BEATRICE [TO MARZIO]: Come near. And who art thou thus chosen forth Out of the multitude of living men To kill the innocent? MARZIO: I am Marzio, _80 Thy father's vassal. BEATRICE: Fix thine eyes on mine; Answer to what I ask. [TURNING TO THE JUDGES.] I prithee mark His countenance: unlike bold calumny Which sometimes dares not speak the thing it looks, He dares not look the thing he speaks, but bends _85 His gaze on the blind earth. [TO MARZIO.] What! wilt thou say That I did murder my own father? MARZIO: Oh! Spare me! My brain swims round...I cannot speak... It was that horrid torture forced the truth. Take me away! Let her not look on me! _90 I am a guilty miserable wretch; I have said all I know; now, let me die! BEATRICE: My Lords, if by my nature I had been So stern, as to have planned the crime alleged, Which your suspicions dictate to this slave, _95 And the rack makes him utter, do you think I should have left this two-edged instrument Of my misdeed; this man, this bloody knife With my own name engraven on the heft, Lying unsheathed amid a world of foes, _100 For my own death? That with such horrible need For deepest silence, I should have neglected So trivial a precaution, as the making His tomb the keeper of a secret written On a thief's memory? What is his poor life? _105 What are a thousand lives? A parricide Had trampled them like dust; and, see, he lives! [TURNING TO MARZIO.] And thou... MARZIO: Oh, spare me! Speak to me no more! That stern yet piteous look, those solemn tones, Wound worse than torture. [TO THE JUDGES.] I have told it all; _110 For pity's sake lead me away to death. CAMILLO: Guards, lead him nearer the Lady Beatrice; He shrinks from her regard like autumn's leaf From the keen breath of the serenest north.