Front matter (continued 11)

Religious Poems. (1) More or less expressions of the poet’s own faith are “La Saisiaz,” “Christmas Eve and Easter Day,” “The Epistle of Karshish,” “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” “The Pope” (in The Ring and the Book), and “Prospice.” (2) Dramatic utterances concerning religion may be found in “Caliban upon Setebos,” “A Death in the Desert,” “Saul,” and “Johannes Agricola,” amongst many others.

Renan (Epilogue to Dramatis Personæ). The “second speaker” in the Epilogue is described as Renan. Joseph Ernest Renan, philologist, member of the Institute of France, was born Feb. 27th, 1823. He is best known by his Life of Jesus.

Rephan (Asolando, 1889). “Suggested,” as the poet says in a note prefixed to the poem, “by a very early recollection of a pure story by the noble woman and imaginative writer, Jane Taylor, of Norwich.”[3] It will assist the reader to understand the poem if I give an outline of the story which lived so long in Browning’s memory and suggested these verses. “Rephan” is the star mentioned in Jane Taylor’s beautiful story “How it Strikes a Stranger,” contained in the first volume of her work entitled The Contributions of Q. Q. Mrs. Oliphant, in her Literary History of the Nineteenth Century, vol. ii., p. 351, thus describes “How it Strikes a Stranger.” “A little epilogue in which the supposed impression made upon the mind of an angel whose curiosity has tempted him, even at the cost of sharing their mortality, to descend among men, is the theme, recurs to our mind from the recollections of youth with considerable force.” In one of the most ancient and magnificent cities of the East there appeared, in a remote period of antiquity, a stranger of extraordinary aspect. He had no knowledge of the language of the country, and was ignorant of its customs. One day, when residing with one of the nobles of the city, after having been taught the language of the people and having learned something of their modes of thought, he was seen to be gazing with fixed attention upon a certain star in the heavens. He explained that this was his home: he was lately an inhabitant of that tranquil planet, from whence a vain curiosity had tempted him to wander. When the first idea of death was explained to him, he was but slightly moved; but when he was informed that the happiness or misery of the immortal life depended upon a man’s conduct in the present stage of existence, he was deeply moved, and demanded that he should be at once minutely instructed in all that was necessary to prepare himself for death. He lost all interest in wealth and pleasures, and astonished his friends by his absorption in the thoughts which concerned another life. Soon, people treated him with contempt, and even enmity; but this did not annoy him,—he was always kind and compassionate to those about him. To every invitation to do anything inconsistent with his real interests, his one answer was, “I am to die! I am to die!” As we might expect, Mr. Browning takes this simple and beautiful story, and imbues it with his own philosophy till he has made it his own. In the poem the wanderer from the star (Rephan), in compliance with the request of his friends, gives some account of the manner of his life before his human existence began upon our planet. In the land he has left—his native realm—all is at most, nowhere deficiency or excess; on this planet we but guess at a mean. In “Rephan” there is no want; whatever should be, is. There is no growth, for that is change; nothing begins and nothing ends; it fell short in nothing at first, no change was required to mend anything. The stranger explains that, to convey his thoughts, he has to use our language: his own no one who heard him could understand. In “Rephan” better and worse could not be contrasted; all was perfection. Blessing and cursing were alike impossible. There are neither springs nor winters. Time brings no hope and no fear: as is to-day so shall to-morrow be. All were happy, all serene. None were better than he: that would have proved that he lacked somewhat; none worse, for he was faultless. How came it that his perfection grew irksome? How was it his desire arose to become a mortal on our earth? How did soul’s quietude burst into discontent? How long had he stagnated there, where weak and strong, wise and foolish, right and wrong are merged in a neutral Best? He could not say, neither could he tell how the passion arose in his breast. He knew not how he came to learn love by hate, to aspire yet never reach, to suffer that one whom he loved might be happy, to wing knowledge for ignorance. He tells his hearers that they fear, they agonise and die, and he asks them have they no assurance that after this earth-life wrong will prove right? Do they not expect that making shall be mending in the sphere to which their yearnings tend? And so when in his pregnant breast the yearnings grew, a voice said to him: “Wouldst thou strive, not rest? burn and not smoulder? win by contest; no longer be content with wealth, which is but death? Then you have outlived “Rephan,” you are beyond this sphere. There is a higher plane for you. Thy place now is Earth!” It is the old Browning story, the true mark of his highest teaching: the necessity of evil to evoke the highest good, the need of struggle for development, of contest for strength and victory. Simple, good Jane Taylor would not recognise her pretty fable as it comes from Browning’s alembic in the form of Rephan.

Respectability. (Men and Women, 1855; Lyrics, 1863; Dramatic Lyrics, 1868.) The world will let us do just what we like, provided only we take out its licence; import what we like, only we must pay the customs duty; bring into the place what we please, only we must not omit the octroi. Defy or evade these, and the stamp of respectability being withheld, we lose caste. Everything depends on the Government stamp which the officers chalk-mark on our baggage. By conforming we gain the guinea stamp, but run a risk of losing the gold itself. The world proscribes not love, allows the caress, provided only we buy of it our gloves. What the world fears is our contempt for its licence. It is, however, exceedingly placable, and is quite ready to license anything if we pay it the fee and do it the homage. At the Institute, for example, Guizot, hating Montalembert (as Liberalism hates Ultramontanism in theory), will receive him with courtesy, not to say affection. “We are passing the lamps: put your best foot foremost!”

Return of the Druses, The. A Tragedy. (Bells and Pomegranates, IV., 1843.) [The Historical Facts.] The Syrian Druses occupy the mountainous region of the Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. They are found also in the Auranitis and in Palestine proper, to the north-west of the Sea of Tiberias. Crypto-Druses—Druses not by race, but by religion—are believed to dwell in Egypt, near Cairo. It is said that the Syrian Druses number over eighty thousand warriors. They covet no proselytes, and are an exceedingly mysterious, uncommunicative people, though they keep on good terms, as far as possible, with their Christian and Mahometan neighbours. They respect the religion of others, but never disclose the secrets of their own. Of their origin very little has with certainty been ascertained. They do not accept the name of Druses, and regard the term as insulting. They call themselves “disciples of Hamsa,” who was their Messiah, who came to them in the tenth century from the Land of the word of God. Next in rank to Hamsa are the four throne-angels. One of these was the missionary Bohaeddin. Mr. Browning probably refers to him under the name of Bahumid the Renovator. Moktana Bohaeddin committed the Word to writing and intrusted it to a few initiates. They speak Arabic; but the Druses are not considered by ethnologists to belong to the Semitic family. They have a tradition that they belonged originally to China. Whatever may have been the origin of this people, it is evident that they are now a very mixed race, as their religion also is compounded of Judaism, Christianity, and Mahometanism. Mackenzie says: “They have a regular order of priesthood, and a kind of hierarchy. There is a regular system of passwords and signs.” It is certain that there are to be found in their religion traces of Gnosticism and Magianism. One theory of their origin, to which the poet refers in the drama, is to the effect that the Druses are the descendants of a crusader, Count Dreux, who left Godfrey de Bouillon’s army to settle in the Lebanon. “The rise and progress of the religion which gives unity to the race,” according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition, vol. vii., p. 484, “can be stated with considerable precision. As a system of thought it may be traced back in some of its leading principles to the Shiite sect of the Batenians, or Batiniya, whose main doctrine was that every outer has its inner, and every passage in the Koran an allegorical sense; and to the Karamatians, or Karamita, who pushed this method to its furthest limits; as a creed it is somewhat more recent. In the year 386 A.H. (996 A.D.) Hakim Biamrillahi (i.e., he who judges by the command of God), the sixth of the Fatimite caliphs, began to reign; and during the next twenty-five years he indulged in a tyranny at once so terrible and so fantastic, that little doubt can be entertained of his insanity. As madmen sometimes do, he believed that he held direct intercourse with the Deity, or even that he was an incarnation of the Divine intelligence; and in 407 A.H., or 1016 A.D., his claims were made known in the mosque at Cairo, and supported by the testimony of Ismael Darazi.[4] The people showed such bitter hostility to the new gospel that Darazi was compelled to seek safety in flight; but even in absence he was faithful to his god, and succeeded in winning over the ignorant inhabitants of Lebanon. According to Druse authority this great conversion took place in the year 410 A.H. Meanwhile, the endeavours of the caliph to get his divinity acknowledged by the people of Cairo continued. The advocacy of Hasan ben Haidara Fergani was without avail; but in 408 A.H. the new religion found a more successful apostle in the person of Hamze ben Ali ben Ahmed, a Persian mystic, feltmaker by trade, who became Hakim’s vizier, gave form and substance to his creed, and by his ingenious adaptation of its various dogmas to the prejudices of existing sects, finally enlisted an extensive body of adherents. In 411 the caliph was assassinated by contrivance of his sister Sitt Almulk; but it was given out by Hamze that he had only withdrawn for a season, and his followers were encouraged to look forward with confidence to his triumphant return. Darazi, who had acted independently in his apostolate, was branded by Hamze as a heretic; and thus, by a curious anomaly, he is actually held in detestation by the very sect which probably bears his name. The propagation of the faith, in accordance with Hamze’s initiation, was undertaken by Ismael ben Muhammed Temins, Muhammed ben Wahab, Abulkhair Selama, ben Abdalwahab ben Samurri, and Moktana Bohaeddin, the last of whom was known by his writings from Constantinople to the borders of India. In two letters addressed to the Emperor Constantine VIII. and Michael the Paphlagonian, he endeavours to prove that the Christian Messiah reappeared in the person of Hamze (or Hasam).” The Druses call themselves Unitarians or Muahhidin, and believe in the absolute unity of God. He is the essence of life, and although incomprehensible and invisible, is to be known through occasional manifestations in human form. Like the Hindus, they hold that he was incarnated more than once on earth. Hamsa was the precursor of the last manifestation to be (the tenth avatar), not the inheritor of Hakem, who is yet to come. Hamsa was the personification of the “universal wisdom.” Bohaeddin, in his writings, calls him the Messiah. They hold ideas on transmigration which are Pythagorean and cabalistic. They have seven great commandments, which are imparted equally to all the initiated. These would seem to be incorrectly given by most of the encyclopædias. Professor A. L. Rawson, of New York, who is an initiate into the mysteries of the religion of the Druses, gives the following as the actual tenets of the faith. (They are termed the seven “tablets”).—1. The unity of God, or the infinite oneness of Deity; 2. The essential excellence of truth; 3. The law of toleration as to all men and women in opinion; 4. Respect for all men and women as to character and conduct; 5. Entire submission to God’s decrees as to fate; 6. Chastity of body and mind and soul; 7. Mutual help under all conditions. The Druses believe that all other religions were merely intended to prepare the way for their own, and that allegorically it may be discovered in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. They treat with the utmost reverence what are called the Four Books on Mount Lebanon. These are the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Koran. All are bound to keep the seven commandments of Hamsa above mentioned. [The Drama.] Mr. Browning’s drama does not appear to be founded upon any historical facts. The time occupied by the tragedy is one day. Djabal is an initiated Druse, a son of the last Emir, who, when his family was massacred in the island which is the scene of the drama, had made his escape to Europe. He has resolved to return to this islet of the southern Sporades, colonised by the Lebanon Druses and garrisoned by the Knights Hospitallers of Rhodes. He has felt within him a Divine call to liberate his country and restore them to the land from which they are exiled. He dwells upon the wrongs which the people have suffered at the hands of their oppressors, and in his passionate love for his country, and a desire to gratify his revenge for the slaughter of his kindred, has determined to become their liberator. The tragedy opens with the deliberations of the Druse initiates, who are expecting the manifestation of the Hakeem, the incarnation of the vanished Khalif who is to free their people, and who is believed by them to have appeared in the person of Djabal, now returned to the oppressed tribe. The island is governed by a prefect appointed by the Knights of Rhodes in Europe. This prefect has used his authority in a cruel and oppressive manner. Djabal has taken upon himself the redemption of his people, and during his stay in Europe has made a firm friend of a young nobleman, Lois de Dreux, who is about to join the Order of the Knights of Rhodes. His period of probation is to be passed in the island, and for this purpose he has accompanied Djabal on his return. Djabal has secretly resolved that upon his return to his people the cruel prefect, who has almost extirpated the sheikhs, shall be slain. He has secured also the alliance of the Venetians, who have promised that a fleet of their ships shall be prepared to transport the Druses to their home in the Lebanon, and shall be in readiness to receive them when the murder of the prefect shall have liberated his countrymen. The complicated part of the story now begins. Anael is a Druse maiden whose devotion to her nation is the strongest passion of her soul, and who has vowed to wed no one but the man who has delivered her people from the tyranny which oppresses them. That he may win her heart Djabal has declared himself to be the Hakeem, who has become incarnate for the salvation of the Druse nation. He has declared himself to be the long hoped and prayed for divinity, and offered himself to the people in that character. His plan has perfectly succeeded. Anael and her tribe believe that Djabal is the real Hakeem, and that he will liberate the people, show himself as Divine, and exalt her with himself when the work is perfected. He has decreed the death of the tyrant, and Anael knows this. To Anael, Djabal is her God as well as her lover; yet she cannot worship him as Divine. “‘Oh, why is it,’ she asks,

