And when I knew the impression he had made,
And felt my wife insult with silent scorn
My ardent truth, and look averse and cold,
I went forth too; but soon returned again;
Yet not so soon but that my wife had taught
My children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,
‘Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!
What you in one night squander were enough
For months!’ I looked, and saw that home was hell. 330
And to that hell will I return no more,
Until mine enemy has rendered up
Atonement, or, as he gave life to me,
I will, reversing Nature’s law —
ORSINO
Trust me,
The compensation which thou seekest here
Will be denied.
GIACOMO
Then — Are you not my friend?
Did you not hint at the alternative,
Upon the brink of which you see I stand,
The other day when we conversed together?
My wrongs were then less. That word, parricide, 340
Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear.
ORSINO
It must be fear itself, for the bare word
Is hollow mockery. Mark how wisest God
Draws to one point the threads of a just doom,
So sanctifying it; what you devise
Is, as it were, accomplished.
GIACOMO
Is he dead?
ORSINO
His grave is ready. Know that since we met
Cenci has done an outrage to his daughter.
GIACOMO
What outrage?
ORSINO
That she speaks not, but you may
Conceive such half conjectures as I do 350
From her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief
Of her stern brow, bent on the idle air,
And her severe unmodulated voice,
Drowning both tenderness and dread; and last
From this; that whilst her step-mother and I,
Bewildered in our horror, talked together
With obscure hints, both self-misunderstood,
And darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,
Over the truth and yet to its revenge,
She interrupted us, and with a look 360
Which told, before she spoke it, he must die —
GIACOMO
It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;
There is a higher reason for the act
Than mine; there is a holier judge than me,
A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice,
Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youth
Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised
A living flower, but thou hast pitied it
With needless tears! fair sister, thou in whom
Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom 370
Did not destroy each other! is there made
Ravage of thee? O heart, I ask no more
Justification! Shall I wait, Orsino,
Till he return, and stab him at the door?
ORSINO
Not so, some accident might interpose
To rescue him from what is now most sure;
And you are unprovided where to fly,
How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen;
All is contrived; success is so assured
That —
Enter BEATRICE
BEATRICE
‘T is my brother’s voice! You know me not? 380
GIACOMO
My sister, my lost sister!
BEATRICE
Lost indeed!
I see Orsino has talked with you, and
That you conjecture things too horrible
To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now stay not,
He might return; yet kiss me; I shall know
That then thou hast consented to his death.
Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God,
Brotherly love, justice and clemency,
And all things that make tender hardest hearts,
Make thine hard, brother. Answer not — farewell. 390
[Exeunt severally.
SCENE II. — A mean Apartment in GIACOMO’S House. GIACOMO alone.
GIACOMO
‘T is midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.
(Thunder, and the sound of a storm)
What! can the everlasting elements
Feel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft
Of mercy-wingèd lightning would not fall
On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep;
They are now living in unmeaning dreams;
But I must wake, still doubting if that deed
Be just which was most necessary. Oh,
Thou unreplenished lamp, whose narrow fire
Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge 10
Devouring darkness hovers! thou small flame,
Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,
Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be
As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks
Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine;
But that no power can fill with vital oil, —
That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! ‘t is the blood
Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold;
It is the form that moulded mine that sinks 20
Into the white and yellow spasms of death;
It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
In God’s immortal likeness which now stands
Naked before Heaven’s judgment-seat!
(A bell strikes)
One! Two!
The hours crawl on; and, when my hairs are white,
My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,
Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;
Chiding the tardy messenger of news
Like those which I expect. I almost wish
He be not dead, although my wrongs are great; 30
Yet—’t is Orsino’s step.
Enter ORSINO
Speak!
ORSINO
I am come
To say he has escaped.
GIACOMO
Escaped!
ORSINO
And safe
Within Petrella. He passed by the spot
Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.
GIACOMO
Are we the fools of such contingencies?
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, 40
But my repentance.
ORSINO
See, the lamp is out.
GIACOMO
If no remorse is ours when the dim air
Has drunk 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 forever?
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. 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 b
itter words; nor all the taunts
Which, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;
Nor your dead mother; nor —
GIACOMO
Oh, speak no more!
I am resolved, although this very hand
Must quench the life that animated it. 60
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
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 70
Matches Olimpio’s. I have sent these men,
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?
ORSINO
The house-dog moans, and the beams crack; nought else.
GIACOMO
It is my wife complaining in her sleep; 80
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
If e’er he wakes
Again, I will not trust to hireling hands —
ORSINO
Why, that were well. I must be gone; good night! 90
When next we meet, may all be done!
GIACOMO
And all
Forgotten! Oh, that I had never been!
[Exeunt.
Act IV
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
Be overworn? tame her with chains and famine?
Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone
What I most seek! No, ‘t is her stubborn will, 10
Which, by its own consent, shall stoop as low
As that which drags it down.
Enter LUCRETIA
Thou loathèd wretch!
Hide thee from my abhorrence; fly, begone!
Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.
LUCRETIA
Oh,
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, 20
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.
CENCI
What! like her sister, who has found a home
To mock my hate from with prosperity?
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. 30
LUCRETIA
She sent me to thee, husband. At thy presence
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
Why — such things are.
No doubt divine revealings may be made.
‘T is plain I have been favored from above,
For when I cursed my sons, they died. — Ay — so. 40
As to the right or wrong, that ‘s talk. Repentance?
Repentance is an easy moment’s work,
And more depends on God than me. Well — well —
I must give up the greater point, which was
To poison and corrupt her soul.
(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
Life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave;
Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,
Die in despair, blaspheming; to Bernardo, 50
He is so innocent, I will bequeathe
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
Of my possessions nothing but my name; 60
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.
LUCRETIA (stops him)
Oh, stay! it was a feint; 70
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
Andrea! go, call my daughter
And if she comes not, tell her that I come.
(To LUCRETIA)
What sufferings? I will drag her, step by step, 80
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
&nb
sp; All she appears to others; and when dead,
As she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,
A rebel to her father and her God, 90
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.
Enter ANDREA
ANDREA
The Lady Beatrice —
CENCI
Speak, pale slave! what
Said she?
ANDREA
My Lord, ‘t was 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.
CENCI
Go thou quick, Lucretia, 100
Tell her to come; yet let her understand
Her coming is consent; and say, moreover,
That if she come not I will curse her.
[Exit LUCRETIA.
Ha!
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 110
Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.
Enter LUCRETIA
Well; what? Speak, wretch!
LUCRETIA
She said, ‘I cannot come;
Go tell my father that I see a torrent
Of his own blood raging between us.’
CENCI (kneeling)
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 120
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 130
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 loathèd lameness! All-beholding sun,
Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes
With thine own blinding beams!
LUCRETIA
Peace, peace!
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series Page 102