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Duchess of Padua - Oscar Wilde · Anne's House of Dreams - Dramatic Reading

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Act one of the Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. The Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: The Persons of the play Simone Jesso, Duke of Padua,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: read by algipag Beatrice.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: His Wife read by Ariel Lipsha.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Andreas Polaiolo, Cardinal of Padua read by Tad Three gentlemen
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of the Duke's household. Mafio Petrucci read by Charlotte Jackets,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Geppo Vitelozzo read by Martin Githen, and Taddeo.
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: Bardi read by Elizabeth Klatt.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Guido Ferranti a young Man read by Max Scherlinger, Ascanio
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Christofano his Friend read by Alan Marston, count Morenzoni an
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: old Man.
• 1:02
  Speaker 4: Read by Martin Geithen.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Bernardo Cavalcanti, Lord Justice of.
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: Padua, read by Elizabeth Klatt.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Hugo the Heatsman read by Algi pag Lucy a.
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: Taile Woman read by April Gonzalas.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Servants, citizens, soldiers, monks, falconers with their hawks and dogs,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: et cetera.
• 1:28
  Speaker 6: First citizen read by Christine.
• 1:30
  Speaker 7: G Second citizen read bike Pricia Page.
• 1:35
  Speaker 8: Third citizen read by Grace Gurrett.
• 1:38
  Speaker 9: A soldier, usher, servant, and a voice outside read by Charlotte.
• 1:43
  Speaker 10: Deckett, Tipstaff, second soldier read by Chuck Williamson.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Third soldier read by Elizabeth Klatt.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Place Padua time the latter half of the sixteenth century
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: style of architecture Italian, Gothic and Romanesque. Act one scene
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: the market place of Padua at noon. In the background
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: is the Great Cathedral of Padua. The architecture is Romanesque
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: en brought in black and white marbles. A flight of
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: marble steps leads up to the cathedral door. At the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: foot of the steps are two large stone lions. The
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: houses on each side of the stage have colored awnings
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: from their windows and are flanked by stone arcades. On
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the right of the stage is a public fountain with
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch. Around
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: the fountain is a stone seat. The bell of the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: are passing into the cathedral. Enter Guido Ferranti and Ascano Cristofano.
• 3:03
  Speaker 11: Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther,
• 3:07
  Speaker 11: for if I walk another step, I will have no
• 3:10
  Speaker 11: life left to swear by this wild goose erran new yours.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Sits down on the step of the fountain.
• 3:18
  Speaker 12: I think it must be here, goes up.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: To passer by and doffs his cap.
• 3:23
  Speaker 12: Pray, sir, is this the marketplace? And that the church
• 3:27
  Speaker 12: of Santa Croce?
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Citizen bows, I thank you, sir, Well, ay it is here?
• 3:34
  Speaker 11: Why would it were somewhere else where? I see no
• 3:36
  Speaker 11: wine shop.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Taking a letter from his pocket and reading it.
• 3:41
  Speaker 12: The hour noon, the city Padua, the place, the market,
• 3:46
  Speaker 12: and the day Saint Philip's day?
• 3:49
  Speaker 11: And what of this man? How shall we know him?
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Reading? Still?
• 3:53
  Speaker 12: I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon
• 3:57
  Speaker 12: embroidered on the shoulder, A bray thatti, Askania, i'd.
• 4:01
  Speaker 11: Sooner up on my leather and jerkin. And you think
• 4:04
  Speaker 11: he will tell you if your father?
• 4:06
  Speaker 13: Why? Yes?
• 4:08
  Speaker 12: It is a month ago? Now you remember I was
• 4:11
  Speaker 12: in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road
• 4:13
  Speaker 12: where the goats used to get in. A man wrote
• 4:16
  Speaker 12: up and asked me was my name Guido? And gave
• 4:19
  Speaker 12: me this letter, signed your father's friend, bidding me be
• 4:22
  Speaker 12: here today if I would know the secret of my birth,
• 4:25
  Speaker 12: and telling me how to recognize a writer. I had
• 4:28
  Speaker 12: always thought Old Pedro was my uncle, but he told
• 4:31
  Speaker 12: me that he was not, but that I had been
• 4:33
  Speaker 12: left a child in his charge by someone he had
• 4:35
  Speaker 12: never since seen.
• 4:37
  Speaker 11: And you don't know who your father is. No, no
• 4:41
  Speaker 11: recollection of him.
• 4:42
  Speaker 12: Even none a scanio none. Huh.
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  Speaker 11: Then he could never have boxed your ears so offer
• 4:48
  Speaker 11: as my father did mine.
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  Speaker 12: I am sure you never deserved it.
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  Speaker 11: Never, and that made it worse. I hadn't the consciousness
• 4:57
  Speaker 11: of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say?
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: F next noon clock in the cathedral strikes?
• 5:04
  Speaker 11: It is that now, and your man has not come.
• 5:07
  Speaker 11: I don't believe in him, Guido. I think it is
• 5:09
  Speaker 11: some wench who is set awrye at you. And as
• 5:12
  Speaker 11: I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear
• 5:16
  Speaker 11: you shall follow me to the nearest tavern rices by
• 5:20
  Speaker 11: the great gods of eating. Guido. I'm as hungry as
• 5:22
  Speaker 11: a widow is for her husband, as tired as a
• 5:25
  Speaker 11: young maid is of good advice, and as dry as
• 5:29
  Speaker 11: amongst sermon from Guido. You stand there looking at nothing,
• 5:34
  Speaker 11: like the fool who tried to look into his own mind.
• 5:37
  Speaker 11: Your man will not come.
• 5:39
  Speaker 12: Well, I suppose you are right. Ah.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: Just as he is leaving the stage with ascagno, enter
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Lord Morenzone in a violet cloak with a sylph of
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: a falcon broidered on the shoulder. He passes across to
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the cathedral, And just as he is going in, Guido
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: ram up and touches him.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: Ah, guedo ERRANTI thou hast come in time.
• 6:06
  Speaker 12: What does my father live?
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: He lives in thee Thou art the same, in mold
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: and linearment, courage and form and outward semblances. I trust
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: thou art in noble mind the same.
• 6:24
  Speaker 12: Oh tell me of my father I have lived. But
• 6:27
  Speaker 12: for this moment we must be alone. This is my
• 6:31
  Speaker 12: dearest friend, who, out of love, has followed me to Padua.
• 6:35
  Speaker 12: As two brothers. There is no secret which we do
• 6:37
  Speaker 12: not share.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: There is one secret which ye shall not share. Bid
• 6:42
  Speaker 4: him go, hence to Askano come back within the hour.
• 6:47
  Speaker 12: He does not know that nothing in this world can
• 6:50
  Speaker 12: dim the perfect mirror of our love. Within the hour, come.
• 6:54
  Speaker 11: Speak not to him as a dreadful terrorries look.
• 6:59
  Speaker 12: Nay, nay, I doubt not that he has come to
• 7:02
  Speaker 12: tell that I am some great lord of Italy, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 12: we will have long days of joy together within the hour, dear.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Askana, exit ascanio.
• 7:11
  Speaker 12: Now tell me of my father sits.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Down on a stone seat, stood he tall a warrant.
• 7:18
  Speaker 12: He looked tall upon his horse. His hair was black,
• 7:22
  Speaker 12: or perhaps a reddish gold, like a red fire of gold.
• 7:26
  Speaker 12: Was his voice low? The very bravest men have voices,
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  Speaker 12: sometimes full of low music or a clarion? Was it
• 7:34
  Speaker 12: that brake with terror all his enemies? Did he ride
• 7:38
  Speaker 12: singly with many squires and valiant gentlemen to serve his state?
• 7:42
  Speaker 12: For oftentimes methinks I feel my veins beat with the
• 7:46
  Speaker 12: blood of kings? Was he a king?
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  Speaker 10: Ay?
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  Speaker 12: Of all men?
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  Speaker 4: He was the kingliest.
• 7:54
  Speaker 12: Then when you saw my noble father last, he was
• 7:57
  Speaker 12: set high above the heads of men.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: Aye, he was high above the heads of man.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Walks over to Guido and puts his hand upon his shoulder.
• 8:08
  Speaker 4: On a red scaffold with a butcher's block set for
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: his neck.
• 8:14
  Speaker 12: Leaping up, What dreadful men art thou that like a
• 8:17
  Speaker 12: raven or? The midnight owl comes with this awful message
• 8:21
  Speaker 12: from the grave.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I am known here as the Count Moranzone, lord of
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: a baron castle on a rock, with a few acres
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: of unkindly land, and six not thrifty servants. But I
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: was one of Parma's noblest princess. More than that, I
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: was your father's friend.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Clasping his hand, tell me of him.
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: You are the son of that great Duke Lorenzo. He
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: was the Prince of Parma, and the Duke of all
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: the fair domains of Lombardy down to the gate of Florence. Nay,
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: Florence even was wont to pay him tribute.
• 9:06
  Speaker 12: Come to his death.
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: Now you'll hear that soon enough. Being at war, noble
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: lion of war that would not suffer injustice done in Italy,
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  Speaker 4: he led the very flower of chivalry against that.
• 9:24
  Speaker 14: Foul, adulterous lord of Remini, Giovanni Meladesta, whom God cares,
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  Speaker 14: and was by him in treacherous ambush taken, and like
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  Speaker 14: a villain or a low born knave, was by him
• 9:42
  Speaker 14: on the public scaffold.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: Murdered, clutching his dagger.
• 9:48
  Speaker 12: Doth Malatesta live?
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: No, he is dead?
• 9:53
  Speaker 12: Did you say dead? Oh too, swift runner death, couldst
• 9:59
  Speaker 12: thou not wait for for me a little space? And
• 10:01
  Speaker 12: I had done thy bidding.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Clutching his wrist, thou canst do it?
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: The man who sold thy father is alive.
• 10:12
  Speaker 12: Sold, was my father, sold ay.
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  Speaker 4: Trafficked for like a vile chattel, for a price, betrayed, battered,
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  Speaker 4: and bargained for in privy market by one whom he
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: had held, his perfect friend, one he had trusted, one
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  Speaker 4: he had well loved, one who by ties of kindness
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  Speaker 4: he had bound.
• 10:40
  Speaker 12: And he lives, who sold my father?
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  Speaker 4: I will bring you to him.
• 10:45
  Speaker 12: So juu thou art living well? I will make this
• 10:51
  Speaker 12: world thy feel of blood. So by it straightway thou
• 10:55
  Speaker 12: must hang there.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: Judah said you boy, Yes, Judas in his treachery. But
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: still he was more wise than Judas was, and held
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: those thirty silver pieces.
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  Speaker 12: Not enough? What gotty for my father's blood?
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  Speaker 4: What got he?
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  Speaker 13: Why?
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  Speaker 4: Cities? Thiefs and principalities, vineyards and lands.
• 11:23
  Speaker 12: Of which he shall but keep six feet of ground
• 11:26
  Speaker 12: to rotten? Where is he, this damned villain, this foul devil?
• 11:33
  Speaker 12: Where show me the man and come? He cased in seal,
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  Speaker 12: in complete panoply and pride of war. I guarded by
• 11:40
  Speaker 12: a thousand men at arms. Yet I shall reach him
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  Speaker 12: through their spears and feel the last black drop of
• 11:47
  Speaker 12: blood from his black heart crawled down my blade. Show
• 11:50
  Speaker 12: me the man, I say, and I will kill him.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Fool, What revenge is there? Death is the common heritage
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: of all, and death comes best when it comes suddenly.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Goes up close to Guido.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: Your father was betrayed. There is your cue. For you
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: shall sell the cellar in his turn. I will make
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: you of his household. You shall sit at the same
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: board with him, eat of his bread, Oh better bread
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: thy pallor tis too nice? Revenge will make it sweet.
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: Thou shalt a knights, pledge him in wine, drink from
• 12:34
  Speaker 4: his cup, and be his intimate. So he will fall
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: on THEE, love THEE, and trust THEE in all secret things.
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: If he bid THEE be merry, thou must laugh. And
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: if it be his humor to be sad, thou shalt
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: don sables. Then when the time is ripe, we.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Do clutches his sword.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: Nay, nay, I trust THEE. Not your heart, young blood.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: Undisciplined nature and too violent rage will never tarry it.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: For this great revenge, but wreck itself on passion.
• 13:18
  Speaker 12: Thou knowest me not tell me the man, and I,
• 13:21
  Speaker 12: in everything will do thy bidding well.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: When the time is ripe, the victim trusting, and the
• 13:29
  Speaker 4: occasion sure, I will, by sudden secret messenger send THEE
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: a sign.
• 13:36
  Speaker 12: How shall I kill him?
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: Tell me that night thou shalt creep into his private chamber,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: But if he sleep, see that thou wake him first,
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: and hold thy hand upon his throat. Ay that way, then,
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: having told him of what blood thou art sprung from
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: what father, and for what revenge? Bid him to pray
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: for mercy when he prays, Bid him to set a
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: price upon his life, And when he strips himself of
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: all his gold, Tell him thou needest not gold, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: hast not mercy, and do thy business straight away. Swear
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: to me thou wilt not kill him till I bid
• 14:28
  Speaker 4: THEE do it, or else I go to mine own
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: house and leave thee ignorant and thy father unavenged.
• 14:37
  Speaker 12: Now by my father's sword, the.
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: Common hangman, break that in sunder in the public square.
• 14:45
  Speaker 12: Then by my father's grave?
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: What grave?
• 14:49
  Speaker 13: What grave?
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: Your noble father lieth in no grave? I saw his
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: dust strewn on the air, His ashes whirled through the
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: windy street like common straws to plague a beggar's eyesight
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: and his head. That gentle hat set on the prison
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: spike for the vile rabble, in their insolence to shoot
• 15:17
  Speaker 4: their tongues.
• 15:18
  Speaker 12: At was it so? Indeed, then, by my father's spotless memory,
• 15:23
  Speaker 12: and by the shameful manner of his death, and by
• 15:25
  Speaker 12: the base betrayal by his friend, For these at least remain.
• 15:30
  Speaker 12: By these, I swear I will not lay my hand
• 15:32
  Speaker 12: upon his life until you bid me. Then, God help
• 15:36
  Speaker 12: his soul, for he shall die as never dog died yet.
• 15:40
  Speaker 12: And now the sign?
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: Ha, this dagger boy? It was your father's.
• 15:48
  Speaker 12: Oh, let me look at it. I do remember now,
• 15:51
  Speaker 12: my reputed uncle and that good old husbandman I left
• 15:54
  Speaker 12: at home, told me a cloak wrapped round me when
• 15:57
  Speaker 12: a babe bear too, such a yellow leopards wrought in gold.
• 16:02
  Speaker 12: I liked them best in steel, as they are here.
• 16:05
  Speaker 12: They suited my purpose. Better. Tell me, sir, have you
• 16:08
  Speaker 12: no message from my father to me?
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: Poor boy? You never saw that noble father, For when
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: by his false friend he had been sold alone of
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: all his gentlemen, I escaped to bear the news to Parma,
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: to the.
• 16:27
  Speaker 12: Duchess, speak to me of my mother.
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: When thy mother heard my black news, she fell into
• 16:35
  Speaker 4: a swoon, and, being with untimely traveil, seized bear thee
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: into the world before thy time. And then her soul
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: went heavenward to wait thy father at the gates of Paradise.
• 16:54
  Speaker 12: A mother dead, a father sould embartered. I seemed to
• 16:59
  Speaker 12: stand on some leaguered wall, and messenger comes after messenger
• 17:03
  Speaker 12: with a new tale of terror. Give me breath, my
• 17:07
  Speaker 12: ears at tired.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: When thy mother died, fearing our enemies, I gave it out.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Thou wert dead also, and then privily conveyed thee to
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: an ancient servitor, who, by Peruja lived the rest. Thou
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: knowest saw you, my father. Afterwards, I once in me
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: attire like a vineyard dresser, I stole to Remini, taking
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: his hand, Oh, generous heart, one can buy everything in Remini,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: And so I bought the jailer's.
• 17:46
  Speaker 15: When your father hurt at a man child had been
• 17:49
  Speaker 15: born to him, his noble face lit up beneath his
• 17:53
  Speaker 15: helm like a great fire seen far out at sea,
• 17:58
  Speaker 15: and taking my two hands.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: He bade me, Guido, to rear you worthy of him.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: So I have reared you to revenge his death upon
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: the friend who sold him.
• 18:14
  Speaker 12: Thou hast done well? I for my father, thank thee.
• 18:19
  Speaker 12: And now his name, Oh.
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: How you remind me of him? You have each gesture
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: that your father.
• 18:28
  Speaker 12: Had the traitor's name.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: Thou wilt hear that? Anon? The Duke and other nobles
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: at the court are coming hither?
