by Lord Byron
They shall not balk my entrance.
Mem. Alas! this
Is but to expose yourself to harsh repulse,
And worse suspense.
Mar. Who shall oppose me?
Mem. They 260
Whose duty ‘tis to do so.
Mar. ‘Tis their duty
To trample on all human feelings, all
Ties which bind man to man, to emulate
The fiends who will one day requite them in
Variety of torturing! Yet I’ll pass.
Mem. It is impossible.
Mar. That shall be tried.
Despair defies even despotism: there is
That in my heart would make its way through hosts
With levelled spears; and think you a few jailors
Shall put me from my path? Give me, then, way; 270
This is the Doge’s palace; I am wife
Of the Duke’s son, the innocent Duke’s son,
And they shall hear this!
Mem. It will only serve
More to exasperate his judges.
Mar. What
Are judges who give way to anger? they
Who do so are assassins. Give me way.[Exit Marina.
Sen. Poor lady!
Mem. ‘Tis mere desperation: she
Will not be admitted o’er the threshold.
Sen. And
Even if she be so, cannot save her husband.
But, see, the officer returns.
[The Officer passes over the stage with another person.
Mem. I hardly 280
Thought that “the Ten” had even this touch of pity,
Or would permit assistance to this sufferer.
Sen. Pity! Is’t pity to recall to feeling
The wretch too happy to escape to Death
By the compassionate trance, poor Nature’s last
Resource against the tyranny of pain?
Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once.
Sen. That’s not their policy: they’d have him live,
Because he fears not death; and banish him,
Because all earth, except his native land, 290
To him is one wide prison, and each breath
Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison,
Consuming but not killing.
Mem. Circumstance
Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not.
Sen. None, save the Letter, which, he says, was written
Addressed to Milan’s duke, in the full knowledge
That it would fall into the Senate’s hands,
And thus he should be re-conveyed to Venice.
Mem. But as a culprit.
Sen. Yes, but to his country;
And that was all he sought, — so he avouches. 300
Mem. The accusation of the bribes was proved.
Sen. Not clearly, and the charge of homicide
Has been annulled by the death-bed confession
Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slew the late
Chief of “the Ten.”
Mem. Then why not clear him?
Sen. That
They ought to answer; for it is well known
That Almoro Donato, as I said,
Was slain by Erizzo for private vengeance.
Mem. There must be more in this strange process than
The apparent crimes of the accused disclose — 310
But here come two of “the Ten;” let us retire.
[Exeunt Memmo and Senator.
Enter Loredano and Barbarigo.
Bar. (addressing Lor.).
That were too much: believe me,’twas not meet
The trial should go further at this moment.
Lor. And so the Council must break up, and Justice
Pause in her full career, because a woman
Breaks in on our deliberations?
Bar. No,
That’s not the cause; you saw the prisoner’s state.
Lor. And had he not recovered?
Bar. To relapse
Upon the least renewal.
Lor. ‘Twas not tried.
Bar. ‘Tis vain to murmur; the majority 320
In council were against you.
Lor. Thanks to you, sir,
And the old ducal dotard, who combined
The worthy voices which o’er-ruled my own.
Bar. I am a judge; but must confess that part
Of our stern duty, which prescribes the Question,
And bids us sit and see its sharp infliction,
Makes me wish — —
Lor. What?
Bar. That you would sometimes feel,
As I do always.
Lor. Go to, you’re a child,
Infirm of feeling as of purpose, blown
About by every breath, shook by a sigh, 330
And melted by a tear — a precious judge
For Venice! and a worthy statesman to
Be partner in my policy.
Bar. He shed
No tears.
Lor. He cried out twice.
Bar. A Saint had done so,
Even with the crown of Glory in his eye,
At such inhuman artifice of pain
As was forced on him; but he did not cry
For pity; not a word nor groan escaped him,
And those two shrieks were not in supplication,
But wrung from pangs, and followed by no prayers. 340
Lor. He muttered many times between his teeth,
But inarticulately.
Bar. That I heard not:
You stood more near him.
Lor. I did so.
Bar. Methought,
To my surprise too, you were touched with mercy,
And were the first to call out for assistance
When he was failing.
Lor. I believed that swoon
His last.
Bar. And have I not oft heard thee name
His and his father’s death your nearest wish?
Lor. If he dies innocent, that is to say,
With his guilt unavowed, he’ll be lamented. 350
Bar. What, wouldst thou slay his memory?
Lor. Wouldst thou have
His state descend to his children, as it must,
If he die unattainted?
Bar. War with them too?
Lor. With all their house, till theirs or mine are nothing.
Bar. And the deep agony of his pale wife,
And the repressed convulsion of the high
And princely brow of his old father, which
Broke forth in a slight shuddering, though rarely,
Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped away
In stern serenity; these moved you not? 360
[Exit Loredano.
He’s silent in his hate, as Foscari
Was in his suffering; and the poor wretch moved me
More by his silence than a thousand outcries
Could have effected. ‘Twas a dreadful sight
When his distracted wife broke through into
The hall of our tribunal, and beheld
What we could scarcely look upon, long used
To such sights. I must think no more of this,
Lest I forget in this compassion for
Our foes, their former injuries, and lose 370
The hold of vengeance Loredano plans
For him and me; but mine would be content
With lesser retribution than he thirsts for,
And I would mitigate his deeper hatred
To milder thoughts; but, for the present, Foscari
Has a short hourly respite, granted at
The instance of the elders of the Council,
Moved doubtless by his wife’s appearance in
The hall, and his own sufferings. — Lo! they come:
How feeble and for
lorn! I cannot bear 380
To look on them again in this extremity:
I’ll hence, and try to soften Loredano.
