Chapter LXXI: Epilogue: FIRST SPEAKER, as David (12)

For that most woeful man my husband once,
Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath,
I--pardon him? So far as lies in me,
I give him for his good the life he takes,
Praying the world will therefore acquiesce.
Let him make God amends,--none, none to me
Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate
Mockingly styled him husband and me wife,
Himself this way at least pronounced divorce,
Blotted the marriage-bond: this blood of mine
Flies forth exultingly at any door,
Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow.
We shall not meet in this world nor the next,
But where will God be absent? In his face
Is light, but in his shadow healing too:
Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed!
And as my presence was importunate,--
My earthly good, temptation and a snare,--
Nothing about me but drew somehow down
His hate upon me,--somewhat so excused
Therefore, since hate was thus the truth of him,--
May my evanishment forevermore
Help further to relieve the heart that cast
Such object of its natural loathing forth!
So he was made; he nowise made himself:
I could not love him, but his mother did.
His soul has never lain beside my soul;
But for the unresisting body,--thanks!
He burned that garment spotted by the flesh.
Whatever he touched is rightly ruined: plague
It caught, and disinfection it had craved
Still but for Guido; I am saved through him
So as by fire; to him--thanks and farewell!

Even for my babe, my boy, there 's safety thence--
From the sudden death of me, I mean: we poor
Weak souls, how we endeavor to be strong!
I was already using up my life,--
This portion, now, should do him such a good,
This other go to keep off such an ill!
The great life; see, a breath and it is gone!
So is detached, so left all by itself
The little life, the fact which means so much.
Shall not God stoop the kindlier to his work,
His marvel of creation, foot would crush,
Now that the hand he trusted to receive
And hold it, lets the treasure fall perforce?
The better; he shall have in orphanage
His own way all the clearlier: if my babe
Outlived the hour--and he has lived two weeks--
It is through God who knows I am not by.
Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black,
And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest,
Trying to talk? Let us leave God alone!
Why should I doubt he will explain in time
What I feel now, but fail to find the words?
My babe nor was, nor is, nor yet shall be
Count Guido Franceschini's child at all--
Only his mother's, born of love not hate!
So shall I have my rights in after-time.
It seems absurd, impossible to-day;
So seems so much else, not explained but known!

Ah! Friends, I thank and bless you every one!
No more now: I withdraw from earth and man
To my own soul, compose myself for God.

Well, and there is more! Yes, my end of breath
Shall hear away my soul in being true!
He is still here, not outside with the world,
Here, here, I have him in his rightful place!
'T is now, when I am most upon the move,
I feel for what I verily find--again
The face, again the eyes, again, through all,
The heart and its immeasurable love
Of my one friend, my only, all my own,
Who put his breast between the spears and me.
Ever with Caponsacchi! Otherwise
Here alone would be failure, loss to me--
How much more loss to him, with life debarred
From giving life, love locked from love's display,
The day-star stopped its task that makes night morn!
O lover of my life, O soldier-saint,
No work begun shall ever pause for death!
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I' the coming course, the new path I must tread--
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that!
Tell him that if I seem without him now,
That 's the world's insight! Oh, he understands!
He is at Civita--do I once doubt
The world again is holding us apart?
He had been here, displayed in my behalf
The broad brow that reverberates the truth,
And flashed the word God gave him, back to man!
I know where the free soul is flown! My fate
Will have been hard for even him to bear:
Let it confirm him in the trust of God,
Showing how holily he dared the deed!
And, for the rest,--say, from the deed, no touch
Of harm came, but all good, all happiness,
Not one faint fleck of failure! Why explain?
What I see, oh, he sees and how much more!
Tell him,--I know not wherefore the true word
Should fade and fall unuttered at the last--
It was the name of him I sprang to meet
When came the knock, the summons and the end.
"My great heart, my strong hand are back again!"
I would have sprung to these, beckoning across
Murder and hell gigantic and distinct
O' the threshold, posted to exclude me heaven:
He is ordained to call and I to come!
Do not the dead wear flowers when dressed for God?
Say,--I am all in flowers from head to foot!
Say,--not one flower of all he said and did,
Might seem to flit unnoticed, fade unknown,
But dropped a seed, has grown a balsam-tree
Whereof the blossoming perfumes the place
At this supreme of moments! He is a priest;
He cannot marry therefore, which is right:
I think he would not marry if he could.
Marriage on earth seems such a counterfeit,
Mere imitation of the inimitable:
In heaven we have the real and true and sure.
'T is there they neither marry nor are given
In marriage but are as the angels: right,
Oh how right that is, how like Jesus Christ
To say that! Marriage-making for the earth,
With gold so much,--birth, power, repute so much,
Or beauty, youth so much, in lack of these!
Be as the angels rather, who, apart,
Know themselves into one, are found at length
Married, but marry never, no, nor give
In marriage; they are man and wife at once
When the true time is: here we have to wait
Not so long neither! Could we by a wish
Have what we will and get the future now,
Would we wish aught done undone in the past?
So, let him wait God's instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of his light
For us i' the dark to rise by. And I rise.

