In the vile tune of every galley slave,
Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted
He was not a shamed dotard, like the Doge.
Is it possible? a month's imprisonment! No more for Steno?
You have heard the offence, And now you know his punishment; and then You ask redress of me! Go to the Forty, Who pass'd the sentence upon Michel Steno; They'll do as much by Barbaro, no doubt.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
Ah! dared I speak my feelings!
Mine have no further outrage to endure.
Then, in a word, it rests but on your word
To punish and avenge-I will not say
My petty wrong, for what is a mere blow,
However vile, to such a thing as I am?-
But the base insult done your state and person.
You over-rate my power, which is a pageant.
This cap
is not the monarch's crown; these robes
Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags;
Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these
But lent to the poor puppet, who must play
Its part with all its empire in this ermine.
Yes-of a happy people.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
Wouldst thou be sovereign lord of Venice?
If that the people shared that sovereignty,
So that nor they nor I were further slaves
To this o'ergrown aristocratic hydra,
The poisonous heads of whose envenom'd body
Have breathed a pestilence upon us all.
Yet, thou wast born and still hast lived patrician.
In evil hour was I so born; my birth
Hath made me Doge to be insulted but
I lived and toil'd a soldier and a servant
Of Venice and her people, not the senate;
Their good and my own honour were my guerdon.
I have fought and bled; commanded, ay, and conquer'd;
Have made and marr'd peace oft in embassies,
As it might chance to be our country's 'vantage;
Have traversed land and sea in constant duty,
Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice,
My father's and my birth-place, whose dear spires,
Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon,
It was reward enough for me to view
Once more but not for any knot of men,
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat!
But would you know why I have done all this?
Ask of the bleeding pelican why she
Hath ripp'd her bosom? Had the bird a voice,
She'd tell thee 't was for all her little ones.
Nor I alone, are injured and abused,
Contemn'd and trampled on, but the whole people
Groan with the strong conception of their wrongs:
The foreign soldiers in the senate's pay
Are discontented for their long arrears;
The native mariners and civic troops
Feel with their friends; for who is he amongst them
Whose brethren, parents, children, wives, or sisters,
Have not partook oppression, or pollution,
From the patricians? And the hopeless war
Against the Genoese, which is still maintain'd
With the plebeian blood, and treasure wrung
From their hard earnings, has inflamed them further:
Even now-but I forget that, speaking thus,
Perhaps I pass the sentence of
For what then do they pause ?
Saint Mark's shall strike that hour! ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
My life, my honour, all my earthly hopes
Within thy power, but in the firm belief
That injuries like ours, sprung from one cause,
Will generate one vengeance: should it be so,
Be our chief now-our sovereign hereafter.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO. I'll not answer that
How, Sir! do you menace?
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
No; I affirm. I have betray'd myself;
But there's no torture in the mystic wells
Which undermine your palace, nor in those
Not less appalling cells, « the leaden roofs,»
To force a single name from me of others.
The Pozzi and the Piombi were in vain ;
They might wring blood from me, but treachery never,
And I would pass the fearful « Bridge of Sighs,»
Joyous that mine must be the last that e'er
Would echo o'er the Stygian wave which flows
Between the murderers and the murder'd, washing
The prison and the palace walls: there are
Those who would live to think on 't and avenge me.
If such your power and purpose, why come here
To sue for justice, being in the course
To do yourself due right?
Because the man Who claims protection from authority, Showing his confidence and his submission
And, suffering what thou hast done, fear'st thou death? To that authority, can hardly be
Be silent then, and live on, to be beaten
By those for whom thou hast bled.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
At every hazard; and if Venice' Doge Should turn delator, be the shame on him, And sorrow too; for he will lose far more Than I.
From me fear nothing; out with it.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO,
Know, then, that there are met and sworn in secret
A band of brethren, valiant hearts and true;
Men who have proved all fortunes, and have long
Grieved over that of Venice, and have right
To do so, having served her in all climes,
And having rescued her from foreign foes,
Would do the same from those within her walls.
They are not numerous, nor yet too few
For their great purpose; they have arms, and means,
And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage.
But I must know your plan, your names, and numbers;
The last may then be doubled, and the former
Matured and strengthen'd.
We're enough already; You are the sole ally we covet now.
But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs.
upon your formal pledge To keep the faith that we will pledge to you.
In the full hope your highness will not falter
In your great purpose. Prince, I take my leave.
[Exit ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
At midnight, by the church Saints John and Paul,
Where sleep my noble fathers, I repair-
To what? to hold a council in the dark
With common ruffians leagued to ruin states!
And will not my great sires leap from the vault,
Where lie two doges who preceded me,
And pluck me down amongst them? Would they could!
For I should rest in honour with the honour'd.
Alas! I must not think of them, but those
Who have made me thus unworthy of a name,
Noble and brave as aught of consular
On Roman marbles: but I will redeem it
Back to its antique lustre in our annals,
This night I'll bring to your apartment By sweet revenge on all that's base in Venice,
Two of the principals; a greater number
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Would he were return'd!
