The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 63

_Cal_. I've noted most; and caused the other chiefs To use like caution in their companies.

As far as I have seen, we are enough 140 To make the enterprise secure, if 'tis Commenced to-morrow; but, till 'tis begun, Each hour is pregnant with a thousand perils.

_I. Ber_. Let the Sixteen meet at the wonted hour, Except Soranzo, Nicoletto Blondo, And Marco Giuda, who will keep their watch Within the a.r.s.enal, and hold all ready, Expectant of the signal we will fix on.

_Cal_. We will not fail.

_I. Ber_. Let all the rest be there; I have a stranger to present to them. 150

_Cal_. A stranger! doth he know the secret?

_I. Ber_. Yes.

_Cal_. And have you dared to peril your friends' lives On a rash confidence in one we know not?

_I. Ber_. I have risked no man's life except my own-- Of that be certain: he is one who may Make our a.s.surance doubly sure, according[417]

His aid; and if reluctant, he no less Is in our power: he comes alone with me, And cannot 'scape us; but he will not swerve.

_Cal_. I cannot judge of this until I know him: 160 Is he one of our order?

_I. Ber_. Aye, in spirit, Although a child of Greatness; he is one Who would become a throne, or overthrow one-- One who has done great deeds, and seen great changes; No tyrant, though bred up to tyranny; Valiant in war, and sage in council; n.o.ble In nature, although haughty; quick, yet wary: Yet for all this, so full of certain pa.s.sions, That if once stirred and baffled, as he has been Upon the tenderest points, there is no Fury 170 In Grecian story like to that which wrings His vitals with her burning hands, till he Grows capable of all things for revenge; And add too, that his mind is liberal, He sees and feels the people are oppressed, And shares their sufferings. Take him all in all, We have need of such, and such have need of us.

_Cal_. And what part would you have him take with us?

_I. Ber_. It may be, that of Chief.

_Cal_. What! and resign Your own command as leader?

_I. Ber_. Even so. 180 My object is to make your cause end well, And not to push myself to power. Experience, Some skill, and your own choice, had marked me out To act in trust as your commander, till Some worthier should appear: if I have found such As you yourselves shall own more worthy, think you That I would hesitate from selfishness, And, covetous of brief authority, Stake our deep interest on my single thoughts, Rather than yield to one above me in 190 All leading qualities? No, Calendaro, Know your friend better; but you all shall judge.

Away! and let us meet at the fixed hour.

Be vigilant, and all will yet go well.

_Cal_. Worthy Bertuccio, I have known you ever Trusty and brave, with head and heart to plan What I have still been prompt to execute.

For my own part, I seek no other Chief; What the rest will decide, I know not, but I am with YOU, as I have ever been, 200 In all our undertakings. Now farewell, Until the hour of midnight sees us meet. [_Exeunt_.

ACT III.

SCENE I.--_Scene, the s.p.a.ce between the Ca.n.a.l and the Church of San Giovanni e San Paolo. An equestrian Statue before it.--A Gondola lies in the Ca.n.a.l at some distance._

_Enter the_ DOGE _alone, disguised_.

_Doge_ (_solus_). I am before the hour, the hour whose voice, Pealing into the arch of night, might strike These palaces with ominous tottering, And rock their marbles to the corner-stone, Waking the sleepers from some hideous dream Of indistinct but awful augury Of that which will befall them. Yes, proud city!

Thou must be cleansed of the black blood which makes thee A lazar-house of tyranny: the task Is forced upon me, I have sought it not; 10 And therefore was I punished, seeing this Patrician pestilence spread on and on, Until at length it smote me in my slumbers, And I am tainted, and must wash away The plague spots in the healing wave. Tall fane!

Where sleep my fathers, whose dim statues shadow The floor which doth divide us from the dead, Where all the pregnant hearts of our bold blood, Mouldered into a mite of ashes, hold In one shrunk heap what once made many heroes, 20 When what is now a handful shook the earth-- Fane of the tutelar saints who guard our house!

Vault where two Doges rest[418]--my sires! who died The one of toil, the other in the field, With a long race of other lineal chiefs And sages, whose great labours, wounds, and state I have inherited,--let the graves gape, Till all thine aisles be peopled with the dead, And pour them from thy portals to gaze on me!

