Remember
how I loved thee when we played on
the grass-plots of Chiara.
the grass-plots of Chiara.
Poland - 1919 - Krasinski - Anonymous Poet of Poland
.
I felt a sacred duty, the stern necessity of going away, so as
not to injure her honour. She entreated me to stay, because
above all things she loved. But it had to be: I left, cursing the
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Ibid. Those letters of Krasinski that concern Mme Bobrowa are
not printed in the published collection of the Soltan correspondence,
Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski. Vol. 11. To Adam Sottan. Lw6w, 1883
(Polish). They are given in the first instance by Count Tarnowski in his
monograph and are quoted also by Dr Kallenbach.
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? Iridion
139
world and the base and wretched people who revenge themselves
on those who feel, because they themselves feel nothing. . . I left
her in despair: such, Adam, is the end of my paradise. I am
as one damned. I never loved before: I did not know what
love is. . . To-day I walk the scorched pavement of this town,
and I would fain lie down on it and die, such pain does each
moment without her cause me. If there were some faults, God
will forgive us. It is hard to struggle as much as she does, to
love and respect as much as I do1.
And a little later, while she was in Trieste, he in
Venice, he writes to Sottan in similar language, exe-
crating those who condemned the woman without
knowing or caring how she had fought against herself,
and acknowledging that he felt driven to suicide3. Then,
shortly before the moment of parting:
You have no idea of what I have suffered. How happy I
was likewise few could know. But it was that kind of happi-
ness which destroys rather than augments strength. From all
this has remained what is dearest to me, namely, the thought
that there is no nobler woman on earth. . . Ah! what is poisoning
my life is that she insists on returning to her house. Her
husband knows all. She herself wrote it to him. So she knows
what is awaiting her. But she considers it her duty to take
her children to her husband and to suffer. She sees in this a
species of expiation8. "
Count Tarnowski here notices that, culpable as both
had been, neither of these "suffering and struggling"
human beings was wanting in nobility. The woman
voluntarily chose her penalty. The man reverenced the
action which destroyed his own happiness4. The short-
lived rapture that Krasinski's love had brought him
was now over. Until the final break in 1838 it was to
be agony and remorse.
During this time Krasinski had written Iridion,
"which," as he told Reeve, "torn up three times, ten
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. * Ibid.
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? 140 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
times broken off either by my sufferings or by my
passions, for three years has not ceased to torture my
brain1. "
From Venice he went in the September of 1835 to
Vienna. While waiting there with Danielewicz to see
once more Mme Bobrowa on her way to her husband
in Poland, before the emotions of those farewell weeks
with her impeded him, aggravated as they were by the
false position in which he stood and by the remon-
strances of his friend, he finished the drama. Both
it and The Undivine Comedy, which latter was written
before he had known her, but published later, were
dedicated to Mme Bobrowa: and it is said that she is
the original of Cornelia in Iridion.
Iridion is the Anonymous Poet's first direct appeal
to his nation. We have seen how the thought of it
flashed across him when, mourning for his country's
defeat alone in Petersburg, he remembered Argos. It
matured through the years while he watched in bitter
grief the tragedy of Poland, and behind the gallows and
endless deportations to Siberia, behind the prohibition
to a Pole of all Polish possessions, saw the danger to
his country that he most dreaded: the moral degrada-
tion of hatred which such an oppression was calculated
to engender. This thought, intensified by Krasinski's
own intimate experience of the warring of the dictates
of vengeance against a higher law, could, as he had
himself expressed it, give him no rest until he sent it
forth as a warning to his people. But if it were to
reach Poland where Siberia was the penalty alike for
the authors of the national Polish writings and their
readers, it could only be told in some veiled form.
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Florence, June 3, 1835.
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? Iridion
141
Krasinski therefore allegorized it under the figure of
the Greek, Iridion Amphilochides.
The keynote of the play is that the weapons of
hatred will turn against those who use them, how-
ever sacred their object, and that evil means can bring
nothing but destruction to the cause for which they are
employed. It is evident; from certain expressions in the
prologue that Krasinski began the drama with the
intention that the Greek who, to compass his end, has
ruined everything he touched shall be eternally ruined
himself. As the author closed the work he modified his
idea, and we have the noble conclusion, the first step
of the stairway that leads to the triumph and the
unearthly glory of Krasinski's next great national song:
Dawn.
In style Krasinski's second prose drama bears no
resemblance to his first. Not only are the terseness
and the reserve of The Undivine Comedy entirely absent
from Iridion: but whereas in The Undivine Comedy we
seem to move in an atmosphere of a heavy and op-
pressive greyness, there is the sensation throughout
Iridion of the blue skies of Rome, the glittering marbles
of the temples, the many-hued splendours of the
Imperial City.
Krasinski places his drama in the reign of Helio-
gabalus when the Roman world was profoundly de-
moralized, and the fall of the empire seemed not far
off. He saw, as we know, like elements of dissolution
in the society in which he lived: and thus the applica-
tion of his symbolized national thought to the present
is evident. He pointed, in a few words of introduction,
to the three systems which at that period of Rome's
history stood side by side: paganism, barren of life and
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? 142 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
overlaid by alien religions from the East; Christianity,
hidden and persecuted, but ever growing; and the
barbarians, gradually pressing on Italy like a blinded
and relentless force of nature. On these three elements
the drama of Iridion is built: and all three are to be
found represented in the character of Iridion himself;
Iridion the Greek, who bears the second name of
Sigurd from his Scandinavian mother, and who, to the
Christians, is Hieronimus1.
