We can readily understand how
a pleasing and lively melody can awake in a jaded brain the strong emotion
of hope, and energising by its means the languid nerve-control of the
whole circulation, strengthen the heart-beat and refresh the vascularity
of every organ. We can picture the same brain in forced irritation
fretfully stimulating the service of the vaso-motor nerves, and starving
the tissues of their blood-supply. Here, again, it is easy to comprehend
the regulating effect of quieter harmony, which brings at once a rest and
a diversion to the fretting mind. Even aches are soothed for a time by a
transference of attention; and why, then, should not pain be lulled by
music?" That it sometimes is thus relieved, we cannot doubt. It is
especially in the graver nervous maladies, however, that we should look
for benefit from this remedy. Definite statistics on the subject may not
be forthcoming, but all that we have said goes to show that states of
insanity, which are largely influenced by the condition of the sympathetic
system, should find some part of their treatment in the hands of the
musician. It is, therefore, for such cases especially that we would enlist
his services. In nervous diseases music produces a stimulating effect on
the trophic nerves, these are so called because they are supposed to
govern or control the normal metabolism of their tissues (or the phenomena
whereby living organisms assimilate their food into their tissues).
Depressing news will impede or even arrest digestion, as is well known;
cheerful conversation and music assist the assimilation of our sustenance.
The almost total ignorance of the ancients concerning physiological
processes caused them to attribute to demons the maladies which they could
not comprehend. Music was prescribed for Saul empirically: it mattered
little to the patient, so long as he was cured, whether music expelled a
demon who was tormenting him, or lubricated the wheels of his nervous
mechanism. David took his harp to Saul's tent, untwisted the lilies which
were twined round the strings to keep them cool, and began by playing the
tune all the sheep knew, appealing to his mere animal nature, and bringing
him into harmony with the lower forms of healthy life; for there are
points in our lives touched alike by men and sheep. Then he played the
tune which the quails love, and that which delights the crickets, and the
music which appeals to the quick jerboa; for there is a bond of sympathy
between these creatures of our Father's hand and ourselves which we do ill
to overlook; it is well for us sometimes to allow ourselves to be
influenced by those things which God has made to delight the beautiful
dumb creatures whom St. Francis of Assisi delighted to call his brothers
and sisters. It was another step towards Saul's recovery when his soul
achieved the harmony of a quail and a jerboa. Then he advanced his theme:
he led the patient by his melody to the help tune of the reapers; brought
before his saddened soul the good friendship of the toilers at their
merry-making; expanded his heart in the warmth of brotherliness, the
sympathy of man with man. But higher yet! The march of the honoured dead
is played,--the praise of the men who have forgotten the faults in the
work the man completed. And after that the joyful marriage chant, the
abounding life and cheerfulness of the maidens; the march, too, of the
comradeship of man in his greater task, the compulsion of the mechanical
forces to aid the progress of the race. More exalted strains follow when,
in the spirit of the worship of the one God of Israel, the Levites ascend
the altar steps to appease Jehovah in sacrifice. By slow degrees the music
had done the first part of its work: the sluggish forces of his life began
to tremble, the quiverings of returning vital force began to thrill his
torpid nerves. The song went forward: the wild joys of living were
celebrated, the value of man's life, the good providence of God, the
friendship, the kingship, the gifts combined to dower one head with the
wealth of the world,--the stimulus of high ambition, the surpassing deeds,
the crowning fame all concentrated in Saul, king of Israel. And the leap
of David's heart voicing itself in the cry "Saul!" went to his wintry soul
as "spring's arrowy summons to the vale, making it laugh in freedom and
flowers." Saul was "released and aware," the despair was gone; pale and
worn, he stood by the tent pole, once more himself; he was recalled to
life, but not yet fitted to enjoy it. David pushes his advantage: the
future, with its glorious prospect, the reward which God shall give to the
successors of the king; and as David sings of the ages to come, which will
ring with his praises and the fame of his mighty deeds, the life stream
courses through his veins, he begins to live once more, he puts out his
hand, touches tenderly the brow of the harpist, and as he looks on David
the beautiful soul of the youthful singer goes out to the king in love,
the magnetism of his sympathy touches him, and he longs to impart to him
more than the past and present; he would give him new life altogether ages
hence as at the moment. If he would do this, how much more would God do!
"Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.
Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank, to the Infinite Care!"
If he would fain do so much for this suffering man, would save, redeem and
restore him, interpose to snatch Saul the mistake, the failure, from ruin,
and bid him win by the pain-throb, the intensified bliss of the next
world's reward and repose, if he would starve his own soul to fill up
Saul's life, surely God would exceed all that David could desire to do, as
the Creator in everything surpasses the creature, and as the Infinite
transcends the finite. Then, in a magnificent prophetic burst, the singer
tells Saul:
"O Saul, it shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by, for ever; a Hand like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!"
The singer leaves the tent, goes to his home through the night, but not
alone: clouds of witnesses hover around him, angels have come to listen to
his prophecy, and the air is full of yearning spirits; the earth has
awakened; hell has heard the echoes of his song,--her crews are loosed
with alarm at the danger which impends; the stars in their courses beat
with emotion; all creation palpitates with excitement; but the Hand which
impelled him "quenched it with quiet," and earth in rapture sank to rest.
But the world was the better for the blessed news, "felt the new law"; the
flowers rejoiced, the heart of the cedars and the sap of the vines
responded to the thrill of joy the brooks murmured, "E'en so, it is so!"
(What are known as the Messianic Psalms, or those in which David sings of
the Christ, who was to come, are the following: Psalm ii., xxi., xxii.,
xlv., lxxii., and cx.)--In Longus's romance of _Daphnis and Chloe_ there
occur two passages which may have furnished Browning with the suggestion
of this series of tunes. The first is found on pp. 303-4 (I quote from
Smith's translation, in the Bohn edition): "He ran through all variations
of pastoral melody; he played the tune which the oxen obey, and which
attracts the goats,--that in which the sheep delight. The notes for the
sheep were sweet, those for the oxen deep, those for the goats were
shrill. In short, his single pipe could express the tones of every pipe
which is played upon. Those present lay listening in silent delight; when
Dryas rose up, and desired Philetas to strike up the Bacchanalian tune,
Philetas obeyed; and Dryas began the vintage-dance in which he represented
the plucking of the grapes, the carrying of the baskets, the treading of
the clusters, and the drinking of the new-made wine.... Upon losing sight
of her, Daphnis, seizing the large pipe of Philetas, breathed into it a
mournful strain as of one who loves; then a lovesick strain as of one who
pleads; lastly, a recalling strain, as of one who seeks her whom he has
lost." The other is from pp. 332-4: "Daphnis disposed the company in a
semicircle; then standing under the shade of a beech-tree, he took his
pipe from his scrip, and breathed into it very gently. The goats stood
still, merely lifting up their heads. Next he played the pasture tune,
upon which they all put down their heads and began to graze. Now he
produced some notes soft and sweet in tone: at once his herd lay down.
