by Oscar Wilde
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.
Passes across the stage to foot of staircase.
Ah! Who art thou
That sittest on the stair, like unto Death
Waiting a guilty soul?
A pause.
Canst thou not speak?
Or has this storm laid palsy on your tongue,
And chilled your utterance? Get from my path,
For I have certain business in yon chamber,
Which I must do alone.
The figure rises and takes off his mask.
MORANZONE: Guido Ferranti,
Thy murdered father laughs for joy to-night.
GUIDO (confusedly): What, art thou here?
MORANZONE: Ay, waiting for your coming.
GUIDO (looking away from him): I did not think to see you, but am glad, That thou mayest know the very thing I mean to do.
MORANZONE: First, I would have you know my well-laid plans;
Listen: I have set horses at the gate
Which leads to Parma: when thou hast done thy business
We will ride hence, and by to-morrow night
If our good horses fail not by the way?
Parma will see us coming; I have advised
Many old friends of your great father there,
Who have prepared the citizens for revolt.
With money, and with golden promises,
The which we need not keep, I have bought over
Many that stand by this usurping Duke.
As for the soldiers, they, the Duke being dead,
Will fling allegiance to the winds, so thou
Shalt sit again within thy father’s palace,
As Parma’s rightful lord.
GUIDO: It cannot be.
MORANZONE: Nay, but it shall.
GUIDO: Listen, Lord Moranzone,
I am resolved not to kill this man.
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?
GUIDO: I am resolved not to keep that oath.
MORANZONE: What of thy murdered father?
GUIDO: Dost thou think
My father would be glad to see me coming,
This old man’s blood still hot upon mine hands?
MORANZONE: Ay! He would laugh for joy.
GUIDO: I do not think so,
There is better knowledge in the other world;
Vengeance is God’s, let God himself revenge.
MORANZONE: Thou art God’s minister of vengeance.
GUIDO: No!
God hath no minister but his own hand.
I will not kill this man.
MORANZONE: Why are you here,
If not to kill him, then?
GUIDO: Lord Moranzone,
I purpose to ascend to the Duke’s chamber,
And as he lies asleep lay on his breast
The dagger and this writing; when he awakes
Then 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.
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: O wretched father, thus again betrayed,
And by thine own son too! 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.
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, I have walked i’ the moon.
Swore I would live on kisses and on blisses,
Swore I would die for love, and did not die,
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 chamberjngs;
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.
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? Will she not come,
And put her cheek to yours, and fondle you,
For having left her lord to plague her life?
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,
And bid him pack me straightway to the wars,
In Holy Land against the Infidel;
And there I will, being now sick of life,
Throw that poor life against some desperate spear.
A groan from the DUKE’S chamber again.
Did you not hear a voice?
MORANZONE: I always hear,
From the dim confines of some sepulchre,
A voice that cries for vengeance: We waste time,
It will be morning soon; are you resolved
You will not kill the Duke?
GUIDO: I am resolved.
MORANZONE: Guido Ferranti, in that chamber yonder
There lies the man who sold your father’s life,
And gave him to the hangman’s murderous hands.
There does he sleep: you have your father’s dagger;
Will you not kill him?
GUIDO: No, I will not kill him.
MORANZONE: O wretched father, lying unavenged.
GUIDO: More wretched were thy son a murderer.
MORANZONE: Why, what is life?
GUIDO: I do not know, my lord,
I did not give it, and I dare not take it.
MORANZONE: I do not thank God often; but I think
I thank him now that I have got no son!
And you, what bastard blood flows in your veins
That when you have your enemy in your grasp
You let him go! I would that I had left you
With the dull hinds that reared you.
GUIDO: Better perhaps
That you had done so! May be better still
I’d not been born to this distressful world.
MORANZONE: Farewell!
GUIDO: Farewell! Some day, Lord Moranzone,
You will understand my vengeance.
MORANZONE: Never, boy.
Gets out of window and exit by rope ladder.
GUIDO: Father, I think thou knowest my resolve,
And with this nobler vengeance are content.
Father, I think in letting this man live
That I am doing what you would have done.
Father, I know not if a human voice
Can pierce the iron gateway of the dead,
Or if the dead are set in ignorance
Of what we do, or do not, for their sakes.
And yet I feel a presence in the air,
There is a shadow standing at my side,
And ghostly kisses seem to touch my lips,
And leave them holier.
Kneels down.
O father, if ‘tis thou,
Canst thou not burst through the decrees of death,
And if corporeal semblance show thyself,
That I may touch thy hand!
No, there is nothing.
Rises.
