Quick, let your soul go chambering in my heart, It will but find its master’s image there. Nay, if you will not slay me with your sword, Bid me to fall upon this reeking knife, And I will do it.

GUIDO

[wresting knife from her] Give it to me, I say. O God, your very hands are wet with blood! This place is Hell, I cannot tarry here. I pray you let me see your face no more.

DUCHESS

Better for me I had not seen your face. [GUIDO recoils: she seizes his hands as she kneels.] Nay, Guido, listen for a while: Until you came to Padua I lived Wretched indeed, but with no murderous thought, Very submissive to a cruel Lord, Very obedient to unjust commands,

As pure I think as any gentle girl Who now would turn in horror from my hands - [Stands up.] You came: ah! Guido, the first kindly words I ever heard since I had come from France Were from your lips: well, well, that is no matter. You came, and in the passion of your eyes I read love’s meaning; everything you said Touched my dumb soul to music, so I loved you. And yet I did not tell you of my love. ’Twas you who sought me out, knelt at my feet As I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows, [Kneels.] Whose music seems to linger in my ears, Swore that you loved me, and I trusted you. I think there are many women in the world Who would have tempted you to kill the man. I did not. Yet I know that had I done so, I had not been thus humbled in the dust, [Stands up.] But you had loved me very faithfully. [After a pause approaches him timidly.] I do not think you understand me, Guido: It was for your sake that I wrought this deed Whose horror now chills my young blood to ice, For your sake only. [Stretching out her arm.] Will you not speak to me? Love me a little: in my girlish life I have been starved for love, and kindliness Has passed me by.

GUIDO

I dare not look at you: You come to me with too pronounced a favour; Get to your tirewomen.

DUCHESS

Ay, there it is! There speaks the man! yet had you come to me With any heavy sin upon your soul, Some murder done for hire, not for love, Why, I had sat and watched at your bedside All through the night-time, lest Remorse might come And pour his poisons in your ear, and so Keep you from sleeping! Sure it is the guilty, Who, being very wretched, need love most.

GUIDO

There is no love where there is any guilt.

DUCHESS

No love where there is any guilt! O God, How differently do we love from men! There is many a woman here in Padua, Some workman’s wife, or ruder artisan’s, Whose husband spends the wages of the week In a coarse revel, or a tavern brawl, And reeling home late on the Saturday night, Finds his wife sitting by a fireless hearth, Trying to hush the child who cries for hunger, And then sets to and beats his wife because The child is hungry, and the fire black. Yet the wife loves him! and will rise next day With some red bruise across a careworn face, And sweep the house, and do the common service, And try and smile, and only be too glad If he does not beat her a second time Before her child! - that is how women love. [A pause: GUIDO says nothing.] I think you will not drive me from your side. Where have I got to go if you reject me? - You for whose sake this hand has murdered life, You for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself Beyond all hope of pardon.