p. 341¶Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and GIACOMO , guardedLook upon this man ;When did you see him last?Beatrice. We never saw him.Marzio. You know me too well, Lady Beatrice.Beatrice. I know thee! How ? where? when?Marzio. You know 'twas IWhom you did urge with menaces and bribesTo kill your father. When the thing was doneYou clothed me in a robe of woven goldAnd 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, andshrinks bac\.O, dartThe terrible resentment of those eyesOn the dead earth! Turn them away from me!They wound: 'twas 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 gentlenessAnd wisdom: can it be that you sit hereTo countenance a wicked farce like this ?When some obscure and trembling slave is draggedFrom sufferings which might shake the sternest heart[342]And bade to answer, not as he believes,But as those may suspect or do desireWhose questions thence suggest their own reply:And that in peril of such hideous tormentsAs merciful God spares even the damned. Speak nowThe 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 poisonYour little nephew; that fair blue-eyed childWho was the loadstar of your life:"—and thoughAll 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 thereinAre 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 dishonourable death.I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assertMy innocence.Camillo (much moved). What shall we think, my Lords?Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozenWhich is their fountain. I would pledge my soulThat 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 colour, and his eyesLike hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)As that most perfect image of God's loveThat ever came sorrowing upon the earth.She is as pure as speechless infancy!Judge. Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord,If you forbid the rack. His HolinessEnjoined us to pursue this monstrous crimeBy the severest forms of law; nay evenTo stretch a point against the criminals.The prisoners stand accused of parricide[343]Upon such evidence as justifiesTorture.Beatrice. What evidence? This man's?Judge. Even so.Beatrice. (To Marzio.) Come near. And who art thou thuschosen forthOut of the multitude of living menTo kill the innocent?Marzio. I am Marzio,Thy father's vassal.Beatrice. Fix thine eyes on mine;Answer to what I ask.
(Turning to the Judges.)
¶I prithee markHis countenance: unlike bold calumnyWhich sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bendsHis gaze on the blind earth.(To MARZIO.) What! wilt thou sayThat 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 !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 beenSo stern, as to have planned the crime alleged,Which your suspicions dictate to this slave,And the rack makes him utter, do you thinkI should have left this two-edged instrumentOf my misdeed; this man, this bloody knifeWith my own name engraven on the heft,Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes,For my own death? That with such horrible needFor deepest silence, 1 should have neglectedSo trivial a precaution, as the making[344]His tomb the keeper of a secret writtenOn a thief's memory? What is his poor life?What are a thousand lives? A parricideHad trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives!(Turning to MARZIO.) And thou . . .Marzio. Oh, spare me!Speak to me no moreThat 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.Camillo. Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice,He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leafFrom the keen breath of the serenest north.Beatrice. O thou who tremblest on the giddy vergeOf 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 yearsAnd so my lot was ordered, that a fatherFirst turned the moments of awakening lifeTo drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and thenStabbed with one blow my everlasting soul;And my untainted fame; and even that peaceWhich sleeps within the core of the heart's heart;But the wound was not mortal; so my hateBecame the only worship I could liftTo 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;And art thou the accuser ? If thou hopestMercy in heaven, show justice upon earth:Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.If thou hast done murders, made thy life's pathOver 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[345]Who was most pure and innocent on earth;And because she endured what never anyGuilty or innocent endured before:Because her wrongs could not be told, not 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 slayThe reverence living in the minds of menTowards 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. ThinkWhat 'tis to blot with infamy and bloodAll that which shows like innocence, and is,Hear me, great God! I swear, most innocent,So that the world lose all discriminationBetween the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,And that which now compels thee to replyTo what I ask: Am I, or am I notA parricide?Marzio. Thou art not!Judge. What is this?Marzio. I here declare those whom I did accuseAre innocent. 'Tis I alone am guilty.Judge. Drag him away to torments; let them beSubtle and long drawn out, to tear the foldsOf the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him notTill he confess.Marzio. Torture me as ye will:A keener pain has wrung a higher truthFrom my last breath. She is most innocent!Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me ;I will not give you that fine piece of natureTo rend and ruin.[Exit MARZIO, guarded.Camillo. What say ye now, my Lords?Judge. Let tortures strain the truth till it be white[346]As snow thrice sifted by the frozen wind.Camillo. Yet stained with blood.Judge (to BEATRICE). Know you this paper, Lady?Beatrice. Entrap me not with questions. Who stands hereAs my accuser? Hal 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 beSome evil, will ye kill us?
