Pharmacy.—Poems, iii., p. 96; v., p. 220.
Physiology.—Poems, v., p. 191. Sordello, p. 195. Tray.
Scientific Matters in General.—Poems, v., pp. 128, 302; vi., p. 203. Dramatic Idyls, ii., p. 68. Fifine, pp. 51, 86. La Saisiaz, pp. 69, 82. Ferishtah, p. 131. Sordello, pp. 25, 203. Ring and Book, iv., pp. 61, 77, 180.
The references are to the six-volume edition of the poems, and to the original separate editions of the larger works.
Sebald. The man in Pippa Passes who murdered Ottima’s husband.
Serenade at the Villa, A. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) A lover serenades his lady on a sultry summer night; and the burden of his song is that, as he watches through the dark night at her villa, so he vows to watch through life over her path, and shield her from danger and serve her in secret devotion, as he sings to her now while she sleeps. The lady dreamed of music, but slept on, though “the earth turned in her sleep in pain,” Earth has heard many serenades and many vows made only to be broken. The iron gate which ground its teeth to let the serenader pass seemed to be disputing the lover’s protestations; and one fears that if his mistress was like the earth, and “turned in her sleep” too, she would derive little satisfaction from his music.
Setebos. (Caliban and Setebos.) The god of the Patagonians, whom Caliban worships because his mother did so. Caliban thinks he lives in the moon, and has made mankind for his amusement.
Shah ’Abbas. (Ferishtah’s Fancies, III.) Shah ’Abbas, surnamed the Great, was one of the most celebrated of the sovereigns of Persia. He came to the throne at the age of eighteen, in the year 1585. He defeated the predatory Uzbeks, who occupied Khorassan, after a long and severe struggle, in a great battle near Herat (1597), and drove them out of his dominions. He was successful in the wars he waged against the Turks, and thereby greatly extended his dominions. He defeated the united armies of the Turks and Tartars in 1618. Baghdad was taken in 1623. When he died, in 1628, his dominions reached from the Tigris to the Indus. The circumstances narrated in Mr. Browning’s poem are not historical. The subject of the poem is Belief. “It is beautiful, but is it true?” Ferishtah has now achieved dervishhood, and a pupil asks, “Was this life lived, was this death died, not dreamed?” It was answered, “Many attested it for fact.” A cup-bearer left on record a story of the death of the brave Shah ’Abbas of simple fear at discovering a spider in his wine. The cup-bearer was eye-witness of the fact. The Dervish says we must distinguish between the noble act of belief, and mere easy acquiescence. Twenty soldiers testify to the death of a comrade; yet he comes home safe and sound after the wars. He had two sons. One who heard that his father was living rejoiced; the other preferred the evidence of the twenty men who saw him die. Ten years later home comes Ishak. The townsmen bid the man of ready faith go and welcome his father, and the unbelieving one to hide his head. The father would praise the loving heart in preference to the sceptical head. “Is God less wise?” asks Ferishtah. The lyric teaches that the true light of life is love. The dark ways of life and the mysteries of the human heart will prove stones of stumbling and rocks of offence where love is not the guide. With love and truth our obstacles disappear.
Shakespeare. The poem which Mr. Browning wrote for the Shakespearean Show-Book, 1884, commenced with the word “Shakespeare!” See [Names, The].