“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Introduction

• "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" is one of Robert Browning's dramatic monologues (poems written in the voice of a character, like speeches from a play). The speaker here is a corrupt old Italian Renaissance bishop, who, on his death bed, can think only about the lavish tomb he wants his many illegitimate sons to build for him. Having spent his life seeking status, wealth, and power, he can't face the fact that he'll lose them all in death; his obsession with his tomb's design is only a cover for his terror of decay and his own empty soul. Selfishness, greed, and hypocrisy, the poem suggests, become their own punishment. Browning first published this poem in his 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics.

• Read the full text of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Summary

• It's just as the preacher says: don't get attached to the pleasures of mortal life! Here, children, come closer to my deathbed; hey, is Anselm dragging his feet back there? Nephews—I mean, my sons—oh, heck, I don't know what to call you now. Well, the lady who was once my lover was your mother, at any rate. My old rival Gandolf was so jealous of me—that lady was so beautiful! But that's all in the past now, and besides, she's been dead for ages. I've become Bishop since then. And I know that, just as she died, we all have to die one day—and that's how you know the world is nothing more than a brief dream. Ah, what is Life, anyway? As I lie here in this elegant receiving room, slowly dying, spending hours awake in the deepest part of the night, I ask myself, "Am I alive, or dead?" Peace seems like the most important thing. And my church, Saint Praxed's, has always been a peaceful place.

  So, anyway, let's talk about my tomb. I fought like crazy to lock down the particular alcove where my tomb will go, you know. Old Gandolf cheated me, despite my efforts to outwit him; he cleverly grabbed the best corner of the church, the place where his rotting carcass now rests, curse it! Still, though, my spot isn't so narrow that you can't see the good side of the pulpit from it, and even get a glimpse of the empty choir loft, and the high dome full of painted angels and shafts of sunlight. In this alcove, I'll fill my dark stone tomb, and enjoy my eternal rest beneath the tabernacle I once worshiped. Nine columns will stand around my coffin, two by two, except for the odd one out, which will be right at my feet, where Anselm is standing now. Those pillars should be made of pink marble, as fine and rich as wine poured straight off of fresh grape mash. Be sure to put my body right where I can look scornfully at old Gandolf in his cheap, flaky marble tomb! My tomb will be a pure and perfect pink. I deserve it, after what I did!

  Come closer, boys: you remember when the church caught on fire? Well, we sure saved a lot of the holy relics from that disaster, even if a few were—nudge nudge, wink wink—mysteriously lost. Listen, sons, if you don't want to kill me prematurely, do what I say: go out to my vineyard and dig around under where the olive oil press used to be. Wet the dirt until it sinks down. And beneath it, if you happened to find—well, I don't know what you might find, but just maybe, if you found a heap of old rotten fig leaves, and inside it an olive basket bound up tightly in string, inside that you'd discover—oh, lord—a huge lump of the blue stone lapis lazuli. A lump as big as the head of John the Baptist—as blue as the breast-veins of the Virgin Mary in a painting.

  Sons, I've left all my wealth to you—all my country houses, everything, even the especially nice house in Frascati, the one with the fancy bathtub. So, since you owe me, be sure to put that lump of lapis between the knees of my effigy on my tomb—just like the lapis globe that the statue of God the Father is holding in the Jesu Church, where I know you've been for services. I want old Gandolf to see that astonishing sight and absolutely explode with envy!

  Our lives fly as quickly as a weaver's tools on the loom. People die, and where do they go then? Wait—did I say I wanted a basalt tomb? No, I meant black marble, I always meant rich old black marble! Otherwise, how will you make the decorative frieze stand out—the low-relief bronze sculpture you promised to have made for me? The one with the Greek forest spirits, you know, and maybe with an oracle's stool and Bacchus's staff, and some decorative urns, and Jesus delivering his famous Sermon on the Mount, and St. Praxed herself shining with holy light—and one goat-god getting ready to strip a forest spirit naked, and Moses holding the Ten Commandments... but hey, you're not listening!

