The dream-life becomes a partial reality. Sordello's wanderings carry
him one day to the walls of Mantua, outside which Palma is holding a
"Court of Love." Eglamor sings. His song is incomplete. Sordello feels
what is wanting; catches up the thread of the story; and sings it to its
proper close.[14] His triumph is absolute. He is installed as Palma's
minstrel in Eglamor's place. Eglamor accepts his defeat with touching
gentleness, and lies down to die. This poet is meant to embody the
limited art, which is an end in itself, and one with the artist's life.
Sordello, on the other hand, represents the boundless aspirations which
art may subserve, but which must always leave it behind. The parallel
will be stated more distinctly later on.
Sordello's first wish is fulfilled. He has found a career which will
reconcile his splendid dreams with his real obscurity, and set him, by
right of imagination--the true Apolloship--apart from other men. But his
true difficulties have yet to begin. It is not enough that he feels
himself a transcendent personage. He must make others believe that he is
so. Every act of imagination is with him an act of existence, or as Mr.
Browning calls it of Will; but this self-asserting was much easier with
the imaginary crowd than it can be with the real one. Sordello is soon
at cross-purposes with his hearers: for when he sings of human passion,
or human prowess, they never dream of identifying him with it; and when
he sings of mere abstract modes of being, they do not understand.
The love of abstract conception is indeed the rock on which he splits.
The feelings which are real to us are unreal to him, because they are
accidental. What is real to him is the underlying consciousness which
according to his view is permanent: the "intensest" self described in
"Pauline"--the mind which is spoken of in the fifth "book" of "Sordello"
(vol. i. page 236) as nearest to God when emptied of even thought; and
his aim is to put forth all the _qualities_ which this absolute
existence can assume, and yet be reflected in other men's minds as
independent of them. This lands him in struggles not only with his
hearers but with himself--for he is unused to expressing what he feels;
and with a language which at best could convey "whole perceptions" like
his, in a very meagre form, or a fragmentary one. He still retains the
love of real life and adventure which inspired his boyish dreams. There
is nothing, as I have said, that he does not wish to _be_; and now,
amidst commonplace human beings, his human desires often take a more
simple and natural form. But the poet in him pushes the man aside, and
bids him, at all events, wait. He does not know that he is failing
through the hopeless disunion of the two. He silences his better
humanity, and retains the worst; for he is more and more determined to
succeed at whatever cost. Yet failure meets him on every side. He is too
large for his public, but he is also too small for it. Every question
raised even in talk carries him into the infinite. Every man of his
audience has a practical answer ready before he has. Naddo plies him
with common sense. "He is to speak to the human heart--he is not to be
so philosophical--he is not to seem so clever." Shallow judges pull him
to pieces. Shallow rivals strive to sing him down.[15] He loses his
grasp of the ideal. He cannot clutch the real. His imagination dries up.
Meanwhile Adelaide has died. Salinguerra, who had joined the Emperor at
Naples, is brought back in hot haste by the news that Eccelino has
retired to a monastery, has disclaimed the policy of his House; and is
sealing his peace with the Guelph princes by the promised marriage of
his sons Eccelino and Alberic with the sisters of Este; and of his
daughter Palma with Count Richard of San Bonifacio himself. He is coming
to Mantua. Sordello must greet him with his best art. But Sordello
shrinks from the trial, and escapes back to Goito, whence Palma has just
departed. What his Mantuan life has taught him is thus expressed (vol.
i. page 130):--
"The Body, the Machine for Acting Will,
Had been at the commencement proved unfit;
That for Demonstrating, Reflecting it,
Mankind--no fitter: was the Will Itself
In fault?"
He is wiser than he was, but his objects remain the same. The
sympathies--the moral sense--the soul--are still asleep.