"
_Paradise Lost_, i.
_Paradise Lost_, i.
Byron
.
.
the root of the
word--? ? ? ? ? ? [tragos]. "--_The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri_, edited by
E. A. Bowring, C. B. , 1876, ii. 472.
There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's _Cain_ and Alfieri's
_Abele_. ]
[97] {216}[Compare--
" . . . his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appears
Less than Arch-angel mind, and the excess
Of glory obscure. "
_Paradise Lost_, i. 591-593.
Compare, too--
" . . . but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek. "
Ibid. , i. , 600-602. ]
[98] [According to the Manichaeans, the divinely created and immortal
soul is imprisoned in an alien and evil body. There can be no harmony
between soul and body. ]
[99] {218}[Compare--
"Let him unite above
Star upon star, moon, Sun;
And let his God-head toil
To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven,
Since in the end derision
Shall prove his works and all his efforts vain. "
_Adam, a Sacred Drama_, by Giovanni Battista Andreini;
Cowper's _Milton_, 1810, iii. 24, sqq. ]
[100] {219}[Lines 163-166 ("perhaps" . . . "sacrifice"), which appear in
the MS. , were omitted from the text in the first and all subsequent
editions. In the edition of 1832, etc. (xiv. 27), they are printed as a
variant in a footnote. The present text follows the MS. ]
[101] [According to the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, the word "Abel"
signifies "shepherd" or "herdman. " The Massorites give "breath," or
"vanity," as an equivalent. ]
[by]
_A drudging husbandman who offers up_
_The first fruits of the earth to him who made_
_That earth_----. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[bz] {220}
_Have stood before thee as I am; but chosen_
_The serpents charming symbol_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[102] {221}[_Vide ante_, "Preface," p. 208. ]
[103] {223}[Compare--
"If, as thou sayst thine essence be as ours,
We have replied in telling thee, the thing
Mortals call Death hath nought to do with us. "
_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, lines 161-163,
_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 90. ]
[104] {224}[Dr. Arnold, speaking of _Cain_, used to say, "There is
something to me almost awful in meeting suddenly, in the works of such a
man, so great and solemn a truth as is expressed in that speech of
Lucifer, 'He who bows not to God hath bowed to me'" (Stanley's _Life of
Arnold_, ed. 1887, i. 263, note). It may be awful, but it is not
strange. Byron was seldom at a loss for a text, and must have been
familiar with the words, "He that is not with Me is against Me. "
Moreover, he was a man of genius! ]
[105] {226}["The most common opinion is that a son and daughter were
born together; and they go so far as to tell us the very name of the
daughters. Cain's twin sister was called Calmana (see, too, _Le Mistere
du Viel Testament_, lines 1883-1936, ed. 1878), or Caimana, or Debora,
or Azzrum; that of Abel was named Delbora or Awina. "--Bayle's
_Dictionary_, 1735, ii. 854, art. "Eve," D. ]
[106] {227}[It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance
between many of these passages and others in _Manfred_, _e. g. _ act ii. sc.
1, lines 24-28, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 99, note 1. ]
[ca] {228} _What can_ he be _who places love in ignorance? _--[MS. M. ]
[107] {228}["One of the second order of angels of the Dionysian
hierarchy, reputed to excel specially in knowledge (as the seraphim in
love). See Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, i. 28: 'The first place is
given to the Angels of loue, which are tearmed Seraphim, the second to
the Angels of light, which are tearmed Cherubim,'"-_N. Eng. Dict. _, art.
"Cherub. "]
[cb] {229} _But it was a lie no doubt_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[cc] {230}_What else can be joy? _----. --[MS. M. ]
[108] {231}[Compare--"She walks in Beauty like the night. " _Hebrew
Melodies_, i. 1, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 381. ]
[109] {232}[Lucifer was evidently indebted to the Manichaeans for his
theory of the _duplex terra_--an infernal as well as a celestial
kingdom. ]
[110] {233}["According to the prince of the power of the air" (_Eph_.
ii. 2). ]
[cd] _An hour, when walking on a petty lake_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[ce] {234}
_Yon round blue circle swinging in far ether_
_With an inferior circlet dimmer still_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[111] [Compare--
"And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon. "
_Paradise Lost_, ii. 1051-1053.
