And here by good works done on earth; but where,
And by what sign, in Venice or on earth,
Honour?
ADMIRAL.
I crave no more than right.
FALIERO.
No more?
Strange temperance and strange modesty in man
To crave no more than what, for all we see,
Not God’s almightiness hath power to give —
Or else our less than righteous God lacks grace,
And hath not heart to do it. What wrongs are thine?
At least I have thus much more of grace than God,
That I will hearken if not help thee.
ADMIRAL.
Sir,
There came but now to the arsenal a man —
[Pauses.
FALIERO.
And smote another on the face — is this
Thy wrong? Thou canst not see the shame on mine
That thou shouldst make thy plaint of this. Look here —
Seest thou no sign in flesh and blood that saith
What hands have buffeted me?
ADMIRAL.
My lord, my lord,
It is not I who am wronged of these your jests,
But you much more in honour.
FALIERO.
That being nought,
Dead, rotten, if the thing had ever life,
I am nowise touched at all. But heed not me:
I had no mind to wrong thee. On.
ADMIRAL.
This man,
Being noble, of the seed of Barbaro,
Required of service to be done for him
The masters of the galleys; I being by
Made answer for mine officers and thine,
This could not be: whereon we fell to words;
He chid my duteousness in office there
As toward his place undutiful, and I
Rebuked his rank for insolence: he thereat
Spake not again, but smote me with his hand
Clenched, and the jewel thereon that loaded it
Hath writ his wrath where each man’s eye may read
That sees mine own yet blind with blood.
FALIERO.
What then?
ADMIRAL.
Why, this then, if your grace love righteousness
More than reproach of men for mad misrule —
Justice.
FALIERO.
Come hither — here, beside me. Look
Northwestward, by St. Mark’s, athwart the light.
Seest thou that beggar there asprawl and stark
Who seems to soil the sunshine where he lies?
ADMIRAL.
Ay, my lord.
FALIERO.
Ask of him to help us both.
ADMIRAL.
My lord, the temper of your angry wit
Seems wild and harsh to mine.
FALIERO.
Seem all things not
To wise men wild as madness, harsh as hell
To men that ever think on heaven? Thou knowest —
Nay, then, thou knowest not how they deal with me
Who are lords of ours, who hold us in their hands,
Who bid us be and be not. This at least
Thou hast heard — no gondolier but sings it, none
But laughs at large who listens — this ye know,
What manner of wrong was done me late, of whom,
And toward what judgment answerable he stands
Who doth me, being too weak to right myself,
Wrong. Answer not: I did not bid thee say
Thou knowest, for mine own shame’s sake, and for thine
I would not hear thee swear thou knowest it not.
Now, even this hour, the sentence comes to me
Given on my wrongdoer by our lords of law
Whose number makes up half my fourscore years.
Man, what had thine been?
ADMIRAL.
What but death?
FALIERO.
Indeed?
Death? Is it possible or believable
There lives a man that is no kin to me
Who holds mine honour worth the washing? Friend,
These men, born high, have doomed this high-born man
To lie secluded two close months in ward
And walk again forth freely.
ADMIRAL.
Will your grace
Endure it?
FALIERO.
Seest thou not how patiently?
Have all their forty buffets on this face
Raised blood enough to blush with?
ADMIRAL.
Good sir duke,
If you be minded verily for revenge,
These husbands and these sons of harlots, called
Nobles — these lineal liars whose tongues thrust out
Lap blood, lick dust, or lisp for lewdness — these
Whose mirth, whose life, whose honour hath for root
Adultery — these that laugh not save at shame,
But turn all shame to laughter — these our lords
May find a lord who need but lack the will
To hew them all in pieces.
FALIERO.
Ay, my friend?
ADMIRAL.
Sir, were you mine and theirs who are friends indeed
With all that groan and yearn, despair for shame,
Wax mad in hope — with all whose bloody sweat
Anoints and sleeks and supples and makes fat
Our lusty lords in Venice — this might be
Surely.
FALIERO.
But now didst thou rebuke me — yea,
For mockery chidd’st thou me: what words for this
Shall I find fit to chide thee?
ADMIRAL.
Nay, my duke,
What words or stripes may please you: shame on me
Can work no further now nor heavier wrong:
But, holding me herein a liar or mad,
You give truth’s self and your own soul the lie
If hope or faith or yearning or desire
Be verily in your soul toward vengeance.