"The ancient world is now drawing nigh its end":
so the drama begins in a prologue of stately prose that
Count Tarnowski ranks among the masterpieces of the
Polish language2.
All that dwelt therein is rotting, is dissolving, is demented.
Amid the chaos I lift the song that is torn by violence from
my bosom. May the spirit of destruction come to my aid!
May my inspiration resound on every side, like the thunder of
the tempest which is now rolling over the ages of the past and
thrusting all life down into the abyss! --and then let it die
away, even as thunder after its work is done. There, in the
east, is the new dawn. But with that I have nought to do.
This chaos, observes Dr Kallenbach, does not
refer merely to the historical background upon which
Krasinski chose to found his secret thoughts3. It is also
an allusion to the moral confusion in which Krasinski
wrote the play, which was often put aside because
the heart of its author was too disturbed and tempest-
tossed to be able to work out his idea. Intrinsic
evidences of this wavering of mental and spiritual
outlook are distinctly traceable in the course of the
drama.
1 J. Klaczko, Le Pohte Anonyme de la Pologne
2 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
3 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? Iridion
H3
Where, oh, Rome [continues the prologue], are the forms
which of old so proudly and superbly trod thy seven hills?
Where thy patricians, the sires of tribes, the oppressors of the
plebs, the conquerors of Italy and Carthage? Where is the
Vestal silently ascending the steps of the Capitol with the holy
fire? Where are thy orators, standing above the waves of the
people, encircled by the hum of murmured words and the storm
of plaudits? Where the soldiers of the legions, sleepless,
mighty, with visages lit up by the flash of swords? The past
has gathered them to herself, and like a mother folds them in
her bosom.
In their place rise forms till now unknown,strange, glittering
with gold, with wreaths on their heads, with goblets in their
hands.
I sis and Mithras have supplanted the gods of
Rome. Barbarians stalk through the streets of the
city.
From this world which writhes and dies I shall draw forth
only one thought more. In it shall be my love, albeit it is the
daughter of rage and the herald of destruction.
On, in your frenzy, gods and men, around my Thought.
Be ye the music that sings an accompaniment to its dreams,
the tempest through which like lightning it shall break. I will
give to it a name, I will give to it a form, and, albeit conceived in
Rome, the day when Rome shall perish shall not be its last.
It shall live as long as earth and earthly nations--but there is
no place for it in heaven1.
The history is then given of the parentage of Iridion,
the " son of vengeance," the symbolization of the mystic
"Thought" of the Anonymous Poet. Iridion's father
is Amphilochus, the Greek, his mother, Grimhilda, a
Scandinavian priestess. This union of bloods in the
person of Iridion is deeply significant. He must be the
child of an oppressed race, and must also be linked
with the force to which Rome ultimately succumbs.
1 This phrase is one of the proofs that when Krasinski began the play
he had no intention of finishing it as he did, and that Iridion was to
have been the incarnation of vengeance only.
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? 144 The Anonymous Poet of Polana
Some hint too of the north is requisite for the Thought
that the Anonymous Poet will send "to the north, the
land of graves and crosses. "
Burning with hatred for the city that has enslaved
Hellas, Amphilochus carries the priestess from her
native land that he may learn from her inspiration how
to vanquish Rome. Iridion is brought up to the destiny
of avenging his nation, taught detestation of Rome
from his cradle. After the death of Amphilochus who
bequeaths the inheritance of revenge to his son with
his last breath, Iridion and his sister, Elsinoe, live
in the dead man's Roman palace, together with a
mysterious aged man, the guardian of their childhood,
Masinissa. With the stealth of the panther Iridion is
working towards the compassing of his end. He is not
concerned with the vision of a restored country. His
one desire is revenge: to see Rome humbled to the
dust. No sense of rectitude or of pity can stay his
hand. No means are too base if they can but bring
ruin on Rome.
When the play begins Iridion is about to carry into
execution the project which he has harboured for years,
namely, by giving his beautiful sister to Heliogabalus
to win through her the domination over the young
emperor that he requires for his schemes. The first
scene opens upon Elsinoe's last hours in her father's
house, as she awaits the moment when Heliogabalus's
slaves shall arrive to bear her to the imperial palace.
Never is Krasinski a greater artist than when he treats
episodes that for their horror seem beyond the range
of art. The delicacy with which he handles them, the
restraint that gives them their extraordinary power,
where no word too much is said, no word too little, are
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? Iridion
145
nowhere more apparent than in this parting between
the brother and the sister whose honour he has sacri-
ficed. It passes in a hall in Iridion's palace. The
fountain plays in the middle. Slaves are lighting the
lamps. Iridion, sunk in anguish, has bowed his head
upon the feet of his father's statue. His slaves,
whispering to one another, reproach him for slumbering
while his sister is weeping and swooning in her apart-
ments. He summons her. She enters.
Elsinoe. Have the slaves come already?
Iridion. Not yet: but I would fain inspire thee for the last
time with thy father's spirit.
Elsinoe. Oh, brother!
Iridion. Thou knowest that the Caesar insists in his passion,
and the senate hath commanded thy statues to be placed in
the temples of the city. Thou knowest that thou art not my
sister, thou art not the bright-haired Elsinoe, the hope of thy
natal house, the darling of my heart. Thou art the victim
appointed for the suffering of many and for the shame of thy
sires.
