^ PR ^ 55?1 .^lM THE PRINCESS Tennyson ,- ■ . Class ^11 Six. 1^^ Book .AiJll Copyright N'i' COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. jobnson Series of engllsb Classics. GOLDSMITH'S VICAR OF WAKEFIELD. Edited by Prof. G. C. Edwards. BURKE'S SPEECH OIN COINCILIATIOiN. Edited by Dr. James M. Garnett. TEININYSON'S PRINCESS. Edited by Dr. C. W. Kent. (MACAULAY'S ESSAYS ON IV1ILTON AND ADDISON. Edited by Dr. C. Alphonso Smith. POPE'S HOMER'S ILIAD. Edited by Professors F. E. Shoup and Isaac Ball. SHAKESPEARE'S MACBETH. Edited by Dr. J. B. Henneman. MILTON'S L'ALLEGRO, IL PENSEROSO, COMUS, and LYCIDAS. Edited by Prof. Benjamin Sledd. ADDISON'S SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY PAPERS. Edited by Prof. Lancelot M. Harris. SHAKESPEARE'S MERCHANT OF VENICE. Edited by Dr. Robert Sharp. COOPER'S LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Edited by Prof. Edwin Mims. GEORGE ELIOT'S SILAS MARNER. Edited by Prof. W. L. Weber. Others to be Announced. ALFRKI) TLNNYSON. [After a painting by G. F. Watts, R. A,] jon EDITED With Introduction, Analysis and Notes BV CHARLES W. KENT, M. A,, Ph. D. Linden Kent Meviorial School of Engliah Literature University of Virginia ^ t^iichmona, J^^a %_A}. kj/^. Johnson i..'^uolishinn (^o. ^90/ TH€ L»BRA«V OF CONGRESS, Two Cof^ita Received AUG. 20 1901 COPVflieMT CNTHy CLASS <3^XXc N=». COPY B. Copyright, iqoi, BY CHARLES W. KENT. All Rights Reserved. To THE LITTLE AGLaYa OF OUR HOME, ELEANOR DOUGLAS KENT. A FOREWORD. It is not to the disadvantage of a text-book that it is the product of the class room, and, therefore, no excuse is needed for associating this book as closely as possible with the Spring Term of 1899-1900. Around the long table in my office a harmless warfare of spirited conversation was waged about every mooted point or doubtful interpretation in The Princess, while unsupported opinions were promptly challenged. It was no dissatisfaction with Cook's edition of The Princess that led to this book, but in this will be found incorporated much suggested by that, or rather by the discussion to which that gave rise. Other editions, notably Sherman's and Rolfe's, were not neglected, and many books of many kinds were con- sulted. Acknowledgment to these appears on almost every page. But if this edition has merits of analysis, argument, interpretation, and particularly of vitality and freshness, these are in large measure due to the intelligent, quick-witted, and unfettered young men whose interest and industry gave me constant pleasure and kept me constantly alert. I trust the book will [ 7 ] 8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. recall to tliem, as to me, many invigorating and de- lightful hours. I am sure they will not begrudge the credit I give to one of their number, my assistant of this session, Mr. Carol M. Newman, who has followed this book from first inception to final proof. His tareful and scholarly scrutiny has missed no page Except this on which I publicly record my grateful indebtedness. Charles W. Kent. University of Virginia. CONTENTS. Page. Introduction 11-27 Biographical sketch n Chronology j^ Serviceable books 19 The Princess : A Medley 20 A Rosary of Tributes 24 Persons 25 Analysis of 'The Princess" 27 The Princess : A Medley 31-228 Prologue 3i_^5 Canto I 46_6o Intercalary Poem I— "As Thro' the Land" . . 61 Canto II 63^0 Intercalary Poem II— "Sweet and Low" ... 91 Canto III 92-113 Intercalary Poem III— "The Splendor Falls" . 114 Canto IV 11.S-146 Plot Song I— "Tears, Idle Tears" 117 Plot Song II— "O Swallow, Swallow" ... 120 Interlude 147-148 Intercalary Poem IV— "Thy Voice is Heard" . 147 Canto V 149-176 Intercalary Poem V— "Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead" 177 Canto VI 178-198 Plot Song IV— "Our Enemies Have Fallen" . 179 Intercalary Poem VI— "Ask Me No More" . , 199 Canto VII 200-220 Plot Song V— "Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal" 209 Plot Song VI— "Come Down, O Maid" ... 210 Conclusion 221-228 [ 9 ] INTRODUCTION. Biographical Sketch. AT Somersby Rectory, in Lincolnshire, on August 6, 1809, was born to Rev. Dr. George Clayton Tennyson and Emily Fytche, his wife, their fourth son, christened Alfred. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Poet Laureate of England and prince among men, died at Aldworth, in Surrey, on October 6, 1892, and was buried with unusual honors in the Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. Between these events, thus barely recorded, stretches the consistent life of the greatest English poet of the era closed yesterday (January 22, 1901) by the death of the illustrious Queen Victoria. Given in his early childhood the environment of a cultivated and refined home and excellent educational opportunities provided and supervised by an intelli- gent and ambitious father, Alfred Tennyson made rapid progress at Cadney's village school, at Louth, and under tutors selected for his further preparation for Cambridge. Llis mental development was accom- panied and fostered by his love of good reading, his desire to express himself in verse, and his distinct growth in the appreciation of natural scenery. [ II ] 12 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. His first poetic line, as Mrs. Ritchie claims, 'I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind,' suggests, perhaps by mere accident, his inclination to make use of na- ture's lights and sounds, and odors too, as the sugges- tive material of poetical illustration. But there was one serious external obstacle to poetic ambition. We can hardly appreciate at this day the spell cast upon younger aspirants for poetic honors by the dazzling and overwhelming success of Byron, who seemed the very incarnation of poetic genius. His splendid achievements marked the limit beyond which no contemporary poet aspired to pass, and the loud acclaim of his greatness made the plaudits reserved for lesser men but feeble echoes. ''Byron is dead," scratched on the soft sandstone of Holywell Glen, was not alone the mournful, but transient epitaph of one whose fame as a man and as a poet should both suffer partial eclipse, but it was also the emancipation of a repressed spirit from the thraldom of a great name and a greater influence. Tennyson's poetic production begins with the vol- ume published by his brother Charles and himself in 1827. They found in Louth a publisher to whom they willingly parted with their rights for £^ in money and £S in books. His next volume was published in 1830, while he was a Cambridge student. Lie had matricu- lated at Cambridge in 1828, entering Trinity College. If he complained somewhat of the uncongenial exac- tions of Cambridge he was but following his famous predecessors Milton and Gray, who, like himself, re- INTRODUCTION. 13 gretted their earlier views and acknowledged the sub- stantial benefits they had received. And surely the years were not lost that gave to the young poet the helpful friendship and intelligent ad- miration of such men as Lushington, Merivale, Al- ford, Spedding, Maurice, Milnes, Trench, and Arthur Henry Hallam. These were not all, for he was a member of the Apostles' Club, whose fame he in- creased and extended. This club, composed of young men of eminent talent, furnished delightful relief from the inflexible requirements of the curriculum, and afforded the inspiration and stimulus which Cam- bridge officially failed to supply. Winning the Chancellor's Prize in 1829, he devoted himself more and more to writing poetry, which he printed m the undergraduate volume of 1830. At the request of his father, who was ailing, Alfred withdrew from Cambridge, about a month before the death (on March 16, 1831) of this trusted counsellor, and did not, therefore, procure a degree. Of the Cambridge friendships none was so tenderly cherished or waxed so strong as that with Hallam. They had met in 1&28, probably when both were under the tutorship of William Whewell, and had been friendly rivals for the Chancellor's Prize in 1829. They travelled together in the sunmier of 1830, and, after Tennvson left Cambridge, Hallam was a frequent visitor at Somersby Rectory, where he had found another and a more potent attraction in Emily Tenny- son, the younger sister of his colleq-e friend. To her 14 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. he became engaged after procuring his degree in 1832. In this year Tennyson published Poems, a vokime of one hundred and sixty-three pages, retaining many of the poems of his University period witli about thirty written since his withdrawal. Offsetting his friends' triumphant welcome of this volume there was much adverse criticism of its contents. The poet was sensitive, but ready to learn. Ten years of silence was his answer to the critics' opinion of his poetry. During these years of waiting he was enriching his life with friendships and associations, storing his mind with the world's best, and walking closely with nature. Above all he was unconsciously and beyond estimate developed by the discipline of a great sorrow. His beloved friend, Hallam, died in Vienna, on September I5j ^^33' ^y degrees Tennyson's mind, sunk in abysmal grief, rose to the happy level of their old companionship, and thence followed him beyond the skies in its effort to solve man's deep and dominant problem of immortality. What of his friend's relation to the living, what of his present occupation, what of their reunion? These and a hundred other questions in their train crowded upon the poet's mind, and sought their answers in his growing elegy. The silence of these ten years of studious waiting and painstaking composition, years so full of dejec- tion, but so full also of that deeper training for his greater glory, was broken by the Poems of 1842. Of these two volumes the first contained mainly old poems altered or rewritten in the light of helpful criticism, INTRODUCTION. 15 but the second was made up of new poems. With these volumes Tennyson's fame was assured, and it was competent for the illuminated youth of Oxford to defend the proposition that 'Alfred Tennyson is the greatest English poet of the age.' New editions of his poems were now annually demanded, and finally in 1845 the 'Author of Ulysses' was recognized by the government in a pension of £200. In 1847 Tennyson published his' first long poem. The Princess, A Medley, which is in this volume pre- sented to the reader. To what is said elsewhere may be added here the thought that the true merit of this poem was obscured by theovershadowing excellence of his splendid elegy, In Memoriam, published in 1850^ Tennyson's Golden Year, in which he became famous^ was made Poet Laureate, and married Emily Sell wood. After this running account of Tennyson's life through 1850, hence beyond the significant third edi- tion of The Princess, a bare mention of some of the main events in his subsequent life must suffice. In 1855 appeared Maud, a Monody, always a favorite with its author, and in 1859 hegan a greater favorite with the inner circle of his admirers. The Idylls of the King. This epic, the realization of the un- fulfilled plans of both Milton and Dryden, was not completed until 1885, ten years after he had entered upon his Dramatic Period, which lasted until his death. In all these years, however, had appeared many sepa- rate volumes, each bearing the title of some im- portant poem. There came to him every honor that l6 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. individuals or organizations could confer. His gov- ernment which had once honored him with a pension, and then with a Laureateship, had several times pressed upon him a Baronetcy, but not until 1884 did he yield to the wishes of Gladstone, ably supplemented by the persuasive reasoning of many of his near friends, and accept the Peerage. Tennyson's time was divided between his homes at Aldworth and Farringford, and his life was lived amid all possible comforts, and, better still, in the affection of thousands near and far. Not until 1892 did his bodily failing give cause for anxiety, though he fre- quently longed for the 'quiet hereafter.' In the autumn of 1892 he was known to be declining, and towards the end of September his death seemed im- minent. The medical bulletin published on October 7th gives the story of the end. 'The tendency to fatal syncope may be said to have really commenced about 10 a. m. on Wednesday, and on Thursday, October 6th, at 1 135 a. m., the great poet breathed his last. Nothing could have been more striking than the scene during the last few hours. On the bed a figure of breathing marble, flooded and bathed in the light of the full moon streaming through the oriel window ; his hand clasping the Shakespeare •which he had asked for but recently, and which he had kept by him to the end; the moonlight, the majestic figure as he lay there, "drawing thicker breath," irresistibly brought to our minds his own Passing of Arthur/ Thus closed the life of Alfred Tennyson. This new century we call ours will reckon among its most pre- cious heritages the life and the work of this represen- tative poet of the nineteenth century. INTRODUCTION. IZ Brief Chronology of the Life and Poems of Tennyson. 1809, August 6th. Born at Somersby Rectory in Lincoln- shire. 1814. His first poetic hne: 'T hear a voice that's speaking in the wind." 1816. Sent to school in Louth. 1820. Removed from Louth. 1824. Carved on the soft sandstone "Byron is dead." 1825. In the previous year and this wrote much poetry. 1826. Poems by Two Brothers, by Charles and Alfred Tenny- son, sold to a publisher, Jackson, of Louth. 1827. Poems by Tivo Brothers published. 1828. February 20th. Matriculated at Cambridge : Fred- erick already there: Charles went with him. 1829. June 6th. Won the Chancellor's Prize for a poem on Timbuctoo. 1830. Poems Chiefly Lyrical appeared, published by Wilson: with Hallam in Spain. 1831. Tennyson's father died: Alfred left Cambridge: Hal- lam engaged to Emily. 1832. Poems by Alfred Tennyson, published by Moxon. 1833. Hallam died in Vienna on September 15th. 1834. Hallam buried at Clevedon : Tennyson in London writ- ing poetry. 1835. With Fitzgerald at the Speddings' : writing poetry. 1836-1841. Writing, travelling, in London, etc. 1841. Preparing volume of poems for publisher. 1842. Poems by Alfred Tennyson (2 vols.), published by Moxon. 1843-1846. Somewhat depressed physically, but interested in the editions of his poems. 1847. The Princess, A Medley, published by Moxon. 1848-1849. Busy with In Meinoriain. l8 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. 1850. In Memoriam: Married Emily Sellwood: Poet Laure- ate, November 19th. 1855. Maud and Other Poems appeared. 1859. Idylls of the King (not finished until 1885). 1864. Enoch Arden and Other Poems. 1872, Library edition of the Complete Works. 1875. The Dramas (not finished until 1892). 1880. Ballads and Other Poems. 1884. Gazetted Baron Tennyson of Aldworth and Farhng- ford. 1885. Tiresias and Other Poems. 1886. Locksley Hall Sixty Years After, etc. 1889. Demeter and Other Poems. 1892. October 6th. Died at Aldworth. October 12th. Buried in Westminster Abbey. The Death of Qinone, Akhar's Dream, and Other Poems, published October 28th. INTRODUCTION. 19 A List of Serviceable Books for the Study of Tennyson. 1. 'Alfred Lord Tennyson : A Memoir by his Son.' 2. 'Alfred Lord Tennyson.' Waugh. 3. 'Lord Tennyson.' Jennings. 4. 'Alfred Tennyson: His Life and Works.' Wace. 5. 'The Laureate's Country.' Church. 6. 'In Tennyson Land.' Walters. 7. 'Tennyson: His Art and Relation to Modern Life.' Brooke. 8. 'A Study of Tennyson's Works.' Tainsh. 9. 'The Poetry of Tennyson.' Van Dyke. 10. 'Lord Tennyson and the Bible.' Lester. 11. 'Tennyson, Ruskin, and Browning.' Mrs. Ritchie. 12. 'Tennyson and His Pre-Raphaelite Illustrators.' LayarJ. 13. 'Tennysoniana.' Second Edition. Pickering & Co. 14. 'Illustrations of Tennyson.' Churton Collins. 15. 'Victorian Poets.' Stedman. 16. 'English Literature of XlXth Century.' Saintsbury. 17. 'Study of The Princess.' Wallace. 18. 'Study of The Princess.' Dawson. 19. 'Tennyson's Poems.'. Macmillan & Co. 20. Editions of 'The Princess' by Rolfe, Woodberry, Cook, Sherman, ci al. 20 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. The Princess^ A Medley, This poem was published in 1847. The second edi- tion of 1848, which in other respects is the same as the first, has the addition of the following dedication: TO HENRY LUSHINGTON THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED BY HIS FRIEND, A. Tennyson. In 1850 the third edition appeared with many omis- sions, but with significant additions of six songs, and of certain lines rendered necessary by their insertion. The fourth edition of 1851 introduced the 'weird seiz- ures' of the Prince, and the fifth of 1853 fixed the text as we now have it. The poem was 'mostly written in Lincoln's Inn Fields' (Hallam Tennyson), and at a time when the poet was too young to have lost interest in the college reminiscences imbedded in this romantic story, and too old to count as trivial the serious problem he was studying, or its right or wrong solution, as of little consequence. The subject-matter of the poem he had discussed with Emily Sellwood as early as 1839, and his interest in the underlying problem dated perhaps from his reading of Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindica- tion of the Rights of Woman. The poem was planned when a 'Woman's College' was in the air, and when INTRODUCTION. 21 Tennyson is reported as saying that the two great social questions of England were 'the housing and education of the poor man before making him our master, and the higher education of woman.' The analysis of the poem (p. 27) shows clearly the progress of the captivating story, and at the same time suggests the final triumph of the serious spirit over the prevailing humor of the early cantos. The poem is divided into Seven Parts, with a Prologue and Conclusion, and is broken by an Interlude that pre- serves the setting of the story, yet points the way to an earnest and satisfactory ending. The cantos themselves fall into paragraphs marked by distinct unity, and closing generally with most artistic effects. The tedium of sustained blank verse is relieved not only by these paragraph pauses, but by the insertion within the cantos of songs essential to the story, and, therefore, in this edition called Plot- Songs. These are in varied metre. Furthermore, the reader's mind is relieved and enchanted by the little interpretative poems intercalated between the cantos themselves. These songs, singly commented upon in the Notes, may be here passed over with the general statement that in beauty, variety, and finish of form, and in artistic contrast with the body of the poem, they are unexcelled within or without this volume. Tennyson's artistic use of rhyme, and his no less artistic skill in discarding it, are apparent in these lyrics, but attention is particularly directed here to his blank verse. To say that it is Miltonic may mean 22 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. to the reader nothing more than that, as Milton's, it is excellent. But it is Miltonic in its poetic vocabulary and its sonorous phrasal power. It is hardly too much to say that there is not a unique word or a peculiar use of a poetic word in The Princess that may not be found in Milton's poems. In freedom of metrical structure, it is no less Miltonic. Not only is there, as in all good blank verse, free use of elision, slurring, and contraction, but there is no hesitancy in employ- ing the extra-metrical syllable where necessary. The verse pause is, as in Milton, varied at will, and for direct and clearly recognized effects substituted feet are used with complete disregard of that regular re- currence of accents erroneously considered the very essential of English verse. The most attractive quality of Tennyson's blank verse is its tone-color. Nowhere is he happier in the use of vowel or conso- nant sequences for artistic effects. Examples of this may so easily be given that a few citations must here suffice : 1. For "hollow oes and aes," Prl. 20; Pn,. 24; I. 215; I. 39; 11. 450-454; H. 433; in. 74; IV. 453, etc. 2. For top vowels, particularly i., IV. 82-83; I. 204-206; Prl. 238; IH. 274, etc. 3. For abrupt effect of p, b, and d, Prl. 42; II. 232; V. 291 ; VII. 230; II. 159. 4. For union of sibilants and liquids, Prl. 86-8; VII. 48; I. 85-86. 5. For syzyg-y in m, VI. 174; IV. 416; VII. 205-7, etc. These examples, not in themselves of much impor- tance, are suggestive of further exercises. INTRODUCTION. 23 A cursory reading of this poem for the first time may impress the reader with the feminine dehcacy of the verse form, the incongruities of treatment, and particularly with tlic insignificance of subject-matter. A second careful reading will indicate that all incon- gruities and inconsistencies that may not be readily explained and resolved are themselves an integral part of the medley character of the poem. This second reading will establish the fact that the real subject- matter of the poem, the Woman Problem— not the Founding of the Academe — is not trivial, but essen- tially important, and that the solution of the vexed problem is in concurrence with the best thought of England and conservative America. Another reading, perhaps this time a thoughtful study, of the poem will convince the reader that in artistic plan and final finish it is no whit inferior to Tennyson's other long poems. The poem may lack high truth and high seriousness, but it does not lack truth of practice and of principle, and its element of seriousness is pervasive, though not overburdening. 24 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. A Rosary of Trirutes. 'It deeply presses on my reflection hew much wiser a book is Tennyson's Princess than my Qitatcniions.' — Sir William Rowan LIamilton. 'Not often has a lovelier story been recited; — Edmund Clarence Stedman. 'The poem cf The Princess, as a work of art, is the most complete and satisfying of all Tennyson's works.' _S. E. Dawson. 'How Mr. Tennyson can have attained the prodigal fullness of thought and imagery which distinguishes this poem, and especially the last canto, without his style ever becoming overloaded, seldom even confused, is perhaps one of the greatest marvels of the whole production.' —Charles Kingsley. The Princess is a masterpiece.' — George Saintsbury. 'For my own part I confess to finding it, if not one of the poetically greatest, yet the most humanly com- plete of all the poet's works.' — H. D. Traill. 'A dreamy story full of music and fuller still of rich and suggestive imagery.' —Arthur Waugh. 'The most delightful of the larger poems.' — Stopford Brooke. 'A work so exquisitely elaborated in point of style.' — Churton Collins. INTRODUCTION. 25 Persons. Of the Introduction, Interlude, and Conclusion : Sir Walter Vivian— a broad-shouldered, genial Eng- lishman, Patron of the Institute. Walter Vivian— Host of his college friends. Lilia Vivian— Walter's sister, 'half child, half woman.' Five Sons of Sir Walter— Head under head.' Aunt Elizabeth— Aunt of Walter and Lilia, 'crammed with theories out of books.' The Poet— I, Binder of the 'scattered scheme of seven.' Five College Friends of Walter and the Poet— One the son of a Tory member. Ladies visiting Vivian Place— From neighbor seats. Leaders of the Institute, men, women, and children. Reference is made to — Sir Ralph of Ascalon. Hugh of Agincourt. The 'Miracle of Women.' Of the Story : Ida— The Princess of the South. Psyche— The Princess' half-self, sister of Florian : 'a quick brunette of twenty summers.' Aglaia— Psyche's babe, 'a double April old.' Blanche— Author of the plan for the Academe. Melissa— Blanche's daughter; a rosy blonde. Violet— The only student mentioned by name. Gama— Father of the Princess; a little dry old man. Arac — Ida's brother; of giant mold. The Twins— Ida's brothers. The Prince— Of the North. Florian — The Prince's half-self. Cyril — "The incarnation of humorous common sense." The Prince's Father— Who 'thought a king a king.' 26 JOHNSON'S ENGLISH CLASSICS. Others playing parts are — Mine Host. Sentry. Herald. Knights. Squire. Ambassadors. Captain. Armies. Camp Followers. Barons. Lords. Stable Wench. Ostleress. Woman Poet. Daughters of the Plow. Portress. Hostess. Female Proctors. Female Students. Doctors. Professors. Reference is made to the ancestors and mother of the Princess; to the far-off grandsire and the mother of the Prince; to Florian's mother, and to the Court Doctor. INTRODUCTION. 27 Analysis of The Princess/ Subject: Woman's Higher Education. Theme: Tor woman is not undeveloped man, But diverse.' Classification: A Medley. Division : I. Prologue. II. Story. Canto I. — The Intrusion. Intercalary Poem I. — The Reconciliation. Canto II. — The Detection. Intercalary Poem II. — The Lullal)y. Canto III. — The Expedition. Intercalary Poem III.— The Echo Song. Canto IV. — The Expulsion. Plot Song I. — The Passion of Memory. Plot Song II. — The Lyric of Hope. Plot Song HI.— The Careless Tavern Catch (unre- corded). Interlude. ■ Intercalary Poem IV. — The Battle Call. Canto V. — The Combat. Intercalary Poem V. — The Consolation. Canto VI.— The Victory of Nature. Plot Song IV. — Exultation. Intercalary Poem VI. — Reluctant Surrender. Canto VII. — The Victory of Love. Plot Song V. — Heart Union. Plot Song VI. — The Lover's Appeal. III. Conclusion. THE PRINCESS A MEDLEY. [ 29 ] THE PRINCESS A MEDLEY. THE PROLOGUE. [Upon the broad lawns of Sir Walter Vivian are gath- ered a thousand or more of the people amusing and enter- taining themselves. As lookers-on are seven college friends, including Walter Vivian and 'I,' the author, with Aunt Eliza- beth, Lilia and her friends. The conversation turns on the •miracle of women' mentioned in the Chronicle, and leads to a challenge of to-day's womanhood. From this it drifts to college days and Christmas hohdays, when for amusement the collegians told a 'tale from mouth to mouth.' This sug- gests a summer's tale, in which Lilia should be a Princess and each collegian in his turn a Prince.— Ed.] Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's day Gave his broad lawns tintil the set of sun Up to the people : thither flock'd at noon His tenants, wife and child, and thither half 1. Sir Walter Vivian.— The prototype of Sir Walter Vivian was not Sir John Simpson, who is identified with the production of Maud, but Edmund Henry Lushington of Park House. Tennyson was intimate with the three sons, Edmund, Henry, and Franklin. The marriage of Edmund and Cecilia Tennyson is celebrated in the epithalamium, the fitting close to In Mcmoriam. The second edition of The Princess was dedicated to Henry, for whose critical powers Tennyson had profound respect. 2. Lawns. — The park around Park House [ 31 ] 32 THE PRINCESS: [prologue The neighboring borough with their Institute 5 Of which he was the patron. I was there From college, visiting the son — the son A Walter too — with others of our set, Five others : we were seven at Vivian-place. And me that morning Walter showed the house, 10 Greek, set with busts : from vases in the hall Flowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side ; and on the pavement lay Carved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park. Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time; 15 And on the tables every clime and age Jumbled together; celts and calumets, 5. Institute. — Maidstone Mechanics' Institute, of which Mr. Lushington was presumably a patron. 8. A Walter too. — See note on i. Edmund Lushington's son Edmund. 9. Seven. — This gives the cantos of the poem. I II. Set with busts. — The Greeks set their houses with busts both for adornment and adoration. 14. Abbey-ruins. — Such ruins in Great Britain are numerous. Recall Dryburgh Abbey where Scott is buried, or Melrose Abbey, made famous by his description, etc. 15. Ammonites. — Fossil cephalopod mollusks of curved or spiral shape, hence called cornu Ammonis, or the horn of the god Amnion (Libyan Zeus), worshipped under the form of a ram. First bones of Time. — Prehistoric bones. 17. Jumbled. — Note that place, time, customs, etc., are jumbled in this 'Medley.' Celts. — Used to represent weapons and implements employed by primitive and pre- historic peoples. Calumets. — Indian pipes. prologue] a medley. 23 Claymore and snowshoe, toys In lava, fans Of sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, 20 The cursed Malayan crease and battle-clubs From the isles of palm : and higher on the walls. Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. And 'This/ he said, 'was Hugh's at Agincourt ; 25 And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon: A good knight he ! We keep a chronicle With all about him' — which he brought, and I Dived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knights, Half-legend, half-historic, counts and kings 3o Who laid about them at their wills and died ; And mixed with these, a lady, one that armed Her own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls. 18. Claymore. — A Scotch Highland broadsword. 19. Sandal. — Sandalwood. Amber. — A light yellowish translucent lesin. Rosaries. — A string of beads by which prayers are counted. 20. Note diminution of sound from deep o to high e, representing diminishing size of included sphere. 21. Malayan crease (creese, Kris). — A dagger with a serpentine blade, making a jagged (or 'curved') wound. 22. Isles of palm. — South Sea Islands. 25. Agincourt. — Battle between English and French in 1415. See Shakespeare's Henry V , Act IV. 26. Ascalon. — Battle between Richard Coeur de Lion and Saladin in 1192. 32, The armed woman suggests in part the theme of the poem. 35 34 THE PRINCESS: [prologue 'O miracle of women,' said the book, 'O noble heart who, being strait-besieged By this wild king to force her to his wish, Nor bent, nor broke, nor shunned a soldier's death, But now when all was lost, or seemed as lost — Her stature more than mortal in the burst 40 Of sunrise, her arm lifted, eyes on fire — Brake with a blast of trumpets from the gate, And, falling on them like a thunderbolt. She trampled some beneath her horse's heels, And some were whelmed with missiles of the wall, 45 And some were pushed with lances from the rock, And part were drowned within the whirling brook: O miracle of noble womanhood !' So sang the gallant glorious chronicle ; And, I all rapt in this, 'Come out,' he said, 'To the Abbey ; there is Aunt Elizabeth, And sister Lilia with the rest.' We went (I kept the book and had my finger in it) Down thro' the park ; strange was the sight to rne ; 35-49. Not in first edition. Added to suggest the heroine and her heroic role. 36. Strait-besieged. — Narrowly or closely beset. 40. Mortal. — Human. Cf. Mortc d' Arthur: 'Larger than human on the frozen hills.' Cf. Princess, IV, 469; V, 336, 499, etc. 47. Cf. IV, 161 fif. 50. Rapt.— Note Tennyson's fondness for this word. 51-52. See list of personages. Note also argument of pro- losTie. 50 prologue] a medley. 35 For all the sloping pasture murmured, sown 55 With happy faces and with holiday. There moved the multitude, a thousand heads : The patient leaders of their Institute Taught them with facts. One reared a font of stone And drew, from butts of water on the slope, 60 The fountain of the moment, playing, now A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls, Or steep-up spout whereon the gilded ball Danced like a wisp; and somewhat lower down A man with knobs and wires and vials fired 65 A cannon ; Echo answered in her sleep From hollow fields ; and here were telescopes For azure views ; and there a group of girls In circle waited, whom the electric shock Dislinked with shrieks and laughter; round the lake 70 A little clock-work steamer paddling plied, And shook the lilies : perched about the knolls A dozen angry models jetted steam; A petty railway ran ; a fire-balloon Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves 75 55. Sloping pastures. — Lawn ; cf. 2. 59. Taught them with facts. — Knowles reports Tenny- son as saying, 'Poetry is a great deal truer than fact.' 59-79. The 'facts' here set forth belong in the realm of Hydrodynamics, Electricity, Sound, Optics, Galvanism, Mo- tors, Steam, Aeronautics, and Telegraphy. 66. Echo. — Personified as usual in the Greek. She was a nymph residing near the Ceplnssus. She pined for the beau- tiful youth Narcissus, until nothing was left of her save her voice. 