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Robert Browning - The Ring And The Book - Chapter V - Count Guido Franceschini
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THANKS, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of . . . why, ’tis wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip’s enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there’s work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate . . . aie, aie, aie,
Not your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking, but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all’s over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, ’tis the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i’ the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o’ the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I’ the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O’ the Franceschini’s once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss the patron’s shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
Mimic the tetchy humour, furtive glance
And brow where half was furious half fatigued,
O’ the same son got to be of middle age,
Sour, saturnine,—your humble servant here;—
When things go cross and the young wife, he finds
Take to the window at a whistle’s bid,
And yet demurs thereon, preposterous fool!—
Whereat the worthies judge he wants advice
And beg to civilly ask what’s evil here,
Perhaps remonstrate on the habit they deem
He’s given unduly to, of beating her
? Oh, sure he beats her—why says John so else,
Who is cousin to George who is sib to Tecla’s self
Who cooks the meal and combs the lady’s hair?
What? ’Tis my wrist you merely dislocate
For the future when you mean me martyrdom?
—Let the old mother’s economy alone,
How the brocade-strips saved o’ the seamy side
O’ the wedding-gown buy raiment for a year?
—How she can dress and dish up—lordly dish
Fit for a duke, lamb’s head and purtenance—
With her proud hands, feast household so a week?
No word o’ the wine rejoicing God and man
The less when three-parts water? Then, I say,
A trifle of torture to the flesh, like yours,
While soul is spared such foretaste of hell-fire,
Is naught. But I curtail the catalogue
Through policy,—a rhetorician’s trick,—
Because I would reserve some choicer points
O’ the practice, more exactly parallel—
(Having an eye to climax) with what gift,
Eventual grace the Court may have in store
I’ the way of plague—my crown of punishments.
When I am hanged or headed, time enough
To prove the tenderness of only that,
Mere heading, hanging,—not their counterpart,
Not demonstration public and precise
That I, having married the mongrel of a drab,
Am bound to grant that mongrel-brat, my wife,
Her mother’s birthright-licence as is just,—
Let her sleep undisturbed, i’ the family style,
Her sleep out in the embraces of a priest,
Nor disallow their bastard as my heir!
Your sole mistake,—dare I submit so much
To the reverend Court?—has been in all this pains
To make a stone roll down hill,—rack and wrench
And rend a man to pieces, all for what?
Why—make him ope mouth in his own defence,
Show cause for what he has done, the irregular deed,
(Since that he did it, scarce dispute can be)
And clear his fame a little, beside the luck
Of stopping even yet, if possible,
Discomfort to his flesh from noose or axe—
For that, out come the implements of law!
May it content my lords the gracious Court
To listen only half so patient-long
As I will in that sense profusely speak,
And—fie, they shall not call in screws to help!
I killed Pompilia Franceschini, Sirs;
Killed too the Comparini, husband, wife,
Who called themselves, by a notorious lie,
Her father and her mother to ruin me.
There’s the irregular deed: you want no more
Than right interpretation of the same,
And truth so far—am I to understand?
To that then, with convenient speed,—because
Now I consider,—yes, despite my boast,
There is an ailing in this omoplat
May clip my speech all too abruptly close,
Whatever the good-will in me. Now for truth!
I’ the name of the indivisible Trinity!
Will my lords, in the plentitude of their light,
Weigh well that all this trouble has come on me
Through my persistent treading in the paths
Where I was trained to go,—wearing that yoke
My shoulder was predestined to receive,
Born to the hereditary stoop and crease?
Noble, I recognised my nobler still,
The church, my suzerain; no mock-mistress, she;
The secular owned the spiritual: mates of mine
Have thrown their careless hoofs up at her call
“Forsake the clover and come drag my wain!”
There they go cropping: I protruded nose
To halter, bent my back of docile beast,
And now am whealed, one wide wound all of me,
For being found at the eleventh hour o’ the day
Padding the mill-track, not neck-deep in grass:
—My one fault, I am stiffened by my work,
—My one reward, I help the Court to smile! 
I am representative of a great line,
One of the first of the old families
In Arezzo, ancientest of Tuscan towns.
When my worst foe is fain to challenge this,
His worst exception runs—not first in rank
But second, noble in the next degree
Only; not malice ’self maligns me more.
So, my lord opposite has composed, we know,
A marvel of a book, sustains the point
That Francis boasts the primacy ’mid saints;
Yet not inaptly hath his argument
Obtained response from yon my other lord
In thesis published with the world’s applause
—Rather ’tis Dominic such post befits:
Why, at the worst, Francis stays Francis still,
Second in rank to Dominic it may be,
Still, very saintly, very like our Lord;
And I at least descend from a Guido once
Homager to the Empire, nought below—
Of which account as proof that, none o’ the line
Having a single gift beyond brave blood,
Or able to do aught but give, give, give
In blood and brain, in house and land and cash,
Not get and garner as the vulgar may,
We become poor as Francis or our Lord.
