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To nurse them wisely. Foscari-you know | No less than master; I have probed his soul

Your sentence, then?

J. Foscari. Return to Candia?

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Marina. Who obtain'd that justice? Lored. One who wars not with women. Marina. But oppresses

Men: howsoever, let him have my thanks For the only boon I would have ask'd or taken

From him or such as he is.

Lored. He receives them As they are offer'd.

Marina. May they thrive with him So much!-no more.

J. Foscari. Is this,sir, your whole mission? Because we have brief time for preparation, And you perceive your presence doth disquiet

This lady, of a house noble as yours.
Marina. Nobler!

Lored. How nobler?

Marina. As more generous!

We say the "generous steed" to express the purity

Of his high blood. Thus much I've learnt, although

Venetian(who see few steeds save of bronze), From those Venetians who have skimm'd the coasts

Of Egypt, and her neighbour Araby:
And why not say as soon "the generous man?”
If race be aught, it is in qualities
More than in years; and mine, which is as old
As yours, is better in its product, nay—
Look not so stern—but get you back, and pore
Upon your genealogic tree's most green
Of leaves and most mature of fruits,and there
Blush to find ancestors, who would have
blush'd

For such a son-thou cold inveterate hater!
J. Foscari. Again, Marina!
Marina. Again! still, Marina.
See you not, he comes here to glut his hate
With a last look upon our misery?
Let him partake it!

J. Foscari. That were difficult.
Marina. Nothing more easy. He par-
takes it now-

Ay, he may veil beneath a marble-brow And sneering lip the pang, but he partakes it. A few brief words of truth shame the devil's servants

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With death, and chains, and exile in his hand To scatter o'er his kind as he thinks fit: They are his weapons, not his armour, for I have pierced him to the core of his cold heart.

I care not for his frowns! We can but die, And he but live, for him the very worst Of destinies: each day secures him more His tempter's.

J. Foscari. This is mere insanity. Marina. It may be so; and who made us mad?

Lored. Let her go on; it irks not me. Marina. That's false!

You came here to enjoy a heartless triumph Of cold looks upon manifold griefs! You came To be sued to in vain-to mark our tears, And hoard our groans-to gaze upon the

wreck

Which you have made a prince's son-my husband;

In short, to trample on the fallen—an office The hangman shrinks from, as all men from him!

How have you sped? We are wretched, signor, as

Your plots could make, and vengeance could desire us,

And how feel you?

Lored. As rocks.

Marina. By thunder blasted: They feel not, but no less are shiver'd. Come, Foscari; now let us go, and leave this felon, The sole fit habitant of such a cell, Which he has peopled often, but ne'er fitly Till he himself shall brood in it alone. Enter the DOGE.

J. Foscari. My father!

Doge (embracing him). Jacopo! my sonmy son!

J. Foscari. My father still! How long it is since I

Have heard thee name my name—our name! Doge. My boy!

Couldst thou but know—

J. Foscari. I rarely, sir, have murmur'd.
Doge. I feel too much thou hast not.
Marina. Doge, look there!

[She points to LOREDANO.
Doge. I see the man-what meanst thou?
Marina. Caution!
Lored. Being

The virtue which this noble lady most
May practise, she doth well to recommend it.
Marina. Wretch! 'tis no virtue, but the

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Doge. Daughter, it is superfluous; I have | Slaves, exiles-what you will; or if they are Females with portions, brides and bribes

long

Known Loredano.

Lored. You may know him better. Marina. Yes; worse he could not. J. Foscari. Father, let not these Our parting hours be lost in listening to Reproaches, which boot nothing. Is it-is it, Indeed, our last of meetings?

Doge. You behold These white hairs!

J. Foscari. And I feel, besides, that mine Will never be so white. Embrace me, father! I loved you ever-never more than now. Look to my children-to your last child's children:

Let them be all to you which he was once,
And never be to you what I am now.
May I not see them also?

Marina. No-not here.

J. Foscari. They might behold their parent any where.

Marina. I would that they beheld their father in

A place which would not mingle fear with love,

To freeze their young blood in its natural

current.

They have fed well, slept soft, and knew not that

Their sire was a mere hunted outlaw. Well I know his fate may one day be their heritage,

But let it only be their heritage, And not their present fee. Their senses, though

Alive to love, are yet awake to terror; And these vile damps, too, and yon thick

green wave

Which floats above the place where we now stand

A cell so far below the water's level, Sending its pestilence through every crevice, Might strike them: this is not their atmosphere,

However you - and you- and, most of all, As worthiest you, sir, noble Loredano! May breathe it without prejudice.

