Act V, Scene I — The same Hall in the Palace
MYRRHA and BALEA.
Myr. (at a window)[28] The day at last has broken. What a night Hath ushered it! How beautiful in heaven! Though varied with a transitory storm, More beautiful in that variety! How hideous upon earth! where Peace and Hope, And Love and Revel, in an hour were trampled By human passions to a human chaos, Not yet resolved to separate elements-- 'Tis warring still! And can the sun so rise, So bright, so rolling back the clouds into 10 Vapours more lovely than the unclouded sky, With golden pinnacles, and snowy mountains, And billows purpler than the Ocean's, making In heaven a glorious mockery of the earth, So like we almost deem it permanent; So fleeting, we can scarcely call it aught Beyond a vision, 'tis so transiently Scattered along the eternal vault: and yet It dwells upon the soul, and soothes the soul, And blends itself into the soul, until 20 Sunrise and sunset form the haunted epoch Of Sorrow and of Love; which they who mark not, Know not the realms where those twin genii[al] (Who chasten and who purify our hearts, So that we would not change their sweet rebukes For all the boisterous joys that ever shook The air with clamour) build the palaces Where their fond votaries repose and breathe Briefly;--but in that brief cool calm inhale Enough of heaven to enable them to bear 30 The rest of common, heavy, human hours, And dream them through in placid sufferance, Though seemingly employed like all the rest Of toiling breathers in allotted tasks[am] Of pain or pleasure, two names for one feeling, Which our internal, restless agony Would vary in the sound, although the sense Escapes our highest efforts to be happy.
Bal. You muse right calmly: and can you so watch The sunrise which may be our last?
Myr. It is 40 Therefore that I so watch it, and reproach Those eyes, which never may behold it more, For having looked upon it oft, too oft, Without the reverence and the rapture due To that which keeps all earth from being as fragile As I am in this form. Come, look upon it, The Chaldee's God, which, when I gaze upon, I grow almost a convert to your Baal.
Bal. As now he reigns in heaven, so once on earth He swayed.
Myr. He sways it now far more, then; never 50 Had earthly monarch half the power and glory Which centres in a single ray of his.
Bal. Surely he is a God!
Myr. So we Greeks deem too; And yet I sometimes think that gorgeous orb Must rather be the abode of Gods than one Of the immortal sovereigns. Now he breaks Through all the clouds, and fills my eyes with light That shuts the world out. I can look no more.
Bal. Hark! heard you not a sound?
Myr. No, 'twas mere fancy; They battle it beyond the wall, and not 60 As in late midnight conflict in the very Chambers: the palace has become a fortress Since that insidious hour; and here, within The very centre, girded by vast courts And regal halls of pyramid proportions, Which must be carried one by one before They penetrate to where they then arrived, We are as much shut in even from the sound Of peril as from glory.
Bal. But they reached Thus far before.
Myr. Yes, by surprise, and were 70 Beat back by valour: now at once we have Courage and vigilance to guard us.
Bal. May they Prosper!
Myr. That is the prayer of many, and The dread of more: it is an anxious hour; I strive to keep it from my thoughts. Alas! How vainly!
Bal. It is said the King's demeanour In the late action scarcely more appalled The rebels than astonished his true subjects.
Myr. 'Tis easy to astonish or appal The vulgar mass which moulds a horde of slaves; 80 But he did bravely.
Bal. Slew he not Beleses? I heard the soldiers say he struck him down.
Myr. The wretch was overthrown, but rescued to Triumph, perhaps, o'er one who vanquished him In fight, as he had spared him in his peril; And by that heedless pity risked a crown.
Bal. Hark!
Myr. You are right; some steps approach, but slowly.
Enter Soldiers, bearing in SALEMENES _wounded, with a broken javelin in his side: they seat him upon one of the couches which furnish the Apartment_.
Myr. Oh, Jove!
Bal. Then all is over.
Sal. That is false. Hew down the slave who says so, if a soldier.
Myr. Spare him--he's none: a mere court butterfly, 90 That flutter in the pageant of a monarch.
Sal. Let him live on, then.
Myr. So wilt thou, I trust.
Sal. I fain would live this hour out, and the event, But doubt it. Wherefore did ye bear me here?
Sol. By the King's order. When the javelin struck you, You fell and fainted: 'twas his strict command To bear you to this hall.
Sal. 'Twas not ill done: For seeming slain in that cold dizzy trance, The sight might shake our soldiers--but--'tis vain, I feel it ebbing!
Myr. Let me see the wound; 100 I am not quite skilless: in my native land 'Tis part of our instruction. War being constant, We are nerved to look on such things.[an]
Sol. Best extract The javelin.
Myr. Hold! no, no, it cannot be.
Sal. I am sped, then!
Myr. With the blood that fast must follow The extracted weapon, I do fear thy life.
Sal. And I not death. Where was the King when you Conveyed me from the spot where I was stricken?
Sol. Upon the same ground, and encouraging With voice and gesture the dispirited troops 110 Who had seen you fall, and faltered back.
Sal. Whom heard ye Named next to the command?
Sol. I did not hear.
Sal. Fly, then, and tell him, 'twas my last request That Zames take my post until the junction, So hoped for, yet delayed, of Ofratanes, Satrap of Susa. Leave me here: our troops Are not so numerous as to spare your absence.
Sol. But Prince----
Sal. Hence, I say! Here's a courtier and A woman, the best chamber company. As you would not permit me to expire 120 Upon the field, I'll have no idle soldiers About my sick couch. Hence! and do my bidding! [Exeunt the Soldiers.
Myr. Gallant and glorious Spirit! must the earth So soon resign thee?
Sal. Gentle Myrrha, 'tis The end I would have chosen, had I saved The monarch or the monarchy by this; As 'tis, I have not outlived them.
Myr. You wax paler.
Sal. Your hand; this broken weapon but prolongs My pangs, without sustaining life enough To make me useful: I would draw it forth 130 And my life with it, could I but hear how The fight goes.
Enter SARDANAPALUS and Soldiers.
Sar. My best brother!
Sal. And the battle Is lost?
Sar. (despondingly). You see me here.
Sal. I'd rather see you thus! [He draws out the weapon from the wound, and dies.
Sar. And thus I will be seen; unless the succour, The last frail reed of our beleagured hopes, Arrive with Ofratanes.
Myr. Did you not Receive a token from your dying brother, Appointing Zames chief?
Sar. I did.
Myr. Where's Zames?
Sar. Dead.
Myr. And Altada?
Sar. Dying.
Myr. Pania? Sfero?
Sar. Pania yet lives; but Sfero's fled or captive. 140 I am alone.
Myr. And is all lost?
Sar. Our walls, Though thinly manned, may still hold out against Their present force, or aught save treachery: But i' the field----
Myr. I thought 'twas the intent Of Salemenes not to risk a sally Till ye were strengthened by the expected succours.
Sar. I over-ruled him.
Myr. Well, the fault's a brave one.
Sar. But fatal. Oh, my brother! I would give These realms, of which thou wert the ornament, The sword and shield, the sole-redeeming honour, 150 To call back----But I will not weep for thee; Thou shall be mourned for as thou wouldst be mourned. It grieves me most that thou couldst quit this life Believing that I could survive what thou Hast died for--our long royalty of race. If I redeem it, I will give thee blood Of thousands, tears of millions, for atonement, (The tears of all the good are thine already). If not, we meet again soon,--if the spirit Within us lives beyond:--thou readest mine, 160 And dost me justice now. Let me once clasp That yet warm hand, and fold that throbless heart [Embraces the body. To this which beats so bitterly. Now, bear The body hence.
Sol. Where?
Sar. To my proper chamber. Place it beneath my canopy, as though The King lay there: when this is done, we will Speak further of the rites due to such ashes. [Exeunt Soldiers with the body of SALEMENES.
Enter PANIA.
Sar. Well, Pania! have you placed the guards, and issued The orders fixed on?
Pan. Sire, I have obeyed.
Sar. And do the soldiers keep their hearts up?
Pan. Sire? 170
Sar. I am answered! When a king asks twice, and has A question as an answer to his question, It is a portent. What! they are disheartened?
Pan. The death of Salemenes, and the shouts Of the exulting rebels on his fall, Have made them----
Sar. Rage--not droop--it should have been. We'll find the means to rouse them.
Pan. Such a loss Might sadden even a victory.
Sar. Alas! Who can so feel it as I feel? but yet, Though cooped within these walls, they are strong, and we 180 Have those without will break their way through hosts, To make their sovereign's dwelling what it was-- A palace, not a prison--nor a fortress.
Enter an Officer, hastily.
Sar. Thy face seems ominous. Speak!
Offi. I dare not.
Sar. Dare not? While millions dare revolt with sword in hand! That's strange. I pray thee break that loyal silence Which loathes to shock its sovereign; we can hear Worse than thou hast to tell.
Pan. Proceed--thou hearest.
Offi. The wall which skirted near the river's brink Is thrown down by the sudden inundation 190 Of the Euphrates, which now rolling, swoln From the enormous mountains where it rises, By the late rains of that tempestuous region, O'erfloods its banks, and hath destroyed the bulwark.
Pan. That's a black augury! it has been said For ages, "That the City ne'er should yield To man, until the River grew its foe."
Sar. I can forgive the omen, not the ravage. How much is swept down of the wall?
Offi. About Some twenty stadia.[29]
Sar. And all this is left 200 Pervious to the assailants?
Offi. For the present The River's fury must impede the assault; But when he shrinks into his wonted channel, And may be crossed by the accustomed barks, The palace is their own.
Sar. That shall be never. Though men, and gods, and elements, and omens, Have risen up 'gainst one who ne'er provoked them, My father's house shall never be a cave For wolves to horde and howl in.
Pan. With your sanction, I will proceed to the spot, and take such measures 210 For the assurance of the vacant space As time and means permit.
Sar. About it straight, And bring me back, as speedily as full And fair investigation may permit, Report of the true state of this irruption Of waters. [Exeunt PANIA and the Officer.
Myr. Thus the very waves rise up Against you.
Sar. They are not my subjects, girl, And may be pardoned, since they can't be punished.
Myr. I joy to see this portent shakes you not.
Sar. I am past the fear of portents: they can tell me 220 Nothing I have not told myself since midnight: Despair anticipates such things.
Myr. Despair!
Sar. No; not despair precisely. When we know All that can come, and how to meet it, our Resolves, if firm, may merit a more noble Word than this is to give it utterance. But what are words to us? we have well nigh done With them and all things.
Myr. Save one deed--the last And greatest to all mortals; crowning act Of all that was, or is, or is to be-- 230 The only thing common to all mankind, So different in their births, tongues, sexes, natures, Hues, features, climes, times, feelings, intellects,[ao] Without one point of union save in this-- To which we tend, for which we're born, and thread The labyrinth of mystery, called life.
Sar. Our clue being well nigh wound out, let's be cheerful. They who have nothing more to fear may well Indulge a smile at that which once appalled; As children at discovered bugbears.
Re-enter PANIA.
Pan. 'Tis 240 As was reported: I have ordered there A double guard, withdrawing from the wall, Where it was strongest, the required addition To watch the breach occasioned by the waters.
Sar. You have done your duty faithfully, and as My worthy Pania! further ties between us Draw near a close--I pray you take this key: [Gives a key. It opens to a secret chamber, placed Behind the couch in my own chamber--(Now Pressed by a nobler weight than e'er it bore-- 250 Though a long line of sovereigns have lain down Along its golden frame--as bearing for A time what late was Salemenes.)--Search The secret covert to which this will lead you; 'Tis full of treasure;[30] take it for yourself And your companions:[ap] there's enough to load ye, Though ye be many. Let the slaves be freed, too; And all the inmates of the palace, of Whatever sex, now quit it in an hour. Thence launch the regal barks, once formed for pleasure, 260 And now to serve for safety, and embark. The river's broad and swoln, and uncommanded, (More potent than a king) by these besiegers. Fly! and be happy!
Pan. Under your protection! So you accompany your faithful guard.
Sar. No, Pania! that must not be; get thee hence, And leave me to my fate.
Pan. 'Tis the first time I ever disobeyed: but now----
Sar. So all men Dare beard me now, and Insolence within Apes Treason from without. Question no further; 270 'Tis my command, my last command. Wilt thou Oppose it? thou!
Pan. But yet--not yet.
Sar. Well, then, Swear that you will obey when I shall give The signal.
Pan. With a heavy but true heart, I promise.
Sar. 'Tis enough. Now order here Faggots, pine-nuts, and withered leaves, and such Things as catch fire and blaze with one sole spark; Bring cedar, too, and precious drugs, and spices, And mighty planks, to nourish a tall pile; Bring frankincense and myrrh, too, for it is 280 For a great sacrifice I build the pyre! And heap them round yon throne.
Pan. My Lord!
Sar. I have said it, And you have sworn.
Pan. And could keep my faith Without a vow. [Exit PANIA.
Myr. What mean you?
Sar. You shall know Anon--what the whole earth shall ne'er forget.
PANIA, returning with a Herald.
Pan. My King, in going forth upon my duty, This herald has been brought before me, craving An audience.
Sar. Let him speak.
Her. The King Arbaces----
Sar. What, crowned already?--But, proceed.
Her. Beleses, The anointed High-priest----
Sar. Of what god or demon? 290 With new kings rise new altars. But, proceed; You are sent to prate your master's will, and not Reply to mine.
Her. And Satrap Ofratanes----
Sar. Why, he is ours.
Her. (showing a ring). Be sure that he is now In the camp of the conquerors; behold His signet ring.
Sar. 'Tis his. A worthy triad! Poor Salemenes! thou hast died in time To see one treachery the less: this man Was thy true friend and my most trusted subject. Proceed.
Her. They offer thee thy life, and freedom 300 Of choice to single out a residence In any of the further provinces, Guarded and watched, but not confined in person, Where thou shalt pass thy days in peace; but on Condition that the three young princes are Given up as hostages.
Sar. (ironically). The generous Victors!
Her. I wait the answer.
