Noble Venetians! stir me not with questions.
I am resign'd to the worst; but in me still
Have something of the blood of brighter days,
And am not over-patient. Pray you, spare me
Further interrogation, which boots nothing,
Except to turn a trial to debate.

I shall but answer that which will offend you,
And please your enemies—a host already:

T is true, these sullen walls should yield no echo;
But walls have ears-nay, more, they have tongues;
and if

There were no other way for truth to o'erleap them,
You who condemn me, you who fear and slay me,
Yet could not bear in silence to your graves
What you would hear from me of good or evil;
The secret were too mighty for your souls:
Then let it sleep in mine, unless you court
A danger which would double that you escape.
Such
my defence would be, had I full
scope
To make it famous; for true words are things,
And dying men's are things which long outlive,
And oftentimes avenge them; bury mine,

would fain survive me: take this counsel, And though too oft ye made me live in wrath, Let me die calmly; you may grant me this;— I deny nothing-defend nothing-nothing

I ask of you, but silence for myself,

And scutence from the court!

BENINTENDE

This full admission

Spares us the harsh necessity of ordering

The torture to elicit the whole truth.

It is.

ALL.

DOGE.

Oh, admirable laws of Venice! Which would admit the wife, in the full hope That she might testify against the husband. What glory to the chaste Venetian dames! But such blasphemers 'gainst all honour, as Sit here, do well to act in their vocation. Now, villain Steno ! if this woman fail, I'll pardon thee thy lie, and thy escape, And my own violent death, and thy vile life. The DUCHESS enters.

BENINTENDE.

Lady! this just tribunal has resolved,
Though the request be strange, to grant it, and,
Whatever be its purport, to accord

A patient hearing with the due respect
Which fits your ancestry, your rank, and virtues :
But you turn pale--ho! there, look to the lady!
Place a chair instantly.

ANGIOLINA.

A moment's faintness| T is past; I pray you pardon me, I sit not In presence of my prince, and of my husband, While he is on his feet.

BENINTENDE.

Your pleasure, lady?

ANGIOLINA.

Strange rumours, but most true, if all I hear
And see be sooth, have reach'd me, and I come
To know the worst; even at the worst; forgive
The abruptness of my entrance and my bearing.
Is it -- I cannot speak - I cannot shape
The question-but you auswer it ere spoken,
With eyes averted, and with gloomy brows-
Oh God! this is the silence of the grave!
BENINTENDE (after a pause).
Spare us, and spare thyself the repetition
Of our most awful, but inexorable
Duty to Heaven and man!

ANGIOLINA.

Yet speak, I cannot

I cannot-no-even now believe these things. Is he condemn'd?

BENINTENDE.

Alas!

ANGIOLINA.

And was he guilty?

BENINTENDE.

Lady! the natural distraction of

Thy thoughts at such a moment makes the question Merit forgiveness; else a doubt like this

Against a just and paramount tribunal

Were deep offence. But question even the Doge, And if he can deny the proofs, believe him Guiltless as thy own bosom.

ANGIOLINA.

Is it so'

My lord-my sovereign-my poor father's friend-
The mighty in the field, the sage in council;
Unsay the words of this man!--Thou art silent!

BENINTENDE.

He hath already own'd to his own guilt, Nor, as thou seest, doth he deny it now.

ANGIOLINA.

Ay, but he must not die! Spare his few years,
Which grief and shame will soon cut down to days!
One day of baffled crime must not efface
Near sixteen lustres crowded with brave acts.

BENINTENDE.

His doom must be fulfill'd without remission Of time or penalty-'t is a decree.

ANGIOLINA.

He hath been guilty, but there may be mercy.

BENINTENDE.

Not in this case with justice.

ANGIOLINA.

Alas! signor,

He who is only just is cruel; who

Upon the earth would live, were all judged justly?

BENINTENDE.

His punishment is safety to the state.

ANGIOLINA.

He was a subject, and hath served the state; He was your general, and hath saved the state; He is your sovereign, and hath ruled the state,

ONE OF THE COUNCIL.

He is a traitor, and betray'd the state.

ANGIOLINA.

And, but for him, there now had been no state
To save or to destroy; and you who sit
There to pronounce the death of your deliverer,
Had now been groaning at a Moslem oar,
Or digging in the Hunnish mines in fetters!

ONE OF THE COUNCIL.

No, lady, there are others who would die Rather than breathe in slavery!

ANGIOLINA.

If there are so Within these walls, thou art not of the number: The truly brave are generous to the fallen!Is there no hope?

DENINTENDE.

