Percy Bysshe Shelley

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by Percy Bysshe Shelley


  Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes

  To kill your father. When the thing was done,

  You clothed me in a robe of woven gold,

  And bade me thrive; how I have thriven, you see.

  You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia,

  You know that what I speak is true.

  [BEATRICE advances towards him; he covers his face, and shrinks back.

  Oh, dart

  The terrible resentment of those eyes 30

  On the dead earth! Turn them away from me!

  They wound; ‘t was torture forced the truth. My Lords,

  Having said this, let me be led to death.

  BEATRICE

  Poor wretch, I pity thee; yet stay awhile.

  CAMILLO

  Guards, lead him not away.

  BEATRICE

  Cardinal Camillo,

  You have a good repute for gentleness

  And wisdom; can it be that you sit here

  To countenance a wicked farce like this?

  When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged

  From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart 40

  And bade to answer, not as he believes,

  But as those may suspect or do desire

  Whose questions thence suggest their own reply;

  And that in peril of such hideous torments

  As merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now

  The thing you surely know, which is, that you,

  If your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel,

  And you were told, ‘Confess that you did poison

  Your little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child

  Who was the lodestar of your life;’ and though 50

  All see, since his most swift and piteous death,

  That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,

  And all the things hoped for or done therein,

  Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief,

  Yet you would say, ‘I confess anything,’

  And beg from your tormentors, like that slave,

  The refuge of dishonorable death.

  I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert

  My innocence.

  CAMILLO (much moved)

  What shall we think, my Lords?

  Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen 60

  Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul

  That she is guiltless.

  JUDGE

  Yet she must be tortured.

  CAMILLO

  I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew

  (If he now lived, he would be just her age;

  His hair, too, was her color, and his eyes

  Like hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)

  As that most perfect image of God’s love

  That ever came sorrowing upon the earth.

  She is as pure as speechless infancy!

  JUDGE

  Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord, 70

  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

  Even so.

  BEATRICE (to MARZIO)

  Come near. And who art thou, thus chosen forth

  Out of the multitude of living men,

  To kill the innocent?

  MARZIO

  I am Marzio, 80

  Thy father’s vassal.

  BEATRICE

  Fix thine eyes on mine;

  Answer to what I ask.

  (Turning to the Judges)

  I prithee mark

  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?

  MARZIO

  Oh!

  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! 90

  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, 100

  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!

  (Turning to MARZIO)

  And thou —

  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; 110

  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 120

  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. 130

  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, 140

  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 you, 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 ‘t is to blot with infamy and blood 150

  All t
hat 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

  A parricide?

  MARZIO

  Thou art not!

  JUDGE

  What is this?

  MARZIO

  I here declare those whom I did accuse

  Are innocent. ‘T is I alone am guilty.

  JUDGE

  Drag him away to torments; let them be 160

  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 pang 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.

  [Exit MARZIO, guarded.

  CAMILLO

  What say ye now, my Lords?

  JUDGE

  Let tortures strain the truth till it be white

  As snow thrice-sifted by the frozen wind. 170

  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?

  Enter an Officer

  OFFICER

  Marzio ‘s dead.

  JUDGE

  What did he say?

  OFFICER

  Nothing. As soon as we 180

  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.

  CAMILLO

  I overrule

  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; 190

  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.

  [Exeunt.

  SCENE III. — The Cell of a Prison. BEATRICE is discovered asleep on a couch.

  Enter BERNARDO

  BERNARDO

  How gently slumber rests upon her face,

  Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent,

  Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged.

  After such torments as she bore last night,

  How light and soft her breathing comes. Ay me!

  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

  That we were all in Paradise. Thou knowest 10

  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! Oh, God,

  How shall I tell?

  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 20

  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 splendor laid in dust? 30

  And that eternal honor, which should live

  Sunlike, above the reek of mortal fame,

  Changed to a mockery and a byword? 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 40

  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. 50

  ‘T is 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.

  BERNARDO

  If indeed

  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 60

  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 70

  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; 80

  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. 90

  Be it enough. Until their final sentence

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

  Linger not here!

  BEATRICE

  Oh, tear him not away!

  JUDGE

  Guards! do your duty.

  BERNARDO (embracing BEATRICE)

  Oh! would ye divide

  Body from soul?

  OFFICER

  That is the headsman’s business.

  [Exeunt all but LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and GIACOMO.

  GIACOMO

  Have I confessed? Is it all over now?

  No hope! no refuge! O weak, wicked tongue,

  Which hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst been

  Cut out and thrown to dogs first! To have killed

  My father first, and then betrayed my sister — 100

  Ay thee! the one thing innocent and pure

  In this black, guilty world — to that which I

  So well deserve! My wife! my little ones!

  Destitute, helpless; and I — Father! God!

  Canst thou forgive even the unforgiving,

  When their full hearts break thus, thus?

  (Covers his face and weeps)

  LUCRETIA

  O my child!

  To what a dreadful end are we all come!

  Why did I yield? Why did I not sustain

  Those torments? Oh, that I were all dissolved

  Into these fast and unavailing tears, 110

  Which flow and feel not!

  BEATRICE

  What ‘t was weak to do,

  ‘T is weaker to lament, once being done;

  Take cheer! The God who knew my wrong, and made

  Our speedy act the angel of his wrath,

  Seems, and but seems, to have abandoned us.

  Let us not think that we shall die for this.

  Brother, sit near me; give me your firm hand,

  You had a manly heart. Bear up! bear up!

  O dearest Lady, put your gentle head

  Upon my lap, and try to sleep awhile; 120

  Your eyes look pale, hollow, and overworn,

  With heaviness of watching and slow grief.

  Come, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune,

  Not cheerful, nor yet sad; some dull old thing,

  Some outworn and unused monotony,

 

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