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.

GUIDO (seizing her hand): What! Am I fallen so low
That I may not have leave to die for you?

DUCHESS (tearing her hand away): Die for me? – no, my life is a vile thing,
Thrown to the miry highways of this world;
You shall not die for me, you shall not, Guido,
I am a guilty woman.

GUIDO: Guilty? – let those

Who know what a thing temptation is,
In the red fire of passion, those whose lives
Are dull and colourless, in a word let those,
If any such there be, who have not loved,
Cast stones against you. As for me—

DUCHESS: Alas!

GUIDO (falling at her feet): You are my lady, and you are my love!
O hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face
Made for the luring and the love of man!
Incarnate image of pure loveliness!
Worshipping thee I do forget the past,
Worshipping thee my soul comes close to thine,
Worshipping thee I seem to be a god,
And though they give my body to the block,
Yet is my love eternal!

DUCHESS puts her hands over her face: GUIDO draws them down.

Sweet, lift up
The trailing curtains that overhang thine eyes
That I may look into those eyes, and tell you
I love you, never more than now when Death
Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice,
I love you: have you no word left to say?
Oh, I can bear the executioner,
But not this silence: will you not say you love me?
Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting,
But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths
Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh you are cruel,
And do not love me.