... Christ calls to her
As of old to the sick man, "Rise and walk."
She 'll tread on you if you go not before.
The world has other truth besides the altar's.
It will not have a temple that hides heaven.
Thou wast a shepherd: be a father. The race
Of man is weary of being called a flock.
Adrian's final reply is, that if Arnaldo will renounce his false
doctrine and leave Rome, the Pope will, through him, give the Lombard
cities a liberty that shall not offend the Church. Arnaldo refuses,
and quits Adrian's presence. It is quite needless to note the bold
character of the thought here, or the nobility of the poetry, which
Niccolini puts as well into the mouth of the Pope whom he hates as the
monk whom he loves.
Following this scene is one of greater dramatic force, in which the
Cardinal Guido, sent to the Campidoglio by the Pope to disperse the
popular assembly, is stoned by the people and killed. He dies full of
faith in the Church and the righteousness of his cause, and his
body, taken up by the priests, is carried into the square before St.
Peter's. A throng, including many women, has followed; and now
Niccolini introduces a phase of the great Italian struggle which was
perhaps the most perplexing of all.
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