style="font-size:15px;"> Ay! what can harm us now,Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d care
Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander
Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?
They say the common field-flowers of the field
Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on
Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs
Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die
With all Arabia round them; so it is
With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,
It does but bring the sweetness out of them,
And makes them lovelier often. And besides,
While we have love we have the best of life:
Is it not so?
GUIDO
Dear, shall we play or sing?
I think that I could sing now.
DUCHESS
Do not speak,
For there are times when all existences
Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,
And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.
GUIDO
Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!
You love me, Beatrice?
DUCHESS
Ay! is it not strange
I should so love mine enemy?
GUIDO Who is he?
DUCHESS
Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my heart!
Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life
Until it met your arrow.
GUIDO
Ah, dear love,
I am so wounded by that bolt myself
That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,
Unless you cure me, dear Physician.
DUCHESS
I would not have you cured; for I am sick
With the same malady.
GUIDO
Oh, how I love you!
See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell
The one tale over.
DUCHESS
Tell no other tale!
For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,
The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark
Has lost its music.
GUIDO
Kiss me, Beatrice!
[She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and GUIDO leaps up; enter a Servant.]
SERVANT A package for you, sir.
GUIDO [carelessly] Ah! give it to me. [Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as GUIDO is about to open it the DUCHESS comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him.]
DUCHESS [laughing]
Now I will wager it is from some girl
Who would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous
I will not give up the least part in you,
But like a miser keep you to myself,
And spoil you perhaps in keeping.
GUIDO It is nothing.
DUCHESS Nay, it is from some girl.
GUIDO You know ‘tis not.
DUCHESS [turns her back and opens it]
Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,
A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?
GUIDO [taking it from her] O God!
DUCHESS
I’ll from the window look, and try
If I can’t see the porter’s livery
Who left it at the gate! I will not rest
Till I have learned your secret.
[Runs laughing into the corridor.]
GUIDO Oh, horrible!
Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,
Did I so soon let love into my heart,
And must I banish love, and let in murder
That beats and clamours at the outer gate?
Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?
Yet not tonight; nay, it must be tonight.
Farewell then all the joy and light of life,
All dear recorded memories, farewell,
Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands
Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?
Could I with lips fresh from this butchery
Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes
Look in those violet eyes, whose purity
Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel
In night perpetual? No, murder has set
A barrier between us far too high
For us to kiss across it.
DUCHESS Guido!
GUIDO
Beatrice,
You must forget that name, and banish me
