Monsignor[springing up]. My people—one and all—all-within210there! Gag this villain—tie him hand andfoot! He dares—I know not half he dares—butremove him—quick!Miserere mei, Domine!Quick, I say!
Monsignor[springing up]. My people—one and all—all-within210there! Gag this villain—tie him hand andfoot! He dares—I know not half he dares—butremove him—quick!Miserere mei, Domine!Quick, I say!
Scene.—Pippa'schamber again. She enters it.
The bee with his comb,The mouse at her dray,The grub in his tomb,While winter away;But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, I pray,5How fare they?Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze!"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"—The summer of life so easy to spend,And care for tomorrow so soon put away!10But winter hastens at summer's end,And firefly, hedge-shrew, lobworm, pray,How fare they?No bidding me then to—what did Zanze say?"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes15More like"—what said she?—"and less like canoes!"How pert that girl was!—would I be those pert,Impudent, staring women! It had done me,However, surely no such mighty hurtTo learn his name who passed that jest upon me:20No foreigner, that I can recollect,Came, as she says, a month since, to inspectOur silk-mills—none with blue eyes and thick ringsOf raw-silk-colored hair, at all events.Well, if old Luca keep his good intents,25We shall do better, see what next year brings!I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appearMore destitute than you perhaps next year!Bluph—something! I had caught the uncouth nameBut for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter30Above us—bound to spoil such idle chatterAs ours; it were indeed a serious matterIf silly talk like ours should put to shameThe pious man, the man devoid of blame,The—ah, but—ah, but, all the same,35No mere mortal has a rightTo carry that exalted air;Best people are not angels quite:While—not the worst of people's doings scareThe devil; so there's that proud look to spare!40Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! forI have just been the holy Monsignor:And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother,And you too, Luigi!—how that Luigi startedOut of the turret—doubtlessly departed45On some good errand or another,For he passed just now in a traveler's trim,And the sullen company that prowledAbout his path, I noticed, scowledAs if they had lost a prey in him.50And I was Jules the sculptor's bride,And I was Ottima beside,And now what am I?—tired of fooling.Day for folly, night for schooling!New Year's day is over and spent,55Ill or well, I must be content.Even my lily's asleep, I vow:Wake up—here's a friend I've plucked you!Call this flower a heart's-ease now!Something rare, let me instruct you,60Is this, with petals triply swollen,Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;While the leaves and parts that witnessOld proportions and their fitness,Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;65Call this pampered thing improved now!Suppose there's a king of the flowersAnd a girl-show held in his bowers—"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,70I have made her gorge polentaTill both cheeks are near as bouncingAs her—name there's no pronouncing!See this heightened color too,For she swilled Breganze wine75Till her nose turned deep carmine;'Twas but white when wild she grew.And only by this Zanze's eyesOf which we could not change the size,The magnitude of all achieved80Otherwise, may be perceived."Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day!How could that red sun drop in that black cloud?Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away,Dispensed with, never more to be allowed!85Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's.O lark, be day's apostleTo mavis, merle, and throstle,Bid them their betters jostleFrom day and its delights!90But at night, brother owlet; over the woods,Toll the world to thy chantry;Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoodsFull complines with gallantry:Then, owls and bats,95Cowls and twats,Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry![After she has began to undress herself.Now, one thing I should like to really know:How near I ever might approach all these100I only fancied being, this long day—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, soAs to—in some way ... move them—if you please,Do good or evil to them some slight way.For instance, if I wind105Silk tomorrow, my silk may bind[Sitting on the bedside.And border Ottima's cloak's hem.Ah me, and my important part with them,This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!True in some sense or other, I suppose.110[As she lies down.God bless me! I can pray no more tonight.No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.All service ranks the same with God—With God, whose puppets, best and worst,Are we; there is no last nor first.115[She sleeps.
The bee with his comb,The mouse at her dray,The grub in his tomb,While winter away;But the firefly and hedge-shrew and lobworm, I pray,5How fare they?Ha, ha, thanks for your counsel, my Zanze!"Feast upon lampreys, quaff Breganze"—The summer of life so easy to spend,And care for tomorrow so soon put away!10But winter hastens at summer's end,And firefly, hedge-shrew, lobworm, pray,How fare they?No bidding me then to—what did Zanze say?"Pare your nails pearlwise, get your small feet shoes15More like"—what said she?—"and less like canoes!"How pert that girl was!—would I be those pert,Impudent, staring women! It had done me,However, surely no such mighty hurtTo learn his name who passed that jest upon me:20No foreigner, that I can recollect,Came, as she says, a month since, to inspectOur silk-mills—none with blue eyes and thick ringsOf raw-silk-colored hair, at all events.Well, if old Luca keep his good intents,25We shall do better, see what next year brings!I may buy shoes, my Zanze, not appearMore destitute than you perhaps next year!Bluph—something! I had caught the uncouth nameBut for Monsignor's people's sudden clatter30Above us—bound to spoil such idle chatterAs ours; it were indeed a serious matterIf silly talk like ours should put to shameThe pious man, the man devoid of blame,The—ah, but—ah, but, all the same,35No mere mortal has a rightTo carry that exalted air;Best people are not angels quite:While—not the worst of people's doings scareThe devil; so there's that proud look to spare!40Which is mere counsel to myself, mind! forI have just been the holy Monsignor:And I was you too, Luigi's gentle mother,And you too, Luigi!—how that Luigi startedOut of the turret—doubtlessly departed45On some good errand or another,For he passed just now in a traveler's trim,And the sullen company that prowledAbout his path, I noticed, scowledAs if they had lost a prey in him.50And I was Jules the sculptor's bride,And I was Ottima beside,And now what am I?—tired of fooling.Day for folly, night for schooling!New Year's day is over and spent,55Ill or well, I must be content.Even my lily's asleep, I vow:Wake up—here's a friend I've plucked you!Call this flower a heart's-ease now!Something rare, let me instruct you,60Is this, with petals triply swollen,Three times spotted, thrice the pollen;While the leaves and parts that witnessOld proportions and their fitness,Here remain unchanged, unmoved now;65Call this pampered thing improved now!Suppose there's a king of the flowersAnd a girl-show held in his bowers—"Look ye, buds, this growth of ours,"Says he, "Zanze from the Brenta,70I have made her gorge polentaTill both cheeks are near as bouncingAs her—name there's no pronouncing!See this heightened color too,For she swilled Breganze wine75Till her nose turned deep carmine;'Twas but white when wild she grew.And only by this Zanze's eyesOf which we could not change the size,The magnitude of all achieved80Otherwise, may be perceived."
