ABSTRACT
When two or more witnesses give their account of an event, the story never comes out the same. The differences, as Browning fully realized in The Ring and the Book (186869), provide for powerful ironic tensions. Over and over again, in Browning's poem, the story is told of what happened on the fatal night when Count Guido Franceschini went in search of his seventeen-year-old bride Pompilia who, in the company of the handsome young priest Giuseppe Caponsacchi, had nm away from his ancient villa and returned home to her parents in Rome. And in every telling there is another version of the motives and the consequences. Although Browning allows the Pope to serve as arbiter, he also effectively undennines confidence in testimony. Even Guido's final confession leaves the reader with uneasy qualms about the claims of truth and justice.
