GUIDO: No.

MORANZONE: Ignoble son of a noble father,
Who sufferest this man who sold that father
To live an hour.

GUIDO: ’Twas thou that hindered me;
I would have killed him in the open square,
The day I saw him first.

MORANZONE: It was not yet time;
Now it is time, and, like some green-faced girl,
Thou pratest of forgiveness.

GUIDO: No! revenge:
The right revenge my father’s son should take.

MORANZONE: O wretched father, thus again betrayed,
And by thine own son too! You are a coward,
Take out the knife, get to the Duke’s chamber,
And bring me back his heart upon the blade.
When he is dead, then you can talk to me
Of noble vengeances.

GUIDO: Upon thine honour,
And by the love thou bearest my father’s name,
Dost thou think my father, that great gentleman,
That generous soldier, that most chivalrous lord,
Would have crept at night-time, like a common thief,
And stabbed an old man sleeping in his bed,
However he had wronged him: tell me that.

MORANZONE (after some hesitation): You have sworn an oath, see that you keep that oath.
Boy, do you think I do not know your secret,
Your traffic with the Duchess?

GUIDO: Silence, liar!
The very moon in heaven is not more chaste,
Nor the white stars so pure.

MORANZONE: And yet, you love her;
Weak fool, to let love in upon your life,
Save as a plaything.

GUIDO: You do well to talk:
Within your veins, old man, the pulse of youth
Throbs with no ardour. Your eyes full of rheum
Have against Beauty closed their filmy doors,
And your clogged ears, losing their natural sense,
Have shut you from the music of the world.
You talk of love! You know not what it is.

MORANZONE: Oh, in my time, boy, I have walked i’ the moon.
Swore I would live on kisses and on blisses,
Swore I would die for love, and did not die,
Wrote love bad verses; ay, and sung them badly,
Like all true lovers: Oh, I have done the tricks!
I know the partings and the chamberjngs;
We are all animals at best, and love
Is merely passion with a holy name.

GUIDO: Now then I know you have not loved at all.
Love is the sacrament of life; it sets
Virtue where virtue was not; cleanses men
Of all the vile pollutions of this world;
It is the fire which purges gold from dross,
It is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff,
It is the spring which in some wintry soil
Makes innocence to blossom like a rose.
The days are over when God walked with men,
But Love, which is His image, holds His place.
When a man loves a woman, then he knows
God’s secret, and the secret of the world.
There is no house so lowly or so mean,
Which, if their hearts be pure who live in it,
Love will not enter; but if bloody murder
Knock at the Palace gate and is let in,
Love like a wounded thing creeps out and dies.
This is the punishment God sets on sin.
The wicked cannot love.