Delphi Complete Poetical Works of Algernon Charles Swinburne (Illustrated) (Delphi Poets Series)
Page 267
We, that would purge the state of poisoned blood,
Need now but mark its hour for blood-letting,
And where to prick the swollen and virulent vein
That feeds most full this deep distemperature
Whence half the heart of Venice rots. These men
That steer the state with violent hand awry —
These rather that bind fast the steersman’s hand,
Baffle and blind him, while the veering stem
Reels deathward — they or she must utterly
Perish: the wind blows higher through this red heaven
Than when a ship may save herself, yet fling
Less by the board of all her lading, now
Found worthless, than may lighten her indeed.
What think you? may this plague be thoroughly purged,
And one of these our lords who trample us
Live? Are ye men that take this burden up,
And think with half a hand to bear it through
Or wear it like feather? If ye will,
Ye may be free, red-handed from revenge,
Or keep white hands, be slaves, and slumber: I
Will serve no more, nor sleep dishonoured.
CALENDARO.
Sir,
For one wrong done you, being but man as we,
If wrath make lightning of your life, in us,
For all wrongs done of all our lords alive
Through all our years of living, doubt you not
But wrath shall climb as high toward heaven, and hang
As hot with hope of thunder.
ISRAELLO.
Not to me
Can justice ever seem too just, or steer
Too straight ahead on vengeance: but we need
The helmsman’s eye to run before his hand,
The captain’s tongue to bid us whither.
FALIERO.
You,
Sir admiral, spake but late of one to me
Who lacking not the will should lack not power
To carve this monstrous quarry limb from limb
And give its flesh for beasts less vile to feed;
Spake you not somewise thus?
ADMIRAL.
Ay, verily — seeing
Heart, as I deemed, in you, sir, toward the work;
And, seeing it yet, still say so.
FALIERO.
Men have seen
Worse, and have rashlier spoken, yet have won
Praise for sharp sight and judgment. Friends, meseems
Yet none of you will say that in this cause
We lack no larger counsel than our own,
No further scope of foresight, though the path
Be ne’er so strait and secret: foot and eye
Must keep, for all this close and narrow way,
The vantage yet of outlook far and free
Lest in the darkness where our snares are set
Ourselves be trapped as wolves by twilight.
ADMIRAL.
Sir,
Some six or seven I wot of, being called in
To single counsel severally, shall give
Each man, so please you, judgment on the mean
That may be found for present action.
FALIERO.
This
The rudest march of rough-shod strategy
Could push not past and miss it, that we need
Ere noon or night may crown conspiracy
Not six or seven to post about the squares
But some sixteen or seventeen chiefs elect,
With each some forty swordsmen at his back
Well weaponed and arrayed, but held in doubt,
Even till the perfect hour strike, on what end
Their enterprise is bent and bound: and these,
When dawns the night or day determined, shall
At signal given fall here and there in fray,
With stormy semblance made of casual strife
To right and left enkindling: so shall I
Find instant cause or plea to bid the bells
Toll summons from St. Mark’s, and they thereon
To press from all sides in and every street
Down toward the church; where, finding these our lords
And all chief ministers of the common wrong
Who stand chief princes of the common weal
Drawn forth by fear together to demand
Whence thus leaps forth such riotous noise by night,
Full may they fall upon them unaware
And drive on heaps and slay them.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir —
FALIERO.
What says
Our nephew — sworn so late upon our side
Deep as man’s faith may pledge him? Does the charge
Mislike thee? Didst thou lie, or didst thou not
Swear?
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, to no such enterprise I swore
As treads through blood of blameless men toward ends
Whereof I wist not; nor, though these be pure,
To me may general slaughter seem absolved
Or by their grace transfigured and redeemed
From damnable to righteous. Nay, my lord,
Reply not as your eyes make answer: I
Take back no word of all I said, and now
Reiterate, seeing they need reiterance: nought
That you shall bid me, not though God forbid,
Will I not, if I may, do: but what end,
How high soe’er and single-eyed, can bid
Spill innocent blood, and stand up spotless? Think,
As these men should, being pure of purpose — think
If truth or trust or freedom, righteousness,
Faith, reverence, love, or loyalty, be fruits
That burst or burgeon from so dire a seed
As were in these rebellion, and in you
Treason.
FALIERO.
Treason?
BERTUCCIO.
The word should scare you not,
If not this enterprise may scare you.
