PAOLO.  Lanciotto,
I heard the bells of Rimini, just now,
Exulting o’er your coming marriage-day,
While you conspired to teach them gloomier sounds. 
Why are you sad?

LANCIOTTO.  Paolo, I am wretched;
Sad’s a faint word.  But of my marriage-bells—­
Heard you the knell that Pepe rang?

PAOLO.  ’Twas strange: 
A sullen antic of his crabbed wit.

LANCIOTTO.  It was portentous.  All dumb things find tongues
Against this marriage.  As I passed the hall,
My armour glittered on the wall, and I
Paused by the harness, as before a friend
Whose well-known features slack our hurried gait;
Francesca’s name was fresh upon my mind,
So I half-uttered it.  Instant, my sword
Leaped from its scabbard, as with sudden life,
Plunged down and pierced into the oaken floor,
Shivering with fear!  Lo! while I gazed upon it—­
Doubting the nature of the accident—­
Around the point appeared a spot of blood,
Oozing upon the floor, that spread and spread—­
As I stood gasping by in speechless horror—­
Ring beyond ring, until the odious tide
Crawled to my feet, and lapped them, like the tongues
Of angry serpents!  O, my God!  I fled
At the first touch of the infernal stain! 
Go—­you may see—­go to the hall!

PAOLO.  Fie! man,
You have been ever played on in this sort
By your wild fancies.  When your heart is high,
You make them playthings; but in lower moods,
They seem to sap the essence of your soul,
And drain your manhood to its poorest dregs.

LANCIOTTO.  Go look, go look!

PAOLO. [Goes to the door, and returns.] There sticks the sword, indeed,
Just as your tread detached it from its sheath; Looking more like a blessed cross, I think,
Than a bad looking omen.  As for blood—­Ha, ha!
[Laughing.]
It sets mine dancing.  Pshaw! away with this! 
Deck up your face with smiles.  Go trim yourself
For the young bride.  New velvet, gold, and gems,
Do wonders for us.  Brother, come; I’ll be
Your tiring-man, for once.

LANCIOTTO.  Array this lump—­
Paolo, hark!  There are some human thoughts
Best left imprisoned in the aching heart,
Lest the freed malefactors should dispread
Infamous ruin with their liberty. 
There’s not a man—­the fairest of ye all—­
Who is not fouler than he seems.  This life
Is one unending struggle to conceal
Our baseness from our fellows.  Here stands one
In vestal whiteness with a lecher’s lust;—­
There sits a judge, holding law’s scales in hands
That itch to take the bribe he dare not touch;—­
Here goes a priest with heavenward eyes, whose soul
Is Satan’s council-chamber;—­there a doctor,
With nature’s secrets wrinkled round a brow
Guilty with conscious ignorance;—­and here
A soldier rivals Hector’s bloody deeds—­
Out-does the devil in audacity—­
With craven longings fluttering in a heart
That dares do aught but fly!  Thus are we all
Mere slaves and alms-men to a scornful world,
That takes us at our seeming.