Introductory, XIII, XIV.
The Judgment, XV-XXII; Character of.
Results. Freedom in complete possession of Earth. No satisfaction
derivative therefrom in (_a_) Nature, XXIII, XXIV; (_b_) Art, XXV,
XXVI; (_c_) Intellectual attainment, XXVII, XXVIII; (_d_) Love--
sought as final refuge, XXIX-XXX (l. 969).
Argument in favour of credibility of Gospel story, XXX (ll. 969-990).
Ultimate results of Vision--Acceptance of existing uncertainty
rather than of satiety within temporal limitations, XXXI-XXXIII.
LECTURE VI
CHRISTMAS EVE AND EASTER DAY (iii)
General character of poems. How far dramatic?
Expression of Browning's personal opinions under dramatic guise on
I. Doctrine of the Incarnation.
II. Faith and Life temporal.
III. Judgment and Future Punishment.
Dramatic element stronger in references to
IV. Roman Catholicism.
V. Nonconformity of "Zion Chapel."
VI. Asceticism.
LECTURE VII
LA SAISIAZ
Peculiar interest attaching as _direct_ expression of Browning's thought.
General character of poem. Cf. _Prospice_.
Prologue outcome of conclusions of poem.
Circumstances giving rise to _La Saisiaz_.
Death of Miss Egerton-Smith, 1877.
Analysis of Poem.
_A._ Prelude (ll. 1-404).
(i) Narrative of events leading to subsequent reflections (ll.
1-139).
(ii) Immortality of the soul--Treatment of question (ll.
139-179).
(iii) Nature of Immortality (ll. 179-216).
(iv) Primary truths constituting basis of succeeding argument
(ll. 217-234).
(v) Grounds for belief in a future life--Imperfections of
present life--Its probationary character--Preponderance of
evil (ll. 235-404).
_B._ Argument, imaginary, between Fancy and Reason (ll. 405-524).
_C._ Conclusions from foregoing (ll. 525-604)--Supplementary (ll.
605-618).
Relation of _La Saisiaz_ to earlier poems considered.
Its relation to Browning's attitude towards Christianity--Christianity
and a Future Life.
Summary of Browning's creed as deduced from foregoing considerations--
Dogma and spiritual growth.
ERRATA
Page 32, line 21, _for_ "four hundred years" _read_ "five hundred."
Page 39, line 11, _for_ "men to become" _read_ "man."
Page 71, line 30, _for_ "interval of six years, in 1847" _read_ "four
years, in 1845."
Page 71, line 31, _for_ "1853" _read_ "1851."
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY, AND CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS
BROWNING AND DOGMA
LECTURE I
INTRODUCTORY, AND CALIBAN UPON SETEBOS
He at least believed in Soul, was very sure of God.[1]
To this faith, to this assurance, is largely attributable the influence
unquestionably possessed by Browning as a teacher in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. For the intentionally didactic element in the work
may not honestly be ignored in whatever degree it is held to militate
against artistic merit. Amid the throng of seekers after Truth in the
world of poetry, Browning stands pre-eminent as one who not only sought
Truth, but, having gained what he held to be Truth, kept it as "the sole
prize of Life." Poets of the school of thought of which Matthew Arnold and
A. H. Clough may perhaps be regarded as among the more prominent
exponents, are able to give no even approximately satisfying answer to the
questionings bound inevitably to arise, at some time or other, in all
minds whose energies are not dissipated by a too ready compliance with the
demands of the hour. In certain moods their work appeals to us
irresistibly, but the appeal is one of sympathy with doubt rather than of
suggestion of solution. The author of _Obermann_ may indeed in "hours of
gloom" remind us that there have been "hours of insight"; that the
individual soul, though through prolonged struggle and effort alone, may
"mount hardly to eternal life." The consolation he would offer to
spiritual depression is that of self-dependence. Nature may soothe, but is
powerless to satisfy; the appeal to her is answered by that which,
although "severely clear," is but "an air-born voice," directing the
enquirer back upon himself--
Resolve to be thyself, and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery.[2]
So, too, Clough, sympathizing fully with doubt, may in his more inspired
moments speak of hope and of the assurance
'Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all.
Although from his pen has come at least one short poem[3] worthy in
invigorating force of the faith of Browning himself, yet the note of
defeat rather than the ring of triumph is more generally characteristic of
his language. Tennyson had splendid glimpses of the Truth, passing visions
of glory; yet here, too, the vision was but transitory, the full glory
evanescent.
The continued popularity of _In Memoriam_ is undoubtedly due in large
measure to the fact that the author has there given poetic utterance to
those questionings and aspirations of the human soul, peculiar to no time
or place, to no nation or form of creed--to the cry wrung from the heart
when inexorable Death brings with it the hour of separation. There is in
truth a triumphant note towards the close of _In Memoriam_: the child of
the fifty-fourth stanza "crying in the night, and with no language but a
cry," though yet crying in the night, becomes in the final section (stanza
cxxiv) a child "who knows his father near." But even when the heart rises
triumphantly, and in defiance of the arguments of reason asserts "I have
felt," the faith so expressed is not the faith of Browning. Beyond all the
temporary darkness of _La Saisiaz_ we recognize that the author of
_Asolando_ is speaking nothing more than the truth when he tells us that
he "never doubted clouds would break." The dispersal of the clouds
gathered over La Salève added confidence to the _Epilogue_ which
constitutes so fitting a close to the life's work. The assertion "I
believe in God and Truth and Love," expressed through the medium of the
lover of Pauline, finds its echo in the more direct personal assertion of
the concluding lines of _La Saisiaz_, "He believed in Soul, was very sure
of God." This was the irreducible minimum of Browning's creed. How much
more he held as absolute, soul-satisfying truth it is the design of this
and the six following lectures to determine.
And here at once on the threshold of our investigation we are confronted
by the difficulty inseparable from any consideration of Browning's
literary work; the difficulty of eliminating the dramatic and gauging the
extent of the purely personal element. Although, as was inevitable, such
difficulty has been universally recognized by critics and students, yet
the very strength of the dramatic power has in many cases proved
misleading. Browning has too completely lost himself in his subject. In
the writings of the man capable of merging his personal identity in that
of an Andrea and a Pippa, of a Caliban and a S. John; of assuming
positions as opposed as those of a Guido and a Caponsacchi, it is a
sufficiently simple matter to discover opinions supporting directly or
indirectly any individual line of thought. To him who seeks with intent
to obtain such confirmation may the promise be fairly made
As is your sort of mind
So is your sort of search; you'll find
What you desire.[4]
Moreover, whilst the obscurity of the writing has been the subject of too
general comment, the frequently elusive character of the meaning may be
liable to escape notice. A certain course of thought having been detected
is accepted to the exclusion of an even more important undercurrent only
now and again rising to the surface. Despite the difficulties attendant
upon a genuine study of Browning, both from the frequently recondite
character of the subject and the amount of literary or historical
knowledge demanded of the reader, comparatively slight attempt has so far
been made towards a detailed treatment of individual poems such as that,
for example, accorded to the plays of Shakespeare. And yet such
concentrative labour possesses the highest value as a protection against
misconstruction arising from a too hastily formed conception of the
relative proportions of personal intention and dramatic presentation.
Having once fallen into the error of accepting an under-estimate (an
over-estimate is rarely possible) of the histrionic element in certain
avowedly dramatic soliloquies, there is danger lest the temptation of
seeking amongst others confirmation of the theory thus suggested should
prove too strong for our literary honesty.
Any investigation as to Browning's attitude towards religion in the wider
acceptation of the term--as that which relates to the spiritual element in
human nature and life--must of necessity be co-extensive with his work.