Be that as it likes you, Sirs,—whenever it chanced
Myself grew capable anyway of remark,
(Which was soon—penury makes wit premature)
This struck me, I was poor who should be rich
Or pay that fault to the world which trifles not
When lineage lacks the flag yet lifts the pole:
Therefore I must make more forthwith, transfer
My stranded self, born fish with gill and fin
Fit for the deep sea, now left bare-backed
In slush and sand, a show to crawlers vile
Reared of the low-tide and aright therein.
The enviable youth with the old name,
Wide chest, stout arms, sound brow and pricking veins,
A heartful of desire, man’s natural load,
A brainful of belief, the noble’s lot,—
All this life, cramped and gasping, high and dry
I’ the wave’s retreat,—the misery, good my lords,
Which made you merriment at Rome of late,—
It made me reason, rather—muse, demand
—Why our bare dropping palace, in the street
Where such-an-one whose grandfather sold tripe
Was adding to his purchased pile a fourth
Tall tower, could hardly show a turret sound?
Why Beatrice Countess, whose son I am,
Cowered in the winter-time as she spun flax,
Blew on the earthen basket of live ash.
Instead of jaunting forth in coach and six
Like such-another widow who ne’er was wed?
I asked my fellows, how came this about?
“Why, Jack, the suttler’s child, perhaps the camp’s,
“Went to the wars, fought sturdily, took a town
“And got rewarded as was natural.
“She of the coach and six—excuse me there!
“Why, don’t you know the story of her friend?
“A clown dressed vines on somebody’s estate,
“His boy recoiled from muck, liked Latin more,
“Stuck to his pen, and got to be a priest,
“Till one day . . . don’t you mind that telling tract
“Against Molinos, the old Cardinal wrote?
“He penned and dropped it in the patron’s desk
“Who, deep in thought and absent much of mind,
“Licensed the thing, allowed it for his own;
“Quick came promotion,—suum cuique, Count!
“Oh, he can pay for coach and six, be sure!”
“—Well, let me go, do likewise: war’s the word—
“That way the Franceschini worked at first,
“I’ll take my turn, try soldiership.”—“What, you?
“The eldest son and heir and prop o’ the house,
“So do you see your duty? Here’s your post,
“Hard by the hearth and altar. (Roam from roof,
“This youngster, play the gypsy out of doors,
“And who keeps kith and kin that fall on us?)
“Stand fast, stick tight, conserve your gods at home!”
“—Well then, the quiet course, the contrary trade!
“We had a cousin amongst us once was Pope,
“And minor glories manifold. Try the Church,
“The tonsure, and,—since heresy’s but half-slain
“Even by the Cardinal’s tract he thought he wrote,—
“Have at Molinos!”—“Have at a fool’s head!
“You a priest? How were marriage possible?
“There must be Franceschini till time ends—
“That’s your vocation. Make your brothers priests,
“Paul shall be porporate, and Girolamo step
“Red-stockinged in the presence when you choose,
“But save one Franceschini for the age!
“Be not the vine but dig and dung its root,
“Be not a priest but gird up priesthood’s loins,
“With one foot in Arezzo stride to Rome,
“Spend yourself there and bring the purchase back!
“Go hence to Rome, be guided!” 

                                                So I was.
I turned alike from the hill-side zig-zag thread
Of way to the table-land a soldier takes,
Alike from the low-lying pasture-place
Where churchmen graze, recline, and ruminate,
—Ventured to mount no platform like my lords
Who judge the world, bear brain I dare not brag—
But stationed me, might thus the expression serve,
As who should fetch and carry, come and go,
Meddle and make i’ the cause my lords love most—
The public weal, which hangs to the law, which holds
By the Church, which happens to be through God himself.
Humbly I helped the Church till here I stand,—
Or would stand but for the omoplat, you see!
Bidden qualify for Rome, I, having a field,
Went, sold it, laid the sum at Peter’s foot:
Which means—I settled home-accounts with speed,
Set apart just a modicum should suffice
To keep the villa’s head above the waves
Of weed inundating its oil and wine,
And prop roof, stanchion wall o’ the palace so
It should keep breath i’ the body, hold its own
Amid the advance of neighbouring loftiness—
(People like building where they used to beg)—
Till succoured one day,—shared the residue
Between my mother and brothers and sisters there,
Black-eyed babe Donna This and Donna That,
As near to starving as might decently be,
—Left myself journey-charges, change of suit,
A purse to put i’ the pocket of the Groom
O’ the Chamber of the patron, and a glove
With a ring to it for the digits of the niece
Sure to be helpful in his household,—then
Started for Rome, and led the life prescribed.
Close to the Church, though clean of it, I assumed
Three or four orders of no consequence,
They cast out evil spirits and exorcise,
For example; bind a man to nothing more,
Give clerical savour to his layman’s-salt,
Facilitate his claim to loaf and fish
Should miracle leave, beyond what feeds the flock,
Fragments to brim the basket of a friend—
While, for the world’s sake, I rode, danced, and gamed,
Quitted me like a courtier, measured mine
With whatsoever blade had fame in fence,
—Ready to let the basket go its round
Even though my turn was come to help myself,
Should Dives count on me at dinner-time
As just the understander of a joke
And not immoderate in repartee.
