Gebir Part 1

Gebir.

by Walter Savage Landor.

INTRODUCTION.

Walter Savage Landor was born on the 30th of January, 1775, and died at the age of eighty-nine in September, 1864. He was the eldest son of a physician at Warwick, and his second name, Savage, was the family name of his mother, who owned two estates in Warwicks.h.i.+re-- Ipsley Court and Tachbrook--and had a reversionary interest in Hughenden Manor, Buckinghams.h.i.+re. To this property, worth 80,000 pounds, her eldest son was heir. That eldest son was born a poet, had a generous nature, and an ardent impetuous temper. The temper, with its obstinate claim of independence, was too much for the head master of Rugby, who found in Landor the best writer of Latin verse among his boys, but one ready to fight him over difference of opinion about a Latin quant.i.ty. In 1793 Landor went to Trinity College, Oxford. He had been got rid of at Rugby as unmanageable.

After two years at Oxford, he was rusticated; thereupon he gave up his chambers, and refused to return. Landor's father, who had been much tried by his unmanageable temper, then allowed him 150 pounds a year to live with as he pleased, away from home. He lived in South Wales--at Swansea, Tenby, or elsewhere--and he sometimes went home to Warwick for short visits. In South Wales he gave himself to full communion with the poets and with Nature, and he fastened with particular enthusiasm upon Milton. Lord Aylmer, who lived near Tenby, was among his friends. Rose Aylmer, whose name he has made through death imperishable, by linking it with a few lines of perfect music, {1} lent Landor "The Progress of Romance," a book published in 1785, by Clara Reeve, in which he found the description of an Arabian tale that suggested to him his poem of "Gebir."

Landor began "Gebir" in Latin, then turned it into English, and then vigorously condensed what he had written. The poem was first published at Warwick as a sixpenny pamphlet in the year 1798, when Landor's age was twenty-three. Robert Southey was among the few who bought it, and he first made known its power. In the best sense of the phrase, "Gebir" was written in cla.s.sical English, not with a search for pompous words of cla.s.sical origin to give false dignity to style, but with strict endeavour to form terse English lines of apt words well compacted. Many pa.s.sages appear to have been half thought out in Greek or Latin, some, as that on the sea-sh.e.l.l (on page 19), were first written in Latin, and Landor re-issued "Gebir"

with a translation into Latin three or four years after its first appearance.

"Gebir" was written nine years after the outbreak of the French Revolution, and at a time when the victories of Napoleon were in many minds a.s.sociated with the hopes of man. In the first edition of the poem there were, in the nuptial voyage of Tamar, prophetic visions of the triumph of his race, in march of the French Republic from the Garonne to the Rhine -

"How grand a prospect opens! Alps o'er Alps Tower, to survey the triumphs that proceed.

Here, while Garumna dances in the gloom Of larches, mid her naiads, or reclined Leans on a broom-clad bank to watch the sports Of some far-distant chamois silken haired, The chaste Pyrene, drying up her tears, Finds, with your children, refuge: yonder, Rhine Lays his imperial sceptre at your feet."

The hope of the purer spirits in the years of revolution, expressed by Wordsworth's

"War shall cease, Did ye not hear, that conquest is abjured?"

was in the first design of "Gebir," and in those early years of hope Landor joined to the vision of the future for the sons of Tamar that,

"Captivity led captive, war o'erthrown, They shall o'er Europe, shall o'er earth extend Empire that seas alone and skies confine, And glory that shall strike the crystal stars."

Landor was led by the failure of immediate expectation to revise his poem and omit from the third and the sixth books about one hundred and fifty lines, while adding fifty to heal over the wounds made by excision. As the poem stands, it is a rebuke of tyrannous ambition in the tale of Gebir, prince of Boetic Spain, from whom Gibraltar took its name. Gebir, bound by a vow to his dying father in the name of ancestral feud to invade Egypt, prepares invasion, but yields in Egypt to the touch of love, seeks to rebuild the ruins of the past, and learns what are the fruits of ambition. This he learns in the purgatory of conquerors, where he sees the figures of the Stuarts, of William the Deliverer, and of George the Third, "with eyebrows white and slanting brow," intentionally confused with Louis XVI. to avoid a charge of treason. But the strength of Landor's sympathy with the French Revolution and of his contempt for George III. was more evident in the first form of the poem.

Parallel with the quenching in Gebir of the conqueror's ambition, and with the ruin of his life and its new hope by the destroying powers that our misunderstandings of the better life bring into play, runs that part of the poem which shows Tamar, his brother, preparing to dwell with the sea nymph, the ideal, far away from all the struggle of mankind.

