Ang. What was the Doge's answer?

Mar. That he was

That moment summoned to a conference;

But 'tis by this time ended. I perceived

Not long ago the Senators embarking;

And the last gondola may now be seen

Gliding into the throng of barks which stud

The glittering waters.

Ang. Would he were returned!

He has been much disquieted of late;

And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit,

Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame,10

Which seems to be more nourished 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

An aspect of Eternity: his thoughts,

His feelings, passions, good or evil, all

Have nothing of old age;[403] and his bold brow20

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.

Mar. It is true,

His Highness has of late been greatly moved

By the affront of Steno, and with cause:

But the offender doubtless even now

Is doomed to expiate his rash insult with

Such chastisement as will enforce respect30

To female virtue, and to noble blood.

Ang. 'Twas 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.

Mar. Assuredly

The Doge can not suspect you?

Ang. Suspect me!

Why Steno dared not: when he scrawled his lie,40

Grovelling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light,

His own still conscience smote him for the act,

And every shadow on the walls frowned shame

Upon his coward calumny.

Mar. 'Twere fit

He should be punished grievously.

Ang. He is so.

Mar. What! is the sentence passed? is he condemned?[de]

Ang. I know not that, but he has been detected.

Mar. And deem you this enough for such foul scorn?

Ang. I would not be a judge in my own cause,

Nor do I know what sense of punishment50

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.

Mar. Some sacrifice is due to slandered virtue.

Ang. Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim?

Or if it must depend upon men's words?

The dying Roman said, "'twas but a name:"[404]

It were indeed no more, if human breath60

Could make or mar it.

Mar. 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.

Ang. 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 blazoned forth;

And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming70

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.

Mar. You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame.

Ang. And yet they were my father's; with his name,

The sole inheritance he left.

Mar. You want none;

Wife to a Prince, the Chief of the Republic.

Ang. I should have sought none though a peasant's bride,

But feel not less the love and gratitude80

Due to my father, who bestowed my hand

Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend,

The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge.

Mar. And with that hand did he bestow your heart?

Ang. He did so, or it had not been bestowed.

Mar. 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.

Ang. The world will think with worldlings; but my heart90

Has still been in my duties, which are many,

But never difficult.

Mar. And do you love him?

Ang. 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 bestowed my hand

Upon Faliero: he had known him noble,

Brave, generous; rich in all the qualities100

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 fostered 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 overstrained, and this I fear in him.110

And then he has been rash from his youth upwards,

Yet tempered by redeeming nobleness

In such sort, that the wariest of republics

Has lavished all its chief employs upon him,

From his first fight to his last embassy,

From which on his return the Dukedom met him.

Mar. 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 seen120

One, who, if your fair hand were still to give,

Might now pretend to Loredano's daughter?

Ang. I answered your first question when I said

I married.

Mar. And the second?

Ang. Needs no answer.

Mar. I pray you pardon, if I have offended.

Ang. I feel no wrath, but some surprise: I knew not

That wedded bosoms could permit themselves

To ponder upon what they now might choose,

Or aught save their past choice.

Mar. 'Tis their past choice

That far too often makes them deem they would130

Now choose more wisely, could they cancel it.

Ang. It may be so. I knew not of such thoughts.

Mar. Here comes the Doge—shall I retire?

Ang. It may

Be better you should quit me; he seems rapt

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,140

Sudden and daring, and yet secret; 'twould

Be well that he 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 enquire your pleasure

To fix an hour when he may speak with you.

Doge. At sunset.—Stay a moment—let me see—

Say in the second hour of night. [Exit Pietro.

Ang. My Lord!150

Doge. My dearest child, forgive me—why delay

So long approaching me?—I saw you not.

Ang. You were absorbed 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.160

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?

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, wasted170

On an old man oft moved with many cares?

Speak, and 'tis done.

Ang. You're ever kind to me.

I have nothing to desire, or to request,

Except to see you oftener and calmer.

Doge. Calmer?

Ang. Aye, calmer, my good Lord.—Ah, why

Do you still keep apart, and walk alone,

And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,

As not betraying their full import, yet

Disclose too much?

Doge. Disclose too much!—of what?

What is there to disclose?

Ang. A heart so ill180

At ease.

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,190

Which long use and a talent like to yours

Have rendered 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 climbed 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,200

Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark's,

You are not to be wrought on, but would fall,

As you have risen, with an unaltered brow:

Your feelings now are of a different kind;

Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.

Doge. Pride! 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.210

Doge. I had the pride of honour, of your honour,

Deep at my heart—But let us change the theme.

Ang. Ah no!—As I have ever shared your kindness

In all things else, let me not be shut out

From your distress: were it of public import,

You know I never sought, would never seek

To win a word from you; but feeling now

Your grief is private, it belongs to me

To lighten or divide it. Since the day

When foolish Steno's ribaldry detected220

Unfixed your quiet, you are greatly changed,

And I would soothe you back to what you were.

Doge. To what I was!—have you heard Steno's sentence?

Ang. No.

Doge. A month's arrest.

Ang. Is it not enough?

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 be enough in the conviction230

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 damned his hundred judges,

And he is pure, for now his crime is theirs.

Ang. Oh! had this false and flippant libeller240

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?250

Is't nothing to have filled these veins with poison

For their once healthful current? is it nothing

To have stained your name and mine—the noblest names?

