Should sign the warrant, doom the guilty dead,
“Would I had never learned to write,” quoth he!
—Pompilia rose above the Roman, cried
“To read or write I never learned at all!”
O splendidly mendacious!
Let us not linger: hurry to the end,
Since end does flight and all disastrously.
Beware ye blame desert for unsuccess, (840)
Disparage each expedient else to praise,
Call failure folly! Man’s best effort fails.
After ten years’ resistance Troy fell flat:
Could valour save a town, Troy still had stood.
Pompilia came off halting in no point
Of courage, conduct, the long journey through:
But nature sank exhausted at the close,
And, as I said, she swooned and slept all night.
Morn breaks and brings the husband: we assist
At the spectacle. Discovery succeeds. (850)
Ha, how is this? What moonstruck rage is here?
Though we confess to partial frailty now,
To error in a woman and a wife,
Is ’t by the rough way she shall be reclaimed?
Who bursts upon her chambered privacy?
What crowd profanes the chaste cubiculum?
What outcries and lewd laughter, scurril gibe
And ribald jest to scare the ministrant
Good angels that commerce with souls in sleep?
Why, had the worst crowned Guido to his wish, (860)
Confirmed his most irrational surmise,
Yet there be bounds to man’s emotion, checks
To an immoderate astonishment.
’Tis decent horror, regulated wrath,
Befit our dispensation: have we back
The old Pagan licence? Shall a Vulcan clap
His net o’ the sudden and expose the pair
To the unquenchable universal mirth?
A feat, antiquity saw scandal in
So clearly, that the nauseous tale thereof— (870)
Demodocus his nugatory song—
Hath ever been concluded modern stuff
Impossible to the mouth of the grave Muse,
So, foisted into that Eighth Odyssey
By some impertinent pickthank. O thou fool,
Count Guido Franceschini, what were gained
By publishing thy shame thus to the world?
Were all the precepts of the wise a waste—
Bred in thee not one touch of reverence?
Why, say thy wife—admonish we the fool,— (880)
Were false, and thou bid chronicle thy shame,
Much rather should thy teeth bite out thy tongue,
Dump lip consort with desecrated brow,
Silence become historiographer,
And thou—thine own Cornelius Tacitus!
But virtue, barred, still leaps the barrier, lords!
—Still, moon-like, penetrates the encroaching mist
And bursts, all broad and bare, on night, ye know!
Surprised, then, in the garb of truth, perhaps,
Pompilia, thus opposed, breaks obstacle, (890)
Springs to her feet, and stands Thalassian- pure,
Confronts the foe,—nay, catches at his sword
And tries to kill the intruder, he complains.
Why, so she gave her lord his lesson back,
Crowned him, this time, the virtuous woman’s way,
With an exact obedience; he brought sword,
She drew the same, since swords are meant to draw.
Tell not me ’tis sharp play with tools on edge!
It was the husband chose the weapon here.
Why did not he inaugurate the game (900)
With some gentility of apophthegm
Still pregnant on the philosophic page,
Some captivating cadence still a- lisp
O’ the poet’s lyre? Such spells subdue the surge,
Make tame the tempest, much more mitigate
The passions of the mind, and probably
Had moved Pompilia to a smiling blush.
No, he must needs prefer the argument
O’ the blow: and she obeyed, in duty bound,
Returned him buffet ratiocinative— (910)
Ay, in the reasoner’s own interest,
For wife must follow whither husband leads,
Vindicate honour as himself prescribes,
Save him the very way himself bids save!
No question but who jumps into a quag
Should stretch forth hand and pray one “Pull me out
“By the hand!” such were the customary cry:
But Guido pleased to bid “Leave hand alone!
“Join both feet, rather, jump upon my head,
“I extricate myself by the rebound!” (920)
And dutifully as enjoined she jumped—
Drew his own sword and menaced his own life,
Anything to content a wilful spouse.
Justice to the expedient which succeeds,
Strange as it seem: at flourish of the blade,
The crowd drew back, stood breathless and abashed,
Then murmured “This should be no wanton wife,
“No conscience-stricken creature, caught i’ the act,
“And patiently awaiting our first stone: (930)
“But a poor hard-pressed all-bewildered thing,
“Has rushed so far, misguidedly perhaps,
“Meaning no more harm than a frightened sheep.
“She sought for aid; and if she made mistake
“I’ the man could aid most, why—so mortals do:
“Even the blessed Magdalen mistook
“Far less forgiveably: consult the place—
“Supposing him to be the gardener,
“‘Sir,’ said she, and so following.” Why more words?
Forthwith the wife is pronounced innocent: (940)
What would the husband more than gain his cause,
And find that honour flash in the world’s eye,
His apprehension was lest soil had smirched?
Whereon my fat opponent grounds his charge
Preposterous: at mid-day he groans “How dark!”
Listen to me, thou Archangelic swine!
Where is the ambiguity to blame,
The flaw to find in our Pompilia? Safe
She stands, see! Does thy comment follow quick (950)
“Safe, inasmuch as at the end proposed;
“But thither she picked way by devious path—
“Stands dirtied, no dubiety at all!
“I
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