A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL

This poem 'exhibits something of the life of the Scaligers and the Casaubons, of many an early scholar, like Roger Bacon's friend Pierre Maricourt, working at some region of knowledge, and content to labor without fame so long as he mastered thoroughly whatever he undertook.' (Contemporary Review, IV, 135.)

The scholars are bearing their master to his tomb in one of the Italian hill-cities, perched on the top of the rocks, like Orvieto or Perugia.

3. croft. Enclosed tilled or pasture land. thorpe. Little village.

34. Apollo. The classical ideal of manly beauty. His statues usually represent him holding the lyre. 39. Moaned he. Did he moan?

45. the world. Of classical lore, which was bent on escaping.

Oun,

129-131. Hoti, De. Greek particles, meaning respectively 'that,' therefore,' towards.' As to the last, Browning wrote to the editor of the London Daily News on Nov. 20, 1874, as follows: In a clever article you speak of "the doctrine of the enclitic De "-" which with all deference to Mr. Browning, in point of fact, does not exist." No, not to Mr. Browning: but pray defer to Herr Buttmann, whose fifth list of 99 enclitics ends " with the inseparable De "- or to Curtius, whose fifth list ends also with "De (meaning towards, and as a demonstrative appendage)." That this is not to be confounded with the accentuated "De, meaning but," was the "Doctrine" which the Grammarian bequeathed to those capable of receiving it.'

ONE WORD MORE

A special interest attaches to this poem because it is the only one addressed by Browning, directly and avowedly, to his wife, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It was originally appended to the collection of poems, called Men and Women (1855). Browning uses the sonnets written by Raphael and a portrait painted by Dante to illustrate the desire of the artist to show his personal affection in some other way than that of his familiar craft, which has become professional and belongs to the world, so that everybody feels entitled to criticize. But as the poet cannot paint pictures, or carve statues, or make music to show his love, a semblance of resource remains in the use of a slightly different form of art from that which he commonly practises. Instead of writ ing dramatically, he may write, for once in his own person; for just as, according to the ancient myth,

the moon would turn to her lover a side unseen by other mortals, so the poet has two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her.' While he says this of him. self, he likes to think it of her, his moon of poets.' Her poetry is the world's side, and he too admires her from that point of view; but the best is when he leaves the standpoint of literary appreciation for the more intimate relation of personal knowledge and affection. Then it is that he realizes the love that Raphael sought to express by his sonnets and Dante by his picture.

5. a century of sonnets. Guido Reni had a book of 100 drawings of Raphael's, but Raphael is only known to have made four sonnets. Raphael never married, but he was very much in love with a certain lady, who has been identified, not very convinc ingly, with the original of one or other of the portraits attributed to his hand.

809. 22-24. The Sistine Madonna is now in the Dresden Art Gallery, the Madonna di Foligno is in the Vatican at Rome. The Madonna at Florence that called del Granduca, which represents her as 'appearing to a votary in a vision "—so say the describers; it is in the earlier manner, and very beautiful. I think I meant La Belle Jardinière but am not sure- - for the picture in the Louvre.' (Browning to W. J. Rolfe.) The Louvre Madonna is seated in the midst of a garden, in which there are lilies. All these are among the most famous works of Raphael.

27. Guido Reni. A celebrated Italian painter about a century later than Raphael. See note on line 5.

32. Dante. The first great Italian poet (12651321), who in The Divine Comedy attached eternal opprobrium to his enemies by assigning to them conspicuous places in Hell. Stanzas v, vi, and vii refer to a passage in his Vita Nuova, in which he has idealized his love for Beatrice, whom he had known as a young girl: 'On that day which fulfilled the year since my lady had been made of the citizens of eternal life; remembering me of her as I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets. And while I did thus, chancing to turn my head, I perceived that some were standing beside me to whom I should have given courteous welcome, and that they were observing what I did: also I learned afterwards that they had been there a while before I perceived them. Perceiving whom, I rose for saluta. tion and said: "Another was with me." Afterwards, when they had left me, I set myself again to the same occupation, to wit, to the drawing figures of angels.' (Section 35, Rossetti's translation.) It will be noticed that Browning's interpretation of the incident goes somewhat beyond the original, which gives no indication that those who interrupted Dante were people he scarified in the Inferno.

33. Beatrice. Four syllables — bā ah trë' tshe. 57. Bice. Two syllables-be' tshe. A contraction of endearment of Beatrice.

