A Grammarian's Funeral by Robert Browning (Poem & Explanation)

A Grammarian's Funeral

by Robert Browning

(Poem & Explanation) 

A Grammarian's Funeral

(Shortly after the Revival of Learning in Europe)

Let us begin and carry up this corpse,

Singing together.

Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes

Each in its tether

Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,

Cared-for till cock-crow:

Look out if yonder be not day again

Rimming the rock-row!

That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,

Rarer, intenser,

Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,

Chafes in the censer.

Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;

Seek we sepulture

On a tall mountain, citied to the top,

Crowded with culture!

All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;

Clouds overcome it;

No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's

Circling its summit.

Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:

Wait ye the warning?

Our low life was the level's and the night's;

He's for the morning.

Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,

'Ware the beholders!

This is our master, famous, calm and dead,

Borne on our shoulders.

 

Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,

Safe from the weather!

He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,

Singing together,

He was a man born with thy face and throat,

Lyric Apollo!

Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note

Winter would follow?

Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!

Cramped and diminished,

Moaned he, "New measures, other feet anon!

My dance is finished"?

No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,

Make for the city!)

He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride

Over men's pity;

Left play for work, and grappled with the world

Bent on escaping:

"What's in the scroll," quoth he, "thou keepest furled

Show me their shaping,

Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,

Give!" So, he gowned him,

Straight got by heart that book to its last page:

Learned, we found him.

Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,

Accents uncertain:

"Time to taste life," another would have said,

"Up with the curtain!"

This man said rather, "Actual life comes next?

Patience a moment!

Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,

Still there's the comment.

Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,

Painful or easy!

Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,

Ay, nor feel queasy."

Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,

When he had learned it,

When he had gathered all books had to give!

Sooner, he spurned it.

Image the whole, then execute the parts

Fancy the fabric

Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,

Ere mortar dab brick!

 

(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place

Gaping before us.)

Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace

(Hearten our chorus!)

That before living he'd learn how to live

No end to learning:

Earn the means first   God surely will contrive

Use for our earning.

Others mistrust and say, "But time escapes:

Live now or never!"

He said, "What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!

Man has Forever."

Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head:

Calculus racked him:

Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:

Tussis attacked him.

"Now, master, take a little rest!" not he!

(Caution redoubled

Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)

Not a whit troubled,

Back to his studies, fresher than at first,

Fierce as a dragon

He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)

Sucked at the flagon.

Oh, if we draw a circle premature,

Heedless of far gain,

Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure

Bad is our bargain!

Was it not great? did not he throw on God,

(He loves the burthen)

God's task to make the heavenly period

Perfect the earthen?

Did not he magnify the mind, show clear

Just what it all meant?

He would not discount life, as fools do here,

Paid by instalment.

He ventured neck or nothing heaven's success

Found, or earth's failure:

"Wilt thou trust death or not?" He answered "Yes:

Hence with life's pale lure!"

That low man seeks a little thing to do,

Sees it and does it:

This high man, with a great thing to pursue,

Dies ere he knows it.

That low man goes on adding one to one,

His hundred's soon hit:

This high man, aiming at a million,

Misses an unit.

That, has the world here   should he need the next,

Let the world mind him!

This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed

Seeking shall find him.

So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,

Ground he at grammar;

Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:

While he could stammer

He settled Hoti's business let it be!

Properly based Oun

Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,

Dead from the waist down.

Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:

Hail to your purlieus,

All ye highfliers of the feathered race,

Swallows and curlews!

Here's the top-peak; the multitude below

Live, for they can, there:

This man decided not to Live but Know

Bury this man there?

Here   here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,

Lightnings are loosened,

Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,

Peace let the dew send!

Lofty designs must close in like effects:

Loftily lying,

Leave him   still loftier than the world suspects,

Living and dying.

 

Explanation

The Grammarian, a great scholar, one who melted like a candle in the pursuit of knowledge, is dead, and his disciples are carrying his body up a tall mountain on the peak of which he is to be buried. One of the disciples sings the mourning song in which he gives an account of the dead Grammarian’s life and achievement.

He says that they will carry his corpse up the mountain, and as the funeral procession proceeds, they would sing together a funeral song. They will leave behind the common fields and villages where the people live tied to their respective duties, like animals to the stake. They sleep safely in their villages situated on the plain, secure from all worry and care till the morning, when the cock-crows and awakens them. While it is still dark on the plains, the light of the rising sun strikes the edges of the mountain peak. The mountain peak, which is the first to receive the light of the rising sun, is the fittest place for the burial of the dead grammarian.

There are a number of peaks and all of them rise high. But one of them is higher than the others. It is encircled with clouds. There is to be seen a ray of bright light on this peak. It is not light of the morning; it comes from the fort standing on that peak. They would bury their master at this peak. They would go up there. The singer asks the other disciples as to why they do not begin to climb. Are they waiting for any signal from him? As they begin to move, he compares their own lives with that of their master. Their life is the life of the plain and the night, while his life was the life of the morning. In other words, they pass their lives surrounded by the darkness of ignorance, while his life was passed in the light of knowledge and culture.

