That which the vassal threatened to divulge, Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward. The deed he saw could not have rated higher Than his most worthless life :-it angers me! Respited from Hell !-So may the Devil Respite their souls from Heaven. No doubt Pope And his most charitable nephews, pray [Clement, That the Apostle Peter and the saints Will grant for their sake that I long enjoy Strength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of days
Wherein to act the deeds which are the stewards Of their revenue.-But much yet remains To which they show no title.
Oh, Count Cenci ! So much that thou might'st honourably live, And reconcile thyself with thine own heart And with thy God, and with the offended world. How hideously look deeds of lust and blood Through those snow-white and venerable hairs! Your children should be sitting round you now, But that you fear to read upon their looks The shame and misery you have written there. Where is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter? Methinks hersweet looks, which make all things else Beauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you. Why is she barred from all society
But her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs? Talk with me, Count, you know I mean you well. I stood beside your dark and fiery youth, Watching its bold and bad career, as men Watch meteors, but it vanished not-I marked Your desperate and remorseless manhood; now Do I behold you, in dishonoured age, Charged with a thousand unrepented crimes. Yet I have ever hoped you would amend,
And in that hope have saved your life three times.
For which Aldobrandino owes you now My fief beyond the Pincian-Cardinal, One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth, And so we shall converse with less restraint.
A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter, He was accustomed to frequent my house; So the next day his wife and daughter came And asked if I had seen him; and I smiled: I think they never saw him any more.
Thou execrable man, beware!—
Nay, this is idle :-We should know each other. As to my character for what men call crime, Seeing I please my senses as I list, And vindicate that right with force or guile, It is a public matter, and I care not If I discuss it with you. may speak Alike to you and my own conscious heart; For you give out that you have half reformed me, Therefore strong vanity will keep you silent If fear should not; both will, I do not doubt. All men delight in sensual luxury, All men enjoy revenge; and most exult Over the tortures they can never feel; Flattering their secret peace with others' pain. But I delight in nothing else. I love
No. I am what your theologians call Hardened; which they must be in impudence, So to revile a man's peculiar taste. True, I was happier than I am, while yet Manhood remained to act the thing I thought; While lust was sweeter than revenge; and now Invention palls; ay, we must all grow old: But that there yet remains a deed to act Whose horror might make sharp an appetite Duller than mine-I'd do,-I know not what. When I was young I thought of nothing else But pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets: Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees, And I grew tired: yet, till I killed a foe, [groans, And heard his groans, and heard his children's Knew I not what delight was else on earth, Which now delights me little. I the rather Look on such pangs as terror ill conceals; The dry, fixed eye-ball; the pale, quivering lip, Which tell me that the spirit weeps within Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ. I rarely kill the body, which preserves, Like a strong prison, the soul within my power, Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear For hourly pain.
Bernardo and my wife could not be worse If dead and damned :—then, as to Beatrice- [Looking around him suspiciously.
I think they cannot hear me at that door; What if they should? And yet I need not speak, Though the heart triumphs with itself in words. O, thou most silent air, that shall not hear What now I think! Thou, pavement, which I tread Towards her chamber,-let your echoes talk Of my imperious step, scorning surprise, But not of my intent!-Andrea !
As I have said, speak to me not of love; Had you a dispensation, I have not; Nor will I leave this home of misery Whilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle lady To whom I owe life, and these virtuous thoughts, Must suffer what I still have strength to share. Alas, Orsino! All the love that once
I felt for you, is turned to bitter pain. Ours was a youthful contract, which you first Broke, by assuming vows no Pope will loose. And thus I love you still, but holily, Even as a sister or a spirit might; And so I swear a cold fidelity.
And it is well perhaps we shall not marry. You have a sly, equivocating vein That suits me not.-Ah, wretched that I am! Where shall I turn? Even now you look on me As you were not my friend, and as if you Discovered that I thought so, with false smiles Making my true suspicion seem your wrong. Ah! No, forgive me; sorrow makes me seem
Sterner than else my nature might have been ; I have a weight of melancholy thoughts, And they forebode,-but what can they forebode Worse than I now endure?
All will be well. Is the petition yet prepared? You know My zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice; Doubt not but I will use my utmost skill So that the Pope attend to your complaint.
Your zeal for all I wish ?-Ah me, you are cold! Your utmost skill-speak but one word— (Aside.) Alas!
Weak and deserted creature that I am, Here I stand bickering with my only friend! (TO ORSINO.)
This night my father gives a sumptuous feast, Orsino; he has heard some happy news From Salamanca, from my brothers there, And with this outward show of love he mocks His inward hate. "Tis bold hypocrisy,
For he would gladlier celebrate their deaths, Which I have heard him pray for on his knees: Great God! that such a father should be mine!- But there is mighty preparation made, And all our kin, the Cenci, will be there, And all the chief nobility of Rome.
And he has bidden me and my pale mother Attire ourselves in festival array.
