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 flowerRefuses obstinate to 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 hide—Watch, curtained, but peep 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 CourtRequires the allocution of the Fisc!"I rise, I bend, I look about me, pauseO'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 vogueThroughout our city nutritive of arts,Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,To manufacture, as he knows and can,A work may decorate a palace-wall,Affords my lords their Holy Family,—Hath it escaped the acumen of the CourtHow such a painter sets himself to paint?Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her BabeA-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 TurkOr, 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"Familiarize thee with our play that liftsThus, 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-nurseThat 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 goTo 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 elateStands, 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 turnMinisters 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 factConsigned 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-tailOr, 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 conceitThe 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 such results,Would they discover and appreciate,—lifeFed by digestion, not raw food itself,No gobbets but smooth comfortable chymeSecreted from each snapped-up crudity,—Less distinct, part by part, but in the wholeTruer to the subject,—the main central truthAnd soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,—Not those mere fragmentary studied factsWhich answer to the outward frame and flesh—Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other factOf 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 RomeAnd—who knows?—satisfy its Governor,Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brushOf 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 wifeTo boot (as if one introduced Saint AnneBy bold conjecture to complete the group)And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretchedIn 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 cognizant of facts,Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forthOf every piece of evidence in point,How bloody Herod slew these innocents,—Until the glad result is gained, the groupDemonstrably presented in detail,Their slumber and his onslaught,—like as life.Yea, and, availing me of help allowedBy law, discreet provision lest my lordsBe 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 caseWhich, 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,Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal?Much rather let me soar the height prescribedAnd, 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!"—forI leave the family as unmanageable,And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)Hath calumny imputed to the fairA 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 foundIn 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 slaveWas caught by him, preferred to Collatine?Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia!Thus at leastI, by the guidance of antiquity,(Our one infallible guide,) now operate,Sure that the innocence thus 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 produceA faultless nature in a flawless form?What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blazeOf such a crown, such constellation, say,As jewels here thy front, Humanity!First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;Then, childhood—stone which, dewdrop 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,—suffusedWith 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 smile,Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge—Begin at once with marriage, up till whenLittle or nothing would arrest your love,In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb,How do they differ? Know one, you know allManners 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 armory of love?Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellingsO' the hair of youth that dances April in,And easily-imagined Hebe-slipsO'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?'T is Guido henceforth guides Pompilia's step,Cries, "No more friskings o'er the foodful glebe,Else, 'ware the whip!" Accordingly,—first crackO' 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 kingAnd 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 wayWith groan and grunt, though hind strike ne'er so hard?If petulant remonstrance made appeal,Unseasonable, o'erprotracted,—ifImportunate challenge taxed the public earWhen silence more decorously had servedFor protestation,—if Pompilian plaintWrought but to aggravate Guidonion ire,—Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,Ever companion change, are incidentTo altered modes and novelty of life:The philosophic mind expects no less,Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sitsWaiting till old things go and new arrive.Therefore, I hold a husband but ineptWho turns impatient at such transit-time,As if this 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 bridePartake the nuptial bower no soul can see,Old things are passed and all again is new,Over and gone the obstacles to peace,Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turnsThe 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 't is 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 footO' the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still'T is a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.Just so, respecting persons not too much,The lady, foes allege, put forth each charmAnd proper floweret of feminityTo whosoever had a nose to smellOr 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 ... escapesWere 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 't is clearThe cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breastOpen to gnat, midge, bee 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 biteLeaves by so much diminished for the mouthO' the master of the house at supper-time:But rather like a lump of spice they lie,Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighborhoodYet 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 reproachOf lavish bounty, inconsiderate giftO' 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 't is a levite bears the bell away,Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice,'T is 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 scelestaPlebe 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 foundNor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mindCome 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 ministeredThe raisin-cluster 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 have behaved as well?But ah, the faith of early days is gone,Heu prisca fides!Nothing died in himSave courtesy, good sense and proper trust,Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow,Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.(The Pope, we know, is NeapolitanAnd relishes a sea-side simile.)Deserted by each charitable wave,Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the foolWith 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 thus much, and what remains to prove?Have I to teach my masters what effectHath jealousy, and how, befooling men,It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with soundSilence, and into void and vacancyCrowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousyMy wife," adds "for no reason in the world!"What need that, thus proved madman, he remark"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?—Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,And not an inch too long for that rare pie(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;Meant to regale some moody spleneticWho, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,Spying I know not what Lernæan snakeI' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsoothThe dainty in the dust.Enough! Prepare,Such 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 handThat buffets her? The injurious idle stoneRebounds and hits 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 now to fly the foolBy any means, at any price,—nay, more,Nay, most of all, i' the very interestO' the fool that, baffled of his blind desireAt any price, were 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 balked 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 in 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 useOf armory thus allowed for natural,—Exclaim against a seeming-dubious playO' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shieldAlike, resorted to i' the circumstanceBy poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat pliedArts that allure, the magic nod and wink,The witchery of gesture, spell of word,Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew,)Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond,The weakness that subdues the strong, and bowsWisdom alike and folly. Grant the taleO' the husband, which is false, were proved and trueTo the letter—or the letters, I should say,Abominations he professed to findAnd fix upon Pompilia and the priest,—Allow them hers—for though she could not write,In early days of Eve-like innocenceThat plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eatsAnd 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 pieEndeavor 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 listExplicitly 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"—thoughThis 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 wheelsOf 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,Out of the wide world but 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 braveDanger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf—Think to entice the sternness of the steelYet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind?—Most of all, when such mind is hampered soBy growth of circumstance athwart the lifeO' the natural man, that decency forbidsHe 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 foolishnessHe 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:Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,Suppose this man could love, unhappily,And would love, dared he only let love show!In case the woman of his love speaks first,From what embarrassment she sets him free!"'T is 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 chairDown to the carpet where the kittens bask,All under the pretence of gratitude!From all which, I deduce—the lady hereWas bound to proffer nothing short of loveTo 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,Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast.Till all the Samson sink into the snare!Because, permit the end—permit therewithMeans to the end!How say you, good my lords?I hope you heard my adversary ringThe changes on this precept: now, let meReverse the peal!Quia dato licito fine,Ad illum assequendum ordinataNon sunt damnanda media,—licit endEnough was found in mere escape from death,To legalize our means illicit elseOf feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,(See thatIdyllium Moschi) seeking help,In the anxiety of motherhood,Allowably promised, "Who shall bring reportWhere he is wandered to, my wingèd 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, referAll 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 deviceTo catch and keep the man, may save her life,Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:Feigning,—the liker innocence to guilt,The truer to the life in what she feigns!How if Ulysses,—when, for public goodHe 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 graceTo whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proofThat promise was not simply made to break,Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:We praise, as consequent and requisite,What, enemies allege, were more than words,Deeds—meetings at the window, twilight-trysts,Nocturnal entertainments in the dimOld labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—Inventions we, long since, turned inside out.Must such external semblance of intrigueDemonstrate that intrigue there lurks perdue?Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut?He were a Molinist who dared maintainThat midnight meetings in a screened alcoveMust argue folly in a matron—sinceSo would he bring a slur on Judith's self,Commended beyond women, that she luredThe lustful to destruction through his lust.Pompilia took not Judith's liberty,No falchion find you in her hand to smite,No damsel to convey in dish the headOf Holofernes,—style the Canon so—Or is it the Count? If I entangle meWith 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 reviveI' the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus?Yea, we have shown it lawful, necessaryPompilia leave her husband, seek the houseO' the parents: and because 'twixt home and homeLies a long road with many a danger rife,Lions by the way and serpents in the path,To rob and ravish,—much behooves she keepEach shadow of suspicion from fair fame,For her own sake much, but for his sake more,The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be,Plain witness to the world how white she walksI' 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 marsWork, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flawI' the worker: as 't is said Saint Paul himselfDeplored the check o' the puny presence, stillCheating his fulmination of its flash,Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak.Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,—Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,—In all obedience: "good," you grant again.Do you? I would you were the husband, lords!How prompt and facile might departure be!How boldly would Pompilia and the priestMarch out of door, spread flag at beat of drum,But that inapprehensive Guido grantsNeither 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 masqueradeAt hour when all things sleep—"Save jealousy!"Right, Judges! Therefore shall the lady's witSupply the boon thwart nature balks him of,And do him service with the potent drug(Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine)Which respites blessedly each fretted nerveO' 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 friendIntent on more than friendly office,—nay,Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bareIn payment of his apparition!ThusWould I defend the step,—were the thing trueWhich 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: or hist,—a stoppage still!A journey is an enterprise of cost!As in campaigns, we fight but others pay,Suis expensis, nemo militat.'T is Guido's self we guard from accident,Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versedNowise in misadventures by the way,Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare,The unready host. What magic mitigatesEach plague of travel to the unpractised wife?Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction factShe helped herself thereto with liberal handFrom out her husband's store,—what fitter useWas ever husband's money destined to?With bag and baggage thus did Dido onceDecamp,—for more authority, a queen!So is she fairly on her route at last,Prepared for either fortune: nay and ifThe priest, now all aglow with enterprise,Cool somewhat presently when fades the flushO' the first adventure, clouded o'er belikeBy doubts, misgivings how the day may die,Though born with such auroral brilliance,—ifThe brow seem over-pensive and the lip'Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,—Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jauntIn a close carriage o'er a jolting road,With only one young female substituteFor seventeen other Canons of ripe ageWere wont to keep him company in church,—Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipateThe silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?—Prop the irresoluteness may portendSuspension of the project, cheek the flight,Bring ruin on them both? Use every means,Since means to the end are lawful! What i' the wayOf wile should have allowance like a kissSagely and sisterly administered,Sororia saltem oscula?We findSuch was the remedy her wit appliedTo each incipient scruple of the priest,If we believe,—as, while my wit is mineI cannot,—what the driver testifies,Borsi, called Venerino, the mere toolOf Guido and his friend the Governor,—Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch.After long rotting in imprisonment,As price of liberty and favor: longThey tempted, he at last succumbed, and loCounted them out full tale each kiss and more,"The journey being 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 urgedIn 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 lips,This was but innocent jog of head 'gainst head,Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pearFrom branch and branch contiguous in the wind,When Autumn blusters and the orchard-rocks:—That rapid run and the rough road were causeO' the casual ambiguity, no harmI' the world to eyes awake and penetrative:—Say,—not to grasp a truth I can releaseAnd safely fight without, yet conquer still,—Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again!Such osculation was a potent means,A very efficacious help, no doubt:Such with a third part of her nectar didVenus imbue: why should Pompilia flingThe 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 dayHave run their round: a long and devious roadIs traversed,—many manners, various menPassed in review, what cities did they see,What hamlets mark, what profitable foodFor after-meditation cull and store!Till Rome, that Rome whereof—this voiceWould it might make our Molinists observe,That she is built upon a rock nor shallTheir powers prevail against her!—Rome, I say,Is all but reached; one stage more and they stopSaved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then!
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 flowerRefuses obstinate to 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 hide—Watch, curtained, but peep 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 CourtRequires the allocution of the Fisc!"I rise, I bend, I look about me, pauseO'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 vogueThroughout our city nutritive of arts,Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,To manufacture, as he knows and can,A work may decorate a palace-wall,Affords my lords their Holy Family,—Hath it escaped the acumen of the CourtHow such a painter sets himself to paint?Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her BabeA-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 TurkOr, 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"Familiarize thee with our play that liftsThus, 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-nurseThat 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 goTo 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 elateStands, 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 turnMinisters 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 factConsigned 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-tailOr, 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 conceitThe 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 such results,Would they discover and appreciate,—lifeFed by digestion, not raw food itself,No gobbets but smooth comfortable chymeSecreted from each snapped-up crudity,—Less distinct, part by part, but in the wholeTruer to the subject,—the main central truthAnd soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,—Not those mere fragmentary studied factsWhich answer to the outward frame and flesh—Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other factOf 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 RomeAnd—who knows?—satisfy its Governor,Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brushOf 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 wifeTo boot (as if one introduced Saint AnneBy bold conjecture to complete the group)And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretchedIn 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 cognizant of facts,Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forthOf every piece of evidence in point,How bloody Herod slew these innocents,—Until the glad result is gained, the groupDemonstrably presented in detail,Their slumber and his onslaught,—like as life.Yea, and, availing me of help allowedBy law, discreet provision lest my lordsBe 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 caseWhich, 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,Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal?Much rather let me soar the height prescribedAnd, 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!"—forI leave the family as unmanageable,And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)Hath calumny imputed to the fairA 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 foundIn 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 slaveWas caught by him, preferred to Collatine?Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia!Thus at leastI, by the guidance of antiquity,(Our one infallible guide,) now operate,Sure that the innocence thus 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 produceA faultless nature in a flawless form?What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blazeOf such a crown, such constellation, say,As jewels here thy front, Humanity!First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;Then, childhood—stone which, dewdrop 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,—suffusedWith 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 smile,Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge—Begin at once with marriage, up till whenLittle or nothing would arrest your love,In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb,How do they differ? Know one, you know allManners 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 armory of love?Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellingsO' the hair of youth that dances April in,And easily-imagined Hebe-slipsO'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?'T is Guido henceforth guides Pompilia's step,Cries, "No more friskings o'er the foodful glebe,Else, 'ware the whip!" Accordingly,—first crackO' 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 kingAnd 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 wayWith groan and grunt, though hind strike ne'er so hard?If petulant remonstrance made appeal,Unseasonable, o'erprotracted,—ifImportunate challenge taxed the public earWhen silence more decorously had servedFor protestation,—if Pompilian plaintWrought but to aggravate Guidonion ire,—Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,Ever companion change, are incidentTo altered modes and novelty of life:The philosophic mind expects no less,Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sitsWaiting till old things go and new arrive.Therefore, I hold a husband but ineptWho turns impatient at such transit-time,As if this 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 bridePartake the nuptial bower no soul can see,Old things are passed and all again is new,Over and gone the obstacles to peace,Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turnsThe 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 't is 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 footO' the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still'T is a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.Just so, respecting persons not too much,The lady, foes allege, put forth each charmAnd proper floweret of feminityTo whosoever had a nose to smellOr 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 ... escapesWere 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 't is clearThe cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breastOpen to gnat, midge, bee 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 biteLeaves by so much diminished for the mouthO' the master of the house at supper-time:But rather like a lump of spice they lie,Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighborhoodYet 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 reproachOf lavish bounty, inconsiderate giftO' 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 't is a levite bears the bell away,Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice,'T is 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 scelestaPlebe 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 foundNor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mindCome 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 ministeredThe raisin-cluster 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 have behaved as well?But ah, the faith of early days is gone,Heu prisca fides!Nothing died in himSave courtesy, good sense and proper trust,Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow,Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.(The Pope, we know, is NeapolitanAnd relishes a sea-side simile.)Deserted by each charitable wave,Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the foolWith 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 thus much, and what remains to prove?Have I to teach my masters what effectHath jealousy, and how, befooling men,It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with soundSilence, and into void and vacancyCrowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousyMy wife," adds "for no reason in the world!"What need that, thus proved madman, he remark"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?—Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,And not an inch too long for that rare pie(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;Meant to regale some moody spleneticWho, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,Spying I know not what Lernæan snakeI' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsoothThe dainty in the dust.Enough! Prepare,Such 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 handThat buffets her? The injurious idle stoneRebounds and hits 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 now to fly the foolBy any means, at any price,—nay, more,Nay, most of all, i' the very interestO' the fool that, baffled of his blind desireAt any price, were 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 balked 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 in 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 useOf armory thus allowed for natural,—Exclaim against a seeming-dubious playO' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shieldAlike, resorted to i' the circumstanceBy poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat pliedArts that allure, the magic nod and wink,The witchery of gesture, spell of word,Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew,)Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond,The weakness that subdues the strong, and bowsWisdom alike and folly. Grant the taleO' the husband, which is false, were proved and trueTo the letter—or the letters, I should say,Abominations he professed to findAnd fix upon Pompilia and the priest,—Allow them hers—for though she could not write,In early days of Eve-like innocenceThat plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eatsAnd 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 pieEndeavor 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 listExplicitly 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"—thoughThis 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 wheelsOf 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,Out of the wide world but 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 braveDanger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf—Think to entice the sternness of the steelYet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind?—Most of all, when such mind is hampered soBy growth of circumstance athwart the lifeO' the natural man, that decency forbidsHe 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 foolishnessHe 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:Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,Suppose this man could love, unhappily,And would love, dared he only let love show!In case the woman of his love speaks first,From what embarrassment she sets him free!"'T is 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 chairDown to the carpet where the kittens bask,All under the pretence of gratitude!From all which, I deduce—the lady hereWas bound to proffer nothing short of loveTo 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,Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast.Till all the Samson sink into the snare!Because, permit the end—permit therewithMeans to the end!How say you, good my lords?I hope you heard my adversary ringThe changes on this precept: now, let meReverse the peal!Quia dato licito fine,Ad illum assequendum ordinataNon sunt damnanda media,—licit endEnough was found in mere escape from death,To legalize our means illicit elseOf feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,(See thatIdyllium Moschi) seeking help,In the anxiety of motherhood,Allowably promised, "Who shall bring reportWhere he is wandered to, my wingèd 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, referAll 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 deviceTo catch and keep the man, may save her life,Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:Feigning,—the liker innocence to guilt,The truer to the life in what she feigns!How if Ulysses,—when, for public goodHe 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 graceTo whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proofThat promise was not simply made to break,Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:We praise, as consequent and requisite,What, enemies allege, were more than words,Deeds—meetings at the window, twilight-trysts,Nocturnal entertainments in the dimOld labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—Inventions we, long since, turned inside out.Must such external semblance of intrigueDemonstrate that intrigue there lurks perdue?Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut?He were a Molinist who dared maintainThat midnight meetings in a screened alcoveMust argue folly in a matron—sinceSo would he bring a slur on Judith's self,Commended beyond women, that she luredThe lustful to destruction through his lust.Pompilia took not Judith's liberty,No falchion find you in her hand to smite,No damsel to convey in dish the headOf Holofernes,—style the Canon so—Or is it the Count? If I entangle meWith 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 reviveI' the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus?Yea, we have shown it lawful, necessaryPompilia leave her husband, seek the houseO' the parents: and because 'twixt home and homeLies a long road with many a danger rife,Lions by the way and serpents in the path,To rob and ravish,—much behooves she keepEach shadow of suspicion from fair fame,For her own sake much, but for his sake more,The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be,Plain witness to the world how white she walksI' 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 marsWork, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flawI' the worker: as 't is said Saint Paul himselfDeplored the check o' the puny presence, stillCheating his fulmination of its flash,Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak.Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,—Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,—In all obedience: "good," you grant again.Do you? I would you were the husband, lords!How prompt and facile might departure be!How boldly would Pompilia and the priestMarch out of door, spread flag at beat of drum,But that inapprehensive Guido grantsNeither 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 masqueradeAt hour when all things sleep—"Save jealousy!"Right, Judges! Therefore shall the lady's witSupply the boon thwart nature balks him of,And do him service with the potent drug(Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine)Which respites blessedly each fretted nerveO' 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 friendIntent on more than friendly office,—nay,Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bareIn payment of his apparition!ThusWould I defend the step,—were the thing trueWhich 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: or hist,—a stoppage still!A journey is an enterprise of cost!As in campaigns, we fight but others pay,Suis expensis, nemo militat.'T is Guido's self we guard from accident,Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versedNowise in misadventures by the way,Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare,The unready host. What magic mitigatesEach plague of travel to the unpractised wife?Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction factShe helped herself thereto with liberal handFrom out her husband's store,—what fitter useWas ever husband's money destined to?With bag and baggage thus did Dido onceDecamp,—for more authority, a queen!So is she fairly on her route at last,Prepared for either fortune: nay and ifThe priest, now all aglow with enterprise,Cool somewhat presently when fades the flushO' the first adventure, clouded o'er belikeBy doubts, misgivings how the day may die,Though born with such auroral brilliance,—ifThe brow seem over-pensive and the lip'Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,—Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jauntIn a close carriage o'er a jolting road,With only one young female substituteFor seventeen other Canons of ripe ageWere wont to keep him company in church,—Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipateThe silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?—Prop the irresoluteness may portendSuspension of the project, cheek the flight,Bring ruin on them both? Use every means,Since means to the end are lawful! What i' the wayOf wile should have allowance like a kissSagely and sisterly administered,Sororia saltem oscula?We findSuch was the remedy her wit appliedTo each incipient scruple of the priest,If we believe,—as, while my wit is mineI cannot,—what the driver testifies,Borsi, called Venerino, the mere toolOf Guido and his friend the Governor,—Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch.After long rotting in imprisonment,As price of liberty and favor: longThey tempted, he at last succumbed, and loCounted them out full tale each kiss and more,"The journey being 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 urgedIn 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 lips,This was but innocent jog of head 'gainst head,Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pearFrom branch and branch contiguous in the wind,When Autumn blusters and the orchard-rocks:—That rapid run and the rough road were causeO' the casual ambiguity, no harmI' the world to eyes awake and penetrative:—Say,—not to grasp a truth I can releaseAnd safely fight without, yet conquer still,—Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again!Such osculation was a potent means,A very efficacious help, no doubt:Such with a third part of her nectar didVenus imbue: why should Pompilia flingThe 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 dayHave run their round: a long and devious roadIs traversed,—many manners, various menPassed in review, what cities did they see,What hamlets mark, what profitable foodFor after-meditation cull and store!Till Rome, that Rome whereof—this voiceWould it might make our Molinists observe,That she is built upon a rock nor shallTheir powers prevail against her!—Rome, I say,Is all but reached; one stage more and they stopSaved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then!
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 flowerRefuses obstinate to 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 hide—Watch, curtained, but peep 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 CourtRequires the allocution of the Fisc!"I rise, I bend, I look about me, pauseO'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—
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 obstinate to 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 hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep 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 vogueThroughout our city nutritive of arts,Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,To manufacture, as he knows and can,A work may decorate a palace-wall,Affords my lords their Holy Family,—Hath it escaped the acumen of the CourtHow such a painter sets himself to paint?Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her BabeA-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 TurkOr, 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"Familiarize thee with our play that liftsThus, 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-nurseThat 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 goTo 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 elateStands, 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 turnMinisters 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."
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,
To manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Affords my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such 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
"Familiarize 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 factConsigned 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-tailOr, 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 conceitThe 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 such results,Would they discover and appreciate,—lifeFed by digestion, not raw food itself,No gobbets but smooth comfortable chymeSecreted from each snapped-up crudity,—Less distinct, part by part, but in the wholeTruer to the subject,—the main central truthAnd soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,—Not those mere fragmentary studied factsWhich answer to the outward frame and flesh—Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other factOf 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 RomeAnd—who knows?—satisfy its Governor,Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brushOf 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.)
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 such results,
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
('T is 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 wifeTo boot (as if one introduced Saint AnneBy bold conjecture to complete the group)And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretchedIn 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 cognizant of facts,Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forthOf every piece of evidence in point,How bloody Herod slew these innocents,—Until the glad result is gained, the groupDemonstrably presented in detail,Their slumber and his onslaught,—like as life.Yea, and, availing me of help allowedBy law, discreet provision lest my lordsBe 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 caseWhich, 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,Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal?Much rather let me soar the height prescribedAnd, 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!"—forI leave the family as unmanageable,And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)Hath calumny imputed to the fairA 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 foundIn 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 slaveWas caught by him, preferred to Collatine?Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia!Thus at leastI, by the guidance of antiquity,(Our one infallible guide,) now operate,Sure that the innocence thus 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!"
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 cognizant 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,
Claimed 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 innocence thus 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 produceA faultless nature in a flawless form?What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blazeOf such a crown, such constellation, say,As jewels here thy front, Humanity!First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;Then, childhood—stone which, dewdrop 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,—suffusedWith 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!
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, dewdrop 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 smile,Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge—Begin at once with marriage, up till whenLittle or nothing would arrest your love,In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb,How do they differ? Know one, you know allManners 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 armory of love?Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellingsO' the hair of youth that dances April in,And easily-imagined Hebe-slipsO'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?
Which is to say,—lose no time but begin!
Sermocinando ne declamem, Sirs,
Ultra clepsydram, as our preachers smile,
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 armory 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?'T is Guido henceforth guides Pompilia's step,Cries, "No more friskings o'er the foodful glebe,Else, 'ware the whip!" Accordingly,—first crackO' 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 kingAnd 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 wayWith groan and grunt, though hind strike ne'er so hard?If petulant remonstrance made appeal,Unseasonable, o'erprotracted,—ifImportunate challenge taxed the public earWhen silence more decorously had servedFor protestation,—if Pompilian plaintWrought but to aggravate Guidonion ire,—Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,Ever companion change, are incidentTo altered modes and novelty of life:The philosophic mind expects no less,Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sitsWaiting till old things go and new arrive.Therefore, I hold a husband but ineptWho turns impatient at such transit-time,As if this running from the rod would last!
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?
'T is 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 Guidonion 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 this 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 bridePartake the nuptial bower no soul can see,Old things are passed and all again is new,Over and gone the obstacles to peace,Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turnsThe 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.)
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 can 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 't is 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 footO' the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still'T is a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.Just so, respecting persons not too much,The lady, foes allege, put forth each charmAnd proper floweret of feminityTo whosoever had a nose to smellOr 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 ... escapesWere 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 't is clearThe cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breastOpen to gnat, midge, bee 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 biteLeaves by so much diminished for the mouthO' the master of the house at supper-time:But rather like a lump of spice they lie,Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighborhoodYet greets its lord no lighter by a grain.
But what if, as 't is 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
'T is 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 't is clear
The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast
Open to gnat, midge, bee 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 neighborhood
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 reproachOf lavish bounty, inconsiderate giftO' 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 't is a levite bears the bell away,Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice,'T is 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 scelestaPlebe 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 foundNor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mindCome 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 ministeredThe raisin-cluster 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 have behaved as well?But ah, the faith of early days is gone,Heu prisca fides!Nothing died in himSave courtesy, good sense and proper trust,Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow,Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.(The Pope, we know, is NeapolitanAnd relishes a sea-side simile.)Deserted by each charitable wave,Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the foolWith 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 thus much, and what remains to prove?Have I to teach my masters what effectHath jealousy, and how, befooling men,It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with soundSilence, and into void and vacancyCrowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousyMy wife," adds "for no reason in the world!"What need that, thus proved madman, he remark"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?—Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,And not an inch too long for that rare pie(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;Meant to regale some moody spleneticWho, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,Spying I know not what Lernæan snakeI' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsoothThe dainty in the dust.
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 't is a levite bears the bell away,
Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice,
'T is 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
Nor 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-cluster 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 have 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, we 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 thus much, 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 mere 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, thus proved madman, he remark
"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?—
Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,
And not an inch too long for that rare pie
(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)
Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;
Meant to regale some moody splenetic
Who, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,
Spying I know not what Lernæan snake
I' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth
The dainty in the dust.
Enough! Prepare,Such 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 handThat buffets her? The injurious idle stoneRebounds and hits 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 now to fly the foolBy any means, at any price,—nay, more,Nay, most of all, i' the very interestO' the fool that, baffled of his blind desireAt any price, were 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 balked by her, should back again,Correctively admonish his own pate!