74-93. There are two accounts in the Pentateuch of the smiting of the rock by Moses.- Exodus xvii, 1-7, and Numbers xx, 2-11. The latter reads:

'And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels; must we fetch you water out of this rock? . . . And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron, Because ye believed me not, to sanctify me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore ye shall not bring this congregation into the land which I have given them.' Here, again, Browning has allowed his imagination to play round the original record.

810. 94-5. When the children of Israel were rebellious against Moses, they cried, 'Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots' (Exodus xvi, 3).

97. Exodus xxxiv, 29-35. cloven, because, following the Latin translation of this passage, the early painters represented Moses with two horns on his forehead. The original means to shine out or dart forth like rays of light.

101-2. Moses married Zipporah, Jethro's daughter (Exodus ii, 16-21), and an Ethiopian woman (Numbers xii, 1).

121. fresco. Painting in fresh plaster, usually done on the inside wall of a church.

125. missal-marge. The margin of a prayer book. 136–8. Karshish, Cleon, Norbert, Lippo, Roland and Andrea were among the characters in Men and Women, originally fifty in number.

143. how I speak. The personal instead of the dramatic mode of expression.

145. Here in London. The poem was written in London in September, 1855.

150. Samminiato. The common pronunciation of San Miniato, an old church, surrounded by cypress trees, overlooking Florence.

160. mythos. The old myth or story of the love of Diana, the moon-goddess, for the mortal Endymion.

163. Zoroaster (589-513 B. C.), founder of the Persian religion and a famous astronomer.

164. Galile'o (1564-1642). Professor at Padua, and one of the founders of modern science. After being condemned by the church, he continued his studies in his house at Florence, which overlooks the city from the same side as San Miniato.

165. Homer. In allusion to the Hymn to the Moon.

Keats. The author of Endymion. Browning expressed special admiration for him in the poem entitled Popularity.

811. 172-9. Exodus xxiv, 9-11: Then went up Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness ... also they saw God, and did eat and drink.'

ABT VOGLER

George Joseph Vogler (1749-1814), the priest. musician, composer, and teacher of Weber and Meyerbeer, was especially celebrated as an improviser, and traveled all over Europe giving performances on his orchestrion.

7. Name, Jehovah, used by Solomon as a talisman, according to oriental tradition.

22. festal night. Easter at St. Peter's, Rome. 812. 32. no more near nor far. Music frees us from the phenomena of time and space.'

34. Protoplast. The thing first formed as a model to be imitated.' The presences are either of the future or of the past.

70. The evil is null. The teaching of Spinoza, Hegel, and Emerson, as well as of the Kabbalists, founded on that of the Gnostics and Neo-Platonists. 813. 91. the common chord 'consists of the fundamental, with a major (four semitones), or minor (three semitones) third, and a perfect fifth (seven semitones) over it.'

93. a ninth if major, contains an octave and two semitones; if minor, an octave and one semitone. These last lines of the poem, stripped of their symbolic meaning, may be taken as an exact explanation of a simple harmonic modulation.' (Porter and Clarke.)

RABBI BEN EZRA

Ibn Ezra, or Abenezra (1092-1167), was a great Jewish scholar, poet, philosopher, and physician, who wandered over Europe, Asia, and Africa in pursuit of knowledge. As will be seen from the notes, his writings contain some of the views expressed by Browning's sage.

1. The Rabbi seems to be at the end of middle age, just where old age begins. He looks back to youth, forward to old age.

4. A poem of Abenezra's, quoted by Dr. Michael Sachs, has the same thought: In deiner Hand liegt mein Geschick.'

Stanzas ii and iii should be taken together. The sense is: I do not remonstrate because youth, amassing flowers, sighed...' He does not find fault with the foolish ambitions of his youth, for these aspirations, though they are vain, are what distinguish man from the beasts. This thought is expressed by Abenezra in his Commentary on Job XXXV, 11: 'Man has the sole privilege of becoming superior to the beast and the fowl.'

25-30. Stanza v expresses a favorite thought of Browning's. Cf. A Death in the Desert, 576-8: ·

Progress, man's distinctive mark alone, Not God's and not the beasts': God is, they are, Man partly is and wholly hopes to be.

PROSPICE

'Look forward.' This noble defiance of death was written in the autumn after Browning lost his wife, and appeared first in the Atlantic Monthly for June, 1864.

man

All the pain that a 816. 19. life's arrears. might fairly have expected to suffer in life, but missed.