• 18:36
  Speaker 12: What of that his name?
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: Or do they not seem a valiant company of honorable,
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: honest gentlemen?
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: His name lord entered the Duke of Padua with Count Bardi,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: Mathieu Petrucci and other gentlemen of his court.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: The man to whom I kneel is he who sold
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: your father?
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: My me well clutches his dagger.
• 19:03
  Speaker 12: The Duke leave.
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: Off that fingering of thy knife. Hast thou so soon forgotten?
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: He used to the Duke, My noble.
• 19:12
  Speaker 13: Lord, Welcome, Count Morazzoni. Tis some time since we have
• 19:17
  Speaker 13: seen you here in Padua. We hunted New York Castle yesterday,
• 19:21
  Speaker 13: call you it castle, that bleak house of yours, wherein
• 19:25
  Speaker 13: you sit mumbling all your beads, telling your vices like
• 19:28
  Speaker 13: a good old man.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Catches sight of Guido and starts back.
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: Who is that my sister's son, Your grace, who, being
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: now of age to carry arms, would for a season
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: tarry at your court.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Still looking at Guido.
• 19:46
  Speaker 13: What is his name?
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Gueido Ferranti, sir?
• 19:50
  Speaker 13: His city?
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: He is Mantiuan by birth.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Advancing towards Guido.
• 19:56
  Speaker 13: You have the eyes of one I used to know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 13: but he died childless. A honest boy. Then be not
• 20:03
  Speaker 13: spend thrift to your honesty, but keep it to yourself.
• 20:06
  Speaker 13: In Padua, men think that honesty is ostentatious, so it
• 20:10
  Speaker 13: is not of the fashion. Look at these.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: Lords aside, here is some bitter arrow for us.
• 20:18
  Speaker 13: Sure why every man among them has his price, although
• 20:22
  Speaker 13: to do them justice some of them are quite expensive.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Aside there it comes, indeed, So be not honest.
• 20:31
  Speaker 13: Eccentricity is not a thing that should ever be encouraged.
• 20:34
  Speaker 13: Although in this dull, stupid age of ours, the most
• 20:38
  Speaker 13: eccentric thing a man can do is to have brains.
• 20:41
  Speaker 13: Then the mob mocks at him, and for the mob
• 20:44
  Speaker 13: despise it, as I do, I hold his bubble praise
• 20:48
  Speaker 13: and windy favors. In such account, the popularity is the
• 20:51
  Speaker 13: one insult, I have never suffered.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Aside, he is.
• 20:55
  Speaker 13: Enough heights of prudence in your dealings with the world.
• 21:00
  Speaker 13: Be not too hasty act on the second thought. First
• 21:04
  Speaker 13: impulses are generally good.
• 21:06
  Speaker 12: Aside, surely your toad sits on his lips and spills
• 21:10
  Speaker 12: its venom.
• 21:11
  Speaker 13: There see thou hast enemies else the world will think
• 21:15
  Speaker 13: very little of thee It is its test of power.
• 21:18
  Speaker 13: Yet see thou ShoWest a smiling mask of friendship to
• 21:21
  Speaker 13: all men. Until thou hast them safely in thy grip,
• 21:26
  Speaker 13: then thou canst crush them.
• 21:28
  Speaker 12: Aside o, wise philosopher, that for thyself dost dig so
• 21:33
  Speaker 12: deep a grave to him?
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: Dost thou mark his words?
• 21:38
  Speaker 12: Oh be thou sure I do.
• 21:41
  Speaker 13: And be not overscrupulous, Clean hands with nothing in them
• 21:44
  Speaker 13: make a sorry show. If you would have a lion's
• 21:47
  Speaker 13: share of life, you must wear the fox's skin. Oh,
• 21:51
  Speaker 13: it will fit you. It is a coat which fitteth
• 21:54
  Speaker 13: every man.
• 21:55
  Speaker 12: Your grace. I shall remember that is well.
• 21:59
  Speaker 13: Barn, very well. I would not have about me shallow
• 22:03
  Speaker 13: fools who with mean scruples weigh the gold of life
• 22:07
  Speaker 13: and faltering portering end by failure. Failure the only crime
• 22:13
  Speaker 13: I have not committed. I would have men about me
• 22:16
  Speaker 13: as for conscience. Conscience is but the name which cowardice,
• 22:20
  Speaker 13: fleeing from battle scrolls upon its shield. You understand me, boy.
• 22:25
  Speaker 12: I do your grace, and will in all things carry
• 22:30
  Speaker 12: out the creed which you have taught me.
• 22:32
  Speaker 9: I never heard your grace so much in the vain preaching.
• 22:36
  Speaker 9: Let the cardinal look to his laurels.
• 22:37
  Speaker 13: Sir, the cardinal men follow my creed, and they gabbled his.
• 22:44
  Speaker 13: I do not think much of the cardinal, although he
• 22:46
  Speaker 13: is a holy churchman, and I quite admit his dulness. Well, sir,
• 22:51
  Speaker 13: from now we count you of our household.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: He holds out his hand for Wido to kiss. We
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: do starts back in horror, but at a gesture from
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: Count Morenzoni, niels and kisses it.
• 23:05
  Speaker 13: We will see that you are furnished with such equipage
• 23:08
  Speaker 13: as does befit your honor and our state.
• 23:11
  Speaker 12: I thank your grace most heartily.
• 23:13
  Speaker 13: Tell me again, what is your name?
• 23:16
  Speaker 12: Guido Ferranti, sir, and you are mantuan.
• 23:20
  Speaker 13: Look to your wise, my lords, when such a gallant
• 23:23
  Speaker 13: it comes to Padua, thou dost well to laugh, Count Barti,
• 23:27
  Speaker 13: I have noted, how bery is that husband by whose
• 23:30
  Speaker 13: heart sits an uncomely wife.
• 23:33
  Speaker 7: Yet, please, your.
• 23:33
  Speaker 9: Grace, the wives of Padua are above suspicion.
• 23:36
  Speaker 13: What are they so ill favored? Let us go? This
• 23:40
  Speaker 13: cardinal detains our pious duchess, his simon and his beard,
• 23:44
  Speaker 13: one cutting both. Will you come with us, sir? And
• 23:47
  Speaker 13: here a text from Holy Jerome bowing.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: My liege, there are some matters interrupting.
• 23:55
  Speaker 13: Thou needst make no excuse for missing mass.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Come, gentlemen, exit with his sweet in due cathedral. After
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: a pause, so the Duke sold my father.
• 24:08
  Speaker 12: I kissed his hand.
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: Ah, thou shalt do that? Many times?
• 24:14
  Speaker 12: Must it be so?
• 24:16
  Speaker 4: I thou hast sworn an oath.
• 24:19
  Speaker 12: That oath shall make me marble?
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: Farewell, boy, Thou wilt not see me till the time
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: is ripe.
• 24:27
  Speaker 12: I pray thou comest quickly.
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: I will come when it is time. Be ready, fear me.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: Not here is your friend. See that you banish him
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: both from your heart and.
• 24:39
  Speaker 12: Padua from Padua, not from my heart.
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: Nay from thy heart as well. I will not leave
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: thee till I see thee.
• 24:48
  Speaker 13: Do it?
• 24:49
  Speaker 12: Can I have no friend? Oh?
• 24:52
  Speaker 4: Revenge shall be thy friend, thou need'st no other?
• 24:58
  Speaker 12: Well, then be it so?
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Enter Ascano Christofano.
• 25:03
  Speaker 11: Come, Guido, I have been beforehand with you in everything,
• 25:08
  Speaker 11: For I have drunk a flagon of wine, eaten up pasty,
• 25:12
  Speaker 11: and kissed the maid who served it. Why you look
• 25:15
  Speaker 11: as melancholy as a schoolboy who cannot buy apples or
• 25:19
  Speaker 11: a politician who cannot sell his vote? What news, Guido?
• 25:23
  Speaker 11: What news?
• 25:24
  Speaker 12: Why that we two must part? Askagno, that would be news.
• 25:29
  Speaker 11: Indeed, but it is not true.
• 25:31
  Speaker 12: Too true. It is you must get hens, Askano, and
• 25:35
  Speaker 12: never look upon my face again.
• 25:37
  Speaker 11: No, no, indeed you do not know me, Guido. Tis true.
• 25:41
  Speaker 11: I am a common yeoman's son, nor aversed in fashions
• 25:45
  Speaker 11: of much courtesy. But if you are nobly born, can
• 25:49
  Speaker 11: I be your serving man? I will tend you with
• 25:52
  Speaker 11: more love than any hired servant.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Glasping his hand, Ascano sees Morenzoni looking at him, and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: drops Ascanio's hand.
• 26:02
  Speaker 12: It cannot be.
• 26:04
  Speaker 11: What is it so with you? I thought the friendship
• 26:07
  Speaker 11: of the antique world was not yet dead, but that
• 26:10
  Speaker 11: the Roman type might, even in this poor and common age,
• 26:13
  Speaker 11: find counterparts of love. And by this love which beats
• 26:17
  Speaker 11: between us like a summer's sea. Whatever your lot has
• 26:20
  Speaker 11: fallen into your hand, may I not share it?
• 26:24
  Speaker 12: Share it?
• 26:25
  Speaker 11: I no, No, Have you then come to some inheritance
• 26:29
  Speaker 11: of lordly castle or stored up gold?
• 26:32
  Speaker 12: I I have come to my inheritance, Oh bloody legacy, an,
• 26:37
  Speaker 12: oh murderous dole, which, like the thrifty miser, must I
• 26:42
  Speaker 12: hoarde and to my own self keep? And so I
• 26:46
  Speaker 12: pray you? Let us part here?
• 26:48
  Speaker 11: What shall we never more sit hand in hand as
• 26:52
  Speaker 11: we were? Wont to sit over some book of ancient chivalry,
• 26:55
  Speaker 11: stealing a truant holiday from school? Follow the hunts through
• 27:00
  Speaker 11: the autumn woods, and watch the falcons burst their tasseled
• 27:04
  Speaker 11: jesses when the hair breaks from covert.
• 27:07
  Speaker 12: Never more must I.
• 27:08
  Speaker 11: Go hence without a word of love?
• 27:11
  Speaker 12: You must go hence, and may love go with you.
• 27:14
  Speaker 11: You are unknightly and ungenerous.
• 27:17
  Speaker 12: Unknightly and ungenerous. If you will, why should we waste
• 27:21
  Speaker 12: more words about the matter? Let us part? Now?
• 27:24
  Speaker 11: Have you no message, guido none?
• 27:27
  Speaker 12: My whole past was but a schoolboy's dream. Today my
• 27:31
  Speaker 12: life begins.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Farewell, farewell, exit slowly.
• 27:38
  Speaker 12: Now are you satisfied? Have you not seen my dearest
• 27:42
  Speaker 12: friend and my most loved companion, thrust from me like
• 27:45
  Speaker 12: a common kitchen knave that I did it? Are you
• 27:49
  Speaker 12: not satisfied? I?
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: I am satisfied. Now I go. Hence, do not forget
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: the sign your father stagger, and do the business when
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: I send it to you.
• 28:06
  Speaker 12: Be sure I shall exit.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: Lord MORENZOI o.
• 28:11
  Speaker 12: Thou eternal heaven. If there is aught of nature in
• 28:15
  Speaker 12: my soul, of gentle pity or fond kindness, wither it up,
• 28:21
  Speaker 12: blass it, bring it to nothing? Or if thou wilt not,
• 28:24
  Speaker 12: then will I myself cut pity with a sharp knife
• 28:27
  Speaker 12: from my heart and strangle Mercy in her sleep at
• 28:30
  Speaker 12: night lest she speak to me vengeance There I have it.
• 28:37
  Speaker 12: Be Thou, my comrade, and my bedfellow. Sit by my side,
• 28:42
  Speaker 12: Ride to the chaise with me when i'm were is,
• 28:45
  Speaker 12: sing me pretty songs. When I'm light or heart, make
• 28:48
  Speaker 12: jest with me, And when I dream, whisper into my
• 28:52
  Speaker 12: ear the dreadful secret of her father's murder? Did I say,
• 28:57
  Speaker 12: murder draws his dagger? Listen thou, terrible God, Thou God
• 29:04
  Speaker 12: that punishest all broken oaths and bids some angel write
• 29:08
  Speaker 12: this oath in fire, that from this hour till my
• 29:12
  Speaker 12: dear father's murder in blood I have revenged. I do
• 29:16
  Speaker 12: foreswear the noble ties of honorable friendship, the noble joys
• 29:21
  Speaker 12: of dear companionship, affections, bonds, and loyal gratitude. Ah More,
• 29:27
  Speaker 12: from this same hour, I do foreswear all love of
• 29:29
  Speaker 12: women and the barren thing which men call beauty.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: The organ peals in the cathedral, and under a canopy
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of cloth of silver tissue borne by four pages in scarlet,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the Duchess of Padua comes down the steps. As she
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: passes across, their eyes meet for a moment, and as
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: she leaves the stage, she looks back at Guido, and
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a dagger falls from his hand.
• 29:55
  Speaker 12: Oh, who is that?
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: The Duchess of Padua?
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: End of Act one, Act two of The Duchess of
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Padua by Oscar Wilde. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Act two
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: scene a state room in the Ducal Palace, hung with
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: tapestries representing the mask of Venus. A large door in
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the center opens into a corridor of red marble, through
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: which one can see a view of Padua, A large
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: canopy a set right center with three thrones, one a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: little lower than the others. The ceiling is made of
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: long gilded beams, furniture of the period, chairs covered with
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: lover and buffets set with gold and silver plate, and
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: chests painted with mythological seeds. A number of the courtiers
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: is out on the corridor, looking from it down into
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: the street below. From the street comes the roar of
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: a mob and cries of death to the Duke. After
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a little interval enter the Duke, very calmly. He is
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: leaning on the arm of Guido Ferranti with him. Enters
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: also the Lord Cardinal. The mob still shouting.
• 31:37
  Speaker 13: Nay, my Lord Cardinal, I weary of her. Why she
• 31:42
  Speaker 13: is worse than ugly?
• 31:43
  Speaker 12: She is good, you grace.
• 31:46
  Speaker 9: Thirty thousand people there too, every moment grow more clamorous.
• 31:50
  Speaker 13: Tut man. They waste their strength upon their lungs. People
• 31:53
  Speaker 13: who shout so loud my lords do nothing. The only
• 31:57
  Speaker 13: men I fear are silent men.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: A yell from the people.
• 32:02
  Speaker 13: You see, Lord Cardinal, how my people love me? Another yell,
• 32:07
  Speaker 13: go Petrucci, until the captain of the guard below to
• 32:11
  Speaker 13: clear the square. Do you not hear me, sir? Do
• 32:15
  Speaker 13: what I bid you?
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Exit, Petrucci, I beseech your grace to listen to their grievances.
• 32:21
  Speaker 16: Sitting on his throne, Aye, the peaches are not so
• 32:25
  Speaker 16: big this year as they were last. I crave your pardon,
• 32:29
  Speaker 16: my Lord, Cardinal, I thought you speak of peaches.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: A cheer from the people.
• 32:36
  Speaker 13: What is that?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: Guido rushes to the window.
• 32:39
  Speaker 12: The Duchess has gone forth into the square and stands
• 32:42
  Speaker 12: between the people and the guard, and will not let
• 32:45
  Speaker 12: them shoot.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: The devil take her still at the window.
• 32:50
  Speaker 12: And followed by a dozen of the citizens, has come
• 32:52
  Speaker 12: into the palace, starting.
• 32:54
  Speaker 13: Up by Saint James. Our duchess waxes bold.
• 32:59
  Speaker 12: Here comes the shut that.
• 33:01
  Speaker 13: Door there this morning air is cold.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: They closed the door on the corridor. Enter the Duchess,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: followed by a crowd of meanly dressed citizens. Duchess flinging
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: herself upon her knees.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: I do beseech your grace to give us audience.
• 33:19
  Speaker 13: What are these grievances?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Alas, my Lord? Such common things as neither you nor I,
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: nor any of these noble gentlemen have ever needed all
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: to think about. They say. The bread, the very bread
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: they eat, is made of sorry chap ay, so it
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: is nothing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 13: But chaff, and very good food too. I give it
• 33:41
  Speaker 13: to my horses.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Restraining herself, they say.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: The water set in the public cisterns for their use
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: has through the breaking of the aqueduct to stagnant pools
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: and muddy puddles turned.
• 33:55
  Speaker 13: They should drink wine. Water is quite.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Unwholesome, your grace.
• 34:01
  Speaker 7: The taxes which the customs take at the city gates
• 34:04
  Speaker 7: are grown so high we cannot buy wine.
• 34:08
  Speaker 13: Then you should bless the taxes which make you temperate.
