Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 228
Up, heads, your proudest — out, throats, your loudest —
“Somerset’s Pym!”
Strafford from the block, Eliot from the den,
Foes, friends, shout “Pym, our citizen!”
Wail, the foes he quelled, — hail, the friends he held,
“Tavistock’s Pym!”
Hearts prompt heads, hands that ply the pen
Teach babes unborn the where and when
— Tyrants, he braved them, — patriots, he saved them —
“Westminster’s Pym!”
FUST AND HIS FRIENDS.
AN EPILOGUE.
[Inside the House of Fust, Mayence, 1457.
FIRST FRIEND.
Up, up, up — next step of the staircase
Lands us, lo, at the chamber of dread! SECOND FRIEND.
Locked and barred? THIRD FRIEND.
Door open — the rare case! FOURTH FRIEND.
Ay, there he leans — lost wretch!
FIFTH FRIEND.
His head
Sunk on his desk ‘twixt his arms outspread!
SIXTH FRIEND.
Hallo, — wake, man, ere God thunderstrike Mayence
— Mulct for thy sake who art Satan’s, John Fust!
Satan installed here, God’s rule in abeyance,
Mayence some morning may crumble to dust.
Answer our questions thou shalt and thou must!
SEVENTH FRIEND.
Softly and fairly! Wherefore a-gloom?
Greet us, thy gossipry, cousin and sib!
Raise the forlorn brow, Fust! Make room —
Let daylight through arms which, enfolding thee, crib
From those clenched lids the comfort of sunshine! FIRST FRIEND.
So glib
Thy tongue slides to “comfort” already? Not mine!
Behoves us deal roundly: the wretch is distraught
— Too well I guess wherefore! Behoves a Divine
Such as I, by grace, boast me — to threaten one caught
In the enemy’s toils, — setting “comfort” at nought.
SECOND FRIEND.
Nay, Brother, so hasty? I heard — nor long since —
Of a certain Black Artsman who, — helplessly bound
By rash pact with Satan, — through paying — why mince
The matter? — fit price to the Church, — safe and sound
Full a year after death in his grave-clothes was found.
Whereas ‘t is notorious the Fiend claims his due
During lifetime, — comes clawing, with talons aflame,
The soul from the flesh-rags left smoking and blue:
So it happed with John Faust; lest John Fust fare the same, —
Look up, I adjure thee by God’s holy name!
For neighbours and friends — no foul hell-brood flock we!
Saith Solomon “Words of the wise are as goads:”
Ours prick but to startle from torpor, set free
Soul and sense from death’s drowse.
FIRST FRIEND.
And soul, wakened, unloads
Much sin by confession: no mere palinodes!
— ”I was youthful and wanton, am old yet no sage:
When angry I cursed, struck and slew: did I want?
Right and left did I rob: though no war I dared wage
With the Church (God forbid!) — harm her least ministrant —
Still I outraged all else. Now that strength is grown scant,
I am probity’s self” — no such bleatings as these!
But avowal of guilt so enormous, it baulks
Tongue’s telling. Yet penitence prompt may appease
God’s wrath at thy bond with the Devil who stalks
— Strides hither to strangle thee! FUST.
Childhood so talks.
Not rare wit nor ripe age — ye boast them, my neighbours! —
Should lay such a charge on your townsman, this Fust
Who, known for a life spent in pleasures and labours
If freakish yet venial, could scarce be induced
To traffic with fiends. FIRST FRIEND.
So, my words have unloosed
A plie from those pale lips corrugate but now? FUST.
Lost count me, yet not as ye lean to surmise. FIRST FRIEND.
To surmise? to establish! Unbury that brow!
Look up, that thy judge may read clear in thine eyes! SECOND FRIEND.
By your leave, Brother Barnabite! Mine to advise!
— Who arraign thee, John Fust! What was bruited erewhile
Now bellows through Mayence. All cry — thou hast trucked
Salvation away for lust’s solace! Thy smile
Takes its hue from hell’s smoulder! FUST.