  Anselm, son born of my own body, what are they whispering to you? Oh, you all just want to go and party in my mansions while I helplessly gasp, my body entombed in cheap limestone, with Gandolf's effigy laughing at me from on top of his tomb! No, come on, sons, you all love me—so make my tomb of semiprecious jasper! It's jasper you're swearing to find now, to keep me from mourning my beautiful jasper bathtub too much, when—alas!—I have to leave it behind. Just find one block of jasper, pistachio-green—there's plenty of jasper somewhere or other. And if you do me this favor, I'll put in a good word with St. Praxed for you, asking her to give you wonderful horses, and expensive ancient books, and lovers who look as plump and creamy as marble statues. That is, I'll do it if you choose a good tomb inscription for me. I want elegant Latin, carefully chosen, from the great orator Cicero—not tasteless trash like the second line of Gandolf's epitaph. Cicero's too good for him, boys—he's content with Ulpian, a much worse writer!

  Once I'm entombed so elegantly, I'll lie in the church for hundreds of years, listening to Mass being performed, watching the rite of transubstantiation turn bread into God's flesh so that the congregation can eat it, feeling the warmth of candlelight and tasting rich, intoxicating incense smoke. Right now, as I lie here for hour after hour, all through the night, dying bit by bit, I pose as if I were my own effigy: I cross my arms to hold a ceremonial staff, I stretch my feet out stiffly as stone, and I let my blankets fall like the cloth that covers a coffin, arranging them so they look as if they'd been carved by a sculptor. And as the candles burn down, and I start to hear peculiar thoughts buzzing in my mind—thoughts of where I was before I was a bishop, and thoughts of my time as a bishop, among other important holy men, thoughts of St. Praxed delivering his famous Sermon on the Mount, and thoughts of you boys' mother and her expressive eyes, and thoughts of ancient stone vases dug up looking good as new. And I think of the language that's fitting for marble monuments: elegant, tasteful Latin—ha, does our old friend Gandolf's tomb read ELUCESCEBAT? Just like I said, he's no Cicero: that particular phrasing of the words meaning "he was illustrious" is in dreadful taste, it sounds more like the workaday Latin of Ulpian!

  My time on earth has been sinful and short. Make my tomb only of the purest lapis, sons—nothing but lapis! Or I'll leave my country houses to the Pope instead! Are you all just waiting to break my heart? You've always had shifty little lizard eyes. They're glittering lustfully, just like your mother's eyes used to glitter, only you're hungry for my soul itself. Otherwise, you'd liven up that shoddy bronze frieze you promised me, filling out its bare spots by adding some grapes, and a helmet, and a statue of the god Terminus—and you'd make sure there was a wildcat tied to the oracle's stool, trying to escape and knocking Bacchus's staff over in the process. Those additions would make me feel better as I lie there on the cold stone, where I'll have to lie forever, until again I ask: "Am I alive, or am I dead?"

  All right, go on, get out of here! You've cut me to the quick with your thanklessness. You want me to die—dear God, you want me to die! You'll make my tomb of shoddy, crumbling sandstone—of damp blocks that bead up with moisture, as if the rotting body inside were leaking out! You won't put a single piece of glorious lapis on my tomb to bring the world beauty when I'm gone! I said go on—get out of here. My blessings on you. Take away some of these candles, and line the rest up neatly. On your way out, turn your backs on me—creep out like altar boys following a priest, and leave my body in my peaceful church. There, I can take all the time in the world to watch and see if he's making faces at me—Old Gandolf, in his cheap tomb, still envying me for my lover—she was so beautiful!

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Themes

• 

  Greed, Vanity, and Materialism

  The 16th-century Italian Bishop of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church” might be a powerful religious leader, but he’s far from a holy man. As he lies dying, all he can think about is building himself a palatial tomb—and more to the point, one that will outshine that of his old rival Gandolf. His obsession with wealth and status doesn’t just make him a hypocrite, but a fool: worldly pleasures, the poem warns, last only as long as life does. And worse still, materialistic selfishness can rob people of the ability to find real meaning and connection.

