It soars away, and mud subsides to dust.
Say then, myself invented Comedy!”
So mouths full many a famed Parabasis!
Agreed! No more, then, of prescriptive use,
Authorization by antiquity,
For what offends our judgment! ‘T is your work,
Performed your way: not work delivered you
Intact, intact producible in turn.
Everywhere have you altered old to new —
Your will, your warrant: therefore, work must stand
Or stumble by intrinsic worth. What worth?
Its aim and object! Peace you advocate,
And war would fain abolish from the land:
Support religion, lash irreverence,
Yet laughingly administer rebuke
To superstitious folly, — equal fault!
While innovating rashness, lust of change,
New laws, new habits, manners, men and things,
Make your main quarry, — ”oldest” meaning “best.”
You check the fretful litigation-itch,
Withstand mob-rule, expose mob-flattery,
Punish mob-favourites; most of all press hard
On sophists who assist the demagogue,
And poets their accomplices in crime.
Such your main quarry: by the way, you strike
Ignobler game, mere miscreants, snob or scamp,
Cowardly, gluttonous, effeminate:
Still with a bolt to spare when dramatist
Proves haply unproficient in his art.
Such aims — alone, no matter for the means —
Declare the unexampled excellence
Of their first author — Aristophanes!
Whereat — Euripides, oh, not thyself —
Augustlier than the need! — thy century
Of subjects dreamed and dared and done, before
“Banqueters” gave dark earth enlightenment,
Or “Babylonians” played Prometheus here, —
These let me summon to defend thy cause!
Lo, as indignantly took life and shape
Labour by labour, all of Herakles, —
Palpably fronting some o’erbold pretence
“Eurustheus slew the monsters, purged the world!”
So shall each poem pass you and imprint
Shame on the strange assurance. You praised Peace?
Sing him full-face, Kresphontes! “Peace” the theme?
“Peace, in whom depths of wealth lie, — of the blest
Immortals beauteousest, —
Come! for the heart within me dies away,
So long dost thou delay!
O I have feared lest old age, much annoy,
Conquer me, quite outstrip the tardy joy,
Thy gracious triumph-season I would see,
The song, the dance, the sport, profuse of crowns to be.
But come! for my sake, goddess great and dear,
Come to the city here!
Hateful Sedition drive thou from our homes,
With Her who madly roams
Rejoicing in the steel against the life
That’s whetted — banish Strife!”
Shall I proceed? No need of next and next!
That were too easy, play so presses play,
Trooping tumultuous, each with instance apt,
Each eager to confute the idle boast.
What virtue but stands forth panegyrized,
What vice, unburned by stigma, in the books
Which bettered Hellas, — beyond graven gold
Or gem-indenture, sung by Phoibos’ self
And saved in Kunthia’s mountain treasure-house —
Ere you, man, moralist, were youth or boy?
— Not praise which, in the proffer, mocks the praised
By sly admixture of the blameworthy
And enforced coupling of base fellowship, —
Not blame which gloats the while it frowning laughs,
“Allow one glance on horrors — laughable!” —
This man’s entire of heart and soul, discharged
Its love or hate, each unalloyed by each,
On objects worthy either; earnestness,
Attribute him, and power! but novelty?
Nor his nor yours a doctrine — all the world’s!
What man of full-grown sense and sanity
Holds other than the truth, — wide Hellas through, —
Though truth, he acts, discredit truth he holds?
What imbecile has dared to formulate
“Love war, hate peace, become a litigant!” —
And so preach on, reverse each rule of right
Because he quarrels, combats, goes to law?
No, for his comment runs, with smile or sigh
According to heart’s temper, “Peace were best,
Except occasions when we put aside
Peace, and bid all the blessings in her gift
Quick join the crows, for sake of Marathon!”
“Nay,” you reply; for one, whose mind withstands
His heart, and, loving peace, for conscience’ sake
Wants war, — you find a crowd of hypocrites
Whose conscience means ambition, grudge and greed.
On such, reproof, sonorous doctrine, melts
Distilled like universal but thin dew
Which all too sparsely covers country: dear,
No doubt, to universal crop and clown,
Still, each bedewed keeps his own head-gear dry
With upthrust skiadeion , shakes adroit
The droppings to his neighbour. No! collect
All of the moisture, leave unhurt the heads
Which nowise need a washing, save and store
And dash the whole condensed to one fierce spout
On some one evildoer, sheltered close, —
The fool supposed, — till you beat guard away,
And showed your audience, not that war was wrong,
But Lamachos absurd, — case, crests and all, —
Not that democracy was blind of choice,
But Kleon and Huperbolos were shams:
Not superstition vile, but Nikias crazed, —
The concrete for the abstract; that’s the way!
What matters Choros crying “Hence, impure!”
You cried “Ariphrades does thus and thus!”