Elsinoe. Yea. You all have taught me this from my child-
hood, and I am ready. But not to-day, not to-morrow. A
little later, when I have gathered strength, when I have
listened to my fill to the teaching of Masinissa and thy com-
mands, when I have drunk to the dregs of the chalice of your
poison.
Iridion. Chosen maiden, prepare thee for thy fate. It
behoves us to hasten on the road which we tread.
Elsinoe.
Remember how I loved thee when we played on
the grass-plots of Chiara. Oh, have mercy on me!
Iridion. Thou temptest me to pity. --In vain, in vain.
Elsinoe. Why so many prayers and lamentations? It
befell in the olden times that men and gods . might be bought
off by death. Thy dagger flashes yonder, Iridion. Let us
hasten annihilation for ourselves, Iridion.
Iridion. Thou blasphemest against my father's thought.
Oh, sister, of old the life of one man sufficed for the salvation
of nations. To-day the times are otherwise. To-day the
sacrifice must be of honour. (He clasps her in his arms. ) To-
day thou shalt be wreathed with roses, thou shalt be decked
in smiles. Oh, unhappy child, lay here thy doomed head.
G.
10
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? 146 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
For the last time in thy father's house thy brother presses thee
to his bosom. Take thy farewell of me in all the beauty of
thy maiden freshness. Never again will I behold thee young
--never, never again!
His heart faints within him. He cries aloud on
Masinissa: and at the entrance of the old man, majestic,
awe-inspiring, Iridion's hesitation is at an end, and
Elsinoe pleads no more. Serving girls carry in costly
robes, singing: "Even as Aphrodite, rising from the
azure ocean in the rainbows of the foam of the sea, so
shalt thou be. We bring thee roses, incense and pearls. "
Masinissa and Iridion lead her to her father's statue,
where Iridion gives her his parting charge. Never
must she allow the Caesar to sleep in peace. She must
drop into his ear as a slow poison reports of plots for
his assassination, of treachery, till he is beside himself
with terror. Then the brother lays his hand on Elsinoe's
head:
Conceived in thirst for vengeance, grown to womanhood in
the hope of vengeance, predestined to infamy and ruin, I con-
secrate thee to the infernal deities of Amphilochus the Greek.
Elsinoe. The voices of Erebus resound on every side--oh,
my mother!
Choir of Women {surrounding her). Why tremble thy limbs
under the snowy veil, under the ribbons of purple with which
we wreathe thy breasts? Why dost thou grow pale under the
garland we have woven for the adorning of thy brow?
Iridion. See, the unhappy child is swooning.
Masinissa. Nay. She is beginning to live as it behoves
her to live.
Elsinoe. I cast off my father's threshold. My father has
condemned me. My brother has condemned me. Oh, never
. more will I return. I go to torment and long mourning.
Iridion's aim is secured. Elsinoe successfully works
on the fears of the childish emperor. She shrouds her-
self in a haughty mystery that whets his superstition:
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? Iridion
H7
she throws over him the spell of her aloof and disdain-
ful beauty till he is wax in her hands. On his side
Iridion, having gained through his sister constant access
to the emperor, plays the game of feigning that he
is Heliogabalus's only faithful adherent. By skilfully
manoeuvring with the young emperor's arrant cowardice
and love of pleasure Iridion's cue is to induce him to
consent to the destruction of Rome, and to retire to the
East where he will be lapped in security and free to
follow his indulgences. And all the while the Greek
is carrying on intrigues among the praetorians, the
gladiators, the slaves, the barbarians, the rabble of
Rome. They are ready. Iridion has only to give the
sign and they will follow him.
Heliogabalus is one of the types in the play whom
Krasinski has depicted with the most consummate art:
a half crazy vicious boy, a whipped cur at the feet of
the beautiful Elsinoe, amusing himself like a child with
his baubles, dabbling with the degraded mysteries of
eastern religions, clinging in terror for his life to the
false friend who is betraying him. In him Krasinski
concentrates the moral decay of Rome and the pagan
world. But Iridion has to contend against yet another
element than that of which Heliogabalus is representa-
tive, an element on which he reckons for his victory or
his failure: the Christians. We have here the pivot on
which the whole drama turns. No new life to revivify the
Roman world can be born of the pagan Rome of Helio-
gabalus, nor yet of the one virtuous heathen trio whom
Krasinski places against the universal degradation;
Alexander Severus, his mother, and the Stoic Ulpianus,
the last a fine example of ancient Roman integrity.
But Masinissa, the Mephistopheles of the play, foresees
10--2
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? 148 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
that Rome will not pass away into the lost empires of
history, because on her ashes shall rise from the cata-
combs another Rome. Iridion, therefore, cannot hope
for the downfall of Rome unless he gains the Christians
to his side. But their faith forbids them to wage war
against their persecutors. Consequently Iridion must,
Masinissa tells him, undermine their morals, deceive
them, bring into their midst a new and fatal discord.
This counsel satisfies Iridion's thirst for revenge on
Rome, beyond which he does not look: but the truth
is that Masinissa, as Satan, is using Iridion as a tool
not against Rome, but in the everlasting war between
Christ and Satan.
