Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series
Page 103
When high God grants, he punishes such prayers.
CENCI (leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven)
He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
That if she have a child —
LUCRETIA
Horrible thought! 140
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,
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 150
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 dishonored grave!
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in heaven.
[Exit LUCRETIA.
I do not feel as if I were a man, 160
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.
Enter LUCRETIA
What? Speak!
LUCRETIA
She bids thee curse;
And if thy curses, as they cannot do,
Could kill her soul —
CENCI
She would not come. ‘T is well,
I can do both; first take what I demand, 170
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.
[Exit LUCRETIA.
It must be late, mine eyes grow weary dim
With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.
Conscience! O 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, 180
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.
SCENE II. — Before the Castle of Petrella. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA above on the ramparts.
BEATRICE
They come not yet.
LUCRETIA
‘T is scarce midnight.
BEATRICE
How slow
Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
Lags leaden-footed Time!
LUCRETIA
The minutes pass.
If he should wake before the deed is done?
BEATRICE
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.
LUCRETIA
‘T is true he spoke
Of death and judgment with strange confidence
For one so wicked; as a man believing 10
In God, yet recking not of good or ill.
And yet to die without confession! —
BEATRICE
Oh!
Believe that Heaven is merciful and just,
And will not add our dread necessity
To the amount of his offences.
Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO below
LUCRETIA
See,
They come.
BEATRICE
All mortal things must hasten thus
To their dark end. Let us go down.
[Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE from above.
OLIMPIO
How feel you to this work?
MARZIO
As one who thinks
A thousand crowns excellent market price
For an old murderer’s life. Your cheeks are pale. 20
OLIMPIO
It is the white reflection of your own,
Which you call pale.
MARZIO
Is that their natural hue?
OLIMPIO
Or ‘t is my hate, and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.
MARZIO
You are inclined then to this business?
OLIMPIO
Ay,
If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns
To kill a serpent which had stung my child,
I could not be more willing.
Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA below
Noble ladies!
BEATRICE
Are ye resolved?
OLIMPIO
Is he asleep?
MARZIO
Is all
Quiet?
LUCRETIA
I mixed an opiate with his drink; 30
He sleeps so soundly —
BEATRICE
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 ye are resolved?
Ye know it is a high and holy deed?
OLIMPIO
We are resolved.
MARZIO
As to the how this act
Be warranted, it rests with you.
BEATRICE
Well, follow!
OLIMPIO
Hush! Hark! what noise is that?
MARZIO
Ha! some one comes!
BEATRICE
Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest
Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate, 40
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.
SCENE III. — An Apartment in the Castle. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA.
LUCRETIA
They are about it now.
BEATRICE
Nay, it is done.
LUCRETIA
I have not heard him groan.
BEATRICE
He will not groan.
LUCRETIA
What sound is that?
BEATRICE
List! ‘t is the tread of feet
About his bed.
LUCRETIA
My God!
If he be now a cold, stiff corpse —
BEATRICE
Oh, fear not
What may be done, but what is left undone;
The act seals all.
Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO
Is it accomplished?
MARZIO
What?
OLIMPIO
Did you not call?
BEATRICE
When?
OLIMPIO
Now.
BEATRICE
I ask if all is over?
OLIMPIO
We dare not kill an old and sleeping man;
&nb
sp; His thin gray hair, his stern and reverent brow, 10
His veinèd hands crossed on his heaving breast,
And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay,
Quelled me. Indeed, indeed, I cannot do it.
MARZIO
But I was bolder; for I chid Olimpio,
And bade him bear his wrongs to his own grave,
And leave me the reward. And now my knife
Touched the loose wrinkled throat, when the old man
Stirred in his sleep, and said, ‘God! hear, oh, hear
A father’s curse! What, art thou not our father?’
And then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost 20
Of my dead father speaking through his lips,
And could not kill him.
BEATRICE
Miserable slaves!
Where, if ye dare not kill a sleeping man,
Found ye the boldness to return to me
With such a deed undone? Base palterers!
Cowards and traitors! Why, the very conscience
Which ye would sell for gold and for revenge
Is an equivocation; it sleeps over
A thousand daily acts disgracing men;
And when a deed, where mercy insults heaven — 30
Why do I talk?
(Snatching a dagger from one of them, and raising it)
Hadst thou a tongue to say,
She murdered her own father, I must do it!
But never dream ye shall outlive him long!
OLIMPIO
Stop, for God’s sake!
MARZIO
I will go back and kill him.
OLIMPIO
Give me the weapon, we must do thy will.
BEATRICE
Take it! Depart! Return!
[Exeunt OLIMPIO and MARZIO.
How pale thou art!
We do but that which ‘t were a deadly crime
To leave undone.
LUCRETIA
Would it were done!
BEATRICE
Even whilst
That doubt is passing through your mind, the world
Is conscious of a change. Darkness and hell 40
Have swallowed up the vapor they sent forth
To blacken the sweet light of life. My breath
Comes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood
Runs freely through my veins. Hark!
Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO
He is —
OLIMPIO
Dead!
MARZIO
We strangled him, that there might be no blood;
And then we threw his heavy corpse i’ the garden
Under the balcony; ‘t will seem it fell.
BEATRICE (giving them a bag of coin)
Here take this gold and hasten to your homes.
And, Marzio, because thou wast only awed
By that which made me tremble, wear thou this! 50
(Clothes him in a rich mantle)
It was the mantle which my grandfather
Wore in his high prosperity, and men
Envied his state; so may they envy thine.
Thou wert a weapon in the hand of God
To a just use. Live long and thrive! And, mark,
If thou hast crimes, repent; this deed is none.
