The Monk of Casal-Maggiore

Once on a time, some centuries ago,In the hot sunshine two Franciscan friarsWended their weary way with footsteps slowBack to their convent, whose white walls and spiresGleamed on the hillside like a patch of snow;Covered with dust they were, and torn by briers,And bore like sumpter-mules upon their backsThe badge of poverty, their beggar's sacks.

The first was Brother Anthony, a spareAnd silent man, with pallid cheeks and thin,Much given to vigils, penance, fasting, prayer,Solemn and gray, and worn with discipline,As if his body but white ashes were,Heaped on the living coals that glowed within;A simple monk, like many of his day,Whose instinct was to listen and obey.

A different man was Brother Timothy,Of larger mould and of a coarser paste;A rubicund and stalwart monk was he,Broad in the shoulders, broader in the waist,Who often filled the dull refectoryWith noise by which the convent was disgraced,But to the mass-book gave but little heed,By reason he had never learned to read.

Now, as they passed the outskirts of a wood,They saw, with mingled pleasure and surprise,Fast tethered to a tree an ass, that stoodLazily winking his large, limpid eyes.The farmer Gilbert of that neighborhoodHis owner was, who, looking for suppliesOf fagots, deeper in the wood had strayed,Leaving his beast to ponder in the shade.

As soon as Brother Timothy espiedThe patient animal, he said: "Good-lack!Thus for our needs doth Providence provide;We'll lay our wallets on the creature's back."This being done, he leisurely untiedFrom head and neck the halter of the jack,And put it round his own, and to the treeStood tethered fast as if the ass were he.

And, bursting forth into a merry laugh,He cried to Brother Anthony: "Away!And drive the ass before you with your staff;And when you reach the convent you may sayYou left me at a farm, half tired and halfIll with a fever, for a night and day,And that the farmer lent this ass to bearOur wallets, that are heavy with good fare."

Now Brother Anthony, who knew the pranksOf Brother Timothy, would not persuadeOr reason with him on his quirks and cranks,But, being obedient, silently obeyed;And, smiting with his staff the ass's flanks,Drove him before him over hill and glade,Safe with his provend to the convent gate,Leaving poor Brother Timothy to his fate.

Then Gilbert, laden with fagots for his fire,Forth issued from the wood, and stood aghastTo see the ponderous body of the friarStanding where he had left his donkey last.Trembling he stood, and dared not venture nigher,But stared, and gaped, and crossed himself full fast;For, being credulous and of little wit,He thought it was some demon from the pit.

While speechless and bewildered thus he gazed,And dropped his load of fagots on the ground,Quoth Brother Timothy: "Be not amazedThat where you left a donkey should be foundA poor Franciscan friar, half-starved and crazed,Standing demure and with a halter bound;But set me free, and hear the piteous storyOf Brother Timothy of Casal-Maggiore.

"I am a sinful man, although you seeI wear the consecrated cowl and cape;You never owned an ass, but you owned me,Changed and transformed from my own natural shapeAll for the deadly sin of gluttony,From which I could not otherwise escape,Than by this penance, dieting on grass,And being worked and beaten as an ass.

"Think of the ignominy I endured;Think of the miserable life I led,The toil and blows to which I was inured,My wretched lodging in a windy shed,My scanty fare so grudgingly procured,The damp and musty straw that formed my bed!But, having done this penance for my sins,My life as man and monk again begins."

The simple Gilbert, hearing words like these,Was conscience-stricken, and fell down apaceBefore the friar upon his bended knees,And with a suppliant voice implored his grace;And the good monk, now very much at ease,Granted him pardon with a smiling face,Nor could refuse to be that night his guest,It being late, and he in need of rest.

Upon a hillside, where the olive thrives,With figures painted on its white-washed walls,The cottage stood; and near the humming hivesMade murmurs as of far-off waterfalls;A place where those who love secluded livesMight live content, and, free from noise and brawls,Like Claudian's Old Man of Verona hereMeasure by fruits the slow-revolving year.

And, coming to this cottage of contentThey found his children, and the buxom wenchHis wife, Dame Cicely, and his father, bentWith years and labor, seated on a bench,Repeating over some obscure eventIn the old wars of Milanese and French;All welcomed the Franciscan, with a senseOf sacred awe and humble reverence.

When Gilbert told them what had come to pass,How beyond question, cavil, or surmise,Good Brother Timothy had been their ass,You should have seen the wonder in their eyes;You should have heard them cry, "Alas! alas!Have heard their lamentations and their sighs!For all believed the story, and beganTo see a saint in this afflicted man.

Forthwith there was prepared a grand repast,To satisfy the craving of the friarAfter so rigid and prolonged a fast;The bustling housewife stirred the kitchen fire;Then her two barnyard fowls, her best and last,Were put to death, at her express desire,And served up with a salad in a bowl,And flasks of country wine to crown the whole.

It would not be believed should I repeatHow hungry Brother Timothy appeared;It was a pleasure but to see him eat,His white teeth flashing through his russet beard,His face aglow and flushed with wine and meat,His roguish eyes that rolled and laughed and leered!Lord! how he drank the blood-red country wineAs if the village vintage were divine!

And all the while he talked without surcease,And told his merry tales with jovial gleeThat never flagged, but rather did increase,And laughed aloud as if insane were he,And wagged his red beard, matted like a fleece,And cast such glances at Dame CicelyThat Gilbert now grew angry with his guest,And thus in words his rising wrath expressed.

