<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116321" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Caliban upon Setebos</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Caliban upon Setebos<br> Or, Natural Theology in the Island</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> (David, Psalms 50.21)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,<br>Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,<br>With elbows wide, fists clenched to prop his chin.<br>And, while he kicks both feet in the cool slush,<br>And feels about his spine small eft-things course,<br>Run in and out each arm, and make him laugh:<br>And while above his head a pompion-plant,<br>Coating the cave-top as a brow its eye,<br>Creeps down to touch and tickle hair and beard,<br>And now a flower drops with a bee inside,<br>And now a fruit to snap at, catch and crunch,--<br>He looks out o'er yon sea which sunbeams cross<br>And recross till they weave a spider-web<br>(Meshes of fire, some great fish breaks at times)<br>And talks to his own self, howe'er he please,<br>Touching that other, whom his dam called God.<br>Because to talk about Him, vexes--ha,<br>Could He but know! and time to vex is now,<br>When talk is safer than in winter-time.<br>Moreover Prosper and Miranda sleep<br>In confidence he drudges at their task,<br>And it is good to cheat the pair, and gibe,<br>Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech.]</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos!<br>'Thinketh, He dwelleth i' the cold o' the moon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match,<br>But not the stars; the stars came otherwise;<br>Only made clouds, winds, meteors, such as that:<br>Also this isle, what lives and grows thereon,<br>And snaky sea which rounds and ends the same.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thinketh, it came of being ill at ease:<br>He hated that He cannot change His cold,<br>Nor cure its ache. 'Hath spied an icy fish<br>That longed to 'scape the rock-stream where she lived,<br>And thaw herself within the lukewarm brine<br>O' the lazy sea her stream thrusts far amid,<br>A crystal spike 'twixt two warm walls of wave;<br>Only, she ever sickened, found repulse<br>At the other kind of water, not her life,<br>(Green-dense and dim-delicious, bred o' the sun)<br>Flounced back from bliss she was not born to breathe,<br>And in her old bounds buried her despair,<br>Hating and loving warmth alike: so He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thinketh, He made thereat the sun, this isle,<br>Trees and the fowls here, beast and creeping thing.<br>Yon otter, sleek-wet, black, lithe as a leech;<br>Yon auk, one fire-eye in a ball of foam,<br>That floats and feeds; a certain badger brown<br>He hath watched hunt with that slant white-wedge eye<br>By moonlight; and the pie with the long tongue<br>That pricks deep into oak warts for a worm,<br>And says a plain word when she finds her prize,<br>But will not eat the ants; the ants themselves<br>That build a wall of seeds and settled stalks<br>About their hole--He made all these and more,<br>Made all we see, and us, in spite: how else?<br>He could not, Himself, make a second self<br>To be His mate; as well have made Himself:<br>He would not make what He mislikes or slights,<br>An eyesore to Him, or not worth His pains:<br>But did, in envy, listlessness or sport,<br>Make what Himself would fain, in a manner, be--<br>Weaker in most points, stronger in a few,<br>Worthy, and yet mere playthings all the while,<br>Things He admires and mocks too,--that is it.<br>Because, so brave, so better though they be,<br>It nothing skills if He begin to plague.<br>Look, now, I melt a gourd-fruit into mash,<br>Add honeycomb and pods, I have perceived,<br>Which bite like finches when they bill and kiss,--<br>Then, when froth rises bladdery, drink up all,<br>Quick, quick, till maggots scamper through my brain;<br>Last, throw me on my back i' the seeded thyme,<br>And wanton, wishing I were born a bird.<br>Put case, unable to be what I wish,<br>I yet could make a live bird out of clay:<br>Would not I take clay, pinch my Caliban<br>Able to fly?--for, there, see, he hath wings,<br>And great comb like the hoopoe's to admire,<br>And there, a sting to do his foes offence,<br>There, and I will that he begin to live,<br>Fly to yon rock-top, nip me off the horns<br>Of grigs high up that make the merry din,<br>Saucy through their veined wings, and mind me not.<br>In which feat, if his leg snapped, brittle clay,<br>And he lay stupid-like,--why, I should laugh;<br>And if he, spying me, should fall to weep,<br>Beseech me to be good, repair his wrong,<br>Bid his poor leg smart less or grow again,--<br>Well, as the chance were, this might take or else<br>Not take my fancy: I might hear his cry,<br>And give the mankin three sound legs for one,<br>Or pluck the other off, leave him like an egg<br>And lessoned he was mine and merely clay.<br>Were this no pleasure, lying in the thyme,<br>Drinking the mash, with brain become alive,<br>Making and marring clay at will? So He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thinketh, such shows nor right nor wrong in Him,<br>Nor kind, nor cruel: He is strong and Lord.