The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 5 THE TWO FOSCARI- Act 2 by Lord Byron Lyrics
The Doge And A Senator
Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the report
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow?
Doge.Now;
I overlooked it yesterday: it wants
Merely the signature. Give me the pen—
[The Doge sits down and signs the paper.
There, Signor.
Sen. (looking at the paper). You have forgot; it is not signed.
Doge. Not signed? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin
To wax more weak with age. I did not see
That I had dipped the pen without effect.[bb]
Sen. (dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the paper
before the Doge). Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord: allow me, thus—
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you.
Sen.Thus the act confirmed
By you and by "the Ten" gives peace to Venice.
Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoyed it: may it be
As long ere she resume her arms!
Sen.'Tis almost
Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare[138]
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy;
The state had need of some repose.
Doge.No doubt:
I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her
Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort[bc]
That I have added to her diadem
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; Crema[50]
And Bergamo no less are hers; her realm
By land has grown by thus much in my reign,
While her sea-sway has not shrunk.
Sen.'Tis most true,
And merits all our country's gratitude.
Doge. Perhaps so.
Sen.Which should be made manifest.
Doge. I have not complained, sir.
Sen.My good Lord, forgive me.
Doge. For what?
Sen.My heart bleeds for you.
Doge.For me, Signor?
Sen. And for your——
Doge.Stop!
Sen.It must have way, my Lord:
I have too many duties towards you
And all your house, for past and present kindness,
Not to feel deeply for your son.
Doge.Was this
In your commission?
Sen.What, my Lord?
Doge.This prattle
Of things you know not: but the treaty's signed;
Return with it to them who sent you.
Sen.I
Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council,
That you would fix an hour for their reunion.
Doge. Say, when they will—now, even at this moment,[139]
If it so please them: I am the State's servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall cause
The loss of an hour's time unto the State.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.
[Exit Senator. The Doge remains in silence.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. Prince!
Doge.Say on.
Att.The illustrious lady Foscari
Requests an audience.
Doge.Bid her enter. Poor
Marina!
[Exit Attendant. The Doge remains in silence as before.
Enter Marina.
Mar.I have ventured, father, on
Your privacy.
Doge.I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The State.
Mar.I wished to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband?
Mar.And your son.
Doge.Proceed, my daughter!
Mar. I had obtained permission from "the Ten"
To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.
Doge.You had so.
Mar.'Tis revoked.
Doge.By whom?
Mar. "The Ten."—When we had reached "the Bridge of Sighs,"[51][140]
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurred: a messenger was sent back to
"The Ten;"—but as the Court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that
Until that high tribunal reassembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.
Doge.True,
The form has been omitted in the haste
With which the court adjourned; and till it meets,
'Tis dubious.
Mar.Till it meets! and when it meets,
They'll torture him again; and he and I
Must purchase by renewal of the rack
The interview of husband and of wife,
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens!—Oh God!
Dost thou see this?
Doge.Child—child——
Mar. (abruptly).Call me not "child!"
You soon will have no children—you deserve none—
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son
In circumstances which would call forth tears
Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep
Their boys who died in battle, is it written
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor
Stretched forth a hand to save them?
Doge.You behold me:
I cannot weep—I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth,
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them—I'd give all
For him.
Mar. With less he surely might be saved.
Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me—they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,[141]
And that is—but they have not conquered yet.
Mar. But they have crushed.
Doge.Nor crushed as yet—I live.
Mar. And your son,—how long will he live?
Doge.I trust,
For all that yet is past, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruined all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes—he has quenched them—
He must return.
Mar.To exile?
Doge.I have said it.
Mar. And can I not go with him?
Doge.You well know
This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your Lord renders them still more austere.
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white[bd]
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguished
In their accurséd bosoms.
Doge.You know not——
Mar. I do—I do—and so should you, methinks—
That these are demons: could it be else that
Men, who have been of women born and suckled—
Who have loved, or talked at least of Love—have given
Their hands in sacred vows—have danced their babes
Upon their knees, perhaps have mourned above them—
In pain, in peril, or in death—who are,[142]
Or were, at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself—
You, who abet them?
Doge.I forgive this, for
You know not what you say.
Mar.You know it well,
And feel it nothing.
Doge.I have borne so much,
That words have ceased to shake me.
Mar.Oh, no doubt!
