Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 263
Nor keeps more fast his faith in it than I.
FALIERO.
No need thy tongue should witness with thine eyes
How thine heart beats toward honour. Blind were he,
And mad with base brainsickness even to death,
Who seeing thee should not see it. Those Florentines
With names more gracious than their customs crown
Glad heads of graceless women; jewelled names
That mock the bright stone’s fire of constant heart,
Diamante, Gemma; thine, were thine as these,
Might dare the vaunt unchallenged: such a name
Is in those eyes writ clear with fire more keen
Than ever shame bade shine or sin made burn
Where grace lay dead ere death. How now, my son?
Enter
Bertuccio.
BERTUCCIO.
Most noble uncle —
FALIERO.
Nay, but art thou mazed?
No reverence toward our lady, nor a look
Save as of one distraught with fear, whose dreams
Are still as fire before his eyes by night
That leaves them dark by daytime? Yestereve,
Hadst thou so looked upon the bull, by Christ,
Thou hadst come not home his conqueror.
DUCHESS.
Sir, perchance
Your nephew with your grace would speak alone.
BERTUCCIO.
Ay, madam.
FALIERO.
Nay, sir. Why, what coil is this?
Thine eyes look scarce half drunken, but thy speech
Is thicker than with wine.
DUCHESS.
Good day, my lords.
FALIERO.
Pass out of earshot if thou list, but pass
— I pray thee, sweet! — no further.
[Duchess withdraws.
Now, my son,
If nought bemuse thy brain or bind thy tongue,
Speak.
BERTUCCIO.
Sire, I may not.
FALIERO.
God consume thee! nay,
But bring thy wits back healed — what dost thou then
Here?
BERTUCCIO.
What must needs, in my despite and thine,
Be done, and yet should be not. None but I
Dare tell my sire that Venice rings and roars
Aloud with monstrous mockery whence our name
Is rent as carrion by the vulturous beaks
That feed on fame and soil it. Sir, it were
A shame beyond all treason for my lips
To take this taint upon them: read, and see
What all have seen that in thine hall of state
Since dawn have entered, on thy sovereign seat
Nailed up in God’s defiance and ours, a lie
That hell would hear not unrebuked, nor heaven
Endure and find no thunder.
[Gives a paper to Faliero.
FALIERO.
God us aid!
Why, if the pageant match thy prologue, man,
The stage should shake to bear it. — Body of God!
What?
DUCHESS.
Sir! my lord!
BERTUCCIO.
Forbear him.
FALIERO.
Does the sun
Shine? — Did he smite me on the face?
DUCHESS.
Who?
FALIERO.
He.
[Pointing to Bertuccio.
DUCHESS.
What have you given him?
BERTUCCIO.
Ask not.
FALIERO.
Let me think —
Art not thou too Faliero, and my son?
BERTUCCIO.
Ay.
FALIERO.
By the glory of God in heaven, I swear,
I think not as I thought it.
BERTUCCIO.
Then your thought
Errs, and the mind whose passion brings it forth
Strays far, and shakes toward ruin.
FALIERO.
It may be so,
Sir; it may be so.
DUCHESS.
Heaven have pity on all!
FALIERO.
Madam, what man is this that speaks to me?
DUCHESS.
My lord your nephew.
FALIERO.
Thine? thy lord is this?
Thy man? thy master?
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, bethink you —
FALIERO.
Ay —
I will bethink me surely. Fair my wife,
I pray you pardon mine unreverend age,
Shamed as it stands before you — spurned, and made
A thing for boys to spit at. In my sight,
I pray you, do not smile too broad at it.
White hairs, if he that bears them bear my place,
Are held, I know, unvenerable of all.
Fair sir, you are young, and men may honour you:
Tell me, whom am blind, how I should bear myself
In the eyes of men who see me that I see
Nothing.
DUCHESS.
O God, be pitiful!
BERTUCCIO.
My lord,
Refrain yourself; you stagger toward the pit
Whose gulf is madness; gather up your heart;
Give not all rein to rage.
FALIERO.
I will not, sir.
There was a noise of hissing in mine ears;
I could not hear you for it; and in mine eyes
Blank night, and fire, and blindness. Now I see
The leprous beggar whom the town spits out
Hath more than I of honour. Many a year
I have dreamed of many a deed that brought not shame,
Not shame at all, but praise: these were not mine,
I know them now, they were not: mine have earned
For the utmost crown and close of all my life
Shame. I would know, were God not stricken dumb,
What deed I have done that this should fall on me.
