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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:15:59 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:15:59 -0700 |
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diff --git a/875-h/875-h.htm b/875-h/875-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fc6b592 --- /dev/null +++ b/875-h/875-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4597 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Duchess of Padua, by Oscar Wilde</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Duchess of Padua, by Oscar Wilde + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most +other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of +the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have +to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. + + + + +Title: The Duchess of Padua + A Play + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + + + +Release Date: October 26, 2014 [eBook #875] +[This file was first posted on April 9, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF PADUA*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1916 Methuen and Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1>THE<br /> +DUCHESS OF PADUA</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">A PLAY</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +OSCAR WILDE</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">METHUEN & CO. LTD.<br /> +36 ESSEX STREET W.C.<br /> +LONDON</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Fifth Edition</i></p> +<h2>THE PERSONS OF THE PLAY</h2> +<p>Simone Gesso, Duke of Padua</p> +<p>Beatrice, his Wife</p> +<p>Andreas Pollajuolo, Cardinal of Padua</p> +<p>Maffio Petrucci, Jeppo Vitellozzo, Taddeo Bardi } Gentlemen of +the Duke’s Household</p> +<p>Guido Ferranti, a Young Man</p> +<p>Ascanio Cristofano, his Friend</p> +<p>Count Moranzone, an Old Man</p> +<p>Bernardo Cavalcanti, Lord Justice of Padua</p> +<p>Hugo, the Headsman</p> +<p>Lucy, a Tire woman</p> +<p>Servants, Citizens, Soldiers, Monks, Falconers with their +hawks and dogs, etc.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Place</span>: <i>Padua</i></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Time</span>: <i>The latter half of the +Sixteenth Century</i></p> +<h2>THE SCENES OF THE PLAY</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Act</span> I.</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>The Market Place of Padua</i> (25 <i>minutes</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Act</span> II.</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Room in the Duke’s Palace</i> (36 +<i>minutes</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Act</span> III.</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>Corridor in the Duke’s Palace</i> (29 +<i>minutes</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Act</span> IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>The Hall of Justice</i> (31 <i>minutes</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Act</span> V.</p> +</td> +<td><p><i>The Dungeon</i> (25 <i>minutes</i>).</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Style of Architecture</i>: +Italian, Gothic and Romanesque.</p> +<h2>ACT I</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">SCENE</p> +<p><i>The Market Place of Padua at noon</i>; <i>in the background +is the great Cathedral of Padua</i>; <i>the architecture is +Romanesque</i>, <i>and wrought in black and white marbles</i>; +<i>a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door</i>; +<i>at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions</i>; <i>the +houses on each aide of the stage have coloured awnings from their +windows</i>, <i>and are flanked by stone arcades</i>; <i>on the +right of the stage is the public fountain</i>, <i>with a triton +in green bronze blowing from a conch</i>; <i>around the fountain +is a stone seat</i>; <i>the bell of the Cathedral is ringing</i>, +<i>and the citizens</i>, <i>men</i>, <i>women and children</i>, +<i>are passing into the Cathedral</i>.</p> +<p>[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Guido Ferranti</span> +<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ascanio Cristofano</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther; +for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; +this wild-goose errand of yours!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Sits down on the step of the +fountain</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I think it must be here. [<i>Goes up to +passer-by and doffs his cap</i>.] Pray, sir, is this the +market place, and that the church of Santa Croce? +[<i>Citizen bows</i>.] I thank you, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! it is here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I would it were somewhere else, for I see no +wine-shop.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">[<i>Taking a letter from his pocket and reading +it</i>.] ‘The hour noon; the city, Padua; the place, +the market; and the day, Saint Philip’s Day.’</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And what of the man, how shall we know him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>reading still</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">‘I will wear a violet cloak with a silver +falcon broidered on the shoulder.’ A brave attire, +Ascanio.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I’d sooner have my leathern jerkin. +And you think he will tell you of your father?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you +remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the +road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me +was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed ‘Your +Father’s Friend,’ bidding me be here to-day if I +would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to +recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my +uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a +child in his charge by some one he had never since seen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And you don’t know who your father +is?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No recollection of him even?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">None, Ascanio, none.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span> [<i>laughing</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Then he could never have boxed your ears so +often as my father did mine.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>smiling</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I am sure you never deserved it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Never; and that made it worse. I +hadn’t the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What +hour did you say he fixed?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Noon.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Clock in the Cathedral +strikes</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is that now, and your man has not +come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it +is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed +you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the +nearest tavern. [<i>Rises</i>.] By the great gods of +eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as +tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a +monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking +at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; +your man will not come.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! +[<i>Just as he is leaving the stage with</i> <span +class="smcap">Ascanio</span>, <i>enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Moranzone</span> <i>in a violet cloak</i>, +<i>with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder</i>; <i>he +passes across to the Cathedral</i>, <i>and just as he is going +in</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>runs up and touches +him</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What! Does my father live?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! lives in thee.<br /> +Thou art the same in mould and lineament,<br /> +Carriage and form, and outward semblances;<br /> +I trust thou art in noble mind the same.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived<br /> +But for this moment.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">We must be alone.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This is my dearest friend, who out of love<br +/> +Has followed me to Padua; as two brothers,<br /> +There is no secret which we do not share.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is one secret which ye shall not +share;<br /> +Bid him go hence.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>to</i> <span +class="smcap">Ascanio</span>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Come back within the hour.<br /> +He does not know that nothing in this world<br /> +Can dim the perfect mirror of our love.<br /> +Within the hour come.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Speak not to him,<br /> +There is a dreadful terror in his look.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>laughing</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, nay, I doubt not that he has come to +tell<br /> +That I am some great Lord of Italy,<br /> +And we will have long days of joy together.<br /> +Within the hour, dear Ascanio.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i> <span +class="smcap">Ascanio</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Now tell me of my father? [<i>Sits down +on a stone seat</i>.]<br /> +Stood he tall?<br /> +I warrant he looked tall upon his horse.<br /> +His hair was black? or perhaps a reddish gold,<br /> +Like a red fire of gold? Was his voice low?<br /> +The very bravest men have voices sometimes<br /> +Full of low music; or a clarion was it<br /> +That brake with terror all his enemies?<br /> +Did he ride singly? or with many squires<br /> +And valiant gentlemen to serve his state?<br /> +For oftentimes methinks I feel my veins<br /> +Beat with the blood of kings. Was he a king?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, of all men he was the kingliest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>proudly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Then when you saw my noble father last<br /> +He was set high above the heads of men?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, he was high above the heads of men,</p> +<p>[<i>Walks over to</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>and +puts his hand upon his shoulder</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">On a red scaffold, with a butcher’s +block<br /> +Set for his neck.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>leaping up</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">What dreadful man art thou,<br /> +That like a raven, or the midnight owl,<br /> +Com’st with this awful message from the grave?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I am known here as the Count Moranzone,<br /> +Lord of a barren castle on a rock,<br /> +With a few acres of unkindly land<br /> +And six not thrifty servants. But I was one<br /> +Of Parma’s noblest princes; more than that,<br /> +I was your father’s friend.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>clasping his +hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Tell me of him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You are the son of that great Duke Lorenzo,<br +/> +He was the Prince of Parma, and the Duke<br /> +Of all the fair domains of Lombardy<br /> +Down to the gates of Florence; nay, Florence even<br /> +Was wont to pay him tribute—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Come to his death.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You will hear that soon enough. Being at +war—<br /> +O noble lion of war, that would not suffer<br /> +Injustice done in Italy!—he led<br /> +The very flower of chivalry against<br /> +That foul adulterous Lord of Rimini,<br /> +Giovanni Malatesta—whom God curse!<br /> +And was by him in treacherous ambush taken,<br /> +And like a villain, or a low-born knave,<br /> +Was by him on the public scaffold murdered.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>clutching his +dagger</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Doth Malatesta live?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, he is dead.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Did you say dead? O too swift runner, +Death,<br /> +Couldst thou not wait for me a little space,<br /> +And I had done thy bidding!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>clutching his +wrist</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou canst do it!<br /> +The man who sold thy father is alive.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sold! was my father sold?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! trafficked for,<br /> +Like a vile chattel, for a price betrayed,<br /> +Bartered and bargained for in privy market<br /> +By one whom he had held his perfect friend,<br /> +One he had trusted, one he had well loved,<br /> +One whom by ties of kindness he had bound—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And he lives<br /> +Who sold my father?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will bring you to him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So, Judas, thou art living! well, I will +make<br /> +This world thy field of blood, so buy it straight-way,<br /> +For thou must hang there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Judas said you, boy?<br /> +Yes, Judas in his treachery, but still<br /> +He was more wise than Judas was, and held<br /> +Those thirty silver pieces not enough.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What got he for my father’s blood?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What got he?<br /> +Why cities, fiefs, and principalities,<br /> +Vineyards, and lands.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Of which he shall but keep<br /> +Six feet of ground to rot in. Where is he,<br /> +This damned villain, this foul devil? where?<br /> +Show me the man, and come he cased in steel,<br /> +In complete panoply and pride of war,<br /> +Ay, guarded by a thousand men-at-arms,<br /> +Yet I shall reach him through their spears, and feel<br /> +The last black drop of blood from his black heart<br /> +Crawl down my blade. Show me the man, I say,<br /> +And I will kill him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>coldly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Fool, what revenge is there?<br /> +Death is the common heritage of all,<br /> +And death comes best when it comes suddenly.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Goes up close to</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Your father was betrayed, there is your cue;<br +/> +For you shall sell the seller in his turn.<br /> +I will make you of his household, you shall sit<br /> +At the same board with him, eat of his bread—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O bitter bread!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thy palate is too nice,<br /> +Revenge will make it sweet. Thou shalt o’ nights<br +/> +Pledge him in wine, drink from his cup, and be<br /> +His intimate, so he will fawn on thee,<br /> +Love thee, and trust thee in all secret things.<br /> +If he bid thee be merry thou must laugh,<br /> +And if it be his humour to be sad<br /> +Thou shalt don sables. Then when the time is +ripe—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<span class="smcap">Guido</span> +<i>clutches his sword</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, nay, I trust thee not; your hot young +blood,<br /> +Undisciplined nature, and too violent rage<br /> +Will never tarry for this great revenge,<br /> +But wreck itself on passion.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou knowest me not.<br /> +Tell me the man, and I in everything<br /> +Will do thy bidding.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, when the time is ripe,<br /> +The victim trusting and the occasion sure,<br /> +I will by sudden secret messenger<br /> +Send thee a sign.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">How shall I kill him, tell me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That night thou shalt creep into his private +chamber;<br /> +But if he sleep see that thou wake him first,<br /> +And hold thy hand upon his throat, ay! that way,<br /> +Then having told him of what blood thou art,<br /> +Sprung from what father, and for what revenge,<br /> +Bid him to pray for mercy; when he prays,<br /> +Bid him to set a price upon his life,<br /> +And when he strips himself of all his gold<br /> +Tell him thou needest not gold, and hast not mercy,<br /> +And do thy business straight away. Swear to me<br /> +Thou wilt not kill him till I bid thee do it,<br /> +Or else I go to mine own house, and leave<br /> +Thee ignorant, and thy father unavenged.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Now by my father’s sword—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The common hangman<br /> +Brake that in sunder in the public square.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Then by my father’s grave—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What grave? what grave?<br /> +Your noble father lieth in no grave,<br /> +I saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes<br /> +Whirled through the windy streets like common straws<br /> +To plague a beggar’s eyesight, and his head,<br /> +That gentle head, set on the prison spike,<br /> +For the vile rabble in their insolence<br /> +To shoot their tongues at.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Was it so indeed?<br /> +Then by my father’s spotless memory,<br /> +And by the shameful manner of his death,<br /> +And by the base betrayal by his friend,<br /> +For these at least remain, by these I swear<br /> +I will not lay my hand upon his life<br /> +Until you bid me, then—God help his soul,<br /> +For he shall die as never dog died yet.<br /> +And now, the sign, what is it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This dagger, boy;<br /> +It was your father’s.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, let me look at it!<br /> +I do remember now my reputed uncle,<br /> +That good old husbandman I left at home,<br /> +Told me a cloak wrapped round me when a babe<br /> +Bare too such yellow leopards wrought in gold;<br /> +I like them best in steel, as they are here,<br /> +They suit my purpose better. Tell me, sir,<br /> +Have you no message from my father to me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Poor boy, you never saw that noble father,<br +/> +For when by his false friend he had been sold,<br /> +Alone of all his gentlemen I escaped<br /> +To bear the news to Parma to the Duchess.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Speak to me of my mother.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">When thy mother<br /> +Heard my black news, she fell into a swoon,<br /> +And, being with untimely travail seized—<br /> +Bare thee into the world before thy time,<br /> +And then her soul went heavenward, to wait<br /> +Thy father, at the gates of Paradise.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A mother dead, a father sold and bartered!<br +/> +I seem to stand on some beleaguered wall,<br /> +And messenger comes after messenger<br /> +With a new tale of terror; give me breath,<br /> +Mine ears are tired.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">When thy mother died,<br /> +Fearing our enemies, I gave it out<br /> +Thou wert dead also, and then privily<br /> +Conveyed thee to an ancient servitor,<br /> +Who by Perugia lived; the rest thou knowest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Saw you my father afterwards?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! once;<br /> +In mean attire, like a vineyard dresser,<br /> +I stole to Rimini.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>taking his hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O generous heart!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">One can buy everything in Rimini,<br /> +And so I bought the gaolers! when your father<br /> +Heard that a man child had been born to him,<br /> +His noble face lit up beneath his helm<br /> +Like a great fire seen far out at sea,<br /> +And taking my two hands, he bade me, Guido,<br /> +To rear you worthy of him; so I have reared you<br /> +To revenge his death upon the friend who sold him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou hast done well; I for my father thank +thee.<br /> +And now his name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">How you remind me of him,<br /> +You have each gesture that your father had.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The traitor’s name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou wilt hear that anon;<br /> +The Duke and other nobles at the Court<br /> +Are coming hither.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What of that? his name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Do they not seem a valiant company<br /> +Of honourable, honest gentlemen?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">His name, milord?</p> +<p>[<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Duke of Padua</span> +<i>with</i> <span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span>, <span +class="smcap">Maffio</span>, <span class="smcap">Petrucci</span>, +<i>and other gentlemen of his Court</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>quickly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The man to whom I kneel<br /> +Is he who sold your father! mark me well.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>clutches hit +dagger</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The Duke!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Leave off that fingering of thy knife.<br /> +Hast thou so soon forgotten? [<i>Kneels to the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duke</span>.]<br /> +My noble Lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Welcome, Count Moranzone; ’tis some +time<br /> +Since we have seen you here in Padua.<br /> +We hunted near your castle yesterday—<br /> +Call you it castle? that bleak house of yours<br /> +Wherein you sit a-mumbling o’er your beads,<br /> +Telling your vices like a good old man.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Catches sight of</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>and starts back</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Who is that?