02 Thursday Feb 2023
Posted in Anne Bradstreet
Downy beds make drowsy persons
But hard lodging keeps the eyes open.
A prosperous state makes a secure Christian
But adversity makes him
Consider
(The prior post in this series may be found here)
02 Thursday Feb 2023
Posted in Literature
Tags
ODE ON A GRECIAN URN.
John Keats
1. Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?2.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!3.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied, For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.4.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.5.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
17 Friday Jun 2022
Posted in T.S. Eliot
The longer I work with this poem (the previous post on this poem is here) the more evocative and allusive it becomes. It certainly does not fit to into any easily assigned “meaning.” There is no quick code here to “understand” it. Rather it provokes pondering.
IV
Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
The third section ended as we “descend lower” from the “place of disaffection.” Down from the world which can only distract with distraction, down into “the world of perpetual solitude.” A place of “abstention from movement” which is contrasted with “the world [which] moves in appetency, on its metalled ways.” The world is craving its metalled ways (which reminds of Blake’s satanic mills, and the nightmare of factories in The Old Curiosity Shop) The day – presumably of the “real world” have been buried, which is a grim picture. The burial has come from the movement of time, and the bell which marks the movement of time and the end of the world.
The cloud that carries the sun away reminds us of the sun which filled the pool with water, in the speculative, memory world of the first section:
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight …
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Here the cloud has come has taken all the light out of the world; yet here the light does not merely pass, it is carried away. The cloud is not merely coming before the sun, it is a black cloud which extinguishes the sun.
Will the sunflower turn to us,
He then turns to the sunflower – which famously tracks the movement of the sun as it passes the sky. This makes the question curious: A sunflower does not track people. But in this place, with the sun itself gone, perhaps this flower will provide a substitute.
It is hard to know what to make of this question.
will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?
When we come to the climbing, flowering vine, the question shifts slightly. Will the garden grow with flowers. This again reminds us of the garden where speculation and memory brought us in the first section.
The third question brings this to a grim resolution:
Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us?
A yew tree is poisonous. Moreover, the trees are planted in churchyards in England. The sun is gone, the sunflower will ignore us, the garden will not grow for us. Will we face poison and the graveyard? This section began with the verb “buried” as the end of the day.
This monstrous tree seems to be clutching down toward the poet.
We come to yet another allusion to the first section. At first, it was a thrush which led them to the speculative garden. Here, rather than a thrush is a kingfisher.
After the kingfisher’s wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent,
The meaning seems to be that the color of the kingfisher’s wing is a light which answers back to light. It is interesting that the flowers are questionable in their interaction with “us”. The yew tree is coming for us, but the bird belongs to a different sphere.
That is further emphasized because the kingfisher is “silent” as to us. It answers the light, but not us. The thrush called the poet along. The kingfisher is otherwise engaged.
It is possible that the kingfisher also is a more violent bird than a thrush.
As noted in the beginning, this section enters after the “descent” of section III. With the buried day and the bird who no longer speaks to us, it would be easy for the poem to descend wholly into despair. But this section ends with this:
the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.
The day may be buried, but the light is not extinguished. There is a place for hope at the still point of the turning world.
The tone of this section reminds of the jarring mix of registers at the beginning of The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock:
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
The section begins with the very song-like lines:
Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
The rhythm and the sound carries the lines along. But the content is deadly. Looking back at these words, especially after the encounter with the yew tree, “Time and bell” are more than just the marker for the end of a workday. This is a funeral bell. This is a burial.
The understanding of the lines thus change as you consider more of the context. A burial of sorts has come to us. Is there any hope here? If we cannot have the sun can we have a sunflower? No. At least a flowering vine? No. Instead the yew tree has come to poison and bury us. What about that thrush that led us to the garden – this is sort of like a garden. Here there is no thrush, there is a kingfisher who is silent. What then? Well, there is still light at the still point. Time perhaps will kill, but there is a still point still.
My life? The black cloud will drag away the sun. Time and the bell will put out the light. I may look at the flowers and birds, but it is the yew tree which will come for me.
And even now, as I think about it, I see another allusion lying behind the poem: flowers and birds:
““Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matthew 6:25–33, ESV)
This allusion to things which will perish so quickly: flowers and birds. He is looking to them for some sort of protection against the loss. It is these things which Jesus holds up as examples of that which quickly perishes.
