For I should rest in honour with the honour'd.
Alas! I must not think of them, but those
Who have made me thus unworthy of a name,
Noble and brave as aught of consular
On Roman marbles; but I will redeem it
Back to its antique lustre in our annals,
By sweet revenge on all that's base in Venice,
And freedom to the rest, or leave it black
To all the growing calumnies of time,
Which never spare the fame of him who fails,
But try the Cæsar, or the Catiline,

By the true touchstone of desert-success.

END OF ACT I.

ACT II. SCENE I.

An Apartment in the Ducal Palace.

ANGIOLINA (wife of the Doge) and MARIANNA.

ANGIOLINA.

What was the Doge's answer?

MARIANNA.

That he was

That moment summon'd to a conference;
But 'tis by this time ended. I perceived
Not long ago the senators embarking;
And the last gondola may now be seen
Gliding into the throng of barks which stud
The glittering waters.

ANGIOLINA.

Would he were return'd!

He has been much disquieted of late;

And Time, which has not tamed his fiery spirit,
Nor yet enfeebled even his mortal frame,
Which seems to be more nourish'd by a soul
So quick and restless that it would consume
Less hardy clay-Time has but little power
On his resentments or his griefs. Unlike
To other spirits of his order, who,

In the first burst of passion, pour away
Their wrath or sorrow, all things wear in him
An aspect of eternity: his thoughts,

His feelings, passions, good or evil, all

Have nothing of old age; and his bold brow
Bears but the scars of mind, the thoughts of years,
Not their decrepitude: and he of late

Has been more agitated than his wont.

Would he were come! for I alone have power
Upon his troubled spirit.

MARIANNA.

It is true,

His highness has of late been greatly moved
By the affront of Steno, and with cause;
But the offender doubtless even now
Is doom'd to expiate his rash insult with
Such chastisement as will enforce respect
To female virtue, and to noble blood.

ANGIOLINA.

'Twas a gross insult; but I heed it not
For the rash scorner's falsehood in itself,
But for the effect, the deadly deep impression
Which it has made upon Faliero's soul,
The proud, the fiery, the austere-austere
To all save me: I tremble when I think
To what it may conduct.

MARIANNA.

Assuredly

The Doge can not suspect you?

ANGIOLINA.

Suspect me!

Why Steno dared not: when he scrawl'd his lie, Groveling by stealth in the moon's glimmering light,

His own still conscience smote him for the act,

And every

shadow on the walls frown'd shame

Upon his coward calumny.

MARIANNA.

'Twere fit

He should be punish'd grievously.

ANGIOLINA.

He is so.

MARIANNA.

What! is the sentence past? is he condemn'd?

ANGIOLINA.

I know not that, but he has been detected.

MARIANNA.

And deem you this enough for such foul scorn?

ANGIOLINA.

I would not be a judge in my own cause,
Nor do I know what sense of punishment
May reach the soul of ribalds such as Steno;
But if his insults sink no deeper in
The minds of the inquisitors than they
Have ruffled mine, he will, for all acquittance,
Be left to his own shamelessness or shame.

MARIANNA.

Some sacrifice is due to slander'd virtue.

ANGIOLINA.

Why, what is virtue if it needs a victim?
Or if it must depend upon men's words?
The dying Roman said, " 'twas but a name:"

It were indeed no more, if human breath

Could make or mar it.

MARIANNA..

Yet full many a dame,

Stainless and faithful, would feel all the wrong
Of such a slander; and less rigid ladies,
Such as abound in Venice, would be loud
And all-inexorable in their cry

For justice.

ANGIOLINA.

This but proves it is the name

And not the quality they prize: the first
Have found it a hard task to hold their honour,
If they require it to be blazon'd forth;

And those who have not kept it, seek its seeming
As they would look out for an ornament

Of which they feel the want, but not because They think it so; they live in others' thoughts, And would seem honest as they must seem fair.

MARIANNA.

You have strange thoughts for a patrician dame.

ANGIOLINA.

And yet they were my father's; with his name,
The sole inheritance he left.

MARIANNA.

You want none;

Wife to a prince, the chief of the Republic.

ANGIOLINA.

I should have sought none though a peasant's bride,