Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

Madam, myself, and these wise Justices,

Will with your Grace’s sanction now retire

Into another chamber, to decide

Upon this difficult matter of the law,

And search the statutes and the precedents.

duchess

Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes well,

Nor let this brawling traitor have his way.

·134· moranzone

Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience well,

Nor let a man be sent to death unheard.

[ Exit the Lord Justice and the Judges .]

duchess

Silence, thou evil genius of my life!

Thou com’st between us two a second time;

This time, my lord, I think the turn is mine.

guido

I shall not die till I have uttered voice.

duchess

Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with thee.

guido

Art thou that Beatrice, Duchess of Padua?

duchess

I am what thou hast made me; look at me well,

I am thy handiwork.

maffio

See, is she not

Like that white tigress which we saw at Venice,

Sent by some Indian soldan to the Doge?

·135· jeppo

Hush! she may hear thy chatter.

headsman

My young fellow,

I do not know why thou shouldst care to speak,

Seeing my axe is close upon thy neck,

And words of thine will never blunt its edge.

But if thou art so bent upon it, why

Thou mightest plead unto the Churchman yonder:

The common people call him kindly here,

Indeed I know he has a kindly soul.

guido

This man, whose trade is death, hath courtesies

More than the others.

headsman

Why, God love you, sir,

I’ll do you your last service on this earth.

guido

My good Lord Cardinal, in a Christian land,

With Lord Christ’s face of mercy looking down

From the high seat of Judgment, shall a man

Die unabsolved, unshrived? And if not so,

May I not tell this dreadful tale of sin,

If any sin there be upon my soul?

·136· duchess

Thou dost but waste thy time.

cardinal

Alack, my son,

I have no power with the secular arm.

My task begins when justice has been done,

To urge the wavering sinner to repent

And to confess to Holy Church’s ear

The dreadful secrets of a sinful mind.

duchess

Thou mayest speak to the confessional

Until thy lips grow weary of their tale,

But here thou shalt not speak.

guido

My reverend father,

You bring me but cold comfort.

cardinal

Nay, my son,

For the great power of our mother Church,

Ends not with this poor bubble of a world,

Of which we are but dust, as Jerome saith,

For if the sinner doth repentant die,

Our prayers and holy masses much avail

To bring the guilty soul from purgatory.

·137· duchess

And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord

With that red star of blood upon his heart,

Tell him I sent thee hither.

guido

O dear God!

moranzone

This is the woman, is it, whom you loved?

cardinal

Your Grace is very cruel to this man.

duchess

No more than he was cruel to her Grace.

cardinal

Yet mercy is the sovereign right of princes.

duchess

I got no mercy, and I give it not.

He hath changed my heart into a heart of stone,

He hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field,

He hath poisoned the wells of pity in my breast,

He hath withered up all kindness at the root;

My life is as some famine murdered land,

·138· Whence all good things have perished utterly:

I am what he hath made me.

[ The Duchess weeps .]

jeppo

Is it not strange

That she should so have loved the wicked Duke?

maffio

It is most strange when women love their lords,

And when they love them not it is most strange.

jeppo

What a philosopher thou art, Petrucci!

maffio

Ay! I can bear the ills of other men,

Which is philosophy.

duchess

They tarry long,

These greybeards and their council; bid them come;

Bid them come quickly, else I think my heart

Will beat itself to bursting: not indeed,

That I here care to live; God knows my life

Is not so full of joy, yet, for all that,

·139· I would not die companionless, or go

Lonely to Hell.

Look, my Lord Cardinal,

Canst thou not see across my forehead here,

In scarlet letters writ, the word Revenge?

Fetch me some water, I will wash it off:

’Twas branded there last night, but in the day-time

I need not wear it, need I, my Lord Cardinal?

Oh, how it sears and burns into my brain:

Give me a knife; not that one, but another,

And I will cut it out.

cardinal

It is most natural

To be incensed against the murderous hand

That treacherously stabbed your sleeping lord.

duchess

I would, old Cardinal, I could burn that hand;

But it will burn hereafter.

cardinal

Nay, the Church

Ordains us to forgive our enemies.

·140· duchess

Forgiveness? what is that? I never got it.

They come at last: well, my Lord Justice, well.

[ Enter the Lord Justice .]

lord justice

Most gracious Lady, and our sovereign Liege,

We have long pondered on the point at issue,

And much considered of your Grace’s wisdom,

And never wisdom spake from fairer lips——

duchess

Proceed, sir, without compliment.

lord justice

We find,

As your own Grace did rightly signify,

That any citizen, who by force or craft

Conspires against the person of the Liege,

Is ipso facto outlaw, void of rights

Such as pertain to other citizens,

Is traitor, and a public enemy,

Who may by any casual sword be slain

Without the slayer’s danger; nay, if brought

Into the presence of the tribunal,

Must with dumb lips and silence reverent

·141· Listen unto his well-deserved doom,

Nor has the privilege of open speech.

duchess

I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;

I like your law: and now I pray dispatch

This public outlaw to his righteous doom;

What is there more?

lord justice

Ay, there is more, your Grace.

This man being alien born, not Paduan,

Nor by allegiance bound unto the Duke,

Save such as common nature doth lay down,

Hath, though accused of treasons manifold,

Whose slightest penalty is certain death,

Yet still the right of public utterance

Before the people and the open court;

Nay, shall be much entreated by the Court,

To make some formal pleading for his life,

Lest his own city, righteously incensed,

Should with an unjust trial tax our state,

And wars spring up against the commonwealth:

So merciful are the laws of Padua

Unto the stranger living in her gates.

·142· duchess

Being of my Lord’s household, is he stranger here?

lord justice

Ay, until seven years of service spent

He cannot be a Paduan citizen.

guido

I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;

I like your law.

second citizen

I like no law at all:

Were there no law there’d be no law-breakers,

So all men would be virtuous.

first citizen

So they would;

’Tis a wise saying that, and brings you far.

tipstaff

Ay! to the gallows, knave.

duchess

Is this the law?

lord justice

It is the law most certainly, my liege.

·143· duchess

Show me the book: ’tis written in blood-red.

jeppo

Look at the Duchess.

duchess

Thou accursed law,

I would that I could tear thee from the state

As easy as I tear thee from this book.