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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,<br>Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?<br>Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!<br>—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,<br>Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,<br>Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,<br>Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)<br>And chews Corderius with his morning crust!<br>Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched<br>Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,<br>Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?<br>—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case<br>Like this, papa shall triturate full soon<br>To smooth Papinianian pulp!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">It trots<br>Already through my head, though noon be now,<br>Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.<br>Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!<br>—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold<br>Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,<br>Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,<br>That makes gruff January grin perforce!<br>For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth<br>Escaping from so many hearts at once—<br>When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,<br>Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort<br>To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key<br>O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—<br>Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)<br>Will show a scribbled something like a name<br>"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,<br>"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,<br>"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,<br>"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."<br>Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—<br>Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!<br>Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,<br>May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,<br>Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint<br>There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!<br>Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,<br>Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,<br>And so find door, put galligaskin off<br>At entry of a decent domicile<br>Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,<br>All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Well,<br>Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!<br>How vain are chambering and wantonness,<br>Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad!<br>Commend me to home-joy, the family board,<br>Altar and hearth! These, with a brisk career,<br>A source of honest profit and good fame,<br>Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust,<br>Just so much play as lets the heart expand,<br>Honouring God and serving man,—I say,<br>These are reality, and all else,—fluff,<br>Nutshell and naught,—thank Flaccus for the phrase!<br>Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Why, work with a will, then! Wherefore lazy now?<br>Turn up the hour-glass, whence no sand-grain slips<br>But should have done its duty to the saint<br>O' the day, the son and heir that's eight years old!<br>Let law come dimple Cinoncino's cheek,<br>And Latin dumple Cinarello's chin,<br>The while we spread him fine and toss him flat<br>This pulp that makes the pancake, trim our mass<br>Of matter into Argument the First,<br>Prime Pleading in defence of our accused,<br>Which, once a-waft on paper wing, shall soar,<br>Shall signalize before applausive Rome<br>What study, and mayhap some mother-wit,<br>Can do toward making Master fop and Fisc<br>Old bachelor Bottinius bite his thumb.<br>Now, how good God is! How falls plumb to point<br>This murder, gives me Guido to defend<br>Now, of all days i' the year, just when the boy<br>Verges on Virgil, reaches the right age<br>For some such illustration from his sire,<br>Stimulus to himself! One might wait years<br>And never find the chance which now finds me!<br>The fact is, there's a blessing on the hearth,<br>A special providence for fatherhood!<br>Here's a man, and what's more, a noble, kills<br>—Not sneakingly but almost with parade—<br>Wife's father and wife's mother and wife's self<br>That's mother's self of son and heir (like mine!)<br>—And here stand I, the favoured advocate,<br>Who pluck this flower o' the field, no Solomon<br>Was ever clothed in glorious gold to match,<br>And set the same in Cinoncino's cap!<br>I defend Guido and his comrades—I!<br>Pray God, I keep me humble: not to me—<br>Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi laus!<br>How the fop chuckled when they made him Fisc!<br>We'll beat you, my Bottinius, all for love,<br>All for our tribute to Cinotto's day.<br>Why, 'sbuddikins, old Innocent himself<br>May rub his eyes at the bustle,—ask "What's this<br>"Rolling from out the rostrum, as a gust<br>"O' the Pro Milone had been prisoned there,<br>"And rattled Rome awake?" Awaken Rome,<br>How can the Pope doze on in decency?<br>He needs must wake up also, speak his word,<br>Have his opinion like the rest of Rome,<br>About this huge, this hurly-burly case:<br>He wants who can excogitate the truth,<br>Give the result in speech, plain black and white,<br>To mumble in the mouth and make his own<br>—A little changed, good man, a little changed!<br>No matter, so his gratitude be moved,<br>By when my Giacintino gets of age,<br>Mindful of who thus helped him at a pinch,<br>Archangelus Procurator Pauperum—<br>And proved Hortensius Redivivus!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Whew!<br>To earn the Est-est, merit the minced herb<br>That mollifies the liver's leathery slice,<br>With here a goose-foot, there a cock's-comb stuck,<br>Cemented in an element of cheese!<br>I doubt if dainties do the grandsire good:<br>Last June he had a sort of strangling … bah!<br>He's his own master, and his will is made.<br>So, liver fizz, law flit and Latin fly<br>As we rub hands o'er dish by way of grace!<br>May I lose cause if I vent one word more<br>Except,—with fresh-cut quill we ink the white,—<br>P-r-o-pro Guidone et Sociis. There!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Count Guido married—or, in Latin due,<br>What? Duxit in uxorem?—commonplace!<br>Toedas jugales iniit, subiit,—ha!<br>He underwent the matrimonial torch?<br>Connubio stabili sibi junxit,—hum!<br>In stable bond of marriage bound his own?<br>That's clear of any modern taint: and yet …</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Virgil is little help to who writes prose.<br>He shall attack me Terence with the dawn,<br>Shall Cinuccino! Mum, mind business, Sir!<br>Thus circumstantially evolve we facts,<br>Ita se habet ideo series facti:<br>He wedded,—ah, with owls for augury!<br>Nupserat, heu sinistris avibus,<br>One of the blood Arezzo boasts her best,<br>Dominus Guido, nobili genere ortus,<br>Pompilioe …</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But the version afterward!<br>Curb we this ardour! Notes alone, to-day,<br>The speech to-morrow and the Latin last:<br>Such was the rule in Farinacci's time.<br>Indeed I hitched it into verse and good.<br>Unluckily, law quite absorbs a man,<br>Or else I think I too had poetized.<br>"Law is the pork substratum of the fry,<br>"Goose-foot and cock's-comb are Latinity,"—<br>And in this case, if circumstance assist,<br>We'll garnish law with idiom, never fear!<br>Out-of-the-way events extend our scope:<br>For instance, when Bottini brings his charge,<br>"That letter which you say Pompilia wrote,—<br>"To criminate her parents and herself<br>"And disengage her husband from the coil,—<br>"That, Guido Franceschini wrote, say we:<br>"Because Pompilia could nor read nor write,<br>"Therefore he pencilled her such letter first,<br>"Then made her trace in ink the same again."<br>—Ha, my Bottini, have I thee on hip?<br>How will he turn this and break Tully's pate?<br>"Existimandum" (don't I hear the dog!)<br>"Quod Guido designaverit elementa<br>"Dictoe epistoloe, quoe fuerint<br>"(Superinducto ab ea calamo)<br>"Notata atramento"—there's a style!—<br>"Quia ipsa scribere nesciebat" Boh!<br>Now, my turn! Either, Insulse! (I outburst)<br>Stupidly put! Inane is the response,<br>Inanis est responsio, or the like—<br>To-wit, that each of all those characters,<br>Quod singula elementa epistoloe,<br>Had first of all been traced for her by him,<br>Fuerant per eum prius designata,<br>And then, the ink applied a-top of that,<br>Et deinde, superinducto calamo,<br>The piece, she says, became her handiwork,<br>Per eam, efformata, ut ipsa asserit.<br>Inane were such response! (a second time:)<br>Her husband outlined her the whole, forsooth?<br>Vir ejus lineabat epistolam?<br>What, she confesses that she wrote the thing,<br>Fatetur eam scripsisse, (scorn that scathes!)<br>That she might pay obedience to her lord?<br>Ut viro obtemperaret, apices<br>(Here repeat charge with proper varied phrase)<br>Eo designante, ipsaque calamum<br>Super inducente? By such argument,<br>Ita pariter, she seeks to show the same,<br>(Ay, by Saint Joseph and what saints you please)<br>Epistolam ostendit, medius fidius,<br>No voluntary deed but fruit of force!<br>Non voluntarie sed coacte scriptam!<br>That's the way to write Latin, friend my Fisc!<br>Bottini is a beast, one barbarous:<br>Look out for him when he attempts to say<br>"Armed with a pistol, Guido followed her!"<br>Will not I be beforehand with my Fisc,<br>Cut away phrase by phrase from underfoot!<br>Guido Pompiliam—Guido thus his wife<br>Following with igneous engine, shall I have?<br>Armis munitus igneis persequens—<br>Arma sulphurea gestans, sulphury arms,<br>Or, might one style a pistol—popping-piece?<br>Armatus breviori sclopulo?<br>We'll let him have been armed so, though it make<br>Somewhat against us: I had thought to own—<br>Provided with a simple travelling-sword,<br>Ense solummodo viatorio<br>Instructus: but we'll grant the pistol here:<br>Better we lost the cause than lacked the gird<br>At the Fisc's Latin, lost the Judge's laugh!