by
Robert Browning

Introduction

His genius was jocular, but, when disposed, he could be very serious. — Article “Shakespear,” Jeremy Collier’s Historical etc. Dictionary, 2nd edition, 1701.

You, Sir, I entertain you for one of my Hundred; only, I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian: but let them be changed. — King Lear, Act III. Sc. 6.

There is a loose connection between this group of poems and certain forms of Oriental literature, notably The Fables of Bidpai or Pilpay, Firdausi’s Sháh-Námeh,  and the Book of Job;  specific instances may easily be noted; but Browning himself said in a letter to a friend, written soon after the publication of Ferishtah’s Fancies: “I hope and believe that one or two careful readings of the Poem will make its sense clear enough. Above all, pray allow for the Poet’s inventiveness in any case, and do not suppose there is more than a thin disguise of a few Persian names and allusions. There was no such person as Ferishtah — the stories are all inventions…. The Hebrew quotations are put in for a purpose, as a direct acknowledgment that certain doctrines may be found in the Old Book, which the Concoctors of Novel Schemes of Morality put forth as discoveries of their own.”

Prologue

Pray, Reader, have you eaten ortolans
Ever in Italy?
Recall how cooks there cook them: for my plan’s
To — Lyre with Spit ally.
They pluck the birds, — some dozen luscious lumps,
Or more or fewer, —
Then roast them, heads by heads and rumps by rumps,
Stuck on a skewer.
But first, — and here’s the point I fain would press, —
Don’t think I’m tattling! —
They interpose, to curb its lusciousness,
— What, ‘twixt each fatling?
First comes plain bread, crisp, brown, a toasted square:
Then, a strong sage-leaf:
(So we find books with flowers dried here and there
Lest leaf engage leaf.)
First, food — then, piquancy — and last of all
Follows the thirdling:
Through wholesome hard, sharp soft, your tooth must bite
Ere reach the birdling.
Now, were there only crust to crunch, you’d wince:
Unpalatable!
Sage-leaf is bitter-pungent — so ‘s a quince:
Eat each who’s able!
But through all three bite boldly — lo, the gust!
Flavor — no fixture —
Flies permeating flesh and leaf and crust
In fine admixture.
So with your meal, my poem: masticate
Sense, sight, and song there!
Digest these, and I praise your peptics’ state,
Nothing found wrong there.
Whence springs my illustration who can tell?
— The more surprising
That here eggs, milk, cheese, fruit suffice so well
For gormandizing.
A fancy-freak by contrast born of thee,
Delightful Gressoney!
Who laughest “Take what is, trust what may be!”
That’s Life’s true lesson, — eh?

Maison Delapierre,
Gressoney St. Jean, Val d’Aosta,
September 12, ’83.

I. The Eagle

This poem is drawn quite closely from The Fables of Bidpai.

Dervish — (though yet un-dervished, call him so
No less beforehand: while he drudged our way,
Other his worldly name was: when he wrote
Those versicles we Persians praise him for,
— True fairy-work — Ferishtah grew his style) —
Dervish Ferishtah walked the woods one eve,
And noted on a bough a raven’s nest
Whereof each youngling gaped with callow beak
Widened by want; for why? beneath the tree
Dead lay the mother-bird. “A piteous chance!
How shall they ‘scape destruction?” sighed the sage
— Or sage about to be, though simple still.
Responsive to which doubt, sudden there swooped
An eagle downward, and behold he bore
(Great-hearted) in his talons flesh wherewith
He stayed their craving, then resought the sky.
“Ah, foolish, faithless me!” the observer smiled,
“Who toil and moil to eke out life, when, lo,
Providence cares for every hungry mouth!”
To profit by which lesson, home went he,
And certain days sat musing, — neither meat
Nor drink would purchase by his handiwork.
Then — for his head swam and his limbs grew faint —
Sleep overtook the unwise one, whom in dream
God thus admonished: “Hast thou marked my deed?
Which part assigned by providence dost judge
Was meant for man’s example? Should he play
The helpless weakling, or the helpful strength
That captures prey and saves the perishing?
Sluggard, arise: work, eat, then feed who lack!”

