Selected Poems and Prose

  It was one word, Mother, one little word;

  One look, one smile. (Wildly.) Oh! He has trampled me

  65Under his feet, and made the blood stream down

  My pallid cheeks. And he has given us all

  Ditch water, and the fever-stricken flesh

  Of buffaloes, and bade us eat or starve,

  And we have eaten.—He has made me look

  70On my beloved Bernardo, when the rust

  Of heavy chains has gangrened his sweet limbs,

  And I have never yet despaired—but now!

  What would I say?      [Recovering herself.

  Ah! No, ’tis nothing new.

  The sufferings we all share have made me wild:

  75He only struck and cursed me as he passed;

  He said, he looked, he did;—nothing at all

  Beyond his wont, yet it disordered me.

  Alas! I am forgetful of my duty,

  I should preserve my senses for your sake.

  80 Lucretia. Nay, Beatrice; have courage, my sweet girl.

  If any one despairs it should be I

  Who loved him once, and now must live with him

  Till God in pity call for him or me.

  For you may, like your sister, find some husband,

  85And smile, years hence, with children round your knees;

  Whilst I, then dead, and all this hideous coil

  Shall be remembered only as a dream.

  Beatrice. Talk not to me, dear lady, of a husband.

  Did you not nurse me when my mother died?

  90Did you not shield me and that dearest boy?

  And had we any other friend but you

  In infancy, with gentle words and looks,

  To win our father not to murder us?

  And shall I now desert you? May the ghost

  95Of my dead Mother plead against my soul

  If I abandon her who filled the place

  She left, with more, even, than a mother’s love!

  Bernardo. And I am of my sister’s mind. Indeed

  I would not leave you in this wretchedness,

  100Even though the Pope should make me free to live

  In some blithe place, like others of my age,

  With sports, and delicate food, and the fresh air.

  Oh, never think that I will leave you, Mother!

  Lucretia. My dear, dear children!

  [Enter CENCI, suddenly.

  Cenci.        What, Beatrice here!

  105Come hither!   [She shrinks back, and covers her face.

  Nay, hide not your face, ’tis fair;

  Look up! Why, yesternight you dared to look

  With disobedient insolence upon me,

  Bending a stern and an inquiring brow

  On what I meant; whilst I then sought to hide

  110That which I came to tell you—but in vain.

  Beatrice (Wildly, staggering towards the door).

  Oh, that the earth would gape! Hide me, oh God!

  Cenci. Then it was I whose inarticulate words

  Fell from my lips, and who with tottering steps

  Fled from your presence, as you now from mine.

  115Stay, I command you—from this day and hour

  Never again, I think, with fearless eye,

  And brow superior, and unaltered cheek,

  And that lip made for tenderness or scorn,

  Shalt thou strike dumb the meanest of mankind;

  120Me least of all. Now get thee to thy chamber!

  Thou too, loathed image of thy cursed mother, [To BERNARDO.

  Thy milky, meek face makes me sick with hate!

  [Exeunt BEATRICE and BERNARDO.

  (Aside.) So much has past between us as must make

  Me bold, her fearful.—’Tis an awful thing

  125To touch such mischief as I now conceive:

  So men sit shivering on the dewy bank,

  And try the chill stream with their feet; once in …

  How the delighted spirit pants for joy!

  Lucretia (advancing timidly towards him).

  Oh, husband! Pray forgive poor Beatrice,

  130She meant not any ill.

  Cenci.  Nor you perhaps?

  Nor that young imp, whom you have taught by rote

  Parricide with his alphabet? Nor Giacomo?

  Nor those two most unnatural sons, who stirred

  Enmity up against me with the Pope?

  135Whom in one night merciful God cut off:

  Innocent lambs! They thought not any ill.

  You were not here conspiring? You said nothing

  Of how I might be dungeoned as a madman;

  Or be condemned to death for some offence,

  140And you would be the witnesses?—This failing,

  How just it were to hire assassins, or

  Put sudden poison in my evening drink?

  Or smother me when overcome by wine?

  Seeing we had no other judge but God,

  145And he had sentenced me, and there were none

  But you to be the executioners

  Of his decree enregistered in heaven?

  Oh, no! You said not this?

  Lucretia.   So help me God,

  I never thought the things you charge me with!

  150 Cenci. If you dare speak that wicked lie again

  I’ll kill you. What! It was not by your counsel

  That Beatrice disturbed the feast last night?

  You did not hope to stir some enemies

  Against me, and escape, and laugh to scorn

  155What every nerve of you now trembles at?

  You judged that men were bolder than they are;

  Few dare to stand between their grave and me.

  Lucretia. Look not so dreadfully! By my salvation

  I knew not aught that Beatrice designed;

  160Nor do I think she designed any thing

  Until she heard you talk of her dead brothers.

