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Robert Browning, Incident of the French Camp, Stanzas 4 & 5

09 Tuesday Mar 2021

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IV. 

“Well,” cried he, “Emperor, by God’s grace 
“We’ve got you Ratisbon! 
“The Marshal’s in the market-place, 
“And you’ll be there anon 
“To see your flag-bird flap his vans 
“Where I, to heart’s desire, 
“Perched him!” The chief’s eye flashed; his plans 
Soared up again like fire. 

In this stanza we hear from the boy, who, as we learned above, was shot threw. The boy is an extasy it seems. The tight lips of the third stanza were from his effort to make the announcement –not grim determination.

The Marshall is Lannes. The French have taken the city. The “flag-bird” is Napoleon’s eagle. 

And here we come to the summit of the boy’s joy: 

Where I, to heart’s desire,

Perched him!

It was the desire of the boy to perch the Emperor’s flag.  The boy was no fighting for something abstract, like his country. He was fighting for someone concrete, the “chief.”

It is Napoleon’s plan that are his joy. So both the boy and Napoleon can join in the same hope.


V. 

The chief’s eye flashed; but presently 
Softened itself, as sheathes 
A film the mother-eagle’s eye 
When her bruised eaglet breathes; 
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” the soldier’s pride 
Touched to the quick, he said: 
“I’m killed, Sire!” And his chief beside 
Smiling the boy fell dead.

Here the Emperor is made human for a moment. The description of the tear forming in Napoleon’s eyes makes for an interesting basis of sympathy. 

His eyes at first flashed – with victory. Then the eye soften when it took in the boy. 

The language of a mother eagle with her eaglet is appropriate – because Napoleon’s symbol was the eagle. It was the eagle flag which the boy posted in the town. 

He finally notices that the boy is wounded. He blurts out, “You’re wounded!”

And here comes the surprise – at the end of the poem. This is the “incident”. It is why the story was so remarkable that the unnamed French soldier is telling this to you. 

He has spoken of the precarious position of Napoleon. Of the boy’s announcement. Of the surprising sympathy of Napoleon. 

But this surprise works almost as if a joke:

Napoleon says, You are wounded. 

The boy says, Nope, I’m not wounded! I’m dead!

And then the boy falls smiling, down.

The only explanation for the boy’s action is given as

                        the soldier’s pride 
Touched to the quick,

The boy is not a soldier in this instant, he is a soldier.  The boy has become something important in his own eyes – and since he has honored the Napoleon, that pride and accomplishment is objectively true. 

The boy then dies, smiling before the “chief.”

Note the use of the S’s and B’s to structure the lines:

The chief’S eye flaShed; but presently 
Softened itSelf, as SheatheS 
A film the mother-eagle’s eye 
When her Bruised eaglet Breathes; 
“You’re wounded!” “Nay,” the Soldier’S pride 
Touched to the quick, he Said: 
“I’m killed, Sire!” And his chief beSide 
Smiling the boy fell dead.

Also by ending the poem and the line on the word “dead,” Browning drives home the “punch-line” (if you will). 

Robert Browning, Incident of the French Camp, Stanzas 2 & 3

06 Saturday Mar 2021

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II. 
Just as perhaps he mused “My plans 
“That soar, to earth may fall, 
“Let once my army-leader Lannes 
“Waver at yonder wall,”— 
Out ‘twixt the battery-smokes there flew 
A rider, bound on bound 
Full-galloping; nor bridle drew 
Until he reached the mound. 

The second stanza breaks up into two even sections of four lines each. The first four lines concern Napoleon’s apparent dialogue with himself. But this is where Browning’s subtly comes in:

“Just as perhaps he mused.”

The poem works with two different frames of reference. It is in fact a second person account in which you personally addressed by a French soldier a short way from the battle. The whole is being explained to you by him (I guess it is possible that Browning has in mind a female camp follower of some sort, but the closeness to the battle makes that unlikely; hence a male soldier – there were not female fighters in Napoleon’s ranks.

Now this soldier reporter speaks in a tone similar to a third person narrator and it would be easy to think this so. But pay attention: He does not know what is actually in the Emperor’s mind. So our narrator gives us a supposition.  You are being invited to follow in his supposition. While told a story with an almost objectivity, you are being asked to see the event through the understanding of an unnamed soldier.

Here, just like the first stanza, we see Napoleon not as master of Europe, but rather as a man in a precarious place wholly dependent upon others. Napoleon may rise on this win or be crashed. And all depends upon Lannes, his Marshall. If Lannes fails, then Napoleon fails. If the army fails, the emperor fails. 