For him to whom "the development of a soul" was the object alone worthy
the devotion of the intellectual faculties, it was inevitable that to the
consideration of this spiritual element his mind should continually
revert. From _Pauline_ to _Asolando_ it is hardly too much to say such
consideration is never absent. With the addition to the title of our
subject of the term _dogmatic_, the scope of the inquiry is at once
narrowed, whilst the difficulty of ascertaining fairly the position is
possibly proportionately increased, since the writer, who has been
designated "the most Christian poet of the century," is claimed by
Unitarians as their own. It is, therefore, of especial importance in
dealing with the subject that no assumption be made, no assertion
advanced, unsupported by adequate proof. The direct statements of the few
non-dramatic poems afford us, however, some vantage-ground whence to begin
our advance: for the rest, progress must be made through careful
comparison of the dramatic poems as to subject and treatment, (we may not
judge of one poem apart from the rest) recognizing that the dramatic
character of the soliloquy does not necessarily _exclude_, as it does not
necessarily _imply_, an expression of the author's own opinions. When,
therefore, we find the same theme perpetually treated through the medium
of different externals, when we are met by similar expressions of belief
emanating from the various soliloquists of the _Dramatis Personae_ and the
_Men and Women Series_, we may not unreasonably hold ourselves to possess
fair _prima facie_ evidence that in a theory so treated is centred much of
the interest of the writer; in the arguments deduced is to be accepted a
more or less definite expression of the writer's own belief, or at least
of that form of creed to which he is most strongly attracted.
Of the five poems chosen as illustrative or explanatory of Browning's
attitude towards that which we have designated _dogmatic_ religion, one
only, _La Saisiaz_, the latest in point of time, is non-dramatic in
character. Between the other four a line of connection is easily
established, since all deal with different aspects of the same subject
regarded through different media. If, then, beginning with the lowest link
of the chain, we gain by means of a consideration of _Caliban_ some
realization of the dramatic feats which Browning could accomplish at
pleasure, we shall find less difficulty in distinguishing between the
dramatic and personal elements in _Christmas Eve and Easter Day_ where the
line of demarcation is more finely drawn.
In _Caliban upon Setebos_ (from the _Men and Women Series_ of 1855) is
presented the lowest conception of a Deity and of his dealings with the
world and humanity, as evolved by a being incapable of aspiration,
satisfied with existing conditions in so far, although in so far only, as
they afford opportunity for material gratification. With _Cleon_ follows
the substitution of the Greek conception of life at the beginning of the
Christian era, speculations as to the design of Zeus in his intercourse
with man. The speculator, at once poet, musician, artist, to whom have
been accessible all the stores of Greek philosophy and Greek culture,
feels inevitably the necessity for the existence of a Deity differing from
that of the monster of Prospero's isle. Nevertheless to the Greek thinker
the immortality of the soul is not yet more than a vague suggestion, the
outcome of desire. His world has come into touch, but at its extreme edge,
with the recently promulgated tenets of Christianity. To this inhabitant
of "the sprinkled isles" the teaching of the Apostles of Galilee is so far
"a doctrine to be held by no sane man": and yet his very yearning, nay,
even his reasonable deductions from the experience of life, point to the
need of "doctrines" such as those which he now deems impossible of
credence. Of the character of the changes separating the world of
religious thought of Blougram from that of Cleon, suggestions are
afforded by the _Epilogue_ to the _Dramatis Personae_. The Christianity
which Cleon criticized from afar has, by the date of the Bishop's
_Apology_, become the creed of the civilized world. Not only has the time
passed when
The Temple filled with a cloud,
Even the House of the Lord,
Porch bent and pillar bowed:
For the presence of the Lord,
In the glory of His Cloud,
Had filled the House of the Lord. (_Epilogue, Dram. Pers._)
But more than this, the _simplicity_ of the earlier faith is at an end.
Past, too, are those mediaeval days when the faith of a prelate of the
Church would have been assumed without question by the lay world. Both
stages of development have been left behind, but the yet later condition
has not been attained when scepticism shall cause as little comment as did
the childlike faith of the Middle Ages: a condition defined by the lament
of Renan--
Gone now! All gone across the dark so far,
Sharpening fast, shuddering ever, shutting still,
Dwindling into the distance, dies that star
Which came, stood, opened once! (_Epilogue, Dram. Pers._)
_Bishop Blougram's Apology_ is a possible exposition of the religious
attitude of a professing Christian of the nineteenth century. It matters
little whether his form of creed be that of Anglican or Roman Catholic:
his position as a dignitary of the Church alone compels apology. From
these unquestionably dramatic poems we pass to one, the classification of
which appears to be usually regarded as less obvious, judging from the
criticisms of commentators. How far the decision of the soliloquist in
_Christmas Eve_ may be justly held as that of Browning himself is a
question requiring separate and careful consideration (to be given in the
Sixth Lecture). Here it is sufficient to notice that, entering the
confines of dogmatic religion, in this poem has found more immediate
expression that which we may fairly deem one principle, at least, of the
teaching which its author would impress upon his public; that in no one
form of creed is the Divine influence to be exclusively found; that
wherever love dwells, in however limited a degree, there, too, may with
confidence be sought the Presence of the Supreme Love. In _Easter Day_ the
discussion is again transferred to a wider plane and deals with the
individual difficulties involved in an unconditional acceptance of
Christianity itself--difficulties in the end not only acknowledged as
inevitable, but thankfully accepted by the speaker as essential to the
strengthening of personal faith, to the advancement of individual
development. Finally, with _La Saisiaz_ we are brought face to face
unmistakably with the struggle, with the doubts and yearnings of Browning
himself at a critical hour of life, twelve years before the end--a
struggle whence he was ultimately to issue with faith in the fundamental
articles of his belief confirmed and deepened.
Of other poems bearing more or less directly upon the subject, the most
notable as well as the most familiar, are probably _Rabbi Ben Ezra_, _An
Epistle of Karshish_, and _A Death in the Desert_. Of these, _Rabbi Ben
Ezra_, in its treatment of the theory of asceticism and of the working out
of the design of the perfect unity of the individual human life, goes
further afield and carries us beyond the limits of any definite dogma:
though on the ascetic side it may serve as comment on some of the
conclusions of _Easter Day_. _An Epistle of Karshish_ embodies two of
Browning's favourite themes: (1) the essentially probationary character
of human life as exemplified by the attitude of Lazarus towards things
temporal, an attitude at once becoming _super_-human through a revelation
obviating the necessity for faith; (2) the collateral suggestions
contained in the estimate of Christianity conceived by the Arab physician.
Of these, the first may be well employed as a comparison with the final
decision of _Easter Day_, the second with the references of Cleon to the
Apostolic teaching. _A Death in the Desert_ offers but another form of
refutation of the results of the German methods of Biblical criticism
represented by the teaching of the Göttingen Professor of _Christmas Eve_.
Direct declarations of faith such as those contained in _Prospice_ and the
_Epilogue_ to _Asolando_ serve but as confirmation of the assertion
standing at the head of this Lecture.
