Dramatic Romances | Page 9

original story
as
told by Poullain de St. Croix in his Essais Historiques sur Paris ran
thus: "One day whilst Francis I amused himself
with looking at a
combat between his lions, a lady,
having let her glove drop, said to
De Lorges, 'If you
would have me believe that you love me as much
as you
swear you do, go and bring back my glove.' De Lorges
went
down, picked up the glove from amidst the ferocious
beasts, returned,
and threw it in the lady's face; and in
spite of all her advances and
cajoleries would never look

at her again.'' Schiller running across this

anecdote of
St. Croix, in 1797, as he writes Goethe, wrote a poem

on it which adds nothing to the story. Leigh Hunt's
'The Glove and
the Lions' adds some traits. It characterizes the lady as shallow and vain,
with smiles and
eyes which always seem'd the same.'' She calculates

since "king, ladies, lovers, all look on," that "the occasion is divine"
to drop her glove and "prove his love,
then look at him and smile";
and after De Lorges has
returned and thrown the glove, "but not with
love, right
in the lady's face,'' Hunt makes the king rise and swear

"rightly done! No love, quoth he, but vanity, sets love
a task like
that!'' This is the material Browning worked
on; he makes use of this
speech of the king's, but remodels the lady's character wholly, and
gives her an appreciative
lover, and also a keen-eyed young poet to
tell her
story afresh and to reveal through his criticism the narrowness
of the Court and the Court poets.
12. Naso: Ovid. Love of the classics and curiosity as
to human nature
were both characteristic of Peter Ronsard
(1524-1585), at one time
page to Francis I, the
most erudite and original of French medieval
poets.
45. Clement Marot: (1496-1544), Court poet to Francis I.
His nature
and verse were simpler than Ronsard's,
and he belonged more
peculiarly to his own day.
48. Versifies David: Marot was suspected of Protestant
leanings
which occasioned his imprisonment twice, and put
him in need of the
protection Francis and his sister gave
him. Among his works were
sixty-five epistles addressed
to grandees, attesting his courtiership,
and the paraphrase of forty-nine of the Psalms to which Ronsard
alludes.
50. Illum Juda, etc.: that lion of the tribe of Judah.
89. Venienti, etc.: Meet the coming disease; that is,
if evil be
anticipated, don't wait till it seizes you, but
dare to assure yourself

and then forestall it as the lady did.
190. Theorbo: an old Italian stringed instrument such as
pages used.
TIME'S REVENGES
I've a Friend, over the sea;
I like him, but he loves me.
It all grew
out of the books I write;
They find such favour in his sight
That he
slaughters you with savage looks
Because you don't admire my books.

He does himself though,--and if some vein
Were to snap tonight in
this heavy brain,
To-morrow month, if I lived to try,
Round should
I just turn quietly, 10 Or out of the bedclothes stretch my hand
Till I
found him, come from his foreign land
To be my nurse in this poor
place,
And make my broth and wash my face
And light my fire and,
all the while,
Bear with his old good-humoured smile
That I told
him "Better have kept away
Than come and kill me, night and day,

With, worse than fever throbs and shoots,
The creaking of his clumsy
boots." 20 I am as sure that this he would do,
As that Saint Paul's is
striking two.
And I think I rather . . . woe is me!
--Yes, rather would
see him than not see,
If lifting a hand could seat him there
Before
me in the empty chair
To-night, when my head aches indeed,
And I
can neither think nor read
Nor make these purple fingers hold
The
pen; this garret's freezing cold! 30
And I've a Lady--there he wakes,
The laughing fiend and prince of
snakes
Within me, at her name, to pray
Fate send some creature in
the way
Of my love for her, to be down-torn,
Upthrust and
outward-borne,
So I might prove myself that sea
Of passion which I
needs must be!
Call my thoughts false and my fancies quaint
And
my style infirm and its figures faint, 40 All the critics say, and more
blame yet,

And not one angry word you get.
But, please you,
wonder I would put
My cheek beneath that lady's foot
Rather than
trample under mine
That laurels of the Florentine,
And you shall
see how the devil spends
A fire God gave for other ends!
I tell you,

I stride up and down
This garret, crowned with love's best crown, 50
And feasted with love's perfect feast,
To think I kill for her, at least,

Body and soul and peace and fame,
Alike youth's end and
manhood's aim,
--So is my spirit, as flesh with sin,
Filled full, eaten
out and in
With the face of her, the eyes of her,
The lips, the little
chin, the stir
Of shadow round her mouth; and she
--I'll tell
you,--calmly would decree 60 That I should roast at a slow fire,
If that would compass her desire
And