Recognition of the great beauty of Lander's "Gebir" came first from Southey in "The Critical Review." Southey found that the poem grew upon him, and became afterwards Landor's lifelong friend. When Sh.e.l.ley was at Oxford in 1811, there were times when he would read nothing but "Gebir." His friend Hogg says that when he went to Sh.e.l.ley's rooms one morning to tell him something of importance, he could not draw his attention away from "Gebir." Hogg impatiently threw the book out of window. It was brought back by a servant, and Sh.e.l.ley immediately fastened upon it again.

At the close of 1805 Landor's father died, and the young poet became a man of property. In 1808 Southey and Landor first met. Their friends.h.i.+p remained unbroken. When Spain rose to throw off the yoke of Napoleon, Landor's enthusiasm carried him to Corunna, where he paid for the equipment of a thousand volunteers, and joined the Spanish army of the North. After the Convention of Cintra he returned to England. Then he bought a large Welsh estate--Llanthony Priory--paid for it by selling other property, and began costly improvements. But he lived chiefly at Bath, where he married, in 1811, when his age was thirty-six, a girl of twenty. It was then that he began his tragedy of "Count Julian." The patriotic struggle in Spain commended at the same time to Scott, Southey, and Landor the story of Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings, against whom, to avenge wrong done to his daughter, Count Julian called the Moors in to invade his country. In 1810 Southey was working at his poem of "Roderick the Last of the Goths," in fellows.h.i.+p with his friend Landor, who was treating the same subject in his play. Scott's "Roderick" was being printed so nearly at the same time with Landor's play, that Landor wrote to Southey early in 1812 while the proof-sheets were coming to him: "I am surprised that Upham has not sent me Mr. Scott's poem yet. However, I am not sorry. I feel a sort of satisfaction that mine is going to the press first, though there is little danger that we should think on any subject alike, or stumble on any one character in the same track." De Quincey spoke of the hidden torture shown in Landor's play to be ever present in the mind of Count Julian, the betrayer of his country, as greater than the tortures inflicted in old Rome on generals who had committed treason. De Quincey's admiration of this play was more than once expressed. "Mr. Landor," he said, "who always rises with his subject, and dilates like Satan into Teneriffe or Atlas when he sees before him an antagonist worthy of his powers, is probably the one man in Europe that has adequately conceived the situation, the stern self-dependency, and the monumental misery of Count Julian.

That sublimity of penitential grief, which cannot accept consolation from man, cannot bear external reproach, cannot condescend to notice insult, cannot so much as SEE the curiosity of bystanders; that awful carelessness of all but the troubled deeps within his own heart, and of G.o.d's spirit brooding upon their surface and searching their abysses; never was so majestically described."

H. M.

FIRST BOOK.

I sing the fates of Gebir. He had dwelt Among those mountain-caverns which retain His labours yet, vast halls and flowing wells, Nor have forgotten their old master's name Though severed from his people here, incensed By meditating on primeval wrongs, He blew his battle-horn, at which uprose Whole nations; here, ten thousand of most might He called aloud, and soon Charoba saw His dark helm hover o'er the land of Nile, What should the virgin do? should royal knees Bend suppliant, or defenceless hands engage Men of gigantic force, gigantic arms?

For 'twas reported that nor sword sufficed, Nor s.h.i.+eld immense nor coat of ma.s.sive mail, But that upon their towering heads they bore Each a huge stone, refulgent as the stars.

This told she Dalica, then cried aloud: "If on your bosom laying down my head I sobbed away the sorrows of a child, If I have always, and Heaven knows I have, Next to a mother's held a nurse's name, Succour this one distress, recall those days, Love me, though 'twere because you loved me then."

But whether confident in magic rites Or touched with s.e.xual pride to stand implored, Dalica smiled, then spake: "Away those fears.

Though stronger than the strongest of his kind, He falls--on me devolve that charge; he falls.

Rather than fly him, stoop thou to allure; Nay, journey to his tents: a city stood Upon that coast, they say, by Sidad built, Whose father Gad built Gadir; on this ground Perhaps he sees an ample room for war.

Persuade him to restore the walls himself In honour of his ancestors, persuade - But wherefore this advice? young, unespoused, Charoba want persuasions! and a queen!"

"O Dalica!" the shuddering maid exclaimed, "Could I encounter that fierce, frightful man?

Could I speak? no, nor sigh!"

"And canst thou reign?"

Cried Dalica; "yield empire or comply."

Unfixed though seeming fixed, her eyes downcast, The wonted buzz and bustle of the court From far through sculptured galleries met her ear; Then lifting up her head, the evening sun Poured a fresh splendour on her burnished throne-- The fair Charoba, the young queen, complied.

