Chapter LXXII: Epilogue: FIRST SPEAKER, as David (13)

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 stand his match!
Therefore, first aggravation: we made up--
Over and above our simple murderous selves--
A regular assemblage of armed men,
_Coadunatio armatorum_,--ay,
Unluckily it was the very judge
That sits in judgment on our cause to-day
Who 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 wherefore use bad means to a good end?
Crime being meant not done,--you punish still
The means to crime, whereon you haply pounce,
Though accident have balked them of effect.
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 else!
Of many crimes committed with a view
To one main crime, Law overlooks the less,
Intent upon the large. Suppose a man
Having in view commission of a theft,
Climbs the town-wall: 't is for the theft he hangs,
In case he stands convicted of such theft:
Law remits whipping, due to who clomb wall
Through bravery or wantonness alone,
Just to dislodge a daw's nest, plant a flag.
So I interpret you the manly mind
Of him about to judge both you and me,--
Our Governor, who, being no Fisc, my Fisc,
Cannot have blundered on ineptitude!
Next aggravation,--that the arms themselves
Were specially of such forbidden sort
Through shape or length or breadth, as, prompt, Law plucks
From single hand of solitary man,
Making 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 poniards with the double prong,
Horn-like, when tines make bold the antlered buck,
Each prong of brittle glass--wherewith to stab
And break off short and so let fragment stick
Fast in the flesh to baffle surgery:
Such being the Genoese blade with hooked 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!
Thy charge runs that we killed three innocents:
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 slain folk find small comfort in the 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 rationalize 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 is "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
We word by the way to fools who cast their flout
On Guido--"Punishment were pardoned him,
But here the punishment exceeds offence:
He might be just, but he was cruel too!"
Why, grant there seems a kind of cruelty
In downright stabbing people he could maim,
(If so you stigmatize the stern and strict)
Still, Guido meant no cruelty--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 folk,
Merely disfigure, nowise make them die.
_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
By mutilation of each paramour--
As Galba in the Horatian satire grieved
--These were condemned to the galleys, cast for guilt
Exceeding simple murder of a wife.
But why? Because of ugliness, and not
Cruelty, in the said revenge, I trow!
_Ex causa abscissionis partium;_
_Qui nempe id facientes reputantur_
_Naturæ inimici_, man revolts
Against them as the natural enemy.
Pray, grant to one who meant to slit the nose
And slash the cheek and slur the mouth, at most,
A somewhat more humane award than these
Obtained, these natural enemies of man!
_Objectum funditus corruit_, flat you fall,
My Fisc! I waste no kick on you, but pass.
Third aggravation: that our act was done--
Not in the public street, where safety lies,
Not in the by-place, caution may avoid,
Wood, cavern, desert, spots contrived for crime,--
But in the very house, home, nook and nest,
O' the victims, murdered in their dwelling-place,
_In domo ac habitatione propria_,
Where all presumably is peace and joy.
The spider, crime, pronounce we twice a pest
When, creeping from congenial cottage, she
Taketh hold with her hands, to horrify
His household more, i' the palace of the king.
All three were housed and safe and confident.
Moreover, the permission that our wife
Should have at length _domum pro carcere_,
Her own abode in place of prison--why,
We ourselves granted, by our other self
And proxy Paolo: did we make such grant,
Meaning a lure?--elude the vigilance
O' the jailer, lead her to commodious death,
While we ostensibly relented?
Ay,
Just so did we, nor otherwise, my Fisc!
Is vengeance lawful? We demand our right,
But find it will be questioned or refused
By jailer, turnkey, hangdog,--what know we?
Pray, how is it we should conduct ourselves?
To gain our private right--break public peace,
Do you bid us?--trouble order with our broils?
Endanger ... shall I shrink to own ... ourselves?--
Who want no broken head nor bloody nose
(While busied slitting noses, breaking heads)
From the first tipstaff that may interfere!
_Nam quicquid sit_, for howsoever it be,
_An de consensu nostro_, if with leave
Or not, _a monasterio_, from the nuns,
_Educta esset_, she had been led forth,
_Potuimus id dissimulare_, we
May well have granted leave in pure pretence,
_Ut aditum habere_, that thereby
An entry we might compass, a free move
_Potuissemus_, to her easy death,
_Ad eam occidendam_. Privacy
O' the hearth, and sanctitude of home, say you?
Shall we give man's abode more privilege
Than God's?--for in the churches where he dwells,
_In quibus assistit Regum Rex_, by means
Of his essence, _per essentiam_, all the same,
_Et nihilominus_, therein, _in eis,_
_Ex justa via delinquens_, whoso dares
To take a liberty on ground enough,
Is pardoned, _excusatur:_ that 's our case--
Delinquent through befitting cause. You hold,
To punish a false wife in her own house
Is graver than, what happens every day,
To hale a debtor from his hiding-place
In church protected by the Sacrament?
To this conclusion have I brought my Fisc?
Foxes have holes, and fowls o' the air their nests;
Praise you the impiety that follows, Fisc?
Shall false wife yet have where to lay her head?
"_Contra Fiscum definitum est!_" He's done!
"_Surge et scribe_," make a note of it!
--If I may dally with Aquinas' word.
Or in the death-throe does he mutter still,
Fourth aggravation, that we changed our garb,
And rusticized ourselves with uncouth hat,
Rough vest and goatskin wrappage; murdered thus
_Mutatione vestium_, in disguise,
Whereby mere murder got complexed with wile,
Turned _homicidium ex insidiis?_ Fisc,
How often must I round thee in the ears--
All means are lawful to a lawful end?
Concede he had the right to kill his wife:
The Count indulged in a travesty; why?
_De ilia ut vindictam sumeret_,
That on her he might lawful vengeance take,
_Commodius_, with more ease, _et tutius_,
And safelier: wants he warrant for the step?
Read to thy profit how the Apostle once
For ease and safety, when Damascus raged,
Was let down in a basket by the wall,
To 'scape the malice of the governor
(Another sort of Governor boasts Rome!)
--Many are of opinion,--covered close,
Concealed with--what except that very cloak
He left behind at Troas afterward?
I shall not add a syllable: Molinists may!
Well, have we more to manage? Ay, indeed!
Fifth aggravation, that our wife reposed
_Sub potestate judicis_, beneath
Protection of the judge,--her house was styled
A prison, and his power became its guard
In lieu of wall and gate and bolt and bar.
This is a tough point, shrewd, redoubtable:
Because we have to supplicate that judge
Shall overlook wrong done the judgment-seat.
Now, I might suffer my own nose be pulled,
As man: but then as father ... if the Fisc
Touched one hair of my boy who held my hand
In confidence he could not come to harm
Crossing the Corso, at my own desire,
Going to see those bodies in the church--
What would you say to that, Don Hyacinth?
This is the sole and single knotty point:
For, bid Tommati blink his interest,
You laud his magnanimity the while:
But balk Tommati's office,--he talks big!
"My predecessors in the place,--those sons
O' the prophets that may hope succeed me here,--
Shall I diminish their prerogative?
Count Guido Franceschini's honor!--well,
Has the Governor of Rome none?"

