R420400A. Bells and Pomegranates II, King Victor and King Charles.
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 5.
Victor Amadeus, the first king of Sardinia; Charles, his son; Charles’s wife, Polyxena; and D’Ormea, the minister first of the one king, and then of the other, are the only characters that appear in the tragedy by the author of “Paracelsus.” Instead of tragedy, we ought rather to call this peculiar work a tragic or a dramatic [p. 567→] poem; just as “Pippa Passes,” which formed No. I. of “Bells and Pomegranates,” might be dubbed.
Victor took it into his head—whether it was a whim of old age, or a stroke of guileful policy, we do not stop to inquire—to abdicate the throne, and resign the crown to his son. This he did much after the fashion of a greater man than he, but not with the like consistent and abiding issue that marked Charles the Fifth’s extraordinary relinquishment of power and pomp; for, ere a year elapsed, he reclaimed the sovereignty, although not exactly in the way, or with the results, represented by the poet; Mr. Browning’s object being to convey a vivid idea, as we understand him, of “the fiery and audacious temper, unscrupulous selfishness, profound dissimulation, and singular fertility in resources, of Victor—the extreme and painful sensibility, prolonged immaturity of powers, earnest good purpose, and vacillating will, of Charles—the noble and right woman’s manliness of his wife—and the ill-considered rascality and subsequent better-advised rectitude of D’Ormea.”
The story is historical, and, according to Mr. Browning’s interpretation of Victor s motives, the wily king only abdicated for a period in order that, during his son’s interregnum, sundry extreme difficulties might be got rid of or adjusted, not only with his allies but with his subjects; after which he intended to resume sovereignty. This character, we think, is brought out with power; while that of Charles is felicitously handled, and made the vehicle of much that is beautiful in sentiment as well as in verse. Polyxena does not appear to us sufficiently developed to sustain the phrases applied to her in the Advertisement; nor are we pleased with her last speech, when Victor is dying:—
Charles
Has never ceased to be your subject, sire—
He reigned at first, through setting up yourself
As pattern: if he e’er seemed harsh to you,
’Twas from a too intense appreciation
Of your own character: he acted you—
Ne’er for an instant did I think it real,
Or look for any other than this end.
Now this cajoling, extenuating speech scarcely consists with “right woman’s-manliness;” it is not even quite in keeping with some things and utterances that precede; unless, indeed, the fault be in ourselves, who may have failed to reach and fathom all the sentiment which Mr. Browning’s muse suggests, or clearly to understand parts of that which he clothes with words. Of the four dramatis personæ we are the least satisfied with D’Ormea. We neither see what adequate motives he had for his rascality, nor for a change to rectitude. He appears to us to be next to purposeless in the piece. Perhaps the great defect of the work is, that it gives us events and [p. 568→] results without any apparently adequate causes. There are also extraordinary taunts and terms of abuse lavished in the poem, which are no way necessary to the characters or the progress of the story, and are therefore positive blemishes; and, to have done with remarks, there are Mr. Browning’s usual modes of expression, savouring of affectation, studied obscurity, and quaint singularity, which force the reader not only to stare but to stumble at times about the meaning. After all, however, there are fine flashes of poetry in “King Victor and King Charles,” and manifestations of powers which if regulated, and cultivated, would assuredly create a dramatic work far more popular at least than any which has yet been given to the world by the same hand. Mr. Browning unquestionably is a man of genius.
The piece opens with a scene in the Council Chamber of Rivoli, near Turin, in the year 1730. Charles and his Wife are the colloquists. The amiable and neglected prince repeats an oft-told tale:—
Cha. Polyxena—
When suddenly,—a warm March day, just that
Sunshine the cottager’s child basks in—he
Takes off his bonnet as he ceases work
To catch the more of it—and it must fall
Heavily on my brother . . . had you seen
Philip—the lion-featured!—not like me!
Pol. I know—
Cha. And Philip’s mouth yet fast to mine,
His dead cheek on my cheek, his arm still round
My neck,—they bad me rise, “for I was heir
To the Duke,” they said, “the right hand of the Duke;”
Till then he was my father, not the Duke!
