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Robert Browning - The Ring And The Book - Chapter IX - Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius
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HAD I God’s leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinately blow in print
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should be—
Watch, curtained, but yet visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, “The Court
“Requires the allocution of the Fisc!”
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O’er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two— 
Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How much a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like:
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use,
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man,—
“Familiarise thee with our play that lifts
“Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm, and foot!”
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art’s surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph (happy chance!)
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
That poseth? (be the phrase accorded me!)
Each feminine delight of florid lip,
Eyes brimming o’er and brow bowed down with love,
Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous,—
Glad on the paper in a trice they go
To help his notion of the Mother-Maid:
Methinks I see it, chalk a little stumped!
Yea and her babe—that flexure of soft limbs,
That budding face imbued with dewy sleep,
Contribute each an excellence to Christ.
Nay, since he humbly lent companionship,
Even the poor ass, unpanniered and elate
Stands, perks an ear up, he a model too;
While clouted shoon, staff, scrip and water-gourd,—
Aught may betoken travel, heat and haste,—
No jot nor tittle of these but in its turn
Ministers to perfection of the piece:
Till now, such piece before him, part by part,—
Such prelude ended,—pause our painter may,
Submit his fifty studies one by one,
And in some sort boast “I have served my lords.” 

But what? And hath he painted once this while?
Or when ye cry “Produce the thing required,
“Show us our picture shall rejoice its niche,
“Thy Journey through the Desert done in oils!”—
What, doth he fall to shuffling ’mid his sheets,
Fumbling for first this, then the other fact
Consigned to paper,—“studies,” bear the term!—
And stretch a canvas, mix a pot of paste,
And fasten here a head and there a tail,
(The ass hath one, my Judges!) so dove-tail
Or, rather, ass-tail in, piece sorrily out—
By bits of reproduction of the life—
The picture, the expected Family?
I trow not! do I miss with my conceit
The mark, my lords?—not so my lords were served!
Rather your artist turns abrupt from these,
And preferably buries him and broods
(Quite away from aught vulgar and extern)
On the inner spectrum, filtered through the eye,
His brain-deposit, bred of many a drop,
E pluribus unum: and the wiser he!
For in that brain,—their fancy sees at work,
Could my lords peep indulged,—results alone,
Not processes which nourish the result,
Would they discover and appreciate,—life
Fed by digestion, not raw food itself,
No gobbets but smooth comfortable chyme
Secreted from each snapped-up crudity,—
Less distinct, part by part, but in the whole
Truer to the subject,—the main central truth
And soul o’ the picture, would my Judges spy,—
Not those mere fragmentary studied facts
Which answer to the outward frame and flesh—
Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other fact
Of man’s staff, woman’s stole or infant’s clout,
But lo, a spirit-birth conceived of flesh,
Truth rare and real, not transcripts, fact and false.
The studies—for his pupils and himself!
The picture be for our eximious Rome
And—who knows?—satisfy its Governor,
Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought
(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon
(’Tis bruited) shall be glowing with the brush
Of who hath long surpassed the Florentine,
The Urbinate and . . . what if I dared add,
Even his master, yea the Cortonese,—
I mean the accomplished Ciro Ferri, Sirs!
(—Did not he die? I’ll see before I print.) 

