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The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

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Title: The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

Author: Edward Berdoe


        
Release date: July 14, 2011 [eBook #36734]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

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"The Browning Cyclopædia."

_SOME OPINIONS OF THE PRESS ON THE FIRST EDITION._


"Conscientious and painstaking,"--_The Times._

"Obviously a most painstaking work, and in many ways it is very well
done."--_Pall Mall Gazette._

"In many ways a serviceable book, and deserves to be widely bought."--_The
Speaker._

"A book of far-reaching research and careful industry ... will make this
poet clearer, nearer, and dearer to every reader who systematically uses
his book."--_Scotsman._

"Dr. Berdoe is a safe and thoughtful guide; his work has evidently been a
labour of love, and bears many marks of patient research."--_Echo._

"Students of Browning will find it an invaluable aid."--_Graphic._

"A work suggestive of immense industry."--_Morning Post._

"Erudite and comprehensive."--_Glasgow Herald._

"As a companion to Browning's works the Cyclopædia will be most valuable;
it is a laborious, if necessary, piece of work, conscientiously performed,
for which present and future readers and students of Browning ought to be
really grateful."--_Nottingham Daily Guardian._

"A monumental labour, and fitting company for the great compositions he
elucidates."--_Rock._

"It is very well that so patient and ubiquitous a reader as Dr. Berdoe
should have written this useful cyclopædia, and cleared the meaning of
many a dark and doubtful passage of the poet."--_Black and White._

"It is not too much to say that Dr. Berdoe has earned the gratitude of
every reader of Browning, and has materially aided the study of English
literature in one of its ripest developments."--_British Weekly._

"Dr. Berdoe's Cyclopædia should make all other handbooks
unnecessary."--_Star._

"We are happy to commend the volume to Browning students as the most
ambitious and useful in its class yet executed."--_Notes and Queries._

"A most learned and creditable piece of work. Not a difficulty is
shirked."--_Vanity Fair._

"A monument of industry and devotion. It has really faced difficulties, it
is conveniently arranged, and is well printed and bound."--_Bookman._

"A wonderful help."--_Gentlewoman._

"Can be strongly recommended as one for a favourite corner in one's
library."--_Whitehall Review._

"Exceedingly well done; its interest and usefulness, we think, may pass
without question."--_Publishers' Circular._

"In a singularly industrious and exhaustive manner he has set himself to
make clear the obscure and to accentuate the beautiful in Robert
Browning's poem ... must have involved infinite labour and research. It
cannot be doubted that the book will be widely sought for and warmly
appreciated."--_Daily Telegraph._

"Dr. Berdoe tackles every allusion, every proper name, every phase of
thought, besides giving a most elaborate analysis of each poem. He has
produced what we might almost call a monumental work."--_Literary
Opinion._

"This cyclopædia may certainly claim to be by a long way the most
efficient aid to the study of Browning that has been published, or is
likely to be published.... Lovers of Browning will prize it highly, and
all who wish to understand him will consult it with advantage."--_Baptist
Magazine._

"The work has evidently been one of love, and we doubt whether any one
could have been found better qualified to undertake it."--_Cambridge
Review._

"All readers of Browning will feel indebted to Dr. Berdoe for his
interesting accounts of the historical facts on which many of the dramas
are based, and also for his learned dissertations on 'The Ring and the
Book' and 'Sordello.'"--_British Medical Journal._

"The work is so well done that no one is likely to think of doing it over
again."--_The Critic_ (New York).

"This work reflects the greatest credit on Dr. Berdoe and on the Browning
Society, of which he is so distinguished a member,--it is simply
invaluable."--_The Hawk._

"The Cyclopædia has at any rate brought his (Browning's) best work well
within the compass of all serious readers of intelligence--Browning made
easy."--_The Month._




THE BROWNING CYCLOPÆDIA.




By the Same Author.


=BROWNING'S MESSAGE TO HIS TIME. His Religion, Philosophy, and Science.=
With Portrait and Facsimile Letters. Second edition, price 2_s._ 6_d._


_OPINIONS OF THE PRESS._

"Full of admiration and sympathy."--_Saturday Review._

"Much that is helpful and suggestive."--_Scotsman._

"Should have a wide circulation, it is interesting and
stimulative."--_Literary World._

"It is the work of one who, having gained good himself, has made it his
endeavour to bring the same good within the reach of others, and, as such,
it deserves success."--_Cambridge Review._

"We have no hesitation in strongly recommending this little volume to any
who desire to understand the moral and mental attitude of Robert
Browning.... We are much obliged to Dr. Berdoe for his volume."--_Oxford
University Herald._

"Cannot fail to be of assistance to new readers."--_Morning Post._

"The work of a faithful and enthusiastic student is here."--_Nation._




    THE BROWNING CYCLOPÆDIA

    _A GUIDE TO THE STUDY OF THE WORKS_
    OF ROBERT BROWNING

    WITH
    Copious Explanatory Notes and References
    on all Difficult Passages


    BY EDWARD BERDOE

    LICENTIATE OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS, EDINBURGH; MEMBER OF
    THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS, ENGLAND, ETC., ETC.

    _Author of "Browning's Message to his Time," "Browning as a Scientific
    Poet," etc., etc._


    LONDON: SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. LTD.
    NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
    1897




    FIRST EDITION, _December, 1891_.
    SECOND EDITION, _March, 1892_.
    THIRD EDITION (Revised), _September, 1897_.




    I gratefully Dedicate these pages
    TO DR. F. J. FURNIVALL
    AND MISS E. H. HICKEY,
    THE FOUNDERS OF
    THE BROWNING SOCIETY.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


The demand for a second edition of this work within three months of its
publication is a sufficient proof that such a book meets a want,
notwithstanding the many previous attempts of a more or less partial
character which have been made to explain Browning to "the general." With
the exception of certain superfine reviewers, to whom nothing is
obscure--except such things as they are asked to explain without previous
notice--every one admits that Browning requires more or less elucidation.
It is said by some that I have explained too much, but this might be said
of most commentaries, and certainly of every dictionary. It is difficult
to know precisely where to draw the line. If I am not to explain (say for
lady readers) what is meant by the phrase "_De te fabula narratur_," I
know not why any of the classical quotations should be translated. If
Browning is hard to understand, it must be on account of the obscurity of
his language, of his thought, or the purport of his verses; very often the
objection is made that the difficulty applies to all these. I have not
written for the "learned," but for the people at large. _The Manchester
Guardian_, in a kindly notice of my book, says "the error and marvel of
his book is the supposition that any cripple who can only be crutched by
it into an understanding of Browning will ever understand Browning at
all." There are many readers, however, who understand Browning a little,
and I hope that this book will enable them to understand him a great deal
more: though all cripples cannot be turned into athletes, some undeveloped
persons may be helped to achieve feats of strength.

A word concerning my critics. No one can do me a greater service than by
pointing out mistakes and omissions in this work. I cannot hope to please
everybody, but I will do my best to make future editions as perfect as
possible.

E. B.

_March 1892._




PREFACE.


I make no apology for the publication of this work, because some such book
has long been a necessity to any one who seriously proposes to study
Browning. Up to its appearance there was no single book to which the
leader could turn, which gave an exposition of the leading ideas of every
poem, its key-note, the sources--historical, legendary, or fanciful--to
which the poem was due, and a glossary of every difficult word or allusion
which might obscure the sense to such readers as had short memories or
scanty reading. It would be affectation to pretend to believe that every
educated person ought to know, without the aid of such a work as this,
what Browning means by phrases and allusions which may be found by
hundreds in his works. The wisest reader cannot be expected to remember,
even if he has ever learned, a host of remote incidents in Italian
history, for example, to say nothing of classical terms which "every
schoolboy" ought to know, but rarely does. Browning is obscure,
undoubtedly, if a poem is read for the first time without any hint as to
its main purport: the meaning in almost every case lies more or less below
the surface; the superficial idea which a careless perusal of the poem
would afford is pretty sure to be the wrong one. Browning's poetry is
intended to make people think, and without thought the fullest commentary
will not help the reader much. "I can have little doubt," said the poet,
in his preface to the First Series of _Selections_ from his works, "that
my writing has been in the main too hard for many I should have been
pleased to communicate with; but I never designedly tried to puzzle
people, as some of my critics have supposed. On the other hand, I never
pretended to offer such literature as should be a substitute for a cigar
or a game at dominoes to an idle man. So, perhaps, on the whole, I get my
deserts, and something over--not a crowd, but a few I value more." As for
my own qualifications for the task I have undertaken, I can only say that
I have attended nearly every meeting of the Browning Society from its
inauguration; I have read every book, paper, and article upon Browning on
which I could lay my hands, have gone over every line of the poet's works
again and again, have asked the assistance of literary friends in every
difficulty, and have pegged away at the obscurities till they _seemed_ (at
any rate) to vanish. It is possible that a scientific education in some
considerable degree assists a man who addresses himself to a task of this
sort: a medical man does not like to be beaten by any difficulty which
common perseverance can conquer; when one has spent days in tracing a
nerve thread through the body to its origin, and through all its
ramifications, a few visits to the library of the British Museum, or a few
hours' puzzling over the meaning of a difficult passage in a poem, do not
deter him from solving a mystery,--and this is all I can claim. I have not
shirked any obscurities; unlike some commentators of the old-fashioned
sort, who in dealing with the Bible carefully told us that a score meant
twenty, but said nothing as to the meaning of the verse in Ezekiel's dream
about the women who wept for Tammuz--but have honestly tried to help my
readers in every case where they have a right to ask such aid. Probably I
have overlooked many things which I ought to have explained. It is not
less certain that some will say I have explained much that they already
knew. I can only ask for a merciful judgment in either case. I am quite
anxious to be set right in every particular in which I may be wrong, and
shall be grateful for hints and suggestions concerning anything which is
not clear. I have to thank Professor Sonnenschein for permission to
publish his valuable Notes to _Sordello_, with several articles on the
history of the Guelf and Ghibelline leaders: these are all indicated by
the initial [S.] at the end of each note or article. I am grateful also to
Mr. A. J. Campbell for permission to use his notes on Rabbi Ben Ezra. I
have also to thank Dr. Furnivall, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, and the Very
Rev. Canon Akers, M.A., for their kindness in helping me on certain
difficult points which came within their lines of study. It would be
impossible to read the works of commentators on Browning for the years
which I have devoted to the task without imbibing the opinions and often
insensibly adopting the phraseology of the authors: if in any case I have
used the ideas and language of other writers without acknowledging them, I
hope it will be credited to the infirmity of human nature, and not
attributed to any wilful appropriation of other men's and women's literary
valuables. As for the poet himself, I have largely used his actual words
and phrases in putting his ideas into plain prose; it has not always been
possible, for reasons which every one will understand, to put quotation
marks to every few words or portions of lines where this has occurred.
When, therefore, a beautiful thought is expressed in appropriate language,
it is most certainly not mine, but Browning's. My only aim has been to
bring the Author of the vast body of literature to which this book is an
introduction a little nearer to the English and American reading public;
my own opinions and criticisms I have endeavoured as much as possible to
suppress. In the words of Dr. Furnivall, "This is a business book," and
simply as such I offer it to the public.

EDWARD BERDOE.

LONDON, _November 28th, 1891_.




_BOOKS, ESSAYS, ETC., WHICH ARE ESPECIALLY USEFUL TO THE BROWNING
STUDENT._


BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS.

=Life of Robert Browning.= By MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. London: 1891.

=Life of Robert Browning.= By WILLIAM SHARP. London: 1890.

    On the whole, Mr. Sharp's Biography will be found the more useful for
    the student. It contains an excellent Bibliography by Mr. John P.
    Anderson of the British Museum, and a Chronological List of the Poet's
    Works.

=Robert Browning: Chief Poet of the Age.= By W. G. KINGSLAND. London:
1890. Excellent for beginners.

=Robert Browning: Personalia.= By EDMUND GOSSE. Boston: 1890.


WORKS OF CRITICISM AND EXPOSITION.

=Robert Browning: Essays and Thoughts.= By JOHN T. NETTLESHIP. London:
1868. Artistic and suggestive.

=Stories from Robert Browning.= By F. M. HOLLAND; with Introduction by
MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. London: 1882.

=A Handbook to the Works of Robert Browning.= By MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR.
London: 1885.

=An Introduction to the Study of Browning.= By ARTHUR SYMONS. London:
1886. Intensely sympathetic and appreciative.

=A Bibliography of Robert Browning, from 1833 to 1881.= By DR. F. J.
FURNIVALL. 1881.

=An Introduction to the Study of Robert Browning's Poetry.= By HIRAM
CORSON. Boston: 1888.

=Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning.= By JAMES FOTHERINGHAM. London:
1887.

=Browning Guide Book.= By GEORGE WILLIS COOKE. Boston: 1891.

=Strafford: a Tragedy.= With Notes and Preface, by E. H. HICKEY, and
Introduction by S. R. GARDINER. London: 1884.

=Browning and the Christian Faith.= The Evidences of Christianity from
Browning's Point of View. By EDWARD BERDOE. London: 1896.

=Browning as a Philosophical Religious Teacher.= By Prof. HENRY JONES.
Glasgow: 1891.

=Browning's Message to His Time: His Religion, Philosophy and Science.= By
EDWARD BERDOE. London: 1890.


THE BROWNING SOCIETY'S PUBLICATIONS.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part I.= Vol. I., 1881-4, pp. 1-116
(_presented by Dr. Furnivall_). [1881-2.

    1. A Reprint of BROWNING'S Introductory Essay to the 25 spurious
    _Letters of Percy Bysshe Shelley_, 1852: On the Objective and
    Subjective Poet, on the Relation of the Poet's Life to his Work; on
    Shelley, his Nature, Art, and Character.

    2. A Bibliography of ROBERT BROWNING, 1833-81: Alphabetical and
    Chronological Lists of his Works, with Reprints of discontinued
    Prefaces, of _Ben Karshook's Wisdom_, partial collations of _Sordello_
    1840, 1863, and _Paracelsus_ 1835, 1863, etc., and with Trial-Lists of
    the Criticisms on BROWNING, Personal Notices of him, etc., by F. J.
    FURNIVALL.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part II.= Vol. I., 1881-4, pp. 117-258.
[1881-2.

    3. Additions to the Bibliography of R. BROWNING, by F. J. FURNIVALL.
    1. Browning's Acted Plays. 2. Fresh Entries of Criticisms on
    Browning's Works. 3. Fresh Personal Notices of Browning. 4. Notes on
    Browning's Poems and my Bibliography. 5. Short Index.

    4. Mr. KIRKMAN'S Address at the Inaugural Meeting of the Society,
    October 28th, 1881.

    5. Mr. SHARPE'S Paper on _"Pietro of Abano" and "Dramatic Idyls_,
    Series II."

    6. Mr. NETTLESHIP'S _Analysis and Sketch of "Fifine at the Fair."_

    7. Mr. NETTLESHIP'S Classification of Browning's Poems.

    8. Mrs. ORR'S Classification of Browning's Poems.

    9. Mr. JAMES THOMSON'S Notes on _The Genius of Robert Browning_.

    10. Mr. ERNEST RADFORD on _The Moorish Front to the Duomo of Florence,
    in "Luria,"_ I., pp. 122-132.

    11. Mr. ERNEST RADFORD on _The Original of "Ned Bratt's" Dramatic
    Lyrics_, I., pp. 107-43.

    12. Mr. SHARPE'S Analysis and Summary of _Fifine at the Fair_.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part III.= Vol. I., 1881-4, pp. 259-380,
with _Abstract_, pp. 1*-48*. [1882-3.

    13. Mr. BURY on _Browning's Philosophy_.

    14. Prof. JOHNSON on _Bishop Blougram_.

    15. Prof. CORSON on _Personality, and Art as its Vice-agent, as
    treated by Browning_.

    16. Miss BEALE on _The Religious Teaching of Browning_.

    17. _A Short Account of the Abbé Vogler_ ("_Abt Vogler_"). By Miss E.
    MARX.

    18. Prof. JOHNSON on _Science and Art in Browning_.

    The _Monthly Abstract_ of such papers as have not been printed in
    full, and of the Discussions on all that have been discussed. Nos.
    I.-X.

=Illustrations to Browning's Poems. Part I.=: Photographs of (_a_) Andrea
del Sarto's Picture of Himself and his Wife, in the Pitti Palace,
Florence, which suggested Browning's poem _Andrea del Sarto_; (_b_) Fra
Lippo Lippi's 'Coronation of the Virgin,' in the Accademia delle belle
Arti, Florence (the painting described at the end of Browning's _Fra
Lippo_); and (_c_) Guercino's 'Angel and Child,' at Fano (for _The
Guardian Angel_); with an Introduction by ERNEST RADFORD. [1882-3.

=Illustrations to Browning's Poems. Part II.=* (_d_) A photo-engraving
of Mr. C. Fairfax Murray's drawing of Andrea del Sarto's Picture named
above. (_e_) A Woodburytype copy of Fredelle's Cabinet Photograph of
ROBERT BROWNING in three sizes, to bind with the Society's
_Illustrations_, and _Papers_, and Browning's _Poems_: presented by Mrs.
Sutherland Orr. (_f_) Reductions in fcap. 8vo, to bind with Browning's
_Poems_, of _d_, _b_, _c_, above, and of (_g_) the engraving of Guercino's
First Sketch for his "Angel and Child." [1882-3.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part IV.= Vol. I., 1881-4, pp. 381-476,
with _Abstract_, pp. 49*-84* and _Reports_, i-xvi. [1883-4.

    19. Mr. NETTLESHIP on _Browning's Intuition, specially in regard to
    Music and the Plastic Arts_.

    20. Prof. B. F. WESTCOTT on _Some Points in Browning's View of Life_.

    21. Miss E. D. WEST on _One Aspect of Browning's Villains_.

    22. Mr. REVELL on _Browning's Poems on God and Immortality as bearing
    on Life here_.

    23. The Rev. H. J. BULKELEY on "_James Lee's Wife_."

    24. Mrs. TURNBULL on "_Abt Vogler_."

    The _Monthly Abstract_ of the Proceedings of Meetings Eleven to
    Eighteen.

    _First and Second Reports_ of the Committee (1881-2 and 1882-3).

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part V.= Vol. I., 1881-4, pp. 477-502,
with _Abstract_ and _Notes and Queries_, pp. 85*-153*, and _Report_,
pp. xvii-xxiii. [1884-5.

    25. Mr. W. A. RALEIGH on _Some Prominent Points in Browning's
    Teaching_.

    26. Mr. J. COTTER MORISON on _"Caliban on Setebos," with some Notes on
    Browning's Subtlety and Humour_.

    27. Mrs. TURNBULL on "_In a Balcony_."

    The _Monthly Abstract_ of the Proceedings of Meetings Nineteen to
    Twenty-six, including "Scraps" contributed by Members.

    _Third Report of the Committee_, 1883-4.

=Illustration, Part III.= Presented by Sir F. Leighton, P.R.A., etc.,
Vice-President of the Browning Society. A Woodburytype Engraving of Sir
Frederick Leighton's picture (in the possession of Sir Bernhard Samuelson,
Bart., M.P.) of "Hercules contending with Death for the Body of Alkestis"
(_Balaustion's Adventure_).

[=Part VI.= of the Browning Society's Papers, a Second Supplement to Parts
I. and II., with illustrations, is in the press.]

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part VII.= Vol. II., 1885-90, (being Part
I. of Vol. II.), pp. 1-54, with _Abstract_ and _Notes and Queries_,
1*-88*, i.-viii., and Appendix, 1-16. [1885-6.

    28. Mr. ARTHUR SYMONS' Paper, _Is Browning Dramatic?_

    29. Prof. E. JOHNSON on "_Mr. Sludge the Medium_."

    30. Dr. BERDOE on _Browning as a Scientific Poet_.

    The _Monthly Abstract_ of Proceedings of Meetings Twenty-seven to
    Thirty-three; _Notes and Queries_, _etc._; _Fourth Annual Report_;
    Programme of the Annual Entertainment at Prince's Hall, etc.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part VIII.= Vol. II., 1885-90, pp. 55-146,
with _Abstract_ and _Notes and Queries_, 89*-164*, and Report i-vii.
[1886-7.

    31. Mr. J. T. NETTLESHIP on _The Development of Browning's Genius in
    his Capacity as Poet or Maker_.

    32. Mr. J. B. BURY on "_Aristophanes' Apology_."

    33. Mr. OUTRAM on _The Avowal of Valence_ (_Colombe's Birthday_).

    34. Mr. ALBERT FLEMING on "_Andrea del Sarto_."

    35. Mr. HOWARD S. PEARSON on _Browning as a Landscape Painter_.

    36. Rev. H. J. BULKELEY on _The Reasonable Rhythm of some of Mr.
    Browning's Poems_.

    37. Prof. C. H. HERFORD on "_Hohenstiel-Schwangau_."

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Fifth Annual
    Report_, _etc._

=Reprint of the First Edition of Browning's= _Pauline_. [1886-7.

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part IX.= (being Part III. of Vol. II.).
[1887-8.

    38. Dr. TODHUNTER on _The Performance of "Strafford."_

    39. Mrs. GLAZEBROOK on "_A Death in the Desert_."

    40. Dr. FURNIVALL on _A Grammatical Analysis of "O Lyric Love."_

    41. Mr. ARTHUR SYMONS on "_Parleyings with Certain People_."

    42. Miss HELEN ORMEROD on _The Musical Poems of Browning_.

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Sixth Annual
    Report_, _etc._

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part X.= (being Part IV. of Vol. II.).
[1888-9.

    43. Mr. REVELL on _Browning's Views of Life_.

    44. Dr. BERDOE on _Browning's Estimate of Life_.

    45. Prof. BARNETT on _Browning's Jews and Shakespeare's Jew_.

    46. Miss HELEN ORMEROD on _Abt Vogler, the Man_.

    47. Miss C. M. WHITEHEAD on _Browning as a Teacher of the Nineteenth
    Century_.

    48. Miss STODDART on "_Saul_."

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Seventh Annual
    Report_, _etc._

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part XI.= (being Part V. of Vol. II.).
[1889-90.

    49. Dr. BERDOE on _Paracelsus: the Reformer of Medicine_.

    50. Miss HELEN ORMEROD on _Andrea del Sarto and Abt Vogler_.

    51. Rev. W. ROBERTSON on "_La Saisiaz_."

    52. Mr. J. B. OLDHAM on _The Difficulties and Obscurities encountered
    in a Study of Browning's Poems_.

    53. Mr. J. KING, Jun., on "_Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_."

    54. Mrs. ALEXANDER IRELAND on "_A Toccata of Galuppi's_."

    55. Mrs. GLAZEBROOK on "_Numpheleptos and Browning's Women_."

    56. Rev. J. J. G. GRAHAM on _The Wife-love and Friend-love of Robert
    Browning_.

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Eighth Annual
    Report_, _etc._

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part XII.= (being Part I. of Vol. III.).
[1890-91.