Sar. Answer, slave! How long Have slaves decided on the doom of kings?
Her. Since they were free.
Sar. Mouthpiece of mutiny! Thou at the least shalt learn the penalty 310 Of treason, though its proxy only. Pania! Let his head be thrown from our walls within The rebels' lines, his carcass down the river. Away with him! [PANIA and the Guards seizing him.
Pan. I never yet obeyed Your orders with more pleasure than the present. Hence with him, soldiers! do not soil this hall Of royalty with treasonable gore; Put him to rest without.
Her. A single word: My office, King, is sacred.
Sar. And what's mine? That thou shouldst come and dare to ask of me 320 To lay it down?
Her. I but obeyed my orders, At the same peril if refused, as now Incurred by my obedience.
Sar. So there are New monarchs of an hour's growth as despotic As sovereigns swathed in purple, and enthroned From birth to manhood!
Her. My life waits your breath. Yours (I speak humbly)--but it may be--yours May also be in danger scarce less imminent: Would it then suit the last hours of a line Such as is that of Nimrod, to destroy 330 A peaceful herald, unarmed, in his office; And violate not only all that man Holds sacred between man and man--but that More holy tie which links us with the Gods?
Sar. He's right.--Let him go free.--My life's last act Shall not be one of wrath. Here, fellow, take [Gives him a golden cup from a table near. This golden goblet, let it hold your wine, And think of me; or melt it into ingots, And think of nothing but their weight and value.
Her. I thank you doubly for my life, and this 340 Most gorgeous gift, which renders it more precious. But must I bear no answer?
Sar. Yes,--I ask An hour's truce to consider.
Her. But an hour's?
Sar. An hour's: if at the expiration of That time your masters hear no further from me, They are to deem that I reject their terms, And act befittingly.
Her. I shall not fail To be a faithful legate of your pleasure.
Sar. And hark! a word more.
Her. I shall not forget it, Whate'er it be.
Sar. Commend me to Beleses; 350 And tell him, ere a year expire, I summon Him hence to meet me.
Her. Where?
Sar. At Babylon. At least from thence he will depart to meet me.
Her. I shall obey you to the letter. [Exit Herald.
Sar. Pania!-- Now, my good Pania!--quick--with what I ordered.
Pan. My Lord,--the soldiers are already charged. And see! they enter.
Soldiers enter, and form a Pile about the Throne, etc.[31]
Sar. Higher, my good soldiers, And thicker yet; and see that the foundation Be such as will not speedily exhaust Its own too subtle flame; nor yet be quenched 360 With aught officious aid would bring to quell it. Let the throne form the core of it; I would not Leave that, save fraught with fire unquenchable, To the new comers. Frame the whole as if 'Twere to enkindle the strong tower of our Inveterate enemies. Now it bears an aspect! How say you, Pania, will this pile suffice For a King's obsequies?
Pan. Aye, for a kingdom's. I understand you, now.
Sar. And blame me?
Pan. No-- Let me but fire the pile, and share it with you. 370
Myr. That duty's mine.
Pan. A woman's!
Myr. 'Tis the soldier's Part to die for his sovereign, and why not The woman's with her lover?
Pan. 'Tis most strange!
Myr. But not so rare, my Pania, as thou think'st it. In the mean time, live thou.--Farewell! the pile Is ready.
Pan. I should shame to leave my sovereign With but a single female to partake His death.
Sar. Too many far have heralded Me to the dust already. Get thee hence; Enrich thee.
Pan. And live wretched!
Sar. Think upon 380 Thy vow:--'tis sacred and irrevocable.
Pan. Since it is so, farewell.
Sar. Search well my chamber, Feel no remorse at bearing off the gold; Remember, what you leave you leave the slaves Who slew me: and when you have borne away All safe off to your boats, blow one long blast Upon the trumpet as you quit the palace. The river's brink is too remote, its stream Too loud at present to permit the echo To reach distinctly from its banks. Then fly,-- 390 And as you sail, turn back; but still keep on Your way along the Euphrates: if you reach The land of Paphlagonia, where the Queen Is safe with my three sons in Cotta's court, Say what you saw at parting, and request That she remember what I said at one Parting more mournful still.
Pan. That royal hand! Let me then once more press it to my lips; And these poor soldiers who throng round you, and Would fain die with you!
[The Soldiers and PANIA throng round him, kissing his hand and the hem of his robe.
Sar. My best! my last friends! 400 Let's not unman each other: part at once: All farewells should be sudden, when for ever, Else they make an eternity of moments, And clog the last sad sands of life with tears. Hence, and be happy: trust me, I am not Now to be pitied; or far more for what Is past than present;--for the future, 'tis In the hands of the deities, if such There be: I shall know soon. Farewell--Farewell. [Exeunt PANIA and Soldiers.
Myr. These men were honest: it is comfort still 410 That our last looks should be on loving faces.
Sar. And lovely ones, my beautiful!--but hear me! If at this moment,--for we now are on The brink,--thou feel'st an inward shrinking from This leap through flame into the future, say it: I shall not love thee less; nay, perhaps more, For yielding to thy nature: and there's time Yet for thee to escape hence.
Myr. Shall I light One of the torches which lie heaped beneath The ever-burning lamp that burns without, 420 Before Baal's shrine, in the adjoining hall?
Sar. Do so. Is that thy answer?
Myr. Thou shalt see. [Exit MYRRHA.
Sar. (solus). She's firm. My fathers! whom I will rejoin, It may be, purified by death from some Of the gross stains of too material being, I would not leave your ancient first abode To the defilement of usurping bondmen; If I have not kept your inheritance As ye bequeathed it, this bright part of it, Your treasure--your abode--your sacred relics 430 Of arms, and records--monuments, and spoils, In which they would have revelled, I bear with me To you in that absorbing element, Which most personifies the soul as leaving The least of matter unconsumed before Its fiery workings:--and the light of this Most royal of funereal pyres shall be[aq] Not a mere pillar formed of cloud and flame, A beacon in the horizon for a day, And then a mount of ashes--but a light[ar] 440 To lesson ages, rebel nations, and Voluptuous princes. Time shall quench full many A people's records, and a hero's acts; Sweep empire after empire, like this first Of empires, into nothing; but even then Shall spare this deed of mine, and hold it up A problem few dare imitate, and none Despise--but, it may be, avoid the life Which led to such a consummation.
MYRRHA _returns with a lighted Torch in one Hand, and a Cup in the other_.
Myr. Lo! I've lit the lamp which lights us to the stars. 450
Sar. And the cup?
Myr. 'Tis my country's custom to Make a libation to the Gods.
Sar. And mine To make libations amongst men. I've not Forgot the custom; and although alone, Will drain one draught in memory of many A joyous banquet past.
[SARDANAPALUS takes the cup, and after drinking and tinkling the reversed cup, as a drop falls, exclaims--
And this libation Is for the excellent Beleses.
Myr. Why Dwells thy mind rather upon that man's name Than on his mate's in villany?
Sar. The other Is a mere soldier, a mere tool, a kind 460 Of human sword in a friend's hand; the other Is master-mover of his warlike puppet; But I dismiss them from my mind.--Yet pause, My Myrrha! dost thou truly follow me, Freely and fearlessly?
Myr. And dost thou think A Greek girl dare not do for love, that which An Indian widow braves for custom?[as]
Sar. Then We but await the signal.
Myr. It is long In sounding.
Sar. Now, farewell; one last embrace.
Myr. Embrace, but not the last; there is one more. 470
Sar. True, the commingling fire will mix our ashes.
Myr. And pure as is my love to thee, shall they, Purged from the dross of earth, and earthly passion, Mix pale with thine. A single thought yet irks me.
Sar. Say it.
Myr. It is that no kind hand will gather The dust of both into one urn.
Sar. The better: Rather let them be borne abroad upon The winds of heaven, and scattered into air, Than be polluted more by human hands Of slaves and traitors. In this blazing palace, 480 And its enormous walls of reeking ruin, We leave a nobler monument than Egypt Hath piled in her brick mountains, o'er dead kings,[32] Or kine--for none know whether those proud piles Be for their monarch, or their ox-god Apis: So much for monuments that have forgotten Their very record!
Myr. Then farewell, thou earth! And loveliest spot of earth! farewell, Ionia! Be thou still free and beautiful, and far Aloof from desolation! My last prayer 490 Was for thee, my last thoughts, save one, were of thee!
Sar. And that?
Myr. Is yours. [The trumpet of PANIA sounds without.
Sar. Hark!
Myr. Now!
Sar. Adieu, Assyria! I loved thee well, my own, my fathers' land, And better as my country than my kingdom. I sated thee with peace and joys; and this Is my reward! and now I owe thee nothing, Not even a grave. [He mounts the pile. Now, Myrrha!
Myr. Art thou ready?
Sar. As the torch in thy grasp. [MYRRHA fires the pile.
Myr. 'Tis fired! I come.
[As MYRRHA springs forward to throw herself into the flames, the Curtain falls.[33]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] {4}[For a description of the fall of Nineveh, see Nahum ii. 1, sqq.--"He that dasheth in pieces is come up before thy face.... The shield of his mighty men is made red, the valiant men are in scarlet.... The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall justle one against another in the broad ways: they shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightnings. He shall recount his worthies: they shall stumble in their walk; they shall make haste to the wall thereof, and the defence shall be prepared. The gates of the rivers shall be opened, and the palace shall be dissolved," etc.]
[2] {7}["A manuscript dedication of Sardanapalus ... was forwarded to him, with an obliging inquiry whether it might be prefixed to the tragedy. The German, who, at his advanced age, was conscious of his own powers, and of their effects, could only gratefully and modestly consider this Dedication as the expression of an inexhaustible intellect, deeply feeling and creating its own object. He was by no means dissatisfied when, after long delay, Sardanapalus appeared without the Dedication; and was made happy by the possession of a facsimile of it, engraved on stone, which he considered a precious memorial."--Lebensverhältnik zu Byron, Werke, 1833, xlvi. 221-225. (See, too, for translation, Life, p. 593.)]
[3] {9}[Sardanapalus originally appeared in the same volume with The Two Foscari and Cain. The date of publication was December 19, 1821.]
[4] {10}["Sardanapalus, the Thirtieth from Ninus, and the last King of the Assyrians, exceeded all his Predecessors in Sloth and Luxury; for besides that he was seen of none out of his family, he led a most effeminate life: for wallowing in Pleasure and wanton Dalliances, he cloathed himself in Womens' attire, and spun fine Wool and Purple amongst the throngs of his Whores and Concubines. He painted likewise his Face, and decked his whole Body with other Allurements.... He imitated likewise a Woman's voice...; and proceeded to such a degree of voluptuousness that he composed verses for his Epitaph ... which were thus translated by a Grecian out of the Barbarian language--
Ταῦτ' ἔχω ὅσ' ἔφαγον καὶ ἐφύβρισα, καὶ μετ' ἔρωτος [Tau~t' e)/chô o(/s' e)/phagon kai\ e)phy/brisa, kai\ met' e)/rôtos] Τέρπν' ἔπαθον' τὰ δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ὄλβια κεῖνα λέλειπται. [Te/rpn' e)/pathon' ta\ de\ polla\ kai\ o)/lbia kei~na le/leiptai.]
"What once I gorged I now enjoy, And wanton Lusts me still employ; All other things by Mortals prized Are left as dirt by me despised."
--The Historical Library of Diodorus the Sicilian, made English by G. Booth, of the City of Chester, Esquire, 1700, p. 65.
"Another king of the sort was Sardanapalus.... And so, when Arbaces, who was one of the generals under him, a Mede by birth, endeavoured to manage by the assistance of one of the eunuchs, whose name was Sparamizus, to see Sardanapalus: and when ... he saw him painted with vermilion, and adorned like a woman, sitting among his concubines, carding purple wool, and sitting among them with his feet up, wearing a woman's robe, and with his beard carefully scraped, and his face smoothed with pumice stone (for he was whiter than milk, and pencilled under his eyes and eyebrows; and when he saw Arbaces he was putting a little more white under his eyes). Most historians, of whom Duris is one, relate that Arbaces, being indignant at his countrymen being ruled over by such a monarch as that, stabbed him and slew him. But Ctesias says that he went to war with him, and collected a great army, and then that Sardanapalus, being dethroned by Arbaces, died, burning himself alive in his palace, having heaped up a funeral pile four plethra in extent, on which he placed 150 golden couches."--The Deipnosophistæ ... of Athenæus, bk. xii. c. 38, translated by C. D. Yonge, 1854, iii. 847.]
[5] {13}[This prince surpassed all his predecessors in effeminacy, luxury, and cowardice. He never went out of his palace, but spent all his time among a company of women, dressed and painted like them, and employed like them at the distaff. He placed all his happiness and glory in the possession of immense treasures, in feasting and rioting, and indulging himself in all the most infamous and criminal pleasures. He ordered two verses to be put upon his tomb, signifying that he carried away with him all he had eaten, and all the pleasures he had enjoyed, but left everything else behind him,--an epitaph, says Aristotle, fit for a hog. Arbaces, governor of Media, having found means to get into the palace, and having with his own eyes seen Sardanapalus in the midst of his infamous seraglio, enraged at such a spectacle, and not able to endure that so many brave men should be subjected to a prince more soft and effeminate than the women themselves, immediately formed a conspiracy against him. Beleses, governor of Babylon, and several others, entered into it. On the first rumour of this revolt the king hid himself in the inmost part of his palace. Being afterwards obliged to take the field with some forces which he had assembled, he at first gained three successive victories over the enemy, but was afterwards overcome, and pursued to the gates of Nineveh; wherein he shut himself, in hopes the rebels would never be able to take a city so well fortified, and stored with provisions for a considerable time. The siege proved indeed of very great length. It had been declared by an ancient oracle that Nineveh could never be taken unless the river became an enemy to the city. These words buoyed up Sardanapalus, because he looked upon the thing as impossible. But when he saw that the Tigris, by a violent inundation, had thrown down twenty stadia (two miles and a half) of the city wall, and by that means opened a passage to the enemy, he understood the meaning of the oracle, and thought himself lost. He resolved, however, to die in such a manner as, according to his opinion, should cover the infamy of his scandalous and effeminate life. He ordered a pile of wood to be made in his palace, and, setting fire to it, burnt himself, his eunuchs, his women, and his treasures.--Diod. Sic., Bibl. Hist., lib. ii. pag. 78, sqq., ed. 1604, p. 109.]
