Luria

“ He urges him to open it; to desert the perfidious city, and to adopt Pisa's cause. But Luria's loyalty is unshaken. He tears up the letter in the presence of Braccio, Puccio, and Domizia: and only when the battle has been fought and won demands the secret of its contents. At the word "trial" he is carried away by a momentary indignation; but this subsides into a tender regret that "his Florentines" should have so misjudged him; that he should have given them cause to do it. He has laboured for their city, not only with the obedience of a son, but with the devotion of a lover. ”

“ It is a drama of inward action, 237of changes in the souls of men. The full purification of Luria is its one aim, and the motive of Luria himself is a single motive. The play occupies one day only, and passes in one place.
Luria is a noble Moor who commands the armies of Florence against Pisa, and conquers Pisa. He is in love with the city of Florence as a man is with a woman. Its beauty, history, great men, and noble buildings attract his Eastern nature, by their Northern qualities, as much as they repel his friend and countryman Husain. ”

“ And Luigi will adventure forth—it may be in a kind of divine folly—as a doomsman commissioned by God to free his Italy. The devotion of Luria to Florence is partly of the imagination, and perhaps it is touched with something of illusion. But the actual Florence, with her astute politicians, her spies who spy upon spies, her incurable distrusts, her sinister fears, her ingrained ingratitude, is clearly exposed to him before the end. Shall he turn the army, which is as much his own as the sword he wields, joined with the forces of Pisa, against the beautiful, faithless city? ”

“ Go on to Florence, Luria! 'T is man's cause!
Fail thou, and thine own fall were least to dread:
Thou keepest Florence in her evil way,
Encouragest her sin so much the more—
And while the ignoble past is justified,
Thou all the surelier warp'st the future growth,
The chiefs to come, the Lurias yet unborn,
That, greater than thyself, are reached o'er thee
Who giv'st the vantage-ground their foes require,
As o'er my prostrate House thyself wast reached!
Man calls thee, God requites thee! ”

“ Call any man the sole great wise and good!
But shall we therefore, standing by ourselves,
Insult our souls and God with the same speech?
There, swarm the ignoble thousands under him:
What marks us from the hundreds and the tens?
Florence took up, turned all one way the soul
Of Luria with its fires, and here he glows!
She takes me out of all the world as him,
Fixing my coldness till like ice it checks
The fire! So, Braccio, Luria, which is best?
Lur. Ah, brave me? And is this indeed the way
To gain your good word and sincere esteem? ”

“ Who were this morning's Luria,—you escape
To painfully begin the world once more,
With such a past, as it had never been!
Where are you going?
Lur. Not so far, my Puccio,
But that I hope to hear, enjoy and praise
(If you mind praise from your old captain yet)
Each happy blow you strike for Florence!
Puc. Ay,
But ere you gain your shelter, what may come?
For see—though nothing 's surely known as yet,
Still—truth must out—I apprehend the worst.
If mere suspicion stood for certainty
Before, there 's nothing can arrest the step
Of Florence toward your ruin, once on foot. ”

“ The characters are Luria, a Moorish commander of the Florentine forces; Husain, a Moor, his friend; Puccio, the old Florentine commander, now Luria’s chief officer; Braccio, commissary of the republic of Florence; Jacopo, his secretary; Tiburzio, commander of the Pisans; and Domizia, a noble Florentine lady. The scene is Luria’s camp, between Florence and Pisa. The time extends only over one day, and the five Acts are named “Morning,” “Noon,” “Afternoon,” “Evening,” and “Night.” A battle is about to take place which will decide the issue of the war. ”

“ Luria learns of the treachery of his allies in time to take revenge, he is urged to take revenge, and the means are placed in his hands, but his nobler nature conquers, and the punishment he deals on Florence is the punishment of his own voluntary death. The strength of love which restrains him from punishing the ungrateful city forbids him to live when his only love has proved false, his only link to life has gone. ”

