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. The subjection of the women to the priests is what has always greatly contributed to defeat Italian efforts for reform; it now helps to unnerve the Roman multitude; and the poet finally makes it the weakness through which Arnaldo is dealt his death. With a few strokes in the scene that follows the death of Guido, he indicates the remorse and dismay of the people when the Pope repels them from the church door and proclaims the interdict; and then follow some splendid lyrical passages, in which the Pope commands the pictures and images to be veiled and the relics to be concealed, and curses the enemies of the Church. I shall but poorly render this curse by a rhymeless translation, and yet I am tempted to give it: _The Pope._ To-day let the perfidious Learn at thy name to tremble, Nor triumph o'er the ruinous Place of thy vanished altars. Oh, brief be their days and uncertain; In the desert their wandering footsteps, Every tremulous leaflet affright them! _The Cardinals._ Anathema, anathema, anathema! _Pope._ May their widows sit down 'mid the ashes On the hearths of their desolate houses, With their little ones wailing around them. _Cardinals._ Anathema, anathema, anathema! _Pope._ May he who was born to the fury Of heaven, afar from his country Be lost in his ultimate anguish. _Cardinals._ Anathema, anathema, anathema! _Pope._ May he fly to the house of the alien oppressor That is filled with the spoil of his brothers, with women Destroyed by the pitiless hands that defiled them; There in accents unknown and derided, abase him At portals ne'er opened in mercy, imploring A morsel of bread. _Cardinals._ Be that morsel denied him!