  Cenci. Blaspheming liar! You are damned for this!

  But I will take you where you may persuade

  The stones you tread on to deliver you:

  165For men shall there be none but those who dare

  All things—not question that which I command.

  On Wednesday next I shall set out: you know

  That savage rock, the Castle of Petrella,

  ’Tis safely walled, and moated round about:

  170Its dungeons underground, and its thick towers

  Never told tales; though they have heard and seen

  What might make dumb things speak.—Why do you linger?

  Make speediest preparation for the journey! [Exit LUCRETIA.

  The all-beholding sun yet shines; I hear

  175A busy stir of men about the streets;

  I see the bright sky through the window panes:

  It is a garish, broad, and peering day;

  Loud, light, suspicious, full of eyes and ears,

  And every little corner, nook and hole

  180Is penetrated with the insolent light.

  Come darkness! Yet, what is the day to me?

  And wherefore should I wish for night, who do

  A deed which shall confound both night and day?

  ’Tis she shall grope through a bewildering mist

  185Of horror: if there be a sun in heaven

  She shall not dare to look upon its beams;

  Nor feel its warmth. Let her then wish for night;

  The act I think shall soon extinguish all

  For me: I bear a darker deadlier gloom

  190Than the earth’s shade, or interlunar air,

  Or constellations quenched in murkiest cloud,

  In which I walk secure and unbeheld

  Towards my purpose.—Would that it were done!   [Exit.

  SCENE II.—A chamber in the Vatican. Enter CAMILLO and GIACOMO, in conversation.

  Camillo. There is an obsolete and doubtful law
/>
  By which you might obtain a bare provision

  Of food and clothing—

  Giacomo.  Nothing more? Alas!

  Bare must be the provision which strict law

  5Awards, and aged, sullen avarice pays.

  Why did my father not apprentice me

  To some mechanic trade? I should have then

  Been trained in no highborn necessities

  Which I could meet not by my daily toil.

  10The eldest son of a rich nobleman

  Is heir to all his incapacities;

  He has wide wants, and narrow powers. If you,

  Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at once

  From thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food,

  15An hundred servants, and six palaces,

  To that which nature doth indeed require?—

  Camillo. Nay, there is reason in your plea; ’twere hard.

  Giacomo. ’Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but I

  Have a dear wife, a lady of high birth,

  20Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my father

  Without a bond or witness to the deed:

  And children, who inherit her fine senses,

  The fairest creatures in this breathing world;

  And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal,

  25Do you not think the Pope would interpose

  And stretch authority beyond the law?

  Camillo. Though your peculiar case is hard, I know

  The Pope will not divert the course of law.

  After that impious feast the other night

  30I spoke with him, and urged him then to check

  Your father’s cruel hand; he frowned and said,

  ‘Children are disobedient, and they sting

  Their fathers’ hearts to madness and despair,

  Requiting years of care with contumely.

  35I pity the Count Cenci from my heart;

  His outraged love perhaps awakened hate,

  And thus he is exasperated to ill.

  In the great war between the old and young

  I, who have white hairs and a tottering body,

  40Will keep at least blameless neutrality.’

  [Enter ORSINO.

  You, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words.

  Orsino. What words?

  Giacomo.  Alas, repeat them not again!

  There then is no redress for me, at least

  None but that which I may atchieve myself,

  45Since I am driven to the brink.—But, say,

  My innocent sister and my only brother

  Are dying underneath my father’s eye.

  The memorable torturers of this land,

  Galeaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin,

  50Never inflicted on their meanest slave

  What these endure; shall they have no protection?

  Camillo. Why, if they would petition to the Pope

  I see not how he could refuse it—yet

  He holds it of most dangerous example

  55In aught to weaken the paternal power,

  Being, as ’twere, the shadow of his own.

  I pray you now excuse me. I have business

  That will not bear delay.      [Exit CAMILLO.

  Giacomo.  But you, Orsino,

  Have the petition: wherefore not present it?

  60 Orsino. I have presented it, and backed it with

  My earnest prayers, and urgent interest;

  It was returned unanswered. I doubt not

  But that the strange and execrable deeds

  Alledged in it—in truth they might well baffle

  65Any belief—have turned the Pope’s displeasure

  Upon the accusers from the criminal:

  So I should guess from what Camillo said.

  Giacomo. My friend, that palace-walking devil Gold

  Has whispered silence to his Holiness:

  70And we are left, as scorpions ringed with fire,

  What should we do but strike ourselves to death?

  For he who is our murderous persecutor

  Is shielded by a father’s holy name,

  Or I would—      [Stops abruptly.

  Orsino.  What? Fear not to speak your thought.

