Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  And, ‘to such an one I give the morning-star!’

  The gift of the morning-star — have I God’s gift

  Of the morning-star?

  Mother. Chiara will love to see

  That Jupiter an evening-star next June.

  Luigi. True, mother. Well for those who live through June!

  Great noontides, thunder-storms, all glaring pumps

  Which triumph at the heels of the god June

  Leading his revel through our leafy world.

  Yes, Chiara will be here.

  Mother. In June: remember,

  Yourself appointed that month for her coming.

  Luigi. Was that low noise the echo?

  Mother. The night-wind.

  She must be grown — with her blue eyes upturned

  As if life were one long and sweet surprise:

  In June she comes.

  Luigi. We were to see together

  The Titian at Treviso — there, again!

  [From without is heard the voice of PIPPA, singing —

  A king lived long ago,

  In the morning of the world,

  When earth was nigher heaven than now:

  And the king’s locks curled

  Disporting o’er a forehead full

  As the milk-white space ‘twixt horn and horn

  Of some sacrificial bull —

  Only calm as a babe new-born:

  For he was got to a sleepy mood,

  So safe from all decrepitude,

  Age with its bane, so sure gone by,

  (The Gods so loved him while he dreamed.)

  That, having lived thus long, there seemed

  No need the king should ever die.

  Luigi. No need that sort of king should ever die!

  Among the rocks his city was:

  Before his palace, in the sun,

  He sat to see his people pass,

  And judge them every one

  From its threshold of smooth stone.

  They haled him many a valley-thief

  Caught in the sheep-pens — robber-chief,

  Swarthy and shameless — beggar-cheat —

  Spy-prowler — or rough pirate found

  On the sea-sand left aground;

  And sometimes clung about his feet,

  With bleeding lip and burning cheek,

  A woman, bitterest wrong to speak

  Of one with sullen, thickset brows:

  And sometimes from the prison-house

  The angry priests a pale wretch brought,

  Who through some chink had pushed and pressed,

  On knees and elbows, belly and breast,

  Worm-like into the temple, — caught

  At last there by the very God,

  Who ever in the darkness strode

  Backward and forward, keeping watch

  O’er his brazen bowls, such rogues to catch!

  And these, all and every one,

  The king judged, sitting in the sun.

  Luigi. That king should still judge sitting in the sun!

  His councillors, on left and right,

  Looked anxious up, — but no surprise

  Disturbed the king’s old smiling eyes,

  Where the very blue had turned to white.

  ‘Tis said, a Python scared one day

  The breathless city, till he came,

  With forky tongue and eyes on flame,

  Where the old king sat to judge alway;

  But when he saw the sweepy hair,

  Girt with a crown of berries rare

  Which the God will hardly give to wear

  To the maiden who singeth, dancing bare

  In the altar-smoke by the pine-torch lights,

  At his wondrous forest rites, —

  Beholding this, he did not dare

  Approach that threshold in the sun,

  Assault the old king smiling there.

  Such grace had kings when the world begun!

  [PIPPA passes.

  Luigi. And such grace have they, now that the world ends!

  The Python in the city, on the throne,

  And grave men, God would crown for slaying him,

  Lurk in bye-corners lest they fall his prey,

  Are crowns yet to be won, in this late time,

  Which weakness makes me hesitate to reach?

  ‘Tis God’s voice calls, how could I stay? Farewell!

  Talk by the way, while PIPPA is passing from the Turret to the Bishop’s brother’s House, close to the Duomo. S. Maria. Poor Girls sitting on the steps.

  First Girl. There goes a swallow to Venice — the stout seafarer!

  Seeing those birds fly, makes one wish for wings.

  Let us all wish; you, wish first!

  Second Girl. I? This sunset

  To finish —

  Third Girl. That old — somebody I know,

  Greyer and older than my grandfather,

  To give me the same treat he gave last week —

  Feeding me on his knee with fig-peckers,

  Lampreys, and red Breganze-wine, and mumbling

  The while some folly about how well I fare,

  To be let eat my supper quietly:

  Since had he not himself been late this morning

  Detained at — never mind where, — had he not . . .

  ‘Eh, baggage, had I not!’ —

  Second Girl. How she can lie!

  Third Girl. Look there — by the nails!

  Second Girl. What makes your fingers red?

  Third Girl. Dipping them into wine to write bad words with.

  On the bright table: how he laughed!

  First Girl. My turn.

