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. Be bold _35

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, _40

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, _45

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, _50

Is as the wind which strikes the solid rock,

But shakes it not.

[A CRY WITHIN AND TUMULT.]

VOICES:

Murder! Murder! Murder!

[ENTER BERNARDO AND SAVELLA.]

SAVELLA [TO HIS FOLLOWERS]:

Go search the castle round; sound the alarm;

Look to the gates, that none escape!

BEATRICE:

What now?

BERNARDO:

I know not what to say...my father's dead. _55

BEATRICE:

How; dead! he only sleeps; you mistake, brother.

His sleep is very calm, very like death;

'Tis wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps.

He is not dead?

BERNARDO:

Dead; murdered.

LUCRETIA [WITH EXTREME AGITATION]:

Oh no, no!

He is not murdered though he may be dead; _60

I have alone the keys of those apartments.

SAVELLA:

Ha! Is it so?

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? _65

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. _70

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 _75

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:

We have one.

OFFICER:

My Lord, we found this ruffian and another _80

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-inwoven robe, which, shining bright

Under the dark rocks to the glimmering moon _85

Betrayed them to our notice: the other fell

Desperately fighting.

SAVELLA:

What does he confess?

OFFICER:

He keeps firm silence; but these lines found on him

May speak.

SAVELLA:

Their language is at least sincere.

[READS.]

'To the Lady Beatrice. _90

That the atonement of what my nature sickens to conjecture may soon

arrive, I send thee, at thy brother's desire, those who will speak and

do more than I dare write...

'Thy devoted servant, Orsino.'

[ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, AND BERNARDO.]

Knowest thou this writing, Lady?

BEATRICE:

No.

SAVELLA:

Nor thou? _95

LUCRETIA [HER CONDUCT THROUGHOUT THE SCENE IS MARKED BY EXTREME AGITATION]:

Where was it found? What is it? It should be

Orsino's hand! It speaks of that strange horror

Which never yet found utterance, but which made

Between that hapless child and her dead father

A gulf of obscure hatred.

SAVELLA:

Is it so? _100

Is it true, Lady, that thy father did

Such outrages as to awaken in thee

Unfilial hate?

BEATRICE:

Not hate, 'twas more than hate:

This is most true, yet wherefore question me?

SAVELLA:

There is a deed demanding question done; _105

Thou hast a secret which will answer not.

BEATRICE:

What sayest? My Lord, your words are bold and rash.

SAVELLA:

I do arrest all present in the name

Of the Pope's Holiness. You must to Rome.

LUCRETIA:

O, not to Rome! Indeed we are not guilty. _110

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, _115

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 _120

To the redress of an unwonted crime,

Make ye the victims who demanded it

Culprits? 'Tis ye are culprits! That poor wretch

Who stands so pale, and trembling, and amazed,

If it be true he murdered Cenci, was _125

A sword in the right hand of justest God.

Wherefore should I have wielded it? Unless

The crimes which mortal tongue dare never name

God therefore scruples to avenge.

SAVELLA:

You own

That you desired his death?

BEATRICE:

It would have been _130

A crime no less than his, if for one moment

That fierce desire had faded in my heart.

'Tis true I did believe, and hope, and pray,

Ay, I even knew...for God is wise and just,

That some strange sudden death hung over him. _135

'Tis true that this did happen, and most true

There was no other rest for me on earth,

No other hope in Heaven...now what of this?

SAVELLA:

Strange thoughts beget strange deeds; and here are both:

I judge thee not.

BEATRICE:

And yet, if you arrest me, _140

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 _145

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 _150

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: _155

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 _160

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, _165

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 _170

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! _175

[SHE FAINTS, AND IS BORNE OUT.]

SAVELLA:

She faints: an ill appearance this.

BEATRICE:

My Lord,

She knows not yet the uses of the world.

She fears that power is as a beast which grasps

And loosens not: a snake whose look transmutes

All things to guilt which is its nutriment. _180

She cannot know how well the supine slaves

Of blind authority read the truth of things

When written on a brow of guilelessness:

She sees not yet triumphant Innocence

Stand at the judgement-seat of mortal man, _185

A judge and an accuser of the wrong

Which drags it there. Prepare yourself, my Lord;

Our suite will join yours in the court below.

[EXEUNT.]

END OF ACT 4.

ACT 5.

SCENE 5.1:

AN APARTMENT IN ORSINO'S PALACE.

ENTER ORSINO AND GIACOMO.

GIACOMO:

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 _5

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, _10

To kill an old and hoary-headed father.

ORSINO:

It has turned out unluckily, in truth.

GIACOMO:

To violate the sacred doors of sleep;

To cheat kind Nature of the placid death

Which she prepares for overwearied age; _15

To drag from Heaven an unrepentant soul

Which might have quenched in reconciling prayers

A life of burning crimes...

ORSINO:

You cannot say

I urged you to the deed.

GIACOMO:

O, had I never

Found in thy smooth and ready countenance _20

The mirror of my darkest thoughts; hadst thou

Never with hints and questions made me look

Upon the monster of my thought, until

It grew familiar to desire...

ORSINO:

'Tis thus

Men cast the blame of their unprosperous acts _25

Upon the abettors of their own resolve;

Or anything but their weak, guilty selves.

And yet, confess the truth, it is the peril

In which you stand that gives you this pale sickness

Of penitence; confess 'tis fear disguised _30

From its own shame that takes the mantle now

Of thin remorse. What if we yet were safe?

GIACOMO:

How can that be? Already Beatrice,

Lucretia and the murderer are in prison.

I doubt not officers are, whilst we speak, _35

Sent to arrest us.

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 _40

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; _45

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, _50

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 _55

Disdains to brand thee with.

ORSINO:

Put up your weapon.

Is it the desperation of your fear

Makes you thus rash and sudden with a friend,

Now ruined for your sake? If honest anger

Have moved you, know, that what I just proposed _60

Was but to try you. As for me, I think,

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: _65

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.

NOTE:

_58 a friend edition 1821; your friend edition 1839.

GIACOMO:

O, generous friend! How canst thou pardon me? _70

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 _75

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 _80

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, wrapped in a vile disguise; _85

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, _90

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, _95

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; _100

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?

[EXIT.]

SCENE 5.2:

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; _5

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 lover's talk with it _10

Till it wind out your life and soul? Away!

MARZIO:

Spare me! O, spare! I will confess.

FIRST JUDGE:

Then speak.

MARZIO:

I strangled him in his sleep.

FIRST JUDGE:

Who urged you to it?

MARZIO:

His own son Giacomo, and the young prelate

Orsino sent me to Petrella; there _15

The ladies Beatrice and Lucretia

Tempted me with a thousand crowns, and I

And my companion forthwith murdered him.

Now let me die.

FIRST JUDGE:

This sounds as bad as truth. Guards, there,

Lead forth the prisoner!

[ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]

Look upon this man; _20

When did you see him last?

BEATRICE:

We never saw him.

MARZIO:

You know me too well, Lady Beatrice.

BEATRICE:

I know thee! How? where? when?

MARZIO:

You know 'twas I

Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes

To kill your father. When the thing was done _25

You clothed me in a robe of woven gold

And bade me thrive: how I have thriven, you see.

You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia,

You know that what I speak is true.

[BEATRICE ADVANCES TOWARDS HIM;

HE COVERS HIS FACE, AND SHRINKS BACK.]

Oh, dart

The terrible resentment of those eyes _30

On the dead 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, _35

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 _40

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 _45

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 lodestar of your life:'--and though _50

All see, since his most swift and piteous death,

That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,

And all the things hoped for or done therein

Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief,

Yet you would say, 'I confess anything:' _55

And beg from your tormentors, like that slave,

The refuge of dishonourable death.

I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert

My innocence.

CAMILLO [MUCH MOVED]:

What shall we think, my Lords?

Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen _60

Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul

That she is guiltless.

JUDGE:

Yet she must be tortured.

CAMILLO:

I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew

(If he now lived he would be just her age;

His hair, too, was her colour, and his eyes _65

Like hers in shape, but blue and not so deep)

As that most perfect image of God's love

That ever came sorrowing upon the earth.

She is as pure as speechless infancy!

JUDGE:

Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord, _70

If you forbid the rack. His Holiness

Enjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime

By the severest forms of law; nay even

To stretch a point against the criminals.

The prisoners stand accused of parricide _75

Upon such evidence as justifies

Torture.

BEATRICE:

What evidence? This man's?

JUDGE:

Even so.

BEATRICE [TO MARZIO]:

Come near. And who art thou thus chosen forth

Out of the multitude of living men

To kill the innocent?

MARZIO:

I am Marzio, _80

Thy father's vassal.

BEATRICE:

Fix thine eyes on mine;

Answer to what I ask.