Djabal has deceived himself into a half belief in the sanctity of his mission; but as the day approaches when he is to fulfil his promises his heart fails him, and he loses faith in himself. He struggles with his own heart, and endeavours to be true to himself and people; but he has gone too far, the circumstances in which he is placed are too strong for him, and he is driven forward on the course on which he has entered. He now resolves to solve the difficulty by flight. He will make his escape, but before he does so will kill the prefect with his own hands. He is on his way to the tyrant’s chamber when he meets Anael, and learns from her that she has slain the prefect. He now tells her everything. At first she declines to believe in his falseness; but when a conviction of the truth is forced upon her she refuses to drive him from her heart. The Divine nature of Djabal has been in a sense an obstacle to her love in his character as Hakeem. He has seemed too remote for her merely human affection, and she has never deemed herself worthy to be associated with him in his exaltation. In her determination to kill the tyrant, and in the accomplishment of that act of patriotism, she has been actuated principally by her desire to elevate herself to his level, so that she might have a principal share in the liberation of her nation. They now discover that the murder need not have been committed. Lois de Dreux, the young nobleman who has accompanied Djabal from Europe, has fallen in love with Anael also; and though prohibited by the rules of the Order of knighthood of which he is a postulant, to entangle himself with women, he has aspired to win her love. Lois has represented to the chapter of the Order the cruelties inflicted by their prefect on the people, and has succeeded in obtaining an order for his removal. The young Frankish knight has been elevated by the Order to the position occupied by the deposed governor, so that the liberation of the Druses is now close at hand. Anael urges Djabal to confess his deception and own his imposition to his people. This he refuses to do. She cannot forgive him. When she finds him false and cowardly she takes upon herself to denounce him to the European rulers of the island. Djabal is brought to trial. His accuser is Anael, who is closely veiled till the appropriate moment, when the veil drops, and he is confronted by his lover. His life hangs upon her words. He urges her to speak them; but this she cannot do. Djabal is now man, and man only: he is not separated from her by his Divine nature. She could hardly hope to be one with him in his glory: she can at least be united with him in his degradation and disgrace. All her love for him rises within her, and she hails him “Hakeem!” and falls dead at his feet. The human heart has proved victorious, and the man has conquered the god. Djabal, committing the care of the Druses to his friend Lois, and bidding him guard his people home again and win their blessing for the deed, stabs himself as he bends over the body of the faithful Anael. As he dies the Venetians enter the place and plant the Lion of St. Mark. Djabal’s last cry mingles with their shouts, “On to the mountain! At the mountain, Druses!”

Notes—Act i., Rhodian cross: that of the Knights of St. John (see below). Osman, who founded the Ottoman empire in Asia. White-cross knights: the Knights Hospitallers. They wore a white cross of eight points on a black ground. From 1278 till 1289, when engaged on military duties, they wore a plain straight white cross on a red ground. Patriarch: in Eastern churches a dignitary superior to an archbishop, as the Patriarch of Constantinople, Alexandria, etc. Nuncio: an ambassador from the Pope to an emperor or king. Hospitallers: an order of knights who built a hospital at Jerusalem, in A.D. 1042, for pilgrims. They were called Knights of St. John, and after the removal of the order to Malta Knights of Malta. Candia: the ancient Crete. It was sold to the Venetians in 1194. Rhodes: an island of the Mediterranean. “pro fide”: for the faith. “Bouillon’s war”: the crusade of Godfrey de Bouillon.—Act ii., “sweet cane”: Acorus calamus. It grows in the Levant and in this country; is very aromatic, having a smell when trodden on like incense. Miss Pratt says it has been used from time immemorial for strewing the floors of Norwich Cathedral. Lilith: Adam’s first wife (see note to Adam, Lilith and Eve, and art. Lilith). “incense from a mage-king’s tomb”: students of occult science say that sweet odours have been known to issue from the tombs of magicians, and lamps have been found burning therein when broken open. khandjar: an Eastern weapon.—Act. iii., The venerable chapter: the meeting of an order or community. Bezants: gold coins of Byzantium. “Red-cross rivals of the Temple”: the order of the “Knights Templars” (see notes to The Heretics’ Tragedy). They wore a red cross of eight points.—Act iv., Tiar: a tiara.—Act v., Biamrallah: Hakem Biamr Allah, sixth Fatimite Caliph of Egypt. Fatemite, or Fatimite: named from Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed and wife of Ali, from whom the founder of the dynasty of Fatimites professed to have sprung. “Romaioi, Ioudaioite kai proselutoi” (Gr., Acts ii. 10, 11): “Strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes.”

Reverie. (Asolando, 1889.) In Mr. Browning’s last volume, published in London as he lay dying in Venice, the two closing poems seem strangely and nobly intended to gather into a focus his whole philosophy of life, and give to the world, in two of his most exquisite poems, his fullest and clearest expressions of the faith of his heart and the quintessence of his teaching. Had the poet known they were the last lines he should write, had he foreseen that these were the last accents of his message, it is impossible to imagine that he could have risen higher than he has done in Reverie and the “Epilogue.” The purport of Reverie is to reconcile the ideas of Power and Love—to reconcile by proving them indeed to be one. “Power is Love.” When power is no longer limited, then is the reign of love. As Mr. Browning says in Paracelsus, “with much power always much more love.” That “The All-Great” is “The All-Loving too,” is the teaching of Christianity. That power, in its perfection, must necessarily be love, is a point in Mr. Browning’s philosophical system arrived at independently of dogma. It is the monistic conception of the forces that mould life, as opposed to the dualistic conception. The Power everywhere visible in the universe, pervading everything, in all things from the atom to the sun, making man feel his utter helplessness and insignificance, requires no further demonstration. We are assured that Power is dominant. Our only difficulty is about Love. In face of the evil in the world, the inequalities in life, the dominance of evil, can we say with truth that the All-Powerful is the All-Loving too? Browning in Reverie says that truth comes before us here “fitful and half guessed, half seen, grasped at, not gained, held fast.” Notwithstanding this defect, a single page of the world’s wide book, properly deciphered, explains the whole. We must try the clod ere we test the star; know all our earth elements ere we apply the spectroscope to Mars. It is true that good struggles but evil reigns; yet earth’s good is proved good and incontrovertibly worth loving, and evil can be nothing but a cloud stretched across good’s orb—no orb itself. There is no doubt whatever about the infinity of the power. There is equally no doubt about the value of the good so far as it goes. Let power “but enlarge good’s strait confine,” and perfection stands revealed. “Let on Power devolve Good’s right to co-equal reign!” What is wanted is some law which abolishes everywhere that which thwarts good. And the poet avows his confidence that somewhen Good will praise God unisonous with Power.