After this he piped in a sharp key, and they ran off to the wood, as if a
wolf were in sight." Again, may not the impulse to write this poetry have
been derived from Heber's _Spirit of Hebrew Poetry_? On p. 197, vol. ii.,
of the translation, there is a kind of challenge to poets in general:
"Take David in the presence of Saul. More than one poet has availed
himself of the beauty of this situation; but no one to my knowledge has
yet stolen the harp of David, and produced a poem, such even as Dryden's
ode in the composition of Handel, where Timotheus plays before Alexander.
If Browning did accept the challenge, it was only to refute the
observation by his success."--_Pall Mall Gazette._
NOTES.--The Bible story of David playing before Saul is found in 1 Samuel
xvi. 14-23. Stanza i., _Abner_: the son of Ner, captain of Saul's host (1
Samuel xxvi. 5). Stanza vi., _jerboa_: a small jumping rodent animal,
called also the jumping hare. Stanza viii., _Male-Sapphires_: the asterias
or star-stone, a semi-transparent sapphire. Stanza xiv., _Hebron_: the
most southern of the three cities of refuge west of Jordan; _Kidron_: a
brook in Jerusalem.
=Science in Browning.= The following are some references to scientific
matters in the poet's works appended to my essay on "Browning as a
Scientific Poet" in _Browning's Message to his Time_. The list of
references makes no pretension to be an exhaustive one--it could be
considerably amplified by a careful reperusal of the works--but it will
suffice for the purpose:--
_Anatomy._--Poems, v., p. 152; vi., p. 158. Fifine, p. 68.
_Astronomy._--Prince H. S., p. 96. Sordello, pp. 187, 188.
_Botany._--Poems, i., p. 194; v., pp. 193, 208, 228, 312. Fifine, p.
14. Sordello, p. 20.
_Chemistry._--Poems, iii., pp. 219, 220; iv., p. 238; v., pp. 155,
156. Prince H. S., pp. 44, 91. Red Cotton, p. 196. Croisic, pp. 90,
92. Fifine, pp. 65, 97, 130. Ferishtah, pp. 39, 40, 45, 76. Pippa P.,
p. 250. Sordello, p. 194. Ring and Book, i., p. 2.
_Electricity._--Poems, vi., pp. 183, 203. Red Cotton, p. 196. Fifine,
p. 115.
_Evolution._--Poems, i., p. 188. Prince H. S., p. 68. Fifine, p. 162.
La Saisiaz, p. 57.
_Light._--Poems, iii., p. 170. Jocoseria, p. 124. Fifine, pp. 65, 29.
Numpholeptos, p. 101. Ring and Book, i., p. 71; iii., p. 170; iv., pp.
57, 79.
_Materia Medica and Therapeutics._--Pietro of Abano, p. 84. Prince H.
S., p. 77. Paracelsus, p. 111.
_Medicine._--Poems, iv., p. 273; v., p. 220. Dramatic Idyls, ii.,
preface. Red Cotton, p. 199. Ferishtah, pp. 27, 55, 56. Ring and Book,
iv., p. 12.
_Pharmacy._--Poems, iii., p. 96; v., p. 220.
_Physiology._--Poems, v., p. 191. Sordello, p. 195. Tray.
_Scientific Matters in General._--Poems, v., pp. 128, 302; vi., p.
203. Dramatic Idyls, ii., p. 68. Fifine, pp. 51, 86. La Saisiaz, pp.
69, 82. Ferishtah, p. 131. Sordello, pp. 25, 203. Ring and Book, iv.,
pp. 61, 77, 180.
The references are to the six-volume edition of the poems, and to the
original separate editions of the larger works.
=Sebald.= The man in _Pippa Passes_ who murdered Ottima's husband.
=Serenade at the Villa, A.= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863;
_Dramatic Lyrics_, 1868.) A lover serenades his lady on a sultry summer
night; and the burden of his song is that, as he watches through the dark
night at her villa, so he vows to watch through life over her path, and
shield her from danger and serve her in secret devotion, as he sings to
her now while she sleeps. The lady dreamed of music, but slept on, though
"the earth turned in her sleep in pain," Earth has heard many serenades
and many vows made only to be broken. The iron gate which ground its teeth
to let the serenader pass seemed to be disputing the lover's
protestations; and one fears that if his mistress was like the earth, and
"turned in her sleep" too, she would derive little satisfaction from his
music.
=Setebos.= (_Caliban and Setebos._) The god of the Patagonians, whom
Caliban worships because his mother did so. Caliban thinks he lives in the
moon, and has made mankind for his amusement.
=Shah 'Abbas.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies, III._) Shah 'Abbas, surnamed the
Great, was one of the most celebrated of the sovereigns of Persia. He came
to the throne at the age of eighteen, in the year 1585. He defeated the
predatory Uzbeks, who occupied Khorassan, after a long and severe
struggle, in a great battle near Herat (1597), and drove them out of his
dominions. He was successful in the wars he waged against the Turks, and
thereby greatly extended his dominions. He defeated the united armies of
the Turks and Tartars in 1618. Baghdad was taken in 1623. When he died, in
1628, his dominions reached from the Tigris to the Indus. The
circumstances narrated in Mr. Browning's poem are not historical. The
subject of the poem is Belief. "It is beautiful, but is it true?"
Ferishtah has now achieved dervishhood, and a pupil asks, "Was this life
lived, was this death died, not dreamed?" It was answered, "Many attested
it for fact." A cup-bearer left on record a story of the death of the
brave Shah 'Abbas of simple fear at discovering a spider in his wine. The
cup-bearer was eye-witness of the fact. The Dervish says we must
distinguish between the noble act of belief, and mere easy acquiescence.
Twenty soldiers testify to the death of a comrade; yet he comes home safe
and sound after the wars. He had two sons. One who heard that his father
was living rejoiced; the other preferred the evidence of the twenty men
who saw him die. Ten years later home comes Ishak. The townsmen bid the
man of ready faith go and welcome his father, and the unbelieving one to
hide his head. The father would praise the loving heart in preference to
the sceptical head. "Is God less wise?" asks Ferishtah. The lyric teaches
that the true light of life is love. The dark ways of life and the
mysteries of the human heart will prove stones of stumbling and rocks of
offence where love is not the guide. With love and truth our obstacles
disappear.