Oh, what a drear, dark close to my poor day!How could that red sun drop in that black cloud?Ah, Pippa, morning's rule is moved away,Dispensed with, never more to be allowed!85Day's turn is over, now arrives the night's.O lark, be day's apostleTo mavis, merle, and throstle,Bid them their betters jostleFrom day and its delights!90But at night, brother owlet; over the woods,Toll the world to thy chantry;Sing to the bats' sleek sisterhoodsFull complines with gallantry:Then, owls and bats,95Cowls and twats,Monks and nuns, in a cloister's moods,Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry![After she has began to undress herself.Now, one thing I should like to really know:How near I ever might approach all these100I only fancied being, this long day—Approach, I mean, so as to touch them, soAs to—in some way ... move them—if you please,Do good or evil to them some slight way.For instance, if I wind105Silk tomorrow, my silk may bind[Sitting on the bedside.And border Ottima's cloak's hem.Ah me, and my important part with them,This morning's hymn half promised when I rose!True in some sense or other, I suppose.110[As she lies down.God bless me! I can pray no more tonight.No doubt, some way or other, hymns say right.All service ranks the same with God—With God, whose puppets, best and worst,Are we; there is no last nor first.115[She sleeps.
The poemParacelsusis divided into five parts, each of which describes an important period in the experience of Paracelsus, the celebrated German-Swiss physician, alchemist, and philosopher of the sixteenth century. Book I tells of the eagerness and pride with which he set out in his youth to compass all knowledge; he believed himself commissioned of God to learn Truth and to give it to mankind. Books II and III show him followed and idolized by multitudes to whom he imparts the fragments of knowledge he has gained. But though these fragments seem to his disciples the sum and substance of wisdom, his own mind is preoccupied with a desolating certainty that he has hardly touched on the outer confines of truth. In Book IV, after experiencing the ingratitude of his fickle adherents, he is represented as abjuring the dreams of his youth. At this point comes the first of the three songs given in the text. He builds an imaginary altar on which he offers up the aspirations, the hopes, the plans, with which he had begun his career.
1-3.Cassiais an unidentified fragrant plant; the wood of thesandaltree is also fragrant;labdanumorladanum, is a resinous gum of dark color and pungent odor, exuding from various species of the cistus, a plant found around the Mediterranean;aloe-ballsare made from a bitter resinous juice extracted from the leaves of aloe-plants;nardis an ointment made from an aromatic plant and used in the East Indies. These substances have long been traditionally associated in literature. InPsalmsxlv, 8 we read: "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad." Milton inParadise Lost, v, 293, speaks of "flowering odors, cassia, nard, and balms."
4.Such balsam. The meaning of II. 4-8 is obscure. "Sea-side mountain pedestals" are presumably cliffs. In the tops of the trees on these cliffs the wind, weary of its rough work on the ocean, has gently dropped the fragrant things it has swept up from the island.
9-16. In this stanza the faint sweetness from the spices used in embalming, and the perfume still clinging to the tapestry in an ancient royalroom carry suggestions of vanished power and beauty that add an appropriate pathos to the richly piled altar on which Paracelsus is to offer up the "lovely fancies" of his youth. "Shredded" is a transferred epithet, referring really to "arras," but transferred to the perfume of the arras.
When Paracelsus confesses the failure of his pursuit of absolute knowledge, his friend Festus urges him to redeem the past by making new use of what he has gained; but Paracelsus has no courage to attempt a reorganization of his life in accordance with a new ideal. His answer to Festus is the second of the three songs. He afterwards calls it,
"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clungTo their first fault and withered in their pride."
"The sad rhyme of the men who proudly clungTo their first fault and withered in their pride."
The song is a beautiful and clear allegory, vivid in its pictures, rapid and musical.
In Book V Paracelsus is described as lying ill in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. Festus is endeavoring to divert the current of his dying friend's fierce, delirious thoughts into a gentler channel. He brings up one picture after another of the early happy life of Paracelsus, and dwells on the grandeur of his mind and achievements, and on the fame that shall be his. But the desired peace comes only when Festus sings the song of the river Mayne beside which their youth had been spent. At the end of the song Paracelsus exclaims,
"My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;Its darkness passes which naught else could touch."
"My heart! they loose my heart, those simple words;Its darkness passes which naught else could touch."
The Mayne, or Main, is the most important of the right-hand tributaries of the Rhine. Wurzburg, where Festus and Paracelsus had been as students, is on its banks. Its University was especially noted for its medical department. Mr. Stopford Brooke (The Poetry of Robert Browning, p. 99) says of this lovely lyric: "I have driven through that gracious country of low hill and dale and wide water-meadows, where under flowered banks only a foot high the slow river winds in gentleness; and this poem is steeped in the sentiment of the scenery. But, as before, Browning quickly slides away from the beauty of inanimate nature into a record of the animals that haunt the streams. He could not get on long with mountains and rivers alone. He must people them with breathing, feeling things; anything for life!"
These three, stirring songs represent the gay, reckless loyalty of the Cavaliers to the cause of King Charles I and their contempt for his Puritan opposers. The Puritans wore closely cropped hair; hence the Parliament which came together in 1640 and was controlled by the opponents of the King, is dubbed "crop-headed." John Pym and John Hampden were leaders in the struggle against the tyranny of the King. Hazelrig, Fiennes, and young Sir Henry Vane were also adherents of Oliver Cromwell. Rupert, Prince of the Palatinate, was a nephew of Charles I and was a noted cavalry leader on the royal side during the Civil War. The followers of the King unfurled the royal standard at Nottingham in August, 1642; Kentish Sir Byng raised a troop and hurried on to join the main royal army. In September occurred the battle of Edgehill. The "Noll" (l. 16 of "Give a Rouse") is Oliver Cromwell. The third song was entitled originally "My Wife Gertrude." It was she who held the castle of Brancepeth against the Roundheads.