23. fiend-voices. The ancient belief was that the soul at the moment of separation from the body is the object of a struggle between the angels, whose office is to bear away the freed spirit (Luke xvi, 22) and the powers of darkness who strive to snatch it from salvation. For this reason fervent prayers are offered for a soul on the point of departure.

27-28. Browning had a strong faith in immortality, and repeatedly expressed it in both prose and verse. He said: 'I know I shall meet my dearest friends again.'

HERVÉ RIEL

Browning was in France when it was invaded by Prussia in 1870, and escaped from the country with some difficulty before the outbreak of the disorders which followed the collapse of the French resist ance. Desiring to express his sympathy for the suf ferers by the siege of Paris, he sold this poem to Cornhill Magazine for £100, which he gave as a subscription to the Relief Fund. It was written in 1867 and first published in 1871. The incident it relates was first denied in France, but the records of the admiralty of the time proved that Browning was correct, except in one small detail: the reward Hervé Riel asked and received was'un congé absolu' a holiday for the rest of his life.

1. the Hogue. Cap La Hogue, where the French fleet was attacked in 1692 by the English and Dutch, and forced to retire. The expedition aimed at the restoration of James II, who watched the defeat from the Norman coast.

5. St. Malo, at the mouth of the Rance River, in Brittany, has a harbor which is described as 'safe, but difficult of approach.' In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was a flourishing port, and from it Jacques Cartier sailed in 1535 to ex plore the River St. Lawrence. the Rance. A small stream with picturesque steep banks. The town is situated on a rock between the harbor and the mouth of the river.

18. twelve and eighty. French, quatre-vingtdouze.

817. 30. Plymouth Sound. In the West of Eng. land, an important harbor and naval station. 43. pressed. Forced to serve.

Tourville. The French admiral.

44. Croisickese. Of Croisic, a little fishing vil lage of Brittany, where Browning liked to stay. See the title of the next poem in this selection. It was no doubt at Croisic that Browning picked up the story.

46. Malouins. Men of St. Malo.

49. Grève. La Grande Grève, the sandy shallows of the coast about St. Malo, especially to the east. 53. Solidor. A small harbor near the mouth of the Rance, beside the town of St. Servan. A fort of the same name defends it.

75. profound (here used as a noun). Depths. 92. rampired. Protected by ramparts or fortifica tions.

95. for. Instead of.

818. 135. the Louvre. A famous palace at Paris, now used as an art museum. On its external walls there are eighty-six statues of notable Frenchmen, but not, of course, one of the forgotten hero, Hervé Riel.

THE TWO POETS OF CROISIC

The Prologue and the Epilogue are connected with the main poem (which is here omitted) only by the thought, common to all three, that love is a necessary part of the poet's life and art. The Prologue may cause a little difficulty to begin with by its extraordinary conciseness, but this only adds to its charm when the meaning has been grasped. The grammatical construction and the relation of the stanzas to each other are indicated in the fol lowing prose rendering: As a bank of moss stands bare till some May morning it is made beautiful by the sudden growth of the violets; as the night sky is dark and louring till a bright star pierces the concealing clouds; so the world seemed to hem in my life with disgrace till your face ap peared to brighten it with the smile of God - the divine gift of love.'

In the Epilogue it is a young girl who repeats to the poet the 'pretty tale' he has once told her, and makes her own application of its significance. The story is found in Greek literature both in prose and in verse.

819. 50. Here, as in lines 15 and 21, the poet has attempted to interrupt.

77. Lotte. The pet name of Charlotte Buff, upon whom Goethe modelled the heroine of The Sorrows of Young Werther. The reference here, however, is rather to Goethe's way of treating women in general than to the particular case of Lotte, for she was already engaged to be married when he met her.

100-2. The sweet lilt of the treble was supplied by the chirping of the cricket, when its absence would have allowed the predominance of the sombre bass. Cf. lines 112-4.

120. (There, enough!) To what interruption of the poet's does this reply?

And first, before they left Athens, the generals sent off to Sparta a herald, one Pheidip'pides, who was by birth an Athenian, and by birth and prac tice a trained runner. This man, according to the account which he gave to the Athenians on his return, when he was near Mount Parthenium.. above Tegea, fell in with the god Pan, who called him by his name, and bade him ask the Athenians ' wherefore they neglected him so entirely, when he was kindly disposed towards them, and had often helped them in times past, and would do so again in time to come?' The Athenians, entirely believ

ing in the truth of this report, as soon as their affairs were once more in good order, set up a temple to Pan under the Acropolis, and, in return for the message which I have recorded, established in his honor yearly sacrifices and a torch-race.