Is't nothing to have brought into contempt

A Prince before his people? to have failed

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.260

Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is there not Hell

For wrath eternal?[df] [405]

Ang. Do not speak thus wildly—[dg]

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, scorned, spurned, 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!270

My injured wife, the child of Loredano,

The brave, the chivalrous, how little deemed

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!280

Ang. I am too well avenged, for you still love me,

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?

Doge. 'Tis well,

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 failed?290

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, oppressed

With his last malady, he willed 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, assail300

A lonely and undowered 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

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. Thus,

'Twas not a foolish dotard's vile caprice,310

Nor the false edge of agéd appetite,

Which made me covetous of girlish beauty,

And a young bride: for in my fieriest youth

I swayed such passions; nor was this my age

Infected with that leprosy of lust[406]

Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men,

Making them ransack to the very last

The dregs of pleasure for their vanished joys;

Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim,

Too helpless to refuse a state that's honest,320

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,330

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

That law's chicane or envious kinsmen might

Have urged against her right; my best friend's child

Would choose more fitly in respect of years,340

And not less truly in a faithful heart.

Ang. My Lord, I looked but to my father's wishes,

Hallowed 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 crossed 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 saw350

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 knew360

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,

And not a doting homage; friendship, faith,—

Such estimation in your eyes as these

Might claim, I hoped for.

Ang. And have ever had.

Doge. I think so. For the difference in our years

You knew it choosing me, and chose; I trusted

Not to my qualities, nor would have faith

In such, nor outward ornaments of nature,370

Were I still in my five and twentieth spring;

I trusted to the blood of Loredano[407]

Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul

God gave you—to the truths your father taught you—

To your belief in Heaven—to your mild virtues—

To your own faith and honour, for my own.

Ang. You have done well.—I thank you for that trust,

Which I have never for one moment ceased

To honour you the more for.

Doge. Where is Honour,

Innate and precept-strengthened, 'tis the rock380

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-chiselled beauty, or

The demi-deity, Alcides, in390

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 you400

To the most fierce of fatal passions, and

Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate

Of such a thing as Steno?

Doge. You mistake me.

It is not Steno who could move me thus;

Had it been so, he should—but let that pass.

Ang. What is't you feel so deeply, then, even now?

Doge. The violated majesty of Venice,

At once insulted in her Lord and laws.

Ang. Alas! why will you thus consider it?

Doge. I have thought on't till—but let me lead you back410

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

They did me right, while yours was all to praise:

You had all freedom—all respect—all trust

From me and mine; and, born of those who made

Princes at home, and swept Kings from their thrones

On foreign shores, in all things you appeared

Worthy to be our first of native dames.

Ang. To what does this conduct?

Doge. To thus much—that420

A miscreant's angry breath may blast it all—

A villain, whom for his unbridled bearing,

Even in the midst of our great festival,

I caused to be conducted forth, and taught

How to demean himself in ducal chambers;

A wretch like this may leave upon the wall

The blighting venom of his sweltering heart,

And this shall spread itself in general poison;

And woman's innocence, man's honour, pass

Into a by-word; and the doubly felon430

(Who first insulted virgin modesty

By a gross affront to your attendant damsels

Amidst the noblest of our dames in public)

Requite himself for his most just expulsion

By blackening publicly his Sovereign's consort,

And be absolved by his upright compeers.

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;440

The rest must be with you.

Ang. With me, my Lord?

Doge. Yes, Angiolina. Do not marvel; I

Have let this prey upon me till I feel

My life cannot be long; and fain would have you

Regard the injunctions you will find within

This scroll (giving her a paper)

——Fear not; they are for your advantage:

Read them hereafter at the fitting hour.

Ang. My Lord, in life, and after life, you shall

Be honoured still by me: but may your days

Be many yet—and happier than the present!450

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,460

Shall soothe me to my moment of long rest.

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 toiled

To make my country honoured. As her servant—

Her servant, though her chief—I would have gone

Down to my fathers with a name serene

And pure as theirs; but this has been denied me.

Would I had died at Zara!

Ang. There you saved

The state; then live to save her still. A day,470

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;

My life is little less than one, and 'tis

Enough for Fortune to have granted once,

That which scarce one more favoured citizen

May win in many states and years. But why

Thus speak I? Venice has forgot that day—

Then why should I remember it?—Farewell,

Sweet Angiolina! I must to my cabinet;480

There's much for me to do—and the hour hastens.[408]

Ang. Remember what you were.

Doge. It were in vain!

Joy's recollection is no longer joy,

While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.

Ang. At least, whate'er may urge, let me implore

That you will take some little pause of rest:

Your sleep for many nights has been so turbid,

That it had been relief to have awaked you,

Had I not hoped that Nature would o'erpower

At length the thoughts which shook your slumbers thus.490

An hour of rest will give you to your toils

With fitter thoughts and freshened strength.

Doge. I cannot—

I must not, if I could; for never was

Such reason to be watchful: yet a few—

Yet a few days and dream-perturbéd nights,

And I shall slumber well—but where?—no matter.

Adieu, my Angiolina.

Ang. Let me be

An instant—yet an instant your companion!

I cannot bear to leave you thus.

Doge. Come then,

My gentle child—forgive me: thou wert made500

For better fortunes than to share in mine,

Now darkling in their close toward the deep vale

Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping shadow.[dh]

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,510

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.