<br>'Am strong myself compared to yonder crabs<br>That march now from the mountain to the sea;<br>'Let twenty pass, and stone the twenty-first,<br>Loving not, hating not, just choosing so.<br>'Say, the first straggler that boasts purple spots<br>Shall join the file, one pincer twisted off;<br>'Say, this bruised fellow shall receive a worm,<br>And two worms he whose nippers end in red;<br>As it likes me each time, I do: so He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well then, 'supposeth He is good i' the main,<br>Placable if His mind and ways were guessed,<br>But rougher than His handiwork, be sure!<br>Oh, He hath made things worthier than Himself,<br>And envieth that, so helped, such things do more<br>Than He who made them! What consoles but this?<br>That they, unless through Him, do nought at all,<br>And must submit: what other use in things?<br>'Hath cut a pipe of pithless elder-joint<br>That, blown through, gives exact the scream o' the jay<br>When from her wing you twitch the feathers blue:<br>Sound this, and little birds that hate the jay<br>Flock within stone's throw, glad their foe is hurt:<br>Put case such pipe could prattle and boast forsooth<br>"I catch the birds, I am the crafty thing,<br>I make the cry my maker cannot make<br>With his great round mouth; he must blow through mine!'<br>Would not I smash it with my foot? So He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But wherefore rough, why cold and ill at ease?<br>Aha, that is a question! Ask, for that,<br>What knows,--the something over Setebos<br>That made Him, or He, may be, found and fought,<br>Worsted, drove off and did to nothing, perchance.<br>There may be something quiet o'er His head,<br>Out of His reach, that feels nor joy nor grief,<br>Since both derive from weakness in some way.<br>I joy because the quails come; would not joy<br>Could I bring quails here when I have a mind:<br>This Quiet, all it hath a mind to, doth.<br>'Esteemeth stars the outposts of its couch,<br>But never spends much thought nor care that way.<br>It may look up, work up,--the worse for those<br>It works on! 'Careth but for Setebos<br>The many-handed as a cuttle-fish,<br>Who, making Himself feared through what He does,<br>Looks up, first, and perceives he cannot soar<br>To what is quiet and hath happy life;<br>Next looks down here, and out of very spite<br>Makes this a bauble-world to ape yon real,<br>These good things to match those as hips do grapes.<br>'Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.<br>Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books<br>Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:<br>Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,<br>Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;<br>Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;<br>Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe<br>The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;<br>And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,<br>A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,<br>Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,<br>And saith she is Miranda and my wife:<br>'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane<br>He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;<br>Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,<br>Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,<br>And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge<br>In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;<br>A bitter heart that bides its time and bites.<br>'Plays thus at being Prosper in a way,<br>Taketh his mirth with make-believes: so He.<br>His dam held that the Quiet made all things<br>Which Setebos vexed only: 'holds not so.<br>Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.<br>Had He meant other, while His hand was in,<br>Why not make horny eyes no thorn could prick,<br>Or plate my scalp with bone against the snow,<br>Or overscale my flesh 'neath joint and joint<br>Like an orc's armour? Ay,--so spoil His sport!<br>He is the One now: only He doth all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Saith, He may like, perchance, what profits Him.<br>Ay, himself loves what does him good; but why?<br>'Gets good no otherwise. This blinded beast<br>Loves whoso places flesh-meat on his nose,<br>But, had he eyes, would want no help, but hate<br>Or love, just as it liked him: He hath eyes.<br>Also it pleaseth Setebos to work,<br>Use all His hands, and exercise much craft,<br>By no means for the love of what is worked.<br>'Tasteth, himself, no finer good i' the world<br>When all goes right, in this safe summer-time,<br>And he wants little, hungers, aches not much,<br>Than trying what to do with wit and strength.<br>'Falls to make something: 'piled yon pile of turfs,<br>And squared and stuck there squares of soft white chalk,<br>And, with a fish-tooth, scratched a moon on each,<br>And set up endwise certain spikes of tree,<br>And crowned the whole with a sloth's skull a-top,<br>Found dead i' the woods, too hard for one to kill.<br>No use at all i' the work, for work's sole sake;<br>'Shall some day knock it down again: so He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Saith He is terrible: watch His feats in proof!