But Gebir when he heard of her approach Laid by his...o...b..d s.h.i.+eld, his vizor-helm, His buckler and his corset he laid by, And bade that none attend him; at his side Two faithful dogs that urge the silent course, s.h.a.ggy, deep-chested, crouched; the crocodile, Crying, oft made them raise their flaccid ears And push their heads within their master's hand.

There was a brightening paleness in his face, Such as Diana rising o'er the rocks Showered on the lonely Latmian; on his brow Sorrow there was, yet nought was there severe.

But when the royal damsel first he saw, Faint, hanging on her handmaids, and her knees Tottering, as from the motion of the car, His eyes looked earnest on her, and those eyes Showed, if they had not, that they might have loved, For there was pity in them at that hour.

With gentle speech, and more with gentle looks He soothed her; but lest Pity go beyond, And crossed Ambition lose her lofty aim, Bending, he kissed her garment and retired.

He went, nor slumbered in the sultry noon When viands, couches, generous wines persuade And slumber most refreshes, nor at night, When heavy dews are laden with disease, And blindness waits not there for lingering age.

Ere morning dawned behind him, he arrived At those rich meadows where young Tamar fed The royal flocks entrusted to his care.

"Now," said he to himself, "will I repose At least this burthen on a brother's breast."

His brother stood before him. He, amazed, Reared suddenly his head, and thus began: "Is it thou, brother! Tamar, is it thou!

Why, standing on the valley's utmost verge, Lookest thou on that dull and dreary sh.o.r.e Where many a league Nile blackens all the sand.

And why that sadness? when I pa.s.sed our sheep The dew-drops were not shaken off the bar; Therefore if one be wanting 'tis untold."

"Yes, one is wanting, nor is that untold."

Said Tamar; "and this dull and dreary sh.o.r.e Is neither dull nor dreary at all hours."

Whereon the tear stole silent down his cheek, Silent, but not by Gebir un.o.bserved: Wondering he gazed awhile, and pitying spake: "Let me approach thee; does the morning light Scatter this wan suffusion o'er thy brow, This faint blue l.u.s.tre under both thine eyes?"

"O brother, is this pity or reproach?"

Cried Tamar; "cruel if it be reproach, If pity, oh, how vain!"

"Whate'er it be That grieves thee, I will pity: thou but speak And I can tell thee, Tamar, pang for pang."

"Gebir! then more than brothers are we now!

Everything, take my hand, will I confess.

I neither feed the flock nor watch the fold; How can I, lost in love? But, Gebir, why That anger which has risen to your cheek?

Can other men? could you?--what, no reply!

And still more anger, and still worse concealed!

Are these your promises, your pity this?"

"Tamar, I well may pity what I feel-- Mark me aright--I feel for thee--proceed-- Relate me all."

"Then will I all relate,"

Said the young shepherd, gladdened from his heart.

"'Twas evening, though not sunset, and springtide Level with these green meadows, seemed still higher.

'Twas pleasant; and I loosened from my neck The pipe you gave me, and began to play.

Oh, that I ne'er had learnt the tuneful art!

It always brings us enemies or love!

Well, I was playing, when above the waves Some swimmer's head methought I saw ascend; I, sitting still, surveyed it, with my pipe Awkwardly held before my lips half-closed.

Gebir! it was a nymph! a nymph divine!

I cannot wait describing how she came, How I was sitting, how she first a.s.sumed The sailor; of what happened there remains Enough to say, and too much to forget.

The sweet deceiver stepped upon this bank Before I was aware; for with surprise Moments fly rapid as with love itself.

Stooping to tune afresh the hoa.r.s.ened reed, I heard a rustling, and where that arose My glance first lighted on her nimble feet.

Her feet resembled those long sh.e.l.ls explored By him who to befriend his steed's dim sight Would blow the pungent powder in the eye.

Her eyes too! O immortal G.o.ds! her eyes Resembled--what could they resemble? what Ever resemble those! E'en her attire Was not of wonted woof nor vulgar art: Her mantle showed the yellow samphire-pod, Her girdle the dove-coloured wave serene.

'Shepherd,' said she, 'and will you wrestle now And with the sailor's hardier race engage?'

I was rejoiced to hear it, and contrived How to keep up contention; could I fail By pressing not too strongly, yet to press?

'Whether a shepherd, as indeed you seem, Or whether of the hardier race you boast, I am not daunted, no; I will engage.

But first,' said she, 'what wager will you lay?'

'A sheep,' I answered; 'add whate'er you will.'