Waking, “I have arisen, work I will,
Eat, and so following. Which lacks food the more,
Body or soul in me? I starve in soul:
So may mankind: and since men congregate
In towns, not woods, — to Ispahan forthwith!”

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees,
Underfoot the moss-tracks, — life and love with these!
I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers:
All the long lone summer-day, that greenwood life of ours!

Rich-pavilioned, rather, — still the world without, —
Inside — gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about!
Queen it thou on purple, — I, at watch, and ward
Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love’s guard!

So, for us no world? Let throngs press thee to me!
Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we!
Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face!
God is soul, souls I and thou: with souls should souls have place.

II. The Melon-Seller

Going his rounds one day in Ispahan, —
Halfway on Dervishhood, not wholly there, —
Ferishtah, as he crossed a certain bridge,
Came startled on a well-remembered face.
“Can it be? What, turned melon-seller — thou?
Clad in such sordid garb, thy seat yon step
Where dogs brush by thee and express contempt?
Methinks, thy head-gear is some scooped-out gourd!
Nay, sunk to slicing up, for readier sale,
One fruit whereof the whole scarce feeds a swine?
Wast thou the Shah’s Prime Minister, men saw
Ride on his right-hand while a trumpet blew
And Persia hailed the Favorite? Yea, twelve years
Are past, I judge, since that transcendency,
And thou didst peculate and art abased;
No less, twelve years since, thou didst hold in hand
Persia, couldst halve and quarter, mince its pulp
As pleased thee, and distribute — melon-like —
Portions to whoso played the parasite,
Or suck — thyself — each juicy morsel. How
Enormous thy abjection, — hell from heaven,
Made tenfold hell by contrast! Whisper me!
Dost thou curse God for granting twelve years’ bliss
Only to prove this day’s the direr lot?”

Whereon the beggar raised a brow, once more
Luminous and imperial, from the rags.
“Fool, does thy folly think my foolishness
Dwells rather on the fact that God appoints
A day of woe to the unworthy one,
Than that the unworthy one, by God’s award,
Tasted joy twelve years long? Or buy a slice,
Or go to school!”

To school Ferishtah went;
And, schooling ended, passed from Ispahan
To Nishapur, that Elburz looks above
— Where they dig turquoise: there kept school himself,
The melon-seller’s speech, his stock in trade.
Some say a certain Jew adduced the word
Out of their book, it sounds so much the same.
אח־הטוב נקבל מאח האלהים
ואח־הדע לא נקבל ׃ In Persian phrase,
“Shall we receive good at the hand of God
And evil not receive?” But great wits jump.

Wish no word unspoken, want no look away!
What if words were but mistake, and looks — too sudden, say!
Be unjust for once, Love! Bear it — well I may!

Do me justice always? Bid my heart — their shrine —
Render back its store of gifts, old looks and words of thine
— Oh, so all unjust — the less deserved, the more divine?

III. Shah Abbas

Anyhow, once full Dervish, youngsters came
To gather up his own-words, ‘neath a rock
Or else a palm, by pleasant Nishapur.

Said some one, as Ferishtah paused abrupt,
Reading a certain passage from the roll
Wherein is treated of Lord Ali’s life:
“Master, explain this incongruity!
When I dared question ‘It is beautiful,
But is it true?’ — thy answer was ‘In truth
Lives beauty.’ I persisting — ‘Beauty — yes,
In thy mind and in my mind, every mind
That apprehends: but outside — so to speak —
Did beauty live in deed as well as word,
Was this life lived, was this death died — not dreamed?’
‘Many attested it for fact,’ saidst thou.
‘Many!’ but mark, Sir! Half as long ago
As such things were, — supposing that they were, —
Reigned great Shah Abbas: he too lived and died
— How say they? Why, so strong of arm, of foot
So swift, he stayed a lion in his leap
On a stag’s haunch, — with one hand grasped the stag,
With one struck down the lion: yet, no less,
Himself, that same day, feasting after sport.
Perceived a spider drop into his wine,
Let fall the flagon, died of simple fear.
So all say, — so dost thou say?”

