Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO, below.
15
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
20
For an old murderer’s life. Your cheeks are pale.
Olimpio. It is the white reflection 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.
Marzio. You are inclined then to this business?
25
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?
30
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?
35
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
40
Your 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!
If he be now a cold stiff corpse …
5
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;
10
His thin gray hair, his stern and reverend brow,
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,
15
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, O, hear,
A father’s curse! What, art Thou not our Father?’
20
And 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
25
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;
30
And 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
40
Is 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 through 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
50
By 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
55
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, ’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
60
Of 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
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;
5
Yet wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile,
He is a wicked and 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.
10
Wait 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 commssion 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,
Acquit our deed.
25
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
30
Which 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,
35
What 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
40
All 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,
45
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
50
As 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?
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,
60
He 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;
70
My 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
75
Have fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped
And effortless; ’tis true there was no blood …
Favour 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.
80
Officer. My Lord, we found this ruffian and another
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
85
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 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.
95
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.
100
Savella. Is it so?
Is it true, Lady, that thy father did
Such outrages as to awaken in thee
Unfilial hate?
Beatrice. Not hate, ’twas more than hate:
This is most true, yet wherefore question me?
105
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.
110
Lucretia. O, not to Rome! Indeed we are not guilty.
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
115
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
120
What ye neglect, arming familiar things
To the redress of an unwonted crime,
Make ye the victims who demanded it
Culprits? ’Tis ye are culprits! That poor wretch
Who stands so pale, and trembling, and amazed,
125
If it be true he murdered Cenci, was
A sword in the right hand of justest God.
Wherefore should I have wielded i
t? Unless
The crimes which mortal tongue dare never name
God therefore scruples to avenge.
Savella. You own
That you desired his death?
130
Beatrice. It would have been
A crime no less than his, if for one moment
That fierce desire had faded in my heart.
’Tis true I did believe, and hope, and pray,
Ay, I even knew … for God is wise and just,
135
That some strange sudden death hung over him.
’Tis 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.
140
Beatrice. And yet, if you arrest me,
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
145
Which is a mask without it. ’Tis 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.
150
Now leave us free; stain not a noble house
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.
155
I pray that you prepare yourselves for Rome:
There the Pope’s further pleasure will be known.
Lucretia. O, not to Rome! O, take us not to Rome!
Beatrice. Why not to Rome, dear mother? There as here
Our innocence is as an armèd heel
160
To trample accusation. God is there
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,
The Complete Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley: (A Modern Library E-Book) Page 50