Richard, Count of St. Bonifacio (father and son). (Sordello.) Guelfs. In a secret chamber in his palace Palma and Sordello hold earnest conference with each other in the first book of the poem.

Ring and the Book, The. In twelve books. Published in four volumes, each consisting of three books, from 1868 to 1869.

Book I.—When a Roman jeweller makes a ring, he mingles his pure gold with a certain amount of alloy, so as to enable it to bear file and hammer; but, the ring having been fashioned, the alloy is dissolved out with acid, and the ring in all its purity and beauty of pure gold remains perfect. So much for the Ring. For the Book it happened thus:—Mr. Browning was one day wandering about the Square of St. Lorenzo, in Florence, which on that occasion was crammed with booths where odd things of all sorts were for sale; and in one of them he purchased for eightpence an old square yellow book, part print, part manuscript, with this summary of its contents:—

As before the ring was fashioned the pure gold lay in the ingot, so the pure virgin truth of the murder case lay in this book; but it was not in a presentable form and such as a poet could use. As the jeweller adds a little alloy to permit the artistic working of the Ring, so the poet must mix his poetic fancy with the simple legal evidence contained in the Book, and in this manner work up the history for popular edification. And thus we have The Ring and the Book. The simple, hard, legal documents opened the story thus. The accuser and the accused said, in the persons of their advocates, as follows:—The Public Prosecutor demands the punishment of Count Guido Franceschini and his accomplices, for the murder of his wife. Then the Patron of the Poor—the counsel acting on behalf of the accused—protests that Count Guido ought rather to be rewarded, with his four conscientious friends, as sustainers of law and society. It is true, he says, that he killed his wife, but he did it laudably. Then the case was postponed. It was argued that the woman slaughtered was a saint and martyr. More postponement. Then it was argued that she was a miracle of lust and impudence. More witnesses, precedents, and authorities called and quoted on both sides:

only on paper—all the pleadings were in print. The Court pronounced Count Guido guilty, his murdered wife Pompilia pure in thought, word and deed; and signed sentence of death against the whole five accused. But Guido’s counsel had a reserve shot. The Count, as was the frequent custom in those days, was in one of the minor orders of the priesthood, and claimed clerical privilege. Appeal was therefore made to the Pope. Roman society began to talk, the quality took the husband’s part, the Pope was benevolent and unwilling to take life: Guido stood a chance of getting off. But the Pope was shrewd and conscientious; and having mastered the whole matter, said, “Cut off Guido’s head to-morrow, and hang up his mates.” And it was so done. Thus much was untempered gold, as discovered in the little old book. But we want to know more of the matter, and in four volumes (of the original edition) Mr. Browning satisfies us. Who was the handsome young priest, Canon Caponsacchi, who carried off the wife? Who were the old couple, the Comparini, Pietro and his spouse, who, on a Christmas night in a lonely villa, were murdered with Pompilia? Mr. Browning has ferreted it out for us mixed his fancy with the facts to bring them home to us the better. He has been to Arezzo, the Count’s city—the wife’s “trap and cage and torture place.” He stopped at Castelnuovo, where husband and wife and priest for first and last time met face to face. He passed on to Rome the goal, to the home of Pompilia’s foster-parents. He conjures up the vision of the dreadful night when Guido and his wolves cried to the escaped wife, “Open to Caponsacchi!” and the door was opened, showing the mother of the two-weeks’-old babe and her parents the Comparini. He ponders all the story in his soul in Italy, and in London when he returns home; till the ideas take clear shape in his mind, and the whole story lives again in his brain, and he can reproduce for us the facts as they must have occurred. Count Guido Franceschini was descended of an ancient though poor family. He was

He married Pompilia Comparini—young, good, beautiful—at Rome, where she was born; and brought her to his home at Arezzo, where they lived miserable lives. That she might find peace, the wife had run away, in company of the priest Giuseppe Caponsacchi, to her parents at Rome; and the husband had followed with four accomplices, and catching her in a villa on a Christmas night with her parents (putative parents really), had killed the three; the wife being seventeen years old, and the Comparini, husband and wife, seventy. There was Pompilia’s infant, Guido’s firstborn son, but he had previously put it in a place of safety.

Notes.—Line 7, Castellani: a celebrated Roman jeweller (Piazza di Trevi 86), who executes admirable imitations from Greek, Etruscan, and Byzantine models. Chiusi: a very ancient Etruscan city, full of antiquities and famous for its tombs. l. 27, rondure, a round. l. 45, Baccio Bandinelli, a sculptor of Florence (1497-1559). l. 47, “John of the Black Bands”: Father of Cosimo I., Giovanni delle Bande Neri. l. 48, Riccardi: the palace of one of the great families of Florence. l. 49, San Lorenzo, the great church so named in Florence. l. 77, Spicilegium, a collection made from the best writers. l. 114, “Casa Guidi, by Felice Church”: this was the residence of the Brownings at Florence when he bought the little book. l. 223, Justinian, Emperor of the East A.D. 527. His name is immortalised by his code of laws; Baldo, an eminent professor of the civil law, and also of canon law, born in 1327; Bartolo of Perugia, a professor of civil law, under whom Baldo studied; Dolabella, the name of a Roman family; Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths (c. A.D. 454-526); Ælian, a writer on natural history in the time of Adrian. l. 263, Presbyter, Primæ tonsuræ, Subdiaconus, Sacerdos: these are some of the different steps to the priesthood in the Roman Church—that is to say, First tonsure, subdeacon, deacon, priest. l. 284, Ghetto, the Jewish quarter in Rome. l. 300, Pope Innocent XII. was Antonio Pignatelli. He reigned from 1691 to 1700. He introduced many reforms into the Church, and, after a holy and self-abnegating life, died on September 27th, 1700; Jansenists, followers of Jansen, who taught Calvinism in the Catholic Church; Molinists, followers of Molinos, who taught Arminianism in the Catholic Church; Nepotism, favouritism to relations. l. 435, temporality: the material interests of the Catholic Church. l. 490, “gold snow Jove rained on Rhodes”: as the Rhodians were the first who offered sacrifices to Minerva, Jupiter rewarded them by covering the island with a golden cloud, from which he sent showers of treasures on the people. l. 495, Datura: the thorn apple—stramonium. l. 496, lamp-fly == a fire-fly. l. 868, Æacus, son of Jupiter; on account of his just government made judge in the lower regions with Minos and Rhadamanthus. l. 898, “Bernini’s Triton fountain:” in the great square of the Barberini Palace, the Tritons blowing the water from a conch-shell. l. 1028, “chrism and consecrative work”: Chrism is the oil used in ordination, etc., in the Roman and Greek Catholic Churches. l. 1030, lutanist, one who plays on the lute. l. 1128, “Procurator of the Poor”: a proctor, an attorney who acts on behalf of the poor. l. 1161, Fisc, a king’s solicitor, an attorney-general. l. 1209, clavicinist, one who plays on the clavichord. l. 1212, rondo == rondeau, a species of lively melody with a recurring refrain; suite, a connected series of musical compositions. l. 1214, Corelli, Arcangelo, Italian musical composer; Haendel, Handel the musician. l. 1311, “Brotherhood of Death”: the Confraternity of the Misericordia, or Brothers of Mercy, who prepare criminals for death and attend funerals as an act of charity. l. 1328, Mannai, a sort of guillotine.—This seems a fitting place in which to insert the following note, which serves to explain the origin of the great poem:—

In The Christian Register of Boston for Jan. 19th, 1888, there is an article entitled “An Eagle Feather,” by the Rev. John W. Chadwick, of Brooklyn. This clergyman visited Mr. Browning and asked him, “And how about the book of The Ring and the Book? Had he made up that, too, or was there really such a book? There was indeed; and would we like to see it? There was little doubt of that; and it was produced, and the story of his buying it for ‘eightpence English just’ was told, but need not be retold here, for in The Ring and the Book it is set down with literal truth. The appearance and character of the book, moreover, are exactly what the poem represents. It is part print, part manuscript, ending with two epistolary accounts, if I remember rightly, of Guido’s execution, written by the lawyers in the case. It was an astonishing ‘find,’ and it is passing strange that a book compiled so carefully should have been brought to such a low estate. Mr. Browning did not seem at all inclined to toss it in the air and catch it, as he does in verse. He handled it very carefully, and with evident affection. I asked him if it did not make him very happy to have created such a woman as Pompilia; and he said, ‘I assure you that I found her just as she speaks and acts in my poem, in that old book.’ There was that in his tone that made it evident Caponsacchi had a rival lover without blame. Of the old pope of the poem, too, he spoke with real affection. He told us how he had found a medal of him in a London antiquary’s shop, had left it meaning to come back for it; came back, and found that it had gone. But the shopman told him Lady Houghton (Mrs. Richard Monckton Milnes) had taken it. ‘You will lend it to me,’ said Mr. Browning to her, ‘in case I want it some time to be copied for an illustration?’ She preferred giving it to him; had most likely intended doing so when she bought it. It was in a pretty little box, and had a benignant expression, exactly suited to the character of the good pope in the poem. As a further proof that all is grist that comes to some folks’ mills, there was a picture of the miserable Count Guido Franceschini on his execution day, which some one had come upon in a London printshop and sent to Mr. Browning.”

