Balaustion

'Balaustion's Adventure' and 'Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau';

Life and Letters of Robert Browning Robert Browning 1850

With death about them. "(p. 115.)" Balaustion "means wild pomegranate flower; and the girl has been so called on account of her lyric gifts.

A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) Sutherland Orr 1865

Balaustion had never seen him till that moment, nor he her:

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

_Alkestis_ of Euripides, which Balaustion is feigned to have spoken upon the temple steps at Syracuse.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

When next we meet with Balaustion, in _Aristophanes 'Apology_, she is married to her Euthukles, and they are once more speeding across the waters -- this time back to Rhodes, from Athens which has fallen.

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

Balaustion deepen, quiver, and grow grave with gladdened love, as

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

"Nettarion, Phabion, for the darlingness"; and for all her intellect and ardour, it is greatly _this_ that makes Balaustion queen -- the lovely eager sweetness, the tenderness, the "darlingness": Aristophanes guessed almost right!

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

But none of these is right; "it was some fruit-flower"; and at last it comes: _Balaustion_, Wild-Pomegranate-Bloom, and he exclaims in ecstasy,

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

But what a girl Balaustion is, as well as what a woman!

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne

And the whole city, hearing the cry "In we row," which was taken up by the crowd around the harbour-quays, came rushing out to meet them, and Balaustion, standing on the topmost step of the Temple of Herakles, told the play:

Browning's Heroines Ethel Colburn Mayne