Lady, it cannot be.
ANGIOLINA (turning to the DOGE).
Then die, Faliero! since it must be so;
But with the spirit of my father's friend.
Thou hast been guilty of a great offence,
Half-cancell'd by the harshness of these men.
I would have sued to them-have pray'd to them—
Have begg'd as famish'd mendicants for bread-
Have wept as they will cry unto their God
For mercy, and be answer'd as they answer—
Had it been fitting for thy name or mine,
And if the cruelty in their cold eyes

Had not announced the heartless wrath within.
Then, as a prince, address thee to thy doom!

DOGE.

I have lived too long not to know how to die!
Thy suing to these men were but the bleating
Of the lamb to the butcher, or the cry
Of seamen to the surge: I would not take
A life eternal, granted at the hands

Of wretches, from whose monstrous villanies
I sought to free the groaning nations!

MICHEL STENO.

Doge, A word with thee, and with this noble lady, Whom I have grievously offended. Would

Sorrow, or shame, or penance on my part,
Could cancel the inexorable past!

But since that cannot be, as Christians let us
Say farewell, and in peace: with full contrition
I crave, not pardon, but compassion from you,
And give, however weak, my prayers for both.

ANGIOLINA.

Sage Benintende, now chief judge of Venice,
I speak to thee in answer to yon signor.
Inform the ribald Steno, that his words
Ne'er weigh'd in mind with Loredano's daughter
Further than to create a moment's pity
For such as he is; would that others had
Despised him as I pity! I prefer
My honour to a thousand lives, could such
Be multiplied in mine, but would not have
A single life of others lost for that
Which nothing human can impugn-the sense
Of virtue, looking not to what is called
A good name for reward, but to itself.
To me the scorner's words were as the wind
Unto the rock: but as there are-alas!
Spirits more sensitive, on which such things
Light as the whirlwind on the waters; souls
To whom dishonour's shadow is a substance
More terrible than death here and hereafter;
Men whose vice is to start at vice's scoffing,
And who, though proof against all blandishments
Of pleasure, and all pangs of pain, are feeble
When the proud name on which they pinnacled
Their hopes is breathed on, jealous as the eagle
Of her high aiery; let what we now
Behold, and feel, and suffer, be a lesson
To wretches how they tamper in their spleen
With beings of a higher order. Insects
Ilave made the lion mad ere now; a shaft

I the heel o'erthrew the bravest of the brave;
A wife's dishonour was the bane of Troy;
A wife's dishonour unking'd Rome for ever;
An injured husband brought the Gauls to Clusium,
And thence to Rome, which perish'd for a time;
An obscene gesture cost Caligula

His life, while earth yet bore his cruelties;

A virgin's wrong made Spain a Moorish province;
And Steno's lie, couch'd in two worthless lines,
Hath decimated Venice, put in peril

A senate which hath stood eight hundred years,
Discrown'd a prince, cut off his crownless head,
And forged new fetters for a groaning people!
Let the poor wretch, like to the courtesan
Who fired Persepolis, be proud of this,
If it so please him-'t were a pride fit for him'
But let him not insult the last hours of
Him, who, whate'er he now is, was a hero,
By the intrusion of his very prayers;

Nothing of good can come from such a source,
Nor would we aught with him, nor now, nor ever:
We leave him to himself, that lowest depth
Of human baseness. Pardon is for men,
And not for reptiles-we have none for Steno,
And no resentment; things like him must sting,
And higher beings suffer; 't is the charter
Of life. The man who dies by the adder's fang
May have the crawler crush'd, but feels no anger:
"T was the worm's nature; and some men are worms
In soul, more than the living things of tombs.

DOGE (to BENINTENDE).

Signor, complete that which you deem your duty.

BENINTENDE.

Before we can proceed upon that duty,
We would request the princess to withdraw;
I will move her too much to be witness to it.
ANGIOLINA.

I know it will, and yet I must endure it;
For 't is a part of mine-I will not quit,
Except by force, my husband's side.-Proceed!
Nay, fear not either shriek, or sigh, or tear!
Though my heart burst, it shall be silent.--Speak!
I have that within which shall o'ermaster all.

BENINTENDE.

Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice,
Count of Val di Marino, Senator,

And some time General of the Fleet and Army,
Noble Venetian, many times and oft
Entrusted by the state with high employments,
Even to the highest, listen to the sentence.
Convict by many witnesses and proofs,
And by thine own confession, of the guilt

› Of treachery and treason, yet unheard of
Until this trial-the decree is death.
Thy goods are confiscate unto the state,
Thy name is razed from out her records, save
Upon a public day of thanksgiving
For this our most miraculous deliverance,
When thou art noted in our calendars
With earthquakes, pestilence, and foreign foes,
And the great enemy of man, as subject

Of grateful masses for Heaven's grace in snatching
Our lives and country from thy wickedness.
The place wherein as Doge thou shouldst be painted,
With thine illustrious predecessors, is
To be left vacant, with a death-black veil
Flung over these dim words engraved beneath,—
This place is of Marino Faliero,
Decapitated for his crimes.>>

You have nought to do except confess and die.
The priest is robed, the scimitar is bare,
And both await without.-But, above all,
Think not to speak unto the people; they
Are now by thousands swarming at the gates,
But these are closed: the Ten, the Avogadori,
The Giunta, and the chief men of the Forty,
Alone will be beholders of thy doom,
And they are ready to attend the Doge.

The Doge!

DOGE.

BENINTENDE.

Yes, Doge, thou hast lived and thou shalt die
A sovereign; till the moment which precedes
The separation of that head and trunk,
That ducal crown and head shall be united.
Thou hast forgot thy dignity in deiguing
To plot with petty traitors; not so we,
Who in the very punishment acknowledge
The prince. Thy vile accomplices have died
The dog's death, and the wolf's; but thou shalt fall
As falls the lion by the hunters, girt

By those who feel a proud compassion for thee,
And mourn even the inevitable death

Provoked by thy wild wrath and regal fierceness.
Now we remit thee to thy preparation:

Let it be brief, and we ourselves will be
Thy guides unto the place where first we were
United to thee as thy subjects, and
Thy senate; and must now be parted from thee
As such for ever on the self-same spot.-
Guards! form the Doge's escort to his chamber.

[Exeunt.

Long years ago-so long, they are a doubt
In memory, and yet they live in annals:
When I was in my youth, and served the senate
And signory as podesta and captain
Of the town of Treviso, on a day
Of festival, the sluggish bishop who
Convey'd the Host aroused my rash young anger,
By strange delay, and arrogant reply

To my reproof; I raised my hand and smote him,
Until he reel'd beneath his holy burthen;
And, as he rose from earth again, he raised
His tremulous hands in pious wrath towards Heaven.
Thence pointing to the Host, which had fallen from him,
He turn'd to me, and said, «The hour will come
When he thou hast o'erthrown shall overthrow thee:
The glory shall depart from out thy house,
The wisdom shall be shaken from thy soul,
And in thy best maturity of mind,

A madness of the heart shall seize upon thee;
Passion shall tear thee when all passions cease
In other men, or mellow into virtues;
And majesty, which decks all other heads,
Shall crown to leave thee headless; honours shall
But prove to thee the heralds of destruction,
And hoary hairs of shame, and both of death,
But not such death as tits an aged man.»>
Thus saying, he pass'd on.-That hour is come.

ANGIOLINA.

And with this warning couldst thou not have striven To avert the fatal moment, and atone

By penitence for that which thou hadst done?

DOGE.

I own the words went to my heart, so much
That I remember'd them amid the maze
Of life, as if they form'd a spectral voice,
Which shook me in a supernatural dream;
And I repented; but 't was not for me
To pull in resolution: what must be

I could not change, and would not fear. Nay, more,
Thou canst not have forgot what all remember,
That on my day of landing here as Doge,

On my return from Rome, a mist of such
Unwonted density went on before
The bucentaur, like the columnar cloud
Which usher'd Israel out of Egyt, till
The pilot was misled, and disembark'd us
Between the pillars of Saint Mark's, where 'tis
The custom of the state to put to death
Its criminals, instead of touching at
The Riva della Paglia, as the wont is,-
So that all Venice shudder'd at the omen.

ANGIOLINA.

Ah! little boots it now to recollect Such things.

DOGE.

And yet I find a comfort in The thought that these things are the work of Fate; For I would rather yield to gods than men, Or cling to any creed of destiny,

Rather than deem these mortals, most of whom

I know to be as worthless as the dust,

And weak as worthless, more than instruments
Of an o'er-ruling power; they in themselves
Were all incapable-they could not be
Victors of him who oft had conquer'd for them!

ANGIOLINA.

Employ the minutes left in aspirations
Of a more healing nature, and in peace
Even with these wretches take thy flight to heaven.

DOGE.

I am at peace: the peace of certainty
That a sure hour will come, when their sons' sons
And this proud city, and these azure waters,
And all which makes them eminent and bright,
Shall be a desolation and a curse,

A hissing and a scoff unto the nations,
A Carthage, and a Tyre, an Ocean-Babel!

