Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Adeo, ut qui honorem spernit, thus,

  Who values his own honour not a straw, —

  Et non recuperare curat, nor

  Labours by might and main to salve its wound,

  Se ulciscendo, by revenging him,

  Nil differat a belluis, is a brute,

  Quinimo irrationabilior

  Ipsismet belluis, nay, contrariwise,

  Much more irrational than brutes themselves,

  Should be considered, reputetur! How?

  If a poor animal feel honour smart,

  Taught by blind instinct nature plants in him,

  Shall man, — confessed creation’s master-stroke,

  Nay, intellectual glory, nay, a god,

  Nay, of the nature of my Judges here, —

  Shall man prove the insensible, the block,

  The blot o’ the earth he crawls on to disgrace?

  (Come, that’s both solid and poetic) — man

  Derogate, live for the low tastes alone,

  Mean creeping cares about the animal life?

  May Gigia have remembered, nothing stings

  Fried liver out of its monotony

  Of richness like a root of fennel, chopped

  Fine with the parsley: parsley-sprigs, I said —

  Was there need I should say “and fennel too?”

  But no, she cannot have been so obtuse!

  To our argument! The fennel will be chopped.

  From beast to man next mount we, — ay, but, mind,

  Still mere man, not yet Christian, — that, in time!

  Not too fast, mark you! ‘Tis on Heathen grounds

  We next defend our act: then, fairly urge —

  If this were done of old, in a green tree,

  Allowed in the Spring rawness of our kind,

  What may be licensed in the Autumn dry,

  And ripe, the latter harvest-tide of man?

  If, with his poor and primitive half-lights,

  The Pagan, whom our devils served for gods,

  Could stigmatise the breach of marriage-vow

  As that which blood, blood only might efface, —

  Absolve the husband, outraged, whose revenge

  Anticipated law, plied sword himself, —

  How with the Christian in full blaze of day?

  Shall not he rather double penalty,

  Multiply vengeance, than, degenerate,

  Let privilege be minished, droop, decay?

  Therefore set forth at large the ancient law!

  Superabundant the examples be

  To pick and choose from. The Athenian Code,

  Solon’s, the name is serviceable, — then,

  The Laws of the Twelve Tables, that fifteenth, —

  “Romulus” likewise rolls out round and large.

  The Julian; the Cornelian; Gracchus’ Law:

  So old a chime, the bells ring of themselves!

  Spreti can set that going if he please,

  I point you, for my part, the belfry out,

  Intent to rise from dusk, diluculum,

  Into the Christian day shall broaden next.

  First, the fit compliment to His Holiness

  Happily reigning: then sustain the point —

  All that was long ago declared as law

  By the early Revelation, stands confirmed

  By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint, —

  To-wit — that Honour is the supreme good.

  Why should I baulk Saint Jerome of his phrase?

  Ubi honor non est, where no honour is,

  Ibi contemptus est; and where contempt,

  Ibi injuria frequens; and where that,

  The frequent injury, ibi et indignatio;

  And where the indignation, ibi quies

  Nulla; and where there is no quietude,

  Why, ibi, there, the mind is often cast

  Down from the heights where it proposed to dwell,

  Mens a proposito sœpe dejicitur.

  And naturally the mind is so cast down,

  Since harder ‘tis, quum difficilius sit,

  Iram cohibere, to coerce one’s wrath,

  Quam miracula facere, than work miracles, —

  Saint Gregory smiles in his First Dialogue:

  Whence we infer, the ingenuous soul, the man

  Who makes esteem of honour and repute,

  Whenever honour and repute are touched,

  Arrives at term of fury and despair,

  Loses all guidance from the reason-check:

  As in delirium, or a frenzy-fit,

  Nor fury nor despair he satiates, — no,

  Not even if he attain the impossible,

  O’erturn the hinges of the universe

  To annihilate — not whose caused the smart

  Solely, the author simply of his pain,

  But the place, the memory, vituperii,

  O’ the shame and scorn: quia, — says Solomon,

  (The Holy Spirit speaking by his mouth

  In Proverbs, the sixth chapter near the end)

