Complete Plays. Оскар Уайльд

Complete Plays - Оскар Уайльд


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to our commonwealth,

       For walls and gates, bastions and forts, and things

       Whose common elements are wood and stone

       May be raised up, but who can raise again

       The ruined body of my murdered lord,

       And bid it live and laugh?

      MAFFIO

       Now by Saint Paul

       I do not think that they will let him speak.

      JEPPO VITELLOZZO

       There is much in this, listen.

      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! I tell thee, my Lord Justice,

       Thou mightst as well bid the untrammelled ocean,

       The winter whirlwind, or the Alpine storm,

       Not roar their will, as bid me hold my peace!

       Ay! though ye put your knives into my throat,

       Each grim and gaping wound shall find a tongue,

       And cry against you.

      LORD JUSTICE

       Sir, this violence

       Avails you nothing; for save the tribunal

       Give thee a lawful right to open speech,

       Naught that thou sayest can be credited.

       [The DUCHESS smiles and GUIDO falls back with a gesture of despair.]

       Madam, myself, and these wise Justices,

       Will with your Grace’s sanction now retire

       Into another chamber, to decide

       Upon this difficult matter of the law,

       And search the statutes and the precedents.

      DUCHESS

       Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes well,

       Nor let this brawling traitor have his way.

      MORANZONE

       Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience well,

       Nor let a man be sent to death unheard.

       [Exit the LORD JUSTICE and the Judges.]

      DUCHESS

       Silence, thou evil genius of my life!

       Thou com’st between us two a second time;

       This time, my lord, I think the turn is mine.

      GUIDO

       I shall not die till I have uttered voice.

      DUCHESS

       Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with thee.

      GUIDO

       Art thou that Beatrice, Duchess of Padua?

      DUCHESS

       I am what thou hast made me; look at me well,

       I am thy handiwork.

      MAFFIO

       See, is she not

       Like that white tigress which we saw at Venice,

       Sent by some Indian soldan to the Doge?

      JEPPO

       Hush! she may hear thy chatter.

      HEADSMAN

       My young fellow,

       I do not know why thou shouldst care to speak,

       Seeing my axe is close upon thy neck,

       And words of thine will never blunt its edge.

       But if thou art so bent upon it, why

       Thou mightest plead unto the Churchman yonder:

       The common people call him kindly here,

       Indeed I know he has a kindly soul.

      GUIDO

       This man, whose trade is death, hath courtesies

       More than the others.

      HEADSMAN

       Why, God love you, sir,

       I’ll do you your last service on this earth.

      GUIDO

       My good Lord Cardinal, in a Christian land,

       With Lord Christ’s face of mercy looking down

       From the high seat of Judgment, shall a man

       Die unabsolved, unshrived? And if not so,

       May I not tell this dreadful tale of sin,

       If any sin there be upon my soul?

      DUCHESS

       Thou dost but waste thy time.

      CARDINAL

       Alack, my son,

       I have no power with the secular arm.

       My task begins when justice has been done,

       To urge the wavering sinner to repent

       And to confess to Holy Church’s ear

       The dreadful secrets of a sinful mind.

      DUCHESS

       Thou mayest speak to the confessional

       Until thy lips grow weary of their tale,

       But here thou shalt not speak.

      GUIDO

       My reverend father,

       You bring me but cold comfort.

      CARDINAL

       Nay, my son,

       For the great power of our mother Church,

       Ends not with this poor bubble of a world,

       Of which we are but dust, as Jerome saith,

       For if the sinner doth repentant die,

       Our prayers and holy masses much avail

       To bring the guilty soul from purgatory.

      DUCHESS

       And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord

       With that red star of blood upon his heart,

       Tell him I sent thee hither.

      GUIDO

       O dear God!

      MORANZONE

       This is the woman, is it, whom you loved?

      CARDINAL

       Your Grace is very cruel to this man.

      DUCHESS

       No more than he was cruel to her Grace.

      CARDINAL

       Yet mercy is the sovereign right of princes.

      DUCHESS

       I got no mercy, and I give it not.

       He hath changed my heart into a heart of stone,

       He hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field,

       He hath poisoned the wells


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