AN APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
ENTER CENCI.
CENCI:
She comes not; yet I left her even now
Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty
Of her delay: yet what if threats are vain?
Am I not now within Petrella’s moat?
Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome? _5
Might I not drag her by the golden hair?
Stamp on her? keep her sleepless till her brain
Be overworn? Tame her with chains and famine?
Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone
What I most seek! No, ’tis her stubborn will _10
Which by its own consent shall stoop as low
As that which drags it down.
[ENTER LUCRETIA.]
Thou loathed wretch!
Hide thee from my abhorrence: fly, begone!
Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.
NOTE:
_4 not now edition 1821; now not edition 1819.
LUCRETIA:
Oh,
Husband! I pray, for thine own wretched sake _15
Heed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee
Through crimes, and through the danger of his crimes,
Each hour may stumble o’er a sudden grave.
And thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;
As thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell, _20
Pity thy daughter; give her to some friend
In marriage: so that she may tempt thee not
To hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.
CENCI:
What! like her sister who has found a home
To mock my hate from with prosperity? _25
Strange ruin shall destroy both her and thee
And all that yet remain. My death may be
Rapid, her destiny outspeeds it. Go,
Bid her come hither, and before my mood
Be changed, lest I should drag her by the hair. _30
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!
Even now the accusing Angel waits to hear _35
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,
For when I cursed my sons they died.—Ay...so... _40
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
To poison and corrupt her soul.
[A PAUSE, LUCRETIA APPROACHES ANXIOUSLY,
AND THEN SHRINKS BACK AS HE SPEAKS.]
One, two; _45
Ay...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,
Die in despair, blaspheming: to Bernardo, _50
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.
When all is done, out in the wide Campagna, _55
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
Of my possessions nothing but my name; _60
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;
Be it for its own punishment or theirs, _65
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
Short work and sure...
[GOING.]
LUCRETIA [STOPS HIM]:
Oh, stay! It was a feint: _70
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!
For Beatrice worse terrors are in store _75
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.
What sufferings? I will drag her, step by step, _80
Through 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?
She shall become (for what she most abhors _85
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,
A rebel to her father and her God, _90
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
Body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin. _95
[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 gulf
Of Hell between us two, which he may pass,
I will not.’
[EXIT ANDREA.]
CENCI:
Go thou quick, Lucretia, _100
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
Panic-strike armed victory, and make pale _105
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
Awe her before I speak? For I on them _110
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,
Hear me! If this most specious mass of flesh, _115
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
Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant _120
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
The peace of life, I pray Thee for my sake, _125
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
With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head _130
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,
Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes _135
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,
That if she have a child...
LUCRETIA:
Horrible thought! _140
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 increase
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
And my deep imprecation! May it be _145
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.
And that the child may from its infancy _150
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,
Or what may else be more unnatural. _155
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.]
I do not feel as if I were a man, _160
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:
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; _165
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,
I can do both; first take what I demand, _170
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.]
It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim _175
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
Which thinks thee an impostor. I will go _180
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!
There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven _185
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 4.2: