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
“so sweet and true, and pure and beautiful.”
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.
Book VII., Pompilia.—From her deathbed Pompilia tells the story of her life: says how she is just seventeen years and five months old: ’tis writ so in the church’s register, where she has five names—so laughable, she thinks. There will be more to write in that register now; and when they enter the fact of her death she trusts they will say nothing of the manner of it, recording only that she “had been the mother of a son exactly two weeks.” She has learned that she has twenty-two dagger wounds, five deadly; but she suffers not too much pain, and is to die to-night; thanks God her babe was born, and better, baptised and hid away before this happened, and so was safe; he was too young to smile and save himself. Now she will never see her boy, and when he grows up and asks “What was my mother like?” they will tell him “Like girls of seventeen”; but she thinks she looked nearer twenty. She wishes she could write that she might leave something he should read in time. Her name was not a common one: that may serve to keep her a little in memory. He had no father that he ever knew at all, and now—to-night—will have no mother and no name, not even poor old Pietro’s. This is why she called the boy Gaetano. A new saint should name her child. Those old saints must be tired out with helping folk by this time. She had five, and they were! How happy she had been in Violante’s love, till one day she declared she had never been their child, was but a castaway and unknown! People said husbands love their wives: hers had killed her! They said Caponsacchi, though a priest, did love her, and “no wonder you love him,” shaking their heads, pitying and blaming not very much. Then she tells the tale of six days ago, when the New Year broke: how she was talking by the fire about her boy, and what he should do when he was grown and great. Pietro and Violante had assisted her to creep to the fireside from her couch, and they sat wishing each other more New Years. Pietro was telling, too, of the cause he expected to gain against the wicked Count, and Violante scolded him for tiring Pompilia with his chatter: she was so happy that friendly eve. Then, next morning, old Pietro went out to see the churches. It was snowing when he returned, and Violante brought out a flask of wine and made up a great fire; and he told them of the seven great churches he had visited, and how none had pleased him like San Giovanni. He was just saying how there was the fold and all the sheep as big as cats, and shepherds half as large as life listening to the angel,—when there was a tap at the door. The rest, she said, they knew.... Pietro at least had done no harm, and Violante, after all, how little! She did wrong, she knows; she did not think lies were real lies when they had good at heart: it was good for all she meant. She sees this now she is dying: she meant the pain for herself, the happiness all for Pompilia. And now the misery and the danger are over; as she sinks away from life, she finds that sorrows change into something which is not altogether sorrow-like. Her child is safe, her pain not very great. She is so happy that she is just absolved, washed fair. “We cannot both have and not have.” Being right now, she is happy, and that colours things. She will tell the nuns, who watch by her and nurse her, how all this trouble came about. Up to her marriage at thirteen years, the days were as happy as they were long. Then, one day, Violante told her she meant next day to bring a cavalier whom she must allow to kiss her hand. He would be the same evening at San Lorenzo to marry her: but all would be as before, and she would still live at home. Till her mother spoke she must hold her tongue: that was the way with girl-brides. So, like a lamb, she had only to lie down and let herself be clipped. Next day came Guido Franceschini—old, not so tall as herself, hook-nosed, and with a yellow bush of beard, much like an owl in face; and his smile and the touch of his hand made her uncomfortable, though she did not suppose it mattered anything. Once, when she was ill, an ugly doctor attended her: he cured her, so his appearance did not affect his skill. Then, on the deadest of December days, she was hurried away at night to San Lorenzo. The church door was locked behind the little party, and the priest hurried her to the altar, where was hid Guido and his ugliness. They were married; and she, silent and scared, joined her mother, who was weeping; and they went home, saying no word to Pietro. “Girl-brides,” said Violante, “never breathe a word!” For three weeks she saw nothing of Guido. Nothing was changed. She was married, and expected all was over. The scarecrow doctor did not return: she supposed that Guido would keep away likewise. Then, one morning, as she sat at her broidery frame alone, she heard voices, and running to see, found Guido and the priest who had married her. Pietro was remonstrating, and Guido was claiming his wife, and had come to take her. Then she began to see that something mean and underhand had happened. Her mother was to blame, herself to pity. She was the chattel, and was mute. She retired to pray to God. Violante came to her, told her that she would have a palace, a noble name, and riches; that young men were volatile; that Guido was the sort of man for housekeeping; and it had been arranged they were not to separate, but should all live together in the great palace at Arezzo, where