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: Think while we sit in gorgeous pomp and state gaunt,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: poverty creeps through their sunless lanes, and with sharp knives
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: cuts the warm throats of children stealthily, and no words.
• 34:24
  Speaker 8: Said, Aye, marry, that is true. My little son died
• 34:29
  Speaker 8: yesternight from hunger. He was but six years old. I
• 34:32
  Speaker 8: am so poor I cannot bury him.
• 34:35
  Speaker 13: If you are poor, are you not blessed in that? Why?
• 34:39
  Speaker 13: Poverty is one of the Christian virtues.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Turns to the cardinal.
• 34:43
  Speaker 13: Is it not? I know, Lord Cardinal, you have great revenues,
• 34:48
  Speaker 13: rich abbey lands, and tithes and large estates for preaching
• 34:52
  Speaker 13: voluntary poverty.
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: Nay, but my Lord the Duke, be generous. While we
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: sit here with a noble house with shaded porticoes of
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: against the sun, and walls and roofs to keep the
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: winter out. There are many citizens of Padua who in
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: vile tenements, live so full of holes that the chill rain,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: the snow, and the rude blast are tenants. Also with them,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: others sleep under the arches of the public bridges all
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: through the autumn nights, till the wet mist stiffens their limbs,
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: and fevers come.
• 35:23
  Speaker 13: And so and so they go to Abraham's bosom. Madam,
• 35:27
  Speaker 13: they should thank me for sending them to heaven if
• 35:30
  Speaker 13: they are wretched.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Here to the Cardinal, Is it not.
• 35:34
  Speaker 13: Said somewhere in holy writ that every man should be
• 35:37
  Speaker 13: contented with that state of life? God calls him too.
• 35:40
  Speaker 13: Why should I change their state or meddle with an
• 35:43
  Speaker 13: all wise providence which has a portion that some men
• 35:46
  Speaker 13: should starve and others surfeit. I did not make the world.
• 35:51
  Speaker 6: He hath a hard heart.
• 35:53
  Speaker 7: Nay, be silent, neighbor. I think the Cardinal will speak
• 35:57
  Speaker 7: for us.
• 35:59
  Speaker 17: True it is Chris into bear misery. Yet it is
• 36:01
  Speaker 17: Christian also to be kind. And there see many evils
• 36:04
  Speaker 17: in this town, which, in your wisdom might your grace reform.
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: What is that word reform? What does it mean?
• 36:11
  Speaker 7: Mary? It means leaving things as they are?
• 36:15
  Speaker 13: I like it, not reform, Lord Cardinal, did you say reform?
• 36:21
  Speaker 13: There is a man in Germany called Luther who'd reform
• 36:24
  Speaker 13: the Holy Catholic Church? Have you not made him? Heretic?
• 36:28
  Speaker 13: And uttered anathema marantha against him?
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Rising from his seat, He would have led the sheep
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: out of a fall.
• 36:35
  Speaker 17: We do but ask of you to feed the sheep.
• 36:38
  Speaker 13: When I have shown their fleeces, I may feed them.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: As for these rebels, Dutchess entreats him.
• 36:45
  Speaker 6: That is a kind word. He means to give us something.
• 36:49
  Speaker 13: Is that so these rugged knaves who come before us
• 36:52
  Speaker 13: here with mouths chock full of treason?
• 36:56
  Speaker 8: Good, my Lord, fill up our mouths with bread, will
• 36:59
  Speaker 8: hold our tongue.
• 37:00
  Speaker 13: Ye shall hold your tongues, whether you starve or not,
• 37:04
  Speaker 13: My lords, this age is so familiar grown that the
• 37:07
  Speaker 13: low peasant hardly do offs his hat unless you beat him.
• 37:11
  Speaker 13: And the raw mechanic elbows and noble in the public streets.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: To the citizens.
• 37:17
  Speaker 13: Still, as our gentle Duchess has so prayed us, and
• 37:20
  Speaker 13: to refuse so beautiful a beggar were to lack both
• 37:24
  Speaker 13: courtesy and love, touching your grievances, I promise this.
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: Marry you will lighten the taxes or.
• 37:31
  Speaker 7: A doll of bread. Thank you for each man that.
• 37:34
  Speaker 13: On next Sunday, the Lord Cardinal shall, after Holy Mass
• 37:38
  Speaker 13: preach you a sermon on the beauty of obedience.
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: Citizen's murmur, I faith that will not fill our stomachs.
• 37:48
  Speaker 7: A sermon is but a sorry sauce when you have
• 37:51
  Speaker 7: nothing to eat it with poor people.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: You see, I have no power with the Duke. But
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: if you go into the court without I almon or
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: shall from my private purse divide one hundred ducats amongst
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: you all.
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: God save the Duchess, say I, God save her.
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: And every Monday morn shall bread be set for those
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: who lack it.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Citizens applaud and go out going out.
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: Why God save the Duchess again calling him.
• 38:20
  Speaker 13: Back, come hither, fellow, What is your name, Dominic sir?
• 38:25
  Speaker 13: A good name? Why were you called dominic?
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: Scratching his head?
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: Marry because I was born on Saint George's day.
• 38:33
  Speaker 13: A good reason. Here is a duckat for you. Will
• 38:37
  Speaker 13: you not cry for me?
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: God save the duke, God save the duke.
• 38:42
  Speaker 13: Nay, louder, fellow, louder.
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: God save the duke.
• 38:47
  Speaker 13: More lustily, fellow, put more heart into it. Here is
• 38:51
  Speaker 13: another duckad.
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: For you, God save the duke.
• 38:56
  Speaker 13: Why, gentlemen, this simple fellow's love touches me much to.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: The citizen, harshly, go exit, citizen bowing.
• 39:07
  Speaker 13: This is the way, my lords, you can buy popularity nowadays. Oh,
• 39:11
  Speaker 13: we are nothing if not democratic. To the duchess, well, madame,
• 39:16
  Speaker 13: you spread rebellion midst our citizens, my.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: Lord, the poor have rights you cannot touch, the right
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: to pity and the right to mercy.
• 39:26
  Speaker 13: So so you argue with me. This is she the
• 39:31
  Speaker 13: gentle duchess for whose hand I yielded three of the
• 39:33
  Speaker 13: fairest towns in Italy, Pisa and Genoa and Orvieto.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: Promised, my lord, not yielded in that matter. Break you
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: your word, as ever you'd.
• 39:44
  Speaker 13: Promise, Madam, there were state reasons.
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: What state reasons are there for breaking holy promises to estate?
• 39:52
  Speaker 13: There are wild bores at Pisa in a forest close
• 39:55
  Speaker 13: to the city. When I promised Pisa, unto your noble
• 39:59
  Speaker 13: and most trust father, I had forgotten there was hunting
• 40:02
  Speaker 13: there at Genoa, they say, indeed, I doubt them not,
• 40:06
  Speaker 13: that the red mallet runs larger in the harbor of
• 40:08
  Speaker 13: that town than anywhere in Italy.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Turning to one of the court, you, my lord.
• 40:14
  Speaker 13: Whose glutinous appetite is your only God, could satisfy our
• 40:18
  Speaker 13: duchess on that point?
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: And Orvieto.
• 40:21
  Speaker 13: Oh, I cannot now recall why I did not surrender
• 40:26
  Speaker 13: Orvieto according to the word of my contract. Maybe it
• 40:31
  Speaker 13: was because.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: I did not choose goes over to the duchess.
• 40:36
  Speaker 13: Why look, you, madam, you are here alone, tis many
• 40:39
  Speaker 13: a dusty league to your gray France, and even there
• 40:42
  Speaker 13: your father barely keeps a hundred ragged squires for his court.
• 40:47
  Speaker 13: What hope have you, I say, which of these lords,
• 40:50
  Speaker 13: a noble gentleman of Padua stands by your side?
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: There is not one Guido starts but restrains himself.
• 40:58
  Speaker 13: Nor shall be I am duke in Padua. Listen, madam,
• 41:03
  Speaker 13: being mine own, you shall do as I will, And
• 41:07
  Speaker 13: if it be my will, you keep the house. Why
• 41:09
  Speaker 13: then this palace shall your prison be? And if it
• 41:12
  Speaker 13: be my will you walk abroad? Why you shall take
• 41:15
  Speaker 13: the air from morn to night?
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: Sir?
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: By what right?
• 41:20
  Speaker 13: Madam my second Duchess, asked the same question once her
• 41:24
  Speaker 13: monument lies in the chapel of Bartholomew, wrought in red marble.
• 41:28
  Speaker 13: Very beautiful, widow your arm. Come, gentlemen, let us go
• 41:34
  Speaker 13: and spur our falcons for the midday chase. But think you, madam?
• 41:38
  Speaker 13: You are here alone?
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: Exit the Duke, leaning on Guido, with his court looking
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: after them.
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: The Duke said rightly that I was alone, deserted and dishonored,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: and defamed, stood ever woman so alone. Indeed, men, when
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: they woo us, call us pretty children, tell us we
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: have not wit to make our lives, And so they
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: mar them for us. Did I say, woo, We are
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: their chattels and their common slaves, less dear than the
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: poor hound that licks their hand, less bondled than the
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: hawk upon their wrist?
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: Woo?
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Did I say, bought rather sould and bartered our very
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: bodies being merchandise. I know it is the general lot
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: of women, each miserably mated to some man, wrecks her
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: own life upon his selfishness. That it is general makes
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: it not less bitter. I think I never heard a
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: woman laugh, laugh for pure merriment, except one woman that
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: was at night time in the public streets. Poor soul.
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: She walked with painted lips and wore the mask of pleasure.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: I would not laugh like her. No death were better.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Enter Guido behind. Unobserved, the duchess flings herself down before
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: a picture of the madonna.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, merry mother, with your sweet pale face bending between
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the little angel heads that have around you? Have you
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: no help for me? Mother of God? Have you no
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: help for me?
• 43:12
  Speaker 12: I can endure no longer. This is my love, and
• 43:15
  Speaker 12: I will speak to her. Lady. Am I a stranger
• 43:19
  Speaker 12: to your prayers?
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Rising?
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: None but the wretched needs my prayers?
• 43:24
  Speaker 7: My Lord?
• 43:25
  Speaker 12: Then must I need them? Lady?
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: How is that? Does not the Duke show THEE sufficient.
• 43:31
  Speaker 12: Honor your grace? I lack no favors from the Duke,
• 43:36
  Speaker 12: whom my soul loathes, as I loathe wickedness, but come
• 43:41
  Speaker 12: to proffer on my bended niece my loyal service to
• 43:45
  Speaker 12: THEE unto death.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Alas I am so fallen in a state I can
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: but give THEE a poor meed of thanks.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Seizing her hand, hast thou no love to give me?
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: The duchess starts, and Guido falls at her feet.
• 44:01
  Speaker 12: Oh, dear Saint, if I have been too daring, pardon me.
• 44:06
  Speaker 12: Thy beauty sets my boyish blood aflame. And when my
• 44:10
  Speaker 12: reverend lips touch thy white hand, each little nerve with
• 44:15
  Speaker 12: such wild, passioned thrills that there is nothing which I
• 44:18
  Speaker 12: would not do to gain thy.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Love leaps up.
• 44:22
  Speaker 12: Bid me reach forth and pluck perilous honor from the
• 44:25
  Speaker 12: lion's jaws, and I will wrestle with the Nemian beast
• 44:29
  Speaker 12: of the bare desert, fling to the cave of war,
• 44:33
  Speaker 12: a god, a ribbon, a dead flower, something that once
• 44:36
  Speaker 12: has touched thee, and I'll bring it back. Though all
• 44:39
  Speaker 12: the hosts of Christendom were there in violet. Again, I
• 44:43
  Speaker 12: more than this set me to scale the pallid, white
• 44:47
  Speaker 12: faced cliffs of mighty England. And from that arrogant shield
• 44:51
  Speaker 12: will I raise out the lilies of your France, Which England,
• 44:55
  Speaker 12: that sea, lion of the sea hath taken from her,
• 44:59
  Speaker 12: Oh dear Beatrice, try me not from thy presence without thee.
• 45:03
  Speaker 12: The heavy minutes crawl with feet of lead. But while
• 45:06
  Speaker 12: I look upon thy loveliness, the hours fly like winged
• 45:10
  Speaker 12: mercuries and leave existence golden.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: I did not think I should be ever loved? Do
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: you indeed love me so much as now you say
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: you do?
• 45:19
  Speaker 12: Ask of the sea bird if it loves the sea.
• 45:23
  Speaker 12: Ask of the roses, if they love the rain. Ask
• 45:26
  Speaker 12: of the little lark that will not sing till daybreak,
• 45:30
  Speaker 12: if it loves to see the day. And yet these
• 45:33
  Speaker 12: are but empty images, mere shadows of my love, which
• 45:37
  Speaker 12: is a fire so great that all the waters of
• 45:40
  Speaker 12: the main cannot avail to quench it. Will you not speak?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: I hardly know what I should say to you?
• 45:46
  Speaker 12: Will you not say you love me?
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: Is that my lesson? Must I say? All?
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: At once?
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: 'twore a good lesson? If I did love you, sir?
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: But if I do not, what shall I say? Then?
• 45:57
  Speaker 12: If you do not love me, say nonetheless you do,
• 46:01
  Speaker 12: for on your tongue falsehood, for very shame would turn
• 46:05
  Speaker 12: to truth.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: What if I do not speak at all? They say
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: lovers are happiest when they are in doubt.
• 46:11
  Speaker 12: Nay, doubt would kill me. And if I must die,
• 46:15
  Speaker 12: why let me die for joy? And not for doubt.
• 46:19
  Speaker 12: Oh tell me, may I stay or must I go?
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: I would not have you either stay or go, for
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: if you stay, you steal my love from me, and
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: if you go, you take my love away. Guido, though
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: all the morning stars could sing, they could not tell
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: the measure of my love.
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: I love you, Guido, stretching out his hands.
• 46:42
  Speaker 12: Oh do not cease at all, I thought the nightingale sang.
• 46:45
  Speaker 12: But at night or if thou needst must cease, then
• 46:51
  Speaker 12: let my lips touch the sweet lips that can such
• 46:55
  Speaker 12: music make.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: To touch my lips is not to touch my heart?
• 46:59
  Speaker 12: Do you clothe that against me?
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: Alas, my lord, I have it not. The first day
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: that I saw you, I let you take my heart
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: away from me, unwilling thief that, without meaning it did
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: break into my fenced treasury and filch my jewel from it.
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: Oh strange theft which made you richer though you knew
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: it not, and left me poorer, and yet glad of it.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Clasping her in his arms.
• 47:24
  Speaker 12: Oh love, love, love, nay, sweet, lift up your head.
• 47:31
  Speaker 12: Let me unlock those little scarlet doors that shut in music.
• 47:36
  Speaker 12: Let me die for coral in your red lips, and
• 47:39
  Speaker 12: I'll bear back a prize richer than all the gold
• 47:42
  Speaker 12: the griffin gods in rude Armenia.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: You are my lord, and what I have is yours,
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: and what I have not. Your fancy lends me like
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: a prodigal spending its wealth on what is nothing worth.
• 47:55
  Speaker 12: Kisses him, methinks, I am bold to look upon you.
• 47:58
  Speaker 12: Thus the gentle violet hides beneath its leaf and is
• 48:03
  Speaker 12: afraid to look at the great sun for fear of
• 48:05
  Speaker 12: too much splendor. But my eyes, daring eyes, are grown
• 48:10
  Speaker 12: so venturous that like fixed stars, they stand gazing at.
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: You and surf It sends with beauty, Dear love, Why
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: would you could look upon me forever? For your eyes
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: are polished mirrors, and when I peer into those mirrors,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: I can see myself, and so I know my image
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: lives in you.
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: Taking her in his arms, stand still, thou hurrying orb
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: in the high heavens, and make this hour immortal.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Sit down here a little lower than me. Yes, just
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: so sweet that I may run my fingers through your
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: hair and see your face turn upwards like a flower
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: to meet my kiss. Have you not sometimes noted when
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: we unlock some long disused room with heavy dust and soiling,
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: mildew filled where ver foot of man has come for years,
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And from the windows, take the rusty bar and fling
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: the broken shutters to the air, and let the bright
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: sun in. How the good sun turns every grimy particle
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: of dust into a little thing of dancing gold. Guido,
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: my heart is that long empty room. But you have
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: let love in, and with its gold gilded all life.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Do you not think that love fills up the sum
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: of life?
• 49:26
  Speaker 12: Aye? Without love, life is no better than the unhewn stone,
• 49:32
  Speaker 12: which in the quarry lies before the sculptor has set
• 49:35
  Speaker 12: the God within it. Without love, life is as silent
• 49:39
  Speaker 12: as the common reads that through the marshes or by
• 49:43
  Speaker 12: rivers grow and have no music in them.