=Shakespeare.= The poem which Mr. Browning wrote for the _Shakespearean
Show-Book_, 1884, commenced with the word "_Shakespeare!_" See NAMES, THE.
=Shop.= (_Pacchiarotto, with other Poems_, 1876.) "As even in science all
roads," it has been said, "lead to the mouth," so is it with Art and
Letters. The poet deplores the life of a tradesman who knows no other use
of life but to enable him to drive a roaring business, his "meat and drink
but money chink,"--and so, because flesh must be fed, spirit is chained to
the counter. The poet would have the tradesman brighten his daily life
with art and song, as men do who let their good angels sometimes converse
with them, in lands where poets and painters think more of art than money.
The danger and wickedness of compelling the soul to be the eternal slave
of sordid desires and petty anxieties is pointed out in this poem, and by
"shop" we are not only to think of tradesmen, but of all the large class
of those who are, like the man in the _Pilgrim's Progress_, too busy with
the muck-rake to look at the heavens above them, and losing their higher
selves in their absorption in earthly employments.
=Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis.= (See GARDEN FANCIES.) The name of some old
scholar, who has written a book, which is read by a profane fellow in a
garden, who throws it into a decaying tree, there to be in company with
congenial fungi.
="Sighed Rawdon Brown."= (See RAWDON BROWN.)
=Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister.= [_Dramatic Lyrics_, in _Bells and
Pomegranates, III._, 1842, under the title of "Camp and Cloister--I. Camp
(French), II. Cloister (Spanish)."] There is, of course, no historical
basis for the subject-matter of this poem; but there is no reason why such
things should not occur in a convent or monastery. Human nature, we find,
is pretty much the same, under whatever conditions we examine it; and
petty malice, ill-nature, and evil passions, find their congenial soil
alike in the cloister and the world. Some of the most unpleasant failings
of our nature are no doubt directly fostered by cloister life, just as
religious people of every class are often censorious, uncharitable in
their judgments, pharisaical and severe. Unless monks and nuns are
regularly and entirely employed in useful labour, these evil weeds are
certain to spring up in the untilled soil of the human heart. Work is the
only remedy for pettiness of spirit, and active employment the only
atmosphere for the nobler products of the soul. It must never be
forgotten, however, that thousands of the most beautiful characters which
have blessed the world have been formed in the cloister; such are being
formed now, and will continue to be so formed, in direct proportion to the
useful work in which its inmates are employed.--To inferior and evil
natures the lofty and noble soul is generally an object of hatred and
jealousy. In this poem we have a coarse-minded Spanish monk, boiling over
with abhorrence of a good, gentle brother, who loves his flowers, trims
his bushes and waters his rose trees with tender solicitude for the
welfare of his plants, the only things in the monastery he can love. The
simple talk of the hated friar at meal-time and recreation disgusts him;
he knows in his heart that the good brother is a saint, though he tries in
his malice to rake up some remembrance of a wandering look at odd times,
and is not so ritualistically exact as he is himself. He spites him by
damaging his plants all he can in a sly and ingenious way. He would like
him to lose his chances of salvation if he could, so he will endeavour to
pervert his orthodoxy and trip him up on his way to heaven; he will slip
in amongst his greengages a wicked French novel; or he will even go so far
as to ask Satan's aid,--when, as he meditates all this evil doing, the
vesper bell rings and the wicked old fellow goes to his prayers.
NOTES.--Verse ii., "_Salve tibi_": a salutation, "Hail to thee!" Verse v.,
_Cross-wise_: the use of the sign of the cross is traceable to the
earliest Christian times; "_The Trinity illustrate_": when the sign of the
cross is made it is usual to add internally "In the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." A Catholic remembers the
Trinity in numberless ways; _Arian_: "One who adheres to the doctrines of
Arius, a presbyter of the Church in the fourth century, who held Christ to
be a created being, inferior to God the Father in nature and dignity,
though the first and noblest of created beings." (_Mosheim._) Verse vii.,
"_The great text in the Galatians_" I take to be the tenth verse of the
third chapter: "For as many as are of the works of the law are under the
curse: for it is written, 'Cursed is every one that continueth not in all
things which are written in the book of the law to do them.'" "It is
written,"--that is to say, in the book of Deuteronomy, xxviii., 15 to 68,
wherein are set forth at length the curses for disobedience. Those
arithmetically-minded commentators on this poem who have been disappointed
in finding only some "seventeen works of the flesh" in Galatians v. 19-21
will find an abundant opportunity for their discrimination in the chapter
of Deuteronomy to which I refer. The question to settle is "the
twenty-nine distinct damnations." St. James says in his epistle (ii. 10),
that "he who offends against the law in one point is guilty of all." If,
therefore, the envious monk could induce his brother to trust to his
works instead of to his faith, he would fall under the condemnation of the
law, as explained by St. Paul in his epistle. _Manichee_: "A follower of
Manes, a Persian, who tried to combine the Oriental philosophy with
Christianity; and maintained that there are two supreme principles: the
first of which, _light_, was held to be the author of all good; the
second, _darkness_, the author of all evil" (_Webster's Dict._). Verse
viii., _Belial_: an evil spirit; "_Plena gratiâ Ave, Virgo!_": probably
intended to represent "the angelical salutation," which is "Ave Maria,
gratiâ plena"--"Hail, Mary, full of grace!"
=Solomon and Balkis.= (_Jocoseria_, 1883.) The Queen of Sheba sits on
Solomon's ivory throne, and talks of deep mysteries and things sublime;
she proves the king with hard problems, which he solves ere she has
finished her questions. He humiliates the Queen by making her difficulties
appear so childish that there is no spirit in her; but she musters up
strength enough for just one more hard question: "Who are those," she
asks, "who of all mankind should be admitted to the palace of the wisest
monarch on application?" Solomon says the wise are the equals of the king;
those who are kingly in craft should be his friends. He in turn asks the
Queen, "Who are those whom she would admit on similar terms?" "The good,"
replies the Queen; and as she speaks she contrives to jostle the king's
right hand, so that the ring which he wore was turned from inside now to
outside. The ring bore the "truth-compelling Name" of Jehovah; then the
King was obliged to confess that those only would be considered wise who
came to offer him the incense of their flattery.--"You cat, you!" he adds;
and then, turning the Name towards her, makes her also tell the truth.
Promptly she is compelled to answer that by the good she means young men,
strong, tall, and proper: these she enlists always as her servants. Then
sighed the King: the soul that aspires to soar, yet ever crawls, can
discern the great, yet always chooses the small; there is earth's rest, as
well as heaven's rest; above, the soul may fly; here, she must plod
heavily on earth. Solomon proposes to resume their discourse; but the
Queen tells him that she came to see Solomon the wise man; not to commune
with mind, but body--and, if she does not make too bold, would rather have
a kiss!