To a superficial consideration the first of the dramatic poems is not
pre-eminently attractive, nor as a soliloquist is Caliban attractive in
the ordinary acceptation of the term as an appeal to the senses affording
distinctly pleasurable sensations. But the attraction peculiar to the
grotesque in any form is here present in a marked degree: an attraction
frequently stronger than that exerted by the purely beautiful, involving
as it does a more direct intellectual appeal; since grotesqueness, whether
in Nature or in Art, does not usually denote simplicity. And Caliban is by
no means a simple being, rather is he a singularly remarkable creation
even for the genius of Browning. As we know, the idea suggested itself
whilst the poet was reading _The Tempest_, when there flashed through his
mind the passage from the Psalms (l, 21) which stands beneath the title:
"Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself." In a
recognition of the full significance of this fact may be found the key to
all seeming inconsistencies which have evoked criticisms describing the
poem from its theological aspect as a "monstrous Bridgewater
treatise,"[5] and "a fragment of Browning's own Christian apologetics,"
the "reasoning" of Caliban as "an initial absurdity,"[6] whilst Caliban
himself is designated "a savage with the introspective powers of a Hamlet
and the theology of an Evangelical clergyman"[7]--the entire scheme of
this "wonderful" work being even summarized as a "design to describe the
way in which a primitive nature may at once be afraid of its gods and yet
familiar with them."[8] There is perhaps more to be said for the poem than
the suggestions involved in any or all of these comments. A protracted
investigation as to how far Browning's Caliban is an immediate development
of the Caliban of _The Tempest_ would be beside the main object of these
Lectures; but for an understanding of the value to be reasonably attached
to the soliloquy it is essential to estimate as fairly as may be possible
the character, intellectual and moral, of the soliloquist, since Caliban's
conception of his Creator must necessarily be influenced by the
limitations of his own powers, whether physical or mental. For here, as
elsewhere in the dramatic poems, Browning has completely identified
himself with his soliloquist. How far, therefore, we are justified in
claiming for Caliban's theology the title of "a fragment of Browning's own
Christian apologetics" can only be decided by a careful consideration and
a comparison with work not avowedly dramatic in character.
Reading again those scenes of _The Tempest_, in which Caliban plays a
part, we become more than ever convinced that the Caliban of the poem is
but the Caliban of the play seen through the medium of Browning's
phantasy. This, however, is not equivalent to the admission of simplicity
as a characteristic of this strange being, merely is it a recognition that
the potentialities existent in Shakespeare's Caliban are nearer to
becoming actualities in the Caliban of Browning. Caliban's may, indeed, be
the nature of a primitive being, but the nature is not, therefore, simple;
to the peculiarly complex character of his personality is due the main
interest of the poem--curiously undeveloped in some departments of his
nature, the moral sense appears to be almost non-existent, he is,
nevertheless, an imaginative creature with a distinct poetic and artistic
vein in his composition. Whilst Prospero's estimate of him seems to have
been a fairly accurate one:
The most lying slave
Whom stripes may move, not kindness;
as Mr. Stopford Brooke has pointed out "his very cursing is
imaginative"[9]--
As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed
With raven's feather from unwholesome fen
Drop on you both. (Act I, Sc. ii.)
And it is Caliban who appreciates the music of Ariel which to Trinculo and
Stephano, products of civilization so-called, is a thing fearful as the
work of the devil.
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
(Act III, Sc. ii.)
Such is the re-assurance offered by the "man-monster" of Shakespeare. But
the Caliban of Browning is yet in his primitive condition, untouched by
contact with the outer world as represented even by these dregs of a
civilization which, whilst checking the expression of the brutish
instinct, increases by repression the force of passions struggling for an
outlet to which conventionality bars the way.
To the Caliban of _The Tempest_ Prospero rather than Setebos is the
immediate author of the evils of his environment. He has not yet reached
the stage of formulated speculation with regard to the character of his
mother's god--to which Browning's Caliban shows himself to have attained.
And it is worthy of notice that the Caliban of the poem does not accept
without examination such information as he has received from Sycorax
concerning Setebos. Only after due consideration does he advance his own
ideas (not according with those of Sycorax) on the subject; proving
himself thus capable not merely of imagination but of reasoning; his
intellect is alive whatever limitations may be assigned to its capacity
for exercise. Although no immediate evidence is afforded of the
capabilities of Shakespeare's Caliban in the regions of abstract thought,
yet of the potential existence of the ratiocinative faculty sufficient
testimony is afforded by his attitude towards the supernatural powers of
Prospero, by his scheme for rendering the new-comers instruments,
subserving his own interests in his designs against his employer and
tyrant--all this clearly the outcome of something more than a mere brute
cunning.
With these aspects of the character of Caliban before him as ground-work,
Browning has developed his poem; and in the twenty-three opening lines,
introductory to the definite reflections concerning Setebos, are
discoverable evidences of all the characteristics of the Caliban of _The
Tempest_. Browning has done nothing without intention, and we are here
prepared, or should be prepared, for what is to follow later in the poem.
Here the "man-monster" is described as sprawling in the mire, in the
enjoyment of such comfort as may be derived from the sunshine in the heat
of the day: the sensuous side of the nature finding its satisfaction in
Kicking both feet in the cool slush
and feeling
About his spine small eft things course,
Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh. (ll. 5, 6.)
At the same time is recognizable the artistic element in the
composition--for not only does he enjoy
A fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,
but he
Looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross
And recross till they weave a spider-web
(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times.) (ll. 11-14.)
Here is assuredly the language of no mere savage! Compare with this the
later descriptions of the inhabitants of the island as assigned to Setebos
(ll. 44-55). No mere dry category of animal life, it suggests the result
of the observations of a mind at once poetic and imaginative.
Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech,
Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,
That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown
He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye
By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue
That pricks deep into oakwarts for a worm,
And says a plain word when she finds her prize,
But will not eat the ants: the ants themselves
That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks
About their hole.
Not because this is the work of a poet, but because it is the work of a
_dramatic_ poet do we get these lines: and Browning has unquestionably, I
think, given its character to this earlier passage with intention. He
would suggest that this element--poetic and imaginative--in Caliban's
nature must of necessity influence his conception of his Deity.
But whilst emphasis is thus given to the sensuous and artistic aspects of
the character of this most complex being, by these introductory lines is
more than suggested the obliquity of the moral nature--this, too,
influencing, as is inevitable, its theology. Deception is to the Caliban
of Browning as to the Caliban of Shakespeare, the very breath of life. His
pleasure in inactivity is vastly intensified by the consciousness that he
is thereby defrauding Prospero and Miranda of the fruits of his labours.
It is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,
Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech. (ll. 22, 23.)
Immediately combined with this is the form of cowardice distinctive of the
lowest moral grade, the cowardice which would insult whilst occupying a
position of security, but which grovels before the object of its antipathy
as soon as it sees reason to fear approaching vengeance. To the mere
physical pleasure of basking in the sunlight is added not alone the
negative gratification of the consciousness of defrauding his employer,
but the more active enjoyment of soliloquizing concerning "that Setebos
whom his dam called God." And why? With the sole purpose of affording him
annoyance. In the winter-time such discussion might prove dangerous to the
speaker, as Caliban possesses an insurmountable dread of that "cold" so
powerful a weapon in the hands of his Deity. Even in summer he deems it
desirable to avoid a too openly offered challenge to Setebos; hence the
employment throughout his soliloquy of the third person, singular, in a
curious attempt to mislead his hearer.
And what according to Browning's theory as expressed elsewhere are we to
expect of the god of this untaught, half-savage being, morally
undeveloped, with artistic and poetic faculties already awakening? More or
less will it necessarily be the outcome of his own experiences. A
commentary on that familiar passage which S. John in _A Death in the
Desert_ (ll. 412-419) puts into the mouth of the objector to the truth of
the facts of Christianity, who would regard the conception of the Godhead
as subjective rather than objective in character. First in the history of
the race came the ascription to the Deity of hands, feet, and bodily
parts; then followed the human passions of pride and anger. Finally, all
yield to the higher attributes of "power, love, and will," these
succeeding to and supplanting the earlier characteristics. In his
imaginary answer the Evangelist is represented as attributing these
changes of conception to the necessity of growth in human nature whereby
man uses such aids to his development as may be attainable. The Truth
itself remaining unaltered and unalterable, man obtains from time to time
fuller glimpses thereof, the greater superseding, even apparently
falsifying, the less. Caliban, uniting the two earlier conceptions of the
Deity--as a being possessed of bodily parts and human passions--offers but
the merest suggestion of any further and higher development. Yet there are
such _indirect_, should we rather say _negative_, suggestions observable
towards the close of the poem.