Enter an Officer
¶Officer. Marzio's dead.Judge. What did he say ?Officer. Nothing. As soon as weHad bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us,As one who baffles a deep adversary;And holding his breath, died.Judge. There remains nothingBut to apply the question to those prisoners,Who yet remain stubborn.Camillo. I overruleFurther proceedings, and in the behalfOf these most innocent and noble personsWill use my interest with the Holy Father.Judge. Let the Pope's pleasure then be done. MeanwhileConduct these culprits each to separate cells;And be the engines ready: for this nightIf the Pope's resolution be as grave,Pious, and just as once, I'll wring the truthOut of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.[Exeunt.SCENE III.—The Cell of a PrisonBEATRICE is discovered asleep on a couch. Enter BERNARDOBernardo. How gently slumber rests upon her face,Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent[347]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 restFrom this sweet folded flower, thus . . . wake! awake!What, sister, canst thou sleep?Beatrice (awaking). I was just dreamingThat we were all in Paradise. Thou knowestThis cell seems like a kind of ParadiseAfter our father's presence.Bernardo. Dear, dear sister,Would that thy dream were not a dream! O God !How shall I tell?Beatrice. What wouldst thou tell, sweet brother?Bernardo. Look not so calm and happy, or even whilstI stand considering what I have to sayMy 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 moreThe tortures . . .Beatrice. Ha ! What was there to confess?They must have told some weak and wicked lieTo flatter their tormentors. Have they saidThat they were guilty? O white innocence,That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hideThine awful and serenest countenanceFrom those who know thee not!
¶Enter JUDGE with LUCRETIA andGIACOMO , guardedIgnoble hearts!For some brief spasms of pain, which are at leastAs mortal as the limbs through which they pass,Are centuries of high splendour laid in dust ?[348]And that eternal honour which should liveSunlike, above the reek of mortal fame,Changed to a mockery and a bye-word? What!Will you give up these bodies to be draggedAt horses' heels, so that our hair should sweepThe footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd,Who , that they may make our calamityTheir worship and their spectacle, will leaveThe churches and the theatres as voidAs their own hearts ? Shall the light multitudeFling, 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 fearMakes the rack cruel.Giacomo. They will tear the truthEven 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 indeedIt 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 warpYour limbs with such keen tortures . . .Beatrice. Tortures! TurnThe rack henceforth into a spinning wheel![349]Torture your dog, that he may tell when lastHe 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 gallTo see, in this ill world where none are true,My kindred false to their deserted selves.And with considering all the wretched lifeWhich I have lived, and its now wretched end,And the small justice shown by Heaven and EarthTo 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 compelMy 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 GodThat he permitted such an act as thatWhich I have suffered, and which he beheld;Made it unutterable, and took from itAll 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.Be it enough. Until their final sentenceLet 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 divideBody from soul?[350]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 tongueWhich hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst beenCut out and thrown to dogs first! To have killedMy father first, and then betrayed my sister;Ay, thee! the one thing innocent and pureIn this black guilty world, to that which ISo 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 sustainThose torments? Oh, that I were all dissolvedInto these fast and unavailing tears,Which flow and feel not!Beatrice. What 'twas weak to do,'Tis weaker to lament, once being done;Take cheer! The God who knew my wrong, and madeOur 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 gende headUpon 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 monotony,Such as our country gossips sing and spin.[351]Till they almost forget they live: lie down!So, that will do. Have I forgot the words?Faith! They are sadder than I thought they were.
Song
¶False friend, wilt thou smile or weepWhen my life is laid asleep?Little cares for a smile or a tear,The clay-cold corpse upon the bier!Farewell! Heigho!What is this whispers low?There is a snake in thy smile, my dear;And bitter poison within thy tear.
¶Sweet sleep, were death like to thee,Or if thou couldst mortal be,I would close these eyes of pain;When to wake ? Never again.O World! Farewell!Listen to the passing bell!It says, thou and I must part,With a light and a heavy heart.[The scene closes.
