THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BEQUEST OF ANITA D. S. BLAKE U3 MARINO FALIERO LONDON : PRINTED BY SI'OTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET MARINO FALIERO A TRAGEDY ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 1885 [ The right of translation is reserved J DEDICATION. TO AURELIO SAFFI. Year after year has fallen on sleep, till change Hath seen the fourth part of a century fade, Since you, a guest to whom the vales were strange Where Isis whispers to the murmuring shade Above her face by winds and willows made. And I, elate at heart with reverence, met. Change must give place to death ere I forget The pride that change of years has quenched not yet. Pride from profoundest humbleness of heart Born, self-uplift at once and self-subdued, Glowed, seeing his face whose hand had borne such part In so sublime and strange vicissitude As then filled all faint hearts with hope renewed To think upon, and triumph ; though the, time Were dense and foul with darkness cast from crime Across the heights that hope was fain to climb. vi DEDICATION, III. Hope that had risen, a sun to match the sun That fills and feeds all Italy with light, Had set, and left the crowning work undone That raised up Rome out of the shadow of night : Yet so to have won the worst, to have fought the fight, , Seemed, as above the grave of hope cast down Stood faith, and smiled against the whole world's frown, A conquest lordlier than the conqueror's crown. IV. To have won the worst that chance could give, and worn The wreath of adverse fortune as a sign More bright than binds the brows of victory, borne Higher than all trophies borne of tyrants shine — What lordlier gift than this, what more divine, Can earth or heaven make manifest, and bid Men's hearts bow down and honour ? Fate lies hid. But not the work that true men dared and did. The years have given and taken away since then More than was then foreseen of hope or fear. Fallen are the towers of empire : all the men Whose names made faint the heart of the earth to hear Are broken as the trust they held so dear Who put their trust in princes : and the sun Sees Italy, as he in heaven is, one ; But sees not him who spake, and this was done. DEDICATION. vii VI. Not by the wise man's wit, the strong man's hand, By swordsman's or by statesman's craft or might, Sprang Hfe again where life had left the land, And light where hope nor memory now saw light : Not first nor most by grace of these was night Cast out, and darkness driven before the day Far as a battle-broken host's array Flies, and no force that fain would stay it can stay. VII. One spirit alone, one soul more strong than fate, One heart whose heat was as the sundawn's fire, Fed first with flame as heaven's immaculate Faith, worn and wan and desperate of desire : And men that felt that sacred breath suspire Felt by mere speech and presence fugitive The holy spirit of man made perfect give Breath to the lips of death, that death might live. VIII. Not all as yet is yours, nor all is ours. That shall, if righteousness and reason be, Fulfil the trust of time with happier hours And set their sons who fought for freedom free ; Even theirs whose faith sees, as they may not see, Your land and ours wax lovelier in the light Republican, whereby the thrones most bright Look hoar and wan as eve or black as night. viii DEDICATION, IX. Our words and works, our thoughts and songs turn thither, Toward one great end, as waves that press and roll. Though waves be spent and ebb like hopes that wither, These shall subside not ere they find the goal. We know it, who yet with unforgetful soul See shine and smile, where none may smite or strive. Above us, higher than clouds and winds can drive. The soul beloved beyond all souls ahve. DRAMATIS PERSONS. Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. The Duchess, his wife. Bertuccio Faliero, nephew to the Doge. Benintende, Grand Chancellor. Ser Michele Steno. Ser Niccol6 Lioni. The Admiral of the Arsenal. FiLIPPO Calendaro. Bertuccio Israello. Beltramo, a follower of Lioni^s. Lords, Ladies, Senators, Officers, Guards, and Attendants. Scene, Venice. Time, 1355. ACT I. Scene I. — The balcony of the ducal palace overlooking the Piazza San Marco. Marino Faliero and the Duchess, seated: Lords, Ladies, and Attendants behind : among them Ser MiCHELE Steno and Ser Niccol5 Lioni. FALIERO. The sun fights hard against us ere he die. Canst thou see westward ? DUCHESS. Not the huntsmen yet. FALIERO. Nay, nor the bull, belike : but ere they come There should be stirring in the crowd far off: Some wind should w^ake these w^aters, and some wave Swell toward us from the sunset : but the square Seems breathless as the very sea to left That sleeps and thinks it summer. Thou shalt know Full soon if love and liking toward mine own 4 MARINO FALIERO, act i. Have made mine old eyes blind or wrecked the wits That once were mine for judgment. DUCHESS. Nay, my lord, I doubt not — nor did ever — FALIERO. Nay, my love, But thou didst never trust : I say, my son. My brother's born, made mine by verier love Than every father bears his own, shall find For manfulness and speed and noble skill No master and no match of all his mates In all the goodliest flower of lordliest youth That hghtens all this city. Dost thou think The day's chase shall not leave him spirit and strength To dance thy merriest maidens down to-night Even till the first bell ring the banquet in ? Nay, we shall find him as thy sire and I Were fifty years or sixty since, when fife As glad and gallant spurred our light strong limbs As quickens now these young men's toward the chase That knits their thews for battle. DUCHESS. How the sun Burns, now so near the mountains ! even at noon It smote not sorer. FALIERO. Old men set not so. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. t A goodly grace it were to close up life And seal the record fast of perfect days If we might save one hour of strength and youth To reap and be requickened ere we die With royal repossession of the past For sixty sovereign heartbeats pulsed of time, And with one last full purple throb let life Pass, and leave death's face glowing : yet perchance It should but seem the harder so to die. This is no festal fancy : but thy brow Is graver than the time is. Art thou not Weary ? DUCHESS. Not yet : nay, surely, no. FALIERO. Is brighter than thy voice. Thy smile DUCHESS. My heart may be More light than rings my tongue, since neither knows A cause to teach it sadness. STENO. Did you mark That ? \Aside to the lady next him. LADY. What ? no, nothing, I. 6 MARINO FALIERO. act i. STENO. She knows no cause : What cause of sadness may so fair a face Know, mated with so Withe a bridegroom's? Nay, If fourscore years can pleasure not a wife. There is no cheer nor comfort in white hairs, No solace in man's dotage. LADY. Hush ! STENO. And Fie ! Should not those words run still in couple ? Ha ! The woman that cries Hush bids kiss : I learnt So much of her that taught me kissing. LADY. Then A foolish tutoress taught a graceless knave Folly. STENO. That cries on vengeance : should my lip Retaliate, would you cry not louder ? LADY. STENO. What if I choose not peace but war? LADY. Peace ! My lord, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, You wrong this presence and yourself, and me Most, and with least respect, of all. STENO. Respect ! Nay, I revere you more than mine own heart. Which rests your servile chattel : for myself, I know not aught worth reverence in me, save Love, — love of one too sweet and hard, that wears A flower in face, at heart a stone, and turns My face to tears, my heart to fire, and laughs As loud for scorn as men for mirth who look To see the duke's brave nephew bring him back For gift and trophied treasure of the chase A broad bull's pair of— tributes. LIONI. Hark you, sir : Speak lower : and speak not here at all. STENO. St. Mark ! Art thou my tutor? LIONI. Ay — to whip thee dumb. Or strike thy folly dead at once. Be still. For shame's sake — not for honour's would I bid Thee. STENO. While this lady's eyes regard us, dumb I will be : but hereafter — 8 MARINO FALIERO. act i. LIONI. Be but now- Silent : I bid thee now no more : but this Thou shalt be. STENO. See now, sw^et, what friends he hath. Our good grey head of Venice ! if one speak At hunting-time of horns or tusks or spoil That hot young hunters laugh at, straight they cry, Peace, and respect, and spare our master. Christ ! What friends ! w^ere I fourscore, and thou— thyself, Wouldst thou be half so good a friend of mine? Ha ? Nay, but answer — nay, thou shalt. LADY. I will Once, and no more. Keep silence : and forget If ever word of such a tongue as thine Found audience of me. STENO. Am I then indeed Fourscore, that I should not remember ? Ha ! Nor woman am I, to forget — but some Love dotards more than men. LADY. Who loves not men May love such things as grovel of thy kind. And deem such love not monstrous. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 9 STENO. Nay, but this Asks answer of man's lips — not of his tongue — Nay! FALIERO. Who is there that knows not where he is And dreams the place a brothel ? Gentlemen, If here be any, need is none to bid You spurn him out of sight. LIONI. Go ; if thou hast Or shame or sense, abide not here till men Hurl thee with fists and feet away. STENO. By God, I will be — God forsake me else — revenged. Sirs, lay not hand upon me. \Exit, FALIERO. Dear my child. Thine eyes are still set sunwards : hast thou heard Nought of this brawl ? DUCHESS. I would not. FALIERO. Thou dost well God knows, no base or violent thing should come. lo MARINO FALIERO. act i. Had I God's power, in hearing or in sight Of such as thou art. DUCHESS, Then were earth too soft For souls to look on heaven ; but what I may I would eschew of meaner knowledge. FALIERO. God Guard thee from all unworthy thee, or fit For earthlier sense than feeds thy spirit and keeps Heaven still within thine eyeshot. Dost thou see There, in that fiery field of heaven that fades Beyond the extremest Euganean, aught Worth quite the rapture of those eyes that yearn Too high to look on Venice ? DUCHESS. Sir, methought We were not worthy — nor was ever man Made in God's loftiest likeness — even to see Such wonder and such glory live and die. FALIERO. And yet we live that look on it. This sight Is verily other far than we beheld ^ When first October brought thy husband back From Romeward, here to take on him the state Wherein we now sit none the lower or less For the ominous entrance to it. I never saw SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. ii A noon so like a nightfall : that we breathe Unwithered yet of wicked signs, and see The world still shine about us, might rebuke All fearful faith in evil. DUCHESS. Yet was that A woful welcome : all about the prow Darkness, and all ahead and all astern And all beside no sign but cloud adrift, All blind as death and bitter : and at last — I would not bring it on your memory back Who fain would cast it out of mine. FALIERO. At last To land between the columns where they die Whom justice damns by judgment. Nay, are we Traitors or thieves or manslayers, that the sign Should make us wan with forethought ? This foretold. If aught foretell men aught, that he who came Should bring men equal justice \ do them right, Or die — as gladlier would I die than stand In equal eyes of equitable men A judge approved unrighteous. Be not thou Moved, when the world is gracious and the sun Speaks comfort, by remembrance of a sign That lied, and was not presage. We came in DarkHng : and lo now if this earth and sea Be not as heaven about us, and the time Not more elate with fair festivity 12 MARINO FALTER O. act i. Than should our hearts be — yea, though nought were here Save this bare beauty shown of wave and sky To hft them up for love's sake. Has the world, Think'st thou, so good a gift as this to give Men's eyes that know not Venice ? DUCHESS. Nay : but you, Lord of two wives, love least the first espoused Albeit the younger of them : more than me You love that old hoar bride who caught your ring Last autumn, and to-day laughs large and loud On all that sail or swim : you dare not say You have not loved her longest. FALIERO. But I dare Swear, though no little thing this be to swear For one whose heart and hand, whose praise and pride. Were still mine old Adriatic's, mother and wife And wellspring of mine honour, that I love Not her nor heaven nor Venice more than thee Whose laughter mocks us and whose lip maligns ; Nay, not so much, thou knowest, were I not old Or thou not young, I would not fear to say. As now, lest youth reprove mine age of love And shame chastise it for infirmity. And thou — but in thine heart, I think, there lurks No thought that should reprove it or chastise With less than tender laughter ; though, being old. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 13 The sea be meeter for my bride, and show A wrinkled face with hoary fell that seems More hke mine own than thou canst show me. DUCHESS. How Man's courtesy keeps time with falsehood, though Truth ring rebuke unheeded 1 Look, my lord. How the sea bids the sun and us good night, With what sweet sighs and laughter, light and wind Contending as they kiss her, till the sigh Laugh on her lip, and all her sunward smile Subside in sighing to shoreward : will you say God hath not given you there a goodlier bride Than his who mates with woman ? FALIERO. She is fair — Heaven, in our dreams of heaven, not fairer ; nay. The heaven that lends her colour not so fair, Being less in men's eyes living : but in thee. Were even thy face no fairer found than hers, There sleeps no chance of shipwreck. See, they come. The hunters with their trophies, and in front, If the sun play not with an old man's eyes, My boy it is that leads them. DUCHESS. And unhurt, [ Voices below : Long live Faliero ! live Bertuccio long ! 14 MARINO FALIERO, act i. DUCHESS. God and St. Mark be praised for all ! FALIERO. Nay, child, Wouldst thou make him a child or girl, to thank God that he bears him like a man and takes No hurt for lack of skill or manfulness In young men's craft or pastime? Welcome, sirs ; Well done, and welcome. Hither, son, to me. Enter Bertuccio and Hunters, Give this good lady thanks, who hath at heart Such care of thee she might not choose but doubt If manhood were enough in heart of thine Or strength in hand for sportful service. DUCHESS. Nay; I said so never. BERTUCCIO. Sir, my thanks to both. We have seen good sport ; but these my friends, who lay The hunt's main honour on my single hand, Malign themselves to praise me. FALIERO. Yet for that Thy cheek need put not on the dye wherewith The sunset's flag now hoisted strikes twice red These westward palace-columns. Come : the dance SCENE I. MARINO FALTER O. 15 Will try thy mettle till the first bell sound And bid the banquet in. A fairer night Spring could not send us. Come beside me : so. [Exeu?^t, Scene II. — The Piazzetta. Enter Steno and Lioni. STENO. I will not and I shall not be revenged ? It cannot be ? Thou sayest it ? LIONI. This I say, Thou shalt do well to get thee home and sleep. STENO. Sleep ? and forgive ? and pra)^, before I sleep, God love and bless and comfort and sustain With all the grace that consecrates old age Faliero ? Is my badge a hare— a dove — A weasel — anything whose heart or gall Is water, or is nothing ? God shall first Give up his place to Satan — heaven fall down Below the lowest and loathliest gulf in hell — Ere I take on me such dishonour. LIONI. Shame 1 6 MARINO FALIERO. act i. Thou hast laid upon thyself already, nor Canst hurl it off with howling : words can wash No part of ignominy away that clings As yet about thee : time and sufferance may, And penitence, if manful. I would fain Think thee, being noble, not ignoble ; as Must all men think the man born prince or churl Whom wrath or lust or rancorous self-regard Drives past regard of honour. STENO. Look you, friend : What, think you, shall these all men think, who read Writ up to-morrow on the ducal seat. The throne of office, this for epigraph — * Marin Fahero of the fair-faced wife : He keeps and others kiss her ' — eh ? or thus — ^ Others enjoy her and he maintains her ' — ha ? LIONI. Thou art not such a hound at heart : thy tongue Is viler than thy purpose. STENO. Wilt thou swear This ? Vile — why, vile were he that should endure Insult ; not he that being offended dares Take insolence by the beard— be it white or black— And shake and spit upon it. Ay ? by God ! Back turned and shoulder shrugged confute not me : SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 17 Abide awhile : be dawn my witness : wait, And men shall find what heart is mine to strike, What wit to wound mine enemy : meet me then, And say which fool to-night spake wiselier here. \_Exeunt severally. 