<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116366" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>XII. The Book and the Ring</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here were the end, had anything an end:<br>Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared<br>A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached,<br>And wide heaven held, a breathless minute-space,<br>In brilliant usurpature: thus caught spark,<br>Rushed to the height, and hung at full of fame<br>Over men's upturned faces, ghastly thence,<br>Our glaring Guido: now decline must be.<br>In its explosion, you have seen his act,<br>By my power—may-be, judged it by your own,—<br>Or composite as good orbs prove, or crammed<br>With worse ingredients than the Wormwood Star.<br>The act, over and ended, falls and fades:<br>What was once seen, grows what is now described,<br>Then talked of, told about, a tinge the less<br>In every fresh transmission; till it melts,<br>Trickles in silent orange or wan grey<br>Across our memory, dies and leaves all dark,<br>And presently we find the stars again.<br>Follow the main streaks, meditate the mode<br>Of brightness, how it hastes to blend with black!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">After that February Twenty-Two,<br>Since our salvation, Sixteen-Ninety-Eight,<br>Of all reports that were, or may have been,<br>Concerning those the day killed or let live,<br>Four I count only. Take the first that comes.<br>A letter from a stranger, man of rank,<br>Venetian visitor at Rome,—who knows,<br>On what pretence of busy idleness?<br>Thus he begins on evening of that day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Here are we at our end of Carnival;<br>"Prodigious gaiety and monstrous mirth,<br>"And constant shift of entertaining show:<br>"With influx, from each quarter of the globe,<br>"Of strangers nowise wishful to be last<br>"I' the struggle for a good place presently<br>"When that befalls fate cannot long defer.<br>"The old Pope totters on the verge o' the grave:<br>"You see, Malpichi understood far more<br>"Than Tozzi how to treat the ailments: age,<br>"No question, renders these inveterate.<br>"Cardinal Spada, actual Minister,<br>"Is possible Pope; I wager on his head,<br>"Since those four entertainments of his niece<br>"Which set all Rome a-stare: Pope probably—<br>"Though Colloredo has his backers too,<br>"And San Cesario makes one doubt at times:<br>"Altieri will be Chamberlain at most.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"A week ago the sun was warm like May,<br>"And the old man took daily exercise<br>"Along the river-side; he loves to see<br>"That Custom-house he built upon the bank,<br>"For, Naples born, his tastes are maritime:<br>"But yesterday he had to keep in-doors<br>"Because of the outrageous rain that fell.<br>"On such days the good soul has fainting-fits,<br>"Or lies in stupor, scarcely makes believe<br>"Of minding business, fumbles at his beads.<br>"They say, the trust that keeps his heart alive<br>"Is that, by lasting till December next,<br>"He may hold Jubilee a second time,<br>"And, twice in one reign, ope the Holy Doors.<br>"By the way, somebody responsible<br>"Assures me that the King of France has writ<br>"Fresh orders: Fénelon will be condemned:<br>"The Cardinal makes a wry face enough,<br>"Having a love for the delinquent: still,<br>"He's the ambassador, must press the point.<br>"Have you a wager too, dependent here?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Now, from such matters to divert awhile,<br>"Hear of to-day's event which crowns the week,<br>"Casts all the other wagers into shade.<br>"Tell Dandolo I owe him fifty drops<br>"Of heart's blood in the shape of gold zecchines!<br>"The Pope has done his worst: I have to pay<br>"For the execution of the Count, by Jove!<br>"Two days since, I reported him as safe,<br>"Re-echoing the conviction of all Rome:<br>"Who could suspect its one deaf ear—the Pope's?<br>"But prejudices grow insuperable,<br>"And that old enmity to Austria, that<br>"Passion for France and France's pageant-king<br>"(Of which, why pause to multiply the proofs<br>"Now scandalously rife in Europe's mouth?)<br>"These fairly got the better in our man<br>"Of justice, prudence, and esprit de corps,<br>"And he persisted in the butchery.<br>"Also, 't is said that in his latest walk<br>"To that Dogana-by-the-Bank he built,<br>"The crowd,—he suffers question, unrebuked,—<br>"Asked, 'Whether murder was a privilege<br>"'Only reserved for nobles like the Count?'<br>"And he was ever mindful of the mob.<br>"Martinez, the Cæsarian Minister,<br>"—Who used his best endeavours to spare blood,<br>"And strongly pleaded for the life 'of one,'<br>"Urged he, 'I may have dined at table with!'—<br>"He will not soon forget the Pope's rebuff,<br>"—Feels the slight sensibly, I promise you!<br>"And but for the dissuasion of two eyes<br>"That make with him foul weather or fine day,<br>"He had abstained, nor graced the spectacle:<br>"As it was, barely would he condescend<br>"Look forth from the palchetto where he sat<br>"Under the Pincian: we shall hear of this.