  Spring’s come and summer’s coming: I would wear

  A long loose gown, down to the feet and hands,

  With plaits here, close about the throat, all day:

  And all night lie, the cool long nights, in bed —

  And have new milk to drink — apples to eat,

  Deuzans and junetings, leather-coats . . . ah, I should say,

  This is away in the fields — miles!

  Third Girl. Say at once

  You’d be at home: she’d always be at home!

  Now comes the story of the farm among

  The cherry orchards, and how April snowed

  White blossoms on her as she ran: why, fool,

  They’ve rubbed out the chalk-mark of how tall you were,

  Twisted your starling’s neck, broken his cage,

  Made a dunghill of your garden!

  First Girl. They, destroy

  My garden since I left them? well — perhaps!

  I would have done so: so I hope they have!

  A fig-tree curled out of our cottage wall;

  They called it mine, I have forgotten why,

  It must have been there long ere I was born:

  Cric — cric — I think I hear the wasps o’er-head

  Pricking the papers strung to flutter there

  And keep off birds in fruit-time — coarse long papers,

  And the wasps eat them, prick them through and through.

  Third Girl. How her mouth twitches! Where was I? — before

  She broke in with her wishes and long gowns

  And wasps — would I be such a fool! — Oh, here!

  This is my way — I answer every one

  Who asks me why I make so much of him —

  (If you say, you love him — straight ‘he’ll not be gulled!’)

  ‘He that seduced me when I was a girl

  Thus high — had eyes like yours, or hair like yours,

  Brown, red, white,’ — as the case may be — that pleases!

  See how that beetle burnishes in the path —

  There sparkles he along the dust! and, there —

  Your journey to that maize-tuft’s spoilt at least!

  First Girl. When I was young, they said if you killed one

  Of those sunshiny beetles, that his friend

  Up t
here, would shine no more that day nor next.

  Second Girl. When you were young? Nor are you young, that’s true!

  How your plump arms, that were, have dropped away!

  Why, I can span them! Cecco beats you still?

  No matter, so you keep your curious hair.

  A wish they’d find a way to dye our hair

  Your colour — any lighter tint, indeed,

  Than black: the men say they are sick of black,

  Black eyes, black hair!

  Fourth Girl. Sick of yours, like enough!

  Do you pretend you ever tasted lampreys

  And ortolans? Giovita, of the palace,

  Engaged (but there’s no trusting him) to slice me

  Polenta with a knife that had cut up

  An ortolan.

  Second Girl. Why, there; is not that Pippa

  We are to talk to, under the window, — quick, —

  Where the lights are?

  First Girl. No — or she would sing;

  For the Intendant said . . .

  Third Girl. Oh, you sing first —

  Then, if she listens and comes close . . . I’ll tell you,

  Sing that song the young English noble made,

  Who took you for the purest of the pure,

  And meant to leave the world for you — what fun!

  Second Girl. [Sings.]

  You’ll love me yet! — and I can tarry

  Your love’s protracted growing:

  June reared that bunch of flowers you carry,

  From seeds of April’s sowing.

  I plant a heart full now: some seed

  At least is sure to strike,

  And yield — what you’ll not pluck indeed,

  Not love, but, may be, like!

  You’ll look at least on love’s remains,

  A grave’s one violet

  Your look? — that pays a thousand pains.

  What’s death! — You’ll love me yet!

  Third Girl. [To PIPPA who approaches.]

  Oh, you may come closer — we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with! I’ll tell you all about it.

  IV. — NIGHT.

  The Palace by the Duomo. MONSIGNOR, dismissing his Attendants.

  Monsignor. Thanks, friends, many thanks. I

  chiefly desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you. Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared? Benedicto benedicatur . . . ugh . . . ugh! Where was I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is mild, very unlike winter-weather, — but I am a Sicilian, you know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when ‘twas full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [To the INTENDANT] Not you, Ugo! [The others leave the apartment] I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo!

  Intendant. Uguccio —

  Monsignor. . . . ’guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli. Fermo, and Fossombruno; — what I do need instructing about, are these accounts of your administration of my poor brother’s affairs. Ugh! I shall never get through a third part of your accounts: take some of these dainties before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that degree? For me, a crust and water suffice.

  Intendant. Do you choose this especial night to question me?

  Monsignor. This night, Ugo. You have managed my late brother’s affairs since the death of our elder brother: fourteen years and a month, all but three days. On the 3rd of December, I find him . . .

  Intendant. If you have so intimate an acquaintance with your brother’s affairs, you will be tender of turning so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back.

