No More Learning

GIACOMO:
'Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.
[THUNDER, AND THE SOUND OF A STORM. ]
What! can the everlasting elements
Feel with a worm like man? If so, the shaft
Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall
On stones and trees. My wife and children sleep: _5
They are now living in unmeaning dreams:
But I must wake, still doubting if that deed
Be just which is most necessary. O,
Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire
Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge _10
Devouring darkness hovers! Thou small flame,
Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,
Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be
As thou hadst never been! So wastes and sinks _15
Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine:
But that no power can fill with vital oil
That broken lamp of flesh. Ha! 'tis the blood
Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold:
It is the form that moulded mine that sinks _20
Into the white and yellow spasms of death:
It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
In God's immortal likeness which now stands
Naked before Heaven's judgement seat!
[A BELL STRIKES. ]
One! Two!
The hours crawl on; and, when my hairs are white, _25
My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,
Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;
Chiding the tardy messenger of news
Like those which I expect. I almost wish
He be not dead, although my wrongs are great; _30
Yet. . . 'tis Orsino's step. . .
[ENTER ORSINO. ]
Speak!

ORSINO:
I am come
To say he has escaped.

GIACOMO:
Escaped!

ORSINO:
And safe
Within Petrella. He passed by the spot
Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.

GIACOMO:
Are we the fools of such contingencies? _35
And do we waste in blind misgivings thus
The hours when we should act? Then wind and thunder,
Which seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter
With which Heaven mocks our weakness! I henceforth
Will ne'er repent of aught designed or done _40
But my repentance.

ORSINO:
See, the lamp is out.

GIACOMO:
If no remorse is ours when the dim air
Has drank this innocent flame, why should we quail
When Cenci's life, that light by which ill spirits
See the worst deeds they prompt, shall sink for ever? _45
No, I am hardened.

ORSINO:
Why, what need of this?
Who feared the pale intrusion of remorse
In a just deed? Although our first plan failed,
Doubt not but he will soon be laid to rest.
But light the lamp; let us not talk i' the dark. _50

GIACOMO [LIGHTING THE LAMP]:
And yet once quenched I cannot thus relume
My father's life: do you not think his ghost
Might plead that argument with God?

ORSINO:
Once gone
You cannot now recall your sister's peace;
Your own extinguished years of youth and hope; _55
Nor your wife's bitter words; nor all the taunts
Which, from the prosperous, weak misfortune takes;
Nor your dead mother; nor. . .

GIACOMO:
O, speak no more!
I am resolved, although this very hand
Must quench the life that animated it. _60

ORSINO:
There is no need of that. Listen: you know
Olimpio, the castellan of Petrella
In old Colonna's time; him whom your father
Degraded from his post? And Marzio,
That desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year _65
Of a reward of blood, well earned and due?

GIACOMO:
I knew Olimpio; and they say he hated
Old Cenci so, that in his silent rage
His lips grew white only to see him pass.
Of Marzio I know nothing.

ORSINO:
Marzio's hate _70
Matches Olimpio's. I have sent these men,
But in your name, and as at your request,
To talk with Beatrice and Lucretia.

GIACOMO:
Only to talk?

ORSINO:
The moments which even now
Pass onward to to-morrow's midnight hour _75
May memorize their flight with death: ere then
They must have talked, and may perhaps have done,
And made an end. . .

GIACOMO:
Listen! What sound is that?

ORSINO:
The house-dog moans, and the beams crack: nought else.

GIACOMO:
It is my wife complaining in her sleep: _80
I doubt not she is saying bitter things
Of me; and all my children round her dreaming
That I deny them sustenance.

ORSINO:
Whilst he
Who truly took it from them, and who fills
Their hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps _85
Lapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly
Mocks thee in visions of successful hate
Too like the truth of day.

GIACOMO:
If e'er he wakes
Again, I will not trust to hireling hands. . .

ORSINO:
Why, that were well. I must be gone; good-night. _90
When next we meet--may all be done!

NOTE:
_91 may all be done!
Giacomo: And all edition 1821;
Giacomo: May all be done, and all edition 1819.

GIACOMO:
And all
Forgotten: Oh, that I had never been!

[EXEUNT. ]

END OF ACT 3.


ACT 4.

SCENE 4. 1:
AN APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA.
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:
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?

BEATRICE:
O, mother! He must never wake again. _5
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
For one so wicked; as a man believing _10
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
To the amount of his offences.

[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO BELOW. ]

LUCRETIA:
See, _15
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
For an old murderer's life. Your cheeks are pale. _20

OLIMPIO:
It is the white reflection 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.

MARZIO:
You are inclined then to this business?

OLIMPIO:
Ay, _25
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
Quiet?

LUCRETIA:
I mixed an opiate with his drink: _30
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?
Ye know it is a high and holy deed? _35

OLIMPIO:
We are resolved.

MARZIO:
As to the how this act
Be warranted, it rests with you.

BEATRICE:
Well, follow!

OLIMPIO:
Hush! Hark! What noise is that?

MARZIO:
Ha! some one comes!