VIII

DOMINUS HYACINTHUS DE ARCHANGELIS,

PAUPERUM PROCURATOR

Ah, my Giacinto, he 's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we 're eight?
Seven and one 's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
--Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
_Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans_,
Up to _-aturus_, person, tense, and mood,
_Qui_es _me cum subjunctivo_ (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he 's perched, he 's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
--Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
--The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinnolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once--
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,--such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,--he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,--
Which box may hold a parchment (some one thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore--yet this one time again perhaps--
Sha'n't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May--drop in, merely?--trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There 's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,--all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!
How vain are chambering and wantonness,
Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad!
Commend me to home-joy, the family board,
Altar and hearth! These, with a brisk career,
A source of honest profit and good fame,
Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust,
Just so much play as lets the heart expand,
Honoring God and serving man,--I say,
These are reality, and all else,--fluff,
Nutshell and naught,--thank Flaccus for the phrase!
Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor!

Why, work with a will, then! Wherefore lazy now?
Turn up the hour-glass, whence no sand-grain slips
But should have done its duty to the saint
O' the day, the son and heir that 's eight years old!
Let law come dimple Cinoncino's cheek,
And Latin dumple Cinarello's chin,
And while we spread him fine and toss him flat
This pulp that makes the pancake, trim our mass
Of matter into Argument the First,
Prime Pleading in defence of our accused,
Which, once a-waft on paper wing, shall soar,
Shall signalize before applausive Rome
What study, and mayhap some mother-wit,
Can do toward making Master fop and Fisc
Old bachelor Bottinius bite his thumb.
Now, how good God is! How falls plumb to point
This murder, gives me Guido to defend
Now, of all days i' the year, just when the boy
Verges on Virgil, reaches the right age
For some such illustration from his sire,
Stimulus to himself! One might wait years
And never find the chance which now finds me!
The fact is, there 's a blessing on the hearth,
A special providence for fatherhood!
Here 's a man, and what 's more, a noble, kills
--Not sneakingly but almost with parade--
Wife's father and wife's mother and wife's self
That 's mother's self of son and heir (like mine!)
--And here stand I, the favored advocate,
Who pluck this flower o' the field, no Solomon
Was ever clothed in glorious gold to match,
And set the same in Cinoncino's cap!
I defend Guido and his comrades--I!
Pray God, I keep me humble: not to me--
_Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi laus!_
How the fop chuckled when they made him Fisc!
We 'll beat you, my Bottinius, all for love,
All for our tribute to Cinotto's day!
Why, 'sbuddikins, old Innocent himself
May rub his eyes at the bustle,--ask "What 's this
Rolling from out the rostrum, as a gust
O' the _Pro Milone_ had been prisoned there,
And rattled Rome awake?" Awaken Rome,
How can the Pope doze on in decency?
He needs must wake up also, speak his word,
Have his opinion like the rest of Rome,
About this huge, this hurly-burly case:
He wants who can excogitate the truth,
Give the result in speech, plain black and white,
To mumble in the mouth and make his own
--A little changed, good man, a little changed!
No matter, so his gratitude be moved,
By when my Giacintino gets of age,
Mindful of who thus helped him at a pinch,
Archangelus _Procurator Pauperum_--
And proved Hortensius _Redivivus!_
Whew!
To earn the _Est-est_, merit the minced herb
That mollifies the liver's leathery slice,
With here a goose-foot, there a cock's-comb stuck,
Cemented in an element of cheese!
I doubt if dainties do the grandsire good:
Last June he had a sort of strangling ... bah!
He 's his own master, and his will is made.
So, liver fizz, law flit and Latin fly
As we rub hands o'er dish by way of grace!
May I lose cause if I vent one word more
Except--with fresh-cut quill we ink the white--
_P-r-o-pro Guidone et Sociis_. There!

Count Guido married--or, in Latin due,
What? _Duxit in uxorem?_--commonplace!
_Tædus jugales iniit, subiit_,--ha!
He underwent the matrimonial torch?
_Connubio stabili sibi junxit_,--hum!
In stable bond of marriage bound his own?
That 's clear of any modern taint: and yet ...

Virgil is little help to who writes prose.
He shall attack me Terence with the dawn,
Shall Cinuccino! Mum, mind business, Sir!
Thus circumstantially evolve we facts,
_Ita se habet ideo series facti:_
He wedded,--ah, with owls for augury!
_Nupserat, heu sinistris avibus_,
One of the blood Arezzo boasts her best,
_Dominus Guido, nobili genere ortus_,
_Pompiliæ_ ...