J. Foscari. I had not

Reflected upon this, but acquiesce.
I shall depart, then, without meeting them?
Doge. Not so: they shall await you in
my chamber.

J. Foscari. And must I leave them all?
Lored. You must.

J. Foscari. Not one?

Lored. They are the state's.
Marina. I thought they had been mine.
Lored. They are, in all maternal things.
Marina. That is,

In all things painful. If they're sick,they will
Be left to me to tend them; should they die,
To me to bury and to mourn: but if

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J. Foscari. Alas!
Must youth support itself on age, and I
Who ought to be the prop of yours?
Lored. Take mine.

Marina. Touch it not, Foscari; 'twill sting you. Signor,

Stand off! be sure, that if a grasp of yours They live, they'll make you soldiers, sena-Would raise us from the gulf wherein we

tors,

are plunged,

No hand of ours would stretch itself to|(Like Barbarossa to the Pope) to beg him

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To have the courtesy to abdicate.
Barb. What, if he will not?
Lored. We'll elect another,

And make him null.

Barb. But will the laws uphold us? Lored. What laws?-The Ten are laws; and if they were not,

I will be legislator in this business.
Barb. At your own peril?
Lored. There is none, I tell you,
Our powers are such.

Barb. But he has twice already
Solicited permission to retire,
And twice it was refused.

Lored. The better reason
To grant it the third time.
Barb. Unask'd?

Lored. It shows

The impression of his former instances: If they were from his heart, he may be thankful;

If not, 'twill punish his hypocrisy. Come, they are met by this time; let us join them,

And be thou fix'd in purpose for this once. I have prepared such arguments as will not Fail to move them, and to remove him: since Their thoughts, their objects, have been sounded, do not

You, with your wonted scruples, teach us pause,

And all will prosper.

Barb. Could I but be certain This is no prelude to such persecution

Lored. Forthwith- when this long leave of the sire as has fallen upon the son,

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I would support you.

Lored. He is safe, I tell you;

His fourscore years and five may linger on As long as he can drag them: 'tis his throne Alone is aim'd at.

Barb. But discarded princes Are seldom long of life.

Lored. And men of eighty More seldom still.

Barb. And why not wait these few years? Lored. Because we have waited long enough, and he

Lived longer than enough. Hence! In to council!

[Exeunt Loredano and Barbarigo.
Enter MEMмо and a Senator.
Senator. A summons to the Ten! Why so?
Memmo. The Ten

Alone can answer: they are rarely wont
To let their thoughts anticipate their purpose
By previous proclamation. We are sum-
mon'd-
That is enough

Senator. For them, but not for us;
I would know why.

Memmo. You will know why anon, If you obey, and, if not, you no less Will know why you should have obey'd,

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Memmo.

Why

Thus hesitate?-The Ten have call'd in aid
Of their deliberation five and twenty
Patricians of the senate-you are one,
And I another; and it seems to me
Both honour'd by the choice or chance
which leads us

To mingle with a body so august.

Senator. Most true. I say no more.
Memmo. As we hope, signor,
And all may honestly (that is, all those
Of noble blood may) one day hope to be
Decemvir, it is surely for the senate's
Chosen delegates a school of wisdom, to
Be thus admitted, though as novices,
To view the mysteries.

Senator. Let us view them: they,
No doubt, are worth it.

Memmo. Being worth our lives
If we divulge them,doubtless they are worth
Something, at least to you or me.

Senator. I sought not

A place within the sanctuary; but being
Chosen, however reluctantly so chosen,
I shall fulfil my office.

Memmo. Let us not

Be latest in obeying the Ten's summons. Senator. All are not met, but I am of your thought

So far-let's in.

Memmo. The earliest are most welcome In earnest councils-we will not be least so. [Exeunt.

Enter the DOGE, JACOPO FOSCARI, and MARINA.
J. Foscari. Ah, father! though I must
and will depart,

Yet-yet-I pray you to obtain for me
That I once more return unto my home,
Howe'er remote the period. Let there be
A point of time as beacon to my heart,
With any penalty annex'd they please,
But let me still return.

Doge. Son Jacopo,

Go and obey our country's will: 'tis not
For us to look beyond.

J. Foscari. But still I must
Look back. I pray you think of me.
Doge. Alas!

You ever were my dearest offspring, when
They were more numerous, nor can be less so
Now you are last; but did the state demand
The exile of the disinterred ashes

Of your three goodly brothers, now in

earth,

And their desponding shades came flitting

round

To impede the act, I must no less obey
A duty paramount to every duty.

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Will quickly clear the harbour.
J. Foscari. Oh, ye elements!
Where are your storms?

Marina. In human breasts. Alas!
Will nothing calm you?

J. Foscari. Never yet did mariner
Put up to patron - saint such prayers for

prosperous

And pleasant breezes, as I call upon you,
Ye tutelar saints of my own city! which
Ye love not with more holy love than I,
To lash up from the deep the Adrian waves,
And waken Auster, sovereign of the tempest!
Till the sea dash me back on my own shore
Where I may mingle with the sands which
A broken corse upon the barren Lido,
skirt

The land I love, and never shall see more!
Marina. And wish you this with me
beside you?

No

J. Foscari. No

not for thee, too good, too kind!
Live long to be a mother to those children
Mayst thou
Thy fond fidelity for a time deprives
May all the winds of heaven howl down the
Of such support! But for myself alone,
Gulf,

And tear the vessel, till the mariners,
As the Phenicians did on Jonah, then
Appall'd, turn their despairing eyes on me,
Cast me out from amongst them,as an offering
To appease the waves. The billow which

destroys me

Will be more merciful than man, and bear me,
Dead, but still bear me to a native grave,
From fisher's hands upon the desolate strand,
Which, of its thousand wrecks, hath ne'er

received

One lacerated like the heart which then Will be-But wherefore breaks it not? why live I?

Marina. To man thyself, I trust, with
time, to master

A sufferer, but not a loud one: why,
Such useless passion. Until now thou wert
What is this to the things thou hast borne
in silence-

Imprisonment and actual torture?
J. Foscari. Double,

It must be borne. Father, your blessing.
Triple,and tenfold torture! But you are right,
Doge. Would

It could avail thee! but no less thou hast it.
J. Foscari. Forgive-

Doge. What?

J. Foscari. My poor mother for my birth, And me for having lived, and you yourself (As I forgive you) for the gift of life, Which you bestow'd upon me as my sire. Marina. What hast thou done?

J. Foscari. Nothing. I canuot charge My memory with much save sorrow: but I have been so beyond the common lot Chasten'd and visited, I needs must think That I was wicked. If it be so, may What I have undergone here keep me from A like hereafter.

Marina. Fear not: that 's reserved
For your oppressors.

J. Foscari. Let me hope not.
Marina. Hope not?

J. Foscari. I cannot wish them all they have inflicted.

Marina. All! the consummate fiends! A

thousand fold!

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Marina. Hold thy peace, old man! I am no daughter now-thou hast no son. Oh, Foscari!

Officer. We must remove the body. Marina. Touch it not, dungeon-miscreants! your base office

Ends with his life, and goes not beyond murder,

Even by your murderous laws. Leave his remains

To those who know to honour them.
Officer, I must

Inform the signory, and learn their pleasure.
Doge. Inform the signory from me, the
Doge,

May the worm which ne'er dieth feed upon They have no further power upon those

them!

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Lend me your arm, good signor. Officer. You turn pale

ashes:

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Doge. My unhappy children!
Marina. What!

You feel it then at last-you!-- Where is now
The Stoic of the state?

Doge (throwing himself down by the body).
Here!
Marina. Ay, weep on!

Let me support you-paler-ho! some aid I thought you had no tears-you hoarded

there!

Some water!

Marina. Ah, he is dying!

J. Foscari. Now, I'm ready

My eyes swim strangely-where's the door? Marina. Away!

Let me support him-my best love! Oh, God!
How faintly beats this heart — this pulse!
J. Foscari. The light!
Is it the light?—I am faint.

them

Until they are useless ; but weep on ! he never Shall weep more-never, never more.

Enter LOREDano and Barbarigo. Lored. What's here?

Marina. Ah! the devil, come to insult the dead! Avaunt!

Incarnate Lucifer! 'tis holy ground. A martyr's ashes now lie there, which make it [Officer presents him with water. A shrine. Get thee back to thy place of Officer. He will be better,

Perhaps, in the air.

torment!

Barb. Lady, we knew not of this sad event, pass'd here merely on our path from council.

J. Foscari. I doubt not. Father-wife-But Your hands!

Marina. There's death in that damp

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Marina. Pass on.

Lored. We sought the Doge.

Marina (pointing to the Doge, who is still on the ground by his son's body). He's busy, look,

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