I have not

Have him bear more than mortal pain, in silence?
Mar. We all must bear our tortures.
Left barren the great house of Foscari,
Though they sweep both the Doge and son from life;
I have endured as much in giving life
To those who will succeed them, as they can
In leaving it but mine were joyful pangs:
And yet they wrung me till I could have shriek'd,
But did not; for my hope was to bring forth
Heroes, and would not welcome them with tears. (1)
Mem. All's silent now.
Man

Perhaps all's over; but
I will not deem it: he hath nerved himself,
And now defies them.

To trample on all human feelings, all
Ties which bind man to man; to emulate
The fiends, who will one day requite them in
Variety of torturing! Yet I'll pass.

Mem. It is impossible..
Mar.

That shall be tried.
Despair defies even despotism: there is
That in my heart would make its way through hosts
With levell'd spears; and think you a few jailors
Shall put me from my path? Give me, then, way;
This is the Doge's palace; I am wife

Of the Duke's son, the innocent Duke's son,
And they shall hear this!

Mem.

It will only serve

And,

Sen.
Even if she be so, cannot save her husband.
But, see, the officer returns.

[The Officer passes over the stage with another pers
Mem.
I hardly
Thought that "the Ten" had even this touch of pity,
Or would permit assistance to the sufferer.

Sen. Pity! Is't pity to recall to feeling
The wretch, too happy to escape to death
By the compassionate trance, poor nature's last
Resource against the tyranny of pain?

Mem. I marvel they condemn him not at once.
Sen. That's not their policy: they'd have him live,
Because he fears not death; and banish him,
Because all earth, except his native land,
To him is one wide prison, and each breath
Of foreign air he draws seems a slow poison,
Consuming but not killing.

Circumstance

Mem. Confirms his crimes, but he avows them not. Sen. None, save the letter, (2) which he says was

written, Address'd to Milan's duke, in the full knowledge That it would fall into the senate's hands, And thus he should be re-convey'd to Venice.

Had perish'd, blotted out at once and rased,
But for the rugged limb of an old oak,')
Soliciting his influence with the state,
And drops it to be found." Rogers.-L. E.

"Francesco Sforza. His father, when at work in the Belds, ww accosted by some soldiers, and asked if he would enlist. Let me throw my mattock on that oak,' he replied, and if it remains ti I will. It remained there; and the peasant, regarding it as a s enlisted. He became soldier, general, prince; and his grandson, the palace at Milan, said to Paulus Jovius, You behold these guards and this grandeur. I owe every thing to the branch of an ork, the branch that held my grandfather's mattock."—Rogers.

not sign'd.

Doge. Not sign'd? Ah, I perceive my eyes begin To wax more weak with age. I did not see That I had dipp'd the pen without effect. (1)

Sen. (dipping the pen into the ink, and placing the
paper before the DoGE.) Your hand, too,
shakes, my lord: allow me, thus-
Doge. 'Tis done, I thank you.
Sen.
Thus the act, confirm'd
By you and by "the Ten," gives peace to Venice.
Doge. 'Tis long since she enjoy'd it: may it be
As long ere she resume her arms!

Sen.
"Tis almost
Thirty-four years of nearly ceaseless warfare
With the Turk, or the powers of Italy;

The state had need of some repose.

Doge.

No doubt:

Of things you know not: but the treaty's sign'd; Return with it to them who sent you.

1

Sen. Obey. I had in charge, too, from the Council That you would fix an hour for their re-union.

Enter an Attendant.

Att. Prince! Doge. Att. Requests an audience.

Doge. Marina!

Say on.

The illustrious lady Foscari

Bid her enter. Poor

[Exit Attendant. [The DOGE remains in silence as before. Enter MARINA.

Mar. I have ventured, father, on Your privacy.

Doge. I have none from you, my child.
Command my time, when not commanded by
The state.

Mar. I wish'd to speak to you of him.
Doge. Your husband?

Mar.

And your son.

Doge. Proceed, my daughter!

Mar. I had obtain'd permission from "the Ten"

To attend my husband for a limited number
Of hours.

