Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Thus paper second followed paper first,

  Thus did the two join issue — nay, the four,

  Each pleader having an adjunct. “True, he killed

  “ — So to speak — in a certain sort — his wife,

  “But laudably, since thus it happed!” quoth one:

  Whereat, more witness and the case postponed,

  “Thus it happed not, since thus he did the deed,

  “And proved himself thereby portentousest

  “Of cutthroats and a prodigy of crime,

  “As the woman that he slaughtered was a saint,

  “Martyr and miracle!” quoth the other to match:

  Again, more witness, and the case postponed.

  “A miracle, ay — of lust and impudence;

  “Hear my new reasons!” interposed the first:

  “ — Coupled with more of mine!” pursued his peer.

  “Beside, the precedents, the authorities!”

  From both at once a cry with an echo, that!

  That was a firebrand at each fox’s tail

  Unleashed in a cornfield: soon spread flare enough,

  As hurtled thither and there heaped themselves

  From earth’s four corners, all authority

  And precedent for putting wives to death,

  Or letting wives live, sinful as they seem.

  How legislated, now, in this respect,

  Solon and his Athenians? Quote the code

  Of Romulus and Rome! Justinian speak!

  Nor modern Baldo, Bartolo be dumb!

  The Roman voice was potent, plentiful;

  Cornelia de Sicariis hurried to help

  Pompeia de Parricidiis; Julia de

  Something-or-other jostled Lex this-and-that;

  King Solomon confirmed Apostle Paul:

  That nice decision of Dolabella, eh?

  That pregnant instance of Theodoric, oh!

  Down to that choice example Ælian gives

  (An instance I find much insisted on)

  Of the elephant who, brute-beast though he were,

  Yet understood and punished on the spot

  His master’s naughty spouse and faithless friend;

  A true tale which has edified each child,

  Much more shall flourish favoured by our court!

  Pages of proof this way, and that way proof,

  And always — once again the case postponed.

  Thus wrangled, brangled, jangled they a month,

  — Only on paper, pleadings all in print,

  Nor ever was, except i’ the brains of men,

  More noise by word of mouth than you hear now —

  Till the court cut all short with “Judged, your cause

  “Receive our sentence! Praise God! We pronounce

  “Count Guido devilish and damnable:

  “His wife Pompilia in thought, word, and deed,

  “Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that:

  “As for the Four who helped the One, all Five —

  “Why, let employer and hirelings share alike

  “In guilt and guilt’s reward, the death their due!”

  So was the trial at end, do you suppose?

  “Guilty you find him, death you doom him to?

  “Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest,

  “Priest and to spare!” — this was a shot reserved;

  I learn this from epistles which begin

  Here where the print ends, — see the pen and ink

  Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch! —

  “My client boasts the clerkly privilege,

  “Has taken minor orders many enough,

  “Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate

  “To neutralise a blood-stain: presbyter,

  “Primœ tonsurœ, subdiaconus,

  “Sacerdos, so he slips from underneath

  “Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe

  “Of mother Church: to her we make appeal

  “By the Pope, the Church’s head!”

  A parlous plea,

  Put in with noticeable effect, it seems;

  “Since straight,” — resumes the zealous orator,

  Making a friend acquainted with the facts, —

  “Once the word ‘clericality’ let fall,

  “Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn

  “By all considerate and responsible Rome.”

  Quality took the decent part, of course;

  Held by the husband, who was noble too:

  Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side

  With too-refined susceptibility,

  And honour which, tender in the extreme,

  Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself

  At all risks, not sit still and whine for law

  As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall,

  Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems,

  Even the Emperor’s Envoy had his say

  To say on the subject; might not see, unmoved,

  Civility menaced throughout Christendom

  By too harsh measure dealt her champion here.

  Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind,

  From his youth up, reluctant to take life,

  If mercy might be just and yet show grace;

  Much more unlikely then, in extreme age,

  To take a life the general sense bade spare.

  ‘Twas plain that Guido would go scatheless yet.

  But human promise, oh, how short of shine!

  How topple down the piles of hope we rear!

  How history proves . . . nay, read Herodotus!

  Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were,

  A dog-sleep with one shut, one open orb,

  Cried the Pope’s great self, — Innocent by name

  And nature too, and eighty-six years old,

  Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope

  Who had trod many lands, known many deeds,

  Probed many hearts, beginning with his own,

  And now was far in readiness for God, —

  ‘Twas he who first bade leave those souls in peace,

  Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists,

  (‘Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune,

  Tickling men’s ears — the sect for a quarter of an hour

  I’ the teeth of the world which, clown-like, loves to chew

  Be it but a straw ‘twixt work and whistling-while,

  Taste some vituperation, bite away,

  Whether at marjoram-sprig or garlic-clove,

  Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth)

  “Leave them alone,” bade he, “those Molinists!