23 Monday May 2022
Posted in Edward Taylor, George Herbert
Still I complain; I am complaining still.
Oh! Woe is me! Was ever heart like mine?
A sty of filth, a trough of washing swill
A dunghill pit, a puddle of mere slim,
A nest of vipers, hive of hornet; stings, 5
A bag of poison, civit-box of sins.
Was ever heart like mine? So bad? Black, vile?
Is any devil blacker, or can hell
Produce its match? It is the very soil
Where Satan reads his charms, and set his spell. 10
His bowling alley, where he shears his fleece
At nine pins, nine holes, morrice, Fox and Geese.
Notes:
The opening of the poem is remarkable. To begin in the middle of an action, in medias res, is the form of an epic. The Illiad begins years into the Trojan War. Paradise Lost begins with Satan already cast down and Adam created. But lyrics usually begin at their beginning.
Here, the poem begins “Still I complain.” Unless we take the other poems written so far in this series of mediations as part of the conversation, we come into this poem mid-complaint and without a background.
The effect is interesting: We need to read what is written as part of a continuing complaint. Perhaps that explains the rather extended complaint which will follow. Taylor will four times in the poem write, “Was ever heart like mine.” He will speak at length concerning the depravity and sinfulness of heart.
We must heart this as a continuing complaint over his own sinfulness. “I am complaining still.”
He is incredulous that he possesses a heart capable of such sin, “Oh! Woe is me.”
And then he asks his question
Was ever heart like mine? (2)
The repetition and peculiar form of the question make for an interesting allusion to an earlier poem of George Herbert. Taylor studied Herbert in school and Herbert Stanford in his introduction to Taylor’s collected poems (1960) states that Herbert was a favorite poet of Taylor. Therefore, we are on good ground to see the allusion: (1) the questions are rhetorically distinct and similar to one-another; (2) Taylor would have known the poem from which the allusion comes.
Herbert’s poem The Sacrifice recounts the passion of Christ, from Christ’s point of view. Two representative stanzas read:
Mine own Apostle, who the bag did beare,
Though he had all I had, did not forbeare
To sell me also, and to put me there:
Was ever grief like mine?
For thirtie pence he did my death devise,
Who at three hundred did the ointment prize,
Not half so sweet as my sweet sacrifice:
Was ever grief like mine?
Each stanza ends with the refrain, “Was ever grief like mine?” Of particular interest for our allusion here is found in these stanzas:
O all ye who passe by, behold and see;
Man stole the fruit, but I must climbe the tree;
The tree of life to all, but onely me:
Was ever grief like mine?
Lo, here I hang, charg’d with a world of sinne,
The greater world o’ th’ two; for that came in
By words, but this by sorrow I must win:
Was ever grief like mine?
The death of Christ was for the sin of man. Christ was charged with sin, and for the sin man bore grief like no one.
Taylor alluding to this poem of Christ’s grief experienced for Taylor’s sin and look to his own heart and asks, Was ever a heart like mine. Taylor supplies the sin; Christ suffers the grief. Man stole the fruit; Christ is hoist onto the tree.
The first stanza simply recounts the foul things present in his heart: sty, swill, dunghill, puddle, vipers, hornets, stings, poison, sin. It is appropriate that the last in the list of evils is plain sin.
The second stanza begins with the question, Was ever a heart like mine? But this time, rather than recount the evil it contains it references his heart’s relationship to the Devil. His heart is the place where the Devil conducts magic (charms, spells); it is the place where Satan plays games and rejoices. The image of his heart as the Devil’s bowling alley or the place the Devil plays tag (Fox and Geese) is striking and terrifying.
He is filled with all evil; and evil has a playground in his heart. He thinks of Christ’s death and grief (“Was ever a grief like mine”) and can think only of his own evil (“Was ever a heart like mine.”)
02 Saturday Apr 2022
Posted in Literature
This poem is fascinating in its development. The first stanza is a warning: When you fall into “melancholy”, do not seek to end the pain by forgetfulness (Lethe, the river of forgetting). Do not seek to end the pain by poison, suicide (nightshade). The solution here is not trying to drown and stop the painful emotion.
