Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, and at
I am again Marino Faliero :
'Tis well to be so, though but for a moment.
Here was I crown'd, and here, bear witness,
Heaven!

With how much more contentment I resign That shining mockery, the ducal bauble, pas-Than I received the fatal ornament.

Ben. Faliero! hast thou aught further to Beggars for nobles, panders for a people! commend,

Compatible with justice, to the senate?

Doge. I would commend my nephew to their
mercy,

My consort to their justice; for methinks
My death, and such a death, might settle all
Between the state and me.

Ben.
They shall be cared for;
Even notwithstanding thine unheard-of crime.
Doge. Unheard of! ay, there's not a history
But shows a thousand crown'd conspirators
Against the people; but to set them free,
One sovereign only died, and one is dying.
Ben. And who were they who fell in such a
cause?

Doge. The King of Sparta and the Doge of
Agis and Faliero !

Ben.

To utter or to do?

Doge.
Ben.

Hast thou more

May I speak?

Venice

Thou may'st;

But recollect the people are without,
Beyond the compass of the human voice.

Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity, Of which I grow a portion, not to man. ie elements! in which to be resolved

I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit [banner,
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my
Ye winds! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it,
And fill'd my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for! and thou, foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a
wound!

Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his ! +
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity!
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings' Vice-gerent,
Even in the palace where they sway'd as
sovereigns,
[sovereign,

Even in the palace where they slew the
Proud of some name they have disgraced, cr
sprung

From an adultress boastful of her guilt
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;—when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the
victors,

Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdar.
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown
A wider proverb for worse prostitution ;-
When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cärg
thee,

Vice without splendour, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er.

Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the reade

Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to heaven! Ye skies, which will re-look to the historical of the period prophesied, or rubs

ceive it!
[Thou!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!-Attest!
I am not innocent-but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged: far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!-Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she, who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield,
Unto a bastard Attila, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence,
As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her!-She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,

execution, in the earliest part of their revolution. I find in readingover (since the completion of this tragedy), for the first time these six years, Venice Preserved, a similar reply on a different occasion by Renault, and other coincidences arising from the subject. I need hardly remind the gentlest reader that such coincidences must be accidental from the very facility of their detection by reference to so popular a play on the stage, and in the closet, as Otway's chef-d'œuvre.

t

the few years preceding that period. Voltaire calci fared
nostre bene merite meretrici' at 12,000 of regular, with “
including volunteers and local militia, on what authorityks
not; but it is perhaps the only part of the pop platina ma ui
creased. Venice once contained 200,000 inhabitants; thent
are now about 90,000, and these! Few individuals
ceive, and none could describe, the actual state
the more than infernal tyranny of Austria hos planged this 17
happy city. From the present decay and decesen?
Venice under the Barbarians, there are some honourack me
vidual exceptions. There is Pasqualigo, the Ls, ai ka
posthumous son of the marriage of the Duges with the A
atic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry thm an
of his French coadjutors in the memorable action of Lam
came home in the squadron with the prizes in 1911, and
lect to have heard Sir William Hosté, and the other uffic
engaged in that glorious conflict, speak in the biched w
of Pasqualigo's "behaviour. There is the Atate Me
There is Alvise Querini, who, after a long and borders
lomatic career, finds some consolation for the wron
country, in the pursuits of literature with his net bew, V
Benzon, the son of the celebrated beauty, the berm¢ «
Biondina in Gondoletta.' There are the patricia jet M
sini, and the poet Lamberti, the author of the Bomma, 2
and many other estimable productions; and, not less *E
Englishman's estimation, Madame Micheli, the trans # 7
Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo and the ima
visatore Carrer, and Giuseppe Albrizz, the accola, test
of an accomplished mother. There is Aghetti, and, were t
nothing else, there is the immortality of Canova
Mustoxithi, Bucati, &c. &c., I do not reckes, becau
is a Greek, and the others were born at least a hua hea
off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a orga
least a stranger (forestière.

The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong to the who, in the earlier times of the Republic, were chr muamm to inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Venot whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Gao e the Huns form the garrison.

SARDANAPALUS:

A TRAGEDY.

1821.

ΤΟ

THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE

A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE OF A

LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, THE FIRST OF EXISTING WRITERS,
WHO HAS CREATED THE LITERATURE OF HIS OWN COUNTRY,
AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE.

THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION

WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM IS ENTITLED,
SARDANAPALUS.

PREFACE.

IN publishing the following Tragedies* I have only to repeat, that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the managers in a former instance. the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing.

For the historical foundation of the following compositions the reader is referred to the Notes The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach, the 'unities; conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, b. can be no drama. He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English Eterature but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion, which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilized parts of it. But avons changé tout cela, and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far f conceiving that anything he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach b= regular, or even irregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the mor regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whaso Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect,—and not in the art.

ever.