End we exordium, Phœbus plucks my ear!
Thus then, just so and no whit otherwise,
Have I,—engaged as I were Ciro’s self,
To paint a parallel, a Family,
The patriarch Pietro with his wise old wife
To boot (as if one introduced Saint Anne
By bold conjecture to complete the group)
And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,
Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,
Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretched
In sleep beneath a palm-tree by a spring,
And killed—the very circumstance I paint,
Moving the pity and terror of my lords—
Exactly so have I, a month at least,
Your Fiscal, made me cognisant of facts,
Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forth
Of every piece of evidence in point,
How bloody Herod slew these innocents,—
Until the glad result is gained, the group
Demonstrably presented in detail,
Their slumber and his onslaught,—like as life.
Yea and, availing me of help allowed
By law, discreet provision lest my lords
Be too much troubled by effrontery,—
The rack, law plies suspected crime withal—
(Law that hath listened while the lyrist sang
“Lene tormentum ingenio admoves,”
Gently thou joggest by a twinge the wit,
“Plerumque duro,” else were slow to blab!)
Through this concession my full cup runs o’er:
The guilty owns his guilt without reserve.
Therefore by part and part I clutch my case
Which, in entirety now,—momentous task,—
My lords demand, so render them I must,
Since, one poor pleading more and I have done.
But shall I ply my papers, play my proofs,
Parade my studies, fifty in a row,
As though the Court were yet in pupilage
And not the artist’s ultimate appeal?
Much rather let me soar the height prescribed
And, bowing low, proffer my picture’s self!
No more of proof, disproof,—such virtue was,
Such vice was never in Pompilia, now!
Far better say “Behold Pompilia!”—(for
I leave the family as unmanageable,
And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)
Hath calumny imputed to the fair
A blemish, mole on cheek or wart on chin,
Much more, blind hidden horrors best unnamed?
Shall I descend to prove you, point by point,
Never was knock-knee known nor splay-foot found
In Phryne? (I must let the portrait go,
Content me with the model, I believe)—
—I prove this? An indignant sweep of hand,
Dash at and doing away with drapery,
And,—use your eyes, Athenians, smooth she smiles!
Or,—since my client can no longer smile,
And more appropriate instances abound,—
What is this Tale of Tarquin, how the slave
Was caught by him, preferred to Collatine?
Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,
Look’st the lie dead, Lucretia!
                                                Thus at least
I, by the guidance of antiquity,
(Our one infallible guide) now operate,
Sure that the innocency shown is safe;
Sure, too, that, while I plead, the echoes cry
(Lend my weak voice thy trump, sonorous Fame!)
“Monstrosity the Phrynean shape shall mar,
“Lucretia’s soul comport with Tarquin’s lie,
“When thistles grow on vines or thorns yield figs,
“Or oblique sentence leave this judgment-seat!” 

A great theme: may my strength be adequate!
For—paint Pompilia, dares my feebleness?
How did I unaware engage so much
—Find myself undertaking to produce
A faultless nature in a flawless form?
What’s here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blaze
Of such a crown, such constellation, say,
As jewels here thy front, Humanity!
First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;
Then, childhood—stone which, dew-drop at the first,
(An old conjecture) sucks, by dint of gaze,
Blue from the sky and turns to sapphire so:
Yet both these gems eclipsed by, last and best,
Womanliness and wifehood opaline,
Its milk-white pallor,—chastity,—suffused
With here and there a tint and hint of flame,—
Desire,—the lapidary loves to find.
Such jewels bind conspicuously thy brow,
Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife—
Crown the ideal in our earth at last!
What should a faculty like mine do here?
Close eyes, or else, the rashlier hurry hand! 

Which is to say,—lose no time but begin!
Sermocinando ne declamem, Sirs,
Ultra clepsydram, as our preachers say,
Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,
As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge—
Begin at once with marriage, up till when
Little or nothing would arrest your love,
In the easeful life o’ the lady; lamb and lamb,
How do they differ? Know one, you know all
Manners of maidenhood: mere maiden she.
And since all lambs are like in more than fleece,
Prepare to find that, lamb-like, she too frisks—
O’ the weaker sex, my lords, the weaker sex!
To whom, the Teian teaches us, for gift,
Not strength,—man’s dower,—but beauty, nature gave,
“Beauty in lieu of spears, in lieu of shields!”
And what is beauty’s sure concomitant,
Nay, intimate essential character,
But melting wiles, deliciousest deceits,
The whole redoubted armoury of love?
Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellings
O’ the hair of youth that dances April in,
And easily-imagined Hebe-slips
O’er sward which May makes over-smooth for foot—
These shall we pry into?—or wiselier wink,
Though numerous and dear they may have been? 

For lo, advancing Hymen and his pomp!
Discedunt nunc amores, loves, farewell!
Maneat amor, let love, the sole, remain!
Farewell to dewiness and prime of life!
Remains the rough determined day: dance done,
To work, with plough and harrow! What comes next?
’Tis Guido henceforth guides Pompilia’s step,
Cries “No more friskings o’er the foodful glebe,
“Else, ’ware the whip!” Accordingly,—first crack
O’ the thong,—we hear that his young wife was barred,
Cohibita fuit, from the old free life,
Vitam liberiorem ducere.
Demur we? Nowise: heifer brave the hind?
We seek not there should lapse the natural law,
The proper piety to lord and king
And husband: let the heifer bear the yoke!
Only, I crave he cast not patience off,
This hind; for deem you she endures the whip,
Nor winces at the goad, nay, restive, kicks?
What if the adversary’s charge be just,
And all untowardly she pursue her way
With groan and grunt, though hind strike ne’er so hard?
If petulant remonstrance made appeal,
Unseasonable, o’erprotracted,—if
Importunate challenge taxed the public ear
When silence more decorously had served
For protestation,—if Pompilian plaint
Wrought but to aggravate Guidonian ire,—
Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,
Ever companion change, are incident
To altered modes and novelty of life:
The philosophic mind expects no less,
Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sits
Waiting till old things go and new arrive.
Therefore, I hold a husband but inept
Who turns impatient at such transit-time,
As if thus running from the rod would last! 

