Look upon this man; When did you see him last?
Beatrice.—We never saw him.
Marzio.—You know me too well, Lady Beatrice.
Beatrice.—I know thee! How? where? when?
Marzio.—You know 't was I Whom you did urge with menaces and bribes To kill your father. When the thing was done You clothed me in a robe of woven gold And bade me thrive: how I have thriven, you see. You, my Lord Giacomo, Lady Lucretia, You know that what I speak is true. (Beatrice advances towards him; he covers his face, and shrinks back.) O, dart The terrible resentment of those eyes On the dead earth! Turn them away from me! They wound: 't was torture forced the truth. My Lords, Having said this let me be led to death.
Beatrice.—Poor wretch, I pity thee: yet stay awhile.
Camillo.—Guards, lead him not away.
Beatrice.—Cardinal Camillo, You have a good repute for gentleness And wisdom: can it be that you sit here To countenance a wicked farce like this? When some obscure and trembling slave is dragged From sufferings which might shake the sternest heart And bade to answer, not as he believes, But as those may suspect or do desire Whose questions thence suggest their own reply: And that in peril of such hideous torments As merciful God spares even the damned. Speak now The thing you surely know, which is that you, If your fine frame were stretched upon that wheel, And you were told: "Confess that you did poison Your little nephew; that fair blue-eyed child Who was the lodestar of your life:"—and tho' All see, since his most swift and piteous death, That day and night, and heaven and earth, and time And all the things hoped for or done therein Are changed to you, thro' your exceeding grief, Yet you would say, "I confess anything:" And beg from your tormentors, like that slave, The refuge of dishonorable death. I pray thee, Cardinal, that thou assert My innocence.
Camillo (much moved).—What shall we think, my Lords? Shame on these tears! I thought the heart was frozen Which is their fountain. I would pledge my soul That she is guiltless.
Judge.—Yet she must be tortured.