No More Learning

As I have said, I have endured a wrong,
Which, though it be expressionless, is such
As asks atonement; both for what is past, _215
And lest I be reserved, day after day,
To load with crimes an overburthened soul,
And be. . . what ye can dream not. I have prayed
To God, and I have talked with my own heart,
And have unravelled my entangled will, _220
And have at length determined what is right.
Art thou my friend, Orsino? False or true?
Pledge thy salvation ere I speak.

ORSINO:
I swear
To dedicate my cunning, and my strength,
My silence, and whatever else is mine, _225
To thy commands.

LUCRETIA:
You think we should devise
His death?

BEATRICE:
And execute what is devised,
And suddenly. We must be brief and bold.

ORSINO:
And yet most cautious.

LUCRETIA:
For the jealous laws
Would punish us with death and infamy _230
For that which it became themselves to do.

BEATRICE:
Be cautious as ye may, but prompt. Orsino,
What are the means?

ORSINO:
I know two dull, fierce outlaws,
Who think man's spirit as a worm's, and they
Would trample out, for any slight caprice, _235
The meanest or the noblest life. This mood
Is marketable here in Rome. They sell
What we now want.

LUCRETIA:
To-morrow before dawn,
Cenci will take us to that lonely rock,
Petrella, in the Apulian Apennines. _240
If he arrive there. . .

BEATRICE:
He must not arrive.

ORSINO:
Will it be dark before you reach the tower?

LUCRETIA:
The sun will scarce be set.

BEATRICE:
But I remember
Two miles on this side of the fort, the road
Crosses a deep ravine; 'tis rough and narrow, _245
And winds with short turns down the precipice;
And in its depth there is a mighty rock,
Which has, from unimaginable years,
Sustained itself with terror and with toil
Over a gulf, and with the agony _250
With which it clings seems slowly coming down;
Even as a wretched soul hour after hour,
Clings to the mass of life; yet, clinging, leans;
And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss
In which it fears to fall: beneath this crag _255
Huge as despair, as if in weariness,
The melancholy mountain yawns. . . below,
You hear but see not an impetuous torrent
Raging among the caverns, and a bridge
Crosses the chasm; and high above there grow, _260
With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag,
Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair
Is matted in one solid roof of shade
By the dark ivy's twine. At noonday here
'Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night. _265

ORSINO:
Before you reach that bridge make some excuse
For spurring on your mules, or loitering
Until. . .

BEATRICE:
What sound is that?

LUCRETIA:
Hark! No, it cannot be a servant's step
It must be Cenci, unexpectedly _270
Returned. . . Make some excuse for being here.

BEATRICE [TO ORSINO AS SHE GOES OUT]:
That step we hear approach must never pass
The bridge of which we spoke.

[EXEUNT LUCRETIA AND BEATRICE. ]

ORSINO:
What shall I do?
Cenci must find me here, and I must bear
The imperious inquisition of his looks _275
As to what brought me hither: let me mask
Mine own in some inane and vacant smile.
[ENTER GIACOMO, IN A HURRIED MANNER. ]
How! Have you ventured hither? Know you then
That Cenci is from home?

NOTE:
_278 hither edition 1821; thither edition 1819.

GIACOMO:
I sought him here;
And now must wait till he returns.

ORSINO:
Great God! _280
Weigh you the danger of this rashness?

GIACOMO:
Ay!
Does my destroyer know his danger? We
Are now no more, as once, parent and child,
But man to man; the oppressor to the oppressed;
The slanderer to the slandered; foe to foe: _285
He has cast Nature off, which was his shield,
And Nature casts him off, who is her shame;
And I spurn both. Is it a father's throat
Which I will shake, and say, I ask not gold;
I ask not happy years; nor memories _290
Of tranquil childhood; nor home-sheltered love;
Though all these hast thou torn from me, and more;
But only my fair fame; only one hoard
Of peace, which I thought hidden from thy hate,
Under the penury heaped on me by thee, _295
Or I will. . . God can understand and pardon,
Why should I speak with man?

