The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats

THE CENCI.

ACT I.

SCENE I.

An Apartment in the CENCI Palace.

Enter COUNT CENCI, and CARDINAL CAMILLO.

CAMILLO.

neck. The moulding of her face is exquisitely delicate; the eyebrows are distinct and arched: the lips have that permanent meaning of imagination and sensibility which suffering has not repressed, and which it seems as if death scarcely could extinguish. Her forehead is large and clear; her eyes, which we are told were remarkable for their vivacity, are swollen with weeping, and lustreless, but beautifully tender and serene. In the whole mien, there is a simplicity and dignity which, united with her exquisite loveliness and deep sorrow, are inexpressibly pathetic. Beatrice Cenci appears to have been one THAT matter of the murder is hush'd up of those rare persons in whom energy and gentleness If you consent to yield his Holiness dwell together without destroying one another: her Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.— nature was simple and profound. The crimes and It needed all my interest in the conclave miseries in which she was an actor and a sufferer To bend him to this point: he said that you are as the mask and the mantle in which circum- Bought perilous impunity with your gold, stances clothed her for her impersonation on the That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded scene of the world. Enrich'd the Church, and respited from hell The Cenci Palace is of great extent, and though An erring soul which might repent and live:in part modernized, there yet remains a vast and But that the glory and the interest gloomy pile of feudal architecture in the same state of the high throne he fills, little consist as during the dreadful scenes which are the subject With making it a daily mart of guilt of this tragedy. The Palace is situated in an ob- So manifold and hideous as the deeds scure corner of Rome, near the quarter of the Jews, Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes. and from the upper windows you see the immense ruins of Mount Palatine half hidden under their The third of my possessions-let it go! profuse overgrowth of trees. There is a court in one part of the palace (perhaps that in which Cenci built Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope Had sent his architect to view the ground, the Chapel to St. Thomas), supported by granite col- Meaning to build a villa on my vines umns and adorned with antique friezes of fine work- The next time I compounded with his uncle: manship, and built up, according to the ancient Italian I little thought he should outwit me so! fashion, with balcony over balcony of open work. Henceforth no witness-not the lamp-shall see One of the gates of the palace formed of immense That which the vassal threaten'd to divulge stones, and leading through a passage, dark and lofty Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward. and opening into gloomy subterranean chambers, The deed he saw could not have rated higher struck me particularly. Than his most worthless life:-it angers me! Respited from Hell!-So may the Devil Respite their souls from Heaven. No doubt Pope Clement,

Of the Castle of Petrella, I could obtain no further information than that which is to be found in the manuscript.

WOMEN.

CENCI.

And his most charitable nephews, pray
That the apostle Peter and the saints
Will grant for their sakes that I long enjoy
Strength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of

days

Wherein to act the deeds which are the stewards
Of their revenue.-But much yet remains
To which they show no title.

CAMILLO.

Oh, Count Cenci!
So much that thou might'st honorably live,
And reconcile thyself with thine own heart,
And with thy God, and with the offended world.
How hideously look deeds of lust and blood
Through those snow-white and venerable hairs!
Your children should be sitting round you now,
But that you fear to read upon their looks
The shame and misery you have written there.
Where is your wife? Where is your gentle daughter!

LUCRETIA, Wife of Cenci, and step-mother of his Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things else

children.

BEATRICE, his daughter.

The SCENE lies principally in Rome, but changes during the fourth Act to Petronella, a castle among the Apulian Appenines.

TIME During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

Beauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you.
Why is she barr'd from all society
But her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?
Talk with me, Count, you know I mean you well.
I stood beside your dark and fiery youth
Watching its bold and bad career, as men
Watch meteors, but it vanish'd not-I mark'd
Your desperate and remorseless manhood; now
300

For which Aldobrandino owes you now
My fief beyond the Pincian-Cardinal,

One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,
And so we shall converse with less restraint.

The dry fix'd eye-ball; the pale quivering lip,
Which tell me that the spirit weeps within
Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.
I rarely kill the body, which preserves,
Like a strong prison, the soul within my power,
Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear
For hourly pain.

CAMILLO.

Hell's most abandon'd fiend Did never, in the drunkenness of guilt,

A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter-Speak to his heart as now you speak to me.

He was accustom'd to frequent my house; So the next day his wife and daughter came And ask'd if I had seen him; and I smiled: I think they never saw him any more.

CAMILLO.

Thou execrable man, beware!—

CENCI.

Of thee?

