rthy to receive the blessed realities of joy with the
words,

When I betray her, though she is no more,
May I die.

The regeneration of Admetos is accomplished. How much in all this
exposition is derived from the play, how much is added to it, may be
left for the consideration of the reader who will compare the original
with the transcript.

If the character of Admetos is somewhat lowered by Browning beneath the
conception of the Greek dramatist, to allow room for its subsequent
elevation, the conception of Herakles is certainly heightened. We shall
not say that Balaustion is the speaker and that Herakles is somewhat of
a woman's hero. Browning himself fully enters into Balaustion's
enthusiasm. And the presence of the strong, joyous helper of men is in
truth an inspiring one. The great voice that goes before him is itself a
_Sursum corda!_--a challenge and a summons to whatever manliness is in
us. And the best of it is that sauntering the pavement or crossing the
ferry we may happen to encounter this face of Herakles:

Out of this face emerge banners and horses--O superb! I see what is coming;
I see the high pioneer-caps--I see the slaves of runners clearing the way,
I hear victorious drums.

This face is a life-boat.

For Walt Whitman too had seen Brother Jonathan Herakles, and indeed the
face of the strong and tender wound-dresser was itself as the face of a
calmer Herakles to many about to die. The speeches of the demigod in
Browning's transcript require an abundant commentary, but it is the
commentary of an irrepressible joy, an outbreak of enthusiasm which will
not be controlled. The glorious Gargantuan creature, in the best sense
Rabelaisian, is uplifted by Browning into a very saint of joyous effort;
no pallid ascetic, indeed, beating his breast with the stone, but a
Christian saint of Luther's school, while at the same time a somewhat
over-boisterous benevolent Paynim giant:

Gladness be with thee, Helper of our world!
I think this is the authentic sign and sea!
Of Godship, that it ever waxes glad,
And more glad, until gladness blossoms, bursts
Into a rage to suffer for mankind,
And recommence at sorrow.

Something of the Herakles ideal appears again and again in other poems
of Browning. His Breton sailor, Herve Riel, has more than a touch of the
Heraclean frankness of gaiety in arduous effort. His Ivan Ivanovitch
wields the axe and abolishes a life wit