1 8 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. ACT II. Scene I. — An apartment in the ducal palace. Marino Faliero and the Duchess. FALIERO. It does not please thee, then, if silence have Speech, and if thine speak true, to hear me praise Bertuccio ? Has my boy deserved of thee 111 ? or what ails thee when I praise him ? DUCHESS. Sir, How should it hurt me that you praise — FALIERO. My son. Mine, more than once my brother's : how, indeed ? DUCHESS. Have I the keeping of your loves in charge To unseal or seal their utterance up, my lord ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 19 FALIERO. Again, thy lord ! I am lord of all save thee. DUCHESS. You are sire of all this people. FALIERO. Nay, by Christ, A bitter brood were mine then, and thyself Mismated worse than April were with snow Or January with harvest, being his bride Who bore so dire a charge of fatherhood. Thou, stepmother of Venice ? and this hand, That could not curb nor guide against its will A foot that fell but heavier than a dove's. What power were in it to hold obedience fast. Laid on the necks of lions ? DUCHESS. Why, men say The lion will stoop not save to ladies' hands, But such as mine may lead him. FALIERO. Thine? I think The very wolf would kiss and rend it not. DUCHESS. The very sea- wolf ? FALIERO. Verily, so meseems. c 2 20 MARINO FALIERO. act it. DUCHESS. For so the strong sea-lion of Venice doth. FALIERO. This is a perilous beast whereof thou sayest So sweet a thing so far from hke to be — A horrible and a fiend-faced shape, men call The lion of the waters. DUCHESS. But St. Mark Holds his in leash of love more fast, my lord, Than ever violence may. FALIERO. By heaven and him. Thy sweet wit's flight is even too fleet for me : No marvel though thy gentle scorn smite sore On weaker wits of younglings : yet I would. Being more my child than even my wife to me, Thine heart were more a sister's toward my son. DUCHESS. So is it indeed — and shall be so — and more. The more we love our father and our lord. Shall our two loves grow full, grow fire that springs To Godward from the sacrifice it leaves Consumed for man's burnt-offering. FALIERO. What ! thine eyes SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 2t Are very jewels of even such fire indeed. I thought not so to kindle them : but yet My heart grows great in gladness given of thine Whose truth in such bright silence as is God's Speaks love aloud and lies not. DUCHESS. No, my lord. FALIERO. It is not truth nor love then, sweet my child, That lightens from thine eyeshot ? DUCHESS. Yea, my lord. FALIERO. I grow less fond than foolish, troubling thee. Who yet am held or yet would hold myself Not yet unmanned with dotage. Sooth is this, I am lighter than my daily mood today And heedless haply lest I wrong mine age And weary thine with words unworthy thee Or him that would be honoured of the world Less than beloved — with love not all unmeet — Of one or twain he loves as old men may. Bertuccio loves me ; thou dost hate me not That like a frost I touch thy flower, and breathe As March breathes back the spirit of winter dead On May that dwells where thou dost : but my son Finds no more grace of thee to comfort him Than April wins of the east wind. Wot thou well, 2 2 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. The long loose tongues of Tuscan wit would cast 111 comment on this care of mine to bring More close my wife's heart and my son's, being young, And I a waif of winter, left astrand Above the soft sea's tidemark whose warm lip Is love's, that loves not age's : but I think We are none of those whose folly, set in shame. Makes mirth for John of Florence. DUCHESS. By God's grace, No. FALIERO. And by grace of pure Venetian pride And blood of blameless mothers. By St. Mark, Shame, that stings sharpest of the worms in hell. Seems, if those light-souled folks sing true, to them No more a burning poison than the fly's We brush from us, and know not : but for men The eternal fire hath no such fang to smite As this their jests make nought of. Life is brief — Albeit thou knowest not, nor canst well believe. But life is long and lovesome as thine age In vision sees it, and in heart uplift Plays prelude clear of presage — brief and void Where laughing lusts fulfil its length of days And nought save pleasure born seems worth desire ; But long and full of fruit in all men's sight Whereon the wild worm feeds not, nor the sun Strikes, nor the wind makes war, nor frost lays hold, Is the ageless life of honour, won and worn SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 23 With heart and hand most equal, and to time Given as a pledge that something born of time Is mightier found than death, and wears of right God's name of everlasting. DUCHESS. Child I am, Or child my lord will call me, yet himself Knows this not better, holds no truer this truth, Nor keeps more fast his faith in it than I. FALIERO. No need thy tongue should witness with thine eyes How thine heart beats toward honour. Blind were he. And mad with base brainsickness even to death. Who seeing thee should not see it. Those Florentines With names more gracious than their customs crown Glad heads of graceless women ; jewelled names That mock the bright stone's fire of constant heart, Diamante, Gemma ; thine, wxre thine as these. Might dare the vaunt unchallenged : such a name Is in those eyes writ clear with fire more keen Than ever shame bade shine or sin made burn Where grace lay dead ere death. How now, my son? Enter Bertuccio. BERTUCCIO. Most noble uncle — FALIERO. Nay, but art thou mazed ? 24 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. No reverence toward our lady, nor a look Save as of one distraught with fear, whose dreams Are still as fire before his eyes by night That leaves them dark by daytime ? Yestereve, Hadst thou so looked upon the bull, by Christ, Thou hadst come not home his conqueror. DUCHESS. Sir, perchance Your nephew with your grace would speak alone. BERTUCCIO. Ay, madam. FALIERO. Nay, sir. Why, what coil is this ? Thine eyes look scarce half drunken, but thy speech Is thicker than with wine. DUCHESS. Good day, my lords. FALIERO. Pass out of earshot if thou list, but pass — I pray thee, sweet ! — no further. \Duchess withdraivs. Now, my son. If nought bemuse thy brain or bind thy tongue, Speak. BERTUCCIO. Sire, I may not. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 25 FALIERO. God consume thee ! nay, But bring thy wits back healed — what dost thou then Here? BERTUCCIO. What must needs, in my despite and thine, Be done, and yet should be not. None but I Dare tell my sire that Venice rings and roars Aloud with monstrous mockery whence our name Is rent as carrion by the vulturous beaks That feed on fame and soil it. Sir, it were A shame beyond all treason for my lips To take this taint upon them : read, and see What all have seen that in thine hall of state Since dawn have entered, on thy sovereign seat Nailed up in God's defiance and ours, a lie That hell would hear not unrebuked, nor heaven Endure and find no thunder. \_Gives a paper to Faliero, FALIERO. God us aid ! Why, if the pageant match thy prologue, man. The stage should shake to bear it. — Body of God ! What ? DUCHESS. Sir ! my lord ! BERTUCCIO. Forbear him. 26 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. FALIERO. Does the sun Shine ? — Did he smite me on the face ? DUCHESS. Who? FALIERO. He. [Pointing to Bertuccio. DUCHESS. What have you given him ? BERTUCCIO. Ask not. FALIERO. Let me think — Art not thou too Fahero, and my son ? BERTUCCIO. Ay. FALIERO. By the glory of God in heaven, I swear, I think not as I thought it. BERTUCCIO. Then your thought Errs, and the mind whose passion brings it forth Strays far, and shakes toward ruin. FALIERO. It may be so. Sir ; it may be so. SCENE I. MARINO FALTER O. 27 , DUCHESS. Heaven have pity on all ! FALIERO. Madam, what man is this that speaks to me ? DUCHESS. My lord your nephew. FALIERO. Thine? thy lord is this? Thy man ? thy master ? BERTUCCIO. Sir, bethink you — FALIERO. Ay- I will bethink me surely. Fair my wife, I pray you pardon mine unreverend age, Shamed as it stands before you— spurned, and made A thing for boys to spit at. In my sight, I pray you, do not smile too broad at it. White hairs, if he that bears them bear my place, Are held, I know, unvenerable of all. Fair sir, you are young, and men may honour you : Tell me, whom am blind, how I should bear myself In the eyes of men who see me that I see Nothing. DUCHESS. O God, be pitiful ! 28 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. BERTUCCIO. My lord, Refrain yourself ; you stagger toward the pit Whose gulf is madness ; gather up your heart ; Give not all rein to rage. FALIERO. I will not, sir. There was a noise of hissing in mine ears ; I could not hear you for it ; and in mine eyes Blank night, and fire, and blindness. Now I see The leprous beggar whom the town spits out Hath more than I of honour. Many a year I have dreamed of many a deed that brought not shame. Not shame at all, but praise : these were not mine, I know them now, they were not : mine have earned For the utmost crown and close of all my life Shame. I would know, were God not stricken dumb. What deed I have done that this should fall on me. BERTUCCIO. My lord — FALIERO. Thy servant's servant, and a dog. Yet art thou, too, vile \ nay, not vile as I, But baser than a beaten bondman. BERTUCCIO. Sir, If madness make you not a thrall indeed, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 29 But reverence yet claim reverence, take some thought Not for yourself, nor me. FALIERO. Dost thou desire So much for her sake of me ? Son of mine. Look well upon thy father : let mine eyes Take all the witness of the spirit in thine, That I may know what heart thou hast indeed. Bertuccio, if thine eyes lie, then is God Dead, and the world hell's refuse. BERTUCCIO. Sire and lord, If ever I have lied to you, I lie Now. FALIERO. I believe thou liest not. Mark me, son. This is no little trust I put in thee. Believing yet, in face of this I read. That man or God may lie not. BERTUCCIO. Speak to her. FALIERO. Take comfort, child : this world is foul, God wot, That gives thee need of comfort. DUCHESS. I have none — No need, I mean — if nought fare ill with you. 30 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. FALIERO. Much, much there is fares ill with all men : yet, With thee, if righteousness were loved in heaven, Should nought at all fare ill for ever. Sweet, As thou wouldst fain, if thou couldst ever sin. Find for that sin forgiveness, pardon me. I am great in years, and what I had borne in youth, Not well perchance, yet better, now, being old, I cannot bear, thou seest, at all. For this Forgive me : not with will of mine it was That thus I scared so sore thy harmless heart. Speak to me not now : ere this hour be full. It may be we may speak awhile again Together : now must none abide with me. {Exit. DUCHESS. What have they said ? BERTUCCIO. Ask never that of man. DUCHESS. What have they said of me ? BERTUCCIO. I cannot say. DUCHESS. Thou wilt not — being mine enemy. Why, for shame You should not, sir, keep silence. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 31 BERTUCCIO. Yet I will. DUCHESS. I never dreamt so dark a dream as this. BERTUCCIO. God send it no worse waking. DUCHESS. Now I know You are even indeed her enemy, who believed She had never so deserved of you. I have No friend where friends I thought were mine, and find, Where never I thought to find them, enemies. Whence Have I deserved by chance of any man That he should be mine enemy ? BERTUCCIO. If I be, I would not strike you shamefully at heart. But rather bear a bitterer blame than this Than right myself with doing you wrong. Would God Your enemies and mine uncle's all were I ! DUCHESS. Do you know them — these — what manner of men they are ? BERTUCCIO. Save as I know that hell breeds worms and fire. No. 32 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. DUCHESS. Have I merited these ? Have we that loved, Have we that love, in God's clear sight or man's. Sinned ? BERTUCCIO. Nay, not thou, if heaven by love for earth Sins not : if thou, then God in loving man Sins. DUCHESS. Nay : for yet you never kissed my lips. That day the truth sprang forth of thine, I swore It should not bring my soul and thine to shame. And thou too, didst not thou, for very love. Swear it ? BERTUCCIO. And stands mine oath not whole ? DUCHESS. Give God Honour, who hath kept in us our honour fast. Whatever come between our death and this, For that I thank him. BERTUCCIO. Ah, my love, my light, Soul of my soul, and holier heart of mine. Thee, thee I thank, that yet I live, and yet Love, and yet stand not in all true men's eyes Shamed. Am I pure as thou, that save through thee I should be found no viler than I am ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 33 Hadst thou been other, I perchance, God knows. Had been a baser thing than galls us now. DUCHESS. Ay ! but I knew it or ever I wrung it forth — Me then they smite at, and my lord in me, Who have smitten him so sorely ? BERTUCCIO. Dear, how else ? When seemed our sire a furious weakling, made For any wind to work upon and wrest Awry with passion that had struck no root Deep even as love or honour ? DUCHESS. Woe is me ! Would God I were not ! Re-enter Faliero. FALIERO. Pray thou no such prayer : I heard that cry to Godward : call it back. My faultless child, if prayer seem good to thee. Pray : but for nought like death. And doubt thou not But yet thou hast given me daily more good things Than God can give of evil ; nor may man. Albeit his fang be deadlier than the snake's And strike too deep for God or thee to heal. Undo the good thou didst, or make a curse 34 MARINO FALIERO, act ii. Grow where thou sowedst a blessing. Go in peace ; And take with thee love's full thanksgiving. Go. DUCHESS. My father, and my lord ! FALIERO. My child and wife, Go. \Exit Duchess. Now to thee, son. When thou gavest me this, I do not ask thee if thou knewest the man. It were impossible, out of reach of thought. That mine own brother's and mine own heart's child Should give it me, and say — I know the man ; He lives : I did not take him by the throat And make the lying soul leap through his lips Before I told thee such a thing could live. BERTUCCIO. You do me right : I know not. FALIERO. This remains. That we should know : being known, to thee nor me Belongs the doomsman's labour of the lash That is to scourge him out of life. My son, I charge thee by thine honour and my love Thou lay no hand upon him. Nay — BERTUCCIO. Nay, my lord, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 35 FALIERO. Swear me this. BERTUCCIO. I will not. FALIERO. BERTUCCIO. I cannot swear it, father. FALIERO. Swear, I say. By Christ's blood, But swear thou shalt, and keep it. Do not make Thy sire indeed mad with more monstrous wrong Than yet bows down his head dishonoured. Swear. BERTUCCIO. What? FALIERO. That albeit his hfe lay in thine hand Thou wouldst not bruise it with a finger. BERTUCCIO. Sir, How can I ? FALIERO. Sir, by God, thou shalt not choose. Art thou the hangman ? D 2 36 MARINO FALIERO, act ii. Be noble ? Noble ? BERTUCCIO. If the knave perchance FALIERO. Dost thou mock thyself and me ? BERTUCCIO. My lord, I would not wrong the worst Of all that wrong the names they wear : but yet I cannot see in Venice one save one Who might, being born base, and of no base name, Conceive himself so far your enemy. FALIERO. Boy, What knowest thou of their numbers that have cause. Being vile, to hate me ? Hath my rule not been Righteous ? BERTUCCIO. That stands not questionable of man. FALIERO. How then should more not hate than love me ? Child, Child ! BERTUCCIO. But a man's wrath strikes more straight, my lord. How vile soe'er, than toward a woman. This — This is a dog's tooth that has poisoned you : And yestereve a dog it was you bade Spurn out of sight of honour. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 37 FALIERO. Steno ? BERTUCCIO. He. Else am not I Faliero. FALIERO. Then — I say, Then, — be it so, — what wouldst thou do ? Being my son. What wouldst thou dream or do, this being so ? BERTUCCIO. Why, With God's good will and yours, and good men's leave. Hew out his heart for dogs to gnaw. Might this Displease you ? FALIERO. Why then yet is this to do ? BERTUCCIO. Forgive me, father, and God forgive me : this I am all on fire with shame to have spoken of And think the man hves while I prate. But you Know, and our Lord God knows, it is but now, Now, even this instant breath of imminent time. That I have guessed this. FALIERO. Ay j we know it well ; We, God and I. 38 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. BERTUCCIO. And both of you give leave — Or leave I crave of neither — pardon me, But leave I crave not to set heel on him. FALIERO. God gives not leave ; and I forbid thee. BERTUCCIO. Then, In God's teeth and in yours, I will, or God Shall smite me helpless by your hand. My lord. You do but justice on me, so to seem — I would not say, to dwell in doubt of me. I should have passed ere this out of your sight, Silent. FALIERO. Thou shouldst not. Is this burden sore That as thou sayest God lays on thee, or I, To be as I am patient ? BERTUCCIO. Fain would I Be, would God help me, even as you — were you As I now stand, though shamefaced, in your sight. FALIERO. Ay — you are young and shamefaced — I am old, And in my heart the shame is. But your face Hath honour in it — and what have I to do. What should I do with honour ? Thou dost make SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 39 Of mine more havoc and less count of me Than yet mine enemies have, to take this charge Upon the personal quarrel of thine hand. Unchartered by commission. BERTUCCIO. And of me, My lord, of me what make you ? How shall men Not spit when I pass by, at one that had Nor heart nor hand, eye to. behold nor ear To hear the several scoffs, by glance or speech, That base men cast on us ? Nay, then what right Had I to call any man base that lives Or any worm that stings in secret ? Sir, Put not this shame upon me : when have I Deserved it ? Why, a beaten dog, a slave Branded and whipped by justice, durst not bear For very shame's sake, though he know not shame, So great dishonour. FALIERO. Thou shalt bear it, son. BERTUCCIO. I will not. FALIERO. Son, what will is this of thine To lift its head up when I bid it lie And listen while mine own, tfiy father's will. Speaks ? How shalt thou that wilt not honour me Take in thine hand mine honour ? Mine, not thine, 40 MARINO FALIERO, act ii. Not yet, I tell thee, thine it is to say Thou shalt or shalt not strike or spare the stroke That is to make my fame, if hurt it be, Whole. I, not thou, it is that heads the house And bears the burden : I, not thou, meseems, It was that fought at Zara. Nay, thine eyes Answer, an old man then was young, and I That now am young then was not : nor in sooth Would I misdoubt or so misprize thee, boy. As not to think thou hadst done as gladly well As I that service, had it lain in thee, Or any toward our country. But myself Am not so bowed and bruised of ruinous time, Not yet so beaten down of trampling years. That I should make my staff or sword of thee. And strike by delegation. On the state Is laid the charge of right and might to deal Justice for all men and myself and thee By sovereignty of duty ; not on us Lies of that load whereto the law puts hand One feather's or one grain's weight. More : did we Take so much on us of the general charge, We were not loyal : and the dog we strike Were yet, though viler than a leper's hound, No viler then than we, who by God's gift Being born of this the crown of commonweals, Venetian, so should cast our crown away That men born subject, unashamed to be Called of their king subjects, might scoff at us As children of no loftier state than theirs. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 41 For where a man's will hangs above men's heads Sheer as a sword or scourge might, and not one Save by his grace hath grace to call himself Man — there, if haply one be born a man, Needs must he break the dogleash of the law To do himself, being wronged, where no right is. Right : but as base as he that should not break, To show himself no dog, but man, their law. Were he, that civic thief, the trustless knave Who should not, being as we born masterless. Put faith in freedom and the free man's law. Justice, but like a king's man born, compelled To cower with hounds or strike with rebels, rise And right himself by wrong of all men else, Shaming his country ; saying, ^ I trust thee not ; I dare not leave my cause upon thine hand, Mine honour in thy keeping lies not sure \ I must not set the chance of my good name On such a dicer's cast as this, that thou Wilt haply, should it hke thee, do me right.'