Act IV, Scene I — A Hall in the Ducal Palace
Enter LOREDANO and BARBARIGO.
Bar. And have you confidence in such a project?
Lor. I have.
Bar. 'Tis hard upon his years.
Lor. Say rather Kind to relieve him from the cares of State.
Bar. 'Twill break his heart.
Lor. Age has no heart to break. He has seen his son's half broken, and, except A start of feeling in his dungeon, never Swerved.
Bar. In his countenance, I grant you, never; But I have seen him sometimes in a calm So desolate, that the most clamorous grief Had nought to envy him within. Where is he? 10
Lor. In his own portion of the palace, with His son, and the whole race of Foscaris.
Bar. Bidding farewell.
Lor. A last! as, soon, he shall Bid to his Dukedom.
Bar. When embarks the son?
Lor. Forthwith--when this long leave is taken. 'Tis Time to admonish them again.
Bar. Forbear; Retrench not from their moments.
Lor. Not I, now We have higher business for our own. This day Shall be the last of the old Doge's reign, As the first of his son's last banishment, 20 And that is vengeance.
Bar. In my mind, too deep.
Lor. 'Tis moderate--not even life for life, the rule Denounced of retribution from all time; They owe me still my father's and my uncle's.
Bar. Did not the Doge deny this strongly?
Lor. Doubtless.
Bar. And did not this shake your suspicion?
Lor. No.
Bar. But if this deposition should take place By our united influence in the Council, It must be done with all the deference Due to his years, his station, and his deeds. 30
Lor. As much of ceremony as you will, So that the thing be done. You may, for aught I care, depute the Council on their knees, (Like Barbarossa to the Pope,) to beg him To have the courtesy to abdicate.
Bar. What if he will not?
Lor. We'll elect another, And make him null.
Bar. But will the laws uphold us?[69]
Lor. What laws?--"The Ten" are laws; and if they were not, I will be legislator in this business.
Bar. At your own peril?
Lor. There is none, I tell you, 40 Our powers are such.
Bar. But he has twice already Solicited permission to retire, And twice it was refused.
Lor. The better reason To grant it the third time.
Bar. Unasked?
Lor. It shows The impression of his former instances: If they were from his heart, he may be thankful: If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy. Come, they are met by this time; let us join them, And be thou fixed in purpose for this once. I have prepared such arguments as will not 50 Fail to move them, and to remove him: since Their thoughts, their objects, have been sounded, do not You, with your wonted scruples, teach us pause, And all will prosper.
Bar. Could I but be certain This is no prelude to such persecution Of the sire as has fallen upon the son, I would support you.
Lor. He is safe, I tell you; His fourscore years and five may linger on As long as he can drag them: 'tis his throne Alone is aimed at.
Bar. But discarded Princes 60 Are seldom long of life.
Lor. And men of eighty More seldom still.
Bar. And why not wait these few years?
Lor. Because we have waited long enough, and he Lived longer than enough. Hence! in to council! [Exeunt LOREDANO and BARBARIGO.
Enter MEMMO[70] and a Senator.
Sen. A summons to "the Ten!" why so?
Mem. "The Ten" Alone can answer; they are rarely wont To let their thoughts anticipate their purpose By previous proclamation. We are summoned-- That is enough.
Sen. For them, but not for us; I would know why.
Mem. You will know why anon, 70 If you obey: and, if not, you no less Will know why you should have obeyed.
Sen. I mean not To oppose them, but----
Mem. In Venice "but"'s a traitor. But me no "buts" unless you would pass o'er The Bridge which few repass.[71]
Sen. I am silent.
Mem. Why Thus hesitate? "The Ten" have called in aid Of their deliberation five and twenty Patricians of the Senate--you are one, And I another; and it seems to me Both honoured by the choice or chance which leads us 80 To mingle with a body so august.
Sen. Most true. I say no more.
Mem. As we hope, Signor, And all may honestly, (that is, all those Of noble blood may,) one day hope to be Decemvir, it is surely for the Senate's[br] Chosen delegates, a school of wisdom, to Be thus admitted, though as novices, To view the mysteries.
Sen. Let us view them: they, No doubt, are worth it.
Mem. Being worth our lives If we divulge them, doubtless they are worth 90 Something, at least to you or me.
Sen. I sought not A place within the sanctuary; but being Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen, I shall fulfil my office.
Mem. Let us not Be latest in obeying "the Ten's" summons.
Sen. All are not met, but I am of your thought So far--let's in.
Mem. The earliest are most welcome In earnest councils--we will not be least so. [Exeunt.
Enter the DOGE, JACOPO FOSCARI, and MARINA.
Jac. Fos. Ah, father! though I must and will depart, Yet--yet--I pray you to obtain for me 100 That I once more return unto my home, Howe'er remote the period. Let there be A point of time, as beacon to my heart, With any penalty annexed they please, But let me still return.
Doge. Son Jacopo, Go and obey our Country's will:[72] 'tis not For us to look beyond.
Jac. Fos. But still I must Look back. I pray you think of me.
Doge. Alas! You ever were my dearest offspring, when They were more numerous, nor can be less so 110 Now you are last; but did the State demand The exile of the disinterréd ashes Of your three goodly brothers, now in earth,[73] And their desponding shades came flitting round To impede the act, I must no less obey A duty, paramount to every duty.
Mar. My husband! let us on: this but prolongs Our sorrow.
Jac. Fos. But we are not summoned yet; The galley's sails are not unfurled:--who knows? The wind may change.
Mar. And if it do, it will not 120 Change their hearts, or your lot: the galley's oars Will quickly clear the harbour.
Jac. Fos. O, ye Elements! Where are your storms?
Mar. In human breasts. Alas! Will nothing calm you?
Jac. Fos. Never yet did mariner Put up to patron saint such prayers for prosperous And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you, Ye tutelar saints of my own city! which Ye love not with more holy love than I, To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves, And waken Auster, sovereign of the Tempest! 130 Till the sea dash me back on my own shore A broken corse upon the barren Lido, Where I may mingle with the sands which skirt The land I love, and never shall see more!
Mar. And wish you this with me beside you?
Jac. Fos. No-- No--not for thee, too good, too kind! May'st thou Live long to be a mother to those children Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives Of such support! But for myself alone, May all the winds of Heaven howl down the Gulf, 140 And tear the vessel, till the mariners, Appalled, turn their despairing eyes on me, As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then Cast me out from amongst them, as an offering To appease the waves. The billow which destroys me Will be more merciful than man, and bear me Dead, but still bear me to a native grave, From fishers' hands, upon the desolate strand, Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er received One lacerated like the heart which then 150 Will be.--But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?
Mar. To man thyself, I trust, with time, to master Such useless passion. Until now thou wert A sufferer, but not a loud one: why What is this to the things thou hast borne in silence-- Imprisonment and actual torture?
Jac. Fos. Double, Triple, and tenfold torture! But you are right, It must be borne. Father, your blessing.
Doge. Would It could avail thee! but no less thou hast it.
Jac. Fos. Forgive----
Doge. What?
Jac. Fos. My poor mother, for my birth, 160 And me for having lived, and you yourself (As I forgive you), for the gift of life, Which you bestowed upon me as my sire.
Mar. What hast thou done?
Jac. Fos. Nothing. I cannot charge My memory with much save sorrow: but I have been so beyond the common lot Chastened and visited, I needs must think That I was wicked. If it be so, may What I have undergone here keep me from A like hereafter!
Mar. Fear not: that's reserved 170 For your oppressors.
Jac. Fos. Let me hope not.
Mar. Hope not?
Jac. Fos. I cannot wish them all they have inflicted.
Mar. All! the consummate fiends! A thousandfold May the worm which never dieth feed upon them!
Jac. Fos. They may repent.
Mar. And if they do, Heaven will not Accept the tardy penitence of demons.
Enter an Officer and Guards.
Offi. Signor! the boat is at the shore--the wind Is rising--we are ready to attend you.
Jac. Fos. And I to be attended. Once more, father, Your hand!
Doge. Take it. Alas! how thine own trembles! 180
Jac. Fos. No--you mistake; 'tis yours that shakes, my father. Farewell!
Doge. Farewell! Is there aught else?
Jac. Fos. No--nothing. [To the Officer. Lend me your arm, good Signor.
Offi. You turn pale-- Let me support you--paler--ho! some aid there! Some water!
Mar. Ah, he is dying!
Jac. Fos. Now, I'm ready-- My eyes swim strangely--where's the door?
Mar. Away! Let me support him--my best love! Oh, God! How faintly beats this heart--this pulse!
Jac. Fos. The light! Is it the light?--I am faint. [Officer presents him with water.
Offi. He will be better, Perhaps, in the air.
Jac. Fos. I doubt not. Father--wife-- 190 Your hands!
Mar. There's death in that damp, clammy grasp.[74] Oh, God!--My Foscari, how fare you?
Jac. Fos. Well! [He dies.
Offi. He's gone!
Doge. He's free.
Mar. No--no, he is not dead; There must be life yet in that heart--he could not[bs] Thus leave me.
Doge. Daughter!
Mar. Hold thy peace, old man! I am no daughter now--thou hast no son. Oh, Foscari!
Offi. We must remove the body.
Mar. Touch it not, dungeon miscreants! your base office Ends with his life, and goes not beyond murder, Even by your murderous laws. Leave his remains 200 To those who know to honour them.
Offi. I must Inform the Signory, and learn their pleasure.
Doge. Inform the Signory from me, the Doge, They have no further power upon those ashes: While he lived, he was theirs, as fits a subject-- Now he is mine--my broken-hearted boy! [Exit Officer.
Mar. And I must live!
Doge. Your children live, Marina.
Mar. My children! true--they live, and I must live To bring them up to serve the State, and die As died their father. Oh! what best of blessings 210 Were barrenness in Venice! Would my mother Had been so!
Doge. My unhappy children!
Mar. What! You feel it then at last--you!--Where is now The Stoic of the State?
Doge (throwing himself down by the body). Here!
Mar. Aye, weep on! I thought you had no tears--you hoarded them Until they are useless; but weep on! he never Shall weep more--never, never more.
Enter LOREDANO and BARBARIGO.
Lor. What's here?
Mar. Ah! the Devil come to insult the dead! Avaunt! Incarnate Lucifer! 'tis holy ground. A martyr's ashes now lie there, which make it 220 A shrine. Get thee back to thy place of torment!
Bar. Lady, we knew not of this sad event, But passed here merely on our path from council.
Mar. Pass on.
Lor. We sought the Doge.
Mar. (pointing to the Doge, who is still on the ground by his son's body) He's busy, look, About the business you provided for him. Are ye content?
Bar. We will not interrupt A parent's sorrows.
Mar. No, ye only make them, Then leave them.
Doge (rising). Sirs, I am ready.
Bar. No--not now.
Lor. Yet 'twas important.
Doge. If 'twas so, I can Only repeat--I am ready.
Bar. It shall not be 230 Just now, though Venice tottered o'er the deep Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs.
Doge. I thank you. If the tidings which you bring Are evil, you may say them; nothing further Can touch me more than him thou look'st on there; If they be good, say on; you need not fear That they can comfort me.
Bar. I would they could!
Doge. I spoke not to you, but to Loredano. He understands me.
Mar. Ah! I thought it would be so.
Doge. What mean you?
Mar. Lo! there is the blood beginning 240 To flow through the dead lips of Foscari-- The body bleeds in presence of the assassin. [To LOREDANO. Thou cowardly murderer by law, behold How Death itself bears witness to thy deeds!
Doge. My child! this is a phantasy of grief. Bear hence the body. [To his attendants] Signors, if it please you, Within an hour I'll hear you.
[Exeunt DOGE, MARINA, and attendants with the body. Manent LOREDANO and BARBARIGO.
Bar. He must not Be troubled now.
Lor. He said himself that nought Could give him trouble farther.
Bar. These are words; But Grief is lonely, and the breaking in 250 Upon it barbarous.
Lor. Sorrow preys upon Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it From its sad visions of the other world, Than calling it at moments back to this. The busy have no time for tears.
Bar. And therefore You would deprive this old man of all business?
Lor. The thing's decreed. The Giunta[75] and "the Ten" Have made it law--who shall oppose that law?
Bar. Humanity!
Lor. Because his son is dead?
Bar. And yet unburied.
Lor. Had we known this when 260 The act was passing, it might have suspended Its passage, but impedes it not--once passed.
Bar. I'll not consent.
Lor. You have consented to All that's essential--leave the rest to me.
Bar. Why press his abdication now?
Lor. The feelings Of private passion may not interrupt The public benefit; and what the State Decides to-day must not give way before To-morrow for a natural accident.
Bar. You have a son.
Lor. I have--and had a father. 270
Bar. Still so inexorable?
Lor. Still.
Bar. But let him Inter his son before we press upon him This edict.
Lor. Let him call up into life My sire and uncle--I consent. Men may, Even agéd men, be, or appear to be, Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle An atom of their ancestors from earth. The victims are not equal; he has seen His sons expire by natural deaths, and I My sires by violent and mysterious maladies. 280 I used no poison, bribed no subtle master Of the destructive art of healing, to Shorten the path to the eternal cure. His sons--and he had four--are dead, without My dabbling in vile drugs.
Bar. And art thou sure He dealt in such?
Lor. Most sure.
Bar. And yet he seems All openness.
Lor. And so he seemed not long Ago to Carmagnuola.
Bar. The attainted And foreign traitor?
Lor. Even so: when he, After the very night in which "the Ten" 290 (Joined with the Doge) decided his destruction, Met the great Duke at daybreak with a jest, Demanding whether he should augur him "The good day or good night?" his Doge-ship answered, "That he in truth had passed a night of vigil, In which" (he added with a gracious smile) "There often has been question about you."[76] 'Twas true; the question was the death resolved Of Carmagnuola, eight months ere he died; And the old Doge, who knew him doomed, smiled on him 300 With deadly cozenage, eight long months beforehand-- Eight months of such hypocrisy as is Learnt but in eighty years. Brave Carmagnuola Is dead; so is young Foscari and his brethren-- I never smiled on them.
Bar. Was Carmagnuola Your friend?
Lor. He was the safeguard of the city. In early life its foe, but in his manhood, Its saviour first, then victim.
Bar. Ah! that seems The penalty of saving cities. He Whom we now act against not only saved 310 Our own, but added others to her sway.
Lor. The Romans (and we ape them) gave a crown To him who took a city: and they gave A crown to him who saved a citizen In battle: the rewards are equal. Now, If we should measure forth the cities taken By the Doge Foscari, with citizens Destroyed by him, or through him, the account Were fearfully against him, although narrowed To private havoc, such as between him 320 And my dead father.
Bar. Are you then thus fixed?
Lor. Why, what should change me?
Bar. That which changes me. But you, I know, are marble to retain A feud. But when all is accomplished, when The old man is deposed, his name degraded, His sons all dead, his family depressed, And you and yours triumphant, shall you sleep?
Lor. More soundly.
Bar. That's an error, and you'll find it Ere you sleep with your fathers.
Lor. They sleep not In their accelerated graves, nor will 330 Till Foscari fills his. Each night I see them Stalk frowning round my couch, and, pointing towards The ducal palace, marshal me to vengeance.
Bar. Fancy's distemperature! There is no passion More spectral or fantastical than Hate; Not even its opposite, Love, so peoples air With phantoms, as this madness of the heart.
Enter an Officer.
Lor. Where go you, sirrah?
Offi. By the ducal order To forward the preparatory rites For the late Foscari's interment.
Bar. Their 340 Vault has been often opened of late years.
Lor. 'Twill be full soon, and may be closed for ever!
Offi. May I pass on?
Lor. You may.
Bar. How bears the Doge This last calamity?
