Silent: I bid thee now no more: but this
Thou shalt be.
STENO.
See now, sweet, what friends he hath,
Our good grey head of Venice! if one speak
At hunting-time of horns or tusks or spoil
That hot young hunters laugh at, straight they cry,
Peace, and respect, and spare our master. Christ!
What friends! were I fourscore, and thou — thyself,
Wouldst thou be half so good a friend of mine?
Ha? Nay, but answer — nay, thou shalt.
LADY.
I will
Once, and no more. Keep silence: and forget
If ever word of such a tongue as thine
Found audience of me.
STENO.
Am I then indeed
Fourscore, that I should not remember? Ha!
Nor woman am I, to forget — but some
Love dotards more than men.
LADY.
Who loves not men
May love such things as grovel of thy kind,
And deem such love not monstrous.
STENO.
Nay, but this
Asks answer of man’s lips — not of his tongue —
Nay!
FALIERO.
Who is there that knows not where he is
And dreams the place a brothel? Gentlemen,
If here be any, need is none to bid
You spurn him out of sight.
LIONI.
Go; if thou hast
Or shame or sense, abide not here till men
Hurl thee with fists and feet away.
STENO.
By God,
I will be — God forsake me else — revenged.
Sirs, lay not hand upon me.
[Exit.
FALIERO.
Dear my child,
Thine eyes are still set sunwards: hast thou heard
Nought of this brawl?
DUCHESS.
I would not.
FALIERO.
Thou dost well
God knows, no base or violent thing should come,
Had I God’s power, in hearing or in sight
Of such as thou art.
DUCHESS.
Then were earth too soft
For souls to look on heaven; but what I may
I would eschew of meaner knowledge.
FALIERO.
God
Guard thee from all unworthy thee, or fit
For earthlier sense than feeds thy spirit and keeps
Heaven still within thine eyeshot. Dost thou see
There, in that fiery field of heaven that fades
Beyond the extremest Euganean, aught
Worth quite the rapture of those eyes that yearn
Too high to look on Venice?
DUCHESS.
Sir, methought
We were not worthy — nor was ever man
Made in God’s loftiest likeness — even to see
Such wonder and such glory live and die.
FALIERO.
And yet we live that look on it. This sight
Is verily other far than we beheld
When first October brought thy husband back
From Romeward, here to take on him the state
Wherein we now sit none the lower or less
For the ominous entrance to it. I never saw
A noon so like a nightfall: that we breathe
Unwithered yet of wicked signs, and see
The world still shine about us, might rebuke
All fearful faith in evil.
DUCHESS.
Yet was that
A woful welcome: all about the prow
Darkness, and all ahead and all astern,
And all beside no sign but cloud adrift,
All blind as death and bitter: and at last —
I would not bring it on your memory back
Who fain would cast it out of mine.
FALIERO.
At last
To land between the columns where they die
Whom justice damns by judgment. Nay, are we
Traitors or thieves or manslayers, that the sign
Should make us wan with forethought? This foretold,
If aught foretell men aught, that he who came
Should bring men equal justice; do them right,
Or die — as gladlier would I die than stand
In equal eyes of equitable men
A judge approved unrighteous. Be not thou
Moved, when the world is gracious and the sun
Speaks comfort, by remembrance of a sign
That lied, and was not presage. We came in
Darkling: and lo now if this earth and sea
Be not as heaven about us, and the time
Not more elate with fair festivity
Than should our hearts be — yea, though nought were here
Save this bare beauty shown of wave and sky
To lift them up for love’s sake. Has the world,
Think’st thou, so good a gift as this to give
Men’s eyes that know not Venice?
DUCHESS.
Nay: but you,
Lord of two wives, love least the first espoused
Albeit the younger of them: more than me
You love that old hoar bride who caught your ring
Last autumn, and to-day laughs large and loud
On all that sail or swim: you dare not say
You have not loved her longest.
FALIERO.
But I dare
Swear, though no little thing this be to swear
For one whose heart and hand, whose praise and pride,
Were still mine old Adriatic’s, mother and wife
And wellspring of mine honour, that I love
Not her nor heaven nor Venice more than thee
Whose laughter mocks us and whose lip maligns;
Nay, not so much, thou knowest, were I not old
Or thou not young, I would not fear to say,
As now, lest youth reprove mine age of love
And shame chastise it for infirmity,
And thou — but in thine heart, I think, there lurks
No thought that should reprove it or chastise
With less than tender laughter; though, being old,
The sea be meeter for my bride, and show
A wrinkled face with hoary fell that seems
More like mine own than thou canst show me.