[TURNING TO THE JUDGES.]

I prithee mark

His countenance: unlike bold calumny

Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks,

He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends _85

His gaze on the blind earth.

[TO MARZIO.]

What! wilt thou say

That I did murder my own father?

MARZIO:

Oh!

Spare me! My brain swims round...I cannot speak...

It was that horrid torture forced the truth.

Take me away! Let her not look on me! _90

I am a guilty miserable wretch;

I have said all I know; now, let me die!

BEATRICE:

My Lords, if by my nature I had been

So stern, as to have planned the crime alleged,

Which your suspicions dictate to this slave, _95

And the rack makes him utter, do you think

I should have left this two-edged instrument

Of my misdeed; this man, this bloody knife

With my own name engraven on the heft,

Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes, _100

For my own death? That with such horrible need

For deepest silence, I should have neglected

So trivial a precaution, as the making

His tomb the keeper of a secret written

On a thief's memory? What is his poor life? _105

What are a thousand lives? A parricide

Had trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives!

[TURNING TO MARZIO.]

And thou...

MARZIO:

Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more!

That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones,

Wound worse than torture.

[TO THE JUDGES.]

I have told it all; _110

For pity's sake lead me away to death.

CAMILLO:

Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice;

He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf

From the keen breath of the serenest north.

BEATRICE:

O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge _115

Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me;

So mayst thou answer God with less dismay:

What evil have we done thee? I, alas!

Have lived but on this earth a few sad years,

And so my lot was ordered, that a father _120

First turned the moments of awakening life

To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then

Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul;

And my untainted fame; and even that peace

Which sleeps within the core of the heart's heart; _125

But the wound was not mortal; so my hate

Became the only worship I could lift

To our great father, who in pity and love,

Armed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off;

And thus his wrong becomes my accusation; _130

And art thou the accuser? If thou hopest

Mercy in heaven, show justice upon earth:

Worse than a bloody hand is a hard heart.

If thou hast done murders, made thy life's path

Over the trampled laws of God and man, _135

Rush not before thy Judge, and say: 'My maker,

I have done this and more; for there was one

Who was most pure and innocent on earth;

And because she endured what never any

Guilty or innocent endured before: _140

Because her wrongs could not be told, not thought;

Because thy hand at length did rescue her;

I with my words killed her and all her kin.'

Think, I adjure you, what it is to slay

The reverence living in the minds of men _145

Towards our ancient house, and stainless fame!

Think what it is to strangle infant pity,

Cradled in the belief of guileless looks,

Till it become a crime to suffer. Think

What 'tis to blot with infamy and blood _150

All that which shows like innocence, and is,

Hear me, great God! I swear, most innocent,

So that the world lose all discrimination

Between the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt,

And that which now compels thee to reply _155

To what I ask: Am I, or am I not

A parricide?

MARZIO:

Thou art not!

JUDGE:

What is this?

MARZIO:

I here declare those whom I did accuse

Are innocent. 'Tis I alone am guilty.

JUDGE:

Drag him away to torments; let them be _160

Subtle and long drawn out, to tear the folds

Of the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him not

Till he confess.

MARZIO:

Torture me as ye will:

A keener pang has wrung a higher truth

From my last breath. She is most innocent! _165

Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me;

I will not give you that fine piece of nature

To rend and ruin.

NOTE:

_164 pang edition 1821; pain editions 1819, 1839.

[EXIT MARZIO, GUARDED.]

CAMILLO:

What say ye now, my Lords?

JUDGE:

Let tortures strain the truth till it be white

As snow thrice sifted by the frozen wind. _170

CAMILLO:

Yet stained with blood.

JUDGE [TO BEATRICE]:

Know you this paper, Lady?

BEATRICE:

Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here

As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he,

Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge,

What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name; _175

Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.

What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what,

And therefore on the chance that it may be

Some evil, will ye kill us?

[ENTER AN OFFICER.]

OFFICER:

Marzio's dead.

JUDGE:

What did he say?

OFFICER:

Nothing. As soon as we _180

Had bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us,

As one who baffles a deep adversary;

And holding his breath, died.

JUDGE:

There remains nothing

But to apply the question to those prisoners,

Who yet remain stubborn.

CAMILLO:

I overrule _185

Further proceedings, and in the behalf

Of these most innocent and noble persons

Will use my interest with the Holy Father.

JUDGE:

Let the Pope's pleasure then be done. Meanwhile

Conduct these culprits each to separate cells; _190

And be the engines ready; for this night

If the Pope's resolution be as grave,

Pious, and just as once, I'll wring the truth

Out of those nerves and sinews, groan by groan.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 5.3:

THE CELL OF A PRISON.

BEATRICE IS DISCOVERED ASLEEP ON A COUCH.

ENTER BERNARDO.

BERNARDO:

How gently slumber rests upon her face,

Like the last thoughts of some day sweetly spent

Closing in night and dreams, and so prolonged.

After such torments as she bore last night,

How light and soft her breathing comes. Ay me! _5

Methinks that I shall never sleep again.

But I must shake the heavenly dew of rest

From this sweet folded flower, thus...wake, awake!

What, sister, canst thou sleep?

BEATRICE [AWAKING]:

I was just dreaming

That we were all in Paradise. Thou knowest _10

This cell seems like a kind of Paradise

After our father's presence.

BERNARDO:

Dear, dear sister,

Would that thy dream were not a dream! O God!

How shall I tell?

BEATRICE:

What wouldst thou tell, sweet brother?

BERNARDO:

Look not so calm and happy, or even whilst _15

I stand considering what I have to say

My heart will break.

BEATRICE:

See now, thou mak'st me weep:

How very friendless thou wouldst be, dear child,

If I were dead. Say what thou hast to say.

BERNARDO:

They have confessed; they could endure no more _20

The tortures...

BEATRICE:

Ha! What was there to confess?

They must have told some weak and wicked lie

To flatter their tormentors. Have they said

That they were guilty? O white innocence,

That thou shouldst wear the mask of guilt to hide _25

Thine awful and serenest countenance

From those who know thee not!

[ENTER JUDGE WITH LUCRETIA AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]

Ignoble hearts!

For some brief spasms of pain, which are at least

As mortal as the limbs through which they pass,

Are centuries of high splendour laid in dust? _30

And that eternal honour which should live

Sunlike, above the reek of mortal fame,

Changed to a mockery and a byword? What!

Will you give up these bodies to be dragged

At horses' heels, so that our hair should sweep _35

The footsteps of the vain and senseless crowd,

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 _40

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, _45

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. _50

'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.

LUCRETIA:

Oh, speak the truth! Let us all quickly die; _55

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

He will have mercy on us.

BERNARDO:

If indeed

It can be true, say so, dear sister mine;

And then the Pope will surely pardon you,

And all be well.

JUDGE:

Confess, or I will warp _60

Your limbs with such keen tortures...

BEATRICE:

Tortures! Turn

The rack henceforth into a spinning-wheel!

Torture your dog, that he may tell when last

He lapped the blood his master shed...not me!

My pangs are of the mind, and of the heart, _65

And of the soul; ay, of the inmost soul,

Which weeps within tears as of burning gall

To see, in this ill world where none are true,

My kindred false to their deserted selves.

And with considering all the wretched life _70

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 _75

My answer. What is it thou wouldst with me?

JUDGE:

Art thou not guilty of thy father's death?

BEATRICE:

Or wilt thou rather tax high-judging God

That He permitted such an act as that

Which I have suffered, and which He beheld; _80

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; _85

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. _90

Be it enough. Until their final sentence

Let none have converse with them. You, young Lord,

Linger not here!

BEATRICE:

Oh, tear him not away!

JUDGE:

Guards! do your duty.

BERNARDO [EMBRACING BEATRICE]:

Oh! would ye divide

Body from soul?

OFFICER:

That is the headsman's business. _95

[EXEUNT ALL BUT LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, AND GIACOMO.]

GIACOMO:

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; _100

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, _105

When their full hearts break thus, thus!...

[COVERS HIS FACE AND WEEPS.]

LUCRETIA:

O my child!

To what a dreadful end are we all come!

Why did I yield? Why did I not sustain

Those torments? Oh, that I were all dissolved

Into these fast and unavailing tears, _110

Which flow and feel not!

BEATRICE:

What 'twas 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 us. _115

Let us not think that we shall die for this.

Brother, sit near me; give me your firm hand,

You had a manly heart. Bear up! Bear up!

O dearest Lady, put your gentle head

Upon my lap, and try to sleep awhile: _120

Your eyes look pale, hollow, and overworn,

With heaviness of watching and slow grief.

