ORSINO.

You said you loved me then.

BEATRICE.

You are a Priest,

Speak to me not of love.

ORSINO.

I may obtain

The dispensation of the Pope to marry.
Because I am a Priest do you believe

Your image, as the hunter some struck deer,
Follows me not whether I wake or sleep?

BEATRICE,

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 turned to bitter pain.

Our's 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

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15

20

25

That suits me not.-Ah, wretched that I am!
Where shall I turn? Even now you look on me

1 In the first edition we have yet I love you still, but in the second thus I love you still,—a reading which is adopted

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by Mrs. Shelley, but dropped by Mr. Rossetti, I think rightly, in favour of the original reading.

As you were not my friend, and as if you
Discovered 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 shew 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.

At supper I will give you the petition:
Till when-farewell.

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 debarred 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 vassal,1
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

1 In the first edition we read slave,— in the second, which is followed by Mrs. Shelley and Mr. Rossetti, vassal. I should think this was certainly a

correction of Shelley's,-slave being wrongly used with regard to the state of society depicted.

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.

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(Exit.)

SCENE III.

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 honours 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.

FIRST GUEST.

In truth, my Lord, you seem too light of heart,
Too sprightly and companionable a man,
To act the deeds that rumour pins on you.

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10

15

(To his companion)

I never saw such blithe and open cheer

In any eye!

SECOND GUEST.

Some most desired event,

In which we all demand a common joy,

Has brought us hither; let us hear it, Count.

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 accomplished, he should then rejoice,
And call his friends and kinsmen to a feast,
And task their love to grace his merriment,
Then honour me thus far-for I am he.

BEATRICE (to Lucretia).

Great God! How horrible! Some dreadful ill

Must have befallen my brothers.

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