Compare, too--
"The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab, Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 106. ]
[112] {235}["Several of the ancient Fathers, too much prejudiced in
favour of virginity, have pretended that if Man had persevered in
innocence he would not have entered into the carnal commerce of
matrimony, and that the propagation of mankind would have been effected
quite another way. " (See St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, xiv. cap.
xxi. ; Bayle's _Dictionary_, art. "Eve," 1735, ii. 853, note C. )]
[113] {236}[Compare--
"Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In many motions intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal Nature's laws. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, ii. _ibid. _, p. 107. ]
[cf] {239} _And with serpents too? _--[MS. M. ]
[cg] {240} _Rather than things to be inhabited_. --[MS. M. ]
[114] {241}["I have . . . supposed Cain to be shown in the _rational_
pre-Adamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but
totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and
person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and
Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical. "--Letter to Moore,
September 19, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 368. ]
[115] {243}[Compare the "jingle between king and kine," in
_Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. I, lines 483, 484. It is hard to say whether
Byron inserted and then omitted to erase these blemishes from negligence
and indifference, or whether he regarded them as permissible or even
felicitous. ]
[116] ["_Let_ He. " There is no doubt that Byron wrote, or that he should
have written, "Let Him. "]
[ch] {246} _And being of all things the sole thing sure_. --[MS. M. ]
[ci] _Which seems like water and which I should deem_. --[MS. M. ]
[117] {247}[Lucifer's candour and disinterested advice are "after" and
in the manner of Mephistopheles. ]
[118] {250}["If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom,
which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of
men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence,
it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who
should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all
the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who
should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his
kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them. . . . This is
that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, 'Felix culpa quae
talem Redemptorem meruit! '"--Bayle's _Dictionary_, 1737, art.
"Paulicians," note B, 25, iv. 515. ]
[119] {251}[Lucifer does not infect Cain with his cynical theories as to
the origin and endurance of love. For the antidote, compare Wordsworth's
sonnet "To a Painter" (No. II), written in 1841--
"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful--in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy," etc.
_Works_, 1889, p. 772. ]
[cj] {252} _Which my sire shrinks from--Death_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[120] {254}[In Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we find the following
entry--
"_Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain_.
"Were _Death_ an _evil_, would _I_ let thee _live_?
Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives.
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore! "
_Letters_, 1901, v. 191. ]
[121] [Matthew Arnold (_Poetry of Byron_, 1881, p. xxii. ) quotes these
lines as an instance of Byron's unknowingness and want of humour. It
cannot be denied that he leaves imbedded in his fabric lumps of unshapen
material, which mar the symmetry of his art. Lucifer's harangue involves
a reference to "hard words ending in _ism_. " The _spirit_ of error, not
the Manichaean heresy, should have proceeded out of his lips. ]
[122] ["Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdoms, etc. , it
would _elate_ him: the object of the Demon is to _depress_ him still
further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him
infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of
mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere _internal_ irritation,
_not_ premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him
contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his
state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against
Life, and the author of Life, than the mere living. "--Letter to Moore,
November 3, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 470. Here, no doubt, Byron is
speaking _in propria persona_. It was this sense of limitation, of human
nothingness, which provoked an "internal irritation . . . a rage and fury
against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions. " His "spirit
beats its mortal bars," not, like Galahad, to be possessed by, but to
possess the Heavenly Vision. ]
[123] {255}[Compare--
"What though the field be lost,
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
"
_Paradise Lost_, i. 105-108. ]
[124] {257}[An obsolete form of _carnation_, the colour of "flesh. "]
[125] [Compare--
"Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark-blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, i. , _ibid. _, p. 104. ]
[126] {258}["Time is our consciousness of the succession of ideas in our
mind. . . . One man is stretched on the rack during twelve hours, another
sleeps soundly in his bed. The difference of time perceived by these two
persons is immense: one hardly will believe that half an hour has
elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his
agony. "--Shelley's note to the lines--
" . . . the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness. "
_Queen Mab_, viii. , _ibid. _, p. 136. ]
[127] {259}[_Vide ante_, p. 208. ]
[128] {260}[It is Adah, Cain's wife, who suggests the disastrous
compromise, not a "burnt-offering," but the "fruits of the earth," which
would cost the giver little or nothing--an instance in point of
Lucifer's cynical reminder (_vide ante_, act ii. sc. 2, line 210, p.
247) "that there are some things still which woman may tempt man to. "]
[129] {262}["From the beginning" the woman is ineligible for the
priesthood--"He for God only, she for God in him" (_Paradise Lost_, iv.
299). "Let the women keep silence in the churches" (_Corinthians_, i.
xiv. 34). ]
[130] {264}[Compare the following passage from _La Rapresentatione di
Abel et di Caino_ (in Firenze l'anno MDLIV. )--
"Abel parla a dio fatto il sacrifitio,
Rendendogli laude.
Signor per cui di tanti bene abondo
Liquali tu sommamente mi concedi
Tanto mi piace, et tanto me' giocondo
Quanto delle mie greggie che tu vedi
El piu grasso el migliore el piu mondo
Ti do con lieto core come tu vedi
Tu vedi la intentione con lequal vegno," etc. ]
[ck] {265} _Which must be won with prayers--if he be evil_. --[MS. M. ]
[131] {266}[See Gessner's _Death of Abel_. ]
[132] {268}[Compare--
"How wonderful is Death--
Death and his brother Sleep! "
_Queen Mab_, i. lines 1, 2. ]
[133] {271}[Compare--
"And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee. . . .