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: Yet out of these the singer, who is Love, will
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: make a pipe, and from them he draws music. So
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: I think love will bring music out of any life.
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: Is that not true?
• 49:57
  Speaker 12: Sweet women? Make it true? There are men who paint
• 50:01
  Speaker 12: pictures and carve statues. Paul of Verona and the dire
• 50:06
  Speaker 12: son or their great rival, who by the sea at
• 50:09
  Speaker 12: Venice has set God's little maid upon the stair, white
• 50:13
  Speaker 12: as her own white lily, and as tall, or Raphael,
• 50:18
  Speaker 12: whose madonnas are divine because their mothers merely. Yet I
• 50:22
  Speaker 12: think women are the best artists of the world, for
• 50:26
  Speaker 12: they can take the common lives of men soiled with
• 50:29
  Speaker 12: the money getting of our age, and with love make
• 50:33
  Speaker 12: them beautiful.
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: Ah, Dear, I wish that you and I were very poor.
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: The poor who love each other are so rich.
• 50:41
  Speaker 12: Tell me again you love me?
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Beatrice fingering his collar, How well.
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: This collar lies about your throat?
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: Lord Morenzone looks through the door from the corridor outside.
• 50:53
  Speaker 12: Nay, tell me that you love me.
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: I remember that when I was a child in my
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: dear France, being at court at Fontainebleu, the king wore
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: such a collar.
• 51:04
  Speaker 12: Will you not say you love me?
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: He was a very royal man, King Francis, Yet he
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: was not royal as you are. Why need I tell you,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: Guido that I love you?
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Takes his head in her hands and turns his face
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: up to her.
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: Do you not know that I am yours forever?
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: Body and soul kisses him, and then suddenly catch us
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: out of Morenzoni aunt leaves up.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Oh who is that?
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Morenzoni disappears?
• 51:31
  Speaker 12: What love?
• 51:33
  Speaker 7: Methought?
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: I saw a face with eyes of flame. Look at
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: us through the doorway.
• 51:37
  Speaker 12: Nay, twas nothing the passing shadow of the man on God.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: The duchess still stands looking at the window, twas nothing.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Sweet, Ay, what can harm us? Now? Who are in
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: Love's hand? I do not think i'd care, though the
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: vile world should, with its lackey slander, trample and tread
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: upon my life? Why should I? They say? The common
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: field flowers of the field have sweeter scent when they
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: are trodden on than when they bloom alone. And that
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: some herbs which have no perfume on being bruised, die
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: with all a raby around them. So it is with
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: the young lives this dull world seeks to crush. It
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: does but bring the sweetness out of them and makes
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: them lovelier often. And besides, while we have love, we
• 52:24
  Speaker 2: have the best of life. Is it not so?
• 52:27
  Speaker 13: Dear?
• 52:28
  Speaker 12: Shall we play? Or sing? I think that I could sing?
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Now, do not speak? For there are times when all
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: existences seem narrowed to one single ecstasy and passion sets
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: a seal upon the lips.
• 52:42
  Speaker 12: Oh, with mine own lips, let me break that seal.
• 52:46
  Speaker 12: You love me, Beatrice?
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: Ay? Is it not strange? I should so love mine? Enemy.
• 52:52
  Speaker 12: Who is he?
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: Why you that with your shaft did pierce my heart?
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: Poor heart that lived its little low life until it
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: met your arrow.
• 53:02
  Speaker 12: Ah, dear love, I am so wounded by that bolt
• 53:06
  Speaker 12: myself that with untended wounds, I lie a dying unless
• 53:10
  Speaker 12: you cure me, dear physician, I.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: Would not have you cured, for I am sick with
• 53:16
  Speaker 2: the same malady.
• 53:17
  Speaker 12: Oh how I love you. See, I must seal the
• 53:22
  Speaker 12: cuckoo's voice and tell their one tail over, tell.
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: No other tale, For if that is the little cuckoo's song,
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: the nightingale is hoarse, and the loud lark has lost
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: its music.
• 53:35
  Speaker 12: Kiss me, Beatrice.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: She takes his face in her hands and bends down
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and kisses him. Aout knocking them comes at the door,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: and Guido lips up. Enter A servant a package for you,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: sir Ah, give it to me. Servant hands package wrapped
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: in vermilion silk. Aunt exit. As Guery as about to
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: open it, the Duchess comes up behind and in sport,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: takes it from him.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: Now, I will wager it is from some girl who
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: would have you wear her favor. I am so jealous.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: I will not give up the least pardon you, but
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: like a miser, keep you to myself and spoil you, perhaps.
• 54:17
  Speaker 12: In keeping it is nothing.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: Nay, it is from some girl.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: You know it does not turns her back and opens it.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Now, traitor, tell me what does this sign mean? A
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: dagger with two leopards, rot and.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Steel taking it from her?
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: Oh God, I'll from the window look and try. If
• 54:38
  Speaker 2: I can't see the porter's livery who left it at
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: the gate, I will not rest till I have learned
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: your secret.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Runs laughing into the corridor.
• 54:49
  Speaker 12: Oh horrible? Had I so soon forgot my father's death?
• 54:54
  Speaker 12: Did I so soon let love into my heart? And
• 54:58
  Speaker 12: must I banish love and let in murder that beats
• 55:02
  Speaker 12: and clamors at the outer gate? I that I must have.
• 55:08
  Speaker 12: I not sworn an oath yet not to night, Nay,
• 55:13
  Speaker 12: it must be to night. Farewell, then all the joy
• 55:18
  Speaker 12: and light of life, all deare recorded memories. Farewell, farewell
• 55:23
  Speaker 12: or love? Could I, with bloody hands fondle and paddle
• 55:28
  Speaker 12: with her innocent hands? Could I, with lips fresh from
• 55:32
  Speaker 12: this butchery, play with her lips? Could I, with murderous
• 55:36
  Speaker 12: eyes look into those violet eyes whose purity would strike
• 55:41
  Speaker 12: men blind? And make each eyeball real in Knight perpetual.
• 55:47
  Speaker 12: No murder has set a barrier between us, far too
• 55:52
  Speaker 12: high for us to kiss across it. Guido, Beatrice, you
• 55:57
  Speaker 12: must forget that name and bad out of your life, forever.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Going towards him, Oh, dear love, stepping back.
• 56:07
  Speaker 12: The lies a barrier between us two. We dare not pass.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: I dare do anything so that you are beside me.
• 56:14
  Speaker 12: Ah, there it is. I cannot be beside you cannot
• 56:19
  Speaker 12: breathe the air you breathe. I cannot anymore stand face
• 56:23
  Speaker 12: to face with beauty which unnerves my shaking heart and
• 56:27
  Speaker 12: makes my desperate hand fail of its purpose. Let me go.
• 56:31
  Speaker 12: Hence I pray forget you ever looked upon me.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: What with your heart kisses fresh upon my lips. Forget
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: the vows of love you made to me.
• 56:40
  Speaker 12: I take them back alas you.
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: Cannot, Guido, for they are part of nature. Now the
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: air is tremulous with their music, and outside the little
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: birds sing sweeter for those vows.
• 56:52
  Speaker 12: There lies a barrier between us now which then I
• 56:56
  Speaker 12: knew not or I had forgot.
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: There is no barrier. Why I will go and pour
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: attire and will follow you over the world.
• 57:04
  Speaker 12: Dwell's not wide enough to hold us two? Farewell, farewell forever.
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: Why did you come into my life at all?
• 57:12
  Speaker 7: Then?
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Or in the desolate garden of my heart? So that
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: white flower of love ough phetris, which now you would
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: dig up, up, root, tear out, though each small fiber
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: doth so hold my heart, that if you break one,
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: my heart breaks with it. Why did you come into
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: my life? Why open the secret wells of love I
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: had sealed up? Why did you open them?
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: Oh God, clenching her hand.
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: And let the floodgates of my passion swell and burst
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: till like the wave when rivers overflow that sweeps the
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: forest and the farm away. Love, in the splendid avalanche
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: of its might, swept my life with it. Must I,
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: drop by drop, gather these waters back and seal them
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: up alas each drop be a tear, and so will,
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: with its softness, make life very bitter.
• 58:04
  Speaker 12: I pray you speak no more, if I must go
• 58:08
  Speaker 12: forth from your life and love and make away on
• 58:11
  Speaker 12: which you cannot follow.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: I have heard that sailors dying of thirst upon a raft,
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: poor castaways upon a lonely sea, dream of green fields
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: and pleasant water courses and then wake up with red
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: thirst in their throats and die more miserably because sleep
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: has cheated them. So they die cursing sleep for having
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: sent them dreams. I will not curse you, though I
• 58:35
  Speaker 2: am cast away upon the sea which men call desolation.
• 58:40
  Speaker 12: Oh God, God, but you.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Will stay Listen. I love you, Guido.
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: She waits. A little is echoed.
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: Dead that when I say I love you, there is
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: no answer.
• 58:52
  Speaker 12: Everything is dead. Say one thing only, which shall die tonight?
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: If you are going, touch me not.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: But go exit? Wido?
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: Barrier, barrier? Why did he say there was a barrier?
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: There is no barrier between us two? He lied to me,
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: And shall I for that reason loathe what I love
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: and what I worshiped hate? I think we women do
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: not love like that. For if I cut his image
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: from my heart, my heart would like a bleeding pilgrim.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Follow that image through the world and call it back
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: with little cries of love.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Enter Duke, equipped for the chase with falconers and tounts.
• 59:35
  Speaker 13: Madam, you keep us waiting, You keep my dogs waiting.
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: I will not ride to day.
• 59:41
  Speaker 12: Oh now what's this, my lord?
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: I cannot go?
• 59:45
  Speaker 13: What pale face there you stand against? Me why I
• 59:50
  Speaker 13: could set you on a sorry jade and lead you
• 59:52
  Speaker 13: through the town till the low rebel you feed toss
• 59:55
  Speaker 13: up their hats and mock at you.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: Have you no word of kindness ever?
• 59:59
  Speaker 13: For I hold you in the hollow of my hand
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 13: and have no need on you to waste kind words.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: Well, I will go slapping his boot with his whip.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 13: No, I have changed my mind. You will stay here,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 13: and like a faithful wife, watch from the window for
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 13: our coming back, were it not dreadful if some accident,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 13: by chance should happen to your loving lord. Come, gentlemen,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 13: my hounds begin to chafe, and I chaef too, having
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 13: a patient wife. Where is young Guido, my liege.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 18: I have not seen him for a full hour past.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 13: It matters not, I dare say I shall see him
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 13: soon enough. Well, Madam, you will sit at him and spin.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 13: I do protest, Sir, Domestic virtues are often very beautiful
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 13: in others.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Exit Duke with this court.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: The stars have fought against me, that is all. And
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: thus to night, when my Lord lieth asleep, will I
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: fall upon my dagger and so cease. My heart is
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: such a stone nothing can reach it except the dagger's edge.
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: Let it go there to find what name it carries. Ay,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: to night death will divorce the Duke, and yet to
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: night he may die. Also, he is very old. Why
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: should he not die? Yesterday his hand shook with a palsy.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: Men have died from palsy, And why not he? Are
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: there not fevers? Also agews and chills, and other maladies
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: most incident to old age. No, no, he will not die.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: He is too sinful. Honest men die before their proper time.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: Good men will die men by whose side the Duke,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: in all the sick pollution of his life, seems like
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: a leper. Women and children die. But the Duke will
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: not die. He is too sinful. Oh can it be?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: There is some immortality in sin which virtue has not.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: And does the wicked man draw life from what to
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: other men were death like poisonous plants that on corruption live. No, No,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: I think God would not suffer that. Yet the Duke
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: will not die. He is too sinful. But I will
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: die alone, And on this night grim death shall be
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: my bridegroom, and the tomb my secret house of pleasure. Well,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: what of that? The world's a graveyard, and we each
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: like coffins within us beare a skeleton.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Enter lot Morenzoni. All in black. He passes across the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: back off the stage, looking anxiously about.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: Ah, where is Guido? I cannot bind him anywhere catches
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: sight of him.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, God, twas thou who took my love away from.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Me with a look of joy.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 4: Ah, what has he left you?
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: Nay you know he has. Oh give him back to me.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 2: Give him back, I say, Or I will tear your
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: body limb from limb, and to the common gibbet, nail
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: your head until the carrion crows have stripped it bare better.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: You had crossed a hungry lioness before you came between
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: me and my love. Nay, give him back, You know
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: not how I love him. Here by this chair he
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: knelt a half hour since. Twas there he stood, and
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: there he looked at me. This is the hand he kissed,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: And these the ears into whose open portals he did
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: pour a tale of love so musical that all the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: birds stopped singing. Oh, give him back to me.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 4: He does not love you, madam.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: May the plague wither the tongue that says so give
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: him back, madam.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: I tell you you will never see him neither to
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 4: night nor any other night.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: What is your name?
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: My name, Reba, exit Revenge.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: I think I never harmed a little child. What should
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: revenge do coming to my door? It matters not, for
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: death is there already waiting with his dim torch to
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: light my way. Tis true, men hate thee death, And
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: yet I think thou wilt be kinder to me than
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: my lover. And so dispatch the messengers at once, harry
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: the lazy steeds of lingering day, and let the night,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: thy sister, come instead, and drape the world in mourning.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: Let the owl, who is thy minister, scream from his tower,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: and wake the toad with hooting, and the bat that
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: is the slave of dim persephone wheel through the somber
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: air on wandering wing. Tear up the shrieking man drakes
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: from the earth, and bid them make us music. And
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: tell the mole to dig deep down thy cold and
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: narrow bed, for I shall lie within thine arms to night.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: End of Act two, Act three of The Duchess of
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Padua by Oscar Wilde. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in a public domain. For more information
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Act three
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: scene a large corridor in the Ducal Palace. A window
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: left center looks out on a view of Padua by moonlight.
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: A staircase right center leads up to a door with
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: a portiere of crimson velvet with the Duke's arms embroidered
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: in gold on it. On the lowest step of the staircase,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: a figure draped in black is sitting. The hall is
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: lit by an iron cresset filled with burning tow, thunder
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: and lightning outside. The time is night, Enter Guido through
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: the window.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 12: The wind is rising. How my ladders shook? I thought
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 12: that every guest would break the cords.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Looks out at the city Christ.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 12: What a night. Great thunder in the heavens, and wild
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 12: lightnings striking from pinnacle to pinnacle, crossed the city till
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 12: the dim houses seem to shudder and to shake as
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 12: each new glare dashes down.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: The street, passes across the stage to foot of staircase.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 12: Ah, who art thou that sittest on the stair like
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 12: unto death waiting a guilty soul? Canst thou not speak
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 12: or hast This storm laid palsy on thy tongue and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 12: chilled thy.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: Utterance to figure rises and takes off his mask.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 4: O er anti pie maur. That father laughs for joy
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 4: to night?
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 12: What art thou here?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: Ay waiting for your coming?
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Looking away from him?
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 12: I did not think to see you, But I am
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 12: glad that you may know the thing I mean to do.
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: First, I would have you know my well laid plans. Listen,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: I have set horses at the gate which leads to Parama.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 4: When you have done your business, we will ride hence
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: and by to morrow night.
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 12: It cannot be, nay, but it shall. Listen, Lord Mornton,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 12: I am resolved not to kill this man.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: Surely my ears are traitors. Speak again. It cannot be,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: but age has dulled my powers. I am an old man.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: Now what did you say? You said that, with that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 4: dagger in your belt would avenge your father's bloody murder.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 4: Did you not say that?
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 12: No, my lord, I said I was resolved not to
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 12: kill the duke.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: Ah, you said not that it is my senses mock
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: me or else this midnight hair or charged with storm
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: alters your message in the giving it.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 12: Nay, you heard rightly, I'll not kill this man.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: What of thine oath thou, traitor, What of thine oath?
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 12: I am resolved not to keep that oath?
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 4: What of thy murdered father?
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 12: Dost thou think my father will be glad to see
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 12: me coming. This old man's blood still hot upon mine hands.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Ay, he would laugh for joy.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 12: I do not think so. There is better knowledge in
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 12: the other world. Vengeance is God's. Let God himself revenge.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: Thou art God's minister of vengeance.
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 12: No God hath no minister but his own hand. I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 12: will not kill this man.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: Why are you here? If not to kill him?