<br>It's Venturini that decides for style.<br>Tommati rather goes upon the law.<br>So, as to law,—</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ah, but with law ne'er hope<br>To level the fellow,—don't I know his trick!<br>How he draws up, ducks under, twists aside!<br>He's a lean-gutted hectic rascal, fine<br>As pale-haired red-eyed ferret which pretends<br>'T is ermine, pure soft snow from tail to snout.<br>He eludes law by piteous looks aloft,<br>Lets Latin glance off as he makes appeal<br>To saint that's somewhere in the ceiling-top:<br>Do you suppose I don't conceive the beast?<br>Plague of the ermine-vermin! For it takes,<br>It takes, and here's the fellow Fisc, you see,<br>And Judge, you'll not be long in seeing next!<br>Confound the fop—he's now at work like me:<br>Enter his study, as I seem to do,<br>Hear him read out his writing to himself!<br>I know he writes as if he spoke: I hear<br>The hoarse shrill throat, see shut eyes, neck shot-forth,<br>—I see him strain on tiptoe, soar and pour<br>Eloquence out, nor stay nor stint at all—<br>Perorate in the air, then quick to press<br>With the product! What abuse of type and sheet!<br>He'll keep clear of my cast, my logic-throw,<br>Let argument slide, and then deliver swift<br>Some bowl from quite an unguessed point of stand—<br>Having the luck o' the last word, the reply!<br>A plaguy cast, a mortifying stroke:<br>You face a fellow—cries "So, there you stand?<br>"But I discourteous jump clean o'er your head!<br>"You take ship-carpentry for pilotage,<br>"Stop rat-holes, while a sea sweeps through the breach,—<br>"Hammer and fortify at puny points?<br>"Do, clamp and tenon, make all tight and safe!<br>"'T is here and here and here you ship a sea,<br>"No good of your stopped leaks and littleness!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Yet what do I name "little and a leak"?<br>The main defence o' the murder's used to death,<br>By this time, dry bare bones, no scrap we pick:<br>Safer I worked the new, the unforeseen,<br>The nice by-stroke, the fine and improvised<br>Point that can titillate the brain o' the Bench<br>Torpid with over-teaching, long ago!<br>As if Tommati (that has heard, reheard<br>And heard again, first this side and then that—<br>Guido and Pietro, Pietro and Guido, din<br>And deafen, full three years, at each long ear)<br>Don't want amusement for instruction now,<br>Won't rather feel a flea run o'er his ribs,<br>Than a daw settle heavily on his head!<br>Oh I was young and had the trick of fence,<br>Knew subtle pass and push with careless right—<br>My left arm ever quiet behind back,<br>With dagger ready: not both hands to blade!<br>Puff and blow, put the strength out, Blunderbore!<br>There's my subordinate, young Spreti, now,<br>Pedant and prig,—he'll pant away at proof,<br>That's his way!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now for mine—to rub some life<br>Into one's choppy fingers this cold day!<br>I trust Cinuzzo ties on tippet, guards<br>The precious throat on which so much depends!<br>Guido must be all goose-flesh in his hole,<br>Despite the prison-straw: bad Carnival<br>For captives! no sliced fry for him, poor Count!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Carnival-time,—another providence!<br>The town a-swarm with strangers to amuse,<br>To edify, to give one's name and fame<br>In charge of, till they find, some future day,<br>Cintino come and claim it, his name too,<br>Pledge of the pleasantness they owe papa—<br>Who else was it cured Rome of her great qualms,<br>When she must needs have her own judgment?—ay,<br>When all her topping wits had set to work,<br>Pronounced already on the case: mere boys,<br>Twice Cineruggiolo's age with half his sense,<br>As good as tell me, when I cross the court,<br>"Master Arcangeli!" (plucking at my gown)<br>"We can predict, we comprehend your play,<br>"We'll help you save your client." Tra-la-la!<br>I've travelled ground, from childhood to this hour,<br>To have the town anticipate my track?<br>The old fox takes the plain and velvet path,<br>The young hound's predilection,—prints the dew,<br>Don't he, to suit their pulpy pads of paw?<br>No! Burying nose deep down i' the briery bush,<br>Thus I defend Count Guido.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Where are we weak?<br>First, which is foremost in advantage too,<br>Our murder,—we call, killing,—is a fact<br>Confessed, defended, made a boast of: good!<br>To think the Fisc claimed use of torture here,<br>And got thereby avowal plump and plain<br>That gives me just the chance I wanted,—scope<br>Not for brute-force but ingenuity,<br>Explaining matters, not denying them!<br>One may dispute,—as I am bound to do,<br>And shall,—validity of process here:<br>Inasmuch as a noble is exempt<br>From torture which plebeians undergo<br>In such a case: for law is lenient, lax,<br>Remits the torture to a nobleman<br>Unless suspicion be of twice the strength<br>Attaches to a man born vulgarly:<br>We don't card silk with comb that dresses wool.<br>Moreover 't was severity undue<br>In this case, even had the lord been lout.<br>What utters, on this head, our oracle,<br>Our Farinacci, my Gamaliel erst,<br>In those immortal "Questions"? This I quote:<br>"Of all the tools at Law's disposal, sure<br>"That named Vigiliarum is the best—<br>"That is, the worst—to whoso needs must bear:<br>"Lasting, as it may do, from some seven hours<br>"To ten; (beyond ten, we've no precedent;<br>"Certain have touched their ten, but, bah, they died!)<br>"It does so efficaciously convince,<br>"That,—speaking by much observation here,—<br>"Out of each hundred cases, by my count,<br>"Never I knew of patients beyond four<br>"Withstand its taste, or less than ninety-six<br>"End by succumbing: only martyrs four,<br>"Of obstinate silence, guilty or no,—against<br>"Ninety-six full confessors, innocent<br>"Or otherwise,—so shrewd a tool have we!"<br>No marvel either: in unwary hands,<br>Death on the spot is no rare consequence:<br>As indeed all but happened in this case<br>To one of ourselves, our young tough peasant-friend<br>The accomplice called Baldeschi: they were rough,<br>Dosed him with torture as you drench a horse,<br>Not modify your treatment to a man:<br>So, two successive days he fainted dead,<br>And only on the third essay, gave up,<br>Confessed like flesh and blood. We could reclaim,—<br>Blockhead Bottini giving cause enough!<br>But no,—we'll take it as spontaneously<br>Confessed: we'll have the murder beyond doubt.<br>Ah, fortunate (the poet's word reversed)<br>Inasmuch as we know our happiness!<br>Had the antagonist left dubiety,<br>Here were we proving murder a mere myth,<br>And Guido innocent, ignorant, absent,—ay,<br>Absent! He was—why, where should Christian be?—<br>Engaged in visiting his proper church,<br>The duty of us all at Christmas-time,<br>When Caponsacchi, the seducer, stung<br>To madness by his relegation, cast<br>About him and contrived a remedy<br>In murder: since opprobrium broke afresh,<br>By birth o' the babe, on him the imputed sire,<br>He it was quietly sought to smother up<br>His shame and theirs together,—killed the three,<br>And fled—(go seek him where you please to search)—<br>Just at the time when Guido, touched by grace,<br>Devotions ended, hastened to the spot,<br>Meaning to pardon his convicted wife,<br>"Neither do I condemn thee, go in peace!"—<br>And thus arrived i' the nick of time to catch<br>The charge o' the killing, though great-heartedly<br>He came but to forgive and bring to life.<br>Doubt ye the force of Christmas on the soul?<br>"Is thine eye evil because mine is good?"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">So, doubtless, had I needed argue here<br>But for the full confession round and sound!<br>Thus might you wrong some kingly alchemist,—<br>Whose concern should not be with showing brass<br>Transmuted into gold, but triumphing,<br>Rather, about his gold changed out of brass,<br>Not vulgarly to the mere sight and touch,<br>But in the idea, the spiritual display,<br>The apparition buoyed by winged words<br>Hovering above its birth-place in the brain,—<br>Thus would you wrong this excellent personage<br>Forced, by the gross need, to gird apron round,<br>Plant forge, light fire, ply bellows,—in a word,<br>Demonstrate: when a faulty pipkin's crack<br>May disconcert you his presumptive truth!<br>Here were I hanging to the testimony<br>Of one of these poor rustics—four, ye gods!<br>Whom the first taste of friend the Fiscal's cord<br>May drive into undoing my whole speech,<br>Undoing, on his birthday,—what is worse,—<br>My son and heir!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I wonder, all the same,<br>Not so much at those peasants' lack of heart;<br>But—Guido Franceschini, nobleman,<br>Bear pain no better! Everybody knows<br>It used once, when my father was a boy,<br>To form a proper, nay, important point<br>I' the education of our well-born youth,<br>That they took torture handsomely at need,<br>Without confessing in this clownish guise.<br>Each noble had his rack for private use,<br>And would, for the diversion of a guest,<br>Bid it be set up in the yard of arms,<br>And take thereon his hour of exercise,—<br>Command the varletry stretch, strain their best,<br>While friends looked on, admired my lord could smile<br>'Mid tugging which had caused an ox to roar.<br>Men are no longer men!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">—And advocates<br>No longer Farinacci, let us add,<br>If I one more time fly from point proposed!<br>So, Vindicatio,—here begins the speech!—<br>Honoris causa; thus we make our stand:<br>Honour in us had injury, we prove.<br>Or if we fail to prove such injury<br>More than misprision of the fact,—what then?<br>It is enough, authorities declare,<br>If the result, the deed in question now,<br>Be caused by confidence that injury<br>Is veritable and no figment: since,<br>What, though proved fancy afterward, seemed fact<br>At the time, they argue shall excuse result.<br>That which we do, persuaded of good cause<br>For what we do, hold justifiable!—<br>So casuists bid: man, bound to do his best,<br>They would not have him leave that best undone<br>And mean to do his worst,—though fuller light<br>Show best was worst and worst would have been best.