<br>"The substituting, too, the People's Square<br>"For the out-o'-the-way old quarter by the Bridge,<br>"Was meant as a conciliatory sop<br>"To the mob; it gave one holiday the more.<br>"But the French Embassy might unfurl flag,—<br>"Still the good luck of France to fling a foe!<br>"Cardinal Bouillon triumphs properly.<br>"Palchetti were erected in the Place,<br>"And houses, at the edge of the Three Streets,<br>"Let their front windows at six dollars each:<br>"Anguisciola, that patron of the arts,<br>"Hired one; our Envoy Contarini too.<br>"Now for the thing; no sooner the decree<br>"Gone forth,—'t is four-and-twenty hours ago,—<br>"Than Acciaiuoli and Panciatichi,<br>"Old friends, indeed compatriots of the man,<br>"Being pitched on as the couple properest<br>"To intimate the sentence yesternight,<br>"Were closeted ere cock-crow with the Count.<br>"They both report their efforts to dispose<br>"The unhappy nobleman for ending well,<br>"Despite the natural sense of injury,<br>"Were crowned at last with a complete success.<br>"And when the Company of Death arrived<br>"At twenty-hours,—the way they reckon here,—<br>"We say, at sunset, after dinner-time,—<br>"The Count was led down, hoisted up on car,<br>"Last of the five, as heinousest, you know:<br>"Yet they allowed one whole car to each man.<br>"His intrepidity, nay, nonchalance,<br>"As up he stood and down he sat himself,<br>"Struck admiration into those who saw.<br>"Then the procession started, took the way<br>"From the New Prisons by the Pilgrim's Street,<br>"The street of the Governo, Pasquin's Street,<br>"(Where was stuck up, mid other epigrams,<br>"A quatrain … but of all that, presently!)<br>"The Place Navona, the Pantheon's Place,<br>"Place of the Column, last the Corso's length,<br>"And so debouched thence at Mannaia's foot<br>"I' the Place o' the People. As is evident,<br>"(Despite the malice,—plainly meant, I fear,<br>"By this abrupt change of locality,—<br>"The Square's no such bad place to head and hang)<br>"We had the titillation as we sat<br>"Assembled, (quality in conclave, ha?)<br>"Of, minute after minute, some report<br>"How the slow show was winding on its way<br>"Now did a car run over, kill a man,<br>"Just opposite a pork-shop numbered Twelve:<br>"And bitter were the outcries of the mob<br>"Against the Pope: for, but that he forbids<br>"The Lottery, why, Twelve were Tern Quatern!<br>"Now did a beggar by Saint Agnes, lame<br>"From his youth up, recover use of leg,<br>"Through prayer of Guido as he glanced that way:<br>"So that the crowd near crammed his hat with coin.<br>"Thus was kept up excitement to the last,<br>"—Not an abrupt out-bolting, as of yore,<br>"From Castle, over Bridge and on to block,<br>"And so all ended ere you well could wink!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"To mount the scaffold-steps, Guido was last<br>"Here also, as atrociousest in crime.<br>"We hardly noticed how the peasants died,<br>"They dangled somehow soon to right and left,<br>"And we remained all ears and eyes, could give<br>"Ourselves to Guido undividedly,<br>"As he harangued the multitude beneath.<br>"He begged forgiveness on the part of God,<br>"And fair construction of his act from men,<br>"Whose suffrage he entreated for his soul,<br>"Suggesting that we should forthwith repeat<br>"A Pater and an Ave, with the hymn<br>"Salve Regina Coeli, for his sake.<br>"Which said, he turned to the confessor, crossed<br>"And reconciled himself, with decency,<br>"Oft glancing at Saint Mary's opposite,<br>"Where they possess, and showed in shrine to-day,<br>"The blessed Umbilicus of our Lord,<br>"(A relic 't is believed no other church<br>"In Rome can boast of)—then rose up, as brisk<br>"Knelt down again, bent head, adapted neck,<br>"And, with the name of Jesus on his lips,<br>"Received the fatal blow.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"The headsman showed<br>"The head to the populace. Must I avouch<br>"We strangers own to disappointment here?<br>"Report pronounced him fully six feet high,<br>"Youngish, considering his fifty years,<br>"And, if not handsome, dignified at least.<br>"Indeed, it was no face to please a wife!<br>"His friends say, this was caused by the costume:<br>"He wore the dress he did the murder in,<br>"That is, a just-a-corps of russet serge,<br>"Black camisole, coarse cloak of baracan<br>"(So they style here the garb of goat's-hair cloth)<br>"White hat and cotton cap beneath, poor Count<br>"Preservative against the evening dews<br>"During the journey from Arezzo. Well,<br>"So died the man, and so his end was peace;<br>"Whence many a moral were to meditate.<br>"Spada,—you may bet Dandolo,—is Pope!<br>"Now for the quatrain!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">No, friend, this will do!<br>You've sputtered into sparks. What streak comes next?<br>A letter: Don Giacinto Arcangeli,<br>Doctor and Proctor, him I made you mark<br>Buckle to business in his study late,<br>The virtuous sire, the valiant for the truth,<br>Acquaints his correspondent,—Florentine,<br>By name Cencini, advocate as well,<br>Socius and brother-in-the-devil to match,—<br>A friend of Franceschini, anyhow,<br>And knit up with the bowels of the case,—<br>Acquaints him, (in this paper that I touch)<br>How their joint effort to obtain reprieve<br>For Guido had so nearly nicked the nine<br>And ninety and one over,—folk would say<br>At Tarocs,—or succeeded,—in our phrase.