  Monsignor. Ay, ay, ugh, ugh, — nothing but disappointments here below! I remark a considerable payment made to yourself on this 3rd of December. Talk of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, Jules, a foreign sculptor, I did my utmost to advance, that the Church might be a gainer by us both: he was going on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me some marvellous change that has happened in his notions of Art; here’s his letter, — ’He never had a clearly conceived Ideal within his brain till to-day. Yet since his hand could manage a chisel, he has practised expressing other men’s ldeals; and, in the very perfection he has attained to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will reproduce with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There is but one method of escape — confiding the virgin type to as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor, and paint, not carve, its characteristics,’ — strike out, I dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?

  Intendant. Is Correggio a painter?

  Monsignor. Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why foolish? He may — probably will, fail egregiously; but if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some such way by a poet, now, or a musician, (spirits who have conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other channel) transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo!

  Intendant. Sir, I can submit no longer to this course of yours: first, you select the group of which I formed one, — next you thin it gradually, — always retaining me with your smile, — and so do you proceed till you have fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. And now then? Let this farce, this chatter end now: what is it you want with me?

  Monsignor. Ugo!

  Intendant. From the instant you arrived, I felt your smile on me as you questioned me about this and the other article in those papers — why your brother should have given me this villa, that podere, — and your nod at the end meant, — what?

  Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk here: if once you set me coughing, Ugo! —

  Intendant. I have your brother’s hand and seal to all I possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him — ask me!

  Monsignor. I would better not — I should rip up old disgraces, let out my poor brother’s weaknesses. By the way, Maffeo of Forli, (which, I forgot to observe, is your true name,) was the interdict ever taken off you, for robbing that church at Cesena?

  Intendant. No, nor needs be: for when I murdered your brother’s friend, Pasquale, for him . . .

  Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that business, did be? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa and that podere, for fear ‘the world should find out my relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family is the oldest in Messina, and century after century have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with every wickedness under Heaven: my own father . . . rest his soul: — I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may rest: my dear two dead brothers were, — what you know tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivalled them in vice, if not in wealth, but from my boyhood I came out from among them, and so am not partaker of their plagues. My glory spring from another source; or if from this, by contrast only, — for I, the bishop, am the brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some of their wrong, however; so far as my brother’s ill-gotten treasure reverts to me I can stop the consequences of his crime and not one soldo shall escape me. Maffeo the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. Because, to pleasure myself, apart from other considerations, my food would be millet-cake, my dress sack cloth, and my couch straw, — am I therefore to let you, the off-scouring of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant, by appropriating a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations so unaccountably and exclusively associated with it? Must I let villas and poderi go to you, a murderer and thief, that you may beget by means of them other murderers and thieves? No — if my cough woul
d but allow me to speak!

  Intendant. What am I to expect? you are going

  to punish me?

  Monsignor. — Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in! How should I dare to say . . .

  Intendant. ‘Forgive us our trespasses’?

  Monsignor. My friend, it is because I avow myself a very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of conduct you would applaud, perhaps. Shall I proceed, as it were, a-pardoning? — I? — who have no symptom of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less, keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double that by allowing you to trespass.

  Intendant. And suppose the villas are not your brother’s to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty enough just now!

  Monsignor. 1, 2 — No. 3! — ay, can you read the substance of a letter, No. 3, I have received from Rome? It is precisely on the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion I have that a certain child of my late elder brother, who would have succeeded to his estates, was murdered in infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late brother — that the Pontiff enjoins on me not merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment, but the faking all pains, as guardian of that infant’s heritage for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now gnawing those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice brings my people from the next room to dispose of yourself. But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising my voice. Why man, do I not know the old story? The heir between the succeeding heir, and that heir’s ruffianly instrument, and their complot’s effect, and the life of fear and bribes, and ominous smiling silence? Did you throttle or stab my brother’s infant? Come, now!

  Intendant. So old a story, and tell it no better? When did such an instrument ever produce such an effect? Either the child smiles in his face, or, most likely, he is not fool enough to put himself in the employer’s power so thoroughly: the child is always ready to produce — as you say — howsoever, wheresoever, and whensoever.

  Monsignor. Liar!

  Intendant. Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise! I shall sleep soundly to-night at least, though the gallows await me tomorrow; for what a life did I lead! Carlo of Cesena reminds me of his connivance, every time I pay his annuity; which happens commonly thrice a year. If I remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop — you!