Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series
Page 116
Partum supposuerunt, feigned this birth,
Immemores reos factos esse, blind
To the fact that, guilty, they incurred thereby,
Ultimi supplicii, hanging or aught worse.
Do you blame us that we turn law’s instruments
Not mere self-seekers, — mind the public weal,
Nor make the private good our sole concern?
That having — shall I say — secured a thief,
Not simply we recover from his pouch
The stolen article our property,
But also pounce upon our neighbour’s purse
We opportunely find reposing there,
And do him justice while we right ourselves?
He owes us, for our part, a drubbing say,
But owes our neighbour just a dance i’ the air
Under the gallows: so we throttle him.
The neighbour’s Law, the couple are the Thief,
We are the over-ready to help Law —
Zeal of her house hath eaten us up: for which,
Can it be, Law intends to eat up us,
Crudum Priamum, devour poor Priam raw,
(‘Twas Jupiter’s own joke) with babes to boot,
Priamique pisinnos, in Homeric phrase?
Shame! — and so ends the period prettily.
But even, — prove the pair not culpable,
Free as unborn babe from connivance at,
Participation in, their daughter’s fault:
Ours the mistake. Is that a rare event?
Non semel, it is anything but rare,
In contingentia facti, that by chance,
Impunes evaserunt, go scot-free,
Qui, such well-meaning people as ourselves,
Justo dolore moti, who aggrieved
With cause, apposuerunt manus, lay
Rough hands, in innocentes, on wrong heads.
Cite we an illustrative case in point:
Mulier Smirnea quœdam, good my lords,
A gentlewoman lived in Smyrna once,
Virum et filium ex eo conceptum, who
Both husband and her son begot by him,
Killed, interfecerat, ex quo, because,
Vir filium suum perdiderat, her spouse
Had been beforehand with her, killed her son,
Matrimonii primi, of a previous bed.
Deinde accusata, then accused,
Apud Dolabellam, before him that sat
Proconsul, nec duabus cœdibus
Comtaminatam liberare, nor
To liberate a woman doubly-dyed
With murder, voluit, made he up his mind,
Nec condemnare, nor to doom to death,
Justo dolore impulsam, one impelled
By just grief, sed remisit, but sent her up
Ad Areopagum, to the Hill of Mars,
Sapientissimorum judicum
Cœtum, to that assembly of the sage
Paralleled only by my judges here;
Ubi, cognito de causa, where, the cause
Well weighed, responsum est, they gave reply,
Ut ipsa et accusator, that both sides
O’ the suit, redirent, should come back again,
Post centum annos, after a hundred years,
For judgment; et sic, by which sage decree,
Duplici parricidio rea, one
Convicted of a double parricide,
Quamvis etiam innocentem, though in truth
Out of the pair, one innocent at least
She, occidisset, plainly had put to death,
Undequaque, yet she altogether ‘scaped,
Evasit impunis. See the case at length
In Valerius, fittingly styled Maximus,
That eighth book of his Memorable Facts.
Nor Cyriacus cites beside the mark:
Similiter uxor quœ mandaverat,
Just so, a lady who had taken care,
Homicidium viri, that her lord be killed,
Ex denegatione debiti,
For denegation of a certain debt,
Matrimonialis, he was loth to pay,
Fuit pecuniaria mulcta, was
Amerced in a pecuniary mulct,
Punita, et ad pœnam, and to pains,
Temporalem, for a certain space of time,
In monasterio, in a convent.
Ay,
In monasterio! How he manages
In with the ablative, the accusative!
I had hoped to have hitched the villain into verse
For a gift, this very day, a complete list
O’ the prepositions each with proper case,
Telling a story, long was in my head.
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!
The muse is fettered, — just as Ovid found!
And now, sea widens and the coast is clear.
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
“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
“Into the commonplace category
“Of men bound to go softly all their days,
“Obeying law.”
Now, which way make response?
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,
“‘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, —
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,
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 i
n this bad world
Ere do the simplest act of justice.
But
Again — and here we brush Bottini’s breast —
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?
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
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.
Nay, if you urge me, interval was none!
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
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,
“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
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 detriment to the Infidel —
And thereby whet our courage if ‘twere blunt?
Meantime, allow we kept the house a week,
Suppose not we were idle in our mew:
Picture Count Guido raging here and there —
“‘Money?’ I need none — ’Friends?’ The word is null.
“Match me the white was on that shield of mine
“Borne at” . . . wherever might be shield to bear;
“I see my grandsire, he who fought so well
“At” . . . here find out and put in time and place
Of what might be a fight his grandsire fought:
“I see this — I see that — ”
See to it all,
Or I shall scarce see lamb’s fry in an hour!
— Nod to the uncle, as I bid advance
The smoking dish, “This, for your tender teeth!
“Behoves us care a little for our kin —
“You, Sir, — who care so much for cousinship
“As come to your poor loving nephew’s feast!”