Since, even while I speak, the end is reached
Success awaits the soon-disheartened man,
The parents turn their backs and leave the house,
The wife may wail but none shall intervene,
He hath attained his object, groom and bride
Partake the nuptial bower no soul to see,
Old things are passed and all again is new,
Over and gone the obstacles to peace,
Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turns
The expression, some such purpose in his eye—
Nascitur ordo! Every storm is laid,
And forth from plain each pleasant herb may peep,
Each bloom of wifehood in abeyance late:
(Confer a passage in the Canticles.) 

But what if, as ’tis wont with plant and wife,
Flowers,—after a suppression to good end,
Still, when they do spring forth,—sprout here, spread there
Anywhere likelier than beneath the foot
O’ the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?
He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still
’Tis a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.
Just so, respecting persons not too much,
The lady, foes allege, put forth each charm
And proper floweret of feminity
To whosoever had a nose to smell
Or breast to deck: what if the charge be true?
The fault were graver had she looked with choice,
Fastidiously appointed who should grasp,
Who, in the whole town, go without the prize!
To nobody she destined donative,
But, first come was first served, the accuser saith
Put case her sort of . . . in this kind . . . escapes
Were many and oft and indiscriminate—
Impute ye as the action were prepense,
The gift particular, arguing malice so?
Which butterfly of the wide air shall brag
“I was preferred to Guido”—when ’tis clear
The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast
Open to gnat, midge, been and moth as well?
One chalice entertained the company;
And if its peevish lord object the more,
Mistake, misname such bounty in a wife,
Haste we to advertise him—charm of cheek,
Lustre of eye, allowance of the lip,
All womanly components in a spouse,
These are no household-bread each stranger’s bite
Leaves by so much diminished for the mouth
O’ the master of the house at supper-time:
But rather like a lump of spice they lie,
Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighbourhood
Yet greets its lord no lighter by a grain. 

Nay, even so, he shall be satisfied!
Concede we there was reason in his wrong,
Grant we his grievance and content the man!
For lo, Pompilia, she submits herself;
Ere three revolving years have crowned their course,
Off and away she puts this same reproach
Of lavish bounty, inconsiderate gift
O’ the sweets of wifehood stored to other ends:
No longer shall he blame “She none excludes,”
But substitute “She laudably sees all,
“Searches the best out and selects the same.”
For who is here, long sought and latest found,
Waiting his turn unmoved amid the whirl,
“Constans in levitate,”—Ha, my lords?
Calm in his levity,—indulge the quip!—
Since ’tis a levite bears the bell away,
Parades him henceforth as Pompilia’s choice.
’Tis no ignoble object, husband! Doubt’st?
When here comes tripping Flaccus with his phrase
“Trust me, no miscreant singled from the mob,
“Crede non illum tibi de scelesta
“Plebe delectum,” but a man of mark,
A priest, dost hear? Why then, submit thyself!
Priest, ay and very phœnix of such fowl,
Well-born, of culture, young and vigorous,
Comely too, since precise the precept points—
On the selected levite be there found
Not mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mind
Come all uncandid through the thwarting flesh!
Was not the son of Jesse ruddy, sleek,
Pleasant to look on, pleasant every way?
Since well he smote the harp and sweetly sang,
And danced till Abigail came out to see,
And seeing smiled and smiling ministered
The raisin-duster and the cake of figs,
With ready meal refreshed the gifted youth,
Till Nabal, who was absent shearing sheep,
Felt heart sink, took to bed (discreetly done—
They might have been beforehand with him else)
And died—would Guido had behaved as well!
But ah, the faith of early days is gone,
Heu prisca fides! Nothing died in him
Save courtesy, good sense and proper trust,
Which, when they ebb from souls they should o’erflow,
Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.
(The Pope, you know, is Neapolitan
And relishes a sea-side simile.)
Deserted by each charitable wave,
Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!
Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the fool
With any peccadillo, he responds
“Truly I beat my wife through jealousy,
“Imprisoned her and punished otherwise,
“Being jealous: now would threaten, sword in hand,
“Now manage to mix poison in her sight,
“And so forth: jealously I dealt, in fine.”
Concede the fact and what remains to prove?
Have I to teach my masters what effect
Hath jealousy and how, befooling men,
It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,
Turns the mist adamantine, loads with sound
Silence, and into void and vacancy
Crowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?
Therefore who owns “I watched with jealousy
“My wife” adds “for no reason in the world!”
What need that who says “madman” should remark
“The thing he thought a serpent proved an eel?”—
Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,
And not an inch too long for that same pie
(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)
Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;
Meant to regale some moody splenetic
Who pleases to mistake the donor’s gift,
And spies—I know not what Lernæan snake
I’ the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth
The dainty in the dust. 

