All she appears to others; and when dead,
As she shall die unshrived and unforgiven,
A rebel to her father and her God, 90
Her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds;
Her name shall be the terror of the earth;
Her spirit shall approach the throne of God
Plague-spotted with my curses.  I will make
Body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin. 95

[ENTER ANDREA.]

ANDREA: 
The Lady Beatrice...

CENCI: 
Speak, pale slave!  What
Said she?

ANDREA: 
My Lord, ’twas what she looked; she said: 
’Go tell my father that I see the gulf
Of Hell between us two, which he may pass,
I will not.’

[EXIT ANDREA.]

CENCI: 
Go thou quick, Lucretia, 100
Tell her to come; yet let her understand
Her coming is consent:  and say, moreover,
That if she come not I will curse her.
[EXIT LUCRETIA.]
Ha! 
With what but with a father’s curse doth God
Panic-strike armed victory, and make pale 105
Cities in their prosperity?  The world’s Father
Must grant a parent’s prayer against his child,
Be he who asks even what men call me. 
Will not the deaths of her rebellious brothers
Awe her before I speak?  For I on them 110
Did imprecate quick ruin, and it came.
[ENTER LUCRETIA.]
Well; what?  Speak, wretch!

LUCRETIA: 
She said, ’I cannot come;
Go tell my father that I see a torrent
Of his own blood raging between us.’

CENCI [KNEELING]: 
God,
Hear me!  If this most specious mass of flesh, 115
Which Thou hast made my daughter; this my blood,
This particle of my divided being;
Or rather, this my bane and my disease,
Whose sight infects and poisons me; this devil
Which sprung from me as from a hell, was meant 120
To aught good use; if her bright loveliness
Was kindled to illumine this dark world;
If nursed by Thy selectest dew of love
Such virtues blossom in her as should make
The peace of life, I pray Thee for my sake, 125
As Thou the common God and Father art
Of her, and me, and all; reverse that doom! 
Earth, in the name of God, let her food be
Poison, until she be encrusted round
With leprous stains!  Heaven, rain upon her head 130
The blistering drops of the Maremma’s dew,
Till she be speckled like a toad; parch up
Those love-enkindled lips, warp those fine limbs
To loathed lameness!  All-beholding sun,
Strike in thine envy those life-darting eyes 135
With thine own blinding beams!

LUCRETIA: 
Peace!  Peace! 
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words. 
When high God grants He punishes such prayers.