Offi. With desperate firmness. In presence of another he says little, But I perceive his lips move now and then; And once or twice I heard him, from the adjoining Apartment, mutter forth the words--"My son!" Scarce audibly. I must proceed. [Exit Officer.
Bar. This stroke Will move all Venice in his favour.
Lor. Right! 350 We must be speedy: let us call together The delegates appointed to convey The Council's resolution.
Bar. I protest Against it at this moment.
Lor. As you please-- I'll take their voices on it ne'ertheless, And see whose most may sway them, yours or mine. [Exeunt BARBARIGO and LOREDANO.
Act V, Scene I — The DOGE'S Apartment
The DOGE and Attendants.
Att. My Lord, the deputation is in waiting; But add, that if another hour would better Accord with your will, they will make it theirs.
Doge. To me all hours are like. Let them approach. [Exit Attendant.
An Officer. Prince! I have done your bidding.
Doge. What command?
Offi. A melancholy one--to call the attendance Of----
Doge. True--true--true: I crave your pardon. I Begin to fail in apprehension, and Wax very old--old almost as my years. Till now I fought them off, but they begin 10 To overtake me.
_Enter the Deputation, consisting of six of the Signory and the Chief of the Ten_.
Noble men, your pleasure!
Chief of the Ten. In the first place, the Council doth condole With the Doge on his late and private grief.
Doge. No more--no more of that.
Chief of the Ten. Will not the Duke Accept the homage of respect?
Doge. I do Accept it as 'tis given--proceed.
Chief of the Ten. "The Ten," With a selected giunta from the Senate Of twenty-five of the best born patricians, Having deliberated on the state Of the Republic, and the o'erwhelming cares 20 Which, at this moment, doubly must oppress Your years, so long devoted to your Country, Have judged it fitting, with all reverence, Now to solicit from your wisdom (which Upon reflection must accord in this), The resignation of the ducal ring, Which you have worn so long and venerably: And to prove that they are not ungrateful, nor Cold to your years and services, they add An appanage of twenty hundred golden 30 Ducats, to make retirement not less splendid Than should become a Sovereign's retreat.
Doge. Did I hear rightly?
Chief of the Ten. Need I say again?
Doge. No.--Have you done?
Chief of the Ten. I have spoken. Twenty four[77] Hours are accorded you to give an answer.
Doge. I shall not need so many seconds.
Chief of the Ten. We Will now retire.
Doge. Stay! four and twenty hours Will alter nothing which I have to say.
Chief of the Ten. Speak!
Doge. When I twice before reiterated My wish to abdicate, it was refused me: 40 And not alone refused, but ye exacted An oath from me that I would never more Renew this instance. I have sworn to die In full exertion of the functions, which My Country called me here to exercise, According to my honour and my conscience-- I cannot break my oath.
Chief of the Ten. Reduce us not To the alternative of a decree, Instead of your compliance.
Doge. Providence Prolongs my days to prove and chasten me; 50 But ye have no right to reproach my length Of days, since every hour has been the Country's. I am ready to lay down my life for her, As I have laid down dearer things than life: But for my dignity--I hold it of The whole Republic: when the general will Is manifest, then you shall all be answered.
Chief of the Ten. We grieve for such an answer; but it cannot Avail you aught.
Doge. I can submit to all things, But nothing will advance; no, not a moment. 60 What you decree--decree.
Chief of the Ten. With this, then, must we Return to those who sent us?
Doge. You have heard me.
Chief of the Ten. With all due reverence we retire. [Exeunt the Deputation, etc.
Enter an Attendant.
Att. My Lord, The noble dame Marina craves an audience.
Doge. My time is hers.
Enter MARINA.
Mar. My Lord, if I intrude-- Perhaps you fain would be alone?
Doge. Alone! Alone, come all the world around me, I Am now and evermore. But we will bear it.
Mar. We will, and for the sake of those who are, Endeavour----Oh, my husband!
Doge. Give it way: 70 I cannot comfort thee.
Mar. He might have lived, So formed for gentle privacy of life, So loving, so beloved; the native of Another land, and who so blest and blessing As my poor Foscari? Nothing was wanting Unto his happiness and mine save not To be Venetian.
Doge. Or a Prince's son.
Mar. Yes; all things which conduce to other men's Imperfect happiness or high ambition, By some strange destiny, to him proved deadly. 80 The Country and the People whom he loved, The Prince of whom he was the elder born, And----
Doge. Soon may be a Prince no longer.
Mar. How?
Doge. They have taken my son from me, and now aim At my too long worn diadem and ring. Let them resume the gewgaws!
Mar. Oh, the tyrants! In such an hour too!
Doge. 'Tis the fittest time; An hour ago I should have felt it.
Mar. And Will you not now resent it?--Oh, for vengeance! But he, who, had he been enough protected, 90 Might have repaid protection in this moment, Cannot assist his father.
Doge. Nor should do so Against his Country, had he a thousand lives Instead of that----
Mar. They tortured from him. This May be pure patriotism. I am a woman: To me my husband and my children were Country and home. I loved him--how I loved him! I have seen him pass through such an ordeal as The old martyrs would have shrunk from: he is gone, And I, who would have given my blood for him, 100 Have nought to give but tears! But could I compass The retribution of his wrongs!--Well, well! I have sons, who shall be men.
Doge. Your grief distracts you.
Mar. I thought I could have borne it, when I saw him Bowed down by such oppression; yes, I thought That I would rather look upon his corse Than his prolonged captivity:--I am punished For that thought now. Would I were in his grave!
Doge. I must look on him once more.
Mar. Come with me!
Doge. Is he----
Mar. Our bridal bed is now his bier, 110
Doge. And he is in his shroud!
Mar. Come, come, old man! [Exeunt the DOGE and MARINA.
Enter BARBARIGO and LOREDANO.
Bar. (to an Attendant). Where is the Doge?
Att. This instant retired hence, With the illustrious lady his son's widow.
Lor. Where?
Att. To the chamber where the body lies.
Bar. Let us return, then.
Lor. You forget, you cannot. We have the implicit order of the Giunta To await their coming here, and join them in Their office: they'll be here soon after us.
Bar. And will they press their answer on the Doge?
Lor. 'Twas his own wish that all should be done promptly. 120 He answered quickly, and must so be answered; His dignity is looked to, his estate Cared for--what would he more?
Bar. Die in his robes: He could not have lived long; but I have done My best to save his honours, and opposed This proposition to the last, though vainly. Why would the general vote compel me hither?
Lor. 'Twas fit that some one of such different thoughts From ours should be a witness, lest false tongues Should whisper that a harsh majority 130 Dreaded to have its acts beheld by others.
Bar. And not less, I must needs think, for the sake Of humbling me for my vain opposition. You are ingenious, Loredano, in Your modes of vengeance, nay, poetical, A very Ovid in the art of hating; 'Tis thus (although a secondary object, Yet hate has microscopic eyes), to you I owe, by way of foil to the more zealous, This undesired association in 140 Your Giunta's duties.
Lor. How!--my Giunta!
Bar. Yours! They speak your language, watch your nod, approve Your plans, and do your work. Are they not yours?
Lor. You talk unwarily. 'Twere best they hear not This from you.
Bar. Oh! they'll hear as much one day From louder tongues than mine; they have gone beyond Even their exorbitance of power: and when This happens in the most contemned and abject States, stung humanity will rise to check it.
Lor. You talk but idly.
Bar. That remains for proof. 150 Here come our colleagues.
Enter the Deputation as before.
Chief of the Ten. Is the Duke aware We seek his presence?
Att. He shall be informed. [Exit Attendant.
Bar. The Duke is with his son.
Chief of the Ten. If it be so, We will remit him till the rites are over. Let us return. 'Tis time enough to-morrow.
Lor. (aside to Bar.) Now the rich man's hell-fire upon your tongue, Unquenched, unquenchable! I'll have it torn From its vile babbling roots, till you shall utter Nothing but sobs through blood, for this! Sage Signors, I pray ye be not hasty. [Aloud to the others.
Bar. But be human! 160
Lor. See, the Duke comes!
Enter the DOGE.
Doge. I have obeyed your summons.
Chief of the Ten. We come once more to urge our past request.
Doge. And I to answer.
Chief of the Ten. What?
Doge. My only answer. You have heard it.
Chief of the Ten. Hear you then the last decree, Definitive and absolute!
Doge. To the point-- To the point! I know of old the forms of office, And gentle preludes to strong acts.--Go on!
Chief of the Ten. You are no longer Doge; you are released From your imperial oath as Sovereign; Your ducal robes must be put off; but for 170 Your services, the State allots the appanage Already mentioned in our former congress. Three days are left you to remove from hence, Under the penalty to see confiscated All your own private fortune.
Doge. That last clause, I am proud to say, would not enrich the treasury.
Chief of the Ten. Your answer, Duke!
Lor. Your answer, Francis Foscari!
Doge. If I could have foreseen that my old age Was prejudicial to the State, the Chief Of the Republic never would have shown 180 Himself so far ungrateful, as to place His own high dignity before his Country; But this life having been so many years Not useless to that Country, I would fain Have consecrated my last moments to her. But the decree being rendered, I obey.[bt][78]
Chief of the Ten. If you would have the three days named extended, We willingly will lengthen them to eight, As sign of our esteem.
Doge. Not eight hours, Signor, Not even eight minutes--there's the ducal ring, 190 [Taking off his ring and cap. And there the ducal diadem! And so The Adriatic's free to wed another.
Chief of the Ten. Yet go not forth so quickly.
Doge. I am old, sir, And even to move but slowly must begin To move betimes. Methinks I see amongst you A face I know not.--Senator! your name, You, by your garb, Chief of the Forty!
Mem. Signor, I am the son of Marco Memmo.
Doge. Ah! Your father was my friend.--But sons and fathers!-- What, ho! my servants there!
Atten. My Prince!
Doge. No Prince-- 200 There are the princes of the Prince! [Pointing to the Ten's Deputation --Prepare To part from hence upon the instant.
Chief of the Ten. Why So rashly? 'twill give scandal.
Doge (to the Ten). Answer that; It is your province. [To the Servants. --Sirs, bestir yourselves: There is one burthen which I beg you bear With care, although 'tis past all farther harm-- But I will look to that myself.
Bar. He means The body of his son.
Doge. And call Marina, My daughter!
Enter MARINA.
Doge. Get thee ready, we must mourn Elsewhere.
Mar. And everywhere.
Doge. True; but in freedom, 210 Without these jealous spies upon the great. Signers, you may depart: what would you more? We are going; do you fear that we shall bear The palace with us? Its old walls, ten times As old as I am, and I'm very old, Have served you, so have I, and I and they Could tell a tale; but I invoke them not To fall upon you! else they would, as erst The pillars of stone Dagon's temple on The Israelite and his Philistine foes. 220 Such power I do believe there might exist In such a curse as mine, provoked by such As you; but I curse not. Adieu, good Signers! May the next Duke be better than the present!
Lor. The present Duke is Paschal Malipiero.
Doge. Not till I pass the threshold of these doors.
Lor. Saint Mark's great bell is soon about to toll For his inauguration.
Doge. Earth and Heaven! Ye will reverberate this peal; and I Live to hear this!--the first Doge who e'er heard 230 Such sound for his successor: happier he, My attainted predecessor, stern Faliero-- This insult at the least was spared him.
Lor. What! Do you regret a traitor?
Doge. No--I merely Envy the dead.
Chief of the Ten. My Lord, if you indeed Are bent upon this rash abandonment Of the State's palace, at the least retire By the private staircase, which conducts you towards The landing-place of the canal.
Doge. No. I Will now descend the stairs by which I mounted 240 To sovereignty--the Giants' Stairs, on whose Broad eminence I was invested Duke. My services have called me up those steps, The malice of my foes will drive me down them.[79] There five and thirty years ago was I Installed, and traversed these same halls, from which I never thought to be divorced except A corse--a corse, it might be, fighting for them-- But not pushed hence by fellow-citizens. But come; my son and I will go together-- 250 He to his grave, and I to pray for mine.
Chief of the Ten. What! thus in public?
Doge. I was publicly Elected, and so will I be deposed. Marina! art thou willing?
Mar. Here's my arm!
Doge. And here my staff: thus propped will I go forth.
Chief of the Ten. It must not be--the people will perceive it.
Doge. The people,--There's no people, you well know it, Else you dare not deal thus by them or me. There is a populace, perhaps, whose looks May shame you; but they dare not groan nor curse you, 260 Save with their hearts and eyes.
Chief of the Ten. You speak in passion, Else----
Doge. You have reason. I have spoken much More than my wont: it is a foible which Was not of mine, but more excuses you, Inasmuch as it shows, that I approach A dotage which may justify this deed Of yours, although the law does not, nor will. Farewell, sirs!
Bar. You shall not depart without An escort fitting past and present rank. We will accompany, with due respect, 270 The Doge unto his private palace. Say! My brethren, will we not?
Different voices. Aye!--Aye!
Doge. You shall not Stir--in my train, at least. I entered here As Sovereign--I go out as citizen By the same portals, but as citizen. All these vain ceremonies are base insults, Which only ulcerate the heart the more, Applying poisons there as antidotes. Pomp is for Princes--I am none!--That's false, I am, but only to these gates.--Ah!
Lor. Hark! 280 [The great bell of St. Mark's tolls.
Bar. The bell!
Chief of the Ten. St. Mark's, which tolls for the election Of Malipiero.
Doge. Well I recognise The sound! I heard it once, but once before, And that is five and thirty years ago; Even then I was not young.
Bar. Sit down, my Lord! You tremble.
Doge. 'Tis the knell of my poor boy! My heart aches bitterly.
Bar. I pray you sit.
Doge. No; my seat here has been a throne till now. Marina! let us go.
Mar. Most readily.
Doge. (walks a few steps, then stops). I feel athirst--will no one bring me here 290 A cup of water?
Bar. I----
Mar. And I----
Lor. And I---- [The Doge takes a goblet from the hand of LOREDANO.
Doge. I take yours, Loredano, from the hand Most fit for such an hour as this.[bu]
Lor. Why so?
Doge. 'Tis said that our Venetian crystal has Such pure antipathy to poisons as To burst, if aught of venom touches it. You bore this goblet, and it is not broken.
Lor. Well, sir!
Doge. Then it is false, or you are true. For my own part, I credit neither; 'tis An idle legend.
Mar. You talk wildly, and 300 Had better now be seated, nor as yet Depart. Ah! now you look as looked my husband!
Bar. He sinks!--support him!--quick--a chair--support him!
Doge. The bell tolls on!--let's hence--my brain's on fire!
Bar. I do beseech you, lean upon us!
Doge. No! A Sovereign should die standing. My poor boy! Off with your arms!--That bell![80] [The DOGE drops down and dies.
Mar. My God! My God!
Bar. (to Lor.). Behold! your work's completed!
Chief of the Ten. Is there then No aid? Call in assistance!
Att. 'Tis all over.
Chief of the Ten. If it be so, at least his obsequies 310 Shall be such as befits his name and nation, His rank and his devotion to the duties Of the realm, while his age permitted him To do himself and them full justice. Brethren, Say, shall it not be so?
Bar. He has not had The misery to die a subject where[bv] He reigned: then let his funeral rites be princely.[81]
Chief of the Ten. We are agreed, then?
All, except Lor., answer, Yes.
Chief of the Ten. Heaven's peace be with him!
Mar. Signers, your pardon: this is mockery. 320 Juggle no more with that poor remnant, which, A moment since, while yet it had a soul, (A soul by whom you have increased your Empire, And made your power as proud as was his glory), You banished from his palace and tore down From his high place, with such relentless coldness; And now, when he can neither know these honours, Nor would accept them if he could, you, Signors, Purpose, with idle and superfluous pomp, To make a pageant over what you trampled. 330 A princely funeral will be your reproach, And not his honour.
