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A Chamber in the Vatican. | |
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Enter CAMILLO and GIACOMO, in conversation | |
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| Camillo. There is an obsolete and doubtful law | |
| By which you might obtain a bare provision | |
| Of food and clothing— | 5 |
| Giacomo. Nothing more? Alas! | |
| Bare must be the provision which strict law | |
| Awards, and aged, sullen avarice pays. | |
| Why did my father not apprentice me | |
| To some mechanic trade? I should have then | 10 |
| Been trained in no highborn necessities | |
| Which I could meet not by my daily toil. | |
| The eldest son of a rich nobleman | |
| Is heir to all his incapacities; | |
| He has wide wants, and narrow powers. If you, | 15 |
| Cardinal Camillo, were reduced at once | |
| From thrice-driven beds of down, and delicate food, | |
| An hundred servants, and six palaces, | |
| To that which nature doth indeed require?— | |
| Camillo. Nay, there is reason in your plea; ’twere hard. | 20 |
| Giacomo. ’Tis hard for a firm man to bear: but I | |
| Have a dear wife, a lady of high birth, | |
| Whose dowry in ill hour I lent my father | |
| Without a bond or witness to the deed: | |
| And children, who inherit her fine senses, | 25 |
| The fairest creatures in this breathing world; | |
| And she and they reproach me not. Cardinal, | |
| Do you not think the Pope would interpose | |
| And stretch authority beyond the law? | |
| Camillo. Though your peculiar case is hard, I know | 30 |
| The Pope will not divert the course of law. | |
| After that impious feast the other night | |
| I spoke with him, and urged him then to check | |
| Your father’s cruel hand; he frowned and said, | |
| “Children are disobedient, and they sting | 35 |
| Their father’s hearts to madness and despair, | |
| Requiting years of care with contumely. | |
| I pity the Count Cenci from my heart; | |
| His outraged love perhaps awakened hate, | |
| And thus he is exasperated to ill. | 40 |
| In the great war between the old and young | |
| I, who have white hairs and a tottering body, | |
| Will keep at least blameless neutrality.” | |
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Enter ORSINO | |
| You, my good Lord Orsino, heard those words. | 45 |
| Orsino. What words? | |
| Giacomo. Alas, repeat them not again! | |
| There then is no redress for me, at least | |
| None but that which I may achieve myself, | |
| Since I am driven to the brink.—But, say, | 50 |
| My innocent sister and my only brother | |
| Are dying underneath my father’s eye. | |
| The memorable torturers of this land, | |
| Galeaz Visconti, Borgia, Ezzelin, | |
| Never inflicted on the meanest slave | 55 |
| What these endure; shall they have no protection? | |
| Camillo. Why, if they would petition to the Pope | |
| I see not how he could refuse it—yet | |
| He holds it of most dangerous example | |
| In aught to weaken the paternal power, | 60 |
| Being, as ’twere, the shadow of his own. | |
| I pray you now excuse me. I have business | |
| That will not bear delay. [Exit CAMILLO. | |
| Giacomo. But you, Orsino, | |
| Have the petition: wherefore not present it? | 65 |
| Orsino. I have presented it, and backed it with | |
| My earnest prayers, and urgent interest; | |
| It was returned unanswered. I doubt not | |
| But that the strange and execrable deeds | |
| Alleged in it—in truth they might well baffle | 70 |
| Any belief—have turned the Pope’s displeasure | |
| Upon the accusers from the criminal: | |
| So I should guess from what Camillo said. | |
| Giacomo. My friend, that palace-walking devil Gold | |
| Has whispered silence to his Holiness: | 75 |
| And we are left, as scorpions ringed with fire. | |
| What should we do but strike ourselves to death? | |
| For he who is our murderous persecutor | |
| Is shielded by a father’s holy name, | |
| Or I would— (Stops abruptly.) | 80 |
| Orsino. What? Fear not to speak your thought. | |
| Words are but holy as the deeds they cover: | |
| A priest who has forsworn the God he serves; | |
| A judge who makes Truth weep at his decree; | |
| A friend who should weave counsel, as I now, | 85 |
