A Florentine Tragedy - A Fragment Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCD E A FGHIJK LMINOHPQII F ERR Q IRKQSDTUI QRRRVRQRWV QXRRUY RRRRZQ QQQRA2RQRTB2C2SQD2RR RWRQQQE2RQQF2IRF2HTR G2RQSH2F2QQ VQUR RFRQQQRQRRI2VQQHQSQQ FQJ2QRK2 L2M2F2 NRQP RM2 M2RQF2R RRN2TRO2QR QRUF RRR VRFQP2 IQQRF QURR QFHQ2RR QFTO2PRR RR2S2U QF QRC2T2C2RQR C2 C2FU2V2QRRT IQQQ QRL2L2QQL2FQQN2 RW2QQR QRQRVQR QFRRRVRNI QFRRRRR RHRV QWR QO2RRQRX2Y2RF RRIR QZ2QA3IY2 B3RRRC3RQ L2PD3RE3RR R K2RQRRRRRRQRRRQQQQQQ RQR QV TRK QQHRRFRRQFRRRRL2R QQNR VQRFRR FF3FR QQRQ R QRF3RF QG3H3RQQRR QRRR RI3RG3L2 R RFVQ QQQQQRQHQ L2RJ3F K3L3 FQL2FRRM3 FFHRN3QR FRQR RK2 R RA3KRA3Q QQRL2 QQQR RQO3QRRRQRRQP3W QRKRS2FQQQRQRQR RQ3RDQX2RRQRQL3 FL2RFRRPQRQRQ R QRRPQ FQQQRQF RRQ QF3RWR N L2Q Q R RHU2QQR3R3 A3RQRR RN L2 W QRQ FS3R QQRPQ FFRT3R RR RDU3R Q RQRRG2 L2V3 RQRQ Q F R QN3 QR C3 I| CHARACTERS | A |
| - | |
| GUIDO BARDI A Florentine prince | B |
| SIMONE a merchant | C |
| BIANNA his wife | D |
| - | |
| The action takes place at Florence in the early sixteenth century | E |
| - | |
| The door opens they separate guiltily and the husband enters | A |
| - | |
| SIMONE My good wife you come slowly were it not better | F |
| To run to meet your lord Here take my cloak | G |
| Take this pack first 'Tis heavy I have sold nothing | H |
| Save a furred robe unto the Cardinal's son | I |
| Who hopes to wear it when his father dies | J |
| And hopes that will be soon | K |
| - | |
| But who is this | L |
| Why you have here some friend Some kinsman doubtless | M |
| Newly returned from foreign lands and fallen | I |
| Upon a house without a host to greet him | N |
| I crave your pardon kinsman For a house | O |
| Lacking a host is but an empty thing | H |
| And void of honour a cup without its wine | P |
| A scabbard without steel to keep it straight | Q |
| A flowerless garden widowed of the sun | I |
| Again I crave your pardon my sweet cousin | I |
| - | |
| BIANCA This is no kinsman and no cousin neither | F |
| - | |
| SIMONE No kinsman and no cousin You amaze me | E |
| Who is it then who with such courtly grace | R |
| Deigns to accept our hospitalities | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO My name is Guido Bardi | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE What The son | I |
| Of that great Lord of Florence whose dim towers | R |
| Like shadows silvered by the wandering moon | K |
| I see from out my casement every night | Q |
| Sir Guido Bardi you are welcome here | S |
| Twice welcome For I trust my honest wife | D |
| Most honest if uncomely to the eye | T |
| Hath not with foolish chatterings wearied you | U |
| As is the wont of women | I |
| - | |
| GUIDO Your gracious lady | Q |
| Whose beauty is a lamp that pales the stars | R |
| And robs Diana's quiver of her beams | R |
| Has welcomed me with such sweet courtesies | R |
| That if it be her pleasure and your own | V |
| I will come often to your simple house | R |
| And when your business bids you walk abroad | Q |
| I will sit here and charm her loneliness | R |
| Lest she might sorrow for you overmuch | W |
| What say you good Simone | V |
| - | |
| SIMONE My noble Lord | Q |
| You bring me such high honour that my tongue | X |
| Like a slave's tongue is tied and cannot say | R |
| The word it would Yet not to give you thanks | R |
| Were to be too unmannerly So I thank you | U |
| From my heart's core | Y |
| - | |
| It is such things as these | R |
| That knit a state together when a Prince | R |
| So nobly born and of such fair address | R |
| Forgetting unjust Fortune's differences | R |
| Comes to an honest burgher's honest home | Z |
| As a most honest friend | Q |
| - | |
| And yet my Lord | Q |
| I fear I am too bold Some other night | Q |
| We trust that you will come here as a friend | Q |
| To night you come to buy my merchandise | R |
| Is it not so Silks velvets what you will | A2 |
| I doubt not but I have some dainty wares | R |
| Will woo your fancy True the hour is late | Q |
| But we poor merchants toil both night and day | R |
| To make our scanty gains The tolls are high | T |
