Complete Plays. Оскар Уайльд

Complete Plays - Оскар Уайльд


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so love mine enemy?

      GUIDO Who is he?

      DUCHESS

       Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my heart!

       Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life

       Until it met your arrow.

      GUIDO

       Ah, dear love,

       I am so wounded by that bolt myself

       That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,

       Unless you cure me, dear Physician.

      DUCHESS

       I would not have you cured; for I am sick

       With the same malady.

      GUIDO

       Oh, how I love you!

       See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell

       The one tale over.

      DUCHESS

       Tell no other tale!

       For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,

       The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark

       Has lost its music.

      GUIDO

       Kiss me, Beatrice!

       [She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and GUIDO leaps up; enter a Servant.]

      SERVANT A package for you, sir.

      GUIDO [carelessly] Ah! give it to me. [Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as GUIDO is about to open it the DUCHESS comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him.]

      DUCHESS [laughing]

       Now I will wager it is from some girl

       Who would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous

       I will not give up the least part in you,

       But like a miser keep you to myself,

       And spoil you perhaps in keeping.

      GUIDO It is nothing.

      DUCHESS Nay, it is from some girl.

      GUIDO You know ‘tis not.

      DUCHESS [turns her back and opens it]

       Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,

       A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?

      GUIDO [taking it from her] O God!

      DUCHESS

       I’ll from the window look, and try

       If I can’t see the porter’s livery

       Who left it at the gate! I will not rest

       Till I have learned your secret.

       [Runs laughing into the corridor.]

      GUIDO Oh, horrible!

       Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,

       Did I so soon let love into my heart,

       And must I banish love, and let in murder

       That beats and clamours at the outer gate?

       Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?

       Yet not tonight; nay, it must be tonight.

       Farewell then all the joy and light of life,

       All dear recorded memories, farewell,

       Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands

       Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?

       Could I with lips fresh from this butchery

       Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes

       Look in those violet eyes, whose purity

       Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel

       In night perpetual? No, murder has set

       A barrier between us far too high

       For us to kiss across it.

      DUCHESS Guido!

      GUIDO

       Beatrice,

       You must forget that name, and banish me

       Out of your life for ever.

      DUCHESS

       [going towards him]

       O dear love!

      GUIDO

       [stepping back]

       There lies a barrier between us two

       We dare not pass.

      DUCHESS

       I dare do anything

       So that you are beside me.

      GUIDO

       Ah! There it is,

       I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe

       The air you breathe; I cannot any more

       Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves

       My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand

       Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;

       Forget you ever looked upon me.

      DUCHESS

       What!

       With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips

       Forget the vows of love you made to me?

      GUIDO

       I take them back.

      DUCHESS

       Alas, you cannot, Guido,

       For they are part of nature now; the air

       Is tremulous with their music, and outside

       The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.

      GUIDO

       There lies a barrier between us now,

       Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.

      DUCHESS

       There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go

       In poor attire, and will follow you

       Over the world.

      GUIDO [wildly]

       The world’s not wide enough

       To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.

      DUCHESS

       [calm, and controlling her passion]

       Why did you come into my life at all, then,

       Or in the desolate garden of my heart

       Sow that white flower of love -?

      GUIDO O Beatrice!

      DUCHESS

       Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,

       Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart

       That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?

       Why did you come into my life? Why open

       The secret wells of love I had sealed up?

       Why did you open them -?

      GUIDO O God!

      DUCHESS [clenching her hand]

       And let

       The floodgates of my passion swell and burst

       Till, like the wave when rivers overflow

       That sweeps the forest and the farm away,

       Love in the splendid avalanche of its might

       Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop

       Gather these


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