The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: 250+ Titles in One Edition. Оскар Уайльд

Come, gentlemen, my hounds begin to chafe,

       And I chafe too, having a patient wife.

       Where is young Guido?

      MAFFIO

       My liege, I have not seen him

       For a full hour past.

      DUKE

       It matters not,

       I dare say I shall see him soon enough.

       Well, Madam, you will sit at home and spin.

       I do protest, sirs, the domestic virtues

       Are often very beautiful in others.

      [Exit DUKE with his Court.]

      DUCHESS

       The stars have fought against me, that is all,

       And thus tonight when my Lord lieth asleep,

       Will I fall upon my dagger, and so cease.

       My heart is such a stone nothing can reach it

       Except the dagger’s edge: let it go there,

       To find what name it carries: ay! tonight

       Death will divorce the Duke; and yet tonight

       He may die also, he is very old.

       Why should he not die? Yesterday his hand

       Shook with a palsy: men have died from palsy,

       And why not he? Are there not fevers also,

       Agues and chills, and other maladies

       Most incident to old age?

       No, no, he will not die, he is too sinful;

       Honest men die before their proper time.

       Good men will die: men by whose side the Duke

       In all the sick pollution of his life

       Seems like a leper: women and children die,

       But the Duke will not die, he is too sinful.

       Oh, can it be

       There is some immortality in sin,

       Which virtue has not? And does the wicked man

       Draw life from what to other men were death,

       Like poisonous plants that on corruption live?

       No, no, I think God would not suffer that:

       Yet the Duke will not die: he is too sinful.

       But I will die alone, and on this night

       Grim Death shall be my bridegroom, and the tomb

       My secret house of pleasure: well, what of that?

       The world’s a graveyard, and we each, like coffins,

       Within us bear a skeleton.

       [Enter LORD MORANZONE all in black; he passes across the back of the stage looking anxiously about.]

      MORANZONE

       Where is Guido?

       I cannot find him anywhere.

      DUCHESS

       [catches sight of him] O God!

       ‘Twas thou who took my love away from me.

      MORANZONE

       [with a look of joy]

       What, has he left you?

      DUCHESS

       Nay, you know he has.

       Oh, give him back to me, give him back, I say,

       Or I will tear your body limb from limb,

       And to the common gibbet nail your head

       Until the carrion crows have stripped it bare.

       Better you had crossed a hungry lioness

       Before you came between me and my love.

       [With more pathos.]

       Nay, give him back, you know not how I love him.

       Here by this chair he knelt a half hour since;

       ‘Twas there he stood, and there he looked at me;

       This is the hand he kissed, and these the ears

       Into whose open portals he did pour

       A tale of love so musical that all

       The birds stopped singing! Oh, give him back to me.

      MORANZONE He does not love you, Madam.

      DUCHESS

       May the plague

       Wither the tongue that says so! Give him back.

      MORANZONE

       Madam, I tell you you will never see him,

       Neither tonight, nor any other night.

      DUCHESS

       What is your name?

      MORANZONE

       My name? Revenge!

       [Exit.]

      DUCHESS

       Revenge!

       I think I never harmed a little child.

       What should Revenge do coming to my door?

       It matters not, for Death is there already,

       Waiting with his dim torch to light my way.

       ‘Tis true men hate thee, Death, and yet I think

       Thou wilt be kinder to me than my lover,

       And so dispatch the messengers at once,

       Harry the lazy steeds of lingering day,

       And let the night, thy sister, come instead,

       And drape the world in mourning; let the owl,

       Who is thy minister, scream from his tower

       And wake the toad with hooting, and the bat,

       That is the slave of dim Persephone,

       Wheel through the sombre air on wandering wing!

       Tear up the shrieking mandrakes from the earth

       And bid them make us music, and tell the mole

       To dig deep down thy cold and narrow bed,

       For I shall lie within thine arms tonight.

      END OF ACT II.

      ACT III

       Table of Contents

      SCENE

      A large corridor in the Ducal Palace: a window (L.C.) looks out on a view of Padua by moonlight: a staircase (R.C.) leads up to a door with a portière of crimson velvet, with the Duke’s arms embroidered in gold on it: on the lowest step of the staircase a figure draped in black is sitting: the hall is lit by an iron cresset filled with burning tow: thunder and lightning outside: the time is night.

      [Enter GUIDO through the window.]

      GUIDO

       The wind is rising: how my ladder shook!

       I thought that every gust would break the cords!

       [Looks out at the city.]

       Christ! What a night:

       Great thunder in the heavens, and wild lightnings

       Striking from pinnacle to pinnacle

       Across the city, till the dim houses seem

       To shudder and to shake as each new glare

       Dashes adown the street.