The Old Yellow Book: Source of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book. Various
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when they were caught in the very act of flight at the tavern of Castelnuovo, but that he preferred rather to have them imprisoned, seeking their punishment by law, and not with his own hand. We deny that he could have safely killed both of them, inasmuch as he was alone, nor could he attack them, except at the risk of his own life. Because the lover was of powerful strength, not at all timid, and all too prompt for resisting, since, in the word of one of the witnesses in the prosecution for flight, he was called Scapezzacollo [cut-throat]. Nor is it credible that, unless he had been fearless and full of spirit, he would have ventured upon so great a crime, and would have dared to participate in her flight, and to accompany the fugitive wife from the home of her husband. And this fact is more clearly deducible from one of his letters, in which, after urging Francesca to mingle an opiate in the wine-flasks for the purpose of putting her husband and the servants to sleep, he adds that if they find it out she should open the door; for he would either suffer death with her or would snatch her from their hands. These things indicate both courage and audacity. And though the wife is a woman, that is a timid and unwarlike creature, nevertheless Francesca was all too impudent and audacious, whether because of her hatred for her husband or on account of her anger at the imprisonment of her lover. For she drew a sword upon her husband in the very presence of the officers who were about to arrest her. And to prevent her from going further, one of the bystanders had to snatch it from her hands. Therefore, before their imprisonment, Guido could not put into effect what he had had in mind and what he could lawfully do, because he was alone and his strength was not sufficient. Then when she had been taken to prison, and afterwards was placed in safe keeping, it was impossible for him to vindicate his honour. But when at last she had left the monastery and had gone back to the home of Pietro and Violante, he took vengeance as soon as he could. Therefore we hold that he killed her in the very act, as it were, and immediately. In Sanfelicius [Citation], we read of a case where a husband, though he could have killed his wife immediately, did not do so, but craftily redeemed himself from his disgrace by slaying his wife as soon as possible. And Giurba also speaks of a case where the argument is concerning an injury that was not personal, but real, as was said above.
Guido saw to her capture, and insisted that she be punished, lest she continue her adultery and viciousness, being powerless to do anything else, because his confusion of mind, his helpless fury, and his sense of shame led him unwisely into not taking the law into his own hands and recovering his lost honour. He indeed lodged complaint, but it was because he could not kill her. Nor would his ignominy have been wiped out nor his infamy have been destroyed by her imprisonment and punishment. But when, indeed, after her imprisonment he was still more shut out from noble company, his injury ever became the more acute, and it stimulated him the more strongly to regain his own reputation. But his bitterness of mind was increased especially at hearing that she had gone back to the home of Pietro and Violante, who had declared that she was not their daughter, but the child of a dishonest woman; hence his injury was increased by her staying in a home which he suspected, as is said a little further on. Accordingly the same cause kept urging him after her departure from the monastery, as had done so before her imprisonment and the appeals made by Count Guido.
It makes very little difference that Francesca was staying in the home of Violante, which had been assigned to her as a safe prison with the consent of Guido's brother. For what would it amount to even if with the consent of Guido himself she had been taken from the monastery (yet we have no word of this matter in the trial). For Guido could make that pretence to gain the opportunity of killing her for the restoration of his honour. Nor would such dissimulation increase the crime, especially to the degree of the ordinary penalty, since it is certain that the husband may kill a wife stained with adultery without incurring such penalty. Yet a heavier or lighter penalty is inflicted, just as more or less treachery accompanies the murder, as Matthæus testifies it was practised in the Senate of Matrinumsis. [Citation.]
Nor is the attendant circumstance of the place assigned as a prison worthy of consideration, as if the custody of the Prince had been insulted; for one is not said to be in custody when he is merely detained in a place under security that he will not leave it. [Citation.] Furthermore, this objection falls utterly to the ground, because the circumstance of such a place does not increase the crime, whenever it is committed by one having provocation or for the repelling of an injury. And [the following authorities] hold thus in the more serious case of a crime committed in prison. [Citations.]
Furthermore we do not believe, from what is said above, that the penalty can be increased because of the murder of Pietro and Violante, since the same injured honour, which impelled Count Guido to kill his wife, forced him to kill the said parents. And now may the ashes of the dead spare me if what I have urged above, and what I am about to say, may seem to disturb their peace! Neither the flame of hatred nor the impulse of anger (which are far from me) have suggested these charges; but the demands of the defence, which I have assumed without a penny of compensation, compel me to employ every means leading to the desired end.
I have said, and I think not without due reason, that the Accused sprang forward to the death of both of them, moved simply by an immediate injury to his own reputation. For a few months after the marriage contracted with Francesca, whom they had professed to be their daughter, they had not blushed to declare that she was not such. Hence there is an inevitable dilemma. Either [first] she was in deed and truth their daughter, and then we must acknowledge that in afterward denying her parentage they had inflicted the greatest injury upon the honour and reputation of the Accused; for they had conceived strong hatred and malice against him. Hence they did not hesitate to disgrace their own daughter, in order that they might bring upon him the infamy of having married the daughter of a vile and dishonest woman. This is indeed a fact, that whoever knows Count Guido supposes he has married a girl, not merely of rank unequal to his own, but even of the basest condition, and this greatly injures the reputation of his entire household.
Or else [second] Francesca was indeed conceived of an unknown father and born of a dishonest harlot. And it cannot be denied, that in that case he suffered even greater injury, which branded him with a mark of infamy; both because of her birth and from the fact that daughters are usually not unlike their mothers. Cephalus [Citations], where we read: "From such mingling with harlots it is to be supposed that the people become degenerate, ignoble, and burning with lust." And would that experience had not taught us this fact!
The unfortunate man believed he was marrying the daughter of Pietro and Violante, born legitimately, and yet by the contrivance and trickery of this couple he married a girl of basest stock, conceived illegitimately by a dishonourable mother. From this fact alone the quality of those parents can be inferred, who, for the sake of deceiving those lawfully entitled to the trust-moneys, had made most vile pretence of the birth of a child, entirely unmindful that they laid themselves liable to capital punishment. [Citations.]
It will not, therefore, be difficult to believe what Francesca reveals in her letter to her brother-in-law, that the abovesaid couple, in spite of the fact that she was well treated, kept instigating her daily to poison her husband, her brother-in-law, and her mother-in-law, and to burn the home. And though these crimes are very base, they gave her still worse counsel, even by her obligation to obey them; namely, that after their departure from Arezzo, she should allure a lover, and leaving her husband's home in his company, should return to the City. In her obedience to their commands, this daughter seemed indeed all too prompt. Who then will deny that such reckless daring, wherefrom a notorious disgrace was inflicted upon the entire household of the Accused, ought to be attributed to the base persuasion of the said couple? Nor was it difficult to persuade that girl to do what she was prone to by inborn instinct and by the example of her mother.
It is not my duty to divine why that couple so anxiously desired the return of Francesca to their home. But I cannot persuade myself that they were moved by mere charity, namely, that she might escape ill-treatment. For Francesca, in the said letter, acknowledges that she is leading a quiet life, and that her husband and the servants are treating her very well, and that what she had laid before the Bishop had been the falsehood of the said couple.
I know furthermore that if a husband have knowledge of the adultery of his wife and keep her in his home, he cannot escape the mark and penalty of a pimp. [Citations.] If, therefore, as the said couple declare, Francesca was not their daughter, why did they receive her so tenderly