Oscar Wilde

“ Moranzone
Surely my ears are traitors, speak again:
It cannot be but age has dulled my powers,
I am an old man now: what did you say?
You said that with that dagger in your belt
You would avenge your father’s bloody murder;
Did you not say that?
Guido
No, my lord, I said
I was resolved not to kill the Duke.
Moranzone
You said not that; it is my senses mock me;
Or else this midnight air o’ercharged with storm
Alters your message in the giving it.
Guido
Nay, you heard rightly; I’ll not kill this man.
Moranzone
What of thine oath, thou traitor, what of thine oath? ”

“ Duchess
Ay, there it is!
There speaks the man! yet had you come to me
With any heavy sin upon your soul,
Some murder done for hire, not for love,
Why, I had sat and watched at your bedside
All through the night-time, lest Remorse might come
And pour his poisons in your ear, and so
Keep you from sleeping! Sure it is the guilty,
Who, being very wretched, need love most.
Guido
There is no love where there is any guilt.
Duchess
No love where there is any guilt! O God,
How differently do we love from men! ”

“ It is the fire which purges gold from dross, It is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff, It is the spring which in some wintry soil Makes innocence to blossom like a rose. The days are over when God walked with men, But Love, which is his image, holds his place. When a man loves a woman, then he knows God's secret, and the secret of the world. There is no house so lowly or so mean, Which, if their hearts be pure who live in it, Love will not enter; but if bloody murder Knock at the Palace gate and is let in, Love like a wounded thing creeps out and dies. ”

“ Hast set a horrible and bloodstained thing,
Whose very breath breeds pestilence and plague,
And strangles Love.
Duchess [in amazed wonder]
I did it all for you.
I would not have you do it, had you willed it,
For I would keep you without blot or stain,
A thing unblemished, unassailed, untarnished.
Men do not know what women do for love.
Have I not wrecked my soul for your dear sake,
Here and hereafter?
Guido
No, do not touch me,
Between us lies a thin red stream of blood;
I dare not look across it: when you stabbed him
You stabbed Love with a sharp knife to the heart. ”

“ Duchess
A grave is but a narrow wedding-bed.
Guido
It is enough for us
Duchess
And they will strew it
With a stark winding-sheet, and bitter herbs:
I think there are no roses in the grave,
Or if there are, they all are withered now
Since my Lord went there.
Guido
Ah! dear Beatrice,
Your lips are roses that death cannot wither.
Duchess
Nay, if we lie together, will not my lips
Fall into dust, and your enamoured eyes
Shrivel to sightless sockets, and the worms,
Which are our groomsmen, eat away your heart?
Guido
I do not care: Death has no power on love. ”

“ Fool, what revenge is there? Death is the common heritage of all, And death comes best when it comes suddenly. [Goes up close to GUIDO.] Your father was betrayed, there is your cue; For you shall sell the seller in his turn. I will make you of his household, you shall sit At the same board with him, eat of his bread -
GUIDO. O bitter bread!
MORANZONE Thy palate is too nice, Revenge will make it sweet. Thou shalt o' nights Pledge him in wine, drink from his cup, and be His intimate, so he will fawn on thee, Love thee, and trust thee in all secret things. ”

“ MORANZONE Ay! lives in thee. Thou art the same in mould and lineament, Carriage and form, and outward semblances; I trust thou art in noble mind the same.
GUIDO. Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived But for this moment.
MORANZONE We must be alone.
GUIDO.
This is my dearest friend, who out of love Has followed me to Padua; as two brothers, There is no secret which we do not share.
MORANZONE There is one secret which ye shall not share; Bid him go hence.
GUIDO. [to ASCANIO] Come back within the hour. He does not know that nothing in this world Can dim the perfect mirror of our love. ”

“ Guido
O damnéd stars
Quench your vile cresset-lights in tears, and bid
The moon, your mistress, shine no more to-night.
Duchess
Guido, why are we here? I think this room
Is poorly furnished for a marriage chamber.
Let us get hence at once. Where are the horses?
We should be on our way to Venice now.
How cold the night is! We must ride faster.
[The Monks begin to chant outside.]
Music! It should be merrier; but grief
Is of the fashion now—I know not why.
You must not weep: do we not love each other?—
That is enough. Death, what do you here? ”

“ There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues, Paul of Verona and the dyer's son, Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice, Has set God's little maid upon the stair, White as her own white lily, and as tall, Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine Because they are mothers merely; yet I think Women are the best artists of the world, For they can take the common lives of men Soiled with the money-getting of our age, And with love make them beautiful. DUCHESS Ah, dear, I wish that you and I were very poor; The poor, who love each other, are so rich. ”