<br>To this Cencini's care I owe the Book,<br>The yellow thing I take and toss once more,—<br>How will it be, my four-years'-intimate,<br>When thou and I part company anon?—<br>'T was he, the "whole position of the case,"<br>Pleading and summary, were put before;<br>Discreetly in my Book he bound them all,<br>Adding some three epistles to the point.<br>Here is the first of these, part fresh as penned,<br>The sand, that dried the ink, not rubbed away,<br>Though penned the day whereof it tells the deed:<br>Part—extant just as plainly, you know where,<br>Whence came the other stuff, went, you know how,<br>To make the Ring that's all but round and done.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Late they arrived, too late, egregious Sir,<br>"Those same justificative points you urge<br>"Might benefit His Blessed Memory<br>"Count Guido Franceschini now with God:<br>"Since the Court,—to state things succinctly,—styled<br>"The Congregation of the Governor,<br>"Having resolved on Tuesday last our cause<br>"I' the guilty sense, with death for punishment,<br>"Spite of all pleas by me deducible<br>"In favour of said Blessed Memory,—<br>"I, with expenditure of pains enough,<br>"Obtained a respite, leave to claim and prove<br>"Exemption from the law's award,—alleged<br>"The power and privilege o' the Clericate:<br>"To which effect a courier was despatched.<br>"But ere an answer from Arezzo came,<br>"The Holiness of our Lord the Pope (prepare!)<br>"Judging it inexpedient to postpone<br>"The execution of such sentence passed,<br>"Saw fit, by his particular cheirograph,<br>"To derogate, dispense with privilege,<br>"And wink at any hurt accruing thence<br>"To Mother Church through damage of her son:<br>"Also, to overpass and set aside<br>"That other plea on score of tender age,<br>"Put forth by me to do Pasquini good,<br>"One of the four in trouble with our friend.<br>"So that all five, to-day, have suffered death<br>"With no distinction save in dying,—he,<br>"Decollate by mere due of privilege,<br>"The rest hanged decently and in order. Thus<br>"Came the Count to his end of gallant man,<br>"Defunct in faith and exemplarity:<br>"Nor shall the shield of his great House lose shine<br>"Thereby, nor its blue banner blush to red.<br>"This, too, should yield sustainment to our hearts—<br>"He had commiseration and respect<br>"In his decease from universal Rome,<br>"Quantum est hominum venustiorum,<br>"The nice and cultivated everywhere:<br>"Though, in respect of me his advocate,<br>"Needs must I groan o'er my debility,<br>"Attribute the untoward event o' the strife<br>"To nothing but my own crass ignorance<br>"Which failed to set the valid reasons forth,<br>"Find fit excuse: such is the fate of war!<br>"May God compensate us the direful blow<br>"By future blessings on his family,<br>"Whereof I lowly beg the next commands;<br>"—Whereto, as humbly, I confirm myself…"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so forth,—follow name and place and date.<br>On next leaf—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Hactenus senioribus!<br>"There, old fox, show the clients t' other side<br>"And keep this corner sacred, I beseech!<br>"You and your pleas and proofs were what folk call<br>"Pisan assistance, aid that comes too late,<br>"Saves a man dead as nail in post of door.<br>"Had I but time and space for narrative!<br>"What was the good of twenty Clericates<br>"When Somebody's thick headpiece once was bent<br>"On seeing Guido's drop into the bag?<br>"How these old men like giving youth a push!<br>"So much the better: next push goes to him,<br>"And a new Pope begins the century.<br>"Much good I get by my superb defence!<br>"But argument is solid and subsists,<br>"While obstinacy and ineptitude<br>"Accompany the owner to his tomb—<br>"What do I care how soon? Beside, folk see!<br>"Rome will have relished heartily the show,<br>"Yet understood the motives, never fear,<br>"Which caused the indecent change o' the People's Place<br>"To the People's Playground,—stigmatize the spite<br>"Which in a trice precipitated things!<br>"As oft the moribund will give a kick<br>"To show they are not absolutely dead,<br>"So feebleness i' the socket shoots its last,<br>"A spirt of violence for energy!<br>"But thou, Cencini, brother of my breast,<br>"O fox whose home is 'mid the tender grape,<br>"Whose couch in Tuscany by Themis' throne,<br>"Subject to no such … best I shut my mouth<br>"Or only open it again to say,<br>"This pother and confusion fairly laid,<br>"My hands are empty and my satchel lank.<br>"Now then for both the Matrimonial Cause<br>"And the Case of Gomez! Serve them hot and hot!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Reliqua differamus in crastinum!<br>"The impatient estafette cracks whip outside:<br>"Still, though the earth should swallow him who swears<br>"And me who make the mischief, in must slip—<br>"My boy, your godson, fat-chaps Hyacinth,<br>"Enjoyed the sight while Papa plodded here.