There you saved
The state; then live to save her still.
A day,
Another day like that would be the best
Reproof to them, and sole revenge for you.
Doge. But one such day occurs within an age;
My life is little less than one, and 'tis
Enough for Fortune to have granted once,
That which scarce one more favour'd citizen
May win in many states and years. But why
Thus speak I? Venice has forgot that day-
Then why should I remember it?-Farewell,
Sweet Angiolina! I must to my cabinet;
There's much for me to do-and the hour
Ang. Remember what you were.
Doge.
Such as I counsell'd you, with your own hand.
1. Ber. Yes, and for one sole draught of hate
forego
The great redress we meditate for Venice,
And change a life of hope for one of exile;
Leaving one scorpion crush'd, and thousands
stinging,
My friends, my family, my countrymen !
No, Calendaro; these same drops of blood,
Shed shamefully, shall have the whole of his
For their requital-but not only his;
We will not strike for private wrongs alone:
hast-Such are for selfish passions and rash men,
[ens. But are unworthy a tyrannicide. [boast
Cal. You have more patience than I care to
Had I been present when you bore this insult,
I must have slain him, or expired myself
In the vain effort to repress my wrath.
Joy's recollection is no longer joy,
While Sorrow's memory is a sorrow still.
Ang. At least, whate'er may urge, let me im-
plore
That you will take some little pause of rest:
Your sleep for many nights has been so turbid,
That it had been relief to have awaked you,
Had I not hoped that Nature would o'erpower
At length the thoughts which shook your slum-
An instant-yet an instant your companion!
I cannot bear to leave you thus.
1. Ber. Thank Heaven you were not-all had
else been marr'd:
As 'tis, our cause looks prosperous still.
Cal.
The Doge-what answer gave he?
1. Ber.
It lull'd suspicion, showing confidence.
Had I been silent, not a sbirro but
Had kept me in his eye, as meditating
A silent, solitary, deep revenge. [Council?
Cal. But wherefore not address you to the
The Doge is a mere puppet, who can scarce
Obtain right for himself. Why speak to him?
1. Ber. You shall know that hereafter.
Cal.
1. Ber. Be patient but till midnight.
your musters,
And bid our friends prepare their companies:
Set all in readiness to strike the blow,
Perhaps in a few hours; we have long waited
For a fit time-that hour is on the dial,
stir-It may be, of to-morrow's sun: delay
[ring Beyond may breed us double danger. See
That all be punctual at our place of meeting,
And arm'd, excepting those of the Sixteen,
Who will remain among the troops to wait
The signal.
Come then,
My gentle child-forgive me; thou wert made
For better fortunes than to share in mine,
Now darkling in their close toward the deep
[shadow.
Where Death sits robed in his all-sweeping
When I am gone-it may be sooner than
Even these years warrant, for there is that
Within, above, around, that in this city
Will make the cemeteries populous
As e'er they were by pestilence or war,-
When I am nothing, let that which I was
Be still sometimes a name on thy sweet lips,
A shadow in thy fancy, of a thing [member;—
Which would not have thee mourn it, but re-
Let us begone, my child-the time is pressing.
[Exeunt.
SCENE II.-A retired spot near the Arsenal.
ISRAEL BERTUCCIO and PHILIP CALENDARO.
Cal. How sped you, Israel, in your late com-
1. Ber. Why, well.
[plaint?
Cal. Is't possible! will he be punish'd?
1. Ber.
Cal. With what? a mulet or on arrest ?
1. Ber.
With death-
Cal. Now you rave, or must intend revenge,
Cal. These brave words have breathed new
Into my veins; I'm sick of these protracted
And hesitating councils: day on day
Crawl'd on, and added but another link
To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong
Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves,
Let us but deal with them, and I care not
Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength.
For the result, which must be death or freedom!
I'm weary to the heart of finding neither.
1. Ber. We will be free in life or death! the
grave
Is chainless.
Have you all the musters ready?
And are the sixteen companies completed
To sixty?
Cal. All save two, in which there are Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.
1. Ber. No matter; we can do without. Whose are they?
Better bow down before the Hun, and call A Tartar lord, than those swoln silkworms masters!
[whom The first at least was man, and used his sword Cal. Bertram's and old Soranzo's, both of As sceptre: these unmanly creeping things Appear less forward in the cause than we are. Command our swords, and rule us with a word 1. Ber. Your fiery nature makes you deem all As with a spell. those
Who are not restless cold but there exists
Oft in concentrated spirits not less daring
T'han in more loud avengers. Do not doubt
Cal. I do not doubt the elder; but in BerThere is a hesitating softness, fatal tram To enterprise like ours; I've seen that man Weep like an infant o'er the misery Of others, heedless of his own, though greater; And in a recent quarrel I beheld him Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's. 1. Ber. The truly brave are soft of heart and
And feel for what their duty bids them do.