You perceive,
The cards are all against us. Make a push,
Kick over table, as shrewd gamesters do!
We, do you say, encroach upon the rights,
Deny the omnipotence o' the Judge forsooth?
We, who have only been from first to last
Intending that his purpose should prevail,
Nay more, at times, anticipating it
At risk of his rebuke?

But wait awhile!
Cannot we lump this with the sixth and last
Of the aggravations--that the Majesty
O' the Sovereign here received a wound? to wit,
_Læsa Majestas_, since our violence
Was out of envy to the course of law,
_In odium litis?_ We out short thereby
Three pending suits, promoted by ourselves
I' the main,--which worsens crime, _accedit ad_
_Exasperationem criminis!_

Yes, here the eruptive wrath with full effect!
How, did not indignation chain my tongue,
Could I repel this last, worst charge of all!
(There is a porcupine to barbecue;
Gigia can jug a rabbit well enough,
With sour-sweet sauce and pine-pips; but, good Lord,
Suppose the devil instigate the wench
To stew, not roast him? Stew my porcupine?
If she does, I know where his quills shall stick!
Come, I must go myself and see to things:
I cannot stay much longer stewing here.)
Our stomach ... I mean, our soul is stirred within,
And we want words. We wounded Majesty?
Fall under such a censure, we?--who yearned
So much that Majesty dispel the cloud
And shine on us with healing on her wings,
That we prayed Pope _Majestas'_ very self
To anticipate a little the tardy pack,
Bell us forth deep the authoritative bay
Should start the beagles into sudden yelp
Unisonous,--and, Gospel leading Law,
Grant there assemble in our own behoof
A Congregation, a particular Court,
A few picked friends of quality and place,
To hear the several matters in dispute,
Causes big, little, and indifferent,
Bred of our marriage like a mushroom-growth,
All at once (can one brush off such too soon?)
And so with laudable dispatch decide
Whether we, in the main (to sink detail)
Were one the Pope should hold fast or let go.
"What, take the credit from the Law?" you ask?
Indeed, we did! Law ducks to Gospel here:
Why should Law gain the glory and pronounce
A judgment shall immortalize the Pope?
Yes: our self-abnegating policy
Was Joab's--we would rouse our David's sloth,
Bid him encamp against a city, sack
A place whereto ourselves had long laid seige,
Lest, taking it at last, it take our name
Nor be styled _Innocentinopolis_.
But no! The modesty was in alarm,
The temperance refused to interfere,
Returned us our petition with the word
"_Ad judices suos_," "Leave him to his Judge!"
As who should say, "Why trouble my repose?
Why consult Peter in a simple case,
Peter's wife's sister in her fever-fit
Might solve as readily as the Apostle's self?
Are my Tribunals posed by aught so plain?
Hath not my Court a conscience? It is of age,
Ask it!"

We do ask,--but, inspire reply
To the Court thou bidst me ask, as I have asked--
Oh thou, who vigilantly dost attend
To even the few, the ineffectual words
Which rise from this our low and mundane sphere
Up to thy region out of smoke and noise,
Seeking corroboration from thy nod
Who art all justice--which means mercy too,
In a low noisy smoky world like ours
Where Adam's sin made peccable his seed!
We venerate the father of the flock,
Whose last faint sands of life, the frittered gold,
Fall noiselessly, yet all too fast, o' the cone
And tapering heap of those collected years:
Never have these been hurried in their flow,
Though justice fain would jog reluctant arm,
In eagerness to take the forfeiture
Of guilty life: much less shall mercy sue
In vain that thou let innocence survive,
Precipitate no minim of the mass
O' the all-so precious moments of thy life,
By pushing Guido into death and doom!

