Beatrice Signorini

Beatrice Signorini by Robert Browning

Drawn to the painter Artemisia in Rome, Francesco Romanelli cannot accept surrendering his authority to her. Before they part, she gives him a flower painting with an empty center, which he fills with her portrait. Back home, his wife Beatrice slashes the portrait with her hairpin; her unexpected fury awakens his love for her, and his renewed devotion lasts until his death.

By Robert Browning · Genre: Narrative Poetry · 4,400 words

First lines

This strange thing happened to a painter once: / Viterbo boasts the man among her sons / Of note, I seem to think: his ready tool / Picked up its precepts in Cortona's school -- / That 's Pietro Berretini, whom they call / Cortona, these Italians: greatish-small, / Our painter was his pupil, by repute / His match if not his master absolute, / Though whether he spoiled fresco more or less, / And what 's its fortune, scarce repays your guess. / Still, for one circumstance, I save his name / -- Francesco Romanelli: do the same! / He went to Rome and painted: there he knew / A wonder of a woman painting too -- / For she, at least, was no Cortona's drudge: / Witness that ardent fancy-shape -- I judge / A semblance of her soul -- she called, "Desire" / With starry front for guide, where sits the fire / She left to brighten Buonarroti's house. / If you see Florence, pay that piece your vows, / Though blockhead Baldinucci's mind, imbued / With monkish morals, bade folk "Drape the nude / And stop the scandal! " quoth the record prim / I borrow this of: hang his book and him! / At Rome, then, where these fated ones met first, / The blossom of his life had hardly burst / While hers was blooming at full beauty's stand: / No less Francesco -- when half-ripe he scanned / Consummate Artemisia -- grew one want / To have her his and make her ministrant / With every gift of body and of soul / To him. In vain. Her sphery self was whole -- / Might only touch his orb at Art's sole point. / Suppose he could persuade her to enjoint / Her life -- past, present, future -- all in his / At Art's sole point by some explosive kiss / Of love through lips, would love's success defeat / Artistry's haunting curse -- the Incomplete? / Artists no doubt they both were, -- what beside / Was she? who long had felt heart, soul spread wide / Her life out, knowing much and loving well, / On either side Art's narrow space where fell / Reflection from his own speck: but the germ / Of individual genius -- what we term / The very self, the God-gift whence had grown / Heart's life and soul's life -- how make that his own? / Vainly his Art, reflected, smiled in small / On Art's one facet of her ampler ball; / The rest, touch-free, took in, gave back heaven, earth, / All where he was not. Hope, well-nigh ere birth / Came to Desire, died off all-unfulfilled. / "What though in Art I stand the abler-skilled," / (So he conceited: mediocrity / Turns on itself the self-transforming eye) / "If only Art were suing, mine would plead / To purpose: man -- by nature I exceed / Woman the bounded: but how much beside / She boasts, would sue in turn and be denied! / Love her? My own wife loves me in a sort / That suits us both: she takes the world's report / Of what my work is worth, and, for the rest, / Concedes that, while his consort keeps her nest, / The eagle soars a licensed vagrant, lives / A wide free life which she at least forgives -- / Good Beatricé Signorini! Well / And wisely did I choose her. But the spell / To subjugate this Artemisia -- where? / She passionless? -- she resolute to care / Nowise beyond the plain sufficiency / Of fact that she is she and I am I / -- Acknowledged arbitrator for us both / In her life as in mine which she were loth / Even to learn the laws of? No, and no, / Twenty times over! Ay, it must be so: / I for myself, alas! " / Whereon, instead / Of the checked lover's-utterance -- why, he said / -- Leaning over her easel: "Flesh is red" / (Or some such just remark) -- "by no means white / As Guido's practice teaches: you ate right. " / Then came the better impulse: "What if pride / Were wisely trampled on, whate'er betide? / If I grow hers, not mine -- join lives, confuse / Bodies and spirits, gain her not but lose / Myself to Artemisia? That were love! / Of two souls -- one must bend, one rule above: / If I crouch under proudly, lord turned slave, / Were it not worthier both than if she gave / Herself -- in treason to herself -- to me?"

Genres

Tags

painters · marriage · jealousy · portraits · female independence

What this Textopian page supports

Beatrice Signorini is listed on Textopian as a poem by Robert Browning, dated Date unknown.

This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.

Good citation fit

More by Robert Browning