Chief of the Ten. Lady, we revoke not Our purposes so readily.
Mar. I know it, As far as touches torturing the living. I thought the dead had been beyond even you, Though (some, no doubt) consigned to powers which may Resemble that you exercise on earth. Leave him to me; you would have done so for His dregs of life, which you have kindly shortened: It is my last of duties, and may prove 340 A dreary comfort in my desolation.[bw] Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead, And the apparel of the grave.
Chief of the Ten. Do you Pretend still to this office?
Mar. I do, Signor. Though his possessions have been all consumed In the State's service, I have still my dowry, Which shall be consecrated to his rites, And those of---- [She stops with agitation.
Chief of the Ten. Best retain it for your children.
Mar. Aye, they are fatherless, I thank you.
Chief of the Ten. We Cannot comply with your request. His relics 350 Shall be exposed with wonted pomp, and followed Unto their home by the new Doge, not clad As Doge, but simply as a senator.
Mar. I have heard of murderers, who have interred Their victims; but ne'er heard, until this hour, Of so much splendour in hypocrisy O'er those they slew.[82] I've heard of widows' tears-- Alas! I have shed some--always thanks to you! I've heard of heirs in sables--you have left none To the deceased, so you would act the part 360 Of such. Well, sirs, your will be done! as one day, I trust, Heaven's will be done too![bx]
Chief of the Ten. Know you, Lady, To whom ye speak, and perils of such speech?
Mar. I know the former better than yourselves; The latter--like yourselves; and can face both. Wish you more funerals?
Bar. Heed not her rash words; Her circumstances must excuse her bearing.
Chief of the Ten. We will not note them down.
Bar. (turning to Lor., who is writing upon his tablets). What art thou writing, With such an earnest brow, upon thy tablets?
Lor. (pointing to the Doge's body). That he has paid me![83]
Chief of the Ten. What debt did he owe you? 370
Lor. A long and just one; Nature's debt and mine.[84] [Curtain falls[85]
FOOTNOTES:
[34] {113}[The MS. of The Two Foscari is now in the possession of H.R.H. the Princess of Wales.]
[35] [Begun June the 12th, completed July the 9th, Ravenna, 1821.--Byron MS.]
[36] [Gov. "The father softens--but the governor is fixed." Dingle. "Aye that antithesis of persons is a most established figure."--Critic, act ii. sc. 2.
Byron may have guessed that this passage would be quoted against him, and, by taking it as a motto, hoped to anticipate or disarm ridicule; or he may have selected it out of bravado, as though, forsooth, the public were too stupid to find him out.]
[at] ----too soon repeated.--[MS. erased.]
[37] {121}[It is a moot point whether Jacopo Foscari was placed on the rack on the occasion of his third trial. The original document of the X. (July 23, 1456) runs thus: "Si videtur vobis per ea quæ dicta et lecta sunt, quod procedatur contra Ser Jacobum Foscari;" and it is argued (see F. Berlan, I due Foscari, etc., 1852, p. 57), (1) that the word procedatur is not a euphemism for "tortured," but should be rendered "judgment be given against;" (2) that if the X had decreed torture, torture would have been expressly enjoined; and (3) that as the decrees of the Council were not divulged, there was no motive for ambiguity. S. Romanin (Storia Documentata, etc., 1853, iv. 284) and R. Senger (Die beiden Foscari, 1878, p. 116) take the same view. On the other hand, Miss A. Wiel (Two Doges of Venice, 1891, p. 107) points out that, according to the Dolfin Cronaca, which Berlan did not consult, Jacopo was in a "mutilated" condition when the trial was over, and he was permitted to take a last farewell of his wife and children in Torricella. Goethe (Conversations, 1874, pp. 264, 265) did not share Eckermann's astonishment that Byron "could dwell so long on this torturing subject." "He was always a self-tormentor, and hence such subjects were his darling theme."]
[38] {122}[It is extremely improbable that Francesco Foscari was present in person at the third or two preceding trials of his son. As may be gathered from the parte of the Council of Ten relating to the first trial, there was a law which prescribed the contrary: "In ipsius Domini Ducis præsentiâ de rebus ad ipsum, vel ad filios suos tangentibus non tractetur, loquatur vel consulatur, sicut non potest (fieri) quando tractatur de rebus tangentibus ad attinentes Domini Ducis." The fact that "Nos Franciscus Foscari," etc., stood at the commencement of the decree of exile may have given rise to the tradition that the Doge, like a Roman father, tried and condemned his son. (See Berlan's I due Foscari, p. 13.)]
[39] {123}[Pietro Loredano, admiral of the Venetian fleet, died November 11, 1438. His death was sudden and suspicious, for he was taken with violent pains and spasms after presiding at a banquet in honour of his victories over the Milanese; and, when his illness ended fatally, it was remembered that the Doge had publicly declared that so long as the admiral lived he would never be de facto Prince of the Republic. Jacopo Loredano chose to put his own interpretation on this outburst of impatience, and inscribed on his father's monument in the Church of the Monastery of Sant' Elena, in the Isola della Santa Lena, the words, "Per insidias hostium veneno sublatus." (See Ecclesiæ Venetæ, by Flaminio Cornaro, 1749, ix. 193, 194; see, too, Cicogna's Inscrizioni Veneziane, 1830, iii. 381.)
Not long afterwards Marco Loredano, the admiral's brother, met with a somewhat similar fate. He had been despatched by the X. to Legnano, to investigate the conduct of Andrea Donate, the Doge's brother-in-law, who was suspected of having embezzled the public moneys. His report was unfavourable to Donato, and, shortly after, he too fell sick and died. It is most improbable that the Doge was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of either brother; but there was an hereditary feud, and the libellous epitaph was a move in the game.]
[40] {124}[Daru gives Palazzi's Fasti Ducales and L'Histoire Vénitienne of Vianolo as his authorities for this story.]
[au]4
----checked by nought The vessel that creaks----.--[MS. M. erased.]
[av] {125} ----much pity.--[MS. M. erased.]
[41] ["This whole episode in the private life of the Foscari family is valuable chiefly for the light it throws upon the internal history of Venice. We are clearly in an atmosphere unknown before. The Council of Ten is all-powerful; it even usurps functions which do not belong to it by the constitution. The air is charged with plots, suspicion, assassination, denunciation, spies,--all the paraphernalia which went to confirm the popular legend as to the terrible nature of the Dieci."--Venice, etc., by Horatio F. Brown, 1893, p. 305.]
[aw] {126} In this brief colloquy, and must redeem it.--[MS. M.]
[42] [Compare--
"And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers."
Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza clxxxiv. lines 1-4, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 461, note 2.]
[43] {127}[The climate of Crete is genial and healthy; but the town of Candia is exposed to winds from the north and north-west.]
[ax] I see your colour comes.--[MS. M.]
[44] {130}["She was a Contarini (her name was Lucrezia, not Marina)--
'A daughter of the house that now among Its ancestors in monumental brass Numbers eight Doges.'
On the occasion of her marriage the Bucentaur came out in its splendour; and a bridge of boats was thrown across the Canal Grande for the bridegroom and his retinue of three hundred horse."--Foscari, by Samuel Rogers, Poems, 1852, ii. 93, note.
According to another footnote (ibid., p. 90), "this story (Foscari) and the tragedy of the Two Foscari were published within a few days of each other, in November, 1821." The first edition of Italy was published anonymously in 1822. According to the announcement of a corrected and enlarged edition, which appeared in the Morning Chronicle, April 11, 1823, "a few copies of this poem were printed off the winter before last, while the author was abroad."]
[ay] {132} Do not deem so.--[MS. M.]
[45] {133}[Jacopo's plea, that the letter to the Duke of Milan was written for the express purpose of being recalled to Venice, is inadmissible for more reasons than one. In the first place, if on suspicion of a letter written but never sent, the Ten had thought fit to recall him, it by no means followed that they would have granted him an interview with his wife and family; and, secondly, the fact that there were letters in cypher found in his possession, and that a direct invitation to the Sultan to rescue him by force was among the impounded documents ("Quod requirebat dictum Teucrum ut mitteret ex galeis suis ad accipiendum et levandum eum de dicto loco"), proves that the appeal to the Duke of Milan was bonâ fide, and not a mere act of desperation. (See The Two Doges, pp. 101, 102, and Berlan's I due Poscari, p. 53, etc.)]
[46] {134}[There is no documentary evidence for this "confession," which rests on a mere tradition. (Vide Sanudo, Vita Ducum Venetorum, apud Muratori, Rerum Ital. Script., 1733, xxii. col. 1139; see, too, Berlan, I due Foscari, p. 37.) Moreover, Almoro Donato was not chief of the "Ten" at the date of his murder. The three "Capi" for November, 1450, were Ermolao Vallaresso, Giovanni Giustiniani, and Andrea Marcello (vide ibid., p. 25).]
[47] {135}["Examination by torture: 'Such presumption is only sufficient to put the person to the rack or torture' (Ayliffe's Parergon)."--Cent. Dict., art. "Question."]
[48] [Shakespeare, Milton, Thompson, and others, use "shook" for "shaken."]
[az] As was proved on him----.--[MS. M.]
[49] [The inarticulate mutterings are probably an echo of the "incantation and magic words" ("incantationem et verba quas sibi reperta sunt de quibus ad funem utitur ... quoniam in fune aliquam nec vocem nec gemitum emittit sed solum inter dentes ipse videtur et auditur loqui" [Die beiden Foscari, pp. 160, 161]), which, according to the decree of the Council of Ten, dated March 26, 1451, Jacopo let fall "while under torture" during his second trial.]
[ba] {137} I'll hence and follow Loredano home.--[MS. M.]
[bb] That I had dipped the pen too heedlessly.--[MS. M.]
[bc] {138} Mistress of Lombardy--'tis some comfort to me.--[MS. M.]
[50] [Compare "Ce fut l'époque, où Vénise étendit son empire sur Brescia, Bergame, Ravenne, et Crème; où elle fonda sa domination de Lombardie," etc. (Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques, x. 38). Brescia fell to the Venetians, October, 1426; Bergamo, in April, 1428; Ravenna, in August, 1440; and Crema, in 1453.]
[51] {139}[The Bridge of Sighs was not built till the end of the sixteenth century. (Vide ante, Marino Faliero, act i. sc. 2, line 508, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 363, note 2; see, too, Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza i. line 1, et post, act iv. sc. 1, line 75.)]
[bd] {141} To tears save those of dotage----.--[MS. M.]
[52] {143}[Five sons were born to the Doge, of whom four died of the plague (Two Doges, etc., by A. Wiel, 1891, p. 77).]
[53] {144}[The Doge offered to abdicate in June, 1433, in June, 1442, and again in 1446 (see Romanin, Storia, etc., 1855, iv. 170, 171, note 1).]
[54] [Vide ante, p. 123.]
[55] {148}[For the Pozzi and Piombi, see Marino Faliero, act i. sc. 2, Poetical Works, 1901, iv. 363, note 2.]
[be] Keep this for them----.--[MS. M.]
[bf] {149} The blackest leaf, his heart, and blankest, his brain.--[MS. M.]
[bg] ----and best in humblest stations.--[MS. M.]
[bh]
Where hunger swallows all--where ever was The monarch who could bear a three days' fast?--[MS. M.]
[bi] Their disposition----.--[MS. M.]
[56] [It would seem that Byron's "not ourselves" by no means "made for" righteousness.]
[bj]
----the will itself dependent Upon a storm, a straw, and both alike Leading to death----.--[MS. M.]
[57] [Compare--"The boldest steer but where their ports invite." Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza lxx. lines 7-9; and Canto IV. stanza xxxiv., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 260, 353, and 74, note 1.]
[58] {152}[Compare--
"Our voices took a dreary tone, An echo of the dungeon stone."
Prisoner of Chillon, lines 63, 64.
Compare, too--
"----prisoned solitude. And the Mind's canker in its savage mood, When the impatient thirst of light and air Parches the heart."
Lament of Tasso, lines 4-7.]
[59] {153}[For inscriptions on the walls of the Pozzi, see note 1 to Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV., Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 465-467. Hobhouse transferred these "scratchings" to his pocket-books, and thence to his Historical Notes; but even as prison inscriptions they lack both point and style.]
[60] [Compare--
"Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree The fair, the chaste and unexpressive she."
As You Like It, act iii. sc. 2, lines 9, 10.]
[bk]
Which never can be read but, as 'twas written, By wretched beings.--[MS.]
[bl] {154}
Of the familiar's torch, which seems to love Darkness far more than light.--[MS.]
[61] {157}[Compare--
"Once more upon the waters! yet once more! And the waves bound beneath me as a steed That knows his rider."
Childe Harold, Canto III. stanza ii. lines 1-3, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 217, note 1.]
[bm] At once by briefer means and better.--[MS.]
[62] {158} In Lady Morgan's fearless and excellent work upon Italy, I perceive the expression of "Rome of the Ocean" applied to Venice. The same phrase occurs in the "Two Foscari." My publisher can vouch for me, that the tragedy was written and sent to England some time before I had seen Lady Morgan's work, which I only received on the 16th of August. I hasten, however, to notice the coincidence, and to yield the originality of the phrase to her who first placed it before the public.
[Byron calls Lady Morgan's Italy "fearless" on account of her strictures on the behaviour of Great Britain to Genoa in 1814. "England personally stood pledged to Genoa.... When the British officers rode into their gates bearing the white flag consecrated by the holy word of 'independence,' the people ... 'kissed their garments.'... Every heart was open.... Lord William Bentinck's flag of 'Independenza' was taken down from the steeples and high places at sunrise; before noon the arms of Sardinia blazoned in their stead; and yet the Genoese did not rise en masse and massacre the English" (Italy, 1821, i. 245, 246). The passage which Byron feared might be quoted to his disparagement runs as follows: "As the bark glides on, as the shore recedes, and the city of waves, the Rome of the ocean, rises on the horizon, the spirits rally; ... and as the spires and cupolas of Venice come forth in the lustre of the mid-day sun, and its palaces, half-veiled in the aërial tints of distance, gradually assume their superb proportions, then the dream of many a youthful vigil is realized" (ibid., ii. 449).]
[63] [Compare Marino Faliero, act ii. sc. 2, line 110, _Poetical Works_, 901, iv. 386, note 3.]
[64] {159} The Calenture.--[From the Spanish Calentura, a fever peculiar to sailors within the tropics--
"So, by a calenture misled, The mariner with rapture sees, On the smooth ocean's azure bed, Enamelled fields and verdant trees: With eager haste he longs to rove In that fantastic scene, and thinks It must be some enchanted grove; And in he leaps, and down he sinks."
Swift, The South-Sea Project, 1721, ed. 1824, xiv. 147.]
[65] Alluding to the Swiss air and its effects.--[The Ranz des Vaches, played upon the bag-pipe by the young cowkeepers on the mountains:--"An air," says Rousseau, "so dear to the Swiss, that it was forbidden, under the pain of death, to play it to the troops, as it immediately drew tears from them, and made those who heard it desert, or die of what is called la maladie du païs, so ardent a desire did it excite to return to their country. It is in vain to seek in this air for energetic accents capable of producing such astonishing effects, for which strangers are unable to account from the music, which is in itself uncouth and wild. But it is from habit, recollections, and a thousand circumstances, retraced in this tune by those natives who hear it, and reminding them of their country, former pleasures of their youth, and all their ways of living, which occasion a bitter reflection at having lost them." Compare Byron's Swiss "Journal" for September 19, 1816, Letters, 1899, ii. 355.]
[bn] That malady, which----.--[MS. M.]
[66] [Compare Don Juan, Canto XVI. stanza xlvi. lines 6, 7--
"The calentures of music which o'ercome The mountaineers with dreams that they are highlands."]
[bo] {160} ----upon your native towers.--[MS. M.]
