R410710A. Pippa Passes.
The Morning Herald, 10 July 1841, p. 6.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 395–396.
Under this piquant and poetic designation a publication, which promises to be one of the most remarkable of the day, has just made its appearance. Mr. Browning, its author, already so favourably known to the public by his “Paracelsus” and tragedy of Strafford, thus announces, in a brief and modest preface, its purport:—“Two or three years ago I wrote a play, about which the chief matter I care much to recollect, at present, is that a pit-full of good people applauded it. Ever since, I have been desirous of doing something in the same way that should better reward their attention. What follows, I mean for the first of a series of Dramatic Pieces, to come out at intervals; and I amuse myself by fancying that the cheap mode in which they appear will, for once, help me to a pit audience again.” Thus have we introduced to us, and with a winning courtesy, the first sample of “Bells and Pomegranates,” “Pippa Passes,” or more correctly “Pippa passes,” for in truth Pippa is a delicate little being, half maiden of earthly mould and half spirit—a “wandering Una,” who seems intended to bring into something of unity four different actions with different dramatis personæ, which, in this libretto, are thrown into juxta-position. Pippa, an innocent girl of the silk mills at Asolo in the Trevisan, wanders forth at sunrise on the holiday of New Year’s-day, full of pleasant fantasies, and as she “passes” along throughout “the livelong day,” at morning, noon, evening, and night approaches the scenes of the four actions alluded to, and her voice is heard by those engaged in them, carolling some strain of song, which happily in its seemingly unwitting effusion, comes home with a touching significance to their feelings. The scenes thus set forth are highly dramatic, glowing with strong and original conception, and combining the darker and more gentle passions in vigorous contrast. They are marked through out with a certain waywardness of tone, which occasionally tends to obscurity, but contain, also, abundant compensating contributions of genuine poetry. Could we conveniently afford the necessary space in our columns, we should be glad to give our readers one of these scenes to answer for its own and the merits of its context; that, however, not being the case, we shall but offer the following short extract from the lyric outpourings of Pippa, as a particle of evidence of the music of our poet’s Bells—of the fragrance and flavour of his Pomegranates:—
A King lived long ago,
In the morning of the world.
When earth was nigher heaven than now—
And the King’s locks curled,
Disporting 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 dream’d)
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,
Wormlike 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.
When it is stated that this masterly and singular dramatic composition is presented to the public at the price of sixpence, Mr. Browning’s expression in his preface, of a hope that the cheap mode in which his sketches appear will help him to a sort of pit-audience again, may be understood.
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. I. Pippa Passes (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1841.
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