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee in vain. "
_The Curse of Kehama_, by R. Southey, Canto II. ]
[134] [The last three lines of this terrible denunciation were not in
the original MS. In forwarding them to Murray (September 12, 1821,
_Letters_, 1901, v. 361), to be added to Eve's speech, Byron says,
"There's as pretty a piece of Imprecation for you, when joined to the
lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your
business. But don't forget the addition of these three lines, which are
clinchers to Eve's speech. "]
[135] [If Byron had read his plays aloud, or been at pains to revise the
proofs, he would hardly have allowed "corse" to remain in such close
proximity to "curse. "]
[136] {272}["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as in Scripture
(though Milton does, and not very wisely either); but have adopted his
angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings
on the subject, by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall
short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence
of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and this
is avoided in the New. "--Letter to Murray, February 8, 1822, _Letters_,
1901, vi. 13. Byron does not seem to have known that in the older
portions of the Bible "Angel of the Lord" is only a name for the Second
Person of the Trinity. ]
[cl] {273} _On thy brow_----. --[MS. ]
[137] {274}[The "four rivers" which flowed round Eden, and consequently
the only waters with which Cain was acquainted upon earth. ]
HEAVEN AND EARTH;
A MYSTERY.
FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 1, 2.
"And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose. "
"And woman wailing for her demon lover. "
Coleridge [_Kubla Khan_, line 16]
INTRODUCTION TO _HEAVEN AND EARTH_.
_Heaven and Earth_ was begun at Ravenna October 9, 1821. "It occupied
about fourteen days" (Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, p. 231), and was
forwarded to Murray, November 9, 1821. "You will find _it_," wrote Byron
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 474), "_pious_ enough, I trust--at least some of
the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves
for that, and perhaps for the melody. " It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v. 475; vi. 31). It was to be published, he insists, at the same
time, and, if possible, in the same volume with the "others"
(_Sardanapalus_, etc. ), and would serve, so he seems to have _reflected_
("The moment he reflects, he is a child," said Goethe), as an antidote
to the audacities, or, as some would have it, the impieties of _Cain_!
He reckoned without his publisher, who understood the temper of the
public and of the Government, and was naturally loth to awaken any more
"reasonable doubts" in the mind of the Chancellor with regard to whether
a "scriptural drama" was irreverent or profane. The new "Mystery" was
revised by Gifford and printed, but withheld from month to month, till,
at length, "the fire kindled," and, on the last day of October, 1821,
Byron instructed John Hunt to "obtain from Mr. Murray _Werner: a Drama_,
and another dramatic poem called _Heaven and Earth_. " It was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_ (pp. 165-206), January 1, 1823.
The same subject, the unequal union of angelic lovers with the daughters
of men, had taken Moore's fancy a year before Byron had begun to
"dramatize the Old Testament. " He had designed a long poem, but having
discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to
restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the
chance of . . . an _heliacal rising_," before he was outshone by the
advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the
"translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the
"Mystery" by eight days. The _Loves of the Angels_ (see _Memoirs_, etc. ,
1853, iv. 28) was published December 23, 1822. None the less, lyric and
drama were destined to run in double harness. Critics found it
convenient to review the two poems in the same article, and were at
pains to draw a series of more or less pointed and pungent comparisons
between the unwilling though not unwitting rivals.
Wilson, in _Blackwood_, writes, "The first [the _Loves, etc. _] is all
glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark
and massy like a block of marble. . . . Moore writes with a crow-quill, . . .
Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_,
likens Moore to "an _aurora borealis_" and Byron to "an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius"!
There is, indeed, apart from the subject, nothing in common between
Moore's tender and alluring lyric and Byron's gloomy and tumultuous
rhapsody, while contrast is to be sought rather in the poets than in
their poems. The _Loves of the Angels_ is the finished composition of an
accomplished designer of Amoretti, one of the best of his kind, _Heaven
and Earth_ is the rough and unpromising sketch thrown off by a great
master.
Both the one and the other have passed out of the ken of readers of
poetry, but, on the whole, the _Loves of the Angels_ has suffered the
greater injustice. It is opined that there may be possibilities in a
half-forgotten work of Byron, but it is taken for granted that nothing
worthy of attention is to be found in Moore. At the time, however, Moore
scored a success, and Byron hardly escaped a failure. It is to be noted
that within a month of publication (January 18, 1823) Moore was at work
upon a revise for a fifth edition--consulting D'Herbelot "for the
project of turning the poor 'Angels' into Turks," and so "getting rid of
that connection with the Scriptures," which, so the Longmans feared,
would "in the long run be a drag on the popularity of the poem"
(_Memoirs, etc. _, 1853, iv. 41). It was no wonder that Murray was
"timorous" with regard to Byron and his "scriptural dramas," when the
Longmans started at the shadow of a scriptural allusion.
