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She was Pompilia not Juliet, because, like the more ill-starred heroine, she had met sorrow before she met love, and the strong emotion which comes first in a young life makes the deep, the ineffaceable impression on its character. She had the strength to suffer undeserved woe, but the penalties of defiance and disobedience would surely kill her.
I am convinced that it entered largely into the conception of 'Pompilia', and, so far as this depended on it, the character of the whole work. In the outward course of her history, Mr. Browning proceeded strictly on the ground of fact. His dramatic conscience would not have allowed it otherwise.
The creator of Ottima and Colombe, of Balaustion and Pompilia had much to tell of womanhood. Michal occupies, as is right, but a small space in the history of Paracelsus, yet her presence in the poem and her silent withdrawal have a poignant influence. We see her as maiden and hear of her as mother, her face still wearing that quiet and peculiar light Like the dim circlet floating round a pearl.
It would be idle, and perhaps undesirable, to give examples; but it may be noted that the same brutal physical metaphor is used by his Caponsacchi about the people who could imagine Pompilia impure and by his Shakespeare in "At the Mermaid," about the claim of the Byronic poet to enter into the heart of humanity.
Browning shows that all this testimony is necessary to establish a complete circle of evidence in regard to the central truth of the tragedy. The poem thus becomes a remarkable analytic study of the psychology of human minds. The four important characters, Guido, the husband; Caponsacchi, the priest; Pompilia, the girl-wife; and the Pope, stand out in strong relief.
And in like manner we may say of Guido Franceschini that even to have touched him in the way of resistance detracts from pure heroism. Perhaps the same consideration explains the comparative disappointment which most people seem to have felt with Pompilia in the third volume. Again, there is nothing which can be rightly called majesty of character visible in one personage or another.
Nine different speakers tell nine different stories, stories of varying incidents about different persons for the Pompilia of Guido and the Pompilia of Caponsacchi are as remote, each from other, as a marsh-fire from a star, and so with the rest.
Far more than Pompilia, who knew the joy of motherhood, is she the martyr of love. And yet, before she quits life, in her protective care of that somewhat formidable, somewhat ungainly baby, the huge boy, her champion, hero and snob, she finds a comforting maternal instinct at work: Did you love me once? Then take love's last and best return!
Anthony's interest appeared to wake a little. Adrian laughed. "I expected that would rouse you. A Madame Torrebianca." "Ah?" said Anthony; and his interest appeared to drop. "Yes la Nobil Donna Susanna Torrebianca. Is n't that a romantic name? A lady like the heroine of some splendid old Italian story, like Pompilia, like Francesca, like Kate the Queen, when her maiden was binding her tresses.
The subject of the story is an innocent girl, Pompilia, who, under the protection of a noble priest, flees from her brutal husband and seeks the home of her foster parents. Her husband wrathfully pursues her and kills both her and her parents. While this is but the barest outline, yet the story in its complete form is very simple.
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