(Our Cardinal engages to go read
The Pope my speech, and point its beauties out.
They say, the Pope has one half-hour, in twelve,
Of something like a moderate return
Of the intellectuals,--never much to lose!--
If I adroitly plant this passage there,
The Fisc will find himself forestalled, I think,
Though he stand, beat till the old ear-drum break!
--Ah, boy of my own bowels, Hyacinth,
Wilt ever catch the knack, requite the pains
Of poor papa, become proficient too
I' the how and why and when, the time to laugh,
The time to weep, the time, again, to pray,
And all the times prescribed by Holy Writ?
Well, well, we fathers can but care, but cast
Our bread upon the waters!)
In a word,
These secondary charges go to ground,
Since secondary, and superfluous,--motes
Quite from the main point: we did all and some,
Little and much, adjunct and principal,
_Causa honoris_. Is there such a cause
As the sake of honor? By that sole test try
Our action, nor demand if more or less,
Because of the action's mode, we merit blame
Or maybe deserve praise! The Court decides.
Is the end lawful? It allows the means:
What we may do, we may with safety do,
And what means "safety" we ourselves must judge.
Put case a person wrongs me past dispute:
If my legitimate vengeance be a blow,
Mistrusting my bare arm can deal that blow,
I claim co-operation of a stick;
Doubtful if stick be tough, I crave a sword;
Diffident of ability in fence,
I fee a friend, a swordsman to assist:
Take one--he may be coward, fool or knave:
Why not take fifty?--and if these exceed
I' the due degree of drubbing, whom accuse
But the first author of the aforesaid wrong
Who put poor me to such a world of pains?
Surgery would have just excised a wart;
The patient made such pother, struggled so
That the sharp instrument sliced nose and all.
Taunt us not that our friends performed for pay!
Ourselves had toiled for simple honor's sake:
But country clowns want dirt they comprehend,
The piece of gold! Our reasons, which suffice
Ourselves, be ours alone; our piece of gold
Be, to the rustic, reason he approves!
We must translate our motives like our speech,
Into the lower phrase that suits the sense
O' the limitedly apprehensive. Let
Each level have its language! Heaven speaks first
To the angel, then the angel tames the word
Down to the ear of Tobit: he, in turn,
Diminishes the message to his dog,
And finally that dog finds how the flea
(Which else, importunate, might check his speed)
Shall learn its hunger must have holiday,
By application of his tongue or paw:
So many varied sorts of language here,
Each following each with pace to match the step,
_Haud passibus æquis!_

Talking of which flea,
Reminds me I must put in special word
For the poor humble following,--the four friends,
_Sicarii_, our assassins caught and caged.
Ourselves are safe in your approval now:
Yet must we care for our companions, plead
The cause o' the poor, the friends (of old-world faith)
Who lie in tribulation for our sake.
_Pauperum Procurator_ is my style:
I stand forth as the poor man's advocate:
And when we treat of what concerns the poor,
_Et cum agatur de pauperibus_,
In bondage, _carceratis_, for their sake,
_In eorum causis_, natural piety,
_Pietas_, ever ought to win the day,
_Triumphare debet, quia ipsi sunt_,
Because those very paupers constitute,
_Thesaurus Christi_, all the wealth of Christ.
Nevertheless I shall not hold you long
With multiplicity of proofs, nor burn
Candle at noontide, clarify the clear.
There beams a case refulgent from our books--
Castrensis, Butringarius, everywhere
I find it burn to dissipate the dark.
'T is this: a husband had a friend, which friend
Seemed to him over-friendly with his wife
In thought and purpose,--I pretend no more.
To justify suspicion or dispel,
He bids his wife make show of giving heed,
Semblance of sympathy--propose, in fine,
A secret meeting in a private place.
The friend, enticed thus, finds an ambuscade,
To wit, the husband posted with a pack
Of other friends, who fall upon the first
And beat his love and life out both at once.
These friends were brought to question for their help;
Law ruled, "The husband being in the right,
Who helped him in the right can scarce be wrong"--
_Opinio_, an opinion every way,
_Multum tenenda cordi_, heart should hold!
When the inferiors follow as befits
The lead o' the principal, they change their name,
And, _non dicuntur_, are no longer called
His mandatories, _mandatorii_,
But helpmates, _sed auxiliatores;_ since
To that degree does honor's sake lend aid,
_Adeo honoris causa est efficax_,
That not alone, _non solum_, does it pour
Itself out, _se diffundat_, on mere friends
We bring to do our bidding of this sort,
_In mandatorios simplices_, but sucks
Along with it in wide and generous whirl,
_Sed etiam assassinii qualitate_
_Qualificatos_, people qualified
By the quality of assassination's self,
Dare I make use of such neologism,
_Ut utar verbo_.

Haste we to conclude:
Of the other points that favor, leave some few
For Spreti; such as the delinquents' youth.
One of them falls short, by some months, of age
Fit to be managed by the gallows; two
May plead exemption from our law's award,
Being foreigners, subjects of the Granduke--
I spare that bone to Spreti, and reserve
Myself the juicier breast of argument--
Flinging the breast-blade i' the face o' the Fisc,
Who furnished me the tidbit: he must needs
Play off his privilege and rack the clowns,--
And they, at instance of the rack, confess
All four unanimously made resolve,--
The night o' the murder, in brief minute snatched
Behind the back of Guido as he fled,--
That, since he had not kept his promise, paid
The money for the murder on the spot,
So, reaching home again, might please ignore
The pact or pay them in improper coin,--
They one and all resolved, these hopeful friends,
'T were best inaugurate the morrow's light,
Nature recruited with her due repose,
By killing Guido as he lay asleep
Pillowed on wallet which contained their fee.

