_ Peace! Peace!
For thine own sake unsay those dreadful words.
When high God grants he punishes such prayers.
_Cen._ (_Leaping up, and throwing his right hand toward Heaven_)
He does his will, I mine! This in addition,
That if she have a child--
_Lucr._ Horrible thought!
_Cen._ That if she ever have a child; and thou,
Quick Nature! I adjure thee by thy God,
That thou be fruitful in her, and encrease
And multiply, fulfilling his command,
And my deep imprecation! May it be
A hideous likeness of herself, that as
From a distorting mirror, she may see
Her image mixed with what she most abhors,
Smiling upon her from her nursing breast.
And that the child may from its infancy
Grow, day by day, more wicked and deformed,
Turning her mother's love to misery:
And that both she and it may live until
It shall repay her care and pain with hate,
Or what may else be more unnatural.
So he may hunt her thro' the clamorous scoffs
Of the loud world to a dishonoured grave.
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