But the version afterward!
Curb we this ardor! Notes alone, to-day,
The speech to-morrow, and the Latin last:
Such was the rule in Farinacci's time.
Indeed I hitched it into verse and good.
Unluckily, law quite absorbs a man,
Or else I think I too had poetized.
"Law is the pork substratum of the fry,
Goose-foot and cock's-comb are Latinity,"--
And in this case, if circumstance assist,
We 'll garnish law with idiom, never fear!
Out-of-the-way events extend our scope:
For instance, when Bottini brings his charge,
"That letter which you say Pompilia wrote,
To criminate her parents and herself
And disengage her husband from the coil,--
That, Guido Franceschini wrote, say we:
Because Pompilia could not read nor write,
Therefore he pencilled her such letter first,
Then made her trace in ink the same again."
--Ha, my Bottini, have I thee on hip?
How will he turn this and break Tully's pate?
"_Existimandum_" (don't I hear the dog!)
"_Quod Guido designaverit elementa_
_Dictæ epistolæ, quæ fuerint_
_(Superinducto ab ea calamo)_
_Notata atramento_"--there 's a style!--
"_Quia ipsa scribere nesciebat._" Boh!
Now, my turn! Either, _Insulse!_ (I outburst)
Stupidly put! Inane is the response,
_Inanis est responsio_, or the like--
To wit, that each of all those characters,
_Quod singula elementa epistolæ_,
Had first of all been traced for her by him,
_Fuerant per eum prius designata_,
And then, the ink applied a-top of that,
_Et deinde, superinducto calamo_,
The piece, she says, became her handiwork,
_Per eam, efformata, ut ipsa asserit_.
Inane were such response! (a second time:)
Her husband outlined her the whole, forsooth?
_Vir ejus lineabat epistolam?_
What, she confesses that she wrote the thing,
_Fatetur eam scripsisse_, (scorn that scathes!)
That she might pay obedience to her lord?
_Ut viro obtemperaret, apices_
(Here repeat charge with proper varied phrase)
_Eo designante, ipsaque calamum_
_Super inducente?_ By such argument,
_Ita pariter_, she seeks to show the same,
(Ay, by Saint Joseph and what saints you please)
_Epistolam ostendit, medius fidius_,
No voluntary deed but fruit of force!
_Non voluntarie sed coacte scriptam!_
That 's the way to write Latin, friend my Fisc!
Bottini is a beast, one barbarous:
Look out for him when he attempts to say
"Armed with a pistol, Guido followed her!"
Will not I be beforehand with my Fisc,
Cut away phrase by phrase from underfoot!
_Guido Pompiliam_--Guido thus his wife
Following with igneous engine, shall I have?
_Armis munitus igneis persequens--_
_Arma sulphurea gestans_, sulphury arms,
Or, might one style a pistol--popping-piece?
_Armatus breviori sclopulo?_
We 'll let him have been armed so, though it make
Somewhat against us: I had thought to own--
Provided with a simple travelling-sword,
_Ense solummodo viatorio_
_Instructus:_ but we 'll grant the pistol here:
Better we lost the cause than lacked the gird
At the Fisc's Latin, lost the Judge's laugh!
It 's Venturini that decides for style.
Tommati rather goes upon the law.
So, as to law,--

Ah, but with law ne'er hope
To level the fellow,--don't I know his trick!
How he draws up, ducks under, twists aside!
He 's a lean-gutted hectic rascal, fine
As pale-haired red-eyed ferret which pretends
'T is ermine, pure soft snow from tail to snout.
He eludes law by piteous looks aloft.
Lets Latin glance off as he makes appeal
To saint that 's somewhere in the ceiling-top:
Do you suppose I don't conceive the beast?
Plague of the ermine-vermin! For it takes,
It takes, and here 's the fellow Fisc, you see,
And Judge, you 'll not be long in seeing next!
Confound the fop--he 's now at work like me:
Enter his study, as I seem to do,
Hear him read out his writing to himself!
I know he writes as if he spoke: I hear
The hoarse shrill throat, see shut eyes, neck shot-forth,
--I see him strain on tiptoe, soar and pour
Eloquence out, nor stay nor stint at all--
Perorate in the air, then quick to press
With the product! What abuse of type and sheet!
He 'll keep clear of my cast, my logic-throw,
Let argument slide, and then deliver swift
Some bowl from quite an unguessed point of stand--
Having the luck o' the last word, the reply!
A plaguy cast, a mortifying stroke:
You face a fellow--cries, "So, there you stand?
But I discourteous jump clean o'er your head!
You take ship-carpentry for pilotage,
Stop rat-holes, while a sea sweeps through the breach,--
Hammer and fortify at puny points?
Do, clamp and tenon, make all tight and safe!
'T is here and here and here you ship a sea,
No good of your stopped leaks and littleness!"

Yet what do I name "little and a leak"?
The main defence o' the murder's used to death,
By this time, dry bare bones, no scrap we pick:
Safer I worked the new, the unforeseen,
The nice by-stroke, the fine and improvised
Point that can titillate the brain o' the Bench
Torpid with over-teaching, long ago!
As if Tommati (that has heard, reheard
And heard again, first this side and then that--
Guido and Pietro, Pietro and Guido, din
And deafen, full three years, at each long ear)
Don't want amusement for instruction now,
Won't rather feel a flea run o'er his ribs,
Than a daw settle heavily on his head!
Oh, I was young and had the trick of fence,
Knew subtle pass and push with careless right--
My left arm ever quiet behind back,
With dagger ready: not both hands to blade!
Puff and blow, put the strength out, Blunder-bore!
There 's my subordinate, young Spreti, now,
Pedant and prig,--he 'll pant away at proof,
That 's his way!

Now for mine--to rub some life
Into one's choppy fingers this cold day!
I trust Cinuzzo ties on tippet, guards
The precious throat on which so much depends!
Guido must be all goose-flesh in his hole,
Despite the prison-straw: bad Carnival
For captives! no sliced fry for him, poor Count!

