The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts.



DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
      COUNT FRANCESCO CENCI.
      GIACOMO, BERNARDO, his Sons.
      CARDINAL CAMILLO.
      PRINCE COLONNA.
      ORSINO, a Prelate.
      SAVELLA, the Pope's Legate.
      OLIMPIO, MARZIO, Assassins.
      ANDREA, Servant to CENCI.
      NOBLES. JUDGES. GUARDS, SERVANTS.
      LUCRETIA, Wife of CENCI and Stepmother of his children.
      BEATRICE, his Daughter.
      The SCENE lies principally in Rome, but changes during the fourth
                Act to Pretrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
      TIME. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.



Act III


SCENE I.--An Apartment in the Cenci Palace. LUCRETIA; to her enter BEATRICE.

BEATRICE (she enters staggering and speaks wildly)

REACH me that handkerchief!--My brain is hurt;
      My eyes are full of blood; just wipe them for me--
      I see but indistinctly.

LUCRETIA
                               My sweet child,
      You have no wound; 't is only a cold dew
      That starts from your dear brow.--Alas, alas!
      What has befallen?

BEATRICE
                          How comes this hair undone?
      Its wandering strings must be what blind me so,
      And yet I tied it fast.--Oh, horrible!
      The pavement sinks under my feet! The walls
      Spin round! I see a woman weeping there,                        10
      And standing calm and motionless, whilst I
      Slide giddily as the world reels.--My God!
      The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood!
      The sunshine on the floor is black! The air
      Is changed to vapors such as the dead breathe
      In charnel-pits! Pah! I am choked! There creeps
      A clinging, black, contaminating mist
      About me--'t is substantial, heavy, thick;
      I cannot pluck it from me, for it glues
      My fingers and my limbs to one another,                         20
      And eats into my sinews, and dissolves
      My flesh to a pollution, poisoning
      The subtle, pure, and inmost spirit of life!
      My God! I never knew what the mad felt
      Before; for I am mad beyond all doubt!
                                                         (More wildly)
      No, I am dead! These putrefying limbs
      Shut round and sepulchre the panting soul
      Which would burst forth into the wandering air!
                                                             (A pause)
      What hideous thought was that I had even now?
      'T is gone; and yet its burden remains here                     30
      O'er these dull eyes--upon this weary heart!
      O world! O life! O day! O misery!

LUCRETIA
      What ails thee, my poor child? She answers not.
      Her spirit apprehends the sense of pain,
      But not it cause; suffering has dried away
      The source from which it sprung.

BEATRICE (frantically)
                                        Like Parricide--
      Misery has killed its father; yet its father
      Never like mine--O God! what thing am I?

LUCRETIA
      My dearest child, what has your father done?

BEATRICE (doubtfully)
      Who art thou, questioner? I have no father.                     40
                                                               [Aside.
      She is the madhouse nurse who tends on me,
      It is a piteous office.

(To LUCRETIA, in a slow, subdued voice)
                               Do you know,
      I thought I was that wretched Beatrice
      Men speak of, whom her father sometimes hales
      From hall to hall by the entangled hair;
      At others, pens up naked in damp cells
      Where scaly reptiles crawl, and starves her there
      Till she will eat strange flesh. This woful story
      So did I overact in my sick dreams
      That I imagined--no, it cannot be!                              50
      Horrible things have been in this wild world,
      Prodigious mixtures, and confusions strange
      Of good and ill; and worse have been conceived
      Than ever there was found a heart to do.
      But never fancy imaged such a deed
      As--
                               (Pauses, suddenly recollecting herself)
            Who art thou? Swear to me, ere I die
      With fearful expectation, that indeed
      Thou art not what thou seemest--Mother!

LUCRETIA
                                               Oh!
      My sweet child, know you--

BEATRICE
                                  Yet speak it not;
      For then if this be truth, that other too                       60
      Must be a truth, a firm enduring truth,
      Linked with each lasting circumstance of life,
      Never to change, never to pass away.
      Why so it is. This is the Cenci Palace;
      Thou art Lucretia; I am Beatrice.
      I have talked some wild words, but will no more.
      Mother, come near me; from this point of time,
      I am--
                                         (Her voice dies away faintly)

LUCRETIA
              Alas! what has befallen thee, child?
      What has thy father done?

BEATRICE
                                 What have I done?
      Am I not innocent? Is it my crime                               70
      That one with white hair and imperious brow,
      Who tortured me from my forgotten years
      As parents only dare, should call himself
      My father, yet should be!--Oh, what am I?
      What name, what place, what memory shall be mine?
      What retrospects, outliving even despair?

LUCRETIA
      He is a violent tyrant, surely, child;
      We know that death alone can make us free;
      His death or ours. But what can he have done
      Of deadlier outrage or worse injury?                            80
      Thou art unlike thyself; thine eyes shoot forth
      A wandering and strange spirit. Speak to me,
      Unlock those pallid hands whose fingers twine
      With one another.

BEATRICE
                         'T is the restless life
      Tortured within them. If I try to speak,
      I shall go mad. Ay, something must be done;
      What, yet I know not--something which shall make
      The thing that I have suffered but a shadow
      In the dread lightning which avenges it;
      Brief, rapid, irreversible, destroying                          90
      The consequence of what it cannot cure.
      Some such thing is to be endured or done;
      When I know what, I shall be still and calm,
      And never anything will move me more.
      But now!--O blood, which art my father's blood,
      Circling through these contaminated veins,
      If thou, poured forth on the polluted earth,
      Could wash away the crime and punishment
      By which I suffer--no, that cannot be!
      Many might doubt there were a God above                        100
      Who sees and permits evil, and so die;
      That faith no agony shall obscure in me.

LUCRETIA
      It must indeed have been some bitter wrong;
      Yet what, I dare not guess. Oh, my lost child,
      Hide not in proud impenetrable grief
      Thy sufferings from my fear.

BEATRICE
                                    I hide them not.
      What are the words which yon would have me speak?
      I, who can feign no image in my mind
      Of that which has transformed me; I, whose thought
      Is like a ghost shrouded and folded up                         110
      In its own formless horror--of all words,
      That minister to mortal intercourse,
      Which wouldst thou hear? for there is none to tell
      My misery; if another ever knew
      Aught like to it, she died as I will die,
      And left it, as I must, without a name.
      Death, death! our law and our religion call thee
      A punishment and a reward; oh, which
      Have I deserved?

LUCRETIA
                        The peace of innocence,
      Till in your season you be called to heaven.                   120
      Whate'er you may have suffered, you have done
      No evil. Death must be the punishment
      Of crime, or the reward of trampling down
      The thorns which God has strewed upon the path
      Which leads to immortality.

BEATRICE
                                   Ay, death--
      The punishment of crime. I pray thee, God,
      Let me not be bewildered while I judge.
      If I must live day after day, and keep
      These limbs, the unworthy temple of thy spirit,
      As a foul den from which what thou abhorrest                   130
      May mock thee unavenged--it shall not be!
      Self-murder--no, that might be no escape,
      For thy decree yawns like a Hell between
      Our will and it.--Oh! in this mortal world
      There is no vindication and no law,
      Which can adjudge and execute the doom
      Of that through which I suffer.

Enter ORSINO
                                         (She approaches him solemnly)
                                        Welcome, friend!
      I have to tell you that, since last we met,
      I have endured a wrong so great and strange
      That neither life nor death can give me rest.                  140
      Ask me not what it is, for there are deeds
      Which have no form, sufferings which have no tongue.

ORSINO
      And what is he who has thus injured you?

BEATRICE
      The man they call my father; a dread name.

ORSINO
      It cannot be--

BEATRICE
                      What it can be, or not,
      Forbear to think. It is, and it has been;
      Advise me how it shall not be again.
      I thought to die; but a religious awe
      Restrains me, and the dread lest death itself
      Might be no refuge from the consciousness                      150
      Of what is yet unexpiated. Oh, speak!

ORSINO
      Accuse him of the deed, and let the law
      Avenge thee.

BEATRICE
                    Oh, ice-hearted counsellor!
      If I could find a word that might make known
      The crime of my destroyer; and that done,
      My tongue should like a knife tear out the secret
      Which cankers my heart's core; ay, lay all bare,
      So that my unpolluted fame should be
      With vilest gossips a stale mouthèd story;
      A mock, a byword, an astonishment:--                           160
      If this were done, which never shall be done,
      Think of the offender's gold, his dreaded hate,
      And the strange horror of the accuser's tale,
      Baffling belief, and overpowering speech;
      Scarce whispered, unimaginable, wrapped
      In hideous hints--Oh, most assured redress!

ORSINO
      You will endure it then?

BEATRICE
                                Endure!--Orsino,
      It seems your counsel is small profit.
                          (Turns from him, and speaks half to herself)
                                              Ay,
      All must be suddenly resolved and done.
      What is this undistinguishable mist                            170
      Of thoughts, which rise, like shadow after shadow,
      Darkening each other?

ORSINO
                             Should the offender live?
      Triumph in his misdeed? and make, by use,
      His crime, whate'er it is, dreadful no doubt,
      Thine element; until thou mayest become
      Utterly lost; subdued even to the hue
      Of that which thou permittest?