ISRAELLO.
Duke,
Strange ears, it seems, have caught our counsel.
CALENDARO.
Peace:
Howe’er the strife of counsels end, we stand
Safe: here is yet no traitor.
BERTUCCIO.
He that holds
His life in fear of me may hold it safe
As I will hold mine honour. Sir, what end,
(To Faliero.)
Though this device should drink not innocent blood,
And violence fall not save on wrongdoers’ heads,
What end shall come of this red enterprise,
What fruit of such a root as bears for flower
Carnage that strikes by midnight?
ISRAELLO.
First for us
Justice, and next for him who doth us right
A crown.
BERTUCCIO.
A crown, and justice? night and day
Shall first be yoked together.
CALENDARO.
Truth is that:
If right and wrong engender, they bring forth
No true-begotten offspring.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, can you
Hear and keep silence when a citizen born
Of Venice proffers you for hire of blood,
For price of death dealt and a darkling blow,
Kingship?
FALIERO.
It was not well said — no, nor thought —
Of any, born republican, — albeit
The commonweal be cankered now at core —
That healing even for plaguespots might be found
In such a leper’s bed as monarchy
Keeps warm with prostitution, till therein
A people’s lifeblood, foul with sloth and shame,
Rot round its heart and perish.
ISRAE
LLO.
I would have you
Reign but as first of citizens, and see
Crowned in your name the people.
FALIERO.
Good my friend,
The foulest reigns whence ever earth smelt foul
When all her wastes and cities reeked of Rome
Were by that poisonous plea sown, watered, fed:
The worst called emperors ever, kings whose names
Serve even for slaves to curse with, lived by vote
And shone by delegation. We desire
For all men who desire not wrong to man
Freedom: but save for love’s sake and the right’s
Freedom to serve hath no man.
ISRAELLO.
Love should give
Right to the crowned redeemer of the state
To bid men serve for thankfulness and love
The man who did them service.
FALIERO.
And to them
Right to bow down, and serve, and abdicate
Manhood? Not God could give man, though he would,
Power to do this, and right to live: for they
That so should cast off manfulness, and tread
Their birthright out in blood or trampled mire,
Could claim, being men, but right to kill and die,
Or live, being thralls, as beasts that feed and groan
Till death release them into dust. No more.
To serve and reign for me were shame alike,
And for my masters or my slaves no less,
Inseparable and reverberate, crime from crime
And shame on shame for ever.
ADMIRAL.
Sir, well said.
CALENDARO.
Ay, and well done: such words are deeds, and wear
Swords girt for service on them.
FALIERO.
Yet of these
And all words else enough is ours and more,
If very swords be slower to speak than they.
Ye have my mind, I yours: remains but this,
That each betake him toward his office.
ADMIRAL.
Sir,
Farewell awhile we bid you, giving God
Thanks that he gives us and so great a cause
A chief whose heart is great as it.
FALIERO.
Farewell.
[Exeunt Admiral, Calendaro, and Israello.
And how may this now please thee? Have I said
Ill?
BERTUCCIO.
No, my lord.
FALIERO.
Or shall not we do well
To raise up Venice from the dust wherein
Men trample down her servants, and to bring
All haughtiest heads and highest of tyrants down
Thither?
BERTUCCIO.
My lord, it may be.
FALIERO.
Nay, by God,
Thou art older and colder of spirit and blood than I;
I am hoar of head, but thou, thou art sere at heart,
And grey in soul as fearful forethought makes
Old men whom time bows lowlier down than me.
What yet of this mislikes thee? Wouldst thou make
The rough ways plain for freedom’s feet, yet spare
Tyrants?
BERTUCCIO.
Of all this blood that shall be shed,
If none indeed be taintless, I would spare
No drop that knows infection: but, my sire,
Who dares say this?
FALIERO.
I.
BERTUCCIO.
Nay, not you, but wrath,
Your wrath it is that says so.
FALIERO.
