The Complete Plays

by Oscar Wilde

  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,

  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?

  Oh be kind to me,

  I did it for you.

  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.

  We cannot meet again.

  DUCHESS (wringing her hands). For you! For you!

  I did it all for you: have you forgotten?

  You said there was a barrier between us;

  That barrier lies now i’ the upper chamber

  Upset, overthrown, beaten, and battered down,

  And will not part us ever.

  GUIDO. No, you mistook:

  Sin was the barrier, you have raised it up;

  Crime was the barrier, you have set it there.

  The barrier was murder, and your hand

  Has builded it so high it shuts out heaven,

  It shuts out God.

  DUCHESS. I did it all for you;

  You dare not leave me now: nay, Guido, listen.

  Get horses ready, we will fly to-night.

  The past is a bad dream, we will forget it:

  Before us lies the future: will we not have

  Sweet days of love beneath our vines and laugh? –

  No, no, we will not laugh, but, when we weep,

  Well, we will weep together; I will serve you

  Like a poor housewife, like a common slave;

  I will be very meek and very gentle:

  You do not know me.

  GUIDO. Nay, I know you now;

  Get hence, I say, out of my sight.

  DUCHESS (pacing up and down). O God,

  How I have loved this man!

  GUIDO. You never loved me.

  Had it been so, Love would have stopped your hand,

  Nor suffered you to stain his holy shrine,

  Where none can enter but the innocent.

  DUCHESS. These are but words, words words.

  GUIDO. Get hence, I pray:

  How could we sit together at Love’s table?

  You have poured poison in the sacred wine,

  And Murder dips his fingers in the sop.

  Rather than this I had died a thousand deaths.

  DUCHESS. I having done it, die a thousand deaths.

  GUIDO. It is not death but life that you should fear.

  DUCHESS (throws herself on her knees). Then slay me now!

  I have spilt blood to-night,

  You shall spill more, so we go hand in hand

  To heaven or to hell. Draw your sword, Guido,

  And traffic quickly for my life with Death,

  Who is grown greedy of such merchandize.

  Quick, let your soul go chambering in my heart,

  It will but find its master’s image there.

  Nay, if you will not slay me with your sword,

  Bid me to fall upon this reeking knife,

  And I will do it.

  GUIDO (wresting knife from her). Give it to me, I say.

  O God, your very hands are wet with blood!

  This place is Hell, I cannot tarry here.

  DUCHESS. Will you not raise me up before you go,

  Or must I like a beggar keep my knees.

  GUIDO. I pray you let me see your face no more.

  DUCHESS. Better for me I had not seen your face.

  O think it was for you I killed this man.

  GUIDO recoils: she seizes his hands as she kneels.

  Nay, Guido, listen for a while:

  Until you came to Padua I lived

  Wretched indeed, but with no murderous thought,

  Very submissive to a cruel Lord,

  Very obedient to unjust commands,

  As pure I think as any gentle girl

  Who now would turn in horror from my hands –

  You came: ah! Guido, the first kindly words

  I ever heard since I had come from France

  Were from your lips: well, well, that is no matter.

  You came, and in the passion of your eyes

  I read love’s meaning, everything you said

  Touched my dumb soul to music, and you seemed

  Fair as that young Saint Michael on the wall

  In Santa Croce, where we go and pray.

  I wonder will I ever pray again?

  Well, you were fair, and in your boyish face

  The morning seemed to lighten, so I loved you.

  And yet I did not tell you of my love.

  ’Twas you who sought me out, knelt at my feet

  And I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows,

  Kneels.

  Whose music seems to linger in my ears,

  Swore that you loved me, and I trusted you.

  I think there are many women in the world

  Who had they been unto this vile Duke mated,

  Chained to his side, as the poor galley slave

  Is to a leper chained, – ay! many women

  Who would have tempted you to kill the man.

  I did not.

  Yet I know that had I done so,

  I had not been thus humbled in the dust.

  Stands up.

  But you have loved me very faithfully.

  After a pause approaches him timidly.

  I do not think you understand me, Guido:

  It was for your sake that I wrought this deed

  Whose horror now chills my young blood to ice,

  For your sake only.

  Stretching out her arm.

  Will you not speak to me?

  Love me a little: in my girlish life

  I have been starved for love, and kindliness

  Has passed me by.

  GUIDO. I dare not look at you:

  You come to me with too pronounced a favour,

  Get to your tirewoman.

  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!

