The Duchess of Padua. Wilde Oscar

      God save the Duke!

      Why, gentlemen, this simple fellow’s love

      Touches me much.  [To the Citizen, harshly.]

      Go!  [Exit Citizen, bowing.]

      This is the way, my lords,

      You can buy popularity nowadays.

      Oh, we are nothing if not democratic!

      Well, Madam,

      You spread rebellion ’midst our citizens.

      My Lord, the poor have rights you cannot touch,

      The right to pity, and the right to mercy.

      So, so, you argue with me?  This is she,

      The gentle Duchess for whose hand I yielded

      Three of the fairest towns in Italy,

      Pisa, and Genoa, and Orvieto.

      Promised, my Lord, not yielded: in that matter

      Brake you your word as ever.

      You wrong us, Madam,

      There were state reasons.

      What state reasons are there

      For breaking holy promises to a state?

      There are wild boars at Pisa in a forest

      Close to the city: when I promised Pisa

      Unto your noble and most trusting father,

      I had forgotten there was hunting there.

      At Genoa they say,

      Indeed I doubt them not, that the red mullet

      Runs larger in the harbour of that town

      Than anywhere in Italy.

      You, my lord,

      Whose gluttonous appetite is your only god,

      Could satisfy our Duchess on that point.

      And Orvieto?

      I cannot now recall

      Why I did not surrender Orvieto

      According to the word of my contract.

      Maybe it was because I did not choose.

      Why look you, Madam, you are here alone;

      ’Tis many a dusty league to your grey France,

      And even there your father barely keeps

      A hundred ragged squires for his Court.

      What hope have you, I say?  Which of these lords

      And noble gentlemen of Padua

      Stands by your side.

      There is not one.

      Nor shall be,

      While I am Duke in Padua: listen, Madam,

      Being mine own, you shall do as I will,

      And if it be my will you keep the house,

      Why then, this palace shall your prison be;

      And if it be my will you walk abroad,

      Why, you shall take the air from morn to night.

      Sir, by what right – ?

      Madam, my second Duchess