To Setebos is assigned as a dwelling-place "the cold o' the moon,"
possibly because the speaker feels it satisfactory that the god whom he
fears should be at what he deems a distance sufficiently remote from his
own habitation; partly also because to him "the cold o' the moon" or,
indeed, any cold, is suggestive of intensely disagreeable sensations, and
to his unsatisfactory environment he ascribes the attempts of Setebos
towards creation as designed to effect a change in his own condition. All
things animate or inanimate inhabiting the island have been, according to
Caliban, the work of Setebos. What still lies beyond the range of his
creative power? Not the sun, as might have been anticipated, since to
Caliban its agency is purely beneficial, and its influence apparently of
limitless extent; not the sun, "clouds, winds, meteors," but the stars.
These "came otherwise," how or by what means the soliloquist is unable to
determine.
Then arises the further question. If, indeed, Setebos is the author of the
visible creation, what has been the motive instigating him to the work? In
accordance with Caliban's experience of his own nature, it is impossible
that any motive other than self-interest in some form or another should
have actuated the Creator: hence he attributes the design to the
discomfort of the dwelling-place "in the cold o' the moon." Nevertheless,
even after the creation of the sun its warmth proved insufficient for
comfort, the god failed to enjoy "the air he was not born to breathe."
Again, in the constitution of the animate beings inhabiting the island he
strove to realize (so says Caliban) "what himself would fain in a manner
be." Hence the creatures made by Setebos are "weaker in most points" than
is the god himself, yet "stronger in a few." A theory suggesting an
interesting comparison with the arguments by which David in _Saul_ deduces
the necessity of an Incarnation. Caliban ascribes to Setebos the power of
originating faculties which he does not himself possess, and which in the
nature of things he might, therefore, be deemed incapable of realizing.
The illustration or comparison offered is that of Caliban's own imagined
occupation in an idle moment, when the idea occurs to him to make a bird
of clay, endowing it with the power of flight, a power not numbered
amongst his own capabilities. Thus he holds that Setebos, too, may create
living beings, bestowing upon them faculties which he is himself incapable
of exercising, making them, though, "weaker in some points, stronger in a
few." To the more cultivated intelligence of the Hebrew psalmist, as
represented by Browning, such theory is untenable. That "the creature
[should] surpass the Creator--the end what Began"[10] is as
incomprehensible as it is illogical. Love existent in the creature is to
David proof sufficient of the existence of love in the Creator. So thinks
not Caliban. And yet with the curious inconsistency marking the reasoning
of the slowly developing intellect, Setebos is represented as mocking his
creatures whilst envying the capabilities with which he has gifted them.
Thus:
So brave, so better though they be,
It nothing skills if He begins to plague. (ll. 66, 67.)
As the creation has been the result of mere wantonness, so the recognition
of all appeal from created beings to the Creator will be governed by the
same caprice. As with Caliban's imagined dealings with his clay bird, he
would do good or ill accordingly
As the chance were this might take or else
Not take my fancy. (ll. 90-91.)
So also is the action of the Deity towards his creation in all relations
of life. He has elected Prospero for a career of "knowledge and power,"
and, as his servant judges, one of supreme comfort, whilst he has
appointed Caliban, equally deserving--in his own estimation--to hold the
position of slave.
He hath a spite against me, that I know,
Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why? (ll. 202-203.)
Power which is irresponsible is exercised in a manner wholly capricious.
There is no more satisfactory explanation of the dealings of Setebos with
his creatures than that which Caliban can offer for his own treatment of
the crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea,
when he may
Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,
Loving not, hating not, just choosing so. (ll. 101-103.)
Of one thing the savage deems himself assured, again judging from the
pettiness which he finds existent in his own nature. Of one thing he is
assured--that the wrath of the god is most readily to be kindled through
envy, envy of the very objects of his own creation. A display of happiness
is the surest method of incurring his vengeance; therefore
Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose
This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,
And always, above all else, envies Him: (ll. 263-265.)
a belief inherent in all pre-Christian creeds in intimate connection with
the doctrine of sacrifice, the place of which in the theology of Caliban
must receive separate consideration. So does Herakles warn Admetus against
indulgence in a supreme happiness,
Only the rapture must not grow immense:
Take care, nor wake the envy of the Gods.[11]
Thus will Caliban in spite kill two flies, basking "on the pompion-bell
above," whilst he gives his aid to
Two black painful beetles [who] roll their ball
On head and tail as if to save their lives. (ll. 260-261.)
Such are, according to Browning, some of the main features of the "Natural
Theology in the Island," suggesting conditions of life at once depressing
and degrading: no satisfaction for the present but in deception of the
over-ruling power, the sole hope for the future, that this dread being may
tire of his early creation and hence relax his malicious watch in favour
of a new and distant world, made "to please him more." It is not difficult
to conceive of such a creed as the outcome of deductions from the
teaching of Sycorax, who held that "the Quiet" was the virtual creator,
the work of Setebos being limited to disturbing and "vexing" these
creations of the Quiet. In this aspect Setebos would appear as
representative of the powers of evil. And of great interest in any study
of Browning are the suggestions resulting from Caliban's treatment of the
subject. (1) He holds that the author of evil must be supreme. That the
Quiet, had he been the creator, _could_ unquestionably, and, therefore,
_would_ most certainly have rendered his creatures of strength sufficient
to be impervious to the attacks of Setebos. Therefore he attributes the
weaknesses of humanity to design on the part of a creator who would
wantonly torment.
His dam held that the Quiet made all things
Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.
Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.
Had He meant other, while His hand was in,
Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint,
Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport! (ll. 170-177.)
(2) Again, and later in the poem, he treats Setebos--or Evil--not merely
as a negative aspect of good, but as that which may in time become
transmuted into good. He may
Surprise even the Quiet's self
Some strange day--or, suppose, grow into it
As grubs grow butterflies. (ll. 246-248.)
(3) One further alternative suggests itself--and this yet more
probable--that evil may finally be overcome of good, or may of itself
become inoperative.
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. (ll. 281-283.)
Two or three less obvious thoughts may not be omitted in any consideration
of a poem containing much which is characteristic of Browning's work
wherever found. From the theology of Caliban inevitably results _the
doctrine of sacrifice_, though in its lowest, crudest form. Since that
condition most likely to excite the wrath of Setebos, as we have already
had occasion to notice, is the happiness of his creations, Caliban would,
therefore, present himself as a creature full of misery, moaning even in
the sun; only in secret rejoicing that he is making Setebos his dupe.
Should he be discovered in his deception, in order to avoid the greater
evil attendant on the expression of the god's wrath, he would of his own
will submit to the lesser ill;
Cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste. (ll. 271-274.)
A sacrifice the outcome of fear. Spare me, and I will do all to appease
thy wrath. Into the midst of the meditations of Caliban breaks the
thunder-storm, and what he has depicted as a possible event of the future
has become a present danger.
White blaze,
A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,
His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! (ll. 289-291.)
The prospective vows are now made in earnest.
'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!
'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
Will let those quails fly, will not eat this mouth
One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape. (ll. 292-295.)
