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.
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