Utrique sic paratus, Sirs, I said
“Here,” (in the fortitude of years fifteen,
So good a pedagogue is penury)
“Here wait, do service,—serving and to serve!
“And, in due time, I nowise doubt at all,
“The recognition of my service comes.
“Next year I’m only sixteen. I can wait.” 

I waited thirty years, may it please the Court:
Saw meanwhile many a denizen o’ the dung
Hop, skip, jump o’er my shoulder, make him wings
And fly aloft,—succeed, in the usual phrase.
Every one soon or late comes round by Rome:
Stand still here, you’ll see all in turn succeed.
Why, look you, so and so, the physician here,
My father’s lacquey’s son we sent to school,
Doctored and dosed this Eminence and that,
Salved the last Pope his certain obstinate sore,
Soon bought land as became him, names it now:
I grasp bell at his griffin-guarded gate,
Traverse the half-mile avenue,—a term,
A cypress, and a statue, three and three,—
Deliver message from my Monsignor,
With varletry at lounge i’ the vestibule
I’m barred from, who bear mud upon my shoe.
My father’s chaplain’s nephew, Chamberlain,—
Nothing less, please you!—courteous all the same,
—He does not see me though I wait an hour
At his staircase-landing ’twixt the brace of busts,
A noseless Sylla, Marius maimed to match,
My father gave him for a hexastich
Made on my birth-day,—but he sends me down,
To make amends, that relic I prize most—
The unburnt end o’ the very candle, Sirs,
Purfled with paint so prettily round and round,
He carried in such state last Peter’s day,—
In token I, his gentleman and squire,
Had held the bridle, walked his managed mule
Without a tittup the procession through.
Nay, the official,—one you know, sweet lords!—
Who drew the warrant for my transfer late
To the New Prisons from Tordinona,—he
Graciously had remembrance—“Francesc . . . ha?
“His sire, now—how a thing shall come about!—
“Paid me a dozen florins above the fee,
“For drawing deftly up a deed of sale
“When troubles fell so thick on him, good heart,
“And I was prompt and pushing! By all means!
“At the New Prisons be it his son shall lie,—
“Anything for an old friend!” and thereat
Signed name with triple flourish underneath.
These were my fellows, such their fortunes now,
While I—kept fasts and feasts innumerable,
Matins and vespers, functions to no end
I’ the train of Monsignor and Eminence,
As gentleman-squire, and for my zeal’s reward
Have rarely missed a place at the table-foot
Except when some Ambassador, or such like,
Brought his own people. Brief, one day I felt
The tick of time inside me, turning-point
And slight sense there was now enough of this:
That I was near my seventh climacteric,
Hard upon, if not over, the middle life,
And, although fed by the east-wind, fulsome-fine
With foretaste of the Land of Promise, still
My gorge gave symptom it might play me false;
Better not press it further,—be content
With living and dying only a nobleman,
Who merely had a father great and rich,
Who simply had one greater and richer yet,
And so on back and back till first and best
Began i’ the night; I finish in the day.
“The mother must be getting old,” I said,
“The sisters are well wedded away, our name
“Can manage to pass a sister off, at need,
“And do for dowry: both my brothers thrive—
“Regular priests they are, nor, hat-like, ’bide
“’Twixt flesh and fowl with neither privilege.
“My spare revenue must keep me and mine.
“I am tired: Arezzo’s air is good to breathe;
“Vittiano,—one limes flocks of thrushes there;
“A leathern coat costs little and lasts long:
“Let me bid hope good-bye, content at home!”
Thus, one day, I disbosomed me and bowed.
Whereat began the little buzz and thrill
O’ the gazers round me; each face brightened up:
As when at your Casino, deep in dawn,
A gamester says at last, “I play no more,
“Forego gain, acquiesce in loss, withdraw
“Anyhow:” and the watchers of his ways,
A trifle struck compunctious at the word,
Yet sensible of relief, breathe free once more,
Break up the ring, venture polite advice—
“How, Sir? So scant of heart and hope indeed?
“Retire with neither cross nor pile from play?—
“So incurious, so short-casting?—give your chance
“To a younger, stronger, bolder spirit belike,
“Just when luck turns and the fine throw sweeps all?”
Such was the chorus: and its good will meant—
“See that the loser leave door handsomely!
“There’s an ill look,—it’s sinister, spoils sport,
“When an old bruised and battered year-by-year
“Fighter with fortune, not a penny in poke,
“Reels down the steps of our establishment
“And staggers on broad daylight and the world,
“In shagrag beard and doleful doublet, drops
“And breaks his heart on the outside: people prate
“‘Such is the profit of a trip upstairs!’
“Contrive he sidle forth, baulked of the blow
“Best dealt by way of moral, bidding down
“No curse but blessings rather on our heads
“For some poor prize he bears at tattered breast,
“Some palpable sort of kind of good to set
“Over and against the grievance: give him quick!”
Whereon protested Paul, “Go hang yourselves!