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 12: Then, Lord Morntone, I purpose to ascend to the Duke's chamber,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 12: and as he lies asleep, lay on his breast the
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 12: dagger and this writing. When he awakes, then he will
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 12: know who held him in his power and slew him.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: Not.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 12: This is the noblest vengeance which I can take.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: You will not slay him, No hig, noble son of
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 4: a noble father, who sufferest this man, who sold that
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: father to live an hourst.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 12: Thou that hindered me. I would have killed him in
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 12: the open square the day I saw him first.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: It was not yet time. Now it is time, And
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: like some green faced girl, thou pratest of forgiveness.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 12: No revenge, the right revenge my father's son should take.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 4: You are a coward. Take out the knife, get to
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: the Duke's chamber, and bring me back his heart upon
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: the blade. When he is dead. Then you can talk
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 4: to me of noble vengeances.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 12: Upon thine honor and by the love thou bearest my
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 12: father's name. Dost thou think my father, that great gentleman,
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 12: that generous soldier, that most chivalrous lord, would have crept
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 12: at night time like a common thief and stabbed an
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 12: old man sleeping in his bed, however he had wronged him.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 4: Tell me that, after some hesitation, you have sworn an oath.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 4: See that you keep that oath. Boy, do you think
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 4: I do not know your secret traffic with the duchess?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 12: Silence, Liar, The very moon in heaven is not more chaste,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 12: nor the white stars so pure.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 4: And yet you love her weak fool to let love
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 4: in upon your life, save as a plaything.
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 12: You do well to talk within your veins. Old man,
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 12: the pulse of youth throbs with no ardor your eyes
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 12: full of room, have against beauty closed their filmy doors,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 12: and your clogged ears, losing their natural sense. Have shut
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 12: you from the music of the world. You talk of love,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 12: you know not what it is.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 4: Ah in my time, boy, have I walked in the moon,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: swore I would live on kisses and on blisses, swore
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 4: I would die for love, and did not die. Wrote
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 4: to love bad verses aye, and sung them badly. Like
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: all true lovers, I have done the tricks. I know
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: the partings and the chimber rings. We are all animals
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: at best, and love is merely passion with a holy name.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 12: Now then I know you have not loved at all.
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 12: Love is the sacrament of life. It sets virtue where
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 12: virtue was not, cleanses men of all the vile pollutions
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 12: of this world. It is the fire which purges gold
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 12: from dross. It is the fan which winnows wheat from chaff.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 12: It is the spring which in some wintry soil makes
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 12: innocence to blossom like a rose. The days are over
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 12: when God walked with men, But love, which is his image,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 12: holds his place. When a man loves a woman, then
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 12: he knows God's secret and the secret of the world.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 12: There is no house so lowly or so mean, which,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 12: if their hearts be pure, live in it. Love will
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 12: not enter. But if bloody murder knock at the palace
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 12: gate and is let in love, like a wounded thing
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 12: creeps out and dies, This is the punishment God sets
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 12: on sin. The wicked cannot love.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: A groom comes from the duke's chamber.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 12: Ah, what is that? Do you not hear? Twas nothing?
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 12: So I think that it is woman's mission, by their love,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 12: to save the souls of men, and loving her, my lady,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 12: my white Beatrice, I begin to see a nobler and
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 12: the holy of vengeance in letting this man live, then
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 12: doth reside in bloody deed to night stabs in the dark,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 12: and young hand clutching at the pulsive throat. It was,
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 12: I think, for love's sake that Lord Christ, who was
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 12: indeed himself incarnate Love, bade every man forgive his enemy.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: That was in Palestine, not Padua, and said, for saints,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: I have to.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 12: Do with men. It was for all time, said, and.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: Your white duchess, what will she do to thank you?
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 12: Alas I will not see her face again? Tis but
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 12: twelve hours since I parted from her so suddenly and
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 12: with such violent passion, that she has shut her heart
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 12: against me. Now, no I will never see her. What
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 12: will you do after that? I have laid the dagger there,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 12: get hence to night from Padua, and then I will
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 12: take service with the dog at Venice and bid him
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 12: pack me straightway to the wars, and there I will be,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 12: now sick of life, throw that poor life against some
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 12: desperate spear.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: The grown from the Duke's chamber? Again?
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: Did you not hear a voice I always hear from
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: the dim confines of some sepulcher, a voice that cries
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: for vengeance. We waste time. It will be morning soon.
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 4: Are you resolved? You will not kill the Duke?
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 12: I am resolved.
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: Call wretched father, lying unavenged?
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 12: More wretched were thy son? Murderer? Why?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: What is life?
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 12: I do not know, my Lord. I did not give it,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 12: and I dare not take it.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 4: I do not thank God often, but I think I
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 4: thank him now that I have got no son. And you, what,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: bastard blood flows in your veins that when you have
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: your enemy in your grasp, you let him go? I
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 4: would that I had left you with the dull high?
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: Is that rear to you?
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 12: Better? Perhaps that you had done so? Maybe better still?
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 12: I'd not been born to this distressful world. Oh farewell,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 12: farewell some day lord mornzone, you will understand my vengeance.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Never boy gets out of window and exit by rope ladder.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 12: Father, I think thou knowest my resolve, and with this
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 12: nobler vengeance art content. Father, I think in letting this
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 12: man live, that I am doing what thou wouldst have done. Father.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 12: I know not if a human voice can pierce the
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 12: iron gateway of the dead, or if the dead are
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 12: set in ignorance what we do or do not for
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 12: their sakes. And yet I feel a presence in the air.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 12: There is a shadow standing at my side, and ghostly
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 12: kisses seem to touch my lips and leave them.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Wholier kneels down.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 12: Oh father, if this thou canst thou not burst through
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 12: the decrease of death, And if corporeal semblance show thyself
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 12: that I might touch thy hand. No, there is nothing.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 12: Rises tis the night that cheats us with its phantoms,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 12: and like a puppet master makes us think that things
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 12: are real which are not. It grows late. Now must
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 12: I to my business.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: Pulls out a letter from his doublet and reads it.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 12: When he wakes and sees this letter and the dagger
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 12: with it. Will he not have some loathing for his life,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 12: repent perchance and lead a better life? Will he mock
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 12: because a young man spared his natural enemy? I do
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 12: not care, Father. It is thy bidding that I do.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 12: Thy bidding, and the bidding of my love, which teaches
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 12: me to know thee as thou art.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: A sense staircase stealthily. And just as he reaches out
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: his hand to draw back the curtain, the duchess appears
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: all in white. Widow starts back.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: Guido, what do you hear so late, oh white and
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 2: spotless angel on my life?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 12: Sure thou hast come from heaven with a message that
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 12: mercy is more noble than revenge.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 2: There is no barrier between us now.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 12: None love, nor shall be.
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 2: I have seen to that tarry here for me. No,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 2: you are not going. You will not leave me as
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 2: you did before.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 12: I will return within a moment's face. But first I
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 12: must repair to the Duke's chamber and leave this letter
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 12: and this dagger there that when.
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 2: He wakes, when who wakes, why the dew he will
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: not wake again?
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 12: What is he dead?
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: Ay?
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 2: He is dead?
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 12: O God, How wonderful are all thy secret ways? Who
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 12: would have said that on this very night, when I
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 12: had yielded into thy hands the vengeance that is thine, Thou,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 12: with thy finger, wouldst have touched the man and bade
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 12: him come before thy judgment.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 2: Seat I have just killed him.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: Oh, he was asleep.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 2: Come closer, love, and I will tell you all I
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: had resolved to kill myself to night. About an hour ago,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: I waked from sleep and took my dagger from beneath
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: my pillow, where I had hidden it to serve my need,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 2: and drew it from the sheath, and felt the edge,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 2: and thought of you and how I loved you, Guido,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 2: and turned to fall upon it. When I marked the
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: old man, sleeping full of years and sin. There lay he,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: muttering curses in his sleep. And as I looked upon
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 2: his evil face, suddenly, like a flame there flashed across me.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 2: There is the barrier which Guido spoke of. You said,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: there lay a barrier between us? What barrier? But he
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: I hardly know what happened, But a steaming mist of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: blood rose up between us two.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 12: Oh horrible.
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 2: And then he groaned, And then he groaned no more.
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: I only heard the dripping of the blood upon the floor.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 12: Enough enough, will.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: You not kiss me? Now? Do you remember saying that
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: woman's love turns men to angels? Well, the love of
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: man turns women into martyrs. For its sake, we do
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 2: or suffer anything.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: Oh God, will you not speak?
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 12: I cannot speak at all.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: Let us not talk of this, Let us go. Hence
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: is not the barrier broken down between us? What would
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: you more come? It is almost mourning.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: Put her hand on gwido, breaking from.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 12: Her, Oh damned saint, Oh angel, fresh from hell? What
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 12: bloody devil tempted thee to this? That thou hast killed
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 12: thy husband? That is nothing. Hell was already gaping for
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 12: his soul. But thou hast murdered love. And in its
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 12: place hast said a horrible and blood stained thing, whose
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 12: very breath breeds pestilence and plague and strangles.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Love in amazed wonder.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 2: I did it all for you. I would not have
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 2: you do it, had you willed it, for I would
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 2: keep you without blood or stain, a thing unblemished, unassailed, untarnished.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Men do not know what women do for love? Have
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: I not wrecked my soul for your dear sake? Here
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: and hereafter?
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 12: No, do not touch me between us lies a thin
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 12: red stream of blood. I dare not look across it.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 12: When you stabbed him, You stabbed love with a sharp
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 12: knife to the hot We cannot meet again, wringing her hands.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: For you, for you. I did it all for you.
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: Have you forgotten you said there was a barrier between us.
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: That barrier lies now with the upper chamber upset overthrown,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: beaten and battered down, and will not part us ever.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: No, you mistook sins.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 12: The barrier you have raised it up crying was the
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 12: barrier you have set it there. The barrier was murder,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 12: and your hand has builded it so high it shuts
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 12: out Heaven, it shuts out God.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 2: I did it all for you. You dare not leave me now? Nay, Guido, listen,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: get horses ready, we will fly tonight. The past is
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: a bad dream. We will forget it before us lies
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 2: the future. Shall we not have sweet days of love
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: beneath our vines and laugh? No, no, we will not laugh.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: But when we weep, well, we will weep together. I
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: will serve you. I will be very meek and very gentle.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 12: You do not know me, Nay, I know you now?
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 12: Get hence, I say, out of my sight pacing up
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 12: and down.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: Oh God, how I have loved this man?
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 12: You never loved me. Had it been so, love would
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 12: have stayed your hand. How could we sit together at
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 12: Love's table. You have poured poison in the sacred wine,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 12: and murder dips his fingers in the.
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: Sop throws herself on her knees.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: Then slay me. Now I have spilt blood to night,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 2: you shall spill more. So we go hand in hand
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: to heaven or to hell. Draw your sword, Guido, quick.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: Let your soul go chambering in my heart. It will
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 2: but find its master's image there. Nay, if you will
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: not slay me with your sword, bid me to fall
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 2: upon this reeking knife, and I will do it.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Resting knife from her.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 12: Give it to me. I say, oh God, your very
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 12: hands are wet with blood. This place is hell. I
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 12: cannot tarry here. I pray you. Let me see your face.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: No more better for me I had not seen your face.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: Wuido recoils. She seizes his hands as she kneels.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 2: Nay, Guido, listen for a while until you came to Padua.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 2: I lived wretched, indeed, but with no murderous thought, very
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 2: submissive to a cruel lord, very obedient to unjust commands,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: as pure, I think, as any gentle girl who now
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: would turn in horror from my hands.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: Stands up.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 2: You came, Ah, Guido, The first kindly words I ever
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 2: heard since I had come from France were from your lips. Well, well,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: that is no matter. You came, and in the passion
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 2: of your eyes I read love's meaning. Everything you said
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 2: touched my dumb soul to music. So I loved you,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 2: And yet I did not tell you of my love.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: Twas you, who sought me out, knelt at my feet,
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 2: as I kneel now at yours, and with sweet vows
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 2: mews whose music seems to linger in my ears, swore
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 2: that you loved me, and I trusted you. I think
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 2: there are many women in the world who would have
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 2: tempted you to kill the man I did not. Yet
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 2: I know that had I done so, I had not
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 2: been thus humbled in the dust.
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: Stands up.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 10: But you had.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 2: Loved me very faithfully.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: After a pause, approaches him timidly, I do not think.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 2: You understand me, Guido. It was for your sake that
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 2: I wrought this deed, whose horror now chills my young
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 2: blood to ice.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: For your sake, only stretching out her arm.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: Will you not speak to me? Love me a little?
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: In my girlish life, I have been starved for love,
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 2: and kindliness has passed me by.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 12: I dare not look at you. You come to me
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 12: with two pronounced a favor. Get to your tie.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 2: Women, Ay, there it is, there, speaks the man. Yet
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: had you come to me with any heavy sin upon
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 2: your soul, some murder done for hire, not for love?
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: Why I had sat and watched at your bedside all
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: through the night time lest remorse might come and pour
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 2: his poisons in your ear, and so keep you from sleeping.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: Sure it is the guilty who, being very wretched, need
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 2: love most.
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 12: There is no love where there is any guilt, No.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: Love where there is any guilt. Oh God, how differently
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: do we love from men? There is many a woman
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 2: here in Padua, some workman's wife or ruder artisans, whose
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 2: husband spends the wages of the week in a coarse
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 2: revel or a tavern and brawl, and reeling home late
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 2: on the Saturday night, finds his wife sitting by a
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 2: fireless hearth, trying to hush the child who cries for hunger,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 2: and then sets too and beats his wife because the
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: child is hungry and the fire black. Yet the wife
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 2: loves him and will rise next day with some red
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 2: bruise across a careworn face, and sweep the house and
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 2: do the common service, and try and smile, and only
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: be too glad if he does not beat her a
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 2: second time before her child. That is how women love.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: A pause, Guido says nothing.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 2: I think you will not drive me from your side?
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 2: Where have I got to go? If you reject me?
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 2: You for whose sake this hand has murdered life. You
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 2: for whose sake my soul has wrecked itself beyond all
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: hope of pardon.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 12: Get thee gone. The dead man is a ghost, and
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 12: our love too, flits like a ghost about its slate tomb,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 12: and wanders through this charnel house and weeps that when
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 12: you slew your lord, you slew it also, Do you
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 12: not see?
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: I see when men love women, they give them but
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: a little of their lives, But women, when they love,
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 2: give everything. I see that, Guido.
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 12: Now away away and come not back till you have
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 12: waked your dead.
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: I would to God that I could wake the dead,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: put vision in the glazed eyes, and give the tongue
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 2: its natural utterance, and bid the heart to beat again.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 2: That cannot be, for what is done is done, and
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 2: what is dead is dead forever. The fire cannot warm him,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 2: the winter cannot hurt him with its snows. Something has
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 2: gone from him. If you call him now, he will
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 2: not answer. If you mock him now, he will not laugh.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 2: And if you stab him now, he will not bleed.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 2: I would that I could wake him. Oh God, put
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 2: back the sun a little space and from the roll
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: of time blot out tonight, and bid it not have
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 2: been Put back the sun and make me what I
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 2: was an hour ago. No, No, time will not stop
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 2: for anything, nor the sun stay its courses, though repentance
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 2: calling it back grow hoarse. But you, my love, have
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 2: you no word of pity even for me? Oh Guido, Guido?
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 2: Will you not kiss me once? Drive me not to
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 2: some desperate resolve? Women grow mad when they are treated. Thus,
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 2: will you not kiss me once?
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Holding up knife, I will not kiss you until the
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: blood grows dry upon this knife. Back to your dead,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: going up the stairs.
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 2: Why then I will be gone. And may you find
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: more mercy than you showed to me to night?
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 12: Let me find mercy when I go at night and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 12: do foul mud.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: Coming down a few steps Murder.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: Did you say? Murder is hungry and still cries for
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: more and death. His brother is not satisfied, but walks
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: the house and will not go away unless he has
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 2: a comrade terry death, For I will give thee a
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: most faithful lackey to travel with thee. Murder call no more,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 2: for thou shalt eat thy fill. There is a storm
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: will break upon this house before the morning, so horrible
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 2: that the white moon already turns gray and sick with terror.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 2: The low wind goes moaning round the house, and the
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 2: high stars run madly through the vaulted firmament, as though
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 2: the night wept tears of liquid fire. For what the
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 2: day shall look upon? Oh weep thou, lamentable heaven weep
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: thy fill, though sorrow like a cataract drench the fields
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: and make the earth one bitter like of tears. It
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 2: would not be.
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: Enough a peal of thunder?
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: Do you not hear? There is artillery in the heaven
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: to night. Vengeance is wakened up and has unloosed his
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: dogs upon the world. And in this matter which lies
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 2: between us two, let him who draws the thunder on
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 2: his head. Beware the ruin which the forked flame brings
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 2: after a flash.
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Of lightning followed by a peal of thunder. Away, Away,
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: exit the Dutchess, who, as she lifts the crimson curtain,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: looks back for a moment at Guido, but he makes
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: no sign more thunder.
