BEATRICE:
Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
My dear Lord Cardinal.
Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
My dear Lord Cardinal.
Shelley
Say farewell, before
Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear _140
You speak!
NOTE:
_136 was as a Rossetti cj. ; was a editions 1819, 1821, 1839.
BEATRICE:
Farewell, my tender brother. Think
Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now:
And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee
Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,
But tears and patience. One thing more, my child: _145
For thine own sake be constant to the love
Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I,
Though wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,
Lived ever holy and unstained. And though
Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name _150
Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow
For men to point at as they pass, do thou
Forbear, and never think a thought unkind
Of those, who perhaps love thee in their graves.
So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain _155
Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!
BERNARDO:
I cannot say, farewell!
CAMILLO:
Oh, Lady Beatrice!
BEATRICE:
Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair _160
In any simple knot; ay, that does well.
And yours I see is coming down. How often
Have we done this for one another; now
We shall not do it any more. My Lord,
We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well. _165
THE END.
NOTE ON THE CENCI, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The sort of mistake that Shelley made as to the extent of his own
genius and powers, which led him deviously at first, but lastly into
the direct track that enabled him fully to develop them, is a curious
instance of his modesty of feeling, and of the methods which the human
mind uses at once to deceive itself, and yet, in its very delusion, to
make its way out of error into the path which Nature has marked out as
its right one. He often incited me to attempt the writing a tragedy:
he conceived that I possessed some dramatic talent, and he was always
most earnest and energetic in his exhortations that I should cultivate
any talent I possessed, to the utmost. I entertained a truer estimate
of my powers; and above all (though at that time not exactly aware of
the fact) I was far too young to have any chance of succeeding, even
moderately, in a species of composition that requires a greater scope
of experience in, and sympathy with, human passion than could then
have fallen to my lot,--or than any perhaps, except Shelley, ever
possessed, even at the age of twenty-six, at which he wrote The Cenci.
On the other hand, Shelley most erroneously conceived himself to be
destitute of this talent. He believed that one of the first requisites
was the capacity of forming and following-up a story or plot. He
fancied himself to he defective in this portion of imagination: it was
that which gave him least pleasure in the writings of others, though
he laid great store by it as the proper framework to support the
sublimest efforts of poetry. He asserted that he was too metaphysical
and abstract, too fond of the theoretical and the ideal, to succeed as
a tragedian.
Death chokes that gentle voice! Oh, let me hear _140
You speak!
NOTE:
_136 was as a Rossetti cj. ; was a editions 1819, 1821, 1839.
BEATRICE:
Farewell, my tender brother. Think
Of our sad fate with gentleness, as now:
And let mild, pitying thoughts lighten for thee
Thy sorrow's load. Err not in harsh despair,
But tears and patience. One thing more, my child: _145
For thine own sake be constant to the love
Thou bearest us; and to the faith that I,
Though wrapped in a strange cloud of crime and shame,
Lived ever holy and unstained. And though
Ill tongues shall wound me, and our common name _150
Be as a mark stamped on thine innocent brow
For men to point at as they pass, do thou
Forbear, and never think a thought unkind
Of those, who perhaps love thee in their graves.
So mayest thou die as I do; fear and pain _155
Being subdued. Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!
BERNARDO:
I cannot say, farewell!
CAMILLO:
Oh, Lady Beatrice!
BEATRICE:
Give yourself no unnecessary pain,
My dear Lord Cardinal. Here, Mother, tie
My girdle for me, and bind up this hair _160
In any simple knot; ay, that does well.
And yours I see is coming down. How often
Have we done this for one another; now
We shall not do it any more. My Lord,
We are quite ready. Well, 'tis very well. _165
THE END.
NOTE ON THE CENCI, BY MRS. SHELLEY.
The sort of mistake that Shelley made as to the extent of his own
genius and powers, which led him deviously at first, but lastly into
the direct track that enabled him fully to develop them, is a curious
instance of his modesty of feeling, and of the methods which the human
mind uses at once to deceive itself, and yet, in its very delusion, to
make its way out of error into the path which Nature has marked out as
its right one. He often incited me to attempt the writing a tragedy:
he conceived that I possessed some dramatic talent, and he was always
most earnest and energetic in his exhortations that I should cultivate
any talent I possessed, to the utmost. I entertained a truer estimate
of my powers; and above all (though at that time not exactly aware of
the fact) I was far too young to have any chance of succeeding, even
moderately, in a species of composition that requires a greater scope
of experience in, and sympathy with, human passion than could then
have fallen to my lot,--or than any perhaps, except Shelley, ever
possessed, even at the age of twenty-six, at which he wrote The Cenci.
On the other hand, Shelley most erroneously conceived himself to be
destitute of this talent. He believed that one of the first requisites
was the capacity of forming and following-up a story or plot. He
fancied himself to he defective in this portion of imagination: it was
that which gave him least pleasure in the writings of others, though
he laid great store by it as the proper framework to support the
sublimest efforts of poetry. He asserted that he was too metaphysical
and abstract, too fond of the theoretical and the ideal, to succeed as
a tragedian.
