CENCI [LEAPING UP, AND THROWING HIS RIGHT HAND TOWARDS HEAVEN]: 
He does his will, I mine!  This in addition,
That if she have a child...

LUCRETIA: 
Horrible thought! 140

CENCI: 
That if she ever have a child; and thou,
Quick Nature!  I adjure thee by thy God,
That thou be fruitful in her, and increase
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
And my deep imprecation!  May it be 145
A hideous likeness of herself, that as
From a distorting mirror, she may see
Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
Smiling upon her from her nursing breast. 
And that the child may from its infancy 150
Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
Turning her mother’s love to misery: 
And that both she and it may live until
It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
Or what may else be more unnatural. 155
So he may hunt her through the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave. 
Shall I revoke this curse?  Go, bid her come,
Before my words are chronicled in Heaven.
[EXIT LUCRETIA.]
I do not feel as if I were a man, 160
But like a fiend appointed to chastise
The offences of some unremembered world. 
My blood is running up and down my veins;
A fearful pleasure makes it prick and tingle: 
I feel a giddy sickness of strange awe; 165
My heart is beating with an expectation
Of horrid joy.
[ENTER LUCRETIA.]
What?  Speak!

LUCRETIA: 
She bids thee curse;
And if thy curses, as they cannot do,
Could kill her soul...

CENCI: 
She would not come.  ’Tis well,
I can do both; first take what I demand, 170
And then extort concession.  To thy chamber! 
Fly ere I spurn thee; and beware this night
That thou cross not my footsteps.  It were safer
To come between the tiger and his prey.
[EXIT LUCRETIA.]
It must be late; mine eyes grow weary dim 175
With unaccustomed heaviness of sleep. 
Conscience!  Oh, thou most insolent of lies! 
They say that sleep, that healing dew of Heaven,
Steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain
Which thinks thee an impostor.  I will go 180
First to belie thee with an hour of rest,
Which will be deep and calm, I feel:  and then... 
O, multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake
Thine arches with the laughter of their joy! 
There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven 185
As o’er an angel fallen; and upon Earth
All good shall droop and sicken, and ill things
Shall with a spirit of unnatural life,
Stir and be quickened...even as I am now.