On the occasion of which we speak, when Pheidippides was sent by the Athenian generals, and, according to his own account saw Pan on his journey, he reached Sparta on the very next day after quitting the city of Athens. Upon his arrival he went before the rulers, and said to them: "Men of Lacedæmon, the Athenians beseech you to hasten to their aid, and not allow that state, which is the most ancient in all Greece, to be enslaved by the barbarians. Eretria, look you, is al ready carried away captive, and Greece weakened by the loss of no mean city."

Thus did Pheidippides deliver the message com. mitted to him. And the Spartans wished to help the Athenians, but were unable to give them any present succor, as they did not like to break their established law. It was the ninth day of the first decade, and they could not march out of Sparta on the ninth, when the moon had not reached the full. So they waited for the full of the moon.'

the

It will be seen that the original story makes no mention of a reward promised by Pan to Pheidippides. This was Browning's own invention, following a later tradition. In connection with Marathon race at the Olympic games this was the subject of a considerable discussion, to which Professor Ernest A. Gardner contributed the following note as to Pheidippides: His great exploit, as recorded by Herodotus, was to run from Athens to Sparta within two days, for the practical purpose of summoning the Spartans to help against the Persian invader. The whole Athenian army made a forced march back to Athens immediately after the battle, also for a practical purpose; but there is no reason to suppose that Pheidippides or any one else ran the distance. The tale of his bearing the message of victory and falling dead when he arrived is probably an invention of some later rhetorician; it is referred to by Lucian, as well as by Robert Browning, but the two authorities are about of equal value for an occurrence of the fifth cen tury B. C. It is most unlikely that Herodotus would have omitted such a story if it had been current in his time.'

χαίρετε, νικῶμεν, the Greek words prefixed by Browning to the poem, form the message which Plutarch and Lucian attribute to the dying runner after Marathon. Browning translates them Rejcice; we conquer!' and in lines 113-114 makes effective use of the fact that xaípere (Hail!' or 'be of good cheer!') was also the customary form of salutation with the Greeks. Here again he was indebted to a suggestion derived from Lucian. 820. 4. Her of the agis and spear. Athene. @gis, shield.

5. ye of the bow and the buskin. Apollo and Artemis. buskin, laced boot.

9. Archons. Rulers or magistrates. tettix. The golden grasshopper worn by Athenians to show that they were autochthons (natives of the country).

11. Crowned with the myrtle. This still refers to Archons. Browning is strictly accurate in these points of detail.

18. water and earth. The emblems of subjection. This demand was made in 493 B. C. The invading Persians were defeated at Marathon three years later.

19. Eretria. The chief city of the island of Euboea, a little north of Athens.

20. Hellas. Greek civilization regarded as a whole.

25-40. Herodotus, as quoted above, says: 'So they waited for the full of the moon.' Grote ascribes the delay of the Spartans to conservatism, Rawlinson to envy; there was long-standing jealousy be tween Athens and Sparta, who were rivals for the leadership of Hellas. Sparta later sent 2,000 men, who arrived after the battle.

32-33. Phoibos. Olumpos. Browning preferred to retain the Greek spelling instead of the Latinized forms Phoebus' and 'Olympus.'

47. filleted. and ribbons. 821. 52. Parnes. In North Attica. But according to Herodotus as quoted above, Pan appeared to Pheidippides near Mount Parthenium in Argolis. This would be on his way from Athens to Sparta: Parnes would not. Professor John Macnaughton suggests that Browning made the change deliberately. He must have an Attic hill at all costs, when what he wants to say is that it is the spirit of her own mountains, her own autochthonous vigor, which is going to save Athens. He consciously sacrifices, in a small and obvious point, literal accuracy to the larger truth.' (Queen's Quarterly, April, 1903.)

Adorned for sacrifice with wreaths

62. Erebos. The darkness under the Erebus.

earth

Pheidippides is in a measure of Browning's own, composed of dactyls and spondees, each line ending in a half foot or pause. It gives the impression of firm, continuous, and rhythmic emotion, and is generally fitted to convey the exalted sentiment and heroic character of the poem. (Mrs. Orr.)

The metrical scheme should be carefully analysed. Dr. D. G. Brunton uses this poem as an illustration of Browning's employment of rime merely as a means of heightening his secondary rhythm. The riming words are so far apart that we are aware

only of a faint melodious echo. The always artificial and somewhat mechanical effect of rime is thus avoided, while its rhythmic essence is retained.'

