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    Paracelsus: "A minute's success pays the failure of years"
    Paracelsus: "A minute's success pays the failure of years"
    Paracelsus: "A minute's success pays the failure of years"
    Ebook179 pages2 hours

    Paracelsus: "A minute's success pays the failure of years"

    By Robert Browning

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    Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.

    Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career.

    He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London. Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions.

    Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill.

    Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling. He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career.

    During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects.

    The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured.

    Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPortable Poetry
    Release dateJan 1, 2018
    ISBN9781787376243
    Paracelsus: "A minute's success pays the failure of years"

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      Book preview

      Paracelsus - Robert Browning

      Paracelsus by Robert Browning

      INSCRIBED TO AMÉDÉE DE RIPERT-MONCLAR BY HIS AFFECTIONATE FRIEND

      Robert Browning is one of the most significant Victorian Poets and, of course, English Poetry.

      Much of his reputation is based upon his mastery of the dramatic monologue although his talents encompassed verse plays and even a well-regarded essay on Shelley during a long and prolific career.

      He was born on May 7th, 1812 in Walmouth, London.  Much of his education was home based and Browning was an eclectic and studious student, learning several languages and much else across a myriad of subjects, interests and passions.

      Browning's early career began promisingly. The fragment from his intended long poem Pauline brought him to the attention of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and was followed by Paracelsus, which was praised by both William Wordsworth and Charles Dickens. In 1840 the difficult Sordello, which was seen as willfully obscure, brought his career almost to a standstill.

      Despite these artistic and professional difficulties his personal life was about to become immensely fulfilling.  He began a relationship with, and then married, the older and better known Elizabeth Barrett. This new foundation served to energise his writings, his life and his career.

      During their time in Italy they both wrote much of their best work. With her untimely death in 1861 he returned to London and thereafter began several further major projects.

      The collection Dramatis Personae (1864) and the book-length epic poem The Ring and the Book (1868-69) were published and well received; his reputation as a venerated English poet now assured.

      Robert Browning died in Venice on December 12th, 1889.

      Index of Contents

      INTRODUCTION

      PERSONS

      I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES – SCENE: Würzburg: a garden in the environs. 1512.

      II. PARACELSUS ATTAINS – SCENE: Constantinople: the house of a Greek conjurer. 1521.

      III. PARACELSUS – SCENE: Basel: a chamber in the house of PARACELSUS. 1526.

      IV. PARACELSUS ASPIRES – SCENE: Colmar in Alsatia: an Inn. 1528.

      V. PARACELSUS ATTAINS – SCENE: Salzburg: a cell in the Hospital of St. Sebastian. 1541.

      ROBERT BROWNING – A SHORT BIOGRAPHY

      ROBERT BROWNING – A CONCISE BIBLIOGRAPHY

      INTRODUCTION

      LONDON, March 15, 1835.          

      The dedication of Paracelsus was, in a degree, the payment of a debt, for it was the young count, four years older than Browning, and at the time a private agent in England between the Duchesse de Berri and her royalist friends in France, who suggested the subject to the poet. When first published Paracelsus had the following Preface: I am anxious that the reader should not, at the very outset,—mistaking my performance for one of a class with which it has nothing in common,—judge it by principles on which it was never moulded, and subject it to a standard to which it was never meant to conform. I therefore anticipate his discovery, that it is an attempt, probably more novel than happy, to reverse the method usually adopted by writers whose aim it is to set forth any phenomena of the mind or the passions, by the operation of persons and events; and that, instead of having recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded: and this for a reason. I have endeavored to write a poem, not a drama: the canons of the drama are well known, and I cannot but think that, inasmuch as they have immediate regard to stage representation, the peculiar advantages they hold out are really such only so long as the purpose for which they were at first instituted is kept in view. I do not very well understand what is called a Dramatic Poem, wherein all those restrictions only submitted to on account of compensating good in the original scheme are scrupulously retained, as though for some special fitness in themselves—and all new facilities placed at an author's disposal by the vehicle he selects, as pertinaciously rejected. It is certain, however, that a work like mine depends on the intelligence and sympathy of the reader for its success,—indeed were my scenes stars, it must be his cooperating fancy which, supplying all chasms, shall collect the scattered lights into one constellation—a Lyre or a Crown. I trust for his indulgence towards a poem which had not been imagined six months ago; and that even should he think slightingly of the present (an experiment I am in no case likely to repeat) he will not be prejudiced against other productions which may follow in a more popular, and perhaps less difficult form.

      Mr. Browning, senior, paid for the publication of Paracelsus. In its final form, as here given, it is greatly changed, not in structure but in phrase. Mr. Cooke states that the change affects nearly a third of the lines.

      PERSONS

      AUREOLUS PARACELSUS, a student

      FESTUS and MICHAL, his friends

      APRILE, an Italian poet

      I. PARACELSUS ASPIRES

      SCENE: Würzburg: a garden in the environs. 1512.

      FESTUS, PARACELSUS, MICHAL.

      PARACELSUS

      Come close to me, dear friends; still closer; thus!

      Close to the heart which, though long time roll by

      Ere it again beat quicker, pressed to yours,

      As now it beats—perchance a long, long time—

      At least henceforth your memories shall make

      Quiet and fragrant as befits their home.