Krasinski's conception of Mephistopheles is neither
obvious nor conventional. From this Mephistopheles
breathes the majesty of old age, the mystery and the
remoteness of the African desert whence he professes
to have risen. He takes the lineaments, not of a Miltonic
fallen angel, but of an awful and majestic being with
infinite aims, who seduces by the very greatness of his
objects. His temptations are not addressed to what is
base in man, but to what man holds most sacred1. His
means--such as the sacrifice of Elsinoe's honour, the
ruin of Cornelia--are vile: but it is in the name of
what Iridion loves beyond all, for the sake of his country,
that he is bidden by Masinissa to do these things. The
colloquies between the Greek and his evil genius, with
the exception of the last scene, give no impression of
an ensnared soul battling against temptation. Masinissa
scarcely urges. He suggests: and these suggestions
have the magnetism of a compelling sovereignty whose
word has but to be uttered and it is accepted. Masi-
1 J. Kleiner, History of the Thought of Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? Iridion
149
nissa seems more the complement of Iridion's own
nature, Iridion's lower self, than an extraneous force1.
In Iridion Krasinski's subject, says Count Tar-
nowski, is not the individual soul: it is humanity. The
characters are not so much men and women as symbols.
It follows then that Krasinski's Mephistopheles is
scarcely a devil leading a soul to perdition, albeit at
the close of the play this is his endeavour. Rather he is
the Satan of the universal race, the evil spirit of history,
destroying not this or that soul, but turning nations
from their highest end, deflecting the spiritual progress
of the commonwealth, polluting even the sanctity of
patriotism2. He is, says Krasinski himself, defending
his idea under the concealment of a third person against
a critic who opposed it, "the element of all-evil which
constantly transforms itself by the very necessity of
creation into good; the Satan of all centuries and civili-
zations, eternally warring, eternally vanquished3. " This
psychological signification of the tempter links the Rome
of Iridion with the poet's own country4. The rebirth
of humanity coincided for Krasinski with the redress
of his nation's wrongs. Therefore whatever false or
misguided principle arose to bar or delay the advance
of the world to the desired goal was to the Anonymous
Poet the satanic incarnation. Hence his original and
daring presentment of Mephistopheles as Masinissa,
who ruins the work of Iridion for his country by its
ethically false direction.
Again, Masinissa is the embodiment of reason in
1 A. Matecki, quoted by J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
3 Letters to Gaszynski. Kissingen, June 6, 1837.
4 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 150 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
whom are absent the love and passion that rend Iridion's
soul. At this time of Krasinski's life when he was driven
into sophistry in order to justify his love for a married
woman, his idea of Satan was that of reason opposed
to passion. "Do you think pride is a passion ? " he writes
to Reeve. "No. There is no passion except love, and
love is God. Pride, hatred, are daughters of reason. . .
To produce evil of whatever kind passion has not been
necessary, but cold, observing, perverted thought1. "
Iridion's heart can be moved by his sister's anguish, can
shrink before the thought of wronging Cornelia: but
Masinissa remains the everlasting enemy of the heart.
To ensure his success in the catacombs Iridion
simulates Christianity, and receives Baptism under the
name of Hieronimus. He then sets to work to convince
the Christians that they must vindicate Christ by declar-
ing war on those who persecute Him in His members.
His fiery words carry away the young men, at the head
of whom stands one Simeon of Corinth. The old men
seek to restrain what they consider a youth's hotheaded
zeal by their appeal to the Divine law of forgiveness.
Then Masinissa unfolds to Iridion another stratagem.
He shall gain the ear of the Christians through Cornelia,
the beautiful maiden whose virginity is consecrated to
Christ, the saint and prophetess of the catacombs, who
has talked to Iridion of heavenly things.
"Lead her thought from Christ to thee," says Masinissa.
"He is far. Thou livest and art near her. Why dost thou waver
and doubt? She must be thine, not for vain pleasure, but because
our work calls for her destruction. "
But for once Iridion recoils. He has kept faith with
the furies to whom he has vowed that no stain of pity
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Rome, Dec. 20, 1834.
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? Iridion
or regret shall ever be seen in him: yet now tears rise
to his eyes.
"Thou knowest not," this again from Masinissa, "that each
of you might be almighty by your own inexorable, enraged
thought; but your enemy foresaw and sowed in your bosoms
a heart--fear, delusion, baseness. "
Iridion. Of whom speakest thou? Who made me abject
and unhappy? I know but one murderer of all my hours--
whose name is Rome.
Masinissa. There is another Rome which cannot perish.
Not on seven hills but on millions of stars do her feet rest.
Against her, even after the other Rome has fallen,
Iridion must war for ever. In the meanwhile, before
the victory for which Iridion, only half comprehending
Masinissa's words, is panting, the work in question must
go forward. Iridion remembers "unhappy Hellas. " For
her sake, cries he in despair, the son of Amphilochus
must ruin the happiness of an innocent girl, must tear
hope from one who hoped.
The scene shifts to the catacombs. On every side
branch out the long corridors lined by graves, dying
away into darkness. Iridion, at the feet of the bishop
Victor, as a rash but obedient son, insinuates his request:
may not the Christians for the glory of Christ join hands
with the praetorians and overthrow the oppressor?
Victor points to Christ dying on the cross, and bids this
beloved erring member of his flock believe in the force
of spiritual arms, and sin no more: and Iridion, piously
praying aloud for deliverance from temptation, turns to
Cornelia.
Islridion's adhesion to Christianity entirely feigned?
He is among the Christians in all the falsity of an in-
trigue, but not from any hatred of Christianity1. We
have some faint impression that he is not wholly un-
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 152 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
moved by what he learns, chiefly from Cornelia, of the
Christian faith. Certain it is that in the last scene
when he looks upon the cross he does so as no mere
stranger1.
