Ang. Strange rumors, but most true, if all I hear
And see be sooth, have reach'd me, and I come
To know the worst, even at the worst; forgive
The abruptness of my entrance and my bearing.
Is it--I cannot speak-I cannot shape
The question-but you answer it ere spoken,
With eyes averted, and with gloomy brows-
Oh God! this is the silence of the grave!
Ben. (after a pause.) Spare us,
the repetition
Of our most awful, but inexorable
Duty to heaven and man!
Yet speak; I cannot-
I cannot-no-even now believe these things.
Is he condemn'd?--
And was he guilty?
Ben. Lady! the natural distraction of
Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question
Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this
Against a just and paramount tribunal
Were deep offence. But question even the Doge,
And if he can deny the proofs, believe him
Guiltless as thy own bosom.
My lord-my sovereign-my poor father's friend-
The mighty in the field, the sage in council;
Unsay the words of this man!-Thou art silent!
Ben. He hath already own'd to his own guilt,
Nor, as thou see'st, doth he deny it now.
Ang. (turning to the Doge.) Then die, Faliero!
since it must be so;
But with the spirit of my father's friend.
Thou hast been guilty of a great offence,
Half cancell'd by the harshness of these men.
I would have sued to them-have pray'd to them-
Have begg'd as famish'd mendicants for bread-
Have wept as they will cry unto their God
For mercy, and be answer'd as they answer-
Had it been fitting for thy name or mine,
And if the cruelty in their cold eyes
Had not announced the heartless wrath within.
Then, as a prince, address thee to thy doom!
Doge. I have lived too long not to know how to
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry
Of seamen to the surge: I would not take
A life eternal, granted at the hands
Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies
I sought to free the groaning nations!
M. Steno.
Doge,
A word with thee, and with this noble lady,
Whom I have grievously offended. Would
Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my part,
Could cancel the inexorable past!
But since that cannot be, as Christians let, us
Say farewell, and in peace: with full contrition
crave, not pardon, but compassion from you,
And give, however weak, my prayers for both.
Ang. Sage Benitende, now chief judge of Venice,
I speak to thee in answer to yon signor.
Inform the ribald Steno, that his words
Ne'er weigh'd in mind with Loredano's daughter
Further than to create a moment's pity
For such as he is: would that others had
Ang. Ay, but he must not die! Spare his few Despised him as I pity! I prefer
My honor to a thousand lives, could such
A single life of others lost for that
Which grief and shame will soon cut down to days! Be multiplied in mine, but would not have
One day of baffled crime must not efface
Near sixteen lustres crowded with brave acts.
Ben. His doom must be fulfill'd without remission
Of time or penalty-'tis a decree.
Which nothing human can impugn-the sense
Of virtue, looking not to what is call'd
A good name for reward, but to itself.
Ang. He hath been guilty, but there may be To me the scorner's words were as the wind
Ben. Not in this case with justice.
Ang.
He who is only just is cruel; who
Unto the rock: but as there are-alas!
Spirits more sensitive, on which such things
Alas! signor, Light as the whirlwind on the waters; souls
To whom dishonor's shadow is a substance
More terrible than death here and hereafter;
Men whose vice is to start at vice's scoffing,
And who, though proof against all blandishments
Of pleasure, and all pangs of pain, are feeble
When the proud name on which they pinnacled
Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle
Of her high aiery; let what we now
Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson
To wretches how they tamper in their spleen
With beings of a higher order. Insects
Have made the lion mad ere now; a shaft
I' the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the brave;
A wife's dishonor was the bane of Troy;
A wife's dishonor unking'd Rome for ever;
An injured husband brought the Gauls to Clusium,
And thence to Rome, which perish'd for a time;
An obscene gesture cost Caligula
His life, while Earth yet bore his cruelties;
A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province;
And Steno's lie, couch'd in two worthless lines,
Hath decimated Venice, put in peril
A senate which hath stood eight hundred years,
Discrown'd a prince, cut off his crownless bead,
And forged new fetters for a groaning people!
Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan
Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,
If it so please him-'twere a pride fit for him!
But let him not insult the last hours of
Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a hero,
By the intrusion of his very prayers:
Nothing of good can come from such a source,
Nor would we aught with him, nor now, nor ever:
We leave him to himself, that lowest depth
Of human baseness. Pardon is for men,
And not for reptiles-we have none for Steno,
And no resentment: things like him must sting,
And higher beings suffer; 'tis the charter
Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang
May have the crawler crush'd, but feels no anger:
'Twas the worm's nature; and some men are worms
In soul, more than the living things of tombs.
Doge, (to Ben.) Signor! complete that which you
deem your duty
Ben. Before we can proceed upon that duty,
We would request the princess to withdraw;
"Twill move her too much to be witness to it.