<br>"I promised him, the rogue, a month ago,<br>"The day his birthday was, of all the days,<br>"That if I failed to save Count Guido's head,<br>"Cinuccio should at least go see it chopped<br>"From trunk—'So, latinize your thanks! quoth I.<br>"'That I prefer, hoc malim,' raps me out<br>"The rogue: you notice the subjunctive? Ah!<br>"Accordingly he sat there, bold in box,<br>"Proud as the Pope behind the peacock-fans:<br>"Whereon a certain lady-patroness<br>"For whom I manage things (my boy in front,<br>"Her Marquis sat the third in evidence;<br>"Boys have no eyes nor ears save for the show)<br>"'This time, Cintino,' was her sportive word,<br>"When whiz and thump went axe and mowed lay man,<br>"And folk could fall to the suspended chat,<br>"'This time, you see, Bottini rules the roast,<br>"'Nor can Papa with all his eloquence<br>"'Be reckoned on to help as heretofore!'<br>"Whereat Cinone pouts; then, sparkishly—<br>"'Papa knew better than aggrieve his Pope,<br>"'And baulk him of his grudge against our Count,<br>"'Else he'd have argued-off Bottini's' . . what?<br>"'His nose,'—the rogue! well parried of the boy!<br>"He's long since out of Cæsar (eight years old)<br>"And as for tripping in Eutropius … well,<br>"Reason the more that we strain every nerve<br>"To do him justice, mould a model-mouth,<br>"A Bartolus-cum-Baldo for next age:<br>"For that I purse the pieces, work the brain,<br>"And want both Gomez and the marriage-case,<br>"Success with which shall plaster aught of pate<br>"That's broken in me by Bottini's flail,<br>"And bruise his own, belike, that wags and brags.<br>"Adverti supplico humiliter<br>"Quod don't the fungus see, the fop divine<br>"That one hand drives two horses, left and right?<br>"With this rein did I rescue from the ditch<br>"The fortune of our Franceschini, keep<br>"Unsplashed the credit of a noble House,<br>"And set the fashionable cause at Rome<br>"A-prancing till bystanders shouted ware!'<br>"The other rein's judicious management<br>"Suffered old Somebody to keep the pace,<br>"Hobblingly play the roadster: who but he<br>"Had his opinion, was not led by the nose<br>"In leash of quibbles strung to look like law!<br>"You'll soon see,—when I go to pay devoir<br>"And compliment him on confuting me,—<br>"If, by a back-swing of the pendulum,<br>"Grace be not, thick and threefold, consequent.<br>"'I must decide as I see proper, Don!<br>"'I'm Pope, I have my inward lights for guide.<br>"'Had learning been the matter in dispute,<br>"'Could eloquence avail to gainsay fact,<br>"'Yours were the victory, be comforted!'<br>"Cinuzzo will be gainer by it all.<br>"Quick then with Gomez, hot and hot next case!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Follows, a letter, takes the other side.<br>Tall blue-eyed Fisc whose head is capped with cloud,<br>Doctor Bottini,—to no matter who,<br>Writes on the Monday two days afterward.<br>Now shall the honest championship of right,<br>Crowned with success, enjoy at last, unblamed,<br>Moderate triumph! Now shall eloquence<br>Poured forth in fancied floods for virtue's sake,<br>(The print is sorrowfully dyked and dammed,<br>But shows where fain the unbridled force would flow,<br>Finding a channel)—now shall this refresh<br>The thirsty donor with a drop or two!<br>Here has been truth at issue with a lie:<br>Let who gained truth the day have handsome pride<br>In his own prowess! Eh! What ails the man?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Well, it is over, ends as I foresaw:<br>"Easily proved, Pompilia's innocence!<br>"Catch them entrusting Guido's guilt to me<br>"Who had, as usual, the plain truth to plead.<br>"I always knew the clearness of the stream<br>"Would show the fish so thoroughly, child might prong<br>"The clumsy monster: with no mud to splash,<br>"Small credit to lynx-eye and lightning-spear!<br>"This Guido,—(much sport he contrived to make,<br>"Who at first twist, preamble of the cord,<br>"Turned white, told all, like the poltroon he was!)—<br>"Finished, as you expect, a penitent,<br>"Fully confessed his crime, and made amends,<br>"And, edifying Rome last Saturday,<br>"Died like a saint, poor devil! That's the man<br>"The gods still give to my antagonist:<br>"Imagine how Arcangeli claps wing<br>"And crows! 'Such formidable facts to face,<br>"'So naked to attack, my client here,<br>"'And yet I kept a month the Fisc at bay,<br>"'And in the end had foiled him of the prize<br>"'By this arch-stroke, this plea of privilege,<br>"'But that the Pope must gratify his whim,<br>"'Put in his word, poor old man,—let it pass!'<br>"—Such is the cue to which all Rome responds.<br>"What with the plain truth given me to uphold,<br>"And, should I let truth slip, the Pope at hand<br>"To pick up, steady her on legs again,<br>"My office turns a pleasantry indeed!<br>"Not that the burly boaster did one jot<br>"O' the little was to do—young Spreti's work!<br>"But for him,—mannikin and dandiprat,<br>"Mere candle-end and inch of cleverness<br>"Stuck on Arcangeli's save-all,—but for him<br>"The spruce young Spreti, what is bad were worse!