    57. Prof. ALEXANDER'S _Analysis of "Sordello."_

    58. Dr. FURNIVALL on _Robert Browning's Ancestors_.

    59. Mrs. IRELAND on _Browning's Treatment of Parenthood_.

    60. Mr. SAGAR on _The Line-numbering, etc., in "The Ring and the
    Book."_

    61. Mr. REVELL on _The Value of Browning's Work_ (Part I.).

    62. Mr. W. M. ROSSETTI on "_Taurello Salinguerra_."

    List of Some of the Periodicals in which Notices of Robert Browning
    have appeared since his Death.

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Ninth Annual
    Report_, _etc._

=The Browning Society's Papers, Part XIII.= (being Part II. of Vol. III.,
1890-93). [1891-92.

    63. Mrs. A. IRELAND on "_Christina and Monaldeschi_."

    64. JÓN STEFÁNSSON, M.A., on _How Browning Strikes a Scandinavian_.

    65. W. F. REVELL, Esq., on _Browning's Work in Relation to Life_ (Part
    II.).

    66. J. B. OLDHAM, B.A., on _Browning's Dramatic Method in Narrative_.

    67. R. G. MOULTON, M.A., on _Browning's "Balaustion" a beautiful
    Perversion of Euripides' "Alcestis."_

    Abstracts of all Meetings held, _Notes and Queries_, _Tenth Annual
    Report_, _etc._

        *Out of print at present.




CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS, ETC.


    1812. Robert Browning born at Camberwell on May 7th. He "went to the
            Rev. Thos. Ready's school at Peckham till he was near
            fourteen, then had a private tutor at home, and attended some
            lectures at the London University, now University College,
            London" (Dr. Furnivall).

    1833. _Pauline_ published.

    1834. Browning travelled in Russia.

    1835. _Paracelsus_ published.

    1836. _Porphyria_, _Johannes Agricola_, _The King_, and the lines
            "Still ailing wind" in _James Lee_ published by Mr. W. J. Fox
            in his magazine _The Monthly Repository_.

    1837. _Strafford_ published.

    1840. _Sordello_ published.

    1841-6. _Bells and Pomegranates_ appeared.

    1841. _Pippa Passes_ published.

    1842. _King Victor and King Charles_ published.
          _Dramatic Lyrics_ published.

    1843. _The Return of the Druses_ published.
          _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_ published.

    1844. _Colombe's Birthday_ published.

    1845. _The Tomb at St. Praxed's_ published in _Hood's Magazine_, March.
          _The Flight of the Duchess_ published.
          _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_ published.

    1846. _Lucia_ published.
          _A Soul's Tragedy_ published.
          Robert Browning married (34), Sept. 12th, at St. Mary-le-bone
            parish church our greatest poetess, Elizabeth Barrett, aged 37
            (Dr. Furnivall).

    1847. The Brownings resident in Florence.

    1849. March 9th, Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning born.
          _Browning's Poems_ published in two vols.

    1850. _Christmas-Eve and Easter-Day_ published.

    1852. Browning writes the Introductory Essay to the Shelley (spurious)
            Letters.

    1855. _Men and Women_ published.
          The Brownings travel to Normandy.

    1861. June 28th, Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi.

    1863. _The Poetical Works_ of Robert Browning published in three vols.

    1864. _Dramatis Personæ_ published.

    1868. _The Poetical Works_ published in six vols.

    1868-9. _The Ring and the Book_ published.

    1871. _Hervé Riel_ published in the _Cornhill Magazine_.
          _Balaustion's Adventure_ published.
          _Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau_ published.

    1872. _Fifine at the Fair_ published.

    1873. _Red Cotton Night-Cap Country_ published.

    1875. _Aristophanes' Apology_ published.
          _The Inn Album_ published.

    1876. _Pacchiarotto_ published.

    1877. _The Agamemnon of Æschylus_ published.

    1878. _La Saisiaz_ published.
          _The Two Poets of Croisic_ published.

    1879. _Dramatic Idyls_ published.

    1880. _Dramatic Idyls_ (_Second Series_) published.

    1881. The Browning Society inaugurated, Oct. 28th.

    1883. _Jocoseria_ published.

    1884. _Ferishtah's Fancies_ published.

    1887. _Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in their Day_
            published.

    1889. _Asolando: Fancies and Facts_, published.
          Robert Browning died in Venice, December 12th; buried in
            Westminster Abbey, December 31st.




BROWNING CYCLOPÆDIA.


=Abano=, a town of Northern Italy, 6 miles S.W. of Padua, the birthplace
of PIETRO D'ABANO (_q.v._).

=Abate, Paolo= (or Paul), brother of Count Guido Franceschini. He was a
priest residing in Rome. (_Ring and the Book._)

=Abbas I.=, surnamed THE GREAT. _See_ SHAH ABBAS.

=Abd-el-Kader=, a celebrated Algerian warrior, born in 1807, who in 1831
led the combined tribes in their attempt to resist the progress of the
French in Algeria. He surrendered to the French in 1847, and was set at
liberty by Louis Napoleon in 1852. (_Through the Metidja to
Abd-el-Kader._)

=Abt Vogler.= [THE MAN.] (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) George Joseph Vogler,
usually known as Abbé Vogler, or, as Mr. Browning has called him, Abt
Vogler, was an organist and composer, and was born at Würzburg, June 15th,
1749. He was educated for the Church from his very early years, as is the
custom with Catholics; but every opportunity was taken to develop his
musical talents, which were so marked that at ten years old he could play
the organ and the violin well. In 1769 he studied at Bamberg, removing
thence in 1771 to Mannheim. In 1773 he was ordained priest in Rome, and
was admitted to the famous Academy of Arcadia, was made a Knight of the
Golden Spur, and was appointed protonotary and chamberlain to the Pope. He
returned to Mannheim in 1775, and opened a School of Music. He published
several works on music, composition, and the art of forming the voice. He
was made chaplain and _Kapellmeister_ at Mannheim, and about this time
composed a _Miserere_. In 1779 Vogler went to Munich. In 1780 he composed
an opera, _The Merchant of Smyrna_, a ballet, and a melodrama. In 1781 his
opera _Albert III._ was produced at the Court Theatre of Munich. As it was
not very favourably received, he resigned his posts of chaplain and
choirmaster. He was severely criticised by German musical critics, and
Mozart spoke of him with much bitterness. Having thus failed in his own
country, he went to Paris, and in 1783 brought out his comic opera, _La
Kermesse_. It was so great a failure that it was not possible to conclude
the performance. He then travelled in Spain, Greece, and the East. In 1786
he returned to Europe, and went to Sweden, and was appointed
_Kapellmeister_ to the King. At Stockholm he founded his second School of
Music, and became famous by his performances on an instrument which he had
invented, called the "Orchestrion." This is described by Mr. G. Grove as a
very compact organ, in which four keyboards of five octaves each, and a
pedal board of thirty-six keys, with swell complete, were packed into a
cube of nine feet. In 1789 Vogler performed without success at Amsterdam.
He then went with his organ to London, and gave a series of concerts at
the Pantheon in January 1790. These proved eminently successful: Vogler
realised over £1200, and made a name as an organist. He seems to have
excelled in pedal playing, but it is not true that pedals were unknown in
England until the Abbé introduced them. "His most popular pieces," says
the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, "were a fugue on themes from the
'Hallelujah Chorus,' composed after a visit to the Handel festival at
Westminster Abbey, and on 'A Musical Picture for the Organ,' by Knecht,
containing the imitation of a storm. In 1790 Vogler returned to Germany,
and met with the most brilliant receptions at Coblentz and Frankfort, and
at Esslingen was presented with the 'wine of honour' reserved usually for
royal personages. At Mannheim, in 1791, his opera _Castor and Pollux_ was
performed, and became very popular. We find him henceforward travelling
all over Europe. At Berlin he performed in 1800, at Vienna in 1804, and at
Munich in 1806. Next year we find him at Darmstadt, accepting by the
invitation of the Grand Duke Louis I. the post of _Kapellmeister_. He
opened his third school of music at Darmstadt, one of his pupils being
Weber, another Meyerbeer, a third Gänsbacher. The affection of these three
young students for their master was 'unbounded.' He was indefatigable in
the pursuit of his art to the last, genial, kind and pleasant to all; he
lived for music, and died in harness, of apoplexy, at Darmstadt, May 6th,
1814."

[THE POEM.] The musician has been extemporising on his organ, and as the
performance in its beauty and completeness impresses his mind with
wonderful and mysterious imagery, he wishes it could be permanent. He has
created something, but it has vanished. He compares it to a palace built
of sweet sounds, such a structure as angels or demons might have reared
for Solomon, a magic building wherein to lodge some loved princess, a
palace more beautiful than anything which human architect could plan or
power of man construct. His music structure has been real to him, it took
shape in his brain, it was his creation: surely, somewhere, somehow, it
might be permanent. It was too beautiful, too perfect to be lost. Only the
evil perishes, only good is permanent; and this music was so true, so
good, so beautiful, it could not be that it was lost, as false, bad, ugly
things are lost! But Vogler was but an extemporiser, and such musicians
cannot give permanence to their performances. He has reached a state
almost of ecstasy, and the spiritual has asserted its power over the
material, raising the soul to heaven and bringing down heaven to earth. In
the words of Milton, he had become--

                                "All ear,
    And took in strains that might create a soul
    Under the ribs of death,"

and in this heavenly rapture he saw strange presences, the forms of the
better to come, or "the wonderful Dead who have passed through the body
and gone." The other arts are inferior to music, they are more human, more
material than music,--"here is the finger of God." And this was all to
go--"Never to be again!" This reflection starts the poet on a familiar
train of thought--the permanence of good, the impermanence, the nullity of
evil. The Cabbalists taught that evil was only the shadow of the Light;
Maimonides, Spinoza, Hegel and Emerson taught the doctrine which Mr.
Browning here inculcates. Leibnitz speaks of "evil as a mere set-off to
the good in the world, which it increases by contrast, and at other times
reduces moral to metaphysical evil by giving it a merely negative
existence." "God," argued Aquinas (_Sum. Theol._, i., § 49), "created
everything that exists, but Sin was _nothing_; so God was not the Author
of it." So, Augustine and Peter Lombard maintained likewise the negative
nature of moral evil:--

    "Evil is more frail than nonentity."
                        (Proclus, _De Prov._, in Cory's _Fragm._)

"Let no one therefore say that there are precedaneous productive
principles of evil in the nature of intellectual paradigms of evil in the
same manner as there are of good, or that there is a malefic soul or an
evil-producing cause in the gods, nor let him introduce sedition or
eternal war against the First God" (Proclus, _Six Books_, trans. Thomas
Taylor, B. i., c. 27). In heaven, then, we are to find "the perfect
round," "the broken arcs" are all we can discover here. Rising in the
tenth stanza to the highest stature of the philosophical truth, the poet
proclaims his faith in the existence of a home of pure ideals. The harmony
of a few bars of music on earth suggests the eternal harmonies of the
Author of order; the rays of goodness which brighten our path here suggest
a Sun of Righteousness from which they emanate. The lover and the bard
send up to God their feeble aspirations after the beautiful and the true,
and these aspirations are stored in His treasury. Failure? It is but the
pause in the music, the discords that set off the harmony. To the musician
this is not something to be reasoned about mathematically; it is
knowledge, it is a revelation which, however informing and consoling while
it lasts, must not too long divert a man from the common things of life;
patient to bear and suffer because strengthened by the beautiful vision of
the Mount of Transfiguration, proud that he has been permitted to have
part and lot with such high matters, he can solemnly acquiesce in the
common round and daily task. He feels for the common chord, descends the
mount, gliding by semitones, glancing back at the heights he is leaving,
till at last, finding his true resting-place in the C Major of this life,
soothed and sweetly lulled by the heavenly harmonies, he falls asleep. The
Esoteric system of the Cabbalah was largely the outcome of Neo-Platonism
and Gnosticism, and from these have sprung the theosophy of Meister
Eckhart and Jacob Boehme. It is certain that Mr. Browning was a student of
the latter "theosophist" _par excellence_. In his poem _Transcendentalism_
he refers to the philosopher by name, and there are evidences that the
poet's mind was deeply tinctured with his ideas. The influence of
Paracelsus on Boehme's mind is conspicuous in his works, and the sympathy
with that great medical reformer which the poem of _Paracelsus_ betrays on
every page was no doubt largely due to Boehme's teaching. The curious
blending of theosophy and science which is found in the poem of
_Paracelsus_ is not a less faithful picture of Mr. Browning's
philosophical system than of that of his hero. Professor Andrew Seth, in
the article on theosophy in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, thus expounds
Boehme's speculation on evil: it turns "upon the necessity of reconciling
the existence and the might of evil with the existence of an all-embracing
and all-powerful God.... He faces the difficulty boldly--he insists on the
necessity of the Nay to the Yea, of the negative to the positive." Eckhart
seems to have largely influenced Boehme. We have in this poem what has
been aptly called "the richest, deepest, fullest poem on music in the
language." (Symons.) Mr. Browning was a thorough musician himself, and no
poet ever wrote what the musician felt till he penned the wonderful
music-poems _Abt Vogler_, _Master Hugues of Saxe Gotha_ and _A Toccata of
Galuppi's_. The comparison between music and architecture is as old as it
is beautiful. Amphion built the walls of Thebes to the sound of his
lyre--fitting the stones together by the power of his music, and "Ilion's
towers," they say, "rose with life to Apollo's song." The "Keeley Motor"
was an attempt in this direction. Coleridge, too, in _Kubla Khan_, with
"music loud and long would build that dome in air." In the May 1891 number
of the _Century Magazine_ there is a very curious and a very interesting
account by Mrs. Watts Hughes of certain "Voice-figures" which have lately
excited so much interest in scientific and musical circles. "By a simple
method figures of sounds are produced which remain permanent. On a thin
indiarubber membrane, stretched across the bottom of a tube of sufficient
diameter for the purpose, is poured a small quantity of water or some
denser liquid, such as glycerine; and into this liquid are sprinkled a few
grains of some ordinary solid pigment. A note of music is then sung down
the tube by Mrs. Watts Hughes, and immediately the atoms of suspended
pigment arrange themselves in a definite form, many of the forms bearing a
curious resemblance to some of the most beautiful objects in
Nature--flowers, shells, or trees. After the note has ceased to sound the
forms remain, and the pictorial representations given in the _Century_
show how wonderfully accurate is the lovely mimicry of the image-making
music." (_Spectator_, May 16th, 1891.) The thought of some soul of
permanence behind the transience of music, provided the motive of
Adelaide Procter's _Lost Chord_. In the _Idylls of the King_ Lord Tennyson
says--

                      "The city is built
    To music, therefore never built at all,
    And therefore built for ever."

Cardinal Newman, too, as the writer in the _Spectator_ points out,
expresses the same thought in his Oxford sermon, "The Theory of
Development in Christian Doctrine." The preacher said: "Take another
example of an outward and earthly form of economy, under which great
wonders unknown seem to be typified--I mean musical sounds, as they are
exhibited most perfectly in instrumental harmony. There are seven notes in
the scale: make them fourteen; yet what a slender outfit for so vast an
enterprise! What science brings so much out of so little? Out of what poor
elements does some great master create his new world! Shall we say that
all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere ingenuity or trick of art, like
some fashion of the day, without reality, without meaning?... Is it
possible that inexhaustible evolution and disposition of notes, so rich
yet so simple, so intricate yet so regulated, so various yet so majestic,
should be a mere sound which is gone and perishes? Can it be that those
mysterious stirrings of heart, and keen emotions, and strange yearnings
after we know not what, and awful impressions from we know not whence,
should be wrought in us by what is unsubstantial, and comes and goes, and
begins and ends in itself? It is not so! It cannot be."

NOTES.--STANZA I. "_Solomon willed._" Jewish legend gave Solomon
sovereignty over the demons and a lordship over the powers of Nature. In
the Moslem East these fables have found a resting-place in much of its
literature, from the Koran onwards. Solomon was thought to have owed his
power over the spiritual world to the possession of a seal on which the
"most great name of God was engraved" (see Lane, _Arabian Nights_,
Introd., note 21, and chap. i., note 15). In Eastern philosophy, the
"Upadana" or the intense desire produces WILL, and it is the _will_
which develops _force_, and the latter generates _matter_, or an object
having form (see _Isis Unveiled_, Blavatsky, vol. ii., p. 320). "_Pile him
a palace._" Goethe called architecture "petrified music." "_The ineffable
Name_": the unspeakable name of God. Jehovah is the European
transcription of the sacred tetragrammaton [Hebrew: YHWH]. The later Jews
substituted the word Adonai in reading the ineffable Name in their law and
prayers. Mysterious names of the Deity are common in other religions than
the Jewish. In the Egyptian _Funeral Ritual_, and in a hymn of the Soul,
the Word and the Name are referred to in connection with hidden secrets.
The Jewish enemies of Christ said that the miracles were wrought by the
power of the ineffable Name, which had been stolen from the Sanctuary.
(See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii, p. 387.)--STANZA III. _Rampired_: an old
form of ramparted. "_The Illumination of Rome's Dome._" One of the great
sights of Rome used to be the illumination of the dome of St. Peter's on
great festivals, such as that of Easter. Since the occupation of Rome by
the Italian Government such spectacles, if not wholly discontinued, have
been shorn of most of their splendour.--STANZA IV. "_No more near nor
far._" Hegel says that "Music frees us from the phenomena of time and
space," and shows that they are not essentials, but accidents of our
condition here.--STANZA V. "_Protoplast._" The thing first formed, as a
copy to be imitated.--STANZA VII. "_That out of three sounds he frame, not
a fourth sound, but a star._" "A star is perfect and beautiful, and rays
of light come from it." STANZA XII. "_Common chord._" A chord consisting
of the fundamental tone with its third and fifth. "_Blunt it into a
ninth._" A ninth is (_a_) An interval containing an octave and a second;
(_b_) a chord consisting of the common chord, with the eighth advanced one
note. "_C Major of this life._" Miss Helen Ormerod, in a paper read to the
Browning Society of London, November 30th, 1888, has explained these
musical terms and expressions. "C Major is what may be called the natural
scale, having no sharps or flats in its signature. A Minor, with A (a
third below C) for its keynote, has the same signature, but sharps are
introduced for the formation of correct intervals. Pauer says that minor
keys are chosen for expressing 'intense seriousness, soft melancholy,
longing, sadness, and passionate grief'; whilst major keys with sharps and
flats in their signatures are said to have distinctive qualities;--perhaps
Browning chose C major for the key, as the one most allied to matters of
everyday life, including rest and sleep. The common chord, as it is
called, the keynote with its third and fifth, contains the rudiments of
all music."

=Adam, Lilith, and Eve= (_Jocoseria_, 1883). The Talmudists, in their
fanciful commentaries on the Old Testament, say that Adam had a wife
before he married Eve, who was called Lilith; she was the mother of
demons, and flew away from Adam, and the Lord then created Eve from one of
his ribs. Lilith had been formed of clay, and was sensual and disobedient;
the more spiritual Eve became his saviour from the snares of his first
wife. Mr. Browning in this poem merely uses the names, and makes no
reference to the Talmudic or Gnostic legends connected with them. Under
the terror inspired by a thunderstorm, two women begin a confession of
which they make light when the danger has passed away. The man says he saw
through the joke, and the episode was over. It is a powerful and
suggestive story of falsehood, fear, and a forgiveness too readily
accorded by a man who makes a joke of guilt when he has lost nothing by
it.

=Adelaide, The Tuscan= (_Sordello_), was the second wife of Eccelino da
Romano, of the party of the Ghibellines.

=Admetus= (_Balaustion's Adventure_). King of Pheræ, in Thessaly. Apollo
tended his flocks for one year, and obtained the favour that Admetus
should never die if another person could be found to lay down his life for
him: his wife, Alcestis, in consequence cheerfully devoted herself to
death for him.

=Æschylus.= The Greek tragic poet who wrote the _Agamemnon_ translated by
Mr. Browning. Æschylus was born in the year 525 before Christ, at Eleusis,
a town of Attica opposite the island of Salamis. When thirty-five years
old Æschylus not only fought at Marathon, but distinguished himself for
his valour. He was fifty-three years old when he gained the prize at
Athens, B.C. 472, for his trilogy or set of three connected plays. He
wrote some seventy pieces, but only seven have come down to our times:
they are _Prometheus Chained_, _The Suppliants_, _The Seven Chiefs against
Thebes_, _Agamemnon_, _The Choëphoræ_, _The Furies_, and _The Persians_.
The _Agamemnon_, which Mr. Browning has translated, is one of the plays of
the Oresteia, the _Choëphoræ_ and the _Eumenides_ or Furies completing the
trilogy. The poet died at Gela, in Sicily, B.C. 456. Æschylus both in
order of time and power was the first of the three great tragic poets of
ancient Greece. Euripides and Sophocles were the other two.

=After.= See BEFORE and AFTER.