  While the dying Bishop is quick to repeat Christian proverbs about the brevity of life and the “vanity” (or emptiness) of worldly power, it’s clear that he doesn’t believe a word he says. He’s spent his whole life obsessed with wealth, pleasure, and petty grievances; he can’t stop talking about how jealous his rival “Old Gandolf” was of his beautiful mistress or fretting that he won’t get to enjoy his fabulous “villas” (country houses) when he’s dead. He’s been so driven by a hunger for wealth and status that he’s even stolen treasures from his own church during the chaos of a fire (a “conflagration” he might have lit himself). And now that he’s dying, he’s obsessed with building a fabulous tomb—not only for the sake of his own ego, but as an insult to Gandolf, whose tomb is only built of cheap, flaky “onion-stone.”

  But the wealth the Bishop worships is ultimately hollow. As he lists all the elegant materials he wants his tomb built from—“marble,” “jasper,” and “bronze,” richly carved and ornamented—he seems to forget that, when his tomb is built, he’ll be dead, utterly unable to appreciate any of it.

  In a particularly ironic moment, he even tells his sons to go unearth a lump of precious “lapis lazuli” he’s buried in one of his vineyards, an allusion to a Bible story in which Christ warns against hoarding “treasures upon earth” (since earthly treasures inevitably decay). No matter how much material wealth the Bishop amasses, the poem reminds readers, it can’t go beyond the grave with him.

  What’s more, the Bishop’s utter self-centered materialism has poisoned all of his relationships. He still feels bitter hatred for his rival Gandolf, even though Gandolf is long dead. And he’s certain that his boys—particularly “Anselm,” who’s looking a little shifty—are just waiting for him to die so they can soak up their vast inheritance (including all the money the Bishop has earmarked for his tomb). He’s probably not wrong! But even here, the Bishop’s fear doesn’t seem to be that his sons don’t love him, but that they’ll put him in a cheap coffin of “gritstone, a-crumble.” Wealth and status have become the only matters of consequence to him—and to them.

  Greed and egotism, the poem thus suggests, aren’t just empty, but corrosive; an ultimately fruitless obsession with worldly pleasure and power eats away at people’s sense of connection and meaning. The Bishop’s materialistic egotism is its own punishment: with nothing beyond himself to care about, he dies loveless, angry, and afraid.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  Death and Decay

  As he lays his plans for his elegant tomb, the Bishop of St. Praxed’s is concerned not just with choosing the most ostentatious and expensive materials, but the materials that will last. His obsession with sturdy “basalt” and “marble”—and his terror that his sons will make his tomb of crumbling “gritstone” instead—is a cover for his deep fear of death and decay. Through its images of preservation and rot, the poem reminds readers that death is inevitable and that all attempts to escape it are a foolish waste of time.

  The Bishop’s opinions about stone barely conceal his anxiety about losing everything he’s had in life. He has nothing but scorn for his rival Gandolf’s tomb, which is carved from “onion-stone,” a cheap, flaky kind of marble. His tomb, the bishop insists, will be made of lasting and lovely pink marble—or even of jasper or lapis, even richer and harder rocks. This obsession with materials isn’t just about showing off his wealth and power, but about his fear of becoming “carrion” like Gandolf: if the stones of his tomb don’t decay, he seems to hope, neither will he.

  But the Bishop’s terrible visions toward the end of the poem make it clear just how wrong he is. Imagining that his sons will only build his coffin of “gritstone, a-crumble,” the Bishop paints an awful picture of cheap, brittle stone coffins beading up with moisture “as if the corpse they keep were oozing through.” This image only reminds readers that the Bishop’s corpse will decay whether it’s in a marble box or a sandstone one.

  Death and decay, the poem thus suggests, are facts that people have to learn to live with; no amount of wealth or power can save the Bishop (or anyone else) from their inevitable fate.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.
• 

  The Lasting Power of Art

  The Bishop of St. Praxed’s seems delusional when he believes he’ll get to enjoy his own lavish tomb, given that he’ll certainly be too dead to care whether it’s made of “basalt” or “lapis.” But he’s not wrong to think that this tomb could be a beautiful, enduring monument in its own right. His elegant stone memorial might well exist for centuries—and, in its loveliness, perhaps bring a great deal more happiness to the world than the Bishop himself ever did. In this way, the poem speaks to the lasting power of art—something that the poem implies can indeed develop a life well beyond its creator’s.