  “Who may have other light than we perceive,

  “Or why is it the whole world hates them thus?”

  Also he peeled off that last scandal-rag

  Of Nepotism; and so observed the poor

  That men would merrily say, “Halt, deaf, and blind,

  Who feed on fat things, leave the master’s self

  “To gather up the fragments of his feast,

  “These be the nephews of Pope Innocent! —

  “His own meal costs but five carlines a day,

  “Poor- priest’s allowance, for he claims no more.”

  — He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope,

  When they appealed in last resort to him,

  “I have mastered the whole matter: I nothing doubt.

  “Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel,

  “Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one, —

  “And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp

  “To the sandaled sole of him, my son and Christ’s,

  “Instead of touching us by finger-tip

  “As you assert, and pressing up so close

  “Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe, —

  “I and Christ would renounce all right in him.

  “Am I not Pope, and pr
esently to die,

  “And busied how to render my account,

  “And shall I wait a day ere I decide

  “On doing or not doing justice here?

  “Cut off his head to-morrow by this time,

  “Hang up his four mates, two on either hand,

  “And end one business more!”

  So said, so done —

  Rather so writ, for the old Pope bade this,

  I find, with his particular chirograph,

  His own no such infirm hand, Friday night;

  And next day, February Twenty-Two,

  Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight,

  — Not at the proper head-and-hanging place

  On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo,

  Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle,

  (‘Twas not so well i’ the way of Rome, beside,

  The noble Rome, the Rome of Guido’s rank)

  But at the city’s newer gayer end, —

  The cavalcading promenading place

  Beside the gate and opposite the church

  Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring,

  ‘Neath the obelisk ‘twixt the fountains in the Square,

  Did Guido and his fellows find their fate,

  All Rome for witness, and — my writer adds —

  Remonstrant in its universal grief,

  Since Guido had the suffrage of all Rome.

  This is the bookful; thus far take the truth,

  The untempered gold, the fact untampered with,

  The mere ring-metal ere the ring be made!

  And what has hitherto come of it? Who preserves

  The memory of this Guido, and his wife

  Pompilia, more than Ademollo’s name,

  The etcher of those prints, two crazie each,

  Saved by a stone from snowing broad the Square

  With scenic backgrounds? Was this truth of force?

  Able to take its own part as truth should,

  Sufficient, self-sustaining? Why, if so —

  Yonder’s a fire, into it goes my book,

  As who shall say me nay, and what the loss?

  You know the tale already: I may ask,

  Rather than think to tell you, more thereof, —

  Ask you not merely who were he and she,

  Husband and wife, what manner of mankind,

  But how you hold concerning this and that

  Other yet-unnamed actor in the piece.

  The young frank handsome courtly Canon, now,

  The priest, declared the lover of the wife,

  He who, no question, did elope with her,

  For certain bring the tragedy about,

  Giuseppe Caponsacchi; — his strange course

  I’ the matter, was it right or wrong or both?

  Then the old couple, slaughtered with the wife

  By the husband as accomplices in crime,

  Those Comparini, Pietro and his spouse, —

  What say you to the right or wrong of that,

  When, at a known name whispered through the door

  Of a lone villa on a Christmas night,

  It opened that the joyous hearts inside

  Might welcome as it were an angel-guest

  Come in Christ’s name to knock and enter, sup

  And satisfy the loving ones he saved;

  And so did welcome devils and their death?

  I have been silent on that circumstance

  Although the couple passed for close of kin

  To wife and husband, were by some accounts

  Pompilia’s very parents: you know best.

  Also that infant the great joy was for,

  That Gaetano, the wife’s two-weeks’ babe,

  The husband’s first-born child, his son and heir,

  Whose birth and being turned his night to day —

  Why must the father kill the mother thus

  Because she bore his son and saved himself?

  Well, British Public, ye who like me not,

  (God love you!) and will have your proper laugh

  At the dark question, laugh it! I laugh first.

  Truth must prevail, the proverb vows; and truth

  — Here is it all i’ the book at last, as first

  There it was all i’ the heads and hearts of Rome

  Gentle and simple, never to fall nor fade

  Nor be forgotten. Yet, a little while,

  The passage of a century or so,

  Decads thrice five, and here’s time paid his tax,

  Oblivion gone home with her harvesting,

  And left all smooth again as scythe could shave.

  Far from beginning with you London folk,

  I took my book to Rome first, tried truth’s power

  On likely people. “Have you met such names?

  “Is a tradition extant of such facts?