ORSINO:
Be calm, dear friend.

GIACOMO:
Well, I will calmly tell you what he did.
This old Francesco Cenci, as you know,
Borrowed the dowry of my wife from me, _300
And then denied the loan; and left me so
In poverty, the which I sought to mend
By holding a poor office in the state.
It had been promised to me, and already
I bought new clothing for my ragged babes, _305
And my wife smiled; and my heart knew repose.
When Cenci's intercession, as I found,
Conferred this office on a wretch, whom thus
He paid for vilest service. I returned
With this ill news, and we sate sad together _310
Solacing our despondency with tears
Of such affection and unbroken faith
As temper life's worst bitterness; when he,
As he is wont, came to upbraid and curse,
Mocking our poverty, and telling us _315
Such was God's scourge for disobedient sons.
And then, that I might strike him dumb with shame,
I spoke of my wife's dowry; but he coined
A brief yet specious tale, how I had wasted
The sum in secret riot; and he saw _320
My wife was touched, and he went smiling forth.
And when I knew the impression he had made,
And felt my wife insult with silent scorn
My ardent truth, and look averse and cold,
I went forth too: but soon returned again; _325
Yet not so soon but that my wife had taught
My children her harsh thoughts, and they all cried,
'Give us clothes, father! Give us better food!
What you in one night squander were enough
For months! ' I looked, and saw that home was hell. _330
And to that hell will I return no more
Until mine enemy has rendered up
Atonement, or, as he gave life to me
I will, reversing Nature's law. . .

ORSINO:
Trust me,
The compensation which thou seekest here _335
Will be denied.

GIACOMO:
Then. . . Are you not my friend?
Did you not hint at the alternative,
Upon the brink of which you see I stand,
The other day when we conversed together?
My wrongs were then less. That word parricide, _340
Although I am resolved, haunts me like fear.

ORSINO:
It must be fear itself, for the bare word
Is hollow mockery. Mark, how wisest God
Draws to one point the threads of a just doom,
So sanctifying it: what you devise _345
Is, as it were, accomplished.

GIACOMO:
Is he dead?

ORSINO:
His grave is ready. Know that since we met
Cenci has done an outrage to his daughter.

GIACOMO:
What outrage?

ORSINO:
That she speaks not, but you may
Conceive such half conjectures as I do, _350
From her fixed paleness, and the lofty grief
Of her stern brow bent on the idle air,
And her severe unmodulated voice,
Drowning both tenderness and dread; and last
From this; that whilst her step-mother and I, _355
Bewildered in our horror, talked together
With obscure hints; both self-misunderstood
And darkly guessing, stumbling, in our talk,
Over the truth, and yet to its revenge,
She interrupted us, and with a look _360
Which told, before she spoke it, he must die:. . .

GIACOMO:
It is enough. My doubts are well appeased;
There is a higher reason for the act
Than mine; there is a holier judge than me,
A more unblamed avenger. Beatrice, _365
Who in the gentleness of thy sweet youth
Hast never trodden on a worm, or bruised
A living flower, but thou hast pitied it
With needless tears! Fair sister, thou in whom
Men wondered how such loveliness and wisdom _370
Did not destroy each other! Is there made
Ravage of thee? O, heart, I ask no more
Justification! Shall I wait, Orsino,
Till he return, and stab him at the door?

ORSINO:
Not so; some accident might interpose _375
To rescue him from what is now most sure;
And you are unprovided where to fly,
How to excuse or to conceal. Nay, listen:
All is contrived; success is so assured
That. . .

[ENTER BEATRICE. ]

BEATRICE:
'Tis my brother's voice! You know me not?