* No citizen were this man, nor unmeet By right of birth and civic honour he To call a man sovereign and lord : nor here Lives one, I think, so vile a fool as this. For me, my faith is in the state I serve And those my fellow- servants, in whose hands Rests now mine honour safe as theirs in mine. Which trust should they redeem not, but give up In mine their own fame forfeit, this were not Venice. 42 MARINO FALIERO, act ii. BERTUCCIO. But if perchance the thing fall out ? If some be peradventure less than thou Venetian, equal-souled and just of eye, Must our own hands not take our own right up ? If these abuse their honour, and forbear. For love's or fear's sake, justice ? FALIERO. If the sun Leap out of heaven down on the Lido there And quench him in Giudecca. \Rises, BERTUCCIO. Sir, but then — FALIERO. I charge thee, speak thereof to me no more. \Exeunt, Scene 1 1. The Piazzeita. Enter Steno, meeting Lioni and Beltramo. STENO. What says our Lioni now ? hath he not heard Nor seen if we lack heart or wit to strike ? Eh ! what saith wisdom ? lioni. What indeed to thee SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 43 That art a knave and liar, a coward and fool ? Nothing. STENO. God's blood, sir ! LTONI. For thy veins have none : A beggar's trull breeds nobler brats than thee. I bid thee, ser Michele, know me not. STENO. Well — but I bear such jests not every day ; Thou knowest me that I do not. LIONI. Hound, be hence ; And let a man draw breath unplagued of thine. STENO. Art thou my nobler ? LIONI. Fool, the beasts are that. Wilt thou not leave this air taintless of thee ? Wouldst thou be whipped— save of the hangman ? STENO. What! LIONI. Strike him, Beltramo. BELTRAMO. Sir, by Christ, not I : I am not of that office. 44 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. STENO. No, thou knave. Thine hand against a noble ! BELTRAMO. Not mine hand, Surely ; but say my foot should strike a liar. The blow should do his dogship honour : yea. Were all high titles gilt about his head, Scarce were he worthy to be spurned of me. STENO. Dost thou not hear then, Lioni, how thy knave Dishonours thee, doing me dishonour ? LIONI. Man, — All true men pardon one that calls thee so ! — Leave us, or I will do my face the shame And thine the great and yet unmerited grace To spit upon thee. STENO. Christ ! the men are mad. Well, yet, God save and keep you ! LIONI. Ay, from thee. [Exit Steno. BELTRAMO. I would the Doge bore such mind as yours. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 45 LIONI. Thou knowest he bears a nobler. BELTRAMO. This I know, His blood is more intemperate than the sea When red Libeccio takes it : half a sting Will ravage all the channels of its course With fever's furious poison ; and this worm Hath shot the sting into his heart. LIONI. Can I Help him ? or thou, friend, heal it ? BELTRAMO. No, my lord. Would God— LIONI. And what wouldst thou with God ? BELTRAMO. Alack, What no man born, I doubt, may get of God Whom he hath bidden in all this age of ours Be born as I am. LIONL And how wouldst thou be born ? BELTRAMO. Even thine and all men's equal. 46 MARINO FALIERO. act ii. LIONI. Ay, good friend ? Why, now you thou me ; being a noble too, What could my malcontent do more ? BELTRAMO. My lord, I trust and think, being noble as you, I were not Less malcontent than now, being but by blood Your footboy's fellow- citizen and yours. LIONI. Ay ? Well, a brave man, were he seven times king. Is but a brave man's peer : so be it : but God Unmake me that I am and make me vile If I conceive, were I and thou, man, mates, What then should discontent thee. BELTRAMO. Why, to you The slight thing then still fretting half my heart. The secret small snake-headed thing, should seem Nothing ; yet me not all alone it frets. Galls no more mine than many a man's heart else, That any man should bear of any man Wrong, or that right should hold not equal rule On one as on another. LIONI. Doth it not Here? SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 47 BELTRAMO. No, my lord : nor otherwhere on earth. LIONI. Why, then, God help thee, why should this forsooth Vex thee, or them whose thought keeps tune with thine, More than it preys on others ? BELTRAMO. Ask of God That ; some he bids not bear what others may — Or haply may not all their patient lives With pulseless hearts endure it. LIONI. God us aid ! Thy riddles ring no merrier, man, to me Than that foul fool's uncleaner japes than thine. What gadfly thought hath stung thee ? BELTRAMO. Truth, my lord ; Or call it pity— or call it love of right — Malice, or covetousness, or envy — nay. But I, howe'er men turn it, call my thought Truth. LIONI. Be thou ne'er so strong to dive, thou shalt not Pluck up from out the shadow where she sleeps Truth : and for justice, if she keep not here 48 MARINO FALIERO, act ii. Her sovereign state and perfect kingdom, where May man take thought and find her ? Pity — nay, But if our hearts should bleed but one thin tear For each wrong known and each we know not of, A day would drain them dry of blood. But what Hath all our will and all our impotence. Though this be strong as that is all too sure. To do with him we spake of — be it for hurt Or healing ? Didst thou call on God to change For him the face and fashion of the law Whereby the world steers toward some end, and holds Some heart up yet of comfort ? BELTRAMO. Surely, no. I did but think what good might come of ill If this great wrong should smite a heart as great With sense of other and older wrongs than this Done toward no viler nor more abject hearts Nor heaped on heads more worthy shame and scorn Than age or place, fame of high deeds, desert. Or pride, hath made Faliero's. LIONI. By this light, I think the heat it sheds hath even as wine Dazzled thy brain to darkness. How should this Do thee or any man good, that thy lord, My lord and thine, an old man full of days And full of honours, being than all of these Himself more honourable, should take by chance SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 49 A buffet from a fool's hand on his cheek, Or spittle from a fool's mouth on his beard, And hardly bear to bear it ? Who shall reap What harvest hence ? BELTRAMO. Nor you, sir, know, nor I ; But haply — so priests He not— God. LIONI. May he Bind up thy brain with comfort ere it sweat Forth of thy scalp with fever ! Mark me, friend, Thou dost thyself, being honest, no small wrong To let such worms for sloth's sake feed on it. I love thee, knowing thee valiant, — yea, by Christ, I he not, saying I love thee — and therein If haply I deserve again of thee Love, let me rather bid thee than beseech Pluck all such thoughts up by the root, and take Good counsel rather than intemperate care Of what beseems not nor besteads thee. So God give thee comfort and good day. Farewell. [Exeunt severally. 50 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. ACT III. Scene I. — An apartment in the ducal palace. Faliero and Bertuccio. FALIERO. Did not I charge thee think no more such thoughts Or seal them up in silence? Wouldst thou make Honour, that here hath station if on earth, Dishonourable ? for so to deem or doubt Of men set highest in Venice or the world Were no less insolent madness than to make Thy mother's couch a harlot's. Hast thou seen More days than I, that what I think to see Thou, thou shouldst hold for questionable ? I know That God put nought of traitor nor of fool In the essence of thy spirit : else — pardon me, My brother ! I might hold this child of thine Less than should be thy children. BERTUCCIO. That, my lord, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 51 I would not be — God spare me that ; I think That unrebuked your brother's son may say Nor foe nor friend hath yet so found him. FALIERO. No; I have known thee honourable all thy brief life through As they that founded us our house, and sure As mine own sword here to my hand is : hence It is that harshlier I rebuke thee not, Misprizing thus thy lordliest elders. Well — Meseems the message tarries that should bring Their sovereign sentence to us : the cause, I thought Should need nor bear a long debate : but just It is that justice should not mix with rage Her purity of patience : let them weigh My worth against my wrong ere judgment speak. And both against the wrongdoer : I were found Even all too much a soldier, and my state For me no fitter than for thee, should wrath Distract my trust and reverence toward the law And toward their hands that wield it : as indeed It doth not — nay, it could not though I would And though it could I would not give it leave Enter an Officer. OFFICER. Health from the senate to the Doge I bring. And this their sentence. E 2 52 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. FALIERO. Give me this in brief. Ay — thou, Bertuccio. BERTUCCIO. Bid this man begone. FALIERO. Why ? Hast thou read already ? BERTUCCIO. Sir, by heaven I pray you bid him go. FALIERO. Ay? — Leave us, friend. \Exit Officer, Now; man, what is it ? — I would not call thee boy, Fluttering and faltering with so changed a cheek Above thy task — but read. BERTUCCIO. I dare not. FALIERO. Ay? BERTUCCIO. I dare not, and I will not. FALIERO. Dost thou dare Be called a coward ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 53 BERTUCCIO. Ay. No. I cannot tell. Mine eyes were troubled, or my brain is touched. FALIERO. By Christ, I think so. Give it me. BERTUCCIO. My lord, I cannot. FALIERO. Cannot — will not — dare not ? Hark, Boy ; though thou find me patient, be not thou Frontless, and light as riotous insolence. Read. BERTUCCIO. Sir, you bade me give it in brief. FALIERO. By God, I think the boy makes mirth of it. Read, or speak. BERTUCCIO. Michele Steno stands condemned — FALIERO. To death ? Exile ? God smite thee ! BERTUCCIO. Had he struck me dumb. 54 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. It scarce were harder for my tongue to say No. FALIERO. Ah ! perpetual prison ? BERTUCCIO. If two months, With one year's after exile from the state, Be held so much in Venice. FALIERO. Or two days — Why not two hours ? Thou liest ? BERTUCCIO. I did not think To hear that question ever, and reply. Would God I did. FALIERO. Thou didst not think ? Who heeds What thoughts were thine ? I think this is not night Wherein I walk through such a monstrous dream. BERTUCCIO. Day be it or night or twilight, sire of mine, Two months it is that by these grave men's doom On whose high-hearted honour hangs our own The dog must lie in durance. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 55 FALIERO. Son, I think Thou liest not, but for shame's most piteous sake Wilt lay but half the truth upon thy tongue. On : when the date is out, the man released Shall take my seat, and I the foulest knave's That bleeds and swelters in the galleys. Nay, Spare me not this : read. BERTUCCIO. Father, not for heaven, God knows, though heaven stood open, would I dare Let one reproachful shadow of casual thought Fall toward you — but would God you had given my hand Freedom, or I not asked it ! Mine, my fault It is that shame besets us— cursed was I To leave brute chance and men's malignities Occasion so to smite our honour. Now Two months must drain themselves away to death Before the tongue be plucked out of his throat. FALIERO. Nor now nor then nor ever now need that Be. My good son, I give thee kindly thanks — And noble thankfulness thou art worthy of — That thy forbearance more than my desert Withholds thy tongue from revel in rebuke. Thy lip from smiles, thine eye from triumph ; this 56 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. Would no man else, I doubt, forbear save thee, Being wise and young, seeing one so grey in years So witless and so vain of spirit and weak, So confident and very a fool as now The man men called Faliero. Thou alone, Thou, only thou in Venice, wouldst, I think, So spare and so forbear me. God requite Thy reverence and thy gentleness of heart Not as he now requites my pride and faith. My faith and trust in others. BERTUCCIO. Father! O, Would God I had wronged them as they wrong thee now And stood before them shamed and abject ! FALIERO. Peace. Here is no matter more for words or tears Bring me my wife — thy sister — hither. \Exit Bertuccio. Ay Fourscore full years — and this the crown of them? And this the seal set on mine honours ? Why, Had I deserved this, — were it possible That man could ever have merited of the state This, and that such a man, being born, could be I, — this were yet unpardonable and vile In them to deal such justice. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 57 Re-enter Bertuccio with the Duchess. Now, my child, How fares it with thee ? DUCHESS. Peace be with my lord ! FALIERO. Heaven be with hell, say : for so far apart Peace and thy lord stand each from other. Thou — With thee how fares it? DUCHESS. Ill because of thee ; Well for mine own part. FALIERO. Verily so I think ; 111 fares it with thee for an old man's sake, By the old man's fault, who by thyself shouldst fare Well. DUCHESS. Sir, you know me, whether such a thought Touched ever with unnatural thanklessness And tainted so my spirit. FALIERO. Unnatural ? No : For thanklessness was never unnatural yet. But thou, what thanks, my daughter, owest thou me 58 MARINO FALIERO. act iit. Who have made thee not my daughter ? Had I given Thine hand for love's sake, ay, for love's, away, Then thankless wouldst thou be to thank me not. Now — DUCHESS. Dear and gracious ever have you been Toward all found worthy grace and goodness : me You have crowned and clothed with honour, being your wife : And toward your country — FALIERO. Good : forget not her. DUCHESS. Toward this most glorious country given of God For man's elect, his chosen of men, to serve. No son more glorious hath done service. FALIERO. — Found More acceptable or worthier this reward. Nay, stint not so thy speech : make on : thou sayest None hath deserved — what guerdon ? — more than I. DUCHESS. My lord, was this then wrought for recompense ? For guerdon is it we serve our country ? This Meseemed her highest reward of service done, The grace to serve her. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 59 FALIERO. God's best grace and hers For fourscore years I have held it : now I hold A harlot's kiss, a hangman's wage, more high, More precious gains and worthier good men's care. Than grace to serve my country. DUCHESS. Dear my lord, And wherefore ? not through wrath and hate of me, Which might so much distemper and disease The raging blood and brain of violent men Fast bound with iron bands of honour and law To women less than woman, that the world Might seem to them for shame's sake blackness, day Night, and faith dust, and love's face monstrous : yet Should this not leave them dead in trust of heart Toward motherhood and manhood, as are they Whose hearts cast off their country : were I vile. My shame could shame not Venice : but your heart, Being clear of doubt as mine of shame, can hold No thought more worthy than a poisonous dream That so should feed its fever. If I be not Vile, but in God's and man's eyes and in yours Clean as my mother bare me clean of sin Such as makes women shameful — then, though earth Were full of tongues that cried on me, what hurt Were this to you or God in heaven or me If we no more than God permit the snake To hurt the heel he hisses at, but shoots 6o MARINO FALIERO, act hi. No sting through flesh untainted ? Were the world Full of base eyes and tongues, ears quick to catch Evil, and lips more swift to speed it, how Should this make vile what were not ? You it is, My lord it is who wrongs me, to require Revenge for that which if it need revenge None ever can wash out : but if it need None, being an emptier thing than air, the wrong Were done of him that held it worth revenge. FALIERO. Thou art high of heart, my child — as children may Be, and men may not. DUCHESS. Sir, but may not men Learn if they list of children ? Not of me Would I desire you, but of Christ, to learn Forbearance. FALIERO. Christ was no man's lord on earth, No woman's husband. DUCHESS. God in flesh was he. FALIERO. Yea ; and not I. DUCHESS. Nay, but his servant. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 6i FALIERO. Yea. Venetian born, Christian baptized, and duke Crowned : and a man grown grey in toil of arms ; And profitable in service ; and a slave Whom all he served may spit on. That were nought. On thee for my sake may they. DUCHESS. No, my lord : On some base thing they call me, which is not I. FALIERO. Girl, who put so great a heart in thee ? DUCHESS. The man who hath shown me honour all my life. Faliero. FALIERO. None of him shall learn it more. DUCHESS. Sir, all men shall that ever hear of him So noble, and nobler therefore than were he Who had held it needful on so vile a wrong To set some seal of honour by revenge. FALIERO. Of me thou sayest not this. I am not the man. 62 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. DUCHESS. If God give ear to prayer, thou shalt be. FALIERO. Ay- If that which is not be, and that which is . Be not, I shall be : this I doubt not of. DUCHESS. My lord, am I then other, or yourself, Because of tongues that if they smote a serf Would seem not w^orth our heeding ? FALIERO. No, and ay. The serf should heed not, nor for his sake we. But — Child, it may be this has made me mad. All day remembrance rides me, and by night Bestrides and jades my brain, as though some bell Rang right above my head violently struck With pealing pulse of hammers : and in sleep Some shame I know not seems to close me round Cloudlike, and fasten on me like a fire. And clothe me like a garment ; and it seems Though God were good as thou, righteous and kind. He could not help me, heal my hurt, undo This evil men have done me, till myself Know and take heart and kill it and be healed. I am old, thou seest, I am old. God comfort thee SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 63 Who art not as I am, passionate and infirm : Me shall he never. DUCHESS. Sir, not God nor man But only passion bred and fed of pain Turns your fair strength to faint infirmity By night nor day, with dream nor reason. Is it Less praise, less honour, less desirable, To be reviled of hissing things whose souls Are wingless worms and eyeless, than to have Love, thanks, and reverence, of all souls alive Worth reverence, thankfulness, or love ? Doth hell Give God less praise than heaven, blaspheming him With tongues whose praise would hail him fit for hell ? Did vile men praise us. we might loathe ourselves More than repentance yet bade ever man. More than though good men blamed. FALIERO. Ay, like enough. Thou hast a child's cheek and a wise man's tongue. 'Tis seventy years since I was called a child — And wise man was I never. Hark thee, boy : Thou art even as I was, loyal : now take note. By me take note, and warning : turn thine heart. Turn back thy face from honour ; change, and thrive : Learn wisdom of a fool : be not abashed, Forsaking all thy father taught or I, All counsels and all creeds wherewith, being fools. 