The Duchess of Padua. Wilde Oscar

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      Saw you my father afterwards?

      Ay! once;

      In mean attire, like a vineyard dresser,

      I stole to Rimini.

      O generous heart!

      One can buy everything in Rimini,

      And so I bought the gaolers! when your father

      Heard that a man child had been born to him,

      His noble face lit up beneath his helm

      Like a great fire seen far out at sea,

      And taking my two hands, he bade me, Guido,

      To rear you worthy of him; so I have reared you

      To revenge his death upon the friend who sold him.

      Thou hast done well; I for my father thank thee.

      And now his name?

      How you remind me of him,

      You have each gesture that your father had.

      The traitor’s name?

      Thou wilt hear that anon;

      The Duke and other nobles at the Court

      Are coming hither.

      What of that? his name?

      Do they not seem a valiant company

      Of honourable, honest gentlemen?

      His name, milord?

      The man to whom I kneel

      Is he who sold your father! mark me well.

      The Duke!

      Leave off that fingering of thy knife.

      Hast thou so soon forgotten?  [Kneels to the Duke.]

      My noble Lord.

      Welcome, Count Moranzone; ’tis some time

      Since we have seen you here in Padua.

      We hunted near your castle yesterday —

      Call you it castle? that bleak house of yours

      Wherein you sit a-mumbling o’er your beads,

      Telling your vices like a good old man.

      Who is that?

      My sister’s son, your Grace,

      Who being now of age to carry arms,

      Would for a season tarry at your Court

      What is his name?

      Guido Ferranti, sir.

      His city?

      He is Mantuan by birth.

      You have the eyes of one I used to know,

      But he died childless.  Are you honest, boy?

      Then be not spendthrift of your honesty,

      But keep it to yourself; in Padua

      Men think that honesty is ostentatious, so

      It is not of the fashion.  Look at these lords.

      Here is some bitter arrow for us, sure.

      Why, every man among them has his price,

      Although, to do them justice, some of them

      Are quite expensive.

      There it comes indeed.

      So be not honest; eccentricity

      Is not a thing should ever be encouraged,

      Although, in this dull stupid age of ours,

      The most eccentric thing a man can do

      Is to have brains, then the mob mocks at him;

      And for the mob, despise it as I do,

      I hold its bubble praise and windy favours

      In such account, that popularity

      Is the one insult I have never suffered.

      He has enough of hate, if he needs that.

      Have prudence; in your dealings with the world

      Be not too hasty; act on the second thought,

      First impulses are generally good.

      Surely a toad sits on his lips, and spills its venom there.

      See thou hast enemies,

      Else will the world think very little of thee;

      It is its test of power; yet see thou show’st

      A smiling mask of friendship to all men,

      Until thou hast them safely in thy grip,

      Then thou canst crush them.

      O wise philosopher!

      That СКАЧАТЬ