You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh shook not;
And after that, what are a woman's words?
No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.
Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,
Is no more in the balance weighed with that
Which——but I pity thee, my poor Marina!
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity!—'tis a word
Strange to thy heart—how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read——
Mar.'Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,—where then
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?
Doge (pointing downwards). There.
Mar.In the earth?
Doge.To which I am tending: when
It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it
Now, you will know me better.
Mar.Are you, then,
Indeed, thus to be pitied?
Doge.Pitied! None
Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as I have borne it, what it was
When I received it.
Mar.But for the poor children[143]
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.
Doge.Would it were so!
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me.—I have seen our house dishonoured.
Mar. That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppressed but not disgraced, crushed, overwhelmed,
Alive, or dead, for Prince or Paladin
In story or in fable, with a world
To back his suit. Dishonoured!—he dishonoured!
I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonoured;
His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach,
For what he suffers, not for what he did.
'Tis ye who are all traitors, Tyrant!—ye!
Did you but love your Country like this victim
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore
His grace for your enormous guilt.
Doge.He was
Indeed all you have said. I better bore
The deaths of the two sons[52] Heaven took from me,
Than Jacopo's disgrace.
Mar.That word again?
Doge. Has he not been condemned?
Mar.Is none but guilt so?
Doge. Time may restore his memory—I would hope so.
He was my pride, my——but 'tis useless now—
I am not given to tears, but wept for joy
When he was born: those drops were ominous.
Mar. I say he's innocent! And were he not so,
Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us
In fatal moments?
Doge.I shrank not from him:
But I have other duties than a father's;
The state would not dispense me from those duties;[144]
Twice I demanded it, but was refused:[53]
They must then be fulfilled.
Enter an Attendant.
Att.A message from
"The Ten."
Doge.Who bears it?
Att.Noble Loredano.
Doge. He!—but admit him.[Exit Attendant.
Mar.Must I then retire?
Doge. Perhaps it is not requisite, if this
Concerns your husband, and if not——Well, Signor,
[To Loredano entering.
Your pleasure?
Lor.I bear that of "the Ten."
Doge.They
Have chosen well their envoy.
Lor.'Tis their choice
Which leads me here.
Doge.It does their wisdom honour,
And no less to their courtesy.—Proceed.
Lor. We have decided.
Doge.We?
Lor."The Ten" in council.
Doge. What! have they met again, and met without
Apprising me?
Lor.They wished to spare your feelings,
No less than age.
Doge.That's new—when spared they either?
I thank them, notwithstanding.
Lor.You know well
That they have power to act at their discretion,
With or without the presence of the Doge.
Doge. 'Tis some years since I learned this, long before
I became Doge, or dreamed of such advancement.
You need not school me, Signor; I sate in
That Council when you were a young patrician.
Lor. True, in my father's time; I have heard him and[145]
The Admiral, his brother, say as much.
Your Highness may remember them; they both
Died suddenly.[54]
Doge.And if they did so, better
So die than live on lingeringly in pain.
Lor. No doubt: yet most men like to live their days out.
Doge. And did not they?
Lor.The Grave knows best: they died,
As I said, suddenly.
Doge.Is that so strange,
That you repeat the word emphatically?
Lor. So far from strange, that never was there death
In my mind half so natural as theirs.
Think you not so?
Doge.What should I think of mortals?
Lor. That they have mortal foes.
Doge.I understand you;
Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things.
Lor. You best know if I should be so.
Doge.I do.
Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard
Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less
A fable.
Lor.Who dares say so?
Doge.I!——'Tis true
Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter
As their son e'er can be, and I no less
Was theirs; but I was openly their foe:
I never worked by plot in Council, nor
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means
Of practice against life by steel or drug.
The proof is—your existence.
Lor.I fear not.
Doge. You have no cause, being what I am; but were I
That you would have me thought, you long ere now[146]
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.
Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown,
That is, by open means.
Doge.But I, good Signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;
Not for the laws alone, for those you have strained
(I do not speak of you but as a single
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce for my authority,
Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,
I have observed with veneration, like
A priest's for the High Altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the State.
And now, sir, to your business.
Lor.'Tis decreed,
That, without further repetition of
The Question, or continuance of the trial,
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is,
("The Ten," dispensing with the stricter law
Which still prescribes the Question till a full
Confession, and the prisoner partly having
Avowed his crime in not denying that
The letter to the Duke of Milan's his),
James Foscari return to banishment,
And sail in the same galley which conveyed him.
Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag him more
Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could[147]
Desire, were to escape from such a land.
Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter.
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his exile?
Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing.
Mar.So I thought!
That were too human, also. But it was not
Inhibited?
Lor.It was not named.
Mar. (to the Doge).Then, father,
Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much:
[To Loredano.
And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be
Permitted to accompany my husband.
Doge. I will endeavour.
Mar.And you, Signor?
Lor.Lady!
'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure
Of the tribunal.
Mar.Pleasure! what a word
To use for the decrees of——
Doge.Daughter, know you
In what a presence you pronounce these things?
Mar. A Prince's and his subject's.
Lor.Subject!
Mar.Oh!
It galls you:—well, you are his equal, as
You think; but that you are not, nor would be,
Were he a peasant:—well, then, you're a Prince,
A princely noble; and what then am I?
Lor. The offspring of a noble house.
Mar.And wedded
To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is
The presence that should silence my free thoughts?
Lor. The presence of your husband's Judges.
Doge.And
The deference due even to the lightest word
That falls from those who rule in Venice.
Mar.Keep
Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics,
Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves,
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens,[148]
And masked nobility, your sbirri, and
Your spies, your galley and your other slaves,
To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings,
Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under
The water's level;[55] your mysterious meetings,
And unknown dooms, and sudden executions,
Your "Bridge of Sighs," your strangling chamber, and
Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem
The beings of another and worse world!
Keep such for them: I fear ye not. I know ye;[be]
Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal
Process of my poor husband! Treat me as
Ye treated him:—you did so, in so dealing
With him. Then what have I to fear from you,
Even if I were of fearful nature, which
I trust I am not?
Doge.You hear, she speaks wildly.
Mar. Not wisely, yet not wildly.
Lor.Lady! words
Uttered within these walls I bear no further
Than to the threshold, saving such as pass
Between the Duke and me on the State's service.
Doge! have you aught in answer?
Doge.Something from
The Doge; it may be also from a parent.
Lor. My mission here is to the Doge.
Doge.Then say
The Doge will choose his own ambassador,
Or state in person what is meet; and for
The father——
Lor.I remember mine.—Farewell!
I kiss the hands of the illustrious Lady,
And bow me to the Duke.[Exit Loredano.
Mar.Are you content?
Doge. I am what you behold.
Mar.And that's a mystery.
Doge. All things are so to mortals; who can read them
Save he who made? or, if they can, the few[149]
And gifted spirits, who have studied long
That loathsome volume—man, and pored upon
Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,[bf]
But learn a magic which recoils upon
The adept who pursues it: all the sins
We find in others, Nature made our own;
All our advantages are those of Fortune;
Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents,
And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well
We should remember Fortune can take nought
Save what she gave—the rest was nakedness,
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities,
The universal heritage, to battle
With as we may, and least in humblest stations,[bg]
Where Hunger swallows all in one low want,[bh]
And the original ordinance, that man
Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions
Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low,
And false, and hollow—clay from first to last,
The Prince's urn no less than potter's vessel.
Our Fame is in men's breath, our lives upon
Less than their breath; our durance upon days[bi]
Our days on seasons; our whole being on
Something which is not us![56]—So, we are slaves,
The greatest as the meanest—nothing rests
Upon our will; the will itself no less[bj]
Depends upon a straw than on a storm;
And when we think we lead, we are most led,[57][150]
And still towards Death, a thing which comes as much
Without our act or choice as birth, so that
Methinks we must have sinned in some old world,
And this is Hell: the best is, that it is not
Eternal.
Mar.These are things we cannot judge
On earth.
Doge.And how then shall we judge each other,
Who are all earth, and I, who am called upon
To judge my son? I have administered
My country faithfully—victoriously—
I dare them to the proof, the chart of what
She was and is: my reign has doubled realms;
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice
Has left, or is about to leave, me single.
Mar. And Foscari? I do not think of such things,
So I be left with him.
Doge.You shall be so;
Thus much they cannot well deny.
Mar.And if
They should, I will fly with him.
Doge.That can ne'er be.
And whither would you fly?
Mar.I know not, reck not—
To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman—
Any where, where we might respire unfettered,
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable
To edicts of inquisitors of state.
Doge. What, wouldst thou have a renegade for husband,
And turn him into traitor?
Mar.He is none!
The Country is the traitress, which thrusts forth
Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny
Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem
None rebels except subjects? The Prince who
Neglects or violates his trust is more
A brigand than the robber-chief.
Doge.I cannot
Charge me with such a breach of faith.
MarNo; thou[151]
Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's
A code of mercy by comparison.
Doge. I found the law; I did not make it. Were I
A subject, still I might find parts and portions
Fit for amendment; but as Prince, I never
Would change, for the sake of my house, the charter
Left by our fathers.
Mar.Did they make it for
The ruin of their children?
Doge.Under such laws, Venice
Has risen to what she is—a state to rival
In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add,
In glory (for we have had Roman spirits
Amongst us), all that history has bequeathed
Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when
The people swayed by Senates.
Mar.Rather say,
Groaned under the stern Oligarchs.
Doge.Perhaps so;
But yet subdued the World: in such a state
An individual, be he richest of
Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest,
Without a name, is alike nothing, when
The policy, irrevocably tending
To one great end, must be maintained in vigour.
Mar. This means that you are more a Doge than father.
Doge. It means, I am more citizen than either.
If we had not for many centuries
Had thousands of such citizens, and shall,
I trust, have still such, Venice were no city.
Mar. Accurséd be the city where the laws
Would stifle Nature's!
Doge.Had I as many sons
As I have years, I would have given them all,
Not without feeling, but I would have given them
To the State's service, to fulfil her wishes,
On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be,
As it, alas! has been, to ostracism,
Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse
She might decree.[152]
Mar.And this is Patriotism?
To me it seems the worst barbarity.
Let me seek out my husband: the sage "Ten,"
With all its jealousy, will hardly war
So far with a weak woman as deny me
A moment's access to his dungeon.
Doge.I'll
So far take on myself, as order that
You may be admitted.
Mar.And what shall I say
To Foscari from his father?
Doge.That he obey
The laws.
Mar.And nothing more? Will you not see him
Ere he depart? It may be the last time.
Doge. The last!—my boy!—the last time I shall see
My last of children! Tell him I will come.
Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the report
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow?
Doge.Now;
I overlooked it yesterday: it wants
Merely the signature. Give me the pen—
[The Doge sits down and signs the paper.
There, Signor.
Sen. (looking at the paper). You have forgot; it is not signed.
Doge. Not signed? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin
To wax more weak with age. I did not see
That I had dipped the pen without effect.[bb]
Sen. (dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the paper
before the Doge). Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord: allow me, thus—
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you.
Sen.Thus the act confirmed
By you and by "the Ten" gives peace to Venice.
Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoyed it: may it be
As long ere she resume her arms!
Sen.'Tis almost
Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare[138]
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy;
The state had need of some repose.
Doge.No doubt:
I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her
Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort[bc]
That I have added to her diadem
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; Crema[50]
And Bergamo no less are hers; her realm
By land has grown by thus much in my reign,
While her sea-sway has not shrunk.
Sen.'Tis most true,
And merits all our country's gratitude.
Doge. Perhaps so.
Sen.Which should be made manifest.
Doge. I have not complained, sir.
Sen.My good Lord, forgive me.
Doge. For what?
Sen.My heart bleeds for you.
Doge.For me, Signor?
Sen. And for your——
Doge.Stop!
Sen.It must have way, my Lord:
I have too many duties towards you
And all your house, for past and present kindness,
Not to feel deeply for your son.
Doge.Was this
In your commission?
Sen.What, my Lord?
Doge.This prattle
Of things you know not: but the treaty's signed;
Return with it to them who sent you.
Sen.I
Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council,
That you would fix an hour for their reunion.
Doge. Say, when they will—now, even at this moment,[139]
If it so please them: I am the State's servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall cause
The loss of an hour's time unto the State.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.
[Exit Senator. The Doge remains in silence.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. Prince!
Doge.Say on.
Att.The illustrious lady Foscari
Requests an audience.
Doge.Bid her enter. Poor
Marina!
[Exit Attendant. The Doge remains in silence as before.
Enter Marina.
Mar.I have ventured, father, on
Your privacy.
Doge.I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The State.
Mar.I wished to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband?
Mar.And your son.
Doge.Proceed, my daughter!
