"Not even not wrong" Email to: michaelpeverett@live.co.uk
Tuesday, April 01, 2025
Alexander the Great
Alexander now turned his mind to the expedition to Egypt. Most of what is called Palestinian Syria had already come over to him, but there was resistance from a eunuch called Batis who governed the city of Gaza. He had brought in a force of Arab mercenaries and for some time had been stockpiling enough food to withstand a long siege.
Gaza stands a little over two miles from the sea. The approach to it is over deep sand, and the sea fronting it offers nothing but shallows. Gaza was a large city, built on a high mound with a strong surrounding wall, and it was the last centre of population at the edge of the desert on the route from Phoenicia to Egypt.
When Alexander came up to the city, he made camp that first day on the side where he judged the wall most vulnerable, and ordered the construction of siege-engines. His engineers gave it as their opinion that the height of the base mound made a mechanical assault on the wall impracticable. Alexander took the view that this very impracticality made it all the more important to capture the place: success against the odds would have huge deterrent impact on his enemies, and his reputation would suffer if reports of failure reached the Greeks and Darius. So he decided to build a mound all round the city, piling it to a height which would enable the engines to be brought up level with the wall. Construction was concentrated at the south wall of the city, where there seemed the best prospect of a successful assault. When they judged that the mound had reached the appropriate height, the Macedonians positioned siege-engines on it and brought them to bear against the wall of Gaza.
As this began, Alexander made sacrifice. He had put on a garland and was just about to perform the ritual dedication of the first victim when a carrion bird flew over the altar holding a stone in its talons and dropped the stone on Alexander's head. He asked Aristander the seer what this omen signified. Aristander answered: 'Sir, you will take the city: but today you must look out for yourself.'
Thus warned, for a while Alexander kept back by the engines, out of range. But then there was a sally in force by the Arabs in the city, who were attempting to set light to the engines and, with constant fire from their superior position, while the Macedonians had to fight back from below, began driving them down the artificial mound. At this point Alexander either deliberately ignored the seer or forgot his warning in the heat of the emergency: at any rate he brought up the foot guards and went to the support of his men where they were under the greatest pressure. He did succeed in preventing the ignominy of a forced retreat down the mound, but was hit by a catapult-shot which went straight through his shield and breastplate into his shoulder. The realization that Aristander had been right about the wound encouraged him to think that, by the same token, he would go on to take the city.
In fact Alexander's wound did not heal easily. But meanwhile the siege-engines used in the capture of Tyre arrived by sea (he had sent for them). He now ordered the construction of a ramp all the way round the city, four hundred yards deep and two hundred and fifty feet high. When the engines had been reassembled and brought up the ramp into action they demolished a large section of wall; at various other points tunnels were dug and the subsoil removed without detection, and this excavation caused subsidence and the collapse of the wall in several places; and the Macedonians kept up an overwhelming barrage of missiles over a wide front, driving back the defenders on the towers. Through all this, despite losing large numbers killed or wounded, the forces in the city held out against three successive attacks. But in the fourth assault Alexander brought up the Macedonian phalanx to ring the city on all sides, and broke down long stretches of the wall, some collapsed by undermining and others battered to pieces by his siege-engines: the result was to open a relatively easy route of attack by means of ladders placed over the rubble. So the ladders were brought up to the wall, and there was intense rivalry for first claim to its capture among the Macedonians who prided themselves on their courage. The first to scale the wall was Neoptolemus, one of the Companions and a member of the Aeacid family: following his lead brigade after brigade climbed up with their officers. Once some of the Macedonians had got inside the wall they split into groups and forced open every gate they came to, so giving access to the whole army. As for the Gazaeans, even though their city was now overrun by the enemy, they closed ranks and fought on: and they all died where they were, each man fighting at his post. Alexander sold their children and women into slavery, and repopulated the city from the surrounding area: it then served as a garrison town in his prosecution of the war.
(Arrian's Anabasis, II.25.4-27.7, translated by Martin Hammond.)
*
For the cities that Alexander's armies visited, the choice was simple: they could submit or resist. Submission was rewarded; resistance was punished.
Shakespeare's Henry V spelled it out for the citizens of Harfleur:
The gates of mercy shall be all shut up, And the fleshed soldier, rough and hard of heart, In liberty of bloody hand, shall range With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring infants. What is it then to me if impious war, Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends, Do with his smirched complexion all fell feats Enlinked to waste and desolation? What is ’t to me, when you yourselves are cause, If your pure maidens fall into the hand Of hot and forcing violation? What rein can hold licentious wickedness When down the hill he holds his fierce career? We may as bootless spend our vain command Upon th’ enragèd soldiers in their spoil As send precepts to the Leviathan To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur, Take pity of your town and of your people Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command, Whiles yet the cool and temperate wind of grace O’erblows the filthy and contagious clouds Of heady murder, spoil, and villainy. If not, why, in a moment look to see The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand Desire the locks of your shrill-shrieking daughters, Your fathers taken by the silver beards And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls, Your naked infants spitted upon pikes Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen. What say you? Will you yield and this avoid Or, guilty in defense, be thus destroyed?
(Henry V, Act III Scene 3)
Henry V is much preoccupied with "Alexander the pig" (as Fluellen calls him). In 1599 Shakespeare was deep in his Plutarch, where the parallel life to Julius Caesar's was Alexander's, and most of the ethical horrors of Alexander's career are exposed and debated here in fifteenth-century Normandy. Shakespeare's Henry, ruthless and fresh-faced and clumsy and winning, has a way of shifting responsibility onto the shoulders of other people that, I suppose, every soldier needs.
*
Arrian's account of the siege of Gaza is the more terrible for its understatement. Unlike Curtius he doesn't tell us how many Gazans were massacred (10,000), and he doesn't even mention the story of the barbarous execution of Batis.
Arrian´s admiration for Alexander was not blind, but his emphasis was on compiling a sober history, drawn from eyewitness accounts. This much happened at least, we can say.
Gaza had been preceded by Tyre, and even before leaving Greece Alexander had razed Thebes to the ground. There were many other atrocities to come; so many, that in Sogdiana and the country of the Mallians the sacked cities don't always have names. If a city's defenders had the temerity to keep the Macedonians waiting, or to wound their leader, the retribution was (as Dryden puts it) "the last extremities of war".
The sun has disappeared behind the peaks of Jabwi, and the shadow of this mountain envelops with a veil of crape the pearl of Orisa's cities, the gentle Kattak, who sleeps at its feet among the forests of cinnamon and sycamore, like a dove resting on a nest of flowers.
II
The day that is dying and the night that is being born contend for a moment, while the blueish mist of twilight spreads its diaphanous wings over the valleys, robbing colour and form from objects that seem to waver, disturbed by the breath of a spirit.
III
The confused murmurs of the city, which disperse trembling; the melancholy sighs of the night, swelling from echo to echo repeated by the birds; the thousand mysterious sounds that, like a hymn to the divinity, creation offers at the birth and death of the star that gives it life, unite with the murmur of the Jawkior, whose waves are kissed by the evening breeze, producing a song, sweet, vague, and lost like the final notes of an improvisation by a temple dancer.
.....
I
Ha desaparecido el sol tras las cimas del Jabwi, y la sombra de esta montaña envuelve con un velo de crespón a la perla de las ciudades de Orisa, a la gentil Kattak, que duerme a sus pies, entre los bosques de canela y sicómoros, semejante a una paloma que descansa sobre un nido de flores.
II
El día que muere y la noche que nace luchan un momento, mientras la azulada niebla del crepúsculo tiende sus alas diáfanas sobre los valles, robando el color y las formas a los objetos, que parecen vacilar agitados por el soplo de un espíritu.
