R410501A. Pippa Passes.
The Atlas, 1 May 1841, p. 287.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 393–395.
Having acquired some reputation as a poet by the publication of Paracelsus, and some applause as a dramatist by the performance of a strange tragedy called Strafford, Mr. Browning has devised a plan by which he endeavours to sustain his reputation in both ways at the same time. The publication, of which the first number, with the above incomprehensible title, is now before us, is dramatic in form, and poetical in treatment; and the author says, very explicitly, in his introduction, that a pit-full of good-natured people having applauded his play, he amuses himself by fancying that the cheap mode in which the present work is issued may help him to a sort of pit-audience of readers. The cheapness may possibly produce an audience—but will they give him their hands when they come? We are afraid they are more likely to get sulky and hiss.
In the first place, the whole affair, from beginning to end, as far as this first part proceeds, is a chaos of speeches, dialogues, and figures, in which we can discover neither coherency nor positive meaning. As to Pippa—a young lady who passes across the stage from time to time for some sinister purpose that we suppose will be revealed by-and-by—we are in total ignorance of her mission, her position, or her destiny. We have a group of students talking like mad, but nobody can tell what it is all about; and we have also a wife and her paramour who talk very leisurely about the murder of the husband, but to what end, Mr. Browning alone knows. In fact the work is so deficient in unity, action, and human character, that, unless it develop some very unexpected interest in the ensuing parts, it will not be difficult to anticipate the issue of the experiment. We have not the most remote suspicion of the enigma concealed under the title of Bells and Pomegranates.
Yet in this maze of crudities there are some highly poetical passages—some, indeed, that are not quite as intelligible as we could desire, but others replete with that wild and fanciful beauty which Mr. Browning pours out so richly into his productions. The following is the best entire specimen we can find. It is from the scene between Ottima, the guilty wife or widow, and her paramour Sebald:—
Seb. Hark you, Ottima,
One thing’s to guard against. We’ll not make much
One of the other—that is, not make more
Parade of warmth, childish officious coil,
Then yesterday—as if, sweet, I supposed
Proof upon proof was needed now, now first,
To show I love you—still love you—love you
In spite of Luca and what’s come to him.
—Sure sign we had him ever in our thoughts,
White sneering old reproachful face and all—
We’ll even quarrel, love, at times, as if
We still could lose each other—were not tied
By this—conceive you?
Otti. Love—
Seb. Not tied so sure—
Because tho’ I was wrought upon—have struck
His insolence back into him—am I
So surely yours?—therefore, forever yours?
Otti. Love, to be wise, (one counsel pays another)
Should we have—months ago—when first we loved,
For instance that May morning we two stole
Under the green ascent of sycamores—
If we had come upon a thing like that
Suddenly—
Seb. “A thing” .. there again—“a thing!”
Otti. Then, Venus’ body, had we come upon
My husband Luca Gaddi’s murdered corpse
Within there, at his couch-foot, covered close—
Would you have pored upon it? Why persist
In poring now upon it? For ’tis here—
As much as there in the deserted house—
You cannot rid your eyes of it: for me,
Now he is dead I hate him worse—I hate—
Dare you stay here? I would go back and hold
His two dead hands, and say, I hate you worse
Luca, than—
Seb. Off, off; take your hands off mine!
’Tis the hot evening—off! oh, morning, is it?
Otti. There’s one thing must be done—you know what thing.
Come in and help to carry. We may sleep
Anywhere in the whole wide house to-night.
Seb. What would come, think you, if we let him lie
Just as he is? Let him lie there until
The angels take him: he is turned by this
Off from his face, beside, as you will see.
Otti. This dusty pane might serve for looking-glass.
Three, four—four grey hairs! is it so you said
A plait of hair should wave across my neck?
No—this way!
Seb. Ottima, I would give your neck,
Each splendid shoulder, both those breasts of yours,
This were undone! Killing?—Let the world die
So Luca lives again!—Ay, lives to sputter
His fulsome dotage on you—yes, and feign
Surprise that I returned at eve to sup,
When all the morning I was loitering here—
Bid me dispatch my business and begone.