This poem indignantly records a poet's defection from the cause of progress and liberty. Who this poet might be was for some time a matter of conjecture. Wordsworth, Southey, and Charles Kingsley, all of whom had gone from radicalism in their youth to conservatism in their old age, were severally proposed as the original of Browning's portrait. The poem was published in 1845, two years after Wordsworth was made poet laureate. Early in 1845 Wordsworth was presented at court, a proceeding which aroused comment—sometimes amused, sometimes indignant—from those who recalled the poet's early scorn of rank and titles. Browning and Miss Barrett exchanged several gay letters on this subject in May, 1845. In commenting on a letter from Miss Martineau describing Wordsworth in his home in 1846, Browning wrote, "Did not Shelley say long ago, 'He had no more imagination than a pint-pot'—though in those days he used to walk about France and Flanders like a man.Now, he is 'most comfortable in his worldly affairs' and just this comes of it! He lives the best twenty years of his life after the way of his own heart—and when one presses in to see the result of his rare experiment—what theonealchemist whom fortune has allowed to get all his coveted materials and set to work at last with fire and melting pot—what he produces after all the talk of him and the like of him; why, you getpulvis et cinis—a man at the mercy of the tongs and shovel." In later life, however, Browning spoke of Wordsworth in a different tone. In a letter to Mr. Grosart, written Feb. 24, 1875, he said, "I have been asked the question you now address me with, and as duly answered, I can't remember how many times. There is no sort of objection to one more assurance, or rather confession, on my part, that Ididin my hasty youth presume to use the great and veneratedpersonality of Wordsworth as a sort of painter's model; one from which this or the other particular feature may be selected and turned to account. Had I intended more—above all such a boldness as portraying the entire man—I should not have talked about 'handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon.' These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet—whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face-about of his special party, was, to my private apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But, just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognize figures which havestruck outa fancy, on occasion, that though truly enough thus derived, yet would be preposterous as a copy; so, though I dare not deny the original of my little poem, I altogether refuse to have it considered as the 'very effigies' of such a moral and intellectual superiority." For an interesting parallelism in theme, see Whittier's "Ichabod."
20.Whom.The reference is to the lower classes, whom the Liberals were endeavoring to rouse to aspiration and action. The Conservatives opposed suchbeginningsof independence.
29.Best fight on well.It is the deserting leader who is exhorted to fight well. Though it is pain to have him desert their party, they have gloried in his power and it would be an even greater pain to see him weak. They wish him to fight well even though their cause is thereby menaced.
This poem was written during Mr. Browning's first journey to Italy, in 1838. He sailed from London in a merchant vessel bound for Trieste, on which he found himself the only passenger. The weather was stormy and for the first fortnight Browning was extremely ill. As they passed through the straights of Gibraltar the captain supported him upon deck that he might not lose the sight. Of the Composition of the poem he says, "I wrote it under the bulwark of a vessel off the African coast, after I had been at sea long enough to appreciate even the fancy of a gallop on the back of a certain good horse 'York' there in my stable at home." The poem was written in pencil on the flyleaf of Bartoli'sSimboli, a favorite book of his. Browning says that there was no sort of historical foundation for the story, but the Pacification of Ghent in 1576 has been suggested as an appropriate background. The incident narrated could naturally belong to the efforts of the united cities of Holland, Zealand, and the Southern Netherlands to combat the tyranny of Philip II.
6. Of this line Miss Barrett wrote: "It drew us out into the night as witnesses."
13.'Twas moonset.The distance from Ghent to Aix is something over a hundred miles. The first horse gave out at Hasselt, about eighty miles from Ghent; the second horse failed at Dalhem in sight of Aix. Rolandmade the whole distance between midnight of one day and sunset of the next. The minute notes of time are for dramatic and picturesque effect rather than as exact indications of progress. Even the towns are not used with the exactness of a guide-book, for Looz and Tongres are off the direct route.
17.Mecheln.Flemish for Mechlin. The chimes they heard were probably from the cathedral tower.
41.Dome-spire.Over the polygonal monument founded by Charlemagne in Aix-la-Chapelle is a dome 104 feet high and 48 feet in diameter. The reference is probably to this dome.
This poem and "Sibrandus Schafnaburgensis," a companion poem, appeared inHood's Magazine, July, 1844, under the title of "Garden Fancies." "The Flower's Name" is a description of a garden by a lover whose conception of its beauty is heightened and made vital by the memories it enshrines. Of this poem Miss Barrett wrote to Browning, "Then the 'Garden Fancies'—some of the stanzas about the name of the flower, with such exquisite music in them, and grace of every kind—and with that beautiful and musical use of the word 'meandering,' which I never remember having seen used in relation to sound before. It does to mate with your 'simmeringquiet' inSordello, which brings the summer air into the room as sure as you read it." (Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., I, 134.)
10.Box.An evergreen shrub, dwarf varieties of which are used for low hedges or the borders of flower-beds.
These poems were published originally simply as "Night" and "Morning." The second of these love lyrics is somewhat difficult to interpret. If the man is speaking, the "him" in l. 3 must refer to the sun. In any case, after the isolation with the woman he loved as described in the first poem, there comes with the morning a sense of the world of action to which the man must return. The two poems are fully discussed inPoet-Lore, Volume VII, April, May, June-July. The poems are noteworthy for the fusion of human emotion and natural scenery and for the startlingly specific phrasing of the first quatrain.
In this lyric are embodied Browning's faith in personal immortality, his belief in the permanence of true love and in the value of love though unrequited in this world.
34.What meant.From this point on through line 52 the lover repeats what he shall say to Evelyn Hope when in the life to come he claims her.
A man is on his way across the fields to a turret where he is to meet the girl he loves. As he walks through the solitary pastures he mentally recreates the powerful life and varied interests of the city which, tradition has it, once occupied this site, and he seems to be absorbed in a melancholy recognition of the evanescence of human glory. The girl is not mentioned till stanza 5. Does the emphasis on the scenery and its historic associations unduly minimize the love element of the poem? Or is the whole picture of vanished joy and woe, pride and defeat, but a background against which stands out more clearly the rapture of the meeting in the ruined turret?
80.Earth's returns.This phrase refers to the ruins which are all that now remains of the centuries of folly, noise, and sin. "Them" in l. 81 refers apparently to the "fighters" and the others of the first part of the stanza.
