The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning

“The hag that gave these three abortions birth,Unmotherly mother and unwomanlyWoman,”

and lastly the four companions in the murder, who acceded at once to the crime, as though they were set to dig a vineyard. Then the Pope recalls the only answer of the Governor to whom Pompilia appealed – a threat and a shrug of the shoulder. He has a severe word for the Archbishop, as a hireling who turned and fled when the wolf pressed on the panting lamb within his reach. It comforts him to turn to Pompilia, “perfect in whiteness,” as he pronounces. It makes him proud in the evening of his life as “gardener of the untoward ground,” that he is privileged to gather this “rose for the breast of God.”

“Go past meAnd get thy praise, – and be not far to seekPresently when I follow if I may!”

Nor very much apart from her can be placed Caponsacchi, his “warrior-priest.” He finds much amiss in this freak of his. He disapproves the masquerade, the change of garb; but it was grandly done – that athlete’s leap amongst the uncaged beasts set upon the martyr-maid in the mid-cirque. Impulsively had he cast every rag to the winds; but he championed God at first blush, and answered ringingly, with his glove on ground, the challenge of the false knight. Where, then, were the Church’s men-at-arms, while this man in mask and motley has to do their work? When temptation came he had taken it by the head and hair, had done his battle, and has praise. Yet he must ruminate. “Work, be unhappy, but bear life, my son!” He turns to God, “reaches into the dark,” “feels what he cannot see”; renews his confidence in the Divine order of the universe, but not without a pause, a shudder, a breathing space while he collects his thoughts and reviews his grounds of faith. The mind of man is a convex glass, gathering to itself

“The scattered pointsPicked out of the immensity of sky.”

He understands how this earth may have been chosen as the theatre of the plan of redemption; as he in turn represents God here, he can believe that man’s life on earth has been devised that he may wring from all his pain the pleasures of eternity. “This life is training and a passage,” and even Guido, in the world to come, may run the race and win the prize. It does not stagger him, receiving and trusting the plan of God as he does, that he sees other men rejecting and disbelieving it, any more than it surprises him to find fishers who might dive for pearls dredging for whelks and mud-worms. But, alas for the Christians! – how ill they figure in all this! The Archbishop of Arezzo – how he failed when the test came! The friar, who had forsaken the world, how he shrank from doing his duty, for fear of rebuke! Women of the convent to whom Pompilia was consigned, – their kiss turned bite, and they claimed the wealth of which she died possessed because the trial seemed to prove her of dishonest life: so issue writ, and the convent takes possession by the Fisc’s advice. Their fine speeches were all unsaid – their “saint was whore” when money was the prize. All this terrifies the aged Pope – not the wrangling of the Roman soldiers for the garments of the Lord, but the greed in His apostles. But are not mankind real? Is the petty circle in which he moves, after all, the world? The instincts of humanity have helped mankind in every age; they will do so still. If, because Christianity is old, and familiarity with its teachings has bred a confidence which is ill grounded, the Christian heroism of past times can no longer be looked for, yet the heroism of mankind springs up eternally, and will suffice for all its needs. And now he hears the whispers of the times to come. The approaching age (the eighteenth century) will shake this torpor of assurance; discarded doubts will be reintroduced; the earthquakes will try the towers of faith; the old reports will be discredited. Then what multitudes will sink from the plane of Christianity down to the next discoverable base, resting on the lust and pride of life! Some will stand firm. Pompilias will “know the right place by the foot’s feel”; Caponsacchis by their mere impulses will be guided aright; the vast majority will fall. But the Vicar of Christ has a duty to perform, whatever may be in store in the womb of the coming age. With Peter’s key he holds Peter’s sword:

“I smiteWith my whole strength once more ere end my part,”

he says. Men pluck his sleeve, urge him to spare this barren tree awhile; others point out the privileges of the clergy, the right of the husband over the wife, the offence to the nobility involved in condemning one of their order, the danger to his own reputation for mercy. He brushes away with a sweep of his hand all these busy oppositions to his sense of duty, and signs the order for the execution of Guido and his companions. On the morrow the men shall die – not in the customary place, where die the common sort; but Guido, as a noble, shall be beheaded where the quality may see, and fear, and learn. He has no hope for Guido —