Too certain! I sucked
— Got drunk at the nipple of sense. SECOND FRIEND.
Thou hast ducked —
Art drowned there, say rather! Faugh — fleshly disport!
How else but by help of Sir Belial didst win
That Venus-like lady, no drudge of thy sort
Could lure to become his accomplice in sin?
Folk nicknamed her Helen of Troy! FIRST FRIEND.
Best begin
At the very beginning. Thy father, — all knew,
A mere goldsmith . . . FUST.
Who knew him, perchance may know this —
He dying left much gold and jewels no few:
Whom these help to court with but seldom shall miss
The love of a leman: true witchcraft, I wis!
FIRST FRIEND.
Dost flout me? ‘T is said, in debauchery’s guild
Admitted prime guttler and guzzler — O swine! —
To honour thy headship, those tosspots so swilled
That out of their table there sprouted a vine
Whence each claimed a cluster, awaiting thy sign
To out knife, off mouthful: when — who could suppose
Such malice in magic? — each sot woke and found
Cold steel but an inch from the neighbour’s red nose
He took for a grape-bunch! FUST.
Does that so astound
Sagacity such as ye boast, — who surround
Your mate with eyes staring, hairs standing erect
At his magical feats? Are good burghers unversed
In the humours of toping? Full oft, I suspect,
Ye, counting your fingers, call thumbkin their first,
And reckon a groat every guilder disbursed.
What marvel if wags, while the skinker fast brimmed
Their glass with rare tipple’s enticement. should gloat
— Befooled and beflustered — through optics drinkdimmed —
On this draught and that, till each found in his throat
Our Rhenish smack rightly as Raphal? For, note —
They fancied — their fuddling deceived them so grossly —
That liquor sprang out of the table itself
Through gimlet-holes drilled there, — nor noticed how closely
The skinker kept plying my guests, from the shelf
O’er their heads, with the potable madness. No elf
Had need to persuade them a vine rose umbrageous,
Fruit-bearing, thirst-quenching! Enough! I confes
To many such fool-pranks, but none so outrageous
That Satan was called in to help me: excess
I own to, I grieve at — no more and no less.
SECOND FRIEND.
Strange honours were heaped on thee — medal for breast,
Chain for neck, sword for thigh: not a lord of the land
But acknowledged thee peer! What ambition possessed
A goldsmith by trade, with craft’s grime on his hand,
To seek such associates?
FUST.
Spare taunts! Understand —
I submit me! Of vanities under the sun,
Pride seized me at last as concupiscence first,
Crapulosity ever: tr
ue Fiends, everyone,
Haled this way and that my poor soul: thus amerced —
Forgive and forget me! FIRST FRIEND.
Had flesh sinned the worst,
Yet help were in counsel: the Church could absolve:
But say not men truly thou barredst escape
By signing and sealing . . . SECOND FRIEND.
On me must devolve
The task of extracting . . . FIRST FRIEND.
Shall Barnabites ape
Us Dominican experts?
SEVENTH FRIEND.
Nay, Masters, — agape
When Hell yawns for a soul, ‘t is myself claim the task
Of extracting, by just one plain question, God’s truth!
Where’s Peter Genesheim thy partner? I ask
Why, cloistered up still in thy room, the pale youth
Slaves tongue-tied — thy trade brooks no tattling forsooth!
No less he, thy famulus, suffers entrapping,
Succumbs to good fellowship: barrel a-broach
Runs freely nor needs any subsequent tapping:
Quoth Peter “That room, none but I dare approach,
Holds secrets will help me to ride in my coach.”
He prattles, we profit: in brief, he assures
Thou hast taught him to speak so that all men may hear
— Each alike, wide world over, Jews, Pagans, Turks, Moors,
The same as we Christians — speech heard far and near
At one and the same magic moment! FUST.
That’s clear!
Said he — how?