NOTES.--_Conster_: Old English for construe. "_spheieron do_": (Greek),
his home: the idea of Balkis talking Greek to Solomon is to show what a
prig she was. _Solomon's Seal_, as Solomon's ring is commonly called, was
celebrated for its potency over demons and genii. It is probably of Hindu
origin, and bore the double triangle sign of the Kabalists. (See _Isis
Unveiled_ (Blavatsky), vol i., pp. 135-6.) "_You cat, you!_" Solomon
descending to this is exquisitely funny. _Habitat_: a suitable
dwelling-place. _Hyssop_ (1 Kings iv. 33): a plant which grows in crevices
of walls. Dr. J. Forbes Royle considers it to be the caper (_Capparis
spinosa_), the _asuf_ of the Arabs. According to the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_, vol. xxiv., p. 738, the land of Sheba is Yemen, in Arabia.
The ancient name of the people of Yemen was Saba (Sheba). "The Queen of
Sheba who visited Solomon may have come with a caravan trading to Gaza, to
see the great king whose ships plied on the Red Sea. The Biblical picture
of the Sabæan kingdom is confirmed and supplemented by the Assyrian
inscriptions. Tiglath Pileser II. (733 B.C.) tells us that Teima, Sabá,
and Haipá (== Ephah, Gen. xxv. 4 and Isa. lx. 6) paid him tribute of gold,
silver, and much incense. Similarly Sargon (715 B.C.), in his _Annals_,
mentions the tribute of Shamsi, queen of Arabia, and of Itamara of the
land of Sabá, gold and fragrant spices, horses and camels." The following
is the Talmudic legend concerning the visit of the Queen of Sheba to
Solomon. "It is said that Solomon ruled the whole world, and this verse is
quoted as proof of the assertion: 'And Solomon was ruling over all the
kingdoms, which brought presents, and served Solomon all the days of his
life' (1 Kings iv. 21). All the kingdoms congratulated Solomon as the
worthy successor of his father, David, whose fame was great among the
nations; all save one, the kingdom of Sheba, the capital of which was
called Kitore. To this kingdom Solomon sent a letter: 'From me, King
Solomon, peace to thee and to thy government. Let it be known to thee that
the Almighty God has made me to reign over the whole world, the kingdoms
of the north, the south, the east, the west. Lo, they have come to me with
their congratulations, all save thee alone. Come thou also, I pray thee,
and submit to my authority, and much honour shall be done thee; but if
thou refusest, behold, I shall by force compel thy acknowledgment.--To
thee, Queen Sheba, is addressed this letter in peace from me, King
Solomon, the son of David.' Now, when Queen Sheba received this letter,
she sent in haste for her elders and councillors, to ask their advice as
to the nature of her reply. They spoke but lightly of the message and the
one who sent it; but the Queen did not regard their words. She sent a
vessel, carrying many presents of different metals, minerals, and precious
stones, to Solomon. It was after a voyage of two years' time that these
presents arrived at Jerusalem; and in a letter intrusted to the captain,
the Queen said 'After thou hast received the message, then I myself will
come to thee.' And in two years after this time Queen Sheba arrived at
Jerusalem. When Solomon heard that the Queen was coming, he sent Benayahu,
the son of Jehoyadah, the general of his army, to meet her. When the Queen
saw him she thought he was the King, and she alighted from her carriage.
Then Benayahu asked, 'Why alightest thou from thy carriage?' And she
answered, 'Art thou not his majesty, the King?' No, replied Benayahu, 'I
am but one of his officers.' Then the Queen turned back and said to her
ladies in attendance, 'If this is but one of the officers, and he is so
noble and imposing in appearance, how great must be his superior, the
King!' And Benayahu, the son of Jehoyadah, conducted Queen Sheba to the
palace of the King. Solomon prepared to receive his visitor in an
apartment laid and lined with glass; and the Queen at first was so
deceived by the appearance that she imagined the King to be sitting in
water. And when the Queen had tested Solomon's wisdom[5] and witnessed his
magnificence, she said: 'I believed not what I heard; but now I have come,
and my eyes have seen it all, behold, the half has not been told to me.
Happy are thy servants who stand before thee continually to listen to thy
words of wisdom. Blessed be the Lord thy God, who hath placed thee on a
throne to rule righteously and in justice.' When other kingdoms heard the
words of the Queen of Sheba, they feared Solomon exceedingly, and he
became greater than all the other kings of the earth in wisdom and in
wealth. Solomon was born in the year 2912 A.M., and reigned over Israel
forty years. Four hundred and thirty-three years elapsed between the date
of Solomon's reign and that of the Temple's destruction." (From Polano's
translation of selections from the Talmud.)
=Sonnet=:[6]--
"Eyes, calm beside thee, (Lady could'st thou know!)
May turn away thick with fast-gathering tears:
I glance not where all gaze: thrilling and low
Their passionate praises reach thee--my cheek wears
Alone no wonder when thou passest by;
Thy tremulous lids bent and suffused reply
To the irrepressible homage which doth glow
On every lip but mine: if in thine ears
Their accents linger--and thou dost recall
Me as I stood, still, guarded, very pale,
Beside each votarist whose lighted brow
Wore worship like an aureole, 'O'er them all
My beauty,' thou wilt murmur, 'did prevail
Save that one only:'--Lady could'st thou know!
_August 17th, 1834_ Z."
=Sordello.= [THE MAN.] Sordello was a troubadour, and we have to thank
Dante for having made, in his _Purgatorio_, such frequent reference to him
as will preserve his name from oblivion as long as the _Divina Commedia_
is known to the world. Sordello is referred to in the _Purgatorio_ eight
times: viz., in Canto vi. 75; vii. 2, 52; viii. 38, 43, 62, 93; ix. 53
(Cary's translation). In the sixth Canto we are introduced to Sordello
thus:--
"But lo! a spirit there
Stands solitary, and toward us looks;
It will instruct us in the speediest way."
We soon approach'd it. O thou Lombard spirit!
How didst thou stand, in high abstracted mood,
Scarce moving with slow dignity thine eyes.
It spoke not aught, but let us onward pass,
Eying us as a lion on his watch.
But Vergil, with entreaty mild, advanced,
Requesting it to show the best ascent.
It answer to his question none return'd;
But of our country and our kind of life
Demanded--When my courteous guide began,
'Mantua,' the shadow, in itself absorb'd,
Rose towards us from the place in which it stood,
And cried, 'Mantuan! I am thy countryman,
Sordello.' Each the other then embraced.
