Artemisia, Part 5 of 12
Judge Daniele Saggio
This year of our salvation, sixteen twelve.
Now. Gentileschi? Don Orazio?
This suit is yours. You’d press it? Drop it? Shelve
it? Very good. And you are Tazzio?
Beg pardon, Tassi. No, you’re new to me.
But you, sir, famed through Alba, Lazio
and far beyond. You’ve witnesses? Let’s see.
The plaintiff and respondent, evidence …
I’ll set aside two days. Do you agree?
Va bene. So the public may make sense
of these proceedings, let me summarize
the facts, as set out in the plaint. Defence,
you’ll have your say. Well, then. Non c’e formaggio
ni senza nome: so it is with me.
I shall preside. I am Daniele Saggio,
The town I’m from, my titles, family,
are not important here. A diamond, I,
completely clear and hard: through me you’ll see
the truth. No tints or swirls mislead the eye,
and I can cut through any artifice:
I offer no offence, endure no lie.
Controversy of colours, then, is this.
You raped my daughter, sir. Who, me, sir? No!
Qui tunc eam violavit? Aliquis.
This Tassi painted with Orazio,
adorning loggi for the great Borghese.
And Artemisia worked there also, though –
I take this from the pleadings – it’s quite hazy
in what capacity. I’ve been to look,
and it’s impressive. Please don’t think me crazy,
but there’s a portrait there of Artemisia.
The handsome girl who’s playing the spinet?
I left too soon. I’ve never yet felt dizzier –
perspective as severe as it can get …
The facts, the facts. These artists form a sect,
a colony, and this Bohemian set
lives on the Campo Marzio. I suspect
they love and languish, sketch and squabble there,
unseen, untaxed, uncertified, unchecked.
To that Marino, scribbler, they stand heir,
and none but thinks he’s quite the dashing bard.
Hashish and heresy pollute the air.
Thus moulded by the Molinists, and marred
by Marinists, their manners are refined:
they got them from the Mannerists. Regard
the plaint here, rubricated, stamped and signed.
“One night last summer, date unspecified,
I came home from my daily toil to find
my daughter, Artemisia, swollen-eyed
from weeping. She was in the house, alone.
She kept repeating, “Father, how I tried!”
She told me Tassi showed up on his own,
quite unannounced, and forced her to have sex.
She seemed to fear that I would now disown
her, which was quite absurd, but it reflects
the trauma which she’d undergone, and how
such acts entail emotional effects.
She swore she’d been a virgin up to now.
I reassured her that this macula
was not her fault: but he had entered? How?”
Yes, Mister Tassi? Quite spectacular,
that’s how I’d classify it. Latin’s good,
but let’s be humble. The vernacular.
Which brings me to another point. You should,
when I am speaking, dampen down your stove.
You’d think me, out there, in your neighbourhood,
unprepossessing, just some harmless cove,
and probably, you’d be more right than wrong:
but in this chamber sir, to you, I’m Jove.
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