<br>One hurricane will spoil six good months' hope.<br>He hath a spite against me, that I know,<br>Just as He favours Prosper, who knows why?<br>So it is, all the same, as well I find.<br>'Wove wattles half the winter, fenced them firm<br>With stone and stake to stop she-tortoises<br>Crawling to lay their eggs here: well, one wave,<br>Feeling the foot of Him upon its neck,<br>Gaped as a snake does, lolled out its large tongue,<br>And licked the whole labour flat: so much for spite.<br>'Saw a ball flame down late (yonder it lies)<br>Where, half an hour before, I slept i' the shade:<br>Often they scatter sparkles: there is force!<br>'Dug up a newt He may have envied once<br>And turned to stone, shut up Inside a stone.<br>Please Him and hinder this?--What Prosper does?<br>Aha, if He would tell me how! Not He!<br>There is the sport: discover how or die!<br>All need not die, for of the things o' the isle<br>Some flee afar, some dive, some run up trees;<br>Those at His mercy,--why, they please Him most<br>When . . . when . . . well, never try the same way twice!<br>Repeat what act has pleased, He may grow wroth.<br>You must not know His ways, and play Him off,<br>Sure of the issue. 'Doth the like himself:<br>'Spareth a squirrel that it nothing fears<br>But steals the nut from underneath my thumb,<br>And when I threat, bites stoutly in defence:<br>'Spareth an urchin that contrariwise,<br>Curls up into a ball, pretending death<br>For fright at my approach: the two ways please.<br>But what would move my choler more than this,<br>That either creature counted on its life<br>To-morrow and next day and all days to come,<br>Saying, forsooth, in the inmost of its heart,<br>"Because he did so yesterday with me,<br>And otherwise with such another brute,<br>So must he do henceforth and always."--Ay?<br>Would teach the reasoning couple what "must" means!<br>'Doth as he likes, or wherefore Lord? So He.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Conceiveth all things will continue thus,<br>And we shall have to live in fear of Him<br>So long as He lives, keeps His strength: no change,<br>If He have done His best, make no new world<br>To please Him more, so leave off watching this,--<br>If He surprise not even the Quiet's self<br>Some strange day,--or, suppose, grow into it<br>As grubs grow butterflies: else, here are we,<br>And there is He, and nowhere help at all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Believeth with the life, the pain shall stop.<br>His dam held different, that after death<br>He both plagued enemies and feasted friends:<br>Idly! He doth His worst in this our life,<br>Giving just respite lest we die through pain,<br>Saving last pain for worst,--with which, an end.<br>Meanwhile, the best way to escape His ire<br>Is, not to seem too happy. 'Sees, himself,<br>Yonder two flies, with purple films and pink,<br>Bask on the pompion-bell above: kills both.<br>'Sees two black painful beetles roll their ball<br>On head and tail as if to save their lives:<br>Moves them the stick away they strive to clear.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Even so, 'would have Him misconceive, suppose<br>This Caliban strives hard and ails no less,<br>And always, above all else, envies Him;<br>Wherefore he mainly dances on dark nights,<br>Moans in the sun, gets under holes to laugh,<br>And never speaks his mind save housed as now:<br>Outside, 'groans, curses. If He caught me here,<br>O'erheard this speech, and asked "What chucklest at?"<br>'Would, to appease Him, cut a finger off,<br>Or of my three kid yearlings burn the best,<br>Or let the toothsome apples rot on tree,<br>Or push my tame beast for the orc to taste:<br>While myself lit a fire, and made a song<br>And sung it, "What I hate, be consecrate<br>To celebrate Thee and Thy state, no mate<br>For Thee; what see for envy in poor me?"<br>Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,<br>Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,<br>That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch<br>And conquer Setebos, or likelier He<br>Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>[What, what? A curtain o'er the world at once!<br>Crickets stop hissing: not a bird--or, yes,<br>There scuds His raven that has told Him all!<br>It was fool's play, this prattling! Ha! The wind<br>Shoulders the pillared dust, death's house o' the move,<br>And fast invading fires begin! White blaze--<br>A tree's head snaps--and there, there, there, there, there,<br>His thunder follows! Fool to gibe at Him!<br>Lo! 'Lieth flat and loveth Setebos!<br>'Maketh his teeth meet through his upper lip,<br>Will let those quails fly, will not eat this month<br>One little mess of whelks, so he may 'scape!]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a> from <i>Dramatis Personae</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116321" data-title="Caliban upon Setebos de Robert Browning" data-description="Caliban upon Setebos/ Or, Natural Theology in the Island/ "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself."/ (David, Psalms 50.21)/['Will sprawl, now that the heat of day is best,/Flat on his belly in the pit's much mire,/With elbows ..."></div> </div> </div>

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