"My Last Duchess" by Robert Browning (read by Ralph Cotterill)

Описание: Veteran Royal Shakespeare Company-trained actor Ralph Cotterill gives an inspired interpretation of "My Last Duchess" -- one of Robert Browning's most brilliant and intriguing poems.

The poem is set during the late Italian Renaissance. The speaker is giving the emissary of the family of his prospective new wife a tour of the artworks in his home. He draws a curtain to reveal a painting of a woman, explaining that it is a portrait of his former wife; he invites his guest to sit and look at the painting. As they look at the portrait of the last Duchess, the Duke describes her happy, cheerful and flirtatious nature, which had displeased him. He keeps her painting hidden behind a curtain that only he is allowed to draw back, meaning that now she only smiles for him.

Throughout the poem, the Duke imparts an air of pompous pride, eventually revealing some deeper, darker feelings towards his former wife's ingenuous impropriety. He thought it beneath his dignity to try to influence her -- far easier to be rid of her (although her ultimate "end" is never stated).

The poem is steeped in aristocratic hubris. Here is a Duke who likes to show off his ownership of beautiful things. Unlike the inanimate artworks that surround him, he was unable to own his former wife. So, before giving "commands", he commissions a portrait of her in all her blushing beauty -- an artwork he can show off at his discretion.

At the end of the poem, in a gesture of discernible irony, the Duke diverts the emissary's attention to one of his favourite pieces: a rare statue of Neptune taming a seahorse, which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for him.

Music: "La Plus des Plus" by Josquin Des Prez, performed by Ensemble Leones and directed by Marc Lewon... Renaissance chamber music.