Come, I will sing you some low, sleepy tune,

Not cheerful, nor yet sad; some dull old thing,

Some outworn and unused monotony, _125

Such as our country gossips sing and spin,

Till they almost forget they live: lie down!

So, that will do. Have I forgot the words?

Faith! They are sadder than I thought they were.

SONG:

False friend, wilt thou smile or weep _130

When my life is laid asleep?

Little cares for a smile or a tear,

The clay-cold corpse upon the bier!

Farewell! Heighho!

What is this whispers low? _135

There is a snake in thy smile, my dear;

And bitter poison within thy tear.

Sweet sleep, were death like to thee,

Or if thou couldst mortal be,

I would close these eyes of pain; _140

When to wake? Never again.

O World! Farewell!

Listen to the passing bell!

It says, thou and I must part,

With a light and a heavy heart. _145

[THE SCENE CLOSES.]

SCENE 5.4:

A HALL OF THE PRISON.

ENTER CAMILLO AND BERNARDO.

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. _5

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 _10

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

Dost this in virtue of thy place; 'tis well.'

He turned to me then, looking deprecation,

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

BERNARDO:

And yet you left him not?

CAMILLO:

I urged him still; _15

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 _20

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; _25

Here is their sentence; never see me more

Till, to the letter, it be all fulfilled.'

BERNARDO:

O God, not so! I did believe indeed

That all you said was but sad preparation

For happy news. Oh, there are words and looks _30

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 _35

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! _40

Oh, wait till I return!

[RUSHES OUT.]

CAMILLO:

Alas, poor boy!

A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray

To the deaf sea.

[ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]

BEATRICE:

I hardly dare to fear

That thou bring'st other news than a just pardon.

CAMILLO:

May God in heaven be less inexorable _45

To the Pope's prayers than he has been to mine.

Here is the sentence and the warrant.

BEATRICE [WILDLY]:

O

My God! Can it be possible I have

To die so suddenly? So young to go

Under the obscure, cold, rotting, wormy ground! _50

To be nailed down into a narrow place;

To see no more sweet sunshine; hear no more

Blithe voice of living thing; muse not again

Upon familiar thoughts, sad, yet thus lost--

How fearful! to be nothing! Or to be... _55

What? Oh, where am I? Let me not go mad!

Sweet Heaven, forgive weak thoughts! If there should be

No God, no Heaven, no Earth in the void world;

The wide, gray, lampless, deep, unpeopled world!

If all things then should be...my father's spirit, _60

His eye, his voice, his touch surrounding me;

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 gray hairs and wrinkles, he should come _65

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 though dead,

Does not his spirit live in all that breathe, _70

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 now,

Oh, whither, whither?

LUCRETIA:

Trust in God's sweet love, _75

The tender promises of Christ: ere night,

Think, we shall be in Paradise.

BEATRICE:

'Tis past!

Whatever comes, my heart shall sink no more.

And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill:

How tedious, false, and cold seem all things. I _80

Have met with much injustice in this world;

No difference has been made by God or man,

Or any power moulding my wretched lot,

'Twixt good or evil, as regarded me.

I am cut off from the only world I know, _85

From light, and life, and love, in youth's sweet prime.

You do well telling me to trust in God;

I hope I do trust in him. In whom else

Can any trust? And yet my heart is cold.

[DURING THE LATTER SPEECHES GIACOMO HAS RETIRED CONVERSING WITH

CAMILLO, WHO NOW GOES OUT;

GIACOMO ADVANCES.]

GIACOMO:

Know you not, Mother...Sister, know you not? _90

Bernardo even now is gone to implore

The Pope to grant our pardon.

LUCRETIA:

Child, perhaps

It will be granted. We may all then live

To make these woes a tale for distant years:

Oh, what a thought! It gushes to my heart _95

Like the warm blood.

BEATRICE:

Yet both will soon be cold.

Oh, trample out that thought! Worse than despair,

Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope:

It is the only ill which can find place

Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour _100

Tottering beneath us. Plead with the swift frost

That it should spare the eldest flower of spring:

Plead with awakening earthquake, o'er whose couch

Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free;

Now stench and blackness yawn, like death. Oh, plead _105

With famine, or wind-walking Pestilence,

Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man!

Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words,

In deeds a Cain. No, Mother, we must die:

Since such is the reward of innocent lives; _110

Such the alleviation of worst wrongs.

And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men,

Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears

To death as to life's sleep; 'twere just the grave

Were some strange joy for us. Come, obscure Death, _115

And wind me in thine all-embracing arms!

Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom,

And rock me to the sleep from which none wake.

Live ye, who live, subject to one another

As we were once, who now...

NOTE:

_105 yawn edition 1821; yawns editions 1819, 1839.

[BERNARDO RUSHES IN.]

BERNARDO:

Oh, horrible! _120

That tears, that looks, that hope poured forth in prayer,

Even till the heart is vacant and despairs,

Should all be vain! The ministers of death

Are waiting round the doors. I thought I saw

Blood on the face of one...What if 'twere fancy? _125

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

Will sprinkle him, and he will wipe it off

As if 'twere only rain. O life! O world!

Cover me! let me be no more! To see

That perfect mirror of pure innocence _130

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, _135

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! Oh, let me hear _140

You speak!

NOTE:

_136 was as a Rossetti cj.; was a editions 1819, 1821, 1839.

BEATRICE:

Farewell, my tender brother. Think

Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now:

And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee

Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,

But tears and patience. One thing more, my child: _145

For thine own sake be constant to the love

Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I,

Though wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,

Lived ever holy and unstained. And though

Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name _150

Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow

For men to point at as they pass, do thou

Forbear, and never think a thought unkind

Of those, who perhaps love thee in their graves.

So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain _155

Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!

BERNARDO:

I cannot say, farewell!

CAMILLO:

Oh, Lady Beatrice!

BEATRICE:

Give yourself no unnecessary pain,

My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie

My girdle for me, and bind up this hair _160

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, 'tis very well. _165

THE END.

NOTE ON THE CENCI, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

The sort of mistake that Shelley made as to the extent of his own

genius and powers, which led him deviously at first, but lastly into

the direct track that enabled him fully to develop them, is a curious

instance of his modesty of feeling, and of the methods which the human

mind uses at once to deceive itself, and yet, in its very delusion, to

make its way out of error into the path which Nature has marked out as

its right one. He often incited me to attempt the writing a tragedy:

he conceived that I possessed some dramatic talent, and he was always

most earnest and energetic in his exhortations that I should cultivate

any talent I possessed, to the utmost. I entertained a truer estimate

of my powers; and above all (though at that time not exactly aware of

the fact) I was far too young to have any chance of succeeding, even

moderately, in a species of composition that requires a greater scope

of experience in, and sympathy with, human passion than could then

have fallen to my lot,--or than any perhaps, except Shelley, ever

possessed, even at the age of twenty-six, at which he wrote The Cenci.

On the other hand, Shelley most erroneously conceived himself to be

destitute of this talent. He believed that one of the first requisites

was the capacity of forming and following-up a story or plot. He

fancied himself to he defective in this portion of imagination: it was

that which gave him least pleasure in the writings of others, though

he laid great store by it as the proper framework to support the

sublimest efforts of poetry. He asserted that he was too metaphysical

and abstract, too fond of the theoretical and the ideal, to succeed as

a tragedian. It perhaps is not strange that I shared this opinion with

himself; for he had hitherto shown no inclination for, nor given any

specimen of his powers in framing and supporting the interest of a

story, either in prose or verse. Once or twice, when he attempted

such, he had speedily thrown it aside, as being even disagreeable to

him as an occupation.

The subject he had suggested for a tragedy was Charles I: and he had

written to me: 'Remember, remember Charles I. I have been already

imagining how you would conduct some scenes. The second volume of "St.

Leon" begins with this proud and true sentiment: "There is nothing

which the human mind can conceive which it may not execute."

Shakespeare was only a human being.' These words were written in 1818,

while we were in Lombardy, when he little thought how soon a work of

his own would prove a proud comment on the passage he quoted. When in

Rome, in 1819, a friend put into our hands the old manuscript account

of the story of the Cenci. We visited the Colonna and Doria palaces,

where the portraits of Beatrice were to be found; and her beauty cast

the reflection of its own grace over her appalling story. Shelley's

imagination became strongly excited, and he urged the subject to me as

one fitted for a tragedy. More than ever I felt my incompetence; but I

entreated him to write it instead; and he began, and proceeded

swiftly, urged on by intense sympathy with the sufferings of the human

beings whose passions, so long cold in the tomb, he revived, and

gifted with poetic language. This tragedy is the only one of his works

that he communicated to me during its progress. We talked over the

arrangement of the scenes together. I speedily saw the great mistake

we had made, and triumphed in the discovery of the new talent brought

to light from that mine of wealth (never, alas, through his untimely

death, worked to its depths)--his richly gifted mind.