"It is an admirable piece of work crowded with keen descriptions of Nature in the Casentino, and of life in the streets of Florence. And every piece of description is so filled with the character of the 'Italian person of quality' who describes them—a petulant, humorous, easily angered, happy, observant, ignorant, poor gentleman—that Browning entirely disappears. The poem retains for us in its verse, and indeed in its light rhythm, the childlikeness, the naïveté, the simple pleasures, the ignorance and the honest boredom with the solitudes of Nature—of a whole class of Italians, not only of the time when it was written, but of the present day. It is a delightful, inventive piece of gay and pictorial humor." (Stopford Brooke,The Poetry of Browning, p. 322.)
33.Corn.In Great Britain the word is generally applied to wheat, rye, oats, and barley, not to maize as in America.
34.Stinking hemp.In Chapter I of James Lane Allen'sThe Reign of Lawis the following passage on the odor of the hemp-field: "And now borne far through the steaming air floats an odor, balsamic, startling: the odor of those plumes and stalks and blossoms from which is exuding freely the narcotic resin of the great nettle." When the long swaths of cut hemp lies across the field, the smell is represented as strongest, "impregnating the clothing of the men, spreading far throughout the air." To many this odor is essentially unpleasant.
42.Pulcinello-trumpet.Pulcinello was originally the clown in the Neapolitan comedy. Later he became the Punch in Punch and Judy shows. The trumpet announces that one of these puppet plays is to be given in the public square.
43.Scene-picture.A picture advertising the new play.
44.Liberal thieves.Members of the liberal party, the party striving for Italian independence. The Person of Quality is, of course, of the aristocratic party.
47.A sonnet.Laudatory poetical tributes with ornamental borders were posted in public places as a method of doing homage. In this case the unknown "Reverend Don So-and-so" is ranked by his admirer with Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, the greatest Italian poets; with St. Jerome, one of the most celebrated Fathers of the Latin Church; with Cicero, one of the greatest of Roman orators; and with St. Paul, the greatest of Christian preachers.
51.Our Lady.The seven swords represent symbolically the seven sorrows of the Virgin Mary, but this Person of Quality regards the gilt swords and the smart pink gowns merely as gay decorations. Religious processions of the sort described here and in lines 60-64 are frequent in European countries.
55.It's dear.According to the system of taxation in Italy, town dues must be paid on all provisions brought into the city.
60.Yellow candles.Used at funerals and in penitential processions in the Roman Church.
Mrs. Ireland says of this poem: "The Toccata as a form of composition is not the measured, deliberate working-out of some central musical theme as is the Sonata orsound-piece. TheToccata, in its early and pure form, possessed no decided subject, made such by repetition, but bore rather the form of a capricious Improvisation, or 'Impromptu.'" ("A Toccata of Galuppi's" by Mrs. Alexander Ireland, published inLondon Browning Society Papers.)
1.Galuppi.BaldassareGaluppi (1706-1784) was an Italian composer born near Venice. He spent many years in England and Russia. In 1768 he became organist at St. Mark's, Venice.
4.Your old music.At the sound of the music Browning imaginatively re-creates the Venetian social life of the eighteenth century.
6.St. Mark's.The great cathedral. The Doge of Venice used to throw a ring into the sea from the shipBucentaurto "denote that the Adriatic was subject to the republic of Venice as a wife is subject to her husband."
8.Shylock's bridge.The Rialto, a bridge over the Grand Canal. It has two rows of shops under arcades.
18.Clavichord.An instrument with keys and strings, something like a piano.
19-30. The musical terms in these lines show Browning's knowledge of the technicalities of the art. To one without such expert knowledge the exact musical connotation is doubtless obscure. But the epithets and phrases are in themselves sufficient to suggest the varying moods ofthe Venetian merrymakers. The plaintiveness, the sighs, the sense of death, the trembling hope that life may last, the renewed love-making, the new round of futile pleasures or evil deeds, the end of it all in the grave, are clearly brought forth. An elaborate explanation of the musical terms is given in the notes to the Camberwell edition of Browning's poems.
31.But when I sit down to reason.The first thirty lines of the poem have recorded the effect of the music in re-creating in the poet's imagination the gay, careless life of eighteenth century Venice, and its close in death. Now when the poet endeavors to turn from that picture of death lurking under smiles, he finds that the cold music has filled his mind with an inescapable sense of the futility of life, and even his own chosen mental activities seem to him, along with the rest, hardly more than dust and ashes. Ambition and enthusiasm fade before the spell of the music.
3.Aloed arch.The genus aloe includes trees, shrubs, and herbs. The American variety is the century-plant. Browning's hill-side villa evidently had aloes trained to grow in an arch.
15.The startling bell-tower Giotto raised.Giotto began the Campanile in 1334, and after his death in 1337 the work was continued by Andrea Pisano. Its striking beauty impresses the poet as he looks out over the city. But it does more than that, for it rouses in him reflections on the progress and meaning of art.
17-24. The address to Giotto, thrown in here as it is with conversational freedom, is partially explained in lines 184-248. See note on l. 236.
30.By a gift God grants me.The power to re-create vividly and minutely the past. The artists of bygone centuries are called back by his imagination to their old haunts in Florence.
44.Stands One.The "one" (l. 44), "a lion" (l. 47), "the wronged great soul" (l. 48), and "the wronged great souls" (l. 58), all refer to the unappreciated early artists.
50.They.That is, the famous great artists such as Michael Angelo and Raphael. Critics "hum and buzz" around them with praise to which they are indifferent.
59.Where their work is all to do.Their place in the development of art is not yet understood. It must be made clear, Browning thinks, that painters like Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) come in natural succession from earlier obscure artists like Dello, that art is a real and continuous record of the human mind and heart.
67.The mastiff girns.When some influential critic snarls, all the imitative inferior critics take the same tone. Cf. Shelley's "Adonais," stanzas 28, 37, 38.
69.Stefano.A pupil of Giotto and called "Nature's ape" because his accurate representations of the human body.
72.Vasari.Author ofLives of the Most Eminent Painters andSculptors. (Published 1550. Translated by Mrs. Foster inBohn's Library.) In his studies of art Browning made constant use of this book.
76.Sic transit. Sic transit gloria mundi."So passes away the glory of the world."
