to such a being not long endowed with a capacity for the realization of his own individuality, with the “sense of sense,” the Greek appreciation of life is a sheer impossibility. By the mind capable of entering into sympathy with Homer, Terpander, Phidias, the joys of life are felt too keenly to be relinquished without a struggle, and that a bitter one. Death and the grave cast a chilling shadow over the brightness of the present.
Before analysing the arguments contained in the reflections of Cleon, it may be well to inquire what were the influences to which the poet had been subjected, and which resulted in the condition of mind in which the messengers of Protus found him. The Greece in which Cleon lived was the Greece to which S. Paul addressed himself from the Areopagus, the character of which is sufficiently indicated by the circumstances leading to the assembly on that memorable occasion. The Athenians, we are told by the writer of the Acts, “spent their time in nothing else but either to tell or to hear some new thing.”[17] The age was then, it would appear, not one of action or of practical thought. All had been done in the past that could be done in the departments of artistic achievement, of poetry, of philosophy. Now creative power would seem to have disappeared from amongst Greek thinkers, all that remained being the natural restlessness which ultimately succeeds satiety. Much had been accomplished in the past: What remained to the future? It is in accordance with this spirit of the age that Cleon writes to Protus:
We of these latter days, with greater mind
Than our forerunners, since more composite,
Look not so great, beside their simple way,
To a judge who only sees one way at once,
One mind-point and no other at a time,—
Compares the small part of a man of us
With some whole man of the heroic age,
Great in his way—not ours, nor meant for ours. (ll. 64-71.)
Hence the poet of modern times, though he has left the “epos on [the] hundred plates of gold,” the property of the tyrant Protus, and the little popular song
So sure to rise from every fishing-bark
When, lights at prow, the seamen haul their net; (ll. 49, 50.)
yet admits freely that he has not “chanted verse like Homer.” What though he has “combined the moods” of music, “inventing one,” yet has he never “swept string like Terpander,” his predecessor by some seven centuries. What though he has moulded “the image of the sun-god on the phare,” or painted the Pœcile its whole length, yet has he not “carved and painted men like Phidias and his friend”—his forerunners by something like four hundred years. With these mighty achievements in poetry and art of those giants amongst men to be contemplated in retrospect, what hope remains for the future? What greater attainments may be possible to the human intellect? Here again life—this mortal life—would seem to have become all that it is capable of becoming; the powers of mind and body have alike been developed to the full. Thus on this side too is satiety. The yearning for growth, for progress, inherent in human nature, seeks instinctively further heights of attainment. When for the time being all visible peaks appear to have been scaled, then, in the phraseology of S. John, “man [turns] round on himself and stands.”[18] And then arises the enquiry into the purposes of existence, an enquiry unheard in the earlier days of practical activity and struggle. Is this the end of all? No progress being possible along the old tracks, we must hear or see some new thing. The late Dr. Westcott in comparing the dramatic work of Euripides with that of Æschylus, and remarking that Euripides (only a generation younger) had to take account of all the novel influences under which he had grown up, adds, “Once again Asia had touched Europe and quickened there new powers. Greece had conquered Persia only that she might better receive from the East the inspiration of a wider energy.”[19] Once more in the days of Cleon might it be said that Asia had touched Europe and quickened there new powers. But this time the positions of conquered and conquerors were reversed. Asia was to conquer Europe, but the conquest effected by the sword of Alexander was to be avenged by weapons forged in another armoury. This time Asia invaded Europe when Paul of Tarsus responded to the appeal “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” So far that invasion had borne small fruit: “certain men” had believed, including Dionysius the Areopagite, whilst others, whose attitude Protus would appear to have shared, desired to hear further on the subject of the Resurrection.[20] Cleon is represented as ranking among the sceptics with reference to the new Christian teaching. The special influence of Greek thought upon his philosophy and creed, as expressed in the poem, may be best noticed in a closer consideration to which we now turn.
I. The opening lines (1-18) present, with Browning’s usual power of delineation, the environment of the speaker. Cleon, the poet, as well as his correspondent, Protus, the tyrant, seem alike to be imaginary personages. With lines 19-42 the soliloquist at once strikes the key-note of the poem. By the act of munificence which showers gifts upon the poet, “whose song gives life its joy,” the king evinces his “recognition of the use of life”: and by this recognition proves himself no mere materialist. He is ruling his people, not with exclusive attention to their material needs, though they may not themselves look beyond the gratification of these. Whilst he is building his tower, achieving his life’s work, the beauty of which is sufficient to the “vulgar” gaze, he, the builder, is looking “to the East”; and looking to the East in a sense not intended by the Greek when he makes enquiry through his messengers for the “mere barbarian Jew,” “one called Paulus.”
II. The following section of the poem (ll. 42-157) is an interesting elaboration of Cleon’s theory of the development, not only of the individual (Browning’s favourite theme), but of the growth of the race. The Greek holds that where individual members of humanity have attained in their several departments to the greatest heights, nothing further in that direction is possible of accomplishment. What then remains for the advancement of the race? When the “outside verge that rounds our faculties” has been reached, “these divine men of old” must remain unsurpassed by their successors in that particular department of work or thought.
Where they reached, who can do more than reach?
What then remains? How may the contemporary of Cleon excel “the grand simplicity” of Homer, of Terpander, and in later times of Phidias? It is to the growing complexity of the human mind that Cleon looks for an answer. Although in one intellectual department he may fall short of that which has been attained in the past, he is yet capable of appreciating all that his predecessors have achieved to a degree impossible to an earlier generation of mankind. All the faculties are developed, not one to the exclusion or limitation of the others; hence is obtained a more completely sympathetic union of the intellectual capacities. Thus the further development of the race is to be sought in a greater complexity of being rather than in an advance along any individual line of progress. Three several illustrations of his theory Cleon adduces (1) That suggested by the mosaic-work of the pavement before him: and (2) the more unusual one of the sphere with its contents of air and water: yet again (3) the comparison between the wild and cultivated plant. (1) Each individual section of the mosaic was in itself perfect—thus with the great ones of old. This perfection having been attained, all that should succeed would be at best but a reproduction of the already perfect forms, a repetition, a renewal of that which had gone before. A higher, because more complex beauty might, however, be created by a combination of these separate perfections, producing thus a new form, that, too, perfect in itself. And this synthetic labour must prove an advance on the almost exclusively analytic which had preceded it; since new and more complex forms should be thus evolved, “making at last a picture” of deeper meaning and finer interests than those offered by any number of individual chequers uncombined, however perfect in symmetry and colour. Hence there might still remain a goal towards which human energy should direct its efforts. Though man may have attained to perfection in part, to continue the simile, he has now to develop towards the attainment of a perfect complex whole, resulting from a composition and adjustment of perfect individual parts, united by a bond of sympathetic intellectual appreciation non-existent in past ages. When Cleon shall have “chanted verse like Homer,” “swept string like Terpander,” “carved and painted men like Phidias and his friend,” then, not only will the individual of recent times have surpassed each of his forerunners in the variety and comprehensiveness of his powers, but he will have attained in each individual department of his being to that greatness for the development of which man’s entire faculties were of old required. To this Cleon has by no means yet attained. Such growth, change, and expansion in the individual character is not, he would suggest, readily recognized by the world, and the second illustration here applies: (2) water, the more palpable, material element, is estimated at its worth, whilst air, with its subtler properties,