Byron, in his innocence, had taken for his motto the verse in _Genesis_
(ch. vi. 2), which records the intermarriage of the "sons of God" with
the "daughters of men. " In _Heaven and Earth_ the angels _are_ angels,
members, though erring members, of Jehovah's "thundering choir," and the
daughters of men are the descendants of Cain. The question had come up
for debate owing to the recent appearance of a translation of the _Book
of Enoch_ (by Richard Laurence, LL. D. , Oxford, 1821); and Moore, by way
of safeguarding himself against any suspicion of theological
irregularity, is careful to assure his readers ("Preface" to _Loves of
the Angels_, 1823, p. viii. and note, pp. 125-127) that the "sons of
God" were the descendants of Seth, and not beings of a supernatural
order, as a mis-translation by the LXX. , assisted by Philo and the
"rhapsodical fictions of the _Book of Enoch_" had induced the ignorant
or the profane to suppose. Nothing is so dangerous as innocence, and a
little more of that _empeiria_ of which Goethe accused him, would have
saved Byron from straying from the path of orthodoxy.
It is impossible to say for certain whether Laurence's translation of
the whole of the _Book of Enoch_ had come under Byron's notice before he
planned his new "Mystery," but it is plain that he was, at any rate,
familiar with the well-known fragment, "Concerning the 'Watchers'" [? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [Peri\ ton E)grego/ron]], which is preserved in the
_Chronographia_ of Georgius Syncellus, and was first printed by J. J.
Scaliger in _Thes. temp. Euseb. _ in 1606. In the prophecy of the Deluge
to which he alludes (_vide post_, p. 302, note 1), the names of the
delinquent seraphs (Semjaza and Azazel), and of the archangelic monitor
Raphael, are to be found in the fragment. The germ of _Heaven and Earth_
is not in the _Book of Genesis_, but in the _Book of Enoch_.
Medwin, who prints (_Conversations_, 1824, pp. 234-238) what purports to
be the prose sketch of a Second Part of _Heaven and Earth_ (he says that
Byron compared it to Coleridge's promised conclusion of
_Christabel_--"that, and nothing more! "), detects two other strains in
the composition of the "Mystery," an echo of Goethe's Faust and a
"movement" which recalls the _Eumenides_ of AEschylus. Byron told Murray
that his fourth tragedy was "more lyrical and Greek" than he at first
intended, and there is no doubt that with the _Prometheus Vinctus_ he
was familiar, if not at first hand, at least through the medium of
Shelley's rendering. But apart from the "Greek choruses," which "Shelley
made such a fuss about," Byron was acquainted with, and was not
untouched by, the metrical peculiarities of the _Curse of Kehama_, and
might have traced a kinship between his "angels" and Southey's
"Glendoveers," to say nothing of _their_ collaterals, the "glumms" and
"gawreys" of _Peter Wilkins_ (see notes to Southey's _Curse of Kehama_,
Canto VI. , _Poetical Works_, 1838, viii. 231-233).
Goethe was interested in _Heaven and Earth_. "He preferred it," says
Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 434), "to all the other serious
poems of Byron. . . . 'A bishop,' he exclaimed, though it sounded almost
like satire, 'might have written it. ' Goethe must have been thinking of
a _German_ bishop! " (For his daughter-in-law's translation of the
speeches of Anah and Aholibamah with their seraph-lovers, see
_Goethe-Jahrbuch_, 1899, pp. 18-21 [Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. p.
518]. )
_Heaven and Earth_ was reviewed by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_,
February, 1823, vol. 38, pp. 42-48; by Wilson in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, January, 1823, vol. xiii. pp. 71, 72; and in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, N. S. , 1823, vol. 7, pp. 353-358.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ANGELS.
SAMIASA.
AZAZIEL.
RAPHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL.
MEN.
NOAH AND HIS SONS.
IRAD.
JAPHET.
WOMEN.
ANAH.
AHOLIBAMAH.
_Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. --Chorus of Mortals_.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
word--? ? ? ? ? ? [tragos]. "--_The Tragedies of Vittorio Alfieri_, edited by
E. A. Bowring, C. B. , 1876, ii. 472.
There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's _Cain_ and Alfieri's
_Abele_. ]
[97] {216}[Compare--
" . . . his form had not yet lost
All her original brightness, nor appears
Less than Arch-angel mind, and the excess
Of glory obscure. "
_Paradise Lost_, i. 591-593.