GIACOMO:
My sister, my lost sister! _380

BEATRICE:
Lost indeed!
I see Orsino has talked with you, and
That you conjecture things too horrible
To speak, yet far less than the truth. Now, stay not,
He might return: yet kiss me; I shall know _385
That then thou hast consented to his death.
Farewell, farewell! Let piety to God,
Brotherly love, justice and clemency,
And all things that make tender hardest hearts
Make thine hard, brother. Answer not. . . farewell. _390

[EXEUNT SEVERALLY. ]

SCENE 3. 2:
A MEAN APARTMENT IN GIACOMO'S HOUSE.
GIACOMO ALONE.

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

ORSINO:
I am come
To say he has escaped.

GIACOMO:
Escaped!

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

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

ORSINO:
See, the lamp is out.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GIACOMO:
Only to talk?

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

GIACOMO:
Listen! What sound is that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[EXEUNT. ]

END OF ACT 3.


ACT 4.

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

CENCI:
She comes not; yet I left her even now
Vanquished and faint. She knows the penalty
Of her delay: yet what if threats are vain?
Am I not now within Petrella's moat?
Or fear I still the eyes and ears of Rome? _5
Might I not drag her by the golden hair?
Stamp on her?
keep her sleepless till her brain
Be overworn? Tame her with chains and famine?
Less would suffice. Yet so to leave undone
What I most seek! No, 'tis her stubborn will _10
Which by its own consent shall stoop as low
As that which drags it down.
[ENTER LUCRETIA. ]
Thou loathed wretch!
Hide thee from my abhorrence: fly, begone!
Yet stay! Bid Beatrice come hither.

NOTE:
_4 not now edition 1821; now not edition 1819.

LUCRETIA:
Oh,
Husband! I pray, for thine own wretched sake _15
Heed what thou dost. A man who walks like thee
Through crimes, and through the danger of his crimes,
Each hour may stumble o'er a sudden grave.
And thou art old; thy hairs are hoary gray;
As thou wouldst save thyself from death and hell, _20
Pity thy daughter; give her to some friend
In marriage: so that she may tempt thee not
To hatred, or worse thoughts, if worse there be.

CENCI:
What! like her sister who has found a home
To mock my hate from with prosperity? _25
Strange ruin shall destroy both her and thee
And all that yet remain. My death may be
Rapid, her destiny outspeeds it. Go,
Bid her come hither, and before my mood
Be changed, lest I should drag her by the hair. _30

LUCRETIA:
She sent me to thee, husband. At thy presence
She fell, as thou dost know, into a trance;
And in that trance she heard a voice which said,
'Cenci must die! Let him confess himself!
Even now the accusing Angel waits to hear _35
If God, to punish his enormous crimes,
Harden his dying heart! '

CENCI:
Why--such things are. . .
No doubt divine revealings may be made.
'Tis plain I have been favoured from above,
For when I cursed my sons they died. --Ay. . . so. . . _40
As to the right or wrong, that's talk. . . repentance. . .
Repentance is an easy moment's work
And more depends on God than me. Well. . . well. . .
I must give up the greater point, which was
To poison and corrupt her soul.
[A PAUSE, LUCRETIA APPROACHES ANXIOUSLY,
AND THEN SHRINKS BACK AS HE SPEAKS. ]
One, two; _45
Ay. . . Rocco and Cristofano my curse
Strangled: and Giacomo, I think, will find
Life a worse Hell than that beyond the grave:
Beatrice shall, if there be skill in hate,
Die in despair, blaspheming: to Bernardo, _50
He is so innocent, I will bequeath
The memory of these deeds, and make his youth
The sepulchre of hope, where evil thoughts
Shall grow like weeds on a neglected tomb.
When all is done, out in the wide Campagna, _55
I will pile up my silver and my gold;
My costly robes, paintings, and tapestries;
My parchments and all records of my wealth,
And make a bonfire in my joy, and leave
Of my possessions nothing but my name; _60
Which shall be an inheritance to strip
Its wearer bare as infamy. That done,
My soul, which is a scourge, will I resign
Into the hands of him who wielded it;
Be it for its own punishment or theirs, _65
He will not ask it of me till the lash
Be broken in its last and deepest wound;
Until its hate be all inflicted. Yet,
Lest death outspeed my purpose, let me make
Short work and sure. . .

