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A Hall of the Prison. | |
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Enter CAMILLO and BERNARDO | |
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| Camillo. The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent. | |
| He looked as calm and keen as is the engine | |
| Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself | 5 |
| From aught that it inflicts; a marble form, | |
| A rite, a law, a custom: not a man. | |
| He frowned, as if to frown had been the trick | |
| Of his machinery, on the advocates | |
| Presenting the defences, which he tore | 10 |
| And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice: | |
| “Which among ye defended their old father | |
| Killed in his sleep?” Then to another: “Thou | |
| Dost this in virtue of thy place; ’tis well.” | |
| He turned to me then, looking deprecation, | 15 |
| And said these three words, coldly: “They must die.” | |
| Bernardo. And yet you left him not? | |
| Camillo. I urged him still; | |
| Pleading, as I could guess, the devilish wrong | |
| Which prompted your unnatural parent’s death. | 20 |
| And he replied: “Paolo Santa Croce | |
| Murdered his mother yester evening, | |
| And he is fled. Parricide grows so rife | |
| That soon, for some just cause no doubt, the young | |
| Will strangle us all, dozing in our chairs. | 25 |
| Authority, and power, and hoary hair | |
| Are grown crimes capital. You are my nephew, | |
| You come to ask their pardon; stay a moment; | |
| Here is their sentence; never see me more | |
| Till, to the letter, it be all fulfilled.” | 30 |
| Bernardo. O God, not so! I did believe indeed | |
| That all you said was but sad preparation | |
| For happy news. Oh, there are words and looks | |
| To bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them, | |
| Now I forget them at my dearest need. | 35 |
| What think you if I seek him out, and bathe | |
| His feet and robe with hot and bitter tears? | |
| Importune him with prayers, vexing his brain | |
| With my perpetual cries, until in rage | |
| He strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample | 40 |
| Upon my prostrate head, so that my blood | |
| May stain the senseless dust on which he treads, | |
| And remorse waken mercy? I will do it! | |
| Oh, wait till I return! [Rushes out. | |
| Camillo. Alas! poor boy! | 45 |
| A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray | |
| To the deaf sea. | |
| Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and GIACOMO, guarded | |
| Beatrice. I hardly dare to fear | |
| That thou bring’st other news than a just pardon. | 50 |
| Camillo. May God in heaven be less inexorable | |
| To the Pope’s prayers, than he has been to mine. | |
| Here is the sentence and the warrant. | |
| Beatrice (wildly). O | |
| My God! Can it be possible I have | 55 |
| To die so suddenly? So young to go | |
| Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground! | |
| To be nailed down into a narrow place; | |
| To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more | |
| Blithe voice of living thing; muse not again | 60 |
| Upon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost— | |
| How fearful! to be nothing! Or to be… | |
| What? Oh, were am I? Let me not go mad! | |
| Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should be | |
| No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world; | 65 |
| The wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled world! | |
| If all things then should be … my father’s spirit, | |
| His eye, his voice, his touch surrounding me; | |
| The atmosphere and breath of my dead life! | |
| If sometimes, as a shape more like himself, | 70 |
| Even the form which tortured me on earth, | |
| Masked in gray hairs and wrinkles, he should come | |
| And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix | |
| His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down! | |
| For was he not alone omnipotent | 75 |
| On Earth, and ever present? Even tho’ dead, | |
| Does not his spirit live in all that breathe, | |
| And work for me and mine still the same ruin, | |
| Scorn, pain, despair? Who ever yet returned | |
| To teach the laws of death’s untrodden realm? | 80 |
| Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now, | |
| Oh, whither, whither? | |
| Lucretia. Trust in God’s sweet love, | |
| The tender promises of Christ: ere night, | |
| Think, we shall be in Paradise. | 85 |
| Beatrice. ’Tis past! | |
| Whatever comes my heart shall sink no more. | |
| And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill: | |
| How tedious, false and cold seem all things. I | |
| Have met with much injustice in this world; | 90 |
| No difference has been made by God or man, | |
| Or any power moulding my wretched lot, | |