[bp] {162} Come you here to insult us----.--[MS. M.]
[67] {163}[For "steeds of brass," compare Childe Harold, Canto IV. stanza xiii. line I, Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 338, and 336, note 1.]
[68] [The first and all subsequent editions read "skimmed the coasts." Byron wrote "skirred," a word borrowed from Shakespeare. Compare Siege of Corinth, line 692, Poetical Works, 1900, iii. 480, note 4.]
[bq] {165} ----which this noble lady worst,--[MS. M.]
[69] {169}[According to the law, it rested with the six councillors of the Doge and a majority of the Grand Council to insist upon the abdication of a Doge. The action of the Ten was an usurpation of powers to which they were not entitled by the terms of the Constitution.]
[70] {170}[A touching incident is told concerning an interview between the Doge and Jacopo Memmo, head of the Forty. The Doge had just learnt (October 21, 1457) the decision of the Ten with regard to his abdication, and noticed that Memmo watched him attentively. "Foscari called to him, and, touching his hand, asked him whose son he was. He answered, 'I am the son of Messer Marin Memmo.'--' He is my dear friend,' said the Doge; 'tell him from me that it would be pleasing to me if he would come and see me, so that we might go at our leisure in our boats to visit the monasteries'" (The Two Doges, by A. Weil, 1891, p. 124; see, too, Romanin, Storia, etc., 1855, iv. 291).]
[71] {171}[Vide ante, p. 139, note 1.]
[br] Decemvirs, it is surely----.--[MS. M.]
[72] {172}[Romanin (Storia, etc., 1855, iv. 285, 286) quotes the following anecdote from the Cronaca Dolfin:--
"Alla commozione, alle lagrime, ai singulti che accompagnavano gli ultimi abbraciamenti, Jacopo più che mai sentendo il dolore di quel distacco, diceva: Padre ve priego, procurè per mi, che ritorni a casa mia. E messer lo doxe: Jacomo va e obbedisci quel che vuol la terra e non cerear più oltre. Ma, uscito l'infelice figlio dalla stanza, più non resistendo alla piena degli affetti, si getto piangendo sopra una sedia e lamentando diceva: O pietà grande!"]
[73] [Vide ante, act ii. sc. I, line 174, p. 143, note 1.]
[74] {175}[So, too, Coleridge of Keats: "There is death in that hand;" and of Adam Steinmetz: "Alas! there is death in that dear hand." See Table Talk for August 14, 1832, and Letter to John Peirse Kennard, August 13, 1832, Letters of S. T. C., 1895, ii. 764. Jacopo Foscari was sent back to exile in Crete, and did not die till February, 1457. His death at Venice, immediately after his sentence, is contrived for the sake of observing "the unities."]
[bs]
----he would not Thus leave me.--[MS. M.]
[75] {178}[It is to be noted that the "Giunta" was demanded by Loredano himself--a proof of his bona fides, as the addition of twenty-five nobles to the original Ten would add to the chance of opposition on the part of the supporters and champions of the Doge (see The Two Doges, and Romanin, Storia, etc., iv. 286, note 3).]
[76] {179} An historical fact. See DARU [1821], tom. ii. [pp. 398, 399. Daru quotes as his authorities Sabellicus and Pietro Giustiniani. As a matter of fact, the Doge did his utmost to save Carmagnola, pleading that his sentence should be commuted to imprisonment for life (see The Two Doges, p. 66; and Romanin, Storia, etc., iv. 161).]
[77] {183}[By the terms of the "parte," or act of deposition drawn up by the Ten, October 21, 1457, the time granted for deliberation was "till the third hour of the following day." This limitation as to time was designed to prevent the Doge from summoning the Grand Council, "to whom alone belonged the right of releasing him from the dukedom." (The Two Doges, p. 118; Diebeiden Foscari, 1878, pp. 174-176).]
[bt] {188} The act is passed--I will obey it.--[MS. M.]
[78] [For this speech, see Daru (who quotes from Pietro Giustiniani, Histoire, etc., 1821, ii. 534).]
[79] {190}[See Daru's Histoire, etc., 1821, ii. 535. The Cronaca Augustini is the authority for the anecdote (see The Two Doges, 1891, p. 126).]
[bu] {192}
I take yours, Loredano--'tis the draught Most fitting such an hour as this.--[MS. M.]
[80] {193}[Vide ante, Introduction to The Two Foscari, p. 118.]
[bv] The wretchedness to die----.--[MS. M.]
[81] ["A decree was at once passed that a public funeral should be accorded to Foscari, ... and the bells of St. Mark were ordered to peal nine times.... The same Council also determined that on Thursday night, November 3, the corpse should be carried into the room of the 'Signori di notte,' dressed in a golden mantle, with the ducal bonnet on his head, golden spurs on his feet, ... the gold sword by his side." But Foscari's wife, Marina (or Maria) Nani, opposed. "She declined to give up the body, which she had caused to be dressed in plain clothes, and she maintained that no one but herself should provide for the funeral expenses, even should she have to give up her dower." It is needless to add that her protest was unavailing, and that the decree of the Ten was carried into effect.--The Two Doges, 1891, pp. 129, 130.]
[bw] {194} ----comfort to my desolation.--[MS. M.]
[82] {195} The Venetians appear to have had a particular turn for breaking the hearts of their Doges. The following is another instance of the kind in the Doge Marco Barbarigo: he was succeeded by his brother Agostino Barbarigo, whose chief merit is here mentioned.--"Le doge, blessé de trouver constamment un contradicteur et un censeur si amer dans son frère, lui dit un jour en plein conseil: 'Messire Augustin, vous faites tout votre possible pour hâter ma mort; vous vous flattez de me succéder; mais, si les autres vous connaissent aussi bien que je vous connais, ils n'auront garde de vous élire.' Là-dessus il se leva, ému de colere, rentra dans son appartement, et mourut quelques jours après. Ce frère, contre lequel il s'etait emporté, fut précisement le successeur qu'on lui donna. C'était un mérite don't on aimait à tenir compte; surtout à un parent, de s'être mis en opposition avec le chef de la république."--DARU, Hist, de Vénise, 1821, in. 29.
[bx] I trust Heavens will be done also.--[MS.]
[83] "L'ha pagata." An historical fact. See Hist. de Vénise, par P. DARU, 1821, ii. 528, 529.
[Daru quotes Palazzi's Fasti Ducales as his authority for this story. According to Pietro Giustiniani (Storia, lib. viii.), Jacopo Loredano was at pains to announce the decree of the Ten to the Doge in courteous and considerate terms, and begged him to pardon him for what it was his duty to do. Romanin points out that this version of the interview is inconsistent with the famous "L'hapagata."--Storia, etc., iv. 290, note i.]
[84] {196}[Here the original MS. ends. The two lines which follow, were added by Gifford. In the margin of the MS. Byron has written, "If the last line should appear obscure to those who do not recollect the historical fact mentioned in the first act of Loredano's inscription in his book, of 'Doge Foscari, debtor for the deaths of my father and uncle,' you may add the following lines to the conclusion of the last act:--
Chief of the Ten. For what has he repaid thee?
Lor. For my father's And father's brother's death--by his son's and own!
Ask Gifford about this."]
[85] [The Appendix to the First Edition of The Two Foscari consisted of (i.) an extract from P. Daru's Histoire de la République Française, 1821, ii. 520-537; (ii.) an extract from J. C. L. Simonde de Sismondi's Histoire des Républiques Italiennes du Moyen Age, 1815, x. 36-46; and (iii.) a note in response to certain charges of plagiarism brought against the author in the Literary Gazette and elsewhere; and to Southey's indictment of the "Satanic School," which had recently appeared in the Preface to the Laureate's Vision of Judgement (Poetical Works of Robert Southey, 1838, x. 202-207). See, too, the "Introduction to The Vision of Judgment," Poetical Works, 1891, iv. pp. 475-480.]
CAIN:
A MYSTERY.
"Now the Serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." Genesis, Chapter 3rd, verse 1.
INTRODUCTION TO CAIN.
Cain was begun at Ravenna, July 16, and finished September 9, 1821 (vide MS. M.). Six months before, when he was at work on the first act of Sardanapalus, Byron had "pondered" Cain, but it was not till Sardanapalus and a second historical play, The Two Foscari, had been written, copied out, and sent to England, that he indulged his genius with a third drama--on "a metaphysical subject, something in the style of Manfred" (Letters, 1901, v. 189).
Goethe's comment on reading and reviewing Cain was that he should be surprised if Byron did not pursue the treatment of such "biblical subjects," as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Conversations, etc., 1879, p. 62); and, many years after, he told Crabb Robinson (Diary, 1869, ii. 435) that Byron should have lived "to execute his vocation ... to dramatize the Old Testament." He was better equipped for such a task than might have been imagined. A Scottish schoolboy, "from a child he had known the Scriptures," and, as his Hebrew Melodies testify, he was not unwilling to turn to the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration. Moreover, he was born with the religious temperament. Questions "of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate," exercised his curiosity because they appealed to his imagination and moved his spirit. He was eager to plunge into controversy with friends and advisers who challenged or rebuked him, Hodgson, for instance, or Dallas; and he responded with remarkable amenity to the strictures and exhortations of such orthodox professors as Mr. Sheppard and Dr. Kennedy. He was, no doubt, from first to last a heretic, impatient, not to say contemptuous, of authority, but he was by no means indifferent to religion altogether. To "argue about it and about" was a necessity, if not an agreeable relief, to his intellectual energies. It would appear from the Ravenna diary (January 28, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 190,191), that the conception of Lucifer was working in his brain before the "tragedy of Cain" was actually begun. He had been recording a "thought" which had come to him, that "at the very height of human desire and pleasure, a certain sense of doubt and sorrow"--an amari aliquid which links the future to the past, and so blots out the present--"mingles with our bliss," making it of none effect, and, by way of moral or corollary to his soliloquy, he adds three lines of verse headed, "Thought for a speech of Lucifer in the Tragedy of Cain"--
"Were Death an Evil, would I let thee live? Fool! live as I live--as thy father lives, And thy son's sons shall live for evermore."
In these three lines, which were not inserted in the play, and in the preceding "thought," we have the key-note to Cain. "Man walketh in a vain shadow"--a shadow which he can never overtake, the shadow of an eternally postponed fruition. With a being capable of infinite satisfaction, he is doomed to realize failure in attainment. In all that is best and most enjoyable, "the rapturous moment and the placid hour," there is a foretaste of "Death the Unknown"! The tragedy of Manfred lies in remorse for the inevitable past; the tragedy of Cain, in revolt against the limitations of the inexorable present.
The investigation of the "sources" of Cain does not lead to any very definite conclusion (see Lord Byron's Cain und Seine Quellen, von Alfred Schaffner, 1880). He was pleased to call his play "a Mystery," and, in his Preface (vide post, p. 207), Byron alludes to the Old Mysteries as "those very profane productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish." The first reprint of the Chester Plays was published by the Roxburghe Club in 1818, but Byron's knowledge of Mystery Plays was probably derived from Dodsley's Plays (ed. 1780, l., xxxiii.-xlii.), or from John Stevens's Continuation of Dugdale's Monasticon (vide post, p. 207), or possibly, as Herr Schaffner suggests, from Warton's History of English Poetry, ed. 1871, ii. 222-230. He may, too, have witnessed some belated Rappresentazione of the Creation and Fall at Ravenna, or in one of the remoter towns or villages of Italy. There is a superficial resemblance between the treatment of the actual encounter of Cain and Abel, and the conventional rendering of the same incident in the Ludus Coventriæ, and in the Mistère du Viel Testament; but it is unlikely that he had closely studied any one Mystery Play at first hand. On the other hand, his recollections of Gessner's Death of Abel which "he had never read since he was eight years old," were clearer than he imagined. Not only in such minor matters as the destruction of Cain's altar by a whirlwind, and the substitution of the Angel of the Lord for the Deus of the Mysteries, but in the Teutonic domesticities of Cain and Adah, and the evangelical piety of Adam and Abel, there is a reflection, if not an imitation, of the German idyll (see Gessner's Death of Abel, ed. 1797, pp. 80, 102).
Of his indebtedness to Milton he makes no formal acknowledgment, but he was not ashamed to shelter himself behind Milton's shield when he was attacked on the score of blasphemy and profanity. "If Cain be blasphemous, Paradise Lost is blasphemous" (letter to Murray, Pisa, February 8, 1822), was, he would fain believe, a conclusive answer to his accusers. But apart from verbal parallels or coincidences, there is a genuine affinity between Byron's Lucifer and Milton's Satan. Lucifer, like Satan, is "not less than Archangel ruined," a repulsed but "unvanquished Titan," marred by a demonic sorrow, a confessor though a rival of Omnipotence. He is a majestic and, as a rule, a serious and solemn spirit, who compels the admiration and possibly the sympathy of the reader. There is, however, another strain in his ghostly attributes, which betrays a more recent consanguinity: now and again he gives token that he is of the lineage of Mephistopheles. He is sometimes, though rarely, a mocking as well as a rebellious spirit, and occasionally indulges in a grim persiflage beneath the dignity if not the capacity of Satan. It is needless to add that Lucifer has a most lifelike personality of his own. The conception of the spirit of evil justifying an eternal antagonism to the Creator from the standpoint of a superior morality, may, perhaps, be traced to a Manichean source, but it has been touched with a new emotion. Milton's devil is an abstraction of infernal pride--
"Sole Positive of Night! Antipathist of Light! Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod-- The one permitted opposite of God!"
Goethe's devil is an abstraction of scorn. He "maketh a mock" alike of good and evil! But Byron's devil is a spirit, yet a mortal too--the traducer, because he has suffered for his sins; the deceiver, because he is self-deceived; the hoper against hope that there is a ransom for the soul in perfect self-will and not in perfect self-sacrifice. Byron did not uphold Lucifer, but he "had passed that way," and could imagine a spiritual warfare not only against the Deus of the Mysteries or of the Book of Genesis, but against what he believed and acknowledged to be the Author and Principle of good.
Autres temps, autres mœurs! It is all but impossible for the modern reader to appreciate the audacity of Cain, or to realize the alarm and indignation which it aroused by its appearance. Byron knew that he was raising a tempest, and pleads, in his Preface, "that with regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman," and again and again he assures his correspondents (e.g. to Murray, November 23, 1821, "Cain is nothing more than a drama;" to Moore, March 4, 1822, "With respect to Religion, can I never convince you that I have no such opinions as the characters in that drama, which seems to have frightened everybody?" Letters, 1901, v. 469; vi. 30) that it is Lucifer and not Byron who puts such awkward questions with regard to the "politics of paradise" and the origin of evil. Nobody seems to have believed him. It was taken for granted that Lucifer was the mouthpiece of Byron, that the author of Don Juan was not "on the side of the angels."
Little need be said of the "literature," the pamphlets and poems which were evoked by the publication of Cain: A Mystery. One of the most prominent assailants (said to be the Rev. H. J. Todd (1763-1845), Archdeacon of Cleveland, 1832, author inter alia of Original Sin, Free Will, etc., 1818) issued A Remonstrance to Mr. John Murray, respecting a Recent Publication, 1822, signed "Oxoniensis." The sting of the Remonstrance lay in the exposure of the fact that Byron was indebted to Bayle's Dictionary for his rabbinical legends, and that he had derived from the same source his Manichean doctrines of the Two Principles, etc., and other "often-refuted sophisms" with regard to the origin of evil. Byron does not borrow more than a poet and a gentleman is at liberty to acquire by way of raw material, but it cannot be denied that he had read and inwardly digested more than one of Bayle's "most objectionable articles" (e.g. "Adam," "Eve," "Abel," "Manichees," "Paulicians," etc.). The Remonstrance was answered in A Letter to Sir Walter Scott, etc., by "Harroviensis." Byron welcomed such a "Defender of the Faith," and was anxious that Murray should print the letter together with the poem. But Murray belittled the "defender," and was upbraided in turn for his slowness of heart (letter to Murray, June 6, 1822, Letters, 1901, vi. 76).
