The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,285 pages of information about The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete.

ORSINO: 
That wish
Now comes a day too late.  Haste; fare thee well! 
Hear’st thou not steps along the corridor?
[EXIT GIACOMO.]
I’m sorry for it; but the guards are waiting
At his own gate, and such was my contrivance 75
That I might rid me both of him and them. 
I thought to act a solemn comedy
Upon the painted scene of this new world,
And to attain my own peculiar ends
By some such plot of mingled good and ill
80
As others weave; but there arose a Power
Which grasped and snapped the threads of my device
And turned it to a net of ruin...Ha!
[A SHOUT IS HEARD.]
Is that my name I hear proclaimed abroad? 
But I will pass, wrapped in a vile disguise; 85
Rags on my back, and a false innocence
Upon my face, through the misdeeming crowd
Which judges by what seems.  ’Tis easy then
For a new name and for a country new,
And a new life, fashioned on old desires,
90
To change the honours of abandoned Rome. 
And these must be the masks of that within,
Which must remain unaltered...Oh, I fear
That what is past will never let me rest! 
Why, when none else is conscious, but myself, 95
Of my misdeeds, should my own heart’s contempt
Trouble me?  Have I not the power to fly
My own reproaches?  Shall I be the slave
Of...what?  A word? which those of this false world
Employ against each other, not themselves;
100
As men wear daggers not for self-offence. 
But if I am mistaken, where shall I
Find the disguise to hide me from myself,
As now I skulk from every other eye?

[EXIT.]

SCENE 5.2: 
A HALL OF JUSTICE. 
CAMILLO, JUDGES, ETC., ARE DISCOVERED SEATED;
MARZIO IS LED IN.

FIRST JUDGE: 
Accused, do you persist in your denial? 
I ask you, are you innocent, or guilty? 
I demand who were the participators
In your offence?  Speak truth, and the whole truth.

MARZIO: 
My God!  I did not kill him; I know nothing; 5
Olimpio sold the robe to me from which
You would infer my guilt.

SECOND JUDGE: 
Away with him!

FIRST JUDGE: 
Dare you, with lips yet white from the rack’s kiss
Speak false?  Is it so soft a questioner,
That you would bandy lover’s talk with it 10
Till it wind out your life and soul?  Away!

MARZIO: 
Spare me!  O, spare!  I will confess.

FIRST JUDGE: 
Then speak.

MARZIO: 
I strangled him in his sleep.

FIRST JUDGE: 
Who urged you to it?

MARZIO: 
His own son Giacomo, and the young prelate
Orsino sent me to Petrella; there 15
The ladies Beatrice and Lucretia
Tempted me with a thousand crowns, and I
And my companion forthwith murdered him. 
Now let me die.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley — Complete from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.