BERTUCCIO.
My lord —
FALIERO.
Thy servant’s servant, and a dog.
Yet art thou, too, vile; nay, not vile as I,
But baser than a beaten bondman.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir,
If madness make you not a thrall indeed,
But reverence yet claim reverence, take some thought
Not for yourself, nor me.
FALIERO.
Dost thou desire
So much for her sake of me? Son of mine,
Look well upon thy father: let mine eyes
Take all the witness of the spirit in thine,
That I may know what heart thou hast indeed.
Bertuccio, if thine eyes lie, then is God
Dead, and the world hell’s refuse.
BERTUCCIO.
Sire and lord,
If ever I have lied to you, I lie
Now.
FALIERO.
I believe thou liest not. Mark me, son,
This is no little trust I put in thee,
Believing yet, in face of this I read,
That man or God may lie not.
BERTUCCIO.
Speak to her.
FALIERO.
Take comfort, child: this world is foul, God wot,
That gives thee need of comfort.
DUCHESS.
I have none —
No need, I mean — if nought fare ill with you.
FALIERO.
Much, much there is fares ill with all men: yet,
With thee, if righteousness were loved in heaven,
Should nought at all fare ill for ever. Sweet,
As thou wouldst fain, if thou couldst ever sin,
Find for that sin forgiveness, pardon me.
I am great in years, and what I had borne in you
th,
Not well perchance, yet better, now, being old,
I cannot bear, thou seest, at all. For this
Forgive me: not with will of mine it was
That thus I scared so sore thy harmless heart.
Speak to me not now: ere this hour be full,
It may be we may speak awhile again
Together: now must none abide with me.
[Exit.
DUCHESS.
What have they said?
BERTUCCIO.
Ask never that of man.
DUCHESS.
What have they said of me?
BERTUCCIO.
I cannot say.
DUCHESS.
Thou wilt not — being mine enemy. Why, for shame
You should not, sir, keep silence.
BERTUCCIO.
Yet I will.
DUCHESS.
I never dreamt so dark a dream as this.
BERTUCCIO.
God send it no worse waking.
DUCHESS.
Now I know
You are even indeed her enemy, who believed
She had never so deserved of you. I have
No friend where friends I thought were mine, and find,
Where never I thought to find them, enemies. Whence
Have I deserved by chance of any man
That he should be mine enemy?
BERTUCCIO.
If I be,
I would not strike you shamefully at heart,
But rather bear a bitterer blame than this
Than right myself with doing you wrong. Would God
Your enemies and mine uncle’s all were I!
DUCHESS.
Do you know them — these — what manner of men they are?
BERTUCCIO.
Save as I know that hell breeds worms and fire,
No.
DUCHESS.
Have I merited these? Have we that loved,
Have we that love, in God’s clear sight or man’s,
Sinned?
BERTUCCIO.
Nay, not thou, if heaven by love for earth
Sins not: if thou, then God in loving man
Sins.
DUCHESS.
Nay: for yet you never kissed my lips.
That day the truth sprang forth of thine, I swore
It should not bring my soul and thine to shame.
And thou too, didst not thou, for very love,
Swear it?
BERTUCCIO.
And stands mine oath not whole?
DUCHESS.
Give God
Honour, who hath kept in us our honour fast.
Whatever come between our death and this,
For that I thank him.
BERTUCCIO.
Ah, my love, my light,
Soul of my soul, and holier heart of mine,
Thee, thee I thank, that yet I live, and yet
Love, and yet stand not in all true men’s eyes
Shamed. Am I pure as thou, that save through thee
I should be found no viler than I am?
Hadst thou been other, I perchance, God knows,
Had been a baser thing than galls us now.
DUCHESS.
Ay! but I knew it or ever I wrung it forth —
Me then they smite at, and my lord in me,
Who have smitten him so sorely?
BERTUCCIO.
Dear, how else?
When seemed our sire a furious weakling, made
For any wind to work upon and wrest
Awry with passion that had struck no root
Deep even as love or honour?
DUCHESS.
Woe is me!
Would God I were not!