Fresh combatants rushed into the fray: "Philo-Milton," with a Vindication of the "Paradise Lost" from the charge of exculpating "Cain: A Mystery," London, 1822; "Britannicus," with a pamphlet entitled, Revolutionary Causes, etc., and A Postscript containing Strictures on "Cain," etc., London, 1822, etc.; but their works, which hardly deserve to be catalogued, have perished with them. Finally, in 1830, a barrister named Harding Grant, author of Chancery Practice, compiled a work (Lord Byron's "Cain," etc., with Notes) of more than four hundred pages, in which he treats "the proceedings and speeches of Lucifer with the same earnestness as if they were existing and earthly personages." But it was "a week too late." The "Coryphæus of the Satanic School" had passed away, and the tumult had "dwindled to a calm."
Cain "appeared in conjunction with" Sardanapalus and The Two Foscari, December 19, 1821. Last but not least of the three plays, it had been announced "by a separate advertisement (Morning Chronicle, November 24, 1821), for the purpose of exciting the greater curiosity" (Memoirs of the Life, etc. [by John Watkins], 1822, p. 383), and it was no sooner published than it was pirated. In the following January, "Cain: A Mystery, by the author of Don Juan," was issued by W. Benbow, at Castle Street, Leicester Square (the notorious "Byron Head," which Southey described as "one of those preparatory schools for the brothel and the gallows, where obscenity, sedition, and blasphemy are retailed in drams for the vulgar"!).
Murray had paid Byron £2710 for the three tragedies, and in order to protect the copyright, he applied, through counsel (Lancelot Shadwell, afterwards Vice-Chancellor), for an injunction in Chancery to stop the sale of piratical editions of Cain. In delivering judgment (February 12, 1822), the Chancellor, Lord Eldon (see Courier, Wednesday, February 13), replying to Shadwell, drew a comparison between Cain and Paradise Lost, "which he had read from beginning to end during the course of the last Long Vacation--solicitæ jucunda oblivia vitæ." No one, he argued, could deny that the object and effects of Paradise Lost were "not to bring into disrepute," but "to promote reverence for our religion," and, per contra, no one could affirm that it was impossible to arrive at an opposite conclusion with regard to "the Preface, the poem, the general tone and manner of Cain." It was a question for a jury. A jury might decide that Cain was blasphemous, and void of copyright; and as there was a reasonable doubt in his mind as to the character of the book, and a doubt as to the conclusion at which a jury would arrive, he was compelled to refuse the injunction. According to Dr. Smiles (Memoir of John Murray, 1891, i. 428), the decision of a jury was taken, and an injunction eventually granted. If so, it was ineffectual, for Benbow issued another edition of Cain in 1824 (see Jacob's Reports, p. 474, note). See, too, the case of Murray v. Benbow and Another, as reported in the Examiner, February 17, 1822; and cases of Wolcot v. Walker, Southey v. Sherwood, Murray v. Benbow, and Lawrence v. Smith [Quarterly Review, April, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 120-138].
"Cain," said Moore (February 9, 1822), "has made a sensation." Friends and champions, the press, the public "turned up their thumbs." Gifford shook his head; Hobhouse "launched out into a most violent invective" (letter to Murray, November 24, 1821); Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh, was regretful and hortatory; Heber, in the Quarterly, was fault-finding and contemptuous. The "parsons preached at it from Kentish Town to Pisa" (letter to Moore, February 20, 1822). Even "the very highest authority in the land," his Majesty King George IV., "expressed his disapprobation of the blasphemy and licentiousness of Lord Byron's writings" (Examiner, February 17, 1822). Byron himself was forced to admit that "my Mont Saint Jean seems Cain" (Don Juan, Canto XI. stanza lvi. line 2). The many were unanimous in their verdict, but the higher court of the few reversed the judgment.
Goethe said that "Its beauty is such as we shall not see a second time in the world" (Conversations, etc., 1874, p. 261); Scott, in speaking of "the very grand and tremendous drama of Cain," said that the author had "matched Milton on his own ground" (letter to Murray, December 4, 1821, vide post, p. 206); "Cain," wrote Shelley to Gisborne (April 10, 1822), "is apocalyptic; it is a revelation never before communicated to man."
Uncritical praise, as well as uncritical censure, belongs to the past; but the play remains, a singular exercise of "poetic energy," a confession, ex animo, of "the burthen of the mystery, ... the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world."
For reviews of Cain: A Mystery, vide ante, "Introduction to Sardanapalus," p. 5; see, too, Eclectic Review, May, 1822, N.S. vol. xvii. pp. 418-427; Examiner, June 2, 1822; British Review, 1822, vol. xix. pp. 94-102.
For O'Doherty's parody of the "Pisa" Letter, February 8, 1822, see Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, February, 1822, vol. xi. pp. 215-217; and for a review of Harding Grant's Lord Byron's Cain, etc., see Fraser's Magazine, April, 1831, iii. 285-304.
TO
SIR WALTER SCOTT, BART.,
THIS MYSTERY OF CAIN
IS INSCRIBED,
BY HIS OBLIGED FRIEND
AND FAITHFUL SERVANT,
THE AUTHOR.[86]
Preface
The following scenes are entitled "A Mystery," in conformity with the ancient title annexed to dramas upon similar subjects, which were styled "Mysteries, or Moralities."[87] The author has by no means taken the same liberties with his subject which were common formerly, as may be seen by any reader curious enough to refer to those very profane productions, whether in English, French, Italian, or Spanish. The author has endeavoured to preserve the language adapted to his characters; and where it is (and this is but rarely) taken from actual Scripture, he has made as little alteration, even of words, as the rhythm would permit. The reader will recollect that the book of Genesis does not state that Eve was tempted by a demon, but by "the Serpent[88];" and that only because he was "the most subtil of all the beasts of the field." Whatever interpretation the Rabbins and the Fathers may have put upon this, I take the words as I find them, and reply, with Bishop Watson[89] upon similar occasions, when the Fathers were quoted to him as Moderator in the schools of Cambridge, "Behold the Book!"--holding up the Scripture. It is to be recollected, that my present subject has nothing to do with the New Testament, to which no reference can be here made without anachronism.[90] With the poems upon similar topics I have not been recently familiar. Since I was twenty I have never read Milton; but I had read him so frequently before, that this may make little difference. Gesner's "Death of Abel" I have never read since I was eight years of age, at Aberdeen. The general impression of my recollection is delight; but of the contents I remember only that Cain's wife was called Mahala, and Abel's Thirza; in the following pages I have called them "Adah" and "Zillah," the earliest female names which occur in Genesis. They were those of Lamech's wives: those of Cain and Abel are not called by their names. Whether, then, a coincidence of subject may have caused the same in expression, I know nothing, and care as little. [I[91] am prepared to be accused of Manicheism,[92] or some other hard name ending in ism, which makes a formidable figure and awful sound in the eyes and ears of those who would be as much puzzled to explain the terms so bandied about, as the liberal and pious indulgers in such epithets. Against such I can defend myself, or, if necessary, I can attack in turn. "Claw for claw, as Conan said to Satan and the deevil take the shortest nails" (Waverley).[93]]
The reader will please to bear in mind (what few choose to recollect), that there is no allusion to a future state in any of the books of Moses, nor indeed in the Old Testament. For a reason for this extraordinary omission he may consult Warburton's "Divine Legation;"[94] whether satisfactory or not, no better has yet been assigned. I have therefore supposed it new to Cain, without, I hope, any perversion of Holy Writ.
With regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him talk like a clergyman upon the same subjects; but I have done what I could to restrain him within the bounds of spiritual politeness. If he disclaims having tempted Eve in the shape of the Serpent, it is only because the book of Genesis has not the most distant allusion to anything of the kind, but merely to the Serpent in his serpentine capacity.
Note.--The reader will perceive that the author has partly adopted in this poem the notion of Cuvier,[95] that the world had been destroyed several times before the creation of man. This speculation, derived from the different strata and the bones of enormous and unknown animals found in them, is not contrary to the Mosaic account, but rather confirms it; as no human bones have yet been discovered in those strata, although those of many known animals are found near the remains of the unknown. The assertion of Lucifer, that the pre-Adamite world was also peopled by rational beings much more intelligent than man, and proportionably powerful to the mammoth, etc., etc., is, of course, a poetical fiction to help him to make out his case.
I ought to add, that there is a "tramelogedia" of Alfieri, called "Abele."[96] I have never read that, nor any other of the posthumous works of the writer, except his Life.
RAVENNA, Sept. 20, 1821.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ.
MEN.
ADAM. CAIN. ABEL.
SPIRITS.
ANGEL OF THE LORD. LUCIFER.
WOMEN.
EVE. ADAH. ZILLAH.
CAIN: A MYSTERY.
Act I, Scene I — The Land without Paradise.--Time, Sunrise
ADAM, EVE, CAIN, ABEL, ADAH, ZILLAH, offering a Sacrifice.
Adam. God, the Eternal! Infinite! All-wise!-- Who out of darkness on the deep didst make Light on the waters with a word--All Hail! Jehovah! with returning light--All Hail!
Eve. God! who didst name the day, and separate Morning from night, till then divided never-- Who didst divide the wave from wave, and call Part of thy work the firmament--All Hail!
Abel. God! who didst call the elements into Earth, ocean, air and fire--and with the day 10 And night, and worlds which these illuminate, Or shadow, madest beings to enjoy them, And love both them and thee--All Hail! All Hail!
Adah. God! the Eternal parent of all things! Who didst create these best and beauteous beings, To be belovéd, more than all, save thee-- Let me love thee and them:--All Hail! All Hail!
Zillah. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all, Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in, And drive my father forth from Paradise, 20 Keep us from further evil:--Hail! All Hail!
Adam. Son Cain! my first-born--wherefore art thou silent?
Cain. Why should I speak?
Adam. To pray.
Cain. Have ye not prayed?
Adam. We have, most fervently.
Cain. And loudly: I Have heard you.
Adam. So will God, I trust.
Abel. Amen!
Adam. But thou my eldest born? art silent still?
Cain. 'Tis better I should be so.
Adam. Wherefore so?
Cain. I have nought to ask.
Adam. Nor aught to thank for?
Cain. No.
Adam. Dost thou not live?
Cain. Must I not die?
Eve. Alas! The fruit of our forbidden tree begins 30 To fall.
Adam. And we must gather it again. Oh God! why didst thou plant the tree of knowledge?
Cain. And wherefore plucked ye not the tree of life? Ye might have then defied him.
Adam. Oh! my son, Blaspheme not: these are Serpent's words.
Cain. Why not? The snake spoke truth; it was the Tree of Knowledge; It was the Tree of Life: knowledge is good, And Life is good; and how can both be evil?
Eve. My boy! thou speakest as I spoke in sin, Before thy birth: let me not see renewed 40 My misery in thine. I have repented. Let me not see my offspring fall into The snares beyond the walls of Paradise, Which even in Paradise destroyed his parents. Content thee with what is. Had we been so, Thou now hadst been contented.--Oh, my son!
Adam. Our orisons completed, let us hence, Each to his task of toil--not heavy, though Needful: the earth is young, and yields us kindly Her fruits with little labour.
Eve. Cain--my son-- 50 Behold thy father cheerful and resigned-- And do as he doth. [Exeunt ADAM and EVE.
Zillah. Wilt thou not, my brother?
Abel. Why wilt thou wear this gloom upon thy brow, Which can avail thee nothing, save to rouse The Eternal anger?
Adah. My belovéd Cain Wilt thou frown even on me?
Cain. No, Adah! no; I fain would be alone a little while. Abel, I'm sick at heart; but it will pass; Precede me, brother--I will follow shortly. And you, too, sisters, tarry not behind; 60 Your gentleness must not be harshly met: I'll follow you anon.
Adah. If not, I will Return to seek you here.
Abel. The peace of God Be on your spirit, brother! [Exeunt ABEL, ZILLAH, and ADAH.
Cain (solus). And this is Life?--Toil! and wherefore should I toil?--because My father could not keep his place in Eden? What had I done in this?--I was unborn: I sought not to be born; nor love the state To which that birth has brought me. Why did he Yield to the Serpent and the woman? or 70 Yielding--why suffer? What was there in this? The tree was planted, and why not for him? If not, why place him near it, where it grew The fairest in the centre? They have but One answer to all questions, "'Twas his will, And he is good." How know I that? Because He is all-powerful, must all-good, too, follow? I judge but by the fruits--and they are bitter-- Which I must feed on for a fault not mine. Whom have we here?--A shape like to the angels 80 Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect Of spiritual essence: why do I quake? Why should I fear him more than other spirits, Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords Before the gates round which I linger oft, In Twilight's hour, to catch a glimpse of those Gardens which are my just inheritance, Ere the night closes o'er the inhibited walls And the immortal trees which overtop The Cherubim-defended battlements? 90 If I shrink not from these, the fire-armed angels, Why should I quail from him who now approaches? Yet--he seems mightier far than them, nor less Beauteous, and yet not all as beautiful As he hath been, and might be: sorrow seems Half of his immortality.[97] And is it So? and can aught grieve save Humanity? He cometh.
Enter LUCIFER.
Lucifer. Mortal!
Cain. Spirit, who art thou?
Lucifer. Master of spirits.
Cain. And being so, canst thou Leave them, and walk with dust?
Lucifer. I know the thoughts 100 Of dust, and feel for it, and with you.
Cain. How! You know my thoughts?
Lucifer. They are the thoughts of all Worthy of thought;--'tis your immortal part[98] Which speaks within you.
Cain. What immortal part? This has not been revealed: the Tree of Life Was withheld from us by my father's folly, While that of Knowledge, by my mother's haste, Was plucked too soon; and all the fruit is Death!
Lucifer. They have deceived thee; thou shalt live.
Cain. I live, But live to die; and, living, see no thing 110 To make death hateful, save an innate clinging, A loathsome, and yet all invincible Instinct of life, which I abhor, as I Despise myself, yet cannot overcome-- And so I live. Would I had never lived!
Lucifer. Thou livest--and must live for ever. Think not The Earth, which is thine outward cov'ring, is Existence--it will cease--and thou wilt be-- No less than thou art now.
Cain. No less! and why No more?
Lucifer. It may be thou shalt be as we. 120
Cain. And ye?
Lucifer. Are everlasting.
Cain. Are ye happy?
Lucifer. We are mighty.
Cain. Are ye happy?
Lucifer. No: art thou?
Cain. How should I be so? Look on me!
Lucifer. Poor clay! And thou pretendest to be wretched! Thou!
Cain. I am:--and thou, with all thy might, what art thou?
Lucifer. One who aspired to be what made thee, and Would not have made thee what thou art.
Cain. Ah! Thou look'st almost a god; and----
Lucifer. I am none: And having failed to be one, would be nought Save what I am. He conquered; let him reign! 130
Cain. Who?
Lucifer. Thy Sire's maker--and the Earth's.
Cain. And Heaven's, And all that in them is. So I have heard His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith.
Lucifer. They say--what they must sing and say, on pain Of being that which I am,--and thou art-- Of spirits and of men.
Cain. And what is that?