  The Bishop wants his monument built of high-quality “marble” or “jasper,” not just because they’re expensive and show off his wealth, but also because such stones last and are beautiful. And in asking that his sons decorate this elegant tomb with sculptures, he’s also remembering that art persists longer than the people who create it. His tomb, if it gets built, might indeed be an artwork that “lives” for centuries longer than he does.

  For that matter, the tomb he proposes might well add some beauty to the world. His description of his tomb’s design, with its mixture of classical “Pans and Nymphs” and Christian imagery, evokes real Renaissance sculptures, works admired to this day for their enduring power. And St. Praxed’s Church itself, with its “aery dome” full of “sunbeam[s],” also sounds genuinely lovely. Such art and architecture might often have been made by corrupt men for egotistical reasons, the poem suggests, but it might also have the power to rise above the selfish intentions of the people who paid for it. In other words, art can bring joy to the world in spite of its creators.

  The poem thus suggests that art can transcend its circumstances. Not only can art live longer than its creators, but it can also be better than they were: the Bishop’s tomb might genuinely “delight the world,” even if the Bishop himself didn’t do a single good work in his life.

  • See where this theme is active in the poem.

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

• Lines 1-5

  Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
  Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
  Nephews—sons mine...ah God, I know not! Well—
  She, men would have to be your mother once,
  Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!

  The first line of "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" sounds like a sermon: "Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!" the speaker cries, alluding to biblical wisdom about the ultimate emptiness of worldly wealth and power. Everything that the speaker says thereafter will ironically undercut that first cry—and unintentionally prove its wisdom.

  As the poem begins, its speaker, a 16th-century Italian Renaissance bishop, is lying on his deathbed, calling his sons around him to listen to his last wishes. Right from the start, then, readers know that the Bishop has perhaps not been 100% faithful to his calling: Catholic priests are meant to be celibate, and this man has not just one son, but a whole gaggle of them!

  Of course, he's certainly not the only priest in his world to have strayed. When he starts out by calling his sons "nephews," he follows an old tradition:

  • When a supposedly celibate priest had children, the kids were referred to not as his sons and daughters, but his nephews and nieces. In fact, the word "nepotism," meaning "using one's influence and power to favor family and friends," comes from the Italian word for "nephew."
  • In the Bishop's 16th-century world, such "nephews" were likely to go far in life, supported by a wealthy father with good reasons to keep them quiet and content.

  In just these first few lines, then, the poem conjures a whole world of Renaissance corruption, wealth, and power. This Bishop knows how to talk the Christian talk—but also how to take full, selfish advantage of his important church position. Lying on his deathbed, he seems to have no regrets and no shame: he knowingly refers to his sons' beautiful "mother," and gloats over just how jealous his old rival "Gandolf" (another priest—no relation to Tolkien's wizard) was of this "fair" lady. In short, he's spent his whole life as a corrupt, spiteful, selfish man, and he sees no reason to amend his ways now that he's dying.

  There are hints, though, that this life has taken its toll on him. As he gathers his sons, he seems nervous that "Anselm" is "keeping back"—in other words, lurking in the background, reluctant to come forward, perhaps resentful or scheming. The Bishop's anxiety about this suggests that his selfish life has made him suspicious, always on the watch for backstabbers. (Keep an eye out for Anselm as the poem goes on; the Bishop certainly will.)

  This poem is a dramatic monologue, which means that it's spoken in the first person by a particular character. The poet takes on a voice like an actor playing a part. For this particular monologue, Browning has chosen a theatrical form, too: blank verse. That means the poem is written in lines of unrhymed iambic pentameter—lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm, like this:

  Draw round | my bed: | is An- | selm keep- | ing back?

  If this rhythm sounds familiar, that's not surprising: this is the same form Shakespeare used for most of the dialogue in his plays. Browning invites his readers to imagine the Bishop's speech not just as a poem, but as a performance. Like King Lear's or Leontes's speeches, the Bishop's words reveal a lot more about him than he might realize.