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My sister’s son, your Grace,<br /> +Who being now of age to carry arms,<br /> +Would for a season tarry at your Court</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>still looking at</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>]</p> +<p class="poetry">What is his name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">His city?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He is Mantuan by birth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>advancing towards</i> +<span class="smcap">Guido</span>]</p> +<p class="poetry">You have the eyes of one I used to know,<br /> +But he died childless. Are you honest, boy?<br /> +Then be not spendthrift of your honesty,<br /> +But keep it to yourself; in Padua<br /> +Men think that honesty is ostentatious, so<br /> +It is not of the fashion. Look at these lords.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Here is some bitter arrow for us, sure.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, every man among them has his price,<br /> +Although, to do them justice, some of them<br /> +Are quite expensive.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">There it comes indeed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So be not honest; eccentricity<br /> +Is not a thing should ever be encouraged,<br /> +Although, in this dull stupid age of ours,<br /> +The most eccentric thing a man can do<br /> +Is to have brains, then the mob mocks at him;<br /> +And for the mob, despise it as I do,<br /> +I hold its bubble praise and windy favours<br /> +In such account, that popularity<br /> +Is the one insult I have never suffered.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">He has enough of hate, if he needs that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have prudence; in your dealings with the +world<br /> +Be not too hasty; act on the second thought,<br /> +First impulses are generally good.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Surely a toad sits on his lips, and spills its +venom there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">See thou hast enemies,<br /> +Else will the world think very little of thee;<br /> +It is its test of power; yet see thou show’st<br /> +A smiling mask of friendship to all men,<br /> +Until thou hast them safely in thy grip,<br /> +Then thou canst crush them.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O wise philosopher!<br /> +That for thyself dost dig so deep a grave.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>to him</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Dost thou mark his words?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, be thou sure I do.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And be not over-scrupulous; clean hands<br /> +With nothing in them make a sorry show.<br /> +If you would have the lion’s share of life<br /> +You must wear the fox’s skin. Oh, it will fit you;<br +/> +It is a coat which fitteth every man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace, I shall remember.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That is well, boy, well.<br /> +I would not have about me shallow fools,<br /> +Who with mean scruples weigh the gold of life,<br /> +And faltering, paltering, end by failure; failure,<br /> +The only crime which I have not committed:<br /> +I would have <i>men</i> about me. As for conscience,<br /> +Conscience is but the name which cowardice<br /> +Fleeing from battle scrawls upon its shield.<br /> +You understand me, boy?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do, your Grace,<br /> +And will in all things carry out the creed<br /> +Which you have taught me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I never heard your Grace<br /> +So much in the vein for preaching; let the Cardinal<br /> +Look to his laurels, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The Cardinal!<br /> +Men follow my creed, and they gabble his.<br /> +I do not think much of the Cardinal;<br /> +Although he is a holy churchman, and<br /> +I quite admit his dulness. Well, sir, from now<br /> +We count you of our household</p> +<p>[<i>He holds out his hand for</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>to kiss</i>. <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>starts back in horror</i>, <i>but +at a gesture from</i> <span class="smcap">Count Moranzone</span>, +<i>kneels and kisses it</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">We will see<br /> +That you are furnished with such equipage<br /> +As doth befit your honour and our state.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I thank your Grace most heartily.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tell me again<br /> +What is your name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And you are Mantuan? Look to your wives, +my lords,<br /> +When such a gallant comes to Padua.<br /> +Thou dost well to laugh, Count Bardi; I have noted<br /> +How merry is that husband by whose hearth<br /> +Sits an uncomely wife.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">May it please your Grace,<br /> +The wives of Padua are above suspicion.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, are they so ill-favoured! Let us +go,<br /> +This Cardinal detains our pious Duchess;<br /> +His sermon and his beard want cutting both:<br /> +Will you come with us, sir, and hear a text<br /> +From holy Jerome?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>bowing</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">My liege, there are some matters—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>interrupting</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou need’st make no excuse for missing +mass.<br /> +Come, gentlemen.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit with his suite into +Cathedral</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>after a pause</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">So the Duke sold my father;<br /> +I kissed his hand.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou shalt do that many times.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Must it be so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! thou hast sworn an oath.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That oath shall make me marble.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Farewell, boy,<br /> +Thou wilt not see me till the time is ripe.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I pray thou comest quickly.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will come<br /> +When it is time; be ready.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Fear me not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Here is your friend; see that you banish him<br +/> +Both from your heart and Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">From Padua,<br /> +Not from my heart.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, from thy heart as well,<br /> +I will not leave thee till I see thee do it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Can I have no friend?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Revenge shall be thy friend;<br /> +Thou need’st no other.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, then be it so.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Ascanio Cristofano</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Come, Guido, I have been beforehand with you in +everything, for I have drunk a flagon of wine, eaten a pasty, and +kissed the maid who served it. Why, you look as melancholy +as a schoolboy who cannot buy apples, or a politician who cannot +sell his vote. What news, Guido, what news?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, that we two must part, Ascanio.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That would be news indeed, but it is not +true.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Too true it is, you must get hence, Ascanio,<br +/> +And never look upon my face again.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no; indeed you do not know me, Guido;<br /> +’Tis true I am a common yeoman’s son,<br /> +Nor versed in fashions of much courtesy;<br /> +But, if you are nobly born, cannot I be<br /> +Your serving man? I will tend you with more love<br /> +Than any hired servant.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>clasping his +hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ascanio!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Sees</i> <span +class="smcap">Moranzone</span> <i>looking at him and drops</i> +<span class="smcap">Ascanio’s</span> <i>hand</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">It cannot be.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, is it so with you?<br /> +I thought the friendship of the antique world<br /> +Was not yet dead, but that the Roman type<br /> +Might even in this poor and common age<br /> +Find counterparts of love; then by this love<br /> +Which beats between us like a summer sea,<br /> +Whatever lot has fallen to your hand<br /> +May I not share it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Share it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have you then come to some inheritance<br /> +Of lordly castle, or of stored-up gold?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>bitterly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! I have come to my inheritance.<br /> +O bloody legacy! and O murderous dole!<br /> +Which, like the thrifty miser, must I hoard,<br /> +And to my own self keep; and so, I pray you,<br /> +Let us part here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, shall we never more<br /> +Sit hand in hand, as we were wont to sit,<br /> +Over some book of ancient chivalry<br /> +Stealing a truant holiday from school,<br /> +Follow the huntsmen through the autumn woods,<br /> +And watch the falcons burst their tasselled jesses,<br /> +When the hare breaks from covert.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Never more.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Must I go hence without a word of love?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You must go hence, and may love go with +you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You are unknightly, and ungenerous.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Unknightly and ungenerous if you will.<br /> +Why should we waste more words about the matter<br /> +Let us part now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have you no message, Guido?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">None; my whole past was but a schoolboy’s +dream;<br /> +To-day my life begins. Farewell.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Ascanio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Farewell [<i>exit slowly</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Now are you satisfied? Have you not +seen<br /> +My dearest friend, and my most loved companion,<br /> +Thrust from me like a common kitchen knave!<br /> +Oh, that I did it! Are you not satisfied?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! I am satisfied. Now I go hence,<br /> +Do not forget the sign, your father’s dagger,<br /> +And do the business when I send it to you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Be sure I shall. [<i>Exit</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Moranzone</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O thou eternal heaven!<br /> +If there is aught of nature in my soul,<br /> +Of gentle pity, or fond kindliness,<br /> +Wither it up, blast it, bring it to nothing,<br /> +Or if thou wilt not, then will I myself<br /> +Cut pity with a sharp knife from my heart<br /> +And strangle mercy in her sleep at night<br /> +Lest she speak to me. Vengeance there I have it.<br /> +Be thou my comrade and my bedfellow,<br /> +Sit by my side, ride to the chase with me,<br /> +When I am weary sing me pretty songs,<br /> +When I am light o’ heart, make jest with me,<br /> +And when I dream, whisper into my ear<br /> +The dreadful secret of a father’s murder—<br /> +Did I say murder? [<i>Draws his dagger</i>.]<br /> +Listen, thou terrible God!<br /> +Thou God that punishest all broken oaths,<br /> +And bid some angel write this oath in fire,<br /> +That from this hour, till my dear father’s murder<br /> +In blood I have revenged, I do forswear<br /> +The noble ties of honourable friendship,<br /> +The noble joys of dear companionship,<br /> +Affection’s bonds, and loyal gratitude,<br /> +Ay, more, from this same hour I do forswear<br /> +All love of women, and the barren thing<br /> +Which men call beauty—</p> +<p>[<i>The organ peals in the Cathedral</i>, <i>and under a +canopy of cloth of silver tissue</i>, <i>borne by four pages in +scarlet</i>, <i>the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess of +Padua</span> <i>comes down the steps</i>; <i>as she passes across +their eyes meet for a moment</i>, <i>and as she leaves the stage +she looks back at</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>and +the dagger falls from his hand</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh! who is that?</p> +<p>A <span class="smcap">Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The Duchess of Padua!</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">END OF ACT +I.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>ACT II</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">SCENE</p> +<p><i>A state room in the Ducal Palace</i>, <i>hung with +tapestries representing the Masque of Venus</i>; <i>a large door +in the centre opens into a corridor of red marble</i>, <i>through +which one can see a view of Padua</i>; <i>a large canopy is +set</i> (<i>R.C.</i>) <i>with three thrones</i>, <i>one a little +lower than the others</i>; <i>the ceiling is made of long gilded +beams</i>; <i>furniture of the period</i>, <i>chairs covered with +gilt leather</i>, <i>and buffets set with gold and silver +plate</i>, <i>and chests painted with mythological +scenes</i>. <i>A number of the courtiers is out on the +corridor looking from it down into the street below</i>; <i>from +the street comes the roar of a mob and cries of</i> +‘<i>Death to the Duke</i>’: <i>after a little +interval enter the Duke very calmly</i>; <i>he is leaning on the +arm of Guido Ferranti</i>; <i>with him enters also the Lord +Cardinal</i>; <i>the mob still shouting</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, my Lord Cardinal, I weary of her!<br /> +Why, she is worse than ugly, she is good.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span> [<i>excitedly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace, there are two thousand people +there<br /> +Who every moment grow more clamorous.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tut, man, they waste their strength upon their +lungs!<br /> +People who shout so loud, my lords, do nothing;<br /> +The only men I fear are silent men.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>A yell from the people</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">You see, Lord Cardinal, how my people love +me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Another yell</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Go, Petrucci,<br /> +And tell the captain of the guard below<br /> +To clear the square. Do you not hear me, sir?<br /> +Do what I bid you.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i> <span +class="smcap">Petrucci</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I beseech your Grace<br /> +To listen to their grievances.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>sitting on his +throne</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! the peaches<br /> +Are not so big this year as they were last.<br /> +I crave your pardon, my lord Cardinal,<br /> +I thought you spake of peaches.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>A cheer from the +people</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">What is that?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>rushes to the +window</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The Duchess has gone forth into the square,<br +/> +And stands between the people and the guard,<br /> +And will not let them shoot.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The devil take her!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>still at the +window</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">And followed by a dozen of the citizens<br /> +Has come into the Palace.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>starting up</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">By Saint James,<br /> +Our Duchess waxes bold!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Bardi</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Here comes the Duchess.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Shut that door there; this morning air is +cold.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>They close the door on the +corridor</i>.]</p> +<p>[<i>Enter the Duchess followed by a crowd of meanly dressed +Citizens</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>flinging herself upon +her knees</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I do beseech your Grace to give us +audience.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What are these grievances?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas, my Lord,<br /> +Such common things as neither you nor I,<br /> +Nor any of these noble gentlemen,<br /> +Have ever need at all to think about;<br /> +They say the bread, the very bread they eat,<br /> +Is made of sorry chaff.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! so it is,<br /> +Nothing but chaff.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And very good food too,<br /> +I give it to my horses.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>restraining +herself</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">They say the water,<br /> +Set in the public cisterns for their use,<br /> +[Has, through the breaking of the aqueduct,]<br /> +To stagnant pools and muddy puddles turned.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They should drink wine; water is quite +unwholesome.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alack, your Grace, the taxes which the +customs<br /> +Take at the city gate are grown so high<br /> +We cannot buy wine.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Then you should bless the taxes</p> +<p class="poetry">Which make you temperate.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Think, while we sit<br /> +In gorgeous pomp and state, gaunt poverty<br /> +Creeps through their sunless lanes, and with sharp knives<br /> +Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily<br /> +And no word said.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! marry, that is true,<br /> +My little son died yesternight from hunger;<br /> +He was but six years old; I am so poor,<br /> +I cannot bury him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If you are poor,<br /> +Are you not blessed in that? Why, poverty<br /> +Is one of the Christian virtues,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Turns to the</i> <span +class="smcap">Cardinal</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Is it not?<br /> +I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,<br /> +Rich abbey-lands, and tithes, and large estates<br /> +For preaching voluntary poverty.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay but, my lord the Duke, be generous;<br /> +While we sit here within a noble house<br /> +[With shaded porticoes against the sun,<br /> +And walls and roofs to keep the winter out],<br /> +There are many citizens of Padua<br /> +Who in vile tenements live so full of holes,<br /> +That the chill rain, the snow, and the rude blast,<br /> +Are tenants also with them; others sleep<br /> +Under the arches of the public bridges<br /> +All through the autumn nights, till the wet mist<br /> +Stiffens their limbs, and fevers come, and so—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And so they go to Abraham’s bosom, +Madam.<br /> +They should thank me for sending them to Heaven,<br /> +If they are wretched here. [<i>To the</i> <span +class="smcap">Cardinal</span>.]<br /> +Is it not said<br /> +Somewhere in Holy Writ, that every man<br /> +Should be contented with that state of life<br /> +God calls him to? Why should I change their state,<br /> +Or meddle with an all-wise providence,<br /> +Which has apportioned that some men should starve,<br /> +And others surfeit? I did not make the world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He hath a hard heart.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, be silent, neighbour;<br /> +I think the Cardinal will speak for us.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">True, it is Christian to bear misery,<br /> +Yet it is Christian also to be kind,<br /> +And there seem many evils in this town,<br /> +Which in your wisdom might your Grace reform.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What is that word reform? What does it +mean?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, it means leaving things as they are; I +like it not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Reform Lord Cardinal, did <i>you</i> say +reform?<br /> +There is a man in Germany called Luther,<br /> +Who would reform the Holy Catholic Church.<br /> +Have you not made him heretic, and uttered<br /> +Anathema, maranatha, against him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span> [<i>rising from his +seat</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">He would have led the sheep out of the fold,<br +/> +We do but ask of you to feed the sheep.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">When I have shorn their fleeces I may feed +them.<br /> +As for these rebels— [<span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>entreats him</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That is a kind word,<br /> +He means to give us something.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is that so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">These ragged knaves who come before us here,<br +/> +With mouths chock-full of treason.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Good my Lord,<br /> +Fill up our mouths with bread; we’ll hold our tongues.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve +or not.<br /> +My lords, this age is so familiar grown,<br /> +That the low peasant hardly doffs his hat,<br /> +Unless you beat him; and the raw mechanic<br /> +Elbows the noble in the public streets.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>To the Citizens</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Still as our gentle Duchess has so prayed +us,<br /> +And to refuse so beautiful a beggar<br /> +Were to lack both courtesy and love,<br /> +Touching your grievances, I promise this—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, he will lighten the taxes!