  There is many a woman here in Padua,

  Some workman’s wife, or ruder artisan’s,

  Whose husband spends the wages of the week

  In a coarse revel, or a tavern brawl,

  And reeling home late on the Saturday night,

  Finds his wife sitting by a fireless hearth,

  Trying to hush the child who cries for hunger,

  And then sets to and beats his wife because

  The child is hungry, and the fire black.

&
nbsp; Yet the wife loves him! and will rise next day

  With some red bruise across a careworn face,

  And sweep the house, and do the common service,

  And try and smile, and only be too glad

  If he does not beat her a second time

  Before her child! – that is how women love.

  A pause: GUIDO says nothing.

  Do you say nothing? Oh be kind to me

  While yet I know the summer of my days.

  I think you will not drive me from your side.

  Where have I got to go if you reject me? –

  You for whose sake this hand has murdered life,

  You for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself

  Beyond all hope of pardon.

  GUIDO. Get thee gone:

  The dead man is a ghost, and our love too,

  Flits like a ghost about its desolate tomb,

  And wanders through this charnel house, and weeps

  That when you slew your lord you slew it also.

  Do you not see?

  DUCHESS. I see when men love women

  They give them but a little of their lives,

  But women when they love give everything;

  I see that, Guido, now.

  GUIDO. Away, away,

  And come not back till you have waked your dead.

  DUCHESS. I would to God that I could wake the dead,

  Put vision in his glazed eyes, and give

  The tongue its natural utterance, and bid

  The heart to beat again; that cannot be:

  For what is done, is done: and what is dead

  Is dead for ever: the fire cannot warm him:

  The winter cannot hurt him with its snows;

  Something has gone from him; if you call him now,

  He will not answer; if you mock him now,

  He will not laugh; and if you stab him now

  He will not bleed.

  I would that I could wake him!

  O God, put back the sun a little space,

  And from the roll of time blot out to-night,

  And bid it not have been! put back the sun,

  And make me what I was an hour ago!

  No, no, time will not stop for anything,

  Nor the sun stay its courses, though Repentance

  Calling it back grow hoarse; but you, my love,

  Have you no word of pity even for me?

  O Guido, Guido, will you not kiss me once?

  Drive me not to some desperate resolve:

  Women grow mad when they are treated thus:

  Will you not kiss me once?

  GUIDO (holding up knife). I will not kiss you

  Until the blood grows dry upon this knife,

  And not even then.

  DUCHESS. Dear Christ! how little pity

  We women get in this untimely world;

  Men lure us to some dreadful precipice,

  And, when we fall, they leave us.

  GUIDO (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.

  There is a storm

  Will break upon this house before the morning,

  So horrible, that the white moon already

  Turns grey and sick with terror, the low wind

  Goes moaning round the house, and the high stars

  Run madly through the vaulted firmament,

  As through the night wept tears of liquid fire

  For what the day shall look upon. O weep,

  Thou lamentable heaven! Weep thy fill!

  Though sorrow like a cataract drench the fields,

  And make the earth one bitter lake of tears,

  It woud not be enough.

  A peal of thunder.

  Do you not hear,

  There is artillery in the Heaven to-night.

  Vengeance is wakened up, and has unloosed

  His dogs upon the world, and in this matter

  Which lies between us two, let him who draws

  The thunder on his head beware the ruin

  Which the forked flame brings after.

  A flash of lightning followed by a peal of thunder.

  GUIDO. Away! Away!

  Exit the DUCHESS, who as she lifts the crimson curtain looks back for a moment at GUIDO, but he makes no sign. More thunder.

  Now is life fallen in ashes at my feet.

  And noble self-slain; and in its place

  Crept murder with its silent bloody feet.

  And she who wrought it – Oh! and yet she loved me,

  And for my sake did do this dreadful thing.

  I have been cruel to her: Beatrice!

  Beatrice, I say, come back.

  Begins to ascend staircase, when the noise of SOLDIERS is heard.

  Ah! what is that?

  Torches ablaze, and noise of hurrying feet.

  Pray God they have not seized her.

  Noise grows louder.

  Beatrice!

  There is yet time to escape. Come down, come out!

  The voice of the DUCHESS outside.

  This way went he, the man who slew my lord.

  Down the staircase come hurrying a confused body of SOLDIERS; GUIDO is not seen at first, till the DUCHESS, surrounded by SERVANTS carrying torches, appears at the top of the staircase, and points to GUIDO, who is seized at once, one of the SOLDIERS dragging the knife from his hand and showing it to the CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD in sight of the audience. Tableau.

