MANFRED.[1]
ACT I.
Scene I.—Manfred alone.—Scene, a Gothic Gallery.[2]—Time, Midnight.
Man. The lamp must be replenished, but even then
It will not burn so long as I must watch:
My slumbers—if I slumber— are not sleep,
But a continuance of enduring thought,
Which then I can resist not: in my heart
There is a vigil, and these eyes but close
To look within; and yet I live, and bear
The aspect and the form of breathing men.
But Grief should be the Instructor of the wise;
Sorrow is Knowledge: they who know the most10
Must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth,
The Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life.
Philosophy and science, and the springs[3]
- ↑ [The MS. of Manfred, now in Mr. Murray's possession, is in Lord Byron's handwriting. A note is prefixed: "The scene of the drama is amongst the higher Alps, partly in the Castle of Manfred, and partly in the mountains." The date, March 18, 1817, is in John Murray's handwriting.]
- ↑ [So, too, Faust is discovered "in a high-vaulted narrow Gothic chamber."]
- ↑ [Compare Faust, act i, sc. 1—
"Alas! I have explored
Philosophy, and Law, and Medicine,
And over deep Divinity have pored,
Studying with ardent and laborious seal."Anster's Faust, 1883, p. 88.]