[a] {14} He sweats in dreary, dulled effeminacy.--[MS. M. erased.]
[b] {15} And see the gewgaws of the glittering girls.--[MS. M. erased.]
[6] ["The words Queen (vide infra, line 83) and pavilion occur, but it is not an allusion to his Britannic Majesty, as you may tremulously (for the admiralty custom) imagine. This you will one day see (if I finish it), as I have made Sardanapalus brave (though voluptuous, as history represents him), and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him. So that it could neither be truth nor satire on any living monarch."--Letter to Murray, May 25, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 299.
Byron pretended, or, perhaps, really thought, that such a phrase as the "Queen's wrongs" would be supposed to contain an allusion to the trial of Queen Caroline (August-November, 1820), and to the exclusion of her name from the State prayers, etc. Unquestionably if the play had been put on the stage at this time, the pit and gallery would have applauded the sentiment to the echo. There was, too, but one "pavilion" in 1821, and that was not on the banks of the Euphrates, but at Brighton. Qui s'excuse s'accuse. Byron was not above "paltering" with his readers "in a double sense."]
[7] {16} "The Ionian name had been still more comprehensive; having included the Achaians and the Bœotians, 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, 1818. i. 199.
[c] {17} To Byblis----.--[MS. M.]
[d] I know each glance of those deep Greek-souled eyes.--[MS. M. erased.]
[e] {19}
----I have a mind To curse the restless slaves with their own wishes.--[MS. M. erased.]
[8] {21}[For the occupation of India by Dionysus, see Diod. Siculi Bib. Hist., lib. ii, pag. 87, c.]
[f] He did, and thence was deemed a God in story.--[MS. M. erased.]
[9] [Strabo (Rerum Geog., lib. iii. 1807, p. 235) throws some doubt on the existence of these columns, which he suggests were islands or "pillar" rocks. According to Plutarch (Langhorne's Translation, 1838, p. 490), Alexander built great altars on the banks of the Ganges, on which the native kings were wont to "offer sacrifices in the Grecian manner." Hence, perhaps, the legend of the columns erected by Dionysus.]
[10] "For this expedition he took only a small chosen body of the phalanx, but all his light troops. In the first day's march he reached Anchialus, a town said to have been founded by the king of Assyria, Sardanapalus. The fortifications, in their magnitude and extent, still in Arrian's time, bore the character of greatness, which the Assyrians appear singularly to have affected in works of the kind. A monument representing Sardanapalus was found there, warranted by an inscription in Assyrian characters, of course in the old Assyrian language, which the Greeks, whether well or ill, interpreted thus: 'Sardanapalus, son of Anacyndaraxes, in one day founded Anchialus and Tarsus. Eat, drink, play; all other human joys are not worth a fillip.' Supposing this version nearly exact (for Arrian says it was not quite so), whether the purpose has not been to invite to civil order a people disposed to turbulence, rather than to recommend immoderate luxury, may perhaps reasonably be questioned. What, indeed, could be the object of a king of Assyria in founding such towns in a country so distant from his capital, and so divided from it by an immense extent of sandy deserts and lofty mountains, and, still more, how the inhabitants could be at once in circumstances to abandon themselves to the intemperate joys which their prince has been supposed to have recommended, is not obvious. But it may deserve observation that, in that line of coast, the southern of Lesser Asia, ruins of cities, evidently of an age after Alexander, yet barely named in history, at this day astonish the adventurous traveller by their magnificence and elegance amid the desolation which, under a singularly barbarian government, has for so many centuries been daily spreading in the finest countries of the globe. Whether more from soil and climate, or from opportunities for commerce, extraordinary means must have been found for communities to flourish there; whence it may seem that the measures of Sardanapalus were directed by juster views than have been commonly ascribed to him. But that monarch having been the last of a dynasty ended by a revolution, obloquy on his memory would follow of course from the policy of his successors and their partisans. The inconsistency of traditions concerning Sardanapalus is striking in Diodorus's account of him."--MITFORD's Greece, 1820, ix. 311-313, and note 1.
[The story of the sepulchral monument with its cynical inscription rests on the authority of Aristobulus, who served under Alexander, and wrote his history. The passage is quoted by Strabo (lib. xiv. ed. 1808, p. 958), and as follows by Athenæus (lib. xii. cap. 40) in the Deipnosophistæ: "And Aristobulus says, 'In Anchiale, which was built by Sardanapalus, did Alexander, when he was on his expedition against the Persians, pitch his camp. And at no great distance was the monument of Sardanapalus, on which there is a marble figure putting together the fingers of its right hand, as if it were giving a fillip. And there was on it the following inscription in Assyrian characters:--
Sardanapalus The king, and son of Anacyndaraxes, In one day built Anchiale and Tarsus: Eat, drink, and love, the rest's not worth e'en this.'
By 'this' meaning the fillip he was giving with his fingers."
"We may conjecture," says Canon Rawlinson, "that the monument was in reality a stele containing the king [Sennacherib] in an arched frame, with the right hand raised above the left, which is the ordinary attitude, and an inscription commemorating the occasion of its erection" [the conquest of Cilicia and settlement of Tarsus].--The Five Great Monarchies, etc., 1871, ii. 216.]
[11] {25}[Compare "Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us; and we fat ourselves for maggots."--Hamlet. act iv. sc. 3, lines 21-23.]
[12] {27}[Compare--"The fickle reek of popular breath." Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxi. line 2.]
[13] Compare--"I have not flattered its rank breath." Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza cxiii. line 2.
Compare, too, Shakespeare, Coriolanus, act iii. sc. i, lines 66, 67.
[14] {28}["Rode. Winter's wind somewhat more unkind than ingratitude itself, though Shakespeare says otherwise. At least, I am so much more accustomed to meet with ingratitude than the north wind, that I thought the latter the sharper of the two. I had met with both in the course of the twenty-four hours, so could judge."--Extracts from a Diary, January 19, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 177.]
[g] {31} ----and even dared Profane our presence with his savage jeers.--[MS. M.]
[h] {34} Who loved no gems so well as those of nature.--[MS. M.]
[i] Wishing eternity to dust----.--[MS. M.]
[j] {38} Each twinkle unto which Time trembles, and Nations grow nothing----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[15] {40}[Compare "these swoln silkworms," Marino Faliero, act ii. sc. 2. line 115, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 386, note 4.]
[k] {43} But found the Monarch claimed his privacy.--[MS. M. erased.]
[l] ----not else It quits this living hand.--[MS. M. erased.]
[m] I know them beautiful, and see them brilliant.--[MS. M. erased.]
[n] {49} ----by the foolish confidence.--[MS. M. erased.]
[16] [The first edition reads "grantor." In the MS. the word may be either "granter" or "grantor." "Grantor" is a technical term, in law, for one "who grants a conveyance."]
[17] {50}[According to Ælian, Var. Hist., vii. i, Semiramis, having obtained from her husband permission to rule over Asia for five days, thrust him into a dungeon, and obtained the sovereign power for herself (ed. Paris, 1858, p. 355).]
[o] {52} Aye--that's earnest!--[MS. M. erased.]
[p] {54} Nay, if thou wilt not----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[q] {56} Nor silent Baal, our imaged deity, Although his marble face looks frowningly, As the dusk shadows of the evening cast His trow in coming dimness and at times.--[MS. M. erased.]
[r] / a wide-spread \ In distant flashes < tempest > --[MS. M erased] \ the approaching /
[s] As from the Gods to augur.--[MS. M. erased.]
[t] {58} The weaker merit of our Asian women.--[MS. M. erased.]
[u] Rather than prove that love to you in griefs.--[MS. M. erased.]
[v] {60} Worshippers in the air.--[MS. M. erased.]
[18] {61}[Perhaps Grillparzer's Sappho was responsible for the anachronism. See "Extracts from a Diary," January 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, V. 171, note 1.]
[19] {63}["In the third act, when Sardanapalus calls for a mirror to look at himself in his armour, recollect to quote the Latin passage from Juvenal upon Otho (a similar character, who did the same thing: Gifford will help you to it). The trait is, perhaps, too familiar, but it is historical (of Otho, at least), and natural in an effeminate character."--Letter to Murray, May 30, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 301. The quotation was not made in the first edition, 1821, nor in any subsequent issue, till 1832. It is from Juvenal, Sat. ii. lines 199-203--
"Ille tenet speculum, pathici gestamen Othonis, Actoris Aurunci spolium, quo se ille videbat Armatum, cum jam tolli vexilla juberet. Res memoranda novis annalibus, atque recenti Historia, speculum civilis sarcina belli."
"This grasps a mirror--pathic Otho's boast (Auruncan Actor's spoil), where, while his host, With shouts, the signal of the fight required, He viewed his mailed form; viewed, and admired! Lo, a new subject for the historic page, A MIRROR, midst the arms of civil rage!"
Gifford.]
[w] {66} ----and his own helmet.--[MS. M. erased.]
[x] {68} We'll die where we were raised----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[y] {70} Tortured because his mind is tortured.--[MS. M. erased.]
[z] He ever such an order----.--[MS. M. erased.] He ever had that order----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[20] {72}["When 'the king was almost dying with thirst' ... the eunuch Satibarzanes sought every place for water.... After much search he found one of those poor Caunians had about two quarts of bad water in a mean bottle, and he took it and carried it to the king. After the king had drawn it all up, the eunuch asked him, 'If he did not find it a disagreeable beverage?' Upon which he swore by all the gods, 'That he had never drunk the most delicious wine, nor the lightest and clearest water with so much pleasure. I wish only,' continued he, 'that I could find the man who gave it thee, that I might make him a recompense. In the mean time I entreat the gods to make him happy and rich.'"--Plutarch's Artaxerxes, Langhorne's translation, 1838, p. 694. Poetry as well as history repeats itself. Compare the "water green" which Gunga Din brought, at the risk of his own life, to fill the wounded soldier's helmet (Barrack-Room Ballads, by Rudyard Kipling, 1892, p. 25). Compare, too--
"Arn. 'Tis a scratch.... In the shoulder, not the sword arm-- And that's enough. I am thirsty: would I had A helm of water!"
The Deformed Transformed, part ii sc. ii. 44, seq., vide post, p. 518.]
[aa] {73}
----ere they had time To place his helm again.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ab] O ye Gods! wounded.--[MS. M.]
[21] {73}[Compare--"His flashing eyes, his floating hair." Kubla Khan, line 49.]
[22] [Compare Childe Harold, Canto I. stanzas lv., lvi., Poetical Works, 1898, i. 57, 58, and note 11, pp. 91, 92.]
[23] {75}[Compare--
"How wonderful is Death, Death and his brother Sleep!"
Shelley's Queen Mab, i. lines 1, 2]
[ac] Crisps the unswelling wave.--[MS. M. erased]
[ad] {76}
Old Hunter of mankind when baited and ye All brutal who pursued both brutes and men.--[MS. M. erased.]
[ae] {78} With arrows peeping through his falling hair.--[MS. M. erased.]
[24] [In the diary for November 23, 1813 (Letters, 1898, ii. 334, 335), Byron alludes to a dream which "chilled his blood" and shook his nerves. Compare Coleridge's Pains of Sleep, lines 23-26--
"Desire with loathing strangely mixed, On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all!"]
[25] {79}[For the story of Semiramis and Ninya, see Justinus Hist., lib. i. cap. ii.]
[26] {81}[See Diod. Siculi Bibl. Hist., lib. ii. 80 c. Cotta was not a kinsman, but a loyal tributary.]
[af] {82} The MS. inserts--(But I speak only of such as are virtuous.)
[27] [Byron must often have pictured to himself an unexpected meeting with his wife. In certain moods he would write letters to her which were never sent, or never reached her hands. The scene between Sardanapalus and Zarina reflects the sentiments contained in one such letter, dated November 17, 1821, which Moore printed in his Life, pp. 581, 582. See Letters, 1901, v. 479.]
[ag] {84} Bravely and won wear wisely--not as I.--[MS. M, erased.]
[ah] {88}
Which thou hast lighted up at once? but leavest One to grieve o'er the other's change--Zarina.-[MS. M, erased.]
[ai] {89} ----natural.--[MS. M. The first edition reads "mutual."]
[aj] {91} Is heavier sorrow than the wrong which--[MS. M. erased.]
[ak] {93} A leech's lancet would have done as much.--[MS. M. erased.]
[28] {94}[Myrrha's apostrophe to the sunrise may be compared with the famous waking vision of the "Solitary" in the Second Book of the Excursion (Works of Wordsworth, 1889, p. 439)--
"The appearance, instantaneously disclosed, Was of a mighty city--boldly say A wilderness of building, sinking far And self-withdrawn into a boundless depth, Far sinking into splendour--without end! Fabric it seemed of diamond and of gold, With alabaster domes, and silver spires, And blazing terrace upon terrace, high Uplifted."
But the difference, even in form, between the two passages is more remarkable than the resemblance, and the interpretation, the moral of Byron's vision is distinct from, if not alien to, Wordsworth's. The "Solitary" sees all heaven opened; the revealed abode of spirits in beatitude--a refuge and a redemption from "this low world of care;" while Myrrha drinks in "enough of heaven," a medicament of "Sorrow and of Love," for the invigoration of "the common, heavy, human hours" of mortal existence. For a charge of "imitation," see Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xiii. 172, note I. See, too, Poetical Works, etc., 1891, p. 271, note 2.]
[al] {95}
Sunrise and sunset form the epoch of Sorrow and love; and they who mark them not {Are fit for neither of those {Can ne'er hold converse with these two.--[MS. M. erased.]