=Agamemnon of Æschylus, The.= A translation published in London, 1877. The
scene of the play is laid by Æschylus at Argos, before the palace of
Agamemnon, Mycenæ, however, really being his seat. Agamemnon was a son of
Atreus according to Homer, and was the brother of Menelaus. In a later
account he is described as the son of Pleisthenes, who was the son of
Atreus. He was king over Argolis, Corinth, Achaia, and many islands. He
married Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus, king of Sparta, by whom he had
three daughters Chrysothemis, Iphigenia and Electra, and one son Orestes.
When Helen was carried off by Paris, Agamemnon was chosen to be
commander-in-chief of the expedition sent against Troy by the Greeks, as
he was the mightiest prince in Greece. He contributed one hundred ships
manned with warriors, besides lending sixty more to the Arcadians. The
fleet being detained at Aulis by a storm, it was declared that Agamemnon
had offended Diana by slaying a deer sacred to her, and by boasting that
he was a better hunter than the goddess; and he was compelled to sacrifice
his daughter Iphigenia to appease her anger. Diana is said by some to have
accepted a stag in her place. Homer describes Agamemnon as one of the
bravest warriors before Troy, but having received Chryseis, the daughter
of Chryses, priest of Apollo, as a prize of war, he arrogantly refused to
allow her father to ransom her. This brought a plague on the Grecian host,
and their ruin was almost completed by his carrying off Briseis, who was
the prize of Achilles--who refused in consequence to fight, remaining
sulking in his tent. After the fall of Troy the beautiful princess
Cassandra fell to Agamemnon as his share of the spoils. She was endowed
with the gift of prophecy, and warned him not to return home. The warning,
however, was disregarded, although he was assured that his wife would put
him to death. During the absence of Agamemnon Clytemnestra had formed an
adulterous connection with Ægisthus, the son of Thyestes and Pelopia; and
when he returned, the watchman having announced his approach to his
palace, Clytemnestra killed Cassandra, and her lover murdered Agamemnon
and his comrades. The tragic poets, however, make Clytemnestra throw a net
over her husband while he was in his bath, and kill him with the
assistance of Ægisthus, in revenge for the sacrifice of her daughter
Iphigenia. In the introduction to the translation of the Agamemnon in
_Morley's Universal Library_ we have an excellent description of the great
play. "In this tragedy the reader will find the strongest traces of the
genius of Æschylus, and the most distinguishing proofs of his skill. Great
in his conceptions, bold and daring in his metaphors, strong in his
passion, he here touches the heart with uncommon emotions. The odes are
particularly sublime, and the oracular spirit that breathes through them
adds a wonderful elevation and dignity to them. Short as the part of
Agamemnon is, the poet has the address to throw such an amiable dignity
around him that we soon become interested in his favour, and are
predisposed to lament his fate. The character of Clytemnestra is finely
marked--a high-spirited, artful, close, determined, dangerous woman. But
the poet has nowhere exerted such efforts of his genius as in the scene
where Cassandra appears: as a prophetess, she gives every mark of the
divine inspiration, from the dark and distant hint, through all the noble
imagery of the prophetic enthusiasm; till, as the catastrophe advances,
she more and more plainly declares it; as a suffering princess, her grief
is plaintive, lively, and piercing; yet she goes to meet her death, which
she clearly foretells, with a firmness worthy the daughter of Priam and
the sister of Hector; nothing can be more animated or more interesting
than this scene. The conduct of the poet through this play is exquisitely
judicious: every scene gives us some obscure hint or ominous presage,
enough to keep our attention always raised, and to prepare us for the
event; even the studied caution of Clytemnestra is finely managed to
produce that effect; whilst the secrecy with which she conducts her design
keeps us in suspense, and prevents a discovery till we hear the dying
groans of her murdered husband." As Mr. Browning announces in his preface
to his translation of the tragedy, he has aimed at being literal at every
cost, and has everywhere reproduced the peculiarities of the original. He
has also made an attempt to reproduce the Greek spelling in English, which
has made the poem more difficult than some other translations to the
non-classical reader. We have ample recompense for this peculiarity by the
way in which he has imbibed the spirit of his author, and so faithfully
reproduced, not alone his phraseology, but his mind. It required a rugged
poet to interpret for us correctly the ruggedness of an Æschylus. Line
for line and word for word we have the tragedy in English as the Greeks
had it in their own tongue. If there are obscurities, we must not in the
present instance blame Mr. Browning: a reference to the original, so
authorities tell us, will prove that Greek poets were at times obscure.
The _Agamemnon_ is part of the Oresteian Trilogy or group of three plays;
this trilogy of Æschylus is our only example extant, and it is necessary
to say something of the other parts. Atreus, the son of Pelops, was king
of Mycenæ. By his wife Ærope were born to him Pleisthenes, Menelaus, and
Agamemnon. Thyestes, the brother of Atreus, had followed him to Argos, and
there seduced his wife, by whom he had two, or according to some, three
children. Thyestes was banished from court on account of this, but was
soon afterwards recalled by his brother that he might be revenged upon
him. He prepared a banquet where Thyestes was served with the flesh of the
children who were the offspring of his incestuous connection with his
sister-in-law the queen. When the feast was concluded, the heads of the
murdered children were produced, that Thyestes might see of what he had
been partaking. It was fabled that the sun in horror shrank back in his
course at the horrible sight. Thyestes fled. The crime brought the most
terrible evils upon the family of which Agamemnon was a member. When this
hero was murdered by his wife and her paramour, young Orestes was saved
from his mother's dagger by his sister Electra. When he reached the years
of manhood, he visited his ancestral home, and assassinated both his
mother and her lover Ægisthus. In consequence of this he was tormented by
the Furies, and he exiled himself to Athens, where Apollo purified him.
The murder of Clytemnestra by her son is described in the second play of
the Trilogy, called the _Choëphoræ or the Libation Pourers_. _The Furies_
is the title of the third and concluding play of the Trilogy. (For an
account of Æschylus see p. 8.)

NOTES.--[N.B. The references here are to the pages of the poem in the last
edition of the complete works in sixteen vols.]--P. 269, _Atreidai_, a
patronymic given by Homer to Agamemnon and Menelaus, as being the sons of
Atreus; _Troia_, the capital of Troas == Troy. p. 270, _Ilion_, a citadel
of Troy; _Menelaos_, a king of Sparta, brother of Agamemnon. p. 271,
_Argives_, the inhabitants of Argos and surrounding country; _Alexandros_,
the name of Paris in the Iliad: _Atreus_, son of Pelops, was king of
Mycenæ; _Danaoi_, a name given to the people of Argos and to all the
Greeks; _Troes_ == Trojans. p. 272, _Tundareus_, king of Lacedæmon, who
married Leda; _Klutaimnestra_ == Clytemnestra, daughter of Tyndarus by
Leda. p. 273, _Teukris land_, the land of the Trojans--from Teucer, their
king; "_Achaians' two-throned empery_": the brother kings Agamemnon and
Menelaos. p. 274, _Linos_, the personification of a dirge or lamentation;
_Priamos_, the last king of Troy, made prisoner by Hercules when he took
the city. p. 275, _Icïos Paian_, an epithet of Apollo; _Kalchas_, a
soothsayer who accompanied the Greeks to Troy. p. 277, _Kalchis_, the
chief city of Euboea, founded by an Athenian colony; _Aulis_, a town of
Boeotia, near Kalchis; _Strumon_, a river which separates Thrace from
Macedonia. p. 282, _Hephaistos_, the god of fire, according to Homer the
son of Zeus and Hera. The Romans called the Greek Hephaistos Vulcan,
though Vulcan was an Italian deity. The news of the fall of Troy was
brought to Mycenæ by means of beacon fires, so fire was the messenger.
_Ide_ == Mount Ida; _of Lemnos_, an island in the Ægean Sea. p. 283,
_Athoan_, of Mount Athos; _Makistos_ == Macistos, a city of Tryphylia;
_Euripos_, a narrow strait separating Euboea from Boeotia;
_Messapios_, a name of Boeotia; _Asopos_, a river of Thessaly; _Mount
Kitharion_, sacred to the Muses and Jupiter. Hercules killed the great
lion there; _Mount Aigiplanktos_ was in Megaris; _Strait Saronic_:
Saronicus Sinus was a bay of the Ægean Sea; _Mount Arachnaios_, in
Argolis. p. 286, _Ate_, the goddess of revenge; _Ares_, the Greek name of
the war-god Mars. p. 288, _Aphrodite_, a name of Venus. p. 290, _Erinues_
== the Furies. p. 292, _Puthian_ == Delphic; _Skamandros_, a river of
Troas. p. 293, _Priamidai_, the patronymic of the descendants of Priam. p.
300, _Threkian breezes_ == Thracian breezes; _Aigaian Sea_, the Ægean Sea;
_Achaian_, pertaining to Achaia, in Greece. p. 301, _Meneleos_, son of
Atreus, brother to Agamemnon and husband of Helen; _water-Haides_, the
engulfing sea. p. 302, _Zephuros_, the west wind; _Simois_, a river in
Troas which rises in Mount Ida and falls into the Xanthus. p. 304,
_Erinus_, an avenging deity. p. 307, _the Argeian monster_ == the company
of Argives concealed in the wooden horse; _Pleiads_, a name given to seven
of the daughters of Atlas by Pleione, one of the Oceanides. They became a
constellation in the heavens after death. p. 309, "_triple-bodied Geruon
the Second_," Geryon, king of the Balearic Isles, fabled to have three
bodies and three heads: Hercules slew him; _Strophios the Phokian_, at
whose house Orestes was brought up with Pylades son of Strophios. p. 316,
_Kassandra_, daughter of Priam, slain by Clytemnestra. p. 317, "_Alkmene's
child_"--Hercules was the son of Alkmene. p. 319, _Ototoi_--alas!;
_Loxias_, a surname of Apollo. p. 322, _papai, papai_ == O strange!
wonderful! p. 324, _Itus_, or _Itys_, son of Tereus, killed by his mother.
p. 325, "_Orthian style_," in a shrill tone. p. 332, _Lukeion
Apollon_--Lyceus was a surname of Apollo. p. 335, _Surian_ == Syrian. p.
343, _Chruseids_, the patronymic of the descendants of Astynome, the
daughter of Chryses. p. 348, _Iphigeneia_, daughter of Agamemnon and
Clytemnestra; her father offered to sacrifice her to appease the wrath of
Diana. p. 350, _The Daimon of the Pleisthenidai_, the genius of
Agamemnon's family. p. 351, _Thuestes_, son of Pelops, brother of Atreus;
_Pelopidai_, descendants of Pelops, son of Tantalus.

=Agricola, Johannes=, (_Johannes Agricola in Meditation_,) was one of the
foremost of the German Reformers. He was born at Eisleben, April 20th,
1492. He met Luther whilst a student at Wittenberg, and became attached to
him, accompanying him to the Leipsic Assembly of Divines, where he acted
as recording secretary. He established the reformed religion at Frankfort.
In 1536 he was called to fill a professorial chair at Wittenberg. Here he
first taught the views which Luther termed _Antinomian_. He held that
Christians were entirely free from the Divine law, being under the Gospel
alone. He denied that Christians were under any obligations to keep the
ten commandments. Mr. Browning has quite accurately, though unsparingly,
exposed his impious teaching in his poem _Johannes Agricola in Meditation_
(_q.v._).

=Agrippa, Henry Cornelius=, the mediæval doctor and magician, was born at
Cologne in 1486, and was educated at the university of that city. He was
denounced in 1509 by the monks, who called him an "impious cabalist"; in
1531 he published his treatise _De Occulta Philosophia_, written by the
advice and with the assistance of the Abbot Trithemius of Wurzburg, the
preceptor of Paracelsus. In 1510 he came to London on a diplomatic
mission, and was the guest of Dean Colet at Stepney. He afterwards fought
at the battle of Ravenna. In 1511 he attended the schismatic council of
Pisa as a theologian. In 1515 he lectured at the university of Pavia. We
afterwards find him at Metz, Geneva, and Freiburg, where he practised as a
physician. In 1529 he was appointed historiographer to Charles V. He died
at Grenoble in 1535. A man of such vast and varied learning could hardly
in those days have avoided being accused of diabolical practices and
heretical opinions; the only wonder is that he was not burned alive for
his scientific attainments, which were looked upon as dangerous in the
highest degree. (_Pauline_ in the Latin prefatory note.)

="A King lived long ago."= Song in _Pippa Passes_, which is sung by the
girl as she passes the house of Luigi. Mr. Browning first published the
song in the _Monthly Repository_, in 1835 (vol ix., N.S., pp. 707-8), it
was reprinted with added lines, and was revised throughout, in _Pippa
Passes_ 1841.

=Alberic= (_Sordello_). Son of Eccelino the monk, described in the poem as
"many-muscled, big-boned Alberic."

=Alcestis= (_Balaustion's Adventure_), the daughter of Pelias, was the
wife of Admetus, son of Pheres, who was king of Pheræ in Thessaly. Apollo,
when--for an offence against Jupiter--he was banished from heaven, had
been kindly received by Pheres, and had obtained from the Fates a promise
that his benefactor should never die if he could find another person
willing to lay down his life for him. The story how this promise was
obtained is set forth with great dramatic force in Mr. Browning's _Apollo
and the Fates_ (_q.v._). Alcestis volunteered to die in the place of her
husband when he lay sick unto death. Her sacrifice was accepted, and she
died. But Hercules, who had been hospitably entertained by Pheres, hearing
of the tragic circumstance, brought Alcestis from Hades out of gratitude
to his host, and presented her to her grief-stricken husband. Euripides
has used these circumstances as the basis of his tragedy of _Alcestis_.

="All Service ranks the same with God."= A song in _Pippa Passes_.

=Amphibian.= The Prologue to _Fifine at the Fair_ is headed "Amphibian,"
under which title it is included in the _Selections_.

=Anael.= A Druse girl who loves Djabal and believes him to be divine (_The
Return of the Druses_).

=Andrea del Sarto= [THE MAN] _Men and Women_, 1855, called "the faultless
painter," also Andrea senza Errori (Andrew the Unerring) was a great
painter of the Florentine School. His father was a tailor (_sarto_), so
the Italians, with their passion for nicknames, dubbed him "The Tailor's
Andrew." He was born in Gualfonda, Florence, in 1487. It is not certain
what was his real name: Vannuchi has been constantly given, but without
authority. He was at first put to work with a goldsmith, but he disliked
the business, and preferred drawing his master's models. He was next
placed with a wood-carver and painter, one Gian Barill, with whom he
remained till 1498. He then went to the draughtsman and colourist, Piero
di Cosimo, under whom he studied the cartoons of Leonardo da Vinci and
Michelangelo. We next find him opening a shop in partnership with his
friend Francia Bigio, but the arrangement did not last long. The
brotherhood of the Servi employed Andrea from 1509 to 1514 in adorning
their church of the Annunziata at Florence. Mrs. Jameson, in her _Legends
of the Monastic Orders_, thus describes the church and cloisters
identified with the work of this painter at Florence: "Every one who has
been at Florence must remember the Church of the 'Annunziata'; every one
who remembers that glorious church, who has lingered in the cloisters and
the cortile where Andrea del Sarto put forth all his power--where the
_Madonna del Sacco_ and the _Birth of the Virgin_ attest what he could
_do_ and _be_ as a painter--will feel interested in the Order of the
SERVI. Among the extraordinary outbreaks of religious enthusiasm in the
thirteenth century, this was in its origin one of the most singular. Seven
Florentines, rich, noble, and in the prime of life, whom a similarity of
taste and feeling had drawn together, used to meet every day in a chapel
dedicated to the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin (then outside the
walls of Florence), there to sing the _Ave_ or evening service in honour
of the Madonna, for whom they had an especial love and veneration. They
became known and remarked in their neighbourhood for those acts of piety,
so that the women and children used to point at them as they passed
through the streets and exclaim, _Guardate i Servi di Maria_ (Behold the
_Servants_ of the Virgin!) Hence the title afterwards assumed by the
Order." These seven gentlemen at length forsook the world, sold all their
possessions and distributed their money to the poor, and retired to a
solitary spot in the mountains about six miles out of Florence; here they
built themselves huts of boughs and stones, and devoted themselves to the
service of the Virgin. It was for the cloisters of the church of the Servi
at Florence that Andrea del Sarto painted the _Riposo_. His _Nativity of
the B.V. Mary_ is a grand fresco, the characters are noble and dignified,
and "draped in the magnificent taste which distinguished Andrea." The
following account of the artist's life is summarised from the article on
Del Sarto by Mr. W. M. Rossetti in the _Encyc. Brit._ He was an easy-going
plebeian, to whom a modest position in life and scanty gains were no
grievances. As an artist he must have known his own value; but he probably
rested content in the sense of his superlative powers as an executant, and
did not aspire to the rank of a great inventor or leader, for which,
indeed, he had no vocation. He led a social sort of life among his
compeers of the art. He fell in love with Lucrezia del Fede, wife of a
hatter named Carlo Recanati; the latter dying opportunely, the tailor's
son married her on December 26th, 1512. She was a very handsome woman, and
has come down to us treated with great suavity in many a picture of her
lover-husband, who constantly painted her as a Madonna or otherwise; and
even in painting other women he made them resemble Lucrezia in general
type. Vasari, who was at one time a pupil of Andrea, describes her as
faithless, jealous, overbearing, and vixenish with the apprentices. She
lived to a great age, surviving her second husband forty years. Before the
end of 1516, a Pietà of his composition, and afterwards a Madonna, were
sent to the French Court. These were received with applause; and the
art-loving monarch Francis I. suggested in 1518 that Andrea should come to
Paris. He left his wife in Florence and went accordingly, and was very
cordially received, and moreover for the first time in his life handsomely
remunerated. His wife urged him to return to Italy. The king assented, on
the understanding that his absence was to be short; and he entrusted
Andrea with a sum of money to be expended in purchasing works of art for
the king. Andrea could not resist temptation, and spent the king's money
and some of his own in building a house for himself in Florence. He fell
into disgrace with the king, but no serious punishment followed. In 1520
he resumed work in Florence, and painted many pictures for the cloisters
of Lo Scalzo. He dwelt in Florence throughout the memorable siege, which
was followed by an infectious pestilence. He caught the malady, struggled
against it with little or no tending from his wife, who held aloof, and
died, no one knowing much about it at the moment, on January 22nd, 1531,
at the early age of forty-three. He was buried unceremoniously in the
church of the Servi. Mr. Rossetti gives the following criticisms on his
work as an artist. "Andrea had true pictorial style, a very high standard
of correctness, and an enviable balance of executive endowments. The point
of technique in which he excelled least was perhaps that of discriminating
the varying textures of different objects and surfaces. There is not much
elevation or ideality in his works--much more of reality." He lacked
invention notwithstanding his great technical skill. He had no inward
impulse toward the high and noble; he was a man without fervour, and had
no enthusiasm for the true and good. It is said that Michelangelo once
remarked that if he had attempted greater things he might have rivalled
Rafael, but Andrea was not a man for the mountain-top--the plains sufficed
for him.

[THE POEM.] On the bare historical facts, as recorded by Vasari in his
life of Andrea del Sarto, Mr. Browning has framed this wonderful art-poem.
He has taken Vasari's "notes" and framed "not another sound but a star,"
as he says in his _Abt Vogler_. Given the Vasari life, he has mixed it
with his thought, and has transfigured it so that the sad, infinitely
pathetic soul, in its stunted growth and wasted form, lives before us in
Mr. Browning's lines. As _Abt Vogler_ is his greatest music-poem, so this
is his greatest art-poem, and both are unique. No poet has ever given us
such utterances on music and painting as we possess in these works: if all
the poet's work were to perish save these, they would suffice to insure
immortality for their author. It is said that the poem was suggested by a
picture in the Pitti Palace at Florence. "Faultless but soulless" is the
verdict of art critics on Andrea's works. Why is this? Mr. Browning's poem
tells us in no hesitating phrase that the secret lay in the fact that
Andrea was an immoral man, an infatuated man, passionately demanding love
from a woman who had neither heart nor intellect, a wife for whom he
sacrificed his soul and the highest interests of his art. He knew and
loved Lucrezia while she was another man's wife; he was content that she
should also love other men when she was his. He robbed King Francis, his
generous patron, that he might give the money to his unworthy spouse. He
neglected his parents in their poverty and old age. Is there not in these
facts the secret of his failure? To Mr. Browning there is, and his poem
tells us why. But, it will be objected, many great geniuses have been
immoral men. This is so, but we cannot argue the point here; the poet's
purpose is to show how in this particular case the evil seed bore fruit
after its kind. The poem opens with the artist's attempts to bribe his
wife by money to accord him a little semblance of love: he promises to
paint that he may win gold for her. The keynote of the poem is struck in
these opening words. It is evening, and Andrea is weary with his work, but
never weary of praising Lucrezia's beauty; sadly he owns that he is at
best only a shareholder in his wife's affections, that even her pride in
him is gone, that she neither understands nor cares to understand his art.
He tells her that he can do easily and perfectly what at the bottom of his
heart he wishes for, deep as that might be; he could do what others
agonise to do all their lives and fail in doing, yet he knows for all that
there burns a truer light of God in them than in him. Their works drop
groundward, though their souls have glimpses of heaven that are denied to
him. He could have beaten Rafael had he possessed Rafael's soul; for the
Urbinate's technical skill, as he half hesitatingly shows, is inferior to
his own; and had his Lucrezia urged him, inspired him, to claim a seat by
the side of Michelangelo and Rafael, he might for her sake have done it.
He sees he is but a half-man working in an atmosphere of silver-grey. He
had his chance at Fontainebleau; there he sometimes seemed to leave the
ground, but he had a chain which dragged him down. Lucrezia called him.
Not only for her did he forsake the higher art ambitions, but the common
ground of honesty; he descended to cement his walls with the gold of King
Francis which he had stolen, and for her. From dishonesty to connivance at
his wife's infidelity is an easy step; and so, while in the act of
expressing his remorse at his ingratitude to the king, we find him asking
Lucrezia quite naturally, as a matter of ordinary occurrence--

                          "Must you go?
    That cousin here again? he waits outside?
    Must see you--you, and not with me?"

Here we discover the secret of the soullessness: the fellow has the tailor
in his blood, even though the artist is supreme at the fingers' ends. He
is but the craftsman after all. Think of Fra Angelico painting his saints
and angels on his knees, straining his eyes to catch the faintest glimpse
of the heavenly radiance of Our Lady's purity and holiness, feeling that
he failed, too dazzled by the brightness of Divine light, to catch more
than its shadow, and we shall know why there is soul in the great
Dominican painter, and why there is none in the Sarto. Lucrezia,
despicable as she was, was not the cause of her husband's failure. His
marriage, his treatment of Francis, his allowing his parents to starve, to
die of want, while he paid gaming debts for his wife's lover,--all these
things tell us what the man was. No woman ruined his soul; he had no soul
to ruin!

NOTES.--_Fiesole_, a small but famous episcopal city of Italy, on the
crown of a hill above the Arno, about three miles to the west of Florence.
_Morello_, a mountain of the Apennines. _The Urbinate_: Rafael was born at
Urbino. _George Vasari_, painter and author of the "Lives of the Most
Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors and Architects." _Rafael_, Raphael
Sanzio of Urbino. _Agnolo_: Michel Agnolo is the more correct form of
Michael Angelo. _Francis_, King Francis I. of France, the royal patron of
Andrea. _Fontainebleau_, a town of France 37 miles S.E. of Paris; its
palace is one of the most sumptuous in France. "_The Roman's is the better
when you pray._" Catholics, however, do not use the works of the great
masters for devotional purposes nearly so much as might be supposed. No
"miraculous" picture is by this class. _Cue-owls_: The Scops Owl: Scops
Giú (Scopoli). Its cry is a ringing "ki-ou"--whence Italian "chiù" or
"ciù." "_Walls in the New Jerusalem._" Revelation xxi. 15-17. _Leonard_,
Leonardo da Vinci.

=Andromeda.= In _Pauline_, Mr. Browning has commemorated the fascination
for his youthful mind which was exercised by an engraving of a picture by
Caravaggio of Andromeda and Perseus. This picture was always before him as
a boy, and he loved the story of the divine deliverer and the innocent
victim which it presented. The lines begin

                "Andromeda!
    And she is with me,--years roll, I shall change,
    But change can touch her not."

=Another Way of Love.= See _One Way of Love_, this poem being its sequel.

=Any Wife to Any Husband.= A dying wife finds the bitterest thing in death
to be the certainty that her husband's love for her, which, would life but
last, she could retain, will fade and wither when she is no longer present
to tend it:

          "Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
    'Tis woman's whole existence."