DUCHESS.
How
Man’s courtesy keeps time with falsehood, though
Truth ring rebuke unheeded! Look, my lord,
How the sea bids the sun and us good night,
With what sweet sighs and laughter, light and wind
Contending as they kiss her, till the sigh
Laugh on her lip, and all her sunward smile
Subside in sighing to shoreward: will you say
God hath not given you there a goodlier bride
Than his who mates with woman?
FALIERO.
She is fair —
Heaven, in our dreams of heaven, not fairer; nay,
The heaven that lends her colour not so fair,
Being less in men’s eyes living: but in thee,
Were even thy face no fairer found than hers,
There sleeps no chance of shipwreck. See, they come,
The hunters with their trophies, and in front,
If the sun play not with an old man’s eyes,
My boy it is that leads them.
DUCHESS.
And unhurt.
[Voices below:
Long live Faliero! live Bertuccio long!
DUCHESS.
God and St. Mark be praised for all!
FALIERO.
Nay, child,
Wouldst thou make him a child or girl, to thank
God that he bears him like a man and takes
No hurt for lack of skill or manfulness
/>
In young men’s craft or pastime? Welcome, sirs;
Well done, and welcome. Hither, son, to me.
Enter
Bertuccio
and Hunters.
Give this good lady thanks, who hath at heart
Such care of thee she might not choose but doubt
If manhood were enough in heart of thine
Or strength in hand for sportful service.
DUCHESS.
Nay;
I said so never.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, my thanks to both.
We have seen good sport; but these my friends, who lay
The hunt’s main honour on my single hand,
Malign themselves to praise me.
FALIERO.
Yet for that
Thy cheek need put not on the dye wherewith
The sunset’s flag now hoisted strikes twice red
These westward palace-columns. Come: the dance
Will try thy mettle till the first bell sound
And bid the banquet in. A fairer night
Spring could not send us. Come beside me: so.
[Exeunt.
Scene II.
— The Piazzetta.
Enter
Steno
and
Lioni.
STENO.
I will not and I shall not be revenged?
It cannot be? Thou sayest it?
LIONI.
This I say,
Thou shalt do well to get thee home and sleep.
STENO.
Sleep? and forgive? and pray, before I sleep,
God love and bless and comfort and sustain
With all the grace that consecrates old age
Faliero? Is my badge a hare — a dove —
A weasel — anything whose heart or gall
Is water, or is nothing? God shall first
Give up his place to Satan — heaven fall down
Below the lowest and loathliest gulf in hell —
Ere I take on me such dishonour.
LIONI.
Shame
Thou hast laid upon thyself already, nor
Canst hurl it off with howling: words can wash
No part of ignominy away that clings
As yet about thee: time and sufferance may,
And penitence, if manful. I would fain
Think thee, being noble, not ignoble; as
Must all men think the man born prince or churl
Whom wrath or lust or rancorous self-regard
Drives past regard of honour.
STENO.
Look you, friend:
What, think you, shall these all men think, who read
Writ up to-morrow on the ducal seat,
The throne of office, this for epigraph —
‘Marin Faliero of the fair-faced wife:
He keeps and others kiss her’ — eh? or thus —
‘Others enjoy her and he maintains her’ — ha?
LIONI.
Thou art not such a hound at heart: thy tongue
Is viler than thy purpose.
STENO.
Wilt thou swear
This? Vile — why, vile were he that should endure
Insult; not he that being offended dares
Take insolence by the beard — be it white or black —
And shake and spit upon it. Ay? by God!
Back turned and shoulder shrugged confute not me:
Abide awhile: be dawn my witness: wait,
And men shall find what heart is mine to strike,
What wit to wound mine enemy: meet me then,
And say which fool to-night spake wiselier here.
[Exeunt severally.
ACT II.
Scene I.
— An apartment in the ducal palace.
Marino Faliero
and the
Duchess.
FALIERO.
It does not please thee, then, if silence have
Speech, and if thine speak true, to hear me praise
Bertuccio? Has my boy deserved of thee
Ill? or what ails thee when I praise him?
DUCHESS.
