Enter CENCI, suddenly.
Cen. What, Beatrice here!
Come hither! (She shrinks Bach, and covers her face.)
Nay hide not your face, 'tis fair;
Look up! Why, yesternight you dared to look
With disobedient insolence upon me,
Bending a stern and an inquiring brow
On what I meant; whilst I then sought to hide
That which I came to tell you-But in vain.
Beatr. (Wildly staggering towards the door.)
Oh, that the earth would gape! Hide me, O God!
Cen. Then it was I whose inarticulate words
Fell from my lips, and who with tottering steps
Fled from your presence; as you now from mine.
Stay, I command you: from this day and hour
Never again, I think, with fearless eye,
And brow superior, and unaltered cheek,
And that lip made for tenderness or scorg,
Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind
Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber ¦¦
Thou, too, loathed image of thy cursed mother,
(To Ber.) Thy milky meek face makes me sick with hate!
(Exeunt Beatr, and Ber.)
(Aside.) So much has pass'd between usas must make
Me bold, her fearful. Tis an awful thing
To touch such mischief as I now conceivel
So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,
And try the chill stream with their feet; once in-
How the delighted spirit pants for joy?
Lucr. (Advancing timidly towards him.)
O husband, pray forgive poor Beatrice;
She meant not any ill.
Cen. Nor you, perhaps?
Nor that young imp, whom you have taught by rote
Parricide with liis alphabet? Nor Giacomo?
Nor those two most unnatural sons, who stirred
Enmity up against me with the Pope
Whom in one night merciful God cut off.
Innocent lambs! they thought not any illi
You were not here conspiring. You said nothing
Of how I might be d' gooned garama admangy
Or be condemned to death for some offence,
And
you would be the witnesses? This failing,
How just it were to hire assassins, or
Put sudden poison in my evening drink?
Or smother me when overcome by wine?
Seeing we had no other judge but God,
And he had sentenced me, and there were none
But you to be the executioners
Of his decree, enregistered in heaven?
Oh, no! You said not this?
Lucr. So help me God,
I never thought the things you charge ine with!
Cen. If you dare speak that wicked lie again
I'll kill you. What! it was not by your counsel
That Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?
You did not hope to stir some enemies
Against me, and escape, and laugh to scorn
What every nerve of you now trembles at?
You judged that men were bolder than they are:
Few dared to stand between their grave and me.
Luer. Look not so dreadfully! By my salvation,
I knew not aught that Beatrice designed;
Nor do I think she designed any thing
Until she heard you talk of her dead brothers.
Cen. Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this'
But I will take you where you may persuade
The stones you tread on to deliver you:
For men shall there be none but those who dare
All things; not question that which I command.
On Wednesday next I shall set out; you know
That savage rock, the Castle of Petrella:
Tis safely walled, and moated round about:
Its dungeons under ground, and its thick towers.
Never told tales; though they have heard and secu
What might make dumb things speak. Why do you linger?
Make speediest preparation for the journey!
The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear
A busy stir of men about the streets;
I see the bright sky through the window paneS :
It is a garish, broad, and peering day;
Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears
And every little corner, nook, and hole,
Is penetrated with the insolent light.
Come, darkness!-Yet, what is the day to me?
And wherefore should I wish for night, who do
A deed which shall confound both day and night?
'Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mist
Of horror: if there be a sun in heaven
She shall not dare to look upon its beams,
Nor feel its warmth. Let her then wish for night,
The act I think shall soon extinguish all
For me: I bear a darker deadlier gloom
Than the earth's shade, or interlunar air,
Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,
In which I walk secure and unbeheld
Towards my purpose. Would that it were done! (Exit)
A chamber in the Vatican.
Cam. There is an obsolete and doubtful law By which you might obtain a bare provision Of food and clothing
Giac. Nothing more? Alas!
Bare must be the provision which strict law
Awards, and aged sullen avarice pays.
Why did my father not apprentice me
To some mechanic trade? I should have then
Been trained in no high-born necessities
Which I could meet not by my daily toil.
The eldest son of a rich nobleman
Is heir to all his incapacities;
He has wide wants and narrow powers. If you,
Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at once
From thrice-driven beds of down and delicate food,
A hundred servants and six palaces,
To that which nature doth indeed require▬▬▬▬▬▬
Cam. Nay, there is reason in your plea; 'twere hard.
Giac. 'Tis hard for a firm man to bear; but i
Have a dear wife, a lady of high birth,
Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my father,
Without a bond or witness to the deed:
And children, who inherit her fine senses,
The fairest creatures in this breathing world:
And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,
Do you not think the Pope would interpose,
And stretch authority beyond the law?
Cam. Though your peculiar case is hard, I kno
The Pope will not divert the course of law.
After that impious feast the other night
I spoke with him, and urged him then to check
Your father's cruel hand; he frowned, and said,
"Children are disobedient, and they sting
"Their fathers' hearts to madness and despair,
Requiting years of care with contumely.
I pity the Count Cenci from my heart;
"His outraged love perhaps awakened hate,
"And thus he is exasperated to ill.
"In the great war between the old and young,
"I, who have white hairs and a tottering body,
Will keep at least blameless neutrality."
You, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words,
Ors. What words?
Giac. Alas, repeat them not again!
There then is no redress for me; at least
None but that which I may achieve myself,
Since I am driven to the brink. But, say,
My innocent sister and my only brother
Are dying underneath my father's eye.
The memorable tortures of this land,
Galeaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin,
Never inflicted on their meanest slave
What these endure: shall they have no protection ? Cam. Why, if they would petition to the Pope
I see not how he could refuse it yet
He holds it of most dangerous example
In aught to weaken the paternal power,
Being, as 'twere, the shadow of his own
I pray you now excuse me.
That will not bear delay.
Giac. But you, Orsino,
Have the petition: wherefore not present it?
Ors. I have presented it, and backed it with
My earnest prayers and urgent interest;
It was returned unanswered. I doubt not
But that the strange and execrable deeds
Alleged in it (in truth they might well baffle
Any belief) have turned the Pope's displeasure
Upon the accusers from the criminal:
So I should guess from what Camillo said.
Giac. My friend, that palace-walking devil, Gold,
Has whispered silence to his Holiness,
And, being left as scorpions ringed with fire,
What should we do but strike ourselves to death?
For he who is our murderous persecutor
Is shielded by a father's holy name,
Ors. What? Fear not to speak your thought.
Words are but holy as the deeds they cover:
A priest who has forsworn the God he serves;
A judge who makes truth weep at his decree,
A friend who should weave counsel, as I now,
But as the mantle of some selfish guile;
A father who is all a tyrant seems,
Were the profaner for his sacred name.
Giac. Ask me not what I think; the unwilling bra's 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.
Ors. 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.
Giac. Spare me, now!
|