84.In fructu."As fruit." The fruit of Greek art at its best was that it presented in marble ideally perfect human bodies.
98.Theseus.The kingly statue of the reclining Theseus in the frieze of the Parthenon.
99.Son of Priam.In the sculptures of Æsina, Paris, the son of Priam, kneeling and drawing his bow, has a grace beyond that of any man who might think to pose as a model.
101.Apollo.At Delphi Apollo slew an enormous python.
102.Niobe.Through the vengeance of Apollo and Diana, Niobe's seven sons and seven daughters were all slain. In the Imperial Gallery of Florence there is a statue of Niobe clasping her last child.
103.The Racer's frieze.In the Parthenon.
104.The dying Alexander.A piece of ancient Greek sculpture at Florence.
108.To submit is a mortal's duty.The supreme beauty of the statues led men to content themselves with admiration and imitation.
113.Growth came.New life came to art when men ceased to rest in the perfect achievement of the past, and found a new realm opened up to them in representing the subtler activities of the soul. Lines 145-152 state the ideals that actuated the new art. The reference is to the religious art of the Italian Renaissance.
115-144. These lines sum up the reasons for the importance of the art that strives "to bring the invisible full into play" (l. 150). It may be rough-hewn and faulty; but it is greater and grander than Greek art because of its greater range, variety, and complexity, and because it reaches beyond any possible present perfection into eternity.
134.Thy one work ... done at a stroke.Giotto when asked for a proof of his skill to send to the Pope, drew with one stroke of his brush a perfect circle, whence the proverb, "Rounder than the O of Giotto."
156.Quiddit.Quibble. The humorous rhyme "did it—quiddit" is but one of the many whimsical rhyming effects in the poem. The use of a light, semi-jocose form to give the greater emphasis to serious subject-matter is characteristic of Browning. Lowell in "A Fable for Critics" employs the same device.
161-176. Not Browning's usual attitude. Even this poem is a deification of progress through effort, not through repose.
178.Art's spring-birth.Nicolo the Pisan and Cimabue lived in the second half of the thirteenth century. From them to Ghiberti (1381-1455), who made the famous bronze doors of the Baptistry at Florence, and Ghirlandajo (1449-1494), a Florentine fresco painter, was a period in which Browning was especially interested. Mrs. Orr says that he owned pictures by all the artists mentioned here.
192.Italian quicklime.Many of the fine old Italian fresco paintings have been whitewashed over.
198.Dree.The pictures "endure" the doom of captivity. But they might be ferreted out if the ghosts of the old painters would only indicate where the lost works are.
201-224. He does not hope to get pictures of the famous Florentine painters, Bigordi (probably another name for Ghirlandajo), Sandro, Botticelli, Lippino (son of Fra Lippo Lippi), or Fra Angelico. But he might hope for better success in finding pieces by the obscure painters mentioned in lines 205-224. These painters are so described that we know concerning each one, some characteristic quality or work.
206.Intonaco.The plaster that forms the ground for fresco work.
214.Tempera.A pigment mixed with some vehicle soluble in water instead of with oil as in oil paintings.
218.Barret.A kind of cap.
230.Zeno.The founder of the sect of Stoics, and hence supposedly not stirred by "naked High Art."
232.Some clay-cold vile Carlino.Commercial dealers in art are unmoved by true beauty, but they go into ecstasies over uninspired work like that of Carlino. (Carlo Dólci, 1616-1686.)
236.A certain precious little tablet.Mr. Browning wrote to Professor Corson that this was a lost "Last Supper" praised by Vasari. The stanza in which this line occurs explains ll. 17-24.
237.Buonarroti.Michael Angelo.
241.San Spirito, etc. "Holy Spirit" and "All Saints," old churches in Florence.
244.Detur amanti."Let it be given to the one who loves it."
245.Koh-i-noor.A famous Indian diamond presented to Queen Victoria in 1850.
246.Jewel of Giamschid.The splendid fabulous ruby of Sultan Giamschid, sometimes called "The Cup of the Sun" and "The Torch of Night." Byron ("The Giaour") says that the dark eyes of Leila were "bright as the jewel of Giamschid." The carbuncle of Giamschid is one of the treasures sought by the Caliph in Beckford'sCaliph Vathek.
246.The Persian Sofi.The Sufi or Sofi is a title or surname of the Shah of Persia.
249.A certain dotard, etc. Radetsky (1766-1858) was in 1849-1857 governor of the Austrian possessions in Upper Italy. "The worse side of the Mont St. Gothard" is the Swiss side. "Morello" is a mountain near Florence. There had been frequent insurrections against Austria, but they had been fruitless. Browning prophesies the time when there shall be a great national council (a Witanagemot) by which, when Freedom has been restored to Florence, a new and vigorous Art shall be brought in. It will then be perceived that a monarchy nourishes the false and monstrous in art, and that "Pure Art" must come from the people.
258.The stone of Dante.The stone where Dante used to draw hischair out to sit. For this and other references in stanza XXXIV see Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows," Part I. In this poem she suggests "a parliament of the lovers of Italy."
260.Quod videas ante—"Which you may have seen before."
263.Hated house.The poet hates the rule of the House of Lorraine, and prefers the days of the painter Orgagna, in the fourteenth century, when Italy was free.
273.Tuscan.The literary language of Italy and not given to superlatives such as are indicated by "issimo."
275.Cambuscan:a reference to "The Squire's Tale," left unfinished by Chaucer.
276.Alt to altissimo."High to highest."
277.Beccaccia.A woodcock.
281.Shall I be alive.According to Giotto's plan the tower was to have had a spire fifty braccia or cubits (about 95 feet) high. This spire has never been built.
The whole phrase isDe gustibus non disputandum—"there is no disputing about tastes." Browning is writing to a friend who prefers an English landscape while the poet himself declares in favor of Italy.
2.If our loves remain.If we have a life after death.
4.A cornfield.The picture is a field of wheat with red poppies scattered through the wheat.
23.Cypress.It is interesting to note how many of the trees, shrubs, flowers, and fruits in Browning's poems are those of southern Europe. His poetry of nature is almost as distinctively Italian as Tennyson's is English. "The Englishman in Italy" is especially rich in vivid, picturesque details of southern scenes.
36.Liver-wing.The right wing. The shot hit the king in the right arm.