Pompilia would be queen. And so she went with Guido to his home. Since then it was all a blank, a terrific dream to her. The Count had married for money, and the money was not forthcoming; and he became unkind to his wife to punish the Comparini who had cheated him. So he accused her of being a coquette, of licentious looks at theatre and church. She knew this was a false charge, but could not divine his purpose in making it, so made matters worse by never going out at all. When the maid began to speak of the priest and of the letters they said he had written, she begged her to ask him to cease writing, even from passing through the street wherein she lived. The Count’s object she did not know was that they might be compromised. In her trouble she went to the Archbishop, begging him to place her in a convent. It was all so repugnant to her, barely twelve years old at marriage. But the Church could give no help: to live with her husband, she was told, was in her covenant. Then she told the frightful thing—of the advances of her husband’s brother, who solicited, and said he loved her; told him that her husband knew it all, and let it go on. The Archbishop bade her be more affectionate to her husband, and to let his brother see it. So home she went again, and her husband’s hate increased. Henceforth her prayers were not to man, but to God alone. She had been, she told them, three dreary years in that gloomy palace at Arezzo, when one day she learned that there could be a man who could be a saviour to the weak, and to the vile a foe. It was at the play where she first saw Caponsacchi. She saw him silent, grave, and almost solemn; and she thought had there been a man like that to lift her with his strength into the calm, how she could have rested. At supper that night her husband let her know what he had seen: the throwing of the comfits in her lap, her smile and interest in the priest; told her she was a wanton, drew his sword and threatened her. This was not new to her. He told her that this amour was the town’s talk, and he menaced the person of Caponsacchi. A week later, Margherita, her maid, who it was said was more than servant to her lord, began to tell her of the priest who loved her, and urged her to send him some token in return. Pompilia bade her say no more; but ever and again the woman reverted to the subject, and she at last produced letters said to have been sent by him. And when the importunity continued, she declared she knew all this of Caponsacchi to be false. The face which she had seen that night at the play was his own face, and the portrait drawn of him she was sure was false. And then, when April was half through, and it was said every one was leaving for Rome, and Caponsacchi too, a light sprang up within her: was it possible she also could reach Rome? How she had tried to leave the hateful home! She had appealed to the Governor of the city, to the Archbishop, to the poor friar, to Conti her husband’s relative, and he alone suggested a way of escape. “Ask Caponsacchi,” he said: “he’s your true St. George, to slay the monster.” Then to Margherita she said, “Tell Caponsacchi he may come!” And so again she saw the silent and solemn face, and told him all her trouble: how she was in course of being done to death. She trusted in God and him to save her—to take her to Rome and put her back with her own people. He said “he was hers.” The second night, when he came as arranged, he said the plan was impracticable,—he dare not risk the venture for her sake. But she urged him, and he yielded. “To-morrow, at the day’s dawn,” he would take her away. That night her husband, telling her how he loathed her, bade her not disturb him as he slept. And then she spoke of the flight, her prayers, her yearning to be at rest in Rome. Then all the horrors of the fatal night. She pardoned her husband: she knew that her presence had been hateful to him; she could not help that. She could not love him, but his mother did. Her body, but never her soul, had lain beside him. She hopes he will be saved. So, as by fire, she had been saved by him. As for her child, it should not be the Count’s at all—“only his mother’s, born of love, not hate!” Then, with her fast-failing mind-sight, she turns to the image of “the lover of her life, the soldier-saint.” Death shall not part her from him: her weak hand in his strong grasp shall rest in the new path she is about to tread. She bids them tell him she is arrayed for death in all the flowers of all he had said and done. He is a priest, and could not marry; nor would he if he could, she thinks: the true marriage is for heaven.
“So, let him wait God’s instant men call years;
Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul,
Do out the duty! Through such souls alone
God stooping shows sufficient of His light
For us i’ the dark to rise by. And I rise!”
Notes.—Line 423, Master Malpichi: probably Marcello Malpighi (1628-1694), a great physician of Bologna. He was the founder of microscopic anatomy. In 1691 he removed to Rome to become physician to Pope Innocent XII. l. 427, “The lion’s mouth”: Via di Bocca di Leone—the name of a street near the Corso. l. 607, The square o’ the Spaniards: Piazza di Spagna is the centre of the strangers’ quarter in Rome. It derives its name from the palace of the Spanish Ambassador. l. 1153, Mirtillo, probably a minor poet of the period. l. 1303, The Augustinian: an order of monks following the rule of St. Augustine. l. 1377, The Ave Maria: the “Hail Mary”—an evening devotion, wherein the prayer occurs of which these are the first words.