Carnival-time,--another providence!
The town a-swarm with strangers to amuse,
To edify, to give one's name and fame
In charge of, till they find, some future day,
Cintino come and claim it, his name too,
Pledge of the pleasantness they owe papa--
Who else was it cured Rome of her great qualms,
When she must needs have her own judgment?--ay,
When all her topping wits had set to work,
Pronounced already on the case: mere boys,
Twice Cineruggiolo's age with half his sense,
As good as tell me, when I cross the court,
"Master Arcangeli!" (plucking at my gown)
"We can predict, we comprehend your play,
We 'll help you save your client." Tra-la-la!
I 've travelled ground, from childhood to this hour,
To have the town anticipate my track?
The old fox takes the plain and velvet path,
The young hound's predilection,--prints the dew,
Don't he, to suit their pulpy pads of paw?
No! Burying nose deep down i' the briery bush,
Thus I defend Count Guido.
Where are we weak?
First, which is foremost in advantage too,
Our murder,--we call, killing,--is a fact
Confessed, defended, made a boast of: good!
To think the Fisc claimed use of torture here,
And got thereby avowal plump and plain
That gives me just the chance I wanted,--scope
Not for brute-force but ingenuity,
Explaining matters, not denying them!
One may dispute,--as I am bound to do,
And shall,--validity of process here:
Inasmuch as a noble is exempt
From torture which plebeians undergo
In such a case: for law is lenient, lax,
Remits the torture to a nobleman
Unless suspicion be of twice the strength
Attaches to a man born vulgarly:
We don't card silk with comb that dresses wool.
Moreover, 't was severity undue
In this case, even had the lord been lout.
What utters, on this head, our oracle,
Our Farinacci, my Gamaliel erst,
In those immortal "Questions"? This I quote:
"Of all the tools at Law's disposal, sure
That named _Vigiliarum_ is the best--
That is, the worst--to whoso needs must bear:
Lasting, as it may do, from some seven hours
To ten; (beyond ten, we 've no precedent;
Certain have touched their ten but, bah, they died!)
It does so efficaciously convince,
That--speaking by much observation here--
Out of each hundred cases, by my count,
Never I knew of patients beyond four
Withstand its taste, or less than ninety-six
End by succumbing: only martyrs four,
Of obstinate silence, guilty or no,--against
Ninety-six full confessors, innocent
Or otherwise,--so shrewd a tool have we!"
No marvel either: in unwary hands,
Death on the spot is no rare consequence:
As indeed all but happened in this case
To one of ourselves, our young tough peasant-friend
The accomplice called Baldeschi: they were rough,
Dosed him with torture as you drench a horse,
Not modify your treatment to a man:
So, two successive days he fainted dead,
And only on the third essay, gave up,
Confessed like flesh and blood. We could reclaim,--
Blockhead Bottini giving cause enough!
But no,--we 'll take it as spontaneously
Confessed: we 'll have the murder beyond doubt.
Ah, fortunate (the poet's word reversed)
Inasmuch as we know our happiness!
Had the antagonist left dubiety,
Here were we proving murder a mere myth,
And Guido innocent, ignorant, absent,--ay,
Absent! He was--why, where should Christian be?--
Engaged in visiting his proper church,
The duty of us all at Christmas-time,
When Caponsacchi, the seducer, stung
To madness by his relegation, cast
About him and contrived a remedy
In murder: since opprobrium broke afresh,
By birth o' the babe, on him the imputed sire.
He it was quietly sought to smother up
His shame and theirs together,--killed the three,
And fled--(go seek him where you please to search)--
Just at the time when Guido, touched by grace,
Devotions ended, hastened to the spot,
Meaning to pardon his convicted wife,
"Neither do I condemn thee, go in peace!"--
And thus arrived i' the nick of time to catch
The charge o' the killing, though great-heartedly
He came but to forgive and bring to life.
Doubt ye the force of Christmas on the soul?
"Is thine eye evil because mine is good?"

So, doubtless, had I needed argue here
But for the full confession round and sound!
Thus might you wrong some kingly alchemist,--
Whose concern should not be with showing brass
Transmuted into gold, but triumphing,
Rather, about his gold changed out of brass,
Not vulgarly to the mere sight and touch,
But in the idea, the spiritual display,
The apparition buoyed by winged words
Hovering above its birthplace in the brain,--
Thus would you wrong this excellent personage
Forced, by the gross need, to gird apron round,
Plant forge, light fire, ply bellows,--in a word,
Demonstrate: when a faulty pipkin's crack
May disconcert you his presumptive truth!
Here were I hanging to the testimony
Of one of these poor rustics--four, ye gods!
Whom the first taste of friend the Fiscal's cord
May drive into undoing my whole speech,
Undoing, on his birthday,--what is worse,--
My son and heir!
I wonder, all the same,
Not so much at those peasants' lack of heart;
But--Guido Franceschini, nobleman,
Bear pain no better! Everybody knows
It used once, when my father was a boy,
To form a proper, nay, important point
I' the education of our well-born youth,
That they took torture handsomely at need,
Without confessing in this clownish guise.
Each noble had his rack for private use,
And would, for the diversion of a guest,
Bid it be set up in the yard of arms,
And take thereon his hour of exercise,--
Command the varletry stretch, strain their best,
While friends looked on, admired my lord could smile
'Mid tugging which had caused an ox to roar.
Men are no longer men!

