The last seal publicly apposed to shame
By the open flight of wife and priest,—why, Sirs,
Step out of Rome a furlong, would you know
What anotherguess tribunal than ours here.
Mere worldly Court without the help of grace,
Thinks of just that one incident o’ the flight? (1500)
Guido preferred the same complaint before
The court of Arezzo, bar of the Granduke,—
In virtue of it being Tuscany
Where the offence had rise and flight began,—
Self-same complaint he made in the sequel here
Where the offence grew to the full, the flight
Ended: offence and flight, one fact judged twice
By two distinct tribunals,—what result?
There was a sentence passed at the same time
By Arezzo and confirmed by the Granduke, (1510)
Which nothing baulks of swift and sure effect
But absence of the guilty (flight to Rome
Frees them from Tuscan jurisdiction now)
—Condemns the wife to the opprobrious doom
Of all whom law just lets escape from death.
The Stinche, House of Punishment, for life,—
That’s what the wife deserves in Tuscany:
Here, she deserves—remitting with a smile
To her father’s house, main object of the flight!
The thief presented with the thing he steals! (1520)
The man took on himself the office, judged;
And the only argument against the use
O’ the law he thus took into his own hands
Is … what, I ask you?—that, revenging wrong,
He did not revenge sooner, kill at first
Whom he killed last! That is the final charge.
Sooner? What’s soon or late i’ the case?—ask we.
A wound i’ the flesh no doubt wants prompt redress;
It smarts a little to-day, well in a week, (1530)
Forgotten in a month; or never, or now, revenge!
But a wound to the soul? That rankles worse and worse.
Shall I comfort you, explaining—“ Not this once
“But now it may be some five hundred times
“I called you ruffian, pandar, liar, and rogue:
“The injury must be less by lapse of time?”
The wrong is a wrong, one and immortal too,
And that you bore it those five hundred times,
Let it rankle unrevenged five hundred years,
Is just five hundred wrongs the more and worse! (1540)
Men, plagued this fashion, get to explode this way,
If left no other.
“Many another way, and there’s his fault,”
’Tis answered—“ He himself preferred our arm
“O’ the law to fight his battle with. No doubt
“We did not open him an armoury
“To pick and choose from, use, and then reject.
“He tries one weapon and fails,—he tries the next
“And next: he flourishes wit and common sense, (1550)
“They fail him,—he plies logic doughtily,
“It fails him too,—thereon, discovers last
“He has been blind to the combustibles—
“That all the while he is a-glow with ire,
“Boiling with irrepressible rage, and so
“May try explosives and discard cold steel,—
“So hire assassins, plot, plan, execute!
“Is this the honest self-forgetting rage
“We are called to pardon? Does the furious bull
“Pick out four helpmates from the grazing herd (1560)
“And journey with them over hill and dale
“Till he find his enemy?”
That friends accept our bull-similitude.
Bull-like,—the indiscriminate slaughter, rude
And reckless aggravation of revenge,
Were all i’the way o’ the brute who never once
Ceases, amid all provocation more,
To bear in mind the first tormentor, first
Giver o’ the wound that goaded him to fight: (1570)
And, though a dozen follow and reinforce
The aggressor, wound in front and wound in flank,
Continues undisturbedly pursuit,
And only after prostrating his prize
Turns on the pettier, makes a general prey.
So Guido rushed against Violante, first
Author of all his wrongs, fons et origo
Malorum—increasingly drunk,—which justice done?
He finished with the rest. Do you blame a bull?
How is that? There are difficulties perhaps
On any supposition, and either side.
Each party wants too much, claims sympathy
For its object of compassion, more than just.
Cry the wife’s friends, “O the enormous crime
“Caused by no provocation in the world!”
“Was not the wife a little weak?”—inquire—
“Punished extravagantly, if you please,
“But meriting a little punishment?
“One treated inconsiderately, say, (1590)
“Rather than one deserving not at all
“Treatment and discipline o’ the harsher sort?”
No, they must have her purity itself,
Quite angel—and her parents angels too
Of an aged sort, immaculate, word and deed,
At all events, so seeming, till the fiend,
Even Guido, by his folly, forced from them
The untoward avowal of the trick o’ the birth,
Would otherwise be safe and secret now.
Why, here you have the awfulest of crimes (1600)
For nothing! Hell broke loose on a butterfly!
A dragon born of rose-dew and the moon!
Yet here is the monster! Why, he’s a mere man—
Born, bred, and brought up in the usual way.
His mother loves him, still his brothers stick
To the good fellow of the boyish games;
The Governor of his town knows and approves,
The Archbishop of the place knows and assists:
Here he has Cardinal This to vouch for the past,
Cardinal That to trust for the future,—match (1610)
And marriage
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