The great pure love of a wife is a reign of love. Woman's love is more
durable and purer than man's, and few men are entirely worthy of being the
objects of that which they can so imperfectly understand. Mr. Nettleship,
commenting on this poem, very truly says, "The real love of the man is
never born until the love of the woman supplements it." The wife of the
poem feels that there would be no difficulty in her case about being
faithful to the memory of her husband; but she foresees that his love will
not long survive the loss of her personal presence. This will be to
depreciate the value of his life to him; his love will come back to her
again at last, back to the heart's place kept for him, but with a stain
upon it. The old love will be re-coined, re-issued from the mint, and
given to others to spend, alas! with some alloy as well as with a new
image and superscription. She foresees that he will dissipate his soul in
the love of other woman, he will excuse himself by the assurance that the
light loves will make no impression on the deep-set memory of the woman
who is immortally his bride; he will have a Titian's Venus to desecrate
his wall rather than leave it bare and cold,--but the flesh-loves will not
impair the soul-love.

=Apollo and the Fates.= (See Prologue to _Parleyings_.) Apollo (the Sun
God), having offended Jupiter by slaying the Cyclopes, who forged his
thunderbolts by which he had killed Æsculapius for bringing dead men to
life, had been banished from heaven. He became servant to Admetus, king of
Thessaly, in whose employment he remained nine years as one of his
shepherds. He was treated with great kindness by his master, and they
became true lovers of each other. When Apollo, restored to the favour of
heaven, had left the service of Admetus and resumed his god-like offices,
he heard that his old master and friend was sick unto death, and he
determined to save his life. Accordingly he descended on Mount Parnassus,
and penetrated to the abode of the Fates, in the dark regions below the
roots of the mountains, and there he found the three who preside over the
destinies of mankind--Clotho with her distaff, Lachesis with her spindle,
and Atropos with a pair of scissors about to cut the thread of Admetus'
life--and begins to plead for the life of his friend Admetus, whom Atropos
has just doomed to death. The Fates bid Apollo go back to earth and wake
it from dreams. Apollo demands a truce to their doleful amusement, and
requests them to extend the years of Admetus to threescore and ten. The
Fates ask him if he thinks it would add to his friend's joy to have his
life lengthened, seeing that life is only illusion? Infancy is but
ignorance and mischief, youth becomes foolishness, and age churlishness.
Apollo should ask for life for one whom he hates, not for the friend he
loves. The Sun's beams produce such semblance of good as exists by simply
gilding the evil. Apollo objects that if it were happier to die, men's
greeting would not be "Long life!" but "Death to you!" Man loves his life,
and he ought to know best. The Fates say this is all the glamour shed by
Apollo's rays. Apollo concedes that man desponds when debarred of
illusion: "suppose he has in himself some compensative law?" and the God
then produces a bowl of wine, man's invention, of which he invites them to
taste. The Fates, after some objection, drink and get tipsy and merry,
Atropos even declaring she could live at a pinch! Apollo delivers them a
lecture; he tells them Bacchus invented the wine; as he was the youngest
of the gods, he had to discover some new gift whereby to claim the homage
of man. He tampered with nothing already arranged, yet would introduce
change without shock. As the sunbeams and Apollo had transformed the
Fates' cavern without displacing a splinter, so has the gift of Bacchus
turned the adverse things of life to a kindlier aspect; man accepts the
good with the bad, and acquiesces in his fate; this is the work of Zeus.
He demands of the Fates if, after all, Life be so devoid of good? "Quashed
be our quarrel!" they exclaim, and they dance till an explosion from the
earth's centre brings them to their senses once more, and the pact is
dissolved. They learn that the powers above them are not to be cajoled
into interfering with the laws of life and the inevitable decrees of which
the Fates are but the ministers. At last they agree to lengthen the life
of Admetus if any mortal can be found to forgo the fulfilment of his own
life on his account. Apollo protests that the king's subjects will strive
with one another for the glory of dying that their king may survive. First
in all Pheræ will his father offer himself as his son's substitute. "Bah!"
says Clotho. "Then his mother," suggests Apollo; "or, spurning the
exchange, the king may choose to die." With the jeers of the three the
scene closes. Mr. Browning's lovely poem _Balaustion's Adventure_ should
be read next after this, as the Prologue to the _Parleyings_ has little or
no relation to the rest of the volume.

NOTES.--_Parnassus_, a mountain of Greece, sacred to the Muses and Apollo
and Bacchus. _Dire ones_, the Fates, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos.
_Admetus_, the husband of Alcestis, whose wife died to save his life. _The
Fates_, the Destinies, the goddesses supposed to preside over human life:
_Clotho_, who spins the thread of life; _Lachesis_, who determines the
length of the thread; _Atropos_, who cuts it off. _Woe-purfled_,
embroidered with woe. _Weal-prankt_, decked out with prosperity. _Moirai_,
the Parcæ, the Fates. _Zeus_, Jupiter, the Supreme Being. _Eld_, old age.
_Sweet Trine_, the Three, the Trinity of Fates. _Bacchus_, the Wine-God.
_Semele's Son_: Semele was the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia; when Zeus
appeared to her in his Divine splendour she was consumed by the flames and
gave birth to Bacchus, whom Zeus saved from the fire and hid in his thigh.
Bacchus, when made a god, raised her to heaven under the name of Thyone.
_Swound_, a swoon. _Cummers_, gossips, female acquaintances. _Collyrium_,
eye-wash. _Pheræ_, a town in Thessaly, where King Pheres reigned, who was
the father of Admetus.

=Apparent Failure.= (_Dramatis Personæ_, 1864.) Mr. Ruskin has laboured
hard to save St. Mark's, Venice, from the destroying hand of the restorer.
Mr. Browning wrote this poem to save from complete destruction a much less
important, though a celebrated building, the Paris Morgue, the deadhouse
wherein are exposed the bodies of persons found dead, that they may be
claimed by their friends. The Doric little Morgue is close to Notre Dame,
on the banks of the Seine, and is one of the sights of Paris--repulsive as
it is--which everybody makes a point of seeing. The poet entered the
building and saw behind the great screen of glass three bodies exposed for
identification on the copper couch fronting him. They were three men who
had killed themselves, and the poet mentally questions them why they
abhorred their lives so much. You "poor boy" wanted to be an emperor,
forsooth; you "old one" were a red socialist, and this next one fell a
prey to misdirected love. The three deadly sins of Pride, Covetousness,
and Lust had each its victim. And before them stands the poet of optimism,
not staggered in his doctrine even by this sad sight. Not for a moment
does his faith fail that "what God blessed once can never prove accurst."
His optimism in this poem is at high-water mark; where some weak-kneed
believers in humanity would have found a breaking link in the chain, Mr.
Browning sees but "apparent failure," and declines to believe the doom of
these poor wrecks of souls to be final.

=Apparitions.= (Introduction to _The Two Poets of Croisic_, 1878.) This
exquisite poem is a tribute to the charm exercised by a human face, from
which looks out God's own smile, gladdening a cold and scowling prospect
as a burst of May soon dispels the lingering chills of winter.

=Appearances.= (_Pacchiarotto, with other Poems_, 1876.) Metaphysicians
would explain this poem by an essay on the association of ideas; strong as
imagination is, it can never exceed experience which has come to us
through sight. Feelings are associated with one another according as they
have been operant in more or less frequent succession. Reasoning may
associate ideas, but for force and permanence our actual sight, and
contact are the wonder-workers in this department of soul-life. Nothing
can beautify the place where we have in the past suffered some great
mental distress or wrong; so no place can ever be unbeautiful where the
true lover wins his life's prize. When the upholsterer's art does more for
a room than the memory of a first love, that love is not of the eternal
sort our poet sings.

=Aprile.= The Italian poet who sought to love, as Paracelsus sought to
know. He represents the Renaissance spirit in its emotional aspect, as
Paracelsus represents the spirit of the Reformation in its passion for
knowledge. As Mr. Browning says, they were the "two halves of a dissevered
world." (_Paracelsus._)

=Arcades Ambo.= (_Asolando_, 1889.) If a man runs away in battle when the
balls begin to fly, we call him a coward. He may excuse himself by the
argument that man must at all risks shun death. This is the excuse made by
the vivisector: he is often a kind and amiable man in every other relation
of life than in that aspect of his profession which demands, as he holds,
the torture of living animals for the advancement of the healing art.
Health of the body must be preserved at all costs; the moral health is of
little or no consequence in comparison with that of the body; above all we
must not die, death is the one thing to be avoided, hide therefore from
the darts of the King of Terrors behind the whole creation of lower
animals. Mr. Browning says this is cowardice exactly parallel with that of
the soldier who runs away in battle; the principle being that at all costs
life is the one thing to be preserved. The Anti-Vivisectionist principles
of Mr. Browning were very pronounced. He was for many years associated
with Miss F. P. Cobbe in her efforts to suppress the practice of torturing
animals for scientific purposes, and was a Vice-President of the Victoria
Street Society for the Protection of Animals from Vivisection at the time
of his death. See my _Browning's Message to his Time_ (chapter on
"Browning and Vivisection").

=Aristophanes=, the celebrated comic poet of Athens, was born probably
about the year 448 B.C. His first comedy was brought out in 427 B.C. Plato
in his _Symposium_ gives Aristophanes a position at the side of Socrates.
The festivals of Dionysus greatly promoted the production of tragedies,
comedies and satiric dramas. The greater Dionysia were held in the city of
Athens in the month of March, and were connected with the natural feeling
of joy at the approach of summer. These Bacchanalian festivals were scenes
of gross licentiousness, and the coarseness which pervades much of the
work of the great Greek comedian was due to the fact that the popular
taste demanded grossness of allusion on occasions like these. The Athenian
dramatist of the old school was entirely unrestrained. He could satirise
even the Eleusinian mysteries, could deal abundantly in personalities,
burlesque the most sacred subjects, and ridicule the most prominent
persons in the republic. Professor Jebb, in his article on Aristophanes in
the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, says: "It is neither in the denunciation
nor in the mockery that he is most individual. His truest and highest
faculty is revealed by those wonderful bits of lyric writing in which he
soars above everything that can move to laughter or tears, and makes the
clear air thrill with the notes of a song as free, as musical and as wild
as that of the nightingale invoked by his own chorus in the _Birds_. The
speech of Dikaios Logos in the _Clouds_, the praises of country life in
the _Peace_, the serenade in the _Eccleziazusæ_, the songs of the Spartan
and Athenian maidens in the _Lysistrata_; above all, perhaps, the chorus
in the _Frogs_, the beautiful chant of the Initiated,--these passages, and
such as these, are the true glories of Aristophanes. They are the strains,
not of an artist, but of one who warbles for pure gladness of heart in
some place made bright by the presence of a god. Nothing else in Greek
poetry has quite this wild sweetness of the woods. Of modern poets
Shakespeare alone, perhaps, has it in combination with a like richness and
fertility of fancy." Fifty-four comedies were ascribed to Aristophanes. We
possess only eleven: these deal with Athenian life during a period of
thirty-six years. The political satires of the poet, therefore, cannot be
understood without a knowledge of Athenian history, and an acquaintance
with its life during the period in which the poet wrote. "Aristophanes was
a natural conservative," says Professor Jebb; "his ideal was the Athens of
the Persian wars. He detested the vulgarity and the violence of mob-rule;
he clove to the old worship of the gods; he regarded the new ideas of
education as a tissue of imposture and impiety. As a mocker he is
incomparable for the union of subtlety with wit of the comic imagination.
As a poet he is immortal." The momentous period in the history of Greece
during which Aristophanes began to write, forms the groundwork, more or
less, of so many of his comedies, that it is impossible to understand
them, far less to appreciate their point, without some acquaintance with
its leading events. All men's thoughts were occupied by the great contest
for supremacy between the rival states of Athens and Sparta, known as the
Peloponnesian War. It is not necessary here to enter into details; but the
position of the Athenians during the earlier years of the struggle must be
briefly described. Their strength lay chiefly in their fleet; in the other
arms of war they were confessedly no match for Sparta and her confederate
allies. The heavy-armed Spartan infantry, like the black Spanish bands of
the fifteenth century, was almost irresistible in the field. Year after
year the invaders marched through the Isthmus into Attica, or were landed
in strong detachments on different points of the coast, while the powerful
Boeotian cavalry swept all the champaign, burning the towns and
villages, cutting down the crops, destroying vines and
olive-groves,--carrying this work of devastation almost up to the very
walls of Athens. For no serious attempt was made to resist these
periodical invasions. The strategy of the Athenians was much the same as
it had been when the Persian hosts swept down upon them fifty years
before. Again they withdrew themselves and all their movable property
within the city walls, and allowed the invaders to overrun the country
with impunity. Their flocks and herds were removed into the islands on the
coasts, where, so long as Athens was mistress of the sea, they would be in
comparative safety. It was a heavy demand upon their patriotism; but, as
before, they submitted to it, trusting that the trial would be but brief,
and nerved to it by the stirring words of their great leader Pericles. The
ruinous sacrifice, and even the personal suffering, involved in this
forced migration of a rural population into a city wholly inadequate to
accommodate them, may easily be imagined, even if it had not been forcibly
described by the great historian of those times. Some carried with them
the timber framework of their homes, and set it up in such vacant spaces
as they could find. Others built for themselves little "chambers on the
wall," or occupied the outer courts of the temples, or were content with
booths and tents set up under the Long Walls, which connected the city
with the harbour of Piræus. Some--if our comic satirist is to be
trusted--were even fain to sleep in tubs and hen-coops. Provisions grew
dear and scarce. Pestilence broke out in the overcrowded city; and in the
second and third years of the war the great plague carried off, out of
their comparatively small population, about 10,000 of all ranks. But it
needed a pressure of calamity far greater than the present to keep a good
citizen of Athens away from the theatre. If the times were gloomy, so much
the more need of a little honest diversion. The comic drama was to the
Athenians what a free press is to modern commonwealths. It is probable
that Aristophanes was himself earnestly opposed to the continuance of the
war, and spoke his own sentiments on this point by the mouth of his
characters; but the prevalent disgust at the hardships of this
long-continued siege--for such it practically was--would in any case be a
tempting subject for the professed writer of burlesques; and the
caricature of a leading politician, if cleverly drawn, is always a success
for the author. The _Thesmophoriazusæ_ is a comedy about the fair sex,
whose whole point--like that also of the comedy of the _Frogs_--lies in a
satire upon Euripides. Aristophanes never wearied of holding this poet up
to ridicule. Why this was so is not to be discovered: it may have been
that the conservative principles of Aristophanes were offended by some
new-fashioned ideas of his brother poet. The _Thesmophoria_ was a festival
of women only, in honour of Ceres and Proserpine. Euripides was reputed to
be a woman-hater: in one of his tragedies he says,

    "O thou most vile! thou--_woman!_--for what word
    That lips could frame, could carry more reproach?"

He can hardly, however, have been a woman-hater who created the beautiful
characters of Iphigenia and Alcestis. In this comedy the Athenian ladies
have resolved to punish Euripides, and the poet is in dismay in
consequence, and takes measures to defend himself. He offers terms of
peace to the offended fair sex, and promises never to abuse them in
future.

=Aristophanes' Apology=; including a Transcript from Euripides, being the
last adventure of Balaustion. London, 1875.--As Aristophanes' Apology is
the last adventure of Balaustion, it is necessary to read _Balaustion's
Adventure_ (_q.v._) before commencing this poem. Balaustion has married
Euthukles, the young man whom she met at Syracuse. She has met the great
poet Euripides, paid her homage to his genius, and has received from his
own hands his tragedy of _Hercules_. The poet is dead, and Athens fallen.
She returns to the city after its capture by the Spartans, but she can no
longer remain therein. Athens will live in her heart, but never again can
she behold the place where ghastly mirth mocked its overthrow and death
and hell celebrated their triumph. She has left the doomed city, now that
it is no longer the free Athens of happier times, and has set sail with
her husband for Rhodes. The glory of the material Athens has departed. But
Athens will live as a glorious spiritual entity--

    "That shall be better and more beautiful,
    And too august for Sparté's foot to spurn!"

She and Euthukles are exiles from the dead Athens, not the living: "That's
in the cloud there, with the new-born star!" As they voyage, for her
consolation she will record her recollections of her Euripides in Athens,
and she bids her husband set down her words as she speaks. She must "speak
to the infinite intelligence, sing to the everlasting sympathy." There are
dead things that are triumphant still; the walls of intellectual
construction can never be overthrown; there are air-castles more real and
permanent than the work of men's hands. She will tell of Euripides and his
undying work. She recalls the night when Athens was still herself, when
they heard the news that Euripides was dead--"gone with his Attic ivy home
to feast." Dead and triumphant still! She reflected how the Athenian
multitude had ever reproached him: "All thine aim thine art, the idle poet
only." It was not enough in those times that thought should be "the soul
of art." The Greek world demanded activity as well as contemplation. The
poet must leave his study to command troops, forsake the world of ideas
for that of action, otherwise he was a "hater of his kind." The world is
content with you if you do nothing for it; if you do aught you must do
all. But when Euripides was at rest, censorious tongues ceased to wag, and
the next thing to do was to build a monument for him! But for the hearts
of Balaustion and her husband no statue is required: he stood within their
hearts. The pure-souled woman says, "What better monument can be than the
poem he gave me? Let him speak to me now in his own words; have out the
Herakles and re-sing the song; hear him tell of the last labour of the
god, worst of all the twelve." And lovingly and reverently the precious
gift of the poet was taken from its shrine and opened for the reading.
Suddenly torchlight, knocking at the door, a cry "Open, open! Bacchos
bids!" and a sound of revelry and the drunken voices of girl dancers and
players, led by Aristophanes, the comic poet of Greece. A splendid
presence, "all his head one brow," drunk, but in him sensuality had become
a rite. Mind was here, passions, but grasped by the strong hand of
intellect. Balaustion rose and greeted him. "Hail house," he said,
"friendly to Euripides!" and he spoke flatteringly, but in a slightly
mocking tone, as men who are sensual defer to spiritual women whom they
rather affect to pity while they admire. Balaustion loves genius; to her
mind it is the noblest gift of heaven: she can bow to Aristophanes though
he is drunk. (Greek intoxication was doubtless a very different thing from
Saxon!) The comic poet had just achieved a great triumph: his comedy had
been crowned. The "Women's Festival" (the _Thesmophoriazusæ_ as it was
called in Greek) was a play in which the fair sex had the chief part. It
was written against Euripides' dislike of women, for which the women who
are celebrating the great feast of Ceres and Proserpine (the Thesmophoria)
drag him to justice. And so, with all his chorus troop, he comes to the
home of Balaustion, as representing the Euripides whom he disliked and
satirised, to celebrate his success. The presence of Balaustion has
stripped the proper Aristophanes of his "accidents," and under her
searching gaze he stands undisguised to be questioned. She puts him on his
defence, and hence the "Apology." He recognises the divine in her, and she
in him. The discussion, therefore, will be on the principles underlying
the works of Euripides, the man of advance, the pioneer of the newer and
better age to come, and those of the conservative apologist of
prescription, Aristophanes the aristocrat. He defends his first
_Thesmophoriazusæ_, which failed; his _Grasshopper_, which followed and
failed also. There was reason why he wrote both: he painted the world as
it was, mankind as they lived and walked, not human nature as seen though
the medium of the student's closet. "Old wine's the wine; new poetry
drinks raw." The friend of Socrates might weave his fancies, but flesh and
blood like that of Aristophanes needs stronger meat. "Curds and whey"
might suit Euripides, the Apologist must have marrowy wine. The author of
the _Alkestis_, which Balaustion raved about, was but a prig: he wrote of
wicked kings. Aristophanes came nearer home, and attacked infamous abuses
of the time, and scourged too with tougher thong than leek-and-onion
plait. He wrote _The Birds_, _The Clouds_, and _The Wasps_. The
poison-drama of Euripides has mortified the flesh of the men of Athens, so
nothing but warfare can purge it. The play that failed last year he has
rearranged; he added men to match the women there already, and had a hit
at a new-fangled plan by which women should rule affairs. It succeeded,
and so they all flocked merrily to feast, and merrily they supped till
something happened,--he will confess its influence upon him. Towards the
end of the feast there was a sudden knock: in came an old pale-swathed
majesty, who addressed the priest, "Since Euripides is dead to-day, my
choros, at the Greater Feast next month, shall, clothed in black, appear
ungarlanded!" Sophocles (for it was he) mutely passed outwards and left
them stupefied. Soon they found their tongues and began to make satiric
comment, but Aristophanes swore that at the moment death to him seemed
life and life seemed death. The play of which he had made a laughingstock
had meaning he had never seen till now. The question who was the greater
poet, once so large, now became so small. He remembers his last discussion
with the dead poet, two years since, when he said, "Aristophanes, you know
what kind's the nobler--what makes grave or what makes grin!" He pointed
out why his Ploutos failed: he had tried, alas! but with force which had
been spent on base things, to paint the life of Man. The strength demanded
for the race had been wasted ere the race began. Such thoughts as these,
long to relate, but floating through the mind as solemn convictions are
wont to do, occupied him till the Archon, the Feast-Master, divining what
was passing in his mind, thought best to close the feast. He gave "To the
good genius, then!" as a parting cup. Young Strattis cried, "Ay, the Comic
Muse"; but Aristophanes, stopping the applause, said, "Stay! the Tragic
Muse" (in honour of the dead Tragic Poet), and then he told of all the
work of the man who had gone from them. But he had mocked at him so often
that his audience would not believe him to be serious now, and burst into
laughter, exclaiming, "The unrivalled one! He turns the Tragic on its
Comic side!" He felt that he was growing ridiculous, and had to repair
matters; so he thanked them for laughing with him, and also those who wept
rather with the Lord of Tears, and bade the priest--president alike over
the Tragic and Comic function of the god,--

    "Help with libation to the blended twain!"