[am] Of labouring wretches in alloted tasks.--[MS. M. erased.]
[an] {97} We are used to such inflictions.--[MS. M. erased.]
[29] {101} About two miles and a half.
[ao] {102} Complexions, climes, æras, and intellects.--[MS. M. erased.]
[30] {103}[Athenæus represents the treasures which Sardanapalus placed in the chamber erected on his funeral pile as amounting to a thousand myriads of talents of gold, and ten times as many talents of silver.]
[ap]
Ye will find the crevice To which the key fits, with a little care.--[MS. M. erased.]
[31] {106}["Then the king caused a huge pile of wood to be made in the palace court, and heaped together upon it all his gold, silver, and royal apparel, and enclosing his eunuchs and concubines in an apartment within the pile, caused it to be set on fire, and burned himself and them together."--Diod. Siculi Bibl. Hist., lib. ii. cap. 81A.
"And he also erected on the funeral pile a chamber 100 feet long, made of wood, and in it he had couches spread, and there he himself lay down with his wife, and his concubines lay on other couches around.... And he made the roof of the apartment of large stout beams, and there all the walls of it he made of numerous thick planks, so that it was impossible to escape out of it,... And ... he bade the slaves set fire to the pile; and it was fifteen days burning. And those who saw the smoke wondered, and thought that he was celebrating a great sacrifice, but the eunuchs alone knew what was really being done. And in this way Sardanapalus, who had spent his life in extraordinary luxury, died with as much magnanimity as possible."--Athenæus, Deipnosophistæ, bk. xii. cap. 38.
See Abydenus apud Eusebium, Præp. Ev. 9. 41. 4; Euseb., Chron., 1878, p. 42, ed. A. Schoene.
Saracus was the last king of Assyria, and being invaded by Cyaxares and a faithless general Nabopolassar ... "unable to resist them, took counsel of despair, and after all means of resistance were exhausted, burned himself in his palace."
"The self-immolation of Saracus has a parallel in the conduct of the Israelitish king Zimri, who, 'when he saw that the city was taken, went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him, and died' (1 Kings xvi. 18); and again in that of the Persian governor Boges, who burnt himself with his wives and children at Eion (Herod., vii. 107)."--The Five Great Monarchies, etc., by Rev. G. Rawlinson, 1871, ii. 232, note 4.]
[aq] {109} Funeréal----.--[MS. M.]
[ar] And strew the earth with, ashes----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[as] {110}
----And what is there An Indian widow dares for custom which A Greek girl----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[32] {111}[Bishop Heber (Quarterly Review, July, 1821, vol. xxvii. p. 503) takes exception to these lines on the ground that they "involve an anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be assigned to the erection of the earlier pyramids, there can be no reason for apprehending that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full splendour, the destination of those immense fabrics could have been a matter of doubt.... Herodotus, three hundred years later, may have been misinformed on these points," etc., etc. According to modern Egyptology, the erection of the "earlier pyramids" was an event of remotest antiquity when the Assyrian Empire was in its infancy.]
[33] End of Act fifth.--B. Ravenne. May 27^th^ 1821. Mem.--I began the drama on the 13th of January, 1821, and continued the two first acts very slowly and at long intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month, that is to say in a fortnight).
THE TWO FOSCARI:[34]
AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.[35]
"The father softens, but the governor's resolved."--Critic.[36]
[The Two Foscari was produced at Drury Lane Theatre April 7, and again on April 18 and April 25, 1838. Macready played "Frances Foscari," Mr. Anderson "Jacopo Foscari," and Miss Helen Faucit "Marina."
According to the Times, April 9, 1838, "Miss Faucit's Marina, the most energetic part of the whole, was clever, and showed a careful attention to the points which might be made."
Macready notes in his diary, April 7, 1838 (Reminiscences, 1875, ii. 106): "Acted Foscari very well. Was very warmly received ... was called for at the end of the tragedy, and received by the whole house standing up and waving handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm. Dickens, Forster, Procter, Browning, Talfourd, all came into my room."]
INTRODUCTION TO THE TWO FOSCARI
The Two Foscari was begun on June 12, and finished, within the month, on July 9, 1821. Byron was still in the vein of the historic drama, though less concerned with "ancient chroniclers" and original "authorities" (vide ante, Preface to Marino Faliero, vol. iv. p. 332) than heretofore. "The Venetian play," he tells Murray, July 14, 1821, is "rigidly historical;" but he seems to have depended for his facts, not on Sanudo or Navagero, but on Daru's Histoire de la République de Vénise (1821, ii. 520-537), and on Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques ... du Moyen Age (1815, x. 36-46). The story of the Two Doges, so far as it concerns the characters and action of Byron's play, may be briefly re-told. It will be found to differ in some important particulars from the extracts from Daru and Sismondi which Byron printed in his "Appendix to the Two Foscari" (Sardanapalus, etc., 1821, pp. 305-324), and no less from a passage in Smedley's Sketches from Venetian History (1832, ii. 93-105), which was substituted for the French "Pièces justificatives," in the collected edition of 1832-1835, xiii. 198-202, and the octavo edition of 1837, etc., pp. 790, 791.
Francesco, son of Nicolò Foscari, was born in 1373. He was nominated a member of the Council of Ten in 1399, and, after holding various offices of state, elected Doge in 1423. His dukedom, the longest on record, lasted till 1457. He was married, in 1395, to Maria, daughter of Andrea Priuli, and, en secondes noces, to Maria, or Marina, daughter of Bartolommeo Nani. By his two wives he was the father of ten children--five sons and five daughters. Of the five sons, four died of the plague, and the fifth, Jacopo, lived to be the cause, if not the hero, of a tragedy.
The younger of the "Two Foscari" was a man of some cultivation, a collector and student of Greek manuscripts, well-mannered, and of ready wit, a child and lover of Venice, but indifferent to her ideals and regardless of her prejudices and restrictions. He seems to have begun life in a blaze of popularity, the admired of all admirers. His wedding with Lucrezia Contarini (January, 1441) was celebrated with a novel and peculiar splendour. Gorgeous youths, Companions of the Hose (della calza), in jackets of crimson velvet, with slashed sleeves lined with squirrel fur, preceded and followed the bridegroom's train. A hundred bridesmaids accompanied the bride. Her dowry exceeded 16,000 ducats, and her jewels, which included a necklace worn by a Queen of Cyprus, were "rich and rare." And the maiden herself was a pearl of great price. "She behaved," writes her brother, "and does behave, so well beyond what could have been looked for. I believe she is inspired by God!"
Jacopo had everything which fortune could bestow, but he lacked a capacity for right conduct. Four years after his marriage (February 17, 1445) an accusation was laid before the Ten (Romanin, Storia, etc., iv. 266) that, contrary to the law embodied in the Ducal Promissione, he had accepted gifts of jewels and money, not only from his fellow-citizens, but from his country's bitterest enemy, Filippo Visconti, Duke of Milan. Jacopo fled to Trieste, and in his absence the Ten, supported by a giunta of ten, on their own authority and independently of the Doge, sentenced him to perpetual banishment at Nauplia, in Roumania. One of the three Capi di' dieci was Ermolao (or Veneticé Almoro) Donato, of whom more hereafter. It is to be noted that this sentence was never carried into effect. At the end of four months, thanks to the intervention of five members of the Ten, he was removed from Trieste to Treviso, and, two years later (September 13, 1447), out of consideration to the Doge, who pleaded that the exile of his only son prevented him from giving his whole heart and soul to the Republic, permitted to return to Venice. So ends the first chapter of Jacopo's misadventures. He stands charged with unlawful, if not criminal, appropriation of gifts and moneys. He had been punished, but less than he deserved, and, for his father's sake, the sentence of exile had been altogether remitted.
Three years went by, and once again, January, 1451, a charge was preferred against Jacopo Foscari, and on this occasion he was arrested and brought before the Ten. He was accused of being implicated in the murder of Ermolao Donato, who was assassinated November 5, 1450, on leaving the Ducal Palace, where he had been attending the Council of the Pregadi. On the morning after the murder Benedetto Gritti, one of the "avvogadori di Commun," was at Mestre, some five miles from Venice, and, happening to accost a servant of Jacopo's who was loading a barge with wood, asked for the latest news from Venice, and got as answer, "Donato has been murdered!" The possession of the news some hours before it had been made public, and the fact that the newsmonger had been haunting the purlieus of the Ducal Palace on the previous afternoon, enabled the Ten to convict Jacopo. They alleged (Decree of X., March 26, 1451) that other evidence ("testificationes et scripturæ") was in their possession, and they pointed to the prisoner's obstinate silence on the rack--a silence unbroken save by "several incantations and magic words which fell from him," as a confirmation of his guilt. Moreover, it was "for the advantage of the State from many points of view" that convicted and condemned he should be. The question of his innocence or guilt (complicated by the report or tradition that one Nicolò Erizzo confessed on his death-bed that he had assassinated Donato for reasons of his own) is still under discussion. Berlan (I due Foscari, etc., 1852, p. 36) sums up against him. It may, however, be urged in favour of Jacopo that the Ten did not produce or quote the scripturæ et testificationes which convinced them of his guilt; that they stopped short of the death-penalty, and pronounced a sentence inadequate to the crime; and, lastly, that not many years before they had taken into consideration the possibility and advisability of poisoning Filippo Visconti, an event which would, no doubt, have been "to the advantage of the State from many points of view."
Innocent or guilty, he was sentenced to perpetual banishment to the city of Candia, on the north coast of the island of Crete; and, guilty or innocent, Jacopo was not the man to make the best of what remained to him and submit to fate. Intrigue he must, and, five years later (June, 1456), a report reached Venice that papers had been found in his possession, some relating to the Duke of Milan, calculated to excite "nuovi scandali e disordini," and others in cypher, which the Ten could not read. Over and above these papers there was direct evidence that Jacopo had written to the Imperatore dei Turchi, imploring him to send his galley and take him away from Candia. Here was a fresh instance of treachery to the Republic, and, July 21, 1456, Jacopo returned to Venice under the custody of Lorenzo Loredano.
According to Romanin (Storia, etc., iv. 284), he was not put to the torture, but confessed his guilt spontaneously, pleading, by way of excuse, that the letter to the Duke of Milan had been allowed to fall into the hands of spies, with a view to his being recalled to Venice and obtaining a glimpse of his parents and family, even at a risk of a fresh trial. On the other hand, the Dolfin Cronaca, the work of a kinsman of the Foscari, which records Jacopo's fruitless appeal to the sorrowful but inexorable Doge, and other incidents of a personal nature, testifies, if not to torture on the rack, "to mutilation by thirty strokes of the lash." Be that as it may, he was once more condemned to lifelong exile, with the additional penalty that he should be imprisoned for a year. He sailed for Venice July 31, 1456, and died at Candia, January 12, 1457. Jacopo's misconduct and consequent misfortune overshadowed the splendour of his father's reign, and, in very truth "brought his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."
After his son's death, the aged Doge, now in his eighty-fifth year, retired to his own apartments, and refused to preside at Councils of State. The Ten, who in 1446 had yielded to the Doge's plea that a father fretting for an exiled son could not discharge his public duties, were instant that he should abdicate the dukedom on the score of decrepitude. Accounts differ as to the mode in which he received the sentence of deposition. It is certain that he was compelled to abdicate on Sunday morning, October 23, 1457, but was allowed a breathing-space of a few days to make his arrangements for quitting the Ducal Palace.
On Monday, October 24, the Great Council met to elect his successor, and sat with closed doors till Sunday, October 30.
On Thursday, October 27, Francesco, heedless of a suggestion that he should avoid the crowd, descended the Giants' Staircase for the last time, and, says the Dolfin Cronaca, "after crossing the courtyard, went out by the door leading to the prisons, and entered his boat by the Ponte di Paglia." "He was dressed," says another chronicle (August. Cod. I, cl. vii.), "in a scarlet mantle, from which the fur lining had been taken," surmounted by a scarlet hood, an old friend which he had worn when his ducal honours were new, and which he had entrusted to his wife's care to be preserved for "red" days and festivals of State. "In his hand he held his staff, as he walked very slowly. His brother Marco was by his side, behind him were cousins and grandsons ... and in this way he went to his own house."
On Sunday, October 30, Pasquale Malipiero was declared Doge, and two days after, All Saints' Day, at the first hour of the morning, Francesco Foscari died. If the interval between ten o'clock on Sunday night and one o'clock on Tuesday morning disproves the legend that the discrowned Doge ruptured a blood-vessel at the moment when the bell was tolling for the election of his successor, the truth remains that, old as he was, he died of a broken heart.
His predecessor, Tomaso Mocenigo, had prophesied on his death-bed that if the Venetians were to make Foscari Doge they would forfeit their "gold and silver, their honour and renown." "From your position of lords," said he, "you will sink to that of vassals and servants to men of arms." The prophecy was fulfilled. "If we look," writes Mr. H. F. Brown (Venice, etc., 1893, p. 306), "at the sum-total of Foscari's reign ... we find that the Republic had increased her land territory by the addition of two great provinces, Bergamo and Brescia ... But the price had been enormous ... her debt rose from 6,000,000 to 13,000,000 ducats. Venetian funds fell to 18-1/2.... Externally there was much pomp and splendour.... But underneath this bravery there lurked the official corruption of the nobles, the suspicion of the Ten, the first signs of bank failures, the increase in the national debt, the fall in the value of the funds. Land wars and landed possessions drew the Venetians from the sea to terra ferma.... The beginning of the end had arrived." (See Two Doges of Venice, by Alethea Wiel, 1891; I due Foscari, Memorie Storicho Critiche, di Francesco Berlan, 1852; Storia Documentata di Venezia, di S. Romanin, 1855, vol. iv.; Die beiden Foscari, von Richard Senger, 1878. For reviews, etc., of The Two Foscari, vide ante, "Introduction to Sardanapalus," p. 5.)