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"I looked that Rome should have the natural gird<br>"At advocate with case that proves itself;<br>"I knew Arcangeli would grin and brag:<br>"But what say you to one impertinence<br>"Might move a stone? That monk, you are to know,<br>"That barefoot Augustinian whose report<br>"O' the dying woman's words did detriment<br>"To my best points it took the freshness from,<br>"—That meddler preached to purpose yesterday<br>"At San Lorenzo as a winding-up<br>"O' the show which proved a treasure to the church.<br>"Out comes his sermon smoking from the press:<br>"Its text—'Let God be true, and every man<br>"'A liar'—and its application, this<br>"The longest-winded of the paragraphs,<br>"I straight unstitch, tear out and treat you with:<br>"'T is piping hot and posts through Rome to-day.<br>"Remember it, as I engage to do!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"But if you rather be disposed to see<br>"In the result of the long trial here,—<br>"This dealing doom to guilt and doling praise<br>"To innocency,—any proof that truth<br>"May look for vindication from the world,<br>"Much will you have misread the signs, I say.<br>"God, who seems acquiescent in the main<br>"With those who add 'So will he ever sleep'—<br>"Flutters their foolishness from time to time,<br>"Puts forth His right-hand recognizably;<br>"Even as, to fools who deem He needs must right<br>"Wrong on the instant, as if earth were heaven,<br>"He wakes remonstrance—'Passive, Lord, how long?'<br>"Because Pompilia's purity prevails,<br>"Conclude you, all truth triumphs in the end?<br>"So might those old inhabitants of the ark,<br>"Witnessing haply their dove's safe return,<br>"Pronounce there was no danger, all the while<br>"O' the deluge, to the creature's counterparts,<br>"Aught that beat wing i' the world, was white or soft,—<br>"And that the lark, the thrush, the culver too,<br>"Might equally have traversed air, found earth,<br>"And brought back olive-branch in unharmed bill.<br>"Methinks I hear the Patriarch's warning voice—<br>"'Though this one breast, by miracle, return,<br>"'No wave rolls by, in all the waste, but bears<br>"'Within it some dead dove-like thing as dear,<br>"'Beauty made blank and harmlessness destroyed!'<br>"How many chaste and noble sister-fames<br>"Wanted the extricating hand, so lie<br>"Strangled, for one Pompilia proud above<br>"The welter, plucked from the world's calumny,<br>"Stupidity, simplicity,—who cares?<br>"Romans! An elder race possessed your land<br>"Long ago, and a false faith lingered still,<br>"As shades do though the morning-star be out.<br>"Doubtless some pagan of the twilight-day<br>"Has often pointed to a cavern-mouth<br>"Obnoxious to beholders, hard by Rome,<br>"And said,—nor he a bad man, no, nor fool,<br>"Only a man born blind like all his mates,—<br>"'Here skulk in safety, lurk, defying law,<br>"'The devotees to execrable creed,<br>"'Adoring—with what culture … Jove, avert<br>"'Thy vengeance from us worshippers of thee!…<br>"'What rites obscene—their idol-god, an Ass!'<br>"So went the word forth, so acceptance found,<br>"So century re-echoed century,<br>"Cursed the accursed,—and so, from sire to son,<br>"You Romans cried 'The offscourings of our race<br>"'Corrupt within the depths there: fitly fiends<br>"'Perform a temple-service o'er the dead:<br>"'Child, gather garment round thee, pass nor pry!'<br>"Thus groaned your generations: till the time<br>"Grew ripe, and lightning had revealed, belike,—<br>"Thro' crevice peeped into by curious fear,—<br>"Some object even fear could recognize<br>"I' the place of spectres; on the illumined wall,<br>"To-wit, some nook, tradition talks about,<br>"Narrow and short, a corpse's length, no more:<br>"And by it, in the due receptacle,<br>"The little rude brown lamp of earthenware,<br>"The cruse, was meant for flowers but now held blood,<br>"The rough-scratched palm-branch, and the legend left<br>"Pro Christo. Then the mystery lay clear:<br>"The abhorred one was a martyr all the time,<br>"Heaven's saint whereof earth was not worthy. What?<br>"Do you continue in the old belief?<br>"Where blackness bides unbroke, must devils brood?<br>"Is it so certain not another cell<br>"O' the myriad that make up the catacomb<br>"Contains some saint a second flash would show?<br>"Will you ascend into the light of day<br>"And, having recognized a martyr's shrine,<br>"Go join the votaries that gape around<br>"Each vulgar god that awes the market-place?<br>"Are these the objects of your praising? See!<br>"In the outstretched right hand of Apollo, there,<br>"Lies screened a scorpion: housed amid the folds<br>"Of Juno's mantle lurks a centipede!<br>"Each statue of a god were fitlier styled<br>"Demon and devil. Glorify no brass<br>"That shines like burnished gold in noonday glare,<br>"For fools! Be otherwise instructed, you!<br>"And preferably ponder, ere ye judge,<br>"Each incident of this strange human play<br>"Privily acted on a theatre<br>"That seemed secure from every gaze but God's,—<br>"Till, of a sudden, earthquake laid wall low<br>"And let the world perceive wild work inside<br>"And how, in petrifaction of surprise,<br>"The actors stood,—raised arm and planted foot,—<br>"Mouth as it made, eye as it evidenced,<br>"Despairing shriek, triumphant hate,—transfixed,<br>"Both he who takes and she who yields the life.