He has the reversion of a long lease yet —
Land to bequeath! He loves lamb’s fry, I know!
Here fall to be considered those same six
Qualities; what Bottini needs must call
So many aggravations of our crime,
Parasite-growth upon mere murder’s back.
We summarily might dispose of such
By some off-hand and jaunty fling, some skit —
“So, since there’s proved no crime to aggravate,
“A fico for your aggravations, Fisc!”
No, — handle mischief rather, — play with spells
Were meant to raise a spirit, and laugh the while
We show that did he rise we are his match!
Therefore, first aggravation: we made up —
Over and above our simple murdering selves —
A regular assemblage of armed men,
Coadunatio armatorum, — ay,
Unluckily it was the very judge
Who sits in judgment on our cause to-day
That passed the law as Governor of Rome:
“Four men armed,” — though for lawful purpose, mark!
Much more for an acknowledged crime, — ”shall die.”
We five were armed to the teeth, meant murder too?
Why, that’s the very point that saves us, Fisc!
Let me instruct you. Crime nor done nor meant, —
You punish still who arm and congregate:
For why have used bad means to a good end?
Crime being meant not done, — you punish still
The means to crime, you haply pounce upon,
Though circumstance have baulked you of their end:
But crime not only compassed but complete,
Meant and done too? Why, since you have the end,
Be that your sole concern, nor mind those means
No longer to the purpose! Murdered we?
( — Which, that our luck was in the present case,
Quod contigisse in præsenti casu,
Is palpable, manibus palpatum est — )
Make murder out against us, nothing less!
Of many crimes committed with a view
To one main crime, you overlook the less,
Intent upon the large. Suppose a man
Having in view commission of a theft,
Climb the town-wall: ‘tis for the theft he hangs,
Suppose you can convict him of such theft,
Remitted whipping due to who climbs wall
For bravery or wantonness alone,
Just to dislodge a daw’s nest and no more.
So I interpret you the manly mind
Of him the Judge shall judge both you and me, —
O’ the Governor, who, being no babe, my Fisc,
Cannot have blundered on ineptitude!
Were specially of such forbidden sort
Through shape or length or breadth, as, prompt, law plucks
From single hand of solitary man,
And makes him pay the carriage with his life:
Delatio armorum, arms against the rule,
Contra formam constitutionis, of
Pope Alexander’s blessed memory.
Such are the poignard with the double prong,
Horn-like, when tines make bold the antlered buck,
And all of brittle glass — for man to stab
And break off short and so let fragment stick
Fast in the flesh to baffle surgery:
And such the Genoese blade with hooks at edge
That did us service at the Villa here.
Sed parcat mihi tam eximius vir,
But, let so rare a personage forgive,
Fisc, thy objection is a foppery!
Killed, dost see? Then, if killed, what matter how? —
By stick or stone, by sword or dagger, tool
Long or tool short, round or triangular —
Poor folks, they find small comfort in a choice!
Means to an end, means to an end, my Fisc!
Nature cries out “Take the first arms you find!”
Furor ministrat arma: where’s a stone?
Unde mî lapidem, where darts for me?
Unde sagittas? But subdue the bard
And rationalise a little: eight months since,
Had we, or had we not, incurred your blame
For letting ‘scape unpunished this bad pair?
I think I proved that in last paragraph!
Why did we so? Because our courage failed.
Wherefore? Through lack of arms to fight the foe:
We had no arms or merely lawful ones,
An unimportant sword and blunderbuss,
Against a foe, pollent in potency,
The amasius, and our vixen of a wife.
Well then, how culpably do we gird loin
And once more undertake the high emprise,
Unless we load ourselves this second time
With handsome superfluity of arms,
Since better say “too much” than “not enough,”
And “plus non vitiat,” too much does no harm,
Except in mathematics, sages say.
Gather instruction from the parable!
At first we are advised — ”A lad hath here
“Seven barley loaves and two small fishes: what
“Is that among so many?” Aptly asked:
But put that question twice and, quite as apt
The answer is “Fragments, twelve baskets full!”
And, while we speak of superabundance, fling
A word by the way to fools that cast their flout
On Guido — ”Punishment exceeds offence:
“You might be just but you were cruel too!”
If so you stigmatise the stern and strict,
Still, he is not without excuse — may plead
Transgression of his mandate, over-zeal
O’ the part of his companions: all he craved
Was, they should fray the faces of the three:
Solummodo fassus est, he owns no more,
Dedisse mandatum, than that he desired,
Ad sfrisiandum, dicam, that they hack
And hew, i’ the customary phrase, his wife,
Uxorem tantum, and no harm beside.
If his instructions then be misconceived,
Nay, disobeyed, impute you blame to him?
Cite me no Panicollus to the point,
As adverse! Oh, I quite expect his case —
How certain noble youths of Sicily
Having good reason to mistrust their wives,
Killed them and were absolved in consequence:
While others who had gone beyond the need