“Leave him to me. Count Guido and brother of mine,
“A word in your ear! Take courage since faint heart
“Ne’er won . . . aha, fair lady, don’t men say?
“There’s a sors, there’s a right Virgilian dip!
“Do you see the happiness o’ the hint? At worst,
“If the Church want no more of you, the Court
“No more, and the Camp as little, the ingrates,—come,
“Count you are counted: still you’ve coat to back,
“Not cloth of gold and tissue, as we hoped,
“But cloth with sparks and spangles on its frieze
“From Camp, Court, Church, enough to make a shine,
“Entitle you to carry home a wife
“With the proper dowry, let the worst betide!
“Why, it was just a wife you meant to take!” 

Now, Paul’s advice was weighty: priests should know:
And Paul apprised me, ere the week was out,
That Pietro and Violante, the easy pair,
The cits enough, with stomach to be more,
Had just the daughter and exact the sum
To truck for the quality of myself: “She’s young,
“Pretty and rich: you’re noble, classic, choice.
“Is it to be a match?” “A match,” said I.
Done! He proposed all, I accepted all,
And we performed all. So I said and did
Simply. As simply followed, not at first
But with the outbreak of misfortune, still
One comment on the saying and doing—“What?
“No blush at the avowal you dared buy
“A girl of age beseems your granddaughter,
“Like ox or ass? Are flesh and blood a ware?
“Are heart and soul a chattel?”
                                            Softly, Sirs!
Will the Court of its charity teach poor me
Anxious to learn, of any way i’ the world,
Allowed by custom and convenience, save
This same which, taught from my youth up, I trod?
Take me along with you; where was the wrong step?
If what I gave in barter, style and state
And all that hangs to Franceschinihood,
Were worthless,—why, society goes to ground,
Its rules are idiot’s-rambling. Honour of birth,—
If that thing has no value, cannot buy
Something with value of another sort,
You’ve no reward nor punishment to give
I’ the giving or the taking honour; straight
Your social fabric, pinnacle to base,
Comes down a-clatter like a house of cards.
Get honour, and keep honour free from flaw,
Aim at still higher honour,—gabble o’ the goose!
Go bid a second blockhead like myself
Spend fifty years in guarding bubbles of breath,
Soapsuds with air i’ the belly, gilded brave,
Guarded and guided, all to break at touch
O’ the first young girl’s hand and first old fool’s purse!
All my privation and endurance, all
Love, loyalty, and labour dared and did,
Fiddle-de-dee!—why, doer and darer both,—
Count Guido Franceschini had hit the mark
Far better, spent his life with more effect,
As a dancer or a prizer, trades that pay!
On the other hand, bid this buffoonery cease,
Admit that honour is a privilege,
The question follows, privilege worth what?
Why, worth the market-price,—now up, now down,
Just so with this as with all other ware:
Therefore essay the market, sell your name,
Style and condition to who buys them best!
“Does my name purchase,” had I dared inquire,
“Your niece, my lord?” there would have been rebuff
Though courtesy, your lordship cannot else—
“Not altogether! Rank for rank may stand:
“But I have wealth beside, you—poverty;
“Your scale flies up there: bid a second bid,
“Rank too, and wealth too!” Reasoned like yourself!
But was it to you I went with goods to sell?
This time ’twas my scale quietly kissed the ground,
Mere rank against mere wealth—some youth beside,
Some beauty too, thrown into the bargain, just
As the buyer likes or lets alone. I thought
To deal o’ the square: others find fault, it seems:
The thing is, those my offer most concerned,
Pietro, Violante, cried they fair or foul?
What did they make o’ the terms? Preposterous terms?
Why then accede so promptly, close with such
Nor take a minute to chaffer? Bargain struck,
They straight grew bilious, wished their money back,
Repented them, no doubt: why, so did I,
So did your lordship, if town-talk be true,
Of paying a full farm’s worth for that piece
By Pietro of Cortona—probably
His scholar Ciro Ferri may have retouched—
You caring more for colour than design—
Getting a little tired of cupids too.
That’s incident to all the folk who buy!
I am charged, I know, with gilding fact by fraud;
I falsified and fabricated, wrote
Myself down roughly richer than I prove,
Rendered a wrong revenue,—grant it all!
Mere grace, mere coquetry such fraud, I say:
A flourish round the figures of a sum
For fashion’s sake, that deceives nobody.
The veritable back-bone, understood
Essence of this same bargain, blank and bare,
Being the exchange of quality for wealth,—
What may such fancy-flights be? Flecks of oil
Flirted by chapmen where plain dealing grates.
I may have dripped a drop—“My name I sell;
“Not but that I too boast my wealth”—as they,
“—We bring you riches; still our ancestor
“Was hardly the rapscallion, folks saw flogged,
“But heir to we know who, were rights of force!”
They knew and I knew where the back-bone lurked
I’ the writhings of the bargain, lords, believe!
I paid down all engaged for, to a doit,
Delivered them just that which, their life long,
They hungered in the hearts of them to gain—
Incorporation with nobility thus
In word and deed: for that they gave me wealth.
