The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

He settled Hoti's business�let it be!� 130 Properly based Oun� Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic De,4 Dead from the waist down. Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place: Hail to your purlieus,0 regions 135 All ye highfliers of the feathered race, Swallows and curlews! Here's the top peak; the multitude below Live, for they can, there: This man decided not to Live but Know� 140 Bury this man there? Here�here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form, Lightnings are loosened, Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm, Peace let the dew send! 145 Lofty designs must close in like effects: Loftily lying, Leave him�still loftier than the world suspects, Living and dying.

ca. 1854 1855

An Epistle Containing the Strange Medical Experience of Karshish, the Arab Physician1

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,

5 To coop up and keep down on earth a space0 for a time That puff of vapor from his mouth, man's soul2) �To Abib, all-sagacious in our art, Breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, Like me inquisitive how pricks and cracks

io Befall the flesh through too much stress and strain, Whereby the wily vapor fain would slip Back and rejoin its source before the term,� And aptest in contrivance (under God) To baffle it by deftly stopping such:�

4. "Hoti," "Oun," and "De": Greek particles mean-developments he has encountered. Most recently ing "that," "then," and "toward." "Enclitic": in he has been intrigued by the story of Lazarus, a Jew effect (and literally, in the case of de) a suffix. In who is reputed to have died and been miraculously an 1863 letter Browning commented to Tennyson brought back to life by a "Nazarene physician" (as that he wanted his grammarian to have been work-Jesus is called here) many years earlier (cf. John ing on "the biggest of the littlenesses." 11.1�44). Karshish's letter is addressed from Beth1. The letter is written in 66 C.E., just before the lehem to Abib, formerly his science teacher and Romans invaded Palestine. During a journey now his colleague and friend. Both scientists are across the country, Karshish, whose name in Ara-imaginary characters. bic means "one who gathers" (or roughly, "the 2. Karshish is referring to the old belief that the picker-up of learning's crumbs"), has been col-soul leaves the body with one's last breath, in the lecting information on medical and scientific form of a vapor.

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1290 / ROBERT BROWNING

15 The vagrant0 Scholar to his Sage at home wandering Sends greeting (health and knowledge, fame with peace) Three samples of true snakestone3�rarer still, One of the other sort, the melon-shaped, (But fitter, pounded fine, for charms than drugs)

20 And writeth now the twenty-second time.

My journeyings were brought to Jericho:4 Thus I resume. Who studious in our art Shall count a little labor unrepaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone

25 On many a flinty furlong of this land. Also, the country-side is all on fire With rumors of a marching hitherward: Some say Vespasian5 cometh, some, his son. A black lynx snarled and pricked a tufted ear;

30 Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls:0 eyeballs 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,

35 Since this poor covert where I pass the night, This Bethany,6 lies scarce the distance thence A man with plague-sores at the third degree Runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here! 'Sooth,7 it elates me, thus reposed and safe,

40 To void the stuffing of my travel-scrip0 small bag And share with thee whatever Jewry yields. A viscid choler is observable In tertians,8 I was nearly bold to say; And falling-sickness0 hath a happier cure epilepsy

45 Than our school wots� of: there's a spider here knows Weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, Sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back; Take five and drop them . . . but who knows his mind, The Syrian runagate0 I trust this to? renegade

so His service payeth me a sublimate9 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�

55 Or I might add, Judea's gum-tragacanth' Scales off in purer flakes, shines clearer-grained, Cracks 'twixt the pestle and the porphyry,2 In fine0 exceeds our produce. Scalp-disease conclusion Confounds me, crossing so with leprosy