Solacing our despondency with tears
Of such affection and unbroken faith
As temper life’s worst bitterness; when he,
As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse,
315Mocking our poverty, and telling us
Such was God’s scourge for disobedient sons.
And then, that I might strike him dumb with shame,
I spoke of my wife’s dowry; but he coined
A brief yet specious tale, how I had wasted
320The sum in secret riot; and he saw
My wife was touched, and he went smiling forth.
And when I knew the impression he had made,
And felt my wife insult with silent scorn
My ardent truth, and look averse and cold,
325I went forth too: but soon returned again;
Yet not so soon but that my wife had taught
My children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,
‘Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!
What you in one night squander were enough
330For months!’ I looked, and saw that home was hell.
And to that hell will I return no more
Until mine enemy has rendered up
Atonement, or, as he gave life to me
I will, reversing nature’s law …
Orsino. Trust me,
335The compensation which thou seekest here
Will be denied.
Giacomo. Then … Are you not my friend?
Did you not hint at the alternative,
Upon the brink of which you see I stand,
The other day when we conversed together?
340My wrongs were then less. That word parricide,
Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear.
Orsino. It must be fear itself, for the bare word
Is hollow mockery. Mark, how wisest God
Draws to one point the threads of a just doom,
345So sanctifying it: what you devise
Is, as it were, accomplished.
Giacomo. Is he dead?
Orsino. His grave is ready. Know that since we met
Cenci has done an outrage to his daughter.
Giacomo. What outrage?
Orsino. That she speaks not, but you may
350Conceive such half conjectures as I do,
From her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief
Of her stern brow bent on the idle air,
And her severe unmodulated voice,
Drowning both tenderness and dread; and last
355From this; that whilst her step-mother and I,
Bewildered in our horror, talked together
With obscure hints; both self-misunderstood
And darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,
Over the truth, and yet to its revenge,
360She interrupted us, and with a look
Which told before she spoke it, he must die …
Giacomo. It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;
There is a higher reason for the act
Than mine; there is a holier judge than me,
365A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice,
Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youth
Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised
A living flower, but thou hast pitied it
With needless tears! Fair sister, thou in whom
370Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom
Did not destroy each other! Is there made
Ravage of thee? O, heart, I ask no more
Justification! Shall I wait, Orsino,
Till he return, and stab him at the door?
375 Orsino. Not so; some accident might interpose
To rescue him from what is now most sure;
And you are unprovided where to fly,
How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen:
All is contrived; success is so assured
That …
[Enter BEATRICE.
380 Beatrice. ’Tis my brother’s voice! You know me not?
Giacomo. My sister, my lost sister!
Beatrice. Lost indeed!
I see Orsino has talked with you, and
That you conjecture things too horrible
To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not,
385He might return: yet kiss me; I shall know
That then thou hast consented to his death.
Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God,
Brotherly love, justice and clemency,
And all things that make tender hardest hearts
390Make thine hard, brother. Answer not … farewell.
[Exeunt severally.
SCENE II.—A mean apartment in GIACOMO’s house. GIACOMO alone.
Giacomo. ’Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.
[Thunder, and the sound of a storm.
What! can the everlasting elements
Feel with a worm like man? If so the shaft
Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall
5On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep:
They are now living in unmeaning dreams:
But I must wake, still doubting if that deed
Be just which was most necessary. O,
Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire
10Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge
Devouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,
Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,
Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be
15As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks
Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:
But that no power can fill with vital oil
That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! ’tis the blood
Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:
20It is the form that moulded mine that sinks
Into the white and yellow spasms of death:
It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
In God’s immortal likeness which now stands
Naked before Heaven’s judgement seat! [A bell strikes.
One! Two!
25The hours crawl on; and when my hairs are white,
My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,
Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;
Chiding the tardy messenger of news
Like those which I expect. I almost wish
30He be not dead, although my wrongs are great;
Yet … ’tis Orsino’s step …
[Enter ORSINO.
Speak!
Orsino. I am come
To say he has escaped.