  “Your law-courts stand, your records frown a-row:

  “What if I rove and rummage?” “ — Why, you’ll waste

  “Your pains and end as wise as you began!”

  Every one snickered: “names and facts thus old

  “Are newer much than Europe news we find

  “Down in to-day’s Diario. Records, quotha?

  “Why, the French burned them, what else do the French?

  “The rap-and-rending nation! And it tells

  “Against the Church, no doubt, — another gird

  “At the Temporality, your Trial, of course?”

  “ — Quite otherwise this time,” submitted I;

  “Clean for the Church and dead against the world,

  “The flesh and the devil, does it tell for once.”

  “ — The rarer and the happier! All the same,

  “Content you with your treasure of a book,

  “And waive what’s wanting! Take a friend’s advice!

  “It’s not the custom of the country. Mend

  “Your ways indeed and we may stretch a point:

  “Go get you manned by Manning and new-manned

  “By Newman and, mayhap, wise-manned to boot

  “By Wiseman, and we’ll see or else we won’t!

  “Thanks meantime for the story, long and strong,

  “A pretty piece of narrative enough,

  “Which scarce ought so to drop out, one would think,

  “From the more curious annals of our kind.

  “Do you tell the story, now, in off-hand style,

  “Straight from the book? Or simply here and there,

  “(The while you vault it through the loose and large)

  “Hang to a hint? Or is there book at all,

  “And don’t you deal in poetry, make-believe,

  “And the white lies it sounds like?”

  Yes and no!

  From the book, yes; thence bit by bit I dug

  The lingot truth, that memorable day,

  Assayed and knew my piecemeal gain was gold, —

  Yes; but from something else surpassing that,

  Something of mine which, mixed up with the mass,

  Made it bear hammer and be firm to file.

  Fancy with fact is just one fact the more;

  To-wit, that fancy has informed, transpierced,

  Thridded and so thrown fast the facts else free,

  As right through ring and ring runs the djereed

  And binds the loose, one bar without a break.

  I fused my live soul and that inert stuff,

  Before attempting smithcraft, on the night

  After the day when, — truth thus grasped and gained, —

  The book was shut and done with and laid by

  On the cream-coloured massive agate, broad

  ‘Neath the twin cherubs in the tarnished frame

  O’ the mirror, tall thence to the ceiling-top.

  And from the reading, and that slab I leant

  My elbow on, the while I read and read

  I turned, to free myself and find the world,

>   And stepped out on the narrow terrace, built

  Over the street and opposite the church,

  And paced its lozenge brickwork sprinkled cool;

  Because Felice-church-side-stretched, a-glow

  Through each square window fringed for festival,

  Whence came the clear voice of the cloistered ones

  Chanting a chant made for midsummer nights —

  I know not what particular praise of God,

  It always came and went with June. Beneath

  I’ the street, quick shown by openings of the sky

  When flame fell silently from cloud to cloud,

  Richer than that gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes,

  The townsmen walked by twos and threes, and talked,

  Drinking the blackness in default of air —

  A busy human sense beneath my feet:

  While in and out the terrace-plants, and round

  One branch of tall datura, waxed and waned

  The lamp-fly lured there, wanting the white flower.

  Over the roof o’ the lighted church I looked

  A bowshot to the street’s end, north away

  Out of the Roman gate to the Roman road

  By the river, till I felt the Apennine.

  And there would lie Arezzo, the man’s town,

  The woman’s trap and cage and torture-place,

  Also the stage where the priest played his part,

  A spectacle for angels, — ay, indeed,

  There lay Arezzo! Farther then I fared,

  Feeling my way on through the hot and dense,

  Romeward, until I found the wayside inn

  By Castelnuovo’s few mean hut-like homes

  Huddled together on the hill-foot bleak,

  Bare, broken only by that tree or two

  Against the sudden bloody splendour poured

  Cursewise in his departure by the day

  On the low house-roof of that squalid inn

  Where they three, for the first time and the last,

  Husband and wife and priest, met face to face.

  Whence I went on again, the end was near,

  Step by step, missing none and marking all,

  Till Rome itself, the ghastly goal, I reached.

  Why, all the while, — how could it otherwise? —

  The life in me abolished the death of things,

  Deep calling unto deep: as then and there

  Acted itself over again once more

  The tragic piece. I saw with my own eyes

  In Florence as I trod the terrace, breathed

  The beauty and the fearfulness of night,

  How it had run, this round from Rome to Rome —

  Because, you are to know, they lived at Rome,

  Pompilia’s parents, as they thought themselves,

  Two poor ignoble hearts who did their best

  Part God’s way, part the other way than God’s,