Orsino.

And safe

Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.

Within Petrella. He passed by the spot

Giacomo. Are we the fools of such contingencies?

35

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.

40

45

50

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.

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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

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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,

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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?

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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.
Again, I will not trust to hireling hands. . .

If e'er he wakes

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85

Orsino. Why, that were well. I must be gone; good-night. When next we meet-may all be done!

And all

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[Exeunt.

SCENE I.-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

5

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.

Hide thee from my

91 may all be done! done, and all ed. 1819.

Enter LUCRETIA.

Thou loathed wretch! abhorrence: fly, begone!

GIACOMO: And all ed. 1821; GIACOMO: May all be 4 not now ed. 1821; now not ed. 1819.

Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.

Oh,

Lucretia.
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.

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20

Cenci. What! like her sister who has found a home

25

To mock my hate from with prosperity?

30

At thy presence

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.
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.

repentance.

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.
As to the right or wrong, that's talk.
Repentance is an easy moment's work
And more depends on God than me.
I must give up the greater point, which was
To poison and corrupt her soul.

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Well... well ...

[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

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Life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave:

Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,
Die in despair, blaspheming: to Bernardo,

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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

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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

Lucretia. (Stops him.)

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[Going.

Oh, stay! It was a feint:

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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.

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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:

80

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.

Speak, pale slave! What

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.

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Her coming is consent: and say, moreover,
That if she come not I will curse her.

Ha!

[Exit LUCRETIA.

With what but with a father's curse doth God
Panic-strike armèd 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;

God!

Go tell my father that I see a torrent
Of his own blood raging between us.'
Cenci (kneeling).

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

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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.

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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, fulfilling his command,

140