(A horn is sounded)
LUCRETIA
Hark, ‘t is the castle horn: my God! it sounds
Like the last trump.
BEATRICE
Some tedious guest is coming.
LUCRETIA
The drawbridge is let down; there is a tramp
Of horses in the court; fly, hide yourselves! 60
[Exeunt OLIMPIO and MARZIO.
BEATRICE
Let us retire to counterfeit deep rest;
I scarcely need to counterfeit it now;
The spirit which doth reign within these limbs
Seems strangely undisturbed. I could even sleep
Fearless and calm; all ill is surely past.
[Exeunt.
SCENE IV. — Another Apartment in the Castle. Enter on one side the Legate SAVELLA, introduced by a Servant, and on the other LUCRETIA and BERNARDO.
SAVELLA
Lady, my duty to his Holiness
Be my excuse that thus unseasonably
I break upon your rest. I must speak with
Count Cenci; doth he sleep?
LUCRETIA (in a hurried and confused manner)
I think he sleeps;
Yet, wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile.
He is a wicked and a wrathful man;
Should he be roused out of his sleep tonight,
Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,
It were not well; indeed it were not well.
Wait till day break.
(Aside) Oh, I am deadly sick! 10
SAVELLA
I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count
Must answer charges of the gravest import,
And suddenly; such my commission is.
LUCRETIA (with increased agitation)
I dare not rouse him, I know none who dare;
‘T were perilous; you might as safely waken
A serpent, or a corpse in which some fiend
Were laid to sleep.
SAVELLA
Lady, my moments here
Are counted. I must rouse him from his sleep,
Since none else dare.
LUCRETIA (aside)
Oh, terror! oh, despair!
(To BERNARDO)
Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to 20
Your father’s chamber.
[Exeunt SAVELLA and BERNARDO.
Enter BEATRICE
BEATRICE
‘T is a messenger
Come to arrest the culprit who now stands
Before the throne of unappealable God.
Both Earth and Heaven, consenting arbiters,
Acquit our deed.
LUCRETIA
Oh, agony of fear!
Would that he yet might live! Even now I heard
The Legate’s followers whisper as they passed
They had a warrant for his instant death.
All was prepared by unforbidden means,
Which we must pay so dearly, having done. 30
Even now they search the tower, and find the body;
Now they suspect the truth; now they consult
Before they come to tax us with the fact.
Oh, horrible, ‘t is all discovered!
BEATRICE
Mother,
What is done wisely is done well. Be bold
As thou art just. ‘T is like a truant child,
To fear that others know what thou hast done,
Even from thine own strong consciousness, and thus
Write on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks
All thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself, 40
And fear no other witness but thy fear.
For if, as cannot be, some circumstance
Should rise in accusation, we can blind
Suspicion with such cheap astonishment,
Or overbear it with such guiltless pride,
As murderers cannot feign. The deed is done,
And what may follow now regards not me.
I am as universal as the light;
Free as the earth-surrounding air; as firm
As the world’s centre. Consequence, to me, 50
Is as the wind which strikes the solid rook,
But shakes it not.
(A cry within and tumult)
VOICES
Murder! Murder! Murder!
Enter BERNARDO and SAVELLA
SAVELLA (to his followers)
Go, search the castle round; sound the alarm;
Look to the gates, that none escape!
BEATRICE
What now?
BERNARDO
I know not what to say — my father ‘s dead.
BEATRICE
How, dead! he only sleeps; you mistake, brother.
His sleep is very calm, very like death;
‘T is wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps.
He is not dead?
BERNARDO
Dead; murdered!
LUCRETIA (with extreme agitation)
Oh, no, no!
He is not murdered, though he may be dead; 60
I have alone the keys of those apartments.
SAVELLA
Ha! is it so?
BEATRICE
My Lord, I pray excuse us;
We will retire; my mother is not well;
She seems quite overcome with this strange horror.
[Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE.
SAVELLA
Can you suspect who may have murdered him?
BERNARDO
I know not what to think.
SAVELLA
Can you name any
Who had an interest in his death?
BERNARDO
Alas!
I can name none who had not, and those most
Who most lament that such a deed is done;
My mother, and my sister, and myself. 70
SAVELLA
‘T is strange! There were clear marks of violence.
I found the old man’s body in the moonlight,
Hanging beneath the window of his chamber
Among the branches of a pine; he could not
Have fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped
And effortless; ‘t is true there was no blood.
Favor me, sir — it much imports your house
That all should be made clear — to tell the ladies
That I request their presence.
[Exit BERNARDO.
Enter Guards, bringing in MARZIO
GUARD
We have one.
OFFICER
My Lord, we found this ruffian and another 80
Lurking among the rocks; there is no doubt
But that they are the murderers of Count Cenci;
Each had a bag of coin; this fellow wore
A gold-inwoven robe, which, shining bright
Under the dark rocks to the glimmering moon,
Betrayed them to our notice; the other fell
Desperately fighting.
SAVELLA
What does he confess?
OFFICER
He keeps firm silence; but these lines found on him
May speak.
SAVELLA
Their language is at least sincere.
(Reads)
“TO THE LADY BEATRICE.
That the atonement of what my nature 90
sickens to conjecture may soon arrive, I
send thee, at thy brother’s desire, those
who will speak and do more than I dare
write.
Thy devoted servant,
ORSINO.”
Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and BERNARDO
Knowest thou this writing, lady?
BEATRICE
No.
SAVELLA
Nor thou?
LUCRETIA (her conduct throughout the scene is
marked by extreme agitation)
Where was it found? What is it? It should be
Orsino’s hand! It speaks of that strange horror
Which never yet found utterance, but which made