37.Bourbon.Mr. and Mrs. Browning were rejoicing at any indications that the people of Italy were awake to revolt against the Bourbons. See Mrs. Browning's "Casa Guidi Windows" and "First News from Villa Franca" and Mr. Browning's "The Italian in England."
40.Queen Mary's saying.For two hundred years Calais had been one of England's most important possessions. It was taken by the French in 1588, the last year of the reign of Queen Mary. What Queen Mary said of Calais, Browning says of Italy.
Compare the sentiment of this poem with that of"De Gustibus—"written ten years later. In "Home Thoughts from Abroad" we have one of Browning's rare uses of the scenery of his own country.
14.That's the wise thrush.The power of these lines in presenting both the musical and the emotional quality of the bird's song is rivaled only by Wilson Flagg's "The Bobolink" (quoted in John Burroughs'sBirds and Poets) and Wordsworth's "To the Cuckoo."
This poem and the preceding one express two phases of the poet's love of country; his affection for the physical beauty of England, and his pride in her political freedom. In the first poem, he turns, in thought, from the glowing color of Italy, to the more delicate loveliness of England in April; in the second poem, he longs to repay the service his country has rendered him in defeating foreign foes.
"Home-Thoughts from the Sea" was written at the same time and under the same circumstances as "How they brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix." The poet, aboard a vessel coasting along the shore of Africa, could see to the northwest the Portuguese Cape Vincent, near which, in 1797, England won a naval victory over Spain; southeast of Cape Vincent, on the Spanish coast, Cadiz Bay, where, in 1796, England defeated the second Spanish Armada; and southeast of Cadiz Bay, Cape Trafalgar, where, in 1805, Nelson won a famous victory over the allied fleets of France and Spain. To the northeast, the poet could see Gibraltar, the great fortress which England acquired from Spain by the Peace of Utrecht, 1713.
1.Abner.The cousin of Saul and the commander of his army.I Samuelxiv, 50.
9.Saul and the Spirit.For the conflict between Saul and the evil spirit, and the refreshment that came to him when David played, seeI Samuelxvi, 14-23.
12.Gracious gold hair.For the personal appearance of David, seeI Samuelxvi, 12, 18; xvii, 42.
12.Those lilies ... blue.Mrs. Coleridge wrote to Mr. Kenyon to know whether Mr. Browning had any authority for "blue lilies." Mr. Browning answered, "Lilies are of all colors in Palestine—one sort is particularized aswhitewith a dark blue spot and streak—the water lily, lotus, which I think I meant, isbluealtogether." (Letters of R. B. and E. B. B., i, 523, 556.)
31.The king-serpent.Probably the boa-constrictor. In poetry the characteristic most often attributed to a snake is malignancy. But in this picture of the serpent lying dormant and waiting for the sloughing of its old skin in the springtime, when it will come forth with new beauty and power, the idea presented is that of tremendous force temporarily in abeyance.
42.Then the tune.The boy, alone in the field, tries all sorts of experiments in musical attraction on the animals about him. Professor Albert S. Cook suggests that Browning is here indebted to the Greek pastoral romance ofDaphnis and Chloe. See Smith's translation in the Bohn edition. The passages read in part as follows: "He ran through all variations of pastoral melody; he played the tune which the oxen obey, and which attracts the goats—that in which the sheep delight.
"He took his pipe from his scrip, and breathed into it very gently. The goats stood still, merely lifting up their heads. Next he played the pasture tune, upon which they all put down their heads and began to graze. Now he produced some notes soft and sweet in tone; at once his herd lay down. After this he piped in a sharp key, and they ran off to the woods as if a wolf were in sight." These quotations serve at least to show how old is the fancy that animals are affected by music.
60. The service enjoined on the men of the House of Levi is described inI Chroniclesxxiii, 24-32.
65.Male-sapphires.The male sapphire exhibits, through some peculiarity of crystalline structure, a star of bright rays. It is also known as "the star sapphire" and "the asteriated sapphire." The ruby shows a clear red light at the center.
76.Locust-flesh.InLeviticus, Chapter xi, are given the laws concerning "what beasts may and what may not be eaten." See verse 22 for the rule about locusts. Cf.Matthewiii, 4 for the food of John the Baptist.
102.The cherubim chariot.The first chapter ofEzekielseems to be the source of this picture.
105.Have ye seen, etc. The simile in lines 104-115 could have been written only by one familiar with mountain regions. Browning knew the Alps and Apennines. Did David at any time live in a mountainous country?
124.Slow pallid sunsets.Note the character of the similitudes so far used in describing Saul. In his agony he is like the king-serpent. His rage is like the earthquake that may tear open the rock but at the same time sets the gold free. His final release from the evil spirit is described by the sudden fall of the avalanche from the mountain summit. The look in his eyes as he comes back to life, yet seeing nothing in life to desire, is compared to pale autumn sunsets seen over the ocean, or to slow sunsets seen over a desolate hill country. All the figures contribute to our impression of Saul's power and majesty.
141.Since my days, etc. Compare this passage withPippa Passes, Prologue, 104-113.
172.Carouse in the past.This line marks a change in the direction of David's thought. Up to stanza X it was the glorious past that he had been urging upon Saul's attention. But now he realizes that true inspiration comes not so much from a re-living of one's achievements, as from the thought of the permanence of one's fame and one's deeds.
192.And behold while I sang.At this point David is overcome by the memory of the sudden spiritual illumination that came to him in hisinterview with Saul. He had reached the summit of his endeavor (l. 191) and yet knew himself powerless to give the King new life. Then there flashed upon him the truth expressed in stanzas XVII-XIX. He breaks off in lines 192-205, going, in his strong feeling, ahead of his story and commenting on what is described in stanza XIX. In stanza XV he resumes his narrative.
204.Hebron.David watches the slow coming of the dawn over the hill on which is situated the town of Hebron.
205.Kidron.A brook near Jerusalem. It is fed by springs, and the amount of water in it is sensibly decreased by the extreme heat of the day.
214.Ere error had bent.InI Samuel, Chapter xv, is an account of Saul's disobedience and punishment. The choosing of Saul to be king is described inI Samuel, Chapters ix and x.