Mar. I had obtained permission from "the Ten"
To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.
Doge.You had so.
Mar.'Tis revoked.
Doge.By whom?
Mar. "The Ten."—When we had reached "the Bridge of Sighs,"[51][140]
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurred: a messenger was sent back to
"The Ten;"—but as the Court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that
Until that high tribunal reassembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.
Doge.True,
The form has been omitted in the haste
With which the court adjourned; and till it meets,
'Tis dubious.
Mar.Till it meets! and when it meets,
They'll torture him again; and he and I
Must purchase by renewal of the rack
The interview of husband and of wife,
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens!—Oh God!
Dost thou see this?
Doge.Child—child——
Mar. (abruptly).Call me not "child!"
You soon will have no children—you deserve none—
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son
In circumstances which would call forth tears
Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep
Their boys who died in battle, is it written
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor
Stretched forth a hand to save them?
Doge.You behold me:
I cannot weep—I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth,
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them—I'd give all
For him.
Mar. With less he surely might be saved.
Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me—they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,[141]
And that is—but they have not conquered yet.
Mar. But they have crushed.
Doge.Nor crushed as yet—I live.
Mar. And your son,—how long will he live?
Doge.I trust,
For all that yet is past, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruined all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes—he has quenched them—
He must return.
Mar.To exile?
Doge.I have said it.
Mar. And can I not go with him?
Doge.You well know
This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your Lord renders them still more austere.
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white[bd]
And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguished
In their accurséd bosoms.
Doge.You know not——
Mar. I do—I do—and so should you, methinks—
That these are demons: could it be else that
Men, who have been of women born and suckled—
Who have loved, or talked at least of Love—have given
Their hands in sacred vows—have danced their babes
Upon their knees, perhaps have mourned above them—
In pain, in peril, or in death—who are,[142]
Or were, at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself—
You, who abet them?
Doge.I forgive this, for
You know not what you say.
Mar.You know it well,
And feel it nothing.
Doge.I have borne so much,
That words have ceased to shake me.
Mar.Oh, no doubt!
You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh shook not;
And after that, what are a woman's words?
No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.
Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,
Is no more in the balance weighed with that
Which——but I pity thee, my poor Marina!
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity!—'tis a word
Strange to thy heart—how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read——
Mar.'Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,—where then
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?
Doge (pointing downwards). There.
Mar.In the earth?
Doge.To which I am tending: when
It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it
Now, you will know me better.
Mar.Are you, then,
Indeed, thus to be pitied?
Doge.Pitied! None
Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as I have borne it, what it was
When I received it.
Mar.But for the poor children[143]
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.
Doge.Would it were so!
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me.—I have seen our house dishonoured.
Mar. That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,
More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppressed but not disgraced, crushed, overwhelmed,
Alive, or dead, for Prince or Paladin
In story or in fable, with a world
To back his suit. Dishonoured!—he dishonoured!
I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonoured;
His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach,
For what he suffers, not for what he did.
'Tis ye who are all traitors, Tyrant!—ye!
Did you but love your Country like this victim
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore
His grace for your enormous guilt.
Doge.He was
Indeed all you have said. I better bore
The deaths of the two sons[52] Heaven took from me,
Than Jacopo's disgrace.
Mar.That word again?
Doge. Has he not been condemned?
Mar.Is none but guilt so?
Doge. Time may restore his memory—I would hope so.
He was my pride, my——but 'tis useless now—
I am not given to tears, but wept for joy
When he was born: those drops were ominous.
Mar. I say he's innocent! And were he not so,
Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us
In fatal moments?
Doge.I shrank not from him:
But I have other duties than a father's;
The state would not dispense me from those duties;[144]
Twice I demanded it, but was refused:[53]
They must then be fulfilled.
Enter an Attendant.
Att.A message from
"The Ten."
Doge.Who bears it?
Att.Noble Loredano.
Doge. He!—but admit him.[Exit Attendant.
Mar.Must I then retire?
Doge. Perhaps it is not requisite, if this
Concerns your husband, and if not——Well, Signor,
[To Loredano entering.
Your pleasure?
Lor.I bear that of "the Ten."
Doge.They
Have chosen well their envoy.
Lor.'Tis their choice
Which leads me here.
Doge.It does their wisdom honour,
And no less to their courtesy.—Proceed.
Lor. We have decided.