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Or a dole of bread, think you, for each +man?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That, on next Sunday, the Lord Cardinal<br /> +Shall, after Holy Mass, preach you a sermon<br /> +Upon the Beauty of Obedience.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Citizens murmur</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I’ faith, that will not fill our +stomachs!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A sermon is but a sorry sauce, when<br /> +You have nothing to eat with it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Poor people,<br /> +You see I have no power with the Duke,<br /> +But if you go into the court without,<br /> +My almoner shall from my private purse,<br /> +Divide a hundred ducats ’mongst you all.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">God save the Duchess, say I.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">God save her.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And every Monday morn shall bread be set<br /> +For those who lack it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Citizens applaud and go +out</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span> [<i>going +out</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, God save the Duchess again!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>calling him back</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Come hither, fellow! what is your name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Dominick, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A good name! Why were you called +Dominick?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span> [<i>scratching his +head</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, because I was born on St. George’s +day.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A good reason! here is a ducat for you!<br /> +Will you not cry for me God save the Duke?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span> [<i>feebly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">God save the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay! louder, fellow, louder.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span> [<i>a little +louder</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">God save the Duke!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">More lustily, fellow, put more heart in it!<br +/> +Here is another ducat for you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span> +[<i>enthusiastically</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">God save the Duke!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>mockingly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, gentlemen, this simple fellow’s +love<br /> +Touches me much. [<i>To the Citizen</i>, +<i>harshly</i>.]<br /> +Go! [<i>Exit Citizen</i>, <i>bowing</i>.]<br /> +This is the way, my lords,<br /> +You can buy popularity nowadays.<br /> +Oh, we are nothing if not democratic!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>To the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Well, Madam,<br /> +You spread rebellion ’midst our citizens.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My Lord, the poor have rights you cannot +touch,<br /> +The right to pity, and the right to mercy.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So, so, you argue with me? This is +she,<br /> +The gentle Duchess for whose hand I yielded<br /> +Three of the fairest towns in Italy,<br /> +Pisa, and Genoa, and Orvieto.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Promised, my Lord, not yielded: in that +matter<br /> +Brake you your word as ever.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You wrong us, Madam,<br /> +There were state reasons.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What state reasons are there<br /> +For breaking holy promises to a state?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There are wild boars at Pisa in a forest<br /> +Close to the city: when I promised Pisa<br /> +Unto your noble and most trusting father,<br /> +I had forgotten there was hunting there.<br /> +At Genoa they say,<br /> +Indeed I doubt them not, that the red mullet<br /> +Runs larger in the harbour of that town<br /> +Than anywhere in Italy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Turning to one of the +Court</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">You, my lord,<br /> +Whose gluttonous appetite is your only god,<br /> +Could satisfy our Duchess on that point.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And Orvieto?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>yawning</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I cannot now recall<br /> +Why I did not surrender Orvieto<br /> +According to the word of my contract.<br /> +Maybe it was because I did not choose.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Goes over to the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why look you, Madam, you are here alone;<br /> +’Tis many a dusty league to your grey France,<br /> +And even there your father barely keeps<br /> +A hundred ragged squires for his Court.<br /> +What hope have you, I say? Which of these lords<br /> +And noble gentlemen of Padua<br /> +Stands by your side.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is not one.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<span class="smcap">Guido</span> +<i>starts</i>, <i>but restrains himself</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nor shall be,<br /> +While I am Duke in Padua: listen, Madam,<br /> +Being mine own, you shall do as I will,<br /> +And if it be my will you keep the house,<br /> +Why then, this palace shall your prison be;<br /> +And if it be my will you walk abroad,<br /> +Why, you shall take the air from morn to night.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sir, by what right—?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, my second Duchess<br /> +Asked the same question once: her monument<br /> +Lies in the chapel of Bartholomew,<br /> +Wrought in red marble; very beautiful.<br /> +Guido, your arm. Come, gentlemen, let us go<br /> +And spur our falcons for the mid-day chase.<br /> +Bethink you, Madam, you are here alone.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Exit the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duke</span> <i>leaning on</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>with his Court</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>looking after +them</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The Duke said rightly that I was alone;<br /> +Deserted, and dishonoured, and defamed,<br /> +Stood ever woman so alone indeed?<br /> +Men when they woo us call us pretty children,<br /> +Tell us we have not wit to make our lives,<br /> +And so they mar them for us. Did I say woo?<br /> +We are their chattels, and their common slaves,<br /> +Less dear than the poor hound that licks their hand,<br /> +Less fondled than the hawk upon their wrist.<br /> +Woo, did I say? bought rather, sold and bartered,<br /> +Our very bodies being merchandise.<br /> +I know it is the general lot of women,<br /> +Each miserably mated to some man<br /> +Wrecks her own life upon his selfishness:<br /> +That it is general makes it not less bitter.<br /> +I think I never heard a woman laugh,<br /> +Laugh for pure merriment, except one woman,<br /> +That was at night time, in the public streets.<br /> +Poor soul, she walked with painted lips, and wore<br /> +The mask of pleasure: I would not laugh like her;<br /> +No, death were better.</p> +<p>[<i>Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>behind +unobserved</i>; <i>the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> +<i>flings herself down before a picture of the Madonna</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">O Mary mother, with your sweet pale face<br /> +Bending between the little angel heads<br /> +That hover round you, have you no help for me?<br /> +Mother of God, have you no help for me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I can endure no longer.<br /> +This is my love, and I will speak to her.<br /> +Lady, am I a stranger to your prayers?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>rising</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">None but the wretched needs my prayers, my +lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Then must I need them, lady.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">How is that?<br /> +Does not the Duke show thee sufficient honour?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace, I lack no favours from the Duke,<br +/> +Whom my soul loathes as I loathe wickedness,<br /> +But come to proffer on my bended knees,<br /> +My loyal service to thee unto death.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas! I am so fallen in estate<br /> +I can but give thee a poor meed of thanks.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>seizing her hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Hast thou no love to give me?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>starts</i>, <i>and</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>falls at her feet</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">O dear saint,<br /> +If I have been too daring, pardon me!<br /> +Thy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame,<br /> +And, when my reverent lips touch thy white hand,<br /> +Each little nerve with such wild passion thrills<br /> +That there is nothing which I would not do<br /> +To gain thy love. [<i>Leaps up</i>.]<br /> +Bid me reach forth and pluck<br /> +Perilous honour from the lion’s jaws,<br /> +And I will wrestle with the Nemean beast<br /> +On the bare desert! Fling to the cave of War<br /> +A gaud, a ribbon, a dead flower, something<br /> +That once has touched thee, and I’ll bring it back<br /> +Though all the hosts of Christendom were there,<br /> +Inviolate again! ay, more than this,<br /> +Set me to scale the pallid white-faced cliffs<br /> +Of mighty England, and from that arrogant shield<br /> +Will I raze out the lilies of your France<br /> +Which England, that sea-lion of the sea,<br /> +Hath taken from her!<br /> +O dear Beatrice,<br /> +Drive me not from thy presence! without thee<br /> +The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead,<br /> +But, while I look upon thy loveliness,<br /> +The hours fly like winged Mercuries<br /> +And leave existence golden.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I did not think<br /> +I should be ever loved: do you indeed<br /> +Love me so much as now you say you do?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ask of the sea-bird if it loves the sea,<br /> +Ask of the roses if they love the rain,<br /> +Ask of the little lark, that will not sing<br /> +Till day break, if it loves to see the day:—<br /> +And yet, these are but empty images,<br /> +Mere shadows of my love, which is a fire<br /> +So great that all the waters of the main<br /> +Can not avail to quench it. Will you not speak?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I hardly know what I should say to you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Will you not say you love me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is that my lesson?<br /> +Must I say all at once? ’Twere a good lesson<br /> +If I did love you, sir; but, if I do not,<br /> +What shall I say then?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If you do not love me,<br /> +Say, none the less, you do, for on your tongue<br /> +Falsehood for very shame would turn to truth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What if I do not speak at all? They +say<br /> +Lovers are happiest when they are in doubt</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, doubt would kill me, and if I must die,<br +/> +Why, let me die for joy and not for doubt.<br /> +Oh, tell me may I stay, or must I go?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I would not have you either stay or go;<br /> +For if you stay you steal my love from me,<br /> +And if you go you take my love away.<br /> +Guido, though all the morning stars could sing<br /> +They could not tell the measure of my love.<br /> +I love you, Guido.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>stretching out his +hands</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, do not cease at all;<br /> +I thought the nightingale sang but at night;<br /> +Or if thou needst must cease, then let my lips<br /> +Touch the sweet lips that can such music make.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">To touch my lips is not to touch my heart.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Do you close that against me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas! my lord,<br /> +I have it not: the first day that I saw you<br /> +I let you take my heart away from me;<br /> +Unwilling thief, that without meaning it<br /> +Did break into my fenced treasury<br /> +And filch my jewel from it! O strange theft,<br /> +Which made you richer though you knew it not,<br /> +And left me poorer, and yet glad of it!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>clasping her in his +arms</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O love, love, love! Nay, sweet, lift up +your head,<br /> +Let me unlock those little scarlet doors<br /> +That shut in music, let me dive for coral<br /> +In your red lips, and I’ll bear back a prize<br /> +Richer than all the gold the Gryphon guards<br /> +In rude Armenia.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You are my lord,<br /> +And what I have is yours, and what I have not<br /> +Your fancy lends me, like a prodigal<br /> +Spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Kisses him</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Methinks I am bold to look upon you thus:<br /> +The gentle violet hides beneath its leaf<br /> +And is afraid to look at the great sun<br /> +For fear of too much splendour, but my eyes,<br /> +O daring eyes! are grown so venturous<br /> +That like fixed stars they stand, gazing at you,<br /> +And surfeit sense with beauty.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Dear love, I would<br /> +You could look upon me ever, for your eyes<br /> +Are polished mirrors, and when I peer<br /> +Into those mirrors I can see myself,<br /> +And so I know my image lives in you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>taking her in his +arms</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Stand still, thou hurrying orb in the high +heavens,<br /> +And make this hour immortal! [<i>A pause</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sit down here,<br /> +A little lower than me: yes, just so, sweet,<br /> +That I may run my fingers through your hair,<br /> +And see your face turn upwards like a flower<br /> +To meet my kiss.<br /> +Have you not sometimes noted,<br /> +When we unlock some long-disuséd room<br /> +With heavy dust and soiling mildew filled,<br /> +Where never foot of man has come for years,<br /> +And from the windows take the rusty bar,<br /> +And fling the broken shutters to the air,<br /> +And let the bright sun in, how the good sun<br /> +Turns every grimy particle of dust<br /> +Into a little thing of dancing gold?<br /> +Guido, my heart is that long-empty room,<br /> +But you have let love in, and with its gold<br /> +Gilded all life. Do you not think that love<br /> +Fills up the sum of life?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! without love<br /> +Life is no better than the unhewn stone<br /> +Which in the quarry lies, before the sculptor<br /> +Has set the God within it. Without love<br /> +Life is as silent as the common reeds<br /> +That through the marshes or by rivers grow,<br /> +And have no music in them.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Yet out of these<br /> +The singer, who is Love, will make a pipe<br /> +And from them he draws music; so I think<br /> +Love will bring music out of any life.<br /> +Is that not true?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet, women make it true.<br /> +There are men who paint pictures, and carve statues,<br /> +Paul of Verona and the dyer’s son,<br /> +Or their great rival, who, by the sea at Venice,<br /> +Has set God’s little maid upon the stair,<br /> +White as her own white lily, and as tall,<br /> +Or Raphael, whose Madonnas are divine<br /> +Because they are mothers merely; yet I think<br /> +Women are the best artists of the world,<br /> +For they can take the common lives of men<br /> +Soiled with the money-getting of our age,<br /> +And with love make them beautiful.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, dear,<br /> +I wish that you and I were very poor;<br /> +The poor, who love each other, are so rich.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tell me again you love me, Beatrice.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>fingering his +collar</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">How well this collar lies about your +throat.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<span class="smcap">Lord +Moranzone</span> <i>looks through the door from the corridor +outside</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, tell me that you love me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I remember,<br /> +That when I was a child in my dear France,<br /> +Being at Court at Fontainebleau, the King<br /> +Wore such a collar.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Will you not say you love me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>smiling</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">He was a very royal man, King Francis,<br /> +Yet he was not royal as you are.<br /> +Why need I tell you, Guido, that I love you?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Takes his head in her hands and +turns his face up to her</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Do you not know that I am yours for ever,<br /> +Body and soul?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Kisses him</i>, <i>and then +suddenly catches sight of</i> <span +class="smcap">Moranzone</span> <i>and leaps up</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, what is that? [<span +class="smcap">Moranzone</span> <i>disappears</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, love?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Methought I saw a face with eyes of flame<br /> +Look at us through the doorway.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, ’twas nothing:<br /> +The passing shadow of the man on guard.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>still stands looking at the +window</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas nothing, sweet.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! what can harm us now,<br /> +Who are in Love’s hand? I do not think I’d +care<br /> +Though the vile world should with its lackey Slander<br /> +Trample and tread upon my life; why should I?<br /> +They say the common field-flowers of the field<br /> +Have sweeter scent when they are trodden on<br /> +Than when they bloom alone, and that some herbs<br /> +Which have no perfume, on being bruiséd die<br /> +With all Arabia round them; so it is<br /> +With the young lives this dull world seeks to crush,<br /> +It does but bring the sweetness out of them,<br /> +And makes them lovelier often. And besides,<br /> +While we have love we have the best of life:<br /> +Is it not so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Dear, shall we play or sing?<br /> +I think that I could sing now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Do not speak,<br /> +For there are times when all existences<br /> +Seem narrowed to one single ecstasy,<br /> +And Passion sets a seal upon the lips.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, with mine own lips let me break that +seal!<br /> +You love me, Beatrice?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! is it not strange<br /> +I should so love mine enemy?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who is he?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, you: that with your shaft did pierce my +heart!<br /> +Poor heart, that lived its little lonely life<br /> +Until it met your arrow.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, dear love,<br /> +I am so wounded by that bolt myself<br /> +That with untended wounds I lie a-dying,<br /> +Unless you cure me, dear Physician.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I would not have you cured; for I am sick<br /> +With the same malady.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, how I love you!<br /> +See, I must steal the cuckoo’s voice, and tell<br /> +The one tale over.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tell no other tale!<br /> +For, if that is the little cuckoo’s song,<br /> +The nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark<br /> +Has lost its music.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Kiss me, Beatrice!</p> +<p>[<i>She takes his face in her hands and bends down and kisses +him</i>; <i>a loud knocking then comes at the door</i>, +<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>leaps up</i>; +<i>enter a Servant</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Servant</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A package for you, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>carelessly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! give it to me.</p> +<p class="poetry">[<i>Servant hands package wrapped in vermilion +silk</i>, <i>and exit</i>; <i>as</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>is about to open it the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>comes up behind</i>, <i>and in +sport takes it from him</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>laughing</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Now I will wager it is from some girl<br /> +Who would have you wear her favour; I am so jealous<br /> +I will not give up the least part in you,<br /> +But like a miser keep you to myself,<br /> +And spoil you perhaps in keeping.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is nothing.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, it is from some girl.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You know ’tis not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>turns her back and +opens it</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign +mean,<br /> +A dagger with two leopards wrought in steel?