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"As ye become spectators of this scene,<br>"Watch obscuration of a pearl-pure fame<br>"By vapoury films, enwoven circumstance,<br>"—A soul made weak by its pathetic want<br>"Of just the first apprenticeship to sin<br>"Which thenceforth makes the sinning soul secure<br>"From all foes save itself, souls' truliest foe,—<br>"Since egg turned snake needs fear no serpentry,—<br>"As ye behold this web of circumstance<br>"Deepen the more for every thrill and throe,<br>"Convulsive effort to disperse the films<br>"And disenmesh the fame o' the martyr,—mark<br>"How all those means, the unfriended one pursues,<br>"To keep the treasure trusted to her breast,<br>"Each struggle in the flight from death to life,<br>"How all, by procuration of the powers<br>"Of darkness, are transformed,—no single ray,<br>"Shot forth to show and save the inmost star,<br>"But, passed as through hell's prism, proceeding black<br>"To the world that hates white: as ye watch, I say,<br>"Till dusk and such defacement grow eclipse<br>"By,—marvellous perversity of man!—<br>"The inadequacy and inaptitude<br>"Of that self-same machine, that very law<br>"Man vaunts, devised to dissipate the gloom,<br>"Rescue the drowning orb from calumny,<br>"—Hear law, appointed to defend the just,<br>"Submit, for best defence, that wickedness<br>"Was bred of flesh and innate with the bone<br>"Borne by Pompilia's spirit for a space,<br>"And no mere chance fault, passionate and brief:<br>"Finally, when ye find,—after this touch<br>"Of man's protection which intends to mar<br>"The last pin-point of light and damn the disc,—<br>"One wave of the hand of God amid the worlds<br>"Bid vapour vanish, darkness flee away,<br>"And let the vexed star culminate in peace<br>"Approachable no more by earthly mist—<br>"What I call God's hand,—you, perhaps,—mere chance<br>"Of the true instinct of an old good man<br>"Who happens to hate darkness and love light,—<br>"In whom too was the eye that saw, not dim,<br>"The natural force to do the thing he saw,<br>"Nowise abated,—both by miracle,—<br>"All this well pondered,—I demand assent<br>"To the enunciation of my text<br>"In face of one proof more that 'God is true<br>"'And every man a liar'—that who trusts<br>"To human testimony for a fact<br>"Gets this sole fact—himself is proved a fool;<br>"Man's speech being false, if but by consequence<br>"That only strength is true: while man is weak,<br>"And, since truth seems reserved for heaven not earth,<br>"Plagued here by earth's prerogative of lies,<br>"Should learn to love and long for what, one day,<br>"Approved by life's probation, he may speak.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"For me, the weary and worn, who haply prompt<br>"To mirth or pity, as I move the mood,—<br>"A friar who glides unnoticed to the grave,<br>"With these bare feet, coarse robe and rope-girt waist,—<br>"I have long since renounced your world, ye know:<br>"Yet what forbids I weigh the prize forgone,<br>"The worldly worth? I dare, as I were dead,<br>"Disinterestedly judge this and that<br>"Good ye account good: but God tries the heart.<br>"Still, if you question me of my content<br>"At having put each human pleasure by,<br>"I answer, at the urgency of truth:<br>"As this world seems, I dare not say I know<br>"—Apart from Christ's assurance which decides—<br>"Whether I have not failed to taste much joy.<br>"For many a doubt will fain perturb my choice—<br>"Many a dream of life spent otherwise—<br>"How human love, in varied shapes, might work<br>"As glory, or as rapture, or as grace:<br>"How conversancy with the books that teach,<br>"The arts that help,—how, to grow good and great,<br>"Rather than simply good, and bring thereby<br>"Goodness to breathe and live, nor, born i' the brain,<br>"Die there,—how these and many another gift<br>"Of life are precious though abjured by me.<br>"But, for one prize, best meed of mightiest man,<br>"Arch-object of ambition,—earthly praise,<br>"Repute o' the world, the flourish of loud trump,<br>"The softer social fluting,—Oh, for these,<br>"—No, my friends! Fame,—that bubble which, world-wide<br>"Each blows and bids his neighbour lend a breath,<br>"That so he haply may behold thereon<br>"One more enlarged distorted false fool's-face,<br>"Until some glassy nothing grown as big<br>"Send by a touch the imperishable to suds,—<br>"No, in renouncing fame, my loss was light,<br>"Choosing obscurity, my chance was well!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Didst ever touch such ampollosity<br>As the monk's own bubble, let alone its spite?<br>What's his speech for, but just the fame he flouts?<br>How he dares reprehend both high and low,<br>Nor stoops to turn the sentence "God is true<br>"And every man a liar—save the Pope<br>"Happily reigning—my respects to him!"<br>And so round off the period. Molinism<br>Simple and pure! To what pitch get we next?<br>I find that, for first pleasant consequence,<br>Gomez, who had intended to appeal<br>From the absurd decision of the Court,<br>Declines, though plain enough his privilege,<br>To call on help from lawyers any more—<br>Resolves earth's liars may possess the world,<br>Till God have had sufficiency of both:<br>So may I whistle for my job and fee!