Men and Women

“An Epistle” gives the observations and opinions of Karshish, the Arab physician, writing to Abib, his master, upon meeting with Lazarus after he has been raised from the dead.  Well versed in Eastern medical lore, he tries to explain the extraordinary phenomenon according to his knowledge.  He attributes Lazarus’ version of the miracle to mania induced by trance, and the means used by the Nazarene physician to awaken him, and strengthens his view by describing the strange state of mind in which he finds Lazarus—­like a child with no appreciation of the relative values of things.  Through his renewal of life he had caught a glimpse of it from the infinite point of view, and lives now only with the desire to please God.  His sole active quality is a great love for all humanity, his impatience manifests itself only at sin and ignorance, and is quickly curbed.  Karshish, not able to realize this new plane of vision in which had been revealed to Lazarus the equal worth of all things in the divine plan, is incapable of understanding Lazarus; but in spite of his attempt to make light of the case, he is deeply impressed by the character of Lazarus, and has besides a hardly acknowledged desire to believe in this revelation, told of by Lazarus, of God as Love.  Professor Corson says of this poem:  “It may be said to polarize the idea, so often presented in Browning’s poetry, that doubt is a condition of the vitality of faith.”

17.  Snakestone:  a name given to any substance used as a remedy for snake-bites; for example, some are of chalk, some of animal charcoal, and some of vegetable substances.

28.  Vespasian:  Nero’s general who marched against Palestine in 66, and was succeeded in the command, when he was proclaimed Emperor (70-79), by his son, Titus.

29.  Black lynx:  the Syrian lynx is distinguished by black ears.

43.  Tertians:  fevers, recurring every third day; hence the name.

44.  Falling-sickness:  epilepsy.  Caesar’s disease (“Julius Caesar,” I. 2, 258).

45.  There’s a spider here:  “The habits of the aranead here described point very clearly to some one of the Wandering group, which stalk their prey in the open field or in divers lurking-places, and are distinguished by this habit from the other great group, known as the Sedentary spiders, because they sit or hang upon their webs and capture their prey by means of silken snares.  The next line is not determinative of the species, for there is a great number of spiders any one of which might be described as ‘Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back.’  We have a little Saltigrade or Jumping spider, known as the Zebra spider (Epiblemum scenicum), which is found in Europe, and I believe also in Syria.  One often sees this species and its congeners upon the ledges of rocks, the edges of tombstones, the walls of buildings, and like situations, hunting their prey, which they secure by jumping upon it.  So common is the Zebra spider, that I might think that Browning referred to it, if I were not in doubt whether he would express the stripes of white upon its ash-gray abdomen by the word ‘mottles.’  However, there arc other spiders belonging to the same tribe (Saltigrades) that really are mottled.  There are also spiders known as the Lycosids or Wolf spiders or Ground spiders, which are often of an ash-gray color, and marked with little whitish spots after the manner of Browning’s Syrian species.  Perhaps the poet had one of these in mind, at least he accurately describes their manner of seeking prey.  The next line is an interrupted one, ‘Take five and drop them. . . .’  Take five what?  Five of these ash-gray mottled spiders?  Certainly.  But what can be meant by the expression ‘drop them’?  This opens up to us a strange chapter in human superstition.  It was long a prevalent idea that the spider in various forms possessed some occult power of healing, and men administered it internally or applied it externally as a cure for many diseases.  Pliny gives a number of such remedies.  A certain spider applied in a piece of cloth, or another one (’a white spider with very elongated thin legs’), beaten up in oil is said by this ancient writer upon Natural History to form an ointment for the eyes.  Similarly, ’the thick pulp of a spider’s body, mixed with the oil of roses, is used for the ears.’  Sir Matthew Lister, who was indeed the father of English araneology, is quoted in Dr. James’s Medical Dictionary as using the distilled water of boiled black spiders as an excellent cure for wounds.” (Dr. H. C. McCook in Poet-lore, Nov., 1889.)

53.  Gum-tragacanth:  yielded by the leguminous shrub, Astragalus tragacantha.

60.  Zoar:  the only one that was spared of the five cities of the plain (Genesis 14. 2).

108.  Lazarus . . . fifty years of age:  in The Academy, Sept. 16, 1896, Dr. Richard Garnett says:  “Browning commits an oversight, it seems to me, in making Lazarus fifty years of age at the eve of the siege of Jerusalem, circa 68 A. D.”  The miracle is supposed to have been wrought about 33 A. D., and Lazarus would then have been only fifteen, although according to tradition he was thirty when he was raised from the dead, and lived only thirty years after.  Upon this Prof.  Charles B. Wright comments in Poet-lore, April, 1897:  “I incline to think that the oversight is not Browning’s.  Let us stand by the tradition and the resulting age of sixty-five. . . .  Karshish is simply stating his professional judgment.  Lazarus is given an age suited to his appearance—­he seems a man of fifty.  The years have touched him lightly since ‘heaven opened to his soul.’ . . .  And that marvellous physical freshness deceives the very leech himself.”

177.  Greek fire:  used by the Byzantine Greeks in warfare, first against the Saracens at the siege of Constantinople in 673 A. D. Therefore an anachronism in this poem.  Liquid fire was, however, known to the ancients, as Assyrian bas-reliefs testify.  Greek fire was made possibly of naphtha, saltpetre, and sulphur, and was thrown upon the enemy from copper tubes; or pledgets of tow were dipped in it and attached to arrows.

281.  Blue-flowering borage:  (Borago officianalis).  The ancients deemed this plant one of the four “cordial flowers,” for cheering the spirits, the others being the rose, violet, and alkanet.  Pliny says it produces very exhilarating effects.