Is. Ber.

'Twere in vain;

For he who injured me is one of them.

Doge. There's blood upon thy face-how came it there? Is. Ber. 'Tis mine, and not the first I've shed for VeBut the first shed by a Venetian hand;

A noble smote me.

[nice,

Doge.

Is. Ber.

Doth he live!

Not long

But for the hope I had and have, that you,
My prince, yourself a soldier, will redress
Him, whom the laws of discipline and Venice
Permit not to protect himself; if not—
I say no more.

Doge.

Is it not so?

But something you would do

Is. Ber. I am a man, my lord."

Doge. Why so is he who smote you.

Is. Ber.

He is called so;

Nay, more, a noble one-at least, in Venice:
But since he hath forgotten that I am one,
And treats me like a brute, the brute may turn-
'Tis said the worm will.

Doge.

Is. Ber. Barbaro.

Doge.

Say his name and lineage?

1

What was the cause? or the pretext.

Is. Ber. I am the chief of the arsenal, employed

At present in repairing certain galleys

But roughly used by the Geonese last year.
This morning comes the noble Barbaro
Full of reproof, because our artisans
Had left some frivolous order of his house,
To execute the state's decree; I dared
To justify the men-he raised his hand;-
Behold my blood! the first time it e'er flow'd
Dishonourably.

Doge.

Have you long time served?

Is. Ber. So long as to remember Zara's siege,

And fight beneath the chief who beat the Huns there, Sometime my general, now the Doge Faliero.—

Doge. How! are we comrades?-the state's ducal robes Sit newly on me, and you were appointed

Chief of the arsenal ere I came from Rome;

So that I recognised you not. Who placed you?

Is. Ber. The late Doge; keeping still my old command As patron of a galley: my new office

Was given as the reward of certain scars
(So was your predecessor pleased to say:)

I little thought his bounty would conduct me
To his successor as a helpless plaintiff;

At least, in such a cause.

Doge.

Are you much hurt?

Is. Ber. Irreparably in my self esteem.

Doge. Speak out; fear nothing: being stung at heart, What would you do to be revenged on this man!

Is. Ber. That which I dare not name, and yet will do.

Doge. Then wherefore come you here?

Is. Ber.
I come for justice,
Because my general is Doge, and will not
See his old soldier trampled on. Had any,
Save Faliero, fill'd, the ducal throne,

This blood had been wash'd out in other blood.
Doge. You come to me for justice-unto me!
The Doge of Venice, and I cannot give it;
I cannot even obtain it-'twas denied

To me most solemnly an hour ago.

18. Ber. How says your highness? Doge.

To a month's confinement.

18. Ber.

Steno is condemn'd

What! the same who dared

To stain the ducal throne with those foul words,

That have cried shame to every ear in Venice?

Doge. Ay, doubtless they have echo'd o'er the arsenal, Keeping due time with every hammer's clink

As a good jest to jolly artisans;

Or making chorus to the creaking oar,
In the vile tune of every galley slave,
Who, as he sung the merry stave, exulted
He was not a shamed dotard like the Doge.
Is. Ber. Is't possible? a month's imprisonment!
No more for Steno?

Doge.

You have heard the offence,
And now you know his punishment; and then
You ask redress of me! Go to the Forty,
Who pass'd the sentence upon Michel Steno;
They'll do as much by Barbaro, no doubt.
Is. Ber. Ah! dared I speak my feelings!
Doge.

Give them breath.

Mine have no further outrage to endure.

Is. Ber. Then, in a word, it rests but on your word To punish and avenge-I will not say

My petty wrong, for what is a mere blow,

However vile, to such a thing as I am?—

But the base insult done your state and person.

Doge. You overrate my power, which is a pageant, This cap is not the monarch's crown; these robes Might move compassion, like a beggar's rags; Nay, more, a beggar's are his own, and these But lent to the poor puppet, who must play Its part with all its empire in this ermine, 1s. Ber. Would'st thou be king?

Doge.

Yes-of a happy people.

Is. Ber. Would'st thou be sovereign lord of Venice?

Doge.

Ay:

If that the people shared that sovereignty,

So that nor they nor I were further slaves
To this o'ergrown aristocratic Hydra.

The poisonous heads of whose envenom❜d body
Have breathed a pestilence upon us all.

Is. Ber. Yet, thou wast born and still hast lived patrician.

Doge. In evil hour was I so born; my birth

Hath made me Doge to be insulted: but

I lived and toil'd a soldier and a servant

Of Venice and her people, not the senate;

Their good and my own honour were my guerdon.
I have fought and bled; commanded, ay, and conquer'd;
Have made and marr'd peace oft in embassies,
As it might chance to be our country's 'vantage;
Have traversed land and sea in constant duty,
Through almost sixty years, and still for Venice,
My fathers' and my birthplace, whose dear spires,
Rising at distance o'er the blue Lagoon,
It was reward enough for me to view
Once more; but not for any knot of men,
Nor sect, nor faction, did I bleed or sweat!
But would you know why I have done all this?
Ask of the bleeding pelican why she
Hath ripp'd her bosom? Had the bird a voice,
She'd tell thee 'twas for all her little ones.

Is. Ber. And yet they made thee duke.
Doge.

They made me so;.

I sought it not, the flattering fetters met me
Returning from my Roman embassy,
And never having hitherto refused

Toil, charge, or duty, for the state, I did not,
At these late years, decline what was the highest
Of all in seeming, but of all most base

In what we have to do and to endure:

Bear witness for me thou, my injured subject,
When I can neither right myself nor thee.

Is. Ber. You shall do both, if you possess the will; And many thousands more not less oppress'd,

Who wait but for a signal-will you give it?

Doge. You speak in riddles.

Is. Ber.

Which shall soon be read

disdain not

Say on.

Is. Ber.

Not thou,

To lend a patient ear.
Doge.

Nor I alone, are injured and abused,

Contemm'd, and trampled on; but the whole people
Groan with the strong conception of their wrongs:
The foreign soldiers in the senate's pay
Are discontented for their long arrears;

The native mariners and civic troops,

Feel with their friends; for who is he amongst them
Whose brethren, parents, children, wives, or sisters,
Have not partook oppression or pollution,

From the patricians? And the hopeless war
Against the Genoese, which is still maintain'd

With the plebeian blood, and treasure wrung
From their hard earnings, has inflamed them further:
Even now-but, I forget that speaking thus,

Perhaps I pass the sentence of my death!

Doge. And suffering what thou hast done-fear'st thou Be silent then, and live on, to be beaten

By those for whom thou hast bled.

ls. Ber.

[death?

No, I will speak
At every hazard; and if Venice' Doge
Should turn delator, be the shame on him,
And sorrow too; for he will lose far more
Than I.