| And every city levies its own toll | B2 |
| And prentices are unskilful and wives even | C2 |
| Lack sense and cunning though Bianca here | S |
| Has brought me a rich customer to night | Q |
| Is it not so Bianca But I waste time | D2 |
| Where is my pack Where is my pack I say | R |
| Open it my good wife Unloose the cords | R |
| Kneel down upon the floor You are better so | R |
| Nay not that one the other Despatch despatch | W |
| Buyers will grow impatient oftentimes | R |
| We dare not keep them waiting Ay 'tis that | Q |
| Give it to me with care It is most costly | Q |
| Touch it with care And now my noble Lord | Q |
| Nay pardon I have here a Lucca damask | E2 |
| The very web of silver and the roses | R |
| So cunningly wrought that they lack perfume merely | Q |
| To cheat the wanton sense Touch it my Lord | Q |
| Is it not soft as water strong as steel | F2 |
| And then the roses Are they not finely woven | I |
| I think the hillsides that best love the rose | R |
| At Bellosguardo or at Fiesole | F2 |
| Throw no such blossoms on the lap of spring | H |
| Or if they do their blossoms droop and die | T |
| Such is the fate of all the dainty things | R |
| That dance in wind and water Nature herself | G2 |
| Makes war on her own loveliness and slays | R |
| Her children like Medea Nay but my Lord | Q |
| Look closer still Why in this damask here | S |
| It is summer always and no winter's tooth | H2 |
| Will ever blight these blossoms For every ell | F2 |
| I paid a piece of gold Red gold and good | Q |
| The fruit of careful thrift | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Honest Simone | V |
| Enough I pray you I am well content | Q |
| To morrow I will send my servant to you | U |
| Who will pay twice your price | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE My generous Prince | R |
| I kiss your hands And now I do remember | F |
| Another treasure hidden in my house | R |
| Which you must see It is a robe of state | Q |
| Woven by a Venetian the stuff cut velvet | Q |
| The pattern pomegranates each separate seed | Q |
| Wrought of a pearl the collar all of pearls | R |
| As thick as moths in summer streets at night | Q |
| And whiter than the moons that madmen see | R |
| Through prison bars at morning A male ruby | R |
| Burns like a lighted coal within the clasp | I2 |
| The Holy Father has not such a stone | V |
| Nor could the Indies show a brother to it | Q |
| The brooch itself is of most curious art | Q |
| Cellini never made a fairer thing | H |
| To please the great Lorenzo You must wear it | Q |
| There is none worthier in our city here | S |
| And it will suit you well Upon one side | Q |
| A slim and horned satyr leaps in gold | Q |
| To catch some nymph of silver Upon the other | F |
| Stands Silence with a crystal in her hand | Q |
| No bigger than the smallest ear of corn | J2 |
| That wavers at the passing of a bird | Q |
| And yet so cunningly wrought that one would say | R |
| It breathed or held its breath | K2 |
| - | |
| Worthy Bianca | L2 |
| Would not this noble and most costly robe | M2 |
| Suit young Lord Guido well | F2 |
| - | |
| Nay but entreat him | N |
| He will refuse you nothing though the price | R |
| Be as a prince's ransom And your profit | Q |
| Shall not be less than mine | P |
| - | |
| BIANCA Am I your prentice | R |
| Why should I chaffer for your velvet robe | M2 |
| - | |
| GUIDO Nay fair Bianca I will buy the robe | M2 |
| And all things that the honest merchant has | R |
| I will buy also Princes must be ransomed | Q |
| And fortunate are all high lords who fall | F2 |
| Into the white hands of so fair a foe | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE I stand rebuked But you will buy my wares | R |
| Will you not buy them Fifty thousand crowns | R |
| Would scarce repay me But you my Lord shall have them | N2 |
| For forty thousand Is that price too high | T |
| Name your own price I have a curious fancy | R |
| To see you in this wonder of the loom | O2 |
| Amidst the noble ladies of the court | Q |
| A flower among flowers | R |
| - | |
