The Duchess of Padua. Wilde Oscar

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Fool, what revenge is there?

      Death is the common heritage of all,

      And death comes best when it comes suddenly.

      Your father was betrayed, there is your cue;

      For you shall sell the seller in his turn.

      I will make you of his household, you shall sit

      At the same board with him, eat of his bread —

      O bitter bread!

      Thy palate is too nice,

      Revenge will make it sweet.  Thou shalt o’ nights

      Pledge him in wine, drink from his cup, and be

      His intimate, so he will fawn on thee,

      Love thee, and trust thee in all secret things.

      If he bid thee be merry thou must laugh,

      And if it be his humour to be sad

      Thou shalt don sables.  Then when the time is ripe —

      Nay, nay, I trust thee not; your hot young blood,

      Undisciplined nature, and too violent rage

      Will never tarry for this great revenge,

      But wreck itself on passion.

      Thou knowest me not.

      Tell me the man, and I in everything

      Will do thy bidding.

      Well, when the time is ripe,

      The victim trusting and the occasion sure,

      I will by sudden secret messenger

      Send thee a sign.

      How shall I kill him, tell me?

      That night thou shalt creep into his private chamber;

      But if he sleep see that thou wake him first,

      And hold thy hand upon his throat, ay! that way,

      Then having told him of what blood thou art,

      Sprung from what father, and for what revenge,

      Bid him to pray for mercy; when he prays,

      Bid him to set a price upon his life,

      And when he strips himself of all his gold

      Tell him thou needest not gold, and hast not mercy,

      And do thy business straight away.  Swear to me

      Thou wilt not kill him till I bid thee do it,

      Or else I go to mine own house, and leave

      Thee ignorant, and thy father unavenged.

      Now by my father’s sword —

      The common hangman

      Brake that in sunder in the public square.

      Then by my father’s grave —

      What grave? what grave?

      Your noble father lieth in no grave,

      I saw his dust strewn on the air, his ashes

      Whirled through the windy streets like common straws

      To plague a beggar’s eyesight, and his head,

      That gentle head, set on the prison spike,

      For the vile rabble in their insolence

      To shoot their tongues at.

      Was it so indeed?

      Then by my father’s spotless memory,

      And by the shameful manner of his death,

      And by the base betrayal by his friend,

      For these at least remain, by these I swear

      I will not lay my hand upon his life

      Until you bid me, then – God help his soul,

      For he shall die as never dog died yet.

      And now, the sign, what is it?

      This dagger, boy;

      It was your father’s.

      Oh, let me look at it!

      I do remember now my reputed uncle,

      That good old husbandman I left at home,

      Told me a cloak wrapped round me when a babe

      Bare too such yellow leopards wrought in gold;

      I like them best in steel, as they are here,

      They suit my purpose better.  Tell me, sir,

      Have you no message from my father to me?

      Poor boy, you never saw that noble father,

      For when by his false friend he had been sold,

      Alone of all his gentlemen I escaped

      To bear the news to Parma to the Duchess.

      Speak to me of my mother.

      When thy mother

      Heard my black news, she fell into a swoon,

      And, being with untimely travail seized —

      Bare thee into the world before thy time,

      And then her soul went heavenward, to wait

      Thy father, at the gates of Paradise.

      A mother dead, a father sold and bartered!

      I seem to stand on some beleaguered wall,

      And messenger comes after messenger

      With a new tale of terror; give me breath,

      Mine ears are tired.

      When СКАЧАТЬ