Irst Cheated In His Wife, Robbed By Her Kin, Rendered Anon The Laughing-Stock O' The World By The Story, True Or False, Of His Wife'S Birth, The Last Seal Publicly Apposed To Shame By The Open Flight Of Wife And Priest, Why, Sirs, Step Out Of Rome A Furlong, Would You Know What Anotherguess Tribunal Than Ours Here. Mere Worldly Court Without The Help Of Grace, Thinks Of Just That One Incident O' The Flight? Guido Preferred The Same Complaint Before The Court Of Arezzo, Bar Of The Granduke, In Virtue Of It Being Tuscany Where The Offence Had Rise And Flight Began, Self-Same Complaint He Made In The Sequel Here Where The Offence Grew To The Full, The Flight Ended: Offence And Flight, One Fact Judged Twice By Two Distinct Tribunals, What Result? There Was A Sentence Passed At The Same Time By Arezzo And Confirmed By The Granduke, Which Nothing Baulks Of Swift And Sure Effect But Absence Of The Guilty (Flight To Rome Frees Them From Tuscan Jurisdiction Now) Condemns The Wife To The Opprobrious Doom Of All Whom Law Just Lets Escape From Death. The Stinche, House Of Punishment, For Life, That's What The Wife Deserves In Tuscany: Here, She Deserves Remitting With A Smile To Her Father'S House, Main Object Of The Flight! The Thief Presented With The Thing He Steals! At This Discrepancy Of Judgments Mad, The Man Took On Himself The Office, Judged; And The Only Argument Against The Use O' The Law He Thus Took Into His Own Hands Is . . . What, I Ask You? That, Revenging Wrong, He Did Not Revenge Sooner, Kill At First Whom He Killed Last! That Is The Final Charge. Sooner? What's Soon Or Late I' The Case? Ask We. A Wound I' The Flesh No Doubt Wants Prompt Redress; It Smarts A Little To-Day, Well In A Week, Forgotten In A Month; Or Never, Or Now, Revenge! But A Wound To The Soul? That Rankles Worse And Worse. Shall I Comfort You, Explaining 'Not This Once 'But Now It May Be Some Five Hundred Times 'I Called You Ruffian, Pandar, Liar, And Rogue: 'The Injury Must Be Less By Lapse Of Time?' The Wrong Is A Wrong, One And Immortal Too, And That You Bore It Those Five Hundred Times, Let It Rankle Unrevenged Five Hundred Years, Is Just Five Hundred Wrongs The More And Worse! Men, Plagued This Fashion, Get To Explode This Way, If Left No Other. 'But We Left This Man 'Many Another Way, And There'S His Fault,' 'Tis Answered 'He Himself Preferred Our Arm 'O' The Law To Fight His Battle With. No Doubt 'We Did Not Open Him An Armoury 'To Pick And Choose From, Use, And Then Reject. 'He Tries One Weapon And Fails, He Tries The Next 'And Next: He Flourishes Wit And Common Sense, 'They Fail Him, He Plies Logic Doughtily, 'It Fails Him Too, Thereon, Discovers Last 'He Has Been Blind To The Combustibles 'That All The While He Is A-Glow With Ire, 'Boiling With Irrepressible Rage, And So 'May Try Explosives And Discard Cold Steel, 'So Hire Assassins, Plot, Plan, Execute! 'Is This The Honest Self-Forgetting Rage 'We Are Called To Pardon? Does The Furious Bull 'Pick Out Four Helpmates From The Grazing Herd 'And Journey With Them Over Hill And Dale 'Till He Find His Enemy?' What Rejoinder? Save That Friends Accept Our Bull-Similitude. Bull-Like, The Indiscriminate Slaughter, Rude And Reckless Aggravation Of Revenge, Were All I'The Way O' The Brute Who Never Once Ceases, Amid All Provocation More, To Bear In Mind The First Tormentor, First Giver O' The Wound That Goaded Him To Fight: And, Though A Dozen Follow And Reinforce The Aggressor, Wound In Front And Wound In Flank, Continues Undisturbedly Pursuit, And Only After Prostrating His Prize Turns On The Pettier, Makes A General Prey. So Guido Rushed Against Violante, First Author Of All His Wrongs, Fons Et Origo Malorum Increasingly Drunk, Which Justice Done? He Finished With The Rest. Do You Blame A Bull? In Truth You Look As Puzzled As Ere I Preached! How Is That? There Are Difficulties Perhaps On Any Supposition, And Either Side. Each Party Wants Too Much, Claims Sympathy For Its Object Of Compassion, More Than Just. Cry The Wife'S Friends, 'O The Enormous Crime 'Caused By No Provocation In The World!' 'Was Not The Wife A Little Weak?' Inquire 'Punished Extravagantly, If You Please, 'But Meriting A Little Punishment? 'One Treated Inconsiderately, Say, 'Rather Than One Deserving Not At All 'Treatment And Discipline O' The Harsher Sort?' No, They Must Have Her Purity Itself, Quite Angel And Her Parents Angels Too Of An Aged Sort, Immaculate, Word And Deed, At All Events, So Seeming, Till The Fiend, Even Guido, By His Folly, Forced From Them The Untoward Avowal Of The Trick O' The Birth, Would Otherwise Be Safe And Secret Now. Why, Here You Have The Awfulest Of Crimes For Nothing! Hell Broke Loose On A Butterfly! A Dragon Born Of Rose-Dew And The Moon! Yet Here Is The Monster! Why, He's A Mere Man Born, Bred, And Brought Up In The Usual Way. His Mother Loves Him, Still His Brothers Stick To The Good Fellow Of The Boyish Games; The Governor Of His Town Knows And Approves, The Archbishop Of The Place Knows And Assists: Here He Has Cardinal This To Vouch For The Past, Cardinal That To Trust For The Future, Match And Marriage Were A Cardinal'S Making, In Short, What If A Tragedy Be Acted Here Impossible For Malice To Improve, And Innocent Guido With His Innocent Four Be Added, All Five, To The Guilty Three, That We Of These Last Days Be Edified With One Full Taste O' The Justice Of The World? The Long And The Short Is, Truth Is What I Show: Undoubtedly No Pains Ought To Be Spared To Give The Mob An Inkling Of Our Lights. It Seems Unduly Harsh To Put The Man To The Torture, As I Hear The Court Intends, Though Readiest Way Of Twisting Out The Truth; He Is Noble, And He May Be Innocent: On The Other Hand, If They Exempt The Man (As It Is Also Said They Hesitate On The Fair Ground, Presumptive Guilt Is Weak I' The Case Of Nobility And Privilege), What Crime That Ever Was, Ever Will Be, Deserves The Torture? Then Abolish It! You See The Reduction Ad Absurdum, Sirs? Her Excellency Must Pronounce, In Fine! What, She Prefers Going And Joining Play? Her Highness Finds It Late, Intends Retire? I Am Of Their Mind: Only, All This Talk, Talked, 'Twas Not For Nothing That We Talked, I Hope? Both Know As Much About It, Now, At Least, As All Rome: No Particular Thanks, I Beg! (You'll See, I Have Not So Advanced Myself, After My Teaching The Two Idiots Here!)