GUIDO. Fool! take your strangling fingers from my throat. I am my father's only son; the State Has but one heir, and that false enemy France Waits for the ending of my father's line To fall upon our city.
SIMONE. Hush! your father When he is childless will be happier. As for the State, I think our state of Florence Needs no adulterous pilot at its helm. Your life would soil its lilies.
GUIDO. Take off your hands Take off your damned hands. Loose me, I say!
SIMONE. Nay, you are caught in such a cunning vice That nothing will avail you, and your life Narrowed into a single point of shame Ends with that shame and ends most shamefully.
GUIDO. Oh! let me have a priest before I die!
SIMONE. What wouldst thou have a priest for? Tell thy sins To God, whom thou shalt see this very night And then no more for ever. Tell thy sins To Him who is most just, being pitiless, Most pitiful being just. As for myself. . .
GUIDO. Oh! help me, sweet Bianca! help me, Bianca, Thou knowest I am innocent of harm.
SIMONE. What, is there life yet in those lying lips? Die like a dog with lolling tongue! Die! Die! And the dumb river shall receive your corse And wash it all unheeded to the sea.
