MALATESTA. Done, out of hand; and now I wait a formal answer, nothing more. Guido dare not decline. No, by the saints, He'd send Ravenna's virgins here in droves, To buy a ten days' truce.
LANCIOTTO. Sir, let me say, You stretch paternal privilege too far, To pledge my hand without my own consent. Am I a portion of your household stuff, That you should trade me off to Guido thus? Who is the lady I am bartered for?
MALATESTA. Francesca, Guido's daughter.--Never frown; It shall be so!
LANCIOTTO. By heaven, it shall not be! My blood shall never mingle with his race.
MALATESTA. According to your nurse's prophecy, Fate orders it.
MALATESTA. Now, then, I have struck The chord that answers to your gloomy thoughts. Bah! on your sibyl and her prophecy! Put Guido's blood aside, and yet, I say, Marry you shall.
MALATESTA. Lanciotto, look ye! You brave gentlemen, So fond of knocking out poor people's brains, In time must come to have your own knocked out: What, then, if you bequeath us no new hands, To carry on your business, and our house Die out for lack of princes?
LANCIOTTO. Wed my brothers: They'll rear you sons, I'll slay you enemies. Paolo and Francesca! Note their names; They chime together like sweet marriage-bells. A proper match. 'Tis said she's beautiful; And he is the delight of Rimini,-- The pride and conscious centre of all eyes, The theme of poets, the ideal of art, The earthly treasury of Heaven's best gifts! I am a soldier; from my very birth, Heaven cut me out for terror, not for love. I had such fancies once, but now--
MALATESTA. Pshaw! son, My faith is bound to Guido; and if you Do not throw off your duty, and defy, Through sickly scruples, my express commands, You'll yield at once. No more: I'll have it so! [_Exit._
LANCIOTTO. Curses upon my destiny! What, I-- Ho! I have found my use at last--What, I, I, the great twisted monster of the wars, The brawny cripple, the herculean dwarf, The spur of panic, and the butt of scorn-- be a bridegroom! Heaven, was I not cursed More than enough, when thou didst fashion me To be a type of ugliness,--a thing By whose comparison all Rimini Holds itself beautiful? Lo! here I stand, A gnarléd, blighted trunk! There's not a knave So spindle-shanked, so wry-faced, so infirm, Who looks at me, and smiles not on himself. And I have friends to pity me--great Heaven! One has a favourite leg that he bewails,-- Another sees my hip with doleful plaints,-- A third is sorry o'er my huge swart arms,-- A fourth aspires to mount my very hump, And thence harangue his weeping brotherhood! Pah! it is nauseous! Must I further bear The sidelong shuddering glances of a wife? The degradation of a showy love, That over-acts, and proves the mummer's craft Untouched by nature? And a fair wife, too!-- Francesca, whom the minstrels sing about! Though, by my side, what woman were not fair? Circe looked well among her swine, no doubt; Next me, she'd pass for Venus. Ho! ho! ho! [_Laughing._] Would there were something merry in my laugh! Now, in the battle, if a Ghibelin Cry, "Wry-hip! hunchback!" I can trample him Under my stallion's hoofs; or haggle him Into a monstrous likeness of myself: But to be pitied,--to endure a sting Thrust in by kindness, with a sort of smile!-- 'Sdeath! it is miserable!