I have known Bertram long; there doth not
A soul more full of honour.
[breathe
Cal.
It may be so :
I apprehend less treachery than weakness;
Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife
To work upon his milkiness of spirit,
He may go through the ordeal; it is vell
He is an orphan, friendless save in us:
A woman or a child had made him less
Than either in resolve.
Such ties are not
For those who are call'd to the high destinies
Which purify corrupted commonwealths;
We must forget all feelings save the one-
We must resign all passions save our purpose-
We must behold no object save our country---
And only look on death as beautiful,
So that the sacrifice ascend to heaven,
And draw down freedom on her evermore.
Cal. But if we fail-
1. Ber.
They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls-
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping
thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct
The world at last to freedom: What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson-
A name which is a virtue, and a soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turns servile: he and his high friend were styled
The last of Romans! Let us be the first
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires.
Cal. Our fathers did not fly from Attila
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung
On banks redeem'd from the rude ocean's ooze,
To own a thousand despots in his place.
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1. Ber. It shall be broken soon. You say that all things are in readiness; To-day I have not been the usual round, And why thou knowest; but thy vigilance Will better have supplied my care: these orders In recent council to redouble now Our efforts to repair the galleys, have Lent a fair colour to the introduction Of many of our cause into the arsenal, As new artificers for their equipment, Or fresh recruits obtain'd in haste to man The hoped-for fleet.--Are all supplied with arms? Cal. All who were deem'd trustworthy: there
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Cal. I've noted most; and caused the other To use like caution in their companies. As far as I have seen, we are enough To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis Commenced to-morrow; but, till 'tis begun,
| Each hour is pregnant with a thousand perils. 1. Ber. Let the Sixteen meet at the wonted Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo, [hour, And Marco Giuda, who will keep their watch Within the arsenal, and hold all ready, Expectant of the signal we will fix on. Cal. We will not fail. 1. Ber.
Let all the rest be there; I have a stranger to present to them. Cal. A stranger! doth he know the secret? 1. Ber.
Yet for all this, so full of certain passions,
That if once stirr'd and baffled, as he has been
Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury
In Grecian story like to that which wrings
His vitals with her burning hands, till he
Grows capable of all things for revenge;
And add too, that his mind is liberal,
He sees and feels the people are oppress'd,
And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all,
We have need of such, and such have need of us.
Cal. And what part would you have him take
1. Ber. It may be, that of chief. [with us?
Cal.
What! and resign
Your own command as leader?
1. Ber.
My object is to make your cause end well,
And not to push myself to power. Experience,
Some skill, and your own choice, had mark'd
Until at length it smote me in my slumbers,
And I am tainted and must wash away
The plague spots in the healing wave. Tall fane!
Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues
shadow
The floor which doth divide us from the dead,
Where all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood,
Moulder'd into a mite of ashes, hold
In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes,
When what is now a handful shook the earth-
Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house!
Vault where two Doges rest-my sires! who died
The one of toil, the other in the field,
With a long race of other lineal chiefs
And sages, whose great labours, wounds, and
I have inherited,-let the graves gape, [state
Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead,
And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me!
I call them up, and them and thee to witness
What it hath been which put me to this task-
Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories,
Their mighty name dishonour'd all in me,
Not by me, but by the ungrateful nobles
We fought to make our equals, not our lords :-
And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave,
Who perish'd in the field, where I since con-
Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs
To act in trust as your commander, till [such
Some worthier should appear: if I have found
As you yourselves shall own more worthy, think
That I would hesitate from selfishness, [you
And, covetous of brief authority,
Stake our deep interest on my single thoughts,
Rather than yield to one above me in
All leading qualities? No, Calendaro,
Know your friend better: but you all shall Of thine and Venice' foes, there offer'd up
judge.
Away! and let us meet at the fix'd hour.
Be vigilant, and all will yet go well.
Cal. Worthy Bertuccio, I have known you ever
Trusty and brave, with head and heart to plan
What I have still been prompt to execute.
For my own part, I seek no other chief;
What the rest will decide I know not, but
I am with YOU, as I have ever been,
In all our undertakings. Now farewell,
Until the hour of midnight sees us meet.
SCENE I.-Scene, the Space between the Canal and the Church of San Giovanni e San Paolo. An equestrian Statue before it.-A Gondola lies in the Canal at some distance.
Enter the DOGE alone, disguised.
