The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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_Cal_. How sped you, Israel, in your late complaint?

_I. Ber_. Why, well.

_Cal_. Is't possible! will he be punished?

_I. Ber_. Yes.

_Cal_. With what? a mulct or an arrest?

_I. Ber_. With death!

_Cal_. Now you rave, or must intend revenge,
Such as I counselled you, with your own hand.

_I. Ber_. Yes; and for one sole draught of hate, forego
The great redress we meditate for Venice,
And change a life of hope for one of exile;
Leaving one scorpion crushed, and thousands stinging
My friends, my family, my countrymen! 10
No, Calendaro; these same drops of blood,
Shed shamefully, shall have the whole of his
For their requital----But not only his;
We will not strike for private wrongs alone:
Such are for selfish passions and rash men,
But are unworthy a Tyrannicide.

_Cal_. You have more patience than I care to boast.
Had I been present when you bore this insult,
I must have slain him, or expired myself
In the vain effort to repress my wrath. 20

_I. Ber_. Thank Heaven you were not--all had else been marred:
As 'tis, our cause looks prosperous still.

_Cal_. You saw
The Doge--what answer gave he?

_I. Ber_. That there was
No punishment for such as Barbaro.

_Cal_. I told you so before, and that 'twas idle
To think of justice from such hands.

_I. Ber_. At least,
It lulled suspicion, showing confidence.
Had I been silent, not a Sbirro[410] but
Had kept me in his eye, as meditating
A silent, solitary, deep revenge. 30

_Cal_. But wherefore not address you to the Council?
The Doge is a mere puppet, who can scarce
Obtain right for himself. Why speak to _him_?

_I. Ber_. You shall know that hereafter.

_Cal_. Why not now?

_I. Ber_. Be patient but till midnight. Get your musters,
And bid our friends prepare their companies:
Set all in readiness to strike the blow,
Perhaps in a few hours: we have long waited
For a fit time--that hour is on the dial,
It may be, of to-morrow's sun: delay 40
Beyond may breed us double danger. See
That all be punctual at our place of meeting,
And armed, excepting those of the Sixteen,[411]
Who will remain among the troops to wait
The signal.

_Cal_. These brave words have breathed new life
Into my veins; I am sick of these protracted
And hesitating councils: day on day
Crawled on, and added but another link
To our long fetters, and some fresher wrong
Inflicted on our brethren or ourselves, 50
Helping to swell our tyrants' bloated strength.
Let us but deal upon them, and I care not
For the result, which must be Death or Freedom!
I'm weary to the heart of finding neither.

_I. Ber_. We will be free in Life or Death! the grave
Is chainless. Have you all the musters ready?
And are the sixteen companies completed
To sixty?

_Cal_. All save two, in which there are
Twenty-five wanting to make up the number.

_I. Ber_. No matter; we can do without. Whose are they? 60

_Cal_. Bertram's[412] and old Soranzo's, both of whom
Appear less forward in the cause than we are.

_I. Ber_. Your fiery nature makes you deem all those
Who are not restless cold; but there exists
Oft in concentred spirits not less daring
Than in more loud avengers. Do not doubt them.

_Cat_. I do not doubt the elder; but in Bertram
There is a hesitating softness, fatal
To enterprise like ours: I've seen that man
Weep like an infant o'er the misery 70
Of others, heedless of his own, though greater;
And in a recent quarrel I beheld him
Turn sick at sight of blood, although a villain's.

_I. Ber_. The truly brave are soft of heart and eyes,
And feel for what their duty bids them do.
I have known Bertram long; there doth not breathe
A soul more full of honour.

_Cal_. It may be so:
I apprehend less treachery than weakness;
Yet as he has no mistress, and no wife
To work upon his milkiness of spirit, 80
He may go through the ordeal; it is well
He is an orphan, friendless save in us:
A woman or a child had made him less
Than either in resolve.

_I. Ber_. Such ties are not
For those who are called to the high destinies
Which purify corrupted commonwealths;
We must forget all feelings save the _one_,
We must resign all passions save our purpose,
We must behold no object save our country,
And only look on Death as beautiful, 90
So that the sacrifice ascend to Heaven,
And draw down Freedom on her evermore.