Cary's note is valuable: "The history of Sordello's life is wrapt in the
obscurity of romance. That he distinguished himself by his skill in
Provençal poetry is certain; and many feats of military prowess have been
attributed to him. It is probable that he was born towards the end of the
twelfth, and died about the middle of the succeeding century. Tiraboschi,
who terms him the most illustrious of all the Provençal poets of his age,
has taken much pains to sift all the notices he could collect relating to
him; and has particularly exposed the fabulous narrative which Platina has
introduced on this subject in his history of Mantua. Honourable mention of
his name is made by our poet in the treatise _De Vulg. Eloq._, lib. i.
cap. 15, where it is said that, remarkable as he was for eloquence, he
deserted the vernacular language of his own country, not only in his
poems, but in every other kind of writing. Tiraboschi had at first
concluded him to be the same writer whom Dante elsewhere (_De Vulg.
Eloq._, lib. ii. c. 13) calls Gottus Mantuanus, but afterwards gave up
that opinion to the authority of the Conte d'Arco and the Abate
Bettinelli. By Bastero, in his _Crusca Provenzale_, (ediz. Roma., 1724, p.
94), amongst Sordello's MS. poems in the Vatican, are mentioned "Canzoni,
Tenzoni, Cobbole," and various "Serventesi," particularly one in the form
of a funeral song on the death of Blancas, in which the poet reprehends
all the reigning princes in Christendom.--Many of Sordello's poems have
been brought to light by the industry of M. Raynouard, in his _Choix des
Poésies des Troubadours_ and his _Lexique Roman_." Sismondi, in his
_Literature of Europe_, vol i., p. 103, says that the real merit of
Sordello as a troubadour "consists in the harmony and sensibility of his
verses. He was amongst the first to adopt the ballad form of writing; and
in one of these which has been translated by Millot, he beautifully
contrasts, in the burthen of his ballad, the gaieties of nature, and the
ever-reviving grief of a heart devoted to love. Sordel, or Sordello, was
born at Goïto, near Mantua, and was for some time attached to the
household of the Count of S. Bonifazio, the chief of the Guelf party, in
the march of Treviso. He afterwards passed into the service of Raymond
Berenger, the last count of Provence of the house of Barcelona. Although a
Lombard, he had adopted in his compositions the Provençal language, and
many of his countrymen imitated him. It was not at that time believed that
the Italian was capable of becoming a polished language. The age of
Sordello was that of the most brilliant chivalric virtues and the most
atrocious crimes. He lived in the midst of heroes and monsters. The
imagination of the people was still haunted by the recollection of the
ferocious Ezzelino, tyrant of Verona, with whom Sordello is said to have
had a contest, and who was probably often mentioned in his verses. The
historical monuments of this reign of blood were, however, little known;
and the people mingled the name of their favourite poet with every
revolution which excited their terror. It was said that he had carried off
the wife of the Count of S. Bonifazio, the sovereign of Mantua; that he
had married the daughter or sister of Ezzelino; and that he had fought
this monster, with glory to himself. He united, according to popular
report, the most brilliant military exploits to the most distinguished
poetical genius. By the voice of St. Louis himself he had been recognised,
at a tourney, as the most valiant and gallant of knights; and at last the
sovereignty of Mantua had been bestowed upon this noblest of the poets and
warriors of his age. Historians of credit have collected, three centuries
after Sordello's death, these brilliant fictions, which are, however,
disproved by the testimony of contemporary writers. The reputation of
Sordello is owing, very materially, to the admiration which has been
expressed for him by Dante; who, when he meets him at the entrance of
Purgatory, is so struck with the noble haughtiness of his aspect, that he
compares him to a lion in a state of majestic repose, and represents
Virgil as embracing him on hearing his name."--I am indebted to Professor
Sonnenschein for the following account of the man Sordello, as well as for
the valuable notes on the period, and the persons with whom the poem
deals. The notes distinguished by the initial [S.] are also due to
Professor Sonnenschein's generous assistance: "All that is known of the
real Sordello is that he was a troubadour of the thirteenth century
mentioned by his contemporary Rolandin, who states that he eloped with
Cuniza, wife of Count Richard de Saint Bonifazio, and sister of Ezzelino
da Romano. Some of his poems still survive, and from them a few more facts
relating to the poet may be gleaned; and that is the whole of our real
knowledge of him. For some reason, however, the poets and romantic
historians have made much more of him. First, Dante met him at the portals
of Purgatory among those who had perished by violence without a chance of
repenting them of their sins. When he saw Vergil he cried: '_O Montovano
io son Sordello, della tua terra_' ('Oh Mantuan, I am Sordello of thy
country!') Dante, in his poem says he had the appearance and aspect of a
lion; and the same author, in a prose treatise on the vulgar tongue, says
Sordello excelled in all kinds of poetry and aided in founding the Italian
language by numerous words skilfully borrowed from the dialects of
Cremona, Brescia and Verona. A century later Benvenuto d'Imola, in a
commentary on the works of Dante, says Sordello was a citizen of Mantua,
an illustrious and able warrior and a courtier, who lived in the reign of
Ezzelin da Romano, whose sister Cuniza fell in love with him and invited
him to a rendezvous. Ezzelino, disguised as a servant, discovered them
together, but permitted Sordello to escape upon promising not to return.
Yielding, however, again to the entreaties of Cuniza, he was again
discovered by her watchful brother, and fled. He was pursued and slain by
the emissaries of Ezzelino. Benvenuto, who gives no authority for his
statements, also says that Sordello was the author of a book which he
admits never to have seen, called _Thesaurus thesaurorum_. About the same
time some biographical notices of the troubadours, written in the language
of Provence, mention Sordello as having been the son of a poor knight of
Mantua. At an early age he composed numerous songs and poems, which gained
him admittance to the court of the Count of St. Boniface. He fell in love
with the wife of that lord, and eloped with her. The fugitives were
received by the lady's brothers, who were at war with St. Boniface. After
a time he left the lady there, and passed into Provence, where his talents
obtained such brilliant recognition that he was soon the owner of a
château, and made an honourable marriage. Early in the next century
Aliprando wrote a fabulous rhyming chronicle of Milan, in which Sordello
plays a conspicuous part. In this he is a member of the family of
Visconti, born at Goïto. He began his literary career in early youth by
producing a book called _The Treasure_. Arms proving more attractive, by
the time he was twenty-five he was distinguished for his bravery, his
address, his nobility, and the grace of his demeanour, although he was
small of stature. Accepting many challenges, he was always victorious, and
sent the vanquished knights to tell his deeds of valour to the King of
France. At the invitation of that prince he was about to cross the Alps,
when he yielded to the entreaties of Ezzelino and went to reside with him
at Verona. There he long resisted the advances, the prayers, the
entreaties of Ezzelino's sister Beatrice. At last he fled to Mantua, but
was followed by Beatrice disguised as a man. He finally yielded, and
married her. A few days later he left her, and went to France, where he
spent several months with the court at Troyes, where his valour, his
gallantry and his poetic talents were greatly admired. After being
knighted by the King, who gave him three thousand francs and a golden
falcon, he returned to Italy. All the towns received him with pomp, as the
first warrior of his time. The Mantuans came out to meet him, but he
passed on to Verona to reclaim his bride. When he returned with her, he
was welcomed with eight days of public rejoicing. After that, Ezzelino
laid siege to Mantua, but was driven away by Sordello, who afterwards
aided the Milanese against him and gave him the wound of which he died.
What became of him afterwards does not appear; but this chronicle, which
was a mass of anachronisms, romances, and fictions, was largely drawn upon
by the historic writers of the next century, many of whom have adopted the
story of Sordello as therein told, and of the Lady Beatrice who never
existed. In the sixteenth century, Nostradamus, in his _Lives of Provençal
Poets_, says: Sordello was a Mantuan, who at the age of fifteen years
entered the service of Berenger, Count of Provence. His verses were
preferred to those of Folquet de Marseille, Perceval Doria, and all the
other Genoese and Tuscan poets. He made very beautiful songs, not about
love, but on subjects relating to philosophy. He translated into
Provençalese a digest of the laws, and wrote a historical treatise on the
Kings of Aragon and Provence. Darenou, to whom I am indebted for most of
my information, after examining all of these and some later authorities,
considers that the only certain facts are those written by Rolandin
shortly after Sordello's death. Dante was so nearly contemporaneous that
he also may be taken as an authority. Of his Italian poems, and his prose
works, nothing is known to have survived; but at least thirty-four of his
Provençalese poems still exist. Of these one-half are love songs of the
most pronounced type, despite the statement of Nostradamus to the
contrary. Several have been translated into French, and some are said to
be of a high character. In one, the poet boasts of his conquests and his
fickleness. Some are in the form of dialogues, in which he discusses such
questions as, Whether it be better for a lover to die or continue to exist
after the loss of his beloved; or Whether it be right to sacrifice love to
honour, or to prefer the glory of knightly combat to love. In a poetic
letter to the Count of Provence, he begs that prince not to send him to
the Crusades, as he cannot make up his mind to cross the seas, and wishes
to delay as long as possible entering into life eternal. In several of his
poems he violently attacks Pierre Vidal, the troubadour, whom he seems to
have hated bitterly. The whole story is a curious instance of development.
Originally a troubadour, apparently with most of the vices, faults, and
virtues of the typical troubadour of the thirteenth century, he gradually
became, as the centuries advanced, first a hero of romance, a
_preux-chevalier_ and model Italian knight-errant, and finally that which
we see Mr. Browning has made of him. In _Sismondi_ I find the following
concerning Sordello: "Two men, superior in character to these court
parasites, about this time attained great reputations in the Lombard
republics, through their Provençalese songs. One of these, Ugo Cattola,
devoted his talents to combating the corruption and tyranny of princes;
the other, Sordello de Mantua, is enveloped in mysterious obscurity. The
writers of the following century speak of him with profound respect,
without giving us any details of his life. Those who came later have made
him a magnanimous warrior, a valiant defender of his country, and some
even a prince of Mantua. The nobility of his birth and his marriage with a
sister of Eccelino da Romana, are attested by his contemporaries. His
violent death is obscurely indicated by the great Florentine poet; and the
only claims to immortality that remain to Sordello to-day are his words
and actions mentioned by Dante in the _Purgatorio_." The following is also
given in _Sismondi_ as one of the few surviving specimens of Sordello's
poetry. It is called:
TENSA DE SORDEL ET DE PEYRE GUILHEM.
GUILHEM. GUILLAUME.
En Sordel que vous en semblan Eh bien, Sordel, que vous en
De la pros contessa preysan? semble de cette aimable comtesse
Car tout dison, et van parlan si prisée? Car tous disent, tous
Que per s'amor etz in vengutz, vous répétant que pour son
E quen cujatz esser son drutz, amour vous êtes veni ici, que
En blanchatz etz por ley canutz. vous avez cru pouvoir être son
amant, et que pour elle vos
cheveux blanchissent, et vos
forces vous abandonnent.
SORDEL. SORDELLO.
Peyre Guilhem tot son affan Pierre Guillaume, Dieu mit en
Mist Dieu in ley for per mon dan. elle tout son travail, pour en
Les beautatz que les autratz an faire mon tourment. Les beautés
En menz, et el pres son menutz. qu'ont toutes les autres ne sont
Ans fos ab emblanchatz perdutz rien; leur prix est peu de chose.
Che esso non fos advengutz. Plutôt fussé-je perdu par la
vieil-lesse, que d'avoir éprouvé
ce que j'éprouve.
The poem of _Sordello_ is a picture of the troublous times of the early
part of the thirteenth century in North Italy, and is the history of the
development of Sordello's soul. Frederick II. is Emperor and Honorius III.
is Pope. Frederick II., the noblest of mediæval princes, the man who
suffered much because he was centuries in advance of his time, is too well
known to need any description. To understand the causes of the conflicts
in which Lombardy was engaged, we must go back to the time of Charlemagne,
who took the Lombard king Desiderius prisoner, in 774, and destroyed the
Lombard kingdom. Luitprand, the sovereign of the Lombards from 713 to 726,
had extended the dominion of Lombardy into Middle Italy. The Popes found
this dominion too formidable, so they solicited the assistance of the
Frankish kings. The whole of Upper Italy had been conquered by the
Lombards in the sixth century. "Charles, with the title of King of the
Franks and Lombards, then became the master of Italy. In 800, the Pope,
who had crowned Pepin King of the Franks, claimed to bestow the Roman
Empire, and crowned his greater son Emperor of the Romans" (_Encyc.