BEATRICE (to herself)
                                      Mighty death!
      Thou double-visaged shadow! only judge!
      Rightfullest arbiter!
                                    (She retires, absorbed in thought)

LUCRETIA
                               If the lightning
      Of God has e'er descended to avenge--                          180

ORSINO
      Blaspheme not! His high Providence commits
      Its glory on this earth and their own wrongs
      Into the hands of men; if they neglect
      To punish crime--

LUCRETIA
                         But if one, like this wretch,
      Should mock with gold opinion, law and power?
      If there be no appeal to that which makes
      The guiltiest tremble? if, because our wrongs,
      For that they are unnatural, strange and monstrous,
      Exceed all measure of belief? Oh, God!
      If, for the very reasons which should make                     190
      Redress most swift and sure, our injurer triumphs?
      And we, the victims, bear worse punishment
      Than that appointed for their torturer?

ORSINO
                                               Think not
      But that there is redress where there is wrong,
      So we be bold enough to seize it.

LUCRETIA
                                         How?
      If there were any way to make all sure,
      I know not--but I think it might be good
      To--

ORSINO
            Why, his late outrage to Beatrice--
      For it is such, as I but faintly guess,
      As makes remorse dishonor, and leaves her                      200
      Only one duty, how she may avenge;
      You, but one refuge from ills ill endured;
      Me, but one counsel--

LUCRETIA
                             For we cannot hope
      That aid, or retribution, or resource
      Will arise thence, where every other one
      Might find them with less need.
                                                   [BEATRICE advances.

ORSINO
                                       Then--

BEATRICE
                                               Peace, Orsino!
      And, honored Lady, while I speak, I pray
      That you put off, as garments overworn,
      Forbearance and respect, remorse and fear,
      And all the fit restraints of daily life,                      210
      Which have been borne from childhood, but which now
      Would be a mockery to my holier plea.
      As I have said, I have endured a wrong,
      Which, though it be expressionless, is such
      As asks atonement, both for what is passed,
      And lest I be reserved, day after day,
      To load with crimes an overburdened soul,
      And be--what ye can dream not. I have prayed
      To God, and I have talked with my own heart,
      And have unravelled my entangled will,                         220
      And have at length determined what is right.
      Art thou my friend, Orsino? False or true?
      Pledge thy salvation ere I speak.

ORSINO
                                         I swear
      To dedicate my cunning, and my strength,
      My silence, and whatever else is mine,
      To thy commands.

LUCRETIA
                        You think we should devise
      His death?

BEATRICE
                  And execute what is devised,
      And suddenly. We must be brief and bold.

ORSINO
      And yet most cautious.

LUCRETIA
                              For the jealous laws
      Would punish us with death and infamy                          230
      For that which it became themselves to do.

BEATRICE
      Be cautious as ye may, but prompt. Orsino,
      What are the means?

ORSINO
                           I know two dull, fierce outlaws,
      Who think man's spirit as a worm's, and they
      Would trample out, for any slight caprice,
      The meanest or the noblest life. This mood
      Is marketable here in Rome. They sell
      What we now want.

LUCRETIA
                         To-morrow, before dawn,
      Cenci will take us to that lonely rock,
      Petrella, in the Apulian Apennines.                            240
      If he arrive there--

BEATRICE
                            He must not arrive.

ORSINO
      Will it be dark before you reach the tower?

LUCRETIA
      The sun will scarce be set.

BEATRICE
                                   But I remember
      Two miles on this side of the fort the road
      Crosses a deep ravine; 't is rough and narrow,
      And winds with short turns down the precipice;
      And in its depth there is a mighty rock,
      Which has, from unimaginable years,
      Sustained itself with terror and with toil
      Over a gulf, and with the agony                                250
      With which it clings seems slowly coming down;
      Even as a wretched soul hour after hour
      Clings to the mass of life; yet, clinging, leans;
      And, leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
      In which it fears to fall; beneath this crag
      Huge as despair, as if in weariness,
      The melancholy mountain yawns; below,
      You hear but see not an impetuous torrent
      Raging among the caverns, and a bridge
      Crosses the chasm; and high above there grow,                  260
      With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,
      Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair
      Is matted in one solid roof of shade
      By the dark ivy's twine. At noonday here
      'T is twilight, and at sunset blackest night.

ORSINO
      Before you reach that bridge make some excuse
      For spurring on your mules, or loitering
      Until--

BEATRICE
               What sound is that?

LUCRETIA
      Hark! No, it cannot be a servant's step;
      It must be Cenci, unexpectedly                                 270
      Returned--make some excuse for being here.

BEATRICE (to ORSINO as she goes out)
      That step we hear approach must never pass
      The bridge of which we spoke.
                                    [Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE.

ORSINO
                                     What shall I do?
      Cenci must find me here, and I must bear
      The imperious inquisition of his looks
      As to what brought me hither; let me mask
      Mine own in some inane and vacant smile.

Enter GIACOMO, in a hurried manner
      How! have you ventured hither? know you then
      That Cenci is from home?

GIACOMO
                                I sought him here;
      And now must wait till he returns.

ORSINO
                                          Great God!                 280
      Weigh you the danger of this rashness?

GIACOMO
                                              Ay!
      Does my destroyer know his danger? We
      Are now no more, as once, parent and child,
      But man to man; the oppressor to the oppressed,
      The slanderer to the slandered; foe to foe.
      He has cast Nature off, which was his shield,
      And Nature casts him off, who is her shame;
      And I spurn both. Is it a father's throat
      Which I will shake, and say, I ask not gold;
      I ask not happy years; nor memories                            290
      Of tranquil childhood; nor home-sheltered love;
      Though all these hast thou torn from me, and more;
      But only my fair fame; only one hoard
      Of peace, which I thought hidden from thy hate
      Under the penury heaped on me by thee;
      Or I will--God can understand and pardon,
      Why should I speak with man?

ORSINO
                                    Be calm, dear friend.

GIACOMO
      Well, I will calmly tell you what he did.
      This old Francesco Cenci, as you know,
      Borrowed the dowry of my wife from me,                         300
      And then denied the loan; and left me so
      In poverty, the which I sought to mend
      By holding a poor office in the state.
      It had been promised to me, and already
      I bought new clothing for my ragged babes,
      And my wife smiled; and my heart knew repose;
      When Cenci's intercession, as I found,
      Conferred this office on a wretch, whom thus
      He paid for vilest service. I returned
      With this ill news, and we sate sad together                   310
      Solacing our despondency with tears
      Of such affection and unbroken faith
      As temper life's worst bitterness; when he,
      As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse,
      Mocking our poverty, and telling us
      Such was God's scourge for disobedient sons.
      And then, that I might strike him dumb with shame,
      I spoke of my wife's dowry; but he coined
      A brief yet specious tale, how I had wasted
      The sum in secret riot; and he saw                             320
      My wife was touched, and he went smiling forth.
      And when I knew the impression he had made,
      And felt my wife insult with silent scorn
      My ardent truth, and look averse and cold,
      I went forth too; but soon returned again;
      Yet not so soon but that my wife had taught
      My children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,
      'Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!
      What you in one night squander were enough
      For months!' I looked, and saw that home was hell.             330
      And to that hell will I return no more,
      Until mine enemy has rendered up
      Atonement, or, as he gave life to me,
      I will, reversing Nature's law--

ORSINO
                                        Trust me,
      The compensation which thou seekest here
      Will be denied.

GIACOMO
                       Then--Are you not my friend?
      Did you not hint at the alternative,
      Upon the brink of which you see I stand,
      The other day when we conversed together?
      My wrongs were then less. That word, parricide,                340
      Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear.

ORSINO
      It must be fear itself, for the bare word
      Is hollow mockery. Mark how wisest God
      Draws to one point the threads of a just doom,
      So sanctifying it; what you devise
      Is, as it were, accomplished.

GIACOMO
                                     Is he dead?

ORSINO
      His grave is ready. Know that since we met
      Cenci has done an outrage to his daughter.

GIACOMO
      What outrage?

ORSINO
                     That she speaks not, but you may
      Conceive such half conjectures as I do                         350
      From her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief
      Of her stern brow, bent on the idle air,
      And her severe unmodulated voice,
      Drowning both tenderness and dread; and last
      From this; that whilst her step-mother and I,
      Bewildered in our horror, talked together
      With obscure hints, both self-misunderstood,
      And darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,
      Over the truth and yet to its revenge,
      She interrupted us, and with a look                            360
      Which told, before she spoke it, he must die--

GIACOMO
      It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;
      There is a higher reason for the act
      Than mine; there is a holier judge than me,
      A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice,
      Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youth
      Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised
      A living flower, but thou hast pitied it
      With needless tears! fair sister, thou in whom
      Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom                    370
      Did not destroy each other! is there made
      Ravage of thee? O heart, I ask no more
      Justification! Shall I wait, Orsino,
      Till he return, and stab him at the door?

ORSINO
      Not so, some accident might interpose
      To rescue him from what is now most sure;
      And you are unprovided where to fly,
      How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen;
      All is contrived; success is so assured
      That--
      Enter BEATRICE

BEATRICE
              'T is my brother's voice! You know me not?             380

GIACOMO
      My sister, my lost sister!

BEATRICE
                                  Lost indeed!
      I see Orsino has talked with you, and
      That you conjecture things too horrible
      To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now stay not,
      He might return; yet kiss me; I shall know
      That then thou hast consented to his death.
      Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God,
      Brotherly love, justice and clemency,
      And all things that make tender hardest hearts,
      Make thine hard, brother. Answer not--farewell.                390
                                                    [Exeunt severally.