Mr. Browning having told the incidents of the story in all their principal details, might, in the ordinary way, have considered this sufficient. He has reserved nothing till the last, and in the usual way would have destroyed the interest of his remaining volumes had he been a mere story-teller. His purpose, however, was different. He will now take the principal actors in the tragedy, and separately and at length let them give their account of it in their own language and according to their own view of the case. He will, moreover, give his readers the opposing views of the two halves into which the Roman populace have been divided on the murders. He will introduce us to the Pope considering the course of action he is called upon to pursue as supreme judge of the matter; and the very lawyers, who are preparing their briefs and getting up their speeches, will also have their say. We shall thus have this many-sided subject put before us in every possible way; and we shall be enabled to follow the windings of the human mind on such a subject as though we were centred in the breast, in turn, of each of the actors in the dreadful drama. We have, therefore, in

Book I., The dry facts of the case in brief;

Book II., Half Rome (the view of those antagonistic to the wife);

Book III., The Other Half Rome (representing the opinion of those who take her part);

Book IV., Tertium Quid (a third party, neither wholly on one side nor the other);

Book V., Count Guido Franceschini (his own defence);

Book VI., Giuseppe Caponsacchi (the Canon’s explanation);

Book VII., Pompilia (her story, as she told it on her deathbed to the nuns);

Book VIII., Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis (Count Guido’s counsel and his speech for the defence);

Book IX., Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius (the Public Prosecutor’s speech);

Book X., The Pope (who in this book reviews the whole case, and gives his decision in Guido’s appeal to him);

Book XI., Guido (his last interview in prison with his spiritual advisers);

Book XII., The Book and the Ring (the conclusion of the whole matter).

Book II., Half Rome.—A great crowd had assembled at the church of St. Lorenzo-in-Lucina, hard by the Corso, to view the bodies of the murdered Comparini exposed to view before the altar. It was at this very church where Pompilia was baptised, brought by her pretended mother, who had purchased her to palm off on her husband in his dotage, and so cheat the heirs. To this very altar-step whereon the bodies lie did Violante, twelve years after, bring Pompilia to marry the Count clandestinely. It is four years since the marriage, and from dawn till dusk the multitude has crowded into the church, coming and going, pushing their way, and taking their turn to see the victims and talk over the tragedy. We have the story told by a partisan of the husband, who does not think he was so prodigiously to blame, he says. The Comparini (the wife’s reputed parents) were of the modest middle class, born in that quarter of Rome, and citizens of good repute, childless and wealthy; possessed of house and land in Rome, and a suburban villa. But Pietro craved an heir, and seventeen years ago Violante announced that, spite of her age, an heir would soon be forthcoming. By a trick, Pompilia, the infant, was produced at the appropriate time—whereat Pietro rejoiced, poor fool! As Violante had caught one fish, she must try again, and find a husband for the girl. Count Guido was head of an old noble house, but not over-rich. He had come up to Rome to better his fortune, was friend and follower of a certain cardinal, and had a brother a priest, Paolo. Looking out for some petty post or other, he waited thirty years, till, as he was growing grey, he thought it time to go and be wise at home. At this moment Violante threw her bait, Pompilia. She thought it a great catch to find a noble husband for the child and the shelter of a palace for herself in her old age; and so old Pietro’s daughter became Guido Franceschini’s lady-wife. Pietro was not consulted till all was over, when he pretended to be very indignant. All went to Arezzo to enjoy the luxury of lord-and-lady-ship. They were soon undeceived. They discovered that they had exchanged their comfortable bourgeois home for a sepulchral old mansion, the street’s disgrace, to pick garbage from a pewter plate and drink vinegar from a common mug. They sighed for their old home, their daily feast of good food and their festivals of better. Robbed, starved and frozen, they declared they would have justice. Guido’s old lady-mother, Beatrice, was a dragon; Guido’s brother, Girolamo, a bad licentious man. Four months of this purgatory was sufficient. Pietro made his complaints all over the town; Violante exposed the penurious housekeeping to every willing ear. Bidding Arezzo rot, they departed for home. Once more at Rome, Violante thought of availing herself of the Jubilee and making a full confession and restitution. She told the truth about Pompilia: how she had been purchased by her several months before birth from a disreputable laundry-woman, partly to please her husband, partly to defraud the rightful heirs. Was this due to contrition or revenge? Prove Pompilia not their child, there was no dowry to pay according to agreement. Guido would then be the biter bit. Guido took the view that all this was done to cheat him. He protested, and being left alone with his wife, revenged his wrongs on her. The case came before the Roman courts. Guido being absent, the Abate, his clerical brother, had to take his part. The courts refused to intervene. Appeals and counter-appeals followed. Pompilia’s shame and her parents’ disgrace were published to the world; and so it went on. Pompilia, left alone with her old husband, looked outside for life; and lo! Caponsacchi appeared—a priest, Apollos turned Apollo. He threw comfits to her at the theatre, at carnival time—no great harm—but he was, moreover, always hanging about the street where Guido’s palace was. Pompilia observed him from her window. People began to talk, the husband to open his eyes. Things went on, till one April morning Guido awoke to find his wife flown. He had been drugged, he said. Caponsacchi, the handsome young priest, had brought a carriage for her: they had gone by the Roman road eight hours since. Guido started in pursuit, coming up with the fugitives just as they were in sight of Rome. Caponsacchi met the husband unabashed: “I interposed to save your wife from death, yourself from shame.” Fingering his sword, he offered fight, or to stand on his defence at Rome. The police came up and secured the priest, and they went upstairs to arouse the wife. She overwhelmed her husband with invective, turning to her side even the very sbirri. “Take us to Rome,” both prisoners demanded. Love letters and verses were produced, and husband and wife fought out their case before the lawyers. The accused declared that the letters were not written by them. The court found much to blame, but little to punish. The priest was sentenced to three years’ exile at Civita Vecchia; the wife must go into a convent for a while. Guido was not satisfied: he claimed a divorce. Pompilia did the same. On account of her health a little liberty was allowed her, and she left the convent to reside with her pretended parents at their villa. Here she gave birth to a child. Guido was furious when he heard all this, and went to Rome to the villa with four confederates, pretending to be Caponsacchi. The door was opened, when he rushed in with his braves and killed them all; and so the two Comparini are lying in the church, and Pompilia is in the hospital dying of her wounds.

Notes.—Line 84, Guido Reni, a painter of the Bolognese school, 1574-1642. The Crucifixion referred to is above the high altar. l. 126, “Molino’s doctrine”: a form of Quietism. l. 300, “tacked to the Church’s tail”: it was the custom in this age for gentlemen who desired the protection of the Church for their own purposes to take one of the minor orders, without any intention of going into the diaconate or priesthood. Count Guido was thus, in a sense, under the Church’s protection. l. 490, “novercal type”: pertaining to a step-mother; cater-cousin, or quater-cousin: a cousin within the first four degrees of kindred; sib: a blood relation (A.-S., sibb, alliance). l. 537, Papal Jubilee: this is observed every twenty-fifth year. ll. 892-3, “ears plugged,” etc.: a good description of the effects of a strong dose of opium. l. 907, osteria: Italian name of an inn. l. 1044, Sbirri: Papal police. l. 1159, “Apage”: away! begone! l. 1198, “Convertites”: nuns who devote themselves to the rescue of fallen women. l. 1221, “as Ovid a like sufferer”: Ovid was banished by Augustus to Tomus, on the Euxine Sea, either for some amour or imprudence; Pontus: a kingdom of Asia Minor, bounded on the north by the Euxine Sea. l. 1244, “Pontifex Maximus whipped vestals once”: the high priest severely scourged the vestal virgins if they let the sacred fire go out. l. 1250, “Caponsacchi”: in English “Head i’ the Sack”: this family is mentioned in Dante’s Paradise, xvi.; in his time they lived at Florence, in the Mercato Vecchio, having removed from Fiesole; Fiesole, an ancient town near Florence. l. 1270, “Canidian hate”: Canidia was a Neapolitan, beloved by Horace. When she deserted him he held her up to contempt as an old sorceress (Horace, Epodes, v. and xvii.). See Notes to “White Witchcraft.” l. 1342, “domus pro carcere”: a house for a prison. l. 1375, “hoard i’ the heart o’ the toad”: Fenton says, “There is to be found in the heads of old and great toads a stone they call borax or stelon, which, being used as rings, give forewarning against venom.” See also Brewer’s Phrase and Fable, art. “Toads.” l. 1487, “male-Grissel”: Griselda was the patient lady in Chaucer’s Clerk of Oxenford’s Tale. She came forth victoriously from the repeated trials of her maternal and conjugal affections. l. 1495, “Rolando-stroke”: Roland, the hero of Roncesvalles. His trusty sword was called Durandal:—

l. 1496, clavicle: the collar-bone.

