The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Part 55

BEATRICE: I know thee! How? where? when?

MARZIO: You know 'twas I Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes To kill your father. When the thing was done _25 You clothed me in a robe of woven gold And bade me thrive: how I have thriven, you see.

You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia, You know that what I speak is true.

[BEATRICE ADVANCES TOWARDS HIM; HE COVERS HIS FACE, AND SHRINKS BACK.]

Oh, dart The terrible resentment of those eyes _30 On the dead earth! Turn them away from me!

They wound: 'twas torture forced the truth. My Lords, Having said this let me be led to death.

BEATRICE: Poor wretch, I pity thee: yet stay awhile.

CAMILLO: Guards, lead him not away.

BEATRICE: Cardinal Camillo, _35 You have a good repute for gentleness And wisdom: can it be that you sit here To countenance a wicked farce like this?

When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart _40 And bade to answer, not as he believes, But as those may suspect or do desire Whose questions thence suggest their own reply: And that in peril of such hideous torments As merciful G.o.d spares even the d.a.m.ned. Speak now _45 The thing you surely know, which is that you, If your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel, And you were told: 'Confess that you did poison Your little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child Who was the lodestar of your life:'--and though _50 All see, since his most swift and piteous death, That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time, And all the things hoped for or done therein Are changed to you, through your exceeding grief, Yet you would say, 'I confess anything:' _55 And beg from your tormentors, like that slave, The refuge of dishonourable death.

I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou a.s.sert My innocence.

CAMILLO [MUCH MOVED]: What shall we think, my Lords?

Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen _60 Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul That she is guiltless.

JUDGE: Yet she must be tortured.

CAMILLO: I would as soon have tortured mine own nephew (If he now lived he would be just her age; His hair, too, was her colour, and his eyes _65 Like hers in shape, but blue and not so deep) As that most perfect image of G.o.d's love That ever came sorrowing upon the earth.

She is as pure as speechless infancy!

JUDGE: Well, be her purity on your head, my Lord, _70 If you forbid the rack. His Holiness Enjoined us to pursue this monstrous crime By the severest forms of law; nay even To stretch a point against the criminals.

The prisoners stand accused of parricide _75 Upon such evidence as justifies Torture.

BEATRICE: What evidence? This man's?

JUDGE: Even so.

BEATRICE [TO MARZIO]: Come near. And who art thou thus chosen forth Out of the mult.i.tude of living men To kill the innocent?

MARZIO: I am Marzio, _80 Thy father's va.s.sal.

BEATRICE: Fix thine eyes on mine; Answer to what I ask.

[TURNING TO THE JUDGES.]

I prithee mark His countenance: unlike bold calumny Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks, He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends _85 His gaze on the blind earth.

[TO MARZIO.]

What! wilt thou say That I did murder my own father?

MARZIO: Oh!

Spare me! My brain swims round...I cannot speak...

It was that horrid torture forced the truth.

Take me away! Let her not look on me! _90 I am a guilty miserable wretch; I have said all I know; now, let me die!

BEATRICE: My Lords, if by my nature I had been So stern, as to have planned the crime alleged, Which your suspicions dictate to this slave, _95 And the rack makes him utter, do you think I should have left this two-edged instrument Of my misdeed; this man, this b.l.o.o.d.y knife With my own name engraven on the heft, Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes, _100 For my own death? That with such horrible need For deepest silence, I should have neglected So trivial a precaution, as the making His tomb the keeper of a secret written On a thief's memory? What is his poor life? _105 What are a thousand lives? A parricide Had trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives!

[TURNING TO MARZIO.]

And thou...

MARZIO: Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more!

That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones, Wound worse than torture.

[TO THE JUDGES.]

I have told it all; _110 For pity's sake lead me away to death.

CAMILLO: Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice; He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf From the keen breath of the serenest north.

BEATRICE: O thou who tremblest on the giddy verge _115 Of life and death, pause ere thou answerest me; So mayst thou answer G.o.d with less dismay: What evil have we done thee? I, alas!

Have lived but on this earth a few sad years, And so my lot was ordered, that a father _120 First turned the moments of awakening life To drops, each poisoning youth's sweet hope; and then Stabbed with one blow my everlasting soul; And my untainted fame; and even that peace Which sleeps within the core of the heart's heart; _125 But the wound was not mortal; so my hate Became the only wors.h.i.+p I could lift To our great father, who in pity and love, Armed thee, as thou dost say, to cut him off; And thus his wrong becomes my accusation; _130 And art thou the accuser? If thou hopest Mercy in heaven, show justice upon earth: Worse than a b.l.o.o.d.y hand is a hard heart.

If thou hast done murders, made thy life's path Over the trampled laws of G.o.d and man, _135 Rush not before thy Judge, and say: 'My maker, I have done this and more; for there was one Who was most pure and innocent on earth; And because she endured what never any Guilty or innocent endured before: _140 Because her wrongs could not be told, not thought; Because thy hand at length did rescue her; I with my words killed her and all her kin.'

Think, I adjure you, what it is to slay The reverence living in the minds of men _145 Towards our ancient house, and stainless fame!

Think what it is to strangle infant pity, Cradled in the belief of guileless looks, Till it become a crime to suffer. Think What 'tis to blot with infamy and blood _150 All that which shows like innocence, and is, Hear me, great G.o.d! I swear, most innocent, So that the world lose all discrimination Between the sly, fierce, wild regard of guilt, And that which now compels thee to reply _155 To what I ask: Am I, or am I not A parricide?

MARZIO: Thou art not!

JUDGE: What is this?

MARZIO: I here declare those whom I did accuse Are innocent. 'Tis I alone am guilty.

JUDGE: Drag him away to torments; let them be _160 Subtle and long drawn out, to tear the folds Of the heart's inmost cell. Unbind him not Till he confess.

MARZIO: Torture me as ye will: A keener pang has wrung a higher truth From my last breath. She is most innocent! _165 Bloodhounds, not men, glut yourselves well with me; I will not give you that fine piece of nature To rend and ruin.

NOTE: _164 pang edition 1821; pain editions 1819, 1839.

[EXIT MARZIO, GUARDED.]

CAMILLO: What say ye now, my Lords?

JUDGE: Let tortures strain the truth till it be white As snow thrice sifted by the frozen wind. _170

CAMILLO: Yet stained with blood.

JUDGE [TO BEATRICE]: Know you this paper, Lady?

BEATRICE: Entrap me not with questions. Who stands here As my accuser? Ha! wilt thou be he, Who art my judge? Accuser, witness, judge, What, all in one? Here is Orsino's name; _175 Where is Orsino? Let his eye meet mine.

What means this scrawl? Alas! ye know not what, And therefore on the chance that it may be Some evil, will ye kill us?

[ENTER AN OFFICER.]

OFFICER: Marzio's dead.

JUDGE: What did he say?

OFFICER: Nothing. As soon as we _180 Had bound him on the wheel, he smiled on us, As one who baffles a deep adversary; And holding his breath, died.

JUDGE: There remains nothing But to apply the question to those prisoners, Who yet remain stubborn.

CAMILLO: I overrule _185 Further proceedings, and in the behalf Of these most innocent and n.o.ble persons Will use my interest with the Holy Father.