CARDINAL: Nay, my son,
For the great power of our mother Church,
Ends not with this poor bubble of a world,
Of which we are but dust, as Jerome saith,
For if the sinner doth repentant die,
Our prayers and holy masses much avail
To bring the guilty soul from purgatory.

DUCHESS: And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord
With that red star of blood upon his heart,
Tell him I sent thee hither.

GUIDO: O dear God!

MORANZONE: This is the woman, is it, whom you loved?

CARDINAL: Your Grace is very cruel to this man.

DUCHESS: No more than he was cruel to her Grace.

CARDINAL: Ay! He did slay your husband.

DUCHESS: Ay! He did.

CARDINAL: Yet mercy is the sovereign right of princes.

DUCHESS: I got no mercy, and I give it not.
He hath changed my heart into a heart of stone,
He hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field,
He hath poisoned the wells of pity in my breast,
He hath withered up all kindness at the root;
My life is as some famine-murdered land,
Whence all good things have perished utterly:
I am what he hath made me.

The DUCHESS weeps.

JEPPO: Is it not strange
That she should so have loved the wicked Duke?

MAFFIO: It is most strange when women love their lords,
And when they love them not it is most strange.

JEPPO: What a philosopher thou art, Petrucci!

MAFFIO: Ay! I can bear the ills of other men,
Which is philosophy.

DUCHESS: They tarry long,
These-greybeards and their council; bid them come;
Bid them come quickly, else I think my heart
Will beat itself to bursting: not indeed, that I here care to live:
God knows my life
Is not so full of joy, yet, for all that,
I would not die companionless, or go
Lonely to Hell.

Look, my Lord Cardinal,
Canst thou not see across my forehead here,
In scarlet letters writ, the word Revenge?
Fetch me some water, I will wash it off:
’Twas branded there last night, but in the daytime
I need not wear it, need I, my Lord Cardinal?
Oh how it sears and burns into my brain:
Give me a knife; not that one, but another,
And I will cut it out.

CARDINAL: It is most natural
To be incensed against the murderous hand
That treacherously stabbed your sleeping lord.

DUCHESS: I would, old Cardinal, I could burn that hand;
But it will burn hereafter.

CARDINAL: Nay, the Church
Ordains us to forgive our enemies.

DUCHESS: Forgiveness? What is that? I never got it.
They come at last: well, my Lord Justice, well.

Enter the LORD JUSTICE.

LORD JUSTICE: Most gracious Lady, and our sovereign Liege,
We have long pondered on the point at issue,
And much considered of your Grace’s wisdom,
And never wisdom spake from fairer lips –

DUCHESS: Proceed, sir, without compliment.