R420430A. King Victor and King Charles.
The Athenæum, 30 April 1842, pp. 376–378.
As reprinted in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 5, 402–405.
This is the second of a series of poems which, under the whimsical title of “Bells and Pomegranates,” Mr. Browning promises to the world. We have before predicted that Mr. Browning’s audience would be limited, and, inasmuch as he has doubled the price of admission, we are led to conclude that our prediction has been fulfilled. If such be the case, even in the teeth of our infallibility, we regret it, for we have faith in Mr. Browning, and trust to see him realize a higher destiny than that of the thousand and one claimants to the laurel crown.
The “plot” of “King Victor and King Charles” is taken from an episode in the history of Sardinia, peculiarly adapted for dramatic treatment. Victor [p. 377→] Amadeus, second Duke of Savoy of that name, has involved himself, by tortuous policy, in the danger of a war, both with Austria and Spain; and in order to put off the fatal day, he conceives the project of resigning his crown to his son Charles. Charles Emmanuel bears a striking resemblance to Schiller’s Don Carlos; and his wife Polyxena, his counsellor, is not unlike a female Posa. By her advice, Charles accepts the proffered crown, and the unswerving rectitude of his conduct restores Sardinia to tranquillity and happiness. Meanwhile the ambition of the abdicated King returns—the crown and sceptre, with all their associated excitements, are an ever-craving want to his restless mind, and he resolves to regain them, even by force, should persuasion fail. Charles, who has long turned a deaf ear to the information conveyed to him by a crafty Prime Minister of his father’s “conspiracy,” at last authorizes his arrest. Victor is brought before him, claims the crown, which his son restores, and the old man, after a minute’s enjoyment of his accustomed dignities, expires!
This plot, it will be seen at a glance, is highly dramatic; and Mr. Browning has worked it out with skill. His characters are drawn with breadth and great distinctness of colouring. The sensibility, the true-heart, the vacillating will of Charles at the commencement of the drama, his subsequent energy and developed talents, when the crown is placed on his head, and the noble aim of a nation’s welfare, which gives concentration to his powers, are finely conceived. The restless ambition and selfishness of Victor, the bold dishonesty and sarcastic deceit of D’Ormea (the Prime Minister), and the calm, lofty, pure-mindedness of Polyxena, are pictured with unity and vigour. But in giving an extract, or two, we must once again, and emphatically, express our regret, at the extent to which Mr. Browning allows his manner to interpose between his own fine conceptions and the public. Full of thought, full of learning, full of fancy as his poems show him to be, they also exhibit him as cumbered, rather than strengthened by the number of his possessions, and neither few nor far between are the portions where this inability to do justice to his own meanings, takes forms, which might be confounded by the superficial observer with commonplace.
This protest recorded, we will give some extracts from the scene in which Polyxena first learns of the resignation of the crown by Victor to his son. She sees the crown and exclaims,—
Polyxena. So, now my work
Begins—to save him from regret. Save Charles
Regret?—the noble nature! He’s not made
Like the Italians: ’tis a German soul.
Charles enters crowned.
Oh, where’s the King’s heir? Gone:—The Crown-prince? Gone—
Where’s Savoy? Gone—Sardinia? Gone!—But Charles
Is left! And when my Rhine-land bowers arrive,
If he looked almost handsome yester-twilight
As his grey eyes seemed widening into black
Because I praised him, then how will he look?
Farewell, you stripped and whited mulberry-trees
Bound each to each by lazy ropes of vine!
Now I’ll teach you my language—I’m not forced
To speak Italian now, Charles?
[She sees the crown.] What is this?
Answer me—who has done this? Answer!
Cha. He:
I am King now.
Pol. Oh worst, worst, worst of all!
Tell me—what, Victor? He has made you King?
What’s he then? What’s to follow this? You, King?
Cha. Have I done wrong? Yes—for you were not by!
Pol. Tell me from first to last.
Cha. Hush—a new world
Brightens before me; he is moved away
—The dark form that eclipsed it, he subsides
Into a shape supporting me like yours,
And I alone tend upward, more and more
Tend upward: I am grown Sardinia’s King.
Pol. Now stop: was not this Victor Duke of Savoy
At ten years old?
Cha. He was.
Pol. And the Duke spent
Since then just four-and-fifty years in toil
To be—what?
Cha. King.
Pol. Then why unking himself?
* * * *
Ah, it opens then
Before you—all you dreaded formerly?
You are rejoiced to be a king, my Charles?
