The Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: 250+ Titles in One Edition. Оскар Уайльд

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СКАЧАТЬ Where women talk too much.

       Good-night, my lord.

       Fetch a pine torch, Bianca. The old staircase

       Is full of pitfalls, and the churlish moon

       Grows, like a miser, niggard of her beams,

       And hides her face behind a muslin mask

       As harlots do when they go forth to snare

       Some wretched soul in sin. Now, I will get

       Your cloak and sword. Nay, pardon, my good Lord,

       It is but meet that I should wait on you

       Who have so honoured my poor burgher’s house,

       Drunk of my wine, and broken bread, and made

       Yourself a sweet familiar. Oftentimes

       My wife and I will talk of this fair night

       And its great issues.

       Why, what a sword is this.

       Ferrara’s temper, pliant as a snake,

       And deadlier, I doubt not. With such steel,

       One need fear nothing in the moil of life.

       I never touched so delicate a blade.

       I have a sword too, somewhat rusted now.

       We men of peace are taught humility,

       And to bear many burdens on our backs,

       And not to murmur at an unjust world,

       And to endure unjust indignities.

       We are taught that, and like the patient Jew

       Find profit in our pain.

       Yet I remember

       How once upon the road to Padua

       A robber sought to take my pack-horse from me,

       I slit his throat and left him. I can bear

       Dishonour, public insult, many shames,

       Shrill scorn, and open contumely, but he

       Who filches from me something that is mine,

       Ay! though it be the meanest trencher-plate

       From which I feed mine appetite—oh! he

       Perils his soul and body in the theft

       And dies for his small sin. From what strange clay

       We men are moulded!

      GUIDO: Why do you speak like this?

      SIMONE: I wonder, my Lord Guido, if my sword

       Is better tempered than this steel of yours?

       Shall we make trial? Or is my state too low

       For you to cross your rapier against mine,

       In jest, or earnest?

      GUIDO: Naught would please me better

       Than to stand fronting you with naked blade

       In jest, or earnest. Give me mine own sword.

       Fetch yours. Tonight will settle the great issue

       Whether the Prince’s or the merchant’s steel

       Is better tempered. Was not that your word?

       Fetch your own sword. Why do you tarry, sir?

      SIMONE: My lord, of all the gracious courtesies

       That you have showered on my barren house

       This is the highest.

       Bianca, fetch my sword.

       Thrust back that stool and table. We must have

       An open circle for our match at arms,

       And good Bianca here shall hold the torch

       Lest what is but a jest grow serious.

      BIANCA [To Guido]. Oh! kill him, kill him!

      SIMONE: Hold the torch, Bianca. [They begin to fight.]

      SIMONE: Have at you! Ah! Ha! would you?

       [He is wounded by GUIDO.]

       A scratch, no more. The torch was in mine eyes.

       Do not look sad, Bianca. It is nothing.

       Your husband bleeds, ‘tis nothing. Take a cloth,

       Bind it about mine arm. Nay, not so tight.

       More softly, my good wife. And be not sad,

       I pray you be not sad. No; take it off.

       What matter if I bleed? [Tears bandage off.]

       Again! again!

       [Simone disarms Guido]

       My gentle Lord, you see that I was right

       My sword is better tempered, finer steel,

       But let us match our daggers.

      BIANCA [to Guido] Kill him! kill him!

      SIMONE: Put out the torch, Bianca. [Bianca puts out torch.]

       Now, my good Lord,

       Now to the death of one, or both of us,

       Or all three it may be. [They fight.]

       There and there.

       Ah, devil! do I hold thee in my grip?

       [Simone overpowers Guido and throws him down over table.]

      GUIDO: Fool! take your strangling fingers from my throat.

       I am my father’s only son; the State

       Has but one heir, and that false enemy France

       Waits for the ending of my father’s line

       To fall upon our city.

      SIMONE: Hush! your father

       When he is childless will be happier.

       As for the State, I think our state of Florence

       Needs no adulterous pilot at its helm.

       Your life would soil its lilies.

СКАЧАТЬ