In fact he sees something here to not lose, For shade to shade will come too drowsily/And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. That wakeful anguish is something keep. But why?
1.
No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf’s-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss’d
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow’s mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. 10
Instead of running from the pain (which falls suddenly, like a storm), find something beautiful. The pain at first hides beauty (“hides the green in an April shower”), but do not let that dissuade you. “Glut thy sorrow on a morning rose.” And if your love is angry with you, even in that see her beauty.
This seems strange: We have not answered the question, “Why?”
2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. 20
Why should you not not run from sorrow, or look away from beauty? Because “Beauty … must die.” Sorrow dwells with Beauty. But not merely Beauty will die, Joy, and Pleasure. Pleasure will turn to poison in the time it takes for a bee to sip at a flower.
And even in the Temple of Delight, Melancholy has a powerful presence, a “sovran shrine.” But this knowledge of the deep sorrow which lurks in the Temple of Delight and dwells with Beauty is only known by someone who is willing to accept Joy. The one who can truly taste Joy and see Beauty, will also be the one who can know the true nature of melancholy.
Keats is pointing to a manner of life, which goes beyond mere breathing and existence. Rather, he is seeking to know what is actually taking place in this world: A world of unimaginable Beauty, a world under a curse. In this we can see the turn of Romanticism, which sought to restore human feeling (not just emotion) to a culture which was praising a rather mechanical reason.
It is also interesting in comparison to our culture which treats sorrow or melancholy as a disease (and certainly there are people who suffer brutally with extreme bouts of depression. But we treat even the normal sadness which is part of life as something which must be avoided at all costs. And so, Keats’ poem is inexplicable in our culture.
3.
She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
John Keats: Poems Published in 1820 .
30 Wednesday Mar 2022
Posted in George Herbert, Uncategorized
Tags
Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
If I lacked any thing.
A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
Who made the eyes but I?
Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
So I did sit and eat.
The poet has come to the door of Love and welcomed him. The scene is much like the image of Wisdom inviting the young man to come to eat:
Proverbs 9:1–6 (AV)
1 Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: 2 She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. 3 She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city, 4 Whoso is simple, let him turn in hither: as for him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, 5 Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine which I have mingled. 6 Forsake the foolish, and live; and go in the way of understanding.
And then like the withdrawn lover in the Song of Solomon, he draws back:
Song of Solomon 5:5–6 (AV)
5 I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. 6 I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer.
Why then will he not enter, even though he has been invited. He is Guilty of dust and sin.
Dust and sin are closely linked together, because the primal sin brought about the judgment of returning to dust:
Genesis 3:19 (AV)
19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
And here is the beauty of Love. It sees that poor sinner, undressed and unfit to enter. He begins to slink back, and Love says, is there anything you need?
Deuteronomy 2:7 (AV)
7 For the LORD thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand: he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness: these forty years the LORD thy God hath been with thee; thou hast lacked nothing.
Yes, someone who is worthy to be here. To which love responds, you will be that guest.
Here is the beauty of the Love of God: it does not love the sinner because the sinner is worthy. Rather, the love of God makes the sinner worthy of the love. The love of God transforms the object so loved:
Romans 5:6–10 (AV)
6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. 7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. 8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. 10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Ephesians 5:25–30 (AV)
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; 26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, 27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. 28 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. 29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30 For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.
1 John 4:7–11 (AV)
7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
It is a wonder how Herbert so aptly pictures this love which goes and takes the one who is not fit and makes him fit to enter.
And then he says, I have marred the eyes you have made. I cannot look on you, Love. Let me go away as my shame deserves that. No, you will not go. There is blame, but who bore your blame? That is Christ:
2 Corinthians 5:21 (AV)
21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Our sin is placed upon Christ; and the merit and righteousness of Christ becomes our. He bore the blame and thus making us fit invites us to a feast:
Matthew 8:10–11 (AV)
10 When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. 11 And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.
The last line of this poem is marvelous, it is simple and direct. His sin has been carried, his shame taken by another. The insistence of love has overcome all objections, and so there is nothing but to sit and eat.