Sacrifice as distinguished from or opposed to the principle of
_self_-sacrifice. Whilst self-sacrifice, self-abnegation,
self-suppression--call it what we may--marks the crowning height of
spiritual attainment, scaled alone by the few, and those the pioneers and
saviours of the race, all early forms of religion bear witness to the
existence of this belief in _sacrifice_--the propitiation of the Deity--as
an element inherent in human nature, whether embodied in the legend of
Polycrates, in the vow of Jacob at Bethel,[12] or in that condition of his
descendants when in accordance with the prophetic denunciation[13]
sacrifice had superseded mercy and burnt-offerings constituted a
substitute for the knowledge of God. Again and again on different soil,
amid men of alien races, the principle of sacrifice is found reappearing
throughout history. As the enthusiasm of self-sacrifice becomes enfeebled,
by a retrograde process of moral development the barren growth of
sacrifice would appear to thrive. The echo of the unquestioning outcry,
"God wills it," had died away when, in the crusading vows of the later era
of the movement, expression was too frequently given to the theory of
_sacrifice_. How far may the one be regarded as the outcome of the other,
the higher the development of the lower instinct? When man has learned
To know even hate is but a mask of love's
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success;[14]
then, too, may the links between sacrifice and self-sacrifice become
apparent. Along this line of connection we have to pass in traversing the
ground between _Caliban_ and _Easter Day_.
And what place does the creed of the unwilling slave of Setebos accord to
the _life beyond the grave_? Will the future, if future there be, prove
but an indefinite prolongation of the present? From the evils of this
life the groveller in the mud sees no escape. He has discarded that tenet
of his mother's creed which included a theory of retribution after death
when Setebos "both plagued enemies and feasted friends." Such theory would
indeed have been wholly inconsistent with that which represented the god
as indifferent to his creatures, as utterly capricious in his dealings for
good or ill--whereby he may be said to have neither enemies nor friends.
No, poor Caliban, brutal and selfish, can but hold that "with the life,
the pain shall stop." What satisfaction to be derived from the continuance
of a loveless existence? Without love, life to the author of _Caliban upon
Setebos_ would have lost its use, would be fearful of contemplation; the
"can it be, and must, and will it?" of _La Saisiaz_[15] finds no faintest
echo on Prospero's isle. In the one case the utterances are the utterances
of Caliban, in the other those of Browning himself. From the calculations
of the one the doctrine of immortality is as inevitably excluded as it is
inevitably included in those of the other.
Finally, whilst in the various scattered references to "the Quiet" are to
be found some of the most striking evidences of the existence of the
artistic element in Caliban's nature--"the something Quiet" which he deems
resting "o'er the head of Setebos"
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief.
* * * * *
[The] stars the outposts of its couch; (ll. 132-138.)
yet far more than this is involved in the suggestions of the relations
subsisting between the Quiet and Setebos and the creation to which Caliban
belongs. The Quiet too far from Caliban's sphere of existence for him to
be in any way affected by it. He only surmises as to its possible
influence upon, and ultimate triumph over, Setebos, who partakes
sufficiently of his own nature to call forth fear and enmity, who lives in
a proximity to His creations which renders advisable the avoidance of any
action calculated to excite His wrath. The Quiet, the impersonation of
supreme power, is beyond the reach of all the ills attendant upon this
lower phase of existence, hence is equally incapable of experiencing joy
and grief, since both alike are relative terms. Although here suggested as
incidental to Caliban's reflections, the theory involved is one appearing
more or less frequently elsewhere in Browning's work, notably in _A Death
in the Desert_, and again in _Cleon_, when it is, however, applied to "the
lower and inconscious forms of life." To the Supreme Power beyond man, as
to the world of animal life below, is denied "man's distinctive mark,"
progress. Thus incidentally in these references to the Quiet may be traced
a _suggestion foreshadowing_ in a degree, however remote, _the necessity
of an Incarnation_. Not that this outcome of his theories would appear to
have found any place in Caliban's mind; it may possibly indeed be an
assumption, wanting sufficient warrant, to assign to Browning himself any
definite intention in the matter. Nevertheless, even the suggestion,
remote as we may admit it to be, leads up to the argument used by David in
_Saul_ in the extremity of his anxiety to relieve the sufferings of the
object of his affections. Through sympathy alone may suffering be
relieved, and genuine sympathy may be best attained through personal
experience of suffering. Humanity suffers, but is unequal to the task of
aiding effectively its fellow-sufferers. The Deity, whilst possessing the
necessary power, is yet untouched by the sympathy resultant from
fellow-feeling. A suffering God! Can this be? Only, therefore, through
union of the human with the Divine, through an Incarnation alone, can the
relief of human suffering be fully accomplished. Even Caliban feels the
need of contact between the Creator and His creatures. The Quiet,
incapable of experiencing joy or grief, is also beyond the reach of mortal
intercourse or worship. He cannot be God even in the sense in which
Setebos is God until, through an approach to His creatures. He experiences
something of the sorrows as of the joys of humanity. This in brief is the
general course of Browning's arguments for the reasonable necessity of an
Incarnation. The suggestion, if suggestion we may call it, here made
constitutes the lowest rung in the ladder which leads us to the confession
of S. John.
The acknowledgment of God in Christ
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it.[16]
LECTURE II
CLEON
LECTURE II
CLEON
Between Caliban and Cleon a wide gulf is fixed: between the savage
sprawling in "the pit's much mire," gloating over his powers of inflicting
suffering, at once cowering before and insulting his god: and the cultured
Greek, inhabitant of "the sprinkled isles," poet, philosopher, artist,
musician, sitting in his "portico, royal with sunset," reflecting on the
purposes of life, his own achievements and the design of Zeus in creation,
which, though inscrutable, he yet must hold to have been beneficent. Could
contrast be anywhere more striking than that suggested by these two
scenes? And yet amidst outward dissimilarity there is a point towards
which all their lines converge. On one subject of reflection alone, this
man, the product of Greek intellectual life and culture, has hardly passed
beyond that of the savage awakening to a "sense of sense." To both alike
death means the end of life, to neither does any glimpse of light reveal
itself beyond the grave. And death to the Greek is infinitely more
terrible than to the son of Sycorax. To Caliban the belief that "with the
life the pain will stop," affords a feeling akin to relief in the present,
when the mental discomfort arising from fear of Setebos temporarily
over-powers the physical satisfaction to be derived from basking in the
sun. To Cleon, possessed of the capacity for "loving life so over-much,"
the idea of death affords so terrible a suggestion that its very horror
forces upon him at times the necessity of the acceptance of some theory
involving belief in the immortality of the soul. Thus we have moved
onwards one step, though one step only, in the ladder of thought, of which
Caliban's soliloquy constitutes the lowest rung. The inert conjectures,
the vague surmises of the savage are succeeded by the reflections and
subsequent logical deductions of the man of intellectual culture,
culminating in the anguished cry:
I, I the feeling, thinking, acting man.
* * * * *
Sleep in my urn. It is so horrible,
I dare at times imagine to my need
Some future state revealed to us by Zeus.
* * * * *
... But no!
Zeus has not yet revealed it, and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible! (_Cleon_, 11. 321-335.)
Different as are the modes of contemplating death, differing as the
character and environment of the soliloquist, one is yet in a sense the
outcome of the other, an exemplification of Cleon's own assertion:
In man there's failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life. (ll. 125-126.)
* * * * *
Most progress is most failure. (l. 272.)