• Lines 6-9

  What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
  Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
  And as she died so must we die ourselves,
  And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.

  

  

• Lines 10-15

  Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
  In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
  Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
  "Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
  Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
  And so, about this tomb of mine.

  

  

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• Lines 15-19

  I fought
  With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
  —Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
  Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner south
  He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!

  

  

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• Lines 20-24

  Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
  One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
  And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
  And up into the aery dome where live
  The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:

  

  

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• Lines 25-30

  And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
  And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
  With those nine columns round me, two and two,
  The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
  Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
  As fresh-poured red wine of a mighty pulse.

  

  

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• Lines 31-35

  —Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
  Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
  Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
  Draw close: that conflagration of my church
  —What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!

  

  

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• Lines 36-41

  My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
  The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
  Drop water gently till the surface sink,
  And if ye find . . . Ah God, I know not, I! ...
  Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
  And corded up in a tight olive-frail,

  

  

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• Lines 42-44

  Some lump, ah God, of 
  lapis lazuli,
  Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
  Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast...

  

  

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• Lines 45-50

  Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
  That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
  So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
  Like God the Father's globe on both His hands
  Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
  For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!

  

  

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• Lines 51-55

  Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
  Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
  Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black—
  'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
  Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?

  

  

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• Lines 56-62

  The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,
  Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
  Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
  The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
  Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
  Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
  And Moses with the tables...

  

  

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• Lines 62-67

  but I know
  Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
  Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
  To revel down my villas while I gasp
  Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
  Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!

  

  

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• Lines 68-72

  Nay, boys, ye love me—all of jasper, then!
  'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve
  My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
  One block, pure green as a pistachio nut,
  There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world—

  

  

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• Lines 73-75

  And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
  Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
  And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?

  

  

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• Lines 76-79

  —That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
  Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
  No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line—
  Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!

  

  

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• Lines 80-84

  And then how I shall lie through centuries,
  And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
  And see God made and eaten all day long,
  And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
  Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!

  

  

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• Lines 85-90

  For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
  Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
  I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
  And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
  And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
  Into great laps and folds of sculptor's-work:

  

  

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• Lines 91-96

  And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
  Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
  About the life before I lived this life,
  And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
  Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
  Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,

  

  

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• Lines 97-101

  And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
  And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
  —Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
  No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
  Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.

  

  

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• Lines 102-105

  All 
  lapis
  , all, sons! Else I give the Pope
  My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
  Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
  They glitter like your mother's for my soul,

  

  

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• Lines 106-111

  Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
  Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
  With grapes, and add a vizor and a Term,
  And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
  That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
  To comfort me on my entablature

  

  

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• Lines 112-115

  Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
  "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
  For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
  To death—ye wish it—God, ye wish it!

  

  

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• Lines 115-118

  Stone—
  Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
  As if the corpse they keep were oozing through—
  And no more 
  lapis
   to delight the world!

  

  

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• Lines 119-125

  Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
  But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
  —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
  And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
  That I may watch at leisure if he leers—
  Old Gandolf, at me, from his onion-stone,
  As still he envied me, so fair she was!

  

  

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“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Symbols

• 

  The Stones

  The many different kinds of stone the Bishop lists in this poem, from marble to basalt to travertine, symbolize two things:

  • The ultimate emptiness of wealth and power.
  • The longevity of art.

  The Bishop can't seem to stop thinking about what stone his tomb will be made out of. He pours scorn on the cheap "onion-stone" from which his rival Gandolf's tomb is built, and keeps upgrading his demands for his own tomb: first, he wants "basalt," then peach-colored "marble," then "jasper," then "lapis lazuli," a progression that moves from the just-about-reasonable to the ludicrously expensive. (Asking for a tomb made of lapis lazuli is a little bit like asking for a tomb made entirely from opals!) He's trying his best to preserve his status, even in the face of death.

  Of course, none of these rich stones can change the fact that the Bishop isn't long for this world. His obsessive focus on wealth and status, symbolized by these increasingly fancy but lifeless rocks, can't cover up the emptiness of his soul.

