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OLIMPIO.

OLIMPIO.

Dead!

He is

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Miserable slaves! Where, if ye dare not kill a sleeping man, Found ye the boldness to return to me With such a deed undone ? Base palterers! Cowards and traitors! Why, the very conscience Which ye would sell for gold and for revenge Is an equivocation: it sleeps over A thousand daily acts disgracing men ; And when a deed, where mercy insults HeavenWhy do I talk?

[Snatching a dagger from one of them, and raising it. Hadst thou a tongue to say, She murdered her own father, I must do it! But never dream ye shall outlive him long!

Stop, for God's sake!

OLIMPIO.

MARZIO.

We strangled him, that there might be no blood; And then we threw his heavy corpse i' the garden Under the balcony; 'twill seem it fell.

BEATRICE (giving them a bag of coin). Here take this gold, and hasten to your homes. And, Marzio, because thou wast only awed By that which made me tremble, wear thou this! [Clothes him in a rich mantle. It was the mantle which my grandfather Wore in his high prosperity, and men Envied his state: so may they envy thine. Thou wert a weapon in the hand of God To a just use. Live long and thrive! And, mark, If thou hast crimes, repent: this deed is none. [A horn is sounded.

LUCRETIA.

Hark, 'tis the castle horn: my God! it sounds Like the last trump.

BEATRICE.

Some tedious guest is coming.

LUCRETIA.

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What is done wisely, is done well. Be bold
As thou art just. Tis like a truant child,
To fear that others know what thou hast done,
Even from thine own strong consciousness, and thus
Write on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks
All thou wouldst hide. Be faithful to thyself,
And fear no other witness but thy fear.
For if, as cannot be, some circumstance
Should rise in accusation, we can blind
Suspicion with such cheap astonishment,
Or overbear it with such guiltless pride,
As murderers cannot feign. The deed is done,
And what may follow now regards not me.
I am as universal as the light;

Free as the earth-surrounding air; as firm
As the world's centre. Consequence, to me,
Is as the wind which strikes the solid rock,
But shakes it not.

BEATRICE.

My lord, I pray excuse us ;
We will retire; my mother is not well;
She seems quite overcome with this strange horror.
[Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE,
SAVELLA.

Can you suspect who may have murdered him?

BERNARDO.
I know not what to think.

SAVELLA.

Can you name any

Who had an interest in his death?

BERNARDO.

Alas!

I can name none who had not, and those most
Who most lament that such a deed is done;
My mother, and my sister, and myself.

SAVELLA.

"Tis strange! There were clear marks of violence.
I found the old man's body in the moonlight,
Hanging beneath the window of his chamber
Among the branches of a pine: he could not
Have fallen there, for all his limbs lay heaped
And effortless; 'tis true there was no blood.-
Favour me, sir-it much imports your house
That all should be made clear-to tell the ladies
That I request their presence.

[Exit BERNARDO.

Enter Guards, bringing in MARZIO.

GUARD.

OFFICER.

We have one.

My lord, we found this ruffian and another
Lurking among the rocks; there is no doubt
But that they are the murderers of Count Cenci :
Each had a bag of coin; this fellow wore
A gold-in woven robe, which, shining bright
Under the dark rocks to the glimmering moon,
Betrayed them to our notice: the other fell
Murder! Murder! Murder! Desperately fighting.

[A cry within and tumult.

VOICES.

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BEATRICE.

Guilty! Who dares talk of guilt? My lord,
I am more innocent of parricide
Than is a child born fatherless. Dear mother,
Your gentleness and patience are no shield
For this keen-judging world, this two-edged lie,
Which seems, but is not. What! will human laws,
Rather will ye who are their ministers,
Bar all access to retribution first,

And then, when Heaven doth interpose to do
What ye neglect, arming familiar things
To the redress of an unwonted crime,
Make ye the victims who demanded it
Culprits? 'Tis ye are culprits! That poor wretch

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And yet, if you arrest me, You are the judge and executioner Of that which is the life of life: the breath Of accusation kills an innocent name, And leaves for lame acquittal the poor life, Which is a mask without it. "Tis most false That I am guilty of foul parricide; Although I must rejoice, for justest cause, That other hands have sent my father's soul To ask the mercy he denied to me. Now leave us free stain not a noble house With vague surmises of rejected crime; Add to our sufferings and your own neglect No heavier sum; let them have been enough: Leave us the wreck we have.

SAVELLA.

I dare not, lady. I pray that you prepare yourselves for Rome: There the Pope's further pleasure will be known.

LUCRETIA.

O, not to Rome! O, take us not to Rome!

BEATRICE.

Why not to Rome, dear mother? There, as here,
Our innocence is as an armed heel

To trample accusation. God is there,
As here, and with his shadow ever clothes
The innocent, the injured, and the weak ;
And such are we. Cheer up, dear lady! lean
On me; collect your wandering thoughts. My lord,
As soon as you have taken some refreshment,
And had all such examinations made
Upon the spot, as may be necessary
To the full understanding of this matter,
We shall be ready. Mother, will you come ?