                                Enough! Prepare,
His lunes announced, for downright lunacy!
Insanit homo, threat succeeds to threat,
And blow redoubles blow,—his wife, the block.
But, if a block, shall not she jar the hand
That buffets her? The injurious idle stone
Rebounds and fits the head of him who flung.
Causeless rage breeds, i’ the wife now, rageful cause,
Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep.
Rebellion, say I?—rather, self-defence,
Laudable wish to live and see good days,
Pricks our Pompilia on to fly the foe
By any means, at any price,—nay, more,
Nay, most of all, i’ the very interest
Of the foe that, baffled of his blind desire
At any price, is truliest victor so.
Shall he effect his crime and lose his soul?
No, dictates duty to a loving wife.
Far better that the unconsummate blow,
Adroitly baulked by her, should back again,
Correctively admonish his own pate! 

Crime then,—the Court is with me?—she must crush;
How crush it? By all efficacious means;
And these,—why, what is woman should they be?
“With horns the bull, with teeth the lion fights,
“To woman,” quoth the lyrist quoted late,
“Nor teeth, nor horns, but beauty, Nature gave!”
Pretty i’ the Pagan! Who dares blame the use
Of the armoury thus allowed for natural,—
Exclaim against a seeming-dubious play
O’ the sole permitted weapon, spear and shield
Alike, resorted to i’ the circumstance
By poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat plied
Arts that allure, the magic nod and wink,
The witchery of gesture, spell of word,
Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,
Yet stranger, as a champion on her side?
Such, being but mere man, (’twas all she knew),
Must be made sure by beauty’s silken bond,
The weakness that subdues the strong, and bows
Wisdom alike and folly. Grant the tale
O’ the husband, which is false, for proved and true
To the letter,—or the letters, I should say,
The abominations he professed to find
And fix upon Pompilia and the priest,—
Allow them hers—for though she could not write,
In early days of Eve-like innocence
That plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,
Yet, at the Serpent’s word, Eve plucks and eats
And knows—especially how to read and write:
And so Pompilia,—as the move o’ the maw,
Quoth Persius, makes a parrot bid “Good-day!”
A crow salute the concave, and a pie
Endeavour at proficiency in speech,—
So she, through hunger after fellowship,
May well have learned, though late, to play the scribe:
As indeed, there’s one letter on the list
Explicitly declares did happen here.
“You thought my letters could be none of mine,”
She tells her parents—“mine, who wanted skill;
“But now I have the skill, and write, you see!”
She needed write love-letters, so she learned,
“Negatas artifex sequi voces”—though
This letter nowise ’scapes the common lot,
But lies i’ the condemnation of the rest,
Found by the husband’s self who forged them all.
Yet, for the sacredness of argument,
For this once an exemption shall it plead—
Anything, anything to let the wheels
Of argument run glibly to their goal!
Concede she wrote (which were preposterous)
This and the other epistle,—what of it?
Where does the figment touch her candid fame?
Being in peril of her life—“my life,
“Not an hour’s purchase,” as the letter runs,—
And having but one stay in this extreme,
And out of the wide world a single friend—
What could she other than resort to him,
And how with any hope resort but thus?
Shall modesty dare bid a stranger brave
Danger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf—
Think to entice the sternness of the steel
Save by the magnet moves the manly mind?
—Most of all when such mind is hampered so
By growth of circumstance athwart the life
O’ the natural man, that decency forbids
He stoop and take the common privilege,
Say frank “I love,” as all the vulgar do.
A man is wedded to philosophy,
Married to statesmanship; a man is old;
A man is fettered by the foolishness
He took for wisdom and talked ten years since;
A man is, like our friend the Canon here,
A priest, and wicked if he break his vow:
He dare to love, who may be Pope one day?
Suppose this man could love, though, all the same—
From what embarrassment she sets him free
Should one, a woman he could love, speak first—
“’Tis I who break reserve, begin appeal,
“Confess that, whether you love me or no,
“I love you!” What an ease to dignity,
What help of pride from the hard high-backed chair
Down to the carpet where the kittens bask,
All under the pretence of gratitude! 

