To avert the fatal moment, and atone, By penitence, for that which thou hadst done? Doge. I own the words went to my heart, so much That I remember'd them amid the maze Of life, as if they form'd a spectral voice, Which shook me in a supernatural dream; And I repented; but 'twas not for me To pull in resolution: what must be [more, I could not change, and would not fear. Nay, Thou canst not have forgot, what all remember, That on my day of landing here as Doge, On my return from Rome, a mist of such Unwonted density went on before The Bucentaur, like the columnar cloud Which usher'd Israel out of Egypt, till The pilot was misled, and disembark'd us Between the pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis The custom of the state to put to death its criminals, instead of touching at The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,— So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen. Ang. Ah! little boots it now to recollect bach things. Doge. And yet I find a comfort in The thought, that these things are the work of Fate: For I would rather yield to gods than men, ather than deem these mortals, most of whom know to be as worthless as the dust, And weak as worthless, more than instruments fan o'erruling power; they in themselves Nere all incapable-they could not be ictors of him who oft had conquer'd for them. Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations a more healing nature, and in peace en with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven. Inge. I am at peace: the peace of certainty hat a sure hour will come, when their sons' SODS, Which generally leave some flowers to bloom I shall be with the Eternal.-Call her womenOne look!-how cold her hand!- -as cold as mine Shall be ere she recovers.-Gently tend her, [The Attendants of ANGIOLINA enter, and SCENE III.-The Court of the Ducal Palace; the outer gates are shut against the people. -The DOGE enters in his ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten and other Patricians, attended by the Guards, till they arrive at the top of the 'Giants' Staircase (where the Doges took the oaths); the Executioner is stationed there with his sword.-On arriving, a Chief of the Ten takes off the ducal cap from the DOGE'S head. Doge. So now the Doge is nothing, and at I am again Marino Faliero : [last '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. ps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive yself, and canst not injure them-be calmer. Inge. I stand within eternity, and see eternity, and I behold One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero! Doge. 'Tis with age, then.* This was the actual reply of Bailli, Maire of Paris, to a Frenchman who made him the same reproach on his way to 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 Ben. 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, Doge. I speak to Time and to Eternity, 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, Even in the palace where they slew the Proud of some name they have disgraced, c sprung From an adultress boastful of her guilt Despised by cowards for greater cowardice, Vice without splendour, sin without relief Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er. Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but Should the dramatic picture seem harsh, let the read Reek up to heaven! Ye skies, which will re-look to the historical of the period prophes.ed, er ruha 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, the few years preceding that period. Volters calculat including volunteers and local militia, on what author tells not; but it is perhaps the only part of the po alati sa ma st creased. Venice once contained 200,000 in babinets; are now about 90,000, and these! Few individuals 58 → ceive, and none could describe, the actual state the more than infernal tyranny of Austria his plangui this st happy city. From the present decay and degener.j 'nostre bene merite meretrici' at 12,000 of regular, «ti And show these eyes, before they close, the doom Venice under the Barbarians, there are some hon-race me Of this proud city, and I leave my curse Shedding so much blood in her last defence, 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. vidual exceptions. There is Pasqualigo, the List, and t posthumous son of the marriage of the Duges with the A ́h atic, who fought his frigate with far greater gallantry thera of his French coadjutors in the memorable accoɑ Sĩ Lam came home in the squadron with the prizes in 1941, and 2 lect to have heard Sir William Hoste, and the other vấ engaged in that glorious conflict, speak in the highes of Pasqualigo's "behaviour. There is the Atate Ma There is Alvise Querini, who, after a long and horn lomatic career, finds some consolation for the wag country, in the pursuits of literature with his net bew, Benzon, the son of the celebrated beauty, the herme Biondina in Gondoletta. There are the patristanet sini, and the poet Lamberti, the author of the B. and many other estimable productions; and, not irut = * Englishman's estimation, Madame Micheli, the trans # r Shakspeare. There are the young Dandolo and the me visatore Carrer, and Giuseppe Albrizz, the accola, t&S of an accomplished mother. There is Aglietti, and, wee nothing else, there is the