Image: Elizabeth Barrett Browning – NPG, London
Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”
The first sonnet in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese features a speaker who is expressing the futility of concentrating on death and the melancholy such musing too often may create.
Introduction with Text of Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese unveil a marvelous testimony to the love and respect that the poet fostered for her suitor and future husband Robert Browning. Robert Browning’s stature as a poet rendered him one of the most noted and respected poets of Western culture.
Robert Browning’s fame and influence in literary studies has spread over the globe, and his wife’s reputation has also been enhanced by his noteworthiness as well as her own mastercraftmanship as a sonneteer.
In the dramatic renderings of the sonnet sequence, as the relationship between the poets continues to flower, Elizabeth worries that it might not long endure. She thus has created a speaker who muses on and voices the insecurities experienced by the poet.
Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, …
Guess now who holds thee?’—Death,’ I said. But there,
The silver answer rang … Not Death, but Love.’
Reading
Commentary on Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung”
Sonnet 1 “I thought once how Theocritus had sung” in Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s classic work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, opens as the speaker is musing on the pressure created by melancholy.
First Quatrain: The Bucolic Classical Poetry of Theocritus
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
The speaker begins the dramatization of her musing by reporting that she has perused the pastoral poetry of the ancient classical poet, Theocritus. She reveals that that classical Greek poet put into song the nature of the time of life when the young are full of hope and wishes—such desire renders those years sweet.
The speaker has garnered the notion from the poem’s insightful knowledge that every year bestows on each mortal “a gift”; the elderly and the youthful are both able to accept those magnificent and eternal blessings.
The speaker’s own melancholy and sadness have prompted her to seek out answers for questions that have troubled her, answers to important issue such as the very purpose of life on this planet.
The speaker appropriately and with gratitude has been turning to the ancient thinkers because she understand that they have bestowed wisdom and encouragement to each of the succeeding generations.
Second Quatrain: Finding Her Own Life in Poetry
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
After a significant period of time spent in musing on the words of Theocritus, the speaker has come to comprehend the important ideas presented by those words, and their gravity brings tears to her eyes. It is, thus, through those emotional tears that the speaker seems to be able to view her “own life.”
She becomes well aware that her own years have not rendered to her any special kindness. Her own years have been filled with pain and sadness. Those gifts presented by time are not always useful or pleasant ones to the recipient. But that is how life is.
Each person’s individual karma remains responsible for the specific events that occur in each life. One can remain assured that one will always reap what one sows. But each individual is not required to be happy or even satisfied with the results; thus, one becomes motivated to strive to change former karmic patterns by improving one’s thoughts and behavior.
Barrett Browning’s ability to understand the original Greek text is critical in her ability to feel the profound emotional impact of those thoughts. Fraudulent “translators” such a Robert Bly, who was not fluent in the languages of the texts he supposedly translated, could not faithfully render emotion expressed in the original.
As poet Stephen Kessler has averred: “The major problem with [Robert Bly’s] translations (often from languages he didn’t know, by way of other English versions) was that he made every poet, from García Lorca to Mirabai, sound like Robert Bly.” But Barrett Browning was fluent in the languages which she read and studied, and thus she could translate accurately and render in her speaker unique, genuine emotion.
First Tercet: Life Beneath a Shadow
A shadow across me. Straightway I was ‘ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair,
The speaker then reveals that her own life has been passed under a “shadow.” A dark cloud has moved “across [her],” and she has suddenly become cognizant that she is weeping.
She feels as if she is being dragged backward by someone or something. Some being seems to be pulling her by the hair into some “mystic Shape.” Unfortunately, she remains unable to ascertain just what that strange creature is who seems to be tugging at her.
Second Tercet: A Correcting Voice
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove, …
Guess now who holds thee?’—Death,’ I said. But there,
The silver answer rang … Not Death, but Love.’
As she tries to right herself, she then becomes aware of what seems to be a voice—a “voice of mastery.” That strange voice poses a question to her; it asks her to take a guess regarding who “holds [her].” The speaker then suddenly responds fatalistically, “Death.” However, she is then relieved to hear a surprising retort, correcting her fatalism: “Not Death, but Love.”
An Inspiring Love Story
The love story of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning has become and has remained a subject for research and exploration as well as admiration in the literary world, especially in the poetry branch of that world.
In her Sonnets from the Portuguese, Mrs. Browning crafts and portrays a speaker who dramatizes the poet’s moments of sorrow and melancholy as well as her painful doubt-filled hours.
Her speaker becomes elated at times that a man as accomplished and noteworthy as Robert Browning would take note of her and even desire to spend time with her. But then her mood will change, and she will grow doubtful that the relationship could ever blossom into a lasting, true love.
Readers who explore the sonnets will become pleasantly captivated by her amazing growth from skepticism and doubt to deep awareness and faith that the couple’s love is genuine and sustained by the Divine Belovèd Creator (God). Uniquely told in sonnets, the Brownings’ courtship leading to their marriage remains a truly inspiring love story.
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