And easily-imagined Hebe-slips
O’er sward which May makes over-smooth for foot—
These shall we pry into?—or wiselier wink,
Though numerous and dear they may have been?
Discedunt nunc amores, loves, farewell! (240)
Maneat amor, let love, the sole, remain!
Farewell to dewiness and prime of life!
Remains the rough determined day: dance done,
To work, with plough and harrow! What comes next?
’Tis Guido henceforth guides Pompilia’s step,
Cries “No more friskings o’er the foodful glebe,
“Else, ’ware the whip!” Accordingly,—first crack
O’ the thong,—we hear that his young wife was barred,
Cohibita fuit, from the old free life,
Vitam liberiorem ducere. (250)
Demur we? Nowise: heifer brave the hind?
We seek not there should lapse the natural law,
The proper piety to lord and king
And husband: let the heifer bear the yoke!
Only, I crave he cast not patience off,
This hind; for deem you she endures the whip,
Nor winces at the goad, nay, restive, kicks?
What if the adversary’s charge be just,
And all untowardly she pursue her way
With groan and grunt, though hind strike ne’er so hard?
If petulant remonstrance made appeal, (261)
Unseasonable, o’erprotracted,—if
Importunate challenge taxed the public ear
When silence more decorously had served
For protestation,—if Pompilian plaint
Wrought but to aggravate Guidonian ire,—
Why, such mishaps, ungainly though they be,
Ever companion change, are incident
To altered modes and novelty of life:
The philosophic mind expects no less, (270)
Smilingly knows and names the crisis, sits
Waiting till old things go and new arrive.
Therefore, I hold a husband but inept
Who turns impatient at such transit-time,
As if thus running from the rod would last!
Success awaits the soon-disheartened man,
The parents turn their backs and leave the house,
The wife may wail but none shall intervene,
He hath attained his object, groom and bride (280)
Partake the nuptial bower no soul to see,
Old things are passed and all again is new,
Over and gone the obstacles to peace,
Novorum—tenderly the Mantuan turns
The expression, some such purpose in his eye—
Nascitur ordo! Every storm is laid,
And forth from plain each pleasant herb may peep,
Each bloom of wifehood in abeyance late:
(Confer a passage in the Canticles.)
Flowers,—after a suppression to good end,
Still, when they do spring forth,—sprout here, spread there
Anywhere likelier than beneath the foot
O’ the lawful good-man gardener of the ground?
He dug and dibbled, sowed and watered,—still
’Tis a chance wayfarer shall pluck the increase.
Just so, respecting persons not too much,
The lady, foes allege, put forth each charm
And proper floweret of feminity
To whosoever had a nose to smell (300)
Or breast to deck: what if the charge be true?
The fault were graver had she looked with choice,
Fastidiously appointed who should grasp,
Who, in the whole town, go without the prize!
To nobody she destined donative,
But, first come was first served, the accuser saith
Put case her sort of … in this kind … escapes
Were many and oft and indiscriminate—
Impute ye as the action were prepense,
The gift particular, arguing malice so? (310)
Which butterfly of the wide air shall brag
“I was preferred to Guido”—when ’tis clear
The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast
Open to gnat, midge, been and moth as well?
One chalice entertained the company;
And if its peevish lord object the more,
Mistake, misname such bounty in a wife,
Haste we to advertise him—charm of cheek,
Lustre of eye, allowance of the lip,
All womanly components in a spouse, (320)
These are no household-bread each stranger’s bite
Leaves by so much diminished for the mouth
O’ the master of the house at supper-time:
But rather like a lump of spice they lie,
Morsel of myrrh, which scents the neighbourhood
Yet greets its lord no lighter by a grain.
Concede we there was reason in his wrong,
Grant we his grievance and content the man!
For lo, Pompilia, she submits herself; (330)
Ere three revolving years have crowned their course,
Off and away she puts this same reproach
Of lavish bounty, inconsiderate gift
O’ the sweets of wifehood stored to other ends:
No longer shall he blame “She none excludes,”
But substitute “She laudably sees all,
“Searches the best out and selects the same.”
For who is here, long sought and latest found,
Waiting his turn unmoved amid the whirl,
“Constans in levitate,”—Ha, my lords? (340)
Calm in his levity,—indulge the quip!—
Since ’tis a levite bears the bell away,
Parades him henceforth as Pompilia’s choice.
’Tis no ignoble object, husband! Doubt’st?
When here comes tripping Flaccus with his phrase
“Trust me, no miscreant singled from the mob,
“Crede non illum tibi de scelesta
“Plebe delectum,” but a man of mark,
A priest, dost hear? Why then, submit thyself!
Priest, ay and very phœnix of such fowl, (350)
Well-born, of culture, young and vigorous,
Comely too, since precise the precept points—
On the selected levite be there found
Nor
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