Farewell then all the joy and light of life, All dear recorded memories, farewell, Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands? Could I with lips fresh from this butchery Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes Look in those violet eyes, whose purity Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel In night perpetual? No, murder has set A barrier between us far too high For us to kiss across it.

DUCHESS

Guido!

GUIDO

Beatrice, You must forget that name, and banish me Out of your life for ever.

DUCHESS

[going towards him] O dear love!

GUIDO

[stepping back] There lies a barrier between us two We dare not pass.

DUCHESS

I dare do anything So that you are beside me.

GUIDO

Ah! There it is, I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe The air you breathe; I cannot any more Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray; Forget you ever looked upon me.

DUCHESS

What! With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips Forget the vows of love you made to me?

GUIDO

I take them back.

DUCHESS

Alas, you cannot, Guido, For they are part of nature now; the air Is tremulous with their music, and outside The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.

GUIDO

There lies a barrier between us now, Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.

DUCHESS

There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go In poor attire, and will follow you Over the world.

GUIDO

[wildly] The world’s not wide enough To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.

DUCHESS

[calm, and controlling her passion] Why did you come into my life at all, then, Or in the desolate garden of my heart Sow that white flower of love -?

GUIDO

O Beatrice!

DUCHESS

Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out, Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart That if you break one, my heart breaks with it? Why did you come into my life? Why open The secret wells of love I had sealed up? Why did you open them -?

GUIDO

O God!

DUCHESS

[clenching her hand] And let The floodgates of my passion swell and burst Till, like the wave when rivers overflow That sweeps the forest and the farm away, Love in the splendid avalanche of its might Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop Gather these waters back and seal them up? Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so Will with its saltness make life very bitter.

GUIDO

I pray you speak no more, for I must go Forth from your life and love, and make a way On which you cannot follow.

DUCHESS

I have heard That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft, Poor castaways upon a lonely sea, Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses, And then wake up with red thirst in their throats, And die more miserably because sleep Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep For having sent them dreams: I will not curse you Though I am cast away upon the sea Which men call Desolation.

GUIDO

O God, God!

DUCHESS

But you will stay: listen, I love you, Guido. [She waits a little.