Book III., The Other Half Rome.—Little Pompilia lies dying in the hospital, stabbed through and through again. She had prayed that she might live long enough for confession and absolution. “Never before successful in a prayer,” this had been answered. She has overplus of life to speak and right herself from first to last, to pardon her husband and make arrangements for the welfare of her child. The lawyers came and took her depositions; the priests, also, to shrive her soul. The other half Rome make excuses for Pietro and Violante. Their lives wanted completion in a child: Violante’s fault was not an unnatural one. Her husband was acquiescent—natural too. Violante’s confession was but right and proper; and if she wronged an heir, who was he? As for the wooing, it was all done by the Count: a wife was necessary alike for himself, his mother, and his palace; and so he dazzled the child Pompilia with a vision of greatness. The crowd said she might become a lady, but the bargain was but a poor one at best. Pompilia, aged thirteen years and five months, was secretly married to the Count one dim December day. Pietro was told when it was too late, and had to surrender all his property in favour of Guido, who was to support his wife’s belongings. Four months’ insolence and penury they had to endure at Arezzo, and then Pietro went back to beg help from his Roman friends, who laughed and said things had turned out just as they expected. Violante went to God, told her sin, and reaped the Jubilee’s benefit. Restitution, however, said the Church, must be made: the sin must be published and amends forthcoming. Pompilia’s husband must be told that his contract was null and void. Pietro’s heart leaped for joy at the prospect of recovering all his surrendered estate. Guido naturally pronounced the whole tale “one long lie”—lying for robbery and revenge—and threw himself on the courts. The courts held the child to be a changeling. Pietro’s renunciation they made null: he was no party to the cheat; but Guido is to retain the dowry! More proceedings naturally followed this strange decision. Then the Count forms the diabolical plan to drive his girl-wife, by his cruelty, into the sin which will enable him to be rid of her without parting with her money. Guido concocts a pencilled letter to his brother the Abate, which he makes his wife trace over with ink, he guiding her hand because she could not write, wherein she states—not knowing a word she pens—that the Comparini advised her, before they left Arezzo, to find a paramour, carry off what spoil she could, and then burn the house down. The Abate took care to scatter this information all over Rome. At Arezzo Guido set himself to make his wife’s life there intolerable, at the same time setting a trap into which she could not avoid falling. The Other Half Rome thinks it probable that the priest Caponsacchi pitied and loved Pompilia, who wept and looked out of window all day long; for there were passionate letters (prayers, rather), addressed to him by the suffering wife; though it is true she avers she never wrote a letter in her life, still she abjured him, in the name of God, to help her to escape to Rome. If not love, this was love’s simulation, and calculated to deceive the Canon. Pompilia, however, protested that she had never even learned to write or read; nor had she ever spoken to the priest till the evening when she implored him to assist her to escape. On the other hand, the priest admitted having received the letters purporting to come from Pompilia. He did write to her: as she could not read she burned the letters—never bade him come to her, yet accepted him when Heaven seemed to send him. When Guido’s cruelty first sprang on Pompilia, she had appealed to the secular Governor and the Archbishop; but both were friends of Guido, and both refused to interfere between husband and wife, so she went to confess to a simple friar, told him how suicide had tempted her, begged him to write to her pretended parents to come and save her. He promised; but by nightfall was more discreet, and withdrew from the dangerous business. So the woman, thus hard-beset, looked out to see if God would help, and saw Caponsacchi; called him to her—she at her window, he in the street below—and at nightfall fled with him for Rome. The world sees nothing but the simple fact of the flight. The implicated persons protest that the course they took, though strange, was justified for life and honour’s sake. Absorbed in the sense of the blessedness of the flight, she had said little to her preserver through the long night. As daybreak came they reached an inn: he whispered, “Next stage, Rome!” Prostrate with fatigue, she could go no farther; stayed to rest at the osteria, fell asleep, and awoke with Count Guido once more standing betwixt heaven and her soul—awoke to find her room full of roaring men, her preserver a prisoner. Then she sprang up, seized the sword which hung at the Count’s side, and would have slain him, but men interposed. The priest avers that the flight had no pretext but to get Pompilia free: how should it be otherwise? If they were guilty, as Guido would have the world believe, what need to fly? or, if they must, why halt with Rome in sight? He vindicates Pompilia’s fame. Guido’s tale was to the effect that he and his whole household had been drugged by the wife, which gave the fugitives time to get thus far on their way. He expected easy execution probably; thought he would find his wife cowering under her shame. When she turned upon him, and would have slain him he had to invent another story; produce love letters from a woman who could not write, replies from the priest, who could happily defend his character and prove the forgery. Then the story of the investigation before the courts was told: how Pompilia owned she caught at the sole hand stretched out to snatch her from hell; how Caponsacchi proudly declared that as man, and much more as priest, he was bound to help weak innocence; how he exposed the trap set by Guido for them both; how he had never touched her lip, nor she his hand, from first to last, nor spoken a word the Virgin might not hear. Then they discussed the decision of the court—the sentence, the relegation of the priest, the seclusion of the wife in the convent at Guido’s expense. They discussed the five months’ peace which Pompilia passed with the nuns, the application made by the sisters on behalf of Pompilia’s waning health, and her residence with Pietro and his wife at their villa. They tell of the determination of Guido, after the birth of his child, to avail himself of the propitious minute and rid himself of his wife and her putative parents, that the child remaining might inherit all and repair his losses. The sympathisers with Pompilia dwelt on the fact that, while the bells were chiming good-will on earth and peace to man, the dreadful five stole by back slums and blind cuts to the villa, asking admission in Caponsacchi’s name. Then follow the murders. Violante was stabbed first, Pietro next; and then came Pompilia’s turn. It was told how the murderers escaped, till at Baccano they were overtaken and cast red-handed into prison.

Notes.—Line 59, Maratta: Carlo Maratti was the most celebrated of the later Roman painters of the seventeenth century. He was born 1625. The great number of his pictures of the Virgin procured him the name of “Carlo delle Madonne.” l. 95, “That doctrine of the Philosophic Sin”: “Philosophical Sin,” is a breach of the dignity of man’s rational nature. Theological Sin offends against the Supreme Reason. (See Rickaby’s Moral Philosophy, p. 119.) l. 385, “Hesperian ball, ordained for Hercules to taste and pluck”: the golden apples of the Hesperides plucked by Hercules, were probably oranges. l. 439, Danae, the daughter of Acrisius, and mother of Perseus by Jupiter. l. 555, “The Holy Year”: the Jubilee at Rome, first instituted by Boniface VIII., elected Pope 1294. The Jubilee occurs every twenty-five years, and is a time of special indulgences. l. 556, “Bound to rid sinners of sin”: no indulgence forgives sin, nor gives permission to commit sin; but it is “the remission, through the merits of Jesus Christ, of the whole or part of the debt of temporal punishment due to a sin, the guilt and everlasting punishment of which sin has, through the merits of Jesus Christ, been already forgiven in the Sacrament of penance” (Catholic Belief, by J. Bruno, D.D., p. 183). l. 567. “The great door, new-broken for the nonce”: according to the special ritual, the Pope, at the commencement of the Jubilee year goes in solemn procession to a particular walled-up door (the Porta Aurea, or golden door of St. Peter’s), and knocks three times, using the words of Psalm cxviii. 19, “Open to me the gates of righteousness.” The doors are then opened and sprinkled with holy water, and the Pope passes through. When the Jubilee closes, the special doorway is again built up, with appropriate solemnities (Encyc. Brit.). l. 572, “Poor repugnant Penitentiary”: a penitentiary is an “officer in some cathedrals, vested with power from the bishop to absolve in cases reserved to him. The Pope has a grand penitentiary, who is a Cardinal, and is chief of the other penitentiaries” (Webster’s Dict.). That this particular ecclesiastic was “repugnant” is a gratuitous assumption of the poet: he probably took as much interest in his business as any other clergyman takes in his. 1413, Civita, Civita Vecchia, a seaport near Rome. 1445, “Hundred Merry Tales”: the tales or novels of Franco Sacchetti. 1450, Vulcan, the god of fire and furnaces, son of Jupiter and Juno.

Book IV., Tertium Quid.—“A third something,” siding neither wholly with Guido nor with his victim, attempts to arrive at a judicial conclusion apportioning in a superior manner blame now on one side now on the other, and, by granting on each side something, endeavours to reconcile opposing views, and from the contending forces produce something like order. The speaker is addressing personages of importance, and his phrase is courtly and polite. He refers with a sort of contempt to this “episode in burgess-life.” His account of the business is as follows:—This Pietro and Violante, living in Rome in a style good enough for their betters, indulge themselves with luxury till they get into debt and creditors begin to press. Driven to seek the papal charity reserved for respectable paupers, they become pensioners of the Vatican, and Violante casts about for means to restore the fortunes of her household. Certain funds only want an heir to take, which heir Violante takes measures to supply by the aid of a needy washerwoman who ekes out her honest trade by a vile one, and who for a price will sell, in six months’ time, the child of her shame, meantime pocketing the earnest money and promising secrecy. Violante returns flushed with success, and reaches vespers in time to sing Magnificat. Then home to Pietro, to whom is delicately confided the enrapturing but puzzling news that at last an heir will be born to him. In due time the infant is put in evidence, and Francesca Vittoria Pompilia is baptised; and so “lies to God, lies to man,” lies every way. The heirs are robbed, foiled of the due succession. When twelve years have passed, the scheming Violante has next to arrange a good match for her daughter, with her savings and her heritage. This, with all Rome to choose from, may be proudly done, and then Nunc Dimittis may be sung. Miserably poor as Count Guido was, the family was old enough to afford the drawback. The Church helped the second son, Paolo, and made a canon of him—even took Guido under its protection so far as one of the minor orders went. A cardinal gave him some inferior post, but afterwards dispensed with his services. What was to be done? Youth had gone, age was coming on. His brother advised him to look out for a rich wife, told him of Pompilia, and offered his assistance in the suit. The burgess family’s one want being an aristocratic husband for their girl Violante, eagerly accepted the Count, and they got the marriage done. Pietro had to make the best of things. Who was fool, who knave, it was difficult to decide: perchance neither or both. Guido gives the wealth he had not got, and the Comparini the child not honestly theirs—each cheated the other. It turned out that one party saw the cheat of the other first, and kept its own concealed. Which sinned more was a nice point. The finer vengeance which became old blood was Guido’s, the victim was the hard-beset Pompilia, the hero of the piece Caponsacchi. “Out by me!” he cried. “Here my hand holds you life out!” Whereupon Pompilia clasped the saving hand. Then as to the love letters, Guido protests his wife can write. How could he, granting him skill to drive the wife into the gallant’s arms, bring the gallant to play his part so well—a man to whom he had never spoken in his life?

