[Stops Abruptly.]

ORSINO: What? Fear not to speak your thought. Words are but holy as the deeds they cover: A priest who has forsworn the God he serves; A judge who makes Truth weep at his decree; A friend who should weave counsel, as I now, But as the mantle of some selfish guile; A father who is all a tyrant seems, Were the profaner for his sacred name.

NOTE: _77 makes Truth edition 1821; makes the truth editions 1819, 1839.

GIACOMO: Ask me not what I think; the unwilling brain Feigns often what it would not; and we trust Imagination with such fantasies As the tongue dares not fashion into words, Which have no words, their horror makes them dim To the mind's eye.--My heart denies itself To think what you demand.

ORSINO: But a friend's bosom Is as the inmost cave of our own mind Where we sit shut from the wide gaze of day, And from the all-communicating air. You look what I suspected--

GIACOMO: Spare me now! I am as one lost in a midnight wood, Who dares not ask some harmless passenger The path across the wilderness, lest he, As my thoughts are, should be--a murderer. I know you are my friend, and all I dare Speak to my soul that will I trust with thee. But now my heart is heavy, and would take Lone counsel from a night of sleepless care. Pardon me, that I say farewell--farewell! I would that to my own suspected self I could address a word so full of peace.

ORSINO: Farewell!--Be your thoughts better or more bold. [EXIT GIACOMO.] I had disposed the Cardinal Camillo To feed his hope with cold encouragement: It fortunately serves my close designs That 'tis a trick of this same family To analyse their own and other minds. Such self-anatomy shall teach the will Dangerous secrets: for it tempts our powers, Knowing what must be thought, and may be done. Into the depth of darkest purposes: So Cenci fell into the pit; even I, Since Beatrice unveiled me to myself, And made me shrink from what I cannot shun, Show a poor figure to my own esteem, To which I grow half reconciled. I'll do As little mischief as I can; that thought Shall fee the accuser conscience. [AFTER A PAUSE.] Now what harm If Cenci should be murdered?--Yet, if murdered, Wherefore by me? And what if I could take The profit, yet omit the sin and peril In such an action? Of all earthly things I fear a man whose blows outspeed his words And such is Cenci: and while Cenci lives His daughter's dowry were a secret grave If a priest wins her.--Oh, fair Beatrice! Would that I loved thee not, or loving thee, Could but despise danger and gold and all That frowns between my wish and its effect. Or smiles beyond it! There is no escape... Her bright form kneels beside me at the altar, And follows me to the resort of men, And fills my slumber with tumultuous dreams, So when I wake my blood seems liquid fire; And if I strike my damp and dizzy head My hot palm scorches it: her very name, But spoken by a stranger, makes my heart Sicken and pant; and thus unprofitably I clasp the phantom of unfelt delights Till weak imagination half possesses The self-created shadow. Yet much longer Will I not nurse this life of feverous hours: From the unravelled hopes of Giacomo I must work out my own dear purposes. I see, as from a tower, the end of all: Her father dead; her brother bound to me By a dark secret, surer than the grave; Her mother scared and unexpostulating From the dread manner of her wish achieved; And she!--Once more take courage, my faint heart; What dares a friendless maiden matched with thee? I have such foresight as assures success: Some unbeheld divinity doth ever, When dread events are near, stir up men's minds To black suggestions; and he prospers best, Not who becomes the instrument of ill, But who can flatter the dark spirit, that makes Its empire and its prey of other hearts Till it become his slave...as I will do.