I felt a sacred duty, the stern necessity of going away, so as
not to injure her honour. She entreated me to stay, because
above all things she loved. But it had to be: I left, cursing the
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Ibid. Those letters of Krasinski that concern Mme Bobrowa are
not printed in the published collection of the Soltan correspondence,
Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski. Vol. 11. To Adam Sottan. Lw6w, 1883
(Polish). They are given in the first instance by Count Tarnowski in his
monograph and are quoted also by Dr Kallenbach.
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? Iridion
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world and the base and wretched people who revenge themselves
on those who feel, because they themselves feel nothing. . . I left
her in despair: such, Adam, is the end of my paradise. I am
as one damned. I never loved before: I did not know what
love is. . . To-day I walk the scorched pavement of this town,
and I would fain lie down on it and die, such pain does each
moment without her cause me. If there were some faults, God
will forgive us. It is hard to struggle as much as she does, to
love and respect as much as I do1.
And a little later, while she was in Trieste, he in
Venice, he writes to Sottan in similar language, exe-
crating those who condemned the woman without
knowing or caring how she had fought against herself,
and acknowledging that he felt driven to suicide3. Then,
shortly before the moment of parting:
You have no idea of what I have suffered. How happy I
was likewise few could know. But it was that kind of happi-
ness which destroys rather than augments strength. From all
this has remained what is dearest to me, namely, the thought
that there is no nobler woman on earth. . . Ah! what is poisoning
my life is that she insists on returning to her house. Her
husband knows all. She herself wrote it to him. So she knows
what is awaiting her. But she considers it her duty to take
her children to her husband and to suffer. She sees in this a
species of expiation8. "
Count Tarnowski here notices that, culpable as both
had been, neither of these "suffering and struggling"
human beings was wanting in nobility. The woman
voluntarily chose her penalty. The man reverenced the
action which destroyed his own happiness4. The short-
lived rapture that Krasinski's love had brought him
was now over. Until the final break in 1838 it was to
be agony and remorse.
During this time Krasinski had written Iridion,
"which," as he told Reeve, "torn up three times, ten
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. * Ibid.
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? 140 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
times broken off either by my sufferings or by my
passions, for three years has not ceased to torture my
brain1. "
From Venice he went in the September of 1835 to
Vienna. While waiting there with Danielewicz to see
once more Mme Bobrowa on her way to her husband
in Poland, before the emotions of those farewell weeks
with her impeded him, aggravated as they were by the
false position in which he stood and by the remon-
strances of his friend, he finished the drama. Both
it and The Undivine Comedy, which latter was written
before he had known her, but published later, were
dedicated to Mme Bobrowa: and it is said that she is
the original of Cornelia in Iridion.
Iridion is the Anonymous Poet's first direct appeal
to his nation. We have seen how the thought of it
flashed across him when, mourning for his country's
defeat alone in Petersburg, he remembered Argos. It
matured through the years while he watched in bitter
grief the tragedy of Poland, and behind the gallows and
endless deportations to Siberia, behind the prohibition
to a Pole of all Polish possessions, saw the danger to
his country that he most dreaded: the moral degrada-
tion of hatred which such an oppression was calculated
to engender. This thought, intensified by Krasinski's
own intimate experience of the warring of the dictates
of vengeance against a higher law, could, as he had
himself expressed it, give him no rest until he sent it
forth as a warning to his people. But if it were to
reach Poland where Siberia was the penalty alike for
the authors of the national Polish writings and their
readers, it could only be told in some veiled form.
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Florence, June 3, 1835.
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? Iridion
141
Krasinski therefore allegorized it under the figure of
the Greek, Iridion Amphilochides.
The keynote of the play is that the weapons of
hatred will turn against those who use them, how-
ever sacred their object, and that evil means can bring
nothing but destruction to the cause for which they are
employed. It is evident; from certain expressions in the
prologue that Krasinski began the drama with the
intention that the Greek who, to compass his end, has
ruined everything he touched shall be eternally ruined
himself. As the author closed the work he modified his
idea, and we have the noble conclusion, the first step
of the stairway that leads to the triumph and the
unearthly glory of Krasinski's next great national song:
Dawn.
In style Krasinski's second prose drama bears no
resemblance to his first. Not only are the terseness
and the reserve of The Undivine Comedy entirely absent
from Iridion: but whereas in The Undivine Comedy we
seem to move in an atmosphere of a heavy and op-
pressive greyness, there is the sensation throughout
Iridion of the blue skies of Rome, the glittering marbles
of the temples, the many-hued splendours of the
Imperial City.
Krasinski places his drama in the reign of Helio-
gabalus when the Roman world was profoundly de-
moralized, and the fall of the empire seemed not far
off. He saw, as we know, like elements of dissolution
in the society in which he lived: and thus the applica-
tion of his symbolized national thought to the present
is evident. He pointed, in a few words of introduction,
to the three systems which at that period of Rome's
history stood side by side: paganism, barren of life and
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? 142 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
overlaid by alien religions from the East; Christianity,
hidden and persecuted, but ever growing; and the
barbarians, gradually pressing on Italy like a blinded
and relentless force of nature. On these three elements
the drama of Iridion is built: and all three are to be
found represented in the character of Iridion himself;
Iridion the Greek, who bears the second name of
Sigurd from his Scandinavian mother, and who, to the
Christians, is Hieronimus1.