Notes.—Line 31, “Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est! Huc apelle!” (Horace, Sat. i. 5): “Here, bring to, ye dogs, you are stowing in hundreds; hold, now sure there is enough.” (Smart’s trans.). l. 54, “basset-table”: basset was a game at cards invented by a Venetian noble; it was introduced into France in 1674. l. 147, “posts off to vespers, missal beneath arm”: a rather absurd line; a missal is a mass-book, and does not contain the vesper services; mass is always said in the morning. l. 437, “notum tonsoribus,” the common gossip—(Pr.); tonsor, a barber; zecchines: sequins, Venetian coins worth from 9s. 2d. to 9s. 6d. l. 731, devils-dung: assafœtida, an evil-smelling drug. l. 761, “cross buttock”: a blow across the back; quarter staff: a long stout staff used as a weapon of offence or defence. l. 834, “Hophni and the ark”: “And the ark of God was taken; and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were slain” (I Sam. iv., II etc.). “Correggio and Ledas”: Correggio’s picture of “Leda and the Swan,” in the Berlin Museum. l. 1054, “cui profuerint!” Whom they might profit! l. 1069, “acquetta” == Aqua Tofana, a poisonous liquid much used in Italy in the seventeenth century by women who wished to get rid of their husbands or their rivals. l. 1131, Rota: a superior Papal court l. 1144, Paphos: a city of Cyprus where Venus was worshipped. l. 1322, Vicegerent: an officer deputed by a superior to take his place. l. 1408, Patrizj: the captain of the police who arrested the criminals. l. 1577, “fons et origo malorum”: fount and origin of the evils.

Book V., Count Guido Franceschini.—We are now introduced to the persons of the drama themselves; and first to the Count, who is on his defence before the court for the murder. He has just been put to the torture, and with bones all loosened by the rack is cringing and trembling before the arbiters of life and death. He confesses that he killed his wife and the Comparini, who called themselves her father and mother to ruin him. What he has now to do is to put the right interpretation on his deed. He reminds the court that he comes of an ancient family, descended from a Guido who was Homager to the Empire. His family had become poor as St. Francis or our Lord. He had cast about for some means to restore the fallen fortunes of his house, and sought advice of his fellows how this might be done. He had thoughts of a soldier’s life; but they said that, as eldest son and heir, his post was hard by the hearth and altar. He should “try the Church, and contend against the heretic Molinists, and so gain promotion,” said one; but others said this would not do—“he must marry, that his line might continue; let him make his brothers priests, and seek his own fortune in the great world of Rome.” And so to Rome he came. Humbly, he pleads, he has helped the Church: he has disposed of his property that he might have means to bribe his way to favour at Rome; for the better protection of his person and the advancement of his fortunes, he has taken three or four of the minor orders of the Church, which commit to nothing, yet help to flavour the layman’s meat. Thus for the Church. On the world’s side he danced, and gamed, and quitted himself like a courtier. At this time he was only sixteen, and was willing to wait for fortune. He waited thirty years, hung about the haunts of cardinals and the Pope, and made friends wherever he could. One day he grew tired of waiting any longer; he was hard upon middle life; he must, he saw, be content to live and die only a nobleman; and so, as his mother was growing old, his sisters well wedded away, and both his brothers in the Church, he resolved to leave Rome, return to Arezzo, and be content. He was like a gamester who has played and lost all. The owners of the tables do not like a man to leave the place penniless. “Let him leave the door handsomely,” they say; and so his brother Paul whispered in his ear, told him to take courage and a wife—at least, go back home with a dowry. Paul’s advice was weighty, and he listened to him; and before the week was out the clever priest found Pietro and Violante, who had just the daughter, and just the dowry with her, for his brother. “She is young, pretty, and rich,” he said; “you are noble, classic, choice.” “Done!” said Guido. All the priest proposed he accepted, and the girl was bought and sold—a chattel. “Where was the wrong step?” he asks the court: if all his honour of birth, his style and state, went for nothing, then society and the law had no reward nor punishment to give. The social fabric falls like a card-house. He thought he had dealt fairly; the others found fault, and wanted their money back, just as the judge, disappointed with a picture for which he had given a great price, wanted his cash returned. Perhaps, also, the judge grew tired of the cupids. When he had purchased his wife he expected wifeliness; just as when, having bought twig and timber, he had bought the song of the nightingale too. Pompilia broke her pact; refused from the first to unite with him in body or in soul. More than this, she published the fact to all the world: said she had discovered he was devil and no man, and set all the town laughing at his meanness and his misery; said he had plundered and cast out her parents; and that she was fain to call on the stones of the street to save her, not only from himself, but the satyr-love of his own brother, the young priest. Was it any marvel that his resentment grew apace? Yet he was not a man of ice: women might have reached the odd corners of his heart, and found some remnants of love there. Pompilia was no dove of Venus either, but a hawk he had purchased at a hawk’s price. He does not presume to teach the court what marriage means: it was composed of priests who had eschewed the marriage state with Paul; but the court knew how monks were dealt with who became refractory. If he were over-harsh in bringing his wife to due obedience it was her own fault; she should have cured him by patience and the lore of love. When the Comparini had returned to Rome, they boasted how they had cheated him who cheated them; boasted that Pompilia, his wife, was a bye-blow bastard of a nameless strumpet, palmed off upon him as the daughter with the dowry. Dowry? It was the dust of the street. Under these circumstances Pompilia’s duty was no doubtful one: she ought to have recoiled from them with horror. She had been their spoil and prey from first to last, and had aided him in maintaining her cause and making it his own. He admits the trick of the false letter: it was his, and not hers; yet he protests that Pompilia, from window, at church and theatre, launched looks forth and let looks reply to Caponsacchi. And so, in his struggles to extricate his name and fame, this gad-fly must be stinging him in the face. Pricked with shame, plagued with his wife and her parents, what was he to do? Ever was Caponsacchi gazing at his windows. Was he to play at desperate doings with a wooden sword, or shorten his wife’s finger by a third, for listening to a serenade? He did nothing of that sort: he only called her a terrible name; and the effect was, when he awoke next morning he found a crowd in his room, fire in his throat, wife gone, and his coffers ransacked. The servants had been drugged too. His wife had eloped with Caponsacchi. He discovered that all the town was laughing at the comedy. They told him how the priest had come at daybreak, while all the household slept; how the wife had led the way out of doors on to the gate where, at the inn, a carriage waited, and took the two to the gate San Spirito, on the Roman road. He told the court how he had set out alone on horseback, floundered through two days and nights, and so at last came up with the fugitives at an inn, saw his wife and her gallant together waiting to start again for Rome. “Does the court suggest,” he asks, “that that was, if ever, the time for vengeance?” But he was content with calling in the law to help. He pleads guilty to cowardice: he might have killed them then; but cowardice was no crime. He urges that he had been brought up at the feet of law, and so had slain them not. He had searched the chamber where they passed the night, and found love-laden letters with such words on: “Come here, go there, wait, we are saved, we are lost”; even to details of the sleeping potion which was to drug his wine. The fugitives declared they had not written these; they were forged, they said. Then he tells how he had appealed in vain to the courts. The most he gained was that the priest was relegated to Civita for three years, and Pompilia was sent to a sisterhood. He reminds the court of its severity in cases of heresy and the like, and of its mildness in a case like his. Advice was given to him how to proceed with fresh trials from time to time, and he tried to play the man and bear his trouble as best he might; and then one day he learned that Pompilia’s durance was at an end,—she was transferred to her parents’ house. He reflected then how the Comparini had beaten him at every point: they gained all; he lost all, even to the wife, the lure; had caught the fish and found the bait entire. And now another letter from Rome, with the news that he is a father; his wife has borne a son and heir,—the reason plain why she left the convent. Then he rose up like fire; his troubles were but just beginning: the child he had longed for was stolen too, and scorn and contempt would be heaped on him full measure. He told the story to his servants, who all declared they would avenge their master’s wrongs. He picked out four resolute youngsters, and off they went to Rome. They reached the city on Christmas-eve, as the festive bells rang for the “Feast of the Babe.” This arrested him; he dropped the dagger. “Where is His promised peace?” he asked. Nine days he waited thus, praying against temptation, while the vision of the Holy Infant was before him. Soon this faded in a mist, and the Cross stood plain, and he cried, “Some end must be!” He reached the house where Pompilia lived; he knocked, asked admittance for “Caponsacchi,” and the door was opened. Had Pompilia even then fronted him in the doorway in her weakness, had even Pietro opened, he had paused; but it was the hag, the mother who had wrought the mischief, who appeared. Then he told the court how the impulse to kill her had seized him, and how, having begun, he had made an end. He was mad, blind, and stamped on all. He told the court how the officers of justice had come upon him twenty miles off, when he was sleeping soundly as a child; and wherefore not? He was his own self again. His soul safe from serpents, he could sleep. He protests he has but done God’s bidding, and health has returned and sanity of soul. He declares that he stands acquitted in the sight of God. If his wife and her lover were innocent, why did the court punish them? Their punishment was inadequate, and as soon as their backs were turned the evil began to grow again. He demands the court should right him now; thank and praise him for having done what they should have done themselves. He has doubled the blow they had essayed to strike. He urges them to protect their own defender. He was law’s mere executant, and he demands his life, his liberty, good name, and civic rights again. He is for God; the game must not be lost to the devil. He has work to do: his wife may live and need his care; his brother to bring back to the old routine; his infant son to rear—and when to him he tells his story, he will say how for God’s law he had dared and done.

