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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
ASOLANDO: 'IMPERANTE AUGUSTO NATUS EST', by ROBERT BROWNING Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: What it was struck the terror into me? Last Line: Two strigils, two oil-drippers, each a sponge! Subject(s): Augustus. Roman Emperor; 63 B.c.-12 A.d. | |||
WHAT it was struck the terror into me? This, Publius: closer! while we wait our turn I'll tell you. Water's warm (they ring inside) At the eighth hour, till when no use to bathe. Here in the vestibule where now we sit, One scarce stood yesterday, the throng was such Of loyal gapers, folk all eye and ear While Lucius Varius Rufus in their midst Read out that long-planned late-completed piece, His Panegyric on the Emperor. "Nobody like him," little Flaccus laughed, "At leading forth an Epos with due pomp! Only, when godlike Caesar swells the theme, How should mere mortals hope to praise aright? Tell me, thou offshoot of Etruscan kings!" Whereat Maecenas smiling sighed assent. I paid my quadrans, left the Thermae's roar Of rapture as the poet asked, "What place Among the godships Jove, for Caesar's sake, Would bid its actual occupant vacate In favor of the new divinity?" And got the expected answer, "Yield thine own!" -- Jove thus dethroned, I somehow wanted air, And found myself a-pacing street and street, Letting the sunset, rosy over Rome, Clear my head dizzy with the hubbub -- say, As if thought's dance therein had kicked up dust By trampling on all else: the world lay prone, As -- poet-propped, in brave hexameters -- Their subject triumphed up from man to God. Caius Octavius Caesar the August -- Where was escape from his prepotency? I judge I may have passed -- how many piles Of structure dropt like doles from his free hand To Rome on every side? Why, right and left, For temples you've the Thundering Jupiter, Avenging Mars, Apollo Palatine: How count Piazza, Forum -- there's a third All but completed. You've the Theatre Named of Marcellus -- all his work, such work! -- One thought still ending, dominating all -- With warrant Varius sang, "Be Caesar God!" By what a hold arrests he Fortune's wheel, Obtaining and retaining heaven and earth Through Fortune, if you like, but favor -- no! For the great deeds flashed by me, fast and thick As stars which storm the sky on autumn nights -- Those conquests! but peace crowned them, -- so, of peace Count up his titles only -- these, in few -- Ten years Triumvir, Consul thirteen times, Emperor, nay -- the glory topping all -- Hailed Father of his Country, last and best Of titles, by himself accepted so: And why not? See but feats achieved in Rome -- Not to say, Italy -- he planted there Some thirty colonies -- but Rome itself All new-built, "marble now, brick once," he boasts: This Portico, that Circus. Would you sail? He has drained Tiber for you: would you walk? He straightened out the long Flaminian Way. Poor? Profit by his score of donatives! Rich -- that is, mirthful? Half-a-hundred games Challenge your choice! There's Rome -- for you and me Only? The centre of the world besides! For, look the wide world over, where ends Rome? To sunrise? There's Euphrates -- all between! To sunset? Ocean and immensity: North, stare till Danube stops you: South, see Nile, The Desert and the earth-upholding Mount. Well may the poet-people each with each Vie in his praise, our company of swans, Virgil and Horace, singers -- in their way -- Nearly as good as Varius, though less famed: Well may they cry, "No mortal, plainly God!" Thus to myself myself said, while I walked: Or would have said, could thought attain to speech, Clean baffled by enormity of bliss The while I strove to scale its heights and sound Its depths -- this masterdom o'er all the world Of one who was but born -- like you, like me, Like all the world he owns -- of flesh and blood. But he -- how grasp, how gauge his own conceit Of bliss to me near inconceivable? Or, since