“Wherefore not?”
Ferishtah smiled: “though strange, the story stands
Clear-chronicled: none tells it otherwise:
The fact’s eye-witness bore the cup, beside.”

“And dost thou credit one cup-bearer’s tale,
False, very like, and futile certainly,
Yet hesitate to trust what many tongues
Combine to testify was beautiful
In deed as well as word? No fool’s report,
Of lion, stag and spider, but immense
With meaning for mankind, thy race, thyself?”

Whereto the Dervish: “First amend, my son,
Thy faulty nomenclature, call belief
Belief indeed, nor grace with such a name
The easy acquiescence of mankind
In matters nowise worth dispute, since life
Lasts merely the allotted moment. Lo —
That lion-stag-and-spider tale leaves fixed
The fact for us that somewhen Abbas reigned,
Died, somehow slain, — a useful registry, —
Which therefore we — ‘believe’? Stand forward, thou,
My Yakub, son of Yusuf, son of Zal!
I advertise thee that our liege, the Shah
Happily regnant, hath become assured,
By opportune discovery, that thy sires,
Son by the father upwards, track their line
To — whom but that same bearer of the cup
Whose inadvertency was chargeable
With what therefrom ensued, disgust and death
To Abbas Shah, the over-nice of soul?
Whence he appoints thee, — such his clemency, —
Not death, thy due, but just a double tax
To pay, on thy particular bed of reeds
Which flower into the brush that makes a broom
Fit to sweep ceilings clear of vermin. Sure,
Thou dost believe the story nor dispute
That punishment should signalize its truth?
Down therefore with some twelve dinars! Why start,
— The stag’s way with the lion hard on haunch?
‘Believe the story?’ — how thy words throng fast! —
‘Who saw this, heard this, said this, wrote down this,
That and the other circumstance to prove
So great a prodigy surprised the world?
Needs must thou prove me fable can be fact
Or ere thou coax one piece from out my pouch!’”

“There we agree, Sir: neither of us knows,
Neither accepts that tale on evidence
Worthy to warrant the large word — belief.
Now I get near thee! Why didst pause abrupt,
Disabled by emotion at a tale
Might match — be frank! — for credibility
The figment of the spider and the cup?
— To wit, thy roll’s concerning Ali’s life,
Unevidenced — thine own word! Little boots
Our sympathy with fiction! When I read
The annals and consider of Tahmasp
And that sweet sun-surpassing star his love,
I weep like a cut vine-twig, though aware
Zurah’s sad fate is fiction, since the snake
He saw devour her, — how could such exist,
Having nine heads? No snake boasts more than three!
I weep, then laugh — both actions right alike.
But thou, Ferishtah, sapiency confessed,
When at the Day of Judgment God shall ask
‘Didst thou believe?’ — what wilt thou plead? Thy tears?
(Nay, they fell fast and stain the parchment still.)
What if thy tears meant love? Love lacking ground
— Belief, — avails thee as it would avail
My own pretence to favor since, forsooth,
I loved the lady — I who needs must laugh
To hear a snake boasts nine heads: they have three!”