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>taking it from +her</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I’ll from the window look, and try<br /> +If I can’t see the porter’s livery<br /> +Who left it at the gate! I will not rest<br /> +Till I have learned your secret.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Runs laughing into the +corridor</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, horrible!<br /> +Had I so soon forgot my father’s death,<br /> +Did I so soon let love into my heart,<br /> +And must I banish love, and let in murder<br /> +That beats and clamours at the outer gate?<br /> +Ay, that I must! Have I not sworn an oath?<br /> +Yet not to-night; nay, it must be to-night.<br /> +Farewell then all the joy and light of life,<br /> +All dear recorded memories, farewell,<br /> +Farewell all love! Could I with bloody hands<br /> +Fondle and paddle with her innocent hands?<br /> +Could I with lips fresh from this butchery<br /> +Play with her lips? Could I with murderous eyes<br /> +Look in those violet eyes, whose purity<br /> +Would strike men blind, and make each eyeball reel<br /> +In night perpetual? No, murder has set<br /> +A barrier between us far too high<br /> +For us to kiss across it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Beatrice,<br /> +You must forget that name, and banish me<br /> +Out of your life for ever.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>going towards +him</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O dear love!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>stepping back</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">There lies a barrier between us two<br /> +We dare not pass.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I dare do anything<br /> +So that you are beside me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! There it is,<br /> +I cannot be beside you, cannot breathe<br /> +The air you breathe; I cannot any more<br /> +Stand face to face with beauty, which unnerves<br /> +My shaking heart, and makes my desperate hand<br /> +Fail of its purpose. Let me go hence, I pray;<br /> +Forget you ever looked upon me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What!<br /> +With your hot kisses fresh upon my lips<br /> +Forget the vows of love you made to me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I take them back.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas, you cannot, Guido,<br /> +For they are part of nature now; the air<br /> +Is tremulous with their music, and outside<br /> +The little birds sing sweeter for those vows.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There lies a barrier between us now,<br /> +Which then I knew not, or I had forgot.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is no barrier, Guido; why, I will go<br +/> +In poor attire, and will follow you<br /> +Over the world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>wildly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The world’s not wide enough<br /> +To hold us two! Farewell, farewell for ever.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>calm</i>, <i>and +controlling her passion</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why did you come into my life at all, then,<br +/> +Or in the desolate garden of my heart<br /> +Sow that white flower of love—?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O Beatrice!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Which now you would dig up, uproot, tear +out,<br /> +Though each small fibre doth so hold my heart<br /> +That if you break one, my heart breaks with it?<br /> +Why did you come into my life? Why open<br /> +The secret wells of love I had sealed up?<br /> +Why did you open them—?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>clenching her +hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">And let<br /> +The floodgates of my passion swell and burst<br /> +Till, like the wave when rivers overflow<br /> +That sweeps the forest and the farm away,<br /> +Love in the splendid avalanche of its might<br /> +Swept my life with it? Must I drop by drop<br /> +Gather these waters back and seal them up?<br /> +Alas! Each drop will be a tear, and so<br /> +Will with its saltness make life very bitter.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I pray you speak no more, for I must go<br /> +Forth from your life and love, and make a way<br /> +On which you cannot follow.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I have heard<br /> +That sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,<br /> +Poor castaways upon a lonely sea,<br /> +Dream of green fields and pleasant water-courses,<br /> +And then wake up with red thirst in their throats,<br /> +And die more miserably because sleep<br /> +Has cheated them: so they die cursing sleep<br /> +For having sent them dreams: I will not curse you<br /> +Though I am cast away upon the sea<br /> +Which men call Desolation.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God, God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But you will stay: listen, I love you, +Guido.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>She waits a little</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Is echo dead, that when I say I love you<br /> +There is no answer?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Everything is dead,<br /> +Save one thing only, which shall die to-night!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If you are going, touch me not, but go.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Barrier! Barrier!<br /> +Why did he say there was a barrier?<br /> +There is no barrier between us two.<br /> +He lied to me, and shall I for that reason<br /> +Loathe what I love, and what I worshipped, hate?<br /> +I think we women do not love like that.<br /> +For if I cut his image from my heart,<br /> +My heart would, like a bleeding pilgrim, follow<br /> +That image through the world, and call it back<br /> +With little cries of love.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Duke</span> <i>equipped for the chase</i>, <i>with +falconers and hounds</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, you keep us waiting;<br /> +You keep my dogs waiting.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will not ride to-day.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">How now, what’s this?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My Lord, I cannot go.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, pale face, do you dare to stand against +me?<br /> +Why, I could set you on a sorry jade<br /> +And lead you through the town, till the low rabble<br /> +You feed toss up their hats and mock at you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have you no word of kindness ever for me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I hold you in the hollow of my hand<br /> +And have no need on you to waste kind words.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, I will go.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span> [<i>slapping his boot with his +whip</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">No, I have changed my mind,<br /> +You will stay here, and like a faithful wife<br /> +Watch from the window for our coming back.<br /> +Were it not dreadful if some accident<br /> +By chance should happen to your loving Lord?<br /> +Come, gentlemen, my hounds begin to chafe,<br /> +And I chafe too, having a patient wife.<br /> +Where is young Guido?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My liege, I have not seen him<br /> +For a full hour past.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duke</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It matters not,<br /> +I dare say I shall see him soon enough.<br /> +Well, Madam, you will sit at home and spin.<br /> +I do protest, sirs, the domestic virtues<br /> +Are often very beautiful in others.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i> <span +class="smcap">Duke</span> <i>with his Court</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The stars have fought against me, that is +all,<br /> +And thus to-night when my Lord lieth asleep,<br /> +Will I fall upon my dagger, and so cease.<br /> +My heart is such a stone nothing can reach it<br /> +Except the dagger’s edge: let it go there,<br /> +To find what name it carries: ay! to-night<br /> +Death will divorce the Duke; and yet to-night<br /> +He may die also, he is very old.<br /> +Why should he not die? Yesterday his hand<br /> +Shook with a palsy: men have died from palsy,<br /> +And why not he? Are there not fevers also,<br /> +Agues and chills, and other maladies<br /> +Most incident to old age?<br /> +No, no, he will not die, he is too sinful;<br /> +Honest men die before their proper time.<br /> +Good men will die: men by whose side the Duke<br /> +In all the sick pollution of his life<br /> +Seems like a leper: women and children die,<br /> +But the Duke will not die, he is too sinful.<br /> +Oh, can it be<br /> +There is some immortality in sin,<br /> +Which virtue has not? And does the wicked man<br /> +Draw life from what to other men were death,<br /> +Like poisonous plants that on corruption live?<br /> +No, no, I think God would not suffer that:<br /> +Yet the Duke will not die: he is too sinful.<br /> +But I will die alone, and on this night<br /> +Grim Death shall be my bridegroom, and the tomb<br /> +My secret house of pleasure: well, what of that?<br /> +The world’s a graveyard, and we each, like coffins,<br /> +Within us bear a skeleton.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Moranzone</span> <i>all in black</i>; <i>he +passes across the back of the stage looking anxiously +about</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Where is Guido?<br /> +I cannot find him anywhere.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>catches sight of +him</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O God!<br /> +’Twas thou who took my love away from me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>with a look of +joy</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">What, has he left you?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, you know he has.<br /> +Oh, give him back to me, give him back, I say,<br /> +Or I will tear your body limb from limb,<br /> +And to the common gibbet nail your head<br /> +Until the carrion crows have stripped it bare.<br /> +Better you had crossed a hungry lioness<br /> +Before you came between me and my love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>With more pathos</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, give him back, you know not how I love +him.<br /> +Here by this chair he knelt a half hour since;<br /> +’Twas there he stood, and there he looked at me;<br /> +This is the hand he kissed, and these the ears<br /> +Into whose open portals he did pour<br /> +A tale of love so musical that all<br /> +The birds stopped singing! Oh, give him back to me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He does not love you, Madam.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">May the plague<br /> +Wither the tongue that says so! Give him back.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, I tell you you will never see him,<br /> +Neither to-night, nor any other night.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What is your name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My name? Revenge!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Revenge!<br /> +I think I never harmed a little child.<br /> +What should Revenge do coming to my door?<br /> +It matters not, for Death is there already,<br /> +Waiting with his dim torch to light my way.<br /> +’Tis true men hate thee, Death, and yet I think<br /> +Thou wilt be kinder to me than my lover,<br /> +And so dispatch the messengers at once,<br /> +Harry the lazy steeds of lingering day,<br /> +And let the night, thy sister, come instead,<br /> +And drape the world in mourning; let the owl,<br /> +Who is thy minister, scream from his tower<br /> +And wake the toad with hooting, and the bat,<br /> +That is the slave of dim Persephone,<br /> +Wheel through the sombre air on wandering wing!<br /> +Tear up the shrieking mandrakes from the earth<br /> +And bid them make us music, and tell the mole<br /> +To dig deep down thy cold and narrow bed,<br /> +For I shall lie within thine arms to-night.</p> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"><span +class="GutSmall">END OF ACT II.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>ACT III</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">SCENE</p> +<p><i>A large corridor in the Ducal Palace</i>: <i>a window</i> +(<i>L.C.</i>) <i>looks out on a view of Padua by moonlight</i>: +<i>a staircase</i> (<i>R.C.</i>) <i>leads up to a door with a +portière of crimson velvet</i>, <i>with the Duke’s +arms embroidered in gold on it</i>: <i>on the lowest step of the +staircase a figure draped in black is sitting</i>: <i>the hall is +lit by an iron cresset filled with burning tow</i>: <i>thunder +and lightning outside</i>: <i>the time is night</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>through the window</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The wind is rising: how my ladder shook!<br /> +I thought that every gust would break the cords!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Looks out at the city</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Christ! What a night:<br /> +Great thunder in the heavens, and wild lightnings<br /> +Striking from pinnacle to pinnacle<br /> +Across the city, till the dim houses seem<br /> +To shudder and to shake as each new glare<br /> +Dashes adown the street.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Passes across the stage to foot +of staircase</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! who art thou<br /> +That sittest on the stair, like unto Death<br /> +Waiting a guilty soul? [<i>A pause</i>.]<br /> +Canst thou not speak?<br /> +Or has this storm laid palsy on thy tongue,<br /> +And chilled thy utterance?</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>The figure rises and takes off +his mask</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti,<br /> +Thy murdered father laughs for joy to-night.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>confusedly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">What, art thou here?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, waiting for your coming.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>looking away from +him</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I did not think to see you, but am glad,<br /> +That you may know the thing I mean to do.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">First, I would have you know my well-laid +plans;<br /> +Listen: I have set horses at the gate<br /> +Which leads to Parma: when you have done your business<br /> +We will ride hence, and by to-morrow night—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It cannot be.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, but it shall.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Listen, Lord Moranzone,<br /> +I am resolved not to kill this man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Surely my ears are traitors, speak again:<br /> +It cannot be but age has dulled my powers,<br /> +I am an old man now: what did you say?<br /> +You said that with that dagger in your belt<br /> +You would avenge your father’s bloody murder;<br /> +Did you not say that?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, my lord, I said<br /> +I was resolved not to kill the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You said not that; it is my senses mock me;<br +/> +Or else this midnight air o’ercharged with storm<br /> +Alters your message in the giving it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, you heard rightly; I’ll not kill +this man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What of thine oath, thou traitor, what of thine +oath?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I am resolved not to keep that oath.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What of thy murdered father?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Dost thou think<br /> +My father would be glad to see me coming,<br /> +This old man’s blood still hot upon mine hands?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! he would laugh for joy.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not think so,<br /> +There is better knowledge in the other world;<br /> +Vengeance is God’s, let God himself revenge.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou art God’s minister of vengeance.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No!<br /> +God hath no minister but his own hand.<br /> +I will not kill this man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why are you here,<br /> +If not to kill him, then?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Lord Moranzone,<br /> +I purpose to ascend to the Duke’s chamber,<br /> +And as he lies asleep lay on his breast<br /> +The dagger and this writing; when he awakes<br /> +Then he will know who held him in his power<br /> +And slew him not: this is the noblest vengeance<br /> +Which I can take.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You will not slay him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ignoble son of a noble father,<br /> +Who sufferest this man who sold that father<br /> +To live an hour.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas thou that hindered me;<br /> +I would have killed him in the open square,<br /> +The day I saw him first.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It was not yet time;<br /> +Now it is time, and, like some green-faced girl,<br /> +Thou pratest of forgiveness.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No! revenge:<br /> +The right revenge my father’s son should take.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You are a coward,<br /> +Take out the knife, get to the Duke’s chamber,<br /> +And bring me back his heart upon the blade.<br /> +When he is dead, then you can talk to me<br /> +Of noble vengeances.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Upon thine honour,<br /> +And by the love thou bearest my father’s name,<br /> +Dost thou think my father, that great gentleman,<br /> +That generous soldier, that most chivalrous lord,<br /> +Would have crept at night-time, like a common thief,<br /> +And stabbed an old man sleeping in his bed,<br /> +However he had wronged him: tell me that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p>[after some hesitation]</p> +<p class="poetry">You have sworn an oath, see that you keep that +oath.<br /> +Boy, do you think I do not know your secret,<br /> +Your traffic with the Duchess?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence, liar!<br /> +The very moon in heaven is not more chaste.<br /> +Nor the white stars so pure.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And yet, you love her;<br /> +Weak fool, to let love in upon your life,<br /> +Save as a plaything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You do well to talk:<br /> +Within your veins, old man, the pulse of youth<br /> +Throbs with no ardour. Your eyes full of rheum<br /> +Have against Beauty closed their filmy doors,<br /> +And your clogged ears, losing their natural sense,<br /> +Have shut you from the music of the world.<br /> +You talk of love! You know not what it is.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, in my time, boy, have I walked i’ the +moon,<br /> +Swore I would live on kisses and on blisses,<br /> +Swore I would die for love, and did not die,<br /> +Wrote love bad verses; ay, and sung them badly,<br /> +Like all true lovers: Oh, I have done the tricks!<br /> +I know the partings and the chamberings;<br /> +We are all animals at best, and love<br /> +Is merely passion with a holy name.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Now then I know you have not loved at all.<br +/> +Love is the sacrament of life; it sets<br /> +Virtue where virtue was not; cleanses men<br /> +Of all the vile pollutions of this world;<br /> +It is the fire which purges gold from dross,<br /> +It is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff,<br /> +It is the spring which in some wintry soil<br /> +Makes innocence to blossom like a rose.<br /> +The days are over when God walked with men,<br /> +But Love, which is his image, holds his place.<br /> +When a man loves a woman, then he knows<br /> +God’s secret, and the secret of the world.<br /> +There is no house so lowly or so mean,<br /> +Which, if their hearts be pure who live in it,<br /> +Love will not enter; but if bloody murder<br /> +Knock at the Palace gate and is let in,<br /> +Love like a wounded thing creeps out and dies.<br /> +This is the punishment God sets on sin.<br /> +The wicked cannot love.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>A groan comes from the</i> +<span class="smcap">Duke’s</span> <i>chamber</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! What is that?<br /> +Do you not hear? ’Twas nothing.<br /> +So I think<br /> +That it is woman’s mission by their love<br /> +To save the souls of men: and loving her,<br /> +My Lady, my white Beatrice, I begin<br /> +To see a nobler and a holier vengeance<br /> +In letting this man live, than doth reside<br /> +In bloody deeds o’ night, stabs in the dark,<br /> +And young hands clutching at a palsied throat.<br /> +It was, I think, for love’s sake that Lord Christ,<br /> +Who was indeed himself incarnate Love,<br /> +Bade every man forgive his enemy.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>sneeringly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">That was in Palestine, not Padua;<br /> +And said for saints: I have to do with men.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It was for all time said.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And your white Duchess,<br /> +What will she do to thank you?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas, I will not see her face again.<br /> +’Tis but twelve hours since I parted from her,<br /> +So suddenly, and with such violent passion,<br /> +That she has shut her heart against me now:<br /> +No, I will never see her.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What will you do?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">After that I have laid the dagger there,<br /> +Get hence to-night from Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And then?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will take service with the Doge at Venice,<br +/> +And bid him pack me straightway to the wars,<br /> +And there I will, being now sick of life,<br /> +Throw that poor life against some desperate spear.