Compare, too--
" . . . but his face
Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
Sat on his faded cheek. "
Ibid. , i. , 600-602. ]
[98] [According to the Manichaeans, the divinely created and immortal
soul is imprisoned in an alien and evil body. There can be no harmony
between soul and body. ]
[99] {218}[Compare--
"Let him unite above
Star upon star, moon, Sun;
And let his God-head toil
To re-adorn and re-illume his Heaven,
Since in the end derision
Shall prove his works and all his efforts vain. "
_Adam, a Sacred Drama_, by Giovanni Battista Andreini;
Cowper's _Milton_, 1810, iii. 24, sqq. ]
[100] {219}[Lines 163-166 ("perhaps" . . . "sacrifice"), which appear in
the MS. , were omitted from the text in the first and all subsequent
editions. In the edition of 1832, etc. (xiv. 27), they are printed as a
variant in a footnote. The present text follows the MS. ]
[101] [According to the _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, the word "Abel"
signifies "shepherd" or "herdman. " The Massorites give "breath," or
"vanity," as an equivalent. ]
[by]
_A drudging husbandman who offers up_
_The first fruits of the earth to him who made_
_That earth_----. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[bz] {220}
_Have stood before thee as I am; but chosen_
_The serpents charming symbol_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[102] {221}[_Vide ante_, "Preface," p. 208. ]
[103] {223}[Compare--
"If, as thou sayst thine essence be as ours,
We have replied in telling thee, the thing
Mortals call Death hath nought to do with us. "
_Manfred_, act i. sc. 1, lines 161-163,
_Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 90. ]
[104] {224}[Dr. Arnold, speaking of _Cain_, used to say, "There is
something to me almost awful in meeting suddenly, in the works of such a
man, so great and solemn a truth as is expressed in that speech of
Lucifer, 'He who bows not to God hath bowed to me'" (Stanley's _Life of
Arnold_, ed. 1887, i. 263, note). It may be awful, but it is not
strange. Byron was seldom at a loss for a text, and must have been
familiar with the words, "He that is not with Me is against Me. "
Moreover, he was a man of genius! ]
[105] {226}["The most common opinion is that a son and daughter were
born together; and they go so far as to tell us the very name of the
daughters. Cain's twin sister was called Calmana (see, too, _Le Mistere
du Viel Testament_, lines 1883-1936, ed. 1878), or Caimana, or Debora,
or Azzrum; that of Abel was named Delbora or Awina. "--Bayle's
_Dictionary_, 1735, ii. 854, art. "Eve," D. ]
[106] {227}[It is impossible not to be struck with the resemblance
between many of these passages and others in _Manfred_, _e. g. _ act ii. sc.
1, lines 24-28, _Poetical Works_, 1901, iv. 99, note 1. ]
[ca] {228} _What can_ he be _who places love in ignorance? _--[MS. M. ]
[107] {228}["One of the second order of angels of the Dionysian
hierarchy, reputed to excel specially in knowledge (as the seraphim in
love). See Bacon's _Advancement of Learning_, i. 28: 'The first place is
given to the Angels of loue, which are tearmed Seraphim, the second to
the Angels of light, which are tearmed Cherubim,'"-_N. Eng. Dict. _, art.
"Cherub. "]
[cb] {229} _But it was a lie no doubt_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[cc] {230}_What else can be joy? _----. --[MS. M. ]
[108] {231}[Compare--"She walks in Beauty like the night. " _Hebrew
Melodies_, i. 1, _Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 381. ]
[109] {232}[Lucifer was evidently indebted to the Manichaeans for his
theory of the _duplex terra_--an infernal as well as a celestial
kingdom. ]
[110] {233}["According to the prince of the power of the air" (_Eph_.
ii. 2). ]
[cd] _An hour, when walking on a petty lake_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[ce] {234}
_Yon round blue circle swinging in far ether_
_With an inferior circlet dimmer still_. --[MS. M. erased. ]
[111] [Compare--
"And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon. "
_Paradise Lost_, ii. 1051-1053.
Compare, too--
"The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heavens;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab, Poetical Works_, 1829, p. 106. ]
[112] {235}["Several of the ancient Fathers, too much prejudiced in
favour of virginity, have pretended that if Man had persevered in
innocence he would not have entered into the carnal commerce of
matrimony, and that the propagation of mankind would have been effected
quite another way. " (See St. Augustine, _De Civitate Dei_, xiv. cap.
xxi. ; Bayle's _Dictionary_, art. "Eve," 1735, ii. 853, note C. )]
[113] {236}[Compare--
"Below lay stretched the universe!