36 THE PRINCESS: [prologue And dropped a fairy parachute, and passed : And there thro' twenty posts of telegraph They flashed a saucy message to and fro Between the mimic stations ; so that sport Went hand in hand with science; otherwhere so Pure sport; a herd of boys with clamor bowled And stumped the wicket ; babies rolled about Like tumbled fruit in f>^rass ; and men and maids Arranged a country dance, and flew thro' light And shadow, while the twangling violin 85 Struck up with 'Soldier-laddie,' and overhead The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end. Strange was the sight, and smacking of the time ; And long we gazed, but satiated at length 90 Came to the ruins. High-arched and ivy-clasped, 81-85. The 'sports' include cricket, lolling, dancing, and music. 82. Stumped the wicket. — A cricket term. 86-87. Note the prevalence of the s sound ; the significance also of the br and m and / sounds, 86. 'Soldier laddie.'— A popular Scotch song beginning: ♦ My soger laddie is over the sea. And he will bring gold and siller to me.' 87. Ambrosial. — Heavenly. In Mcmortam, LXXXVT, i. Lime. — The lime tree. Cf. In Memoriam, LXXXVII, 4. Reference to Trinity College, Cambridge. 89. Smacking of the time. — This particular festival was probably in 1844. prologue] a medley. 37 Of finest Gothic lighter than a fire, Thro' one wide chasm of time and frost they gave The park, the crowd, the house; but all within The sward was trim as any garden lawn : 95 And here we lit on Aunt Elizabeth, And Lilia with the rest, and lady friends From neighbor seats ; and there was Ralph himself, A broken statue propped against the wall, As gay as any. Lilia, wild with sport, 100 Half child half woman as she was, had wound A scarf of orange around the stony helm, And robed the shoulders in a rosy silk, That made the old warrior from his ivied nook Glow like a sunbeam ; near his tomb a feast 105 Shone, silver-set ; about it lay the guests, And there we joined them : then the maiden Aunt Took this fair day for text, and from it preached An universal culture for the crowd, And all things great; but we, unworthier, told no Of college : he had climbed across the spikes. And he had squeezed himself betwixt the bars, 92. Gothic. — Contrast this with the Greek architecture of the mansion. See 11, 93. Chasm. — (Made by) time and frost. 98. See 26. 102. Note the orange and rose colors in contrast with the stony helm of the broken statue. 105. Note the medley involved in feasting near the tombs. 109-110. As opposed to the doctrine of 'universal culture for the crowd,' the college men talk of pranks, thereby hinting at the story to follow. 38 THE PRINCESS: [prologue And he had breathed the proctor's dogs ; and one Discussed his tutor, rough to common men, But honeying at the whisper of a lord; And one the Master, as a rogue in grain Veneered with sanctimonious theory. But while they talked, above their heads I saw The feudal warrior lady-clad ; which brought My book to mind ; and opening this I read Of old Sir Ralph a page or two that rang With tilt and tourney ; then the tale of her That drove her foes with slaughter from her walls, And nuich I praised her nobleness, and 'Where,' Asked Walter, patting Lilia's head (she lay Beside him), iives there such a woman now?' Quick answered Lilia 'There are thousands now Such women, but convention beats them down; It is but bringing up ; no more than that ; 113. Breathed ihe proctor's dogs. — By running, wearied out the pursuing animals of the proctor. 115. Honeying. — Becoming sweet or pleasant. Has this a personal reference? 116. In grain. — /. e., in fibre. See dictionary for in- grained. 117. Veneered. — Thinly covered over. 119. See Conclusion, 117. 120. See 53. 122. Refers to Twelfth Century. Cf. Prologue, 26. 126. Walter's challenge of womanhood. 126. Convention. — Conventional custom. Cf. II, 72. "5 125 prologue] a medley. 39 You men have done it ; how I hate you all ! 130 Ah, were I something great! I wish I were Some mighty poetess, I would shame you then, That love to keep us children ! O I wish That I were some great princess, I would build Far off from men a college like a man's, i35 And 1 would teach them all that men are taught ; We are twice as quick !' And here she shook aside The hand that played the patron with her curls. And one said smiling Tretty were the sight If our old halls could change their sex, and flaunt 140 With prudes for proctors, dowagers for deans, And sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair. I think they should not wear our rusty gowns, But move as rich as Emperor-moths, or Ralph Who shines so in the corner ; yet I fear, 145 If there were many Lilias in the brood. However deep you might embower the nest. Some boy would spy it.' y 130. Cf. VII, 241. Cf. Psyche's Indictment, II, loi ff. Cf. Ill, 260 ff. 133. Love to keep us children. — This suggests Ida's chief grievance. Cf. I, 136, 140, etc.; II, 44. 134-136. Plan of story suggested. Note Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost for the establishment of an 'Academe' for men only. 138. Played the patron. — Caressed patronizingly. 125. 140, Flaunt. — Be glaring or gaudy. 141. Cf. The Doctor's Daughter. Memoir, II, p. 248. 144. Emperor- MOTHS. — Noted for the brilliancy of their coloring. 40 THE PRINCESS: [prologue At this upon the sward She tapped her tiny silken-sandaled foot : 'That's your light way ; but I would make it death 150 For any male thing but to peep at us.' Petulant she spoke, and at herself she laughed ; A rosebud set with little wilful thorns, And sweet as English air could make her, she ; But Walter hailed a score of names upon her, 155 And 'petty Ogress,' and 'ungrateful Puss,' And swore he longed at college — only longed, All else was well — for she-society. They boated and they cricketed ; they talked At wine, in clubs, of art, of politics ; 160 They lost their weeks ; they vexed the souls of deans ; They rode ; they betted ; made a hundred friends, And caught the blossom of the flying terms : But missed the mignonette of Vivian-place, 150-151. The death penalty for intrusion was adopted in the Academy. See II, 178. 156. Ogress. — A female demon given to devouring hu- mans. This name is suggested by her breathing death against all intruding males. 158. She-society. Cf. 'she-world,' III, 147. 160. Cf. Apostles' Club of Cambridge. 161. Lost their weeks. — Could not count certain weeks towards their degrees. At an English university residence for so many terms is required for a degree, and absence for a certain proportion of time debars that term from 'counting.' 163. Blossom — not the fruit. — That is enough time to 'count,' but not enough to be profitable. 164. Mignonette. — The name of this flower is the diminu- tive of mignon, delicate, graceful, etc. prologue] a medley. 41 The little hearth-flower Lilia. Thus he spoke, 105 Part banter, part affection. 'True,' she said, 'We doubt not that. O yes, you missed us much. I'll stake my ruby ring upon it you did.' She held it out ; and as a parrot turns Up thro' gilt wires a crafty loving eye, 170 And takes a lady's finger with all care. And bites it for true heart and not for harm, So he with Lilia's. Daintily she shrieked And wrung it. 'Doubt my word again !' he said. 'Come, listen ! here is proof that you were missed : 175 We seven stayed at Christmas up to read ; And there we took one tutor as to read ; The hard-grained Muses of the cube and square Were out of season; never man, I think, So moldered in a sinecure as he ; 180 For while our cloisters echoed frosty feet, And our long walks were stripped as bare as brooms, We did but talk you over, pledge you all 165. Hearth flower.— C/. 'household flower/ V, 122. 170. Cf. The Day Dream, 36. 172. True heart.— Affection. 176. Stayed up ... to read.— Remained at the Univer- sity to study. 177. As. — As if. 178. Mathematics. Was the periphrasis needed here? 180. Sinecure.— An office with emolument and no duties, such as the tutor held. 182. Complete the construction of this line. 42 THE PRINCESS: [prologue In wassail ; often, like as many girls, Sick for the hollies and the yews of home — 185 As many little trifling Lilias — played Charades and riddles as at Christmas here, [Hozv? And IV hat's my thought f and IV hen and Where and And often told a tale from mouth to mouth. As here at Christmas.' She remembered that; 190 A pleasant game she thought ; she liked it more Than magic music, forfeits, all the rest. But these — what kind of tales did men tell men, She wondered, by themselves? A half-disdain Perched on the pouted blossom of her lips; 195 And Walter nodded at me: 'He began, The rest would follow, each in turn ; and so We forged a sevenfold story. Kind? what kind? Chimeras, crotchets, Christmas solecisms, 184. Wassail. — Wes Hal, be hale or well. In Mcmoriam, CV, 5. 185. Cf. In Mcmoriam, XXIX, 9; XXX. 2. 189. Note that this reveals the form of the present tale told by the seven. Cf. 9, 178, 198, 221, etc., and Conclusion, 8. 195. Probably suggestive of color. Cf. CEnone, 6. 196-198. Indicates the manner in which The Princess is to be related. Cf. Interlude, 16, and Conclusion, 8. 199. Chimeras. — The Great Chimera was a fire-breathing monster, part lion and goat in front, and dragon behind. Hence any incongruous and absurd creation. Solecism. — Something originating at Soli, not at Athens; hence an im- propriety, something ridiculous. prologue] a medley. 43 Seven-headed monsters only made to kill 200 Time by the fire in winter.' 'Kill him now, The tyrant ! kill him in the summer too,' Said Lilia; 'Why not now?' the maiden Aunt. 'Why not a summer's as a winter's tale? A talc for summer as befits the time, 205 And somethmg it should be to suit the place, Heroic — for a hero lies beneath — Grave, solemn !' Walter warped his mouth at this To something so mock-solemn, that I laughed. And Lilia woke with sudden-shrilling mirth 210 An echo like a ghostly woodpecker Hid in the ruins; till the maiden Aunt (A little sense of wrong had touched her face With color) turned to me with 'As you will; 200. The purpose of the Christmas Story (The Winter's Tale, cf. 231) was to kill time. This 'summer's tale' is to be a heroic medley. See 205 ff. 204 ff. Cf. with this, Concl., 10-20, for the conflict in opin- ion between the men and the women as to what nature the story should have. 210. Cf. V, 241 ; Vn, 31 ; Madeline, 35; Elaine, 327, etc. 211. This (cf. 231) figure in which the 'echo' of laughter is made to sound 'like a ghostly woodpecker' seems inexpli- cably incongruous. 214. Tennyson beyond doubt has in mind two of Shakes- peare's plays. Love's Labor's Lost, as suggesting the scheme of his poem, and The Winter's Tale, as suggesting its form, a medley not preserving unity of place, time, or action. He seems to play upon the titles of two others, As You Like It and Twelfth Night; or What You Will. 44 THE PRINCESS: ' [prologue Heroic if yOU will, or what you will, 215 Or be yourself your hero if you will/ 'Take Lilia, then, for heroine,' clamored he, 'And make her some great Princess, six feet high, Grand, epic, homicidal ; and be you The Prince to win her!' 'Then follow me, the Prince/ 220 I answered ; 'each be hero in his turn ! Seven and yet one, like shadows in a dream. Heroic seems our Princess as required ; But something made to suit with time and place, A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house, 225 A talk of college and of ladies' rights, A feudal knight in silken masquerade, And, yonder, shrieks and strange experiments For which the good Sir Ralph had burnt them all — These were a medley ! we should have him back 230 Who told the 'Winter's Tale' to do it for us. 218. Cf. V, 244 ff and 264; cf. 40. 222. Here, as in line 199 and elsewhere, the poet deprecates that kind of criticism that looks for incongruities, incon- sistencies, etc. After all, it is a 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' 225-228. Have all these details been mentioned in the Pro- logue? 229. Had. — Would have, because they were signs of the black art. 230. Were. — Would be, if so mixed. 230. This characterizes the poem. 231. Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale; cf. 204. prologue] a medley. 45 No matter ; we will say whatever comes. And let the ladies sing us, if they will, From time to time, some ballad or a song To give us breathing-space." So I began, And the rest followed ; and the women sang Between the rougher voices of the men, Like linnets in the pauses of the wind; And here I give the story and the songs. 232. The tale is to be an improvisation, but is afterwards dressed up poetically. See Concl., 5. 238. Cf. Shelley's Letter to Maria Gisborne: ' The murmur of the awakening sea doth fill The empty pauses ot the blast. ' Cf. The Miller's Daughter, i22''3. " And in the pauses of the wind Sometimes T heard you sing within." 233-238. This suggests only one part of the purpose in the intercalary and plot songs to be discussed below. 235 46 THE PRINCESS: [canto i I. [THE VENTURE ON THE LIBERTIES] [The Prince, upon reaching man's estate, demands his bride betrothed to him as a child, but she refuses to wed. He wishes to go for her, but his request is refused, so with Cyril and Florian he steals away. They learn from Gama, father of the Princess, that she has founded near the borders of the Prince's prospective kingdom a university for women only. With his friends he determines to find her, and, dis- guising themselves as women, they seek enrollment as Lady Psyche's pupils— Ed.] A PRINCE I was, blue-eyed, and fair in face, Of temper amorous, as the first of May, With lengths of yellow ringlet, like a girl, For on my cradle shone the Northern star. There lived an ancient legend in our house. Some sorcerer, whom a far-of¥ grandsire burnt Because he cast no shadow, had foretold, I. Waugh calls the prince Hilarion, but without good reason. 3. The prince was a blond ; the princess a brunette. Cf. 38. 6. Cf. Prl., 229. 7. Cf. Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl. 7-9. The prince who exemplified the truth of this predic- tion, and was. moreover, the subject of 'weird seizures,' undergoes a complete change (cf. VII, T,2y fif) when the new dawn of Ida's love (her essential charge) breaks. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 47 Dying, that none of all our blood should know The shadow from the substance, and that one Should come to fight with shadows and to fall. 10 For so, my mother .said, the story ran. And, truly, waking dreams were, more or less, An old and strange affection of the house. Myself too had weird seizures, Heaven knows what : On a sudden In the midst of men and day, 15 And while I walked and talked as heretofore, I seemed to move among a world of ghosts, And feel myself the shadow of a dream. Our great court-Galen poised his gilt-head cane, And pawed his beard, and muttered 'catalepsy/ 20 My mother, pitying, made a thousand prayers ; 9. Cf. The story of Narcissus. 12, Cf. Prl., 222. 14. Weird seizures.— Note the references and occurrences and determine what they were, how induced, etc. Cf. In Memuriam, XCV, 9. Cf. The Ancient Sage, 229-239. For account of Tennyson's trances see Davidson's Prolegomena to In Memoriam. What is the artistic purpose of the 'weird seizures' intro- duced in the fourth edition in 1851 ? 'His too emotional tem- perament was j,ntended from an artistic point of view to em- phasize his comparative want of power.' — Memoir, Vol. I, p. 251. This is Hallam Tennyson's explanation. If produced by love's doubts they are cured by love's certainty. 18. The shadow of a dream. Ill, 172; Hamlet, II, ii, 265. 19. Galen was a Greek physician (born Pergamus, A. D. 130), who attended Marcus Aurelius. 20. Catalepsy. — Was the Doctor right? 48 THE PRINCESS: [canto i My mother was as mild as any saint, Half-canonized by all that looked on her, So gracious was her tact and tenderness; But my good father thought a king a king; 25 He cared not for the affection of the house ; He held his sceptre like a pedant's wand To lash offense, and with long arms and hands Reached out, and picked offenders from the mass For judgment. Now it chanced that I had been, 30 While life was yet in bud and blade, betrothed To one, a neighboring Princess ; she to me Was proxy-wedded with a bootless calf At eight years old ; and still from time to time Came murmurs of her beauty from the South, 35 And of her brethren, youths of puissance ; And still I wore her picture by my heart, 22. This description is supplemented in Canto VII, 298-308. Compare this with the description of the mother of the Princess. 25. Father.— C/. IV. 387-397; V, 144-160, 342-350, 4^8- 456; and contrast with the description of Gama. S3. Proxv-wedded to a bootless calf. — That is, espoused without her legal consent (V, 388-'9) by a certain 'kind of ceremony' (122-123). This precontract did not amount to marriage. The ceremony referred to by Gama, V, 122, and here recalled by the words 'bootless calf (i. e., leg stript naked to the knee) is described in Bacon's History of Henry VH. (See Spalding's Edition, Vol. XL) . . 35. Cf. IV, 411, 416, etc. 36. Cf. V, 244-'6. 37. Cf. VII, 319. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 49 And one dark tress ; and all around them both Sweet thoughts would swarm, as bees about their queen. But when the days drew nigh that I should wed, 40 My father sent ambassadors with furs And jewels, gifts, to fetch her ; these brought back A present, a great labor of the loom ; And therewithal an answer vague as wind ; Besides, they saw the king; he took the gifts; 45 He said there was a compact ; that was true ; But then she had a will — was he to blame? — And maiden fancies ; loved to live alone Among her women ; certain, would not wed. That morning in the presence room I stood 50 With Cyril and with Florian, my two friends: 38. Cf. 3 and note. 41. Furs.— Not needed in the Princess' home, but charac- teristic of the North. 43. Labor of the loom. Cf. 'wonder of the loom,' (Homer's Iliad). 46. Compact. — Cf. ZZ- 47. Cf. V. 341. This is the essential characteristic of Ida. 48. Maiden fancies.— Does this refer to her whole plan to found an academy, etc. ? Cf. 145 ff- 49. Certain would not wed. — This, taken in connection with V, 341, suggests that here, as in Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, the contest is that of wills. 51. See the preliminary account of the personages in the poem. 50 THE PRINCESS: [canto i The first, a gentleman of broken means (His father's fault) but given to starts and bursts Of revel ; and the last, my other heart, And almost my half-self, — for still we moved 55 Together, twinned as horse's ear and eye. Now, while they spake, I saw my father's face Grow long and troubled, like a rising moon. Inflamed with wrath; he started on his feet, Tore the king's letter, snowed it down, and rent ^^ The wonder of the loom thro' warp and woof From skirt to skirt ; and at the last he sware That he would send a hundred thousand men, And bring her in a whirlwind ; then he chewed The thrice-turned cud of wrath, and cooked his spleen, ^5 Communing with his captains of the war. At last I spoke. *My father, let me go. It cannot be but some gross error lies In this report, this answer of a king Whom all men rate as kind and hospitable; 7o Or, maybe, I myself, my bride once seen, 53. For an illustration see the climax, IV, 137 ff. 56. Little can be said in praise of the artistic value of this figure. 61. Cf. note on 43. 62. What is the present form of this preterit? 64-65. Chewed the cud, etc. — This is symbolic. The figurative meaning is ruminate, meditate. 6s. Cooked his spleen. — Kept his anger warm, nursed his wrath. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 51 75 Whate'er my grief to find her less than fame, May rue the bargain made.' And Florian said : *I have a sister at the foreign court, Who moves about the Princess ; she, you know, Who wedded with a nobleman from thence , He, dying lately, left her, as I hear, The lady of three castles in that land ; Thro' her this matter might be sifted clean.' And Cyril whispered: 'Take me with you too.' 80 Then, laughing, 'What if these weird seizures come Upon you in those lands, and no one near To point you out the shadow from the truth? Take me ; I'll serve you better in a strait ; I grate on rusty hinges here ;' but 'No !' 85 Roared the rough king, 'you shall not; we ourself Will crush her pretty maiden fancies dead In iron gauntlets; break the council up.' But when the council broke, I rose and passed Thro' the wild woods that hung about the town; go Found a still place, and plucked her likeness out ; ^2. Less than fame (reports her). As a matter of fact he found her far greater than fame. Cf. IV, 424 ff. 74. Sister.— Lady Psyche. Cf. II, 99. 78. Is Florian's reference to his sister's fortune of any significance in inducing Cyril to go? Cf. II, 100; 193. 85. I GRATE ON RUSTY HINGES.— I moldcr, I wear out, etc. 87. Maiden fanctes. — Cf. 48. 90. Hung. — Frequently used in this sense. 91. Cf. 2>7- 52 THE PRINCESS: [canto i Laid it on flowers, and watched it lying bathed In the green gleam of dewy-tasseled trees: What were those fancies ? wherefore break her troth ? ^5 Proud looked the lips; but while I meditated A wind arose and rushed upon the South, And shook the songs, the whispers, and the shrieks Of the wild woods together; and a Voice Went with it, 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win.' 100 Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield, I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived, Cat-footed thro' the town, and half in dread To hear my father's clamor at our backs, With 'Ho !' from some bay-window shake the night ; But all was quiet ; from the bastioned walls Like threaded spiders, one by one, we dropped. And flying reached the frontier; then we crossed To a livelier land ; and so by tilth and grange, 92. Bathed. — Cf. The Day Dream, 29. 93. This suggests the season of the year. Cf. In Memo- riam, LXXXVI. 2, 96-99. Collins finds in these lines a reminder of a quatrain from Shelley's Prometheus Unbound, II, i, 156-159. Tenny- son did not recall the lines. His own first poetic line was, 'I hear a voice that's speaking in the wind.' 100. Note the beauty of this expression for the change of the moon from first quarter to full. 109. Tilth.— Tilled land. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, XI, 430. Cf. Enoch Arden, 676. Grange. — A farm house. Cf. Mariana, 'The moated grange.' Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, III, 1. 27y, In Memoriam, XCI, 12, etc. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 53 And vines, and blowing bosks of wilderness, no We gained the mother-city thick with towers, And in the imperial palace found the king. His name was Gama ; cracked and small his voice, But bland the smile that, like a wrinkling wind On glassy water, drove his cheek in lines ; 115 A little dry old man, without a star. Not like a king. Three days he feasted us. And on the fourth I spake of why we came, And my betrothed. 'You do us, Prince,' he said, Airing a snowy hand and signet gem, 120 'All honor. We remember love ourselves In our sweet youth ; there did a compact pass Long summers back, a kind of ceremony — I think the year in which our olives failed. I would you had her. Prince, with all my heart, 125 With my full heart ; but there were widows here, Two widows. Lady Psyche, Lady Blanche ; They fed her theories, in and out of place Maintaining that with equal husbandry no. Bosks. — Thickets, clumps of bushes. Cf. Shakes- peare's Tempest, IV, i, 81. III. Mother-city. — Metropolis. In Memoriam,XCVUl, 21. 116. Without a star (as an insignia of rank). — Can it mean born without a favorable horoscope? 121. Ourselves. — Cf. 'ourself,' V, 198; II, 46. 124. The unkinglike character of the king may be seen in his associating the betrothal of his daughter with so prosaic an event as the failure of the olive crop. 129. Husbandry. — Taken in connection with marriage here discussed, is this a play on words? 54 THE PRINCESS: [canto I The woman were an equal to the man. 130 They harped^on this; with this our banquets rang; Our dances broke and buzzed in knots of talk; Nothing but this ; my very ears were hot To hear them ; knowledge, so my daughter held, Was all in all ; they had but been, she thought, 135 As children; they must lose the child, assume The woman; then, Sir, awful odes she wrote, Too awful, sure, for what they treated of, But all she is and does is awful ; odes About this losing of the child ; and rimes 140 And dismal lyrics, prophesying change Beyond all reason ; these the women sang; And they that know such things — I sought but peace ; 130. The theme of the poem. 134. Knowledge, etc. — This, as Dawson says, is the central point of the Princess' delusion. But Tennyson is not de- ceived. In In Mcmoriam, CXIV, 22-23 and elsewhere in the same poem he distinguishes between knowledge and wisdom. This distinction is emphasized by sage and' poet. 136. They must lose the child, assume the woman. Cf. Prl., 133; VII, 268. Second delusion. Cf. 134- The high wisdom of preserving childhood as life matures is lost sight of. The lyrics to be introduced have to do with childhood, and the dominant presence of Aglaia, Lady Psyche's child, keeps childhood in the reader's mind. It is the child, too, that changes the Princess. 140. This suggests the proposed intercalary poem, 'The Losing of the Child,' which is replaced by the first intercalary poem describing the losing of a child -by death. Cf. The dismal lyrics and rhymes mentioned with the beautiful rhyme- less lyrics in this poem. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 55 No critic I — would call them masterpieces : They mastered me. At last she begged a boon, 145 A certain summer palace which I have Hard by your father's frontier; I said no, Yet being an easy man, gave it ; and there. All wild to found an University For maidens, on the spur she fled; and more 150 We know not, — only this: they see no men, Not even her brother Arac, nor the twins Her brethren, tho' they love her, look upon her As on a kind of paragon ; and I (Pardon me saying it) were much loth to breed J55 Dispute betwixt myself and mine, but since (And I confess with right) you think me bound In some sort, I can give you letters to her ; And yet, to speak the truth, I rate your chance Almost at naked nothing.' Thus the king; 160 And I, tho' netded that he seemed to slur With garrulous ease and oily courtesies Our formal compact, yet, not less (all frets 149. University, — This suggests the close analogy between this poem and Love's Labor's Lost. An University.— Change to present usage. 151. This is the third delusion. 152. Cf. 36; V, 245. 155. Me. — Should this be "my"? i63-'4. 'All impediments serving only to aggravate my im- patience to meet my betrothed face to face.' — Wallace. Com- pare the following interpretation which is justified by the con- struction : All obstacles inflaming me with desire to find my bride. 56 THE PRINCESS: [canto i But chafing me on fire to find my bride) Went forth again with both my friends. We rode 165 Many a long league back to the North. At last, From hills that looked across a land of hope, We dropped with evening on a rustic town Set in a gleaming river's crescent-curve, Close at the boundary of the liberties ; 170 There, entered an old hostel, called mine host To council, plied him with his richest wines, And showed the late-writ letters of the king. He with a long low sibilation, stared As blank as death in marble; then exclaimed, 175 Averring it was clear against all rules For any man to go ; but as his brain Began to mellow, Tf the king,' he said, 'Had given us letters, was he bound to speak? The king would bear him out ;' and at the last — iSo The summer of the vine in all his veins — 'No doubt that we might make it worth his while. She once had past that way ; he heard her speak ; 168. Dropped. — Colloquial ; cf. Prl., 96. 170. Liberties. 'Preserves' — territory within which the Princess and her company were at liberty to move. 175. Cf. V, 71-72. 175 ff. Trace the steps by which the host persuades himself to reveal what he knows. 181. Cf. 'For now the wine made summer in his veins.' — Marriage of Geraint, 398. 182-191. This is the garrulous and unrefined twaddle of a host half-seas over. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 57 She scared him ; life! he never saw the Hke; She looked as grand as doomsday, and as grave; 185 And he, he reverenced his liege-lady there; He always made a point to post with mares ; His daughter and his housemaid were the boys ; The land, he understood, for miles about Was tilled by women ; all the swine were sows, 190 And all the dogs' — But while he jested thus, A thought flashed thro' me which I clothed in act, Remembering how we three presented Maid, Or Nymph, or Goddess, at high tide of feast, In masque or pageant at my father's court. 195 We sent mine host to purchase female gear ; H^ brought it, and himself, a sight to shake The midriff of despair with laughter, holp To lace us up, till, each, in maiden plumes We rustled. Him we gave a costly bribe 200 To guerdon silence, mounted our good steeds, And boldly ventured on the liberties. 193. This no doubt is suggested by college experiences. See Memoir, I, p. 48. 195. Masque or pageant. — Read a brief description of these. 196. Gear. — Cf. head gear, head dress. 198. The midriff of despair. — To young readers this will recall the picture of Santa Claus shaking with laughter like a bowl of jelly. Cf. Shakespeare's i Henry IV, iii, 3. 198. Holp. — Pronounced 'hope.' Used still by negroes 201. Guerdon. — To reward. 202. Cf. 170. 58 THE PRINCESS: [canto i We followed up the river as we rode, And rode till midnight, when the college lights Began to glitter firefly-like in copse 205 And linden alley ; then we past an arch, Whereon a woman-statue rose with wings From four winged horses dark against the stars ; And some inscription ran along the front, But deep in shadow : further on we gained 210 A little street, half garden and half house; But scarce could hear each other speak for noise Of clocks and chimes, like silver hammers falling On silver anvils, and the splash and stir Of fountains spouted up and showering down 215 In meshes of the jasmine and the rose; And all ahout us pealed the nightingale, Rapt in her song, and careless of the snare. There stood a hust of Pallas for a sign. By two sphere lamps blazoned like Heaven and Earth 220 207-208. Recalling Nike, the goddess of Victory. 209. For this inscription see II, 178. 211. What mental picture do yon get of this street? 217. Note different verbs used to suggest the nightingale's song. See IV, 247; In Memoriam, LXXXVIII. 218. Rapt. — A favorite Tennysonian word. Cf. Prl., 50; IV, 162. 218. In no fear of traps. 219. Bust of Pallas. —Minerva (Athene), the Virgin Goddess. Even the statues of the Princess' University are all of females. 220-221. That is, celestial and terrestrial globes. CANTO i] A MEDLEY. 59 With constellation and with continent, Above an entry ; riding in, we called ; A plump-armed ostleress and a stable wench Came running at the call, and helped us down. Then slept a buxom hostess forth, and sailed, 225 Full-blown, before us into rooms which gave Upon a pillared porch, the bases lost . In laurel ; her we asked of that and this, I And who were tutors. 'Lady Blanche,' she said, 'And Lady Psyche.' 'Which was prettiest, 230 Best-natured ?' 'Lady Psyche.' 'Hers are we/ One voice, we cried ; and I sat down and wrote, In such a hand as when a field of corn Bows all its ears before the roaring East : Three ladies of the Northern empire pray 235 Your Highness would enroll them wiih your own, As Lady Psyche's pupils.' This I sealed ; The seal was Cupid bent above a scroll, 224. Determine from 204, 212, etc., the time. 225. Buxom.— 'Brisk and healthy with a dash of good humor.' — Stormonth. 226. Gave upon.— Opened (Gallicism). Cf. Prl., 93. 227. The classic architecture noted Prl., 225 ; II, 8-14. etc. 230. In spite of the grammarian's inhibition, the poets frequently use the superlative when referring to two. 233-234. Picture to yourself this handwriting, and note that it is not only disguised, but feminine. Cf. Iliad, II, i47-'8. 236. Would.— Cf. 'will.' Note tense sequence. 