praising complex poetry operant for body as for soul, able to move to
laughter and to tears, supreme in heaven and earth. The soul should not be
unbodied; he would defend man's double nature. But, even as he spoke, he
turned to the memory of "Cold Euripides," and declared that he would not
abate attack if he were to encounter him again, because of his
principle--"Raise soul, sink sense, Evirate Hermes!" And so, as they left
the feast, he asked his friends to accompany him to Balaustion's home, to
the lady and her husband who, passionate admirers of Euripides, had not
been present on his triumph-day. When they heard the night's news,
neither, he knew, would sleep, but watch; by right of his crown of triumph
he would pay them a visit. Balaustion said, "Commemorate, as we,
Euripides!" "What?" cried the comic poet, "profane the temple of your
deity!--for deity he was, though as for himself he only figured on men's
drinking mugs. And then, as his glance fell on the table, he saw the
Herakles which the Tragic Poet had given to Balaustion. "Give me the
sheet," he asks. She interrupted, "You enter fresh from your worst infamy,
last instance of a long outrage--throw off hate's celestiality, show me a
mere man's hand ignobly clenched against the supreme calmness of the dead
poet." Scarcely noticing her, he said, "Dead and therefore safe; only
after death begins immunity of faultiness from punishment. Hear Art's
defence. Comedy is coeval with the birth of freedom, its growth matches
the greatness of the Republic. He found the Comic Art a club, a means of
inflicting punishment without downright slaying: was he to thrash only the
crass fool and the clownish knave, or strike at malpractice that affects
the State? His was not the game to change the customs of Athens, lead age
or youth astray, play the demagogue at the Assembly or the sophist at the
Debating Club, or (worst and widest mischief) preach innovation from the
theatre, bring contempt on oaths, and adorn licentiousness. And so he
new-tipped with steel his cudgel, he had demagogues in coat-of-mail and
cased about with impudence to chastise; he was spiteless, for his attack
went through the mere man to reach the principle worth purging from
Athens. He did not attack Lamachos, but war's representative; not Cleon,
but flattery of the populace; not Socrates, but the pernicious seed of
sophistry, whereby youth was perverted to chop logic and worship
whirligig. His first feud with Euripides was when he maintained that we
should enjoy life as we find it instead of magnifying our miseries.
Euripides would talk about the empty name, while the thing's self lay
neglected beneath his nose. Aristophanes represented the whole
Republic,--gods, heroes, priests, legislators, poets--all these would have
been in the dust, pummelled into insignificance, had Euripides had his
way. To him heroes were no more, hardly so much, as men. Men were ragged,
sick, lame, halt, and blind, their speech but street terms; and so, having
drawn sky earthwards, he must next lift earth to sky. Women, once mere
puppets, must match the male in thinking, saying, doing. The very slave he
recognised as man's mate. There are no gods. Man has no master, owns
neither right nor wrong, does what he likes, himself his sole law. As
there are no gods, there is only "Necessity" above us. No longer to
Euripides is there one plain positive enunciation, incontestable, of what
is good, right, decent here on earth. And so Euripides triumphed, though
he rarely gained a prize. And Aristophanes, wielding the comic weapon,
closed with the enemy in good honest hate, called Euripides one name and
fifty epithets. He hates "sneaks whose art is mere desertion of a trust."
And so he doses each culprit with comedy, doctors the word-monger with
words. Socrates he nicknames chief quack, necromancer; Euripides--well, he
acknowledges every word is false if you look at it too close, but at a
distance all is indubitable truth behind the lies. Aristophanes declares
the essence of his teaching to be, Accept the old, contest the strange,
misdoubt every man whose work is yet to do, acknowledge the work already
done. Religion, laws, are old--that is, so much achieved and victorious
truth, wrung from adverse circumstance by heroic men who beat the world
and left their work in evidence. It was Euripides who caused the fight,
and Aristophanes has beaten him; if, however, Balaustion can adduce
anything to contravene this, let her say on." Balaustion replies that she
is but a mere mouse confronting the forest monarch, a woman with no
quality, but the love of all things lovable. How should she dare deny the
results he says his songs are pregnant with? She is a foreigner too. Many
perhaps view things too severely, as dwellers in some distant isles,--the
Cassiterides, for example,--ignorant and lonely, who seeing some statue of
Phidias or picture of Teuxis, might feebly judge that hair and hands and
fashion of garb, not being like their own, must needs be wrong. So her
criticism of art may be equally in fault as theirs, nevertheless she will
proceed if she may. "Comedy, you say, is prescription and a rite; it rose
with Attic liberty, and will fall with freedom; but your games, Olympian,
Pythian and the others, the gods gave you these; and Comedy, did it come
so late that your grandsires can remember its beginning? And you were
first to change buffoonery for wit, and filth for cleanly sense. You
advocate peace, support religion, lash irreverence, yet rebuke
superstition with a laugh. Innovation and all change you attack: with you
the oldest always is the best; litigation, mob rule and mob favourites you
attack; you are hard on sophists and poets who assist them: snobs, scamps,
and gluttons you do not spare,--all these noble aims originated with you!
Yet Euripides in Cresphontes sang Peace before you! Play after play of his
troops tumultuously to confute your boast. No virtue but he praised, no
vice but he condemned ere you were boy! As for your love of peace, you did
not show your audience that war was wrong, but Lamachos absurd, not that
democracy was blind, but Cleon a sham, not superstition vile but Nicias
crazy. You gave the concrete for the abstract, you pretended to be earnest
while you were only indifferent. You tickled the mob with the idea that
peace meant plenty of good things to eat, while in camp the fare is hard
and stinted. Peace gives your audience flute girls and gaiety. War freezes
the campaigners in the snow. And so, with all the rest you advocate; do
not go to law: beware of the Wasps! but as for curing love of lawsuits,
you exhibit cheating, brawling, fighting, cursing as capital fun! And when
the writer of the new school attacks the vile abuses of the day,
straightway to conserve the good old way, you say the rascal cannot read
or write, is extravagant, gets somebody to help his sluggish mind, and
lets him court his wife; his uncle deals in crockery, and himself--a
stranger! And so the poet-rival is chased out of court. And this is
Comedy, our sacred song, censor of vice and virtue's safeguard! You are
indignant with sophistry, and say there is but a single side to man and
thing; but the sophists at least wish their pupils to believe what they
teach, and to practise what they believe; can you wish that? Assume I am
mistaken: have you made them end the war? Has your antagonist Euripides
succeeded better? He spoke to a dim future, and I trust truth's inherent
kingliness. 'Arise and go: both have done honour to Euripides!'" But
Aristophanes demands direct defence, and not oblique by admonishment of
himself. Balaustion tells him that last year Sophocles was declared by his
son to be of unsound mind, and for defence his father just recited a
chorus chant of his last play. The one adventure of her life that made
Euripides her friend was the story of Hercules and Alcestis. When she met
the author last, he said, "I sang another Hercules; it gained no prize,
but take it--your love the prize! And so the papyrus, with the pendent
style, and the psalterion besides, he gave her: by this should she
remember the friend who loved Balaustion once. May I read it as defence? I
read." [The HERAKLES, or Raging Hercules of Euripides, is translated
literally by Mr. Browning on the principles which he laid down in the
preface to the Agamemnon. In Potter's _Translation of the Tragedies of
Euripides_ we have the following from the introduction to the play: "The
first scenes of this tragedy are very affecting; Euripides knew the way to
the heart, and as often as his subject leads him to it, he never fails to
excite the tenderest pity. We are relieved from this distress by the
unexpected appearance of Hercules, who is here drawn in his private
character as the most amiable of men: the pious son, the affectionate
husband, and the tender father win our esteem as much as the unconquered
hero raises our admiration. Here the feeling reader will perhaps wish that
the drama had ended, for the next scenes are dreadful indeed, and it must
be confessed that the poet has done his subject terrible justice, but
without any of that absurd extravagance which, in Seneca becomes _un
tintamarre horrible qui se passe dans le tête de ce Héros devenu fou_.
From the violent agitation into which we are thrown by these deeds of
honour, we are suffered by degrees to subside into the tenderest grief, in
which we are prepared before to sympathise with the unhappy Hercules by
that esteem which his amiable disposition had raised in us; and this
perhaps is the most affecting scene of sorrow that ever was produced in
any theatre. Upon the whole, though this tragedy may not be deemed the
most agreeable by the generality of readers, on account of the too
dreadful effects of the madness of Hercules, yet the various turns of
fortune are finely managed, the scenes of distress highly wrought, and the
passions of pity, terror and grief strongly touched. The scene is at
Thebes before the palace of Hercules. The persons of the
Drama--Amphitryon, Megara, Lycus, Hercules, Iris, Lyssa (the goddess of
madness), Theseus, Messenger; Chorus of aged Thebans."] They were silent
after the reading for a long time. "Our best friend--lost, our best
friend!" mused Aristophanes, "and who is our best friend?" He then
instances in reply a famous Greek game, known as _kottabos_, played in
various ways, but the latest with a sphere pierced with holes. When the
orb is set rolling, and wine is adroitly thrown a figure suspended in a
certain position can be struck by the fluid; but its only chance of
being so hit is when it fronts just that one outlet. So with Euripides: he
gets his knowledge merely from one single aperture--that of the High and
Right; till he fronts this he writes no play. When the hole and his head
happen to correspond, in drops the knowledge that Aristophanes can make
respond to every opening--Low, Wrong, Weak; all the apertures bring him
knowledge; he gets his wine at every turn; why not? Evil and Little are
just as natural as Good and Great, and he demands to know them, and not
one phase of life alone. So that he is the "best friend of man." No doubt,
if in one man the High and Low could be reconciled, in tragi-comic verse
he would be superior to both when born in the Tin Islands (as he
eventually was in the person of Shakespeare). He will sing them a song of
Thamyris, the Thracian bard, who boasted that he could rival the Muses,
and was punished by them by being deprived of sight and voice and the
power of playing the lute. Before he had finished the song, however, he
laughed, "Tell the rest who may!" He had not tried to match the muse and
sing for gods; he sang for men, and of the things of common life. He bids
this couple farewell till the following year, and departs. In a year many
things had happened. Aristophanes had produced his play, _The Frogs_. It
had been rapturously applauded, and the author had been crowned; he is now
the people's "best friend." He had satirised Euripides more vindictively
than before; he had satirised even the gods and the Eleusinian Mysteries;
and, in the midst of the "frog merriment," Lysander, the Spartan, had
captured Athens, and his first word to the people was, "Pull down your
long walls: the place needs none!" He gave them three days to wreck their
proud bulwarks, and the people stood stupefied, stonier than their walls.
The time expired, and when Lysander saw they had done nothing, he ordered
all Athens to be levelled in the dust. Then stood forth Euthukles,
Balaustion's husband, and "flung that choice flower," a snatch of a
tragedy of Euripides, the _Electra_; then--

    "Because Greeks are Greeks, though Sparté's brood,
    And hearts are hearts, though in Lusandros' breast,
    And poetry is power, and Euthukles
    Had faith therein to, full face, fling the same--
    Sudden, the ice thaw!"

And the assembled foe cried, "Reverence Elektra! Let stand Athenai!" and
so, as Euripides had saved the Athenian exiles in Syracuse harbour, now he
saved Athens herself. But her brave long walls were destroyed, destroyed
to sound of flute and lyre, wrecked to the kordax step, and laid in the
dust to the mocking laughter of a Comedy-chorus. And so no longer would
Balaustion remain to see the shame of the beloved city. "Back to Rhodes!"
she cried. "There are no gods, no gods! Glory to God--who saves
Euripides!" [The long walls of Athens consisted of the wall to Phalerum on
the east, about four miles long, and of the wall to the harbour of Piraeus
on the west, about four and a half miles long; between these two, at a
short distance from the latter and parallel to it, another wall was
erected, thus making two walls leading to the Piraeus, with a narrow
passage between them. The entire circuit of the walls was nearly
twenty-two miles, of which about five and a half miles belonged to the
city, nine and a half to the long walls, and seven miles to Piraeus,
Munychia, and Phalerum.]

Plutarch, in his life of Lysander, tells how Euripides saved Athens from
destruction and the Athenians from slavery:--"After Lysander had taken
from the Athenians all their ships except twelve, and their fortifications
were delivered up to him, he entered their city on the sixteenth of the
month Munychon (April), the very day they had overthrown the barbarians in
the naval fight at Salamis. He presently set himself to change their form
of government; and finding that the people resented his proposal, he told
them 'that they had violated the terms of their capitulation, for their
walls were still standing after the time fixed for the demolishing of them
was passed; and that, since they had broken the first articles, they must
expect new ones from the council.' Some say he really did propose, in the
council of the allies, to reduce the Athenians to slavery; and that
Erianthis, a Theban officer, gave it as his opinion that the city should
be levelled with the ground, and the spot on which it stood turned to
pasturage. Afterwards, however, when the general officers met at an
entertainment, a musician of Phocis happened to begin a chorus in the
_Electra_ of Euripides, the first lines of which are these--

    'Unhappy daughter of the great Atrides,
    Thy straw-crowned palace I approach.'

The whole company were greatly moved at this incident, and could not help
reflecting how barbarous a thing it would be to raze that noble city,
which had produced so many great and illustrious men. Lysander, however,
finding the Athenians entirely in his power, collected the musicians of
the city, and having joined to them the band belonging to the camp, pulled
down the walls, and burned the ships, to the sound of their instruments."