_Cal_. But if we fail----[413]

_I. Ber_. They never fail who die
In a great cause: the block may soak their gore:[di]
Their heads may sodden in the sun; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls--
But still their Spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse, and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others, and conduct 100
The world at last to Freedom. What were we,
If Brutus had not lived? He died in giving[dj]
Rome liberty, but left a deathless lesson--
A name which is a virtue, and a Soul
Which multiplies itself throughout all time,
When wicked men wax mighty, and a state
Turns servile. He and his high friend were styled
"The last of Romans!"[414] Let us be the first
Of true Venetians, sprung from Roman sires.

_Cal_. Our fathers did not fly from Attila[415] 110
Into these isles, where palaces have sprung
On banks redeemed from the rude ocean's ooze,
To own a thousand despots in his place.
Better bow down before the Hun, and call
A Tartar lord, than these swoln silkworms[416] masters!
The first at least was man, and used his sword
As sceptre: these unmanly creeping things
Command our swords, and rule us with a word
As with a spell.

_I. Ber_. It shall be broken soon.
You say that all things are in readiness; 120
To-day I have not been the usual round,
And why thou knowest; but thy vigilance
Will better have supplied my care: these orders
In recent council to redouble now
Our efforts to repair the galleys, have
Lent a fair colour to the introduction
Of many of our cause into the arsenal,
As new artificers for their equipment,
Or fresh recruits obtained in haste to man
The hoped-for fleet.--Are all supplied with arms? 130

_Cal_. All who were deemed trust-worthy: there are some
Whom it were well to keep in ignorance
Till it be time to strike, and then supply them;
When in the heat and hurry of the hour
They have no opportunity to pause,
But needs must on with those who will surround them.

_I. Ber_. You have said well. Have you remarked all such?

_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 arsenal, 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 assurance 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; noble
In nature, although haughty; quick, yet wary:
Yet for all this, so full of certain passions,
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 Space between the Canal and the
Church of San Giovanni e San Paolo. An equestrian Statue
before it.--A Gondola lies in the Canal 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 nobles
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 assembly. 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 bloody 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.

_I. Ber_. Let us away--hark--the Hour strikes.

_Doge_. On--on--
It is our knell, or that of Venice.--On.

_I. Ber_. Say rather, 'tis her Freedom's rising peal 120
Of Triumph. This way--we are near the place.
[_Exeunt_.

SCENE II.--_The House where the Conspirators meet._

DAGOLINO, DORO, BERTRAM, FEDELE TREVISANO, CALENDARO,
ANTONIO DELLE BENDE, ETC., ETC.

_Cal_. (_entering_). Are all here?

_Dag_. All with you; except the three
On duty, and our leader Israel,
Who is expected momently.

_Cal_. Where's Bertram?

_Ber_. Here!

_Cal_. Have you not been able to complete
The number wanting in your company?

_Ber_. I had marked out some: but I have not dared
To trust them with the secret, till assured
That they were worthy faith.

_Cal_. There is no need
Of trusting to their faith; _who_, save ourselves
And our more chosen comrades, is aware 10
Fully of our intent? they think themselves
Engaged in secret to the Signory,[421]
To punish some more dissolute young nobles
Who have defied the law in their excesses;
But once drawn up, and their new swords well fleshed
In the rank hearts of the more odious Senators,
They will not hesitate to follow up
Their blow upon the others, when they see
The example of their chiefs, and I for one
Will set them such, that they for very shame 20
And safety will not pause till all have perished.

_Ber_. How say you? _all!_

_Cal_. Whom wouldst thou spare?

_Ber_. _I spare?_
I have no power to spare. I only questioned,
Thinking that even amongst these wicked men
There might be some, whose age and qualities
Might mark them out for pity.