The image from the first stanza of an worried sovereign on a little mound, comes back here as an echo. What sort of mound does the emperor stand upon? We will soon see that he stands upon the backs of the dead. His Kingdom is in the hands of Lannes.

The soldier who has just lived through this battle is asking you to understand the emperor in a particular manner. This is not a lecture on war, or class structure, or any similar thing. This is a invitation to view Napoleon’s battles from the eyes of those who fight and die or live.

Moreover, it is never precisely vicious concerning Napoleon. There is a constant strain of the precarious nature of the leader’s position. His glory is as contingent as the life of everyone else. The poem is neither jingoistic, nor is it anti-war. Instead, by the use of this narrator, Browning causes of to empathize, to feel the world through the eyes of this other people.

This brings us to the second half of the stanza: A messenger in full haste rushes up to the “mound.” He has been riding his horse with abandon.  And so just as Napoleon is concerning himself with whether the day will be won, tidings come.


III. 

Then off there flung in smiling joy, 
And held himself erect 
By just his horse’s mane, a boy: 
You hardly could suspect— 
(So tight he kept his lips compressed, 
Scarce any blood came through) 
You looked twice ere you saw his breast 
Was all but shot in two. 

An English poet of this time cannot be assumed to have ignorance of Shakespeare. And so the dim echo of Macbeth in this scene is likely haunting the background. The King is upon the scene of the battle anxious for information as to how the battle has gone. 

DUNCAN

What bloody man is that? He can report,
As seemeth by his plight, of the revolt
The newest state.

MALCOLM

This is the sergeant
Who like a good and hardy soldier fought
‘Gainst my captivity. Hail, brave friend!
Say to the king the knowledge of the broil
As thou didst leave it.

Sergeant

Doubtful it stood;
As two spent swimmers, that do cling together
And choke their art. The merciless Macdonwald–
Worthy to be a rebel, for to that
The multiplying villanies of nature
Do swarm upon him–from the western isles
Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied;
And fortune, on his damned quarrel smiling,
Show’d like a rebel’s whore: but all’s too weak:
For brave Macbeth–well he deserves that name–
Disdaining fortune, with his brandish’d steel,
Which smoked with bloody execution,
Like valour’s minion carved out his passage
Till he faced the slave;
Which ne’er shook hands, nor bade farewell to him,
Till he unseam’d him from the nave to the chaps,
And fix’d his head upon our battlements.


The sergeant is played in Browning’s poem by the boy. Macbeth cuts a man’s chest in two. The boy himself as been cut in two. Both Kings, Duncan and Napoleon, have their kingdom’s and lives in the hands of other men whose death keeps them alive (although not in Browning’s mind, there is something vampire like where the King’s life is maintained by the loss of other’s blood). 

The reference to a “boy” in the battle is poignant. As Napoleon’s wars increased, he continued to obtain younger soldiers to replenish the men who had died. 

What is not suspected: The boy’s bloody condition. In the movement of the words, there is a hint that the messenger being a boy might have been the surprise. 

The boy’s face and chest are odds with one-another. The boy holds his lips so tightly together that “scarce any blood came through”. This is suggestive but not entirely clear: Does he me that no blood was in his lips and thus his lips were white? Or is there a wound somewhere which is being hidden, is he bleeding from his mouth. 

Whatever the precise reference, by looking at his bloodless lips you do not suspect the ravaged chest.

Robert Browning, Incident of the French Camp, First Stanza

05 Friday Mar 2021

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The poem forms a short story. On August 23, 1809, the French Army under the leadership of then-Emperor Napoleon engaged in a battle at the walled city of Ratisbon. A breach in the walls led to three advances into the city, all of which were defeated. On a third advance, the Marshall Lannes (a general office, just below Napoleon himself) made way to lead a fourth advance through the breach. Lannes is reported to have said to troops, understandably reluctant to charge through a breach which had seen three defeats in short order, “I will let you see that I was a grenadier before I was a marshal and still am one.” Lannes’ men held him back, and the troops rallied for a fourth, successful assault. During the battle, Napoleon suffered a rare, minor injury to his foot.

The poem describes the scene of a young soldier returning to make a report of a successful taking of the city. The young man having given the news falls down dead.

The first stanza sets the scene:

I

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 
A mile or so away,

On a little mound, Napoleon 
Stood on our storming-day; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 
Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 
Oppressive with its mind. 