BEATRICE:
Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest
Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate, _40
Which ye left open, swinging to the wind,
That enters whistling as in scorn. Come, follow!
And be your steps like mine, light, quick and bold.

[EXEUNT. ]

SCENE 4. 3:
AN APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE.
ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA.

LUCRETIA:
They are about it now.

BEATRICE:
Nay, it is done.

LUCRETIA:
I have not heard him groan.

BEATRICE:
He will not groan.

LUCRETIA:
What sound is that?

BEATRICE:
List! 'tis the tread of feet
About his bed.

LUCRETIA:
My God!
If he be now a cold, stiff corpse. . .

BEATRICE:
O, fear not _5
What may be done, but what is left undone:
The act seals all.
[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO. ]
Is it accomplished?

MARZIO:
What?

OLIMPIO:
Did you not call?

BEATRICE:
When?

OLIMPIO:
Now.

BEATRICE:
I ask if all is over?

OLIMPIO:
We dare not kill an old and sleeping man;
His thin gray hair, his stern and reverend brow, _10
His veined hands crossed on his heaving breast,
And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay,
Quelled me. Indeed, indeed, I cannot do it.

NOTE:
_10 reverend]reverent all editions.

MARZIO:
But I was bolder; for I chid Olimpio,
And bade him bear his wrongs to his own grave _15
And leave me the reward. And now my knife
Touched the loose wrinkled throat, when the old man
Stirred in his sleep, and said, 'God! hear, O, hear,
A father's curse! What, art Thou not our Father? '
And then he laughed. I knew it was the ghost _20
Of my dead father speaking through his lips,
And could not kill him.

BEATRICE:
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! _25
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 Heaven. . . _30
Why 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!

OLIMPIO:
Stop, for God's sake!

MARZIO:
I will go back and kill him.

OLIMPIO:
Give me the weapon, we must do thy will. _35

BEATRICE:
Take it! Depart! Return!
[EXEUNT OLIMPIO AND MARZIO. ]
How pale thou art!
We do but that which 'twere a deadly crime
To leave undone.

LUCRETIA:
Would it were done!

BEATRICE:
Even whilst
That doubt is passing through your mind, the world
Is conscious of a change. Darkness and Hell _40
Have swallowed up the vapour they sent forth
To blacken the sweet light of life. My breath
Comes, methinks, lighter, and the jellied blood
Runs freely through my veins. Hark!
[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO. ]
He is. . .

OLIMPIO:
Dead!

MARZIO:
We strangled him that there might be no blood; _45
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! _50
[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, _55
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:
The drawbridge is let down; there is a tramp
Of horses in the court; fly, hide yourselves! _60

[EXEUNT OLIMPIO AND MARZIO. ]

BEATRICE:
Let us retire to counterfeit deep rest;
I scarcely need to counterfeit it now:
The spirit which doth reign within these limbs
Seems strangely undisturbed. I could even sleep
Fearless and calm: all ill is surely past. _65

[EXEUNT. ]

SCENE 4. 4:
ANOTHER APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE.
ENTER ON ONE SIDE THE LEGATE SAVELLA,
INTRODUCED BY A SERVANT,
AND ON THE OTHER LUCRETIA AND BERNARDO.

SAVELLA:
Lady, my duty to his Holiness
Be my excuse that thus unseasonably
I break upon your rest. I must speak with
Count Cenci; doth he sleep?

LUCRETIA [IN A HURRIED AND CONFUSED MANNER]:
I think he sleeps;
Yet, wake him not, I pray, spare me awhile, _5
He is a wicked and a wrathful man;
Should he be roused out of his sleep to-night,
Which is, I know, a hell of angry dreams,
It were not well; indeed it were not well.
Wait till day break. . .
[ASIDE. ]
Oh, I am deadly sick! _10

NOTE:
_6 a wrathful edition 1821; wrathful editions 1819, 1839.

SAVELLA:
I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count
Must answer charges of the gravest import,
And suddenly; such my commission is.

LUCRETIA [WITH INCREASED AGITATION]:
I dare not rouse him: I know none who dare. . .
'Twere perilous;. . . you might as safely waken _15
A serpent; or a corpse in which some fiend
Were laid to sleep.

SAVELLA:
Lady, my moments here
Are counted. I must rouse him from his sleep,
Since none else dare.

LUCRETIA [ASIDE]:
O, terror! O, despair!
[TO BERNARDO. ]
Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to _20
Your father's chamber.

[EXEUNT SAVELLA AND BERNARDO. ]

[ENTER BEATRICE. ]

BEATRICE:
'Tis a messenger
Come to arrest the culprit who now stands
Before the throne of unappealable God.
Both Earth and Heaven, consenting arbiters,
Acquit our deed.

LUCRETIA:
Oh, agony of fear! _25
Would that he yet might live! Even now I heard
The Legate's followers whisper as they passed
They had a warrant for his instant death.
All was prepared by unforbidden means
Which we must pay so dearly, having done. _30
Even now they search the tower, and find the body;
Now they suspect the truth; now they consult
Before they come to tax us with the fact;
O, horrible, 'tis all discovered!

BEATRICE:
Mother,
What is done wisely, is done well.