“ So, praise the new sun, the successor praise,
Praise the new Luria and forget the old!
[Taking a phial from his breast.
—Strange! This is all I brought from my own land
To help me: Europe would supply the rest,
All needs beside, all other helps save one!
I thought of adverse fortune, battle lost,
The natural upbraiding of the loser,
And then this quiet remedy to seek
At end of the disastrous day. [He drinks.
'T is sought!
This was my happy triumph-morning: Florence
Is saved: I drink this, and ere night,—die! Strange!
[313]
ACT V NIGHT
Luria and Puccio
Lur. ”

“ All men become good creatures: but so slow!"
In the pathos of his life and death Luria may remind us of another unrequited lover, Strafford, whose devotion to his king gains the same reward as Luria's devotion to his adopted country.
In Luria's faithful friend and comrade Husain we have a contrasted picture of the Moor untouched by alien culture. The instincts of the one are dulled or disturbed by his Western wisdom and experience; Husain still keeps the old instincts and the unmixed nature, and still speaks the fervid and highly-coloured Eastern speech. ”

“ Luria is one of the noblest and most heroic figures in Browning's works. A Moor, with the instincts of the East and the culture of the West, he presents a racial problem which is very subtly handled; while his natural nobility and confidence are no less subtly set off against the Italian craft of his surroundings. The spectacle he presents is impressive and pathetic. An alien, with no bond to Florence save that of his inalienable love, he has led her forces against the Pisans, and saved her. ”

“ You have made a golden work out of your 'golden-hearted Luria'—as once you called him to me, and I hold it in the highest admiration—should, if you were precisely nothing to me. And still, the fifth act rises! That is certain. Nevertheless I seem to agree with you that your hand has vacillated in your Domizia. We do not know her with as full a light on her face, as the other persons—we do not see the panther,—no, certainly we do not—but you will do a very little for her which will be everything, after a time ... ”

“ Since you left me I have been making up my mind to your having the headache worse than ever, through the agreement with Moxon. I do, do beseech you to spare yourself, and let 'Luria' go as he is, and above all things not to care for my infinite foolishnesses as you see them in those notes. Remember that if you are ill, it is not so easy to say, 'Now I will be well again.' Ever dearest, care for me in yourself—say how you are.... I am not unwell to-day, but feel flagged and weak rather with the cold ... ”

“ Luria taught all this not only while submitting to Law, but under the stress of a passionate submission to it. He added in particular a new beauty to the Sabbath. Many of the most fascinatingly religious rites connected now with the Sabbath are of his devising. The white Sabbath garb, the joyous mystical hymns full of the Bride and of Love, the special Sabbath foods, the notion of the 'over-Soul'—these and many other of the Lurian rites and fancies still hold wide sway in the Orient. The 'over-Soul' was a very inspiring conception, which certainly did not originate with Luria. ”

“ We feel that Husain himself could only say afterward ... 'That is done.' And now—surely you think well of the work as a whole? You cannot doubt, I fancy, of the grandeur of it—and of the subtilty too, for it is subtle—too subtle perhaps for stage purposes, though as clear, ... as to expression ... as to medium ... as 'bricks and mortar' ... shall I say?
'A people is but the attempt of many
To rise to the completer life of one.'
There is one of the fine thoughts. And how fine he is, your Luria, when he looks back to his East, through the half-pardon and half-disdain of Domizia. Ah—Domizia! ”

“ How happy you are, to be able to listen to the 'birds' without the commentary of the east wind, which, like other commentaries, spoils the music. And how happy I am to listen to you, when you write such kind open-hearted letters to me! I am delighted to hear all you say to me of yourself, and 'Luria,' and the spider, and to do him no dishonour in the association, of the great teacher of the age, Carlyle, who is also yours and mine. He fills the office of a poet—does he not?—by analysing humanity back into its elements, to the destruction of the conventions of the hour. ”

“ Her savior, will receive him fittingly.
Lur. Ah, Braccio, you know Florence! Will she, think you,
Receive one ... what means "fittingly receive"?
—Receive compatriots, doubtless—I am none:
And yet Domizia promises so much!
Brac. Kind women still give men a woman's prize.
I know not o'er which gate most boughs will arch.
Nor if the Square will wave red flags or blue.
I should have judged, the fullest of rewards
Our state gave Luria, when she made him chief
Of her whole force, in her best captain's place.
Lur. That, my reward? Florence on my account
Relieved Ser Puccio?—mark you, my reward! ”