III
Los confusos rumores de la ciudad, que se evaporan temblando; los melancólicos suspiros de la noche, que se dilatan de eco en eco repetidos por las aves; los mil ruidos misteriosos, que como un himno a la divinidad levanta la creación, al nacer y al morir el astro que la vivifica, se unen al murmullo del Jawkior, cuyas ondas besa la brisa de la tarde, produciendo un canto dulce, vago y perdido como las últimas notas de la improvisación de una bayadera.
.....
These are the opening paragraphs from Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's "The Chieftain of the Red Hands" ("El caudillo de las manos rojas"), published in 1858.
The startling, perfumed style of Bécquer's Indian tale is said to have had great influence on modernismo.
This rapt scene of twilight beyond the city walls will be shattered by violence. Pulo is attacked by his elder brother and kills him, thus acquiring both his brother's kingdom and Siannah, the woman he loves, but he will be racked by guilt. The story concerns his stupendous labours to win redemption; twice almost achieving it, but each time let down by his own warm nature. We see that this everyman's passionate commitment to doing things the right way is all of a piece with the over-eagerness that defeats him.
*
The young, sickly Bécquer had no acquaintance with India; this legend was dreamt out of deep reading in orientalist texts in French and German.
The city that Bécquer called Kattak is now known internationally as Cuttack (Odia: Kataka). The state that he called Orisa is now transliterated as Odisha.
Cuttack is in fact on the river Mahanadi, at the head of its delta; Bécquer invented the river Jawkior. He also invented the mountain Jabwi; there are some low hills around Cuttack but no peaks.
What he didn't invent was the city's reputation for beauty. It is a historic city (e.g. the 10th-century Barabati fort). It is given the traditional honorific "Kataka Nagara Dhabala Tagara", which means "Cuttack, White City of Tagara". Tagara is the common and beautiful shrub Pinwheel Jasmine (Tabernaemontana divaricata).
Leyendas was put together after Bécquer's death and both its contents and sequence vary from one edition to another. At its core are 17 stories, but others are often added.
Given the fame of Leyendas in the Spanish-speaking world I was astonished that I couldn't track down an English translation of "El caudillo de las manos rojas".
Most of the stories were translated by Cornelia Frances Bates and her daughter Katharine Lee Bates as Romantic Legends of Spain (1909), but they left out the two Indian stories:
I think I had better steer Google Translate through a few more paragraphs...
IV
Night conquers; the sky is crowned with stars, and the towers of Kattak, to rival it, wear diadems of torches. Who is this chieftain who appears at the foot of its walls, at the same time that the moon rises among light clouds beyond the mountains, at whose feet the Ganges runs like an immense blue serpent with silver scales?
V
It is he. What other warrior, of those who fly like an arrow to combat and to death at the standard of Shiva, meteor of glory, with his hair adorned with the red tail-feather of the bird of the Indian gods, the gold tortoise pendant, the agate-handled dagger hanging from his yellow cashmere shawl: who but Pulo-Dheli, Rajah of Dakka, lightning-bolt of battles and brother of Tippot-Dheli, magnificent king of Orisa, lord of lords, shadow of God and son of the luminous stars?
VI
It is he: no other knows thus to lend his eyes either the melancholy glow of the morning star, or the sinister gleam of a tiger's pupil: imparting to his dark features the splendor of a serene night, or the terrible aspect of a storm on the lofty peaks of Davalaguiri. It is he; but what is he waiting for?
VII
Do you hear the leaves sigh beneath the light foot of a maiden? Do you see the ends of her diaphanous shawl and the hems of her white gown floating among the shadows? Do you perceive the fragrance that precedes her like the messenger of a genie? Wait, and you will behold her in the first ray of the solitary traveler of the night; wait, and you will meet Siannah, the betrothed of the mighty Tippot-Dheli, the lover of his brother, the maiden whom the poets of his nation compare to the smile of Bermach, which shone upon the world when it came from his hands; a heavenly smile, the first dawn of the orbs.
VIII
Pulo hears the sound of her footsteps; his face lights up like a peak touched by the first ray of the sun, and he comes out to meet her. His heart, which has not throbbed in the fire of the fight, nor in the presence of the tiger, beats violently under the hand that reaches out for him, fearing that the happiness it can no longer contain will overflow. "Pulo!" "Siannah!" they exclaim upon seeing each other, and they fall into each other's arms. Meanwhile, the Jawkior, splashing the wings of the zephyr with its waves, flees to die in the Ganges, and the Ganges to the Bay of Bengal, and the Gulf to the Ocean. Everything flees: with the waters, the hours; with the hours, happiness; with happiness, life. Everything flees to merge in the head of Shiva, whose brain is chaos, whose eyes are destruction, and whose essence is nothingness.
IX
The morning star already announces the day; the moon fades like a dissipating illusion, and dreams, those children of darkness, flee with her in fantastic groups. The two lovers still remain under the green fan of a palm tree, silent witness to their love and their vows, when a dull noise rises behind them.
Pulo turns his head, utters a shrill, light cry like that of a jackal, and springs back ten paces in a single leap, simultaneously flashing the blade of his sharp Damascus dagger.
X
What has struck terror into the soul of the brave chieftain? Are the two eyes shining in the darkness those of the striped tiger or the terrible serpent? No. Pulo fears neither the king of the forests nor the king of reptiles; those flame-breathing pupils belong to a man, and that man is his brother.
His brother, whose only love he has stolen; his brother, who has banished him from Orisa; and who, finally, has vowed his death if he ever returns to Kattak, placing his hand on the altar of his God.
XI
Siannah sees him too, feels her blood freeze in her veins, and she stands transfixed, as if Death's hand had grasped her by the hair. The two rivals gaze for a moment at each other from head to toe; they contend with their stares, and then, uttering a hoarse, savage cry, they rush at each other like two leopards vying for prey... Let us draw a veil over the crimes of our ancestors; let us draw a veil over the scenes of mourning and horror caused by the passions of those who are already in the bosom of the Great Spirit.
XII
The sun rises in the East; you would say, seeing it, that the genius of light, the conqueror of shadows, heady with pride and majesty, is launching himself in triumph on his diamond chariot, leaving behind him, like the wake of a ship, the gold dust his steeds raise on the pavement of the heavens. The waters, the forests, the birds, space, and the worlds have but one voice, and this voice intones the hymn of the day. Who does not feel their heart leap with joy at the echoes of this solemn canticle?
XIII
Only one mortal; see him there. His wide eyes are fixed with a stupefied gaze on the blood staining his hands. In vain, emerging from his immobility and seized by a terrible frenzy, he runs to wash them. He runs to the banks of the Jawkior; beneath the crystalline waves, the stains disappear; but no sooner does he withdraw his hands than the blood, steaming and red, stains them again. And he returns to the waves, and the stain reappears, until at last he exclaims in a tone of terrible despair: "Siannah! Siannah! The curse of heaven has fallen upon our heads."
Do you know that wretch, at whose feet lies a corpse and whose knees a woman embraces? He is Pulo-Dheli, king of Orisa, magnificent lord of lords, shadow of God and son of the luminous stars, through the death of his brother and predecessor...
[End of Chapter 1]
*
Ganges: Bécquer seems to locate Cuttack much closer to the Ganges and the Himalayas than it really is (in fact, it is over 400 miles to the south).
Davalaguiri: i.e. Daulaghiri in Nepal, the world's seventh highest mountain.
Bermach: apparently the creator-god Brahma. (But Bécquer names him "Brahma" in his other Indian tale, "La Creación".)