With the opening out of wider possibilities to the mind comes the
consciousness of the gulf between actuality and ideality. To Caliban,
whose pleasurable conceptions of life are bounded by the prospect of
defrauding Prospero of his services, lying in the mire
Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,
Making and marring clay at will; (_Caliban_, 11. 96-97.)
to such a being not long endowed with a capacity for the realization of
his own individuality, with the "sense of sense," the Greek appreciation
of life is a sheer impossibility. By the mind capable of entering into
sympathy with Homer, Terpander, Phidias, the joys of life are felt too
keenly to be relinquished without a struggle, and that a bitter one. Death
and the grave cast a chilling shadow over the brightness of the present.
Before analysing the arguments contained in the reflections of Cleon, it
may be well to inquire what were the influences to which the poet had been
subjected, and which resulted in the condition of mind in which the
messengers of Protus found him. The Greece in which Cleon lived was the
Greece to which S. Paul addressed himself from the Areopagus, the
character of which is sufficiently indicated by the circumstances leading
to the assembly on that memorable occasion. The Athenians, we are told by
the writer of the _Acts_, "spent their time in nothing else but either to
tell or to hear some new thing."[17] The age was then, it would appear,
not one of action or of practical thought. All had been done in the past
that could be done in the departments of artistic achievement, of poetry,
of philosophy. Now _creative_ power would seem to have disappeared from
amongst Greek thinkers, all that remained being the natural restlessness
which ultimately succeeds satiety. Much had been accomplished in the past:
What remained to the future? It is in accordance with this spirit of the
age that Cleon writes to Protus:
We of these latter days, with greater mind
Than our forerunners, since more composite,
Look not so great, beside their simple way,
To a judge who only sees one way at once,
One mind-point and no other at a time,--
Compares the small part of a man of us
With some whole man of the heroic age,
Great in his way--not ours, nor meant for ours. (ll. 64-71.)
Hence the poet of modern times, though he has left the "epos on [the]
hundred plates of gold," the property of the tyrant Protus, and the little
popular song
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net; (ll. 49, 50.)
yet admits freely that he has not "chanted verse like Homer." What though
he has "combined the moods" of music, "inventing one," yet has he never
"swept string like Terpander," his predecessor by some seven centuries.
What though he has moulded "the image of the sun-god on the phare," or
painted the Poecile its whole length, yet has he not "carved and painted
men like Phidias and his friend"--his forerunners by something like four
hundred years. With these mighty achievements in poetry and art of those
giants amongst men to be contemplated in retrospect, what hope remains for
the future? What greater attainments may be possible to the human
intellect? Here again life--this mortal life--would seem to have become
all that it is capable of becoming; the powers of mind and body have alike
been developed to the full. Thus on this side too is satiety. The yearning
for growth, for progress, inherent in human nature, seeks instinctively
further heights of attainment. When for the time being all visible peaks
appear to have been scaled, then, in the phraseology of S. John, "man
[turns] round on himself and stands."[18] And then arises the enquiry into
the purposes of existence, an enquiry unheard in the earlier days of
practical activity and struggle. Is this the end of all? No progress being
possible along the old tracks, we must hear or see some new thing. The
late Dr. Westcott in comparing the dramatic work of Euripides with that of
Æschylus, and remarking that Euripides (only a generation younger) had to
take account of all the novel influences under which he had grown up,
adds, "Once again Asia had touched Europe and quickened there new powers.
Greece had conquered Persia only that she might better receive from the
East the inspiration of a wider energy."[19] Once more in the days of
Cleon might it be said that Asia had touched Europe and quickened there
new powers. But this time the positions of conquered and conquerors were
reversed. Asia was to conquer Europe, but the conquest effected by the
sword of Alexander was to be avenged by weapons forged in another armoury.
This time Asia invaded Europe when Paul of Tarsus responded to the appeal
"Come over to Macedonia and help us." So far that invasion had borne small
fruit: "certain men" had believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite,
whilst others, whose attitude Protus would appear to have shared, desired
to hear further on the subject of the Resurrection.[20] Cleon is
represented as ranking among the sceptics with reference to the new
Christian teaching. The special influence of Greek thought upon his
philosophy and creed, as expressed in the poem, may be best noticed in a
closer consideration to which we now turn.
I. The opening lines (1-18) present, with Browning's usual power of
delineation, the environment of the speaker. Cleon, the poet, as well as
his correspondent, Protus, the tyrant, seem alike to be imaginary
personages. With lines 19-42 the soliloquist at once strikes the key-note
of the poem. By the act of munificence which showers gifts upon the poet,
"whose song gives life its joy," the king evinces his "recognition of the
use of life": and by this recognition proves himself no mere materialist.
He is ruling his people, not with exclusive attention to their material
needs, though they may not themselves look beyond the gratification of
these. Whilst he is building his tower, achieving his life's work, the
beauty of which is sufficient to the "vulgar" gaze, he, the builder, is
looking "to the East"; and looking to the East in a sense not intended by
the Greek when he makes enquiry through his messengers for the "mere
barbarian Jew," "one called Paulus."
II. The following section of the poem (ll. 42-157) is an interesting
elaboration of Cleon's theory of the development, not only of the
individual (Browning's favourite theme), but of the growth of the race.
The Greek holds that where individual members of humanity have attained in
their several departments to the greatest heights, nothing further _in
that direction_ is possible of accomplishment. What then remains for the
advancement of the race? When the "outside verge that rounds our
faculties" has been reached, "these divine men of old" must remain
unsurpassed by their successors in that particular department of work or
thought.
Where they reached, who can do more than reach?
What then remains? How may the contemporary of Cleon excel "the grand
simplicity" of Homer, of Terpander, and in later times of Phidias? It is
to the growing complexity of the human mind that Cleon looks for an
answer. Although in one intellectual department he may fall short of that
which has been attained in the past, he is yet capable of appreciating all
that his predecessors have achieved to a degree impossible to an earlier
generation of mankind. _All_ the faculties are developed, not one to the
exclusion or limitation of the others; hence is obtained a more completely
sympathetic union of the intellectual capacities. Thus the further
development of the race is to be sought in a greater complexity of being
rather than in an advance along any individual line of progress. Three
several illustrations of his theory Cleon adduces (1) That suggested by
the mosaic-work of the pavement before him: and (2) the more unusual one
of the sphere with its contents of air and water: yet again (3) the
comparison between the wild and cultivated plant. (1) Each individual
section of the mosaic was in itself perfect--thus with the great ones of
old. This perfection having been attained, all that should succeed would
be at best but a reproduction of the already perfect forms, a repetition,
a renewal of that which had gone before. A higher, because more complex
beauty might, however, be created by a combination of these separate
perfections, producing thus a new form, that, too, perfect in itself. And
this synthetic labour must prove an advance on the almost exclusively
analytic which had preceded it; since new and more complex forms should be
thus evolved, "making at last a picture" of deeper meaning and finer
interests than those offered by any number of individual chequers
uncombined, however perfect in symmetry and colour. Hence there might
still remain a goal towards which human energy should direct its efforts.