From all which, I deduce—the lady here
Was bound to proffer nothing short of love
To the priest whose service was to save her. What?
Shall she propose him lucre, dust o’ the mine,
Rubbish o’ the rock, some diamond, muckworms prize,
Or pearl secreted by a sickly fish?
Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.
’Tis love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast,
Till all the Samson sink into the snare!
Because, permit the end—permit therewith
Means to the end!
                How say you, good my lords?
I hope you heard my adversary ring
The changes on this precept: now, let me
Reverse the peal! Quia dato licito fine,
Ad illum assequendum ordinata
Non sunt damnanda media,—licit end
Enough was the escape from death, I hope,
To legalise the means illicit else
Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.
Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,
(See that Idyllium Moschi) seeking help,
In the anxiety of motherhood,
Allowably promised “Who shall bring report
“Where he is wandered to, my winged babe,
“I give him for reward a nectared kiss;
“But who brings safely back the truant’s self,
“His be a super-sweet makes kiss seem cold!”
Are not these things writ for example-sake?
To such permitted motive, then, refer
All those professions, else were hard explain,
Of hope, fear, jealousy, and the rest of love!
He is Myrtillus, Amaryllis she,
She burns, he freezes,—all a mere device
To catch and keep the man may save her life,
Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!
Worst, once, is best now: in all faith, she feigns:
Feigning—the liker innocence to guilt,
The truer to the life is what she feigns!
How if Ulysses,—when, for public good
He sunk particular qualms and played the spy,
Entered Troy’s hostile gate in beggar’s garb—
How if he first had boggled at this clout,
Grown dainty o’er that clack-dish? Grime is grace
To whoso gropes amid the dung for gold. 

Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proof
That promise was not simply made to break,—
No moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:
So call—(proofs consequent and requisite)—
What enemies allege of—more than words,
Deeds—meeting at the window, twilight-tryst,
Nocturnal entertainment in the dim
Old labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—
Inventions we, long since, turned inside out,
Would such external semblance of intrigue
Demonstrate that intrigue must lurk perdue?
Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut?
He were a Molinist who dared maintain
That midnight meetings in a screened alcove
Must argue folly in a matron—since
So would he bring a slur on Judith’s self,
Commended beyond women that she lured
The lustful to destruction through his lust.
Pompilia took not Judith’s liberty,
No faulchion find you in her hand to smite,—
No damsel to convey the head in dish,
Of Holophernes,—style the Canon so—
Or is it the Count? If I entangle me
With my similitudes,—if wax wings melt,
And earthward down I drop, not mine the fault:
Blame your beneficence, O Court, O sun,
Whereof the beamy smile affects my flight!
What matter, so Pompilia’s fame revive
I’ the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus? 

Yea, we have shown it lawful, necessary
Pompilia leave her husband, seek the house
O’ the parents: and because ’twixt home and home
Lies a long road with many a danger rife,
Lions by the way and serpents in the path,
To rob and ravish,—much behoves she keep
Each shadow of suspicion from fair fame,
For her own sake much, but for his sake more,
The ingrate husband! Evidence shall be,
Some witness to the world how white she walks
I’ the mire she wanders through ere Rome she reach.
And who so proper witness as a priest?
Gainsay ye? Let me hear who dares gainsay!
I hope we still can punish heretics!
“Give me the man,” I say with him of Gath,
“That we may fight together” None, I think:
The priest is granted me. 

                                Then, if a priest,
One juvenile and potent: else, mayhap,
That dragon, our Saint George would slay, slays him.
And should fair face accompany strong hand,
The more complete equipment: nothing mars
Work, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flaw
I’ the worker: as ’tis said Saint Paul himself
Deplored the check o’ the puny presence, still
Cheating his fulmination of its flash,
Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak.
Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,—
A priest, juvenile, potent, handsome too,—
In all obedience: “good,” you grant again.
Do you? I would ye were the husband, lords!
How prompt and facile might departure be!
How boldly would Pompilia and the priest
March out of door, spread flag at beat of drum,
But that inapprehensive Guido grants
Neither premiss nor yet conclusion here,
And, purblind, dreads a bear in every bush!
For his own quietude and comfort, then,
Means must be found for flight in masquerade
At hour when all things sleep.—“Save jealousy!”
Right, judges! Therefore shall the lady’s wit
Supply the boon thwart nature baulks him of,
And do him service with the potent drug
(Helen’s nepenthe, as my lords opine)
Shall respite blessedly each frittered nerve
O’ the much-enduring man: accordingly,
There lies he, duly dosed and sound asleep,
Relieved of woes, or real or raved about.
While soft she leaves his side, he shall not wake;
Nor stop who steals away to join her friend,
Nor do him mischief should he catch that friend
Intent on more than friendly office,—nay,
Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bare
In payment of his apparition! 

