Pre-Raphaelite and other Poets

by Lafcadio Hearn

If you ask me why I have talked so much about so short a poem, the answer is that nearly all of Browning's short poems mean a great deal, and force us to think and to talk about them. The reason is that the characters in these poems are really alive; they impress us exactly as living persons do, and excite our curiosity in precisely the same way. Accordingly, notwithstanding their many faults of construction and obscure English, they have something of the greatness of Shakespeare's dramas.

It is now time to turn to the study of the greatest of all Browning's poems. Perhaps I should not call it a poem. It is rather an immense poetic drama. As printed in this single volume it represents four hundred and seventy-seven pages of closely printed small text. It is, therefore, even considered as a dramatic composition, many times larger than any true drama. But no true drama, except Shakespeare's, is more real or more terrible. Besides, it is a purely psychological drama. There is no scenery, no narrative in the ordinary sense. Everything is related in the first person. The whole is divided into twelve parts, each of which is a monologue. Nearly all of the monologues are spoken by different persons. The first monologue is the author's own, in which he tells us the meaning of the title and the story of the drama.

It is a true story of Italian life in the seventeenth century, the chief incident having really occurred in the year 1698. The poet one day found in an old Italian book shop a little book for sale, which was the history of a celebrated criminal trial. Besides the book, which included the speeches of the lawyers on both sides, and the evidence given before the court, there was a good deal of old manuscript—papers probably prepared by some lawyer of the time in connection with the case. Browning was able to buy the whole thing for eight pence; that small sum furnished him with material for the most enormous poem in the English language. When he read the facts of the trial, he said he could actually see all the characters as plainly as if they were alive, and could even hear them speak. He soon formed in his mind the plan for his poem; but it was a peculiar plan. The plan is indicated by the title of "The Ring and the Book." In Italy there is a great deal of beautiful light gold work made—for rings especially, which looks so delicate that at first sight you cannot understand how it was made. In a gold ring there are leaves and flowers and fruits and insects, so lightly made that even if you let the ring fall they would be injured and destroyed. Gold is very soft. In order to cut the gold in this way, the goldsmith uses a hard composition with which he covers the gold work, and after the carving and engraving have been done, this composition is melted off, so that only the pure gold is left, with all the work upon it. Browning says that he made his book somewhat in the same way that the Italian goldsmith makes his ring—by the use of an alloy. The facts of history and of law represent the gold in this case, and the poet mixes them with an alloy of imagination, emotion, sympathy, which helps him to make the whole story into a perfectly rounded drama, a complete circle, a Ring. This is the meaning of the title.

I shall first tell you the story briefly, according to the historical facts. About the year 1679 there was a family in Rome of the name of Comparini. The family consisted only of husband and wife; but it happened that the fact of their being without children proved a legal obstacle in the way of obtaining some money which they greatly desired. The wife, Violante, knew that her husband was too honest to wish to cheat the law, so she determined to try to get the money without letting him know her deceit in the matter. She pretended to have given birth, unexpectedly, to a child, but the child had really been bought from a woman of loose life—it was a very pretty female child, and was called Francesca Pompilia. Little Pompilia was supposed to be the real child of the Comparini; and the much desired money thus passed into their hands. This is the first act of the tragedy.

Pompilia grew up into a wonderfully beautiful girl; and when she was thirteen years old, many people wished to marry her. Guido Franceschini, Count of Arezzo, noticed the girl's beauty, and heard that she was rich. He determined to marry her if possible, chiefly for the sake of her money. He was a wicked old man, between fifty and sixty years of age, ugly, cunning, and poor. But he had immense influence, both among the nobility and among the church dignitaries, on account of his family relations; and he was himself of high rank. The marriage was negotiated successfully. Pompilia, a child of thirteen, could not naturally have wished to marry this horrible old man, but she had been taught to obey her parents as she obeyed Almighty God, and when she was told to marry him she married him without one word of complaint. By this marriage the wicked Count got into his hands all the property of the Comparini family, but it had been promised that the parents of the girl were to live in the palace of the Count, and to be taken care of for the rest of their lives. Nevertheless, as soon as the Count had everything in his hands, he turned the old parents out of his house, in a state of absolute destitution; he had taken from them their daughter and all their money, everything that they had in the world. This is the second act of the tragedy.

Naturally the Comparini family were very angry. The mother of the girl was so angry that she told her husband all about the trick which she had played in passing off Pompilia for her own child. Pompilia, you know, was not her real child at all. This changed the legal aspect of the matter. Old Comparini went to the Count and said, "You took our money, and thought that you were taking our daughter. But you must give back that money. The girl is not our daughter; the money does not belong to her: it will have to be given back to the government that we deceived." This is the third act of the tragedy.

The Count was equal to the occasion. He understood the law; but he understood it much better than the Comparini people. So long as he kept Pompilia as his wife, he knew that he could keep the money. If he divorced her, on the ground that she was of vulgar origin, then he would have to give up the money. But this was not the only alternative. There was a third possibility. If Pompilia committed adultery, then he could either kill her or get rid of her and keep the money notwithstanding. Pompilia was a weak child only thirteen years old. He was a wicked and terrible man, with half a century of experience, diabolical cunning, diabolical cruelty, and ferocious determination. He would make her commit adultery. That would be the simplest possible solution of the difficulty. But, strange to say, this terrible man could not conquer that delicate child of thirteen. First he tried to appeal to her passions, to excite her imagination in an immoral way. But her heart was too pure to be corrupted. There was in her no spur of lust. She was a simple good pure wife, too pure for any wicked ideas to be planted in her mind. Then he tried force, atrocious cruelty, horrible menace, always without letting her know what he really intended. What he really intended was to force her to run away from him. She could not run away except in the company of a protector. If she ran away with a protector, then he could kill both her and the man and claim that he had detected the two in adultery. After having tortured the girl hideously, in every moral and immoral way, he did succeed in getting her to ask for protection. She first asked protection from priests and bishops. The priests and bishops were afraid of the Count, and told her, like the cowards that they were, that they could not help her. She wanted to become a nun. The nuns were afraid of the Count, and refused her prayer. At last she did find one priest, a brave man, who was willing to save her if possible. He said, "You must run away with me, though it will look very bad; there is no other way to help you." She ran away with him. Within twenty-four hours the pair were overtaken by the Count and his company of armed men. The opportunity to kill Pompilia and her "lover" had come; but the so-called "lover," although only an honest poor priest, showed fight, and protected Pompilia against the Count and all his followers. The priest refused to surrender Pompilia except to the Church. The Church arrested both. Pompilia was put into a convent for safe keeping. The priest was tried for adultery, and acquitted. But he had done wrong by breaking the law of the Church even for a good purpose; therefore he was sentenced to banishment for a certain number of years. This is the fourth act of the tragedy.

The Count finds that all his plans have failed. He has not been able to convict his wife of adultery, although he has been able to injure her reputation in the opinion of the public. He cannot get rid of her, and keep her money too, except by killing her. But she is in the convent. While he is thinking what to do, another event happens which upsets all his calculations. Pompilia gives birth to a child of which he certainly is the father. The money question, the legal aspect of it, is still more complicated by the birth of the child. At once the Count determines to kill Pompilia and her parents, out of revenge. He knows that on certain days she goes to visit her parents. He watches for such an occasion, and with the help of some professional murderers, he kills the Comparini, and stabs Pompilia twenty-two times with a dagger. He imagined that this could be done so as to remain undiscovered; he thought that the crime could not be proved upon him. But poor Pompilia is very hard to kill. Although her slender body was thus stabbed through and through by a powerful man, she did not die at once; her wonderful youth kept her alive long enough to tell the police what had happened. The Count and his hired murderers were arrested and thrown into prison. This is the fifth act of the tragedy.