But when they came to try their gain, my gift,
Quit Rome and qualify for Arezzo, take
The tone o’ the new sphere that absorbed the old,
Put away gossip Jack and goody Joan
And go become familiar with the Great,
Greatness to touch and taste and handled now,—
Why, then,—they found that all was vanity,
Vexation, and what Solomon describes!
The old abundant city-fare was best,
The kindly warmth o’ the commons, the glad clap
Of the equal on the shoulder, the frank grin
Of the underling at all so many spoons
Fire-new at neighbourly treat,—best, best and best
Beyond compare!—down to the loll itself
O’ the pot-house settle,—better such a bench
Than the stiff crucifixion by my dais
Under the piece-meal damask canopy
With the coroneted coat of arms a-top!
Poverty and privation for pride’s sake,
All they engaged to easily brave and bear,—
With the fit upon them and their brains a-work,—
Proved unendurable to the sobered sots.
A banished prince, now, will exude a juice
And salamander-like support the flame:
He dines on chestnuts, chucks the husks to help
The broil o’ the brazier, pays the due baioc,
Goes off light-hearted: his grimace begins
At the funny humours of the christening-feast
Of friend the money-lender,—then he’s touched
By the flame and frizzles at the babe to kiss!
Here was the converse trial, opposite mind:
Here did a petty nature split on rock
Of vulgar wants predestinate for such—
One dish at supper and weak wine to boot!
The prince had grinned and borne: the citizen shrieked,
Summoned the neighbourhood to attest the wrong,
Made noisy protest he was murdered,—stoned
And burned and drowned and hanged,—then broke away,
He and his wife, to tell their Rome the rest.
And this you admire, you men o’ the world, my lords?
This moves compassion, makes you doubt my faith?
Why, I appeal to . . . sun and moon? Not I!
Rather to Plautus, Terence, Boccaccio’s Book,
My townsman, frank Ser Franco’s merry Tales,—
To all who strip a vizard from a face,
A body from its padding, and a soul
From froth and ignorance it styles itself,—
If this be other than the daily hap
Of purblind greed that dog-like still drops bone,
Grasps shadow, and then howls the case is hard! 

So much for them so far: now for myself,
My profit or loss i’ the matter: married am I:
Text whereon friendly censors burst to preach.
Ay, at Rome even, long ere I was left
To regulate her life for my young bride
Alone at Arezzo, friendliness outbroke
(Sifting my future to predict its fault)
“Purchase and sale being thus so plain a point
“How of a certain soul bound up, may-be,
“I’ the barter with the body and money-bags?
“From the bride’s soul what is it you expect?”
Why, loyalty and obedience,—wish and will
To settle and suit her fresh and plastic mind
To the novel, nor disadvantageous mould!
Father and mother shall the woman leave,
Cleave to the husband, be it for weal or woe:
There is the law: what sets this law aside
In my particular case? My friends submit
“Guide, guardian, benefactor,—fee, faw, fum,
“The fact is you are forty-five years old,
“Nor very comely even for that age:
“Girls must have boys.” Why, let girls say so then,
Nor call the boys and men, who say the same,
Brute this and beast the other as they do!
Come, cards on table! When you chaunt us next
Epithalamium full to overflow
With praise and glory of white womanhood,
The chaste and pure—troll no such lies o’er lip!
Put in their stead a crudity or two,
Such short and simple statement of the case
As youth chalks on our walls at spring of year!
No! I shall still think nobler of the sex,
Believe a woman still may take a man
For the short period that his soul wears flesh,
And, for the soul’s sake, understand the fault
Of armour frayed by fighting. Tush, it tempts
One’s tongue too much! I’ll say—the law’s the law:
With a wife, I look to find all wifeliness,
As when I buy, timber and twig, a tree—
I buy the song o’ the nightingale inside. 

Such was the pact: Pompilia from the first
Broke it, refused from the beginning day
Either in body or soul to cleave to mine,
And published it forthwith to all the world.
No rupture,—you must join ere you can break,—
Before we had cohabited a month
She found I was a devil and no man,—
Made common cause with those who found as much,
Her parents, Pietro and Violante,—moved
Heaven and earth to the rescue of all three.
In four months’ time, the time o’ the parents’ stay,
Arezzo was a-ringing, bells in a blaze,
With the unimaginable story rife
I’ the mouth of man, woman, and child—to wit
My misdemeanour. First the lighter side,
Ludicrous face of things,—how very poor
The Franceschini had become at last,
The meanness and the misery of each shift
To save a soldo, stretch and make ends meet.
Next, the more hateful aspect,—how myself
With cruelty beyond Caligula’s
Had stripped and beaten, robbed and murdered them.
The good old couple, I decoyed, abused,
Plundered and then cast out, and happily so,
Since,—in due course the abominable comes,—
Woe worth the poor young wife left lonely here!
Repugnant in my person as my mind,
I sought,—was ever heard of such revenge?
