Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 118
Behind the back of Guido as he fled, —
That, since he had not kept his promise, paid
The money for the murder on the spot,
And, reaching home again, might even ignore
The past or pay it in improper coin,
They one and all resolved, these hopeful friends,
They would inaugurate the morrow’s light,
Having recruited strength with needful rest,
By killing Guido as he lay asleep
Pillowed by wallet which contained their fee.
I thank the Fisc for knowledge of this fact:
What fact could hope to make more manifest
Their rectitude, Guido’s integrity?
For who fails recognise apparent here,
That these poor rustics bore no envy, hate,
Malice nor yet uncharitableness
Against the people they had put to death?
In them, did such an act reward itself?
All done was to deserve their simple pay,
Obtain the bread they earned by sweat of brow:
Missing this pay, they missed of everything —
Hence claimed it, even at expense of life
To their own lord, so little warped were they
By prepossession, such the absolute
Instinct of equity in rustic souls!
While he the Count, the cultivated mind,
He, wholly rapt in his serene regard
Of honour, as who contemplates the sun
And hardly minds what tapers blink below,
He, dreaming of no argument for death
Except the vengeance worthy noble hearts,
Would be to desecrate the deed forsooth,
Vulgarise vengeance, as defray its cost
By money dug out of the dirty earth,
Mere irritant, in Maro’s phrase, to ill?
What though he lured base hinds by lucre’s hope, —
The only motive they could masticate,
Milk for babes, not stong meat which men require?
The deed done, those coarse hands were soiled enough,
He spared them the pollution of the pay.
So much for the allegement, thine, my Fisc,
Quo nil absurdius, than which nought more mad.
Excogitari potest, may be squeezed
From out the cogitative brain of thee!
And now, thou excellent the Governor!
(Push to the peroration) cæterum
Enixe supplico, I strive in prayer,
Ut dominis meis, that unto the Court,
Benigna fronte, with a gracious brow,
Et oculis serenis, and mild eyes,
Perpendere placeat, it may please them weigh,
Quod dominus Guido, that our noble Count,
Occidit, did the killing in dispute,
Ut ejus honor tumulatus, that
The honour of him buried fathom-deep
In infamy, in infamia, might arise,
Resurgeret, as ghosts break sepulchre!
Occidit, for he killed, uxorem, wife,
Quia illi fuit, since she was to him,
Opprobrio, a disgrace and nothing more!
Et genitores, killed her parents too,
Qui, who, postposita verecundia,
Having thrown off all sort of decency,
Filiam repudiarunt, had renounced
Their daughter, atque declarare non
Erubuerunt, nor felt blush tinge cheek,
Declaring, meretricis genitam
Esse, she was the offspring of a drab,
Ut ipse dehonestaretur, just
That so himself might lose his social rank!
Cujus mentem, and which daughter’s heart and soul,
They, perverterunt, turned from the right course,
Et ad illicitos amores non
Dumtaxat pellexerunt, and to love
Not simply did alluringly incite,
Sed vi obedientiæ, but by force
O’ the duty, filialis, daughters owe,
Coegerunt, forced and drove her to the deed:
Occidit, I repeat he killed the clan,
Ne scilicet amplius in dedecore,
Lest peradventure longer life might trail,
Viveret, link by link his turpitude,
Invisus consanguineis, hateful so
To kith and kindred, a nobilibus
Notatus, shunned by men of quality,
Relictus ab amicis, left i’ the lurch
By friends, ab omnibus derisus, turned
A common hack-block to try edge of jokes.
Occidit, and he killed them here in Rome,
In Urbe, the Eternal City, Sirs,
Nempe quæ alias spectata est,
The appropriate theatre which witnessed once,
Matronam nobilem, Lucretia’s self,
Abluere pudicitiæ maculas,
Wash off the spots of her pudicity,
Sanguine proprio, with her own pure blood;
Quæ vidit, and which city also saw,
Patrem, Virginius, undequaque, quite,
Impunem, with no sort of punishment,
Nor, et non illaudatum, lacking praise,
Sed polluentem parricidio,
Imbrue his hands with butchery, filiæ,
Of chaste Virginia, to avoid a rape,
Ne raperetur ad stupra; so to heart,
Tanti illi cordi fuit, did he take,
Suspicio, the mere fancy men might have,
Honoris amittendi, of fame’s loss,
Ut potius voluerit filia
Orbari, that he chose to lose his child,
Quam illa incederet, rather than she walk
The ways an, inhonesta, child disgraced,
Licet non sponte, though against her will.
