so thrown fast the facts else free,
As right through ring and ring runs the djereed
And binds the loose, one bar without a break."

The story, in brief, is this. Pompilia, the supposed daughter of Pietro
and Violante Comparini, an aged burgher couple of Rome, has been
married, at the age of thirteen, to Count Guido Franceschini, an
impoverished middle-aged nobleman of Arezzo. The arrangement, in which
Pompilia is, of course, quite passive, has been made with the
expectation, on the part of Guido, of a large dowry; on the part of the
Comparini of an aristocratic alliance, and a princely board at Guido's
palace. No sooner has the marriage taken place than both parties find
that they have been tricked. Guido, disappointed of his money, and
unable to reach the pair who have deceived him, vents his spite on the
innocent victim, Pompilia. At length Pompilia, knowing that she is about
to become a mother, escapes from her husband, aided by a good young
priest, Giuseppe Caponsacchi, a canon of Arezzo; and a few months
afterwards, at the house of her supposed parents, she gives birth to a
son. A fortnight after the birth of his heir, Guido, who has been
waiting till his hold on the dowry is thus secured, takes with him four
cut-throats, steals by night to Rome, and kills his wife and the aged
Comparini, leaving the child alive. He is captured the same night, and
brought to judgment at Rome. When the poem opens, the case is being
tried before the civil courts. No attempt is made to dispute the fact of
Guido's actual committal of the deed; he has been caught red-handed, and
Pompilia, preserved almost by miracle, has survived her wounds long
enough to tell the whole story. The sole question is, whether the act
had any justification; it being pretended by Guido that his wife had
been guilty of adultery with the priest Caponsacchi, and that his deed
was a simple act of justice. He was found guilty by the legal tribunal,
and condemned to death; Pompilia's innocence being confirmed beyond a
doubt. Guido then appealed to the Pope, who confirmed the judicial
sentence. The whole of the poem takes place between the arrest and
trial of Guido, and the final sentence of the Pope; at the time, that
is, when the hopes and fears of the actors, and the curiosity of the
spectators, would be at their highest pitch.

The first book, entitled _The Ring and the Book_, gives the facts of the
story, some hint of the author's interpretation o