I call them up, and them and thee to witness 30 What it hath been which put me to this task-- Their pure high blood, their blazon-roll of glories, Their mighty name dishonoured all _in_ me, Not _by_ me, but by the ungrateful n.o.bles We fought to make our equals, not our lords:[dk]

And chiefly thou, Ordelafo the brave, Who perished in the field, where I since conquered, Battling at Zara, did the hecatombs Of thine and Venice' foes, there offered up By thy descendant, merit such acquittance?[dl] 40 Spirits! smile down upon me! for my cause Is yours, in all life now can be of yours,-- Your fame, your name, all mingled up in mine, And in the future fortunes of our race!

Let me but prosper, and I make this city Free and immortal, and our House's name Worthier of what you were--now and hereafter!

_Enter_ ISRAEL BERTUCCIO.

_I. Ber_. Who goes there?

_Doge_. A friend to Venice.

_I. Ber_. 'Tis he.

Welcome, my Lord,--you are before the time.

_Doge_. I am ready to proceed to your a.s.sembly. 50

_I. Ber_. Have with you.--I am proud and pleased to see Such confident alacrity. Your doubts Since our last meeting, then, are all dispelled?

_Doge_. Not so--but I have set my little left[419]

Of life upon this cast: the die was thrown When I first listened to your treason.--Start not!

_That_ is the word; I cannot shape my tongue To syllable black deeds into smooth names, Though I be wrought on to commit them. When I heard you tempt your Sovereign, and forbore 60 To have you dragged to prison, I became Your guiltiest accomplice: now you may, If it so please you, do as much by me.

_I. Ber_. Strange words, my Lord, and most unmerited; I am no spy, and neither are we traitors.

_Doge_. _We--We!_--no matter--you have earned the right To talk of _us_.--But to the point.--If this Attempt succeeds, and Venice, rendered free And flourishing, when we are in our graves, Conducts her generations to our tombs, 70 And makes her children with their little hands Strew flowers o'er her deliverers' ashes, then The consequence will sanctify the deed, And we shall be like the two Bruti in The annals of hereafter; but if not, If we should fail, employing b.l.o.o.d.y means And secret plot, although to a good end, Still we are traitors, honest Israel;--thou No less than he who was thy Sovereign Six hours ago, and now thy brother rebel. 80

_I. Ber_. 'Tis not the moment to consider thus, Else I could answer.--Let us to the meeting, Or we may be observed in lingering here.

_Doge_. We _are_ observed, and have been.

_I. Ber_. We observed!

Let me discover--and this steel-----

_Doge_. Put up; Here are no human witnesses: look there-- What see you?

_I. Ber_. Only a tall warrior's statue[420]

Bestriding a proud steed, in the dim light Of the dull moon.

_Doge_. That Warrior was the sire Of my sire's fathers, and that statue was 90 Decreed to him by the twice rescued city:-- Think you that he looks down on us or no?

_I. Ber_. My Lord, these are mere fantasies; there are No eyes in marble.

_Doge_. But there are in Death.

I tell thee, man, there is a spirit in Such things that acts and sees, unseen, though felt; And, if there be a spell to stir the dead, 'Tis in such deeds as we are now upon.

Deem'st thou the souls of such a race as mine Can rest, when he, their last descendant Chief, 100 Stands plotting on the brink of their pure graves With stung plebeians?

_I. Ber_. It had been as well To have pondered this before,--ere you embarked In our great enterprise.--Do you repent?

_Doge_. No--but I _feel_, and shall do to the last.

I cannot quench a glorious life at once, Nor dwindle to the thing I now must be,[dm]

And take men's lives by stealth, without some pause: Yet doubt me not; it is this very feeling, And knowing _what_ has wrung me to be thus, 110 Which is your best security. There's not A roused mechanic in your busy plot[dn]

So wronged as I, so fall'n, so loudly called To his redress: the very means I am forced By these fell tyrants to adopt is such, That I abhor them doubly for the deeds Which I must do to pay them back for theirs.