Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 180
Fools, when myself confronts you four years hence?
But die, ere next Lenaia, — safely so
You ‘scape me, slink with all your ignorance,
Stupidity and malice, to that hole
O’er which survivors croak ‘Respect the dead!’
Ay, for I needs must! But allow me clutch
Only a carrion-handful, lend it sense,
(Mine, not its own, or could it answer me?)
And question ‘You, I pluck from hiding-place,
Whose cant was, certain years ago, my ‘Clouds’
Might last until the swallows came with Spring —
Whose chatter, ‘Birds’ are unintelligible,
Mere psychologic puzzling: poetry?
List, the true lay to rock a cradle with!
O man of Mitulené, wondrous wise!’
— Would not I rub each face in its own filth
To tune of ‘Now that years have come and gone,
How does the fact stand? What’s demonstrable
By time, that tries things? — your own test, not mine
Who think men are, were, ever will be fools,
Though somehow fools confute fools, — as these, you!
Don’t mumble to the sheepish twos and threes
You cornered and called ‘audience’! Face this me
Who know, and can, and — helped by fifty years —
Do pulverize you pygmies, then as now!’
“Ay, now as then, I pulverize the brood,
Balaustion! Mindful, from the first, where foe
Would hide head safe when hand had flung its stone,
I did not turn cheek and take pleasantry,
But flogged while skin could purple and flesh start,
To teach fools whom they tried conclusions with.
First face a-splutter at me got such splotch
Of prompt slab mud as, filling mouth to maw,
Made its concern thenceforward not so much
To criticize me as go cleanse itself.
The only drawback to which huge delight, —
(He saw it, how he saw it, that calm cold
Sagacity you call Euripides!)
— Why, ‘t is that, make a muckheap of a man,
There, pillared by your prowess, he remains,
Immortally immerded. Not so he!
Men pelted him but got no pellet back.
He reasoned, I’ll engage, — ’Acquaint the world
Certain minuteness butted at my knee?
Dogface Eruxis, the small satirist, —
What better would the manikin desire
Than to strut forth on tiptoe, notable
As who, so far up, fouled me in the flank?’
So dealt he with the dwarfs: we giants, too,
Why must we emulate their pin-point play?
Render imperishable — impotence,
For mud throw mountains? Zeus, by mud unreached, —
Well, ‘t was no dwarf he heaved Olumpos at!”
My heart burned up within me to my tongue.
“And why must men remember, ages hence,
Who it was rolled down rocks, but refuse too —
Strattis might steal from! mixture-monument,
Recording what? ‘I, Aristophanes,
Who boast me much inventive in my art,
Against Euripides thus volleyed muck
Because, in art, he too extended bounds.
I — patriot, loving peace and hating war, —
Choosing the rule of few, but wise and good,
Rather than mob-dictature, fools and knaves
However multiplied their mastery, —
Despising most of all the demagogue,
(Noisome air-bubble, buoyed up, borne along
By kindred breath of knave and fool below,
Whose hearts swell proudly as each puffing face
Grows big, reflected in that glassy ball,
Vacuity, just bellied out to break
And righteously bespatter friends the first) —
I loathing, — beyond less puissant speech
Than my own god-grand language to declare, —
The fawning, cozenage and calumny
Wherewith such favourite feeds the populace
That fan and set him flying for reward: —
I who, detecting what vice underlies
Thought’s superstructure, — fancy’s sludge and slime
‘Twixt fact’s sound floor and thought’s mere surface-growth
Of hopes and fears which root no deeplier down
Than where all such mere fungi breed and bloat —
Namely, man’s misconception of the God: —
I, loving, hating, wishful from my soul
That truth should triumph, falsehood have defeat,
— Why, all my soul’s supremacy of power
Did I pour out in volley just on him
Who, his whole life long, championed every cause
I called my heart’s cause, loving as I loved,
Hating my hates, spurned falsehood, championed truth, —
Championed truth not by flagellating foe
With simple rose and lily, gibe and jeer,
Sly wink of boon-companion o’er his bowze
Who, while he blames the liquor, smacks the lip,
Blames, doubtless, but leers condonation too, —
No, the balled fist broke brow like thunderbolt,
Battered till brain flew! Seeing which descent,
None questioned that was first acquaintanceship,
The avenger’s with the vice he crashed through bone.
Still, he displeased me; and I turned from foe
To fellow-fighter, flung much stone, more mud, —
But missed him, since he lives aloof, I see.’
Pah! stop more shame, deep-cutting glory through,
Nor add, this poet, learned, — found no taunt
Tell like ‘That other poet studies books!’
Wise, — cried ‘At each attempt to move our hearts,
He uses the mere phrase of daily life!’
Witty, — ’His mother was a herb-woman!’
Veracious, honest, loyal, fair and good, —
‘It was Kephisophon who helped him write!’
“Whence, — O the tragic end of comedy! —
Balaustion pities Aristophanes.