Though man may have attained to perfection _in part_, to continue the
simile, he has now to develop towards the attainment of a perfect _complex
whole_, resulting from a composition and adjustment of perfect individual
parts, united by a bond of sympathetic intellectual appreciation
non-existent in past ages. When Cleon shall have "chanted verse like
Homer," "swept string like Terpander," "carved and painted men like
Phidias and his friend," then, not only will the individual of recent
times have surpassed each of his forerunners in the variety and
comprehensiveness of his powers, but he will have attained in each
individual department of his being to that greatness for the development
of which man's entire faculties were of old required. To this Cleon has by
no means yet attained. Such growth, change, and expansion in the
individual character is not, he would suggest, readily recognized by the
world, and the second illustration here applies: (2) water, the more
palpable, material element, is estimated at its worth, whilst air, with
its subtler properties,
Tho' filling more fully than the water did;
though holding
Thrice the weight of water in itself. (ll. 106-107.)
is yet accounted a negligible quantity, and the sphere is pronounced
empty. Of the deeper, more subtle, thoughts and workings of the soul in
Cleon and his fellows, the outcome of the labours of humanity in past
generations, thoughts too deep for expression, ideas only destined to bear
fruit in the years to come; of all these, and such as these, the
contemporary world takes little heed. To the gods alone Cleon would refer
for his appreciation. With David he would exclaim:
'Tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do![21]
With Ben Ezra he would triumph
All, the world's coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account;
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
* * * * *
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped:
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me;
("ignored" because incapable of the understanding essential to
appreciation);
_This_, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.[22]
For Cleon, equally with the Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages, accepts
the entire subserviency of man to his creator. Both alike recognize the
value of life, human life; its unity, its perfection in itself: both alike
realize that this life means growth. "Why stay we on the earth unless to
grow?" asks the Greek. "It was better," writes the Jew as age approaches,
It was better, youth
Should strive, through acts uncouth,
Towards making, than repose on aught found made.[23]
Thus progress! Nevertheless, the Rabbi, whilst recognizing to the full the
value of the present life as a thing _per se_, bearing its peculiar uses,
its perfect development advancing from youth through manhood until age
shall "approve of youth, and death complete the same!" with the _unity_
yet recognizes also _continuity_; and at the close of the old life can
stand upon the threshold of the new "fearless and unperplexed," "what
weapons to select, what armour to indue," for use in the renewed struggle
he foresees awaiting him. To the Greek life was equally, nay, surpassingly
beautiful, the human faculties equally worthy of cultivation. As in
Nature, so with man (and here is employed the third of his illustrations):
(3) the wild flower, _i.e._, according to his interpretation, the
possessor of the single artistic faculty--Homer, Terpander, Phidias--
Was the larger; I have dashed
Rose-blood upon its petals, pricked its cup's
Honey with wine, and driven its seed to fruit,
And show a better flower if not so large:
I stand myself. (ll. 147-151.)
Whilst the Rabbi esteems himself as clay in the hands of the potter, the
Greek admits no personal pride in the multiplicity or magnitude of his
gifts. All alike he refers to "the gods whose gift alone it is,"
continuing the reflection--
Which, shall I dare
(All pride apart) upon the absurd pretext
That such a gift by chance lay in my hand,
Discourse of lightly, or depreciate?
It might have fallen to another's hand: what then? (ll. 152-156.)
So far with Ben Ezra. But where the Rabbi can say with confidence
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute: a god though in the germ. (xiii.)
With Arthur
I pass _but shall not die_,
merely shall I
Thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new (xiv.)
for the Greek is no such confidence possible. He, too, shall pass--"I pass
too surely." His hope, if hope it be, lies in the development of a
humanity of the future which shall have profited by the experience of its
individual members in the past--"Let at least truth stay!"
Incidentally is introduced in this section of the poem a reference to the
yearning of the correspondent of Protus for some revelation of the gods to
be made through man to men. Through an Incarnation alone can the purposes
of Zeus in creation be fully and comprehensibly revealed to man. Truth may
indeed stay, but its revelation is progressive in character; according
thus with the nature of the human intelligence (a favourite theme with
Browning). For any more complete realization of Truth absolute, a direct
revelation of the Deity is essential. God, in man, may show that which it
is possible for men to become, hence the design of Zeus in placing him
upon earth. So had Cleon "imaged," and "written out the fiction,"
That he or other god descended here
And, once for all, showed simultaneously
What, in its nature, never can be shown,
Piecemeal or in succession;--showed, I say,
The worth both absolute and relative
Of all his children from the birth of time,
His instruments for all appointed work. (ll. 115-122.)
Through this revelation, too, may be proved the immanence of the Deity, a
doctrine even now accepted by the Greek. The speaker on the Areopagus[24]
needed only to remind his hearers of this their belief, when he assured
them that the God of whom he preached was not one who dwelt in temples
made with hands--but is "not far from every one of us," since "in him we
live and move and have our being." Even, in the words of Aratus, "we are
his offspring." But this theory of an incarnation which "certain slaves"
were teaching in a fuller, more satisfying form, than that presented by
the imagination of the Greek philosopher, might be to him but "a dream":
his sole hope rested, as we have seen, on an advance of the race through
the higher development of individual members.
No dream, let us hope,
That years and days, the summers and the springs,
Follow each other with unwaning powers. (ll. 127-129.)
III. With line 157 we pass to a consideration of the more intensely
personal question, yet one involving in its answer much that has gone
before; the question put by Protus in the letter accompanying his gifts:
is death (which king and poet alike esteem the end of all things), is
death to the _man of thought_ so fearful a thing in contemplation as it
must be to the _man of action_? To Protus, the man of action, who has
enjoyed life to the full, whose portion has been wealth, honour, dignity,
power, physical and mental appreciation of all the privileges attendant on
his station and environment; to the possessor of life such as this death,
as not an interruption merely, but as an end to all joy, all
gratification, must perforce bring with it nothing but horror. The horror
which Browning represents elsewhere as falling momentarily upon the
Venetian audience listening to the weird strains of Galuppi's music,[25]
when an interpolated discord suggests to the onlooker the question, "What
of soul is left, I wonder?" when the pleasures of life are ended? and the
answer is given, with its note of hopeless finality, "Dust and ashes." To
Protus, too, recurs the answer, "Dust and ashes." Although his work as a
ruler has been of that character which has caused him to seek the
intellectual and moral, as well as the material welfare of his people (so
much we saw Cleon recognizing in his introductory message), yet he
regretfully, and probably unjustly, in a moment of depression, estimates
his legacy to posterity as "nought."
My life,
Complete and whole now in its power and joy,
Dies altogether with my brain and arm,
Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?
The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave,
Set on the promontory which I named.
And that--some supple courtier of my heir
Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps,
To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. (ll. 171-179.)
(An estimate suggesting a truth of practical experience: schemes of
absolute government not infrequently bearing within themselves the seeds
of their own decay: the "sceptred arm," originally the symbol of its
strength, becoming in good sooth the chief agent in the work of
destruction.)
To Protus, whose life has been thus spent in activity, forgetfulness seems
the one thing most terrible of contemplation. He must pass, and in the
words of the dying Alcestis, "who is dead is nought"; of him shall it be
said, "He who once was, now is nothing." But for the man whose life "stays
in the poems men shall sing, the pictures men shall study," for him may
not death prove triumph, since "_thou_ dost not go"? Yet Cleon deals with
the question as might have been anticipated. Genius, even in its highest
form, culture, art, learning, alike fail to satisfy the restless soul,
tossed upon the waves of uncertainty, unanchored by any reasonable hope
for the future. All these fail where the satisfaction derivative from
wealth and power honourably wielded has already failed. The genius ruling
in the kingdom of intellectual life has no consolation to offer the
sovereign ruling the outer life--the material and moral welfare--of his
subjects. Poet and tyrant alike bow before the inevitable approach of
death, taking "the tear-stained dust" as proof that "man--the whole
man--cannot live again."
The entire poem has been happily designated "the Ecclesiastes of pagan
religion." At the outset we have remarked Cleon admitting that Protus
equally with himself has recognized, not only that joy is "the use of
life," but that joy may not be found in material gratification alone, but
rather in the cultivation of the higher faculties of man.
For so shall men remark, in such an act [_i.e._, in the munificence
displayed by the gifts bestowed upon the poet]
Of love for him whose song gives life its joy,
Thy recognition of the use of life. (ll. 20-22.)