Poor lady! She expects some happy change In his dark spirit from this act; I none. At supper I will give you the petition : Till when-farewell.
[Exit BEATRICE. I know the Pope
Will ne'er absolve me from my priestly vow But by absolving me from the revenue Of many a wealthy see; and, Beatrice,
I think to win thee at an easier rate.
Nor shall he read her eloquent petition : He might bestow her on some poor relation Of his sixth-cousin, as he did her sister, And I should be debarred from all access. Then as to what she suffers from her father, In all this there is much exaggeration : Old men are testy, and will have their way; A man may stab his enemy, or his vassal, And live a free life as to wine or women, And with a peevish temper may return To a dull home, and rate his wife and children; Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny. I shall be well content, if on my conscience There rest no heavier sin than what they suffer From the devices of my love--A net From which she shall escape not. . Yet I fear Her subtle mind, her awe-inspiring gaze, Whose beams anatomise me, nerve by nerve, And lay me bare, and make me blush to see My hidden thoughts.-Ah, no! a friendless girl Who clings to me, as to her only hope : I were a fool, not less than if a panther Were panic-stricken by the antelope's eye, If she escape me.
A magnificent Hall in the Cenci Palace.
A Banquet. Enter CENCI, LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, ORSINO, CAMILLO, NOBLES.
Welcome, my friends and kinsmen; welcome ye, Princes and Cardinals, Pillars of the church, Whose presence honours our festivity. I have too long lived like an anchorite, And, in my absence from your merry meetings, An evil word is gone abroad of me; But I do hope that you, my noble friends, When you have shared the entertainment here, And heard the pious cause for which 'tis given, And we have pledged a health or two together, Will think me flesh and blood as well as you; Sinful indeed, for Adam made all so, But tender-hearted, meek and pitiful.
It is indeed a most desired event. If, when a parent, from a parent's heart, Lifts from this earth to the great Father of all A prayer, both when he lays him down to sleep, And when he rises up from dreaming it; One supplication, one desire, one hope, That he would grant a wish for his two sons, Even all that he demands in their regard- And suddenly, beyond his dearest hope, It is accomplished, he should then rejoice, And call his friends and kinsmen to a feast, And task their love to grace his merriment, Then honour me thus far-for I am he.
BEATRICE (to LUCRETIA).
Great God! How horrible! Some dreadful ill Must have befallen my brothers.
The tapers that did light them the dark way Are their last cost. The Pope, I think, will not Expect I should maintain them in their coffins. Rejoice with me-my heart is wondrous glad.
BEATRICE. (LUCRETIA sinks, half fainting; BEATRICE supports her.)
It is not true!-Dear lady, pray look up. Had it been true, there is a God in Heaven, He would not live to boast of such a boon. Unnatural man, thou knowest that it is false.
Ay, as the word of God; whom here I call To witness that I speak the sober truth ;- And whose most favouring providence was shown Even in the manner of their deaths. For Rocco Was kneeling at the mass, with sixteen others, When the Church fell and crushed him to a mummy; The rest escaped unhurt. Cristofano Was stabbed in error by a jealous man, Whilst she he loved was sleeping with his rival ; All in the self-same hour of the same night; Which shows that Heaven has special care of me. I beg those friends who love me, that they mark The day a feast upon their calendars.
It was the twenty-seventh of December: Ay, read the letters if you doubt my oath. [The assembly appears confused; several of the guests rise.
Oh, horrible! I will depart.
I do believe it is some jest; though faith, "Tis mocking us somewhat too solemnly. I think his son has married the Infanta, Or found a mine of gold in El Dorado: "Tis but to season some such news; stay, stay! I see 'tis only raillery by his smile.
CENCI (filling a bowl of wine, and lifting it up). Oh, thou bright wine, whose purple splendour leaps And bubbles gaily in this golden bowl Under the lamp-light, as my spirits do,
To hear the death of my accursed sons! Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood, Then would I taste thee like a sacrament, And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell; Who, if a father's curses, as men say,
Fear not, child, Climb with swift wings after their children's souls, And drag them from the very throne of Heaven, Now triumphs in my triumph!-But thou art Superfluous; I have drunken deep of joy, And I will taste no other wine to-night. Here, Andrea! Bear the bowl around.
Ah! My blood runs cold. I fear that wicked laughter round his eye, Which wrinkles up the skin even to the hair.
I do entreat you, go not, noble guests; What although tyranny and impious hate Stand sheltered by a father's hoary hair? What if 'tis he who clothed us in these limbs Who tortures them, and triumphs? What, if we, The desolate and the dead, were his own flesh, His children and his wife, whom he is bound To love and shelter? Shall we therefore find No refuge in this merciless wide world?
Oh, think what deep wrongs must have blotted out First love, then reverence in a child's prone mind, Till it thus vanquish shame and fear! Oh, think! I have borne much, and kissed the sacred hand Which crushed us to the earth, and thought its stroke
Was perhaps some paternal chastisement !
