Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

The poor, who love each other, are so rich.

guido

Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.

duchess [ fingering his collar ]

How well this collar lies about your throat.

[ Lord Moranzone looks through the door from the corridor outside .]

guido

Nay, tell me that you love me.

duchess

I remember,

That when I was a child in my dear France,

Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King

Wore such a collar.

·62· guido

Will you not say you love me?

duchess [ smiling ]

He was a very royal man, King Francis,

Yet he was not royal as you are.

Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?

[ Takes his head in her hands and turns his face up to her .]

Do you not know that I am yours for ever,

Body and soul?

[ Kisses him, and then suddenly catches sight of Moranzone and leaps up .]

Oh, what is that? [ Moranzone disappears .]

guido

What, love?

duchess

Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame

Look at us through the doorway.

guido

Nay, ’twas nothing:

The passing shadow of the man on guard.

[ The Duchess still stands looking at the window .]

’Twas nothing, sweet.

·63· duchess

Ay! what can harm us now,

Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d care

Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander

Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?

They say the common field-flowers of the field

Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on

Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs

Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die

With all Arabia round them; so it is

With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,

It does but bring the sweetness out of them,

And makes them lovelier often. And besides,

While we have love we have the best of life:

Is it not so?

guido

Dear, shall we play or sing?

I think that I could sing now.

·64· duchess

Do not speak,

For there are times when all existences

Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,

And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.

guido

Oh, with mine own lips let me break that seal!

You love me, Beatrice?

duchess

Ay! is it not strange

I should so love mine enemy?

guido

Who is he?

duchess

Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my heart!

Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life

Until it met your arrow.

guido

Ah, dear love,

I am so wounded by that bolt myself

That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,

Unless you cure me, dear Physician.

·65· duchess

I would not have you cured; for I am sick

With the same malady.

guido

Oh, how I love you!

See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell

The one tale over.

duchess

Tell no other tale!

For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,

The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark

Has lost its music.

guido

Kiss me, Beatrice!

[ She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses him; a loud knocking then comes at the door, and Guido leaps up; enter a Servant .]

servant

A package for you, sir.

·66· guido [ carelessly ]

Ah! give it to me.

[ Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion silk, and exit; as Guido is about to open it the Duchess comes up behind, and in sport takes it from him .]

duchess [ laughing ]

Now I will wager it is from some girl

Who would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous

I will not give up the least part in you,

But like a miser keep you to myself,

And spoil you perhaps in keeping.

guido

It is nothing.

duchess

Nay, it is from some girl.

guido

You know ’tis not.

duchess [ turns her back and opens it ]

Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean,

A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?

·67· guido [ taking it from her ]

O God!

duchess

I’ll from the window look, and try

If I can’t see the porter’s livery

Who left it at the gate! I will not rest

Till I have learned your secret.

[ Runs laughing into the corridor .]

guido

Oh, horrible!

Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,

Did I so soon let love into my heart,

And must I banish love, and let in murder

That beats and clamours at the outer gate?

Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?

Yet not to-night; nay, it must be to-night.

Farewell then all the joy and light of life,

All dear recorded memories, farewell,

Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands

Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?

Could I with lips fresh from this butchery

Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes

·68· Look in those violet eyes, whose purity

Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel

In night perpetual? No, murder has set

A barrier between us far too high

For us to kiss across it.

duchess

Guido!

guido

Beatrice,

You must forget that name, and banish me

Out of your life for ever.

duchess [ going towards him ]

O dear love!

guido [ stepping back ]

There lies a barrier between us two

We dare not pass.

duchess

I dare do anything

So that you are beside me.

guido

Ah! There it is,

I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe

·69· The air you breathe; I cannot any more

Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves

My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand

Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;

Forget you ever looked upon me.

duchess

What!

With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips

Forget the vows of love you made to me?

guido

I take them back!

duchess

Alas, you cannot, Guido,

For they are part of nature now; the air

Is tremulous with their music, and outside

The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.

guido

There lies a barrier between us now,

Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.

duchess

There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go

In poor attire, and will follow you

Over the world.

·70· guido [ wildly ]

The world’s not wide enough

To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.

duchess [ calm, and controlling her passion ]

Why did you come into my life at all, then,

Or in the desolate garden of my heart

Sow that white flower of love——?

guido

O Beatrice!

duchess

Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear out,

Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart

That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?

Why did you come into my life? Why open

The secret wells of love I had sealed up?

Why did you open them——?

guido

O God!

duchess [ clenching her hand ]

And let

The floodgates of my passion swell and burst

Till, like the wave when rivers overflow

That sweeps the forest and the farm away,

·71· Love in the splendid avalanche of its might

Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop

Gather these waters back and seal them up?

Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so

Will with its saltness make life very bitter.

guido

I pray you speak no more, for I must go

Forth from your life and love, and make a way

On which you cannot follow.

duchess

I have heard

That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,