I would—
Otti. See!
Seb. No, I’ll finish. Do you think
I fear to speak the bare truth once for all?
All we have talked of is at bottom fine
To suffer—there’s a recompense in that:
One must be venturous and fortunate—
What is one young for else? In age we’ll sigh
O’er the wild, reckless, wicked days flown over:
But to have eaten Luca’s bread—have worn
His clothes, have felt his money swell my purse—
Why, I was starving when I used to call
And teach you music—starving while you pluck’d
Me flowers to smell!
Otti. My poor lost friend!
Seb. He gave me
Life—nothing less: what if he did reproach
My perfidy, and threaten, and do more—
Had he no right? What was to wonder at?
Why must you lean across till our cheeks touch’d?
Could he do less than make pretence to strike me?
’Tis not the crime’s sake—I’d commit ten crimes
Greater, to have this crime wiped out—undone!
And you—O, how feel you? feel you for me?
Otti. Well, then—I love you better now than ever—
And best (look at me while I speak to you)—
Best for the crime—nor do I grieve in truth
This mask, this simulated ignorance,
This affectation of simplicity
Falls off our crime; this naked crime of ours
May not be looked over—look it down, then!
Great? let it be great—but the joys it brought
Pay they or no its price? Come—they or it!
Speak not! The past, would you give up the past
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you—
The garden’s silence—even the single bee
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopt
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula’s chalice set a-swing
As he clung there—“Yes, I love you.”
Seb. And I drew
Back: put far back your face with both my hands
Lest you should grow too full of me—your face
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body!
There is power in this, and vivid dramatic truth, in spite of the radiant obscurity of its diction.
Here is another specimen of a different kind—a lyrical snatch, which we extricate from the dialogue:—
A king lived long ago,
In the morning of the world,
When earth was nigher heaven than now:
And the king’s locks curled
Disparting o’er a forehead full
As the milk-white space ’twixt horn and horn
Of some sacrificial bull—
Only calm as a babe new-born:
For he was got to a sleepy mood,
So safe from all decrepitude,
Age with its bane so sure gone by,
(The gods so loved him while he dreamed,)
That, having lived thus long, there seemed
No need the king should ever die.
Among the rocks his city was:
Before his palace, in the sun,
He sate to see his people pass,
And judge them every one
From its threshold of smooth stone.
They haled him many a valley-thief
Caught in the sheep-pens—robber-chief,
Swarthy and shameless—beggar-cheat—
Spy-prowler—or some pirate found
On the sea-sand left aground;
Sometimes there clung about his feet
With bleeding lip and burning cheek
A woman, bitterest wrong to speak
Of one with sullen, thickset brows:
Sometimes from out the prison-house
The angry priests a pale wretch brought,
Who through some chink had pushed and pressed,
Knees and elbows, belly and breast,
Worm-like into the temple,—caught
He was by the very God,
Who ever in the darkness strode
Backward and forward, keeping watch
O’er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch:
These, all and every one,
The king judged, sitting in the sun.
His councillors, on left and right,
Looked anxious up,—but no surprise
Disturbed the king’s old smiling eyes,
Where the very blue had turned to white.
A python passed one day
The silent streets—until he came,
With forky tongue and eyes on flame,
Where the old king judged alway;
But when he saw the sweepy hair,
Girt with a crown of berries rare
The God will hardly give to wear
To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare
In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,
At his wondrous forest rites,—
But which the God’s self granted him
For setting free each felon limb
Because of earthly murder done
Faded till other hope was none;—
Seeing this, he did not dare,
Approach that threshold in the sun,
Assault the old king smiling there.
These passages may not be thoroughly appreciated without a knowledge of the scenes in which they are studded; but the reader may still discern a ripe spirit of poetry in them.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. I. Pippa Passes (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1841.
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