June 16 The Harvard Classics, fifteen minutes a day
Spirits at the Top of the World
The inaccessible mountain tops were ever venerated as the haunts of all mysteries. Manfred, hero of Byron’s play, seeks upon the high Alps the aid of spirits, specters, and goblins. What unearthly adventures await him!
- Byron publishes “Manfred,” June 16, 1817.
From the 1930 Reading Guide
Manfred
Lord Byron
Page 415 opens mid-sentence; the reading starts at its beginning on page 414.
From thy false tears I did distilAn essence which hath strength to kill;From thy own heart I then did wringThe black blood in its blackest spring;From thy own smile I snatch’d the snake,For there it coil’d as in a brake;From thy own lip I drew the charmWhich gave all these their chiefest harm;In proving every poison known,I found the strongest was thine own.
By thy cold breast and serpent smile,By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,By that most seeming virtuous eye,By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;By the perfection of thine artWhich pass’d for human thine own heart;By thy delight in others’ pain,And by thy brotherhood of Cain,I call upon thee! and compelThyself to be thy proper Hell!
And on thy head I pour the vialWhich doth devote thee to this trial;Nor to slumber, nor to die,Shall be in thy destiny;Though thy death shall still seem nearTo thy wish, but as a fear;Lo! the spell now works around thee,And the clankless chain hath bound thee;O’er thy heart and brain togetherHath the word been pass’d—now wither!
SCENE II.—The Mountain of the Jungfrau.—Time, Morning.
MANFRED alone upon the Cliffs.
Man. The spirits I have raised abandon me,The spells which I have studied baffle me,The remedy I reck’d of tortured me;I lean no more on superhuman aid,It hath no power upon the past, and forThe future, till the past be gulf’d in darkness,It is not of my search.—My mother Earth!And thou fresh breaking Day, and you, ye Mountains,Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.And thou, the bright eye of the universe,That openest over all, and unto allArt a delight—thou shin’st not on my heart.And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edgeI stand, and on the torrent’s brink beneathBehold the tall pines dwindled as to shrubsIn dizziness of distance; when a leap,A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bringMy breast upon its rocky bosom’s bedTo rest for ever—wherefore do I pause?I feel the impulse—yet I do not plunge;I see the peril—yet do not recede;And my brain reels—and yet my foot is firm.There is a power upon me which withholds,And makes it my fatality to live;If it be life to wear within myselfThis barrenness of spirit, and to beMy own soul’s sepulchre, for I have ceasedTo justify my deeds unto myself—The last infirmity of evil. Ay,Thou wingèd and cloud-cleaving minister,
[An eagle passes.
Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,Well may’st thou swoop so near me—I should beThy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art goneWhere the eye cannot follow thee; but thineYet pierces downward, onward, or above,With a pervading vision.—Beautiful!How beautiful is all this visible world!How glorious in its action and itself!But we, who name ourselves its sovereigns, we,Half dust, half deity, alike unfitTo sink or soar, with our mix’d essence makeA conflict of its elements, and breatheThe breath of degradation and of pride,Contending with low wants and lofty will,Till our mortality predominates,And men are—what they name not to themselves,And trust not to each other. Hark! the note,
[The Shepherd’s pipe in the distance is heard.
The natural music of the mountain reed(For here the patriarchal days are notA pastoral fable) pipes in the liberal air,Mix’d with the sweet bells of the sauntering herd;My soul would drink those echoes.—Oh, that I wereThe viewless spirit of a lovely sound,A living voice, a breathing harmony,A bodiless enjoyment—born and dyingWith the blest tone which made me!