--And advocates
No longer Farinacci, let us add,
If I one more time fly from point proposed!
So, _Vindicatio_--here begins the speech!
_Honoris causa;_ thus we make our stand:
Honor in us had injury, we prove.
Or if we fail to prove such injury
More than misprision of the fact,--what then?
It is enough, authorities declare,
If the result, the deed in question now,
Be caused by confidence that injury
Is veritable and no figment: since,
What, though proved fancy afterward, seemed fact
At the time, they argue shall excuse result.
That which we do, persuaded of good cause
For what we do, hold justifiable!--
So casuists bid: man, bound to do his best,
They would not have him leave that best undone
And mean to do his worst,--though fuller light
Show best was worst and worst would have been best.
Act by the present light!--they ask of man.
_Ultra quod hic non agitur_, besides
It is not anyway our business here,
_De probatione adulterii_,
To prove what we thought crime was crime indeed,
_Ad irrogandam pœnam_, and require
Its punishment: such nowise do we seek:
_Sed ad effectum_, but 't is our concern,
_Excusandi_, here to simply find excuse,
_Occisorem_, for who did the killing-work,
_Et ad illius defensionem_, (mark
The difference) and defend the man, just that!
_Quo casu levior probatio_
_Exuberaret_, to which end far lighter proof
Suffices than the prior case would claim:
It should be always harder to convict,
In short, than to establish innocence.
Therefore we shall demonstrate first of all
That Honor is a gift of God to man
Precious beyond compare: which natural sense
Of human rectitude and purity,--
Which white, man's soul is born with,--brooks no touch:
Therefore, the sensitivest spot of all,
Wounded by any wafture breathed from black,
Is--honor within honor, like the eye
Centred i' the ball--the honor of our wife.
Touch us o' the pupil of our honor, then,
Not actually,--since so you slay outright,--
But by a gesture simulating touch,
Presumable mere menace of such taint,--
This were our warrant for eruptive ire
"To whose dominion I impose no end."

(Virgil, now, should not be too difficult
To Cinoncino,--say, the early books.
Pen, truce to further gambols! _Poscimur!_)

Nor can revenge of injury done here
To the honor proved the life and soul of us,
Be too excessive, too extravagant:
Such wrong seeks and must have complete revenge.
Show we this, first, on the mere natural ground:
Begin at the beginning, and proceed
Incontrovertibly. Theodoric,
In an apt sentence Cassiodorus cites,
Propounds for basis of all household law--
I hardly recollect it, but it ends,
"Bird mates with bird, beast genders with his like,
And brooks no interference." Bird and beast?
The very insects ... if they wive or no,
How dare I say when Aristotle doubts?
But the presumption is they likewise wive,
At least the nobler sorts; for take the bee
As instance,--copying King Solomon,--
Why that displeasure of the bee to aught
Which savors of incontinency, makes
The unchaste a very horror to the hive?
Whence comes it bees obtain their epithet
Of _castæ apes_, notably "the chaste"?
Because, ingeniously saith Scaliger,
(The young sage,--see his book of table-talk)
"Such is their hatred of immodest act,
They fall upon the offender, sting to death."
I mind a passage much confirmative
I' the Idyllist (though I read him Latinized)--
"Why," asks a shepherd, "is this bank unfit
For celebration of our vernal loves?"
"Oh swain," returns the instructed shepherdess,
"Bees swarm here, and would quick resent our warmth!"
Only cold-blooded fish lack instinct here,
Nor gain nor guard connubiality:
But beasts, quadrupedal, mammiferous,
Do credit to their beasthood: witness him
That Ælian cites, the noble elephant,
(Or if not Ælian, somebody as sage)
Who seeing, much offence beneath his nose,
His master's friend exceed in courtesy
The due allowance to his master's wife,
Taught them good manners and killed both at once,
Making his master and the world admire.
Indubitably, then, that master's self,
Favored by circumstance, had done the same
Or else stood clear rebuked by his own beast.
_Adeo, ut qui honorem spernit_, thus,
Who values his own honor not a straw,--
_Et non recuperare curat_, nor
Labors by might and main to salve its wound,
_Se ulciscendo_, by revenging him,
_Nil differat a belluis_, is a brute,
_Quinimo irrationabilior_
_Ipsismet belluis_, nay, contrariwise,
Much more irrational than brutes themselves,
Should be considered, _reputetur!_ How?
If a poor animal feel honor smart,
Taught by blind instinct nature plants in him,
Shall man,--confessed creation's masterstroke,
Nay, intellectual glory, nay, a god,
Nay, of the nature of my Judges here,--
Shall man prove the insensible, the block,
The blot o' the earth he crawls on to disgrace?
(Come, that 's both solid and poetic!) Man
Derogate, live for the low tastes alone,
Mean creeping cares about the animal life?
_Absit_ such homage to vile flesh and blood!

(May Gigia have remembered, nothing stings
Fried liver out of its monotony
Of richness, like a root of fennel, chopped
Fine with the parsley: parsley-sprigs, I said--
Was there need I should say "and fennel too"?
But no, she cannot have been so obtuse!
To our argument! The fennel will be chopped.)