Sir,
How should it hurt me that you praise —
FALIERO.
My son,
Mine, more than once my brother’s: how, indeed?
DUCHESS.
Have I the keeping of your loves in charge
To unseal or seal their utterance up, my lord?
FALIERO.
Again, thy lord! I am lord of all save thee.
DUCHESS.
You are sire of all this people.
FALIERO.
Nay, by Christ,
A bitter brood were mine then, and thyself
Mismated worse than April were with snow
Or January with harvest, being his bride
Who bore so dire a charge of fatherhood.
Thou, stepmother of Venice? and this hand,
That could not curb nor guide against its will
A foot that fell but heavier than a dove’s,
What power were in it to hold obedience fast,
Laid on the necks of lions?
DUCHESS.
Why, men say
The lion will stoop not save to ladies’ hands,
But such as mine may lead him.
FALIERO.
Thine? I think
The very wolf would kiss and rend it not.
DUCHESS.
The very sea-wolf?
FALIERO.
Verily, so meseems.
DUCHESS.
For so the strong sea-lion of Venice doth.
FALIERO.
This is a perilous beast whereof thou sayest
So sweet a thing so far from like to be —
A horrible and a fiend-faced shape, men call
The lion of the waters.
DUCHESS.
But St. Mark
Holds his in leash of love more fast, my lord,
Than ever violence may.
FALIERO.
By heaven and him,
Thy sweet wit’s flight is even too fleet for me:
No marvel though thy gentle scorn smite sore
On weaker wits of younglings: yet I would,
Being more my child than even my wife to me,
Thine heart were more a sister’s toward my son.
DUCHESS.
So is it indeed — and shall be so — and more,
The more we love our father and our lord,
Shall our two loves grow full, grow fire that springs
To Godward from the sacrifice it leaves
Consumed for man’s burnt-offering.
FALIERO.
What! thine eyes
Are very jewels of even such fire indeed.
I thought not so to kindle them: but yet
My heart grows great in gladness given of thine
Whose truth in such bright silence as is God’s
Speaks love aloud and lies not.
DUCHESS.
No, my lord.
FALIERO.
It is not truth nor love then, sweet my child,
That lightens from thine eyeshot?
DUCHESS.
Yea, my lord.
FALIERO.
I grow less fond than foolish, troubling thee,
Who yet am held or yet would hold myself
Not yet unmanned with dotage. Sooth is this,
I am lighter than my daily mood today
And heedless haply lest I wrong mine age
And weary thine with words unworthy thee
Or him that would be honoured of the world
Less than beloved — with love not all unmeet —
Of one or twain he loves as old men may.
Bertuccio loves me; thou dost hate me not
That like a frost I touch thy flower, and breathe
As March breathes back the spirit of winter dead
On May that dwells whe
re thou dost: but my son
Finds no more grace of thee to comfort him
Than April wins of the east wind. Wot thou well,
The long loose tongues of Tuscan wit would cast
Ill comment on this care of mine to bring
More close my wife’s heart and my son’s, being young,
And I a waif of winter, left astrand
Above the soft sea’s tidemark whose warm lip
Is love’s, that loves not age’s: but I think
We are none of those whose folly, set in shame,
Makes mirth for John of Florence.
DUCHESS.
By God’s grace,
No.
FALIERO.
And by grace of pure Venetian pride
And blood of blameless mothers. By St. Mark,
Shame, that stings sharpest of the worms in hell,
Seems, if those light-souled folks sing true, to them
No more a burning poison than the fly’s
We brush from us, and know not: but for men
The eternal fire hath no such fang to smite
As this their jests make nought of. Life is brief —
Albeit thou knowest not, nor canst well believe,
But life is long and lovesome as thine age
In vision sees it, and in heart uplift
Plays prelude clear of presage — brief and void
Where laughing lusts fulfil its length of days
And nought save pleasure born seems worth desire;
But long and full of fruit in all men’s sight
Whereon the wild worm feeds not, nor the sun
Strikes, nor the wind makes war, nor frost lays hold,
Is the ageless life of honour, won and worn
With heart and hand most equal, and to time
Given as a pledge that something born of time
Is mightier found than death, and wears of right
God’s name of everlasting.
DUCHESS.
Child I am,
Or child my lord will call me, yet himself
Knows this not better, holds no truer this truth,
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 262