Notes.—“Vigil torment”: this torment is referred to in the speech of Dominus Hyacinthus, line 329 et seq., as “the Vigiliarum.” Line 149, Francis: St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Franciscans; Dominic: St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Dominicans: “Guido, once homager to the Empire”: i.e., he held lands of the Emperor by “homage.” l. 207, “suum cuique”: let each have his own; omoplat: shoulder-blade. l. 285, “utrique sic paratus”: so prepared either way. l. 401, “sors, a right Vergilian dip”: scholars used to open their Vergil at random for guidance, as people nowadays open their Bible to see what text will turn up. l. 542, baioc == bajocco: a Roman copper coin worth three farthings. l. 559, Plautus: a famous comic poet of Rome, who died 184 B.C.; Terence: a celebrated writer of comedies, a native of Carthage; he died 159 B.C. l. 560, “Ser Franco’s Merry Tales”: Sacchetti’s novels and tales, somewhat in the manner of Boccaccio (1335-1400). l. 627, Caligula: Emperor of Rome, who delighted in the miseries of mankind, and amused himself by putting innocent persons to death. He was murdered A.D. 41. l. 672, Thyrsis: a young Arcadian shepherd (Vergil, Ecl. vii. 2); Neæra: a country maid, in Vergil. l. 811, Locusta: a vile woman, skilled in preparing poisons; who helped Nero to poison Britannicus. l. 850, Bilboa: a flexible-bladed rapier from Bilboa. l. 922, “stans pede in uno,” standing on one foot. l. 1137, spirit and succubus: evil spirit, demon, or phantom. l. 1209, Catullus: a learned but wanton poet. l. 1264, Helen and Paris: Paris, the son of Priam, king of Troy, who eloped with Helen, the wife of Menelaus, carried her to Troy, and so occasioned the war between the Greeks and Trojans. l. 1356, Ovid’s art: (of love). l. 1358, “more than his Summa”: the “Summa Theologiæ,” the famous work of St. Thomas Aquinas, from which every priest of the Roman Church has to study his theology. l. 1359, Corinna: a celebrated woman of Tanagra, who seven times obtained a poetical prize when Pindar was her rival. l. 1365, merum sal, pure salt. l. 1549, “Quis est pro Domino?” “Who is on the Lord’s side?” l. 1737, acquetta: euphemism for the acquatofana, a deadly liquid, colourless poison. l. 1760, “ad judices meos,” to my judges. l. 1780, Justinian’s Pandects: the digest of Roman jurists, made by order of Justinian in the sixth century. l. 2009, soldier bee: a bee which fights for the protection of the hive, and sacrifices his life in the act of using his sting. l. 2010, exenterate: to disembowel. l. 2333, Tozzi: physician to the Pope. He succeeded Malpighi. l. 2339, Albano: Guido was right; Albano succeeded Innocent XII. as Pope in 1700.

Book VI., Giuseppe Caponsacchi.—The court now hears the story of Caponsacchi: he has been sent for to repeat the evidence which he gave on a former occasion, and to counsel the court in this extremity. It was six months ago, he says, that in the very place where he now stands, he told the facts, at which they decorously laughed, the stifled titter that so plainly meant “We have been young too,—come, there’s greater guilt!” Now they are grave enough,—they stare aghast; as for himself, in this sudden smoke from hell he hardly knows if he understands anything aright. He asks why are they surprised at the ending of a deed whose beginning they had seen? He had his grasp on Guido’s throat; they had interfered, they saw no peril, wanted no priest’s intrusion; he had given place to law, left Pompilia to them,—and there and thus she lies! What do they want with him? he asks: is it that they understand at last it was consistent with his priesthood to endeavour to save Pompilia? It was well they had even thus late seen their error. He owns he talks to the court impertinently, yet they listen because they are Christians; and even a rag from the body of the Lord makes a man look greater, and be the better. He will be calm and tell the simple facts. He is a priest, one of their own body, and of a famous Florentine descent; he had been brought up for the priesthood from his youth, but had trembled when he came to take the vows, and would have shrunk from doing so had not the bishop quieted his qualms of conscience, and satisfied him there was an easier sense in which the vows could be taken than had appeared in his first rough reading. Nobody expected him in these days to break his back in propping up the Church: the martyrs built it; all that priests had to do now was to adorn its walls. He must therefore cultivate his gift of making madrigals, that he may please the great ladies, and make the bishop boast that he was theirs. And so he became a priest, a fribble, and a coxcomb, but a man of truth. He said his breviary and wrote the rhymes, was regular at service, and as regular at his post where beauty and fashion ruled. One night, after three or four years of this life, he found himself at the theatre with a brother Canon; he saw enter and seat herself,—

like a Rafael over an altar. As he stared, his companion the Canon said he would make her give him back his gaze; and straightway tossed a packet of comfits to her lap, and dodged behind him, nodding from over Caponsacchi’s shoulder. The lady turned, looked their way, and smiled—a strange, sad smile. “Is she not fair, my new cousin?” said Canon Conti. The fellow at the back of the box is Guido; she’s his wife, married three years since. He cautioned him to do nothing to make her husband treat her more cruelly than he already did; but this was not required,—the sight of Pompilia’s ‘wonderful white soul’ shining through the sadness of her face had filled him with disgust for the frivolity and the vanity of his former life. Lent was near; he would live as became a priest. His patron, when he found him absent from the assemblies of fashion and reproved him, reproached him with playing truant, Caponsacchi said he had resolved to go to Rome, and look into his heart a little. One evening, as he sat musing over a volume of St. Thomas, contrasting his past life with that required of him by his office, his thoughts recurred to the sad, strange lady. There was a tap at the door, and a masked, muffled mystery entered with a letter; it purported to come from her to whom the comfits had been thrown, and assured him the recipient had a heart to offer him in return. Inquiring who the messenger might be, she said she was Guido’s “kind of maid”; all the servants hated him, she added, and she had offered her aid to bring comfort to the sweet Pompilia. Caponsacchi said he then took pen and wrote, “No more of this!” explaining that once on a time he should not have proved so insensible to her beauty, but now he had other thoughts. Caponsacchi said that he saw Guido’s mean soul grinning through this transparent trick. Next morning a second letter was brought by the same messenger; it urged him to visit the lovesick lady, and no longer cruelly delay; it declared she was wretched, that she had heard he was going to Rome, and implored him to take her with him. He asked the maid “what risk they ran of the husband?” “None at all,” she answered; “he is more stupid than jealous.” He took a pen and wrote that she solicited him in vain; he was a priest and had scruples. After that in many ways he was still pursued, and ever his reply was “Go your ways, temptress!” Urged to pass her window, and glance up thereat, if only once, he resolved to expose the trick and punish the Count. He went. There at the window, with a lamp in hand, stood Pompilia, grave and grief-full; like Our Lady of all the Sorrows, she was there but a moment, and then vanished. He knew she had been induced by some pretence to watch a moment on the balcony. He was about to cry, “Out with thee, Guido!” when all at once she reappeared, just on the terrace overhead; so close was she that if she bent down she could almost touch his head; and she did bend, and spoke, while he stood still, all eye, all ear. She told him that he had sent her many letters; that she had read none, for she could neither read nor write; that she was in the power of the woman who had brought them; that she had explained their purport, that she had made her listen while she told her that he, a priest, had dared to love her, a wife, because he had seen her face a single time. This wickedness she thinks cannot be true,—it were deadly to them both; but if indeed he had true love to offer, did he indeed mean good and true, she might accept his help. It was so strange, she said, that her husband, whom she had not wronged, should hate her so, should wish to harm her: for his own soul’s sake would the priest hinder the harm? Then she told him how happily she had dwelt at Rome, with those dear Comparini whom she had been wont to call father and mother; she could not understand what it was that had prompted his soul to offer her his help, but, as he had done so, would he render her just aid enough to save her life with? To leave the man who hated her so were no sin. “Take me to Rome!” she cried. “You go to Rome: take me as you would take a dog!” She told him how she had turned hither and thither for aid,—to great good men, Archbishop and Governor, she had opened her heart. They only smiled: “Get you gone, fair one!” they said. In her despair she went to an old priest, a friar who confessed her; to him she told how, worse than husband’s hate, she had to bear the solicitations of his young idle brother. “Write to your parents,” said the friar. She said she could neither read nor write. “I will write,” he promised; but no answer came. She ended with repeating her entreaty that he should take her to the Comparinis’ home at Rome. Caponsacchi promised at once to do this thing for her; it was settled he should find a carriage, and the money for the purpose, and return when he had made arrangements for the flight [The messenger who had brought him the Count’s letters was shown to be his mistress; the Count had forged the notes from Pompilia, and the replies thereto.] Then the priest went home to meditate on this strange matter, and the more he thought of what he had agreed to do, the more incongruous with his sacred office did it seem. Was he not wedded to the mystic bride—the Church? Did it not say to him, “Leave that live passion; come, be dead with me”? Then came the voice of God, His first authoritative word: “I had been lifted to the level of her!” he exclaimed. Now did he perceive the function of the priest: to leave her he had thought self-sacrifice; to save her, was the price demanded, and he paid it. “Duty to God is duty to her.” Yet, when the morning broke, his heart whispered, “Duty is still wisdom,” and the day wore on. When evening came he determined to see her again, to advise her, to bid her not despair. He went. There she stood as before, and now reproached him for not returning earlier; and when he saw her sadness, and heard her piteous pleading, he said

