As for me -

DUCHESS

Alas!

GUIDO

[falling at her feet] You are my lady, and you are my love! O hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face Made for the luring and the love of man! Incarnate image of pure loveliness! Worshipping thee I do forget the past, Worshipping thee my soul comes close to thine, Worshipping thee I seem to be a god, And though they give my body to the block, Yet is my love eternal! [DUCHESS puts her hands over her face: GUIDO draws them down.] Sweet, lift up The trailing curtains that overhang your eyes That I may look into those eyes, and tell you I love you, never more than now when Death Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice, I love you: have you no word left to say? Oh, I can bear the executioner, But not this silence: will you not say you love me? Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting, But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh, you are cruel, And do not love me.

DUCHESS

Alas! I have no right For I have stained the innocent hands of love With spilt-out blood: there is blood on the ground; I set it there.

GUIDO

Sweet, it was not yourself, It was some devil tempted you.

DUCHESS

[rising suddenly] No, no, We are each our own devil, and we make This world our hell.

GUIDO

Then let high Paradise Fall into Tartarus! for I shall make This world my heaven for a little space. The sin was mine, if any sin there was. ’Twas I who nurtured murder in my heart, Sweetened my meats, seasoned my wine with it, And in my fancy slew the accursed Duke A hundred times a day. Why, had this man Died half so often as I wished him to, Death had been stalking ever through the house, And murder had not slept. But you, fond heart, Whose little eyes grew tender over a whipt hound, You whom the little children laughed to see Because you brought the sunlight where you passed, You the white angel of God’s purity, This which men call your sin, what was it?

DUCHESS

Ay! What was it? There are times it seems a dream, An evil dream sent by an evil god, And then I see the dead face in the coffin And know it is no dream, but that my hand Is red with blood, and that my desperate soul Striving to find some haven for its love From the wild tempest of this raging world, Has wrecked its bark upon the rocks of sin. What was it, said you? - murder merely? Nothing But murder, horrible murder.

GUIDO

Nay, nay, nay, ’Twas but the passion-flower of your love That in one moment leapt to terrible life, And in one moment bare this gory fruit, Which I had plucked in thought a thousand times. My soul was murderous, but my hand refused; Your hand wrought murder, but your soul was pure. And so I love you, Beatrice, and let him Who has no mercy for your stricken head, Lack mercy up in heaven! Kiss me, sweet. [Tries to kiss her.]

DUCHESS

No, no, your lips are pure, and mine are soiled, For Guilt has been my paramour, and Sin Lain in my bed: O Guido, if you love me Get hence, for every moment is a worm Which gnaws your life away: nay, sweet, get hence, And if in after time you think of me, Think of me as of one who loved you more Than anything on earth; think of me, Guido, As of a woman merely, one who tried To make her life a sacrifice to love, And slew love in the trial: Oh, what is that? The bell has stopped from ringing, and I hear The feet of armed men upon the stair.

GUIDO

[aside] That is the signal for the guard to come.