238-240. The college seal. If you have any skill in draw- ing, make a sketch of this seal. 6o THE PRINCESS: [canto i And o'er his head Uranian Venus hung, And raised the bhnding bandage from his eyes ; 240 I gave the letter to be sent with dawn ; And then to bed, where half in doze I seemed To float about a glimmering night, and watch A full sea, glazed with muffled moonlight, swell On some dark shore just seen that it was rich. 245 239. Uranian. — Heavenly. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, I, 6 and VH, i. Cf. M. Arnold's Urania. 240. Note that in this poem the bandage over love's eyes is removed by love. Cf. V, 427; VH, loi, 143, etc. 244. 'Suggestion : The Sea one night at Torquay.' — Ten- nyson. 245. It is a pity that this first Canto should end with a line of questionable grammatical construction and of unclear interpretation. [THE RECONCILIATION.] As thro' the land at eve we went, And plucked the ripened ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out, I know not why, And kissed again with tears. And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love, And kiss again with tears ! For when we came where lies the child We lost in other years, There above the little grave, O there above the little grave. We kissed again* with tears. [ 6i. ] FIRST INTERCALARY POEM. Tennyson in the tliird edition of The Princess published in 1850, his Golden Year in life and letters, added to the Pro- logue lines 233-238, in explanation of the intercalary songs, and then for the first time suggests two purposes of these songs: first, "to give us breathing space," and second, 'to relieve the rougher voices of men by the linnet songs of women.' These purposes are admirably served, for the neces- sary breaks between the cantos are thus beautifully filled and the reader's mind refreshed. But the poems are of value in at least two other respects. They relieve the reader's ear by the grateful change from the linked and almost monotonous sweetness of elaborately polished blank verse to the varied forms of perfectly finished lyrics. Better still, in a poem where the main problem is the escape from the dependence and thraldom of childhood, the losing of the child, these little poems keep before the reader the child-image and hint the child's omnipresent induence and power. This poem. Reconciliation, points to the past since it is memory of the child long lost that brings together the parents in blissful union over the little grave. The form of the poem has undergone several important changes. It was originally three-quatrains— the fourth line of the first and third stanzas were later additions — with the same rhyme of second and fourth line in each stanza. The second stanza w^as omitted in the edition of 1851, but, for some reason, hardly artistic, was restored in 1853. [62] A MEDLEY. 63 II. [THE WOLVES WITHIN THE FOLD.] [Welcomed by the President, Princess Ida, they are sent to hear Lady Psyche's harangue on Woman's Position. She ^ recognizes them and extorts their promise to leave; but while they are conversing, Melissa overhears them, but prom- ises to keep the secret. The conference closes with Cyril's half avowal of love. These new students then surfeit them- selves with lectures, attend dinner, where Blanche watches them furtively, and mingle with the six-hundred. The full day ends with the chapel services. — Ed.] At break of day the College Portress came ; She brought us Academic silks, in hue The lilac, with a silken hood to each, And zoned with gold ; and now when these were on, And we as rich as moths from dusk cocoons, 5 vShe, courtseying her obeisance, let us know The Princess Ida waited. Out we paced, I first, and following thro' the porch that sang 3-4. Lilac and Gold.— Psyche's colors. It would be inter- esting to trace the color-scheme of this whole poem. Zoned. — Cf. Byron's Maid of Athens. 5. Cf. Prl., 144. Use your first opportunity to examine the splendid combinations of colors in a collection of moths. Cf. Milton's Paradise Regained, IV, 76. 7. Paced. — Note the mincing step of man in woman's dress. ^ 8. Sang. — Rustled, rang. Does the word seem the best? 64 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii All round with laurel, issued in a court Compact of lucid marbles, bossed with lengths lo Of classic frieze, with ample awnings gay Betwixt the pillars, and with great urns of flowers. The Muses and the Graces, grouped in threes, Enringed a billowing fountain in the midst ; And here and there on lattice edges lay i5 Or book or lute ; but hastily we passed, And up a flight of stairs into the hall. There at a board by tome and paper sat, With two tame leopards couched beside her throne, All beauty compassed in a female form, 20 The Princess; liker to the inhabitant Of some clear planet close upon the sun. Than our man's earth ; such eyes were in her head, And so much grace and power, breathing down 10. Lucid marbles. — Clear, bright. Cf. VI, 331. Note 'lucid stone,' Browning's Paracelsus; 'lucid urn,' Shelley's Adonais, XI, i. Bossed. — Embossed. 10 ff. The 'medley' is emphasized by the difficulty of fixing upon any locality as consistent with the poem. This picture is almost tropical. 13. Muses. — Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsich- ore, Erato, Polyhymnia, Urania, and Thalia. Were these grouped in threes after any particular order? The Graces were Euphrosyne, Aglai'a, and Thalia. Are the Muse Thalia and the Grace Thalia identical? 17. Hall. — For descriptions see 62, 71 ; 416; IV, 206; VI, 334, etc. 21. Begin here to collect details for a complete picture of the Princess' appearance. CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 65 From over her arched brows, with every turn 25 Lived thro' her to the tips of her long hands, And to her feet. She rose her height, and said: 'We give you welcome; not without redound Of use and glory to yourselves ye come, The first-fruits of the stranger ; aftertime, 30 And that full voice which circles round the grave, Will rank you nobly, mingled up with me. What ! are the ladies of your land so tall ?' 'We of the court,' said Cyril. 'From the court' She answered ; 'then ye know the Prince ?' and he : 35 'The climax of his age ! as tho' there were One rose in all the world, your highness that, He worships your ideal.' She replied: 'We scarcely thought in our own hall to hear This barren verbiage, current among men, 40 Light coin, the tinsel clink of compliment. Your flight from out your bookless wilds would seem As arguing love of knowledge and of power; 31. Fame.— Cf. Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 2; Milton's Lycidas, etc. 32. Cf. V, 401. 35. It is apparent from this question that the Princess has neither lost interest in the outside world nor in the Prince particularly. 38. Your IDEAL.—His ideal (conception) of you; cf. Ill, 193; IV, 130. 43. Love of knowledge and of power. — Fourth delusion. In I, 134, there is no indication that the Princess admitted any power save in knowledge; here she distinguishes between them. In VII, 221, she learns that truth rather than power is to be sought in knowledge. 66 THE PRINCESS : [canto ii Your language proves you still the child. Indeed, We dream not of him ; when we set our hand 45 To this great work, we purposed. with ourself Never to wed. You likewise will do well, Ladies, in entering here, to cast and fling The tricks which make us toys of men, that so, Some future time, if so indeed you will, 50 You may with those self-styled our lords ally Your fortunes justlier balanced, scale with scale.' At those high words, we, conscious of ourselves. Perused the matting ; then an officer Rose up, and read the statutes, such as these: 55 Not for three years to correspond with home ; Not for three years to cross the liberties ; Not for three years to speak with any men ; 44. The child. — Cf. Prl. 133; I, 136. This is a grave offense in the eyes of the Princess. 45. Hardly consistent with the interested question in line 35. 48. Cast and fling. — Throw away. 52. The desire for equality is the theme of the poem, as suggested in I, 130. This desire is met in VII, 290 ff. Cf. Eve's Third Temptation, Milton's Paradise Lost, IX, 820 ff. 56. The laws of the Princess' University are analogous to those of the 'Academe' in Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 33-48. 1. "That is, to live and study here three years." 2. "As, not to see a woman in that term." • » * * « * 3. "And one day in a week to touch no food. And but one meal on every day beside." 4. "And then, to sleep but three hours in the night, Andnot be seen to wink of all the day." CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. (^y And many more, which hastily subscribed, We entered on the boards ; and 'Now,' she cried, 60 'Ye are green wood, see ye warp not. Look, our hall ! Our statues! — not of those that men desire, Sleek odalisques, or oracles of mode. Nor stunted squaws of West or East ; but she That taught the Sabine how to rule, and she 65 The foundress of the Babylonian wall, The Carian Artemisia strong in war, The Rhodope that built the pyramid, 60. Entered on the boards. — This is presumably a techni- cal phrase for registered as students, matriculated. 62. 'The statues are there of eight of the most eminent women of antiquity, representing respectively legislative sa- gacity, political enterprise, military prowess, architectural skill, physical courage, intellectual culture, imperial ambition, and wifely devotion.' — Wallace. 63. Odalisques. — Female slaves of a harem. Oracles of Mode. — Patterns of fashion. 64. She. — Egeria, who was supposed to have instructed Numa, a Sabine King of Rome. Cf. Palace of Art ; Byron's Childe Harold, IV, CXV-CXIX. 66. Foundress. — Semiramis, wife of King Ninus, and queen of Assyria, famed for her military prowess. She was queen of Babylonia when Pyramus wooed Thisbe. Cf. Shakes- peare's Midsummer Night's Dream, III, i, 1-104, and V, i, 128 ff., etc. 67. Artemisia. — Queen of Caria; a distinguished ally of Xerxes in the battle of Salamis. Cf. Herodotus, VIII, 87. 68. Rhodope. — "It has been shown by Bunsen and others that 'the Rhodope that built the pyramid' was Nitocris, the beautiful Egyptian queen, who was the heroine of so many legends." (Wharton, Sappho, p. 6.) Cf. Landor's ^sop and Rhodope in the Imaginary Conversations, 68 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Clelia, Cornelia, with the Pahnyrene That fought Aurelian, and the Roman brows "^^ Of Agripplna. Dwell with these, and lose Convention, since to look on noble forms Makes noble thro' the sensuous organism That which is higher. O lift your natures up; Embrace our aims ; work out your freedom. Girls, 75 Knowledge is now no more a fountain sealed ; Drink deep, until the habits of the slave, The sins of emptiness, gossip and spite And slander, die. Better not be at all Than not be noble. Leave us ; you may go ; ^° To-day the Lady Psyche will harangue 69. Clelia. — One of the virgin hostages given to Porsena. Because of her gallantry she was released. The Romans erected a statue to her. Cornelia. — To her a statue was erected with the inscription, 'Cornelia, the Mother of the Gracchi.' Palmyrene. — Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, was defeated by Aurelian. 71. Agrh'PINA. — Granddaughter of Augustus and wife of Germanicus. Noted for her culture and her household devo- tion. 71-74. Cf. Prov. >»iii, 20; Acts iv, 3; Romans xii, 2. 72. Convention. — Cf. Prl., 128. 72-74. Cf. Shelley; Prince Athanase, II, i, 15: 'The mind becomes that which it contemplates.' Cf. Romans xii, 2; 2 Cor. iii, 18. 75-76. Cf. V, 409, 413- 77. Drink deep. — Cf. Pope's Essay on Criticism, II. 15. 78-79. Is this a catalogue of feminine vices? 81. Harangue. — Is this intended to suggest the incoher- ent character of female thought and expression? Substitute another word. CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 69 The fresh arrivals of the week before ; For they press in from all the provinces, And fill the hive.' She spoke, and bowing waved Dismissal ; back again we crossed the court 85 To Lady Psyche's. As we entered in, There sat along the forms, like morning doves That sun their milky bosoms on the thatch, A patient range of pupils ; she herself Erect behind a desk of satin-wood, 90 A quick brunette, well-molded, falcon-eyed, And on the hither side, or so she looked, Of twenty summers. At her left, a child, In shining draperies, headed like a star, Her maiden babe, a double April old, 95 Aglaia slept. We sat ; the Lady glanced ; Then Florian— but no livelier than the dame 84. HIVE.-C/. IV, 514- 87. Forms.— Benches. Doves.— Cf. IV, 150. 90. Note the exquisite school-room furniture. To begin with, a satin-wood desk, 91. Contrast this picture with that of Lady Blanche, 424- 92. Hither side.— Less than twenty years old. Her age given by summers, the child's by springs (95). Cf. Ida's age, VI, 234. 94. Shining draperies. — VL 118. ^' 96. Aglaia.— Named after one of the Graces, 13. 96. Glanced.— Does this imply recognition? See 285. 97-98. In classic Mythology it is Midas' hairdresser who digs a hole in the ground and confides to it the secret that his master has ass's ears, but Tennyson follows the Chaucer version in the Wife of Bath's Tale. yo THE PRINCESS: [canto ii That whispered 'Asses' ears' among the sedge— 'My sister.' 'Comely, too, by all that's fair,' Said Cyril. 'O hush, hush !' and she began. icx) 'This world was once a fluid haze of light. Till toward the centre set the starry tides. And eddied into suns, that wheeling cast The planets ; then the monster, then the man ; Tattooed or woaded, winter-clad in skins, 105 Raw from the prime, and crushing down his mate ; As yet we find in barbarous isles, — and here Among the lowest.' Thereupon she took A bird's-eye view of all the ungracious past; Glanced at the legendary Amazon 110 loi. This nebular hypothesis, hinted at by the ancients, was first set forth by Laplace, about the beginning of the nineteenth century. Cf. Tennyson's references to it, IV, i. In Memoriam, LXXXIX, 12; CXVIII, 3- the order of creation with Genesis i ; Milton's Paradise Lost, VII, 242, 547. loi. Compare with Prior's Alma, I, 369, 378. This speech of Lady Psyche's, on Woman's State, deals with Hypothesis, Tradition, History, and Prophecy, as related to woman. 105. WoADED. — Dyed with woad, a plant from which a blue coloring matter was extracted. 106. From the prime. — Originally. Cf. In Memoriam, XLIII; LVI. no. Amazon. — One of the Asiatic tribe of female war- riors. Frequent references in Shakespeare ; King John, V, ii; Midsummer Night's Dream, II, ii ; i Henry VI, i, 4. Read some description of these warriors. 115 CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. yi As emblematic of a nobler age; Appraised tiic Lycian custom, spoke of those That lay at wine with Lar and Lucumo ; Ran down the Persian, Grecian, Roman lines Of empire, and the woman's state in each. How far from just; till, warming with her theme, She fulmined out her scorn of laws Salique, And little-footed China ; touched on Mahomet With much contempt, and came to chivalry, When some respect, however slight, was paid 120 To woman — superstition all awry ; However, then commenced the dawn ; a beam Had slanted forward, falling in a land Of promise; fruit would follow. Deep, indeed, Their debt of thanks to her who first had dared 125 To leap the rotten pales of prejudice, Disyoke their necks from custom, and assert 112. Lycian custom. — The Lycians reckoned ancestry en- tirely by the maternal line. Does 'appraised' equal 'praised' ? 113. Lar and Lucumo, i. e.. Lord and Prince. 117. Fulmined. — Thundered. Milton's Paradise Regained, IV, 270. Laws Salique {Cf. Henry V, i, n) forbid female inheritance. 118-119. Mahomet. — With much contempt. Why? Be- cause he once denied that women had souls, or because he supposed hell chiefly peopled with women, or because of his sensual conception of heaven? 121. This phrase should stand grammatically next to 're- spect,' and thus explain its nature, 125. Tribute to Ida. 126. Cf. In Memoriam, CXI, 8. ^2 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii None lordlier than themselves but that which made Woman and man. She had founded ; they must build. Here might they learn whatever men were taught; 130 Let them not fear. Some said their heads were less ; Some men's were small ; not they the least of men ; For often fineness compensated size ; Besides, the brain was like the hand, and grew With using; thence the man's, if more, was more. 135 He took advantage of his strength to be First in the field ; some ages had been lost ; But woman ripened earlier, and her life Was longer; and albeit their glorious names Were fewer, scattered stars, yet since in truth 140 The highest is the measure of the man, And not the Kaffir, Hottentot, Malay, Nor those horn-handed breakers of the glebe, But Homer, Plato, Verulam ; even so With woman. And in arts of government 1^5 Elizabeth and others ; arts of war The peasant Joan and others ; arts of grace 128. That which. — Him who, i. c, God. Is the form intended to hint at Psyche's behef in a creative force rather than a creating Person? 129. Order of superiority not of creation. 130. Reproductive rather than original 367; Prl, 136. 143. Note this poetic variation of 'horny handed sons of toil.' 144. Do these three measure Tennyson's conception of man's greatness? See Palace of Art. 146. Elizabeth. — The Virgin Queen (1558- 1603). 147. Joan. — Cf. Schiller, Lamartine, DeQuincey, etc. CANTO ii] . A MEDLEY. 11 Sappho and others, vied with any man \ And, last not least, she who had left her place, And bowed her state to them, that they might grow jg^ To use and power on this oasis, lapt In the arms of leisure, sacred from the blight Of ancient influence and scorn. At last She rose upon a wind of prophecy, Dilating on the future: 'Everywhere 155 Two heads in council, two beside the hearth, Two in the tangled business of the world. Two in the liberal offices of life. Two plummets dropped for one to sound the abyss Of science, and the secrets of the mind ; j^^ Musician, painter, sculptor, critic, more; And everywhere the broad and bounteous Earth Should bear a double growth of those rare souls, Poets, whose thoughts enrich the blood of the world.' She ended here, and beckoned us ; the rest 165 Parted ; and, glowing full-faced welcome, she 148. Sappho. — 'The Poetess.' She seems to have been a favorite of Tennyson. Cf. Leonine Elegiacs, 13; Eleanore, 127, 141, etc. 149. Ida is put in this same class of heroines. 150. Bowed her state, i. e., stooped to conquer. 151. Lapt,— C/". Milton's L' Allegro, 136. 155 ff. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 164. Cf. Prl., 132, III, 256; VII, 159. Cf. also The Poet; The Poet's Mind, etc. 166. Full-faced welcome. — Because they were new pupils I70 74 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Began to address us, and was moving en In gratulation, till, as when a boat Tacks, and the slackened sail flaps, all her voice Faltering and fluttering in her throat, she cried, *My brother!' 'Well, my sister.' 'O,' she said, 'What do you here? and in this dress? and these? Why, who are these ? a wolf within the fold ! A pack of wolves ! the Lord be gracious to me ! A plot, a plot, a plot, to ruin all !' 175 *No plot, no plot,' he answered. 'Wretched boy, How saw you not the inscription on the gate, Let no man enter in on pain of death'? 'And 'if I had,' he answered, 'who could think The softer Adams of your Academe, 180 O sister, Sirens tho' they be, were such As chanted on the blanching bones of men?' 'But you will find it otherwise,' she said. or because she recognized them? If she recognized them, did she break dovv'n in her attempt to conceal the fact? 171. Is this her first recognition of her brother, or her first confession of it? 178. Cf. Dante's Inferno. 'All hope abandon, ye who enter here.' 179. He had not read it because of darkness. I, 209. 180. Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, I, i, 13. Name borrowed from Plato's school at Athens. Softer Adams, i. e., effeminate men ; points to inferiority and false con- ception of themselves. 181. Sirens. — Muses who, by their sweet singing, enticed sea-farers to destruction, IV, 44-48; Odyssey, XII; Moore's Song of the Sirens; Rossetti's Sea Spell; Heine's Lorelei, etc. CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 75 'You jest: ill jesting with edge-tools ! My vow Binds nie to speak, and O that iron will, 185 That axe-like edge unturnable, our Head, The Princess.' 'Well then, Psyche, take my life, And nail me like a weasel on a grange For warning; bury me beside the gate, And cut this epitaph above my bones : 190 Here lies a brother by a sister slain, All for the common good of womankind* 'Let me die too,' said Cyril, 'having seen And heard the Lady Psyche.' I struck in : 'Albeit so masked, Madam, I love the truth ; - j^^ Receive it ; and in me behold the Prince Your countryman, affianced years ago To the Lady Ida ; here, for here she was. And thus (what other way was left?) I came.' 'O Sir, O Prince, I have no country, none ; 200 If any, this; but none. Whate'er I was Disrooted, what I am is grafted here. 184. Ill jesting with edge-tools.— Beaumont and Fletcher's Honest Man's Fortune, II, 2. What is the origin of this proverb? 185. Iron will. — Characterization of Ida, I, 47; VI, 102, etc. 188. Grange. — Barn, granary. Cf. I, 109. 193. An echo of the Nunc Dimittis. Cyril first introduces himself to Lady Psyche by subtle flattery. 195. In spite of my enacted falsehood I love the truth. 198-199. The prince's comment on her exclamation 'a plot,' 175. 205 ^6 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Affianced, Sir? Love-whispers may not breathe Within this vestal Hmit, and how should I, Who am not mine, say, hve? The thunderbolt Hangs silent; but prepare; I speak ; it falls.' *Yet pause,' I said : 'for that inscription there, I think no more of deadly lurks therein Than in a clapper clapping in a garth, To scare the fowl from fruit; if more there be, oio If more and acted on, what follows? war ; Your own work marred ; for this your Academe, Whichever side be victor, in the halloo Will topple to the trumpet down, and pass With all fair theories only made to gild 215 A stormless summer.' *Let the Princess judge Of that,' she said; 'farewell, Sir — and to you. I shudder at the sequel, but I go.' 'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I rejoined, *The fifth in line from that old Florian — 220 Yet hangs his portrait in my father's hall (The gaunt old Baron with his beetle brow 204. Vestal limits. — Territory consecrated to hearts free from all thoughts of earthly love. 205. Cf. Prl., 43. 207. For, i. c, as for. 209. Garth. — Garden. 214. Unsubstantially built this Academe will totter and fall amid any noise of war. Cf. The fall of Jericho in Joshua vi, 20. 222. Beetle brow. — Having prominent or projecting brows. CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 77 Sun-shaded in the heat of dusty fights) As he bestrode my Grandsire, when he fell, And all else fled ? we point to it, and we say, 225 The loyal warmth of Florian is not cold, But branches current yet in kindred veins.' 'Are you that Psyche,' Florian added ; 'she With whom I sang about the morning hills, Flung ball, flew kite, and raced the purple fly, 230 And snared the squirrel of the glen? are you That Psyche, wont to bind my throbbing brow, To smooth my pillow, mix the foaming draught Of fever, tell me pleasant tales, and read My sickness down to happy dreams? are you 235 That brother-sister Psyche, both in one? You were that Psyche, but what are you now?' 'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said, 'for whom I would be that for ever which I seem, 22^. Sun-shaded. This may mean browned or burnt by exposure to the sun, but it would seem naturally to mean protected from the stm (not by the uplifted hand, as Wallace suggests), but by the helmet. 224. Bestrode (for defense). — Cf. Shakespeare's Com- edy of Errors, V, i, 192; i Henry IV, V, i, 122, etc. 227. Current. — This might mean 'at present.' It probably means, however, 'running.' 229. Morning hills. Cf. CEnone, 46; Shakespeare's Henry V, IV, ii, 40; Taming of the Shrew, II, i, 174, etc. 238-241. Is Cyril prompted by desire of gain? I, 75, 80. Is he in love? gg. Is he bantering Psyche? 193. Or is he trying to save his life? 193-194. 245 250 78 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Woman, if I might sit beside your feet, 240 And glean your scattered sapience.' Then once more, 'Are you that Lady Psyche,' I began, 'That on her bridal morn, before she past From all her old companions, when the king Kissed her pale cheek, declared that ancient ties Would still be dear beyond the southern hills; That were there any of our people there In want or peril, there was one to hear And help them ? Look ! for such are these and L' 'Are you that Psyche,' Florian asked, 'to whom, In gentler days, your arrow-wounded fawn Came flying while you sat beside the well ? The creature laid his muzzle on your lap, And sobbed, and you sobbed with it, and the blood Was sprinkled on your kirtle, and you wept. That was fawn's blood, not brother's, yet you wept. O by the bright head of my little niece, You were that Psyche, and what are you now ?' 'You are that Psyche,' Cyril said again, 240. Woman. — This word is not vocative, but is the com- plement of T seem.' 241. Sapience is wisdom, but does Cyril mean to limit her wisdom to disconnected and incoherent gleanings? 251. Compare the story of SUvia's Pet Stag, ^ncid, VII, 483-504. 254. Sobbed. — This recalls 'the sobbing deer' of Shakes- peare's As You Like It, II, i, 66, and reminds the reader of the sympathy of melancholy Jacques, 255. Kirtle.— Short skirt. 255 CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 79 The mother of the sweetest little maid 260 That ever crowed for kisses.' 'Out upon It!' She answered, 'peace ! and why should I not play The Spartan Mother with emotion, be The Lucius Junius Brutus of my kind? Him you call great ; he for the common weal, 265 The fading politics of mortal Rome, As I might slay this child, If good need were. Slew both his sons; and I, shall I, on whom The secular emancipation turns Of half this world, be swerved from right to save 270 A prince, a brother? A little will I yield ; Best so, perchance, for us, and well for you. O hard, when love and duty clash ! I fear 260. Cyril is an adept in insinuating Hattery. By every speech he ingratiates himself with Psyche. 263. Spartan Mother.— She gave her seven sons to the cause of Sparta, and, though they perished, shouted 'Victory!' This may have no more specific reference than to deal with emotions as Spartans were taught to do, namely, sacrifice them. 264. Lucius Junius Brutus.— The Roman father who had his own sons executed for violation of law. For an illus- tration of stern and uncompromising justice she refers to a man. Are there any other masculine illustrations? 266. Fading . . . mortal.— These suggest transiency. 269. Secular.— In contrast with above, suggests perma- nency for ages. Lat. seculiim. In Memoriam, XLI, 6; LXXVI, 2. 271. There is a striking omission of a third, neither prince nor brother, but lover. 273. Cf. Love and Duty. 8o THE PRINCESS : [canto ii My conscience will not count me fleckless ; yet — Hear my conditions : promise (otherwise 275 You perish), as you came, to slip away To-day, to-morrow, soon ; it shall be said. These women were too barbarous, would not learn ; They fled, who might have shamed us ; promise, all.' What could we else? we promised each; and she, 280 Like some wild creature newly-caged, commenced A to-and-fro, so pacing till she paused By Florian ; holding out her lily arms Took both his hands, and smiling faintly said: T knew you at the first ; tho' you have grown, 285 You scarce have altered ; I am sad and glad To see you, Florian. / give thee to death, My brother! it was duty spoke, not I. My needful seeming harshness, pardon it. Our mother, is she well ?' With that she kissed 290 His forehead, then, a moment after, cluns: About him, and betwixt them blossomed up From out a common vein of memory 274. Fleckless.— Without spot. Cf, 'taintless,' Hamlet, I, V, 85. 285. Cf. 166 and 171. 289. Seeming harshness. ^That is, not harshness, though before the others it was needful that it should seem so. 290. Compare Joseph's inquiry. Genesis xlv, 3. 292-293. Blossomed , . , from a vein,-^Is this a mixed metaphor ? CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 8l Sweet household talk, and phrases of the hearth, And far allusion, till the gracious dews 295 Began to glisten and to fall: and while They stood, so rapt, we gazmg, came a voice: *I brought a message here from Lady Blanche/ Back started she, and turning round we saw The Lady Blanche's daughter where she stood, 300 Melissa, with her hand upon the lock, A rosy blonde, and in a college gown That clad her like an April daffodilly (Her mother's color), with her lips apart, And all her thoughts as fair within her eyes 305 As bottom agates, seen to wave and float In crystal currents of clear morning seas. So stood that same fair creature at the door. 295. Gracious dews.— Tears. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, III, ii, 198; and King John, V, ii, 45> for the ex- pression. 297. Rapt. — A favorite Tennysonian word. Cf. 419, and compare meaning in IV, 162. 299. She, Psyche. 302. Blonde.— CA description of Lady Blanche, 425-426. Is Blanche a blonde? 303. April daffodilly. — There seems to be no particular appropriateness in 'clad her like a daffodilly.' But in color like a daffodilly, i. e., yellow, would suggest Blanche's dis- tinctive dress. A comma after daffodilly would make 'her mother's color' refer to 'blonde,' and this too may be consis- tent with the facts. 306. For similar thought see Tzvo Noble Kinsmen, I, i ; also Moore's Loves of the Angels. 307. Cf. 229. 82 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Then Lady Psyche, 'Ah— Melissa— you ! You heard us?' and Melissa, 'O pardon me, 310 I heard, I could not help it, did not wish: But, dearest Lady, pray you fear me not, Nor think I bear that heart within my breast, To give three gallant gentlemen to death.' T trust you,' said the other, 'for we two 3^5 Were always friends, none closer, elm and vine: But yet your mother's jealous temperament — Let not your prudence, dearest, drowse, or prove The Danaid of a leaky vase, for fear This whole foundation ruin, and I lose 320 My honor, these their lives.' *Ah, fear me not,' Replied Melissa; 'no — I would not tell, No, not for all Aspasia's cleverness, No, not to answer, Madam, all those hard things That Sheba came to ask of Solomon.' 325 313. Melissa is evidently romantic and sentimental. Her interest in this convent-system is not instinctive, but derived by compulsion from Lady Blanche. Hence the revolt is easy. 316. The figure is classic. Catullus, LXH, 49, 56; Ovid, Amor, II, XVI. Cf. also Shakespeare's Midsummer Nighi's Dream, 111, ii, 201; IV, i, 48; Comedy of Errors, II, ii, 176. 319. Danaid. — The Dana'ids murdered their husbands on their v^edding nights, and were compelled as punishment to pour water into vessels full of holes. This figure is too aca- demic to be in any wise colloquial. 323. Astasia. — The companion of Pericles, noted for her learning. Cf. Landor's Pericles and Astasia. 32s. Sheba. — Queen of Sheba. i Kings x; 2 Chronicles CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 83 'Be it so,' the other, 'that we still may lead The new light up, and culminate in peace ; For Solomon may come to Sheba yet/ Said Cyril, 'Madam, he the wisest man Feasted the woman wisest then, in halls 330 Of Lebanonian cedar: nor should you (Tho', Madam, you should answer, zve would ask) Less welcome find among us, if you came Among us, debtors for our lives to you. Myself for something more/ He said not what ; 335 But 'Thanks,' she answered ; 'go ; we have been too long Together ; keep your hoods about the face ; They do so that affect abstraction here. Speak little ; mix not with the rest ; and hold Your promise ; all, I trust, may yet be well.' 340 ix. For the use of Sheba, or Saba, as the name of the Queen, see Henry VIII, V, v. 327. The new light. — 'New lights' was technically used to characterize religious seceders who claimed to have more and better light on religious questions. The new light here is the advanced view as to woman's sphere and power. 328. Psyche's aim is not equality, but superiority. 329. For the Bible story read i Kings v, 10. 