Be well that lie were won: I needs must hope That Israel Bertuccio has secured him,

"But fain would be———

Pie.

My lord, pray pardon me For breaking in upon your meditation; The Senator, Bertuccio your kinsman, Charged me to follow and inquire your pleasure To fix an hour when ne may speak with you. Doge. At sunset.-Stay a moment-let me see→ Say in the second hour of night. [Exit Pietro. My lord!

Ang. Doge. My dearest child, forgive me-why delay So long approaching me?-I saw you not.

Ang. You were absorb'd in thought, and he who

now

Has parted from you might have words of weight To bear you from the senate.

Doge. From the senate? Ang. I would not interrupt him in his duty And theirs.

Doge.

The senate's duty! you mistake;

'Tis we who owe all service to the senate.

Ang. I thought the Duke had held command in Venice.

Doge. He shall.-But let that pass.-We will be jocund.

How fares it with you I have you been abroad?
The day is overcast, but the calm wave
Favours the gondolier's light skimming oar;
Or have you held a levee of your friends?
Or has your music made you solitary?
Say-is there aught that you would will within
The little sway now left the 'Duke? or aught
Of fitting splendour, or of honest pleasure,
Social or lonely, that would glad your heart,
To compensate for many a dull hour, wasted
On an old man oft moved with many cares?
Speak, and 'tis done.

Ang.

You're ever kind to me.

Doge. 'Tis nothing, child.-But in the state You know what daily cares oppress all those Who govern this precarious commonwealth; Now suffering from the Genoese without, And malcontents within-'tis this which makes me More pensive and less tranquil than my wont.

Ang. Yet this existed long before, and never Till in these late days did I see you thus. Forgive me; there is something at your heart More than the mere discharge of public duties, Which long use and a talent like to yours Have render'd light, nay, a necessity, To keep your mind from stagnating. 'Tis not

In hostile states, nor perils, thus to shake you,
You, who have stood all storms and never sunk,
And climb'd up to the pinnacle of power
And never fainted by the way, and stand
Upon it, and can look down steadily
Along the depth beneath, and ne'er feel dizzy.
Were Genoa's galleys riding in the port,
Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's,
You are not to be wrought on, but would fall,
As you have risen, with an unalter'd brow:
Your feelings now are of a different kind;
Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.
Doge. Pridel Angiolina? Alas! none is left me.
Ang. Yes-the same sin that overthrew the angels,
And of all sins most easily besets

Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:
The vile are only vain; the great are proud.
Doge. I had the pride of honour, of your honour,
Deep at my heart-But iet us change the theme.
Ang. Ah no!-As I have ever shared your kind-

Doge. Enough!-yes, for a drunken galley slave, Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at his master; But not for a deliberate, false, cool villain, Who stains a lady's and a prince's honour Even on the throne of his authority.

Ang. There seems to me enough in the conviction Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood: All other punishment were light unto His loss of honour. Doge. Such men have no honour; They have but their vile lives-and these are spared. Ang. You would not have him die for this offence? Doge. Not now:-being still alive, I'd have him live

'Long as he can; he has ceased to merit death; The guilty saved hath damn'd his hundred judges, And he is puré, for now his crime is theirs.

Ang. Oh! had this false and flippant libeller Shed his young blood for his absurd lampoon, Ne'er from that moment could this breast have known A joyous hour, or dreamless slumber more.

Doge. Does not the law of heaven say blood for blood?

And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it,
Is it the pain of blows, or shame of blows,
That makes such deadly to the sense of man?
Do not the laws of man say blood for honour,→→
And, less than honour, for a little gold?
Say not the laws of nations blood for treason?

Is't nothing to have fill'd these veins with poison
For their once healthful current? is it nothing

To have stain'd your name and mine-the noblest names?

Is't nothing to have brought into contempt
A prince before his people? to have fail'd
In the respect accorded by mankind

To youth in woman, and old age in man?
To virtue in your sex, and dignity

In ours? But let them look to it who have saved him.
Ang. Heaven bids us to forgive our enemies.
Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is Satan
saved

From wrath eternal?
Ang.
Do not speak thus wildly-
Heaven will alike forgive you and your foes.
Doge. Amen! May Heaven forgive them!
Ang.

And will you?

Doge. Yes, when they are in heaven! Ang. And not till then? Doge. What matters my forgiveness? an old man's, Worn out, scorn'd, spurn'd, abused; what matters then

My pardon more than my resentment, both

Being weak and worthless? I have lived too long;
But let us change the argument. My child!
My injured wife, the child of Loredano,
The brave, the chivalrous, how little deem'd
Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend,
That he was linking thee to shame!—Alas!
Shame without sin, for thou art faultless. Hadst thou
But had a different husband, any husband
In Venice save the Doge, this blight, this brand,
This blasphemy had never fallen upon thee.
So young, so beautiful, so good, so pure,
To suffer this, and yet be unavenged!

Thus,

If my young heart held any preference
Which would have made me happier; nor your offer
To make my dowry equal to the rank
Of aught in Venice, and forego all claim
My father's last injunction gave you.
Doge.
'Twas not a foolish dotard's vile caprice,
Nor the false edge of aged appetite,
Which made me covetous of girlish beauty,
And a young bride: for in my fieriest youth
I sway'd such passions; nor was this my age
Infected with that leprosy of lust

Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men,
Making them ransack to the very last
The dregs of pleasure for their vanish'd joys;
Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim,
Too helpless to refuse a state that's honest,
Too feeling not to know herself a wretch.
Our wedlock was not of this sort; you had
Freedom from me to choose, and urged in answer
Your father's choice.

Ang.
I did so; I would do so
In face of earth and heaven; for I have never
Repented for my sake; sometimes for yours,
In pondering o'er your late disquietudes.
Doge. I knew my heart would never treat you
harshly;

I knew my days could not disturb you long;
And then the daughter of my earliest friend,
His worthy daughter, free to choose again,
Wealthier and wiser, in the ripest bloom
Of womanhood, more skilful to select
By passing these probationary years,
Inheriting a prince's name and riches,
Secured, by the short penance of enduring
An old man for some summers, against all

And trust, and honour me; and all men know That you are just, and I am true: what more Could I require, or you command?

'Tis well,

Doge.
And may be better; but whate'er betide,
Be thou at least kind to my memory.
Ang. Why speak you thus ?
Doge.
It is no matter why!
But I would still, whatever others think,
Have your respect both now and in my grave.
Ang. Why should you doubt it? has it ever fail'd?
Doge. Come hither, child; I would a word with
you.

Your father was my friend; unequal fortune
Made him my debtor for some courtesies
Which bind the good more firmly: when, oppress'd
With his last malady, he will'd our union!
It was not to repay me, long repaid
Before by his great loyalty in friendship;
His object was to place your orphan beauty
In honourable safety from the perils
Which, in this scorpion nest of vice, assail
A lonely and undower'd maid. I did not
Think with him, but would not oppose the thought
Which soothed his death-bed.

Ang.
I have not forgotten
The nobleness with which you bade me speak

Have urged against her right; my best friend's child Would choose more fitly in respect of years,

And not less truly in a faithful heart.

Ang. My lord, I look'd but to my father's wishes, Hallow'd by his last words, and to my heart For doing all its duties, and replying

With faith to him with whom I was affianced. Ambitious hopes ne'er cross'd my dreams; and should

The hour you speak of come, it will be seen so.
Doge. I do believe you; and I know you true:
For love, romantic love, which in my youth
I knew to be illusion, and ne'er saw
Lasting, but often fatal, it had been
No lure for me, in my most passionate days,
And could not be so now, did such exist.
But such respect, and mildly paid regard
As a true feeling for your welfare, and
A free compliance with all honest wishes,-

A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness
Not shown, but shadowing o'er such little failings
As youth is apt in, so as not to check
Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew
You had been won, but thought the change your
choice;

A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct;
A trust in you; a patriarchal love,

you

To your belief in Heaven-to your mild virtues

To your own faith and honour, for my own.

(Who first insulted virgin modesty

By a gross affront to your attendant damsels Amidst the noblest of our dames in public)

Which I have never for one moment ceased

To honour you the more for.

Where is honour,

Doge.
Innate and precept-strengthen'd, 'tis the rock
Of faith connubial: where it is not-where
Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities
Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know
'Twere hopeless for humanity to dream
Of honesty in such infected blood,
Although 'twere wed to him it covets most:
An incarnation of the poet's god
In all his marble-chisell'd beauty, or
The demi-deity, Alcides, in

His majesty of superhuman manhood,
Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not;
It is consistency which forms and proves it:
Vice cannot fix, and virtue cannot change.
The once fall'n woman must for ever fall;
For vice must have variety, while virtue
Stands like the sun, and all which rolls around
Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.
Ang. And seeing, feeling thus this truth in
others,

(I pray you pardon me ;) but wherefore yield you
To the most fierce of fatal passions, and e
Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate
On such a thing as Steno?

Doge. I have thought on't till-but let me lead you back

To what I urged; all these things being noted,

I wedded you; the world then did me justice
Upon the motive, and my conduct proved cent
They did me right, while yours was all to praise:
You had all freedom, all respect, all trust m пі
From me and mine; and, born of those who made
Princes at hoine, and swept kings from their thrones
On foreign shores, in all things you appear'd
Worthy to be our first of native dames. afgr son of

By blackening publicly his sovereign's consort, And be absolved by his upright compeers.

12

Ang. But he has been condemned into captivity. Doge. For such as him a dungeon were acquittal; And his brief term of mock-arrest will pass Within a palace. But I've done with him ; The rest must be with you.

I

Ang. My lord, in life, and after life, you shall Be honour'd still by me: but may your days Be many yet-and happier than the present! This passion will give way, and you will be Serene, and what you should be-what you were. Doge. I will be what I should be, or be nothing; But never more-oh! never, never more, O'er the few days or hours which yet await The blighted old age of Faliero, shall Sweet quiet shed her sunset! Never more, Those summer shadows rising from the past Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life, Mellowing the last hours as the night approaches, Shall soothe me to my moment of long rest. A I had but little more to ask, or hope, Save the regards due to the blood and sweat, And the soul's labour through which I had toil'd To make my country honour'd. As her servant→ Her servant, though her chief-I would have gone Down to my fathers with a name serene Land 42 And pure as theirs; but this has been denied me.Would I had died at Zara!

Ang.

A

The state; then live to save her still. A day,
Another day like that would be the best
Reproof to them, and sole revenge for you.
Doge. But one such day occurs within an age; M
My life is little less than one, and 'tis
Enough for Fortune to have granted once, ale pr2
That which scarce one more favour'd' citizent
May win in many states and years. But why 70H
Thus speak I? Venice has forgot that day-n dɔnë
Then why should I remember it ?-Farewell, was duft
1573 7463

Now darkling in their close toward the deep vale
Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping shadow.
When I am gone-it may be sooner than
Even these years warrant, for there is that stirring
Within, above, around, that in this city
Will make the cemeteries populous

As e'er they were by pestilence or war,-
When I am nothing, let that which I was
Be still sometimes a name on thy sweet lips,
A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing

Which would not have thee mourn it, but remember
Let us begone, my child-the time is pressing.

[Exeunt, SCENE 11.-A retired spot near the Arsenal. Israel Bertuccio and Philip Calendaro. Cal. How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint? 1. Ber. Why, well. Cal.

1. Ber.

Iş't possible! will he be punish'd? I

Cal. With what? a mulct or on arrest? I. Ber.

Yes.

With death,

Cal. Now you rave, or must intend revenge, Such as I counsell'd you, with your own hand.

.

I. Ber. Yes; and for one sole draught of hate forego

The great redress we meditate for Venice,

And change a life of hope for one of exile;

Had I been precisa present when you

bore this insult,

I must have slain him, or expired myself In the vain effort to repress my wrath.

1. Ber. Thank Heaven you were not all had else

It lull'd suspicion, showing confidence. Had I been silent, not a sbirro but. Had kept me in his eye, as meditating A silent, solitary, deep revenge,.,

At least,

Cal. But wherefore not address, you to the Councilere

The Doge is a mere puppet, who can scarce
Obtain right for himself, Why speak to him?
I. Ber. You shall know that hereafter.
Cal.

Why not now? I. Ber. Be patient but till midnight. Get your musters, horaires

And bid our friends prepare, their companies:
Set all in readiness to strike the blow,
Perhaps in a few hours; we have long waited
For a fit time-that hour is on the dial,
It may be, of to-morrow's sun: delay
Beyond may breed us double danger. See
That all be punctual at our place of meeting,
And arm'd, excepting those of the Sixteen,
Who will remain among the troops to wait
The signal.

Cal. These brave words have breathed new life
Into my veins; I'm sick of these protracted
And hesitating councils: day on day

Crawl'd on, and added but another link
To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong
Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves,
Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength.
Let us but deal upon them, and I care not
For the result, which must be death or freedom:
I'm weary to the heart of finding neither.

I. Ber. We will be free in life or death! the grave
Is chainless. Have you all the musters ready?
And are the sixteen companies completed
To sixty?

Cal.

All save two, in which there are Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.

I. Ber. No matter; we can do without, Whose are they?

Cal. Bertram's and old Soranzo's, both of whom

1. Ber. Your fiery nature makes you deem all those

Who are not restless cold: but there exists
Oft in concentrated spirits not less daring
Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them.
Cal. I do not doubt the elder; but in Bertram
There is a hesitating softness, fatal

To enterprise like ours: I've seen that man
Weep like an infant o'er the misery

Of others, heedless of his own, though greater;
And in a recent quarrel I beheld him

Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's.

I. Ber. The truly brave are soft of heart and eye And feel for what their duty bids them do.

Cal. All who were deem'd trustworthy; there are

some

In a great cause: the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls-
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom. What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson-
A name which is a virtue, and a soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turns servile. He and his high friend were styled
'The last of Romans ! Let us be the first
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires.
Cal. Our fathers did not fly from Attila
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung
Dn banks redeem'd from the rude ocean's ooze,
To own a thousand despots in his place.
Better bow down before the Hun, and call

A Tartar lord, than these swoln silkworms masters!
The first at least was man, and used his sword
As sceptre these unmanly creeping things
Command our swords, and rule us with a word
As with a spell.

I. Ber.

It shall be broken soon. You say that all things are in readiness; To-day I have not been the usual round, And why thou knowest; but thy vigilance Will better have supplied my care: these orders In recent council to redouble now Our efforts to repair the galeys, have Lent a fair colour to the introduction" Of many of our cause into the arsenal, As hew artificers for their equipment, Or fresh recruits obtained in haste to man

The hoped for fleet.-Are all supplied with arms?

But needs must on with those who will surround them.

I. Ber. You have said well. Have you remark'd all such?

Cal. I've noted most; and caused the other chiefs

To use like caution in their companies.
As far as I have seen, we are enough,

To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis
Commenced to-morrow; but, till 'tis begun,
Each hour is pregnant with a thousand perils.

1

I. Ber. Let the Sixteen meet at the wonted hour, Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo,

And Marco Giuda, who will keep their watch.
Within the arsenal, and hold all ready,

Expectant of the signal we will fix on. 1

Cal. We will not fail.

Although a child of greatness; he is one

Who would become a throne, or overthrow oneOne who has done, great deeds, and seen great changes;

No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny;
Valiant in war, and sage in council: noble
In nature, although haughty; quick, yet wary:
Yet for all this, so full of certain passions,
That if once stirr'd and baffled, as he has been
Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury
In Grecian story like to that which wrings
His vitals with her burning hands, till he
Grows capable of all things for revenge;
And add too, that his mind is liberal,
He sees and feels the people are oppress'd,
And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all,
We have need of such, and such have need of us.
Cal. And what part would you have him take
with us?

1. Ber. It may be, that of chief,

Cal.

Your own command as leader?

1. Ber.

What! and resign

Even so.

My object is to make your cause end well,