We suffered a severe affliction in Rome by the loss of our eldest

child, who was of such beauty and promise as to cause him deservedly

to be the idol of our hearts. We left the capital of the world,

anxious for a time to escape a spot associated too intimately with his

presence and loss. (Such feelings haunted him when, in "The Cenci", he

makes Beatrice speak to Cardinal Camillo of

'that fair blue-eyed child

Who was the lodestar of your life:'--and say--

All see, since his most swift and piteous death,

That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time,

And all the things hoped for or done therein

Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief.')

Some friends of ours were residing in the neighbourhood of Leghorn,

and we took a small house, Villa Valsovano, about half-way between the

town and Monte Nero, where we remained during the summer. Our villa

was situated in the midst of a podere; the peasants sang as they

worked beneath our windows, during the heats of a very hot season, and

in the evening the water-wheel creaked as the process of irrigation

went on, and the fireflies flashed from among the myrtle hedges:

Nature was bright, sunshiny, and cheerful, or diversified by storms of

a majestic terror, such as we had never before witnessed.

At the top of the house there was a sort of terrace. There is often

such in Italy, generally roofed: this one was very small, yet not only

roofed but glazed. This Shelley made his study; it looked out on a

wide prospect of fertile country, and commanded a view of the near

sea. The storms that sometimes varied our day showed themselves most

picturesquely as they were driven across the ocean; sometimes the dark

lurid clouds dipped towards the waves, and became water-spouts that

churned up the waters beneath, as they were chased onward and

scattered by the tempest. At other times the dazzling sunlight and

heat made it almost intolerable to every other; but Shelley basked in

both, and his health and spirits revived under their influence. In

this airy cell he wrote the principal part of "The Cenci". He was

making a study of Calderon at the time, reading his best tragedies

with an accomplished lady living near us, to whom his letter from

Leghorn was addressed during the following year. He admired Calderon,

both for his poetry and his dramatic genius; but it shows his

judgement and originality that, though greatly struck by his first

acquaintance with the Spanish poet, none of his peculiarities crept

into the composition of "The Cenci"; and there is no trace of his new

studies, except in that passage to which he himself alludes as

suggested by one in "El Purgatorio de San Patricio".

Shelley wished "The Cenci" to be acted. He was not a playgoer, being

of such fastidious taste that he was easily disgusted by the bad

filling-up of the inferior parts. While preparing for our departure

from England, however, he saw Miss O'Neil several times. She was then

in the zenith of her glory; and Shelley was deeply moved by her

impersonation of several parts, and by the graceful sweetness, the

intense pathos, the sublime vehemence of passion she displayed. She

was often in his thoughts as he wrote: and, when he had finished, he

became anxious that his tragedy should be acted, and receive the

advantage of having this accomplished actress to fill the part of the

heroine. With this view he wrote the following letter to a friend in

London:

'The object of the present letter us to ask a favour of you. I have

written a tragedy on a story well known in Italy, and, in my

conception, eminently dramatic. I have taken some pains to make my

play fit for representation, and those who have already seen it judge

favourably. It is written without any of the peculiar feelings and

opinions which characterize my other compositions; I have attended

simply to the impartial development of such characters as it is

probable the persons represented really were, together with the

greatest degree of popular effect to be produced by such a

development. I send you a translation of the Italian manuscript on

which my play is founded; the chief circumstance of which I have

touched very delicately; for my principal doubt as to whether it would

succeed as an acting play hangs entirely on the question as to whether

any such a thing as incest in this shape, however treated, would be

admitted on the stage. I think, however, it will form no objection;

considering, first, that the facts are matter of history, and,

secondly, the peculiar delicacy with which I have treated it. (In

speaking of his mode of treating this main incident, Shelley said that

it might be remarked that, in the course of the play, he had never

mentioned expressly Cenci's worst crime. Every one knew what it must

be, but it was never imaged in words--the nearest allusion to it being

that portion of Cenci's curse beginning--

"That, if she have a child," etc.)

'I am exceedingly interested in the question of whether this attempt

of mine will succeed or not. I am strongly inclined to the affirmative

at present; founding my hopes on this--that, as a composition, it is

certainly not inferior to any of the modern plays that have been

acted, with the exception of "Remorse"; that the interest of the plot

is incredibly greater and more real; and that there is nothing beyond

what the multitude are contented to believe that they can understand,

either in imagery, opinion, or sentiment. I wish to preserve a

complete incognito, and can trust to you that, whatever else you do,

you will at least favour me on this point. Indeed, this is essential,

deeply essential, to its success. After it had been acted, and

successfully (could I hope for such a thing), I would own it if I

pleased, and use the celebrity it might acquire to my own purposes.

'What I want you to do is to procure for me its presentation at Covent

Garden. The principal character, Beatrice, is precisely fitted for

Miss O'Neil, and it might even seem to have been written for her (God

forbid that I should see her play it--it would tear my nerves to

pieces); and in all respects it is fitted only for Covent Garden. The

chief male character I confess I should be very unwilling that any one

but Kean should play. That is impossible, and I must be contented with

an inferior actor.'

The play was accordingly sent to Mr. Harris. He pronounced the subject

to be so objectionable that he could not even submit the part to Miss

O'Neil for perusal, but expressed his desire that the author would

write a tragedy on some other subject, which he would gladly accept.

Shelley printed a small edition at Leghorn, to ensure its correctness;

as he was much annoyed by the many mistakes that crept into his text

when distance prevented him from correcting the press.

Universal approbation soon stamped "The Cenci" as the best tragedy of

modern times. Writing concerning it, Shelley said: 'I have been

cautious to avoid the introducing faults of youthful composition;

diffuseness, a profusion of inapplicable imagery, vagueness,

generality, and, as Hamlet says, "words, words".' There is nothing

that is not purely dramatic throughout; and the character of Beatrice,

proceeding, from vehement struggle, to horror, to deadly resolution,

and lastly to the elevated dignity of calm suffering, joined to

passionate tenderness and pathos, is touched with hues so vivid and so

beautiful that the poet seems to have read intimately the secrets of

the noble heart imaged in the lovely countenance of the unfortunate

girl. The Fifth Act is a masterpiece. It is the finest thing he ever

wrote, and may claim proud comparison not only with any contemporary,

but preceding, poet. The varying feelings of Beatrice are expressed

with passionate, heart-reaching eloquence. Every character has a voice

that echoes truth in its tones. It is curious, to one acquainted with

the written story, to mark the success with which the poet has inwoven

the real incidents of the tragedy into his scenes, and yet, through

the power of poetry, has obliterated all that would otherwise have

shown too harsh or too hideous in the picture. His success was a

double triumph; and often after he was earnestly entreated to write

again in a style that commanded popular favour, while it was not less

instinct with truth and genius. But the bent of his mind went the

other way; and, even when employed on subjects whose interest depended

on character and incident, he would start off in another direction,

and leave the delineations of human passion, which he could depict in

so able a manner, for fantastic creations of his fancy, or the

expression of those opinions and sentiments, with regard to human

nature and its destiny, a desire to diffuse which was the master

passion of his soul.

***

THE MASK OF ANARCHY.

WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MASSACRE AT MANCHESTER.

[Composed at the Villa Valsovano near Leghorn--or possibly later,

during Shelley's sojourn at Florence--in the autumn of 1819, shortly

after the Peterloo riot at Manchester, August 16; edited with Preface

by Leigh Hunt, and published under the poet's name by Edward Moxon,

1832 (Bradbury & Evans, printers). Two manuscripts are extant: a

transcript by Mrs. Shelley with Shelley's autograph corrections, known

as the 'Hunt manuscript'; and an earlier draft, not quite complete, in

the poet's handwriting, presented by Mrs. Shelley to (Sir) John

Bowring in 1826, and now in the possession of Mr. Thomas J. Wise (the

'Wise manuscript'). Mrs. Shelley's copy was sent to Leigh Hunt in 1819

with view to its publication in "The Examiner"; hence the name 'Hunt

manuscript.' A facsimile of the Wise manuscript was published by the

Shelley Society in 1887. Sources of the text are (1) the Hunt

manuscript; (2) the Wise manuscript; (3) the editio princeps, editor

Leigh Hunt, 1832; (4) Mrs. Shelley's two editions ("Poetical Works")

of 1839. Of the two manuscripts Mrs. Shelley's transcript is the later

and more authoritative.]

1.

As I lay asleep in Italy

There came a voice from over the Sea,

And with great power it forth led me

To walk in the visions of Poesy.

2.

I met Murder on the way-- _5

He had a mask like Castlereagh--

Very smooth he looked, yet grim;

Seven blood-hounds followed him:

3.