332. This parenthesis seems to mean this: Though, madam, you, a woman (Sheba), should answer the ques- tions that we men (Solomons) would ask; that is, should the Solomons ask questions and the Shebas answer them ? 335. Lady Psyche readily imderstood the 'something more' he would not in the presence of others declare. 84 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii We turned to go, but Cyril took the child, And held her round the knees against his waist, And blew the svvoln cheek of a trumpeter, While Psyche watched them, smiling, and the child Pushed her flat hand against his face and laughed ; 345 And thus our conference closed. And then we strolled For half the day thro' stately theatres Benched crescent-wise. In each we sat, we heard The grave Professor. On the lecture slate The circle rounded under female hands 35o With flawless demonstration ; followed then A classic lecture, rich in sentiment. With scraps of thundrous epic lilted out 341. Cyril's adroit attack upon Lady Psyche's affection is continued. Through the child he will yet win the mother's love, 260; V, 102; VII, 68, etc. 345. Explain the use of Hat. 347. A memory of Cambridge? 349. The grave Professor. — Is this language conventional, satirical, or sincere? Lecture slate. — That is, blackboards. Is this technical or poetic? 349~363. This description of the educational processes is perhaps a commentary on the curriculum of girls' schools. Geometry : 350. Classic Poems, Epics, Elegies and Odes : ff. 352. Government, history, psychology, ethics, physiology, geology, astronomy, ornithology, ichthyology, concliology, botany, electricity, chemistry — and all the rest: 358-362. This is a formidable array ! 353. Note the contrast between ^thundrous' and 'lilted out' {i. c, 'declaimed in a feminine voice, '-^//aZ/aw Tenny'^ CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. 85 By violet-hooded Doctors, elegies And quoted odes, and jewels five-words-long 355 That on the stretched forefinger of all Time Sparkle for ever ; then we dipped in all That treats of whatsoever is : the State ; The total chronicles of man, the mind, The morals, something of the frame ; the rock, 360 The star, the bird, the fish, the shell, the flower, Electric, chemic laws, and all the rest ; And whatsoever can be taught and known ; Till, like three horses that have broken fence And glutted all night long breast-deep in corn, 365 We issued gorged with knowledge, and I spoke: 'Why, Sirs, they do all this as well as we.' 'They hunt old trails,' said Cyril, 'very well ; But when did woman ever yet invent ?' 'Ungracious!' answered Florian ; 'have you learnt 370 No more from Psyche's lecture, you that talked The trash that made me sick, and almost sad ?' 354, The lecturers on poetry seem to wear Psyche's colors, 3, etc. Were Blanche's disciples given to mathematics, etc.? 355- Jewels five- words-long. — These are heroic lines, i. e., iambic lines of five bars. 360. Cf. Ill, 289. Their knowledge here was limited. 366. Knowledge. — Knowledge is power is Ida's dogma, so acquisition, not assimilation, is the ideal. Multiply facts. 367. Woman's reproductive faculty is here put in contrast with her inventive. 369. Do you admit the proposition implied in this rhetori- cal question? 372. Cf. 192; also 238, 329. 86 THE PRINCESS : [canto ii 'O trash/ he said^ 'but with a kernel in it. Should I not call her wise, who made mg wise? And learnt ? I learnt more from her in a flash, 375 Than if my brainpan were an empty hull, And every Muse tumbled a science in. A thousand hearts lie fallow in these halls, And round these halls a thousand baby loves Fly twanging headless arrows at the hearts, 380 Whence follows many a vacant pang; but O With me, Sir, entered in the bigger boy, The Head of all the golden-shafted firm, The long-limbed lad that had a Psyche too; He cleft me thro' the stomacher. And now 385 What think you of it, Florian ? do I chase The substance or the shadow? will it hold? 375' Cf. Shakespeare's Love's Lahor*s Lost, IV, iii, 290 flf. Z77. As illustrated by the methods of this University see 349-363. 378. Cf. 448. Which IS intended to represent the atten- dance ? 379, This seems to denote the faintest intimation of im- awakened love. 382. Bigger boy. — Cupid himself, the chief of all the retinue having golden arrows. The prosaic vi^ord 'firm' is in Cyril's character. 384. The story 6f Cupid and Psyche may be found in Moore's The Earthly Paradise, Harvey's Cupid and Psyche, Keats' Ode to Psyche, etc. The story is lirst found in the writings of Apuleius. 385. Stomacher. — Is this an article of man's clothing? Cyril rather prefers the slangy tone. 387. Cf. I, 9. CANTO ii] A MEDLEY. g^ I have no sorcerer's malison on me, No ghostly hauntings like His Highness. I Flatter myself that always everywhere 290 I know the substance when I see it. Well, Are castles shadows? Three of them? Is she, The sweet proprietress, a shadow ? If not, Shall those three castles patch my tattered coat ? For dear are those three castles to my wants, 30,5 And dear is sister Psyche to my heart, And two dear things are one of double worth ; And much I might have said, but that my zone Unmanned me ; then the Doctors ! O to hear The Doctors ! O to watch the thirsty plants 400 Imbibing! once or twice I thought to roar, To break my chain, to shake my mane ; but thou Modulate me, soul of mincing mimicry ! Make liquid treble of that bassoon, my throat ; 388. Malison. — Compare the similarly formed antonym benison. Malison is not an unusual word in old ballads. 389. Cf. again L 9 ff. 39i~397- Cyril's account of his love for Florian's sister is not creditable to his heart, since it is confessedly mercenary, bent on substantial gain; or creditable to his taste, since his avowal of his cupidity is to Florian himself. 394. Cf. I, 78. Cf. also I, 52 for Cyril's broken fortune. 398. Zone.— Cf. 4. 401. Cyril did not preserve this 'modulation.' Cf. IV, 137. 403. Cf. As You Like It, I, iii, 117. Shakespeare often clothes women with men's garb and manners. Note Tenny- son's attempt to do the reverse. 404. Bassoon. — This is a reed instrument of guttural timbre, cf. IV, 74. 88 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Abase those eyes that ever loved to meet 405 Star-sisters answering under crescent brows; Abate the stride which speaks of man, and loose A flying charm of blushes o'er this cheek, Where they like swallows coming out of time Will wonder why they came; but hark the bell 410 For dinner, let us go !' And in we streamed Among the columns, pacing staid and still By twos and threes, till all from end to end With beauties every shade of brown and fair, In colors gayer than the morning mist, 415 The long hall glittered like a bed of flowers. How might a man not wander from his wits Pierced thro' with eyes, but that I kept mine own Intent on her who, rapt in glorious dreams. The second-sight of some Astrsean age, 420 Sat compassed with Professors; they, the while. Discussed a doubt and tossed it to and fro ; A clamor thickened, mixed with inmost terms 406. Cf. Ida's 'arched brows.' 25. 409. They refers to 'blushes.' The simile, 'like . . . time,' should be set off with commas. 410. Cyril seems to be mundane as well as mercenary, 415. Colors. — Principally violet and golden, 3, 4; and yellow, 303. 419. Her.— Ida, 18 ff. 420. AsTR^AN. — Astrsea, goddess of innocence and purity, who abandoned the world in the Age of Iron. Her return with a Golden Age was predicted. Virgil, Eclogue, IV, 6. Milton's Hymn on the Nativity. Pope's Messiah, etc. CANTO II] A MEDLEY. 89 Of art and science ; Lady Blanche alone, Of faded form and haughtiest lineaments, 425 With all her autumn tresses falsely brown. Shot sidelong daggers at us, a tiger-cat In act to spring. At last a solemn grace Concluded, and we sought the gardens ; there One walked reciting by herself, and one 430 In this hand held a volume as to read, And smoothed a petted peacock down with that. Some to a low song oared a shallop by. Or under arches of the marble bridge Hung, shadowed from the heat ; some hid and sought 435 In the orange thickets; others tossed a ball Above the fountain-jets, and back again With laughter ; others lay about the lawns — Of the older sort — and murmured that their May 425-428. Contrast Lady Blanche in form, features, dress, age, manners, and spirit with Lady Psyche, 91 ff. 428. Is the grace after, rather than before, meals an Eng- lish custom? 431. As.— As if. Pretense of study. 338. 432. Peacock. — Is this the only male thing within the liberties? Is he tolerated because of his feminine vanity of splendid colors? 433. Oared.— IV, 165. Would 'rowed' suggest too much effort? 434. Another reminder of the Cam and the poet's univer- sity days. 436. Orange. — Another hint as to the southern locality of this Academe, 439. Nature will assert itself. 35; 287; 313; I, 2. 439 ff. The spirit of discontent has already entered. 90 THE PRINCESS: [canto ii Was passing; what was learning unto them? 440 They wished to marry ; they could rule a house ; Men hated learned women ; — but we three Sat muffled like the Fates; and often came Melissa, hitting all we saw with shafts Of gentle satire, kin to charity, 445 That harmed not. Then day drooped ; the chapel bells Called us ; we left the walks ; we mixed with those Six hundred maidens clad in purest while, Before two streams of light from wall to wall, While the great organ almost burst his pipes, 450 Groaning for power, and rolling thro' the court A long melodious thunder to the sound Of solemn psalms and silver litanies, The work of Ida, to call down from Heaven A blessing on her labors for the world. 455 443. Muffled.— 337 ff. Atropos was the only 'muffled' Fate. The others were Clotho and Lachesis. 448. Purest white. — In white surplices. 'They were in white at chapel, as we Cantabs were at our Trinity College Chapel in Cambridge.' — Tennyson to Rolfe, 450. For the music of the lines, cf. In Memoriam, LXXXVII, 2. 454. Did the 'new light' (z^j) demand a new ritual and new hymns or were those generally used repudiated because they were man-made? Woman's religious instinct prevails, no matter what her vagaries. [THE LULLABY.] Sweet and low, sweet and low, Wind of the western sea, Low, low, breathe and blow, Wind of the western sea ! Over the rolling waters go. Come from the dying moon, and blow, Blow him again to me ; While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. Sleep and rest, sleep and rest. Father will come to thee soon; Rest, rest, on mother's breast. Father will come to thee soon; Father will come to his babe in the nest, Silver sails all out of the west Under the silver moon: Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep. This second intercalary poem— The Lullaby— suggests perhaps the sense of fancied security and safety from all intrusion into which this Academe is lulled. It points more directly to the present. The child is not only the reconciling medium of differences between father and mother, man and woman, it is also the unifying power of the family. The happiness of the mother, the hope of the father is in the child. The child image is still kept before us ; for it is the child that will soften Ida's heart and solve her problems. This poem was probably suggested by Theocritus XXIV, 7-9, and its present form was chosen by Mrs. Tennyson, who, because of its song-like quality, preferred it to the poem given in The Memoir of Tennyson, I, 255. [ 91 ] 92 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii III. [THE RIDE TO THE NORTH.] [After much difficulty in dressing themselves in woman's garb, they are standing near the fountain when Melissa tells them that Blanche has learned the truth that they are men. Melissa bids them flee. Florian shows signs of falling in love with Melissa, while the Prince defends Ida. Cyril re- counts how, by the appeal to her ambition, he has temporarily pacified Blanche. A message comes that the Prince will ride to the north on a scientific expedition. On the way the Prince (unrecognized) speaks of his love, and the Princess tells of her plans and purposes. — Ed.] IVIoRN in the white wake of the morning star Came furrowing all the orient into gold. We rose, and each by other dressed with care, Descended to the court, that lay three parts In shadow, but the Muses' heads were touched, i Above the darkness, from their native East. There, while we stood beside the fount, and watched Or seemed to watch the dancing bubble, approached 1-2. These beautiful lines need no explanation; they simply need realization. Venus precedes the Sun, who fills the East with rolling ridges of gold. Some day find the lines reproduced in the heavens. 5. Muses.— II, 13. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 93 Melissa, tinged with wan from lack of sleep, Or grief, and glowing round her dewy eyes 10 The circled Iris of a night of tears; And 'Fly,' she cried, 'O fly, while yet you may ! My mother knows ;' and when I asked her 'How ?' 'My fault,' she wept, 'my fault 1 and yet not mine ; Yet mine in part. O hear me, pardon me. 15 My mother, 't is her wont from night to night To rail at Lady Psyche and her side. She says the Princess should have been the Head, Herself and Lady Psyche the two arms ; And so it was agreed when first they came ; 20 But Lady Psyche was the right hand now, And she the left, or not or seldom used ; Hers more than half the students, all the love. And so last night she fell to canvass you : Her countrywomen ! she did not envy her. 25 "Who ever saw such wild barbarians? Girls?— more like men !" and at these words the snake, 9. Tinged with wan.— Pale. The derivation of 'wan' is very peculiar (see Skeat's Etymological Dictionary), but Tennyson is using it with exactness. Cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, X, 1009, 'dyed with pale.' II. Iris— The rainbow. This word, suggested in connec- tion with eyes by the technical name for a part of the eye, conveys the idea of variegated color rather than that of dark- ness induced by weeping. The word is not suggestive. 21-23. Note Lady Blanche's jealousy. This, rather than her convictions as to the usefulness of the Academe, will explain her action. Cf. L 230. 26. Barbarians.— II, 278; IV, 516. 27. She had watched them to good purpose. II, Z?>> 427- 94 THE PRINCESS: [canto iir My secret, seemed to stir within my breast ; And oh, Sirs, could I help it? but my cheek Began to burn and burn, and her lynx eye 30 To fix and make me hotter, till she laughed : "O marvelously modest maiden, you ! Men ! girls like men ! why, if they had been men You need not set your thoughts in rubric thus For wholesale comment" Pardon, I am shamed 35 That I must needs repeat for my excuse What looks so little graceful; "Men" (for still My mother went revolving on the word), "And so they are, — very like men indeed, And with that woman closeted for hours !" 40 Then came these dreadful words out one by one, "Why — these — are — men ;" I shuddered ; "and you know it." "O ask me nothing," I said ; "And she knows too, And she conceals it." So my mother clutched The truth at once, but with no word from me ; 45 30. II, 427. The sharpness and shrewdness of the preying animal is in her jealousy. 32-42. The steps by which Blanche reaches certainty in her suspicion might be compared with those by which Othello reaches assurance, or Leontes in The Winter's Tale is confirmed in his jealousy. 34, In rubric. — In red (blushes), as in old books, initials and significant words were sometimes printed. 42. This discovery is the dynamic point of this Canto, as Lady Psyche's was of the second and Ida's of the fourth. I SHUDDERED is parenthetic and miglit be so written. 44. Clutched. — This seems to indicate a bird of prey. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 95 And now thus early risen she goes to inform The Princess ; Lady Psyche will be crushed ; But you may yet be saved, and therefore fly ; But heal me with your pardon ere you go.' 'What pardon, sweet Melissa, for a blush?' 50 Said Cyril : 'Pale one, blush again ; than wear Those lilies, better blush our lives away. Yet let us breathe for one hour more in Heaven,' He added, 'lest some classic angel speak In scorn of us, "They mounted, Ganymedes, 55 To tumble, Vulcans, on the second morn." But I wall melt this marble into wax To yield us farther furlough ;' and he went. Melissa shook her doubtful curls, and thought He scarce would prosper. 'Tell us,' Florian asked, 60 'How grew this feud betwixt the right and left.' 'O long ago,' she said, 'betwixt these two Division smolders hidden ; 'tis my mother Too jealous, often fretful as the w^ind Pent in a crevice ; much I bear with her; 65 I never knew my father, but she says 49. Heal. — Make whole, restore, 55. Ganymede was carried up by an eagle; Vulcan was cast from Olympus. Cf. for Ganymede, Palace of Art; Mil- ton's Paradise Regained, II, 353, etc. For Vulcan, cf. Mil- ton's Paradise Lost, I, 740-6. 57. Cyril's boast to overcome Blanche's hardness is made good, 140-151. 61. Cf. 19, 141. gS THE PRINCESS: [canto iii (God help her) she was wedded to a fool ; And still she railed against the state of things. She had the care of Lady Ida's youth, And from the Queen's decease she brought her up. ^q But when your sister came she won the heart Of Ida ; they were still together, grew (For so they said themselves) inosculated ; Consonant chords that shiver to one note; One mind in all things ; yet my mother still 75 Affirms your Psyche thieved her theories^ And angled with them for her pupils' love; She calls her plagiarist ; I know not what; But I must go; I dare not tarry,' and light As flies the shadow of a bird, she fled. 80 Then murmured Florian, gazing after her, *An open-hearted maiden, true and pure. If I could love, why this were she ; how pretty 68. Still.— Continually. Cf. 72; I, 56. 69. Cf. VI, 217 ff. 72. Does Melissa, a young girl, thus speak of the haughty head of this great institution? 7^. Inosculated. — To run together by kisses; united by affection. 74. Consonant chords.— Two lives so alike that they respond identically to the same impression, just as two con- sonant chords will vibrate to a given note. 78. Plagiarist. — A kidnapper, particularly of literary wares. 82. Florian falls in love with less precipitancy, and i.s abashed by his feeling. Cf. Cyril, 51-53, CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 97 Her blushing was, and how she blushed again, As if to close with Cyril's random wish ; 85 Not like your Princess crammed with erring pride, Nor like poor Psyche whom she drags in tow.' The crane,' I said, 'may chatter of the crane, The dove may murmur of the dove, but I, An eagle, clang an eagle to the sphere. 90 My princess, O my princess !— True, she errs, But in her own grand way ; being herself Three times more noble than three score of men, She sees herself in every woman else; And so she wears her error like a crown 95 To blind the truth and me; for her, and her, 86-87. Florian's view of Ida as full of erring pride and of Psyche as merely a dependent of Ida's is not compli- mentary to either. 88-89. Are these lines to be construed as of personal reference? Psyche and Cyril do not lack words; Florian and Melissa are somewhat 'turtle-doveish ;' but the Prince and the Princess are eagles bent on high flight. 90. Clang.— Celebrate with clangor (Century Diction- ary) Did Tennyson create this meaning for the word by his use of it in this poem? Cf. IV, 415; cf. also Paradise Lost, XI, 835, 'sea-mew's clang.' Sphere.— The overarchmg heavens. , . 94. The Prince thinks her chief error is in her misjudg- ment of other women when she thinks them equal to her- self. 96. For her, and her.— Lady Psyche and Melissa, the loves of Cyril and Florian; or Lady Psyche and Lady Blanche, the right and left of Ida? Probably the latter. 98 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii Hebes are they to hand ambrosia, mix The nectar ; but — ah she ! — whene'er she moves The Samian Here rises, and she speaks A Memnon smitten with the morning sun.' loo So saying, from the court we paced, and gained The terrace ranged along the Northern front, And leaning there on those balusters, high Above the empurpled champaign, drank the gale That, blown about the foliage underneath, j^^ And sated with the innumerable rose, Beat balm upon our eyelids. Hither came Cyril, and yawning, 'O hard task,' he cried, 'No fighting shadows here ! I forced a way Thro' solid opposition, crabbed and gnarled. no Better to clear prime forests, heave and thump 97. Hebe. — The cupbearer of the gods. 99. Samian Here. — Hera (Juno) of Samos. 100. Memnon. — Killed by Achilles. His statue near Thebes was said to emit a musical note when struck by the rising sun. 103. Is this pronunciation of 'balusters' correct? 104. Empurpled. — 'Blue in the distance' (Wallace) ; VI, 179. In Menioriam, XXXVIII, 3. See also VII, 187. Cham- paign. Cf. campaign. Campagna; flat, open country. 106. Cf. V, 13, etc. 109. That is, in trying to overcome Lady Blanche. Cf. 57, 151- III. PRiME.—Primeval. A Miltonic use. 111-112. This euphemistic periphrasis for street paving is in keeping with Tennyson's over-elaborate poetizing of the unpoeticak CANTO III] A MEDLEY. go A league of street in summer solstice down, Than hammer at this reverend gentlewoman. I knocked and, bidden, entered ; found her there At point to move, and settled in her eyes 115 The green malignant light of coming storm. Sir, I was courteous, every phrase well-oiled As man's could be ; yet maiden-meek I prayed Concealment ; she demanded who we were, And why we came ? I fabled nothing fair, 120 But, your example pilot, told her all. Up went the hushed amaze of hand and eye. But when I dwelt upon your old affiance. She answered sharply that I talked astray. I urged the fierce inscription on the gate, 125 And our three lives. True — we had limed ourselves With open eyes, and we must take the chance. But such extremes, I told her, well might harm 115. At point to move. — The more usual form is 'on the point,' or 'at the point.' Cf. Lat. In eo est, and Ger. Auf dem Punkt. 116. Green malignant light (of a tiger-cat). Cf. 11,427. 121. Your example pilot.— Construe grammatically. Cf. II, 194 flf. 121-149. Cyril tries frankness, love-story, danger, pity, policy, maternal love, terror, and ambition, and succeeds by this last. Cf. The arguments and appeals by which Psyche is won, II, 195 ff. 126. Limed. — Entrapped ourselves. Cf. Shakespeare's Hamlet, III, iii, 68-69. Note use of bird-lime for taking birds. 128. Extreme. — The execution of an extreme law renders nugatory the law itself. Cf. Of Old Sat Freedom. LofC. lOO THE PRINCESS: [canto iii The woman's cause. ''Not more than now," she said, "So puddled as it is with favoritism." 130 I tried the mother's heart. Shame might befall Melissa, knowing, saying not she knew ; Her answer was "Leave me to deal with that." I spoke of war to come, and many deaths, And she replied, her duty was to speak, 135 And duty duty, clear of consequences. I grew discouraged, Sir; but since I knew No rock so hard but that a little wave May beat admission in a thousand years, I recommenced : "Decide not ere you pause. 140 I find you here but in the second place. Some say the third — the authentic foundress you. I offer boldly — we will seat you highest ; Wink at our advent ; help my prince to gain His rightful bride, and here I promise you 145 Some palace in our land, where you shall reign The head and heart of all our fair she-world, And your great name flow on with broadening time 130. Puddled. — Is the idea, muddied, hence befouled? Cf. Shakespeare's Othello, III, IV, 148. 133. Cf. IV, 347. 136. Cf. Qinone, 147-8. 142. Foundress. — This word rather than founder is de- liberately used by Cyril to emphasize sex. 144. Advent. — This form of the word is usually reserved for a higher purpose. 147. Head and heart. — The man and woman in one, 18; V, 439. She-world. — Compare 'she-society,' Prl. 158. 148. Cf. II, 31-32. CANTO mi A MEDLEY. lOi For ever." Well, she balanced this a little, And told me she would answer us to-day, Meantime be mute ; thus much, nor more, I gamed. He ceasing, came a message from the Head. 'That afternoon the Princess rode to take The dip of certain strata to the North. Would we go with her? we should find the land Worth seeing; and the river made a tall Out yonder;' then she pointed on to where A double hill ran up his furrowy forks Beyond the thick-leaved platans of the vale. 150 155 160 Agreed to, this, the day fled on thro' all Its range of duties to the appointed hour. Then summoned to the porch we went. She stood Among her maidens, higher by the head. Her back against a pillar, her foot on one Of those tame leopards. Kittenlike he rolled 165 And pawed about her sandal. I drew near ; 1.4 To THE North depends on 'rode.' The collocation Is unhappy. This expedition for geological exploration bnngs lo Z fore the attention given to the sciences least suited to feminine prosecution. r-^,Ano^) 158. Furrowy roRKS.-Forks with furrows (i. c, ravines) in the sides. m8-g. Cf. note on 111-112. 159. Thick-leaved PLATANS.-Collins traces this to Mos- "" "'63. Higher BY THE HEAD.-99- Prk 40; 11,27. Cf. the account of Saul in I Samuel, ix, 2. 102 THE PRINCESS: [canto iir I gazed. On a sudden my strange seizure came Upon me, the weird vision of our house; The Princess Ida seemed a hollow show, Her gay-furred cats a painted fantasy, 170 Her college and her maidens empty masks. And I myself the shadow of a dream ; For all things were and were not. Yet I felt My heart beat thick with passion and with awe; Then from my breast the involuntary sigh 175 Brake, as she smote me with the light of eyes That lent my knee desire to kneel, and shook My pulses, till to horse we got, and so Went forth in long retinue, following up The river as it narrowed to the hills. 180 167. Cf. I, 14; 81. 168. The 'weird seizure,' first mentioned in Canto I (14) and there explained by the Court Galen (81) as 'catalepsy,' is perhaps akin to the singular state described in In Memo- riam, XCV, 9. This condition is here caused by intense gazing, but perhaps is nothing more than 'love passion,' as Cook suggests. (Cook's edition of The Princess.) Tenny- son's own account of the state into which he could bring himself at will is in point. See Rolfe's In Mcmoriam, p. 194. 172. Cf. I, 18; V, 466. Such expressions, as well as 'were and were not,' etc., point to the unrealities of the poem. 174-178. These lines indicate that his 'weird seizure' was hardly more than a poetic and romantic transport of love. 176. Brake. — Tennyson often prefers the archaic and poetic form rather than the form ordinarily sanctioned. 179. Retinue. — Cf. Baluster. Tennyson's liberties with prosaic forms is hardly as daring as his liberties with ac- cepted accents. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 103 I rode beside her, and to me she said : 'O friend, we trust that you esteemed us not Too harsh to your companion yestermorn ; Unwillingly we spake.' 'No — not to her,' I answered, 'but to one of whom we spake 185 Your Highness might have seemed the thing you say.' 'Again?' she cried, 'are you ambassadresses From him to me? We give you, being strange, A license ; speak, and let the topic die,' I stammered that I knew him — could have wished — 190 'Our king expects — 'was there no precontract? There is no truer-hearted — ah, you seem All he prefigured, and he could not see The bird of passage flying south but longed To follow ; surely, if Your Highness keep 195 Your purport, you will shock him even to death. Or baser courses, children of despair.' 182. Cyril. — Cf. II, 39. There is no elective affinity be- tween the Princess and Cyril ; cf. IV, 144. 186. The thing you say. — That is, too harsh. 187. Again — Cf. II, 35. It was the Princess who first introduced the Prince as a subject of inquiry, as it is the Princess, whose curiosity gives a new pupil license to speak freely of him. 194. Note the Song of the Swallow, IV, 75 ff. Cf. also I, 35 ff, 96 ff. 195. These words and others do not impress the Princess with the manliness and masculine strength of her longing lover. To compare him with a girl (202) is to insult the girls of her institution; therefore she compares him with girls as they used to be, childish and sentimental ; cf. VII, 227. 104 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 'Poor boy,' she said, 'can he not read — no books? Quoit, tennis, ball — no games ? nor deals in that Which men delight in, martial exercise? 200 To nurse a blind ideal like a girl, Methinks he seems no better than a girl, As girls were once, — as we ourself have been ; We had our dreams ; perhaps he mixed with them ; We touch on our dead self, nor shun to do it, 205 Being other — since we learnt our meaning here : To lift the woman's fallen divinity Upon an even pedestal with man.' She paused, and added with a haughtier smile, *And as to precontracts, we move, my friend, 210 At no man's beck, but know ourself — and thee, 196. Purport. — Cf. II, 46-47. 197. Basrr courses. — Worse than death. Cf. 'Better not be at all than not be noble,' — II, 79. 205. Cf. In Memoriam, I, i. 206. Our meaning. — The true dignity and mission of the sex. Cf. VII, 215 ff. 207. Cf. Lilia's view, Prl. 127 ff; Psyche's, II, 32S; Princess', II, 51-52, 155 ff. The theme, I, 130. 207-208. This is ari excellent statement of the purpose of the Princess in establishing her Academe. Compare the splendid solution of this problem in VII, 239-345. 210. Cf. 191; I, 31, 122; V, 388, etc. 211. Thee. — In apposition with this pronoun stands 'Vashti,' the proud Oriental queen, who knew how to main- tain her own equality and independence. Cf. Esther, I. This apostrophe is the Princess' appeal for sympathy and support in her similar problem. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. I05 Vashti, noble Vashti ! Summoned out She kept her state, and left the drunken king To brawl at Shushan underneath the palms.' 'Alas, your Highness breathes full East,' I said, 215 'On that which leans to you. I know the Prince, 1 prize his truth : and then how vast a work To assail this gray preeminence of man ! You grant me license; might I use it? Think; Ere half be done perchance your life may fail ; 220 Then comes the feebler heiress of your plan, And takes and ruins all ; and thus your pains May only make that footprint upon sand Which old-recurring waves of prejudice Resmooth to nothing: might I dread that you, 225 215. EuLL East. — This Eastern allusion is disheartening to an aspiring lover, and breathes defiance like a keen east wind. Cf. Audley Court, 51-53. 217. Here begins the Prince's love-assault upon the Princess. Psyche had been won by a brother's appeal and by unacknowledged love for a bold, frank wooer: Blanche succumbed to the arguments of power and ambition ; but the Princess yields nothing, except a confession of her sacri- fice and her love for children. The Prince makes these points: (i) Owing to the shortness of life her work will be left unfinished; (2) the work will then be of no avail; (3) her life will be vain; (4) she will lose in this experiment, 'love, children, happiness.' 218. Gray pre-eminence. — Ancient superiority. Prl. 127. For her altered view, cf. VII, 282 ff. 223. Cf. The Psalm of Life by Longfellow. Did Tenny- son, here or elsewhere, owe anything to this poet? I06 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii With only fame for spouse and your great deeds ^ For issue, yet may live in vain, and miss. Meanwhile, what every woman counts her due, Love, children, happiness?' And she exclaimed, 'Peace, you young savage of the Northern wild ! 230 What tho' your Prince's love were like a God's, Have we not made ourself the sacrifice? You are bold indeed ; we are not talked to thus ; Yet will we say for children, would they grew Like field-flovvers everywhere ! we like them well ; 3^5 But children die ; and let me tell you, girl, Howe'er you babble, great deeds cannot die ; They with the sun and moon renew their light For ever, blessing those that look on them. Children — that men may pluck them from our hearts, 240 226. Fame is usually personified as of what sex? 228-9. The Prince's conception of woman's due is more limited than that he finally utters. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 232. The Princess then admits that her conduct in relin- quishing her 'due' (228-9) was 'fiat treason 'gainst the kingly state of youth.' — Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost, IV, iii, 293. 