292.Sabaoth.The word means "hosts" and is ordinarily used in the phrase "The Lord of hosts." It represents the omnipotence of God.
303.Nor leave up nor down, etc. At the end of stanza xv, the thought that had come to David was that God had proved supreme in all the ways in which a human being could test knowledge and power, but that in the one way of love the creature might surpass the Creator. At line 302 he has come to believe in the infinitude of God's love as well as in the infinitude of His power. It is interesting to note that George Eliot inSilas Marnergives to ignorant Dolly Winthrop an experience and a philosophy of life almost identical with those of Browning's David.
307-312. A prophecy of the revelation of the divine in the human, the coming of God in the person of Christ. It is the human in the divine that men seek and love. In the Old Testament days such an idea, though foretold and longed for, could be but vaguely conceived except in moments of especial insight in the minds of poet-prophets like David. Mr. Herford (Robert Browning, p. 120) says of this passage:
"David is occupied with no speculative question, but with the practical problem of saving a ruined soul; and neither logical ingenuity nor divine suggestion, but the inherent spiritual significance of the situation, urges his thought along the lonely path of prophecy. The love for the old King, which prompted him to try all the hidden paths of his soul in quest of healing, becomes a lighted torch by which he tracks out the meaning of the world and the still unrevealed purposes of God; until the energy of thought culminates in vision and the Christ stands full before his eyes."
313-335. In this stanza David represents all existences, good and evil spirits, all animals, all forms of nature, as stirred by the great news of the future manifestation of the love of God as shown in Christ.
A love lyric generally supposed to refer to Mrs. Browning.
4.The angled spar.A prism. In looking at a prism the colors one sees are determined by the point of view. The idea of the poem is amplified in "One Word More," stanzas xvi-xviii.
The Campagna, a plain around the city of Rome, was in ancient times the seat of many cities; it is now dotted with ruins. "There is a solemnity and beauty about the Campagna entirely its own. To the reflective mind, this ghost of old Rome is full of suggestion; its vast, almost limitless extent as it seems to the traveler; its abundant herbage and floral wealth in early spring; its desolation, its crumbling monuments, and its evidences of a vanished civilization, fill the mind with a sweet sadness, which readily awakens the longing for the infinite spoken of in the poem." (Berdoe,Browning Cyclopædia, p. 553.)
6.I touched a thought.The elusive thought which he fancifully pursues from point to point in the surrounding landscape finds statement in lines 34-60. Of these lines Sharp (Life of Browning, p. 159) says, "There is a gulf which not the profoundest search can fathom, which not the strongest-winged love can overreach: the gulf of individuality. It is those who have loved most deeply who recognize most acutely this always pathetic and often terrifying isolation of the soul. None save the weak can believe in the absolute union of two spirits ... No man, no poet assuredly, could love as Browning loved, and fail to be aware, often with vague anger and bitterness, no doubt, of this insuperable isolation even when spirit seemed to leap to spirit, in the touch of a kiss, in the evanishing sigh of some one or other exquisite moment."
"Another poem of waiting love is 'In Three Days.' And this has the spirit of a true love lyric in it. It reads like a personal thing; it breathes exaltation; it is quick, hurried, and thrilled. The delicate fears of chance and changes in the three days, or in the years to come, belong of right and nature to the waiting, and are subtly varied and condensed. It is, however, the thoughtful love of a man who can be metaphysical in love." (Stopford Brooke,The Poetry of Robert Browning, p. 253.)
Fano.This poem was written in the summer of 1848 after a visit of three days at Fano. It is addressed to Alfred Domett, one of Browning's warm friends, who was at that time in New Zealand on the Wairoa River. For a vivid description of him see Browning's "Waring." The picture at Fano, the details of which are fully brought out in the poem, has been reproduced inIllustrations to Browning's Poems, Part I, published by the Browning Society. Mrs. Browning (Lettersi, 380) speaks of it as "a divine picture of Guercino's worth going all that way to see."
6.Another child for tending.With a longing for guidance and protection Browning imagines himself as a child under the guardianship of the angel.
16.Like that child.The child in the picture looks into the heavens. Browning would look only at the gracious face of the angel.
46.My angel.Cf. "My love," l. 54. Both refer to Mrs. Browning.
Pauline(1832) has many references to Shelley; note especially lines 151-229; 1020-1031. Browning's "Essay on Shelley" appeared in 1852. "Memorabilia" was composed in 1853-4.
18-28. That later in life Browning "came to think unfavorably of Shelley as a man and to esteem him less highly as a poet" is shown by a letter written to Dr. Furnivall: "For myself I painfully contrast my notions of Shelley themanand Shelley, well, even thepoet, with what they were sixty years ago." (Quoted by Mr. Dowden:Robert Browning, p. 10.) Mr. Browning declined an invitation to be president of the Shelley Society. For a discussion of Shelley's influence on Browning seePoet-Lore, Volume VII, January, 1895.
Ratisbon, a city of Bavaria, was stormed by Napoleon in 1809. The story told in the poem is a true one, but its hero was a man, not a boy.
The original title inDramatic Lyrics, 1842, was "Italy." It is a poem of the Italian Renaissance. Frà Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck are, however, imaginary artists.
There is no known original for the story of Theocrite, but it is in accord with the Roman Catholic belief that angels watch over human beings and are interested in their affairs. In the last line is the fundamental lesson of the poem. Compare the thought of Pippa in the song "All service ranks the same with God." See Leigh Hunt's "King Robert of Sicily" (inA Jar of Honey, ch. vi.) and Longfellow's "King Robert of Sicily" (inTales of a Wayside Inn) for an analogous legend.
This poem was written to amuse little Willie Macready who was ill and wished a poem for which he could make illustrations. There are many legends that deal with the refusal of a reward promised to a magician for some stipulated service. Mr. Berdoe (Browning Cyclopædia, p. 339) says that the story given here is based on an account by Verstegan in hisRestitution of Decayed Intelligence(1634). Verstegan gives "Bunting" as the name of the piper; the town, as Hamelin in Brunswick on the Weser; and the mountain into which the children were led as the Köppenberg.
When Mr. Browning was little more than a child he heard a woman one Guy Fawkes's Day sing, in the street a strange song whose burden was "Following the Queen of the Gypsies, O!" The singular refrain haunted his memory for many years, and out of it was ultimately born this poem.