Doge.

You had so.

Mar. "The Ten."-When we had reach'd "the
Bridge of Sighs,"

Which I prepared to pass with Foscari,
The gloomy guardian of that passage first
Demurr'd: a messenger was sent back to
"The Ten;" but as the court no longer sate,
And no permission had been given in writing,
I was thrust back, with the assurance that
Until that high tribunal re-assembled
The dungeon walls must still divide us.
Doge.

True,

The form has been omitted in the haste With which the court adjourn'd; and till it meets, 'Tis dubious.

Mar.

Till it meets! and when it meets, They'll torture him again; and he and I Must purchase by renewal of the rack The interview of husband and of wife, The holiest tie beneath the heavens!-Oh God! Dost thou see this?

Doge.

Mar. (abruptly.)

Child-child

Call me not "child!"

moment,

[cause

If it so please them: I am the state's servant.
Sen. They would accord some time for your repose.
Doge. I have no repose, that is, none which shall
The loss of an hour's time unto the state.
Let them meet when they will, I shall be found
Where I should be, and what I have been ever.
[Exit SENATOR.
[The DOGE remains in silence.

breath; therefore, as the honour of the state requires, he is condemned to a more distant banishment in Candia.' Will it be credited, that a distinct proof of his innocence, obtained by the discovery of the real assassin, wrought no change in his unjust and cruel sentence?" See Venelian Sketches, vol. ii. p. 97. — L. E.

That they beheld them perish piecemeal, nor
Stretch'd forth a hand to save them?
Doge.

You behold me:
I cannot weep-I would I could; but if
Each white hair on this head were a young life,
This ducal cap the diadem of earth,

This ducal ring with which I wed the waves
A talisman to still them-I'd give all
For him.

(1) In the MS.

"That I had dipp'd the pen too heedlessly.”—L. E. (2) In the MS.

"Mistress of Lombardy-it is some comfort.”—L. E.

Mar. With less he surely might be saved.
Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice.
Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me-they who aim
At Foscari aim no less at his father;

The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,
And that is But they have not conquer'd yet.
Mar. But they have crush'd.
Doge.

Nor crush'd as yet-I live.
Mar. And your son,-how long will he live?
Doge.

For all that yet is past, as many years

And happier than his father. The rash boy,

With womanish impatience to return,

Hath ruin'd all by that detected letter:

A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little little longer

I trust,

His Candiote exile, I had hopes he has quench'd He must return.

[them

I have said it.

You well know

This prayer of yours was twice denied before

By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now

Will be accorded to a third request,

Since aggravated errors, on the part

0f

your lord, render them still more austere.

Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human fiends, With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes, strange To tears save drops of dotage, with long white And scanty hairs, and shaking hands, and heads As palsied as their hearts are hard, they council, Cabal, and put men's lives out, as if life Were no more than the feelings long extinguish'd In their accursed bosoms.

Doge. You know not―― Mar. I do-I do-and so should you, methinksThat these are demons: could it be else that Men, who have been of women born and suckledWho have loved, or talk'd at least of love-have

given

Their hands in sacred vows-have danced their babes
Cpon their knees, perhaps have mourn'd above them—
In pain, in peril, or in death-who are,
Or were at least in seeming, human, could
Do as they have done by yours, and you yourself
You, who abet them?

Doge.

I forgive this, for

You know not what you say.

Mar.

You know it well,

And feel it nothing. Doge.

I have borne so much,

Oh, no doubt!

That words have ceased to shake me.

Mar.

You have seen your son's blood flow, and your flesh

shook not:

And, after that, what are a woman's words? [you. No more than woman's tears, that they should shake

Doge. Woman, this clamorous grief of thine, I tell

Better for him he never had been born;

Better for me.--I have seen our house dishonour'd. Mar. That's false! A truer, nobier, trustier heart,

More loving, or more loyal, never beat

Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppress'd but not disgraced, crush'd, overwhelm'd,
Alive, or dead, for prince or paladin

In story or in fable, with a world

To back his suit. Dishonour'd!-he dishonour'd!
I tell thee, Doge, 'tis Venice is dishonour'd;
His name shall be her foulest worst reproach,
For what he suffers, not for what he did.
'Tis ye who are all traitors, tyrant!-ye!
Did you but love your country like this victim,
Who totters back in chains to tortures, and
Submits to all things rather than to exile,
You'd fling yourselves before him, and implore
His grace for your enormous guilt.