Both Jeffrey in the Edinburgh, and Heber in the Quarterly Review, took exception to the character of Jacopo Foscari, in accordance with the Horatian maxim, "Incredulus odi." "If," said Jeffrey, "he had been presented to the audience wearing out his heart in exile, ... we might have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives." As it is (in obedience to the "unities") "we first meet with him led from the 'Question,' and afterwards ... clinging to the dungeon walls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them." The situation lacks conviction.
"If," argued Heber, "there ever existed in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a man who gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, to a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a fine climate; it is what few can be made to believe, and still fewer to sympathize with."
It was, no doubt, with reference to these criticisms that Byron told Medwin (Conversations, 1824, p. 173) that it was no invention of his that the "young Foscari should have a sickly affection for his native city.... I painted the men as I found them, as they were--not as the critics would have them.... But no painting, however highly coloured, can give an idea of the intensity of a Venetian's affection for his native city."
Goethe, on the other hand, was "not careful" to note these inconsistencies and perplexities. He thought that the dramatic handling of The Two Foscari was "worthy of great praise," was "admirable!" (Conversations with Goethe, 1874, p. 265).
Dramatis Personæ
MEN.
FRANCIS FOSCARI, Doge of Venice. JACOPO FOSCARI, Son of the Doge. JAMES LOREDANO, a Patrician. MARCO MEMMO, a Chief of the Forty. BARBARIGO, a Senator.
Other Senators, The Council of Ten, Guards, Attendants, etc., etc.
WOMAN.
MARINA, Wife of young FOSCARI.
SCENE--The Ducal Palace, Venice.
THE TWO FOSCARI.
Act I, Scene I — A Hall in the Ducal Palace
Enter LOREDANO and BARBARIGO, meeting.
Lor. WHERE is the prisoner?
Bar. Reposing from The Question.
Lor. The hour's past--fixed yesterday For the resumption of his trial.--Let us Rejoin our colleagues in the council, and Urge his recall.
Bar. Nay, let him profit by A few brief minutes for his tortured limbs; He was o'erwrought by the Question yesterday, And may die under it if now repeated.[at][37]
Lor. Well?
Bar. I yield not to you in love of justice, Or hate of the ambitious Foscari, 10 Father and son, and all their noxious race; But the poor wretch has suffered beyond Nature's Most stoical endurance.
Lor. Without owning His crime?
Bar. Perhaps without committing any. But he avowed the letter to the Duke Of Milan, and his sufferings half atone for Such weakness.
Lor. We shall see.
Bar. You, Loredano, Pursue hereditary hate too far.
Lor. How far?
Bar. To extermination.
Lor. When they are Extinct, you may say this.--Let's in to council. 20
Bar. Yet pause--the number of our colleagues is not Complete yet; two are wanting ere we can Proceed.
Lor. And the chief judge, the Doge?
Bar. No--he, With more than Roman fortitude, is ever First at the board in this unhappy process Against his last and only son.[38]
Lor. True--true-- His last.
Bar. Will nothing move you?
Lor. Feels he, think you?
Bar. He shows it not.
Lor. I have marked that--the wretch!
Bar. But yesterday, I hear, on his return To the ducal chambers, as he passed the threshold 30 The old man fainted.
Lor. It begins to work, then.
Bar. The work is half your own.
Lor. And should be all mine-- My father and my uncle are no more.
Bar. I have read their epitaph, which says they died By poison.[39]
Lor. When the Doge declared that he Should never deem himself a sovereign till The death of Peter Loredano, both The brothers sickened shortly:--he is Sovereign.
Bar. A wretched one.
Lor. What should they be who make Orphans?
Bar. But did the Doge make you so?
Lor. Yes. 40
Bar. What solid proofs?
Lor. When Princes set themselves To work in secret, proofs and process are Alike made difficult; but I have such Of the first, as shall make the second needless.
Bar. But you will move by law?
Lor. By all the laws Which he would leave us.
Bar. They are such in this Our state as render retribution easier Than 'mongst remoter nations. Is it true That you have written in your books of commerce, (The wealthy practice of our highest nobles) 50 "Doge Foscari, my debtor for the deaths Of Marco and Pietro Loredano, My sire and uncle?"[40]
Lor. It is written thus.
Bar. And will you leave it unerased?
Lor. Till balanced.
Bar. And how?
[Two Senators pass over the stage, as in their way to "the Hall of the Council of Ten."
Lor. You see the number is complete. Follow me. [Exit LOREDANO.
Bar. (solus). Follow thee! I have followed long Thy path of desolation, as the wave Sweeps after that before it, alike whelming[au] The wreck that creaks to the wild winds, and wretch Who shrieks within its riven ribs, as gush 60 The waters through them; but this son and sire Might move the elements to pause, and yet Must I on hardily like them--Oh! would I could as blindly and remorselessly!-- Lo, where he comes!--Be still, my heart! they are Thy foes, must be thy victims: wilt thou beat For those who almost broke thee?
Enter Guards, with young FOSCARI as Prisoner, etc.
Guard. Let him rest. Signor, take time.
Jac. Fos. I thank thee, friend, I'm feeble; But thou mayst stand reproved.
Guard. I'll stand the hazard.
Jac. Fos. That's kind:--I meet some pity, but no mercy;[av] 70 This is the first.
Guard. And might be the last, did they Who rule behold us.
Bar. (advancing to the Guard). There is one who does: Yet fear not; I will neither be thy judge Nor thy accuser; though the hour is past, Wait their last summons--I am of "the Ten,"[41] And waiting for that summons, sanction you Even by my presence: when the last call sounds, We'll in together.--Look well to the prisoner!
Jac. Fos. What voice is that?--'Tis Barbarigo's! Ah! Our House's foe, and one of my few judges. 80
Bar. To balance such a foe, if such there be, Thy father sits amongst thy judges.
Jac. Fos. True, He judges.
Bar. Then deem not the laws too harsh Which yield so much indulgence to a sire, As to allow his voice in such high matter As the state's safety--
Jac. Fos. And his son's. I'm faint; Let me approach, I pray you, for a breath Of air, yon window which o'erlooks the waters.
Enter an Officer, who whispers BARBARIGO.
Bar. (to the Guard). Let him approach. I must not speak with him Further than thus: I have transgressed my duty 90 In this brief parley, and must now redeem it[aw] Within the Council Chamber. [Exit BARBARIGO.
[Guard conducting JACOPO FOSCARI to the window.
Guard. There, sir, 'tis Open.--How feel you?
Jac. Fos. Like a boy--Oh Venice!
Guard. And your limbs?
Jac. Fos. Limbs! how often have they borne me[42] Bounding o'er yon blue tide, as I have skimmed The gondola along in childish race, And, masqued as a young gondolier, amidst My gay competitors, noble as I, Raced for our pleasure, in the pride of strength; While the fair populace of crowding beauties, 100 Plebeian as patrician, cheered us on With dazzling smiles, and wishes audible, And waving kerchiefs, and applauding hands, Even to the goal!--How many a time have I Cloven with arm still lustier, breast more daring, The wave all roughened; with a swimmer's stroke Flinging the billows back from my drenched hair, And laughing from my lip the audacious brine, Which kissed it like a wine-cup, rising o'er The waves as they arose, and prouder still 110 The loftier they uplifted me; and oft, In wantonness of spirit, plunging down Into their green and glassy gulfs, and making My way to shells and sea-weed, all unseen By those above, till they waxed fearful; then Returning with my grasp full of such tokens As showed that I had searched the deep: exulting, With a far-dashing stroke, and, drawing deep The long-suspended breath, again I spurned The foam which broke around me, and pursued 120 My track like a sea-bird.--I was a boy then.
Guard. Be a man now: there never was more need Of manhood's strength.
Jac. Fos. (looking from the lattice). My beautiful, my own, My only Venice--this is breath! Thy breeze, Thine Adrian sea-breeze, how it fans my face! Thy very winds feel native to my veins, And cool them into calmness! How unlike The hot gales of the horrid Cyclades, Which howled about my Candiote dungeon,[43] and Made my heart sick.
Guard. I see the colour comes[ax] 130 Back to your cheek: Heaven send you strength to bear What more may be imposed!--I dread to think on't.
Jac. Fos. They will not banish me again?--No--no, Let them wring on; I am strong yet.
Guard. Confess, And the rack will be spared you.
Jac. Fos. I confessed Once--twice before: both times they exiled me.
Guard. And the third time will slay you.
Jac. Fos. Let them do so, So I be buried in my birth-place: better Be ashes here than aught that lives elsewhere.
Guard. And can you so much love the soil which hates you? 140
Jac. Fos. The soil!--Oh no, it is the seed of the soil Which persecutes me: but my native earth Will take me as a mother to her arms. I ask no more than a Venetian grave, A dungeon, what they will, so it be here.
Enter an Officer.
Offi. Bring in the prisoner!
Guard. Signor, you hear the order.
Jac. Fos. Aye, I am used to such a summons; 'tis The third time they have tortured me:--then lend me Thine arm. [To the Guard.
Offi. Take mine, sir; 'tis my duty to Be nearest to your person.
Jac. Fos. You!--you are he 150 Who yesterday presided o'er my pangs-- Away!--I'll walk alone.
Offi. As you please, Signor; The sentence was not of my signing, but I dared not disobey the Council when They----
Jac. Fos. Bade thee stretch me on their horrid engine. I pray thee touch me not--that is, just now; The time will come they will renew that order, But keep off from me till 'tis issued. As I look upon thy hands my curdling limbs Quiver with the anticipated wrenching, 160 And the cold drops strain through my brow, as if---- But onward--I have borne it--I can bear it.-- How looks my father?
Offi. With his wonted aspect.
Jac. Fos. So does the earth, and sky, the blue of Ocean, The brightness of our city, and her domes, The mirth of her Piazza--even now Its merry hum of nations pierces here, Even here, into these chambers of the unknown Who govern, and the unknown and the unnumbered Judged and destroyed in silence,--all things wear 170 The self-same aspect, to my very sire! Nothing can sympathise with Foscari, Not even a Foscari.--Sir, I attend you. [Exeunt JACOPO FOSCARI, Officer, etc.
Enter MEMMO and another Senator.
Mem. He's gone--we are too late:--think you "the Ten" Will sit for any length of time to-day?
Sen. They say the prisoner is most obdurate, Persisting in his first avowal; but More I know not.
Mem. And that is much; the secrets Of yon terrific chamber are as hidden From us, the premier nobles of the state, 180 As from the people.
Sen. Save the wonted rumours, Which--like the tales of spectres, that are rife Near ruined buildings--never have been proved, Nor wholly disbelieved: men know as little Of the state's real acts as of the grave's Unfathomed mysteries.
Mem. But with length of time We gain a step in knowledge, and I look Forward to be one day of the decemvirs.
Sen. Or Doge?
Mem. Why, no; not if I can avoid it.
Sen. 'Tis the first station of the state, and may 190 Be lawfully desired, and lawfully Attained by noble aspirants.
Mem. To such I leave it; though born noble, my ambition Is limited: I'd rather be an unit Of an united and Imperial "Ten," Than shine a lonely, though a gilded cipher.-- Whom have we here? the wife of Foscari?
Enter MARINA, with a female Attendant.
Mar. What, no one?--I am wrong, there still are two; But they are senators.
Mem. Most noble lady, Command us.
Mar. I command!--Alas! my life 200 Has been one long entreaty, and a vain one.
Mem. I understand thee, but I must not answer.
Mar. (fiercely). True--none dare answer here save on the rack, Or question save those----
Mem. (interrupting her). High-born dame![44] bethink thee Where thou now art.
Mar. Where I now am!--It was My husband's father's palace.
Mem. The Duke's palace.
Mar. And his son's prison!--True, I have not forgot it; And, if there were no other nearer, bitterer Remembrances, would thank the illustrious Memmo For pointing out the pleasures of the place. 210
Mem. Be calm!
Mar. (looking up towards heaven). I am; but oh, thou eternal God! Canst thou continue so, with such a world?
Mem. Thy husband yet may be absolved.
Mar. He is, In Heaven. I pray you, Signer Senator, Speak not of that; you are a man of office, So is the Doge; he has a son at stake Now, at this moment, and I have a husband, Or had; they are there within, or were at least An hour since, face to face, as judge and culprit: Will he condemn him?
Mem. I trust not.
Mar. But if 220 He does not, there are those will sentence both.
Mem. They can.
Mar. And with them power and will are one In wickedness;--my husband's lost!
Mem. Not so; Justice is judge in Venice.
Mar. If it were so, There now would be no Venice. But let it Live on, so the good die not, till the hour Of Nature's summons; but "the Ten's" is quicker, And we must wait on't. Ah! a voice of wail! [A faint cry within.
Sen. Hark!
Mem. 'Twas a cry of--
Mar. No, no; not my husband's-- Not Foscari's.
Mem. The voice was--
Mar. Not his: no. 230 He shriek! No; that should be his father's part, Not his--not his--he'll die in silence. [A faint groan again within.
Mem. What! Again?
Mar. His voice! it seemed so: I will not Believe it. Should he shrink, I cannot cease To love; but--no--no--no--it must have been A fearful pang, which wrung a groan from him.
Sen. And, feeling for thy husband's wrongs, wouldst thou Have him bear more than mortal pain in silence?
Mar. We all must bear our tortures. I have not Left barren the great house of Foscari, 240 Though they sweep both the Doge and son from life; I have endured as much in giving life To those who will succeed them, as they can In leaving it: but mine were joyful pangs: And yet they wrung me till I could have shrieked, But did not; for my hope was to bring forth Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears.
Mem. All's silent now.
Mar. Perhaps all's over; but I will not deem it: he hath nerved himself, And now defies them.
Enter an Officer hastily.
Mem. How now, friend, what seek you? 250
Offi. A leech. The prisoner has fainted. [Exit Officer.
Mem. Lady, 'Twere better to retire.
Sen. (offering to assist her), I pray thee do so.
Mar. Off! I will tend him.
Mem. You! Remember, lady! Ingress is given to none within those chambers Except "the Ten," and their familiars.
Mar. Well, I know that none who enter there return As they have entered--many never; but They shall not balk my entrance.