EPILOGUE TO ASOLANDO

We have given at the foot of each poem the date of its publication, and the volume to which this little poem is the Epilogue bears the date 1890; it was actually issued in London on Dec. 12, 1889, the day of Browning's death at Venice. The report of his illness had quickened public interest in the forthcoming work, and his son had the satisfaction of telling him of its already realized success, while he could still receive a warm, if momentary pleasure from the intelligence.' (Mrs. Orr.) Browning prepared the volume for publication while staying in the Asolo villa of his friend Mrs. Arthur Bronson, to whom it is dedicated. The fanciful title is derived from the Italian verb asolare -' to disport in the open air, amuse one's self at random - popularly ascribed, Browning tells us, to Cardinal Bembo, who was Queen Cornaro's secretary, and in his dialogue, Gli Asolani, described the discussions on platonic love and kindred subjects the little court at Asolo used to indulge in. To Mrs. Bronson Browning justified the title in the following sentence: '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.' This was, no doubt, Pippa Passes.

The Epilogue is a final expression of Browning's profound belief in a future life of hopeful activity. When reading the poem in proof, he said of the third stanza: 'It almost looks like bragging to say this, and as if I ought to cancel it, but it's the simple truth; and as it's true, it shall stand.'

As in life he had faith in right, so in death which only fools think of as a prison of the soul he would be, not pitied, but encouraged by the good wishes of those who are working in the world. 17. the unseen. The poet himself after death.

824. a. 11, 15. Wordsworth Again Wordsworth. These two quotations are taken from the Preface to the Second edition of Lyrical Ballads, 1800.

38. Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), an eminent French critic.

825. a. 48. Pellisson, Paul Pellisson (1624-1693), a French man of letters and politician.

56 Charles d' Héricault (born 1823), French historian, novelist, and editor.

57. Clément Marot, a noted French poet (14971544).

826. a. 13. Methuselah, see Genesis v, 25-27.

b. 8. the Imitation, The Imitation of Christ, a religious treatise commonly ascribed to Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471). The passage quoted is found in Bk. iii, Ch. 43, § 2.

28. Cadmon, an Anglo-Saxon poet who is said to have flourished about the year 670. The Biblical paraphrases long ascribed to Cædmon are now regarded as of uncertain authorship.

33. M. Vitet, a French critic and politician (18021873).

35. Chanson de Roland, the oldest French national epic, written, probably, during the closing years of the 11th century.

37. joculator or jongleur, well enough understood by our English word minstrel,

39. Hastings, battle of Hastings, in 1066 43. Roncevaux, a pass in the Pyrenees, in Spain, notable as the scene of the events recounted in the Chanson de Roland.

44. Turoldus or Théroulde. The last line of the Chanson in the Oxford manuscript may be translated, 'Here ends the geste that Turoldas tells.' Turoldus may be the name of the minstrel who sang or recited the poem rather than that of the poet who composed it.

827. b. 27. Dante, Dante Alighieri (1265–1321), the greatest of Italian poets. His great work, The Divine Comedy, consisted of three parts: Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Ugolino, Ugolino della Gherardesca (d. 1289), a partisan leader in Pisa. With his two sons and two nephews he was starved to death in prison.

32. Beatrice to Virgil. According to The Divine Comedy, Virgil guided Dante through Hell and Purgatory. In Paradise, Beatrice became Dante's guide.

44. Henry the Fourth's expostulation, 2 Henry IV, Act iii, Scene 1.

828. a. 6. Hamlet's dying request. In the closing scene of the play.

14. that Miltonic passage, Paradise Lost, I, 599

602.

17. intrenched, cut, furrowed.

21. two such lines, Paradise Lost, I, 108-9. 27. exquisite close, Paradise Lost, IV, 271-2. 829. a. 53. Southey, Robert Southey (1774-1843), an English poet and prose-writer.

b. 7. Brunetto Latini (1230-1294), an Italian poet, scholar, and orator. His chief work is an encyclopedia, Trésor (Treasure), in French.

13. Christian of Troyes. The passage here quoted is from Cliges, lines 30-39.

48. that stanza. To which of the Chaucerian stanzas Arnold refers we cannot be certain. In the matter of stanza forms Chaucer borrowed much from France, and practically nothing at all from Italy.

54. Wolfram of Eschenbach, a German poet (f. c. 1200).

830. a. 30. Dryden's. Quoted from the Preface to the Fables. See edition of Scott and Saintsbury, Vol. XI, p. 230.

49. Gower, John Gower (1325?-1408), an Eng lish poet.