“The chronicle o’ the converse from its rise
“To culmination in this outrage: read!
“Letters from wife to priest, from priest to wife,—
“Here they are, read and say where they chime in (1040)
“With the other tale, superlative purity
“O’ the pair of saints! I stand or fall by these.”
The pair of saints? That not one word is theirs—
No syllable o’ the batch or writ or sent
Or yet received by either of the two.
“Found,” says the priest, “because he needed them,
“Failing all other proofs, to prove our fault:
“So, here they are, just as is natural.
“Oh yes—we had our missives, each of us! (1050)
“Not these, but to the full as vile, no doubt:
“Hers as from me,—she could not read, so burnt,—
“Mine as from her,—I burnt because I read.
“Who forged and found them? Cui profuerint !”
(I take the phrase out of your Highness’ mouth)
“He who would gain by her fault and my fall,
“The trickster, schemer, and pretender—he
“Whose whole career was lie entailing lie
“Sought to be sealed truth by the worst lie last!”
“Match this beginning! ’Tis alleged I prove
“A murderer at the end, a man of force
“Prompt, indiscriminate, effectual: good!
“Then what need all this trifling woman’s work,
“Letters and embassies and weak intrigue,
“When will and power were mine to end at once
“Safely and surely? Murder had come first
“Not last with such a man, assure yourselves!
“The silent acquetta, stilling at command—
“A drop a day i’ the wine or soup, the dose,— (1070)
“The shattering beam that breaks above the bed
“And beats out brains, with nobody to blame
“Except the wormy age which eats even oak,—
“Nay, the staunch steel or trusty cord,—who cares
“I’ the blind old palace, a pitfall at each step,
“With none to see, much more to interpose
“O’ the two, three creeping house-dog-servant-things
“Born mine and bred mine?—had I willed gross death,
“I had found nearer paths to thrust him prey
“Than this that goes meandering here and there (1080)
“Through half the world and calls down in its course
“Notice and noise,—hate, vengeance, should it fail,
“Derision and contempt though it succeed!
“Moreover, what o’ the future son and heir?
“The unborn babe about to be called mine,—
“What end in heaping all this shame on him,
“Were I indifferent to my own black share?
“Would I have tried these crookednesses, say,
“Willing and able to effect the straight?”
“Being as you are, i’ the stock, a man of guile,
“And ruffianism but an added graft.
“You, a born coward, try a coward’s arms,
“Trick and chicane,—and only when these fail
“Does violence follow, and like fox you bite
“Caught out in stealing. Also, the disgrace
“You hardly shrunk at, wholly shrivelled her:
“You plunged her thin white delicate hand i’ the flame
“Along with your coarse horny brutish fist,
“Held them a second there, then drew out both (1100)
“—Yours roughed a little, hers ruined through and through.
“Your hurt would heal forthwith at ointment’s touch—
“Namely, succession to the inheritance
“Which bolder crime had lost you: let things change,
“The birth o’ the boy warrant the bolder crime,
“Why, murder was determined, dared, and done.
“For me,” the priest proceeds with his reply,
“The look o’ the thing, the chances of mistake,
“All were against me,—that, I knew the first:
“But, knowing also what my duty was, (1110)
“I did it: I must look to men more skilled
“I’ the reading hearts than ever was the world.”
Or … even leave this argument in doubt,
Account it a fit matter, taken up
With all its faces, manifold enough,
To put upon—what fronts us, the next stage.
Next legal process!—Guido, in pursuit,
Coming up with the fugitives at the inn,
Caused both to be arrested then and there (1120)
And sent to Rome for judgment on the case—
Thither, with all his armoury of proofs
Betook himself, and there we’ll meet him now,
Waiting the further issue.
“And never let him henceforth dare to plead,—
“Of all pleas and excuses in the world
“For any deed hereafter to be done,—
“His irrepressible wrath at honour’s wound!
“Passion and madness irrepressible? (1130)
“Why, Count and cavalier, the husband comes
“And catches foe i’ the very act of shame:
“There’s man to man,—nature must have her way,—
“We look he should have cleared things on the spot.
“Yes, then, indeed—even tho’ it prove he erred—
“Though the ambiguous first appearance, mount
“Of solid injury, melt soon to mist,
“Still,—had he slain the lover and the wife—
“Or, since she was a woman and his wife,
“Slain him, but stript her naked to the skin (1140)
“Or at best left no more of an attire
“Than patch
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