Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis
Pauperum Procurator
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we’re eight?
Seven and one’s eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo -as -avi -atum -are -ans,
Up to - aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he’s perched, he’s perched,
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair, (10)
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eye.
Dispose, O Don, o’ the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And “then” means, won’t we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast, (20)
Cinuolo’s birth-night, Cinicello’s own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O’ the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (some one thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name (30)
“Cinino, Ciniccino,” near the end,
“To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
“Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
“When I decease as honest grandsire ought:”
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan’t my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i’ the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There’s cookery in a certain dwelling-place! (40)
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Let others climb the heights o’ the court, the camp!
How vain are chambering and wantonness,
Revel and rout and pleasures that make mad! (50)
Commend me to home-joy, the family board,
Altar and hearth! These, with a brisk career,
A source of honest profit and good fame,
Just so much work as keeps the brain from rust,
Just so much play as lets the heart expand,
Honouring God and serving man,—I say,
These are reality, and all else,—fluff,
Nutshell and naught,—thank Flaccus for the phrase!
Suppose I had been Fisc, yet bachelor!
Turn up the hour-glass, whence no sand-grain slips
But should have done its duty to the saint
O’ the day, the son and heir that’s eight years old!
Let law come dimple Cinoncino’s cheek,
And Latin dumple Cinarello’s chin,
The while we spread him fine and toss him flat
This pulp that makes the pancake, trim our mass
Of matter into Argument the First,
Prime Pleading in defence of our accused,
Which, once a-waft on paper wing, shall soar, (70)
Shall signalise before applausive Rome
What study, and mayhap some mother-wit,
Can do toward making Master fop and Fisc
Old bachelor Bottinius bite his thumb.
Now, how good God is! How falls plumb to point
This murder, gives me Guido to defend
Now, of all days i’ the year, just when the boy
Verges on Virgil, reaches the right age
For some such illustration from his sire,
Stimulus to himself! One might wait years (80)
And never find the chance which now finds me!
The fact is, there’s a blessing on the hearth,
A special providence for fatherhood!
Here’s a man, and what’s more, a noble, kills
—Not sneakingly but almost with parade—
Wife’s father and wife’s mother and wife’s self
That’s mother’s self of son and heir (like mine!)
—And here stand I, the favoured advocate,
Who pluck this flower o’ the field, no Solomon
Was ever clothed in glorious gold to match, (90)
And set the same in Cinoncino’s cap!
I defend Guido and his comrades—I!
Pray God, I keep me humble: not to me—
Non nobis, Domine, sed tibi laus!
How the fop chuckled when they made him Fisc!
We’ll beat you, my Bottinius, all for love,
All for our tribute to Cinotto’s day!
Why, ’sbuddikins, old Innocent himself
May rub his eyes at the bustle,—ask “What’s this
“Rolling from out the rostrum, as a gust (100)
“O’ the Pro Milone had been prisoned there,
“And rattled Rome awake?” Awaken Rome,
How can the Pope doze on in decency?
He needs must wake up also, speak his word,
Have his opinion like the rest of Rome,
About this huge, this hurly-burly case:
He wants who can excogitate the truth,
Give the result in speech, plain black and white,
To mumble in the mouth and make his own
—A little changed, good man, a little changed! (110)
No matter, so his gratitude be moved,
By when my Giacintino gets of
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