NOTES. [The pages are those of the complete edition, in 16 vols.]--P. 3,
_Euthukles_, the husband of Balaustion, whom she met first at Syracuse. p.
4, _Koré_, the daughter of Ceres, the same as Proserpine. p. 6,
_Peiraios_, the principal harbour of Athens, with which it was connected
by the long walls; "_walls, long double-range Themistoklean_": after
Themistocles, the Athenian general, who planned the fortifications of
Athens; _Dikast_ and _heliast_: the Dikast was the judge (_dike_, a suit,
was the term for a civil process); the heliasts were jurors, and in the
flourishing period of the democracy numbered six thousand. p. 7,
_Kordax-step_, a lascivious comic dance: to perform it off the stage was
regarded as a sign of intoxication or profligacy; _Propulaia_, a court or
vestibule of the Acropolis at Athens; _Pnux_, a place at Athens set apart
for holding assemblies: it was built on a rock; _Bema_, the elevated
position occupied by those who addressed the assembly. p. 8, _Dionusia_,
the great festivals of Bacchus, held three times a year, when alone
dramatic representations at Athens took place; "_Hermippos to pelt
Perikles_": Hermippos was a poet who accused Aspasia, the mistress of
Pericles, of impiety; "_Kratinos to swear Pheidias robbed a shrine_":
Kratinos was a comic poet of Athens, a contemporary of Aristophanes;
_Eruxis_, the name of a small satirist. (Compare "_The Frogs_" ll.
933-934.) _Momos_, the god of pleasantry: he satirised the gods;
_Makaria_, one of the characters in the _Heraclidæ_ of Euripides: she
devoted herself to death to enable the Athenians to win a victory. p. 9,
"_Furies in the Oresteian song_"--Alecto, Tisiphone, and Megæra: they
haunted Orestes after he murdered his mother Clytemnestra: "_As the
Three_," etc., the three tragic poets, Æschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
_Klutaimnestra_, wife of Agamemnon and mother of Orestes, Iphigenia, and
Electra: she murdered her husband on his return from Troy; _Iocasté_,
Iocasta, wife of Laius and mother of Oedipus; _Medeia_, daughter of
Aetes: when Jason repudiated her she killed their children; _Choros_: the
function of the chorus, represented by its leader, was to act as an ideal
public: it might consist of old men and women or maidens; dances and
gestures were introduced, to illustrate the drama. p. 10, _peplosed and
kothorned_, robed and buskined. _Phrunicos_, a tragic poet of Athens: he
was heavily fined by the government for exhibiting the sufferings of a
kindred people in a drama. (Herod., vi., 21.) "_Milesian smart-place_,"
the Persian conquest of Miletus. p. 11, _Lenaia_, a festival of Bacchus,
with poetical contentions, etc.; _Baccheion_, a temple of Bacchus;
_Andromedé_, rescued from a sea-monster by Perseus; _Kresphontes_, one of
the tragedies of Euripides; _Phokis_, a country of northern Greece, whence
came the husband of Balaustion, who saved Athens by a song from Euripides;
_Bacchai_, a play by Euripides, not acted till after his death. p. 12,
_Amphitheos_, a priest of Ceres at Athens, ridiculed by Aristophanes to
annoy Euripides. p. 14, _stade_, a single course for foot-races at
Olympia--about a furlong; _diaulos_, the double track of the racecourse
for the return. p. 15, _Hupsipule_, queen of Lemnos, who entertained Jason
in his voyage to Colchis: "_Phoinissai_" (_The Phoenician Women_), title
of one of the plays of Euripides; "_Zethos against Amphion_": Zethos was a
son of Jupiter by Antiope, and brother to Amphion; _Macedonian Archelaos_,
a king of Macedonia who patronised Euripides. p. 16, _Phorminx_, a harp or
guitar; "_Alkaion_," a play of Euripides; _Pentheus_, king of Thebes, who
refused to acknowledge Bacchus as a god; "_Iphigenia in Aulis_," a play by
Euripides; _Mounuchia_, a port of Attica between the Piræus and the
promontory of Sunium; "_City of Gapers_," Athens--so called on account of
the curiosity of the people; _Kopaic eel_: the eels of Lake Copais, in
Boeotia, were very celebrated, and to this day maintain their
reputation. p. 17, _Arginousai_, three islands near the shores of Asia
Minor; _Lais_, a celebrated courtesan, the mistress of Alcibiades;
_Leogoras_, an Athenian debauchee; _Koppa-marked_, branded as high bred;
_choinix_, a liquid measure; _Mendesian wine_: Wine from Mende, a city of
Thrace, famous for its wines; _Thesmophoria_, a women's festival in honour
of Ceres, made sport of by Aristophanes. p. 18, _Krateros_, probably an
imaginary character. _Arridaios_ and _Krateues_, local poets in royal
favour; _Protagoras_, a Greek atheistic philosopher, banished from Athens,
died about 400 B.C.; "_Comic Platon_," Greek poet, called "the prince of
the middle comedy," flourished 445 B.C.; _Archelaos_, king of Macedonia.
p. 19, "_Lusistraté_" a play by Aristophanes, in which the women demand a
peace; _Kleon_: Cleon was an Athenian tanner and a great popular
demagogue, 411 B.C., distinguished afterwards as a general; he was a great
enemy of Aristophanes. p. 20, _Phuromachos_, a military leader; _Phaidra_,
fell in love with Hippolytus, her son-in-law, who refused her love, which
proved fatal to him. p. 21, _Salabaccho_, a performer in Aristophanes'
play, _The Lysistrata_, acting the part of "Peace"; _Aristeides_, an
Athenian general, surnamed the Just, banished 484 B.C.; _Miltiades_, the
Athenian general who routed the armies of Darius, died 489 B.C.; "_A
golden tettix in his hair_" (a grasshopper), an Athenian badge of honour
worn as indicative that the bearer had "sprung from the soil"; _Kleophon_,
a demagogue of Athens. p. 22, _Thesmophoriazousai_, a play by Aristophanes
satirising women and Euripides, B.C. 411. p. 23, _Peiraios_, the seaport
of Athens; _Alkamenes_, a statuary who lived 448 B.C., distinguished for
his beautiful statues of Venus and Vulcan; _Thoukudides_ (Thucydides), the
Greek historian, died at Athens 391 B.C. p. 24, _Herakles_ (Hercules), who
had brought Alcestis back to life: the subject of a play by Euripides. p.
25, _Eurustheus_, king of Argos, who enjoined Hercules the most hazardous
undertakings, hoping he would perish in one of them; _King Lukos_, the son
of an elder Lukos said to have been the husband of Dirke; _Megara_,
daughter of Creon, king of Thebes, and wife of Hercules; _Thebai_--_i.e._,
of Creon of Thebes; _Heracleian House_, the house of Hercules. p. 26,
_Amphitruon_, a Theban prince, foster-father of Herakles, _i.e._, the
husband of Alkmene the mother of Herakles by Zeus; _Komoscry_, a "Komos"
was a revel; _Dionusos_, _Bacchos_, _Phales_, _Iacchos_ (all names of
Bacchus): the goat was sacrificed to Bacchus on account of the propensity
that animal has to destroy the vine. p. 27, _Mnesilochos_, the
father-in-law of Euripides, a character in the _Thesmophoriazousai_;
_Toxotes_, an archer in the same play; _Elaphion_, leader of the chorus of
females or flute-players. p. 30, _Helios_, the God of the Sun; _Pindaros_,
the greatest lyric poet of Greece, born 552 B.C.; "_Idle cheek band_"
refers to a support for the cheeks worn by trumpeters; _Cuckoo-apple_, the
highly poisonous tongue-burning Cuckoo-pint (_Arum maculatum_); _Thasian_,
Thasus, an island in the Ægean Sea famous for its wine; _threttanelo_ and
_neblaretai_, imitative noises; _Chrusomelolonthion-Phaps_, a dancing
girl's name. p. 31, _Artamouxia_, a character in the _Thesmophoriazousai_
of Aristophanes; _Hermes_ == Mercury; _Goats-breakfast_, improper
allusions, connected with Bacchus; _Archon_, a chief magistrate of Athens;
"_Three days' salt fish slice_": each soldier was required to take with
him on the march three days' rations. p. 32, _Archinos_, a rhetorician of
Athens (Schol. in Aristoph. Ran.); _Agurrhios_, an Athenian general in
B.C. 389: he was a demagogue; "_Bald-head Bard_": this describes
Aristophanes, and the two following words indicate his native place;
_Kudathenaian_, native of the Deme Cydathenê; _Pandionid_, of the tribe of
Pandionis; "_son of Philippos_": Aristophanes here gives the names of his
father and of his birthplace; _anapæsts_, feet in verse, whereof the first
syllables are short and the last long; _Phrunichos_ (see on p. 10);
_Choirilos_, a tragic poet of Athens, who wrote a hundred and fifty
tragedies. p. 33, _Kratinos_, a severe and drunken satirist of Athens, 431
B.C.; "_Willow-wicker-flask_," _i.e._, "Flagon," the name of a comedy by
Kratinos which took the first prize, 423 B.C.; _Mendesian_, from Mende in
Thrace. p. 36, "_Lyric shell or tragic barbiton_," instruments of music:
the barbiton was a lyre; shells were used as the bodies of lyres;
_Tuphon_, a famous giant chained under Mount Etna. p. 38, _Sousarion_, a
Greek poet of Megara, said to have been the inventor of comedy;
_Chionides_, an Athenian poet, by some alleged to have been the inventor
of comedy. p. 39, "_Grasshoppers_," a play of Aristophanes;
"_Little-in-the-Fields_," suburban or village feasts of Bacchus. p. 40,
_Ameipsias_, a comic poet ridiculed by Aristophanes for his insipidity;
_Salaminian_, of Salamis, an island on the coast of Attica. p. 41,
_Archelaos_, king of Macedonia, patron of Euripides. p. 42, _Iostephanos_
(violet-crowned), a title applied to Athens; _Dekeleia_, a village of
Attica north of Athens; _Kleonumos_, an Athenian often ridiculed by
Aristophanes; _Melanthios_, a tragic poet, a son of Philocles;
_Parabasis_, an address in the old comedy, where the author speaks through
the mouth of the chorus; "_The Wasps_," one of the famous plays of
Aristophanes. p. 43, _Telekleides_, an Athenian comic poet of the age of
Pericles; _Murtilos_, a comic poet; _Hermippos_, a poet, an elder
contemporary of Aristophanes; _Eupolis_: is coupled with Aristophanes as a
chief representative of the old comedy (born 446 B.C.); _Kratinos_, a
contemporary comic poet, who died a few years after Aristophanes began to
write for the stage; _Mullos_ and _Euetes_, comic poets of Athens;
_Megara_, a small country of Greece, p. 44, _Morucheides_, an archon of
Athens, in whose time it was ordered that no one should be ridiculed on
the stage by name; _Sourakosios_, an Athenian lawyer ridiculed by the
poets for his garrulity; _Tragic Trilogy_, a series of three dramas,
which, though complete each in itself, bear a certain relation to each
other, and form one historical and poetical picture--_e.g._, the three
plays of the _Oresteia_, the _Agamemnon_, the _Choëphoræ_, and the
_Eumenides_ by Æschylus. p. 45, "_The Birds_," the title of one of
Aristophanes' plays. p. 46, _Triphales_, a three-plumed helmet-wearer;
_Trilophos_, a three-crested helmet-wearer; _Tettix_ (the grasshopper), a
sign of honour worn as a golden ornament; "_Autochthon-brood_": the
Athenians so called themselves, boasting that they were as old as the
country they inhabited; _Taügetan_, a mountain near Sparta. p. 47,
_Ruppapai_, a sailor's cry; _Mitulené_, the capital of Lesbos, a famous
seat of learning, and the birthplace of many great men; _Oidipous_, son of
Laius, king of Thebes, and Jocasta: he murdered his own father; _Phaidra_,
who fell in love with her son Hippolytus; _Augé_, the mother of Telephus
by Hercules; _Kanaké_, a daughter of Æolus, who bore a child to her
brother Macareus; _antistrophé_, a part of the Greek choral ode. p. 48,
_Aigina_, an island opposite Athens. p. 49, _Prutaneion_, the large hall
at Athens where the magistrates feasted with those who had rendered great
services to the country; _Ariphrades_, a person ridiculed by Aristophanes
for his filthiness; _Karkinos_ and his sons were Athenian dancers:
supposed here to have been performing in a play of Ameipsias. p. 50,
_Parachoregema_, the subordinate chorus; _Aristullos_, an infamous poet;
"_Bald Bard's hetairai_," Aristophanes' female companions. p. 51,
_Murrhiné_ and _Akalanthis_, chorus girls representing "good-humour" and
"indulgence"; _Kailligenia_, a name of Ceres: here it means her festival
celebrated by the woman chorus of the _Thesmophoriaxousai_; _Lusandros_ ==
Lysander, a celebrated Spartan general; _Euboia_, a large island in the
Ægean Sea; "_The Great King's Eye_," the nickname of the Persian
ambassador in the play of _The Acharnians_; _Kompolakuthes_, a puffed-up
braggadocio. p. 52, _Strattis_, a comic poet; _klepsudra_, a water clock;
_Sphettian vinegar_ == vinegar from the village of Sphettus; _silphion_, a
herb by some called masterwort, by some benzoin, by others pellitory;
_Kleonclapper_, _i.e._, a scourge of Cleon; _Agathon_, an Athenian poet,
very lady-like in appearance, a character in _The Women's Festival_ of
Aristophanes; "_Babaiax!_" interjection of admiration. p. 54, "_Told him
in a dream_" (see Cicero, _Divinatione_, xxv); _Euphorion_, a son of
Æschylus, who published four of his father's plays after his death, and
defeated Euripides with one of them; _Trugaios_, a character in the comedy
of _Peace_: he is a distressed Athenian who soars to the sky on a beetle's
back; _Philonides_, a Greek comic poet of Athens; _Simonides_, a
celebrated poet of Cos, 529 B.C.: he was the first poet who wrote for
money: he bore the character of an avaricious man; _Kallistratos_, a comic
poet, rival of Aristophanes; _Asklepios_ == Æsculapius; _Iophon_, a son of
Sophocles, who tried to make out that his father was an imbecile. p. 58,
_Maketis_, capital of Macedonia; _Pentelikos_, a mountain of Attica,
celebrated for its marble. p. 60, _Lamachos_: the "Great Captain" of the
day was the brave son of Xenophanes, killed before Syracuse B.C. 414:
satirised by Aristophanes in _The Acharnians_; _Pisthetairos_, a character
in Aristophanes' _Birds_; _Strepsiades_, a character in _The Clouds_ of
Aristophanes; _Ariphrades_ (see under p. 49). p. 63, "_Nikias,
ninny-like_," the Athenian general who ruined Athens at Syracuse--was very
superstitious. p. 64, _Hermai_, statues of Mercury in the streets of
Athens: we have one in the British Museum. p. 67, _Sophroniskos_, was the
father of Socrates. p. 75, _Kephisophon_, a friend of Euripides, said to
have afforded him literary assistance. p. 79, _Palaistra_, the boy's
school for physical culture. p. 82, _San_, the letter S, used as a
horse-brand. p. 81, _Aias_ == Ajax. p. 82, _Pisthetairos_, an enterprising
Athenian in the comedy of the _Birds_. p. 83, "_Rocky-ones_" == Athenians;
_Peparethian_, famous wine of Peparethus, on the coast of Macedonia. p.
85, _Promachos_, a defender or champion, name of a statue: the bronze
statue of _Athene Promachos_ is here referred to, which was erected from
the spoils taken at Marathon, and stood between the Propylæa and the
Erechtheum: the proportions of this statue were so gigantic that the
gleaming point of the lance and the crest of the helmet were visible to
seamen on approaching the Piræus from Sunium (Seyffert, _Dict. Class.
Ant._); _Oresteia_, the trilogy or three tragedies of Æschylus--the
_Agamemnon_, the _Choëphoræ_, and the _Eumenides_. p. 86, _Kimon_, son of
Miltiades: he was a famous Athenian general, and was banished by the
_Boulé_, or council of state; _Prodikos_, a Sophist put to death by the
Athenians about 396 B.C., satirised by Aristophanes. p. 87, _Kottabos_, a
kind of game in which liquid is thrown up so as to make a loud noise in
falling: it was variously played (_see_ Seyffert's _Dict. Class. Ant._, p.
165); _Choes_, an Athenian festival; _Theoros_, a comic poet of infamous
character. p. 88, _Brilesian_, Brilessus, a mountain of Attica. p. 89,
"_Plataian help_," prompt assistance: the Platæans furnished a thousand
soldiers to help the Athenians at Marathon; _Saperdion_, a term of
endearment; _Empousa_, a hobgoblin or horrible sceptre: "Apollonius of
Tyana saw in a desert near the Indus an empousa or ghûl taking many forms"
(_Philostratus_, ii., 4); _Kimberic_, name of a species of vestment. p.
93, "_Kuthereia's self_," a surname of Venus. p. 94, _plethron square_,
100 square feet; _chiton_, the chief and indispensible article of female
dress, or an undergarment worn by both sexes. p. 95, _Ion_, a tragic poet
of Chios; _Iophon_, son of Sophocles, a poor poet; _Aristullos_, an
infamous poet. p. 98, _Cloudcuckooburg_, in Aristophanes' play _The Birds_
these animals are persuaded to build a city in the air, so as to cut off
the gods from men; _Tereus_, a king of Thrace, who offered violence to his
sister-in-law Philomela; _Hoopoe triple-crest_: Tereus was said to have
been changed into a hoopoe (_The Birds_); _Palaistra tool_, _i.e._, one
highly developed; _Amphiktuon_, a council of the wisest and best men of
Greece; _Phrixos_, son of Athamas, king of Thebes, persecuted by his
stepmother was fabled to have taken flight to Colchis on a ram. p. 99,
_Priapos_, the god of orchards, gardens, and licentiousness; _Phales
Iacchos_, indecent figure of Bacchus. p. 102, _Kallikratidas_, a Spartan
who routed the Athenian fleet about 400 B.C.; _Theramenes_, an Athenian
philosopher and general of the time of Alcibiades. p. 103, _chaunoprockt_,
a catamite. p. 113, _Aristonumos_, a comic poet, contemporary with
Aristophanes; _Ameipsias_, a comic poet satirised by Aristophanes;
_Sannurion_, a comic poet of Athens: _Neblaretai! Rattei!_ exclamations of
joy. p. 117, _Sousarion_, a Greek poet of Megara, who introduced comedy at
Athens on a movable stage, 562 B.C.: he was unfriendly to the ladies. p.
118, _Lemnians_, _The Hours_, _Female Playhouse_, etc., these are all lost
plays of Aristophanes. p. 119, _Kassiterides_, "the tin islands": the
Scilly Islands, Land's End, and Lizard Point. p. 121, "_Your games_":
_Olympian_, in honour of Zeus at Olympia; _Pythian_, held near Delphi;
_Isthmian_, held in the Isthmus of Corinth; _Nemeian_, celebrated in the
valley of Nemea. p. 126, _Phoibos_, name of Apollo or the sun; _Kunthia_
== Cynthia, a surname of Diana, from Mount Cynthus, where she was born. p.
128, _skiadeion_, the umbel or umbrella-like head of plants like fennel or
anise--hence a parasol or umbrella; _Huperbolos_, an Athenian demagogue.
p. 129, _Theoria_, festival at Athens in honour of Apollo--character in
_The Peace_; _Opôra_, a character in _The Peace_. p. 133, "_Philokleon
turns Bdelukleon_," an admirer of Cleon, turned detester of Cleon:
character in Aristophanes' comedy _The Wasps_. p. 135, _Logeion_, the
stage where the actors perform--properly "the speaking place." p. 137,
_Lamia-shape_, as of the monsters with face of a woman and body of a
serpent; _Kukloboros_, roaring--a noise as of the torrent of the river in
Attica of that name; _Platon_ == Plato. p. 140, _Konnos_, the play of
Ameipsias which beat the _Clouds_ of Aristophanes in the award of the
judges; _Moruchides_, a magistrate of Athens, in whose time it was decided
that no one should be ridiculed on the stage by name; _Euthumenes_,
_Argurrhios_, _Surakosios_, _Kinesias_, Athenian rulers who endeavoured to
restrain the gross attacks of the comic poets. p. 141, _Acharnes_,
Aristophanes' play _The Acharnians_: it is the most ancient specimen of
comedy which has reached us. p. 143, _Poseidon_, the Sea == Neptune. p.
144, _Triballos_, a vulgar deity. p. 145, _Kolonos_, an eminence near
Athens; _stulos_, a style or pen to write with on wax tablets;
_psalterion_, a musical instrument like a harp, a psaltery. p. 146,
_Pentheus_, king of Thebes, who resisted the worship of Bacchus, and was
driven mad by the god and torn to pieces by his own mother and her two
sisters in their Bacchic frenzy. p. 147, _Herakles_ == Hercules; _Argive
Amphitruon_, son of Alkaios and husband of Alcmene; _Alkaios_, father of
Amphitruon and grandfather of Hercules; _Perseus_, son of Jupiter and
Danae; _Thebai_, capital of Boeotia, founded by Cadmus; _Sown-ones_, the
armed men who rose from the dragons' teeth sown by Cadmus; _Ares_, Greek
name of Mars; _Kadmos_, founder of Boeotian Thebes; _Kreon_, king of
Thebes, father of Megara slain by Lukos; _Menoikeus_, father of the Kreon
above referred to. p. 148, _Kuklopian city_: Argos, according to
Euripides, was built by the seven Cyclopes: "These were architects who
attended Proetus when he returned out of Asia; among other works with
which they adorned Greece were the walls of Mycenæ and Tiryns, which were
built of unhewn stones, so large that two mules yoked could not move the
smallest of them" (Potter); _Argos_, an ancient city, capital of Argolis
in Peloponnesus; _Elektruon_, a son of Perseus; _Heré_ == Juno;
_Tainaros_, a promontory of Laconia, where was the cavern whence Hercules
dragged Cerberus; _Dirké_, wife of the Theban prince Lukos; _Amphion_:
"His skill in music was so great that the very stones were said to have
been wrought upon by his lyre, and of themselves to have built the walls
of Thebes"--_Carey_ (_see_ ABT VOGLER); _Zethos_, brother of Amphion;
_Euboia_, the largest island in the Ægean Sea, now Negroponte. p. 149,
_Minuai_, the Argonauts, companions of Jason. p. 150, _Taphian town_,
Taphiæ, islands in the Ionian Sea. p. 153, _peplos_, a robe. p. 154,
_Hellas_ == Greece; _Nemeian monster_, the lion slain by Hercules. p. 156,
_Kentaur race_, a people of Thessaly represented as half men and half
horses; _Pholoé_, a mountain in Arcadia; _Dirphus_, a mountain of Euboea
which Hercules laid waste; _Abantid_: Abantis was an ancient name of
Euboea. p. 158, _Parnasos_, a mountain of Phocis. p. 165, _Peneios_, a
river of Thessaly; _Mount Pelion_, a celebrated mountain of Thessaly;
_Homole_, a mountain of Thessaly; _Oinoé_ == Oene, a small town of
Argolis; _Diomede_, a king of Thrace who fed his horses on human flesh,
and was himself destroyed by Hercules. p. 166, _Hebros_, the principal
river of Thrace; _Mukenaian tyrant_, Eurystheus, king of Mycenæ;
_Amauros_, Amaurus, a river of Thessaly near the foot of Pelion; _Kuknos_,
a son of Mars by Pelopea, killed by Hercules; _Amphanaia_, a Dorian city;
_Hesperian_, west, towards Spain; _Maiotis_, Lake Mæotis, _i.e._, the Sea
of Azof. p. 167, _Lernaian snake_, the hydra slain by Hercules, who then
drained the marsh of Lerna; _Erutheia_, an island near Cadiz, where
Hercules drove the oxen of Geryon. p. 169, _Pelasgia_ == Greece;
_Daidalos_, mythical personage, father of Icarus; _Oichalia_, a town of
Laconia, destroyed by Hercules. p. 177, _Ismenos_, a river of Boeotia
flowing through Thebes. p. 180, _Orgies_, festivals of Bacchus;
_Chthonia_, a surname of Ceres; _Hermion_, a town of Argolis where Ceres
had a famous temple; _Theseus_, king of Athens, conqueror of the Minotaur.
p. 182, _Aitna_ == Etna. p. 183, _Mnemosuné_, the mother of the Muses;
_Bromios_, a surname of Bacchus; _Delian girls_, of Delos, one of the
Cyclades islands; _Latona_, mother of Apollo and Diana. p. 188,
_Acherontian harbour_: Acheron was one of the rivers of hell. p. 189,
_Asopiad sisters_, daughters of the god of the river Asopus; _Puthios_,
surname of the Delphian Apollo; _Helikonian muses_: Mount Helicon, in
Boeotia, was sacred to Apollo and the Muses. p. 190, _Plouton_ == Pluto,
god of hell; _Paian_, name of Apollo, the healer; _Iris_, the swift-footed
messenger of the gods. p. 193, _Keres_, the daughters of Night and
personified necessity of Death. p. 194, _Otototoi_, woe! alas! p. 195,
_Tariaros_ == Hades; _Pallas_, _i.e._, Minerva. p. 198, _Niso's city_,
port town of Megara; _Isthmos_, the isthmus of Corinth. p. 201, _Argolis_,
a country of Peloponnesus, now Romania; _Danaos_, son of Belus, king of
Egypt: he had fifty daughters, who murdered the fifty sons of Egyptus;
_Prokné_, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, wife of Tereus, king of
Thrace. p. 202, _Itus_, son of Prokné. p. 206, _Taphioi_, the Taphians,
who made war against Electryon, and killed all his sons; _Erinues_ == the
Furies. p. 213, _Erechtheidai's town_ == Athens. p. 215, _Hundredheaded
Hydra_, a dreadful monster slain by Hercules. p. 216, _Phlegruia_, a place
of Macedonia, where Hercules defeated the giants. p. 234, _Iostephanos_,
violet-crowned, a name of Athens. p. 235, _Thamuris_, an ancient Thracian
bard; _Poikilé_, a celebrated portico of Athens, adorned with pictures of
gods and benefactors; _Rhesus_ was king of Thrace and ally of the Trojans;
_Blind Bard_ == Thamuris. p. 236, _Eurutos_, a king of Oechalia, who
offered his daughter to a better shot than himself: Hercules won, but was
denied the prize; _Dorion_, a town of Messenia, where Thamyris challenged
the Muses to a trial of skill; _Balura_, a river of Peloponnesus. p. 241,
_Dekeleia_, a village of Attica north of Athens, celebrated in the
Peloponnesian war; _spinks_, chaffinches. p. 242, _Amphion_, son of
Jupiter and inventor of Music: he built the walls of Thebes to the sound
of his lyre. p. 245, _Castalian dew_, the fountain of Castalia, near
Phocis, at the foot of Parnassus. p. 247, _Pheidippides_, the celebrated
runner, a character also in _The Clouds_. p. 248, _Aigispoiamoi_,
Ægospotamos was the river where the Athenians were defeated by Lysander,
B.C. 405; _Elaphebolion month_, stag-hunting time, when the poetical
contests took place; _Lusandros_, the celebrated Spartan general Lysander;
_triremes_, galleys with three banks of oars one above another. p. 249,
_Bakis-prophecy_, Bacis was a famous soothsayer of Boeotia. p. 253,
_Elektra_, daughter of Agamemnon, king of Argos; _Orestes_, brother of
Elektra, who saved his life. p. 254, _Klutaimnestra_, murdered her husband
Agamemnon. p. 255, _Kommos_, a great wailing; _eleleleleu_, a loud crying;
_Lakonians_, the Lacedæmonians == the Spartans. p. 258, _Young Philemon_,
a Greek comic poet; there was an old Philemon, contemporary with
Menander.--Mr. Fotheringham, in his "Studies in the Poetry of Robert
Browning," says: "Browning's _preference for Euripides_ among Greek
dramatists, and his defence of that poet in the person of Balaustion
against Aristophanes, shows how distinctly he has considered the
principles raised by the later drama of Greece, and how deliberately he
prefers Euripidean art and aims to Aristophanic naturalism. He likes the
human and ethical standpoint, the serious and truth-loving spirit of the
tragic rather than the pure Hellenism of the comic poet; while the
_Apology_ suggests a broader spirit and a larger view, an art that unites
the realism of the one with the higher interests of the other--delight in
and free study of the world with ideal aims and spiritual truth" (p. 356).

=Arezzo.= A city of Tuscany, the residence of Count Guido Franceschini,
the husband of Pompilia and her murderer. It is now a clean, well-built,
well-paved, and flourishing town of ten thousand inhabitants. It is
celebrated in connection with many remarkable men, as Mæcenas, Guido the
musician, Guittone the poet, Cesalpini the botanist, Vasari, the author of
the "Lives of the Painters," and many others. (_The Ring and the Book._)

=Art Poems.= The great poems dealing with painting are "Fra Lippo Lippi,"
"Andrea del Sarto," "Old Pictures in Florence," "Pictor Ignotus," and "The
Guardian Angel."

=Artemis Prologizes.= (_Dramatic Lyrics_, in _Bells and Pomegranates_, No.
III. 1842.) Theseus became enamoured of Hippolyta when he attended
Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons. Before she accepted him as
her lover, he had to vanquish her in single combat, which difficult and
dangerous task he accomplished. She accompanied him to Athens, and bore
him a son, Hippolytus. The young prince excelled in every manly virtue,
but he was averse to the female sex, and grievously offended Venus by
neglecting her and devoting himself entirely to the worship of Diana,
called by the Greeks Artemis. Venus was enraged, and determined to ruin
him. Hippolyta in process of time died, and Theseus married Phædra, the
daughter of Minos, the king of Crete. Unhappily, as soon as Phædra saw the
young and accomplished Hippolytus, she conceived for him a guilty
passion--which, however, she did her utmost to conceal. It was Venus who
inspired her with this insane love, out of revenge to Hippolytus, whom she
intended to ruin by this means. Phædra's nurse discovered the secret, and
told it to the youth, notwithstanding the commands of her mistress to
conceal it. The chaste young man was horrified at the declaration, and
indignantly resented it. The disgraced and betrayed Phædra determined to
take her own life; but dying with a letter in her hand which accused
Hippolytus of attempts upon her virtue, the angry father, without asking
his son for explanations, banished him from the kingdom, having first
claimed the performance from Neptune of his promise to grant three of his
requests. As Hippolytus fled from Athens, his horses were terrified by a
sea monster sent on shore by Neptune. The frightened horses upset the
chariot, and the young man was dragged over rocks and precipices and
mangled by the wheels of his chariot. In the tragedy, as left by
Euripides, Diana appears by the young man's dying bed and comforts him,
telling him also that to perish thus was his fate:--

                            "But now
    Farewell: to see the dying or the dead
    Is not permitted me: it would pollute
    Mine eyes; and thou art near this fatal ill."

The tragedy ends with the dying words of Hippolytus:--

    "No longer I retain my strength: I die;
    But veil my face, now veil it with my vests."

So far Euripides. Mr. Browning, however, carries the idea further, and
makes Diana try to save the life of her worshipper, by handing him over to
the care of Æsculapius, to restore to life and health by the wisest
pharmacies of the god of healing. Mr. Browning's poem closes with the
chaste goddess watching and waiting for the result of the attempt to save
his life. The poet has adopted the Greek spelling in place of that to
which we are more accustomed. The Greek names require their Latin
equivalents for non-classical scholars. _Artemis_ is the Greek name for
_Diana_; _Asclepios_ is _Æsculapius_; _Aphrodite_, the Greek name of
_Venus_; _Poseidon_ is _Neptune_; and _Phoibus_ or _Phoebus_ is
_Apollo_, the Sun. _Heré_ == Hera or Juno, Queen of Heaven. _Athenai_ ==
Minerva. _Phaidra_, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, who married Theseus.
_Theseus_, king of Athens. _Hippolutos_, son of Theseus and Hippolyte.
_Henetian horses_, or _Enetian_, of a district near Paphlagonia.

=Artemisia Genteleschi= (Beatrice Signorini, _Asolando_), "the consummate
Artemisia" of the poem, was a celebrated artist (1590-1642). _See_
BEATRICE SIGNORINI.

="Ask not the least word of praise,"= the first line of the lyric at the
end of "A Pillar at Sebzevah," No. 11 of _Ferishtah's Fancies_.

=Asolando: Fancies and Facts.= Published in London, December 12th, 1889,
on the day on which Mr. Browning died in Venice. _Contents_: Prologue;
Rosny; Dubiety; Now; Humility; Poetics; Summum Bonum; A Pearl, A Girl;
Speculative; White Witchcraft; Bad Dreams, I., II., III., IV.;
Inapprehensiveness; Which? The Cardinal and the Dog; The Pope and the Net;
The Bean-Feast; Muckle-mouth Meg; Arcades Ambo; The Lady and the Painter;
Ponte dell' Angelo, Venice; Beatrice Signorini; Flute Music, with an
Accompaniment; "Imperante Augusto, Natus est ----"; Development; Rephan;
Reverie; Epilogue. The volume is dedicated to the poet's friend, Mrs.
Arthur Bronson. In the dedication the poet explains the title Asolando: it
was a "_title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient
secretary of Queen Cornaro, whose palace-tower still overlooks us_."
Asolare--"to disport in the open air, amuse oneself at random." "The
objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is
hardly important. Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a
term which in talk he might possibly toy with; but the word is more likely
derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in
requital of your pleasant assurance that an early poem of mine first
attracted you thither; where and elsewhere, at La Mura as Cà Alvisi, may
all happiness attend you!--Gratefully and affectionately yours, R.
B."--Asolo, _Oct. 5th, 1889_.