“Except in such a suddenness of fate.I stood at Naples once, a night so darkI could have scarce conjectured there was earthAnywhere, sky or sea, or world at all:But the night’s black was burst through by a blaze —Thunder struck blow on blow, earth groaned and bore,Through her whole length of mountain visible:There lay the city, thick and plain, with spires,And, like a ghost disshrouded, white the sea.So may the truth be flashed out by one blow,And Guido see, one instant, and be saved.······“Carry this forthwith to the Governor!”

Notes. – Line 1, Ahasuerus: Esther vi. 1. l. 11, “Peter first to Alexander last”: St. Peter to Pope Alexander VIII., who died 1691. l. 25, Formosus Pope (891-6): he was bishop of Porto, and succeeded Stephen. He had formerly, from fear of Pope John, left his bishopric and fled to France. As he did not return when he was recalled, he was anathematised, and deprived of his preferments. He returned to the world, and put on the secular habit. Pope Martin (882-4) absolved him, and restored him to his former dignity; he then came to the popedom by bribery. (See Platina.) l. 32, Stephen VII. (The Pope, 896-7): “he persecuted the memory of Formosus with so much spite, that he abrogated his decrees and rescinded all he had done; though it was said that it was Formosus that conferred the bishopric of Anagni upon him. Stephen, because Formosus had hindered him before of this desired dignity, exercised his rage even upon his dead body; for Martin the historian says he hated him to that degree that, in a council which he held, he ordered the body of Formosus to be dragged out of the grave, to be stripped of his pontifical habit and put into that of a layman, and then to be buried among secular persons, having first cut off those two fingers of his right hand which are principally used by priests in consecration, and thrown into the Tiber, because, contrary to his oath, as he said, he had returned to Rome and exercised his sacerdotal function, from which Pope John had legally degraded him. This proved a great controversy, and of very ill example; for the succeeding popes made it almost a constant custom either to break or abrogate the acts of their predecessors, which was certainly far different from the practice of any of the good popes whose lives we have written.” (Platina’s Lives of the Popes, Dr. Benham’s edition, vol. i., p. 237.) l. 89, “ΙΧΘΥΣ, which means Fish”: the letters of this word, the Greek for fish, make the initials of the words Jesus, Christ, of God, Son, Saviour. The fish emblem for our Lord is common in the Roman catacombs, and is still used in ecclesiastical art. l. 91, “The Pope is Fisherman”: because he is the successor of St. Peter the fisherman, and Christ said He would make Peter a fisher of men (Mark i. 17). l. 108, Theodore II. (Pope 898) restored the decrees of Formosus, and preferred his friends. l. 122, Luitprand: a chronicler of Papal history. l. 128, Romanus (Pope 897-8): as soon as he received the pontificate he disavowed and rescinded all the acts and decrees of Stephen. Platina calls such men “popelings,” Pontificuli (ed. 1551). l. 132, Ravenna: Pope John IX. removed to Ravenna in consequence of the disturbances in Rome. He called a synod of seventy-four bishops, and condemned all that Stephen had done; he restored the decrees of Formosus, declaring it irregularly done of Stephen to re-ordain those on whom Formosus had conferred holy orders. (See Platina.) l. 138, De Ordinationibus == concerning Ordinations. l. 142, John IX. (Pope 898-900) reasserted the cause of Formosus, in consequence of which great disturbances arose in Rome. Sergius III. (Pope 904-11) “totally abolished all that Formosus had done before; so that priests, who had been by him admitted to holy orders, were forced to take new ordination. Nor was he content with thus dishonouring the dead pope; but he dragged his carcase again out of the grave, beheaded it as if it had been alive, and then threw it into the Tiber, as unworthy the honour of human burial. It is said that some fishermen, finding his body as they were fishing, brought it to St. Peter’s church; and while the funeral rites were performing, the images of the saints which stood in the church bowed in veneration of his body, which gave them occasion to believe that Formosus was not justly persecuted with so great ignominy. But whether the fishermen did thus, or no, is a great question; especially it is not likely to have been done in Sergius’ lifetime, who was a fierce persecutor of the favourers of Formosus, because he had hindered him before of obtaining the pontificate.” (Platina, Lives of the Popes.) l. 293, “The sagacious Swede”: this was Swedenborg, born at Stockholm 1688, died 1772: the mathematical theory of Probability is referred to here. (See Encyc. Brit., vol. xix., p. 