                                                Thus
Would I defend the step,—were the thing true
Which is a fable,—see my former speech,—
That Guido slept (who never slept a wink)
Through treachery, an opiate from his wife,
Who not so much as knew what opiates mean. 

Now she may start: but hist,—a stoppage still!
A journey is an enterprise which costs!
As in campaigns, we fight and others pay,
Suis expensis, nemo militat.
’Tis Guido’s self we guard from accident,
Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versed
Nowise in misadventures by the way,
Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare,
The unready host. What magic mitigates
Each plague of travel to the unpractised wife?
Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction fact,
She helped herself thereto with liberal hand
From out the husband’s store,—what fitter use
Was ever husband’s money destined to?
With bag and baggage thus did Dido once
Decamp,—for more authority, a queen! 

So is she fairly on her route at last,
Prepared for either fortune: nay and if
The priest, now all a-glow with enterprise,
Cool somewhat presently when fades the flush
O’ the first adventure, clouded o’er belike
By doubts, misgivings how the day may die,
Though born with such auroral brilliance,—if
The brow seem over-pensive and the lip
’Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,—
Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jaunt
In a close carriage o’er a jolting road,
With only one young female substitute
For seventeen other Canons of ripe age
Were wont to keep him company in church,—
Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipate
The silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?—
Prop the irresoluteness may portend
Suspension of the project, check the flight,
Bring ruin on them both?—use every means,
Since means to the end are lawful? What i’ the way
Of wile should have allowance like a kiss
Sagely and sisterly administered,
Sororia saltem oscula? We find
Such was the remedy her wit applied
To each incipient scruple of the priest,
If we believe,—as, while my wit is mine
I cannot,—what the driver testifies,
Borsi, called Venerino, the mere tool
Of Guido and his friend the Governor,—
The avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch,
After long rotting in imprisonment,
As price of liberty and favour: long
They tempted, he at last succumbed, and lo
Counted them out full tale each kiss required,—
“The journey was one long embrace,” quoth he.
Still, though we should believe the driver’s lie,
Nor even admit as probable excuse,
Right reading of the riddle,—as I urged
In my first argument, with fruit perhaps—
That what the owl-like eyes (at back of head!)
O’ the driver, drowsed by driving night and day,
Supposed a vulgar interchange of love,
This was but innocent jog of head ’gainst head,
Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pear
From branch and branch contiguous in the wind,
When Autumn blusters and the orchard rocks.
The rapid run and the rough road were cause
O’ the casual ambiguity, no harm
I’ the world to eyes awake and penetrative.
Yet,—not to grasp a truth I can forego
And safely fight without and conquer still,—
Say, she kissed him, and he kissed her again!
Such osculation was a potent means,
A very efficacious help, no doubt:
This with a third part of her nectar did
Venus imbue: why should Pompilia fling
The poet’s declaration in his teeth?—
Pause to employ what,—since it had success,
And kept the priest her servant to the end,—
We must presume of energy enough,
No whit superfluous, so permissible? 

The goal is gained: day, night and yet a day
Have run their round: a long and devious road
Is traversed,—many manners, various men
Passed in review, what cities did they see,
What hamlets mark, what profitable food
For after-meditation cull and store!
Till Rome, that Rome whereof—this voice,
Would it might make our Molinists observe.
That she is built upon a rock nor shall
Their powers prevail against her!—Rome, I say,
Is all but reached; one stage more and they stop
Saved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then! 

Ah, Nature—baffled she recurs, alas!
Nature imperiously exacts her due,
Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,
Pompilia needs must acquiesce and swoon,
Give hopes alike and fears a breathing-while.
The innocent sleep soundly: sound she sleeps.
So let her slumber, then, unguarded save
By her own chastity, a triple mail,
And his good hand whose stalwart arms have borne
The sweet and senseless burthen like a babe
From coach to couch,—the serviceable man!
Nay, what and if he gazed rewardedly
On the pale beauty prisoned in embrace,
Stooped over, stole a balmy breath perhaps
For more assurance sleep was not decease—
“Ut vidi,” “how I saw!” succeeded by
“Ut perii,” “how I sudden lost my brains!”
—What harm ensued to her unconscious quite?
For, curiosity—how natural!
Importunateness—what a privilege
In the ardent sex! And why curb ardour here?
How can the priest but pity whom he saved?
And pity is how near to love, and love
How neighbourly to unreasonableness!
And for love’s object, whether love were sage
Or foolish, could Pompilia know or care,
Being still sound asleep, as I premised?
Thus the philosopher absorbed by thought,
Even Archimedes, busy o’er a book
The while besiegers sacked his Syracuse,
Was ignorant of the imminence o’ the point
O’ the sword till it surprised him: let it stab,
And never knew himself was dead at all.
So sleep thou on, secure whate’er betide!
For thou, too, hast thy problem hard to solve—
How so much beauty is compatible
With so much innocence! 

