And neither marry nor burn,—yet priestliness
Can find a parallel to the marriage-bond
In its own blessed special ordinance
Whereof indeed was marriage made the type:
The Church may show her insubordinate,
As marriage her refractory. How of the Monk
Who finds the claustral regimen too sharp (730)
After the first month’s essay? What’s the mode
With the Deacon who supports indifferently
The rod o’ the Bishop when he tastes its smart
Full four weeks? Do you straightway slacken hold
Of the innocents, the all-unwary ones
Who, eager to profess, mistook their mind?—
Remit a fast-day’s rigour to the Monk
Who fancied Francis’ manna meant roast quails,
Concede the Deacon sweet society,
He never thought the levite-rule renounced,— (740)
Or rather prescribe short chain and sharp scourge
Corrective of such peccant humours? This—
I take to be the Church’s mode, and mine,
If I was over-harsh,—the worse i’ the wife
Who did not win from harshness as she ought,
Wanted the patience and persuasion, lore
Of love, should cure me and console herself.
Put case that I mishandle, flurry, and fright
My hawk through clumsiness in sportsmanship,
Twitch out five pens where plucking one would serve— (750)
What, shall she bite and claw to mend the case?
And, if you find I pluck five more for that,
Shall you weep “Now he roughs the turtle there?”
In lieu of taking penance in good part,
The Monk, with hue and cry, summons a mob
To make a bonfire of the convent, say,—
And the Deacon’s pretty piece of virtue (save
The ears o’ the Court! I try to save my head)
Instructed by the ingenuous postulant, (760)
Taxes the Bishop with adultery (mud
Needs must pair off with mud, and filth with filth)—
Such being my next experience: who knows not—
The couple, father and mother of my wife,
Returned to Rome, published before my lords,
Put into print, made circulate far and wide
That they had cheated me who cheated them?
Pompilia, I supposed their daughter, drew
Breath first ’mid Rome’s worst rankness, through the deed
Of a drab and a rogue, was bye-blow bastard-babe (770)
Of a nameless strumpet, passed off, palmed on me
As the daughter with the dowry. Daughter? Dirt
O’ the kennel! Dowry? Dust o’ the street! Nought more,
Nought less, nought else but—oh—ah—assuredly
A Franceschini and my very wife!
Now take this charge as you will, for false or true,—
This charge, preferred before your very selves
Who judge me now,—I pray you, adjudge again,
Classing it with the cheats or with the lies,
By which category I suffer most! (780)
But of their reckoning, theirs who dealt with me
In either fashion,—I reserve my word,
Justify that in its place; I am now to say,
Whichever point o’ the charge might poison most,
Pompilia’s duty was no doubtful one.
You put the protestation in her mouth
“Henceforward and forevermore, avaunt
“Ye fiends, who drop disguise and glare revealed
“In your own shape, no longer father mine
“Nor mother mine! Too nakedly you hate (790)
“Me whom you looked as if you loved once,—me
“Whom, whether true or false, your tale now damns,
“Divulged thus to my public infamy,
“Private perdition, absolute overthrow.
“For, hate my husband to your hearts’ content,
“I, spoil and prey of you from first to last,
“I who have done you the blind service, lured
“The lion to your pit-fall,—I, thus left
“To answer for my ignorant bleating there,
“I should have been remembered and withdrawn (800)
“From the first o’ the natural fury, not flung loose
“A proverb and a byeword men will mouth
“At the cross-way, in the corner, up and down
“Rome and Arezzo,—there, full in my face,
“If my lord, missing them and finding me,
“Content himself with casting his reproach
“To drop i’ the street where such impostors die.
“Ah, but—that husband, what the wonder were!—
“If, far from casting thus away the rag
“Smeared with the plague, his hand had chanced upon, (810)
“Sewn to his pillow by Locusta’s wile,—
“Far from abolishing, root, stem, and branch,
“The misgrowth of infectious mistletoe
“Foisted into his stock for honest graft,—
“If he, repudiate not, renounce nowise,
“But, guarding, guiding me, maintain my cause
“By making it his own (what other way?)
“—To keep my name for me, he call it his,
“Claim it of who would take it by their lie,—
“To save my wealth for me—or babe of mine (820)
“Their lie was framed to beggar at the birth—
“He bid them loose grasp, give our gold again:
“Refuse to become partner with the pair
“Even in a game which, played adroitly, gives
“Its winner life’s great wonderful new chance,—
“Of marrying, to- wit, a second time,—
“Ah, did he do thus, what a friend were he!
“Anger he might show,—who can stamp out flame
“Yet spread no black o’ the brand?—yet, rough albeit
“In the act, as whose bare feet feel embers scorch. (830)
“What grace were his, what gratitude were mine!”
Such protestation should have been my wife’s.
Looking for this, do I exact too much?
Why, here’s the,—word for word so much, no more,—
Avowal she made, her pure spontaneous speech
To my brother the Abate at first blush,
Ere the good impulse had begun to fade—
So did she make confession for the pair,
So pour forth praises in her own behalf.
“Ay, the false letter,” interpose my lords— (840)
“The simulated writing,—’twas a trick:
“You traced the signs, she merely marked the same,
“The product was not hers but yours.” Alack,
I want no more
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