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight, _10

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew

Which from his wide cloak he drew.

4.

Next came Fraud, and he had on,

Like Eldon, an ermined gown; _15

His big tears, for he wept well,

Turned to mill-stones as they fell.

5.

And the little children, who

Round his feet played to and fro,

Thinking every tear a gem, _20

Had their brains knocked out by them.

6.

Clothed with the Bible, as with light,

And the shadows of the night,

Like Sidmouth, next, Hypocrisy

On a crocodile rode by. _25

7.

And many more Destructions played

In this ghastly masquerade,

All disguised, even to the eyes,

Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.

8.

Last came Anarchy: he rode _30

On a white horse, splashed with blood;

He was pale even to the lips,

Like Death in the Apocalypse.

9.

And he wore a kingly crown;

And in his grasp a sceptre shone; _35

On his brow this mark I saw--

'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!'

10.

With a pace stately and fast,

Over English land he passed,

Trampling to a mire of blood _40

The adoring multitude.

11.

And a mighty troop around,

With their trampling shook the ground,

Waving each a bloody sword,

For the service of their Lord. _45

12.

And with glorious triumph, they

Rode through England proud and gay,

Drunk as with intoxication

Of the wine of desolation.

13.

O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea, _50

Passed the Pageant swift and free,

Tearing up, and trampling down;

Till they came to London town.

14.

And each dweller, panic-stricken,

Felt his heart with terror sicken _55

Hearing the tempestuous cry

Of the triumph of Anarchy.

15.

For with pomp to meet him came,

Clothed in arms like blood and flame,

The hired murderers, who did sing _60

'Thou art God, and Law, and King.

16.

'We have waited, weak and lone

For thy coming, Mighty One!

Our purses are empty, our swords are cold,

Give us glory, and blood, and gold.' _65

17.

Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,

To the earth their pale brows bowed;

Like a bad prayer not over loud,

Whispering--'Thou art Law and God.'--

18.

Then all cried with one accord, _70

'Thou art King, and God, and Lord;

Anarchy, to thee we bow,

Be thy name made holy now!'

19.

And Anarchy, the Skeleton,

Bowed and grinned to every one, _75

As well as if his education

Had cost ten millions to the nation.

20.

For he knew the Palaces

Of our Kings were rightly his;

His the sceptre, crown, and globe, _80

And the gold-inwoven robe.

21.

So he sent his slaves before

To seize upon the Bank and Tower,

And was proceeding with intent

To meet his pensioned Parliament _85

22.

When one fled past, a maniac maid,

And her name was Hope, she said:

But she looked more like Despair,

And she cried out in the air:

23.

'My father Time is weak and gray _90

With waiting for a better day;

See how idiot-like he stands,

Fumbling with his palsied hands!

24.

'He has had child after child,

And the dust of death is piled _95

Over every one but me--

Misery, oh, Misery!'

25.

Then she lay down in the street,

Right before the horses' feet,

Expecting, with a patient eye, _100

Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy.

26.

When between her and her foes

A mist, a light, an image rose,

Small at first, and weak, and frail

Like the vapour of a vale: _105

27.

Till as clouds grow on the blast,

Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,

And glare with lightnings as they fly,

And speak in thunder to the sky,

28.

It grew--a Shape arrayed in mail _110

Brighter than the viper's scale,

And upborne on wings whose grain

Was as the light of sunny rain.

29.

On its helm, seen far away,

A planet, like the Morning's, lay; _115

And those plumes its light rained through

Like a shower of crimson dew.

30.

With step as soft as wind it passed

O'er the heads of men--so fast

That they knew the presence there, _120

And looked,--but all was empty air.

31.

As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,

As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,

As waves arise when loud winds call,

Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall. _125

32.

And the prostrate multitude

Looked--and ankle-deep in blood,

Hope, that maiden most serene,

Was walking with a quiet mien:

33.

And Anarchy, the ghastly birth, _130

Lay dead earth upon the earth;

The Horse of Death tameless as wind

Fled, and with his hoofs did grind

To dust the murderers thronged behind.

34.

A rushing light of clouds and splendour, _135

A sense awakening and yet tender

Was heard and felt--and at its close

These words of joy and fear arose

35.

As if their own indignant Earth

Which gave the sons of England birth _140

Had felt their blood upon her brow,

And shuddering with a mother's throe

36.

Had turned every drop of blood

By which her face had been bedewed

To an accent unwithstood,-- _145

As if her heart had cried aloud:

37.

'Men of England, heirs of Glory,

Heroes of unwritten story,

Nurslings of one mighty Mother,

Hopes of her, and one another; _150

38.

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number,

Shake your chains to earth like dew

Which in sleep had fallen on you--

Ye are many--they are few. _155

39.

'What is Freedom?--ye can tell

That which slavery is, too well--

For its very name has grown

To an echo of your own.

40.

''Tis to work and have such pay _160

As just keeps life from day to day

In your limbs, as in a cell

For the tyrants' use to dwell,

41.

'So that ye for them are made

Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade, _165

With or without your own will bent

To their defence and nourishment.

42.

''Tis to see your children weak

With their mothers pine and peak,

When the winter winds are bleak,-- _170

They are dying whilst I speak.

43.

''Tis to hunger for such diet

As the rich man in his riot

Casts to the fat dogs that lie

Surfeiting beneath his eye; _175

44.

''Tis to let the Ghost of Gold

Take from Toil a thousandfold

More than e'er its substance could

In the tyrannies of old.

45.

'Paper coin--that forgery _180

Of the title-deeds, which ye

Hold to something of the worth

Of the inheritance of Earth.

46.

''Tis to be a slave in soul

And to hold no strong control _185

Over your own wills, but be

All that others make of ye.

47.

'And at length when ye complain

With a murmur weak and vain

'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew _190

Ride over your wives and you

Blood is on the grass like dew.

48.

'Then it is to feel revenge

Fiercely thirsting to exchange

Blood for blood--and wrong for wrong-- _195

Do not thus when ye are strong.

49.

'Birds find rest, in narrow nest

When weary of their winged quest;

Beasts find fare, in woody lair

When storm and snow are in the air. _200

50.

'Asses, swine, have litter spread

And with fitting food are fed;

All things have a home but one--

Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!

51.

'This is Slavery--savage men, _205

Or wild beasts within a den

Would endure not as ye do--

But such ills they never knew.

52.

'What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves

Answer from their living graves _210

This demand--tyrants would flee

Like a dream's dim imagery:

53.

'Thou art not, as impostors say,

A shadow soon to pass away,

A superstition, and a name _215

Echoing from the cave of Fame.

54.

'For the labourer thou art bread,

And a comely table spread

From his daily labour come

In a neat and happy home. _220

55.

Thou art clothes, and fire, and food

For the trampled multitude--

No--in countries that are free

Such starvation cannot be

As in England now we see. _225

56.

'To the rich thou art a check,

When his foot is on the neck

Of his victim, thou dost make

That he treads upon a snake.

57.

Thou art Justice--ne'er for gold _230

May thy righteous laws be sold

As laws are in England--thou

Shield'st alike the high and low.

58.

'Thou art Wisdom--Freemen never

Dream that God will damn for ever _235

All who think those things untrue

Of which Priests make such ado.

59.

'Thou art Peace--never by thee

Would blood and treasure wasted be

As tyrants wasted them, when all _240

Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.

60.

'What if English toil and blood

Was poured forth, even as a flood?

It availed, Oh, Liberty,

To dim, but not extinguish thee. _245

61.

'Thou art Love--the rich have kissed

Thy feet, and like him following Christ,

Give their substance to the free

And through the rough world follow thee,

62.

'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make _250

War for thy beloved sake

On wealth, and war, and fraud--whence they

Drew the power which is their prey.

63.

'Science, Poetry, and Thought

Are thy lamps; they make the lot _255

Of the dwellers in a cot

So serene, they curse it not.

64.

'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,

All that can adorn and bless

Art thou--let deeds, not words, express _260

Thine exceeding loveliness.

65.

'Let a great Assembly be

Of the fearless and the free

On some spot of English ground

Where the plains stretch wide around. _265

66.

'Let the blue sky overhead,

The green earth on which ye tread,

All that must eternal be

Witness the solemnity.

67.

'From the corners uttermost _270

Of the bounds of English coast;

From every hut, village, and town

Where those who live and suffer moan

For others' misery or their own,

68.

'From the workhouse and the prison

Where pale as corpses newly risen,

Women, children, young and old _277

Groan for pain, and weep for cold--

69.

'From the haunts of daily life

Where is waged the daily strife _280

With common wants and common cares

Which sows the human heart with tares--

70.

'Lastly from the palaces

Where the murmur of distress

Echoes, like the distant sound _285

Of a wind alive around

71.

