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
125The 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
130With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head
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 loathed lameness! All beholding sun,
135Strike 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 towards Heaven).
He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
140That if she have a child …
Lucretia. Horrible thought!
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 encrease
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
145And 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.
150And that the child may from its infancy
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,
155Or what may else be more unnatural.
So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in heaven. [Exit LUCRETIA.
160I do not feel as if I were a man,
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:
165I 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. ’Tis well,
170I can do both: first take what I demand,
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.
175It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim
With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.
Conscience! Oh, thou most insolent of lies!
They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven,
Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain
180Which thinks thee an imposter. I will go
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!
185There 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. ’Tis 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?
5 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. ’Tis true he spoke
Of death and judgement with strange confidence
10For one so wicked; as a man believing
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
15To 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
20For an old murderer’s life. Your cheeks are pale.
Olimpio. It is the white reflexion of your own,
Which you call pale.
Marzio. Is that their natural hue?
Olimpio. Or ’tis my hate and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.
25 Marzio. You are inclined then to this business?
Olimpio. Aye.
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
30Quiet?
Lucretia. I mixed an opiate with his drink:
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?
35Ye 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
40Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate,
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! ’tis the tread of feet
About his bed.
Lucretia. My God!
5If he be now a cold stiff
corpse …
Beatrice. O, 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;
10His thin grey hair, his stern and reverent brow,
His veined 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,
15And 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, O, hear,
A father’s curse! What, art thou not our father?’
20And then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost
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
25With 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;
30And when a deed where mercy insults heaven …
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.
35 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 ’twere a deadly crime
To leave undone.
Lucretia. Would it were done!
Beatrice. Even whilst
That doubt is passing through your mind, the world
40Is conscious of a change. Darkness and hell
Have swallowed up the vapour they sent forth
To blacken the sweet light of life. My breath
Comes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood
Runs freely thro’ my veins. Hark!
[Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO.
He is …
Olimpio. Dead!
45 Marzio. We strangled him that there might be no blood;
And then we threw his heavy corpse i’ the garden
Under the balcony; ’twill 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
50By that which made me tremble, wear thou this!
[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
55To a just use. Live long and thrive! And, mark,
If thou hast crimes, repent: this deed is none.
[A horn is sounded.
Lucretia. Hark, ’tis 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
60Of horses in the court; fly, hide yourselves!
[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
65Fearless 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;
5Yet wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile,
He is a wicked and a wrathful man;
Should he be roused out of his sleep to-night,
Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,
It were not well; indeed it were not well.
10Wait till day break … (Aside.) O, I am deadly sick!
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 …
15’Twere 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). O, terror! O, despair!
20(To BERNARDO) Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to
Your father’s chamber. [Exeunt SAVELLA and BERNARDO.
[Enter BEATRICE.
Beatrice. ’Tis a messenger
Come to arrest the culprit who now stands
Before the throne of unappealable God.
Both Earth and Heaven, consenting arbiters,
25Acquit 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
30Which we must pay so dearly, having done.
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;
O, horrible, ’tis all discovered!
Beatrice. Mother,
35What is done wisely, is done well. Be bold
As thou art just. ’Tis 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
40All thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself,
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,
45Or 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
50As the world’s centre. Consequence, to me,
Is as the wind which strikes the solid rock
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?
55 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;
’Tis wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps.
He is not dead?
Bernardo. Dead; murdered.
Lucretia (with extreme agitation).
Oh, no, no,
60He is not murdered though he may be dead;
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.
65 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;
70My mother, and my sister, and myself.
Savella. ’Tis 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
75Have fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped
And effortless; ’tis true there was no blood …
Favour me, Sir; it much imports your house
Selected Poems and Prose Page 38