[Exit Barbarigo.
ACT II
Scene I. — A hall in the Doge’s Palace.
The Doge and a Senator.
Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the report
Now, or postpone it till to-morrow?
Doge. Now;
I overlooked it yesterday: it wants
Merely the signature. Give me the pen —
[The Doge sits down and signs the paper.
There, Signor.
Sen. (looking at the paper). You have forgot; it is not signed.
Doge. Not signed? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin
To wax more weak with age. I did not see
That I had dipped the pen without effect.
Sen. (dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the paper
before the Doge). Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord: allow me, thus —
Doge. ‘Tis done, I thank you.
Sen. Thus the act confirmed 10
By you and by “the Ten” gives peace to Venice.
Doge. ‘Tis long since she enjoyed it: may it be
As long ere she resume her arms!
Sen. ‘Tis almost
Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy;
The state had need of some repose.
Doge. No doubt:
I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her
Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort
That I have added to her diadem
The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; Crema 20
And Bergamo no less are hers; her realm
By land has grown by thus much in my reign,
While her sea-sway has not shrunk.
Sen. ‘Tis most true,
And merits all our country’s gratitude.
Doge. Perhaps so.
Sen. Which should be made manifest.
Doge. I have not complained, sir.
Sen. My good Lord, forgive me.
Doge. For what?
Sen. My heart bleeds for you.
Doge. For me, Signor?
Sen. And for your — —
Doge. Stop!
Sen. It must have way, my Lord:
I have too many duties towards you
And all your house, for past and present kindness, 30
Not to feel deeply for your son.
Doge. Was this
In your commission?
Sen. What, my Lord?
Doge. This prattle
Of things you know not: but the treaty’s signed;
Return with it to them who sent you.
Sen. I
Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council,
That you would fix an hour for their reunion.
Doge. Say, when they will — now, even at this moment,
If it so please them: I am the State’s servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall cause 40
The loss of an hour’s time unto the State.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.
[Exit Senator. The Doge remains in silence.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. Prince!
Doge. Say on.
Att. The illustrious lady Foscari
Requests an audience.
Doge. Bid her enter. Poor
Marina!
[Exit Attendant. The Doge remains in silence as before.
Enter Marina.
Mar. I have ventured, father, on
Your privacy.
Doge. I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The State.
Mar. I wished to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband? 50
Mar. And your son.
Doge. Proceed, my daughter!
Mar. I had obtained permission from “the Ten”
To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.
Doge. You had so.
Mar. ‘Tis revoked.
Doge. By whom?
Mar. “The Ten.” — When we had reached “the Bridge of Sighs,”
Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurred: a messenger was sent back to
“The Ten;” — but as the Court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that 60
Until that high tribunal reassembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.
Doge. True,
The form has been omitted in the haste
With which the court adjourned; and till it meets,
‘Tis dubious.
Mar. Till it meets! and when it meets,
They’ll torture him again; and he and I
Must purchase by renewal of the rack
The interview of husband and of wife,
The holiest tie beneath the Heavens! — Oh God!
Dost thou see this?
Doge. Child — child — —
Mar. (abruptly).Call me not “child!” 70
You soon will have no children — you deserve none —
You, who can talk thus calmly of a son
In circumstances which would call forth tears
Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep
Their boys who died in battle, is it written
That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor
Stretched forth a hand to save them?
Doge. You behold me:
I cannot weep — I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80
This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them — I’d give all
For him.
Mar. With less he surely might be saved.
Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me — they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire’s destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,
And that is — but they have not conquered yet. 90
Mar. But they have crushed.
Doge. Nor crushed as yet — I live.
Mar. And your son, — how long will he live?
Doge. I trust,
For all that yet is past, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruined all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes — he has quenched them — 100
He must return.
Mar. To exile?
Doge. I have said it.
Mar. And can I not go with him?
Doge. You well know
This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled “Ten,” and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your Lord renders them still more austere.
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends,
With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange
To tears save drops of dotage, with long white 110
And scanty hairs,
and shaking hands, and heads
As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel,
Cabal, and put men’s lives out, as if Life
Were no more than the feelings long extinguished
In their accurséd bosoms.
Doge. You know not — —
Mar. I do — I do — and so should you, methinks —
That these are demons: could it be else that
Men, who have been of women born and suckled —
Who have loved, or talked at least of Love — have given
Their hands in sacred vows — have danced their babes 120
Upon their knees, perhaps have mourned above them —
In pain, in peril, or in death — who are,
Or were, at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself —
You, who abet them?
Doge. I forgive this, for
You know not what you say.
Mar. You know it well,
And feel it nothing.
Doge. I have borne so much,
That words have ceased to shake me.
Mar. Oh, no doubt!
You have seen your son’s blood flow, and your flesh shook not;
And after that, what are a woman’s words? 130
No more than woman’s tears, that they should shake you.
Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee,
Is no more in the balance weighed with that
Which — — but I pity thee, my poor Marina!
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity! — ’tis a word
Strange to thy heart — how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read — —
Mar. ‘Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts, — where then 140
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?
Doge (pointing downwards). There.
Mar. In the earth?
Doge. To which I am tending: when
It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though
Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it
Now, you will know me better.
Mar. Are you, then,
Indeed, thus to be pitied?
Doge. Pitied! None
Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul’s hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as I have borne it, what it was 150
When I received it.
Mar. But for the poor children
Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save,
You were the last to bear it.
Doge. Would it were so!
Better for him he never had been born;
Better for me. — I have seen our house dishonoured.
Mar. That’s false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,