'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,

Where some few feel such compassion

For those who groan, and toil, and wail

As must make their brethren pale--

72.

'Ye who suffer woes untold, _291

Or to feel, or to behold

Your lost country bought and sold

With a price of blood and gold--

73.

'Let a vast assembly be, _295

And with great solemnity

Declare with measured words that ye

Are, as God has made ye, free--

74.

'Be your strong and simple words

Keen to wound as sharpened swords, _300

And wide as targes let them be,

With their shade to cover ye.

75.

'Let the tyrants pour around

With a quick and startling sound,

Like the loosening of a sea, _305

Troops of armed emblazonry.

76.

'Let the charged artillery drive

Till the dead air seems alive

With the clash of clanging wheels,

And the tramp of horses' heels. _310

77.

'Let the fixed bayonet

Gleam with sharp desire to wet

Its bright point in English blood

Looking keen as one for food.

78.

Let the horsemen's scimitars _315

Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars

Thirsting to eclipse their burning

In a sea of death and mourning.

79.

'Stand ye calm and resolute,

Like a forest close and mute, _320

With folded arms and looks which are

Weapons of unvanquished war,

80.

'And let Panic, who outspeeds

The career of armed steeds

Pass, a disregarded shade _325

Through your phalanx undismayed.

81.

'Let the laws of your own land,

Good or ill, between ye stand

Hand to hand, and foot to foot,

Arbiters of the dispute, _330

82.

'The old laws of England--they

Whose reverend heads with age are gray,

Children of a wiser day;

And whose solemn voice must be

Thine own echo--Liberty! _335

83.

'On those who first should violate

Such sacred heralds in their state

Rest the blood that must ensue,

And it will not rest on you.

84.

'And if then the tyrants dare _340

Let them ride among you there,

Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew,--

What they like, that let them do.

85.

'With folded arms and steady eyes,

And little fear, and less surprise, _345

Look upon them as they slay

Till their rage has died away.

86.

Then they will return with shame

To the place from which they came,

And the blood thus shed will speak _350

In hot blushes on their cheek.

87.

'Every woman in the land

Will point at them as they stand--

They will hardly dare to greet

Their acquaintance in the street. _355

88.

'And the bold, true warriors

Who have hugged Danger in wars

Will turn to those who would be free,

Ashamed of such base company.

89.

'And that slaughter to the Nation _360

Shall steam up like inspiration,

Eloquent, oracular;

A volcano heard afar.

90.

'And these words shall then become

Like Oppression's thundered doom _365

Ringing through each heart and brain,

Heard again--again--again--

91.

'Rise like Lions after slumber

In unvanquishable number--

Shake your chains to earth like dew _370

Which in sleep had fallen on you--

Ye are many--they are few.'

NOTES:

_15. Like Eldon Hunt manuscript; Like Lord Eldon Wise manuscript.

_15. ermined Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript edition 1832;

ermine editions 1839.

_23 shadows]shadow editions 1839 only.

_29 or]and Wise manuscript only.

_35 And in his grasp Hunt manuscript, edition 1882;

In his hand Wise manuscript,

Hunt manuscript cancelled, edition 1839.

_36 On his]And on his edition 1832 only.

_51 the Hunt manuscript, edition 1832; that Wise manuscript.

_56 tempestuous]tremendous editions 1839 only.

_58 For with pomp]For from... Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript.

_71 God]Law editions 1839 only.

_79 rightly Wise manuscript; nightly Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.

_93 Fumbling] Trembling editions 1839 only.

_105 a vale Hunt manuscript, Wise manuscript; the vale editions 1832, 1839.

_113 as]like editions 1839 only.

_116 its Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript; it editions 1832, 1839.

_121 but Wise MS; and Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.

_122 May's footstep Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;

the footstep edition 1832; May's footsteps editions 1839.

_132-4 omit Wise manuscript.

_146 had cried Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839;

cried out Wise manuscript.

_155 omit edition 1832 only.

_182 of]from Wise manuscript only.

_186 wills Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; will Wise manuscript.

_198 their Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;

the edition 1832.

_216 cave Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;

caves edition 1832, Hunt manuscript cancelled.

_220 In Wise manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; To Hunt manuscript.

(Note at stanza 49: The following stanza is found in the Wise

manuscript and in editions 1839, but is wanting in the Hunt manuscript

and in edition 1832:--

'Horses, oxen, have a home,

When from daily toil they come;

Household dogs, when the wind roars,

Find a home within warm doors.')

_233 the Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839; both Wise manuscript.

_234 Freemen Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;

Freedom edition 1832.

_235 Dream Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;

Dreams edition 1832. damn]doom editions 1839 only.

_248 Give Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;

Given Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript cancelled, editions 1839.

_249 follow]followed editions 1839 only.

_250 Or Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript; Oh editions 1832, 1839.

_254 Science, Poetry, Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;

Science, and Poetry editions 1832, 1839.

_257 So Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;

Such they curse their Maker not Wise manuscript, editions 1839.

_263 and]of edition 1832 only.

_274 or]and edition 1832 only.

(Note to end of stanza 67: The following stanza is found (cancelled)

at this place in the Wise manuscript:--

'From the cities where from caves,

Like the dead from putrid graves,

Troops of starvelings gliding come,

Living Tenants of a tomb.'

_282 sows Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript;

sow editions 1832, 1839.

_297 measured Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;

ne'er-said editions 1839.

_322 of unvanquished Wise manuscript;

of an unvanquished Hunt manuscript, editions 1832, 1839.

_346 slay Wise manuscript; Hunt manuscript, editions 1839;

stay edition 1832.

_357 in wars Wise manuscript, Hunt manuscript, edition 1832;

in the wars editions 1839.

NOTE ON THE MASK OF ANARCHY, BY MRS. SHELLEY.

Though Shelley's first eager desire to excite his countrymen to resist

openly the oppressions existent during 'the good old times' had faded

with early youth, still his warmest sympathies were for the people. He

was a republican, and loved a democracy. He looked on all human beings

as inheriting an equal right to possess the dearest privileges of our

nature; the necessaries of life when fairly earned by labour, and

intellectual instruction. His hatred of any despotism that looked upon

the people as not to be consulted, or protected from want and

ignorance, was intense. He was residing near Leghorn, at Villa

Valsovano, writing "The Cenci", when the news of the Manchester

Massacre reached us; it roused in him violent emotions of indignation

and compassion. The great truth that the many, if accordant and

resolute, could control the few, as was shown some years after, made

him long to teach his injured countrymen how to resist. Inspired by

these feelings, he wrote the "Mask of Anarchy", which he sent to his

friend Leigh Hunt, to be inserted in the Examiner, of which he was

then the Editor.

'I did not insert it,' Leigh Hunt writes in his valuable and

interesting preface to this poem, when he printed it in 1832, 'because

I thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently

discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the

spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse.' Days of outrage

have passed away, and with them the exasperation that would cause such

an appeal to the many to be injurious. Without being aware of them,

they at one time acted on his suggestions, and gained the day. But

they rose when human life was respected by the Minister in power; such

was not the case during the Administration which excited Shelley's

abhorrence.

The poem was written for the people, and is therefore in a more

popular tone than usual: portions strike as abrupt and unpolished, but

many stanzas are all his own. I heard him repeat, and admired, those

beginning

'My Father Time is old and gray,'

before I knew to what poem they were to belong. But the most touching

passage is that which describes the blessed effects of liberty; it

might make a patriot of any man whose heart was not wholly closed

against his humbler fellow-creatures.

***

PETER BELL THE THIRD.

BY MICHING MALLECHO, ESQ.

Is it a party in a parlour,

Crammed just as they on earth were crammed,

Some sipping punch--some sipping tea;

But, as you by their faces see,

All silent, and all--damned!

"Peter Bell", by W. WORDSWORTH.

OPHELIA.--What means this, my lord?

HAMLET.--Marry, this is Miching Mallecho; it means mischief.

SHAKESPEARE.

[Composed at Florence, October, 1819, and forwarded to Hunt (November

2) to be published by C. & J. Ollier without the author's name;

ultimately printed by Mrs. Shelley in the second edition of the

"Poetical Works", 1839. A skit by John Hamilton Reynolds, "Peter Bell,

a Lyrical Ballad", had already appeared (April, 1819), a few days

before the publication of Wordsworth's "Peter Bell, a Tale". These

productions were reviewed in Leigh Hunt's "Examiner" (April 26, May 3,

1819); and to the entertainment derived from his perusal of Hunt's

criticisms the composition of Shelley's "Peter Bell the Third" is

chiefly owing.]

DEDICATION.

TO THOMAS BROWN, ESQ., THE YOUNGER, H.F.

