Such virtues blossom in her as should make
The peace of life, I pray thee for my sake,
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
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
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

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
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
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.

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.

I do not feel as if I were a man,

[Exit LUCRETIA.

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;
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,
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
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,
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
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.

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.

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 judgment with strange confidence

For one so wicked; as a man believing
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.

They come.

See,

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.

OLIMPIO.

It is the white reflection of your own,

Which you call pale.