“Receive our sentence! Praise God! We pronounce
“Count Guido devilish and damnable:
“His wife Pompilia in thought, word, and deed,
“Was perfect pure, he murdered her for that:
“As for the Four who helped the One, all Five— (250)
“Why, let employer and hirelings share alike
“In guilt and guilt’s reward, the death their due!”
“Guilty you find him, death you doom him to?
“Ay, were not Guido, more than needs, a priest,
“Priest and to spare!”—this was a shot reserved;
I learn this from epistles which begin
Here where the print ends,—see the pen and ink
Of the advocate, the ready at a pinch!—
“My client boasts the clerkly privilege, (260)
“Has taken minor orders many enough,
“Shows still sufficient chrism upon his pate
“To neutralise a blood-stain: presbyter,
“Primœ tonsurœ, subdiaconus,
“Sacerdos, so he slips from underneath
“Your power, the temporal, slides inside the robe
“Of mother Church: to her we make appeal
“By the Pope, the Church’s head!”
Put in with noticeable effect, it seems; (270)
“Since straight,”—resumes the zealous orator,
Making a friend acquainted with the facts,—
“Once the word ‘clericality’ let fall,
“Procedure stopped and freer breath was drawn
“By all considerate and responsible Rome.”
Quality took the decent part, of course;
Held by the husband, who was noble too:
Or, for the matter of that, a churl would side
With too-refined susceptibility,
And honour which, tender in the extreme, (280)
Stung to the quick, must roughly right itself
At all risks, not sit still and whine for law
As a Jew would, if you squeezed him to the wall,
Brisk-trotting through the Ghetto. Nay, it seems,
Even the Emperor’s Envoy had his say
To say on the subject; might not see, unmoved,
Civility menaced throughout Christendom
By too harsh measure dealt her champion here.
Lastly, what made all safe, the Pope was kind,
From his youth up, reluctant to take life, (290)
If mercy might be just and yet show grace;
Much more unlikely then, in extreme age,
To take a life the general sense bade spare.
’Twas plain that Guido would go scatheless yet.
How topple down the piles of hope we rear!
How history proves... nay, read Herodotus!
Suddenly starting from a nap, as it were,
A dog-sleep with one shut, one open orb,
Cried the Pope’s great self,—Innocent by name (300)
And nature too, and eighty-six years old,
Antonio Pignatelli of Naples, Pope
Who had trod many lands, known many deeds,
Probed many hearts, beginning with his own,
And now was far in readiness for God,—
’Twas he who first bade leave those souls in peace,
Those Jansenists, re-nicknamed Molinists,
(’Gainst whom the cry went, like a frowsy tune,
Tickling men’s ears—the sect for a quarter of an hour
I’ the teeth of the world which, clown-like, loves to chew (310)
Be it but a straw twixt work and whistling-while,
Taste some vituperation, bite away,
Whether at marjoram- sprig or garlic-clove,
Aught it may sport with, spoil, and then spit forth)
“Leave them alone,” bade he, “those Molinists!
“Who may have other light than we perceive,
“Or why is it the whole world hates them thus?”
Also he peeled off that last scandal-rag
Of Nepotism; and so observed the poor
That men would merrily say, “Halt, deaf, and blind, (320)
Who feed on fat things, leave the master’s self
“To gather up the fragments of his feast,
“These be the nephews of Pope Innocent!—
“His own meal costs but five carlines a day,
“Poor- priest’s allowance, for he claims no more.”
—He cried of a sudden, this great good old Pope,
When they appealed in last resort to him,
“I have mastered the whole matter: I nothing doubt.
“Though Guido stood forth priest from head to heel,
“Instead of, as alleged, a piece of one,— (330)
“And further, were he, from the tonsured scalp
“To the sandaled sole of him, my son and Christ’s,
“Instead of touching us by finger- tip
“As you assert, and pressing up so close
“Only to set a blood-smutch on our robe,—
“I and Christ would renounce all right in him.
“Am I not Pope, and presently to die,
“And busied how to render my account,
“And shall I wait a day ere I decide
“On doing or not doing justice here? (340)
“Cut off his head to-morrow by this time,
“Hang up his four mates, two on either hand,
“And end one business more!”
Rather so writ, for the old Pope bade this,
I find, with his particular chirograph,
His own no such infirm hand, Friday night;
And next day, February Twenty-Two,
Since our salvation Sixteen Ninety Eight,
—Not at the proper head-and-hanging place (350)
On bridge-foot close by Castle Angelo,
Where custom somewhat staled the spectacle,
(’Twas not so well i’ the way of Rome, beside,
The noble Rome, the Rome of Guido’s rank)
But at the city’s newer gayer end,—
The cavalcading promenading place
Beside the gate and opposite the church
Under the Pincian gardens green with Spring,
’Neath the obelisk ’twixt
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