The School of Salerno

A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the gate of theCollege.

SCHOLASTIC.There, that is my gauntlet, my banner, my shield,Hung up as a challenge to all the field!One hundred and twenty-five propositions,Which I will maintain with the sword of the tongueAgainst all disputants, old and young.Let us see if doctors or dialecticiansWill dare to dispute my definitions,Or attack any one of my learned theses.Here stand I; the end shall be as God pleases.I think I have proved, by profound researches,The error of all those doctrines so viciousOf the old Areopagite Dionysius,That are making such terrible work in the churches,By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East,And done into Latin by that Scottish beast,Johannes Duns Scotus, who dares to maintain,In the face of the truth, the error infernal,That the universe is and must be eternal;At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,That nothing with God can be accidental;Then asserting that God before the creationCould not have existed, because it is plainThat, had He existed, He would have created;Which is begging the question that should be debated,And moveth me less to anger than laughter.All nature, he holds, is a respirationOf the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, hereafterWill inhale it into his bosom again,So that nothing but God alone will remain.And therein he contradicteth himself;For he opens the whole discussion by stating,That God can only exist in creating.That question I think I have laid on the shelf!

I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain,That a word which is only conceived in the brainIs a type of eternal Generation;The spoken word is the Incarnation.

What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic,With all his wordy chaffer and traffic?

You make but a paltry show of resistance;Universals have no real existence!

Your words are but idle and empty chatter;Ideas are eternally joined to matter!

May the Lord have mercy on your position,You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!

May he send your soul to eternal perdition,For your Treatise on the Irregular verbs!

Monte Cassino, then, is your College.What think you of ours here at Salern?

To tell the truth, I arrived so lately,I hardly yet have had time to discern.So much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge:The air seems healthy, the buildings stately,And on the whole I like it greatly.

Yes, the air is sweet; the Calabrian hillsSend us down puffs of mountain air;And in summer-time the sea-breeze fillsWith its coolness cloister, and court, and square.Then at every season of the yearThere are crowds of guests and travellers here;Pilgrims, and mendicant friars, and tradersFrom the Levant, with figs and wine,And bands of wounded and sick Crusaders,Coming back from Palestine.

And what are the studies you pursue?What is the course you here go through?

The first three years of the college courseAre given to Logic alone, as the sourceOf all that is noble, and wise, and true.

That seems rather strange, I must confess,In a Medical School; yet, nevertheless,You doubtless have reasons for that.

Oh yesFor none but a clever dialecticianCan hope to become a great physician;That has been settled long ago.Logic makes an important partOf the mystery of the healing art;For without it how could you hope to showThat nobody knows so much as you know?After this there are five years moreDevoted wholly to medicine,With lectures on chirurgical lore,And dissections of the bodies of swine,As likest the human form divine.

What are the books now most in vogue?

Quite an extensive catalogue;Mostly, however, books of our own;As Gariopontus' Passionarius,And the writings of Matthew Platearius;And a volume universally knownAs the Regimen of the School of Salern,For Robert of Normandy written in terseAnd very elegant Latin verse.Each of these writings has its turn.And when at length we have finished theseThen comes the struggle for degrees,Will all the oldest and ablest critics;The public thesis and disputation,Question, and answer, and explanationOf a passage out of Hippocrates,Or Aristotle's Analytics.There the triumphant Magister stands!A book is solemnly placed in his hands,On which he swears to follow the ruleAnd ancient forms of the good old School;To report if any confectionariusMingles his drugs with matters various,And to visit his patients twice a day,And once in the night, if they live in town,And if they are poor, to take no pay.Having faithfully promised these,His head is crowned with a laurel crown;A kiss on his cheek, a ring on his hand,The Magister Artium et PhysicesGoes forth from the school like a lord of the land.And now, as we have the whole morning before us,Let us go in, if you make no objection,And listen awhile to a learned prelectionOn Marcus Aurelius Cassioderus.

LUCIFER.This is the great School of Salern!A land of wrangling and of quarrels,Of brains that seethe, and hearts that burn,Where every emulous scholar hears,In every breath that comes to his ears,The rustling of another's laurels!The air of the place is called salubrious;The neighborhood of Vesuvius lends itAu odor volcanic, that rather mends it,And the building's have an aspect lugubrious,That inspires a feeling of awe and terrorInto the heart of the beholder.And befits such an ancient homestead of error,Where the old falsehoods moulder and smoulder,And yearly by many hundred handsAre carried away in the zeal of youth,And sown like tares in the field of truth,To blossom and ripen in other lands.

What have we here, affixed to the gate?The challenge of some scholastic wight,Who wishes to hold a public debateOn sundry questions wrong or right!Ah, now this is my great delight!For I have often observed of lateThat such discussions end in a fight.Let us see what the learned wag maintainsWith such a prodigal waste of brains.