Mem. Alas! this Is but to expose yourself to harsh repulse, And worse suspense.
Mar. Who shall oppose me?
Mem. They 260 Whose duty 'tis to do so.
Mar. 'Tis their duty To trample on all human feelings, all Ties which bind man to man, to emulate The fiends who will one day requite them in Variety of torturing! Yet I'll pass.
Mem. It is impossible.
Mar. That shall be tried.[ay] Despair defies even despotism: there is That in my heart would make its way through hosts With levelled spears; and think you a few jailors Shall put me from my path? Give me, then, way; 270 This is the Doge's palace; I am wife Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's son, And they shall hear this!
Mem. It will only serve More to exasperate his judges.
Mar. What Are judges who give way to anger? they Who do so are assassins. Give me way. [Exit MARINA.
Sen. Poor lady!
Mem. 'Tis mere desperation: she Will not be admitted o'er the threshold.
Sen. And Even if she be so, cannot save her husband. But, see, the officer returns. [The Officer passes over the stage with another person.
Mem. I hardly 280 Thought that "the Ten" had even this touch of pity, Or would permit assistance to this sufferer.
Sen. Pity! Is't pity to recall to feeling The wretch too happy to escape to Death By the compassionate trance, poor Nature's last Resource against the tyranny of pain?
Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once.
Sen. That's not their policy: they'd have him live, Because he fears not death; and banish him, Because all earth, except his native land, 290 To him is one wide prison, and each breath Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison, Consuming but not killing.
Mem. Circumstance Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not.
Sen. None, save the Letter, which, he says, was written Addressed to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge That it would fall into the Senate's hands, And thus he should be re-conveyed to Venice.[45]
Mem. But as a culprit.
Sen. Yes, but to his country; And that was all he sought,--so he avouches. 300
Mem. The accusation of the bribes was proved.
Sen. Not clearly, and the charge of homicide Has been annulled by the death-bed confession Of Nicolas Erizzo, who slew the late Chief of "the Ten."[46]
Mem. Then why not clear him?
Sen. That They ought to answer; for it is well known That Almoro Donato, as I said, Was slain by Erizzo for private vengeance.
Mem. There must be more in this strange process than The apparent crimes of the accused disclose-- 310 But here come two of "the Ten;" let us retire. [Exeunt MEMMO and Senator.
Enter LOREDANO and BARBARIGO.
Bar. (addressing LOR.). That were too much: believe me, 'twas not meet The trial should go further at this moment.
Lor. And so the Council must break up, and Justice Pause in her full career, because a woman Breaks in on our deliberations?
Bar. No, That's not the cause; you saw the prisoner's state.
Lor. And had he not recovered?
Bar. To relapse Upon the least renewal.
Lor. 'Twas not tried.
Bar. 'Tis vain to murmur; the majority 320 In council were against you.
Lor. Thanks to you, sir, And the old ducal dotard, who combined The worthy voices which o'er-ruled my own.
Bar. I am a judge; but must confess that part Of our stern duty, which prescribes the Question,[47] And bids us sit and see its sharp infliction, Makes me wish--
Lor. What?
Bar. That you would sometimes feel, As I do always.
Lor. Go to, you're a child, Infirm of feeling as of purpose, blown About by every breath, shook[48] by a sigh, 330 And melted by a tear--a precious judge For Venice! and a worthy statesman to Be partner in my policy.
Bar. He shed No tears.
Lor. He cried out twice.
Bar. A Saint had done so, Even with the crown of Glory in his eye, At such inhuman artifice of pain As was forced on him; but he did not cry[az] For pity; not a word nor groan escaped him, And those two shrieks were not in supplication, But wrung from pangs, and followed by no prayers. 340
Lor. He muttered many times between his teeth, But inarticulately.[49]
Bar. That I heard not: You stood more near him.
Lor. I did so.
Bar. Methought, To my surprise too, you were touched with mercy, And were the first to call out for assistance When he was failing.
Lor. I believed that swoon His last.
Bar. And have I not oft heard thee name His and his father's death your nearest wish?
Lor. If he dies innocent, that is to say, With his guilt unavowed, he'll be lamented. 350
Bar. What, wouldst thou slay his memory?
Lor. Wouldst thou have His state descend to his children, as it must, If he die unattainted?
Bar. War with them too?
Lor. With all their house, till theirs or mine are nothing.
Bar. And the deep agony of his pale wife, And the repressed convulsion of the high And princely brow of his old father, which Broke forth in a slight shuddering, though rarely, Or in some clammy drops, soon wiped away In stern serenity; these moved you not? 360 [Exit LOREDANO. He's silent in his hate, as Foscari Was in his suffering; and the poor wretch moved me More by his silence than a thousand outcries Could have effected. 'Twas a dreadful sight When his distracted wife broke through into The hall of our tribunal, and beheld What we could scarcely look upon, long used To such sights. I must think no more of this, Lest I forget in this compassion for Our foes, their former injuries, and lose 370 The hold of vengeance Loredano plans For him and me; but mine would be content With lesser retribution than he thirsts for, And I would mitigate his deeper hatred To milder thoughts; but, for the present, Foscari Has a short hourly respite, granted at The instance of the elders of the Council, Moved doubtless by his wife's appearance in The hall, and his own sufferings.--Lo! they come: How feeble and forlorn! I cannot bear 380 To look on them again in this extremity: I'll hence, and try to soften Loredano.[ba] [Exit BARBARIGO.
Act II, Scene I — A hall in the DOGE'S Palace
The DOGE and a Senator.
Sen. Is it your pleasure to sign the report Now, or postpone it till to-morrow?
Doge. Now; I overlooked it yesterday: it wants Merely the signature. Give me the pen-- [The DOGE sits down and signs the paper. There, Signor.
Sen. (looking at the paper). You have forgot; it is not signed.
Doge. Not signed? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin To wax more weak with age. I did not see That I had dipped the pen without effect.[bb]
Sen. (dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the paper before the DOGE). Your hand, too, shakes, my Lord: allow me, thus--
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you.
Sen. Thus the act confirmed 10 By you and by "the Ten" gives peace to Venice.
Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoyed it: may it be As long ere she resume her arms!
Sen. 'Tis almost Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare With the Turk, or the powers of Italy; The state had need of some repose.
Doge. No doubt: I found her Queen of Ocean, and I leave her Lady of Lombardy; it is a comfort[bc] That I have added to her diadem The gems of Brescia and Ravenna; Crema[50] 20 And Bergamo no less are hers; her realm By land has grown by thus much in my reign, While her sea-sway has not shrunk.
Sen. 'Tis most true, And merits all our country's gratitude.
Doge. Perhaps so.
Sen. Which should be made manifest.
Doge. I have not complained, sir.
Sen. My good Lord, forgive me.
Doge. For what?
Sen. My heart bleeds for you.
Doge. For me, Signor?
Sen. And for your----
Doge. Stop!
Sen. It must have way, my Lord: I have too many duties towards you And all your house, for past and present kindness, 30 Not to feel deeply for your son.
Doge. Was this In your commission?
Sen. What, my Lord?
Doge. This prattle Of things you know not: but the treaty's signed; Return with it to them who sent you.
Sen. I Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council, That you would fix an hour for their reunion.
Doge. Say, when they will--now, even at this moment, If it so please them: I am the State's servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall cause 40 The loss of an hour's time unto the State. Let them meet when they will, I shall be found Where I should be, and what I have been ever. [Exit Senator. The DOGE remains in silence.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. Prince!
Doge. Say on.
Att. The illustrious lady Foscari Requests an audience.
Doge. Bid her enter. Poor Marina! [Exit Attendant. The DOGE remains in silence as before.
Enter MARINA.
Mar. I have ventured, father, on Your privacy.
Doge. I have none from you, my child. Command my time, when not commanded by The State.
Mar. I wished to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband? 50
Mar. And your son.
Doge. Proceed, my daughter!
Mar. I had obtained permission from "the Ten" To attend my husband for a limited number Of hours.
Doge. You had so.
Mar. 'Tis revoked.
Doge. By whom?
Mar. "The Ten."--When we had reached "the Bridge of Sighs,"[51] Which I prepared to pass with Foscari, The gloomy guardian of that passage first Demurred: a messenger was sent back to "The Ten;"--but as the Court no longer sate, And no permission had been given in writing, I was thrust back, with the assurance that 60 Until that high tribunal reassembled The dungeon walls must still divide us.
Doge. True, The form has been omitted in the haste With which the court adjourned; and till it meets, 'Tis dubious.
Mar. Till it meets! and when it meets, They'll torture him again; and he and I Must purchase by renewal of the rack The interview of husband and of wife, The holiest tie beneath the Heavens!--Oh God! Dost thou see this?
Doge. Child--child----
Mar. (abruptly). Call me not "child!" 70 You soon will have no children--you deserve none-- You, who can talk thus calmly of a son In circumstances which would call forth tears Of blood from Spartans! Though these did not weep Their boys who died in battle, is it written That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor Stretched forth a hand to save them?
Doge. You behold me: I cannot weep--I would I could; but if Each white hair on this head were a young life, This ducal cap the Diadem of earth, 80 This ducal ring with which I wed the waves A talisman to still them--I'd give all For him.
Mar. With less he surely might be saved.
Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice. Alas! how should you? she knows not herself, In all her mystery. Hear me--they who aim At Foscari, aim no less at his father; The sire's destruction would not save the son; They work by different means to the same end, And that is--but they have not conquered yet. 90
Mar. But they have crushed.
Doge. Nor crushed as yet--I live.
Mar. And your son,--how long will he live?
Doge. I trust, For all that yet is past, as many years And happier than his father. The rash boy, With womanish impatience to return, Hath ruined all by that detected letter: A high crime, which I neither can deny Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke: Had he but borne a little, little longer His Candiote exile, I had hopes--he has quenched them-- 100 He must return.
Mar. To exile?
Doge. I have said it.
Mar. And can I not go with him?
Doge. You well know This prayer of yours was twice denied before By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now Will be accorded to a third request, Since aggravated errors on the part Of your Lord renders them still more austere.
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends, With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange To tears save drops of dotage, with long white[bd] 110 And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads As palsied as their hearts are hard, they counsel, Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if Life Were no more than the feelings long extinguished In their accurséd bosoms.
Doge. You know not----
Mar. I do--I do--and so should you, methinks-- That these are demons: could it be else that Men, who have been of women born and suckled-- Who have loved, or talked at least of Love--have given Their hands in sacred vows--have danced their babes 120 Upon their knees, perhaps have mourned above them-- In pain, in peril, or in death--who are, Or were, at least in seeming, human, could Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself-- You, who abet them?
Doge. I forgive this, for You know not what you say.
Mar. You know it well, And feel it nothing.
Doge. I have borne so much, That words have ceased to shake me.
Mar. Oh, no doubt! You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh shook not; And after that, what are a woman's words? 130 No more than woman's tears, that they should shake you.
Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell thee, Is no more in the balance weighed with that Which----but I pity thee, my poor Marina!
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me; Pity thy son! Thou pity!--'tis a word Strange to thy heart--how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though they wrong me. Couldst thou but read----
Mar. 'Tis not upon thy brow, Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,--where then 140 Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?
Doge (pointing downwards). There.
Mar. In the earth?
Doge. To which I am tending: when It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it Now, you will know me better.
Mar. Are you, then, Indeed, thus to be pitied?
Doge. Pitied! None Shall ever use that base word, with which men Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one To mingle with my name; that name shall be, As far as I have borne it, what it was 150 When I received it.
Mar. But for the poor children Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save, You were the last to bear it.
Doge. Would it were so! Better for him he never had been born; Better for me.--I have seen our house dishonoured.
Mar. That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart, More loving, or more loyal, never beat Within a human breast. I would not change My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband, Oppressed but not disgraced, crushed, overwhelmed, 160 Alive, or dead, for Prince or Paladin In story or in fable, with a world To back his suit. Dishonoured!--he dishonoured! I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonoured; His name shall be her foulest, worst reproach, For what he suffers, not for what he did. 'Tis ye who are all traitors, Tyrant!--ye! Did you but love your Country like this victim Who totters back in chains to tortures, and Submits to all things rather than to exile, 170 You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore His grace for your enormous guilt.
Doge. He was Indeed all you have said. I better bore The deaths of the two sons[52] Heaven took from me, Than Jacopo's disgrace.
Mar. That word again?
Doge. Has he not been condemned?
Mar. Is none but guilt so?
Doge. Time may restore his memory--I would hope so. He was my pride, my----but 'tis useless now-- I am not given to tears, but wept for joy When he was born: those drops were ominous. 180
Mar. I say he's innocent! And were he not so, Is our own blood and kin to shrink from us In fatal moments?
Doge. I shrank not from him: But I have other duties than a father's; The state would not dispense me from those duties; Twice I demanded it, but was refused:[53] They must then be fulfilled.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. A message from "The Ten."
Doge. Who bears it?
Att. Noble Loredano.
Doge. He!--but admit him. [Exit Attendant.
Mar. Must I then retire?
Doge. Perhaps it is not requisite, if this 190 Concerns your husband, and if not----Well, Signor, [To LOREDANO entering. Your pleasure?
Lor. I bear that of "the Ten."
Doge. They Have chosen well their envoy.
Lor. 'Tis their choice Which leads me here.
Doge. It does their wisdom honour, And no less to their courtesy.--Proceed.
Lor. We have decided.
Doge. We?
Lor. "The Ten" in council.
Doge. What! have they met again, and met without Apprising me?
Lor. They wished to spare your feelings, No less than age.
Doge. That's new--when spared they either? I thank them, notwithstanding.
Lor. You know well 200 That they have power to act at their discretion, With or without the presence of the Doge.
Doge. 'Tis some years since I learned this, long before I became Doge, or dreamed of such advancement. You need not school me, Signor; I sate in That Council when you were a young patrician.
Lor. True, in my father's time; I have heard him and The Admiral, his brother, say as much. Your Highness may remember them; they both Died suddenly.[54]
Doge. And if they did so, better 210 So die than live on lingeringly in pain.
