—­To seek which, the joy-hunger forces us: 
That, stung by straitness of our life, made strait
On purpose to make prized the life at large—­ 330
Freed by the throbbing impulse we call death,
We burst there as the worm into the fly,
Who, while a worm still, wants his wings.  But no! 
Zeus has not yet revealed it; and alas,
He must have done so, were it possible!

Live long and happy, and in that thought die;
Glad for what was!  Farewell.  And for the rest,
I cannot tell thy messenger aright
Where to deliver what he bears of thine
To one called Paulus; we have heard his fame 340
Indeed, if Christus be not one with him—­
I know not, nor am troubled much to know. 
Thou canst not think a mere barbarian Jew,
As Paulus proves to be, one circumcised,
Hath access to a secret shut from us? 
Thou wrongest our philosophy, 0 king,
In stooping to inquire of such an one,
As if his answer could impose at all! 
He writeth, doth he? well, and he may write. 
Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! certain slaves 350
Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ;
And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrine could be held by no sane man.

NOTES

“Cleon” expresses the approach of Greek thought at the time of Christ towards the idea of immortality as made known by Cleon, a Greek poet writing in reply to a Greek patron whose princely gifts and letter asking comment on the philosophical significance of death have just reached him.  The important conclusions reached by Cleon in his answer are that the composite mind is greater than the minds of the past, because it is capable of accomplishing much in many lines of activity, and of sympathizing with each of those simple great minds that had reached the highest possible perfection “at one point.”  It is, indeed, the necessary next step in development, though all classes of mind fit into the perfected mosaic of life, no one achievement blotting out any other.  This soul and mind development he deduces from the physical development he sees about him.  But since with the growth of human consciousness and the increase of knowledge comes greater capability to the soul for joy while the failure of physical powers shuts off the possibility of realizing joy, it would have been better had man been left with nothing higher than mere sense like the brutes.  Dismissing the idea of immortality through one’s works as unsatisfactory to the individual, he finally concludes that a long and happy life is all there is to be hoped for, since, had the future life which he has sometimes dared to hope for been possible, Zeus would long before have revealed it.  He dismisses the preaching of one Paulus as untenable.

“As certain also of your own poets have said”:  this motto hints that Paul’s speech at Athens (Acts 17.22-28) suggests and justifies Browning’s conception of such Greek poets as Cleon seeking “the Lord, if haply they might feel after him.”  Paul’s quotation, “For we are also his offspring,” is from the “Phoenomena” by Aratus, a Greek poet of his own town of Tarsus.