Oscar Wilde - The Duchess of Padua

You see, Lord Cardinal, how my people love me.

Go, Petrucci,
And tell the captain of the guard below
To clear the square. Do you not hear me, sir?
Do what I bid you.

I beseech your Grace
To listen to their grievances.

Ay! the peaches
Are not so big this year as they were last.
I crave your pardon, my lord Cardinal,
I thought you spake of peaches.

What is that?

The Duchess has gone forth into the square,
And stands between the people and the guard,
And will not let them shoot.

The devil take her!

And followed by a dozen of the citizens
Has come into the Palace.

By Saint James,
Our Duchess waxes bold!

Here comes the Duchess.

Shut that door there; this morning air is cold.

I do beseech your Grace to give us audience.

What are these grievances?

Alas, my Lord,
Such common things as neither you nor I,
Nor any of these noble gentlemen,
Have ever need at all to think about;
They say the bread, the very bread they eat,
Is made of sorry chaff.

Ay! so it is,
Nothing but chaff.

And very good food too,
I give it to my horses.

They say the water,
Set in the public cisterns for their use,
[Has, through the breaking of the aqueduct,]
To stagnant pools and muddy puddles turned.

They should drink wine; water is quite unwholesome.

Alack, your Grace, the taxes which the customs
Take at the city gate are grown so high
We cannot buy wine.

Then you should bless the taxes
Which make you temperate.

Think, while we sit
In gorgeous pomp and state, gaunt poverty
Creeps through their sunless lanes, and with sharp knives
Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily
And no word said.

Ay! marry, that is true,
My little son died yesternight from hunger;
He was but six years old; I am so poor,
I cannot bury him.

If you are poor,
Are you not blessed in that? Why, poverty
Is one of the Christian virtues,

Is it not?
I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,
Rich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates
For preaching voluntary poverty.

Nay but, my lord the Duke, be generous;
While we sit here within a noble house
[With shaded porticoes against the sun,
And walls and roofs to keep the winter out],
There are many citizens of Padua
Who in vile tenements live so full of holes,
That the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,
Are tenants also with them; others sleep
Under the arches of the public bridges
All through the autumn nights, till the wet mist
Stiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so —

And so they go to Abraham’s bosom, Madam.
They should thank me for sending them to Heaven,
If they are wretched here. [ To the Cardinal.]
Is it not said
Somewhere in Holy Writ, that every man
Should be contented with that state of life
God calls him to? Why should I change their state,
Or meddle with an all-wise providence,
Which has apportioned that some men should starve,
And others surfeit? I did not make the world.

He hath a hard heart.

Nay, be silent, neighbour;
I think the Cardinal will speak for us.

True, it is Christian to bear misery,
Yet it is Christian also to be kind,
And there seem many evils in this town,
Which in your wisdom might your Grace reform.

What is that word reform? What does it mean?

Marry, it means leaving things as they are; I like it not.

Reform Lord Cardinal, did you say reform?
There is a man in Germany called Luther,
Who would reform the Holy Catholic Church.
Have you not made him heretic, and uttered
Anathema, maranatha, against him?

He would have led the sheep out of the fold,
We do but ask of you to feed the sheep.

When I have shorn their fleeces I may feed them.
As for these rebels – [Duchess entreats him .]

That is a kind word,
He means to give us something.

Is that so?

These ragged knaves who come before us here,
With mouths chock-full of treason.

Good my Lord,
Fill up our mouths with bread; we’ll hold our tongues.

Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve or not.
My lords, this age is so familiar grown,
That the low peasant hardly doffs his hat,
Unless you beat him; and the raw mechanic
Elbows the noble in the public streets.

Still as our gentle Duchess has so prayed us,
And to refuse so beautiful a beggar
Were to lack both courtesy and love,
Touching your grievances, I promise this —

Marry, he will lighten the taxes!

Or a dole of bread, think you, for each man?

That, on next Sunday, the Lord Cardinal
Shall, after Holy Mass, preach you a sermon
Upon the Beauty of Obedience.

I’ faith, that will not fill our stomachs!

A sermon is but a sorry sauce, when
You have nothing to eat with it.

Poor people,
You see I have no power with the Duke,
But if you go into the court without,
My almoner shall from my private purse,
Divide a hundred ducats ’mongst you all.

God save the Duchess, say I.

God save her.

And every Monday morn shall bread be set
For those who lack it.