234-240. The Princess can surrender love and happiness of 'woman's due,' but her mind clings to the thought — children. It is a child, Psyche's Agla'ia, that will open Ida's heart to all other natural impressions. (V, 427). 236. Children die, but their power does not. Cf. 'The Reconciliation Song' after Canto I. 237. Babble. — The Princess does not hesitate to decry the argument of this young 'savage.' 237. Find illustrations of this truth. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 107 Kill us with pity, break us with ourselves — O — children — there is nothing upon earth More miserable than she that has a son And sees him err ! Nor would we work for fame ; Tho' she perhaps might reap the applause of Great, 245 Who learns the one pou sto whence after-hands May move the world, tho' she herself .efifect But little ; wherefore up and act, nor shrink For fear our solid aim be dissipated By frail successors. Would, indeed, we had been, 250 In lieu of many mortal flies, a race Of giants living each a thousand years. That we might see our own work out, and watch The sandy footprint harden into stone." I answered nothing, doubtful in myself 255 tf that strange Poet-princess, with her grand Imaginations, might at all be won. And she broke out, interpreting my thoughts : 243. Cf. Proverbs X. i. 245. To whom in English History has this epithet of 'Great' been applied, and why? 246. Pou Sto. — 'Give me where I may stand, and I will move the world.' This was what Archimedes said when speaking of the power of the lever, Cf. In Menwriam, CXIII. 251. Flies. — This suggests the ephemeral character of life. Cf. In Memoriam, L; Milton's Samson Agonistes, 676. 254. Cf. 223. 257. This grand poetic imagination is not out of keeping with her potent will, heretofore noted. I08 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii 'No doubt we seem a kind of monster to you ; We are used to that ; for women, up till this 260 Cramped under worse than South-sea-isle taboo, Dwarfs of the gyn^eceum, fail so far In high desire, they know not, cannot guess How much their welfare is a passion to us. If we could give them surer, quicker proof — 265 O if our end were less achievable By slow approaches than by single act Of immolation, any phase of death, We were as prompt to spring against the pikes, 259. Cf. 230. The Princess does not desire the silence she enjoined. 259-271. This passage is conclusive as to the seriousness and sincerity of Ida's sacrifice. She is not a Lady Blanche swayed by ambition nor a Psyche caught by fancy and senti- ment. 260. We are used to that. — Namely to be misjudged by other women, who question her sincerity. 261. South-Sea-Isle taboo. — The taboo, denoted by a mark, was a prohibition or ban under which property of the South Sea Islanders was placed. It transferred owner- ship from the rightful owner to the priesthood. It suggests here that woman's independence had been surrendered to man. 262. Gyn;eceum. — The rear of the house reserved for women. Here probably a school for girls corresponding to the Gymnasium — a school for boys (in fact, though not in etymology). 269. Read the story of Publius Decius Mus, a hero of the Latin War (c. 340 B. C.) Cf. II, 264. 269. Cf. II, 268. These women are fond of recalling the heroic deeds of men. CANTO III] A MEDLEY. 109 Or down the fiery gulf, as talk of it, 270 To compass our dear sisters' liberties.' She bowed as if to veil a noble tear ; And up we came to where the river sloped To plunge in cataract, shattering on black blocks A breadth of thunder. O'er it shook the woods, 275 And danced the color, and, below, stuck out The bones of some vast bulk that lived and roared Before man was. She gazed awhile and said, *As these rude bones to us, are we to her That will be.' 'Dare we dream of that,' I asked, 280 'Which wrought us, as the workman and his work, That practice betters?' 'How,' she cried, 'you love The metaphysics ! Read and earn our prize, A golden brooch ; beneath an emerald plane 270. Recall the legend of Marcus Curtius (c. B. C 3^2). Are diese three references the only ones to men? 274. Listen to the explosive splash of falling water. 276. The color. — The rainbow framed in the spray. Cf. Palace of Art, 35-6, 43- 277. Cf. Prl. 15. 279. Prophecy as to the improvements of the race, or specifically of woman. 280. That . . . which.— The creative force, or better, the Creator; cf. II, 128. 280. Tennyson raises the question here as to whether there can be a progressive God ; that is, a God who improves upon his own work by practice; and hence whether the human race may be different and far greater in the future. Cf. Pass- ing of Arthur. His answer to his question seems to be in 'progressive interpretation.' 309 ff. 284. This design is characteristically feminine. Cf. The College Seal, I, 238. no THE PRINCESS: [canto iii Sits Diotima, teaching him that died 285 Of hemkxrk ; our device ; wrought to the Hfe ; She rapt upon her subject, he on her: For there are schools for all/ 'And yet,' I said, 'Methinks I have not found among them all One anatomic' 'Nay, we thought of that,' 290 She answered, 'but it pleased us not ; in truth We shudder but to dream our maids should ape Those monstrous males that carve the living hound, And cram him with the fragments of the grave, Or in the dark dissolving human heart, 295 And holy secrets of this microcosm. Dabbling a shameless hand with shameful jest, 285. Diotima. — The instructress of Socrates. A case in point of Psyche's aim. Cf. II, 328. 288. Schools. — Departments, courses. This terminology is still preserved at the University of Virginia and institu- tions-established under her influence. 290. This omission, not noted before, seems rather inartis- tically mentioned to give the Princess an opportunity for a disquisition on vivisection. 293. Carve the living hound. — This protest against vivi- section is not merely a woman's ; it is Tennyson's ; cf. In the Children's Hospital. 294. Can this refer to inoculating in modern bacteriologi- cal laboratories, or does it merely refer to feeding the dog on the cadaver? 295. Dissolving. — The choice of the word here relieves the loathsomeness of the thought. 296. Microcosm. — The little world (man) as opposed to Macrocosm (the great world outside of him.) 297. Tennyson seems to have had a laudable loathing of the 'coarse red' surgeons who can 'break their jests on the dead.' CANTO III] A MEDLEY. Ill Encarnalize their spirits; yet we know Knowledge is knowledge, and this matter hangs ; Howbeit onrself, foreseeing casualty, 300 Nor willing men should come among us, learnt. For many weary moons before we came, This craft of healing. Were you sick, ourself Would tend upon you. To your question now. Which touches on the workman and his work. 305 'Let there be light, and there was light ;' 't is so; For was, and is, and will be, are but is ; And all creation is one act at once. The birth of light ; but we that are not all. As parts, can see but parts, now this, now that, 310 And live, perforce, from thought to thought, and make One act a phantom of succession ; thus 298. Encarnalize. — Convert spirits into flesh, the heavenly and divine into the earthly. Is this a Tennysonian contribution to our language? 299. Hangs. — It is in abeyance. These women, though certain of many things, leave some problems to be solved later. 303. Cf. VI, 279; VII, 76 ff. 305. Cf. 281. 306. Cf. Genesis i, 3; cf. Milton's Paradise Lost, VII, 242 ff. 306-314. This should be studied in connection with 280 ff. This universal present of the Creator, which in our part knowledge becomes a phantom of succession in past, present, and future, gives to creation the appearance of progression, while, in truth, the progression is only in our interpretation. Cf. In Memoriam, CXXXVIII. 310. Cf. I Cor, xiii ; 12. 1^2 THE PRINCESS: [canto iii Our weakness somehow shapes the shadow, Time; But in the shadow will we work, and mold The woman to the fuller day.' She spake 315 With kindled eyes ; we rode a league beyond, And, o'er a bridge of pinewood crossing, came On flowery levels underneath the crag. Full of all beauty. 'O how sweet,' I said, (For I was half-oblivious of my mask), 320 'To linger here with one that loved us.' 'Yea,' She answered, 'or with fair philosophies That lift the fancy ; for indeed these fields Are lovely, lovelier not the Elysian lawns. Where paced the Demigods of old, and saw 325 Tlie soft white vapor streak the crowned towers Built to the sun ;' then, turning to her maids, 'Pitch our pavilion here upon the sward ; Lay out the viands.' At the word, they raised A tent of satin, elaborately wrought 330 With fair Corinna's triumph ; here she stood, 320. Half-oblivious, etc. — Near to falling out of the char- acter he was playing. 322-3. As her fancy had just been elevated into the high- est realm by metaphysics. 324. Elysian lawns.— Islands of the Blest; cf. Lang's Fortunate Islands. 325. Demigods. — Titans. 329. Cf. Prl. 105. 331. Corinna's Triumph. — The embroidery represents the victory of Corinna, the woman conqueror, over Pindar, himself the 'victor of ten thousand hymns.' (See Gilder- sleeve's Pindar, p. X.) CANTO III] MEDLEY. II3 Engirt with many a florid maiden-cheek, The woman-conqueror ; woman-conquered there The bearded victor of ten-thousand hymns, And all the men mourned at his side ; but we 335 Set forth to climb ; then, climbing, Cyril kept With Psyche, with Melissa Florian, I With mine affianced. Many a little hand Glanced like a touch of sunshine on the rocks, Many a light foot shone like a jewel set 340 In the dark crag ; and then we turned, we wound About the cliffs, the copses, out and in, Hammering and clinking, chattering stony names Of shale and hornblende, rag and trap and tuff. Amygdaloid and trachyte, till the sun 345 Grew broader toward his death, and fell, and all The rosy heights came out above the lawns. 340. Tennyson can hardly be thinking of our athletic English cousins. The spirit of poetry is strong upon him. 343. Stony, — Double sense. Hard, names of rocks. 344-5. This catalogue of names calls for your dictionary, but for no technical explanation. 346. See how fact and mythology are here blended. The Canto covers a full day. Can the time of each Canto be as- certained? [THE ECHO-SONG.] The splendor falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story; The long light shakes across the lakes, And the wild cataract leaps in glory. Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O hark, O hear ! how thin and clear. And thinner, clearer, farther going ! O sweet and far from cliff and scar The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. O love, they die in yon rich sky, They faint on hill or field or river; Our echoes roll from soul to soul, And grow for ever and for ever. ^ Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying; And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying. As the first intercalary poems have referred to the unify- ing power of the child in the past and present, so this poem points forward through child and grandchild to remote de- scendants. The echoes of the bugle faint as they reach greater distance, but our echoes grow with increasing genera- tions. Not in the achievements of one generation, as the Princess in her plan logically presumes, but in successive generations of growth is the problem of woman's increased power solved. 'Other men labor, and we enter into their labors,' that from the point to which they have brought the world we may move forward. Of the form of the poem — a perfect masterpiece of the poet's art — too much could not be said, and little need be said at all, for it commends itself to the ear rightly attuned. [ 114 ] CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. II5 IV. [THE CAMP AND THE CASTAWAYS.] [In the camp, after the day's work, a song is called for. First Violet sings of the storied past, and the Prince 'apes their treble' in a mere love song. The Princess demands a song of their country, and Cyri! responds with a tavern catch unmeet for ladies. There is a shriek and a disorderly flight, in which the Princess loses her head and falls into a stream. The Prince rescues her. The ladies — except Psyche, who flees, followed by Cyril— reach the College, and Florian and the Prince are arrested and brought before the Princess. Blanche, the affluent orator, is too ardent in her prosecution, and is summarily dismissed, but Psyche's child is kept. Let- ters come telling of the siege of her palace by the Prince's father, who holds Gama as hostage. She addresses the brawlers, returns bitter thanks to her rescuer, and orders the men thrust out. — Ed.] There sinks the nebulous star we call the sun, If that hypothesis of theirs be sound,' Said Ida ; 'let us down and rest ;' and we Down from the lean and wrinkled precipices. By every coppice-feathered chasm and cleft, 2. Nebular hypothesis. H, 101-3. 4. Wrinkled.— Cf. HT, 158; 'furrowy?' Cf. Will, 19. 5. CoppiCE-FEATiiERED. — Same as 'copse feathered' 'Lightly fringed with foliage.' Wallace. Cf. The Gardener's Daugh- ter, 46. Il6 THE PRINCESS: [cantoiv Dropt through the ambrosial gloom to where below No bigger than a glow-worm shone the tent, Lamp-lit from the inner. Once she leaned on me, Descending; once or twice she lent her hand, And blissful pali)itations in the blood, lo Stirring a sudden transport, rose and fell. But when we planted level feet, and dipped Beneath tlie satin dome and entered in. There leaning deep in broidered down we sank Our elbows; on a tripod in the midst 15 A fragrant flame rose, and before us glowed Fruit, blossom, viand, amber wine, and gold. Then she, 'Let some one sing to us ; lightlier move The minutes fledged with music;' and a maid. Of those beside her, smote her harp, and sang: 20 6. Dropt.— Cf. Prl. 96; I, 168. Ambrosial.— Cf. In Mc- moriam, LXXXVI, 'ambrosial air'; Longfellow's Evange- line, 'ambrosial meadows.' ('Ambrosial orbs' — apples — Isabel). 10. Cf. Ill, 173 ff, ZZ^ ff- Cf. also Burns' first love poem, To Nell. 13. Cf. Ill, 330. 17. Cf. Prl. 106. The punctuation compels the interpre- tation of gold as gold- set, that is, with golden dishes. If the comma after wine were omitted, the gold would naturally refer to the color of the wine. The earlier reading was: 'Fruit, viand, blossom, and amber wine and gold.' 19. Fledged. — Winged, but fledged does not primarily suggest winged. A maid. — Violet ; cf. VI, 298. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. II7 ' Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy Autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. 25 ' Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail That brings our friends up from the underworld; Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge ; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more. 30 - ' Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more. 35 * Dear as remembered kisses after death. And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned On lips that are for others ; deep as love. Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.' 40 21. Tears, Idle Tears.— Plot Song I— Tassion of the Past.' 'The passion of the past, the abiding in the transient, was expressed in Tears, Idle Tears,' which was written in the yellowing autumntide at Tintern Abbey, full for me of its bygone memories.'— Tennyson. See Memoir, I, p. 253. Cf. Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey; cf. Charles Tennyson's Time and Twilight for the same 'damonisch feeling.' 'Few know that it is a blank verse lyric,' is Tennyson's comment on its form ; but all who have read it know its subtle and seductive charm. 'The days that are no more' recurs not alone as a poetic repetend, but as an echo from that past of unfulfilled love. Il8 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv She ended with such passion that the tear She sang of shook and fell, an erring pearl Lost in her bosom ; but with some disdain Answered the Princess, 'If indeed there haunt About the moldered lodges of the Past 45 So sweet a voice and vague, fatal to men, Well needs it we should cram our ears with wool And so pace by ; but thine are fancies hatched In silken- folded idleness; nor is it Wiser to weep a true occasion lost, 50 But trim our sails, and let old bygones be, While down the streams that float us each and all To the issue, goes, like glittering bergs of ice. Throne after throne, and molten on the waste Becomes a cloud ; for all things serve their time 55 Toward that great year of equal mights and rights ; Nor would I fight with iron laws, in the end Found golden ; let the past be past ; let be Their canceled Babels ; tho' the rough kex break 45. Lodges. — Habitations. 47. Cf. The story ol Ulysses, Odyssey, Book XII. 48. Pace — Cf. II, 412; III, 325, etc. It seems to have the wrong connotation here. 48-62. The Princess has broken with the hoary past and turns toward the future with its promises of better things. 56. Great year.— Cf. Tennyson's Morte d' Arthur ; Locks- ley Hall; In Memoriam. 'Epithalamium,' last quatrain. Cf. I, 130; VII, 283, etc. 58. Found golden. — Cf. VII. 59. Cf. Genesis xi. 1-9. Milton's Paradise Lost, XII. Kex, hemlock. CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 1 19 The starred mosaic, and the beard-blown goat ^^ Hang on the shaft, and the wild fig-tree split Their monstrous idols, care not while we hear A trumpet In the distance pealing news Of better, and Hope, a poising eagle, burns Above the unrisen morrow ;' then to me, ^5 'Know you no song of your own land,' she said, 'Not such as moans about the retrospect. But deals with the other distance, and the hues Of promise ; not a death's-head at the wine ?' Then I remembered one myself had made, 70 What time I watched the swallow winging south From mine own land, part made long since, and part Now while I sang; and maidenlike as far As I could ape their treble, did I sing : 60. The beard blown goat.— Tennyson's explanation of this line is 'And surely the "beard-blown" goat involves a sense of the wind blowing the beard on the height of the ruined pillar.' If this is clear to the reader, it is well ! 61-62. Wild fig tree.— Caprificus was noted for its power of rending rock. 64. Burns.— Glistens, glows, shines. For a similar thought, cf. Gray, The Bard, XX ; Lowell, Above and Belozv, etc. 68. A song of promise pointing to the future is here sug- gested. 71. What time. — Paradise Lost, I, z^, etc. ; cf. Ill, 194, and In Memoriam, XLVIII for 'swallow-flights of song.' 120 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv * O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, ^5 Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee. ' O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North. 80 ' O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves. ' O were I thou that she might take me In, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart 85 Would rock the snowy cradle till I died. 'Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green? ' O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown; 90 Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made. ' O tell her, brief is life, but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South. 95 75. The Swallow Song. Plot Song II. A Love Song of Hope (Future). There is a peculiar fascination about this poem of rliymeless, isometric phrases. Stedman (p. 220, Victorian Poets) finds its model in the Third and Eleventh Idyls of Theocritus. This poem shows the poet's power of observation. 79. Cf. Lanier, Psalm of the West. 93. Variation of 'life is short, but art is long.* CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 121 * O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.' I ceased, and all the ladies, each at each, Like the Ithacensiaii suitors in old time, loo Stared with great eyes, and laughed with ahen lips, And knew not what they meant; for still my voice Rang false; but smiling, 'Not for thee,' she said, *0 Bulbul, any rose of Gulistan Shall burst her veil ; marsh-divers, rather, maid, 105 Shall croak thee sister or the meadow-crake Grate her harsh kindred in the grass ; and this A mere love-poem ! O for such, my friend. We hold them slight ; they mind us of the time When we made bricks in Egypt. Knaves are men, no 100. Ithacensian suitors. — Penelope, the true wife of Ulysses, was wooed during his absence by a hundred suitors. When Ulysses returns disguised they laugh, but their laugh- ter is as with 'other men's jaws,' Odyssey, XX, 347, that is, constrained, unnatural, 'with alien lips.' 104. Bulbul. — Nightingale. The Princess can be sarcas- tic. Gulistan is the rose-garden. 105. Shall burst her veil.— Does this refer to any story of a rose unfolding to the nightingale's passionate singing? 106-7. ^EADOW-CRAKE.— Says Wood, 'The cry of the corn-crake may be exactly imitated by drawing a quill or a piece of stick over the large teeth of a comb, or by rubbing together two jagged strips of bone.' (Quoted from Cook, who quotes Dawson.) This also explains 'grate.' Cf. 'clang,' III, 90. no. The period of bondage. Exodus, i, 8-14; Genesis, v, 7-9- 122 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv That lute and flute fantastic tenderness, And dress the victim to the offering up. And paint the gates of Hell with Paradise, And play the slave to gain the tyranny. Poor soul ! I had a maid of honor once ; 115 She wept her true eyes blind for such a one, A rogue of canzonets and serenades. I loved her. Peace be with her. She is dead. So they blaspheme the muse ! But great is song Used to great ends ; ourself have often tried 120 Valkyrian hymns, or into rhythm have dashed The passion of the prophetess ; for song Is duer unto freedom, force, and growth Of spirit, than to junketing and love. Love is it? Would this same mock-love, and this 125 Mock-Hymen were laid up like winter bats. Till all men grew to rate us at our worth, Not vassals to be beat, nor pretty babes 117. Cf. Love's Labor's Lost, IV, ii, 124. 121. Valkyrian. — Warlike. The Valkyries, warhke vir- gins, were sent to select and convey those destined for Wal- halhi. Cf. VI, 17-42. 122. Miriam's Song. Exodus xv, 20. 124. Junket. — To feast on sweetmeats, etc. ^ 126. Mock-Hymen. — Hymen was a beautiful youth who presided over wedding feasts. Mock-Hymen is, then, mock-marriage; that is, union without true congeniaHty, etc. 128-130. Refers to misconceptions of women as vassals, children incomplete in themselves and belonging to man. CANTO rv] A MEDLEY. 123 To be dandled, no, but living wills, and sphered Whole in ourselves, and owed to none. Enough ! 130 But now, to leaven play with profit, you. Know you no song, the true growth of your soil, That gives the manners of your countrywomen?' She spoke and turned her sumptuous head, with eyes Of shining expectation fixed on mine. 135 Then while I dragged my brains for such a song, Cyril, with whom the bell-mouthed glass had wrought, Or mastered by the sense of sport, began To troll a careless, careless tavern-catch Of Moll and Meg, and strange experiences 140 Unmeet for ladies. Florian nodded at him, I frowning ; Psyche flushed and wanned and shook ; 129. Cf. I, 47; II, 185; V, 340; VI, 102; VII, 287; In Me- moriam, CXXXI. Sphered whole.— Complete. Owed.— Be- longing, responsible, to none. 132. She had asked the Prince for a National Song of Progress, and had got a love song. Now she asks for a Folk- Song, a Ballad of the Soil, and gets from Cyril an earthly tavern-catch. 137. Bell-mouthed glass.— Wine glass ; Cf. 17. 138. Cf. 231. 139. This tavern-catch, which is unmeet for ladies, and therefore unmeet to print, represents the Third Plot Song. It does not refer to the passion of the past or the hope of the future, but is inspired by a pr??sent sense of frolic or by an irresistible rebellion against this unnatural and uncon- genial ideality. This is a brusque touch of rough realism. 140. Cf. Shakespeare's Tempest, II, ii, 48-56, for these names that do not breathe respect for womanhood. 124 '^^E PRINCESS: [canto iv The lilylike Melissa drooped her brows ; 'Forbear,' the Princess cried; 'Forbear, Sir,' I; And heated thro' and thro' with wrath and love, 14s I smote him on the breast ; he started up ; There rose a shriek as of a city sacked ; Melissa clamored, Tlee the death ;' 'To horse,' Said Ida ; 'home ! to horse !' and fled, as flies A troop of snowy doves athwart the dusk, 150 When some one batters at the dovecote-doors. Disorderly the women. Alone 1 stood With Florian, cursing Cyril, vexed at heart, In the pavilion; there like parting hopes I heard them passing from me; hoof by hoof, 155 And every hoof a knell to my desires, Clanged on the bridge ; and then another shriek, 'The Head, the Head, the Princess, O the Head !' For blind with rage she missed the plank, and rolled In the river. Out I sprang from glow to gloom ; 160 144. This Sir is the disclosure direct. Now their sex is known to all, and all the consequences of their rash intrusion must follow or be averted. 148. Flee the death, due to such intruders. 150. Doves. Cf. II, 87. 149-152. Rearrange this inverted sentence so as to show the grammatical relation of the words. 158. Cf. Ill, 18; II, 186. 159. Blind with rage. — Ida's passion is in keeping with her will and her imagination. 159-160. This event relieves the actors, the reader, and the situation and prepares for much that is to follow. 160. From glow (of tripod flame) to gloom (of night and distress). CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 125 There whirled her white robe hke a blossomed branch Rapt to the horrible fall ; a glance 1 gave, No more ; but woman-vested as I was Plunged ; and the flood drew ; yet I caught her ; then Oaring one arm, and bearing in my left 165 The weight of all the hopes of hall the world, Strove to buffet to land in vain. A tree Was half-disrooted from his place, and stooped To drench his dark locks in the gurghng wave Mid-channel. Right on this we drove and caught, 170 And grasping down the boughs I gained the shore. There stood her maidens glimmeringly grouped In the hollow bank. One reaching forward drew My burthen from mine arms ; they cried, 'She lives:* They bore her back into the tent ; but I, 175 So much a kind of shame within me wrought, Not yet endured to meet her opening eyes. Nor found my friends ; but pushed alone on foot (For since her horse was lost I left her mine) Across the woods, and less from Indian craft 180 162. Rapt.— Caught, hurried by the rapids. Compare other uses of the word. 165. Oaring. Cf. II, 433. 166. All the hopes of half the world. — Note the Prince's burden. Cf. II, 270. 167. This is metrical onomatopoeia. 170. Does this scene suggest Ophelia's death? Hamlet, IV, vii, 166. 180. Indian craft. — Wood craft, knowledge of nature. 126 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv Than beclike instinct hiveward, found at length The garden portals. Two great statues, Art And Science, Caryatids, lifted up A weight of emblem, and betwixt were valves Of open-work in which the hunter rued 185 His rash intrusion, manlike, but his brows Had sprouted, and the branches thereupon Spread out at top, and grimly spiked the gates. A little space was left between the horns, Thro' which I clambered o'er at top with pain, 190 Dropped on the sward, and up the linden walks, And, tossed on thoughts that changed from hue to hue. Now poring on the glowworm, now the star, I paced the terrace, till the Bear had wheeled Thro' a great arc his seven slow suns. 195 A step Of lightest echo, then a loftier form 181. Cf. II, 84. 183. Caryatids. — Women of Caryae. The columns of support in Grecian architecture were frequently representa- tions of women generally with full draperies. 184. Valves. — Double doors; here gates. 185. The hunter. — Actaeon was turned into a stag for intruding upon Diana and her nymphs at bath. The punish- ment for intrusion is here turned to good artistic effect, and made to serve also as a warning. 191. Linden walks. — Cf. I, 206. 194. Paced. — Tennyson's favorite verb of motion. Cf. 48: II, 412; III, 325, etc. 194. Bear. — The constellation. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY, 127 Than female, moving" thro' the uncertain gloom, Disturbed me with the doubt 'If this were she?' But it was Florian. 'Hist, O hist,' he said, 'They seek us; out so late is out of rules. 200 Moreover, "Seize the strangers" is the cry. How came you here?' I told him: T,' said he, 'Last of the train, a moral leper, I, To whom none spake, half-sick at heart, returned. Arriving all confused among the rest, 205 With hooded brows I crept into the hall. And, couched behind a Judith, underneath The head of Holofernes peeped and saw. Girl after girl was called to trial ; each Disclaimed all knowledge of us ; last of all, 210 Melissa; trust me. Sir, I pitied her. She, questioned if she knew us men, at first Was silent ; closer pressed, denied it not ; And then, demanded if her mother knew, Or Psyche, she affirmed not, or denied ; 215 203. Moral leper. — Outcast. 206. Cf. II, 337. 207. For the story of Judith and Holofernes, see the Apocrypha. See also Cook's edition and translation of the old English poem. Judith. 209. Trial, before the Princess (216), who on horseback (179) had reached the Academe before the Prince on foot (178). 212. Us MEN — That is, knezv us to be men. 214. Questioned, pressed, demanded, are used absolutely instead of clauses. Demanded — when it was demanded of her. 128 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv From whence the Royal mind, familiar with her, Easily gathered either guilt. She sent For Psyche, but she was not there; she called For Psyche's child to cast it from the doors ; She sent for Blanche to accuse her face to face ; 220 And I slipped out; but whither will you now? And where are Psyche, Cyril? both are fled; What if together? That were not so well. Would rather we had never come ! I dread His wildness, and the chances of the dark." 225 'And yet/ I said, 'you wrong him more than I That struck him; this is proper to the clown — Tho' smocked, or furred and purpled, still the clown — To harm the thing that trusts him, and to shame That which he says he loves ; for Cyril, howe'er 230 Pie deal in frolic, as to-night — the song Might have been worse, and sinned in grosser lips Beyond all pardon — as it is, I hold These flashes on the surface are not he. 217. Either guilt.— The guilt of either, rather of each. 219. The Princess is not only irascible and violent (159), but vindictive also. 223-224. Florian is inclined to suspect Cyril's honesty and sincerity here as before. His suspicion is rebuked by the Prince. 227. Clown. — This word does not seem strong enough. It is boor, knave. 231. Frolic. — This gives the tone of his transient mood as set over against his permanent temperament, his true char- acter, 235. CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 129 He has a solid base of temperament ; 235 But as the vvater-hly starts and shdes Upon the level in little puffs of wind, Tho' anchored to the bottom, such is he.' Scarce had I ceased when from a tamarisk near Two proctors leapt upon us, crying, 'Names;' 240 He, standing still, was clutched ; but I began To thrid the musky-circled mazes, wind And double in and out the boles, and race By all the fountains ; fleet I was of foot ; Before me showered the rose in flakes ; behind 245 I heard the puffed pursuer ; at mine ear Bubbled the nightingale and heeded not, And secret laughter tickled all my soul. At last I hooked my ankle in a vine That clasped the feet of a Mnemosyne, 250 And falling on my face was caught and known. 236. This beautiful simile, which Collins says the poet owed to Wordsworth (Excursion V), Tennyson says, was suggested to him by the action of lilies in his own pond on a gusty day. 239-241. These lines recall no doubt a Cambridge scene, 242. Thrid. — Thread; cf. Dream of Fair Women, 'Thrid- ding the sombre boscage of the wood.' Cf. also Dryden — 'one thrids the brake.' Murky-circled. — Encircled by fra- grance, etc. 243. Boles. — Trunks or bodies of trees. 244. Cf. I, 215. 245. Cf. I, 216; III, 106. 247. Cf. In Memoriam, LXXXVIII. 250. Mnemosyne. — Memory, the mother of the Muses, whose statues were in the court, II, 13. 