Now, earnestness seems never earnest more
Than when it dons for garb — indifference;
So there’s much laughing: but, compensative,
When frowning follows laughter, then indeed
Scout innuendo, sarcasm, irony! —
Wit’s polished warfare glancing at first graze
From off hard headpiece, coarsely-coated brain
O’ the commonalty — whom, unless you prick
To purpose, what avails that finer pates
Succumbto simple scratching? Those — not these —
‘T is Multitude, which, moved, fines Lamachos,
Banishes Kleon and burns Sokrates,
House over head, or, better, poisons him.
Therefore in dealing with King Multitude,
Club-drub the callous numskulls! In and in
Beat this essential consequential fact
That here they have a hater of the three,
Who hates in word, phrase, nickname, epithet
And illustration, beyond doubt at all!
And similarly, would you win assent
To — Peace, suppose? You tickle the tough hide
With good plain pleasure her concomitant —
And, past mistake again, exhibit Peace —
Peace, vintager and festive, cheesecake-time,
Hare-slice-and-peasoup-season, household joy:
Theoria’s beautiful belongings match
Opora’s lavish condescendings: brief,
Since here the people are to judge, you press
Such argument as people unde
rstand:
If with exaggeration — what care you?
Have I misunderstood you in the main?
No! then must answer be, such argument,
Such policy, no matter what good love
Or hate it help, in practice proves absurd,
Useless and null: henceforward intercepts
Sober effective blow at what you blame,
And renders nugatory rightful praise
Of thing or person. The coarse brush has daubed —
What room for the fine limner’s pencil-mark?
Blame? You curse, rather, till who blames must blush —
Lean to apology or praise, more like!
Does garment, simpered o’er as white, prove grey?
“Black, blacker than Acharnian charcoal, black
Beyond Kimmerian, Stugian blackness black,”
You bawl, till men sigh “nearer snowiness!”
What follows? What one faint-rewarding fall
Of foe belaboured ne’er so lustily?
Laugh Lamachos from out the people’s heart?
He died, commanding, “hero,” say yourself!
Gibe Nikias into privacy? — nay, shake
Kleon a little from his arrogance
By cutting him to shoe-sole-shreds? I think,
He ruled his life long and, when time was ripe,
Died fighting for amusement, — good tough hide!
Sokrates still goes up and down the streets,
And Aristullos puts his speech in book,
When both should be abolished long ago.
Nay, wretchedest of rags, Ariphrades —
You have been fouling that redoubtable
Harp-player, twenty years, with what effect?
Still he strums on, strums ever cheerily,
And earns his wage, — ”Who minds a joke?” men say.
No, friend! The statues stand — mudstained at most —
Titan or pygmy: what achieves their fall
Will be, long after mud is flung and spent,
Some clear thin spirit-thrust of lightning — truth!
Your praise, then — honey-smearing helps your friend,
More than blame’s ordure-smirch hurts foe, perhaps?
Peace, now, misunderstood, ne’er prized enough,
You have interpreted to ignorance
Till ignorance opes eye, bat-blind before,
And for the first time knows Peace means the power
On maw of pan-cake, cheese-cake, barley-cake,
No stop nor stint to stuffing. While, in camp,
Who fights chews rancid tunny, onions raw,
Peace sits at cosy feast with lamp and fire,
Complaisant smooth-sleeked flute-girls giggling gay.
How thick and fast the snow falls, freezing War
Who shrugs, campaigns it, and may break a shin
Or twist an ankle! come, who hesitates
To give Peace, over War, the preference?
Ah, friend — had this indubitable fact
Haply occurred to poor Leonidas,
How had he turned tail on Thermopulai!
It cannot be that even his few wits
Were addled to the point that, so advised,
Preposterous he had answered — ”Cakes are prime,
Hearth-sides are snug, sleek dancing-girls have worth,
And yet — for country’s sake, to save our gods
Their temples, save our ancestors their tombs,
Save wife and child and home and liberty, —
I would chew sliced-salt-fish, bear snow — nay, starve,
If need were, — and by much prefer the choice!”
Why, friend, your genuine hero, all the while,
Has been — who served precisely for your butt —
Kleonumos that, wise, cast shield away
On battle-ground; cried “Cake my buckler be,
Embossed with cream-clot! peace, not war, I choose,
Holding with Dikaiopolis!” Comedy
Shall triumph, Dikaiopolis win assent,
When Miltiades shall next shirk Marathon,
Themistokles swap Salamis for — cake,
And Kimon grunt “Peace, grant me dancing-girls!”
But sooner, hardly! twenty-five years since,
The war began, — such pleas for Peace have reached
A reasonable age. The end shows all.
And so with all the rest you advocate!
“Wise folk leave litigation! ‘ware the wasps!
Whoso loves law and lawyers, heliast-like,
Wants hemlock!” None shows that so funnily.