<br>Act by the present light!—they ask of man.<br>Ultra quod hic non agitur, besides<br>It is not anyway our business here,<br>De probatione adulterii,<br>To prove what we thought crime was crime indeed,<br>Ad irrogandam poenam, and require<br>Its punishment: such nowise do we seek:<br>Sed ad effectum, but 't is our concern,<br>Excusandi, here to simply find excuse,<br>Occisorem, for who did the killing-work,<br>Et ad illius defensionem, (mark<br>The difference) and defend the man, just that!<br>Quo casu levior probatio<br>Exuberaret, to which end far lighter proof<br>Suffices than the prior case would claim:<br>It should be always harder to convict,<br>In short, than to establish innocence.<br>Therefore we shall demonstrate first of all<br>That Honour is a gift of God to man<br>Precious beyond compare: which natural sense<br>Of human rectitude and purity,—<br>Which white, man's soul is born with,—brooks no touch:<br>Therefore, the sensitivest spot of all,<br>Wounded by any wafture breathed from black,<br>Is,—honour within honour, like the eye<br>Centred i' the ball,—the honour of our wife.<br>Touch us o' the pupil of our honour, then,<br>Not actually,—since so you slay outright,—<br>But by a gesture simulating touch,<br>Presumable mere menace of such taint,—<br>This were our warrant for eruptive ire<br>"To whose dominion I impose no end."<br>(Virgil, now, should not be too difficult<br>To Cinoncino,—say, the early books.<br>Pen, truce to further gambols! Poscimur!)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Nor can revenge of injury done here<br>To the honour proved the life and soul of us,<br>Be too excessive, too extravagant:<br>Such wrong seeks and must have complete revenge.<br>Show we this, first, on the mere natural ground:<br>Begin at the beginning, and proceed<br>Incontrovertibly. Theodoric,<br>In an apt sentence Cassiodorus cites,<br>Propounds for basis of all household law—<br>I hardly recollect it, but it ends,<br>"Bird mates with bird, beast genders with his like,<br>"And brooks no interference." Bird and beast?<br>The very insects … if they wive or no,<br>How dare I say when Aristotle doubts?<br>But the presumption is they likewise wive,<br>At least the nobler sorts; for take the bee<br>As instance,—copying King Solomon,—<br>Why that displeasure of the bee to aught<br>Which savours of incontinency, makes<br>The unchaste a very horror to the hive?<br>Whence comes it bees obtain their epithet<br>Of castoe apes, notably "the chaste"?<br>Because, ingeniously saith Scaliger,<br>(The young sage,—see his book of Table-talk)<br>"Such is their hatred of immodest act,<br>"They fall upon the offender, sting to death."<br>I mind a passage much confirmative<br>I' the Idyllist (though I read him Latinized)<br>"Why" asks a shepherd, "is this bank unfit<br>"For celebration of our vernal loves?"<br>"Oh swain," returns the instructed shepherdess,<br>"Bees swarm here, and would quick resent our warmth!"<br>Only cold-blooded fish lack instinct here,<br>Nor gain nor guard connubiality:<br>But beasts, quadrupedal, mammiferous,<br>Do credit to their beasthood: witness him<br>That Ælian cites, the noble elephant,<br>(Or if not Ælian, somebody as sage)<br>Who seeing, much offence beneath his nose,<br>His master's friend exceed in courtesy<br>The due allowance to his master's wife,<br>Taught them good manners and killed both at once,<br>Making his master and the world admire.<br>Indubitably, then, that master's self,<br>Favoured by circumstance, had done the same<br>Or else stood clear rebuked by his own beast.<br>Adeo, ut qui honorem spernit, thus,<br>Who values his own honour not a straw,—<br>Et non recuperare curat, nor<br>Labours by might and main to salve its wound,<br>Se ulciscendo, by revenging him,<br>Nil differat a belluis, is a brute,<br>Quinimo irrationabilior<br>Ipsismet belluis, nay, contrariwise,<br>Much more irrational than brutes themselves,<br>Should be considered, reputetur! How?<br>If a poor animal feel honour smart,<br>Taught by blind instinct nature plants in him,<br>Shall man,—confessed creation's master-stroke,<br>Nay, intellectual glory, nay, a god,<br>Nay, of the nature of my Judges here,—<br>Shall man prove the insensible, the block,<br>The blot o' the earth he crawls on to disgrace?<br>(Come, that's both solid and poetic!) Man<br>Derogate, live for the low tastes alone,<br>Mean creeping cares about the animal life?<br>Absit such homage to vile flesh and blood!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(May Gigia have remembered, nothing stings<br>Fried liver out of its monotony<br>Of richness, like a root of fennel, chopped<br>Fine with the parsley: parsley-sprigs, I said—<br>Was there need I should say "and fennel too"?<br>But no, she cannot have been so obtuse!<br>To our argument! The fennel will be chopped.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">From beast to man next mount we—ay, but, mind,<br>Still mere man, not yet Christian,—that, in time!<br>Not too fast, mark you! 'T is on Heathen grounds<br>We next defend our act: then, fairly urge—<br>If this were done of old, in a green tree,<br>Allowed in the Spring rawness of our kind,<br>What may be licensed in the Autumn dry<br>And ripe, the latter harvest-tide of man?<br>If, with his poor and primitive half-lights,<br>The Pagan, whom our devils served for gods,<br>Could stigmatise the breach of marriage-vow<br>As that which blood, blood only might efface,—<br>Absolve the husband, outraged, whose revenge<br>Anticipated law, plied sword himself,—<br>How with the Christian in full blaze of noon?<br>Shall not he rather double penalty,<br>Multiply vengeance, than, degenerate,<br>Let privilege be minished, droop, decay?<br>Therefore set forth at large the ancient law!<br>Superabundant the examples be<br>To pick and choose from. The Athenian Code,<br>Solon's, the name is serviceable,—then,<br>The Laws of the Twelve Tables, that fifteenth,—<br>"Romulus" likewise rolls out round and large<br>The Julian; the Cornelian; Gracchus' Law:<br>So old a chime, the bells ring of themselves!<br>Spreti can set that going if he please,<br>I point you, for my part, the belfry plain,<br>Intent to rise from dusk, diluculum,<br>Into the Christian day shall broaden next.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">First, the fit compliment to His Holiness<br>Happily reigning: then sustain the point—<br>All that was long ago declared as law<br>By the natural revelation, stands confirmed<br>By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint,—<br>To-wit—that Honour is man's supreme good.<br>Why should I baulk Saint Jerome of his phrase?<br>Ubi honor non est, where no honour is,<br>Ibi contemptus est; and where contempt,<br>Ibi injuria frequens; and where that,<br>The frequent injury, ibi et indignatio;<br>And where the indignation, ibi quies<br>Nulla: and where there is no quietude<br>Why, ibi, there, the mind is often cast<br>Down from the heights where it proposed to dwell,<br>Mens a proposito soepe dejicitur.<br>And naturally the mind is so cast down,<br>Since harder't is, quum difficilius sit,<br>Iram cohibere, to coerce one's wrath,<br>Quam miracula facere, than work miracles,—<br>So Gregory smiles in his First Dialogue.<br>Whence we infer, the ingenuous soul, the man<br>Who makes esteem of honour and repute,<br>Whenever honour and repute are touched,<br>Arrives at term of fury and despair,<br>Loses all guidance from the reason-check:<br>As in delirium or a frenzy-fit,<br>Nor fury nor despair he satiates,—no,<br>Not even if he attain the impossible,<br>O'erturn the hinges of the universe<br>To annihilate—not whoso caused the smart<br>Solely, the author simply of his pain,<br>But the place, the memory, vituperii,<br>O' the shame and scorn: quia,—says Solomon,<br>(The Holy Spirit speaking by his mouth<br>In Proverbs, the sixth chapter near the end)<br>—Because, the zeal and fury of a man,<br>Zelus et furor viri, will not spare,<br>Non parcet, in the day of his revenge,<br>In die vindictoe, nor will acquiesce,<br>Nec acquiescet, through a person's prayers,<br>Cujusdam precibus,—nec suscipiet,<br>Nor yet take, pro redemptione, for<br>Redemption, dona plurium, gifts of friends,<br>Mere money-payment to compound for ache.<br>Who recognizes not my client's case?<br>Whereto, as strangely consentaneous here,<br>Adduce Saint Bernard in the Epistle writ<br>To Robertulus, his nephew: "Too much grief,<br>"Dolor quippe nimius non deliberat,<br>"Does not excogitate propriety,<br>"Non verecundatur, nor knows shame at all,<br>"Non consulit rationem, nor consults<br>"Reason, non dignitatis metuit<br>"Damnum, nor dreads the loss of dignity;<br>"Modum et ordinem, order and the mode,<br>"Ignorat, it ignores:" why, trait for trait,<br>Was ever portrait limned so like the life?<br>(By Cavalier Maratta, shall I say?<br>I hear he's first in reputation now.)<br>Yes, that of Samson in the Sacred Text<br>That's not so much the portrait as the man!<br>Samson in Gaza was the antetype<br>Of Guido at Rome: observe the Nazarite!<br>Blinded he was,—an easy thing to bear:<br>Intrepidly he took imprisonment,<br>Gyves, stripes and daily labour at the mill:<br>But when he found himself, i' the public place,<br>Destined to make the common people sport,<br>Disdain burned up with such an impetus<br>I' the breast of him that, all the man one fire,<br>Moriatur, roared he, let my soul's self die,<br>Anima mea, with the Philistines!<br>So, pulled down pillar, roof, and death and all,<br>Multosque plures interfecit, ay,<br>And many more he killed thus, moriens,<br>Dying, quam vivus, than in his whole life,<br>Occiderat, he ever killed before.<br>Are these things writ for no example, Sirs?<br>One instance more, and let me see who doubts!<br>Our Lord Himself, made all of mansuetude,<br>Sealing the sum of sufferance up, received<br>Opprobrium, contumely and buffeting<br>Without complaint: but when He found Himself<br>Touched in His honour never so little for once,<br>Then outbroke indignation pent before—<br>"Honorem meum nemini dabo!" "No,<br>"My honour I to nobody will give!"