The disciples of the dead scholar climb up the mountain carrying the body of their master on their shoulders. The plains with their crops, with their cattle, with their fields and villages, are left behind. People there sleep comfortably in all their ignorance. In the plains, they are quite safe from storms and snowfalls. The people in the plain are ignorant, while their master was learned and cultured. In his youth, he was handsome and healthy as Apollo the god of poetry and music. For a long time, he remained obscure and unknown. But he worked hard to acquire knowledge. In his youth, he did not know that the spring of his youth would soon be overtaken by the winter of old age. The old age came rather too soon, as a result of his excessive devotion to his studies. At the touch of disease caused by overwork, his youth was gone. He became old, shrunken and withered with his power and energy much diminished. But he did not groan, nor did he say that his career was over, and live the life of their choice.

The Grammarian devoted himself night and day to the study of books, with the result that he grew learned. But he also became old before his time. He became old, his eyes lost their brightness and because of physical weakness, he could talk only in a halting, incoherent manner. Another man in his place would have said that he had acquired enough knowledge, and now it was time for him to give up his seclusion and his books which come in the way of the enjoyment of life. But this man, the grammarian, said that real life is not in this world, but in the world to come. Life in this world is merely a preparation for the life to come.

The Grammarian was determined to acquire all knowledge, to know all about man and his life, before he actually began to live that life. In this poem, human life is being compared to a building, or a project. Before constructing a building, we first prepare a chart of that building; we try to form a clear idea of it in our imagination. Only when the entire conception of the building is clear to us, we proceed to construct it part by part. Only when the whole plan is clear, does a builder strike the stone with steel and plaster bricks with cement.

As the funeral procession marches up, they reach the town-gate and they see the market of the city opening wide before them. The singer asks his companions to take heart, for their journey is practically over and their destination is near. Continuing with the enumeration of the many qualities of the dead Grammarian, the speaker points out that the distinctive quality of his character was that before beginning to live, he decided to acquire a knowledge of life. He decided that he would know fully about the mystery of man and his life, before he begins to live and enjoy life. There was no end to his learning. His principle was that before beginning to enjoy life, he should understand life, for such understanding is necessary for real life enjoyment.

So, he returned to his studies. He became even more absorbed in his studies. The stoop in his shoulders grew worse; he suffered from stone in the bladder and from various other bodily ailments. His eyes grew dull and lusterless as lead. He suffered from cough and bronchitis. His pupils asked him to rest, but he would not rest. The speaker now tells his companions to be more careful as the winding path is narrow there. They should walk two abreast. Again, returning to the life and character of their dead master he tells them that their master suffered, but he remained quite untroubled.

The dead Grammarian had noble ambitions. He did not care for gain or profit in this world; he aimed at higher reward in the life to come. He was not one of those who have narrow, limited ambitions. Such people are losers in the long run. They may make some immediate profit in the present, but they lose the larger profits which result from prolonged effort and waiting. The dead scholar did not make this mistake. He devoted his life to study, and hoped to get his profits, not here, but in the life to come. It was heroic, splendid on his part. He had full faith in God, and he threw himself entirely on the mercy of God. He depended upon God to reward him in the other world, for his labour in this world. He knew that God alone can make the life in heaven perfect and complete the life in this world. He therefore, did not care for earthly gains. Rather, he tried to enlarge his mind with knowledge, and understand the nature and mystery of life. He did not underestimate life, nor discount his future reward by accepting reward on this earth in instalments. In this world, there are people of two kinds, low men with limited, small ambitions, and noble people, like the Grammarian, with high ambitions difficult to attain. The low men whose ambitions are small, and whose aims are limited, see clearly their goal and achieve it with a little effort. On the other hand, noble persons, like the Grammarian, have lofty ambitions. Their ideals are so high that they die even before they can form a clear idea of their ideals or objects of desire. The poet explains the point through the use of an apt illustration. A low man is like a person who wants only a hundred rupees. He makes efforts, earns them little by little in instalments, and soon gets the hundred he wanted. Such a man is successful, according to the standards of this world. On the other hand, a noble person like the Grammarian, aims at not a hundred rupees, but at one million. His aims are high, he is ambitious, but his life ends, even before he has achieved a single unit.

The dead grammarian was a brave scholar who continued to work hard at the study of Grammar, even up to the moment of his death. Even when he felt the suffocating hands of death at his throat, even when he was waging his last struggle, the struggle with Death, the great scholar did not cease his studies. Even when he was dying, and could utter only a halting and rattling sound, even when his speech grew halting and incoherent, he continued to discuss the rules of grammar, such as the use of various parts of speech. Even at the very last moment, when he could hardly stammer, he explained the correct use of the Greek particles as Holi (because), oun (therefore), and De, which is prefixed to a word to give it a slightly different meaning. Even when the lower half of his body was paralyzed, he continued his study and research in the principles of Greek grammar.

The funeral procession now reaches the highest peak of the mountain where there is a wide-open space or platform. This the speaker considers to be a proper place for the burial of the dead Grammarian. The mountain peak is the haunt of such high-flying birds as the swallows and the curlews. Like these birds, the Grammarian also soared high into the realms of knowledge, and so it is appropriate that he should be buried at the highest peak, the abode of these birds. The common men live in the plains below which are places of darkness and ignorance. But this Grammarian, instead of living a life of ignorance like them, decided to soar high in the realms of knowledge, and, therefore, he should be buried on the highest peak. This is the place where the shooting stars are seen, where clouds form, and where lightning is released from the clouds, and where the stars rise in the evening and sink in the morning. Grandeur and loftiness of nature at this place is in harmony with the loftiness and sublimity of the soul of their master.