Lor. No doubt: yet most men like to live their days out.
Doge. And did not they?
Lor. The Grave knows best: they died, As I said, suddenly.
Doge. Is that so strange, That you repeat the word emphatically?
Lor. So far from strange, that never was there death In my mind half so natural as theirs. Think you not so?
Doge. What should I think of mortals?
Lor. That they have mortal foes.
Doge. I understand you; Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all things. 220
Lor. You best know if I should be so.
Doge. I do. Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read Their epitaph, attributing their deaths To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less A fable.
Lor. Who dares say so?
Doge. I!----'Tis true Your fathers were mine enemies, as bitter As their son e'er can be, and I no less Was theirs; but I was openly their foe: 230 I never worked by plot in Council, nor Cabal in commonwealth, nor secret means Of practice against life by steel or drug. The proof is--your existence.
Lor. I fear not.
Doge. You have no cause, being what I am; but were I That you would have me thought, you long ere now Were past the sense of fear. Hate on; I care not.
Lor. I never yet knew that a noble's life In Venice had to dread a Doge's frown, That is, by open means.
Doge. But I, good Signor, 240 Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke, In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know Who dreaded to elect me, and have since Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure, Before or since that period, had I held you At so much price as to require your absence, A word of mine had set such spirits to work As would have made you nothing. But in all things I have observed the strictest reverence; Not for the laws alone, for those you have strained 250 (I do not speak of you but as a single Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what I could enforce for my authority, Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said, I have observed with veneration, like A priest's for the High Altar, even unto The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet, Safety, and all save honour, the decrees, The health, the pride, and welfare of the State. And now, sir, to your business.
Lor. 'Tis decreed, 260 That, without further repetition of The Question, or continuance of the trial, Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is, ("The Ten," dispensing with the stricter law Which still prescribes the Question till a full Confession, and the prisoner partly having Avowed his crime in not denying that The letter to the Duke of Milan's his), James Foscari return to banishment, And sail in the same galley which conveyed him. 270
Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag him more Before that horrible tribunal. Would he But think so, to my mind the happiest doom, Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could Desire, were to escape from such a land.
Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter.
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his exile?
Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing.
Mar. So I thought! That were too human, also. But it was not Inhibited?
Lor. It was not named.
Mar. (to the Doge). Then, father, 280 Surely you can obtain or grant me thus much: [To LOREDANO. And you, sir, not oppose my prayer to be Permitted to accompany my husband.
Doge. I will endeavour.
Mar. And you, Signor?
Lor. Lady! 'Tis not for me to anticipate the pleasure Of the tribunal.
Mar. Pleasure! what a word To use for the decrees of----
Doge. Daughter, know you In what a presence you pronounce these things?
Mar. A Prince's and his subject's.
Lor. Subject!
Mar. Oh! It galls you:--well, you are his equal, as 290 You think; but that you are not, nor would be, Were he a peasant:--well, then, you're a Prince, A princely noble; and what then am I?
Lor. The offspring of a noble house.
Mar. And wedded To one as noble. What, or whose, then, is The presence that should silence my free thoughts?
Lor. The presence of your husband's Judges.
Doge. And The deference due even to the lightest word That falls from those who rule in Venice.
Mar. Keep Those maxims for your mass of scared mechanics, 300 Your merchants, your Dalmatian and Greek slaves, Your tributaries, your dumb citizens, And masked nobility, your sbirri, and Your spies, your galley and your other slaves, To whom your midnight carryings off and drownings, Your dungeons next the palace roofs, or under The water's level;[55] your mysterious meetings, And unknown dooms, and sudden executions, Your "Bridge of Sighs," your strangling chamber, and Your torturing instruments, have made ye seem 310 The beings of another and worse world! Keep such for them: I fear ye not. I know ye;[be] Have known and proved your worst, in the infernal Process of my poor husband! Treat me as Ye treated him:--you did so, in so dealing With him. Then what have I to fear from you, Even if I were of fearful nature, which I trust I am not?
Doge. You hear, she speaks wildly.
Mar. Not wisely, yet not wildly.
Lor. Lady! words Uttered within these walls I bear no further 320 Than to the threshold, saving such as pass Between the Duke and me on the State's service. Doge! have you aught in answer?
Doge. Something from The Doge; it may be also from a parent.
Lor. My mission here is to the Doge.
Doge. Then say The Doge will choose his own ambassador, Or state in person what is meet; and for The father----
Lor. I remember mine.--Farewell! I kiss the hands of the illustrious Lady, And bow me to the Duke. [Exit LOREDANO.
Mar. Are you content? 330
Doge. I am what you behold.
Mar. And that's a mystery.
Doge. All things are so to mortals; who can read them Save he who made? or, if they can, the few And gifted spirits, who have studied long That loathsome volume--man, and pored upon Those black and bloody leaves, his heart and brain,[bf] But learn a magic which recoils upon The adept who pursues it: all the sins We find in others, Nature made our own; All our advantages are those of Fortune; 340 Birth, wealth, health, beauty, are her accidents, And when we cry out against Fate, 'twere well We should remember Fortune can take nought Save what she gave--the rest was nakedness, And lusts, and appetites, and vanities, The universal heritage, to battle With as we may, and least in humblest stations,[bg] Where Hunger swallows all in one low want,[bh] And the original ordinance, that man Must sweat for his poor pittance, keeps all passions 350 Aloof, save fear of famine! All is low, And false, and hollow--clay from first to last, The Prince's urn no less than potter's vessel. Our Fame is in men's breath, our lives upon Less than their breath; our durance upon days[bi] Our days on seasons; our whole being on Something which is not us![56]--So, we are slaves, The greatest as the meanest--nothing rests Upon our will; the will itself no less[bj] Depends upon a straw than on a storm; 360 And when we think we lead, we are most led,[57] And still towards Death, a thing which comes as much Without our act or choice as birth, so that Methinks we must have sinned in some old world, And this is Hell: the best is, that it is not Eternal.
Mar. These are things we cannot judge On earth.
Doge. And how then shall we judge each other, Who are all earth, and I, who am called upon To judge my son? I have administered My country faithfully--victoriously-- 370 I dare them to the proof, the chart of what She was and is: my reign has doubled realms; And, in reward, the gratitude of Venice Has left, or is about to leave, me single.
Mar. And Foscari? I do not think of such things, So I be left with him.
Doge. You shall be so; Thus much they cannot well deny.
Mar. And if They should, I will fly with him.
Doge. That can ne'er be. And whither would you fly?
Mar. I know not, reck not-- To Syria, Egypt, to the Ottoman-- 380 Any where, where we might respire unfettered, And live nor girt by spies, nor liable To edicts of inquisitors of state.
Doge. What, wouldst thou have a renegade for husband, And turn him into traitor?
Mar. He is none! The Country is the traitress, which thrusts forth Her best and bravest from her. Tyranny Is far the worst of treasons. Dost thou deem None rebels except subjects? The Prince who Neglects or violates his trust is more 390 A brigand than the robber-chief.
Doge. I cannot Charge me with such a breach of faith.
Mar No; thou Observ'st, obey'st such laws as make old Draco's A code of mercy by comparison.
Doge. I found the law; I did not make it. Were I A subject, still I might find parts and portions Fit for amendment; but as Prince, I never Would change, for the sake of my house, the charter Left by our fathers.
Mar. Did they make it for The ruin of their children?
Doge. Under such laws, Venice 400 Has risen to what she is--a state to rival In deeds, and days, and sway, and, let me add, In glory (for we have had Roman spirits Amongst us), all that history has bequeathed Of Rome and Carthage in their best times, when The people swayed by Senates.
Mar. Rather say, Groaned under the stern Oligarchs.
Doge. Perhaps so; But yet subdued the World: in such a state An individual, be he richest of Such rank as is permitted, or the meanest, 410 Without a name, is alike nothing, when The policy, irrevocably tending To one great end, must be maintained in vigour.
Mar. This means that you are more a Doge than father.
Doge. It means, I am more citizen than either. If we had not for many centuries Had thousands of such citizens, and shall, I trust, have still such, Venice were no city.
Mar. Accurséd be the city where the laws Would stifle Nature's!
Doge. Had I as many sons 420 As I have years, I would have given them all, Not without feeling, but I would have given them To the State's service, to fulfil her wishes, On the flood, in the field, or, if it must be, As it, alas! has been, to ostracism, Exile, or chains, or whatsoever worse She might decree.
Mar. And this is Patriotism? To me it seems the worst barbarity. Let me seek out my husband: the sage "Ten," With all its jealousy, will hardly war 430 So far with a weak woman as deny me A moment's access to his dungeon.
Doge. I'll So far take on myself, as order that You may be admitted.
Mar. And what shall I say To Foscari from his father?
Doge. That he obey The laws.
Mar. And nothing more? Will you not see him Ere he depart? It may be the last time.
Doge. The last!--my boy!--the last time I shall see My last of children! Tell him I will come. [Exeunt.
Act III, Scene I — The prison of JACOPO FOSCARI
Jac. Fos. (solus). No light, save yon faint gleam which shows me walls Which never echoed but to Sorrow's sounds,[58] The sigh of long imprisonment, the step Of feet on which the iron clanked the groan Of Death, the imprecation of Despair! And yet for this I have returned to Venice, With some faint hope, 'tis true, that Time, which wears The marble down, had worn away the hate Of men's hearts; but I knew them not, and here Must I consume my own, which never beat 10 For Venice but with such a yearning as The dove has for her distant nest, when wheeling High in the air on her return to greet Her callow brood. What letters are these which [Approaching the wall. Are scrawled along the inexorable wall? Will the gleam let me trace them? Ah! the names Of my sad predecessors in this place,[59] The dates of their despair, the brief words of A grief too great for many. This stone page Holds like an epitaph their history; 20 And the poor captive's tale is graven on His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record Upon the bark of some tall tree,[60] which bears His own and his belovéd's name. Alas! I recognise some names familiar to me, And blighted like to mine, which I will add, Fittest for such a chronicle as this, Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.[bk] [He engraves his name.
Enter a Familiar of "the Ten."
Fam. I bring you food.
Jac. Fos. I pray you set it down; I am past hunger: but my lips are parched-- 30 The water!
Fam. There.
Jac. Fos. (after drinking). I thank you: I am better.
Fam. I am commanded to inform you that Your further trial is postponed.
Jac. Fos. Till when?
Fam. I know not.--It is also in my orders That your illustrious lady be admitted.
Jac. Fos. Ah! they relent, then--I had ceased to hope it: 'Twas time.
Enter MARINA.
Mar. My best belovéd!
Jac. Fos. (embracing her). My true wife, And only friend! What happiness!
Mar. We'll part No more.
Jac. Fos. How! would'st thou share a dungeon?
Mar. Aye, The rack, the grave, all--any thing with thee, 40 But the tomb last of all, for there we shall Be ignorant of each other, yet I will Share that--all things except new separation; It is too much to have survived the first. How dost thou? How are those worn limbs? Alas! Why do I ask? Thy paleness----
Jac. Fos. 'Tis the joy Of seeing thee again so soon, and so Without expectancy, has sent the blood Back to my heart, and left my cheeks like thine, For thou art pale too, my Marina!
Mar. 'Tis 50 The gloom of this eternal cell, which never Knew sunbeam, and the sallow sullen glare Of the familiar's torch, which seems akin[bl] To darkness more than light, by lending to The dungeon vapours its bituminous smoke, Which cloud whate'er we gaze on, even thine eyes-- No, not thine eyes--they sparkle--how they sparkle!
Jac. Fos. And thine!--but I am blinded by the torch.
Mar. As I had been without it. Couldst thou see here?
Jac. Fos. Nothing at first; but use and time had taught me 60 Familiarity with what was darkness; And the grey twilight of such glimmerings as Glide through the crevices made by the winds Was kinder to mine eyes than the full Sun, When gorgeously o'ergilding any towers Save those of Venice; but a moment ere Thou earnest hither I was busy writing.
Mar. What?
Jac. Fos. My name: look, 'tis there--recorded next The name of him who here preceded me,-- If dungeon dates say true.
Mar. And what of him? 70
Jac. Fos. These walls are silent of men's ends; they only Seem to hint shrewdly of them. Such stern walls Were never piled on high save o'er the dead, Or those who soon must be so.--What of him? Thou askest.--What of me? may soon be asked, With the like answer--doubt and dreadful surmise-- Unless thou tell'st my tale.
Mar. I speak of thee!
Jac. Fos. And wherefore not? All then shall speak of me: The tyranny of silence is not lasting, And, though events be hidden, just men's groans 80 Will burst all cerement, even a living grave's! I do not doubt my memory, but my life; And neither do I fear.
Mar. Thy life is safe.
Jac. Fos. And liberty?
Mar. The mind should make its own!
Jac. Fos. That has a noble sound; but 'tis a sound, A music most impressive, but too transient: The Mind is much, but is not all. The Mind Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death, And torture positive, far worse than death (If death be a deep sleep), without a groan, 90 Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges Than me; but 'tis not all, for there are things More woful--such as this small dungeon, where I may breathe many years.
Mar. Alas! and this Small dungeon is all that belongs to thee Of this wide realm, of which thy sire is Prince.
Jac. Fos. That thought would scarcely aid me to endure it. My doom is common; many are in dungeons, But none like mine, so near their father's palace; But then my heart is sometimes high, and hope 100 Will stream along those moted rays of light Peopled with dusty atoms, which afford Our only day; for, save the gaoler's torch, And a strange firefly, which was quickly caught Last night in yon enormous spider's net, I ne'er saw aught here like a ray. Alas! I know if mind may bear us up, or no, For I have such, and shown it before men; It sinks in solitude: my soul is social.
Mar. I will be with thee.
Jac. Fos. Ah! if it were so! 110 But that they never granted--nor will grant, And I shall be alone: no men; no books-- Those lying likenesses of lying men. I asked for even those outlines of their kind, Which they term annals, history, what you will, Which men bequeath as portraits, and they were Refused me,--so these walls have been my study, More faithful pictures of Venetian story, With all their blank, or dismal stains, than is The Hall not far from hence, which bears on high 120 Hundreds of Doges, and their deeds and dates.