| ’Twixt good or evil, as regarded me. | |
| I am cut off from the only world I know, | |
| From light, and life, and love, in youth’s sweet prime. | 95 |
| You do well telling me to trust in God, | |
| I hope I do trust in him. In whom else | |
| Can any trust? And yet my heart is cold. [During the latter speeches GIACOMO has retired conversing with CAMILLO, who now goes out; GIACOMO advances. | |
| Giacomo. Know you not, Mother … Sister, know you not? | |
| Bernardo even now is gone to implore | 100 |
| The Pope to grant our pardon. | |
| Lucretia. Child, perhaps | |
| It will be granted. We may all then live | |
| To make these woes a tale for distant years: | |
| Oh, what a thought! It gushes to my heart | 105 |
| Like the warm blood. | |
| Beatrice. Yet both will soon be cold. | |
| Oh, trample out that thought! Worse than despair, | |
| Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope: | |
| It is the only ill which can find place | 110 |
| Upon the giddy, sharp and narrow hour | |
| Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost | |
| That it should spare the eldest flower of spring: | |
| Plead with awakening earthquake, o’er whose couch | |
| Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free: | 115 |
| Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead | |
| With famine, or wind-walking Pestilence, | |
| Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man! | |
| Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words, | |
| In deeds a Cain. No, Mother, we must die: | 120 |
| Since such is the reward of innocent lives; | |
| Such the alleviation of worst wrongs. | |
| And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men, | |
| Smiling and slow, walk thro’ a world of tears | |
| To death as to life’s sleep; ’twere just the grave | 125 |
| Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death, | |
| And wind me in thine all-embracing arms! | |
| Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom, | |
| And rock me to the sleep from which none wake. | |
| Live ye, who live, subject to one another | 130 |
| As we were once, who now… [BERNARDO rushes in. | |
| Bernardo. Oh, horrible, | |
| That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer, | |
| Even till the heart is vacant and despairs, | |
| Should all be vain! The ministers of death | 135 |
| Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw | |
| Blood on the face of one … What if ’twere fancy? | |
| Soon the heart’s blood of all I love on earth | |
| Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off | |
| As if ’twere only rain. O life! O world! | 140 |
| Cover me! let me be no more! To see | |
| That perfect mirror of pure innocence | |
| Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good, | |
| Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice, | |
| Who made all lovely thou didst look upon… | 145 |
| Thee, light of life … dead, dark! while I say, sister, | |
| To hear I have no sister; and thou, Mother, | |
| Whose love was as a bond to all our loves… | |
| Dead! The sweet bond broken! | |
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Enter CAMILLO and Guards | 150 |
| They come! Let me | |
| Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves | |
| Are blighted … white … cold. Say farewell, before | |
| Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear | |
| You speak! | 155 |
| Beatrice. Farewell, my tender brother. Think | |
| Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now; | |
| And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee | |
| Thy sorrow’s load. Err not in harsh despair, | |
| But tears and patience. One thing more, my child, | 160 |
| For thine own sake be constant to the love | |
| Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I, | |
| Tho’ wrapt in a strange cloud of crime and shame, | |
| Lived ever holy and unstained. And tho’ | |
| Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name | 165 |
| Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow | |
| For men to point at as they pass, do thou | |
| Forbear, and never think a thought unkind | |
| Of those, who perhaps love thee in their graves. | |
| So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain | 170 |
| Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell! | |
| Bernardo. I cannot say, farewell! | |
| Camillo. O Lady Beatrice! | |
| Beatrice. Give yourself no unnecessary pain, | |
| My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie | 175 |
| My girdle for me, and bind up this hair | |
| In any simple knot; ay, that does well. | |
| And yours I see is coming down. How often | |
| Have we done this for one another, now | |
| We shall not do it any more. My Lord, | 180 |
| We are quite ready. Well, ’tis very well. | |
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