The Browning Cyclopædia: A Guide to the Study of the Works of Robert Browning. Edward Berdoe
personified necessity of Death. p. 194, Otototoi, woe! alas! p. 195, Tariaros == Hades; Pallas, i. e., Minerva. p. 198, Niso’s city, port town of Megara; Isthmos, the isthmus of Corinth. p. 201, Argolis, a country of Peloponnesus, now Romania; Danaos, son of Belus, king of Egypt: he had fifty daughters, who murdered the fifty sons of Egyptus; Prokné, daughter of Pandion, king of Athens, wife of Tereus, king of Thrace. p. 202, Itus, son of Prokné. p. 206, Taphioi, the Taphians, who made war against Electryon, and killed all his sons; Erinues == the Furies. p. 213, Erechtheidai’s town == Athens. p. 215, Hundredheaded Hydra, a dreadful monster slain by Hercules. p. 216, Phlegruia, a place of Macedonia, where Hercules defeated the giants. p. 234, Iostephanos, violet-crowned, a name of Athens. p. 235, Thamuris, an ancient Thracian bard; Poikilé, a celebrated portico of Athens, adorned with pictures of gods and benefactors; Rhesus was king of Thrace and ally of the Trojans; Blind Bard == Thamuris. p. 236, Eurutos, a king of Œchalia, who offered his daughter to a better shot than himself: Hercules won, but was denied the prize; Dorion, a town of Messenia, where Thamyris challenged the Muses to a trial of skill; Balura, a river of Peloponnesus. p. 241, Dekeleia, a village of Attica north of Athens, celebrated in the Peloponnesian war; spinks, chaffinches. p. 242, Amphion, son of Jupiter and inventor of Music: he built the walls of Thebes to the sound of his lyre. p. 245, Castalian dew, the fountain of Castalia, near Phocis, at the foot of Parnassus. p. 247, Pheidippides, the celebrated runner, a character also in The Clouds. p. 248, Aigispoiamoi, Ægospotamos was the river where the Athenians were defeated by Lysander, B.C. 405; Elaphebolion month, stag-hunting time, when the poetical contests took place; Lusandros, the celebrated Spartan general Lysander; triremes, galleys with three banks of oars one above another. p. 249, Bakis-prophecy, Bacis was a famous soothsayer of Bœotia. p. 253, Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, king of Argos; Orestes, brother of Elektra, who saved his life. p. 254, Klutaimnestra, murdered her husband Agamemnon. p. 255, Kommos, a great wailing; eleleleleu, a loud crying; Lakonians, the Lacedæmonians == the Spartans. p. 258, Young Philemon, a Greek comic poet; there was an old Philemon, contemporary with Menander. – Mr. Fotheringham, in his “Studies in the Poetry of Robert Browning,” says: “Browning’s preference for Euripides among Greek dramatists, and his defence of that poet in the person of Balaustion against Aristophanes, shows how distinctly he has considered the principles raised by the later drama of Greece, and how deliberately he prefers Euripidean art and aims to Aristophanic naturalism. He likes the human and ethical standpoint, the serious and truth-loving spirit of the tragic rather than the pure Hellenism of the comic poet; while the Apology suggests a broader spirit and a larger view, an art that unites the realism of the one with the higher interests of the other – delight in and free study of the world with ideal aims and spiritual truth” (p. 356).
Arezzo. A city of Tuscany, the residence of Count Guido Franceschini, the husband of Pompilia and her murderer. It is now a clean, well-built, well-paved, and flourishing town of ten thousand inhabitants. It is celebrated in connection with many remarkable men, as Mæcenas, Guido the musician, Guittone the poet, Cesalpini the botanist, Vasari, the author of the “Lives of the Painters,” and many others. (The Ring and the Book.)
Art Poems. The great poems dealing with painting are “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Andrea del Sarto,” “Old Pictures in Florence,” “Pictor Ignotus,” and “The Guardian Angel.”