From beast to man next mount we--ay, but, mind,
Still mere man, not yet Christian,--that, in time!
Not too fast, mark you! 'T is on Heathen grounds
We next defend our act: then, fairly urge--
If this were done of old, in a green tree,
Allowed in the Spring rawness of our kind,
What may be licensed in the Autumn dry
And ripe, the latter harvest-tide of man?
If, with his poor and primitive half-lights,
The Pagan, whom our devils served for gods,
Could stigmatize the breach of marriage-vow
As that which blood, blood only might efface,--
Absolve the husband, outraged, whose revenge
Anticipated law, plied sword himself,--
How with the Christian in full blaze of noon?
Shall not he rather double penalty,
Multiply vengeance, than, degenerate,
Let privilege be minished, droop, decay?
Therefore set forth at large the ancient law!
Superabundant the examples be
To pick and choose from. The Athenian Code,
Solon's, the name is serviceable,--then,
The Laws of the Twelve Tables, that fifteenth,--
"Romulus" likewise rolls out round and large.
The Julian; the Cornelian: Gracchus' Law:
So old a chime, the bells ring of themselves!
Spreti can set that going if he please,
I point you, for my part, the belfry plain,
Intent to rise from dusk, _diluculum_,
Into the Christian day shall broaden next.

First, the fit compliment to His Holiness
Happily reigning: then sustain the point--
All that was long ago declared as law
By the natural revelation, stands confirmed
By Apostle and Evangelist and Saint,--
To wit--that Honor is man's supreme good.
Why should I balk Saint Jerome of his phrase?
_Ubi honor non est_, where no honor is,
_Ibi contemptus est;_ and where contempt,
_Ibi injuria frequens;_ and where that,
The frequent injury, _ibi et indignatio;_
And where the indignation, _ibi quies_
_Nulla:_ and where there is no quietude,
Why, _ibi_, there, the mind is often cast
Down from the heights where it proposed to dwell,
_Mens a proposito sæpe dejicitur_.
And naturally the mind is so cast down,
Since harder 't is, _quum difficilius sit,_
_Iram cohibere_, to coerce one's wrath,
_Quam miracula facere_, than work miracles,--
So Gregory smiles in his First Dialogue.
Whence we infer, the ingenuous soul, the man
Who makes esteem of honor and repute,
Whenever honor and repute are touched,
Arrives at term of fury and despair,
Loses all guidance from the reason-check:
As in delirium or a frenzy-fit,
Nor fury nor despair he satiates,--no,
Not even if he attain the impossible,
O'erturn the hinges of the universe
To annihilate--not whoso caused the smart
Solely, the author simply of his pain,
But the place, the memory, _vituperii_,
O' the shame and scorn: _quia_,--says Solomon,
(The Holy Spirit speaking by his mouth
In Proverbs, the sixth chapter near the end)
--Because, the zeal and fury of a man,
_Zelus et furor viri_, will not spare,
_Non parcet_, in the day of his revenge,
_In die vindictæ_, nor will acquiesce,
_Nec acquiescet_, through a person's prayers,
_Cujusdam precibus,--nec suscipiet_,
Nor yet take, _pro redemptione_, for
Redemption, _dona plurium_, gifts of friends,
Mere money-payment to compound for ache.
Who recognizes not my client's case?
Whereto, as strangely consentaneous here,
Adduce Saint Bernard in the Epistle writ
To Robertulus, his nephew: "Too much grief,
_Dolor quippe nimius non deliberat_,
Does not excogitate propriety,
_Non verecundatur_, nor knows shame at all,
_Non consulit rationem_, nor consults
Reason, _non dignitatis metuit_
_Damnum_, nor dreads the loss of dignity;
_Modum et ordinem_, order and the mode,
_Ignorat_, it ignores:" why, trait for trait,
Was ever portrait limned so like the life?
(By Cavalier Maratta, shall I say?
I hear he 's first in reputation now.)
Yes, that of Samson in the Sacred Text:
That 's not so much the portrait as the man!
Samson in Gaza was the antetype
Of Guido at Rome: observe the Nazarite!
Blinded he was,--an easy thing to bear:
Intrepidly he took imprisonment,
Gyves, stripes, and daily labor at the mill:
But when he found himself, i' the public place,
Destined to make the common people sport,
Disdain burned up with such an impetus
I' the breast of him, that, all the man one fire,
_Moriatur_, roared he, let my soul's self die,
_Anima mea_, with the Philistines!
So, pulled down pillar, roof, and death and all,
_Multosque plures interfecit_, ay,
And many more he killed thus, _moriens_,
Dying, _quam vivus_, than in his whole life,
_Occiderat_, he ever killed before.
Are these things writ for no example, Sirs?
One instance more, and let me see who doubts!
Our Lord himself, made all of mansuetude,
Sealing the sum of sufferance up, received
Opprobrium, contumely and buffeting
Without complaint: but when he found himself
Touched in his honor never so little for once,
Then outbroke indignation pent before--
"_Honorem meum nemini dabo!_" "No,
My honor I to nobody will give!"
And certainly the example so hath wrought,
That whosoever, at the proper worth,
Apprises worldly honor and repute,
Esteems it nobler to die honored man
Beneath Mannaia, than live centuries
Disgraced in the eye o' the world. We find Saint Paul
No recreant to this faith delivered once:
"Far worthier were it that I died," cries he,
_Expedit mihi magis mori_, "than
That any one should make my glory void,"
_Quam ut gloriam meam quis evacuet!_
See, _ad Corinthienses:_ whereupon
Saint Ambrose makes a comment with much fruit,
Doubtless my Judges long since laid to heart,
So I desist from bringing forward here.
(I can't quite recollect it.)