  On the other hand, though, tombs carved from beautiful stone do last. The permanence of sculpture can be a reminder of the brevity of human life: the Bishop's tomb will, by definition, outlive him, perhaps for centuries.

  The poem's stones thus invite readers to think about both the brevity of life and the lasting power of art. The Bishop might be wrong to think that he can cling to wealth and status beyond the grave—but he's not wrong that later generations will see and marvel at Renaissance tombs just like his.

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.
• 

  The Bishop's Tomb

  The Bishop's imagined tomb is a symbol of his empty egotism and greed.

  As the Bishop designs his tomb, he imagines it almost as a palace: a splendid resting place built from semiprecious stones, ornamented with bronze sculpture, engraved with the most tasteful Latin, and—most important of all—far more elegant than the tomb of his rival Gandolf. Not only does the Bishop want his tomb to outdo Gandolf's, he wants it to have his effigy (a memorial statue of him) posed in exactly the same way as a famous statue of "God the Father" himself.

  The Bishop's vision of this monument is thus also a picture of how he thinks of himself: as the most important person in the universe. But the poem hints that this tomb will never actually get built, thus suggesting that all the Bishop's egotism—and the Bishop himself—will ultimately come to nothing.

  • See where this symbol appears in the poem.

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Irony

  The Bishop's hypocrisy is the poem's fundamental irony. This supposedly holy man, quick to spout familiar aphorisms about the brevity of life and the emptiness of worldly wealth, is in truth a money-grubbing, lustful, materialistic old sinner.

  Everything this Bishop has done during his tenure in a supposedly selfless pastoral job has been in the service of his personal comfort. He’s used his wealth to build countless country houses, stolen treasures from his own church, and fathered a substantial clan of illegitimate children. To him, being a Bishop just means having easier access to wealth, power, and pleasure.

  He even behaves as if his church’s patron saint, St. Praxed, is just another higher-up he can pull strings with: he offers to put a good word in with her for his sons if they follow his tomb designs to the letter. In short, if this Bishop ever really believed in his religion or cared for his congregation, there’s absolutely no sign of it in his behavior.

  Not only does the Bishop fail to live by the tenets of his religion, he can’t even die by them. Without real faith, he can take no comfort in the thought of a Christian afterlife. His obsession with his splendid tomb is a cover for his fear of death: whenever he begins to ponder his mortality, he quickly turns his mind to semiprecious stones and elaborate sculpture instead. He can’t even seem to face the bare facts of death, instead imagining that he’ll just lie cozy in his church enjoying “the blessed mutter of the mass” for eternity. His hypocrisy doesn’t just make him a corrupt and selfish man, but a cowardly and delusional one as well.

  The deep irony here, then, is that the very man whose job it is to teach love, selflessness, faith, and generosity possesses none of these qualities himself.

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• Imagery

  

  
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"The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Vanity
• Nephews—sons mine
• Fair
• Thence
• Ye
• State-chamber
• Saint Praxed's
• Niche
• Cozened
• Care
• Shrewd
• Carrion
• The pulpit o' the epistle-side
• Choir
• Aery
• Basalt
• Tabernacle
• Pulse
• Paltry
• Onion-stone
• Conflagration
• Aught
• Corded up in a tight olive-frail
• Lapis lazuli
• Bequeathed
• Villas
• Frascati
• Jesu Church
• Shuttle
• Fleet
• Goeth
• Antique-black
• Frieze
• Bas-relief
• Pans and Nymphs
• Ye wot of
• Perchance
• Some tripod, thyrsus
• Twitch
• Tables
• Ye mark me not!
• Child of my bowels
• Revel
• Travertine
• Tomb-top
• Jasper
• Stand pledged to
• Tully
• Ulpian
• The blessed mutter of the mass
• God made and eaten
• Stupefying
• Dying in state
• Crook
• Mortcloth
• Great laps and folds of sculptor's-work
• Yon tapers dwindle
• Agate urns
• ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
• Impoverished
• A vizor and a Term
• Lynx
• Entablature
• Gritstone, a-crumble!
• Altar-ministrants
• Leers

• "Vanity," in this context, means a combination of uselessness and arrogance. In other words, it's "all in vain," useless, to try to cling to worldly wealth and power—but it's also "vain," arrogant, to believe you can!

