SAVELLA: 
I grieve thus to distress you, but the Count
Must answer charges of the gravest import,
And suddenly; such my commission is.

LUCRETIA [WITH INCREASED AGITATION]: 
I dare not rouse him:  I know none who dare... 
’Twere perilous;...you might as safely waken 15
A serpent; or a corpse in which some fiend
Were laid to sleep.

SAVELLA: 
Lady, my moments here
Are counted.  I must rouse him from his sleep,
Since none else dare.

LUCRETIA [ASIDE]: 
O, terror!  O, despair!
[TO BERNARDO.]
Bernardo, conduct you the Lord Legate to 20
Your father’s chamber.

[EXEUNT SAVELLA AND BERNARDO.]

[ENTER BEATRICE.]

BEATRICE: 
’Tis a messenger
Come to arrest the culprit who now stands
Before the throne of unappealable God. 
Both Earth and Heaven, consenting arbiters,
Acquit our deed.

LUCRETIA: 
Oh, agony of fear! 25
Would that he yet might live!  Even now I heard
The Legate’s followers whisper as they passed
They had a warrant for his instant death. 
All was prepared by unforbidden means
Which we must pay so dearly, having done. 30
Even now they search the tower, and find the body;
Now they suspect the truth; now they consult
Before they come to tax us with the fact;
O, horrible, ’tis all discovered!

BEATRICE: 
Mother,
What is done wisely, is done well.  Be bold 35
As thou art just.  ’Tis like a truant child
To fear that others know what thou hast done,
Even from thine own strong consciousness, and thus
Write on unsteady eyes and altered cheeks
All thou wouldst hide.  Be faithful to thyself, 40
And fear no other witness but thy fear. 
For if, as cannot be, some circumstance
Should rise in accusation, we can blind
Suspicion with such cheap astonishment,
Or overbear it with such guiltless pride, 45
As murderers cannot feign.  The deed is done,
And what may follow now regards not me. 
I am as universal as the light;
Free as the earth-surrounding air; as firm
As the world’s centre.  Consequence, to me, 50
Is as the wind which strikes the solid rock,
But shakes it not.

[A CRY WITHIN AND TUMULT.]

VOICES: 
Murder!  Murder!  Murder!

[ENTER BERNARDO AND SAVELLA.]

SAVELLA [TO HIS FOLLOWERS]: 
Go search the castle round; sound the alarm;
Look to the gates, that none escape!

BEATRICE: 
What now?

BERNARDO: 
I know not what to say...my father’s dead. 55

BEATRICE: 
How; dead! he only sleeps; you mistake, brother. 
His sleep is very calm, very like death;
’Tis wonderful how well a tyrant sleeps. 
He is not dead?