Robert Browning: How to Know Him Part 26

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood, Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth Desperate and done with: (so a fool finds mirth, Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood Changes and off he goes!) within a rood-- Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim, Now patches where some leanness of the soil's Broke into moss or substances like boils; Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

And just as far as ever from the end!

Naught in the distance but the evening, naught To point my footstep further! At the thought, A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend, Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew, 'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place All round to mountains--with such name to grace Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

How thus they had surprised me,--solve it, you!

How to get from them was no clearer case.

Yet half I seemed to recognize some trick Of mischief happened to me, G.o.d knows when-- In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then, Progress this way. When, in the very nick Of giving up, one time more, came a click As when a trap shuts--you're inside the den!

Burningly it came on me all at once, This was the place! those two hills on the right, Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight; While to the left, a tall scalped mountain ... Dunce, Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce, After a life spent training for the sight!

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart, Built of brown stone, without a counterpart In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf Points to the s.h.i.+pman thus the unseen shelf He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

Not see? because of night perhaps?--why, day Came back again for that! before it left, The dying sunset kindled through a cleft: The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay, Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,-- "Now stab and end the creature--to the heft!"

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears, Of all the lost adventurers my peers,-- How such a one was strong, and such was bold, And such was fortunate, yet each of old Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met To view the last of me, a living frame For one more picture in a sheet of flame I saw them and I knew them all. And yet Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set, And blew. "_Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came_."

VI

POEMS OF PARADOX

The word paradox comes from two Greek words, meaning simply, "beyond belief." As every one ought to know, a paradox is something that read literally is absurd, but if taken in the spirit in which it is uttered, may contain profound truth. Paradox is simply over-emphasis: and is therefore a favorite method of teaching. By the employment of paradox the teacher wishes to stress forcibly some aspect of the truth which otherwise may not be seen at all. Fine print needs a magnifying-gla.s.s; and the deep truth hidden in a paradox can not perhaps become clear unless enlarged by powerful emphasis. All teachers know the value of _italics_.

Socrates was very fond of paradox: the works of Ibsen, Nietzsche, Shaw and Chesterton are full of paradoxes: Our Lord's utterances in the New Testament are simply one paradox after another. No wonder His disciples were often in a maze. It requires centuries for the truth in some paradoxes to become manifest.

"This was some time a paradox, but now the time gives it proof."

Browning loved a paradox with all his heart. The original nature of his mind, his fondness for taking the other side, his over-subtlety, all drove him toward the paradox. He would have made a wonderful criminal lawyer. He loves to put some imaginary or historical character on the stand, and permit him to speak freely in his own defence; and he particularly loves to do this, when the person has received universal condemnation. Browning seems to say, "I wonder if the world is entirely right in this judgment: what would this individual say if given an opportunity for apologetic oratory?"

Browning is the greatest master of special pleading in all literature.

Although he detested Count Guido, he makes him present his case in the best possible light, so that for the moment he arouses our intellectual sympathy.

The Glove story is one of the best-known anecdotes in history; besides its French source, it has been told in German by Schiller, in English by Leigh Hunt, and has received thousands of allusory comments--but always from one point of view. The hooting and laughter that followed the Lady as she left the court, have been echoed in all lands. Browning pondered over this story, and took the woman's part. This may be accounted for by two causes. He is the most chivalrous poet that ever lived, and would naturally defend the Lady. What De Lorge ought to have done when he brought the glove back was to remind the Lady that she had another, and permit him the honor of retrieving that. But Browning saw also in this incident a true paradox--the Lady was right after all! Right in throwing the glove, right in her forecast of the event.

Like a good lawyer, he first proves that the Knight's achievement was slight. In the pit the Lion was not at that moment dangerous, because he was desperately homesick. He was lost in thoughts of his wild home, in imagination driving the flocks up the mountain, and took not the slightest notice of the glove. Then a page had leaped into the pit simply to recover his hat; and he had done that because he could not afford to buy a new one. No one applauded him. Think of the man who had originally caught the lion! He went out alone and trapped a lion, simply that his rude boys might be amused at the spectacle. In our degenerate days, we give our children a Teddy Bear.

But in those strenuous times, the father said to his boys, "Come out into the back yard, and see the present I've got for you!" They came eagerly, and found a live lion. That man and his children were a hardy family. How they would have laughed at De Lorge's so-called heroism!

But the real truth of the matter is that De Lorge was a liar. The Lady suspected it all the time, and was saddened to have her judgment confirmed by the result. De Lorge had been boasting of his love, and of his eagerness to prove it. He had begged the Lady to test him--he would gladly die for her. Now it is important that a woman should know before marriage rather than after whether a lover's protestations are genuine or not--in short whether he is sincere and reliable, or whether he is a liar. The reason why men lie to women and not to men is because they know that a lie to a woman can not be avenged, they can not be made to pay any penalty; but when they lie to other men--in business affairs, for example--the penalty is severe.

How could the Lady satisfy her mind? How could she know whether De Lorge was sincere or not? There was no war, there was no tournament, there was no quest. Suddenly one method presented itself. She tossed her glove into the pit. He had to go--he could never have held up his head otherwise. But when he returned, he dashed the glove in the Lady's face, ostensibly to teach her that a brave man's life should not be risked by a woman's vanity. This was even a better gallery-play than the recovery of the glove, and succeeded splendidly.