Maurice Maeterlinck's Pelléas and Mélisande (1892)
[Image source: https://sibeliusone.com/music-for-the-theatre/pelleas-et-melisande/ . Photo: The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (SLS). It shows a still from the 1905 production of Pelléas och Mélisande at the Swedish Theatre in Helsinki (translation by Bertel Gripenberg with incidental music by Sibelius). Mélisande was played by Gabrielle Tavastjerna and Pelléas by Gunnar Wingård.]
*
Scene 3: The vaults of the castle
Scène 3: Les souterrains du château
Enter GOLAUD and PÉLLÉAS.
Entrent GOLAUD et PÉLLÉAS.
GOLAUD.
Take care; this way, this way.—You have never penetrated into these vaults?
Prenez garde ; par ici, par ici. – Vous n’avez jamais pénétré dans ces souterrains ?
PÉLLÉAS.
Yes; once, of old; but it was long ago….
Si, une fois, dans le temps ; mais il y a longtemps…
GOLAUD.
They are prodigious great; it is a succession of enormous crypts that end, God knows where. The whole castle is builded on these crypts. Do you smell the deathly odor that reigns here?—That is what I wished to show you. In my opinion, it comes from the little underground lake I am going to have you see. Take care; walk before me, in the light of my lantern. I will warn you when we are there. (They continue to walk in silence.) Hey! hey! Pélléas! stop! stop!— (He seizes him by the arm.) For God's sake!… Do you not see?—One step more, and you had been in the gulf!…
Ils sont prodigieusement grands; c’est une suite de grottes énormes qui aboutissent, Dieu sait où. Tout le château est bâti sur ces grottes. Sentez-vous l’odeur mortelle qui règne ici ? – C’est ce que je voulais vous faire remarquer. Selon moi, elle provient du petit lac souterrain que je vais vous faire voir. Prenez garde; marchez devant moi, dans la clarté de ma lanterne. Je vous avertirai lorsque nous y serons. (Ils continuent à marcher en silence.) Hé ! Hé ! Pelléas ! arrêtez ! arrêtez ! (Il le saisit par le bras.) Pour Dieu !… Mais ne voyez-vous pas ? – Un pas de plus et vous étiez dans le gouffre !…
PÉLLÉAS
But I did not see it!… The lantern no longer lighted me….
Mais je n’y voyais pas !… La lanterne ne m’éclairait plus…
GOLAUD.
I made a misstep…. but if I had not held you by the arm…. Well, this is the stagnant water that I spoke of to you…. Do you perceive the smell of death that rises?—Let us go to the end of this overhanging rock, and do you lean over a little. It will strike you in the face.
J’ai fait un faux pas… mais si je ne vous avais pas retenu le bras… Eh bien, voici l’eau stagnante dont je vous parlais… Sentez-vous l’odeur de mort qui monte ? – Allons jusqu’au bout de ce rocher qui surplombe et penchez-vous un peu. Elle viendra vous frapper au visage.
PÉLLÉAS.
I smell it already;… you would say a smell of the tomb.
Je la sens déjà… On dirait une odeur de tombeau.
GOLAUD.
Further, further…. It is this that on certain days has poisoned the castle. The King will not believe it comes from here.—The crypt should be walled up in which this standing water is found. It is time, besides, to examine these vaults a little. Have you noticed those lizards on the walls and pillars of the vaults?—There is a labor hidden here you would not suspect; and the whole castle will be swallowed up one of these nights, if it is not looked out for. But what will you have? nobody likes to come down this far…. There are strange lizards in many of the walls…. Oh! here … do you perceive the smell of death that rises?
Plus loin, plus loin… C’est elle qui, certains jours, empoisonne le château. Le roi ne veut pas croire qu’elle vient d’ici. – il faudrait faire murer la grotte où se trouve cette eau morte. Il serait temps d’ailleurs d’examiner ces souterrains. Avez-vous remarqué ces lézardes dans les murs et les piliers de voûtes ? – Il y a ici un travail caché qu’on ne soupçonne pas ; et tout le château s’engloutira une de ces nuits, si l’on n’y prend pas garde. Mais que voulez-vous ? personne n’aime à descendre jusqu’ici… Il y a d’étranges lézardes dans bien des murs… Oh ! voici… sentez-vous l’odeur de mort qui s’élève?
PÉLLÉAS.
Yes; there is a smell of death rising about us….
Oui, il y a une odeur de mort qui monte autour de nous…
GOLAUD.
Lean over; have no fear…. I will hold you … give me … no, no, not your hand … it might slip … your arm, your arm!… Do you see the gulf? (Moved.)—Pélléas? Pélléas?…
Penchez-vous ; n’ayez pas peur… Je vous tiendrai… donnez-moi… non, non, pas la main… elle pourrait glisser… le bras, le bras… Voyez-vous le gouffre ? (Troublé.) – Pelléas ? Pelléas ?…
PÉLLÉAS.
Yes; I think I see the bottom of the gulf…. Is it the light that trembles so?… You … (He straightens up, turns, and looks at GOLAUD.)
Oui ; je crois que je vois le fond du gouffre… Est-ce la lumière qui tremble ainsi?… Vous… (Il se redresse, se retourne et regarde GOLAUD.)
GOLAUD (with a trembling voice).
Yes; it is the lantern…. See, I shook it to lighten the walls….
(d’une voix tremblante). Oui ; c’est la lanterne… Voyez, je l’agitais pour éclairer les parois…
Being more familiar with even older plays than Pelléas and Mélisande I couldn't help being reminded of the scene in Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling where Deflores takes Alonzo for a tour of the "full strength" of the castle in Alicante.
Unlike Alonzo, Pelléas gets out alive. Late the previous night Golaud ran across his half-brother messing around with Golaud's young wife Mélisande (III.2). He's thoroughly disturbed, but he isn't sure.
During the visit to the vaults Golaud tries to behave as the protective elder brother who talks seriously about serious things, with an underlying message to Pelléas about the need to grow up -- which means, taking care ("si l’on n’y prend pas garde") --, but his own feelings aren't entirely in control, and he twice feints at causing a fatal accident. Maybe he's trying out what it would be like to kill Pelléas. When Pelléas seems about to confront the signs of Golaud's inner disturbance (with the single word "Vous.."), Golaud goes into retreat, and allows Pelléas to lead them out of the vaults.
The half-brothers are doubles to some extent, their actions often shadowing each other. Golaud says (in his letter) that he loves Pelléas "more than a brother". (And he asks Pelléas to place the light to signal his welcome; thus unwittingly preventing his brother from leaving the castle; at least in Arkël's view.) Perhaps Golaud especially wants to show off his new wife to Pelléas.
It's Pelléas who keeps saying "Prenez garde" in the ring scene, and it's he who offers to hold Mélisande's hand when she leans over, he who acts as guide to the underworld in the grotto scene. When Golaud drags Mélisande around by the hair, we remember Pelléas playfully tying her hair to the willow.
*
In the dream-like world of the play, characters can merge. So can times; what is happening has already happened, what is going to happen is already happening now. So can places, for instance the play's two springs and this stagnant lake and the two lakes in the grotto. Over-definite interpretations are sure to fall short. But in the notes that follow I'll probably make some over-definite interpretations of my own.
Act I Scene 1: opening the castle gate. The servants.
At the castle gate, which for a wonder is actually opened. It signals something new: the start of a story, the arrival of a new and unexpected character (Mélisande). The maidservants (cf. V.1) recognize her as one of their own, simply because she's a stranger to the castle's ruling family.
Act I Scene 2: Golaud finds Mélisande in a forest.
Golaud is an unfulfilled hunter, prominent actor or non-actor in the sad fossilised world of this castle family: activity without change.