6-31. The Duke's medieval castle was apparently in Northern Germany, near the sea.
78.Rough-foot merlin.A species of hawk formerly trained to pursue other birds and game. A "falcon-lanner" is a long-tailed hawk. The word, when used in falconry, is restricted to the female hawk, which is larger than the male.
101.Struck at himself.Amazed at his own importance.
130.Urochs.The aurochs, the European bison, a species nearly extinct but preserved in the forests of Lithuania and the Caucasus. The "buffle" is the buffalo.
135-153. Compare this lady with the one in "My Last Duchess."
216.Well, early in autumn.In writing "The Flight of the Duchess" Browning was interrupted by a friend on some important business which temporarily drove the story out of the poet's mind. Some months after the publication of the first part inHood's Magazine, April, 1845, he was staying at Bettisfield Park in Shropshire when someone in commenting on the early approach of winter said that already the deer had to break the ice in the pond. This chance phrase roused the poet's fancy, and when he returned home he completed his poem.
238.St. Hubert.Before his conversion St. Hubert had been passionately fond of hunting; hence he became the patron saint of hunters.
240-247. "The jerkin" or short coat; the "trunk-hose," or full breeches extending from the waist to the middle of the thigh; the big rimless hats with broad projections back and front and highly ornamented, were medieval articles of attire revived by the Duke for his "Middle Age" hunting party.
249.Venerers, Prickers, and Verderersare ancient names for huntsmen, horsemen, and preservers of venison.
263.Horns wind a mort.Horns announce the death of the stag; "at siege" probably means "brought to the appointed station." Possibly it means "at bay," in which case "wind a mort" must mean "announce that the death of the stag is imminent."
264.Prick forth.Spur her horse forth. She was to ride a jennet, a small Spanish horse known in the Middle Ages.
315.Quince-tinct.Tincture of quince was used as a cosmetic.
322.Fifty-part canon."Mr. Browning explained that a 'canon, in music, is a piece wherein the subject is repeated in various keys, and being strictly obeyed in the repetition, becomes the canon, the imperative law to what follows.' Fifty of such parts would be indeed a notable peal; to manage three is enough of an achievement for a good musician." Berdoe,Browning Cyclopædia: page 180.
480.The band-roll.Her head was ornamented with a band on which were strung Persian coins.
533.Gor-crow's flappers.Wings of carrion crow.
581.Like the spots.Effects of phosphorescence.
845.I have seen my little lady.It is not clear where or when he saw her. Possibly he refers only to his revived memory of her.
852.And ... floats me.This construction is what is known as the "ethical dative." The old servant merely says in jocose fashion that telling his story has made his blood course more rapidly and freely.
The Revival of Learning.The Revival of Learning, or the Renaissance, began as early as the tenth century. Its period of most rapid progress was from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. One phase of the interest in the revival of learning was the effort to restore Latin to its ancient purity. The word "grammarian" was more widely inclusive than now, meaning one who devoted himself to general learning. Of this poem Dr. Burton in "Renaissance Pictures in Browning" (Poet-Lore, Vol. x, pp. 60-76, No. 1, 1898) says: "I know of no lyric of the poet's more representative of his peculiar and virile strength than this, in that it makes vibrant and thoroughly emotional an apparently unemotional theme. In relation to the Renaissance, the revival of learning, the moral is the higher inspiration derived from the new wine of the classics, so that what in later times has cooled down too often to a dry-as-dust study of the husks of knowledge is shown to be, at the start, a veritable reveling in the delights of the fruit."
Mr. Stopford Brooke inThe Poetry of Browning, p. 155, says, "This is the artist at work, and I doubt whether all the laborious prose written, in history and criticism, on the revival of learning, will ever express better than this short poem the inexhaustible thirst of the Renaissance in its pursuit of knowledge, or the enthusiasm of the pupils of a New Scholar for his desperate strife to know in a short life the very center of the universe."
3.Leave we the common crofts.As the procession starts up the hill they leave behind them the small farms and little villages of the plain.
8.Rock-row.Day is just breaking over the rocky summits of the mountains.
9.There, man's thought.The smoking crater of a volcano, described as a censer from which rise the fumes of incense, portends an outbreak of subterranean fire. The speaker fancifully considers this an appropriate spot in which to bury the scholar whose passionate eagerness of thought chafed continually against the bounds of custom and ignorance and human weakness.
14.Sepulture.Pronounced here,sepúlture. A burial place or tomb.
25.Step to a tune.Here and in various other places, as lines 41, 73, 76, etc., are directions to the pallbearers.
34.Lyric Apollo.The god Apollo was the ideal of manly beauty. The Grammarian was, it seems, endowed with rare charm of face and form.
35.Long he lived nameless.Youth had passed before the Grammarian really entered upon his quest for knowledge. But he did not despair. His vanishing of youth was but a signal to "leave play for work."
45.Grappled with the world.The world of knowledge, especially ancient learning, which was recovered slowly and with difficulty.
49.Theirs.He wishes to study the "shaping" or writings of poets and sages.
50.Gowned.Put on the scholastic gown.
64.Queasy.Sick at the stomach. He could not get knowledge enough to make him feel a distaste for it.
65-68. "It" in l. 66 refers to l. 67. The "it" in l. 68 refers to "such a life," l. 65.
70.Fancy the fabric.Under the figure of making a complete plan before beginning to build a house, he describes the Grammarian's purpose to know the whole scheme of life before he lived out any part of it.
86.Calculusandtussis(l. 88) are diseases, the stone and bronchitis, that attacked him.
95.Soul-hydroptic."Hydroptic" is a rare word for "thirsty."
103.God's task, etc. He neglected the body, magnified the mind, and believed that the full realization of his aspirations would come in "the heavenly period."
113.That low man. This comparison between the "low man" and the "high man" could be effectively illustrated from "Andrea del Sarto." Andrea is the "low man" who with his skillful hand "goes on adding one to one" till he attains his "hundred," or excellence of technique. But the other painters, the ones with the "truer light of God" in them, reach the heaven above and take their place there although what they see transcends the power of their art to tell. They miss the "unit" of an adequate technique, but they gain the "million" of spiritual insight.
129.Hoti ... Oun ... De.Points in Greek grammar concerning which there was much learned discussion.