1842

THE RING AND THE BOOK

by Robert Browning

I: The Ring and the Book

DO YOU see this Ring?

'Tis Rome-work, made to match

(By Castellani's imitative craft)

Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,

After a dropping April; found alive

Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots

That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,

Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,

(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device

And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold

As this was,- such mere oozings from the mine,

Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear

At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,-

To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:

Since hammer needs must widen out the round,

And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,

Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.

That trick is, the artificer melts up wax

With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold

With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,

Effects a manageable mass, then works.

But his work ended, once the thing a ring,

Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt

O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,

And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;

While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,

The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,

Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:

Prime nature with an added artistry-

No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.

What of it? 'Tis a figure, a symbol, say;

A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

DO YOU see this square old yellow Book, I toss

I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about

By the crumpled vellum covers,- pure crude fact

Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,

And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?

Examine it yourselves! I found this book,

Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,

(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,

Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,

One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,

Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,

Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time;

Toward Baccio's marble,- ay, the basement-ledge

O' the pedestal where sits and menaces

John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,

'Twixt palace and church,- Riccardi where they lived,

His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

This book,- precisely on that palace-step

Which, meant for lounging knaves o' the Medici,

Now serves re-venders to display their ware,-

'Mongst odds and ends of ravage, picture-frames

White through the worn gilt, mirror-sconces chipped,

Bronze angel-heads once knobs attached to chests,

(Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade)

Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude,

Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry

Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts

In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised!)

A wreck of tapestry, proudly-purposed web

When reds and blues were indeed red and blue,

Now offered as a mat to save bare feet

(Since carpets constitute a cruel cost)

Treading the chill scagliola bedward: then

A pile of brown-etched prints, two crazie each,

Stopped by a conch a-top from fluttering forth

-Sowing the Square with works of one and the same

Master, the imaginative Sienese

Great in the scenic backgrounds- (name and fame

None of you know, nor does he fare the worse:)

From these... Oh, with a Lionard going cheap

If it should prove, as promised, that Joconde

Whereof a copy contents the Louvre!- these

I picked this book from. Five compeers in flank

Stood left and right of it as tempting more-

A dog's-eared Spicilegium, the fond tale

O' the Frail One of the Flower, by young Dumas,

Vulgarized Horace for the use of schools,

The Life, Death, Miracles of Saint Somebody,

Saint Somebody Else, his Miracles, Death and Life,-

With this, one glance at the lettered back of which,

And 'Stall!' cried I: a lira made it mine.

HERE it is, this I toss and take again;

Small-quarto size, part print part manuscript:

A book in shape but, really, pure crude fact

Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,

And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since.

Give it me back! The thing's restorative

I' the touch and sight.

That memorable day,

(June was the month, Lorenzo named the Square)

I leaned a little and overlooked my prize

By the low railing round the fountain-source

Close to the statue, where a step descends:

While clinked the cans of copper, as stooped and rose