Dear Tom,

Allow me to request you to introduce Mr. Peter Bell to the respectable

family of the Fudges. Although he may fall short of those very

considerable personages in the more active properties which

characterize the Rat and the Apostate, I suspect that even you, their

historian, will confess that he surpasses them in the more peculiarly

legitimate qualification of intolerable dulness.

You know Mr. Examiner Hunt; well--it was he who presented me to two of

the Mr. Bells. My intimacy with the younger Mr. Bell naturally sprung

from this introduction to his brothers. And in presenting him to you,

I have the satisfaction of being able to assure you that he is

considerably the dullest of the three.

There is this particular advantage in an acquaintance with any one of

the Peter Bells, that if you know one Peter Bell, you know three Peter

Bells; they are not one, but three; not three, but one. An awful

mystery, which, after having caused torrents of blood, and having been

hymned by groans enough to deafen the music of the spheres, is at

length illustrated to the satisfaction of all parties in the

theological world, by the nature of Mr. Peter Bell.

Peter is a polyhedric Peter, or a Peter with many sides. He changes

colours like a chameleon, and his coat like a snake. He is a Proteus

of a Peter. He was at first sublime, pathetic, impressive, profound;

then dull; then prosy and dull; and now dull--oh so very dull! it is

an ultra-legitimate dulness.

You will perceive that it is not necessary to consider Hell and the

Devil as supernatural machinery. The whole scene of my epic is in

'this world which is'--so Peter informed us before his conversion to

"White Obi"--

'The world of all of us, AND WHERE

WE FIND OUR HAPPINESS, OR NOT AT ALL.'

Let me observe that I have spent six or seven days in composing this

sublime piece; the orb of my moonlike genius has made the fourth part

of its revolution round the dull earth which you inhabit, driving you

mad, while it has retained its calmness and its splendour, and I have

been fitting this its last phase 'to occupy a permanent station in the

literature of my country.'

Your works, indeed, dear Tom, sell better; but mine are far superior.

The public is no judge; posterity sets all to rights.

Allow me to observe that so much has been written of Peter Bell, that

the present history can be considered only, like the Iliad, as a

continuation of that series of cyclic poems, which have already been

candidates for bestowing immortality upon, at the same time that they

receive it from, his character and adventures. In this point of view I

have violated no rule of syntax in beginning my composition with a

conjunction; the full stop which closes the poem continued by me

being, like the full stops at the end of the Iliad and Odyssey, a full

stop of a very qualified import.

Hoping that the immortality which you have given to the Fudges, you

will receive from them; and in the firm expectation, that when London

shall be an habitation of bitterns; when St. Paul's and Westminster

Abbey shall stand, shapeless and nameless ruins, in the midst of an

unpeopled marsh; when the piers of Waterloo Bridge shall become the

nuclei of islets of reeds and osiers, and cast the jagged shadows of

their broken arches on the solitary stream, some transatlantic

commentator will be weighing in the scales of some new and now

unimagined system of criticism, the respective merits of the Bells and

the Fudges, and their historians. I remain, dear Tom, yours sincerely,

MICHING MALLECHO.

December 1, 1819.

P.S.--Pray excuse the date of place; so soon as the profits of the

publication come in, I mean to hire lodgings in a more respectable

street.

PROLOGUE.

Peter Bells, one, two and three,

O'er the wide world wandering be.--

First, the antenatal Peter,

Wrapped in weeds of the same metre,

The so-long-predestined raiment _5

Clothed in which to walk his way meant

The second Peter; whose ambition

Is to link the proposition,

As the mean of two extremes--

(This was learned from Aldric's themes) _10

Shielding from the guilt of schism

The orthodoxal syllogism;

The First Peter--he who was

Like the shadow in the glass

Of the second, yet unripe, _15

His substantial antitype.--

Then came Peter Bell the Second,

Who henceforward must be reckoned

The body of a double soul,

And that portion of the whole _20

Without which the rest would seem

Ends of a disjointed dream.--

And the Third is he who has

O'er the grave been forced to pass

To the other side, which is,-- _25

Go and try else,--just like this.

Peter Bell the First was Peter

Smugger, milder, softer, neater,

Like the soul before it is

Born from THAT world into THIS. _30

The next Peter Bell was he,

Predevote, like you and me,

To good or evil as may come;

His was the severer doom,--

For he was an evil Cotter, _35

And a polygamic Potter.

And the last is Peter Bell,

Damned since our first parents fell,

Damned eternally to Hell--

Surely he deserves it well! _40

NOTES:

_10 Aldric's] i.e. Aldrich's--a spelling adopted here by Woodberry.

(_36 The oldest scholiasts read--

A dodecagamic Potter.

This is at once more descriptive and more megalophonous,--but the

alliteration of the text had captivated the vulgar ear of the herd of

later commentators.--[SHELLEY'S NOTE.])

PART 1.

DEATH.

1.

And Peter Bell, when he had been

With fresh-imported Hell-fire warmed,

Grew serious--from his dress and mien

'Twas very plainly to be seen

Peter was quite reformed. _5

2.

His eyes turned up, his mouth turned down;

His accent caught a nasal twang;

He oiled his hair; there might be heard

The grace of God in every word

Which Peter said or sang. _10

3.

But Peter now grew old, and had

An ill no doctor could unravel:

His torments almost drove him mad;--

Some said it was a fever bad--

Some swore it was the gravel. _15

4.

His holy friends then came about,

And with long preaching and persuasion

Convinced the patient that, without

The smallest shadow of a doubt,

He was predestined to damnation. _20

5.

They said--'Thy name is Peter Bell;

Thy skin is of a brimstone hue;

Alive or dead--ay, sick or well--

The one God made to rhyme with hell;

The other, I think, rhymes with you. _25

6.

Then Peter set up such a yell!--

The nurse, who with some water gruel

Was climbing up the stairs, as well

As her old legs could climb them--fell,

And broke them both--the fall was cruel. _30

7.

The Parson from the casement lept

Into the lake of Windermere--

And many an eel--though no adept

In God's right reason for it--kept

Gnawing his kidneys half a year. _35

8.

And all the rest rushed through the door

And tumbled over one another,

And broke their skulls.--Upon the floor

Meanwhile sat Peter Bell, and swore,

And cursed his father and his mother; _40

9.

And raved of God, and sin, and death,

Blaspheming like an infidel;

And said, that with his clenched teeth

He'd seize the earth from underneath,

And drag it with him down to hell. _45

10.

As he was speaking came a spasm,

And wrenched his gnashing teeth asunder;

Like one who sees a strange phantasm

He lay,--there was a silent chasm

Between his upper jaw and under. _50

11.

And yellow death lay on his face;

And a fixed smile that was not human

Told, as I understand the case,

That he was gone to the wrong place:--

I heard all this from the old woman. _55

12.

Then there came down from Langdale Pike

A cloud, with lightning, wind and hail;

It swept over the mountains like

An ocean,--and I heard it strike

The woods and crags of Grasmere vale. _60

13.

And I saw the black storm come

Nearer, minute after minute;

Its thunder made the cataracts dumb;

With hiss, and clash, and hollow hum,

It neared as if the Devil was in it. _65

14.

The Devil WAS in it:--he had bought

Peter for half-a-crown; and when

The storm which bore him vanished, nought

That in the house that storm had caught

Was ever seen again. _70

15.

The gaping neighbours came next day--

They found all vanished from the shore:

The Bible, whence he used to pray,

Half scorched under a hen-coop lay;

Smashed glass--and nothing more! _75

PART 2.

THE DEVIL.

1.

The Devil, I safely can aver,

Has neither hoof, nor tail, nor sting;

Nor is he, as some sages swear,

A spirit, neither here nor there,

In nothing--yet in everything. _80

2.

He is--what we are; for sometimes

The Devil is a gentleman;

At others a bard bartering rhymes

For sack; a statesman spinning crimes;

A swindler, living as he can; _85

3.

A thief, who cometh in the night,

With whole boots and net pantaloons,

Like some one whom it were not right

To mention;--or the luckless wight

From whom he steals nine silver spoons. _90

4.

But in this case he did appear

Like a slop-merchant from Wapping,

And with smug face, and eye severe,

On every side did perk and peer

Till he saw Peter dead or napping. _95

5.

He had on an upper Benjamin

(For he was of the driving schism)

In the which he wrapped his skin

From the storm he travelled in,

For fear of rheumatism. _100

6.

He called the ghost out of the corse;--

It was exceedingly like Peter,--

Only its voice was hollow and hoarse--

It had a queerish look of course--

Its dress too was a little neater. _105

7.

The Devil knew not his name and lot;

Peter knew not that he was Bell:

Each had an upper stream of thought,

Which made all seem as it was not;

Fitting itself to all things well. _110

8.