The first words of this poem are critical to understand the whole. If you miss those words, you miss what is taking place. If we drop those words, the poet would be writing from the objective, third person narrator; the one who truly knows what is going on with every character. We the reader, are watching the whole scene from a distance.

But the first words subtly shift the meaning in two important ways. First, our perspective on the event does not come from a third person objective narrator, but it comes from an eyewitness. Second, we are not at home with a book of poetry in our hand sipping tea and admiring Browning’s skill.

If we are going to follow Browning, we must be present at the scene of the conquest of Ratisbon. First, we are speaking with a witness to the event:

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 

The narrator is a mere of the French army. You are not, the use of “you” and “we” create two distinct groups. This is why you were not present at the events. 

Second, you are not far from the scene of the battle, but you were not directly affected, the narrator has to remind you of the battle. If you home had been burnt, he probably would not be talking with you.

Third, you are near the battle, 

You know, we French stormed Ratisbon: 
A mile or so away,

This then leads to a question: Why is the soldier telling you the story? Is he proud, amused, incredulous, angry? 

Whatever the case, you only truly understand this poem if you see it as a conversation with a French soldier lately at the battle. You are brought into this piece of gossip.

The narrator then begins to set the scene. It centers upon Napoleon (as everything in Napoleon’s world did). 

On a little mound, Napoleon 
Stood on our storming-day; 
With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 
Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 
Oppressive with its mind. 

The narrator here begins to let us into how he sees the event: Napoleon stands “on a little mound.” Here is the Emperor, the terror Europe, the most powerful man in the world, standing on a “little mound.”  The prosaic point that Napoleon stood on an elevation to get a sight of the whole has been described in charged terms: “little mound” That is biting. 

Napoleon is also not present at the battle: he is standing while the soldiers are fighting and dying (as we will learn)

Napoleon 
Stood on our storming-day; 

Although not a direct allusion, this reminds me of a scene from the Bible:

2 Samuel 11:1 (ESV) 

In the spring of the year, the time when kings go out to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel. And they ravaged the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem. 

The great general is apart from his troops. But at least Napoleon is at the scene of the battle.

Notice also that you are drawn back into the scene. You know what Napoleon looks like. You are being made a confidant. 

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 

And finally Napoleon is a distress, two forces are opposed in him and he struggles to balance all:

With neck out-thrust, you fancy how, 
Legs wide, arms locked behind, 
As if to balance the prone brow 
Oppressive with its mind. 

This scene sets up the tentative nature of Napoleon’s position. The emperor on a little mound is reduced to a mere observer. This brings us to the next stanza

Robert Browning, The Lost Mistress

21 Sunday Feb 2021

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All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter 

As one at first believes? 

Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter 

About your cottage eaves! 

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, 

I noticed that, today; 

One day more bursts them open fully 

– You know the red turns grey. 

Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? 

May I take your hand in mine? 

Mere friends are we, – well, friends the merest 

Keep much that I resign: 

For each glance of the eye so bright and black, 

Though I keep with heart’s endeavor, – 

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, 

Though it stay in my soul for ever! – 

Yet I will but say what mere friends say, 

Or only a thought stronger; 

I will hold your hand but as long as all may, 

Or so very little longer! 

Summary: The poem itself is remarkably simple at one level. The poet is saying goodbye to a romantic relationship, not to the woman. As he parts from her home, their romance is over. Come the morning, they will be “friends.”  

What makes the poem striking is the manner in which Browning sketches this awkward, ambivalent moment. He works out the intricacy of the thoughts and emotions of the man who has lost the woman; revealing the shift in their relationship.

It is by turns delicate, melancholy, wicked, hopeful. This short piece is an absolute gem.

First Stanza 

All’s over, then: does truth sound bitter 

As one at first believes? 

Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter 

About your cottage eaves! 

Summary: There are three elements to this stanza: (1) the interjection; (2) the question; and (3) the seemingly irrelevant turn to the sparrows. He is saying a goodbye of sorts, and then he turns to the birds.

Notes:

All’s over: 

The poem is in the voice of the poet to the mistress. We pick up the story in the middle. Something has just happened, but what did happen is unknown to the reader. We’ve walked onto the intimate of moments between two people. The only thing we know is that is definitively over.

By not telling us more than the end has come, Browning puts our focus wholly upon the moment. There is no possible negotiation; our attention thus solely upon the now of their relationship.

The rhythm accentuates the meaning. The poem begins with two consecutive accented syllables. 