’Tis the night that cheats us with its phantoms,
And, like a puppet-master, makes us think
That things are real which are not. It grows late.
Now must I do my business.
Pulls out a letter from his doublet and reads it.
When he wakes,
And sees this letter, and the dagger with it,
Will he not have some loathing for his life,
Repent, perchance, and lead a better life,
Or will he mock because a young man spared
His natural enemy? I do not care,
Father, it is your bidding that I do,
Your bidding, and the bidding of my love
Which teaches me to know you as you are.
Ascends staircase stealthily, and just as he reaches out his hand to draw back the curtain the DUCHESS appears all in white. GUIDO starts back.
DUCHESS: Guido! What do you here so late?
GUIDO: O white and spotless angel of my life,
Sure thou hast come from Heaven with a message
That mercy is more noble than revenge?
DUCHESS: Ay! I do pray for mercy earnestly.
GUIDO: O father, now I know I do your bidding,
For hand in hand with Mercy, like a God,
Has Love come forth to meet me on the way.
DUCHESS: I felt you would come back to me again,
Although you left me very cruelly:
Why did you leave me? Nay, that matters not,
For I can hold you now, and feel your heart
Beat against mine with little throbs of love:
Our hearts are two caged birds, trying to kiss
Across their cages’ bars: but the time goes,
It will be morning in an hour or so;
Let us get horses: I must post to Venice,
They will not think of looking for me there.
GUIDO: Love, I will follow you across the world.
DUCHESS: But are you sure you love me?
GUIDO: Is the lark
Sure that it loves the dawn that bids it sing?
DUCHESS: Could nothing ever change you?
GUIDO: Nothing ever:
The shipman’s needle is not set more sure
Than I am to the lodestone of your love.
DUCHESS: There is no barrier between us now.
GUIDO: None, love, nor shall be.
DUCHESS: I have seen to that.
GUIDO: Tarry here for me.
DUCHESS: No, you are not going?
You will not leave me as you did before?
GUIDO: I will return within a moment’s space,
But first I must repair to the Duke’s chamber,
And leave this letter and this dagger there,
That when he wakes –
DUCHESS: When who wakes?
GUIDO: Why, the Duke.
DUCHESS: He will not wake again.
GUIDO: What, is he dead?
DUCHESS: Ay! He is dead.
GUIDO: O God! How wonderful
Are all thy secret ways! Who would have said
That on this very night, when I had yielded
Into thy hands the vengeance that is Thine,
Thou with thy finger should have touched the man,
And bade him come before thy judgment seat.
DUCHESS: I have just killed him.
GUIDO (in horror): Oh!
DUCHESS: He was asleep;
Come closer, love, and I will tell you all.
Kiss me upon the mouth, and I will tell you.
You will not kiss me now? – well, you will kiss me
When I have told you how I killed the Duke.
After you left me with such bitter words,
F
eeling my life went lame without your love,
I had resolved to kill myself to-night.
About an hour ago I waked from sleep,
And took my dagger from beneath my pillow,
Where I had hidden it to serve my need,
And drew it from the sheath, and felt the edge,
And thought of you, and how I loved you, Guido,
And turned to fall upon it, when I marked
The old man sleeping, full of years and sin;
There lay he muttering curses in his sleep.
And as I looked upon his evil face
Suddenly like a flame there flashed across me,
There is the barrier which Guido spoke of:
You said there lay a barrier between us,
What barrier but he? –
I hardly know
What happened, but a steaming mist of blood
Rose up between us two.
GUIDO: O horrible!
DUCHESS: You would have said so had you seen that mist:
And then the air rained blood and then he groaned,
And then he groaned no more! I only heard
The dripping of the blood upon the floor.
GUIDO: Enough, enough.
DUCHESS: Will you not kiss me now?
Do you remember saying that women’s love
Turns men to angels? Well, the love of man
Turns women into martyrs; for its sake
We do or suffer anything.
GUIDO: O God!
DUCHESS: Will you not speak?
GUIDO: I cannot speak at all.
DUCHESS: This is the knife with which I killed the Duke.
I did not think he would have bled so much,
But I can wash my hands in water after;
Can I not wash my hands? Ay, but my soul?
Let us not talk of this! Let us go hence:
Is not the barrier broken down between us?
What would you more? Come, it is almost morning.
Puts her hand on GUIDO’S
GUIDO (breaking from her): O damned saint! O angel fresh from Hell!
What bloody devil tempted thee to this!
That thou hast killed thy husband, that is nothing –
Hell was already gaping for his soul –
But thou hast murdered Love, and in its place
Has 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,
