The final dispensation, I demand,
Unless Law, Gospel, and the Church subjoin.
“But who hath barred thee primitive revenge,
“Which, like fire damped and dammed up, burns more fierce? (720)
“Use thou thy natural privilege of man,
“Else wert thou found like those old ingrate Jews,
“Despite the manna- banquet on the board,
“A-longing after melons, cucumbers,
“And such like trash of Egypt left behind!”
(There was one melon, had improved our soup,
But did not Cinoncino need the rind
To make a boat with? So I seem to think.)
To the very last revealment, easy rule (730)
Befitting the well-born and thorough-bred
O’ the happy day we live in,—not the dark
O’ the early rude and acorn- eating race.
“Behold,” quoth James, “we bridle in a horse
“And turn his body as we would thereby!”
Yea, but we change the bit to suit the growth,
And rasp our colt’s jaw with a rugged spike
We hasten to remit our managed steed
Who wheels round at persuasion of a touch.
Civilisation bows to decency, (740)
The acknowledged use and wont, the manners,—mild
But yet imperative law,—which make the man.
Thus do we pay the proper compliment
To rank, and that society of Rome,
Hath so obliged us by its interest,
Taken our client’s part instinctively,
As unaware defending its own cause.
What dictum doth Society lay down
I’ the case of one who hath a faithless wife?
Wherewithal should the husband cleanse his way? (750)
Be patient and forgive? Oh, language fails—
Shrinks from depicturing his punishment!
For if wronged husband raise not hue and cry,
Quod si maritus de adulterio non
Conquereretur, he’s presumed a—foh!
Presumitur leno: so, complain he must.
But how complain? At your tribunal, lords?
Far weightier challenge suits your sense, I wot!
You sit not to have gentlemen propose
Questions gentility can itself discuss. (760)
Did not you prove that to our brother Paul?
The Abate, quum judicialiter.
Prosequeretur, when he tried the law,
Guidonis causam, in Count Guido’s case,
Accidit ipsi, this befell himself,
Quod risum moverit et cachinnos, that
He moved to mirth and cachinnation, all
Or nearly all, fere in omnibus
Etiam sensatis et cordatis, men
Strong-sensed, sound-hearted, nay, the very Court, (770)
Ipsismet in judicibus, I might add,
Non tamen dicam. In a cause like this,
So multiplied were reasons pro and con,
Delicate, intertwisted and obscure,
That law were shamed to lend a finger-tip
To unravel, readjust the hopeless twine,
While, half- a-dozen steps outside the court,
There stood a foolish trifler with a tool
A-dangle to no purpose by his side,
Had clearly cut the tangle in a trice. (780)
Asserunt enim unanimiter
Doctores, for the Doctors all assert,
That husbands, quod mariti, must be held
Viles, cornuti reputantur, vile
And branching forth a florid infamy,
Si propriis manibus, if with their own hands,
Non sumunt, they take not straightway revenge,
Vindictam, but expect the deed be done
By the Court—expectant illam fieri
Per judices, qui summopere rident, which (790)
Gives an enormous guffaw for reply,
Et cachinnantur. For he ran away,
Deliquit enim, just that he might ’scape
The censure of both counsellors and crowd,
Ut vulgi et Doctorum evitaret
Censuram, and lest so he superadd
To loss of honour ignominy too,
Et sic ne istam quoque ignominiam
Amisso honori superadderet.
My lords, my lords, the inconsiderate step (800)
Was—we referred ourselves to law at all!
Twit me not with, “Law else had punished you!”
Each punishment of the extra-legal step,
To which the high-born preferably revert,
Is ever for some oversight, some slip
I’ the taking vengeance, not for vengeance’ self.
A good thing done unhandsomely turns ill;
And never yet lacked ill the law’s rebuke.
For pregnant instance, let us contemplate
The luck of Leonardus,—see at large (810)
Of Sicily’s Decisions sixty-first.
This Leonard finds his wife is false: what then?
He makes her own son snare her, and entice
Out of the town- walls to a private walk,
Wherein he slays her with commodity.
They find her body half-devoured by dogs:
Leonard is tried, convicted, punished, sent
To labour in the galleys seven years long:
Why? For the murder? Nay, but for the mode!
Malus modus occidendi, ruled the Court, (820)
An ugly mode of killing, nothing more!
Another fructuous sample,—see “De Re
“Criminali,” in Matthæus’ divine piece.
Another husband, in no better plight,
Simulates absence, thereby tempts the wife;
On whom he falls, out of sly ambuscade,
Backed by a brother of his, and both of them
Armed to the teeth with arms that law had blamed.
Nimis dolose, overwilily,
Fuisse operatum, was it worked, (830)
Pronounced the law: had all been fairly done
Law had not found him worthy, as she did,
Of four years’ exile. Why cite more? Enough
Is good as a feast—(unless a birthday-feast
For one’s Cinuccio: so, we’ll finish here)
My lords, we rather need defend ourselves
Inasmuch as for a twinkling of an eye
We hesitatingly appealed to law,—
Rather than deny that, on mature advice,
We blushingly bethought
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