immortality of Canova Mustoxithi, Bucati, &c. &c., I do not reckon, because t is a Greek, and the others were born at least a bustest off, which, throughout Italy, constitutes, if not a pregu least a stranger (forestière. The chief palaces on the Brenta now belong nar who, in the earlier times of the Republic were caft mars to inhabit Mestri, and not to enter the city of Ver whole commerce is in the hands of the Jews and Guto e the Huns form the garrison. But in its stead, coarse lusts of habitude,* When these and more are heavy on thee, when Youth without honour, age without respect, Have made thee last and worst of peopled Gehenna of the waters! thou sea Sodom! [Here the DOGE turns and addresses the Slave, do thine office! Strike as I struck the foe! Strike as I would Have struck those tyrants! Strike deep as my Strike and but once! [curse! [The DOGE throws himself upon his knees, and as the Executioner raises his sword the scene closes. round the grated gates of the Ducal Palace, which are shut. First Citizen. I have gain'd the gate, and can Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the Second Cit. I cannot reach thee with mine How is it? let us hear at least, since sight First Cit. One has approach'd the Doge, and -no, Twas but a murmur-Curse upon the distance ! 'Tis vain, Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave! SCENE IV.-The Piazza and Piazetta of St * See Appendix, Note C. If the Dege's prophecy seem remarkable, look to the folIrwing, made by Alamanni, two hundred and seventy years There is one very singular prophecy concerning Venice: "If thou dost not change," it says to that proud republic, "thy liberty, which is already on the wing, will not reckon a century more than the thousandth year." If we carry back the epocha of Venetian freedom to the establishment of the government under which the republic flourished, we shall 6ed that the date of the election of the first Doge is 697; and f we add one century to a thousand, that is, eleven hundred years, we shall find the sense of the prediction to be literally this:Thy liberty will not last till 1797. Recollect that Venice crased to be free in the year 1796, the fifth year of the French public; and you will perceive that there never was predictes more pointed, or more exactly followed by the event. You will, therefore, note as very remarkable the three lines of Alamanai addressed to Venice; which, however, no one has ointed out : "Se non cangi pensier, un secol solo Non conterà sopra 1 millesimo anno Tua libertà, che va fuggendo a volo." Many prophecies have passed for such, and many men have called prophets, for much less.'-GINGUENÉ, Hist. Lit. de Italie, t. ix. p. 144. Of the first fifty Doges, five abdicated, five were banished their eyes put out, five were massacred, and nine deposed; that nineteen out of fifty lost the throne by violence, besides who fell in battle-this occurred long previous to the reign Marino Faliero. One of his more immediate predecessors, drea Dandolo, died of vexation; Marino Faliero himself bed as related. Amongst his successors, Foscari, after ng his son repeatedly tortured and banished, was deposed, and died of breaking a blood-vessel, on hearing the bell of St Mark's toll for the election of his successor. Morosini =impeached for the loss of Candia; but this was previous todakedom, during which he conquered the Morea, and tas styled the Peloponnesian. Faliero might truly say, 'Thou den of drunkards with the blood of Princes!' The lifted sword in air-Ah! hark! it falls! mons ever. Ere we were summon'd here-we would have Sixth Cit. Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor!' 'The gory head rolls down the Giants' Steps!' Un Capo de' Dieci are the words of Sanuto's Chronicle. 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, THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM IS ENTITLED, 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 literature 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 fro conceiving that anything he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach be 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 wha 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; reduc it, however, to such dramatic regularity as I best could, and trying to approach the unins 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. Salemenes [solus]. He hath wrong'd his queen, but still he is her lord; brother; Sar. Let the pavilion over the Euphrates river; We will embark anon. Fair nymphs, who deign Myr. He hath wrong'd my sister, still he is my Health like the chase, nor glory like the war- [Sound of soft music heard from within. To rouse him short of thunder. Hark! the lute, The lyre, the timbrel; the lascivious tinklings By the first manly hand which dares to snatch it. And tell him what all good men tell each other, Led by the monarch subject to his slaves. SCENE II. Enter SARDANAPALUS, effeminately dressed, his It My lordSar. My lord, my life why answerest thou so coldly? is the curse of kings to be so answer'd. Accompany our guests, or charm away Myr. The king's choice is mine. I do not dare to breathe my own desire, Yet! what YET 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: 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. |