Enter from below a CHAMOIS HUNTER
Chamois Hunter. Even soThis way the chamois leapt: her nimble feetHave baffled me; my gains to-day will scarceRepay my break-neck travail.—What is here?Who seems not of my trade, and yet hath reach’dA height which none even of our mountaineers,Save our best hunters, may attain: his garbIs goodly, his mien manly, and his airProud as a freeborn peasant’s, at this distance—I will approach him nearer.Man. (not perceiving the other). To be thus—Grey-hair’d with anguish, like these blasted pines.Wrecks of a single winter, barkless, branchless,A blighted trunk upon a cursèd root,Which but supplies a feeling to decay—And to be thus, eternally but thus,Having been otherwise! Now furrow’d o’erWith wrinkles, plough’d by moments, not by yearsAnd hours—all tortured into ages—hoursWhich I outlive!—Ye toppling crags of ice!Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws downIn mountainous o’erwhelming, come and crush me!I hear ye momently above, beneath,Crash with a frequent conflict; but ye pass,And only fall on things that still would live;On the young flourishing forest, or the hutAnd hamlet of the harmless villager.C. Hun. The mists begin to rise from up the valley;I’ll warn him to descend, or he may chanceTo lose at once his way and life together.Man. The mists boil up around the glaciers; cloudsRise curling fast beneath me, white and sulphury,Like foam from the roused ocean of deep Hell,Whose every wave breaks on a living shoreHeap’d with the damn’d like pebbles.—I am giddy.C. Hun. I must approach him cautiously; if near,A sudden step will startle him, and heSeems tottering already.Man. Mountains have fallen,Leaving a gap in the clouds, and with the shockRocking their Alpine brethren; filling upThe ripe green valleys with destruction’s splinters;Damming the rivers with a sudden dash,Which crush’d the waters into mist and madeTheir fountains find another channel—thus,Thus, in its old age, did Mount Rosenberg—Why stood I not beneath it?C. Hun. Friend! have a care,Your next step may be fatal!—for the loveOf him who made you, stand not on that brink!Man. (not hearing him). Such would have been for me a fitting tomb;My bones had then been quiet in their depth;They had not then been strewn upon the rocksFor the wind’s pastime—as thus—thus they shall be—In this one plunge.—Farewell, ye opening heavens!Look not upon me thus reproachfully—Ye were not meant for me—Earth! take these atoms!
[As MANFRED is in act to spring from the cliff, the CHAMOIS HUNTER seizes and retains him with a sudden grasp.
C. Hun. Hold, madman!—though aweary of thy life,Stain not our pure vales with thy guilty blood!Away with me—I will not quit my hold.Man. I am most sick at heart—nay, grasp me not—I am all feebleness—the mountains whirlSpinning around me—I grow blind—What art thou?C. Hun. I’ll answer that anon.—Away with me!The clouds grow thicker—there—now lean on me—Place your foot here—here, take this staff, and clingA moment to that shrub—now give me your hand,And hold fast by my girdle—softly—well—The Chalet will be gain’d within an hour.Come on, we’ll quickly find a surer footing,And something like a pathway, which the torrentHath wash’d since winter.—Come, ’tis bravely done;You should have been a hunter.—Follow me.
[As they descend the rocks with difficulty, the scene closes.
ACT II
SCENE I.—A Cottage amongst the Bernese Alps.
MANFRED and the CHAMOIS HUNTER.