Artemis Prologizes. (Dramatic Lyrics, in Bells and Pomegranates, No. III. 1842.) Theseus became enamoured of Hippolyta when he attended Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons. Before she accepted him as her lover, he had to vanquish her in single combat, which difficult and dangerous task he accomplished. She accompanied him to Athens, and bore him a son, Hippolytus. The young prince excelled in every manly virtue, but he was averse to the female sex, and grievously offended Venus by neglecting her and devoting himself entirely to the worship of Diana, called by the Greeks Artemis. Venus was enraged, and determined to ruin him. Hippolyta in process of time died, and Theseus married Phædra, the daughter of Minos, the king of Crete. Unhappily, as soon as Phædra saw the young and accomplished Hippolytus, she conceived for him a guilty passion – which, however, she did her utmost to conceal. It was Venus who inspired her with this insane love, out of revenge to Hippolytus, whom she intended to ruin by this means. Phædra’s nurse discovered the secret, and told it to the youth, notwithstanding the commands of her mistress to conceal it. The chaste young man was horrified at the declaration, and indignantly resented it. The disgraced and betrayed Phædra determined to take her own life; but dying with a letter in her hand which accused Hippolytus of attempts upon her virtue, the angry father, without asking his son for explanations, banished him from the kingdom, having first claimed the performance from Neptune of his promise to grant three of his requests. As Hippolytus fled from Athens, his horses were terrified by a sea monster sent on shore by Neptune. The frightened horses upset the chariot, and the young man was dragged over rocks and precipices and mangled by the wheels of his chariot. In the tragedy, as left by Euripides, Diana appears by the young man’s dying bed and comforts him, telling him also that to perish thus was his fate: —
“But now
Farewell: to see the dying or the dead
Is not permitted me: it would pollute
Mine eyes; and thou art near this fatal ill.”
The tragedy ends with the dying words of Hippolytus: —
“No longer I retain my strength: I die;
But veil my face, now veil it with my vests.”
So far Euripides. Mr. Browning, however, carries the idea further, and makes Diana try to save the life of her worshipper, by handing him over to the care of Æsculapius, to restore to life and health by the wisest pharmacies of the god of healing. Mr. Browning’s poem closes with the chaste goddess watching and waiting for the result of the attempt to save his life. The poet has adopted the Greek spelling in place of that to which we are more accustomed. The Greek names require their Latin equivalents for non-classical scholars. Artemis is the Greek name for Diana; Asclepios is Æsculapius; Aphrodite, the Greek name of Venus; Poseidon is Neptune; and Phoibus or Phœbus is Apollo, the Sun. Heré == Hera or Juno, Queen of Heaven. Athenai == Minerva. Phaidra, daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, who married Theseus. Theseus, king of Athens. Hippolutos, son of Theseus and Hippolyte. Henetian horses, or Enetian, of a district near Paphlagonia.
Artemisia Genteleschi (Beatrice Signorini, Asolando), “the consummate Artemisia” of the poem, was a celebrated artist (1590-1642). See Beatrice Signorini.
“Ask not the least word of praise,” the first line of the lyric at the end of “A Pillar at Sebzevah,” No. 11 of Ferishtah’s Fancies.
Asolando: Fancies and Facts. Published in London, December 12th, 1889, on the day on which Mr. Browning died in Venice. Contents: Prologue; Rosny; Dubiety; Now; Humility; Poetics; Summum Bonum; A Pearl, A Girl; Speculative; White Witchcraft; Bad Dreams, I., II., III., IV.; Inapprehensiveness; Which? The Cardinal and the Dog; The Pope and the Net; The Bean-Feast; Muckle-mouth Meg; Arcades Ambo; The Lady and the Painter; Ponte dell’ Angelo, Venice; Beatrice Signorini; Flute Music, with an Accompaniment; “Imperante Augusto, Natus est – ”; Development; Rephan; Reverie; Epilogue. The volume is dedicated to the poet’s friend, Mrs. Arthur Bronson. In the dedication the poet explains the title Asolando: it was a “title-name popularly ascribed to the inventiveness of the ancient secretary of Queen Cornaro, whose palace-tower still overlooks us.” Asolare – “to disport in the open air, amuse oneself at random.” “The objection that such a word nowhere occurs in the works of the Cardinal is hardly important. Bembo was too thorough a purist to conserve in print a term which in talk he might possibly toy with; but the word is more likely derived from a Spanish source. I use it for love of the place, and in requital of your pleasant assurance that an