The Chief of the Ten, Benintende.[fa] [449]

Ben. There now rests, after such conviction of

Their manifold and manifest offences,

But to pronounce on these obdurate men

The sentence of the Law:—a grievous task

To those who hear, and those who speak. Alas!

That it should fall to me! and that my days

Of office should be stigmatised through all

The years of coming time, as bearing record

To this most foul and complicated treason

Against a just and free state, known to all10

The earth as being the Christian bulwark 'gainst

The Saracen and the schismatic Greek,

The savage Hun, and not less barbarous Frank;

A City which has opened India's wealth

To Europe; the last Roman refuge from

O'erwhelming Attila; the Ocean's Queen;

Proud Genoa's prouder rival! 'Tis to sap

The throne of such a City, these lost men

Have risked and forfeited their worthless lives—

So let them die the death.

I. Ber. We are prepared;20

Your racks have done that for us. Let us die.

Ben. If ye have that to say which would obtain

Abatement of your punishment, the Giunta

Will hear you; if you have aught to confess,

Now is your time,—perhaps it may avail ye.

I. Ber. We stand to hear, and not to speak.

Ben. Your crimes

Are fully proved by your accomplices,

And all which Circumstance can add to aid them;

Yet we would hear from your own lips complete

Avowal of your treason: on the verge30

Of that dread gulf which none repass, the truth

Alone can profit you on earth or Heaven—

Say, then, what was your motive?

I. Ber. Justice![fb]

Ben. What

Your object?

I. Ber. Freedom!

Ben. You are brief, sir.

I. Ber. So my life grows: I

Was bred a soldier, not a senator.

Ben. Perhaps you think by this blunt brevity

To brave your judges to postpone the sentence?

I. Ber. Do you be brief as I am, and believe me,

I shall prefer that mercy to your pardon.40

Ben. Is this your sole reply to the Tribunal?

I. Ber. Go, ask your racks what they have wrung from us,

Or place us there again; we have still some blood left,

And some slight sense of pain in these wrenched limbs:

But this ye dare not do; for if we die there—

And you have left us little life to spend

Upon your engines, gorged with pangs already—

Ye lose the public spectacle, with which

You would appal your slaves to further slavery!

Groans are not words, nor agony assent,50

Nor affirmation Truth, if Nature's sense

Should overcome the soul into a lie,

For a short respite—must we bear or die?

Ben. Say, who were your accomplices?

I. Ber. The Senate.

Ben. What do you mean?

I. Ber. Ask of the suffering people,

Whom your patrician crimes have driven to crime.

Ben. You know the Doge?

I. Ber. I served with him at Zara

In the field, when you were pleading here your way

To present office; we exposed our lives,

While you but hazarded the lives of others,60

Alike by accusation or defence;

And for the rest, all Venice knows her Doge,

Through his great actions, and the Senate's insults.

Ben. You have held conference with him?

I. Ber. I am weary—

Even wearier of your questions than your tortures:

I pray you pass to judgment.

Ben. It is coming.

And you, too, Philip Calendaro, what

Have you to say why you should not be doomed?

Cal. I never was a man of many words,

And now have few left worth the utterance.70

Ben. A further application of yon engine

May change your tone.

Cal. Most true, it will do so;

A former application did so; but

It will not change my words, or, if it did—

Ben. What then?

Cal. Will my avowal on yon rack

Stand good in law?

Ben. Assuredly.

Cal. Whoe'er

The culprit be whom I accuse of treason?

Ben. Without doubt, he will be brought up to trial.

Cal. And on this testimony would he perish?

Ben. So your confession be detailed and full,80

He will stand here in peril of his life.

Cal. Then look well to thy proud self, President!

For by the Eternity which yawns before me,

I swear that thou, and only thou, shall be

The traitor I denounce upon that rack,

If I be stretched there for the second time.

One of the Giunta.

Lord President,'twere best proceed to judgment;

There is no more to be drawn from these men.[fc]

Ben. Unhappy men! prepare for instant death.

The nature of your crime—our law—and peril90

The State now stands in, leave not an hour's respite.

Guards! lead them forth, and upon the balcony

Of the red columns, where, on festal Thursday,[450]

The Doge stands to behold the chase of bulls,

Let them be justified: and leave exposed

Their wavering relics, in the place of judgment,

To the full view of the assembled people!

And Heaven have mercy on their souls!

The Giunta. Amen!

I. Ber. Signors, farewell! we shall not all again

Meet in one place.