Then: does truth sound bitter 

As one at first believes? 

Just as the poem abruptly begins with the end, we see in these lines the subtle turn which is taking place. At first, the truth was bitter. But here is negotiating with the truth and his relationship to it. By saying the bitterness was “at first believe[d]”, he implies that perhaps his original bitterness could be otherwise. He is negotiating with his situation. 

This is not quite hopefulness for the relationship: he is not asking her to reconsider whatever has just taken place. But he is finding something here which will be new. Somehow the bitterness can be displaced.

This sets the agenda for the poem. The initial interjection closes the door on what has just happened. This pausing to think of bitterness opens the door to the movement through the remainder of the poem.

Hark, ’tis the sparrows’ good-night twitter 

About your cottage eaves! 

One misses the connection of these lines if the poem is considered as a straight logical argument. The sparrows from nothing directly to do with the proceeding events. But when we think of this as it would play out emotionally, we have a clue.

You are standing at the door of the woman whom you have loved, and now you must say goodbye to all that hope and desire and expectation. You were on the verge of being crushed and then there in the evening an idea begins to form. You have just been saved from bitterness. And in this moment of incipient joy or hope you notice the birds. The tiny sparrow twitter about her “cottage eaves” (which is much more becoming than “roofline”).

Finally, I can’t help but hearing Wordsworth’s Strange Fits of Passion in the background. I can’t prove it up, but somehow I think it’s lurking here.

Second Stanza

And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly, 

I noticed that, today; 

One day more bursts them open fully 

– You know the red turns grey. 

He then continues with this lingering observation of her home. Yes, here are the sparrows. I hadn’t noticed them just a moment ago, and look her are the flowers on the vine. 

He is telling her notice that flowers are about to burst open: it will happen tomorrow. By the way, he has a resolution for tomorrow himself. 

The last line is vicious. It is easy to miss the point here and think that Browning is raising the commonplace observation that nothing is permanent. That would be boring. 

Think more carefully: You have just been rejected, on some unknown basis. You were on the verge of being crushed (bitterness) and then you had a change in thoughts. You are not going to be destroyed. You note the lovely sparrows. You note the flowers ready to burst open.

And then he says to her: You know all those flowers will die. He doesn’t say it directly. The vague way he raises the point makes it sound as if he is merely thinking out loud. 

But he tells his “lost mistress,” you know those flowers will die. Yes, that is a retrospective evaluation of his relationship: but the dying flowers are in the future. The death is not what he has just suffered, but what she will soon face. Her flowers have reached their zenith.

Third Stanza

Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest? 

May I take your hand in mine? 

Mere friends are we, – well, friends the merest 

Keep much that I resign: 

Here begins the negotiation. He has gone from rejection in the first words to having some control over the circumstance. He has already suffered whatever loss he will suffer; her flowers have yet to face.

The “dearest” at the end of the first line is loaded. Is it plaintive? Ironic?

The complication then comes in the lines: (1) may I take your hand; (2) we will be “mere” friends.  These lines are negotiating the nature of their new relationship. 

Mere friends are we, – well, friends the merest 

The rhythm throws the accent on the first syllable. There are two pauses in one line. The chiasm: mere-friends-friends-mere drives the point home in an overkill:

MERE FRIENDS are we ….. well …. FRIENDS the MERest

The last line then introduces his “offer”

Stanza Four

Keep much that I resign: 

For each glance of the eye so bright and black, 

Though I keep with heart’s endeavor, – 

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, 

Though it stay in my soul for ever! – 

This stanza reminds of John Donne’s poem “The Message” which begins:

Send home my long stray’d eyes to me, 

Which O too long have dwelt on thee, 

Yet since there they have learn’d such ill, 

Such forc’d fashions, 

And false passions, 

That they be 

Made by thee 

Fit for no good sight, keep them still.

But the possible allusion to Donne is ironic. Donne is sending everything back, but Browning returns nothing though it is resigned to her. Note the use of the word “though” in the second and fourth lines of the stanza:

For each glance of the eye so bright and black, 

Though I keep with heart’s endeavor, – 

Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back, 

Though it stay in my soul for ever! – 

He offers back to her each glance she shared with him, and the sound of her voice. And yet, even if he returns it to her, it still remains in his heart and soul. She has already been communicated to him and this cannot be undone. 

So we have come to the place where she cannot obtain she apparently sought: a place where this had never taken place. She has already bestowed something upon him which she cannot retrieve. 