Cha. So much to dare? The better;—much to dread?
The better. I’ll adventure tho’ alone.
Triumph or die, there’s Victor still to witness
Who dies or triumphs—either way, alone.
Victor enters, and strives to instil into his son the leading maxims of his own policy. Charles finely asserts his higher views:—
Vic. You are now the King: you’ll comprehend
Much you may oft have wondered at—the shifts,
Dissimulation, wiliness I showed.
For what’s our post? Here’s Savoy and here’s Piedmont,
Here’s Montferrat—a breadth here, a space there—
To o’er-sweep all these what’s one weapon worth?
I often think of how they fought in Greece
(Or Rome, which was it? You’re the scholar, Charles)
You made a front-thrust? But if your shield, too,
Were not adroitly planted—some shrewd knave
Reached you behind; and, him foiled, straight if thong
And handle of that shield were not cast loose
And you enabled to outstrip the wind,
Fresh foes assailed you either side; ’scape these
And reach your place of refuge—e’en then, odds
If the gate opened unless breath enough
Was left in you to make its Lord a speech.
Oh, you will see!
Cha. No: straight on shall I go,
Truth helping; win with it or die with it.
Vic. Faith, Charles, you’re not made Europe’s fighting-man.
Its barrier-guarder, if you please. You hold,
Not take—consolidate, with envious French
This side and Austrians that, these territories
I held—ay, and will hold … which you shall hold
Despite the couple! * *
About the People! I took certain measures
Some short time since … Oh, I’m aware you know.
But little of my measures—these affect
The nobles—we’ve resumed some grants, imposed
A tax or two; prepare yourself, in short,
For clamours on that score: mark me: you yield
No jot of what’s entrusted you!
Pol. No jot
You yield!
Cha. My father, when I took the oath,
Although my eye might stray in search of yours,
I heard it, understood it, promised God
What you require. Till from this eminence
He moves me, here I keep, nor shall concede
The meanest of my rights.
Vic. [aside.] The boy’s a fool.
—Or rather, I’m a fool: for, what’s wrong here?
To-day the sweets of reigning—let to-morrow
Be ready with its bitters.
We will now endeavour to exhibit the three principal dramatis personæ, in passages which shall do their creator credit. The first is a portion of King Victor’s soliloquy on his unexpected return—in which we cannot but think, that the struggles of unscrupulous ambition and remorseless shame, are happily conceived.
Why come I hither! All’s in rough—let all
Remain rough; there’s full time to draw back—nay,
There’s naught 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 the 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!
* * * *
Here am I arrived—the rest
Must be done for me. Would I could sit here
And let things right themselves—the masque unmasque
Of the King, Crownless, grey hairs and hot blood,—
The young King, crowned, but calm before his time,
They say,—the eager woman with her taunts,—
And the sad earnest wife who beckons me
Away—ay,—there she knelt to me! E’en yet
I can return and sleep at Chamberri
A dream out. Rather shake it off at Turin,
King Victor! Is’t to Turin—yes or no?
’Tis this relentless noon-day-lighted chamber
That disconcerts me. Some one flung doors wide
(Those two great doors that scrutinize 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!
The next passage shall display the aroused Charles, determining on the arrest of his father. Here, again, (and it is no mean exercise of the dramatist’s power) the contention between obedience and duty—between the Son, the King, and the Master of the treacherous Minister, is indicated with a clearness, which would justify us in yet a stronger desire, that one who can conceive so forcibly, should write as he conceives.
Cha. There!
About the warrants! You’ve my signature.
What turns you pale? I do my duty by you
In acting boldly thus on your advice.
D’O. [reading them separately.] Arrest the people I suspected merely?
Cha. Did you suspect them?
D’O. Doubtless: but—but—sire,
This Forquieri’s governor of Turin;
And Rivarol and he have influence over
Half of the capital.—Rabella, too!
Why, sire—
Cha. Oh, leave the fear to me.
D’O. [still reading.] You bid me
Incarcerate the people on this list?
Sire—
Cha. Why you never bade arrest those men,
So close related to my father too,
On trifling grounds?
D’O. Oh, as for that, St. George,
President of Chamberri’s senators,
Is hatching treason—but—
[Still more troubled.] Sire, Count Cumaine
Is brother to your father’s wife! What’s here?
Arrest the wife herself?
Cha. You seem to think
It venial crime to plot against me. Well?