I thank the Fisc for knowledge of this fact:
What fact could hope to make more manifest
Their rectitude, Guido's integrity?
For who fails recognize the touching truth
That these poor rustics bore no envy, hate,
Malice nor yet uncharitableness
Against the people they had put to death?
In them, did such an act reward itself?
All done was to deserve the simple pay,
Obtain the bread clowns earn by sweat of brow,
And missing which, they missed of every thing--
Hence claimed pay, even at expense of life
To their own lord, so little warped (admire!)
By prepossession, such the absolute
Instinct of equity in rustic souls!
Whereas our Count, the cultivated mind,
He, wholly rapt in his serene regard
Of honor, he contemplating the sun,
Who hardly marks if taper blink below,
He, dreaming of no argument for death
Except a vengeance worthy noble hearts,--
Dared not so desecrate the deed, forsooth,
Vulgarize vengeance, as defray its cost
By money dug from out the dirty earth,
Irritant mere, in Ovid's phrase, to ill.
What though he lured base hinds by lucre's hope,--
The only motive they could masticate,
Milk for babes, not strong meat which men require?
The deed done, those coarse hands were soiled enough,
He spared them the pollution of the pay.
So much for the allegement, thine, my Fisc,
_Quo nil absurdius_, than which naught more mad,
_Excogitari potest_, may be squeezed
From out the cogitative brain of thee!

And now, thou excellent the Governor!
(Push to the peroration) _cæterum_
_Enixe supplico_, I strive in prayer,
_Ut dominis meis_, that unto the Court,
_Benigna fronte_, with a gracious brow,
_Et oculis serenis_, and mild eyes,
_Perpendere placeat_, it may please them weigh,
_Quod dominus Guido_, that our noble Count,
_Occidit_, did the killing in dispute,
_Ut ejus honor tumulatus_, that
The honor of him buried fathom-deep
In infamy, _in infamia_, might arise,
_Resurgeret_, as ghost breaks sepulchre!
_Occidit_, for he killed, _uxorem_, wife,
_Quia illi fuit_, since she was to him,
_Opprobrio_, a disgrace and nothing more!
_Et genitores_, killed her parents too,
_Qui_, who, _postposita verecundia_,
Having thrown off all sort of decency,
_Filiam repudiarunt_, had renounced
Their daughter, _atque declarare non_
_Erubuerunt_, nor felt blush tinge cheek,
Declaring, _meretricis genitam_
_Esse_, she was the offspring of a drab,
_Ut ipse dehonestaretur_, just
That so himself might lose his social rank!
_Cujus mentem_, and which daughter's heart and soul,
They, _perverterunt_, turned from the right course,
_Et ad illicitos amores non_
_Dumtaxat pellexerunt_, and to love
Not simply did alluringly incite,
_Sed vi obedientiæ_, but by force
O' the duty, _filialis_, daughters owe,
_Coegerunt_, forced and drove her to the deed:
_Occidit_, I repeat he killed the clan,
_Ne scilicet amplius in dedecore_,
Lest peradventure longer life might trail,
_Viveret_, link by link his turpitude,
_Invisus consanguineis_, hateful so
To kith and kindred, _a nobilibus_
_Notatus_, shunned by men of quality,
_Relictus ab amicis_, left i' the lurch
By friends, _ab omnibus derisus_, turned
A common hack-block to try edge of jokes,
_Occidit_, and he killed them here in Rome,
_In Urbe_, the Eternal City, Sirs,
_Nempe quæ alias spectata est_,
The appropriate theatre which witnessed once,
_Matronam nobilem_, Lucretia's self,
_Abluere pudicitiæ maculas_,
Wash off the spots of her pudicity,
_Sanguine proprio_, with her own pure blood;
_Quæ vidit_, and which city also saw,
_Patrem_, Virginius, _undequaque_, quite,
_Impunem_, with no sort of punishment,
Nor, _et non illaudatum_, lacking praise,
_Sed polluentem parricidio_,
Imbrue his hands with butchery, _filiæ_,
Of chaste Virginia, to avoid a rape,
_Ne raperetur ad stupra;_ so to heart,
_Tanti illi cordi fuit_, did he take,
_Suspicio_, the mere fancy men might have,
_Honoris amittendi_, of fame's loss,
_Ut potius voluerit filia_
_Orbari_, he preferred to lose his child,
_Quam illa incederet_, rather than she walk
The ways an, _inhonesta_, child disgraced,
_Licet non sponte_, though against her will.
_Occidit_--killed them, I reiterate--
_In propria domo_, in their own abode,
_Ut adultera et parentes_, that each wretch,
_Conscii agnoscerent_, might both see and say,
_Nullum locum_, there 's no place, _nullumque esse_
_Asylum_, nor yet refuge of escape,
_Impenetrabilem_, shall serve as bar,
_Honori læso_, to the wounded one
In honor; _neve ibi opprobria_
_Continuarentur_, killed them on the spot
Moreover, dreading lest within those walls
The opprobrium peradventure be prolonged,
_Et domus quæ testis fuit turpium_,
And that the domicile which witnessed crime,
_Esset et pœnæ_, might watch punishment:
_Occidit_, killed, I round you in the ears,
_Quia alio modo_, since by other mode,
_Non poterat ejus existimatio_,
There was no possibility his fame,
_Læsa_, gashed griesly, _tam enormiter_,
_Ducere cicatrices_, might be healed:
_Occidit ut exemplum præberet_
_Uxoribus_, killed her, so to lesson wives
_Jura conjugii_, that the marriage-oath,
_Esse servanda_, must be kept henceforth:
_Occidit denique_, killed her, in a word,
_Ut pro posse honestus viveret_,
That he, please God, might creditably live,
_Sin minus_, but if fate willed otherwise,
_Proprii honoris_, of his outraged fame,
_Offensi_, by Mannaia, if you please,
_Commiseranda victima caderet_,
The pitiable victim he should fall!