But, once cure madness, how comports himself
Your sane exemplar, what’s our gain thereby?
Philokleon turns Bdelukleon! just this change, —
New sanity gets straightway drunk as sow,
Cheats baker-wives, brawls, kicks, cuffs, curses folk,
Parades a shameless flute-girl, bandies filth
With his own son who cured his father’s cold
By making him catch fever — funnily!
But as for curing love of lawsuits — faugh!
And how does new improve upon the old
— Your boast — in even abusing? Rough, may be —
Still, honest was the old mode. “Call thief — thief!”
But never call thief even — murderer!
Much less call fop and fribble, worse one whit
Than fribble and fop! Spare neither! beat your brains
For adequate invective, — cut the life
Clean out each quality, — but load your lash
With no least lie, or we pluck scourge from hand!
Does poet want a whipping, write bad verse,
Inculcate foul deeds? There’s the fault to flog!
You vow “The rascal cannot read nor write,
Spends more in buying fish than Morsimos,
Somebody helps his Muse and courts his wife,
His uncle deals in crockery, and last, —
Himself’s a stranger!” That’s the cap and crown
Of stinging-nettle, that’s the master-stroke!
What poet-rival, — after “housebreaker,”
“Fish-gorging,” “midnight footpad” and so forth, —
Proves not, beside, “a stranger”? Chased from charge
To charge, and, lie by lie, laughed out of court, —
Lo, wit’s sure refuge, satire’s grand resource —
All, from Kratinos downward — ”strangers” they!
Pity the trick’s too facile! None so raw
Among your playmates but have caught the ball
And sent it back as briskly to — yourself!
You too, my Attic, are styled “stranger” — Rhodes,
Aigina, Lindos or Kameiros, — nay,
‘T was Egypt reared, if Eupolis be right,
Who wrote the comedy (Kratinos vows)
Kratinos helped a little! Kleon’s self
Was nigh promoted Comic, when he haled
My poet into court, and o’er the coals
Hauled and re-hauled “the stranger, — insolent,
Who brought out plays, usurped our privilege!”
Why must you Comics one and all take stand
On lower ground than truth from first to last?
Why all agree to let folk disbelieve,
So laughter but reward a funny lie?
Repel such onslaughts — answer, sad and grave,
Your fancy-fleerings — who would stoop so low?
Your own adherents whisper, — when disgust
Too menacingly thrills Logeion through
At — Perikles invents this present war
Because men robbed his mistress of three maids —
Or — Sokrates wants burning, house o’er head, —
“What, so obtuse, not read between the lines?
Our poet means no mischief! All should know —
Ribaldry here implies a co
mpliment!
He deals with things, not men, — his men are things —
Each represents a class, plays figure-head
And names the ship: no meaner than the first
Would serve; he styles a trireme ‘Sokrates’ —
Fears ‘Sokrates’ may prove unseaworthy
(That’s merely — ’Sophists are the bane of boys’)
Rat-riddled (‘they are capable of theft’),
Rotten or whatsoe’er shows ship-disease,
(‘They war with gods and worship whirligig’).
You never took the joke for earnest? scarce
Supposed mere figure-head meant entire ship,
And Sokrates — the whole fraternity?”
This then is Comedy, our sacred song,
Censor of vice, and virtue’s guard as sure:
Manners-instructing, morals’ stop-estray,
Which, born a twin with public liberty,
Thrives with its welfare, dwindles with its wane!
Liberty? what so exquisitely framed
And fitted to suck dry its life of life
To last faint fibre? — since that life is truth.
You who profess your indignation swells
At sophistry, when specious words confuse
Deeds right and wrong, distinct before, you say —
(Though all that’s done is — dare veracity,
Show that the true conception of each deed
Affirmed, in vulgar parlance, “wrong” or “right,”
Proves to be neither, as the hasty hold,
But, change your side, shoots light, where dark alone
Was apprehended by the vulgar sense)
You who put sophistry to shame, and shout
“There’s but a single side to man and thing;
A side so much more big than thing or man
Possibly can be, that — believe ‘t is true?
Such were too marvellous simplicity!” —
Confess, those sophists whom yourself depict,
( — Abide by your own painting!) what they teach,
They wish at least their pupil to believe,
And, what believe, to practise! Did you wish
Hellas should haste, as taught, with torch in hand,
And fire the horrid Speculation-shop?
Straight the shop’s master rose and showed the mob
What man was your so monstrous Sokrates;
Himself received amusement, why not they?
Just as did Kleon first play magistrate
And bid you put your birth in evidence —
Since no unbadged buffoon is licensed here
To shame us all when foreign guests may mock —
Then, — birth established, fooling licensed you, —
He, duty done, resumed mere auditor,
Laughed with the loudest at his Lamia-shape,
Kukloboros-roaring, and the camel-rest.
Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series Page 184