[Beatrice Advances.]

ORSINO: Then...

BEATRICE: Peace, Orsino! And, honoured Lady, while I speak, I pray, That you put off, as garments overworn, Forbearance and respect, remorse and fear, And all the fit restraints of daily life, Which have been borne from childhood, but which now Would be a mockery to my holier plea. As I have said, I have endured a wrong, Which, though it be expressionless, is such As asks atonement; both for what is past, And lest I be reserved, day after day, To load with crimes an overburthened soul, And be...what ye can dream not. I have prayed To God, and I have talked with my own heart, And have unravelled my entangled will, And have at length determined what is right. Art thou my friend, Orsino? False or true? Pledge thy salvation ere I speak.

ORSINO: I swear To dedicate my cunning, and my strength, My silence, and whatever else is mine, To thy commands.

LUCRETIA: You think we should devise His death?

BEATRICE: And execute what is devised, And suddenly. We must be brief and bold.

ORSINO: And yet most cautious.

LUCRETIA: For the jealous laws Would punish us with death and infamy For that which it became themselves to do.

BEATRICE: Be cautious as ye may, but prompt. Orsino, What are the means?

ORSINO: I know two dull, fierce outlaws, Who think man’s spirit as a worm’s, and they Would trample out, for any slight caprice, The meanest or the noblest life. This mood Is marketable here in Rome. They sell What we now want.

LUCRETIA: To-morrow before dawn, Cenci will take us to that lonely rock, Petrella, in the Apulian Apennines. If he arrive there...

BEATRICE: He must not arrive.

ORSINO: Will it be dark before you reach the tower?

LUCRETIA: The sun will scarce be set.

BEATRICE: But I remember Two miles on this side of the fort, the road Crosses a deep ravine; ’tis rough and narrow, And winds with short turns down the precipice; And in its depth there is a mighty rock, Which has, from unimaginable years, Sustained itself with terror and with toil Over a gulf, and with the agony With which it clings seems slowly coming down; Even as a wretched soul hour after hour, Clings to the mass of life; yet, clinging, leans; And leaning, makes more dark the dread abyss In which it fears to fall: beneath this crag Huge as despair, as if in weariness, The melancholy mountain yawns...below, You hear but see not an impetuous torrent Raging among the caverns, and a bridge Crosses the chasm; and high above there grow, With intersecting trunks, from crag to crag, Cedars, and yews, and pines; whose tangled hair Is matted in one solid roof of shade By the dark ivy’s twine. At noonday here ’Tis twilight, and at sunset blackest night.

ORSINO: Before you reach that bridge make some excuse For spurring on your mules, or loitering Until...

BEATRICE: What sound is that?

LUCRETIA: Hark! No, it cannot be a servant’s step It must be Cenci, unexpectedly Returned...Make some excuse for being here.

BEATRICE [TO ORSINO AS SHE GOES OUT]: That step we hear approach must never pass The bridge of which we spoke.