Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  My petty wrong, for what is a mere blow,

  However vile, to such a thing as I am? —

  But the base insult done your state and person. 410

  Doge. You overrate my power, which is a pageant.

  This Cap is not the Monarch’s crown; these robes

  Might move compassion, like a beggar’s rags;

  Nay, more, a beggar’s are his own, and these

  But lent to the poor puppet, who must play

  Its part with all its empire in this ermine.

  I. Ber. Wouldst thou be King?

  Doge. Yes — of a happy people.

  I. Ber. Wouldst thou be sovereign lord of Venice?

  Doge. Aye,

  If that the people shared that sovereignty,

  So that nor they nor I were further slaves 420

  To this o’ergrown aristocratic Hydra,

  The poisonous heads of whose envenomed body

  Have breathed a pestilence upon us all.

  I. Ber. Yet, thou wast born, and still hast lived, patrician.

  Doge. In evil hour was I so born; my birth

  Hath made me Doge to be insulted: but

  I lived and toiled a soldier and a servant

  Of Venice and her people, not the Senate;

  Their good and my own honour were my guerdon.

  I have fought and bled; commanded, aye, and conquered; 430

  Have made and marred peace oft in embassies,

  As it might chance to be our country’s ‘vantage;

  Have traversed land and sea in constant duty,

  Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice,

  My fathers’ and my birthplace, whose dear spires,

  Rising at distance o’er the blue Lagoon,

  It was reward enough for me to view

  Once more; but not for any knot of men,

  Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat!

  But would you know why I have done all this? 440

  Ask of the bleeding pelican why she

  Hath ripped her bosom? Had the bird a voice,

  She’d tell thee ‘twas for all her little ones.

  I. Ber. And yet they made thee Duke.

  Doge. They made me so;

  I sought it not, the flattering fetters met me

  Returning from my Roman embassy,

  And never having hitherto refused

  Toil, charge, or duty for the state, I did not,

  At these late years, decline what was the highest

  Of all in seeming, but of all most base 450

  In what we have to do and to endure:

  Bear witness for me thou, my injured subject,

  When I can neither right myself nor thee.

  I. Ber. You shall do both, if you possess the will;

  And many thousands more not less oppressed,

  Who wait but for a signal — will you give it?

  Doge. You speak in riddles.

  I. Ber. Which shall soon be read

  At peril of my life — if you disdain not

  To lend a patient ear.

  Doge. Say on.

  I. Ber. Not thou,

  Nor I alone, are injured and abused, 460

  Contemned and trampled on; but the whole people

  Groan with the strong conception of their wrongs:

  The foreign soldiers in the Senate’s pay

  Are discontented for their long arrears;

  The native mariners, and civic troops,

  Feel with their friends; for who is he amongst them

  Whose brethren, parents, children, wives, or sisters,

  Have not partook oppression, or pollution,

  From the patricians? And the hopeless war

  Against the Genoese, which is still maintained 470

  With the plebeian blood, and treasure wrung

  From their hard earnings, has inflamed them further:

  Even now — but, I forget that speaking thus,

  Perhaps I pass the sentence of my death!

  Doge. And suffering what thou hast done — fear’st thou death?

  Be silent then, and live on, to be beaten

  By those for whom thou hast bled.

  I. Ber. No, I will speak

  At every hazard; and if Venice’ Doge

  Should turn delator, be the shame on him,

  And sorrow too; for he will lose far more 480

  Than I.

  Doge. From me fear nothing; out with it!

  I. Ber. Know then, that there are met and sworn in secret

  A band of brethren, valiant hearts and true;

  Men who have proved all fortunes, and have long

  Grieved over that of Venice, and have right

  To do so; having served her in all climes,

  And having rescued her from foreign foes,

  Would do the same from those within her walls.

  They are not numerous, nor yet too few

  For their great purpose; they have arms, and means, 490

  And hearts, and hopes, and faith, and patient courage.

  Doge. For what then do they pause?

  I. Ber. An hour to strike.

  Doge (aside). Saint Mark’s shall strike that hour!

  I. Ber. I now have placed

  My life, my honour, all my earthly hopes

  Within thy power, but in the firm belief

  That injuries like ours, sprung from one cause,

  Will generate one vengeance: should it be so,

  Be our Chief now — our Sovereign hereafter.

  Doge. How many are ye?

  I. Ber. I’ll not answer that

  Till I am answered.

  Doge. How, sir! do you menace? 500

  I. Ber. No; I affirm. I have betrayed myself;

  But there’s no torture in the mystic wells

  Which undermine your palace, nor in those

  Not less appalling cells, the “leaden roofs,”

  To force a single name from me of others.

  The Pozzi and the Piombi were in vain;

  They might wring blood from me, but treachery never.