Enough! Prepare,
Such 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 hits 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 now to fly the fool
By any means, at any price,—nay, more,
Nay, most of all, i' the very interest
O' the fool that, baffled of his blind desire
At any price, were 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 balked 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 in 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 useOf armory thus allowed for natural,—Exclaim against a seeming-dubious playO' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shieldAlike, resorted to i' the circumstanceBy poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat pliedArts that allure, the magic nod and wink,The witchery of gesture, spell of word,Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew,)Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond,The weakness that subdues the strong, and bowsWisdom alike and folly. Grant the taleO' the husband, which is false, were proved and trueTo the letter—or the letters, I should say,Abominations he professed to findAnd fix upon Pompilia and the priest,—Allow them hers—for though she could not write,In early days of Eve-like innocenceThat plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eatsAnd 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 pieEndeavor 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 listExplicitly 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"—thoughThis 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 wheelsOf 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,Out of the wide world but 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 braveDanger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf—Think to entice the sternness of the steelYet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind?—Most of all, when such mind is hampered soBy growth of circumstance athwart the lifeO' the natural man, that decency forbidsHe 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 foolishnessHe 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:Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,Suppose this man could love, unhappily,And would love, dared he only let love show!In case the woman of his love speaks first,From what embarrassment she sets him free!"'T is 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 chairDown to the carpet where the kittens bask,All under the pretence of gratitude!
Crime then,—the Court is with me?—she must crush;
How crush it? By all efficacious means;
And these,—why, what in 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 armory 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,
Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?
Such man, being but mere man, ('t was 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, were proved and true
To the letter—or the letters, I should say,
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
Endeavor 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,
Out of the wide world but 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
Yet spare love's loadstone moving 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:
Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?
Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,
Suppose this man could love, unhappily,
And would love, dared he only let love show!
In case the woman of his love speaks first,
From what embarrassment she sets him free!
"'T is 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 hereWas bound to proffer nothing short of loveTo 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,Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast.Till all the Samson sink into the snare!Because, permit the end—permit therewithMeans to the end!How say you, good my lords?I hope you heard my adversary ringThe changes on this precept: now, let meReverse the peal!Quia dato licito fine,Ad illum assequendum ordinataNon sunt damnanda media,—licit endEnough was found in mere escape from death,To legalize our means illicit elseOf feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,(See thatIdyllium Moschi) seeking help,In the anxiety of motherhood,Allowably promised, "Who shall bring reportWhere he is wandered to, my wingèd 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?
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,
Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?
Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.
'T is 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 found in mere escape from death,
To legalize our means illicit else
Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.
Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,
(See thatIdyllium Moschi) seeking help,
In the anxiety of motherhood,
Allowably promised, "Who shall bring report
Where he is wandered to, my wingèd 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, referAll 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 deviceTo catch and keep the man, may save her life,Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:Feigning,—the liker innocence to guilt,The truer to the life in what she feigns!How if Ulysses,—when, for public goodHe 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 graceTo whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.
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, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:
Feigning,—the liker innocence to guilt,
The truer to the life in 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 proofThat promise was not simply made to break,Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:We praise, as consequent and requisite,What, enemies allege, were more than words,Deeds—meetings at the window, twilight-trysts,Nocturnal entertainments in the dimOld labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—Inventions we, long since, turned inside out.Must such external semblance of intrigueDemonstrate that intrigue there lurks perdue?Does every hazel-sheath disclose a nut?He were a Molinist who dared maintainThat midnight meetings in a screened alcoveMust argue folly in a matron—sinceSo would he bring a slur on Judith's self,Commended beyond women, that she luredThe lustful to destruction through his lust.Pompilia took not Judith's liberty,No falchion find you in her hand to smite,No damsel to convey in dish the headOf Holofernes,—style the Canon so—Or is it the Count? If I entangle meWith 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 reviveI' the warmth that proves the bane of Icarus?
Hence, beyond promises, we praise each proof
That promise was not simply made to break,
Mere moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:
We praise, as consequent and requisite,
What, enemies allege, were more than words,
Deeds—meetings at the window, twilight-trysts,
Nocturnal entertainments in the dim
Old labyrinthine palace; lies, we know—
Inventions we, long since, turned inside out.
Must such external semblance of intrigue
Demonstrate that intrigue there lurks 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 falchion find you in her hand to smite,
No damsel to convey in dish the head
Of Holofernes,—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, necessaryPompilia leave her husband, seek the houseO' the parents: and because 'twixt home and homeLies a long road with many a danger rife,Lions by the way and serpents in the path,To rob and ravish,—much behooves she keepEach shadow of suspicion from fair fame,For her own sake much, but for his sake more,The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be,Plain witness to the world how white she walksI' 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.