Ang. I know it will, and yet I must endure it, For 'tis a part of mine-I will not quit, Except by force, my husband's side.-Proceed! Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or tear; Though my heart burst, it shall be silent.-Speak! I have that within which shall o'ermaster all. Ben. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice, Count of Val di Marino, Senator, And sometime General of the Fleet and Army, Noble Venetian, many times and oft Intrusted by the state with high employments, Even to the highest, listen to the sentence. Convict by many witnesses and proofs, And by thine own confession, of the guilt Of treachery and treason, yet unheard of Until this trial-the decree is death. Thy goods are confiscate unto the state, Thy name is razed from out her records, save Upon a public day of thanksgiving For this our most miraculous deliverance, When thou art noted in our calendars With earthquakes, pestilence, and foreign foes, And the great enemy of man, as subject
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But let it be so :-it will be in vain.
The veil which blackens o'er this blighted name,
And hides, or seems to hide, these lineaments,
Shall draw more gazers than the thousand portraits
Which glitter round it in their pictured trappings-
Your delegated slaves-the people's tyrants!
"Decapitated for his crimes!"-What crimes?
Were it not better to record the facts,
So that the contemplator might approve,
Or at the least learn whence the crimes arose?
When the beholder knows a Doge conspired,
Let him be told the cause-it is your history.
Ben. Time must reply to that: our sons will judge
Their fathers' judgment, which I now pronounce.
As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and cap,
Thou shalt be led hence to the Giant's Staircase,
Where thou and all our princes are invested;
And there, the ducal crown being first resumed
Upon the spot where it was first assumed,
Thy head shall be struck off; and Heaven have mercy
Upon thy soul!
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Near to Treviso,which I hold by investment
From Laurence the Count-bishop of Ceneda,
In fief perpetual to myself and heirs,
To portion them (leaving my city spoil,
My palace and my treasures, to your forfeit)
Between my consort and my kinsmen.
Ben.
Lie under the state's ban; their chief, thy nephew
In peril of his own life; but the council
Postpones his trial for the present. If
Thou will'st a state unto thy widow'd princess,
Fear not, for we will do her justice.
But these are closed; the Ten, the Avogadori,
The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,
Alone will be beholders of thy doom,
And they are ready to attend the Doge.
And in thy best maturity of mind
A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee;
Passion shall tear thee when all passions cease
In other men, or mellow into virtues;
And majesty, which decks all other heads,
Ben. Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die Shall crown to leave thee headless; honors shall A sovereign; till the moment which precedes The seperation of that head and trunk, That ducal crown and head shall be united. Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deigning To plot with petty traitors; not so we, Who in the very punishment acknowledge
The prince. Thy vile accomplices have died
But prove to thee the heralds of destruction,
And hoary hairs of shame, and both of death,
But not such death as fits an aged man."
Thus saying he pass'd on.-That hour is come.
Ang. And with this warning couldst thou not have
striven
To avert the fatal moment, and atone
The dog's death, and the wolf's; but thou shalt fall By penitence for that which thou hadst done?
As falls the lion by the hunters, girt
By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,
And mourn even the inevitable death
Provoked by thy wild wrath, and regal fierceness.
Now we remit thee to thy preparation :
Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be
Thy guides unto the place where first we were
United to thee as thy subjects, and
Thy senate; and must now be parted from thee
As such for ever, on the self-same spot.-
Guards! form the Doge's escort to his chamber.
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
I could not change, and would nor fear.-Nay more,
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 columnal 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 DOGE as Prisoner, and the DUCHESS attending The Riva bella Paglia, as the wont is,—
Doge. Now, that the priest is gone, 'twere useless
To linger out the miserable minutes;
So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen,
Ang. Ah! little boots it now to recollect
Such things.
Doge.
And yet I find a comfort in
But one pang more, the pang of parting from thee, The thought that these things are the work of Fate;
Doge. Not so there was that in my spirit ever Which shaped out for itself some great reverse: The marvel is, it came not until now
And yet it was foretold me.
Ang.
How foretold you?
Doge. Long years ago-so long, they are a doubt
In memory, and yet they live in annals:
When I was in my youth and serv'd the senate
And signory as podesta and captain
Of the town of Treviso, on a day
Of festival, the sluggish bishop who
Convey'd the Host aroused my rash young anger,
By strange delay, and arrogant reply
my reproof! I raised my hand and smote him Until he reel'd beneath his holy burden; And as he rose from earth again, he raised
His tremulous hands in pious wrath towards heaven.
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen from
him,
He turn'd to me, and said, "The hour will come
When he thou hast o'erthrown shall o'erthrow thee:
The glory shall depart from out thy house,
The wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul,
For I would rather yield to gods than men,
Or cling to any creed of destiny,
Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom
I know to be as worthless as the dust,
And weak as worthless, more than instruments
Of an o'erruling power; they in themselves
Were all incapable-they could not be
Victors of him who oft had conquer'd for them!
Ang. Employ the minutes left in aspirations
Of a more healing nature, and in peace
Even with these wretches take thy flight to Heaven.
Doge. I am at peace: the peace of certainty
That a sure hour will come, when their sons' sons,
And this proud city, and these azure waters,
And all which makes them eminent and bright,
Shall be a desolation, and a curse,
A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean Babel!