                            Fit place, methinks,
While in this task she rosily is lost,
To treat of and repel objection here
Which,—frivolous, I grant,—but, still misgives
My mind, it may have flitted, gadfly-like,
And teazed the Court at times—as if, all said
And done, there still seemed, one might nearly say,
In a certain acceptation, somewhat more
Of what may pass for insincerity,
Falsehood, throughout the course Pompilia took,
Than befits Christian. Pagans held, we know,
We always ought to aim at good and truth,
Not always put one thing in the same words:
Non idem semper dicere sed spectare
Debemus. But the Pagan yoke was light;
“Lie not at all,” the exacter precept bids:
Each least lie breaks the law,—is sin, ye hold.
I humble me, but venture to submit—
What prevents sin, itself is sinless, sure:
And sin, which hinders sin of deeper dye,
Softens itself away by contrast so.
Conceive me! Little sin, by none at all,
Were properly condemned for great: but great,
By greater, dwindles into small again.
Now, what is greatest sin of womanhood?
That which unwomans it, abolishes
The nature of the woman,—impudence.
Who contradicts me here? Concede me, then,
Whatever friendly fault may interpose
To save the sex from self-abolishment
Is three-parts on the way to virtue’s rank!
Now, what is taxed here as duplicity,
Feint, wile and trick,—admitted for the nonce,—
What worse do one and all than interpose,
Hold, as it were, a deprecating hand,
Statuesquely, in the Medicean mode,
Before some shame which modesty would veil?
Who blames the gesture prettily perverse?
Thus,—lest ye miss a point illustrative,—
Admit the husband’s calumny—allow
That the wife, having penned the epistle fraught
With horrors, charge on charge of crime, she heaped
O’ the head of Pietro and Violante—(still
Presumed her parents)—and despatched the thing
To their arch-enemy Paolo, through free choice
And no sort of compulsion in the world—
Put case that she discards simplicity
For craft, denies the voluntary act,
Declares herself a passive instrument
I’ the hands of Guido; duped by knavery,
She traced the characters, she could not write,
And took on trust the unread sense which, read,
Were recognised but to be spurned at once.
Allow this calumny, I reiterate!
Who is so dull as wonder at the pose
Of our Pompilia in the circumstance?
Who sees not that the too-ingenuous soul,
Repugnant even at a duty done
Which brought beneath too scrutinising glare
The misdemeanours,—buried in the dark,—
Of the authors of her being, she believed,—
Stung to the quick at her impulsive deed,
And willing to repair what harm it worked,
She—wise in this beyond what Nero proved,
Who, when needs were the candid juvenile
Should sign the warrant, doom the guilty dead,
“Would I had never learned to write,” quoth he!
—Pompilia rose above the Roman, cried
“To read or write I never learned at all!”
O splendidly mendacious! 