| They say my lord | Q |
| These highborn dames do so affect your Grace | R |
| That where you go they throng like flies around you | U |
| Each seeking for your favour | F |
| - | |
| I have heard also | R |
| Of husbands that wear horns and wear them bravely | R |
| A fashion most fantastical | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Simone | V |
| Your reckless tongue needs curbing and besides | R |
| You do forget this gracious lady here | F |
| Whose delicate ears are surely not attuned | Q |
| To such coarse music | P2 |
| - | |
| SIMONE True I had forgotten | I |
| Nor will offend again Yet my sweet Lord | Q |
| You'll buy the robe of state Will you not buy it | Q |
| But forty thousand crowns 'tis but a trifle | R |
| To one who is Giovanni Bardi's heir | F |
| - | |
| GUIDO Settle this thing to morrow with my steward | Q |
| Antonio Costa He will come to you | U |
| And you shall have a hundred thousand crowns | R |
| If that will serve your purpose | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE A hundred thousand | Q |
| Said you a hundred thousand Oh be sure | F |
| That will for all time and in everything | H |
| Make me your debtor Ay from this time forth | Q2 |
| My house with everything my house contains | R |
| Is yours and only yours | R |
| - | |
| A hundred thousand | Q |
| My brain is dazed I shall be richer far | F |
| Than all the other merchants I will buy | T |
| Vineyards and lands and gardens Every loom | O2 |
| From Milan down to Sicily shall be mine | P |
| And mine the pearls that the Arabian seas | R |
| Store in their silent caverns | R |
| - | |
| Generous Prince | R |
| This night shall prove the herald of my love | R2 |
| Which is so great that whatsoe'er you ask | S2 |
| It will not be denied you | U |
| - | |
| GUIDO What if I asked | Q |
| For white Bianca here | F |
| - | |
| SIMONE You jest my Lord | Q |
| She is not worthy of so great a Prince | R |
| She is but made to keep the house and spin | C2 |
| Is it not so good wife It is so Look | T2 |
| Your distaff waits for you Sit down and spin | C2 |
| Women should not be idle in their homes | R |
| For idle fingers make a thoughtless heart | Q |
| Sit down I say | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA What shall I spin | C2 |
| - | |
| SIMONE Oh spin | C2 |
| Some robe which dyed in purple sorrow might wear | F |
| For her own comforting or some long fringed cloth | U2 |
| In which a new born and unwelcome babe | V2 |
| Might wail unheeded or a dainty sheet | Q |
| Which delicately perfumed with sweet herbs | R |
| Might serve to wrap a dead man Spin what you will | R |
| I care not I | T |
| - | |
| BIANCA The brittle thread is broken | I |
| The dull wheel wearies of its ceaseless round | Q |
| The duller distaff sickens of its load | Q |
| I will not spin to night | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE It matters not | Q |
| To morrow you shall spin and every day | R |
| Shall find you at your distaff So Lucretia | L2 |
| Was found by Tarquin So perchance Lucretia | L2 |
| Waited for Tarquin Who knows I have heard | Q |
| Strange things about men's wives And now my lord | Q |
| What news abroad I heard to day at Pisa | L2 |
| That certain of the English merchants there | F |
| Would sell their woollens at a lower rate | Q |
| Than the just laws allow and have entreated | Q |
| The Signory to hear them | N2 |
| - | |
| Is this well | R |
| Should merchant be to merchant as a wolf | W2 |
| And should the stranger living in our land | Q |
| Seek by enforced privilege or craft | Q |
| To rob us of our profits | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO What should I do | Q |
| With merchants or their profits Shall I go | R |
| And wrangle with the Signory on your count | Q |
| And wear the gown in which you buy from fools | R |
| Or sell to sillier bidders Honest Simone | V |
| Wool selling or wool gathering is for you | Q |
| My wits have other quarries | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA Noble Lord | Q |
| I pray you pardon my good husband here | F |
| His soul stands ever in the market place | R |