He has been much disquieted of late;
And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit,
Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame,
Which seems to be more nourish'd by a soul
So quick and restless that it would consume
Less hardy clay-Time has but little power
On his resentments or his griefs. Unlike
To other spirits of his order, who,
In the first burst of passion, pour away
Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear in him
but the atmosphere is thick and dusky; An aspect of eternity: his thoughts,
At the midnight hour, then,
His feelings, passions, good or evil, all
Have nothing of old age; and his bold brow
Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years,
Not their decrepitude: and he of late
Has been more agitated than his wont.
Would he were come! for I alone have power
Upon his troubled spirit.
His highness has of late been greatly moved
By the affront of Steno, and with cause;
But the offender doubtless even now
Is doom'd to expiate his rash insult with
Such chastisement as will enforce respect
To female virtue, and to noble blood.
'T was a gross insult; but I heed it not,
For the rash scorner's falsehood in itself,
But for the effect, the deadly deep impression
Which it has made upon Faliero's soul,
The proud, the fiery, the austere-austere
To all save me: I tremble when I think
To what it may conduct.
The Doge can not suspect you?
Why Steno dared not: when he scrawl'd his lie,
Groveling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light,
His own still conscience smote him for the act,
And every shadow on the walls frown'd shame
Upon his coward calumny.
He should be punish'd grievously.
What is the sentence past? is he condemn'd?
I know not that, but he has been detected.
And deem you this enough for such foul scorn?
I would not be a judge in my own cause,
Nor do I know what sense of punishment
May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno;
But if his insults sink no deeper in
The minds of the inquisitors than they
Have ruffled mine, he will, for all acquittance,
Be left to his own shamelessness or shame.
Some sacrifice is due to slander'd virtue.
Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim?
Or if it must depend upon men's words?
The dying Roman said, «'t was but a name: »>
It were indeed no more, if human breath
Could make or mar it.
Yet full many a dame, Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies, Such as abound in Venice, would be loud And all-inexorable in their cry For justice.
This but proves it is the name
And not the quality they prize: the first
Have found it a hard task to hold their honour,
If they require it to be blazon'd forth;
And those who have not kept it seek its seeming,
As they would look out for an ornament
Of which they feel the want, but not because
They think it so; they live in others' thoughts,
And would seem honest as they must seem fair.
You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame.
And yet they were my father's: with his name, The sole inheritance he left.
Wife to a prince, the chief of the republic.
I should have sought none, though a peasant's bride,
But feel not less the love and gratitude
Due to my father, who bestow'd my hand
Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend,
The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge.
And with that hand did he bestow your heart?
He did so, or it had not been bestow'd.
Yet this strange disproportion in your years,
And, let me add, disparity of tempers,
Might make the world doubt whether such an union
Could make you wisely, permanently happy.
The world will think with worldlings: but my heart
Has still been in my duties, which are many,
But never difficult.
I love all noble qualities which merit
Love, and I loved my father, who first taught me
To single out what we should love in others,
And to subdue all tendency to lend
The best and purest feelings of our nature
To baser passions. He bestow'd my hand
Upon Faliero: he had known him noble,
Brave, generous, rich in all the qualities
Of soldier, citizen, and friend; in all
Such have I found him as my father said.
His faults are those that dwell in the high bosoms
Of men who have commanded; too much pride,
And the deep passions fiercely foster'd by
The uses of patricians, and a life
Spent in the storms of state and war; and also
From the quick sense of honour, which becomes
A duty to a certain sign, a vice
When overstrain'd, and this I fear in him.
And then he has been rash from his youth upwards,
Yet temper'd by redeeming nobleness;
In such sort, that the wariest of republics
Has lavish'd all its chief employs upon him,
From his first fight to his last embassy,
From which on his return the dukedom met him.
But, previous to this marriage, had your heart
Ne'er beat for any of the noble youth,
Such as in years had been more meet to match
Beauty like yours? or since have you ne'er seen One, who, if your fair hand were still to give, Might now pretend to Loredano's daughter?
I answer'd your first question when I said I married.
I pray you pardon, if I have offended.
I feel no wrath, but some surprise: I knew not That wedded bosoms could permit themselves To ponder upon what they now might chuse, Or aught, save their past choice.
'Tis their past choice That far too often makes them deem they would Now chuse more wisely, could they cancel it.
It may be so. I knew not of such thoughts.
Here comes the Doge-shall I retire?
Be better you should quit me; he seems wrapt
In thought.-How pensively he takes his way!
[Exit MARIANNA.
Enter the DOGE and PIETRO.
DOGE (musing).
There is a certain Philip Calendaro
Now in the arsenal, who holds command
Of eighty men, and has great influence
Besides on all the spirits of his comrades;
This man, I hear, is bold and popular,
Sudden and daring, and yet secret: 't would
Be well that he were won: I needs must hope
That Israel Bertuccio has secured him,
But fain would be--
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He shall.-But let that pass. We will be jocund.
How fares it with you? 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?
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 't is done.
And malcontents within-'t is this which makes me More pensive and less tranquil than wont.
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,
you have risen, with an unalter'd brow:
Your feelings now are of a different kind;
Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.
Pride! Angiolina? Alas! none is left me.
Yes the same sin that overthrew the angels, And of all sins most easily besets
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