Re-enter
Faliero.
FALIERO.
Pray thou no such prayer:
I heard that cry to Godward: call it back.
My faultless child, if prayer seem good to thee,
Pray: but for nought like death. And doubt thou not
But yet thou hast given me daily more good things
Than God can give of evil; nor may man,
Albeit his fang be deadlier than the snake’s
And strike too deep for God or thee to heal,
Undo the good thou didst, or make a curse
Grow where thou sowedst a blessing. Go in peace;
And take with thee love’s full thanksgiving. Go.
DUCHESS.
My father, and my lord!
FALIERO.
My child and wife,
Go.
[Exit Duchess.
Now to thee, son. When thou gavest me this,
I do not ask thee if thou knewest the man.
It were impossible, out of reach of thought,
That mine own brother’s and mine own heart’s child
Should give it me, and say — I know the man;
He lives: I did not take him by the throat
And make the lying soul leap through his lips
Before I told thee such a thing could live.
BERTUCCIO.
You do me right: I know not.
FALIERO.
This remains,
That we should know: being known, to thee nor me
Belongs the doomsman’s labour of the lash
That is to scourge him out of life. My son,
I charge thee by thine honour and my love
Thou lay no hand upon him.
BERTUCCIO.
Nay, my lord,
Nay —
FALIERO.
Swear me this.
BERTUCCIO.
I will not.
FALIERO.
Swear, I say.
BERTUCCIO.
I cannot swear it, father.
FALIERO.
By Christ’s blood,
But swear thou shalt, and keep it. Do not make
Thy sire indeed mad with more monstrous wrong
Than yet bows down his head dishonoured. Swear.
BERTUCCIO.
What?
FALIERO.
That albeit his life lay in thine hand
Thou wouldst not bruise it with a finger.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir,
How can I?
FALIERO.
Sir, by God, thou shalt not choose.
Art thou the hangman?
BERTUCCIO.
If the knave perchance
Be noble?
FALIERO.
Dost thou mock thyself and me?
Noble?
BERTUCCIO.
My lord, I would not wrong the worst
Of all that wrong the names they wear: but yet
I cannot see in Venice one save one
Who might, being born base, and of no base name,
Conceive himself so far your enemy.
FALIERO.
Boy,
What knowest thou of their numbers that have cause,
Being vile, to hate me? Hath my rule not been
Righteous?
BERTUCCIO.
That stands not questionable of man.
FALIERO.
How then should more not hate than love me? Child,
Child!
BERTUCCIO.
But a man’s wrath strikes more straight, my lord,
How vile soe’er, than toward a woman. This —
This is a dog’s tooth that has poisoned you:
And yestereve a dog it was you bade
Spurn out of sight of honour.
FALIERO.
Steno?
BERTUCCIO.
He.
Else am not I Faliero.
FALIERO.
Then — I say,
Then, — be it so, — what wouldst thou do? Being my son,
What wouldst thou dream or do, this being so?
BERTUCCIO.
Why,
With God’s good will and yours, and good men’s leave,
Hew out his heart for dogs to gna
w. Might this
Displease you?
FALIERO.
Why then yet is this to do?
BERTUCCIO.
Forgive me, father, and God forgive me: this
I am all on fire with shame to have spoken of
And think the man lives while I prate. But you
Know, and our Lord God knows, it is but now,
Now, even this instant breath of imminent time,
That I have guessed this.
FALIERO.
Ay; we know it well;
We, God and I.
BERTUCCIO.
And both of you give leave —
Or leave I crave of neither — pardon me,
But leave I crave not to set heel on him.
FALIERO.
God gives not leave; and I forbid thee.
BERTUCCIO.
Then,
In God’s teeth and in yours, I will, or God
Shall smite me helpless by your hand. My lord,
You do but justice on me, so to seem —
I would not say, to dwell in doubt of me.
I should have passed ere this out of your sight,
Silent.
FALIERO.
Thou shouldst not. Is this burden sore
That as thou sayest God lays on thee, or I,
To be as I am patient?
BERTUCCIO.
Fain would I
Be, would God help me, even as you — were you
As I now stand, though shamefaced, in your sight.
FALIERO.
Ay — you are young and shamefaced — I am old,
And in my heart the shame is. But your face
Hath honour in it — and what have I to do,