| And his heart beats but at the price of wool | R |
| Yet he is honest in his common way | R |
| To Simone | V |
| And you have you no shame A gracious Prince | R |
| Comes to our house and you must weary him | N |
| With most misplaced assurance Ask his pardon | I |
| - | |
| SIMONE I ask it humbly We will talk to night | Q |
| Of other things I hear the Holy Father | F |
| Has sent a letter to the King of France | R |
| Bidding him cross that shield of snow the Alps | R |
| And make a peace in Italy which will be | R |
| Worse than a war of brothers and more bloody | R |
| Than civil rapine or intestine feuds | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Oh we are weary of that King of France | R |
| Who never comes but ever talks of coming | H |
| What are these things to me There are other things | R |
| Closer and of more import good Simone | V |
| - | |
| BIANCA To Simone I think you tire our most gracious guest | Q |
| What is the King of France to us As much | W |
| As are your English merchants with their wool | R |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| SIMONE Is it so then Is all this mighty world | Q |
| Narrowed into the confines of this room | O2 |
| With but three souls for poor inhabitants | R |
| Ay there are times when the great universe | R |
| Like cloth in some unskilful dyer's vat | Q |
| Shrivels into a handbreadth and perchance | R |
| That time is now Well let that time be now | X2 |
| Let this mean room be as that mighty stage | Y2 |
| Whereon kings die and our ignoble lives | R |
| Become the stakes God plays for | F |
| - | |
| I do not know | R |
| Why I speak thus My ride has wearied me | R |
| And my horse stumbled thrice which is an omen | I |
| That bodes not good to any | R |
| - | |
| Alas my lord | Q |
| How poor a bargain is this life of man | Z2 |
| And in how mean a market are we sold | Q |
| When we are born our mothers weep but when | A3 |
| We die there is none weeps for us No not one | I |
| Passes to back of stage | Y2 |
| - | |
| BIANCA How like a common chapman does he speak | B3 |
| I hate him soul and body Cowardice | R |
| Has set her pale seal on his brow His hands | R |
| Whiter than poplar leaves in windy springs | R |
| Shake with some palsy and his stammering mouth | C3 |
| Blurts out a foolish froth of empty words | R |
| Like water from a conduit | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Sweet Bianca | L2 |
| He is not worthy of your thought or mine | P |
| The man is but a very honest knave | D3 |
| Full of fine phrases for life's merchandise | R |
| Selling most dear what he must hold most cheap | E3 |
| A windy brawler in a world of words | R |
| I never met so eloquent a fool | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA Oh would that Death might take him where he stands | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE turning round Who spake of Death Let no one speak of Death | K2 |
| What should Death do in such a merry house | R |
| With but a wife a husband and a friend | Q |
| To give it greeting Let Death go to houses | R |
| Where there are vile adulterous things chaste wives | R |
| Who growing weary of their noble lords | R |
| Draw back the curtains of their marriage beds | R |
| And in polluted and dishonoured sheets | R |
| Feed some unlawful lust Ay 'tis so | R |
| Strange and yet so YOU do not know the world | Q |
| YOU are too single and too honourable | R |
| I know it well And would it were not so | R |
| But wisdom comes with winters My hair grows grey | R |
| And youth has left my body Enough of that | Q |
| To night is ripe for pleasure and indeed | Q |
| I would be merry as beseems a host | Q |
| Who finds a gracious and unlooked for guest | Q |
| Waiting to greet him Takes up a lute | Q |
| But what is this my lord | Q |
| Why you have brought a lute to play to us | R |
| Oh play sweet Prince And if I am too bold | Q |
| Pardon but play | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO I will not play to night | Q |
| Some other night Simone | V |
| - | |
| To Bianca You and I | T |