C. Hun. No, no, yet pause, thou must not yet go forth:Thy mind and body are alike unfitTo trust each other, for some hours, at least;When thou art better, I will be thy guide—But whither?Man. It imports not; I do knowMy route full well and need no further guidance.C. Hun. Thy garb and gait bespeak thee of high lineage—One of the many chiefs, whose castled cragsLook o’er the lower valleys—which of theseMay call thee lord? I only know their portals;My way of life leads me but rarely downTo bask by the huge hearths of those old halls,Carousing with the vassals; but the paths,Which step from out our mountains to their doors,I know from childhood—which of these is thine?Man. No matter.C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question,And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine;’Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day’T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, nowLet it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly.Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim!Will it then never—never sink in the earth?C. Hun. What dost thou mean? thy senses wander from thee.Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm streamWhich ran in the veins of my fathers, and in oursWhen we were in our youth, and had one heart,And loved each other as we should not love,And this was shed: but still it rises up,Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven,Where thou art not—and I shall never be.C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half-maddening sin,Which makes thee people vacancy, whate’erThy dread and sufferance be, there’s comfort yet—The aid of holy men, and heavenly patience—Man. Patience and patience! Hence—that word was madeFor brutes of burthen, not for birds of prey;Preach it to mortals of a dust like thine,—I am not of thine order.C. Hun. Thanks to heaven!I would not be of thine for the free fameOf William Tell; but whatsoe’er thine ill,It must be borne, and these wild starts are useless.Man. Do I not bear it?—Look on me—I live.C. Hun. This is convulsion, and no healthful life.Man. I tell thee, man! I have lived many years,Many long years, but they are nothing nowTo those which I must number: ages—ages—Space and eternity—and consciousness,With the fierce thirst of death—and still unslaked!C. Hun. Why, on thy brow the seal of middle ageHath scarce been set; I am thine elder far.Man. Think’st thou existence doth depend on time?It doth; but actions are our epochs: mineHave made my days and nights imperishable,Endless, and all alike, as sands on the shore,Innumerable atoms; and one desert,Barren and cold, on which the wild waves break,But nothing rests, save carcasses and wrecks,Rocks, and the salt-surf weeds of bitterness.C. Hun. Alas! he’s mad—but yet I must not leave him.Man. I would I were, for then the things I seeWould be but a distemper’d dream.C. Hun. What is itThat thou dost see, or think thou look’st upon?Man. Myself, and thee—a peasant of the Alps,Thy humble virtues, hospitable home,And spirit patient, pious, proud and free;Thy self-respect, grafted on innocent thoughts;Thy days of health, and nights of sleep; thy toils,By danger dignified, yet guiltless; hopesOf cheerful old age and a quiet grave,With cross and garland over its green turf,And thy grandchildren’s love for epitaph;This do I see—and then I look within—It matters not—my soul was scorch’d already!C. Hun. And wouldst thou then exchange thy lot for mine?Man. No, friend! I would not wrong thee nor exchangeMy lot with living being: I can bear—However wretchedly, ’tis still to bear—In life what others could not brook to dream,But perish in their slumber.C. Hun. And with this—This cautious feeling for another’s pain,Canst thou be black with evil?—say not so.Can one of gentle thoughts have wreak’d revengeUpon his enemies?Man. Oh! no, no, no!My injuries came down on those who loved me—On those whom I best loved: I never quell’dAn enemy, save in my just defence—But my embrace was fatal.C. Hun. Heaven give thee rest!And penitence restore thee to thyself;My prayers shall be for thee.Man. I need them not,But can endure thy pity. I depart—’Tis time—farewell!—Here’s gold, and thanks for thee;No words—it is thy due. Follow me not;I know my path—the mountain peril’s past:And once again, I charge thee, follow not!
[Exit MANFRED.
SCENE II.—A lower Valley in the Alps.—A Cataract.
Enter MANFRED
Man. It is not noon; the sunbow’s rays still archThe torrent with the many hues of heaven,And roll the sheeted silver’s waving columnO’er the crag’s headlong perpendicular,And fling its lines of foaming light along,And to and fro, like the pale courser’s tailThe Giant steed, to be bestrode by Death,As told in the Apocalypse. No eyesBut mine now drink this sight of loveliness;I should be sole in this sweet solitude,And with the Spirit of the place divideThe homage of these waters.—I will call her.
[MANFRED takes some of the water into the palm of his hand, and flings it in the air, muttering the adjuration. After a pause, the WITCH OF THE ALPS rises beneath the arch of the sunbow of the torrent.