Doge [solus]. I am before the hour, the hour
whose voice,
Pealing into the arch of night, might strike
These palaces with ominous tottering,
And rock their marbles to the corner-stone,
Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream
Of indistinct but awful augury
Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city!
Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which
makes thee
A lazar-house of tyranny: the task
Is forced upon me, I have sought it not;
And therefore was I punish'd, seeing this
Patrician pestilence spread on and on,
By thy descendant, merit such acquittance?
Spirits! smile down upon me; for my cause
Is yours, in all life now can be of yours-
Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine,
And in the future fortunes of our race!
Let me but prosper, and I make this city
Free and immortal, and our house's name
Worthier of what you were, now and hereafter!
Enter ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.
1. Ber. Who goes there?
"Tis he. Welcome, my lord,-you are before the time. Doge. I am ready to proceed to your assembly 1. Ber. Have with you.-I am proud and pleased to see
Such confident alacrity. Your doubts
Since our last meeting, then, are all dispell'd?
Doge. Not so-but I have set my little left
Of life upon this cast: the die was thrown
When I first listen'd to your treason.-Start not!
That is the word; I cannot shape my tongue
To syllable black deeds into smooth names,
Though I be wrought on to commit them. When
I heard you tempt your sovereign, and forebore
To have you dragg'd to prison, I became
Your guiltiest accomplice: now you may,
If it so please you, do as much by me.
1. Ber. Strange words, my lord, and most
unmerited;
I am no spy, and neither are we traitors.
Doge. We-We-no matter you have
earn'd the right
To talk of us. But to the point.—If this
Attempt succeeds, and Venice, render'd free
And flourishing, when we are in our graves,
Conducts her generations to her tombs,
And makes her children with their little hands
Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, then
The consequence will sanctify the deed,
And we shall be like the two Bruti in
The annals of hereafter; but if not,
If we should fail, employing bloody means
And secret plot, although to a good end,
Still we are traitors, honest Israel ;-thou
No less than he who was thy sovereign
Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel.
1. Ber. 'Tis not the moment to consider thus, Else I could answer.-Let us to the meeting, Or we may be observed in lingering here. Doge. We are observed, and have been. 1. Ber. We observed!
Let me discover-and this steel-
Doge.
Put up;
Here are no human witnesses: look there-
What see you?
Only a tall warrior's statue Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light Of the dull moon.
Doge. That warrior was the sire Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was Decreed to him by the twice rescued city :Think you that he looks down on us or no? 1. Ber. My lord, these are mere phantasies; No eyes in marble. [there are Doge. Death.
But there are in I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in [felt; Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though And, if there be a spell to stir the dead, "Tis in such deeds as we are now upon. Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine Can rest, when he, their last descendant chief, Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves With stung plebeians?
1. Ber. To have ponder'd this before, ―ere you embark'd
In our great enterprise.-Do you repent?
Doge. No-but I feel, and shall do to the last. I cannot quench a glorious life at once, Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be, And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause:
Yet doubt me not; it is this very feeling,
And knowing what has wrung me to be thus,
Which is your best security. There's not
A roused mechanic in your busy plot
So wrong'd as I, so fall'n, so loudly call'd
To his redress: the very means I am forced
By these fell tyrants to adopt is such,
That I abhor them doubly for the deeds
Which I must do to pay them back for theirs.
1. Ber. Let us away-hark-the hour strikes.
Doge.
Cal. Have you not been able to complete The number wanting in your company?
Ber. I had mark'd out some: but I have not dared
To trust them with the secret, till assured
That they were worthy faith.
There is no need
Of trusting to their faith; who, save ourselves
And our more chosen comrades, is aware
Fully of our intent? they think themselves
Engaged in secret to the Signory,*
To punish some more dissolute young nobles
Who have defied the law in their excesses;
But once drawn up, and their new swords well
flesh'd,
In the rank hearts of the more odious senators,
They will not hesitate to follow up
Their blow upon the others, when they see
The example of their chiefs, and I for one
Will set them such, that they for very shame
And safety will not pause till all have perish'd.
Ber. How say you? all!
Whom wouldst thou spare?
I spare?
I have no power to spare. I only question'd,
Thinking that even amongst these wicked men
There might be some, whose age and qualities
Might mark them out for pity.
Cal.
Yes, such pity
As when the viper hath been cut to pieces,
The separate fragments quivering in the sun,
In the last energy of venomous life,
Deserve and have. Why, I should think as soon
Of pitying some particular fang which made
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as
Of saving one of these: they form but links
Of one long chain; one mass, one breath, one
body;
[gether;
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed to-
Revel, and lie, oppress, and kill in concert,-
So let them die as one!