Done! I' the rough, i' the rough! But done! And, lo,
Landed and stranded lies my very speech,
My miracle, my monster of defence--
Leviathan into the nose whereof
I have put fish-hook, pierced his jaw with thorn,
And given him to my maidens for a play!
I' the rough: to-morrow I review my piece
Tame here and there undue floridity.
It's hard: you have to plead before these priests
And poke at them with Scripture, or you pass
For heathen and, what's worse, for ignorant
O' the quality o' the Court and what it likes
By way of illustration of the law.
To-morrow stick in this, and throw out that,
And, having first ecclesiasticized,
Regularize the whole, next emphasize,
Then latinize, and lastly Cicero-ize,
Giving my Fisc his finish. There's my speech!
And where's my fry, and family and friends?
Where's that huge Hyacinth I mean to hug
Till he cries out, "_Jam satis!_ Let me breathe!"
Now, what an evening have I earned to-day!
Hail, ye true pleasures, all the rest are false!
Oh, the old mother, oh, the fattish wife!
Rogue Hyacinth shall put on paper toque,
And wrap himself around with mamma's veil
Done up to imitate papa's black robe,
(I'm in the secret of the comedy,--
Part of the program leaked out long ago!)
And call himself the Advocate o' the Poor,
Mimic Don father that defends the Count:
And for reward shall have a small full glass
Of manly red rosolio to himself,
--Always provided that he conjugate
_Bibo_, I drink, correctly--nor be found
Make the _perfectum, bipsi_, as last year!
How the ambitious do so harden heart
As lightly hold by these home-sanctitudes,
To me is matter of bewilderment--
Bewilderment! Because ambition's range
Is nowise tethered by domestic tie:
Am I refused an outlet from my home
To the world's stage?--whereon a man should play
The man in public, vigilant for law,
Zealous for truth, a credit to his kind,
Nay,--since, employing talent so, I yield
The Lord his own again with usury,--
A satisfaction, yea, to God himself!
Well, I have modelled me by Agur's wish,
"Remove far from me vanity and lies,
Feed me with food convenient for me!" What
I' the world should a wise man require beyond?
Can I but coax the good fat little wife
To tell her fool of a father the mad prank
His scapegrace nephew played this time last year
At Carnival! He could not choose, I think,
But modify that inconsiderate gift
O' the cup and cover (somewhere in the will
Under the pillow, some one seems to guess)
--Correct that clause in favor of a boy
The trifle ought to grace, with name engraved,
Would look so well, produced in future years
To pledge a memory, when poor papa
Latin and law are long since laid at rest--
_Hyacintho dono dedit avus!_ Why,
The wife should get a necklace for her pains,
The very pearls that made Violante proud,
And Pietro pawned for half their value once,--
Redeemable by somebody, _ne sit_
_Marita quæ rotundioribus_
_Onusta mammis ... baccis ambulet:_
Her bosom shall display the big round balls,
No braver proudly borne by wedded wife!
With which Horatian promise I conclude.

Into the pigeon-hole with thee, my speech!
Off and away, first work, then play, play, play!
Bottini, burn thy books, thou blazing ass!
Sing "Tra-la-la, for, lambkins, we must live!"

IX

JURIS DOCTOR JOHANNES-BAPTISTA BOTTINIUS,

FISCI ET REV. CAM. APOSTOL. ADVOCATUS

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,--
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,--
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience--Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide--
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count--One, two--

* * * * *

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,--
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
To manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Affords my lords their Holy Family,--
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,--girding loin and lighting lamp,--
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,--
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
--Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,--to art's surface rising from her depth,--
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)--
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
That poseth? (be the phrase accorded me!)
Each feminine delight of florid lip,
Eyes brimming o'er and brow bowed down with love,
Marmoreal neck and bosom uberous,--
Glad on the paper in a trice they go
To help his notion of the Mother-maid:
Methinks I see it, chalk a little stumped!
Yea and her babe--that flexure of soft limbs,
That budding face imbued with dewy sleep,
Contribute each an excellence to Christ.
Nay, since he humbly lent companionship,
Even the poor ass, unpanniered and elate
Stands, perks an ear up, he a model too;
While clouted shoon, staff, scrip and water-gourd,--
Aught may betoken travel, heat and haste,--
No jot nor tittle of these but in its turn
Ministers to perfection of the piece:
Till now, such piece before him, part by part,--
Such prelude ended,--pause our painter may,
Submit his fifty studies one by one,
And in some sort boast "I have served my lords."

