The Duchess Of Padua

Oscar Wilde

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781443442541
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A young man known as Guido is set upon revenge, planning to murder the duke of Padua, who murdered Guido's father years before. However, Guido soon finds that he has fallen in love with the duke's wife, the duchess of Padua , and their romance complicates Guido's intentions.

Originally composed for a particular actress, Mary Anderson, who eventually rejected the play, The Duchess of Padua was not performed on the stage until years after its composition. Written in blank verse, The Duchess of Padua is one of Oscar Wilde's only true tragedies.

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THE DUCHESS OF PADUA

The Persons of the Play

SIMONE GESSO, Duke of Padua

BEATRICE, his Wife

ANDREAS POLLAJUOLO, Cardinal of Padua

MAFFIO PETRUCCI,

JEPPO VITELLOZZO, } Gentlemen of the Duke’s Household

TADDEO BARDI,

GUIDO FERRANTI, a Young Man

ASCANIO CRISTOFANO, his Friend

COUNT MORANZONE, an Old Man

BERNARDO CALVALCANTI, Lord Justice of Padua

HUGO, the Headsman

LUCY, a Tire Woman

SERVANTS, CITIZENS, SOLDIERS, MONKS, FALCONERS with their hawks and dogs, etc.

ACT ONE

SCENE: The Market Place of Padua at noon. TIME: The latter half of sixteenth century. In the background is the great Cathedral of Padua; the architecture is Romanesque, and wrought in black and white marbles; a flight of marble steps leads up to the Cathedral door; at the foot of the steps are two large stone lions; the houses on each side of the stage have coloured awnings from their windows, and are flanked by stone arcades; on the right of the stage is the public fountain, with a triton in green bronze blowing from a conch; around the fountain is a stone seat; the bell of the Cathedral is ringing, and the citizens, men, women and children, are passing into the Cathedral.

Enter GUIDO FERRANTI and ASCANIO CRISTOFANO.

ASCANIO: Now by my life, Guido, I will go no farther; for if I walk another step I will have no life left to swear by; this wild-goose errand of yours! (Sits down on the steps of the fountain.)

GUIDO: I think it must be here. (Goes up to passer-by and doffs his cap.) Pray, sir, is this the market place, and that the church of Santa Croce? (Citizen bows.) I thank you, sir.

ASCANIO: Well?

GUIDO: Ay! It is here.

ASCANIO: I would it were somewhere else, for I see no wine-shop.

GUIDO (taking a letter from his pocket and reading it): ‘The hour noon; the city, Padua; the place, the market; and the day, Saint Philip’s Day.’

ASCANIO: And what of the man, how shall we know him?

GUIDO (reading still): ‘I will wear a violet cloak with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder.’ A brave attire, Ascanio.

ASCANIO: I’d sooner have my leathern jerkin. And you think he will tell you of your father?

GUIDO: Why, yes! It is a month ago now, you remember; I was in the vineyard, just at the corner nearest the road, where the goats used to get in, a man rode up and asked me was my name Guido, and gave me this letter, signed ‘Your Father’s Friend,’ bidding me be here to-day if I would know the secret of my birth, and telling me how to recognise the writer! I had always thought old Pedro was my uncle, but he told me that he was not, but that I had been left a child in his charge by some one he had never since seen.

ASCANIO: And you don’t know who your father is?

GUIDO: No.

ASCANIO: No recollection of him even?

GUIDO: None, Ascanio, none.

ASCANIO (laughing): Then he could never have boxed your ears so often as my father did mine.

GUIDO (smiling): I am sure you never deserved it.

ASCANIO: Never; and that made it worse. I hadn’t the consciousness of guilt to buoy me up. What hour did you say he fixed?

GUIDO: Noon. (Clock in the Cathedral strikes.)

ASCANIO: It is that now, and your man has not come. I don’t believe in him, Guido. I think it is some wench who has set her eye at you; and, as I have followed you from Perugia to Padua, I swear you shall follow me to the nearest tavern. (Rises.) By the great gods of eating, Guido, I am as hungry as a widow is for a husband, as tired as a young maid is of good advice, and as dry as a monk’s sermon. Come, Guido, you stand there looking at nothing, like the fool who tried to look into his own mind; your man will not come.

GUIDO: Well, I suppose you are right. Ah! (Just as he is leaving the stage with ASCANIO, enter LORD MORANZONE in a violet cloak, with a silver falcon broidered on the shoulder; he passes across to the Cathedral, and just as he is going in GUIDO runs up and touches him.)

MORANZONE: Guido Ferranti, thou hast come in time.

GUIDO: What! Does my father live?

MORANZONE: Ay! Lives in. you.
Thou art the same in mould and lineament,
Carriage and form, and outward semblances;
I trust thou art in noble mind the same.

GUIDO: Oh, tell me of my father; I have lived But for this moment.

MORANZONE: We must be alone.

GUIDO: This is my dearest friend, who out of love
Has followed me to Padua; as two brothers,
There is no secret which we do not share.

MORANZONE: There is one secret which ye shall not share;
Bid him go hence.

GUIDO (To ASCANIO): Come back within the hour.
He does not know that nothing in this world
Can dim the perfect mirror of our love.
Within the hour come.

ASCANIO: Speak not to him,
There is a dreadful terror in his look.

GUIDO (laughing): Nay, nay, I doubt not that he has come to tell,
That I am some great Lord of Italy,
And we will have long days of joy together.
Within the hour, dear Ascanio.

Exit ASCANIO.

Now tell me of my father? (Sits down on a stone seat.) Stood he tall?
I warrant he looked tall upon his horse.
His hair was black? Or perhaps a reddish gold,
Like a red fire of gold? Was his voice low?
The very bravest men have voices sometimes
Full of low music; or a clarion was it
That brake with terror all his enemies?
Did he ride singly? Or with many squires
And valiant gentlemen to serve his taste?
For oftentimes methinks I feel my veins
Beat with the blood of kings. Was he a king?

MORANZONE: Ay, of all men he was the kingliest.

GUIDO (proudly): Then when you saw my noble father last
He was set high above the heads of men?

MORANZONE: Ay, he was high above the heads of men,

Walks over to GUIDO and puts his hand upon his shoulder.

On a red scaffold, with a butcher’s block
Set for his neck.

GUIDO (leaping up): What dreadful man art thou,
That like a raven, or the midnight owl,
Com’st with this awful message from the grave?

MORANZONE: I am known here as the Count Moranzone,
Lord of a barren castle on a rock,
With a few acres of unkindly land
And six not thrifty servants. But I was one
Of Parma’s noblest princes; more than that,
I was your father’s friend.

GUIDO (clasping his hand): Tell me of him.

MORANZONE: You are the son of that great Duke Lorenzo,
Whose banner waved on many a well-fought field
Against the Saracen, and heretic Turk,
He was the Prince of Parma, and the Duke
Of all the fair domains of Lombardy
Down to the gates of Florence; nay, Florence even
Was wont to pay him tribute –

GUIDO: Come to his death.

MORANZONE: You will hear that soon enough. Being at war –
O noble lion of war, that would not suffer
Injustice done in Italy – he led
The very flower of chivalry against
That foul adulterous Lord of Rimini,
Giovanni Malatesta – whom God curse!
And was by him in treacherous ambush taken,
And was by him in common fetters bound,
And like a villain, or a low-born knave,
Was by him on the public scaffold murdered.

GUIDO (clutching his dagger): Doth Malatesta live?

MORANZONE: No, he is dead.

GUIDO: Did you say dead? O too swift runner, Death,
Couldst thou not wait for me a little space,
And I had done thy bidding!

MORANZONE (clutching his wrist): Thou canst do it!
The man who sold thy father is alive.

GUIDO: Sold! Was my father sold?

MORANZONE: Ay! Trafficked for,
Like a vile chattel, for a price betrayed,
Bartered and bargained for in privy market
By one whom he had held his perfect friend,
One he had trusted, one he had well loved,
One whom by ties of kindness he had bound –
Oh! To sow seeds of kindness in this world
Is but to reap ingratitude!

GUIDO: And he lives
Who sold my father.

MORANZONE: I will bring you to him.

GUIDO: So, Judas, thou art living! Well, I will make
This world thy field of blood, so buy it straightway,
For thou must hang there.

MORANZONE: Judas said you, boy?
Yes, Judas in his treachery, but still
He was more wise than Judas was, and held
Those thirty silver pieces not enough.

GUIDO: What got he for my father’s blood?

MORANZONE: What got he?
Why cities, fiefs, and principalities,
Vineyards, and lands.

GUIDO: Of which he shall but keep
Six feet of ground to rot in. Where is he,
This damned villain, this foul dev...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• The Duchess of Padua
• About the Author
• About the Series
• Copyright
• About the Publisher