VI

THE SCHOOL OF SALERNO

A travelling Scholastic affixing his Theses to the gate of the
College.

SCHOLASTIC. 
There, that is my gauntlet, my banner, my shield,
Hung up as a challenge to all the field! 
One hundred and twenty-five propositions,
Which I will maintain with the sword of the tongue
Against all disputants, old and young. 
Let us see if doctors or dialecticians
Will dare to dispute my definitions,
Or attack any one of my learned theses. 
Here stand I; the end shall be as God pleases. 
I think I have proved, by profound researches,
The error of all those doctrines so vicious
Of the old Areopagite Dionysius,
That are making such terrible work in the churches,
By Michael the Stammerer sent from the East,
And done into Latin by that Scottish beast,
Johannes Duns Scotus, who dares to maintain,
In the face of the truth, the error infernal,
That the universe is and must be eternal;
At first laying down, as a fact fundamental,
That nothing with God can be accidental;
Then asserting that God before the creation
Could not have existed, because it is plain
That, had He existed, He would have created;
Which is begging the question that should be debated,
And moveth me less to anger than laughter. 
All nature, he holds, is a respiration
Of the Spirit of God, who, in breathing, hereafter
Will inhale it into his bosom again,
So that nothing but God alone will remain. 
And therein he contradicteth himself;
For he opens the whole discussion by stating,
That God can only exist in creating. 
That question I think I have laid on the shelf!

He goes out.  Two Doctors come in disputing, and followed by pupils.

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 
I, with the Doctor Seraphic, maintain,
That a word which is only conceived in the brain
Is a type of eternal Generation;
The spoken word is the Incarnation.

DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 
What do I care for the Doctor Seraphic,
With all his wordy chaffer and traffic?

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 
You make but a paltry show of resistance;
Universals have no real existence!

DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 
Your words are but idle and empty chatter;
Ideas are eternally joined to matter!

DOCTOR SERAFINO. 
May the Lord have mercy on your position,
You wretched, wrangling culler of herbs!

DOCTOR CHERUBINO. 
May he send your soul to eternal perdition,
For your Treatise on the Irregular verbs!

They rush out fighting.  Two Scholars come in.

FIRST SCHOLAR. 
Monte Cassino, then, is your College. 
What think you of ours here at Salern?

SECOND SCHOLAR. 
To tell the truth, I arrived so lately,
I hardly yet have had time to discern. 
So much, at least, I am bound to acknowledge: 
The air seems healthy, the buildings stately,
And on the whole I like it greatly.