SCENE II.--A mean Apartment in GIACOMO'S House. GIACOMO alone.

GIACOMO
      'T is midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.
                                   (Thunder, and the sound of a storm)
      What! can the everlasting elements
      Feel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft
      Of mercy-wingèd lightning would not fall
      On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep;
      They are now living in unmeaning dreams;
      But I must wake, still doubting if that deed
      Be just which was most necessary. Oh,
      Thou unreplenished lamp, whose narrow fire
      Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge                        10
      Devouring darkness hovers! thou small flame,
      Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,
      Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
      Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be
      As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks
      Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine;
      But that no power can fill with vital oil,--
      That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! 't is the blood
      Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold;
      It is the form that moulded mine that sinks                     20
      Into the white and yellow spasms of death;
      It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
      In God's immortal likeness which now stands
      Naked before Heaven's judgment-seat!
                                                      (A bell strikes)
                                            One! Two!
      The hours crawl on; and, when my hairs are white,
      My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,
      Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;
      Chiding the tardy messenger of news
      Like those which I expect. I almost wish
      He be not dead, although my wrongs are great;                   30
      Yet--'t is Orsino's step.

Enter ORSINO
                                 Speak!

ORSINO
                                         I am come
      To say he has escaped.

GIACOMO
                              Escaped!

ORSINO
                                        And safe
      Within Petrella. He passed by the spot
      Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.

GIACOMO
      Are we the fools of such contingencies?
      And do we waste in blind misgivings thus
      The hours when we should act? Then wind and thunder,
      Which seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter
      With which Heaven mocks our weakness! I henceforth
      Will ne'er repent of aught designed or done,                    40
      But my repentance.

ORSINO
                          See, the lamp is out.

GIACOMO
      If no remorse is ours when the dim air
      Has drunk this innocent flame, why should we quail
      When Cenci's life, that light by which ill spirits
      See the worst deeds they prompt, shall sink forever?
      No, I am hardened.

ORSINO
                          Why, what need of this?
      Who feared the pale intrusion of remorse
      In a just deed? Although our first plan failed,
      Doubt not but he will soon be laid to rest.
      But light the lamp; let us not talk i' the dark.                50

GIACOMO (lighting the lamp)
      And yet, once quenched, I cannot thus relume
      My father's life; do you not think his ghost
      Might plead that argument with God?

ORSINO
                                           Once gone,
      You cannot now recall your sister's peace;
      Your own extinguished years of youth and hope;
      Nor your wife's bitter words; nor all the taunts
      Which, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;
      Nor your dead mother; nor--

GIACOMO
                                   Oh, speak no more!
      I am resolved, although this very hand
      Must quench the life that animated it.                          60

ORSINO
      There is no need of that. Listen; you know
      Olimpio, the castellan of Petrella
      In old Colonna's time; him whom your father
      Degraded from his post? And Marzio,
      That desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year
      Of a reward of blood, well earned and due?

GIACOMO
      I knew Olimpio; and they say he hated
      Old Cenci so, that in his silent rage
      His lips grew white only to see him pass.
      Of Marzio I know nothing.

ORSINO
                                 Marzio's hate                        70
      Matches Olimpio's. I have sent these men,
      But in your name, and as at your request,
      To talk with Beatrice and Lucretia.

GIACOMO
      Only to talk?

ORSINO
                     The moments which even now
      Pass onward to to-morrow's midnight hour
      May memorize their flight with death; ere then
      They must have talked, and may perhaps have done,
      And made an end.

GIACOMO
                        Listen! What sound is that?

ORSINO
      The house-dog moans, and the beams crack; nought else.

GIACOMO
      It is my wife complaining in her sleep;                         80
      I doubt not she is saying bitter things
      Of me; and all my children round her dreaming
      That I deny them sustenance.

ORSINO
                                    Whilst he
      Who truly took it from them, and who fills
      Their hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps
      Lapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly
      Mocks thee in visions of successful hate
      Too like the truth of day.

GIACOMO
                                  If e'er he wakes
      Again, I will not trust to hireling hands--

ORSINO
      Why, that were well. I must be gone; good night!                90
      When next we meet, may all be done!

GIACOMO
                                           And all
      Forgotten! Oh, that I had never been!
                                                              [Exeunt.

The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts.



DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
      COUNT FRANCESCO CENCI.
      GIACOMO, BERNARDO, his Sons.
      CARDINAL CAMILLO.
      PRINCE COLONNA.
      ORSINO, a Prelate.
      SAVELLA, the Pope's Legate.
      OLIMPIO, MARZIO, Assassins.
      ANDREA, Servant to CENCI.
      NOBLES. JUDGES. GUARDS, SERVANTS.
      LUCRETIA, Wife of CENCI and Stepmother of his children.
      BEATRICE, his Daughter.
      The SCENE lies principally in Rome, but changes during the fourth
                Act to Pretrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
      TIME. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.



Act IV


SCENE I.--An Apartment in the Castle of Petrella. Enter CENCI.

CENCI
      SHE comes not; yet I left her even now
      Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty
      Of her delay; yet what if threats are vain?
      Am I not now within Petrella's moat?
      Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome?
      Might I not drag her by the golden hair?
      Stamp on her? keep her sleepless till her brain
      Be overworn? tame her with chains and famine?
      Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone
      What I most seek! No, 't is her stubborn will,                  10
      Which, by its own consent, shall stoop as low
      As that which drags it down.

Enter LUCRETIA
                                    Thou loathèd wretch!
      Hide thee from my abhorrence; fly, begone!
      Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.

LUCRETIA
                                           Oh,
      Husband! I pray, for thine own wretched sake,
      Heed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee
      Through crimes, and through the danger of his crimes,
      Each hour may stumble o'er a sudden grave.
      And thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;
      As thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell,               20
      Pity thy daughter; give her to some friend
      In marriage; so that she may tempt thee not
      To hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.

CENCI
      What! like her sister, who has found a home
      To mock my hate from with prosperity?
      Strange ruin shall destroy both her and thee,
      And all that yet remain. My death may be
      Rapid, her destiny outspeeds it. Go,
      Bid her come hither, and before my mood
      Be changed, lest I should drag her by the hair.                 30

LUCRETIA
      She sent me to thee, husband. At thy presence
      She fell, as thou dost know, into a trance;
      And in that trance she heard a voice which said,
      'Cenci must die! Let him confess himself!
      Even now the accusing Angel waits to hear
      If God, to punish his enormous crimes,
      Harden his dying heart!'

CENCI
                                Why--such things are.
      No doubt divine revealings may be made.
      'T is plain I have been favored from above,
      For when I cursed my sons, they died.--Ay--so.                  40
      As to the right or wrong, that 's talk. Repentance?
      Repentance is an easy moment's work,
      And more depends on God than me. Well--well--
      I must give up the greater point, which was
      To poison and corrupt her soul.

                           (A pause, LUCRETIA approaches anxiously,
                                    and then shrinks back as he speaks)
                                       One, two;
      Ay--Rocco and Cristofano my curse
      Strangled; and Giacomo, I think, will find
      Life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave;
      Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,
      Die in despair, blaspheming; to Bernardo,                       50
      He is so innocent, I will bequeathe
      The memory of these deeds, and make his youth
      The sepulchre of hope, where evil thoughts
      Shall grow like weeds on a neglected tomb.
      When all is done, out in the wide Campagna
      I will pile up my silver and my gold;
      My costly robes, paintings, and tapestries;
      My parchments, and all records of my wealth;
      And make a bonfire in my joy, and leave
      Of my possessions nothing but my name;                          60
      Which shall be an inheritance to strip
      Its wearer bare as infamy. That done,
      My soul, which is a scourge, will I resign
      Into the hands of Him who wielded it;
      Be it for its own punishment or theirs,
      He will not ask it of me till the lash
      Be broken in its last and deepest wound;
      Until its hate be all inflicted. Yet,
      Lest death outspeed my purpose, let me make
      Short work and sure.
                                                               [Going.

LUCRETIA (stops him)
                            Oh, stay! it was a feint;                 70
      She had no vision, and she heard no voice.
      I said it but to awe thee.

CENCI
                                  That is well.
      Vile palterer with the sacred truth of God,
      Be thy soul choked with that blaspheming lie!
      For Beatrice worse terrors are in store
      To bend her to my will.

LUCRETIA
                               Oh, to what will?
      What cruel sufferings more than she has known
      Canst thou inflict?

CENCI
                           Andrea! go, call my daughter
      And if she comes not, tell her that I come.

(To LUCRETIA)
      What sufferings? I will drag her, step by step,                 80
      Through infamies unheard of among men;
      She shall stand shelterless in the broad noon
      Of public scorn, for acts blazoned abroad,
      One among which shall be--what? canst thou guess?
      She shall become (for what she most abhors
      Shall have a fascination to entrap
      Her loathing will) to her own conscious self
      All she appears to others; and when dead,
      As she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,
      A rebel to her father and her God,                              90
      Her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds;
      Her name shall be the terror of the earth;
      Her spirit shall approach the throne of God
      Plague-spotted with my curses. I will make
      Body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin.

Enter ANDREA

ANDREA
      The Lady Beatrice--

CENCI
                           Speak, pale slave! what
      Said she?

ANDREA
                 My Lord, 't was what she looked; she said,
      'Go tell my father that I see the gulf
      Of Hell between us two, which he may pass;
      I will not.'
                                                         [Exit ANDREA.

