The summum bonum of the earthly lot!
“We,” saith ingeniously the sage, “are born
“Solely that others may be born of us.” (1320)
So, father, take thy child, for thine that child,
Oh nothing doubt! In wedlock born, law holds
Baseness impossible, since “filius est
Quem nuptiœ demonstrant,” twits the text
Whoever dares to doubt.
O faith where art thou flown from out the world?
Already on what an age of doubt we fall!
Instead of each disputing for the prize,
The babe is bandied here from that to this. (1330)
Whose the babe? “Cujum pecus?” Guido’s lamb?
“An Melibœi?” Nay, but of the priest!
“Non sed Ægonis!” Some one must be sire:
And who shall say in such a puzzling strait,
If there were not vouchsafed some miracle
To the wife who had been harassed and abused
More than enough by Guido’s family
For non-production of the promised fruit
Of marriage? What if Nature, I demand,
Touched to the quick by taunts upon her sloth, (1340)
Had roused herself, put forth recondite power,
Bestowed this birth to vindicate her sway?
Like to the favour, Maro memorised,
Was granted Aristæus when his hive
Lay empty of the swarm, not one more bee—
Not one more babe to Franceschini’s house—
And lo, a new birth filled the air with joy,
Sprung from the bowels of the generous steed!
Just so a son and heir rejoiced the Count!
Spontaneous generation, need I prove (1350)
Were facile feat to Nature at a pinch?
Let whoso doubts, steep horsehair certain weeks,
In water, there will be produced a snake;
A second product of the horse, which horse
Happens to be the representative—
Now that I think on’t—of Arezzo’s self
The very city our conception blessed!
Is not a prancing horse the City-arms?
What sane eye sees not such coincidence?
Cur ego, boast thou, my Pompilia, then, (1360)
Desperem fieri sine conjuge
Mater—how well the Ovidian distich suits!—
Et parere intacto dummodo
Casta viro? but language baffles here.
Note, further, as to mark the prodigy,
The babe in question neither took the name
Of Guido, from the sire presumptive, nor
Giuseppe, from the sire potential, but
Gaetano—last saint of the hierarchy,
And newest namer for a thing so new: (1370)
What other motive could have prompted choice?
Ye vales rejoicingly break forth in song!
Incipe, parve puer, begin, small boy,
Risu cognoscere patrem, with a smile
To recognise thy parent! Nor do thou
Boggle, oh parent, to return the grace—
Nec anceps hare, pater, puero
Cognoscendo—one might well eke out the prayer!
In vain! The perverse Guido doubts his eyes (1380)
Distrusts assurance, lets the devil drive;
Because his house is swept and garnished now,
He, having summoned seven like himself,
Must hurry thither, knock and enter in,
And make the last worse than the first, indeed!
Is he content? We are. No further blame
O’ the man and murder! They were stigmatised
Befittingly: the Court heard long ago
My mind o’ the matter, which, outpouring full,
Has long since swept, like surge i’ the simile (1390)
Of Homer, overborne both dyke and dam,
And whelmed alike client and advocate:
His fate is sealed, his life as good as gone,
On him I am not tempted to waste word.
Yet though my purpose holds,—which was and is
And solely shall be to the very end,
To draw the true effigiem of a saint,
Do justice to perfection in the sex,—
Yet, let not some gross pamperer o’ the flesh
And niggard in the spirit’s nourishment, (1400)
Whose feeding hath offuscated his wit
Rather than law,—he never had, to lose—
Let not such advocate object to me
I leave my proper function of attack!
“What’s this to Bacchus?”—(in the classic phrase,
Well used, for once) he hiccups probably.
O Advocate o’ the poor, thou born to make
Their blessing void—beati pauperes!
By painting saintship I depicture sin,
Beside the pearl, I prove how black the jet, (1410)
And through Pompilia’s virtue, Guido’s crime.
End we our argument,—one crowning grace
Pre-eminent ’mid agony and death.
For to the last Pompilia played her part,
Used the right means to the permissible end,
And, wily as an eel that stirs the mud
Thick overhead, so baffling spearman’s thrust,
She, while he stabbed her, simulated death,
Delayed, for his sake, the catastrophe, (1420)
Obtained herself a respite, four days’ grace,
Whereby she told her story to the world,
Enabled me to make the present speech,
And, by a full confession, saved her soul.
Gurgle its choaked remonstrance: snake, hiss free!
Oh, that’s the objection? And to whom?—not her
But me, forsooth—as, in the very act
Of both confession and, what followed close,
Subsequent talk, chatter and gossipry, (1430)
Babble to sympathising he and she
Whoever chose besiege her dying bed,—
As this were found at variance with my tale,
Falsified all I
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