<br>And certainly the example so hath wrought,<br>That whosoever, at the proper worth,<br>Apprises worldly honour and repute,<br>Esteems it nobler to die honoured man<br>Beneath Mannaia, than live centuries<br>Disgraced in the eye o' the world. We find Saint Paul<br>No recreant to this faith delivered once:<br>"Far worthier were it that I died," cries he,<br>Expedit mihi magis mori, "than<br>"That anyone should make my glory void,"<br>Quam ut gloriam meam quis evacuet!<br>See, ad Corinthienses: whereupon<br>Saint Ambrose makes a comment with much fruit,<br>Doubtless my Judges long since laid to heart,<br>So I desist from bringing forward here.<br>(I can't quite recollect it.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Have I proved<br>Satis superque, both enough and to spare,<br>That Revelation old and new admits<br>The natural man may effervesce in ire,<br>O'erflood earth, o'erfroth heaven with foamy rage,<br>At the first puncture to his self-respect?<br>Then, Sirs, this Christian dogma, this law-bud<br>Full-blown now, soon to bask the absolute flower<br>Of Papal doctrine in our blaze of day,—<br>Bethink you, shall we miss one promise-streak,<br>One doubtful birth of dawn crepuscular,<br>One dew-drop comfort to humanity,<br>Now that the chalice teems with noonday wine?<br>Yea, argue Molinists who bar revenge—<br>Referring just to what makes out our case!<br>Under old dispensation, argue they,<br>The doom of the adulterous wife was death,<br>Stoning by Moses' law. "Nay, stone her not,<br>"Put her away!" next legislates our Lord;<br>And last of all, "Nor yet divorce a wife!"<br>Ordains the Church, "she typifies ourself,<br>The Bride no fault shall cause to fall from Christ."<br>Then, as no jot nor tittle of the Law<br>Has passed away—which who presumes to doubt?<br>As not one word of Christ is rendered vain—<br>Which, could it be though heaven and earth should pass?<br>—Where do I find my proper punishment<br>For my adulterous wife, I humbly ask<br>Of my infallible Pope,—who now remits<br>Even the divorce allowed by Christ in lieu<br>Of lapidation Moses licensed me?<br>The Gospel checks the Law which throws the stone,<br>The Church tears the divorce-bill Gospel grants:<br>Shall wives sin and enjoy impunity?<br>What profits me the fulness of the days,<br>The final dispensation, I demand,<br>Unless Law, Gospel and the Church subjoin<br>"But who hath barred thee primitive revenge,<br>"Which, like fire damped and dammed up, burns more fierce?<br>"Use thou thy natural privilege of man,<br>"Else wert thou found like those old ingrate Jews,<br>"Despite the manna-banquet on the board,<br>"A-longing after melons, cucumbers,<br>"And such like trash of Egypt left behind!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(There was one melon had improved our soup:<br>But did not Cinoncino need the rind<br>To make a boat with? So I seem to think.)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Law, Gospel and the Church—from these we leap<br>To the very last revealment, easy rule<br>Befitting the well-born and thorough-bred<br>O' the happy day we live in, not the dark<br>O' the early rude and acorn-eating race.<br>"Behold," quoth James, "we bridle in a horse<br>"And turn his body as we would thereby!"<br>Yea, but we change the bit to suit the growth,<br>And rasp our colt's jaw with a rugged spike<br>We hasten to remit our managed steed<br>Who wheels round at persuasion of a touch.<br>Civilization bows to decency,<br>The acknowledged use and wont: 't is manners,—mild<br>But yet imperative law,—which make the man.<br>Thus do we pay the proper compliment<br>To rank, and that society of Rome,<br>Hath so obliged us by its interest,<br>Taken our client's part instinctively,<br>As unaware defending its own cause.<br>What dictum doth Society lay down<br>I' the case of one who hath a faithless wife?<br>Wherewithal should the husband cleanse his way?<br>Be patient and forgive? Oh, language fails,—<br>Shrinks from depicturing his turpitude!<br>For if wronged husband raise not hue and cry,<br>Quod si maritus de adulterio non<br>Conquereretur, he's presumed a—foh!<br>Presumitur leno: so, complain he must.<br>But how complain? At your tribunal, lords?<br>Far weightier challenge suits your sense, I wot!<br>You sit not to have gentlemen propose<br>Questions gentility can itself discuss.<br>Did not you prove that to our brother Paul?<br>The Abate, quum judicialiter<br>Prosequeretur, when he tried the law,<br>Guidonis causam, in Count Guido's case,<br>Accidit ipsi, this befell himself,<br>Quod risum moverit et cachinnos, that<br>He moved to mirth and cachinnation, all<br>Or nearly all, fere in omnibus<br>Etiam sensatis et cordatis, men<br>Strong-sensed, sound-hearted, nay, the very Court,<br>Ipsismet in judicibus, I might add,<br>Non tamen dicam. In a cause like this,<br>So multiplied were reasons pro and con,<br>Delicate, intertwisted and obscure,<br>That Law refused loan of a finger-tip<br>To unravel, re-adjust the hopeless twine,<br>Since, half-a-dozen steps outside Law's seat,<br>There stood a foolish trifler with a tool<br>A-dangle to no purpose by his side,<br>Had clearly cut the embroilment in a trice.<br>Asserunt enim unanimiter<br>Doctores, for the Doctors all assert,<br>That husbands, quod mariti, must be held<br>Viles, cornuti reputantur, vile,<br>Fronts branching forth a florid infamy,<br>Si propriis manibus, if with their own hands,<br>Non sumunt, they fail straight to take revenge,<br>Vindictam, but expect the deed be done<br>By the Court—expectant illam fieri<br>Per judices, qui summopere rident, which<br>Gives an enormous guffaw for reply,<br>Et cachinnantur. For he ran away,<br>Deliquit enim, just that he might 'scape<br>The censure of both counsellors and crowd,<br>Ut vulgi et doctorum evitaret<br>Censuram, and lest so he superadd<br>To loss of honour ignominy too,<br>Et sic ne istam quoque ignominiam<br>Amisso honori superadderet.<br>My lords, my lords, the inconsiderate step<br>Was—we referred ourselves to Law at all!<br>Twit me not with "Law else had punished you!"<br>Each punishment of the extra-legal step,<br>To which the high-born preferably revert,<br>Is ever for some oversight, some slip<br>I' the taking vengeance, not for vengeance' self.<br>A good thing, done unhandsomely, turns ill;<br>And never yet lacked ill the law's rebuke.<br>For pregnant instance, let us contemplate<br>The luck of Leonardus,—see at large<br>Of Sicily's Decisions sixty-first.<br>This Leonard finds his wife is false: what then?<br>He makes her own son snare her, and entice<br>Out of the town walls to a private walk<br>Wherein he slays her with commodity.<br>They find her body half-devoured by dogs:<br>Leonard is tried, convicted, punished, sent<br>To labour in the galleys seven years long:<br>Why? For the murder? Nay, but for the mode!<br>Malus modus occidendi, ruled the Court,<br>An ugly mode of killing, nothing more!<br>Another fructuous sample,—see "De Re<br>"Criminali," in Matthæus' divine piece.<br>Another husband, in no better plight,<br>Simulates absence, thereby tempts his wife;<br>On whom he falls, out of sly ambuscade,<br>Backed by a brother of his, and both of them<br>Armed to the teeth with arms that law had blamed.<br>Nimis dolose, overwilily,<br>Fuisse operatum, did they work,<br>Pronounced the law: had all been fairly done<br>Law had not found him worthy, as she did,<br>Of four years' exile. Why cite more? Enough<br>Is good as a feast—(unless a birthday-feast<br>For one's Cinuccio) so, we finish here.<br>My lords, we rather need defend ourselves<br>Inasmuch as, for a twinkling of an eye,<br>We hesitatingly appealed to law,—<br>Than need deny that, on mature advice,<br>We blushingly bethought us, bade revenge<br>Back to its simple proper private way<br>Of decent self-dealt gentlemanly death.<br>Judges, here is the law, and here beside,<br>The testimony! Look to it!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Pause and breathe!<br>So far is only too plain; we must watch:<br>Bottini will scarce hazard an attack<br>Here: best anticipate the fellow's play,<br>And guard the weaker places—warily ask,<br>What if considerations of a sort,<br>Reasons of a kind, arise from out the strange<br>Peculiar unforeseen new circumstance<br>Of this our (candour owns) abnormal act,<br>To bar the right of us revenging so?<br>"Impunity were otherwise your meed:<br>"Go slay your wife and welcome,"—may be urged,—<br>"But why the innocent old couple slay,<br>"Pietro, Violante? You may do enough,<br>"Not too much, not exceed the golden mean:<br>"Neither brute-beast nor Pagan, Gentile, Jew,<br>"Nor Christian, no nor votarist of the mode,<br>"Is justified to push revenge so far."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">No, indeed? Why, thou very sciolist!<br>The actual wrong, Pompilia seemed to do,<br>Was virtual wrong done by the parents here—<br>Imposing her upon us as their child—<br>Themselves allow: then, her fault was their fault,<br>Her punishment be theirs accordingly!<br>But wait a little, sneak not off so soon!<br>Was this cheat solely harm to Guido, pray?<br>The precious couple you call innocent,—<br>Why, they were felons that Law failed to clutch,<br>Qui ut fraudarent, who that they might rob,<br>Legitime vocatos, folk law called,<br>Ad fidei commissum, true heirs to the Trust,<br>Partum supposuerunt, feigned this birth,<br>Immemores reos factos esse, blind<br>To the fact that, guilty, they incurred thereby,<br>Ultimi supplicii, hanging or what's worse.<br>Do you blame us that we turn Law's instruments,<br>Not mere self-seekers,—mind the public weal,<br>Nor make the private good our sole concern?<br>That having—shall I say—secured a thief,<br>Not simply we recover from his pouch<br>The stolen article our property,<br>But also pounce upon our neighbour's purse<br>We opportunely find reposing there,<br>And do him justice while we right ourselves?<br>He owes us, for our part, a drubbing say,<br>But owes our neighbour just a dance i' the air<br>Under the gallows: so, we throttle him.<br>That neighbour's Law, that couple are the Thief,<br>We are the over ready to help Law—<br>Zeal of her house hath eaten us up: for which,<br>Can it be, Law intends to eat up us,<br>Crudum Priamum, devour poor Priam raw,<br>('T was Jupiter's own joke) with babes to boot,<br>Priamique pisinnos, in Homeric phrase?