CENCI
                    Go thou quick, Lucretia,                         100
      Tell her to come; yet let her understand
      Her coming is consent; and say, moreover,
      That if she come not I will curse her.
                                                       [Exit LUCRETIA.

                                              Ha!
      With what but with a father's curse doth God
      Panic-strike armèd victory, and make pale
      Cities in their prosperity? The world's Father
      Must grant a parent's prayer against his child,
      Be he who asks even what men call me.
      Will not the deaths of her rebellious brothers
      Awe her before I speak? for I on them                          110
      Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.

Enter LUCRETIA
      Well; what? Speak, wretch!

LUCRETIA
                                  She said, 'I cannot come;
      Go tell my father that I see a torrent
      Of his own blood raging between us.'

CENCI (kneeling)
                                            God,
      Hear me! If this most specious mass of flesh,
      Which thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,
      This particle of my divided being;
      Or rather, this my bane and my disease,
      Whose sight infects and poisons me; this devil,
      Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant                 120
      To aught good use; if her bright loveliness
      Was kindled to illumine this dark world;
      If, nursed by thy selectest dew of love,
      Such virtues blossom in her as should make
      The peace of life, I pray thee for my sake,
      As thou the common God and Father art
      Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom!
      Earth, in the name of God, let her food be
      Poison, until she be encrusted round
      With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head                130
      The blistering drops of the Maremma's dew
      Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up
      Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs
      To loathèd lameness! All-beholding sun,
      Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes
      With thine own blinding beams!

LUCRETIA
                                      Peace, peace!
      For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
      When high God grants, he punishes such prayers.

CENCI (leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven)
      He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
      That if she have a child--

LUCRETIA
                                  Horrible thought!                  140

CENCI
      That if she ever have a child--and thou,
      Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,
      That thou be fruitful in her, and increase
      And multiply, fulfilling his command,
      And my deep imprecation!--may it be
      A hideous likeness of herself, that as
      From a distorting mirror she may see
      Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
      Smiling upon her from her nursing breast!
      And that the child may from its infancy                        150
      Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
      Turning her mother's love to misery!
      And that both she and it may live until
      It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
      Or what may else be more unnatural;
      So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs
      Of the loud world to a dishonored grave!
      Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
      Before my words are chronicled in heaven.
                                                       [Exit LUCRETIA.
      I do not feel as if I were a man,                              160
      But like a fiend appointed to chastise
      The offences of some unremembered world.
      My blood is running up and down my veins;
      A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle;
      I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe;
      My heart is beating with an expectation
      Of horrid joy.

Enter LUCRETIA
                      What? Speak!

LUCRETIA
      She bids thee curse;
      And if thy curses, as they cannot do,
      Could kill her soul--

CENCI
                             She would not come. 'T is well,
      I can do both; first take what I demand,                       170
      And then extort concession. To thy chamber!
      Fly ere I spurn thee; and beware this night
      That thou cross not my footsteps. It were safer
      To come between the tiger and his prey.
                                                       [Exit LUCRETIA.
      It must be late, mine eyes grow weary dim
      With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.
      Conscience! O thou most insolent of lies!
      They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven,
      Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain
      Which thinks thee an impostor. I will go,                      180
      First to belie thee with an hour of rest,
      Which will be deep and calm, I feel; and then--
      O multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake
      Thine arches with the laughter of their joy!
      There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven
      As o'er an angel fallen; and upon Earth
      All good shall droop and sicken, and ill things
      Shall, with a spirit of unnatural life,
      Stir and be quickened--even as I am now.
                                                                [Exit.

SCENE II.--Before the Castle of Petrella. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA above on the ramparts.

BEATRICE
      They come not yet.

LUCRETIA
                          'T is scarce midnight.

BEATRICE
                                                  How slow
      Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
      Lags leaden-footed Time!

LUCRETIA
                                The minutes pass.
      If he should wake before the deed is done?

BEATRICE
      O mother! he must never wake again.
      What thou hast said persuades me that our act
      Will but dislodge a spirit of deep hell
      Out of a human form.

LUCRETIA
                            'T is true he spoke
      Of death and judgment with strange confidence
      For one so wicked; as a man believing                           10
      In God, yet recking not of good or ill.
      And yet to die without confession!--

BEATRICE
                                            Oh!
      Believe that Heaven is merciful and just,
      And will not add our dread necessity
      To the amount of his offences.

Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO below

LUCRETIA
                                      See,
      They come.

BEATRICE
                  All mortal things must hasten thus
      To their dark end. Let us go down.
                       [Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE from above.

OLIMPIO
      How feel you to this work?

MARZIO
                                  As one who thinks
      A thousand crowns excellent market price
      For an old murderer's life. Your cheeks are pale.               20

OLIMPIO
      It is the white reflection of your own,
      Which you call pale.

MARZIO
                            Is that their natural hue?

OLIMPIO
      Or 't is my hate, and the deferred desire
      To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.

MARZIO
      You are inclined then to this business?

OLIMPIO
                                               Ay,
      If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns
      To kill a serpent which had stung my child,
      I could not be more willing.

Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA below
                                    Noble ladies!

BEATRICE
      Are ye resolved?

OLIMPIO
                        Is he asleep?

MARZIO
                                       Is all
      Quiet?

LUCRETIA
              I mixed an opiate with his drink;                       30
      He sleeps so soundly--

BEATRICE
                              That his death will be
      But as a change of sin-chastising dreams,
      A dark continuance of the hell within him,
      Which God extinguish! But ye are resolved?
      Ye know it is a high and holy deed?

OLIMPIO
      We are resolved.

MARZIO
                        As to the how this act
      Be warranted, it rests with you.

BEATRICE
                                        Well, follow!

OLIMPIO
      Hush! Hark! what noise is that?

MARZIO
                                       Ha! some one comes!

BEATRICE
      Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest
      Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate,                          40
      Which ye left open, swinging to the wind,
      That enters whistling as in scorn. Come, follow!
      And be your steps like mine, light, quick and bold.
                                                              [Exeunt.

SCENE III.--An Apartment in the Castle. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA.

LUCRETIA
      They are about it now.

BEATRICE
                              Nay, it is done.

LUCRETIA
      I have not heard him groan.

BEATRICE
                                   He will not groan.

LUCRETIA
      What sound is that?

BEATRICE
                           List! 't is the tread of feet
      About his bed.

LUCRETIA
                      My God!
      If he be now a cold, stiff corpse--

BEATRICE
                                           Oh, fear not
      What may be done, but what is left undone;
      The act seals all.

Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO
                          Is it accomplished?

MARZIO
                                               What?

OLIMPIO
      Did you not call?

BEATRICE
                         When?

OLIMPIO
                                Now.

BEATRICE
                                      I ask if all is over?

OLIMPIO
      We dare not kill an old and sleeping man;
      His thin gray hair, his stern and reverent brow,                10
      His veinèd hands crossed on his heaving breast,
      And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay,
      Quelled me. Indeed, indeed, I cannot do it.

MARZIO
      But I was bolder; for I chid Olimpio,
      And bade him bear his wrongs to his own grave,
      And leave me the reward. And now my knife
      Touched the loose wrinkled throat, when the old man
      Stirred in his sleep, and said, 'God! hear, oh, hear
      A father's curse! What, art thou not our father?'
      And then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost                    20
      Of my dead father speaking through his lips,
      And could not kill him.

BEATRICE
                               Miserable slaves!
      Where, if ye dare not kill a sleeping man,
      Found ye the boldness to return to me
      With such a deed undone? Base palterers!
      Cowards and traitors! Why, the very conscience
      Which ye would sell for gold and for revenge
      Is an equivocation; it sleeps over
      A thousand daily acts disgracing men;
      And when a deed, where mercy insults heaven--                   30
      Why do I talk?
                 (Snatching a dagger from one of them, and raising it)
                      Hadst thou a tongue to say,
      She murdered her own father, I must do it!
      But never dream ye shall outlive him long!

OLIMPIO
      Stop, for God's sake!

MARZIO
                             I will go back and kill him.

OLIMPIO
      Give me the weapon, we must do thy will.

BEATRICE
      Take it! Depart! Return!
                                        [Exeunt OLIMPIO and MARZIO.
                                How pale thou art!
      We do but that which 't were a deadly crime
      To leave undone.

LUCRETIA
                        Would it were done!

BEATRICE
                                             Even whilst
      That doubt is passing through your mind, the world
      Is conscious of a change. Darkness and hell                     40
      Have swallowed up the vapor they sent forth
      To blacken the sweet light of life. My breath
      Comes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood
      Runs freely through my veins. Hark!

Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO
                                           He is--

OLIMPIO
                                                    Dead!

MARZIO
      We strangled him, that there might be no blood;
      And then we threw his heavy corpse i' the garden
      Under the balcony; 't will seem it fell.

BEATRICE (giving them a bag of coin)
      Here take this gold and hasten to your homes.
      And, Marzio, because thou wast only awed
      By that which made me tremble, wear thou this!                  50
                                        (Clothes him in a rich mantle)
      It was the mantle which my grandfather
      Wore in his high prosperity, and men
      Envied his state; so may they envy thine.
      Thou wert a weapon in the hand of God
      To a just use. Live long and thrive! And, mark,
      If thou hast crimes, repent; this deed is none.
                                                   (A horn is sounded)

LUCRETIA
      Hark, 't is the castle horn: my God! it sounds
      Like the last trump.