"The ancient world is now drawing nigh its end":
so the drama begins in a prologue of stately prose that
Count Tarnowski ranks among the masterpieces of the
Polish language2.
All that dwelt therein is rotting, is dissolving, is demented.
Amid the chaos I lift the song that is torn by violence from
my bosom. May the spirit of destruction come to my aid!
May my inspiration resound on every side, like the thunder of
the tempest which is now rolling over the ages of the past and
thrusting all life down into the abyss! --and then let it die
away, even as thunder after its work is done. There, in the
east, is the new dawn. But with that I have nought to do.
This chaos, observes Dr Kallenbach, does not
refer merely to the historical background upon which
Krasinski chose to found his secret thoughts3. It is also
an allusion to the moral confusion in which Krasinski
wrote the play, which was often put aside because
the heart of its author was too disturbed and tempest-
tossed to be able to work out his idea. Intrinsic
evidences of this wavering of mental and spiritual
outlook are distinctly traceable in the course of the
drama.
1 J. Klaczko, Le Pohte Anonyme de la Pologne
2 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
3 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? Iridion
H3
Where, oh, Rome [continues the prologue], are the forms
which of old so proudly and superbly trod thy seven hills?
Where thy patricians, the sires of tribes, the oppressors of the
plebs, the conquerors of Italy and Carthage? Where is the
Vestal silently ascending the steps of the Capitol with the holy
fire? Where are thy orators, standing above the waves of the
people, encircled by the hum of murmured words and the storm
of plaudits? Where the soldiers of the legions, sleepless,
mighty, with visages lit up by the flash of swords? The past
has gathered them to herself, and like a mother folds them in
her bosom.
In their place rise forms till now unknown,strange, glittering
with gold, with wreaths on their heads, with goblets in their
hands.
I sis and Mithras have supplanted the gods of
Rome. Barbarians stalk through the streets of the
city.
From this world which writhes and dies I shall draw forth
only one thought more. In it shall be my love, albeit it is the
daughter of rage and the herald of destruction.
On, in your frenzy, gods and men, around my Thought.
Be ye the music that sings an accompaniment to its dreams,
the tempest through which like lightning it shall break. I will
give to it a name, I will give to it a form, and, albeit conceived in
Rome, the day when Rome shall perish shall not be its last.
It shall live as long as earth and earthly nations--but there is
no place for it in heaven1.
The history is then given of the parentage of Iridion,
the " son of vengeance," the symbolization of the mystic
"Thought" of the Anonymous Poet. Iridion's father
is Amphilochus, the Greek, his mother, Grimhilda, a
Scandinavian priestess. This union of bloods in the
person of Iridion is deeply significant. He must be the
child of an oppressed race, and must also be linked
with the force to which Rome ultimately succumbs.
1 This phrase is one of the proofs that when Krasinski began the play
he had no intention of finishing it as he did, and that Iridion was to
have been the incarnation of vengeance only.
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? 144 The Anonymous Poet of Polana
Some hint too of the north is requisite for the Thought
that the Anonymous Poet will send "to the north, the
land of graves and crosses. "
Burning with hatred for the city that has enslaved
Hellas, Amphilochus carries the priestess from her
native land that he may learn from her inspiration how
to vanquish Rome. Iridion is brought up to the destiny
of avenging his nation, taught detestation of Rome
from his cradle. After the death of Amphilochus who
bequeaths the inheritance of revenge to his son with
his last breath, Iridion and his sister, Elsinoe, live
in the dead man's Roman palace, together with a
mysterious aged man, the guardian of their childhood,
Masinissa. With the stealth of the panther Iridion is
working towards the compassing of his end. He is not
concerned with the vision of a restored country. His
one desire is revenge: to see Rome humbled to the
dust. No sense of rectitude or of pity can stay his
hand. No means are too base if they can but bring
ruin on Rome.
When the play begins Iridion is about to carry into
execution the project which he has harboured for years,
namely, by giving his beautiful sister to Heliogabalus
to win through her the domination over the young
emperor that he requires for his schemes. The first
scene opens upon Elsinoe's last hours in her father's
house, as she awaits the moment when Heliogabalus's
slaves shall arrive to bear her to the imperial palace.
Never is Krasinski a greater artist than when he treats
episodes that for their horror seem beyond the range
of art. The delicacy with which he handles them, the
restraint that gives them their extraordinary power,
where no word too much is said, no word too little, are
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? Iridion
145
nowhere more apparent than in this parting between
the brother and the sister whose honour he has sacri-
ficed. It passes in a hall in Iridion's palace. The
fountain plays in the middle. Slaves are lighting the
lamps. Iridion, sunk in anguish, has bowed his head
upon the feet of his father's statue. His slaves,
whispering to one another, reproach him for slumbering
while his sister is weeping and swooning in her apart-
ments. He summons her. She enters.
Elsinoe. Have the slaves come already?
Iridion. Not yet: but I would fain inspire thee for the last
time with thy father's spirit.
Elsinoe. Oh, brother!
Iridion. Thou knowest that the Caesar insists in his passion,
and the senate hath commanded thy statues to be placed in
the temples of the city. Thou knowest that thou art not my
sister, thou art not the bright-haired Elsinoe, the hope of thy
natal house, the darling of my heart. Thou art the victim
appointed for the suffering of many and for the shame of thy
sires.