So . . let me finish . . the whole intricate
World’s-business their dead boy was born to, I
Must conquer,—ay, the brilliant thing he was,
I, of a sudden, must be: my faults, my follies,
—All bitter truths were told me, all at once
To end the sooner. What I simply styled
Their overlooking me, had been contempt:
How should the Duke employ himself, forsooth,
With such an one while lordly Philip rode
By him their Turin through? But he was punished,
And must put up with—me! ’Twas sad enough
To learn my future portion and submit—
And then the wear and worry, blame on blame!
—For, spring-sounds in my ears, spring-smells about,
How could I but grow dizzy in their pent
Dim palace-rooms at first? My mother’s look
As they discussed my insignificance—
(She and my father and I sitting by)— [p. 569→]
I bore:—I knew how brave a son they missed:
Philip had gaily passed state-papers o’er
While Charles was spelling at them painfully!
But Victor was my father spite of that.
Duke Victor’s entire life has been, I said,
Innumerable efforts to one end;
And, on the point now of that end’s success,
Our Ducal turning to a Kingly crown,
Where’s time to be reminded ’tis his child
He spurns? And so I suffered . . hardly suffered,
Since I had you at length!
Pol. —To serve in place
Of monarch, minister, and mistress, Charles.
Cha. But, once that crown obtained, then was’t not like
Our lot would alter?—When he rests, take breath,
Glances around, and sees who’s left to love—
Now that my mother’s dead, sees I am left—
Was it not like he’d love me at the last?
Well: Savoy turns Sardinia—the Duke’s King!
Could I—precisely then—could you expect
His harshness to redouble? These few months
Have been . . have been . . Polyxena, do you
And God conduct me or I lose myself!
What would he have? What is’t they want with me?
Him with this mistress and this minister,
—You see me and you hear him; judge us both!
Pronounce what I should do, Polyxena!
Pol. Endure, endure, beloved! say you not
That he’s your father? All’s so incident
To novel sway! Beside, our life must change:
Or you’ll acquire his kingcraft, or he’ll learn
His own’s a sorry way of teaching it.
I bear this—not that there’s so much to bear—
Cha. You bear it? don’t I know that you, tho’ bound
To silence for my sake, are perishing
Piecemeal beside me? and how otherwise?
—When every creephole from the hideous Court
Is stopt; the Minister to dog me, here—
The Mistress posted to entrap you there!
And thus shall we grow old in such a life—
Not careless,—never estranged,—but old: to alter
Our life, there is so much to alter!
Pol. Come—
Is it agreed that we forego complaints
Even at Turin, yet complain we here
At Rivoli? ’Twere wiser you announced
Our presence to the King—What’s now a-foot,
I wonder?—Not that any more’s to dread
Than every day’s embarrassment—but guess [p. 570→]
For me why train so fast succeeded train
On the high-road, each gayer still than each;
I noticed your Archbishop’s pursuivant,
The sable cloak and silver cross; such pomp
Bodes . . what now, Charles? Can you conceive?
We go forward to the scene when Victor stealthily returns from his retreat at Chamberri, where he has adopted the title “Count Teude,” his mistress being the Marchioness Sebastian. It is still a month within the year since he abdicated. Having reached the Council Chamber unobserved, he utters a long soliloquy, from which we now quote:—
Why come I hither? All’s in rough—let all
Remain rough; there’s full time to draw back—nay,
There’s nought to draw back from as yet; whereas
If reason should be to arrest a course
Of error—reason good to interpose
And save, as I have saved so many times,
My house—admonish my son’s giddy youth—
Relieve him of a weight that proves too much—
Now is the time,—or now or never. ’Faith,
This kind of step is pitiful—not due
To Charles, this stealing back—hither because
He’s from his Capital! Oh, Victor—Victor—
But thus it is: the age of crafty men
Is loathsome—youth contrives to carry off
Dissimulation—we may intersperse
Extenuating passages of strength,
Ardour, vivacity, and wit—may turn
E’en guile into a voluntary grace,—
But one’s old age, when graces drop away
And leave guile the pure staple of our lives—
Ah, loathsome!
