BEATRICE: Ay, death... _125 The punishment of crime. I pray thee, God, Let me not be bewildered while I judge. If I must live day after day, and keep These limbs, the unworthy temple of Thy spirit, As a foul den from which what Thou abhorrest _130 May mock Thee, unavenged...it shall not be! Self-murder...no, that might be no escape, For Thy decree yawns like a Hell between Our will and it:--O! In this mortal world There is no vindication and no law _135 Which can adjudge and execute the doom Of that through which I suffer. [ENTER ORSINO.] [SHE APPROACHES HIM SOLEMNLY.] Welcome, Friend! I have to tell you that, since last we met, I have endured a wrong so great and strange, That neither life nor death can give me rest. _140 Ask me not what it is, for there are deeds Which have no form, sufferings which have no tongue. NOTE: _140 nor edition 1821; or editions 1819, 1839 (1st). ORSINO: And what is he who has thus injured you? BEATRICE: The man they call my father: a dread name. ORSINO: It cannot be... BEATRICE: What it can be, or not, _145 Forbear to think. It is, and it has been; Advise me how it shall not be again. I thought to die; but a religious awe Restrains me, and the dread lest death itself Might be no refuge from the consciousness _150 Of what is yet unexpiated. Oh, speak! ORSINO: Accuse him of the deed, and let the law Avenge thee. BEATRICE: Oh, ice-hearted counsellor! If I could find a word that might make known The crime of my destroyer; and that done, _155 My tongue should like a knife tear out the secret Which cankers my heart's core; ay, lay all bare, So that my unpolluted fame should be With vilest gossips a stale mouthed story; A mock, a byword, an astonishment:-- _160 If this were done, which never shall be done, Think of the offender's gold, his dreaded hate, And the strange horror of the accuser's tale, Baffling belief, and overpowering speech; Scarce whispered, unimaginable, wrapped _165 In hideous hints...Oh, most assured redress! ORSINO: You will endure it then? BEATRICE: Endure!--Orsino, It seems your counsel is small profit. [TURNS FROM HIM, AND SPEAKS HALF TO HERSELF.] Ay, All must be suddenly resolved and done. What is this undistinguishable mist _170 Of thoughts, which rise, like shadow after shadow, Darkening each other? ORSINO: Should the offender live? Triumph in his misdeed? and make, by use, His crime, whate'er it is, dreadful no doubt, Thine element; until thou mayest become _175 Utterly lost; subdued even to the hue Of that which thou permittest? BEATRICE [TO HERSELF]: Mighty death! Thou double-visaged shadow! Only judge! Rightfullest arbiter!