  Curtain

  Fourth Act

  SCENE

  The Court of Justice: the walls are hung with stamped grey velvet: above the hangings the wall is red, and gilt symbolical figures bear up the roof, which is made of red beams with soffits and grey moulding: a canopy of white satin flowered with gold is set for the Duchess: below it a long bench with red cloth for the Judges: below that a table for the clerks of the Court. Two soldiers stand on each side of the canopy, and two soldiers guard the door; the citizens have some of them collected in the Court, others are coming in greeting one another; two tipstaffs in violet keep order with long white wands.

  FIRST CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour Anthony.

  SECOND CITIZEN. Good morrow, neighbour Dominick.

  FIRST CITIZEN. This is a strange day for Padua, is it not? – the Duke being dead.

  SECOND CITIZEN. I tell you, neighbour Dominick, I have not known such a day since the last Duke died: and if you believe me not, I am no true man.

  FIRST CITIZEN. They will try him first, and sentence him afterwards, will they not, neighbour Anthony?

  SECOND CITIZEN. Nay, for he might ’scape his punishment then; but they will condemn him first so that he gets his deserts, and give him trial afterwards so that no injustice is done.

  FIRST CITIZEN. Well, well, it will go hard with him I doubt not.

  SECOND CITIZEN. Surely it is a grievous thing to shed a Duke’s blood.

  THIRD CITIZEN. They say a Duke has blue blood.

  SECOND CITIZEN. I think our Duke’s blood was black like his soul.

  FIRST CITIZEN. Have a watch, neighbour Anthony, the officer is looking at thee.

  SECOND CITIZEN. I care not if he does but look at me; he cannot whip me with the lashes of his eye.

  THIRD CITIZEN. What think you of this young man who stuck the knife into the Duke?

  SECOND CITIZEN. Why, that he is a well-behaved, and
a well-meaning, and a well-favoured lad, and yet wicked in that he killed the Duke.

  THIRD CITIZEN. ’Twas the first time he did it: may be the law will not be hard on him, as he did not do it before.

  SECOND CITIZEN. True.

  TIPSTAFF. Silence, knave.

  SECOND CITIZEN. Am I thy looking-glass, Master Tipstaff, that thou callest me knave?

  FIRST CITIZEN. Here be one of the household coming. Well, Dame Lucy, thou art of the Court, how does thy poor mistress the Duchess, with her sweet face?

  MISTRESS LUCY. O well-a-day! O miserable day! O day! O misery! why it is just nineteen years last June, at Michaelmas, since I was married to my husband, and it is August now, and here is the Duke murdered; there is a coincidence for you!

  SECOND CITIZEN. Why, if it is a coincidence, they may not kill the young man: there is no law against coincidences.

  FIRST CITIZEN. But how does the Duchess?

  MISTRESS LUCY. Well, well, I knew some harm would happen to the house: six weeks ago the cakes were all burned on one side, and last Saint Martin even as ever was, there flew into the candle a big moth that had wings, and almost scared me.

  FIRST CITIZEN. But come to the Duchess, good gossip: what of her?

  MISTRESS LUCY. Marry, it is time you should ask after her, poor lady; she is distraught almost. Why, she has not slept, but paced the chamber all night long. I prayed her to have a posset, or some aquavitae, and to get to bed and sleep a little for her health’s sake, but she answered me she was afraid she might dream. That was a strange answer, was it not?

  SECOND CITIZEN. These great folk have not much sense, so Providence makes it up to them in fine clothes.

  MISTRESS LUCY. Well, well, God keep murder from us, I say, as long as we are alive.

  Enter LORD MORANZONE hurriedly.

  MORANZONE. Is the Duke dead?

  SECOND CITIZEN. He has a knife in his heart, which they say is not healthy for any man.

  MORANZONE. Who is accused of having killed him?

  SECOND CITIZEN. Why, the prisoner, sir.

  MORANZONE. But who is the prisoner?

  SECOND CITIZEN. Why, he that is accused of the Duke’s murder.

  MORANZONE. I mean, what is his name?

  SECOND CITIZEN. Faith, the same which his godfathers gave him: what else should it be?

  TIPSTAFF. Guido Ferranti is his name, my lord.

  MORANZONE. I almost knew thine answer ere you gave it.

  Aside.

  Yet it is strange he should have killed the Duke,

  Seeing he left me in such different mood.

  It is most likely when he saw the man,

  This devil who had sold his father’s life,

  That passion from their seat within his heart

  Thrust all his boyish theories of love,

  And in their place set vengeance; yet I marvel