768.) l. 297, “dip in Vergil here and there, and prick for such a verse”: just as people open the Bible at random to find a verse to foretell certain events, so scholars used Vergil for this purpose; sortes Vergilianæ: Vergilian lots. l. 466, paravent: Fr. a screen; ombrifuge: a place where one flies for shade. l. 510, soldier-crab: the same as hermit-crab. Named from their combativeness, or from their possessing themselves of the shells of other animals. l. 836, Rota: a tribunal within the Curia, formerly the supreme court of justice and the universal court of appeal. It consists of twelve members called auditors, presided over by a dean. The decisions of the Rota, which form precedents, have been frequently published (Encyc. Dict.). l. 917, she-pard: a female leopard. l. 1097, “The other rose, the gold”: this is “an ornament made of wrought gold and set with gems, which is blessed by the Pope on the fourth Sunday of Lent, and usually afterwards sent as a mark of special favour to some distinguished individual, church, or civil community” (Encyc. Brit., x. 758). l. 1188, “Lead us into no such temptations, Lord”: “It is lawful to pray God that we be not led into temptation, but not lawful to skulk from those that come to us. The noblest passage in one of the noblest books of this century is where the old Pope glories in the trial – nay, in the partial fall and but imperfect triumph – of the younger hero.” (R. L. Stevenson’s Virginibus Puerisque, p. 43.) l. 1596: Missionaries to China have always had great difficulty in expressing the word God with our idea of the Supreme Being in the Chinese language. l. 1619, Rosy cross: Dr. Brewer says this is “not rosa-crux == rose-cross; but ros crux, dew cross. Dew was considered by the ancient chemists as the most powerful solvent of gold; and cross in alchemy is the synonym of light, because any figure of a cross contains the three letters L V X (light). ‘Lux’ is the menstruum of the red dragon (i. e. corporeal light), and this sunlight properly digested produces gold, and dew is the digester. Hence the Rosicrucians are those who use dew for digesting lux or light for the purpose of coming at the philosopher’s stone.” (Brewer’s Dict. of Phrase and Fable, p. 765.) l. 1620, The great work == the magnum opus: “to find the absolute in the infinite, the indefinite, and the finite. Such is the magnum opus of the sages; such is the whole secret of Hermes; such is the stone of the philosophers. It is the great Arcanum.” (Mysteries of Magic, A. E. Waite, p. 196.) This is the “Azoth” of Paracelsus and the sages. Magnetised electricity is the first matter of the magnum opus. l. 1698, “Know-thyself”: e cœlo descendit Γνωθι σεαυτὸν – “Know thyself came down from heaven” (Juvenal, Sat. xi. 24); “Take the golden mean,” “Est modus in rebus”: “There is a mean in all things.” (Horace, Sat. i. 106.) l. 1707, “When the Third Poet’s tread surprised the two”: “the talents of Sophocles were looked upon by Euripides with jealousy, and the great enmity which unhappily prevailed between the two poets gave an opportunity to the comic muse of Aristophanes to ridicule them both on the stage with humour and success” (Lemprière, Eur.). l. 1760, schene or sheen == brightness or glitter. l. 1762, tenebrific: causing or producing darkness. l. 1792, “Paul, – ’tis a legend, – answered Seneca”: Butler, Lives of the Saints, under date June 30th, says: “That Seneca, the philosopher, was converted to the faith and held a correspondence with St. Paul, is a groundless fiction.” l. 1904, antimasque or anti-mask: a ridiculous interlude; kibe: a crack or chap in the flesh occasioned by cold. l. 1942, Loyola: St. Ignatius Loyola, founder of the Order of the Jesuits. l. 1986-7, “Nemini honorem trado”: Isaiah xlii. 8, xlviii. 11 – “I will not give mine honour to another,” or “my glory” (as A.V.). l. 2004, Farinacci: Farinaccius was procurator-general to Pope Paul V., and his work on torture in evidence, “Praxis et Theorica Criminalis (Frankfort, 1622),” is a standard authority. l. 2060, “the three little taps o’ the silver mallet”: when the Pope dies it is the duty of the camerlingo or chamberlain to give three taps with a silver mallet on the Pope’s forehead while he calls him; it is a similar ceremony to that used at the death of the kings of Spain; where the royal chamberlain calls the dead sovereign three times, “Señor! Señor! Señor!” l. 2088, Priam: the last king of Troy; Hecuba: the wife of Priam, by whom he had nineteen children according to Homer; “Non tali auxilio”: this is from Vergil’s Æneid, ii., 519 – “Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis tempus eget.” “The crisis requires not such aid nor such defenders as thou art.” l. 2111, The People’s Square: Piazza del Popolo, at the north entrance to Rome. It is reached from the Corso.