No: for proof
With iron tongues innumerable echoing me
Cries out upon the house-tops, fills and thrills
Streets, bridges, squares, with shame from roof to roof
Reverberated resounding as to toll
The deep death-knell of honour. None there is,
Not one that in this wrongdoing bears not part,
Not one but we in Venice, we whose hands
Are pledged to quench in blood this funeral fire
That else will burn up justice, courage, faith,
And leave but shame alive and vileness free
And cowardice crowned as conqueror. Here she lies,
Our mother, mightiest late of all things throned
And hailed of earth as heavenly, naked, soiled,
Mocked, scourged, and spat on: not her first of sons
And not her last escapes, evades, eschews
Communion in one sacrament of shame,
Partakes not, pledges not the wine of wrong,
The bread of outrage: first and last are one:
Bound of base hands down on her pyre alive,
Fast bound with iron and with infamy,
Our commonweal groans, knowing herself a thing
For slaves and kings to scoff at. Shall this be
With thy goodwill for ever? Not with mine
Shall it; nay, not though scarce a tithe were left
When justice hath fulfilled her fiery doom
Again to build up Venice.
BERTUCCIO.
Who shall build
On graves and ashes, out of fire and blood,
Or citadel or temple? Where on earth,
For man what stronghold, or what shrine for God,
Rose ever so from ruin?
FALIERO.
Rome — if Rome
Lie not — was built on innocent blood: and here
No fratricidal auspice shall renew
Life, but a sacrificial sign again
Inaugurate Venice for her sons to praise
And all the world to worship. These are not
Brethren, nor men nor sons of men are these,
But worms that creep and couple, soil and sting,
Whose blood though foul shall purge pollution hence
And leave the shore clean as the sea. Would God
Their hour to-night could ere its natural time
Ring from St. Mark’s, albeit the bell that struck
Rang me to rest for ever! I shall sleep
Thereafter, sound as triumph or as death
That strikes, and seals up triumph.
BERTUCCIO.
Sir, I know,
If by strange hap my sire could err, with him
For me to err were better, even to death,
Defeat, dispraise, and all that darkens death,
Than swerving from his side to shine, and live
Acclaimed of all men’s praises. Be your will
Done: for as God’s your will shall be for me
A stronghold and a safeguard though I die.
[Exeunt.
ACT IV.
Scene I. — A cabinet in the palace of Lioni.
Enter Lioni and Beltramo.
LIONI.
Speak now, then: here at least is none but I.
Speak.
BELTRAMO.
Sir, you dream not what you bid me do.
LIONI.
By good St. Mark, not I: but this should be
Some honest thing, or hardly wouldst thou dare
So thrust and press upon me.
BELTRAMO.
No, my lord.
I doubt it is not.
LIONI.
Get thee hence, then: out:
Is there no room for all dishonest works
In all the range of Venice, that a knave
Must make me closet counsellor with him,
Here emptying forth his knavery? By this light,
I think thou art here belated, mad with wine
Or drunk with brawling: yet again I think
Thou darest not thus abuse me.
BELTRAMO.
Sir, I dare
Nor hold my peace nor hardly speak; yet this
I cannot but beseech you to believe,
&
nbsp; That if between two doubts I hang distraught
The stronger cause that plucks me by the heart
Is care and duty toward you, born of love;
The weaker, half disrooted now, constrains
My conscience yet for shame’s sake; which nathless
I needs must here cast off me. Sir, you know
How yet no long time since it is that we
Communed of matters held for me too high,
Of unendurable evil endured, of wrong
Whence all men’s hearts were wasted as with fire,
Of hope that helped not, patience grey with pain,
Long-suffering sick to death, and violence roused
To range among the violent: dangerous dreams
Whereof your wisdom, though with temperate words,
Rebuking them, chastised me: whence, my lord,
I come to shew you now what seed hath sprung
To what swift height and amplitude of doom
Far overshadowing Venice. You desired
A sign, as they that knew not Christ, and lo,
My lord, a sign I bring you. Twelve hours more
Shall see this moon of April half burnt out
And half the squares and highways of this town
A sea of blood full foaming toward the verge
Where it shall meet our natural sea, and bid
Her waters, widening over bank and bridge,
Swell strong with storm of murder’s making. This
May none avert: God wills it: man desires
And shall by God’s grace do it: but you, my lord,
Keep from those ways your foot at dawn, albeit
The cry be raised of enemies at our gates,
Of Genoa round our port in sail; and keep
Your lifeblood from that torrent which shall drown
All palaces else that shall by dawn send forth
Their lords at summons sounded from St. Mark’s:
And so, as now through me, God save you.
LIONI.
Stay.
Thou didst not think to say so and pass forth
With no more question, scathless?
BELTRAMO.
Good my lord,
This did I think, that from your noble hand,