| Together with no listeners but the stars | R |
| Or the more jealous moon | K |
| - | |
| SIMONE Nay but my lord | Q |
| Nay but I do beseech you For I have heard | Q |
| That by the simple fingering of a string | H |
| Or delicate breath breathed along hollowed reeds | R |
| Or blown into cold mouths of cunning bronze | R |
| Those who are curious in this art can draw | F |
| Poor souls from prison houses I have heard also | R |
| How such strange magic lurks within these shells | R |
| That at their bidding casements open wide | Q |
| And Innocence puts vine leaves in her hair | F |
| And wantons like a maenad Let that pass | R |
| Your lute I know is chaste And therefore play | R |
| Ravish my ears with some sweet melody | R |
| My soul is in a prison house and needs | R |
| Music to cure its madness Good Bianca | L2 |
| Entreat our guest to play | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA Be not afraid | Q |
| Our well loved guest will choose his place and moment | Q |
| That moment is not now You weary him | N |
| With your uncouth insistence | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Honest Simone | V |
| Some other night To night I am content | Q |
| With the low music of Bianca's voice | R |
| Who when she speaks charms the too amorous air | F |
| And makes the reeling earth stand still or fix | R |
| His cycle round her beauty | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE You flatter her | F |
| She has her virtues as most women have | F3 |
| But beauty in a gem she may not wear | F |
| It is better so perchance | R |
| - | |
| Well my dear lord | Q |
| If you will not draw melodies from your lute | Q |
| To charm my moody and o'er troubled soul | R |
| You'll drink with me at least | Q |
| - | |
| Motioning Guido to his own place | R |
| - | |
| Your place is laid | Q |
| Fetch me a stool Bianca Close the shutters | R |
| Set the great bar across I would not have | F3 |
| The curious world with its small prying eyes | R |
| To peer upon our pleasure | F |
| - | |
| Now my lord | Q |
| Give us a toast from a full brimming cup | G3 |
| Starts back | H3 |
| What is this stain upon the cloth It looks | R |
| As purple as a wound upon Christ's side | Q |
| Wine merely is it I have heard it said | Q |
| When wine is spilt blood is spilt also | R |
| But that's a foolish tale | R |
| - | |
| My lord I trust | Q |
| My grape is to your liking The wine of Naples | R |
| Is fiery like its mountains Our Tuscan vineyards | R |
| Yield a more wholesome juice | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO I like it well | R |
| Honest Simone and with your good leave | I3 |
| Will toast the fair Bianca when her lips | R |
| Have like red rose leaves floated on this cup | G3 |
| And left its vintage sweeter Taste Bianca | L2 |
| - | |
| BIANCA drinks | R |
| - | |
| Oh all the honey of Hyblean bees | R |
| Matched with this draught were bitter | F |
| Good Simone | V |
| You do not share the feast | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE It is strange my lord | Q |
| I cannot eat or drink with you to night | Q |
| Some humour or some fever in my blood | Q |
| At other seasons temperate or some thought | Q |
| That like an adder creeps from point to point | Q |
| That like a madman crawls from cell to cell | R |
| Poisons my palate and makes appetite | Q |
| A loathing not a longing | H |
| Goes aside | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Sweet Bianca | L2 |
| This common chapman wearies me with words | R |
| I must go hence To morrow I will come | J3 |
| Tell me the hour | F |
| - | |
| BIANCA Come with the youngest dawn | K3 |
| Until I see you all my life is vain | L3 |
| - | |
| GUIDO Ah loose the falling midnight of your hair | F |
| And in those stars your eyes let me behold | Q |
| Mine image as in mirrors Dear Bianca | L2 |
| Though it be but a shadow keep me there | F |
| Nor gaze at anything that does not show | R |
| Some symbol of my semblance I am jealous | R |
| Of what your vision feasts on | M3 |
| - | |
| BIANCA Oh be sure | F |
| Your image will be with me always Dear | F |