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 behooves she keep
Each shadow of suspicion from fair fame,
For her own sake much, but for his sake more,
The ingrate husband's. Evidence shall be,
Plain 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 marsWork, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flawI' the worker: as 't is said Saint Paul himselfDeplored the check o' the puny presence, stillCheating his fulmination of its flash,Albeit the bolt therein went true to oak.Therefore the agent, as prescribed, she takes,—Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,—In all obedience: "good," you grant again.Do you? I would you were the husband, lords!How prompt and facile might departure be!How boldly would Pompilia and the priestMarch out of door, spread flag at beat of drum,But that inapprehensive Guido grantsNeither 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 masqueradeAt hour when all things sleep—"Save jealousy!"Right, Judges! Therefore shall the lady's witSupply the boon thwart nature balks him of,And do him service with the potent drug(Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine)Which respites blessedly each fretted nerveO' 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 friendIntent on more than friendly office,—nay,Nor get himself raw head and bones laid bareIn payment of his apparition!
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 't is 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,—
Both juvenile and potent, handsome too,—
In all obedience: "good," you grant again.
Do you? I would you 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 balks him of,
And do him service with the potent drug
(Helen's nepenthe, as my lords opine)
Which respites blessedly each fretted 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!
ThusWould I defend the step,—were the thing trueWhich 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.
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: or hist,—a stoppage still!A journey is an enterprise of cost!As in campaigns, we fight but others pay,Suis expensis, nemo militat.'T is Guido's self we guard from accident,Ensuring safety to Pompilia, versedNowise in misadventures by the way,Hard riding and rough quarters, the rude fare,The unready host. What magic mitigatesEach plague of travel to the unpractised wife?Money, sweet Sirs! And were the fiction factShe helped herself thereto with liberal handFrom out her husband's store,—what fitter useWas ever husband's money destined to?With bag and baggage thus did Dido onceDecamp,—for more authority, a queen!
Now she may start: or hist,—a stoppage still!
A journey is an enterprise of cost!
As in campaigns, we fight but others pay,
Suis expensis, nemo militat.
'T is 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 her 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 ifThe priest, now all aglow with enterprise,Cool somewhat presently when fades the flushO' the first adventure, clouded o'er belikeBy doubts, misgivings how the day may die,Though born with such auroral brilliance,—ifThe brow seem over-pensive and the lip'Gin lag and lose the prattle lightsome late,—Vanquished by tedium of a prolonged jauntIn a close carriage o'er a jolting road,With only one young female substituteFor seventeen other Canons of ripe ageWere wont to keep him company in church,—Shall not Pompilia haste to dissipateThe silent cloud that, gathering, bodes her bale?—Prop the irresoluteness may portendSuspension of the project, cheek the flight,Bring ruin on them both? Use every means,Since means to the end are lawful! What i' the wayOf wile should have allowance like a kissSagely and sisterly administered,Sororia saltem oscula?We findSuch was the remedy her wit appliedTo each incipient scruple of the priest,If we believe,—as, while my wit is mineI cannot,—what the driver testifies,Borsi, called Venerino, the mere toolOf Guido and his friend the Governor,—Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch.After long rotting in imprisonment,As price of liberty and favor: longThey tempted, he at last succumbed, and loCounted them out full tale each kiss and more,"The journey being 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 urgedIn 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 lips,This was but innocent jog of head 'gainst head,Cheek meeting jowl as apple may touch pearFrom branch and branch contiguous in the wind,When Autumn blusters and the orchard-rocks:—That rapid run and the rough road were causeO' the casual ambiguity, no harmI' the world to eyes awake and penetrative:—Say,—not to grasp a truth I can releaseAnd safely fight without, yet conquer still,—Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again!Such osculation was a potent means,A very efficacious help, no doubt:Such with a third part of her nectar didVenus imbue: why should Pompilia flingThe 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?
So is she fairly on her route at last,
Prepared for either fortune: nay and if
The priest, now all aglow 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, cheek 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,—
Avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch.
After long rotting in imprisonment,
As price of liberty and favor: long
They tempted, he at last succumbed, and lo
Counted them out full tale each kiss and more,
"The journey being 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 lips,
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:—
That rapid run and the rough road were cause
O' the casual ambiguity, no harm
I' the world to eyes awake and penetrative:—
Say,—not to grasp a truth I can release
And safely fight without, yet conquer still,—
Say, she kissed him, say, he kissed her again!
Such osculation was a potent means,
A very efficacious help, no doubt:
Such 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 dayHave run their round: a long and devious roadIs traversed,—many manners, various menPassed in review, what cities did they see,What hamlets mark, what profitable foodFor after-meditation cull and store!Till Rome, that Rome whereof—this voiceWould it might make our Molinists observe,That she is built upon a rock nor shallTheir powers prevail against her!—Rome, I say,Is all but reached; one stage more and they stopSaved: pluck up heart, ye pair, and forward, then!
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!