  75Words are but holy as the deeds they cover:

  A priest who has forsworn the God he serves;

  A judge who makes Truth weep at his decree;

  A friend who should weave counsel, as I now,

  But as the mantle of some selfish guile;

  80A father who is all a tyrant seems,

  Were the profaner for his sacred name.

  Giacomo. Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brain

  Feigns often what it would not; and we trust

  Imagination with such phantasies

  85As the tongue dares not fashion into words,

  Which have no words, their horror makes them dim

  To the mind’s eye.—My heart denies itself

  To think what you demand.

  Orsino.    But a friend’s bosom

  Is as the inmost cave of our own mind

  90Where we sit shut from the wide gaze of day,

  And from the all-communicating air.

  You look what I suspected—

  Giacomo.   Spare me now!

  I am as one lost in a midnight wood,

  Who dares not ask some harmless passenger

  95The path across the wilderness, lest he,

  As my thoughts are, should be—a murderer.

  I know you are my friend, and all I dare

  Speak to my soul that will I trust with thee.

  But now my heart is heavy and would take

  100Lone counsel from a night of sleepless care.

  Pardon me, that I say farewell—farewell!

  I would that to my own suspected self

  I could address a word so full of peace.

  Orsino. Farewell!—Be your thoughts better or more bold.

  [Exit GIACOMO.

  105I had disposed the Cardinal Camillo

  To feed his hope with cold encouragement:

  It fortunately serves my close designs

  That ’tis a trick of this same family

  To analyse their own and other minds.

  110Such self-anatomy shall teach the will

  Dangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers,

  Knowing what must be thought, and may be done,

  Into the depth of darkest purposes:

  So Cenci fell into the pit; even I,

  115Since Beatrice unveiled me to myself,

  And made me shrink from what I cannot shun,

  Shew a poor figure to my own esteem,

  To which I grow half reconciled. I’ll do

  As little mischief as I can; that thought

  120Shall fee the accuser conscience.

  (After a pause)    Now what harm

  If Cenci should be murdered?—Yet, if murdered,

  Wherefore by me? And what if I could take

  The profit, yet omit the sin and peril

  In such an action? Of all earthly things

  125I fear a man whose blows outspeed his words;

  And such is Cenci: and while Cenci lives

  His daughter’s dowry were a secret grave

  If a priest wins her.—Oh, fair Beatrice!

  Would that I loved thee not, or loving thee

  130Could but despise danger and gold and all

  That frowns between my wish and its effect,

  Or smiles beyond it! There is no escape …

  Her bright form kneels beside me at the altar,

  And follows me to the resort of men,

  135And fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams,

  So when I wake my blood seems liquid fire;

  And if I strike my damp and dizzy head

  My hot palm scorches it: her very name,

  But spoken by a stranger, makes my heart

  140Sicken and pant; and th
us unprofitably

  I clasp the phantom of unfelt delights

  Till weak imagination half possesses

  The self-created shadow. Yet much longer

  Will I not nurse this life of feverous hours:

  145From the unravelled hopes of Giacomo

  I must work out my own dear purposes.

  I see, as from a tower, the end of all:

  Her father dead; her brother bound to me

  By a dark secret, surer than the grave;

  150Her mother scared and unexpostulating

  From the dread manner of her wish atchieved:

  And she!—Once more take courage, my faint heart;

  What dares a friendless maiden matched with thee?

  I have such foresight as assures success:

  155Some unbeheld divinity doth ever,

  When dread events are near, stir up men’s minds

  To black suggestions; and he prospers best,

  Not who becomes the instrument of ill,

  But who can flatter the dark spirit, that makes

  160Its empire and its prey of other hearts

  Till it become his slave … as I will do.      [Exit.

  END OF THE SECOND ACT.

  ACT III

  SCENE I.—An apartment in the Cenci Palace. LUCRETIA, to her enter BEATRICE.

  Beatrice. (She enters staggering, and speaks wildly.)

  Reach me that handkerchief!—My brain is hurt;

  My eyes are full of blood; just wipe them for me …

  I see but indistinctly …

  Lucretia.  My sweet child,

  You have no wound; ’tis only a cold dew

  5That starts from your dear brow … Alas! Alas!

  What has befallen?

  Beatrice.  How comes this hair undone?

  Its wandering strings must be what blind me so,

  And yet I tied it fast.—O, horrible!

  The pavement sinks under my feet! The walls

  10Spin round! I see a woman weeping there,

  And standing calm and motionless, whilst I

  Slide giddily as the world reels … My God!

  The beautiful blue heaven is flecked with blood!

  The sunshine on the floor is black! The air

  15Is changed to vapours such as the dead breathe

  In charnel pits! Pah! I am choked! There creeps

  A clinging, black, contaminating mist