Mi perdonato, gentle master mine;
I am in all affected as yourself;
Glad that you thus continue your resolve
To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.Only, good master, while we do admire
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This virtue and this moral discipline,
Let’s be no stoics nor no stocks, I pray;
Or so devote to Aristotle’s checks
As Ovid be an outcast quite abjur’d.
Balk logic with acquaintance that you have,
And practise rhetoric in your common talk;
Music and poesy use to quicken you;
The mathematics and the metaphysics,
Fall to them as you find your stomach serves you:
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en;
In brief, sir, study what you most affect.
Poverty and want are so violent oppugners, so unwelcome guests, so much abhorred of all men, that I may not omit to speak of them apart. Poverty, although (if considered aright, to a wise, understanding, truly regenerate, and contented man) it be donum Dei, a blessed estate, the way to heaven, as Chrysostom calls it, God’s gift, the mother of modesty, and much to be preferred before riches (as shall be shown in his place), yet as it is esteemed in the world’s censure, it is a most odious calling, vile and base, a severe torture, summum scelus, a most intolerable burden; we shun it all, cane pejus et angue (worse than a dog or a snake), we abhor the name of it, Paupertas fugitur, totoque arcessitur orbe, as being the fountain of all other miseries, cares, woes, labours, and grievances whatsoever. To avoid which, we will take any pains,–extremos currit mercator ad Indos, we will leave no haven, no coast, no creek of the world unsearched, though it be to the hazard of our lives, we will dive to the bottom of the sea, to the bowels of the earth, five, six, seven, eight, nine hundred fathom deep, through all five zones, and both extremes of heat and cold: we will turn parasites and slaves, prostitute ourselves, swear and lie, damn our bodies and souls, forsake God, abjure religion, steal, rob, murder, rather than endure this insufferable yoke of poverty, which doth so tyrannise, crucify, and generally depress us.
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Guido had thought in his simplicity–
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That lying declaration of remorse,
That story of the child which was no child
And motherhood no motherhood at all,
–That even this sin might have its sort of good
Inasmuch as no question more could be,–
Call it false, call the story true,–no claim
Of further parentage pretended now:
The parents had abjured all right, at least,
I’ the woman owned his wife: to plead right still
Were to declare the abjuration false:
He was relieved from any fear henceforth
Their hands might touch, their breath defile again
Pompilia with his name upon her yet.