  And I would pass the fearful “Bridge of Sighs,”

  Joyous that mine must be the last that e’er

  Would echo o’er the Stygian wave which flows 510

  Between the murderers and the murdered, washing

  The prison and the palace walls: there are

  Those who would live to think on’t, and avenge me.

  Doge. If such your power and purpose, why come here

  To sue for justice, being in the course

  To do yourself due right?

  I. Ber. Because the man,

  Who claims protection from authority,

  Showing his confidence and his submission

  To that authority, can hardly be

  Suspected of combining to destroy it. 520

  Had I sate down too humbly with this blow,

  A moody brow and muttered threats had made me

  A marked man to the Forty’s inquisition;

  But loud complaint, however angrily

  It shapes its phrase, is little to be feared,

  And less distrusted. But, besides all this,

  I had another reason.

  Doge. What was that?

  I. Ber. Some rumours that the Doge was greatly moved

  By the reference of the Avogadori

  Of Michel Steno’s sentence to the Forty 530

  Had reached me. I had served you, honoured you,

  And felt that you were dangerously insulted,

  Being of an order of such spirits, as

  Requite tenfold both good and evil: ‘twas

  My wish to prove and urge you to redress.

  Now you know all; and that I speak the truth,

  My peril be the proof.

  Doge. You have deeply ventured;

  But all must
do so who would greatly win:

  Thus far I’ll answer you — your secret’s safe.

  I. Ber. And is this all?

  Doge. Unless with all intrusted, 540

  What would you have me answer?

  I. Ber. I would have you

  Trust him who leaves his life in trust with you.

  Doge. But I must know your plan, your names, and numbers;

  The last may then be doubled, and the former

  Matured and strengthened.

  I. Ber. We’re enough already;

  You are the sole ally we covet now.

  Doge. But bring me to the knowledge of your chiefs.

  I. Ber. That shall be done upon your formal pledge

  To keep the faith that we will pledge to you.

  Doge. When? where?

  I. Ber. This night I’ll bring to your apartment 550

  Two of the principals: a greater number

  Were hazardous.

  Doge. Stay, I must think of this. —

  What if I were to trust myself amongst you,

  And leave the palace?

  I. Ber. You must come alone.

  Doge. With but my nephew.

  I. Ber. Not were he your son!

  Doge. Wretch! darest thou name my son? He died in arms

  At Sapienza for this faithless state.

  Oh! that he were alive, and I in ashes!

  Or that he were alive ere I be ashes!

  I should not need the dubious aid of strangers. 560

  I. Ber. Not one of all those strangers whom thou doubtest,

  But will regard thee with a filial feeling,

  So that thou keep’st a father’s faith with them.

  Doge. The die is cast. Where is the place of meeting?

  I. Ber. At midnight I will be alone and masked

  Where’er your Highness pleases to direct me,

  To wait your coming, and conduct you where

  You shall receive our homage, and pronounce

  Upon our project.

  Doge. At what hour arises

  The moon?

  I. Ber. Late, but the atmosphere is thick and dusky, 570

  ‘Tis a sirocco.

  Doge. At the midnight hour, then,

  Near to the church where sleep my sires; the same,

  Twin-named from the apostles John and Paul;

  A gondola, with one oar only, will

  Lurk in the narrow channel which glides by.

  Be there.

  I. Ber. I will not fail.

  Doge. And now retire — —

  I. Ber. In the full hope your Highness will not falter

  In your great purpose. Prince, I take my leave.

  [Exit Isreal Bertuccio.

  Doge (solus). At midnight, by the church Saints John and Paul,

  Where sleep my noble fathers, I repair — 580

  To what? to hold a council in the dark

  With common ruffians leagued to ruin states!

  And will not my great sires leap from the vault,

  Where lie two Doges who preceded me,

  And pluck me down amongst them? Would they could!

  For I should rest in honour with the honoured.

  Alas! I must not think of them, but those

  Who have made me thus unworthy of a name

  Noble and brave as aught of consular

  On Roman marbles; but I will redeem it 590

  Back to its antique lustre in our annals,

  By sweet revenge on all that’s base in Venice,

  And freedom to the rest, or leave it black

  To all the growing calumnies of Time,

  Which never spare the fame of him who fails,

  But try the Cæsar, or the Catiline,

  By the true touchstone of desert — Success.

  ACT II

  Scene I. — An Apartment in the Ducal Palace.

  Angiolina (wife of the Doge) and Marianna.

  Ang. What was the Doge’s answer?

  Mar. That he was

  That moment summoned to a conference;

  But ‘tis by this time ended. I perceived

  Not long ago the Senators embarking;

  And the last gondola may now be seen

  Gliding into the throng of barks which stud

  The glittering waters.