Peter thought he had parents dear,

Brothers, sisters, cousins, cronies,

In the fens of Lincolnshire;

He perhaps had found them there

Had he gone and boldly shown his _115

9.

Solemn phiz in his own village;

Where he thought oft when a boy

He'd clomb the orchard walls to pillage

The produce of his neighbour's tillage,

With marvellous pride and joy. _120

10.

And the Devil thought he had,

'Mid the misery and confusion

Of an unjust war, just made

A fortune by the gainful trade

Of giving soldiers rations bad-- _125

The world is full of strange delusion--

11.

That he had a mansion planned

In a square like Grosvenor Square,

That he was aping fashion, and

That he now came to Westmoreland _130

To see what was romantic there.

12.

And all this, though quite ideal,--

Ready at a breath to vanish,--

Was a state not more unreal

Than the peace he could not feel, _135

Or the care he could not banish.

13.

After a little conversation,

The Devil told Peter, if he chose,

He'd bring him to the world of fashion

By giving him a situation _140

In his own service--and new clothes.

14.

And Peter bowed, quite pleased and proud,

And after waiting some few days

For a new livery--dirty yellow

Turned up with black--the wretched fellow _145

Was bowled to Hell in the Devil's chaise.

PART 3.

HELL.

1.

Hell is a city much like London--

A populous and a smoky city;

There are all sorts of people undone,

And there is little or no fun done; _150

Small justice shown, and still less pity.

2.

There is a Castles, and a Canning,

A Cobbett, and a Castlereagh;

All sorts of caitiff corpses planning

All sorts of cozening for trepanning _155

Corpses less corrupt than they.

3.

There is a ***, who has lost

His wits, or sold them, none knows which;

He walks about a double ghost,

And though as thin as Fraud almost-- _160

Ever grows more grim and rich.

4.

There is a Chancery Court; a King;

A manufacturing mob; a set

Of thieves who by themselves are sent

Similar thieves to represent; _165

An army; and a public debt.

5.

Which last is a scheme of paper money,

And means--being interpreted--

'Bees, keep your wax--give us the honey,

And we will plant, while skies are sunny, _170

Flowers, which in winter serve instead.'

6.

There is a great talk of revolution--

And a great chance of despotism--

German soldiers--camps--confusion--

Tumults--lotteries--rage--delusion-- _175

Gin--suicide--and methodism;

7.

Taxes too, on wine and bread,

And meat, and beer, and tea, and cheese,

From which those patriots pure are fed,

Who gorge before they reel to bed _180

The tenfold essence of all these.

8.

There are mincing women, mewing,

(Like cats, who amant misere,)

Of their own virtue, and pursuing

Their gentler sisters to that ruin, _185

Without which--what were chastity?(2)

9.

Lawyers--judges--old hobnobbers

Are there--bailiffs--chancellors--

Bishops--great and little robbers--

Rhymesters--pamphleteers--stock-jobbers-- _190

Men of glory in the wars,--

10.

Things whose trade is, over ladies

To lean, and flirt, and stare, and simper,

Till all that is divine in woman

Grows cruel, courteous, smooth, inhuman, _195

Crucified 'twixt a smile and whimper.

11.

Thrusting, toiling, wailing, moiling,

Frowning, preaching--such a riot!

Each with never-ceasing labour,

Whilst he thinks he cheats his neighbour, _200

Cheating his own heart of quiet.

12.

And all these meet at levees;--

Dinners convivial and political;--

Suppers of epic poets;--teas,

Where small talk dies in agonies;-- _205

Breakfasts professional and critical;

13.

Lunches and snacks so aldermanic

That one would furnish forth ten dinners,

Where reigns a Cretan-tongued panic,

Lest news Russ, Dutch, or Alemannic _210

Should make some losers, and some winners--

45.

At conversazioni--balls--

Conventicles--and drawing-rooms--

Courts of law--committees--calls

Of a morning--clubs--book-stalls-- _215

Churches--masquerades--and tombs.

15.

And this is Hell--and in this smother

All are damnable and damned;

Each one damning, damns the other;

They are damned by one another, _220

By none other are they damned.

16.

'Tis a lie to say, 'God damns'! (1)

Where was Heaven's Attorney General

When they first gave out such flams?

Let there be an end of shams, _225

They are mines of poisonous mineral.

17.

Statesmen damn themselves to be

Cursed; and lawyers damn their souls

To the auction of a fee;

Churchmen damn themselves to see _230

God's sweet love in burning coals.

18.

The rich are damned, beyond all cure,

To taunt, and starve, and trample on

The weak and wretched; and the poor

Damn their broken hearts to endure _235

Stripe on stripe, with groan on groan.

19.

Sometimes the poor are damned indeed

To take,--not means for being blessed,--

But Cobbett's snuff, revenge; that weed

From which the worms that it doth feed _240

Squeeze less than they before possessed.

20.

And some few, like we know who,

Damned--but God alone knows why--

To believe their minds are given

To make this ugly Hell a Heaven; _245

In which faith they live and die.

21.

Thus, as in a town, plague-stricken,

Each man be he sound or no

Must indifferently sicken;

As when day begins to thicken, _250

None knows a pigeon from a crow,--

22.

So good and bad, sane and mad,

The oppressor and the oppressed;

Those who weep to see what others

Smile to inflict upon their brothers; _255

Lovers, haters, worst and best;

23.

All are damned--they breathe an air,

Thick, infected, joy-dispelling:

Each pursues what seems most fair,

Mining like moles, through mind, and there _260

Scoop palace-caverns vast, where Care

In throned state is ever dwelling.

PART 4.

SIN.

1.

Lo. Peter in Hell's Grosvenor Square,

A footman in the Devil's service!

And the misjudging world would swear _265

That every man in service there

To virtue would prefer vice.

2.

But Peter, though now damned, was not

What Peter was before damnation.

Men oftentimes prepare a lot _270

Which ere it finds them, is not what

Suits with their genuine station.

3.

All things that Peter saw and felt

Had a peculiar aspect to him;

And when they came within the belt _275

Of his own nature, seemed to melt,

Like cloud to cloud, into him.

4.

And so the outward world uniting

To that within him, he became

Considerably uninviting _280

To those who, meditation slighting,

Were moulded in a different frame.

5.

And he scorned them, and they scorned him;

And he scorned all they did; and they

Did all that men of their own trim _285

Are wont to do to please their whim,

Drinking, lying, swearing, play.

6.

Such were his fellow-servants; thus

His virtue, like our own, was built

Too much on that indignant fuss _290

Hypocrite Pride stirs up in us

To bully one another's guilt.

7.

He had a mind which was somehow

At once circumference and centre

Of all he might or feel or know; _295

Nothing went ever out, although

Something did ever enter.

8.

He had as much imagination

As a pint-pot;--he never could

Fancy another situation, _300

From which to dart his contemplation,

Than that wherein he stood.

9.

Yet his was individual mind,

And new created all he saw

In a new manner, and refined _305

Those new creations, and combined

Them, by a master-spirit's law.

10.

Thus--though unimaginative--

An apprehension clear, intense,

Of his mind's work, had made alive _310

The things it wrought on; I believe

Wakening a sort of thought in sense.

11.

But from the first 'twas Peter's drift

To be a kind of moral eunuch,

He touched the hem of Nature's shift, _315

Felt faint--and never dared uplift

The closest, all-concealing tunic.

12.

She laughed the while, with an arch smile,

And kissed him with a sister's kiss,

And said--My best Diogenes, _320

I love you well--but, if you please,

Tempt not again my deepest bliss.

13.

''Tis you are cold--for I, not coy,

Yield love for love, frank, warm, and true;

And Burns, a Scottish peasant boy-- _325

His errors prove it--knew my joy

More, learned friend, than you.

14.

'Boeca bacciata non perde ventura,

Anzi rinnuova come fa la luna:--

So thought Boccaccio, whose sweet words might cure a _330

Male prude, like you, from what you now endure, a

Low-tide in soul, like a stagnant laguna.

15.

Then Peter rubbed his eyes severe.

And smoothed his spacious forehead down

With his broad palm;--'twixt love and fear, _335

He looked, as he no doubt felt, queer,

And in his dream sate down.

16.

The Devil was no uncommon creature;

A leaden-witted thief--just huddled

Out of the dross and scum of nature; _340

A toad-like lump of limb and feature,

With mind, and heart, and fancy muddled.

17.

He was that heavy, dull, cold thing,

The spirit of evil well may be:

A drone too base to have a sting; _345

Who gluts, and grimes his lazy wing,

And calls lust, luxury.

18.

Now he was quite the kind of wight

Round whom collect, at a fixed aera,

Venison, turtle, hock, and claret,-- _350

Good cheer--and those who come to share it--

And best East Indian madeira!