65
And wind me in his hellish arms, and fix
His eyes on mine, and drag me down, down, down! 
For was he not alone omnipotent
On Earth, and ever present?  Even though dead,
Does not his spirit live in all that breathe, 70
And work for me and mine still the same ruin,
Scorn, pain, despair?  Who ever yet returned
To teach the laws of Death’s untrodden realm? 
Unjust perhaps as those which drive us now,
Oh, whither, whither?

LUCRETIA: 
Trust in God’s sweet love, 75
The tender promises of Christ:  ere night,
Think, we shall be in Paradise.

BEATRICE: 
’Tis past! 
Whatever comes, my heart shall sink no more. 
And yet, I know not why, your words strike chill: 
How tedious, false, and cold seem all things.  I 80
Have met with much injustice in this world;
No difference has been made by God or man,
Or any power moulding my wretched lot,
’Twixt good or evil, as regarded me. 
I am cut off from the only world I know, 85
From light, and life, and love, in youth’s sweet prime. 
You do well telling me to trust in God;
I hope I do trust in him.  In whom else
Can any trust?  And yet my heart is cold.

[DURING THE LATTER SPEECHES GIACOMO HAS RETIRED CONVERSING WITH
CAMILLO, WHO NOW GOES OUT;
GIACOMO ADVANCES.]

GIACOMO: 
Know you not, Mother...Sister, know you not? 90
Bernardo even now is gone to implore
The Pope to grant our pardon.

LUCRETIA: 
Child, perhaps
It will be granted.  We may all then live
To make these woes a tale for distant years: 
Oh, what a thought!  It gushes to my heart 95
Like the warm blood.

BEATRICE: 
Yet both will soon be cold. 
Oh, trample out that thought!  Worse than despair,
Worse than the bitterness of death, is hope: 
It is the only ill which can find place
Upon the giddy, sharp, and narrow hour 100
Tottering beneath us.  Plead with the swift frost
That it should spare the eldest flower of spring: 
Plead with awakening earthquake, o’er whose couch
Even now a city stands, strong, fair, and free;
Now stench and blackness yawn, like death.  Oh, plead 105
With famine, or wind-walking Pestilence,
Blind lightning, or the deaf sea, not with man! 
Cruel, cold, formal man; righteous in words,
In deeds a Cain.  No, Mother, we must die: 
Since such is the reward of innocent lives; 110
Such the alleviation of worst wrongs. 
And whilst our murderers live, and hard, cold men,
Smiling and slow, walk through a world of tears
To death as to life’s sleep; ’twere just the grave
Were some strange joy for us.  Come, obscure Death, 115
And wind me in thine all-embracing arms! 
Like a fond mother hide me in thy bosom,
And rock me to the sleep from which none wake. 
Live ye, who live, subject to one another
As we were once, who now...