“Thanks for the well-timed help that’s born, behold,
Out of thy words, my son, — belief and love!
Hast heard of Ishak son of Absal? Ay,
The very same we heard of, ten years since,
Slain in the wars: he comes back safe and sound, —
Though twenty soldiers saw him die at Yezdt, —
Just as a single mule-and-baggage boy
Declared ‘t was like he some day would, — for why?
The twenty soldiers lied, he saw him stout,
Cured of all wounds at once by smear of salve,
A Mubid’s manufacture: such the tale.
Now, when his pair of sons were thus apprised
Effect was twofold on them. ‘Hail!’ crowed This:
‘Dearer the news than dayspring after night!
The cure-reporting youngster warrants me
Our father shall make glad our eyes once more,
For whom, had outpoured life of mine sufficed
To bring him back, free broached were every vein!’
‘Avaunt, delusive tale-concocter, news
Cruel as meteor simulating dawn!’
Whimpered the other: ‘Who believes this boy,
Must disbelieve his twenty seniors: no,
Return our father shall not! Might my death
Purchase his life, how promptly would the dole
Be paid as due!’ Well, ten years pass, — aha,
Ishak is marching homeward, — doubts, not he,
Are dead and done with! So, our townsfolk straight
Must take on them to counsel. ‘Go thou gay,
Welcome thy father, thou of ready faith!
Hide thee, contrariwise, thou faithless one,
Expect paternal frowning, blame and blows!’
So do our townsfolk counsel: dost demur?”

“Ferishtah like those simpletons — at loss
In what is plain as pikestaff? Pish! Suppose
The trustful son had sighed ‘So much the worse!
Returning means — retaking heritage
Enjoyed these ten years, who should say me nay?’
How would such trust reward him? Trustlessness
— O’ the other hand — were what procured most praise
To him who judged return impossible,
Yet hated heritage procured thereby.
A fool were Ishak if he failed to prize
Mere head’s work less than heart’s work: no fool he!”

“Is God less wise? Resume the roll!” They did.

You groped your way across my room i’ the drear dark dead of night;
At each fresh step a stumble was: but, once your lamp alight,
Easy and plain you walked again: so soon all wrong grew right!

What lay on floor to trip your foot? Each object, late awry,
Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to footing free — for why?
The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry.

Be love your light and trust your guide, with these explore my heart!
No obstacle to trip you then, strike hands and souls apart!
Since rooms and hearts are furnished so, — light shows you, — needs love start?

IV. The Family

A certain neighbor lying sick to death,
Ferishtah grieved beneath a palm-tree, whence
He rose at peace: whereat objected one
“Gudarz our friend gasps in extremity.
Sure, thou art ignorant how close at hand
Death presses, or the cloud, which fouled so late
Thy face, had deepened down not lightened off.”

“I judge there will be respite, for I prayed.”

“Sir, let me understand, of charity!
Yestereve, what was thine admonishment?
‘All-wise, all-good, all-mighty — God is such!’
How then should man, the all-unworthy, dare
Propose to set aside a thing ordained?
To pray means — substitute man’s will for God’s:
Two best wills cannot be: by consequence,
What is man bound to but — assent, say I?
Rather to rapture of thanksgiving; since
That which seems worst to man to God is best,
So, because God ordains it, best to man.
Yet man — the foolish, weak, and wicked — prays!
Urges ‘My best were better, didst Thou know’!”

“List to a tale, A worthy householder
Of Shiraz had three sons, beside a spouse
Whom, cutting gourds, a serpent bit, whereon
The offended limb swelled black from foot to fork.
The husband called in aid a leech renowned
World-wide, confessed the lord of surgery,
And bade him dictate — who forthwith declared
‘Sole remedy is amputation.’ Straight
The husband sighed ‘Thou knowest: be it so!’
His three sons heard their mother sentenced: ‘Pause!’
Outbroke the elder: ‘Be precipitate
Nowise, I pray thee! Take some gentler way,
Thou sage of much resource! I will not doubt
But science still may save foot, leg, and thigh!’
The next in age snapped petulant: ‘Too rash!
No reason for this maiming! What, Sir Leech,
Our parent limps henceforward while we leap?
Shame on thee! Save the limb thou must and shalt!’
‘Shame on yourselves, ye bold ones!’ followed up
The brisk third brother, youngest, pertest too:
‘The leech knows all things, we are ignorant;
What he proposes, gratefully accept!
For me, had I some unguent bound to heal
Hurts in a twinkling, hardly would I dare
Essay its virtue and so cross the sage
By cure his skill pronounces folly. Quick!
No waiting longer! There the patient lies:
Out then with implements and operate!’”