Lucifer. Souls who dare use their immortality-- Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in His everlasting face, and tell him that His evil is not good! If he has made, 140 As he saith--which I know not, nor believe-- But, if he made us--he cannot unmake: We are immortal!--nay, he'd have us so, That he may torture:--let him! He is great-- But, in his greatness, is no happier than We in our conflict! Goodness would not make Evil; and what else hath he made? But let him Sit on his vast and solitary throne-- Creating worlds, to make eternity Less burthensome to his immense existence 150 And unparticipated solitude;[99] Let him crowd orb on orb: he is alone Indefinite, Indissoluble Tyrant; Could he but crush himself, 'twere the best boon He ever granted: but let him reign on! And multiply himself in misery! Spirits and Men, at least we sympathise-- And, suffering in concert, make our pangs Innumerable, more endurable, By the unbounded sympathy of all 160 With all! But He! so wretched in his height, So restless in his wretchedness, must still Create, and re-create--perhaps he'll make[100] One day a Son unto himself--as he Gave you a father--and if he so doth, Mark me! that Son will be a sacrifice!
Cain. Thou speak'st to me of things which long have swum In visions through my thought: I never could Reconcile what I saw with what I heard. My father and my mother talk to me 170 Of serpents, and of fruits and trees: I see The gates of what they call their Paradise Guarded by fiery-sworded Cherubim, Which shut them out--and me: I feel the weight Of daily toil, and constant thought: I look Around a world where I seem nothing, with Thoughts which arise within me, as if they Could master all things--but I thought alone This misery was mine. My father is Tamed down; my mother has forgot the mind 180 Which made her thirst for knowledge at the risk Of an eternal curse; my brother is A watching shepherd boy,[101] who offers up The firstlings of the flock to him who bids The earth yield nothing to us without sweat;[by] My sister Zillah sings an earlier hymn Than the birds' matins; and my Adah--my Own and belovéd--she, too, understands not The mind which overwhelms me: never till Now met I aught to sympathise with me. 190 'Tis well--I rather would consort with spirits.
Lucifer. And hadst thou not been fit by thine own soul For such companionship, I would not now Have stood before thee as I am: a serpent Had been enough to charm ye, as before.[bz]
Cain. Ah! didst thou tempt my mother?
Lucifer. I tempt none, Save with the truth: was not the Tree, the Tree Of Knowledge? and was not the Tree of Life Still fruitful? Did I bid her pluck them not? Did I plant things prohibited within 200 The reach of beings innocent, and curious By their own innocence? I would have made ye Gods; and even He who thrust ye forth, so thrust ye Because "ye should not eat the fruits of life, And become gods as we." Were those his words?
Cain. They were, as I have heard from those who heard them, In thunder.
Lucifer. Then who was the Demon? He Who would not let ye live, or he who would Have made ye live for ever, in the joy And power of Knowledge?
Cain. Would they had snatched both 210 The fruits, or neither!
Lucifer. One is yours already, The other may be still.
Cain. How so?
Lucifer. By being Yourselves, in your resistance. Nothing can Quench the mind, if the mind will be itself And centre of surrounding things--'tis made To sway.
Cain. But didst thou tempt my parents?
Lucifer. I? Poor clay--what should I tempt them for, or how?
Cain. They say the Serpent was a spirit.
Lucifer. Who Saith that? It is not written so on high: The proud One will not so far falsify, 220 Though man's vast fears and little vanity Would make him cast upon the spiritual nature His own low failing. The snake was the snake-- No more;[102] and yet not less than those he tempted, In nature being earth also--more in wisdom, Since he could overcome them, and foreknew The knowledge fatal to their narrow joys. Think'st thou I'd take the shape of things that die?
Cain. But the thing had a demon?
Lucifer. He but woke one In those he spake to with his forky tongue. 230 I tell thee that the Serpent was no more Than a mere serpent: ask the Cherubim Who guard the tempting tree. When thousand ages Have rolled o'er your dead ashes, and your seed's, The seed of the then world may thus array Their earliest fault in fable, and attribute To me a shape I scorn, as I scorn all That bows to him, who made things but to bend Before his sullen, sole eternity; But we, who see the truth, must speak it. Thy 240 Fond parents listened to a creeping thing, And fell. For what should spirits tempt them? What Was there to envy in the narrow bounds Of Paradise, that spirits who pervade Space----but I speak to thee of what thou know'st not, With all thy Tree of Knowledge.
Cain. But thou canst not Speak aught of Knowledge which I would not know, And do not thirst to know, and bear a mind To know.
Lucifer. And heart to look on?
Cain. Be it proved.
Lucifer. Darest thou look on Death?
Cain. He has not yet 250 Been seen.
Lucifer. But must be undergone.
Cain. My father Says he is something dreadful, and my mother Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth, And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me, And speaks not.
Lucifer. And thou?
Cain. Thoughts unspeakable Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems, Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him? I wrestled with the lion, when a boy, 260 In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.
Lucifer. It has no shape; but will absorb all things That bear the form of earth-born being.
Cain. Ah! I thought it was a being: who could do Such evil things to beings save a being?
Lucifer. Ask the Destroyer.
Cain. Who?
Lucifer. The Maker--Call him Which name thou wilt: he makes but to destroy.
Cain. I knew not that, yet thought it, since I heard Of Death: although I know not what it is-- Yet it seems horrible. I have looked out 270 In the vast desolate night in search of him; And when I saw gigantic shadows in The umbrage of the walls of Eden, chequered By the far-flashing of the Cherubs' swords, I watched for what I thought his coming; for With fear rose longing in my heart to know What 'twas which shook us all--but nothing came. And then I turned my weary eyes from off Our native and forbidden Paradise, Up to the lights above us, in the azure, 280 Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?
Lucifer. Perhaps--but long outlive both thine and thee.
Cain. I'm glad of that: I would not have them die-- They are so lovely. What is Death? I fear, I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what, I cannot compass: 'tis denounced against us, Both them who sinned and sinned not, as an ill-- What ill?
Lucifer. To be resolved into the earth.
Cain. But shall I know it?
Lucifer. As I know not death, I cannot answer.[103]
Cain. Were I quiet earth, 290 That were no evil: would I ne'er had been Aught else but dust!
Lucifer. That is a grovelling wish, Less than thy father's--for he wished to know!
Cain. But not to live--or wherefore plucked he not The Life-tree?
Lucifer. He was hindered.
Cain. Deadly error! Not to snatch first that fruit:--but ere he plucked The knowledge, he was ignorant of Death. Alas! I scarcely now know what it is, And yet I fear it--fear I know not what!
Lucifer. And I, who know all things, fear nothing; see 300 What is true knowledge.
Cain. Wilt thou teach me all?
Lucifer. Aye, upon one condition.
Cain. Name it.
Lucifer. That Thou dost fall down and worship me--thy Lord.
Cain. Thou art not the Lord my father worships.
Lucifer. No.
Cain. His equal?
Lucifer. No;--I have nought in common with him! Nor would: I would be aught above--beneath-- Aught save a sharer or a servant of His power. I dwell apart; but I am great:-- Many there are who worship me, and more Who shall--be thou amongst the first.
Cain. I never 310 As yet have bowed unto my father's God. Although my brother Abel oft implores That I would join with him in sacrifice:-- Why should I bow to thee?
Lucifer. Hast thou ne'er bowed To him?
Cain. Have I not said it?--need I say it? Could not thy mighty knowledge teach thee that?
Lucifer. He who bows not to him has bowed to me.[104]
Cain. But I will bend to neither.
Lucifer. Ne'er the less, Thou art my worshipper; not worshipping Him makes thee mine the same.
Cain. And what is that? 320
Lucifer. Thou'lt know here--and hereafter.
Cain. Let me but Be taught the mystery of my being.
Lucifer. Follow Where I will lead thee.
Cain. But I must retire To till the earth--for I had promised----
Lucifer. What?
Cain. To cull some first-fruits.
Lucifer. Why?
Cain. To offer up With Abel on an altar.
Lucifer. Said'st thou not Thou ne'er hadst bent to him who made thee?
Cain. Yes-- But Abel's earnest prayer has wrought upon me; The offering is more his than mine--and Adah----
Lucifer. Why dost thou hesitate?
Cain. She is my sister, 330 Born on the same day, of the same womb; and She wrung from me, with tears, this promise; and Rather than see her weep, I would, methinks, Bear all--and worship aught.
Lucifer. Then follow me!
Cain. I will.
Enter ADAH.
Adah. My brother, I have come for thee; It is our hour of rest and joy--and we Have less without thee. Thou hast laboured not This morn; but I have done thy task: the fruits Are ripe, and glowing as the light which ripens: Come away.
Cain. Seest thou not?
Adah. I see an angel; 340 We have seen many: will he share our hour Of rest?--he is welcome.
Cain. But he is not like The angels we have seen.
Adah. Are there, then, others? But he is welcome, as they were: they deigned To be our guests--will he?
Cain (to Lucifer). Wilt thou?
Lucifer. I ask Thee to be mine.
Cain. I must away with him.
Adah. And leave us?
Cain. Aye.
Adah. And me?
Cain. Belovéd Adah!
Adah. Let me go with thee.
Lucifer. No, she must not.
Adah. Who Art thou that steppest between heart and heart?
Cain. He is a God.
Adah. How know'st thou?
Cain. He speaks like 350 A God.
Adah. So did the Serpent, and it lied.
Lucifer. Thou errest, Adah!--was not the Tree that Of Knowledge?
Adah. Aye--to our eternal sorrow.
Lucifer. And yet that grief is knowledge--so he lied not: And if he did betray you, 'twas with Truth; And Truth in its own essence cannot be But good.
Adah. But all we know of it has gathered Evil on ill; expulsion from our home, And dread, and toil, and sweat, and heaviness; Remorse of that which was--and hope of that 360 Which cometh not. Cain! walk not with this Spirit. Bear with what we have borne, and love me--I Love thee.
Lucifer. More than thy mother, and thy sire?
Adah. I do. Is that a sin, too?
Lucifer. No, not yet; It one day will be in your children.
Adah. What! Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?
Lucifer. Not as thou lovest Cain.
Adah. Oh, my God! Shall they not love and bring forth things that love Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk Out of this bosom? was not he, their father, 370 Born of the same sole womb,[105] in the same hour With me? did we not love each other? and In multiplying our being multiply Things which will love each other as we love Them?--And as I love thee, my Cain! go not Forth with this spirit; he is not of ours.
Lucifer. The sin I speak of is not of my making, And cannot be a sin in you--whate'er It seem in those who will replace ye in Mortality[106].
Adah. What is the sin which is not 380 Sin in itself? Can circumstance make sin Or virtue?--if it doth, we are the slaves Of----
Lucifer. Higher things than ye are slaves: and higher Than them or ye would be so, did they not Prefer an independency of torture To the smooth agonies of adulation, In hymns and harpings, and self-seeking prayers, To that which is omnipotent, because It is omnipotent, and not from love, But terror and self-hope.
Adah. Omnipotence 390 Must be all goodness.
Lucifer. Was it so in Eden?
Adah. Fiend! tempt me not with beauty; thou art fairer Than was the Serpent, and as false.
Lucifer. As true. Ask Eve, your mother: bears she not the knowledge Of good and evil?
Adah. Oh, my mother! thou Hast plucked a fruit more fatal to thine offspring Than to thyself; thou at the least hast passed Thy youth in Paradise, in innocent And happy intercourse with happy spirits: But we, thy children, ignorant of Eden, 400 Are girt about by demons, who assume The words of God, and tempt us with our own Dissatisfied and curious thoughts--as thou Wert worked on by the snake, in thy most flushed And heedless, harmless wantonness of bliss. I cannot answer this immortal thing Which stands before me; I cannot abhor him; I look upon him with a pleasing fear, And yet I fly not from him: in his eye There is a fastening attraction which 410 Fixes my fluttering eyes on his; my heart Beats quick; he awes me, and yet draws me near, Nearer and nearer:--Cain--Cain--save me from him!
Cain. What dreads my Adah? This is no ill spirit.
Adah. He is not God--nor God's: I have beheld The Cherubs and the Seraphs; he looks not Like them.
Cain. But there are spirits loftier still-- The archangels.
Lucifer. And still loftier than the archangels.
Adah. Aye--but not blesséd.
Lucifer. If the blessedness Consists in slavery--no.
Adah. I have heard it said, 420 The Seraphs love most--Cherubim know most[107]-- And this should be a Cherub--since he loves not.
Lucifer. And if the higher knowledge quenches love, What must he be you cannot love when known?[ca] Since the all-knowing Cherubim love least, The Seraphs' love can be but ignorance: That they are not compatible, the doom Of thy fond parents, for their daring, proves. Choose betwixt Love and Knowledge--since there is No other choice: your sire hath chosen already: 430 His worship is but fear.
Adah. Oh, Cain! choose Love.
Cain. For thee, my Adah, I choose not--It was Born with me--but I love nought else.
Adah. Our parents?
Cain. Did they love us when they snatched from the Tree That which hath driven us all from Paradise?
Adah. We were not born then--and if we had been, Should we not love them--and our children, Cain?
Cain. My little Enoch! and his lisping sister! Could I but deem them happy, I would half Forget----but it can never be forgotten 440 Through thrice a thousand generations! never Shall men love the remembrance of the man Who sowed the seed of evil and mankind In the same hour! They plucked the tree of science And sin--and, not content with their own sorrow, Begot me--thee--and all the few that are, And all the unnumbered and innumerable Multitudes, millions, myriads, which may be, To inherit agonies accumulated By ages!--and I must be sire of such things! 450 Thy beauty and thy love--my love and joy, The rapturous moment and the placid hour, All we love in our children and each other, But lead them and ourselves through many years Of sin and pain--or few, but still of sorrow, Interchecked with an instant of brief pleasure, To Death--the unknown! Methinks the Tree of Knowledge Hath not fulfilled its promise:--if they sinned, At least they ought to have known all things that are Of knowledge--and the mystery of Death[cb]. 460 What do they know?--that they are miserable. What need of snakes and fruits to teach us that?
Adah. I am not wretched, Cain, and if thou Wert happy----
Cain. Be thou happy, then, alone-- I will have nought to do with happiness, Which humbles me and mine.
Adah. Alone I could not, Nor would be happy; but with those around us I think I could be so, despite of Death, Which, as I know it not, I dread not, though It seems an awful shadow--if I may 470 Judge from what I have heard.
Lucifer. And thou couldst not Alone, thou say'st, be happy?
Adah. Alone! Oh, my God! Who could be happy and alone, or good? To me my solitude seems sin; unless When I think how soon I shall see my brother, His brother, and our children, and our parents.
Lucifer. Yet thy God is alone; and is he happy? Lonely, and good?
Adah. He is not so; he hath The angels and the mortals to make happy, And thus becomes so in diffusing joy. 480 What else can joy be, but the spreading joy?[cc]
Lucifer. Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from Eden; Or of his first-born son: ask your own heart; It is not tranquil.
Adah. Alas! no! and you-- Are you of Heaven?
Lucifer. If I am not, enquire The cause of this all-spreading happiness (Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good Maker of life and living things; it is His secret, and he keeps it. We must bear, And some of us resist--and both in vain, 490 His Seraphs say: but it is worth the trial, Since better may not be without: there is A wisdom in the spirit, which directs To right, as in the dim blue air the eye Of you, young mortals, lights at once upon The star which watches, welcoming the morn.
Adah. It is a beautiful star; I love it for Its beauty.
Lucifer. And why not adore?
Adah. Our father Adores the Invisible only.
Lucifer. But the symbols Of the Invisible are the loveliest 500 Of what is visible; and yon bright star Is leader of the host of Heaven.
Adah. Our father Saith that he has beheld the God himself Who made him and our mother.
Lucifer. Hast thou seen him?
Adah. Yes--in his works.
Lucifer. But in his being?
Adah. No-- Save in my father, who is God's own image; Or in his angels, who are like to thee-- And brighter, yet less beautiful and powerful In seeming: as the silent sunny noon, All light, they look upon us; but thou seem'st 510 Like an ethereal night[108], where long white clouds Streak the deep purple, and unnumbered stars Spangle the wonderful mysterious vault With things that look as if they would be suns; So beautiful, unnumbered, and endearing, Not dazzling, and yet drawing us to them, They fill my eyes with tears, and so dost thou. Thou seem'st unhappy: do not make us so, And I will weep for thee.