But what? And hath he painted once this while?
Or when ye cry, "Produce the thing required,
Show us our picture shall rejoice its niche,
Thy Journey through the Desert done in oils!"--
What, doth he fall to shuffling 'mid his sheets,
Fumbling for first this, then the other fact
Consigned to paper,--"studies," bear the term!--
And stretch a canvas, mix a pot of paste,
And fasten here a head and there a tail,
(The ass hath one, my Judges!) so dove-tail
Or, rather, ass-tail in, piece sorrily out--
By bits of reproduction of the life--
The picture, the expected Family?
I trow not! do I miss with my conceit
The mark, my lords?--not so my lords were served!
Rather your artist turns abrupt from these,
And preferably buries him and broods
(Quite away from aught vulgar and extern)
On the inner spectrum, filtered through the eye,
His brain-deposit, bred of many a drop,
_E pluribus unum:_ and the wiser he!
For in that brain,--their fancy sees at work,
Could my lords peep indulged,--results alone,
Not processes which nourish such results,
Would they discover and appreciate,--life
Fed by digestion, not raw food itself,
No gobbets but smooth comfortable chyme
Secreted from each snapped-up crudity,--
Less distinct, part by part, but in the whole
Truer to the subject,--the main central truth
And soul o' the picture, would my Judges spy,--
Not those mere fragmentary studied facts
Which answer to the outward frame and flesh--
Not this nose, not that eyebrow, the other fact
Of man's staff, woman's stole or infant's clout,
But lo, a spirit-birth conceived of flesh,
Truth rare and real, not transcripts, fact and false.
The studies--for his pupils and himself!
The picture be for our eximious Rome
And--who knows?--satisfy its Governor,
Whose new wing to the villa he hath bought
(God give him joy of it) by Capena, soon
('T is bruited) shall be glowing with the brush
Of who hath long surpassed the Florentine,
The Urbinate and ... what if I dared add,
Even his master, yea the Cortonese,--
I mean the accomplished Ciro Ferri, Sirs!
(--Did not he die? I 'll see before I print.)

End we exordium, Phœbus plucks my ear!
Thus then, just so and no whit otherwise,
Have I,--engaged as I were Ciro's self,
To paint a parallel, a Family,
The patriarch Pietro with his wise old wife
To boot (as if one introduced Saint Anne
By bold conjecture to complete the group)
And juvenile Pompilia with her babe,
Who, seeking safety in the wilderness,
Were all surprised by Herod, while outstretched
In sleep beneath a palm-tree by a spring,
And killed--the very circumstance I paint,
Moving the pity and terror of my lords--
Exactly so have I, a month at least,
Your Fiscal, made me cognizant of facts,
Searched out, pried into, pressed the meaning forth
Of every piece of evidence in point,
How bloody Herod slew these innocents,--
Until the glad result is gained, the group
Demonstrably presented in detail,
Their slumber and his onslaught,--like as life.
Yea, and, availing me of help allowed
By law, discreet provision lest my lords
Be too much troubled by effrontery,--
The rack, law plies suspected crime withal--
(Law that hath listened while the lyrist sang
"_Lene tormentum ingenio admoves_,"
Gently thou joggest by a twinge the wit,
"_Plerumque duro_," else were slow to blab!)
Through this concession my full cup runs o'er:
The guilty owns his guilt without reserve.
Therefore by part and part I clutch my case
Which, in entirety now,--momentous task--
My lords demand, so render them I must,
Since, one poor pleading more and I have done.
But shall I ply my papers, play my proofs,
Parade my studies, fifty in a row,
As though the Court were yet in pupilage,
Claimed not the artist's ultimate appeal?
Much rather let me soar the height prescribed
And, bowing low, proffer my picture's self!
No more of proof, disproof,--such virtue was,
Such vice was never in Pompilia, now!
(Far better say "Behold Pompilia!"--for
I leave the family as unmanageable,
And stick to just one portrait, but life-size.)
Hath calumny imputed to the fair
A blemish, mole on cheek or wart on chin,
Much more, blind hidden horrors best unnamed?
Shall I descend to prove you, point by point,
Never was knock-knee known nor splay-foot found
In Phryne? (I must let the portrait go,
Content me with the model, I believe)--
--I prove this? An indignant sweep of hand,
Dash at and doing away with drapery,
And,--use your eyes, Athenians, smooth she smiles!
Or,--since my client can no longer smile,
And more appropriate instances abound,--
What is this Tale of Tarquin, how the slave
Was caught by him, preferred to Collatine?
Thou, even from thy corpse-clothes virginal,
Look'st the lie dead, Lucretia!
Thus at least
I, by the guidance of antiquity,
(Our one infallible guide,) now operate,
Sure that the innocence thus shown is safe;
Sure, too, that, while I plead, the echoes cry
(Lend my weak voice thy trump, sonorous Fame!)
"Monstrosity the Phrynean shape shall mar,
Lucretia's soul comport with Tarquin's lie,
When thistles grow on vines or thorns yield figs,
Or oblique sentence leave this judgment-seat!"