| But as the mantle of some selfish guile; | |
| A father who is all a tyrant seems, | |
| Were the profaner for his sacred name. | |
| Giacomo. Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brain | |
| Feigns often what it would not; and we trust | 90 |
| Imagination with such phantasies | |
| As the tongue dares not fashion into words, | |
| Which have no words, their horror makes them dim | |
| To the mind’s eye.—My heart denies itself | |
| To think what you demand. | 95 |
| Orsino. But a friend’s bosom | |
| Is as the inmost cave of our own mind | |
| Where we sit shut from the wide gaze of day, | |
| And from the all-communicating air. | |
| You look what I suspected— | 100 |
| Giacomo. Spare me now! | |
| I am as one lost in a midnight wood, | |
| Who dares not ask some harmless passenger | |
| The path across the wilderness, lest he, | |
| As my thoughts are, should be—a murderer. | 105 |
| I know you are my friend, and all I dare | |
| Speak to my soul that will I trust with thee. | |
| But now my heart is heavy, and would take | |
| Lone counsel from a night of sleepless care. | |
| Pardon me, that I say farewell—farewell! | 110 |
| I would that to my own suspected self | |
| I could address a word so full of peace. | |
| Orsino. Farewell!—Be your thoughts better or more bold. [Exit GIACOMO. | |
| I had disposed the Cardinal Camillo | |
| To feed his hope with cold encouragement: | 115 |
| It fortunately serves my close designs | |
| That ’tis a trick of this same family | |
| To analyse their own and other minds. | |
| Such self-anatomy shall teach the will | |
| Dangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers, | 120 |
| Knowing what must be thought, and may be done, | |
| Into the depth of darkest purposes: | |
| So Cenci fell into the pit; even I, | |
| Since Beatrice unveiled me to myself, | |
| And made me shrink from what I cannot shun, | 125 |
| Show a poor figure to my own esteem, | |
| To which I grow half reconciled. I’ll do | |
| As little mischief as I can; that thought | |
| Shall fee the accuser conscience. | |
| (After a pause.) Now what harm | 130 |
| If Cenci should be murdered?—Yet, if murdered, | |
| Wherefore by me? And what if I could take | |
| The profit, yet omit the sin and peril | |
| In such an action? Of all earthly things | |
| I fear a man whose blows outspeed his words; | 135 |
| And such is Cenci: and while Cenci lives | |
| His daughter’s dowry were a secret grave | |
| If a priest wins her.—Oh, fair Beatrice! | |
| Would that I loved thee not, or loving thee | |
| Could but despise danger and gold and all | 140 |
| That frowns between my wish and its effect, | |
| Or smiles beyond it! There is no escape… | |
| Her bright form kneels beside me at the altar, | |
| And follows me to the resort of men, | |
| And fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams. | 145 |
| So when I wake my blood seems liquid fire; | |
| And if I strike my damp and dizzy head | |
| My hot palm scorches it: her very name, | |
| But spoken by a stranger, makes my heart | |
| Sicken and pant; and thus unprofitably | 150 |
| I clasp the phantom of unfelt delights | |
| Till weak imagination half possesses | |
| The self-created shadow. Yet much longer | |
| Will I not nurse this life of feverous hours: | |
| From the unravelled hopes of Giacomo | 155 |
| I must work out my own dear purposes. | |
| I see, as from a tower, the end of all: | |
| Her father dead; her brother bound to me | |
| By a dark secret, surer than the grave; | |
| Her mother scared and unexpostulating | 160 |
| From the dread manner of her wish achieved: | |
| And she!—Once more take courage my faint heart; | |
| What dares a friendless maiden matched with thee? | |
| I have such foresight as assures success: | |
| Some unbeheld divinity doth ever, | 165 |
| When dread events are near, stir up men’s minds | |
| To black suggestions; and he prospers best, | |
| Not who becomes the instrument of ill, | |
| But who can flatter the dark spirit, that makes | |
| Its empire and its prey of other hearts | 170 |
| Till it become his slave … as I will do. [Exit. | |
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