Mélisande's past. It basically mirrors her future relationship with Golaud; someone makes her into a princess, she is hurt, she escapes. That's her story. Golaud, appointing himself her rescuer, risks simply repeating the hurt.
Act I Scene 3. Arkël, Genevieve, Pelléas. Golaud's letter, announcing his marriage.
Arkël is nearly blind. He is wise so doesn't learn: he uses his feeble remaining authority to stop Pelléas leaving. Families cling.
Genevieve is the mother of Golaud and Pelléas, the daughter of Arkël, the wife of Pelléas' father who is supposedly on his deathbed somewhere in the castle. Despite all these connections Genevieve plays a very minor role in the action, disappearing after the next scene (except for offstage glimpses of her with Mélisande (III.4) and her husband (IV.1)).
Act I Scene 4. Looking at the sea; Pelléas and Mélisande beginning to converse.
Genevieve treats Mélisande as a mirror of herself, forty years on. -- But Golaud, making his second marriage (which he realizes may be called folly), does not seem to want just another steadfast castle wife. He gets his wish.
The ship that they see leaving (perhaps to be wrecked) is the ship that Golaud and Mélisande arrived on. Mélisande's anxiety registers her sense of being irrevocably here in the castle, now and forever.
Act II Scene 1. Pelléas and Mélisande at the spring: dropping the ring.
It would be over-literalistic to say that Mélisande lies to Pelléas when she says that Golaud "voulait m’embrasser…"; it's true that the text of I.2 doesn't suggest that he tried to kiss her, but she might well understand that he wanted to.
The spring water is deep. We are in a life where we cannot see to the bottom of things.
Act II Scene 2. Golaud injured; Mélisande's unhappiness. Golaud's agitation over the loss of the ring.
One finds blood in Golaud's vicinity, often his own (as here).
Mélisande makes her own vain request to leave the castle.
Act II Scene 3: Pelléas and Mélisande at the grotto at night.
We will find out later (IV.2) that Mélisande revisits the grotto in the day.
There is a famine in the land (but not the ruling family). It is acknowledged but there's an assumption that nothing can be done. Like the bottomless waters or the insufficient light, it images the conditions of everyone's life.
Act II Scene 4. Pelléas reiterates his plea to leave.
Pelléas has once more asked Arkël if he can leave the castle. The difference (compared to I.3) is that he has now met Mélisande. His request now (like Mélisande's in II.2) is about fleeing temptation; something that neither of them can say.
Arkël continues to argue against it. He says that meaningful activity consists not in undertaking "useless" journeys but in seizing opportunities here on one's own threshold. It seems to be just a debating point as none of the castle residents seem to seize such opportunities. (This, by the way, is the same Arkël who said that "there are perhaps no useless events"... (I.3)).
Act III Scene 1. Mélisande spinning, Pelléas, then Yniold, then Golaud.
Mélisande "file sa quenouille", that is, plies her distaff. Productions infer the presence of a spinning-wheel. The visual image suggests her domestic future, and also the threads of destiny.
The scene is outwardly peaceful, but both Pelléas and Mélisande are agitated: sexual tension, thinking that Golaud won't return tonight?
Pelléas's agitation comes out in his jumpy response to Yniold knocking at the door. Mélisande's agitation comes out in her less than honest denial when Yniold says she's going away. Yniold evidently caught some of her conversation with Golaud (II.2).
Yniold seems to intuit that the pair are already lovers. (i.e when he doesn't want to go to bed before Pelléas does.)
Pelléas and Mélisande weeping: frustration, when Golaud unexpectedly returns?
Act III Scene 2. Mélisande brushing her hair at the tower window: Pelléas, then Golaud.
For her song, see note on versions below. You could suppose that it's late on the same evening as the previous scene, since Mélisande is singing the same song (in the original text).
Pelléas, playing with her hair, entangling her. This evening both are courting an accident, like the earlier loss of the ring.
Alleging that her hair is more affectionate than Mélisande herself; maybe he refers to her refusal to give him her hand if he is going away. In the folded time of the play Pelléas is always going away, but never does.
Is the rose in the shadows that Mélisande sees actually the approach of Golaud, the man of blood?
Act III Scene 3 (text above). Golaud and Pelléas.
The castle vaults. Is the castle really diseased, tainted, accursed, as scenes like this one suggest? Yes, but not especially. As "Allemonde" the castle represents the life we all experience, with its questionable and unplumbable foundations, its absence of illumination, etc.
There are two opposed interpretations that depend on seeing Mélisande as coming from outside the castle; is she an innocent victim who is overcome by an accursed place, or is she a femme fatale who brings destruction to a tranquil family? Both interpretations are far too simplistic; neither can be entirely dismissed. But also, Mélisande represents the fairytale insight that we all feel like strangers to the wildernesses and dungeons of our own lives.
Act III Scene 4: Outside the vaults. Golaud and Pelléas.
A briefly mundane conversation, as if Pelléas is trying to bury the tainted vaults in oblivion and to recover a belief in safe normality.
Golaud gives his warning to Pelléas. Mélisande, Golaud says, is delicate, possibly pregnant. Golaud does not expect a response from Pelléas: his authority is enough. And if not... the threat is palpable.
Golaud characteristically notes the herds going to slaughter. Compare the sheep in IV.3.
Act III Scene 5. Golaud and Yniold.
Golaud is active now. First the diktat of authority, but also information gathering; he is insecure.
As in the vaults scene, he uses the excuse of stumbling this time when he hurts Yniold.
Yniold was already upset (III.1). Sensing Golaud's emotions, he doesn't want to say all that he fears himself. Even so, his answers wouldn't calm a jealous person. Pelléas and Mélisande quarrelling could be interpreted as Yniold overhearing impassioned conversation or even sexual ecstasy. When do they quarrel? When the door is closed (he says they quarrel about the door that won't stay open), when it's dark (he says they quarrel about the light), when Yniold is absent (he says they are afraid when he isn't there)....
In the last part of the scene Yniold says that Pelléas and Mélisande are standing apart looking at the light and waiting. Whatever this means, and whether or not Yniold is reporting truly, Pelléas is not following Golaud's instruction to avoid Mélisande (III.4).
Act IV Scene 1. Pelléas asks to meet Mélisande "tonight".
He reports his father's recovery and the advice to travel; he is leaving. Pelléas appears thrilled. Mélisande remarks "I no longer understand what you say" and she isn't the only one.
Pelléas mentions that there are now strangers in the castle. Their function is baffling, but it adds to a general sense of alienation: that the time of Pelléas and Mélisande being mournfully together is now over. And because it's over, it can and must become something else.
Act IV Scene 2. Arkël and Mélisande, then Golaud.
Arkël quite astray, and feebly replicating his grandsons' possessive attraction to beauty.
Golaud's violent abuse of Mélisande.
Golaud says he is not a spy (untruly), but his comment about "it is the custom" shows that he has an Othello-like honour killing in mind.
Mélisande begins the scene by saying she has not been unhappy, and ends it by saying she is not happy.
Act IV Scene 3. Yniold.
Yniold and the boulder, and the flock of sheep. The latter presumably going to slaughter (compare III.4).
Act IV Scene 4. A spring in the park: the same setting as II.1. Pelléas, then Mélisande, then Golaud.
Pelléas continues to show intermittent signs of joy: his jarring laughter. But the lovers' declarations, their passionate embraces, are hedged around with sadness, weeping and the imminence of death. They accept everything.
Act V Scene 1. The servants talk, and assemble for Mélisande's death.
The fifth servant's wise comment: "You would think they had all done it together". Golaud has tried to kill himself, unsuccessfully. Mélisande has been slightly wounded and three days ago gave premature birth to a tiny daughter. The servants understand that Mélisande will die.