130 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv They haled us to the Princess, where she sat High in the hall ; above her drooped a lamp, And made the single jewel on her brow Burn like the mystic fire on a mast-head, 255 Prophet of storm. A handmaid on each side Bowed toward her, combing out her long black hair Damp from the river; and close behind her stood Eight daughters of the plow, stronger than men, Huge women, blowzed with health, and wind, 260 and rain And labor. Each was like a Druid rock ; Or like a spire of land that stands apart Cleft from the main, and wailed about with mews. Then, as we came, the crowd dividing clove An advent to the throne ; and there beside, 265 Half-naked as if caught at once from bed And tumbled on the purple footcloth, lay 252. Haled. — To drag violently. Cf. Ltike xii, 58; Acts VHI, 3. 255. St. Elmo's Fire. Cf. Tiresias, no- 112. 259. Daughters of the tlow, — Cf. 'sons of toil,' 'sons of the glebe.' This imposing bodyguard introduces the ele- ment of force. 260. Blowzed. — Glowing with redness. 261. Druid rock. — As for example Kit's Coty House (near Vivian Place). This stone formation was known from Saxon times, and is supposed to have suggested to Tennyson this figure, 263. Wailed about with mews. — Surrounded by crying sea-mews, or gulls. CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. j^^ The lily-shining child ; and on the left, Bowed on her palms and folded up from wrong, Her round white shoulder shaken with her sobs, Melissa knelt ; but Lady Blanche erect Stood up and spake, an affluent orator. 'It was not thus, O Princess, in old days; You prized my counsel, lived upon my lips ; I led you then to all the Castalies ; I fed you with the milk of every Muse ; I loved you like this kneeler, and you me Your second mother ; those were gracious times. 268. The lily-shining child, hke Cordelia in Shakes- peare's King Lear, may not be present in many scenes, but is, nevertheless, a privotal character around which the others turn. Cf. II, 96; VI, 176, etc. 271. For details of the description of Melissa, cf. 143; II, 301; III, 79; VII, 41 fif, etc. 271-339- This address should be compared with Psyche's lecture (II, loi ff). Blanche appeals to the memory of olden days (I, 127; III, 69-70), and then jealousy recounts how Psyche had grown as she declined in favor. She had re- mained chiefly because of her selfish ambition to share the Princess' glory. Her jealousy of Lady Psyche leads her to false suspicions (296) of the Princess. She then contrasts Psyche's guilt with her watchfulness, and claims that she broke her oath for the public good. She attributes the de- tection of these wolves to her prudent delay, and boldly as- serts that she is essential to the Princess' plan. 275. Castalies.— Castaly was a fountain of Parnassus. Its waters inspired with the gift of poetry. The Castalies seems to suggest various sources of inspiration. 277. Kneeler.— Melissa. 271. 270 27! 132 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv Then came your new friend ; you began to change — I saw it and grieved — to slacken and to cool ; 280 Till taken with her seeming openness You turned your warmer currents all to her ; To me you froze ; this was my meed for all. Yet I bore up, in part from ancient love, And partly that I hoped to win you back, 285 And partly conscious of my own deserts. And partly that you were my civil head. And chiefly you were born for somethmg great, In which I might your fellow-worker be. When time should serve ; and thus a noble scheme 290 Grew up from seed we two long since had sown ; In us true growth, in her a Jonah's gourd, Up in one night and due tO' sudden sun. We took this palace; but even from the first You stood in your ow^n light and darkened mine. 295 What student came but that you planed her path To Lady Psyche, younger, not so wise, A foreigner, and I your countrywoman, I your old friend and tried, she new in all? But still her lists were swelled and nnne were lean ; 300 280. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Ccrsar, IV, ii, 20, for similai description of cooling friendship. 281. Seeming,— Cf. II, 289. 285-287. Note parallelism. For other examples, cf. Prl 44-47; II, 56-58, etc. 292. Cf. Jonah iv, 5-I1. 298. Foreigner.— Of the Prince's country. Cf. I, 74; II 243 ff. CAJJtoiv] A MEDLEY. 133 Yet I bore up in hope she would be known. Then came these wolves; they knew her; they endured, Long-closeted with her the yestermorn, To tell her what they were, and she to hear; And me none told; not less to an eye like mine, 305 A lidless watcher of the public weal, Last night their mask was patent, and my foot Was to you ; but I thought again ; I feared To meet a cold "We thank you, we shall hear of it From Lady Psyche ;" you had gone to her, 310 She told, perforce ; and winning easy grace. No doubt, for slight delay, remained among us In our young nursery still unknown, the stem Less grain than touchwood, while my honest heat Were all miscounted as malignant haste 3^5 To push my rival out of place and power. But public use required she should be known; And since my oath was ta'en for public use, 302. Endured. — Remained. 305. Cf. II, 427; III, 30, 115; VI, 310, etc. 306. Lidless. — With eyes never closed. 308. I THOUGHT AGAIN. — The ical cause of her delay may; be found in Cyril's pleading; cf. Ill, 118-151. 3TO-311. If you had gone to her, she would have told you, perforce. 313-314. The stem less grain than touchwood. — That is, in stem (or character) less grain (true fibre, acting on principle) than touchwood (inflammable material, acting by impulsed. For grain, cf. V, 517; VI, 34. 318. Public use. — For the weal of this College. Each of these leaders claims to sacrifice personal to public good. 134 THE PRINCESS : [canto iv I broke the letter of it to'keep the sense. I spoke not then at first, but watched them well, 320 Saw that they kept apart, no mischief done; And yet this day (tho' you should hate me for it) I came to tell you ; found that you had gone, Ridden to the hills, she likewise ; now I thought. That surely she will speak ; if not, then I ; 325 Did she? These monsters blazoned what they were, According to the coarseness of their kind, For thus I hear; and known at last (my work) And full of cowardice and guilty ehame — I grant in her some sense of shame — she hies; 330 And I remain on whom to wreak your rage, I, that have lent my life to build up yours, I that have wasted here health, wealth, and time, And talent, I — you know it — I will not boast ; Dismiss me, and I prophesy your plan, 335 Divorced from my experience, will be chaff For every gust of chance, and men will say We did not know the real light, but chased The wisp that flickers where no foot can tread.' She ceased ; the Princess answered coldly, 'Good ; 340 Your oath is broken ; we dismiss you ; go. 326. Cf. IV, 139- 328. Why does Lady Blanche claim credit for the supposed disclosure of Lady Psyche's true character? 335. This challenge is accepted with splendid dignity in 341. 339. Will o' the Wisp. 341. Cf. 319 and 335. CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 135 For this lost lamb (she pointed to the child), Our mind is changed ; we take it to ourself/ Thereat the Lady stretched a vulture throat, And shot from crooked lips a haggard smile. 345 'The plan was mine. I built the nest,' she said, 'To hatch the cuckoo. Rise !' and stooped to updrag Melissa ; she, half on her mother propped, Half-drooping from her, turned her face, and cast A liquid look on Ida, full of prayer, 350 343. Has the Princess expressed heretofore her mind as to this child? (219). Why does she take it to herself — for love of children? (Ill, 234), for pity toward this lost lamb? (342), for an answer to Blanche's accusation? (329), or for Psyche's punishment? (V, 81 and VI, 205). 344. Cf. VULTURE with the noun-significance of haggard. To what animals has Blanche been compared? 347. Cuckoo. — This bird does not build its own nest, but uses the nest of other birds, and leaves its young thus hatched to these alien mothers. 347. Who is the cuckoo? First, Ida, because the whole expression is vaguely figurative, and simply means that Blanche has built and Ida will destroy. Second, Psyche, because Blanche may believe that her dismissal means the restoration of Psyche to^ower. Her nest will be given to a 'foreign' intruder. Third, Aglaia, the lost lamb, because Blanche, who is ambitious for Melissa (VII, 41) now sees that Ida's adoption of Psyche's child (343) means that her own is transplanted. Melissa, the child of the nest, must give way to Agla'ia, the cuckoo-birdling. This third explanation is perhaps the correct one. 350. Melissa's choice between Ida and Blanche has been made before. 136 THE PRINCESS: [canto rv Which melted Florlan's fancy as she hung, A Niobean daughter, one arm out, Appeahng to the bolts of Heaven ; and while We gazed upon her came a little stir About the doors, and on a sudden rushed 355 Among us, out of breath, as one pursued, A woman-post in flying raiment. Fear Stared in her eyes, and chalked her face, and winged Her transit to the throne, whereby she fell Delivering sealed dispatches, which the Head 360 Took half-amazed, and in her lion's mood Tore open, silent we with blind surmise Regarding while she read, till over brow And cheek and bosom brake the wrathful bloom As of some fire against a stormy cloud, 365 When the wild peasant rights himself, the rick Flames, and his anger reddens in the heavens ; For anger most It seemed, while now her breast, Beaten with some great passion at her heart, Palpitated, her hand shook, and we heard 370 In the dead hush the papers that she held 352. Niobean. — Read the sto^v of Niobe. Landor's Niobe; Frederic Tennyson's Niobc, etc. 357. Cf. I, 187. 358. Chalked. — Cf. Ill, 9, and note. 366. Rick burning as a means of righting wrongs, real or fancied, was not unusual in the days preceding the Reform Movement (1832). Cf. To Mary Boyle. 369. Is the GREAT PASSION here used synonomously with anger, rather as inclusive of it, or is it used technically, la grande passion? Cf. »VII, 222. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. I37 Rustle ; at once the lost lamb at her feet Sent out a bitter bleating for its dam ; The plaintive cry jarred on her ire ; slie crushed The scrolls together, made a sudden turn 375 As if to speak, but, utterance failing her, She whirled them on to me, as who should say 'Read,' and I read — two letters — one her sire's. 'Fair daughter, when we sent the Prince your way We knew not your ungracious laws, which learnt, 380 We, conscious of what temper you are built, Came all in haste to hinder wrong, but fell Into his father's hands, who has this night, You lying close upon his territory, Slipped round and in the dark invested you ; 385 And here he keeps me hostage for his son/ The second was my father's, running thus : *You have our son ; touch not a hair of his head ; Render him up unscathed ; give him your hand ; Cleave to your contract ; tho' indeed we hear 390 You hold the woman is the better man — A rampant heresy, such as if it spread ^72. The figure of line 342 is repeated and sustained. 375. Is the selection of the word 'scrolls' intended to hint at an early date for the events? 'i'7']. Whirled. — The royal Princess may be petulant as well as angry. As who. — As one who, etc. 384. The Prince and the Princess were not so far apart in their respective kingdoms. 390. Cleave. — Cf. 264. 138 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv Would make all women kick against their lords Thro' all the world, and which might well deserve That we this night should pluck your palace down ; 395 And we will do it, unless you send us back Our son, on the instant, whole.' So far I read ; And then stood up and spoke impetuously. *0 not to pry and peer on your reserve, But led by golden wishes and a hope 4oo The child of regal compact, did I break Your precinct ; not a scorner of your sex But venerator, zealous it should be All that it might be ; hear me, for I bear, Tho' man, yet human, whatsoe'er your wrongs, 405 From the flaxen curl to the gray lock a life Less mine than yours ; my nurse would tell me of you ; I babbled for you, as babies for the moon, Vague brightness ; when a boy you stooped to me From all high places, lived in all fair lights, 4i'-> Came in long breezes rapt from inmost south 391. Ida had claimed nothing but equality. 393. Kick against.— Biblical ; cf. Acts, ix, 5. 395. Cf. Shakespeare's Julius Ccrsar, III, iii, 262-263. 400. A comma after 'hope' is expected. 402. Cf. VII, 239 ff. 405. Whatso'er your wrongs. — This is not the object of bear as at first reading it seems, but an elliptical dependent clause. 406. The Prince is a blonde. 411. Rapt.— Snatched; cf. IV, 162. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 139 And blown to inmost north ; at eve and dawn With Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods ; The leader wildswan in among the stars Would clang it,and lapt in wreaths of glowworm nght4i5 The mellow breaker murmured Ida. Now, Because I would have reached you, had you been Sphered up with Cassiopeia, or the enthroned Persephone in Hades, now at length. Those winters of abeyance all worn out, 420 A man I came to see you ; but, indeed. Not in this frequence can I lend full tongue, O noble Ida, to those thoughts that wait On you, their centre ; let me say but this. That many a famous man and woman, town 425 And landskip, have I heard of, after seen The dwarfs of presage; tho' when known, there grew Another kind of beauty in detail Made them worth knowing ; but in you I lound 415. Clang.— Cf. Ill, 90, and note. Glowworm.— Phos- phorescent. 418. Cassiopeia, the wife of Cepheus, king of the Ethio- pians. The constellation named after her is in accordance with the tradition that she was placed in the heavens, but so near the North Pole that a part of the time her head was downward that she might learn humility. 419. Persephone. — (Proserpina) was the wife of Hades, who ruled in Hades. 422. Frequence. — Company; cf. Milton's Paradise Re- gained, IT, 130. 426. Landskip. — Landscape ; cf. Milton's L' Allegro, I, 70. 427. Dwarfs of presage.— That is, far less than they promised to be. Cf. I, 72. I^O THE PRINCESS: [ganto iV My boyish dream involved and dazzled down 430 And mastered, while that after-beauty makes Such head from act to act, from hour to hour, Within me, that except you slay me here, According to your bitter statute-book, I cannot cease to follow you, as they say 435 The seal does music ; who desire you more Than growing boys their manhood ; dying lips, With many thousand matters left to do, The breath of life ; O more than poor men wealth Than sick men health — yours, yours, not mine — but 440 half Without you ; with you, whole ; and of those halves You worthiest ; and howe'er you block and bar Your heart with system out from mine, I hold That it becomes no man to nurse despair, But in the teeth of clenched antagonisms 445 To follow up the worthiest till he die; Yet that I came not all unauthorized, Behold your father's letter.' On one knee Kneeling, I gave it, which she caught, and dashed 430. Dazzled down. — His dream was thrown into insig nificance by the dazzling reality. 431. Cf. 428. 434. Cf. H, 178. 436. Is this well authenticated? 440. Cf. VH, 284. (I am) yours, etc. 443. System.— Cf. VI, 178. 445. Note arrangement of words. Cf. 'clenched teeth* of antagonisms. 448. This letter is not that of 379, but of I, 158, 173. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 141 Unopened at her feet ; a tide of fierce 450 Invective seemed to wait behind her lips, As waits a river level with the dam, Ready to burst and flood the world with foam ; And so she would have spoken, but there rose A hubbub in the court of half the maids 455 Gathered together ; from the illumined hall Long lanes of splendor slanted o'er a press Of snowy shoulders, thick as herded ewes, And rainbow robes, and gems and genihke eyes, And gold and golden heads ; they to and fro 46a Fluctuated, as flowers in storm, some red, some pale, All open-mouthed, all gazing to the light. Some crying there was an army in the land, And some that men were in the very w^alls. And some they cared not ; till a clamor grew 465 As of a new-world Babel, woman-built. And worse-confounded; high above them stood The placid marble Muses, looking peace. 451. Another illustration of her passion. Cf. 369. 456. From 195, 200, 383, 543 determine the hour and com- pare I, 204. These girls were losing beauty sleep in imitat- ing men's habits of turning night into day. 458. They were in low necked dresses. Cf. 43, 270, 364, etc. Herded ewes; cf. VI, 69. 460. Cf. Prl. 142. 465. Cared not. — This is not the first note of discontent we have heard. 466. Cf. 59 and note. Cf. also Paradise Lost, XII, 51 ff. and 11, 996. 142 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv Not peace she looked, the Head ; but rising up Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so 470 To the open window moved, remaining there Fixed like a beacon-tower above the waves Of tempest, when the crimson-rolling eye Glares ruin, and the wild birds on the light Dash themselves dead. She stretched her arms and called 475 Across the tumult, and the tumult fell. 'What fear ye, brawlers ? am not I your Head ? On me, me, me, the storm first breaks ; / dare All these male thunderbolts; what is it ye fear? Peace ! there are those to avenge us, and they come ; g^ If not, — myself were like enough, O girls, To unfurl the maiden banner of our rights, 469 ff. This passage was classed by Tennyson among his finest blank verse 470. Is DEEP an adjective of color or opulence? 472. A favorite figure. Cf. Enoch Ardcn; Longfellow's Lighthouse, etc. 473. Has Tennyson any particular lighthouse in mind? Crimson-rolling refers to a revolving light, perhaps alter- nating white and crimson. 476. Cf. The 'peace, b"' still' of Christ; Mark iv, 39. 479. Cf. II, 205. 480. The Princess trusts now to male defenders. Cf. V, 281-285. If the comma before and is omitted, as in most editions, the and is simply the copulative conjunction. If it is inserted, then and suggests an, the conditional form, and implies doubt in the mind of the Princess. 482. Maiden. — This may mean iirst, or maiden speech, or it may mean for the rights of maids, which was the purpose of the Academe. 490 495 CANTO IV] A MEDLEY. 143 And clad in iron burst the ranks of war, Or, falling, protomartyr of our cause, Die ; yet I blame you not so much for fear ; 485 Six thousand years of fear have made you that From which I would redeem you ; but for those That stir this hubbub— you and you— I know Your faces there in the crowd— to-morrow morn We hold a great convention ; then shall they That love their voices more than duty, learn With whom they deal, dismissed in shame to live No wiser than their mothers, household stuff, Live chattels, mincers of each other's fame. Full of weak poison, turnspits for the clown, The drunkard's football, laughing-stocks of Time, Whose brains are in their hands and in their heels, But fit to flaunt, to dress, to dance, to thrum. To tramp, to scream, to burnish, and to scour, For ever slaves at home and fools abroad.' 5oo She, ending, waved her hands ; thereat the crowd Muttering, dissolved ; then with a smile that looked 483 Cf Prl 40. This line suggests Joan of Arc. 4S4. PR0T0MARTYR.-Cf. Stephen, the Christian proto- martyr, Acts vii, 59-60. 485. Psyche would sacrifice her child (II, 267) ; Ida. her- 486. That. -For the connotation of this word cf. Prl. 127; II, 107 ff; 136, etc. 493-500. Woman's status. This is an ex parte descrip- tion drawn in wrath. 494. Cf. II, 78 and note; VI, 321. Is Ma thmkmg of Blanche? 3^9 f^- 144 THE PRINCESS: [canto iv A stroke of cruel sunshine on the cHff, When all the glens are drowned in azure gloom Of thunder-shower, she floated to us and said : 505 'You have done well, and like a gentleman, And like a prince ; you have our thanks for all ; And you look well too in your woman's dress ; Well have you done, and like a gentleman. You saved our life; we owe you bitter thanks; 510 Better have died and spilt our bones in the flood — Then men had said — but now — What hinders me To take such bloody vengeance on you both ? — Yet since our father — Wasps in our good hive, You would-be quenchers of the light to be, 515 Barbarians, grosser than your native bears — O would I had his sceptre for one hour ! 503~505- Find this picture in nature some day. 505. Floated. — Note this verb of motion. Cf. VI, jt^. Ci. also his favorite verb, pace. 506-527. The mood of the Princess here is predominantly that of fierce wrath, but it seems to be varied by genuine, but bitter gratitude and distinct sarcasm. 506. This is probably ironical. 508. Is this sarcasm? Cf. V, 15 ff. 510. This is enforced gratitude. Cf. V, 397. 511. Does the Princess' wrath lead her into confusion of speech ? To 'spill bones' is not a usual phrase. 514. Cf. II, 84. 516. Native bears.— Does this mean bears of the north, i. e., Polar bears? Barbarians, monsters and other epithets are frequent. 517. This refers to her father. 514. CANTO iv] A MEDLEY. 145 You that have dared to break our bound, and gulled Our servants, wronged and lied and thwarted us — / wed with thee ! / bound by precontract 520 Your bride, your bondslave ! not tho' all the gold That veins the world were packed to make your crown, And every spoken tongue should lord you. Sir, Your falsehood and yourself are hateful to us ; I trample on your offers and on you ; 525 Begone ! we will not look upon you more. Here, push them out at gates/ In wrath she spake. Then those eight mighty daughters of the plow Bent their broad faces toward us, and addressed Their motion ; twice I sought to plead my cause, 530 But on my shoulder hung their heavy hands, The weight of destiny ; so from her face They pushed us, down tlie steps, and thro' the court. And with grim laughter thrust us out at gates. We crossed the street, and gained a petty mound 535 Beyond it, whence we saw the lights and heard 519. Cf. I, 178; I, 235, etc. 520. Cf. I, 33; III, 191, 210; IV, 401 ; V, III, 269, 290, 388. 522. With this oath, compare Canto VII. 523. Lord.— That is, proclaim you lord. The phrasing is biblical. 527. This climax of a tornado of wrath throws doubt on the sincerity of her gratitude; cf. VI, 92. 532. Cf. 166. 535. Cf. I, 211. 1^6 THE PRINCESS; [canto iv The voices murmuring. While I listened, came On a sudden the weird seizure and the doubt ; I seemed to move among a world of ghosts ; The Princess with her monstrous woman-guard, 540 The jest and earnest working side by side, The cataract and the tumult and the kings Were shadows ; and the long fantastic night With all its doings had and had not been. And all things were and were not. This went by 545 As strangely as it came, and on my spirits Settled a gentle cloud of melancholy ; Not long ; I shook it ofif ; for spite of doubts And sudden ghostly shadowings, I was one To whom the touch of all mischance but came 55o As night to him that sitting on a hill Sees the midsummer, midnight, Norway sun Set into sunrise ; then we moved away. 538. This 'weird seizure' follows upon the full confession of his own overwhelming devotion and her wrathful scorn of his love, its avowal, and himself. It is not the result of intent gazing as in III, 166, but of intent listening. Artisti- cally this seizure between the unreal and the real, the were and the were not, the jest and seriousness, is significant. It is the dividing line between the comedy and the tragedy of the poem. 547. The outcome of the last seizure (III, 166) was pas- sion. The outcome of this is gentle melancholy. Is the Prince changing? The Prince's mood is now hopeful. interlude] a medley. 1 47 INTERLUDE. [The Battle Call sung by Lilia is the harbinger of the stir- ring events of the next two Cantos. But she wishes not only a fight, but in the end that her heroine may be 'good and great.' This desire finds its full satisfaction in Canto VII, as she herself in the Conclusion testifies. — Ed.] [The Battle Call.] Thy voice is heard thro' rolling drums, That beat to battle where he stands ; Thy face across his fancy comes, And gives the battle to his hands; A moment, while the trumpets blow. He sees his brood about thy knee; The next, like fire he meets the foe. And strikes him dead for thine and thee. So Lilia sang; we thought her half-possessed, She struck such warbling fury thro' the words ; The wife and weans nerve the warrior to battle. This intercalary poem is The Battle Call, fitly placed here since the medley now changes from jest to earnestness. Lilia's heroisn is kindled, and she urges 'some grand fight' to make all 'great and good.' There are other forms of this poem, but its present form, a double quatrain of alternate rhyme is the most acceptable. Note that the child's influence is not lost from sight. 9. Lilia. — She is the only one of the 'ladies' (Prl. 233) mentioned by name, as singing some 'ballad or song.' 10. Cf. IV, 41. The tone of this Tennysonian music is martial and passionate. 148 THE PRINCESS: [interlude And, after feigning pique at what she called The raillery, or grotesque, or false sublime — Like one that wishes at a dance to change The music — clapped her hands and cried for war, Or some grand fight to kill and make an end ; 15 And he that next inherited the tale Half turning to the broken statue, said, 'Sir Ralph has got your colors; if I prove Your knight, and fight your battle, what for me ?' It chanced, her empty glove upon the tomb 20 Lay by her, like a model of her hand. She took it and she flung it. 'Fight,' she said, *And make us all we would be, great and good.' He knightlike in his cap instead of casque, A cap of Tyrol borrowed from the hall, 25 Arranged the favor, and assumed the Prince. 13. The purpose of this interkide is to mark the change in the 'medley's' progress. 16. The seven Cantos are told by the 'seven' (Prl. 131) at Vivian Place. Cf. Concl. 8. The fifth narrator takes up the story. 17. Cf. Prl. 99. 23. Lilia's ideal was Greatness (Prl. 131), now she adds Goodness too. This is analogous to Ida's growth in aim. 23. Lilia's injunction indicates the further development of the poem and its satisfactory outcome, Cf. VII. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 1 49 V. [THE FOUGHTEN FIELD.] [The Prince and Florian are admitted to camp, where Cyril tells of finding Psyche, who now bemoans her lost babe, and promises much on its return. Gama is released, but is told that he must fulfil the compact or stand war. The parley is continued between the Prince and Arac. The Prince refuses to surrender his compact, and a tourney, with fifty on a side and Ida as the prize, is agreed on. The battle described and the Prince's fall. — Ed.] Now, scarce three paces measured from the mound, We stumbled on a stationary voice, And 'Stand, who goes?' 'Two from the palace,' L 'The second two ; they wait,' he said ; 'pass on ; His Highness wakes ;' and one that clashed in arms, By glimmering lanes and walls of canvas led, Threading the soldier-city, till we heard The drowsy folds of our great ensign shake From blazoned lions o'er the imperial tent Whispers of war. :. Mound.— Cf. IV, 535. 2. Stationary. — The voice of one stationed, a sentinel. 4. The second two. — Cf. IV, 222. 7. Threading.— Cf. IV, 242. 9. Is there a clue to nationality in the 'blazoned lions?* Cf. British cns.ign. I50 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Enteringf, the sudden light '^ Dazed me half-bhnd ; I stood and seemed to hear, As in a poplar grove when a light wind wakes A lisping of the innumerous leaf and dies, Each hissing in his neighbor's ear ; and then A strangled titter, out of which there brake i^ On all sides, clamoring etiquette to death. Unmeasured mirth ; while now the two old kings Began to wag their baldness up and down. The fresh young captains flashed their glittering teeth, The huge bush-bearded Barons heaved and blew, 20 And slain with laughter rolled the gilded Squire, At length my Sire, his rough cheek wet with tears, Panted from weary sides, 'King, you are free ! We did but keep you surety for our son. If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thoU, ^S That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge 'J 12. Ci. I, 96; Swinburne's Song in Atalantd tti Catydon. 15. Innumerous. — Cf. VII, 207. 16. Clamoring. ... to death. — Dcstfoylttg all eti- quette by clamor. 17. This seems to emphasize the Irony of IV, 50^. 20. Bush-bearded Barons. — They seem to be Teutons. 21. Slain, — This hyperbole is too strong. Gilded SyuiRfi. The knight's attendant in glittering array. 22. How completely ludicrous the Prince ill Woman's garb was is best described in this effect on the rough king. 25. Mawkin. — Malkin — menial servant; here a swineherd. 26. Bristled grunters in the sludge. — Prosaically, pigs in the mire. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 15I For I was drenched with ooze, and torn with briers, More crumpled than a poppy from the sheath, And all one rag; disprinced from head to heel. Then some one sent beneath his vaulted palm 30 A whispered jest to some one near him, 'Look, He has been among his shadows.' 'Satan take The old women and their shadows ! (thus the King Roared) make yourself a man to fight with men. Go ; Cyril told us all.' As boys that slink 35 From ferule and the trespass-chiding eye, Away we stole, and transient in a trice From what was left of faded woman-slough To sheathing splendors and the golden scale Of harness, issued in the sun, that now 40 Leapt from the dewy shoulders of the Earth, And hit the Northern hills. Here Cyril met us, A little shy at first, but by and by We twain, with mutual pardon asked and given For stroke and song, resoldered peace, whereon 45 Followed his tale. Amazed he fled away Thro' the dark land, and later in the night Had come on Psyche weeping : 'Then we fell 29. Disprinced.— Unprinced. This is a Miltonic analogy. 32. Cf. I, 14, etc. ZJ. Transient. — Passing, changing, etc. 38. Woman-slough (sluf). — Covering, dress; cf. St. Simeon Stylites. Cf. also Shakespeare's 2 Henry Vl^ III, i, 229. 44. Cf. IV, 145, for the occasion of the 'mutual pardon.' 152 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Into your father's hand, and there she Hes, But will not speak, nor stir.' He showed a tent 50 A stone-shot off ; we entered in, and there Among piled arms and rough accoutrements, Pitiful sight, wrapped in a soldier's cloak, Like some sweet sculpture draped frcmi head to foot, And pushed by rude hands from its pedestal, 55 All her fair length upon the ground she lay ; And at her head a follower of the camp, A charred and wrinkled piece of womanhood, Sat watching like a watcher by the dead. Then Florian knelt, and 'Come,' he whispered to her, 60 'Lift up your head, sweet sister ; lie not thus. What have you done but right ? you could not slay Me, nor your prince ; look up ; be comforted ; Sweet is it to have done the thing one ought. When fallen in darker ways.' And likewise 1 : 65 'Be comforted ; have I not lost her too. In whose least act abides the nameless charm That none has else for me?' She heard, she moved. She moaned, a folded voice ; and up she sat, 50. See next intercalary poem, second stanza, fourth line, etc. 58. See next intercalary poem, last stanza. 65. Fallen.— Cf. Use in Bible, Shakespeare, Milton, etc. 69. Folded voice. — Does this mean bent back upon itself, or from within folds of drapery? In either case it is muffled. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 153 And raised the cloak from brows as pale and smooth 70 As those that mourn half-shrouded over death In deathless marble. 'Her,' she said, 'my friend — Parted from her — betrayed her cause and mine — Where shall I breathe? Why kept ye not your faith? O base and bad! What comfort? none for me!' 7; To whom remorseful Cyril, 'Yet I pray Take comfort ; live, dear lady, for your child!' At which she lifted up her voice and cried : 'Ah me, my babe, my blossom, ah, my child, My one sweet child, whom I shall see no more! 80 For now will cruel Ida keep her back ; And either she will die from want of care, Or sicken with ill-usage, when they say "The child is hers" — for every little fault, "The child is hers ;" and they will beat my girl 85 Remembering her mother; O my flower! Or they will take her, they will make her hard. And she will pass me by in after-life 71. This recalls an Italian Campo Santo with its marble figures of the living posed over the marble images of the dead. 74- Cf. ir, 275-280. T/. Cyril may sometimes be tactless, but he has learned Psyche's nature. Compare next poem, last stanza. 