He told her the place of meeting and the way thereto, promising to be ready at the appointed time. Then he secured a carriage, made all arrangements, and, at the time agreed, Pompilia draped in black, but with the soul’s whiteness shining through her veil, was there. She sprang into the carriage, he beside her—she and he alone, and so began the flight through dark to light, through day and night, again to night, once more on to the last dreadful dawn. He told the court the incidents of the weary journey,—all her weakness and her craving for rest at Rome,—how she urged him to continue, till they were at last within twelve hours of the city, and there seemed no fear of pursuit. Then he entreated her to descend and take some rest. For a while she waited at a roadside inn, nursed a woman’s child, sat by the garden wall and talked, then off again refreshed. On they went till they reached Castelnuovo. “As good as Rome!” he cried. She was sleeping as he spoke, and woke with a start and scream—

then swooned. The people at the inn urged him to let her rest the night with them. He could not but choose. All the night through he paced the passage, keeping guard. “Not a sound, nor movement,” they said. At first pretence of gray in the sky he bade them have out the carriage, while he called to break her sleep; and as he turned to go there faced him Count Guido, as master of the field encamped, his rights challenging the world, leering in triumph, scowling with malice. He was not alone. With him were the commissary and his men. At once he was arrested. Then “Catch her!” the husband bade. That sobered Caponsacchi. “Let me lead the way!” he cried, explaining he was privileged, being a priest, and claiming his rights. Then they went to Pompilia’s chamber. There she lay sleeping, “wax-white, seraphic.” “Seize and bind!” hissed Guido. Pompilia started up, stood erect, face to face with her tormentor. “Away from between me and hell!” she cried. “I am God’s, whose knees I clasp,—hence!” Caponsacchi tried to reach her side, but his arms were pinioned fast; the rabble poured in and took the husband’s part, heaping themselves upon the priest. Springing at the sword which hung at Guido’s side, she drew and brandished it. “Die, devil, in God’s name!” she cried; but they closed round her, twelve to one. Then Guido began his search for the gold, the jewels, and the plate of which he declared he had been robbed, and for the amorous letters he had reason to expect to find. They could not refuse the priest’s appeal to be judged by the Church, and so he was sent to Rome with Pompilia; and to separate cells in the same prison they were borne. He told his judges then that he had never touched Pompilia with his finger-tip, except to carry her that evening to her couch, and that as sacredly as priests carry the vessels of the altar. He tells the court he might have locked his lips and laughed at its jurisdiction, for when this murder happened he was a prisoner at Civita. She had only the court to trust to when Guido hacked her to pieces. He had come from his retreat as friend of the court, had told his tale for pure friendship’s sake. He reminds them how in the first trial he had disproved the accusation of the letters, and the verses they contained: if any were found, it was because those who found had hidden first. Then he tells how, as in relegation he was studying verse, suddenly a thunderclap came into his solitude. The whirlwind caught him up and brought him to the room where so recently the judges had dealt out law adroitly, and he learned how Guido had upset it all. In a frank and dignified appeal to the court, he explains how it was that God had struck the spark of truth from contact between his and Pompilia’s soul, daring him to try to be good and show himself above the power of show. Had they not acted as babes in their flight? Had they been criminals, was there not opportunity for sin without a flight at all? or, if it were necessary to fly, where had they stayed for sin? Had he saved Pompilia against the law?—against the law Guido slays her. Deal with him! If they say he was in love, unpriest him then; degrade, disgrace him: for himself no matter; for Pompilia let them “build churches, go pray!” They will find him there. He knows they too will come. He sees a judge weeping: he is glad—they see the truth. Pompilia helped him just so. As for the Count, he had him on the fatal morning in arms’ reach; he could have killed him. It was through him (Caponsacchi) he had survived to do this deed. He asks them not to condemn the Count to death. Leave him to glide as a snake from off the face of things, and be lost in the loneliness. He stops the rapid flow of words, owns he has been rash in what he has said, fears he has been but a poor advocate of the woman, protests they had no thought of love, and begs them to be just. Even while he pleads for Pompilia they tell him she is dead. Why did they let him ramble on?—his friends should have stopped him. Then he grows almost incoherent in his mental distress; asks them if they will one day make Pope of the friar who heard Pompilia’s dying confession, and declares he had never shriven a soul

Then he grows calm again, speaks of being as good as out of the world now he is a relegated priest, and concludes with a despairing cry to the God whom he is no longer permitted to serve.

Notes.—Arezzo, the ancient Arretium, is the seat of a bishop and a prefect. The present population of the town is about eleven thousand, or, if the neighbouring villages are included, about thirty-nine thousand inhabitants. In the middle ages the town suffered severely in the wars of the Guelfs and Ghibellines; in this struggle it usually took the side of the Ghibellines. Caponsacchi’s church is that of S. Maria della Pieve, said to be as old as the beginning of the ninth century, with a tower and façade dating from 1216. The façade has four series of columns, arranged rather incongruously. Many ancient sculptures are over the doors. The interior of the church consists of a nave, with aisles and a dome. Petrarch was born at No. 22 in the Via dell’ Orto; the house bears an inscription to the effect that “Francesco Petrarca was born here, July 20th, 1304.” The cathedral is a fine Italian Gothic building, dating from 1177; the façade is still unfinished. The interior has no transept, but is of fine and spacious proportions, with some good stained-glass windows of the early part of the sixteenth century. Pope Gregory X. died at Arezzo, and his tomb is in the right aisle. There is a marble statue of Ferdinand de’ Medici in front of the cathedral, which was erected in 1595 by John of Douay. Arezzo is about a hundred miles north of Rome. In the story of the flight from Arezzo towards Rome, Caponsacchi indicates the chief places which they passed on the road. The first halt was at Perugia, the capital of the province of Umbria, with a population of some fifty thousand. It is the residence of a prefect, a military commandant, the seat of a bishop and a university. The city is built partly on the top of a hill and partly on the slope. Assisi may well be called “holy ground” (Caponsacchi, line 1205). Here was born St. Francis in 1182. “He was the son of the merchant Pietro Bernardine, and spent his youth in frivolity. At length, whilst engaged in a campaign against Perugia, he was taken prisoner, and attacked by a dangerous illness. Sobered by adversity, he soon afterwards (1208) founded the Franciscan order.” St. Francis was one of the most beautiful characters in religious history. His whole life was devoted to the poor and sick, and his order, to the present day, is the most charitable monastic order in the world. The monastery of St. Francis at Assisi has existed for six centuries. Foligno is an industrial town of twenty-one thousand inhabitants, and is the seat of a bishop. The cathedral was erected in the twelfth century. The church of S. Anna, or Delle Contesse, once contained Rafael’s famous Madonna di Foligno, now in the Vatican. Castelnuovo: at this place Guido overtook the travellers. It is situated about fifteen miles from Rome, and is only a village, with an inn. Line 230, “Capo-in-Sacco, our progenitor”: see note to Book II., “Half Rome,” l. 1250. l. 234, Old Mercato: the old market-place in Florence, where the Caponsacchi formerly resided. l. 249, Grand-duke Ferdinand: the marble statue of Ferdinand in front of the cathedral was erected by Giovanni da Bologna in 1595. l. 251, Aretines: the men of Arezzo. l. 280, “The Jews and the name of God”: the Jews do not pronounce the name of Jehovah, or Jahveh, out of reverence; they substitute the word Adonai, Lord. l. 333, Marinesque Adoniad: a celebrated poem called Adonis was written by Giovanni Marini, who lived at the beginning of the seventeenth century. l. 346, Pieve: the parish church of S. Maria della Pieve, said to have been built in the ninth century on the site of a temple of Bacchus. l. 389, Priscian was a great grammarian of the fifth century, whose name was almost synonymous with grammar. “To break Priscian’s head” was to violate the rules of grammar. l. 402, facchini: porters, or scoundrels. l. 449, in sæcula sæculorum, “world without end”: the concluding words of the “Glory be to the Father,” etc., chanted at the end of each psalm. l. 467, canzonet: a short song in one, two, or three parts. l. 559, Thyrsis, a shepherd of Arcadia; Myrtilla, a country maid in love with Thyrsis. l. 574, “At the Ave”: at the hour of evening prayer, when the “Hail Mary” and hymns to the Virgin are sung. l. 707, “Our Lady of all the Sorrows”: the Blessed Virgin is called “Our Lady of Sorrows,” and is painted with a sword piercing her heart, from the words of the Gospel, “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also” (St. Luke xi. 35). l. 828, The Augustinian: the friar of the order of St. Augustine. l. 960, St. Thomas with his sober grey goose-quill: St. Thomas Aquinas is referred to here. He was a famous Dominican theologian. His Sum of Theology is the standard text-book of the divine science in all Catholic countries. Aquinas was called “the angelic doctor.” l. 961, “Plato by Cephisian reed”: the Cephisus was a river on the west side of Athens, falling into the Saronic Gulf; the largest river in Attica. l. 988, “Intent on his corona”: the rosary or chaplet of beads is in Italy and Spain called the “corona.” The monk was intent on his rosary. l. 1102, Our Lady’s girdle: legend says that the Blessed Virgin, as she was being assumed into heaven, loosened her girdle, which was received by St. Thomas. (See Mrs. Jameson’s Legends of the Madonna.) l. 1170, Parian: a pure and beautiful marble of Paros; coprolite: the petrified dung of carnivorous reptiles. l. 1203, Perugia: a city about thirty-five miles from Arezzo, on the road to Rome. l. 1205, “Assisi—this is holy ground”: because there was the monastery founded by St. Francis of Assisi. l. 1266, The Angelus: a prayer consisting of the angelical salutation to Mary, with versicle and response and collect, said three times a day, at morning, noon and night; in Catholic countries and religious houses a bell is rung in a peculiar manner to announce the hour of this prayer. l. 1275, Foligno: a small town near Perugia. l. 1666, “Bembo’s verse”: Cardinal Bembo. (See notes to Asolo, p. 51.) l. 1667, “De Tribus”: the title of a scandalous pamphlet, called “The Three Impostors,” which was well known in the seventeenth century: Moses, Christ, and Mahomet were thus designated. (This explanation was sent me by the late Mr. J. A. Symonds.) l. 1747, “De Raptu Helenæ”: concerning the rape of Helen of Troy.