ANGIOLINA.

Speak not thus now; the surge of passion still Sweeps o'er thee to the last; thou dost deceive Thyself and canst not injure them-be calmer.

DOGE.

I stand within eternity, and see
Into eternity, and I behold—
Ay, palpable as I see thy sweet face
For the last time-the days which I denounce
Unto all time against these wave-girt walls,
And they who are indwellers.

GUARD (coming forward.
Doge of Venice.
The Ten are in attendance on your highness,

DOGE.

Then farewell, Angiolina!-one embrace-
Forgive the old man who hath been to thee
A fond but fatal husband-love my memory-

I would not ask so much for me still living,
But thou canst judge of me more kindly now,

Seeing my evil feelings are at rest.

Besides, of all the fruit of these long years,

Glory, and wealth, and power, and fame, and name,

Which generally leave some flowers to bloom

Even o'er the grave, I have nothing left, not even

A little love, or friendship, or esteem,

No, not enough to extract an epitaph
From ostentatious kinsmen; in one hour

I have uprooted all my former life,

And outlived every thing, except thy heart,

your

The pure, the good, the gentle, which will oft
With unimpair'd but not a clamorous grief
Still keep-Thou turn'st so pale-Alas! she faints,
She hath no breath, no pulse! Guards! lend aid—
I cannot leave her thus, and yet 'tis better,
Since every lifeless moment spares a pang.
When she shakes off this temporary death,
I shall be with the Eternal.-Call her women-
One look!-how cold her hand! as cold as mine
Shall be ere she recovers.-Gently tend her,
And take my last thanks.--I am ready now.
[The Attendants of ANGIOLINA enter and sur-
round their mistress, who has fainted.
Exeunt the DOGE, Guards, etc. etc.

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

DOGE.

I speak to Time and to Eternity,

Of which I grow a portion, not to man. Ye elements! in which to be resolved

I hasten, let my voice be as a spirit
Upon you! Ye blue waves! which bore my banner,
Ye winds! which flutter'd o'er as if you loved it,
And fill'd my swelling sails as they were wafted
To many a triumph! Thou, my native earth,
Which I have bled for, and thou foreign earth,
Which drank this willing blood from many a wound!
Ye stones, in which my gore will not sink, but
Reek up to Heaven! Ye skies, which will receive it!
Thou sun! which shinest on these things, and Thou!
Who kindlest and who quenchest suns!-Attest
I am not innocent-but are these guiltless?
I perish, but not unavenged; far ages
Float up from the abyss of time to be,
And show these eyes, before they close, the doom
Of this proud city, and I leave my curse
On her and hers for ever!-Yes, the hours
Are silently engendering of the day,
When she who built 'gainst Attila a bulwark,
Shall yield, and bloodlessly and basely yield
Unto a bastard Attila, without

Shedding so much blood in her last defence
As these old veins, oft drain'd in shielding her,
Shall pour in sacrifice.-She shall be bought
And sold, and be an appanage to those
Who shall despise her!-She shall stoop to be
A province for an empire, petty town
In lieu of capital, with slaves for senates,
Beggars for nobles, panders for a people! 10
Then, when the Hebrew 's in thy palaces, '
The Hun in thy high places, and the Greek
Walks o'er thy mart, and smiles on it for his!
When thy patricians beg their bitter bread
In narrow streets, and in their shameful need
Make their nobility a plea for pity!
Then, when the few who still retain a wreck
Of their great fathers' heritage shall fawn
Round a barbarian Vice of Kings Vice-gerent
Even in the palace where they sway'd as sovereigns,
Even in the palace where they slew their sovereign,
Proud of some name they have disgraced, or sprung
From an adulteress boastful of her guilt
With some large gondolier or foreign soldier,
Shall bear about their bastardy in triumph
To the third spurious generation;-when
Thy sons are in the lowest scale of being,
Slaves turn'd o'er to the vanquish'd by the victors,
Despised by cowards for greater cowardice,
And scorn'd even by the vicious for such vices
As in the monstrous grasp of their conception
Defy all codes to image or to name them;
Then, when of Cyprus, now thy subject kingdom,
All thine inheritance shall be her shame
Entail'd on thy less virtuous daughters, grown

A wider proverb for worse prostitution;-

When all the ills of conquer'd states shall cling thee,

Vice without splendour, sin without relief

Even from the gloss of love to smooth it o'er.
But in its stead coarse lusts of habitude,
Prarient yet passionless, cold studied lewdness,