21 Monday Feb 2022
Posted in Robert Browning
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope 100
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 105
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 110
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— 115
And no more lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace, 120
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!
And now we enter into the Bishop’s final chaotic rant. His character is revealed in its weakness and fear. His life has been built around a desperate envy of a man who has died, and whom he can never now best. And yet, his whole desire is to best the dead, even in death.
He begins with an instance of the contradiction between his pious face as a Bishop, and the manipulative private self:
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope 100
My villas!
The first line is quote from Genesis. Joseph has risen to second in Egypt. He has rescued his family from the famine and is presenting his father to the Pharoah:
Genesis 47:7–9 (AV)
7 And Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh: and Jacob blessed Pharaoh. 8 And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou? 9 And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.
The Bishop quotes the line as a pious sentiment, a sort of religious truism. His life is not really a parallel to Jacob’s life. Nor does he intend the allusion. Instead, the allusion creates a double irony. There is the surface irony: He uses the religious sentiment as a throw-away along the lines of the “vanity of vanities” quoted at the beginning. And yet, his life has actually been bitter to him: it has been marked with envy of one who is now dead. Also, he sees his life as too short and hence he seeks to extend his life into death, “Dying in state and by such slow degrees” (84).
There is irony at the level of the allusion: Jacob is speaking to the king, Jacob having been rescued from death by the life of his on whom he thought was dead. Jacob’s hope and rest have been in life, and in his son. The Bishop’s hope is in death. His fear is in his sons.
He now moves to a demand backed by a threat: Either you provide with a fabulous tomb all of lapis lazuli with even more pagan ornamentation, I leave your inheritance to the pope:
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope 100
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase 105
With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
There is to be a scene from Greek mythology, the thyrsus was the favored weapon of Dionysus.
Some of the details: “Will ye ever eat my heart?” Why are you always killing me? But it is striking way to consider the issue. He so fears a second rate tomb that the thought of such a tomb is more fearsome than death itself.
And now we come upon another detail of their mother. There seems to be something less than affection in the relationship. Your eyes remind me of your mother’s, but also they are like “lizard” eyes in their movement. They ‘glitter’ but they “glitter” for his soul.:
Ever your eyes were as a lizard’s quick,
They glitter like your mother’s for my soul,
It is from this observation that he complains of his tomb, that it is impoverished and starved:
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design
It is from this that moves to his command to provide also a scene of battle. The previous scene was one of rampant sexuality. Perhaps the frieze gives us a glimpse into his relationship to their mother. It was profane, being outside marriage. In one place it is lascivious. In this instance, a combat to the death.
There are two more movements in the Bishop’s farewell. First we have his bizarre relationship to the tomb once more recounted, and his fear that sons will fail:
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 110
“Do I live, am I dead?” There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— 115
And no more lapis to delight the world!
The tomb will not be a comfort to the living, it will be a comfort to him. And beneath his tomb he will wonder if he is alive or dead:
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask 110
“Do I live, am I dead?”
His inability to know he will be dead, his utter rejection of the possibility is strange, and also the hinge upon which his demands lie. I need this for my comfort. But the fact remains, he will not know.
And then his fear, coupled to anger at the injustice: Go ahead, let my corpse “ooze” out of the tomb made of cheap materials, sandstone (“gritstone”). They have no gratitude for their father. Which begs the question, what has he done for them? He has threatened them and made blasphemous offers.
Also, that last night is striking: the lapis will delight the world—when he is the one who wants it.
There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone—
Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— 115
And no more lapis to delight the world!
And at last we have his departure. He makes his farewell, asks for candles (tapers), and then leaves us with the final irony. The church is a church for peace, but it is actually a place of rivalry, envy, and eternal struggle between Gandolf and the Bishop. Their mother is once more reduced to a conquest and acquisition, like a tomb:
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
—Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace, 120
That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!
And the last repated irony: He cannot see Gandolf leer, nor will Gandolf ever see him.
This returns us to the opening line: This is all vanity, an appearance without substance. And yet that appearance drives him, even into the grave.
16 Wednesday Feb 2022
Posted in Robert Browning
—That’s if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully’s every word, 75
No gaudy ware like Gandolf’s second line—
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long, 80
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 85
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears, 90
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day, 95
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
The Latin Epitaph
This section is marked off by a reference to the epitaph to be carved upon the tomb (the final reference being an inclusio, a repetition of the opening topic, marking the end of a section).