Occidit — killed them, I reiterate —
In propria domo, in their own abode,
Ut adultera et parentes, that each wretch,
Conscii agnoscerent, might both see and say,
Nullum locum, there’s no place, nullumque esse
Asylum, nor yet refuge of escape,
Impenetrabilem, shall serve as bar,
Honori læso, to the wounded one
In honour; neve ibi opprobria
Continuarentur, killed them on the spot
Moreover, dreading lest within those walls
The opprobrium peradventure be prolonged,
Et domus quæ testis fuit turpium,
And that the domicile which witnessed crime,
Esset et pœnœ, might watch punishment:
Occidit, killed, I round you in the ears,
Quia alio modo, since, by other mode,
Non poterat ejus existimatio,
There was no possibility his fame,
Læsa, gashed griesly, tam enormiter,
Ducere cicatrices, might be healed:
Occidit ut exemplum præberet
Uxoribus, killed her so to lesson wives
Jura conjugii, that the marriage-oath,
Esse servanda, must be kept henceforth:
Occidit denique, killed her, in a word,
Ut pro posse honestus viveret,
That he, please God, might creditably live,
Sin minus, but if fate willed otherwise,
Proprii honoris, of his outraged fame,
Offensi, by Mannaja, if you please,
Commiseranda victima caderet,
The pitiable victim he should fall!
Done! I’ the rough, i’ the rough! But done! And, lo,
Landed and stranded lies my very own,
My miracle, my monster of defence —
Leviathan into the nose whereof
I have put fish-hook, pierced his jaw with thorn,
And given him to my maidens for a play!
I’ the rough, — to-morrow I review my piece,
Tame here and there undue floridity, —
It’s hard: you have to plead before these priests
A
nd poke at them with Scripture, or you pass
For heathen and, what’s worse, for ignorant
O’ the quality o’ the Court and what it likes
By way of illustration of the law:
To-morrow stick in this, and throw out that,
And, having first ecclesiasticised,
Regularise the whole, next emphasise,
Then latinize and lastly Cicero-ise,
Giving my Fisc his finish. There’s my speech —
And where’s my fry, and family and friends?
Where’s that old Hyacinth I mean to hug
Till he cries out, “Jam satis! Let me breathe!”
Oh, what an evening have I earned to-day!
Hail, ye true pleasures, all the rest are false!
Oh, the old mother, oh, the fattish wife!
Rogue Hyacinth shall put on paper toque,
And wrap himself around with mamma’s veil
Done up to imitate papa’s black robe,
(I’m in the secret of the comedy, —
Part of the program leaked out long ago!)
And call himself the Advocate o’ the Poor,
Mimic Don father that defends the Count,
And for reward shall have a small full glass
Of manly red rosolio to himself,
— Always provided that he conjugate
Bibo, I drink, correctly — nor be found
Make the perfectum, bipsi, as last year!
How the ambitious do so harden heart
As lightly hold by these home-sanctitudes,
To me is matter of bewilderment —
Bewilderment! Because ambition’s range
Is nowise tethered by domestic tie:
Am I refused an outlet from my home
To the world’s stage? — whereon a man should play
The man in public, vigilant for law,
Zealous for truth, a credit to his kind,
Nay, — through the talent so employed as yield
The Lord his own again with usury, —
A satisfaction, yea, to God Himself!
Well, I have modelled me by Agur’s wish,
“Remove far from me vanity and lies,
“Feed me with food convenient for me!” What
I’ the world should a wise man require beyond?
Can I but coax the good fat little wife
To tell her fool of a father of the prank
His scapegrace nephew played this time last year
At Carnival, — he could not choose, I think,
But modify that inconsiderate gift
O’ the cup and cover (somewhere in the will
Under the pillow, someone seems to guess)
— Correct that clause in favour of a boy
The trifle ought to grace with name engraved
(Would look so well produced in years to come
To pledge a memory when poor papa
Latin and law are long since laid at rest)
Hyacintho dono dedit avus, — why,
The wife should get a necklace for her pains,
The very pearls that made Violante proud,
And Pietro pawned for half their value once, —
Redeemable by somebody — ne sit
Marita quæ rotundioribus
Onusta mammis . . . baccis ambulet,
Her bosom shall display the big round balls,
No braver should be borne by wedded wife!