<br>Shame!—and so ends my period prettily.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But even,—prove the pair not culpable,<br>Free as unborn babe from connivance at,<br>Participation in, their daughter's fault:<br>Ours the mistake. Is that a rare event?<br>Non semel, it is anything but rare,<br>In contingentia facti, that by chance,<br>Impunes evaserunt, go scot-free,<br>Qui, such well-meaning people as ourselves,<br>Justo dolore moti, who aggrieved<br>With cause, apposuerunt manus, lay<br>Rough hands, in innocentes, on wrong heads.<br>Cite we an illustrative case in point:<br>Mulier Smirnea quoedam, good my lords,<br>A gentlewoman lived in Smyrna once,<br>Virum et filium ex eo conceptum, who<br>Both husband and her son begot by him<br>Killed, interfecerat, ex quo, because,<br>Vir filium suum perdiderat, her spouse<br>Had been beforehand with her, killed her son,<br>Matrimonii primi, of a previous bed.<br>Deinde accusata, then accused,<br>Apud Dolabellam, before him that sat<br>Proconsul, nec duabus coedibus<br>Contaminatam liberare, nor<br>To liberate a woman doubly-dyed<br>With murder, voluit, made he up his mind,<br>Nec condeminare, nor to doom to death,<br>Justo dolore impulsam, one impelled<br>By just grief; sed remisit, but sent her up<br>Ad Areopagum, to the Hill of Mars,<br>Sapientissimorum judicum<br>Coetum, to that assembly of the sage<br>Paralleled only by my judges here;<br>Ubi, cognito de causa, where, the cause<br>Well weighed, responsum est, they gave reply,<br>Ut ipsa et accusator, that both sides<br>O' the suit, redirent, should come back again,<br>Post centum annos, after a hundred years,<br>For judgment; et sic, by which sage decree,<br>Duplici parricidio rea, one<br>Convicted of a double parricide,<br>Quamvis etiam innocentem, though in truth<br>Out of the pair, one innocent at least<br>She, occidisset, plainly had put to death,<br>Undequaque, yet she altogether 'scaped,<br>Evasit impunis. See the case at length<br>In Valerius, fittingly styled Maximus,<br>That eighth book of his Memorable Facts.<br>Nor Cyriacus cities beside the mark:<br>Similiter uxor quoe mandaverat,<br>Just so, a lady who had taken care,<br>Homicidium viri, that her lord be killed,<br>Ex denegatione debiti,<br>For denegation of a certain debt,<br>Matrimonialis, he was loth to pay,<br>Fuit pecuniaria mulcta, was<br>Amerced in a pecuniary mulct,<br>Punita, et ad poenam, and to pains,<br>Temporalem, for a certain space of time,<br>In monasterio, in a convent.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(Ay,<br>In monasterio! He mismanages<br>In with the ablative, the accusative!<br>I had hoped to have hitched the villain into verse<br>For a gift, this very day, a complete list<br>O' the prepositions each with proper case,<br>Telling a story, long was in my head.<br>"What prepositions take the accusative?<br>Ad to or at—who saw the cat?—down to<br>Ob, for, because of, keep her claws off!" Tush!<br>Law in a man takes the whole liberty:<br>The muse is fettered: just as Ovid found!)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">And now, sea widens and the coast is clear.<br>What of the dubious act you bade excuse?<br>Surely things broaden, brighten, till at length<br>Remains—so far from act that needs defence—<br>Apology to make for act delayed<br>One minute, let alone eight mortal months<br>Of hesitation! "Why procrastinate?"<br>(Out with it my Bottinius, ease thyself!)<br>"Right, promptly done, is twice right: right delayed<br>"Turns wrong. We grant you should have killed your wife,<br>"But killed o' the moment, at the meeting her<br>"In company with the priest: then did the tongue<br>"O' the Brazen Head give license, 'Time is now!'<br>"Wait to make mind up? 'Time is past' it peals.<br>"Friend, you are competent to mastery<br>"O' the passions that confessedly explain<br>"An outbreak: you allow an interval,<br>"And then break out as if time's clock still clanged.<br>"You have forfeited your chance, and flat you fall<br>"Into the commonplace category<br>"Of men bound to go softly all their days,<br>"Obeying Law."</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Now, which way make response?<br>What was the answer Guido gave, himself?<br>—That so to argue came of ignorance<br>How honour bears a wound. "For, wound," said he,<br>"My body, and the smart soon mends and ends:<br>"While, wound my soul where honour sits and rules,<br>"Longer the sufferance, stronger grows the pain,<br>"Being ex incontinenti, fresh as first."<br>But try another tack, urge common sense<br>By way of contrast: say—Too true, my lords!<br>We did demur, awhile did hesitate:<br>Since husband sure should let a scruple speak<br>Ere he slay wife,—for his own safety, lords!<br>Carpers abound in this misjudging world:<br>Moreover, there's a nicety in law<br>That seems to justify them should they carp.<br>Suppose the source of injury a son,—<br>Father may slay such son yet run no risk:<br>Why graced with such a privilege? Because<br>A father so incensed with his own child,<br>Or must have reason, or believe he has:<br>Quia semper, seeing that in such event,<br>Presumitur, the law is bound suppose,<br>Quod capiat pater, that the sire must take,<br>Bonum consilium pro filio,<br>The best course as to what befits his boy,<br>Through instinct, ex instinctu, of mere love,<br>Amoris, and, paterni, fatherhood;<br>Quam confidentiam, which confidence,<br>Non habet, law declines to entertain,<br>De viro, of the husband: where finds he<br>An instinct that compels him love his wife?<br>Rather is he presumably her foe.<br>So, let him ponder long in this bad world<br>Ere do the simplest act of justice.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But<br>Again—and here we brush Bottini's breast—<br>Object you, "See the danger of delay!<br>"Suppose a man murdered my friend last month:<br>"Had I come up and killed him for his pains<br>"In rage, I had done right, allows the law:<br>"I meet him now and kill him in cold blood,<br>"I do wrong, equally allows the law:<br>"Wherein do actions differ, yours and mine?"<br>In plenitudine intellectus es?<br>Hast thy wits, Fisc? To take such slayer's life,<br>Returns it life to thy slain friend at all?<br>Had he stolen ring instead of stabbing friend,—<br>To-day, to-morrow or next century,<br>Meeting the thief, thy ring upon his thumb,<br>Thou justifiably hadst wrung it thence:<br>So, couldst thou wrench thy friend's life back again,<br>Though prisoned in the bosom of his foe.<br>Why, law would look complacent on thy wrath.<br>Our case is, that the thing we lost, we found:<br>The honour, we were robbed of eight months since,<br>Being recoverable at any day<br>By death of the delinquent. Go thy ways!<br>Ere thou hast learned law, will be much to do,<br>As said the gaby while he shod the goose.<br>Nay, if you urge me, interval was none!<br>From the inn to the villa—blank or else a bar<br>Of adverse and contrarious incident<br>Solid between us and our just revenge!<br>What with the priest who flourishes his blade,<br>The wife who like a fury flings at us,<br>The crowd—and then the capture, the appeal<br>To Rome, the journey there, the jaunting thence<br>To shelter at the House of Convertites,<br>The visits to the Villa, and so forth,<br>Where was one minute left us all this while<br>To put in execution that revenge<br>We planned o' the instant?—as it were, plumped down<br>O' the spot, some eight months since, which round sound egg,<br>Rome, more propitious than our nest, should hatch!<br>Object not, "You reached Rome on Christmas-eve,<br>"And, despite liberty to act at once,<br>"Waited a whole and indecorous week!"<br>Hath so the Molinism, the canker, lords,<br>Eaten to our bone? Is no religion left?<br>No care for aught held holy by the Church?<br>What, would you have us skip and miss those Feasts<br>O' the Natal Time, must we go prosecute<br>Secular business on a sacred day?<br>Should not the merest charity expect,<br>Setting our poor concerns aside for once,<br>We hurried to the song matutinal<br>I' the Sistine, and pressed forward for the Mass<br>The Cardinal that's Camerlengo chaunts,<br>Then rushed on to the blessing of the Hat<br>And Rapier, which the Pope sends to what prince<br>Has done most detriment to the Infidel—<br>And thereby whetted courage if 't were blunt?<br>Meantime, allow we kept the house a week,<br>Suppose not we were idle in our mew!<br>Picture us raging here and raving there—<br>"'Money?' I need none. 'Friends?' The word is null.<br>"Restore the white was on that shield of mine<br>"Borne at" … wherever might be shield to bear.<br>"I see my grandsire, he who fought so well<br>"At" … here find out and put in time and place,<br>Or else invent the fight his grandsire fought:<br>"I see this! I see that!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(See nothing else,<br>Or I shall scarce see lamb's fry in an hour!<br>What to the uncle, as I bid advance<br>The smoking dish? "Fry suits a tender tooth!<br>"Behoves we care a little for our kin—<br>"You, Sir,—who care so much for cousinship<br>"As come to your poor loving nephew's feast!"<br>He has the reversion of a long lease yet—<br>Land to bequeath! He loves lamb's fry, I know!)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here fall to be considered those same six<br>Qualities; what Bottini needs must call<br>So many aggravations of our crime,<br>Parasite-growth upon mere murder's back.<br>We summarily might dispose of such<br>By some off-hand and jaunty fling, some skit—<br>"So, since there's proved no crime to aggravate,<br>"A fico for your aggravations, Fisc!"<br>No,—handle mischief rather,—play with spells<br>Were meant to raise a spirit, and laugh the while<br>We show that did he rise we stand his match!<br>Therefore, first aggravation: we made up—<br>Over and above our simple murderous selves—<br>A regular assemblage of armed men,<br>Coadunatio armatorum,—ay,<br>Unluckily it was the very judge<br>That sits in judgment on our cause to-day<br>Who passed the law as Governor of Rome:<br>"Four men armed,"—though for lawful purpose, mark!<br>Much more for an acknowledged crime,—"shall die."<br>We five were armed to the teeth, meant murder too?<br>Why, that's the very point that saves us, Fisc!