Who, that they may make our calamity Their worship and their spectacle, will leave

The churches and the theatres as void As their own hearts? Shall the light multitude

Fling, at their choice, curses or faded pity,

Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse,

Upon us as we pass to pass away, And leave-what memory of our having been?

Infamy, blood, terror, despair? O thou, Who wert a mother to the parentless, Kill not thy child! Let not her wrongs kill thee!

Brother, lie down with me upon the rack, And let us each be silent as a corpse; It soon will be as soft as any grave. 'Tis but the falsehood it can wring from fear

Makes the rack cruel. Giacomo. They will tear the truth Even from thee at last, those cruel pains: For pity's sake say thou art guilty now. Lucr. O, speak the truth! Let us all quickly die;

And after death, God is our judge, not they;

He will have mercy on us. Ber.

If indeed

It can be true, say so, dear sister mine; And then the Pope will surely pardon

And with considering all the wretched life

Which I have lived, and its now wretched end,

And the small justice shown by Heaven and Earth

To me or mine; and what a tyrant thou art,

And what slaves these; and what a world we make,

The oppressor and the oppressed-such pangs compel My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?

Judge. Art thou not guilty of thy father's death?

Beatr. Or wilt thou rather tax high judging God

That he permitted such an act as that Which I have suffered, and which he be

held;

Made it unutterable, and took from it All refuge, all revenge, all consequence, But that which thou hast called my father's death?

Which is or is not what men call a crime, Which either I have done, or have not done;

Say what ye will. I shall deny no more. If ye desire it thus, thus let it be.

And so an end of all. Now do your will; No other pains shall force another word. Judge. She is convicted, but has not confessed.

Be it enough. Until their final sentence
Let none have converse with them. You,
young Lord,
Linger not here!

Beatr.
O, tear him not away!
Judge. Guards! do your duty.

Ber. (Embracing Beatrice.) Oh! would ye divide

Body from soul?

Officer. That is the headsman's business. (Exeunt all but Lucretia, Beatrice, and Giacomo.)

Giac. Have I confessed? Is it all over now?

No hope! No refuge! O weak, wicked tongue,

Which hast destroyed me, would that thou hadst been

Cut out and thrown to dogs first! To have killed

My father first, and then betrayed my sister;

Ay, thee! the one thing innocent and pure In this black, guilty world, to that which

I

So well deserve! My wife! my little ones!

Destitute, helpless, and I-Father! God! Canst thou forgive even the unforgiving, When their full hearts break thus, thus ! (Covers his face, and weeps.)

Lucr.
O, my child!
To what a dreadful end are we all come!
Why did I yield? Why did I not sus-
tain
Those torments? Oh, that I were all
dissolved

Into these fast and unavailing tears,
Which flow and feel not!

Beatr.
What 't was weak to do,
'Tis weaker to lament, once being done;
Take cheer! The God who knew my
wrong, and made ·

Our speedy act the angel of his wrath,
Seems, and but seems to have abandoned

Camillo. The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent.

He looked as calm and keen as is the engine

Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself

From aught that it inflicts; a marble form,

A rite, a law, a custom: not a man. He frowned, as if to frown had been the trick

Of his machinery, on the advocates Presenting the defences, which he tore And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice:

"Which among ye defended their old father

Killed in his sleep?" Then to another: "Thou

Dost this in virtue of thy place; 't is well."

He turned to me then, looking deprecation,

And said these three words, coldly:
"They must die."

Bernardo. And yet you left him not?
Cam.
I urged him still;
Pleading, as I could guess, the devilish
wrong

Which prompted your unnatural parent's
death.

And he replied: "Paolo Santa Croce
Murdered his mother yester-evening,
And he is fled. Parricide grows so rife,
That soon, for some just cause no doubt,

the young

Will strangle us all, dozing in our chairs. Authority, and power, and hoary hair, Are grown crimes capital. You are my nephew,

You come to ask their pardon; stay a moment;

Here is their sentence; never see me more Till, to the letter, it be all fulfilled." Ber. O, God, not so! I did believe indeed That all you said was but sad preparation

For happy news. O, there are words and looks

To bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them,

Now I forget them at my dearest need. What think you if I seek him out and bathe

His feet and robe with hot and bitter tears?

Importune him with prayers, vexing his brain

With my perpetual cries, until in rage He strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample

Upon my prostrate head, so that my blood May stain the senseless dust on which he treads,

And remorse waken mercy? I will do it! O, wait till I return! (Rushes out.)

Cam.

Alas! poor boy! A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray To the deaf sea.

The atmosphere and breath of my dead life!

If sometimes, as a shape more like himself,

Even the form which tortured me on earth,

Masked in grey hairs and wrinkles, he should come

And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down!

For was he not alone omnipotent

On Earth, and ever present? Even tho' dead,

Does not his spirit live in all that breathe, And work for me and mine still the same ruin,

Scorn, pain, despair? Who ever yet returned

To teach the laws of death's untrodden realm?

Unjust perhaps as those which drive us.

Soon the heart's blood of all I love on earth

Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off As if 't were only rain. O, life! 0, world!

Cover me! let me be no more! To see That perfect mirror of pure innocence Wherein I gazed, and grew happy and good,

Shivered to dust! To see thee, Beatrice, Who made all lovely thou didst look upon

Thee, light of life-dead, dark! while I say, sister,

To hear I have no sister; and thou, Mother,

Whose love was [as] a bond to all our loves

Dead! The sweet bond broken!

(Enter Camillo and Guards.)
They come.

Let me

Kiss those warm lips before their crimson leaves

Are blighted-white-cold. Say farewell, before

Death chokes that gentle voice! O, let me hear You speak!

753

I cannot say, farewell!

Ber.
Cam.
Beatr. Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
O, Lady Beatrice!
My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother,
tie

My girdle for me, and bind up this hair
In any simple knot; ay, that does well.

And yours I see is coming down. How often

Have we done this for one another! now We shall not do it any more. My Lord, We are quite ready. Well, 't is very well.