This trope of the lover turning over some secret token which cannot be retrieved and which has become a liability lurks in the background of these lines. 

This matter of love and loss has become significantly more dangerous. 

Which leads us to the conclusion

Fifth Stanza

Yet I will but say what mere friends say, 

Or only a thought stronger; 

I will hold your hand but as long as all may, 

Or so very little longer! 

He returns to the negotiated space of “mere friends” but now discloses what has happened. She has left the tokens with him, and since those tokens cannot be retrieved, even their position of “mere friends” is different.

He only raises the matters of speaking to her and holding her hand. But these matters were already raised above. He said things which mere friends would say, about sparrows and flowers – and yet what he has said is a “thought stronger.” There was more in his mentioning sparrows and flowers than would if someone else had spoken. 

When he touches her hand, it will be for no longer than anyone else. But she will know that something has happened here that has not happened among her other “mere friends.” 

William Burroughs in 1965

19 Friday Feb 2021

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Often there is a startling gap between the art and the artist. William Burroughs wrote some truly grotesque, strange fiction. I hardly know how to characterize his strange and vicious sarcasm. He was famously debauched; a junky; shot his wife in Mexico City, allegedly playing William Tell.

Digression: In law school, we read a case in criminal law of a man who shot his wife. He defended himself by claiming he was shooting beer cans off the TV and his wife came in and she was accidentally shot. By that point in my legal education I remember thinking, Okay, Not what I would would do, but who knows? Our professor snapping us back into reality asked to consider the matter with more sober judgment. As Thomas Brooks would say, You are wise and know how to apply it.

Back to Mr. Burroughs: proposed some very strange ideas:

“Exterminate all rational thought. That is the conclusion I have come to.”

And, “That’s Panama – Nitrous flesh swept out by your voice and end of receiving set – Brain eating birds patrol the low frequency brain waves – Post card waiting forgotten civilians ‘and they are all on jelly fish, Meester.'”

Burroughs was a remarkably strange, deranged man (and in saying so I do not doubt he would wholly concur). His milieu was madness. Now from this position, Burroughs was insightful in a way few could possibly be:

Junk is the ideal product…the ultimate merchandise. No sales talk necessary. The client will crawl through a sewer and beg to buy…The junk merchant does not sell his product to the consumer, he sells the consumer to his product. He does not improve and simplify his merchandise. He degrades and simplifies the client. He pays his stuff in junk.

The face of “evil” is always the face of total need.

On that last quotation, Mr. Burroughs was profoundly Augustinian: evil is a desire for something else, it is always discontentment.

His critique of consumer culture in one novel is so obscene that I cannot repeat it. And yet, the obscenity is like a clarification of the sin of consumerism (we always privilege our own sins and find the sins of others inexplicable; sin is always irrational, and yet not all fish are caught with the same bait. I have caught a marlin while trolling a lure and a catfish with a still bait on the lake floor. All sin is obscene.). Sometimes he was bizarrely hysterical:

A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what’s going on. A psychotic is a guy who’s just found out what’s going on.

Back to Burroughs: This description is from the Paris Review. One would think that such a monster, a murderer, a drug addict, possessed of a bizarre imagination; profane beyond all bounds of civilized society, would be a monster. And thus, to read this description from the Paris Review (if I had literary talent … alas) is both marvelous and comical:

At noon the next day he was ready for the interview. He wore a gray lightweight Brooks Brothers suit with a vest, a blue-striped shirt from Gibraltar cut in the English style, and a deep-blue tie with small white polka dots. His manner was not so much pedagogic as didactic or forensic. He might have been a senior partner in a private bank, charting the course of huge but anonymous fortunes. A friend of the interviewer, spotting Burroughs across the lobby, thought he was a British diplomat. At the age of fifty, he is trim; he performs a complex abdominal exercise daily and walks a good deal. His face carries no excess flesh. His expression is taut, and his features are intense and chiseled. He did not smile during the interview and laughed only once, but he gives the impression of being capable of much dry laughter under other circumstances. His voice is sonorous, its tone reasonable and patient; his accent is mid-Atlantic, the kind of regionless inflection Americans acquire after many years abroad. He speaks elliptically, in short, clear bursts.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 31, Begraced With Glory.3

06 Saturday Feb 2021

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Seen at 107 South Street, NY, NY; https://www.instagram.com/dirtcobain/

Oh! Sad-sad thing! Satan is now turned cook:

Sin is the sauce he gets for every dish.

I cannot bite a bit of bread or root (15)

But what is sopped therein and venomish.