Act V Scene 2. Mélisande's deathbed. Arkël, Golaud, the Physician, Mélisande, the servants.
Golaud's guilt. Golaud wants a certainty that Mélisande can't give him. He wants to know whether or not he was justified, but who can ever tell you that?
Mélisande is far away, halfway to another world. She appears not to know that Pelléas is dead.
Arkël says that it isn't Golaud's fault. By any usual assessment it surely is his fault. I can't help thinking that Arkël is mainly concerned with damage limitation. If preserving appearances means the family colluding in a lie, so be it. Make his one remaining grandson an outcast or a suicide, and then they really have nothing left.
(Golaud tells Mélisande that he's dying, but my impression -- like the Old Servant's in V.1 -- is that he's not in serious danger. Compare II.2: "I am made of iron and blood... These are not the little bones of a child...".)
Mélisande, 1895-98 painting by Marianne Stokes.
[Image source: Wikipedia . The painting is in the Ateneum Art Museum in Helsinki. Marianne Stokes (1855 - 1927) was an Austrian by birth, married to fellow artist Adrian Scott Stokes. ]
The names are broadly medieval and suggestive of a Franco-German sphere (e.g. Allemonde, the kingdom, which also suggests "the whole world"). When the play was premiered in 1893, Maeterlinck asked for the costumes to be in the style of Memling (German-Flemish painter, c. 1430 - 1494).
Pelléas or Pellès was one of the names of the fisher king (Amfortas in Wagner's Parsival). Another Pellias was a knight of the round table in the post-Vulgate cycle and in Malory.
Mélisande was an Old French name with Germanic roots (it became Millicent in English). E.g. Melisende the Queen of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1143. In Maeterlinck's 1899 play Ariane and Bluebeard (turned into an opera by Paul Dukas), the names of Bluebeard's other wives are taken from earlier Maeterlinck plays, and they include Mélisande: at the end of the play these wives (unlike Ariane) choose to remain with Bluebeard. (You would have to be extremely literal-minded to describe Ariane and Bluebeard as a "prequel" or to infer that at the start of Pelléas and Mélisande she has just escaped from Bluebeard -- who certainly didn't give his wives crowns to wear!)
Golaud is Golo in German. Golo was also the name of the villainous majordomo in the legend of Genevieve of Brabant (modern readers will most likely have encountered it via the opening pages of Proust). The (ultimately medieval) legend was apparently a popular subject for performance by puppet companies in the 18th century, which might be relevant to Maeterlink wanting his plays to be performed by marionettes.
*
Links to online texts (I can't vouch for their accuracy, but they'll give you an idea) and a simplified account of their relationship.
Pélléas et Mélisande (1892)
First published edition (1892).
Mélisande's song at the start of Act III Sc 2 is "Mes longs cheveux".
This was Maeterlinck's second revision since the original 1892 text.
Most significantly, Mélisande's song at the start of Act III Sc 2 is now "Les trois sœurs aveugles" (as it had been ever since the 1893 stage premier). (This song formed part of the play's English, German, Swedish and Finnish acting texts; hence Fauré's incidental music for an English production in 1898 -- translation by J.W. Mackail --, and Sibelius' incidental music for a Swedish-language production in 1905. -- translation by Bertel Gripenberg.)
Note that the first "e" in "Pelléas" no longer has an accent.
The French text as used in Debussy's opera, drafted in 1893-1895, with full orchestral score in 1898 and first performance on 30 April 1902.
He basically composed direct from Maeterlinck's 1892 text (no librettist), but he omitted four scenes entirely: As originally numbered, they were Act I Sc 1 (at the castle gate), Act II Sc 4 (Pelléas once more conceding to Arkël's wish for him to stay), Act III Sc 1 (Mélisande spins from her distaff; Pelléas, Yniold, Golaud), and Act V Sc 1 (The servants). There are also cuts from the other scenes, e.g. from Golaud's letter, Arkël's subsequent dialogue with Pelléas, the brothers' visit to the castle vaults and their emergence, Golaud's scene with his son, Yniold's scene at the rock...
Mélisande's song is "Mes longs cheveux". (As in the original 1892 edition, but not in any stage performances.) Maeterlinck complained bitterly, though rather unreasonably, about Debussy's failure to incorporate his later revisions.
The omission of V.1 means that the audience doesn't know about Golaud wounding himself, which must make his subsequent claim to be dying rather mysterious.
Maeterlinck's play was very successfully produced by Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1903-04 (there were 57 performances). The incidental music was by Friedrich Bermann; apparently it does not survive. I can't find out anything about Friedrich Bermann, except that he wrote music for several of Reinhardt's productions.
Eija Kurki's very informative article on Sibelius's incidental music and on Scandinavian performances of Maeterlinck's play:
There was also a prelude to Act IV scene 2 (The scene that begins with Arkël sympathising with Mélisande, and ends with Golaud dragging her around by her hair.):
Maeterlinck's play also made it to Russia, in a translation by Valery Bryusov (1873 - 1924). However the 1907 production in St Petersburg, directed by Vsevolod Meyerhold with Vera Komissarzhevskaya as Mélisande, was considered a disaster.
An excellent production by Benjamin Lazar of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande (1902). Malmö Opera Choir and Orchestra, conducted by Maxime Pascal. English subtitles. (Pelléas: Marc Mauillon. Mélisande: Jenny Daviet. Golaud: Laurent Alvaro.
Arnold Schönberg's symphonic poem Pelleas und Melisande (1903), in a thrilling performance by the hr-Sinfonieorchester, conductor David Afkham:
*
Golaud and Mélisande
[Image source: https://www.theatre-odeon.eu/en/pelleas-et-melisandre . From a 2020 production of Maeterlink's play by Julie Duclos for the Odéon Théâtre de l'Europe. Golaud was played by Vincent Dissez and Mélisande by Alix Riemer. Photo by Simon Gosselin.]
Natten river smattrande sin mantel längs pampas. Mörkrets oväder blir en dagstorm in mot Anderna. Solen stiger ur jorden,
ser ned på en flyende boskapshjord som
rusar in i horisonterna mot Tucumana. Gräsmarkerna åska under den uppskrämda hjorden,
flykten dånar som en stad:
en virvlande stad som jagats åt norr
av Eldslandets vindar.
Argentine plains
Night scrapes its cloak rattling across the pampas. The tumult of darkness becomes a day storm over by the Andes.
The sun rises from the earth,
looks down upon a fleeing herd of cattle that
rush into the horizons Tucumán way. The grasslands thunder beneath the frightened herd,
their flight roars like a city,
a flailing city harried northwards
by the winds of Tierra del Fuego.
*
Harry Martinson visited Argentina and other S. American countries during his time as a sailor (1920 - 1927).
The pampas is known for intense thunderstorms and severe hail.
Tucumán province, in NW Argentina.
*
La Pampa
Bakom Don Morjas estancia
började boskapshjorden med några smärre vikar,
sträckte sig sedan åt nordväst
med ett hav av oxar
och en havsbukt av kalvar.
Oceanen av muande nöt gick ända till Corrientes.
Don Morjas blåste i fagott
på sin marmorveranda,
såg på sitt behornade hav med mätta och trötta ögon:
"Undras om inte nordöstra viken
räknat från brokiga kalven här framme
snart kunde drivas mot Pasamadas' fjärran på bete?
Västra grenen till slakt."
La Pampa
Behind Don Morias' estancia
the herd of cattle began with a few minor inlets,
then stretched northwest
with a sea of oxen
and a sea-bay of calves.
The ocean of bellowing cattle went all the way to Corrientes.
