LANCIOTTO.  Why do these prodigies environ me? 
In ancient Rome, the words a fool might drop,
From the confusion of his vagrant thoughts,
Were held as omens, prophecies; and men
Who made earth tremble with majestic deeds,
Trembled themselves at fortune’s lightest threat. 
I like it not.  My father named this match
While I boiled over with vindictive wrath
Towards Guido and Ravenna.  Straight my heart
Sank down like lead; a weakness seized on me,
A dismal gloom that I could not resist;
I lacked the power to take my stand, and say—­
Bluntly, I will not!  Am I in the toils? 
Has fate so weakened me, to work its end? 
There seems a fascination in it, too,—­
A morbid craving to pursue a thing
Whose issue may be fatal.  Would that I
Were in the wars again!  These mental weeds
Grow on the surface of inactive peace. 
I’m haunted by myself.  Thought preys on thought. 
My mind seems crowded in the hideous mould
That shaped my body.  What a fool am I
To bear the burden of my wretched life,
To sweat and toil under the world’s broad eye,
Climb into fame, and find myself—­O, what?—­
A most conspicuous monster!  Crown my head,
Pile Caesar’s purple on me—­and what then? 
My hump shall shorten the imperial robe,
My leg peep out beneath the scanty hem,
My broken hip shall twist the gown awry;
And pomp, instead of dignifying me,
Shall be by me made quite ridiculous. 
The faintest coward would not bear all this: 
Prodigious courage must be mine, to live;
To die asks nothing but weak will, and I
Feel like a craven.  Let me skulk away
Ere life o’ertask me. [Offers to stab himself.

    Enter PAOLO.

PAOLO. [Seizing his hand.] Brother! what is this? 
Lanciotto, are you mad?  Kind Heaven! look here—­
Straight in my eyes.  Now answer, do you know
How near you were to murder?  Dare you bend
Your wicked hand against a heart I love? 
Were it for you to mourn your wilful death,
With such a bitterness as would be ours,
The wish would ne’er have crossed you.  While we’re bound
Life into life, a chain of loving hearts,
Were it not base in you, the middle link,
To snap, and scatter all?  Shame, brother, shame! 
I thought you better metal.

LANCIOTTO.  Spare your words. 
I know the seasons of our human grief,
And can predict them without almanac. 
A few sobs o’er the body, and a few
Over the coffin; then a sigh or two,
Whose windy passage dries the hanging tear;
Perchance, some wandering memories, some regrets;
Then a vast influx of consoling thoughts—­
Based on the trials of the sadder days
Which the dead missed; and then a smiling face
Turned on to-morrow.  Such is mortal grief. 
It writes its histories within a span,
And never lives to read them.