<br>Let me instruct you. Crime nor done nor meant,—<br>You punish still who arm and congregate:<br>For wherefore use bad means to a good end?<br>Crime being meant not done,—you punish still<br>The means to crime, whereon you haply pounce,<br>Though accident have baulked them of effect.<br>But crime not only compassed but complete,<br>Meant and done too? Why, since you have the end,<br>Be that your sole concern, nor mind those means<br>No longer to the purpose! Murdered we?<br>(—Which, that our luck was in the present case,<br>Quod contigisse in prasenti casu,<br>Is palpable, manibus palpatum est—)<br>Make murder out against us, nothing else!<br>Of many crimes committed with a view<br>To one main crime, Law overlooks the less,<br>Intent upon the large. Suppose a man<br>Having in view commission of a theft,<br>Climbs the town-wall: 't is for the theft he hangs,<br>In case he stands convicted of such theft:<br>Law remits whipping, due to who clomb wall<br>Through bravery or wantonness alone,<br>Just to dislodge a daw's nest, plant a flag.<br>So I interpret you the manly mind<br>Of him about to judge both you and me,—<br>Our Governor, who, being no Fisc, my Fisc,<br>Cannot have blundered on ineptitude!<br>Next aggravation,—that the arms themselves<br>Were specially of such forbidden sort<br>Through shape or length or breadth, as, prompt, Law plucks<br>From single hand of solitary man,<br>Making him pay the carriage with his life:<br>Delatio armorum, arms against the rule,<br>Contra formam constitutionis, of<br>Pope Alexander's blessed memory.<br>Such are the poignards with the double prong,<br>Horn-like, when tines make bold the antlered buck,<br>Each prong of brittle glass—wherewith to stab<br>And break off short and so let fragment stick<br>Fast in the flesh to baffle surgery:<br>Such being the Genoese blade with hooked edge<br>That did us service at the villa here.<br>Sed parcat mihi tam eximius vir,<br>But,—let so rare a personage forgive,—<br>Fisc, thy objection is a foppery!<br>Thy charge runs that we killed three innocents:<br>Killed, dost see? Then, if killed, what matter how?<br>By stick or stone, by sword or dagger, tool<br>Long or tool short, round or triangular—<br>Poor slain folk find small comfort in the choice!<br>Means to an end, means to an end, my Fisc!<br>Nature cries out, "Take the first arms you find!"<br>Furor ministrat arma: where's a stone?<br>Unde mî lapidem, where darts for me?<br>Unde sagittas? But subdue the bard<br>And rationalize a little. Eight months since,<br>Had we, or had we not, incurred your blame<br>For letting 'scape unpunished this bad pair?<br>I think I proved that in last paragraph!<br>Why did we so? Because our courage failed.<br>Wherefore? Through lack of arms to fight the foe:<br>We had no arms or merely lawful ones,<br>An unimportant sword and blunderbuss,<br>Against a foe, pollent in potency,<br>The amasius, and our vixen of a wife.<br>Well then, how culpably do we gird loin<br>And once more undertake the high emprise,<br>Unless we load ourselves this second time<br>With handsome superfluity of arms,<br>Since better is "too much" than "not enough,"<br>And "plus non vitiat," too much does no harm,<br>Except in mathematics, sages say.<br>Gather instruction from the parable!<br>At first we are advised—"A lad hath here<br>"Seven barley loaves and two small fishes: what<br>"Is that among so many?" Aptly asked:<br>But put that question twice and, quite as apt,<br>The answer is "Fragments, twelve baskets full!"<br>And, while we speak of superabundance, fling<br>We word by the way to fools who cast their flout<br>On Guido—"Punishment were pardoned him,<br>"But here the punishment exceeds offence:<br>"He might be just, but he was cruel too!"<br>Why, grant there seems a kind of cruelty<br>In downright stabbing people he could maim,<br>(If so you stigmatize the stern and strict)<br>Still, Guido meant no cruelty—may plead<br>Transgression of his mandate, over-zeal<br>O' the part of his companions: all he craved<br>Was, they should fray the faces of the folk,<br>Merely disfigure, nowise make them die.<br>Solummodo fassus est, he owns no more,<br>Dedisse mandatum, than that he desired,<br>Ad sfrisiandum, dicam, that they hack<br>And hew, i' the customary phrase, his wife,<br>Uxorem tantum, and no harm beside.<br>If his instructions then be misconceived,<br>Nay, disobeyed, impute you blame to him?<br>Cite me no Panicollus to the point,<br>As adverse! Oh, I quite expect his case—<br>How certain noble youths of Sicily<br>Having good reason to mistrust their wives,<br>Killed them and were absolved in consequence:<br>While others who had gone beyond the need<br>By mutilation of each paramour—<br>As Galba in the Horatian satire grieved<br>—These were condemned to the galleys, cast for guilt<br>Exceeding simple murder of a wife.<br>But why? Because of ugliness, and not<br>Cruelty, in the said revenge, I trow!<br>Ex causa abscissionis partium;<br>Qui nempe id facientes reputantur<br>Naturoe inimici, man revolts<br>Against them as the natural enemy.<br>Pray, grant to one who meant to slit the nose<br>And slash the cheek and slur the mouth, at most,<br>A somewhat more humane award than these<br>Obtained, these natural enemies of man!<br>Objectum funditus corruit, flat you fall,<br>My Fisc! I waste no kick on you, but pass.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Third aggravation: that our act was done—<br>Not in the public street, where safety lies,<br>Not in the bye-place, caution may avoid,<br>Wood, cavern, desert, spots contrived for crime,—<br>But in the very house, home; nook and nest,<br>O' the victims, murdered in their dwelling-place,<br>In domo ac habitatione propria,<br>Where all presumably is peace and joy.<br>The spider, crime, pronounce we twice a pest<br>When, creeping from congenial cottage, she<br>Taketh hold with her hands, to horrify<br>His household more, i' the palace of the king.<br>All three were housed and safe and confident.<br>Moreover, the permission that our wife<br>Should have at length domum pro carcere,<br>Her own abode in place of prison—why,<br>We ourselves granted, by our other self<br>And proxy Paolo: did we make such grant,<br>Meaning a lure?—elude the vigilance<br>O' the jailor, lead her to commodious death,<br>While we ostensibly relented?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Ay,<br>Just so did we, nor otherwise, my Fisc!<br>Is vengeance lawful? We demand our right,<br>But find it will be questioned or refused<br>By jailor, turnkey, hangdog,—what know we?<br>Pray, how is it we should conduct ourselves?<br>To gain our private right—break public peace,<br>Do you bid us?—trouble order with our broils?<br>Endanger . . shall I shrink to own . . ourselves?—<br>Who want no broken head nor bloody nose<br>(While busied slitting noses, breaking heads)<br>From the first tipstaff that may interfere!<br>Nam quicquid sit, for howsoever it be,<br>An de consensu nostro, if with leave<br>Or not, a monasterio, from the nuns,<br>Educta esset, she had been led forth,<br>Potuimus id dissimulare, we<br>May well have granted leave in pure pretence,<br>Ut aditum habere, that thereby<br>An entry we might compass, a free move<br>Potuissemus, to her easy death,<br>Ad eam occidendam. Privacy<br>O' the hearth, and sanctitude of home, say you?<br>Shall we give man's abode more privilege<br>That God's?—for in the churches where He dwells,<br>In quibus assistit Regum Rex, by means<br>Of His essence, per essentiam, all the same,<br>Et nihilominus, therein, in eis,<br>Ex justa via delinquens, whoso dares<br>To take a liberty on ground enough,<br>Is pardoned, excusatur: that's our case—<br>Delinquent through befitting cause. You hold,<br>To punish a false wife in her own house<br>Is graver than, what happens every day,<br>To hale a debtor from his hiding-place<br>In church protected by the Sacrament?<br>To this conclusion have I brought my Fisc?<br>Foxes have holes, and fowls o' the air their nests;<br>Praise you the impiety that follows, Fisc?<br>Shall false wife yet have where to lay her head?<br>"Contra Fiscum definitum est!" He's done!<br>"Surge et scribe," make a note of it!<br>—If I may dally with Aquinas' word.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Or in the death-throe does he mutter still,<br>Fourth aggravation, that we changed our garb,<br>And rusticized ourselves with uncouth hat,<br>Rough vest and goatskin wrappage; murdered thus<br>Mutatione vestium, in disguise,<br>Whereby mere murder got complexed with wile,<br>Turned homicidium ex insidiis? Fisc,<br>How often must I round the in the ears—<br>All means are lawful to a lawful end?<br>Concede he had the right to kill his wife:<br>The Count indulged in a travesty; why?<br>De illa ut vindictam sumeret,<br>That on her he might lawful vengeance take,<br>Commodius, with more ease, et tutius,<br>And safelier: wants he warrant for the step?<br>Read to thy profit how the Apostle once<br>For ease and safety, when Damascus raged,<br>Was let down in a basket by the wall<br>To 'scape the malice of the governor<br>(Another sort of Governor boasts Rome!)<br>—Many are of opinion,—covered close,<br>Concealed with—what except that very cloak<br>He left behind at Troas afterward?<br>I shall not add a syllable: Molinists may!<br>Well, have we more to manage? Ay, indeed!<br>Fifth aggravation, that our wife reposed<br>Sub potestate judicis, beneath<br>Protection of the judge,—her house was styled<br>A prison, and his power became its guard<br>In lieu of wall and gate and bolt and bar.<br>This is a tough point, shrewd, redoubtable:<br>Because we have to supplicate that judge<br>Shall overlook wrong done the judgment-seat.<br>Now, I might suffer my own nose be pulled,<br>As man: but then as father … if the Fisc<br>Touched one hair of my boy who held my hand<br>In confidence he could not come to harm<br>Crossing the Corso, at my own desire,<br>Going to see those bodies in the church—<br>What would you say to that, Don Hyacinth?<br>This is the sole and single knotty point:<br>For, bid Tommati blink his interest,<br>You laud his magnanimity the while:<br>But baulk Tommati's office,—he talks big!<br>"My predecessors in the place,—those sons<br>"O' the prophets that may hope succeed me here,—<br>"Shall I diminish their prerogative?