Doge. And who be they? Ben. In number many; but The first now stands before you and the court, Bertram, of Bergamo,—would you question him? Doge (looking at him contemptuously). Ben. No. And two others, Israel Bertuccio, And Philip Calendaro, have admitted Their fellowship in treason with the Doge! Doge. And where are they? Ben. Gone to their place, and now Answering to Heaven for what they did on earth. Doge. Ah! the plebeian Brutus, is he gone? And the quick Cassius of the arsenal? How did they meet their doom? Ben. Think of your own: It is approaching. You decline to plead, then? Doge. I cannot plead to my inferiors, nor Can recognise your legal power to try me. Show me the law ! The law must be remodell'd or amended: As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst their realms ? Doge. The signory of Venice! You betray'd me- And my superiority in action, You drew me from my honourable toils In distant lands-on flood-in field-in cities- Stand crown'd, but bound and helpless, at the altar To mock and mar your sovereign's best intents, You had, even in the interregnum of 1 And mutilated the few privileges Yet left the duke: all this I bore, and would Have borne, until my very hearth was stain'd And he, the ribald, whom I see amongst you— Is here in virtue of his office, as Michel Steno 1 [One source of feebleness in this passage, and it is one of frequent occurrence in all Lord Byron's plays, is his practice of ending his lines with insignificant monosyllables." Oƒ," "to," "and,"" till,” “ but," "from," all concur in the course of a very few pages, in situations where, had the harmony or vigour of the line been consulted, the voice would have been allowed to pause, and the energy of the sentiment would have been carried to its highest tone of elevation. This we should have set down to the account of carelessness, had it not been One of the Forty; "the Ten" having craved Doge. His PUNISHMENT! I rather see him there, Where he now sits, to glut him with my death, Than in the mockery of castigation, Which your foul, outward, juggling show of justice Decreed as sentence ! Base as was his crime, 'Twas purity compared with your protection. Ben. And can it be, that the great Doge of Venice, With three parts of a century of years And honours on his head, could thus allow His fury, like an angry boy's, to master All feeling, wisdom, faith, and fear, on such A provocation as a young man's petulance? Doge. A spark creates the flame- 't is the last drop Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was full Already: you oppress'd the prince and people; I would have freed both, and have fail'd in both : Doge. Ben. You do not then in aught arraign our equity? I am resign'd to the worst; but in me still I shall but answer that which will offend you, There were no other way for truth to o'erleap them, 2 You who condemn me, you who fear and slay me, ["The torture {to elicit the whole truth."— MS.] for the exposure of the truth. 2 ["Noble Venetians! with respect the Duchess Duchess Falicro." — MS.] 3 The Venetian senate took the same title as the Roman, of "conscript fathers." [The drama, which has the merit, uncommon in modern performances, of embodying no episodical deformity whatever, now hurries in full career to its close. Every thing is de spatched with the stern decision of a tyrannical aristocracy. There is no hope of mercy on any side, there is no petition -nay, there is no wish for mercy. Even the plebeian conspirators have too much Venetian blood in then to be either My lord-my sovereign-my poor father's friend- Ang. Ay, but he must not die! Spare his few years, Ben. His doom must be fulfill'd without remission Of time or penalty- 't is a decree. Ang. He hath been guilty, but there may be mercy. Alas! signor, He who is only just is cruel; who the state. Ang. And, but for him, there now had been no state To save or to destroy; and you, who sit There to pronounce the death of your deliverer, Had now been groaning at a Moslem oar, Or digging in the Hunnish mines in fetters ! scared by the approach, or shaken in the moment, of death; and as for the Doge, he bears himself as becomes a warrior of sixty years, and a deeply insulted prince. At the moment, however, which immediately precedes the pronouncing of the sentence, admission is asked and obtained by one from whom less of the Spartan firmness might have been expected. This is Angiolina. She indeed hazards one fervent prayer to the unbending senate; but she sees in a moment that it is in vain, and she recovers herself on the instant; and turning to her lord, who stands calm and collected at the foot of the council table, speaks words worthy of him and of her. Nothing can be more unexpected, or more beautiful, than the behaviour of the young patrician who interrupts their conversation. — LOCKHART [" He hath already { onto his own guilt."-MS.] granted But with the spirit of my father's friend. Doge. I have lived too long not to know how to die! A life eternal, granted at the hands Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies I sought to free the groaning nations! Doge, A word with thee, and with this noble lady, But since that cannot be, as Christians let us the sense Ang. Sage Benintende, now chief judge of Venice, I speak to thee in answer to yon signor. Inform the ribald Steno, that his words Ne'er weigh'd in mind with Loredano's daughter Further than to create a moment's pity For such as he is: would that others had Despised him as I pity! I prefer My honour to a thousand lives, could such Be multiplied in mine, but would not have A single life of others lost for that Which nothing human can impugn. Of virtue, looking not to what is call'd A good name for reward, but to itself. To me the scorner's words were as the wind Unto the rock: but as there are―alas! Spirits more sensitive, on which such things Light as the whirlwind on the waters; souls To whom dishonour's shadow is