A little further on in the same speech we have the following bold and weighty, but to some degree obscure, utterances:—
’Tis this relentless noonday-lighted chamber
That disconcerts me. Some one flung doors wide
(Those two great doors that scrutinise me now)
And out I went ’mid crowds of men—men talking,
Men watching if my lip fell or brow changed;
Men saw me safe forth—put me on my road:
That makes the misery of this return!
Oh, had a battle done it! Had I dropped
—Haling some battle three entire days old
Hither and thither by the forehead—sunk
In Spain, in Austria, best of all in France—
Spurned on its horns or underneath its hooves [p. 571→]
When the spent monster goes upon its knees
To pad and pash the prostrate wretch—I, Victor,
Sole to have stood up against France—beat down
By inches, brayed to pieces finally
By some vast unimaginable charge—
A flying hell of horse and foot and guns
Over me, and all’s lost, for ever lost—
There’s no more Victor when the world wakes up!
Then silence, as of a raw battle-field,
Throughout the world. Then after (as whole weeks
After, you catch at intervals faint noise
Thro’ the stiff crust of frozen blood) to creep.
A rumour forth, so faint, no noise at all,
That a strange old man, face outworn for wounds,
Is stumbling on from frontier town to town,
Begging a pittance that may help him find
His Turin out; laughter and scorn to follow
The coin you fling into his cap: and last,
Some bright morn, to see crowds about the midst
Of the market-place where takes the old man breath
Ere, with his crutch, he strike the palace-gate
Wide ope!
Mr. Browning would do well not to mystify his readers amid a labyrinth of clashing words. The Soliloquy is no sooner ended than Charles enters with papers furnished by D’Ormea, which contain intelligence, that Victor is on the eve of returning to claim the crown; the ex-king supposing that his son at the time is absent from the capital, and at the Evian baths. The long passage now to be quoted dramatically exhibits the subtlety of the old knave, and the tenderness of the vacillating son, who yet would hold the crown fast enough, if he knew how to resist his father’s artful reasoning. Polyxena too appears to advantage, when she interposes:—
Cha. Just as I thought! A miserable falsehood
Of hirelings discontented with their pay
And longing for enfranchisement! A few
Testy expressions of old age that thinks
To keep alive its dignity o’er slaves
By means that suit their natures!
[Tearing them.] Thus they shake
My faith in Victor!
[Turning, he discovers Victor.
Vic. [after a pause.] Not at Evian, Charles?
What’s this? Why do you run to close the doors?
No welcome for your father?
Cha. [aside.] Not his voice!
What would I give for one imperious tone
Of the old sort! That’s gone for ever. [p. 572→]
Vic. Must
I ask once more . . .
Cha. No—I concede it, sir!
You are returned for . . . true, your health declines—
True, Chamberri’s a bleak unkindly spot—
You’d choose one fitter for your final lodge—
Veneria—or Moncaglier—ay, that’s close,
And I concede it.
Vic. I received advices
Of the conclusion of the Spanish matter
Dated from Evian baths.—
Cha. And you forbore
To visit me at Evian, satisfied
The work I had to do would fully task
The little wit I have, and that your presence
Would only disconcert me—
Vic. Charles?
Cha. —Me—set
For ever in a foreign course to yours,
And . . .
Sir, this way of wile were good to catch,
But I have not the sleight of it. The truth!
Though I sink under it! What brings you here?
Vic. Not hope of this reception, certainly,
From one who’d scarce assume a stranger mode
Of speech did I return to bring about
Some awfulest calamity.
Cha. —You mean,
Did you require your crown again; Oh yes,
I should speak otherwise! But turn not that
To jesting! Sir, the truth! Your health declines?
Is aught deficient in your equipage?
Wisely you seek myself to make complaint,
And foil the malice of the world which seizes
On petty discontents; but I shall care
That not a soul knows of this visit. Speak!
Vic. [aside.] Here is the grateful, much-professing son
Who was to worship me, and for whose sake
I never had waived my plans of public good!
[Aloud.] Nay, Charles, if I did seek to take once more
My crown, and were disposed to plague myself—
What would be warrant for this bitterness?
I gave it—grant I would resume it—well?
Cha. I should say simply—leaving out the why
And how—you made me swear to keep that crown:
And as you then intended . . .