<br>"Count Guido Franceschini's honour!—well,<br>"Has the Governor of Rome none?"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">You perceive,<br>The cards are all against us. Make a push,<br>Kick over table, as shrewd gamesters do!<br>We, do you say, encroach upon the rights,<br>Deny the omnipotence o' the Judge forsooth?<br>We, who have only been from first to last<br>Intending that his purpose should prevail,<br>Nay more, at times, anticipating it<br>At risk of his rebuke?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But wait awhile!<br>Cannot we lump this with the sixth and last<br>Of the aggravations—that the Majesty<br>O' the Sovereign here received a wound? to-wit,<br>Loesa Majestas, since our violence<br>Was out of envy to the course of law,<br>In odium litis? We cut short thereby<br>Three pending suits, promoted by ourselves<br>I' the main,—which worsens crime, accedit ad<br>Exasperationem criminis!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Yes, here the eruptive wrath with full effect!<br>How, did not indignation chain my tongue,<br>Could I repel this last, worst charge of all!<br>(There is a porcupine to barbacue;<br>Gigia can jug a rabbit well enough,<br>With sour-sweet sauce and pine-pips; but, good Lord,<br>Suppose the devil instigate the wench<br>To stew, not roast him? Stew my porcupine?<br>If she does, I know where his quills shall stick!<br>Come, I must go myself and see to things:<br>I cannot stay much longer stewing here.)<br>Our stomach … I mean, our soul is stirred within,<br>And we want words. We wounded Majesty?<br>Fall under such a censure, we?—who yearned<br>So much that Majesty dispel the cloud<br>And shine on us with healing on her wings,<br>That we prayed Pope Majestas' very self<br>To anticipate a little the tardy pack,<br>Bell us forth deep the authoritative bay<br>Should start the beagles into sudden yelp<br>Unisonous,—and, Gospel leading Law,<br>Grant there assemble in our own behoof<br>A Congregation, a particular Court,<br>A few picked friends of quality and place,<br>To hear the several matters in dispute,—<br>Causes big, little and indifferent,<br>Bred of our marriage like a mushroom-growth,—<br>All at once (can one brush off such too soon?)<br>And so with laudable despatch decide<br>Whether we, in the main (to sink detail)<br>Were one the Pope should hold fast or let go.<br>"What, take the credit from the Law?" you ask?<br>Indeed, we did! Law ducks to Gospel here:<br>Why should Law gain the glory and pronounce<br>A judgment shall immortalize the Pope?<br>Yes: our self-abnegating policy<br>Was Joab's—we would rouse our David's sloth,<br>Bid him encamp against a city, sack<br>A place whereto ourselves had long laid siege,<br>Lest, taking it at last, it take our name<br>Nor be styled Innocentinopolis.<br>But no! The modesty was in alarm,<br>The temperance refused to interfere,<br>Returned us our petition with the word<br>"Ad judices suos," "Leave him to his Judge!"<br>As who should say "Why trouble my repose?<br>"Why consult Peter in a simple case,<br>"Peter's wife's sister in her fever-fit<br>"Might solve as readily as the Apostle's self?<br>"Are my Tribunals posed by aught so plain?<br>"Hath not my Court a conscience? It is of age,<br>"Ask it!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">We do ask,—but, inspire reply<br>To the Court thou bidst me ask, as I have asked—<br>Oh thou, who vigilantly dost attend<br>To even the few, the ineffectual words<br>Which rise from this our low and mundane sphere<br>Up to thy region out of smoke and noise,<br>Seeking corroboration from thy nod<br>Who art all justice—which means mercy too,<br>In a low noisy smoky world like ours<br>Where Adam's sin made peccable his seed!<br>We venerate the father of the flock,<br>Whose last faint sands of life, the frittered gold,<br>Fall noiselessly, yet all too fast, o' the cone<br>And tapering heap of those collected years:<br>Never have these been hurried in their flow,<br>Though justice fain would jog reluctant arm,<br>In eagerness to take the forfeiture<br>Of guilty life: much less shall mercy sue<br>In vain that thou let innocence survive,<br>Precipitate no minim of the mass<br>O' the all-so precious moments of thy life,<br>By pushing Guido into death and doom!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">(Our Cardinal engages to go read<br>The Pope my speech, and point its beauties out.<br>They say, the Pope has one half-hour, in twelve,<br>Of something like a moderate return<br>Of the intellectuals,—never much to lose!<br>If I adroitly plant this passage there,<br>The Fisc will find himself forestalled, I think,<br>Though he stand, beat till the old ear-drum break!<br>—Ah, boy of my own bowels, Hyacinth,<br>Wilt ever catch the knack, requite the pains<br>Of poor papa, become proficient too<br>I' the how and why and when, the time to laugh,<br>The time to weep, the time, again, to pray,<br>And all the times prescribed by Holy Writ?<br>Well, well, we fathers can but care, but cast<br>Our bread upon the waters!)</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In a word,<br>These secondary charges go to ground,<br>Since secondary, and superfluous,—motes<br>Quite from the main point: we did all and some,<br>Little and much, adjunct and principal,<br>Causa honoris. Is there such a cause<br>As the sake of honour? By that sole test try<br>Our action, nor demand if more or less,<br>Because of the action's mode, we merit blame<br>Or may-be deserve praise! The Court decides.<br>Is the end lawful? It allows the means:<br>What we may do, we may with safety do,<br>And what means "safety" we ourselves must judge.<br>Put case a person wrongs me past dispute:<br>If my legitimate vengeance be a blow,<br>Mistrusting my bare arm can deal that blow,<br>I claim co-operation of a stick;<br>Doubtful if stick be tough, I crave a sword;<br>Diffident of ability in fence,<br>I fee a friend, a swordsman to assist:<br>Take one—he may be coward, fool or knave:<br>Why not take fifty?—and if these exceed<br>I' the due degree of drubbing, whom accuse<br>But the first author of the aforesaid wrong<br>Who put poor me to such a world of pains?<br>Surgery would have just excised a wart;<br>The patient made such pother, struggled so<br>That the sharp instrument sliced nose and all.<br>Taunt us not that our friends performed for pay!<br>Ourselves had toiled for simple honour's sake:<br>But country clowns want dirt they comprehend,<br>The piece of gold! Our reasons, which suffice<br>Ourselves, be ours alone; our piece of gold<br>Be, to the rustic, reason he approves!<br>We must translate our motives like our speech,<br>Into the lower phrase that suits the sense<br>O' the limitedly apprehensive. Let<br>Each level have its language! Heaven speaks first<br>To the angel, then the angel tames the word<br>Down to the ear of Tobit: he, in turn,<br>Diminishes the message to his dog,<br>And finally that dog finds how the flea<br>(Which else, importunate, might check his speed)<br>Shall learn its hunger must have holiday,<br>By application of his tongue or paw:<br>So many varied sorts of language here,<br>Each following each with pace to match the step,<br>Haud passibus oequis!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Talking of which flea,<br>Reminds me I must put in special word<br>For the poor humble following,—the four friends,<br>Sicarii, our assassins caught and caged.<br>Ourselves are safe in your approval now:<br>Yet must we care for our companions, plead<br>The cause o' the poor, the friends (of old-world faith)<br>Who lie in tribulation for our sake.<br>Pauperum Procurator is my style:<br>I stand forth as the poor man's advocate:<br>And when we treat of what concerns the poor,<br>Et cum agatur de pauperibus,<br>In bondage, carceratis, for their sake,<br>In eorum causis, natural piety,<br>Pietas, ever ought to win the day,<br>Triumphare debet, quia ipsi sunt,<br>Because those very paupers constitute,<br>Thesaurus Christi, all the wealth of Christ.<br>Nevertheless I shall not hold you long<br>With multiplicity of proofs, nor burn<br>Candle at noon-tide, clarify the clear.<br>There beams a case refulgent from our books—<br>Castrensis, Butringarius, everywhere<br>I find it burn to dissipate the dark.<br>'T is this: a husband had a friend, which friend<br>Seemed to him over-friendly with his wife<br>In thought and purpose,—I pretend no more.<br>To justify suspicion or dispel,<br>He bids his wife make show of giving heed,<br>Semblance of sympathy—propose, in fine,<br>A secret meeting in a private place.<br>The friend, enticed thus, finds an ambuscade,<br>To-wit, the husband posted with a pack<br>Of other friends, who fall upon the first<br>And beat his love and life out both at once.<br>These friends were brought to question for their help;<br>Law ruled "The husband being in the right,<br>"Who helped him in the right can scarce be wrong"—<br>Opinio, an opinion every way,<br>Multum tenenda cordi, heart should hold!<br>When the inferiors follow as befits<br>The lead o' the principal, they change their name,<br>And, non dicuntur, are no longer called<br>His mandatories, mandatorii,<br>But helpmates, sed auxiliatores; since<br>To that degree does honour' sake lend aid,<br>Adeo honoris causa est efficax,<br>That not alone, non solum, does it pour<br>Itself out, se diffundat, on mere friends,<br>We bring to do our bidding of this sort,<br>In mandatorios simplices, but sucks<br>Along with it in wide and generous whirl,<br>Sed etiam assassinii qualitate<br>Qualificatos, people qualified<br>By the quality of assassination's self,<br>Dare I make use of such neologism,<br>Ut utar verbo.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Haste we to conclude.<br>Of the other points that favour, leave some few<br>For Spreti; such as the delinquents' youth.