Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works. Knowledge house

Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works - Knowledge house


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he will know who held him in his power

      And slew him not: this is the noblest vengeance

      Which I can take.

      moranzone

      You will not slay him?

      guido

      No.

      moranzone

      Ignoble son of a noble father,

      Who sufferest this man who sold that father

      To live an hour.

      guido

      ’Twas thou that hindered me;

      I would have killed him in the open square,

      The day I saw him first.

      ·86· moranzone

      It was not yet time;

      Now it is time, and, like some green-faced girl,

      Thou pratest of forgiveness.

      guido

      No! revenge:

      The right revenge my father’s son should take.

      moranzone

      You are a coward,

      Take out the knife, get to the Duke’s chamber,

      And bring me back his heart upon the blade.

      When he is dead, then you can talk to me

      Of noble vengeances.

      guido

      Upon thine honour,

      And by the love thou bearest my father’s name,

      Dost thou think my father, that great gentleman,

      That generous soldier, that most chivalrous lord,

      Would have crept at night-time, like a common thief,

      And stabbed an old man sleeping in his bed,

      However he had wronged him: tell me that.

      moranzone [after some hesitation]

      You have sworn an oath, see that you keep that oath.

      ·87· 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! You know not what it is.

      moranzone

      Oh, in my time, boy, have I walked i’ the moon,

      Swore I would live on kisses and on blisses,

      Swore I would die for love, and did not die,

      ·88· Wrote love bad verses; ay, and sung them badly,

      Like all true lovers: Oh, I have done the tricks!

      I know the partings and the chamberings;

      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;

      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.

      ·89· This is the punishment God sets on sin.

      The wicked cannot love.

      [A groan comes from the Duke’s chamber.]

      Ah! What is that?

      Do you not hear? ’Twas nothing.

      So I think

      That it is woman’s mission by their love

      To save the souls of men: and loving her,

      My Lady, my white Beatrice, I begin

      To see a nobler and a holier vengeance

      In letting this man live, than doth reside

      In bloody deeds o’ night, stabs in the dark,

      And young hands clutching at a palsied throat.

      It was, I think, for love’s sake that Lord Christ,

      Who was indeed himself incarnate Love,

      Bade every man forgive his enemy.

      moranzone [sneeringly]

      That was in Palestine, not Padua;

      And said for saints: I have to do with men.

      guido

      It was for all time said.

      moranzone

      And your white Duchess,

      What will she do to thank you?

      ·90· guido

      Alas, I will not see her face again.

      ’Tis but twelve hours since I parted from her,

      So suddenly, and with such violent passion,

      That she has shut her heart against me now:

      No, I will never see her.

      moranzone

      What will you do?

      guido

      After that I have laid the dagger there,

      Get hence to-night from Padua.

      moranzone

      And then?

      guido

      I will take service with the Doge at Venice,


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