This were our warrant for eruptive ire (470)
“To whose dominion I impose no end.”
To Cinoncino,—say the early books …
Pen, truce to further gambols! Poscimur!)
To the honour proved the life and soul of us,
Be too excessive, too extravagant:
Such wrong seeks and must have complete revenge.
Show we this, first, on the mere natural ground:
Begin at the beginning, and proceed (480)
Incontrovertibly. Theodoric,
In an apt sentence Cassiodorus cites,
Propounds for basis of all household law—
I hardly recollect it, but it ends,
“Bird mates with bird, beast genders with his like,
“And brooks no interference:” bird and beast?
The very insects … if they wive or no,
How dare I say when Aristotle doubts?
But the presumption is they likewise wive,
At least the nobler sorts; for take the bee (490)
As instance,—copying King Solomon,—
Why that displeasure of the bee to aught
That savours of incontinency, makes
The unchaste a very horror to the hive?
Whence comes it bees obtain the epithet
Of castæ apes? notably “the chaste?”
Because, ingeniously saith Scaliger,
(The young one—see his book of Table-talk)
“Such is their hatred of immodest act,
“They fall upon the offender, sting to death.” (500)
I mind a passage much confirmative
I’ the Idyllist (though I read him Latinized)
“Why,” asks a shepherd, “is this bank unfit
“For celebration of our vernal loves?”
“Oh swain,” returns the wiser shepherdess,
“Bees swarm here, and would quick resent our warmth!”
Only cold-blooded fish lack instinct here,
Nor gain nor guard connubiality:
But beasts, quadrupedal, mammiferous,
Do credit to their beasthood: witness him, (510)
That Ælian cites, the noble elephant,
(Or if not Ælian, somebody as sage)
Who seeing much offence beneath his nose,
His master’s friend exceed in courtesy
The due allowance to that master’s wife,
Taught them good manners and killed both at once,
Making his master and all men admire.
Indubitably, then, that master’s self
Favoured by circumstance, had done the same
Or else stood clear rebuked by his own beast. (520)
Adeo, ut qui honorem spernit, thus,
Who values his own honour not a straw,—
Et non recuperare curat, nor
Labours by might and main to salve its wound,
Se ulciscendo, by revenging him,
Nil differat a belluis, is a brute,
Quinimo irrationabilior
Ipsismet belluis, nay, contrariwise,
Much more irrational than brutes themselves,
Should be considered, reputetur! How? (530)
If a poor animal feel honour smart,
Taught by blind instinct nature plants in him,
Shall man,—confessed creation’s master-stroke,
Nay, intellectual glory, nay, a god,
Nay, of the nature of my Judges here,—
Shall man prove the insensible, the block,
The blot o’ the earth he crawls on to disgrace?
(Come, that’s both solid and poetic)—man
Derogate, live for the low tastes alone,
Mean creeping cares about the animal life? (540)
Fried liver out of its monotony
Of richness like a root of fennel, chopped
Fine with the parsley: parsley-sprigs, I said—
Was there need I should say “and fennel too?”
But no, she cannot have been so obtuse!
To our argument! The fennel will be chopped.
Still mere man, not yet Christian,—that, in time!
Not too fast, mark you! ’Tis on Heathen grounds (550)
We next defend our act: then, fairly urge—
If this were done of old, in a green tree,
Allowed in the Spring rawness of our kind,
What may be licensed in the Autumn dry,
And ripe, the latter harvest-tide of man?
If, with his poor and primitive half-lights,
The Pagan, whom our devils served for gods,
Could stigmatise the breach of marriage-vow
As that which blood, blood only might efface,—
Absolve the husband, outraged, whose revenge (560)
Anticipated law, plied sword himself,—
How with the Christian in full blaze of day?
Shall not he rather double penalty,
Multiply vengeance, than, degenerate,
Let privilege be minished, droop, decay?
Therefore set forth at large the ancient law!
Superabundant the examples be
To pick and choose from. The Athenian Code,
Solon’s, the name is serviceable,—then,
The Laws of the Twelve Tables, that fifteenth,— (570)
“Romulus” likewise rolls out round and large.
The Julian; the Cornelian; Gracchus’ Law:
So old a chime, the bells ring of themselves!
Spreti can set that going if he please,
I point you, for my part, the belfry out,
Intent to rise from dusk, diluculum,
Into the Christian day shall broaden next.
Happily reigning: then sustain the point—
All that was long ago declared as law (580)
By the early Revelation, stands confirmed
By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint,—
To- wit—that Honour is the supreme good.
Why should I baulk Saint Jerome of his phrase?
Ubi honor
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