First Tully and Ulpian
Ulpian, “Domitius Ulpianus, a celebrated Roman jurist under the emperors Septimius Severus, Caracalla, Heliogabalus, and Alexander Severus, fragments of whose writings are found in the Pandects; he was murdered in Gaul, A. D. 230.” Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, Harpers’ Latin Dictionary (New York; Oxford: Harper & Brothers; Clarendon Press, 1891), 1925.
Tully is another name for the great Roman rhetorician Cicero:
“A famous Roman statesman and orator of the first century notable for both his political activity and influential writings and speeches (106–43 BC). As a political figure, Cicero was a key figure during the time of Julius Caesar, Pompey, Marc Antony, and Octavian. He defended senatorial authority and was exiled from Rome for his part in exposing a conspiracy by Catiline. Upon his return from exile, he opposed Caesar (d. 44 BC) and, later, Marc Antony. Eventually, Cicero was captured and killed by Antony’s men as an act of vengeance (see Plutarch, Cic., 48–49; Seneca, Contr., 7.2). As an orator, Cicero delivered over a hundred speeches which contributed to his reputation as one of the greatest orators of antiquity. As a writer, he produced hundreds of letters and other writings on philosophy, religion, and rhetoric. The size of Cicero’s literary output makes his writings immensely valuable for the study of early Christianity. In particular, his works on ancient rhetoric and philosophy were influential to the philosophical and religious environment in which early Christianity existed.”
John D. Barry et al., eds., “Cicero,” The Lexham Bible Dictionary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2016).
And so the Bishop agonizes over which will be his Latin phrase will be carved upon his tomb. First, he denigrates Gandolf’s choice of the later writer, Ulpian in favor of the more classical Tully. He calls Ulpian “gaudy”, which is a veiled sling at “vain” from Ecclesiastes as quoted in the first line of the poem. The poem could certainly be analyzed successfully against Ecclesiastes, such as “Then I saw that all toil and all skill in work come from a man’s envy of his neighbor. This also is vanity and a striving after wind.” Eccl. 4:4. The Bishop striving does spring from envy and will as fruitless as trying to gather up the wind. But it drives him nonetheless. Hence, the irony of his vain quest which he thoughtless denigrates as vanity.
We now move to the madness of the Bishop:
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long, 80
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
He will hear nothing. Ever. And there is also the ghastly explanation of the Mass, “And see God made and eaten.” He will feel no candle flame, nor taste the smoke.
He then seems to see himself being transformed into his tomb:
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook, 85
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor’s-work:
He dies “by such slow degrees.” The body represented on the tomb become his arms “clasping a crook”; his feet become stones; the sculptor’s work is his clothing. Thus, the slow degrees are a transmogrification into stone. His body is thus moving in the opposite direction of the Mass. While the bread is transformed into the Body; his body is turned to stone.
He continues his representation of decay by thinking of the candles
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
Having said he will die by degrees, he now seems to be dying by degrees. There is the wandering of his mind followed by nonsense:
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
He had a life before he was a priest, followed by “this life” of clerical honor. And then the mistake of Saint Praxed for Jesus’s sermon on the mount (mentioned above, in the grotesque mixture of sacred and rankly profane imagery on the frieze; and so we know the Bishop knows this fact but here his mind is wandering).
His wandering mind then turns to his mistress, their mother,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
Their beautiful mother is somehow coupled to urns: which would carry the ashes of a body. So, does he mean her eyes are the color of agate-urns? Or that she is somehow matched with the urns. And how could urns be either “new-found” or “fresh as days.” This is the confused speech of one whose brain is failing.
He then catches himself and returns to his proposition of the Latin:
And marble’s language, Latin pure, discreet,
—Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Elucescebat comes from Elucesco in Late Latin (after the period of Cicerco and thus must be from Ulpian). The verb means to dawn, shine forth. Here, then, something like “he shone”, which can then be taken figuratively for fame or brilliance of some sort.