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>A groan from the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duke’s</span> <i>chamber again</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Did you not hear a voice?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I always hear,<br /> +From the dim confines of some sepulchre,<br /> +A voice that cries for vengeance. We waste time,<br /> +It will be morning soon; are you resolved<br /> +You will not kill the Duke?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I am resolved.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O wretched father, lying unavenged.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">More wretched, were thy son a murderer.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, what is life?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not know, my lord,<br /> +I did not give it, and I dare not take it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not thank God often; but I think<br /> +I thank him now that I have got no son!<br /> +And you, what bastard blood flows in your veins<br /> +That when you have your enemy in your grasp<br /> +You let him go! I would that I had left you<br /> +With the dull hinds that reared you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Better perhaps<br /> +That you had done so! May be better still<br /> +I’d not been born to this distressful world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Farewell!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Farewell! Some day, Lord Moranzone,<br /> +You will understand my vengeance.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Never, boy.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Gets out of window and exit by +rope ladder</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Father, I think thou knowest my resolve,<br /> +And with this nobler vengeance art content.<br /> +Father, I think in letting this man live<br /> +That I am doing what thou wouldst have done.<br /> +Father, I know not if a human voice<br /> +Can pierce the iron gateway of the dead,<br /> +Or if the dead are set in ignorance<br /> +Of what we do, or do not, for their sakes.<br /> +And yet I feel a presence in the air,<br /> +There is a shadow standing at my side,<br /> +And ghostly kisses seem to touch my lips,<br /> +And leave them holier. [<i>Kneels down</i>.]<br /> +O father, if ’tis thou,<br /> +Canst thou not burst through the decrees of death,<br /> +And if corporeal semblance show thyself,<br /> +That I may touch thy hand!<br /> +No, there is nothing. [<i>Rises</i>.]<br /> +’Tis the night that cheats us with its phantoms,<br /> +And, like a puppet-master, makes us think<br /> +That things are real which are not. It grows late.<br /> +Now must I to my business.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Pulls out a letter from his +doublet and reads it</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">When he wakes,<br /> +And sees this letter, and the dagger with it,<br /> +Will he not have some loathing for his life,<br /> +Repent, perchance, and lead a better life,<br /> +Or will he mock because a young man spared<br /> +His natural enemy? I do not care.<br /> +Father, it is thy bidding that I do,<br /> +Thy bidding, and the bidding of my love<br /> +Which teaches me to know thee as thou art.</p> +<p>[<i>Ascends staircase stealthily</i>, <i>and just as he +reaches out his hand to draw back the curtain the Duchess appears +all in white</i>. <span class="smcap">Guido</span> +<i>starts back</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido! what do you here so late?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O white and spotless angel of my life,<br /> +Sure thou hast come from Heaven with a message<br /> +That mercy is more noble than revenge?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is no barrier between us now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">None, love, nor shall be.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I have seen to that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tarry here for me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, you are not going?<br /> +You will not leave me as you did before?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will return within a moment’s space,<br +/> +But first I must repair to the Duke’s chamber,<br /> +And leave this letter and this dagger there,<br /> +That when he wakes—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">When who wakes?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He will not wake again.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, is he dead?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! he is dead.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God! how wonderful<br /> +Are all thy secret ways! Who would have said<br /> +That on this very night, when I had yielded<br /> +Into thy hands the vengeance that is thine,<br /> +Thou with thy finger wouldst have touched the man,<br /> +And bade him come before thy judgment seat.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I have just killed him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>in horror</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He was asleep;<br /> +Come closer, love, and I will tell you all.<br /> +I had resolved to kill myself to-night.<br /> +About an hour ago I waked from sleep,<br /> +And took my dagger from beneath my pillow,<br /> +Where I had hidden it to serve my need,<br /> +And drew it from the sheath, and felt the edge,<br /> +And thought of you, and how I loved you, Guido,<br /> +And turned to fall upon it, when I marked<br /> +The old man sleeping, full of years and sin;<br /> +There lay he muttering curses in his sleep,<br /> +And as I looked upon his evil face<br /> +Suddenly like a flame there flashed across me,<br /> +There is the barrier which Guido spoke of:<br /> +You said there lay a barrier between us,<br /> +What barrier but he?—<br /> +I hardly know<br /> +What happened, but a steaming mist of blood<br /> +Rose up between us two.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, horrible!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And then he groaned,<br /> +And then he groaned no more! I only heard<br /> +The dripping of the blood upon the floor.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Enough, enough.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Will you not kiss me now?<br /> +Do you remember saying that women’s love<br /> +Turns men to angels? well, the love of man<br /> +Turns women into martyrs; for its sake<br /> +We do or suffer anything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Will you not speak?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I cannot speak at all.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Let as not talk of this! Let us go +hence:<br /> +Is not the barrier broken down between us?<br /> +What would you more? Come, it is almost morning.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Puts her hand on</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido’s</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>breaking from +her</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O damned saint! O angel fresh from +Hell!<br /> +What bloody devil tempted thee to this!<br /> +That thou hast killed thy husband, that is nothing—<br /> +Hell was already gaping for his soul—<br /> +But thou hast murdered Love, and in its place<br /> +Hast set a horrible and bloodstained thing,<br /> +Whose very breath breeds pestilence and plague,<br /> +And strangles Love.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>in amazed +wonder</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I did it all for you.<br /> +I would not have you do it, had you willed it,<br /> +For I would keep you without blot or stain,<br /> +A thing unblemished, unassailed, untarnished.<br /> +Men do not know what women do for love.<br /> +Have I not wrecked my soul for your dear sake,<br /> +Here and hereafter?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, do not touch me,<br /> +Between us lies a thin red stream of blood;<br /> +I dare not look across it: when you stabbed him<br /> +You stabbed Love with a sharp knife to the heart.<br /> +We cannot meet again.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>wringing her +hands</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">For you! For you!<br /> +I did it all for you: have you forgotten?<br /> +You said there was a barrier between us;<br /> +That barrier lies now i’ the upper chamber<br /> +Upset, overthrown, beaten, and battered down,<br /> +And will not part us ever.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, you mistook:<br /> +Sin was the barrier, you have raised it up;<br /> +Crime was the barrier, you have set it there.<br /> +The barrier was murder, and your hand<br /> +Has builded it so high it shuts out heaven,<br /> +It shuts out God.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I did it all for you;<br /> +You dare not leave me now: nay, Guido, listen.<br /> +Get horses ready, we will fly to-night.<br /> +The past is a bad dream, we will forget it:<br /> +Before us lies the future: shall we not have<br /> +Sweet days of love beneath our vines and laugh?—<br /> +No, no, we will not laugh, but, when we weep,<br /> +Well, we will weep together; I will serve you;<br /> +I will be very meek and very gentle:<br /> +You do not know me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, I know you now;<br /> +Get hence, I say, out of my sight.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>pacing up and +down</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">O God,<br /> +How I have loved this man!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You never loved me.<br /> +Had it been so, Love would have stayed your hand.<br /> +How could we sit together at Love’s table?<br /> +You have poured poison in the sacred wine,<br /> +And Murder dips his fingers in the sop.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>throws herself on her +knees</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Then slay me now! I have spilt blood +to-night,<br /> +You shall spill more, so we go hand in hand<br /> +To heaven or to hell. Draw your sword, Guido.<br /> +Quick, let your soul go chambering in my heart,<br /> +It will but find its master’s image there.<br /> +Nay, if you will not slay me with your sword,<br /> +Bid me to fall upon this reeking knife,<br /> +And I will do it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>wresting knife from +her</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Give it to me, I say.<br /> +O God, your very hands are wet with blood!<br /> +This place is Hell, I cannot tarry here.<br /> +I pray you let me see your face no more.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Better for me I had not seen your face.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<span class="smcap">Guido</span> +<i>recoils</i>: <i>she seizes his hands as she kneels</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, Guido, listen for a while:<br /> +Until you came to Padua I lived<br /> +Wretched indeed, but with no murderous thought,<br /> +Very submissive to a cruel Lord,<br /> +Very obedient to unjust commands,<br /> +As pure I think as any gentle girl<br /> +Who now would turn in horror from my hands—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Stands up</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">You came: ah! Guido, the first kindly +words<br /> +I ever heard since I had come from France<br /> +Were from your lips: well, well, that is no matter.<br /> +You came, and in the passion of your eyes<br /> +I read love’s meaning; everything you said<br /> +Touched my dumb soul to music, so I loved you.<br /> +And yet I did not tell you of my love.<br /> +’Twas you who sought me out, knelt at my feet<br /> +As I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Kneels</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Whose music seems to linger in my ears,<br /> +Swore that you loved me, and I trusted you.<br /> +I think there are many women in the world<br /> +Who would have tempted you to kill the man.<br /> +I did not.<br /> +Yet I know that had I done so,<br /> +I had not been thus humbled in the dust,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Stands up</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">But you had loved me very faithfully.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>After a pause approaches him +timidly</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">I do not think you understand me, Guido:<br /> +It was for your sake that I wrought this deed<br /> +Whose horror now chills my young blood to ice,<br /> +For your sake only. [<i>Stretching out her arm</i>.]<br /> +Will you not speak to me?<br /> +Love me a little: in my girlish life<br /> +I have been starved for love, and kindliness<br /> +Has passed me by.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I dare not look at you:<br /> +You come to me with too pronounced a favour;<br /> +Get to your tirewomen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, there it is!<br /> +There speaks the man! yet had you come to me<br /> +With any heavy sin upon your soul,<br /> +Some murder done for hire, not for love,<br /> +Why, I had sat and watched at your bedside<br /> +All through the night-time, lest Remorse might come<br /> +And pour his poisons in your ear, and so<br /> +Keep you from sleeping! Sure it is the guilty,<br /> +Who, being very wretched, need love most.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is no love where there is any guilt.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No love where there is any guilt! O +God,<br /> +How differently do we love from men!<br /> +There is many a woman here in Padua,<br /> +Some workman’s wife, or ruder artisan’s,<br /> +Whose husband spends the wages of the week<br /> +In a coarse revel, or a tavern brawl,<br /> +And reeling home late on the Saturday night,<br /> +Finds his wife sitting by a fireless hearth,<br /> +Trying to hush the child who cries for hunger,<br /> +And then sets to and beats his wife because<br /> +The child is hungry, and the fire black.<br /> +Yet the wife loves him! and will rise next day<br /> +With some red bruise across a careworn face,<br /> +And sweep the house, and do the common service,<br /> +And try and smile, and only be too glad<br /> +If he does not beat her a second time<br /> +Before her child!—that is how women love.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>A pause</i>: <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>says nothing</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">I think you will not drive me from your +side.<br /> +Where have I got to go if you reject me?—<br /> +You for whose sake this hand has murdered life,<br /> +You for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself<br /> +Beyond all hope of pardon.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Get thee gone:<br /> +The dead man is a ghost, and our love too,<br /> +Flits like a ghost about its desolate tomb,<br /> +And wanders through this charnel house, and weeps<br /> +That when you slew your lord you slew it also.<br /> +Do you not see?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I see when men love women<br /> +They give them but a little of their lives,<br /> +But women when they love give everything;<br /> +I see that, Guido, now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Away, away,<br /> +And come not back till you have waked your dead.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I would to God that I could wake the dead,<br +/> +Put vision in the glazéd eves, and give<br /> +The tongue its natural utterance, and bid<br /> +The heart to beat again: that cannot be:<br /> +For what is done, is done: and what is dead<br /> +Is dead for ever: the fire cannot warm him:<br /> +The winter cannot hurt him with its snows;<br /> +Something has gone from him; if you call him now,<br /> +He will not answer; if you mock him now,<br /> +He will not laugh; and if you stab him now<br /> +He will not bleed.<br /> +I would that I could wake him!<br /> +O God, put back the sun a little space,<br /> +And from the roll of time blot out to-night,<br /> +And bid it not have been! Put back the sun,<br /> +And make me what I was an hour ago!<br /> +No, no, time will not stop for anything,<br /> +Nor the sun stay its courses, though Repentance<br /> +Calling it back grow hoarse; but you, my love,<br /> +Have you no word of pity even for me?<br /> +O Guido, Guido, will you not kiss me once?<br /> +Drive me not to some desperate resolve:<br /> +Women grow mad when they are treated thus:<br /> +Will you not kiss me once?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>holding up knife</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I will not kiss you<br /> +Until the blood grows dry upon this knife,<br /> +[<i>Wildly</i>] Back to your dead!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>going up the +stairs</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, then I will be gone! and may you find<br +/> +More mercy than you showed to me to-night!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Let me find mercy when I go at night<br /> +And do foul murder.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>coming down a few +steps</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Murder did you say?<br /> +Murder is hungry, and still cries for more,<br /> +And Death, his brother, is not satisfied,<br /> +But walks the house, and will not go away,<br /> +Unless he has a comrade! Tarry, Death,<br /> +For I will give thee a most faithful lackey<br /> +To travel with thee! Murder, call no more,<br /> +For thou shalt eat thy fill.<br /> +There is a storm<br /> +Will break upon this house before the morning,<br /> +So horrible, that the white moon already<br /> +Turns grey and sick with terror, the low wind<br /> +Goes moaning round the house, and the high stars<br /> +Run madly through the vaulted firmament,<br /> +As though the night wept tears of liquid fire<br /> +For what the day shall look upon. Oh, weep,<br /> +Thou lamentable heaven! Weep thy fill!<br /> +Though sorrow like a cataract drench the fields,<br /> +And make the earth one bitter lake of tears,<br /> +It would not be enough. [<i>A peal of thunder</i>.]<br /> +Do you not hear,<br /> +There is artillery in the Heaven to-night.<br /> +Vengeance is wakened up, and has unloosed<br /> +His dogs upon the world, and in this matter<br /> +Which lies between us two, let him who draws<br /> +The thunder on his head beware the ruin<br /> +Which the forked flame brings after.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>A flash of lightning followed +by a peal of thunder</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Away! away!</p> +<p>[<i>Exit the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span>, <i>who as +she lifts the crimson curtain looks back for a moment at</i> +<span class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>but he makes no +sign</i>. <i>More thunder</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Now is life fallen in ashes at my feet<br /> +And noble love self-slain; and in its place<br /> +Crept murder with its silent bloody feet.<br /> +And she who wrought it—Oh! and yet she loved me,<br /> +And for my sake did do this dreadful thing.<br /> +I have been cruel to her: Beatrice!<br /> +Beatrice, I say, come back.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Begins to ascend staircase</i>, +<i>when the noise of Soldiers is heard</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! what is that?<br /> +Torches ablaze, and noise of hurrying feet.<br /> +Pray God they have not seized her.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Noise grows louder</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Beatrice!<br /> +There is yet time to escape. Come down, come out!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>The voice of the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>outside</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">This way went he, the man who slew my lord.</p> +<p>[<i>Down the staircase comes hurrying a confused body of +Soldiers</i>; <span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>is not seen at +first</i>, <i>till the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> +<i>surrounded by Servants carrying torches appears at the top of +the staircase</i>, <i>and points to</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>who is seized at once</i>, <i>one +of the Soldiers dragging the knife from his hand and showing it +to the Captain of the Guard in sight of the audience</i>. +<i>Tableau</i>.]</p> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"><span +class="GutSmall">END OF ACT III.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>ACT IV</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">SCENE</p> +<p><i>The Court of Justice</i>: <i>the walls are hung with +stamped grey velvet</i>: <i>above the hangings the wall is +red</i>, <i>and gilt symbolical figures bear up the roof</i>, +<i>which is made of red beams with grey soffits and moulding</i>: +<i>a canopy of white satin flowered with gold is set for the +Duchess</i>: <i>below it a long bench with red cloth for the +Judges</i>: <i>below that a table for the clerks of the +court. Two soldiers stand on each side of the canopy</i>, +<i>and two soldiers guard the door</i>; <i>the citizens have some +of them collected in the Court</i>; <i>others are coming in +greeting one another</i>; <i>two tipstaffs in violet keep order +with long white wands</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Good morrow, neighbour Anthony.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Good morrow, neighbour Dominick.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This is a strange day for Padua, is it +not?—the Duke being dead.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I tell you, neighbour Dominick, I have not +known such a day since the last Duke died.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They will try him first, and sentence him +afterwards, will they not, neighbour Anthony?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, for he might ’scape his punishment +then; but they will condemn him first so that he gets his +deserts, and give him trial afterwards so that no injustice is +done.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, well, it will go hard with him I doubt +not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Surely it is a grievous thing to shed a +Duke’s blood.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They say a Duke has blue blood.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I think our Duke’s blood was black like +his soul.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have a watch, neighbour Anthony, the officer is +looking at thee.