Earth, in the name of God, let her So he may hunt her through the clamor Cenci (leaping up, and throwing his right hand towards Heaven). He does his will, I mine! This in addition, That if she have a child... Lucretia. Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy 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. come, Go, bid her Before my words are chronicled in Heaven. [Exit LUCRETIA. 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. Lucretia. Enter LUCREtia. What? Speak! She bids thee curse; And if thy curses, as they cannot do, Could kill her soul... Cenci. She would not come. 'Tis well, I can do both: first take what I demand, 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! Oh, 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 Behind the course of thought, even sick To kill a serpent which had stung my with speed, Lags leaden-footed time! child, I could not be more willing. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA, below. Noble ladies! Beatrice. Are ye resolved? Olimpio. Marzio. What thou hast said persuades me that Quiet? Is he asleep? Is all I mixed an opiate with 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! resolved? But ye are Ye know it is a high and holy deed? As to the how this act Marzio. 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. Come, Stirred in his sleep, and said, “God! hear, O, hear, follow! And be your steps like mine, light, A father's curse! What, art thou not quick and bold. our father?" I knew it was [Snatching a dagger from one of them and raising it. Hadst thou a tongue to say, What? She murdered her own father, I must Now. 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, His veined hands crossed on his heaving breast, And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay, Quelled me. do it. Marzio. But I was bolder; for I Indeed, indeed, I cannot chid Olimpio, And bade him bear his wrongs to his That doubt is passing through your own grave And leave me the reward. And now my knife Touched the loose wrinkled throat, when Have swallowed up the vapour they To blacken the sweet light of life. My breath Comes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood Runs freely thro' my veins. Hark! Olimpio. He is .. Dead! 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 Marzio. We strangled him that Be my excuse that thus unseasonably there might be no blood; I break upon your rest. I must speak 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 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 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 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: 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 to-night, Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams, It were not well; indeed it were not well. Wait till day break . . . (aside) O, I am deadly sick! Savella. I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count Savella. Lady, my moments here Are counted. I must rouse him from his sleep, Since none else dare. Lucretia (aside). spair! O, terror! O, de The spirit which doth reign within these (To Bernardo) Bernardo, conduct you limbs Seems strangely undisturbed. I could Your father's chamber. the Lord Legate to even sleep Fearless and calm: all ill is surely past. [Exeunt. [Exeunt SAVELLA and BERNARDO. Enter BEATRICE. Beatrice. 'Tis a messenger 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. Even now they search the tower, and He is not dead? find the body; Now they suspect the truth; now they consult Bernardo. Dead; murdered. Lucretia (with extreme agitation). Before they come to tax us with the He is not murdered though he may be As thou art just. 'Tis like a truant We will retire; my mother is not well: Bernardo. Alas! I can name none who had not, and those most And fear no other witness but thy fear. is done, Free as the earth-surrounding air; as firm to me, Is as the wind which strikes the solid rock done; My mother, and my sister, and myself. Hanging beneath the window of his Among the branches of a pine: he could not |