Elsinoe. Yea. You all have taught me this from my child-
hood, and I am ready. But not to-day, not to-morrow. A
little later, when I have gathered strength, when I have
listened to my fill to the teaching of Masinissa and thy com-
mands, when I have drunk to the dregs of the chalice of your
poison.
Iridion. Chosen maiden, prepare thee for thy fate. It
behoves us to hasten on the road which we tread.
Elsinoe.
Remember how I loved thee when we played on
the grass-plots of Chiara. Oh, have mercy on me!
Iridion. Thou temptest me to pity. --In vain, in vain.
Elsinoe. Why so many prayers and lamentations? It
befell in the olden times that men and gods . might be bought
off by death. Thy dagger flashes yonder, Iridion. Let us
hasten annihilation for ourselves, Iridion.
Iridion. Thou blasphemest against my father's thought.
Oh, sister, of old the life of one man sufficed for the salvation
of nations. To-day the times are otherwise. To-day the
sacrifice must be of honour. (He clasps her in his arms. ) To-
day thou shalt be wreathed with roses, thou shalt be decked
in smiles. Oh, unhappy child, lay here thy doomed head.
G.
10
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? 146 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
For the last time in thy father's house thy brother presses thee
to his bosom. Take thy farewell of me in all the beauty of
thy maiden freshness. Never again will I behold thee young
--never, never again!
His heart faints within him. He cries aloud on
Masinissa: and at the entrance of the old man, majestic,
awe-inspiring, Iridion's hesitation is at an end, and
Elsinoe pleads no more. Serving girls carry in costly
robes, singing: "Even as Aphrodite, rising from the
azure ocean in the rainbows of the foam of the sea, so
shalt thou be. We bring thee roses, incense and pearls. "
Masinissa and Iridion lead her to her father's statue,
where Iridion gives her his parting charge. Never
must she allow the Caesar to sleep in peace. She must
drop into his ear as a slow poison reports of plots for
his assassination, of treachery, till he is beside himself
with terror. Then the brother lays his hand on Elsinoe's
head:
Conceived in thirst for vengeance, grown to womanhood in
the hope of vengeance, predestined to infamy and ruin, I con-
secrate thee to the infernal deities of Amphilochus the Greek.
Elsinoe. The voices of Erebus resound on every side--oh,
my mother!
Choir of Women {surrounding her). Why tremble thy limbs
under the snowy veil, under the ribbons of purple with which
we wreathe thy breasts? Why dost thou grow pale under the
garland we have woven for the adorning of thy brow?
Iridion. See, the unhappy child is swooning.
Masinissa. Nay. She is beginning to live as it behoves
her to live.
Elsinoe. I cast off my father's threshold. My father has
condemned me. My brother has condemned me. Oh, never
. more will I return. I go to torment and long mourning.
Iridion's aim is secured. Elsinoe successfully works
on the fears of the childish emperor. She shrouds her-
self in a haughty mystery that whets his superstition:
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? Iridion
H7
she throws over him the spell of her aloof and disdain-
ful beauty till he is wax in her hands. On his side
Iridion, having gained through his sister constant access
to the emperor, plays the game of feigning that he
is Heliogabalus's only faithful adherent. By skilfully
manoeuvring with the young emperor's arrant cowardice
and love of pleasure Iridion's cue is to induce him to
consent to the destruction of Rome, and to retire to the
East where he will be lapped in security and free to
follow his indulgences. And all the while the Greek
is carrying on intrigues among the praetorians, the
gladiators, the slaves, the barbarians, the rabble of
Rome. They are ready. Iridion has only to give the
sign and they will follow him.
Heliogabalus is one of the types in the play whom
Krasinski has depicted with the most consummate art:
a half crazy vicious boy, a whipped cur at the feet of
the beautiful Elsinoe, amusing himself like a child with
his baubles, dabbling with the degraded mysteries of
eastern religions, clinging in terror for his life to the
false friend who is betraying him. In him Krasinski
concentrates the moral decay of Rome and the pagan
world. But Iridion has to contend against yet another
element than that of which Heliogabalus is representa-
tive, an element on which he reckons for his victory or
his failure: the Christians. We have here the pivot on
which the whole drama turns. No new life to revivify the
Roman world can be born of the pagan Rome of Helio-
gabalus, nor yet of the one virtuous heathen trio whom
Krasinski places against the universal degradation;
Alexander Severus, his mother, and the Stoic Ulpianus,
the last a fine example of ancient Roman integrity.
But Masinissa, the Mephistopheles of the play, foresees
10--2
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? 148 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
that Rome will not pass away into the lost empires of
history, because on her ashes shall rise from the cata-
combs another Rome. Iridion, therefore, cannot hope
for the downfall of Rome unless he gains the Christians
to his side. But their faith forbids them to wage war
against their persecutors. Consequently Iridion must,
Masinissa tells him, undermine their morals, deceive
them, bring into their midst a new and fatal discord.
This counsel satisfies Iridion's thirst for revenge on
Rome, beyond which he does not look: but the truth
is that Masinissa, as Satan, is using Iridion as a tool
not against Rome, but in the everlasting war between
Christ and Satan.