But the Lady turned sadly away.

The blow a glove gives is but weak: Does the mark yet discolour my cheek?

But when the heart suffers a blow, Will the pain pa.s.s so soon, do you know?

What was the pain in her heart? Her wounded vanity, her anguish at the Court's ostracism? Not in the least. It was her pain at finding her opinion of De Lorge justified. He was then, just as she thought, a liar; he never meant to be taken at his word. All his protestations of love and service were mere phrases. His anger at the first test of his boasting proves this. The pain in her heart is the pain we all feel at reading of some cowardly or disloyal act; one more man unfaithful, one more man selfish, one more who lowers the level of human nature.

The paradox teaches us the very simple lesson that if we boast of our prowess, we must not be angry when some one insists that we prove it.

THE GLOVE

1845

(PETER RONSARD _loquitur_)

"Heigho!" yawned one day King Francis, "Distance all value enhances!

When a man's busy, why, leisure Strikes him as wonderful pleasure: 'Faith, and at leisure once is he?

Straightway he wants to be busy.

Here we've got peace; and aghast I'm Caught thinking war the true pastime.

Is there a reason in metre?

Give us your speech, master Peter!"

I who, if mortal dare say so, Ne'er am at loss with my Naso, "Sire," I replied, "joys prove cloudlets: Men are the merest Ixions"-- Here the King whistled aloud, "Let's --Heigho--go look at our lions!"

Such are the sorrowful chances If you talk fine to King Francis.

And so, to the courtyard proceeding, Our company, Francis was leading, Increased by new followers tenfold Before he arrived at the penfold; Lords, ladies, like clouds which bedizen At sunset the western horizon.

And Sir De Lorge pressed 'mid the foremost With the dame he professed to adore most.

Oh, what a face! One by fits eyed Her, and the horrible pitside; For the penfold surrounded a hollow Which led where the eye scarce dared follow, And shelved to the chamber secluded Where Bluebeard, the great lion, brooded.

The King hailed his keeper, an Arab As glossy and black as a scarab, And bade him make sport and at once stir Up and out of his den the old monster.

They opened a hole in the wire-work Across it, and dropped there a firework, And fled: one's heart's beating redoubled; A pause, while the pit's mouth was troubled, The blackness and silence so utter, By the firework's slow sparkling and sputter; Then earth in a sudden contortion Gave out to our gaze her abortion.

Such a brute! Were I friend Clement Marot (Whose experience of nature's but narrow, And whose faculties move in no small mist When he versifies David the Psalmist) I should study that brute to describe you _Illum Juda Leonem de Tribu._ One's whole blood grew curdling and creepy To see the black mane, vast and heapy, The tail in the air stiff and straining, The wide eyes, nor waxing nor waning, As over the barrier which bounded His platform, and us who surrounded The barrier, they reached and they rested On s.p.a.ce that might stand him in best stead: For who knew, he thought, what the amazement, The eruption of clatter and blaze meant, And if, in this minute of wonder, No outlet, 'mid lightning and thunder, Lay broad, and, his shackles all s.h.i.+vered, The lion at last was delivered?

Ay, that was the open sky o'erhead!

And you saw by the flash on his forehead, By the hope in those eyes wide and steady, He was leagues in the desert already, Driving the flocks up the mountain, Or catlike couched hard by the fountain To waylay the date-gathering negress: So guarded he entrance or egress.

"How he stands!" quoth the King: "we may well swear, (No novice, we've won our spurs elsewhere And so can afford the confession,) We exercise wholesome discretion In keeping aloof from his threshold; Once hold you, those jaws want no fresh hold, Their first would too pleasantly purloin The visitor's brisket or sirloin: But who's he would prove so fool-hardy?

Not the best man of Marignan, pardie!"

The sentence no sooner was uttered, Than over the rails a glove fluttered, Fell close to the lion, and rested: The dame 'twas, who flung it and jested With life so, De Lorge had been wooing For months past; he sat there pursuing His suit, weighing out with nonchalance Fine speeches like gold from a balance.

Sound the trumpet, no true knight's a tarrier!

De Lorge made one leap at the barrier, Walked straight to the glove,--while the lion Ne'er moved, kept his far-reaching eye on The palm-tree-edged desert-spring's sapphire, And the musky oiled skin of the Kaffir,-- Picked it up, and as calmly retreated, Leaped back where the lady was seated, And full in the face of its owner Flung the glove.

"Your heart's queen, you dethrone her?"

"So should I!"--cried the King--"'twas mere vanity, Not love, set that task to humanity!"

Lords and ladies alike turned with loathing From such a proved wolf in sheep's clothing.

Not so, I; for I caught an expression In her brow's undisturbed self-possession Amid the Court's scoffing and merriment,-- As if from no pleasing experiment She rose, yet of pain not much heedful So long as the process was needful,-- As if she had tried in a crucible, To what "speeches like gold" were reducible, And, finding the finest prove copper, Felt the smoke in her face was but proper; To know what she had _not_ to trust to, Was worth all the ashes and dust too.