Ben. And lest they should essay100

To stir up the distracted multitude—

Guards! let their mouths be gagged[451] even in the act

Of execution. Lead them hence!

Cal. What! must we

Not even say farewell to some fond friend,

Nor leave a last word with our confessor?

Ben. A priest is waiting in the antechamber;

But, for your friends, such interviews would be

Painful to them, and useless all to you.

Cal. I knew that we were gagged in life; at least

All those who had not heart to risk their lives110

Upon their open thoughts; but still I deemed

That in the last few moments, the same idle

Freedom of speech accorded to the dying,

Would not now be denied to us; but since——

I. Ber. Even let them have their way, brave Calendaro!

What matter a few syllables? let's die

Without the slightest show of favour from them;

So shall our blood more readily arise

To Heaven against them, and more testify

To their atrocities, than could a volume120

Spoken or written of our dying words!

They tremble at our voices—nay, they dread

Our very silence—let them live in fear!

Leave them unto their thoughts, and let us now

Address our own above!—Lead on; we are ready.

Cal. Israel, hadst thou but hearkened unto me

It had not now been thus; and yon pale villain,

The coward Bertram, would——

I. Ber. Peace, Calendaro!

What brooks it now to ponder upon this?

Bert. Alas! I fain you died in peace with me:130

I did not seek this task; 'twas forced upon me:

Say, you forgive me, though I never can

Retrieve my own forgiveness—frown not thus!

I. Ber. I die and pardon thee!

Cal. (spitting at him).[452] I die and scorn thee!

[Exeunt Israel Bertuccio and Philip Calendaro, Guards, etc.

Ben. Now that these criminals have been disposed of,

'Tis time that we proceed to pass our sentence

Upon the greatest traitor upon record

In any annals, the Doge Faliero!

The proofs and process are complete; the time

And crime require a quick procedure: shall140

He now be called in to receive the award?

The Giunta. Aye, aye.

Ben. Avogadori, order that the Doge

Be brought before the Council.

One of the Giunta. And the rest,

When shall they be brought up?

Ben. When all the Chiefs

Have been disposed of. Some have fled to Chiozza;

But there are thousands in pursuit of them,

And such precaution ta'en on terra firma,

As well as in the islands, that we hope

None will escape to utter in strange lands

His libellous tale of treasons 'gainst the Senate.150

Enter the Doge as Prisoner, with Guards, etc., etc.

Ben. Doge—for such still you are, and by the law

Must be considered, till the hour shall come

When you must doff the Ducal Bonnet from

That head, which could not wear a crown more noble

Than Empires can confer, in quiet honour,

But it must plot to overthrow your peers,

Who made you what you are, and quench in blood

A City's glory—we have laid already

Before you in your chamber at full length,

By the Avogadori, all the proofs160

Which have appeared against you; and more ample

Ne'er reared their sanguinary shadows to

Confront a traitor. What have you to say

In your defence?

Doge. What shall I say to ye,

Since my defence must be your condemnation?

You are at once offenders and accusers,

Judges and Executioners!—Proceed

Upon your power.

Ben. Your chief accomplices

Having confessed, there is no hope for you.

Doge. And who be they?

Ben. In number many; but170

The first now stands before you in the court,

Bertram of Bergamo,—would you question him?

Doge (looking at him contemptuously). No.

Ben. 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:180

It is approaching. You decline to plead, then?[fd]

Doge. I cannot plead to my inferiors, nor

Can recognise your legal power to try me.

Show me the law!

Ben. On great emergencies,

The law must be remodelled or amended:

Our fathers had not fixed the punishment

Of such a crime, as on the old Roman tables

The sentence against parricide was left

In pure forgetfulness; they could not render

That penal, which had neither name nor thought190

In their great bosoms; who would have foreseen

That Nature could be filed to such a crime[453]

As sons 'gainst sires, and princes 'gainst their realms?

Your sin hath made us make a law which will

Become a precedent 'gainst such haught traitors,

As would with treason mount to tyranny;

Not even contented with a sceptre, till

They can convert it to a two-edged sword!

Was not the place of Doge sufficient for ye?

What's nobler than the signory[454] of Venice?200

Doge. The signory of Venice! You betrayed me—

You—you, who sit there, traitors as ye are!