Krasinski's conception of Mephistopheles is neither
obvious nor conventional. From this Mephistopheles
breathes the majesty of old age, the mystery and the
remoteness of the African desert whence he professes
to have risen. He takes the lineaments, not of a Miltonic
fallen angel, but of an awful and majestic being with
infinite aims, who seduces by the very greatness of his
objects. His temptations are not addressed to what is
base in man, but to what man holds most sacred1. His
means--such as the sacrifice of Elsinoe's honour, the
ruin of Cornelia--are vile: but it is in the name of
what Iridion loves beyond all, for the sake of his country,
that he is bidden by Masinissa to do these things. The
colloquies between the Greek and his evil genius, with
the exception of the last scene, give no impression of
an ensnared soul battling against temptation. Masinissa
scarcely urges. He suggests: and these suggestions
have the magnetism of a compelling sovereignty whose
word has but to be uttered and it is accepted. Masi-
1 J. Kleiner, History of the Thought of Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? Iridion
149
nissa seems more the complement of Iridion's own
nature, Iridion's lower self, than an extraneous force1.
In Iridion Krasinski's subject, says Count Tar-
nowski, is not the individual soul: it is humanity. The
characters are not so much men and women as symbols.
It follows then that Krasinski's Mephistopheles is
scarcely a devil leading a soul to perdition, albeit at
the close of the play this is his endeavour. Rather he is
the Satan of the universal race, the evil spirit of history,
destroying not this or that soul, but turning nations
from their highest end, deflecting the spiritual progress
of the commonwealth, polluting even the sanctity of
patriotism2. He is, says Krasinski himself, defending
his idea under the concealment of a third person against
a critic who opposed it, "the element of all-evil which
constantly transforms itself by the very necessity of
creation into good; the Satan of all centuries and civili-
zations, eternally warring, eternally vanquished3. " This
psychological signification of the tempter links the Rome
of Iridion with the poet's own country4. The rebirth
of humanity coincided for Krasinski with the redress
of his nation's wrongs. Therefore whatever false or
misguided principle arose to bar or delay the advance
of the world to the desired goal was to the Anonymous
Poet the satanic incarnation. Hence his original and
daring presentment of Mephistopheles as Masinissa,
who ruins the work of Iridion for his country by its
ethically false direction.
Again, Masinissa is the embodiment of reason in
1 A. Matecki, quoted by J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
3 Letters to Gaszynski. Kissingen, June 6, 1837.
4 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 150 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
whom are absent the love and passion that rend Iridion's
soul. At this time of Krasinski's life when he was driven
into sophistry in order to justify his love for a married
woman, his idea of Satan was that of reason opposed
to passion. "Do you think pride is a passion ? " he writes
to Reeve. "No. There is no passion except love, and
love is God. Pride, hatred, are daughters of reason. . .
To produce evil of whatever kind passion has not been
necessary, but cold, observing, perverted thought1. "
Iridion's heart can be moved by his sister's anguish, can
shrink before the thought of wronging Cornelia: but
Masinissa remains the everlasting enemy of the heart.
To ensure his success in the catacombs Iridion
simulates Christianity, and receives Baptism under the
name of Hieronimus. He then sets to work to convince
the Christians that they must vindicate Christ by declar-
ing war on those who persecute Him in His members.
His fiery words carry away the young men, at the head
of whom stands one Simeon of Corinth. The old men
seek to restrain what they consider a youth's hotheaded
zeal by their appeal to the Divine law of forgiveness.
Then Masinissa unfolds to Iridion another stratagem.
He shall gain the ear of the Christians through Cornelia,
the beautiful maiden whose virginity is consecrated to
Christ, the saint and prophetess of the catacombs, who
has talked to Iridion of heavenly things.
"Lead her thought from Christ to thee," says Masinissa.
"He is far. Thou livest and art near her. Why dost thou waver
and doubt? She must be thine, not for vain pleasure, but because
our work calls for her destruction. "
But for once Iridion recoils. He has kept faith with
the furies to whom he has vowed that no stain of pity
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Rome, Dec. 20, 1834.
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? Iridion
or regret shall ever be seen in him: yet now tears rise
to his eyes.
"Thou knowest not," this again from Masinissa, "that each
of you might be almighty by your own inexorable, enraged
thought; but your enemy foresaw and sowed in your bosoms
a heart--fear, delusion, baseness. "
Iridion. Of whom speakest thou? Who made me abject
and unhappy? I know but one murderer of all my hours--
whose name is Rome.
Masinissa. There is another Rome which cannot perish.
Not on seven hills but on millions of stars do her feet rest.
Against her, even after the other Rome has fallen,
Iridion must war for ever. In the meanwhile, before
the victory for which Iridion, only half comprehending
Masinissa's words, is panting, the work in question must
go forward. Iridion remembers "unhappy Hellas. " For
her sake, cries he in despair, the son of Amphilochus
must ruin the happiness of an innocent girl, must tear
hope from one who hoped.
The scene shifts to the catacombs. On every side
branch out the long corridors lined by graves, dying
away into darkness. Iridion, at the feet of the bishop
Victor, as a rash but obedient son, insinuates his request:
may not the Christians for the glory of Christ join hands
with the praetorians and overthrow the oppressor?
Victor points to Christ dying on the cross, and bids this
beloved erring member of his flock believe in the force
of spiritual arms, and sin no more: and Iridion, piously
praying aloud for deliverance from temptation, turns to
Cornelia.
Islridion's adhesion to Christianity entirely feigned?
He is among the Christians in all the falsity of an in-
trigue, but not from any hatred of Christianity1. We
have some faint impression that he is not wholly un-
1 St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 152 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
moved by what he learns, chiefly from Cornelia, of the
Christian faith. Certain it is that in the last scene
when he looks upon the cross he does so as no mere
stranger1.
