SONG: False friend, wilt thou smile or weep _130 When my life is laid asleep? Little cares for a smile or a tear, The clay-cold corpse upon the bier! Farewell! Heighho! What is this whispers low? _135 There is a snake in thy smile, my dear; And bitter poison within thy tear. Sweet sleep, were death like to thee, Or if thou couldst mortal be, I would close these eyes of pain; _140 When to wake? Never again. O World! Farewell! Listen to the passing bell! It says, thou and I must part, With a light and a heavy heart. _145 [THE SCENE CLOSES.] SCENE 5.4: A HALL OF THE PRISON. ENTER CAMILLO AND BERNARDO. CAMILLO: The Pope is stern; not to be moved or bent. He looked as calm and keen as is the engine Which tortures and which kills, exempt itself From aught that it inflicts; a marble form, A rite, a law, a custom: not a man. _5 He frowned, as if to frown had been the trick Of his machinery, on the advocates Presenting the defences, which he tore And threw behind, muttering with hoarse, harsh voice: 'Which among ye defended their old father _10 Killed in his sleep?' Then to another: 'Thou Dost this in virtue of thy place; 'tis well.' He turned to me then, looking deprecation, And said these three words, coldly: 'They must die.' BERNARDO: And yet you left him not? CAMILLO: I urged him still; _15 Pleading, as I could guess, the devilish wrong Which prompted your unnatural parent's death. And he replied: 'Paolo Santa Croce Murdered his mother yester evening, And he is fled. Parricide grows so rife _20 That soon, for some just cause no doubt, the young Will strangle us all, dozing in our chairs. Authority, and power, and hoary hair Are grown crimes capital. You are my nephew, You come to ask their pardon; stay a moment; _25 Here is their sentence; never see me more Till, to the letter, it be all fulfilled.' BERNARDO: O God, not so! I did believe indeed That all you said was but sad preparation For happy news. Oh, there are words and looks _30 To bend the sternest purpose! Once I knew them, Now I forget them at my dearest need. What think you if I seek him out, and bathe His feet and robe with hot and bitter tears? Importune him with prayers, vexing his brain _35 With my perpetual cries, until in rage He strike me with his pastoral cross, and trample Upon my prostrate head, so that my blood May stain the senseless dust on which he treads, And remorse waken mercy? I will do it! _40 Oh, wait till I return! [RUSHES OUT.] CAMILLO: Alas, poor boy! A wreck-devoted seaman thus might pray To the deaf sea. [ENTER LUCRETIA, BEATRICE, AND GIACOMO, GUARDED.]