Still, spite its weight and worth, a sample-speech.
How quality dissertated on the case.
Once the smoke risen untroubled, we descry
Clearlier what tongues of flame may spire and spit
To eye and ear, each with appropriate tinge
According to its food, pure or impure.
The actors, no mere rumours of the act,
Intervene. First you hear Count Guido’s voice,
In a small chamber that adjoins the court, (950)
Where Governor and Judges, summoned thence,
Tommati, Venturini and the rest,
Find the accused ripe for declaring truth.
Soft-cushioned sits he; yet shifts seat, shirks touch,
As, with a twitchy brow and wincing lip
And cheek that changes to all kinds of white,
He proffers his defence, in tones subdued
Near to mock-mildness, now, so mournful seems
The obtuser sense truth fails to satisfy;
Now, moved, from pathos at the wrong endured, (960)
To passion; for the natural man is roused
At fools who first do wrong, then pour the blame
Of their wrong-doing, Satan-like, on Job.
Also his tongue at times is hard to curb;
Incisive, nigh satiric bites the phrase,
Rough-raw, yet somehow claiming privilege
—It is so hard for shrewdness to admit
Folly means no harm when she calls black white!
—Eruption momentary at the most,
Modified forthwith by a fall o’the fire, (970)
Sage acquiescence; for the world’s the world,
And, what it errs in, Judges rectify:
He feels he has a fist, then folds his arms
Crosswise and makes his mind up to be meek.
And never once does he detach his eye
From those ranged there to slay him or to save,
But does his best man’s-service for himself,
Despite,—what twitches brow and makes lip wince,—
His limbs’ late taste of what was called the Cord,
Or Vigil-torture more facetiously. (980)
Even so; they were wont to tease the truth
Out of loath witness (toying, trifling time)
By torture: ’twas a trick, a vice of the age,
Here, there, and everywhere, what would you have?
Religion used to tell Humanity
She gave him warrant or denied him course.
And since the course was much to his own mind,
Of pinching flesh and pulling bone from bone
To unhusk truth a-hiding in its hulls,
Nor whisper of a warning stopped the way, (990)
He, in their joint behalf, the burly slave,
Bestirred him, mauled and maimed all recusants,
While, prim in place, Religion overlooked;
And so had done till doomsday, never a sign
Nor sound of interference from her mouth,
But that at last the burly slave wiped brow,
Let eye give notice as if soul were there,
Muttered “’Tis a vile trick, foolish more than vile,
“Should have been counted sin; I make it so:
“At any rate no more of it for me— (1000)
“Nay, for I break the torture-engine thus!”
Then did Religion start up, stare amain,
Look round for help and see none, smile and say
“What, broken is the rack? Well done of thee!
“Did I forget to abrogate its use?
“Be the mistake in common with us both!
“—One more fault our blind age shall answer for,
“Down in my book denounced though it must be
“Somewhere. Henceforth find truth by milder means!”
Ah but, Religion, did we wait for thee (1010)
To ope the book, that serves to sit upon,
And pick such place out, we should wait indeed!
That is all history: and what is not now,
Was then, defendants found it to their cost.
How Guido, after being tortured, spoke.
Man and priest—could you comprehend the coil!—
In days when that was rife which now is rare.
How, mingling each its multifarious wires,
Now heaven, now earth, now heaven and earth at once,
Had plucked at and perplexed their puppet here, (1021)
Played off the young frank personable priest;
Sworn fast and tonsured plain heaven’s celibate,
And yet earth’s clear-accepted servitor,
A courtly spiritual Cupid, squire of dames
By law of love and mandate of the mode.
The Church’s own, or why parade her seal,
Wherefore that chrism and consecrative work?
Yet verily the world’s, or why go badged
A prince of sonneteers and lutanists, (1030)
Show colour of each vanity in vogue
Borne with decorum due on blameless breast?
All that is changed now, as he tells the court
How he had played the part excepted at;
Tells it, moreover, now the second time:
since, for his cause of scandal, his own share
I’ the flight from home and husband of the wife,
He has been censured, punished in a sort
By relegation,—exile, we should say,
To a short distance for a little time,— (1040)
Whence he is summoned on a sudden now,
Informed that she, he thought to save, is lost,
And, in a breath, bidden re-tell his tale,
Since the first telling somehow missed effect,
And then advise in the matter. There stands he,
While the same grim black-panelled chamber blinks
As though rubbed shiny with the sins of Rome
Told the same oak for ages—wave- washed wall
Whereto has set a sea of wickedness.
There, where you yesterday heard Guido speak, (1050)
Speaks Caponsacchi; and there face him too
Tommati, Venturini, and the rest
Who, eight months earlier, scarce repressed the smile,
Forewent the wink; waived recognition so
Of peccadillos incident to youth,
Especially youth high-born; for youth means love,
Vows can’t change nature, priests are only men,
And love needs stratagem and subterfuge:
Which age, that once was youth, should recognise,
May blame, but
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