With which Horatian promise I conclude.
Into the pigeon-hole with thee, my speech!
Off and away, first work then play, play, play!
Bottini, burn your books, you blazing ass!
Sing “Tra-la-la, for, lambkins, we must live!”
Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius
Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus
HAD I God’s leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech, —
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinately blow in print
As wildings planted in a prim parterre, —
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience — Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should be —
Watch, curtained, but yet visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, “The Court
“Requires the allocution of the Fisc!”
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O’er the hushed multitude: I count — One, two —
Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law, —
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family, —
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How much a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter, — girding loin and lighting lamp, —
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves, —
This Luca or this Carlo or the like:
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use,
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man, —
“Familiarise thee with our play that lifts
“Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm, and foot!”
— Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He, — to art’s surface rising from her depth, —
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph (happy chance!)
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
That poseth? (be the phrase accorded me!)
Each feminine delight of florid lip,
Eyes brimming o’er and brow bowed down with love,
Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous, —
Glad on the paper in a trice they go
To help his notion of the Mother-Maid:
Methinks I see it, chalk a little stumped!
Yea and her babe — that flexure of soft limbs,
That budding face imbued with dewy sleep,
Contribute each an excellence to Christ.
Nay, since he humbly lent companionship,
Even the poor ass, unpanniered and elate
Stands, perks an ear up, he a model too;
While clouted shoon, staff, scrip and water-gourd, —
Aught may betoken travel, heat and haste, —
No jot nor tittle of these but in its turn
Ministers to perfection of the piece:
Till now, such piece before him, part by part, —
Such prelude ended, — pause our painter may,
Submit his fifty studies one by one,
And in some sort boast “I have served my lords.”
But what? And hath he painted once this while?
Or when ye cry “Produce the thing required,
“Show us our picture shall rejoice its niche,
“Thy Journey through the Desert done in oils!” —
What, doth he fall to shufflin
g ‘mid his sheets,
Fumbling for first this, then the other fact
Consigned to paper, — ”studies,” bear the term! —
And stretch a canvas, mix a pot of paste,
And fasten here a head and there a tail,
(The ass hath one, my Judges!) so dove-tail
Or, rather, ass-tail in, piece sorrily out —
By bits of reproduction of the life —
The picture, the expected Family?
I trow not! do I miss with my conceit
The mark, my lords? — not so my lords were served!
Rather your artist turns abrupt from these,
And preferably buries him and broods
(Quite away from aught vulgar and extern)
On the inner spectrum, filtered through the eye,
His brain-deposit, bred of many a drop,
E pluribus unum: and the wiser he!
For in that brain, — their fancy sees at work,
Could my lords peep indulged, — results alone,
Not processes which nourish the result,
Would they discover and appreciate, — life
Fed by digestion, not raw food itself,
No gobbets but smooth comfortable chyme
Secreted from each snapped-up crudity, —
Less distinct, part by part, but in the whole
Truer to the subject, — the main central truth
And soul o’ the picture, would my Judges spy, —
Not those mere fragmentary studied facts
Which answer to the outward frame and flesh —
Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other fact
Of man’s staff, woman’s stole or infant’s clout,
But lo, a spirit-birth conceived of flesh,
Truth rare and real, not transcripts, fact and false.
The studies — for his pupils and himself!
The picture be for our eximious Rome
And — who knows? — satisfy its Governor,
Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought
(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon
(‘Tis bruited) shall be glowing with the brush
Of who hath long surpassed the Florentine,
The Urbinate and . . . what if I dared add,
Even his master, yea the Cortonese, —
I mean the accomplished Ciro Ferri, Sirs!
( — Did not he die? I’ll see before I print.)
End we exordium, Phœbus plucks my ear!
Thus then, just so and no whit otherwise,
Have I, — engaged as I were Ciro’s self,
To paint a parallel, a Family,
The patriarch Pietro with his wise old wife
To boot (as if one introduced Saint Anne
By bold conjecture to complete the group)
And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,
Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,
Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretched
In sleep beneath a palm-tree by a spring,