Beautiful Spirit! with thy hair of lightAnd dazzling eyes of glory, in whose formThe charms of earth’s least mortal daughters growTo an unearthly stature, in an essenceOf purer elements; while the hues of youth(Carnation’d like a sleeping infant’s cheekRock’d by the beating of her mother’s heart,Or the rose-tints, which summer’s twilight leavesUpon the lofty glacier’s virgin snow,The blush of earth embracing with her heaven)Tinge thy celestial aspect, and make tameThe beauties of the sunbow which bends o’er thee.Beautiful Spirit! in thy calm clear brow,Wherein is glass’d serenity of soul,Which of itself shows immortality,I read that thou wilt pardon to a SonOf Earth, whom the abstruser powers permitAt times to commune with them—if that heAvail him of his spells—to call thee thus,And gaze on thee a moment.Witch. Son of Earth!I know thee, and the powers which give thee power;I know thee for a man of many thoughts,And deeds of good and ill, extreme in both,Fatal and fated in thy sufferings.I have expected this—what wouldst thou with me?Man. To look upon thy beauty—nothing further.The face of the earth hath madden’d me, and ITake refuge in her mysteries, and pierceTo the abodes of those who govern her—But they can nothing aid me. I have soughtFrom them what they could not bestow, and nowI search no further.Witch. What could be the questWhich is not in the power of the most powerful,The rulers of the invisible?Man. A boon;But why should I repeat it? ’twere in vain.Witch. I know not that; let thy lips utter it.Man. Well, though it torture me, ’tis but the same;My pang shall find a voice. From my youth upwardsMy spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;The thirst of their ambition was not mine,The aim of their existence was not mine;My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers,Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,I had no sympathy with breathing flesh,Nor midst the creatures of clay that girded meWas there but one who—but of her anon.I said, with men, and with the thoughts of men,I held but slight communion; but instead,My joy was in the Wilderness, to breatheThe difficult air of the iced mountain’s top,Where the birds dare not build, nor insect’s wingFlit o’er the herbless granite; or to plungeInto the torrent, and to roll alongOn the swift whirl of the new breaking waveOf river-stream, or ocean, in their flow.In these my early strength exulted; orTo follow through the night the moving moon,The stars and their development; or catchThe dazzling lightnings till my eyes grew dim;Or to look, list’ning, on the scatter’d leaves,While Autumn winds were at their evening song.These were my pastimes, and to be alone;For if the beings, of whom I was one,—Hating to be so,—cross’d me in my path,I felt myself degraded back to them,And was all clay again. And then I dived,In my lone wanderings, to the caves of death,Searching its cause in its effect; and drewFrom wither’d bones, and skulls, and heap’d up dust,Conclusions most forbidden. Then I pass’dThe nights of years in sciences, untaughtSave in the old time; and with time and toil,And terrible ordeal, and such penanceAs in itself hath power upon the airAnd spirits that do compass air and earth,Space, and the peopled infinite, I madeMine eyes familiar with Eternity,Such as, before me, did the Magi, andHe who from out their fountain dwellings raisedEros and Anteros, at Gadara,As I do thee;—and with my knowledge grewThe thirst of knowledge, and the power and joyOf this most bright intelligence, until—Witch. Proceed.Man. Oh, I but thus prolong’d my words,Boasting these idle attributes, becauseAs I approach the core of my heart’s griefBut to my task. I have not named to theeFather or mother, mistress, friend, or being,With whom I wore the chain of human ties;If I had such, they seem’d not such to me—Yet there was one—Witch. Spare not thyself—proceed.Man. She was like me in lineaments—her eyes,Her hair, her features, all, to the very toneEven of her voice, they said were like to mine;But soften’d all, and temper’d into beauty;She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mindTo comprehend the universe; nor theseAlone, but with them gentler powers than mine,Pity, and smiles, and tears—which I had not;And tenderness—but that I had for her;Humility—and that I never had.Her faults were mine—her virtues were her own—I loved her, and destroy’d her!Witch. With thy hand?Man. Not with my hand, but heart—which broke her heart;It gazed on mine, and wither’d. I have shedBlood, but not hers—and yet her blood