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 12: Now is life fallen in ashes at my feet? A
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 12: noble love, self slain, and in its place crept murder
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 12: with its silent, bloody feet, and she who wrot it. Oh,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 12: and yet she loved me, and for my sake did
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 12: do this dreadful thing? I have been cruel to her? Beatrice, Beatrice,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 12: I say, come.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: Back, begins to assent staircase. When the noise of soldiers
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: is heard.
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 12: Ah, what does that torches the blaze and noise of
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 12: hurrying feet. Pray God they have not seized her.
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: Noise grows louder.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 12: Beatrice, there's yet time to escape. Come down, come.
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Out the voice of the Duchess.
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 2: Outside, this way went he, the man who slew my lord.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: Down the staircase comes hurrying a confused body of soldiers.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: Guido is not seen at first till the Duchess surrounded
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: by servants carrying torches. Appears at the top of the
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: staircase and points to Guido, who is seized at once
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: one of the soldiers, dragging the knife from his hand
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: and showing it to the Captain of the Guard inside
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: of the audience tableau end of Act three, Act four
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: of The Duchess of Patrick. You are by Oscar Wilde.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: This is LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Act for scene the Court of Justice,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: the walls are hung with stamped gray velvet. Above the hangings,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: the wall is red and gilt. Symbolical figures bear up
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: the roof, which is made of red beams with grace
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: of its and molding. A canopy of white satin flowered
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: with gold is set for the Duchess. Below it a
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: long bench with red cloth for the judges. Below that
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: a table for the clerks of the court. Two soldiers
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: stand on each side of the canopy, and two soldiers
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: guard the door. The citizens have some of them collected
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: in the others are coming in greeting one another. Two
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: tip stoves in violet keep order with long White wants
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: good morrow, neighbor Anthony.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 7: Good morrow, neighbor Dominic.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 6: This is a strange day for baduey, is it not?
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 6: The duke being dead?
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 7: I tell you, neighbor Dominic, I have not known such
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 7: a day since the last duke died.
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 6: They will try him first and sentence himsel afterwards, will
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 6: there not, Neighbor Anthony.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 7: Nay, for he might escape his punishment then. But they
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 7: will condemn him first so that he will get his deserts,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 7: and give him trial afterwards, so that no injustice is done.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 6: Well, well, it will go hard with him, I doubt not.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 7: Surely. It is a grievous thing to shed a duke's blood.
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 8: They say a duke has blue blood.
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 7: I think our Duke's blood was black like his soul.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 6: Have I watched, neighbor Anthony. The officer is looking at thee.
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 7: I care not if he does, but look at to me.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 7: He cannot whip me with the lashes of his eyes.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 8: What think you of this young man who stuck the
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 8: knife into the duke?
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 7: Why that he is a well behaved and a well
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 7: meaning and a well favored lad, and yet wicked in
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 7: that he killed.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 8: The duke twas the first time he did it. Maybe
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 8: the law will not be hard on him, as he
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 8: did not do it before.
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 10: True silence, Knave am.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 7: I thy looking glass master tipstaff, that thou callest to me.
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 6: Knave, here be one of the household coming well, Dame Lucy,
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 6: thou art of the court, How dost thy poor mistress,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 6: the Duchess with her sweet face?
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 5: Oh all a day, a miserable day, Oh day, oh misery.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 5: Why is it just nineteen years last June and Michaelmas,
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 5: since I was a merged to my husband and it
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 5: is August now, and here's the you'k murdered? There is
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 5: a coincidence for you?
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 7: Why it is a coincidence? They may not killed the
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 7: young man. There is no law against coincidences.
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 5: But how does the Duchess Well, well, I knew somehow
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 5: would happen to the house six weeks ago to kick
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 5: the old burn on one side. And last Saint Martin,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 5: even as ever was loose, Lwins had a candle, a
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 5: big moss that had wings and almost cared me.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 6: But come to the Duchess, good gossip whatever.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 5: Mary, and this time you should ask after her, poor lady,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 5: She just a straw. Almost why she has not slept,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 5: but pays the chamber all night long.
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 2: I prayed her.
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 5: To have a posset was a marquavite, and took it
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 5: to bed and sleep a little for her health's sake.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 5: But she answered men she was afraid she might dream.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 5: There was a strange answer, was it not?
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 7: These great folk have not much sense, so Providence makes
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 7: it up to them in fine clothes.
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 5: Well, well, God get murder from us, I say, as
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 5: long as we are alive.
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: Enter Lord Morenzoni hurriedly.
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 4: Is the Duke dead?
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 7: He has a knife in his heart, which they say
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 7: is not healthy for any man who.
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: Is accused of having killed him.
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 7: Why the prisoner, sir?
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 4: But who is the prisoner?
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 7: Why he that is accused of the Duke's murder?
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, what is his name?
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 7: Faith? The same which his godfathers gave him? What else
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 7: should it be?
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 10: Guido Ferrante is his name? My Lord?
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: I almost knew thine answer you gave it Beside, Yet
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 4: it is strange he should have killed the Duke, seeing
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 4: he left me in such different mood. It is most
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 4: likely when he saw the man, this devil, who had
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 4: sold his father's life, that passion from their seat within
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 4: his heart thrust all his boyish theories of love, and
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 4: in their place set vengeance.
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: Yet I marvel that he escaped, not turning again to
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: the crowd.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 4: How was he taken?
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 8: Tell me Mary, sir, he was taken by the heels.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 4: But who seized him?
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 8: Why? Those that did lay hold of him?
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 4: How was the alarm given?
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 12: That?
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 8: I cannot tell you, sir.
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 5: It was the Duchess herself appointed him.
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: Out aside the Duchess.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: There is something strange in.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 5: This ay, And the dagger was in his heart. The
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 5: Duchess and dagger.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 4: What did you say?
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: Why married?
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 5: And it was the duchess dagger that the duke was killed?
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: Beside there is some mystery about this.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 4: I cannot understand it.
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 7: They be very long a coming.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 6: I have errante will come soon enough for the prisoner.
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 10: Silence in the court.
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 6: Thou dost break silence in bidding us to keep it?
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: Master tipstaff, Enter the Lord Just and the other judges.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 7: Who is he in scarlet? Is he the headsman?
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 11: Nay?
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 8: Here's the Lord Justice.
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: Enter Guido guarded.
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 7: There be the prisoner.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 8: Surely he looks honest.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 6: That be his villainy knaves nowadays do look so honest
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 6: that honest folk are forced to look like knaves so
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 6: as to be different.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: Enter the headman, who takes his stand behind quido yn be.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 7: The headsman, then, oh lord, is the axe sharp?
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 6: Think you a sharper than thy witsa? But the edge
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 6: is not toward him, mark you scratches.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 7: His neck, and faith I think it not so near.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 6: Tot thou needst not be afraid. They never cut the
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 6: heads of common folk. They do, but hang.
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: Us trumpets outside.
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 8: What are the trumpets for? Is the trial over?
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 6: Nay tis for the duchess.
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: Enter the duchess in black velvet, a train or flowered
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: black velvet is carried by two page is inviolet. With
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: her is the cardinal in scarlet, and the gentlemen of
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: the court in black. She takes her seat on the
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: throne above the judges, who rise and take their caps
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: off as she enters. The Cardinal sits next to her,
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: a little lower. The courtiers group themselves about the throne.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 7: Oh, poor lady, how pale she is? Will she sit there?
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 13: Aye?
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 6: She is in the Duke's place.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 7: Now that is a good thing for Padua. The duchess
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 7: is a very kind and merciful, Duchess. Why she cured
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 7: my child of the egg you once.
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 8: Aye, and has given us bread. Do not forget the bread?
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 2: Stand back, good people.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 7: If we be good, should we stand back?
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 12: Silence in the court?
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 3: May it please your grace? Is it your pleasure? We
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 3: proceed to trial of the Duke's murder.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: Duchess bows set.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 3: The prisoner forth? What is thy name?
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 12: It matters not, my Lord.
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 3: Guido Ferranti? Is thy name? In Padua?
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 12: A man may die as well under that name as
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 12: any other.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 3: Thou art not ignorant? What dreadful charge men lay against
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 3: thee here, namely the treacherous murder of thy lord Simone?
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 3: Guess so, Duke of Padua, what dost thou say an answer?
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 3: I say nothing, Rising, Guido Ferranti, stepping.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: From the crowd, tarry, my lord, justice.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 3: Who art thou that bidst justice? Tarry, sir, so be
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 3: it justice?
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 4: It can go its way. But if it be not justice?
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 3: Who is this? A very noble gentleman and well known
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 3: to the late Duke? Sir, thou art come in time
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 3: to see the murder of the Duke avenged? There stands
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 3: the man who did this heinous thing.
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 4: My lord, I ask again, what proof have ye holding
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 4: up the del.
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 3: This dagger, which from his blood stained hands itself all
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 3: blood last night? The soldiers seized, what further proof need we?
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: Indeed takes to dagger and approaches the Duchess.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 4: Saw I not such a dagger hang from your grace's
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 4: girdle yesterday.
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: The Duchess shudders and makes no answer.
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 4: Ha, my Lord Justice. May I speak a moment with
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 4: this young man, who in such peril.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 3: Stands I willingly, my lord, and may you turn him
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 3: to make a full avowal of his guilt.
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: Lord Morenzoni goes over to Guido, who stands right, and
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: clutches him by the hand.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: She did it, nay, I saw it in her eyes. Boy,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 4: dost thou think I let thy father son be by
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 4: this woman butchered to his death? Her husband sold your father,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 4: and the wife tell the son in turn.
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 12: Lord Moronzone, I alone did this thing be satisfied? My
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 12: father is avenged?
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 3: Doth he confess, my lord?
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 12: I do confess that foul, unnatural murder has been done?
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 6: Why look at that? He has a pitiful heart and
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 6: does not like murder.
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 3: They will let him go for that, say you no more.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 12: My lord. I say this also, that to spill human
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 12: blood is deadly sin.
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 7: Mary. He should tell that to the headsman tis a
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 7: good sentiment.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 12: Lastly, my Lord, I do entreat the court to give
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 12: me leave to utter openly the dreadful secret of this mystery,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 12: and to point out the very guilty one who, with
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 12: this dagger last night slew the Duke.
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 3: Thou hast leave to speak?
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: Rising, I say, he shall not speak? What need have
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 2: we of further evidence? Was he not taken in the
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 2: house at night in guilt's own bloody livery.
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: Showing her the statute?
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: Your grace can read the.
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: Law waving book aside.
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 2: Bethink you, my Lord Justice. Is it not very like
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 2: that such a one may, in the presence of the
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 2: people here utter some slanderous word against my lord, against
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 2: the city or the city's honor, perchance against myself.
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 3: My liege, the law.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: He shall not speak, but with gags in his mouth
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: shall climb the ladder to the bloody block the law.
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 2: My liege, we are not bound by law, but with
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 2: it we bind others.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 4: My Lord Justice, thou wilt not suffer this in justice here?
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 3: The court needs not thy voice, Lord Mornzone, Madam, it
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 3: were a precedent most evil to wrest the law from
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 3: its appointed course. For though the cause be just, yet
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 3: anarchy might on this license touch these golden scales and
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 3: unjust causes, unjust victories gain. I do not think your
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 3: grace can stay the law.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 2: Aye, it is well to preach and prate of law, methinks,
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 2: my haughty lords of Padua. If ye are hurt in
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 2: pocket or a state so much as makes your monstrous
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 2: revenues less by the value of one fairy toll, ye
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: do not wait the tedious law's delay with such sweet
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: patience as ye counsel me.
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 3: Madam, I think you wrong our nobles here, I.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: Think I wrong them?
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: Not?
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 2: Which of you all, finding a thief within his house
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 2: at night, with some poor chattel thrust into his rags,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 2: will stop and parley with him? Do ye not give
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 2: him unto the officer and his hook to be dragged
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 2: jail words straightway? And so now, had ye been men
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: finding this fellow here, with my lord's life still hot
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 2: upon his hands, ye would have hailed him out into
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 2: the court and struck his head off with an axe.
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 12: Oh God, speak my lord.
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 3: Justice, Your grace, it cannot be. The laws of Padua
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 3: are most certain here, and by those laws the common
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 3: murderer even may with his own lips plead and make defense.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 2: This is no common murderer, Lord, Justice, but a great
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: outlaw and a most vile traitor taken in open arms
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 2: against the state. For he who slays the man who
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 2: rules a state slays the state, also widows every wife
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 2: and makes each child an orphan. And no less is
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 2: to be held a public enemy than if he came
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 2: with mighty ordinance and all the spears of venice at
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 2: his back, to beat and batter at our city gates. Nay,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 2: is more dangerous to our commonwealth. For walls and gates,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 2: bastions and forts, and things whose common elements are wood
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: and stone may be raised up. But who can raise
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 2: again the ruined body of my murdered lord and bid
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 2: it live?
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 3: And laugh?
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 9: Now, by Saint Paul, I, do not think the lessons speak.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 4: There is much insis listen.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 2: Wherefore now throw ashes on the head of Padua with
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 2: sable banners, hang each silent street. Let every man be
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 2: clad in solemn black. But ere we turn to these
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 2: sad rites of morning. Let us, bethink us of the
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 2: desperate hand which wrought and brought this ruin on our state,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 2: and straightway pack him to that narrow house where no
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 2: voice is, but with a little dust, death fills right
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 2: up the lying mouths of men.
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 12: Unhand me knaves. I tell THEE, my Lord Justice, thou
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 12: might'st us well. Bid the untrammeled ocean, the winter whirlwind,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 12: or the alpine storm not roar their will as bid me.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 12: Hold my peace. I, though ye put your knives into
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 12: my throat, each grim and gaping wound, shall find a
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 12: tongue and cry against you.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 3: Sir, this violence avails you nothing forsave. The tribunal gives
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: THEE a lawful right to open speech. Naught that thou
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: sayest can be credited.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: The Duchess smiles, and Guido forcep with a gesture of despair.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 3: Madam, myself and these wise justices will, with your graces sanction,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 3: now retire into another chamber to decide upon this difficult
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 3: matter of the law, and search the statutes and the precedents.
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 2: Go, my Lord Justice, search the statutes well, nor let
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: this brawling traitor have his way.
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 4: Go, my Lord Justice, search thy conscience well. Nor let
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 4: a man be sent to death unheard.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: Exit the Lord justice and the judges.
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 2: Silence, thou evil genius of my life. Thou comest between
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 2: us to a second time. This time, my Lord, I
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 2: think the turn is mine.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 12: I shall not die till I uttered voice.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 2: Thou shalt die silent, and thy secret with thee.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 12: Art Thou that Beatrice, duchess of Padua.
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 2: I am with Thou hast made me look me well?
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 2: I am thy handiwork.
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 7: See?
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 9: Is she not like that white taigress we saw at
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 9: Venice sent by some Indian suldan to the dome.
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 4: Hush she may hear that chatter, my young fellow.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 19: I do not know why there should you here to speak. Cleo,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 19: My ex is close upon thy nick a word of
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 19: I will never blo each edge. But if thou art
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 19: so be a point, why I might as plead under
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 19: the church been yonder the common people call him kindly here? Indeed,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 19: I know he has a kindly soul.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 12: This man whose trade is death, hath courtesies more than
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 12: the others.
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 19: Why God love you, sir, I'll do you your last
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 19: service or niece earth, my.
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 12: Good lord cardinal in a Christian land with Lord Christ's
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 12: face of mercy, looking down from the high seat of judgment,
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 12: Tell a man die, unabsolved, unshrived. And if not so,
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 12: may I not tell this dreadful tale of sin. If
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 12: any sin there be upon my.
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 2: Soul, thou dost but waste thy time.
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 17: Hollack, my son. I have no power with a secular arm.
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 17: My task begins when justice has been done, to urge
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 17: the wavering sinner to repent and to confess the Holy
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 17: Church's ear the dreadful secrets of a sinful mind.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: Thou mayst speak to the confessional until thy lips grow
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 2: weary of their tail. But here thou shalt not.
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 12: Speak, My reverend father, you bring me but cold comfort.
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 17: Nay, my son, for the great power of our mother
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 17: Church ends not with this poor bubble of a world,
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 17: of which we are but dust. As Jerome sayth For
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 17: if the sinner doth repent and die, our prayers and
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 17: Holy Mass is much avail to bring the guilty soul
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 17: from purgatory.
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 2: And when in purgatory thou seest my Lord with that
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 2: red star of blood upon his heart, tell him I
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 2: sent thee hither.
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 12: Oh dear God, Ah, this is the woman is it
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 12: whom you loved.
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 17: Your grace is very cruel to this man.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 2: No more than he was cruel to her grace.
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 17: Yet, mercy is the sovereign right of princes.