Doge.
He was
Indeed all you have said. I better bore
The deaths of the two sons Heaven took from me,
Than Jacopo's disgrace.

Which-But I pity thee, my poor Marina! Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me; (1) "The interest of this play is founded upon feelings so peculiar or overstrained, as to engage no sympathy; and the whole story turns on incidents that are neither pleasing

Twice I demanded it, but was refused:
They must then be fulfill'd. (1)

nor natural. The younger Foscari undergoes the rack twice (once in the hearing of the audience), merely because he has chosen to feign himself a traitor, that he might be

Have chosen well their envoy. Lor.

Which leads me here.

Doge.

They

"Tis their choice

And no less to their courtesy.-Proceed. Lor. We have decided.

We!

Doge. Lor. "The Ten" in council. Doge. What! have they met again, and met without Apprising me? Lor.

No less than age.

Doge.

They wish'd to spare your feelings,

That's new-when spared they either? I thank them, notwithstanding. Lor.

You know well That they have power to act at their discretion, With or without the presence of the Doge. Doge. 'Tis some years since I learn'd this, long before I became Doge, or dream'd of such advancement. You need not school me, signor; I sate in That council when you were a young patrician. Lor. True, in my father's time; I have heard him and The admiral, his brother, say as much. Your highness may remember them? they both Died suddenly.

Is that so strange, That you repeat the word emphatically? Lor. So far from strange, that never was there death In my mind half so natural as theirs. Think you not so?

Doge.

Doge.
But I, good signor,
Am, or at least was, more than a mere duke,
In blood, in mind, in means; and that they know
Who dreaded to elect me, and have since
Striven all they dare to weigh me down: be sure,
Before or since that period, had I held you
At so much price as to require your absence,
A word of mine had set such spirits to work
As would have made you nothing. But in all things
I have observed the strictest reverence;
Not for the laws alone, for those you have strain'd
(I do not speak of you but as a single
Voice of the many) somewhat beyond what
I could enforce for my authority,

Were I disposed to brawl; but, as I said,
I have observed with veneration,-like
A priest's for the high altar, even unto
The sacrifice of my own blood and quiet,
Safety, and all save honour,-the decrees,
The health, the pride, and welfare of the state.
And now, sir, to your business.

Lor.

'Tis decreed, That, without farther repetition of The Question, or continuance of the trial, Which only tends to show how stubborn guilt is ("The Ten," dispensing with the stricter law Which still prescribes the Question, till a full Confession, and the prisoner partly having Avow'd his crime in not denying that The letter to the Duke of Milan's his), James Foscari return to banishment,

I do.

Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard
Foul rumours were abroad; I have also read
Their epitaph, attributing their deaths
To poison. 'Tis perhaps as true as most
Inscriptions upon tombs, and yet no less
A fable.

brought back from undeserved banishment, and dies at last of pure dotage on this sentiment; while the elder Foscari submits, in profound and immoveable silence, to this treatment of his son, lest, by seeming to feel for his unhappy fate, he should be implicated in his guilt-though he is supposed guiltless. He, the Doge, is afraid to stir hand or foot, to look or speak, while these inexplicable horrors are transacting, on account of the hostility of one Loredano, who

Mar. Thank God! At least they will not drag hin
Before that horrible tribunal. Would he
But think so, to my mind the happiest doom,
Not he alone, but all who dwell here, could
Desire, were to escape from such a land.

Doge. That is not a Venetian thought, my daughter.
Mar. No, 'twas too human. May I share his exil
Lor. Of this "the Ten" said nothing.
Mar.

So I thought That were too human, also. But it was not Inhibited?