11 Friday Feb 2022
Posted in Robert Browning
Tags
Jasper, poem, Poem Analysis, Poetry, Poetry Analysis, Robert Browning, The Bishop Orders His Tomb
. . but I know 60
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at! 65
Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
‘Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world— 70
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
This passage has three elements: (1) suspicion, (2) demand, (3) promise.
The suspicion comes in response to the sons speaking among themselves:
but I know 60
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm?
The whispering was apparently timed to follow after the mention of change stone in the lines immediately preceding:
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
‘Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The Bishop supposes they were thinking of how they could build the tomb with less expensive materials:
Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o’er with beggar’s mouldy travertine
Travertine is less expensive stone. This will cause him to lose status with his arch-rival:
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Again, the absurdity seems lost on him. Gandolf will never know, because Gandolf was dead. This may give us reason to ask why do the living lavish such expense upon the dead? It is action of love of the living for the dead; a picture of memory and loss.
The poem is then reversing that movement. Rather than the living wishing to honor the dead; the soon-to-be dead demands such reverence. He suspects the children will not want to give him such honor.
A second reversal is that the dying wants to have one last stab at the dead, with the hope that the dead will know he was defeated.
Since he suspects that they will build his tomb with something inexpensive, he makes a demand of them lest he grieve (which would the response of the living, not the dead):
Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
‘Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
“Jasper is an opaque variety of Chalcedony, and is usually associated with brown, yellow, or reddish colors, but may be used to describe other opaque colors of Chalcedony such as dark or mottled green, orange, and black. Jasper is almost always multicolored, with unique color patterns and habits.” https://www.minerals.net/gemstone/jasper_gemstone.aspx
The last thing is remarkable. He demands something which may not exist. It is only a supposition:
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There’s plenty jasper somewhere in the world—
This demand comes bound to a promise. At this point, the Bishop’s incongruity becomes grotesque. He says that in his state of death he will pray to the Saint of the church, who then supply the sons with extravagance:
And have I not Saint Praxed’s ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
This makes for one of the strangest movements in a poem filled with paradox. He claims a privileged position with the Saint to whom the church is dedicated (a Christian martyr) and from this position he will get the Saint to deliver to the sons horses, expenses books, and “mistresses” (like their mother).
The description of the mistress is interesting: “great smooth marbly limbs”. The mistress is like a statute made of marble – like the Bishop’s tomb. This ties their life to his death.
09 Wednesday Feb 2022
Posted in Robert Browning
The Incoherence of the Imagery
Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? 50
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
‘Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance 55
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph’s last garment off,
And Moses with the tables .
There are three events in this section. First, the standard pieties:
Swift as a weaver’s shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he? 50
The quotes half-quotes a passage from Job:
6 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
And are spent without hope.
7 O remember that my life is wind:
Mine eye shall no more see good.
8 The eye of him that hath seen me shall see me no more:
Thine eyes are upon me, and I am not.
9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away:
So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.
Job 7:6–9. The idea is readily apparent: Our life is brief and then is gone. Time moves as quickly as a weaver uses his shuttle. Note then the following images: Our life is like a wind, like a cloud. Notice also the “no more” repeatedly in this section. To die is to be gone and unobserved. If you go down to the grave, you will not come back. The bishop breaks off the “goeth down to the grave” with a question, “Where is he?”
That alteration of the Biblical text is key to the Bishop’s thinking. Where will I be when I die? I will be right here, gazing over at Gandolf – and Gandolf in envy seeing that I have outdone him death.
Thus, while playing off of the Biblical text, he explicitly rejects the conclusion. His tomb is a fight for an immortality of earth-bound memory.
Where does a man go? Without answering the question, the Bishop returns to the stone of his tomb:
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
‘Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
He has a plan for a marble frieze which will be topped with black (and apparently a globe of lapis lazuli above all).
Here then we come to the incoherence of the Bishop’s ideas as a series of images. He is seeking a series of images which are directly contradictory. On one hand, he seeks images appropriate for a church: Christ at the Sermon on the Mount, Moses receiving the Commandments. To this is coupled profane and lurid pagan images. That he brings these together without any hint of confusion is striking. But this demonstrates who this Bishop is. The Christian veneer of his office, is only a veneer. At heart he is an antique (note the use of the word to describe the black) pagan.
memoirandremains 