The Bishop Orders His Tomb at
Saint Praxed’s Church
What do we know about this poem?
What does the title tell us?
This poem is about...
.... a fictional Bishop on his death bed who
makes demands for his tomb to be built with
grand materials. He is trying to outdo his
recently deceased rival, Gandolf.
Context
• Set in Renaissance Italy
• Latter stages: the clergy had become greedy for
the luxury afforded by the church’s lavish
iconography
• The Bishop, on his death bed and ordering a
lavish tomb to be constructed, is more concerned
with how he will be remembered on earth than
with heaven
• Metaphor for the wider corruption and greed of
the church
Saint Praxed’s Church
A real church in Rome, Italy.
Saint Praxedes was a saint of the
2nd century. She was a ‘holy
virgin’ who denied herself riches
and gave all she had to the poor
and to the church. She and her
sister defied the law to bury the
bodies of Christians who had
been martyred. For this, she too
was murdered.
Context – Money and Power in
Victorian England
The poem deals with the unpleasant effect material wealth has on
supposedly upstanding figures.
Browning wrote it at a time of extreme economic upheaval. Money
(previously only associated with the upper classes, although many of this
class were often without it!) was becoming a mark of social standing.
Many of the impoverished upper classes were marrying so-called ‘new
money’. Consider Pip in Great Expectations: all he needs to become a
gentleman is an inheritance.
The inclusion of the real life Saint Praxted’s Church in this poem adds to
a sense of satire against the hypocrisy of the Renaissance church.
Browning, at this stage in his life, was not religious. Later on in life he
became more understanding of faith.
Language and Imagery
Let’s analyse the poem together.
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Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews--sons mine . . . ah God, I know not! Well-She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
--Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
tricked
Canopy
over a
tomb
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Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the aery dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.
--Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
The side of the
church from
which the Bible
is read during
Mass
Dark grey
stone
Cheap
marble
which
tends to
flake
Destructive fire
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Semi41
precious
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stone.
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Bright blue 44
in colour. 45
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Summer
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resort
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near
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Rome
anything
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
--What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast ...
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So let the blue lump poise between my knees
Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
olive basket
"My days are swifter than a
weaver's shuttle, and they come to
an end without hope” (Job 7:6)
Greek god
of
shepherds
and his
associated
female
spirits
As used by
the
priestess
of Apollo
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The ten
commandments
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black-'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
know
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
Spear or rod used by
Dionysus
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
halo
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
And Moses with the tables . . . but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
mouldy limestone
Bright green stone
What all
young men
in the
Renaissance
wanted!
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Nay, boys, ye love me--all of jasper, then!
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world-And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
--That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line-Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
Holy communion
Speech honouring dead
person
Tully = Marcus Tullius Cicero,
a famous Roman orator
considered a model of Latin
style. Ulpian = Gnaeus
Domitius Ulpianus, a Roman
councillor, much less well
known, and whose Latin was
considered less pure and
stylish.
Symbol of office
85 For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
shroud
86 Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
87 I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
88 And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
89 And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
90 Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:
91 And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
92 Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
93 About the life before I lived this life,
94 And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
95 Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
96 Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
A type of quartz stone with
97 And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
a bright colour
98 And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
99 --Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
100 No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
101 Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
“he was illustrious” in Ulpian
Latin. Cicero would have used
“ELUCEBAT”.
Dionysus’
staff
102 All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
103 My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
104 Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
105 They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
106 Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
107 Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
108 With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
109 And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
110 That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
111 To comfort me on my entablature
112 Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
113 "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
Stone slab
Mask like those
worn on the stage
Sculpted bust on
top of a square
pillar, used in
Classical art and
architecture
Coarse sandstone
114 For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
115 To death--ye wish it--God, ye wish it! Stone-116 Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
117 As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
118 And no more lapis to delight the world!
119 Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
120 But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
121 --Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
122 And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
123 That I may watch at leisure if he leers-124 Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
125 As still he envied me, so fair she was!
Form
• Dramatic monologue
• Iambic pentameter
• Blank verse (unrhymed)
This emphasises the single-mindedness of the Bishop’s
last moments. He has no time to bother with rhyme. He is
focusing on earthly concerns. Momentary aesthetic
concerns have given way to his desire to create a longer
lasting aesthetic monument – his tomb.
His speech is often repetitive, unstructured and rambling.
Structure
• One stanza only = one long ramble at the end of the
Bishop’s life
• Frequent use of ellipsis = mind wandering
• The poem ends where it begins – with his mistress (“so
fair she was!”)
• Irregular line lengths = confusion; lack of coherence
• Increased use of punctuation towards the end =
increased disruption of thought/acceptance of
impending death
• Browning is experimenting with poetic form and
structure
“Browning creates a character who is proud, envious, hypocritical,
and obsessed by worldly beauty and delight, as well as a deep
rivalry with the recently deceased Gandolf. The poem is an
examination of the decadence and worldy excess of the Roman
Catholic Church in the Renaissance. Yet, as the reader enters into
the poem’s imaginative world, the Bishop also provokes sympathy”
Do you agree?
• Browning’s use of language and structure, especially at the end of the poem
• The Bishop does not expect to be remembered for his good deeds (line 101)
• What is happening around the Bishop as he speaks?
• Why is he so obsessed with Gandolf and his tomb?
• How Browning creates a sense of the Bishop’s life ending
• Any redeeming features?
PEEL