Nay, this is idle-We should know each other.
As to my character for what men call crime,
Seeing I please my senses as I list,

And vindicate that right with force or guile,
It is a public matter, and I care not
If I discuss it with you. I may speak
Alike to you and my own conscious heart-
For you give out that you have half reform'd me,
Therefore strong vanity will keep you silent
If fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.
All men delight in sensual luxury,
All men enjoy revenge; and most exult
Over the tortures they can never feel-
Flattering their secret peace with others' pain.
But I delight in nothing else. I love
The sight of agony, and the sense of joy,
When this shall be another's, and that mine.
And I have no remorse and little fear,
Which are, I think, the checks of other men.
This mood has grown upon me, until now
Any design my captious fancy makes
The picture of its wish, and it forms none
But such as men like you would start to know,
Is as my natural food and rest debarr'd
Until it be accomplish'd.

CAMILLO.

Art thou not

I thank my God that I believe you not.

The third of my possessions! I must use
Close husbandry, or gold, the old man's sword,
Falls from my wither'd hand. But yesterday
There came an order from the Pope to make
Fourfold provision for my cursed sons;
Whom I have sent from Rome to Salamanca,
Hoping some accident might cut them off;
And meaning, if I could, to starve them there.

I pray thee, God, send some quick death upon them'
Bernardo and my wife could not be worse
If dead and damn'd:-then, as to Beatrice-

[Looking around him suspiciously.
I think they cannot hear me at that door:
What if they should? And yet I need not speak
Though the heart triumphs with itself in words.
O, thou most silent air, that shall not hear
What now I think! Thou pavement, which I tread
Towards her chamber,-let your echoes talk.
Of my imperious step scorning surprise,
But not of my intent!-Andrea!

Enter ANDREA.

Most miserable?

CENCI.

Why miserable?

No-I am what your theologians call
Harden'd-which they must be in impudence,
So to revile a man's peculiar taste.
True, I was happier than I am, while yet
Manhood remain'd to act the thing I thought;
While lust was sweeter than revenge; and now
Invention palls:-Ay, we must all grow old-
But that there yet remains a deed to act
Whose horror might make sharp an appetite
Duller than mine-I'd do,-I know not what.
When I was young I thought of nothing else
But pleasure; and I fed on honey sweets:
Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees,
And I grew tired:-yet, till I kill'd a foe,

And heard his groans, and heard his children's groans,
Knew I not what delight was else on earth,
delights me little. I the rather
Look on such pangs as terror ill conceals,

Which now

As I have said, speak to me not of love;
Had you a dispensation, I have not;
Nor will I leave this home of misery
Whilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle lady
To whom I owe life, and these virtuous thoughts,
Must suffer what I still have strength to share.
Alas, Orsino! All the love that once

I felt for you, is turn'd to bitter pain.
Ours was a youthful contract, which you first
Broke, by assuming vows no Pope will loose.
And yet I love you still, but holily,
Even as a sister or a spirit might;
And so I swear a cold fidelity.

And it is well perhaps we shall not marry.
You have a sly, equivocating vein
That suits me not.-Ah, wretched that I am!
Where shall I turn? Even now you look on me
As you were not my friend, and as if you
Discover'd that I thought so, with false smiles
Making my true suspicion seem your wrong.
Ah! No, forgive me; sorrow makes me seem
Sterner than else my nature might have been;
I have a weight of melancholy thoughts,
And they forbode,-but what can they forbode
Worse than I now endure ?

ORSINO.

All will be well. Is the petition yet prepared? You know My zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice; Doubt not but I will use my utmost skill So that the Pope attend to your complaint.

BEATRICE.

Your zeal for all I wish ;-Ah me, you are cold! Your utmost skill-speak but one word

(Aside). Alas! Weak and deserted creature that I am, Here I stand bickering with my only friend! (TO ORSINO).

This night my father gives a sumptuous feast,
Orsino; he has heard some happy news
From Salamanca, from my brothers there,
And with this outward show of love he mocks
His inward hate. "Tis bold hypocrisy,
For he would gladlier celebrate their deaths,
Which I have heard him pray for on his knees:
Great God! that such a father should be mine!
But there is mighty preparation made,
And all our kin, the Cenci, will be there,
And all the chief nobility of Rome.
And he has bidden me and my pale mother
Attire ourselves in festival array.

Poor lady! She expects some happy change
In his dark spirit from this act; I none.

ORSINO. Farewell

[Exit BEATRICE I know the Pope

Will ne'er absolve me from my priestly vow

But by absolving me from the revenue
Of many a wealthy see; and, Beatrice,

I think to win thee at an easier rate.
Nor shall he read her eloquent petition:
He might bestow her on some poor relation
Of his sixth cousin, as he did her sister,
And I should be debarr'd from all access.
Then as to what she suffers from her father,
In all this there is much exaggeration :-
Old men are testy and will have their way;
A man may stab his enemy, or his slave,
And live a free life as to wine or women,
And with a peevish temper may return

To a dull home, and rate his wife and children;
Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny.