Have I proved
_Satis superque_, both enough and to spare,
That Revelation old and new admits
The natural man may effervesce in ire,
O'erflood earth, o'erfroth heaven with foamy rage,
At the first puncture to his self-respect?
Then, Sirs, this Christian dogma, this law-bud
Full-blown now, soon to bask the absolute flower
Of Papal doctrine in our blaze of day,--
Bethink you, shall we miss one promise-streak,
One doubtful birth of dawn crepuscular,
One dew-drop comfort to humanity,
Now that the chalice teems with noonday wine?
Yea, argue Molinists who bar revenge--
Referring just to what makes out our case!
Under old dispensation, argue they,
The doom of the adulterous wife was death,
Stoning by Moses' law. "Nay, stone her not,
Put her away!" next legislates our Lord;
And last of all, "Nor yet divorce a wife!"
Ordains the Church, "she typifies ourself,
The Bride no fault shall cause to fall from Christ."
Then, as no jot nor tittle of the Law
Has passed away--which who presumes to doubt?
As not one word of Christ is rendered vain--
Which, could it be though heaven and earth should pass?
--Where do I find my proper punishment
For my adulterous wife, I humbly ask
Of my infallible Pope,--who now remits
Even the divorce allowed by Christ in lieu
Of lapidation Moses licensed me?
The Gospel checks the Law which throws the stone,
The Church tears the divorce-bill Gospel grants:
Shall wives sin and enjoy impunity?
What profits me the fulness of the days,
The final dispensation, I demand,
Unless Law, Gospel, and the Church subjoin,
"But who hath barred thee primitive revenge,
Which, like fire damped and dammed up, burns more fierce?
Use thou thy natural privilege of man,
Else wert thou found like those old ingrate Jews,
Despite the manna-banquet on the board,
A-longing after melons, cucumbers,
And such like trash of Egypt left behind!"

(There was one melon had improved our soup:
But did not Cinoncino need the rind
To make a boat with? So I seem to think.)

Law, Gospel, and the Church--from these we leap
To the very last revealment, easy rule
Befitting the well-born and thorough-bred
O' the happy day we live in, not the dark
O' the early rude and acorn-eating race.
"Behold," quoth James, "we bridle in a horse
And turn his body as we would thereby!"
Yea, but we change the bit to suit the growth,
And rasp our colt's jaw with a rugged spike,
We hasten to remit our managed steed
Who wheels round at persuasion of a touch.
Civilization bows to decency,
The acknowledged use and wont: 't is manners--mild
But yet imperative law--which make the man.
Thus do we pay the proper compliment
To rank, and that society of Rome
Hath so obliged us by its interest,
Taken our client's part instinctively,
As unaware defending its own cause.
What _dictum_ doth Society lay down
I' the case of one who hath a faithless wife?
Wherewithal should the husband cleanse his way?
Be patient and forgive? Oh, language fails,--
Shrinks from depicturing his turpitude!
For if wronged husband raise not hue and cry,
_Quod si maritus de adulterio non_
_Conquereretur_, he 's presumed a--foh!
_Presumitur leno:_ so, complain he must.
But how complain? At your tribunal, lords?
Far weighter challenge suits your sense, I wot!
You sit not to have gentlemen propose
Questions gentility can itself discuss.
Did not you prove that to our brother Paul?
The Abate, _quum judicialiter_
_Prosequeretur_, when he tried the law,
_Guidonis causam_, in Count Guido's case,
_Accidit ipsi_, this befell himself,
_Quod risum moverit et cachinnos_, that
He moved to mirth and cachinnation, all
Or nearly all, _fere in omnibus_
_Etiam sensatis et cordatis_, men
Strong-sensed, sound-hearted, nay, the very Court,
_Ipsismet in judicibus_, I might add,
_Non tamen dicam_. In a cause like this,
So multiplied were reasons _pro_ and _con_,
Delicate, intertwisted and obscure,
That Law refused loan of a finger-tip
To unravel, readjust the hopeless twine,
Since, half-a-dozen steps outside Law's seat,
There stood a foolish trifler with a tool
A-dangle to no purpose by his side,
Had clearly cut the embroilment in a trice.
_Asserunt enim unanimiter_
_Doctores_, for the Doctors all assert,
That husbands, _quod mariti_, must be held
_Viles, cornuti reputantur_, vile,
Fronts branching forth a florid infamy,
_Si propriis manibus_, if with their own hands,
_Non sumunt_, they fail straight to take revenge,
_Vindictam_, but expect the deed be done
By the Court--_expectant illam fieri_
_Per judices, qui summopere rident_, which
Gives an enormous guffaw for reply,
_Et cachinnantur_. For he ran away,
_Deliquit enim_, just that he might 'scape
The censure of both counsellors and crowd,
_Ut vulgi et Doctorum evitaret_
_Censuram_, and lest so he superadd
To loss of honor ignominy too,
_Et sic ne istam quoque ignominiam_
_Amisso honori superadderet_.
My lords, my lords, the inconsiderate step
Was--we referred ourselves to Law at all!
Twit me not with, "Law else had punished you!"
Each punishment of the extra-legal step,
To which the high-born preferably revert,
Is ever for some oversight, some slip
I' the taking vengeance, not for vengeance' self.
A good thing, done unhandsomely, turns ill;
And never yet lacked ill the law's rebuke.
For pregnant instance, let us contemplate
The luck of Leonardus,--see at large
Of Sicily's Decisions sixty-first.
This Leonard finds his wife is false: what then?
He makes her own son snare her, and entice
Out of the town walls to a private walk,
Wherein he slays her with commodity.
They find her body half-devoured by dogs:
Leonard is tried, convicted, punished, sent
To labor in the galleys seven years long:
Why? For the murder? Nay, but for the mode!
_Malus modus occidendi_, ruled the Court,
An ugly mode of killing, nothing more!
Another fructuous sample,--see "_De Re_
_Criminali_," in Matthæus' divine piece.
Another husband, in no better plight,
Simulates absence, thereby tempts his wife;
On whom he falls, out of sly ambuscade,
Backed by a brother of his, and both of them
Armed to the teeth with arms that law had blamed.
_Nimis dolose_, overwilily,
_Fuisse operatum_, did they work,
Pronounced the law: had all been fairly done
Law had not found him worthy, as she did,
Of four years' exile. Why cite more? Enough
Is good as a feast--(unless a birthday-feast
For one's Cinuccio) so, we finish here.
My lords, we rather need defend ourselves
Inasmuch as, for a twinkling of an eye,
We hesitatingly appealed to law,--
Than need deny that, on mature advice,
We blushingly bethought us, bade revenge
Back to its simple proper private way
Of decent self-dealt gentlemanly death.
Judges, here is the law, and here beside,
The testimony! Look to it!
Pause and breathe!
So far is only too plain; we must watch:
Bottini will scarce hazard an attack
Here: best anticipate the fellow's play,
And guard the weaker places--warily ask,
What if considerations of a sort,
Reasons of a kind, arise from out the strange
Peculiar unforeseen new circumstance
Of this our (candor owns) abnormal act,
To bar the right of us revenging so?
"Impunity were otherwise your meed:
Go slay your wife and welcome,"--may be urged,--
"But why the innocent old couple slay,
Pietro, Violante? You may do enough,
Not too much, not exceed the golden mean:
Neither brute-beast nor Pagan, Gentile, Jew,
Nor Christian, no nor votarist of the mode,
Is justified to push revenge so far!"