      Nor shall my memory want a home in yours—

      Alas, that it requires too well such free

      Forgiving love as shall embalm it there!

      For if you would remember me aright,

      As I was born to be, you must forget

      All fitful, strange and moody waywardness

      Which e'er confused my better spirit, to dwell

      Only on moments such as these, dear friends!

      —My heart no truer, but my words and ways

      More true to it: as Michal, some months hence,

      Will say, this autumn was a pleasant time,

      For some few sunny days; and overlook

      Its bleak wind, hankering after pining leaves.

      Autumn would fain be sunny; I would look

      Liker my nature's truth: and both are frail,

      And both beloved, for all our frailty.

      MICHAL

      Aureole!

      PARACELSUS

      Drop by drop! she is weeping like a child!

      Not so! I am content—more than content;

      Nay, autumn wins you best by this its mute

      Appeal to sympathy for its decay:

      Look up, sweet Michal, nor esteem the less

      Your stained and drooping vines their grapes bow down,

      Nor blame those creaking trees bent with their fruit,

      That apple-tree with a rare after-birth

      Of peeping blooms sprinkled its wealth among!

      Then for the winds—what wind that ever raved

      Shall vex that ash which overlooks you both,

      So proud it wears its berries? Ah, at length,

      The old smile meet for her, the lady of this

      Sequestered nest!—this kingdom, limited

      Alone by one old populous green wall

      Tenanted by the ever-busy flies.

      Gray crickets and shy lizards and quick spiders,

      Each family of the silver-threaded moss—

      Which, look through near, this way, and it appears

      A stubble-field or a cane-brake, a marsh

      Of bulrush whitening in the sun: laugh now!

      Fancy the crickets, each one in his house,

      Looking out, wondering at the world—or best,

      Yon painted snail with his gay shell of dew,

      Travelling to see the glossy balls high up

      Hung by the caterpillar, like gold lamps.

      MICHAL

      In truth we have lived carelessly and well.

      PARACELSUS

      And shall, my perfect pair!—each, trust me, born

      For the other; nay, your very hair, when mixed,

      Is of one hue. For where save in this nook

      Shall you two walk, when I am far away,

      And wish me prosperous fortune? Stay: that plant

      Shall never wave its tangles lightly and softly,

      As a queen's languid and imperial arm

      Which scatters crowns among her lovers, but you

      Shall be reminded to predict to me

      Some great success! Ah see, the sun sinks broad

      Behind Saint Saviour's: wholly gone, at last!

      FESTUS

      Now, Aureole, stay those wandering eyes awhile!

      You are ours to-night, at least; and while you spoke

      Of Michal and her tears, I thought that none

      Could willing leave what he so seemed to love:

      But that last look destroys my dream—that look

      As if, where'er you gazed, there stood a star!

      How far was Würzburg with its church and spire

      And garden-walls and all things they contain,

      From that look's far alighting?

      PARACELSUS

      I but spoke

      And looked alike from simple joy to see

      The beings I love best, shut in so well

      From all rude chances like to be my lot,

      That, when afar, my weary spirit,—disposed

      To lose awhile its care in soothing thoughts

      Of them, their pleasant features, looks and words,—

      Needs never hesitate, nor apprehend

      Encroaching trouble may have readied them too,

      Nor have recourse to fancy's busy aid

      And fashion even a wish in their behalf

      Beyond what they possess already here;

      But, unobstructed, may at once forget

      Itself in them, assured how well they fare.

      Beside, this Festus knows he holds me one

      Whom quiet and its charms arrest in vain,

      One scarce aware of all the joys I quit,

      Too filled with airy hopes to make account

      Of soft delights his own heart garners up:

      Whereas behold how much our sense of all

      That's beauteous proves alike! When Festus learns

      That every common pleasure of the world

      Affects me as himself; that I have just

      As varied appetite for joy derived

      From common things; a stake in life, in short,

      Like his; a stake which rash pursuit of aims

      That life affords not, would as soon destroy;—

      He may convince himself that, this in view,

      I shall act well advised. And last, because,

      Though heaven and earth and all things were at stake,

      Sweet Michal must not weep, our parting eve.

      FESTUS

      True: and the eve is deepening, and we sit

      As little anxious to begin our talk

      As though to-morrow I could hint of it

      As we paced arm-in-arm the cheerful town

      At sun-dawn; or could whisper it by fits

      (Trithemius busied with his class the while)

      In that dim chamber where the noon-streaks peer

      Half-frightened by the awful tomes around;

      Or in some grassy lane unbosom all

      From even-blush to midnight: but, to-morrow!

      Have I full leave to tell my inmost mind?

      We have been brothers, and henceforth the world

      Will rise between us:—all my freest mind?

      'T is the last night, dear Aureole!

      PARACELSUS

      Oh, say on!

      Devise some test of love, some arduous feat

      To be performed for you: say on! If night

      Be spent the while, the better! Recall how oft

      My wondrous plans and dreams and hopes and fears

      Have—never wearied you, oh no!—as I

      Recall, and never vividly as now,

      Your true affection, born

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