such flight too much makes reel the brain, Let's sink -- and so take refuge, as it were, From life's excessive altitude -- to life's Breathable wayside shelter at its base! If looms thus large this Caesar to myself -- Of senatorial rank and somebody -- How must he strike the vulgar nameless crowd, Innumerous swarm that's nobody at all? Why, -- for an instance, -- much as you gold shape Crowned, sceptred, on the temple opposite -- Fulgurant Jupiter -- must daze the sense Of -- say, yon outcast begging from its step! "What, Anti-Caesar, monarch in the mud, As he is pinnacled above thy pate? Ay, beg away! thy lot contrasts full well With his whose bounty yields thee this support -- Our Holy and Inviolable One, Caesar, whose bounty built the fane above! Dost read my thought? Thy garb, alack, displays Sore usage truly in each rent and stain -- Faugh! Wash though in Suburra! 'Ware the dogs Who may not so disdain a meal on thee! What, stretchest forth a palm to catch my alms? Aha, why yes: I must appear -- who knows? -- I, in my toga, to thy rags and thee -- Quaestor -- nay, AEdile, Censor -- Pol! perhaps The very City-Praetor's noble self! As to me Caesar, so to thee am I? Good: nor in vain shall prove thy quest, poor rogue! Hither -- hold palm out -- take this quarter-as!" And who did take it? As he raised his head, (My gesture was a trifle -- well -- abrupt,) Back fell the broad flap of the peasant's-hat, The homespun cloak that muffled half his cheek Dropped somewhat, and I had a glimpse -- just one! One was enough. Whose -- whose might be the face? That unkempt careless hair -- brown, yellowish -- Those sparkling eyes beneath their eyebrows' ridge (Each meets each, and the hawk-nose rules between) -- That was enough, no glimpse was needed more! And terrifyingly into my mind Came that quick-hushed report was whispered us, "They do say, once a year in sordid garb He plays the mendicant, sits all day long, Asking and taking alms of who may pass, And so averting, if submission help, Fate's envy, the dread chance and change of things When Fortune -- for a word, a look, a naught -- Turns spiteful and -- the petted lioness -- Strikes with her sudden paw, and prone falls each Who patted late her neck superiorly, Or trifled with those claw-tips velvet sheathed." "He's God!" shouts Lucius Varius Rufus: "Man And worms'-meat any moment!" mutters low Some Power, admonishing the mortal-born. Ay, do you mind? There's meaning in the fact That whoso conquers, triumphs, enters Rome, Climbing the Capitolian, soaring thus To glory's summit, -- Publius, do you mark -- Ever the same attendant who, behind, Above the Conqueror's head supports the crown All-too-demonstrative for human wear, -- One hand's employment -- all the while reserves Its fellow, backward flung, to point how, close Appended from the car, beneath the foot Of the up-borne exulting Conqueror, Frown -- half-descried -- the instruments of shame, The malefactor's due. Crown, now -- Cross, when? Who stands secure? Are even Gods so safe? Jupiter that just now is dominant -- Are not there ancient dismal tales how once A predecessor reigned ere Saturn came, And who can say if Jupiter be last? Was it for nothing the gray Sibyl wrote "Caesar Augustus regnant, shall be born In blind Judaea" -- one to master him, Him and the universe? An old-wife's tale? Bath-drudge! Here, slave! No cheating! Our turn next. No loitering, or be sure you taste the lash! Two strigils, two oil-drippers, each a sponge! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...IMPERATOR AUGUSTUS by JAMES RENNELL RODD CHILDE ROLAND TO THE DARK TOWER CAME' by ROBERT BROWNING DE GUSTIBUS' by ROBERT BROWNING A DEATH IN THE DESERT by ROBERT BROWNING A GRAMMARIAN'S FUNERAL by ROBERT BROWNING A LOVER'S QUARREL by ROBERT BROWNING A TOCCATA OF GALUPPI'S by ROBERT BROWNING A WOMAN'S LAST WORD by ROBERT BROWNING ANDREA DEL SARTO (CALLED THE FAULTLESS PAINTER) by ROBERT BROWNING |
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