[ENTER BEATRICE.]

BEATRICE: 
’Tis my brother’s voice!  You know me not?

GIACOMO: 
My sister, my lost sister! 380

BEATRICE: 
Lost indeed! 
I see Orsino has talked with you, and
That you conjecture things too horrible
To speak, yet far less than the truth.  Now, stay not,
He might return:  yet kiss me; I shall know 385
That then thou hast consented to his death. 
Farewell, farewell!  Let piety to God,
Brotherly love, justice and clemency,
And all things that make tender hardest hearts
Make thine hard, brother.  Answer not...farewell. 390

[EXEUNT SEVERALLY.]

SCENE 3.2: 
A MEAN APARTMENT IN GIACOMO’S HOUSE. 
GIACOMO ALONE.

GIACOMO: 
’Tis midnight, and Orsino comes not yet.
[THUNDER, AND THE SOUND OF A STORM.]
What! can the everlasting elements
Feel with a worm like man?  If so, the shaft
Of mercy-winged lightning would not fall
On stones and trees.  My wife and children sleep:  5
They are now living in unmeaning dreams: 
But I must wake, still doubting if that deed
Be just which is most necessary.  O,
Thou unreplenished lamp! whose narrow fire
Is shaken by the wind, and on whose edge 10
Devouring darkness hovers!  Thou small flame,
Which, as a dying pulse rises and falls,
Still flickerest up and down, how very soon,
Did I not feed thee, wouldst thou fail and be
As thou hadst never been!  So wastes and sinks 15
Even now, perhaps, the life that kindled mine: 
But that no power can fill with vital oil
That broken lamp of flesh.  Ha! ’tis the blood
Which fed these veins that ebbs till all is cold: 
It is the form that moulded mine that sinks 20
Into the white and yellow spasms of death: 
It is the soul by which mine was arrayed
In God’s immortal likeness which now stands
Naked before Heaven’s judgement seat!
[A BELL STRIKES.]
One!  Two! 
The hours crawl on; and, when my hairs are white, 25
My son will then perhaps be waiting thus,
Tortured between just hate and vain remorse;
Chiding the tardy messenger of news
Like those which I expect.  I almost wish
He be not dead, although my wrongs are great; 30
Yet...’tis Orsino’s step...
[ENTER ORSINO.]
Speak!

ORSINO: 
I am come
To say he has escaped.

GIACOMO: 
Escaped!

ORSINO: 
And safe
Within Petrella.  He passed by the spot
Appointed for the deed an hour too soon.

GIACOMO: 
Are we the fools of such contingencies? 35
And do we waste in blind misgivings thus
The hours when we should act?  Then wind and thunder,
Which seemed to howl his knell, is the loud laughter
With which Heaven mocks our weakness!  I henceforth
Will ne’er repent of aught designed or done 40
But my repentance.