“ The sufferings which Jews had to endure during the fifteenth century and of which the expulsion from Spain and Portugal was the culmination, were the cause of a strengthening of mysticism. Particularly in Palestine, to which quite a number of Spanish Jews were drawn by Messianic hopes, such a center was formed. In Safed, where Joseph Caro wrote his “Shulhan Aruk,” a number of disciples gathered around Isaac Luria, who preached a religion based on the belief in the mysterious. ”

“ Tiburzio, being examined by the council of Florence, under the hope of finding some cause of censure against the Moor, to lessen or cancel their obligations to him, “testifies to his unflinching probity,” and the council could find no cause of blame, but Luria, by poison, relieves the ungrateful state of its obligation to him.--Robert Browning, Luria.
Tichborne Dole (The) . When Lady Mabella was dying, she requested her husband to grant her the means of leaving a charitable bequest. ”

“ United States, 225 U.S. 227, 32 S.Ct. 613, 56 L.Ed. 1066; Luria v. United States, 231 U.S. 9, 34 S.Ct. 10, 58 L.Ed. 101; § 15 of the Act of June 29, 1906, 34 Stat. 596, 601, now formulated in 54 Stat. ”

“ Luria Steel & Trading Corporation Luria Steel & Trading Corporation 225 F.2d 836 (1955) Davidson v. United States 225 F.2d 837 (1955) Haberman v. Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States 225 F.2d 838 (1955) Glens Falls Indemnity Company v. ”

“ Trein's Exchange 600 F.2d 103 (1979) Luria Brothers Co Inc v. Pielet Brothers Scrap Iron & Metal Inc 600 F.2d 116 (1979) United States Lockett v. Illinois Parole and Pardon Board 600 F.2d 118 (1979) International Union United Automobile Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America Uaw v. Indiana Employment Security Board 600 F.2d 120 (1979) National Labor Relations Board v. Potter Electric Signal Company 600 F.2d 124 (1979) Vruno v. D Schwarzwalder H H 600 F.2d 132 (1979) American Cast Iron Pipe Company v. National Labor Relations Board 600 F.2d 139 (1979) Morris v. ”

“ Half-way on this road the village of Luri groups itself in the most picturesque way imaginable on a hill-side broken by a deep ravine. Down on the seashore above the little Marina or port is a large convent; a church occupies a projecting brow 200 ft. above it; higher still, and right and left, every vantage-ground is occupied by groups of well-built villas and sepulchral chapels. The slopes are terraced into orchards of citron, lemon, peach and almond trees, olive groves and vineyards, sheltered from the gales of winter by high palisades. ”

“ Marius was soon wanted to carry on another war. Two great tribes of barbarians from the north had entered Gaul west of the Alps, and threatened to drive out the Romans, and even attack Italy. They came with their wives and children, like a wandering people looking for a home. ... At first these Cimbri defeated the Roman generals in southern Gaul, where the Romans had conquered the country along the Rhone, and made it a province, which is still called the province, or Provence. ”

“ But I beg you now, O Romans, to take notice how Rullus is planning to besiege and occupy all Italy with his garrison. He permits the decemvirs to lead colonists, whomsoever he may choose to select, into every municipality and into every colony in all Italy; and he orders lands to be assigned to those colonists. Is there any obscurity here in the way in which greater powers and greater defenses than your liberty can tolerate are sought after? Is there any obscurity here in the manner in which kingly power is established? Is there any disguise about your liberty being wholly destroyed? ”

“ The whole peninsula, except its northern coast, was now subject to Rome. It was divided into three provinces—Hither and Farther Spain, and Lusitania—and became eventually the most prosperous and best governed part of the Roman foreign possessions. The Lusitanian mountains were still haunted by brigands, and isolated country houses in that region had to be built like fortresses; yet the country was rich in corn and cattle, and occupied by a thriving and industrious people. ”