Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  This, with a red-cheeked apple for reward,

  The other, peradventure red-cheeked too

  I’ the rear, by taste of birch for punishment.

  No foolish brawling murders any more!

  Peace for the household, practice for the Fisc,

  And plenty for the exchequer of my lords!

  Too much to hope, in this world: in the next,

  Who knows? Since, why should sit the Twelve enthroned

  To judge the tribes, unless the tribes be judged?

  And ‘tis impossible but offences come:

  So, all’s one lawsuit, all one long leet-day!

  Forgive me this digression — that I stand

  Entranced awhile at Law’s first beam, outbreak

  O’ the business, when the Count’s good angel bade

  “Put up thy sword, born enemy to the ear,

  “And let Law listen to thy difference!”

  And Law does listen and compose the strife,

  Settle the suit, how wisely and how well!

  On our Pompilia, faultless to a fault,

  Law bends a brow maternally severe,

  Implies the worth of perfect chastity,

  By fancying the flaw she cannot find.

  Superfluous sifting snow, nor helps nor harms:

  ‘Tis safe to censure levity in youth,

  Tax womanhood with indiscretion, sure!

  Since toys, permissible to-day, become

  Follies to-morrow: prattle shocks in church:

  And that curt skirt which lets a maiden skip,

  The matron changes for a trailing robe.

  Mothers may risk thus much with half-shut eyes

  Nodding above their spindles by the fire,

  On the chance to hit some hidden fault, else safe.

  Just so, Law hazarded a punishment —

  If applicable to the circumstance,

  Why, well — if not so apposite, well too.

  “Quit the gay range o’ the world,” I hear her cry,

  “Enter, in lieu, the penitential pound:

  “Exchange the gauds of pomp for ashes, dust: —

  “Leave each mollitious haunt of luxury,

  “The golden-garnished silken-couched alcove,

  “The many-columned terrace that so tempts

  “Feminine soul put foot forth, nor stop ear

  “To fluttering joy of lover’s serenade,

  “Leave these for cellular seclusion; mask

  “And dance no more, but fast and pray; avaunt —

  “Be burned, thy wicked townsman’s sonnet-book!

  “Welcome, mild hymnal by . . . some better scribe!

  “For the warm arms, were wont enfold thy flesh,

  “Let wire-shirt plough and whip-cord discipline!”

  If such an exhortation proved, perchance,

  Inapplicable, words bestowed in waste,

  What harm, since law has store, can spend nor miss?

  And so, our paragon submits herself,

  Goes at command into the holy house

  And, also at command, comes out again:

  For, could the effect of such obedience prove

  Too certain, too immediate? Being healed,

  Go blaze abroad the matter, blessed one!

  Art thou sound forthwith? Speedily vacate

  The step by pool-side, leave Bethesda free

  To patients plentifully posted round,

  Since the whole need not the physician! Brief,

  She may betake her to her parents’ place.

  Welcome her, father, with wide arms once more,

  Motion her, mother, to thy breast again!

  For why? The law relinquishes its charge,

  Grants to your dwelling-place a prison’s style,

  But gives you back Pompilia; golden days,

  Redeunt Saturnia regna! Six weeks slip,

  And she is domiciled in house and home

  As though she thence had never budged at all.

  And thither let the husband, joyous — ay,

  But contrite also — quick betake himself,

  Proud that his dove which lay among the pots

  Hath mued those dingy feathers, — moulted now,

  Shows silver bosom clothed with yellow gold.

  Quick, he shall tempt her to the perch she fled,

  Bid to domestic bliss the truant back!

  O let him not delay! Time fleets how fast,

  And opportunity, the irrevocable,

  Once flown will flout him! Is the furrow traced?

  If field with corn ye fail preoccupy,

  Darnel for wheat and thistle-beards for grain,

  Infelix lolium, carduus horridus,

  Will grow apace in combination prompt,

  Defraud the husbandman of his desire.

  Already — hist — what murmurs ‘monish now

  The laggard? — doubtful, nay, fantastic bruit

  Of such an apparition, such return

  Interdum, to anticipate the spouse,

  Of Caponsacchi’s very self! ‘Tis said

  When nights are lone and company is rare,

  His visitations brighten winter up.

  If so they did — which nowise I believe —

  How can I? — proof abounding that the priest,

  Once fairly at his relegation place

  Never once left it — still, admit he stole

  A midnight march, would fain see friend again,

  Find matter for instruction in the past,

  Renew the old adventure in such chat

  As cheers a fireside! He was lonely too,

  He, too, must need his recreative hour.

  Should it amaze the philosophic mind

  If one, was wont the enpurpled cup to quaff,

  Have feminine society at will,

  Being debarred abruptly from all drink

  Save at the spring which Adam used for wine,

  Dread harm to just the health he hoped to guard,

  And, meaning abstinence, gain malady?

  Ask Tozzi, now physician to the Pope!

  “Little by little break” — (I hear he bids

  Master Arcangeli my antagonist,

  Who loves good cheer — and may indulge too much —

  So I explain the logic of the plea

  Wherewith he opened our proceedings late) —

  “Little by little break a habit, Don!

  “Become necessity to feeble flesh!”

  And thus, nocturnal taste of intercourse

  (Which never happened, — but, suppose it did)

  May have been used to dishabituate

  By sip and sip this drainer to the dregs

  O’ the draught of conversation, — heady stuff,

  Brewage which broached, it took two days and nights

  To properly discuss o’ the journey, Sirs!