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I care not if he does but look at me; he cannot +whip me with the lashes of his eye.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What think you of this young man who stuck the +knife into the Duke?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, that he is a well-behaved, and a +well-meaning, and a well-favoured lad, and yet wicked in that he +killed the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">’Twas the first time he did it: may be +the law will not be hard on him, as he did not do it before.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">True.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence, knave.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Am I thy looking-glass, Master Tipstaff, that +thou callest me knave?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Here be one of the household coming. +Well, Dame Lucy, thou art of the Court, how does thy poor +mistress the Duchess, with her sweet face?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O well-a-day! O miserable day! O +day! O misery! Why it is just nineteen years last +June, at Michaelmas, since I was married to my husband, and it is +August now, and here is the Duke murdered; there is a coincidence +for you!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, if it is a coincidence, they may not kill +the young man: there is no law against coincidences.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But how does the Duchess?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well well, I knew some harm would happen to the +house: six weeks ago the cakes were all burned on one side, and +last Saint Martin even as ever was, there flew into the candle a +big moth that had wings, and a’most scared me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But come to the Duchess, good gossip: what of +her?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, it is time you should ask after her, +poor lady; she is distraught almost. Why, she has not +slept, but paced the chamber all night long. I prayed her +to have a posset, or some aqua-vitæ, and to get to bed and +sleep a little for her health’s sake, but she answered me +she was afraid she might dream. That was a strange answer, +was it not?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">These great folk have not much sense, so +Providence makes it up to them in fine clothes.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, well, God keep murder from us, I say, as +long as we are alive.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Moranzone</span> <i>hurriedly</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is the Duke dead?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He has a knife in his heart, which they say is +not healthy for any man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who is accused of having killed him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, the prisoner, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But who is the prisoner?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, he that is accused of the Duke’s +murder.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I mean, what is his name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Faith, the same which his godfathers gave him: +what else should it be?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti is his name, my lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I almost knew thine answer ere you gave it.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Aside</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Yet it is strange he should have killed the +Duke,<br /> +Seeing he left me in such different mood.<br /> +It is most likely when he saw the man,<br /> +This devil who had sold his father’s life,<br /> +That passion from their seat within his heart<br /> +Thrust all his boyish theories of love,<br /> +And in their place set vengeance; yet I marvel<br /> +That he escaped not.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Turning again to the +crowd</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">How was he taken? Tell me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, sir, he was taken by the heels.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But who seized him?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, those that did lay hold of him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">How was the alarm given?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That I cannot tell you, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It was the Duchess herself who pointed him +out.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">The Duchess! There is something strange +in this.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! And the dagger was in his hand—the +Duchess’s own dagger.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What did you say?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Mistress Lucy</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, marry, that it was with the +Duchess’s dagger that the Duke was killed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">There is some mystery about this: I cannot +understand it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They be very long a-coming,</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I warrant they will come soon enough for the +prisoner.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence in the Court!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou dost break silence in bidding us keep it, +Master Tipstaff.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter the</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> <i>and the other +Judges</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who is he in scarlet? Is he the +headsman?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, he is the Lord Justice.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>guarded</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There be the prisoner surely.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He looks honest.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That be his villany: knaves nowadays do look so +honest that honest folk are forced to look like knaves so as to +be different.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter the Headman</i>, <i>who +takes his stand behind</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Yon be the headsman then! O Lord! +Is the axe sharp, think you?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! sharper than thy wits are; but the edge is +not towards him, mark you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span> [<i>scratching his +neck</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I’ faith, I like it not so near.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tut, thou need’st not be afraid; they +never cut the heads of common folk: they do but hang us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Trumpets outside</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What are the trumpets for? Is the trial +over?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, ’tis for the Duchess.</p> +<p>[<i>Enter the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>in +black velvet</i>; <i>her train of flowered black velvet is +carried by two pages in violet</i>; <i>with her is the</i> <span +class="smcap">Cardinal</span> <i>in scarlet</i>, <i>and the +gentlemen of the Court in black</i>; <i>she takes her seat on the +throne above the Judges</i>, <i>who rise and take their caps off +as she enters</i>; <i>the</i> <span class="smcap">Cardinal</span> +<i>sits next to her a little lower</i>; <i>the Courtiers group +themselves about the throne</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O poor lady, how pale she is! Will she +sit there?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! she is in the Duke’s place now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">That is a good thing for Padua; the Duchess is +a very kind and merciful Duchess; why, she cured my child of the +ague once.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, and has given us bread: do not forget the +bread.</p> +<p>A <span class="smcap">Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Stand back, good people.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If we be good, why should we stand back?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence in the Court!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">May it please your Grace,<br /> +Is it your pleasure we proceed to trial<br /> +Of the Duke’s murder? [<span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>bows</i>.]<br /> +Set the prisoner forth.<br /> +What is thy name?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It matters not, my lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti is thy name in Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A man may die as well under that name as any +other.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou art not ignorant<br /> +What dreadful charge men lay against thee here,<br /> +Namely, the treacherous murder of thy Lord,<br /> +Simone Gesso, Duke of Padua;<br /> +What dost thou say in answer?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I say nothing.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> [<i>rising</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>stepping from the +crowd</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Tarry, my Lord Justice.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who art thou that bid’st justice tarry, +sir?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So be it justice it can go its way;<br /> +But if it be not justice—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who is this?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A very noble gentleman, and well known<br /> +To the late Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sir, thou art come in time<br /> +To see the murder of the Duke avenged.<br /> +There stands the man who did this heinous thing.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My lord,<br /> +I ask again what proof have ye?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> [<i>holding up the +dagger</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">This dagger,<br /> +Which from his blood-stained hands, itself all blood,<br /> +Last night the soldiers seized: what further proof<br /> +Need we indeed?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>takes the danger and +approaches the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Saw I not such a dagger<br /> +Hang from your Grace’s girdle yesterday?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>shudders and makes no +answer</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! my Lord Justice, may I speak a moment<br /> +With this young man, who in such peril stands?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, willingly, my lord, and may you turn him<br +/> +To make a full avowal of his guilt.</p> +<p>[<span class="smcap">Lord Moranzone</span> <i>goes over to</i> +<span class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>who stands R. and clutches +him by the hand</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span> [<i>in a low +voice</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">She did it! Nay, I saw it in her eyes.<br +/> +Boy, dost thou think I’ll let thy father’s son<br /> +Be by this woman butchered to his death?<br /> +Her husband sold your father, and the wife<br /> +Would sell the son in turn.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Lord Moranzone,<br /> +I alone did this thing: be satisfied,<br /> +My father is avenged.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Doth he confess?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My lord, I do confess<br /> +That foul unnatural murder has been done.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, look at that: he has a pitiful heart, and +does not like murder; they will let him go for that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Say you no more?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My lord, I say this also,<br /> +That to spill human blood is deadly sin.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Marry, he should tell that to the headsman: +’tis a good sentiment.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Lastly, my lord, I do entreat the Court<br /> +To give me leave to utter openly<br /> +The dreadful secret of this mystery,<br /> +And to point out the very guilty one<br /> +Who with this dagger last night slew the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou hast leave to speak.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>rising</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I say he shall not speak:<br /> +What need have we of further evidence?<br /> +Was he not taken in the house at night<br /> +In Guilt’s own bloody livery?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> [<i>showing her the +statute</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace<br /> +Can read the law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>waiving book +aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Bethink you, my Lord Justice,<br /> +Is it not very like that such a one<br /> +May, in the presence of the people here,<br /> +Utter some slanderous word against my Lord,<br /> +Against the city, or the city’s honour,<br /> +Perchance against myself.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My liege, the law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">He shall not speak, but, with gags in his +mouth,<br /> +Shall climb the ladder to the bloody block.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The law, my liege.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">We are not bound by law,<br /> +But with it we bind others.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My Lord Justice,<br /> +Thou wilt not suffer this injustice here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The Court needs not thy voice, Lord +Moranzone.<br /> +Madam, it were a precedent most evil<br /> +To wrest the law from its appointed course,<br /> +For, though the cause be just, yet anarchy<br /> +Might on this licence touch these golden scales<br /> +And unjust causes unjust victories gain.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not think your Grace can stay the law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, it is well to preach and prate of law:<br +/> +Methinks, my haughty lords of Padua,<br /> +If ye are hurt in pocket or estate,<br /> +So much as makes your monstrous revenues<br /> +Less by the value of one ferry toll,<br /> +Ye do not wait the tedious law’s delay<br /> +With such sweet patience as ye counsel me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Count Bardi</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, I think you wrong our nobles here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I think I wrong them not. Which of you +all<br /> +Finding a thief within his house at night,<br /> +With some poor chattel thrust into his rags,<br /> +Will stop and parley with him? do ye not<br /> +Give him unto the officer and his hook<br /> +To be dragged gaolwards straightway?<br /> +And so now,<br /> +Had ye been men, finding this fellow here,<br /> +With my Lord’s life still hot upon his hands,<br /> +Ye would have haled him out into the court,<br /> +And struck his head off with an axe.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Speak, my Lord Justice.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace, it cannot be:<br /> +The laws of Padua are most certain here:<br /> +And by those laws the common murderer even<br /> +May with his own lips plead, and make defence.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This is no common murderer, Lord Justice,<br /> +But a great outlaw, and a most vile traitor,<br /> +Taken in open arms against the state.<br /> +For he who slays the man who rules a state<br /> +Slays the state also, widows every wife,<br /> +And makes each child an orphan, and no less<br /> +Is to be held a public enemy,<br /> +Than if he came with mighty ordonnance,<br /> +And all the spears of Venice at his back,<br /> +To beat and batter at our city gates—<br /> +Nay, is more dangerous to our commonwealth,<br /> +For walls and gates, bastions and forts, and things<br /> +Whose common elements are wood and stone<br /> +May be raised up, but who can raise again<br /> +The ruined body of my murdered lord,<br /> +And bid it live and laugh?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Now by Saint Paul<br /> +I do not think that they will let him speak.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo Vitellozzo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">There is much in this, listen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Wherefore now,<br /> +Throw ashes on the head of Padua,<br /> +With sable banners hang each silent street,<br /> +Let every man be clad in solemn black;<br /> +But ere we turn to these sad rites of mourning<br /> +Let us bethink us of the desperate hand<br /> +Which wrought and brought this ruin on our state,<br /> +And straightway pack him to that narrow house,<br /> +Where no voice is, but with a little dust<br /> +Death fills right up the lying mouths of men.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Unhand me, knaves! I tell thee, my Lord +Justice,<br /> +Thou mightst as well bid the untrammelled ocean,<br /> +The winter whirlwind, or the Alpine storm,<br /> +Not roar their will, as bid me hold my peace!<br /> +Ay! though ye put your knives into my throat,<br /> +Each grim and gaping wound shall find a tongue,<br /> +And cry against you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sir, this violence<br /> +Avails you nothing; for save the tribunal<br /> +Give thee a lawful right to open speech,<br /> +Naught that thou sayest can be credited.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>smiles and</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>falls back with a gesture of +despair</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, myself, and these wise Justices,<br /> +Will with your Grace’s sanction now retire<br /> +Into another chamber, to decide<br /> +Upon this difficult matter of the law,<br /> +And search the statutes and the precedents.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes +well,<br /> +Nor let this brawling traitor have his way.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience +well,<br /> +Nor let a man be sent to death unheard.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit the</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> <i>and the Judges</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence, thou evil genius of my life!<br /> +Thou com’st between us two a second time;<br /> +This time, my lord, I think the turn is mine.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I shall not die till I have uttered voice.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with +thee.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Art thou that Beatrice, Duchess of Padua?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I am what thou hast made me; look at me +well,<br /> +I am thy handiwork.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">See, is she not<br /> +Like that white tigress which we saw at Venice,<br /> +Sent by some Indian soldan to the Doge?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Hush! she may hear thy chatter.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Headsman</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My young fellow,<br /> +I do not know why thou shouldst care to speak,<br /> +Seeing my axe is close upon thy neck,<br /> +And words of thine will never blunt its edge.<br /> +But if thou art so bent upon it, why<br /> +Thou mightest plead unto the Churchman yonder:<br /> +The common people call him kindly here,<br /> +Indeed I know he has a kindly soul.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This man, whose trade is death, hath +courtesies<br /> +More than the others.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Headsman</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, God love you, sir,<br /> +I’ll do you your last service on this earth.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My good Lord Cardinal, in a Christian land,<br +/> +With Lord Christ’s face of mercy looking down<br /> +From the high seat of Judgment, shall a man<br /> +Die unabsolved, unshrived? And if not so,<br /> +May I not tell this dreadful tale of sin,<br /> +If any sin there be upon my soul?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou dost but waste thy time.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alack, my son,<br /> +I have no power with the secular arm.<br /> +My task begins when justice has been done,<br /> +To urge the wavering sinner to repent<br /> +And to confess to Holy Church’s ear<br /> +The dreadful secrets of a sinful mind.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou mayest speak to the confessional<br /> +Until thy lips grow weary of their tale,<br /> +But here thou shalt not speak.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My reverend father,<br /> +You bring me but cold comfort.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, my son,<br /> +For the great power of our mother Church,<br /> +Ends not with this poor bubble of a world,<br /> +Of which we are but dust, as Jerome saith,<br /> +For if the sinner doth repentant die,<br /> +Our prayers and holy masses much avail<br /> +To bring the guilty soul from purgatory.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord<br /> +With that red star of blood upon his heart,<br /> +Tell him I sent thee hither.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O dear God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">This is the woman, is it, whom you loved?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Your Grace is very cruel to this man.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No more than he was cruel to her Grace.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Yet mercy is the sovereign right of +princes.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I got no mercy, and I give it not.<br /> +He hath changed my heart into a heart of stone,<br /> +He hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field,<br /> +He hath poisoned the wells of pity in my breast,<br /> +He hath withered up all kindness at the root;<br /> +My life is as some famine murdered land,<br /> +Whence all good things have perished utterly:<br /> +I am what he hath made me.