From my equality with you in birth,

And my superiority in action,

You drew me from my honourable toils

In distant lands—on flood, in field, in cities—

You singled me out like a victim to

Stand crowned, but bound and helpless, at the altar

Where you alone could minister. I knew not,

I sought not, wished not, dreamed not the election,210

Which reached me first at Rome, and I obeyed;

But found on my arrival, that, besides

The jealous vigilance which always led you

To mock and mar your Sovereign's best intents,

You had, even in the interregnum[455] of

My journey to the capital, curtailed

And mutilated the few privileges

Yet left the Duke: all this I bore, and would

Have borne, until my very hearth was stained

By the pollution of your ribaldry,220

And he, the ribald, whom I see amongst you—

Fit judge in such tribunal!——

Ben. (interrupting him). Michel Steno

Is here in virtue of his office, as

One of the Forty; "the Ten" having craved

A Giunta of patricians from the Senate

To aid our judgment in a trial arduous

And novel as the present: he was set

Free from the penalty pronounced upon him,

Because the Doge, who should protect the law,

Seeking to abrogate all law, can claim230

No punishment of others by the statutes

Which he himself denies and violates!

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 years240

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—'tis the last drop

Which makes the cup run o'er, and mine was full

Already: you oppressed the Prince and people;

I would have freed both, and have failed in both:

The price of such success would have been glory,

Vengeance, and victory, and such a name250

As would have made Venetian history

Rival to that of Greece and Syracuse

When they were freed, and flourished ages after,

And mine to Gelon and to Thrasybulus:[456]

Failing, I know the penalty of failure

Is present infamy and death—the future

Will judge, when Venice is no more, or free;

Till then, the truth is in abeyance. Pause not;

I would have shown no mercy, and I seek none;

My life was staked upon a mighty hazard,260

And being lost, take what I would have taken!

I would have stood alone amidst your tombs:

Now you may flock round mine, and trample on it,

As you have done upon my heart while living.[457]

Ben. You do confess then, and admit the justice

Of our Tribunal?

Doge. I confess to have failed;

Fortune is female: from my youth her favours

Were not withheld, the fault was mine to hope

Her former smiles again at this late hour.

Ben. You do not then in aught arraign our equity?270

Doge. Noble Venetians! stir me not with questions.

I am resigned to the worst; but in me still

Have something of the blood of brighter days,

And am not over-patient. Pray you, spare me

Further interrogation, which boots nothing,

Except to turn a trial to debate.

I shall but answer that which will offend you,

And please your enemies—a host already;

'Tis true, these sullen walls should yield no echo:

But walls have ears—nay, more, they have tongues; and if280

There were no other way for Truth to o'erleap them,[fe]

You who condemn me, you who fear and slay me,

Yet could not bear in silence to your graves

What you would hear from me of Good or Evil;

The secret were too mighty for your souls:

Then let it sleep in mine, unless you court

A danger which would double that you escape.

Such my defence would be, had I full scope

To make it famous; for true words are things,

And dying men's are things which long outlive,290

And oftentimes avenge them; bury mine,

If ye would fain survive me: take this counsel,

And though too oft ye make me live in wrath,

Let me die calmly; you may grant me this;

I deny nothing—defend nothing—nothing

I ask of you, but silence for myself,

And sentence from the Court!

Ben. This full admission

Spares us the harsh necessity of ordering

The torture to elicit the whole truth.[ff]

Doge. The torture! you have put me there already,300

Daily since I was Doge; but if you will

Add the corporeal rack, you may: these limbs

Will yield with age to crushing iron; but

There's that within my heart shall strain your engines.

Enter an Officer.

Officer. Noble Venetians! Duchess Faliero[fg]

Requests admission to the Giunta's presence.

Ben. Say, Conscript Fathers,[458] shall she be admitted?

One of the Giunta. She may have revelations of importance

Unto the state, to justify compliance

With her request.

Ben. Is this the general will?310

All. It is.

Doge. Oh, admirable laws of Venice!

Which would admit the wife, in the full hope

That she might testify against the husband.

What glory to the chaste Venetian dames!

But such blasphemers 'gainst all Honour, as

Sit here, do well to act in their vocation.

Now, villain Steno! if this woman fail,

I'll pardon thee thy lie, and thy escape,

And my own violent death, and thy vile life.

The Duchess enters.

Ben. Lady! this just Tribunal has resolved,320

Though the request be strange, to grant it, and

Whatever be its purport, to accord

A patient hearing with the due respect

Which fits your ancestry, your rank, and virtues:

But you turn pale—ho! there, look to the Lady!

Place a chair instantly.

Ang. A moment's faintness—

'Tis past; I pray you pardon me,—I sit not

In presence of my Prince and of my husband,

While he is on his feet.

Ben. Your pleasure, Lady?

Ang. Strange rumours, but most true, if all I hear330

And see be sooth, have reached me, and I come

To know the worst, even at the worst; forgive

The abruptness of my entrance and my bearing.

Is it—I cannot speak—I cannot shape

The question—but you answer it ere spoken,

With eyes averted, and with gloomy brows—

Oh God! this is the silence of the grave!

Ben. (after a pause). Spare us, and spare thyself the repetition

Of our most awful, but inexorable

Duty to Heaven and man!

Ang. Yet speak; I cannot—340

I cannot—no—even now believe these things.

Is he condemned?

Ben. Alas!

Ang. And was he guilty?

Ben. Lady! the natural distraction of

Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question

Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this

Against a just and paramount tribunal

Were deep offence. But question even the Doge,

And if he can deny the proofs, believe him

Guiltless as thy own bosom.

Ang. Is it so?

My Lord, my Sovereign, my poor father's friend,350

The mighty in the field, the sage in Council,

Unsay the words of this man!—thou art silent!

Ben. He hath already owned to his own guilt,[fh]

Nor, as thou see'st, doth he deny it now.

Ang. Aye, but he must not die! Spare his few years,

Which Grief and Shame will soon cut down to days!

One day of baffled crime must not efface

Near sixteen lustres crowned with brave acts.

Ben. His doom must be fulfilled without remission

Of time or penalty—'tis a decree.360

Ang. He hath been guilty, but there may be mercy.

Ben. Not in this case with justice.

Ang. Alas! Signor,

He who is only just is cruel; who

Upon the earth would live were all judged justly?

Ben. His punishment is safety to the State.

Ang. He was a subject, and hath served the State;

He was your General, and hath saved the State;

He is your Sovereign, and hath ruled the State.[fi]

One of the Council. He is a traitor, and betrayed the State.

Ang. And, but for him, there now had been no State370

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!

One of the Council. No, Lady, there are others who would die

Rather than breathe in slavery!

Ang. If there are so

Within these walls, thou art not of the number:

The truly brave are generous to the fallen!—

Is there no hope?

Ben. Lady, it cannot be.

Ang. (turning to the Doge).

Then die, Faliero! since it must be so;380

But with the spirit of my father's friend.

Thou hast been guilty of a great offence,

Half cancelled by the harshness of these men.

I would have sued to them, have prayed to them.

Have begged as famished mendicants for bread,

Have wept as they will cry unto their God

For mercy, and be answered as they answer,—

Had it been fitting for thy name or mine,

And if the cruelty in their cold eyes

Had not announced the heartless wrath within.390

Then, as a Prince, address thee to thy doom!

Doge. I have lived too long not to know how to die!

Thy suing to these men were but the bleating

Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry

Of seamen to the surge: I would not take

A life eternal, granted at the hands

Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies

I sought to free the groaning nations!

Michel Steno. Doge,

A word with thee, and with this noble lady,

Whom I have grievously offended. Would400

Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my part,

Could cancel the inexorable past!

But since that cannot be, as Christians let us

Say farewell, and in peace: with full contrition

I crave, not pardon, but compassion from you,

And give, however weak, my prayers for both.

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 weighed in mind with Loredano's daughter,410

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—the sense

Of Virtue, looking not to what is called

A good name for reward, but to itself.

To me the scorner's words were as the wind420

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

Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle430

Of her high aiery;[459] let what we now[fj]

Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson

To wretches how they tamper in their spleen

With beings of a higher order. Insects

Have made the lion mad ere now; a shaft

I' the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the brave;

A wife's Dishonour was the bane of Troy;

A wife's Dishonour unkinged Rome for ever;

An injured husband brought the Gauls to Clusium,

And thence to Rome, which perished for a time;440

An obscene gesture cost Caligula[460]

His life, while Earth yet bore his cruelties;

A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province;

And Steno's lie, couched in two worthless lines,

Hath decimated Venice, put in peril

A Senate which hath stood eight hundred years,

Discrowned a Prince, cut off his crownless head,

And forged new fetters for a groaning people!

Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan[461]

Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,450

If it so please him—'twere a pride fit for him!