“ Boy, do you think I do not know your secret, Your traffic with the Duchess? GUIDO Silence, liar! The very moon in heaven is not more chaste. Nor the white stars so pure. MORANZONE And yet, you love her; Weak fool, to let love in upon your life, Save as a plaything. GUIDO You do well to talk: Within your veins, old man, the pulse of youth Throbs with no ardour. Your eyes full of rheum Have against Beauty closed their filmy doors, And your clogged ears, losing their natural sense, Have shut you from the music of the world. You talk of love! ”

“ DUCHESS Ay! what can harm us now, Who are in Love's hand? I do not think I'd care Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander Trample and tread upon my life; why should I? They say the common field-flowers of the field Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs Which have no perfume, on being bruised die With all Arabia round them; so it is With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush, It does but bring the sweetness out of them, And makes them lovelier often. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Do you not think that love Fills up the sum of life? GUIDO Ay! without love Life is no better than the unhewn stone Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor Has set the God within it. Without love Life is as silent as the common reeds That through the marshes or by rivers grow, And have no music in them. DUCHESS Yet out of these The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe And from them he draws music; so I think Love will bring music out of any life. ”

“ THIRD CITIZEN Good my Lord, Fill up our mouths with bread; we'll hold our tongues.
DUKE. Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve or not. My lords, this age is so familiar grown, That the low peasant hardly doffs his hat, Unless you beat him; and the raw mechanic Elbows the noble in the public streets. [To the Citizens.] Still as our gentle Duchess has so prayed us, And to refuse so beautiful a beggar Were to lack both courtesy and love, Touching your grievances, I promise this -
FIRST CITIZEN Marry, he will lighten the taxes! ”

“ The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf And is afraid to look at the great sun For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes, O daring eyes! are grown so venturous That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you, And surfeit sense with beauty. DUCHESS Dear love, I would You could look upon me ever, for your eyes Are polished mirrors, and when I peer Into those mirrors I can see myself, And so I know my image lives in you. GUIDO [taking her in his arms] Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens, And make this hour immortal! ”

“ DUCHESS I would not have you either stay or go; For if you stay you steal my love from me, And if you go you take my love away. Guido, though all the morning stars could sing They could not tell the measure of my love. I love you, Guido. GUIDO [stretching out his hands] Oh, do not cease at all; I thought the nightingale sang but at night; Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips Touch the sweet lips that can such music make. DUCHESS To touch my lips is not to touch my heart. ”

“ 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 to-night when my Lord lieth asleep,
Will I fall upon my dagger, and so cease. ”

“ Noon.
[Clock in the Cathedral strikes.]
Ascanio
It is that now, and your man has not come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. [Rises.] By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come. ”

“ Duchess
Wherefore now,
Throw ashes on the head of Padua,
With sable banners hang each silent street,
Let every man be clad in solemn black;
But ere we turn to these sad rites of mourning
Let us bethink us of the desperate hand
Which wrought and brought this ruin on our state,
And straightway pack him to that narrow house,
Where no voice is, but with a little dust
Death fills right up the lying mouths of men.
Guido
Unhand me, knaves! ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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? ”

“ Have you not sometimes noted, When we unlock some longdisused room With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled, Where never foot of man has come for years, And from the windows take the rusty bar, And fling the broken shutters to the air, And let the bright sun in, how the good sun Turns every grimy particle of dust Into a little thing of dancing gold? Guido, my heart is that long-empty room, But you have let love in, and with its gold www.freeclassicebooks.com 38 Gilded all life. ”

“ I know it is the general lot of women, Each miserably mated to some man Wrecks her own life upon his selfishness: That it is general makes it not less bitter. I think I never heard a woman laugh, Laugh for pure merriment, except one woman, That was at night time, in the public streets. Poor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore The mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her; No, death were better. [Enter GUIDO behind unobserved; the DUCHESS flings herself down before a picture of the Madonna.] ”

“ Until the blood grows dry upon this knife,
[Wildly] Back to your dead!
Duchess [going up the stairs]
Why, then I will be gone! and may you find
More mercy than you showed to me to-night!
Guido
Let me find mercy when I go at night
And do foul murder.
Duchess [coming down a few steps.]
Murder did you say?
Murder is hungry, and still cries for more,
And Death, his brother, is not satisfied,
But walks the house, and will not go away,
Unless he has a comrade! Tarry, Death,
For I will give thee a most faithful lackey
To travel with thee! Murder, call no more,
For thou shalt eat thy fill. ”

“ We are all animals at best, and love Is merely passion with a holy name. GUIDO Now then I know you have not loved at all. Love is the sacrament of life; it sets Virtue where virtue was not; cleanses men Of all the vile pollutions of this world ”