—To lure and bind her to so cursed a couch,
Such co-embrace with sulphur, snake and toad,
That she was fain to rush forth, call the stones
O’ the common street to save her, not from hate
Of mine merely, but . . . must I burn my lips
With the blister of the lie? . . . the satyr-love
Of who but my own brother, the young priest,
Too long enforced to lenten fare belike,
Now tempted by the morsel tossed him full
I’ the trencher where lay bread and herbs at best.
Mark, this yourselves say!—this, none disallows,
Was charged to me by the universal voice
At the instigation of my four-months’ wife!—
And then you ask “Such charges so preferred,
“(Truly or falsely, here concerns us not)
“Pricked you to punish now if not before?—
“Did not the harshness double itself, the hate
“Harden?” I answer “Have it your way and will!”
Say my resentment grew apace: what then?
Do you cry out on the marvel? When I find
That pure smooth egg which, laid within my nest,
Could not but hatch a comfort to us all,
Issues a cockatrice for me and mine,
Do you stare to see me stamp on it? Swans are soft:
Is it not clear that she you call my wife,
That any wife of any husband, caught
Whetting a sting like this against his breast,—
Speckled with fragments of the fresh-broke shell,
Married a month and making outcry thus,—
Proves a plague-prodigy to God and man?
She married: what was it she married for,
Counted upon and meant to meet thereby?
“Love” suggests some one, “love, a little word
“Whereof we have not heard one syllable.”
So, the Pompilia, child, girl, wife, in one,
Wanted the beating pulse, the rolling eye,
The frantic gesture, the devotion due
From Thyrsis to Neæra! Guido’s love—
Why not provençal roses in his shoe,
Plume to his cap, and trio of guitars
At casement, with a bravo close beside?
Good things all these are, clearly claimable
When the fit price is paid the proper way.
Had it been some friend’s wife, now, threw her fan
At my foot, with just this pretty scrap attached,
“Shame, death, damnation—fall these as they may,
“So I find you, for a minute! Come this eve!”
—Why, at such sweet self-sacrifice,—who knows?
I might have fired up, found me at my post,
Ardent from head to heel, nor feared catch cough.
Nay, had some other friend’s . . . say, daughter, tripped
Upstairs and tumbled flat and frank on me,
Bareheaded and barefooted, with loose hair
And garments all at large,—cried “Take me thus!
“Duke So-and-So, the greatest man in Rome—
“To escape his hand and heart have I broke bounds,
“Traversed the town and reached you!”—Then, indeed,
The lady had not reached a man of ice!
I would have rummaged, ransacked at the word
Those old odd corners of an empty heart
For remnants of dim love the long disused,
And dusty crumblings of romance! But here,
We talk of just a marriage, if you please—
The every-day conditions and no more;
Where do these bind me to bestow one drop
Of blood shall dye my wife’s true-love-knot pink?
Pompilia was no pigeon, Venus’ pet,
That shuffled from between her pressing paps
To sit on my rough shoulder,—but a hawk,
I bought at a hawk’s price and carried home
To do hawk’s service—at the Rotunda, say,
Where, six o’ the callow nestlings in a row,
You pick and choose and pay the price for such.
I have paid my pound, await my penny’s worth,
So, hoodwink, starve, and properly train my bird,
And, should she prove a haggard,—twist her neck!
Did I not pay my name and style, my hope
And trust, my all? Through spending these amiss
I am here! ’Tis scarce the gravity of the Court
Will blame me that I never piped a tune,
Treated my falcon-gentle like my finch.
The obligation I incurred was just
To practise mastery, prove my mastership:—
Pompilia’s duty was—submit herself,
Afford me pleasure, perhaps cure my bile.
Am I to teach my lords what marriage means,
What God ordains thereby and man fulfils
Who, docile to the dictate, treads the house?
My lords have chosen the happier part with Paul
And neither marry nor burn,—yet priestliness
Can find a parallel to the marriage-bond
In its own blessed special ordinance
Whereof indeed was marriage made the type:
The Church may show her insubordinate,
As marriage her refractory. How of the Monk
Who finds the claustral regimen too sharp
After the first month’s essay? What’s the mode
With the Deacon who supports indifferently
The rod o’ the Bishop when he tastes its smart
Full four weeks? Do you straightway slacken hold
Of the innocents, the all-unwary ones
Who, eager to profess, mistook their mind?—
Remit a fast-day’s rigour to the Monk
Who fancied Francis’ manna meant roast quails,
Concede the Deacon sweet society,
He never thought the levite-rule renounced,—
Or rather prescribe short chain and sharp scourge
Corrective of such peccant humours? This—
I take to be the Church’s mode, and mine,
If I was over-harsh,—the worse i’ the wife
Who did not win from harshness as she ought,
Wanted the patience and persuasion, lore
Of love, should cure me and console herself.
Put case that I mishandle, flurry, and fright
My hawk through clumsiness in sportsmanship,
Twitch out five pens where plucking one would serve—
What, shall she bite and claw to mend the case?
And, if you find I pluck five more for that,
Shall you weep “Now he roughs the turtle there?” 