A great theme: may my strength be adequate!
For--paint Pompilia, dares my feebleness?
How did I unaware engage so much
--Find myself undertaking to produce
A faultless nature in a flawless form?
What 's here? Oh, turn aside nor dare the blaze
Of such a crown, such constellation, say,
As jewels here thy front, Humanity!
First, infancy, pellucid as a pearl;
Then, childhood--stone which, dewdrop at the first,
(An old conjecture) sucks, by dint of gaze,
Blue from the sky and turns to sapphire so:
Yet both these gems eclipsed by, last and best,
Womanliness and wifehood opaline,
Its milk-white pallor,--chastity,--suffused
With here and there a tint and hint of flame,--
Desire,--the lapidary loves to find.
Such jewels bind conspicuously thy brow,
Pompilia, infant, child, maid, woman, wife--
Crown the ideal in our earth at last!
What should a faculty like mine do here?
Close eyes, or else, the rashlier hurry hand!

Which is to say,--lose no time but begin!
_Sermocinando ne declamem_, Sirs,
_Ultra clepsydram_, as our preachers smile,
Lest I exceed my hour-glass. Whereupon,
As Flaccus prompts, I dare the epic plunge--
Begin at once with marriage, up till when
Little or nothing would arrest your love,
In the easeful life o' the lady; lamb and lamb,
How do they differ? Know one, you know all
Manners of maidenhood: mere maiden she.
And since all lambs are like in more than fleece,
Prepare to find that, lamb-like, she too frisks--
O' the weaker sex, my lords, the weaker sex!
To whom, the Teian teaches us, for gift,
Not strength,--man's dower,--but beauty, nature gave,
"Beauty in lieu of spears, in lieu of shields!"
And what is beauty's sure concomitant,
Nay, intimate essential character,
But melting wiles, deliciousest deceits,
The whole redoubted armory of love?
Therefore of vernal pranks, dishevellings
O' the hair of youth that dances April in,
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?

For lo, advancing Hymen and his pomp!
_Discedunt nunc amores_, loves, farewell!
_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?
'T is 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._
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,
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 Guidonion 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,
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 this running from the rod would last!

Since, even while I speak, the end is reached:
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
Partake the nuptial bower no soul can 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.)

But what if, as 't is wont with plant and wife,
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
'T is 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
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?
Which butterfly of the wide air shall brag
"I was preferred to Guido"--when 't is clear
The cup, he quaffs at, lay with olent breast
Open to gnat, midge, bee 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,
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 neighborhood
Yet greets its lord no lighter by a grain.

Nay, even so, he shall be satisfied!
Concede we there was reason in his wrong,
Grant we his grievance and content the man!
For lo, Pompilia, she submits herself;
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?
Calm in his levity,--indulge the quip!--
Since 't is a levite bears the bell away,
Parades him henceforth as Pompilia's choice,
'T is 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,
Well-born, of culture, young and vigorous,
Comely too, since precise the precept points--
On the selected levite be there found
Nor mole nor scar nor blemish, lest the mind
Come all uncandid through the thwarting flesh!
Was not the son of Jesse ruddy, sleek,
Pleasant to look on, pleasant every way?
Since well he smote the harp and sweetly sang,
And danced till Abigail came out to see,
And seeing smiled and smiling ministered
The raisin-cluster and the cake of figs,
With ready meal refreshed the gifted youth,
Till Nabal, who was absent shearing sheep,
Felt heart sink, took to bed (discreetly done--
They might have been beforehand with him else)
And died--would Guido have behaved as well?
But ah, the faith of early days is gone,
_Heu prisca fides!_ Nothing died in him
Save courtesy, good sense and proper trust,
Which, when they ebb from souls they should o'erflow,
Discover stub, weed, sludge and ugliness.
(The Pope, we know, is Neapolitan
And relishes a sea-side simile.)
Deserted by each charitable wave,
Guido, left high and dry, shows jealous now!
Jealous avouched, paraded: tax the fool
With any peccadillo, he responds,
"Truly I beat my wife through jealousy,
Imprisoned her and punished otherwise,
Being jealous: now would threaten, sword in hand,
Now manage to mix poison in her sight,
And so forth: jealously I dealt, in fine."
Concede thus much, and what remains to prove?
Have I to teach my masters what effect
Hath jealousy, and how, befooling men,
It makes false true, abuses eye and ear,
Turns mere mist adamantine, loads with sound
Silence, and into void and vacancy
Crowds a whole phalanx of conspiring foes?
Therefore who owns "I watched with jealousy
My wife," adds "for no reason in the world!"
What need that, thus proved madman, he remark
"The thing I thought a serpent proved an eel"?--
Perchance the right Comacchian, six foot length,
And not an inch too long for that rare pie
(Master Arcangeli has heard of such)
Whose succulence makes fasting bearable;
Meant to regale some moody splenetic
Who, pleasing to mistake the donor's gift,
Spying I know not what Lernæan snake
I' the luscious Lenten creature, stamps forsooth
The dainty in the dust.

Enough! Prepare,
Such lunes announced, for downright lunacy!
_Insanit homo_, threat succeeds to threat,
And blow redoubles blow,--his wife, the block.
But, if a block, shall not she jar the hand
That buffets her? The injurious idle stone
Rebounds and hits the head of him who flung.
Causeless rage breeds, i' the wife now, rageful cause,
Tyranny wakes rebellion from its sleep.
Rebellion, say I?--rather, self-defence,
Laudable wish to live and see good days,
Pricks our Pompilia now to fly the fool
By any means, at any price,--nay, more,
Nay, most of all, i' the very interest
O' the fool that, baffled of his blind desire
At any price, were truliest victor so.
Shall he effect his crime and lose his soul?
No, dictates duty to a loving wife!
Far better that the unconsummate blow,
Adroitly balked by her, should back again,
Correctively admonish his own pate!