Lucifer. Alas! those tears! Couldst thou but know what oceans will be shed---- 520
Adah. By me?
Lucifer. By all.
Adah. What all?
Lucifer. The million millions-- The myriad myriads--the all-peopled earth-- The unpeopled earth--and the o'er-peopled Hell, Of which thy bosom is the germ.
Adah. O Cain! This spirit curseth us.
Cain. Let him say on; Him will I follow.
Adah. Whither?
Lucifer. To a place Whence he shall come back to thee in an hour; But in that hour see things of many days.
Adah. How can that be?
Lucifer. Did not your Maker make Out of old worlds this new one in few days? 530 And cannot I, who aided in this work, Show in an hour what he hath made in many, Or hath destroyed in few?
Cain. Lead on.
Adah. Will he, In sooth, return within an hour?
Lucifer. He shall. With us acts are exempt from time, and we Can crowd eternity into an hour, Or stretch an hour into eternity: We breathe not by a mortal measurement-- But that's a mystery. Cain, come on with me.
Adah. Will he return?
Lucifer. Aye, woman! he alone 540 Of mortals from that place (the first and last Who shall return, save ONE), shall come back to thee, To make that silent and expectant world As populous as this: at present there Are few inhabitants.
Adah. Where dwellest thou?
Lucifer. Throughout all space. Where should I dwell? Where are Thy God or Gods--there am I: all things are Divided with me: Life and Death--and Time-- Eternity--and heaven and earth--and that Which is not heaven nor earth, but peopled with 550 Those who once peopled or shall people both-- These are my realms! so that I do divide His, and possess a kingdom which is not His[109]. If I were not that which I have said, Could I stand here? His angels are within Your vision.
Adah. So they were when the fair Serpent Spoke with our mother first.
Lucifer. Cain! thou hast heard. If thou dost long for knowledge, I can satiate That thirst; nor ask thee to partake of fruits Which shall deprive thee of a single good 560 The Conqueror has left thee. Follow me.
Cain. Spirit, I have said it. [Exeunt LUCIFER and CAIN.
Adah (follows exclaiming). Cain! my brother! Cain!
Act II, Scene I — The Abyss of Space
Cain. I tread on air, and sink not--yet I fear To sink.
Lucifer. Have faith in me, and thou shalt be Borne on the air[110], of which I am the Prince.
Cain. Can I do so without impiety?
Lucifer. Believe--and sink not! doubt--and perish! thus Would run the edict of the other God, Who names me Demon to his angels; they Echo the sound to miserable things, Which, knowing nought beyond their shallow senses, Worship the word which strikes their ear, and deem 10 Evil or good what is proclaimed to them In their abasement. I will have none such: Worship or worship not, thou shalt behold The worlds beyond thy little world, nor be Amerced for doubts beyond thy little life, With torture of my dooming. There will come An hour, when, tossed upon some water-drops[cd], A man shall say to a man, "Believe in me, And walk the waters;" and the man shall walk The billows and be safe. I will not say, 20 Believe in me, as a conditional creed To save thee; but fly with me o'er the gulf Of space an equal flight, and I will show What thou dar'st not deny,--the history Of past--and present, and of future worlds.
Cain. Oh God! or Demon! or whate'er thou art, Is yon our earth?
Lucifer. Dost thou not recognise The dust which formed your father?
Cain. Can it be? Yon small blue circle, swinging in far ether[ce], With an inferior circlet purpler it still[111], 30 Which looks like that which lit our earthly night? Is this our Paradise? Where are its walls, And they who guard them?
Lucifer. Point me out the site Of Paradise.
Cain. How should I? As we move Like sunbeams onward, it grows small and smaller, And as it waxes little, and then less, Gathers a halo round it, like the light Which shone the roundest of the stars, when I Beheld them from the skirts of Paradise: Methinks they both, as we recede from them, 40 Appear to join the innumerable stars Which are around us; and, as we move on, Increase their myriads.
Lucifer. And if there should be Worlds greater than thine own--inhabited By greater things--and they themselves far more In number than the dust of thy dull earth, Though multiplied to animated atoms, All living--and all doomed to death--and wretched, What wouldst thou think?
Cain. I should be proud of thought Which knew such things.
Lucifer. But if that high thought were 50 Linked to a servile mass of matter--and, Knowing such things, aspiring to such things, And science still beyond them, were chained down To the most gross and petty paltry wants, All foul and fulsome--and the very best Of thine enjoyments a sweet degradation, A most enervating and filthy cheat To lure thee on to the renewal of Fresh souls and bodies[112], all foredoomed to be As frail, and few so happy----
Cain. Spirit! I 60 Know nought of Death, save as a dreadful thing Of which I have heard my parents speak, as of A hideous heritage I owe to them No less than life--a heritage not happy, If I may judge, till now. But, Spirit! if It be as thou hast said (and I within Feel the prophetic torture of its truth), Here let me die: for to give birth to those Who can but suffer many years, and die-- Methinks is merely propagating Death, 70 And multiplying murder.
Lucifer. Thou canst not All die--there is what must survive.
Cain. The Other Spake not of this unto my father, when He shut him forth from Paradise, with death Written upon his forehead. But at least Let what is mortal of me perish, that I may be in the rest as angels are.
Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am?
Cain. I know not what thou art: I see thy power, And see thou show'st me things beyond my power, 80 Beyond all power of my born faculties, Although inferior still to my desires And my conceptions.
Lucifer. What are they which dwell So humbly in their pride, as to sojourn With worms in clay?
Cain. And what art thou who dwellest So haughtily in spirit, and canst range Nature and immortality--and yet Seem'st sorrowful?
Lucifer. I seem that which I am; And therefore do I ask of thee, if thou Wouldst be immortal?
Cain. Thou hast said, I must be 90 Immortal in despite of me. I knew not This until lately--but since it must be, Let me, or happy or unhappy, learn To anticipate my immortality.
Lucifer. Thou didst before I came upon thee.
Cain. How?
Lucifer. By suffering.
Cain. And must torture be immortal?
Lucifer. We and thy sons will try. But now, behold! Is it not glorious?
Cain. Oh thou beautiful And unimaginable ether! and Ye multiplying masses of increased 100 And still-increasing lights! what are ye? what Is this blue wilderness of interminable Air, where ye roll along, as I have seen The leaves along the limpid streams of Eden? Is your course measured for ye? Or do ye Sweep on in your unbounded revelry Through an aërial universe of endless Expansion--at which my soul aches to think-- Intoxicated with eternity[113]? Oh God! Oh Gods! or whatsoe'er ye are! 110 How beautiful ye are! how beautiful Your works, or accidents, or whatsoe'er They may be! Let me die, as atoms die, (If that they die), or know ye in your might And knowledge! My thoughts are not in this hour Unworthy what I see, though my dust is; Spirit! let me expire, or see them nearer.
Lucifer. Art thou not nearer? look back to thine earth!
Cain. Where is it? I see nothing save a mass Of most innumerable lights.
Lucifer. Look there! 120
Cain. I cannot see it.
Lucifer. Yet it sparkles still.
Cain. That!--yonder!
Lucifer. Yea.
Cain. And wilt thou tell me so? Why, I have seen the fire-flies and fire-worms Sprinkle the dusky groves and the green banks In the dim twilight, brighter than yon world Which bears them.
Lucifer. Thou hast seen both worms and worlds, Each bright and sparkling--what dost think of them?
Cain. That they are beautiful in their own sphere, And that the night, which makes both beautiful, The little shining fire-fly in its flight, 130 And the immortal star in its great course, Must both be guided.
Lucifer. But by whom or what?
Cain. Show me.
Lucifer. Dar'st thou behold?
Cain. How know I what I dare behold? As yet, thou hast shown nought I dare not gaze on further.
Lucifer. On, then, with me. Wouldst thou behold things mortal or immortal?
Cain. Why, what are things?
Lucifer. Both partly: but what doth Sit next thy heart?
Cain. The things I see.
Lucifer. But what Sate nearest it?
Cain. The things I have not seen, Nor ever shall--the mysteries of Death. 140
Lucifer. What, if I show to thee things which have died, As I have shown thee much which cannot die?
Cain. Do so.
Lucifer. Away, then! on our mighty wings!
Cain. Oh! how we cleave the blue! The stars fade from us! The earth! where is my earth? Let me look on it, For I was made of it.
Lucifer. 'Tis now beyond thee, Less, in the universe, than thou in it; Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; thou Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust: 'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine. 150
Cain. Where dost thou lead me?
Lucifer. To what was before thee! The phantasm of the world; of which thy world Is but the wreck.
Cain. What! is it not then new?
Lucifer. No more than life is; and that was ere thou Or I were, or the things which seem to us Greater than either: many things will have No end; and some, which would pretend to have Had no beginning, have had one as mean As thou; and mightier things have been extinct To make way for much meaner than we can 160 Surmise; for moments only and the space Have been and must be all unchangeable. But changes make not death, except to clay; But thou art clay--and canst but comprehend That which was clay, and such thou shall behold.
Cain. Clay--Spirit--what thou wilt--I can survey.
Lucifer. Away, then!
Cain. But the lights fade from me fast, And some till now grew larger as we approached, And wore the look of worlds.
Lucifer. And such they are.
Cain. And Edens in them?
Lucifer. It may be.
Cain. And men? 170
Lucifer. Yea, or things higher.
Cain. Aye! and serpents too?[cf]
Lucifer. Wouldst thou have men without them? must no reptiles Breathe, save the erect ones?
Cain. How the lights recede! Where fly we?
Lucifer. To the world of phantoms, which Are beings past, and shadows still to come.
Cain. But it grows dark, and dark--the stars are gone!
Lucifer. And yet thou seest.
Cain. 'Tis a fearful light! No sun--no moon--no lights innumerable-- The very blue of the empurpled night Fades to a dreary twilight--yet I see 180 Huge dusky masses; but unlike the worlds We were approaching, which, begirt with light, Seemed full of life even when their atmosphere Of light gave way, and showed them taking shapes Unequal, of deep valleys and vast mountains; And some emitting sparks, and some displaying Enormous liquid plains, and some begirt With luminous belts, and floating moons, which took, Like them, the features of fair earth:--instead, All here seems dark and dreadful.
Lucifer. But distinct. 190 Thou seekest to behold Death, and dead things?
Cain. I seek it not; but as I know there are Such, and that my sire's sin makes him and me, And all that we inherit, liable To such, I would behold, at once, what I Must one day see perforce.
Lucifer. Behold!
Cain. 'Tis darkness!
Lucifer. And so it shall be ever--but we will Unfold its gates!
Cain. Enormous vapours roll Apart--what's this?
Lucifer. Enter!
Cain. Can I return?
Lucifer. Return! be sure: how else should Death be peopled? 200 Its present realm is thin to what it will be, Through thee and thine.
Cain. The clouds still open wide And wider, and make widening circles round us!
Lucifer. Advance!
Cain. And thou!
Lucifer. Fear not--without me thou Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on! [They disappear through the clouds.
Act II, Scene II — Hades
Enter LUCIFER and CAIN.
Cain. How silent and how vast are these dim worlds! For they seem more than one, and yet more peopled Than the huge brilliant luminous orbs which swung So thickly in the upper air, that I Had deemed them rather the bright populace Of some all unimaginable Heaven, Than things to be inhabited themselves,[cg] But that on drawing near them I beheld Their swelling into palpable immensity Of matter, which seemed made for life to dwell on, 10 Rather than life itself. But here, all is So shadowy, and so full of twilight, that It speaks of a day past.
Lucifer. It is the realm Of Death.--Wouldst have it present?
Cain. Till I know That which it really is, I cannot answer. But if it be as I have heard my father Deal out in his long homilies, 'tis a thing-- Oh God! I dare not think on't! Curséd be He who invented Life that leads to Death! Or the dull mass of life, that, being life, 20 Could not retain, but needs must forfeit it-- Even for the innocent!
Lucifer. Dost thou curse thy father?
Cain. Cursed he not me in giving me my birth? Cursed he not me before my birth, in daring To pluck the fruit forbidden?
Lucifer. Thou say'st well: The curse is mutual 'twixt thy sire and thee-- But for thy sons and brother?
Cain. Let them share it With me, their sire and brother! What else is Bequeathed to me? I leave them my inheritance! Oh, ye interminable gloomy realms 30 Of swimming shadows and enormous shapes, Some fully shown, some indistinct, and all Mighty and melancholy--what are ye? Live ye, or have ye lived?
Lucifer. Somewhat of both.
Cain. Then what is Death?
Lucifer. What? Hath not he who made ye Said 'tis another life?
Cain. Till now he hath Said nothing, save that all shall die.
Lucifer. Perhaps He one day will unfold that further secret.
Cain. Happy the day!
Lucifer. Yes; happy! when unfolded, Through agonies unspeakable, and clogged 40 With agonies eternal, to innumerable Yet unborn myriads of unconscious atoms, All to be animated for this only!
Cain. What are these mighty phantoms which I see Floating around me?--They wear not the form Of the Intelligences I have seen Round our regretted and unentered Eden; Nor wear the form of man as I have viewed it In Adam's and in Abel's, and in mine, Nor in my sister-bride's, nor in my children's: 50 And yet they have an aspect, which, though not Of men nor angels, looks like something, which, If not the last, rose higher than the first, Haughty, and high, and beautiful, and full Of seeming strength, but of inexplicable Shape; for I never saw such. They bear not The wing of Seraph, nor the face of man, Nor form of mightiest brute, nor aught that is Now breathing; mighty yet and beautiful As the most beautiful and mighty which 60 Live, and yet so unlike them, that I scarce Can call them living.[114]
Lucifer. Yet they lived.
Cain. Where?
Lucifer. Where Thou livest.
Cain. When?
Lucifer. On what thou callest earth They did inhabit.
Cain. Adam is the first.
Lucifer. Of thine, I grant thee--but too mean to be The last of these.
Cain. And what are they?
Lucifer. That which Thou shalt be.
Cain. But what were they?
Lucifer. Living, high, Intelligent, good, great, and glorious things, As much superior unto all thy sire Adam could e'er have been in Eden, as 70 The sixty-thousandth generation shall be, In its dull damp degeneracy, to Thee and thy son;--and how weak they are, judge By thy own flesh.
Cain. Ah me! and did they perish?
Lucifer. Yes, from their earth, as thou wilt fade from thine.
Cain. But was mine theirs?
Lucifer. It was.
Cain. But not as now. It is too little and too lowly to Sustain such creatures.
Lucifer. True, it was more glorious.
Cain. And wherefore did it fall?
Lucifer. Ask him who fells.[115]
Cain. But how?
Lucifer. By a most crushing and inexorable 80 Destruction and disorder of the elements, Which struck a world to chaos, as a chaos Subsiding has struck out a world: such things, Though rare in time, are frequent in eternity.-- Pass on, and gaze upon the past.
Cain. 'Tis awful!
Lucifer. And true. Behold these phantoms! they were once Material as thou art.
Cain. And must I be Like them?
Lucifer. Let He[116] who made thee answer that. I show thee what thy predecessors are, And what they were thou feelest, in degree 90 Inferior as thy petty feelings and Thy pettier portion of the immortal part Of high intelligence and earthly strength. What ye in common have with what they had Is Life, and what ye shall have--Death: the rest Of your poor attributes is such as suits Reptiles engendered out of the subsiding Slime of a mighty universe, crushed into A scarcely-yet shaped planet, peopled with Things whose enjoyment was to be in blindness-- 100 A Paradise of Ignorance, from which Knowledge was barred as poison. But behold What these superior beings are or were; Or, if it irk thee, turn thee back and till The earth, thy task--I'll waft thee there in safety.