Don Morias blew his bassoon
on his marble veranda,
looked at his horned sea with replete and weary eyes:
"I wonder if the northeastern arm
counting from the piebald calf here
can soon be driven towards the distant Pasamadas to pasture?
The western branch to slaughter."
*
La Pampa: province in central Argentina.
Morjas: i.e. Morias in Spanish, but it is not a common surname. (An occasional variant of Moraes or Morais, common Portuguese surnames.)
Corrientes: province in the north of Argentina (not near La Pampa).
Pasamadas: name unknown.
*
Fattig trakt
På sommaren stodo Vendes fältkanoner
och hostade i gräset --
manöveråskorna rullade mot hembyn
och pigorna sjöngo.
Det var som om molnen rämnat
och nakna adonisynglingar regnat ned.
Nymodigheten uppslök en fattig trakt.
Barn plockade gula soldatknappar: maskros på åkern,
och togo hem --
dörrarna smällde igen för dem: -- Asch, sånt gulstrunt!
åt helsike ungar!
Pigor svängde dukar på kullarna:
Hallå, hallåååå! artillerigossar!
Poor district
In the summer, Vendes' field guns stood
and coughed in the grass --
the thunder of manoeuvres rolled towards their home village
and the maids sang.
It was as if the clouds had split
and naked Adonis children had rained down.
The novelty swallowed up a poor district.
Children picked yellow soldier buttons: dandelions in the field,
and took them home --
the doors slammed shut on them: -- Ugh, such yellow trash!
Go to hell, children!
Maids waved tablecloths on the hills:
Hello, hellooooo! artillery boys!
*
Vendes' field guns : referring to the Wendes Artillery Regiment (Wendes artilleriregemente), a longstanding regiment in the Swedish army (disbanded in 2000). They were garrisoned in Kristianstad (Skåne), about 40km from Jämshög (Blekinge) where Harry Martinson was born and where as a parish orphan he was placed in various farmsteads
*
Pigor
Minnes barndomens pigor;
tilldels själar
med ödsliga, sensuella ögon;
tilldels höga brösts och mäktiga länders varma
arvsmonument från forna vadmalsland.
Slagfärdiga munnars rop i slåttern;
samsångens pigpsalm i ladugård;
drömmar på knä ibland rovor;
surmjölk i stenkrus på renen.
Det buttra mumlet om Olga
faren i väg till Idaho.
Många tomma pigor sutto
med hängande själar;
men många sutto där stolta: undersamt barnkära
kvinnor
med buttert melodiska röster
mumlande liksom ur myter.
Där fanns pigor med jungfrudunkel,
med legenden i schalen
och digra frågor i hindklara ögon.
Maria gick
med vit andedräkt
över världens höstkalla scen.
Där fanns gitarrens klagande himlapiga.
Den slarviga dansbanelängterskan fanns
och den obstinata flottistpigan
-- fetischdyrkare inför matrosuniformer.
Men underligast höstskymningarnas
trollska längterska,
separatorns vemodiga, tunga prästinna
som bugade och drog, bugade och drog
den mjölkrytande Alfa-lavalen,
med spiselden speglad
i undrande ögon.
Då sjöng det urtrollska bondska i sinnet
som en tung malm.
Buttra talade rösterna.
Barnet låg undrande i vaggan,
jakthunden såg upp från sin korg.
Var det inte som sången om eviga bönder_
Som malmen av givande jord?
Maids
Remembering the maids of childhood;
some of them souls
with desolate, sensual eyes;
some of them high breasts and powerful loins
warm historic monuments from the ancient land of vadmal.
The cries of ready-made mouths in the haystack;
the singing of the young man's hymn in the barn;
dreams on his knees among turnips;
sour milk in stone jugs on the reindeer.
The sullen murmur of Olga
the father on his way to Idaho.
Many empty maids sat
with drooping souls;
but many sat there proud: strangely childlike
women
with sullenly melodic voices
mumbling as if from myths.
There were maids with virgin darkness,
with the legend in their shawls
and huge questions in their clear eyes.
Maria walked
with white breath
over the world's autumn-cold stage.
There was the plaintive heavenly maiden of the guitar.
There was the careless dance-floor-longing girl
and the obstinate navy maid
-- fetish worshipper of sailor uniforms.
But strangest of all was the
magical longing girl of the autumn twilights,
the melancholy, heavy priestess of the separator
who bowed and pulled, bowed and pulled
the milk-roaring Alfa Laval,
with the stove-fire reflected
in her wondering eyes.
Then sang the primordial peasantry in the mind
like a heavy ore.
The voices spoke sullenly.
The child lay wondering in the cradle,
the hunting dog looked up from its basket.
Wasn't it like the song of eternal farmers?
Like the ore of yielding earth?
*
Vadmal: a woollen fabric used for outerwear, durable and waterproof like tweed, but felted so the weave pattern is obscured.
Alfa Laval: the company started in 1883, originally making dairy centrifuges to separate cream from milk (as in the poem), subsequently diversifying to other specialized plant in heavy industry.
*
Some poems by Harry Martinson from the "Grassland" section of his 1934 collection Natur.
Nature normally takes the definite article in Swedish, i.e. naturen, literally "the Nature". So Martinson's title is a slight unmooring.
According to his Swedish Wikipedia entry this "expressionist-tinged collection" met with a cool reception (compared with the success of its 1931 predecessor Nomad) and this led him to concentrate on prose for the next eleven years, e.g. Nässlorna blomma (The nettles flower, 1935), about his broken childhood.
Just before nightfall, that same day, two travel-worn men came riding along a country road toward Old Passage, the ancient ferrying-place where travelers from the south and west of England might cross over into Wales. From an immemorial stream of travel and the wear of weather, the road-bed was worn, like a swift stream's channel, deep below the level of the country. One of the riders kept glancing timidly at the bushy banks above his head, as if he feared to see a soldier in the thicket peering down; his companion sat straight in his saddle, and took no notice of anything but his horse and the slippery road. It had been showery all the afternoon, and they were both spattered with mud from cap to stirrup.
As they came northward, side by side, to the top of a little hill, the anxious rider gave a sigh of relief, and his horse, which limped badly and bore the marks of having been on his knees, whinnied as if in sympathy. The wide gray waters of the Severn were spread to east and west; the headland before them fell off like a cliff. Below, to the westward, the land was edged by a long line of dike which walled the sea floods away from some low meadows that stretched far along the coast. Over the water were drifting low clouds of fog and rain, but there was a dull gleam of red on the western sky like a winter sunset, and the wind was blowing. At the road's end, just before them, was a group of gray stone buildings perched on the high headland above the Severn, like a monastery or place of military defense.
As the travelers rode up to the Passage Inn, the inn yard, with all its stables and outhouses, looked deserted; the sunset gust struck a last whip of rain at the tired men. The taller of the two called impatiently for a hostler before he got stiffly to the ground, and stamped his feet as he stood by his horse. It was a poor tired country nag, with a kind eye, that began to seek some fondling from her rider, as if she harbored no ill will in spite of hardships. The young man patted and stroked the poor creature, which presently dropped her head low, and steamed, as if it were winter weather, high into the cool air.
(From The Tory Lover, Ch 42)
*
I didn't mean to say so much without saying more, now I have touched you with cold water when I only meant just lightly & kindly to sprinkle you as for a new baptism -- that is a re-dedication to altars but briefly, I trust, forsaken. Go back to the dear Country of the Pointed Firs, come back to the palpable present intimate that throbs responsive, & that wants, misses, needs you, God knows, & that suffers woefully in your absence.