Right’s lost in what’s my right. Hence I do take

Only what’s poisoned by the th’infernal snake.

Summary: Now every experience, everything which the poet experiences has been imbued with sin, which he refers to as “poison” or “venom.”

Notes: That Satan is referred to as a serpent is undisputed. In Genesis 3, the Tempter – although not explicitly referred to as Satan – is referred to as the Serpent, the most crafty of subtle beasts of the field (the field was the world outside the Garden). In Revelation 20:2, Satan is explicitly referred to as “that ancient serpent.”

The imagery of Satan as a cook is interesting and unusual. I cannot find any references to Satan as a cook. But, the image is on point because the original sin was brought about through eating. He did provide a dish for Adam and Eve. 

Use of this image then makes for a fascinating overlay with original sin. That fruit from the Garden has now become an overlay for all subsequent human action. 

All life must be lived in a manner which entails loving God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength. And no action of a human being ever approximates such a level of devotion. It is impossible for post-fall human conduct to ever be perfect. 

This actually makes for a fascinating contrast with the current social mobs which attack any deviancy from orthodox thought and conduct. These mobs allow for zero tolerance, zero grace. But in contrast: Paul persecuted the Church; Peter denied Christ; David committed adultery and murder; et cetera. These are our saints. Taylor will get to the inexplicable grace of God – which so contrasts with the judgment of human beings.

Note also that this is not merely sinful but is poisonous: it is filled with venom. Thus, while it is food and desirable; it is also poisonous and spells my death.

Of special note must be the word “sopped”:

Oh! Sad-sad thing! Satan is now turned cook:

Sin is the sauce he gets for every dish.

I cannot bite a bit of bread or root

But what is sopped therein and venomish.

What is so perfect about the word is not merely the sound, but the meaning. Sin as a sauce has been poured over all of his food. He is not merely content to the sauce as it happens to be on his meat: he next uses bread to sop up all the remainders. What a vicious and brilliant vision of sin. 

Musical: I rather like this stanza.

Look at all the alliteration on “s”: 

Sad, sad, satan, sin, sause, diSh, sopped, venomISH, rightS, lost, 

 The phrase, “Sin is the Sause” is wonderfully balanced in concept, rhythm, and sound

SIN is the SAUCE

The first line SAD SAD THING SATan: the slow beat, the repetition of not merely S, but SA. “Sad thing” is a near rhyme to “Satan”

The third line of the santza switches to B and R and makes for a wonderful contrast to the sibilant S

I cannot bite a bit of bread or root

But

The alliteration draws the words together. The near rhyme of bite-bit, the movement from B to R in Bite, Bit, BRead, Root is brilliant.

Here it is again:

Oh! Sad-sad thing! Satan is now turned cook:

Sin is the sauce he gets for every dish.

I cannot bite a bit of bread or root

But what is sopped therein and venomish.

Right’s lost in what’s my right. Hence I do take

Only what’s poisoned by the th’infernal snake.

Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, Dedication 1

23 Saturday Jan 2021

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Lord Byron & the Elephant in the Room | Katie Sciba

TO IANTHE.

Not in those climes where I have late been straying,

Though Beauty long hath there been matchless deemed,

Not in those visions to the heart displaying

Forms which it sighs but to have only dreamed,

Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed:

Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which varied as they beamed—

To such as see thee not my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?

The musical effects in this stanza extraordinary.

First the rhyme scheme:  ABABB CBCC

Next the rhythms

NOT in those CLIMES where I have LATE been STRAYing

Though BEAUty LONG hath THERE been MATCHless DEEMED

NOT in those VISions to the HEART displaying

FORMS which it SIGHS but to have ONly DREAMED

Hath AUGHT like THEE in TRUTH or FANCy SEEMED

NOR, having SEEN THEE, shall I vainly SEEK

To PAINT those CHARMS which VARied as they BEAMED—

To such as SEE THEE not my WORDS are WEAK;

To THOSE who GAZE on THEE, what LANGuge COULD they SPEAK?

Next for some effects:

The first and third lines begin with the same introductory phrase (anaphora, http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Figures/A/anaphora.htm)

“Not in those”

The two lines set off two separate elements: The first goes to an investigation of the physical work ‘Not in those climes’. The second concerns an investigation of the imagination: “Not in those visions”. 

They are also paired in this manner: The climes are where Byron is:  “those climes were late I have been straying.” The second, his dreams, imagination, are the recollections and fancies of the absent woman. The word and his internal world are thus presented for review. 