Book VIII., Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator.—In this book we have the counsel on behalf of Count Guido at work in his study, preparing the defence which he is to make on behalf of his client. He is a family man, and his life is bound up in that of his son, whose birthday it is, the lad being eight years old. He will devote himself to his case, and when his work is done will enjoy the yearly lovesome frolic feast with little Cinuolo. “Commend me,” says the man of law, “to home joy, the family board, altar and hearth!” He is very anxious to make a good figure in the courts over this case, his opponent, old bachelor Bottinius, shall be made to bite his thumb; and he expresses his gratitude to God that he has Guido to defend just when his boy is eight years old, and needs a stimulus to study from his sire. He chuckles at his good fortune: a noble to defend, a man who has almost with parade killed three persons; it is really too much luck to befall him, and on his son’s birthday too! he prays God to keep him humble, and mutters “Non nobis Domine!” as he turns over his papers. He determines to beat the other side, if only for love, as a tribute to little Cinotto’s natal day (the boy was called by half a dozen pet names). He will astonish the Pope himself with his eloquence and skill; and the day shall be remembered when his son becomes of age. Then he bethinks himself of the night’s feast: the wine, the minced herbs with the liver, goose-foot, and cock’s-comb, cemented with cheese; he rubs his hands again, as he thinks of all the good things getting ready. But now to work: he must puzzle out this case. He is particular about the Latin he will use; he would like to bring in Vergil, but that will not do well in prose. His son shall attack him with Terence on the morrow. Then he curbs his ardour, and sets himself to deal in earnest with the case. Bottinius will deny that Pompilia wrote any letter at all. Anticipating what his opponent will say, he says he had rather lose his case than miss the chance of ridiculing his Latin and making the judge laugh, who will so enjoy the joke. If it comes to law, why, he is afraid he cannot “level the fellow”: he sees him even now in his study, working up thrusts that will be hard to parry, he is sure to deliver a bowl from some unguessed standpoint. And now he stops to rub some life into his frozen fingers, hopes his boy will take care of his throat this cold day, and reflects how chilly Guido must be in his dungeon, despite his straw. Carnival time too: what a providence, with the city full of strangers! He will do his best to edify and amuse them: they may remember Cintino some day! But to the case. “Where are we weak?” he asks. The killing is confessed: they tortured Guido, and so got it out of him,—he shall object to that; nobles are exempt from torture. A certain kind of torture like that called Vigiliarum, is excellent for extracting confession; he has never known any prisoner stand it for ten hours; they “touched their ten,” ’tis true, “but, bah! they died!” If the Count had not confessed, he should have set up the defence that Caponsacchi really murdered the three, and fled just as Guido, touched by grace,—consequent upon having been a good deal at church at the holy season—hastened to the house to pardon his wife, and so arrived just in time—to be charged with the murders. Yes, he could have done very well on this line, he thinks; but the confession has spoiled all that. Wonderful that a nobleman could not stand torture better! Why, he has known several brave young fellows keep a rack in their back garden, and take a turn at it for an hour or two at a time, just to see how much pain they could stand without flinching: he thinks men are degenerating. And so he meanders on, pulling himself up in the midst of a nice point to wonder whether his cook has remembered how excellently well some chopped fennel-root goes with fried liver. “But no; she cannot have been so obtuse as to forget!” He shall begin his speech with a pretty compliment to His Holiness, then he shall quote St. Jerome, St. Gregory, Solomon, and St. Bernard, who all say that a man must not be touched in his honour. Our Lord Himself said, “My honour I to nobody will give!” (He stops to reflect that a melon would have improved the soup, but that the boy wanted the rind to make a boat with.) He shall continue, that a husband who has a faithless wife must raise hue and cry,—the law is not for such cases,—these are for gentlemen to deal with themselves. Of course the other side will object that Guido allowed too long an interval to elapse between the capture of the fugitives and the killing; but he shall show that there really was no interval between the inn and the Comparinis’ villa at Rome: Pompilia was inaccessible between these places. If they object that Guido, when he arrived at Rome on Christmas Eve, should have sought his vengeance at once, he shall ask, “Is no religion left?” A man with all those Feasts of the Nativity to occupy his mind could not be expected to go about his private business. (He pauses to reflect that a little lamb’s fry will be very toothsome in an hour’s time.) The charge is that “we killed three innocents”; as to the manner of the killing, that