Well, The Country of the Pointed Firs (1896), lightly fictionalized vignettes of Maine provincial life, -- this description hardly prepares you for what a wonderful book it is. But The Tory Lover, the book James deplored, is rather wonderful too, in its way. (It helps if you relish historical novels; James was clearly allergic to them.)
*
I must admit I do. I enjoy the most conventional aspects of Jewett's transatlantic romance as much as all the rest. I can idle away a whole morning on the Ranger (e.g. Ch 12), for instance -- there is a complaining sailor called Starbuck on Paul Jones' ship -- so I read about the Starbuck surname and its Nantucket connections and how it came to be attached to the overpriced coffee chain where I spend too much time (but usually drinking tea... I wonder yet again why Starbucks doesn't offer a cortado...) or -- Paul Jones decides to dole out a ration of grog to the crew -- so I go off and read about the history of the naval rum ration. At the same time I'm thinking of how intimately Jewett understood sailing and boats and ships, both from her Maine background and from her constant travels; she and Annie Adams Fields had crossed the Atlantic eight times.
*
NB for British readers: in the context of the American War of Independence, a "Tory" was a term applied to a Loyalist, i.e. an American who still supported British sovereignty; in contrast to the Patriot majority who fought for Independence.
Evidently their opponents saw the loyalists as vaguely resembling the English Tories of a century earlier who had supported the Stuart monarchy. (See the carefully circuitous conversation between Master Sullivan and Mary Hamilton in Ch 17.) At the time of the American Revolution, however, the British monarch was a Hanoverian, and his government was predominantly Whiggish.
*
Reading Jewett's books often produces that kind of conviction: that she knows what she's talking about, that she had lived every paragraph that she wrote. Especially of course in her Maine writings. And yet it wasn't always that simple.
After we returned to the parlor Mr. James took occasion to tell Sarah how deeply and sincerely he appreciates her work; how he re-reads it with increasing admiration. "It is foolish to ask, I know," he said, "but were you in just such a place as you describe in the 'Pointed Firs'? --" "No," she said, "not precisely; the book was chiefly written before I visited the locality itself --" "And such an island?" he continued. "Not exactly," she said again. "Ah! I thought so," he said musingly; "and the language -- It is so absolutely true -- not a word overdone -- such elegance and exactness."
[from Annie Fields' diary, 12 September 1898.]
Jewett was in fact a master at making readers believe that she possessed local knowledge even when she didn't; just like Kipling, who greatly admired her writings.
The Tory Lover begins in Maine, but later the scene shifts to England, and it was then that I had my own moment of conviction, while I was reading the scene in which our heroine Mary Hamilton accompanies the elderly Mr Davis on a ride from Bristol to Bath along the Avon valley, countryside that I know very well.
The fields and hedges, the bright foxglove and green ivy, the larks and blackbirds and quiet robins, the soft air against her cheeks, ..... this hazy landscape along the Avon... "You may see Bath now, there in the valley," said Mr. Davis, pointing with his big hand and the hunting crop. "'T is as fine a ride from Bristol to Bath as any you may have in England." They stopped their horses, a little short of breath, and looked down the rich wooded country to the bright town below.
(From The Tory Lover, Ch 35)
She must have been there! I found myself thinking. It was not because of the presence of any unusual fact, it was somehow the understanding of the topography and its proportions, the hazy Avon, the mild climate, Bath gleaming in its rather steep valley; things you can't easily convey in a guidebook, but instantly grasp when you go there.
I didn't know much about Jewett's European travels at that point. Later, I did some research (see below); and sure enough, in July 1892 she had indeed spent a few days in Bristol, or rather Westbury on Trym (still just about separate). The Egyptologist Amelia Edwards had lived at "The Larches" until her recent death. Jewett had become friends with Miss Edwards and her assistant Kate Bradbury during their 1889 lecture tour. Now Kate was trying to sort out what to do about the contents of Miss Edwards' house, in particular the important library.
Kate was very busy, but Jewett was an energetic sightseer. She would certainly have taken herself up to nearby Clifton Down and from there down to Bristol cathedral (the setting for an important scene in The Tory Lover). She could conceivably have taken a trip to Bath .... but then I thought of something. She must have arrived by train from Paddington, so she would already have passed through Bath and the Avon valley on her way to Bristol. Pleasant as it is to imagine Sarah Orne Jewett traversing this July landscape on horseback like her heroine, it's most likely that she just looked out of the train window. Her glance could take in everything, and then bring it forth eight years later when she needed it for her historical romance.
She wasn't planning The Tory Lover then, as far as we know. But by the time she returned to Europe in 1898, she certainly was. And a pattern emerges. In the novel, Paul Jones and Lieutenant Wallingford travel from Nantes via Vitré to Paris. Jewett herself, researching the locations, was staying in Paris; it was from here that she visited both Vitré and Nantes, in each case by train. So Jewett (unlike her model Sir Walter Scott, eighty years earlier) was using modern transportation methods -- train and passenger ship -- to whiz around France and England. Her life, once away from provincial South Berwick, assumed the hub-and-spoke shape that still characterizes the travels of the wealthy (the hubs being e.g. London or Paris). But in her imagined world of 1778, there was no rail network and her characters are shown travelling arduously cross-country between her endpoints -- by horse power (e.g. Nantes to Vitré, Bristol to Plymouth). This single alteration, you might say, went a long way towards creating the conditions of historical romance.
*
But what then of the Old Passage Inn, scene of the novel's denouement? The building still exists (it's now a private house) and Jewett's topography is remarkably accurate, as Graham Frater commented (in Terry Heller's edition, linked below). Charles Woodbury's splendid illustration, however, romanticized the contours of a landscape that is really rather flat (compare my photo at the end of this post).
There was indeed a dike or sea-wall running south from Old Passage (Mary Hamilton and Mr Davis will later arrive by that route). The headland does indeed end in a cliff (Aust cliff); this is where the Severn Bridge was constructed in the 1960s.
Could Jewett have gone there in 1892? Well, it's possible. She was very interested in rivers and from Westbury on Trym she might have been tempted down to the shores of the Severn; she was also interested in neglected harbours, but it was about a ten mile walk to Old Passage. More likely she would have taken a carriage. Still, it doesn't seem a very probable destination when you are only in Bristol for a few days.
The most obvious reason that a tourist would go to Old Passage would have been to take a ferry across the Severn. But after the Severn rail tunnel came into operation in 1886, the ferry service at Old Passage no longer ran. In 1892 the inn must have been disused or nearly so. (And anyway though Jewett travelled widely in Ireland and England, as well as staying in Edinburgh twice, there's no record of her ever visiting the other side of the Severn.)
If she didn't see the Old Passage Inn with her own eyes, what's the alternative? How could she know so much about its setting, how did she know (for instance) about the Welsh drovers who used the ferry and stayed at the inn? She might have seen accounts in earlier literature, but I haven't found any with that level of detail. Most likely, the information came from someone she knew, perhaps one of her many English friends.
*
There's another strange thing about the Old Passage scenes in The Tory Lover. They had to some extent been anticipated by "A Dark Night", a story she wrote in 1895 for Bacheller, Johnson and Bacheller (a publishing syndicate): it appeared in the Philadelphia Press.
Compare this paragraph from "A Dark Night" with the first one quoted above.
As night was falling two mounted messengers, spattered with mud from cap to stirrup, were riding wearily along a deep, worn country lane. They were in the north part of the county of Somerset, near the waters of the Severn. The lane itself, deserted enough that night, was a great thoroughfare for those who came from the south and west to cross over into Wales. By this immemorial stream of travel and the wearing of the weather it had been worn like a swift stream's channel, deep below the level of the country. One of the riders kept glancing fearfully at the bushy banks above him, as if he expected to see a head in the thicket peering down. The other man rode straight and stern in his saddle, and took no notice of anything but his horse and the slippery road.
