And more depends on God than me.

Well-well

I must give up the greater point, which was
To poison and corrupt her soul.

(4 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 al 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.)
Lucr. (stops him.) Oh, stay! It was a feint:
She had no vision, and she heard no voice.
I said it but to awe thee.

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.

Lucr.

Oh! to what will?

What cruel sufferings, more than she has known,
Canst thou inflict?

Cen.

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;
Iler name shall be the terror of the earth;
Iler 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.

Andr. The lady Beatrice

Cen.

Said she?

Andr.

Speak, pale slave! What

My Lord, 'twas what she looked; she said:

"Go, tell my father that I see the gulph

Of Hell between us two, which he may pass,-
I will not."

Cen.

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.

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
Pid imprecate quick ruin, and it came.

Enter LUCRETIA.

Well? what? Speak, wretch!

(Exit Andrea.)

(Exit Lucretia.)

She said, "I cannot come;

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

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 thy envy those life-darting eyes
With thine own blinding beams!

Lucr.
Peace! Peace!
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
When high God grants, he punishes such prayers.
Cen. (leaping up, and throwing his right hand towards

Heaven.)

He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
That, if she have a child-

Lucr.

Horrible thought!

Cen. 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, fullfiling his command,
And my deep imprecation! May it be
A hideous likeness of herself; that, as
From a distorting mirror, she may see
Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
Smiling upon her from her nursing breast.
And that the child may from its infancy
Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
Turning her mother's love to misery;
And that both she and it may live, until
It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
Or, what may else be more unnatural,

So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in heaven.
I do not feel as if I were a man,

But like a fiend appointed to chastise
The offences of some unremembered world.
My blood is running up and down my veins:
A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle:
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe;
My heart is beating with an expectation
Of horrid joy.

(Exit Luer.)

Luer.

Enter LUCRETIA.

What? Speak!

She bids thee curse:

And if thy curses, as they cannot do,

Could kill her soul

Cen.

Tis well.

She would not come.
I can do both: first take what I demand,
And then extort concession. To thy chamber.
Fly, ere I spurn thee: and beware this night
That thou cross not my footsteps. It were safer
To come between the tiger and his prey.
It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim
With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.
Conscience! Oh, thou most insolent of lies!
They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven,
Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain
Which thinks thee an impostor. I will go,
First to belie thee with an hour of rest,

Which will be deep and calm, I feel: and then-
O, multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake
Thine arches with the laughter of their joy!
There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven
As o'er an angel fallen; and upon Earth
All good shall droop and sicken, and ill things
Shall, with a spirit of unnatural life,
Stir and be quickened, even as I am now.

(Exit Lucr.)

(Exit.)

SCENE II.

Before the Castle of Petrella. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA

Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
Lags leaden-footed time!

Lucr.

The minutes pass→→→→

If he should wake before the deed is done?

Beatr. O, Mother! he must never wake again. What thou hast said persuades me that our act Will but dislodge a spirit of deep hell

Out of a human form.

Lucr.

'Tis true, he spoke

Of death and judgment with strange confidence
For one so wicked: as a man believing

In God, yet recking not of good or ill.
And yet to die without confession!—

Oh!

Beatr.
Believe that Heaven is merciful and just,
And will not add our dread necessity
To the amount of his offences.

Lucr.

They come.

Beatr.

Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO, below.

See,

All mortal things must hasten thus

To their dark end. Let us go down.

(Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE from above.) Olim. How feel you to this work?

Mar.

As one who thinks
A thousand crowns excellent market price
For an old murderer's life. Your cheeks are pale.
Olim. It is the white reflection of your own,
Which you call pale.

Mar.
Is that their natural hue?
Olim. Or 'tis my hate, and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.
Mar. You are inclined then to this business?
Olim.

If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns
To kill a serpent which had stung my child,
I could not be more willing.

Ay,

Lucr.

I mixed an opiate with his drink:

He sleeps so soundly

Beatr.

That his death will be

But as a change of sin-chastising dreams,

A dark continuance of the Hell within him,
Which God extinguish! But are ye resolved?
Ye know it is a high and holy deed.

Olim. We are resolved.
Mar.

Be warranted, it rests with you.

Beart.

As to the how this act

Well, follow!

Olim. Hush! hark! What noise is that?

Mar.

Ha! some one comes!

Beatr. Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest
Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate,
Which ye left open, swinging to the wind,
That enters whistling as in scorn. Come, follow!

And be your steps like mine, light, quick, and bold.

(Exeunt.)