Thyrsis: A Monody, to Commemorate the Author's Friend, Arthur Hugh Clough

In the subtitle, Arnold refers to the poem as a “monody,” which is a poem that laments a person’s death. Within the classical pastoral framework, in which Arnold presents himself as the shepherd Corydon and his friend Arthur Hugh Clough as the shepherd Thyrsis, the poem revolves around the loss of youthful ideals, symbolized by the elm tree, the Gipsy Scholar, and the attempt to recapture them. The poem begins as the poet returns to his much-loved former haunts in the Oxfordshire countryside after many years’ absence. He finds immediately that little has stayed the same—“How changed is here each spot man makes or fills!” (Line 1)—which announces the theme not only of change but also of nostalgia and loss. The classical framework is interspersed with lush, naturalistic descriptions of the countryside in spring and winter. In Stanza 3, for example, he describes the area, naming specific places, such as Childsworth Farm, the Isley Downs, and the river Thames, thus grounding the poem in a real place despite its mythological trappings. The description in this stanza of the warm winter evening is typical of how the speaker evokes nature in other parts of the poem: “Humid the air! leafless, yet soft as spring, / The tender purple spray on copse and briers!” (Lines 17-18). Then in the following stanza, the elm tree and the Gipsy Scholar both appear. Arnold seems to assume his reader will be familiar with the legend of the Gipsy Scholar since he explains nothing about him at this point, leaving it to Stanza 21 before offering insight into why the figure of the Romani traveler held so much appeal for him and Clough. Indeed, “Thyrsis” can be thought of as a companion poem to the earlier “The Scholar-Gipsy,” a poem of similar length, in which Arnold presents his fascination with the legendary figure. He read the account of the Gipsy Scholar in a 17-century book by Joseph Glanvill titled Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661). Glanvill told the story of the Oxford student who had left his studies at the university to join a band of Romani travelers. Some while later, two of his friends from the university happened to come upon him, and he explained why he had joined such odd company. He said that he admired the “traditional kind of learning among the gypsies who could do wonders by the power of Imagination, and that himself had learnt much of their Art.” Arnold took this to mean a quest for a different, perhaps higher and better way of knowing the deep truths of life. He also invents in “The Scholar Gipsy” the notion that the scholar attained a kind of immortality; he still lives because he had “what we alas! have not” (Line 160). Thus in “Thyrsis,” the speaker declares his belief (in Stanza 21) that the scholar still haunts the area, wandering in the fields and the woods.

It is in Stanza 4 that the poet introduces the classical pastoral theme with his reference to the “shepherd pipes” (Line 35) that both he and Thyrsis used to play in their youth. Pairing himself with Thyrsis, he presents himself as another classical shepherd, Corydon, although this is not stated explicitly until Stanza 8. In Stanza 4, he also laments, elaborating on the theme of loss, that he has lost his pipe, his “shepherd’s holiday” (Line 37). Arnold may be referring to the fact that he is no longer composing much poetry. In this and the following stanza, he takes a rather harsh view of Thyrsis, suggesting he was too quick to give up his idyllic life and engage in the acrimonious intellectual disputes of the day. (Clough left Oxford’s Oriel College in 1848 because tutors were expected to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church, and since Clough was unwilling to do so, he resigned his fellowship there.)

The poet continues the classical theme at the end of Stanza 8 and in Stanzas 9 and 10. “For Time, not Corydon, hath conquered thee!” (Line 80) is a reference to an ancient singing contest in which Corydon defeated Thyrsis. (It can be found in Virgil’s Seventh Eclogue.) The next stanza refers to a pastoral elegy that was written following the death of the Sicilian poet Bion. On the death of one of their own, a Sicilian shepherd would sing that song and cross the river Styx into the underworld to get the attention of Prosperine, who would bring flowers to life when she returned above ground in the spring. The aim was to sing their friend back to life just as Orpheus, whose music allowed him to enter the realms of the dead, brought back his wife Eurydice. However, the speaker knows Prosperine belongs only to Sicily and surrounding areas, and she knows nothing of England, so it is no use calling on her.

After that excursion into classical mythology, the speaker returns in Stanza 11 to the present and renews his search for the hill on top of which sits the elm tree. He insists he knows the area so well he must be able to find it, even though the countryside is much changed since he and Thyrsis used to roam it together. Stanzas 11 to 13 contain some of the richest descriptions in the poem of the woods, hills, trees, waterways, fields, and flowers of the area. In Stanza 14, the theme darkens a little with the approach of night. The coming darkness reminds the speaker that a kind of night is descending on him too as he contemplates the disadvantages, both physical and emotional, of middle age when compared to the joy and zest of youth and its ability to bounce back quickly from disappointments. He even seems to long for the repose Thyrsis now has, given the strife and turmoil of life on earth (Lines 149-50).

The following stanza, however, marks a turn in the thought that will carry the poem away from negation and absence to its more affirmative conclusion. The speaker finds the beloved tree, and he expresses the desire that Thyrsis should hear the news too before realizing Thyrsis lies far away in a foreign clime, where he hears other “immortal chants of old” (Line 181). (The speaker draws his examples from Greek mythology.) In spite of this, the speaker is now determined to be optimistic. If the tree exists, so must the Gipsy Scholar; the spirit of truth, or at least the eternal quest for it, lives on. In Stanza 21, he describes what the scholar means to him and affirms that he shares in the scholar’s quest. The kind of knowledge they seek lies outside of the public view; it does not produce riches or a prestigious position in society. It is something found in solitude, in the depths of the heart.

In the remaining stanzas the speaker softens his view of Thyrsis, praising him for what he was in his youth, when he was at his “height of strength [… and] golden prime” (Line 219). In the final stanza, the poet continues to address Thyrsis as the poem returns to where it began, with the speaker commenting on how long it has been since he last visited the area. He also makes plain his own dissatisfaction with his life in the noisy city, and, generously, he gives the final words not to himself but to the imagined voice of Thyrsis, encouraging him not to give up on his quest for truth.