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

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СКАЧАТЬ your Grace most heartily.

      DUKE

       Tell me again

       What is your name?

      GUIDO Guido Ferranti, sir.

      DUKE

       And you are Mantuan? Look to your wives, my lords,

       When such a gallant comes to Padua.

       Thou dost well to laugh, Count Bardi; I have noted

       How merry is that husband by whose hearth

       Sits an uncomely wife.

      MAFFIO

       May it please your Grace,

       The wives of Padua are above suspicion.

      DUKE

       What, are they so ill-favoured! Let us go,

       This Cardinal detains our pious Duchess;

       His sermon and his beard want cutting both:

       Will you come with us, sir, and hear a text

       From holy Jerome?

      MORANZONE [bowing]

       My liege, there are some matters -

      DUKE [interrupting]

       Thou need’st make no excuse for missing mass.

       Come, gentlemen.

       [Exit with his suite into Cathedral.]

      GUIDO [after a pause]

       So the Duke sold my father;

       I kissed his hand.

      MORANZONE Thou shalt do that many times.

      GUIDO Must it be so?

      MORANZONE Ay! thou hast sworn an oath.

      GUIDO That oath shall make me marble.

      MORANZONE

       Farewell, boy,

       Thou wilt not see me till the time is ripe.

      GUIDO I pray thou comest quickly.

      MORANZONE

       I will come

       When it is time; be ready.

      GUIDO Fear me not.

      MORANZONE

       Here is your friend; see that you banish him

       Both from your heart and Padua.

      GUIDO

       From Padua,

       Not from my heart.

      MORANZONE

       Nay, from thy heart as well,

       I will not leave thee till I see thee do it.

      GUIDO Can I have no friend?

      MORANZONE

       Revenge shall be thy friend;

       Thou need’st no other.

      GUIDO Well, then be it so.

       [Enter ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.]

      ASCANIO 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?

      GUIDO Why, that we two must part, Ascanio.

      ASCANIO That would be news indeed, but it is not true.

      GUIDO

       Too true it is, you must get hence, Ascanio,

       And never look upon my face again.

      ASCANIO

       No, no; indeed you do not know me, Guido;

       ‘Tis true I am a common yeoman’s son,

       Nor versed in fashions of much courtesy;

       But, if you are nobly born, cannot I be

       Your serving man? I will tend you with more love

       Than any hired servant.

      GUIDO [clasping his hand]

       Ascanio!

       [Sees MORANZONE looking at him and drops ASCANIO’S hand.]

       It cannot be.

      ASCANIO

       What, is it so with you?

       I thought the friendship of the antique world

       Was not yet dead, but that the Roman type

       Might even in this poor and common age

       Find counterparts of love; then by this love

       Which beats between us like a summer sea,

       Whatever lot has fallen to your hand

       May I not share it?

      GUIDO Share it?

      ASCANIO Ay!

      GUIDO No, no.

      ASCANIO

       Have you then come to some inheritance

       Of lordly castle, or of stored-up gold?

      GUIDO [bitterly]

       Ay! I have come to my inheritance.

       O bloody legacy! and O murderous dole!

       Which, like the thrifty miser, must I hoard,

       And to my own self keep; and so, I pray you,

       Let us part here.

      ASCANIO

       What, shall we never more

       Sit hand in hand, as we were wont to sit,

       Over some book of ancient chivalry

       Stealing a truant holiday from school,

       Follow the huntsmen through the autumn woods,

СКАЧАТЬ