FALIERO.
If
God’s will be strong, man’s will be weak, and good
Be not more vile than evil — if hate or love,
Wrath, shame, or righteousness, be anything,
Or aught at all be more than nothing, then
Much more than vengeance I require; and yet
Desire beyond all else desirable
Vengeance. If these who have wronged me, being wiped out,
May leave this Venice with their blood washed white,
Clean, splendid, sweet for sea and sun to kiss
Till earth adore and heaven applaud her — then
Shall my desire, till then insatiable,
Feed full, and sleep for ever.
ADMIRAL.
Sir, do you
Set but your hand with ours to it, and the work
Is even half wrought already.
FALIERO.
What are they
Who have in hand so high a work, and bid
Mine own take part and lot with theirs therein?
ADMIRAL.
My faith in yours needs not assurance; yet
Must none unpledged have knowledge of it, or take
Our lives in keeping: therefore, ere I speak,
Swear.
FALIERO.
Wiser men should bear thy charge than thou:
Swear? If thou lack assurance of me, friend,
What oath of force may give it thee? If by God
I swear, being one that might, unsworn to God,
Betray thee, will my treasonous tongue be tied,
Think’st thou, by fear of God, not fearing shame?
Were oath or word worth half a grain of dust
If, save for fear of hell and God, I durst,
Or would, albeit God’s tongue should bid me, lie?
Or if by Venice, shall my faith to her
Not bind me, being unsworn, to faith with you
If well ye will toward Venice — and if ill,
What oath could pledge me to this breach of oath,
The mere misprision of your treason — me,
Who stand for Venice here, in all time’s sight,
To Godward and to manward answerable?
Or by mine honour would you bind me fast
To abstain from that which could I dream to do
My soul were with Iscariot’s fast in hell
Now while my body yet should walk the world
And make the sun ashamed to cast on earth
The shameful shadow of such a soulless thing
Spared by sheer scorn of Satan’s and of God’s,
Rejected of damnation? He that swears
Faith toward his fellow bids him note and heed
That faith is none within him, seeing his word
Wants worth and weight which if it want indeed
No heavier oath than ever shook the soul
With thunder and with terror and with air
Can add or cast upon it.
ADMIRAL.
On your soul
Then be it, sir.
FALIERO.
Yea, friend: be it on mine and thine.
And now, as I and thou are faithful men,
Speak.
ADMIRAL.
Sir, albeit as yet conspiracy
Be shapeless as a shadow, this dark air
Breeds not beneath our iron heaven of rule
Clouds charged with less than lightning; men there are
Whose hate and love toward freedom and toward shame
Are full as even your own great heart of fire.
With such if you would commune on this cause,
Two might I now bid hither; a seaman tried,
Filippo Calendaro, swift of hand
And stout of heart as is his comrade wise
And keen of spirit and craft in wiles of war,
Bertuccio Israello: these, by secret word
Being called to counsel, shall not fail at need
To give us note whom else to take in trust
As in this cause auxiliaries.
FALIERO.
Therein
Lord nor lieutenant nor subordinate
Should any be, but equal all in heart
And all in station as in action all
Equal: for if in heart we be not one
How shall not each loose limb of our design
Rot, and relax in sunder? Not allies,
Auxiliaries nor seconds we require,
But single-souled sons of one mother born
And brothers one in spirit; born as Christ
Of this pure virgin’s womb, the commonweal’s,
Whom fools and slaves would fain make false and foul,
Being bastard-hearted, though true-born: but she
Knows shame no more than them she knows, whose souls
Were shapen as for service of a king,
Not citizen, but subject. Bid our friends
Hither: but ere you go, I pray you call
My nephew to me.
ADMIRAL.
Sir, God give you grace
To take this cause upon you; if he give,
No name that ever grew a star shall burn
Too high for yours to shine by.
FALIERO.
This perchance
May and perchance may be not: God’s own hand
Holds fast all issues of our deeds: with him
The end of all our ends is, but with us
Our ends are, just or unjust: though our works
Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this
At least is ours, to make them righteous. Go.
[Exit Admiral.