Cain. No: I'll stay here.
Lucifer. How long?
Cain. For ever! Since I must one day return here from the earth, I rather would remain; I am sick of all That dust has shown me--let me dwell in shadows.
Lucifer. It cannot be: thou now beholdest as 110 A vision that which is reality. To make thyself fit for this dwelling, thou Must pass through what the things thou seest have passed-- The gates of Death.
Cain. By what gate have we entered Even now?
Lucifer. By mine! But, plighted to return, My spirit buoys thee up to breathe in regions Where all is breathless save thyself. Gaze on; But do not think to dwell here till thine hour Is come!
Cain. And these, too--can they ne'er repass To earth again?
Lucifer. Their earth is gone for ever-- 120 So changed by its convulsion, they would not Be conscious to a single present spot Of its new scarcely hardened surface--'twas-- Oh, what a beautiful world it was!
Cain. And is! It is not with the earth, though I must till it, I feel at war--but that I may not profit By what it bears of beautiful, untoiling, Nor gratify my thousand swelling thoughts With knowledge, nor allay my thousand fears Of Death and Life.
Lucifer. What thy world is, thou see'st, 130 But canst not comprehend the shadow of That which it was.
Cain. And those enormous creatures, Phantoms inferior in intelligence (At least so seeming) to the things we have passed, Resembling somewhat the wild habitants Of the deep woods of earth, the hugest which Roar nightly in the forest, but ten-fold In magnitude and terror; taller than The cherub-guarded walls of Eden--with Eyes flashing like the fiery swords which fence them-- 140 And tusks projecting like the trees stripped of Their bark and branches--what were they?
Lucifer. That which The Mammoth is in thy world;--but these lie By myriads underneath its surface.
Cain. But None on it?
Lucifer. No: for thy frail race to war With them would render the curse on it useless-- 'Twould be destroyed so early.
Cain. But why war?
Lucifer. You have forgotten the denunciation Which drove your race from Eden--war with all things, And death to all things, and disease to most things, 150 And pangs, and bitterness; these were the fruits Of the forbidden tree.
Cain. But animals-- Did they, too, eat of it, that they must die?
Lucifer. Your Maker told ye, they were made for you, As you for him.--You would not have their doom Superior to your own? Had Adam not Fallen, all had stood.
Cain. Alas! the hopeless wretches! They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons; Like them, too, without having shared the apple; Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge! 160 It was a lying tree--for we know nothing. At least it promised knowledge at the price Of death--but knowledge still: but what knows man?
Lucifer. It may be death leads to the highest knowledge; And being of all things the sole thing certain,[ch] At least leads to the surest science: therefore The Tree was true, though deadly.
Cain. These dim realms! I see them, but I know them not.
Lucifer. Because Thy hour is yet afar, and matter cannot Comprehend spirit wholly--but 'tis something 170 To know there are such realms.
Cain. We knew already That there was Death.
Lucifer. But not what was beyond it.
Cain. Nor know I now.
Lucifer. Thou knowest that there is A state, and many states beyond thine own-- And this thou knewest not this morn.
Cain. But all Seems dim and shadowy.
Lucifer. Be content; it will Seem clearer to thine immortality.
Cain. And yon immeasurable liquid space Of glorious azure which floats on beyond us, Which looks like water, and which I should deem[ci] 180 The river which flows out of Paradise Past my own dwelling, but that it is bankless And boundless, and of an ethereal hue-- What is it?
Lucifer. There is still some such on earth, Although inferior, and thy children shall Dwell near it--'tis the phantasm of an Ocean.
Cain. 'Tis like another world; a liquid sun-- And those inordinate creatures sporting o'er Its shining surface?
Lucifer. Are its inhabitants, The past Leviathans.
Cain. And yon immense 190 Serpent, which rears his dripping mane and vasty Head, ten times higher than the haughtiest cedar, Forth from the abyss, looking as he could coil Himself around the orbs we lately looked on-- Is he not of the kind which basked beneath The Tree in Eden?
Lucifer. Eve, thy mother, best Can tell what shape of serpent tempted her.
Cain. This seems too terrible. No doubt the other Had more of beauty.
Lucifer. Hast thou ne'er beheld him?
Cain. Many of the same kind (at least so called) 200 But never that precisely, which persuaded The fatal fruit, nor even of the same aspect.
Lucifer. Your father saw him not?
Cain. No: 'twas my mother Who tempted him--she tempted by the serpent.
Lucifer. Good man! whene'er thy wife, or thy sons' wives, Tempt thee or them to aught that's new or strange, Be sure thou seest first who hath tempted them!
Cain. Thy precept comes too late: there is no more For serpents to tempt woman to.
Lucifer. But there Are some things still which woman may tempt man to, 210 And man tempt woman:--let thy sons look to it! My counsel is a kind one; for 'tis even Given chiefly at my own expense; 'tis true, 'Twill not be followed, so there's little lost.[117]
Cain. I understand not this.
Lucifer. The happier thou!-- Thy world and thou are still too young! Thou thinkest Thyself most wicked and unhappy--is it Not so?
Cain. For crime, I know not; but for pain, I have felt much.
Lucifer. First-born of the first man! Thy present state of sin--and thou art evil, 220 Of sorrow--and thou sufferest, are both Eden In all its innocence compared to what Thou shortly may'st be; and that state again, In its redoubled wretchedness, a Paradise To what thy sons' sons' sons, accumulating In generations like to dust (which they In fact but add to), shall endure and do.-- Now let us back to earth!
Cain. And wherefore didst thou Lead me here only to inform me this?
Lucifer. Was not thy quest for knowledge?
Cain. Yes--as being 230 The road to happiness!
Lucifer. If truth be so, Thou hast it.
Cain. Then my father's God did well When he prohibited the fatal Tree.
Lucifer. But had done better in not planting it. But ignorance of evil doth not save From evil; it must still roll on the same, A part of all things.
Cain. Not of all things. No-- I'll not believe it--for I thirst for good.
Lucifer. And who and what doth not? Who covets evil For its own bitter sake?--None--nothing! 'tis 240 The leaven of all life, and lifelessness.
Cain. Within those glorious orbs which we behold, Distant, and dazzling, and innumerable, Ere we came down into this phantom realm, Ill cannot come: they are too beautiful.
Lucifer. Thou hast seen them from afar.
Cain. And what of that? Distance can but diminish glory--they, When nearer, must be more ineffable.
Lucifer. Approach the things of earth most beautiful, And judge their beauty near.
Cain. I have done this-- 250 The loveliest thing I know is loveliest nearest.
Lucifer. Then there must be delusion.--What is that Which being nearest to thine eyes is still More beautiful than beauteous things remote?
Cain. My sister Adah.--All the stars of heaven, The deep blue noon of night, lit by an orb Which looks a spirit, or a spirit's world-- The hues of twilight--the Sun's gorgeous coming-- His setting indescribable, which fills My eyes with pleasant tears as I behold 260 Him sink, and feel my heart float softly with him Along that western paradise of clouds-- The forest shade, the green bough, the bird's voice-- The vesper bird's, which seems to sing of love, And mingles with the song of Cherubim, As the day closes over Eden's walls;-- All these are nothing, to my eyes and heart, Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven To gaze on it.
Lucifer. 'Tis fair as frail mortality, In the first dawn and bloom of young creation, 270 And earliest embraces of earth's parents, Can make its offspring; still it is delusion.
Cain. You think so, being not her brother.
Lucifer. Mortal! My brotherhood's with those who have no children.
Cain. Then thou canst have no fellowship with us.
Lucifer. It may be that thine own shall be for me. But if thou dost possess a beautiful Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes, Why art thou wretched?
Cain. Why do I exist? Why art thou wretched? why are all things so? 280 Ev'n he who made us must be, as the maker Of things unhappy! To produce destruction Can surely never be the task of joy, And yet my sire says he's omnipotent: Then why is Evil--he being Good? I asked This question of my father; and he said, Because this Evil only was the path To Good. Strange Good, that must arise from out Its deadly opposite. I lately saw A lamb stung by a reptile: the poor suckling 290 Lay foaming on the earth, beneath the vain And piteous bleating of its restless dam; My father plucked some herbs, and laid them to The wound; and by degrees the helpless wretch Resumed its careless life, and rose to drain The mother's milk, who o'er it tremulous Stood licking its reviving limbs with joy. Behold, my son! said Adam, how from Evil Springs Good![118]
Lucifer. What didst thou answer?
Cain. Nothing; for He is my father: but I thought, that 'twere 300 A better portion for the animal Never to have been stung at all, than to Purchase renewal of its little life With agonies unutterable, though Dispelled by antidotes.
Lucifer. But as thou saidst Of all belovéd things thou lovest her Who shared thy mother's milk, and giveth hers Unto thy children----
Cain. Most assuredly: What should I be without her?
Lucifer. What am I?
Cain. Dost thou love nothing?
Lucifer. What does thy God love? 310
Cain. All things, my father says; but I confess I see it not in their allotment here.
Lucifer. And, therefore, thou canst not see if I love Or no--except some vast and general purpose, To which particular things must melt like snows.
Cain. Snows! what are they?
Lucifer. Be happier in not knowing What thy remoter offspring must encounter; But bask beneath the clime which knows no winter.
Cain. But dost thou not love something like thyself?
Lucifer. And dost thou love thyself?
Cain. Yes, but love more 320 What makes my feelings more endurable, And is more than myself, because I love it!
Lucifer. Thou lovest it, because 'tis beautiful, As was the apple in thy mother's eye; And when it ceases to be so, thy love Will cease, like any other appetite.[119]
Cain. Cease to be beautiful! how can that be?
Lucifer. With time.
Cain. But time has passed, and hitherto Even Adam and my mother both are fair: Not fair like Adah and the Seraphim-- 330 But very fair.
Lucifer. All that must pass away In them and her.
Cain. I'm sorry for it; but Cannot conceive my love for her the less: And when her beauty disappears, methinks He who creates all beauty will lose more Than me in seeing perish such a work.
Lucifer. I pity thee who lovest what must perish.
Cain. And I thee who lov'st nothing.
Lucifer. And thy brother-- Sits he not near thy heart?
Cain. Why should he not?
Lucifer. Thy father loves him well--so does thy God. 340
Cain. And so do I.
Lucifer. 'Tis well and meekly done.
Cain. Meekly!
Lucifer. He is the second born of flesh, And is his mother's favourite.
Cain. Let him keep Her favour, since the Serpent was the first To win it.
Lucifer. And his father's?
Cain. What is that To me? should I not love that which all love?
Lucifer. And the Jehovah--the indulgent Lord, And bounteous planter of barred Paradise-- He, too, looks smilingly on Abel.
Cain. I Ne'er saw him, and I know not if he smiles. 350
Lucifer. But you have seen his angels.
Cain. Rarely.
Lucifer. But Sufficiently to see they love your brother: His sacrifices are acceptable.
Cain. So be they! wherefore speak to me of this?
Lucifer. Because thou hast thought of this ere now.
Cain. And if I have thought, why recall a thought that---- (he pauses as agitated)--Spirit! Here we are in thy world; speak not of mine. Thou hast shown me wonders: thou hast shown me those Mighty Pre-Adamites who walked the earth Of which ours is the wreck: thou hast pointed out 360 Myriads of starry worlds, of which our own Is the dim and remote companion, in Infinity of life: thou hast shown me shadows Of that existence with the dreaded name Which my sire brought us--Death;[cj] thou hast shown me much But not all: show me where Jehovah dwells, In his especial Paradise--or thine: Where is it?
Lucifer. Here, and o'er all space.
Cain. But ye Have some allotted dwelling--as all things; Clay has its earth, and other worlds their tenants; 370 All temporary breathing creatures their Peculiar element; and things which have Long ceased to breathe our breath, have theirs, thou say'st; And the Jehovah and thyself have thine-- Ye do not dwell together?
Lucifer. No, we reign Together; but our dwellings are asunder.
Cain. Would there were only one of ye! perchance An unity of purpose might make union In elements which seem now jarred in storms. How came ye, being Spirits wise and infinite, 380 To separate? Are ye not as brethren in Your essence--and your nature, and your glory?
Lucifer. Art not thou Abel's brother?
Cain. We are brethren, And so we shall remain; but were it not so, Is spirit like to flesh? can it fall out-- Infinity with Immortality? Jarring and turning space to misery-- For what?
Lucifer. To reign.
Cain. Did ye not tell me that Ye are both eternal?
Lucifer. Yea!
Cain. And what I have seen-- Yon blue immensity, is boundless?
Lucifer. Aye. 390 Cain. And cannot ye both reign, then?--is there not Enough?--why should ye differ?
Lucifer. We both reign.
Cain. But one of you makes evil.
Lucifer. Which?
Cain. Thou! for If thou canst do man good, why dost thou not?
Lucifer. And why not he who made? I made ye not; Ye are his creatures, and not mine.
Cain. Then leave us His creatures, as thou say'st we are, or show me Thy dwelling, or his dwelling.
Lucifer. I could show thee Both; but the time will come thou shalt see one Of them for evermore.[120]
Cain. And why not now? 400
Lucifer. Thy human mind hath scarcely grasp to gather The little I have shown thee into calm And clear thought: and thou wouldst go on aspiring To the great double Mysteries! the two Principles![121] And gaze upon them on their secret thrones! Dust! limit thy ambition; for to see Either of these would be for thee to perish!
Cain. And let me perish, so I see them!
Lucifer. There The son of her who snatched the apple spake! But thou wouldst only perish, and not see them; 410 That sight is for the other state.
Cain. Of Death?
Lucifer. That is the prelude.
Cain. Then I dread it less, Now that I know it leads to something definite.
Lucifer. And now I will convey thee to thy world, Where thou shall multiply the race of Adam, Eat, drink, toil, tremble, laugh, weep, sleep--and die!
Cain. And to what end have I beheld these things Which thou hast shown me?
Lucifer. Didst thou not require Knowledge? And have I not, in what I showed, Taught thee to know thyself?
Cain. Alas! I seem 420 Nothing.[122]
Lucifer. And this should be the human sum Of knowledge, to know mortal nature's nothingness; Bequeath that science to thy children, and 'Twill spare them many tortures.
Cain. Haughty spirit! Thou speak'st it proudly; but thyself, though proud, Hast a superior.
Lucifer. No! By heaven, which he Holds, and the abyss, and the immensity Of worlds and life, which I hold with him--No! I have a Victor--true; but no superior.[123] Homage he has from all--but none from me: 430 I battle it against him, as I battled In highest Heaven--through all Eternity, And the unfathomable gulfs of Hades, And the interminable realms of space, And the infinity of endless ages, All, all, will I dispute! And world by world, And star by star, and universe by universe, Shall tremble in the balance, till the great Conflict shall cease, if ever it shall cease, Which it ne'er shall, till he or I be quenched! 440 And what can quench our immortality, Or mutual and irrevocable hate? He as a conqueror will call the conquered Evil; but what will be the Good he gives? Were I the victor, his works would be deemed The only evil ones. And you, ye new And scarce-born mortals, what have been his gifts To you already, in your little world?
Cain. But few; and some of those but bitter.
Lucifer. Back With me, then, to thine earth, and try the rest 450 Of his celestial boons to you and yours. Evil and Good are things in their own essence, And not made good or evil by the Giver; But if he gives you good--so call him; if Evil springs from him, do not name it mine, Till ye know better its true fount; and judge Not by words, though of Spirits, but the fruits Of your existence, such as it must be. One good gift has the fatal apple given,-- Your reason:--let it not be overswayed 460 By tyrannous threats to force you into faith 'Gainst all external sense and inward feeling: Think and endure,--and form an inner world In your own bosom--where the outward fails; So shall you nearer be the spiritual Nature, and war triumphant with your own. [They disappear.