"Good father," said he, "easily we seeHow needful in some persons, and how right,Mortification of the flesh may be.The indulgence you have given it to-night,After long penance, clearly proves to meYour strength against temptation is but slight,And shows the dreadful peril you are inOf a relapse into your deadly sin.

"To-morrow morning, with the rising sun,Go back unto your convent, nor refrainFrom fasting and from scourging, for you runGreat danger to become an ass again,Since monkish flesh and asinine are one;Therefore be wise, nor longer here remain,Unless you wish the scourge should be appliedBy other hands, that will not spare your hide."

When this the monk had heard, his color fledAnd then returned, like lightning in the air,Till he was all one blush from foot to head,And even the bald spot in his russet hairTurned from its usual pallor to bright red!The old man was asleep upon his chair.Then all retired, and sank into the deepAnd helpless imbecility of sleep.

They slept until the dawn of day drew near,Till the cock should have crowed, but did not crow,For they had slain the shining chanticleerAnd eaten him for supper, as you know.The monk was up betimes and of good cheer,And, having breakfasted, made haste to go,As if he heard the distant matin bell,And had but little time to say farewell.

Fresh was the morning as the breath of kine;Odors of herbs commingled with the sweetBalsamic exhalations of the pine;A haze was in the air presaging heat;Uprose the sun above the Apennine,And all the misty valleys at its feetWere full of the delirious song of birds,Voices of men, and bells, and low of herds.

All this to Brother Timothy was naught;He did not care for scenery, nor hereHis busy fancy found the thing it sought;But when he saw the convent walls appear,And smoke from kitchen chimneys upward caughtAnd whirled aloft into the atmosphere,He quickened his slow footsteps, like a beastThat scents the stable a league off at least.

And as he entered though the convent gateHe saw there in the court the ass, who stoodTwirling his ears about, and seemed to wait,Just as he found him waiting in the wood;And told the Prior that, to alleviateThe daily labors of the brotherhood,The owner, being a man of means and thrift,Bestowed him on the convent as a gift.

And thereupon the Prior for many daysRevolved this serious matter in his mind,And turned it over many different ways,Hoping that some safe issue he might find;But stood in fear of what the world would say,If he accepted presents of this kind,Employing beasts of burden for the packs,That lazy monks should carry on their backs.

Then, to avoid all scandal of the sort,And stop the mouth of cavil, he decreedThat he would cut the tedious matter short,And sell the ass with all convenient speed,Thus saving the expense of his support,And hoarding something for a time of need.So he despatched him to the neighboring Fair,And freed himself from cumber and from care.

It happened now by chance, as some might say,Others perhaps would call it destiny,Gilbert was at the Fair; and heard a bray,And nearer came, and saw that it was he,And whispered in his ear, "Ah, lackaday!Good father, the rebellious flesh, I see,Has changed you back into an ass again,And all my admonitions were in vain."

The ass, who felt this breathing in his ear,Did not turn round to look, but shook his head,As if he were not pleased these words to hear,And contradicted all that had been said.And this made Gilbert cry in voice more clear,"I know you well; your hair is russet-red;Do not deny it; for you are the sameFranciscan friar, and Timothy by name."

The ass, though now the secret had come out,Was obstinate, and shook his head again;Until a crowd was gathered round aboutTo hear this dialogue between the twain;And raised their voices in a noisy shoutWhen Gilbert tried to make the matter plain,And flouted him and mocked him all day longWith laughter and with jibes and scraps of song.

"If this be Brother Timothy," they cried,"Buy him, and feed him on the tenderest grass;Thou canst not do too much for one so triedAs to be twice transformed into an ass."So simple Gilbert bought him, and untiedHis halter, and o'er mountain and morassHe led him homeward, talking as he wentOf good behavior and a mind content.

The children saw them coming, and advanced,Shouting with joy, and hung about his neck,--Not Gilbert's, but the ass's,--round him danced,And wove green garlands where-withal to deckHis sacred person; for again it chancedTheir childish feelings, without rein or check,Could not discriminate in any wayA donkey from a friar of Orders Gray.

"O Brother Timothy," the children said,"You have come back to us just as before;We were afraid, and thought that you were dead,And we should never see you any more."And then they kissed the white star on his head,That like a birth-mark or a badge he wore,And patted him upon the neck and face,And said a thousand things with childish grace.

Thenceforward and forever he was knownAs Brother Timothy, and led alwayA life of luxury, till he had grownUngrateful being stuffed with corn and hay,And very vicious. Then in angry tone,Rousing himself, poor Gilbert said one day"When simple kindness is misunderstoodA little flagellation may do good."

His many vices need not here be told;Among them was a habit that he hadOf flinging up his heels at young and old,Breaking his halter, running off like madO'er pasture-lands and meadow, wood and wold,And other misdemeanors quite as bad;But worst of all was breaking from his shedAt night, and ravaging the cabbage-bed.

So Brother Timothy went back once moreTo his old life of labor and distress;Was beaten worse than he had been before.And now, instead of comfort and caress,Came labors manifold and trials sore;And as his toils increased his food grew less,Until at last the great consoler, Death,Ended his many sufferings with his breath.

Great was the lamentation when he died;And mainly that he died impenitent;Dame Cicely bewailed, the children cried,The old man still remembered the eventIn the French war, and Gilbert magnifiedHis many virtues, as he came and went,And said: "Heaven pardon Brother Timothy,And keep us from the sin of gluttony."