In this tragedy it has been my intention to follow the account of Diodorus Siculus; reduci it, however, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, and trying to approach the unines. therefore suppose the rebellion to explode and succeed in one day by a sudden conspiracy, stead of the long war of the history.

• Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari.

ACT I.

SCENE I.-A Hall in the Palace.

brother;

Sar. Let the pavilion over the Euphrates
[Speaking to some of his attendants.
Be garlanded, and lit, and furnish'd forth
For an especial banquet; at the hour
Of midnight we will sup there: see nought
And bid the galley be prepared. There is
wanting,
A cooling breeze which crisps the broad clear

river ;

We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign
To share the soft hours of Sardanapalus,
We'll meet again in that the sweetest hour,
When we shall gather like the stars above us,
And you will form a heaven as bright as theirs ;
Till then, let each be mistress of her time,
And thou, my own Ionian* Myrrha, choose
thou along with them or me?

Salemenes [solus]. He hath wrong'd his
queen, but still he is her lord;
He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my
[sovereign,
He hath wrong'd his people, still he is their
And I must be his friend as well as subject :
He must not perish thus. I will not see
The blood of Nimrod and Semiramis
Sink in the earth, and thirteen hundred years
Of empire ending like a shepherd's tale;
He must be roused. In his effeminate heart
There is a careless courage which corruption
Has not all quench'd, and latent energies,
Repress'd by circumstance, but not destroy'd-Wilt
Steep'd, but not drown'd, in deep voluptuous-
If born a peasant, he had been a man
To have reach'd an empire: to an empire born,
He will bequeath none; nothing but a name,
Which his sons will not prize in heritage :-
Yet, not all lost, even yet he may redeem
His sloth and shame, by only being that
Which he should be, as easily as the thing
He should not be and is. Were it less toil
To sway his nations than consume his life?
To head an army than to rule a harem?
He sweats in palling pleasures, dulls his soul,
And saps his goodly strength, in toils which
vield not

ness.

Health like the chase, nor glory like the war-
He must be roused. Alas! there is no sound

[Sound of soft music heard from within. To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute,

The lyre, the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings
Of lulling instruments, the softening voices
Of women, and of beings less than women,
Must chime in to the echo of his revel,
While the great king of all we know of earth,
Lolls crown'd with roses, and his diadem
Lies negligently by to be caught up

By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it.
Lo, where they come ! already I perceive
The reeking odours of the perfumed trains,
And see the bright gems of the glittering girls,
At once his chorus and his council, flash
Along the gallery, and amidst the damsels,
As femininely garb'd, and scarce less female,
The grandson of Semiramis, the man-queen.-
He comes! Shall I await him? yes, and front
him,

And tell him what all good men tell each other,
Speaking of him and his. They come, the

slaves

Led by the monarch subject to his slaves.

SCENE II.

Enter SARDANAPALUS, effeminately dressed, his
Head crowned with Flowers, and his Robe
negligently flowing, attended by a Train of
Women and young Slaves.

Myr.
My lord-
Sar. My lord, my life why answerest thou
so coldly?

It is the curse of kings to be so answer'd.
Rule thy own hours, thou rulest mine-say
wouldst thou

Accompany our guests, or charm away
The moments from me?

Myr.

The king's choice is mine.
Sar. I pray thee say not so: my chiefest joy
Is to contribute to thine every wish.

I do not dare to breathe my own desire,
Lest it should clash with thine; for thou art still
Too prompt to sacrifice thy thoughts for others
Myr. I would remain: I have no happiness
Save in beholding thine; yet-

Sar.

Yet! what YET
Thy own sweet will shall be the only barrier
Which ever rises betwixt thee and me.
Myr. I think the present is the wonted hour
Of council; it were better I retire.
Sal. [comes forward and says] The Ioniar
slave says well; let her retire.
Syr. Who answers? How now, brother?
Sal.
The queen's brother,
And your most faithful vassal, royal lord.
Sar. [addressing his train]. As I have said,
let all dispose their hours

sence.

Till midnight, when again we pray your pre-
[The court retiring.
[To Myrrha, who is going]. Myrrha ! I thought
thou wouldst remain.
Myr.

Thou didst not say so.

Sar.

Great king,

But thou lookedst it:
I know each glance of those Ionic eyes,
Which said thou wouldst not leave me.
Myr.
Sire! your brother-
Sal. His consort's brother, minion of Ionia ?
How darest thou name me and not blush?
Sar.

Not blush!

The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive, having included the Achaians and the Boeotians, who, together with those to whom it was afterwards confined, would make nearly the whole of the Greek nation; and among the Orientals it was always the general name for the Greeks.' MITFORD'S Greece, vol. i. p. 199.