Doge.We?
Lor."The Ten" in council.
Doge. What! have they met again, and met without
Apprising me?
Lor.They wished to spare your feelings,
No less than age.
Doge.That's new—when spared they either?
I thank them, notwithstanding.
Lor.You know well
That they have power to act at their discretion,
With or without the presence of the Doge.
Doge. 'Tis some years since I learned this, long before
I became Doge, or dreamed of such advancement.
You need not school me, Signor; I sate in
That Council when you were a young patrician.
Lor. True, in my father's time; I have heard him and[145]
The Admiral, his brother, say as much.
Your Highness may remember them; they both
Died suddenly.[54]
Doge.And if they did so, better
So die than live on lingeringly in pain.
Lor. No doubt: yet most men like to live their days out.
Doge. And did not they?
Lor.The Grave knows best: they died,
As I said, suddenly.
Doge.Is that so strange,
That you repeat the word emphatically?
Lor. So far from strange, that never was there death
In my mind half so natural as theirs.
Think you not so?
Doge.What should I think of mortals?
Lor. That they have mortal foes.
Doge.I understand you;
Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things.
Lor. You best know if I should be so.
Doge.I do.
Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard
Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less
A fable.
Lor.Who dares say so?
Doge.I!——'Tis true
Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter
As their son e'er can be, and I no less
Was theirs; but I was openly their foe:
I never worked by plot in Council, nor
Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means
Of practice against life by steel or drug.
The proof is—your existence.
Lor.I fear not.
Doge. You have no cause, being what I am; but were I
That you would have me thought, you long ere now[146]
Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.
Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life
In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown,
That is, by open means.
Doge.But I, good Signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;
Not for the laws alone, for those you have strained
(I do not speak of you but as a single
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce for my authority,
Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,
I have observed with veneration, like
A priest's for the High Altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour, the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the State.
And now, sir, to your business.
Lor.'Tis decreed,
That, without further repetition of
The Question, or continuance of the trial,
Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is,
("The Ten," dispensing with the stricter law
Which still prescribes the Question till a full
Confession, and the prisoner partly having
Avowed his crime in not denying that
The letter to the Duke of Milan's his),
James Foscari return to banishment,
And sail in the same galley which conveyed him.
Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag him more
Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could[147]
Desire, were to escape from such a land.
Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter.
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his exile?
Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing.
Mar.So I thought!
That were too human, also. But it was not
Inhibited?
Lor.It was not named.
Mar. (to the Doge).Then, father,
Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much:
[To Loredano.
And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be
Permitted to accompany my husband.
Doge. I will endeavour.
Mar.And you, Signor?
Lor.Lady!
'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure
Of the tribunal.
Mar.Pleasure! what a word
To use for the decrees of——
Doge.Daughter, know you
In what a presence you pronounce these things?
Mar. A Prince's and his subject's.
Lor.Subject!
Mar.Oh!
It galls you:—well, you are his equal, as
You think; but that you are not, nor would be,
Were he a peasant:—well, then, you're a Prince,
A princely noble; and what then am I?
Lor. The offspring of a noble house.
Mar.And wedded
To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is
The presence that should silence my free thoughts?
Lor. The presence of your husband's Judges.
Doge.And
The deference due even to the lightest word
That falls from those who rule in Venice.
Mar.Keep
Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics,
Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves,
Your tributaries, your dumb citizens,[148]
And masked nobility, your sbirri, and
Your spies, your galley and your other slaves,
To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings,
Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under
The water's level;[55] your mysterious meetings,
And unknown dooms, and sudden executions,
Your "Bridge of Sighs," your strangling chamber, and
Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem
The beings of another and worse world!
Keep such for them: I fear ye not. I know ye;[be]
Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal
Process of my poor husband! Treat me as
Ye treated him:—you did so, in so dealing
With him. Then what have I to fear from you,
Even if I were of fearful nature, which
I trust I am not?
Doge.You hear, she speaks wildly.
Mar. Not wisely, yet not wildly.
Lor.Lady! words
Uttered within these walls I bear no further
Than to the threshold, saving such as pass
Between the Duke and me on the State's service.
Doge! have you aught in answer?
Doge.Something from
The Doge; it may be also from a parent.
Lor. My mission here is to the Doge.
Doge.Then say
The Doge will choose his own ambassador,
Or state in person what is meet; and for
The father——
Lor.I remember mine.—Farewell!
