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.
To what does this conduct?
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.
I must not, if I could; for never was
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
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.
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.
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!
I cannot bear to leave you thus.
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.
A retired spot near the Arsenal.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO and PHILIP CALENDARO.
How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint?
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.
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?
All save two, in which there are Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.
No matter; we can do without. Whose are they?
Bertram's and old Soranzo's, both of whom Appear less forward in the cause than we are.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
And what part would you have him take with us?
Your own command as leader?
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
I have no power to 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.
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!
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.
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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