I shall be well content if on my conscience
There rest no heavier sin than what they suffer
From the devices of my love-A net
From which she shall escape not. Yet I fear
Her subtle mind, her awe-inspiring gaze,
Whose beams anatomize me nerve by nerve
And lay me bare, and make me blush to see
My hidden thoughts.-Ah, no! A friendless girl
Who clings to me, as to her only hope:-

I were a fool, not less than if a panther
Were panic-stricken by the antelope's eye,
If she escape me.

SCENE III.

[Eril

A magnificent Hall in the Cenci Palace. A Banquet. Enter CENCI, LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, ORSINO, CAMILLO, NOBLES.

CENCI.

Welcome, my friends and kinsmen; welcome ye,
Princes and Cardinals, pillars of the church,
Whose presence honors our festivity.

I have too long lived like an Anchorite,
And in my absence from your merry meetings
An evil word is gone abroad of me ;
But I do hope that you, my noble friends,
When you have shared the entertainment here,
And heard the pious cause for which 'tis given,
And we have pledged a health or two together,
Will think me flesh and blood as well as you;
Sinful indeed, for Adam made all so,
But tender-hearted, meek, and pitiful.

CENCI.

It is indeed a most desired event.

If when a parent from a parent's heart
Lifts from this earth to the great Father of all
A prayer, both when he lays him down to sleep,
And when he rises up from dreaming it;
One supplication, one desire, one hope,
That he would grant a wish for his two sons
Even all that he demands in their regard-
And suddenly beyond his dearest hope
It is accomplish'd, he should then rejoice,
And call his friends and kinsmen to a feast,
And task their love to grace his merriment,
Then honor me thus far-for I am he.

BEATRICE (to LUCRETIA).

Great God! How horrible! Some dreadful ill
Must have befallen my brothers.

You hear me not, I tell you they are dead;
And they will need no food or raiment more:
The tapers that did light them the dark way
Are their last cost. The Pope, I think, will not
Expect I should maintain them in their coffins.
Rejoice with me--my heart is wondrous glad.
BEATRICE (LUCRETIA sinks, half fainting; BEATRICE
supports her).

It is not true!-Dear lady, pray look up.
Had it been true, there is a God in Heaven,
He would not live to boast of such a boon.
Unnatural man, thou knowest that it is false.

CENCI.

Ay, as the word of God; whom here I call
To witness that I speak the sober truth ;—
And whose most favoring Providence was shown
Even in the manner of their deaths. For Rocco
Was kneeling at the mass, with sixteen others,
When the church fell and crush'd him to a mummy,
The rest escaped unhurt. Cristofano
Was stabb'd in error by a jealous man,
Whilst she he loved was sleeping with his rival;
All in the self-same hour of the same night;
Which shows that Heaven has special care of me.
I beg those friends who love me, that they mark
The day a feast upon their calendars.

It was the twenty-seventh of December:

Ay, read the letters if you doubt my oath.

THIRD GUEST.

No, stay!

I do believe it is some jest; though, faith!
"Tis mocking us somewhat too solemnly.
I think his son has married the Infanta,
Or found a mine of gold in El Dorado.
"Tis but to season some such news; stay, stay!
I see 'tis only raillery by his smile.

CENCI (filling a bowl of wine, and lifting it up).
Oh, thou bright wine, whose purple splendor leaps
And bubbles gaily in this golden bowl
Under the lamplight, as my spirits do,
To hear the death of my accursed sons!
Could I believe thou wert their mingled blood,
Then would I taste thee like a sacrament,
And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in Hell,
Who, if a father's curses, as men say,
Climb with swift wings after their children's souls,
And drag them from the very throne of Heaven,
Now triumphs in my triumph!-But thou art
Superfluous; I have drunken deep of joy,
And I will taste no other wine to-night.
Here, Andrea! Bear the bowl around.
A GUEST (rising).

Will none among this noble company
Check the abandon'd villain?

CAMILLO.

Thou wretch!"

I do entreat you, go not, noble guests:
What although tyranny, and impious hate
Stand shelter'd by a father's hoary hair?
What if 'tis he who clothed us in these limbs
Who tortures them, and triumphs? What, if we,
The desolate and the dead, were his own flesh,
His children and his wife, whom he is bound
To love and shelter? Shall we therefore find
No refuge in this merciless wide world?

Oh, think what deep wrongs must have blotted out
First love, then reverence in a child's prone mind

[The assembly appears confused; several of Till it thus vanquish shame and fear! Oh, think

the guests rise.

FIRST GUEST.

Oh, horrible! I will depart.

SECOND GUEST.

And I.

