CENCI

Here are the letters brought from Sala

manca.

39

[The assembly appears confused; several of the guests rise.

FIRST GUEST

CENCI (filling a bowl of wine, and lifting it up)

O thou bright wine whose purple splendor
Teaps

And bubbles gayly in this golden bowl
Under the lamp-light, as my spirits do,
To hear the death of my accursed sons! 8
Could I believe thou wert their mingled
blood,

Then would I taste thee like a sacrament,
And pledge with thee the mighty Devil in
Hell,

Who, if a father's curses, as men say, Climb with swift wings after their children's souls,

And drag them from the very throne of Heaven,

Now triumphs in my triumph! But thou

99

I do entreat you, go not, noble guests; What although tyranny and impious hate Stand sheltered by a father's hoary hair? What if 't is he who clothed us in these limbs

Who tortures them, and triumphs? What, if we,

The desolate and the dead, were his own flesh,

His children and his wife, whom he is bound To love and shelter? Shall we therefore find

No refuge in this merciless wide world? Oh, think what deep wrongs must have blotted out

First love, then reverence, in a child's prone mind,

Till it thus vanquish shame and fear! Oh,