Vic. Fool! What way
Could I intend or not intend? As man,
With a man’s life, when I say “I intend,” [p. 573→]
I can intend up to a certain point,
No further. I intended to preserve
The Crown of Savoy and Sardinia whole:
And if events arise to demonstrate
The way I took to keep it, rather’s like
To lose it . . .
Cha. Keep within your sphere and mine!
It is God’s province we usurp on else.
Here, blindfold through the maze of things we walk
By a slight thread of false, true, right and wrong;
Truth here for us—truth everywhere for God:
All else is rambling and presumption. I
Have sworn to keep this kingdom: there’s my truth.
Vic. Truth, boy, is here—within my breast; and in
Your recognition of it, truth is too;
And in the effect of all this tortuous dealing
With falsehood, used to carry out the truth,
—In its success, this falsehood is again
Truth for the world! But you are right: these themes
Are over-subtle. I should rather say
In such a case, frankly,—it fails, my scheme:
I hoped to see you bring about, yourself,
What I must bring about: I interpose
On your behalf—with my son’s good in sight—
To hold what he is nearly letting go—
Confirm his title—add a grace, perhaps—
There’s Sicily, for instance,—granted me
And taken back, some years since—till I give
That island with the rest, my work’s half done.
For his sake, therefore, as of those he rules . . .
Cha. Our sakes are one—and that you could not say,
Because my answer would present itself
Forthwith;—a year has wrought an age’s change:
This people’s not the people now you once
Could benefit, nor is my policy
Your policy.
Vic. [with an outburst] I know it! You undo
All I have done—my life of toil and care!
I left you this the absolutest rule
In Europe—do you think I will sit still
And see you throw all power to the people—
See my Sardinia, that has stood apart,
Join in the mad and democratic whirl
Whereto I see all Europe haste full-tide?
England casts off her kings—France mimics England—
This realm I hoped was safe! Yet here I talk,
When I can save it, not by force alone,
But bidding plagues which follow sons like you
Fasten upon my disobedient . . . [p. 574→]
[Recollecting himself.] Surely
I could say this—if minded so—my son?
Cha. You could not! Bitterer curses than your curse
Have I long since denounced upon myself
If I misused my power. In fear of these
I entered on those measures—will abide
By them: so I should say, Count Tende—
Vic. No!
But no! But if, my Charles, your—more than old—
Half-foolish father urged these arguments,
And then confessed them futile, but said plainly,
That he forgot his promise, found his strength
Fail him, had thought at savage Chamberri
Too much of brilliant Turin, Rivoli here,
And Susa, and Veneria, and Superga—
Pined for the pleasant places he had built
When he was fortunate and young—
Cha. My father!
Vic. Stay yet—and if he said he could not die
Deprived of baubles he had put aside
He deemed for ever—of the Crown that binds
Your brain up, whole, sound, and impregnable,
Creating kingliness—the Sceptre, too,
Whose mere wind, should you wave it, back would beat
Invaders—and the golden Ball which throbs
As if you grasped the palpitating heart
Indeed o’ the realm, to mould as choose you may!
—If I must totter up and down the streets
My sires built, where myself have introduced
And fostered laws and letters, sciences,
The civil and the military arts—
Stay, Charles—I see you letting me pretend
To live my former self once more—King Victor
The venturous yet politic—they style me
Again the Father of the Prince—friends winking
Good-humouredly at the delusion you’re
So sedulous in guarding from sad truth,
That else would break upon the dotage!—You
Whom now I see preventing my old shame—
I tell not, point by cruel point, my tale—
For is’t not in your breast my brow is hid?
Is not your hand extended? Say you not. . .
Enter D’Ormea, leading in Polyxena.
Pol. [advancing and withdrawing Charles—to Victor.] In this conjuncture, even, he would say
(Though with a moistened eye and quivering lip)
The suppliant is my father—I must save
A great man from himself, nor see him fling
His well-earned fame away: there must not follow [p. 575→]
Ruin so utter, a break down of worth
So absolute: no enemy shall learn
He thrust his child ’twixt danger and himself,
And, when that child somehow stood danger out,
Stole back with serpent wiles to ruin Charles
—Body, that’s much,—and soul, that’s more—and realm,
That’s most of all! No enemy shall say. . .
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. II. King Victor and King Charles (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
___________________
