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Princes at home, and swept kings from their thrones
On foreign shores, in all things you appear'd
Worthy to be our first of native dames.

ANGIOLINA.

To what does this conduct?

DOGE.

To thus much-that

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
(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,
And be absolved by his upright compeers.

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ANGIOLINA.

I must not, if I could; for never was

With me, my lord?

DOGE.

Yes, Angiolina. Do not marvel; I

Have let this prey upon me till I feel
My life cannot be long; and fain would have
Regard the injunctions you will find within

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This scroll. (Giving her a paper)--Fear not; they An instant-yet an instant your companion;

are for your advantage:

Read them hereafter, at the fitting hour.

ANGIOLINA.

My lord, in life, and after life, you shall
Be honour'd still by me: but may your days
Fe many yet-and happier than the present!
This passion will give way, a and you will be
Serene, and what you should be-what you were.

DOGE.

I will be what I should be, or be nothing;
But never more-oh! never, never more,
O'er the few days or hours which yet await
The blighted old age of Faliero, shall
Sweet quiet shed her sunset! Never more
Those summer shadows rising from the past
Of a not ill-spent nor inglorious life,
Mellowing the last hours as the night approaches,
Shall soothe me to my moment of long rest.
I had but little more to ask, or hope,
Save the regards due to the blood and sweat,
And the soul's labour through which I had toil'd
To make my country honour'd. As her servant-
Her servant, though her chief-I would have gone
Down to my fathers with a name serene
And pure as theirs: but this has been denied me.-
Would I had died at Zara!

ANGIOLINA.

I cannot bear to leave you thus.

DOGE.

Come then,
My gentle child-forgive me; thou wert made
For better fortunes than to share in mine,
Now darkling in their close toward the deep vale
Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping shadow.
When I am gone-it may be sooner than
Even these years warrant, for there is that stirring
Within-above-around, that in this city
Will make the cemeteries populous

As e'er they were by pestilence or war,—
When I am nothing, let that which I was
Be still, sometimes, a naine on thy sweet lips,
A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing

Which would not have thee mourn it, but remember.-
Let us begone, my child-the time is pressing.

[Exeunt.

SCENE II.

A retired spot near the Arsenal.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO and PHILIP CALENDARO.

CALENDARO.

How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint?

ISKAEL BERTUCCIO.

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CALENDARO.

These brave words have breathed new life Into my veins; I'm sick of these protracted And hesitating councils: day on day Crawld on, and added but another link To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves, Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength. Let us but deal upon them, and I care not For the result, which must be death or freedom! I'm weary to the heart of finding neither.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

We will be free in life or death! the grave
Is chainless. Bave you all the musters ready?
And are the sixteen companies completed
To sixty?

CALENDARO.

All save two, in which there are Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

No matter; we can do without. Whose are they?

CALENDARO.

Bertram's and old Soranzo's, both of whom Appear less forward in the cause than we are.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

Your fiery nature makes you deem all those
Who are not restless, cold: but there exists
Oft in concentred spirits not less daring
Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them.

CALENDARO.

I do not doubt the elder; but in Bertram
There is a hesitating softness, fatal

To enterprise like ours: I've seen that man
Weep like an infant o'er the misery

Of others, heedless of his own, though greater;
And, in a recent quarrel, I beheld him

Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes,

And feel for what their duty bids them do.

I have known Bertram long; there doth not breathe A soul more full of honour.

CALENDARO.

It may be so,

I apprehend less treachery than weakness;
Yet, as he has no mistress, and no wife
To work upon his milkiness of spirit,
He may go through the ordeal. It is well
Ile is an orphan, friendless save in us:
A woman or a child had made him less
Than either in resolve.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
Such ties are not
For those who are called to the high destinies
Which purify corrupted commonwealths;
We must forget all feelings save the one-
We must resign all passions save our purpose-
We must behold no object save our country--
And only look on death as beautiful,
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven,
And draw down freedom on her evermore.

But if we fail?

CALENDARO.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

They never fail who die In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:

Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls-
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom. What were we,
If Brutus bad not lived? He died in giving
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson-
A name which is a virtue, and a soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turas servile: he and his high friend were styled
«The last of Romans !» Let us be the first
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires.

CALENDARO.

Our fathers did not fly from Attila
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung
On banks redeem'd from the rude ocean's ooze,
To own a thousand despots in his place.
Better how down before the Hun, and call

A Tartar lord, than these swoln silk-worms masters!
The first at least was man, and used his sword
As sceptre; these unmanly creeping things
Command our swords, and rule us with a word
As with a spell.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

It shall be broken soon. You say that all things are in readiness; To-day I have not been the usual round, And why thou knowest; but thy vigilance Will better have supplied my care: these orders In recent council to redouble now Our efforts to repair the galleys, have Lent a fair colour to the introduction Of many of our cause into the arsenal, As new artificers for their equipment. Or fresh recruits obtain'd in haste to man The hoped-for fleet.-Are all supplied with artas?