(from "A Dark Night", Ch 1)
In "A Dark Night" the location is obfuscated and contradictory. The two riders, explicitly said to be "riding northward", are travelling towards Bristol from an unamed town in the West of England. This is consistent with them being on the Somerset coast; that is, on the Bristol Channel. But the historic county of Somerset didn't extend to the Severn: the boundary with Gloucestershire lay further south, at the Avon.
Nevertheless, the travellers in "A Dark Night" reach the banks of the Severn, even though this would mean that they've already gone beyond Bristol. And it's apparent from the topography that the "old Black Eagle Inn", where they shortly arrive, is based on the Old Passage Inn. Here is the headland, the dike, the cliff and the Severn. The mistress of the inn tells the new arrivals that "She had ceased to keep the tavern since the travel had all gone, or been stolen away to the lower ferry"; a remark that makes perfect sense if this is the Old Passage at Aust, the "lower ferry" being the New Passage at Pilning.
[This would suggest that "A Dark Night" is set in the late 18th-early 19th century, a period when the New Passage had gained the upper hand. The Old Passage recovered its primacy in the late 1820s, with two steamboats financed by the Duke of Beaufort, then gradually lost trade as the railway network spread; and in 1863 it reached New Passage. (Much later, there would be a resurrection of the Old Passage: a car ferry would ply between Aust and Beachey. It operated from 1926 until 1966.)]
The obfuscation, I suppose, seemed necessary because "A Dark Night" (unlike The Tory Lover) portrayed the inn as a den of thieves. For the two stories, after similar openings, take very different courses. Nevertheless, both are founded on a common image, comprising e.g. the two travel-stained horsemen, the rainy weather, nightfall, the sunken lane, the Severn scenery of Old Passage, the unfriendly-looking inn, stabling the horses, the fishing-boat by the shore, and various other details.
I feel it's right to understand this as a pre-existent image, because in both stories Jewett sought to preserve elements that were not strictly necessary. In "A Dark Night", as we've seen, Jewett retained the scenery of Old Passage even though the story purports to take place elsewhere. Likewise in The Tory Lover she preserved the second rider (the anxious one) who accompanies the straight-backed hero, though Hammet (in The Tory Lover) has no such important role as his predecessor Rogers. She also preserved the red sunset and the steaming horse, details natural to the winter setting of "A Dark Night" but which are tagged as "like winter" in The Tory Lover, where it's in fact late summer.
All the same, I feel a stubborn conviction that bad weather in late summer was the "true" context of the image. But maybe that's just another testament to Jewett's skill. (And maybe I'm influenced by knowing that she never saw the west of England in winter; a very different thing from winter in Maine.)
From A New and Accurate Description of All the Direct and Principal Cross Roads in England and Wales, and Part of the Roads of Scotland by Lieutenant-Colonel [Daniel] Paterson, 1811. It's on Google Books .
*
If you just want to read The Tory Lover, the simplest and best way is on Project Gutenberg:
But if you want to dive a little deeper, or even a lot deeper, you'll be delighted and instructed by the annotated edition lovingly put together by Terry Heller in 2023 (downloadable as three PDFs):
More or less all the information in this post comes either from there or (as regards their travels to Europe) from Sarah Orne Jewett's correspondence and Annie Field's diary:
(Locations relevant to The Tory Lover are in bold.)
Sarah Orne Jewett [SOJ] and Annie Fields [AF] travelled to Europe in 1882, 1892, 1898 and 1900.
1882
(May-Oct)
Cork, Glengarriff, Enniskillen, Dublin, London, Isle of Wight, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Dawlish, Clovelly, Exeter, Lynton, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwick, Hull (then by ship to Norway, visiting the Ole Bulls), back to Edinburgh and London, then Antwerp, Amsterdam, down the Rhine, Interlaken, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome, Genoa, Paris, London.
1892
27 Feb - c. 4 Oct
SOJ and AF sailed to Genoa, a rough crossing. In Italy until June, then France, arriving England in mid (?) July. The details of their first days in England are relatively poorly documented, but it seems they came to London, had some days at Bristol, perhaps back to London and then to Ilkley in late July.
----- We had some days near Bristol at Miss Edwards's house with Katie Bradbury -- it was like a visit to a ghost by which I have no idea of saying that it was altogether sad -- on the contrary! and her library is a room you would like dearly. One always felt that she must be coming into it next minute. I shall tell you much more than this about the Larches some day.
Sarah Orne Jewett to Sarah Wyman Whitman - Letter from Ilkley, 30 July 1892.
["Miss Edwards" was the Egyptologist Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards (1831- 15 April 1892). Miss Edwards died while Jewett and Annie Fields were in Italy. Her home since 1864, was "The Larches" in Westbury-on-Trym. Kate Bradbury was Edwards' companion in her final years (accompanying her on her American lecture tour in 1889-90).]
SOJ and AF then visited Ilkley (Bolton Abbey, Wharfedale, Haworth), then travelled via Lincoln, Boston, Ely and Cambridge to London with visits to Warwickshire (Mrs Dugdale) via Oxford, Aldworth House (the Tennysons; at Blackdown, technically just in West Sussex but understandably described as Surrey by both SOJ and AF), Tring (Mrs Humphrey Ward), Cobham (Mrs Arnold), Canterbury, then left London and went to York, Whitby (George du Maurier), Edinburgh, Lake District, and Riversvale Hall (Kate Bradbury; Ashton-under-Lyme). Sailed from Liverpool 22nd Sept.
1898
SOJ and AF arrived by ship in Plymouth on April 18 1898, travelled swiftly through Devon and Somerset, apparently reaching London the following day (presumably by train, e.g. Exeter Taunton Westbury Reading Paddington). Then France: Paris, Provence, Paris, Meaux and Rheims, Paris, and Brittany (Vitré, Mont St Michel, St Malo, Dinan, Tréguier, Quimper, Quiberon, Carnac and Nantes), Paris, Loire valley and Tours, and back to Paris. Crossed the channel in August: London (briefly), Cambridge, Ilkley, Edinburgh (via Carlisle), Riversvale Hall (Kate Bradbury, now Griffith) at Ashton-under-Lyme, Stratford-upon-Avon, London: visits to the Humphrey Wards at Stocks House near Tring (Herts), Totteridge, to Henry James at Rye where they had a trip to Hastings, Eversley (Hampshire), Windsor, to the Kiplings at Rottingdean, to the Hallam Tennysons at Haslemere (Surrey); then Ashton-under-Lyme again, and so to their return ship at Liverpool.
AF's diary, July 11: We took the train for Nantes which Sarah wished to see because Paul Jones sailed away from there and if she writes his story as she hopes to do she will like to have seen the Loire before it sinks into the sea.
1900
(28 Feb to c. June 1). SOJ, AF and Mary Garrett visited Greece, Turkey ("Constantinople"), Italy and France (including Paris); they did not visit Britain on this trip.
*
Alison Easton, "Nation making and fiction making: Sarah Orne Jewett, The Tory Lover, and Walter Scott, Waverley" [PDF]. Published in 2002, I think.
Argues that The Tory Lover asserts a distinctively nuanced view of the American Revolution that shows the influence of Scott novels such as Waverley in its critique of simple political binaries and its appeal to the practical virtues of compromise. Jewett certainly admired Scott the man, i.e. as seen in Lockhart and in Scott's own journal, letters and essays.
"Along the Dike." Approaching the buildings on the headland from the dike, as Mary Hamilton and Mr Davis do in Ch 43. Aust Old Passage, 27 February 2025.