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, for this virulent and rabid monk,—<br>If law be an inadequate machine,<br>And advocacy, froth and impotence,<br>We shall soon see, my blatant brother! That's<br>Exactly what I hope to show your sort!<br>For, by a veritable piece of luck,<br>The providence, you monks round period with,<br>All may be gloriously retrieved. Perpend!<br>That Monastery of the Convertites<br>Whereto the Court consigned Pompilia first,<br>—Observe, if convertite, why, sinner then,<br>Or what's the pertinency of award?—<br>And whither she was late returned to die,<br>—Still in their jurisdiction, mark again!—<br>That thrifty Sisterhood, for perquisite,<br>Claims every piece whereof may die possessed<br>Each sinner in the circuit of its walls.<br>Now, this Pompilia seeing that, by death<br>O' the couple, all their wealth devolved on her,<br>Straight utilized the respite ere decease,<br>By regular conveyance of the goods<br>She thought her own, to will and to devise,—<br>Gave all to friends, Tighetti and the like,<br>In trust for him she held her son and heir,<br>Gaetano,—trust which ends with infancy:<br>So willing and devising, since assured<br>The justice of the Court would presently<br>Confirm her in her rights and exculpate,<br>Re-integrate and rehabilitate—<br>Place her as, through my pleading, now she stands.<br>But here's the capital mistake: the Court<br>Found Guido guilty,—but pronounced no word<br>About the innocency of his wife:<br>I grounded charge on broader base, I hope!<br>No matter whether wife be true or false,<br>The husband must not push aside the law,<br>And punish of a sudden: that's the point:<br>Gather from out my speech the contrary!<br>It follows that Pompilia, unrelieved<br>By formal sentence from imputed fault,<br>Remains unfit to have and to dispose<br>Of property which law provides shall lapse.<br>Wherefore the Monastery claims its due:<br>And whose, pray, whose the office, but the Fisc's?<br>Who but I institute procedure next<br>Against the person of dishonest life,<br>Pompilia whom last week I sainted so?<br>I it is teach the monk what scripture means,<br>And that the tongue should prove a two-edged sword,<br>No axe sharp one side, blunt the other way,<br>Like what amused the town at Guido's cost!<br>Astræa redux! I've a second chance<br>Before the self-same Court o' the Governor<br>Who soon shall see volte-face and chop, change sides.<br>Accordingly, I charge you on your life,<br>Send me with all despatch the judgment late</div><div style="margin:10px 0">O' the Florence Rota Court, confirmative<br>O' the prior judgment at Arezzo, clenched<br>Again by the Granducal signature,<br>Wherein Pompilia is convicted, doomed,<br>And only destined to escape through flight<br>The proper punishment. Send me the piece,—<br>I'll work it! And this foul-mouthed friar shall find<br>His Noah's-dove that brought the olive back<br>Turn into quite the other sooty scout,<br>The raven, Noah first put forth the ark,<br>Which never came back but ate carcasses!<br>No adequate machinery in law?<br>No power of life and death i' the learned tongue?<br>Methinks I am already at my speech,<br>Startle the world with "Thou, Pompilia, thus?<br>"How is the fine gold of the Temple dim!"<br>And so forth. But the courier bids me close,<br>And clip away one joke that runs through Rome,<br>Side by side with the sermon which I send.<br>How like the heartlessness of the old hunks<br>Arcangeli! His Count is hardly cold,<br>The client whom his blunders sacrificed,<br>When somebody must needs describe the scene—<br>How the procession ended at the church<br>That boasts the famous relic: quoth our brute,<br>"Why, that's just Martial's phrase for 'make an end'—<br>"Ad umbilicum sic perventum est!"<br>The callous dog,—let who will cut off head,<br>He cuts a joke and cares no more than so!<br>I think my speech shall modify his mirth.<br>"How is the fine gold dim!"—but send the piece!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Alack, Bottini, what is my next word<br>But death to all that hope? The Instrument<br>Is plain before me, print that ends my Book<br>With the definitive verdict of the Court,<br>Dated September, six months afterward,<br>(Such trouble and so long the old Pope gave!)<br>"In restitution of the perfect fame<br>"Of dead Pompilia, quondam Guido's wife,<br>"And warrant to her representative<br>"Domenico Tighetti, barred hereby,<br>"While doing duty in his guardianship,<br>"From all molesting, all disquietude,<br>"Each perturbation and vexation brought<br>"Or threatened to be brought against the heir<br>"By the Most Venerable Convent called<br>"Saint Mary Magdalen o' the Convertites<br>'I' the Corso."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Justice done a second time!<br>Well judged, Marc Antony, Locum-tenens<br>O' the Governor, a Venturini too!<br>For which I save thy name,—last of the list!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next year but one, completing his nine years<br>Of rule in Rome, died Innocent my Pope<br>—By some account, on his accession-day.