Book XI., Guido – is now in the prison cell awaiting execution. He is visited by Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi, who are to remain with him till the fatal moment. He is pleading with them for their aid; he reminds them of his noble blood, too pure to leak away into the drains of Rome from the headsman’s engine. He protests his innocence; he has only twelve hours to live, and is as innocent as Mary herself. He denounces the Pope, who could have cast around him the protection of the Church, whose son he is. His tonsure should have saved him. It was the Pope’s duty to have shown him mercy, but he supposes he is sick of his life, and must vent his spleen on him. He asks the Abate if he can do nothing? They used to enjoy life together, but he concludes that his companions have hearts of stone. He wishes he had never entangled himself with a wife; he was a fool to slay her. Why must he die? It need not be if men were good. If the Pope is Peter’s successor, he should act like Peter. Would Peter have ordered him to death when there was his soul to save? What though half Rome condemned him? the other half took his part. The shepherd of the flock should use the crumpled end of his staff to rescue his sheep, not the pointed end wherewith to thrust them. The law proclaims him guiltless, but the Pope says he is guilty; and he supposes he ought to acquiesce and say that he deserves his fate. Repent? not he! What would be the good of that? If he fall at their feet and gnash and foam, will that put back the death engine to its hiding-place? He reflects that old Pietro cried to him for respite when he chased him about his room. He asked for time to save his soul: Guido gave him none. Why grant respite to him if he deserves his doom? Then he reproaches his companions: had they not sinned with him if he had done wrong? had they ever warned him, not by words, but by their own good deeds? He declares that he does not and cannot repent one particle of his past life. How should he have treated his wife? Ought he to have loved or hated her? When he offered her his love, had she not recoiled with loathing from him? Had she not acted as a victim at the sacrifice? Was it not her desire to be anywhere apart from him? What was called his wife was but “a nullity in female shape” – a plague mixed up with the “abominable nondescripts” she called her father and her mother. It was intended that he should be fooled; it happened that he had anticipated those who wished to fool him: yet this boast was premature. All Rome knows that the dowry was a derision, the wife a nameless bastard; his ancient name had been bespattered with filth, and those who planned the wrong had revealed it to the world. Yes, he had punished those who fooled him so. He had punished his wife, too, who had no part in their crime; and why? Her cold, pale, mute obedience was so hateful to him. “Speak!” he had demanded, and she obeyed; “Be silent!” and she obeyed also, with just the selfsame white despair. Things were better when her parents were present; when they left she ran to the Commissary and the Archbishop to beg their interference, and then committed the “worst offence of not offending any more.” Her look of martyr-like endurance was worse than all: it reminded him of the “terrible patience of God.” All that meant she did not love him; – she might have shammed the love. As it was, his wife was a true stumbling-block in his way. Everything, too, went against him. It was so unlucky for him that he did not catch the pair at the inn under circumstances when he could lawfully have slain them both together. There is always some —

“Devil, whose task it isTo trip the all-but-at perfection.”

