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:

Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,

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 she 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

To aught good use; if her bright loveliness

Was kindled to illumine this dark world;

If nursed by thy selectest dew of love

Such virtues blossom in her as should make

125The peace of life, I pray thee for my sake,

As thou the common God and Father art

Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom!

Earth, in the name of God, let her food be

Poison, until she be encrusted round

130With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head

The blistering drops of the Maremma’s dew,

Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up

Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs

To loathed lameness! All beholding sun,

135Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes

With thine own blinding beams!

   Lucretia.    Peace! Peace!

For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.

When high God grants he punishes such prayers.

   Cenci (leaping up, and throwing his right hand towards Heaven).

He does his will, I mine! This in addition,

140That if she have a child …

   Lucretia.   Horrible thought!

   Cenci. That if she ever have a child; and thou,

Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,

That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease

And multiply, fulfilling his command,

145And my deep imprecation! May it be

A hideous likeness of herself, that as

From a distorting mirror, she may see

Her image mixed with what she most abhors,

Smiling upon her from her nursing breast.

150And that the child may from its infancy

Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,

Turning her mother’s love to misery:

And that both she and it may live until

It shall repay her care and pain with hate,

155Or what may else be more unnatural.

So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs

Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.

Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,

Before my words are chronicled in heaven. [Exit LUCRETIA.

160I do not feel as if I were a man,

But like a fiend appointed to chastise

The offences of some unremembered world.

My blood is running up and down my veins;

A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle:

165I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe;

My heart is beating with an expectation

Of horrid joy.

[Enter LUCRETIA.

                  What? Speak!

   Lucretia.   She bids thee curse;

And if thy curses, as they cannot do,

Could kill her soul …

   Cenci.   She would not come. ’Tis well,

170I can do both: first take what I demand,

And then extort concession. To thy chamber!

Fly ere I spurn thee: and beware this night

That thou cross not my footsteps. It were safer

To come between the tiger and his prey.  [Exit LUCRETIA.

175It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim

With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.

Conscience! Oh, thou most insolent of lies!

They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven,

Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain

180Which thinks thee an imposter. I will go

First to belie thee with an hour of rest,

Which will be deep and calm, I feel: and then …

O, multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake

Thine arches with the laughter of their joy!

185There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven

As o’er an angel fallen; and upon Earth

All good shall droop and sicken, and ill things

Shall with a spirit of unnatural life

Stir and be quickened … even as I am now.      [Exit.

SCENE II.—Before the Castle of Petrella. Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA above on the ramparts.

   Beatrice. They come not yet.

   Lucretia.    ’Tis scarce midnight.

   Beatrice.         How slow

Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,

Lags leaden-footed time!

   Lucretia.   The minutes pass …

If he should wake before the deed is done?

5   Beatrice. O, Mother! He must never wake again.

What thou hast said persuades me that our act

Will but dislodge a spirit of deep hell

Out of a human form.

   Lucretia.  ’Tis true he spoke

Of death and judgement with strange confidence

10For one so wicked; as a man believing

In God, yet recking not of good or ill.

And yet to die without confession! …

   Beatrice.      Oh!

Believe that heaven is merciful and just,

And will not add our dread necessity

15To the amount of his offences.

[Enter OLIMPIO and MARZIO, below.

   Lucretia.    See,

They come.

   Beatrice. All mortal things must hasten thus

To their dark end. Let us go down.

[Exeunt LUCRETIA and BEATRICE from above.

   Olimpio. How feel you to this work?

   Marzio.      As one who thinks

A thousand crowns excellent market price

20For an old murderer’s life. Your cheeks are pale.

   Olimpio. It is the white reflexion of your own,

Which you call pale.

   Marzio.  Is that their natural hue?

   Olimpio. Or ’tis my hate and the deferred desire

To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.

25   Marzio. You are inclined then to this business?

   Olimpio.        Aye.

If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns

To kill a serpent which had stung my child,

I could not be more willing.

[Enter BEATRICE and LUCRETIA, below.

                                    Noble ladies!

   Beatrice. Are ye resolved?

   Olimpio.   Is he asleep?

   Marzio.      Is all

30Quiet?

   Lucretia. I mixed an opiate with his drink:

He sleeps so soundly …

   Beatrice.   That his death will be

But as a change of sin-chastising dreams,

A dark continuance of the Hell within him,

Which God extinguish! But ye are resolved?

35Ye know it is a high and holy deed?

   Olimpio.