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 2: I got no mercy, and I give it not. He
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 2: hath changed my heart into a heart of stone. He
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 2: hath sown rank nettles in a goodly field. He hath
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: poisoned the wells of pity in my breast. He hath
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 2: withered up all kindness at the root. My life is
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 2: as some famine murdered land. Whence all good things have
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 2: perished utterly. I am what he hath made me.
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: The duchess weeps.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 4: Is it not strange that she should so have loved
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 4: the wicked duke?
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 9: It is no strange when women love the lords, and
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 9: when they loved them. Not, it is most strange.
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 4: What a philosopher thou art Petrucci.
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 9: Ay, I can bear the ills of the men, which
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 9: is philosophy.
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 2: They tarry long, these graybeards in their council. Bid them come,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: Bid them come quickly. Else I think my heart will
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: beat itself to bursting. Not indeed that I here care
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 2: to live. God knows my life is not so full
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: of joy yet for all that I would not die
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: companionless or go lonely to hell. Look, my Lord Cardinal,
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 2: canst thou not see across my forehead here in scarlet
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 2: letters writ the word revenge. Fetch me some water. I
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 2: will wash it off twas branded there last night. But
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 2: in the daytime I need not wear it. Need i,
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 2: my Lord Cardinal, Oh, how it sears and burns into
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 2: my brain. Give me a knife, not that one, but another,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 2: and I will cut it out.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 17: It is most natural to be incensed against the murderer's
• 1:52:50
  Speaker 17: hand that treacherously stabbed your sleeping lord.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 2: I would old, Cardinal, I could burn that hand, but
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 2: it will burn hereafter Nay.
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 17: The Church ordained as to forgive.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 2: Our enemies forgiveness. What is that I never got it?
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 2: They come at last, Well, my Lord Justice, Well.
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: Enter the Lord Justice.
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 3: Most gracious Lady, and our sovereign liege. We have long
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 3: pondered on the point at issue, and much considered of
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 3: your Grace's wisdom, and never wisdom spake from fairer lips.
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 2: Proceeds, Sir, without compliment.
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 3: We find, as your own Grace did rightly signify that
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 3: any citizen who, by force or craft conspires against the
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 3: person of the Liege, is ipso facto outlaw, void of
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 3: rights such as pertain to other citizens, is traitor and
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 3: a public enemy who may by any casual sword be
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 3: slain without the slayer's danger. Nay, if brought into the
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 3: presence of the tribunal, must with dumb lips and silence
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 3: reverent listen unto his well deserved doom, nor has the
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 3: privilege of open speech.
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 2: I thank thee my Lord Justice heartily. I like your law,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 2: and now I pray dispatch this public outlaw to his
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 2: righteous doom. What is there more?
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 3: Ay, there is more, your grace, this man, being alien born,
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 3: not Paduan, nor by allegiance bound unto the Duke, save
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 3: such as common nature doth lay down half, though accused
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 3: of treason's manifold, whose slightest penalty is certain death, Yet
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 3: still the right of public utterance before the people and
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 3: the open court. Nay, shall be much entreated by the
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 3: court to make some formal pleading for his life, lest
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 3: his own city, righteously incensed, should with an unjust trial,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 3: tax our state and wars spring up against the commonwealth.
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 3: So merciful are the laws of Padua, unto the stranger
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 3: living in her gates, being of.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 2: My lord's household. Is he stranger here?
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 3: Aye? Until seven years of service spent, he cannot be
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 3: a Paduan citizen.
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 12: I thank thee, my Lord Justice, heartily. I like your law.
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 7: I like no law at all. Were there no law,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 7: there'd be no law breakers, so all men would be virtuous, so.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 6: They would tis a wife saying that and brings you
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 6: far aye to the gallows knave.
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 2: Is this the law?
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 3: It is the law, most certainly, my liege.
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 2: Show me the book tis written in blood red.
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 4: Look at the duchess.
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 2: Thou a cursed law? I would that I could tear
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: thee from the state as easy as I tear thee
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 2: from this.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: Book, tears out the page.
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: Come here, Count Bardi, are you honorable? Get a horse
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 2: ready for me at my house, for I must ride
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 2: to Venice. Instantly, to Venice, Madam, not a word of this,
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 2: go go.
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: At once, exit, Count Partie a.
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 2: Moment, my Lord Justice, If as thou sayest it, this
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: is the law, nay, nay, I doubt not that thou
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 2: sayest right, the right be wrong in such a case
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 2: as this, may I not, by the virtue of mine
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 2: office adjourn this court until another day. Madam, you cannot
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 2: stay a trial for blood. I will not tarry then
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 2: to hear this man rail with rude tongue against our
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 2: sacred person. Come, gentlemen, my.
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 3: Liege, you cannot leave this court until the prisoner be
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 3: purged or guilty of this dread offense.
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 2: Cannot lord justice? By what right do you set barriers
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: in my path where I should go? Am I not
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 2: duchess here in padua and the state's regent for.
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 3: That reason, Madam, being the fountain head of life and
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 3: death went like a mighty river. Justice flows without thy presence,
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 3: Justice is dried up and fails of purpose. Thou must
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 3: tarry here?
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: What wilt thou keep me here? Against my will?
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 3: We pray thy will be not against the law.
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 2: What if I force my way out of the court?
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 3: Thou canst not force the court to give thee way?
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: I will not tarry.
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 3: Is the usher here? Let him stand?
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 7: Forth?
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: Usher comes forward?
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 3: Thou knowest thy business, sir.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: The usher closes the doors of the court which are left,
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: And when the duchess enter retinue approach, kneels.
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 9: Down in all he mils you, I bescreet your grace.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 9: Turn not my duty to discourteousy nor make my unwelcome
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 9: off as an offense.
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 2: Is there no gentleman amongst you all to prick this
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 2: prating fellow from our.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: Way, drawing his sword?
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 3: Aye that I will count Mafio have a care and you,
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 3: sir to Jipple. The first man who draws his sword
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 3: upon the meanest officer of this court dies before nightfall.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 2: Sirs, put up your swords. It is most meet that
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 2: I should hear this man.
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: Goes back to throne.
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 4: Now hast thou got thy enemy in thy hand?
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: Taking the time glass up.
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 3: Guido Ferranti, while the crumbling sand falls through this time glass,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 3: Thou hast leave to speak this and no more. It
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 3: is enough, my lord, thou standest on the extreme verge
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 3: of death. See that thou speakest nothing but the truth.
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 3: Naught else will serve.
• 1:58:07
  Speaker 12: Thee If I speak it not, then give my body
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 12: to the headsman.
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: There turns the time class.
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 3: Let there be silence while the prisoner speaks.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 12: Silence in the court Here, my Lord's justices and reverend
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 12: judges of this worthy court. I hardly know where to
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 12: begin my tale. So strangely dreadful as this history. First,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 12: let me tell you what birth I am. I am
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 12: the son of that good Duke Lorentzo, who was with
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 12: damned treachery done to death by a most wicked villain. Lately,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 12: Duke of this good town of Padua, have a care.
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 3: It will avail thee not to mock this prince who
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 3: now lies in his coffin by Saint James.
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 9: This is the Duke of Palm as rightful.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 4: Air I always thought im noble.
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 12: I confess that, with the purport of a just revenge,
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 12: a most just vengeance on a man of blood, I
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 12: entered the Duke's household, served his will, sat at his board,
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 12: drank of his wine, and was his intimate so much
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 12: I will confess, and this too, that I waited till
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 12: he grew to give the fondest secrets of his life
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 12: into my keeping, till he fawned on me and trusted
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 12: me in every private matter, even as my noble father
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 12: trusted him. That for this thing I waited to the headsman,
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 12: thou man of blood, turn not thine axe on me
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 12: before the time. Who knows if it be time for
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 12: me to die? Is there no other neck in court
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 12: but mine?
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 3: The sand within the time glass flows apace. Come quickly
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 3: to the murder of the Duke.
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 12: I will be brief. Last night, at twelve of the clock,
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 12: by a strong rope, I scaled the palace wall with
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 12: purport to revenge my father's murder. I with that purport
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 12: I confess, my Lord, this much I will acknowledge, and
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 12: this also that, as with stealthy feet, I climbed the
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 12: stair which led unto the chamber of the Duke, and
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 12: reached my hand out for the scarlet cloth, which shook
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 12: and shivered in the gusty door. Lo the white moon
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 12: that sailed in the great heaven flooded with silver light.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 12: The darkened room night lit her candles for me, and
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 12: I saw the man I hated, cursing in his sleep,
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 12: and thinking of a most dear father, murdered sould to
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 12: the scaffold, bartered to the block. I smote the treacherous
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 12: villain to the heart with this same dagger, which by
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 12: chance I found within the chamber.
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: Rising from her seat.
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 12: Oh, I killed the Duke Uke. Now, my Lord, Justice,
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 12: if I may crave a boon, suffer me not to
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 12: see another sun light up the misery of this loathsome world.
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 3: Thy boon is granted. Thou shalt die tonight, lead him away,
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 3: come madam.
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: Guido is let off. As he goes, the Duchess stretches
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: out her arms and rushes down the stage.
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 2: Guido Guido faints.
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: Tableau end of Act four, Act five of The Duchess
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: of Padua by Oscar Wilde. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Act
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: five scene a dungeon in the public prison of Padua.
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: Widow lies asleep on a pallet left center. A table
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: with a goblet on it is set left center. Five
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: soldiers are drinking and playing dice in the corner on
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: a stone table. One of them has a lantern hung
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: to his halbert. A torch is set in the wall
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: over Guido's head. Two grated windows behind, one on each
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: side of the door, which is center, look out into
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: the passage. The stage is rather dark. First soldier throws dice.
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 9: Six is again good old Pietro and faith Lieutenant.
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 10: I will play with thee no more. I will lose everything.
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 3: Except thy wits. Thou art safe.
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 10: There, Aye aye, he cannot take them from me.
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 3: No, for thou hast no wits to give him silence.
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 18: He'll wait the prisoner he is asleep.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 10: What matter? He will get sleep enough when he is buried.
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 10: I warrant he'd be glad if we could wake him
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 10: when he's in the grave.
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 3: Nay, for when he wakes there it will be judgment day.
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 10: Aye. And he has done a grievous thing. For look you.
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 10: To murder one of us who are but flesh and
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 10: blood is a sin. And kill a duke goes being
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 10: near against the.
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 9: Law, Well, well, he's a wicked duke.
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 10: And so he should not have touched him. If one
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 10: meddles with wicked people, one is like to be tainted
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 10: with their wickedness.
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 3: I that is true. How old is the prisoner?
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 10: Old enough to be wrong and not old enough to
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 10: be wise?
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 18: Why then he might be any age?
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 10: They say the Duchess wanted to pardon him.
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 7: Is that so?
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 10: Aye? And did much entreat the Lord justice, But he
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 10: would not.
• 2:04:06
  Speaker 9: I had a thought, Pietro, that the duchess was omnipotent.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 10: True, she is well favored, I know none so comely.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 18: I meant, I thought our duchess could do anything.
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 10: Nay, for he is now given over to the justices,
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 10: and they will see that justice be done. They and
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 10: Stout Hugh the headsman. But when his head is off,
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 10: why then the Duchess can pardon him if she likes.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 10: There is no law against that.
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 9: I do not think that Stout you as you call him,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 9: he'll do the business for him. After all, this Guido
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 9: is of gentle birth, and so by law can drink
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 9: poison first if it so be his pleasure.
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 3: And if he does not drink it, why then.
• 2:04:55
  Speaker 18: They would kill him.
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: Knocking concert the door, see that is third soldier goes
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: over and looks through the wicket.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 3: It is a woman, sir, Is you pity? I can't
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 3: tell she is masked? Lieutenant.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 9: It is only very ugly or very beautiful women whoever
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 9: hide their faces.
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 18: Let her in.
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 1: The soldier opens the door, and the Duchess, masked and cloaked,
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: enters to third soldier.
• 2:05:22
  Speaker 2: Are you the officer on guard coming forward?
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 18: I am madam.
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 2: I must see the prisoner alone.
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 18: I am afraid that is impossible.
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: The duchess hands him a ring, he looks at and
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: returns it to her with a bow and makes a
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: sign to the soldiers stand.
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 2: Without the officer. Your men are somewhat rough, They mean
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 2: no harm. I shall be going back in a few minutes.
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 2: As I pass through the corridor, do not let them
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 2: try and lift my mask.
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 18: You need not be afraid, Madam.
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 2: I have a particular reason for wishing my face not.
• 2:05:57
  Speaker 10: To be seen.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 18: Madam.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 9: With this ring, can go in now, did you please?
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 9: It is the Duchess's own ring.
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 2: Leave us.
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: The soldier turns to go out, exit and the soldiers a.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 2: Moment, sir, for what hour is at twelve o'clock?
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 18: Madam?
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 9: We've orders to leave him out, but I dare say
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 9: he won't wait for us. He's more like to take
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 9: a drink out of that poison yonder. Men are afraid
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 9: of the headsman.
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 18: Is that poison? I, madam, I'm very sure poisoned too.
• 2:06:29
  Speaker 18: You may go, sir, by Saint James a pretty hand.
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 9: I wonder who she is, some woman who loved him?
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: Perhaps exit at last?
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 2: He can escape now in this cloak, advisored, we are
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 2: of a height almost they will not know him. As
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 2: for myself, what matter? So that he does not curse
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 2: me as he goes? I care, but little I wonder
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 2: will he curse me? He has the right. It is eleven.
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 2: Now they will not come till twelve.
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: Goes over to the table.
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 2: So this is poison. Is it not strange that in
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: this liquor here there lies the key to all philosophies.
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: Takes the cup up.
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 2: It smells of poppies. I remember well that when I
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: was a child in Cecily, I took the scarlet poppies
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 2: from the corn and made a little wreath, and my
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 2: grave uncle Don John of Naples laughed. I did not
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 2: know that they had power to stay the springs of life,
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 2: to make the pulse cease beating, and to chill the
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 2: blood in its own vessels, till men come and with
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 2: a hook hail the poor body out and throw it
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 2: in a ditch. The body, Ay, what of the soul
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: that goes to heaven or hell? Where will mine go?
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: Takes the torch from the wall and goes over to
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: the bed.
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 2: How peacefully he sleeps, like a young schoolboy tired out
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 2: with play. I would that I could sleep so peacefully, But.
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: I have dreams bending over him.
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 2: Poor boy? What if I kissed him? No, now, my
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 2: lips would burn him like a fire. He has had
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: enough of love. Still that white neck will scape the headsman.
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 2: I have seen to that he will get hence from
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: Padua to night. And that is well. You are very wise,
• 2:08:14
  Speaker 2: Lord Justices, and yet you are not half so wise
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 2: as I am. And that is well. Oh God, how
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 2: I have loved you? And what a bloody flower did love?
• 2:08:26
  Speaker 1: Bear comes back to the table.
• 2:08:29
  Speaker 2: What if I drank these juices and so ceased? Were
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: it not better than to wait till death come to
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 2: my bed with all his serving men remorse, disease, old age,
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 2: and misery. I wonder does one suffer much? I think
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 2: that I am very young to die like this, But
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 2: so it must be. Why why should I die? He
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 2: will escape to night, and so his blood will not
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 2: be on my head. Oh I must die. I have
• 2:08:58
  Speaker 2: been guilty. Therefore I must die. He loves me not,
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 2: and therefore I must die. I would die happier if
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 2: he would kiss me, But he will not do that.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 2: I did not know him. I thought he meant to
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 2: sell me to the judge. That is not strange. We
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 2: women never know our lovers till they leave us.
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: Bell begins to tall.
• 2:09:20
  Speaker 2: Thou vile Bell, that like a bloodhound from thy brazen
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 2: throat calls for this man's life. Cease, thou shalt not
• 2:09:27
  Speaker 2: get it. He stirs, I must be quick.
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: Takes up cup.
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 2: Oh, love, love, love. I did not think that I
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 2: would pledge.
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: Thee thus drinks poison and sets the cup down on
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: the table behind her. The noise wakes Guido, who starts
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: up and does not see what she has done. There
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: is silence for a minute, each looking at the other.
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 2: I do not come to ask your pardon now, seeing
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 2: I know I stand beyond all pardon. Enough of that,
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 2: I have already, sir, confessed my sin to the Lord's justices.
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 2: They would not listen to me, and some said I
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 2: did invent a tale to save your life. You have
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 2: trafficked with me. Others said that women played with pity
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 2: as with men. Others that grief for my slain lord
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 2: and husband had robbed me of my wits. They would
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 2: not hear me, and when I swear it on the
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 2: Holy book, they bade the doctor cure me. They are
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 2: ten ten against one, and they possess your life. They
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 2: call me duchess here in Padua. I do not know, sir,
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 2: if I be the duchess, I wrote your pardon, and
• 2:10:37
  Speaker 2: they would not take it. They call it treason. Say
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 2: I taught them that? Maybe I did. Within an hour, Guido,
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 2: they will be here and drag you from the cell
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 2: and bind your hands behind your back, and bid you
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 2: kneel at the block. I am before them.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 7: There.
