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A Garden in the Cenci Palace. | |
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Enter BEATRICE and ORSINO, as in conversation | |
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| Beatrice. Pervert not truth, | |
| Orsino. You remember where we held | |
| That conversation;—nay, we see the spot | 5 |
| Even from this cypress;—two long years are past | |
| Since, on an April midnight, underneath | |
| The moonlight ruins of mount Palatine, | |
| I did confess to you my secret mind. | |
| Orsino. You said you loved me then. | 10 |
| Beatrice. You are a Priest, | |
| Speak to me not of love. | |
| Orsino. I may obtain | |
| The dispensation of the Pope to marry. | |
| Because I am a Priest do you believe | 15 |
| Your image, as the hunter some struck deer, | |
| Follows me not whether I wake or sleep? | |
| Beatrice. As I have said, speak to me not of love: | |
| Had you a dispensation I have not; | |
| Nor will I leave this home of misery | 20 |
| Whilst my poor Bernard, and that gentle lady | |
| To whom I owe life, and these virtuous thoughts, | |
| Must suffer what I still have strength to share. | |
| Alas, Orsino! All the love that once | |
| I felt for you, is turned to bitter pain. | 25 |
| Ours was a youthful contract, which you first | |
| Broke, by assuming vows no Pope will loose. | |
| And thus I love you still, but holily, | |
| Even as a sister or a spirit might; | |
| And so I swear a cold fidelity. | 30 |
| And it is well perhaps we shall not marry. | |
| You have a sly, equivocating vein | |
| That suits me not.—Ah, wretched that I am! | |
| Where shall I turn? Even now you look on me | |
| As you were not my friend, and as if you | 35 |
| Discovered that I thought so, with false smiles | |
| Making my true suspicion seem your wrong. | |
| Ah no! forgive me; sorrow makes me seem | |
| Sterner than else my nature might have been; | |
| I have a weight of melancholy thoughts, | 40 |
| And they forbode,—but what can they forbode | |
| Worse than I now endure? | |
| Orsino. All will be well. | |
| Is the petition yet prepared? You know | |
| My zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice; | 45 |
| Doubt not but I will use my utmost skill | |
| So that the Pope attend to your complaint. | |
| Beatrice. Your zeal for all I wish;—Ah me, you are cold! | |
| Your utmost skill … speak but one word … (aside) Alas! | |
| Weak and deserted creature that I am, | 50 |
| Here I stand bickering with my only friend! [To ORSINO. | |
| This night my father gives a sumptuous feast, | |
| Orsino; he has heard some happy news | |
| From Salamanca, from my brothers there, | |
| And with this outward show of love he mocks | 55 |
| His inward hate. ’Tis bold hypocrisy, | |
| For he would gladlier celebrate their deaths, | |
| Which I have heard him pray for on his knees: | |
| Great God! that such a father should be mine! | |
| But there is mighty preparation made, | 60 |
| And all our kin, the Cenci, will be there, | |
| And all the chief nobility of Rome. | |
| And he has bidden me and my pale Mother | |
| Attire ourselves in festival array. | |
| Poor lady! She expects some happy change | 65 |
| In his dark spirit from this act; I none. | |
| At supper I will give you the petition: | |
| Till when—farewell. | |
| Orsino. Farewell. (Exit BEATRICE.) I know the Pope | |
| Will ne’er absolve me from my priestly vow | 70 |
| But by absolving me from the revenue | |
| Of many a wealthy see; and, Beatrice, | |
| I think to win thee at an easier rate. | |
| Nor shall he read her eloquent petition: | |
| He might bestow her on some poor relation | 75 |
| Of his sixth cousin, as he did her sister, | |
| And I should be debarred from all access. | |
| Then as to what she suffers from her father, | |
| In all this there is much exaggeration:— | |
| Old men are testy and will have their way; | 80 |
| A man my stab his enemy, or his vassal, | |
| And live a free life as to wine and women, | |
| And with a peevish temper may return | |
| To a dull home, and rate his wife and children; | |
| Daughters and wives call this foul tyranny. | 85 |
| I shall be well content if on my conscience | |
| There rest no heavier sin than what they suffer | |
| From the devices of my love—A net | |
| From which she shall escape not. Yet I fear | |
| Her subtle mind, her awe-inspiring gaze, | 90 |
| Whose beams anatomise me nerve by nerve | |
| And lay me bare, and make me blush to see | |
| My hidden thoughts.—Ah, no! A friendless girl | |
| Who clings to me, as to her only hope:— | |
| I were a fool, not less than if a panther | 95 |
| Were panic-stricken by the antelope’s eye, | |
| If she escape me. [Exit. | |
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