No More Learning

BEATRICE [TO LUCRETIA]:
Great God! How horrible! some dreadful ill
Must have befallen my brothers.

LUCRETIA:
Fear not, child, _35
He speaks too frankly.

BEATRICE:
Ah! My blood runs cold.
I fear that wicked laughter round his eye,
Which wrinkles up the skin even to the hair.

CENCI:
Here are the letters brought from Salamanca;
Beatrice, read them to your mother. God! _40
I thank thee! In one night didst thou perform,
By ways inscrutable, the thing I sought.
My disobedient and rebellious sons
Are dead! --Why, dead! --What means this change of cheer?
You hear me not, I tell you they are dead; _45
And they will need no food or raiment more:
The tapers that did light them the dark way
Are their last cost.
The Pope, I think, will not
Expect I should maintain them in their coffins.
Rejoice with me--my heart is wondrous glad. _50

[LUCRETIA SINKS, HALF FAINTING; BEATRICE SUPPORTS HER. ]

BEATRICE :
It is not true! --Dear Lady, pray look up.
Had it been true, there is a God in Heaven,
He would not live to boast of such a boon.
Unnatural man, thou knowest that it is false.

CENCI:
Ay, as the word of God; whom here I call _55
To witness that I speak the sober truth;--
And whose most favouring Providence was shown
Even in the manner of their deaths. For Rocco
Was kneeling at the mass, with sixteen others,
When the church fell and crushed him to a mummy, _60
The rest escaped unhurt. Cristofano
Was stabbed in error by a jealous man,
Whilst she he loved was sleeping with his rival;
All in the self-same hour of the same night;
Which shows that Heaven has special care of me. _65
I beg those friends who love me, that they mark
The day a feast upon their calendars.
It was the twenty-seventh of December:
Ay, read the letters if you doubt my oath.

[THE ASSEMBLY APPEARS CONFUSED; SEVERAL OF THE GUESTS RISE. ]

FIRST GUEST:
Oh, horrible! I will depart--

SECOND GUEST:
And I. --

THIRD GUEST:
No, stay!