Delphi Complete Works of Oscar Wilde (Illustrated) (14 page)

GUIDO
I can endure no longer.
This is my love, and I will speak to her.
Lady, am I a stranger to your prayers?

DUCHESS
[rising]
None but the wretched needs my prayers, my lord.

GUIDO
Then must I need them, lady.

DUCHESS
How is that?
Does not the Duke show thee sufficient honour?

GUIDO
Your Grace, I lack no favours from the Duke,
Whom my soul loathes as I loathe wickedness,
But come to proffer on my bended knees,
My loyal service to thee unto death.

DUCHESS
Alas!  I am so fallen in estate
I can but give thee a poor meed of thanks.

GUIDO
[seizing her hand]
Hast thou no love to give me?
[The DUCHESS starts, and GUIDO falls at her feet.]
O dear saint,
If I have been too daring, pardon me!
Thy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame,
And, when my reverent lips touch thy white hand,
Each little nerve with such wild passion thrills
That there is nothing which I would not do
To gain thy love. 
[Leaps up.]
Bid me reach forth and pluck
Perilous honour from the lion’s jaws,
And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast
On the bare desert!  Fling to the cave of War
A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something
That once has touched thee, and I’ll bring it back
Though all the hosts of Christendom were there,
Inviolate again! ay, more than this,
Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs
Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield
Will I raze out the lilies of your France
Which England, that sea-lion of the sea,
Hath taken from her!
O dear Beatrice,
Drive me not from thy presence! without thee
The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead,
But, while I look upon thy loveliness,
The hours fly like winged Mercuries
And leave existence golden.

DUCHESS
I did not think
I should be ever loved: do you indeed
Love me so much as now you say you do?

GUIDO
Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea,
Ask of the roses if they love the rain,
Ask of the little lark, that will not sing
Till day break, if it loves to see the day:-
And yet, these are but empty images,
Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire
So great that all the waters of the main
Can not avail to quench it.  Will you not speak?

DUCHESS
I hardly know what I should say to you.

GUIDO
Will you not say you love me?

DUCHESS
Is that my lesson?
Must I say all at once?  ‘Twere a good lesson
If I did love you, sir; but, if I do not,
What shall I say then?

GUIDO
If you do not love me,
Say, none the less, you do, for on your tongue
Falsehood for very shame would turn to truth.

DUCHESS
What if I do not speak at all?  They say
Lovers are happiest when they are in doubt

GUIDO
Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die,
Why, let me die for joy and not for doubt.
Oh, tell me may I stay, or must I go?

DUCHESS
I would not have you either stay or go;
For if you stay you steal my love from me,
And if you go you take my love away.
Guido, though all the morning stars could sing
They could not tell the measure of my love.
I love you, Guido.

GUIDO
[stretching out his hands]
Oh, do not cease at all;
I thought the nightingale sang but at night;
Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips
Touch the sweet lips that can such music make.

DUCHESS
To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.

GUIDO
Do you close that against me?

DUCHESS
Alas! my lord,
I have it not: the first day that I saw you
I let you take my heart away from me;
Unwilling thief, that without meaning it
Did break into my fenced treasury
And filch my jewel from it!  O strange theft,
Which made you richer though you knew it not,
And left me poorer, and yet glad of it!

GUIDO
[clasping her in his arms]
O love, love, love!  Nay, sweet, lift up your head,
Let me unlock those little scarlet doors
That shut in music, let me dive for coral
In your red lips, and I’ll bear back a prize
Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards
In rude Armenia.

DUCHESS
You are my lord,
And what I have is yours, and what I have not
Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal
Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.
[Kisses him.]

GUIDO
Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:
The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf
And is afraid to look at the great sun
For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,
O daring eyes! are grown so venturous
That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,
And surfeit sense with beauty.

DUCHESS
Dear love, I would
You could look upon me ever, for your eyes
Are polished mirrors, and when I peer
Into those mirrors I can see myself,
And so I know my image lives in you.

GUIDO
[taking her in his arms]
Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high heavens,
And make this hour immortal! 
[A pause.]

DUCHESS
Sit down here,
A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet,
That I may run my fingers through your hair,
And see your face turn upwards like a flower
To meet my kiss.
Have you not sometimes noted,
When we unlock some long-disuséd room
With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,
Where never foot of man has come for years,
And from the windows take the rusty bar,
And fling the broken shutters to the air,
And let the bright sun in, how the good sun
Turns every grimy particle of dust
Into a little thing of dancing gold?
Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,
But you have let love in, and with its gold
Gilded all life.  Do you not think that love
Fills up the sum of life?

GUIDO
Ay! without love
Life is no better than the unhewn stone
Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor
Has set the God within it.  Without love
Life is as silent as the common reeds
That through the marshes or by rivers grow,
And have no music in them.

DUCHESS
Yet out of these
The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe
And from them he draws music; so I think
Love will bring music out of any life.
Is that not true?

GUIDO
Sweet, women make it true.
There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,
Paul of Verona and the dyer’s son,
Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,
Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,
White as her own white lily, and as tall,
Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine
Because they are mothers merely; yet I think
Women are the best artists of the world,
For they can take the common lives of men
Soiled with the money-getting of our age,
And with love make them beautiful.

DUCHESS
Ah, dear,
I wish that you and I were very poor;
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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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
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
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.