“Ah, the young devil!”

“Why, his reason chimed
Right with the Hakim’s.”

“Hakim’s, ay — but chit’s?
How? what the skilled eye saw and judged of weight
To overbear a heavy consequence,
That — shall a sciolist affect to see?
All he saw — that is, all such oaf should see,
Was just the mother’s suffering.”

“In my tale,
Be God the Hakim: in the husband’s case,
Call ready acquiescence — aptitude
Angelic, understanding swift and sure:
Call the first son — a wise humanity,
Slow to conceive but duteous to adopt:
See in the second son — humanity,
Wrong-headed yet right-hearted, rash but kind.
Last comes the cackler of the brood, our chit
Who, aping wisdom all beyond his years,
Thinks to discard humanity itself:
Fares like the beast which should affect to fly
Because a bird with wings may spurn the ground,
So, missing heaven and losing; earth — drops how
But hell-ward? No, be man and nothing more —
Man who, as man conceiving, hopes and fears,
And craves and deprecates, and loves, and loathes,
And bids God help him, till death touch his eyes
And show God granted most, denying all.”

Man I am and man would be, Love — merest man and nothing more.
Bid me seem no other! Eagles boast of pinions — let them soar!
I may put forth angel’s plumage, once unmanned, but not before.

Now on earth, to stand suffices, — nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel:
Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel:
Sense looks straight, — not over, under, — perfect sees beyond appeal.

Good you are and wise, full circle: what to me were more outside?
Wiser wisdom, better goodness? Ah, such want the angel’s wide
Sense to take and hold and keep them! Mine at least has never tried.

V. The Sun

“And what might that bold man’s announcement be” —
Ferishtah questioned — “which so moved thine ire
That thou didst curse, nay, cuff and kick — in short,
Confute the announcer? Wipe those drops away
Which start afresh upon thy face at mere
Mention of such enormity: now, speak!”

“He scrupled not to say — (thou warrantest,
O patient Sir, that I unblamed repeat
Abominable words which blister tongue?)
God once assumed on earth a human shape:
(Lo, I have spitten!) Dared I ask the grace,
Fain would I hear, of thy subtility,
From out what hole in man’s corrupted heart
Creeps such a maggot: fancies verminous
Breed in the clots there, but a monster born
Of pride and folly like this pest — thyself
Only canst trace to egg-shell it hath chipped.”