Brit._). Now began a vast system in North Italy of episcopal
"immunities," which made the bishops temporal sovereigns. In the eleventh
century the Lombard cities had become communes and republics, managing
their own affairs and making war on their troublesome neighbours. Leagues
and counter-leagues were formed, and confederacies of cities even dared to
challenge the strength of Germany. Otto the Great's empire, in the early
years of the tenth century, consisted of Germany and Lombardy, with the
Romagna and Burgundy; and it was Otto who fixed the principle, that to the
German king belonged the Roman crown. The crown of Germany was at this
period elective, although it often passed in one family for several
generations. Struggles for supremacy between the two powers took place in
the reign of the Emperor Henry IV. of Franconia and the papacy of Gregory
VII., the famous Hildebrand. It was the struggle between Church and State
destined to be fraught with so much misery. The contest ended at this
period in a compromise; but most of the gains were on the side of the
Pope. It was renewed with great fierceness in the reign of Frederick I. of
Hohenstaufen, called Barbarossa or "Red Beard," who came to the throne in
1152. He bestowed on the Empire the title of Holy. The cities of Lombardy
were commonwealths, somewhat after the fashion of those of ancient Greece;
they had grown very rich and powerful, and whilst they admitted the
Emperor's authority in theory, were averse to the practice of submission.
The city of Milan, by her attacks on a weaker neighbour, who appealed to
Frederick for aid, began a war which resulted in the Peace of Constance in
1183, by which the Emperor abandoned all but a nominal authority over the
Lombard League. The son and successor of Frederick--Henry VI.--began to
reign in 1190; he married Constance, heiress of the Norman kingdom of
Sicily, which was a fief of the papal crown. After the death of Henry VI.,
Philip, his brother, began to reign, in 1198. In 1208, Otho IV., surnamed
the Superb, ascended the throne, and was crowned Emperor. The next year he
was excommunicated and deposed. In 1212, Frederick II., King of Sicily,
who was the son of Henry VI., began his reign, he received the German
crown at Aix-la-Chapelle, 1215, and the Imperial crown of Rome, 1230. When
he died he possessed no fewer than six crowns,--the Imperial crown, and
the crowns of Germany, Burgundy, Lombardy, Sicily, and Jerusalem. He had
assumed the cross, and in 1220 he left his Empire for a space of fifteen
years, to accomplish the crusade and to carry on the war with the Lombard
cities and the Pope (Gregory IX.). John of Brienne, the dethroned King of
Jerusalem, who was afterwards Emperor of the East, had a daughter named
Yolande, whom Frederick married. He sent a bunch of dates to Frederick to
remind him of his promised crusade. When that sovereign formed the army of
the East, he left his young son Henry to represent him in Germany.
Frederick was deposed by his subjects, and died in 1250, naming his son
Conrad as his successor. In the beginning of the reign of Conrad III.,
1138, the Imperial crown was contested by Henry the Proud Duke of Saxony.
It was at this time that the contests between the factions, afterwards so
famous in history as those of the Guelfs and the Ghibellines, began. Duke
Henry had a brother named Welf, the leader of the Saxon forces. They used
his name as their battle cry, and the Swabians responded by crying out the
name of the village where their leader, the brother of Conrad, had been
born--namely, Waibling. The Welfs and the Waiblings were therefore the
originals of the terms Guelfs and Ghibellines.--"_The Romano Family._"
During the reign of Conrad II. (1024-39) a German gentleman, named
Eccelino, accompanied that Emperor to Italy, with a single horse, and so
distinguished himself that, as a reward for his services, he received the
lands of Onaro and Romano in the Trevisan marches. This founder of a
powerful house, famous for its crimes, was succeeded by Alberic, and he by
another Eccelino, called the First and also le Bègue--'the Stammerer.'
These gentlemen largely augmented their patrimony, acquiring Bassano,
Marostica, and many other estates situated to the north of Vicenza,
Verona, and Padua; so that their fief formed a small principality, equal
in power to either of its neighbouring republics; and as the factions of
the towns sought to strengthen themselves by alliances with them, the
Seigneurs de Romano were soon regarded as the chiefs of the Ghibelline
party in all Venetia. Eccelin le Bègue and Tisolin de Campo St. Pierre, a
Paduan noble, were warm friends, and the latter was married to a daughter
of the former, and had a son grown to manhood. Cecile, orphan daughter and
heiress of Manfred Ricco d'Abano, was offered in marriage, by her
guardians, to the young St. Pierre; but the father before concluding the
advantageous alliance, thought it proper to consult his friend and
father-in-law, Eccelino. That gentleman, however, wished to obtain this
great fortune for his own son, and secretly bribed the lady's guardians to
deliver her up to him, when he carried her off to his castle of Bassano
and then hurriedly married her to his son. This treachery made the whole
family of Campo St. Pierre indignant, and they vowed vengeance. They had
not long to wait for their opportunity. Several months after the marriage,
the wife of the young Eccelino went on a visit to her estates in the
Paduan territory, with a suite more brilliant than valiant. Tisolin's son,
Gerard, who was to have been Cecile's husband, and was now her nephew,
seized her and carried her off from the midst of her retinue to his castle
of St. André. Cecile, escaping after a time, returned to Bassano and
related her terrible misfortune to her husband, who at once repudiated
her, and she afterwards married a Venetian nobleman. The two families had,
however, thus founded a mutual hate, which descended from father to son,
and cost many lives and much blood. In the meantime, Eccelino II.'s power
was augmented by this marriage and the one he afterwards contracted. He
made alliances with the republics of Verona and Padua; and he soon
required their aid, for in 1194, when one of his enemies was chosen
podesta of Vicenza, he, his family, and the whole faction of Vivario, were
exiled from the city. Before submitting, he undertook to defend himself by
setting fire to his neighbours' houses; and a great portion of the town
was destroyed during the insurrection. These were the first scenes of
disorder and bloodshed which greeted the eyes of Eccelino III. or the
Cruel, who was born a few weeks before. Exile from Vicenza was not a
severe sentence for the lords of Romano; for they retired to Bassano, in
the midst of their own subjects, and called around them their partisans,
who were persecuted as they themselves were, without the same resources.
By the aid thus given with apparent generosity, they degraded their
associates, transforming their fellow-citizens into mercenary satellites,
and increasing their influence in the town, from which their exile could
not be of long duration. The Veronese interfered to establish peace in
Vicenza. They had the Romanos recalled, with all their party; and an
arrangement was made by which two podestas were chosen at the same time,
one by each party. In 1197, however, the Vicenzese again chose a single
podesta, hostile to Eccelino, and this time not only banished the
Romanos, but declared war against them, and sent troops to besiege
Marostica. Eccelino, placed between three republics, could choose his own
allies; and decided now upon Padua. The Paduan army attacked that of
Vicenza, near Carmignano, and took two thousand prisoners. The Vicenzese
called upon the Veronese to assist them, and together they invaded the
Paduan territory, desolating it up to the very walls of the city, and so
frightening the Paduans that they delivered up all of their prisoners
without waiting to consult Eccelino. That prince took this opportunity to
break with Padua, and called upon Verona to arbitrate between him and
Vicenza, giving them as hostages his young daughter and his strongest two
castles, Bassano and Anganani. By this thorough confidence he so won the
affection of the podesta of Verona that he concluded peace for him with
Vicenza and the whole Guelf party, and then returned his castles to him.