For, who believed him? Those who laughed so loud?
They heard him call the sun Sicilian cheese!
Had he called true cheese — curd, would muscle move?
What made them laugh but the enormous lie?
‘Kephisophon wrote Herakles? ha, ha,
What can have stirred the wine-dregs, soured the soul
And set a-lying Aristophanes?
Some accident at which he took offence!
The Tragic Master in a moody muse
Passed him unhailing, and it hurts — it hurts!
Beside, there’s licence for the Wine-lees-song!’“
Blood burnt the cheek-bone, each black eye flashed fierce.
“But this exceeds our licence! Stay awhile —
That’s the solution! both are foreigners,
The fresh-come Rhodian lady and her spouse
The man of Phokis: newly resident,
Nowise instructed — that explains it all!
No born and bred Athenian but would smile,
Unless frown seemed more fit for ignorance.
These strangers have a privilege!
“You blame”
(Presently he resumed with milder mien)
“Both theory and practice — Comedy:
Blame her from altitudes the Tragic friend
Rose to, and upraised friends along with him,
No matter how. Once there, all’s cold and fine,
Passionless, rational; our world beneath
Shows (should you condescend to grace so much
As glance at poor Athenai) grimly gross —
Eats, drinks and kisses, falls to fisticuffs,
Then hugs as hugely: speaks too as it acts,
Prodigiously talks nonsense, — townsmen needs
Must parley in their town’s vernacular.
Such world has, of two courses, one to choose:
Unworld itself, — or else go blackening off
To its crow-kindred, leave philosophy
Her heights serene, fit perch for owls like you.
Now, since the world demurs to either course,
Permit me, — in default of boy or girl,
So they be reared Athenian, good and true, —
To praise what you most blame! Hear Art’s defence!
I’ll prove our institution, Comedy,
Coëval with the birth of freedom, matched
So nice with our Republic, that its growth
Measures each greatness, just as its decline
Would signalize the downfall of the pair.
Our Art began when Bacchos . . . never mind!
You and your master don’t acknowledge gods:
‘They are not, no, they are not!’ well, — began
When the rude instinct of our race outspoke,
Found, — on recurrence of festivity
Occasioned by black mother-earth’s good will
To children, as they took her vintage-gifts, —
Found — not the least of many benefits —
That wine unlocked the stiffest lip, and loosed
The tongue late dry and reticent of joke,
Through custom’s gripe which gladness thrusts aside.
So, emulating liberalities,
Heaven joined with earth for that god’s day at least,
Renewed man’s privilege, grown obsolete,
Of telling truth nor dreading punishment.
Whereon the joyous band disguised their forms
With skins, beast-fashion, daubed each phyz with dregs,
Then hollaed ‘Neighbour, you are fool, you — knave,
You — hard to serve, you — stingy to reward!’
The guiltless crowed, the guilty sunk their crest,
And good folk gained thereby, ‘t was evident.
Whence, by degrees, a birth of happier thought,
The notion came — not simply this to say,
But this to do — prove, put in evidence,
And act the fool, the knave, the harsh, the hunks,
Who did prate, cheat, shake fist, draw pursestring tight,
As crowd might see, which only heard before.
“So played the Poet, with his man of parts;
And all the others, found unqualified
To mount cart and be persons, made the mob,
Joined choros, fortified their fellows’ fun,
Anticipated the community,
Gave judgment which the public ratified.
Suiting rough weapon doubtless to plain truth,
They flung, for word-artillery, why — filth;
Still, folk who wiped the unsavoury salute
From visage, would prefer the mess to wit —
Steel, poked through midriff with a civil speech,
As now the way is: then, the kindlier mode
Was — drub not stab, ribroast not scarify!
So did Sousarion introduce, and so
Did I, acceding, find the Comic Art:
Club, — if I call it, — notice what’s implied!
An engine proper for rough chastisement,
No downright slaying: with impunity —
Provided crabtree, steeped in oily joke,
Deal only such a bruise as laughter cures.
I kept the gained advantage: stickled still
For club-law — stout fun and allowanced thumps:
Knocked in each knob a crevice to hold joke
As fig-leaf holds the fat-fry.
“Next, whom thrash?
Only the coarse fool and the clownish knave?
Higher, more artificial, composite
Offence should prove my prowess, eye and arm!
Not who robs henroost, tells of untaxed figs,
Spends all his substance on stewed ellops-fish,
Or gives a pheasant to his neighbour’s wife:
No! strike malpractice that affects the State,
The common weal — intriguer or poltroon,
Venality, corruption, what care I
If shrewd or witless merely? — so the thing
Lay sap to aught that made Athenai bright
And happy, change her customs, lead astray
Youth or age, play the demagogue at Pnux,
The sophist in Palaistra, or — what’s worst,
As widest mischief, — from the Theatre
Preach innovation, bring contempt on oaths,
Adorn licentiousness, despise the Cult.