=Asolo= (_Pippa Passes--Sordello--Asolando_), the ancient Acelum: a very
picturesque mediæval fortified town, in the province of Treviso, in
Venetia, Italy, 5500 inhabitants, at the foot of a hill surmounted by the
ruins of a castle, from which one of the most extensive panoramas of the
great plain of the Brenta and the Piave, with the encircling Alps, and the
distant insulated group of the Euganean hills, opens before the traveller.
On a fine summer evening the two silver lines of the Piave and the Brenta
may be followed from their Alpine valleys to the sea, in the midst of the
green alluvial plain in which Treviso, Vicenza and Padua are easily
recognised. Venice, with its cupolas and steeples, is seen near the
extreme east horizon, which is terminated by the blue line of the
Adriatic; whilst behind, to the north, the snow-capped peaks of the Alps
rise in majestic grandeur. The village of Asolo is surrounded by a wall
with mediæval turrets, and several of its houses present curiously
sculptured façades.--The castle, a quadrangular building with a high
tower, is an interesting monument of the thirteenth century. It was the
residence of the beautiful Caterina Cornaro, the last queen of Cyprus,
after the forced resignation of her kingdom to the Venetians in 1489. Here
this lady of elegant tastes and refined education closed her days in
comparative obscurity, in the enjoyment of an empty title and a splendid
income, and surrounded by a small court and several literary characters.
Of these, one of the most celebrated was Pietro Bembo, the historian of
Venice, afterwards Cardinal, whose celebrated philosophical dialogues on
the nature of love, the _Asolani_, have derived their name from this
locality. Mr. Browning visited Asolo first when a young man; it was here
that he gathered ideas for _Pippa Passes_ and _Sordello_, and in the last
year of his life his loving footsteps found their way to the little
hill-town of that Italy whose name was graven on his heart. Here, as Mr.
Sharp reminds us in his _Life of Browning_, the poet heard again the echo
of Pippa's song--

    "God's in His heaven, All's right with the world!"

He heard it as a young man, he hears it as he nears the dark river, the
conviction had never left his soul for a moment in all the length of
intervening years. Asolo will be a pilgrim spot for Browning lovers. The
Catherine Cornaro referred to was the wife of King James II., of Cyprus;
his marriage with this Venetian lady of rank was designed to secure the
support of the Republic of Venice. After his death, and that of his son
James III., Queen Catherine felt she was unable to withstand the attacks
of the Turks, and was induced to abdicate in favour of the Republic of
Venice, which in 1487 took possession of the island. Catherine was
assigned a palace and court at Asolo, as already mentioned. Her palace was
the resort of the learned and accomplished men and women of Venice, famous
amongst whom was her secretary, Cardinal Pietro Bembo, the celebrated
author of the _History of Venice_, from 1487 to 1513, and a number of
essays, dialogues, and poems. His dialogue on Platonic love is entitled
_Gli Asolani_. He died in 1547. When Queen Catherine settled in her
beautiful castle of Asolo, she could have found little cause to regret the
circumstances which led her from her troubled kingdom of Cyprus to the
idyllic sweetness of her later life. Surrounded by her twelve maids of
honour and her eighty serving-men, her favourite negress, her parrots,
apes, peacocks, and hounds, her peaceful life passed in ideal
pleasantness. But the wealth and luxury of her surroundings did not make
her selfish, or unconcerned for the welfare of her little kingdom. In all
that concerned the happiness and well-being of her people she was as
deeply interested as the monarchs of more important states. She opened a
pawnbroking bank for the poor, imported corn from Cyprus and distributed
it, and appointed competent officials to settle the complaints and
difficulties of her subjects. She lived for her people's welfare, and won
their affections by her goodness and grace. For twenty years she lived at
Asolo, leaving it on only three occasions: to visit her brother in
Brescia; to walk to Venice across the frozen lagoon; and once when troops
occupied her little town. She died then, at Venice, on July 10th, 1510,
and was buried by the republic of the city in the sea, with its utmost
magnificence. The fate could scarcely have been called cruel which gave a
royal residence amid scenery such as Asolo can boast, under such
conditions as blessed the later years of good Queen Catherine.

=At the Mermaid.= The Mermaid Tavern, in Cheapside, was the favourite
resort of the great Elizabethan dramatists and poets. Raleigh's Club at
the Mermaid was the meeting-place of Shakespeare's contemporaries, where
he feasted with Raleigh, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Ford,
Massinger, Donne, Drayton, Camden, Selden, and the rest. "At this
meeting-place of the gods," says Heywood, in his _Hierarchy of Angels_:--

    "Mellifluous Shakespeare, whose enchanting quill
    Commanded mirth or passion, was but _Will_,
    And famous Jonson, tho' his learned pen
    Be dipt in Castaly, is still but _Ben_."

Mr. Browning introduces us to Shakespeare protesting that he makes no
claim and has no desire to be the leader of a new school of poetry. In the
person of Shakespeare Mr. Browning tells the world that if they want to
know anything about him they must take his ideas as they are expressed in
his works, not seek to pry into his life and opinions behind them. His
works are the world's, his rest is his own. He protests, too, that when he
utters opinions and expresses ideas dramatically they are not to be
snatched at by leaders of sects and parties, and bottled as specimens for
their museums, or used to give authority to their own pet principles. He
does not set open the door of his bard's breast: on the contrary, he bars
his portal, and leaves his work and his inquisitive visitors alike
"outside." Notwithstanding this emphatic declaration, it is probable that
few great poets have opened their hearts to the world more completely than
Mr. Browning: it is as easy to construct his personality from his works as
it is to reconstruct an old Greek temple from the sculptured stones which
are scattered on its site. All Mr. Browning's characters talk the Browning
tongue, and are as little given to barring their portals as he to closing
the door of his breast. This fact must not, of course, be unduly pressed.
The utterances of Caliban are not to be put on the same level as the
thoughts, expressed a hundred times, which justify the ways of God to man.
Having declared himself as determined to let the public have no glimpse
inside his breast, in Stanza 10 be proceeds to admit us to his innermost
soul, in its joy of life and golden optimism. It is as perfect a picture
of the poet's healthy mind as he could possibly have given us, and is an
earnest deprecation of the idea that a poet must necessarily be more or
less insane. NOTES.--_Oreichalch_ (7), a mixed metal resembling
brass--bronze. "_Threw Venus_" (15): in dice the best cast (three sixes)
was called "Venus." Ben Jonson tells us that his own wife was "a shrew,
yet honest."

=Austin Tresham.= Gwendolen Tresham's betrothed, in _A Blot in the
'Scutcheon_. He is next heir to the earldom.

=Azoth= (_Paracelsus_). The universal remedy of Paracelsus, in alchemy.
The term was applied to mercury, which was supposed to exist in every
metallic body, and constitute its basis. The Azoth of Paracelsus,
according to Mr. Browning, was simply the laudanum which he had
discovered. The alchemists by Azoth sometimes meant to express the
creative principle of nature. As "he was commonly believed to possess the
double tincture, the power of curing diseases and transmuting metals," as
Mr. Browning explains in a note to the poem, the expression is often
difficult to define precisely, as indeed are many of the terms used by
alchemists.

=Azzo.= Lords of Este (_Sordello_): Guelf leaders. The poem is concerned
with Azzo VI. (1170-1212), who became the head of the Guelf party. During
the whole lifetime of Azzo VI. a civil war raged almost without
interruption in the streets of Ferrara, each party, it is said, being ten
times driven from the city. Azzo VII. (1205-64) was constantly at war with
Eccelino III. da Romano, who leagued himself with Salinguerra. Azzo
married Adelaide, niece of Eccelino, and died 1264. (_Encyc. Brit._)




=Bad Dreams.= (_Asolando._) I. In the first dream the lover sees that the
face of the loved one has changed: love has died out of the eyes, and the
charm of the look has gone. Love is estranged, for faith has gone. With a
breaking heart the lover can say love is still the same for him. II. A
weird dream of a strange ball, a dance of death and hell, where,
notwithstanding harmony of feet and hands, "man's sneer met woman's
curse." The dreamer creeps to the wall side, avoiding the dance of haters,
and steps into a chapel where is performed a strange worship by a priest
unknown. The dreamer sees a worshipper--his wife--enter, to palliate or
expurgate her soul of some ugly stain. How contracted? "A mere dream" is
an insufficient excuse. The soul in sleep, free from the disguises of the
day, wanders at will. Perhaps it may indeed be that our suppressed evil
thoughts--thoughts that, kept down by custom, conventionality, and respect
for public opinion, never become incarnate in act--walk at night and
revel in unfettered freedom, as foul gases rise from vaults and basements
when the house is closed at night, and the purifying influences of the
light and air are excluded. III. Is a dream of a primeval forest: giant
trees, impenetrable tangle of enormous undergrowths, where lurks some
brute-type. A lucid city of bright marbles, domes and spires, pure streets
too fine for smirch of human foot, its solitary traverser the soul of the
dreamer; and all at once appears a hideous sight: the beautiful city is
devoured by the forest, the trees by the pavements turned to teeth. Nature
is represented by the forest, Art by the city and its palaces. Each in its
place is seen to be good and worthy, but when each devours the other both
are accurst. The man seems to think that his wife conceals some part of
her life from him; her nature is good and true, but he fears her art (or
perhaps arts, we should say) destroys it. IV. A dream of infinite pathos.
The wife's tomb, its slab weather-stained, its inscription overgrown with
herbage, its name all but obliterated. Her husband comes to visit the
grave. Was he her lover?--rather the cold critic of her life. She had felt
her poverty in all that he demanded, and she had resigned him and life
too; and as she moulders under the herbage, she sees in spirit her
husband's strength and sternness gone, and he broken and praying that she
were his again, with all her foibles, her faults: aye, crowned as queen of
folly, he would be happy if her foot made a stepping-stone of his
forehead. What had worked the miracle? Was the date on the stone the
record of the day when his chance stab of scorn had killed her? There are
cruel deeds and still more cruel words that no veiling herbage of balm and
mint shall keep from haunting us in the time when repentance has come too
late.

=Badman, Mr.= _The Life and Death of Mr. Badman_, as told by John Bunyan,
contains the story of "Old Tod," which suggested to Mr. Browning the poem
of _Ned Bratts_ (_q.v._).

=Balaustion.= The name of the Greek girl of Rhodes, who, when the
Athenians were defeated at Syracuse and her countrymen had determined to
side with the enemies of Athens, refused to forsake Athens, the light and
life of the world. She saved her companions in the ship by which she fled
from Rhodes by reciting to the people of Syracuse the _Alcestis_ of
Euripides. Her story is told in _Balaustion's Adventure_, and
_Aristophanes' Apology_, which is its sequel. Her name means "wild
pomegranate flower."

=Balaustion's Adventure=, including a transcript from Euripides. London,
1871.--The adventure of Balaustion in the harbour of Syracuse came about
as follows. Nicias (or Nikias as he is called in the poem), the Athenian
general, was appointed, much against his inclination, to conduct the
expedition against Sicily. After a long series of ill-successes he was
completely surrounded by the enemy and was compelled to surrender with all
his army. He was put to death, and all his troops were sent to the great
stone quarries, there to perish of disease, hard labour and privation. At
Syracuse Athens was shamed, and lost her ships and men, gaining a "death
without a grave." After the disgraceful news had reached Greece the people
of Rhodes rose in tumult, and, casting off their allegiance to Athens,
they determined to side with Sparta. Balaustion, though only a girl, was
so patriotic that she cried to all who would hear, begging them not to
throw Athens off for Sparta's sake, nor be disloyal to all that was worth
calling the world at all. She begged that all who agreed with her would
take ship for Athens at once; a few heard and accompanied her. They were
by adverse winds driven out of their course, and, being pursued by
pirates, made for the island of Crete. Balaustion, to encourage the
rowers, sprang upon the altar by the mast, crying to the sons of Greeks to
free their wives, their children, and the temples of the gods; so the oars
"churned the black waters white," and soon they saw to their dismay Sicily
and the city of Syracuse,--they had run upon the lion from the wolf. A
galley came out, demanding "if they were friends or foes?" "Kaunians,"
replied the captain. "We heard all Athens in one ode just now. Back you
must go, though ten pirates blocked the bay." It was explained to the
exiles that they wanted no Athenians there to spirit up the captives in
the quarries. The captain prayed them by the gods they should not thrust
suppliants back, but save the innocent who were not bent on traffic. In
vain! And as they were about to turn and face the foe, one cried, "Wait!
that was a song of Æschylus: how about Euripides? Might you know any of
his verses too?" The captain shouted, "Praise the god. Here she
stands--Balaustion. Strangers, greet the lyric girl!" And Balaustion said,
"Save us, and I will recite that strangest, saddest, sweetest song of
his--ALKESTIS. Take me to Herakles' temple you have here. I come a
suppliant to him; put me upon his temple steps, to tell you his
achievement as I may!" And so they rowed them in to Syracuse, crying, "We
bring more of Euripides!" The whole city came out to hear, came rushing to
the superb temple, on the topmost step of which they placed the girl; and
plainly she told the play, just as she had seen it acted in Rhodes. A
wealthy Syracusan brought a whole talent, and bade her take it for
herself; she offered it to the god--

          "For had not Herakles a second time
    Wrestled with death and saved devoted ones?"

The poor captives in the quarries, when they heard the tale, sent her a
crown of wild pomegranate flower--the name (Balaustion in Greek) she
always henceforth bore. But there was a young man who every day, as she
recited on the temple steps, stood at the foot; and, when liberated, they
set sail again for Athens. There in the ship was he: he had a hunger to
see Athens, and soon they were to marry. She visited Euripides, kissed his
sacred hand, and paid her homage. The Athenians loved him not, neither did
they love his friend Socrates; but they were fellows, and Socrates often
went to hear him read.--Such was her adventure; and the beautiful
Alcestis' story which she told is transcribed from the well-known play of
Euripides in the succeeding pages of Mr. Browning's book. Whether the
story has undergone transformation in the process we must leave to the
decision of authorities on the subject. A comparison between the Greek
original and Mr. Browning's translation or "transcript" certainly shows
some important divergences from the classic story. We have only to compare
the excellent translation of Potter in Morley's "Universal Library," vol.
54 (Routledge, 1_s._), to discern this fact at once. As the question is
one of considerable literary importance, it is necessary to call attention
to it in this work. For those of my readers who may have forgotten the
_Alkestis_ tragedy, it may be well to recall its principal points. Potter,
in his translation of the _Alkestis_ of Euripides, gives the following
prefatory note of the plot:--"Admetus and Alcestis were nearly related
before their marriage. Æolus, the third in descent from Prometheus, was
the father of Cretheus and Salmoneus; Æson, the father of Jason, and
Pheres, the father of Admetus, were sons of Cretheus; Tyro, the daughter
of Salmoneus, was by Neptune mother to Pelias, whose eldest daughter
Alcestis was. The historian, who relates the arts by which Medea induced
the daughters of Pelias to cut their father in pieces in expectation of
seeing him restored to youth, tells us that Alcestis alone, through the
tenderness of her filial piety, concurred not with her sisters in that
fatal deed (Diodor. Sic.). Pheres, now grown old, had resigned his kingdom
to his son, and retired to his paternal estate, as was usual in those
states where the sceptre was a spear. Admetus, on his first accession to
the regal power, had kindly received Apollo, who was banished from heaven,
and compelled for the space of a year to be a slave to a mortal; and the
god, after he was restored to his celestial honours, did not forget that
friendly house, but, when Admetus lay ill of a disease from which there
was no recovery, prevailed upon the Fates to spare his life, on condition
that some near relation should consent to die for him. But neither his
father nor his mother, nor any of his friends, was willing to pay the
ransom. Alcestis, hearing this, generously devoted her own life to save
her husband's.--The design of this tragedy is to recommend the virtue of
hospitality, so sacred among the Grecians, and encouraged on political
grounds, as well as to keep alive a generous and social benevolence. The
scene is in the vestibule of the house of Admetus. Palæphatus has given
this explanation of the fable: After the death of Pelias, Acastus pursued
the unhappy daughters to punish them for destroying their father. Alcestis
fled to Pheræ; Acastus demanded her of Admetus, who refused to give her
up; he therefore advanced towards Pheræ with a great army, laying the
country waste with fire and sword. Admetus marched out of the city to
check these devastations, fell into an ambush, and was taken prisoner.
Acastus threatened to put him to death. When Alcestis understood that the
life of Admetus was in this danger on her account, she went voluntarily
and surrendered herself to Acastus, who discharged Admetus and detained
her in custody. At this critical time Hercules, on his expedition to
Thrace, arrives at Pheræ, is hospitably entertained by Admetus, and being
informed of the distress and danger of Alcestis, immediately attacks
Acastus, defeats his army, rescues the lady, and restores her to
Admetus."--At the eighty-fourth meeting of the London Browning Society
(June 26th, 1891), Mr. R. G. Moulton, M.A. Camb., read a paper on
_Balaustion's Adventure_, which he described as "a beautiful
misrepresentation of the original." In this he said: "To those who are
willing to decide literary questions upon detailed evidence, I submit that
analysis shows the widest divergence between the Admetus of Euripides and
the Admetus sung by Balaustion. And, in answer to those who are influenced
only by authority, I claim that I have on my side of the question an
authority who on this matter must rank higher than even Browning himself;
and the name of my authority is Euripides." The following extracts from
Mr. Moulton's able and scholarly criticism will explain his chief points.
(The whole paper is published in the Transactions of the Browning Society,
1890-1.) Mr. Moulton says: "My position is that Browning, in common with
the greater part of modern readers, has entirely misread and
misrepresented Euripides' play of _Alcestis_. If any one wishes to
pronounce "Balaustion's Adventure" a more beautiful poem than the Greek
original, I have no wish to gainsay his estimate; but I maintain,
nevertheless, that the one gives a distorted view of the other. The
English poem is no mere translation of the Greek, but an interpretation
with comments freely interpolated. And the poet having caught a wrong
impression as to one of the main elements of the Greek story, has
unconsciously let this impression colour his interpretations of words and
sentences, and has used his right of commenting to present his mistaken
conception with all the poetic force of a great master, until I fear that
the Euripidean setting of the story is for English readers almost
hopelessly lost. The point at issue is the character of Admetus. Taken in
the rough, the general situation has been understood by modern readers
thus: A husband having obtained from Fate the right to die by substitute,
when no other substitute was forthcoming his wife Alcestis came forward,
and by dying saved Admetus. And the first thought of every honest heart
has been, "Oh, the selfishness of that husband to accept the sacrifice!"
But my contention is, that if Euripides' play be examined with open and
unbiassed mind, it will be found that not only Admetus is not selfish,
but, on the contrary, he is as eminent for unselfishness in his sphere of
life as Alcestis proves in her own. If this be so, the modern readers,
with Browning at their head, have been introducing into the play a
disturbing element that has no place there. And they have further, I
submit, missed another conception--to my thinking a much more worthy
conception--which really does underlie and unify the whole play. If
Admetus is in fact selfish, how comes it that no personage in the whole
play catches this idea?--no one, that is, except Pheres, whose words go
for nothing, since he never discovers this selfishness of Admetus until he
is impelled to fasten on another the accusation which has been hurled at
himself. Except Pheres, all regard Admetus as the sublime type of
generosity. Apollo, as representing the gods, uses the unexpected word
"holy" to describe the demeanour with which his human protector cherished
him during the trouble that drove him to earth in human shape. The Chorus,
who, it is well known, represent in a Greek play public opinion, and are a
channel by which the author insinuates the lesson of the story, cannot
restrain their admiration at one point of the action, and devote an ode to
the lofty character of their king. And Hercules, so grandly represented by
Browning himself as the unselfish toiler for others, feels at one moment
that he has been outdone in generosity by Admetus. There can be no
question, then, what Euripides thought about the character of Admetus. And
will the objector seriously contend that Euripides has, without intending
it, presented a character which must in fact be pronounced selfish? The
suggestion that the poet who created Alcestis did not know selfishness
when he saw it, seems to me an improbability far greater than the
improbability that Browning and the English readers should go wrong.
Browning's suggestion of Pheres as Admetus "push'd to completion" seems to
me grossly unfair: it ignores all Admetus' connection with Apollo and
Hercules, and all his world-wide fame for hospitality. There is nothing in
the legend or in the play to suggest that Pheres is anything more than an
ordinary Greek: certainly the gods never came down from heaven to wonder
at Pheres, nor did Hercules ever recognise him as generous beyond himself.
In no view can the scene be other than a painful one. But it is
intelligible only when we see in it, not the son rebuking his father, but
the head of the State pouring out indignation on the officer whose
self-preserving instinct has shirked at once a duty and an honourable
opportunity to sacrifice, and thereby lost a life more valuable than his
own. In this light the situation before us wears a different aspect. It is
no case of a wife dying for a husband, but it is a subject dying to save
the head of the State. And nothing can be clearer than that such a
sacrifice is _taken for granted_ by the personages who appear before us in
Euripides' play. For I must warn the reader of _Balaustion_ that there is
not the shadow of a shade of foundation in the original for the scornful
words of the English poet telling how the idea of a substitute for their
king nowhere appears unnatural to the personages of the play; the sole
surprise they express is that the substitute should be the youthful
Alcestis and not the aged parents. The situation may fairly be paralleled
in this respect with the crisis that arises in Sir Walter Scott's _Fair
Maid of Perth_, when the seven sons of Torquil go successively to certain
death to shield their chief; and, while they cover themselves with glory,
no one accuses Hector of selfishness for allowing the sacrifice: the
sentiment of clan institutions makes it a matter of course. The
hospitality of Admetus is the foundation of the story; for it is this
which has led Apollo (as he tells us in the prologue) to wring out of Fate
the sparing to earth of the generous king on condition of a substitute
being found."

The stone quarries of ancient Syracuse are now called Latomia, the largest
and most picturesque of which is named Latomia de' Cappuccini. It is a
vast pit, from eighty to a hundred feet in depth, and is several acres in
extent. Murray, describing these vast quarries, says: "It is certain that
they existed before the celebrated siege by the Athenians, 415 B.C.; and
that some one of them was then deep enough to serve for a prison, and
extensive enough to hold the unhappy seven thousand, the relics of the
great Athenian host who were captured at the Asinarus. There is every
probability that that of the Capuchins is the one described by Thucydides,
who gives a touching picture of the misery the Athenians were made to
endure from close confinement, hunger, thirst, filth, exposure and
disease. Certain holes in the angles of the rocks are still pointed out by
tradition as the spots where some of the Athenians were chained. The
greater part of them perished here, but Plutarch tells us that some among
them who could recite the verses of Euripides were liberated from
captivity." Lord Byron's lines in _Childe Harold_ may be quoted in this
connection--

    "When Athens' armies fell at Syracuse,
    And fettered thousands bore the yoke of war,
    Redemption rose up in the Attic Muse--
    Her voice the only ransom from afar.
    See! as they chaunt the tragic hymn, the car
    Of the o'ermastered victor stops; the reins
    Fall from his hands; his idle scimitar
    Starts from his belt: he rends his captive's chains,
    And bids him thank the bard for freedom and his strains."

