The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 43

ACT 1.

SCENE 1.1: AN APARTMENT IN THE CENCI PALACE.

ENTER COUNT CENCI AND CARDINAL CAMILLO.

CAMILLO: That matter of the murder is hushed up If you consent to yield his Holiness Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-- It needed all my interest in the conclave To bend him to this point; he said that you _5 Bought perilous impunity with your gold; That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded Enriched the Church, and respited from h.e.l.l An erring soul which might repent and live: -- But that the glory and the interest _10 Of the high throne he fills, little consist With making it a daily mart of guilt As manifold and hideous as the deeds Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

CENCI: The third of my possessions--let it go! _15 Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope Had sent his architect to view the ground, Meaning to build a villa on my vines The next time I compounded with his uncle: I little thought he should outwit me so! _20 Henceforth no witness--not the lamp--shall see That which the va.s.sal threatened to divulge Whose throat is choked with dust for his reward.

The deed he saw could not have rated higher Than his most worthless life:--it angers me! _25 Respited me from h.e.l.l! 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 _30 Strength, wealth, and pride, and l.u.s.t, 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 t.i.tle.

CAMILLO: Oh, Count Cenci!

So much that thou mightst honourably live _35 And reconcile thyself with thine own heart And with thy G.o.d, and with the offended world.

How hideously look deeds of l.u.s.t and blood Through those snow white and venerable hairs!-- Your children should be sitting round you now, _40 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. _45 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 _50 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 crimes.

Yet I have ever hoped you would amend, _55 And in that hope have saved your life three times.

CENCI: For which Aldobrandino owes you now My fief beyond the Pincian.--Cardinal, One thing, I pray you, recollect henceforth, And so we shall converse with less restraint. _60 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. _65

CAMILLO: Thou execrable man, beware!--

CENCI: 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, _70 It is a public matter, and I care not If I discuss it with you. I 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 _75 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. _80 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 remorse and little fear, Which are, I think, the checks of other men. _85 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 _90 Until it be accomplished.

CAMILLO: Art thou not Most miserable?

CENCI: Why miserable?-- No.--I am what your theologians call Hardened;--which they must be in impudence, So to revile a man's peculiar taste. _95 True, I was happier than I am, while yet Manhood remained to act the thing I thought; While l.u.s.t was sweeter than revenge; and now Invention palls:--Ay, we must all grow old-- And but that there remains a deed to act _100 Whose horror might make sharp an appet.i.te 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, _105 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, _110 The dry fixed eyeball; the pale, quivering lip, Which tell me that the spirit weeps within Tears bitterer than the b.l.o.o.d.y sweat of Christ.

I rarely kill the body, which preserves, Like a strong prison, the soul within my power, _115 Wherein I feed it with the breath of fear For hourly pain.

NOTE: _100 And but that edition 1821; But that editions 1819, 1839.

CAMILLO: h.e.l.l's most abandoned fiend Did never, in the drunkenness of guilt, Speak to his heart as now you speak to me; I thank my G.o.d that I believe you not. _120

[ENTER ANDREA.]

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

CENCI: Bid him attend me In the grand saloon.

[EXIT ANDREA.]

CAMILLO: Farewell; and I will pray Almighty G.o.d that thy false, impious words Tempt not his spirit to abandon thee. _125

[EXIT CAMILLO.]

CENCI: 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 sons; _130 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, G.o.d, send some quick death upon them!

Bernardo and my wife could not be worse _135 If dead and d.a.m.ned:--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 _140 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!

NOTES: _131 Whom I had edition 1821; Whom I have editions 1819, 1839.

_140 that shalt edition 1821; that shall editions 1819, 1839.

[ENTER ANDREA.]

ANDREA: My lord?

CENCI: Bid Beatrice attend me in her chamber _145 This evening:--no, at midnight and alone.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 1.2: A GARDEN OF THE CENCI PALACE.

ENTER BEATRICE AND ORSINO, AS IN CONVERSATION.

BEATRICE: 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 _5 The moonlight ruins of Mount Palatine, I did confess to you my secret mind.

ORSINO: You said you loved me then.

BEATRICE: You are a Priest.

Speak to me not of love.

ORSINO: I may obtain The dispensation of the Pope to marry. _10 Because I am a Priest do you believe 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; _15 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.

Alas, Orsino! All the love that once _20 I felt for you, is turned to bitter pain.

Ours was a youthful contract, which you first Broke, by a.s.suming vows no Pope will loose.

And thus I love you still, but holily, Even as a sister or a spirit might; _25 And so I swear a cold fidelity.

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 _30 As you were not my friend, and as if you 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; _35 I have a weight of melancholy thoughts, And they forebode,--but what can they forebode Worse than I now endure?

NOTE: _24 And thus editions 1821, 1839; And yet edition 1819.

ORSINO: All will be well.

Is the pet.i.tion yet prepared? You know My zeal for all you wish, sweet Beatrice; _40 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, _45 Here I stand bickering with my only friend!