A pause.

Do you not speak?
Will you not even curse me ere you go? –
You have the right.

A pause.

You do not understand
There lies between you and the headsman’s axe
Hardly so much sand in the hour-glass
As a child’s palm could carry: here is the ring:
I have washed my hand: there is no blood upon it:
You need not fear. Will you not take the ring?

GUIDO (takes ring and kisses it): Ay! gladly, Madam.

DUCHESS: And leave Padua.

GUIDO: Leave Padua.

DUCHESS: But it must be to-night.

GUIDO: To-night it shall be.

DUCHESS: Oh, thank God for that!

GUIDO: So I can live; life never seemed so sweet As at this moment.

DUCHESS: Do not tarry, Guido,
There is my cloak: the horse is at the bridge,
The second bridge below the ferry house:
Why do you tarry? Can your ears not hear
This dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke
Robs one brief minute from your boyish life.
Go quickly.

GUIDO: Ay! He will come soon enough.

DUCHESS: Who?

GUIDO (calmly): Why, the headsman.

DUCHESS: No, no.

GUIDO: Only he
Can bring me out of Padua.

DUCHESS: You dare not!
You dare not burden my o’erburdened soul
With two dead men! I think one is enough.
For when I stand before God, face to face,
I would not have you, with a scarlet thread
Around your white throat, coming up behind
To say I did it: Why, the very devils
Who howl away in hell would pity me:
You will not be more cruel than the devils
Who are shut out from God.

GUIDO: Madam, I wait.

DUCHESS: No, no, you cannot: you do not understand,
I have less power in Padua to-night
Than any common woman; they will kill you.
I saw the scaffold as I crossed the square,
Already the low rabble throng about it,
With fearful jests, and horrid merriment,
As though it were a morris-dancer’s platform,
And not Death’s sable throne. O Guido, Guido,
You must escape!

GUIDO: Ay, by the hand of death,
Not by your hand.

DUCHESS. Oh, you are merciless,
Merciless now as ever: No, no, Guido,
You must go hence.

GUIDO: Madam, I tarry here.

DUCHESS: Guido, you shall not: it would be a thing
So terrible that the amazed stars
Would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon
Be in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun
Refuse to shine upon the unjust earth
Which saw thee die.

GUIDO: Be sure I shall not stir.

DUCHESS (wringing her hands): You do not know: once that the judges come
I have no power to keep you from the axe;
You cannot wait: have I not sinned enough?
Is one sin not enough, but must it breed
A second sin more horrible again
Than was the one that bare it? O God, God,
Seal up sin’s teeming womb, and make it barren,
I will not have more blood upon my hand
Than I have now.