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>weeps</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is it not strange<br /> +That she should so have loved the wicked Duke?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is most strange when women love their +lords,<br /> +And when they love them not it is most strange.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What a philosopher thou art, Petrucci!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! I can bear the ills of other men,<br +/> +Which is philosophy.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They tarry long,<br /> +These greybeards and their council; bid them come;<br /> +Bid them come quickly, else I think my heart<br /> +Will beat itself to bursting: not indeed,<br /> +That I here care to live; God knows my life<br /> +Is not so full of joy, yet, for all that,<br /> +I would not die companionless, or go<br /> +Lonely to Hell.<br /> +Look, my Lord Cardinal,<br /> +Canst thou not see across my forehead here,<br /> +In scarlet letters writ, the word Revenge?<br /> +Fetch me some water, I will wash it off:<br /> +’Twas branded there last night, but in the day-time<br /> +I need not wear it, need I, my Lord Cardinal?<br /> +Oh, how it sears and burns into my brain:<br /> +Give me a knife; not that one, but another,<br /> +And I will cut it out.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is most natural<br /> +To be incensed against the murderous hand<br /> +That treacherously stabbed your sleeping lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I would, old Cardinal, I could burn that +hand;<br /> +But it will burn hereafter.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cardinal</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, the Church<br /> +Ordains us to forgive our enemies.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Forgiveness? what is that? I never got +it.<br /> +They come at last: well, my Lord Justice, well.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Enter the</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Justice</span>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Most gracious Lady, and our sovereign Liege,<br +/> +We have long pondered on the point at issue,<br /> +And much considered of your Grace’s wisdom,<br /> +And never wisdom spake from fairer lips—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Proceed, sir, without compliment.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">We find,<br /> +As your own Grace did rightly signify,<br /> +That any citizen, who by force or craft<br /> +Conspires against the person of the Liege,<br /> +Is <i>ipso facto</i> outlaw, void of rights<br /> +Such as pertain to other citizens,<br /> +Is traitor, and a public enemy,<br /> +Who may by any casual sword be slain<br /> +Without the slayer’s danger; nay, if brought<br /> +Into the presence of the tribunal,<br /> +Must with dumb lips and silence reverent<br /> +Listen unto his well-deserved doom,<br /> +Nor has the privilege of open speech.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;<br /> +I like your law: and now I pray dispatch<br /> +This public outlaw to his righteous doom;<br /> +What is there more?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, there is more, your Grace.<br /> +This man being alien born, not Paduan,<br /> +Nor by allegiance bound unto the Duke,<br /> +Save such as common nature doth lay down,<br /> +Hath, though accused of treasons manifold,<br /> +Whose slightest penalty is certain death,<br /> +Yet still the right of public utterance<br /> +Before the people and the open court;<br /> +Nay, shall be much entreated by the Court,<br /> +To make some formal pleading for his life,<br /> +Lest his own city, righteously incensed,<br /> +Should with an unjust trial tax our state,<br /> +And wars spring up against the commonwealth:<br /> +So merciful are the laws of Padua<br /> +Unto the stranger living in her gates.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Being of my Lord’s household, is he +stranger here?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, until seven years of service spent<br /> +He cannot be a Paduan citizen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily;<br /> +I like your law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I like no law at all:<br /> +Were there no law there’d be no law-breakers,<br /> +So all men would be virtuous.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Citizen</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So they would;<br /> +’Tis a wise saying that, and brings you far.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! to the gallows, knave.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is this the law?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is the law most certainly, my liege.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Show me the book: ’tis written in +blood-red.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Look at the Duchess.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou accursed law,<br /> +I would that I could tear thee from the state<br /> +As easy as I tear thee from this book.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Tears out the page</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Come here, Count Bardi: are you honourable?<br +/> +Get a horse ready for me at my house,<br /> +For I must ride to Venice instantly.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Bardi</span></p> +<p class="poetry">To Venice, Madam?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Not a word of this,<br /> +Go, go at once. [<i>Exit</i> <span class="smcap">Count +Bardi</span>.]<br /> +A moment, my Lord Justice.<br /> +If, as thou sayest it, this is the law—<br /> +Nay, nay, I doubt not that thou sayest right,<br /> +Though right be wrong in such a case as this—<br /> +May I not by the virtue of mine office<br /> +Adjourn this court until another day?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, you cannot stay a trial for blood.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will not tarry then to hear this man<br /> +Rail with rude tongue against our sacred person.<br /> +Come, gentlemen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My liege,<br /> +You cannot leave this court until the prisoner<br /> +Be purged or guilty of this dread offence.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Cannot, Lord Justice? By what right do +you<br /> +Set barriers in my path where I should go?<br /> +Am I not Duchess here in Padua,<br /> +And the state’s regent?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">For that reason, Madam,<br /> +Being the fountain-head of life and death<br /> +Whence, like a mighty river, justice flows,<br /> +Without thy presence justice is dried up<br /> +And fails of purpose: thou must tarry here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, wilt thou keep me here against my +will?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">We pray thy will be not against the law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What if I force my way out of the court?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou canst not force the Court to give thee +way.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will not tarry. [<i>Rises from her +seat</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is the usher here?<br /> +Let him stand forth. [<i>Usher comes forward</i>.]<br /> +Thou knowest thy business, sir.</p> +<p>[<i>The Usher closes the doors of the court</i>, <i>which are +L.</i>, <i>and when the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> +<i>and her retinue approach</i>, <i>kneels down</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Usher</span></p> +<p class="poetry">In all humility I beseech your Grace<br /> +Turn not my duty to discourtesy,<br /> +Nor make my unwelcome office an offence.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is there no gentleman amongst you all<br /> +To prick this prating fellow from our way?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span> [<i>drawing his +sword</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! that will I.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Count Maffio, have a care,<br /> +And you, sir. [<i>To</i> <span +class="smcap">Jeppo</span>.]<br /> +The first man who draws his sword<br /> +Upon the meanest officer of this Court,<br /> +Dies before nightfall.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sirs, put up your swords:<br /> +It is most meet that I should hear this man.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Goes back to throne</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Moranzone</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Now hast thou got thy enemy in thy hand.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> [<i>taking the +time-glass up</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Guido Ferranti, while the crumbling sand<br /> +Falls through this time-glass, thou hast leave to speak.<br /> +This and no more.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is enough, my lord.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thou standest on the extreme verge of death;<br +/> +See that thou speakest nothing but the truth,<br /> +Naught else will serve thee.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If I speak it not,<br /> +Then give my body to the headsman there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> [<i>turns the +time-glass</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Let there be silence while the prisoner +speaks.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Tipstaff</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence in the Court there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">My Lords Justices,<br /> +And reverent judges of this worthy court,<br /> +I hardly know where to begin my tale,<br /> +So strangely dreadful is this history.<br /> +First, let me tell you of what birth I am.<br /> +I am the son of that good Duke Lorenzo<br /> +Who was with damned treachery done to death<br /> +By a most wicked villain, lately Duke<br /> +Of this good town of Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Have a care,<br /> +It will avail thee nought to mock this prince<br /> +Who now lies in his coffin.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Maffio</span></p> +<p class="poetry">By Saint James,<br /> +This is the Duke of Parma’s rightful heir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Jeppo</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I always thought him noble.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I confess<br /> +That with the purport of a just revenge,<br /> +A most just vengeance on a man of blood,<br /> +I entered the Duke’s household, served his will,<br /> +Sat at his board, drank of his wine, and was<br /> +His intimate: so much I will confess,<br /> +And this too, that I waited till he grew<br /> +To give the fondest secrets of his life<br /> +Into my keeping, till he fawned on me,<br /> +And trusted me in every private matter<br /> +Even as my noble father trusted him;<br /> +That for this thing I waited.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>To the Headsman</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou man of blood!<br /> +Turn not thine axe on me before the time:<br /> +Who knows if it be time for me to die?<br /> +Is there no other neck in court but mine?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">The sand within the time-glass flows apace.<br +/> +Come quickly to the murder of the Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I will be brief: Last night at twelve o’ +the clock,<br /> +By a strong rope I scaled the palace wall,<br /> +With purport to revenge my father’s murder—<br /> +Ay! with that purport I confess, my lord.<br /> +This much I will acknowledge, and this also,<br /> +That as with stealthy feet I climbed the stair<br /> +Which led unto the chamber of the Duke,<br /> +And reached my hand out for the scarlet cloth<br /> +Which shook and shivered in the gusty door,<br /> +Lo! the white moon that sailed in the great heaven<br /> +Flooded with silver light the darkened room,<br /> +Night lit her candles for me, and I saw<br /> +The man I hated, cursing in his sleep;<br /> +And thinking of a most dear father murdered,<br /> +Sold to the scaffold, bartered to the block,<br /> +I smote the treacherous villain to the heart<br /> +With this same dagger, which by chance I found<br /> +Within the chamber.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>rising from her +seat</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>hurriedly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I killed the Duke.<br /> +Now, my Lord Justice, if I may crave a boon,<br /> +Suffer me not to see another sun<br /> +Light up the misery of this loathsome world.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Thy boon is granted, thou shalt die +to-night.<br /> +Lead him away. Come, Madam</p> +<p>[<span class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>is led off</i>; <i>as he +goes the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>stretches out +her arms and rushes down the stage</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido! Guido!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Faints</i>.]</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Tableau</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center" class="poetry"><span +class="GutSmall">END OF ACT IV.</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<h2>ACT V</h2> +<p style="text-align: center">SCENE</p> +<p><i>A dungeon in the public prison of Padua</i>; <i>Guido lies +asleep on a pallet</i> (<i>L.C.</i>); <i>a table with a goblet on +it is set</i> (<i>L.C.</i>); <i>five soldiers are drinking and +playing dice in the corner on a stone table</i>; <i>one of them +has a lantern hung to his halbert</i>; <i>a torch is set in the +wall over Guido’s head</i>. <i>Two grated windows +behind</i>, <i>one on each side of the door which is</i> +(<i>C.</i>), <i>look out into the passage</i>; <i>the stage is +rather dark</i>.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span> [<i>throws +dice</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Sixes again! good Pietro.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I’ faith, lieutenant, I will play with +thee no more. I will lose everything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Except thy wits; thou art safe there!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, ay, he cannot take them from me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No; for thou hast no wits to give him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Soldiers</span> [<i>loudly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ha! ha! ha!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Silence! You will wake the prisoner; he +is asleep.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What matter? He will get sleep enough +when he is buried. I warrant he’d be glad if we could +wake him when he’s in the grave.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay! for when he wakes there it will be +judgment day.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, and he has done a grievous thing; for, look +you, to murder one of us who are but flesh and blood is a sin, +and to kill a Duke goes being near against the law.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Well, well, he was a wicked Duke.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And so he should not have touched him; if one +meddles with wicked people, one is like to be tainted with their +wickedness.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, that is true. How old is the +prisoner?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Old enough to do wrong, and not old enough to +be wise.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, then, he might be any age.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They say the Duchess wanted to pardon him.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is that so?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, and did much entreat the Lord Justice, but +he would not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I had thought, Pietro, that the Duchess was +omnipotent.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">True, she is well-favoured; I know none so +comely.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">The Soldiers</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ha! ha! ha!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I meant I had thought our Duchess could do +anything.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Second Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, for he is now given over to the Justices, +and they will see that justice be done; they and stout Hugh the +headsman; but when his head is off, why then the Duchess can +pardon him if she likes; there is no law against that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not think that stout Hugh, as you call +him, will do the business for him after all. This Guido is +of gentle birth, and so by the law can drink poison first, if it +so be his pleasure.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And if he does not drink it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why, then, they will kill him.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Knocking comes at the +door</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">See who that is.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Third Soldier goes over and +looks through the wicket</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is a woman, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is she pretty?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Third Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I can’t tell. She is masked, +lieutenant.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is only very ugly or very beautiful women +who ever hide their faces. Let her in.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Soldier opens the door</i>, +<i>and the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>masked and +cloaked enters</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>to Third +Soldier</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Are you the officer on guard?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span> [<i>coming +forward</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">I am, madam.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I must see the prisoner alone.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I am afraid that is impossible. +[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>hands him a +ring</i>, <i>he looks at and returns it to her with a bow and +makes a sign to the Soldiers</i>.] Stand without there.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exeunt the Soldiers</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Officer, your men are somewhat rough.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They mean no harm.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I shall be going back in a few minutes. +As I pass through the corridor do not let them try and lift my +mask.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You need not be afraid, madam.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I have a particular reason for wishing my face +not to be seen.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, with this ring you can go in and out as +you please; it is the Duchess’s own ring.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Leave us. [<i>The Soldier turns to go +out</i>.] A moment, sir. For what hour is . . .</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">At twelve o’clock, madam, we have orders +to lead him out; but I dare say he won’t wait for us; +he’s more like to take a drink out of that poison +yonder. Men are afraid of the headsman.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is that poison?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay, madam, and very sure poison too.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You may go, sir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">First Soldier</span></p> +<p class="poetry">By Saint James, a pretty hand! I wonder +who she is. Some woman who loved him, perhaps.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Exit</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>taking her mark +off</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">At last!<br /> +He can escape now in this cloak and vizard,<br /> +We are of a height almost: they will not know him;<br /> +As for myself what matter?<br /> +So that he does not curse me as he goes,<br /> +I care but little: I wonder will he curse me.<br /> +He has the right. It is eleven now;<br /> +They will not come till twelve.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Goes over to the table</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">So this is poison.<br /> +Is it not strange that in this liquor here<br /> +There lies the key to all philosophies?</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Takes the cup up</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">It smells of poppies. I remember well<br +/> +That, when I was a child in Sicily,<br /> +I took the scarlet poppies from the corn,<br /> +And made a little wreath, and my grave uncle,<br /> +Don John of Naples, laughed: I did not know<br /> +That they had power to stay the springs of life,<br /> +To make the pulse cease beating, and to chill<br /> +The blood in its own vessels, till men come<br /> +And with a hook hale the poor body out,<br /> +And throw it in a ditch: the body, ay,—<br /> +What of the soul? that goes to heaven or hell.<br /> +Where will mine go?</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Takes the torch from the +wall</i>, <i>and goes over to the bed</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">How peacefully here he sleeps,<br /> +Like a young schoolboy tired out with play:<br /> +I would that I could sleep so peacefully,<br /> +But I have dreams. [<i>Bending over him</i>.]<br /> +Poor boy: what if I kissed him?<br /> +No, no, my lips would burn him like a fire.<br /> +He has had enough of Love. Still that white neck<br /> +Will ’scape the headsman: I have seen to that:<br /> +He will get hence from Padua to-night,<br /> +And that is well. You are very wise, Lord Justices,<br /> +And yet you are not half so wise as I am,<br /> +And that is well.<br /> +O God! how I have loved you,<br /> +And what a bloody flower did Love bear!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Comes back to the +table</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">What if I drank these juices, and so ceased?