Such was the starting; now of the further step.
In lieu of taking penance in good part,
The Monk, with hue and cry, summons a mob
To make a bonfire of the convent, say,—
And the Deacon’s pretty piece of virtue (save
The ears o’ the Court! I try to save my head)
Instructed by the ingenuous postulant,
Taxes the Bishop with adultery (mud
Needs must pair off with mud, and filth with filth)—
Such being my next experience: who knows not—
The couple, father and mother of my wife,
Returned to Rome, published before my lords,
Put into print, made circulate far and wide
That they had cheated me who cheated them?
Pompilia, I supposed their daughter, drew
Breath first ’mid Rome’s worst rankness, through the deed
Of a drab and a rogue, was bye-blow bastard-babe
Of a nameless strumpet, passed off, palmed on me
As the daughter with the dowry. Daughter? Dirt
O’ the kennel! Dowry? Dust o’ the street! Nought more,
Nought less, nought else but—oh—ah—assuredly
A Franceschini and my very wife!
Now take this charge as you will, for false or true,—
This charge, preferred before your very selves
Who judge me now,—I pray you, adjudge again,
Classing it with the cheats or with the lies,
By which category I suffer most!
But of their reckoning, theirs who dealt with me
In either fashion,—I reserve my word,
Justify that in its place; I am now to say,
Whichever point o’ the charge might poison most,
Pompilia’s duty was no doubtful one.
You put the protestation in her mouth
“Henceforward and forevermore, avaunt
“Ye fiends, who drop disguise and glare revealed
“In your own shape, no longer father mine
“Nor mother mine! Too nakedly you hate
“Me whom you looked as if you loved once,—me
“Whom, whether true or false, your tale now damns,
“Divulged thus to my public infamy,
“Private perdition, absolute overthrow.
“For, hate my husband to your hearts’ content,
“I, spoil and prey of you from first to last,
“I who have done you the blind service, lured
“The lion to your pit-fall,—I, thus left
“To answer for my ignorant bleating there,
“I should have been remembered and withdrawn
“From the first o’ the natural fury, not flung loose
“A proverb and a byeword men will mouth
“At the cross-way, in the corner, up and down
“Rome and Arezzo,—there, full in my face,
“If my lord, missing them and finding me,
“Content himself with casting his reproach
“To drop i’ the street where such impostors die.
“Ah, but—that husband, what the wonder were!—
“If, far from casting thus away the rag
“Smeared with the plague, his hand had chanced upon,
“Sewn to his pillow by Locusta’s wile,—
“Far from abolishing, root, stem, and branch,
“The misgrowth of infectious mistletoe
“Foisted into his stock for honest graft,—
“If he, repudiate not, renounce nowise,
“But, guarding, guiding me, maintain my cause
“By making it his own (what other way?)
“—To keep my name for me, he call it his,
“Claim it of who would take it by their lie,—
“To save my wealth for me—or babe of mine
“Their lie was framed to beggar at the birth—
“He bid them loose grasp, give our gold again:
“Refuse to become partner with the pair
“Even in a game which, played adroitly, gives
“Its winner life’s great wonderful new chance,—
“Of marrying, to-wit, a second time,—
“Ah, did he do thus, what a friend were he!
“Anger he might show,—who can stamp out flame
“Yet spread no black o’ the brand?—yet, rough albeit
“In the act, as whose bare feet feel embers scorch.
“What grace were his, what gratitude were mine!”
Such protestation should have been my wife’s.
Looking for this, do I exact too much?
Why, here’s the,—word for word so much, no more,—
Avowal she made, her pure spontaneous speech
To my brother the Abate at first blush,
Ere the good impulse had begun to fade—
So did she make confession for the pair,
So pour forth praises in her own behalf.
“Ay, the false letter,” interpose my lords—
“The simulated writing,—’twas a trick:
“You traced the signs, she merely marked the same,
“The product was not hers but yours.” Alack,
I want no more impulsion to tell truth
From the other trick, the torture inside there!
I confess all—let it be understood—
And deny nothing! If I baffle you so,
Can so fence, in the plenitude of right,
That my poor lathen dagger puts aside
Each pass o’ the Bilboa, beats you all the same,—
What matters inefficiency of blade?
Mine and not hers the letter,—conceded, lords!
Impute to me that practice!—take as proved
I taught my wife her duty, made her see
What it behoved her see and say and do,
Feel in her heart and with her tongue declare,
And, whether sluggish or recalcitrant,
Forced her to take the right step, I myself
Marching in mere marital rectitude!
And who finds fault here, say the tale be true?
Would not my lords commend the priest whose zeal
Seized on the sick, morose, or moribund,
By the palsy-smitten finger, made it cross
His brow correctly at the critical time?
—Or answered for the inarticulate babe
At baptism, in its stead declared the faith,
And saved what else would perish unprofessed?
True, the incapable hand may rally yet,
Renounce the sign with renovated strength,—
The babe may grow up man and Molinist,—
And so Pompilia, set in the good path
And left to go alone there, soon might see
That too frank-forward, all too simple-strait
Her step was, and decline to tread the rough,
When here lay, tempting foot, the meadow-side,
And there the coppice called with singing-birds!