  Ang. Would he were returned!

  He has been much disquieted of late;

  And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit,

  Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame, 10

  Which seems to be more nourished by a soul

  So quick and restless that it would consume

  Less hardy clay — Time has but little power

  On his resentments or his griefs. Unlike

  To other spirits of his order, who,

  In the first burst of passion, pour away

  Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear in him

  An aspect of Eternity: his thoughts,

  His feelings, passions, good or evil, all

  Have nothing of old age; and his bold brow 20

  Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years,

  Not their decrepitude: and he of late

  Has been more agitated than his wont.

  Would he were come! for I alone have power

  Upon his troubled spirit.

  Mar. It is true,

  His Highness has of late been greatly moved

  By the affront of Steno, and with cause:

  But the offender doubtless even now

  Is doomed to expiate his rash insult with

  Such chastisement as will enforce respect 30

  To female virtue, and to noble blood.

  Ang. ‘Twas a gross insult; but I heed it not

  For the rash scorner’s falsehood in itself,

  But for the effect, the deadly deep impression

  Which it has made upon Faliero’s soul,

  The proud, the fiery, the austere — austere

  To all save me: I tremble when I think

  To what it may conduct.

  Mar. Assuredly

  The Doge can not suspect you?

  Ang. Suspect me!

  Why Steno dared not: when he scrawled his lie, 40

  Grovelling by stealth in the moon’s glimmering light,

  His own still conscience smote him for the act,

  And every shadow on the walls frowned shame

  Upon his coward calumny.

  Mar. ’Twere fit

  He should be punished grievously.

  Ang. He is so.

  Mar. What! is the sentence passed? is he condemned?

  Ang. I know not that, but he has been detected.

  Mar. And deem you this enough for such foul scorn?

  Ang. I would not be a judge in my own cause,

  Nor do I know what sense of punishment 50

  May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno;

  But if his insults sink no deeper in

  The minds of the inquisitors than they

  Have ruffled mine, he will, for all acquittance,

  Be left to his own shamelessness or shame.

  Mar. Some sacrifice is due to slandered virtue.

  Ang. Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim?

  Or if it must depend upon men’s words?

  The dying Roman said, “‘twas but a name:”

  It were indeed no more, if human breath 60

  Could make or mar it.

  Mar. Yet full many a dame,

  Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong

  Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies,

  Such as abound in Venice, would be loud

  And all-inexorable in their cry

  For justice.

  Ang. This but proves it is the name

  And not the quality they prize: the first

  Have found it a hard task to ho
ld their honour,

  If they require it to be blazoned forth;

  And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming 70

  As they would look out for an ornament

  Of which they feel the want, but not because

  They think it so; they live in others’ thoughts,

  And would seem honest as they must seem fair.

  Mar. You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame.

  Ang. And yet they were my father’s; with his name,

  The sole inheritance he left.

  Mar. You want none;

  Wife to a Prince, the Chief of the Republic.

  Ang. I should have sought none though a peasant’s bride,

  But feel not less the love and gratitude 80

  Due to my father, who bestowed my hand

  Upon his early, tried, and trusted friend,

  The Count Val di Marino, now our Doge.

  Mar. And with that hand did he bestow your heart?

  Ang. He did so, or it had not been bestowed.

  Mar. Yet this strange disproportion in your years,

  And, let me add, disparity of tempers,

  Might make the world doubt whether such an union

  Could make you wisely, permanently happy.

  Ang. The world will think with worldlings; but my heart 90

  Has still been in my duties, which are many,

  But never difficult.

  Mar. And do you love him?

  Ang. I love all noble qualities which merit

  Love, and I loved my father, who first taught me

  To single out what we should love in others,

  And to subdue all tendency to lend

  The best and purest feelings of our nature

  To baser passions. He bestowed my hand

  Upon Faliero: he had known him noble,

  Brave, generous; rich in all the qualities 100

  Of soldier, citizen, and friend; in all

  Such have I found him as my father said.

  His faults are those that dwell in the high bosoms

  Of men who have commanded; too much pride,

  And the deep passions fiercely fostered by

  The uses of patricians, and a life

  Spent in the storms of state and war; and also

  From the quick sense of honour, which becomes

  A duty to a certain sign, a vice

  When overstrained, and this I fear in him. 110

  And then he has been rash from his youth upwards,

  Yet tempered by redeeming nobleness

  In such sort, that the wariest of republics

  Has lavished all its chief employs upon him,

  From his first fight to his last embassy,

  From which on his return the Dukedom met him.

  Mar. But previous to this marriage, had your heart

  Ne’er beat for any of the noble youth,

  Such as in years had been more meet to match

  Beauty like yours? or, since, have you ne’er seen 120