Which by God's grace is sanctified for me."
On quitting his cousin Anna, she says: —
"Go, and good angels guard thee is my prayer.
Comnenus.– Good soldiers, Anna. In the arm of flesh
Are we to trust. The Mother of the Gods,
Prolific Mother, holiest Mother church,
Hath banded heaven upon the side opposed.
No matter, when such supplicants as thou
Pray for us, other angels need we none."
It is plain that we have no dutiful son of the Church here; and that her hostility, in this instance, is not altogether without cause. We find that his scepticism has gone farther than to dispute the miraculous virtues of the holy image of St Basil, the eye of which he is reputed to have knocked out with his lance: —
"Just as you came
I moralised the matter of that change
Which theologians call – how aptly, say —
The quitting of a tenement."
And his moralising is overcast with the shadow of doubt. The addresses, for such they are, of Theodora, the daughter of the emperor, he receives and declines with the greatest calmness, though they are of that order which it is manifestly as dangerous to reject as to accept.
"Germanus. My noble lord, the Cæsarissa waits
With infinite impatience to behold you:
She bids me say so. Ah! most noble count!
A fortunate man – the sunshine is upon you —
Comnenus. Ay, sir, and wonderfully warm it makes me.
Tell her I'm coming, sir, with speed."
With speed, however, he does not go, nor makes a better excuse for his delay than that he was "sleeping out the noontide." In the first interview he escapes from her confidence, and when subsequently she will not be misunderstood, he says —
"Nor now, nor ever,
Will I make bargains for a lady's love."
In a dialogue with his brother Alexius, his temper and way of thinking, and the circumstance which has mainly produced them, are more fully developed. We make a few extracts without attempting very closely to connect them. Alexius has been remarking the change in Comnenus since they last met.
"Comnenus. Change is youth's wonder:
Such transmutations have I seen on man
That fortune seemed a slow and stedfast power
Compared with nature.
Alexius. There is nought thou'st seen
More altered than art thou.
I speak not of thy change in outward favour,
But thou art changed in heart.
Comnenus. Ay, hearts change too:
Mine has grown sprightly, has it not, and hard?
I ride it now with spurs; else, else, Alexius —
Well is it said the best of life is childhood.
Life is a banquet where the best's first served,
And when the guest is cloyed comes oil and garlick.
Alexius. Hast thou forgotten how it was thy wont
To muse the hours away along this shore —
These very rippled sands?
Comnenus. The sands are here,
But not the foot-prints. Wouldst thou trace them now?
A thousand tides and storms have dashed them out.
… I have no care for beauty.
Seest thou yon rainbow based and glassed on ocean?
I look on that as on a lovely thing,
But not a thing of promise."
Comnenus has wandered with his brother unawares to a spot which of all others on earth was the most dear or the most painful to him – the spot where his Irene had been buried. He recognises it whilst he is in the full tide of his cynicism: —
"Alexius. What is this carved upon the rock?
Comnenus. I know not:
But Time has ta'en it for a lover's scrawl;
He's razed it, razed it.
Alexius. No, not quite; look here.
I take it for a lover's.
Comnenus. What! there's some talk
Of balmy breath, and hearts pierced through and through
With eyes' miraculous brightness – vows ne'er broken,
Until the church had sealed them – charms loved madly,
Until it be a sin to love them not —
And kisses ever sweet, till they be innocent —
But that your lover's not put down?
Alexius. No, none of it.
There are but two words.
Comnenus. That's succinct; what are they?
Alexius. 'Alas, Irene!' Why thy looks are now —
Comnenus parries the question of his brother, contrives to dismiss him, and remains alone upon the spot.
"This is the very earth that covers her,
And lo! we trample it like common clay!
… When I last stood here
Disguised, to see a lowly girl laid down
Into her early grave, there was such light
As now doth show it, but a bleaker air,
Seeing it was December. 'Tis most strange;
I can remember now each circumstance
Which then I scarce was conscious of; like words
That leave upon the still susceptive sense
A message undelivered till the mind
Awakes to apprehensiveness and takes it.
'Twas o'er – the muttered unattended rite,
And the few friends she had beside myself
Had risen and gone; I had not knelt, but stood
With a dull gaze of stupor as the mould
Was shovelled over, and the broken sods
Fitted together. Then some idle boys,
Who had assisted at the covering in,
Ran off in sport, trailing the shovels with them,
Rattling upon the gravel; and the sexton
Flattened the last sods down, and knocked his spade
Against a neighbouring tombstone to shake off
The clinging soil, – with a contented air,
Even as a ditcher who has done his work.
… Oh Christ!
How that which was the life's life of our being
Can pass away, and we recall it thus!"
Whilst reading this play of Isaac Comnenus we seemed to perceive a certain Byronian vein, which came upon us rather unexpectedly. Not that there is any very close resemblance between Comnenus and the heroes of Lord Byron; but there is a desperate wilfulness, a tone of scepticism, and a caustic