Should one survive, He would be dangerous as the whole; it is not Their number, be it tens or thousands, but The spirit of this aristocracy
Which must be rooted out; and if there were On-on- A single shoot of the old tree in life, It is our knell, or that of Venice-On. [peal "Twould fasten in the soil, and spring again 1. Ber. Say rather, 'tis her freedom's rising To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit. Of triumph.-This way-we are near the place. Bertram, we must be firm!
An historical fact. See Appendix, Note A.
Bertuccio What! are you appall'd to see
A lone, unguarded, weaponless old man
Thou wouldst not now be there to talk of trust: Amongst you?—Israel, speak; what means this It is thy softness, not thy want of faith, [own bosoms, Which makes thee to be doubted. 1. Ber. Let them advance and strike at their Ungrateful suicides! for on our lives [hopes. Depend their own, their fortunes, and their
Ber.
You should know
Who hear me, who and what I am; a man
Roused like yourselves to overthrow oppression :
A kind man, I am apt to think, as some
Of you have found me; and if brave or no,
You, Calendaro, can pronounce, who have seen
Put to the proof: or, if you should have doubts,
I'll clear them on your person!
Cal.
You are welcome,
When once our enterprise is o'er, which must
Be interrupted by a private brawl.
[not
Ber. I am no brawler; but can bear myself
As far among the foe as any he
Who hears me; else why have I been selected
To be of your chief comrades; but no less
I own my natural weakness; I have not
Yet learn'd to think of indiscriminate murder
Without some sense of shuddering; and the
sight
Of blood which spouts through hoary scalps is
To me a thing of triumph, nor the death [not
Of men surprised a glory. Well-too well
I know that we must do such things on those
Whose acts have raised up such avengers; but
If there were some of these who could be saved
From out this sweeping fate, for our own sakes
And for our honour, to take off some stain
Of massacre, which else pollutes it wholly,
I had been glad; and see no cause in this
For sneer, nor for suspicion !
Dag.
Calm thee, Bertram,
For we suspect thee not, and take good heart.
It is the cause, and not our will, which asks
Such actions from our hands: we'll wash away
All stains in Freedom's fountain!
Enter ISRAEL BERTUCCIO, and the DOGE, dis
Dag.
Welcome, Israel.
Consp. Most welcome. Brave Bertuccio,
thou art late
Who is this stranger?
Cal.
It is time to name him.
Our comrades are even now prepared to greet
In brotherhood, as I have made it known [him
That thou wouldst add a brother to our cause,
Approved by thee, and thus approved by all,
Such is our trust in all thine actions. Now
Let him unfold himself.
Stranger, step forth!
[The DOGE discovers himself.
Consp. To arms!-we are betray'd-it is the
Doge!
Doge. Strike! If I dreaded death, a death more fearful
Than any your rash weapons can inflict,
I should not now be here :-Oh, noble Courage!
The eldest born of Fear, which makes you brave,
Against this solitary hoary head!
See the bold chiefs, who would reform a state
And shake down senates, mad with wrath and
dread
At sight of one patrician !-Butcher me!
You can, I care not.-Israel, are these men
The mighty hearts you spoke of? look upon
them!
[servedly.
Cal. Faith! he hath shamed us, and de-
Was this your trust in your true chief Bertuccio.
To turn your swords against him and his guest?
Sheath them, and hear him.
1. Ber.
I disdain to speak.
They might and must have known a heart like
Incapable of treachery; and the power [mine
They gave me to adopt all fitting means
To further their design was ne'er abused.
They might be certain that whoe'er was brought
By me into this council had been led
To take his choice-as brother, or as victim.
Doge. And which am I to be? your actions
leave
Some cause to doubt the freedom of the choice.
1. Ber. My lord, we would have perish'd here
together,
Had these rash men proceeded; but, behold,
They are ashamed of that mad moment's im-
pulse,
such
And droop their heads; believe me, they are
As I described them.--Speak to them.
Cal.
Ay, speak;
[safe,
1. Ber. addressing the conspirators.] You are
Nay, more, almost triumphant - listen then,
And know my words for truth.
Doge.
You see me here,
As one of you hath said, an old, unarm'd,
Defenceless man; and yesterday you saw me
Presiding in the hall of ducal state,
Apparent sovereign of our hundred isles,
Robed in official purple, dealing out
The edicts of a power which is not mine,
Nor yours, but of our masters--the patricians.
Why I was there you know, or think you know ;
Why I am here, he who hath been most
wrong'd,
We are all listening in wonder.
He who among you hath been most insulted, Outraged, and trodden on, until he doubt Land If he be worm or no, may answer for me,
Down with them both! our traitorous captain,
The tyrant he hath sold us to.
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