<br>One of them falls short, by some months, of age<br>Fit to be managed by the gallows; two<br>May plead exemption from our law's award,<br>Being foreigners, subjects of the Granduke—<br>I spare that bone to Spreti, and reserve<br>Myself the juicier breast of argument—<br>Flinging the breast-blade i' the face o' the Fisc,<br>Who furnished me the tid-bit: he must needs<br>Play off his privilege and rack the clowns,—<br>And they, at instance of the rack, confess<br>All four unanimously made resolve,—<br>The night o' the murder, in brief minute snatched<br>Behind the back of Guido as he fled,—<br>That, since he had not kept his promise, paid<br>The money for the murder on the spot,<br>So, reaching home again, might please ignore<br>The pact or pay them in improper coin,—<br>They one and all resolved, these hopeful friends,<br>'T were best inaugurate the morrow's light,<br>Nature recruited with her due repose,<br>By killing Guido as he lay asleep<br>Pillowed on wallet which contained their fee.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I thank the Fisc for knowledge of this fact:<br>What fact could hope to make more manifest<br>Their rectitude, Guido's integrity?<br>For who fails recognize the touching truth<br>That these poor rustics bore no envy, hate,<br>Malice nor yet uncharitableness<br>Against the people they had put to death?<br>In them, did such an act reward itself?<br>All done was to deserve the simple pay,<br>Obtain the bread clowns earn by sweat of brow,<br>And missing which, they missed of everything—<br>Hence claimed pay, even at expense of life<br>To their own lord, so little warped (admire!)<br>By prepossession, such the absolute<br>Instinct of equity in rustic souls!<br>Whereas our Count, the cultivated mind,<br>He, wholly rapt in his serene regard<br>Of honour, he contemplating the sun<br>Who hardly marks if taper blink below,—<br>He, dreaming of no argument for death<br>Except a vengeance worthy noble hearts,—<br>Dared not so desecrate the deed, forsooth,<br>Vulgarize vengeance, as defray its cost<br>By money dug from out the dirty earth,<br>Irritant mere, in Ovid's phrase, to ill.<br>What though he lured base hinds by lucre's hope,—<br>The only motive they could masticate,<br>Milk for babes, not strong meat which men require?<br>The deed done, those coarse hands were soiled enough,<br>He spared them the pollution of the pay.<br>So much for the allegement, thine, my Fisc,<br>Quo nil absurdius, than which nought more mad,<br>Excogitari potest, may be squeezed<br>From out the cogitative brain of thee!<br>And now, thou excellent the Governor!<br>(Push to the peroration) coeterum<br>Enixe supplico, I strive in prayer,<br>Ut dominis meis, that unto the Court,<br>Benigna fronte, with a gracious brow,<br>Et oculis serenis, and mild eyes,<br>Perpendere placeat, it may please them weigh,<br>Quod dominus Guido, that our noble Count,<br>Occidit, did the killing in dispute,<br>Ut ejus honor tumulatus, that<br>The honour of him buried fathom-deep<br>In infamy, in infamia, might arise,<br>Resurgeret, as ghost breaks sepulchre!<br>Occidit, for he killed, uxorem, wife,<br>Quia illi fuit, since she was to him,<br>Opprobrio, a disgrace and nothing more!<br>Et genitores, killed her parents too,<br>Qui, who, postposita verecundia,<br>Having thrown off all sort of decency,<br>Filiam repudiarunt, had renounced<br>Their daughter, atque declarare non<br>Erubuerunt, nor felt blush tinge cheek,<br>Declaring, meretricis genitam<br>Esse, she was the offspring of a drab,<br>Ut ipse dehonestaretur, just<br>That so himself might lose his social rank!<br>Cujus mentem, and which daughter's heart and soul,<br>They, perverterunt, turned from the right course,<br>Et ad illicitos amores non<br>Dumtaxat pellexerunt, and to love<br>Not simply did alluringly incite,<br>Sed vi obedientioe, but by force<br>O' the duty, filialis, daughters owe,<br>Coegerunt, forced and drove her to the deed:<br>Occidit, I repeat he killed the clan,<br>Ne scilicet amplius in dedecore,<br>Lest peradventure longer life might trail,<br>Viveret, link by link his turpitude,<br>Invisus consanguineis, hateful so<br>To kith and kindred, a nobilibus<br>Notatus, shunned by men of quality,<br>Relictus ab amicis, left i' the lurch<br>By friends, ab omnibus derisus, turned<br>A common hack-block to try edge of jokes.<br>Occidit, and he killed them here in Rome,<br>In Urbe, the Eternal City, Sirs,<br>Nempe quoe alias spectata est,<br>The appropriate theatre which witnessed once,<br>Matronam nobilem, Lucretia's self,<br>Abluere pudicitioe maculas,<br>Wash off the spots of her pudicity,<br>Sanguine proprio, with her own pure blood;<br>Quoe vidit, and which city also saw,<br>Patrem, Virginius, undequaque, quite,<br>Impunem, with no sort of punishment,<br>Nor, et non illaudatum, lacking praise,<br>Sed polluentem parricidio,<br>Imbrue his hands with butchery, filioe,<br>Of chaste Virginia, to avoid a rape,<br>Ne raperetur ad stupra; so to heart,<br>Tanti illi cordi fuit, did he take,<br>Suspicio, the mere fancy men might have,<br>Honoris amittendi, of fame's loss,<br>Ut potius voluerit filia<br>Orbari, he preferred to lose his child,<br>Quam illa incederet, rather than she walk<br>The ways an, inhonesta, child disgraced,<br>Licet non sponte, though against her will.<br>Occidit—killed them, I reiterate—<br>In propria domo, in their own abode,<br>Ut adultera et parentes, that each wretch,<br>Conscii agnoscerent, might both see and say,<br>Nullum locum, there's no place, nullumque esse<br>Asylum, nor yet refuge of escape,<br>Impenetrabilem, shall serve as bar,<br>Honori loeso, to the wounded one<br>In honour; neve ibi opprobria<br>Continuarentur, killed them on the spot,<br>Moreover, dreading lest within those walls<br>The opprobrium peradventure be prolonged,<br>Et domus quoe testis fuit turpium,<br>And that the domicile which witnessed crime,<br>Esset et poenoe, might watch punishment:<br>Occidit, killed, I round you in the ears,<br>Quia alio modo, since by other mode,<br>Non poterat ejus existimatio,<br>There was no possibility his fame,<br>Loesa, gashed griesly, tam enormiter,<br>Ducere cicatrices, might be healed:<br>Occidit ut exemplum proeberet<br>Uxoribus, killed her, so to lesson wives<br>Jura conjugii, that the marriage-oath,<br>Esse servanda, must be kept henceforth:<br>Occidit denique, killed her, in a word,<br>Ut pro posse honestus viveret,<br>That he, please God, might creditably live,<br>Sin minus, but if fate willed otherwise,<br>Proprii honoris, of his outraged fame,<br>Offensi, by Mannaia, if you please,<br>Commiseranda victima caderet,<br>The pitiable victim he should fall!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Done! I' the rough, i' the rough! But done! And, lo,<br>Landed and stranded lies my very speech,<br>My miracle, my monster of defence—<br>Leviathan into the nose whereof<br>I have put fish-hook, pierced his jaw with thorn,<br>And given him to my maidens for a play!<br>I' the rough: to-morrow I review my piece,<br>Tame here and there undue floridity.<br>It's hard: you have to plead before these priests<br>And poke at them with Scripture, or you pass<br>For heathen and, what's worse, for ignorant<br>O' the quality o' the Court and what it likes<br>By way of illustration of the law.<br>To-morrow stick in this, and throw out that,<br>And, having first ecclesiasticized,<br>Regularize the whole, next emphasize,<br>Then latinize, and lastly Cicero-ize,<br>Giving my Fisc his finish. There's my speech!<br>And where's my fry, and family and friends?<br>Where's that huge Hyacinth I mean to hug<br>Till he cries out, "Jam satis! Let me breathe!"<br>Now, what an evening have I earned to-day!<br>Hail, ye true pleasures, all the rest are false!<br>Oh the old mother, oh the fattish wife!<br>Rogue Hyacinth shall put on paper toque,<br>And wrap himself around with mamma's veil<br>Done up to imitate papa's black robe,<br>(I'm in the secret of the comedy,—<br>Part of the program leaked out long ago!)<br>And call himself the Advocate o' the Poor,<br>Mimic Don father that defends the Count:<br>And for reward shall have a small full glass<br>Of manly red rosolio to himself,<br>—Always provided that he conjugate<br>Bibo, I drink, correctly—nor be found<br>Make the perfectum, bipsi, as last year!<br>How the ambitious do so harden heart<br>As lightly hold by these home-sanctitudes,<br>To me is matter of bewilderment—<br>Bewilderment! Because ambition's range<br>Is nowise tethered by domestic tie.<br>Am I refused an outlet from my home<br>To the world's stage?—whereon a man should play<br>The man in public, vigilant for law,<br>Zealous for truth, a credit to his kind,<br>Nay,—since, employing talent so, I yield<br>The Lord His own again with usury,—<br>A satisfaction, yea, to God Himself!<br>Well, I have modelled me by Agur's wish,<br>"Remove far from me vanity and lies,<br>"Feed me with food convenient for me!" What<br>I' the world should a wise man require beyond?<br>Can I but coax the good fat little wife<br>To tell her fool of a father the mad prank<br>His scrapegrace nephew played this time last year<br>At Carnival! He could not choose, I think,<br>But modify that inconsiderate gift<br>O' the cup and cover (somewhere in the will<br>Under the pillow, someone seems to guess)<br>—Correct that clause in favour of a boy<br>The trifle ought to grace, with name engraved,<br>Would look so well, produced in future years<br>To pledge a memory, when poor papa<br>Latin and law are long since laid at rest—<br>Hyacintho dono dedit avus! Why,<br>The wife should get a necklace for her pains,<br>The very pearls that made Violante proud,<br>And Pietro pawned for half their value once,—<br>Redeemable by somebody, ne sit<br>Marita quoe rotundioribus<br>Onusta mammis … baccis ambulet:<br>Her bosom shall display the big round balls,<br>No braver proudly borne by wedded wife!<br>With which Horatian promise I conclude.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="/comments.php?id=116362" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Into the pigeon-hole with thee, my speech!<br>Off and away, first work then play, play, play!<br>Bottini, burn thy books, thou blazing ass!<br>Sing "Tra-la-la, for, lambkins, we must live!"</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br/></a><a href="https://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="https://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a></strong> from <em><a href="https://sources.citatepedia.com/from.php?a=Robert+Browning&d=The+Ring+and+the+Book">The Ring and the Book</a></em></div>

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