FRA DOLCINO AND MARGARITA.
Dolcino was pursued with fire and sword,
Until the bloodhounds which had suckt the dugs
Of Rome’s old wolf had trackt him coucht among
His native hills.
At Serravalle first
He halted briefly; there they scented him
Amid the faithful poor whose bread he ate,
Bread freely proffered and blest gratefully.
Next was his flight to the castellated
Robialto, where Biandrate held to him
A hospitable hand, a hand unmail’d
But rarely. Long the pious fugitive
Would not imperil him who stood observed
In eminence of station. More obscure —
Emiliano Sola, who contrived
How from Dalmatia he might best return
To Italy, now brought to Campertogno
The weary pilgrim. Emiliano Sola
Would rather leave his home and fertile mead
Along Valsesia than desert his friend.
He loaded many teams with wheat and wool,
And drove before him oxen, freed from yoke,
Unused to mount steep crags; the household dog
Followed, though oft rebuked, and halting oft
Under the shadow of the panting kine.
Two winters then were spent above the snow,
And food was wanting both for man and beast,
So that the direst famine shrivel’d them,
Leaving but half what they had been before.
Escape was none; five thousand foes around
After five thousand had already tinged
With ropy gore the Sesia, like red snakes
Twisting, convolving, clashing, numberless.
Who has not seen Varallo, and not paused
Amid the beauteous scene to mourn the fate
Of men so brave, of women brave no less,
Whose flesh was torn from them while wolves around
Growl’d for it as ’twas oast into the flames;
But there was little for them had they all.
Ranieri di Perzana was ordain’d
Lord Bishop of Vercelli, proud alike
Of crosier and of sword, and rendering each
Its service to the other; princely state
Was his, with palaces and wide domains,
While over icebergs, over precipices,
Homeless and roofless, with eight hundred men,
Women, and children, Fra Dolcino fled.
“Now,” said the bishop to his holy band,
“See, what avails it to have purified
Our violated church with fire and blood
Of thousand thousand reprobates, while one
Defies us from his Alpine fastnesses,
Consorted with that wicked Margarita
Of Trent, who shares his faith and who pretends
To live with him in virgin purity,
Altho’ she never took the cloistral vows
Nor call’d the Church’s blessing.
They presume
To read that book which we alone may read,
Christ’s WILL AND TESTAMENT, bequeathed to us
Residuary legatees of all
In his rich treasury for our use lockt up,
And Peter’s heir holds in his hand the key.
Against the abomination rise, my sons,
And leave on yonder mount no soul alive.
But there are some whom we may first convert.
Tell the rude rabble, snorting now and rearing
Against that sacred chair which Christ himself
Placed for St. Peter and St. Peter’s heirs,
That I prepare in my dispensary
An application for stiff necks and wry,
The which shall straiten them and set them up.”
Familiarly and pleasantly, as wont,
Thus spake Ranieri, by the Grace of God
And God’s vicegerent, Bishop of Vercelli.
A patriot, bold as those whose hardy deeds
He traces with a poet’s fire, relates
How winter after winter, destitute
Of fuel and of food, these mountaineers
Maintain’d their post, nor daunted nor deceived;
How not the stronger sex alone sustain’d
The brunt of battle; of the weaker stood
A hundred, fighting till a hundred fell.
Men, it is said, by famine so reduced,
Have eaten their slain enemies; one wretch
Askt if ‘twere worse to eat men than to slay,
To eat the murderer than to slay the helpless;
Then, turning to a priest who taunted him,
“Madden’d by famine brought on us by you
We ate our enemies, you eat your God.”
Pincers tore out the tongue that thus blasphemed.
After long winters and hard fights against
Successive hosts the fortalice was won;
Few the survivors; one Dolcino was,
Another was the virgin; neither wish’d
For life, both yearn’d for truth and truth alone.
Dolcino was led forward: pots of pitch
And burning charcoal were paraded round
The cart that bore him, iron pincers glow’d
With fire, and these contending priests applied
To every portion of his naked flesh
Until the bones were bare; then was he dragg’d
Thither where Margarita stood above
Small fagots, for her lingering death prepared.
Few and faint words she spoke, nor heard he these.
“Have we not lived together, O Dolcino,
In sisterhood and brotherhood a life
Of chastity, God helping this desire,
Nor leaving other in the cleansed heart.”
She paus’d; his head hung low; then added she
“Our separation is the worst of pangs
We suffer: bear even this: pincers and barbs
I now feel too.”
“Dolcino, art thou faint?
Speakest thou not? then is thy spirit fled,
Mine follows.”
There was on each eye a tear
(For Margarita was but woman yet)
Not one had fallen, else the flames had dried it.
She uttered these last words, scarce audibly,
“Blessed be God, thou seest his face, Dolcino,
O may I see it! may he grant it soon!”