The Paduans revenged themselves by confiscating Onaro, the first estate
possessed by the Romano family in Italy.--_Salinguerra._ William
Marchesella des Adelard, chief of the Guelf party in Ferrara, had the
misfortune to see all the male heirs of his house, his brother and all his
sons, perish before him. An only daughter of his brother, named
Marchesella, remained, and he declared her the sole heiress to his immense
estates, naming the son of his sister as heir should Marchesella die
without children. Tired of warfare, and hoping to ensure peace to his
distracted country, he determined to do so by uniting the leading families
of the two factions. Salinguerra, son of Torrello, was at the head of the
Ghibellines in Ferrara; and William not only offered his niece to him in
marriage, but actually before his death placed her, then a child of seven
years, in his hands to be reared and educated. The Guelfs were, however,
unwilling to permit the heiress of their leading family to remain in the
hands of their enemies; and they could not consent to transfer their
affection and allegiance to those with whom they had fought for so long a
time. They therefore found an opportunity to surprise Salinguerra's
palace, and abduct Marchesella, whom they placed in the palace of the
Marquis d'Este, choosing Obizzo d'Este to be her husband, and placing her
property in the hands of the Marquis. In the end Marchesella died before
she was married; her cousins, designated by William, in this event, to be
his heirs, were afraid to claim the estates, and the whole property
continued in the hands of the Este family. In the meantime the insult
offered to Salinguerra was keenly resented. The abduction took place in
1180, and for nearly forty years afterwards civil war continued within the
walls of Ferrara without ceasing. During those years, ten times one
faction drove the other out of the city, ten times all the property of the
vanquished was given up to pillage, and all their houses razed to the
ground.--_Eccelino and Salinguerra._ In 1209 Otho IV. entered Italy, and
held his court near Verona. All the chief lords of Venetia--but especially
Eccelino II., de Romano, and Azzo VI., Marquis d'Este--were summoned to
attend. Those two gentlemen had profited by the long interregnum which
preceded Otho's reign to increase their influence in the marches, and the
factions were more bitter against each other than ever. These factions had
different reasons for existing in the different towns; but they quickly
adopted the newly introduced names of Guelf and Ghibelline, and a common
tie was thus suddenly formed between the factions in the various places.
Thus, by the mere adoption of a name, Salinguerra in Ferrara and the
Montecci in Verona, found themselves allies of Eccelino; and, on the other
hand, the Adelards of Ferrara, Count St. Bonifazio at Verona and Mantua,
and the Campo St. Pierre at Padua, were all allies of the Marquis d'Este.
The year before, Este, after a short banishment, had re-entered Ferrara,
and had succeeded in being declared lord of that city,--the first time
that an Italian republic abandoned its rights for the purpose of
voluntarily submitting to a tyrant. About the same time the Marquis had
gained an important victory over Eccelino and his party; but, at the
moment when the Emperor entered Italy, Eccelino had gained some advantages
over the Vicenzese, and thought himself on the point of capturing the
city. Azzo marched against him, whereupon Salinguerra entered Ferrara and
drove out all of Azzo's adherents. The summons sent to the chiefs to meet
the Emperor no doubt prevented a bloody battle and a useless massacre.
(See note, p. 500; see also the article, TAURELLO SALINGUERRA, in this
work.) In 1235, after a long and turbulent reign, full of vicissitudes,
Eccelino II. retired into a monastery, and divided his principality
between his two sons, Eccelino III. and Alberic. The latter remained at
Treviso; but Eccelino III. became very powerful, kept all Italy in
turmoil, and was notorious for his infamous tyrannies and cruelties. In
1255 he was excommunicated by the Pope, Alexander IV., and a crusade was
preached against him. He fought against his enemies from that time, with
varying success and stubborn courage, until 1259, when he was wounded in
battle and taken prisoner. The leaders of the enemy with difficulty
protected him from the fury of the soldiers and the people; but he himself
tore the bandages from his wounds, and died on the eleventh day of his
captivity. All the cities which he had conquered and oppressed at once
revolted; and Treviso, where Alberic had reigned ever since his fathers
abdication, revolted and drove him out. Alberic, with his family, took
refuge in his fortress of San Zeno, in the Euganean mountains; but the
league of Guelf cities declared against him, and the troops of Venice,
Treviso, Vicenza, and Padua surrounded the castle, where they were soon
joined by the Marquis d'Este. Traitors delivered up the outworks; but
Alberic and his wife, two daughters and six sons, took refuge on the top
of a tower. After three days, compelled by hunger, he delivered himself up
to the Marquis, at the same time reminding him that one of his daughters
was the wife of Renaud d'Este. In spite of this, however, he and his
family were all murdered and torn to pieces, and their dismembered bodies
divided among all the cities over which the hated Romano family had
tyrannised. In 1240 Gregory IX. preached a crusade against the Emperor
Frederick II., and a crusading army surrounded Ferrara, where Salinguerra,
then more than eighty years old, had reigned for some time as prince and
as head of the Ghibellines. He successfully defended the city for some
time; but when attending a conference, to which he was invited by his
enemies, he was treacherously captured and sent to Venice, where, after
five years' imprisonment, he died." [S.]
[THE POEM.] _Sordello_ is Browning's _Hamlet_, and is the most obscure of
all Mr. Browning's poems. It has been aptly compared to a vast palace, in
which the architect has forgotten to build a staircase. Its difficulties
are not merely those which are inseparable from an attempt to trace the
development of a soul,--such a work without obscurity could only deal with
a very simple soul,--but are consequent on the remoteness of time in which
the political events and historical circumstances which formed the
environment of Sordello's existence took place, and the partial interest
which the majority of readers feel concerning those events. The work deals
with the struggles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines; and it is necessary to
possess a fair knowledge of the history of the times, places, and persons
concerned before we can grasp the mere outlines of the story. It must be
admitted, whether we allow the charge of obscurity or not, that Mr.
Browning never helps his reader. He may or may not actually hinder him: it
is certain that he does not go out of his way to assist him. The first
step towards understanding Sordello, then, is to gain some acquaintance
with the period and personages of the story. The work is full of beauty.
Probably no poet ever poured out such wealth of richest thought with such
princely liberality as Mr. Browning has done in this much discussed poem.
It is like a Brazilian forest, in which, though we shall almost certainly
lose our way, it will be amidst such profusion of floral loveliness that
it will be a delight to be buried in its depths.