                                        But time fleets:
Let us not linger: hurry to the end,
Since end does flight and all disastrously.
Beware ye blame desert for unsuccess,
Disparage each expedient else to praise,
Call failure folly! Man’s best effort fails.
After ten years’ resistance Troy fell flat:
Could valour save a town, Troy still had stood.
Pompilia came off halting in no point
Of courage, conduct, the long journey through:
But nature sank exhausted at the close,
And, as I said, she swooned and slept all night.
Morn breaks and brings the husband: we assist
At the spectacle. Discovery succeeds.
Ha, how is this? What moonstruck rage is here?
Though we confess to partial frailty now,
To error in a woman and a wife,
Is ’t by the rough way she shall be reclaimed?
Who bursts upon her chambered privacy?
What crowd profanes the chaste cubiculum?
What outcries and lewd laughter, scurril gibe
And ribald jest to scare the ministrant
Good angels that commerce with souls in sleep?
Why, had the worst crowned Guido to his wish,
Confirmed his most irrational surmise,
Yet there be bounds to man’s emotion, checks
To an immoderate astonishment.
’Tis decent horror, regulated wrath,
Befit our dispensation: have we back
The old Pagan licence? Shall a Vulcan clap
His net o’ the sudden and expose the pair
To the unquenchable universal mirth?
A feat, antiquity saw scandal in
So clearly, that the nauseous tale thereof—
Demodocus his nugatory song—
Hath ever been concluded modern stuff
Impossible to the mouth of the grave Muse,
So, foisted into that Eighth Odyssey
By some impertinent pickthank. O thou fool,
Count Guido Franceschini, what were gained
By publishing thy shame thus to the world?
Were all the precepts of the wise a waste—
Bred in thee not one touch of reverence?
Why, say thy wife—admonish we the fool,—
Were false, and thou bid chronicle thy shame,
Much rather should thy teeth bite out thy tongue,
Dump lip consort with desecrated brow,
Silence become historiographer,
And thou—thine own Cornelius Tacitus!
But virtue, barred, still leaps the barrier, lords!
—Still, moon-like, penetrates the encroaching mist
And bursts, all broad and bare, on night, ye know!
Surprised, then, in the garb of truth, perhaps,
Pompilia, thus opposed, breaks obstacle,
Springs to her feet, and stands Thalassian-pure,
Confronts the foe,—nay, catches at his sword
And tries to kill the intruder, he complains.
Why, so she gave her lord his lesson back,
Crowned him, this time, the virtuous woman’s way,
With an exact obedience; he brought sword,
She drew the same, since swords are meant to draw.
Tell not me ’tis sharp play with tools on edge!
It was the husband chose the weapon here.
Why did not he inaugurate the game
With some gentility of apophthegm
Still pregnant on the philosophic page,
Some captivating cadence still a-lisp
O’ the poet’s lyre? Such spells subdue the surge,
Make tame the tempest, much more mitigate
The passions of the mind, and probably
Had moved Pompilia to a smiling blush.
No, he must needs prefer the argument
O’ the blow: and she obeyed, in duty bound,
Returned him buffet ratiocinative—
Ay, in the reasoner’s own interest,
For wife must follow whither husband leads,
Vindicate honour as himself prescribes,
Save him the very way himself bids save!
No question but who jumps into a quag
Should stretch forth hand and pray one “Pull me out
“By the hand!” such were the customary cry:
But Guido pleased to bid “Leave hand alone!
“Join both feet, rather, jump upon my head,
“I extricate myself by the rebound!”
And dutifully as enjoined she jumped—
Drew his own sword and menaced his own life,
Anything to content a wilful spouse. 

And so he was contented—one must do
Justice to the expedient which succeeds,
Strange as it seem: at flourish of the blade,
The crowd drew back, stood breathless and abashed,
Then murmured “This should be no wanton wife,
“No conscience-stricken creature, caught i’ the act,
“And patiently awaiting our first stone:
“But a poor hard-pressed all-bewildered thing,
“Has rushed so far, misguidedly perhaps,
“Meaning no more harm than a frightened sheep.
“She sought for aid; and if she made mistake
“I’ the man could aid most, why—so mortals do:
“Even the blessed Magdalen mistook
“Far less forgiveably: consult the place—
“Supposing him to be the gardener,
“‘Sir,’ said she, and so following.” Why more words?
Forthwith the wife is pronounced innocent:
What would the husband more than gain his cause,
And find that honour flash in the world’s eye,
His apprehension was lest soil had smirched? 

So, happily the adventure comes to close
Whereon my fat opponent grounds his charge
Preposterous: at mid-day he groans “How dark!”
Listen to me, thou Archangelic swine!
Where is the ambiguity to blame,
The flaw to find in our Pompilia? Safe
She stands, see! Does thy comment follow quick
“Safe, inasmuch as at the end proposed;
“But thither she picked way by devious path—
“Stands dirtied, no dubiety at all!
“I recognise success, yet, all the same,
“Importunately will suggestion prick—
“What, had Pompilia gained the right to boast
“‘No devious path, no doubtful patch was mine,
“‘I saved my head nor sacrificed my foot?’
“Why, being in a peril, show mistrust
“Of the angels set to guard the innocent?
“Why rather hold by obvious vulgar help
“Of stratagem and subterfuge, excused
“Somewhat, but still no less a foil, a fault,
“Since low with high, and good with bad is linked?
“Methinks I view some ancient bas-relief.
“There stands Hesione thrust out by Troy,
“Her father’s hand has chained her to a crag,
“Her mother’s from the virgin plucked the vest,
“At a safe distance both distressful watch,
“While near and nearer comes the snorting orc.
“I look that, white and perfect to the end,
“She wait till Jove despatch some demigod;
“Not that,—impatient of celestial club
“Alcmena’s son should brandish at the beast,—
“She daub, disguise her dainty limbs with pitch,
“And so elude the purblind monster! Ay,
“The trick succeeds, but ’tis an ugly trick,
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