Analysis of An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Kar
Robert Browning 1812 (Camberwell) – 1889 (Venice)
Karshish, the picker-up of learning's crumbs,
The not-incurious in God's handiwork
(This man's-flesh he hath admirably made,
Blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste,
To coop up and keep down on earth a space
That puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul)
--To Abib, all-sagacious in our art,
Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast,
Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks
Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain,
Whereby the wily vapour fain would slip
Back and rejoin its source before the term,--
And aptest in contrivance (under God)
To baffle it by deftly stopping such:--
The vagrant Scholar to his Sage at home
Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace)
Three samples of true snakestone--rarer still,
One of the other sort, the melon-shaped,
(But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)
And writeth now the twenty-second time.
My journeyings were brought to Jericho;
Thus I resume. Who studious in our art
Shall count a little labour unrepaid?
I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone
On many a flinty furlong of this land.
Also, the country-side is all on fire
With rumours of a marching hitherward:
Some say Vespasian cometh, some, his son.
A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;
Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:
I cried and threw my staff and he was gone.
Twice have the robbers stripped and beaten me,
And once a town declared me for a spy;
But at the end, I reach Jerusalem,
Since this poor covert where I pass the night,
This Bethany, lies scarce the distance thence
A man with plague-sores at the third degree
Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here!
'Sooth, it elates me, thus reposed and safe,
To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip
And share with thee whatever Jewry yields
A viscid choler is observable
In tertians, I was nearly bold to say;
And falling-sickness hath a happier cure
Than our school wots of: there's a spider here
Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs,
Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-grey back;
Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his mind,
The Syrian runagate I trust this to?
His service payeth me a sublimate
Blown up his nose to help the ailing eye.
Best wait: I reach Jerusalem at morn,
There set in order my experiences,
Gather what most deserves, and give thee all--
Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth
Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained,
Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,
In fine exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease
Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy--
Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zoar--
But zeal outruns discretion. Here I end.
Yet stay: my Syrian blinketh gratefully,
Protesteth his devotion is my price--
Suppose I write what harms not, though he steal?
I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blush,
What set me off a-writing first of all.
An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang!
For, be it this town's barrenness--or else
The Man had something in the look of him--
His case has struck me far more than 'tis worth.
So, pardon if--(lest presently I lose
In the great press of novelty at hand
The care and pains this somehow stole from me)
I bid thee take the thing while fresh in mind,
Almost in sight--for, wilt thou have the truth?
The very man is gone from me but now,
Whose ailment is the subject of discourse.
Thus then, and let thy better wit help all!
'Tis but a case of mania--subinduced
By epilepsy, at the turning-point
Of trance prolonged unduly some three days:
When, by the exhibition of some drug
Or spell, exorcization, stroke of art
Unknown to me and which 'twere well to know,
The evil thing out-breaking all at once
Left the man whole and sound of body indeed,--
But, flinging (so to speak) life's gates too wide,
Making a clear house of it too suddenly,
The first conceit that entered might inscribe
Whatever it was minded on the wall
So plainly at that vantage, as it were,
(First come, first served) that nothing subsequent
Attaineth to erase those fancy-scrawls
The just-returned and new-established soul
Hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart
That henceforth she will read or these or none.
And first--the man's own firm conviction rests
That he was dead (in fact they buried him)
--That he was
Scheme | AXBXXCDXXXEXXXXXXXXX FDBXGHBIJXXKLXXXKJXEXXXXJXXMXBLXXNOXKXKHX KXXXNXXPOXGKMOXXN BXXXDFXXXKXNHXACDIXPX |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10101111 0110110 1111110001 110101101 1110111101 111111111 11110101 1001111111 1101001101 0101111101 010101111 1001110101 010010101 1101110101 0101011111 1101010111 110111101 1101010101 1101011111 011010101 1101110 110111000101 1101011 1111011101 1100101111 10010111110 1010101 11110111 01110010101 1111011101 1101110111 1101010101 0101011101 1101110100 1111011101 1100110101 0111110101 111111111 110111101 1101011101 011110101 01110100 011110111 01010101001 11011110101 1111010111 101111111 1101111111 010011111 1101101 1111110101 1111010011 11010101000 1011010111 1111111 1101011101 110100100 01011001101 0111011100 11010111111 1101010111 1111001100 11010111 0111111111 1101111111 1111010111 1111011101 11111111 0111000111 1111111111 1101110011 0011110011 010111111 1111011101 101111101 0101111111 1101001110 1101110111 110111001 110010101 1101010111 110010111 111111 0111011111 0101110111 10110111001 1101111111 10011111100 0101110101 101110101 1101110110 1111110100 11011101 0101010101 1101110011 1111111111 0101110101 1111011101 111 |
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 4,394 |
Words | 744 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 20, 41, 17, 21 |
Lines Amount | 99 |
Letters per line (avg) | 33 |
Words per line (avg) | 8 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 815 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 186 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 07, 2023
- 3:46 min read
- 151 Views
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