Have excused much, doubted; and when no doubt Remained, have sought by patience, love and tears, To soften him; and when this could not be, I have knelt down through the long sleepless nights, And lifted up to God, the father of all, Passionate prayers: and when these were not heard, I have still borne ;-until I meet you here, Princes and kinsmen, at this hideous feast Given at my brothers' deaths. Two yet remain, His wife remains and I, whom if ye save not, Ye may soon share such merriment again As fathers make over their children's graves. Oh! Prince Colonna, thou art our near kinsman; Cardinal, thou art the Pope's chamberlain ; Camillo, thou art chief justiciary; Take us away!
CENCI. (He has been conversing with CAMILLO during the first part of BEATRICE'S speech; he hears the conclusion, and now advances.) I hope my good friends here Will think of their own daughters-or perhaps Of their own throats-before they lend an ear To this wild girl.
BEATRICE (not noticing the words of CENCI). Dare no one look on me? None answer? Can one tyrant overbear The sense of many best and wisest men? Or is it that I sue not in some form
Of scrupulous law, that ye deny my suit? Oh, God! that I were buried with my brothers! And that the flowers of this departed spring Were fading on my grave! And that my father Were celebrating now one feast for all!
A bitter wish for one so young and gentle; Can we do nothing?
Nothing that I see. Count Cenci were a dangerous enemy: Yet I would second any one.
Retire to your chamber, insolent girl!
Retire thou, impious man! Ay, hide thyself Where never eye can look upon thee more! Wouldst thou have honour and obedience, Who art a torturer? Father, never dream, Though thou mayst overbear this company, But ill must come of ill.-Frown not on me! Haste, hide thyself, lest with avenging looks My brothers' ghosts should hunt thee from thy seat! Cover thy face from every living eye, And start if thou but hear a human step: Seek out some dark and silent corner, there, Bow thy white head before offended God, And we will kneel around, and fervently Pray that he pity both ourselves and thee.
My friends, I do lament this insane girl Has spoilt the mirth of our festivity. Good night, farewell; I will not make you longer Spectators of our dull domestic quarrels. Another time.-
[Exeunt all but CENCI and BEATRICE. My brain is swimming round;
Give me a bowl of wine!
(TO BEATRICE.) Thou painted viper! Beast that thou art! Fair and yet terrible!
I know a charm shall make thee meek and tame, Now get thee from my sight!
[Exit BEATRICE. Here, Andrea,
Fill up this goblet with Greek wine. I would not drink this evening, but I must; For, strange to say, I feel my spirits fail With thinking what I have decreed to do. [Drinking the wine.
Be thou the resolution of quick youth Within my veins, and manhood's purpose stern, And age's firm, cold, subtle villany; As if thou wert indeed my children's blood Which I did thirst to drink. The charm works well;
It must be done, it shall be done, I swear!
An Apartment in the Cenci Palace.
Enter LUCRETIA and BERNARDO.
Weep not, my gentle boy; he struck but me, Who have borne deeper wrongs. In truth, if he Had killed me, he had done a kinder deed. Oh, God Almighty, do thou look upon us, We have no other friend but only thee! Yet weep not; though I love you as my own, I am not your true mother.
that is his step upon the stairs ;
"Tis nearer now; his hand is on the door;
Mother, if I to thee have ever been
To see if others were as white as he? At the first word he spoke I felt the blood Rush to my heart, and fell into a trance; And when it past I sat all weak and wild ; Whilst you alone stood up, and with strong words Check'd his unnatural pride; and I could see The devil was rebuked that lives in him. Until this hour thus you have ever stood Between us and your father's moody wrath Like a protecting presence: your firm mind Has been our only refuge and defence:
What can have thus subdued it? What can now Have given you that cold melancholy look, Succeeding to your unaccustomed fear?
What is it that you say? I was just thinking "Twere better not to struggle any more. Men, like my father, have been dark and bloody, Yet never-O! before worse comes of it, "Twere wise to die: it ends in that at last.
Oh, talk not so, dear child! Tell me at once What did your father do or say to you? He stayed not after that accursed feast One moment in your chamber. Speak to me.
A duteous child, now save me! Thou, great God, Oh, sister, sister, prithee, speak to us!
Whose image upon earth a father is, Dost thou indeed abandon me? He comes; The door is opening now; I see his face; He frowns on others, but he smiles on me, Even as he did after the feast last night.
BEATRICE (speaking very slowly with a forced calmness).
It was one word, mother, one little word; One look, one smile.
[Wildly. Oh! he has trampled me Under his feet, and made the blood stream down My pallid cheeks. And he has given us all
Ditch-water, and the fever-stricken flesh Of buffaloes, and bade us eat or starve, And we have eaten. He has made me look
On my beloved Bernardo, when the rust Of heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs, And I have never yet despaired-but now ! What would I say?
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