Your Last Duchess
I never really
knew much about you until the day my father came in to my room and told me,
that he had promised me away to a very fortuned man. It turned out to be you,
Duke of Ferrara, the man who had everything except for love. I therefore
believed, that the reason I had been promised to you by my father was because
you had your best interest for me. When I first met you I saw the good side of
you, the side that made you look like a charming and loving man. But little did
I know, all of my illusions took a drastic turn, and I no longer saw that side
of you. You couldn’t bear with my happiness or the kindness I gave to someone
other than you. I told myself that it would all be good again and that you
would be good and kind to me like the first time I met you, but instead you
made your good side fade far away. You became obsessed with me and never left
me out of your side. I was now a prisoner in our home and you made me feel like
property, like someone who had been given to you in exchange for money. A woman
of pride and joy was I, until jalousie was the only thing I saw in you. By the
time you read this letter I will be forever gone and wish to never see you again,
and the only thing that will be left of me is the painting in your gallery,
that Panadol has painted of me behind the curtains with all your other duchesses.
Your Last Duchess.
This is really good! I think it was a great response to elaborate on what happened to the last duchess, after the information given in the original poem, through a letter written by herself.
ReplyDeleteWe do get most of the elements of the original story, here from the Last Duchess' point of view. Of course, it is a little hard to get in there the negotiations for the next Duchess, but as a sort of hint at the Duke's serial marriage habit, we do get an effective punch line to that effect at the very end...
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