« O woman, thou sayest a word exceeding grievous to me !
Who hath otherwhere shifted my bedstead ? Full hard
for him should it be,
For deft as he were, unless soothly a very God come
here,
who easily, if he willed it, might shift it otherwhere.
But no mortal man is living, how strong so e’er in his
youth,
who shall lightly hale it elsewhere, since a mighty wonder
forsooth
is wrought in that fashioned bedstead, and I wrought
it, and I alone.
In the close grew a thicket of olive, a long-leaved tree
full-grown,
that flourished and grew goodly as big as a pillar about,
So round it I built my bride-room, till I did the work
right out
with ashlar stone close-fitting ; and I roofed it overhead,
and thereto joined doors I made me, well fitting in their
stead.
Then I lopped away the boughs of the long-leafed olive-tree,
and shearing the bole from the root up full well and cunningly,
I planed it about with the brass, and set the rule thereto,
and shaping thereof a bed-post, with the wimble I bored
it through.
So beginning, I wrought out the bedstead, and finished
it utterly,
and with gold enwrought it about, and with silver and
ivory,
and stretched on it a thong of oxhide, with the purple
made bright.
Thus then the sign I have shown thee ; nor, woman, know
I aright
If my bed yet bideth steadfast, or if to another place
Some man hath moved it, and smitten the olive-bole
from its base. »
Page:Wilde - Derniers essais de littérature et d’esthétique, 1913.djvu/71
Apparence
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