Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series

by Lord Byron

  One, who, if your fair hand were still to give,

  Might now pretend to Loredano’s daughter?

  Ang. I answered your first question when I said

  I married.

  Mar. And the second?

  Ang. Needs no answer.

  Mar. I pray you pardon, if I have offended.

  Ang. I feel no wrath, but some surprise: I knew not

  That wedded bosoms could permit themselves

  To ponder upon what they now might choose,

  Or aught save their past choice.

  Mar. ’Tis their past choice

  That far too often makes them deem they would 130

  Now choose more wisely, could they cancel it.

  Ang. It may be so. I knew not of such thoughts.

  Mar. Here comes the Doge — shall I retire?

  Ang. It may

  Be better you should quit me; he seems rapt

  In thought. — How pensively he takes his way!

  [Exit Marianna.

  Enter the Doge and Pietro.

  Doge (musing). There is a certain Philip Calendaro

  Now in the Arsenal, who holds command

  Of eighty men, and has great influence

  Besides on all the spirits of his comrades:

  This man, I hear, is bold and popular, 140

  Sudden and daring, and yet secret; ‘twould

  Be well that he were won: I needs must hope

  That Israel Bertuccio has secured him,

  But fain would be — —

  Pie. My Lord, pray pardon me

  For breaking in upon your meditation;

  The Senator Bertuccio, your kinsman,

  Charged me to follow and enquire your pleasure

  To fix an hour when he may speak with you.

  Doge. At sunset. — Stay a moment — let me see —

  Say in the second hour of night. [Exit Pietro.

  Ang. My Lord! 150

  Doge. My dearest child, forgive me — why delay

  So long approaching me? — I saw you not.

  Ang. You were absorbed in thought, and he who now

  Has parted from you might have words of weight

  To bear you from the Senate.

  Doge. From the Senate?

  Ang. I would not interrupt him in his duty

  And theirs.

  Doge. The Senate’s duty! you mistake;

  ‘Tis we who owe all service to the Senate.

  Ang. I thought the Duke had held command in Venice.

  Doge. He shall. — But let that pass. — We will be jocund. 160

  How fares it with you? have you been abroad?

  The day is overcast, but the calm wave

  Favours the gondolier’s light skimming oar;

  Or have you held a levee of your friends?

  Or has your music made you solitary?

  Say — is there aught that you would will within

  The little sway now left the Duke? or aught

  Of fitting splendour, or of honest pleasure,

  Social or lonely, that would glad your heart,

  To compensate for many a dull hour, wasted 170

  On an old man oft moved with many cares?

  Speak, and ‘tis done.

  Ang. You’re ever kind to me.

  I have nothing to desire, or to request,

  Except to see you oftener and calmer.

  Doge. Calmer?

  Ang. Aye, calmer, my good Lord. — Ah, why

  Do you still keep apart, and walk alone,

  And let such strong emotions stamp your brow,

  As not betraying their full import, yet

  Disclose too much?

  Doge. Disclose too much! — of what?

  What is there to disclose?

  Ang. A heart so ill 180

  At ease.

  Doge. ’Tis nothing, child. — But in the state

  You know what daily cares oppress all those

  Who govern this precarious commonwealth;

  Now suffering from the Genoese without,

  And malcontents within — ’tis this which makes me

  More pensive and less tranquil than my wont.

  Ang. Yet this existed long before, and never

  Till in these late days did I see you thus.

  Forgive me; there is something at your heart

  More than the mere discharge of public duties, 190

  Which long use and a talent like to yours

  Have rendered light, nay, a necessity,

  To keep your mind from stagnating. ‘Tis not

  In hostile states, nor perils, thus to shake you, —

  You, who have stood all storms and never sunk,

  And climbed up to the pinnacle of power

  And never fainted by the way, and stand

  Upon it, and can look down steadily

  Along the depth beneath, and ne’er feel dizzy.

  Were Genoa’s galleys riding in the port, 200

  Were civil fury raging in Saint Mark’s,

  You are not to be wrought on, but would fall,

  As you have risen, with an unaltered brow:

  Your feelings now are of a different kind;

  Something has stung your pride, not patriotism.

  Doge. Pride! Angiolina? Alas! none is left me.

  Ang. Yes — the same sin that overthrew the angels,

  And of all sins most easily besets

  Mortals the nearest to the angelic nature:

  The vile are only vain; the great are proud. 210

  Doge. I had the pride of honour, of your honour,

  Deep at my heart — But let us change the theme.

  Ang. Ah no! — As I have ever shared your kindness

  In all things else, let me not be shut out

  From your distress: were it of public import,

  You know I never sought, would never seek

  To win a word from you; but feeling now

  Your grief is private, it belongs to me

  To lighten or divide it. Since the day

  When foolish Steno’s ribaldry detected 220

  Unfixed your quiet, you are greatly changed,

  And I would soothe you back to what you were.