Unhappily, he had just missed his chance of appearing grandly right before the world. When he took his assassins to the villa he was fortunate, it is true, in finding all at home – the three to kill; but he had been unlucky in not escaping, as he had arranged. Then, when he thought he had killed his wife (with his knowledge of anatomy too!), she must linger for four whole days, the surgeon keeping her alive that every soul in Rome might learn her story. All the world could listen then. Had it not been for that he would have had a tale to tell that would have saved his head: he would have sworn he had caught Pompilia in the embraces of the priest, who had escaped in the darkness. And now she has lived to forgive him, commend him to the mercies of God, while fixing his head upon the block. And then at his trial all was against him: the dice were loaded, and the lawyers of no service to him. Yet he is sure that the Roman people approve his deed, though the mob is in love with his murdered wife. He says “there was no touch in her of hate.” The angels would not be able to make a heaven for her if she knew he were in hell, she would pray him into heaven against his will; for it is hell which he demands, so heartily does he hate the good! Yes, he is impenitent, – no spark of contrition. Would the Church slay the impenitent? He passionately tells the Cardinal that he knows he is wronged, yet will not help him. As he sees no chance of their relenting, he tries to influence them by suggesting how he could have helped their chances at the next election of a Pope, which cannot be long delayed. Then he falls to entreaty again: “Save my life, Cardinal; I adjure you in God’s name!” begs him go, fall at the Pope’s feet, tell him he is innocent; and if that serve him not, say he is an atheist, and implore him not to send his soul to perdition. “Take your crucifix away!” he cries. Then, when all seems hopeless, he begins to abuse the Pope, the Cardinals, and all. He hates his victims too, he protests, as much as when he slew them; and while he curses, impenitent, scornful and full of malice, he hears the chant of the Brotherhood of Mercy, who sing the Office of the Dying at his cell-door. Then he shrieks that all he had been saying was false; he was mad:

“Don’t open! Hold me from them! I am yours,I am the Grand Duke’s – no, I am the Pope’s!Abate, – Cardinal, – Christ, – Maria, – God, …Pompilia, will you let them murder me?”