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs
In many motions intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal Nature's laws. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, ii. _ibid. _, p. 107. ]
[cf] {239} _And with serpents too? _--[MS. M. ]
[cg] {240} _Rather than things to be inhabited_. --[MS. M. ]
[114] {241}["I have . . . supposed Cain to be shown in the _rational_
pre-Adamites, beings endowed with a higher intelligence than man, but
totally unlike him in form, and with much greater strength of mind and
person. You may suppose the small talk which takes place between him and
Lucifer upon these matters is not quite canonical. "--Letter to Moore,
September 19, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 368. ]
[115] {243}[Compare the "jingle between king and kine," in
_Sardanapalus_, act v. sc. I, lines 483, 484. It is hard to say whether
Byron inserted and then omitted to erase these blemishes from negligence
and indifference, or whether he regarded them as permissible or even
felicitous. ]
[116] ["_Let_ He. " There is no doubt that Byron wrote, or that he should
have written, "Let Him. "]
[ch] {246} _And being of all things the sole thing sure_. --[MS. M. ]
[ci] _Which seems like water and which I should deem_. --[MS. M. ]
[117] {247}[Lucifer's candour and disinterested advice are "after" and
in the manner of Mephistopheles. ]
[118] {250}["If you say that God permitted sin to manifest His wisdom,
which shines the more brightly by the disorders which the wickedness of
men produces every day, than it would have done in a state of innocence,
it may be answered that this is to compare the Deity to a father who
should suffer his children to break their legs on purpose to show to all
the city his great art in setting their broken bones; or to a king who
should suffer seditions and factions to increase through all his
kingdom, that he might purchase the glory of quelling them. . . . This is
that doctrine of a Father of the Church who said, 'Felix culpa quae
talem Redemptorem meruit! '"--Bayle's _Dictionary_, 1737, art.
"Paulicians," note B, 25, iv. 515. ]
[119] {251}[Lucifer does not infect Cain with his cynical theories as to
the origin and endurance of love. For the antidote, compare Wordsworth's
sonnet "To a Painter" (No. II), written in 1841--
"Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful--in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy," etc.
_Works_, 1889, p. 772. ]
[cj] {252} _Which my sire shrinks from--Death_----. --[MS. erased. ]
[120] {254}[In Byron's Diary for January 28, 1821, we find the following
entry--
"_Thought for a speech of Lucifer, in the Tragedy of Cain_.
"Were _Death_ an _evil_, would _I_ let thee _live_?
Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives.
And thy sons' sons shall live for evermore! "
_Letters_, 1901, v. 191. ]
[121] [Matthew Arnold (_Poetry of Byron_, 1881, p. xxii. ) quotes these
lines as an instance of Byron's unknowingness and want of humour. It
cannot be denied that he leaves imbedded in his fabric lumps of unshapen
material, which mar the symmetry of his art. Lucifer's harangue involves
a reference to "hard words ending in _ism_. " The _spirit_ of error, not
the Manichaean heresy, should have proceeded out of his lips. ]
[122] ["Cain is a proud man: if Lucifer promised him kingdoms, etc. , it
would _elate_ him: the object of the Demon is to _depress_ him still
further in his own estimation than he was before, by showing him
infinite things and his own abasement, till he falls into the frame of
mind that leads to the catastrophe, from mere _internal_ irritation,
_not_ premeditation, or envy of Abel (which would have made him
contemptible), but from the rage and fury against the inadequacy of his
state to his conceptions, and which discharges itself rather against
Life, and the author of Life, than the mere living. "--Letter to Moore,
November 3, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 470. Here, no doubt, Byron is
speaking _in propria persona_. It was this sense of limitation, of human
nothingness, which provoked an "internal irritation . . . a rage and fury
against the inadequacy of his state to his conceptions. " His "spirit
beats its mortal bars," not, like Galahad, to be possessed by, but to
possess the Heavenly Vision. ]
[123] {255}[Compare--
"What though the field be lost,
All is not lost; th' unconquerable will
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
"
_Paradise Lost_, i. 105-108. ]
[124] {257}[An obsolete form of _carnation_, the colour of "flesh. "]
[125] [Compare--
"Her dewy eyes are closed,
And on their lids, whose texture fine
Scarce hides the dark-blue orbs beneath,
The baby Sleep is pillowed. "
Shelley's _Queen Mab_, i. , _ibid. _, p. 104. ]
[126] {258}["Time is our consciousness of the succession of ideas in our
mind. . . . One man is stretched on the rack during twelve hours, another
sleeps soundly in his bed. The difference of time perceived by these two
persons is immense: one hardly will believe that half an hour has
elapsed, the other could credit that centuries had flown during his
agony. "--Shelley's note to the lines--
" . . . the thoughts that rise
In time-destroying infiniteness. "
_Queen Mab_, viii. , _ibid. _, p. 136. ]
[127] {259}[_Vide ante_, p. 208. ]
[128] {260}[It is Adah, Cain's wife, who suggests the disastrous
compromise, not a "burnt-offering," but the "fruits of the earth," which
would cost the giver little or nothing--an instance in point of
Lucifer's cynical reminder (_vide ante_, act ii. sc. 2, line 210, p.
247) "that there are some things still which woman may tempt man to. "]
[129] {262}["From the beginning" the woman is ineligible for the
priesthood--"He for God only, she for God in him" (_Paradise Lost_, iv.
299). "Let the women keep silence in the churches" (_Corinthians_, i.
xiv. 34). ]
[130] {264}[Compare the following passage from _La Rapresentatione di
Abel et di Caino_ (in Firenze l'anno MDLIV. )--
"Abel parla a dio fatto il sacrifitio,
Rendendogli laude.
