Browning's authority for the story, which is told in many quarters, was North Wanley's Wonders of the Little World, 1678, and the books there cited.
8. THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES: A Tragedy in Five Acts.
[Published in 1843 as No. IV. of Bells and Pomegranates (Poetical Works, 1889, Vol. III., pp. 167-255). Written in 1840 (in five days), and named in MS. Mansoor the Hierophant. The action takes place during one day.]
The story of The Return of the Druses is purely imaginary as to facts, but it is founded on the Druse belief in divine incarnations, a belief inculcated by the founder of their religion, Hakeem Biamr Allah, the sixth Fatemite Caliph of Egypt, whose pretension to be an incarnation of the Divinity was stamped in the popular mind by his mysterious disappearance, and the expectation of his glorious return. Browning here gives the rein to his fervid and passionate imagination; in event, in character, in expression, the play is romantic, lyrical and Oriental. The first line—
"The moon is carried off in purple fire,—"
sounds the note of the new music; and to the last line the emotion is sustained at the same height. Passionate, rapid, vivid, intense and picturesque, no stronger contrast could be imagined than that which exists between this drama and King Victor and King Charles. The cause of the difference must be sought in the different nature of the two subjects, for one of Browning's most eminent qualities is his care in harmonising treatment with subject. King Victor and King Charles is a modern play, dealing with human nature under all the restrictions of a pervading conventionality and an oppressive statecraft. It deals, moreover, with complex and weakened emotions, with the petty and prosaic details of a secondary Western government. The Return of the Druses, on the other hand, treats of human nature in its most romantic conditions, of the mystic East, of great and immediate issues, of the most inspiring of crises, a revolt for liberty, and a revolt under the leadership of a "Messiah," about whom hangs a mystery, and a reputation of more than mortal power. The characters, like the language, are all somewhat idealised. Djabal, the protagonist, is the first instance of a character specially fascinating to Browning as an artistic subject: the deceiver of others or of himself who is only partially insincere, and not altogether ill-intentioned. Djabal is an impostor almost wholly for the sake of others. He is a patriotic Druse, the son of the last Emir, supposed to have perished in the massacre of the Sheikhs, but preserved when a child and educated in Europe. His sole aim is to free his nation from its bondage, and lead it back to Lebanon. But in order to strengthen the people's trust in him, and to lead them back in greater glory, he pretends that he is "Hakeem," their divine, predestined deliverer. The delusion grows upon himself; he succeeds triumphantly, but in the very moment of triumph he loses faith in himself, the imposture is all but discovered, and he dies, a victim of what was wrong in him, while the salt of his noble and successful purpose keeps alive his memory among his people. In striking contrast with Djabal stands Loys, the frank, bright, young Breton knight, with his quick, generous heart, his chivalrous straightforwardness of thought and action, his earnest pity for the oppressed Druses, and his passionate love for the Druse maiden Anael. Anael herself is one of the most "actual yet uncommon" of the poet's women. She is a true daughter of the East, to the finest fibre of her being. Her tender and fiery soul burns upward through error and crime with a leaping, quenchless flame. She loves Djabal, believing him to be "Hakeem" and divine, with a love which seems to her too human, too much the love evoked by a mere man's nature. Her attempt at adoration only makes him feel more keenly the fact of his imposture. Misunderstanding his agitation and the broken words he lets drop, she fancies he despises her, and feels impelled to do some great deed, and so exalt herself to be worthy of him. Fired with enthusiasm, she anticipates his crowning act, the act of liberation, and herself slays the tyrannical Prefect. The magnificent scene in which this occurs is the finest in the play, and there is a singularly impressive touch of poetry and stagecraft in a certain line of it, where Djabal and Anael meet, at the moment when she has done the deed which he is waiting to do. Unconscious of what she has done, he tells her to go:—
"I slay him here,
And here you ruin all. Why speak you not?
Anael, the Prefect comes!" [ANAEL screams.]