  Such is the second-nature, men call use,

  That undelightful objects get to charm

  Instead of chafe: the daily colocynth

  Tickles the palate by repeated dose,

  Old sores scratch kindly, the ass makes a push,

  Although the mill-yoke-wound be smarting yet,

  For mill-door bolted on a holiday —

  And must we marvel if the impulse urge

  To talk the old story over now and then,

  The hopes and fears, the stoppage and the haste, —

  Subjects of colloquy to surfeit once?

  “Here did you bid me twine a rosy wreath!”

  “And there you paid my lips a compliment!”

  “There you admired the tower could be so tall!”

  “And there you likened that of Lebanon

  “To the nose o’ the beloved!” — Trifles — still,

  “Forsan et hœc olim,” — such trifles serve

  To make the minutes pass in winter-time,

  Husband, return then, I re-counsel thee!

  For, finally, of all glad circumstance

&nb
sp; Should make a prompt return imperative,

  What i’ the world awaits thee, dost suppose?

  O’ the sudden, as good gifts are wont befall,

  What is the hap of the unconscious Count?

  That which lights bonfire and sets cask a-tilt,

  Dissolves the stubborn’st heart in jollity.

  O admirable, there is born a babe,

  A son, an heir, a Franceschini last

  And best o’ the stock! Pompilia, thine the palm!

  Repaying incredulity with faith,

  Ungenerous thrift of each marital debt

  With bounty in profuse expenditure,

  Pompilia will not have the old year end

  Without a present shall ring in the new —

  Bestows upon her parsimonious lord

  An infant for the apple of his eye,

  Core of his heart, and crown completing life,

  The summum bonum of the earthly lot!

  “We,” saith ingeniously the sage, “are born

  “Solely that others may be born of us.”

  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.

  Yet doubt he dares!

  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.

  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,

  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

  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,

  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:

  What other motive could have prompted choice?

  Therefore be peace again: exult, ye hills!

  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

  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

  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,

  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,

  And through Pompilia’s virtue, Guido’s crime.

  Back to her, then, — with but one beauty more,

  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,

  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.

  Yet hold, even here would malice leer its last,

  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,

  Babble to sympathising he and she

  Whoever chose besiege her dying bed, —

  As this were found at variance with my tale,

  Falsified all I have adduced for truth,

  Admitted not one peccadillo here,

  Pretended to perfection, first and last,

  O’ the whole procedure — perfect in the end,

  Perfect i’ the means, perfect in everything,

  Leaving a lawyer nothing to excuse,

  Reason away and show his skill about!

  — A flight, impossible to Adamic flesh,

  Just to be fancied, scarcely to be wished,

  And, anyhow, unpleadable in court!

  “How reconcile,” gasps Malice, “that with this?”

  Your “this,” friend, is extraneous to the law,

  Comes of men’s outside meddling, the unskilled

  Interposition of such fools as press

  Out of
their province. Must I speak my mind?

  Far better had Pompilia died o’ the spot

  Than found a tongue to wag and shame the law,

  Shame most of all herself, — did friendship fail,

  And advocacy lie less on the alert.

  Listen how these protect her to the end!

  Do I credit the alleged narration? No!

  Lied our Pompilia then, to laud herself?

  Still, no; — clear up what seems discrepancy?

  The means abound, — art’s long, though time is short,

  So, keeping me in compass, all I urge

  Is — since, confession at the point of death,

  Nam in articulo mortis, with the Church

  Passes for statement honest and sincere,

  Nemo presumitur reus esse, — then,

  If sure that all affirmed would be believed,

  ‘Twas charity, in one so circumstanced,

  To spend her last breath in one effort more

  For universal good of friend and foe,

  And, — by pretending utter innocence,

  Nay, freedom from each foible we forgive, —

  Re-integrate — not solely her own fame,

  But do the like kind office for the priest

  Whom the crude truth might treat less courteously,

  Indeed, expose to peril, abbreviate

  The life and long career of usefulness

  Presumably before him: while her lord,

  Whose fleeting life is forfeit to the law, —

  What mercy to the culprit if, by just

  The gift of such a full certificate

  Of his immitigable guiltiness,

  She stifled in him the absurd conceit

  Of murder as it were a mere revenge!

  — Stopped confirmation of that jealousy

  Which, had she but acknowledged the first flaw,

  The faintest foible, might embolden him

  To battle with his judge, baulk penitence,

  Bar preparation for impending fate.

  Whereas, persuade him he has slain a saint

  Who sinned not in the little she did sin,

  You urge him all the brisklier to repent

  Of most and least and aught and everything!

  Next, — if this view of mine, content ye not,

  Lords, nor excuse the genial falsehood here,

  ‘Tis come to our Triarii, last resource,

  We fall back on the inexpugnable,

  Submit you, — she confessed before she talked!

  The sacrament obliterates the sin:

  What is not, — was not, in a certain sense.

  Let Molinists distinguish, “Souls washed white

  “Were red once, still show pinkish to the eye!”

  We say, abolishment is nothingness

  And nothingness has neither head nor tail

  End nor beginning; — better estimate

  Exorbitantly, than disparage aught

  Of the efficacity of the act, I hope!