The sun rode high. “During our ignorance” —
Began Ferishtah — “folk esteemed as God
Yon orb: for argument, suppose him so, —
Be it the symbol, not the symbolized,
I and thou safelier take upon our lips.
Accordingly, yon orb that we adore
— What is he? Author of all light and life:
Such one must needs be somewhere: this is he.
Like what? If I may trust my human eyes,
A ball composed of spirit-fire, whence springs
— What, from this ball, my arms could circle round?
All I enjoy on earth. By consequence,
Inspiring me with — what? Why, love and praise.
I eat a palatable fig — there’s love
In little: who first planted what I pluck,
Obtains my little praise, too: more of both
Keeps due proportion with more cause for each:
So, more and ever more, till most of all
Completes experience, and the orb, descried
Ultimate giver of all good, perforce
Gathers unto himself all love, all praise,
Is worshipped — which means loved and praised at height.
Back to the first good: ‘twas the gardener gave
Occasion to my palate’s pleasure: grace,
Plain on his part, demanded thanks on mine.
Go up above this giver, — step by step,
Gain a conception of what — (how and why,
Matters not now) — occasioned him to give,
Appointed him the gardener of the ground, —
I mount by just progression slow and sure
To some prime giver — here assumed yon orb —
Who takes my worship. Whom have I in mind,
Thus worshipping, unless a man, my like
Howe’er above me? Man, I say — how else,
I being man who worship? Here’s my hand
Lifts first a mustard-seed, then weight on weight
Greater and ever greater, till at last
It lifts a melon, I suppose, then stops —
Hand-strength expended wholly: so, my love
First lauds the gardener for the fig his gift,
Then, looking higher, loves and lauds still more,
Who hires the ground, who owns the ground, Sheikh, Shah,
On and away, away and ever on,
Till, at the last, it loves and lauds the orb
Ultimate cause of all to laud and love.
Where is the break, the change of quality
In hand’s power, soul’s impulsion? Gift was grace,
The greatest as the smallest. Had I stopped
Anywhere in the scale, stayed love and praise
As so far only fit to follow gift,
Saying, ‘I thanked the gardener for his fig,
But now that, lo, the Shah has filled my purse
With tomans which avail to purchase me
A fig-tree forest, shall I pay the same
With love and praise, the gardener’s proper fee?’
Justly would whoso bears a brain object,
‘Giving is giving, gift claims gift’s return,
Do thou thine own part, therefore: let the Shah
Ask more from one has more to pay.’ Perchance
He gave me from his treasure less by much
Than the soil’s servant: let that be! My part
Is plain — to meet and match the gift and gift
With love and love, with praise and praise, till both
Cry ‘All of us is thine, we can no more!’
So shall I do man’s utmost — man to man:
For as our liege the Shah’s sublime estate
Merely enhaloes, leaves him man the same,
So must I count that orb I call a fire
(Keep to the language of our ignorance)
Something that’s fire and more beside: mere fire
— Is it a force which, giving, knows it gives,
And wherefore, so may look for love and praise
From me, fire’s like so far, however less
In all beside? Prime cause this fire shall be,
Uncaused, all-causing: hence begin the gifts,
Thither must go my love and praise — to what?
Fire? Symbol fitly serves the symbolized
Herein, — that this same object of my thanks,
While to my mind nowise conceivable
Except as mind no less than fire, refutes
Next moment mind’s conception: fire is fire —
While what I needs must thank, must needs include
Purpose with power, — humanity like mine,
Imagined, for the dear necessity,
One moment in an object which the next
Confesses unimaginable. Power!
— What need of will, then? Naught opposes power:
Why, purpose? any change must be for worse:
And what occasion for beneficence
When all that is, so is and so must be?
Best being best now, change were for the worse.
Accordingly discard these qualities
Proper to imperfection, take for type
Mere fire, eject the man, retain the orb, —
The perfect and, so, inconceivable, —
And what remains to love and praise? A stone
Fair-colored proves a solace to my eye,
Rolled by my tongue brings moisture curing drouth,
And struck by steel emits a useful spark:
Shall I return it thanks, the insentient thing?
No, — man once, man forever — man in soul
As man in body: just as this can use
Its proper senses only, see and hear,
Taste, like or loathe according to its law
And not another creature’s, — even so
Man’s soul is moved by what, if it in turn
Must move, is kindred soul: receiving good
— Man’s way — must make man’s due acknowledgment,
No other, even while he reasons out
Plainly enough that, were the man unmanned,
Made angel of, angelic every way,
The love and praise that rightly seek and find
Their man-like object now, — instructed more,
Would go forth idly, air to emptiness.
Our human flower, sun-ripened, proffers scent
Though reason prove the sun lacks nose to feed
On what himself made grateful: flower and man,
Let each assume that scent and love alike
Being once born, must needs have use! Man’s part
Is plain — to send love forth, — astray, perhaps:
No matter, he has done his part.”

“Wherefrom
What is to follow — if I take thy sense —
But that the sun — the inconceivable
Confessed by man — comprises, all the same,
Man’s every-day conception of himself —
No less remaining unconceived!”