If you forbid the rack. His Holiness
Enjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime
By the severest forms of law; nay, even
To stretch a point against the criminals.
The prisoners stand accused of parricide,
Upon such evidence as justifies

Torture.

Beatrice. What evidence? This man's?
Judge.

Beatrice (to MARZIO). Come near.

chosen forth

Out of the multitude of living men
To kill the innocent?

Marzio.

Thy father's vassal.

Beatrice.

Answer to what I ask.

Even so.

And who art thou thus

His countenance: unlike bold Calumny

Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,
He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends

His gaze on the blind earth.

(To MARZIO.) What! wilt thou say

That I did murder my own father?

Spare me! My brain swims round-I cannot speak-
It was that horrid torture forced the truth.

Take me away! Let her not look on me!

I am a guilty miserable wretch!

I have said all I know; now, let me die!

Beatrice. My lords, if by my nature I had been
So stern as to have planned the crime alleged
(Which your suspicions dictate to this slave,
And the rack makes him utter), do you think
I should have left this two-edged instrument
Of my misdeed, this man, this bloody knife
With my own name engraven on the heft,
Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes,

For my own death? that, with such horrible need
For deepest silence, I should have neglected
So trivial a precaution as the making

His tomb the keeper of a secret written
On a thief's memory? What is his poor life?
What are a thousand lives? A parricide

Had trampled them like dust; and see, he lives!

And thou

[Turning to MARZIO.

Marzio. Oh spare me! Speak to me no more! That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones,

Wound worse than torture.

(To the Judges.)

I have told it all;

For pity's sake lead me away to death!

Camillo. Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice. He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf

From the keen breath of the serenest north.

Beatrice. O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge
Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;
So mayst thou answer God with less dismay.
What evil have we done thee? I, alas!
Have lived but on this earth a few sad years;
And so my lot was ordered that a father
First turned the moments of awakening life

To drops each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then
Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul,
And my untainted fame, and even that peace
Which sleeps within the core of the heart's heart.
But the wound was not mortal; so my hate
Became the only worship I could lift
To our great Father, who in pity and love
Armed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off;
And thus his wrong becomes my accusation!
And art thou the accuser? If thou hopest
Mercy in heaven, show justice upon earth:
Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.
If thou hast done murders, made thy life's path
Over the trampled laws of God and man,
Rush not before thy Judge, and say: "My Maker,
I have done this, and more; for there was one
Who was most pure and innocent on earth;
And, because she endured what never any,
Guilty or innocent, endured before,

Because her wrongs could not be told nor thought,
Because thy hand at length did rescue her,

I with my words killed her and all her kin."
Think, I adjure thee, what it is to slay
The reverence living in the minds of men
Towards our ancient house and stainless fame!
Think what it is to strangle infant Pity,
Cradled in the belief of guileless looks,-
Till it become a crime to suffer. Think
What 'tis to blot with infamy and blood
All that which shows like innocence, and is—
Hear me, great God!-I swear, most innocent;
So that the world lose all discrimination
Between the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,
And that which now compels thee to reply
To what I ask: Am I, or am I not

Fudge.

What is this?

Tis I alone am guilty.

Marzio. I here declare those whom I did accuse
Are innocent.

Judge. Drag him away to torments; let them be Subtle and long drawn out, to tear the folds

Of the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him not

Till he confess.

Marzio.

Torture me as ye will:

A keener pain has wrung a higher truth

From my last breath. She is most innocent.

Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me!

I will not give you that fine piece of nature

To rend and ruin.

Camillo.

[Exit MARZIO, guarded.

What say ye now, my lords?

Judge. Let tortures strain the truth till it be white

As snow thrice sifted by the frozen wind.

Camillo. Yet stained with blood.

Judge (to BEATRICE).

Know you this paper, lady?

Beatrice. Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here

As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he,

Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge,

What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name;

Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.

What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what;
And therefore, on the chance that it may be

Some evil, will ye kill us?

Officer.

Enter an Officer.

Marzio's dead.

Nothing. As soon as we

Judge. What did he say?

Officer.

Had bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us,

As one who baffles a deep adversary;

And, holding his breath, died.

Judge.

There remains nothing

But to apply the question to those prisoners
Who yet remain stubborn.