He then brings both aspects together in a single conclusion: neither truth (the physical world) nor his fancy (imagination) was there anything so wonderful as you:

Hath aught like thee in truth or fancy seemed:

He begins with the answer to the proceeding by use of the word “nor” which echoes back to the “not” which opened the introductory concern. He then engages in the paradox of so much poetry: I cannot use words to express this thing which I am here expressing in words:

Nor, having seen thee, shall I vainly seek

To paint those charms which varied as they beamed—

To such as see thee not my words were weak;

To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?

The sixth line is quite wonderful. The pause coming after the first syllable creates sets off the words “having seen thee”.

Nor …. Having seen thee  … shall I vainly seek

Nothing in the world compares to you and an attempt by me to do so would be vain itself. 

There an interesting verb in the next line “paint”  which is picked up in the 8th line as “my words”. The poem could be a painting in words.

There is an interesting contrast in these four lines between speech and sight: Having seen her, he cannot paint her by means of words (which would be heard), because words are “weak” in comparison to the sight. Indeed, there is no language adequate for the task:

To those who gaze on thee, what language could they speak?

Edward Taylor, 28th Meditation.1

26 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Literature, Puritan

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The 28th Meditation of Edward Taylor takes as its text John 1:16. In context, the passage (as it would have stood in Taylor’s Bible) reads as follows:

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. 

John 1:14–18  

The poem will center upon the receipt of the grace which is in the Word made Flesh. However, as is a consistent theme in Taylor, it begins with the distance from God and the disorder of mind. Although not discussed in this place, the noetic effect of sin – the disordering effect of sin upon the thoughts, affections and behavior – lies behind  his description of his sense as “bewildered” and his “befogged dark fancy”. 

It should be noted that the effects are not simply in a cause-and-effect relationship with some particular sinful action, but are inherent in any human being on this earth. The damage done by Adam’s fall is not completely removed prior to one’s death and personal resurrection.

The poem begins with a self-conscious discussion of the poem itself as a matter of praise, sending some “glory home”. But this glory is returned in small sums, “bits” rather than in “lumps.” (Incidentally, “lumps” does not have the negative connotations it does in contemporary vernacular.) The first stanza reads:

When I Lord, send some bits of glory home

(For lumps I lack) my messenger, I find,

Bewildered, lose his way being alone

In my befogged dark fancy, clouded mind.

Thy bits of glory packed in shreds of praise

My messenger doth lose, losing his ways.

The first line creates an interesting rhythmic effect by beginning with a Bacchic foot: “when I LORD” followed by a pause.  The unusual English rhythm ending on a stress followed by a pause is difficult to read. The awkwardness creates an emphasis on the words. The vocative, Lord, would normally stand at the beginning of a clause, “Lord, when I send ….” Thus, the relationship between “I” and “Lord” is foregrounded.

The remainder of the first line and the second then flow along more easily. However, the poem introduces a puzzling reference, “my messenger”. The messenger is the means by which he is returning glory to the Lord. The precise identity of the messenger is not otherwise clarified. What is the means by which he is sending glory home: the messenger is the poem itself.

And so, as is common in Taylor, his poem is in part about the poem itself. His thinking which creates the poem is bewildered. His “befogged dark fancy” would be the weakness of his ability to conceive and create the poem.

And here comes the problem: he seeks to return some glory to the Lord within the praise which is the poem itself, but the glory falls out (is lost) from the poem:

Thy bits of glory packed in shreds of praise

My messenger doth lose, losing his ways.

A comparison of Plutarch and Paul

15 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by in Plutarch, Romans

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The brilliant moralist and essayist Plutarch (born AD 49 and thus his life overlapped with St Paul who died around 65/66 AD) raised an issue concerning a good ruler – which was also a concern of Paul: the law written on the heart. But they came to rather different conclusions on the matter:

Who then shall have power to govern a prince? The law, without doubt; which (as Pindar saith) is the king of mortal and immortal beings; which is not written without in books nor engraven on wood or stone, but is a clear reason imprinted in the heart, always residing and watching therein, and never suffering the mind to be without government. The king of Persia indeed commanded one of his lords that lay in the same chamber to attend him every morning, and to sound these words in his ears: Arise, O king! and take care of those affairs and duties that Oromasdes requires of thee. But a wise and prudent. prince hath such a monitor within his breast as always prompts and admonishes him to the same effect.

The law on the heart is a peculiar attribute of a good ruler. The law restrains the prince: it is knowledge which governs the governor. If the knowledge is present will effectively direct reason.

