Doge. That answer only shows you know not Venice.

Requests an audience,

Alas! how should you? she knows not herself,
In all her mystery. Hear me-they who aim
At Foscari, aim no less at his father;
The sire's destruction would not save the son;
They work by different means to the same end,
-but they have not conquer'd yet.
Mar. But they have crush'd.
Nor crush'd as yet-I live.
Doge.
Mar. And your son,-how long will he live?
I trust,
Doge.
For all that yet is passed, as many years
And happier than his father. The rash boy,
With womanish impatience to return,
Hath ruin'd all by that detected letter:
A high crime, which I neither can deny
Nor palliate, as parent or as Duke:
Had he but borne a little, little longer
His Candiote exile, I had hopes--he has
quench'd them-
He must return.
Mar.
Doge.

To exile?

I have said it. Mar. And can I not go with him? Doge.

You well know

This prayer of yours was twice denied before
By the assembled "Ten," and hardly now
Will be accorded to a third request,
Since aggravated errors on the part
Of your lord renders them still more austere.
Mar. Austere? Atrocious! The old human
fiends,

With one foot in the grave, with dim eyes,

Who have loved, or talk'd at least of lovehave given

Doge.

Child-child

Mar. [abruptly). Call me not "child!" You soon will have no children-you deserve

babes

Upon their knees, perhaps have mourn'd above

them

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

Is no more in the balance weigh'd with that
Which but I pity thee, my poor Marina !
Mar. Pity my husband, or I cast it from me;
Pity thy son! Thou pity!-'tis a word
Strange to thy heart-how came it on thy lips?
Doge. I must bear these reproaches, though
they wrong me.
Couldst thou but read-

Mar.
'Tis not upon thy brow,
Nor in thine eyes, nor in thine acts,-where then
Should I behold this sympathy? or shall?
Doge. [pointing downwards]. There.

Mar.

Doge.

In the earth?

To which I am tending: when It lies upon this heart, far lightlier, though Loaded with marble, than the thoughts which press it

Now, you will know me better.
Mar.

Indeed, thus to be pitied?
Doge.

Are you, then,

Pitied! None

Shall ever use that base word, with which men
Cloak their soul's hoarded triumph, as a fit one
To mingle with my name; that name shall be,
As far as I have borne it, what it was
When I received it.

Mar.

But for the poor children Of him thou canst not, or thou wilt not save, You were the last to bear it.

Doge. Would it were so! Better for him he never had been born; Better for me.-I have seen our house dishonour'd.

Mar. That's false! A truer, nobler, trustier heart,

More loving, or more loyal, never beat
Within a human breast. I would not change
My exiled, persecuted, mangled husband,
Oppress'd, but not disgraced, crush'd, over-
whelmed,

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

He was

Indeed all you have said. I better bore
The deaths of the two sons Heaven took from

You need not school me, signor; I sate in
That council when you were a young patrician.
Lor. True, in my father's time; I have heard
him and

The admiral, his brother, say as much.
Your highness may remember them; they both
Died suddenly.
Doge.

And if they did So, better
So die than live on lingeringly in pain.
Lor. No doubt; yet most men like to live
their days out.

Doge. And did not they?

Lor. The grave knows best: they died, As I said, suddenly.

Doge.

Is that so strange,

That you repeat the word emphatically?

Lor. So far from strange, that never was

there death

In my mind half so natural as theirs.
Think you not so ?

Doge. What should I think of mortals?
Lor. That they have mortal foes.
Doge.
I understand you;
Your sires were mine, and you are heir in all
things.

Lor. Doge.

You best know if I should be so. I do. Your fathers were my foes, and I have heard

Of my sad predecessors in this place,
The dates of their despair, the brief words of
A grief too great for many. This stone page
Holds like an epitaph their history;
And the poor captive's tale is graven on
His dungeon barrier, like the lover's record
Upon the bark of some tall tree, which bears
His own and his beloved's name. Alas!
I recognise some names familiar to me,
And blighted like to mine, which I will add,
Fittest for such a chronicle as this,

Which only can be read, as writ, by wretches.
He engraves his name.
Enter a Familiar of the "Ten."
Fam. I bring you food.
Fac. Fos.
I pray you set it down;
I am past hunger; but my lips are parch'd-
The water!

"Tis the joy

Of seeing thee again so soon, and so
Back to my heart, and left my cheeks like thine,
Without expectancy, has sent the blood
For thou art pale, too, my Marina!

Were never piled on high save o'er the dead, Or those who soon must be so.-What of him! Thou askest. What of me? may soon be ask'd, With the like answer-doubt and dreadful sur mise

Unless thou tell'st my tale.

Mar.
I speak of thee!
Jac. Fos. And wherefore not? All then
shall speak of me:

The tyranny of silence is not lasting,
And, though events be hidden, just men's

groans

I do not doubt my memory, Will burst all cerement, even a living grave's! but my life:

And neither do I fear.

Mar.

Fac. Fos. And liberty?

Mar.

Thy life is safe.

The mind should make its own. Jac. Fos. That has a noble sound; but 'tis a

sound,

A music most impressive, but too transient:
The mind is much, but is not all. The mind
Hath nerved me to endure the risk of death,
And torture positive, far worse than death
(If death be a deep sleep), without a groan,
Or with a cry which rather shamed my judges