Beginning life in turn with callow beak (340)
Agape for luck, no luck had stopped and stilled.
Such were the pinks and greys about the bait
Persuaded Guido gulp down hook and all.
You question? Past his prime and poor beside?
Ask that of any she who knows the trade.
Why first, here was a nobleman with friends,
A palace one might run to and be safe
When presently the threatened fate should fall,
A big-browed master to block door-way up, (350)
Parley with people bent on pushing by
And praying the mild Pietro quick clear scores:
Is birth a privilege and power or no?
Also,—but judge of the result desired,
By the price paid and manner of the sale.
The Count was made woo, win and wed at once:
Asked, and was haled for answer, lest the heat
Should cool, to San Lorenzo, one blind eve,
And had Pompilia put into his arms
O’ the sly there, by a hasty candle-blink, (360)
With sanction of some priest-confederate
Properly paid to make short work and sure.
For Guido Franceschini’s lady-wife
Ere Guido knew it well; and why this haste
And scramble and indecent secrecy?
“Lest Pietro, all the while in ignorance,
“Should get to learn, gainsay and break the match:
“His peevishness had promptly put aside
“Such honour and refused the proffered boon, (370)
“Pleased to become authoritative once.
“She remedied the wilful man’s mistake—”
Did our discreet Violante. Rather say,
Thus did she, lest the object of her game,
Guido the gulled one, give him but a chance,
A moment’s respite, time for thinking twice,
Might count the cost before he sold himself,
And try the clink of coin they paid him with.
Once the clandestine marriage over thus, (380)
All parties made perforce the best o’ the fact;
Pietro could play vast indignation off,
Be ignorant and astounded, dupe alike
At need, of wife, daughter, and son-in-law,
While Guido found himself in flagrant fault,
Must e’en do suit and service, soothe, subdue
A father not unreasonably chafed,
Bring him to terms by paying son’s devoir.
Pleasant initiation!
Guido’s broad back was saddled to bear all—
Pietro, Violante, and Pompilia too,—
Three lots cast confidently in one lap,
Three dead-weights with one arm to lift the three
Out of their limbo up to life again:
The Roman household was to strike fresh root
In a new soil, graced with a novel name,
Gilt with an alien glory, Aretine
Henceforth and never Roman any more,
By treaty and engagement: thus it ran: (400)
Pompilia’s dowry for Pompilia’s self
As a thing of course,—she paid her own expense;
No loss nor gain there: but the couple, you see,
They, for their part, turned over first of all
Their fortune in its rags and rottenness
To Guido, fusion and confusion, he
And his with them and theirs,—whatever rag
With a coin residuary fell on floor
When Brother Paolo’s energetic shake
Should do the relics justice: since ’twas thought, (410)
Once vulnerable Pietro out of reach,
That, left at Rome as representative,
The Abate, backed by a potent patron here,
And otherwise with purple flushing him,
Might play a good game with the creditor,
Make up a moiety which, great or small,
Should go to the common stock—if anything,
Guido’s, so far repayment of the cost
About to be,—and if, as looked more like,
Nothing,—why, all the nobler cost were his (420)
Who guaranteed, for better or for worse,
To Pietro and Violante, house and home,
Kith and kin, with the pick of company
And life o’ the fat o’ the land while life should last.
How say you to the bargain at first blush?
Why did a middle-aged not-silly man
Show himself thus besotted all at once?
Quoth Solomon, one black eye does it all.
With just the dusk o’ the day of life to spend, (430)
Eager to use the twilight, taste a treat,
Enjoy for once with neither stay nor stint
The luxury of Lord-and- lady-ship,
And realise the stuff and nonsense long
A-simmer in their noddles; vent the fume
Born there and bred, the citizen’s conceit
How fares nobility while crossing earth,
What rampart or invisible body- guard
Keeps off the taint of common life from such.
They had not fed for nothing on the tales (440)
Of grandees who give banquets worthy Jove,
Spending gold as if Plutus paid a whim,
Served with obeisances as when … what God?
I’m at the end of my tether; ’tis enough
You understand what they came primed to see:
While Guido who should minister the sight,
Stay all this qualmish greediness of soul
With apples and with flagons—for his part,
Was set on life diverse as pole from pole:
Lust of the flesh, lust of the eye,—what else (450)
Was he just now awake from, sick and sage,
After the very debauch they would begin?—
Suppose such stuff and nonsense really were.
That bubble, they were bent on blowing big,
He had blown
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