[GOING. ]

LUCRETIA [STOPS HIM]:
Oh, stay! It was a feint: _70
She had no vision, and she heard no voice.
I said it but to awe thee.

CENCI:
That is well.
Vile palterer with the sacred truth of God,
Be thy soul choked with that blaspheming lie!
For Beatrice worse terrors are in store _75
To bend her to my will.

LUCRETIA:
Oh! to what will?
What cruel sufferings more than she has known
Canst thou inflict?

CENCI:
Andrea! Go call my daughter,
And if she comes not tell her that I come.
What sufferings? I will drag her, step by step, _80
Through infamies unheard of among men:
She shall stand shelterless in the broad noon
Of public scorn, for acts blazoned abroad,
One among which shall be. . . What? Canst thou guess?
She shall become (for what she most abhors _85
Shall have a fascination to entrap
Her loathing will) to her own conscious self
All she appears to others; and when dead,
As she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,
A rebel to her father and her God, _90
Her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds;
Her name shall be the terror of the earth;
Her spirit shall approach the throne of God
Plague-spotted with my curses. I will make
Body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin. _95

[ENTER ANDREA. ]

ANDREA:
The Lady Beatrice. . .

CENCI:
Speak, pale slave! What
Said she?

ANDREA:
My Lord, 'twas what she looked; she said:
'Go tell my father that I see the gulf
Of Hell between us two, which he may pass,
I will not. '

[EXIT ANDREA. ]

CENCI:
Go thou quick, Lucretia, _100
Tell her to come; yet let her understand
Her coming is consent: and say, moreover,
That if she come not I will curse her.
[EXIT LUCRETIA. ]
Ha!
With what but with a father's curse doth God
Panic-strike armed victory, and make pale _105
Cities in their prosperity? The world's Father
Must grant a parent's prayer against his child,
Be he who asks even what men call me.
Will not the deaths of her rebellious brothers
Awe her before I speak? For I on them _110
Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.
[ENTER LUCRETIA. ]
Well; what? Speak, wretch!

LUCRETIA:
She said, 'I cannot come;
Go tell my father that I see a torrent
Of his own blood raging between us. '

CENCI [KNEELING]:
God,
Hear me! If this most specious mass of flesh, _115
Which Thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,
This particle of my divided being;
Or rather, this my bane and my disease,
Whose sight infects and poisons me; this devil
Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant _120
To aught good use; if her bright loveliness
Was kindled to illumine this dark world;
If nursed by Thy selectest dew of love
Such virtues blossom in her as should make
The peace of life, I pray Thee for my sake, _125
As Thou the common God and Father art
Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom!
Earth, in the name of God, let her food be
Poison, until she be encrusted round
With leprous stains! Heaven, rain upon her head _130
The blistering drops of the Maremma's dew,
Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up
Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs
To loathed lameness! All-beholding sun,
Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes _135
With thine own blinding beams!

LUCRETIA:
Peace! Peace!
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
When high God grants He punishes such prayers.

CENCI [LEAPING UP, AND THROWING HIS RIGHT HAND TOWARDS HEAVEN]:
He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
That if she have a child. . .

LUCRETIA:
Horrible thought! _140

CENCI:
That if she ever have a child; and thou,
Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,
That thou be fruitful in her, and increase
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
And my deep imprecation! May it be _145
A hideous likeness of herself, that as
From a distorting mirror, she may see
Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
Smiling upon her from her nursing breast.
And that the child may from its infancy _150
Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
Turning her mother's love to misery:
And that both she and it may live until
It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
Or what may else be more unnatural. _155
So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.
Shall I revoke this curse? Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in Heaven.
[EXIT LUCRETIA. ]
I do not feel as if I were a man, _160
But like a fiend appointed to chastise
The offences of some unremembered world.
My blood is running up and down my veins;
A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle:
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; _165
My heart is beating with an expectation
Of horrid joy.
[ENTER LUCRETIA. ]
What? Speak!