Signor per cui di tanti bene abondo
Liquali tu sommamente mi concedi
Tanto mi piace, et tanto me' giocondo
Quanto delle mie greggie che tu vedi
El piu grasso el migliore el piu mondo
Ti do con lieto core come tu vedi
Tu vedi la intentione con lequal vegno," etc. ]
[ck] {265} _Which must be won with prayers--if he be evil_. --[MS. M. ]
[131] {266}[See Gessner's _Death of Abel_. ]
[132] {268}[Compare--
"How wonderful is Death--
Death and his brother Sleep! "
_Queen Mab_, i. lines 1, 2. ]
[133] {271}[Compare--
"And Water shall hear me,
And know thee and fly thee;
And the Winds shall not touch thee
When they pass by thee. . . .
And thou shalt seek Death
To release thee in vain. "
_The Curse of Kehama_, by R. Southey, Canto II. ]
[134] [The last three lines of this terrible denunciation were not in
the original MS. In forwarding them to Murray (September 12, 1821,
_Letters_, 1901, v. 361), to be added to Eve's speech, Byron says,
"There's as pretty a piece of Imprecation for you, when joined to the
lines already sent, as you may wish to meet with in the course of your
business. But don't forget the addition of these three lines, which are
clinchers to Eve's speech. "]
[135] [If Byron had read his plays aloud, or been at pains to revise the
proofs, he would hardly have allowed "corse" to remain in such close
proximity to "curse. "]
[136] {272}["I have avoided introducing the Deity, as in Scripture
(though Milton does, and not very wisely either); but have adopted his
angel as sent to Cain instead, on purpose to avoid shocking any feelings
on the subject, by falling short of what all uninspired men must fall
short in, viz. giving an adequate notion of the effect of the presence
of Jehovah. The Old Mysteries introduced him liberally enough, and this
is avoided in the New. "--Letter to Murray, February 8, 1822, _Letters_,
1901, vi. 13. Byron does not seem to have known that in the older
portions of the Bible "Angel of the Lord" is only a name for the Second
Person of the Trinity. ]
[cl] {273} _On thy brow_----. --[MS. ]
[137] {274}[The "four rivers" which flowed round Eden, and consequently
the only waters with which Cain was acquainted upon earth. ]
HEAVEN AND EARTH;
A MYSTERY.
FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 1, 2.
"And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose. "
"And woman wailing for her demon lover. "
Coleridge [_Kubla Khan_, line 16]
INTRODUCTION TO _HEAVEN AND EARTH_.
_Heaven and Earth_ was begun at Ravenna October 9, 1821. "It occupied
about fourteen days" (Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, p. 231), and was
forwarded to Murray, November 9, 1821. "You will find _it_," wrote Byron
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 474), "_pious_ enough, I trust--at least some of
the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves
for that, and perhaps for the melody. " It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v. 475; vi. 31). It was to be published, he insists, at the same
time, and, if possible, in the same volume with the "others"
(_Sardanapalus_, etc. ), and would serve, so he seems to have _reflected_
("The moment he reflects, he is a child," said Goethe), as an antidote
to the audacities, or, as some would have it, the impieties of _Cain_!
He reckoned without his publisher, who understood the temper of the
public and of the Government, and was naturally loth to awaken any more
"reasonable doubts" in the mind of the Chancellor with regard to whether
a "scriptural drama" was irreverent or profane. The new "Mystery" was
revised by Gifford and printed, but withheld from month to month, till,
at length, "the fire kindled," and, on the last day of October, 1821,
Byron instructed John Hunt to "obtain from Mr. Murray _Werner: a Drama_,
and another dramatic poem called _Heaven and Earth_. " It was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_ (pp. 165-206), January 1, 1823.
The same subject, the unequal union of angelic lovers with the daughters
of men, had taken Moore's fancy a year before Byron had begun to
"dramatize the Old Testament. " He had designed a long poem, but having
discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to
restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the
chance of . . . an _heliacal rising_," before he was outshone by the
advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the
"translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the
"Mystery" by eight days. The _Loves of the Angels_ (see _Memoirs_, etc. ,
1853, iv. 28) was published December 23, 1822. None the less, lyric and
drama were destined to run in double harness. Critics found it
convenient to review the two poems in the same article, and were at
pains to draw a series of more or less pointed and pungent comparisons
between the unwilling though not unwitting rivals.
Wilson, in _Blackwood_, writes, "The first [the _Loves, etc. _] is all
glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark
and massy like a block of marble. . . . Moore writes with a crow-quill, . . .
Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_,
likens Moore to "an _aurora borealis_" and Byron to "an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius"!
There is, indeed, apart from the subject, nothing in common between
Moore's tender and alluring lyric and Byron's gloomy and tumultuous
rhapsody, while contrast is to be sought rather in the poets than in
their poems. The _Loves of the Angels_ is the finished composition of an
accomplished designer of Amoretti, one of the best of his kind, _Heaven
and Earth_ is the rough and unpromising sketch thrown off by a great
master.