<br +/> +Were it not better than to wait till Death<br /> +Come to my bed with all his serving men,<br /> +Remorse, disease, old age, and misery?<br /> +I wonder does one suffer much: I think<br /> +That I am very young to die like this,<br /> +But so it must be. Why, why should I die?<br /> +He will escape to-night, and so his blood<br /> +Will not be on my head. No, I must die;<br /> +I have been guilty, therefore I must die;<br /> +He loves me not, and therefore I must die:<br /> +I would die happier if he would kiss me,<br /> +But he will not do that. I did not know him.<br /> +I thought he meant to sell me to the Judge;<br /> +That is not strange; we women never know<br /> +Our lovers till they leave us.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Bell begins to toll</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Thou vile bell,<br /> +That like a bloodhound from thy brazen throat<br /> +Call’st for this man’s life, cease! thou shalt not +get it.<br /> +He stirs—I must be quick: [<i>Takes up cup</i>.]<br +/> +O Love, Love, Love,<br /> +I did not think that I would pledge thee thus!</p> +<p>[<i>Drinks poison</i>, <i>and sets the cup down on the table +behind her</i>: <i>the noise wakens</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span>, <i>who starts up</i>, <i>and does not +see what she has done</i>. <i>There is silence for a +minute</i>, <i>each looking at the other</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">I do not come to ask your pardon now,<br /> +Seeing I know I stand beyond all pardon;<br /> +Enough of that: I have already, sir,<br /> +Confessed my sin to the Lords Justices;<br /> +They would not listen to me: and some said<br /> +I did invent a tale to save your life;<br /> +You have trafficked with me; others said<br /> +That women played with pity as with men;<br /> +Others that grief for my slain Lord and husband<br /> +Had robbed me of my wits: they would not hear me,<br /> +And, when I sware it on the holy book,<br /> +They bade the doctor cure me. They are ten,<br /> +Ten against one, and they possess your life.<br /> +They call me Duchess here in Padua.<br /> +I do not know, sir; if I be the Duchess,<br /> +I wrote your pardon, and they would not take it;<br /> +They call it treason, say I taught them that;<br /> +Maybe I did. Within an hour, Guido,<br /> +They will be here, and drag you from the cell,<br /> +And bind your hands behind your back, and bid you<br /> +Kneel at the block: I am before them there;<br /> +Here is the signet ring of Padua,<br /> +’Twill bring you safely through the men on guard;<br /> +There is my cloak and vizard; they have orders<br /> +Not to be curious: when you pass the gate<br /> +Turn to the left, and at the second bridge<br /> +You will find horses waiting: by to-morrow<br /> +You will be at Venice, safe. [<i>A pause</i>.]<br /> +Do you not speak?<br /> +Will you not even curse me ere you go?—<br /> +You have the right. [<i>A pause</i>.]<br /> +You do not understand<br /> +There lies between you and the headsman’s axe<br /> +Hardly so much sand in the hour-glass<br /> +As a child’s palm could carry: here is the ring:<br /> +I have washed my hand: there is no blood upon it:<br /> +You need not fear. Will you not take the ring?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>takes ring and kisses +it</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! gladly, Madam.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And leave Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Leave Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But it must be to-night.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">To-night it shall be.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, thank God for that!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">So I can live; life never seemed so sweet<br /> +As at this moment.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Do not tarry, Guido,<br /> +There is my cloak: the horse is at the bridge,<br /> +The second bridge below the ferry house:<br /> +Why do you tarry? Can your ears not hear<br /> +This dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke<br /> +Robs one brief minute from your boyish life.<br /> +Go quickly.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay! he will come soon enough.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Who?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>calmly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Why, the headsman.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Only he<br /> +Can bring me out of Padua.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You dare not!<br /> +You dare not burden my o’erburdened soul<br /> +With two dead men! I think one is enough.<br /> +For when I stand before God, face to face,<br /> +I would not have you, with a scarlet thread<br /> +Around your white throat, coming up behind<br /> +To say I did it.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, I wait.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no, you cannot: you do not understand,<br +/> +I have less power in Padua to-night<br /> +Than any common woman; they will kill you.<br /> +I saw the scaffold as I crossed the square,<br /> +Already the low rabble throng about it<br /> +With fearful jests, and horrid merriment,<br /> +As though it were a morris-dancer’s platform,<br /> +And not Death’s sable throne. O Guido, Guido,<br /> +You must escape!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Madam, I tarry here.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido, you shall not: it would be a thing<br /> +So terrible that the amazed stars<br /> +Would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon<br /> +Be in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun<br /> +Refuse to shine upon the unjust earth<br /> +Which saw thee die.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Be sure I shall not stir.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>wringing her +hands</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Is one sin not enough, but must it breed<br /> +A second sin more horrible again<br /> +Than was the one that bare it? O God, God,<br /> +Seal up sin’s teeming womb, and make it barren,<br /> +I will not have more blood upon my hand<br /> +Than I have now.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>seizing her hand</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">What! am I fallen so low<br /> +That I may not have leave to die for you?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>tearing her hand +away</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Die for me?—no, my life is a vile +thing,<br /> +Thrown to the miry highways of this world;<br /> +You shall not die for me, you shall not, Guido;<br /> +I am a guilty woman.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guilty?—let those<br /> +Who know what a thing temptation is,<br /> +Let those who have not walked as we have done,<br /> +In the red fire of passion, those whose lives<br /> +Are dull and colourless, in a word let those,<br /> +If any such there be, who have not loved,<br /> +Cast stones against you. As for me—</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>falling at her +feet</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">You are my lady, and you are my love!<br /> +O hair of gold, O crimson lips, O face<br /> +Made for the luring and the love of man!<br /> +Incarnate image of pure loveliness!<br /> +Worshipping thee I do forget the past,<br /> +Worshipping thee my soul comes close to thine,<br /> +Worshipping thee I seem to be a god,<br /> +And though they give my body to the block,<br /> +Yet is my love eternal!</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<span class="smcap">Duchess</span> +<i>puts her hands over her face</i>: <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>draws them down</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet, lift up<br /> +The trailing curtains that overhang your eyes<br /> +That I may look into those eyes, and tell you<br /> +I love you, never more than now when Death<br /> +Thrusts his cold lips between us: Beatrice,<br /> +I love you: have you no word left to say?<br /> +Oh, I can bear the executioner,<br /> +But not this silence: will you not say you love me?<br /> +Speak but that word and Death shall lose his sting,<br /> +But speak it not, and fifty thousand deaths<br /> +Are, in comparison, mercy. Oh, you are cruel,<br /> +And do not love me.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Alas! I have no right<br /> +For I have stained the innocent hands of love<br /> +With spilt-out blood: there is blood on the ground;<br /> +I set it there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet, it was not yourself,<br /> +It was some devil tempted you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>rising +suddenly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">No, no,<br /> +We are each our own devil, and we make<br /> +This world our hell.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Then let high Paradise<br /> +Fall into Tartarus! for I shall make<br /> +This world my heaven for a little space.<br /> +The sin was mine, if any sin there was.<br /> +’Twas I who nurtured murder in my heart,<br /> +Sweetened my meats, seasoned my wine with it,<br /> +And in my fancy slew the accursed Duke<br /> +A hundred times a day. Why, had this man<br /> +Died half so often as I wished him to,<br /> +Death had been stalking ever through the house,<br /> +And murder had not slept.<br /> +But you, fond heart,<br /> +Whose little eyes grew tender over a whipt hound,<br /> +You whom the little children laughed to see<br /> +Because you brought the sunlight where you passed,<br /> +You the white angel of God’s purity,<br /> +This which men call your sin, what was it?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ay!<br /> +What was it? There are times it seems a dream,<br /> +An evil dream sent by an evil god,<br /> +And then I see the dead face in the coffin<br /> +And know it is no dream, but that my hand<br /> +Is red with blood, and that my desperate soul<br /> +Striving to find some haven for its love<br /> +From the wild tempest of this raging world,<br /> +Has wrecked its bark upon the rocks of sin.<br /> +What was it, said you?—murder merely? Nothing<br /> +But murder, horrible murder.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, nay, nay,<br /> +’Twas but the passion-flower of your love<br /> +That in one moment leapt to terrible life,<br /> +And in one moment bare this gory fruit,<br /> +Which I had plucked in thought a thousand times.<br /> +My soul was murderous, but my hand refused;<br /> +Your hand wrought murder, but your soul was pure.<br /> +And so I love you, Beatrice, and let him<br /> +Who has no mercy for your stricken head,<br /> +Lack mercy up in heaven! Kiss me, sweet.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Tries to kiss her</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no, your lips are pure, and mine are +soiled,<br /> +For Guilt has been my paramour, and Sin<br /> +Lain in my bed: O Guido, if you love me<br /> +Get hence, for every moment is a worm<br /> +Which gnaws your life away: nay, sweet, get hence,<br /> +And if in after time you think of me,<br /> +Think of me as of one who loved you more<br /> +Than anything on earth; think of me, Guido,<br /> +As of a woman merely, one who tried<br /> +To make her life a sacrifice to love,<br /> +And slew love in the trial: Oh, what is that?<br /> +The bell has stopped from ringing, and I hear<br /> +The feet of armed men upon the stair.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span> [<i>aside</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">That is the signal for the guard to come.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why has the bell stopped ringing?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">If you must know,<br /> +That stops my life on this side of the grave,<br /> +But on the other we shall meet again.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no, ’tis not too late: you must get +hence;<br /> +The horse is by the bridge, there is still time.<br /> +Away, away, you must not tarry here!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Noise of Soldiers in the +passage</i>.]</p> +<p>A <span class="smcap">Voice Outside</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Room for the Lord Justice of Padua!</p> +<p>[<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> <i>is seen +through the grated window passing down the corridor preceded by +men bearing torches</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is too late.</p> +<p>A <span class="smcap">Voice Outside</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Room for the headsman.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>sinks down</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Oh!</p> +<p>[<i>The Headsman with his axe on his shoulder is seen passing +the corridor</i>, <i>followed by Monks bearing candles</i>.]</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Farewell, dear love, for I must drink this +poison.<br /> +I do not fear the headsman, but I would die<br /> +Not on the lonely scaffold.<br /> +But here,<br /> +Here in thine arms, kissing thy mouth: farewell!</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Goes to the table and takes the +goblet up</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">What, art thou empty?</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>Throws it to the +ground</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">O thou churlish gaoler,<br /> +Even of poisons niggard!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span> [<i>faintly</i>]</p> +<p class="poetry">Blame him not.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God! you have not drunk it, Beatrice?<br /> +Tell me you have not?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Were I to deny it,<br /> +There is a fire eating at my heart<br /> +Which would find utterance.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O treacherous love,<br /> +Why have you not left a drop for me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, no, it held but death enough for one.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Is there no poison still upon your lips,<br /> +That I may draw it from them?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Why should you die?<br /> +You have not spilt blood, and so need not die:<br /> +I have spilt blood, and therefore I must die.<br /> +Was it not said blood should be spilt for blood?<br /> +Who said that? I forget.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Tarry for me,<br /> +Our souls will go together.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, you must live.<br /> +There are many other women in the world<br /> +Who will love you, and not murder for your sake.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I love you only.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You need not die for that.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ah, if we die together, love, why then<br /> +Can we not lie together in one grave?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">A grave is but a narrow wedding-bed.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">It is enough for us</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">And they will strew it<br /> +With a stark winding-sheet, and bitter herbs:<br /> +I think there are no roses in the grave,<br /> +Or if there are, they all are withered now<br /> +Since my Lord went there.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Ah! dear Beatrice,<br /> +Your lips are roses that death cannot wither.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Nay, if we lie together, will not my lips<br /> +Fall into dust, and your enamoured eyes<br /> +Shrivel to sightless sockets, and the worms,<br /> +Which are our groomsmen, eat away your heart?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I do not care: Death has no power on love.<br +/> +And so by Love’s immortal sovereignty<br /> +I will die with you.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">But the grave is black,<br /> +And the pit black, so I must go before<br /> +To light the candles for your coming hither.<br /> +No, no, I will not die, I will not die.<br /> +Love, you are strong, and young, and very brave;<br /> +Stand between me and the angel of death,<br /> +And wrestle with him for me.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">[<i>Thrusts</i> <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>in front of her with his back to +the audience</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">I will kiss you,<br /> +When you have thrown him. Oh, have you no cordial,<br /> +To stay the workings of this poison in me?<br /> +Are there no rivers left in Italy<br /> +That you will not fetch me one cup of water<br /> +To quench this fire?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O God!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">You did not tell me<br /> +There was a drought in Italy, and no water:<br /> +Nothing but fire.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O Love!</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Send for a leech,<br /> +Not him who stanched my husband, but another<br /> +We have no time: send for a leech, I say:<br /> +There is an antidote against each poison,<br /> +And he will sell it if we give him money.<br /> +Tell him that I will give him Padua,<br /> +For one short hour of life: I will not die.<br /> +Oh, I am sick to death; no, do not touch me,<br /> +This poison gnaws my heart: I did not know<br /> +It was such pain to die: I thought that life<br /> +Had taken all the agonies to itself;<br /> +It seems it is not so.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">O damnéd stars<br /> +Quench your vile cresset-lights in tears, and bid<br /> +The moon, your mistress, shine no more to-night.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Guido, why are we here? I think this +room<br /> +Is poorly furnished for a marriage chamber.<br /> +Let us get hence at once. Where are the horses?<br /> +We should be on our way to Venice now.<br /> +How cold the night is! We must ride faster.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">[<i>The Monks begin to chant +outside</i>.]</p> +<p class="poetry">Music! It should be merrier; but grief<br +/> +Is of the fashion now—I know not why.<br /> +You must not weep: do we not love each other?—<br /> +That is enough. Death, what do you here?<br /> +You were not bidden to this table, sir;<br /> +Away, we have no need of you: I tell you<br /> +It was in wine I pledged you, not in poison.<br /> +They lied who told you that I drank your poison.<br /> +It was spilt upon the ground, like my Lord’s blood;<br /> +You came too late.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Sweet, there is nothing there:<br /> +These things are only unreal shadows.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Death,<br /> +Why do you tarry, get to the upper chamber;<br /> +The cold meats of my husband’s funeral feast<br /> +Are set for you; this is a wedding feast.<br /> +You are out of place, sir; and, besides, ’tis summer.<br /> +We do not need these heavy fires now,<br /> +You scorch us.<br /> +Oh, I am burned up,<br /> +Can you do nothing? Water, give me water,<br /> +Or else more poison. No: I feel no pain—<br /> +Is it not curious I should feel no pain?—<br /> +And Death has gone away, I am glad of that.<br /> +I thought he meant to part us. Tell me, Guido,<br /> +Are you not sorry that you ever saw me?</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">I swear I would not have lived otherwise.<br /> +Why, in this dull and common world of ours<br /> +Men have died looking for such moments as this<br /> +And have not found them.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Then you are not sorry?<br /> +How strange that seems.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">What, Beatrice, have I not<br /> +Stood face to face with beauty? That is enough<br /> +For one man’s life. Why, love, I could be merry;<br +/> +I have been often sadder at a feast,<br /> +But who were sad at such a feast as this<br /> +When Love and Death are both our cup-bearers?<br /> +We love and die together.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">Oh, I have been<br /> +Guilty beyond all women, and indeed<br /> +Beyond all women punished. Do you think—<br /> +No, that could not be—Oh, do you think that love<br /> +Can wipe the bloody stain from off my hands,<br /> +Pour balm into my wounds, heal up my hurts,<br /> +And wash my scarlet sins as white as snow?—<br /> +For I have sinned.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Guido</span></p> +<p class="poetry">They do not sin at all<br /> +Who sin for love.</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Duchess</span></p> +<p class="poetry">No, I have sinned, and yet<br /> +Perchance my sin will be forgiven me.<br /> +I have loved much</p> +<p>[<i>They kiss each other now for the first time in this +Act</i>, <i>when suddenly the</i> <span +class="smcap">Duchess</span> <i>leaps up in the dreadful spasm of +death</i>, <i>tears in agony at her dress</i>, <i>and +finally</i>, <i>with face twisted and distorted with pain</i>, +<i>falls back dead in a chair</i>. <span +class="smcap">Guido</span> <i>seizing her dagger from her +belt</i>, <i>kills himself</i>; <i>and</i>, <i>as he falls across +her knees</i>, <i>clutches at the cloak which is on the back of +the chair</i>, <i>and throws it entirely over her</i>. +<i>There is a little pause</i>. <i>Then down the passage +comes the tramp of Soldiers</i>; <i>the door is opened</i>, +<i>and the</i> <span class="smcap">Lord Justice</span>, <i>the +Headsman</i>, <i>and the Guard enter and see this figure shrouded +in black</i>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Guido</span> +<i>lying dead across her</i>. <i>The</i> <span +class="smcap">Lord Justice</span> <i>rushes forward and drags the +cloak off the</i> <span class="smcap">Duchess</span>, <i>whose +face is now the marble image of peace</i>, <i>the sign of +God’s forgiveness</i>.]</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Tableau</i></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">Curtain</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by T. and A. <span +class="smcap">Constable</span>, Printers to His Majesty<br /> +at the Edinburgh University Press</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DUCHESS OF PADUA***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 875-h.htm or 875-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/7/875 + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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