Giacomo. Escaped!
Orsino. And safe
Within Petrella. He past by the spot
Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.
35 Giacomo. Are we the fools of such contingencies?
And do we waste in blind misgivings thus
The hours when we should act? Then wind and thunder,
Which seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter
With which Heaven mocks our weakness! I henceforth
40Will ne’er repent of aught designed or done
But my repentance.
Orsino. See, the lamp is out.
Giacomo. If no remorse is ours when the dim air
Has drank this innocent flame, why should we quail
When Cenci’s life, that light by which ill spirits
45See the worst deeds they prompt, shall sink for ever?
No, I am hardened.
Orsino. Why, what need of this?
Who feared the pale intrusion of remorse
In a just deed? Altho’ our first plan failed,
Doubt not but he will soon be laid to rest.
50But light the lamp; let us not talk i’ the dark.
Gi
acomo (lighting the lamp).
And yet once quenched I cannot thus relume
My father’s life: do you not think his ghost
Might plead that argument with God?
Orsino. Once gone
You cannot now recall your sister’s peace;
55Your own extinguished years of youth and hope;
Nor your wife’s bitter words; nor all the taunts
Which, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;
Nor your dead mother; nor …
Giacomo. O, speak no more!
I am resolved, although this very hand
60Must quench the life that animated it.
Orsino. There is no need of that. Listen: you know
Olimpio, the castellan of Petrella
In old Colonna’s time; him whom your father
Degraded from his post? And Marzio,
65That desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year
Of a reward of blood, well earned and due?
Giacomo. I knew Olimpio; and they say he hated
Old Cenci so, that in his silent rage
His lips grew white only to see him pass.
70Of Marzio I know nothing.
Orsino. Marzio’s hate
Matches Olimpio’s. I have sent these men,
But in your name, and as at your request,
To talk with Beatrice and Lucretia.
Giacomo. Only to talk?
Orsino. The moments which even now
75Pass onward to tomorrow’s midnight hour
May memorize their flight with death: ere then
They must have talked, and may perhaps have done,
And made an end …
Giacomo. Listen! What sound is that?
Orsino. The housedog moans, and the beams crack: nought else.
80 Giacomo. It is my wife complaining in her sleep:
I doubt not she is saying bitter things
Of me; and all my children round her dreaming
That I deny them sustenance.
Orsino. Whilst he
Who truly took it from them, and who fills
85Their hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps
Lapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly
Mocks thee in visions of successful hate
Too like the truth of day.
Giacomo. If e’er he wakes
Again, I will not trust to hireling hands …
90 Orsino. Why, that were well. I must be gone; good night!
When next we meet may all be done—
Giacomo. And all
Forgotten—Oh, that I had never been! [Exeunt.
END OF THE THIRD ACT.
ACT IV
SCENE I.—An apartment in the Castle of Petrella. Enter CENCI.
Cenci. She comes not; yet I left her even now
Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty
Of her delay: yet what if threats are vain?
Am I now not within Petrella’s moat?
5Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome?
Might I not drag her by the golden hair?
Stamp on her? Keep her sleepless till her brain
Be overworn? Tame her with chains and famine?
Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone
10What I most seek! No, ’tis her stubborn will
Which by its own consent shall stoop as low
As that which drags it down.
[Enter LUCRETIA.
Thou loathed wretch!
Hide thee from my abhorrence; Fly, begone!
Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.
Lucretia. Oh,
15Husband! I pray for thine own wretched sake
Heed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee
Thro’ crimes, and thro’ the danger of his crimes,
Each hour may stumble o’er a sudden grave.
And thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;
20As thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell,
Pity thy daughter; give her to some friend
In marriage: so that she may tempt thee not
To hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.
Cenci. What! like her sister who has found a home
25To mock my hate from with prosperity?
Strange ruin shall destroy both her and thee
And all that yet remain. My death may be
Rapid, her destiny outspeeds it. Go,
Bid her come hither, and before my mood
30Be changed, lest I should drag her by the hair.