I kiss the hands of the illustrious Lady,
And bow me to the Duke.[Exit Loredano.
Mar.Are you content?
Doge. I am what you behold.
Mar.And that's a mystery.
Doge. All things are so to mortals; who can read them
Save he who made? or, if they can, the few[149]
And gifted spirits, who have studied long
That loathsome volume—man, and pored upon
Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,[bf]
But learn a magic which recoils upon
The adept who pursues it: all the sins
We find in others, Nature made our own;
All our advantages are those of Fortune;
Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents,
And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well
We should remember Fortune can take nought
Save what she gave—the rest was nakedness,
And lusts, and appetites, and vanities,
The universal heritage, to battle
With as we may, and least in humblest stations,[bg]
Where Hunger swallows all in one low want,[bh]
And the original ordinance, that man
Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions
Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low,
And false, and hollow—clay from first to last,
The Prince's urn no less than potter's vessel.
Our Fame is in men's breath, our lives upon
Less than their breath; our durance upon days[bi]
Our days on seasons; our whole being on
Something which is not us![56]—So, we are slaves,
The greatest as the meanest—nothing rests
Upon our will; the will itself no less[bj]
Depends upon a straw than on a storm;
And when we think we lead, we are most led,[57][150]
And still towards Death, a thing which comes as much
Without our act or choice as birth, so that
Methinks we must have sinned in some old world,
And this is Hell: the best is, that it is not
Eternal.
Mar.These are things we cannot judge
On earth.
Doge.And how then shall we judge each other,
Who are all earth, and I, who am called upon
To judge my son? I have administered
My country faithfully—victoriously—
I dare them to the proof, the chart of what
She was and is: my reign has doubled realms;
And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice
Has left, or is about to leave, me single.
Mar. And Foscari? I do not think of such things,
So I be left with him.
Doge.You shall be so;
Thus much they cannot well deny.
Mar.And if
They should, I will fly with him.
Doge.That can ne'er be.
And whither would you fly?
Mar.I know not, reck not—
To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman—
Any where, where we might respire unfettered,
And live nor girt by spies, nor liable
To edicts of inquisitors of state.
Doge. What, wouldst thou have a renegade for husband,
And turn him into traitor?
Mar.He is none!
The Country is the traitress, which thrusts forth
Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny
Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem
None rebels except subjects? The Prince who
Neglects or violates his trust is more
A brigand than the robber-chief.
Doge.I cannot
Charge me with such a breach of faith.
MarNo; thou[151]
Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's
A code of mercy by comparison.
Doge. I found the law; I did not make it. Were I
A subject, still I might find parts and portions
Fit for amendment; but as Prince, I never
Would change, for the sake of my house, the charter
Left by our fathers.
Mar.Did they make it for
The ruin of their children?
Doge.Under such laws, Venice
Has risen to what she is—a state to rival
In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add,
In glory (for we have had Roman spirits
Amongst us), all that history has bequeathed
Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when
The people swayed by Senates.
Mar.Rather say,
Groaned under the stern Oligarchs.
Doge.Perhaps so;
But yet subdued the World: in such a state
An individual, be he richest of
Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest,
Without a name, is alike nothing, when
The policy, irrevocably tending
To one great end, must be maintained in vigour.
Mar. This means that you are more a Doge than father.
Doge. It means, I am more citizen than either.
If we had not for many centuries
Had thousands of such citizens, and shall,
I trust, have still such, Venice were no city.
Mar. Accurséd be the city where the laws
Would stifle Nature's!
Doge.Had I as many sons
As I have years, I would have given them all,
Not without feeling, but I would have given them
To the State's service, to fulfil her wishes,
On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be,
As it, alas! has been, to ostracism,
Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse
She might decree.[152]
Mar.And this is Patriotism?
To me it seems the worst barbarity.
Let me seek out my husband: the sage "Ten,"
With all its jealousy, will hardly war
So far with a weak woman as deny me
A moment's access to his dungeon.
Doge.I'll
So far take on myself, as order that
You may be admitted.
Mar.And what shall I say
To Foscari from his father?
Doge.That he obey
The laws.
Mar.And nothing more? Will you not see him
Ere he depart? It may be the last time.
Doge. The last!—my boy!—the last time I shall see
My last of children! Tell him I will come.