Further proceedings, and in the behalf

Of these most innocent and noble persons

Will use my interest with the Holy Father.

Judge. Let the Pope's pleasure then be done. Meanwhile Conduct these culprits each to separate cells.

And be the engines ready: for this night

If the Pope's resolution be as grave,

Pious, and just, as once-I'll wring the truth

Out of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.

SCENE III.-The Cell of a Prison.

asleep on a couch.

Enter BERNArdo.

[Exeunt.

BEATRICE is discovered

Bernardo. How gently slumber rests upon her face, Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent,

Ah me!

Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged!
After such torments as she bore last night,
How light and soft her breathing comes!
Methinks that I shall never sleep again.
But I must shake the heavenly dew of rest
From this sweet folded flower, thus-wake! awake!
What, sister, canst thou sleep?

Beatrice (awaking).

I was just dreaming

Thou knowest

That we were all in paradise.
This cell seems like a kind of paradise
After our father's presence.

Bernardo.

Dear, dear sister,

Would that thy dream were not a dream!
How shall I tell?

O God!

Beatrice. What wouldst thou tell, sweet brother? Bernardo. Look not so calm and happy, or, even whilst I stand considering what I have to say,

My heart will break!

Beatrice.

See now, thou mak'st me weep.

How very friendless thou wouldst be, dear child,

If I were dead. Say what thou hast to say.

Bernardo. They have confessed; they could endure no more The tortures

Beatrice.

Ha! What was there to confess?

They must have told some weak and wicked lie

To flatter their tormentors. Have they said

That they were guilty? O white Innocence,

That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide
Thine awful and serenest countenance

From those who know thee not!

Enter JUDGE, with LUCRETIA and GIACOMO, guarded.

Ignoble hearts!
For some brief spasms of pain, which are at least
As mortal as the limbs through which they pass,
Are centuries of high splendour laid in dust?
And that eternal honour which should live
Sunlike above the reek of mortal fame
Changed to a mockery and a by-word? What !
Will you give up these bodies to be dragged
At horses' heels, so that our hair should sweep
The footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd,
Who, that they may make our calamity
Their worship and their spectacle, will leave
The churches and the theatres as void

As their own hearts? Shall the light multitude
Fling, at their choice, curses or faded pity,
Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse,
Upon us as we pass, to pass away,

And leave-what memory of our having been?
Infamy, blood, terror, despair! O thou

Who wert a mother to the parentless,

Kill not thy child! Let not her wrongs kill thee!
Brother, lie down with me upon the rack,
And let us each be silent as a corpse;

It soon will be as soft as any grave.

'Tis but the falsehood it can wring from fear Makes the rack cruel.

Giacomo.

They will tear the truth

Even from thee at last, those cruel pains:

For pity's sake, say thou art guilty now.

Lucretia. Oh speak the truth! Let us all quickly die: And after death God is our judge, not they;

He will have mercy on us.

It can be true, say so, dear sister mine;
And then the Pope will surely pardon you,
And all be well.

Judge.

Confess, or I will warp Your limbs with such keen tortures— Beatrice.

Tortures! Turn

The rack henceforth into a spinning-wheel!
Torture your dog, that he may tell when last
He lapped the blood his master shed-not me!
My pangs are of the mind and of the heart
And of the soul: ay, of the inmost soul,
Which weeps within tears as of burning gall
To see, in this ill world where none are true,
My kindred false to their deserted selves;
And with considering all the wretched life
Which I have lived, and its now wretched end;
And the small justice shown by Heaven and Earth
To me or mine; and what a tyrant thou art,
And what slaves these; and what a world we make,
The oppressor and the oppressed-Such pangs compel
My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?

Judge. Art thou not guilty of thy father's death?
Beatrice. Or wilt thou rather tax high-judging God
That he permitted such an act as that

Which I have suffered, and which he beheld;
Made it unutterable, and took from it

All refuge, all revenge, all consequence,

But that which thou hast called my father's death?
Which is or is not what men call a crime,
Which either I have done, or have not done;
Say what ye will. I shall deny no more.

If ye desire it thus, thus let it be

And so an end of all. Now do your will;

No other pains shall force another word.

Judge. She is convicted, but has not confessed.

Be it enough. Until their final sentence,

Let none have converse with them. You, young lord,