| Love can translate the very meanest thing | H |
| Into a sign of sweet remembrances | R |
| But come before the lark with its shrill song | N3 |
| Has waked a world of dreamers I will stand | Q |
| Upon the balcony | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO And by a ladder | F |
| Wrought out of scarlet silk and sewn with pearls | R |
| Will come to meet me White foot after foot | Q |
| Like snow upon a rose tree | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA As you will | R |
| You know that I am yours for love or Death | K2 |
| - | |
| GUIDO Simone I must go to mine own house | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE So soon Why should you The great Duomo's bell | R |
| Has not yet tolled its midnight and the watchmen | A3 |
| Who with their hollow horns mock the pale moon | K |
| Lie drowsy in their towers Stay awhile | R |
| I fear we may not see you here again | A3 |
| And that fear saddens my too simple heart | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Be not afraid Simone I will stand | Q |
| Most constant in my friendship But to night | Q |
| I go to mine own home and that at once | R |
| To morrow sweet Bianca | L2 |
| - | |
| SIMONE Well well so be it | Q |
| I would have wished for fuller converse with you | Q |
| My new friend my honourable guest | Q |
| But that it seems may not be | R |
| - | |
| And besides | R |
| I do not doubt your father waits for you | Q |
| Wearying for voice or footstep You I think | O3 |
| Are his one child He has no other child | Q |
| You are the gracious pillar of his house | R |
| The flower of a garden full of weeds | R |
| Your father's nephews do not love him well | R |
| So run folks' tongues in Florence I meant but that | Q |
| Men say they envy your inheritance | R |
| And look upon your vineyards with fierce eyes | R |
| As Ahab looked on Naboth's goodly field | Q |
| But that is but the chatter of a town | P3 |
| Where women talk too much | W |
| - | |
| Good night my lord | Q |
| Fetch a pine torch Bianca The old staircase | R |
| Is full of pitfalls and the churlish moon | K |
| Grows like a miser niggard of her beams | R |
| And hides her face behind a muslin mask | S2 |
| As harlots do when they go forth to snare | F |
| Some wretched soul in sin Now I will get | Q |
| Your cloak and sword Nay pardon my good Lord | Q |
| It is but meet that I should wait on you | Q |
| Who have so honoured my poor burgher's house | R |
| Drunk of my wine and broken bread and made | Q |
| Yourself a sweet familiar Oftentimes | R |
| My wife and I will talk of this fair night | Q |
| And its great issues | R |
| - | |
| Why what a sword is this | R |
| Ferrara's temper pliant as a snake | Q3 |
| And deadlier I doubt not With such steel | R |
| One need fear nothing in the moil of life | D |
| I never touched so delicate a blade | Q |
| I have a sword too somewhat rusted now | X2 |
| We men of peace are taught humility | R |
| And to bear many burdens on our backs | R |
| And not to murmur at an unjust world | Q |
| And to endure unjust indignities | R |
| We are taught that and like the patient Jew | Q |
| Find profit in our pain | L3 |
| - | |
| Yet I remember | F |
| How once upon the road to Padua | L2 |
| A robber sought to take my pack horse from me | R |
| I slit his throat and left him I can bear | F |
| Dishonour public insult many shames | R |
| Shrill scorn and open contumely but he | R |
| Who filches from me something that is mine | P |
| Ay though it be the meanest trencher plate | Q |
| From which I feed mine appetite oh he | R |
| Perils his soul and body in the theft | Q |
| And dies for his small sin From what strange clay | R |
| We men are moulded | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Why do you speak like this | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE I wonder my Lord Guido if my sword | Q |
| Is better tempered than this steel of yours | R |
| Shall we make trial Or is my state too low | R |
| For you to cross your rapier against mine | P |
| In jest or earnest | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Naught would please me better | F |