a substance More terrible than death, here and hereafter; Men whose vice is to start at vice's scoffing, And who, though proof against all blandishments Of pleasure, and all pangs of pain, are feeble When the proud name on which they pinnacled [The Duchess is formal and cold, without even that degree of love for her old husband which a child might have for her parent, or a pupil for her instructor. Even in this her longest and best speech, at the most touching moment of the catas. trophe, she can moralise, in a strain of pedantry less natural to a woman than to any other person similarly circumstanced, on lions stung by gnats, Achilles, Helen, Lucretia, the siege of Clusium, Caligula, Caaba, and Persepolis! The lines are fine in themselves, indeed; and if they had been spoken by Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the cagle His life, while Earth yet bore his cruelties; A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province; A senate which hath stood eight hundred years, If it so please him- 't were a pride fit for him! By the intrusion of his very prayers: Nothing of good can come from such a source, Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang Ben. Before we can proceed upon that duty, We would request the princess to withdraw; 'T will move her too much to be witness to it. Ang. I know it will, and yet I must endure it, For 't is a part of mine-I will not quit, Except by force, my husband's side. Proceed! Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or tear; Though my heart burst, it shall be silent. - Speak! I have that within which shall o'ermaster all. And some time General of the Fleet and Army, Benintende as a funeral oration over the Duke's body, or still more, perhaps, ifthey had been spoken by the Duke's counsel on his trial, they would have been perfectly in place and character. But that is not the highest order of female intellect which is disposed to be long-winded in distress; nor does any one, either male or female, who is really and deeply affected, find time for wise saws and instances ancient and modern.HEBER.] But let it be so it will be in vain. Ben. Time must reply to that; our sons will judge Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy Upon thy soul ! Is this the Giunta's sentence? Doge. The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare, And they are ready to attend the Doge. Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die By those who feel a proud compassion for thee, And I have been the cause, the unconscious cause; Doge. Long years ago-so long, they are a doubt In memory, and yet they live in annals: When I was in my youth, and served the senate And signory as podesta and captain Of the town of Treviso, on a day Of festival, the sluggish bishop who Convey'd the Host aroused my rash young anger, By strange delay, and arrogant reply To my reproof; I raised my hand and smote him, And as he rose from earth again, he raised He turn'd to me, and said, The hour will come When he thou hast o'erthrown shall overthrow thee: SCENE II. The glory shall depart from out thy house, A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee; I That hour is come. Ang. And with this warning couldst thou not have striven To avert the fatal moment, and atone, By penitence for that which thou hadst done? Doge. I own the words went to my heart, so much I could not change, and would not fear. - Nay more, Doge. And yet I find a comfort in The thought that these things are the work of Fate; For I would rather yield to gods than men, Or cling to any creed of destiny, Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom Even with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven. That a sure hour will come, when their sons' sons, A hissing and a scoff unto the nations, Ang. Speak not thus now; the surge of passion still 1 ["A madness of the heart shall rise within."-MS.] "["With unimpair'd but not outrageous grief.”—MS.] This was the actual reply of Bailli, maire of Paris, to a Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face Guard (coming forward.) Doge of Venice, Besides, of all the fruit of these long years, I have uprooted all my former life, And outlived every thing, except thy heart, She has no breath, no pulse !-Guards! lend your aid I cannot leave her thus, and yet 't is better, Since every lifeless moment spares a pang. When she shakes off this temporary death, I shall be with the Eternal. Call her womenOne look!-how cold her hand!-as cold as mine Shall be ere she recovers. — Gently tend her, And take my last thanks. -I am ready now. [The Attendants of ANGIOLINA enter, and surround their mistress, who has fainted.-Exeunt the DOGE, Guards, &c. &c. SCENE III. The Court of the Ducal Palace: the outer gates are shut against the people.- The DOGE enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the "Giants' Staircase" (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword. 1 On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the Doge's head. Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, and at last I am again Marino Faliero : 'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment. Here was I crown'd, and here, bear witness, Heaven! With how much more contentment I resign That shining mockery, the ducal bauble, Than I received the fatal ornament. One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero! Doge. "Tis with age, then. 3 Ben. Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend, Compatible with justice, to the senate? Doge. I would commend my nephew to their mercy, My consort to their justice; for methinks reading over (since the completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, "Venice Preserved," a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader, that such coincidences must be accidental, from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage and in the closet as Otway's chef-d'œuvre. Q 3 |