64 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. We filled thee full of folly : one that bears Fourscore years' weight of veriest foolishness So counsels and so charges thee. Bow down, Down lower, if aught be lower, than lies the dust That soils men's feet save when they tread on men As these our masters now on thee and me And on my brother dead, thy father. Take All buffets of all heels thou darest not bite As one that thanks his chastener : let thy hp Kiss every hand whence with some loathliest lie Thy tongue may wrest forth wages : let thy name For cowardice ring recorded more of men Than ours for faith did ever : come there war. Peril, or chance of evil against the state. Make thyself wings, take to thee gold, begone, Fly : strike no stroke, nor seem but fain to strike ; Haste, let the foe not find thee tarrying, run. Cover thine head and hide thee : so shalt thou Deserve, if man of Venice may deserve, Honour. BERTUCCIO. My lord and sire ! FALIERO. Forget those names. There lives no title or note of fatherhood More venerable than sound the shivering bells That fringe a jester's cap ; no lordship now That shines too sure and high for shame to soil On heads less base than Steno's. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 65 BERTUCCIO. Hear me, sir. FALIERO. Who art thou that I should hear thee ? Do men hear Me ? But whate'er thou be thou art more than I ; Men call not thee the vilest name they can, Doge. BERTUCCIO. The noblest yet of earth's it were. Would he that bears it but be strong in scorn Of things less worth his rage than once the foes Who found him strong in action. FALIERO. Had I wist, Who am now not strong, thou seest, save only in speech. And even in speech time-stricken— had I wist. When for this Venice I smote Hungary down And of her fourscore thousand gave a tithe For crows to rend at Zara — when meseemed I fought for men that made our commonweal A light in God's eye brighter than the sun. That then I fought for Steno — Speak not thou ; I know thee, what thou wouldst, with leave, forsooth, Say : but for these that fence him round I fought ; For these that brand me shameful for his sake, For these that set their seal upon his words. For these that find them worth so soft rebuke 66 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. As might a sire lay on his long-tongued child Who prattles truth untimely — boy, for these I fought, and fought for Steno. Enter an Attendant ATTENDANT. Noble sir. The admiral of the arsenal desires Audience. FALIERO. A man requires, thou sayest, of me Audience ? The world breeds yet, come rain or sun. Fools — how should liars and knaves else live, or God Be served and worshipped of the world ? My lord. Admit him. ATTENDANT. Sir! FALIERO. Thou art not Venetian ? ATTENDANT. Yea- As sure as you chief prince in Venice. FALIERO. Then, Wert thou the lowest that welters out of life Down in the Wells till death remember him. Thou art master and lord and sovereign over me. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 67 If I may pray thee do me so much grace As not to smite me therefore on the cheek, I would desire thee give thy fellow lord Admittance to your servant. [Exit Attendant. Thou, my boy. Go. Whatsoe'er from Venice come to me, From Venice, earth, or heaven, can be but now Insult ; and thou, being loyal, and a fool — Kind, and my brother's issue — fain would I, Being fooHsh too, and kindly, fain I would Thou didst not see it. Go thou, my love, with him. Peace be with both. [Exeunt Duchess and Bertucclo, Enter the Admiral of the Arsenal. ADMIRAL. Health to the Doge ! Sir, I pray you look but on my face. FALIERO. It bleeds. Thy brows are sorely bruised. Art thou come here For surgery ? ADMIRAL. Yea, by furtherance of your grace To find my fame a surgeon. FALIERO. Fame ? what is it ? F 2 68 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. The word is not Venetian, sir ; it means Honour. ADMIRAL. Toward whom then should I turn in trust Save toward our highest in honour ? FALIERO. Be it enough Thou art found a brawler : being a soldier, man. Be not a jester too. ADMIRAL. By neither name, Sir, am I known in Venice. As yourself Are honourable and a righteous man in rule, I pray you not but charge you do me right. FALIERO. Or wilt thou have me pluck the sun from heaven And put it in thine hand ? Nay, that were nought ; The sun, though save by sight we touch it not Nor save in thought come near it, yet in heaven By sight and thought we reach and find it there, And here by good works done on earth ; but where. And by what sign, in Venice or on earth. Honour ? ADMIRAL. I crave no more than right. FALIERO. No more ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 69 Strange temperance and strange modesty in man To crave no more than what, for all we see, Not God's almightiness hath power to give — Or else our less than righteous God lacks grace, x\nd hath not heart to do it. What wrongs are thine ? At least I have thus much more of grace than God, That I will hearken if not help thee. ADMIRAL. Sir, There came but now to the arsenal a man — \Pauses, FALIERO. And smote another on the face — is this Thy wrong ? Thou canst not see the shame on mine That thou shouldst make thy plaint of this. Look here — Seest thou no sign in flesh and blood that saith What hands have buffeted me ? ADMIRAL. My lord, my lord, It is not I who am wronged of these your jests. But you much more in honour. FALIERO. That being nought. Dead, rotten, if the thing had ever life, I am nowise touched at all. But heed not me : I had no mind to wrong thee. On. 70 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. ADMIRAL. This man, Being noble, of the seed of Barbaro, Required of service to be done for him The masters of the galleys ; I being by Made answer for mine officers and thine. This could not be : whereon we fell to words ; He chid my duteousness in office there As toward his place undutiful, and I Rebuked his rank for insolence : he thereat Spake not again, but smote me with his hand Clenched, and the jewel thereon that loaded it Hath writ his wrath where each man's eye may read That sees mine own yet bhnd with blood. FALIERO. What then ? ADMIRAL. Why, this then, if your grace love righteousness More than reproach of men for mad misrule — Justice. FALIERO. Come hither — here, beside me. Look Northwestward, by St. Mark's, athwart the light. Seest thou that beggar there asprawl and stark Who seems to soil the sunshine where he lies ? ADMIRAL. Ay, my lord. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 71 FALIERO. Ask of him to help us both. ADMIRAL. My lord, the temper of your angry wit Seems wild and harsh to mine. FALIERO. Seem all things not To wise men wild as madness, harsh as hell To men that ever think on heaven ? Thou knowest — Nay, then, thou knowest not how they deal with me Who are lords of ours, who hold us in their hands, Who bid us be and be not. This at least Thou hast heard — no gondolier but sings it, none But laughs at large who listens — this ye know, What manner of wrong was done me late, of whom. And toward what judgment answerable he stands Who doth me, being too weak to right myself, Wrong. Answer not : I did not bid thee say Thou knowest, for mine own shame's sake, and for thine I would not hear thee swear thou knowest it not. Now, even this hour, the sentence comes to me Given on my wrongdoer by our lords of law Whose number makes up half my fourscore years. Man, what had thine been? ADMIRAL. What but death ? 72 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. FALIERO. Indeed ? Death ? Is it possible or believable There lives a man that is no kin to me Who holds mine honour worth the washing ? Friend, These men, born high, have doomed this high-born man To lie secluded two close months in ward And walk again forth freely. ADMIRAL. Will your grace Endure it ? FALIERO. Seest thou not how patiently ? Have all their forty buffets on this face Raised blood enough to blush with ? ADMIRAL. Good sir duke, If you be minded verily for revenge, These husbands and these sons of harlots, called Nobles — these lineal hars whose tongues thrust out Lap blood, lick dust, or lisp for lewdness — these Whose mirth, whose life, whose honour hath for root Adultery — these that laugh not save at shame, But turn all shame to laughter — these our lords May find a lord who need but lack the will To hew them all in pieces. FALIERO. Ay, my friend ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 73 ADMIRAL. Sir, were you mine and theirs who are friends indeed With all that groan and yearn, despair for shame. Wax mad in hope — with all whose bloody sweat Anoints and sleeks and supples and makes fat Our lusty lords in Venice — this might be Surely. FALIERO. But now didst thou rebuke me — yea, For mockery chidd'st thou me : what words for this Shall I find fit to chide thee? ADMIRAL. Nay, my duke, What words or stripes may please you : shame on me Can work no further now nor heavier wrong : But, holding me herein a liar or mad. You give truth's self and your own soul the lie If hope or faith or yearning or desire Be verily in your soul toward vengeance. FALIERO. If God's will be strong, man's will be weak, and good Be not more vile than evil — if hate or love. Wrath, shame, or righteousness, be anything. Or aught at all be more than nothing, then Much more than vengeance I require j and yet Desire beyond all else desirable 74 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. Vengeance. If these who have wronged me, being wiped out, May leave this Venice with their blood washed white. Clean, splendid, sweet for sea and sun to kiss Till earth adore and heaven applaud her — then Shall my desire, till then insatiable. Feed full, and sleep for ever. ADMIRAL. Sir, do you Set but your hand with ours to it, and the work Is even half wrought already. FALIERO. What are they Who have in hand so high a work, and bid Mine own take part and lot with theirs therein? ADMIRAL. My faith in yours needs not assurance ; yet Must none unpledged have knowledge of it, or take Our lives in keeping : therefore, ere I speak. Swear. FALIERO. Wiser men should bear thy charge than thou : Swear ? If thou lack assurance of me, friend. What oath of force may give it thee ? If by God I swear, being one that might, unsworn to God, Betray thee, will my treasonous tongue be tied, Think'st thou, by fear of God, not fearing shame ? SCENE 1. MARINO FALIERO. 75 Were oath or word worth half a grain of dust If, save for fear of hell and God, I durst, Or would, albeit God's tongue should bid me, lie ? Or if by Venice, shall my faith to her Not bind me, being unsworn, to faith with you If well ye will toward Venice — and if ill. What oath could pledge me to this breach of oath, The mere misprision of your treason — me, Who stand for Venice here, in all time's sight. To Godward and to manward answerable ? Or by mine honour would you bind me fast To abstain from that which could I dream to do My soul were with Iscariot's fast in hell Now while my body yet should walk the world And make the sun ashamed to cast on earth The shameful shadow of such a soulless thing Spared by sheer scorn of Satan's and of God's, Rejected of damnation ? He that swears Faith toward his fellow bids him note and heed That faith is none within him, seeing his word Wants worth and weight which if it want indeed No heavier oath than ever shook the soul With thunder and with terror and with air Can add or cast upon it. Then be it, sir. ADMIRAL. On your soul FALIERO. Yea, friend : be it on mine and thine. 76 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. And now, as I and thou are faithful men, Speak. ADMIRAL. Sir, albeit as yet conspiracy Be shapeless as a shadow, this dark air Breeds not beneath our iron heaven of rule Clouds charged with less than Hghtning ; men there are Whose hate and love toward freedom and toward shame Are full as even your own great heart of fire. With such if you would commune on this cause. Two might I now bid hither ; a seaman tried, Filippo Calendaro, swift of hand And stout of heart as is his comrade wise And keen of spirit and craft in wiles of war, Bertuccio Israello : these, by secret word Being called to counsel, shall not fail at need To give us note whom else to t^ke in trust As in this cause auxiliaries. FALIERO. Therein Lord nor lieutenant nor subordinate Should any be, but equal all in heart And all in station as in action all Equal : for if in heart we be not one How shall not each loose limb of our design Rot, and relax in sunder ? Not allies, Auxiliaries nor seconds we require. But single-souled sons of one mother born SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 77 And brothers one in spirit ; born as Christ Of this pure virgin's womb, the commonwears, Whom fools and slaves would fain make false and foul, Being bastard-hearted, though true-born : but she Knows shame no more than them she knows, whose souls Were shapen as for service of a king, Not citizen, but subject. Bid our friends Hither : but ere you go, I pray you call My nephew to me. ADMIRAL. Sir, God give you grace To take this cause upon you ; if he give. No name that ever grew a star shall burn Too high for yours to shine by. FALIERO. This perchance May and perchance may be not : God's own hand Holds fast all issues of our deeds : with him The end of all our ends is, but with us Our ends are, just or unjust : though our works Find righteous or unrighteous judgment, this At least is ours, to make them righteous. Go. \_Exit Admiral. What sentence shall be given on mine ? Of man. As ill or well God means me, well or ill Shall judgment pass upon me : but of God, If God himself be righteous or be God, Who being unrighteous were but god of hell. 78 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. The sentence given shall judge me just : for these Who are part and parcel of my shame and theirs Defile not nor disgrace me, whom they spurn And smile and spit on, but their country : nay, Nor only this, but freedom, duty, right. Honour, and all things whence the unlikeness lives Of commonwealths and kingdoms ; all whence grows The difference found of man whose brow fronts heaven And beast whose eye seeks earthward — citizen Whose hand implores a grace from no man's hand. And thrall whose lip craves pardon if it smile. Re-enter Bertuccio. How farest thou now, boy ? When I bade thee hence. It was to spare thee sight and share of shame I thought should fall upon me : but I knew Thou wouldst have borne therein thy loyal part, And eased, if pain of thine or love might ease, My sufferance of mine own. Behold me now : What seest thou ? rage, or shame, or pride, or fear, Or what vile passion else ? BERTUCCIO. Dear father, none, As never yet man saw nor man shall see A sign on that the noblest face alive Dishonourable. FALIERO. Nor aught untimely ? nought SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 79 Strange ? For the world is other with me, boy, Than when we parted. BERTUCCIO. Sir, I dare not say. Not though the word seem written on your brow, Triumph — nor, though this hghten from your eye, Joy. FALIERO. Yet, by Christ's own cross, my brother's child. Thou shouldst not lie to say so. BERTUCCIO. What good hap Hath brought them back whence late by men's default Such looks, long natural there, were banished ? i FALIERO. Son, A poor man's wrong and mine and all the world's, Diverse and individual, many and one. Insufferable of long-suffering less than God's, Of all endurance unendurable else. Being come to flood and fullness now, the tide Is risen in mine as in the sea's own heart To tempest and to triumph. Not for nought Am I that wild wife's bridegroom — old and hoar. Not sapless yet nor soulless. Well she knows. And well the wind our brother, whence our sails Went swollen and strong toward Istria, that her head Might bow down bruised with battle, and yield up 8o MARINO FALIERO. act hi. Its crested crown to Venice — well the world Knows if this grey-grown head and lank right hand Were once unserviceable : and she, my wife, The sea it is that sends me comfort, son, Strength, and assurance of her sons and mine. Thy brethren, here to stablish right for wrong, For treason truth, for thraldom like as ours Freedom. But thou, so be it the wind and sun That reared thy limbs and lit thy veins with life Have blown and shone upon thee not for nought — If these have fed and fired thy spirit as mine With love, with faith that casts out fear, with joy, With trust in truth and pride in trust — if thou Be theirs indeed as theirs am I, with me Shalt thou take part and with my sea-folk — aye. Make thine eyes wide and give God wondering thanks That grace like ours is given thee — thou shalt bear Part of our praise for ever. BERTUCCIO. Praise or blame. And ruinous fall or radiant rise, for me With you shall be as one thing. I am yours. The man I am you made me, and may shape The man I shall be. Re-enter the Admiral^ with Calendaro and Israello. FALIERO. Welcome, sirs ; ye find A fellow-servant, and your comrade now SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 8i In fellowship of wrong, not hopeless yet To call you, if your will stretch wing with mine, Friends, citizens, and brethren. This our friend Hath given you by my charge to know of me Thus much, that if your ends and mine be one, As one our wrongs are, and this people's need One, toward the goal forefelt of our desire No heart shall beat, no foot shall press, no hand Strain, strive, and strike with steadier will than mine And faith more strenuous toward the purpose. This If ye believe not, here our hope hath end ; If ye believe, here under happier stars Begins the date of Venice. CALENDARO. I believe Not more in God's word than in yours ; and this Not for your station's sake, nor yet your fame's, How high soe'er the wind of war have blown The splendour of your standard : but, my lord, Your face and heart and speech, being one, require Of any not base-born and servile-souled Faith : and my faith I give you. ISRAELLO. Sir, and I, Who know as all men know you wise in war, Put trust in wisdom tried so long, and found So strong for service ever. G 82 MARINO FALIERO, act hi. FALIERO. Then, no more Hath hope so high as ours is need of words To rear it higher or set more steadfast. This Remains, that being in purpose strong to strike We take but counsel where and how the stroke May sharpest fall and surest. Sirs, for me In all keen ventures tried of strength and chance The briefest rede and boldest hath been best. We, that would purge the state of poisoned blood, Need now but mark its hour for blood-letting, And where to prick the swollen and virulent vein That feeds most full this deep distemperature Whence half the heart of Venice rots. These men That steer the state with violent hand awry — These rather that bind fast the steersman's hand, Baffle and blind him, while the veering stem Reels deathward — they or she must utterly Perish : the wind blows higher through this red heaven Than when a ship may save herself, yet fling Less by the board of all her lading, now Found worthless, than may lighten her indeed. What think you ? may this plague be thoroughly purged, And one of these our lords who trample us Live ? Are ye men that take this burden up. And think with half a hand to bear it through Or wear it like a feather ? If ye will. Ye may be free, red-handed from revenge, Or keep white hands, be slaves, and slumber : I Will serve no more, nor sleep dishonoured. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 83 CALENDARO. Sir, For one wrong done you, being but man as we. If wrath make lightning of your hfe, in us, For all wrongs done of all our lords alive Through all our years of living, doubt you not But wrath shall climb as high toward heaven, and hang As hot with hope of thunder. ISRAELLO. Not to me Can justice ever seem too just, or steer Too straight ahead on vengeance : but we need The helmsman's eye to run before his hand, The captain's tongue to bid us whither. FALIERO. You, Sir admiral, spake but late of one to me Who lacking not the will should lack not power To carve this monstrous quarry limb from limb And give its flesh for beasts less vile to feed ; Spake you not somewise thus ? ADMIRAL. Ay, verily — seeing Heart, as I deemed, in you, sir, toward the work ; And, seeing it yet, still say so. FALIERO. Men have seen 84 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. Worse, and have rashlier spoken, yet have won Praise for sharp sight and judgment. Friends, meseems Yet none of you will say that in this cause We lack no larger counsel than our own. No further scope of foresight, though the path Be ne'er so strait and secret : foot and eye Must keep, for all this close and narrow way, The vantage yet of outlook far and free Lest in the darkness where our snares are set Ourselves be trapped as wolves by twilight. ADMIRAL. Sir, Some six or seven I wot of, being called in To single counsel severally, shall give Each man, so please you, judgment on the mean That may be found for present action. FALIERO. This The rudest march of rough-shod strategy Could push not past and miss it, that we need Ere noon or night may crown conspiracy Not six or seven to post about the squares But some sixteen or seventeen chiefs elect. With each some forty swordsmen at his back Well weaponed and arrayed, but held in doubt, Even till the perfect hour strike, on what end Their enterprise is bent and bound : and these. When dawns the night or day determined, shall SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 85 At signal given fall here and there in fray, With stormy semblance made of casual strife To right and left enkindling : so shall I Find instant cause or plea to bid the bells Toll summons from St. Mark's, and they thereon To press from all sides in and every street Down toward the church ; where, finding these our lords And all chief ministers of the common wrong Who stand chief princes of the common weal Drawn forth by fear together to demand Whence thus leaps forth such riotous noise by night, Full may they fall upon them unaware And drive on heaps and slay them. BERTUCCIO. Sir— FALIERO. What says Our nephew — sworn so late upon our side Deep as man's faith may pledge him ? Does the charge Mislike thee ? Didst thou lie, or didst thou not Swear ? BERTUCCIO. Sir, to no such enterprise I swore As treads through blood of blameless men toward ends Whereof I wist not ; nor, though these be pure, To me may general slaughter seem absolved Or by their grace transfigured and redeemed From damnable to righteous. Nay, my lord, 86 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. Reply not as your eyes make answer : I Take back no word of all I said, and now Reiterate, seeing they need reiterance ; nought That you shall bid me, not though God forbid. Will I not, if I may, do : but what end, How high soe'er and single-eyed, can bid Spill innocent blood, and stand up spotless ? Think, As these men should, being pure of purpose — think If truth or trust or freedom, righteousness, Faith, reverence, love, or loyalty, be fruits That burst or burgeon from so dire a seed As were in these rebellion, and in you Treason. FALIERO. Treason ? BERTUCCIO. The word should scare you not. If not this enterprise may scare you. ISRAELLO. Duke, Strange ears, it seems, have caught our counsel. CALENDARO. Peace : Howe'er the strife of counsels end, we stand Safe : here is yet no traitor. BERTUCCIO. He that holds His life in fear of me may hold it safe SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 87 As I will hold mine honour. Sir, what end, {To Faliero.) Though this device should drink not innocent blood. And violence fall not save on wrongdoers' heads, What end shall come of this red enterprise. What fruit of such a root as bears for flower Carnage that strikes by midnight ? ISRAELLO. First for us Justice, and next for him who doth us right A crown. BERTUCCIO. A crown, and justice? night and day Shall first be yoked together. CALENDARO. Truth is that : If right and wrong engender, they bring forth No true-begotten offspring. BERTUCCIO. Sir, can you Hear and keep silence when a citizen born Of Venice proffers you for hire of blood, For price of death dealt and a darkling blow, Kingship ? FALIERO. It was not well said — no, nor thought — Of any, born republican, — albeit 88 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. The commonweal be cankered now at core — That healing even for plaguespots might be found In such a leper's bed as monarchy Keeps warm with prostitution, till therein A people's hfeblood, foul with sloth and shame, Rot round its heart and perish. IvSRAELLO. I would have you Reign but as first of citizens, and see Crowned in your name the people. FALIERO. Good my friend, The foulest reigns whence ever earth smelt foul When all her wastes and cities reeked of Rome Were by that poisonous plea sown, watered, fed : The worst called emperors ever, kings whose names Serve even for slaves to curse with, lived by vote And shone by delegation. We desire For all men who desire not wrong to man Freedom : but save for love's sake and the right's Freedom to serve hath no man. ISRAELLO. Love should give Right to the crowned redeemer of the state To bid men serve for thankfulness and love The man who did them service. FALIERO. And to them SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 89 Right to bow down, and serve, and abdicate Manhood? Not God could give man, though he would. Power to do this, and right to hve : for they That so should cast off manfulness, and tread Their birthright out in blood or trampled mire, Could claim, being men, but right to kill and die. Or live, being thralls, as beasts that feed and groan Till death release them into dust. No more. To serve and reign for me were shame alike, And for my masters or my slaves no less. Inseparable and reverberate, crime from crime And shame on shame for ever. ADMIRAL. Sir, well said. CALENDARO. Ay, and well done : such words are deeds, and wear Swords girt for service on them. FALIERO. Yet of these And all words else enough is ours and more, If very swords be slower to speak than they. Ye have my mind, I yours : remains but this, That each betake him toward his office. ADMIRAL. Sir, Farewell awhile we bid you, giving God Thanks that he gives us and so great a cause A chief whose heart is great as it. 90 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. FALIERO. Farewell. \Exeunt Admiral^ Calendaro, and Israello. And how may this now please thee ? Have I said 111? BERTUCCIO. No, my lord. FALIERO. Or shall not we do well To raise up Venice from the dust wherein Men trample down her servants, and to bring All haughtiest heads and highest of tyrants down Thither ? BERTUCCIO. My lord, it may be. FALIERO. Nay, by God, Thou art older and colder of spirit and blood than I ; I am hoar of head, but thou, thou art sere at heart. And grey in soul as fearful forethought makes Old men whom time bows lowlier down than me. What yet of this mislikes thee ? Wouldst thou make The rough ways plain for freedom's feet, yet spare Tyrants ? BERTUCCIO. Of all this blood that shall be shed. If none indeed be taintless, I would spare No drop that knows infection : but, my sire, Who dares say this ? SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 91 FALIERO. I. BERTUCCIO. Nay, not you, but wrath, Your wrath it is that says so. FALIERO. No : for proof With iron tongues innumerable echoing me Cries out upon the house-tops, fills and thrills Streets, bridges, squares, with shame from roof to roof Reverberated resounding as to toll The deep death-knell of honour. None there is. Not one that in this wrongdoing bears not part, Not one but we in Venice, we whose hands Are pledged to quench in blood this funeral fire That else will burn up justice, courage, faith. And leave but shame alive and vileness free And cowardice crowned as conqueror. Here she lies, Our mother, mightiest late of all things throned And hailed of earth as heavenly, naked, soiled. Mocked, scourged, and spat on : not her first of sons And not her last escapes, evades, eschews Communion in one sacrament of shame, Partakes not, pledges not the wine of wrong. The bread of outrage : first and last are one : Bound of base hands down on her pyre alive, Fast bound with iron and with infamy, Our commonweal groans, knowing herself a thing 92 MARINO FALIERO. act hi. For slaves and kings to scoff at. Shall this be With thy goodwill for ever ? Not with mine Shall it ; nay, not though scarce a tithe were left When justice hath fulfilled her fiery doom Again to build up Venice. BERTUCCIO. Who shall build On graves and ashes, out of fire and blood, Or citadel or temple ? Where on earth. For man what stronghold, or what shrine for God, Rose ever so from ruin } FALIERO. Rome — if Rome Lie not — was built on innocent blood : and here No fratricidal auspice shall renew Life, but a sacrificial sign again Inaugurate Venice for her sons to praise And all the world to worship. These are not Brethren, nor men nor sons of men are these. But worms that creep and couple, soil and sting. Whose blood though foul shall purge pollution hence And leave the shore clean as the sea. Would God Their hour to-night could ere its natural time Ring from St. Mark's, albeit the bell that struck Rang me to rest for ever ! I shall sleep Thereafter, sound as triumph or as death That strikes, and seals up triumph. BERTUCCIO. Sir, I know. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 93 If by strange hap my sire could err, with him For me to err were better, even to death. Defeat, dispraise, and all that darkens death, Than swerving from his side to shine, and live Acclaimed of all men's praises. Be your will Done : for as God's your will shall be for me A stronghold and a safeguard though I die. [Exeunt. 94 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. ACT IV. Scene I. — A cabinet in the palace of Lioni. Enter Lioni and Beltramo. LIONI. Speak now, then : here at least is none but I. Speak. BELTRAMO. Sir, you dream not what you bid me do. LIONI. By good St. Mark, not I : but this should be Some honest thing, or hardly wouldst thou dare So thrust and press upon me. BELTRAMO. No, my lord. I doubt it is not. LIONL Get thee hence, then : out : SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 95 Is there no room for all dishonest works In all the range of Venice, that a knave Must make me closet counsellor with him, Here emptying forth his knavery ? By this light, I think thou art here belated, mad with wine Or drunk with brawling : yet again I think Thou darest not thus abuse me. BELTRAMO. Sir, I dare Nor hold my peace nor hardly speak ; yet this I cannot but beseech you to believe, That if between two doubts I hang distraught The stronger cause that plucks me by the heart Is care and duty toward you, born of love ; The weaker, half disrooted now, constrains My conscience yet for shame's sake ; which nathless I needs must here cast off me. Sir, you know How yet no long time since it is that we Communed of matters held for me too high. Of unendurable evil endured, of wrong Whence all men's hearts were wasted as with fire, Of hope that helped not, patience grey with pain, Long-suffering sick to death, and violence roused To range among the violent : dangerous dreams Whereof your wisdom, though with temperate words, Rebuking them, chastised me : whence, my lord, I come to shew you now what seed hath sprung To what swift height and amplitude of doom Far overshadowing Venice. You desired 96 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. A sign, as they that knew not Christ, and lo. My lord, a sign I bring you. Twelve hours more Shall see this moon of April half burnt out And half the squares and highways of this town A sea of blood full foaming toward the verge Where it shall meet our natural sea, and bid Her waters, widening over bank and bridge. Swell strong with storm of murder's making. This May none avert : God wills it : man desires And shall by God's grace do it : but you, my lord, Keep from those ways your foot at dawn, albeit The cry be raised of enemies at our gates, Of Genoa round our port in sail ; and keep Your lifeblood from that torrent which shall drown All palaces else that shall by dawn send forth Their lords at summons sounded from St. Mark's : And so, as now through me, God save you. LIONI. Stay. Thou didst not think to say so and pass forth With no more question, scathless ? BELTRAMO. Good my lord. This did I think, that from your noble hand. In quittance of my deep devotion shown At risk and rate of honour and of Hfe To keep your head unscathed, I should not find Disgrace for guerdon, or for thanksgiving Death. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 97 LIONI. Art thou all made up of words, and hast No thought that runs not loose upon thy tongue To tell thee such a warning given as thine Can die not out within mine ear, and leave Unwarned of peril, if peril indeed there be, Venice ? BELTRAMO. I would but do you service. LIONI. Thanks. A worthy service were it, my worthy friend. Of me and thee, that thou shouldst bid me crawl Aside from general ruin of all the state. And I should grovel at thy beck, and creep Darkling away from danger. What is this That under a flickering veil of vehement words Thou shewest and wilt not shew me ? BELTRAMO. Death, I say : Death. LIONI. If I knew thee not no coward or cur. Tonight I should misknow thee. Night and day Is death not still about us, here and there. Alive around the ways and hours of life, That what we think or what we are fain to do H 98 MARINO FALIERO, act iv. We should not do for death's sake? How these knaves, Whose life is service or rebellion, fear Death ! and a child high-born would shame them. BELTRAMO. If Death seem so gracious in a great man's eye, Die, my lord : I, too mean to live your friend. Am not your murderer. LIONI. Nay, nor any man's. If I can stay thine hand betimes. I would not By force withhold thee, nor by violence wring What yet thou hast left unspoken forth : but hence Thou goest not out, and I left ignorant here What purpose haled thee hither. BELTRAMO. Why, to you Friendship ; and haply hate to no man else Of all now damned alive to darkness. LIONI. Good : The slot is hot : I scent the quarry. So, Some certain of thy kind are bound and sworn To do the ignoble and the poor man right By murderous justice done on us, who wrong Our fellow- folk with flaunt of wicked wealth SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 99 And vex their baseness with nobility ? And with our Doge's blood and ours ye would Make ripe that harvest, fill that winepress full, Which now not fifty years from this, ye know, Dolcino thought to reap and tread, and bring Equal and simple rule of right again Among us called by Christ's name here on earth — And how he died remembering, inch from inch Rent living with red iron, and his bride Burnt limb from limb before his eyes, thou wouldst Eschew such end as theirs was ? BELTRAMO. Twice, my lord, You have erred : I stand not here to save myself ; Nor stands our lord the Doge in danger yet. If he that hears me speak love honour. LIONI. Nay, But if this be not wine that swells thy speech. No less it is than murderous madness. How May death stretch wing above all heads of ours And shadow not our master's ? Him, of all High-born in Venice, should conspiracy First menace, risen from darkness such as broods About such hearts as hate us. If thou be Mad, be not yet thine own self-murderer : think — For wine it is not that is wild in thee — What peril even the least of all thy words. If here thou pause, hath pulled upon thee. loo MARINO FALIERO, act iv. BELTRAMO. That Had I cast thought on, here I should not be— Nor Lioni, nor the noblest born my lord, Have power or breath to threaten or implore Me, nor the least in Venice. LIONI. Friend, from me Nor threat nor prayer need any fear or hope Who feeds on air and sunshine ; least of all Thou : for of all men bred of baser kind, Could I perchance fear any, thee at least I could not, having called thee friend : for one Who doubts or fears or dreams ingratitude, Or holds for possible disloyalty, Stands proven in sight of his own secret soul As possibly, should chance or time prevail. Disloyal and ungrateful. Such was I, If man may say so, never : yet meseems That unreproved of cowardice I may crave To know, hadst thou been haply less my friend. How should mine hand have lost the power it hath. My lips lacked breath to question thee? or how Should not the Doge, being our lord of lords. Incarnate and impersonate Venice, bear Part in our general danger? BELTRAMO. Nay, my lord, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, loi I said not that \ part shall he bear therein, God wot, and unendangered. Please you, sir, — Please it your pride and pure nobility — To spare your smile and shrug — give so much ease, This hour, to lip and shoulder — I would say What, being derided and endured — forborne. Insulted, and forgiven, — it might not please Your servant for your scornful sake to say. You will not ask me, what? LIONI. Assuredly, No. BELTRAMO. Speak, then, and be cursed of God and man, You bid me, who forbear to bid me. LIONI. I But bid thee now no longer hold me here Awake and vexed with vehement speech wherein If aught be honest nought is clear enough To speak thee sound of wits : and didst thou so, Of God and man forgiveness might I win If I should bid God curse thee, and my men Lead forth or thrust thee from my gates. Were