• 2:10:54
  Speaker 2: Here is the signet ring of Padua. Twill bring you
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 2: safely through the men on guard. There is my cloak,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 2: and advisored. They have orders not to be curious. When
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 2: you pass the gate, turn to the left, and at
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 2: the second bridge you will find horses waiting. By tomorrow
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 2: you will be at Venice safe. Do you not speak?
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 2: Will you not even curse me? Ere you go? You
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 2: have the right. You do not understand. There lies between
• 2:11:19
  Speaker 2: you and the headsman's axe, hardly so much sand in
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 2: the hour glass as a child's palm could carry. Here
• 2:11:25
  Speaker 2: is the ring I have washed my hand. There is
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 2: no blood upon it. You need not fear. Will you
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 2: not take the ring?
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: Takes ring and kisses it?
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 12: I gladly, madam, and leave Padua, Leave Padua. But it
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 12: must be to night to night it shall be.
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 10: Oh, thank God for that, so I can live.
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 12: Life never seemed so sweet as at this moment.
• 2:11:52
  Speaker 2: Do not tarry, Guido. There is my cloak. The horse
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 2: is at the bridge, the second bridge below the ferry house.
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 2: Why do you tarry? Can your ears not hear this
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 2: dreadful bell, whose every ringing stroke robs one brief minute
• 2:12:05
  Speaker 2: from your boyish life?
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 12: Go quickly, I he will come soon enough. Who why
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 12: the headsman?
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 7: Oh?
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 12: No, only he can bring me out of Padua.
• 2:12:19
  Speaker 2: You dare not, You dare not burden my ore burdened
• 2:12:23
  Speaker 2: soul with two dead men. I think one is enough
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 2: for when I stand before God face to face. I
• 2:12:30
  Speaker 2: would not have you with a scarlet thread around your
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 2: white throat, coming up behind to say I did it?
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 12: Madam?
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 2: I wait, no, no, you cannot. You do not understand
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 2: I have less power in Padua tonight than any common woman.
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 2: They will kill you. I saw the scaffold as I
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 2: crossed the square. Already the low rabble throng about it
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 2: with fearful jests and horrid merriment, as though it were
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 2: a Morris dancer's platform, and not death sable throne. Oh, Guido, Guido, you.
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 12: Must escape, Madam. I tarry here, Guido, you shall not.
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 2: It would be a thing so terrible that the amazed
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 2: stars would fall from heaven, and the palsied moon be
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 2: in her sphere eclipsed, and the great sun refused to
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 2: shine upon the unjust earth which saw thee die.
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 12: Be sure I shall not stir.
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: Wringing her hands.
• 2:13:24
  Speaker 2: Is one sin not enough, But must it breed a
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 2: second sin, more horrible again than was the one that
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 2: bear it. Oh God, God, seal up sin's teeming womb
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 2: and make it barren. I will not have more blood
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 2: upon my hand than I have now.
• 2:13:39
  Speaker 1: Seizing her hand.
• 2:13:41
  Speaker 12: But am I fallen so low that I may not
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 12: have leave to die for you?
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: Tearing her hand away?
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 2: Die for me? No, My life is a vile thing
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 2: thrown to the miry highways of this world. You shall
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 2: not die for me. You shall not guida. I am
• 2:14:00
  Speaker 2: a guilty woman, guilty.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 12: Let those who know what the thing temptation is. Let
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 12: those who have not walked as we have done in
• 2:14:11
  Speaker 12: the red fire of passion, those whose lives are dull
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 12: and colorless. In a word, let those, if any such
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 12: there be, who have not loved, cast zunes against you as.
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: For me alas falling out her feet.
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 12: You are my lady, and you are my love. O
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 12: hair of gold, crimson lips, her face made for the
• 2:14:37
  Speaker 12: luring and the love of man, incarnate image of pure loveliness.
• 2:14:43
  Speaker 12: Worshiping THEE, I do forget the past. Worshiping THEE, my
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 12: soul comes close to thine. Worshiping THEE, I seem to
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 12: be a God. And though they give my body to
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 12: the block, yet is my love eternal?
• 2:14:58
  Speaker 1: That just puts her hands over her face. Guido draws
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: them down.
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 12: Sweet, lift up the trailing curtains that overhang your eyes,
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 12: that I may look into those eyes and tell you
• 2:15:12
  Speaker 12: I love you, never more than now. When death thrusts
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 12: his cold lips between us, Beatrice, I love you. Have
• 2:15:22
  Speaker 12: you no word left to say? Oh? I can bear
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 12: the executioner, but not this silence. Will you not say
• 2:15:30
  Speaker 12: you love me? Speak but that word, and death shall
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 12: lose his sting. But speak it not, And fifty thousand
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 12: deaths are in comparison, Mercy, Oh, you are cruel, and
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 12: do not love me alas.
• 2:15:48
  Speaker 2: I have no right, For I have stained the innocent
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 2: hands of love with spilt out blood. There is blood
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 2: on the ground. I set it there.
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 12: Sweet, It was not yourself. It was some devil tempted you.
• 2:16:02
  Speaker 2: Rising suddenly, No, No, we are each our own devil,
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 2: and we make this world our hell.
• 2:16:10
  Speaker 12: Then let high paradise fall into tartarus, for I shall
• 2:16:14
  Speaker 12: make this world my heaven. For a little space, the
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 12: sin was mine, if any sin there was, twas I
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 12: who nurtured murder in my heart, sweetened my meat, seasoned
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 12: my wine with it, and in my fancy slew the
• 2:16:32
  Speaker 12: accursed duke a hundred times a day. Why had this
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 12: man died half so often as I wished him to death?
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 12: Had been stalking ever through the house, and murder had
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 12: not slept. But you, fond heart, whose little eyes grew
• 2:16:48
  Speaker 12: tender over with hound, You whom the little children laughed
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 12: to see, because you brought the sunlight where you passed,
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 12: You the white angel of God's purity. This which men
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 12: call your sin?
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: What was it? Ay?
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 2: What was it? There are times it seems a dream,
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 2: an evil dream set by an evil God. And then
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 2: I see the dead face in the coffin, and know
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 2: it is no dream, but that my hand is red
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 2: with blood, and that my desperate soul, striving to find
• 2:17:21
  Speaker 2: some haven for its love from the wild tempest of
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 2: this raging world, has wrecked its bark upon the rocks
• 2:17:26
  Speaker 2: of sin. What was it said you murder merely nothing
• 2:17:31
  Speaker 2: but murder, horrible murder.
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 12: Nay, nay, nay, twas but the passion flower of your
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 12: love that in one moment leapt to terrible life, and
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 12: in one moment bear this gory fruit which I had
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 12: plucked in thought a thousand times. My soul was murderous,
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 12: but my hand refused. Your hand wrought murder, But your
• 2:17:57
  Speaker 12: soul was pure. And so oh I love you, Beatrice.
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 12: And let him who has no mercy for your stricken
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 12: head lack mercy up in heaven.
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: Kiss me sweet, tries to kiss her.
• 2:18:11
  Speaker 2: Oh no, your lips are pure, and mine are soiled,
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 2: for guilt has been my paramour, and sin lain in
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 2: my bed. Oh, Gwido. If you love me, get hence,
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 2: for every moment is a worm which gnaws your life away. Nay, sweet,
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 2: get hence. And if in after time you think of me,
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 2: think of me as one who loved you more than
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 2: anything on earth. Think of me, Guido, as of a
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 2: woman merely one who tried to make her life a
• 2:18:38
  Speaker 2: sacrifice to love and slew love. In the trial, What
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 2: is that the bell has stopped from ringing and I
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 2: hear the feet of armed men upon.
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: The stair beside.
• 2:18:49
  Speaker 12: That is the signal for the guard to come.
• 2:18:52
  Speaker 2: Why has the bell stopped ringing?
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 12: If you must know, that stops my life on this
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 12: side of the grave. But on the other we shall
• 2:19:02
  Speaker 12: meet again.
• 2:19:03
  Speaker 2: No, no, tis not too late. You must get hence
• 2:19:06
  Speaker 2: the horses by the bridge. There is still time away away,
• 2:19:10
  Speaker 2: you must not tarry here.
• 2:19:12
  Speaker 1: Noise of soldiers in the passage room.
• 2:19:15
  Speaker 18: For the Lord Justice of Thedieure.
• 2:19:18
  Speaker 1: The Lord Justice is seen through the grated window, passing
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: down the corridor, preceded by men bearing torches.
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 18: It is too late, room for the headsman sings down.
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: The headsman, with his axe on his shoulder, is seen
• 2:19:34
  Speaker 1: passing the corridor, followed by monks bearying candles.
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 12: Farewell, dear Love, for I must drink this poison. I
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 12: do not fear the headsman, but I would die not
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 12: on the lonely scaffold, but here here in thine arms,
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 12: kissing thy mouth, Farewell.
• 2:19:56
  Speaker 1: Goes to the table and takes the goblet up.
• 2:20:00
  Speaker 12: What art thou empty?
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: Throws it to the ground, Oh.
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 12: Thou churlish jailer, even of poisons, niggard.
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 2: Blame him not.
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 12: Oh God, you have not drunk it, Beatrice? Tell me
• 2:20:14
  Speaker 12: you have not?
• 2:20:16
  Speaker 2: Were I to deny it? There is a fire eating
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 2: at my heart which would find utterance.
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 12: Oh treacherous love. Why have you not left a drop
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 12: for me?
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 2: Oh? No, it held, but death enough for one?
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 12: Is there no poison still upon your lips? That I
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 12: may draw it from them?
• 2:20:35
  Speaker 2: Why should you die? You have not spilt blood, and
• 2:20:39
  Speaker 2: so need not die. I have spilt blood, and therefore
• 2:20:43
  Speaker 2: I must die. Was it not said blood should be
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 2: spilt for blood? Who said that?
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: I forget tarry for me?
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 12: Our souls will go together?
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 2: Nay, you must live. There are many other women in
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 2: the world who will love you and not murder for
• 2:21:00
  Speaker 2: your sake. I love you only you need not die
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 2: for that.
• 2:21:07
  Speaker 12: If we die together love? Why then can we not
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 12: lie together in one grave?
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 2: A grave is but a narrow wedding bed.
• 2:21:15
  Speaker 12: It is enough for us, and they will.
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 2: Strew it with a stark winding sheet and bitter herbs.
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 2: I think there are no roses in the grave, or
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 2: if there are, they are all withered now since my
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 2: lord went there.
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 12: Dear Beatrice, your lips are roses that death cannot wither.
• 2:21:33
  Speaker 4: Nay.
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 2: If we lie together, will not my lips fall into dust,
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 2: and your enamored eyes shrivel to sightless sockets, and the
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 2: worms which are our groomsmen eat away your heart.
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 12: I do not care. Death has no power on love,
• 2:21:49
  Speaker 12: and so, by love's immortal sovereignty, I will die with you.
• 2:21:54
  Speaker 2: But the grave is black and the pit black. So
• 2:21:58
  Speaker 2: I must go before to light the care for your
• 2:22:00
  Speaker 2: coming hither. No, No, I will not die. I will
• 2:22:04
  Speaker 2: not die.
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: Love.
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 2: You are strong and young and very brave. Stand between
• 2:22:10
  Speaker 2: me and the angel of death and wrestle with him
• 2:22:12
  Speaker 2: for me.
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: Thrusts Guido in front of her, with his back to
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: the audience.
• 2:22:17
  Speaker 2: I will kiss you when you have thrown him. Oh,
• 2:22:20
  Speaker 2: have you no cordial to stay the workings of this
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 2: poison in me? Are there no rivers left in Italy
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 2: that you will not fetch me one cup of water
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 2: to quench this fire? Oh God, you did not tell
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 2: me there was a drought in Italy and no water,
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 2: nothing but fire, Oh Love, Send for a leech, not
• 2:22:39
  Speaker 2: him who stanched my husband, but another. We have no time.
• 2:22:43
  Speaker 2: Send for a leech. I say there is an antidote
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 2: against each poison, And he will sell it if we
• 2:22:49
  Speaker 2: give him money. Tell him that I will give him
• 2:22:51
  Speaker 2: padua for one short hour of life. I will not die. Oh,
• 2:22:56
  Speaker 2: I am sick to death. No, do not touch me.
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 2: This poison gnaws my heart. I did not know it
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 2: was such pain to die. I thought that life had
• 2:23:06
  Speaker 2: taken all the agonies to itself. It seems it is
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 2: not so.
• 2:23:10
  Speaker 12: Oh, damned stars, quench your vile cresset lights and tears,
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 12: and bid the moon your mistress shine no more to night.
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 2: Guido, why are we here? I think this room is
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 2: poorly furnished for a marriage chamber. Let us get hence
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 2: at once? Where are the horses? We should be on
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 2: our way to Venice? Now, how cold the night is,
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 2: We must ride faster.
• 2:23:35
  Speaker 1: The monks begin to chant outside music.
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 2: It should be merrier, but grief is of the fashion.
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 2: Now I know not why you must not weep? Do
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 2: we not love each other? That is enough death? What
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 2: do you hear? You were not bidden to this table,
• 2:23:52
  Speaker 2: sir away, We have no need of you. I tell
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 2: you it was in wine I pledged you, not in poison.
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 2: They lied? Who told you that I drank your poison?
• 2:24:01
  Speaker 2: It was spuilt upon the ground like my lord's blood.
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 12: You came too late, sweet, There is nothing there. These
• 2:24:09
  Speaker 12: things are only unreal shadows death.
• 2:24:12
  Speaker 2: Why do you tarry get to the upper chamber? The
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 2: cold meats of my husband's funeral feast are set for you.
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 2: This is a wedding feast. You are out of place, sir.
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 2: And besides, to summer we do not need these heavy
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 2: fires now you scorch us? Oh, I am burned up?
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 2: Can you do nothing?
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 4: Water?
• 2:24:33
  Speaker 2: Give me water or else more poison?
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: No?
• 2:24:38
  Speaker 2: I feel no pain? Is it not curious? I should
• 2:24:41
  Speaker 2: feel no pain? And death has gone away. I am
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 2: glad of that. I thought he meant to part us.
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 2: Tell me, Guido, are you not sorry that you ever
• 2:24:52
  Speaker 2: saw me?
• 2:24:54
  Speaker 12: I swear I would not have lived otherwise. Why in
• 2:24:58
  Speaker 12: this dull and common birl men have died looking for
• 2:25:02
  Speaker 12: such moments at this and have not found them?
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 2: Then you are not sorry? How strange that seems?
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 12: What Beatrice? Have I not stood face to face with
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 12: beauty that is enough for one man's life? Why love?
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 12: I could be merry. I have been often sadder at
• 2:25:23
  Speaker 12: a feast, But who were sad at such a feast
• 2:25:26
  Speaker 12: as this? When love and death are both our cup? Bears,
• 2:25:32
  Speaker 12: we love and die together.
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have been guilty beyond all women, and indeed
• 2:25:37
  Speaker 2: beyond all women punished. Do you think, no, that could
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 2: not be. Oh, do you think that love can wipe
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 2: the bloody stain from off my hands? Pour balm into
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 2: my wounds, heal up my hurts, and wash my scarlet
• 2:25:52
  Speaker 2: sins as white as snow. For I have sinned.
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 12: They do not sin at all? Who sin for love?
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 2: No, I have sinned, And yet perchance my sin will
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 2: be forgiven me. I have loved much.
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: They kiss each other now for the first time in
• 2:26:11
  Speaker 1: this act, when suddenly the Duchess leaps up in the
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: dreadful spasm of death, tears an agony at her dress,
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: and finally, with face twisted and distorted with pain, falls
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: back dead in a chair. Gwidow, seizing her dagger from
• 2:26:29
  Speaker 1: her belt, kills himself, and as he falls across her knees,
• 2:26:33
  Speaker 1: clutches at the cloak, which is on the back of
• 2:26:36
  Speaker 1: the chair, and throws it entirely over her. There is
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: a little pause, then down the passage comes the tramp
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: of soldiers. The door is opened, and the Lord Justice,
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: the headsman, and the guard enter and see this figure
• 2:26:52
  Speaker 1: shrouded in black, and Guido lying dead across her. The
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: Lord Justice rushed forward and drags the cloak of the Duchess,
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: whose face is now the marble image of peace, the
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: sign of God's forgiveness tableaux curtain, end of Act five.
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: End of the Duchess of Padua by Oscar Wilde