Are such to be my game? Why, then there wants
Quite other cunning than a cudgel-sweep!
Grasp the old stout stock, but new tip with steel
Each boss, if I would bray — no callous hide
Simply, but Lamachos in coat of proof,
Or Kleon cased about with impudence!
Shaft pushed no worse while point pierced sparkling so
That none smiled ‘Sportive, what seems savagest,
— Innocuous anger, spiteless rustic mirth!’
Yet spiteless in a sort, considered well,
Since I pursued my warfare till each wound
Went through the mere man, reached the principle
Worth purging from Athenai Lamachos?
No, I attacked war’s representative;
Kleon? No, flattery of the populace;
Sokrates? No, but that pernicious seed
Of sophists whereby hopeful youth is taught
To jabber argument, chop logic, pore
On sun and moon, and worship Whirligig.
O your tragedian, with the lofty grace,
Aims at no other and effects as much?
Candidly: what’s a polished period worth,
Filed curt sententiousness of loaded line,
When he who deals out doctrine, primly steps
From just that selfsame moon he maunders of,
And, blood-thinned by his pallid nutriment,
Proposes to rich earth-blood — purity?
In me, ‘t was equal-balanced flesh rebuked
Excess alike in stuff-guts Glauketes
Or starveling Chairephon; I challenged both, —
Strong understander of our common life,
I urged sustainment of humanity.
Whereas when your tragedian cries up Peace —
He’s silent as to cheesecakes Peace may chew;
Seeing through rabble-rule, he shuts his eye
To what were better done than crowding Pnux —
That’s — dance ‘ Threttanelo , the Kuklops drunk!
“My power has hardly need to vaunt itself!
Opposers peep and mutter, or speak plain:
‘No naming names in Comedy!’ votes one,
‘Nor vilifying live folk!’ legislates
Another, ‘urge amendment on the dead!’
‘Don’t throw away hard cash,’ supplies a third,
‘But crib from actor’s dresses, choros-treats!’
Then Kleon did his best to bully me:
Called me before the Law Court: ‘Such a play
Satirized citizens with strangers there,
Such other,’ — why, its fault was in myself!
I was, this time, the stranger, privileged
To act no play at all, — Egyptian, I —
Rhodian or Kameirensian, Aiginete,
Lindian, or any foreigner he liked —
Because I can’t write Attic, probably!
Go ask my rivals, — how they roughed my fleece,
And how, shorn pink themselves, the huddled sheep
Shiver at distanc
e from the snapping shears!
Why must they needs provoke me?
“All the same,
No matter for my triumph, I foretell
Subsidence of the day-star: quench his beams
No Aias e’er was equal to the feat
By throw of shield, tough-hided seven times seven,
‘Twixt sky and earth! ‘t is dullards soft and sure
Who breathe against his brightest, here a sigh
And there a ‘So let be, we pardon you!’
Till the minute mist hangs a block, has tamed
Noonblaze to ‘twilight mild and equable,’
Vote the old women spinning out of doors.
Give me the earth-spasm, when the lion ramped
And the bull gendered in the brave gold flare!
O you shall have amusement, — better still,
Instruction! no more horse-play, naming names,
Taxing the fancy when plain sense will serve!
Thearion, now, my friend who bakes you bread,
What’s worthier limning than his household life?
His whims and ways, his quarrels with the spouse,
And how the son, instead of learning knead
Kilikian loaves, brings heart-break on his sire
By buying horseflesh branded San , each flank,
From shrewd Menippos who imports the ware:
While pretty daughter Kepphé too much haunts
The shop of Sporgilos the barber! brave!
Out with Thearion’s meal-tub politics
In lieu of Pisthetairos, Strepsiades!
That’s your exchange? O Muse of Megara!
Advise the fools ‘ Feed babe on weasel-lap
For wild-boar’s marrow, Cheiron’s hero-pap,
And rear, for man — Ariphrades, mayhap!’
Yes, my Balaustion, yes, my Euthukles,
That’s your exchange, — who, foreigners in fact
And fancy, would impose your squeamishness
On sturdy health, and substitute such brat
For the right offspring of us Rocky Ones,
Because babe kicks the cradle, — crows, not mewls!
“Which brings me to the prime fault, poison-speck
Whence all the plague springs — that first feud of all
‘Twixt me and you and your Euripides.
‘Unworld the world’ frowns he, my opposite.
I cry, ‘Life!’ ‘Death,’ he groans, ‘our better Life!’
Despise what is — the good and graspable,
Prefer the out of sight and in at mind,
To village-joy, the well-side violet-patch,
The jolly club-feast when our field’s in soak,
Roast thrushes, hare-soup, pea-soup, deep washed down
With Peparethian; the prompt paying off
That black-eyed brown-skinned country-flavoured wench
We caught among our brushwood foraging:
On these look fig-juice, curdle up life’s cream,