You have a good repute for gentleness And wisdom: can it be that you sit here To countenance a wicked farce like this?
From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart, When some obscure and trembling slave is dragg'd
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 damn'd. Speak now The thing you surely know, which is that you, If your fine frame were stretch'd upon that wheel, And you were told, Confess that you did poison Your little nephew: that fair blue-eyed child Who was the load-star of your life; and though All see, since his most swift and piteous death, That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time, And all things hoped for or done therein Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief, Yet you would say, I confess any thing-
And beg from your tormentors, like that slave, The refuge of dishonorable death.
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 Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul That she is guiltless.
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!
Well, be her purity on your head, my lord, If you forbid the rack. His Holiness Enjoin'd 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, You know 'twas I Upon such evidence as justifies Torture.
I know thee! How? where? when?
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.
The terrible resentment of those eyes On the dread 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.
My lords, if by my nature I had been So stern, as to have plann'd 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,
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.
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; For pity's sake, lead me away to death.
Guards, lead him nearer the lady Beatrice : He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf From the keen breath of the serenest north.
Oh, thou who tremblest on the giddy verge Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me ; So mayest 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 order'd that a father First turn'd the moments of awakening life
To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then Stabb'd 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, Arm'd thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off; And thus his wrong becomes my accusation: 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;
Because her wrongs could not be told, nor thought, Because thy hand at length did rescue her; I with my words kill'd 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 'tis to blot with infamy and blood All that 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?
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? 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 dragg'd 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 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. "Tis but the falsehood it can wring from fear Makes the rack cruel.
They will tear the truth Even from thee at last, those cruel pains: For pity's sake, say thou art guilty now.
O, speak the truth! Let us all quickly die; And after death, God is our judge, not they; He will have mercy on us.
If indeed It can be true, say so, dear sister mine; And then the Pope will surely pardon you, And all be well.
Confess, or I will warp Your limbs with such keen tortures
The rack henceforth into a spinning-wheel! Torture your dog, that he may tell when last He lapp'd 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 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 oppress'd-such pangs compel My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?
Have I confess'd? Is it all over now? No hope! No refuge! O, weak, wicked tongue Which hast destroy'd me, would that thou hadst been Cut out and thrown to dogs first! To have kill'd My father first, and then betray'd my sister; 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!-
The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent. He look'd as calm and keen as is the engine Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself From aught that it inflicts; a marble form, A rite, a law, a custom: not a man. He frown'd, as if to frown had been the trick Of his machinery, on the advocates Presenting the defences, which he tore
And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice; "Which among ye defended their old father Kill'd in his sleep?" Then to another: "Thou [Covers his face and weeps. Dost this in virtue of thy place; 'tis well." He turn'd to me then, looking deprecation, O, my child! And said these three words, coldly: "They must die."
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, Which flow and feel not!
"Tis weaker to lament, once being done; Take cheer! The God who knew my wrong, and made
And yet you left him not?
I urged him still; Pleading, as I could guess, the devilish wrong
What 't was weak to do, Which prompted your unnatural parent's death: And he replied, "Paolo Santa Croce Murder'd 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. Authority, and power, and hoary hair
Our speedy act the angel of his wrath, Seems, and but seems to have abandon'd 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! Oh! dearest Lady, put your gentle head Upon my lap, and try to sleep awhile: 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 old monotony,
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 fulfill'd."
O, God, not so! I did believe indeed That all you said was but sad preparation For happy news. O, there are words and looks To bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them,
My God! Can it be possible I have To die so suddenly! So young to go Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground! To be nail'd down into a narrow place; To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more Blithe voice of living thing; muse not again Upon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost. How fearful! to be nothing! or to be- What? O, where am I? Let me not go mad! Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! if there should be
I am cut off from the only world I know, From light, and life, and love, in youth's sweet prime. 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.
Know you not, Mother-Sister, know you not? Bernardo even now has gone to implore The Pope to grant our pardon.
Child, perhaps It will be granted. We may all then live To make these woes a tale for distant years: O, what a thought! It gushes to my heart Like the warm blood.
Yet both will soon be cold. O, trample out that thought! Worse than despair, Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope: It is the only ill which can find place 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; Now stench and blackness yawns, like death. O, 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: 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 through a world of tears To death as to life's sleep; 't were just the grave 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 His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down! As we were once, who nowFor was he not alone omnipotent
No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world; 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, Even the form which tortured me on earth, Mask'd in gray hairs and wrinkles, he should come And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix
On Earth, and ever present? even though 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 return'd To teach the laws of death's untrodden realm? Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now, O, whither, whither?
Trust in God's sweet love, The tender promises of Christ: ere night Think we shall be in Paradise.
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; No difference has been made by God or man, Or any power moulding my wretched lot, Twixt good or evil, as regarded me.
That tears, that looks, that hope pour'd forth in prayer Even till the heart is vacant and despairs, Should all be vain! The ministers of death Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw Blood on the face of one-what if 't were fancy? Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off As if 't were only rain. O, life! O, world! Cover me! let me be no more! To see That perfect mirror of pure innocence Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good, Shiver'd to dust! To see thee, Beatrice, Who made all lovely thou didst look upon- 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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