D’O. [who has read the last paper.] Wherefore am I thus ruined? Why not take
My life at once? This poor formality
Is, let me say, unworthy you! Prevent it,
You, madam! I have served you—am prepared
For all disgraces—only, let disgrace
Be plain, be proper—proper for the world
To pass its judgment on ’twixt you and me!
Take back your warrant—I will none of it.
Cha. Here is a man to talk of fickleness!
He stakes his life upon my father’s falsehood,
I bid him—
D’O. Not you! Were he trebly false,
You do not bid me—
Cha. Is’t not written there?
I thought so: give—I’ll set it right.
D’O. Is it there?
Oh, yes—and plain—arrest him—now—drag here
Your father! And were all six times as plain,
Do you suppose I’d trust it?
Cha. Just one word!
You bring him taken in the act of flight.
Or else your life is forfeit.
D’O Ay, to Turin
I bring him; And to-morrow?
Cha. Here and now!
The whole thing is a lie—a hateful life—
As I believed and as my father said.
I knew it from the first, but was compelled
To circumvent you; and the crafty D’Ormea,
That baffled Alberoni and tricked Coscia,
The miserable sower of the discord
’Twixt sire and son, is in the toils at last;
Oh, I see—you arrive—this plan of yours,
Weak as it is, torments sufficiently
A sick, old, peevish man—wrings hasty speech
And ill-considered threats from him; that’s noted;
Then out you ferret papers, his amusement
In lonely hours of lassitude—examine
The day-by-day report of your paid creatures—
And back you come—all was not ripe, you find,
And as you hope may keep from ripening yet—
But you were in bare time! Only, ’twere best
I never saw my father—these old men
Are potent in excuses.
* * * *
Charles [pacing the room.] And why
Does Victor come! To undo all that’s done!
Restore the past—prevent the future! Seat
Sebastian in your seat and place in mine
… Oh, my own people, whom will you find there
To ask of, to consult with, to care for,
To hold up with your hands? Whom? One that’s false—
False—from the head’s crown to the foot’s sole, false!
The best is that I knew it in my heart
From the beginning, and expected this,
And hated you, Polyxena, because
You saw thro’ him, though I too saw thro’ him,
Saw that he meant this while he crowned me, while
He prayed for me,—nay, while he kissed my brow,
I saw—
Polyxena. But if your measures take effect,
And D’Ormea’s true to you?
Cha. Then worst of all!
I shall have loosed that callous wretch on him!
Well may the woman taunt him with his child—
I, eating here his bread, clothed in his clothes,
Seated upon his seat, give D’Ormea leave
To outrage him! We talk—perchance they tear
My father from his bed—the old hands feel
For one who is not, but who should be there—
And he finds D’Ormea! D’Ormea, too, finds him!
—The crowded chamber when the lights go out—
Closed doors—the horrid scuffle in the dark—
Th’ accursed promptings of the minute! My guards!
To horse—and after, with me—and prevent!
Pol. [seizing his hand.] King Charles! Pause you upon this strip of time
Allotted you out of eternity!
Crowns are from God—in his name you hold yours.
Your life’s no least thing, were it fit your life
Should be abjured along with rule; but now,
Keep both! Your duty is to live and rule—
You, who would vulgarly look fine enough
In the world’s eye deserting your soul’s charge—
Aye, you would have men’s tongues—this Rivoli
Would be illumined—while, as ’tis, no doubt,
Something of stain will ever rest on you—
No one will rightly know why you refused
To abdicate—they’ll talk of deeds you could
Have done, no doubt,—Nor do I much expect
Future achievements will blot out the past,
Envelop it in haze—nor shall we two
Be happy any more; ’twill be, I feel, [p. 378→]
Only in moments that the duty’s seen
As palpably as now—the months, the years
Of painful indistinctness are to come—
While daily must we tread the palace rooms
Pregnant with memories of the past—your eye
May turn to mine and find no comfort there
Through fancies that beset me as yourself—
Of other courses with far other issues
We might have taken this great night—such bear
As I will bear! What matters happiness?
Duty! There’s man’s one moment—this is yours!
[Putting the crown on his head, and the sceptre
in his hand, she places him on his seat.
Of a like quality is the closing scene of the chronicle. It may give our author little popularity among the many: but it must confirm the few in their anxiety to see him take “the one step more” out of the labyrinth in which he lingers too fondly.
[Charles Isidore Hemans]
Reviewed:
Bells & Pomegranates. No. II. King Victor and King Charles (RB), London: Edward Moxon, 1842.
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