BEATRICE
                            Some tedious guest is coming.

LUCRETIA
      The drawbridge is let down; there is a tramp
      Of horses in the court; fly, hide yourselves!                   60
                                    [Exeunt OLIMPIO and MARZIO.

BEATRICE
      Let us retire to counterfeit deep rest;
      I scarcely need to counterfeit it now;
      The spirit which doth reign within these limbs
      Seems strangely undisturbed. I could even sleep
      Fearless and calm; all ill is surely past.
                                                              [Exeunt.

SCENE IV.--Another Apartment in the Castle. Enter on one side the Legate SAVELLA, introduced by a Servant, and on the other LUCRETIA and BERNARDO.

SAVELLA
      Lady, my duty to his Holiness
      Be my excuse that thus unseasonably
      I break upon your rest. I must speak with
      Count Cenci; doth he sleep?

LUCRETIA (in a hurried and confused manner)
                                   I think he sleeps;
      Yet, wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile.
      He is a wicked and a wrathful man;
      Should he be roused out of his sleep tonight,
      Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,
      It were not well; indeed it were not well.
      Wait till day break.
             (Aside) Oh, I am deadly sick!                           10

SAVELLA
      I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count
      Must answer charges of the gravest import,
      And suddenly; such my commission is.

LUCRETIA (with increased agitation)
      I dare not rouse him, I know none who dare;
      'T were perilous; you might as safely waken
      A serpent, or a corpse in which some fiend
      Were laid to sleep.

SAVELLA
                           Lady, my moments here
      Are counted. I must rouse him from his sleep,
      Since none else dare.

LUCRETIA (aside)
                             Oh, terror! oh, despair!

(To BERNARDO)
      Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to                        20
      Your father's chamber.
                                      [Exeunt SAVELLA and BERNARDO.

Enter BEATRICE

BEATRICE
                              'T is a messenger
      Come to arrest the culprit who now stands
      Before the throne of unappealable God.
      Both Earth and Heaven, consenting arbiters,
      Acquit our deed.

LUCRETIA
                        Oh, agony of fear!
      Would that he yet might live! Even now I heard
      The Legate's followers whisper as they passed
      They had a warrant for his instant death.
      All was prepared by unforbidden means,
      Which we must pay so dearly, having done.                       30
      Even now they search the tower, and find the body;
      Now they suspect the truth; now they consult
      Before they come to tax us with the fact.
      Oh, horrible, 't is all discovered!

BEATRICE
                                           Mother,
      What is done wisely is done well. Be bold
      As thou art just. 'T is like a truant child,
      To fear that others know what thou hast done,
      Even from thine own strong consciousness, and thus
      Write on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks
      All thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself,                  40
      And fear no other witness but thy fear.
      For if, as cannot be, some circumstance
      Should rise in accusation, we can blind
      Suspicion with such cheap astonishment,
      Or overbear it with such guiltless pride,
      As murderers cannot feign. The deed is done,
      And what may follow now regards not me.
      I am as universal as the light;
      Free as the earth-surrounding air; as firm
      As the world's centre. Consequence, to me,                      50
      Is as the wind which strikes the solid rook,
      But shakes it not.
                                             (A cry within and tumult)

VOICES
                          Murder! Murder! Murder!

Enter BERNARDO and SAVELLA

SAVELLA (to his followers)
      Go, search the castle round; sound the alarm;
      Look to the gates, that none escape!

BEATRICE
                                            What now?

BERNARDO
      I know not what to say--my father 's dead.

BEATRICE
      How, dead! he only sleeps; you mistake, brother.
      His sleep is very calm, very like death;
      'T is wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps.
      He is not dead?

BERNARDO
                          Dead; murdered!

LUCRETIA (with extreme agitation)
                                           Oh, no, no!
      He is not murdered, though he may be dead;                      60
      I have alone the keys of those apartments.

SAVELLA
      Ha! is it so?

BEATRICE
                     My Lord, I pray excuse us;
      We will retire; my mother is not well;
      She seems quite overcome with this strange horror.
                                 [Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE.

SAVELLA
      Can you suspect who may have murdered him?

BERNARDO
      I know not what to think.

SAVELLA
                                 Can you name any
      Who had an interest in his death?

BERNARDO
                                         Alas!
      I can name none who had not, and those most
      Who most lament that such a deed is done;
      My mother, and my sister, and myself.                           70

SAVELLA
      'T is strange! There were clear marks of violence.
      I found the old man's body in the moonlight,
      Hanging beneath the window of his chamber
      Among the branches of a pine; he could not
      Have fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped
      And effortless; 't is true there was no blood.
      Favor me, sir--it much imports your house
      That all should be made clear--to tell the ladies
      That I request their presence.
                                                       [Exit BERNARDO.

Enter Guards, bringing in MARZIO

GUARD
                                      We have one.

OFFICER
      My Lord, we found this ruffian and another                      80
      Lurking among the rocks; there is no doubt
      But that they are the murderers of Count Cenci;
      Each had a bag of coin; this fellow wore
      A gold-inwoven robe, which, shining bright
      Under the dark rocks to the glimmering moon,
      Betrayed them to our notice; the other fell
      Desperately fighting.

SAVELLA
                             What does he confess?

OFFICER
      He keeps firm silence; but these lines found on him
      May speak.

SAVELLA
                  Their language is at least sincere.
                                                               (Reads)

         "TO THE LADY BEATRICE.
        That the atonement of what my nature                          90
      sickens to conjecture may soon arrive, I
      send thee, at thy brother's desire, those
      who will speak and do more than I dare
      write.
                 Thy devoted servant,
                                           ORSINO."

Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and BERNARDO
      Knowest thou this writing, lady?

BEATRICE
                                        No.

SAVELLA
                                             Nor thou?

LUCRETIA (her conduct throughout the scene is
          marked by extreme agitation)
      Where was it found? What is it? It should be
      Orsino's hand! It speaks of that strange horror
      Which never yet found utterance, but which made
      Between that hapless child and her dead father
      A gulf of obscure hatred.

SAVELLA
                                 Is it so,                           100
      Is it true, Lady, that thy father did
      Such outrages as to awaken in thee
      Unfilial hate?

BEATRICE
                      Not hate, 't was more than hate;
      This is most true, yet wherefore question me?

SAVELLA
      There is a deed demanding question done;
      Thou hast a secret which will answer not.

BEATRICE
      What sayest? My Lord, your words are bold and rash.

SAVELLA
      I do arrest all present in the name
      Of the Pope's Holiness. You must to Rome.

LUCRETIA
      Oh, not to Rome! indeed we are not guilty.                     110

BEATRICE
      Guilty! who dares talk of guilt? My Lord,
      I am more innocent of parricide
      Than is a child born fatherless. Dear mother,
      Your gentleness and patience are no shield
      For this keen-judging world, this two-edged lie,
      Which seems, but is not. What! will human laws,
      Rather will ye who are their ministers,
      Bar all access to retribution first,
      And then, when Heaven doth interpose to do
      What ye neglect, arming familiar things                        120
      To the redress of an unwonted crime,
      Make ye the victims who demanded it
      Culprits? 'T is ye are culprits! That poor wretch
      Who stands so pale, and trembling, and amazed,
      If it be true he murdered Cenci, was
      A sword in the right hand of justest God.
      Wherefore should I have wielded it? unless
      The crimes which mortal tongue dare never name
      God therefore scruples to avenge.

SAVELLA
                                         You own
      That you desired his death?

BEATRICE
                                   It would have been                130
      A crime no less than his, if for one moment
      That fierce desire had faded in my heart.
      'T is true I did believe, and hope, and pray,
      Ay, I even knew--for God is wise and just--
      That some strange sudden death hung over him.
      'T is true that this did happen, and most true
      There was no other rest for me on earth,
      No other hope in Heaven. Now what of this?

SAVELLA
      Strange thoughts beget strange deeds; and here are both;
      I judge thee not.

BEATRICE
                         And yet, if you arrest me,                  140
      You are the judge and executioner
      Of that which is the life of life; the breath
      Of accusation kills an innocent name,
      And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life
      Which is a mask without it. 'T is most false
      That I am guilty of foul parricide;
      Although I must rejoice, for justest cause,
      That other hands have sent my father's soul
      To ask the mercy he denied to me.
      Now leave us free; stain not a noble house                     150
      With vague surmises of rejected crime;
      Add to our sufferings and your own neglect
      No heavier sum; let them have been enough;
      Leave us the wreck we have.

SAVELLA
                                   I dare not, Lady.
      I pray that you prepare yourselves for Rome.
      There the Pope's further pleasure will be known.

LUCRETIA
      Oh, not to Rome! Oh, take us not to Rome!

BEATRICE
      Why not to Rome, dear mother? There as here
      Our innocence is as an armèd heel
      To trample accusation. God is there,                           160
      As here, and with his shadow ever clothes
      The innocent, the injured, and the weak;
      And such are we. Cheer up, dear Lady! lean
      On me; collect your wandering thoughts. My Lord,
      As soon as you have taken some refreshment,
      And had all such examinations made
      Upon the spot as may be necessary
      To the full understanding of this matter,
      We shall be ready. Mother, will you come?

