Part 24 (1/2)
For a time she has pa.s.sed on earth through the realms of pain; and now, stabbed to her death, she looks back on the pa.s.sage, and on all who have been kind and unkind to her--on the whole of the falsehood and villany.
And the royal love in her nature is the master of the moment. She makes excuses for Violante's lie. ”She meant well, and she did, as I feel now, little harm.” ”I am right now, quite happy; dying has purified me of the evil which touched me, and I colour ugly things with my own peace and joy. Every one that leaves life sees all things softened and bettered.”
As to her husband, she finds that she has little to forgive him at the last. Step by step she goes over all he did, and even finds excuses for him, and, at the end, this is how she speaks, a n.o.ble utterance of serene love, lofty intelligence, of spiritual power and of the forgiveness of eternity.
For that most woeful man my husband once, Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath, I--pardon him? So far as lies in me, I give him for his good the life he takes, Praying the world will therefore acquiesce.
Let him make G.o.d amends,--none, none to me Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate Mockingly styled him husband and me wife, Himself this way at least p.r.o.nounced divorce, Blotted the marriage bond: this blood of mine Flies forth exultingly at any door, Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow We shall not meet in this world nor the next, But where will G.o.d be absent? In His face Is light, but in His shadow healing too: Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!
And as my presence was importunate,-- My earthly good, temptation and a snare,-- Nothing about me but drew somehow down His hate upon me,--somewhat so excused Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him,-- May my evanishment for evermore Help further to relieve the heart that cast Such object of its natural loathing forth!
So he was made; he nowise made himself: I could not love him, but his mother did.
His soul has never lain beside my soul: But for the unresisting body,--thanks!
He burned that garment spotted by the flesh.
Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague It caught, and disinfection it had craved Still but for Guido; I am saved through him So as by fire; to him--thanks and farewell!
Thus, pure at heart and sound of head, a natural, true woman in her childhood, in her girlhood, and when she is tried in the fire--by nature gay, yet steady in suffering; brave in a h.e.l.l of fears and shame; clear-sighted in entanglements of villany; resolute in self-rescue; seeing and claiming the right help and directing it rightly; rejoicing in her motherhood and knowing it as her crown of glory, though the child is from her infamous husband; happy in her motherhood for one fortnight; slain like a martyr; loving the true man with immortal love; forgiving all who had injured her, even her murderer; dying in full faith and love of G.o.d, though her life had been a crucifixion; Pompilia pa.s.ses away, and England's men and women will be always grateful to Browning for her creation.
CHAPTER XV
_BALAUSTION_
Among the women whom Browning made, Balaustion is the crown. So vivid is her presentation that she seems with us in our daily life. And she also fills the historical imagination.
One would easily fall in love with her, like those sensitive princes in the _Arabian Nights_, who, hearing only of the charms of a princess, set forth to find her over the world. Of all Browning's women, she is the most luminous, the most at unity with herself. She has the Greek gladness and life, the Greek intelligence and pa.s.sion, and the Greek harmony. All that was common, prattling, coa.r.s.e, sensual and spluttering in the Greek, (and we know from Aristophanes how strong these lower elements were in the Athenian people), never shows a trace of its influence in Balaustion. Made of the finest clay, exquisite and delicate in grain, she is yet strong, when the days of trouble come, to meet them n.o.bly and to change their sorrows into spiritual powers.
And the _mise-en-scene_ in which she is placed exalts her into a heroine, and adds to her the light, colour and humanity of Greek romance. Born at Rhodes, but of an Athenian mother, she is fourteen when the news arrives that the Athenian fleet under Nikias, sent to subdue Syracuse, has been destroyed, and the captive Athenians driven to labour in the quarries. All Rhodes, then in alliance with Athens, now cries, ”Desert Athens, side with Sparta against Athens.” Balaustion alone resists the traitorous cry. ”What, throw off Athens, be disloyal to the source of art and intelligence--
to the life and light Of the whole world worth calling world at all!”
And she spoke so well that her kinsfolk and others joined her and took s.h.i.+p for Athens. Now, a wind drove them off their course, and behind them came a pirate s.h.i.+p, and in front of them loomed the land. ”Is it Crete?” they thought; ”Crete, perhaps, and safety.” But the oars flagged in the hands of the weary men, and the pirate gained. Then Balaustion, springing to the altar by the mast, white, rosy, and uplifted, sang on high that song of aeschylus which saved at Salamis--
'O sons of Greeks, go, set your country free, Free your wives, free your children, free the fanes O' the G.o.ds, your fathers founded,--sepulchres They sleep in! Or save all, or all be lost.'
The crew, impa.s.sioned by the girl, answered the song, and drove the boat on, ”churning the black water white,” till the land shone clear, and the wide town and the harbour, and lo, 'twas not Crete, but Syracuse, luckless fate! Out came a galley from the port. ”Who are you; Sparta's friend or foe?” ”Of Rhodes are we, Rhodes that has forsaken Athens!”
”How, then, that song we heard? All Athens was in that aeschylus. Your boat is full of Athenians--back to the pirate; we want no Athenians here.... Yet, stay, that song was aeschylus; every one knows it--how about Euripides? Might you know any of his verses?” For nothing helped the poor Athenians so much if any of them had his mouth stored with
Old glory, great plays that had long ago Made themselves wings to fly about the world,--
But most of all those were cherished who could recite Euripides to Syracuse, so mighty was poetry in the ancient days to make enemies into friends, to build, beyond the wars and jealousies of the world, a land where all nations are one.
At this the captain cried: ”Praise the G.o.d, we have here the very girl who will fill you with Euripides,” and the pa.s.sage brings Balaustion into full light.
Therefore, at mention of Euripides, The Captain crowed out, ”Euoi, praise the G.o.d!
Oop, boys, bring our owl-s.h.i.+eld to the fore!
Out with our Sacred Anchor! Here she stands, Balaustion! Strangers, greet the lyric girl!
Euripides? Babai! what a word there 'scaped Your teeth's enclosure, quoth my grandsire's song Why, fast as snow in Thrace, the voyage through, Has she been falling thick in flakes of him!
Frequent as figs at Kaunos, Kaunians said.
Balaustion, stand forth and confirm my speech!
Now it was some whole pa.s.sion of a play; Now, peradventure, but a honey-drop That slipt its comb i' the chorus. If there rose A star, before I could determine steer Southward or northward--if a cloud surprised Heaven, ere I fairly hollaed 'Furl the sail!'-- She had at fingers' end both cloud and star Some thought that perched there, tame and tuneable, Fitted with wings, and still, as off it flew, 'So sang Euripides,' she said, 'so sang The meteoric poet of air and sea, Planets and the pale populace of heaven, The mind of man, and all that's made to soar!'
And so, although she has some other name, We only call her Wild-pomegranate-flower, Balaustion; since, where'er the red bloom burns I' the dull dark verdure of the bounteous tree, Dethroning, in the Rosy Isle, the rose, You shall find food, drink, odour, all at once; Cool leaves to bind about an aching brow.