  Doge. To what I was! — have you heard Steno’s sentence?

  Ang. No.

  Doge. A month’s arrest.

  Ang. Is it not enough?

  Doge. Enough! — yes, for a drunken galley slave,

  Who, stung by stripes, may murmur at his master;

  But not for a deliberate, false, cool villain,

  Who stains a Lady’s and a Prince’s honour

  Even on the throne of his authority.

  Ang. There seems to be enough in the conviction 230

  Of a patrician guilty of a falsehood:

  All other punishment were light unto

  His loss of honour.

  Doge. Such men have no honour;

  They have but their vile lives — and these are spared.

  Ang. You would not have him die for this offence?

  Doge. Not now: — being still alive, I’d have him live

  Long as he can; he has ceased to merit death;

  The guilty saved hath damned his hundred judges,

  And he is pure, for now his crime is theirs.

  Ang. Oh! had this false and flippant libeller 240

  Shed his young blood for his absurd lampoon,

  Ne’er from that moment could this breast have known

  A joyous hour, or dreamless slumber more.

  Doge. Does not the law of Heaven say blood for blood?

  And he who taints kills more than he who sheds it.

  Is it the pain of blows, or shame of blows,

  That makes such deadly to the sense of man?

  Do not the laws of man say blood for honour, —

  And, less than honour, for a little
gold?

  Say not the laws of nations blood for treason? 250

  Is’t nothing to have filled these veins with poison

  For their once healthful current? is it nothing

  To have stained your name and mine — the noblest names?

  Is’t nothing to have brought into contempt

  A Prince before his people? to have failed

  In the respect accorded by Mankind

  To youth in woman, and old age in man?

  To virtue in your sex, and dignity

  In ours? — But let them look to it who have saved him.

  Ang. Heaven bids us to forgive our enemies. 260

  Doge. Doth Heaven forgive her own? Is there not Hell

  For wrath eternal?

  Ang. Do not speak thus wildly —

  Heaven will alike forgive you and your foes.

  Doge. Amen! May Heaven forgive them!

  Ang. And will you?

  Doge. Yes, when they are in Heaven!

  Ang. And not till then?

  Doge. What matters my forgiveness? an old man’s,

  Worn out, scorned, spurned, abused; what matters then

  My pardon more than my resentment, both

  Being weak and worthless? I have lived too long;

  But let us change the argument. — My child! 270

  My injured wife, the child of Loredano,

  The brave, the chivalrous, how little deemed

  Thy father, wedding thee unto his friend,

  That he was linking thee to shame! — Alas!

  Shame without sin, for thou art faultless. Hadst thou

  But had a different husband, any husband

  In Venice save the Doge, this blight, this brand,

  This blasphemy had never fallen upon thee.

  So young, so beautiful, so good, so pure,

  To suffer this, and yet be unavenged! 280

  Ang. I am too well avenged, for you still love me,

  And trust, and honour me; and all men know

  That you are just, and I am true: what more

  Could I require, or you command?

  Doge. ’Tis well,

  And may be better; but whate’er betide,

  Be thou at least kind to my memory.

  Ang. Why speak you thus?

  Doge. It is no matter why;

  But I would still, whatever others think,

  Have your respect both now and in my grave.

  Ang. Why should you doubt it? has it ever failed? 290

  Doge. Come hither, child! I would a word with you.

  Your father was my friend; unequal Fortune

  Made him my debtor for some courtesies

  Which bind the good more firmly: when, oppressed

  With his last malady, he willed our union,

  It was not to repay me, long repaid

  Before by his great loyalty in friendship;

  His object was to place your orphan beauty

  In honourable safety from the perils,

  Which, in this scorpion nest of vice, assail 300

  A lonely and undowered maid. I did not

  Think with him, but would not oppose the thought

  Which soothed his death-bed.

  Ang. I have not forgotten

  The nobleness with which you bade me speak

  If my young heart held any preference

  Which would have made me happier; nor your offer

  To make my dowry equal to the rank

  Of aught in Venice, and forego all claim

  My father’s last injunction gave you.

  Doge. Thus,

  ‘Twas not a foolish dotard’s vile caprice, 310

  Nor the false edge of agéd appetite,

  Which made me covetous of girlish beauty,

  And a young bride: for in my fieriest youth

  I swayed such passions; nor was this my age

  Infected with that leprosy of lust

  Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men,

  Making them ransack to the very last

  The dregs of pleasure for their vanished joys;

  Or buy in selfish marriage some young victim,

  Too helpless to refuse a state that’s honest, 320

  Too feeling not to know herself a wretch.

  Our wedlock was not of this sort; you had

  Freedom from me to choose, and urged in answer

  Your father’s choice.

  Ang. I did so; I would do so

  In face of earth and Heaven; for I have never

  Repented for my sake; sometimes for yours,

  In pondering o’er your late disquietudes.

  Doge. I knew my heart would never treat you harshly:

  I knew my days could not disturb you long;

  And then the daughter of my earliest friend, 330

  His worthy daughter, free to choose again.

  Wealthier and wiser, in the ripest bloom

  Of womanhood, more skilful to select

  By passing these probationary years,

  Inheriting a Prince’s name and riches,

  Secured, by the short penance of enduring

  An old man for some summers, against all

  That law’s chicane or envious kinsmen might

  Have urged against her right; my best friend’s child

  Would choose more fitly in respect of years, 340

  And not less truly in a faithful heart.

  Ang. My Lord, I looked but to my father’s wishes,

  Hallowed by his last words, and to my heart

  For doing all its duties, and replying

  With faith to him with whom I was affianced.

  Ambitious hopes ne’er crossed my dreams; and should

  The hour you speak of come, it will be seen so.

  Doge. I do believe you; and I know you true:

  For Love — romantic Love — which in my youth

  I knew to be illusion, and ne’er saw 350

  Lasting, but often fatal, it had been

  No lure for me, in my most passionate days,

  And could not be so now, did such exist.

  But such respect, and mildly paid regard

  As a true feeling for your welfare, and

  A free compliance with all honest wishes, —

  A kindness to your virtues, watchfulness

  Not shown, but shadowing o’er such little failings

  As Youth is apt in, so as not to check

  Rashly, but win you from them ere you knew 360

  You had been won, but thought the change your choice;

  A pride not in your beauty, but your conduct;

  A trust in you; a patriarchal love,

  And not a doting homage; friendship, faith, —

  Such estimation in your eyes as these

  Might claim, I hoped for.

  Ang. And have ever had.

  Doge. I think so. For the difference in our years

  You knew it choosing me, and chose; I trusted

  Not to my qualities, nor would have faith

  In such, nor outward ornaments of nature, 370

  Were I still in my five and twentieth spring;

  I trusted to the blood of Loredano

  Pure in your veins; I trusted to the soul

  God gave you — to the truths your father taught you —

  To your belief in Heaven — to your mild virtues —

  To your own faith and honour, for my own.

  Ang. You have done well. — I thank you for that trust,

  Which I have never for one moment ceased

  To honour you the more for.

  Doge. Where is Honour,

  Innate and precept-strengthened, ‘tis the rock 380

  Of faith connubial: where it is not — where

  Light thoughts are lurking, or the vanities

  Of worldly pleasure rankle in the heart,

 
Or sensual throbs convulse it, well I know

  ‘Twere hopeless for humanity to dream

  Of honesty in such infected blood,

  Although ‘twere wed to him it covets most:

  An incarnation of the poet’s God

  In all his marble-chiselled beauty, or

  The demi-deity, Alcides, in 390

  His majesty of superhuman Manhood,

  Would not suffice to bind where virtue is not;

  It is consistency which forms and proves it:

  Vice cannot fix, and Virtue cannot change.

  The once fall’n woman must for ever fall;

  For Vice must have variety, while Virtue

  Stands like the Sun, and all which rolls around

  Drinks life, and light, and glory from her aspect.

  Ang. And seeing, feeling thus this truth in others,

  (I pray you pardon me;) but wherefore yield you 400

  To the most fierce of fatal passions, and

  Disquiet your great thoughts with restless hate

  Of such a thing as Steno?

  Doge. You mistake me.

  It is not Steno who could move me thus;

  Had it been so, he should — but let that pass.

  Ang. What is’t you feel so deeply, then, even now?

  Doge. The violated majesty of Venice,

  At once insulted in her Lord and laws.

  Ang. Alas! why will you thus consider it?

  Doge. I have thought on’t till — but let me lead you back 410

  To what I urged; all these things being noted,

  I wedded you; the world then did me justice

  Upon the motive, and my conduct proved

  They did me right, while yours was all to praise:

  You had all freedom — all respect — all trust

  From me and mine; and, born of those who made

  Princes at home, and swept Kings from their thrones

  On foreign shores, in all things you appeared

  Worthy to be our first of native dames.

  Ang. To what does this conduct?

  Doge. To thus much — that 420

  A miscreant’s angry breath may blast it all —

  A villain, whom for his unbridled bearing,

  Even in the midst of our great festival,

  I caused to be conducted forth, and taught

  How to demean himself in ducal chambers;

  A wretch like this may leave upon the wall

  The blighting venom of his sweltering heart,

  And this shall spread itself in general poison;

  And woman’s innocence, man’s honour, pass

  Into a by-word; and the doubly felon 430

  (Who first insulted virgin modesty

  By a gross affront to your attendant damsels

  Amidst the noblest of our dames in public)

  Requite himself for his most just expulsion

  By blackening publicly his Sovereign’s consort,