Soon she discovered she was young and fair,
That many in Arezzo knew as much,—
Yes, this next cup of bitterness, my lords,
Had to begin go filling, drop by drop,
Its measure up of full disgust for me,
Filtered into by every noisome drain—
Society’s sink toward which all moisture runs.
Would not you prophesy—“She on whose brow is stamped
“The note of the imputation that we know,—
“Rightly or wrongly mothered with a whore,—
“Such an one, to disprove the frightful charge,
“What will she but exaggerate chastity,
“Err in excess of wifehood, as it were,
“Renounce even levities permitted youth,
“Though not youth struck to age by a thunderbolt?
“Cry ‘wolf’ i’ the sheepfold, where’s the sheep dares bleat,
“Knowing the shepherd listens for a growl?”
So you expect. How did the devil decree?
Why, my lords, just the contrary of course!
It was in the house from the window, at the church
From the hassock,—where the theatre lent its lodge,
Or staging for the public show left space,—
That still Pompilia needs must find herself
Launching her looks forth, letting looks reply
As arrows to a challenge; on all sides
Ever new contribution to her lap,
Till one day, what is it knocks at my clenched teeth
But the cup full, curse-collected all for me?
And I must needs drink, drink this gallant’s praise,
That minion’s prayer, the other fop’s reproach,
And come at the dregs to—Caponsacchi! Sirs,
I,—chin deep in a marsh of misery,
Struggling to extricate my name and fame
And fortune from the marsh would drown them all,
My face the sole unstrangled part of me,—
I must have this new gad-fly in that face,
Must free me from the attacking lover too!
Men say I battled ungracefully enough—
Was harsh, uncouth and ludicrous beyond
The proper part o’ the husband: have it so!
Your lordships are considerate at least—
You order me to speak in my defence
Plainly, expect no quavering tuneful trills
As when you bid a singer solace you,—
Nor look that I shall give it, for a grace,
Stans pede in uno:—you remember well
In the one case, ’tis a plainsong too severe,
This story of my wrongs,—and that I ache
And need a chair, in the other. Ask you me
Why, when I felt this trouble flap my face,
Already pricked with every shame could perch,—
When, with her parents, my wife plagued me too,—
Why I enforced not exhortation mild
To leave whore’s-tricks and let my brows alone,
With mulct of comfits, promise of perfume? 

“Far from that! No, you took the opposite course,
“Breathed threatenings, rage and slaughter!” What you will!
And the end has come, the doom is verily here,
Unhindered by the threatening. See fate’s flare
Full on each face of the dead guilty three!
Look at them well, and now, lords, look at this!
Tell me: if on that day when I found first
That Caponsacchi thought the nearest way
To his church was some half-mile round by my door,
And that he so admired, shall I suppose,
The manner of the swallows’ come-and-go
Between the props o’ the window over-head,—
That window happening to be my wife’s,—
As to stand gazing by the hour on high,
Of May-eves, while she sat and let him smile,—
If I,—instead of threatening, talking big,
Showing hair-powder, a prodigious pinch,
For poison in a bottle,—making believe
At desperate doings with a bauble-sword,
And other bugaboo-and-baby-work,—
Had, with the vulgarest household implement,
Calmly and quietly cut off, clean thro’ bone,
But one joint of one finger of my wife,
Saying “For listening to the serenade,
“Here’s your ring-finger shorter a full third:
“Be certain I will slice away next joint,
“Next time that anybody underneath
“Seems somehow to be sauntering as he hoped
“A flower would eddy out of your hand to his
“While you please fidget with the branch above
“O’ the rose-tree in the terrace!”—had I done so,
Why, there had followed a quick sharp scream, some pain,
Much calling for plaister, damage to the dress,
A somewhat sulky countenance next day,
Perhaps reproaches,—but reflections too!
I don’t hear much of harm that Malchus did
After the incident of the ear, my lords!
Saint Peter took the efficacious way;
Malchus was sore but silenced for his life:
He did not hang himself i’ the Potter’s Field
Like Judas, who was trusted with the bag
And treated to sops after he proved a thief.
So, by this time, my true and obedient wife
Might have been telling beads with a gloved hand;
Awkward a little at pricking hearts and darts
On sampler possibly, but well otherwise:
Not where Rome shudders now to see her lie.
I give that for the course a wise man takes;
I took the other however, tried the fool’s,
The lighter remedy, brandished rapier dread
With cork-ball at the tip, boxed Malchus’ ear
Instead of severing the cartilage,
Called her a terrible nickname, and the like
And there an end: and what was the end of that?
What was the good effect o’ the gentle course?
Why, one night I went drowsily to bed,
Dropped asleep suddenly, not suddenly woke,
But did wake with rough rousing and loud cry,
To find noon in my face, a crowd in my room,
Fumes in my brain, fire in my throat, my wife
Gone God knows whither,—rifled vesture-chest,
And ransacked money-coffer. “What does it mean?”
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