  — Because, the zeal and fury of a man,

  Zelus et furor viri, will not spare,

  Non parcet, in the day of his revenge,

  In die vindictæ, nor will acquiesce,

  Nec acquiescet, through a person’s prayers,

  Cujusdam precibus, — nec suscipiet,

  Nor yet take, pro redemptione, for

  Redemption, dona plurium, gifts of friends,

  Nor money-payment to compound for ache.

  Who recognises not my client’s case?

  Whereto, as strangely consentaneous here,

  Adduce Saint Bernard in the Epistle writ

  To Robertulus, his nephew: Too much grief.

  Dolor quippe nimius non deliberat,

  Does not excogitate propriety,

  Non verecundatur, nor knows shame at all,

  Non consulit rationem, nor consults

  Reason, non dignitatis metuit

  Damnum, nor dreads the loss of dignity;

  Modum et ordinem, order and the mode,

  Ignorat, it ignores: why, trait for trait,

  Was ever portrait limned so like the life?

  (By Cavalier Maratta, shall I say?

  I hear he’s first in reputation now.)

  Yes, that of Samson in the Sacred Text:

  That’s not so much the portrait as the man

  Samson in Gaza was the antetype

  Of Guido at Rome: for note the Nazarite!

  Blinded he was, — an easy thing to bear,

  Intrepidly he took imprisonment,

  Gyves, stripes, and daily labour at the mill:

  But when he found himself, i’ the public place,

  Destined to make the common people sport,

  Disdain burned up with such an impetus

  I’ the breast of him that, all of him on fire,

  Moriatur, roared he, let my soul’s self die,

  Anima mea, with the Philistines!

  So, pulled down pillar, roof, and death and all,

  Multosque plures interfecit, ay,

  And many more he killed thus, moriens,

  Dying, quam vivus, than in his whole life,

  Occiderat, he ever killed before.

  Are these things writ for no example, Sirs?

  One instance more, and let me see who doubts!

  Our Lord Himself, made up of mansuetude,

  Sealing the sum of sufferance up, received

  Opprobrium, contumely, and buffeting

  Without complaint: but when He found Himself

  Touched in His honour never so little for once,

  Then outbroke indignation pent before —

  “Honorem meum nemini dabo!” “No,

  “My honour I to nobody will give!”

  And certainly the example so hath wrought,

  That whosoever, at the proper worth,

  Apprises worldly honour and repute,

  Esteems it nobler to die honoured man

>   Beneath Mannaia, than live centuries

  Disgraced in the eye o’ the world. We find Saint Paul

  No miscreant to this faith delivered once:

  “Far worthier were it that I died,” cries he,

  Expedit mihi magis mori, “than

  “That any one should make my glory void,”

  Quam ut gloriam meam quis evacuet!

  See, ad Corinthienses: whereupon

  Saint Ambrose makes a comment with much fruit,

  Doubtless my Judges long since laid to heart,

  So I desist from bringing forward here —

  (I can’t quite recollect it.)

  Have I proved

  Satis superque, both enough and to spare,

  That Revelation old and new admits

  The natural man may effervesce in ire,

  O’erflood earth, o’erfroth heaven with foamy rage,

  At the first puncture to his self-respect?

  Then, Sirs, this Christian dogma, this law-bud

  Full-blown now, soon to bask the absolute flower

  Of Papal doctrine in our blaze of clay, —

  Bethink you, shall we miss one promise-streak,

  One doubtful birth of dawn crepuscular,

  One dew-drop comfort to humanity,

  Now that the chalice teems with noonday wine?

  Yea, argue Molinists who bar revenge —

  Referring just to what makes out our case!