matters nothing, granted we had the right to kill. Eight months since they would have been held to blame if they had let this bad pair escape: true, that was the time to have killed them, but the Count had not the proper weapons handy. He shall say, too, that he did not instruct his confederates to kill any one of the three, but merely to disfigure them; they had been too zealous. He next proceeds to dispose of a number of points in which it is charged the offence was aggravated,—such as slaying the family in their own house, and lastly that the majesty of the sovereign has received a wound. (Here he fervently hopes the devil will not instigate his cook to stew the rabbit instead of roasting him: he will have to go and see after things himself—he really must.) But, if the end be lawful, the means are allowed. (The Cardinal has promised to go and read the speech to the Pope, and point its beauties out, so he must be adroit in his words.) As he stands forth as the advocate of the poor, he must put in a word or two for the four assassins who did the deed. On their behalf he pleads that, as the husband was in the right in what he did, those who helped him could not be in the wrong. (On which more Latin and neat phrases.) He will be reminded that Guido went off without paying the men the stipulated fee for the murders. “What fact,” he shall ask, “could better illustrate the perfect rectitude of the Count?” The men were not actuated by malice, but by a simple desire to earn their bread by the sweat of their brow. As for the Count, so absorbed was he in vindicating his honour, that paltry, vulgar questions of money wholly escaped him; “he spared them the pollution of the pay.” In conclusion, he shall urge that Guido killed his wife in defence of the marriage vow, that he might creditably live. “There’s my speech,” he cries, as he dashes down the pen; “where’s my fry, and family, and friends? What an evening have I earned to-day!” And off he goes to supper, singing “Tra-la-la, lambkins, we must live!”
Notes.—Line 8, “And chews Corderius with his morning crust”: the Colloquies of Corderius were used in every school of any consequence in the time of Shakespeare’s boyhood. It was the most popular Latin book for boys of the time. l. 14, Papinianian pulp: Papinian was the most celebrated of Roman jurists, and an intimate friend of the Emperor Septimius Severus. l. 58, Flaccus: Horace, whose full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus. l. 94, “Non nobis, Domine, sed Tibi laus”: “Not unto us, Lord, but to Thee be the praise!” l. 101, Pro Milone: the celebrated oration of Cicero on behalf of Milo, a friend of his. l. 115, Hortensius Redivivus: Hortensius, the Roman orator. l. 117, “The Est-est”: a wine so called because a nobleman once sent his servant in advance to write “Est,” it is! on any inn where the wine was particularly good; at one place the man wrote “Est-est,” It is! it is! in token of its superlative excellence, and the vintage has ever since gone by this designation. l. 329, “Questions,” tortures; Vigiliarum: torture by incessant jerking of the body and limbs. l. 482, Theodoric: king of the Ostrogoths (c. A.D. 454-526); he caused the celebrated Boethius to be put to death. l. 483, Cassiodorus: a Roman historian, statesman, and monk, who lived about 468 A.D.; he was raised by Theodoric to the highest offices. He was one of the first of literary monks, and his books were much used in the middle ages. l. 498, Scaliger: Julius Cæsar Scaliger (1484-1558), a man of the greatest eminence in the world of letters, and as a man of science, and a philosopher. He had a son, Joseph Justus Scaliger, not less eminent, who wrote the work referred to. l. 503, The Idyllist is Theocritus, the Sicilian poet. l. 513, Ælian: a Roman, in the reign of Adrian, surnamed the honey-tongued, from the sweetness of his style; he wrote seventeen treatises on animals. l. 948, Valerius Maximus, a Latin writer, who made a collection of historical anecdotes, and published his work in the reign of Tiberius. It was called Books of Memorable Deeds and Utterances. Most of the tales are from Roman history. Cyriacus: patriarch of the Jacobites, monk of the convent of Bizona, in Syria; died at Mosul in 817 A.D. He wrote homilies, canons, and epistles. l. 1542, Castrensis: a distinguished professor of civil and canon law; he died in 1441. He was a professor at Vienna, Avignon, Padua, Florence, Bologna, and Perugia. His most complete work is his readings on the Digest. Butringarius: a jurisconsult (1274-1348). [I have not considered it necessary to translate the many Latin lines in this and the following section of the work, because in nearly every case their sense is given in the context, and therefore those who do not read Latin will lose nothing, as practically they have it all englished in the text.]
Book IX., Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius (Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus).—Bottinius is the Public Prosecutor, and has to present the case against the Count and his confederates. He is not a family man, and seems to have but a low ideal of feminine virtue. He admires the sex, but from a superior masculine standpoint; their weaknesses are amiable. Of girls he says—