Crime then,--the Court is with me?--she must crush;
How crush it? By all efficacious means;
And these,--why, what in woman should they be?
"With horns the bull, with teeth the lion fights;
To woman," quoth the lyrist quoted late,
"Nor teeth, nor horns, but beauty, Nature gave!"
Pretty i' the Pagan! Who dares blame the use
Of armory thus allowed for natural,--
Exclaim against a seeming-dubious play
O' the sole permitted weapon, spear and shield
Alike, resorted to i' the circumstance
By poor Pompilia? Grant she somewhat plied
Arts that allure, the magic nod and wink,
The witchery of gesture, spell of word,
Whereby the likelier to enlist this friend,
Yea stranger, as a champion on her side?
Such man, being but mere man, ('t was all she knew,)
Must be made sure by beauty's silken bond,
The weakness that subdues the strong, and bows
Wisdom alike and folly. Grant the tale
O' the husband, which is false, were proved and true
To the letter--or the letters, I should say,
Abominations he professed to find
And fix upon Pompilia and the priest,--
Allow them hers--for though she could not write,
In early days of Eve-like innocence
That plucked no apple from the knowledge-tree,
Yet, at the Serpent's word, Eve plucks and eats
And knows--especially how to read and write:
And so Pompilia,--as the move o' the maw,
Quoth Persius, makes a parrot bid "Good day!"
A crow salute the concave, and a pie
Endeavor at proficiency in speech,--
So she, through hunger after fellowship,
May well have learned, though late, to play the scribe:
As indeed, there 's one letter on the list
Explicitly declares did happen here.
"You thought my letters could be none of mine,"
She tells her parents--"mine, who wanted skill;
But now I have the skill, and write, you see!"
She needed write love-letters, so she learned,
"_Negatas artifex sequi voces_"--though
This letter nowise 'scapes the common lot,
But lies i' the condemnation of the rest,
Found by the husband's self who forged them all.
Yet, for the sacredness of argument,
For this once an exemption shall it plead--
Anything, anything to let the wheels
Of argument run glibly to their goal!
Concede she wrote (which were preposterous)
This and the other epistle,--what of it?
Where does the figment touch her candid fame?
Being in peril of her life--"my life,
Not an hour's purchase," as the letter runs,--
And having but one stay in this extreme,
Out of the wide world but a single friend--
What could she other than resort to him,
And how with any hope resort but thus?
Shall modesty dare bid a stranger brave
Danger, disgrace, nay death in her behalf--
Think to entice the sternness of the steel
Yet spare love's loadstone moving manly mind?
--Most of all, when such mind is hampered so
By growth of circumstance athwart the life
O' the natural man, that decency forbids
He stoop and take the common privilege,
Say frank "I love," as all the vulgar do.
A man is wedded to philosophy,
Married to statesmanship; a man is old;
A man is fettered by the foolishness
He took for wisdom and talked ten years since;
A man is, like our friend the Canon here,
A priest, and wicked if he break his vow:
Shall he dare love, who may be Pope one day?
Despite the coil of such encumbrance here,
Suppose this man could love, unhappily,
And would love, dared he only let love show!
In case the woman of his love speaks first,
From what embarrassment she sets him free!
"'T is I who break reserve, begin appeal,
Confess that, whether you love me or no,
I love you!" What an ease to dignity,
What help of pride from the hard high-backed chair
Down to the carpet where the kittens bask,
All under the pretence of gratitude!

From all which, I deduce--the lady here
Was bound to proffer nothing short of love
To the priest whose service was to save her. What?
Shall she propose him lucre, dust o' the mine,
Rubbish o' the rock, some diamond, muckworms prize,
Some pearl secreted by a sickly fish?
Scarcely! She caters for a generous taste.
'T is love shall beckon, beauty bid to breast.
Till all the Samson sink into the snare!
Because, permit the end--permit therewith
Means to the end!
How say you, good my lords?
I hope you heard my adversary ring
The changes on this precept: now, let me
Reverse the peal! _Quia dato licito fine,_
_Ad illum assequendum ordinata_
_Non sunt damnanda media_,--licit end
Enough was found in mere escape from death,
To legalize our means illicit else
Of feigned love, false allurement, fancied fact.
Thus Venus losing Cupid on a day,
(See that _Idyllium Moschi_) seeking help,
In the anxiety of motherhood,
Allowably promised, "Who shall bring report
Where he is wandered to, my wingèd babe,
I give him for reward a nectared kiss;
But who brings safely back the truant's self,
His be a super-sweet makes kiss seem cold!"
Are not these things writ for example-sake?

To such permitted motive, then, refer
All those professions, else were hard explain,
Of hope, fear, jealousy, and the rest of love!
He is Myrtillus, Amaryllis she,
She burns, he freezes,--all a mere device
To catch and keep the man, may save her life,
Whom otherwise nor catches she nor keeps!
Worst, once, turns best now: in all faith, she feigns:
Feigning,--the liker innocence to guilt,
The truer to the life in what she feigns!
How if Ulysses,--when, for public good
He sunk particular qualms and played the spy,
Entered Troy's hostile gate in beggar's garb--
How if he first had boggled at this clout,
Grown dainty o'er that clack-dish? Grime is grace
To whoso gropes amid the dung for gold.