Frasi di Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Data di nascita: 7. Maggio 1812
Data di morte: 12. Dicembre 1889
Robert Browning è stato un poeta e drammaturgo britannico, la cui grande abilità con i componimenti drammatici, soprattutto monologhi drammatici, lo ha reso uno dei più importanti poeti della letteratura vittoriana.
Frasi Robert Browning
„L'ignoranza non è innocenza, ma peccato.“
— Robert Browning
da L'album della locanda
„Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?
Line 121.
„Who hears music feels his solitude
Peopled at once.“
— Robert Browning, The complete poetical works of Browning
Balaustion's Adventure, line 323 (1871).
„Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats“
— Robert Browning, The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Context: Rats!
They fought the dogs and killed the cats,
And bit the babies in the cradles,
And ate the cheeses out of the vats,
And licked the soup from the cooks' own ladles,
Split open the kegs of salted sprats,
Made nests inside men's Sunday hats,
And even spoiled the women's chats
By drowning their speaking
With shrieking and squeaking
In fifty different sharps and flats.
The Pied Piper of Hamelin, line 10 (1842).
„My times be in thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: So, take, and use thy work:
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o' the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!
Line 187.
„Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.
Line 12.
„Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.“
— Robert Browning
Context: Have you found your life distasteful?
My life did and does smack sweet.
Was your youth of pleasure wasteful?
Mine I save and hold complete.
Do your joys with age diminish?
When mine fail me, I'll complain.
Must in death your daylight finish?
My sun sets to rise again.
"At the 'Mermaid'"(1876) <!-- line 72 - 80 -->
„O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire“
— Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
The Ring and the Book (1868-69), Context: O lyric Love, half angel and half bird
And all a wonder and a wild desire, —
Boldest of hearts that ever braved the sun,
Took sanctuary within the holier blue,
And sang a kindred soul out to his face, —
Yet human at the red-ripe of the heart—
When the first summons from the darkling earth
Reached thee amid thy chambers, blanched their blue,
And bared them of the glory — to drop down,
To toil for man, to suffer or to die, —
This is the same voice: can thy soul know change?
Hail then, and hearken from the realms of help!
Book I : The Ring and the Book <!-- line 1391 -->.
„Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!
Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth's brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.
Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast;
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men.
Line 12.
„Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there“
— Robert Browning
Dramatic Romances and Lyrics (1845), Context: Oh, to be in England
Now that April's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brush-wood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf.
"Home-Thoughts, from Abroad", line 1.
„Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.“
— Robert Browning, Colombe's Birthday
Colombe's Birthday (1844), Context: p>He gathers earth's whole good into his arms;
Standing, as man now, stately, strong and wise,
Marching to fortune, not surprised by her.
One great aim, like a guiding-star, above—
Which tasks strength, wisdom, stateliness, to lift
His manhood to the height that takes the prize;
A prize not near — lest overlooking earth
He rashly spring to seize it — nor remote,
So that he rest upon his path content:
But day by day, while shimmering grows shine,
And the faint circlet prophesies the orb,
He sees so much as, just evolving these,
The stateliness, the wisdom and the strength,
To due completion, will suffice this life,
And lead him at his grandest to the grave.
After this star, out of a night he springs;
A beggar's cradle for the throne of thrones
He quits; so, mounting, feels each step he mounts,
Nor, as from each to each exultingly
He passes, overleaps one grade of joy.
This, for his own good: — with the world, each gift
Of God and man, — reality, tradition,
Fancy and fact — so well environ him,
That as a mystic panoply they serve —
Of force, untenanted, to awe mankind,
And work his purpose out with half the world,
While he, their master, dexterously slipt
From such encumbrance, is meantime employed
With his own prowess on the other half.
Thus shall he prosper, every day's success
Adding, to what is he, a solid strength —
An aery might to what encircles him,
Till at the last, so life's routine lends help,
That as the Emperor only breathes and moves,
His shadow shall be watched, his step or stalk
Become a comfort or a portent, how
He trails his ermine take significance, —
Till even his power shall cease to be most power,
And men shall dread his weakness more, nor dare
Peril their earth its bravest, first and best,
Its typified invincibility.Thus shall he go on, greatening, till he ends—
The man of men, the spirit of all flesh,
The fiery centre of an earthly world!</p
Valence of Prince Berthold, in Act IV.
„Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!
Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They this thing, I that: whom shall my soul believe?
Line 121.
„A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.“
— Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
The Ring and the Book (1868-69), Context: Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry —
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.
Book I : The Ring and the Book.
„Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.“
— Robert Browning, Rabbi ben Ezra
Dramatis Personae (1864), Rabbi Ben Ezra, Context: All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount:
Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped;
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.
Line 142.
„On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.“
— Robert Browning, The Ring and the Book
The Ring and the Book (1868-69), Context: Forgive me this digression — that I stand
Entranced awhile at Law's first beam, outbreak
O' the business, when the Count's good angel bade
"Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear,
"And let Law listen to thy difference!"
And Law does listen and compose the strife,
Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!
On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,
Law bends a brow maternally severe,
Implies the worth of perfect chastity,
By fancying the flaw she cannot find.
Book IX : Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus.