  Under old dispensation, argue they,

  The doom of the adulterous wife was death,

  Stoning by Moses’ law. “Nay, stone her not,

  “Put her away!” next legislates our Lord;

  And last of all, “Nor yet divorce a wife!”

  Ordains the Church, “she typifies ourself,

  The Bride no fault shall cause to fall from Christ.”

  Then, as no jot nor tittle of the Law

  Has passed away — which who presumes to doubt?

  As not one word of Christ is rendered vain —

  Which, could it be though heaven and earth should pass?

  — Where do I find my proper punishment

  For my adulterous wife, I humbly ask

  Of my infallible Pope, — who now remits

  Even the divorce allowed by Christ in lieu

  Of lapidation Moses licensed me?

  The Gospel checks the Law which throws the stone,

  The Church tears the divorce-bill Gospel grants,

  The wife sins and enjoys impunity!

  What profits me the fulness of the days,

  The final dispensation, I demand,

  Unless Law, Gospel, and the Church subjoin.

  “But who hath barred thee primitive revenge,

  “Which, like fire damped and dammed up, burns more fierce?

  “Use thou thy natural privilege of man,

  “Else wert thou found like those old ingrate Jews,

  “Despite the manna-banquet on the board,

  “A-longing after melons, cucumbers,

  “And such like trash of Egypt left behind!”

  (There was one melon, had improved our soup,

  But did not Cinoncino need the rind

  To make a boat with? So I seem to think.)

  Law, Gospel, and the Church — from these we leap

  To the very last revealment, easy rule

  Befitting the well-born and thorough-bred

  O’ the happy day we live in, — not the dark

  O’ the early rude and acorn-eating race.

  “Behold,” quoth James, “we bridle in a horse

  “And turn his body as we would thereby!”

  Yea, but we change the bit to suit the growth,

  And rasp our colt’s jaw with a rugged spike

  We hasten to remit our managed steed

  Who wheels round at persuasion of a touch.

  Civilisation bows to decency,

  The acknowledged use and wont, the manners, — mild

  But yet imperative law, — which make the man.

  Thus do we pay the proper compliment

  To rank, and that society of Rome,

  Hath so obliged us by its interest,

  Taken our client’s part instinctively,

  As unaware defending its own cause.

  What dictum doth Society lay down

  I’ the case of one who hath a faithless wife?

  Wherewithal should the husband cleanse his way?

  Be patient and forgive? Oh, language fails —

  Shrinks from depicturing his punishment!

  For if wronged husband raise not hue and cry,

  Quod si maritus de adulterio non

  Conquereretur, he’s presumed a — foh!

  Presumitur leno: so, complain he must.

  But how complain? At your tribunal, lords?

  Far weightier challenge suits your sense, I wot!

  You sit not to have gentlemen propose

  Questions gentility can itself discuss.

  Did not you prove that to our brother Paul?

  The Abate, quum judicialiter.

  Prosequeretur, when he tried the law,

  Guidonis causam, in Count Guido’s case,

  Accidit ipsi, this befell himself,

  Quod risum moverit et cachinnos, that

  He moved to mirth and cachinnation, all

  Or nearly all, fere in omnibus

  Etiam sensatis et cordatis, men

  Strong-sensed, sound-hearted, nay, the very Court,

  Ipsismet in judicibus, I might add,

  Non tamen dicam. In a cause like this,

  So multiplied were reasons pro and con,

  Delicate, intertwisted and obscure,

  That law were shamed to lend a finger-tip

  To unravel, readjust the hopeless twine,

  While, half-a-dozen steps outside the court,

  There stood a foolish trifler with a tool

  A-dangle to no purpose by his side,

  Had clearly cut the tangle in a trice.