What sentence shall be given on mine? Of man,
As ill or well God means me, well or ill
Shall judgment pass upon me: but of God,
If God himself be righteous or be God,
Who being unrighteous were but god of hell,
The sentence given shall judge me just: for these
Who are part and parcel of my shame and theirs
Defile not nor disgrace me, whom they spurn
And smile and spit on, but their country: nay,
Nor only this, but freedom, duty, right,
Honour, and all things whence the unlikeness lives
Of commonwealths and kingdoms; all whence grows
The difference found of man whose brow fronts heaven
And beast whose eye seeks earthward — citizen
Whose hand implores a grace from no man’s hand,
And thrall whose lip craves pardon if it smile.
Re-enter
Bertuccio.
How farest thou now, boy? When I bade thee hence,
It was to spare thee sight and share of shame
I thought should fall upon me: but I knew
Thou wouldst have borne therein thy loyal part,
And eased, if pain of thine or love might ease,
My sufferance of mine own. Behold me now:
What seest thou? rage, or shame, or pride, or fear,
Or what vile passion else?
BERTUCCIO.
Dear father, none,
As never yet man saw nor man shall see
A sign on that the noblest face alive
Dishonourable.
FALIERO.
Nor aught untimely? nought
Strange? For the world is other with me, boy,
Than when we parted.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, I dare not say,
Not though the word seem written on your brow,
Triumph — nor, though this lighten from your eye,
Joy.
FALIERO.
Yet, by Christ’s own cross, my brother’s child,
Thou shouldst not lie to say so.
BERTUCCIO.
What good hap
Hath brought them back whence late by men’s default
Such looks, long natural there, were banished?
FALIERO.
Son,
A poor man’s wrong and mine and all the world’s,
Diverse and individual, many and one,
Insufferable of long-suffering less than God’s,
Of all endurance unendurable else,
Being come to flood and fullness now, the tide
Is risen in mine as in the sea’s own heart
To tempest and to triumph. Not for nought
Am I that wild wife’s bridegroom — old and hoar,
Not sapless yet nor soulless. Well she knows,
And well the wind our brother, whence our sails
Went swollen and strong toward Istria, that her head
Might bow down bruised with battle, and yield up
Its crested crown to Venice — well the world
Knows if this grey-grown head and lank right hand
Were once unserviceable: and she, my wife,
The sea it is that sends me comfort, son,
Strength, and assurance of her sons and mine,
Thy brethren, here to stablish right for wrong,
For treason truth, for thraldom like as ours
Freedom. But thou, so be it the wind and sun
That reared thy limbs and lit thy veins with life
Have blown and shone upon thee not for nought —
If these have fed and fired thy spirit as mine
With love, with faith that casts out fear, with joy,
With trust in truth and pride in trust — if thou
Be theirs indeed as theirs am I, with me
Shalt thou take part and with my sea-folk — aye,
Make thine eyes wide and give God wondering thanks
That grace like ours is given thee — thou shalt bear
Part of our praise for ever.
BERTUCCIO.
Praise or blame,<
br />
And ruinous fall or radiant rise, for me
With you shall be as one thing. I am yours.
The man I am you made me, and may shape
The man I shall be.
Re-enter the Admiral, with
Calendaro
and
Israello.
FALIERO.
Welcome, sirs; ye find
A fellow-servant, and your comrade now
In fellowship of wrong, not hopeless yet
To call you, if your will stretch wing with mine,
Friends, citizens, and brethren. This our friend
Hath given you by my charge to know of me
Thus much, that if your ends and mine be one,
As one our wrongs are, and this people’s need
One, toward the goal forefelt of our desire
No heart shall beat, no foot shall press, no hand
Strain, strive, and strike with steadier will than mine
And faith more strenuous toward the purpose. This
If ye believe not, here our hope hath end;
If ye believe, here under happier stars
Begins the date of Venice.
CALENDARO.
I believe
Not more in God’s word than in yours; and this
Not for your station’s sake, nor yet your fame’s,
How high soe’er the wind of war have blown
The splendour of your standard: but, my lord,
Your face and heart and speech, being one, require
Of any not base-born and servile-souled
Faith: and my faith I give you.
ISRAELLO.
Sir, and I,
Who know as all men know you wise in war,
Put trust in wisdom tried so long, and found
So strong for service ever.
FALIERO.
Then, no more
Hath hope so high as ours is need of words
To rear it higher or set more steadfast. This
Remains, that being in purpose strong to strike
We take but counsel where and how the stroke
May sharpest fall and surest. Sirs, for me
In all keen ventures tried of strength and chance
The briefest rede and boldest hath been best.
Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series) Page 266