Lucretia. She sent me to thee, husband. At thy presence
She fell, as thou dost know, into a trance;
And in that trance she heard a voice which said,
‘Cenci must die! Let him confess himself!
35Even now the accusing Angel waits to hear
If God, to punish his enormous crimes,
Harden his dying heart!’
Cenci. Why—such things are …
No doubt divine revealings may be made.
’Tis plain I have been favoured from above,
40For when I cursed my sons they died.—Aye … so …
As to the right or wrong, that’s talk … repentance …
Repentance is an easy moment’s work
And more depends on God than me. Well … well …
I must give up the greater point, which was
45To poison and corrupt her soul.
[A pause; LUCRETIA approaches anxiously, and then shrinks back as he speaks.
One, two;
Aye … Rocco and Cristofano my curse
Strangled: and Giacomo, I think, will find
Life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave:
50Die in despair, blaspheming: to Bernardo,
He is so innocent, I will bequeath
The memory of these deeds, and make his youth
The sepulchre of hope, where evil thoughts
Shall grow like weeds on a neglected tomb.
55When all is done, out in the wide Campagna,
I will pile up my silver and my gold;
My costly robes, paintings and tapestries;
My parchments and all records of my wealth,
And make a bonfire in my joy, and leave
60Of my possessions nothing but my name;
Which shall be an inheritance to strip
Its wearer bare as infamy. That done,
My soul, which is a scourge, will I resign
Into the hands of him who wielded it;
65Be it for its own punishment or theirs,
He will not ask it of me till the lash
Be broken in its last and deepest wound;
Until its hate be all inflicted. Yet,
Lest death outspeed my purpose, let me make
70Short work and sure … [Going.
Lucretia. (Stops him.) Oh, stay! It was a feint:
She had no vision, and she heard no voice.
I said it but to awe thee.
Cenci. That is well.
Vile palterer with the sacred truth of God,
Be thy soul choked with that blaspheming lie!
75For Beatrice worse terrors are in store
To bend her to my will.
Lucretia. Oh! to what will?
What cruel sufferings more than she has known
Canst thou inflict?
Cenci. Andrea! Go call my daughter,
And if she comes not tell her that I come.
80What sufferings? I will drag her, step by step,
Thro’ infamies unheard of among men:
She shall stand shelterless in the broad noon
Of public scorn, for acts blazoned abroad,
One among which shall be … What? Canst thou guess?
85She shall become (for what s
he most abhors
Shall have a fascination to entrap
Her loathing will) to her own conscious self
All she appears to others; and when dead,
As she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,
90A rebel to her father and her God,
Her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds;
Her name shall be the terror of the earth;
Her spirit shall approach the throne of God
Plague-spotted with my curses. I will make
95Body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin.
[Enter ANDREA.
Andrea. The lady Beatrice …
Cenci. Speak, pale slave! What
Said she?
Andrea. My Lord, ’twas what she looked; she said:
‘Go tell my father that I see the gulph
Of Hell between us two, which he may pass,
100I will not.’ [Exit ANDREA.
Cenci. Go thou quick, Lucretia,
Tell her to come; yet let her understand
Her coming is consent: and say, moreover,
That if she come not I will curse her. [Exit LUCRETIA.
Ha!
With what but with a father’s curse doth God
105Panic-strike armed victory, and make pale
Cities in their prosperity? The world’s Father
Must grant a parent’s prayer against his child
Be he who asks even what men call me.
Will not the deaths of her rebellious brothers
110Awe her before I speak? For I on them
Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.
[Enter LUCRETIA.
Well; what? Speak, wretch!
Lucretia. She said, ‘I cannot come;
Go tell my father that I see a torrent
Of his own blood raging between us.’
Cenci (kneeling). God!
115Hear me! If this most specious mass of flesh,
Which thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,
This particle of my divided being;
Or rather, this my bane and my disease,
Whose sight infects and poisons me; this devil
120Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant