The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 30

erased.]

[30] {103}[Athenaeus represents the treasures which Sardanapalus placed in the chamber erected on his funeral pile as amounting to a thousand myriads of talents of gold, and ten times as many talents of silver.]

[ap]

_Ye will find the crevice_ _To which the key fits, with a little care_.--[MS. M. erased.]

[31] {106}["Then the king caused a huge pile of wood to be made in the palace court, and heaped together upon it all his gold, silver, and royal apparel, and enclosing his eunuchs and concubines in an apartment within the pile, caused it to be set on fire, and burned himself and them together."--Diod. Siculi _Bibl. Hist._, lib. ii. cap. 81A.

"And he also erected on the funeral pile a chamber 100 feet long, made of wood, and in it he had couches spread, and there he himself lay down with his wife, and his concubines lay on other couches around.... And he made the roof of the apartment of large stout beams, and there all the walls of it he made of numerous thick planks, so that it was impossible to escape out of it,... And ... he bade the slaves set fire to the pile; and it was fifteen days burning. And those who saw the smoke wondered, and thought that he was celebrating a great sacrifice, but the eunuchs alone knew what was really being done. And in this way Sardanapalus, who had spent his life in extraordinary luxury, died with as much magnanimity as possible."--Athenaeus, _Deipnosophistae_, bk. xii.

cap. 38.

See _Abydenus apud Eusebium_, Praep. Ev. 9. 41. 4; Euseb., _Chron_., 1878, p. 42, ed. A. Schoene.

Saracus was the last king of a.s.syria, and being invaded by Cyaxares and a faithless general Nabopola.s.sar ... "unable to resist them, took counsel of despair, and after all means of resistance were exhausted, burned himself in his palace."

"The self-immolation of Saracus has a parallel in the conduct of the Israelitish king Zimri, who, 'when he saw that the city was taken, went into the palace of the king's house, and burnt the king's house over him, and died' (1 Kings xvi. 18); and again in that of the Persian governor Boges, who burnt himself with his wives and children at Eion (Herod., vii. 107)."--_The Five Great Monarchies, etc._, by Rev. G.

Rawlinson, 1871, ii. 232, note 4.]

[aq] {109} _Funereal_----.--[MS. M.]

[ar] _And strew the earth with, ashes_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[as] {110}

----_And what is there_ _An Indian widow dares for custom which_ _A Greek girl_----.--[MS. M. erased.]

[32] {111}[Bishop Heber (_Quarterly Review_, July, 1821, vol. xxvii. p.

503) takes exception to these lines on the ground that they "involve an anachronism, inasmuch as, whatever date be a.s.signed to the erection of the earlier pyramids, there can be no reason for apprehending that, at the fall of Nineveh, and while the kingdom and hierarchy of Egypt subsisted in their full splendour, the destination of those immense fabrics could have been a matter of doubt.... Herodotus, three hundred years later, may have been misinformed on these points," etc., etc.

According to modern Egyptology, the erection of the "earlier pyramids"

was an event of remotest antiquity when the a.s.syrian Empire was in its infancy.]

[33] End of Act fifth.--B.

Ravenne. May 27^th^ 1821.

Mem.--I began the drama on the 13th of January, 1821, and continued the two first acts very slowly and at long intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month, that is to say in a fortnight).

THE TWO FOSCARI:[34]

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.[35]

"The _father_ softens, but the _governor's_ resolved."--_Critic_.[36]

[_The Two Foscari_ was produced at Drury Lane Theatre April 7, and again on April 18 and April 25, 1838. Macready played "Frances Foscari," Mr.

Anderson "Jacopo Foscari," and Miss Helen Faucit "Marina."

According to the _Times_, April 9, 1838, "Miss Faucit's Marina, the most energetic part of the whole, was clever, and showed a careful attention to the points which might be made."

Macready notes in his diary, April 7, 1838 (_Reminiscences_, 1875, ii.

106): "Acted Foscari very well. Was very warmly received ... was called for at the end of the tragedy, and received by the whole house standing up and waving handkerchiefs with great enthusiasm. d.i.c.kens, Forster, Procter, Browning, Talfourd, all came into my room."]

INTRODUCTION TO _THE TWO FOSCARI_

The _Two Foscari_ was begun on June 12, and finished, within the month, on July 9, 1821. Byron was still in the vein of the historic drama, though less concerned with "ancient chroniclers" and original "authorities" (_vide ante_, Preface to _Marino Faliero_, vol. iv. p. 332) than heretofore. "The Venetian play," he tells Murray, July 14, 1821, is "rigidly historical;" but he seems to have depended for his facts, not on Sanudo or Navagero, but on Daru's _Histoire de la Republique de Venise_ (1821, ii. 520-537), and on Sismondi's _Histoire des Republiques ... du Moyen Age_ (1815, x. 36-46). The story of the Two Doges, so far as it concerns the characters and action of Byron's play, may be briefly re-told. It will be found to differ in some important particulars from the extracts from Daru and Sismondi which Byron printed in his "Appendix to the _Two Foscari_" (_Sardanapalus, etc._, 1821, pp. 305-324), and no less from a pa.s.sage in Smedley's _Sketches from Venetian History_ (1832, ii. 93-105), which was subst.i.tuted for the French "Pieces justificatives," in the collected edition of 1832-1835, xiii. 198-202, and the octavo edition of 1837, etc., pp. 790, 791.

Francesco, son of Nicol Foscari, was born in 1373. He was nominated a member of the Council of Ten in 1399, and, after holding various offices of state, elected Doge in 1423. His dukedom, the longest on record, lasted till 1457. He was married, in 1395, to Maria, daughter of Andrea Priuli, and, _en secondes noces_, to Maria, or Marina, daughter of Bartolommeo Nani. By his two wives he was the father of ten children--five sons and five daughters. Of the five sons, four died of the plague, and the fifth, Jacopo, lived to be the cause, if not the hero, of a tragedy.

The younger of the "Two Foscari" was a man of some cultivation, a collector and student of Greek ma.n.u.scripts, well-mannered, and of ready wit, a child and lover of Venice, but indifferent to her ideals and regardless of her prejudices and restrictions. He seems to have begun life in a blaze of popularity, the admired of all admirers. His wedding with Lucrezia Contarini (January, 1441) was celebrated with a novel and peculiar splendour. Gorgeous youths, Companions of the Hose (_della calza_), in jackets of crimson velvet, with slashed sleeves lined with squirrel fur, preceded and followed the bridegroom's train. A hundred bridesmaids accompanied the bride. Her dowry exceeded 16,000 ducats, and her jewels, which included a necklace worn by a Queen of Cyprus, were "rich and rare." And the maiden herself was a pearl of great price. "She behaved," writes her brother, "and does behave, so well beyond what could have been looked for. I believe she is inspired by G.o.d!"

Jacopo had everything which fortune could bestow, but he lacked a capacity for right conduct. Four years after his marriage (February 17, 1445) an accusation was laid before the Ten (Romanin, _Storia_, etc., iv. 266) that, contrary to the law embodied in the Ducal _Promissione_, he had accepted gifts of jewels and money, not only from his fellow-citizens, but from his country's bitterest enemy, Filippo Visconti, Duke of Milan. Jacopo fled to Trieste, and in his absence the Ten, supported by a giunta of ten, on their own authority and independently of the Doge, sentenced him to perpetual banishment at Nauplia, in Roumania. One of the three _Capi di' dieci_ was Ermolao (or _Venetice_ Almoro) Donato, of whom more hereafter. It is to be noted that this sentence was never carried into effect. At the end of four months, thanks to the intervention of five members of the Ten, he was removed from Trieste to Treviso, and, two years later (September 13, 1447), out of consideration to the Doge, who pleaded that the exile of his only son prevented him from giving his whole heart and soul to the Republic, permitted to return to Venice. So ends the first chapter of Jacopo's misadventures. He stands charged with unlawful, if not criminal, appropriation of gifts and moneys. He had been punished, but less than he deserved, and, for his father's sake, the sentence of exile had been altogether remitted.

Three years went by, and once again, January, 1451, a charge was preferred against Jacopo Foscari, and on this occasion he was arrested and brought before the Ten. He was accused of being implicated in the murder of Ermolao Donato, who was a.s.sa.s.sinated November 5, 1450, on leaving the Ducal Palace, where he had been attending the Council of the Pregadi. On the morning after the murder Benedetto Gritti, one of the "avvogadori di Commun," was at Mestre, some five miles from Venice, and, happening to accost a servant of Jacopo's who was loading a barge with wood, asked for the latest news from Venice, and got as answer, "Donato has been murdered!" The possession of the news some hours before it had been made public, and the fact that the newsmonger had been haunting the purlieus of the Ducal Palace on the previous afternoon, enabled the Ten to convict Jacopo. They alleged (Decree of X., March 26, 1451) that other evidence ("_testificationes et scripturae_") was in their possession, and they pointed to the prisoner's obstinate silence on the rack--a silence unbroken save by "several incantations and magic words which fell from him," as a confirmation of his guilt. Moreover, it was "for the advantage of the State from many points of view" that convicted and condemned he should be. The question of his innocence or guilt (complicated by the report or tradition that one Nicol Erizzo confessed on his death-bed that he had a.s.sa.s.sinated Donato for reasons of his own) is still under discussion. Berlan (_I due Foscari_, etc., 1852, p. 36) sums up against him. It may, however, be urged in favour of Jacopo that the Ten did not produce or quote the _scripturae et testificationes_ which convinced them of his guilt; that they stopped short of the death-penalty, and p.r.o.nounced a sentence inadequate to the crime; and, lastly, that not many years before they had taken into consideration the possibility and advisability of poisoning Filippo Visconti, an event which would, no doubt, have been "to the advantage of the State from many points of view."

Innocent or guilty, he was sentenced to perpetual banishment to the city of Candia, on the north coast of the island of Crete; and, guilty or innocent, Jacopo was not the man to make the best of what remained to him and submit to fate. Intrigue he must, and, five years later (June, 1456), a report reached Venice that papers had been found in his possession, some relating to the Duke of Milan, calculated to excite "nuovi scandali e disordini," and others in cypher, which the Ten could not read. Over and above these papers there was direct evidence that Jacopo had written to the _Imperatore dei Turchi_, imploring him to send his galley and take him away from Candia. Here was a fresh instance of treachery to the Republic, and, July 21, 1456, Jacopo returned to Venice under the custody of Lorenzo Loredano.

According to Romanin (_Storia, etc._, iv. 284), he was not put to the torture, but confessed his guilt spontaneously, pleading, by way of excuse, that the letter to the Duke of Milan had been allowed to fall into the hands of spies, with a view to his being recalled to Venice and obtaining a glimpse of his parents and family, even at a risk of a fresh trial. On the other hand, the _Dolfin Cronaca_, the work of a kinsman of the Foscari, which records Jacopo's fruitless appeal to the sorrowful but inexorable Doge, and other incidents of a personal nature, testifies, if not to torture on the rack, "to mutilation by thirty strokes of the lash." Be that as it may, he was once more condemned to lifelong exile, with the additional penalty that he should be imprisoned for a year. He sailed for Venice July 31, 1456, and died at Candia, January 12, 1457. Jacopo's misconduct and consequent misfortune overshadowed the splendour of his father's reign, and, in very truth "brought his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave."

After his son's death, the aged Doge, now in his eighty-fifth year, retired to his own apartments, and refused to preside at Councils of State. The Ten, who in 1446 had yielded to the Doge's plea that a father fretting for an exiled son could not discharge his public duties, were instant that he should abdicate the dukedom on the score of decrepitude.

Accounts differ as to the mode in which he received the sentence of deposition. It is certain that he was compelled to abdicate on Sunday morning, October 23, 1457, but was allowed a breathing-s.p.a.ce of a few days to make his arrangements for quitting the Ducal Palace.

On Monday, October 24, the Great Council met to elect his successor, and sat with closed doors till Sunday, October 30.

On Thursday, October 27, Francesco, heedless of a suggestion that he should avoid the crowd, descended the Giants' Staircase for the last time, and, says the _Dolfin Cronaca_, "after crossing the courtyard, went out by the door leading to the prisons, and entered his boat by the Ponte di Paglia." "He was dressed," says another chronicle (_August.

Cod._ I, cl. vii.), "in a scarlet mantle, from which the fur lining had been taken," surmounted by a scarlet hood, an old friend which he had worn when his ducal honours were new, and which he had entrusted to his wife's care to be preserved for "red" days and festivals of State. "In his hand he held his staff, as he walked very slowly. His brother Marco was by his side, behind him were cousins and grandsons ... and in this way he went to his own house."

On Sunday, October 30, Pasquale Malipiero was declared Doge, and two days after, All Saints' Day, at the first hour of the morning, Francesco Foscari died. If the interval between ten o'clock on Sunday night and one o'clock on Tuesday morning disproves the legend that the discrowned Doge ruptured a blood-vessel at the moment when the bell was tolling for the election of his successor, the truth remains that, old as he was, he died of a broken heart.

His predecessor, Tomaso Mocenigo, had prophesied on his death-bed that if the Venetians were to make Foscari Doge they would forfeit their "gold and silver, their honour and renown." "From your position of lords," said he, "you will sink to that of va.s.sals and servants to men of arms." The prophecy was fulfilled. "If we look," writes Mr. H. F.

Brown (_Venice, etc._, 1893, p. 306), "at the sum-total of Foscari's reign ... we find that the Republic had increased her land territory by the addition of two great provinces, Bergamo and Brescia ... But the price had been enormous ... her debt rose from 6,000,000 to 13,000,000 ducats.

Venetian funds fell to 18-1/2.... Externally there was much pomp and splendour.... But underneath this bravery there lurked the official corruption of the n.o.bles, the suspicion of the Ten, the first signs of bank failures, the increase in the national debt, the fall in the value of the funds. Land wars and landed possessions drew the Venetians from the sea to _terra ferma_.... The beginning of the end had arrived." (See _Two Doges of Venice_, by Alethea Wiel, 1891; _I due Foscari, Memorie Storicho Critiche_, di Frances...o...b..rlan, 1852; _Storia Doc.u.mentata di Venezia_, di S. Romanin, 1855, vol. iv.; _Die beiden Foscari_, von Richard Senger, 1878. For reviews, etc., of _The Two Foscari, vide ante_, "Introduction to _Sardanapalus_," p. 5.)

Both Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh_, and Heber in the _Quarterly Review_, took exception to the character of Jacopo Foscari, in accordance with the Horatian maxim, "Incredulus odi." "If," said Jeffrey, "he had been presented to the audience wearing out his heart in exile, ... we might have caught some glimpse of the nature of his motives." As it is (in obedience to the "unities") "we first meet with him led from the 'Question,' and afterwards ... clinging to the dungeon walls of his native city, and expiring from his dread of leaving them." The situation lacks conviction.

"If," argued Heber, "there ever existed in nature a case so extraordinary as that of a man who gravely preferred tortures and a dungeon at home, to a temporary residence in a beautiful island and a fine climate; it is what few can be made to believe, and still fewer to sympathize with."

It was, no doubt, with reference to these criticisms that Byron told Medwin (_Conversations_, 1824, p. 173) that it was no invention of his that the "young Foscari should have a sickly affection for his native city.... I painted the men as I found them, as they were--not as the critics would have them.... But no painting, however highly coloured, can give an idea of the intensity of a Venetian's affection for his native city."

Goethe, on the other hand, was "not careful" to note these inconsistencies and perplexities. He thought that the dramatic handling of _The Two Foscari_ was "worthy of great praise," was "admirable!"

(_Conversations with Goethe_, 1874, p. 265).