was shed—I saw, and could not stanch it.Witch. And for this,A being of the race thou dost despise,The order which thine own would rise above,Mingling with us and ours, thou dost foregoThe gifts of our great knowledge, and shrink’st backTo recreant mortality—Away!Man. Daughter of Air! I tell thee, since that hour—But words are breath—look on me in my sleep,Or watch my watchings—Come and sit by me!My solitude is solitude no more,But peopled with the Furies;—I have gnash’dMy teeth in darkness till returning morn,Then cursed myself till sunset;—I have pray’dFor madness as a blessing—’tis denied me.I have affronted death, but in the warOf elements the waters shrunk from me,And fatal things pass’d harmless—the cold handOf an all-pitiless demon held me back,Back by a single hair, which would not break.In fantasy, imagination, allThe affluence of my soul—which one day wasA Croesus in creation—I plunged deep,But, like an ebbing wave, it dash’d me backInto the gulf of my unfathom’d thought.I plunged amidst mankind.—ForgetfulnessI sought in all, save where ’t is to be found,And that I have to learn—my sciences,My long pursued and superhuman art,Is mortal here; I dwell in my despair—And live—and live for ever.Witch. It may beThat I can aid thee.Man. To do this thy powerMust wake the dead, or lay me low with them.Do so—in any shape—in any hour—With any torture—so it be the last.Witch. That is not in my province; but if thouWilt swear obedience to my will, and doMy bidding, it may help thee to thy wishes.Man. I will not swear—Obey! and whom? the spiritsWhose presence I command, and be the slaveOf those who served me—Never!Witch. Is this all?Hast thou no gentler answer?—Yet bethink thee,And pause ere thou rejectest.Man. I have said it.Witch. Enough!—I may retire then—say!Man. Retire!
[The WITCH disappears.
Man. (alone). We are all the fools of time and terror: DaysSteal on us and steal from us; yet we live,Loathing our life, and dreading still to die.In all the days of this detested yoke—This vital weight upon the struggling heart,Which sinks with sorrow, or beats quick with pain,Or joy that ends in agony or faintness—In all the days of past and future, forIn life there is no present, we can numberHow few, how less than few, wherein the soulForbears to pant for death, and yet draws backAs from a stream in winter, though the chillBe but a moment’s. I have one resourceStill in my science—I can call the dead,And ask them what it is we dread to be:The sternest answer can but be the Grave,And that is nothing;—if they answer not—The buried Prophet answered to the HagOf Endor; and the Spartan Monarch drewFrom the Byzantine maid’s unsleeping spiritAn answer and his destiny—he slewThat which he loved, unknowing what he slew,And died unpardon’d—though he call’d in aidThe Phyxian Jove, and in Phigalia rousedThe Arcadian Evocators to compelThe indignant shadow to depose her wrath,Or fix her term of vengeance—she repliedIn words of dubious import, but fulfill’d.If I had never lived, that which I loveHad still been living; had I never loved,That which I love would still be beautiful—Happy and giving happiness. What is she?What is she now?—a sufferer for my sins—A thing I dare not think upon—or nothing.Within few hours I shall not call in vain—Yet in this hour I dread the thing I dare:Until this hour I never shrunk to gazeOn spirit, good or evil—now I tremble,And feel a strange cold thaw upon my heart.But I can act even what I most abhor,And champion human fears.—The night approaches.
[Exit.
SCENE III.—The Summit of the Jungfrau Mountain.
Enter FIRST DESTINY
The moon is rising broad, and round, and bright;And here on snows, where never human footOf common mortal trod, we nightly tread,And leave no traces; o’er the savage sea,The glassy ocean of the mountain ice,We skim its rugged breakers, which put onThe aspect of a tumbling tempest’s foam,Frozen in a moment—a dead whirlpool’s image.And this most steep fantastic pinnacle,The fretwork of some earthquake—where the clouds
Pause to repose themselves in passing by—Is sacred to our revels, or our vigils.Here do I wait my sisters, on our wayTo the Hall of Arimanes, for to-nightIs our great festival—’t is strange they come not.
Page 428 ends mid-sentence; the reading runs on to the end of the First Destiny’s speech on page 429.
Volume 18, pages 415–428 · See the scanned page on archive.org
This is the reading for June 16 in Fifteen Minutes a Day: The Reading Guide (1930 edition), page 56. There the assignment reads “Vol. 18, pp. 415–428.” Read it in the guide.