No, indeed? Why, thou very sciolist!
The actual wrong, Pompilia seemed to do,
Was virtual wrong done by the parents here--
Imposing her upon us as their child--
Themselves allow: then, her fault was their fault,
Her punishment be theirs accordingly!
But wait a little, sneak not off so soon!
Was this cheat solely harm to Guido, pray?
The precious couple you call innocent,--
Why, they were felons that Law failed to clutch,
_Qui ut fraudarent_, who that they might rob,
_Legitime vocatos_, folk law called,
_Ad fidei commissum_, true heirs to the Trust,
_Partum supposuerunt_, feigned this birth,
_Immemores reos factos esse_, blind
To the fact that, guilty, they incurred thereby,
_Ultimi supplicii_, hanging or what 's 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 neighbor'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 neighbor just a dance i' the air
Under the gallows: so, we throttle him.
That neighbor's Law, that 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,
('T was Jupiter's own joke,) with babes to boot,
_Priamique pisinnos_, in Homeric phrase?
Shame!----and so ends my 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 quædam_, 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 cædibus_
_Contaminatam 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 quæ 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 mulet,
_Punita, et ad pœnam_, and to pains,
_Temporalem_, for a certain space of time,
_In monasterio_, in a convent.

(Ay,
_In monasterio!_ He mismanages
_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!_ Tush!
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 broaden, 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 killed o' the moment, at the meeting her
In company with the priest: then did the tongue
O' the Brazen Head give license, 'Time is now!'
Wait to make mind up? 'Time is past' it peals.
Friend, you are competent to mastery
O' the passions that confessedly explain
An outbreak: you 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 honor bears a wound: "For, wound," said he,
"My body, and the smart soon mends and ends:
While, wound my soul where honor sits and rules,
Longer the sufferance, stronger grows the pain,
Being _ex incontinenti_, fresh as first."
But try another tack, urge common sense
By way of contrast: say--Too true, my lords!
We did demur, awhile did hesitate:
Since 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 finds he
An instinct that compels him love his wife?
Rather is he presumably her foe.
So, let him ponder long in 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 wrath.
Our case is, that the thing we lost, we found:
The honor, 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 gaby 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 jaunting thence
To 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
O' the spot, some eight months since, which round sound egg,
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 whole and indecorous week!"
Hath so the Molinism, the canker, lords,
Eaten to our 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 chants,
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 whetted courage if 't were blunt?
Meantime, allow we kept the house a week,
Suppose not we were idle in our mew!
Picture us raging here and raving there--
"'Money?' I need none. 'Friends?' The word is null.
Restore 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,
Or else invent the fight his grandsire fought:
"I see this! I see that!"

(See nothing else,
Or I shall scarce see lamb's fry in an hour!
What to the uncle, as I bid advance
The smoking dish? "Fry suits a tender tooth!
Behooves we 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!)