Henceforth no witness-not the lamp-shall see
That which the vassal threatened to divulge,
Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward.
The deed he saw could not have rated higher
That his most worthless life:-it angers me!
Respited me from Hell !-So may the Devil

Respite their souls from Heaven. No doubt Pope Clement,
And his most charitable nephews, pray

That the Apostle Peter and the saints

Will grant for their sake that I long enjoy

Strength, wealth, and pride, and lust, and length of days, Wherein to act the deeds which are the stewards

Of their revenue.-But much yet remains

To which they show no title.

O Count Cenci!

Cam.
So much that thou mightst honourably live,
And reconcile thyself with thine own heart,
And with thy God, and with the offended world.
How hideously look deeds of lust and blood
Thro' those snow white and venerable hairs!
Your children should be sitting round you now,
But that you fear to read upon their looks
The shame and misery you have written there.
Where is your wife? where is your gentle daughter?
Methinks her sweet looks, which make all things else
Beauteous and glad, might kill the fiend within you.
Why is she barred from all society

But her own strange and uncomplaining wrongs?
Talk with me, Count:-you know I mean you well.
I stood beside your dark and fiery youth

Watching its bold and bad career, as men

Watch meteors, but it vanished not: I marked
Your desperate and remorseless manhood; now
Do I behold you, in dishonoured age,

Charged with a thousand unrepented erimes.
Yet have I ever hoped you would amend,
And in that hope have saved your life three times.
Cen. For which Aldobrandino owes you now
My fief beyond the Piucian. Cardinal,

One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth,
Aud so we shall converse with less restraint.
A man you knew spoke of my wife and daughter:
He was accustomed to frequent my house;
So the next day his wife and daughter came,
And asked if I had seen him; and I smiled:
I think they never saw him any more.

Cam. Thou execrable man, beware!-
Cen. Of thee?

Nay, this is idle: we should know each other.
As to my character for what men call crime,
Seeing I please my senses as I list,
And vindicate that right with force or guile,
It is a public matter, and I care not
If I discuss it with you. may speak
Alike to you and my own conscious heart;
For you give out that you have half reformed me,
Therefore strong vanity will keep you silent
If fear should not; both will, I do not doubt.

All men delight in sensual luxury,

All men enjoy revenge; and most exult
Over the tortures they can never feel;
Flattering their secret peace with others' pain.
But I delight in nothing else. I love
The sight of agony, and the sense of joy,
"When this shall be another's and that mine.
And I have no remose and little fear,

Which are, I think, the checks of other men.
This mood has grown upon me, until now

Any design my captious fancy makes

The picture of its wish, and it forms none

But such as men like you would start to know,

Is as my natural food and rest debarred

Until it be accomplished.

Cen. Why miserable?

No. I am what your theologians call
Hardened; which they must be in impudence,
So to revile a man's peculiar taste.
True, I was happier than I am, while yet
Manhood remained to act the thing I thought;
While lust was sweeter than revenge; and now
Invention palls: ay, we must all grow old:
And but that there yet remains a deed to act
Whose horror might make sharp an appetite
Duller than mine-I'd do,-I know not what.
When I was young I thought of nothing else
But pleasure, and I fed on honey sweets:
Men, by St. Thomas! cannot live like bees,
And I grew tired: yet, till I killed a foe,

And heard his groans, and heard his children's groans,
Knew I not what delight was else on earth,
Which now delights me little. I the rather
Look on such pangs as terror ill conceals:
The dry fixed eyeball, the pale quivering lip,
Which tell me that the spirit weeps within
Tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ.
I rarely kill the body, which preserves,
Like a strong prison, the soul within my power,
Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear

For hourly pain.

Cam.

Hell's most abandoned fiend

Did never, in the drunkenness of guilt,
Speak to his heart as now you speak to me;
I thank my God that I believe you not.

Enter ANDREA.

Andr. My Lord, a gentleman from Salamanca Would speak with you.

Cen. Bid him attend me in the grand saloon.

Cam. Farewell; and I will pray Almighty God that thy false, impious words Tempt not his spirit to abandon thee.

(Exit Andrea.)

(Exit Camillo.)

Cen. The third of my possessions! I must use
Close husbandry, or gold, the old man's sword,
Falls from my withered hand. But yesterday
There came an order from the Pope to make
Fourfold provision for my cursed son ;
Whom I had sent from Rome to Salamanca,
Hoping some accident might cut them off,
And meaning if I could to starve them there.

I pray thee, God, send some quick death upon them!
Bernardo and my wife could not be worse

If dead and damned: then, as to Beatrice

(Looking around him suspiciously.)

I think they cannot hear me at that door.

What if they should? And yet I need not speak,
Though the heart triumphs with itself in words.

O thou most silent air, that shalt not hear
What now I think! Thou pavement, which I tread
Towards her chamber,~let your echoes talk
Of my imperious step, scorning surprise,
But not of my intent!-Andrea!

Enter ANDREA.

Andr. My Lord!

Cen. Bid Beatrice attend me in her chamber This evening :-no, at midnight, and alone.

SCENE II.

A Garden of the Cenci Palace.

(Exeunt.)

Enter BEATRICE and

ORSINO, as in conversation.

Beatr. Pervert not truth,

Orsino. You remember where we held

That conversation;-nay, we see the spot
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.

Ors. You said you loved me then.
Beatr. You are a priest,

Speak to me not of love.

Ors. I may obtain

The dispensation of the Pope to marry.

Because I am a priest do you believe

Your image, as the huuter some struck deer,

Follows me not whether I wake or sleep?

Beatr. 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

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.