The Works of Lord Byron Volume V Part 46

_You_ feel it then at last--_you!_--Where is now The Stoic of the State?

_Doge_ (_throwing himself down by the body_). _Here!_

_Mar._ Aye, weep on!

I thought you had no tears--you h.o.a.rded them Until they are useless; but weep on! he never Shall weep more--never, never more.

_Enter_ LOREDANO _and_ BARBARIGO.

_Lor._ What's here?

_Mar._ Ah! the Devil come to insult the dead! Avaunt!

Incarnate Lucifer! 'tis holy ground.

A martyr's ashes now lie there, which make it 220 A shrine. Get thee back to thy place of torment!

_Bar._ Lady, we knew not of this sad event, But pa.s.sed here merely on our path from council.

_Mar._ Pa.s.s on.

_Lor._ We sought the Doge.

_Mar._ (_pointing to the Doge, who is still on the ground by his son's body_) He's busy, look, About the business _you_ provided for him.

Are ye content?

_Bar._ We will not interrupt A parent's sorrows.

_Mar._ No, ye only make them, Then leave them.

_Doge_ (_rising_). Sirs, I am ready.

_Bar._ No--not now.

_Lor._ Yet 'twas important.

_Doge_. If 'twas so, I can Only repeat--I am ready.

_Bar._ It shall not be 230 Just now, though Venice tottered o'er the deep Like a frail vessel. I respect your griefs.

_Doge_. I thank you. If the tidings which you bring Are evil, you may say them; nothing further Can touch me more than him thou look'st on there; If they be good, say on; you need not _fear_ That they can _comfort_ me.

_Bar._ I would they could!

_Doge_. I spoke not to _you_, but to Loredano.

_He_ understands me.

_Mar._ Ah! I thought it would be so.

_Doge_. What mean you?

_Mar._ Lo! there is the blood beginning 240 To flow through the dead lips of Foscari-- The body bleeds in presence of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

[_To_ LOREDANO.

Thou cowardly murderer by law, behold How Death itself bears witness to thy deeds!

_Doge_. My child! this is a phantasy of grief.

Bear hence the body. [_To his attendants_] Signors, if it please you, Within an hour I'll hear you.

[_Exeunt_ DOGE, MARINA, _and attendants with the body_. _Manent_ LOREDANO _and_ BARBARIGO.

_Bar._ He must not Be troubled now.

_Lor._ He said himself that nought Could give him trouble farther.

_Bar._ These are words; But Grief is lonely, and the breaking in 250 Upon it barbarous.

_Lor._ Sorrow preys upon Its solitude, and nothing more diverts it From its sad visions of the other world, Than calling it at moments back to this.

The busy have no time for tears.

_Bar._ And therefore You would deprive this old man of all business?

_Lor._ The thing's decreed. The Giunta[75] and "the Ten"

Have made it law--who shall oppose that law?

_Bar._ Humanity!

_Lor._ Because his son is dead?

_Bar._ And yet unburied.

_Lor._ Had we known this when 260 The act was pa.s.sing, it might have suspended Its pa.s.sage, but impedes it not--once pa.s.sed.

_Bar._ I'll not consent.

_Lor._ You have consented to All that's essential--leave the rest to me.

_Bar._ Why press his abdication now?

_Lor._ The feelings Of private pa.s.sion may not interrupt The public benefit; and what the State Decides to-day must not give way before To-morrow for a natural accident.

_Bar._ You have a son.

_Lor._ I _have_--and _had_ a father. 270

_Bar._ Still so inexorable?

_Lor._ Still.

_Bar._ But let him Inter his son before we press upon him This edict.

_Lor._ Let him call up into life My sire and uncle--I consent. Men may, Even aged men, be, or appear to be, Sires of a hundred sons, but cannot kindle An atom of their ancestors from earth.