Repented them, no doubt: why, so did I,
So did your lordship, if town-talk be true,
Of paying a full farm’s worth for that piece
By Pietro of Cortona—probably
His scholar Ciro Ferri may have retouched—
You caring more for colour than design— (490)
Getting a little tired of cupids too.
That’s incident to all the folk who buy!
I am charged, I know, with gilding fact by fraud;
I falsified and fabricated, wrote
Myself down roughly richer than I prove,
Rendered a wrong revenue,—grant it all!
Mere grace, mere coquetry such fraud, I say:
A flourish round the figures of a sum
For fashion’s sake, that deceives nobody.
The veritable back-bone, understood (500)
Essence of this same bargain, blank and bare,
Being the exchange of quality for wealth,—
What may such fancy-flights be? Flecks of oil
Flirted by chapmen where plain dealing grates.
I may have dripped a drop—“My name I sell;
“Not but that I too boast my wealth”—as they,
“—We bring you riches; still our ancestor
“Was hardly the rapscallion, folks saw flogged,
“But heir to we know who, were rights of force!”
They knew and I knew where the back-bone lurked (510)
I’ the writhings of the bargain, lords, believe!
I paid down all engaged for, to a doit,
Delivered them just that which, their life long,
They hungered in the hearts of them to gain—
Incorporation with nobility thus
In word and deed: for that they gave me wealth.
But when they came to try their gain, my gift,
Quit Rome and qualify for Arezzo, take
The tone o’ the new sphere that absorbed the old,
Put away gossip Jack and goody Joan (520)
And go become familiar with the Great,
Greatness to touch and taste and handled now,—
Why, then,—they found that all was vanity,
Vexation, and what Solomon describes!
The old abundant city-fare was best,
The kindly warmth o’ the commons, the glad clap
Of the equal on the shoulder, the frank grin
Of the underling at all so many spoons
Fire-new at neighbourly treat,—best, best and best
Beyond compare!—down to the loll itself (530)
O’ the pot-house settle,—better such a bench
Than the stiff crucifixion by my dais
Under the piece-meal damask canopy
With the coroneted coat of arms a-top!
Poverty and privation for pride’s sake,
All they engaged to easily brave and bear,—
With the fit upon them and their brains a-work,—
Proved unendurable to the sobered sots.
A banished prince, now, will exude a juice
And salamander-like support the flame: (540)
He dines on chestnuts, chucks the husks to help
The broil o’ the brazier, pays the due baioc,
Goes off light-hearted: his grimace begins
At the funny humours of the christening-feast
Of friend the money-lender,—then he’s touched
By the flame and frizzles at the babe to kiss!
Here was the converse trial, opposite mind:
Here did a petty nature split on rock
Of vulgar wants predestinate for such—
One dish at supper and weak wine to boot! (550)
The prince had grinned and borne: the citizen shrieked,
Summoned the neighbourhood to attest the wrong,
Made noisy protest he was murdered,—stoned
And burned and drowned and hanged,—then broke away,
He and his wife, to tell their Rome the rest.
And this you admire, you men o’ the world, my lords?
This moves compassion, makes you doubt my faith?
Why, I appeal to … sun and moon? Not I!
Rather to Plautus, Terence, Boccaccio’s Book,
My townsman, frank Ser Franco’s merry Tales,— (560)
To all who strip a vizard from a face,
A body from its padding, and a soul
From froth and ignorance it styles itself,—
If this be other than the daily hap
Of purblind greed that dog-like still drops bone,
Grasps shadow, and then howls the case is hard!
My profit or loss i’ the matter: married am I:
Text whereon friendly censors burst to preach.
Ay, at Rome even, long ere I was left (570)
To regulate her life for my young bride
Alone at Arezzo, friendliness outbroke
(Sifting my future to predict its fault)
“Purchase and sale being thus so plain a point
“How of a certain soul bound up, may-be,
“I’ the barter with the body and money- bags?
“From the bride’s soul what is it you expect?”
Why, loyalty and obedience,—wish and will
To settle and suit her fresh and plastic mind
To the novel, nor disadvantageous mould! (580)
Father and mother shall the woman leave,
Cleave to the husband, be it for weal or woe:
There is the law: what sets this law aside
In my particular case? My friends submit
“Guide, guardian, benefactor,—fee, faw, fum,
“The fact is you are forty-five years old,
“Nor very comely even for that age:
“Girls must have boys.” Why, let girls say so then,
Nor call the boys and men, who say the same,
Brute this and beast the other as they do! (590)
Come, cards on table! When you chaunt us next
Epithalamium full to overflow
With praise and glory of white womanhood,
The chaste and pure—troll no such lies o’er lip!
Put in their stead a crudity or two,
Such short and simple statement of the case
As youth chalks on our walls at spring of year!
No! I shall still think nobler of the sex,
Believe a woman still may take a man
For the short period that his soul wears flesh, (600)
And, for the soul’s sake, understand the fault
Of armour frayed by fighting. Tush, it tempts
One’s
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