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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

• Form

  "The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is one of Browning's famous dramatic monologues. That means that it's a poem in the form of a speech—lines that could have been taken straight out of a play, and which are delivered to some specific audience who never actually says anything in the poem. Browning often uses this form to explore (and criticize) human nature. No need for a narrator to comment on the action: the Bishop's own greedy, selfish, hypocritical voice condemns him.

  Like a monologue from a Shakespeare play, this poem is written in one long stanza of blank verse (that is, unrhymed iambic pentameter—more on that under Meter and Rhyme Scheme). Besides drawing on English theatrical tradition, this form helps to characterize the Bishop: the long unbroken stanza makes him sound obsessive, even crazed.

• Meter

  "The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is written in blank verse—in other words, unrhymed iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter means that each of the poem's lines is built from five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds in line 6, for example:

  What's done | is done, | and she | is dead | beside,

  Iambic pentameter is one of the most common meters in English-language poetry, given that a lot of spoken English naturally falls into an iambic rhythm. It's also flexible: the speaker can easily change up the rhythm for emphasis. Listen to what happens in lines 32-33, for example, in which the Bishop insists that his sons position his marble tomb so that he can comfortably sneer at his old rival Gandolf from the grave:

  Put me | where I | may look | at him! | True peach,
  Rosy | and flaw- | less: how | I earned | the prize!

  Making his demands, the Bishop begins his lines with a forceful, attention-grabbing trochee—the opposite foot to an iamb, with a DUM-da rhythm. And he closes line 32 with a punchy spondee, a foot with a DUM-DUM rhythm, evoking his obsessive, greedy pleasure in the thought of the pink marble that will enclose his dead body. Note that it's possible to scan these lines a bit differently (some might read "Put me" as another spondee, for instance), but there's definitely a more urgent rhythm happening. The changed meter here makes the Bishop's voice spring off the page.

  For all these reasons, blank verse is a good choice for a poem in the form of a monologue. It's no wonder, then, that a lot of readers will be familiar with blank verse from Shakespeare, whose plays often used the form; the famous "To be or not to be" speech from Hamlet is one good example.

  In choosing blank verse, Browning thus makes his Bishop sound theatrical. The Bishop speaks in the same form as Shakespeare's Lear or Leontes, and his long speeches, like theirs, reveal a lot more about his character than he might have intended.

• Rhyme Scheme

  "The Bishop Orders His Tomb" is written in blank verse, so it doesn't use a rhyme scheme. That makes the Bishop's speech sound natural and conversational; it's as if readers are listening in as he lectures his sullen sons about exactly how he wants his tomb to look. (Of course, the rumbling meter and the Bishop's lofty tone mean he sounds pretty theatrical, too.)

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Speaker

• This dramatic monologue's speaker is the greedy, selfish Bishop of the title. Lying on his deathbed, all the Bishop can think about is making sure his tomb is the most splendid in the church—and, in particular, that it's far more splendid than the tomb of his old rival, Gandolf.

  The Bishop has clearly been a hypocrite all his life. He addresses this monologue to his numerous sons—sons whom he definitely shouldn't have had, considering he's meant to be a celibate Catholic priest. And even as he rolls out clichés about the brevity of life and the emptiness of wealth, he has no thought of the afterlife; he's obsessed with status and power in this world. In short, he's an empty, selfish, hollow man.

“The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Setting

• The poem is set beside a 16th-century Bishop's deathbed, where his illegitimate sons sullenly gather to listen to his last wishes. But readers are left to imagine the elegant "state-chamber" where the Bishop lies; the Bishop's mind is firmly on his church, St. Praxed's, where he hopes his lavish tomb will be erected. Through the Bishop's descriptions of St. Praxed's "aery dome"—and his dreams of the rosy marble, smooth black stone, and rich blue lapis that he intends his tomb will be built from—readers get a much clearer vision of a richly ornamented Italian Renaissance church than a sweaty-sheeted sickbed.