Both the one and the other have passed out of the ken of readers of
poetry, but, on the whole, the _Loves of the Angels_ has suffered the
greater injustice. It is opined that there may be possibilities in a
half-forgotten work of Byron, but it is taken for granted that nothing
worthy of attention is to be found in Moore. At the time, however, Moore
scored a success, and Byron hardly escaped a failure. It is to be noted
that within a month of publication (January 18, 1823) Moore was at work
upon a revise for a fifth edition--consulting D'Herbelot "for the
project of turning the poor 'Angels' into Turks," and so "getting rid of
that connection with the Scriptures," which, so the Longmans feared,
would "in the long run be a drag on the popularity of the poem"
(_Memoirs, etc. _, 1853, iv. 41). It was no wonder that Murray was
"timorous" with regard to Byron and his "scriptural dramas," when the
Longmans started at the shadow of a scriptural allusion.
Byron, in his innocence, had taken for his motto the verse in _Genesis_
(ch. vi. 2), which records the intermarriage of the "sons of God" with
the "daughters of men. " In _Heaven and Earth_ the angels _are_ angels,
members, though erring members, of Jehovah's "thundering choir," and the
daughters of men are the descendants of Cain. The question had come up
for debate owing to the recent appearance of a translation of the _Book
of Enoch_ (by Richard Laurence, LL. D. , Oxford, 1821); and Moore, by way
of safeguarding himself against any suspicion of theological
irregularity, is careful to assure his readers ("Preface" to _Loves of
the Angels_, 1823, p. viii. and note, pp. 125-127) that the "sons of
God" were the descendants of Seth, and not beings of a supernatural
order, as a mis-translation by the LXX. , assisted by Philo and the
"rhapsodical fictions of the _Book of Enoch_" had induced the ignorant
or the profane to suppose. Nothing is so dangerous as innocence, and a
little more of that _empeiria_ of which Goethe accused him, would have
saved Byron from straying from the path of orthodoxy.
It is impossible to say for certain whether Laurence's translation of
the whole of the _Book of Enoch_ had come under Byron's notice before he
planned his new "Mystery," but it is plain that he was, at any rate,
familiar with the well-known fragment, "Concerning the 'Watchers'" [? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [Peri\ ton E)grego/ron]], which is preserved in the
_Chronographia_ of Georgius Syncellus, and was first printed by J. J.
Scaliger in _Thes. temp. Euseb. _ in 1606. In the prophecy of the Deluge
to which he alludes (_vide post_, p. 302, note 1), the names of the
delinquent seraphs (Semjaza and Azazel), and of the archangelic monitor
Raphael, are to be found in the fragment. The germ of _Heaven and Earth_
is not in the _Book of Genesis_, but in the _Book of Enoch_.
Medwin, who prints (_Conversations_, 1824, pp. 234-238) what purports to
be the prose sketch of a Second Part of _Heaven and Earth_ (he says that
Byron compared it to Coleridge's promised conclusion of
_Christabel_--"that, and nothing more! "), detects two other strains in
the composition of the "Mystery," an echo of Goethe's Faust and a
"movement" which recalls the _Eumenides_ of AEschylus. Byron told Murray
that his fourth tragedy was "more lyrical and Greek" than he at first
intended, and there is no doubt that with the _Prometheus Vinctus_ he
was familiar, if not at first hand, at least through the medium of
Shelley's rendering. But apart from the "Greek choruses," which "Shelley
made such a fuss about," Byron was acquainted with, and was not
untouched by, the metrical peculiarities of the _Curse of Kehama_, and
might have traced a kinship between his "angels" and Southey's
"Glendoveers," to say nothing of _their_ collaterals, the "glumms" and
"gawreys" of _Peter Wilkins_ (see notes to Southey's _Curse of Kehama_,
Canto VI. , _Poetical Works_, 1838, viii. 231-233).
Goethe was interested in _Heaven and Earth_. "He preferred it," says
Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 434), "to all the other serious
poems of Byron. . . . 'A bishop,' he exclaimed, though it sounded almost
like satire, 'might have written it. ' Goethe must have been thinking of
a _German_ bishop! " (For his daughter-in-law's translation of the
speeches of Anah and Aholibamah with their seraph-lovers, see
_Goethe-Jahrbuch_, 1899, pp. 18-21 [Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. p.
518]. )
_Heaven and Earth_ was reviewed by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_,
February, 1823, vol. 38, pp. 42-48; by Wilson in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, January, 1823, vol. xiii. pp. 71, 72; and in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, N. S. , 1823, vol. 7, pp. 353-358.
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
ANGELS.
SAMIASA.
AZAZIEL.
RAPHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL.
MEN.
NOAH AND HIS SONS.
IRAD.
JAPHET.
WOMEN.
ANAH.
AHOLIBAMAH.
_Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. --Chorus of Mortals_.
HEAVEN AND EARTH.
