Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 120
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,
And out of the wide world 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
Save by the magnet moves the 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:
He dare to love, who may be Pope one day?
Suppose this man could love, though, all the same —
From what embarrassment she sets him free
Should one, a woman he could love, speak first —
“‘Tis 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 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,
Or pearl secreted by a sickly fish?
Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.
‘Tis 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 the escape from death, I hope,
To legalise the means illicit else
Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.
Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,
(See that Idyllium Moschi) seeking help,
In the anxiety of motherhood,
Allowably promised “Who shall bring report
“Where he is wandered to, my winged 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, 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, is best now: in all faith, she feigns:
Feigning — the liker innocence to guilt,
The truer to the life is 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 proof
That promise was not simply made to break, —
No moonshine-structure meant to fade at dawn:
So call — (proofs consequent and requisite) —
What enemies allege of — more than words,
Deeds — meeting at the window, twilight-tryst,
Nocturnal entertainment in the dim
Old labyrinthine palace; lies, we know —
Inventions we, long since, turned inside out,
Would such external semblance of intrigue
Demonstrate that intrigue must lurk 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 faulchion find you in her hand to smite, —
No damsel to convey the head in dish,
Of Holophernes, — 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, 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 behoves she keep
Each shadow of suspicion from fair fame,
For her own sake much, but for his sake more,
The ingrate husband! Evidence shall be,
Some 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 mars
Work, else praiseworthy, like a bodily flaw
I’ the worker: as ‘tis 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, —
A priest, juvenile, potent, handsome too, —
In all obedience: “good,” you grant again.
Do you? I would ye 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 premi
ss 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 baulks him of,
And do him service with the potent drug
(Helen’s nepenthe, as my lords opine)
Shall respite blessedly each frittered 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!
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: but hist, — a stoppage still!
A journey is an enterprise which costs!
As in campaigns, we fight and others pay,
Suis expensis, nemo militat.
‘Tis 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 the 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 if
The priest, now all a-glow 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, check 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, —
The avowal I proved wrung from out the wretch,
After long rotting in imprisonment,
As price of liberty and favour: long
They tempted, he at last succumbed, and lo
Counted them out full tale each kiss required, —
“The journey was 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 love,
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.
The rapid run and the rough road were cause
O’ the casual ambiguity, no harm
I’ the world to eyes awake and penetrative.
Yet, — not to grasp a truth I can forego
And safely fight without and conquer still, —
Say, she kissed him, and he kissed her again!
Such osculation was a potent means,
A very efficacious help, no doubt:
This 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 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!
Ah, Nature — baffled she recurs, alas!
Nature imperiously exacts her due,
Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,
Pompilia needs must acquiesce and swoon,
Give hopes alike and fears a breathing-while.
The innocent sleep soundly: sound she sleeps.
So let her slumber, then, unguarded save
By her own chastity, a triple mail,
And his good hand whose stalwart arms have borne
The sweet and senseless burthen like a babe
From coach to couch, — the serviceable man!
Nay, what and if he gazed rewardedly
On the pale beauty prisoned in embrace,
Stooped over, stole a balmy breath perhaps
For more assurance sleep was not decease —
“Ut vidi,” “how I saw!” succeeded by
“Ut perii,” “how I sudden lost my brains!”
— What harm ensued to her unconscious quite?
For, curiosity — how natural!
Importunateness — what a privilege
In the ardent sex! And why curb ardour here?
How can the priest but pity whom he saved?
And pity is how near to love, and love
How neighbourly to unreasonableness!
And for love’s object, whether love were sage
Or foolish, could Pompilia know or care,
Being still sound asleep, as I premised?
Thus the philosopher absorbed by thought,
Even Archimedes, busy o’er a book
The while besiegers sacked his Syracuse,
Was ignorant of the imminence o’ the point
O’ the sword till it surprised him: let it stab,
&nbs
p; And never knew himself was dead at all.
So sleep thou on, secure whate’er betide!
For thou, too, hast thy problem hard to solve —
How so much beauty is compatible
With so much innocence!
Fit place, methinks,
While in this task she rosily is lost,
To treat of and repel objection here
Which, — frivolous, I grant, — but, still misgives
My mind, it may have flitted, gadfly-like,
And teazed the Court at times — as if, all said
And done, there still seemed, one might nearly say,
In a certain acceptation, somewhat more
Of what may pass for insincerity,
Falsehood, throughout the course Pompilia took,
Than befits Christian. Pagans held, we know,
We always ought to aim at good and truth,
Not always put one thing in the same words:
Non idem semper dicere sed spectare
Debemus. But the Pagan yoke was light;
“Lie not at all,” the exacter precept bids:
Each least lie breaks the law, — is sin, ye hold.
I humble me, but venture to submit —
What prevents sin, itself is sinless, sure:
And sin, which hinders sin of deeper dye,
Softens itself away by contrast so.
Conceive me! Little sin, by none at all,
Were properly condemned for great: but great,
By greater, dwindles into small again.
Now, what is greatest sin of womanhood?
That which unwomans it, abolishes
The nature of the woman, — impudence.
Who contradicts me here? Concede me, then,
Whatever friendly fault may interpose
To save the sex from self-abolishment
Is three-parts on the way to virtue’s rank!
Now, what is taxed here as duplicity,
Feint, wile and trick, — admitted for the nonce, —
What worse do one and all than interpose,
Hold, as it were, a deprecating hand,
Statuesquely, in the Medicean mode,
Before some shame which modesty would veil?
Who blames the gesture prettily perverse?
Thus, — lest ye miss a point illustrative, —
Admit the husband’s calumny — allow
That the wife, having penned the epistle fraught
With horrors, charge on charge of crime, she heaped
O’ the head of Pietro and Violante — (still
Presumed her parents) — and despatched the thing
To their arch-enemy Paolo, through free choice
And no sort of compulsion in the world —
Put case that she discards simplicity
For craft, denies the voluntary act,
Declares herself a passive instrument
I’ the hands of Guido; duped by knavery,
She traced the characters, she could not write,