  The poem is thus set more in the speaker's imagination than in his actual surroundings. And in part, that's because the speaker isn't too wild about the physical reality of death: he'd much rather dream of a palatial tomb than attend to his failing body and his empty soul.

Literary and Historical Context of “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church”

• Literary Context

  The English poet Robert Browning (1812-1889) was most famous in his time for not sounding much like a poet. His contemporaries were confused by his most distinctive works: dramatic monologues like this one, in which Browning inhabited a character like an actor playing a part. Even Oscar Wilde, a big Browning fan, famously said that "[George] Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning." The Victorian literary world was much more at ease with the melancholy lyricism of Tennyson or the elegance of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Browning's wife, and a much more famous poet) than with the novelistic storytelling of Browning's work.

  But it's on his earthy, vibrant dramatic monologues that Browning's continued reputation rests. His most famous poems are a veritable gallery of villains, from the greedy Bishop of St. Praxed's to a murderous Italian duke to an equally murderous lover. By allowing these hideous men to speak for themselves, Browning explored the darkest corners of human nature—and took a particular interest in the ways that people justify their terrible deeds. Villains, Browning's monologues suggest, don't tend to think that they're villains.

  Browning's poetry wasn't all theatrical murder and greed, though; he also wrote tenderly about humility and heroism, homesickness, and heartbreak.

  "The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church" first appeared in Browning's important 1845 collection Dramatic Romances and Lyrics—a collection that would deeply influence 20th-century Modernist poets like Ezra Pound. And Browning still moves readers to this day: his life and work inspired contemporary writer A.S. Byatt to write her acclaimed novel Possession.

  Historical Context

  In writing the tale of this Italian Renaissance bishop, Browning was likely inspired by his own time in Italy. He traveled extensively there as a young man, and in 1846 he outright moved to Florence so he could marry his beloved Elizabeth Barrett. The couple couldn't marry in England because Elizabeth's tyrannical father was not a fan of the match; he would have preferred to keep Elizabeth, a famous (and high-earning) poet, under his own roof.

  This poem draws on Browning's familiarity with both Renaissance art—which, as the Bishop describes, often mixes Christian and classical imagery—and Renaissance religious corruption. Rome in the 16th century was indeed a place where a supposedly pious bishop might well father dozens of sons, jockey for power and status, and amass villa upon villa.

  This poem isn't just a critique of Renaissance-era religious hypocrisy, however, but of hypocrisy all through the ages. Browning, an astute social critic, was not particularly a fan of the wealthy and powerful of his own era, either—of whom there were many.

  The Victorian age in England was marked by a huge divide between a wealthy upper class and an impoverished lower class, and by a belief that England's upper classes should rightfully rule the world because of their innate superiority. Browning's dramatic monologues tend to point out that those who are supposed to be paragons of virtue are more often deeply selfish hypocrites—and that any nation that believes too deeply in its greatness is likely to be blinded by self-righteous frenzies.

More “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed's Church” Resources

• External Resources

  • Browning's Reception — Read a Victorian reviewer's take on Browning, and learn more about how Browning's contemporaries understood his poetry.

  • The Poem Aloud — Watch an actor performing this dramatic monologue as if it were a scene from a play.

  • The Browning Museum — Visit the website of Baylor University's Browning Museum, an archive and library devoted to Browning and his wife and fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

  • A Brief Biography — Visit the Poetry Foundation to learn more about Browning's life and work.

  • Browning's Legacy — Read an article exploring how Browning's poetic reputation has changed since his death.

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Robert Browning

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  • A Toccata of Galuppi's

  • A Woman's Last Word

  • Confessions

  • Epilogue

  • Home-Thoughts, from Abroad

  • How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix

  • Life in a Love

  • Love Among the Ruins

  • Love in a Life

  • Meeting at Night

  • My Last Duchess

  • Pictor Ignotus

  • Porphyria's Lover

  • Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister

  • The Laboratory

  • The Last Ride Together

  • The Lost Leader

  • The Lost Mistress

  • The Patriot

  • The Pied Piper of Hamelin

  • Women and Roses