Part 3 (1/2)

So far with Ben Ezra. But where the Rabbi can say with confidence

Thence shall I pa.s.s, approved A man, for aye removed From the developed brute: a G.o.d though in the germ. (xiii.)

With Arthur

I pa.s.s _but shall not die_,

merely shall I

Thereupon Take rest, ere I be gone Once more on my adventure brave and new (xiv.)

for the Greek is no such confidence possible. He, too, shall pa.s.s--”I pa.s.s too surely.” His hope, if hope it be, lies in the development of a humanity of the future which shall have profited by the experience of its individual members in the past--”Let at least truth stay!”

Incidentally is introduced in this section of the poem a reference to the yearning of the correspondent of Protus for some revelation of the G.o.ds to be made through man to men. Through an Incarnation alone can the purposes of Zeus in creation be fully and comprehensibly revealed to man. Truth may indeed stay, but its revelation is progressive in character; according thus with the nature of the human intelligence (a favourite theme with Browning). For any more complete realization of Truth absolute, a direct revelation of the Deity is essential. G.o.d, in man, may show that which it is possible for men to become, hence the design of Zeus in placing him upon earth. So had Cleon ”imaged,” and ”written out the fiction,”

That he or other G.o.d descended here And, once for all, showed simultaneously What, in its nature, never can be shown, Piecemeal or in succession;--showed, I say, The worth both absolute and relative Of all his children from the birth of time, His instruments for all appointed work. (ll. 115-122.)

Through this revelation, too, may be proved the immanence of the Deity, a doctrine even now accepted by the Greek. The speaker on the Areopagus[24]

needed only to remind his hearers of this their belief, when he a.s.sured them that the G.o.d of whom he preached was not one who dwelt in temples made with hands--but is ”not far from every one of us,” since ”in him we live and move and have our being.” Even, in the words of Aratus, ”we are his offspring.” But this theory of an incarnation which ”certain slaves”

were teaching in a fuller, more satisfying form, than that presented by the imagination of the Greek philosopher, might be to him but ”a dream”: his sole hope rested, as we have seen, on an advance of the race through the higher development of individual members.

No dream, let us hope, That years and days, the summers and the springs, Follow each other with unwaning powers. (ll. 127-129.)

III. With line 157 we pa.s.s to a consideration of the more intensely personal question, yet one involving in its answer much that has gone before; the question put by Protus in the letter accompanying his gifts: is death (which king and poet alike esteem the end of all things), is death to the _man of thought_ so fearful a thing in contemplation as it must be to the _man of action_? To Protus, the man of action, who has enjoyed life to the full, whose portion has been wealth, honour, dignity, power, physical and mental appreciation of all the privileges attendant on his station and environment; to the possessor of life such as this death, as not an interruption merely, but as an end to all joy, all gratification, must perforce bring with it nothing but horror. The horror which Browning represents elsewhere as falling momentarily upon the Venetian audience listening to the weird strains of Galuppi's music,[25]

when an interpolated discord suggests to the onlooker the question, ”What of soul is left, I wonder?” when the pleasures of life are ended? and the answer is given, with its note of hopeless finality, ”Dust and ashes.” To Protus, too, recurs the answer, ”Dust and ashes.” Although his work as a ruler has been of that character which has caused him to seek the intellectual and moral, as well as the material welfare of his people (so much we saw Cleon recognizing in his introductory message), yet he regretfully, and probably unjustly, in a moment of depression, estimates his legacy to posterity as ”nought.”

My life, Complete and whole now in its power and joy, Dies altogether with my brain and arm, Is lost indeed; since, what survives myself?

The brazen statue to o'erlook my grave, Set on the promontory which I named.

And that--some supple courtier of my heir Shall use its robed and sceptred arm, perhaps, To fix the rope to, which best drags it down. (ll. 171-179.)

(An estimate suggesting a truth of practical experience: schemes of absolute government not infrequently bearing within themselves the seeds of their own decay: the ”sceptred arm,” originally the symbol of its strength, becoming in good sooth the chief agent in the work of destruction.)

To Protus, whose life has been thus spent in activity, forgetfulness seems the one thing most terrible of contemplation. He must pa.s.s, and in the words of the dying Alcestis, ”who is dead is nought”; of him shall it be said, ”He who once was, now is nothing.” But for the man whose life ”stays in the poems men shall sing, the pictures men shall study,” for him may not death prove triumph, since ”_thou_ dost not go”? Yet Cleon deals with the question as might have been antic.i.p.ated. Genius, even in its highest form, culture, art, learning, alike fail to satisfy the restless soul, tossed upon the waves of uncertainty, unanch.o.r.ed by any reasonable hope for the future. All these fail where the satisfaction derivative from wealth and power honourably wielded has already failed. The genius ruling in the kingdom of intellectual life has no consolation to offer the sovereign ruling the outer life--the material and moral welfare--of his subjects. Poet and tyrant alike bow before the inevitable approach of death, taking ”the tear-stained dust” as proof that ”man--the whole man--cannot live again.”

The entire poem has been happily designated ”the Ecclesiastes of pagan religion.” At the outset we have remarked Cleon admitting that Protus equally with himself has recognized, not only that joy is ”the use of life,” but that joy may not be found in material gratification alone, but rather in the cultivation of the higher faculties of man.

For so shall men remark, in such an act [_i.e._, in the munificence displayed by the gifts bestowed upon the poet]

Of love for him whose song gives life its joy, Thy recognition of the use of life. (ll. 20-22.)

The poet had so estimated ”joy.” It is in truth a higher estimate than that based upon a recognition of material good. Nevertheless, he is now to confess that from this, too, but an empty and transitory satisfaction is obtainable. His answer to Protus affords an a.n.a.lysis of his own reflections on the subject, since the thoughts have clearly not arisen now for the first time. And in the arguments immediately following we cannot but recognize Browning's own voice. The theory advanced is reiterated constantly throughout his writings, dramatic and otherwise. Cleon directs the attention of Protus to the perfections of animal life as created by Zeus in lines suggesting an interesting comparison with that remarkable and frequently quoted pa.s.sage from the concluding Section of _Paracelsus_ (ll. 655-694).

The centre-fire heaves underneath the earth, And the earth changes like a human face;

The gra.s.s grows bright, the boughs are swoln with blooms Like chrysalids impatient for the air, The s.h.i.+ning dorrs are busy, beetles run Along the furrows, ants make their ado; Above, birds fly in merry flocks, the lark Soars up and up, s.h.i.+vering for very joy; Afar the ocean sleeps; white fis.h.i.+ng-gulls Flit where the sand is purple with its tribe Of nested limpets; savage creatures seek Their loves in wood and plain--and G.o.d renews His ancient rapture. Thus he dwells in all, From life's minute beginnings, up at last To man--the consummation of this scheme Of being, the completion of this sphere Of life: whose attributes had here and there Been scattered o'er the visible world before, Asking to be combined, dim fragments meant To be united in some wondrous whole, Imperfect qualities throughout creation, Suggesting some one creature yet to make, Some point where all those scattered rays should meet Convergent in the faculties of man.

So writes Cleon:

If, in the morning of philosophy, Ere aught had been recorded, nay perceived, Thou, with the light now in thee, could'st have looked On all earth's tenantry, from worm to bird, Ere man, her last, appeared upon the stage-- Thou would'st have seen them perfect, and deduced The perfectness of others yet unseen.