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
Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.
Enter LUCRETIA.
Well? what? Speak, wretch!
Lucr. She said, "I cannot come;
"Go tell my father that I see a torrent "Of his own blood raging between us."
Cen. (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
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
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,
Strike in thy envy those life-darting eyes
With thine own blinding beams!
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
When high God grants, he punishes such prayers.
Cen. (leaping up, and throwing his right hand towards
Heaven.)
He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
That, if she have a child
Jer. Horrible thought!
Cen. That if she ever have a child; and thon,
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
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 dishonoured grave.
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in heaven. (Erit Lucr.) I 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:
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe;
My heart is beating with an expectation
Of horrid joy.
Lucr. She bids the curse:
And if thy curses, as they cannot do,
Could kill her soul-
Cen. She would not come. 'Tis well,
I 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 Luor
I 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,
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.
Before the castle af Petrella. Enter BEATRICE and LuCRETIA above, on the ramparts.
Beatr. They come not yet.
Lucr. 'Tis scarce midnight.
Beatr. How slow
Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
Lags leaden-footed time'
"Lucr. The minutes pass
If he should wake before the deed is done?
Beatr. 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.
Lucr. 'Tis true he spoke
Of death and judgment with strange confidence
For one so wicked; as a man believing
In God, yet recking not of good or ill.
And yet to die without confession!
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.
Beatr. All mortal things must hasten thus
To their dark end. Let us go down.
(Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE from above.) Olim. How feel you to this work?
A thousand crowns excellent market price
For an old murderer's life. Your cheeks are pale.
Olim. It is the white reflection of your own,
Which you call pale.
Mar. Is that their natural hue?
Olim. Or 'tis my hate, and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.
Mar. You are inclined then to this business?
Olim. 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!
Beatr. Are ye resolved?
Olim. Is he asleep?
Mar. Is all
Quiet '
Luer, I mixed an opiate with his drink. He sleeps so soundly
Beatr. 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 are ye resolved?
Ye know it is a high and holy deed.
Olim. We are resolved.
Mar. As to the how this act
Be warranted, it rests with you.
Beatr. Well, follow!
Olim. Hush! hark! What noise is that?
Mar Ha! some one comes!
Beatr. Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate,
Which ye left open, swinging to the wind,
That enters whistling as in scorn,
And be your steps like mine, light, quick, and bold.
What may be done, but what is left undone:
Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO.
Olim. Did you not call?
Beatr. When?
Olim. Now.
Beatr. I ask if all is over?
Olim. We dare not kill an old and sleeping man ;
His thin grey hair, his stern and reverend 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.
Mar. 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
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