SEVENTH FRIEND.
Is it like he was licensed to learn?
Who doubts but thou dost this by aid of the Fiend?
Is it so? So it is, for thou smilest! Go, burn
To ashes, since such proves thy portion, unscreened
By bell, book and candle! Yet lately I weened
Balm yet was in Gilead, — some healing in store
For the friend of my bosom. Men said thou wast sunk
In a sudden despondency: not, as before,
Fust gallant and gay with his pottle and punk,
But sober, sad, sick as one yesterday drunk!
FUST.
Spare Fust, then, thus contrite! — who, youthful and healthy,
Equipped for life’s struggle with culture of mind,
Sound flesh and sane soul in coherence, born wealthy,
Nay, wise — how he wasted endowment designed
For the glory of God and the good of mankind!
That much were misused such occasions of grace
Ye well may upbraid him, who bows to the rod.
But this should bid anger to pity give place —
He has turned from the wrong, in the right path to plod,
Makes amends to mankind and craves pardon of God.
Yea, friends, even now from my lips the “ Heureka —
Soul saved!” was nigh bursting — unduly elate!
Have I brought Man advantage, or hatched — so to speak — a
Strange serpent, no cygnet? ‘T is this I debate
Within me. Forbear, and leave Fust to his fate!
FIRST FRIEND.
So abject, late lofty? Methinks I spy respite.
Make clean breast, discover what mysteries hide
In thy room there! SECOND FRIEND.
Ay, out with them! Do Satan despite
Remember what caused his undoing was pride! FIRST FRIEND.
Dumb devil! Remains one resource to be tried!
SECOND FRIEND.
Exorcize! SEVENTH FRIEND.
Nay, first — is there any remembers
In substance that potent “Ne pulvis” — a psalm
Whereof some live spark haply lurks mid the embers
Which choke in my brain. Talk of “Gilead and balm”?
I mind me, sung half through, this gave such a qualm
To Asmodeus inside of a Hussite, that, queasy,
He broke forth in brimstone with curses. I’m strong
In — at least the commencement: the rest should go easy,
Friends helping. “Ne pulvis et ignis” . . . SIXTH FRIEND.
All wrong! FIFTH FRIEND.
I’ve conned till I captured the whole. SEVENTH FRIEND.
Get along!
“Ne pulvis et cinis superbe te geras,
Nam fulmina” . . . SIXTH FRIEND.
Fiddlestick! Peace, dolts and dorrs!
Thus runs it “Ne Numinis fulmina feras” —
Then “Hominis perfidi justa sunt sors
Fulmen et grando et horrida mors.”
SEVENTH FRIEND.
You blunder. “Irati ne” . . . SIXTH FRIEND.
Mind your own business! FIFTH FRIEND.
I do not so badly, who gained the monk’s leave
To study an hour his choice parchment. A dizziness
May well have surprised me. No Christian dares thieve,
Or I scarce had returned him his treasure. These cleave:
“Nos pulvis et cinis, trementes, gementes,
Venimus” — some such word — ”ad te, Domine.
Da lumen, juvamen, ut sancta sequentes
Cor . . . corda . . .” Plague take it! SEVENTH FRIEND.
— ”erecta sint spe:”
Right text, ringing rhyme, and ripe Latin for me! SIXTH FRIEND.
A Canon’s self wrote it me fair: I was tempted
To part with the sheepskin. SEVENTH FRIEND.
Didst grasp and let go
Such a godsend, thou Judas? My purse had been emptied
Ere part with the prize! FUST.
Do I dream? Say ye so?
Clouds break, then! Move, world! I have gained my “Pou sto”!
I am saved: Archimedes, salute me!
OMNES.
Assistance!
Help, Angels! He summons . . . Aroint thee! — by name,
His familiar! FUST.
Approach! OMNES.
Devil, keep thy due distance! FUST.
