Browning and Dogma. Ethel M. Naish
virtual creator, the work of Setebos being limited to disturbing and “vexing” these creations of the Quiet. In this aspect Setebos would appear as representative of the powers of evil. And of great interest in any study of Browning are the suggestions resulting from Caliban’s treatment of the subject. (1) He holds that the author of evil must be supreme. That the Quiet, had he been the creator, could unquestionably, and, therefore, would most certainly have rendered his creatures of strength sufficient to be impervious to the attacks of Setebos. Therefore he attributes the weaknesses of humanity to design on the part of a creator who would wantonly torment.
His dam held that the Quiet made all things
Which Setebos vexed only: ’holds not so.
Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.
Had He meant other, while His hand was in,
Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,
Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,
Or overscale my flesh ’neath joint and joint,
Like an orc’s armour? Ay,—so spoil His sport! (ll. 170-177.)
(2) Again, and later in the poem, he treats Setebos—or Evil—not merely as a negative aspect of good, but as that which may in time become transmuted into good. He may
Surprise even the Quiet’s self
Some strange day—or, suppose, grow into it
As grubs grow butterflies. (ll. 246-248.)
(3) One further alternative suggests itself—and this yet more probable—that evil may finally be overcome of good, or may of itself become inoperative.
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die. (ll. 281-283.)
Two or three less obvious thoughts may not be omitted in any consideration of a poem containing much which is characteristic of Browning’s work wherever found. From the theology of Caliban inevitably results the doctrine of sacrifice, though in its lowest, crudest form. Since that condition most likely to excite the wrath of Setebos, as we have already had occasion to notice, is the happiness of his creations, Caliban would, therefore, present himself as a creature full of misery, moaning even in the sun; only in secret rejoicing that he is making Setebos his dupe. Should he be discovered in his deception, in order to avoid the greater evil attendant on the expression of the god’s wrath, he would of his own will submit to the lesser ill;
Cut a finger off,
Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,
Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,
Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste. (ll. 271-274.)
A sacrifice the outcome of fear. Spare me, and I will do all to appease thy wrath. Into the midst of the meditations of Caliban breaks the thunder-storm, and what he has depicted as a possible event of the future has become a present danger.
White blaze,
A tree’s head snaps—and there, there, there, there, there,
His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him! (ll. 289-291.)
The prospective vows are now made in earnest.
’Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!
’Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,
Will let those quails fly, will not eat this mouth
One little mess of whelks, so he may ’scape. (ll. 292-295.)
Sacrifice as distinguished from or opposed to the principle of self-sacrifice. Whilst self-sacrifice, self-abnegation, self-suppression—call it what we may—marks the crowning height of spiritual attainment, scaled alone by the few, and those the pioneers and saviours of the race, all early forms of religion bear witness to the existence of this belief in sacrifice—the propitiation of the Deity—as an element inherent in human nature, whether embodied in the legend of Polycrates, in the vow of Jacob at Bethel,[12] or in that condition of his descendants when in accordance with the prophetic denunciation[13] sacrifice had superseded mercy and burnt-offerings constituted a substitute for the knowledge of God. Again and again on different soil, amid men of alien races, the principle of sacrifice is found reappearing throughout history. As the enthusiasm of self-sacrifice becomes enfeebled, by a retrograde process of moral development the barren growth of sacrifice would appear to thrive. The echo of the unquestioning outcry, “God wills it,” had died away when, in the crusading vows of the later era of the movement, expression was too frequently given to the theory of sacrifice. How far may the one be regarded as the outcome of the other, the higher the development of the lower instinct? When man has learned
To know even hate is but a mask of love’s
To see a good in evil, and a hope
In ill-success;[14]
then, too, may the links between sacrifice and self-sacrifice become apparent. Along this line of connection we have to pass in traversing the ground between Caliban and Easter Day.
And what place does the creed of the unwilling slave of Setebos accord to the life beyond the grave? Will the future, if future there be, prove but an indefinite prolongation of the present? From the evils of this life the groveller in the mud sees no escape. He has discarded that tenet of his mother’s creed which included a theory of retribution after death when Setebos “both plagued enemies and feasted friends.” Such theory would indeed have been wholly inconsistent with that which represented the god as indifferent to his creatures, as utterly capricious in his dealings for good or ill—whereby he may be said to have neither enemies nor friends. No, poor Caliban, brutal and selfish, can but hold that “with the life, the pain shall stop.” What satisfaction to be derived from the continuance of a loveless existence? Without love, life to the author of Caliban upon Setebos would have lost its use, would be fearful of contemplation; the “can it be, and must, and will it?” of La Saisiaz[15] finds no faintest echo on Prospero’s isle. In the one case the utterances are the utterances of Caliban, in the other those of Browning himself. From the calculations of the one the doctrine of immortality is as inevitably excluded as it is inevitably included in those of the other.
Finally, whilst in the various scattered references to “the Quiet” are to be found some of the most striking evidences of the existence of the artistic element in Caliban’s nature—“the something Quiet” which he deems resting “o’er the head of Setebos”
Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief.
········ [The] stars the outposts of its couch; (ll. 132-138.)
yet far more than this is involved in the suggestions of the relations subsisting between the Quiet and Setebos and the creation to which Caliban belongs. The Quiet too far from Caliban’s sphere of existence for him to be in any way affected by it. He only surmises as to its possible influence upon, and ultimate triumph over, Setebos, who partakes sufficiently of his own nature to call forth fear and enmity, who lives in a proximity to His creations which renders advisable the avoidance of any action calculated to excite His wrath. The Quiet, the impersonation of supreme power, is beyond the reach of all the ills attendant upon this lower phase of existence, hence is equally incapable of experiencing joy and grief, since both alike are relative terms. Although here suggested as incidental to Caliban’s reflections, the theory involved is one appearing more or less frequently elsewhere in Browning’s work, notably in A Death in the Desert, and again in Cleon, when it is, however, applied to “the lower and inconscious forms of life.” To the Supreme Power beyond man, as to the world of animal life below, is denied “man’s distinctive mark,” progress. Thus incidentally in these references to the Quiet may be traced a suggestion foreshadowing in a degree, however remote, the necessity of an Incarnation. Not that this outcome of his theories would appear to have found any place in Caliban’s mind; it may possibly