And spoil you perhaps in keeping.
guido
It is nothing.
duchess
Nay, it is from some girl.
guido
You know ’tis not.
duchess [turns her back and opens it]
Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,
A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?
·67· guido [taking it from her]
O God!
duchess
I’ll from the window look, and try
If I can’t see the porter’s livery
Who left it at the gate! I will not rest
Till I have learned your secret.
[Runs laughing into the corridor.]
guido
Oh, horrible!
Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,
Did I so soon let love into my heart,
And must I banish love, and let in murder
That beats and clamours at the outer gate?
Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?
Yet not to-night; nay, it must be to-night.
Farewell then all the joy and light of life,
All dear recorded memories, farewell,
Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands
Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?
Could I with lips fresh from this butchery
Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes
·68· Look in those violet eyes, whose purity
Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel
In night perpetual? No, murder has set
A barrier between us far too high
For us to kiss across it.
duchess
Guido!
guido
Beatrice,
You must forget that name, and banish me
Out of your life for ever.
duchess [going towards him]
O dear love!
guido [stepping back]
There lies a barrier between us two
We dare not pass.
duchess
I dare do anything
So that you are beside me.
guido
Ah! There it is,
I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe
·69· The air you breathe; I cannot any more
Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves
My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand
Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;
Forget you ever looked upon me.
duchess
What!
With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips
Forget the vows of love you made to me?
guido
I take them back!
duchess
Alas, you cannot, Guido,
For they are part of nature now; the air
Is tremulous with their music, and outside
The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.
guido
There lies a barrier between us now,
Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.
duchess
There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go
In poor attire, and will follow you
Over the world.
·70· guido [wildly]
The world’s not wide enough
To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.
duchess [calm, and controlling her passion]
Why did you come into my life at all, then,
Or in the desolate garden of my heart
Sow that white flower of love——?
guido
O Beatrice!
duchess
Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,
Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart
That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?
Why did you come into my life? Why open
The secret wells of love I had sealed up?
Why did you open them——?
guido
O God!
duchess [clenching her hand]
And let
The floodgates of my passion swell and burst
Till, like the wave when rivers overflow
That sweeps the forest and the farm away,
·71· Love in the splendid avalanche of its might
Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop
Gather these waters back and seal them up?
Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so
Will with its saltness make life very bitter.
guido
I pray you speak no more, for I must go
Forth from your life and love, and make a way
On which you cannot follow.
duchess
I have heard
That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,
Poor castaways upon a lonely sea,
Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses,
And then wake up with red thirst in their throats,
And die more miserably because sleep
Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep
For having sent them dreams: I will not curse you
Though I am cast away upon the sea
Which men call Desolation.
·72· guido
O God, God!
duchess
But you will stay: listen, I love you, Guido.
[She