LUCRETIA
      Ha! they will bind us to the rack, and wrest                   170
      Self-accusation from our agony!
      Will Giacomo be there? Orsino? Marzio?
      All present; all confronted; all demanding
      Each from the other's countenance the thing
      Which is in every heart! Oh, misery!
                                        (She faints, and is borne out)

SAVELLA
      She faints; an ill appearance this.

BEATRICE
                                           My Lord,
      She knows not yet the uses of the world.
      She fears that power is as a beast which grasps
      And loosens not; a snake whose look transmutes
      All things to guilt which is its nutriment.                    180
      She cannot know how well the supine slaves
      Of blind authority read the truth of things
      When written on a brow of guilelessness;
      She sees not yet triumphant Innocence
      Stand at the judgment-seat of mortal man,
      A judge and an accuser of the wrong
      Which drags it there. Prepare yourself, my Lord.
      Our suite will join yours in the court below.
                                                              [Exeunt.

The Cenci: A Tragedy in Five Acts.



DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
      COUNT FRANCESCO CENCI.
      GIACOMO, BERNARDO, his Sons.
      CARDINAL CAMILLO.
      PRINCE COLONNA.
      ORSINO, a Prelate.
      SAVELLA, the Pope's Legate.
      OLIMPIO, MARZIO, Assassins.
      ANDREA, Servant to CENCI.
      NOBLES. JUDGES. GUARDS, SERVANTS.
      LUCRETIA, Wife of CENCI and Stepmother of his children.
      BEATRICE, his Daughter.
      The SCENE lies principally in Rome, but changes during the fourth
                Act to Pretrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
      TIME. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.



Act V


SCENE I.--An Apartment in ORSINO'S Palace. Enter ORSINO and GIACOMO.

GIACOMO
      Do evil deeds thus quickly come to end?
      Oh, that the vain remorse which must chastise
      Crimes done had but as loud a voice to warn
      As its keen sting is mortal to avenge!
      Oh, that the hour when present had cast off
      The mantle of its mystery, and shown
      The ghastly form with which it now returns
      When its scared game is roused, cheering the hounds
      Of conscience to their prey! Alas, alas!
      It was a wicked thought, a piteous deed,                        10
      To kill an old and hoary-headed father.

ORSINO
      It has turned out unluckily, in truth.

GIACOMO
      To violate the sacred doors of sleep;
      To cheat kind nature of the placid death
      Which she prepares for overwearied age;
      To drag from Heaven an unrepentant soul,
      Which might have quenched in reconciling prayers
      A life of burning crimes--

ORSINO
                                  You cannot say
      I urged you to the deed.

GIACOMO
                                Oh, had I never
      Found in thy smooth and ready countenance                       20
      The mirror of my darkest thoughts; hadst thou
      Never with hints and questions made me look
      Upon the monster of my thought, until
      It grew familiar to desire--

ORSINO
                                    'T is thus
      Men cast the blame of their unprosperous acts
      Upon the abettors of their own resolve;
      Or anything but their weak, guilty selves.
      And yet, confess the truth, it is the peril
      In which you stand that gives you this pale sickness
      Of penitence; confess 't is fear disguised                      30
      From its own shame that takes the mantle now
      Of thin remorse. What if we yet were safe?

GIACOMO
      How can that be? Already Beatrice,
      Lucretia and the murderer are in prison.
      I doubt not officers are, whilst we speak,
      Sent to arrest us.

ORSINO
                          I have all prepared
      For instant flight. We can escape even now,
      So we take fleet occasion by the hair.

GIACOMO
      Rather expire in tortures, as I may.
      What! will you cast by self-accusing flight                     40
      Assured conviction upon Beatrice?
      She who alone, in this unnatural work
      Stands like God's angel ministered upon
      By fiends; avenging such a nameless wrong
      As turns black parricide to piety;
      Whilst we for basest ends--I fear, Orsino,
      While I consider all your words and looks,
      Comparing them with your proposal now,
      That you must be a villain. For what end
      Could you engage in such a perilous crime,                      50
      Training me on with hints, and signs, and smiles,
      Even to this gulf? Thou art no liar? No,
      Thou art a lie! Traitor and murderer!
      Coward and slave! But no--defend thyself;
                                                             (Drawing)
      Let the sword speak what the indignant tongue
      Disdains to brand thee with.

ORSINO
                                    Put up your weapon.
      Is it the desperation of your fear
      Makes you thus rash and sudden with a friend,
      Now ruined for your sake? If honest anger
      Have moved you, know, that what I just proposed                 60
      Was but to try you. As for me, I think
      Thankless affection led me to this point,
      From which, if my firm temper could repent,
      I cannot now recede. Even whilst we speak,
      The ministers of justice wait below;
      They grant me these brief moments. Now, if you
      Have any word of melancholy comfort
      To speak to your pale wife, 't were best to pass
      Out at the postern, and avoid them so.

GIACOMO
      O generous friend! how canst thou pardon me?                    70
      Would that my life could purchase thine!

ORSINO
                                                That wish
      Now comes a day too late. Haste; fare thee well!
      Hear'st thou not steps along the corridor?
                                                        [Exit GIACOMO.
      I 'm sorry for it; but the guards are waiting
      At his own gate, and such was my contrivance
      That I might rid me both of him and them.
      I thought to act a solemn comedy
      Upon the painted scene of this new world,
      And to attain my own peculiar ends
      By some such plot of mingled good and ill                       80
      As others weave; but there arose a Power
      Which grasped and snapped the threads of my device,
      And turned it to a net of ruin--Ha!
                                                    (A shout is heard)
      Is that my name I hear proclaimed abroad?
      But I will pass, wrapped in a vile disguise,
      Rags on my back and a false innocence
      Upon my face, through the misdeeming crowd,
      Which judges by what seems. 'T is easy then,
      For a new name and for a country new,
      And a new life fashioned on old desires,                        90
      To change the honors of abandoned Rome.
      And these must be the masks of that within,
      Which must remain unaltered.--Oh, I fear
      That what is past will never let me rest!
      Why, when none else is conscious, but myself,
      Of my misdeeds, should my own heart's contempt
      Trouble me? Have I not the power to fly
      My own reproaches? Shall I be the slave
      Of--what? A word? which those of this false world
      Employ against each other, not themselves,                     100
      As men wear daggers not for self-offence.
      But if I am mistaken, where shall I
      Find the disguise to hide me from myself,
      As now I skulk from every other eye?
                                                                [Exit.

SCENE II.--A Hall of Justice. CAMILLO, JUDGES, etc., are discovered seated; MARZIO is led in.

FIRST JUDGE
      Accused, do you persist in your denial?
      I ask you, are you innocent, or guilty?
      I demand who were the participators
      In your offence. Speak truth, and the whole truth.

MARZIO
      My God! I did not kill him; I know nothing;
      Olimpio sold the robe to me from which
      You would infer my guilt.

SECOND JUDGE
                                 Away with him!

FIRST JUDGE
      Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack's kiss,
      Speak false? Is it so soft a questioner
      That you would bandy lover's talk with it,                      10
      Till it wind out your life and soul? Away!

MARZIO
      Spare me! Oh, spare! I will confess.

FIRST JUDGE
                                            Then speak.

MARZIO
      I strangled him in his sleep.

FIRST JUDGE
                                     Who urged you to it?

MARZIO
      His own son Giacomo and the young prelate
      Orsino sent me to Petrella; there
      The ladies Beatrice and Lucretia
      Tempted me with a thousand crowns, and I
      And my companion forthwith murdered him.
      Now let me die.

FIRST JUDGE
      This sounds as bad as truth.
      Guards, there, lead forth the prisoners.

Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE and GIACOMO, guarded
      Look upon this man;                                             20
      When did you see him last?

BEATRICE
                                  We never saw him.

MARZIO
      You know me too well, Lady Beatrice.

BEATRICE
      I know thee! how? where? when?

MARZIO
                                      You know 't was I
      Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes
      To kill your father. When the thing was done,
      You clothed me in a robe of woven gold,
      And bade me thrive; how I have thriven, you see.
      You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia,
      You know that what I speak is true.
[BEATRICE advances towards him; he covers his face, and shrinks back.
                                           Oh, dart
      The terrible resentment of those eyes                           30
      On the dead earth! Turn them away from me!
      They wound; 't was torture forced the truth. My Lords,
      Having said this, let me be led to death.

BEATRICE
      Poor wretch, I pity thee; yet stay awhile.

CAMILLO
      Guards, lead him not away.

BEATRICE
                                  Cardinal Camillo,
      You have a good repute for gentleness
      And wisdom; can it be that you sit here
      To countenance a wicked farce like this?
      When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged
      From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart            40
      And bade to answer, not as he believes,
      But as those may suspect or do desire
      Whose questions thence suggest their own reply;
      And that in peril of such hideous torments
      As merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now
      The thing you surely know, which is, that you,
      If your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel,
      And you were told, 'Confess that you did poison
      Your little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child
      Who was the lodestar of your life;' and though                  50
      All see, since his most swift and piteous death,
      That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,
      And all the things hoped for or done therein,
      Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief,
      Yet you would say, 'I confess anything,'
      And beg from your tormentors, like that slave,
      The refuge of dishonorable death.
      I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert
      My innocence.

CAMILLO (much moved)
                     What shall we think, my Lords?
      Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen            60
      Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul
      That she is guiltless.

JUDGE
                              Yet she must be tortured.