this For me — the word still twittering on thy tongue — Death ? BELTRAMO. Yea, my lord : and death for all your kin. 102 MARINO FALIERO, act iv. LIONI. By Christ, but this is fiery wine indeed That speaks in thee so steadfast. Wouldst thou not Sleep ? BELTRAMO. Soon and sound enough will you, my lord, Sleep, if my speech be slighted, that I speak Out of true heart and thankfulness. LTONI. And where. When thus by night red riot runs and reels And murder rides out revelling, where shall be The keepers of our state ? where, first of all. The Doge? BELTRAMO. They that keep our state so well That only force can purge it — they shall be Where sheep and oxen, fowl and fish are found. When some great feast is toward and guests come in — Dead on a heap ; and he, their lord and ours — Where think you, sir ? LIONI. Nay, man, God knows, not I : First be it or last of all the sacrifice. Where the old man falls, there lies a brave man slain — Head, hand, and heart of Venice. BELTRAMO. He shall be SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 103 Where when a fight is won the general stands Red-footed and red-handed and brow-bound With bays that drip down blood. LIONI. BELTRAMO. Believe me not, and perish. Your captain ? Ay. LIONI. I am more like To live, and see thee whipped or hanged, and not Believe thee. BELTRAMO. Choose : I have given you, sir, the chance That none but one of all your kind is given : Cast from your hand your luck and life, you die. Self- slaughtered : on your head, not mine, the charge Lies of your bloodshed. LIONL Man, if this be truth, The sun may reel from heaven, and darkness rise For dawn upon the world. BELTRAMO. I cannot tell. They say such things have been, sir. I04 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. LIONI. Nay, but none Like this : Faliero captain of thy crew ? Thine ? BELTRAMO. Ay, my lord, we are despicable — and he A man despised as we are, and most of all. Being highest in place ; more grievous and more gross Is thence his wrong, and keener thence the shame That gnaws his heart away with fangs of fire. LIONI. And he, to be revenged of us, — of them Who spared a hound the halter, not the scourge — Hath leagued himself, thou sayest, with knaves by night To wash the ways with slaughter — set a knife To the open throat of sleep — break trust, slay faith. Strike through the heart of honour ? stab the law, Set for his mother a snare to strangle her. Work miracles of murder? change a name That now rings out a clarion in men's ears For one that hisses like a snake, and means Treason ? BELTRAMO. Sir, were it but for his behoof, To feed his own lusts fat with gold and blood, Gird his own brows with empire, steal, stab, lie, And reign, abhorred and abject, over swine That once were men, but changed their heart and head To grovel, snout and groin, in slavery — then Shame were it indeed, and shameful change, for him, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 105 Being man, to shed man's innocent blood, break faith, And spit at God, and triumph, and be damned More deep than Cain with Judas, and his grave For guerdon take the spittle and the spurns Of all true men for ever : but the lord Who leads us forth of bondage, though he lead Through this red sea, struck no more loyal stroke With heart more single or hand more honest once Off Istria, nor at Zara, LIONI. Once? ay, twice. Our lord was found our saviour ; now_, if this Be monstrous truth thou tell'st me, he, grown hoar With glorious years and works, would leave his name A traitor's, red and foul for ever. Nay, But if this be no drunken dream or lie No plea can cleanse him of the murderous taint That reeks from names abominable of man As manslayers of their brethren. BELTRAMO. Sir, if Cain Be smitten again of Abel ere he die. Shall Abel stand attainted on this charge As fratricide or traitor ? LIONI. Why, my friend, I lack the lawyer's wit and tongue to prate As advocate against thee : this is all I can, to assure myself and heaven and thee io6 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. That this destruction thou wouldst bid me shun Shall ere it fall on us be stayed. Reply Not now, nor here : for hence thou goest not out Till I tonight have communed with the lords Nasoni and Cornaro, who shall make Sharp inquisition of thy news and thee Here, ere the council meet, and lay strict hand On all found part of this conspiracy Or like to dip red hands in danger, when Strange darkness rides in the air, and strange design Makes hot men's hearts with hope of evil. Thou Shalt rest unhurt ; but we will know of thee All needful for prevention. BELTRAMO. Christ our Lord Knows — LIONI. That nor threat nor rack shall wring from thee One word beyond thy will : so be it : I think All we could win or wish of thee shall need Nor force nor menace, promise, price, nor prayer, To press forth easily as a grape gives wine. Thou art tender-souled and honest, thankful, true, A gentle knave and worthy : what is said Unsay thou canst not, nor undo the deed Done when thy footfall smote my threshold. So, Be patient : this alone thou lackest : wait And keep close lips till I come back. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 107 BELTRAMO. My lord— LIONI. My lord and thine is God, who led thee here To save the world this ill, that day should be And not this city — that the sun should rise And see not Venice. How, by whom or whence, Thou knewest of this — what part thou shouldst have played On this full stage of death, had no remorse With timely pity toward me pricked thine heart — I ask thee not : to them that I bring back. Not me, shalt thou make answer. I would lay No force upon thee more than needs : but here Fast under guard abiding till they come Safe shalt thou rest as Venice now through thee. \_Exeunt. Scene II. — The balcony of the ducal palace. Faliero and Bertuccio. faliero. Dawn — is it yet not dawn ? Thine eyes, being young, Are dazed with timeless waking ; mine, that looked, Ere thine saw birth, on battle, yet have strength To outwatch the vigil of a boy's, and tell Sunrise from set of stars or moonfall. See ! Light — is not light there ? io8 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. BERTUCCIO. Sir, if time speak true, It lacks an hour to sunrise : holier lights Are these that hold procession through the square With chants of penitence to churchward, timed To match the death of darkness. FALIERO. Didst thou think God haply was not with us, that thy smile Should mock their chant or me ? Nay, thee he sends This token in his witness : I desired None : but if God be no unrighteous God, And hold us fatherlike in keeping, here Might man believe a comfortable sign Sent as with sacred and superb acclaim To match the death indeed of darkness, left Too long upon the waters. Dawn shall be. Thou sayest, an hour from hence : I know not : if, By death of mine and thine and all we love, Dawn verily in an hour might rise, and rest As once on Rome, an agelong daylight — boy, Wouldst thou, having thy fair long life to give. Thy fair long life that should be, spare or shrink Or grudge or groan to cast it from thine hand As might a child a pebble, more than I To give my thin-spun days and nights of life Left, which I stake and smile at? BERTUCCIO. No, my lord : SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 109 If God know aught of man or man know aught, God knows I know I would not. FALIERO. Yea, and I Know it : God love thee as I love, my boy, For this we know of thee. And this do thou Know likewise, and hold fast : that if today Dawn rise not, but the darkness drift us down. And leave our hopes as wrecks and waifs despised Of men that walk by daylight, not with us Shall faith decline from earth or justice end, Or freedom, which if dead should bid them die. Rot, though the works and very names of us. And all the fruit we looked for, nipped of winds And gnawn of worms, and all the stem that bore. And all the root, wax rotten. Here shall be Freedom, or never in this time-weary world Justice ; nor ever shall the sunrise know A sight to match the morning, nor the sea Hear from the sound of living souls on earth, Free as her foam, and righteous as her tides. Just, equal, awless, perfect, even as she, A word to match her music. If we fail, We are even but we — I, thou, and these our friends That rise or fall beside us : if we thrive, Not I and thou and they triumph — not we Prosper — but that which if we live or die Alike and absolute, unhurt and whole, Endures, being proven of our mortalities no MARINO FALIERO, act iv. Immortal — yea, being shown by sign of loss And token of subdued infirmity, And ruin, and all insistence of defeat. And laughing lips and trampling heels of men That smile and stamp above us buried, shown Triumphant. Righteousness alone hath right For love of all found loveliest, freedom, truth, Faith, reason, hope, and honour, to require Life at our hands : and if on sand or stone Or if on fruitful ground the hfe we give Fall, shed with all our heart and full free will. This not concerns us, this, come storm or sun, Regards us nowise : time hath all in hand : And time, I think, shall hurl this world to hell. Or give — not now, perchance, nor many a year. No?: many a century hence — God knows — but yet Some day, some year, some century, give our sons Freedom. Nor haply then may we deserve Remembrance : better many a man than we May prove himself, and perish : yet, if God Fail us not so, that, failing, we should die Cowards, it may be we shall sleep not scorned Of all that hold our faith for ever. Now Go thou and watch, but not with me, who here Would keep my watch alone till morning. God Be with thee. {Exit Bertuccio.) God? may God indeed tonight Be with us? Yet red-handed men of death. Scarce breathing now from battle, praise his name. Give thanks for happy slaughters, mix with prayer SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. iii The panting passion of their hearts that beat Like vultures' wings toward bloodshed : and shall we Dare not desire of God his comfort, we That war not save with wrongs abhorred of him, That smite not heads of open enemies, men Found manful in the fielded front of war. Fair foes, and worth fair fighting, but of slaves Who mar the name they mock with reverence, make The fair fame foul of freedom, soil and stain The seamless robe wherein their fathers clothed For bridal of one bridegroom with the sea Venice ? When time hath wiped her tyrants out — Time that now ripening thrusts into mine hand The scythe to reap this harvest — earth has known Never, since life sprang first against the sun. So fair, so splendid, so sublime a life As this that God shall give her : and to me. To me and mine who served and saved her, hfe Shall God give surely, such as dateless time Spares, and its light puts out the shadow of death. ( Voices chanting frofn below. ) Quis tarn celer^ quis tamfortis^ Pedein qui prcecurrat mortis ? Quis efractis tunibce portis Prceter unum redeat ? Prceter unum Te reversus Nemo^ Christe, solemn versus, Mo7'tisfluctu semel ??iersus, Surget, sol dum ccelo stat. 112 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. FALIERO. Yea, but if many waters cannot quench Love, nor the strong floods drown it, how shall not Man's love for man, that saves and smites, to bring For every slave deliverance, and for all The peace of equal righteousness and right, Though girt with even this iron girdle round And robed in this red raiment, rise again And as a swimmer against a sundering wave Beat back the billow of death, and climb, and laugh Loud laughters of thanksgiving ? Strong is death, But stronger lives man's love who dies for man Than all ye fear and trust in, heaven or hell. {Chanting again,) De profundis tenebrarum Ardor atrox ani77iaruin Quas non leguni vis tuarum^ Christe^ fecit huviiles^ Ex infernis in superna Fervet : quem aim lux ceteryta Ta?igit, fit ut herba verna Qiiam conculcat vulgi pes. FALIERO. O tender laws of bland humility Wherewith priests' hearts are girdled ! These are they AVho drink and eat God, and who kiss and stroke Satan ; who burn men's living limbs with fire And hold themselves God's chosen and blest of God SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 113 And me of God rejected and accursed Because in wrath long since I smote a priest Who bore in hand God palpable, whereon The curse of the eucharist I violated, And of God's blessing made myself a curse, Fell or shall one day fall and smite me. Nay, If humbleness to these must buy men heaven, Let all high hope stand outcast thence with me. ( Chan ting again. ) Virgo sancta, Christe demens, Homo miser^ homo demens^ Ubi Sathanas it semens^ Hunc secutus, nescit vos ; Mortis messor, edax vitce, Spernit vos: at vos audited Preces animce. contritcB Fleet ant: na^n quid sumus nos ? FALIERO. Not men, God knows, are ye nor any of you, Priests, and the flocks of priesthood : sheep or swine Or wolves at heart man finds you. Christ our Lord Chief light and lord of men, made manifest Before no bloodier judgment-seat than yours Man, and the son of man — no lord of priests, No God of slaves who hears their tyrants pray, And sees them, praying, smite earth and strengthen hell, I 114 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. And hallows hell with blessing — he, being just, Should think, if he be God indeed, and hear Me now and all men alway, if this word Be bearable, that man, being smitten, should Still turn his cheek and smite not. Nay, but. Lord, Hadst thou been mere man, even as I, and borne Shame, knowing thyself no God, whom no man's hand Could turn indeed to a thing dishonoured — nay, But one whom shame might scourge and scar like me. Brand on thy brows and ravin round thine heart — Thou, that couldst bear for us the body's death. Thou couldst not, Christ, have borne it : hadst thou borne. Not higher of heart but less thou hadst been than we. {Chanting again.) Fac ut metatmali sator Mali messem^ mundi Stator, Une, trine, tu Creator, Pater, Fili, Spiritus: Tuque, honi nobis bone Dator, Marce, tu patrone, Ab inferno nos latrone, Salva nos ab hostibus, FALIERO. And I, for these a hellish thief in wait, A midnight-mantled slayer — for these am I Their headsman, I that was their head : but thou, SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 115 St. Mark, our lord, no better friend than I, Not thou, not thou, to Venice. Have not these Been sowers indeed of evil, and shall they reap For harvest of a desolated field Good ? Have they not made wide the wilderness, Kept fresh with blood the roots of tares and thorns, Drawn dry the breasts of pale sterility. Wasted the ways with fire and sown with salt. That they should gather grain ? Our foes are these, Not Genoa, not the stranger, south nor east, Turk nor Hungarian, but thy sons alone, Venice, who mock their mother : thine it is. Thine hand by mine that smites them, and redeems Thine equal name for ever, lest the world Lack this that none as thou shalt give hath given. The light of equal manhood's equity. Full freedom, sovereign where no sovereign sits. But wilt not thou speak yet, Mark ? From thy tongue Time is it now the word should break, that sounds To them that do thee this dishonour death And loftier life to Venice : yet not yet Thy belfry through the sleep of tyrants flings The knell that is a clarion, and mine ear Takes only through the gleaming April gloom That rustle of whispering water against the dawn Which wakes before the world may. Wind is none To warn our watery streets of storm, which here Broods windward, hard on breaking ; if ye wist. Friends ! — Will the prayers of priests not wake thee, then? ii6 MARINO FALIERO, act iv. (Chanting again,) Te, ciim timor barbarorum Corda conflictavit, horum Turba priiiia te tuoruin Conclainabant Veneti : Te, sub umbra Christi crucis, Fontem te videmus lucis ; Tanti stas tutamen ducis, Tantifautor populi, FALIERO. Ay, for no poor faint people shalt thou speak, For no mean city : lion-like shall they. With feet once loosened from the strangling toils, Go forth to plant thy lion. But the duke. The leader, red of hand and hoar of hair. An old man clothed in slaughters — but the chief. Worthy worship and honour once of all, I, Marino Faliero, citizen, Soldier, servant of Venice — how shall I Follow, with feet washed here in civic blood, The flag once more by civic hearts and hands Exalted ? Nay, the fugitive feet that here Found harbourage first, the feeble knees that fell, Suppliant, and maimed with fear of foes behind, Imploring first thy comfort, when the Hun Raged as a fire against them — nay, the hands That first here staked a camp in the eastward sea. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 117 Trembling, and toward thine emblem and thy Lord's Uplift with wail and worship — these that first Scarce here gat rest and refuge where to die Were worthier yet to found than 1 may be To rear again from ruin Venice. O, That thou wouldst pray God for me now tonight To speed the wheels of morning ! Will this hour Stretch not its darkness out to noon, and bid The day lie dumb, lest when the morning speaks Death answer with a cry from clamorous hell And strike the sun down darkling, that the world May reel in fearful travail out of life ? {Chanting again.) Mors immanis, mors immensa, Tendit fila se^nper tensa ; Illi regum sordet mensa, Illi vana ducu7n vox : Mors immensa, mors iminanis^ Ins tat rebus mundi vanis ; Fugit Claris lux e fanis, Mors ciim dixit. Fiat nox. FALIERO. Let there be night, and there was night — who says That ? Nay, though heaven and earth were they that bade. No less were hght immortal, night no less ii8 MARINO FALIERO. act iv. Fugitive, abject, void, vain, outcast, frail, In the eye of dawn that seeks and sees not night. Vain if my voice be, vainer yet are these That swell from choral throats the choir of death With prostrate noise of praises ; vain as fear, Penitence, passion, ache of afterthought. When man hath once laid hand on high design And armed his heart with purpose. Death and life In God's clear eyes are one thing, wrong and right Are twain for ever : nor though night kiss day Shall right kiss wrong and die not. Let the world End ; if the spirit expire not, then in mine The will that gave wing to this enterprise Shall fade not, nor the trust I had alive To serve not wrath but righteousness at last With offering shed of sin for sacrifice. Was I not chosen as helmsman of my state. As herdsman of my people ? Woe were mine If when the dogs turn wolves to rend the sheep I durst not drown or hang them, with their jaws Yet foul and full of flesh and wet red fleece. Or when the ship reels right and left on death. Storm-stunned, and loud with mutiny as with fear. Would ease her not of mutinous rioters, fain To bind me foot and hand, and bid the wheel Swing as the storm wills till the tumbling prow Plunge, and dive, and the wreck bear down the crew And them, still drunk with rage of revel, whence No sunken state rose ever. Let them live And all this people perish ? God, not I. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 119 (^Chanting again.) Miserere, Pastor vere. Pastor cle7nens, miserere, Sere judex, ultor sere, Deus inagne, Deus mi : Quanquam plena vanitatis, Fracta vi, laborat ratis, Miserere civitatis, Miserere domini. FALIERO. Yea, pity and mercy need we both — of man They that of man shall find not, and of God I, that may haply find it. Vanity Too vain indeed for men most frail of soul Were this, that one of fourscore years should dream To twine himself with trembling treasonous hands False wreaths of timeless triumph, steal the crown By freedom woven about his country's head To change its green leaf into gold, and wear A diadem's weight brow-bound of empire, till. Some three days thence, death, laughing broad and blind. Laid hand upon his bloodred hand, and led To hell the hoar head and the murderous heart, For three days' kingdom's sake perpetually Damned, and dishonoured. Never man that sinned, Traitor nor tyrant, thief nor manslayer, none, I20 MARINO FALIERO, act iv. Did thus, nor would, being less than mad with sin — Not Nero, nor Iscariot. I nor mine By this may thrive more than the meanest born That plies his oar in Venice. One for all Strikes, that for each man all his brethren may Think, speak, and strike hereafter. Shall not this Be ? for the woful warning song of wail Hath ended, and the new song only heard Is now the sun's at sundawn. Now, St. Mark, Speak ! for thine hour, even thine, it is that strikes, • First hour of this first day that sees thy sons Free, father, as thy soul is free in heaven, With no man's shadow cast on them but thine. Why should the sun keep silence here ? thou seest, Night seals not up for us the lips of hght As on the downward verge of hell : and thoii. Why should thy tongue be sealed, and all our hope Perish, as might some heartless bondman's, worn With wasting sloth and patience ? Night and hell, With all their mortal ministers in man. Shame, doubt, and base endurance, force and fear, Cold heart, and abject custom, these are they That fight against us : fain, with all this aid. Fain would night thrust us back and bind us fast Where no man hears the sun's word : nor may these By harmless hands be fought with, nor subdued With bloodless or with blameless weapons : yet, If hell be here not yet, ere man make earth Hell, here today the sun should speak, and thou Make answer, Mark, and help us. Yea, for here SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 121 Night hath not put the sun to silence : dawn Speaks : and we lack but one loud word from thee. Enter an Officer with Guards, OFFICER My lord, you are prisoner of the state, and mine. FALIERO. Thine ! Does my nephew live ? OFFICER. Prisoner. He lives as you — FALIERO. I think I am overwatched, and thou Part of the dream I walk in unaware — A thing made out of slumber. Many a night I have slept but ill — never so sound as this. Why tolls the bell not from St. Mark's ? OFFICER. My lord, By mandate of the sovereign council met The warden of the bell-tower had in charge To see that none should sound the bells today. The gates are fastened of the palace square : The Ten, with twenty chosen in aid of them Forth of the chiefest of the state, are set To judge the prisoners even this hour attaint On mortal charge of murderous treason. MARINO FALIERO. act iv. FALIERO. If True men be they that shall arraign me, I May stand in sooth approved their traitor. OFFICER. Sir, For your sole name's sake is it of all the rest That this new court of judgment sits, to speak On this great cause no common sentence. FALIERO. No: Strange court, and stranger trial, and most of all Strange will the strange court's judgment held today Read where it stands on record. Good my friend, I will not trouble thee nor vex thy lords With tarriance nor with wrangling : I desire Nothing of man, nor aught of God save peace. I shall not lack it long : yet would I say Perchance a word before I die, because I have loved this city. Lead me where they sit That I may stand and speak my soul and go : The rest is death's and God's : if these be just. Judge they between us, and their will be mine. \Exeunt, SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO. 123 ACT V. Scene I. — The Hall of the Council of Ten. Benintende and Senators sitting. Enter Faliero, guarded. BENINTENDE. Justice has given her doom against the accused, Israello and Calendaro : they that fled To Chioggia he in ward, and hence await An equal sentence : this remains, to speak Judgment on him, the guiltiest head of all And murderous heart of this conspiracy, Head once and heart of Venice, present here To bear the award of retributive law Laid on her traitor and your enemy. Sirs, Is it your will to hear him answer ? SENATORS. Yea. BENINTENDE. Marin Faliero, leave is thine to speak. 124 MARINO FALIERO, act v. FALIERO. And leave is yours to slay me : yet for both, Lords councillors, I thank you : most for death, And somewhat yet for freedom given my speech. Ye know that being your prince and thrall elect I have lived not free, who now shall freely die ; By doom indeed of yours, but mine own will Rejoicingly confirms it. Fourscore years Have given mine eyesight and my spirit of life The sun and sea to feed on, and mine heart This people and this city chosen of God To love and serve, and this forlorn right hand Some threescore of those years have given the gift With furtherance of God's comfort and my sword's To smite your foes and scatter, till today I am here arraigned as deadhest of them all. Nor verily ever stood ye, nor shall stand. In risk so dire, and die not : yea, when death Hangs hard above your heads as over mine Here, and the straitened spirit abhors the flesh. Then hardly shall their mutual severance be Nearer : for chance or God has brought you forth From under veriest imminence of death And shadowing darkness of his hand uplift And wing made wide above you. No man's head Should God have spared, had God been one with me. Or chance and I like-minded : that ye live. Praise God, and not my purpose : never man Bore mind more bent on one thing most desired. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 125 No sinner's more on sin, no saint's on God, Than mine with all its might and weight of will On trust of your destruction. Hope on earth Save this, desire of gift save this from heaven, Had I, since first this fire was lit in me, None : and now knowing it vain I would not live One hour beyond your sentence. Whence or how God kindled it against you, for of God, I say, of God it came, ye marvel, seeing No cause as great as my great rage of will To rouse in me such ravin : yet, my lords, If thirst or ever hunger gnawed man's heart, Mine did they till your death should satiate it. Your general death and single : yea, had God Held in one hand forth toward me death for you. For me perpetual penance, and in one For you long life and paradise for me, I had chosen, and given him thanks who gave me choice. Revenge with hell, not heaven with pardon. Yet Not my wrong only, not my wrath alone. Were all that made my spirit a sword and kept My thought a fire against you : though the wrong Were monstrous past memorial made of man, Past memory kept of time alive to mark Ingratitude most memorable, and the wrath. How sharp soe'er, not more than proves in God By fire and fierce apocalypse of doom Justice : for shame that smites an old man's cheek Is as a whetted sword that cleaves his heart. His hand, strong once, being weaponless : and mine 126 MARINO FALIERO. act v. The shame that spat on was as fire to burn, And mine the sword that clove was fire, and mine The weapon that forsook had made it once Famous. But yet I curse not God for you That ye denied me, being the men ye were, Redress : for had ye granted, haply then I had died content, and never cast by chance A thought away at hazard on the wrongs That all men bear who bear your lordship. Now By light and fire of mine own shame and wrong I have seen the shames, I have read the wrongs of these Who, free being born, and free men called by name, Endure with me your mastery. ' This ye call An equal weal, a general good, a thing Divine and common, mutual and august. Hailed by the holiest name that hallows right. One chosen of many kingdoms, kingless — one Not ranged among but reared above them, one Found worth a word that whoso hears takes heart And triumphs in his motherland, of men Not named as theirs whose heads bow down to man. Nor kingdom called nor empire, but acclaimed Republic — this that all men praise as ye. Ye only, ye dishonour. Nought is this. To call no man of all that tread on men King, if men call a man that walks on earth Master, and bind about a new-born brow Inheritance of lordship. Hand from hand Takes, and resigns in vain, the wrongful right, By reasonless transmission : man by man. SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 127 The imperious races, lessening toward their last, Perish : yet power with even their last is born. Because his mother bare him. Sirs, this law Would wake on lips that wist not what were smiles Laughter : but if the unreason brought not forth Shame, haply men, the fools of patience, might Endure it, and eschew, by luck's good leave, Scorn : which they shall not surely who forbear And bear what honour may not. Sirs, take note That with men's wrongs and sufferings age on age This blindworm custom have ye fed and made A serpent fanged and flying, with eyes and wings. To ravin on men's hearts. Pride, shame, sloth, lust, Are dragons' teeth : right royally ye err To deem that these will sting not, or that men. No bondslaves born but citizens as ye. Being stung, will smile and thank you. Now perchance Would one make answer, saying I too was born Not least of all nor less than any of you Noble, but heir of place as proud as yours. Of name as high in history, by my sires None otherwise than yours from yours bequeathed With attributes and accidents to boot Of chance hereditary : which truth being truth, Fierce madness is it in me for sheer despite To league myself against my kind, and give My brethren's throats up to the popular knife And rage of hands plebeian, all for this, This recompense of all, to stand myself Amid the clamorous rout of thralls released 128 MARINO FALIERO, act v. Dumb, disarrayed, disseated, dispossessed, Degraded and disfigured of the grace My birth had cast about me : but, my lords. Not all men alway, though ye know not this. Yearn toward their own ends only, live and die Desiring only for themselves and theirs Honour, with sure-eyed justice ; righteousness That holds the rights up of a noble's house, Walks firm and straight on service in his hall, But halts beyond his threshold ; equity Which is not equal, justice less than just, And freedom based on bondage : else indeed, Were all souls nobly born so base by birth. No tongue most violent or most furious hand Uplift or loud against nobility Spake ever yet nor struck unjustly. Men May bear the blazon wrought of centuries, hold Their armouries higher than arms imperial, yet Know that the least their countryman, whose hand Hath done his country service, lives their peer And peer of all their fathers. Ye, that know Nor this nor aught that men call manful — ye That feed upon your fathers' fame as worms Fed on their flesh, and leave it rotten — ye That prate and plume and prank yourselves in pride Because your grandsires, men that were, begat Sons yet not all unmanned, and these again Begat on wombs less loyal than of yore You — how should ye know this ? But I, fair lords, Born even as you, was nurtured even as they SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 129 Whom your fair lordships hold, being humbler born, Foul : hand in hand with these I fought your fights, I bore your banner : nor was mine in strife Reared higher than hands which there kept rank with mine, And were not noble : whence, from touch of these And fellowship in fighting, I, whom ye Call peer of yours, found poor men peers of mine And you by proof of act and test of truth Vassals. But some perchance of yours, ye say, Fought far and fain of fight as we, and bore As high the Hon : sirs, we know it : but this We know not, that ye bore it higher, or stood More steadfast in the shock of charging death, Than poor men born your followers : and on these. On sons of these ye have laid such laws, and made Life so by manlike men unbearable. That by what end soever he that ends This reign of chance, this heritage of reign. Must live or die approved of all save you, Of justice justified, of earth and heaven In life or death applauded. Nought would I Nor aught would any say to shame you more : And now, as ye must live, it seems, let me Die : God be with you, and content with me. BENINTENDE. Lords councillors, declare your sentence. ALL. , Death. K I30 MARINO FALIERO. act v. BENINTENDE. Then, Marino Faliero, Doge, thus By me this court speaks judgment on thee, now Convicted by confession. As today Thy chief twain fellow- traitors, gagged and gyved. From the red pillars of the balcony Swing stark before the sunset, so shalt thou At noon tomorrow suffer privily Decapitation ; and thy place of death The landing-place that crowns the Giants' Stairs Where first thine oath was taken. For thy corpse. We grant it burial with thy sires by night In Zanipolo : but thy portrait's place Among our painted princes in the hall Of our great council void and bare shall stand In sign of shame for ever, veiled in black. Where men shall read, writ broad below. This place Is Marino Falierds^ for his crimes Beheaded, FALIERO. Ay ? that all men seeing may crave To know what crime of crimes was his, and hear The word in answer given that crowns the deed Wherewith confronted all fair virtues, all Good works of all good men remembered, seem Pale as the moon by morning — even the word That was to Greece as godhead, and to Rome SCENE I. MARINO FALIERO, 131 The sign and seal of sovereign manfulness — Tyrannicide : thanks be with tyranny That so by me records it. I shall sleep Tonight, I think, the gladlier that I know Where I shall lay my head tomorrow. Sirs, Farewell, and peace be with you if it may. I have lost, ye have won this hazard : yet perchance My loss may shine yet goodlier than your gain When time and God give judgment. If there be Truth, true is this, that I desired the right And ye with hands as red sustain the wrong As mine had been in triumph. Have your will : And God send each no bitterer end than mine. \Rxeunt Scene II. — An apartment in the ducal palace. Enter Faliero, the Duchess, and Bertuccio. FALIERO. Nay, children, be not over childlike, ye That see what men who love not truth will call The natural doom ensuing which marks as mad And damns to death inevitable as just An old man's furious childishness : be you Wiser : let me not need bid you be wise, Who am found of all men foolishest, and yet Were this last chance before me laid again 132 MARINO FALTER O, act v. Would do not other than I did. Take heart : What mean ye so to mourn upon me? BERTUCCIO. Sir, Am I not found unworthy ? FALIERO. No, my boy ; They do not ill, being lords of ours, to slay Me ; nay, they could not spare : but thee to slay. To spill thy strong young life for truth to me. In all men's eyes would mark them monstrous : thcu Must live, and serve my slayers, and serving them Sustain my memory by the proof — if God Shall give thee grace to prove it — that thy name, Thy father's name and mine, in true men's ears Rings truth, and means not treason. Though they be 111 rulers of this household, be not thou Too swift to strike ere time be ripe to strike. Nor then by darkling stroke, against them : I Have erred, who thought by wrong to vanquish wrong, To smite by violence violence, and by night Put out the power of darkness : time shall bring A better way than mine, if God's will be — As how should God's will be not ? — to redeem Venice. I was not worthy — nor may man, Till one as Christ shall come again, be found Worthy to think, speak, strike, foresee, foretell. The thought, the word, the stroke, the dawn, the day. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 133 That verily and indeed shall bid the dead Live, and this old dear land of all men's love Arise and shine for ever : but if Christ Came, haply such an one may come, and do With hands and heart as pure as his a work That priests themselves may mar not. God forbid That : if not they, then death shall touch it not, Nor time lay hand thereon, nor wrath to come Of God or man prevail against it, though Men's tongues be mad against him till he die. ( Voices chanting from below.) Quis es tantus, quis es talis ^ Ctci non ira triumphalis, Irafulvis ardens alls., Metu mentern compriinitl Ira Dei, nobis dira, Manet im?nortalis ira, Sensu sceva, visu 7nira, Mitis qu(Z non fletu fit, FALIERO. Again my psalmists answer me ? who bade These voices hither outside the sanctuary To sound below there now? Nay, this can be But chance of sacred service, or goodwill To usward in our darkening hour, or scorn Wherewith being moved we should but stand abased Too low for base men's mockery. What, my child. Does their fierce music hurt thee ? 134 MARINO FALIERO. act v. DUCHESS. Nay, not more, My lord, than all things heard or seen that say I shall not see nor hear much longer you Whom, though I loved you ever, now meseems I have never loved as now ; God knows how well, None knows but I how bitterly : but this I should not say, to vex your kind last thoughts With more than even your natural care of me. FALIERO. Sweet, wouldst thou think to vex me ? nay, then, weep : Else canst thou not. This very wrath of God Wherewith the threats of priestly throats would shake Mountains, and scourge the sea to madness, what Can this do, being by tears intractable. Implacable to moan of men, if men. Being threatened, moan or weep not ? Fear and shame. The right and left hand of a base man's faith. Can lay not hold on hearts found higher : and how. Were God no higher of heart than men most base. But wayward, fierce, unrighteous, merciless. As these who praise proclaim him, how should he Have power on any save a base man's heart ? His wings of wrath were narrower than the soul's That soar and seek toward justice, though the wind Break them, and lightning burn the blind bright eyes That even for love would look on God and live, But find for light fire, and for comfort fear. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 135 ( Chanting again,) Nigris involutuin pennis Te circumdat nox perennis ; Non quinquennis, non decennis Implicabit wnbra te ; Sed antiqua, sed ceterna^ Dum sit lux in cxlo verna^ Nox profunda^ nox hiberna^ Christus unde salvet me. FALIERO. And Christ keep all who love him clean of you Who turn their love to loathing. Why, these priests Would make the sunshine hellfire, thence to light The piles whereon they burn with live men's hmbs The heart and hope of manhood. Light save this They know^ not, nor desire it : light and night To them are other than to men that see Light laugh in heaven and hurt not, night come down To comfort men from heaven : sweet spring to them Is winter, and their souls of the iron ice That Alighieri found at hell's hard heart Take winter's core for springtide. Woe were thine, Venice, and woe were Italy's, if these Held ever in their hand all hearts of men Born fain to serve their country : priests would turn With prayers and promises and blessings half The blood therein to death-cold poison. 136 MARINO FALIERO, act v. BERTUCCIO. Sir, Did not the imperial Gregory glorify Rome, when his heel set on the German's neck Trampled her sovereign foeman as a snake Starved in the snows ? and might not such a priest ' Bless freedom, and the blessing of his breath Not blast but bid it blossom ? FALIERO. Son, by Christ, I doubt a curse were found less like to hurt And frost less hke to wither. DUCHESS. Dear my lord, Have patience, and take heed of words ; they fall Not echoless on silence ; these of yours Affright me ; nay, be patient, and give ear, And pardon me that pray you hearken. FALIERO. Ay- To what word next shall fill our ears with prayer That fain would sound like thunder ? Let them pray. {Chanting again ^ Nos^ lit servifacti servis, Fracti corde^fracti nervis, Congregamur in catervisy Vagabundiy tremuli ; SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 137 Sed^ 6 fautor tu sincere^ Judex 77iitis ac severe^ Miserere^ miserere^ Miserere populi ! FALIERO. Yea, for they need and find not merq^, they Whose count makes up the people. God, if God Be pitiful, on these have pity : man Hath more for beasts he slays in sport, for hounds That help him, than for women, children, men. He treads to death and passes ; would that I, Though ruin had earlier fallen on me, and left Less than I leave of record now, betimes Had taken thought to comfort these, or make At least their life more even with equity. Their days more clear of cloud, their sleep more sure. Their waking sweeter. Lord and chief was I, And left them miserable \ not vile indeed As those whom kings may spit on, but abased Below the royal right of manhood. DUCHESS. Nay — Have you not alway shown them kindness more Than poor men crave of noble ? FALIERO. Child, the right That man of man craves, and requires not, being Too weak to claim and conquer, what is this 138 MARINO FALIERO. act v. But sign and symbol of so vile a wrong, So foul a fraud, so fierce a violence, borne So long and found so shameful, that the prayer Sounds insolence ? I do not pray thee — Sweety Play me not false ; thou dost not pray me spare To smite, revile, misuse thee : man of man Desiring mercy, justice, leave to Hve, Were all as base a suppliant. No, not me But one more pure of passion, one more strong. Being gentler and more just, if God be good And time approve him righteous, God shall give The grace I merited not, to do men right And bring men comfort : wrath and fear and hope. Save such as angels w^atching earth from heaven. And filled with fiery pity pure as God's, Feel, and are kindled into love, to him Shall rest unknown for ever : men that hear His name far off shall yearn at heart, and thank God that they hear, and live : but they that see. They that touch hands with heaven and him, that feed With hght from his their eyes, and fill their ears With godlike speech of lips whereon the smile Is promise of more perfect manhood, born Of happier days than his that knew not him, And equal-hearted with the sun in heaven From rising even to setting, they shall know By type and present Hkeness of a man What, if truth be, truth is, and what, if God, God : for by love that casts itself away And is not moved with passion, but more strong SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 139 For sacrifice deliberate and serene Than passion sevenfold heated for revenge, Shall all not beasthke born, not serpent-souled. Not abject from the womb, discern the man Supreme of spirit, and perfect, and unlike Me : for the tongue that bids dark death arise. The hand that takes dead freedom by the hand And lifts up living, other these must be Than mine, and other than the world, I think, Shall bear till men wax worthier. BERTUCCIO. Such a man Shall come not even till God come back on earth. FALIERO. Who knows if God shall come not ? or if God Be other — yea, be anything, my son, If not the spirit incarnate and renewed In each man born most godlike, and beheld Most manful and most merciful of all ? ( Chan ting again. ) Parce^ Deus, urbi parce ; Tuque summa constans arce Sis adjutor urbi^ Marce : Cor peccatis conditum Nescit quanta^ nescit qualis^ Lex ceterna^ lex cequalis: Mors per Christum fit mortalis^ Vita fit per Spirit urn. 140 MARINO FALIERO, act v. FALIERO. Ay, with the breath of God between her lips From Christhke hps breathed through them, she that lay Dead in the dark may stand alive again. And strike death dead : yea, death may turn to life By grace of that live spirit invulnerable We call the breath or ghost of God most high. The very God that comes to comfort men, That falls and flies abroad in tongues of fire From soul to soul enkindled. Mark nor Christ Wrought miracle ever more than this divine Nor so by slaves and fools incredible As this should be, to raise not one man up. Not one man four days dead, as Lazarus once. But all a people many a century dead, And damned, men deemed, to death eternal. This The heart of man, buried as dead in sins, May feel not nor conceive, and having felt Continue in corruption : this alone Shall stand a sign on earth from heaven, whose light Makes manifest the righteousness of God In mortal godhead proven immortal, shown Firm by full test of mere infirmity And very God by manhood. Otherwhere Might no man hold this possible, but here May no man hold this doubtful. Are we not Italians, made of our diviner earth SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 141 And fostered of her far more sovereign sun, That we should doubt, and not be counted mad, What no man born to less inheritance And reared on records less august than ours Would not be mad to dream that he believed And would not sin to seek it ? Have not we Borne men to witness for the world, and made Grey time our servant and our secretary To register what none may read and say That ours is not the lordship, ours the law, And ours the love that lightens and that leads High manhood by the heart as mothers lead Children, and history leads us by the hand From glory forth to glory through the gloom That bids not hope die, nor bring forth despair, Though faith alone keep heart to comfort us ? What though five hundred years pass — what, were these A thousand, if the sepulchres at last Be rent, and let forth Venice — and let rise Rome ? Yea, my city, what though time and shame. Though change and chance defile thee ? Servitude Shall fall from off thee as the shadow of night Falls from the front of morning : thou shalt see By life re-risen above the tombs revived Death stricken dead, and time transfigured. We Fight, fall, and sleep, and shadows shewn in song And phantoms painted of us overlive Our substance and our memory : men that hear 142 MARINO FALIERO. act v. A name that was a clarion once will cry, What means it ? eyes that see on storied walls Our likeness carven or coloured may perchance Wax wide with wonder why to dead men's eyes Our fame seemed worth memorial : but to none Shall not our country seem divine, and heaven The likeness of our country. Die we may From record of remembrance : but, being sons Whose death or life, whose presence or whose dust. Whose flesh or spirit is part of Italy, What mean these fools to threaten us with death ? DUCHESS. My lord, your heart is nobly bent on earth, But earthward ever : soon by doom of man Must your strong spirit of life and pride pass forth And dwell where all of earth it loved is found Nothing ; for you — if love may speak, that speaks For faith's and fear's sake now presumptuously — Meseems for you this hour should keep in sight Not Italy, but paradise : alas, I cannot tell what I should say to please God, and to do you service : yet I would Say somewhat, might it serve. FALIERO. Thou sayest enough With so sweet eyes. Content thee : death is not Fearful, nor aught in death or life but fear. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 143 {Chanting again.) Pestis qua dolore cincta Ge7nit vitafletu tincta, Suis ipsa vinclis vincta^ Cadit rectrix rerum fors : Portentosa^ maledicta^ Suo dente serpens icta^ facet mundi victrix victa, facet 7nortem passa mors, FALIERO. I.o now, the folk who live and thrive by death, Who feed on all men's fear of it, deride The fear they foster : be not priestlier thou Than very priests are. Child, if God be just. Let God do justice : if he be not, then Man's righteousness rebukes him : and the man That loves not more himself than other men Is held not all unrighteous. Death, I think, Of all my sins shall shrive me : say this were Sin, which had yet shed less of innocent blood Than any blameless battle spills, and earns For all who fought men's praises, yet I give My life for lives I took not, and I give , Less grudgingly than gladly. Not for me Need any — nay, not ye — weep, as myself, Were tears to me less hard and strange, might weep For some that die with me and some that hve. I am sorry for my seamen : Calendaro 144 MARINO FALTER O. act v. Was no faint heart in fight, but swift of hand As fire that strikes : if one that bears his name Crave ever help at need or grace of thee, Forget not me nor him, but what thou canst, If any grace be left thee, son, to shew, Do gladly for my sake : he served me well : And now the wind swings and the ravens rend What was a soldier. Not to mine or me Has this the fairest palace built with hands Been fortunate or favourable : the day Last year that led me hither led me not With prosperous presage toward the natural shore That should have given me welcome. DUCHESS. No, my lord. The sign was fearful to us. FALIERO. Ay — there to alight Where men that die by law, thou knowest, are slain Was no such token as uplifts men's hearts And swells their hopes with promise. Dost thou mind How deadly lowered that noon whose haze beguiled Our blindfold bark of state to the evil goal Whereon my life now shatters ? Thou didst think A sign it was from Godward. Let it be. No sign can help or hurt us that foreshows What must be : God might spare his dim display Of half portended purpose, and appear SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO, 145 No less august, less wise or terrible. Than threats that scare or scare not hearts like ours With doom incognizable of doubtful death Proclaim him and proclaim not. Now from mine The shadow of doubt has passed away, and left The shadow of death behind it, which to me Seems less discomfortable and dark : for this T ever held worse than all certitude, To know not what the worst ahead might be As now, being near the rocks, I see it, and die. (^Chanting again.) ContemplaminZj quot estis, Ex inferna qudm ccelestis Ilia nobis oliin pestis Salus exit hominum : Mors in vitam transformata Mutat viundos^ mutatfata^ Fulget per stellaruni prat a Lumen ipsa luminum, FALIERO. If by man's hope or very grace of God Dark death be so transfigured, I, that yet Know not, desire not knowledge, being content To prove the transformation : thou, if this Please thee, beheve and hold for actual truth That which gives heart at least to heartless fear And fire to faith and power to confidence More strong than steel to strike with. Sure it is L 146 MARINO FALIERO. act v. That only dread of death is veriest death And fear of hell blows hellfire seven times hot For souls whose thought foretastes it : and for all That fear not fate or aught inevitable, Seeing nought wherein change breeds not may be changed By force of fear or vehemence even of hope, Intolerable is there nothing. Seven years since Mine old good friend Petrarca should have died. He thought, for utter heartbreak, and he lives, And fills men's ears and souls with sweeter song Than sprang of sweeter seasons : yet is grief Surely less bearable than death, which comes As sure as sleep on all. We deem that man Of men most miserably tormented, who. Being fain to sleep, can sleep not : tyrants find No torture in their torturous armoury So merciless in masterdom as this. To hold men's lids aye waking : and on mine What now shall fall but slumber ? Yet once more. If God or man would grant me this, which yet. Perchance, is but a boy's wish, fain I would Set sail, and die at sea ; for half an hour. If so much length of life be left me, breathe The wind that breathes the wave's breath, and rejoice Less even in blithe remembrance of the blast That blew my sail to battle, and that sang Triumph when conquest lit me home like fire — Yea, less in very victory, could it shine Again about me— less than in the pride. SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 147 The freedom, and the sovereign sense of joy, Given of the sea's pure presence. Mine she was By threescore years and ten of strenuous love Or ever man's will wedded us : and hers Am I now dying not so divine a death As Istria might have given me, had the stars Shone less obhque that marred and made my doom Most adverse in prosperity. That day Rang trumpet-like in presage and in praise Of proud work done and prouder yet to do By hands and hearts Venetian : then to die With so great sound and splendour on the sea Shed broad from battle rolhng round us — there To put life off triumphantly, hke one That lies down lordlier than he rose, and wears Rest like a robe of triumph, woven more bright Than gold that clothed him waking — this had been High fortune for the highest of happier men Than fate had made Faliero. But for him Reserved was this, to reap for harvest thence Praise, acclamation, thanksgiving, and sway. Which all were worth not any mean man's wage Who serves and is not scoffed at : and from these. Reaped once, to grind the bitter bread of shame. And taste it salt as tears are. This white head. Which swords had spared that should not, being set high. Hath borne a buffet for a crown, and felt The strokes of base men bruise it : eyes and tongues More vile than earth have mocked at me, and live, 148 MARINO FALIERO. act v. And hiss and glare me to my grave, cast out From high funereal fellowship of fame And daylight honour shewn the dead that pass Unshamed among their fathers. Let it be. Albeit no place among them all were mine, Time haply might bring back my dust, and chance Mix all our tombs together : but such hope Should move not much the lightest soul alive That death draws near to enfranchise, and to bring Far out of reach of death and chance and time. ( Chanting again. ) Spes incertas facit certas^ Mentes implet inexpertas, Lux in animo libertas^ Fides in superna dux : Ut cEterna7n per cestatem, Per supernam civitatem^ Fiat lux per libertatem, Sit libertas ipsa lux, FALIERO. Yea ? then, God send it be so : for he knows. Though priests and lay-folk, lords and vassals born, Know not, that God's omnipotence can make No light whose fire outshines a marshlight shine On eyes that see not freedom. Faith, whose trust Forsakes for thirst of heaven our natural earth. And hope that hovers out of sight, and love Whose eyes being set against the sun are blind SCENE II. MARINO FALIERO. 149 And see not men that suffer, nor look back To lift and light them up with comfort given From brethren's hearts to brethren, these can heal Of all the mortal plaguesores of the world None, and for all their wild weak will can give Nothing ; they wail and cry, they rage and rend, Shed blood with prayer for sacrifice, and make Day foul with fume of fires unnatural, whence Hell risen on earth reeks heavenward : nor may man From faith that hangs on hps whose doom feeds hell, From hope through fear kept living, or from love Whose breath burns up the life of pity, dream To gather fruit, and die not. Liberty Is no mere flower that feeds on light and air And sweetens life and soothes it, but herself Air, light, and life, which being withdrawn or quenched Or choked with rank infection till it rot Gives only place to death and darkness. I Would fain have hewn a way for her to pass As fire that cleaves a forest : and the flame Takes hold on me that kindled it. My child. Weep not for that ; weep, if thou wilt, that man. So kind and brave as good men are, so true. So loving, yet should be so slow to love More than the life of days and nights, fulfilled With love and hate that flower and bear not fruit, Pain, pleasure, fear, and hope more vain than these. Freedom, Thou wast not wont to weep : thine eyes Were flower-soft emeralds ever : now they turn To cloudier change than flaws the sapphire found 150 MARINO FALIERO. act v. Not worth a bright brow's wearing. What is here Allowed of God or wrought of men, that thou Shouldst weep to see it ? I have sinned, and die : if sin It be to strike too swift and wide a stroke At men undoomed of justice, though by truth Long since, and witness borne of wrongdoing here, Doomed ; and if death it be for one content, For one most tired with sight and sense of ill. To pass, and know no more of it, but sleep Where sleep takes heed of nothing. Ye that wake. Forget not nor remember overmuch Or me that loved you and was loved, or aught Of time's past coil or comfort : what ye will Of what gives comfort yet, if aught there be. Keep still in heart, and nought that gives not : life Hath borne for me not bitter fruit alone. But sweet as love's own honey : nor for you. What several ways ye walk soever,- till Night fall about them, shall not life bring forth Comfort. And now, before the loud noon strike Whose stroke for me sounds midnight, ere I die. Kiss me. Live thou, and love my Venice, boy, Not more than I, but wiselier : serve her not For thanksgiving of men, nor fear nor heed, Nor let it gnaw thine heart to win for wage, Ingratitude : let them take heed and fear Who pay thee with unthankfulness, but thou, Seeing not for these thou fightest, but for them That have been and that shall be, sons and sires. SCENE 11. MARINO FALIERO, 151 Dead and unborn, men truer of heart than these, Be constant, and be satisfied to serve, And crave no more of any. Fare thee well. And thou, my wife and child, all loves in one. Sweet life, sweet heart, fare ever well, and be Blest of God's holier hand with happier love Than here bids blessing on thee. Hark, the guard Draws hither : noon is full : and where I go Ye may not follow. Be not faint of heart : I go not as a base man goes to death. 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