LUCRETIA:
She bids thee curse;
And if thy curses, as they cannot do,
Could kill her soul. . .

CENCI:
She would not come. 'Tis well,
I can do both; first take what I demand, _170
And then extort concession. To thy chamber!
Fly ere I spurn thee; and beware this night
That thou cross not my footsteps. It were safer
To come between the tiger and his prey.
[EXIT LUCRETIA. ]
It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim _175
With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep.
Conscience! Oh, thou most insolent of lies!
They say that sleep, that healing dew of Heaven,
Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain
Which thinks thee an impostor. I will go _180
First to belie thee with an hour of rest,
Which will be deep and calm, I feel: and then. . .
O, multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake
Thine arches with the laughter of their joy!
There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven _185
As o'er an angel fallen; and upon Earth
All good shall droop and sicken, and ill things
Shall with a spirit of unnatural life,
Stir and be quickened. . . even as I am now.

[EXIT. ]

SCENE 4. 2:
BEFORE THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA.
ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA ABOVE ON THE RAMPARTS.

BEATRICE:
They come not yet.

LUCRETIA:
'Tis scarce midnight.

BEATRICE:
How slow
Behind the course of thought, even sick with speed,
Lags leaden-footed time!

LUCRETIA:
The minutes pass. . .
If he should wake before the deed is done?

BEATRICE:
O, mother! He must never wake again. _5
What thou hast said persuades me that our act
Will but dislodge a spirit of deep hell
Out of a human form.

LUCRETIA:
'Tis true he spoke
Of death and judgement with strange confidence
For one so wicked; as a man believing _10
In God, yet recking not of good or ill.
And yet to die without confession! . . .

BEATRICE:
Oh!
Believe that Heaven is merciful and just,
And will not add our dread necessity
To the amount of his offences.

[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO BELOW. ]

LUCRETIA:
See, _15
They come.

BEATRICE:
All mortal things must hasten thus
To their dark end. Let us go down.

[EXEUNT LUCRETIA AND BEATRICE FROM ABOVE. ]

OLIMPIO:
How feel you to this work?

MARZIO:
As one who thinks
A thousand crowns excellent market price
For an old murderer's life. Your cheeks are pale. _20

OLIMPIO:
It is the white reflection of your own,
Which you call pale.

MARZIO:
Is that their natural hue?

OLIMPIO:
Or 'tis my hate and the deferred desire
To wreak it, which extinguishes their blood.

MARZIO:
You are inclined then to this business?

OLIMPIO:
Ay, _25
If one should bribe me with a thousand crowns
To kill a serpent which had stung my child,
I could not be more willing.
[ENTER BEATRICE AND LUCRETIA BELOW. ]
Noble ladies!

BEATRICE:
Are ye resolved?

OLIMPIO:
Is he asleep?

MARZIO:
Is all
Quiet?

LUCRETIA:
I mixed an opiate with his drink: _30
He sleeps so soundly. . .

BEATRICE:
That his death will be
But as a change of sin-chastising dreams,
A dark continuance of the Hell within him,
Which God extinguish! But ye are resolved?
Ye know it is a high and holy deed? _35

OLIMPIO:
We are resolved.

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

BEATRICE:
Well, follow!

OLIMPIO:
Hush! Hark! What noise is that?

MARZIO:
Ha! some one comes!

BEATRICE:
Ye conscience-stricken cravens, rock to rest
Your baby hearts. It is the iron gate, _40
Which ye left open, swinging to the wind,
That enters whistling as in scorn.