79-102. This lament when compared with Constance's Lament in King John, Wordsworth's AMtction of Margaret, and others is not worthy of the highest commendation. We are not here swept away by any motherly passion. 81. Cf. IV, 343, note. 1^4 THE PRINCESS: [canto v With some cold reverence worse than were she dead. Ill mother that I was to leave her there, 9d To lag behind, scared by the cry they made, The horror of the shame among them all ; But I will go and sit beside the doors, And make a wild petition night and day, Until they hate to hear me like a wind 95 Wailing for ever, till they open to me, And lay my little blossom at my feet. My babe, my sweet Aglaia, my one child ; And I will take her up and go my way. And satisfy my soul with kissing her ; too Ah ! what might that man not deserve of me Who gave me back my child?' 'Be comforted,' Said Cyril, 'you shall have it ;' but again She veiled her brows, and prone she sank, and so, Like tender things that being caught feign death, 105 Spoke not, nor stirred. By this a murmur ran Thro' all the camp, and inward raced the scouts With rumor of Prince Arac hard at hand. We left her by the woman, and without Found the gray kings at parle ; and 'Look you,' cried no loi. The challenge which Cyril accepts. Cf. VT, 171 ; VII, 68. 108. Cf. IV, 4^0. no. Parle.— Parley. Cf. Milton's Samson Agonistcs, 785. The parley is as to war. The Prince's father favored war; the Prince opposes it, and Gama sides with the Prince; but Arac later (287) forces the issue, and it is war. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 155 My father, 'that our compact be fulfilled ; You have spoilt this child ; she laughs at 5^ou and man ; She wrongs herself, her sex, and me, and him; But red-faced war has rods of steel and fire; She yields, or war.' Then Gama turned to me: 115 'We fear, indeed, you spent a stormy time With our strange girl; and yet they say that still You love her. Give us, then, your mind at large; How say you, war or not ?' 'Not war, if possible, O king,' I said, 'lest from the abuse of war, 120 The desecrated shrine, the trampled year. The smoldering homestead, and the household flower Torn from the lintel — all the common wrong — A smoke go up, thro' which I loom to her Three times a monster; now she lightens scorn 125 At him that mars her plan, but then would hate (And every voice she talked with ratify it. And every face she looked on justify it) The general foe. More soluble is this knot By gentleness than war. I want her love. ^3o What were I nigher this altho' we dashed 114. Red FACED.—This epithet suggests bloodiness. 122. Cf. Prl. 164. Is this, however, figurative? 124. Loom. — Appear enlarged. 125. Lightens. — Fulmines, which is much used by Milton. 129. Do we solve knots? But the Prince is no purist in language. 156 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Your cities into shards with catapults? She would not love ; — or brought her chained, a slave, The lifting of whose eyelash is my lord? Not ever would she love ; but brooding turn 135 The book of scorn, till all my flitting chance Were caught within the record of her wrongs, And crushed to death ; and rather, Sire, than this I would the old God of war himself were dead, Forgotten, rusting on his iron hills, ^40 Rotting on some wild shore with ribs of wM'eck, Or like an old-world mammoth bulked in ice, Not to be molten out.' And roughly spake My father, 'Tut, you know them not, the girls. Boy, when I hear you prate I almost think H6 That idiot legend credible. Look you, Sir! Man is the hunter ; woman is his game ; The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, We hunt them for the beauty of their skins ; They love us for it, and we ride them down. 150 132. Shards. — Fragments. 134. Suggests the affected songs of the Seventeenth Cen- tury Court poets to their mistresses' eyebrows. 139. A pagan god (Mars) is written with a capital, while the appellations of the Deity are not always so honored. 141. Have you seen these on our coast? 142. Bulked.— Cf. 'sphered,' IV, 418. 144. You KNOW THEM NOT, THE GIRLS. — Collate the views of woman held by the various persons of this poem. 148. This line suggests deer, but the next his more usual comparison with wild cats, tigers, etc. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 157 Wheedling and siding with them! Out! for shame! Boy, there's no rose that's half so dear to them As he that does the thing they dare not do, Breathing and sounding beauteous battle, comes With the air of the trumpet round him, and leaps in 155 Among the women, snares them by the score Flattered and flustered, wins, tho' dashed with death He reddens what he kisses ; thus I won Your mother, a good mother, a good wife, Worth winning; but this firebrand — gentleness 1^0 To such as her ! If Cyril spake her true, To catch a dragon in a cherry net. To trip a tigress with a gossamer. Were wisdom to it.' 'Yea, but, Sire,' I cried, 'Wild natures need wise curbs. The soldier? No: ^^5 What dares not Ida do that she should prize The soldier? I beheld her, when she rose The yesternight and storming in extremes, Stood for her cause, and flung defiance down Gagelike to man, and had not shunned the death, 170 No, not the soldier's; yet I hold her, king. True woman ; but you clash them all in one, 157. Dashed with death.— Cf. 'bespattered with blood.' — Shakespeare's Julius Cccsar, III, i. 206. 162. Cherry net. — A net to protect trees from birds. 168. Cf. IV, 469 ff. 172. True woman. — That is, at heart womanly in spite of her man-like actions. Clash ... in one. — Force them all in the same class. 158 THE PRINCESS: [canto v That have as many dififerences as we. The violet varies from the hly as far As oak from ehn ; one loves the soldier, one 175 The silken priest of peace, one this, one that. And some unworthily ; their sinless faith, A maiden moon that sparkles on a sty, Glorifying clown and satyr; whence they need More hreadth of culture; is not Ida right? iSo They worth it? truer to the law within? Severer in the logic of a life? Twice as magnetic to sweet influences Of earth and heaven? And she of whom you speak, My mother, looks as whole as some serene 1S5 Creation minted in the golden moods Of sovereign artists; not a thought, a touch, But pure as lines of green that streak the white Of the first snowdrop's inner leaves; I say, Not like the piebald miscellany, man, igo Bursts of great heart and slips in sensual mire, But whole and one ; and take them all-in-all, Were we ourselves but half as good, as kind, 177. Their sinless faith (is like) a maiden moon, etc. 180. The Prince expresses his views more fully in VII, 239 ff- 185. Cf. VII, 298 ff, and VII, 315. Not an ideal, but a model. 186. The artist produces his best work in his best mood. 190.. Piebald. — Diversified, variegated, lacking unity, etc. 193. This opinion of woman is amplified in Canto VII, but this opinion of man seems to have been the outcome of an ardent defense of the other sex. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. jcq As truthful, much that Ida claims as right Had ne'er been mooted, but as frankly theirs 195 As dues of Nature. To our point : not war; Lest I lose all.' 'Nay, nay, you spake but sense,' Said Gama. 'We remember love ourself In our sweet youth ; we did not rate him then This red-hot iron to be shaped with blows. 200 You talk almost like Ida ; she can talk ; And there is something in it, as you say ; But you talk kindlier ; we esteem you for it. — He seems a gracious and a gallant Prince, I would he had our daughter; for the rest, 205 Our own detention, why, the causes weighed. Fatherly fears — you used us courteously — We would do much to gratify your Prince — We pardon it ; and for your ingress here Upon the skirt and fringe of our fair land, 210 You did but come as goblins in the night, Nor in the furrow broke the plowman's head, Nor burnt the grange, nor bussed the milklng- maid. Nor robbed the farmer of his bowl of cream ; But let your Prince (our royal word upon it, 215 He comes back safe) ride with us to our lines, 201. This line is the testimony of a third party to the in- teresting fact that the Prince and the Princess are converging in views. 209-214. The approach of the old king was spook-like, but not baleful. Cf. Milton's L' Allegro, 105. l6o THE PRINCESS: [canto v And speak with Arac; Arac's word is thrice As ours with Ida ; something may be done — I know not what — and ours shall see us friends. You likewise, our late guests, if so you will, 220 Follow us; who knows? we four may build some plan Foursquare to opposition.' Here he reached White hands of farewell to my sire, who growled An answer which, half-muffled in his beard, Let so much out as gave us leave to go. 225 Then rode we with the old king across the lawns Beneath huge trees, a thousand rings of Spring In every bole, a song on every spray Of birds that piped their Valentines, and woke Desire in me to infuse my tale of love 230 In the old king's ears, who promised help, and oozed All o'er with honeyed answer as we rode ; And blossom-fragrant slipped the heavy dews 217. Arac— Cf. 108, I, 152, etc. 221. We four. — Gama, the Prince, Cyril, and Florian. 222. Foursquare. — This term is biblical. Exodus xxvii. I. Cf. also Ode to Wellington. 227. Cf. Talking Oak, 84, 173. The age of a tree is con- jectured from the rings on the trunk (bole). These were a thousand (indefinite) years old. 229. Valentines. — Love songs, but with no hint of time (February 14th). 231. Gama is belittled in every description of him. CANTO vj A MEDLEY. l6i Gathered by night and peace, with each light air On our mailed heads ; but other thoughts than peace 235 Burnt in us when we saw the embattled squares And squadrons of the Prince, tranTpling the flowers With clamor ; for among them rose a cry As if to greet the king: they made a halt; The horses yelled ; they clashed their arms ; the drum 2 Beat ; merrily-blowing shrilled the martial fife ; And in the blast and bray of the long horn And serpent-throated bugle, undulated The banner. Anon to meet us lightly pranced Three captains out ; nor ever had I seen 245 Such thews of men ; the midmost and the highest Was Arac; all about his motion clung The shadow of his sister, as the beam Of the East, that played upon them, made them glance Like those three stars of the airy Giant's zone, 250 That glitter burnished by the frosty dark; And as the fiery Sirius alters hue, 22)7. This Prince is Arac. 237-244. Study these sounds and their vocal designations. Onomatopoeia. 240. Yelled. — Is this a good descriptive word here? 245. Cf. I, 152. 246. Thews of men. — Men of thews, t. e., of muscle. 247. Ida was a feminine reflection of this gigantic brother. 250. Airy Giant's zone. — Orion's belt. 252. SiRius. — The summer star, the star of the dog-days, the dog-star with its fiery red, but varying color. Cf. Iliad, V, 4-6. l62 THE PRINCESS: [canto v And bickers Into red and emerald, shone Their morions, washed with morning, as they came. And I that prated peace, when first I heard 255 War-music, felt the blind wild-beast of force, Whose home is in the sinews of a man. Stir in me as to strike ; then took the king His three broad sons ; with now a wandering hand And now a pointed finger, told them all ; 260 A common light of smiles at our disguise Broke from their lips, and ere the windy jest Had labored down within his ample lungs, The genial giant, Arac, rolled himself Thrice in the saddle, then burst out in words. 2G5 'Our land invaded, 'sdeath ! and he himself Your captive, yet my father wills not war; And 'sdeath ! myself, what care I, war or no? But then this question of your troth remains ; And there's a downright honest meaning in her ; 270 She flies too high, she flies too high ! and yet She asked but space and fair-play for her scheme ; She pressed and pressed it on me — I myself. What know I of these thinsfs? but, life and soul ! '&' 253. Bickers. — Flickers. Cf. Geraint and Enid. 256. Wild beast of force. Cf. In Memoriam, CXVIII. 259. Gama gesticulates like a true Southerner. 262. Windy. — Wordy, costing much breath. 266. 'Sdeath. — God's death. A Shakespearian oath. 269. Your troth. — Does this refer to the plighted troth between the Prince and the Princess, or to Gama's promise to let her try her experiment? 275 28o CANTO vj A MEDLEY . 163 I thought her half-riglit talking of her wrono-s • 1 say she fl.es too high; 'sdeath ! what of that? I take her for the flower of womankind. And so I often told her, right or wrong,' And, Prince, she can be sweet to those she loves And,, right or wrong, I care not ; this is all I stand upon her side; she made me swear it- Sdeath-and with solemn rites by candle-light- Swear by St. something-I forget her name- Her that talked down the fifty wisest men; She was a princess too; and so I swore Come, this is all ; she will not ; waive your claim • ' ' If not, the foughten field-what else?-at once Decides it, 'sdeath ! against my father's will/ I lagged in answer, loth to render up My precontract, and loth by brainless war To cleave the rift of difference deeper yet ; Till one of those two brothers, half aside ' And fingering at the hair about^his lip. To prick us on to combat 'Like to like ! The woman's garment hid the woman's heart.' A taunt that clenched his purpose like a blow ! 275. Arac is much of the Prince's opinion ^77- Cf. Prl. 48. 283. St. SOMETHING.-Catherine of Alexandria 287. Foughten FiELD.-Field of battle. Cf. Shakespeare's Henry V, IV. vi, 18; The Coming of Arthur, 134. 293. This indicates his immature youth 295. This insult rather than the merit of the cause is made the occasion of war. 290 295 l64 THE PRINCESS: [canto v For fiery-short was Cyril's counter-scoff, And sharp I answered, touched upon the point Where idle boys are cowards to their shame, 'Decide it here : why not? we are three to three.' 300 Then spake the third, 'But three to three? no more? No more, and in our noble sister's cause? More, more, for honor ; every captain waits Hungry for honor, angry for his king. More, more, some fifty on a side, that each 305 May breathe himself, and quick ! by overthrow Of these or those, the question settled die.' *Yea,' answered I, 'for this wild wreath of air, This flake of rainbow flying on the highest Foam of men's deeds, — this honor, if ye will. ^jq It needs must be for honor if at all ; Since, what decision? if we fail, we fail;, And if we wan, we fail ; she would not keep Her compact.' ' 'Sdeath ! but we v^ill send to her,' Said Arac, 'worthy reasons why she should 315 Bide by this issue ; let our missive thro', And you shall have her answer by the word.' 297. Cyril's hot-headedness had caused detection, and now it hurried on contention. 298. Point. — That is, honor. For honor's sake thought- less men do acts of moral cowardice that bring them shame. 308-309. Euphemistic description of so-called honor. Cf. Fal staff's description of 'honor' in Shakespeare's i Henry IV, V, i, 131 ff. 312. Cf. 290 'brainless.' 317. Cf. 361 ff. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 165 'Boys !' shrieked tHe old king, but vainlier than a hen To her false daughters in the pool ; for none Regarded ; neither seemed there more to say ; 320 Back rode we to my father's camp, and found He thrice had sent a herald to the gates, To learn if Ida yet would cede our claim, Or by denial flush her babbling wells With her own people's life; three tim(.\s he went ; 325 The first he blew and blew, but none appeared ; He battered at the doors ; none came ; the next, An awful voice within had warned him thence ; The third, and those eight daughters of the plow Came sallying through the gates, and caught his hair, 330 And so belabored him on rib and cheek They made him wild ; not less one glance he caught Thro' open doors of Ida stationed there Unshaken, clinging to her purpose, firm Tho' compassed by two armies and the noise 335 Of arms; and standing like a stately pine Set in a cataract on an island-crag, When storm is on the heights, and right and left. Sucked from the dark heart of the long hills, roll 319. Ducklings. 323. Cf. 286. The issue is joined. 324. Cf I, 215. 329. Cf IV, 259. The Princess' bodyguard. 333. The answer to 323. 336. Cf. IV, 472, and note. 339. An interesting picture of a storm gathering in the hills and descending to the valley. Cf VII, 21. l66 THE PRINCESS: [canto v The torrents, dashed to the vale ; and yet her will 3^0 Bred will in me to overcome it or fall. But when I told the king that I was pledged To fight in tourney for my bride, he clashed His iron palms together with a cry ; Himself would tilt it out among the lads ; 345 But overborne by all his bearded lords With reasons drawn from age and state, perforce He yielded, wroth and red, with fierce demur ; And many a bold knight started up in heat, And sware to combat for my claim till death. ^^q All on this side the palace ran the field Flat tt) the garden-wall ; and likewise here, Above the garden's glowing blossom-belts, A columned entry shone, and marble stairs, And great bronze valves embossed with Tomyris 355 And what she did to Cyrus after fight, But now fast barred ; so here upon the flat All that long morn the lists were hammered up, And all that morn the heralds to and fro, With message and defiance, went and came; ^60 340. Cf. I, 47; VI, 102. 343. Clashed.— Cf. 240, 172. 351. It suggests the tourney field below Stirling Castle. 355. Valves.— Gates. Cf. IV, 184. 355. Tomyris.— The Queen who had the head of Cyrus the Great dipped in a 'skin filled with blood. Cf. Shakespeare, I Henry VI, II, iii, 5, 6. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 167 Last, Ida's answer, in a royal hand, But shaken here and there, and rolling words Oration-like. I kised it, and I read. *0 brother, you have known the pangs we felt, What heats of indignation, when we heard 365 Of those that iron-cramped their women's feet; Of lands in which at the altar the poor bride Gives her harsh groom for bridal-gift a scourge ; Of living hearts that crack within the fire Where smoulder their dead despots ; and of those, — ^lo Mothers, — that, all prophetic pity, fling Their pretty maids in the running flood, and swoops The vulture, beak and talon, at the heart Made for all noble motion ; and I saw That equal baseness lived in sleeker times 375 With smoother men ; the old leaven leavened all ; 361. Royal. — Does this refer to the handwriting? 363. Cf. 317. 364. Arac. 364-379. This is Ida's arraignment of man and her defense of her cause. 366. Chinese. 367-368. Russia. 369 ff. Hindoo. 371. All prophetic pity. — Overwhelmed by pity in antici- pation of the fate of their daughters should they remain unmarried. 375. Sleeker times. — That is, more polished times ; per- haps the nineteenth century. 276. Old leaven. — Woman's inferiority. l68 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Millions of throats would bawl for civil rights, No woman named; therefore I set my face Against all men, and lived but for mine own. Far off from men I built a fold for them ; 380 I stored it full of rich memorial ; I fenced it round with gallant institutes, And biting laws to scare the beasts of prey, And prospered ; till a rout of saucy beys Brake on us at our books, and marred our peace, 3S5 Masked like our maids, blustermg I know not what Of insolence and love, some pretext held Of baby troth, invalid, since my will Sealed not the bond — the striplings! — for their sport ! — I tamed my leopards ; shall I not tame these ? 390 Or you or I ? for since you think me touched In honor — what, I would not aught of false — Is not our cause pure? and whereas I know Your prowess, Arac, and what mother's blood You draw from, fight ; you failing, I abide 395 What end soever ; fail you will not. Still, 380. Note frequent reference to sheep. This suggests need of leadership. 381. Statues of women, etc. 383. Cf. II, 56-58. 384.— Rout. — Company, etc. Cf. Prl. 148. 388. Cf. I, S3, and note. 390. Cf. II, IQ. 392. To what does the Princess refer as false? 394. It is evident that the Princess and her brother are the heirs of their mother. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 169 Take not his life ; he risked it for my own ; His mother Hves ; yet whatsoe'er you do, Fight, and fight well ; strike and strike home. O dear Brothers, the woman's Angel guards you, you 400 The sole men to be mingled with our cause, The sole men we shall prize in the aftertime, Your very armor hallowed, and your statues Reared, sung to, when, this gad-fly brushed aside, We plant a solid foot into the Time, 405 And mold a generation strong to move With claim on claim from right to right, till she Whose name is yoked with children's, know herself; And Knowledge in our own land make her free, And, ever following those two crowned twins, 410 Commerce and conquest, shower the fiery grain Of freedom broadcast over all that orbs Between the Northern and the Southern morn.' 397. Cf. IV, 510, for her bitter gratitude. 398. Lives.— Yet the tense in I, 11, and VII, 298, implies the contrary. Is the Princess mistaken ? 400. The woman's Angel.— That is. the guardian angel of woman. 401. Cf. II, 32- 404. Gad-fly.— Pestiferous and transient interruption. 406. How possible? Cf. II, 50; 164, etc. 407. She. — Woman, the sex. 409. Cf. John viii, 32. This is the motto of the University of Virginia, but Truth and Knowledge are not one. This is the Princess' mistake. 411. A little bit of English life and ideal is obvious here. Fiery.— That is, inflaming, inciting, inspiring. 170 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Then came a postscript dashed across the rest : 'See that there be no traitors in your camp; 415 We seem a nest of traitors — none to trust Since our arms failed — this Egypt-plague of men ! Almost our maids were better at their homes, Than thus man-girdled here ; indeed, I think Our chiefest comfort is the little child 420 Of one unworthy mother ; which she left ; She shall not have it back ; the child sliall grow To prize the authentic mother of her mind. I took it for an hour in mine own bed This morning; there the tender orphan hands 425 Felt at my heart, and seemed to charm from thence The wrath I nursed against the world ; farewell.' I ceased ; he said, 'Stubborn, but she may sit Upon a king's right hand in thunderstorms, 414. True to her womanly nature she puts her most im- portant declarations in a postscript, written, too, across the letter. 417. Cf. Exodus viii-x. 420. Child. — The true heroine of the poem, since all else bends to the power of the child. 422. Cf. IV, 342, and note. 423. Authentic mother of her mind, versus the mother of her body. Mental versus physical maternity; cf. Ill, 228. 425-427. This is the dynamic point of the poem. Here Ida's nature changes, and from this time, when she bids farewell to her wrath against the world, she also welcomes manifestations of love for herself. 428. He. — The Prince's father, who had listened to the letter read aloud. CANTO v] A MEDLEY, 171 And breed up warriors ! See now — tho' yourself 430 Be dazzled by the wildfire Love to sloughs That swallow common sense — the spindling king, This Gama, swamped in lazy tolerance. When the man wants weight, the woman takes it up, And topples down the scales ; but this is fixed 435 As are the roots of earth and base of all : Man for the field and woman for the hearth ; Man for the sword and for the needle she ; Man with the head and woman with the heart; Man to command and woman to obey ; ^o All else confusion. Look you ! the gray n:kare Is ill to live with, when her whinny shrills From tile to scullery, and her small goodman Shrinks in his arm-chair, while the fires of hell Mix with his hearth ; but you — she's yet a colt — 445 Take, break her; strongly groomed and straitly curbed, 431. Cf. IV, 338. Is this his father's explanation of the weird seizures? 433. Gama is no master in his own household. He is overpowered by his own children. 434 ff. The king's opinion of woman is that .of the typical Englishman. 453-454. The old king's solution of the prob- lem is direct and matter of fact, but it has many advocates. Cf. VII, 248. and In Memoriam, XL, 4. 440. Cf. Genesis iii, 16; Ephesians v, 12; Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, I, iii, 85 ff; Milton's Paradise Lost, IV, 440 ff. 441. Gray mare.— Cf. the proverb: 'The gray mare li the better horse." 443. Goodman. — Husband, but used in disparagement. 172 THE PklNcSSS: [canto v She might not rank with those detestable That let the bantHng scald at home, and brawl Their rights or wrongs like potherbs in the street. They say she's comely ; there's the fairer chance ; 450 / like her none the less for rating at her ! Besides, the woman wed is not as we, But suffers change of frame. A lusty brace Of twins may weed her of her folly. Boy, The bearing and the training of a child 455 Is woman's wisdom.' Thus the hard old king. I took my leave, for it was nearly noon ; I pored upon her letter which I held, And on the little clause, 'Take not his life;* I mused on that wild morning in the woods, 460 And on the 'Follow, follow, thou shalt win ;' I thought on all the wrathful king had said, And how the strange betrothment was to end; Then I remembered that burnt sorcerer's curse That one should fight with shadows and should fall, 465 And like a flash the weird affection came: King, camp, and college turned to hollow shows; I seemed to move in old memorial tilts, 447. Detestable. — Mothers is understood. 449. Cf. the street-cries of vegetable venders. ^ 460. Cf. 397. 461-462. Cf. I, 89-99. Cf. Follow the Gleam, 464. Cf. I, 5. 466. Cf. Ill, 167, etc. 469. Cf. I, 17; IV, 539. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 173 And doing battle with forgotten ghosts, To dream myself the shadow of a dream; 470 And ere I woke it was the point of noon ; The lists were ready. Empanoplied and plumed We entered in, and waited, fifty there Opposed to fifty, till the trumpet blared At the barrier like a wild horn in a land 475 Of echoes, and a moment, and once more The trumpet, and again ; at which the storm Of galloping hoofs bare on the ridge of spears And riders front to front, until they closed In conflict, with the crash of shivering points, 480 And thunder. Yet it seemed a dream I dreamed Of fighting. On his haunches rose the steed. And into fiery splinters leapt the lance. And out of stricken helmets sprang the fire. Part sat like rocks ; part reeled, but kept their seats; 485 Part rolled on the earth, and rose again, and drew ; Part stumbled, mixed with floundering horses. Down From those two bulks at Arac's side, and down From Arac's arm as from a giant's flail. The large blows rained, as here and everywhere 490 470. Cf. Prl. 222; I, 18; III, 172. ,472. Lists.— Cf. 358. 473. Fifty.— Cf. 305- 474. This description of a tourney is splendid in fire, vivid- ness, and rapidity of movement. 475. Cf. Alpine Horn ; cf. also hints to the Bugle Song. 478. Bare . . . on.— Advanced, carried forward. 481. The Prince confuses even truth and dreams. Is he still in a trance? 495 500 174 THE PRINCESS: [canto v He rode the mellay, lord of the ringing Hsts, And all the plain, — brand, mace, and shaft, and shield — Shocked, like an iron-clanging anvil banged With hammers; till I thought, 'Can this be he From Gama's dwarfish loins? if this be so, The mother makes us most' — and in my dream I glanced aside, and saw the palace-front Alive with fluttering scarfs and ladies' eyes. And highest, among the statues, statue-like. Between a cymbaled Miriam and a Jael, With Psyche's babe, was Ida watching us, A single band of gold about her hair, Like a Saint's glory up in heaven ; but she No saint — inexorable — no tenderness — Too hard, too cruel : yet she sees me fight, 505 Yea, let her see me fall ! With that I drave Among the thickest and bore down a Prince, And Cyril one. Yea, let me make my dream All that I would. But that large-molded man, 491. — Mellay.— Melee. 493. Note the metrical and verbal effect. 496. The accepted view of cross inheritance. 500. — Cf. Exodus XV, 20; Judges iv, 17, 503. Saint's glory.— Halo. Cf. the golden fillet often worn by Greeks. 505. Note change of tense for vivid realism of her pres- ence as a witness. 506. Drave. — This form is archaic. 507-508. Arac's brothers are thus disposed of. CANTO v] A MEDLEY. 175 His visage all agrin as at a wake, 510 Made at me thro' the press, and, staggering back With stroke on stroke the horse and horseman, came As comes a pillar of electric cloud, Flaying the roofs and sucking up the drains, And shadowing down the champaign till it strikes 515 On a wood, and takes, and breaks, and cracks, and splits. And twists the grain with such a roar that Earth Reels, and the herdsmen cry ; for everything Gave way before him ; only Florian, he That loved me closer than his own right eye, 52a Thrust in between ; but Arac rode him down ; And Cyril, seeing it, pushed against the Prince, With Psyche's color round his helmet ; tough, Strong, supple, sinew-corded, apt at arms ; But tougher, heavier, stronger, he that smote 525 And threw him ; last I spurred ; I felt my veins Stretch with fierce heat ; a moment hand to hand, And sword to sword, and horse to horse we hung, 510. This suggestion of mirth in the presence of death is of a piece with the medley nature of this fight, but it is also in keeping with Arac's character. Cf. 264. 511. Staggering is an active verb. 513. This is a vivid picture of a cyclone. ColHns calls at- tention to Lucan's similar description, Pharsalia, I, 152-158. Where, from books or experience, did Tennyson get these details? 520. Cf. I, 54-55. Cf. Galatians iv, 13. 523. Cf. Interlude, 18 ff. 1^6 THE PRINCESS: [canto v Till I struck out and shouted; the blade glanced, I did but shear a feather, and dream and truth 530 Flowed from me ; darkness closed me ; and I fell. 531. His seizures (mental) and his half-dream, half-truth state now gave way to imconsciousness caused by a wound as of death. Cf. VI, 10, 92, etc. [CONSOLATION.] Home they brought her warrior dead ; She nor swooned, nor uttered cry ; All her maidens, watching, said, ' She must weep or she will die.' Then they praised him, soft and low, Called him worthy to be loved, Truest friend and noblest foe ; Yet she neither spoke nor moved. Stole a maiden from her place, Lightly to the warrior stepped, Took the face-cloth from the face; Yet she neither moved nor wept. Rose a nurse of ninety years, Set his child upon her knee ; Like summer tempest came her tears — * Sweet my child, I live for thee.' In this poem the wean nerves the widow after the war- rior's death. (Cf. Poem, p. 147.) Here is the baby's magic in consolation. The poem follows immediately upon the Prince's supposed death wound. The warrior has fallen, and widowed Ida has already been softened by the warmth of Psyche's child. The verses are not descriptive of Canto V, but suggest several of its scenes. Cf. 50, 58, T], 79, 531 ; VI, 177. This elegy is very simple in form, but none the less effec- tive in its dynamic climax. The sources are perhaps First Lay of Gudrun; The Lay of the Last Minstrel (I, 9) ; Dar- win's Loves of the Plants, III, 269-326. [ 177 ] lyS THE PRINCESS: [canto vi VI. [TRIUMPH AND FORGIVENESS.] [Ida exults over lier fallen enemies and ruslies to the field to tender her services as nurse to those who have championed her cause. She finds the Prince apparently dead, but when she knows him alive begs to be suffered to nurse him too. This request is refused when she seems so hard to Psyche, but, after their reconciliation, is granted and the doors of the Academe are thrown wide to receive all the wounded. — Ed.] My dream had never died, or lived again. As in some mystic middle state I lay ; Seeing I saw not, hearing not I heard ; Tho', if I saw not, yet they told me all So often that I speak as having seen. For so it seemed, or so they said to me, That all things grew more tragic and more strange; 2. Another member of the seven takes up the tale, but in the character of the Prince. The new narrator must explain his knowledge of what happened during this unconscious state. This he does as follows: The Prince falls wounded and unconscious, yet he tells what happens immediately after his fall and later. His ability to do this is due to the fact (i) that his dream (Canto V.) had never ceased; or (2) that his dream at once revived (began again) ; or (3) that he lay in some middle state; or (4) that he is telling what he had heard so often that he seemed to recollect it himself. CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 179 That when our side was vanquished, and my cause For ever lost there went up a great cry, 'The Prince is slain!' My father heard, and ran ^^ In on the lists, and there unlaced my casque And groveled on my body, and after him Came Psyche, sorrowing for Aglaia. But high upon the palace Ida stood With Psyche's babe in arm ; there on the roofs '5 Like that great dame of Lapidoth she sang. ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen ; the seed, The little seed they laughed at in the dark, Has risen and cleft the soil, and grown a bulk Of spanless girth, that lays on every side ^^ A thousand arms, and rushes to the sun. 12. Groveled. — Is this a felicitous word? 13. Psyche's cause was bound up with the Prince's, hence she thinks Aglaia permanently lost. Cf. V, loi, 103. 15. Babe in arm. — Cf. Palace of Art. What is the usual expression? 16. Cf. Deborah; Judges iv, 4; V, 1. ff . ; cf. IV, 121; V, 500. 17-42. Ida's Exultation — Plot Song IV — This Song of Triumph, a Valkyrian hymn into which Ida dashes the passion of the prophetess (cf. IV, 121, 122), is in her original manner before the wrath she nursed against the world had been charmed from her breast. (Cf. V, 425, 426.) This return to her fiery mood is natural under the ex- citement of battle, but almost immediately (cf. 56) her new- found tenderness reasserts itself. This poem. Cook suggests, makes use of Psalm, xcii; Hosea, xiv ;. Psalm, Ixxx, and Jeremiah, xlvi. For a similar l8o THE PRINCESS: [canto vi 'Our enemies have fallen, have fallen; they came; The leaves were wet with women's tears; they heard A noise of songs they would not understand; They marked it with the red cross to the fall, 25 And would have strown it, and are fallen themselves. ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen; they came, The woodmen with their axes: "lo the tree! But we will make it faggots for the hearth, And shape it plank and beam for roof and floor, 30 And boats and bridges for the use of men." ' Our enemies have fallen, have fallen ; they struck ; With their own blows they hurt themselves, nor knew There dwelt an iron nature in the grain; The glittering axe was broken in their arms, 35 Their arms were shattered to the shoulder blade. ' Our enemies have fallen, but this shall grow A night of Summer from the heat, a breath Of Autumn, dropping fruits of power; and rolled figure compare Shakespeare's Henry VIII, V, v, 53, 56. The main hint is, however, found in Deborah's song in Judges, v. It is a rhymeless, rhapsodical war lyric of exultation, but it is at the same time an allegorical picture, present and pro- phetic, of woman's cause. 21. To THE SUN. — This is a phrase of direction and height. 25. Red cross. — The master woodman's sign for the tree's destruction. 34. Truly said of Ida and her womanly type, truly said too of the inherent nature of her cause. 36. Cf. Job, xxxi, 22. 38. A NIGHT OF SUMMER FROM THE HEAT. — Protected from the heat throughout a summer night. Does this mean in ob- scurity, unobserved ? 39. Autumn. — The ripening time (of her cause). 45 5o CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. jgj With music in the growing breeze of Time, .q The tops shall strike from star to star, the fangs Shall move the stony bases of the world.' 'And now, O maids, behold our sanctuary Is violate, our laws broken ; fear we not To break them more, in their behoof whose arms Championed our cause and won it with a day Blanched in our annals, and perpetual feast, When dames and heroines of the golden year Shall strip a hundred hollows bare of Spring, To rain an April of ovation round Their statues, borne aloft, the three ; but come. We will be liberal, since our rights are won. Let them not lie in the tents with coarse mankind, 111 nurses ; but descend, and proffer these 40. Time.— Cf. II, 356; IV, 496; VII, 90, 271. 41. FA-NGS.~The stem suggests seizing, grasping. Here it is the clutching roots of this symbolic tree. 42. Cf. In Memoriam, II. 47. Blanched.— Variant for whitened, meaning made gra- cious or auspicious. Cf. "white," in Century Dictionary. Cf. the expression, a "red-letter day." 48. Cf. The Golden Year. 50. April is the rainy month. *To rain an April" Is a figure of intensity. 52. Won, but lost in the winning, for Love against whom enmity was sworn is by this liberality 'made Victor ' Cf V 395; VII, 5 ff. ■ ' 53- Mankind.— Of the kind like man ; that is, of mascu- line sex and nature. Cf. Shakespeare's Timon of Athens IV, III, 490, 491. 54. III.— Cf. V, 90. l82 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi The brethren of our blood and cause, that there 55 Lie bruised and maimed, the tender ministries Of female hands and hospitality.' She spoke, and with the babe yet in her arms, Descending, burst the great bronze valves, and led A hundred maids in train across the park. 6c Some cowled, and some bare-headed, on they came, Their feet in flowers, her loveliest ; by them went The enamored air sighing, and on their curls From the high tree the blossom wavering fell, And over them the tremulous isles of light 65 Slided, they moving under shade; but Blanche At distance followed ; so they came; anon Thro' open field into the lists they wound Timorously ; and as the leader of the herd That holds a stately fretwork to^ the sun, 70 And followed up by a hundred airy does. Steps with a tender foot, light as on air, 58. Cf. 15. 59. Cf. V, 355. 61. Cowled. — With heads covered. No suggestion here of their office as Sisters of Mercy. 65. Cf. In Memoriam, XXIV, LXXXIX; CEnone, 176-8. This is a favorite figure with Tennyson, who says: "They are 'isles of light, spots of sunshine coming through the leaves, and seeming to slide from one to the other as the pro- cession of girls moves under shade.' " — Letter to Dawson. Does tremulous suggest merely motion or also apprehension? 66. Blanche.— Cf. IV, 341. 69-70. This masculine figure brings out the force and virility of Ida as opposed to the others of her fold. Cf. V, 380. CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 183 The lovely, lordly creature floated on To where her wounded brethren lay ; there stayed ; Knelt on one knee, — the child on one, — and pressed 75 Their hands, and called them dear deliverers, And happy warriors, and immortal names ; And said, 'You shall not lie in the tents, but here, And nursed by those for whom you fought and served With female hands and hospitality.' 80 Then, whether moved by this — or was it chance? — She passed my way. Up started from my side The old lion, glaring with his whelpless eye. Silent ; but when she saw me lying stark, Dishelmed and mute, and motionlessly pale, 85 Cold even to her, she sighed ; and when she saw The haggard father's face and reverend beard Of grisly twine, all dabbled with the blood Of his own son, shuddered, a twitch of pain Tortured her mouth, and o'er her forehead passed 90 A shadow, and her hue changed, and she said : 'He saved my life ; my brother slew him for it.' yS' Floated. — This is Ida's gait. IV, 505. It was also Dalila's in Samson Agonistes, 1072. 80. Repeated from 57. 81. Give your answer to the question. 83. The Prince, then, was his father's only child? The expression is not happy. 84. Stark. — Stiff (in death). 86. Cold even to her. — Her supreme test of his life. 88. Grisly twine. — Coarse, greyish thread. 89. The Princess relenting. 92. This seems to border on remorse. Cf. V, 397. l84 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi No more; at which the king in bitter scorn Drew from my neck the painting- and the tress, And held them up; she saw them, and a day 95 Rose from the distance on her memory. When the good Queen, her mother, shore the tress With kisses, ere the days of Lady Blanche ; And then once more she looked at my pale face ; Till, understanding all the foolish work loo Of Fancy, and the bitter close of all, Her iron will was broken in her mind ; Her noble heart was molten in her breast ; She bowed, she set the child on the earth ; she laid A feeling finger on my brows, and presently 105 *0 Sire,' she said, 'he lives; he is not dead; O let me have him with my brethren here In our own palace; we will tend on him Like one of these; if so, by any means, To lighten this great clog of thanks, that make no Our progress falter to the woman's goal/ 94. Cf. I, 37, 39. 97. The Princess' mother, then, favored the Prince's suit. Cf. V, 530. 98. Cf. 222. loi. Fancy. — Her chimerical scheme. 102. Iron will. — II, 185 ; V, 340. This Is a dynamic point in the poem. 106. This touch that calls to life prefigures another touch (VII, 143) that brings a new life to Ida. Cf. also Inter- calary Poem, VI, 3, 4; p. 199. no. Gratitude was bitter (IV, 510), now it is burdensome. III. Make . . . falter. — Impedes. CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. 185 She said ; but at the happy word 'He lives/ My father stooped, re-fathered o'er my wounds. So those two foes, above my fallen life, With brow to brow like night and evening, mixed 115 Their dark and gray ; while Psyche ever stole A little nearer, till the babe that by us, Half-lapt in glowing gauze and golden brede. Lay like a new-fallen meteor on the grass, Uncared for, spied its mother, and began 120 A blind and babbling laughter, and to dance Its body, and reach its fatling innocent arms And lazy lingering fingers. She the appeal Brooked not, but clamoring out, 'Mine — mine — not yours, It is not yours, but mine ; give me the child !' 125 Ceased all on tremble ; piteous was the cry ; So stood the unhappy mother open-mouthed. And turned each face her way ; wan was her cheek With hollow watch, her blooming mantle torn. Red grief and mother's hunger in her eye, 130 And down dead-heavy sank her curls, and half 118. Brede. — Embroidery. 119. Cf. IV, 267. 121. Blind. — What does this signify? 122. Fatling.— Diminutive, small and fat. As an adjec- tive this seems to be a Tennysonian coinage, (See Century Dictionary.) 124. Brooked not. — That is, conld not withstand. 126. On tremble. — Equal to a-tremble. Cf. on sleep, asleep. Cf. 348 and Acts, xiii, 36. 129. Hollow. — Belongs to cheek, as 'red' in 130, to eye. l86 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi The sacred mother's bosom, panting, burst The laces toward her babe ; but she nor cared Nor knew it, clamoring on, till Ida heard, Looked up, and rising slowly from me, stood 135 Erect and silent, striking with her glance The mother, me, the child ; but he that lay Beside us, Cyril, battered as he was, Trailed himself up on one knee ; then he drew Her robe to meet his lips, and down she looked 140 At the armed man sideways, pitying, as it seemed. Or self-involved ; but when she learnt his face, Remembering his ill-omened song, arose Once more thro' all her height, and o'er him grew Tall as a figure lengthened on the sand 145 When the tide ebbs in sunshine ; and he said : 'O fair and strong and terrible! Lioness That with your long locks play the Lion's mane ! — • But Love and Nature, these are two more terrible And stronger. See, your foot is on our necks, 150 We vanquished, you the Victor of your will. 142. Self- INVOLVED. — That is, self-absorbed. 143. Cf. IV, 139- 144. Her height.— Cf. II, 27; V, 245, 264, 488, 509- Cf. also Prl. 218. What is the Prince's height? See II, 33. This is the last reference to the manly height of the Princess. Hereafter she is drawn with emphasis on her womanly attri- butes. 149-150. This is the key to the poem. Love and Nature will ever triumph over Knowledge, Power, Will, Whimsical Plan. etc. 151. Of. — That is, in accordance with, etc. CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. 187 What would you more ? Give her the child ! remain Orbed in your isolation ; he is dead, Or all as dead ; henceforth we let you be ; Win you the hearts of women ; and beware 155 Lest, where you seek the common love of these. The common hate with the revolving wheel Should drag you down, and some great Nemesis Break from a darkened future, crowned with fire, And tread you out for ever ; but howsoe'er 160 Fixed in yourself, never in your own arms To hold your own, deny not hers to her ; Give her the child ! O if, I say, you keep One pulse that beats true woman, if you loved The breast that fed or arm that dandled you, J55 Or own one port of sense not flint to prayer, Give her the child ! or if you scorn to lay it. Yourself, in hands so lately clasped with yours. Or speak to her, your dearest — her one fault The tenderness, not yours, that could not kill — lyo Give me it : / will give it her/ 153. Orbed.— Cf. 'sphered,' etc., IV, 129, 130. 157. Discontent was observed before. Cf. II, 439. 158. Nemesis. — Goddess of Retribution. 161. Cf. Ida's lament, III, 230 ff. 165. Cf. V, 394. 166. Port. — Porta — gate, opening, avenue. Cf. Shakes- peare's II. Henry IV, IV, v^ 2;^, 24, etc. 169. Cf. 232 ff. 171. This intercession on the part of Cyril is perhaps not entirely unselfish. He, no doubt, remembers her promise of reward (V, loi). l88 THE PRINCESS: (canto vl He said ; At first her eye with slow dilation rolled Dry flame, she listening; after sank and sank, And, into mournful twilight mellowing, dwelt Full on the child ; she took it: 'Pretty bud! 175 Lily of the vale! half opened bell of the woods! Sole comfort of my dark hour, when a world Of traitorous friend and broken system made No purple in the distance, mystery, — Pledge of a love not to be mine, farewell ; jSo These men are hard upon us as of old. We two must part ; and yet how fain was I To dream thy cause embraced in mine, to think I might be something to thee, when I felt Thy helpless warmth about my barren breast ^ ^g In the dead prime! but may thy mother prove As true to thee as false, false, false to me! 175. Cf. V, 97. 177. Cf. IV. 343 ff. 179. Purple in the distance.— /n Memoriam, XXXI, 3; XXXVIII, I. 'Prospect and horizon.* 180. Wedded love. 183. The woman's cause embraces the child's, therefore no solution of the woman problem is final that does not take account of children. This is distinctly Tennyson's view. 185. Cf. V, 424. 186. Dead prime. — Cf. II, 106; In Memoriam, XLIII, 4. Perhaps this refers, first to the hour before dawn when vital- ity is low (cf. V, 425) ; but its further reference is to the un- fruitful spring of life. 187. Isn't the accusation too absolute? CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. 189 And, if thou needs must bear the yoke, I wish it Gentle as freedom' — here she kissed it ; then — 'All good go with thee! take it, Sir,' and so 190 Laid the soft babe in his hard-mailed hands, Who turned half-round to Psyche, as she sprang To meet it with an eye that swum in thanks; Then felt it sound and whole from head to foot, And hugged and never hugged it close enough, 1^5 And in her hunger mouthed and mumbled it. And hid her bosom with it ; after that Put on more calm, and added suppliantly : 'We two were friends : I go to mine own land For ever ; find some other ; as for me, 200 I scarce am fit for your great plans ; yet speak to me ; Say one soft word and let me part forgiven.' 'But Ida spoke not, rapt upon the child. Then Arac : 'Ida — 'sdeath ! you blame the man ; You wrong yourselves — the woman is so hard 205 Upon the woman. Come, a grace to me ! I am your w^arrior ; I and mine have fought Your battle ; kiss her ; take her hand, she weeps ; 'Sdeath ! I would sooner fight thrice o'er than see it.' 201. Because of too much heart. 205. Cf. 'Man's inhumanity to man,' Burns' Man Was Made to Mourn, 7, as the generic expression. 206. Grace. — Favor. 209. Arac's heart is more tender than Ida's, because Hq has not learned to be unnatural, 190 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi But Ida spoke not, gazing on the ground ; And reddening in the furrows of his chin, And moved beyond his custom, Gama said: 'I've heard that there is iron in the blood, And I beheve it. Not one word ? not one ? Whence drew you this steel temper? not from me, 215 Not from your mother, now a saint with saints. She said you had a heart — I heard her say it — "Our Ida has a heart — " just ere she died — "But see that some one with autliority Be near her stiU ;" and I — I sought for one — 220 All people said she had authority — The Lady Blanche ; much profit ! Not one word ; No ! tho' your father sues ; see how you stand Stiff as Lot's wife, and all the good knights maimed, I trust that there is no one hurt to death, 225 For your wild whim; and was it then for this, Was it for this we gave our palace up, Where we withdrew from sunmier heats and state, And had our wine and chess beneath the planes. And many a pleasant hour with her that's gone, 230 213. Cf. 34- 215. The IRON and steel indicate the metallic hardness of Ida's acquired nature. 218-19. Ida's mother did not, as so many others, misjudge her. 224. Cf. Genesis, xi.x, 26. 22-]. Cf. I, 145- 229. Planes. — Cf. Ill, 159. CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. jqi Ere you were born to vex us ? Is it kind ? Speak to her, I say ; is this not she of whom, When first she came, all flushed you said to me Now had you got a friend of your own age, Now could you share your thought ; now should men see 235 Two women faster welded in one love Than pairs of wedlock ; she you walked wdth, she You talked with, whole nights long, up in the tower, Of sine and arc, spheroid and azimuth. And right ascension, Heaven knows what; and now 240 A word, but one, one little kindly word, Not one to spare her ? out upon you, flint ! You love nor her, nor me, nor any ; nay, You shame your mother's judgment too. Not one? You will not? well — no heart have you, or such 245 As fancies, like the vermin in a nut, Have fretted all to d.ust and bitterness.' So said the small king, moved beyond his wont. But Ida stood, nor spoke, drained of her force By many a varying influence and so long. 250 Down thro' her limbs a drooping languor wept ; 231. Was Ida always a self-willed, troublesome child? 234. Less than twenty. Cf. II, 92, 93. 238-240. This is a reminder of Milton's // Pcnscroso, 85 ff. These are technical astronomical terms. 245-246. Cf. 218. 247. Fretted. — Gnawed. Cf. A Dirge, g, 10. 251. There is weeping in her manner, though not in her eyes. 192 THE PRINCESS; [canto vi Her head a little bent ; and on her mouth A doubtful smile dwelt like a clouded moon In a still water ; then brake out my sire, Lifting his grim head from my wounds: 'O you, 255 Woman, whom we thought woman even now, And were half fooled to let you tend our son, Because he might have wished it — but we see The accomplice of your madness unforgiven, And think that you might mix his draught with death, 260 When your skies change again ; the rougher hand Is safer ; on to the tents ; take up the Prince.' He rose, and while each ear was pricked to attend A tempest, thro' the cloud that dimmed her broke A genial warmth and light once more, and shone 265 Thro' glittering drops on her sad friend. 'Come hither, O Psyche,' she cried out, 'embrace me, come, jQuick while I melt ; make reconcilement sure With one that cannot keep her mind an hour; Come to the hollow heart they slander so ! Kiss and be friends, like children being chid ! 270 256. Cf. 115. 261. The old King charges her with fickleness. Cf. 269. 266. Cf. 251. 269. The charge of 261 confessed. 270. Hollow.— Empty because lacking in weddeddove, child-love, and friend -love; or does she mean they slander her heart by calling it hollow; that is, without natural feel- ing? See 245, CANTO vij A MEDLEY. 1^3 / seem no more ; / want forgiveness too ; I should have had to do with none but maids, That have no hnks with men. Ah, false but dear, Dear traitor, too much loved, why? — why? — Yet see, 275 Before these kings we embrace you yet once more With all forgiveness, all oblivion. And trust, not love, you less. And now, O Sire, Grant me your son, to nurse, to wait upon him, Like mine own brother. For my debt to him, 280 This nightmare weight of gratitude, I know it; Taunt me no more ; yourself and yours shall have Free adit ; we will scatter all our maids Till happier times each to her proper hearth ; 272. The Obvious interpretation of this line is : / seein no more than a child, and, child-like, I want forgiveness ; but there are two other interpretations worth considering: (i) I seem no more ; that is, I no longer pretend to be your enemy and to believe you false. I want your forgiveness for my seeming hardness and injustice. (2) I seem no more ; that is, I am done with these unreal and chimerical fancies, these fine-spun theories with their inherent unnatu- ralness, and for my vagary, which I here renounce, I want forgiveness too. 278. Cf. 262 and 267. And now (causal, not temporal) that I have shown my forgiving spirit, grant me your son. The moving cause of her reconciliation with Psyche is inter- est in the Prince. 279. Ida is not usually suppliant. 281. Cf. no. 283. Adit. — Access. Cf. 'port,' 166. 284. Proper. — Cf. In Memoriam, XXVI, 4. "But they did 194 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi What use to keep them here — now ? grant my prayer. 285 Help, father, brother, help; speak to the king; Thaw this male nature to some touch of that Which kills me with myself, and drags me down From my fixed height to mob me up with all The soft and milky rabble of womankind, 290 Poor weakling even as they are.' Passionate tears Followed ; the king replied not ; Cyril said : 'Your brother, Lady, — Florian, — ask for him Of your great Head — for he is wounded too — That you may tend upon him with the Prince.' 295 *Ay so,' said Ida with a bitter smile, 'Our laws are broken ; let him enter too.' Then Violet, she that sang the mournful song. And had a cousin tumbled on the plain. Petitioned too for him. 'Ay so,' she said, 300 T stagger in the stream ; I cannot keep My heart an eddy from the brawling hour; We break our laws with ease, but let it be.' not all go (VII, 5, etc.), because they had found a more sat- isfactory mission. Cf. 360. 287. That. — Namely, womanly nature. Is this the re- nunciation of her plan suggested, perhaps, in 2']2'^. 289. "Clash ... in one." — Cf. V, 172. 290. Milky. — Not only white, but weak and effeminate. Cf. Shelley's Ccnci II, i ; Shakespeare's Timon of Athens in. i, 57. 291. Cf. with 251 and 266 for progression in tenderness. 298. Cf. IV, 19. 302. Contrast V, 336. CANTO VI] A MEDLEY. jge 'Ay so?' said Blanche: 'Amazed am I to hear Your Highness; but Your Highness breaks with ease 305 The law Your Highness did not make; 'twas I. I had been wedded wife, I knew mankind, And blocked them out ; but these men came to \voo Your Highness— veril)/ I think to win.' So she, and turned askance a wintry eye; But Ida, with a voice that like a bell Tolled by an earthquake in a trembling tower, Rang ruin, answered full of grief and scorn. 'Fling our doors wide ! all, all, not one, but all ; Not only he, but by my mother's soul, Whatever man lies wounded, friend or foe, Shall enter, if he will. Let our girls flit. Till the storm die ! but had you stood by us, 307. But unhappily married ("wedded to a fool," III, 67), therefore she did not know fairly the sex. 309. Blanche's judgment is better far than her heart. 310. Wintry.— Cold, unsympathetic. 311. Whence this picture? There echoes through all the remainder of the poem this bell like announcement of the downfall of her large but wrongly- designed plan. 314. Blanche was singularly fatal in drivmg the Princess to prompt and far-reachmg decisions. Cf. IV, 343, etc. Is this mere femmine perversity, or does Ida, with woman's intuition, know Blanche wrong, and therefore, whatever she opposes, right? 318. Psyche had compromised with her duty because of love for her brother, though she perhaps had Cyril in mind ; Blanche had faltered in her duty because of ambition, though 310 .315 196 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi The roar that breaks the Pharos from his base Had left us rock. She fain would sting us too, 320 But shall not. Pass, and mingle with your likes. We brook no further insult, but are gone.' She turned ; the very nape of her white neck Was rosed with indignation ; but the Prince Her brother came ; the king her father charmed 325 Her wounded soul with words; nor did mine own Refuse her proffer, lastly gave his hand. Then us they lifted up, dead weights, and bare Straight to the doors ; to them the doors gave way Groaning, and in the Vestal entry shrieked 330 The virgin marble under iron heels ; And on they moved and gained the hall, and there Rested ; but great the crush was, and each base, she claims that it was because of her fear of being misunder- stood ; and now Ida, who is overcome by love, would per- suade herself that she is the victim of treachery. 319. Pharos. — Lighthouse. Cf. 312. 321. Likes. — Cf. this dismissal with IV, 343. In the first two editions there follows a number of lines, including these : ' Go, help the half-brained dwarf Society, To find low motives unto noble deeds. To fix all doubt upon the darker side.' 330-331. Is this what Ruskin calls the 'pathetic fallacy,' and in this case is it justifiable? Ruskin's Modern Paint- ers, III. 232. Hall.— Cf. II, 17. 61, 416; IV, 253, 456. CANTO vi] A MEDLEY. I97 To left and right, of those tall columns, drowned In silken fluctuation and the swarm 335 Of female whisperers ; at the further end Was Ida by the throne, the two great cats Close by her, like supporters on a shield, Bow-backed with fear ; but in the centre stood The common men with rolling eyes; amazed 340 They glared upon the women, and aghast The women stared at these, all silent, save When armor clashed or jingled; while the day, Descending, struck athwart the hall, and shot A flying splendor out of brass and steel, .^^ That o'er the statues leapt from head to head, Now fired an angry Pallas on the helm. Now set a wrathful Dian's moon on flame ; And now and then an echo started up, And shuddering fled from room to room, and died 350 Of fright in far apartments. Then the voice Of Ida sounded issuing ordinance ; 334. Those tall columns. — Cf. II, 412. 335. Fluctuation. — Waves, folds, etc. ZZ7- Two GREAT CATS.— Cf. II, ij \ III, i6s, 170. 344. Cf. II, 449- 347-348. Angry Pallas and wrathful Dian. — The nar- rator attributes emotion to these deities who find their pre- cincts invaded. Cf. I, 219. 352. Ordinance. — Orders, decree. Cf. Tennyson To J. S. ' God's ordinance Of death is blown in every wind.' 198 THE PRINCESS: [canto vi And me they bore up the broad stairs, and thro' The long-laid galleries, past a hundred doors, To one deep chamber shut from sound, and due 355 To languid limbs and sickness; left me in it; And others otherwhere they laid ; and all That afternoon a sound arose of hoof And chariot, many a maiden passing home Till happier times; but some were left of those 360 Held sagest ; and the great lords out and in, From those two hosts that lay beside the walls, Walked at their will ; and everything was changed. 355. Due. — Owed, suited. 359. Cf. 284 and 317. 361. Sagest. — Wisest and most prudent, but cf. VII, 69 ff. [RELUCTANT SURRENDER.] Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea; The cloud may stoop from heaven and take the shape With fold to fold, of mountain or of cape; But O too fond, when have I answered thee? Ask me no more. Ask me ,no more; what answer should I give? I love not hollow cheek or faded eye; Yet, O my friend, I will not have thee die! Ask me no more, lest I should bid thee live ; Ask me no more. Ask me no more; thy fate and mine are sealed; I strove against the stream, and all in vain; Let the great river take me to the main ; No more, dear love, for at a touch I yield; Ask me no more. Tennyson's skill in drawing matchless music out of mono- syllables is nowhere better illustrated than in this splendid song. The metrical scheme, the rhyme order, and the re- frain are all exceedingly artistic. But the poem's higher art- value is in its beautiful unfolding of Ida's love story. In the first stanza is recognized the law that — ' Nothing in the world is single; All things by a law divine In one another's being mingle.' — Shelley^ '•Lovers Philosophy,^ But while this union is obvious, she would not be pressed to an answer. She cannot love one in desperate sickness, so her thoughts run, yet something like love yearns to save his life. But there is no running counter to the fates; as well strive against the stream. (Shakespeare, Venus and Adonis.) Therefore she yields herself to the large unfolding love. Cf. VII, 345. [ 199 ] 20O THE PRINCESS: [canto vii VII. [THE CARNIVAL OF LOVE.] [The violated sanctuary is now a hospital, and the maidens nurses. A sad happiness in these ministries of love prevails. Florian and Melissa are united in heart and work. Psyche yields her love to Cyril when Ida's silence gives consent, and Ida nurses the Prince. Through interest and tenderness she learns to love. There follows a noble wooing, which finds its reward in her confident trust. — Ed.] So was their sanctuary violated, So their fair college turned to hospital; At first with all confusion ; by and by Sweet order lived again, with other laws; A kindlier influence reigned ; and everywhere Low voices, with the ministering hand, Hung round the sick ; the maidens came, they talked, They sang, they read ; till she not fair began To gather light, and she that was, became Her former beauty treble ; and to and fro I. Cf. VI, 43. 4. Order lived again. — (i) The order of law; then (2) confusion of readjustment to new conditions; and (3) the order of love, the true fulfilling of law. 6. Low. — Cf. Shakespeare's King Lear, V, iii, 273-4. 8-10. A pleasing poetic illustration of the homely pro- verb : "Pretty is as pretty does." 15 CANTO vii] A MEDLEY. 201 With books, with flowers, with angel offices, Like creatures native unto gracious act, And in their own clear element, they moved. But sadness on the soul of Ida fell, And hatred of her weakness, blent with shame. Old studies failed ; seldom she spoke ; but oft Clomb to the roofs, and gazed alone for hours On that disastrous leaguer, swarms of men Darkening her female field ; void was her use, And she as one that climbs a peak to gaze 20 O'er land and main, and sees a great black cloud Drag inward from the deeps, a wall of night. Blot out the slope of sea from verge to shore, And suck the blinding splendor from the sand. And quenching lake by lake and tarn by tarn 25 12. Native. — This suggests woman s nature, which has heretofore been repressed. 15. Her pride is wounded, but it still lives. 17. Clomb. — Note form for climbed. 18. Leaguer. — The beleaguering army still awaits the Prince's fate. 19. Void was her use. — Cf. Ayhncr's Field; cf. Shakes- peare's Othello, III, iii, 357- 20-26. This beautiful picture has its original in a storm seen from vSnowdon in Wales. The counterpart (V. 338 fif.) might have been seen from the vale below ; cf. Collin's as- sertion that it is taken from Iliad, IV, 275. Cf. In Memo- riam, XV. 23. Verge. — Horizon. IV, 29; cf. Marge, In Memoriam, XLVI, 4. 202 THE PRINCESS: [cantovii Expunge the world ; so fared she gazing- there ; So blackened all her world in secret, blank And waste it seemed and vain ; till down she came, And found fair peace once more among the sick. And twilight dawned ; and morn by morn the lark 30 Shot up and shrilled in flickering gyres, but I Lay silent in the muffled cage of life ; And twilight gloomed ; and broader-grown the bowers Drew the great night into themselves, and Heaven, Star after star, arose and fell ; but I, 35 Deeper than those weird doubts could reacli me, lay Quite sundered from the moving Universe, Nor knew^ what eye was on me, nor the hand That nursed me, more than infants in their sleep. But Psyche tended Florian ; with her oft ^q Melissa came ; for Blanche had gone, but left Her child among us, willing she should keep 29. Ida finds fair peace in action. This thought is fre- quent in Tennyson ; cf. The Lady of Shalott, the theme of which seems to be: Life wearies of shadows and longs for realities, though they cost life; The Palace of Art, in which the 'make me a cottage in the vale' indicates companionship and sympathy with the lowly. Cf, Ulysses, The Golden Year, etc. 31. Cf. Shelley's Skylark and Milton's U Allegro, 40 ff. 33. Gloomed. — Turned to dark. Cf. Ulysses, 45. Broader- grown. — This is a shadow effect. Z6. That is, unconscious, yet he knows and relates what happened. Cf. VI, i, 5. CANTO VII A MEDLEY. 203 Court-favor; here and there the small bright head, A light of healing, glanced about the couch, Or thro' the parted sill