Ang. Speak not thus now; the surge of passion
still
Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive
Thyself, and canst not injure them-be calmer.
Doge. I stand within eternity, and see
Into eternity, and I behold-
Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face
For the last time-the days which I denounce
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls,
And they who are indwellers.
Guard, (coming forward.) Doge of Venice
The Ten are in attendance on your highness.
Doge. Then farewell, Angiolina !-one embrace-
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband-love my memory-
I would not ask so much for me still living,
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now,
Seeing my evil feelings are at rest.
Besides, of all the fruit of these long years,
Glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and name,
Which generally leave some flowers to bloom
Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even
A little love, or friendship, or esteem,
No not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour
I have uprooted all my former life,
And outlived every thing, except thy heart,
The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft
With unimpair'd but not a clamorous grief
Still keep thou turn'st so pale!-Alas! she faints,
She hath no breath, no pulse!-Guards lend your
aid-
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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.
Ye elements! in which to be resolved,
I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner
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!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
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
sur-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
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better,
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang.
When she shakes off this temporary death,
I shall be with the Eternal.--Call her women-
One look!-how cold her hand!-as cold as mine
Shall be ere she recovers.-Gently tend her,
And take my last thanks--I am ready now.
[The Attendants of ANGIOLINA enter and
round their mistress, who has fainted.
Exeunt the DOGE, Guards, &c., &c.
Shedding so much blood in her last defence As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her, The Court of the Ducal Palace: the outer gates are Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought shut against the people.-The DoGE enters in his And sold, and be an appanage to those ducal robes, in procession with the Council of Ten Who shall despise her!-She shall stoop to be and other Patricians, attended by the Guards till A province for an empire, petty town they arrive at the top of the "Giant's Staircase," In lieu of capitol, with slaves for senates, (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 last
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,
Than I received the fatal ornament.
One of the Ten. Thou tremblest, Faliero!
Doge.
'Tis with age, then. Ben. Faliero! hast thou aught further to commend,
Compatible with justice, to the senate?
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people! 10
Then when the Hebrew's in thy palaces,11
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' Vicegerent,
Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns,
Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or 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
Doge. I would commend my nephew to their Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
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
Venice-
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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 kingdom,
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 cling thee,
Vice without splendor, sin without relief
Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er,
But in its stead coarse lusts of habitude,
Prurient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,
'Depraving nature's frailty to an art ;-
When these and more are heavy on thee, when
Smiles without mirth, and pastimes without pleasure,
Youth without honor, age without respect,
Meanness and weakness, and a sense of wo
He raises his keen eyes to heaven; I see
Them glitter, and his lips move-Hush! hush !—no,
'Twas but a murmur-Curse upon the distance!
His words are inarticulate, but the voice
'Gainst which thou wilt not strive, and dar'st not Swells up like mutter'd thunder; would we could
Have made thee last and worst of peopled deserts,
Then, in the last gasp of thine agony,
Amidst thy many murders, think of mine!
But gather a sole sentence!
Second it. Hush! we perhaps may catch the sound.
Thou den of drunkards with the blood of princes! 12 I cannot hear him.-How his hoary hair
The Piazza and Piazzetta of Saint Mark's.-The People in crowds gathered round the grated gates of the Ducal Palace, which are shut.
First Citizen. I have gain'd the gate, and can
discern the Ten,
Robed in their gowns of state, ranged round the
Doge.
Second Cit. I cannot reach thee with mine utmost
effort.
How is it? let us hear at least, since sight
Is thus prohibited unto the people,
Except the occupiers of those bars.
First Cit. One has approach'd the Doge, and now they strip
The ducal bonnet from his head-and now
Streams on the wind like foam upon the wave!
Now-now-he kneels-and now they form a circle
Round him, and all is hidden-but I see
The lifted sword in air-Ah! Hark! it falls!
[The people murmur
Third Cit. Then they have murder'd him who
would have freed us.
Fourth Cit. He was a kind man to the commons
Fifth Cit. Wisely they did to keep their portals
barr'd.
Would we had known the work they were preparing
Ere we were summon'd here, we would have brought
Weapons and forced them!
Sixth Cit.
Are you sure he's dead?
First Cit. I saw the sword fall-Lo! what have
we here?
Enter on the Balcony of the Palace which fronts
Saint Mark's Place, a CHIEF OF THE TEN,13 with
a bloody sword. He waves it thrice before the
People, and exclaims,
"Justice hath dealt upon the mighty Traitor!"
[The gates are opened; the populace rush in
towards the "Giant's Staircase," where the
execution has taken place. The foremost of
them exclaims to those behind,
The gory head rolls down the "Giants' Steps!
A gondola is not like a common, boat, but is as easily rowed with one oar as with two, (though of "I Signori di Notte" held an important charge course not so swiftly,) and often is so from motives in the old Republic. of privacy; and (since the decay of Venice) of economy.
They think themselves
Engaged in secret to the Signory.
Page 294, lines 7 and 8.
"Giovedi Grasso," "fat or greasy Thursday," which I cannot literally translate in the text, was the day.
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