him]O dear love!
GUIDO
[stepping back]
There lies a barrier between us two
We dare not pass.
DUCHESS
I dare do anything
So that you are beside me.
GUIDO
Ah! There it is,
I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe
The air you breathe; I cannot any more
Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves
My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand
Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;
Forget you ever looked upon me.
DUCHESS
What!
With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips
Forget the vows of love you made to me?
GUIDO
I take them back.
DUCHESS
Alas, you cannot, Guido,
For they are part of nature now; the air
Is tremulous with their music, and outside
The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.
GUIDO
There lies a barrier between us now,
Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.
DUCHESS
There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go
In poor attire, and will follow you
Over the world.
GUIDO [wildly]
The world’s not wide enough
To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.
DUCHESS
[calm, and controlling her passion]
Why did you come into my life at all, then,
Or in the desolate garden of my heart
Sow that white flower of love -?
GUIDO O Beatrice!
DUCHESS
Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,
Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart
That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?
Why did you come into my life? Why open
The secret wells of love I had sealed up?
Why did you open them -?
GUIDO O God!
DUCHESS [clenching her hand]
And let
The floodgates of my passion swell and burst
Till, like the wave when rivers overflow
That sweeps the forest and the farm away,
Love in the splendid avalanche of its might
Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop
Gather these waters back and seal them up?
Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so
Will with its saltness make life very bitter.
GUIDO
I pray you speak no more, for I must go
Forth from your life and love, and make a way
On which you cannot follow.
DUCHESS
I have heard
That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,
Poor castaways upon a lonely sea,
Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses,
And then wake up with red thirst in their throats,
And die more miserably because sleep
Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep
For having sent them dreams: I will not curse you
Though I am cast away upon the sea
Which men call Desolation.
GUIDO O God, God!
DUCHESS
But you will stay: listen, I love you, Guido.
[She waits a little.]
Is echo dead, that when I say I love you
There is no answer?
GUIDO
Everything is dead,
Save one thing only, which shall die tonight!
DUCHESS
If you are going, touch me not, but go.
[Exit GUIDO.]
Barrier! Barrier!
Why did he say there was a barrier?
There is no barrier between us two.
He lied to me, and shall I for that reason
Loathe what I love, and what I worshipped, hate?
I think we women do not love like that.
For if I cut his image from my heart,
My heart would, like a bleeding pilgrim, follow
That image through the world, and call it back
With little cries of love.
[Enter DUKE equipped for the chase, with falconers and hounds.]
DUKE
Madam, you keep us waiting;