Be tranquillized, townsmen! The knowledge ye claim
Behold, I prepare to impart. Praise or blame, —
Your blessing or banning whatever betide me,
At last I accept The slow travail of years,
The long-teeming brain’s birth — applaud me, deride me, —
At last claims revealment. Wait! SEVENTH FRIEND.
Wait till appears
Uncaged Archimedes cooped-up there?
SECOND FRIEND.
Who fears?
Here’s have at thee! SEVENTH FRIEND.
Correctly now! “Pulvis et cinis” . . . FUST.
The verse ye so value, it happens I hold
In my memory safe from initium to finis.
Word for word, I produce you the whole, plain enrolled,
Black letters, white paper — no scribe’s red and gold!
OMNES.
Aroint thee! FUST.
I go and return.
[He enters the inner room.
FIRST FRIEND.
Ay, ‘t is “ibis”
No doubt: but as boldly “redibis” — who’ll say?
I rather conjecture “in Orco peribis!”
SEVENTH FRIEND.
Come, neighbours! SIXTH FRIEND.
I’m with you! Show courage and stay
Hell’s outbreak? Sirs, cowardice here wins the day!
FIFTH FRIEND.
What luck had that student of Bamberg who ventured
To peep in the cell where a wizard of note
Was busy in getting some black deed debentured
By Satan? In dog’s guise there sprang at his throat
A flame-breathing fury. Fust favours, I note,
An ugly huge lurcher! SEVENTH FRIEND.
If I placed reliance
As thou, on the beads thou art telling so fast,
I’d risk just a peep through the keyhole. SIXTH FRIEND.
Appliance
Of ear
might be safer. Five minutes are past.
OMNES.
Saints, save us! The door is thrown open at last!
FUST
(re-enters, the door closing behind him).
As I promised, behold I perform! Apprehend you
The object I offer is poison or pest?
Receive without harm from the hand I extend you
A gift that shall set every scruple at rest!
Shrink back from mere paper-strips? Try them and test!
Still hesitate? Myk, was it thou who lamentedst
Thy five wits clean failed thee to render aright
A poem read once and no more? — who repentedst
Vile pelf had induced thee to banish from sight
The characters none but our clerics indite?
Take and keep! FIRST FRIEND.
Blessed Mary and all Saints about her! SECOND FRIEND.
What imps deal so deftly, — five minutes suffice
To play thus the penman?
THIRD FRIEND.
By Thomas the Doubter,
Five minutes, no more! FOURTH FRIEND.
Out on arts that entice
Such scribes to do homage! FIFTH FRIEND.
Stay! Once — and now twice —
Yea, a third time, my sharp eye completes the inspection
Of line after line, the whole series, and finds
Each letter join each — not a fault for detection!
Such upstrokes, such downstrokes, such strokes of all kinds
In the criss-cross, all perfect! SIXTH FRIEND.
There’s nobody minds
His quill-craft with more of a conscience, o’erscratches
A sheepskin more nimbly and surely with ink,
Than Paul the Sub-Prior: here’s paper that matches
His parchment with letter on letter, no link
Overleapt — underlost! SEVENTH FRIEND.
No erasure, I think —
No blot, I am certain! FUST.
Accept the new treasure! SIXTH FRIEND.
I remembered full half! SEVENTH FRIEND.
But who other than I
(Bear witness, bystanders!) when he broke the measure
Repaired fault with “fulmen”? FUST.
Put bickerings by!
Here’s for thee — thee — and thee, too: at need a supply
[distributing Proofs.
For Mayence, though seventy times seven should muster!
How now? All so feeble of faith that no face
Which fronts me but whitens — or yellows, were juster?
Speak out lest I summon my Spirits! OMNES.
Grace — grace!
Call none of thy — helpmates! We’ll answer apace!
My paper — and mine — and mine also — they vary
In nowise — agree in each tittle and jot!
Fust, how — why was this? FUST.
Shall such “Cur” miss a “quare”?
Within, there! Throw doors wide! Behold who complot