The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: 150+ Titles in One Edition. Oscar Wilde

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ With some poor chattel thrust into his rags,

       Will stop and parley with him? do ye not

       Give him unto the officer and his hook

       To be dragged gaolwards straightway?

       And so now,

       Had ye been men, finding this fellow here,

       With my Lord’s life still hot upon his hands,

       Ye would have haled him out into the court,

       And struck his head off with an axe.

      GUIDO

      O God!

      DUCHESS

      Speak, my Lord Justice.

      LORD JUSTICE

      Your Grace, it cannot be:

       The laws of Padua are most certain here:

       And by those laws the common murderer even

       May with his own lips plead, and make defence.

      DUCHESS

      This is no common murderer, Lord Justice,

       But a great outlaw, and a most vile traitor,

       Taken in open arms against the state.

       For he who slays the man who rules a state

       Slays the state also, widows every wife,

       And makes each child an orphan, and no less

       Is to be held a public enemy,

       Than if he came with mighty ordonnance,

       And all the spears of Venice at his back,

       To beat and batter at our city gates -

       Nay, is more dangerous to our commonwealth,

       For walls and gates, bastions and forts, and things

       Whose common elements are wood and stone

       May be raised up, but who can raise again

       The ruined body of my murdered lord,

       And bid it live and laugh?

      MAFFIO

      Now by Saint Paul

       I do not think that they will let him speak.

      JEPPO VITELLOZZO

      There is much in this, listen.

      DUCHESS

      Wherefore now,

       Throw ashes on the head of Padua,

       With sable banners hang each silent street,

       Let every man be clad in solemn black;

       But ere we turn to these sad rites of mourning

       Let us bethink us of the desperate hand

       Which wrought and brought this ruin on our state,

       And straightway pack him to that narrow house,

       Where no voice is, but with a little dust

       Death fills right up the lying mouths of men.

      GUIDO

      Unhand me, knaves! I tell thee, my Lord Justice,

       Thou mightst as well bid the untrammelled ocean,

       The winter whirlwind, or the Alpine storm,

       Not roar their will, as bid me hold my peace!

       Ay! though ye put your knives into my throat,

       Each grim and gaping wound shall find a tongue,

       And cry against you.

      LORD JUSTICE

      Sir, this violence

       Avails you nothing; for save the tribunal

       Give thee a lawful right to open speech,

       Naught that thou sayest can be credited.

       [The DUCHESS smiles and GUIDO falls back with a gesture of despair.]

       Madam, myself, and these wise Justices,

       Will with your Grace’s sanction now retire

       Into another chamber, to decide

       Upon this difficult matter of the law,

       And search the statutes and the precedents.

      DUCHESS

      Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes well,

       Nor let this brawling traitor have his way.

      MORANZONE

      Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience well,

       Nor let a man be sent to death unheard.

       [Exit the LORD JUSTICE and the Judges.]

      DUCHESS

      Silence, thou evil genius of my life!

       Thou com’st between us two a second time;

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

      GUIDO

      I shall not die till I have uttered voice.

      DUCHESS

      Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with thee.

      GUIDO

      Art thou that Beatrice, Duchess of Padua?

      DUCHESS

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

       I am thy handiwork.

      MAFFIO

      See, is she not

       Like that white tigress which we saw at Venice,

       Sent by some Indian soldan to the Doge?

      JEPPO

СКАЧАТЬ