Paul raises the same issue of the law written on the heart in his letter to the Roman Church:

12 For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law.

13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.

14 For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law.

15 They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them

16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

Rom2.12-16

The law is present upon every heart. But the law does exactly govern although it does judge. The law sets up as tribunal and gives a judgment. This judgment of the law proves the law has been written on every human heart. It also acts a warning of the greater judgment to come.

This law is different than Plutarch’s version because it belongs to all – but more importantly it gives judgment but does not convey the power to conform:

19 Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.

20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.

Rom3.19-20

This perhaps demonstrates the fundamental similarity and distinction between a worthy moralist such as Plutarch and Paul.

In the Bible the fault is far deeper than knowledge. Reason also does not restrain desire; and twisted desire brings madness:

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.

Rom1.28

The prophet Jeremiah in a vivid section describes sin against known law so:

23 How can you say, ‘I am not unclean, I have not gone after the Baals’? Look at your way in the valley; know what you have done- a restless young camel running here and there,

24 a wild donkey used to the wilderness, in her heat sniffing the wind! Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves; in her month they will find her.

Jer2.23-24

And so the Christian can not rely upon education alone because the fault is worse than ignorance.

I think history demonstrates that even the wisest rulers have made spectacularly poor decisions when driven by foolish desire. And thus the judgment for depth of treatment and accuracy of human nature go to Paul.

The Wolf and the Lamb by Phaedrus

09 Wednesday Sep 2020

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Oskar Seyffert explains that Phaedrus was born and Macedonia and was brought to Rome as a slave. He introduced fable writing in Latin. He was set free by Augustus. But his writing did not bring him “relief from his miserable position, nor recognition on the part of the educated public; his patron seem to have bee only freedman life himself. In fact, he even drew upon himself, by first two published books, the illiill and persuetuio of the all-powerful favorite of Tiberius, Sejannus who suspected in them malicious references to contemporary events. In consequence, he did not publish the remaining books till after the fall of Sejannus in 31 A.D. and the death of Tiberius in 37.”

This first fable concerns the one who will use any excuse — even if the excuse is merely a false accusation — to destroy another.

THE WOLF AND THE LAMB

BY thirst incited; to the brook

The Wolf and Lamb themselves betook.

The Wolf high up the current drank,

The Lamb far lower down the bank.

Then, bent his ravenous maw to cram,

The Wolf took umbrage at the Lamb.

 “How dare you trouble all the flood,

And mingle my good drink with mud?”

 “Sir,” says the Lambkin, sore afraid,

 “How should I act, as you upbraid?

The thing you mention cannot be,

The stream descends from you to me.”

Abash’d by facts, says he, ” I know

 ‘Tis now exact six months ago

You strove my honest fame to blot”-

 “Six months ago, sir, I was not.”

 “Then ‘twas th’ old ram thy sire,” he cried,

And so he tore him, till he died.

To those this fable I address

Who are determined to oppress,

And trump up any false pretence,

But they will injure innocence.

And here is the Latin originals with my rough translation notes.

Lupus et agnus.

Ad rivum eundem lupus et agnus venerant

A wolf and a lamb came to a river at the same time

Siti compulsi; superior stabat lupus

Being compelled by thirst; the wolf stood above, higher up

Longeque inferior agnus. Tunc fauce improba

And further below the lamb. Then by his wicked mouth

Latro incitatus iurgii causam intulit.

He barked his cause to fight. 

[5] Cur, inquit, turbulentam fecisti mihi

Why, he said, are you making a mess of my

Aquam bibenti? Laniger contra timens:

Water I am drinking? The wooly one fearing

Qui possum, quaeso, facere, quod quereris, lupe?

What ability, I beg, to to that of which you complain wolf?

A te decurrit ad meos haustus liquor.

From you it flows down to me this water to drink.

Repulsus ille veritatis viribus:

Set back by the power of this true

[10] Ante hos sex menses male, ait, dixisti mihi.

After six bad months you say this to me?

Respondit agnus: Equidem natus non eram.

The lamb responded, truly was I not at that time.

Pater hercle tuus, ille inquit, male dixit mihi.

By Hercules, your father he said the evil to me.

Atque ita correptum lacerat iniusta nece.

And then he quickly, unjustly tore him to pieces.

Haec propter illos scripta est homines fabula,

For such people I wrote these fables.

[15] Qui fictis causis innocentes opprimunt.

Who fashion a charge against the innocent.