A to Z Classics - Complete Works Of Oscar Wilde (Best Navigation) (A to Z Classics)

guido

Didst thou not say that he would sleep from home?

bianca

He was not sure, he said it might be so.

He was not sure—and he would send my aunt

To sleep with me, if he did so decide,

And she has not yet come.

·143· guido [ starting ]

Hark, what’s that?

[ They listen, the sound of Maria’s voice in anger with some one is faintly heard . J

bianca

It is Maria scolds some gossip crone.

guido

I thought the other voice had been a man’s.

bianca

All still again, old crones are often gruff.

You should be gone, my lord.

guido

O, sweet Bianca!

How can I leave thee now! Thy beauty made

Two captives of my eyes, and they were mad

To feast them on thy form, but now thy wit,

The liberated perfume of a bud,

Which while a bud seemed perfect, but now is

That which can make its former self forgot:

How can I leave the flower who loved the leaf?

·144· Till now I was the richest prince in Florence,

I am a lover now would shun its throngs,

And put away all state and seek retreat

At Bellosguardo or Fiesole,

Where roses in their fin’st profusion hide

Some marble villa whose cool walls have rung

A laughing echo to Decameron,

And where thy laughter shall as gaily sound.

Say thou canst love or with a silent kiss

Instil that balmy knowledge on my soul.

bianca

Canst tell me what love is?

guido

It is consent,

The union of two minds, two souls, two hearts.

In all they think and hope and feel.

bianca

Such lovers might as well be dumb, for those

Who think and hope and feel alike can never

Have anything for one another’s ear.

·145· guido

Love is? Love is the meeting of two worlds

In never-ending change and counter-change.

bianca

Thus will my husband praise the mercer’s mart,

Where the two worlds of East and West exchange.

guido

Come. Love is love, a kiss, a close embrace.

It is …

bianca

My husband calls that love

When he hath slammed his weekly ledger to.

guido

I find my wit no better match for thine

Than thou art match for an old crabbed man;

But I am sure my youth and strength and blood

Keep better tune with beauty gay and bright

As thine is, than lean age and miser toil.

bianca

Well said, well said, I think he would not dare

·146· To face thee, more than owls dare face the sun;

He’s the bent shadow such a form as thine

Might cast upon a dung heap by the road,

Though should it fall upon a proper floor

Twould be at once a better man than he.

guido

Your merchant living in the dread of loss

Becomes perforce a coward, eats his heart.

Dull souls they are, who, like caged prisoners watch

And envy others’ joy; they taste no food

But what its cost is present to their thought.

bianca

I am my father’s daughter, in his eyes

A home-bred girl who has been taught to spin.

He never seems to think I have a face

Which makes you gallants turn where’er I pass.

guido

Thy night is darker than I dreamed, bright Star.

·147· bianca

He waits, stands by, and mutters to himself,

And never enters with a frank address

To any company. His eyes meet mine

And with a shudder I am sure he counts

The cost of what I wear.

guido

Forget him quite.

Come, come, escape from out this dismal life,

As a bright butterfly breaks spider’s web,

And nest with me among those rosy bowers,

Where we will love, as though the lives we led

Till yesterday were ghoulish dreams dispersed

By the great dawn of limpid joyous life.

bianca

Will I not come?

guido

O, make no question, come.

They waste their time who ponder o’er bad dreams.

We will away to hills, red roses clothe,

·148· And though the persons who did haunt that dream

Live on, they shall by distance dwindled, seem

No bigger than the smallest ear of corn

That cowers at the passing of a bird,

And silent shall they seem, out of ear-shot,

Those voices that could jar, while we gaze back

From rosy caves upon the hill-brow open,

And ask ourselves if what we see is not

A picture merely,—if dusty, dingy lives

Continue there to choke themselves with malice.

Wilt thou not come, Bianca? Wilt thou not?

[ A sound on the stair .]

guido

What’s that?

[ The door opens, they separate guiltily, and the husband enters .]

simone

My good wife, you come slowly; were it not better

To run to meet your lord? Here, take my cloak.

·149· Take this pack first. ’Tis heavy. I have sold nothing:

Save a furred robe unto the Cardinal’s son,

Who hopes to wear it when his father dies,

And hopes that will be soon.

But who is this?

Why you have here some friend. Some kinsman doubtless,

Newly returned from foreign lands and fallen

Upon a house without a host to greet him?

I crave your pardon, kinsman. For a house

Lacking a host is but an empty thing

And void of honour; a cup without its wine,

A scabbard without steel to keep it straight,

A flowerless garden widowed of the sun.

Again I crave your pardon, my sweet cousin.

bianca

This is no kinsman and no cousin neither.

simone

No kinsman, and no cousin! You amaze me.

Who is it then who with such courtly grace

Deigns to accept our hospitalities?

·150· guido

My name is Guido Bardi.

simone

What! The son

Of that great Lord of Florence whose dim towers

Like shadows silvered by the wandering moon

I see from out my casement every night!

Sir Guido Bardi, you are welcome here,

Twice welcome. For I trust my honest wife,

Most honest if uncomely to the eye,

Hath not with foolish chatterings wearied you,

As is the wont of women.

guido

Your gracious lady,

Whose beauty is a lamp that pales the stars

And robs Diana’s quiver of her beams

Has welcomed me with such sweet courtesies

That if it be her pleasure, and your own,

I will come often to your simple house.

And when your business bids you walk abroad

I will sit here and charm her loneliness

·151· Lest she might sorrow for you overmuch.

What say you, good Simone?

simone

My noble Lord,

You bring me such high honour that my tongue

Like a slave’s tongue is tied, and cannot say

The word it would. Yet not to give you thanks

Were to be too unmannerly. So, I thank you,

From my heart’s core.

It is such things as these

That knit a state together, when a Prince

So nobly born and of such fair address,

Forgetting unjust Fortune’s differences,

Comes to an honest burgher’s honest home

As a most honest friend.

And yet, my Lord,

I fear I am too bold. Some other night

We trust that you will come here as a friend;

To-night you come to buy my merchandise.

Is it not so? Silks, velvets, what you will,

I doubt not but I have some dainty wares

·152· Will woo your fancy. True, the hour is late,

But we poor merchants toil both night and day

To make our scanty gains. The tolls are high,

And every city levies its own toll,

And prentices are unskilful, and wives even

Lack sense and cunning, though Bianca here

Has brought me a rich customer to-night.

Is it not so, Bianca? But I waste time.

Where is my pack? Where is my pack, I say?

Open it, my good wife. Unloose the cords.