Life of Robert Browning [42]
I follow mine," as the Venetian saying,
quoted by Browning at the head of his Rawdon Brown sonnet, has it.
All that need be known concerning the framework of "Sordello",
and of the real Sordello himself, will be found in the various
Browning hand-books, in Mr. Nettleship's and other dissertations,
and, particularly, in Mrs. Dall's most circumspect and able historical essay.
It is sufficient here to say that while the Sordello and Palma of the poet
are traceable in the Cunizza and the strange comet-like Sordello
of the Italian and Provencal Chronicles (who has his secure immortality,
by Dante set forth in leonine guise -- `a guisa di leon quando si posa' --
in the "Purgatorio"), both these are the most shadowy of prototypes.
The Sordello of Browning is a typical poetic soul: the narrative
of the incidents in the development of this soul is adapted to
the historical setting furnished by the aforesaid Chronicles.
Sordello is a far more profound study than Aprile in "Paracelsus", in whom,
however, he is obviously foreshadowed. The radical flaw in his nature
is that indicated by Goethe of Heine, that "he had no heart."
The poem is the narrative of his transcendent aspirations,
and more or less futile accomplishment.
It would be vain to attempt here any adequate excerption
of lines of singular beauty. Readers familiar with the poem
will recall passage after passage -- among which there is probably none
more widely known than the grandiose sunset lines: --
"That autumn eve was stilled:
A last remains of sunset dimly burned
O'er the far forests, -- like a torch-flame turned
By the wind back upon its bearer's hand
In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,
The woods beneath lay black." . . .
What haunting lines there are, every here and there -- such as those of Palma,
with her golden hair like spilt sunbeams, or those on Elys, with her
"Few fine locks
Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks
Sun-blanched the livelong summer," . . .
or these,
"Day by day
New pollen on the lily-petal grows,
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose ----"
or, once more,
"A touch divine --
And the sealed eyeball owns the mystic rod;
Visibly through his garden walketh God ----"
But, though sorely tempted, I must not quote further, save only
the concluding lines of the unparalleled and impassioned address to Dante: --
"Dante, pacer of the shore
Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume,
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye
In gracious twilights where his chosen lie ----"
. . . . .
It is a fair land, for those who have lingered in its byways:
but, alas, a troubled tide of strange metres, of desperate rhythms,
of wild conjunctions, of panic-stricken collocations,
oftentimes overwhelms it. "Sordello" grew under the poet's fashioning till,
like the magic vapour of the Arabian wizard, it passed beyond his control,
"voluminously vast."
It is not the truest admirers of what is good in it who will refuse
to smile at the miseries of conscientious but baffled readers.
Who can fail to sympathise with Douglas Jerrold when,
slowly convalescent from a serious illness, he found among
some new books sent him by a friend a copy of "Sordello".
Thomas Powell, writing in 1849, has chronicled the episode.
A few lines, he says, put Jerrold in a state of alarm.
Sentence after sentence brought no consecutive thought to his brain.
At last the idea occurred to him that in his illness his mental faculties
had been wrecked. The perspiration rolled from his forehead,
and smiting his head he sank back on the sofa, crying, "O God,
I AM an idiot!" A little later, adds Powell, when Jerrold's
wife and sister entered, he thrust "Sordello" into
quoted by Browning at the head of his Rawdon Brown sonnet, has it.
All that need be known concerning the framework of "Sordello",
and of the real Sordello himself, will be found in the various
Browning hand-books, in Mr. Nettleship's and other dissertations,
and, particularly, in Mrs. Dall's most circumspect and able historical essay.
It is sufficient here to say that while the Sordello and Palma of the poet
are traceable in the Cunizza and the strange comet-like Sordello
of the Italian and Provencal Chronicles (who has his secure immortality,
by Dante set forth in leonine guise -- `a guisa di leon quando si posa' --
in the "Purgatorio"), both these are the most shadowy of prototypes.
The Sordello of Browning is a typical poetic soul: the narrative
of the incidents in the development of this soul is adapted to
the historical setting furnished by the aforesaid Chronicles.
Sordello is a far more profound study than Aprile in "Paracelsus", in whom,
however, he is obviously foreshadowed. The radical flaw in his nature
is that indicated by Goethe of Heine, that "he had no heart."
The poem is the narrative of his transcendent aspirations,
and more or less futile accomplishment.
It would be vain to attempt here any adequate excerption
of lines of singular beauty. Readers familiar with the poem
will recall passage after passage -- among which there is probably none
more widely known than the grandiose sunset lines: --
"That autumn eve was stilled:
A last remains of sunset dimly burned
O'er the far forests, -- like a torch-flame turned
By the wind back upon its bearer's hand
In one long flare of crimson; as a brand,
The woods beneath lay black." . . .
What haunting lines there are, every here and there -- such as those of Palma,
with her golden hair like spilt sunbeams, or those on Elys, with her
"Few fine locks
Coloured like honey oozed from topmost rocks
Sun-blanched the livelong summer," . . .
or these,
"Day by day
New pollen on the lily-petal grows,
And still more labyrinthine buds the rose ----"
or, once more,
"A touch divine --
And the sealed eyeball owns the mystic rod;
Visibly through his garden walketh God ----"
But, though sorely tempted, I must not quote further, save only
the concluding lines of the unparalleled and impassioned address to Dante: --
"Dante, pacer of the shore
Where glutted hell disgorgeth filthiest gloom,
Unbitten by its whirring sulphur-spume,
Or whence the grieved and obscure waters slope
Into a darkness quieted by hope;
Plucker of amaranths grown beneath God's eye
In gracious twilights where his chosen lie ----"
. . . . .
It is a fair land, for those who have lingered in its byways:
but, alas, a troubled tide of strange metres, of desperate rhythms,
of wild conjunctions, of panic-stricken collocations,
oftentimes overwhelms it. "Sordello" grew under the poet's fashioning till,
like the magic vapour of the Arabian wizard, it passed beyond his control,
"voluminously vast."
It is not the truest admirers of what is good in it who will refuse
to smile at the miseries of conscientious but baffled readers.
Who can fail to sympathise with Douglas Jerrold when,
slowly convalescent from a serious illness, he found among
some new books sent him by a friend a copy of "Sordello".
Thomas Powell, writing in 1849, has chronicled the episode.
A few lines, he says, put Jerrold in a state of alarm.
Sentence after sentence brought no consecutive thought to his brain.
At last the idea occurred to him that in his illness his mental faculties
had been wrecked. The perspiration rolled from his forehead,
and smiting his head he sank back on the sofa, crying, "O God,
I AM an idiot!" A little later, adds Powell, when Jerrold's
wife and sister entered, he thrust "Sordello" into