  Asserunt enim unanimiter

  Doctores, for the Doctors all assert,

  That husbands, quod mariti, must be held

  Viles, cornuti reputantur, vile

  And branching forth a florid infamy,

  Si propriis manibus, if with their own hands,

  Non sumunt, they take not straightway revenge,

  Vindictam, but expect the deed be done

  By the Court — expectant illam fieri

  Per judices, qui summopere rident, which

  Gives an enormous guffaw for reply,

  Et cachinnantur. For he ran away,

  Deliquit enim, just that he might ‘scape

  The censure of both counsellors and crowd,

  Ut vulgi et Doctorum evitaret

  Censuram, and lest so he superadd

  To loss of honour ignominy too,

  Et sic ne istam quoque ignominiam

  Amisso honori superadderet.

  My lords, my lords, the inconsiderate step

  Was — we referred ourselves to law at all!

  Twit me not with, “Law else had punished you!”

  Each punishment of the extra-legal step,

  To which the high-born preferably revert,

  Is ever for some oversight, some slip

  I’ the taking vengeance, not for vengeance’ self.

  A good thing done unhandsomely turns ill;

  And never yet lacked ill the law’s rebuke.

  For pregnant instance, let us contemplate

  The luck of Leonardus, — see at large

  Of Sicily’s Decisions sixty-first.

  This Leonard finds his wife is false: what then?

  He makes her own son snare her, and entice

  Out of the town-walls to a private walk,

  Wherein he slays her with commodity.

  They find her body half-devoured by dogs:

  Leonard is tried, convicted, punished, sent

  To labour in the galleys seven years
long:

  Why? For the murder? Nay, but for the mode!

  Malus modus occidendi, ruled the Court,

  An ugly mode of killing, nothing more!

  Another fructuous sample, — see “De Re

  “Criminali,” in Matthæus’ divine piece.

  Another husband, in no better plight,

  Simulates absence, thereby tempts the wife;

  On whom he falls, out of sly ambuscade,

  Backed by a brother of his, and both of them

  Armed to the teeth with arms that law had blamed.

  Nimis dolose, overwilily,

  Fuisse operatum, was it worked,

  Pronounced the law: had all been fairly done

  Law had not found him worthy, as she did,

  Of four years’ exile. Why cite more? Enough

  Is good as a feast — (unless a birthday-feast

  For one’s Cinuccio: so, we’ll finish here)

  My lords, we rather need defend ourselves

  Inasmuch as for a twinkling of an eye

  We hesitatingly appealed to law, —

  Rather than deny that, on mature advice,

  We blushingly bethought us, bade revenge

  Back to the simple proper private way

  Of decent self-dealt gentlemanly death.

  Judges, there is the law, and this beside,

  The testimony! Look to it!

  Pause and breathe!

  So far is only too plain; we must watch,

  Bottini will scarce hazard an attack

  Here: let’s anticipate the fellow’s play,

  And guard the weaker places — warily ask,

  What if considerations of a sort,

  Reasons of a kind, arise from out the strange

  Peculiar unforseen new circumstance

  Of this our (candour owns) abnormal act,

  To bar the right of us revenging so?

  “Impunity were otherwise your meed:

  “Go slay your wife and welcome,” — may be urged, —

  “But why the innocent old couple slay,

  “Pietro, Violante? You may do enough,

  “Not too much, not exceed the golden mean:

  “Neither brute-beast nor Pagan, Gentile, Jew,

  “Nor Christian, no nor votarist of the mode,

  “Were free at all to push revenge so far!”

  No, indeed? Why, thou very sciolist!

  The actual wrong, Pompilia seemed to do,

  Was virtual wrong done by the parents here —

  Imposing her upon us as their child —

  Themselves allow: then, her fault was their fault,

  Her punishment be theirs accordingly!

  But wait a little, sneak not off so soon!

  Was this cheat solely harm to Guido, pray?

  The precious couple you call innocent, —

  Why, they were felons that law failed to clutch,

  Qui ut fraudarent, who that they might rob,

  Legitime vocatos, folks law called,

  Ad fidei commissum, true heirs to the Trust,