Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  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 cognisant 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

  And 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 innocency 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 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, dew-drop 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 say,

  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 armoury 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?

  ‘Tis 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 Guidonian 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,r />
  As if thus 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 bride

  Partake the nuptial bower no soul to 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 ‘tis 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

  ‘Tis 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 ‘tis clear

  The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast

  Open to gnat, midge, been 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 neighbourhood

  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 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 ‘tis a levite bears the bell away,

  Parades him henceforth as Pompilia’s choice.

  ‘Tis 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

  Not 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-duster 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 had 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, you 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 the fact 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 the 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 who says “madman” should remark

  “The thing he thought a serpent proved an eel?” —

  Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,

  And not an inch too long for that same pie

  (Master Arcangeli has heard of such)

  Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;

  Meant to regale some moody splenetic

  Who pleases to mistake the donor’s gift,

  And spies — I know not what Lernæan snake

  I’ the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth

  The dainty in the dust.

  Enough! Prepare,

  His 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 fits 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 on to fly the foe

  By any means, at any price, — nay, more,

  Nay, most of all, i’ the very interest

  Of the foe that, baffled of his blind desire

  At any price, is 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 baulked 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 is 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 the armoury 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,

  Yet stranger, as a champion on her side?

  Such, being but mere man, (‘twas 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, for proved and true

  To the letter, — or the letters, I should say,

  The 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

  Endeavour 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 —