What prepositions take the accusative?
Ad to or at—who saw the cat?—down to
Ob, for, because of, keep her claws off ! Ah,
Law in a man takes the whole liberty! (970)
The muse is fettered,—just as Ovid found!
What of the dubious act you bade excuse?
Surely things brighten, brighten, till at length
Remains—so far from act that needs defence—
Apology to make for act delayed
One minute, let alone eight mortal months
Of hesitation! “Why procrastinate?”
(Out with it my Bottinius, ease thyself!)
“Right, promptly done, is twice right: right delayed (980)
“Turns wrong. We grant you should have killed your wife,
“But on the moment, at the meeting her
“In company with the priest: then did the tongue
“O’ the Brazen Head give licence, ‘Time is now!’
“You make your mind up: ‘Time is past’ it peals.
“Friend, you are competent to mastery
“O’ the passions that confessedly explain
“An outbreak,—yet allow an interval,
“And then break out as if time’s clock still clanged.
“You have forfeited your chance, and flat you fall (990)
“Into the commonplace category
“Of men bound to go softly all their days,
“Obeying law.”
What was the answer Guido gave, himself?
—That so to argue came of ignorance
How honour bears a wound: “For, wound,” said he,
“My body, and the smart is worst at first:
“While, wound my soul where honour sits and rules,
“Longer the sufferance, stronger grows the pain, (1000)
“’Tis ex incontinenti, fresh as first.”
But try another tack, calm common sense
By way of contrast: as—Too true, my lords!
We did demur, awhile did hesitate:
Yet husband sure should let a scruple speak
Ere he slay wife,—for his own safety, lords!
Carpers abound in this misjudging world.
Moreover, there’s a nicety in law
That seems to justify them should they carp:
Suppose the source of injury a son,— (1010)
Father may slay such son yet run no risk:
Why graced with such a privilege? Because
A father so incensed with his own child,
Or must have reason, or believe he has:
Quia semper, seeing that in such event,
Presumitur, the law is bound suppose,
Quod capiat pater, that the sire must take,
Bonum consilium pro filio,
The best course as to what befits his boy,
Through instinct, ex instinctu, of mere love, (1020)
Amoris, and, paterni, fatherhood;
Quam confidentiam, which confidence,
Non habet, law declines to entertain,
De viro, of the husband: where has he
An instinct that compels him love his wife?
Rather is he presumably her foe:
So, let him ponder long in this bad world
Ere do the simplest act of justice.
Again—and here we brush Bottini’s breast— (1030)
Object you, “See the danger of delay!
“Suppose a man murdered my friend last month:
“Had I come up and killed him for his pains
“In rage, I had done right, allows the law:
“I meet him now and kill him in cold blood,
“I do wrong, equally allows the law:
“Wherein do actions differ, yours and mine?”
In plenitudine intellectus es?
Hast thy wits, Fisc? To take such slayer’s life,
Returns it life to thy slain friend at all? (1040)
Had he stolen ring instead of stabbing friend,—
To- day, to-morrow or next century,
Meeting the thief, thy ring upon his thumb,
Thou justifiably hadst wrung it thence:
So, couldst thou wrench thy friend’s life back again,
Though prisoned in the bosom of his foe,
Why, law would look complacent on thy rush.
Our case is, that the thing we lost, we found:
The honour, we were robbed of eight months since,
Being recoverable at any day (1050)
By death of the delinquent. Go thy ways!
Ere thou hast learned law, will be much to do,
As said the rustic while he shod the goose.
From the inn to the villa—blank or else a bar
Of adverse and contrarious incident
Solid between us and our just revenge!
What with the priest who flourishes his blade,
The wife who like a fury flings at us,
The crowd—and then the capture, the appeal (1060)
To Rome, the journey there, the journey thence,
The shelter at the House of Convertites,
The visits to the Villa, and so forth,
Where was one minute left us all this while
To put in execution that revenge
We planned o’ the instant?—as it were, plumped down
A round sound egg, o’ the spot, some eight months since,
Rome, more propitious than our nest, should hatch!
Object not, “You reached Rome on Christmas-eve,
“And, despite liberty to act at once, (1070)
“Waited a week—indecorous delay!”
Hath so the Molinism-canker, lords,
Eaten to the bone? Is no religion left?
No care for aught held holy by the Church?
What, would you have us skip and miss those Feasts
O’ the Natal Time, must we go prosecute
Secular business on a sacred day?
Should not the merest charity expect,
Setting our poor concerns aside for once,
We hurried to the song matutinal (1080)
I’ the Sistine, and pressed forward for the Mass
The Cardinal that’s Camerlengo chaunts,
Then rushed on to the blessing of the Hat
And Rapier, which the Pope sends to what prince
Has done most
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