I have borne much, and kiss'd the sacred hand
Which crush'd us to the earth, and thought its stroke
Was perhaps some paternal chastisement!
Have excused much; doubted; and when no doubt
Remain'd, have sought by patience, love and tears
To soften him; and when this could not be

I have knelt down through the long sleepless nights
And lifted up to God, the father of all,
Passionate prayers: and when these were not heard
I have still borne,-until I meet you here,
Princes and kinsmen, at this hideous feast
Given at my brothers' deaths. Two yet remain,
His wife remains and I, whom if ye save not,
Ye may soon share such merriment again
As fathers make over their children's graves.
Oh! Prince Colonna, thou art our near kinsman,
Cardinal, thou art the Pope's chamberlain,
Camillo, thou art chief justiciary,

Take us away!

CENCI. [He has been conversing with CAMILLO during the first part of BEATRICE's speech;

he hears the conclusion, and now advances.
I hope my good friends here
Will think of their own daughters or perhaps
Of their own throats-before they lend an ear
To this wild girl.

BEATRICE (not noticing the words of CENCI).
Dare not one look on me?

None answer? Can one tyrant overbear
The sense of many best and wisest men?
Or is it that I sue not in some form
Of scrupulous law, that ye deny my suit?
Oh, God! that I were buried with my brothers!
And that the flowers of this departed spring
Were fading on my grave! And that my father
Were celebrating now one feast for all!

CAMILLO.

A bitter wish for one so young and gentle; Can we do nothing?—

COLONNA.

Nothing that I see.

Count Cenci were a dangerous enemy:

Yet I would second any one.

A CARDINAL.

And I.

CENCI.

Retire to your chamber, insolent girl!

BEATRICE.

Retire, thou impious man! Ay, hide thyself
Where never eye can look upon thee more!
Wouldst thou have honor and obedience
Who art a torturer? Father, never dream,
Though thou mayst overbear this company,
But ill must come of ill.-Frown not on me!
Haste, hide thyself, lest with avenging looks
My brothers' ghosts should hunt thee from thy seat!
Cover thy face from every living eye,
And start if thou but hear a human step:
Seek out some dark and silent corner, there
Bow thy white head before offended God,
And we will kneel around, and fervently
Pray that he pity both ourselves and thee.

CENCI.

My friends, I do lament this insane girl
Has spoilt the mirth of our festivity.
Good night, farewell; I will not make you longer
Spectators of our dull domestic quarrels.
Another time.-

[Exeunt all but CENCI and BEATRICE.
My brain is swimming round;
(TO BEATRICE). Thou painted viper!

Give me a bowl of wine!

Beast that thou art! Fair and yet terrible!
I know a charm shall make thee meek and tame.
Now get thee from my sight! [Exit BEATRICE
Here, Andrea,

Fill up this goblet with Greek wine. I said
I would not drink this evening, but I must;
For, strange to say, I feel my spirits fail
With thinking what I have decreed to do.
[Drinking the wine.

Be thou the resolution of quick youth
Within my veins, and manhood's purpose stern,
And age's firm, cold, subtle villany;
As if thou wert indeed my children's blood
Which I did thirst to drink. The charm works well;
It must be done, it shall be done, I swear!

ACT II.

SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Cenci Palace. Enter LUCRETIA and BERNARDO.

LUCRETIA.

[Exit.

Weep not, my gentle boy; he struck but me,
Who have borne deeper wrongs. In truth, if he
Had kill'd me, he had done a kinder deed.
Oh, God Almighty, do thou look upon us,
We have no other friend but only thee!
Yet weep not; though I love you as my own,
I am not your true mother.

BERNARDO.

Oh, more, more Than ever mother was to any child That have you been to me! Had he not been My father, do you think that I should weep?

LUCRETIA.

Alas! poor boy, what else couldst thou have done! Enter BEATRICE.

BEATRICE (in a hurried voice).
Did he pass this way? Have you seen him, brother?
Ah! no, that is his step upon the stairs;
"Tis nearer now; his hand is on the door;
Mother, if I to thee have ever been

A duteous child, now save me! Thou, great God,
Whose image upon earth a father is,
Dost thou indeed abandon me? He comes;
The door is opening now; I see his face;
He frowns on others, but he smiles on me,
Even as he did after the feast last night.
Enter a SERVANT.

Almighty God, how merciful thou art!
"Tis but Orsino's servant.-Well, what news

SERVANT.

My master bids me say, the Holy Father
Has sent back your petition thus unopen'd.

[Giving a Paper. And he demands at what hour 't were secure To visit you again?

LUCRETIA.

At the Ave-Mary. [Exit SERVANT. So, daughter, our last hope has fail'd! Ah me! How pale you look; you tremble, and you stand Wrapp'd in some fix'd and fearful meditation,

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The Poetical Works of Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats: Complete in One Volume