No More Learning

I am resolved, although this very hand
Must quench the life that animated it. _60

ORSINO:
There is no need of that. Listen: you know
Olimpio, the castellan of Petrella
In old Colonna's time; him whom your father
Degraded from his post? And Marzio,
That desperate wretch, whom he deprived last year _65
Of a reward of blood, well earned and due?

GIACOMO:
I knew Olimpio; and they say he hated
Old Cenci so, that in his silent rage
His lips grew white only to see him pass.
Of Marzio I know nothing.

ORSINO:
Marzio's hate _70
Matches Olimpio's. I have sent these men,
But in your name, and as at your request,
To talk with Beatrice and Lucretia.

GIACOMO:
Only to talk?

ORSINO:
The moments which even now
Pass onward to to-morrow's midnight hour _75
May memorize their flight with death: ere then
They must have talked, and may perhaps have done,
And made an end. . .

GIACOMO:
Listen! What sound is that?

ORSINO:
The house-dog moans, and the beams crack: nought else.
GIACOMO:
It is my wife complaining in her sleep: _80
I doubt not she is saying bitter things
Of me; and all my children round her dreaming
That I deny them sustenance.

ORSINO:
Whilst he
Who truly took it from them, and who fills
Their hungry rest with bitterness, now sleeps _85
Lapped in bad pleasures, and triumphantly
Mocks thee in visions of successful hate
Too like the truth of day.

GIACOMO:
If e'er he wakes
Again, I will not trust to hireling hands. . .

ORSINO:
Why, that were well. I must be gone; good-night. _90
When next we meet--may all be done!

NOTE:
_91 may all be done!
Giacomo: And all edition 1821;
Giacomo: May all be done, and all edition 1819.

GIACOMO:
And all
Forgotten: Oh, that I had never been!

[EXEUNT. ]

END OF ACT 3.


ACT 4.

SCENE 4. 1:
AN APARTMENT IN THE CASTLE OF PETRELLA.