GUIDO (breaking from her): O damned saint! O angel fresh from Hell!
What bloody devil tempted thee to this!
That thou hast killed thy husband, that is nothing –
Hell was already gaping for his soul –
But thou hast murdered Love, and in its place
Has set a horrible and bloodstained thing,
Whose very breath breeds pestilence and plague,
And strangles Love.

DUCHESS (in amazed wonder): I did it all for you
I would not have you do it, had you willed it,
For I would keep you without blot or stain,
A thing unblemished, unassailed, untarnished.
Men do not know what women do for love.
Have I not wrecked my soul for your dear sake,
Here and hereafter?

Oh be kind to me,
I did it all for you.

GUIDO: No, do not touch me,
Between us lies a thin red stream of blood,
I dare not look across it: when you stabbed him
You stabbed Love with a sharp knife to the heart.
We cannot meet again.

DUCHESS: (wringing her hands): For you! For you!
I did it all for you: have you forgotten?
You said there was a barrier between us;
That barrier lies now i’ the upper chamber
Upset, overthrown, beaten, and battered down,
And will not part us ever.

GUIDO: No, you mistook:
Sin was the barrier, you have raised it up;
Crime was the barrier, you have set it there.
The barrier was murder, and your hand
Has builded it so high it shuts out heaven,
It shuts out God.

DUCHESS: I did it all for you;
You dare not leave me now: nay, Guido, listen.
Get horses ready, we will fly to-night.
The past is a bad dream, we will forget it:
Before us lies the future: will we not have
Sweet days of love beneath our vines and laugh? –
No, no, we will not laugh, but, when we weep,
Well, we will weep together; I will serve you
Like a poor housewife, like a common slave;
I will be very meek and very gentle:
You do not know me.

GUIDO: Nay, I know you now;
Get hence, I say, out of my sight.

DUCHESS (pacing up and down): O God,
How I have loved this man!

GUIDO: You never loved me.
Had it been so, Love would have stopped your hand,
Nor suffered you to stain his holy shrine,
Where none can enter but the innocent.

DUCHESS: These are but words, words, words.

GUIDO: Get hence, I pray:
How could we sit together at Love’s table?
You have poured poison in the sacred wine,
And Murder dips his fingers in the sop.
Rather than this I had died a thousand deaths.

DUCHESS: I having done it, die a thousand deaths.

GUIDO: It is not death but life that you should fear.