But let him not insult the last hours of

Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a Hero,

By the intrusion of his very prayers;

Nothing of good can come from such a source,

Nor would we aught with him, nor now, nor ever:

We leave him to himself, that lowest depth

Of human baseness. Pardon is for men,

And not for reptiles—we have none for Steno,

And no resentment: things like him must sting,460

And higher beings suffer; 'tis the charter

Of Life. The man who dies by the adder's fang

May have the crawler crushed, but feels no anger:

'Twas the worm's nature; and some men are worms

In soul, more than the living things of tombs.[462]

Doge (to Ben.).

Signor! complete that which you deem your duty.[fk]

Ben. Before we can proceed upon that duty,

We would request the Princess to withdraw;

'Twill move her too much to be witness to it.

Ang. I know it will, and yet I must endure it,470

For 'tis 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.

Ben. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice,

Count of Val di Marino, Senator,

And some time General of the Fleet and Army,

Noble Venetian, many times and oft

Intrusted by the state with high employments,480

Even to the highest, listen to the sentence.

Convict by many witnesses and proofs,

And by thine own confession, of the guilt

Of Treachery and Treason, yet unheard of[fl]

Until this trial—the decree is Death—

Thy goods are confiscate unto the State,

Thy name is razed from out her records, save

Upon a public day of thanksgiving

For this our most miraculous deliverance,[fm]

When thou art noted in our calendars490

With earthquakes, pestilence, and foreign foes,

And the great Enemy of man, as subject

Of grateful masses for Heaven's grace in snatching

Our lives and country from thy wickedness.

The place wherein as Doge thou shouldst be painted

With thine illustrious predecessors, is

To be left vacant, with a death-black veil

Flung over these dim words engraved beneath,—

"This place is of Marino Faliero,

Decapitated for his crimes."[463]

Doge. "His crimes!"[464]500

But let it be so:—it will be in vain.

The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name,

And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments,

Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits

Which glitter round it in their pictured trappings—

Your delegated slaves—the people's tyrants!

"Decapitated for his crimes!"—What crimes?

Were it not better to record the facts,

So that the contemplator might approve,

Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose?510

When the beholder knows a Doge conspired,

Let him be told the cause—it is your history.

Ben. Time must reply to that; our sons will judge

Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce.

As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and Cap,

Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' Staircase,

Where thou and all our Princes are invested;

And there, the Ducal Crown being first resumed

Upon the spot where it was first assumed,

Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy520

Upon thy soul!

Doge. Is this the Giunta's sentence?

Ben. It is.

Doge. I can endure it.—And the time?

Ben. Must be immediate.—Make thy peace with God:

Within an hour thou must be in His presence.

Doge. I am already; and my blood will rise

To Heaven before the souls of those who shed it.

Are all my lands confiscated?[465]

Ben. They are;

And goods, and jewels, and all kind of treasure,

Except two thousand ducats—these dispose of.

Doge. That's harsh.—I would have fain reserved the lands530

Near to Treviso, which I hold by investment

From Laurence the Count-bishop of Ceneda,[fn]

In fief perpetual to myself and heirs,

To portion them (leaving my city spoil,

My palace and my treasures, to your forfeit)

Between my consort and my kinsmen.

Ben. These

Lie under the state's ban—their Chief, thy nephew,

In peril of his own life; but the Council

Postpones his trial for the present. If

Thou will'st a state unto thy widowed Princess,540

Fear not, for we will do her justice.

Ang. Signors,

I share not in your spoil! From henceforth, know

I am devoted unto God alone,

And take my refuge in the cloister.

Doge. Come!

The hour may be a hard one, but 'twill end.

Have I aught else to undergo save Death?[fo]

Ben. You have nought to do, except confess and die.

The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare,

And both await without.—But, above all,

Think not to speak unto the people; they550

Are now by thousands swarming at the gates,

But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori,

The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,

Alone will be beholders of thy doom,

And they are ready to attend the Doge.

Doge. The Doge!

Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die

A Sovereign; till the moment which precedes

The separation of that head and trunk,

That ducal crown and head shall be united.

Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning560

To plot with petty traitors; not so we,

Who in the very punishment acknowledge

The Prince. Thy vile accomplices have died

The dog's death, and the wolf's; but them shall fall

As falls the lion by the hunters, girt

By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,

And mourn even the inevitable death

Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal fierceness.

Now we remit thee to thy preparation:

Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be570

Thy guides unto the place where first we were

United to thee as thy subjects, and

Thy Senate; and must now be parted from thee

As such for ever, on the self-same spot.

Guards! form the Doge's escort to his chamber.

[Exeunt.