CAMILLO
      I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew
      (If he now lived, he would be just her age;
      His hair, too, was her color, and his eyes
      Like hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)
      As that most perfect image of God's love
      That ever came sorrowing upon the earth.
      She is as pure as speechless infancy!

JUDGE
      Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord,                      70
      If you forbid the rack. His Holiness
      Enjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime
      By the severest forms of law; nay, even
      To stretch a point against the criminals.
      The prisoners stand accused of parricide
      Upon such evidence as justifies
      Torture.

BEATRICE
                What evidence? This man's?

JUDGE
                                            Even so.

BEATRICE (to MARZIO)
      Come near. And who art thou, thus chosen forth
      Out of the multitude of living men,
      To kill the innocent?

MARZIO
                             I am Marzio,                             80
      Thy father's vassal.

BEATRICE
                            Fix thine eyes on mine;
      Answer to what I ask.
                                               (Turning to the Judges)
                             I prithee mark
      His countenance; unlike bold calumny,
      Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,
      He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends
      His gaze on the blind earth.

(To MARZIO)
                                    What! wilt thou say
      That I did murder my own father?

MARZIO
                                        Oh!
      Spare me! My brain swims round--I cannot speak--
      It was that horrid torture forced the truth.
      Take me away! Let her not look on me!                           90
      I am a guilty miserable wretch!
      I have said all I know; now, let me die!

BEATRICE
      My Lords, if by my nature I had been
      So stern as to have planned the crime alleged,
      Which your suspicions dictate to this slave
      And the rack makes him utter, do you think
      I should have left this two-edged instrument
      Of my misdeed; this man, this bloody knife,
      With my own name engraven on the heft,
      Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes,                         100
      For my own death? that with such horrible need
      For deepest silence I should have neglected
      So trivial a precaution as the making
      His tomb the keeper of a secret written
      On a thief's memory? What is his poor life?
      What are a thousand lives? A parricide
      Had trampled them like dust; and see, he lives!
                                                   (Turning to MARZIO)
      And thou--

MARZIO
                  Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more!
      That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones,
      Wound worse than torture.
(To the Judges)
                                 I have told it all;                 110
      For pity's sake lead me away to death.

CAMILLO
      Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice;
      He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf
      From the keen breath of the serenest north.

BEATRICE
      O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge
      Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;
      So mayst thou answer God with less dismay.
      What evil have we done thee? I, alas!
      Have lived but on this earth a few sad years,
      And so my lot was ordered that a father                        120
      First turned the moments of awakening life
      To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then
      Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul,
      And my untainted fame; and even that peace
      Which sleeps within the core of the heart's heart.
      But the wound was not mortal; so my hate
      Became the only worship I could lift
      To our great Father, who in pity and love
      Armed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off;
      And thus his wrong becomes my accusation.                      130
      And art thou the accuser? If thou hopest
      Mercy in heaven, show justice upon earth;
      Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.
      If thou hast done murders, made thy life's path
      Over the trampled laws of God and man,
      Rush not before thy Judge, and say: 'My Maker,
      I have done this and more; for there was one
      Who was most pure and innocent on earth;
      And because she endured what never any,
      Guilty or innocent, endured before,                            140
      Because her wrongs could not be told, nor thought,
      Because thy hand at length did rescue her,
      I with my words killed her and all her kin.'
      Think, I adjure you, what it is to slay
      The reverence living in the minds of men
      Towards our ancient house and stainless fame!
      Think what it is to strangle infant pity,
      Cradled in the belief of guileless looks,
      Till it become a crime to suffer. Think
      What 't is to blot with infamy and blood                       150
      All that which shows like innocence, and is--
      Hear me, great God!--I swear, most innocent;
      So that the world lose all discrimination
      Between the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,
      And that which now compels thee to reply
      To what I ask: Am I, or am I not
      A parricide?

MARZIO
                    Thou art not!

JUDGE
                                   What is this?

MARZIO
      I here declare those whom I did accuse
      Are innocent. 'T is I alone am guilty.

JUDGE
      Drag him away to torments; let them be                         160
      Subtle and long drawn out, to tear the folds
      Of the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him not
      Till he confess.

MARZIO
                        Torture me as ye will;
      A keener pang has wrung a higher truth
      From my last breath. She is most innocent!
      Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me!
      I will not give you that fine piece of nature
      To rend and ruin.
                                             [Exit MARZIO, guarded.

CAMILLO
                         What say ye now, my Lords?

JUDGE
      Let tortures strain the truth till it be white
      As snow thrice-sifted by the frozen wind.                      170

CAMILLO
      Yet stained with blood.

JUDGE (to BEATRICE)
                               Know you this paper, Lady?

BEATRICE
      Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here
      As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he,
      Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge,
      What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name;
      Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.
      What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what.
      And therefore on the chance that it may be
      Some evil, will ye kill us?

Enter an Officer

OFFICER
                                   Marzio 's dead.

JUDGE
      What did he say?

OFFICER
                        Nothing. As soon as we                       180
      Had bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us,
      As one who baffles a deep adversary;
      And holding his breath died.

JUDGE
                                    There remains nothing
      But to apply the question to those prisoners
      Who yet remain stubborn.

CAMILLO
                                I overrule
      Further proceedings, and in the behalf
      Of these most innocent and noble persons
      Will use my interest with the Holy Father.

JUDGE
      Let the Pope's pleasure then be done. Meanwhile
      Conduct these culprits each to separate cells;                 190
      And be the engines ready; for this night,
      If the Pope's resolution be as grave,
      Pious, and just as once, I 'll wring the truth
      Out of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.
                                                              [Exeunt.

SCENE III.--The Cell of a Prison. BEATRICE is discovered asleep on a couch.

Enter BERNARDO

BERNARDO
      How gently slumber rests upon her face,
      Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent,
      Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged.
      After such torments as she bore last night,
      How light and soft her breathing comes. Ay me!
      Methinks that I shall never sleep again.
      But I must shake the heavenly dew of rest
      From this sweet folded flower, thus--wake, awake!
      What, sister, canst thou sleep?

BEATRICE (awaking)
                                       I was just dreaming
      That we were all in Paradise. Thou knowest                      10
      This cell seems like a kind of Paradise
      After our father's presence.

BERNARDO
                                    Dear, dear sister,
      Would that thy dream were not a dream! Oh, God,
      How shall I tell?

BEATRICE
                         What wouldst thou tell, sweet brother?

BERNARDO
      Look not so calm and happy, or even whilst
      I stand considering what I have to say,
      My heart will break.

BEATRICE
                            See now, thou mak'st me weep;
      How very friendless thou wouldst be, dear child,
      If I were dead. Say what thou hast to say.

BERNARDO
      They have confessed; they could endure no more                  20
      The tortures--

BEATRICE
                      Ha! what was there to confess?
      They must have told some weak and wicked lie
      To flatter their tormentors. Have they said
      That they were guilty? O white innocence,
      That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide
      Thine awful and serenest countenance
      From those who know thee not!

Enter JUDGE, with LUCRETIA and GIACOMO, guarded
                                     Ignoble hearts!
      For some brief spasms of pain, which are at least
      As mortal as the limbs through which they pass,
      Are centuries of high splendor laid in dust?                    30
      And that eternal honor, which should live
      Sunlike, above the reek of mortal fame,
      Changed to a mockery and a byword? What!
      Will you give up these bodies to be dragged
      At horses' heels, so that our hair should sweep
      The footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd,
      Who, that they may make our calamity
      Their worship and their spectacle, will leave
      The churches and the theatres as void
      As their own hearts? Shall the light multitude                  40
      Fling, at their choice, curses or faded pity,
      Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse,
      Upon us as we pass to pass away,
      And leave--what memory of our having been?
      Infamy, blood, terror, despair? O thou
      Who wert a mother to the parentless,
      Kill not thy child! let not her wrongs kill thee!
      Brother, lie down with me upon the rack,
      And let us each be silent as a corpse;
      It soon will be as soft as any grave.                           50
      'T is but the falsehood it can wring from fear
      Makes the rack cruel.

GIACOMO
                             They will tear the truth
      Even from thee at last, those cruel pains;
      For pity's sake say thou art guilty now.

LUCRETIA
      Oh, speak the truth! Let us all quickly die;
      And after death, God is our judge, not they;
      He will have mercy on us.

BERNARDO
                                 If indeed
      It can be true, say so, dear sister mine;
      And then the Pope will surely pardon you,
      And all be well.

JUDGE
                        Confess, or I will warp                       60
      Your limbs with such keen tortures--

BEATRICE
                                            Tortures! Turn
      The rack henceforth into a spinning-wheel!
      Torture your dog, that he may tell when last
      He lapped the blood his master shed--not me!
      My pangs are of the mind, and of the heart,
      And of the soul; ay, of the inmost soul,
      Which weeps within tears as of burning gall
      To see, in this ill world where none are true,
      My kindred false to their deserted selves;
      And with considering all the wretched life                      70
      Which I have lived, and its now wretched end;
      And the small justice shown by Heaven and Earth
      To me or mine; and what a tyrant thou art,
      And what slaves these; and what a world we make,
      The oppressor and the oppressed--such pangs compel
      My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?

JUDGE
      Art thou not guilty of thy father's death?