Mar. I come to tell thee the result of their Last council on thy doom.
Jac. Fos. I know it--look!
[He points to his limbs, as referring to the Question which he had undergone.
Mar. No--no--no more of that: even they relent From that atrocity.
Jac. Fos. What then?
Mar. That you Return to Candia.
Jac. Fos. Then my last hope's gone. I could endure my dungeon, for 'twas Venice; I could support the torture, there was something In my native air that buoyed my spirits up Like a ship on the Ocean tossed by storms, 130 But proudly still bestriding[61] the high waves, And holding on its course; but there, afar, In that accurséd isle of slaves and captives, And unbelievers, like a stranded wreck, My very soul seemed mouldering in my bosom, And piecemeal I shall perish, if remanded.
Mar. And here?
Jac. Fos. At once--by better means, as briefer.[bm] What! would they even deny me my Sire's sepulchre, As well as home and heritage?
Mar. My husband! I have sued to accompany thee hence, 140 And not so hopelessly. This love of thine For an ungrateful and tyrannic soil Is Passion, and not Patriotism; for me, So I could see thee with a quiet aspect, And the sweet freedom of the earth and air, I would not cavil about climes or regions. This crowd of palaces and prisons is not A Paradise; its first inhabitants Were wretched exiles.
Jac. Fos. Well I know how wretched!
Mar. And yet you see how, from their banishment 150 Before the Tartar into these salt isles, Their antique energy of mind, all that Remained of Rome for their inheritance, Created by degrees an ocean Rome;[62] And shall an evil, which so often leads To good, depress thee thus?
Jac. Fos. Had I gone forth From my own land, like the old patriarchs, seeking Another region, with their flocks and herds; Had I been cast out like the Jews from Zion, Or like our fathers, driven by Attila[63] 160 From fertile Italy, to barren islets, I would have given some tears to my late country And many thoughts; but afterwards addressed Myself, with those about me, to create A new home and fresh state: perhaps I could Have borne this--though I know not.
Mar. Wherefore not? It was the lot of millions, and must be The fate of myriads more.
Jac. Fos. Aye--we but hear Of the survivors' toil in their new lands, Their numbers and success; but who can number 170 The hearts which broke in silence at that parting, Or after their departure; of that malady[64] Which calls up green and native fields to view From the rough deep, with such identity To the poor exile's fevered eye, that he Can scarcely be restrained from treading them? That melody,[65] which out of tones and tunes[bn] Collects such pasture for the longing sorrow Of the sad mountaineer, when far away From his snow canopy of cliffs and clouds, 180 That he feeds on the sweet, but poisonous thought, And dies.[66] You call this weakness! It is strength, I say,--the parent of all honest feeling. He who loves not his Country, can love nothing.
Mar. Obey her, then: 'tis she that puts thee forth.
Jac. Fos. Aye, there it is; 'tis like a mother's curse Upon my soul--the mark is set upon me. The exiles you speak of went forth by nations, Their hands upheld each other by the way, Their tents were pitched together--I'm alone. 190
Mar. You shall be so no more--I will go with thee.
Jac. Fos. My best Marina!--and our children?
Mar. They, I fear, by the prevention of the state's Abhorrent policy, (which holds all ties As threads, which may be broken at her pleasure), Will not be suffered to proceed with us.
Jac. Fos. And canst thou leave them?
Mar. Yes--with many a pang! But--I can leave them, children as they are, To teach you to be less a child. From this Learn you to sway your feelings, when exacted 200 By duties paramount; and 'tis our first On earth to bear.
Jac. Fos. Have I not borne?
Mar. Too much From tyrannous injustice, and enough To teach you not to shrink now from a lot, Which, as compared with what you have undergone Of late, is mercy.
Jac. Fos. Ah! you never yet Were far away from Venice, never saw Her beautiful towers in the receding distance, While every furrow of the vessel's track Seemed ploughing deep into your heart; you never 210 Saw day go down upon your native spires[bo] So calmly with its gold and crimson glory, And after dreaming a disturbéd vision Of them and theirs, awoke and found them not.
Mar. I will divide this with you. Let us think Of our departure from this much-loved city, (Since you must love it, as it seems,) and this Chamber of state, her gratitude allots you. Our children will be cared for by the Doge, And by my uncles; we must sail ere night. 220
Jac. Fos. That's sudden. Shall I not behold my father?
Mar. You will.
Jac. Fos. Where?
Mar. Here, or in the ducal chamber-- He said not which. I would that you could bear Your exile as he bears it.
Jac. Fos. Blame him not. I sometimes murmur for a moment; but He could not now act otherwise. A show Of feeling or compassion on his part Would have but drawn upon his agéd head Suspicion from "the Ten," and upon mine Accumulated ills.
Mar. Accumulated! 230 What pangs are those they have spared you?
Jac. Fos. That of leaving Venice without beholding him or you, Which might have been forbidden now, as 'twas Upon my former exile.
Mar. That is true, And thus far I am also the State's debtor, And shall be more so when I see us both Floating on the free waves--away--away-- Be it to the earth's end, from this abhorred, Unjust, and----
Jac. Fos. Curse it not. If I am silent, Who dares accuse my Country?
Mar. Men and Angels! 240 The blood of myriads reeking up to Heaven, The groans of slaves in chains, and men in dungeons, Mothers, and wives, and sons, and sires, and subjects, Held in the bondage of ten bald-heads; and Though last, not least, thy silence! Couldst thou say Aught in its favour, who would praise like thee?
Jac. Fos. Let us address us then, since so it must be, To our departure. Who comes here?
Enter LOREDANO attended by Familiars.
Lor. (to the Familiars). Retire, But leave the torch. [Exeunt the two Familiars.
Jac. Fos. Most welcome, noble Signor. I did not deem this poor place could have drawn 250 Such presence hither.
Lor. 'Tis not the first time I have visited these places.
Mar. Nor would be The last, were all men's merits well rewarded. Came you here to insult us, or remain[bp] As spy upon us, or as hostage for us?
Lor. Neither are of my office, noble Lady! I am sent hither to your husband, to Announce "the Ten's" decree.
Mar. That tenderness Has been anticipated: it is known.
Lor. As how?
Mar. I have informed him, not so gently, 260 Doubtless, as your nice feelings would prescribe, The indulgence of your colleagues; but he knew it. If you come for our thanks, take them, and hence! The dungeon gloom is deep enough without you, And full of reptiles, not less loathsome, though Their sting is honester.
Jac. Fos. I pray you, calm you: What can avail such words?
Mar. To let him know That he is known.
Lor. Let the fair dame preserve Her sex's privilege.
Mar. I have some sons, sir, Will one day thank you better.
Lor. You do well 270 To nurse them wisely. Foscari--you know Your sentence, then?
Jac. Fos. Return to Candia?
Lor. True-- For life.
Jac. Fos. Not long.
Lor. I said--for life.
Jac. Fos. And I Repeat--not long.
Lor. A year's imprisonment In Canea--afterwards the freedom of The whole isle.
Jac. Fos. Both the same to me: the after Freedom as is the first imprisonment. Is't true my wife accompanies me?
Lor. Yes, If she so wills it.
Mar. Who obtained that justice?
Lor. One who wars not with women.
Mar. But oppresses 280 Men: howsoever let him have my thanks For the only boon I would have asked or taken From him or such as he is.
Lor. He receives them As they are offered.
Mar. May they thrive with him So much!--no more.
Jac. Fos. Is this, sir, your whole mission? Because we have brief time for preparation, And you perceive your presence doth disquiet This lady, of a house noble as yours.
Mar. Nobler!
Lor. How nobler?
Mar. As more generous! We say the "generous steed" to express the purity 290 Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although Venetian (who see few steeds save of bronze),[67] From those Venetians who have skirred[68] the coasts Of Egypt and her neighbour Araby: And why not say as soon the "generous man?" If race be aught, it is in qualities More than in years; and mine, which is as old As yours, is better in its product, nay-- Look not so stern--but get you back, and pore Upon your genealogic tree's most green 300 Of leaves and most mature of fruits, and there Blush to find ancestors, who would have blushed For such a son--thou cold inveterate hater!
Jac. Fos. Again, Marina!
Mar. Again! still, Marina. See you not, he comes here to glut his hate With a last look upon our misery? Let him partake it!
Jac. Fos. That were difficult.
Mar. Nothing more easy. He partakes it now-- Aye, he may veil beneath a marble brow And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it. 310 A few brief words of truth shame the Devil's servants No less than Master; I have probed his soul A moment, as the Eternal Fire, ere long, Will reach it always. See how he shrinks from me! With death, and chains, and exile in his hand, To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks fit; They are his weapons, not his armour, for I have pierced him to the core of his cold heart. I care not for his frowns! We can but die, And he but live, for him the very worst 320 Of destinies: each day secures him more His tempter's.
Jac. Fos. This is mere insanity.
Mar. It may be so; and who hath made us mad?
Lor. Let her go on; it irks not me.
Mar. That's false! You came here to enjoy a heartless triumph Of cold looks upon manifold griefs! You came To be sued to in vain--to mark our tears, And hoard our groans--to gaze upon the wreck Which you have made a Prince's son--my husband; In short, to trample on the fallen--an office 330 The hangman shrinks from, as all men from him! How have you sped? We are wretched, Signor, as Your plots could make, and vengeance could desire us, And how feel you?
Lor. As rocks.
Mar. By thunder blasted: They feel not, but no less are shivered. Come, Foscari; now let us go, and leave this felon, The sole fit habitant of such a cell, Which he has peopled often, but ne'er fitly Till he himself shall brood in it alone.
Enter the DOGE.
Jac. Fos. My father!
Doge (embracing him). Jacopo! my son--my son! 340
Jac. Fos. My father still! How long it is since I Have heard thee name my name--our name!
Doge. My boy! Couldst thou but know----
Jac. Fos. I rarely, sir, have murmured.
Doge. I feel too much thou hast not.
Mar. Doge, look there! [She points to LOREDANO.
Doge. I see the man--what mean'st thou?
Mar. Caution!
Lor. Being The virtue which this noble lady most[bq] May practise, she doth well to recommend it.
Mar. Wretch! 'tis no virtue, but the policy Of those who fain must deal perforce with vice: As such I recommend it, as I would 350 To one whose foot was on an adder's path.
Doge. Daughter, it is superfluous; I have long Known Loredano.
Lor. You may know him better.
Mar. Yes; worse he could not.
Jac. Fos. Father, let not these Our parting hours be lost in listening to Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it--is it, Indeed, our last of meetings?
Doge. You behold These white hairs!
Jac. Fos. And I feel, besides, that mine Will never be so white. Embrace me, father! I loved you ever--never more than now. 360 Look to my children--to your last child's children: Let them be all to you which he was once, And never be to you what I am now. May I not see them also?
Mar. No--not here.
Jac. Fos. They might behold their parent any where.
Mar. I would that they beheld their father in A place which would not mingle fear with love, To freeze their young blood in its natural current. They have fed well, slept soft, and knew not that Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. Well, 370 I know his fate may one day be their heritage, But let it only be their heritage, And not their present fee. Their senses, though Alive to love, are yet awake to terror; And these vile damps, too, and yon thick green wave Which floats above the place where we now stand-- A cell so far below the water's level, Sending its pestilence through every crevice, Might strike them: this is not their atmosphere, However you--and you--and most of all, 380 As worthiest--you, sir, noble Loredano! May breathe it without prejudice.
Jac. Fos. I had not Reflected upon this, but acquiesce. I shall depart, then, without meeting them?
Doge. Not so: they shall await you in my chamber.
Jac. Fos. And must I leave them--all?
Lor. You must.
Jac. Fos. Not one?
Lor. They are the State's.
Mar. I thought they had been mine.
Lor. They are, in all maternal things.
Mar. That is, In all things painful. If they're sick, they will Be left to me to tend them; should they die, 390 To me to bury and to mourn; but if They live, they'll make you soldiers, senators, Slaves, exiles--what you will; or if they are Females with portions, brides and bribes for nobles! Behold the State's care for its sons and mothers!
Lor. The hour approaches, and the wind is fair.
Jac. Fos. How know you that here, where the genial wind Ne'er blows in all its blustering freedom?
Lor. 'Twas so When I came here. The galley floats within A bow-shot of the "Riva di Schiavoni." 400
Jac. Fos. Father! I pray you to precede me, and Prepare my children to behold their father.
Doge. Be firm, my son!
Jac. Fos. I will do my endeavour.
Mar. Farewell! at least to this detested dungeon, And him to whose good offices you owe In part your past imprisonment.
Lor. And present Liberation.
Doge. He speaks truth.
Jac. Fos. No doubt! but 'tis Exchange of chains for heavier chains I owe him. He knows this, or he had not sought to change them, But I reproach not.
Lor. The time narrows, Signor. 410
Jac. Fos. Alas! I little thought so lingeringly To leave abodes like this: but when I feel That every step I take, even from this cell, Is one away from Venice, I look back Even on these dull damp walls, and----
Doge. Boy! no tears.
Mar. Let them flow on: he wept not on the rack To shame him, and they cannot shame him now. They will relieve his heart--that too kind heart-- And I will find an hour to wipe away Those tears, or add my own. I could weep now, 420 But would not gratify yon wretch so far. Let us proceed. Doge, lead the way.
Lor. (to the Familiar). The torch, there!
Mar. Yes, light us on, as to a funeral pyre, With Loredano mourning like an heir.
Doge. My son, you are feeble; take this hand.
Jac. Fos. Alas! Must youth support itself on age, and I Who ought to be the prop of yours?
Lor. Take mine.
Mar. Touch it not, Foscari; 'twill sting you. Signor, Stand off! be sure, that if a grasp of yours Would raise us from the gulf wherein we are plunged, 430 No hand of ours would stretch itself to meet it. Come, Foscari, take the hand the altar gave you; It could not save, but will support you ever. [Exeunt.