LUCRETIA.

Ha! they will bind us to the rack, and wrest
Self-accusation from our agony!

Will Giacomo be there? Orsino? Marzio?
All present? all confronted; all demanding
Each from the other's countenance the thing
Which is in every heart! O, misery!

[She faints, and is borne out.

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Do evil deeds thus quickly come to end?
O that the vain remorse which must chastise
Crimes done, had but as loud a voice to warn,
As its keen sting is mortal to avenge!

O that the hour when present had cast off
The mantle of its mystery, and shown
The ghastly form with which it now returns
When its scared game is roused, cheering the
hounds

Of conscience to their prey! Alas, alas!
It was a wicked thought, a piteous deed,
To kill an old and hoary-headed father.

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GIACOMO.

How can that be? Already Beatrice, Lucretia, and the murderer, are in prison. I doubt not officers

Sent to arrest us.

are, whilst we speak,

ORSINO.

I have all prepared For instant flight. We can escape even now, So we take fleet occasion by the hair.

GIACOMO.

Rather expire in tortures, as I may.
What will you cast by self-accusing flight
Assured conviction upon Beatrice?
She who alone, in this unnatural work,
Stands like God's angel ministered upon
By fiends; avenging such a nameless wrong
As turns black parricide to piety;
Whilst we for basest ends-I fear, Orsino,
While I consider all your words and looks,
Comparing them with your proposal now,
That you must be a villain. For what end
Could you engage in such a perilous crime,
Training me on with hints, and signs, and smiles,
Even to this gulf? Thou art no liar? No,
Thou art a lie! Traitor and murderer!
Coward and slave! But no-defend thyself;
[Drawing.
Let the sword speak what the indignant tongue
Disdains to brand thee with.

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friend,

Now ruined for your sake? If honest anger
Have moved you, know, that what I just proposed
Was but to try you. As for I think
me,

Thankless affection led me to this point,
From which, if my firm temper could repent,
I cannot now recede. Even whilst we speak,
The ministers of justice wait below:

They grant me these brief moments. Now, if you
Have any word of melancholy comfort
To speak to your pale wife, 'twere best to pass
Out at the postern, and avoid them so.

GIACOMO.

Oh, generous friend! How canst thou pardon me? Would that my life could purchase thine!

ORSINO.

That wish
Now comes a day too late. Haste; fare thee well!
Hear'st thou not steps along the corridor?

[Exit GIACOMO.
I'm sorry for it; but the guards are waiting
At his own gate, and such was my contrivance
That I might rid me both of him and them.
I thought to act a solemn comedy
Upon the painted scene of this new world,
And to attain my own peculiar ends

By some such plot of mingled good and ill
As others weave; but there arose a Power
Which grasped and snapped the threads of my
device,

And turned it to a net of ruin-Ha!

[A shout is heard.
Is that my name I hear proclaimed abroad?
But I will pass, wrapt in a vile disguise;
Rags on my back, and a false innocence
Upon my face, through the misdeeming crowd,
Which judges by what seems. 'Tis easy then,
For a new name, and for a country new,
And a new life, fashioned on old desires,
To change the honours of abandoned Rome.
And these must be the masks of that within,
Which must remain unaltered.—Oh, I fear
That what is past will never let me rest!
Why, when none else is conscious, but myself,
Of my misdeeds, should my own heart's contempt
Trouble me? Have I not the power to fly
My own reproaches? Shall I be the slave
Of-what? A word! which those of this false world
Employ against each other, not themselves;
As men wear daggers not for self-offence.
But if I am mistaken, where shall I
Find the disguise to hide me from myself,
As now I skulk from every other eye?

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[Exit.

The terrible resentment of those eyes

SCENE II.

A Hall of Justice.

CAMILLO, JUDGES, etc., are discovered seated;
MARZIO is led in.

FIRST JUDGE.

Accused, do you persist in your denial?
I ask you, are you innocent, or guilty?
I demand who were the participators

In your offence? Speak truth, and the whole truth.

MARZIO.

My God! I did not kill him; I know nothing;
Olimpio sold the robe to me from which
You would infer my guilt.

SECOND JUDGE.

Away with him!

FIRST JUDGE.

Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack's kiss,
Speak false? Is it so soft a questioner,
That you would bandy lovers' talk with it,
Till it wind out your life and soul? Away!

MARZIO.

Spare me! O, spare! I will confess.

FIRST JUDGE.

On the dread 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 gentleness
And wisdom can it be that you sit here
To countenance a wicked farce like this?
When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged
From sufferings which might shake the sternest
heart,

And bade to answer, not as he believes,
But as those may suspect or do desire,
Whose questions thence suggest their own reply:
And that in peril of such hideous torments
As merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now
The 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 poison
Your little nephew: that fair blue-eyed child
Who was the load-star of your life;" and though
All see, since his most swift and piteous death,
Then speak. That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,

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