BEATRICE:
List! 'tis the tread of feet
About his bed.
LUCRETIA:
My God!
If he be now a cold, stiff corpse…
BEATRICE:
O, fear not _5
What may be done, but what is left undone:
The act seals all.
[ENTER OLIMPIO AND MARZIO.]
Is it accomplished?
MARZIO:
What?
OLIMPIO:
Did you not call?
BEATRICE:
When?
OLIMPIO:
Now.
BEATRICE:
I ask if all is over?
OLIMPIO:
We dare not kill an old and sleeping man;
His thin gray hair, his stern and reverend brow, _10
His veined hands crossed on his heaving breast,
And the calm innocent sleep in which he lay,
Quelled me. Indeed, indeed, I cannot do it.
NOTE: _10 reverend]reverent all editions.