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Although a child of greatness: he is one

Who would become a throne, or overthrow one-
One who has done great deeds, and seen great changes;
No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny;
Valaut in war, and sage in council; noble
In nature, although haughty; quick, yet wary:
Yet, for all this, so full of certain passions,
That if once stirr'd and baffled, as he has been
Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury
In Grecian story, like to that which wrings
His vitals with her burning hands, ull he
Grows capable of all things for revenge;
And add too, that his mind is liberal :
He sees and feels the people are oppress'd,
And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all,
We've need of such, and such have need of us.

CALENDARO.

And what part would you have him take with us?

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

It may be that of chief,

CALENDARO.

What! and resign

Your own command as leader?

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

Even so.

My object is to make your cause end well,
And not to push myself to power. Experience,
Some skill, and your own choice, had mark'd me out
To act in trust as your commander, till

Some worthher should appear: if I have found such

As you yourselves shall own more worthy, think you That I would hesitate from selfishness,

And, covetous of brief authority,

Stake our deep interest ou my single thoughts,

Rather than yield to one above me in

All leading qualities: No, Calendaro,

Know your friend better; but you all shall judge.—

Away! and let us meet at the fix'd hour.

Be vigilant, and all will yet go well.

CALENDARO.

Worthy Bertuccio! I have known you ever

Trusty and brave, with head and heart to plan

What I have still been prompt to execute

For my own part I seek no other chef;
What the rest will decide I know not but

I am with you, as I have ever been,

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A lazar-house of tyranny: the task

Is forced upon me, I have sought it not,
And therefore was I punish'd, seeing this
Patrician pestilence spread on and on,
Cotil at length it smote me in my slumbers,
And I am tainted, and must wash away
The plague-spots in the healing wave. Tall fane!
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues shadow
The floor which doth divide us from the dead,
Where all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood,
Moulder d into a mite of ashes, hold

In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes,
When what is now a handful shook the earth-
Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house!
Vault where two Doges rest-my sires! who died
The one of toil, the other in the field,
With a long race of other lineal chiefs
And sages, whose great labours, wounds, and state
I have inherited,-let the graves gape,
Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead,
And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me'
I call them up, and them and thee to witness
What it hath been which put me to this task--
Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories,
Their mighty name dishonour'd all in me,
Not by me, but by the ungrateful nobles

We fought to make our equals, not our lords: -
And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave,

Who perish'd in the field where I since conquer'd,
Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs

Of thine and Venice' foes, there offer'd up
By thy descendant, merit such acquittance?
Spirits! smile down upon me, for my cause
Is yours, in all life now can be of yours-
Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine,
And in the future fortunes of our race!
Let me but prosper, and I make this city
Free and immortal, and our house's name
Worthier of what you were, now and hereafter!

Enter ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

Who goes there!

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

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We!-We!-no matter-you have earn'd the right
To talk of us.—But to the point.-If this
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, render'd free
And flourishing, when we are in our graves,
Conducts her generations to our tombs,
And makes her children with their little hands
Strew flowers o'er their deliverers' ashes, then
The consequence will sanctify the deed,
And we shall be like the two Bruti in
The annals of hereafter; but if not,
If we should fail, employing bloody means
And secret plot, although to a good end,
Still we are traitors, honest Israel;-thou
No less than he who was thy sovereign
Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel.

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260

DOGE.

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No-but I feel, and shall do to the last.
I cannot quench a glorious life at once,
Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be,

And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause:
Yet doubt me not; it is this very feeling,
And knowing what has wrung me to be thus,
Which is your best security. There's not
A roused mechanic in your busy plot
So wrong'd as I, so fallen, so loudly call'd
To his redress: the very means I'm forced
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such,
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds
Which I must do to pay them back for theirs.

ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

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I have no power to spare.

spare?

I spare!

I only question'd, Thinking that even amongst these wicked men There might be some, whose age and qualities Might mark them out for pity.

CALENDARO.

Yes, such pity
As when the viper hath been cut to pieces,
The separate fragments quivering in the sun
In the last energy of venomous life,
Deserve and have. Why, I should think as soon
Of pitying some particular fang which made
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as

Of saving one of these: they form but links
Of one long chain-one mass, one breath, one body;
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed together,
Revel and lie, oppress, and kill in concert,—
So let them die as one!

DAGOLINO.

Should one survive,

SCENE II.

[Exeunt.

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He would be dangerous as the whole: it is not Their number, be it tens or thousands, but The spirit of this aristocracy

Which must be rooted out; and if there were
A single shoot of the old tree in life,

'T would fasten in the soil and spring again
Bertram, we must be firm!
To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit.

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Here!

Where's Bertram?

BERTRAM.

CALENDARO.

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Thou wouldst not now be there to talk of trust:
It is thy softness, not thy want of faith,
Which makes thee to be doubted.

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