Notes. – Line 13, Certosa: a Carthusian monastery, La Certosa, in Val’ Emo, is situated about four miles from Florence. It was founded about 1341. It is Gothic, and is built in a grand style, like that of a castle. l. 186, mannaia: an instrument for beheading criminals, much like the guillotine. l. 188, “Mouth-of-Truth” – Bocca della Verità: S. Maria in Cosmedin, in ancient Rome. From the mouth of a fountain to the left is the portico, into which, according to a mediæval belief, the ancient Romans thrust their right hands when taking an oath. l. 261, “Merry Tales”: the novels and tales of Franco Sacchetti (1335-1400). He wrote some three hundred novelle in pure Tuscan. l. 272, Albano, or Albani, Francesco (1578-1660): a celebrated Italian painter, who was born at Bologna. He lived and taught in Rome for many years. Among the best of his sacred pictures are a “St. Sebastian” and an “Assumption of the Virgin,” both in the church of St. Sebastian at Rome. l. 274, “Europa and the bull”: Europa was the daughter of Agenor, king of Phœnicia. Jupiter became enamoured of her, and assumed the form of a beautiful bull. When Europa mounted on his back he carried her off. l. 291, Atlas and axis are bones of the neck on which the head turns: the atlas is the first cervical vertebra, the axis is the second cervical vertebra; symphyses, the union of bones with each other. l. 327, “Petrus, quo vadis?” “Peter, whither goest thou?” On the Appian Way at Rome there is a small church called Domine Quo Vadis, so named from the legend that St. Peter, fleeing from the death of a martyr, here met his Master, and inquired of Him, “Domine, quo vadis?” (“Lord, whither goest Thou?”) to which he received the reply, “Venio iterum crucifigi” (“I come to be crucified again”) – whereupon the apostle, ashamed of his weakness, returned. l. 569, King Cophetua: an imaginary king of Africa, who fell in love with a beggar girl. He married her, and lived happily with her for many years. l. 683, “and tinkle near”: at the mass, when the priest consecrates the elements, a small bell is rung by the server to acquaint the worshippers with the fact that the consecration has taken place. This, of course, is the most solemn part of the mass, when the worshippers are most attentive. l. 685, Trebbian: from Trevi, in the valley of the Clitumnus. l. 786, “Hocus-pocus”; Nares says these words represent Ochus Bochus, an Italian magician invoked by jugglers; but there are other explanations. Vallombrosa Convent: a famous convent near Florence. Milton says, “Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks in Vallombrosa” (Paradise Lost, i. 302). But the trees are pines, and not deciduous. l. 1119, “the Etruscan monster”: Mr. Browning was a student of Etruscan art and archæology. The Etruscans were the nation conquered by the Romans, and their antiquities are abundant in the district between Rome and Florence. The monster is the Chimæra, represented with three heads – those of a lion, a goat, and a dragon. Bellerophon, mounted on the horse Pegasus, attacked and overcame it. l. 1413, Armida: a beautiful sorceress, a prominent character in Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered. l. 1416, Rinaldo, in the same poem, was the Achilles of the Crusaders’ army. He ran away from home at the age of fifteen, and was enrolled in the adventurers’ squadron. Rinaldo fell in love with Armida, and wasted his time in voluptuous pleasures. l. 1420, zecchines, or sequins: Venetian gold coins, worth about 9s. 6d. l. 1669, stinche: a prison. l. 1808, “Helping Vienna”: this refers to the second siege of Vienna by the Turks in 1683, when 150,000 Turks sat down before the city, Cara Mustapha being their leader. Pope Innocent XI. and John Sobieski, king of Poland, entered into a league to oppose the common enemy of Christian Europe. The whole Turkish army was defeated, and fled in the utmost disorder after the great battle fought under the walls of Vienna on Sept. 12th, 1683. l. 1850, Gaudeamus, “let us be glad.” l. 1925, Jove Ægiochus: Jupiter was surnamed Ægiochus because, according to some authors, he was brought up by a goat. Properly the name is from the ægis which the god bore. l. 1928, “Seventh Æneid”: Virgil’s great poem was the “Æneis,” which has for its subject the settlement of Æneas in Italy. The passage referred to is in the Eighth Book (426), and begins “His informatum, manibus jam parte politâ.” l. 2034, “Romano vivitur more”: Life goes on in the Roman way. l. 2051, “Byblis in fluvius”: Byblis fell in love with her brother, and was changed into a fountain. l. 2052, “sed Lycaon in lupum”: a cruel king of Arcadia, named Lycaon, was changed into a wolf by Jupiter, because he offered human sacrifices on the altar of the god Pan. l. 2144, Paynimrie, heathendom. l. 2184, Olimpia, in Orlando Furioso: Countess of Holland and wife of Bireno: when her husband deserted her she was bound naked to a rock by pirates, but Orlando delivered her and took her to Ireland. Bianca: wife of Fazio. She tried to save her husband from death; failed, went mad, and died of a broken heart. l. 2185, Ormuz wealth: the island Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, is a mart for diamonds. l. 2211, Circe: a sorceress, who turned the companions of Ulysses into swine. Ulysses resisted the metamorphosis by virtue of the herb moly, given him by Mercury. l. 2214, Lucrezia di Borgia: she was thrice married, her last husband being Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. Through her influence many persons were put to death. Her natural son Gennaro having been poisoned, she died herself as he expired. l. 2414, “Who are these you have let descend my stair?” They were the Brothers of Mercy, whose duty it was to attend criminals on the scaffold. Their chant was the Office of the Dying.