"Whether angels in moving from place to placePass through the intermediate space.Whether God himself is the author of evil,Or whether that is the work of the Devil.When, where, and wherefore Lucifer fell,And whether he now is chained in hell."I think I can answer that question well!So long as the boastful human mindConsents in such mills as this to grind,I sit very firmly upon my throne!Of a truth it almost makes me laugh,To see men leaving the golden grainTo gather in piles the pitiful chaffThat old Peter Lombard thrashed with his brain,To have it caught up and tossed againOn the horns of the Dumb Ox of Cologne!

But my guests approach! there is in the airA fragrance, like that of the Beautiful GardenOf Paradise, in the days that were!An odor of innocence and of prayer,And of love, and faith that never fails,Such as the fresh young heart exhalesBefore it begins to wither and harden!I cannot breathe such an atmosphere!My soul is filled with a nameless fear,That after all my trouble and pain,After all my restless endeavor,The youngest, fairest soul of the twain,The most ethereal, most divine,Will escape from my hands for ever and ever.But the other is already mine!Let him live to corrupt his race,Breathing among them, with every breath,Weakness, selfishness, and the baseAnd pusillanimous fear of death.I know his nature, and I knowThat of all who in my ministryWander the great earth to and fro,And on my errands come and go,The safest and subtlest are such as he.

Can you direct us to Friar Angelo?

LUCIFER.He stands before you.

Then you know our purpose.I am Prince Henry of Hoheneck, and thisThe maiden that I spake of in my letters.

LUCIFER.It is a very grave and solemn business!We must nor be precipitate. Does sheWithout compulsion, of her own free will,Consent to this?

Against all opposition,Against all prayers, entreaties, protestations,She will not be persuaded.

LUCIFER.That is strange!Have you thought well of it?

ELSIE.I come not hereTo argue, but to die. Your business is notTo question, but to kill me. I am ready,I am impatient to be gone from hereEre any thoughts of earth disturb againThe spirit of tranquillity within me.

Would I had not come here! Would I were dead,And thou wert in thy cottage in the forest,And hadst not known me! Why have I done this?Let me go back and die.

ELSIE.It cannot be;Not if these cold, flat stones on which we treadWere coulters heated white, and yonder gatewayFlamed like a furnace with a sevenfold heat.I must fulfil my purpose.

I forbid it!Not one step further. For I only meantTo put thus far thy courage to the proof.It is enough. I, too, have strength to die,For thou hast taught me!

ELSIE.O my Prince! rememberYour promises. Let me fulfil my errand.You do not look on life and death as I do.There are two angels, that attend unseenEach one of us, and in great books recordOur good and evil deeds. He who writes downThe good ones, after every action closesHis volume, and ascends with it to God.The other keeps his dreadful day-book openTill sunset, that we may repent; which doing,The record of the action fades away,And leaves a line of white across the page.Now if my act be good, as I believe,It cannot be recalled. It is alreadySealed up in heaven, as a good deed accomplished.The rest is yours. Why wait you? I am ready.

To her attendants.Weep not, my friends! rather rejoice with me.I shall not feel the pain, but shall be gone,And you will have another friend in heaven.Then start not at the creaking of the doorThrough which I pass. I see what lies beyond it.

To PRINCE HENRY.And you, O Prince! bear back my benisonUnto my father's house, and all within it.This morning in the church I prayed for them,After confession, after absolution,When my whole soul was white, I prayed for them.God will take care of them, they need me not.And in your life let my remembrance linger,As something not to trouble and disturb it,But to complete it, adding life to life.And if at times beside the evening fire,You see my face among the other faces,Let it not be regarded as a ghostThat haunts your house, but as a guest that loves you.Nay, even as one of your own family,Without whose presence there were something wanting.I have no more to say. Let us go in.

Friar Angelo! I charge you on your life,Believe not what she says, for she is mad,And comes here not to die, but to be healed.

ELSIE.Alas! Prince Henry!

LUCIFER.Come with me; this way.

Gone! and the light of all my life gone with her!A sudden darkness falls upon the world!Oh, what a vile and abject thing am IThat purchase length of days at such a cost!Not by her death alone, but by the deathOf all that's good and true and noble in meAll manhood, excellence, and self-respect,All love, and faith, and hope, and heart are dead!All my divine nobility of natureBy this one act is forfeited forever.I am a Prince in nothing but in name!

To the attendants.Why did you let this horrible deed be done?Why did you not lay hold on her, and keep herFrom self destruction? Angelo! murderer!

ELSIE, within.Farewell, dear Prince! farewell!

Unbar the door!

LUCIFER.It is too late!

It shall not be too late.