¶SCENE IV.—A Hall of the Prison
¶Enter CAMILLO and BERNARDOCamillo. The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent.He looked as calm and keen as is the engineWhich tortures and which kills, exempt itselfFrom 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 trickOf his machinery, on the advocatesPresenting the defences, which he toreAnd threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice:"Which among ye defended their old father[352]Killed in his sleep?" Then to another: "ThouDost this in virtue of thy place; 'us well."He turned to me then, looking deprecation,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 wrongWhich prompted your unnatural parent's death.And he replied: "Paolo Santa CroceMurdered his mother yester evening,And he is fled. Parricide grows so rifeThat soon, for some just cause no doubt, the youngWill strangle us all, dozing in our chairs.Authority, and power, and hoary hairAre grown crimes capital. You are my nephew,You come to ask their pardon; stay a moment;Here is their sentence; never see me moreTill, to the letter, it be all fulfilled."Bernardo. O God, not so! I did believe indeedThat all you said was but sad preparationFor happy news. Oh, there are words and looksTo bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them,Now I forget them at my dearest need.What think you if I seek him out, and batheHis feet and robe with hot and bitter tears?Importune him with prayers, vexing his brainWith my perpetual cries, until in rageHe strike me with his pastoral cross, and trampleUpon my prostrate head, so that my bloodMay 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!A wreck-devoted seaman thus might prayTo the deaf sea.
Enter LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, and
¶GIACOMO , guardedBeatrice. I hardly dare to fearThat thou bring'st other news than a just pardon.Camillo. May God in heaven be less inexorableTo the Pope's prayers, than he has been to mine.Here is the sentence and the warrant.Beatrice (wildly). OMy God! Can it be possible I haveTo die so suddenly? So young to goUnder the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground!To be nailed down into a narrow place;To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no moreBlithe voice of living thing; muse not againUpon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost—How fearful! to be nothing! Or to be . . .What? Oh, where am I? Let me not go mad!Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should beNo 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,Masked in gray hairs and wrinkles, he should comeAnd wind me in his hellish arms, and fixHis eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down !For was he not alone omnipotentOn 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 returnedTo teach the laws of death's untrodden realm?Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now,Oh, whither, whither?[354]iMcretia. Trust in God's sweet love,The tender promises of Christ: ere night,Think, we shall be in Paradise.Beatrice. 'Tis past IWhatever 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. IHave 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.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 elseCan any trust? And yet my heart is cold.[During the latter speeches GIACOMO has retired conversing with CAMILLO, who nowgoes out; GIACOMO advances.Giacomo. Know you not, Mother . . . Sister, know you not ?Bernardo even now is gone to imploreThe Pope to grant our pardon.Lucretia. Child, perhapsIt will be granted. We may all then liveTo make these woes a tale for distant years:Oh, what a thought! It gushes to my heartLike 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 placeUpon the giddy, sharp and narrow hourTottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frostThat it should spare the eldest flower of spring:Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couchEven now a city stands, strong, fair, and free:Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, pleadWith famine, or wind-walking Pestilence,[355]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 thro' a world of tearsTo death as to life's sleep; 'twere just the graveWere 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 anotherAs 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 deathAre waiting round the doors. I thought I sawBlood on the face of one . . . What if 'twere fancy?Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earthWill sprinkle him, and he will wipe it offAs if 'twere only rain. O life! O worldlCover me! let me be no more! To seeThat perfect mirror of pure innocenceWherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,Shivered 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!
¶Enter CAMILLO and GuardsThey come! Let meKiss those warm lips before their crimson leavesAre blighted . . . white . . . cold. Say farewell, before[356]Death chokes that gentle voicel Oh, let me hearYou speak!Beatrice. Farewell, my tender brother. ThinkOf our sad fate with gentleness, as now ;And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for theeThy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,But tears and patience. One thing more, my child,For thine own sake be constant to the loveThou 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'111 tongues shall wound me, and our common nameBe as a mark stamped on thine innocent browFor men to point at as they pass, do thouForbear, and never think a thought unkindOf those, who perhaps love thee in their graves.So mayest thou die as I do; fear and painBeing subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!Bernardo. I cannot say, farewelllCamillo. O Lady Beatrice!Beatrice. Give yourself no unnecessary pain,My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, d eMy girdle for me, and bind up this hairIn any simple knot; ay, that does well.And yours I see is coming down. How oftenHave we done this for one another, nowWe shall not do it any more. My Lord,We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well.