"Some there were who owed their preservation to Euripides. Of all the
Grecians, his was the muse whom the Sicilians were most in love with. From
every stranger that landed in their island, they gleaned every small
specimen or portion of his works, and communicated it with pleasure to
each other. It is said that on this occasion a number of Athenians, upon
their return home, went to Euripides, and thanked him in the most
respectful manner for their obligations to his pen; some having been
enfranchised for teaching their masters what they remembered of his poems,
and others having got refreshments, when they were wandering about after
the battle, for singing a few of his verses. Nor is this to be wondered
at, since they tell us that when a ship from Caunus, which happened to be
pursued by pirates, was going to take shelter in one of their ports, the
Sicilians at first refused to admit her; but upon asking the crew whether
they knew any of the verses of Euripides, and being answered in the
affirmative, they received both them and their vessel." (Plutarch's life
of Nicias.)

NOTES. [The numbers refer to the pages in the complete edition of the
Works.]--P. 5, _Kameiros_, a Dorian town on the west coast of Rhodes, and
the principal town before the foundation of Rhodes itself; _The League_,
the Spartan league against the domination of Athens. p. 6, _Knidos_, city
famous for the statue of Venus by Praxiteles, in one of her temples there;
_Ilissian_, Trojan; _gate of Diomedes_, the Diomæan gate, leading to a
grove and gymnasium; _Hippadai_, the gate of Hippadas, leading to the
suburb of Cerameicus; _Lakonia_ or _Laconica_ or _Lacedæmon_: Sparta was
the only town of importance--in this connection it means Sparta; _Choës_
(the Pitchers) an Athenian festival of Dionysus or Bacchus; _Chutroi_, a
Bacchic festival at Athens--the feast of pots; _Agora_, the Athenian
market and chief public place; _Dikasteria_, tribunals; _Pnux_ == the
Pnyx, the place of public assembly for the people of Athens; _Keramikos_,
two suburban places at Athens were thus called: the one a market and
public walk, the other a cemetery; _Salamis_, an island on the west coast
of Attica, memorable for the battle in which the Greeks defeated the fleet
of Xerxes, 480 B.C.; _Psuttalia_, a small island near Salamis; _Marathon_:
the plain of Marathon was twenty-two miles from Athens, and the famous
battle there was fought 490 B.C.; _Dionusiac Theatre_, the great theatre
of Athens on the Acropolis. p. 7, _Kaunos_, one of the chief cities of
Caria, which was founded by the Cretans. p. 8, _Ortugia_, the island close
to Syracuse, and practically part of the city. p. 9, _Aischulos_ == the
song was from Æschylus, the great tragic poet of Greece; _pint of corn_:
the wretched captives in the quarries were kept alive by half the
allowance of food given to slaves. Thucydides says (vii. 87): "They were
tormented with hunger and thirst; for during eight months they gave each
of them daily only a _cotyle_ (the _cotyle_ was a little more than half an
English pint) of water, and two of corn." p. 10, _salpinx_, a trumpet. p.
11, _rhesis_, a proverb; _monostich_, a poem of a single verse; _region of
the steed_: horses were supposed by the Greeks to have originated in their
land. p. 12, _Euoi_, _Oöp_, _Babai_, exclamations of wonder. p. 13, _Rosy
Isle_, Rhodes, the Greek word meaning rose. p. 16, _Anthesterion month_ ==
February-March; _Peiraieus_, the chief harbour of Athens, about five miles
distant; _Agathon_, a tragic poet of Athens, born 448 B.C.--a friend of
Euripides and Plato; _Iophon_, son of Sophocles: he was a distinguished
tragic poet; _Kephisophon_, a contemporary poet; _Baccheion_, the
Dionysiac temple. p. 17, _The mask of the actor_: it should be remembered
that the Greek actors were all masked. p. 20, _Phoibos_, the _bright_ or
_pure_--a name of Apollo; _Asklepios_ == Æsculapius, the god of medicine;
_Moirai_, the Fates--Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, the divinities of
human life. p. 25, _Eurustheus_, king of Mycenæ, who imposed the "twelve
labours" on Hercules. p. 26, _Pelias' child_: Alcestis was the daughter of
Pelias, son of Poseidon and of Tyro; _Paian_, a surname of Apollo, derived
from _pæan_, a hymn which was sung in his honour. p. 27, _Lukia_ == Lycia,
a country of Asia Minor; _Ammon_, a god of Libya and Upper Egypt: Jupiter
Ammon with the horns of a ram. p. 32, _pharos_, a veil or cloak covering
the eyes. p. 35, _Iolkos_, a town in Thessaly. p. 41, _Koré_, the Maiden,
a name by which Proserpine is often called. p. 47, _Acherontian lake_:
Acheron was one of the rivers of hell; _Karneian month_ ==
August-September, when the Carnean festival was celebrated in honour of
Apollo Carneus, protector of flocks. p. 48, _Kokutos' stream_, a river in
the lower world: the river Cocytus is in Epirus. p. 51, _Thrakian
Diomedes_, a king of Thrace who fed his horses on human flesh: it was one
of the labours of Hercules to destroy him; _Bistones_ == Thracians. p. 53,
_Ares_, Greek name of Mars; _Lukaon_, a mythical king of Arcadia;
_Kuknos_, son of Mars and Pelopia == Cycnus. p. 60, _Lyric Puthian_:
musical contentions in honour of Apollo at Delphi were called the Pythian
modes: so Apollo, worshipped with music, was called the lyric Pythian, in
commemoration of his victory over the Python, the great serpent; _Othrus'
dell_, in the mountains of Othrys, in Thessaly, the residence of the
Centaurs. p. 61, _Boibian lake_, in Thessaly, near Mount Ossa; _Molossoi_,
a people of Epirus, in Greece. p. 68, _Ludian_ == Lydian; _Phrugian_ ==
Phrygian. p. 73, _Akastos_, the son of Peleus, king of Iolchis; he made
war against Admetus. p. 74, _Hermes the infernal_: he was the son of Zeus
and Maia, and was herald of the gods and guide of the dead in Hades--hence
the epithet "infernal." p. 78, _Turranos_, Tyrant or King. p. 79, _Ai, ai!
Pheu! pheu! e, papai_ == woe! alas, alas! oh, strange! p. 81, _The Helper_
== Hercules. p. 83, _Kupris_, Venus, the goddess of Cyprus. p. 87,
"_Daughter of Elektruon, Tiruns' child_": Electryon was the father of
Alcmene, Tiryns was an ancient town in Argolis. p. 88, _Larissa_, a city
in Thessaly. p. 94, _Thrakian tablets_, the name of Orpheus is associated
with Thrace: the Orphic literature contained treatises on medicine,
plants, etc., originally written on tablets, and preserved in the temple;
_Orphic voice_, of Orpheus, which charmed all Nature; _Phoibos_, Apollo
was the god of medicine, and taught the art to Æsculapius; _Asklepiadai_,
who received from Phoibos or Apollo the medical remedies. p. 95,
_Chaluboi_, a people of Asia Minor, near Pontus. p. 96, _Alkmené_ was the
daughter of Electryon: she was the mother of Hercules, conceived by
Jupiter. p. 99, _Pheraioi_, the belongings of Admetus as a native of
Pheræ. p. 110, "_The Human with his droppings of warm tears_," a quotation
from a poem by Mrs. Browning, entitled _Wine of Cyprus_. p. 111, _Mainad_,
a name of the priestesses of Bacchus. p. 119, "_Straying among the flowers
in Sicily_": Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, one day gathering flowers in
the meadows of Enna, was carried away by Pluto into the infernal regions,
of which she became queen. p. 121, "_a great Kaunian painter_":
Protogenes, a native of Caunus in Caria, a city subject to the Rhodians,
flourished 332-300 B.C., and was one of the most celebrated of Greek
painters. "The story of his friendly rivalry with Apelles, who was the
first to recognise his genius, is familiar to all."--_Browning Notes and
Queries_ (Pt. vii. 25): the description of the picture refers to Sir
Frederick Leighton's noble work on this subject. p. 122, _Poikilé_, the
celebrated portico at Athens, which received its name from the variety of
the paintings which it contained. It was adorned with pictures of the gods
and of public benefactors.

=Balkis= ("Solomon and Balkis," _Jocoseria_ 1883). The Queen of Sheba who
came to visit Solomon. See SOLOMON AND BALKIS.

=Bean Feast, The= (_Asolando_). Pope Sixtus the Fifth (Felice Peretti) was
pope from 1585 to 1590. He was born in 1521, and certainly in humble
circumstances, but there seems no proof that he was the son of a
swineherd, as described in the poem (see _Encyc. Brit._, vol. xxii, p.
104). He was a great preacher, and one of the most vigorous and able of
the popes that ever filled the papal chair. Within two years of his
election he issued seventy-two bulls for the reform of the religious
orders alone. When anything required to be done, he did it himself, and
was evidently of the same opinion as Mr. Spurgeon, who holds that a
committee should never consist of more than one person. He reformed the
condition of the papal finances, and expended large sums in public works;
he completed the dome of St. Peter's, and erected four Egyptian obelisks
in Rome. Ever anxious to reform abuses, he made it his business to examine
into the condition of the people and see with his own eyes their mode of
life. Mr. Browning's poem relates how, going about the city in disguise,
he one day turned into a tumbledown house where a man and wife sat at
supper with their children. He inquired if they knew of any wrongs which
wanted righting; bade them not stop eating, but speak freely of their
grievances, if any. He bade them have no fear when he threw his hood back
and let them see it was the Pope. The poor people were filled with a
joyful wonder, the more so as the Pope begged a plate of their tempting
beans. He sat down on the doorstep, and having eaten, thanked God that he
had appetite and digestion.

=Bean-Stripe, A: also Apple Eating.= (_Ferishtah's Fancies_, No. 12.) One
of Ferishtah's scholars demanded to know if on the whole Life were a good
or an evil thing. He is asked if beans are taken from a bushelful, what
colour predominates? Make the beans typical of our days. What is Life's
true colour,--black or white? The scholar agrees with Sakya Muni, the
Indian sage who declared that Life, past, present and future, was black
only--existence simply a curse. Memory is a plague, evil's shadow is cast
over present pleasure. Ferishtah strews beans, blackish and whitish,
figuring man's sum of moments good and bad; in companionship the black
grow less black and the white less white: both are modified--grey
prevails. So joys are embittered by sorrows gone before and sobered by a
sense of sorrow that may come; thus deepest in black means white most
imminent. Pain's shade enhances the shine of pleasure, the blacks and
whites of a lifetime whirl into a white. But to the objector the world is
so black, no speck of white will unblacken it. Ferishtah bids his pupil
contemplate the insect on a palm frond: what knows he of the uses of a
palm tree? It has other uses than such as strike the aphis. It may be so
with us: our place in the world may, in the eye of God, be no greater than
is to us the inch of green which is cradle, pasture and grave of the palm
insect. The aphis feeds quite unconcerned, even if lightning sear the moss
beneath his home. The philosopher sees a world of woe all round him; his
own life is white, his fellows' black. God's care be God's: for his own
part the sorrows of his kind serve to sober with shade his own shining
life. There is no sort of black which white has not power to disintensify.
His philosophy, he admits, may be wrecked to-morrow, but he speaks from
past experience. He cannot live the life of his fellow, yet he knows of
those who are not so blessed as to live in Persia, yet it would not be
wise to say: "No sun, no grapes,--then no subsistence!" There are lands
where snow falls; he will not trouble about cold till it comes to Persia.
But the Indian sage, the Buddha, concluded that the best thing of Life was
that it led to Death! The dervish replied that though Sakya Muni said so
he did not believe it, as he lived out his seventy years and liked his
dinner to the last--he lied, in fact. The pupil demands truth at any cost,
and is told to take this: God is all-good, all-wise, all-powerful. What
is man? Not God, yet he is a creature, with a creature's qualities. You
cannot make these two conceptions agree: God, that only can, does not;
man, that would, cannot. A carpet web may illustrate the meaning: the sage
has asked the weaver how it is that apart the fiery-coloured silk, and the
other of watery dimness, when combined, produce a medium profitable to the
sight. The artificer replies that the medium was what he aimed at. So the
quality of man blended with the quality of God assists the human sight to
understand Life's mystery. Man can only know _of_ and think _about_, he
cannot understand, earth's least atom. He cannot know fire thoroughly,
still less the mystery of gravitation. But, it is objected, force has not
mind; man does not thank gravitation when an apple drops, nor summer for
the apple: why thank God for teeth to bite it? Forces are the slaves of
supreme power. The sense that we owe a debt to somebody behind these
forces assures us there is somebody to take it. We eat an apple without
thanking it. We thank Him but for whose work orchards might grow
gall-nuts.

Ferishtah in the Lyric asks no praise for his work on behalf of mankind.
He who works for the world's approval, or even for its love, must not be
surprised if both are withheld. He has sought, found and done his duty.
For the rest he looks beyond.

=Beatrice Signorini= (_Asolando_, 1889) was a noble Roman lady who married
Francesco Romanelli, a painter, a native of Viterbo, in the time of Pope
Urban VIII. He was a favourite of the Barberini family. Soon after his
marriage he became attached to Artemisia Gentileschi, a celebrated lady
painter. One day he proposed to her that she should paint him a picture
filled with fruit, except a space in the centre for her own portrait,
which he would himself insert. He kept this work amongst his treasures;
and one day, wishing to make his wife jealous, he unveiled it in her
presence, dilating on the graces and beauty of the original. His wife was
a very beautiful woman also, and was not inclined to tolerate this rivalry
for her husband's affections; she therefore destroyed the face of the fair
artist in the picture, so that it could not be recognised. Her husband was
not angry at this, but admired and loved his wife all the more for this
outburst of natural wrath, and soon ceased to think further of his quondam
love. Artemisia Gentileschi, daughter of Orazio Gentileschi, lived
1590-1642. She was a pupil of Guido, and acquired great fame as a portrait
painter. She was a beautiful woman; her portrait painted by herself is in
Hampton Court. Her greatest work is the picture of Judith and Holofernes,
in the Pitti Palace, Florence. She came to England with her father in the
reign of Charles I., and painted for him David with the head of Goliath.
She soon returned to Italy, and passed the remainder of her life at
Naples. Baldinucci tells the story of Romanelli.

=Beer.= See NATIONALITY IN DRINKS (_Dramatic Lyrics_).

="Before and After."= (_Men and Women_, 1855; _Lyrics_, 1863; _Dramatic
Lyrics_, 1868.) Two men have quarrelled, and a duel is proposed. It is
urged that the injured man should forgive his enemy, but a philosophical
adviser considers that Christianity is hardly equal to this particular
matter: "Things have gone too far." Forgiveness is all very well in good
books, but these men are sunk in a slough where they must not be left to
"stick and stink." As the offender never pardons, and the offended in this
case will not, there is nothing for it but to fight. Besides, "while God's
champion lives" (the just man), "wrong shall be resisted" and the
wrong-doer punished. These two men have quarrelled, and it is impossible
to say which of them is the injured and which the injurer. Wrong has been
done--this much is certain; beyond that human judgment is at fault, and
the Divine must be invoked. Let them fight it out, then! Of course the
poet is speaking dramatically, and not laying down the principle that
where we see evil done, especially in our own concerns, we are bound to
avenge the wrong. This sentiment is that of the philosophical observer of
the feud, though there are phrases here and there quite in accord with Mr.
Browning's axioms: "Better sin the whole sin"; "Go, live his life out";
"Life will try his nerves." [This teaching is much in the way of that in
the concluding verses of _The Statue and the Bust_ (_q.v._)] For the
culprit there, the speaker says, it is better he should add daring courage
to face the consequences of his crime, than by running away from them be
coward as well as criminal. He may come off victor, but his future life,
his garden of pleasure, will have a warder, a leopard-dog thing (his sin),
ever at his side. This leering presence, this "sly, mute thing," crouching
under every "rose wall" and "grape-tree," will exact the penalty of past
sin, and mayhap sting the sinner to repentance. "So much for the
culprit." The injured, "the martyred man," has borne so much, he can at
least bear another stroke--"give his blood and get his heaven." If death
end it, well for him--"he forgives"; if he be victor he has punished sin
as God's minister of justice. In "After," what is not said is more
powerful than any words which could have filled the intervening space
between these two poems. The imagination here is all-sufficient. The chill
presence of death has altered the aspect of everything. The rush of
thought, the casuistry, the intensity of the preceding poem, is all hushed
and silent here. Death makes things so real in its presence, masks drop
off from souls' faces, and truth can make her voice heard above the
contentions of sophistry. The victor speaks--he has no desire to
masquerade here as God's avenging angel; he recognises that even his foe
has the rights of a man, and as the spirit of the dead man wanders,
absorbed in his new life, he heeds not his wrongs nor the vengeance of his
slayer; the great realities of the other world make those of this world
trivial, and the victor estimates at its true value the worthlessness of
his conquest. If they could be as they were of old! So forgiveness would
have been better and Christ's command is vindicated--"I say unto you that
ye resist not evil." There are some victories which are always the worst
of defeats.

="Bells and Pomegranates."= Under this title Mr. Browning published a
cheap edition, in serial form, of his poems in 1841. The following works
appeared in this manner:--_Pippa Passes_; _King Victor and King Charles_;
_Dramatic Lyrics_; _The Return of the Druses_; _A Blot in the 'Scutcheon_;
_Colombe's Birthday_; _Dramatic Romances and Lyrics_; _Luria_; and _A
Soul's Tragedy_. ("A golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a
pomegranate, upon the hem of the robe round about."--EXOD. xxviii. 34,
35.) "The reason supposed in the Targum for the directions given to the
priest is that the priest's approach should be _cautious_ to the innermost
'Holy of Holies,' or Sanctuary of the Tabernacle. The sound of the small
bells upon his robe was intended to announce his approach before his
actual appearance." Philo says the bells were to denote the harmony of the
universe. St. Jerome says they also indicated that every movement of the
priest should be for edification. Mr. Browning, however, intimated that he
had no such symbolical intention in the choice of his title. In the
preface to the last number of the series, he said: "Here ends my first
series of 'Bells and Pomegranates,' and I take the opportunity of
explaining, in reply to inquiries, that I only meant by that title to
indicate an endeavour towards something like an alternation or mixture of
music with discoursing, sound with sense, poetry with thought; which looks
too ambitious, thus expressed, so the symbol was preferred. It is little
to the purpose that such is actually one of the most familiar of the many
Rabbinical (and Patristic) acceptations of the phrase; because I confess
that, letting authority alone, I supposed the bare words, in such
juxtaposition, would sufficiently convey the desired meaning. 'Faith and
good works' is another fancy, for instance, and, perhaps, no easier to
arrive at; yet Giotto placed a pomegranate fruit in the hand of Dante, and
Raffaelo crowned his theology (in the _Camera della Segnatura_) with
blossoms of the same; as if the Bellari and Vasari would be sure to come
after, and explain that it was merely '_simbolo delle buone opere--il qual
Pomogranato, fu però usato nelle vesti del Pontefice appresso gli
Ebrei_.'--R. B."

="Ben Karshook's Wisdom."= Mr. Sharp says, in his _Life of Browning_, "In
the late spring (April 27th, 1854), also, he wrote the short dactylic
lyric, "Ben Karshook's Wisdom." This little poem was given to a friend for
appearance in one of the then popular _keepsakes_--literally given, for
Browning never contributed to magazines. As "Ben Karshook's Wisdom,"
though it has been reprinted in several quarters, will not be found in any
volume of Browning's works, and was omitted from _Men and Women_ by
accident, and from further collections by forgetfulness, it may be fitly
quoted here. _Karshook_, it may be added, is the Hebraic word for a
thistle.

    "'Would a man 'scape the rod?'--
      Rabbi Ben Karshook saith,
    'See that he turns to God,
      The day before his death.'

    'Ay, could a man inquire,
      When it shall come!' I say,
    The Rabbi's eye shoots fire--
      'Then let him turn to-day!'

    Quoth a young Sadducee,--
      'Reader of many rolls,
    Is it so certain we
      Have, as they tell us, souls?'--

    'Son, there is no reply!'
      The Rabbi bit his beard;
    'Certain, a soul have _I_,--
      We may have none,' he sneered.

    Thus Karshook, the Hiram's-Hammer,
      The Right-hand Temple column,
    Taught babes in grace their grammar,
      And struck the simple, solemn."
                          (ROME, _April 27th, 1854_.)

The reference in the last verse is to 1 Kings vii. 13-22. Hiram was a
Phoenician king, and a skilful builder of temples. The Temple columns
referred to were called Jachin and Boaz, and were made of brass and set up
at the entrance; Boaz (_strength_) on the left hand, and Jachin
(_stability_) on the right. The Freemasons have adopted the names of these
pillars in their ceremonial and symbolism.

=Bernard de Mandeville= [THE MAN] (1670-1733) was a native of Rotterdam,
and the son of a physician who practised in that city. He studied medicine
at Leyden, and came to England "to learn the language." He did this with
such effect that it was doubted if he were a foreigner. He practised
medicine in London, and is known to fame by his celebrated book _The Fable
of the Bees_, a miscellaneous work which includes "_The Grumbling Hive, or
Knaves Turned Honest_; _An Inquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue_; _An
Essay on Charity Schools_; and _A Search into the Origin of Society_."
When, in 1705, the country was agitated by the question as to the
continuance of Marlborough's war with France, Mandeville published his
_Grumbling Hive_. All sorts of charges were being made against public
officials; every form of corruption and dishonesty was freely charged on
these persons, and it was in the midst of this agitation that Mandeville
humorously maintained that "private vices are public benefits,"--that
self-seeking, luxury, ambition, and greed are all necessary to the
greatness and prosperity of a nation. "Fools only strive to make a great
and honest hive." "The bees of his fable," says Professor Minto,
"grumbled, as many Englishmen were disposed to do,--cursed politicians,
armies, fleets, whenever there came a reverse, and cried, 'Had we but
honesty!'" Jove, at last, in a passion, swore that he would "rid the
canting hive of fraud," and filled the hearts of the bees with honesty and
all the virtues, strict justice, frugal living, contentment with little,
acquiescence in the insults of enemies. Straightway the flourishing hive
declined, till in time only a small remnant was left; this took refuge in
a hollow tree, "blest with content and honesty," but "destitute of arts
and manufactures." "He gives the name of virtue to every performance by
which man, contrary to the impulse of nature, should en

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