_Cal_. Yes, such pity
As when the viper hath been cut to pieces,
The separate fragments quivering in the sun,
In the last energy of venomous life,
Deserve and have. Why, I should think as soon 30
Of pitying some particular fang which made
One in the jaw of the swoln serpent, as
Of saving one of these: they form but links
Of one long chain; one mass, one breath, one body;
They eat, and drink, and live, and breed together,
Revel, and lie, oppress, and kill in concert,--
So let them die as _one!_[do]

_Dag_. Should _one_ survive,
He would be dangerous as the whole; it is not
Their number, be it tens or thousands, but
The spirit of this Aristocracy 40
Which must be rooted out; and if there were
A single shoot of the old tree in life,
'Twould fasten in the soil, and spring again
To gloomy verdure and to bitter fruit.
Bertram, we must be firm!

_Cal_. Look to it well
Bertram! I have an eye upon thee.

_Ber_. Who
Distrusts me?

_Cal_. Not I; for if I did so,
Thou wouldst not now be there to talk of trust:
It is thy softness, not thy want of faith,
Which makes thee to be doubted.

_Ber_. You should know 50
Who hear me, who and what I am; a man
Roused like yourselves to overthrow oppression;
A kind man, I am apt to think, as some
Of you have found me; and if brave or no,
You, Calendaro, can pronounce, who have seen me
Put to the proof; or, if you should have doubts,
I'll clear them on your person!

_Cal_. You are welcome,
When once our enterprise is o'er, which must not
Be interrupted by a private brawl.

_Ber_. I am no brawler; but can bear myself 60
As far among the foe as any he
Who hears me; else why have I been selected
To be of your chief comrades? but no less
I own my natural weakness; I have not
Yet learned to think of indiscriminate murder
Without some sense of shuddering; and the sight
Of blood which spouts through hoary scalps is not
To me a thing of triumph, nor the death
Of man surprised a glory. Well--too well
I know that we must do such things on those 70
Whose acts have raised up such avengers; but
If there were some of these who could be saved
From out this sweeping fate, for our own sakes
And for our honour, to take off some stain
Of massacre, which else pollutes it wholly,
I had been glad; and see no cause in this
For sneer, nor for suspicion!

_Dag_. Calm thee, Bertram,
For we suspect thee not, and take good heart.
It is the cause, and not our will, which asks
Such actions from our hands: we'll wash away 80
All stains in Freedom's fountain!

_Enter_ ISRAEL BERTUCCIO, _and the_ DOGE, _disguised_.

_Dag_. Welcome, Israel.

_Consp_. Most welcome.--Brave Bertuccio, thou art late--
Who is this stranger?

_Cal_. It is time to name him.
Our comrades are even now prepared to greet him
In brotherhood, as I have made it known
That thou wouldst add a brother to our cause,
Approved by thee, and thus approved by all,
Such is our trust in all thine actions. Now
Let him unfold himself.

_I. Ber_. Stranger, step forth!
[_The Doge discovers himself_.

_Consp_. To arms!--we are betrayed--it is the Doge! 90
Down with them both! our traitorous captain, and
The tyrant he hath sold us to.

_Cal_. (_drawing his sword_). Hold! hold!
Who moves a step against them dies. Hold! hear
Bertuccio--What! are you appalled to see
A lone, unguarded, weaponless old man
Amongst you?--Israel, speak! what means this mystery?

_I. Ber_. Let them advance and strike at their own bosoms,
Ungrateful suicides! for on our lives
Depend their own, their fortunes, and their hopes.

_Doge_. Strike!--If I dreaded death, a death more fearful 100
Than any your rash weapons can inflict,
I should not now be here: Oh, noble Courage!
The eldest born of Fear, which makes you brave
Against this solitary hoary head!
See the bold chiefs, who would reform a state
And shake down senates, mad with wrath and dread
At sight of one patrician! Butcher me!
You can, I care not.--Israel, are these men
The mighty hearts you spoke of? look upon them!

_Cal_. Faith! he hath shamed us, and deservedly, 110
Was this your trust in your true Chief Bertuccio,
To turn your swords against him and his guest?
Sheathe them, and hear him.

_I. Ber_. I disdain to speak.
They might and must have known a heart like mine
Incapable of treachery; and the power
They gave me to adopt all fitting means
To further their design was ne'er abused.
They might be certain that who e'er was brought
By me into this Council had been led
To take his choice--as brother, or as victim. 120