BEATRICE
      Or wilt thou rather tax high-judging God
      That he permitted such an act as that
      Which I have suffered, and which he beheld;                     80
      Made it unutterable, and took from it
      All refuge, all revenge, all consequence,
      But that which thou hast called my father's death?
      Which is or is not what men call a crime,
      Which either I have done, or have not done;
      Say what ye will. I shall deny no more.
      If ye desire it thus, thus let it be,
      And so an end of all. Now do your will;
      No other pains shall force another word.

JUDGE
      She is convicted, but has not confessed.                        90
      Be it enough. Until their final sentence
      Let none have converse with them. You, young Lord,
      Linger not here!

BEATRICE
                        Oh, tear him not away!

JUDGE
      Guards! do your duty.

BERNARDO (embracing BEATRICE)
                             Oh! would ye divide
      Body from soul?

OFFICER
                       That is the headsman's business.
                   [Exeunt all but LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and GIACOMO.

GIACOMO
      Have I confessed? Is it all over now?
      No hope! no refuge! O weak, wicked tongue,
      Which hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst been
      Cut out and thrown to dogs first! To have killed
      My father first, and then betrayed my sister--                 100
      Ay thee! the one thing innocent and pure
      In this black, guilty world--to that which I
      So well deserve! My wife! my little ones!
      Destitute, helpless; and I--Father! God!
      Canst thou forgive even the unforgiving,
      When their full hearts break thus, thus?
                                           (Covers his face and weeps)

LUCRETIA
                                                O my child!
      To what a dreadful end are we all come!
      Why did I yield? Why did I not sustain
      Those torments? Oh, that I were all dissolved
      Into these fast and unavailing tears,                          110
      Which flow and feel not!

BEATRICE
                                What 't was weak to do,
      'T is weaker to lament, once being done;
      Take cheer! The God who knew my wrong, and made
      Our speedy act the angel of his wrath,
      Seems, and but seems, to have abandoned us.
      Let us not think that we shall die for this.
      Brother, sit near me; give me your firm hand,
      You had a manly heart. Bear up! bear up!
      O dearest Lady, put your gentle head
      Upon my lap, and try to sleep awhile;                          120
      Your eyes look pale, hollow, and overworn,
      With heaviness of watching and slow grief.
      Come, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune,
      Not cheerful, nor yet sad; some dull old thing,
      Some outworn and unused monotony,
      Such as our country gossips sing and spin,
      Till they almost forget they live. Lie down--
      So, that will do. Have I forgot the words?
      Faith! they are sadder than I thought they were.

SONG
        False friend, wilt thou smile or weep                        130
        When my life is laid asleep?
        Little cares for a smile or a tear,
        The clay-cold corpse upon the bier!
          Farewell! Heigh-ho!
          What is this whispers low?
        There is a snake in thy smile, my dear;
        And bitter poison within thy tear.

        Sweet sleep! were death like to thee,
        Or if thou couldst mortal be,
        I would close these eyes of pain;                            140
        When to wake? Never again.
          O World! farewell!
          Listen to the passing bell!
        It say, thou and I must part,
        With a light and a heavy heart.
                                                    (The scene closes)

SCENE IV.--A Hall of the Prison. Enter CAMILLO and BERNARDO.

CAMILLO
      The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent.
      He looked as calm and keen as is the engine
      Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself
      From aught that it inflicts; a marble form,
      A rite, a law, a custom, not a man.
      He frowned, as if to frown had been the trick
      Of his machinery, on the advocates
      Presenting the defences, which he tore
      And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice--
      'Which among ye defended their old father                       10
      Killed in his sleep?' then to another--'Thou
      Dost this in virtue of thy place; 't is well.'
      He turned to me then, looking deprecation,
      And said these three words, coldly--'They must die.'

BERNARDO
      And yet you left him not?

CAMILLO
                                 I urged him still;
      Pleading, as I could guess, the devilish wrong
      Which prompted your unnatural parent's death.
      And he replied--'Paolo Santa Croce
      Murdered his mother yester evening,
      And he is fled. Parricide grows so rife,                        20
      That soon, for some just cause no doubt, the young
      Will strangle us all, dozing in our chairs.
      Authority, and power, and hoary hair
      Are grown crimes capital. You are my nephew,
      You come to ask their pardon; stay a moment;
      Here is their sentence; never see me more
      Till, to the letter, it be all fulfilled.'

BERNARDO
      Oh, God, not so! I did believe indeed
      That all you said was but sad preparation
      For happy news. Oh, there are words and looks                   30
      To bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them,
      Now I forget them at my dearest need.
      What think you if I seek him out, and bathe
      His feet and robe with hot and bitter tears?
      Importune him with prayers, vexing his brain
      With my perpetual cries, until in rage
      He strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample
      Upon my prostrate head, so that my blood
      May stain the senseless dust on which he treads,
      And remorse waken mercy? I will do it!                          40
      Oh, wait till I return!
                                                          [Rushes out.

CAMILLO
                               Alas, poor boy!
      A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray
      To the deaf sea.

Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and GIACOMO, guarded

BEATRICE
                        I hardly dare to fear
      That thou bring'st other news than a just pardon.

CAMILLO
      May God in heaven be less inexorable
      To the Pope's prayers than he has been to mine.
      Here is the sentence and the warrant.

BEATRICE (wildly)
                                             Oh,
      My God! Can it be possible I have
      To die so suddenly? so young to go
      Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground!                 50
      To be nailed down into a narrow place;
      To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more
      Blithe voice of living thing; muse not again
      Upon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost!
      How fearful! to be nothing! Or to be--
      What? Oh, where am I? Let me not go mad!
      Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should be
      No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world--
      The wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled world!
      If all things then should be--my father's spirit,               60
      His eye, his voice, his touch surrounding me;
      The atmosphere and breath of my dead life!
      If sometimes, as a shape more like himself,
      Even the form which tortured me on earth,
      Masked in gray hairs and wrinkles, he should come,
      And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix
      His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down!
      For was he not alone omnipotent
      On Earth, and ever present? even though dead,
      Does not his spirit live in all that breathe,                   70
      And work for me and mine still the same ruin,
      Scorn, pain, despair? Who ever yet returned
      To teach the laws of death's untrodden realm?
      Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now,
      Oh, whither, whither?

LUCRETIA
                             Trust in God's sweet love,
      The tender promises of Christ; ere night,
      Think we shall be in Paradise.

BEATRICE
                                      'T is past!
      Whatever comes, my heart shall sink no more.
      And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill;
      How tedious, false, and cold seem all things! I                 80
      Have met with much injustice in this world;
      No difference has been made by God or man,
      Or any power moulding my wretched lot,
      'Twixt good or evil, as regarded me.
      I am cut off from the only world I know,
      From light, and life, and love, in youth's sweet prime.
      You do well telling me to trust in God;
      I hope I do trust in him. In whom else
      Can any trust? And yet my heart is cold.

(During the latter speeches GIACOMO has retired conversing
 with CAMILLO, who now goes out; GIACOMO advances)

GIACOMO
      Know you not, mother--sister, know you not?                     90
      Bernardo even now is gone to implore
      The Pope to grant our pardon.

LUCRETIA
                                     Child, perhaps
      It will be granted. We may all then live
      To make these woes a tale for distant years.
      Oh, what a thought! It gushes to my heart
      Like the warm blood.

BEATRICE
                            Yet both will soon be cold.
      Oh, trample out that thought! Worse than despair,
      Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope;
      It is the only ill which can find place
      Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour                         100
      Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost
      That it should spare the eldest flower of spring;
      Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch
      Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free;
      Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead
      With famine, or wind-walking pestilence,
      Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man--
      Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words,
      In deeds a Cain. No, mother, we must die;
      Since such is the reward of innocent lives,                    110
      Such the alleviation of worst wrongs.
      And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men,
      Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears
      To death as to life's sleep; 't were just the grave
      Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death,
      And wind me in thine all-embracing arms!
      Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom,
      And rock me to the sleep from which none wake.
      Live ye, who live, subject to one another
      As we were once, who now--

BERNARDO rushes in

BERNARDO
                                  Oh, horrible!                      120
      That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer,
      Even till the heart is vacant and despairs,
      Should all be vain! The ministers of death
      Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw
      Blood on the face of one--what if 't were fancy?
      Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth
      Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off
      As if 't were only rain. O life! O world!
      Cover me! let me be no more! To see
      That perfect mirror of pure innocence                          130
      Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,
      Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice,
      Who made all lovely thou didst look upon--
      Thee, light of life--dead, dark! while I say, sister,
      To hear I have no sister; and thou, mother,
      Whose love was as a bond to all our loves--
      Dead! the sweet bond broken!

Enter CAMILLO and Guards

                                    They come! Let me
      Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves
      Are blighted--white--cold. Say farewell, before
      Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear                140
      You speak!

BEATRICE
                  Farewell, my tender brother. Think
      Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now;
      And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee
      Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,
      But tears and patience. One thing more, my child;
      For thine own sake be constant to the love
      Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I,
      Though wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,
      Lived ever holy and unstained. And though
      Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name                150
      Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow
      For men to point at as they pass, do thou
      Forbear, and never think a thought unkind
      Of those who perhaps love thee in their graves.
      So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain
      Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!

BERNARDO
      I cannot say farewell!

CAMILLO
                              O Lady Beatrice!

BEATRICE
      Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
      My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, mother, tie
      My girdle for me, and bind up this hair                        160
      In any simple knot; ay, that does well.
      And yours I see is coming down. How often
      Have we done this for one another; now
      We shall not do it any more. My Lord,
      We are quite ready. Well--'t is very well.