For His Sacred Name. Note: _77 Makes Truth Edition 1821; Makes The Truth Editions 1819, 1839. Giacomo: Ask Me Not What I Think; The Unwilling Brain Feigns Often What It Would Not; And We Trust Imagination With Such Fantasies As The Tongue Dares Not Fashion Into Words, Which Have No Words, Their Horror Makes Them Dim To The Mind'S Eye. - My Heart Denies Itself To Think What You Demand. Orsino: But A Friend'S Bosom Is As The Inmost Cave Of Our Own Mind Where We Sit Shut From The Wide Gaze Of Day, And From The All-Communicating Air. You Look What I Suspected - Giacomo: Spare Me Now! I Am As One Lost In A Midnight Wood, Who Dares Not Ask Some Harmless Passenger The Path Across The Wilderness, Lest He, As My Thoughts Are, Should Be - A Murderer. I Know You Are My Friend, And All I Dare Speak To My Soul That Will I Trust With Thee. But Now My Heart Is Heavy, And Would Take Lone Counsel From A Night Of Sleepless Care. Pardon Me, That I Say Farewell - Farewell! I Would That To My Own Suspected Self I Could Address A Word So Full Of Peace. Orsino: Farewell! - Be Your Thoughts Better Or More Bold. [Exit Giacomo.] I Had Disposed The Cardinal Camillo To Feed His Hope With Cold Encouragement: It Fortunately Serves My Close Designs That 'Tis A Trick Of This Same Family To Analyse Their Own And Other Minds. Such Self-Anatomy Shall Teach The Will Dangerous Secrets: For It Tempts Our Powers, Knowing What Must Be Thought, And May Be Done. Into The Depth Of Darkest Purposes: So Cenci Fell Into The Pit; Even I, Since Beatrice Unveiled Me To Myself, And Made Me Shrink From What I Cannot Shun, Show A Poor Figure To My Own Esteem, To Which I Grow Half Reconciled. I'll Do As Little Mischief As I Can; That Thought Shall Fee The Accuser Conscience. [After A Pause.] Now What Harm If Cenci Should Be Murdered? - Yet, If Murdered, Wherefore By Me? And What If I Could Take The Profit, Yet Omit The Sin And Peril In Such An Action? Of All Earthly Things I Fear A Man Whose Blows Outspeed His Words And Such Is Cenci: And While Cenci Lives His Daughter'S Dowry Were A Secret Grave If A Priest Wins Her. - Oh, Fair Beatrice! Would That I Loved Thee Not, Or Loving Thee, Could But Despise Danger And Gold And All That Frowns Between My Wish And Its Effect. Or Smiles Beyond It! There Is No Escape... Her Bright Form Kneels Beside Me At The Altar, And Follows Me To The Resort Of Men, And Fills My Slumber With Tumultuous Dreams, So When I Wake My Blood Seems Liquid Fire; And If I Strike My Damp And Dizzy Head My Hot Palm Scorches It: Her Very Name, But Spoken By A Stranger, Makes My Heart Sicken And Pant; And Thus Unprofitably I Clasp The Phantom Of Unfelt Delights Till Weak Imagination Half Possesses The Self-Created Shadow. Yet Much Longer Will I Not Nurse This Life Of Feverous Hours: From The Unravelled Hopes Of Giacomo I Must Work Out My Own Dear Purposes. I See, As From A Tower, The End Of All: Her Father Dead; Her Brother Bound To Me By A Dark Secret, Surer Than The Grave; Her Mother Scared And Unexpostulating From The Dread Manner Of Her Wish Achieved; And She! - Once More Take Courage, My Faint Heart; What Dares A Friendless Maiden Matched With Thee? I Have Such Foresight As Assures Success: Some Unbeheld Divinity Doth Ever, When Dread Events Are Near, Stir Up Men'S Minds To Black Suggestions; And He Prospers Best, Not Who Becomes The Instrument Of Ill, But Who Can Flatter The Dark Spirit, That Makes Its Empire And Its Prey Of Other Hearts Till It Become His Slave...As I Will Do. [Exit.] End Of Act 2. Act 3. Scene 3.1: 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; 'Tis 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, 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 Vapours Such As The Dead Breathe In Charnel Pits! Pah! I Am Choked! There Creeps A Clinging, Black, Contaminating Mist About Me...'Tis Substantial, Heavy, Thick, I Cannot Pluck It From Me, For It Glues My Fingers And My Limbs To One Another, 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? 'Tis Gone; And Yet Its Burthen Remains Here 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 Its Cause; Suffering Has Dried Away The Source From Which It Sprung... Beatrice [Franticly]: 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. [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! Horrible Things Have Been In This Wide 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 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 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? 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: 'Tis 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 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 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 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. 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 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: - O! 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. Ask Me Not What It Is, For There Are Deeds Which Have No Form, Sufferings Which Have No Tongue. Note: _140 Nor Edition 1821; Or Editions 1819, 1839 (1St). 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 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 Mouthed Story; A Mock, A Byword, An Astonishment: - 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 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... 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? O God! If, For The Very Reasons Which Should Make 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 Dishonour, And Leaves Her 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, Honoured 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, 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 Past, And Lest I Be Reserved, Day After Day, To Load With Crimes An Overburthened 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, 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 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. 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; 'Tis 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 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, 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 'Tis 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 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? Note: _278 Hither Edition 1821; Thither Edition 1819. Giacomo: I Sought Him Here; And Now Must Wait Till He Returns. Orsino: Great God! 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 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, 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 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 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. 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, 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, 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 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 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: 'Tis My Brother'S Voice! You Know Me Not? 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. [Exeunt Severally.] Scene 3.2: A Mean Apartment In Giacomo'S House. Giacomo Alone. Giacomo: 'Tis 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-Winged 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 Is Most Necessary. O, Thou Unreplenished Lamp! Whose Narrow Fire Is Shaken By The Wind, And On Whose Edge 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! 'Tis The Blood Which Fed These Veins That Ebbs Till All Is Cold: It Is The Form That Moulded Mine That Sinks 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 Judgement 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; Yet...'Tis 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 But My Repentance. Orsino: See, The Lamp Is Out. Giacomo: If No Remorse Is Ours When The Dim Air Has Drank 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 For Ever? 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. 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: O, Speak No More! I Am Resolved, Although This Very Hand Must Quench The Life That Animated It. 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 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: 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. When Next We Meet - May All Be Done! Note: _91 May All Be Done! Giacomo: And All Edition 1821; Giacomo: May All Be Done, And All Edition 1819. Giacomo: And All Forgotten: Oh, That I Had Never Been! [Exeunt.] End Of Act 3. Act 4. Scene 4.1: 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, 'Tis Her Stubborn Will Which By Its Own Consent Shall Stoop As Low As That Which Drags It Down. [Enter Lucretia.] Thou Loathed Wretch! Hide Thee From My Abhorrence: Fly, Begone! Yet Stay! Bid Beatrice Come Hither. Note: _4 Not Now Edition 1821; Now Not Edition 1819. 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, 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. 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. 'Tis Plain I Have Been Favoured From Above, For When I Cursed My Sons They Died. - Ay...So... 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, He Is So Innocent, I Will Bequeath 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; 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: 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. What Sufferings? I Will Drag Her, Step By Step, 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, 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, 'Twas 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, 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 Armed 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 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 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 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, That 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 Increase And Multiply, Ful