The poet had so estimated "joy." It is in truth a higher estimate than
that based upon a recognition of material good. Nevertheless, he is now to
confess that from this, too, but an empty and transitory satisfaction is
obtainable. His answer to Protus affords an analysis of his own
reflections on the subject, since the thoughts have clearly not arisen now
for the first time. And in the arguments immediately following we cannot
but recognize Browning's own voice. The theory advanced is reiterated
constantly throughout his writings, dramatic and otherwise. Cleon directs
the attention of Protus to the perfections of animal life as created by
Zeus in lines suggesting an interesting comparison with that remarkable
and frequently quoted passage from the concluding Section of _Paracelsus_
(ll. 655-694).
The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth,
And the earth changes like a human face;
* * * * *
* * * * *
The grass grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms
Like chrysalids impatient for the air,
The shining dorrs are busy, beetles run
Along the furrows, ants make their ado;
Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark
Soars up and up, shivering for very joy;
Afar the ocean sleeps; white fishing-gulls
Flit where the sand is purple with its tribe
Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek
Their loves in wood and plain--and God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all,
From life's minute beginnings, up at last
To man--the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life: whose attributes had here and there
Been scattered o'er the visible world before,
Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant
To be united in some wondrous whole,
Imperfect qualities throughout creation,
Suggesting some one creature yet to make,
Some point where all those scattered rays should meet
Convergent in the faculties of man.
So writes Cleon:
If, in the morning of philosophy,
Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived,
Thou, with the light now in thee, could'st have looked
On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird,
Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage--
Thou would'st have seen them perfect, and deduced
The perfectness of others yet unseen.
Conceding which,--had Zeus then questioned thee
"Shall I go on a step, improve on this,
Do more for visible creatures than is done?"
Thou would'st have answered, "Ay, by making each
Grow conscious in himself--by that alone.
All's perfect else: the shell sucks fast the rock,
The fish strikes through the sea, the snake both swims
And slides, forth range the beasts, the birds take flight,
Till life's mechanics can no further go--
And all this joy in natural life is put
Like fire from off thy finger into each,
So exquisitely perfect is the same." (ll. 187-205.)
But the Teuton of the Renascence passes beyond the Greek in his history of
the evolution of man--as the outcome, the union, the consummation of all
that has gone before. In his description of human nature so evolved, he
continues by enumerating power controlled by will, knowledge and love as
characteristics, hints and previsions of which
Strewn confusedly about
The inferior natures--all lead up higher,
All shape out dimly the superior race,
The heir of hopes too fair to turn out false,
And man appears at last.[26]
To Cleon such hopes, but vaguely suggested, leading upwards and onwards
towards a recognition of the soul's immortality, are too fair for _truth_,
their very beauty leads him to question their reality.
Admitted then that in "all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird,"
perfection is to be found, in what direction may advance be made?
Impossible in degree, it must, therefore, be in kind: some new faculty
shall be added to those which man, the latest born of the creatures, shall
share in common with his predecessors in the world of animal life--the
knowledge and realization of his own individuality.
In due time [after leading the purely animal life] let him critically
learn
How he lives.
And what shall be the result of the new gift? To him who, inexperienced in
its uses, lives "in the morning of philosophy," it must be indicative of
an increase of happiness. With the greater fulness of life, resultant from
extended knowledge, must surely follow also an extension of enjoyment. But
such a belief, says Cleon, living in the eve of philosophy, could have
existed only in its morning "ere aught had been recorded." Experience,
that prosaic but infallible instructor, has taught man otherwise. The
simplicity of mere animal life, though involving not the conscious
happiness of a reasoning being (if indeed happiness there be for such)
served to impart "the wild joy of living, mere living." A joy from which
Caliban was to be found awakening to a realization of his own
individuality, and also to a realization that joy and grief are relative
terms: that joy, equally with grief, was impossible to the Quiet, the
possessor of supreme power, as it was impossible to
Yonder crabs
That march now from the mountain to the sea.[27]
To Cleon, oppressed by a profound sense of discouragement in life, the
cynical suggestion presents itself that the semi-conscious vegetating
existence of the animal may be more desirable than the yearnings and
aspirations inevitably attendant on human life, with its joys keen and
intensified, but, alas! all too brief.
Thou king, hadst more reasonably said:
"Let progress end at once,--man make no step
Beyond the natural man, the better beast,
Using his senses, not the sense of sense." (ll. 221-224.)
It is a purely pagan view of life.
In man there's failure, only since he left
The lower and inconscious forms of life. (ll. 225-226.)
So man grew, and his widening intelligence opened out vast and
ever-increasing possibilities of joy. But with the realization of
possibilities came also the consciousness of his limitations. So long as
the flesh had remained absolutely paramount, the restrictions it was
capable of imposing upon the workings of the soul had been unfelt. Now,
when the soul has climbed its watch-tower and perceives
A world of capability
For joy, spread round about us, meant for us,
Inviting us.
When at this moment the soul in its yearning "craves all," then is the
time of the flesh to reply,
Take no jot more
Than ere thou clombst the tower to look abroad!
Nay, so much less as that fatigue has brought
Deduction to it. (ll. 239-245.)
In other words, the ever-recurring conflict between flesh and spirit. In
human nature, as at present constituted, one is bound to suffer at the
expense of the other; the sound mind in the sound body is unfortunately a
counsel of perfection too rarely attainable in practical life. The poet is
conscious of the growing vitality of the spirit as well as that of the
intellect (although he does not admittedly recognize that this is so, his
use of the term "soul" being seemingly synonymous with "intellect"), the
decreasing power of the flesh. In vain the struggle to
Supply fresh oil to life,
Repair the waste of age and sickness. (ll. 248-249.)
Thus the fate of the man of genius, of keener perceptions, of wider
capacities for enjoyment, becomes proportionately more grievous than that
of the less complex nature of the man of action.
Say rather that my fate is deadlier still,
In this, that every day my sense of joy
Grows more acute, my soul (intensified
By power and insight) more enlarged, more keen;
While every day my hairs fall more and more,
My hand shakes, and the heavy years increase--
The horror quickening still from year to year,
The consummation coming past escape
When I shall know most, and yet least enjoy. (ll. 309-317.)
A recognition of the emptiness of life, necessarily hopeless when thus
viewed in relation to its sensuous and intellectual possibilities only. To
these things the end must come. Thus Browning leads us on, as so
frequently elsewhere, to an admission of _the inevitableness of
immortality_.
An estimate of life curiously opposed to this simple pagan aspect is that
afforded by the conception of _Paracelsus_, a poem containing no small
element of the mysticism which offered so powerful an attraction to its
author. In a familiar passage at the close of the First Section we find
Paracelsus describing the methods he proposes to pursue in his search for
truth; truth which he deems existent within the soul of man, and acquired
by no external influence.
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, whate'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fulness; and around,
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception--which is truth.
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh
Binds it, and makes all error: and to KNOW
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape,
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.[28]
* * * * *
See this soul of ours!
How it strives weakly in the child, is loosed
In manhood, clogged by sickness, back compelled
By age and waste, set free at last by death.[29]
In S. John's reflections in _A Death in the Desert_, a similar suggestion
of mysticism is modified by the medium through which it has passed. The
Christian teacher who wrote that "God is Love," and that in the knowledge
of this truth immortality itself consists, propounds for himself a
question similar to that which has so hopeless a ring when issuing from
the mouth of the Greek.
Is it for nothing we grow old and weak?
A suggestion of the character of the answer is found in the conclusion of
the question, "We whom God loves."