| Than to stand fronting you with naked blade | Q |
| In jest or earnest Give me mine own sword | Q |
| Fetch yours To night will settle the great issue | Q |
| Whether the Prince's or the merchant's steel | R |
| Is better tempered Was not that your word | Q |
| Fetch your own sword Why do you tarry sir | F |
| - | |
| SIMONE My lord of all the gracious courtesies | R |
| That you have showered on my barren house | R |
| This is the highest | Q |
| - | |
| Bianca fetch my sword | Q |
| Thrust back that stool and table We must have | F3 |
| An open circle for our match at arms | R |
| And good Bianca here shall hold the torch | W |
| Lest what is but a jest grow serious | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA To Guido Oh kill him kill him | N |
| - | |
| SIMONE Hold the torch Bianca | L2 |
| They begin to fight | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE Have at you Ah Ha would you | Q |
| - | |
| He is wounded by GUIDO | R |
| - | |
| A scratch no more The torch was in mine eyes | R |
| Do not look sad Bianca It is nothing | H |
| Your husband bleeds 'tis nothing Take a cloth | U2 |
| Bind it about mine arm Nay not so tight | Q |
| More softly my good wife And be not sad | Q |
| I pray you be not sad No take it off | R3 |
| What matter if I bleed Tears bandage off | R3 |
| - | |
| Again again | A3 |
| Simone disarms Guido | R |
| My gentle Lord you see that I was right | Q |
| My sword is better tempered finer steel | R |
| But let us match our daggers | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA to Guido | R |
| Kill him kill him | N |
| - | |
| SIMONE Put out the torch Bianca | L2 |
| - | |
| Bianca puts out torch | W |
| - | |
| Now my good Lord | Q |
| Now to the death of one or both of us | R |
| Or all three it may be They fight | Q |
| - | |
| There and there | F |
| Ah devil do I hold thee in my grip | S3 |
| Simone overpowers Guido and throws him down over table | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Fool take your strangling fingers from my throat | Q |
| I am my father's only son the State | Q |
| Has but one heir and that false enemy France | R |
| Waits for the ending of my father's line | P |
| To fall upon our city | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE Hush your father | F |
| When he is childless will be happier | F |
| As for the State I think our state of Florence | R |
| Needs no adulterous pilot at its helm | T3 |
| Your life would soil its lilies | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Take off your hands | R |
| Take off your damned hands Loose me I say | R |
| - | |
| SIMONE Nay you are caught in such a cunning vice | R |
| That nothing will avail you and your life | D |
| Narrowed into a single point of shame | U3 |
| Ends with that shame and ends most shamefully | R |
| - | |
| GUIDO Oh let me have a priest before I die | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE What wouldst thou have a priest for Tell thy sins | R |
| To God whom thou shalt see this very night | Q |
| And then no more for ever Tell thy sins | R |
| To Him who is most just being pitiless | R |
| Most pitiful being just As for myself | G2 |
| - | |
| GUIDO Oh help me sweet Bianca help me Bianca | L2 |
| Thou knowest I am innocent of harm | V3 |
| - | |
| SIMONE What is there life yet in those lying lips | R |
| Die like a dog with lolling tongue Die Die | Q |
| And the dumb river shall receive your corse | R |
| And wash it all unheeded to the sea | Q |
| - | |
| GUIDO Lord Christ receive my wretched soul to night | Q |
| - | |
| SIMONE Amen to that Now for the other | F |
| - | |
| He dies Simone rises and looks at Bianca She comes towards him as one dazed with wonder and with outstretched arms | R |
| - | |
| BIANCA Why | Q |
| Did you not tell me you were so strong | N3 |
| - | |
| SIMONE Why | Q |
| Did you not tell me you were beautiful | R |
| - | |
| He kisses her on the mouth | C3 |
| - | |
| CURTAIN | I |
Oscar Fingal O'flahertie Wills Wilde
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