<br>If he thought doubt would do the next age good,<br>'T is pity he died unapprised what birth<br>His reign may boast of, be remembered by—<br>Terrible Pope, too, of a kind,—Voltaire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And so an end of all i' the story. Strain<br>Never so much my eyes, I miss the mark<br>If lived or died that Gaetano, child<br>Of Guido and Pompilia: only find,<br>Immediately upon his father's death,<br>A record, in the annals of the town—<br>That Porzia, sister of our Guido, moved<br>The Priors of Arezzo and their head<br>Its Gonfalonier to give loyally<br>A public attestation of the right<br>O' the Franceschini to all reverence—<br>Apparently because of the incident<br>O' the murder,—there's no mention made o' the crime,<br>But what else could have caused such urgency<br>To cure the mob, just then, of greediness<br>For scandal, love of lying vanity,<br>And appetite to swallow crude reports<br>That bring annoyance to their betters?—bane<br>Which, here, was promptly met by antidote.<br>I like and shall translate the eloquence<br>Of nearly the worst Latin ever writ:<br>"Since antique time whereof the memory<br>"Holds the beginning, to this present hour,<br>"The Franceschini ever shone, and shine<br>"Still i' the primary rank, supreme amid<br>"The lustres of Arezzo, proud to own<br>"In this great family, the flag-bearer,<br>"Guide of her steps and guardian against foe,—<br>"As in the first beginning, so to-day!"<br>There, would you disbelieve the annalist,<br>Go rather by the babble of a bard?<br>I thought, Arezzo, thou hadst fitter souls,<br>Petrarch,—nay, Buonarroti at a pinch,<br>To do thee credit as vexillifer!<br>Was it mere mirth the Patavinian meant,<br>Making thee out, in his veracious page,<br>Founded by Janus of the Double Face?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Well, proving of such perfect parentage,<br>Our Gaetano, born of love and hate,<br>Did the babe live or die? I fain would find!<br>What were his ancies if he grew a man?<br>Was he proud,—a true scion of the stock<br>Which bore the blazon, shall make bright my page—<br>Shield, Azure, on a Triple Mountain, Or,<br>A Palm-tree, Proper, whereunto is tied<br>A Greyhound, Rampant, striving in the slips?<br>Or did he love his mother, the base-born,<br>And fight i' the ranks, unnoticed by the world?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such, then, the final state o' the story. So<br>Did the Star Wormwood in a blazing fall<br>Frighten awhile the waters and lie lost.<br>So did this old woe fade from memory:<br>Till after, in the fulness of the days,<br>I needs must find an ember yet unquenched,<br>And, breathing, blow the spark to flame. It lives,<br>If precious be the soul of man to man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">So, British Public, who may like me yet,<br>(Marry and amen!) learn one lesson hence<br>Of many which whatever lives should teach:<br>This lesson, that our human speech is naught,<br>Our human testimony false, our fame<br>And human estimation words and wind.<br>Why take the artistic way to prove so much?<br>Because, it is the glory and good of Art,<br>That Art remains the one way possible<br>Of speaking truth, to mouths like mine at least.<br>How look a brother in the face and say<br>"Thy right is wrong, eyes hast thou yet art blind,<br>"Thine ears are stuffed and stopped, despite their length:<br>"And, oh, the foolishness thou countest faith!"<br>Say this as silverly as tongue can troll—<br>The anger of the man may be endured,<br>The shrug, the disappointed eyes of him<br>Are not so bad to bear—but here's the plague<br>That all this trouble comes of telling truth,<br>Which truth, by when it reaches him, looks false,<br>Seems to be just the thing it would supplant,<br>Nor recognizable by whom it left:<br>While falsehood would have done the work of truth.<br>But Art,—wherein man nowise speaks to men,<br>Only to mankind,—Art may tell a truth<br>Obliquely, do the thing shall breed the thought,<br>Nor wrong the thought, missing the mediate word.<br>So may you paint your picture, twice show truth,<br>Beyond mere imagery on the wall,—<br>So, note by note, bring music from your mind,<br>Deeper than ever e'en Beethoven dived,—<br>So write a book shall mean beyond the facts,<br>Suffice the eye and save the soul beside.<br>And save the soul! If this intent save mine,—<br>If the rough ore be rounded to a ring,<br>Render all duty which good ring should do,<br>And, failing grace, succeed in guardianship,—<br>Might mine but lie outside thine, Lyric Love,<br>Thy rare gold ring of verse (the poet praised)<br>Linking our England to his Italy!</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Robert+Browning">Robert Browning</a> from <i>The Ring and the Book</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=116366" data-title="XII. The Book and the Ring de Robert Browning" data-description="Here were the end, had anything an end:/Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared/A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached,/And wide heaven held, a breathless minute-space,/In brilliant usurpature: thus caught spark,/Rushed to the..."></div> </div> </div>

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